SADDELL. ABBEY
Introduction
Saddell Abbey, as our largest pre-Reformation Ecclesiastical building has always been of special interest to our members. Among those who have devoted attention to it, are Sheriff Macmaster Campbell and Father James Webb. The late Andrew McKerral, as after-mentioned, drew together and catalogued all known historical references and Professor A. L. Brown of the Department of History at Glasgow University who wrote the article which follows, acknowledges the work of the last two mentioned, when commenting on all the known sources. The grateful thanks of the Society are due to Professor Brown and to the Editor of the Innes Review in which it first appeared in Vol. XX.2 (1969) for permission to reprint the article in full.
Despite what Professor Brown says regarding the lack of a ground plan there is a suggested plan of the Abbey in the Society's archives, prepared around about 1930 by Mr. J. S. Richardson of the then H. M. Office of Works (K.A.S. Library 161), and reference can be made to page 141 of the Kintyre volume of the Royal Commission's Inventory of Ancient Monuments (H.M.S.O. 1971), and Drs K.A. Steer and J. W. M. Bannerman in late Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the West Highlands (H.M.S.O.1977) confirms Professor's Brown's views about the end of the house.
Saddell is a product of the enormous expansion of monasticism throughout Europe in the Twelfth century.
The Cistercians were the monks so often referred to as the White or Grey monks because of the colour of their habit. They were founded by St. Robert, a Frenchman, who was Abbot of a Benedictine foundation and who, in 1098 removed with about twenty followers to found an Abbey based on the strict letter of the law as laid down by St. Benedict. Following the adherence of St. Bernard to the order in 1112 there was a phenomenal expansion of the order and by 1200 there were 500 Cistercian houses throughout Northern Europe.
The work of the Order was directed to agriculture and they earned a considerable reputation as horse and cattle breeders. They made use of lay brothers in their agricultural work. Less is probably known of Saddell than of any of their houses.
A. I. B. Stewart.
THE CISTERCIAN ABBEY OF SADDELL, KINTYRE
A. L. Brown
The Cistercian abbey of Saddell in Kintyre, ten miles north of Campbeltown, is one of the most poorly documented medieval religious(1) houses in Scotland. It was never an important house and it figures scarcely at all in national history; no cartulary, not even one document under its own seal is known to have survived; it has left no books; and though some fragments of its church and buildings remain, no plan has ever been published and it would be difficult to draw one accurately without excavation, which is now impossible because the site is used for burials. This dearth led the late Andrew McKerral to collect together all the known reference to Saddell in a short paper for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.(2) Since then some further material about the abbey has been found in the Vatican archives, and the object of this present paper is to set this down and look again at some of the main problems that McKerral discussed.(3)
The first problem is the foundation of the Abbey, and further information on one aspect of this has come to light. On no good evidence, and perhaps because of confusion between Reginald, King of Man, and Reginald, son of Somerled, the mother house of Saddell is generally said to be Rushen Abbey in the Isle of Man, but almost certainly it was Mellifont Abbey in County Louth, four miles from Drogeda. The evidence is a bull of Clement VII dated 12 July 1393 confirming the election of Macratious, a monk of Saddell, as abbott . (4) It tells how Abbot Patrick had died, and ignorant of the fact that the Pope had reserved provision to the abbey to himself, the monks had elected Macratius and submitted him according to their usual custom to the abbot of Mellifont.for confirmation.(5) This is of course the period of the Schism: Mellifont and Ireland recognised as pope, not Clement VII at Avignon, but Boniface IX at Rome: and the unfortunate Macratius incurred excommunication as a result. It was a surprising mistake to make, and he had petitioned Clement to confirm his election and lift the excommunication. The wording of the bull is not quite explicit, but the implication is that Saddell was founded from Mellifont for the confirmation of the election of Cistercian abbots belongs to the mother house. Mellifont was a famous house, founded in 1142 from Citeaux itself, and the parent of a host of Irish abbeys,(6) and it is of course not in the least surprising to find another connexion between Ireland and the West Highlands.
Unfortunately this does not help to answer the questions of when and by whom Saddell was founded. There are two possible founders, Somerled, who was killed in the battle at Renfrew in 1164, or his son Reginald who died about l207.(7) According to the abbey itself, Reginald founded and first endowed it, for when its charters were confirmed by Clement VII in 1393 and by James IV in 1498 and 1508 the earliest grants it produced, including that of Glen Saddell itself, were those of Reginald, and the confirmations of 1393 and 1508 specifically describe Reginald as the founder. (8) The earliest recorded Macdonald tradition, the Red and Black Books of the seventeenth century, agrees with this.(9) The evidence in support of Somerled's claim is much more vague. In 1896 the authors of the Macdonald family history maintained that the tradition of the family has always been "that Somerled was buried at Saddell which he began and Reginald completed,"(10) but, as we have seen, this was not the Macdonald tradition in the seventeenth, century, and Somerled's claim rests on undocumented statements in a long list of writers beginning apparently with the Cistercian historian Henriquez in the early seventeenth century, (11) and in Scotland with John Spottiswood in the early eighteenth, and Gregory and the Cistercian historian, Leopold Janauschek in the nineteenth.(12) None cite any proof and one would be inclined to dismiss the claim as an unjustified association of the great name Somerled with the foundation and an interesting example of the development of a tradition, but for two things. Crisostom Henriques, the Cistercian historiographer of the early seventeenth century, was undoubtedly credulous but he had access to sources now lost to us. For example, he knew of the Mellifont connection(13) I have not been able to evaluate his work properly - he is credited with 39 books by the age of 35! - but his evidence cannot just be ignored. Second, there is a reference in a list of 666 Cistercian houses in a British Museum manuscript, arranged under the years in which they were founded, written about 1247, and presumably based on evidence from Citeaux itself.(14) Under the year 1160 there is the entry "de Sconedale"W which probably refers to Saddell.(15) The list is quite accurate in the dates it gives for the foundation of other houses, and its evidence cannot be ignored.(16) If it is accurate, the most probable explanation of the clash of evidence is that the negotiations for the foundation extended over several years. This is true of many better-documented houses. Somerled may have planned a Cistercian foundation as several of his contemporaries had done, and began the process of founding it, say, with an approach to Mellifont, but in all likelihood it was his son Reginald who actually endowed the house and saw the monks come in, and it was Reginald's charters which were the earliest documents the abbey possessed. The architectural evidence suggests that the first buildings belong to the second half of the twelfth century, and that the inspiration and probably the craftsmen cane from Ireland.(17)
The Somerled connection has been reinforced in modern times by the tradition that he was buried at Saddell, but there is no good evidence for this. Medieval sources are silent, and the 17th century tradition according to Hugh Macdonald was that he was buried at Iona. Reginald was buried at Iona where he apparently founded a Benedictine monastery and a convent of nuns and Iona was the most favoured place for the burial of his descendants. As far as we know, none of the lords of the Isles was buried at Saddell, although the number of late-medieval tomb slabs that survive there show that it was a popular burial place for Highland gentlemen. Surprisingly Reginald and his wife gave generous endowments to Paisley Abbey, outside his own sphere of influence altogether,(18) and it is tempting to connect this with Somerled's death at Renfrew close by, particularly because the original settlement of the Paisley monks seems to have been on the "inch" beside Renfrew. But Reginald's grants never mention his father, and it seems safer to accept his claim to desire the fraternity of Paisley at its face value, and see him as a man with some feeling for monasticism, a not unusual contemporary emotion.
From its foundation until the mid-fifteenth century the Cistercian life at Saddell continued without much notice in national history. It was probably always a small house, on a confined site,with modest buildings. Only fragments of the choir, the north transept, and of a conventual building running north-south, probably the refectory, survive, and the site is so covered with modern burials that excavation is impossible. The measurements given in the Statistical Accounts, in White's "Archaeological Sketches" and other nineteenth-century descriptions, however, agree well enough with one another and with such surface indications of walls as there are, and one can at least conjecture the scale of the abbey.(19) The church was a long aisleless building, apparently always without a tower, externally about 136 feet long by 24 feet wide. There are north and south transepts, about 20 feet wide and 78 feet across externally, and Mr. Dunbar suggests that the present north transept, which is clearly an addition may have superseded an original transept of smaller size sometime during the thirteenth century. A wall has been built across the south transept and this may represent a later-medieval contraction of the church, or perhaps is related to the "arched niche in the wall" which White in 1873 said had contained one of the tomb slabs with the effigy of a warrior and had "quite lately been built up.(20) The cloister seems to have been a rectangle 75 feet north to south, and 51 feet east to west. None of the buildings can be definitely identified but the site is restricted and it is certain that none were large by Cistercian standards. The Valliscaulian priory at Beauly and the Cistercian Abbey at Deer are the nearest Scottish parallels in size and there are of course many contemporary Irish Cistercian houses.
Its endowments are difficult to evaluate, but they seem modestly adequate for a small house. Most were within easy travelling distance Apart from (1) Glen Saddell itself, They were (2) twelve marks of the lands of Baltebeam, now Ballevain, five miles north-west of Campbeltown, (3) twenty marks of the lands of Shiskine in Arran, eight miles across the sound, (4) the lands of Glentorrisdale and Ugadale imnediately north and south of Saddell, (5) two pennylands at Kildonan and Creisbog in Carrick,(21) (6) two marklands at Lesenmarg, a place I have not been able to identify,(22) (7) two marklands at Craigvan in Gigha,(23) (8) the island of Davaar in Campbeltown Loch, (9) the lands of Knochantebeg & twelve unciates (probably a twelfth unciate) at Kellipul near Machrihanish, and a halfpenny of land at Barrandayb and Blairnatibrade (Barrandaimh and Blarantibert) near Crinan in Knapdale. This is known from the confirmations of 1393, 1498 and 1508 cited above, though they do not entirely agree with one another. All say that Reginald granted (1), (2), and (3); The confirmation of 1498 states that he also gave (4) but the other confirmations state that it was Reginald's son, Roderick. The Ayrshire lands (5) came from Nigel, earl of Carrick, and his wife Isabella; the1498 confirmation distinguished the first by Nigel, the second by his wife; Lesenmarg (6) was The gift of John, the first lord of the Isles (d. 1387); the land in Gigha (7) and Davaar (8) came from Alexander, the third lord of the Isles (d. 1449), though the 1393 confirmation includes an earlier grant of Davaar by Christina "Caleni," perhaps Cristina of Mar, the great-granddaughter of Reginald;the Machrihanish lands (9) came from John, the last lord of the Isles (d. 1503); and the Knapdale lands (10) from Duncan Campbell of Loch Awe in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. The 1498 warrant which is in form a confirmation of a confirmation by Alexander, the third lord of the Isles, and of the Ayrshire charters, omits (9) and(10) completely. In the light of the demise of the house in 1507, the surprising thing about this list is that Saddell was receiving benefactions until the mid-fifteenth century.
The domestic history of the house is virtually unknown. Thomas Dempster records an abbot Thomas who lived in 1257 and wrote many books, but this sounds like another of Dempster's inventions.(24) In the saga of Hakon, Hakon's son, describing King Hakon's expedition to Scotland in 1263, two passages must refer to Saddell. In the first the abbot of a monastery of grey monks came to Hakon at Gigha and asked for his protection; the king granted this and gave him his charter for it. In the second, again at Gigha, a royal clerk, Simon, a Dominican, died and was taken ashore in Kintyre and buried in the monastery of the grey monks with a pall over him .(25) The Ross Fund materials add a few abbots' names. According to the bull of 1393 already cited, abbot Patrick had died and Macratius, a monk of Saddell, had been elected to succeed. In 1433 Alexander Angussie Goffredi is paying annates on his election to succeed Macratius.(26) And in 1456 a petition from Nigel Machayn, a clerk in Derry diocese, claimed that there had been trouble at Saddell. Abbot Alexander was lately (dudum) dead and Cristine Macoceallayn, a Cistercian of the diocese of Argyll, and therefore presumably of Saddell, had intruded himself, without dispensation for his illegitimacy, and for his own profit. Nigel, who claims to have studied law at Bologna for about three years, asks for an enquiry, the deprivation of Cristine, and his own appointment as abbot.(27) The petition was granted, but with what result we do not know. Here, however, is an apparent succession of abbots for about a hundred years, though none is more than a name. There are also a few occasions when papal mandates were addressed to the abbot of Saddell with others, but these do not give the abbots' names, and are not worth quoting individually.(28) The last,however, is of 1498, and brings us to the final puzzle about the house - when and why it ceased to exist. At first sight the answer may seem straightforward, for about 1507 James IV wrote to the cardinal of St. Mark, presumably at the same time to the pope, seeking a commission to investigate a proposal to unite Saddell with the bishopric of Lismore. The abbey, he says "once Cistercian... has within living memory seen no monastic life and has fallen to the use of laymen. There is no hope of reviving monastic life.(29) Because this request was successful, James IV confined the grants made to Saddell to the bishop and his successors by royal charter in 1508 and incorporated them in a free barony of Saddell with a licence to build castles there.(30) Four years later James IV wrote to Julius II at the request of the bishop asking him to transfer the cathedral to Saddell, but nothing more is known of this plan. (31) The effect of these measures was to place the abbey and its lands into the hands of the bishop of Lismore, who is styled "commendator" of Saddell and who soon built himself a castle there, though not apparently quarrying the monastic buildings to do so.
There was, however, clearly an element of special pleading in these accounts, and they cannot simply be taken at their face value The papal mandate of 1498 does not prove that there was then an abbot of Saddell, but there are two other pieces of evidence which do seek to make this probable. First there is James IV's intended confirmation of its grants made for his "singular devotion" to the Virgin Mary, its patron, in 1498 when he was in Kintyre. This must surely mean that there was a community at Saddell in 1498. Mckerral noted this letter, and suggested that Bishop Hamilton of Lismore's interest lay behind it, and that it marks a stage in his suppression of the house. This is possible, but not probable. The 1498 and 1508 confirmations are quite different in character; the 1498 document is primarily a confirmation of a Macdonald confirmation of the first half of the fifteenth century, and it would be reasonable to accept it at its face value. The Macdonalds had been the protectors of Saddell, but the last lord of the Isles had forfeited and was in "exile," and in the 'nineties James IV was "ordering" Kintyre. It would be perfectly understandable for the abbot of Saddell to seek a royal confirmation in these circumstances. David Hamilton was certainly bishop of Argyll in 1498. He was an illegitimate son of James, lord Hamilton, and brother of the first Hamilton earl of Arran, created in 1503, and had been given the bishopric in 1497, but he was a young man who had graduated in Arts at Glasgow in 1492, and at the turn of the century was studying at Paris.(32) In 1498 he is not known to have been prominent in Scotland, but after 1504 he began to witness royal charters and serve on royal commissions and in the exchequer. In the summers of 1505, 1506 and perhaps 1507 he was in Kintyre on royal business, making rentals of lands; in 1506 he began to receive grants there; and in September, 1507, he had a royal confirmation of the charters of his bishopric.(33) Here is a well-connected bishop, serving the crown, and adding to his rights, particularly in Kintyre which at this period was open to acquisition and was more accessible to the rest of Scotland than most of his diocese. It is into this pattern that the suppression of Saddell falls.
The second piece of evidence is among the carved grave slabs that used to lie about the graveyard, the best of which are now gathered in the east end of the church. Most commemorate laymen, but two commemorate ecclesiastics. The finer one, showing a fully vested priest, has no inscription, but the other has the figure of a monk in a tunic with a book clasped to his chest and an inscription beginning "Hic jacet," the remainder, unfortunately, illegible.(34) The script is Black Letter and this only came into general use in the West Highland area about 1500. Furthermore, graveslabs seem to have been made in the person's lifetime. This surely means that at least one Cistercian was at Saddell about 1500, though, of course, it proves nothing at all about the state of the house.
There remains the question of why a monastery still
attracting gifts of land in the mid-fifteenth century and apparently still
in being in 1498, should be suppressed as deserted by 1508. We do not know
the answer to this, but I suspect that Saddell, which had probably always
been an isolated and very "provincial" house, had come under lay influence.
The large number of secular tomb-slabs that survive there suggest that it
was the local lairds' monastery. The removal of Macdonald protection left
it open to attack, and Bishop Hamilton may have felt that it was no bad thing
to suppress a house where there may only have been a handful of monks and
where the Cistercian rule was probably poorly observed, in the interest of
strengthening the bishopric.
The final note about the ecclesiastical history of the
abbey is contained in a taxation return of a Cistercian collector in 1530.
Ten monasteries in Scotland were assessed, and among the remaining twelve
who were ignored because of poverty, the majority of them were houses that
would now be considered imaginary, the first is Saddell (de Standalo).(35)
This is the only reference to it in all the "Statuta" of the order?
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REFERENCES
1. I gratefully acknowledge the help given to me in preparing this
paper by Fr. James Webb of Campbeltown, by my wife, and by the other scholars
who are mentioned in the footnotes.
2.. Andrew McKerrall"A Chronology of the Abbey & Castle of Kintyre,"
Proc. Soc Antiq. Scot lxxxvi (1951-2) pp 115-21.
3. These Vatican materials are available on microfilm in the Department of
Scottish History in the University of Glasgow. They are part of the Ross
Fund archives, a large collection of material from abroad relating to Scottish
History, gathered in recent years under the benefaction of the late Herbert
Ross. Cf. I.B.Cowan, "The Vatican Archives: A report on Pre-reformation Scottish
material," S.H.R., xlviii (1969), pp. 227-42.
4. Vatican Secret Archives, Vatican Registers (Reg.Vat) 306ff 26v/
5. The wording of this section is "a Johanne, abbate Mellifontis, dicti ordinis, Armachanensis diocesis, patre ablate dicti Beate Marie, cum ad abbatem Mellifontis qui est pro tempore tam ex institutis ipsius ordinis per sedem apostalicam approbatis, quam de antiqua et approbata ac hactenus pacifice consuetudine, confirmacio electionis abbatis Beate Marie monasteriorum pertineat." observata
6. See Fr. Colmcille, "The Story of Mellifont" (Dublin, 1958).
7. I am ignoring the claim of Donald, Reginald's son, who is said by Hugh Macdonald, the late 17th century Skye seannachie, in his "History of The Macdonalds," to have built the abbey. Highland Papers, ed. J.R.N.Macphail (S(cotish) H(ist.) S(oc,), 2nd Ser., v) i.14. This is also stated in two sections of Macfarlane' a Geographical Collections, both apparently compiled in the early 17th century, but in the light of all the evidence that follows Donald's claim is quite impossible. "Macfarlane's Geographical Collections, ed.A.Mitchel (S.H.s. ,lii) ,ii, 186 and 527.
8. Highland Papers, ed. J.R.N.Macphail (S.H.s.,3rd Sr., xxii) ,iv, 146-9; Register House Charters, iv 614B and R(eg) M(ag.) S(ig. ) ii, 678 (no 3170). The second of these is not strictly a confirmation. It is a warrant under The king's signet dated at his "new castle in Kintyre" (at Kilkerran, now Campbeltown) on 14 July, 1498, ordering the keeper of his privy seal to order the chancellor to issue a confirmation to the abbey. No confirmation survives.
9. Reliquiae Celticae, ad A Maclain and J. Kennedy (Inverness 1894, ii, 157.
10. A and A. Macdonald, The Clan Donald (Inverness, 1896), i,53.
11. Crisostomo Henriquez, Monologium Cistertiense (Antwerp, 1630), p.148, "Dominus Sorlius Maderdi dynasta de Kentire fundavit ibdem monasterium de Sandal."
12. Spottiswood (d. 1728) in an appendix to his edition of Hope's Minor
Practicks, (Eliinburgh, 1734) gave an account of Scottish religious houses
which was re-published in R.Keith, An Historical Catalogue of The Scottish
Bishops (Edinburgh, 1755 and 1824). His opinion (pp 461-2) is that Saddell
was founded by Reginald "although all our Historians say it was founded by
one Sorle Maclardy." I do not know who these historians were. Earlier Scottish
historians ignore The subject, Though in The 1677 edition of his ancestor
Archbishop John Spottiswoode's, History of the Church and State of Scotland,
there is an appendix of Scottish monasteries including (p.13), "The Abbey
of Sanudell, in Kintyre, founded by Saint Coule Milicora. What this Founder
was, I know not." Brockie (Canon Wilson's transcript, i,153 and vii, 400-3)
also mentions both claims, but as time went on, Somerled's claim has been
stated more definitely. Janauscheck and recently D E. Easson,
'Medieval Religious houses: Scotland (1957) mention both claims.
13. His Fasciculus Sanctorum Ordinis Cistorciensis (Cologne, 1611) includes
a number of lists of houses, in one of which (p.493) is The entry "Sandale
filia Mellifontis in Scotia."
14. Brit. Mus.,M.S. Cotton Vespasian A. VI,f.54v., Printed by W. de G Birch,
"On the date of foundation ascribed to the Cistercian Abbeys of Great Britain"
J.Brit. Archaeological Assoc., xxvi(1870), p.361. McKerral cites another
entry, 'Saudell in Cantire circa 1163 in Birch's
article (p.296), but this comes merely from a list of foundations drawn up
by Birch himself and based on these manuscript lists and printed sources.
15. There is such a variety of medieval and early modern spellings of the
name Saddell that the derivation is problematical, not surprisingly since
it is a Norwegian name, rendered by Gaelic speakers, often in latin sources.
There are anparently two forms, the SANdal and SAGAdal forms, the latter
apparently the common medieval form, though "Standal' is the Cistercian form
of 1530 and "Sandal' is the form Henriquez used. "Sconedal," perhaps pronounced
"Sonedale," is a possible 12th-13th century form. It is also difficult to
suggest what other Cistercian house "Sconedale" can be. I am grateful to
Dr. W. Nicolaisen, and Professor Derick Thomson for discussing the name with
me.
16. It is not possible to give a precise assessment of the accuracy of this
list, nor of another shorter list Birch printed (op.232-92) which gives month
and day dates of many foundations, though not of Saddell. There is often
no other specific evidence with which to check them, and the circumstances
of many foundations were complicated. What one can say is that in almost
all the British cases the dates agree well with other evidence and the
differences are rarely more than a year. The Saddell reference therefore
should not be ignored.
17. Mr. John Dunbar of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments suggests
that Saddell shows fairly close stylistic links with the latter part of the
second phase of the Irish Romanesque, which spans approximately the third
quarter of the 12th century. Some of the detail (in particular the carved
fragments now preserved in Campbeltown Museum) can be compared with work
at St. Savour's, Glendalough, usually dated to c. 1160 The plan of the church,
with its long aisleless nave resembles that of Shrub Abbey, Co. Longford,
which was colonised from Mellifont about 1150. I am very grateful to Mr.
Dunbar for discussing the buildings with me.
18. Registrum Monasterii de Passelet (Maitland Club, 1832). p.125 This grant marks the beginning of a strong West Highland connection with Paisley.
19. T.P.White, Archaeological Sketches in Scotland, Dstrict of Kintyre (Edinburgh, 1873).
20. Ibid., p.172
21. In 1391 Clement VII issued a commission to confirm the exchange already made of the chapel of Holy Trinity, Kildomine (near Barr) belonging to Saddell for the parish church of Inchmarnock belonging to Crossraguel Abbey. Highland Papers, iv, 142-4. This exchange was effective, cf. Charters of the Abbey of Crossraguel (Ayr and Galloway Collections, 1886),i,38. It is not absolutely certain that Kildonan is the same as Kildomine; there is a Kildonan near Girvan which Crossraguel also possessed.
22. In 1556 the bishop of Argyll granted various pieces of land that
had formerly belonged to Saddell to the earl of Arran. See Origines Parochiales
Scotiac (Bannatyne Club, 1351-55), II,i, 24. The lands are listed in more
detail there, and the two marks of Leesewark there are perhaps Lessenmarg.
I an indebted for this suggestion and for the identification of Baltebean
to Mr. Duncan Colville of Machrihanish.
23. This may have brought the parish church of Kilchattan to Adel as (9)
may have brought it to Kilkivan. See I.B.Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval
Scotland (Scottish Record Society, 93), pp. 97 and 101.
24. Thomas Dempster, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scottorum (Bannatyne Club, 1829), ii, 592-3.
25. A.0.Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1922), ii 617 and 619. The translation "grey friars" is not to be taken literally.
26. The Apostolic Camera and Scottish Benefices, 1418-88, ed. A.I.Cameron
(Oxford, 1934), pp.113 and 232.
27. Vatican Archives, Archives of the Datary, Register of Supplications,
488,f.44v. Dr. J. W. M. Bannerman kindly examined these curious latinised
nanes for me and his comments make them more intelligible. Macratius is probably
a Latinization of the Gaelic Macraith, a forename which gives our present
surmame MacRae. Alexander, son of Angus, son of Geoffrey, he suspects was
a MacDonald. This could be an unrecorded son of Angus, son of Geoffrey Lord
of Uist, son of John of the Isles, but Geoffrey was also a name among the
MacAlastairs of Loup in Kintyre. Cristinus Macoeallyn - Cristinus was a Latin
equivalent for Gaelic Giolla-Criosd (literally "Servant of Christ") at this
time; Nigel (Neil) Machayn was probably a MacIain, and if a Scotsman, possibly
a MacIain of Ardnamurchan, another Macdonald
28. In addition to the mandates of 1353, 1438, 1450, 1451, 1454 and 1470 cited by McKerral, there is one of 1394 (Vatican Archives Avignon Registers (Reg. Aven.), 294,ff203-4); four of 1395 (Reg.Aven 282,ff 213v-214v; Reg. Vat., 321,ff83-5, 241v-242, and 223v-224); and one of 1498 (Vatican Archives of the Datary, Lateran Registers (Reg. Lat.), 1020, ff.75v-79v). In 1395 there is a dispensation to marry granted on payment of one mark of silver each to the Church of Glasgow and the monastery of Saddell. (Reg.Aven., 300,f.26)
29. The Letters of James the Fourth, 1505-1513, ed. R.K.Hannay (S.H.S., 3rd Ser., xliv), pp93-94. The original reads, "Cum igitur, pater reverendissime, religiosa quondam Cisterciensis ordinis domus Sadagail vulgariter nominata, a maioribus nostris fundate et instituta infra limites dicte diocesis, supra memoriam hominun sic neglecta et immutata steterit, et nulla religio nullum divinorum officium locum ferum interea habitaverit, sed ab omne ecciesiastico ritu supra memoriatiis annos in laicoruim usus devenerit, ut ne spes quedam reparande religionis supersit, partim penuria fructuum loci vix novem librarum sterlingorum valere, partim prophanate consuetudinis ab usu quo indurata hec malo molestius revocantur...."
30 R.M.S,ii,678(no.3170); cf. also p.685 (no 3208).
31. James IV Letters, pp 245-6.
32. Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis (Glasgow, 1854), ii, 260-1). In the account of the custom's collector of Dumbarton, Irvine and the lochs for the period Jan., 1499 to Aug., 1501, there is a discharge of £9 12s. on the custom of 16 lasts of herring belonging to Hamilton "nunc studenti Parisiis" conceded by royal letters. Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, xi, 372.
33. Exchequer Rolls of Scotland,xii, 579, 583, 698, 704-51 and 709; RMS,ii, nos. 2938, 3136, 3170, and 3208; Registrum Secreti Sigilli, i, nos 1196, 1322, 1458. 2069, 2369, 2500, and 2653.
34. White, plates xli and xlv and F.A.Greenhill, "Notes on Scottish Incised Slabs (1) "Proc. Soc.Antiq. Scot., lxxviii (1943-4), pp. 86-87. I an grateful to Dr. Kenneth Steer for referring me to this article and confirming its conclusion.
35. Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis, 1116-1786, ed. J.M.Canivez (Louvain, 1933 - 41), v iii,690.
No 7 Spring 1980
Page 2: Janet and Marie Morrison's 1993 Trip to Scotland - Part 1
Page 3: David Whitehead's Genealogy Special - Part Two
Page 4: John and Mary Morrison of Rocky River - The First Part
Page 5: Bracken - A Weed of Great Antiquity
Page 6: The Vegetation of Kintyre - Part One
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Part 2
Page 9: An Unusual Visitor // To: The Editor, The Kintyre Magazine