St Andrews E-Book

Raymond Lamont-Brown

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 409

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

St Andrews is without doubt one of Scotland's most historic and beautiful cities. Once the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, it played a prominent role in the nation's political life until the seventeenth century. In addition, it is also home of the nation's oldest university; and whilst claims that it is the birthplace of golf may remain controversial, there is no doubt it is regarded as world capital of the game today.    This fascinating and comprehensive account of St Andrews traces its history from Pictish times to the present day. It is based not only on a huge amount of original research, but also on an intimate knowledge of the town which Raymond Lamont-Brown accumulated in over twenty years' residence there. In addition to facts and figures, the book also introduces many of the people who have featured prominently in the story of St Andrews – from doughty residents such as Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair and Cardinal Archbishop David Beaton to illustrious visitors like Mary, Queen of Scots, John Knox and Samuel Johnson.   

Leseprobe

This edition published in 2022 by

Origin, an imprint of Birlinn Limited

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

First published by Birlinn Limited in 2006

Copyright © Raymond Lamont-Brown 2006

The moral right of Raymond Lamont-Brown to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 78885 275 3

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, Elcograf, S.p.A.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Historic St Andrews: A Chronology

Author’s Preface

1 They Came to St Andrews: Early Burgh History

2 A Saint’s Bones: Links with the Apostle Andrew

3 A Glimpse of Heaven on Earth: Religious Foundations

4 A Precipice Fortified: St Andrews Castle

5 Bishop Robert’s Burgh

6 Plague, Witchcraft and the Headsman’s Axe

7 Visitors and Their Views

8 Couthy Neighbours: The Surrounding Area

9 Fisherfolk All

10 The Haunts of Academe

11 Rectors, Pageants and Traditions

12 Priests, Prelates and Presbyterians

13 Tinderest Teachers: Local Education

14 The Party-Coloured Burgh: Parliamentary Representation

15 Victorian Peepshow: Edwardian Spectacle

16 The Tyrannising Game: Golf and St Andrews

17 World Famous City

Appendix I The Bishops and Archbishops of St Andrews

Appendix II The Provosts of St Andrews, c.l144–1975

Appendix III The Streets of Medieval St Andrews

Notes

Selected Reading List

Index

List of Illustrations

1. St Andrews street plan, 1887

2. Burgh Engineer’s development of St Andrews, 1927

3. Escutcheon of the City of St Andrews

4. The seals and coins of Alexander I (1107–24)

5. Western elevation of St Rule’s Tower

6. South elevation of St Rule’s Tower

7. Robert, Prior of Scone

8. West-facing elevation of St Andrews Cathedral

9. Plan of St Andrews Cathedral

10. Twelfth-century vestibule doorway of the Chapter House looking east

11. A cleric contemplates the passage of time for the monastic day in the presence of the Blessed Virgin

12. The Augustinian dependent religious house at Pittenweem

13. Priory walls remain as the longest extant, early medieval walling in Scotland

14. Late thirteenth century west door of St Andrews Cathedral

15. The Pends, the fourteenth-century gateway into the priory precinct

16. Labourers, craftsmen and pilgrims mixed together as the cathedral was being built

17. The seal of William Schevez (1478–96), Archbishop of St Andrews

18. Nobility came from all over Europe to worship at and give gifts to the shrine of St Andrew

19. James V (1513–42)

20. John Knox (1505–72), Scottish reformer and historian

21. Shattered head of Christ

22. James Stewart, Earl of Moray (1531–70)

23. John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of the County of Bute (1847–1900)

24. Archbishop Hamilton’s entrance front and gateway to St Andrews Castle

25. David Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews (1538)

26. Eastern elevation of St Andrews Castle

27. James I (r.1406–37), King of Scots

28. David I (r.1124–53), of the House of Atholl, as shown on his seal and coin

29. Mainard the Fleming, first praepositus (provost) of St Andrews

30. Plan of St Andrews, 1642

31. James VI, King of Scots and England (r.1567–1625)

32. HRH Edward, Prince of Wales (1894–1972) (King Edward VIII, 1936)

33. King Charles I (r.1625–49)

34. A Knight of the order of the Templars

35. A Knight Hospitaller

36. Medieval St Andrews townsfolk were a mixture of shopkeepers, artisans and prosperous merchants

37. St Andrews headsman’s axe

38. Mary, Queen of Scots, (r.1542–67), executed 1587

39. Queen Mary’s House, South Street, a fine example of a sixteenth–century Scottish town house

40. George Buchanan (1506–82), historian and scholar, Principal of St Leonard’s College 1566–70

41. Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)

42. Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

43. View of Guardbridge from the air of the 1940s

44. Lumbo Farm

45. Melbourne Place

46. Crew of the British Channel fleet parade at St Andrews harbour, c.1910

47. The Fisher Quarter, North Street, c.1910

48. The Quad and Chapel of St Salvator’s College

49. Chapel of St Salvator’s College

50. Weathered stone set within the south face of the tower of St Salvator’s College

51. Chapel of St Leonard’s College

52. St Mary’s College showing the Frater Hall (1544) and Stair Tower (1522) and the famous ‘Queen Mary’s Thorn’

53. Dean’s Court, part of the first archdeacon’s house in St Andrews

54. Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell (1865–1940), medical missionary and author

55. Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860–1937), Rector of the University 1919–22

56. Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), Rector of the University 1901–07

57. The Greyfriars (Franciscans) and the Blackfriars (Dominicans)

58. Relic north transept of the House of the Blackfriars, South Street

59. Holy Trinity Church, South Street

60. Popular Victorian etching of the murder of Archbishop James Sharp

61. Tomb of Archbishop Sharp in Holy Trinity Church

62. Madras College opened in 1833 as the inspiration of the Rev. Dr Andrew Bell (1753–1832)

63. St Leonard’s School

64. Visit to St Leonards on Saturday, 1 October 1927, by HRH The Duchess of York

65. The National Government Fete at Earlshall, 1 July 1939

66. Popular postcard view of the West Port and West Port Garage, mid-1930s

67. Typical house with forestair, St Andrews

68. Postcard scene of the Martyrs’ Monument

69. Provost Walter Thomas Milton

70. Rusack’s Marine Hotel overlooking the 1st and 18th greens of the Old Course

71. Victorian and Edwardian designers brought the best features into the houses of the prosperous

72. William Wilson, motor trader, St Andrews

73. Wilson’s garage and motor works was at 193 South Street

74. David Hay Fleming (1849–1931)

75. Martyrs’ Monument, the Scores

76. Hell Bunker, the Links, St Andrews

77. The Royal & Ancient Club House, set overlooking the 1st and 18th tees of the Old Course

78. Thomas Mitchell Morris (1821–1908), legendary greenkeeper of the R & A

79. Alex Paterson (1907–89), the first person to conceive a theatre in the Old Byre

80. St Andrews from its southern boundaries in 1925, showing Nelson Street, Largo Road and Claybraes Farm

81. The LNER railway line in the foreground leads the eye to the western development of St Andrews

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of over two decades of residence in St Andrews and some thirty years in total studying the environs. It is dedicated to all who love the burgh and have its best interests at heart. The text forms a purely personal selection of the historical characters who played a role in the burgh’s development and an individual choice of what to highlight for the historical perspective. Herein too, are aspects of history discussed in countless conversations with St Andreans from town and gown. I am grateful to the following who helped add colour to the text: the late Dr Ronald Gordon Cant and my old friend the late Alexander Brown Paterson MBE, with a thanks too, to Gordon Christie, Donald Macgregor, Margaret MacGregor, the Rev. Alan D. McDonald as well as my friends over the years in the St Andrews Preservation Trust and the University of St Andrews. A special thanks goes to my wife, Dr E. Moira Lamont-Brown, for her help and companionship in researching the St Andrews story.

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of works quoted in the text, although the death of authors and reversion of rights often make this task difficult; each quote is sourced in the notes.

Historic St Andrews: A Chronology

c.8000 BC

Early inhabitants colonise the estuary fringe of the Eden.

4000–2500 BC

Neolithic activity in St Andrews area.

2400–700 BC

Bronze Age habitations appear.

500 BC

Celtic speaking settlements.

100 BC

St Andrews area within the territory of the tribesfolk, the Venicones.

79 AD

Roman legionaries first appear in St Andrews region; camps at Auchtermuchty, Carpow, Newburgh, Edenwood, by Cupar, and Bonnytown, by Boarhills.

400–850

Rise of Pictish St Andrews. Settlement within the Pictish province of Fib.

c.733

Bishop Acca of Hexham believed to carry relics of St Andrew to Kilrymont; beginning of the Cult of St Andrew. 6 Feb. celebrated as ‘The Coming of St Andrew’s Bones’.

746

Death of Abbot Tuathalan at Cennrigmonaid; placename rendered Kilrymont, later St Andrews.

877

Viking vessels off St Andrews; Battle of Inverdovat.

906

St Andrews the seat of the Bishop of Alba.

920

Culdees, a canonical body at St Andrews.

c.1050

Building of St Rule’s Church developed; extended c.1130.

1140–50

Foundation of the burgh of St Andrews by Bishop Robert at David I’s behest.

1144

Foundation and endowment of the Augustinian Priory of St Andrews.

1160

Malcolm IV confirms burgh status.

1162

New cathedral begun by Bishop Arnold.

c.1200

Bishop Roger de Beaumont orders building of the first castle at St Andrews.

1303–04

Edward I of England holds parliament at St Andrews, and gives offerings at the Shrine of St Andrew.

1318

5 July. Cathedral consecrated by Bishop William de Lamberton.

1350

Plague in St Andrews.

1362

Plague.

1410

11 May. The Studium Generale Universitatis founded at St Andrews as a ‘school of higher studies’.

1412

28 Feb. Charter of Incorporation and Privileges granted to the University by Bishop Henry Wardlaw.

1413

28 Aug. University Charter confirmed and amplified by the papal Bulla of Pope Benedict XIII.

1414

Candlemas, Feb. The arrival in St Andrews and promulgation of the papal Bulla bringing the University of St Andrews into formal existence.

1419

Jan. Land acquired in South Street for a ‘College of Theologians and Artists honouring Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Blessed John the Evangelist and All Saints.’

1433

23 July. Paul Crow burned at St Andrews Market Cross.

1450

27 Aug. St Salvator’s College buildings inaugurated.

1457

James II’s Act forbids the playing of golf.

1471

James III’s Act forbids the playing of golf.

1472

13 Aug. Bishopric of St Andrews erected into an archepiscopal and metropolitan see by Pope Sixtus IV.

1491

James IVs Act forbids the playing of golf.

1502

James IV ‘legitimation of golf’.

1512

20 Aug. St Leonards College founded.

1528

29 Feb. Patrick Hamilton burned at St Andrews.

1529

Plague.

1533

Henry Forrest burned at St Andrews.

1537

12 Feb. St Mary’s College founded.

1538

June. James V marries Marie de Guise- Lorraine at St Andrews Cathedral.

1546

1 Mar. George Wishart strangled and burned at St Andrews. 29 May, Cardinal Archbishop David Beaton murdered at St Andrews Castle.

1546–47

St Andrews Castle besieged by the Regent, the Earl of Arran.

1552

25 Jan. Mary Queen of Scots ratifies burgh status. Charter for St Andrews Links.

1558

28 Apr. Walter Myln burned at St Andrews; the last heresy trial held in the cathedral.

1559

11 June. John Knox preaches in Holy Trinity. 14 June. St Andrews Cathedral attacked by rant-inspired, nobility stage-managed mob.

1560

24 Aug. Parliament abolishes Papal Authority in Scotland.

1561–65

Mary Queen of Scots makes individual visits to St Andrews.

1563

22 Feb. Execution of Pierre de Bocosel, Seigneur de Chastelard at St Andrews Market Cross.

1568

Plague.

1569

Execution of Nic Neville in St Andrews for witchcraft; William Stewart, Lord Lyon King of Arms hanged in St Andrews for ‘necromancie’.

c.1570

Latin Grammar School founded.

1572

John Knox acts personally in St Andrews witch trial.

1585

Plague.

1598

Multiple witch executions in St Andrews.

1605

Plague.

1611

Archbishop Gledstane’s golf charter.

1614

St Andrews made a Burgh of Regality under the Archbishop of St Andrews.

1617

11 July. James VI & I visits St Andrews.

1620

James VI & I elevates burgh into a Royal Burgh. Lammas market secured as a privilege.

1645

26 Nov. to 4 Feb. 1646 Parliament of Scotland meets at St Mary’s College.

1646

17 Jan. Sir Robert Spottiswoode, Lord President of the Council and prominent Royalist beheaded at St Andrews Market Cross on a charge of High Treason.

1647

Plague.

1650

4–6 July. Charles II in St Andrews.

1665

Plague.

1667

Plague. Probable last indictment for witchcraft in St Andrews – Isobel Key imprisoned in Tolbooth.

1706

Daniel Defoe in St Andrews as government agent.

1747

24 June. Union of the College of St Salvator and St Leonard by sanction of parliament.

1754

14 May. ‘The Society of St Andrews Golfers’ instituted.

c.1755

English Grammar School founded.

1773

18–20 Aug. Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell in St Andrews.

1833

Opening of Madras College.

1834

King William IV becomes patron of The Society of St Andrews Golfers: becomes Royal & Ancient Golf Club.

1835

Manufacture of gas for public use begun in St Andrews.

1852

29 May. St Andrews–Guardbridge–Leuchars railway opened.

1854

Royal & Ancient Golf Club House opened.

1858–61

New Town hall built in Queens Gardens.

1870

Telegraph link to St Andrews.

1876

Sept. First royal visit to St Andrews for over 200 years by Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.

1877

26 Oct. St Leonards School opened in Queens Gardens.

1885

First telephone link to St Andrews.

1905

Electric supply first switched on in St Andrews.

1912

Lord Lyon King of Arms matriculates St Andrews burgh ensigns.

1919

Foundation of the James Mackenzie Institute for Clinical Research, The Scores.

1922

Freedom of the Burgh conferred on the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII.

1933

Foundation of The Byre Theatre, Abbey St.

1937

Founding of the St Andrews Preservation Trust.

1939

20 Oct. First Air Raid warning in St Andrews.

1940

25 Oct. Town receives first bomb ‘direct hits’.

1946

End of free golf in St Andrews.

1957

Opening of Langlands School.

1959

Opening of Greyfriars Roman Catholic School.

1964

Jan. St Andrews–Guardbridge–Leuchars rail link closed.

1971

Opening of Canongate School.

1974

Opening of Lawhead School.

1975

End of St Andrews Town Council.

1988

St. Andrews Swimming Pool opened at East Sands.

1989

Opening of Sea Life Centre.

1990

British Golf Museum Founded.

2001

Opening of New Byre Theatre.

2005

Merger of New Park School (1937) with St Leonards School.

2006

Merger of Langlands School with Canongate School.

Author’s Preface

People, places, facts and faces, scenes and memories long forgotten – this book aims to conjure them up to present the familiar in the unfamiliar and delve into the heart of St Andrews past and present. The story of St Andrews never ends. For a thousand years the burgh has been in the cockpit of Scottish history, and many times the events in the burgh formed the core of Scottish history.

Many visitors to St Andrews ask when the name of the Apostle was first used for the burgh, and why there is no apostrophe giving Andrew ‘possession’ of his burgh. The charter memorandum citing Bishop Robert’s foundation of the burgh between 1140 and 1150 gives first use of St Andrews as a placename in the phrase apud Sanctum Andream in Scotia. And it was Margaret, saint and queen’s biographer, Turgot of Durham, who seems to have been the first Bishop of St Andrews see to have the Apostle’s name in his title 1107–15. As to the lack of an apostrophe, it seems to have been a scribe’s convention since medieval times.

King William IV was the last monarch to have the name of St Andrews in a title. His father George III had created him Duke of Clarence and St Andrews in 1789 and the title merged with the crown at William’s accession in 1830. The use of the burgh in a royal title remained dormant until in October 1934 King George V created his fourth son HRH Prince George, Duke of Kent, the Earl of St Andrews on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Marina of Greece. The prince was a frequent visitor to St Andrews in the mid-1930s, to be honoured by the university in 1936 and to play-in as Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in 1937; Prince George’s grandson, George Philip Nicholas, born in 1962, holds the title today as a courtesy.

The earliest charter relating to St Andrews is that of Bishop Robert, who, with the permission of King David I, founded a ‘bishop’s burgh’ here. Its title was Carta Roberti Episcopi Sancti Andree de Burgo and only exists as a sixteenth-century copy. When King Malcolm IV attended Bishop Arnold’s consecration at St Andrew’s Cathedral on 20 November 1160 he confirmed the burgh’s status. The charters were ratified again by Mary, Queen of Scots, on 25 January 1552, and in 1614 St Andrews was made a Burgh of Regality under George Gledstanes, Archbishop of St Andrews, and King James VI made it into a Royal Burgh in 1620. The early charters and documents relating to the burgh have long vanished, but a summary of the burgh’s status and ancient rights appeared in the Great Register, also known as the Black Book of St Andrews.

No single volume can tell the full story of St Andrews, its people, its visitors and friends. This book, which is dedicated to all who love St Andrews and wish to see it flourish, may serve as a taster for all who wish to learn more about the burgh and its ever-lasting story.

1. St Andrews street plan, 1887

2. Burgh engineer’s development of St Andrews by 1927

3. Escutcheon of the City of St Andrews showing the symbols of the boar and the martyred saint on his Crux Decussata

CHAPTER 1

They Came to St Andrews: Early Burgh History

I warmly welcome your eager desire to know something of the doings and sayings of the great men of the past, and of our nation, in particular.

The Venerable Bede (673–735)

Earliest Times

Stand on Kinkell Braes, where the cliffs descend to the Maiden’s Rock, and where the coastal path to Crail sweeps down to the East Sands, and look across to the ruined towers of St Andrews Cathedral. There on the triangle of land above the harbour lay one of the holiest places in medieval Christendom, and the birthplace of modern St Andrews. For a thousand years pilgrims made their way to St Andrews to worship within the largest cathedral in Scotland and to be spiritually refreshed in the presence of the corporeal relics of the Holy Martyr and Apostle Andrew of Bethsaida in Galilee, a man who the faithful believed had walked and talked with Jesus. Yet long before the medieval pilgrims had wandered their way across Fife, humans had made homes in the acres that became St Andrews.

Some eighteen thousand years ago St Andrews shorelands were locked up in sheets of ice which formed the Devensian, or the last glaciation period. Slowly, around ten thousand years ago, the coastline at what was to form the Firth of Tay and St Andrews Bay began to appear, and by 5000 BC the sea level, raised by melting ice, finally cut off Scotland from the mainland of Continental Europe.

From ten thousand years ago, as the ice sheets melted and the coastline was still miles away from St Andrews cliffs today, plants began to colonise the land. This foliage was sought out by grazing animals like wild pigs, roe deer and red deer, with meat-eating predators including early man. Covering the period from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) era saw the coming of the early human inhabitants to the estuary fringes of the Tay and the Eden. These humans came from the south and across the North Sea from the North European plains, and following the sea coasts and river mouths penetrated the creeks and estuaries. The earliest form of transport on water being the hollowed-out oak, pine and elder log boats. Such a 26-foot example in oak was found in the River Tay at Errol in 1895, dating from around AD 500. Another and better preserved 30-foot oak log boat was discovered nearer to St Andrews at Carpow in 2002 and dates from the mid-Bronze Age at around 1220 BC. Its use shows these waters were used for fishing, wildfowling and transport.

Two important Mesolithic sites which evolved at Friarton, a mile south of Perth, and at Morton, once an island, but now on St Andrews’ neighbour the Tentsmuir peninsula, give us clues as to the people who lived here during this period. Stratification levels at Morton of shell pits, deer horn, split cattle bone, fish bones and stone implements also revealed that these fishermen were also hunter-gatherers who supplemented their diet on birds, leaves, nuts and roots.

The earliest inhabitants of the St Andrews area then, were nomadic people who absorbed the knowledge of food production around 4500 BC from the people who moved east from Europe. These farmers began to transform the landscape around St Andrews by clearing woodland and building monuments and prehistory entered the Neolithic Age which lasted from around 4000 to 2500 BC. New innovations were also evolved including wheat and barley cultivation and pottery; little is known about the daily lives of the Neolithic folk hereabouts, but their monuments for the dead and ceremonial centres for tribal rituals offer archaeological clues. The struggle of the inhabitants around St Andrews shores to win a living against nature and the weather led them to invest supernatural powers to the flora and fauna around their dwellings. Those who lived by the shore were devotees of spirits associated with sea creatures and birds and the artefacts of fishing; while the dwellers in land worshipped hinterland animals and the tools of hunting and cultivation.1 An important Neolithic site relevant to the area of early habitation around St Andrews is at Balfarg near Markinch with its stone circle and grave pit.2

The Bronze Age covers the period from around 2400 BC to around 700 BC, wherein the temperature range was slightly higher than today and rainfall greater. The stone circles and chamber tombs of the Neolithic Age now merged with a new tradition of cairns and barrows and the appearance of hill-forts. This was the era of the cult of chieftains and tribal leaders and the grave goods burials of the period show how distinctive beaker-shaped pots now appeared with the development of metalworking traditions in tin, copper, gold and bronze for everyday use as knives and tools as well as jewellery like lignite beads. People now lived in thatched round houses as the most common dwelling.

The final technological and cultural stage in which iron largely replaced bronze in implements and weapons, saw the interaction of the great states of the Mediterranean with the barbarian tribes of the north. It commences in the eighth century BC and events were played out over a period of eight centuries. By 500 BC Scotland was firmly in the Celtic-speaking area of the tribes known as the Caledonii. By the second century AD the Celtic peoples of Europe, like the Gauls, had been conquered, particularly by the Roman legions, but in Scotland they were able to maintain an independence.

By now wheat and barley were grown and farm animals were being reared; hunting had declined, but around the Firth of Tay and the mouth of the Eden the resources of the sea were exploited. By the late first century BC tribal kingdoms emerged and the land now forming St Andrews was in the territory of warrior-tribesfolk known as the Venicones. They lived in smaller palisaded settlements – defended farmsteads – so, around the Tay mouth environs there would be scattered farming hamlets centred upon a hill-fort.

What kind of people were the representatives of Celtic heathendom who inhabited the area that would become St Andrews? They were a people known as the Urnfield Celts, from their burial practices, whose kinsmen came to the west from the region of the Upper Danube. Their predominant physical appearance included their tall height, pale skin, fair wavy hair, blue eyes and a certain muscularity. Their hair was largely left uncut, to be smeared with lime wash, and they sported beards and drooping moustaches. These aspects we can gauge from classical sculptures, and such first-century writers as Diodorus Siculus who described the tribesmen’s dress of trousers, checkered or striped cloth material garments, including tunics and cloaks.3 A certain amount of gold, silver, bronze and electron jewellery survives from this period. As to the character of these folk, the geographer Strabo says:

The whole race, which is now called Celtic or Galatic, is madly fond of war, high spirited and quick to battle, but otherwise straightforward and not of evil character. And so when they are stirred up they assemble in their bands for battle, quite openly and without forethought; so that they are easily handled by those who desire to outwit them. For at any time or place, and on whatever pretext you stir them up, you will have them ready to face danger, even if they have nothing on their side but their own strength and courage . . . To the frankness and high-spiritedness of their temperament must be added the traits of childish boastfulness and love of decoration.4

The most significant form of prehistoric monument left to us of early St Andrews settlement is the burial. During excavation in 1975–77 at Hallowhill, on the south side of St Andrews, some 140 graves were examined. Again during 1980 an area of Kirkhill, abutting the ruins of the cathedral, was excavated which revealed prehistoric burials.5 Then in 1990 a large Late Bronze Age hoard was discovered, again south of the town, which contained a total of 150 artefacts from axeheads and knives to bronze tools and ornaments of amber and cannel coal. Importantly too, were traces of wool found adhering to the socket of an axe, exhibiting a plain weave used in clothing.

At first the early settlers on the St Andrews promontory cremated their dead and placed the ashes with the grave goods in round or square cists. Between the fifth and the ninth centuries the long cist was the most popular type of burial. In this type the body was laid full-length in the graves wherein the sides, roof and floor were made of slabs. From the discoveries we can see that St Andrews headland was an early settlement area, probably as far as modern Market Street. The early settlers also colonised the banks of the Kinness Burn, for urns have been found at Lawhead, and when ground was levelled at Balnacarron in 1859 and 1907 more urns were discovered. Settlements were also to be found, surrounded by the swamp forests of oak, pine and beach at Dunork, Dunino and Drumcarrow.

The Romans

The first contacts between Rome and Britain was Julius Caesar’s expeditions of 55 and 54 BC. His intent was to use diplomacy to keep the tribes of the south-east of Britain from crossing the Oceanus Britannicus (the Channel) to assist the warring tribes of Gaul. The Romans did not appear again until Emperor Claudius I’s full-scale invasion with Aulus Plautius as commander in AD 43. It was not until the Roman governors Quintus Petillius Cerialis, AD 71–74, and then Gnaeus Julius Agricola, AD 77–83, advanced north that substantial territory gains were made in what is now called Scotland. The term ‘Roman Scotland’ covers roughly the periods AD 71–215, within the rules of the emperors Vespasian to Caracalla – who abandoned northern outposts in Scotland. It is likely that Roman soldiers first appeared in the St Andrews area as a consequence of Agricola’s incursions to the north-east although the Roman exploratores, the reconnaisance units of several kinds, may have surveyed the lands of Tayside and north-east Fife by AD 79. At this time chronicler Tacitus, son-in-law of Agricola tells of the conquest of Lowland Scotland as far as the Highland Line. Scholars call this period Flavian I (AD 79–88) after the imperial Roman dynasty of Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian.

Further the Roman historian Cassius Dio tells us that a confederation of Celtic tribesmen known as the Maeatae were made up of the Venicones and the Vacomagi. The Venicones predominated in the St Andrews area. The fact that there were few permanent Roman installations on the eastern Angus and Fife shores would suggest that the Venicones eventually became philo-Roman. Nevertheless the Venicones who lived in what is now the St Andrews area would be largely overawed by the line of Roman frontier forts at Carpow, Bertha, Cargill, Cardean, Oathlaw and Stracathro. Where St Andrews is situated was just outside the territory occupied 142–63 known as the Antonine Frontier Zone.

No permanent Roman occupation of the St Andrews area was attempted, but the tribesfolk of the Venicones, who fished St Andrews Bay and tilled the nearby hillsides were monitored in their main local settlements of Clatchard Craig, above Newburgh, Fife, and at Dundee’s Law Hill by the garrisons at Carpow, Longforgan and the marching camp by Rosekinghall, Muir of Lour.

In AD 209 the imperial task force of Emperor Septimus Severus moved into Scotland to confront the Maeatae and their northern neighbours the Caledonii, and the Romans began construction of the 25-acre half-legionary vexillation fortress at Carpow, near Newburgh. This fort would be used by the II Augusta and VI Victrix legions. Called by the Romans Horrea Classis, the camp acted as a base for the Roman fleet’s activities in the Tava Fluvius (River Tay) and adjacent coastlines. Here there is evidence that a boat-like bridge (traiectus) stretched across the expanse of soft tidal mud to the north shore of the Tay. Carpow was abandoned some time around AD 215, and the Romans did not return to the St Andrews area again.6 There was no Roman road to St Andrews, the nearest lying to the west linking the fort at Ardoch, Perthshire, with the legionary fortress of Pinnata Castra (Inchtuthil); instead the legions used the extant prehistoric tracks. Three Roman forts lie in a line showing the Roman penetration of Fife down the River Eden; there is the 63-acre marching-camp at Auchtermuchty; the encampment at Edenwood, Cupar; and the nearest to St Andrews is the 35-acre site at Bonnytown near the junction of the Cameron and Kinaldy burns, west of Boarhills. All of these were temporary camps and may have been used by the exploratores and perhaps as monitoring bases (i.e. of the movements of the Venicones) by such as the men of Severus’ II Parthica legion. Fife was probably an important local source of coal, salt and grain. Roman coins have been found in the St Andrews environs from time to time; in 1979 an antoninianus of M. Piavonius Victorinus was found in the grounds of St Leonards School.

The Picts

It was probably the Romans who gave the Picts their name from the Latin picti, painted or tattooed people, and they appear historically in classical reference in AD 297.7 Nevertheless they do not come fully into historical focus until they were written about by the Venerable Bede (673–735).8 The Picts were undoubtedly the same people as the Iron Age tribes of Roman Scotland, the Maeatae and the Caledonii. Caesar wrote that they were divided into three classes: druids, or priests; equites, or knights; and plebs, the common people. He described how they were a part of a paternalistic society under chiefs. The political centre of their area was that between the Forth and the Mounth, on the shoulder of Mount Keen, Aberdeenshire; Bede divided the Picts into two territorial groupings and the Taylands of Angus and Fife would be classified as being in Southern Pictland. Tradition puts St Andrews within Fib (from which we get Fife), one of the four provinces of the southern Picts. (Pictish St Andrews lasted until around 850.)

The most famous of the artefacts of the Picts were the metalworkings they decorated with symbols and the three classes of symbol stones of the fifth to ninth centuries.9 A fine example of Dark Age art is seen in the St Andrews Sarcophagus, a stone bier-like box made up of slabs slotted into corner-posts, dating from the late eighth or early ninth centuries. The sarcophagus was found in a deep grave near St Rule’s Tower in 1833. It bears vigorous high relief of a hunting scene and sculpture which scholars have linked with biblical references.10It is worthwhile noting that St Andrews Cathedral museum, as well as displaying the sarcophagus, also carries pieces of early Christian sculptured stones all found within the ecclesiastical site which academics believe link St Andrews with eighth- to tenth-century Northumbria wherein St Andrews was the centre of an important school and workshop of Celtic–Anglian art and culture that faded away before the coming of the Norman prelates.

Christianity

Christianity first came to the land of the Picts around 565, when the abbot and confessor St Columba and his followers ventured from Ireland and settled in Iona. The Picts now followed the rule of the Celtic Church of Columba and were often at war with their southern neighbours the Northumbrians. By 634 Northumbria was evangelised by Celtic monks from Iona, invited to the wild, windswept eastern coastlands by the Northumbrian king. Here they met the opposition of the Roman Church which had been proselytised by St Augustine’s Roman mission and at the Synod of Whitby, in 664, attended by St Wilfrid and St Colman in the Roman and Celtic interests respectively. So during 663–4 the Roman Church prevailed and the Celtic Church retreated to the west whence it came.

As the late seventh century developed, Pictish territory was being invaded by the Angles of Northumbria, but in 685 the Angles under Egfrith of Northumbria were routed by the Picts led by Brudei III son of Bili mac Nechtan, King of Strathclyde and the Picts, at Nechtanesmere, to the south of Dunnichen Hill, near Forfar. This certainly freed the area where St Andrews would be sited of possible Anglian warlike occupation.

Nechtan III, mac Derile, of the Picts, led a kingdom that was at its most powerful; he chanced his arm against the Northumbrians on the plain of Manaw in Lothian and his Maeatae Picts were slaughtered. A period of internal rebellion followed Nechtan’s peace with Osred, king of Northumbria, and Nechtan, after he had put down internal disquiet, accepted the Christian faith. In 710 Nechtan took up the ritual of the Roman Church, having sought advice of the abbot of St Peter’s at Monkwearmouth, Northumbria and by 717 he had expelled the Celtic monks from his kingdom. There were fundamental differences between the Celtic Church and that of Rome – such as the date of Easter and the use of the tonsure by clerics – but the new rule of Rome was utilised in St Andrews and hence there came the link between St Andrews and the Northumbrian artistic culture. It can be said then that Nechtan’s reign, which ended 728/9, saw the conversion of the Picts from a pagan hierarchy to a Christian people.

The religious site at St Andrews was now to see a denominational change. When the Columban communities decayed, their place was taken by the Celtic-speaking clergy known as the Culdees, who nominally conformed to Rome. The Culdees, a derivation of ce´li de´ ‘companions of God’, were a loose assemblage of non-celebate individuals, whose earliest occurrences on record come from the first half of the ninth century. The Culdees patterned their life on such desert hermits as those of Syria and dwelt in carcairs, houses like boxes of stone, set round their church of timber and turf. These contemplative anchorites ceased to be hermits by the ninth century and evolved as an organised community, and by 921 they were a canonical body of thirteen persons at St Andrews. The period of ecclesiastical change in St Andrews was set against rumbustious times. By 794 the Norsemen (Vikings and Danes) had appeared in northern waters to be challenged by Constantine mac Fergus, King of the Dalriada Scots; the Scots and the Picts found themselves siding to face the common enemy. Viking vessels were certainly seen off St Andrews, for in 877 the battle of Inverdovat took place with the Vikings on the heights above modern Newport-on-Tay.

This was the year too, that a new church evolved at St Andrews on the extant ecclesiastical site. The church was built for the Culdees at St Andrews by Constantine I, king of the Picts and Scots just before his death in a battle against the Vikings at Crail. After he abdicated in 943, Constantine II, retired to the Culdee monastery at St Andrews, and died there in 952 almost certainly to be buried in its precincts. Was the St Andrews Sarcophagus the bier of Constantine II? We shall never know but we can be sure that at Constantine’s death St Andrews was a very sacred place for reasons that will be revealed in Chapter 2. But the Culdees of whom Constantine is said to have become abbot are worthy of further comment. Tradition has it that their first church was set on Lady’s Craig Rock, at the end of the present pier, but tide and storm forced the clerics to build a new church on the rocky headland above. This church developed into that of the Blessed Mary of the Rock; the twelfth-century nave and thirteenth-century choir, with the footings of the altar, were re-discovered at Kirkhill in 1860.

The Culdees survived into St Andrews’ development as a medieval burgh.11 In 1144 there were two bodies of clergy in the burgh, the Culdees and the Augustinian Canons who came to form the chapter of the cathedral. The Culdees survived the provisions of king, pope and bishop, but slowly lost their influence over the ecclesiastical administration of the site. The Culdee clergy – who became less and less Celtic – were presided over by a provost and evolved a collegiate church, Collegium Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Rupe, one of the earliest in Scotland and by the thirteenth century they were a Chapel Royal. It lost its royal dignity by the end of the fifteenth century. The Culdees nurtured several prominent medieval clergy such as William Wishart, who became Archdeacon of St Andrews, Chancellor of the Kingdom and Bishop of St Andrews in 1272. In June 1559 the church was pulled down by the Earl of Argyll and the Prior of St Andrews, afterwards the Earl of Moray.12

This then was the early history of the triangular site overlooking the North Sea, which would become one of the most important locations in Scottish history and the place to be given greater prominence by one of the most significant men in biblical history.

CHAPTER 2

A Saint’s Bones: Links with the Apostle Andrew

Now as He walked by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets and followed Him.

The Gospel According to St Mark 1.16–18

In the scriptorium at the abbey of St Ciaran at Clonmacnois (Cluain moccu Nois), Co. Offaly, Ireland, the eleventh-century monk Tigernach wrote these significant words: Mors Tuathalain abbatis Cinnrighmonaid. Thus he recorded the death of Tuathalan, Abbot of Cennrigmonaid, the Gaelic placename for ‘The Head[land] of the King’s Mount’, under the date 746. The words of this usually reliable chronicler are important for this is the first date we can be sure about concerning St Andrews. Cennrigmonaid is the first known name for the location that is now St Andrews, and in the twelfth century this was rendered in Latin as Kilrymont, when Kil (church) replaced Kin (headland).

The Cult of St Andrew

How did a humble Galilean fisherman, with the Greek personal name of Andreas (Andrew), described in the Gospels of St Mark and St Matthew as the brother of Simon Peter and a disciple of St John the Baptist, come to be associated with Cennrigmonaid? The evolution of a Cult of St Andrew at Kilrymont/St Andrews is one fraught with historical controversy.1 Although there are various versions of the foundation legends of the establishment of a cult Church of St Andrew at Kilrymont,2 two main themes may be cited. Both were recorded by Augustinian canons of different generations of the priory established at St Andrews in the twelfth century, and at least one was deemed to have been transcribed from old Pictish sources.3

The first version was rewritten some time in the reign of David I (1124–53) and tells how Angus (Oengus) I (729–61), ruler of the Picts and Dal Riada, raided into the Merse (modern Berwickshire), where he encountered hostile Northumbrians south of the Tweed. Walking with his earls, Angus then witnessed a flash of blinding light and heard the voice of the Apostle Andrew calling Angus to face the enemy bearing before his army the Cross of Christ. This, recorded the chronicler, Angus did and won the battle.

Meanwhile, continued the Augustinian writer, an angel was guiding from Constantinople, capital of the eastern Roman Empire, one of the guardians of the corpse of the Apostle to the safe anchorage at the summit of the king’s hill ‘that is Rigmund’ (the name survives in the two farms of Easter and Wester Balrymonth – ‘village of the king’s hill’ – to the south of modern St Andrews). This guardian was identified as a monk called St Rule, or St Regulus, who met Angus at the gate of the king’s encampment, probably the site of the later castle. To further celebrate his victory over his enemies, Angus pledged the 30-acre site of Cennrigmonaid to the Glory of God and the Apostle St Andrew. It is recorded too, that, led by St Rule, bearing the hold relics of St Andrew on his head, the royal party made a circuit of Kirkhill whereon they erected twelve consecrated crosses to mark out the holy ground.4

The second cited version, dates from around 1279, putting it in the reign of Alexander III (1249–86). This also identifies St Rule and makes him a bishop, bringing him from Patras in Achaia, Greece, where St Andrew had been martyred on the distinctive cross called a crux decussata which has entered Scottish heraldry as the patriotic Saltire. St Andrew was martyred some time during the reign of Emperor L. Domitius Claudius Nero and because the grandson of Emperor Constantine the Great was bent on taking the cadaver of St Andrew to Constantinople, Bishop Rule was commanded by an angel to extract a tooth, a kneecap, an upper-arm bone and three fingers of the saint’s right hand and secrete them for holy purposes. In this the Augustinian chronicler was mirroring the corporeal relics that were said to be held in St Andrews cathedral of the time.

Then Angus is introduced again; this time he is recorded as being encamped near the mouth of the Tyne to take on ‘the Saxon King’ Athelstane. Before the pitched battle Angus had a vision of St Andrew who subsequently gave him victory over superior odds. The angel who had commanded Rule to secure the relics of Andrew, now sent him to ‘the utmost part of the world’ with the relics. Thus, Rule and his companions set off with their sacred trust and journeyed west for eighteen months, landing in the midst of a storm at the place called Muckross, ‘the headland of the boars’, soon to be called Kilrymont. Rule and his followers waded ashore and erected a cross to defy the demons of the place. Soon after Rule was met by Angus who endowed the bishop with land and twelve crosses were set up at Kilrymont round a dedicated precinct that was to be the focus of a reliquary site for St Andrew. For good measure the chronicler notes that seven churches – probably wattle and daub buildings – were erected at St Andrews: one to St Rule as leader; St Aneglas the Deacon; St Michael the Leader of the Heavenly Host (for it is said that Rule stepped ashore on 29 September, the ‘Night of St Michael’); also to the Blessed Virgin; St Damian, the Martyr; St Bridget, founder of the Abbey of Kildare; and one to the Virgin Muren, daughter of King Angus and Queen Finchem. Interestingly, an old legend recounts how Muren was born while St Rule was in Scotland. Again it says Muren was the first holy person to be buried at Kilrymont and that her church was the focus of a nunnery of women of royal blood. Thereafter the area was established as a place of pilgrimage.5

These versions of the coming of St Andrew’s bones to Kilrymont/St Andrews, were tweaked and regurgitated to suit monastic purposes and to them can be added the Breviarium Romanum and Scotland’s own Breviarium Aberdonense sponsored by Bishop William Elphinstone, both developing the St Andrew story.6 Then there is the conundrum of Acca, saint and bishop, c.660–742.

The church and Anglo-Saxon abbey of Hexham, Northumberland, was founded around 674 by St Wilfred, Bishop of York, out of a grant of land endowed by Ethelreda, queen of Ecgfrid, King of Northumbria. Hexham Abbey was dedicated to St Andrew following Wilfred’s visit to Rome and return with certain relics of the Apostle which were kept in the crypt reliquary chamber. Prior Richard of Hexham takes up the story of these relics and Wilfred’s successor, Acca.

A disciple and companion of Wilfrid, Acca was appointed abbot of Hexham by his patron and succeeded Wilfrid as bishop in 709. Acca also visited Rome and is said to have carried back relics of saints including some of St Andrew. Acca was driven from his bishopric in 732 and is purported to have removed some of the relics of St Andrew from the crypt at Hexham. It is likely that any such relics were brandea – pieces from garments – as any corporeal relics would have been guarded day and night by the Hexham monks. However, Richard of Hexham asserted that Acca fled northwards to the land of the Picts and was received by Angus.7

Did Acca encourage Angus to institute a cult of St Andrew at Kilrymont/St Andrews? It is a story far more plausible than the foundation versions promoted by the later Augustinian canons. After all King Nechtan III mac Derile (706–29) encouraged a cult of St Peter around 710,8 and maybe Angus wished to have his own cult at Kilrymont. We shall never know for sure, but we can say that Acca and Angus were real people, although they became part of the religious propaganda of the Augustinian canons who wished to establish St Andrews as a site which predated Canterbury, Iona and Whithorn. But what of St Rule in the St Andrews story?

Scholars have speculated as to who Rule was, and such as the late Professor Douglas Young (1913–73), of St Andrews, averred that he was possibly the first Bishop of Senlis in the French de´partement of Oise, who was born in fourth-century Greece and was called St Rieul by the French.9 Certainly dedications to St Rule, bynamed St Regulus, are scanty, at least in the east of Scotland, and such a name could have been confused with that of the Irish cleric St Riaguil of Muicinsi (Lochderg). Again it should be remembered that the tower in the cathedral precinct today called St Rule’s, or St Regulus’s, was recorded as St Andrew’s [Church] in the fifteenth century.10

Whether or not St Rule was an invention of the monastic scriptorium, or an amalgam of other clerics, St Rule is firmly fixed in St Andrews lore. St Rule’s Cave, abutting the east Scores, was long pointed out as a holy place, but it is certainly an eighteenth century romantic invention launched into immortality by St Walter Scott (who loved such tushery about hermits) for he mentions the saint in his Marmion:

To fair St Andrews bound,

Within the ocean-cave to pray

Where good Saint Rule his holy lay,

From midnight to the dawn of day,

Sung to the billow’s sound.

(‘The Castle’, Canto I, verse 29)

4. The seals and coins of Alexander I (1107–24). During his reign Turgot the first Norman Bishop of St Andrews was consecrated

Just as the Culdees held important land rights in nearby Kinkell, Lambieletham and Kingask, traditional land endowment of the early monastery founded at Kilrymont included the famous Cursus Apri Regalis