Munster, of the line of the Kings of Ireland, and miracles are attributed
to his early years. He is depicted with bow and arrow as patron of the
warriors of Leven and patron saint of Cumbrae. He lived as hermit in the
island of Inch-ta-vanach, in Loch Lomond, and was martyred at Luss, where
a cairn, Cam Machaisog, remained till 1796. (Anderson's Early Christian
Times, I., 212). His day is 10th March, and the date of martyrdom, 520.
Coming between the times of S. Patrick and S. Columba, S. Kessog and
several saintly contemporaries are the fruits of the fervour of the
former and the pioneers of the latter. The doctrines and rites of these
earlier missionaries are described in Hewison's Bute, I., 118-131. S.
Kessog's bell was preserved and honoured in Lennox in the 17th century.
Besides Auchterarder, the Churches of Comrie, Callander, Luss, and
Cumbrae were dedicated to S. Kessog. Callander has a fair on the 21st
March=10th March (old style), called Fel-ma-chessaig, and the site of the
old kirk, on a conical hill, is called Tom-na-chessaig. Cumbrae has a
Kessog's Fair on the third Wednesday in March. Kessog Ferry, at
Inverness, is another memorial of the Saint; so is the Strathearn name of
M'Isaac, Makisaig, and Kessack. The old Kirk of S. Makessok lies in a
hollow to the north of modern Auchterarder, whose church dates only from
about 1660, and was enlarged in 1811. Makessock's Well still exists on
the farm of East Kirkton, beside the old glebe and manse, which are now
part of that farm, having been "excambed" about 1800.
There is a dedication to S. Mungo connected with Auchterarder, but as it
seems not to have been a distinct building, we may consider it to have
been only an altar, or side chapel, in the Church of S. Makessog. (The
evidence for the S. Mungo dedication is "Historians of Scotland, Vol. V.,
p. xc."; also New Statistical Account, Perth, 290.) Craigrossy paid dues
to S. Mungo's altar in Glasgow. (Historians of Scotland, V., 357, and
Orig. Par., I., 2.) The name Mungo has a marked currency in Strathearn.
I have known six examples.
Before passing to Dunning, allusion may be made to Gask and Trinity-Gask,
both of which are bounded by the Earn, the latter especially to a great
extent. Gask was anciently known as Findo-Gask, the dedication being to
S. Findoka, Fincana, or S. Fink, one of the nine daughters of S. Donevald
or Donaldus, who led a religious life in the Glen of Ogilvie, in
Forfarshire. S. Donevald's day is 12th July, and he died in 712. The
Churches of Bendochy and Innishail (in Glenorchy) were also dedicated to
S. Fink; while Finhaven, Strathmartin, and Touch were dedicated to S.
Donevaldus. Trinity-Gask is mentioned under this name in a charter of
Inchaffray shortly after 1200. To the Holy Trinity was a favourite
dedication of the Culdees, who held firmly by the Apostles' Creed. The
Cathedral of Brechin was dedicated by King Kenneth (971-995) to the Holy
Trinity, and Culdee abbots continued in Brechin till 1219, although the
See was founded in 1150 by David I., and re-dedicated to the Trinity.
Thus the very name carries back the Church of Trinity-Gask to the times
of the Culdees, if not to the Celtic Church directly.
The patron saint of Dunning is S. Servanus or Serf, who appears in the
Kalendar as bishop and confessor, his day being July 1. He is said to be
the son of Alma, daughter of a Pictish King; was ordained by Palladius,
and dwelt at Culross in a monastery, where his most famous scholar was
Kentigern, of Glasgow. Palladius died in 432, and Kentigern in 603, so
that the same man in an ordinary life-time could not be _ordained_ by
Palladius and teach Kentigern. To escape this difficulty, the Aberdeen
Breviary makes two S. Serfs. The legend runs--"In a place called Dunnyne
the inhabitants were harassed by a dreadful dragon, which devoured both
men and cattle and kept the district in continual terror. S. Serf, armed
with a breastplate of faith, attacked the monster in his lair, and slew
him by a blow of his pastoral staff." In proof of this legend, and in
memory of this event, the scene to this day is called the Dragon's Den.
The oldest part of the Church of Dunning, which dates between 1200 and
1219, would be the successor of the humbler Celtic building of the
original dedication. If there were two S. Serfs, he of Dunning is the
later, and is the same who is associated with Airthrey, Tillicoultry,
Alva, Culross, and especially Pitmook, or Portmoak, and S. Serf's Isle,
in Loch Leven. Other dedications are Monzievaird, Creich, Dysart,
Redgorton. A S. Serf--probably the earlier, if there were two--was
associated with Orkney. In the west of France, near St. Malo, is a town
of St. Servan. The neatest of all the S. Serf legends, probably invented
to suit some prehistoric soiree at the foot of the Ochils, tells of a
robber who had stolen and eaten a pet lamb of the Saint, and who, having
cleared himself by an oath taken over the Saint's staff, was immediately
contradicted from within by a ba, ba, in response to the Saint's voice
and the false oath. In Glasgow on the Thursday of the Fair week is a
horse market known as Scairs, Skeers, or Sair's Thursday, Sair being one
of the forms of Serf. There is a S. Sares Fair in Aberdeenshire, at
Monkedge or Keith Hall, which has been removed to Culsalmond.
Although lying beyond our Presbytery limits, allusion may be made to the
very ancient religious house at Abernethy, one mile south of the Earn,
and near its junction with the Tay. The dedication of Abernethy is to S.
Brigid or Bride. About 590, when Abernethy was the seat of the Pictish
rule, Columban monks were planted here under King Lartnaidh. In 717 they
were expelled by Nectan III. for non-conformity to Rome; but in 865 the
old order was re-established by Abbot Kellach, of Iona. This continued
to 908, when the See was transferred to St. Andrews. Culdees appear at
Abernethy in the reign of Edgar (1097-1107), and they still held the old
nunnery associated with S. Brigid in 1189-1198; and in 1272 the Culdees
were changed into a priory of Augustinian monks. The famous Round Tower
is assigned by Dr Petrie to 712-727, under Nectan III.; by Dr Skene to
865, the year of Kellach's visit; Dr Muir makes it later than Brechin,
_i.e._, 950; while Mr Anderson makes it one or two decades later still.
For our purpose here the most important fact relative to Abernethy is the
original dedication to S. Brigid. She was Abbess of Kildare, and died
Feb. 11, 523 (Feb. 1 in Irish Kalendars). She received the veil from S.
Mel, nephew of S. Patrick; wore a leathern belt over a white kirtle, and
had a veil over her shoulders. Her cell was under a large oak, Kildara =
cell of the oak, and she founded communities of women; died at the age of
70. Many miracles are ascribed to her, one of which reveals a very
ancient ecclesiastical usage, parallel to the buns and ale associated
with Scottish communions of three generations ago, as described in "The
Holy Fair." From one barrel, S. Bride supplied beer to eighteen
churches, the beer lasting from noonday, Thursday, in Holy Week, till
after Easter.
Reviewing these primitive local churches and churchmen, we see that the
general Christianisation of our Strath began about 500 A.D., and has
continued and grown ever since. The three earliest dates above, given
are S. Fillan, +520; S. Kessog, +520; and S. Brigid, +523. The three
latest are S. Cattan, +710; S. Rowan, +737; and S. Bean, +920; all these
being dates of death. This Celtic form of church began earlier in
Scotland, and especially in Ireland, but in this district we see it in
considerable strength from 500 onwards, and we know that it continued in
vigour till about the year 1200, when it was superseded by a better
organised and more developed form of Christianity, with direct
recognition of Rome as the seat of authority.
The difference between the Roman and the Celtic or Culdee Church
consisted in such matters as these:--The Celtic Church, while
acknowledging many of the saints common to Christendom--especially those
of the East--had in addition a very extensive local calendar, deeply
venerated, which outnumbered the Roman element. It had also
peculiarities in a frontal instead of a coronal tonsure for monks; in a
shorter Lenten fast, which made up the forty days by including Sundays,
and began on Monday instead of Wednesday; in a different time for Easter,
dependent on a more ancient method of reckoning; in the absence of
special or obligatory Easter communion; in the regular celebration of the
Holy Supper with what were by Romanists called "barbarous rites."
The most marked features of the Celtic Church were its government and
orders, where monasteries took the place of dioceses, where abbots were
above bishops, where bishops were without dioceses, where ordination was
conferred occasionally, if not habitually, by one single bishop instead
of three, where bishops were too numerous to be diocesan, and where
(latterly at least) abbots were frequently married, making church lands
hereditary in their families.
A further characteristic of the Celtic Church was the rudeness and
smallness of its buildings, which were of three styles--wattle and daub,
timber beams, and unhewn stones. No examples of the two former survive,
but the third and more solid style is still visible in Teampull
Bennachad, in Lewis; Tempull Ronan, in North Rona; and the Beehive Cells,
in Eilan na Naoimh (Nun's Island.) These old Strathearn churches would
seldom be larger than 12 feet wide by 20 long, built of undressed land
stones (like a field dyke), and thatched with heather, bracken, or sedge.
The great storehouse of reliable material with minimum of controversy
relative to the early Christianity of Scotland is Warren's Liturgy and
Ritual of the Celtic Church. (Clarendon Press, 1881.)
The view given by Mr Hewison in "Bute in the Olden Time" (Vol. I., p.
119) of the doctrine and ritual of the Celtic Church in Ireland in the
days of S. Patrick may safely be accepted as generally applicable to the
Celtic Church in Scotland from 500 to 1000 A.D.:--
"We are dependent upon the 'Tripartite Life of S. Patrick' for definite
information regarding the teaching and modes of worship in the Church in
his day. It is clear the early teachers faithfully maintained the Holy
Scriptures as the rule of faith, and used the version of the Bible
prepared by S. Jerome. There are substantial reasons for believing that
they also possessed a vernacular version, if not of all, of some of the
books of the Bible, the Greek portions of which were studied by the more
famous evangelists, like S. Brendan. A liturgy was also used, and, from
surviving fragments, it appears to have been related to the 'Ephesine,'
rather than to the 'Petrine' family of liturgies--that is to say, it was
different from the Roman, and if not identical with the Gallican liturgy,
was similar to it. Of the co-equality of the Trinity they had no doubt.
In the 'Tripartite Life,' Baptism and Eucharist are mentioned as
sacraments, but penance, marriage, holy orders, and extreme unction are
not referred to as sacraments; while confirmation, if not accepted as of
divine institution, was esteemed to have an imperative importance. There
is only a slight trace of the honours paid to the Virgin Mary in the same
work. According to the editor, 'The Blessed Virgin Mary is never
mentioned either by Patrick, or Secundinus, Muirchu, or Tirechán.'
Communion was partaken of in both kinds, the wine being mixed with water
in the chalice, and sucked through a fistula. Prayers and fasting on
behalf of the dead were indulged in, and much virtue was attached to
severe fastings and ascetic mortifications of body and soul. Every day
was consecrated to unremitting labours in the Gospel. Sunday was,
indeed, a day of worship, divided into eight watches, like the other days
of the week, and was fully observed in the saying of mass, the chanting
of the 150 psalms, and preaching to the people. The clergy--deacons,
presbyters, and bishops--were married. A notable feature of consecration
of bishops was the practice of consecration by a single bishop, sometimes
at a leap, without the candidate having received orders as a deacon or
priest. Priests and virgins had a 'roving commission' to 'sing and say'
over the land. It is interesting to find that the catacombs in Rome have
preserved the monuments of 'virgines peregrinae,' like those of the
Celtic Church. The size, importance, and influence of a complete
ecclesiastical establishment (_muintir_), such as that presided over by
S. Patrick, may be inferred from the functions of the 24 persons who were
in office along with him--viz., bishop, priest, judge, bishop-champion
(polemic), psalmist, chamberlain, bell-ringer, cook, brewer, two waiters,
charioteer, fire-wood man, cow-herd, three smiths, three artizans, and
three embroideresses."
II.--RELATION OF AUCHTERARDER PRESBYTERY
TO THE DIOCESE OF DUNBLANE.
Of the thirteen dioceses in Scotland, that of Dunblane was the
smallest. In its Parochiale, or list of parishes, were 43 entries; but
3 of these were not parishes at all, but prebends, representing
respectively the Abbots of Cambuskenneth, Arbroath, and Inchaffray. Of
the churches and parishes proper that constituted the diocese, no fewer
than 18 are now included in the Presbytery of Auchterarder; while 12
constitute the Presbytery of Dunblane, and 6 are in the Presbytery of
Perth. Thus quite one half of the old diocese finds its corporate
representative in Auchterarder, while the other half is subdivided
between Perth and Dunblane.
Dunblane was formed into a bishopric by David I. out of the old Pictish
Bishopric of Abernethy, which in the division was allotted as a parish
to Dunblane. The date of erection was previous to 1150--some say 1140.
Dunblane was already a Columban, and (notwithstanding Dr. Skene's
argument to the contrary[1]) also a Culdee settlement. The church
dates back to the seventh century, and was an offshoot of the Church of
Kingarth, in Bute, for its founder was St. Blane. He was of the race
of the Irish Picts, and nephew of that Bishop Cathan who founded
Kingarth; he was himself bishop of that church, and his mother was a
daughter of King Aidan of Dalriada. Dunblane and its church were burnt
under Kenneth MacAlpin (844-860) by the Britons of Strathclyde, and in
912 were ravaged by Danish pirates, headed by Rognwald.
"At Dunblane," says Goodall,[2] "the Culdees continued near a hundred
years longer than at Dunkeld. Cormac Malpol, their prior, with
Michael, parson of Mothil, and Macbeath, his chaplain, are witnesses to
a confirmation by William, bishop of Dunblane (1210 ----), of a gift of
the Church of Kincardine to the monks of Cambuskenneth, to be seen in
their chartulary, fol. 80; and Malpol, the prior, and Michael and
Malcolm, Culdees, are witnesses to a charter by Simon, bishop of
Dunblane (1170 ----), one of William's predecessors.[3]
"At last, in the year 1240, the election of the bishop of that See was
devolved upon canons-regular, by a mandate of Pope Gregory IX., which
was obtained in this manner: Clement, bishop of Dunblane, went to Rome,
and represented to that Pope, how of old time his bishopric had been
vacant upwards of a hundred years, during which period almost all the
revenues were seized by the seculars; and although in process of time
there had been several bishops instituted, yet, by their simplicity or
negligence, the former dilapidations were not recovered, but, on the
contrary, the remainder was almost quite alienated; so that, for near
ten years, a proper person could not be found to accept of the charge;
that the case having been laid before the Pope, he had committed the
trust of supplying that vacancy to the bishops of St. Andrews, Dunkeld,
and Brechin, who made choice of this Clement; but he found his church
so desolate that he had not where to lay his head in his cathedral:
there was no college there, only a rural chaplain performed divine
service in the church that had its roof uncovered; and the revenues of
the See were so small that they could hardly afford him maintenance for
one half of the year.
"To remedy these evils, the Pope appointed William and Geoffry, the
bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, to visit the Church of Dunblane; and if
they should find these things to be as represented, he authorised them
to cause the fourth part of the tithes of all the parish churches
within that diocy to be assigned to the bishop thereof; who, after
reserving out of these tithes so much as should be proper for his own
sustenance, was, by the advice of these two bishops and other expert
persons, to assign the rest to a dean and canons, whom the Pope
enjoined to be settled there, if these matters could be brought about
without great offence; or, if otherwise, he ordered that the fourth of
the tithes of all such churches of the diocy as were in the hands of
seculars should be assigned to the bishop, and that the bishop's seat
should be translated to St. John's monastery of canons-regular (_i.e._,
Inchaffray) within that diocy, and appointed that these canons should
have the election of the bishop when a vacancy should happen
thereafter."
As the bishop's seat was not transferred from Dunblane to Inchaffray,
we may infer that the _former_ part of the alternative was carried
out--viz., that dean and canons were found for Dunblane, and the bishop
also provided for out of the fourth of the tithes of all churches in
the diocese. The decay of clerics at Dunblane in Bishop Clement's time
(1233-1258) may as well have applied to _Keledei_ declining there, and
does not imply that they never were there, but existed only at Muthill
(13 miles to the north), and that the Culdees of Muthill, being in the
diocese of Dunblane, were called Culdees of Dunblane. "We find," says
Skene,[4] "the _Keledei_ with their prior at Muthill from 1178 to
1214,[5] when they disappear from the records, and Muthill becomes the
seat of the dean of Dunblane, who had already taken precedence of the
prior of the _Keledei_. It is probable that, under the growing
importance of Dunblane as a cathedral establishment, the possessions of
the _Keledei_ had fallen into secular hands." This would be the more
easy, as the monastery of the Culdees was a distinct institution about
a mile south of the church and village of Muthill.
The foundation of the present cathedral is attributed to Bishop
Clement, originally a monk, who received the tonsure from St. Dominic
himself. The cathedral which he has left has since his day been
extended both to east and westward; and what he built he joined on to
the more ancient square and perpendicular tower. The cathedral
consists of an aisled, eight-bayed nave (130 by 58 feet, and 50 feet
high), an aisleless choir (80 by 30 feet), with a chapter-house,
sacristy, or lady chapel, to the north. The nave is almost entirely
pure first-pointed. In the clerestory the windows are of two lights,
with a foiled circle set over them, plainly treated outside, but
elaborated by a range of shafted arches running continuously in front
of the windows within, so much apart from them as to leave a narrow
passage round the building in the thickness of the wall. The east
window is a peculiar triplicate, with the centre light much taller and
wider than the others. The west front has over the doorway and its
blind arch on either side three very long and narrow two-light windows
of equal height, with a cinquefoil in the head of the central window
and a quatrefoil in the head of the side windows; whilst above is a
vesica, set within a bevelled fringe of bay-leaves, arranged
zigzag-wise, with their points in contact--the last the subject of a
well-known rhapsody by Ruskin. The root of the cathedral history in
this case lies in the tower. It stands awkwardly a little out of line
in the south aisle of the nave, an evident remnant of an older church,
exactly like the similar tower in Muthill, of the eleventh century,
retained in a church built c. 1430. A tower, almost exactly similar,
but more ornate, probably twenty or thirty years later in date, exists
at Dunning, in the same diocese, and also a Celtic Church settlement
associated with St. Serf. The old Culdee Church of Markinch has a
tower of the same peculiar style, originally with a square, upright,
saddle-backed roof, and crow-stepped gables. Some vestiges remain of
the bishop's palace, overlooking the Allan on the south-west of the
cathedral; and the triangular space in front of the south side of the
cathedral, and forming the end of the High Street, has some old houses
which are believed to have been canons' manses.
The chapter consisted of--Dean (Muthill), praecentor, chancellor,
treasurer, archdeacon; _Prebendaries_--Abbot of Cambuskenneth in 1298,
Abbot of Arbroath for Abernethy from 1240; Crieff _primo_ (probably
parish of), Crieff _secundo_ (probably St. Thomas at Milnab), Logie,
Fordishall, Kinkell, Kippen, Monzie, Comrie. Eighteen finely carved
oak stalls of the dignitaries and canons belonging to the sixteenth
century still survive. Other carved work was destroyed in 1559 by the
Prior of St. Andrews and the Earl of Argyll. The line of bishops ended
with three of the neighbouring family of Chisholm of Cromlix. Bishop
James Chisholm was eldest son of Edmund Chisholm, and was a good
administrator. Bishop William Chisholm, his half-brother, was an
ecclesiastic of the worst possible type for fornication, church
robbery, and persecution of so-called heretics. Bishop William
Chisholm, nephew of the robber-bishop, became, after the Reformation, a
Carthusian monk at Lyons. He is supposed to have taken with him the
writs of the See, which have been lost. Marshall[6] gives an account
of this branch of Chisholms. The same writer says[7]: "Among the
sepulchral monuments in the cathedral is that of Malise, eighth Earl of
Strathearn, and his countess. It is in the vestry of the choir, and is
a flat block of gritstone, having on it full-sized figures of the Earl
and Countess. When discovered in the choir, the block was above a
coffin of lead with date 1271. In the centre of the choir is the dust
of Lady Margaret Drummond, mistress (but probably privately married) of
James IV., and her sisters the Ladies Euphemia and Sybilla, daughters
of Lord Drummond, who were poisoned (apparently to clear the way for
the King's marriage to the Princess Mary of England in 1503). Their
remains were deposited here by permission of their uncle, Sir William
Drummond, then Dean of Dunblane. Three blue slabs covered and marked
their resting-place. The recumbent figure attired in pontifical
vestments and mitre, and which is in a niche of the wall under a window
of the choir, on the right of the pulpit, is supposed to represent
Bishop Finlay Dermock, and to be his sepulchral monument. The other
recumbent figure under one of the windows of the nave represents Bishop
Michael Ochiltree, who greatly added to the rich adornments of the
cathedral."
BISHOPS OF DUNBLANE.
Laurence, attests a charter of Malcolm IV., 1160.
Simon, 1170.
Jonathan, archdeacon, buried at Inchaffray. Great endowment of the See
by Gilbert, earl of Stratherne, c. 1195-1210.
William de Bosco, chancellor, 1210.
Abraham, 1220 to c. 1223.
Osbert, abbot of Cambuskenneth, +1231.
Clement, a Dominican friar, consecrated by Bishop William of St.
Andrews at the Stow Church of Wedale; founded cathedral; made
exaggerated wail of poverty to the Pope, who in 1238 appointed a
commission of inquiry, 1233-1258.
Robert de Prebenda, dean, ambassador in 1277 to Edward I.: in 1265 was
Conservator of Council at Perth, 1258-1283.
William, one of the arbiters between John Baliol and Bruce, 1290 to c.
1292.
Nicholas de Balmyle, monk of Arbroath, parson of Calder, lord
chancellor, 1307-1320.
Maurice, abbot of Inchaffray, Bruce's chaplain at Bannockburn with
crosier of St. Fillan; a brave patriot priest, with the old piety that
reverenced relics, yet was true and fervent, 1320-1347.
William, 1347-1361.
Walter de Cambuslang or Conentre, 1362-1370.
Andrew, seals Act for succession of crown at Scone, 1st April, 1373.
Dougal, c. 1380-1399.
Finlay Dermoch, built bridge over Allan Water, tomb in cathedral on
north side of nave, 1400-1419.
William Stephen, divinity-reader in 1411 at St. Andrews, Conservator of
Council at Perth, 1420, 1420-1429.
Michael Ochiltree, dean in 1425, built Knaik Bridge at Ardoch, Bishop's
Bridge at Culdees, rebuilt Culdee Church at Muthill; crowned James II.
in 1437 at Holyrood, 1429-1447.
Robert Lauder, sent on several embassies, founder of several prebends,
1448-1458.