General Hutton regarding it; but they evidently could not come to terms,
and it is not in his collection in the Advocates’ Library. Mitchell
calls it “a true and just plan of the outlines of that pile of
building.”
Dr. Marshall, in his _Historic Scenes in Forfarshire_, p. 144, had this
plan before him when he wrote, and he characterises it as being
unreliable. After a good deal of correspondence we obtained a sight of
it, and have no hesitation in saying that it is a pure work of
imagination, and is not a plan of the abbey at all; and, judging from
the correspondence with General Hutton, we suspect the author intended
to play a hoax on him, and yet was afraid to go the full length, and
this is probably the reason why the General never got the plan.
In 1492 and following years there are references to Thomas Mowtray,
mason. He was sworn to be “leyl and trew,” during the term of his life,
to the abbot and chapter, and he is obliged to “wyrk leilly and
profitably the masonwerk of our forsaid abbay, and to be the master of
the werk, in al thingis that langis hys craft of masonry in our abbay or
in our qwarellis
[Illustration: FIG. 1453.--Coupar Abbey. Recumbent Figure.]
as it nedis.” He was to have 6 “markis” yearly with his meat and drink,
a house with 2½ acres of land; further, the Lord Abbot “promised to give
him yearly one of his old albs reaching to the ankles.” He was to
instruct the “prentys” in all “craft of masonry.”[203]
In 1485 John, the mason, and his son are continued in the service of the
abbey. In 1468 Thomas Bel was hired “for the constant carpentry” of the
abbey; he had workmen under him and apprentices. There are also
agreements with smiths, as John Lutare, smith, who “was hired (in 1484)
for the common work of the monastery in the forge,” and next year David
Smyth is hired to succeed William Byning, who was formerly in the same
service. John Duncanson, tiler, in 1492, was to labour in his trade and
in every other work which he knew. Nine years earlier John Sclater was
hired as apprentice to work at his trade of tiler (_tegulator_). Patrick
Dog (in 1490) was the abbey sawyer, with three workmen under him, who
each day were to turn out “fourteen draughts for each saw.”[204]