town in freedom for ever from Mormaer and tosech.” In these words a
scribe, writing in the eleventh or twelfth century, tells of the
planting of Christianity in the North about A.D. 580. It is probable
that the clerics tarried at Aberdour for a time, and founded a monastery
on the land which had been granted to them.[222] In later times the
parish church was dedicated to St. Drostan, and in 1178 and 1318 there
are notices of its erection into a prebend of St. Machar’s
Cathedral.[223] In 1557 there is a mandate
[Illustration: FIG. 1502.--Aberdour. Tomb in North Wall.]
by William, Bishop of Aberdeen, for the institution of Master Robert
Carnegy in the canonry and prebend of the Rectory of Aberdour. Again, in
1599, there is a seisin of Robert Ramsay in the kirk lands and glebe
with the vicar’s manse of Aberdour. The existing ruins (Fig. 1499) are
not earlier than the sixteenth century, and consist of a nave 70 feet
long by 21 feet 3 inches wide, and a south aisle 30 feet 4 inches long
by 17 feet 4 inches wide, all outside measure. The
[Illustration: FIG. 1503.--Aberdour.