Church of St Mary on the Rock

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Church of St Mary on the Rock

Fife


The extant foundations of the church
Type: Church
Location
Grid reference: NO51561666
Location: 56°20’23"N, 2°47’6"W
History
Church
Information
Condition: Bare ruins remain

The Church of St Mary on the Rock or St Mary's Collegiate Church, was a secular college of priests based on the seaward side of St Andrews Cathedral in St Andrews, Fife, standing just beyond the precinct walls. It is known by a variety of other names, such as St Mary of the Culdees, Kirkheugh and Church of St Mary of Kilrymont.[1]

It was not founded as a collegiate church and became one only in the 1240s, Scotland's first. The church represented a corporate continuation of the association of clergy known as the Culdees or Céli Dé, "vassals of God". The church lasted for several centuries, but did not long outlast the Reformation, and today little of the original structure has survived.

Céli Dé of Cennrighmonaidh

St Mary's Collegiate Church has its origins in Kilrymont monastery and its group of canons called "Culdees" or Céli Dé ("Vassals of God"). These priests served a side altar in the Cathedral throughout the twelfth-century and into the thirteenth-century. The Céli Dé were headed by an abbot. The only abbot whose name is recorded is Gille Críst, the "abbot of the Céli Dé" recorded 1172 x 1178 feuing out lands to the steward of the Bishop of St Andrews, though an unnamed abbot is recorded again in the 1180s.[2]

Until the foundation of the Augustinian priory in 1140, the Céli Dé and the seven clerics known as the personae (parsons) are the only known clerics of the cathedral.[3] The new Augustinian monastic canons were intended to become the main clergymen of the cathedral, serving its main altar, and Pope Eugenius III in 1147 confirmed the rights of the Augustinian canons and their prior to elect the Bishop of St Andrews.[4]

It is likely on a number of grounds that Bishop Robert, an Augustinian himself from Nostell, intended that the Céli Dé would become Augustinians, bringing their property into the new Cathedral Priory. This is not what happened, and although another papal bull of 1147 ordered that upon the death of each Céle Dé an Augustinian should take his place, they were still there in 1199 when the priory recognised their holdings to be permanent.[2]

Collegiate Church

In around 1248 or 1249 the Church of St Mary's is first mentioned as a separate institution from the cathedral.[5] This transformation gave St Mary's the honour of being the first collegiate church in the Kingdom of Scotland and the only secular college in the kingdom before the fourteenth-century.[6]

Location and building

The church is located at Kirkheugh or Kirkhill. This location, where the modern North Street and South Street converge, may have been the original location of the religious site before the construction of a new cathedral building slightly to the west (the remains of which constitute St Rule's Tower) by Robert, Bishop of St Andrews.[7] There are burials in the vicinity of Kirkheugh that pre-date the alleged eighth-century foundation of the monastery, and point to a small religious community from the sixth-century.[8] There were also a number of tenth-century cross-slabs found in the grounds.[9] The church was said by John Lesley to have been pulled down by reforming Protestants in June 1559.

The extant foundations of the church show that it was cross-shaped, and possessed no aisle.[9] The length of the transepts cannot be determined, but the choir was longer than the nave.[9] The nave seems to represent the earliest of the three detectable building phases.[9] The altar lay at the eastern end of the choir.[9] The sedilia on the southern wall is lost, as are the sacristy and the accommodation for the canons and the provost.[9]

Outside links

References

  1. ↑ Barrow, "Clergy at St Andrews", p. 191
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Barrow, "Clergy of St Andrews", p. 196.
  3. ↑ The traditional date is 1144, but Duncan, "Foundation", pp. 1–37, has revised that back to 1140.
  4. ↑ Cowan & Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 96.
  5. ↑ Barrow, "Clergy of St Andrews", pp. 199–200.
  6. ↑ Cowan & Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 213–4
  7. ↑ Ash, "St Andrews under its 'Norman' Bishops", p. 106.
  8. ↑ Anderson, "Celtic Church", p. 68.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Fawcett, Foster & Tabraham, St Andrews Cathedral, p. 20.
  • St Andrews Cathedral and Priory and adjacent ecclesiastical remains - scheduled monument detail (Historic Environment Scotland)
  • Anderson, Marjorie O.: "The Celtic Church in Kinrimund", in the Innes Review, vol. 25 (1974), pp. 67–76
  • Anderson, Marjorie O., "", in G. W. S. Barrow (ed.), The Scottish Tradition: Essays in Honour of Ronald Gordon Cant, (Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1974), pp. 1–13
  • Ash, Marinell, "The Diocese of St Andrews under its 'Norman' Bishops", in the Scottish Historical Review, vol. 55 (1976), pp. 105–26
  • Barrow, G. W. S., "The Clergy at St Andrews", in G. W. S. Barrow (ed.), The Kingdom of the Scots: Government, Church and Society from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century, 2nd Ed. (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2003), ISBN 0-7486-1802-3
  • Cowan, Ian B., & Easson, David E., Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland, With an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man, 2nd Ed. (Longman, London and New York, 1976), ISBN 0-582-12069-1
  • Fawcett, Richard, Foster, Sally & Tabraham, Chris, St Andrews Cathedral, (Historic Scotland, Edinburgh, 2003), ISBN 1-903570-91-3
  • Watt, D. E. R., & Murray, A. L. (eds.), Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Medii Aevi Ad Annum 1638, Rev. Ed. (The Scottish Record Society, New Series, Volume 25, Edinburgh, 2003), ISBN 0-902054-19-8


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