IX. The Bishopric of Caithness—1150-1469.
The Bishopric of Caithness appears to have been co-extensive with the older earldom, comprehending Caithness and Sutherland as far south as Ekkialsbakki or the Kyle of Sutherland. In later times the cathedral church was at Dornoch.[[141]] But it would seem as if the episcopal see had at one time been at Halkirk (called in the Saga Há Kirkia, or the High Kirk), near Thurso, where we find the bishops frequently residing. The date of the erection of the bishopric is unknown.
Andrew is the first bishop who appears in authentic records. About the year 1153 King David granted to him the lands of Hoctor Comon,[[142]] and about the same time he himself gave a grant of the Church of the Holy Trinity of Dunkeld to the monks of Dunfermline.[[143]] About the year 1165 he and Murethac, his clerk, are witnesses to a charter of Gregory, Bishop of Dunkeld, confirming the said gift. About the year 1181 he is a witness to the grant by Earl Harald Maddadson to the see of Rome of a penny annually from every inhabited house in Caithness, which brought his successor, Bishop John, into such trouble.[[144]] He is also a witness to the remarkable document engrossed in the Book of Deer, by which King David I. declares the clerics of Deer to be free from all lay interference and undue exaction, “as it is written in their book, and as they pleaded at Banff and swore at Aberdeen.”[[145]] The Chronicle of Mailros records his death at Dunfermline on 30th December 1185. He seems to have been a learned man, and was much about the court of David I. He is said to have been the author of part of the curious treatise “De Situ Albaniæ,” attributed to Giraldus Cambrensis.
John, second bishop, succeeded him. He seems to have refused to exact from the inhabitants the papal contribution of one penny annually from each inhabited house in Caithness granted by Earl Harald, for in a bull[[146]] dated at the Vatican, 27th May 1198, Pope Innocent III. enjoins Bishop Bjarni of Orkney and Bishop Reginald of Ross to compel Bishop John to give up his opposition to its collection on pain of the censure of the Church. About this time also Caithness had been taken from Harald by King William the Lion, with whom he was involved in hostilities, and given over to Reginald Gudrodson, the petty king of the Hebrides. Hence, on Harald’s recovery of his possessions in 1202, he was so exasperated that he took vengeance on the bishop[[147]] by blinding him and cutting out his tongue, and inflicted severe punishments on the people, whom he held to have been guilty of rebellion. Bishop John appears to have survived his mutilation till 1213.
Adam, third bishop, was consecrated in 1214 by Malvoisin, Bishop of St. Andrews. He was a foundling exposed at a church door, but he had been Abbot of Melrose previous to his appointment to the see of Caithness. In 1218 he went with the Bishops of Glasgow and Moray on a pilgrimage to Rome. He seems to have been of an opposite disposition to that of his predecessor, who suffered martyrdom in the cause of his people. It was an old custom in Caithness that the husbandmen paid the bishop a spann of butter for every twenty cows. Bishop Adam exacted the contribution first for every fifteen, and at length for every ten cows. Exasperated by these exactions, the people rose in a body and came to him at Halkirk, where in the tumult a monk of Newbottle named Serlo was killed and the bishop himself burned in his own kitchen. A letter of Pope Honorius III., dated in January 1222, and addressed to the Scottish bishops of the time, is extant in the archives of the Vatican,[[148]] in which, after commending King Alexander for his promptitude and zeal in avenging Bishop Adam’s murder, he goes on to tell that, having learned from their letters what a horrible crime, what a detestable deed had been committed, his spirit quailed and his heart trembled and his ears tingled as he realised the daring atrocity of the deed. “Your letters,” he says, “have informed us that a dispute having arisen between Adam, Bishop of Caithness, of adorable memory, on the one part, and his parishioners on the other, concerning the tithes and other rights of the Church, and these matters having been submitted to the king himself by the mediation of certain ecclesiastics, with consent of the bishop, and the king being absent in England, his parishioners, moved with anger against him because he upheld the cause of his Church against them, fell on their pious pastor like ravening wolves, on their father like degenerate sons, and on their Lord Christ like emissaries of the devil, stripped him of his clothing, stoned him, mortally wounded him with an axe, and finally killed and burned him in his own kitchen.” The letter concludes with an injunction to excommunicate all concerned in the murder. The bishop’s body was interred in the church at Skinnet, and is said to have been subsequently removed to Dornoch in 1239.[[149]] The Saga states that the fearful vengeance taken by King Alexander II. for the murder of the bishop was still fresh in memory in the writer’s time; and we learn from the Annals that “the Scottish king caused the hands and feet to be hewn from eighty men who had been present at the burning, so that many of them died.”
Gilbert de Moravia, fourth bishop, had been Archdeacon of Moray previous to his elevation to the see of Caithness in 1223. He built the cathedral at Dornoch, and his charter of constitution[[150]] is still extant in the record-room at Dunrobin Castle. For many years there had been an intimate connection between the diocese of Caithness and the abbey of Scone,[[151]] and in the constitution of his cathedral Bishop Gilbert named the Abbot of Scone one of the canons. The fourteen churches assigned to the prebends were those of Clyne, Dornoch, Creich, Rogart, Lairg, Farr, Kildonan, and Durness, in Sutherland; and Bower, Watten, Skinnet, Olrig, Dunnet, and Canisbay, in Caithness. Golspie and Loth, Reay, Thurso, Wick, and Latheron, were reserved to the bishop.
He seems to have been a man of mark in his time. He built the “Bishop’s Castle” at Scrabster, and was made keeper of the king’s castles in the north.[[152]] He seems also to have been the first discoverer of gold in Sutherlandshire, for Sir Robert Gordon states that he “found a mine of gold in Duriness, in the lands belonging to his bishoprick.” He died at Scrabster in 1245, and was afterwards canonised. His relics were preserved in the cathedral church at Dornoch, and continued to be held in reverence down to the middle of the 16th century. In a record of the year 1545 it is stated that the parties compearing before Earl John of Sutherland in the chapter-house of the cathedral at Dornoch made oath by touching the relics of the blessed Saint Gilbert. He is the only bishop of Caithness, except Bishop Adam, whose death is recorded in the Icelandic Annals. The entry is under the year 1244:—“Death of Gilibert, bishop in Scotland.”
William, fifth bishop, was his successor. In 1250 he appears among the other Scottish bishops in a document addressed to Alexander III. concerning the liberties of the Church. He died in 1261 or 1262.
Walter de Baltrodin, a canon of Caithness, was chosen as his successor. Pope Urban IV. in 1263 addressed a letter[[153]] to the bishops of Dunkeld, Brechin, and Ross, setting forth that his election had not been proceeded with according to canonical form, but as it had been unanimous, and in consideration of the poverty of the Church, and the expense of making such long journeys to distant places, he enjoins them to prefer the said Walter to the bishopric if they find that he is not disqualified by defect of birth or otherwise. He died before 1274. On his death, Nicolas, Abbot of Scone, was chosen as his successor, but rejected by the Pope.[[154]]
Archibald, Archdeacon of Moray, was chosen on the rejection by the Pope of Nicolas, Abbot of Scone. The Pope’s letter confirming his election mentions R., the Dean, Patrick, the treasurer, and Roger de Castello, canon of Caithness, as the parties by whom he was nominated. In his time Boyamund de Vitia was commissioned by Pope Gregory X. to collect a special subsidy in aid of the crusade, and his accounts furnish us with the names of a number of the churches in the diocese of Caithness and the amounts contributed.[[155]]