The abbots in those days had become great lay proprietors, having lawful wives, and succeeding to the benefices of their abbacies by hereditary descent. One of these lay abbots of Dunkeld married a daughter of Malcolm II., and it is remarkable that it was by their descendants that the religious order in Scotland was changed. The new order of things, which had been initiated by St. Margaret, was continued by her son, Alexander I., who, in 1107, created two new bishoprics in the more remote and Celtic portion of his kingdom, the first being that of Moray, and the second that of Dunkeld. Alexander I. also brought, in 1115, a body of canons regular to Scone Abbey, and a few years later he established the same order in the diocese of Dunkeld. He also, in 1122, introduced canons regular to a monastery he had built on an island in Loch Tay, and, in 1123, founded the monastery of Inchcolm, and introduced the same order there.[19]
The Cathedral of Dunkeld has been the see of several distinguished bishops. Bruce’s friend and supporter, Bishop Sinclair, held this see; and Gavin Douglas, the well-known scholar and translator of the Æneid of Virgil, was Bishop of Dunkeld.
The buildings which now exist are of much more recent date than the days of Queen Margaret’s sons. Alexander Myln, a canon of Dunkeld in 1505, and afterwards Abbot of Cambuskenneth and first President of the College of Justice, has fortunately left a history of the lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld, which professes to give a more minute account of the
Fig. 968.—Dunkeld Cathedral. Plan.
dates of the different parts of the structure of the cathedral than we have of any similar building in the country. From this account it would appear that the existing structure is chiefly of the fifteenth century.
The edifice (Fig. [968]) consists of an aisleless choir, a nave with two aisles, a north-west tower, and a chapter house to the north of the choir. The choir measures 103 feet long by 29 feet wide internally, and the rectangular chapter house attached to the north side is 27 feet long and 20 feet wide. Some portions of the choir indicate the style of the thirteenth
Fig. 969.—Dunkeld Cathedral. Wall Arcade at North-West Angle of Choir.