The chapel is an oblong, and is without division between nave and chancel. The church appears to have been extended 24 feet at the east end, when it was converted into a college.[300] The design of windows and buttresses (perpendicular) is pronounced to accord well with the date of erection in the sixteenth century, and is similar to that of English colleges. On the north side is a room with a round barrel vault, probably the sacristy.[301] There is a piscina in the east window sill.
Church of The Holy Trinity, St. Andrews.—This church, usually named the Town Church, is of ancient foundation, but was almost entirely rebuilt at the end of the eighteenth century. An early church is said to have been built here in 1112 by Bishop Turgot, and subsequently dedicated by Bishop de Bernham to the Holy Trinity. It had in its palmy days thirty altarages, each with a separate priest and fifteen choristers, and it was from the pulpit here that John Knox preached his famous sermon on the purifying of the temple. The church demolished at the close of last century is believed to have been erected in 1412.[302] The north-west tower is the only part of the old structure which survives.[303]
"Like the north-west tower at Cupar, it rises from the north and west walls of the north aisle, without buttresses to mark its outline or break the upright form of the walls. The square outline, however, is partly relieved by a square projection at north-west angle, which contains the staircase. The east and south walls are carried by arches, which formerly allowed the lower story of the tower to be included within the church, and the round pier at the south-east angle is made of extra thickness, so as to bear the weight of the tower."[304]
The parapet is plain and rests on simple corbels. Above it rises a short and stunted octagonal spire with lucarnes, like most of the late Scottish examples. There is over the staircase a small turret with pointed roof. It is carried up within the parapet, and groups picturesquely with the main spire. The tower resembles the one at Wester Crail, and both are of fifteenth century date. It is of this tower or steeple[305] that we hear in John Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland. When a captive on a French galley lying between Dundee and St. Andrews the second time that the ship returned to Scotland (probably June 1548),
"The said Johne (Knox), being so extreamlye seak that few hoped his lyeff, the said Maister James (Balfour) willed him to look to the land, and asked if he knew it? Who answered, "Yes, I know it weall: for I see the stepill of that place whare God first in publict opened my mouth to His glorie, and I am fullie persuaded, how weak that ever I now appear, that I shall nott departe this lyif till that my toung shall glorifie his godlie name in the same place."[306] His hope, as we have just seen, was not disappointed."
CHAPTER VI
SCOTTISH MONASTICISM
The old Celtic monastic system, with Iona as its centre, was superseded by the monastic system of the Roman Church in the eleventh century, and the old Culdee monks were either driven from their ancient settlements or compelled to become Augustinian canons or Benedictine monks. The life of Queen Margaret marks the period of transition in Scotland from the old system to that of the Church of Rome both in building and in every other department, and what Queen Margaret began, her sons, Edgar, Alexander and David completed. St. Margaret had a monk of Durham for her chaplain; Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, was her chosen counsellor. She introduced Benedictines from Canterbury into her foundation at Dunfermline. Edgar and Alexander took for their adviser St. Anselm—Lanfranc's successor, preferred English priests, and peopled the monasteries with English monks. David was even more earnest in the pursuit of this policy, and the kings who followed him found little to "Anglicise." Saxon refugees were followed into Scotland by Norman knights; these were received by David and presented with lands, and the extent of their possessions is apparent in the names of the proprietors settled in every part of the country. The policy is apparent: their settlement helped to keep the country in order, and defend it from the attacks of the unsubdued tribes in the north and west. It also helped to facilitate the spread of the Roman Catholic system throughout the country. "The new colonists," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "were of the 'upper classes' of Anglican families long settled in Northumbria, and Normans of the highest blood and name. They were men of the sword, above all service and mechanical employment. They were fit for the society of court, and many became the chosen companions of our princes. The old native people gave way before them, or took service under the strong-handed strangers, who held lands by the written gift of the sovereign."[307] ... "The new settlers were of the progressive party, friends of civilisation and the Church. They had found churches on their manors, or if not already there, had founded them. To each of these manorial churches the lord of the manor now made a grant of the tithes of his estate; his right to do so does not seem to have been questioned, and forthwith the manor—tithed to its church—became what we now call a parish."[308] Examples of these parish churches have already been considered, and the two-fold movement of a cathedral system with parochial benefices was continued for a time. It was the most effective way of superseding the old Celtic church, and the policy was throughout inspired by the aim of substituting the parochial system with a diocesan episcopacy for the old tribal churches with monastic jurisdiction and functional episcopacy. But this was accompanied by a third movement, which to a very great extent paralysed it, and became a source of weakness to religion. The parochial system was shipwrecked when scarcely formed by the introduction of monasticism, which was then in the ascendant throughout Europe. "The new monks," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "of the reformed rule of St. Benedict or canons of St. Augustine, pushing aside the poor lapsarian Culdees, won the veneration of the people by their zealous teaching and asceticism.... The church, too, with all its dues and pertinents, was bestowed on the monastery and its patron saint for ever, reserving only a pittance for a poor priest to serve the cure, or sometimes allowing the monks to serve it by one of their own brethren. William the Lion gave thirty-three parishes to the new monastery of Arbroath, dedicated to the latest and most fashionable High Church saint, Thomas à Becket."[309]
The Church thus became territorial instead of tribal; episcopal instead of abbatial, and the new abbeys began to acquire large territory in the country. By the end of the thirteenth century the old line of Celtic kings closed in Alexander, and the movement was complete; the Church had ceased to be Celtic in usage and character, and had become Roman. This stream of tendency came from the south, and cathedrals with abbeys were constituted after English models. "Of the Scottish sees, all," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, "save three or four, were founded or restored by St. David, and their cathedral constitutions were formally copied from English models. Thus the chapter of Glasgow took that of Salisbury for its guide. Dunkeld copied from the same type, venerable in its associations with the name of St. Osmund, whose "Use of Sarum" obtained generally throughout Scotland. Elgin or Moray sent to Lincoln for its pattern, and transmitted it, with certain modifications, to Aberdeen and to Caithness. So it was also with the monasteries. Canterbury was the mother of Dunfermline; Durham, of Coldingham; St. Oswald's at Nosthill, near Pontefract, was the parent of Scone, and through that house, of St. Andrews and Holyrood. Melrose and Dundrennan were daughters of Rievaux, in the North Riding. Dryburgh was the offspring of Alnwick; Paisley, of Wenlock."[310]