Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys

by Dugald Butler

Only fragments of the conventual buildings remain. "An octagonal turret marks the south-east corner of the chapter-house with the south and east return walls, and adjoining the south transept is the slype, the walls of which determine the other walls of the chapter-house. On the wall of the south transept is clearly seen the mark of the dormitory roof, with the door between the church and dormitory now built up."[446] The north wall and a portion of the west wall proceeding southward from it are all that remain of the extensive enclosure of the abbey. The enclosure was said to have been of great height and to have extended 1150 feet on the east and west, 760 feet on the north, and 480 feet on the south. There were great towers at the angles and entrance gateways on the north and at the south-east angle. In the centre of the north wall is the portcullis entrance gatehouse. The front wall is almost entire, and the upper floor window is crossed by the corbels which carried the movable wooden hoarding that was erected over the gateway when required for its defence.[447] At the western extremity of the north enclosing wall there is a large square tower, three stories in height in the inside, and four stories on the outside, owing to the fall of the ground. The two lower floors are round-vaulted, and the cape-house on top is said to have been removed during this century.[448] The building adjoining the tower to the east was called the Regality Court-house, and had a groined ceiling. The abbot's house is on the south side of the cloister, and is the best preserved abbot's house in Scotland. It is three stories high, and the two upper floors have been converted into a modern private dwelling-house. It has been altered externally and spoiled of its ancient internal fittings, with the exception of two fine carved panels, one representing the Virgin, and the other a large Scotch thistle. The kitchen has central pillars supporting a groined roof,[449] and the other offices connected with the kitchen are all vaulted. The abbey suffered from fire in 1272 and in 1380, while in 1350 it was injured "from the frequent assaults of the English ships."[450] Service was up to 1590 conducted in the lady chapel "stripped of its altars and images."

Melrose Abbey (Roxburghshire).—The editor of the Liber de Melros has said in reference to this abbey:—

"The incidental mention of the condition of the abbey itself at different times strongly illustrates the history of the district and the age. At one time powerful and prosperous, accumulating property, procuring privileges, commanding the support of the most powerful, and proudly contending against the slightest encroachment; at another, impoverished and ruined by continual wars, obliged to seek protection from the foreign invader: in either situation it reflects back faithfully the political condition of the country.

But the political events of a country of so narrow bounds and small resources as Scotland are insignificant unless they are associated with the development of principles and feelings that know no limits of place or power. How rich Scotland has been in such associations is testified by the general sympathy which attends her history and her literature, and gives a pride to her children that forms not the weakest safeguard of their virtue. It is in recalling freshly the memory of times in which the proud and virtuous character of her people was formed, and which it is their delight and their duty to look back upon, that such studies as the present are most useful. Every local association, every faint illustration of antiquity, each indication of the bygone manners of a simple age, are in this view to be treasured, not only as filling a page of a meagre history, but as so many moral ties to bind us closer in affection to the country of our fathers."[451]

This abbey has a charming site in the hill-girt hollow known as the vale of Melrose, occupying one of those peaceful situations near a river which the Cistercians delighted to choose and colonise. An ancient monastery of Melrose had existed since the seventh century, on a broad meadow nearly surrounded by a "loop" of the Tweed, about 2½ miles lower down the river. It was established about 650 by St. Aidan, the missionary from Iona, who preached in Northumbria, and founded the abbey of Lindisfarne. Eata was the first abbot we hear of, and he was a disciple of St. Aidan. St. Cuthbert spent much of his early life at this monastery of old Melrose, and afterwards chose as the scene of his labours Hexham and Lindisfarne. The monks of Lindisfarne, when expelled by the Danes, took refuge at Melrose, and brought with them St. Cuthbert's body, which afterwards found its resting-place at Durham. In the eleventh century this old monastery of Melrose had become a ruined and desolate place. It afterwards became the retreat of a few monks, amongst whom was the celebrated Turgot, the confessor of Queen Margaret. A chapel was erected and dedicated to St. Cuthbert, which at first belonged to Coldingham, but was gifted finally by David I. to the new abbey of Melrose.

This abbey was founded in 1136 at a place then called Fordell, and was endowed by David I. and his nobles with extensive lands. The monks were of the Cistercian order, and were brought from Rievalle in Yorkshire. The original buildings were not finished till 1146, and on the 28th of July in that year the church was solemnly consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is thought that such buildings with an oratory were probably the residence of the monks, and their period would suggest the Norman style, like that of the abbeys of Kelso, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh. Every trace of these early buildings has disappeared, and, situated as it was on the border-country, Melrose Abbey was exposed to danger, and frequently suffered in the wars between the two countries. It was in the chapter-house at Melrose that the Yorkshire barons united against King John and swore fealty to Alexander II. in 1215. In 1295 Edward I. gave formal protection to its monks, and in 1296 he issued a writ ordering a restitution to them of all the property they had lost in the preceding struggle. In 1321 or 1322 the original structure was destroyed by the English under Edward II., and the abbot, with a number of the monks, was killed. In 1326 Robert I. gave a grant of £2000 to be applied to the rebuilding of the church, and in 1329, a few months before his death, he wrote a letter to his son David, requesting that his heart should be buried at Melrose and commending the monastery and the church to his successor's favour. His wish was granted, and so late as 1369 we hear of King David II. renewing his father's gift, and it is to this grant we owe a considerable part of the present building. In 1328 Edward III. ordered the restoration to the abbey of pensions and lands which it had held in England, and which had been seized by Edward II. In 1334 the same king granted a protection to Melrose in common with the other Border abbeys, and in 1341 he came to Melrose to spend Christmas. In 1385 Richard II., exasperated by his fruitless expedition into Scotland, spent a night in the abbey and caused it to be burned. Notwithstanding these disasters, the abbey increased in wealth and architectural splendour, and it was not till more severe damage and dilapidations befell it during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Elizabeth, that ruin began finally to impend. The approach of the Reformation influenced its downfall, and though donations for rebuilding were given by various individuals, the abbey never recovered the damage then suffered. In 1541 James V. obtained from the Pope the abbeys of Melrose and Kelso, to be held in commendam by his illegitimate son James, who died in 1558. In 1560 all the "abbacie" was annexed to the Crown, and in 1566 Mary granted the lands to James, Earl of Bothwell, with the title of Commendator. After passing through the hands of Douglas of Lochleven and Sir John Ramsay, the estates were ultimately acquired by the Scotts of Buccleuch. The abbey gradually fell into decay through neglect. The materials were used for the erection of other structures, and Douglas built from the ruins a house which still stands to the north of the cloisters and bears the date 1590. The masonry also formed a quarry for the neighbourhood, and in 1618 the remaining portion of the structure was fitted up as the parish church, "and in order to render it secure, a plain pointed barrel vault was thrown across the nave, and was supported by plain square piers built against the old piers on the north side. The original vaulting seems to have been previously demolished."[452] A great number of the stone images of saints which filled the numerous wall niches were left untouched till 1649, when they were almost all cast down and destroyed, but by whose order is unknown. Of the abbey there now only remain the ruins of the church, and of it the most competent authorities say:—

"No building in Scotland affords such an extensive and almost inexhaustible field for minute investigation and enjoyment of detail such as this. Whether we consider the great variety of the beautifully sculptured figures of monks and angels playing on musical instruments, or displaying 'the scrolls which teach us to live and die,' or turn to the elaborate canopies and beautiful pinnacles of the buttresses, or examine the rich variety of foliage and other sculptures on the capitals of the nave and the doorway and arches of the cloisters; or if, again, we take a more general view of the different parts of the edifice from the numerous fine standpoints from which it can be so advantageously contemplated, we know of no Scottish building which surpasses Melrose either in the picturesqueness of its general aspect or in the profusion or value of its details. It occupies an important position also historically, and it in part supplies an admirable example of that decorated architecture, the existence of which in this country has been so often denied, but of which, we trust, a sufficient number of examples are now provided to render that reproach to Scottish architecture no longer justifiable. We have to thank the fine red sandstone of the district, of which the church is built, for the perfect preservation of all the details of the structure. These remain, even in the minutest carving, as perfect and complete as the day they were executed."[453]

The cloister and domestic buildings, including the hall of Abbot Matthew, were situated on the north side of the church. They have now entirely disappeared, leaving only a portion of the cloister which indicates their position. The church is cruciform, and the choir is unusually short and the nave unusually long. The aisled choir extends only two bays eastwards from the crossing, beyond which point the presbytery is carried one bay farther, without aisles, and is lighted by large north and south windows as well as by the great eastern window.

The shortness of the choir rendered it necessary that part of the nave should be appropriated for the monks, and the enclosing screen wall of this portion of the "choir" extended to the fourth pier west from the crossing, where it was carried across the nave and formed the rood screen. The screen was wide and contained a gallery, on the top of which stood the rood.[454] The nave extends to eight bays, but it has been intended to be longer—the west end being incomplete. Extending southwards, beyond the south aisle, is a series of eight chapels, which produced externally, along with the south aisle, the appearance of a double aisle.[455] The north aisle is narrower than the south aisle, and the position of the cloister may have hampered the design.

This difference may have arisen from the plan of the original abbey of the twelfth century being adhered to in the later construction.[456]