In Byways of Scottish History

by Louis A. Barbé

The records of the Priory also furnish details of disputes that arose between the Monks of May and other religious houses. Thus, in 1231, a case in which they were the pursuers came before a commission appointed by the Pope, and consisting of the Prior and of the Archdeacon of St. Andrews, together with the Dean of Fife. They complained that, although the church of Rind, with the teinds of the whole parish, belonged in property to them, the Brethren of Scone detained from them the tithes of four fishings—namely, of Sleples, Elpenslau, Chingil, and Inchesiryth—all situated within the bounds of the parish. After hearing the pleadings, allegations, and exceptions of both parties, the judges and their legal assessors decided that, for the sake of peace, the Monks of Scone should pay two merks of silver yearly to the House of May, and should, in return, be held free from all claims for the tithes.[217]

A few years before this, in 1225, the Prior and Brethren of the May were themselves the defendants in an action raised by the House of Dryburgh. From the official statement of the case it appears that the Parish Church of Anstruther belonged to the former and that of Kilrenny to the latter, and that the two parishes were separated from each other by a stream. In view of the fact that the boats which fished in this stream were moored on the Kilrenny side and that their anchors were fixed within the bounds of the parish, where they remained for the night, the Canons of Dryburgh maintained that they were entitled to one-half of the tithes arising from such boats, whilst the Monks of May levied the whole. The Abbot and the Prior of Melrose and the Dean of Teviotdale, acting as Papal Commissioners, decided that, "for the sake of peace, the Monks of May should pay yearly one merk of silver within the Parish Church of Kilrenny to the Canons of Dryburgh, for which payment the monks were to be free of all claim on the part of the canons, providing the latter should receive full tithes from their proper parishioners—that is, from the parishioners receiving spiritual benefits in the church of Kilrenny and using the said part of the shore; and that the monks should receive full tithes from all coming from other quarters, and using the said part of the shore".[218]

Amongst the documents relating to the May there is one which records an agreement arrived at between the Prior and Convent on the one hand and Malcolm, the King's Cupbearer, on the other, with regard to the Chapel of Ricardestone. The monks authorized the celebration of mass in the chapel by a chaplain from the House of Rindalgros, or some other in his stead, on every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, as well as on the principal feast days, such being Christmas and the three days after it, the Purification, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Assumption, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and All Saints. They also permitted that the holy bread—that is to say, the loaf offered by the people, blessed by the priest before the beginning of the mass, and distributed amongst the congregation—should be given there, but only by the men of the vill. There, too, the women of the vill—but they alone—might be churched, and also be heard in confession; but they were to pay the offering for wax to the Mother Church of Rindalgros, and there, too, were to receive communion at Easter. The Cupbearer himself and all his successors were to be at liberty to communicate either in the chapel or in the Mother Church. Malcolm might also have a priest attached to his chapel, provided such priest acknowledged submission to the Church of Rindalgros. In return for these concessions and privileges, the Cupbearer not only confirmed the gifts of land made by his father to the chapel, but also added a grant of other four acres in pure and perpetual alms.[219]

Apart from such incidents as the Records of the Priory of May indicate, there seems to have been only one event of importance in connection with it for more than a century from the time when King David conveyed it to the Monks of Reading, on condition that they should maintain in it nine priests of their brethren, to offer up the Mass for the benefit of his soul and of the souls of his predecessors and successors, Kings of Scotland. It is briefly referred to by the chronicler Torfæus in his account of one of Swein Asleif's expeditions. Steering southwards, he says, Swein and his followers arrived at the Isle of May. In that island there was a monastery, the abbot of which was named Baldwin. Being detained there for seven days, they professed to be ambassadors from Earl Ronald to the King of Scotland. The monks, suspecting them to be robbers, sent to the mainland for help. On this, Swein plundered the monastery, and took much booty. As a strangely inconsistent sequel to this story, Torfæus adds that Swein then sailed up the Firth of Forth, and found King David in Edinburgh; that the King received Swein with much honour, and entreated him to remain; and that Swein told David all that had occurred between him and Earl Ronald, and how he had plundered the Isle of May. The same historian also states that on another occasion Swein anchored at the Isle of May, from which he dispatched messengers to the King at Edinburgh.[220]

Spottswood states, in his List of Religious Houses in Scotland, that the Priory of the May, originally put under the patronage of All Saints, was subsequently consecrated to the memory of St. Adrian. He does not, however, mention on what occasion. He adds that William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, purchased it from the Abbot of Reading, and notwithstanding the complaints made thereupon by Edward Longshanks, King of England, bestowed it upon the canons regular of his cathedral. Fordun and Prynne both give details of the transaction; but from documents discovered at a later date and published in the Records of the Priory of the Isle of May,[221] it appears that neither of them states the case quite fully nor quite correctly. It is to be gathered from the proceedings relative to the claim of the Abbot and Convent of Reading on the Priory, that it was Robert de Burghgate, Abbot of Reading, who sold the Scottish "cell" to William, Bishop of St. Andrews, and that he received from him 1100 merks on account of the price. It would seem, however, that he effected this transaction contrary to the wish of the majority of his monks; and, on this ground, his successor, Abbot William, attempted to overturn it. In the Parliament of John Baliol, held at Scone on the 10th of February, 1292, John Sutton and Hugh Stanford, appearing as his representatives, demanded either possession of the Priory of May or payment of the balance of the price agreed to be paid for it, together with the fruits and rents accruing from it during the preceding four years. Failing recognition of their claims, they were empowered to appeal to the judgment of the King of England—a significant instruction which shows that Edward intended to turn the dispute to account in the prosecution of his designs against the independence of Scotland.

When the English representatives presented their abbot's petition they were asked whether he was prepared to repay to the Bishop of St. Andrews the 1100 merks already received on account. They cautiously replied that they had not been sent to make any payment, and could not undertake to do so; and they requested that the case, which had been brought to a deadlock by reason of the Scottish counterclaim, might be adjourned to the next, or to some subsequent Parliament, so that they might have time to consult both the Abbot of Reading and the English King. To escape from the necessity of either recognizing or challenging the sovereign authority which Edward claimed, and by virtue of which it was intended to get the dispute settled in favour of the Monks of Reading, the Bishop of St. Andrews, on his side, appealed to the Roman See. The case being thus removed from the Scottish Court, Baliol had a plausible reason for refusing to proceed further in the matter. The English abbot's attorneys were not, however, satisfied with this move on the part of their opponents. Alleging a denial of justice in the Scottish Court, they appealed to King Edward as Lord Superior of the Kingdom of Scotland. He consequently issued a writ, dated at Dunton on the 2nd of September, 1293, by which he cited John Baliol to appear before him within a fortnight of the feast of St. Martin. Baliol disregarded not only this first summons, but also two others, which respectively called upon him to appear within the octave of the feast of the Holy Trinity, and within a month after Easter. A fourth writ was then forwarded to the Sheriff of Northumberland. It was to be served by him in person on the Scottish King, whom it commanded to appear before his suzerain within a month after Michaelmas, and to bring with him the record of the proceedings in the Scottish Court prior to the appeal to the Holy See. In the absence of further documents bearing on the case, it may be assumed that "the final overthrow of the paramount claims of England, which was one of the happy results of Bannockburn, of course precluded any further English interference with the agreement which had rescued the Priory of May from an alien mother".[222]

The first extant document subsequent to the severance of the connection between the Scottish cell and the English monastery is dated the 1st of July, 1318, and is a deed of gift by which William, Bishop of St. Andrews, makes over to the Canons of the Monastery of St. Andrews an annual pension of sixteen merks formerly due by the Priory of May to the Monastery of Reading.[223] In 1415 there is an obligation by Henry, Bishop of St. Andrews, for payment to the same canons of twenty pounds Scots out of the sequestrated revenues of the Priory of May. About the middle of the century the "Priory of Pittenweem or May" was annexed by Pope Paul II to the See of St. Andrews, as a mensal possession of the bishop's, during his lifetime. In 1472 this annexation was made perpetual by Pope Sixtus IV.[224]

In this deed of annexation, and in others anterior to it, from 1318 onwards, the alternative appellation "May or Pittenweem" occurs. According to the editor of the Records, the explanation seems to be "that the Monks of May had, from the first, erected an establishment of some sort on their manor of Pittenweem, on the mainland of Fife, which, after the priory was dissevered from the House of Reading and annexed to that of St. Andrews, became their chief seat, and that thereafter the monastery on the island was deserted in favour of Pittenweem, which was less exposed to the incursions of the English, nearer to the superior house at St. Andrews, and could be reached without the necessity of a precarious passage by sea".[225]

By a charter bearing the date of the 30th of January, 1549, John Roull, Prior of Pittenweem, feued the Isle of May to Patrick Learmonth of Dairsy, Provost of St. Andrews. The deed of conveyance describes the island as waste and spoiled by rabbits, which had once been an important source of revenue, but of which the warrens were now completely destroyed. As reasons justifying the alienation of the May, Roull referred to its remoteness and to the consequent difficulty of access to it, to its unprofitableness, and to its liability to invasion by those ancient enemies, the English, who on the outbreak of hostilities were wont to take possession of it, thus rendering it a useless adjunct to his monastery. Amongst the rights ceded to Learmonth was that of patronage of the church, which was to be maintained, and to which he was to appoint a chaplain, for the purpose of continuing divine service therein, out of reverence for the relics and sepulchres of the saints interred in the island, and for the reception of pilgrims and their offerings, according to the custom of old times, and even within memory of man.[226]

Numerous records testify to the reverence in which the island shrine of St. Adrian was held during the fifteenth and the sixteenth century. Thus, it is stated that when Mary of Gueldres was on her way to Scotland in June, 1449, to become the wife of James II, she anchored near the May, and performed her devotions in the chapel before proceeding on her voyage to Leith.[227] It may be seen from entries in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer for Scotland that King James IV was a very assiduous pilgrim to the island, and a liberal patron of the hermit who had established his cell there. They record a visit which he paid in 1503. It was not his first, as there is a brief notice of his having landed in 1490; but it is the earliest of which any details are supplied. He sailed from Leith, accompanied by a considerable retinue, amongst whom were the clerks of the Chapel Royal, who sang mass in the chapel on the island. After the celebration the Royal party took boat again, and, safely piloted in "the litill bark callit the Columb" by Robert Barton's mariners, who got fourteen shillings for their trouble, landed at Anstruther. On that occasion the hermit of May received nine shillings by the King's command. In the beginning of July, 1505, John Merchamestoun was commissioned to pass to Kinghorn, Dysart, and Kirkcaldy to seek mariners against the King's passing to May. Previous to the voyage, the King himself drew a hundred French crowns for his own purse. The men that rowed him to the ship received six shillings, and next day, those "that rowit the King fra his schippes to Maij, and to the schippes agane", got seven. Nine shillings were paid "to the botemen that brocht the Kingis stuf, and the maister cuke with the Kingis souper fra the schip to Maij, and fra Maij to the schip agane". The donation to the hermit amounted to five shillings and fourpence. Similar entries occur in 1506 and 1507; but those of the former of these years show additional sums for offerings of candles and of bread, and for a donation on behalf of the Queen. They also show that the royal ship was provided with nine cross-bows. In 1508 there is evidence of a shooting party on the May. On the last day of June in that year sixteen pence were paid "to ane row bote that hed the King about the Isle of Maij to schut at fowlis with the culveryn". There were other three boats "that hed in the Kingis folkis and chanounis, with pairt of lardis of the contree". It was in the Lion that James came over from the mainland; and amongst the provisions with which she was supplied for the voyage mention is made of one puncheon of wine, three barrels of ale, and one hundred and four score "breid of wheat". It is not unworthy of notice that a charter, dated only a few days before the death of James IV at Flodden, makes special mention of the May.[228] It erects certain lands into a free barony in favour of Sir Andrew Wood of Largo on condition that he or his heirs should accompany the King and his Consort, or their successors, on their pilgrimages to the island.