Life in the Pre-Reformation Cathedrals.
By A. H. Millar, F.S.A.Scot.
The history of every Scottish city or burgh of importance is intimately connected with one of two possible originals. Each burgh has taken its origin either from a feudal castle or from a cathedral or abbey. This statement may seem very sweeping in its character, but a close examination will prove that it is founded on fact. Edinburgh, for instance, grew up around the ancient Castle—Eadwin’s burh—while the Cathedral of St. Giles and all the subordinate churches were adjuncts of the secular centre. The true ecclesiastical point of origin in Edinburgh was St. Margaret’s Chapel, and it still stands within the Castle walls. Glasgow, on the other hand, took its origin from the Cathedral. That building formed the nucleus of the original city, and the first houses in Glasgow were the Bishop’s Castle beside the Cathedral, and the dwellings and manses of the ecclesiastics in its immediate vicinity. It was as a “Bishop’s burgh,” or community under ecclesiastical control, that Glasgow first had a corporate existence. The Bishop or Archbishop nominated the civic rulers, and though an attempt was made shortly after the Reformation to abrogate priestly control, and to transfer the power of the election of the Provost to the Guildry, the Protestant Archbishops strove to retain this right up till the early years of the seventeenth century. In 1639 the Town Council for the first time elected the Provost and Bailies, but even then the consent of the Duke of Lennox—who had received the secularised property of the Archbishopric—had to be obtained; and it was not until 1690 that the citizens of Glasgow obtained the right to choose municipal governors.
These two forms of origin may be traced in all the important Scottish burghs. Stirling found its centre in the Royal Castle; Dunfermline owed its existence to the Abbey. Perth originated from the ancient Church of St. John, and was long known as “Saint John’s toun”; Inverness clustered around its baronial Castle. The Round Tower and the Cathedral of Brechin were the starting points of that burgh; and Paisley dates its history from the foundation of its Abbey. St. Andrews and Arbroath bear still unmistakable evidences of their ecclesiastical origin; while Dundee found its first nucleus in its Castle, and after the destruction of that fortress the centre was shifted to the magnificent church of St. Mary, one of the largest parish churches in Scotland in the fifteenth century. It is clear, therefore, that life in the pre-Reformation Cathedrals and ecclesiastical buildings had an important influence in forming and fashioning the history of the people. This fact is too frequently overlooked by modern historians.
Only two of the pre-Reformation Cathedrals in Scotland have survived unimpaired the iconoclastic zeal of the Reformers. St. Andrews Cathedral, the seat of the Primate of Scotland, was partially devastated by the Protestant mob, and weather and storm completed the ruin thus begun. Dunblane Cathedral has recently been restored and rescued from the wrecked condition in which it lay for centuries. The restoration of Brechin Cathedral is now (1898) in progress; and the Cathedral of St. Giles, Edinburgh, has only been brought back to some of its pristine magnificence within the last quarter of a century. The two Cathedrals which escaped the fury of the Reformers are, the fanes dedicated to St. Mungo (St. Kentigern) at Glasgow, and to St. Magnus at Kirkwall, Orkney. Both these Cathedrals had Episcopal Palaces adjoining the main structures, and from the history of these it might be possible to spell out the conditions of life during their palmy days. As Glasgow Cathedral shows in a remarkable manner the gradual development of a great commercial city from a small ecclesiastical burgh, and thus supplies a connecting link between remote times and the present day, it will be most convenient to treat it as a typical example of the far-reaching influence of early ecclesiastical modes of life.
Glasgow Cathedral occupies a very peculiar site. It is built on ground that slopes rapidly down from the level of the floor of the nave towards the bed of the Molendinar Burn. So steep is the declivity that a Lower Church—wrongly called the Crypt, but really an Ecclesia Inferior—is built under the floor of the Choir, only a few steps being necessary in passing from the Nave to the Choir, so as to give the requisite height to the roof of the “Laigh Kirk.” Such a site would not have been chosen by a modern architect for a building of the same magnitude, because of the structural difficulties it presented; yet it has been asserted by Mr John Honeyman, an experienced architect who has made a special study of Glasgow Cathedral, that the whole design of this magnificent structure “was carefully thought out and settled before a stone was laid. It is a skilful and homogeneous design, which could only be produced by a man of exceptional ability and of great experience. Nothing has been left to chance or the sweet will of the co-operating craftsmen, but the one master-mind has dictated every moulding and every combination, and has left the impress of his genius upon it all.” (“Book of Glasgow Cathedral,” p. 274.) It is a remarkable fact that the name of this gifted architect is quite unknown, though a theory has been advanced that seeks to identify him with a certain John Morvo or Moray, a man of Scottish descent, born and trained in Paris, who was also architect of Melrose Abbey. But nothing absolutely certain is known as to the architect who planned Glasgow Cathedral; and this is no unusual circumstance in the history of other ecclesiastical buildings. Referring to this fact Mr Gladstone once wrote thus:—“It has been observed as a circumstance full of meaning, that no man knows the names of the architects of our Cathedrals. They left no record of themselves upon the fabrics, as if they would have nothing there that could suggest any other idea than the glory of God, to whom the edifices were devoted for perpetual and solemn worship; nothing to mingle a meaner association with the profound sense of His presence; or as if in the joy of having built Him a house there was no want left unfulfilled, no room for the question whether it is good for a man to live in posthumous renown.”
Though the name of not one of the great architects who designed the Scottish Cathedrals has been preserved—unless we accept the doubtful theory as to John Morvo already mentioned—it is evident that the ecclesiastical designer must have been an important personage in every religious community from the beginning of the twelfth century until the Reformation. In those remote days it was not given to any architect to witness the completion of his design. That unique experience was reserved for Sir Christopher Wren, who superintended the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral from its foundation till the last stone was laid. Many circumstances prevented the early architects from witnessing the end of their labours. The poverty of the country, the perpetual warfare which ravaged Scotland, the impossibility of employing the wandering Lodges of Masons from the Continent so continuously as to ensure the rapid execution of the work, and the frequent changes in the Bishop or Archbishop who had the control of the building, necessarily spread the labour over centuries. Glasgow Cathedral was begun by Bishop John Achaius during his episcopate, which extended from 1115 to 1147. It was not completed till the time of Archbishop Blacader, who died in 1508. During these four centuries the original designs by the nameless first architect must have been carefully preserved, and handed down through a succession of equally unknown architects, until the whole work was finished. Yet all these men, whose brilliant ideas and excellent workmanship are at once the admiration and the despair of modern architects, will ever remain anonymous. The Kings and Princes who contributed towards the cost of the structure, the Bishops who added various portions to the building at long intervals, and the Archbishops who consecrated these additions are all carefully recorded; but the architects from whose fertile brains the ideas sprang, and the workmen who laboriously realised their dreams, are alike unknown.
The Cathedral of Glasgow took its origin from a cella erected on the bank of the Molendinar Burn, by the pious St. Kentigern. This early Christian Apostle was the natural son of Eugenius or Ewen III., King of Reged. His mother was Thanew, daughter of Loth, King of Lothian. Her name survives in a corrupted form as “St. Enoch,” there being now several Scottish churches so designated, though she is distinctly denominated “St. Thanew” in pre-Reformation documents. The life of Kentigern is very fully detailed in the biography written by Jocelyn, a monk of Furness, at the request of Herbert, Bishop of Glasgow (died 1164), and is included in the “Lives of the Scottish Saints.” The careful examination of this biography by Skene gives the probable date of Kentigern’s birth as 518, his consecration as Bishop of Glasgow at 543; his foundation of Llanelwy (now St. Asaphs) in Wales at 553; his return to Glasgow at 581; and his death at 603. Kentigern was visited by St. Columba at Glasgow before 597, and his popular name of St. Mungo (mon gah == my friend) was then conferred upon him by Columba. From the time of Kentigern’s death until the twelfth century nothing definite is known regarding the history of Glasgow. Within the present Cathedral the site of “St. Mungo’s tomb” is pointed out; and it is not improbable that the magnificent pile was erected on this spot to commemorate the founder of Glasgow. During the bishopric of Kentigern it is not likely that there was any building on the present site of the Cathedral save the little cella or chapel of the Bishop, and possibly a few of the houses inhabited by the Culdee priests. It should be remembered that the Culdees were not celibates, but lived with their families in these rude dwellings, which thus formed the nucleus of modern Glasgow. When the ground beside the Cathedral was turned into a grave-yard every trace of these houses must have been removed. It is possible that St. Kentigern was buried within his chapel; and if so, the tomb of St. Mungo, in the crypt of the Cathedral, will mark the place where that primitive structure stood.