Christianity in Medieval Scotland

After the collapse of Roman authority in the fifth century, Christianity is presumed to have survived among the British enclaves in the south of what is now Scotland, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced.

In the late Middle Ages the problems of schism in the Catholic Church allowed the Scottish Crown to gain greater influence over senior appointments and two archbishoprics had been established by the end of the fifteenth century.

Historians have discerned a decline in traditional monastic life in the late Middle Ages, but the mendicant orders of friars grew, particularly in the expanding burghs, emphasised preaching and ministering to the population.

Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia (later the northern part of Northumbria), which reached into what are now the Borders of Scotland in the south-east.

[8][9] There was a church dedicated to him at Whithorn in the sixth century and from there St Kentigern seems to have created a new centre of worship at Govan or Inchinnan, from where Christian influence extended across the Strathclyde region.

[16] Evidence for this includes the fact that St. Patrick, active in the fifth century, referred in a letter to "apostate Picts", indicating that they had previously been Christian, but had abandoned the faith.

It is also used as a general description for the Christian establishment of northern Britain prior to the twelfth century, when new religious institutions and ideologies of primarily French origin began to take root in Scotland.

Subsequent missions from Canterbury then helped convert the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, reaching Northumbria in the early eighth century, where Iona had already begun to have a presence.

[12] In addition scholars have identified significant characteristics of the organisation of Irish and Scottish Christianity as relaxed ideas of clerical celibacy, intense secularisation of ecclesiastical institutions, and the lack of a diocesan structure.

Before 714 he wrote to Ceolfrith, abbot of Wearmouth, asking for a formal refutation of the Irish position over the calculation of the date of Easter and for help in building a stone church "in the manner of the Romans".

[14] Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles and the Hebrides eventually fell to the Pagan Norsemen, curtailing the influence of the church in the Highlands and Islands.

[39] Some early Scottish establishments had dynasties of abbots, who were often secular clergy with families, most famously at Dunkeld and Brechin; but these also existed across Scotland north of the Forth, as at Portmahomack, Mortlach, and Abernethy.

[42] While the official conversion of Scandinavian Scotland took place at the end of the tenth century, there is evidence that Christianity had already made inroads into the Viking controlled Highland and Islands.

[46] One of the major effects of the conversion of the Vikings was to bring an end to plundering raids on Christian sites, which may have allowed them to recover some of their status as cultural and intellectual centres.

[47] The introduction of continental forms of monasticism to Scotland is associated with Saxon princess Queen Margaret (c. 1045–93), the second wife of Máel Coluim III (r. 1058–93), although her exact role is unclear.

[38] Subsequent foundations under Margaret's sons, Edgar (r. 1097–1107), Alexander (r. 1107–24) and particularly David I (r. 1124–53), tended to be of the reformed type that followed the lead set by Cluny Abbey in the Loire from the late tenth century.

The Augustinians, dedicated to the Order of Saint Augustine and founded in northern Italy in the eleventh century, established their first priory in Scotland at Scone, with the sponsorship by Alexander I in 1115.

[50] Cluniacs founded an abbey at Paisley, the Premonstratensians, originating at Prémontré near Laon in Picardy, had foundations at Whithorn and the Valliscaulians, named after their first monastery at Val-des-Choux in Burgundy, at Pluscarden.

[53] One of the most important cults in Scotland, that of St Andrew, was established on the east coast at Kilrymont by the Pictish kings as early as the eighth century.

[24] The site was renewed as a focus for devotion with the patronage of Queen Margaret,[55] who also became important after her canonisation in 1250 and after the ceremonial transfer of her remains to Dunfermline Abbey, as one of the most revered national saints.

[54] In the late Middle Ages the "international" cults, particularity those centred on the Virgin Mary and Christ, but also St Joseph, St. Anne, the Three Kings and the Apostles, would become more significant in Scotland.

In 1126 a new bishop was appointed to the southern Diocese of Galloway based at Whithorn, who offered his submission to York, a practice which would continue until the fifteenth century.

When Bishop John died in 1147 David was able to appoint another Tironensian monk, Herbert abbot of Kelso, as his successor and submission to York continued to be withheld.

However, unlike Ireland which had been granted four Archbishoprics in the same century, Scotland received no Archbishop and the whole Ecclesia Scoticana, with individual Scottish bishoprics (except Whithorn/Galloway), became the "special daughter of the see of Rome".

This led to the placement of clients and relatives of the king in key positions, including James IV's illegitimate son Alexander, who was nominated as Archbishop of St. Andrews at the age of 11, intensifying royal influence and also opening the Church to accusations of venality and nepotism.

[61] James IV used his pilgrimages to Tain and Whithorn to help bring the respective regions of Ross and Galloway, which lay on the edges of the kingdom, under royal authority.

[58] Traditional Protestant historiography tended to stress the corruption and unpopularity of the late Medieval Scottish church, but more recent research has indicated the ways in which it met the spiritual needs of different social groups.

[61][62] Historians have discerned a decline of monastic life in this period, with many religious houses keeping smaller numbers of monks, and those remaining often abandoning communal living for a more individual and secular lifestyle.

However, the number of poor clerical livings and a general shortage of clergy in Scotland, particularly after the Black Death, meant that in the fifteenth century the problem intensified.

[67] There were also further attempts to differentiate Scottish liturgical practice from that in England, with a printing press established under royal patent in 1507 to replace the English Sarum Use for services.