Isle of May Priory

[5] Adrian of May later built a monastery on the Isle of May, which likely consisted of a series of Irish-style beehive-shaped houses and a chapel.

At some point during the Middle Ages, Ethernan got conflated with Adrian of May, whose shrine attracted pilgrims for the next several centuries.

His cult is most likely a misremembering of Ethernan from a time when the Picts had ceased to function as an ethnic group within Scotland and ancient martyrdoms in Britain and Ireland were commonly attributed to Vikings.

The English Benedictines erected a small monastery dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, with a shrine to St.

In the late thirteenth century, a jurisdictional dispute arose between the Bishop of St. Andrews and Reading over ownership of the island.