Soulseat Abbey

Saulseat or Soulseat Abbey was a Premonstratensian monastic community located in Wigtownshire, Galloway, in the Gaelic-speaking south-west of Scotland.

There is some evidence that Soulseat Abbey is Viride Stagnum ("green loch"), that is, the Cistercian monastery founded by St Malachy somewhere in Galloway in 1148.

Perhaps because of Anglophone folk etymology, the name came to imply a connection to both Saul and the soul, taking the Latin form Sedes Animarum ("Seat of the Spirit").

The site of Soulseat Abbey (now a mound with five 16th-century gravestones thereon) is on the promontory of a loch with a very narrow isthmus, thus perhaps fitting the description.

[1] The Obituary of Prémontré lists both King Fergus and Christian, bishop of Galloway (1154-86), as joint founders.