THE buildings of Arbroath
Abbey had to contend with many enemies, even during that period which may be
termed their lifetime of nearly four hundred years, from 1176 to 1560, among
which, besides the tear and wear incident to a period of such length, we
must reckon the elements of wind and fire, accidental and intentional, and
assaults both from English shipping and from the fierce barons of Angus.
During the melancholy year of
1272, on Saturday of the Octaves of the Epiphany, at midnight, a sudden and
violent wind from the north, with hail, tumbled down houses and lofty
buildings; and fire breaking out in consequence, burnt the church of
Arbroath and many others. Hector Boyce adds that church towers were burnt,
and that the bells (made of precious materials) were partly broken and
partly melted, the most remarkable of which were the bells hanging in the
towers of the church of Arbroath, and that the church was consumed along
with them.
We do not know if the
difference of form in the upper parts of the western towers of the Abbey
Church is to be traced to this event. Whether they were both originally
constructed after one model in their upper parts it is now
church should be repaired in
the roof of its choir, nave, and transepts. The roofs thus destroyed by
fire, were most probably those of the high central aisles, :as the side
aisles bear marks of having been arched or vaulted with stone. Resistance to
this ordinance, was to be visited with excommunication and imprisonment; and
two monks and two squires were appointed to collect and levy the dues and
rents of all the lands and churches of the monastery beyond the Mounth (that
is, beyond the Grampians), and in Mearns, Angus, Fife, and Strathearn, to be
expended in repairs by the master of the works, under the advice of the
Abbot. The Abbot was also enjoined to restrain his own expenses, to receive
no guests, but to live solitarily and privately in his own chamber; and each
monk was to be content with twelve merks yearly for food and clothing.
It was several years
afterwards, however, before these repairs were finished, and not at least
previous to 1395, the year succeeding that on which Abbot John Gedy
contracted to build the harbour. This is shown to have been the case by a
document in the Scottish language, being a contract betwixt Abbot John and
the Convent, and William of Tweeddale, plumber, burgess of St Andrews, for "theking
the nickel quer with lede." The great choir was probably the wide part of
the church immediately to the east of the transepts, opposite to the vestry.
This contract is dated 16th February 1394, or, according to our reckoning,
1395. The contractor is taken bound to thatch the great choir, and gutter it
all about with lead, for which the Abbot shall pay him thirty-five merks at
sundry terms as he is working, but five merks shall remain in the Abbot's
hands till the choir be thatched and parapeted with stone; and, when this is
done, he shall "dight" it about with lead sufficiently, as his craft asks;
and he is then to be paid the five merks, and a gown with a hood. The
contractor and the Abbot are each to provide a labourer till the work is
ended, The Abbot is to find all the material, and the contractor is to have
threepence, and one stone of each hundred, for his trouble in fining the
lead; and each day that be works he is to have a penny for his luncheon..
The indenture was then cut into two parts, and one-half given to each of the
parties, after receiving the seal of the other party.
This is the earliest document
in the Chartulary expressed in the Scottish dialect; and it possesses no
little interest, not only as sheaving the condition of workmen at that time,
but also as exhibiting a genuine specimen of lowland Scotch nearly five
hundred years ago; during which long period it is surprising to find that it
has undergone so few changes. After making allowance for antique spelling,
there are not above three words in this indenture, which are not still in
ordinary use. As an excellent specimen of old Angus Scotch, we give it
entire:—"This endentur beris wytnes that the yer of grace MCCCXCIIII.
[1394-5], the xvi. day of the moneth of Feveryer, this cuniwnde [covenant]
was made betwene Johnne Abbot of Aberbrothoc, of the to part, and Wilyam
Plumer of Tweddale, burges of the cite of Andirstoun [St Andrews], of the
tothir part; that is to say, That Wilyam Plumer sal theke the mekil quer
wyth lede, and guttyr yt al abowt sufficiandly wyth lede, for the quhilkis
thekyn and gutteryn the Abbot sal pay till him xxxv. marcis at syndry termys,
as he is wyrkand ; and of the xxxv. marcis, v. marcis sal dwel style in the
Abbotis hand quhillys the quer be thekyt and alurryt [battlemented] al
abowyt with stane, and quhen it is allurryt about with stane he sal dycht it
abowt wyth lede sufficiandly, as his craft askys; and quhen he has endyt
that werk he sal be payt of v. marcis and a gown with a hude till his
rauarde. Quhilk Wilyam Plumer sal fynd a man on his awn cost, and the Abbot
and Convent a man alsua of thar cost quhil the werk be fully ly endyt. The
Abbot and the convent call fynd al maner of gratht that pertenys to that
work quhil is wyrkande. Willam sal haf alsua for ilk stane fynyne that he
fynys of lode iij d. [three pennies], and a stane of ilk hynder that he
fynys til his travel ; and that day that he wyrkis he sal haf a penny till
his noynsankys [luncheon]. In the wytnes of this thyng to the to part of
there [thir] endentur to the Abbot and the Convent for to dwel the selis of
John Brog and of John Prechurrys, burges of the burgh of Abirbrothoc, are to
put; the tothir part anens Wilyam of Tweddal, plummer, the comoun sele of
the chapyter of Abirbrothoc remanys selyt. Dowyn and gyffyn the yer and the
day of the moneth before nemmyt." William Tweeddale finished his plumber
work about fifteen months after the date of this contract. On 21st May 1396
he granted a receipt to the Abbot for £20 sterling, paid to him for the
"architecture of the great choir," and in full of all his claims for
purifying or fining the lead, for his "nonesankys," and the gown with the
hood, as specified in the indenture. The Latin words "architectura magni
chori" in this receipt seem to be used as equivalent to " theking the mekil
quer" in the Scottish indenture. Did the term architecture at this period
denote the art of constructing arched roofs?
It has been said that the
Abbey Church was again more or less damaged and burnt in 1445, on the
occasion of the encounter between the partizans of the Lindsays and Ogilvies
already referred to. The Hamilton papers (Maitland Miscel., iv. 96) bear
that the English council reported to King Henry VIII. that one Wishart,
among other enterprises, undertook that a body of troops, to be paid by the
English King, "joining with the power of the Earl Marshall, the master of
Rothes, the laird of Calder, and others of the Lord Gray's friends, will
take upon them to destroy the Abbey and Town of Arbroth, being the
Cardinal's, and all the other bishops' and Abbots' houses and countries on
that side of the water thereabouts." It appears that King Henry, in his rage
against the Cardinal, gave them every encouragement "effectually to burn and
destroy;" but there is no evidence that the undertaking was accomplished.
We have not seen any
statement from a writer co-temporary with the Reformation that the buildings
of this Abbey suffered at the hands of the Reformers, although it is
probable that, as was done elsewhere, they burned the wooden images,
beheaded and defaced the stone ones, knocked down the crosses and altars,
and damaged the tombs. Neither have we seen any authentic confirmation of
the popular tradition that the church was pillaged and then burnt by
Ochterlony of Kelly at that period, in consequence of a feud with the Abbot;
and from the great power of the Hamilton family, one of which held the
Abbacy at the time, such an occurrence is far from being probable. Had such
evidence been accessible, it was not likely to have escaped the editor of
the second volume of the Chartulary, who is altogether silent as to any
conflagration of the church at the period in question. The desiderated
evidence may possibly yet be obtained; but, in the meantime, we think it
possible that the story of the final alleged burning of 1539 or 1560 may
have been derived from, or have been confounded with, some of the earlier
burnings. We may also remark that those parts of the walls which remain do
not exhibit any of that calcined appearance which we would expect to find in
a building destroyed by fire; although the lapse of time may have been
sufficient to obliterate such marks.
As to the Reformers, there is
much truth in the following words of one who did not hold them in the
highest respect: "I need only remark of the burning of the town of Dornoch
and the Cathedral, in 1570, that here, as at Elgin, and in the case of many
of our monasteries and churches demolished in the English wars, the disgrace
does not rest on the Reformers, often blamed for what they did not as for
what they did destroy." (.Iaculloch's letters on the Highlands, ii. 478.) In
justice to them, we may add that it will be difficult to point to a single
parish or town church, the walls of which were injured by them, farther
than, perhaps, by the loss of crosses or statues; and the latter class of
ornaments does not seem to have been a large one in Scotland. There is no
evidence that the walls of the great churches north of Scone, including
those of Dunkeld, Dundee, Arbroath, .Montrose, Brechin, New and Old
Aberdeen, Elgin, and Kirkwall, suffered any damage at their hands. While we
know that, to the English is to be attributed the destruction of much of the
Abbey Churches of Haddington, Kelso, Dryburgh, Melrose, and Holyrood.
The statements made by
Spottiswood and many others on this subject are very exaggerated. In regard
to the year 1599, they speak as if a mob had in a few hours "razed to the
ground" great monasteries and churches, a feat not so easily performed;
whereas, at Perth, where the spoliation of monasteries was the completest of
any, the walls at least were left standing. The Act of Council passed in
1561 had reference to the destruction of monuments of idolatry, within the
churches and monasteries, rather than to the buildings; and although Knox
writes that the Act was followed by the burning of the Abbey of Paisley, and
the demolition of those of Failford, Kilwinning, and part of Crossragwel,
without doubt because they belonged to Popish dignitaries, Mr D. Laing has
shewn (Knox i. 167), that the destruction was far less complete than the
words used would lead one to suppose. A fair idea of this purging process at
the large churches may be obtained from the letter by Argyle, Moray, and
Ruthven, in which they order the [wooden] images of Dunkeld Cathedral to be
burnt, and the altars to be cast down, with the following caution—"Tak guid
heyd that neither the dasks, windocks nor durris be ony hurt or broken--eyther
glassin wark or iron wark." A few facts are worth more than whole pages of
declamation. After Darnley's death, in February 1567-8, the Privy Council
ordered the lead to be taken off the roofs of the cathedrals of Elgin and
Aberdeen for payment of wages to soldiers. But when the power of the
Presbyterians was very high, the General Assembly of 1587-8 sent a petition
to the king regretting the decay of the cathedrals of Glasgow and Dunblane,
and the Abbey Church of Dunfermline, "which are ruinous, and without hastie
[immediate] repaire are not able to be remedied;" and asking him to cause
the Abbot of Dunfermline and the Bishop of Dunblane to repair their
respective churches, and to order the falling lead of Glasgow Cathedral to
be employed in bearing the cost of slating that church.
The walls of St Andrews
Cathedral, Elgin Cathedral, Arbroath Abbey, the chancel of Brechin Church,
and the choirs and transepts of the churches of Dunfermline and Old
Aberdeen, seem to have been left to go to ruin as useless erections. The
choir and transepts of Holyrood Church were recommended by the Bishop of
Orkney to be taken down as "superfluous ruinous parts," in the year 1570.
The funds which ought to have been employed in their repair having been
appropriated by the monarchs and their favourites, many of the walls of
these great buildings fell by their own weight, assisted by the frosts of
winter, the rains of summer, and the mattocks and pickaxes of every one who
wished to obtain stones. The Reformers ordered the church of Restalrig to be
destroyed "as a monument of idolatry," after the nave of St Anthony's
Church, in Leith, had been assigned as the more convenient place of worship
for the people of that parish, the other portions of that church having been
destroyed at the siege of Leith; but the demolition of Gothic architecture
in the time of the Reformers bears it very small proportion to that which
was witnessed during last, and the early part of this century. Instances of
this may be seen in the ruin of Melrose Abbey, after public worship ceased
to be held in it, the ruin of the nave of Holyrood Church, by an absurd
stone roof laid upon it, the substitution of the Gothic Town Churches of St
Andrews, Cupar, Dysart, and Breehin, by the present lumpish buildings which
were put in their place; not to mention the recent destruction of the noble
Trinity College Church of Edinburgh, to make room for a railway shed.
It is time that the memory of
our Reformers should be vindicated from the aspersions cast on it in regard
to this subject. It cannot be denied that mobs at that, as well as at any
other time, have committed unjustifiable excesses; but any one who has read
Knox's lamentation on the burning of Scone Abbey will see that the more
learned among them were proud of their ecclesiastical buildings; and the
existence of St Giles, Greyfriars, and Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, St
Michael's, Linlithgow, the Abbey Church of Paisley, the Greyfriars Church of
Stirling, the cathedrals of Glasgow, Dunblane, and Kirkwall, the churches of
Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen, shew that they efficiently maintained those
churches where there were congregations to be accommodated; and if the
supernumerary erections, such as St Andrews Cathedral, Arbroath Abbey, and
other monasteries, went to ruin, that ought not to be charged against the
Reformed Church (which never had any spare funds to expend on what to it
were useless walls), but to the nobility and gentry, and the Scottish
Exchequer, who grasped the rents and lands endowed for their support, and
not a shilling of which they ever thought of employing in their repair till
the present century had considerably advanced.
We have little information as
to the erection and repairing of the subsidiary buildings of the Abbey, nor
is this to be expected. The Chartulary scarcely contains a reference to any
individual building except the church and its altars, the chapter house and
vestry, the dormitory, and the "Abbot's Hall," which we believe to be the
modern Abbey House. The dormitory contained in its upper storey the sleeping
apartments of the monks. It is described as in course of renewal in the year
1470, and is referred to in several of the monastic writs. In a lease of
that year, by Abbot Malcolm to John Chepman, styled "our familiar," the
Abbot let to him, "for his labour for bringing wood from Norway for the use
of our dormitory, a toft in our elimosinary, and four acres of land in
Pondirlaw, for five years : and when the said John is in our service he
shall have the toft and four acres for his reward, and when he is not in our
service he shall pay for the elimosinary (toft) twenty shillings, and for
the four acres of Pondirlaw four bolls of wheat yearly 'at two terms." On
20th May of the following year, Abbot Richard leased the teinds of the
church of Inverness to David, Bishop of Murray, for six years, at the rent
of £53, 6s. 8d. Scots, "for the building of our dormitory erected of new."
The dormitory formed the upper storey of the range of building which has the
line of its roof so distinctly marked on the gable of the south transept of
the church. It had a private door (now built up) through the transept wall
for access to the church at midnight masses. There are indications in the
Chartulary that at this period the restoration of roofs and other wood work
about the Abbey had not been confined to the dormitory, but was carried out
on a more extensive scale. The buildings were nearly three hundred years
old, and we may easily suppose that the wood work of the twelfth century
stood in need of much repair by the fifteenth century.
On 25th July 1474 the Abbot
and Convent entered into a contract with Stephen Lyell, of St Andrews, to
act as their carpenter in all kinds of wood work to be required within the
monastery, or wherever it pleased them, during his lifetime. He was to
receive twenty merks Scots annually for his wages, and his meat and drink.
If lie worked for the Abbot and Convent beyond the monastery, at the repair
of their churches, he was to be allowed four pennies for his expenses each
working day. He was to begin work every day at five o'clock forenoon, and
finish at seven o'clock afternoon, except in winter. If he continued at work
all day he was to have "ad gentaculum suum" [f], and his servant was to
receive a small loaf from the hall, and a drink with the convent servants,
and have his afternoon [four hours] for his refreshment. And he was not to
work beyond the monastery without the license of the Abbot.
Below the dormitory there
still remain the vestiges of an arched passage running from east to west,
adorned with seats on each side, doors at each end, and having the roof
supported by ribs ending in ornamented or flowered corbels. This passage led
from the cloisters to the chapter house lying to the east, and of which only
a fragment of the south-east corner remains. The chapter house was a lofty
and spacious erection fit for convening the chapter, with room for deputies,
visitors, &c., having arches springing from the walls, and meeting most
probably in a pillar at the centre of the floor, as was the usual mode of
constructing chapter houses of large monasteries. The Abbey of Arbroath
could not have wanted such a necessary building as a chapter house during
the 230 years that elapsed before Abbot Panter erected the much smaller
building for a vestry adjoining the church, which is now erroneously styled
the chapter house, but which could not possibly have ever served that
purpose. The south wall of the chapter house remained till 1780, and
exhibited a large arched door to the westward of the existing fragment.
The lower flat of the
building, which abutted on the south transept wall may have been the
refectory or dining hall of the Abbey; or it may possibly have been the
frater hall, or place of meeting of the monastic brethren, in which case the
refectory would probably occupy the space betwixt it and the Abbot's house,
on the south, or that building which had run southward from the nave of the
church, on the west side of the inner or cloister court,—so that the great
church on the north, the transept and dormitory on the east, the refectory
and Abbot's house on the south, and the building referred to on the west,
formed what was termed this inner or cloister court of the Abbey. The
Abbot's house was originally a square tower (forming the south-eastern
portion of the present structure), the basement floor of which was a great
kitchen with groined arches and pillars, and a gracefully-moulded door,
which still remain, and are well worth a visit. The cloisters or covered
walks, as in most great monasteries, appear to have run along the interior
of the four sides of the square court which lay on the south side of the
nave of the church. A door led into the church at the north-west corner of
the cloisters, and another door entered the church at the north-east corner.
This door bears marks of a great degree of ornament, the mouldings being
enriched with carving of open filigree work of a kind superior to any other
part of the remaining buildings. It was the private entrance of the Abbot
and monks into the church. The great western door was only opened on high
festival occasions; while the ordinary entrance into the church for the
public was by the north door of the nave, which still remains close to the
north-west tower, and exhibits much fine taste and beautiful specimens of
plain mouldings.
The Abbey buildings erected
to the westward of the great portcullis gate were more specially
appropriated to the civil department of the conventual establishment. The
arched apartment, now almost demolished, which extended from the gate to the
corner tower, is believed to have been the regality court-House. The square
donjon tower still remaining served the purposes both of fortress and
prison, and on that account this part of the buildings was sometimes termed
the Castle. The lower apartment was a dismal dungeon, without light, and
seems to have been accessible only by a hole in the vault, through which the
unhappy prisoner was let down. This was the massimore of the Abbey, or the
vale in pace., so called from the irony of the sentence, "Go in peace." The
apartment next above this vault was also probably used as a prison; but the
upper apartments of the tower contain fire-places and recesses, and exhibit
such signs of comfort as lead to the conclusion that they were intended for
other inmates than prisoners, and were most probably rooms for the safe
custody of the Abbey records. This building was finished at the top like
other towers of the period, with a bartizan and parapet surrounding a centre
,sloping roof rising several feet above the parapet. This upper part, with
the bartizan, has been taken down, apparently from fear of accidents by its
falling.
At the south-west corner of
the tower may still be traced the height of the western precinct wall, which
started from this point and ran straight down along the east side of the
High Street till it approached near to Allan Street, and then turned a
little way to the east, and again to the south, and terminated at the
south-west corner of the modern Parish Church. It had a round tower at the
point where it left the High Street, and the old Church steeple was the
square tower which stood at its southern extremity. The line of the wall
betwixt these towers forms the boundary of the burgh, and runs southward
behind the houses of the High Street and School Wynd. At the Church steeple
the precinct wall turned to the east and ran up to Hay's Lane, at a few
yards' distance from what was then the high road to Montrose, the
intervening strip of ground (on which the Parish Church, the houses in
Academy Street, and others are built) being known by the name of the "Derngate
Rig;" while this part of the wall was styled by the Abbots - "our Red Wall."
The Dern Yett, or private gate, stood at the south-east corner of the
"precinct. Part of the stonework of this gate existed till within five or
six years ago. From the Dern Yett the wall ran northward along Hay's Lane,
where a portion of it may yet be seen, and continued along the east end of
the gardens of East Abbey Street, and the east side of the Convent Green,
till it reached the south-east corner of the burying-ground, where it turned
to the west, along the line of the present wall, and joined the east end of
the great church. The church and other conventual buildings still existing
formed the defence of the monastery along the remaining part of the northern
boundary.
The history of the Abbey
buildings during the last three centuries may be stated in a short
paragraph. In regard to monastic edifices, the first two hundred and fifty
years of that period were "a time to break down" as the former centuries had
been "a time to build up." It is probable that, not long after the roof of
the church was removed, the upper portions of the east and west gables would
fall by their own weight, in consequence of being rent by frost and rain.
The north walls and transept adjoining the cemetery seem to have been
industriously levelled to the ground at an early period. The dilapidated
state of the walls would lead, under the pretence of safety to lives, to the
undermining and fall of the great central tower (of the form and termination
of which we have no record), and of the great columns with their
superincumbent arches, triforium and clere storey. Many cartloads of the
stones of these columns and arches were recently found at the demolition of
an old mansion removed to make room for the British Linen Company's Bank in
Arbroath.
The upper part of the
north-west tower was blown down by a storm in 1739. Part of the south-west
tower fell in 1772, and another part fell in 1799. In 1800 the Town Council
of Arbroath demolished the groined arched roof of the great gateway, with
the centre wall where the hinged gate and side wicket were placed. The
Magistrates of the burgh had acquired from King George I. a feu grant of the
ground within the precinct lying to the south of the Abbey buildings. They
formed this ground into streets, and sub-feued it to private parties, up to
the walls of the church; and this led to the removal of the greater part of
the boundary wall, and of the walls of the other conventual buildings,
excepting the few fragments which still exist. In the beginning of this
century the Scottish Court of Exchequer began to take some steps toward the
conservation of these remains; and about 1835 the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests cleared out the area of the Church, and repaired and partially
restored those parts of the walls of which the original form could be
correctly traced. These repairs have been continued till the present time
under the direction of the Commissioners of Works, by virtue of
parliamentary grants, which it is earnestly hoped may soon be resumed on a
scale so liberal as to admit of the purchase of the Abbot's house, the only
portion of the original buildings now in the hands of private parties.
Although this house has been denuded of its antique internal furnishings and
its battlemented exterior, it is still well worth careful preservation, not
only on account of its general form, and fine vaulted basement storey, being
the patchwork of several ages, but also on account of its being the frequent
residence of the patriot King, Robert Bruce. |