Cistercians and Saints in Scotland: Cults and the Monastic Context

Abstract

While Cistercian liturgical practices generally maintained a high degree of uniformity, that deviations from standardized practice consistently occurred in the celebration of saints is evidenced by the highly individualized composition of kalendars and litanies. Some of these variances emerged through special permissions while others were unsanctioned additions. This article utilizes the surviving evidence for Cistercian abbeys in Scotland to explore the unique blend of saints commemorated at particular houses, demonstrating that monastic observance reflects local devotion to cults within varying regional contexts. It is suggested that this ‘responsiveness’ to lay religiosity goes beyond the institutional appropriation of local culture, and should be viewed within the context of patterns of monastic recruitment from particular localities. Thus, the types of pressures felt from external lay populations, often cited as the key factor in shaping Cistercian interaction with saints’ cults, were just as likely to come from within the monastery itself.

One of the concerns of the emerging Cistercian Order of the 12th century was the reduction of the liturgy, which included greatly restricting the observance of saints’ days. ¹ As Chrysogonus Waddell has identified, saints accorded feasts within the earliest Cistercian kalendar were limited to those ‘common to all Churches of Roman origin,’ though many were subsequently added or had their commemorations raised in rank by official statutes of the General Chapter. ² Cistercian liturgical practices remained centrally controlled throughout the medieval period and generally maintained a high degree of uniformity, despite the vast geographical spread of the Order’s empire. Yet, one area where divergences are consistently evident is in the celebration of saints. Indeed, variances in the composition of kalendars and litanies were individualized to the extent that the inclusion of particular cults can often be used to identify the house of origin for monastic manuscripts. ³

In some cases, these differences emerged through special permissions for particular feasts which were requested by and granted to regional groupings or individual houses. ⁴ The issuing of such concessions by the General Chapter was at its peak during the 13th century. ⁵ These saints can usually be shown to have held specific significance for the applicants. Authorization was given in 1217 to houses in the diocese of Cologne for St Ursula and her virgins, and in 1235 in the diocese of Liege for St Lambert. Instances of individual permissions include St Eligius in 1221 for Ourscamp Abbey in Picardy, and St Stephen the following year for Egris Abbey in Hungary. ⁶ Additionally, that there was widespread unsanctioned observance of saints is also clear from the extant liturgical evidence. English examples include St Swithin in a Cistercian missal which probably originated in Winchester diocese, perhaps at Waverley Abbey, and Sts Chad, Milburga, and Winifrede in another which most likely belonged to Buildwas Abbey. These ‘illicit’ saints were celebrated with orthodox Cistercian formulas, for instance St Nicholas’s mass for Chad and St Lucy’s mass for Winifrede. ⁷

The existing historiography concerning Cistercian engagement with saints’ cults has highlighted the importance of local factors in shaping monastic practice. At an institutional level, the Cistercian Order has been credited with being responsive to local contexts, something noted as key to the success of its houses in such a broad range of settings. Much of this discussion has focused upon the impact of external pressures to meet the expectations of the laity and the conscious appropriation of local culture, often as a means of fostering a sense of legitimacy or for financial gain. ⁸ For example, Keith Stringer has argued that, in Galloway, the Cistercians exploited native religious heritage in the form of saints’ cults as a way of making their arrival ‘more palatable’ to local society. ⁹ Certainly, the cult of saints played a crucial role in medieval religiosity and thus represented a key point of interaction between Cistercian institutions and their localities. As such, the evidence found in liturgical sources has the potential to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the ways in which the practices of individual Cistercian houses engaged with, and indeed reflected, local religious culture.

This type of evidence survives for four medieval Cistercian abbeys in Scotland. All of these manuscripts contain divergences from the standard Cistercian liturgy, and the blend of saints for each was unique. These variances have not been the subject of contextualized or comparative analysis. However, the Scottish Cistercians have been criticized in this area for ignoring local customs due to a perceived lack of ‘native’ saints in monastic kalendars. ¹⁰ But medieval religious culture was far more nuanced than this, and so talk of ‘Scottish saints’ in a geographical sense misses the point. The manuscripts contain numerous non-Scottish but also non-Cistercian saints, which are no less indicative of the impact of local cultural contexts. While there is not space here to offer a comprehensive discussion of the contents of each source, this article will seek to highlight key points of interest in the context of the cultural environment of medieval Scotland and the place of the Cistercians within it. ¹¹

The sources under discussion here are: a 14th-century (c.1356xc.1366?) breviary of Sweetheart Abbey which contains a kalendar; ¹² a 15th-century (c.1449–c.1467) psalter of Culross Abbey which contains a kalendar and a litany; ¹³ a kalendar of Coupar Angus Abbey dated 1482; ¹⁴ and a 16th-century psalter of Kinloss Abbey which contains a litany only. ¹⁵ These represent the only such survivals for Scottish Cistercian abbeys but cover a wide geographical spread, from Galloway in the south-west, through Fife and Tayside, to Moray in the north-east. The majority of the focus here will be on the kalendars, since the development of the Cistercian litany of saints is far harder to trace in the surviving records. The kalendars of Culross and Sweetheart differentiate between two main rankings (though these details are not always given): feasts of 12 lessons, with one or two masses, and commemorations. Feasts of particular significance are recorded in red. The Coupar kalendar does not contain details of ranking or differentiate by colour.

It should be noted that, of the four abbeys under consideration here, Coupar Angus is the only one for which extensive medieval documentation survives. It is also the only house which has thus far been the subject of detailed study. ¹⁶ For this reason, it has been possible to discuss the saints within the Coupar kalendar in more detail within the context of monastic property-holding, such as landownership and the control of churches and chapels. It may be that future research into the other three houses, particularly in terms of identifying the full extent of their geographical spheres of interest, will provide further insight into the nature of their liturgical practices. ¹⁷

The Local Context of Cults in Medieval Scotland

St Brigid of Kildare appears in all three kalendars and in both litanies. This saint was accorded a commemoration in the official Cistercian kalendar but from 1222 Scottish houses received permission to celebrate this as a feast of 12 lessons. ¹⁸ The Sweetheart kalendar records the feast at this level, though the Culross kalendar does not give a ranking. There is no record of Brigid being added to the universal Cistercian litany and it seems unlikely that this took place. Petitions for all houses within a particular kingdom to add or elevate a feast, particularly one of special regional significance, were not unusual. For example, English houses had permission to commemorate King Edward the Confessor from 1235 and Irish houses had permission for St Patrick from 1274. ¹⁹ Given the lack of historiographical acknowledgement of the significance of Brigid’s cult in Scotland, however, that Scottish Cistercian houses should lobby for this is worthy of discussion.

The place-name evidence reveals the diffusion of the cult throughout most of Scotland, with a noticeable concentration in the south-west. ²⁰ This likely reflects a greater prominence for the cult in this area, also evident in the fact that Brigid’s feast is one of those written in red in the Sweetheart kalendar but not in that of Culross. E.G. Bowen argues that the concentration of dedications to Brigid in Argyll reflects the pattern of Irish immigration in the fifth and sixth centuries, and should be seen as indicative of ‘the great Celtic Christian “thalassocracy” of the post-Roman centuries in the West.’ ²¹ Meanwhile, Fiona Edmonds proposes that the transmission of the cult to the area around the Solway Firth, noted as problematic by Bowen, can likely be dated to the Viking Age and was part of a broader trend whereby Scandinavian colonists in Ireland developed an affinity with certain saints and ‘subsequently carried this devotion to the eastern coastline of the Irish Sea.’ Edmonds also notes that, once embedded, such cults continued to gain strength and diffusion likely occurred over a period of time. ²² It has been suggested that, as in Ireland, a major factor in the spread of the cult is likely to have been the conflation of St Brigid with the popular pre-Christian goddess of the same name. ²³ Thus, the cult may have inherited a nationwide network of established holy sites and devotees, accelerating its spread across Scotland. ²⁴

The saint’s importance in medieval Scotland is evidenced by the popularity of the names Gille Brigte and Máel Brigte throughout the kingdom. ²⁵ This is mirrored in the widespread locations of dedications. In particular, an early centre for the cult existed at Abernethy, site of a Pictish monastery and perhaps episcopal centre, situated on the boundary between Perthshire and Fife. ²⁶ The dedication to Brigid appears in the foundation legend and the saint features in place-names which marked the paruchia of Abernethy. ²⁷ The extent and nature of the cult by the 16th century is revealed by the poem of David Lindsay, The Monarche, in which Brigid’s cult is one of those singled out for what he regards as idolatrous practices. Lindsay complains that the saint was venerated by the common population of Scotland ‘to keip calf and koow.’ ²⁸

Aside from its regional significance, the cult may have caught the attention of the monks due to Brigid’s medieval association with the Virgin Mary to whom the Cistercians had a special devotion, all of their houses being dedicated to her. ²⁹ Contemporary writers often highlighted their shared virtues and traits, gaining Brigid the epithet ‘Mary of the Gael.’ ³⁰ Yet if this is the case, it seems odd that it should be the Scottish, rather than Irish, Cistercians who should latch onto this. Indeed, surely we cannot argue for a greater attachment to the cult in Scotland than in Ireland. Irish houses obtained no such permission for elevated observance of the feast and, though we cannot speak definitively to the practices of individual houses due to the lack of surviving kalendars, based on the available evidence the Cistercians appear to have shown no special interest in the cult in Ireland. Brigid does make an appearance in the late-12th-century Life of St Patrick composed by Jocelin of Furness, a Cistercian monk, following the staged discovery of the remains of Patrick, Brigid, and Columba at Down in 1185, though this is based on the earlier sources which Jocelin had access to rather than any innovation on his part. ³¹ Indeed, as Helen Birkett has demonstrated, this text represents the interests of its ecclesiastical patrons, the archbishop of Armagh and the bishop of Down, rather than the promotion of the cult on the part of the Cistercian Order. ³² It is thus unclear as to why the Scottish Cistercians in particular should have singled Brigid out.

Another category of common additions to Cistercian kalendars was saints with cult centres under the control of particular houses. One example is that of the Tuscan abbey of San Galgano, founded at the site of the hermitage of its namesake. A 14th-century breviary of the abbey contains two feasts of the saint in its kalendar, sanctioned for the house by the General Chapter in 1254. ³³ Similarly, in 1275 Hailes Abbey gained permission to celebrate the Holy Blood, shortly after the house acquired such a relic. ³⁴ The most obvious of the Scottish examples here is the cult of St Serf at Culross. The hagiographical material, which predates the Cistercian abbey, records that Culross was the site of St Serf’s principal church and the place of his burial. Certainly, the existence of an early Christian foundation at Culross is indicated by the presence of eighth- or ninth-century carved stones at the site. ³⁵ An active cult of St Serf in the area is confirmed by a charter of David I which dates to the 1140s and is addressed to Gilleserf of Clackmannan, a place just six miles away. ³⁶ The Cistercian house of Culross, founded in 1217, hosted the shrine of St Serf, to whom the abbey was co-dedicated along with the Virgin Mary, and its abbot was often referred to as the ‘abbot of St Serf’ in Scottish charters. ³⁷ Unsurprisingly, then, Serf appears in both the kalendar and the litany of Culross. There is no record of official permission for this but the connection between saint and abbey is acknowledged in the records of the Order where the abbey is also referred to as ‘St Serf’s’, though the unfamiliarity of the French scribes with the saint is evident in the rendering of his name. ³⁸

Such cults were not necessarily hosted in-house; others were situated in churches or chapels under monastic control. The inclusion of St Medan in the kalendar of Coupar Angus is one such example. The abbey received permission to celebrate this feast with two masses in 1273. ³⁹ The cult of this, apparently, Irish saint was highly localized, primarily focused around Kirkmaiden in Galloway, but another concentrated pocket also existed in Angus, centred on the area around the parish church of Airlie, dedicated to Medan, which stood around 10 miles from Coupar. ⁴⁰ This church came into the possession of the monks through a grant made in 1219 by King Alexander II. ⁴¹ St Medan’s well and hill stood close by, and the nearby church of Lintrathen was also dedicated to this saint. Evidence indicates that both of these medieval churches stood on what had originally been earlier religious sites, and these dedications were likely carried over from older traditions. ⁴² It appears, therefore, that the cult of St Medan had a long-standing history in the area and may have been deeply entrenched in local religious practice.

That Airlie was a Celtic church site explains the existence of the apdaine of Airlie, a term which denotes an endowment of land belonging to an old church, which was initially leased by Coupar from the bishop of St Andrews in 1212 and appears to have become a permanent part of the grange established at Airlie by the monks. ⁴³ The land of Airlie had earlier been granted to Coupar around the turn of the century, and the abbey also acquired further land in the vicinity at Lintrathen in the 1250s. ⁴⁴ Therefore, by 1273, the abbey had long-established landed interests in the heart of an area with a strong tradition of Medan’s cult, in addition to custody of the church which appears to have been its focal point.

Continued local devotion to the cult in the period contemporary to the surviving monastic kalendar is revealed by a document of 1447 which records that Michael David, hereditary keeper of the bell of St Medan, had resigned it into the hands of Sir John Ogilvy of Lintrathen at Airlie Castle. ⁴⁵ While this relic had originated at Lintrathen church, as indicated by a nearby house which was stated to ‘belong’ to the bell, the existence of a relic associated with the church at Airlie is suggested by the place-name Auchindorie within the parish, granted to Coupar in the early 14th century. It is possible that ‘-dorie’ could be read as dewar, a Scots word derived from an older Gaelic word deorad, meaning the custodian of a relic, a suggestion strengthened by the fact that a 12th-century individual named Malcolm of Kettins appears in the record in relation to both Auchindorie and the apdaine of Airlie. ⁴⁶ This would mean that Coupar had acquired land attached to the office of relic-keeper and thus potentially the relic itself, whatever it may have been.

Another example we can perhaps point to here is the inclusion of St Patrick in the kalendar of Sweetheart Abbey, which had controlled the patronage of the nearby church of Kirkpatrick Durham from the time of the abbey’s foundation, situated around 11 miles away. ⁴⁷ Even if this were not the case, though, it would not be surprising to find Patrick included in the liturgy of this house. The cult was prominent in south-west Scotland, where the saint was patron of multiple parish churches and various other dedications to him existed. ⁴⁸ That Patrick’s feast also made its way into the kalendar of Culross would appear to indicate that the cult was also active in close vicinity to the abbey in Fife, a suggestion borne out by an individual named Gillepatrick who was one of a number of local men who perambulated the nearby land of Dunduff in 1231. ⁴⁹

Another of the local men who attended this perambulation was called Gillethomas. This individual may have been named for Thomas the Apostle but equally likely is Thomas Becket, the martyred archbishop of Canterbury. It has been noted that his cult was a huge boost to the popularity of the name in Scotland. ⁵⁰ Becket’s feast on 29 December entered the official Cistercian kalendar following his canonization in 1173, subsequently elevated to two masses in 1191, and he was also added to the litany in 1214. ⁵¹ The feast thus appears in all three kalendars, in red for both Culross and Sweetheart, and the saint is included in both litanies. The close relationship between Becket and the Order is well documented. Becket was given refuge during exile at Pontigny Abbey, where a 12th-century copy of Benedict of Peterborough’s Miracula of St Thomas was later written, and also received assistance from Cercamp and Rigny Abbeys. ⁵² Indeed, Geoffrey of Auxerre’s deposition as abbot of Clairvaux in 1165 may have resulted from his refusal to support Becket. ⁵³ It has also been suggested that Henry II’s shipment of 40 cart-loads of Derbyshire lead to the monks of Citeaux was given to atone for Becket’s murder. ⁵⁴

At Culross, however, the kalendar indicates that the house also observed the octave of this feast on 5 January, also given in red, as well as the translation of Becket’s relics on 7 July, neither of which feature in the universal Cistercian kalendar. The explanation for this lies in the influence of Canterbury in the locality, entrenched long before the foundation of the Cistercian abbey. Culross was situated just six miles from Dunfermline Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded by a group of monks from Canterbury in the 1120s, nearly a century before Culross itself was established. The liturgical practices of Dunfermline were heavily influenced by this link: a contemporary 15th-century kalendar and litany from Dunfermline feature many Canterbury elements aside from Becket, such as the saints Dunstan, Blaise, Wilfred, and Austroberta, all of whom had relics and shrines at Canterbury. ⁵⁵ Similarly, the liturgical practices of Culross reflect those of Dunfermline in the addition of another unofficial saint to the abbey’s kalendar and litany: St Margaret of Scotland, who does not appear in the liturgy of any of the other three Cistercian houses. Dunfermline was the location of Margaret’s shrine and the centre for her cult.

It seems very likely, then, that the observance of Becket at Culross reflected what had become the established religious kalendar for the locality long before Culross was founded and evidently continuing long afterwards. This is further supported by the exclusion of another Becket feast: his return from exile celebrated on 2 December. The regressio was observed at Canterbury and also at Arbroath Abbey, the principal centre for Becket’s cult in Scotland. ⁵⁶ It does not, however, feature in either the Culross kalendar or the contemporary Dunfermline kalendar, further emphasizing that Culross’s observance of Becket reflected local practice. It could be suggested that institutional interest in Becket was unlikely to have been shared by the local population by the time the psalter was produced in the 15th century, following the extended period of Anglo-Scottish conflict. However, it would appear that devotion to the cult of this English saint was still alive and well long after the outbreak of war in 1296. Research has emphasized the durability of spiritual ties despite national hostilities and has strongly challenged the notion that devotion to Becket declined in Scotland. ⁵⁷

Another cross-border saint found in all three kalendars and both litanies is Cuthbert. Again, Cuthbert’s feast on 20 March was included in the official Cistercian kalendar, added 1226, but only at the rank of commemoration. ⁵⁸ The kalendars of Culross and Sweetheart reveal that these houses were observing it as a feast of 12 lessons. We could view the attachment to Cuthbert as having a distinctly Cistercian element in Scotland. Aelred of Rievaulx, the Yorkshire abbey which headed the network of filiation to which all of the Scottish houses discussed here belonged, was a dedicated patron of Cuthbert’s cult. The cult was disseminated widely via the Cistercian network and a number of Cuthbertine manuscripts were produced by or for houses on the Continent, including Citeaux, the French motherhouse of the Order. ⁵⁹

And the connection to the saint was even more direct for Scottish houses. Cuthbert had been prior of the monastery at Old Melrose in the Scottish Borders in the seventh century. When the Cistercian house at Melrose was founded in 1136, the site was retained as a chapel dedicated to Cuthbert. A direct link between the old and new monastic communities was drawn in the early-13th-century Life of the Cistercian St Waltheof, abbot of Melrose, which records the opening of the tomb in 1171 and the declaration by Bishop Ingram of Waltheof as ‘a companion for St Cuthbert, once a monk of Melrose.’ ⁶⁰ Continued interest in the cult is revealed by an indulgence granted in 1321 to aid the rebuilding of the chapel after it was burned, and another granted in 1437 for those who visited it on St Cuthbert’s feast. ⁶¹

In addition, the Culross kalendar includes the unofficial feast of Cuthbert’s translation on 4 September. Cuthbert’s cult had been active in the area around Culross long before the Cistercian abbey was founded. A miracle collection produced between 1165 and 1172 by Reginald of Durham recorded a healing miracle which had taken place at Dunfermline while Cuthbert’s relics were carried in a procession for St Margaret’s feast, and also notes a number of gifts were given for Cuthbert that day. ⁶² But despite the evidence for Scottish devotion to the cult during the earlier period, Cuthbert’s image would later become strongly associated with English military victories over the Scots through the systematic exploitation of the saint as a propaganda tool by English monarchs from the late 13th century onwards. This relationship was physically manifested in the banner of St Cuthbert carried by English armies. ⁶³ Similar to the case of Thomas Becket, an argument could be made that the veneration of English ‘nationalistic’ cults like that of Cuthbert during this period would seem to confirm a perception of monasteries in Scotland as foreign bodies whose focuses of devotion could be quite separate from those of the native population.

But the evidence shows that, despite English efforts to monopolize Cuthbert, a wholly distinct image of the saint was operating in Scotland. Tom Turpie points to the example of Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, a 15th-century Scottish chronicle ‘renowned for its virulent Anglophobic rhetoric,’ which presents a positive image of a saint who had done the Scots much good. ⁶⁴ Indeed, far from being a supporter of the English, Bower associates Cuthbert with the Scottish victory at Stainmore in 1298. That veneration of the cult continued in Scotland during the 14th century and beyond is evidenced by the inclusion of Cuthbert’s feast in both institutional and private liturgical books, together with new altar dedications. It is also clear that the use of ‘Cuthbert’ as a personal name remained unproblematic and prominent in southern Scotland. Thus, Turpie concludes that ‘for the majority of late medieval Scots, Cuthbert had not become a partisan supporter of English arms, but remained the powerful monk from Melrose.’ ⁶⁵ The cult of Cuthbert clearly endured in Scotland far beyond Cistercian houses.

While the above discussion has demonstrated the close connection between the practices of these Cistercian houses and local religious culture, we could perhaps make a case for some noticeable omissions. It has been commented that the absence of St Kentigern from the Culross kalendar is surprising. ⁶⁶ This is due to the hagiographical tradition that Kentigern was born at Culross and then raised and educated there by St Serf. Kentigern does make it into the litany of the Culross Psalter, perhaps indicating the monks’ awareness of this textual tradition, but the feast itself was not observed at the abbey. However, this is easily explainable. St Kentigern was patron of Glasgow Cathedral. The development and spread of his cult, which appears to have attracted little interest before around 1100, was closely tied to the increasing power and influence of Glasgow diocese, founded in 1107, and the promotional activities of various bishops. ⁶⁷ The association between Serf and Kentigern appears in two 12th-century Lives of Kentigern, both commissioned by bishops of Glasgow: one by Bishop Herbert (1147–1164) and the other composed by Jocelin of Furness during the episcopate of Bishop Jocelin (1175–1199). ⁶⁸ Meanwhile, the Life of St Serf, the original text of which appears to have originated at Culross before the Cistercian foundation, makes no mention at all of Kentigern. ⁶⁹ In fact, we find no reference to Kentigern in the area prior to 1503, when a bishop of Glasgow founded a chapel dedicated to Kentigern near to the monastery, an event which post-dates the Culross Psalter. ⁷⁰ Thus, while Serf was evidently a feature of the cult of Kentigern at Glasgow, Kentigern was not a part of Serf’s cult in Fife.

Meanwhile, we do find Kentigern’s feast in the kalendar of the only house under consideration here situated in the diocese of Glasgow: Sweetheart Abbey. Research has shown that Kentigern was certainly a regionally significant saint across southern Scotland and popular engagement with the cult among the inhabitants of the diocese and neighbouring lands was sustained from the 12th to the 16th century. Indeed, Turpie argues that by the late 13th century the bishops of Glasgow had managed to construct an institutionalized relationship between the exercise of temporal lordship in the region and reverence for the cult of St Kentigern. Particularly pertinent here is the charter of Dervorguilla Balliol, founder of Sweetheart Abbey, whose 1277 grant to Glasgow Cathedral of lands in Ayrshire named St Kentigern as the beneficiary. ⁷¹ Thus, the inclusion in the Sweetheart kalendar, and the omission from the Culross kalendar, reflect the true geographical spread of devotion to the cult.

Cistercian ‘Appropriation’ of Local Culture: An Alternative Interpretation?

The promotional activities of the bishops of Glasgow could easily have provided an opportunity for the Cistercians at Culross to monopolize St Kentigern in Fife and promote the abbey as a secondary centre for the cult, a potentially very profitable venture. Yet there is no evidence that the monks ever showed any interest in this. The failure to exploit the potential of certain saints’ cults is even more evident in the case of the Coupar Angus kalendar. Property records reveal that this abbey possessed a set of cult chapels with a variety of saintly dedications. The revenue generated by these chapels through the oblations of the laity belonged to Coupar and the abbey was active in maintaining them. ⁷² A comparison of the patrons of these chapels with the monastic kalendar, however, reveals a very clear disconnect between the commemoration of saints on one hand, and the cults which this house had a strong socio-political or financial incentive to observe and promote on the other. Perhaps the most prominent of these was St Margaret of Scotland, who is missing from the Coupar kalendar. The abbey had founded a chapel dedicated to the saint at Forfar Loch in 1234, having evidently been recruited by King Alexander II to help promote the cult as part of his campaign to have Margaret canonized. ⁷³ The abbey continued to fund a resident chaplain for the chapel into the 16th century. ⁷⁴ Additionally, St Ninian is also missing despite Coupar controlling the profits of two chapels dedicated to him, as is St Findoc, patron of another of the abbey’s chapels.

Coupar’s kalendar does, however, include St Adomnan, the influential seventh-century abbot of Iona. The feast was not part of the Cistercian kalendar and there is no evidence that Coupar was granted permission to celebrate it. The abbey’s link to Admonan lay in a chapel dedicated to this saint situated at Coupar’s land of Campsie. Evidence for the cult itself reveals an early medieval concentration of devotion to Adomnan within the diocese of Dunkeld, which had very close links with Iona. ⁷⁵ This includes a series of dedications along the route from Iona to Dunkeld, along with several which commemorate Coeti, the bishop of Iona during Adomnan’s time, which Simon Taylor has argued date to the seventh or eighth century. ⁷⁶ If this route is continued eastwards along the River Tay, past Dunkeld, it arrives at Campsie. Indeed, Campsie fell within Cargill, a detached parish of Dunkeld diocese, and so was within Iona’s paruchia.

But while this strongly suggests that an early religious site associated with St Adomnan existed at Campsie, and the cult was probably deeply rooted in local tradition, the chapel itself was incorporated into the abbot’s residence as a household chapel and was not accessible to the local population. Unlike the other chapels under Coupar’s control, the records indicate that lay offerings were not collected at Adomnan’s chapel. ⁷⁷ This decision to incorporate a saint of clear local significance into the liturgical life, and indeed material fabric, of the abbey but keep the chapel private does not sit well with standard explanations of Cistercian appropriation of local culture or the concept of the promotion of cults for profit, since evidently neither was a factor here. Instead, we should perhaps look to internal monastic interest in St Adomnan, since the nature of the abbey’s engagement with the cult speaks more to the private devotions of the monks themselves. It seems likely that the figure of Adomnan had caught their imagination as an example of the ideal abbot.

Indeed, it could be argued that other liturgical deviations outlined here may reflect the personal devotions of the abbey’s inhabitants rather than anything more purposeful or strategic on an institutional level. If this is the case, the inclusion of particular saints may in many cases reflect patterns of monastic recruitment from particular localities. Since Cistercian houses only accepted adult converts, these men had lived in the outside world and had their religious devotions moulded by this. While the Cistercian Order sought to maintain uniformity and lessen the liturgical burden through restricting the observance of feast days, there is nothing to suggest that, once recruited, personal reverence of other saints was discouraged. On the contrary, Cistercian monks often produced works of hagiography and collections of miracles pertaining to saints who were not in the official kalendar. Emilia Jamroziak has noted the prevalence within Cistercian libraries of hagiographical works relating to locally venerated saints. ⁷⁸ It may have been a natural progression to incorporate saints whose exclusion from the liturgical year seemed particularly jarring to the abbey’s inhabitants.

This may go some way to explaining the ‘responsiveness’ of Cistercian houses to their regional settings and the absorption of local religious culture into their practices. The above discussion has highlighted the local context for the cults observed at particular houses. If the monks of these houses were recruited from within these settings then we would fully expect that they would share an attachment to saints revered by local communities, since they themselves were also members of these communities. That is not to deny the validity of other factors highlighted by the existing historiography, but to add a further, and important, dimension to our understanding.

The point is difficult to demonstrate definitively since it is rare to find the names of individual monks recorded before the 16th century, even in the case of Coupar Angus Abbey for which the survival rate of documentation is far superior than the other three houses discussed here. Yet it is not difficult to find examples even within the very limited evidence base. ⁷⁹ An incidental reference reveals that by 1200 the prior of Coupar was a member of the landholding family of Meigle, located just five miles from the abbey. ⁸⁰ Of the handful of other names which do appear, 14th-century individuals such as John of Cloquhat, Richard of Balgersho, and John of Kettins reveal the recruitment of monks from Coupar’s sphere of landholding: all of these men bear toponymic names taken from lands which bordered two of the abbey’s closest granges. ⁸¹ Elsewhere, we find both Thomas of Kirkcudbright and William of Greenlaw at Sweetheart, while Adam of Stirling was abbot of Culross. ⁸² Our best snapshot in time of the internal make up of a particular house, although at an earlier date than the manuscripts under consideration here, is the very unusual and valuable survival for Kinloss Abbey of a charter dating to 1229 which lists the names of 25 monks. A third of these can be shown to be local men, including individuals such as Henry of Kintessack and Roger of Moy, lands located less than five miles from the abbey. ⁸³

Aside from this local dimension, recruitment patterns may also help to account for the inclusion of saints which at first glance seem more unexpected, for example the addition of St Duthac to the Coupar kalendar. This cult had been of only local significance, focused around the shrine at Tain, at a substantial distance from even the abbey’s most northerly lands. By the mid-14th century, however, the saint had become prominent in the burgh of Aberdeen, which would develop into a secondary centre for the cult. From here, Duthac’s cult spread along seaborne trading routes as it became popular amongst the mercantile and urban elite of Scotland’s east coast burghs. ⁸⁴ Significantly, it is clearly apparent from the evidence that a notable proportion of the monks of Coupar Angus were drawn from burgess families of the towns of Perth and Dundee. The names of such individuals can be found regularly from the early 13th century through to the late 15th century, when the kalendar was produced. ⁸⁵ Considering the apparent predominance of men from the burghs amongst the general population of the abbey, the influence of the personal devotions of urban recruits upon in-house practices is the most plausible explanation for the presence of St Duthac in the Coupar kalendar. The addition may date to the abbacy of an individual particularly amenable to requests to do so: William de Ledhouse, a monk of Coupar who became abbot in the early 15th century, appears to have been a member of a burgess family of Aberdeen. ⁸⁶

Conclusion

Historians have rightly highlighted the impact of local contexts upon Cistercian practice across Europe. The validity of Order-wide generalizations has been successfully challenged and the individualized nature of the practices of particular abbeys demonstrated. Yet within this discussion there is a tendency to treat these houses as faceless institutions, rather than communities of individuals. Just as it has been recognized that, despite the international nature of the Order, Cistercian abbeys cannot be regarded as a uniform whole, it must also be acknowledged that Cistercian monks themselves did not constitute a homogenous group, within particular kingdoms, regions or even individual abbeys. The identities of these men must have played a part in shaping the character of the house. Despite the shortage of available evidence in many cases, it seems safe to assume that Cistercian houses in Scotland were recruiting adult men drawn from local communities in potentially influential numbers from at least the early 13th century onwards. Thus, the types of pressures felt from external lay populations, often cited as the key factor in shaping Cistercian interaction with saints’ cults, were just as likely to come from within the monastery itself.

In this context, there is also a need to address the tendency to divide Cistercian liturgical practice with regards to saints from that of the general population. While the historiography almost invariably considers the interaction between abbeys and saints’ cults from the perspective of what it can tell us about Cistercian practices, if monastic observance is a true reflection of local devotion then the evidence can also be used in the opposite direction to tell us about local religious culture. Considering the amount of research still to be done on Scotland in this area of study, and the difficulty in discerning more intangible cultural elements from the available source material, the choice of saints included in, and excluded from, liturgical manuscripts may offer a good indication of the character of lay religiosity, which the cult of saints played such a central role in. Incorporating the Cistercians into the wider discussion, rather than considering these monks as a separate entity within society, can therefore help to offer a fuller picture of the experience of religion across varying regional contexts in medieval Scotland.