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Notes and Replies

THE FOUNDATION OF NOSTELL AND SCONE. In my notes on this subject (S.H.R. vii. 141-159) I hesitated to interject a curious charter which, if trustworthy or capable of chronological interpretation, has an important bearing on the date of the establishment of the Augustinian canons at Nostell, and thereby on the coming of the canons to Scone. The Augustinians of Nostell, as I endeavoured to show, had papal recognition early in January, 1120. But how long they had been settled there before that time is only a matter of inference, involving a lengthy argument on the comparison of a multitude of charters in order to strike an equation as to an earliest date. Chronology here is of considerable interest if the accuracy of the Scottish chronicles is to be maintained with regard to the foundation of Scone.

It will be better first to reproduce the cryptic writing in the hope that it will evoke the criticism of charter scholars. It was copied years ago by me from the Chartulary of Nostell (Cotton MS. Vespasian, E. xix. f. 101).

CARTA TURSTINI EBORACENSIS ARCHIEPISCOPI.

Turstinus dei gracia Eboracensis archiepiscopus, toti clero et populo Eboracensis ecclesie Sancti Petri, immo omnibus uniuersalis ecclesie filiis, salutem et benedictionem. Notificamus uobis quendam conuencionem factam in presencia nostra inter ecclesiam de Federstan et ecclesiam sancti Osuualdi. Monachi namque de Caritate et sacerdos de Federstan, qui calumpniabantur eam adiacere parochie de Federstan, et canonici clamauerunt eam solutam et quietam ab omni consuetudine et seruicio, ita quod canonici regulariter deo ibi seruiant et habeant cimiterium ad opus suum et seruiencium suorum omniumque iuxta eos habitancium in terra que dicitur Nostlet, et in hanc conuencionem clamauerunt clerici Sancti Osuualdi quietas omnes ecclesiasticas consuetudines quas habebant de Hardewic ecclesie de Federstan, Me Thoma archiepiscopo ij° et Rodberto de Laceio et Anfrido et Bernewino presbiter [is] et Rad[ulfo] clerico presentibus et confirmantibus, et hoc factum est prima feria in dedicacione ecclesie Sancti Osuualdi. Teste, etc.

While recognising the literary and grammatical difficulties of the text, as well as the indications that we have it in abbreviated form, what historical inferences can be drawn from the text as it stands in respect of the date of the dedication of the church of Nostell? It seems clear that the writing is a charter of Archbishop Thurstin in confirmation of a previous charter of agreement made by the intervention of Archbishop Thomas the Second on

the Sunday during the solemnities of the dedication of St. Oswald's Church, and now embodied currente calamo in Thurstin's charter. If that be the case, the dedication took place between 1109 and 1114, while Thomas was Archbishop, and such event synchronises with the date of Scone, the offshoot of Nostell, as adumbrated in the chronicles.

Though the inference may be considered a little wild, I would invite the opinion of critics who can bring a fresh judgment to it, uninfluenced by the tangled history of the institution. The charter appears to be a sort of palimpsest, but which part belongs to Archbishop Thurstin, and which to Archbishop Thomas, his predecessor? It may be added that the Cluniac monks (monachi de Caritate) of Pontefract had a joint interest in the church of Fetherston with the canons of Nostell. JAMES WILSON.

Dalston Vicarage.

Dr. Wilson has produced a real puzzle. Those who, like myself, have not acumen enough to interpret the document for themselves, will readily accept his explanation, viz. that we have to do with a transaction approved by Archbishop Thomas and here confirmed by Archbishop Thurstin. But from so confused a narrative it seems impossible to say how much belongs to the earlier and how much to the later archbishop. And we have it distinctly stated in Henry I.'s charter that the Canons Regular were placed at Nostell by Archbishop Thurstin. Taking this as our guide (as in the circumstances I think we are bound to do), it follows that St. Oswald and his 'clerks' the canons belong to the later epoch, and that the transaction of Archbishop Thomas' time must have concerned the brotherhood of hermits, who at Nostell (as at its grandchild, Inchaffray), preceded the canons (see Monasticon, vi. 89 n.).

But a great deal of undispelled darkness remains. How do the monachi de Caritate come in? Were they of the ancient house of that name on the Loire? And can no sidelight be obtained from that quarter ?

J. MAITLAND THOMSON.

It seems to me that this charter is so imperfect and so badly transcribed that it is not safe to draw any conclusion from it.

Before 1100 Robert de Lacy founded at Pontefract a priory of canons from the house of La Charite in France on the Loire. Close to Pontefract, at Nostell, there was then a hermitage; and between 1114 and 1120 Archbishop Thurstin, with the assistance of Ilbert de Lacy and Robert his son, founded a priory at Nostell, dedicated to St. Oswald, on the site of the hermitage. To that Radulf de Fetherston gave ten acres and Robert de Lacy gave two bovates in Hardwic. Ilbert and Robert de Lacy were expelled from the realm, and Pontefract was given to Hugh de la Val, who granted the church of Fetherston to the priory of St. Oswald. These grants were confirmed by Henry I. in his charter to Nostell in 1121.

Dr. Wilson says that Pontefract and Nostell had a joint interest in the church of Fetherston, and that and the neighbourhood of the houses and their adjacent lands made it difficult to avoid disputes.

One of these disputes is dealt with in this charter. Archbishop Thurstin

announces that the representatives of the two priories and the priest of Fedirstan had appeared before him and made an agreement regarding a land not named, possibly Hardwic, which the priory of Pontefract seems to have yielded to Nostell on the latter waiving its claim to church dues in Hardwic.

The Archbishop Thurstin says distinctly that this took place in his presence. It is impossible to reconcile that statement with the following words in the charter: 'Me Thoma Archiepiscopo 11° et Rodberto de Laceio et Aufrido et Bernewino presbitero et Rad. Clerico presentibus et confirmantibus.' I suggest that the original deed had 'Me Th. Archiepiscopo,' and that the transcriber extended Th. as Thomas instead of Thurstin. I think it is certain that Archbishop Thomas the Second, who died in 1114, was dead before the foundation of the priory of Nostell, while clearly this agreement was made in the lifetime of his successor, after the canons were established there.

A later agreement made in 1317 between the two priories regarding land in the parish of Fetherston is printed in a charter of Pontefract Priory, No. XI. on page 124 of volume v. of Dugdale's Monasticon.

A. C. LAWRIE.

THE HONORIFIC 'THE' (S.H.R. x. 39). Sixty-four years ago a couple of volumes were published by Blackwoods entitled Lays of the Deer Forest, by John Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart. The first volume consists of a collection of poems whereon I can express no opinion, not having read them; but the second and larger volume (560 pp.) contains notes on the poems, plus notes upon the notes, and is a delightful repertory of Highland lore, natural history, and incidents of wild sport. One of the footnotes to these notes (page 245) bears upon the subject of Mr. Dallas's interesting paper. Bearing out as it does his view of the modern origin of the honorific the,' I transcribe it: for Lays of the Deer Forest is not a book one commonly comes across.

"In the modern confusion of all Highland usages, it has recently become a common error to name the chieftain of the second house of the Clan Chattan as The MacIntosh. This new title has been adopted, we suppose, in imitation of the hereditary patronymic An Siosalach-The Chisholm. But there is no instance of an application of the definite article to any Gaelic name accompanied by the filiation Mac; and, as a family title, the usage, when combined with the abstract construction of a surname terminating in ach (as An Domhnullach, An Leodach, etc.) is confined to the name of Chisholm. The reason for this singularity is that this family was not originally a Gaelic race, and their name was introduced into the Highlands at a time when many of the low-country appellations, like one class of the French and Anglo-Norman designations, were accompanied by the definite article, as the Bruce, the Douglas, the Wallace, etc. Cisolach or Chisholms were originally a branch of the Norman Sysilts or Cecils, which were early settled in Roxburghshire. . . . The termination. -ach is merely a relative final particle, as the Anglo -er and -ish in Warrener, English, etc., and the French -ard in Clanard, Bayard, etc. So in Gaelic

The

the generic name derived from Domhnull, Leod, Cecil, etc., become Domhnullach, Leodach, Cesolach, etc. But the latter having never acquired the affiliative prefix Mac- retained as its patronymic its original foreign style of the article "an Siosalach." This is conformable to the usage of the Gaelic in generic names formed by the terminative particle without the preceding relative, as An Domhnullach, An Leodach, An Toiseach, etc., expressive of the Man, i.e. chief-of the race of Donald or Leod or Toiseach. This, however, is only an allusive form in speaking of a superior, and, except in the instance of the Chisholm, never was used in a patronymical style, since it is equally common for describing any individual of a clan name. But while the article is admissible in the above construction, it is utterly unknown in any designations commenced by the word Mac, and to say Am Mac-Domhnull, Am Mac-Leod, Am Mac-antoisich -the Macdonald, the MacLeod or the MacIntosh is as burlesque and theatrical an absurdity as to speak of the Hamilton or the Atholl, the Norfolk or the Shrewsbury.'

The authors err in equating what they call the 'relative final particle' in Gaelic with the English suffixes -er and -ish. The English suffix -er is substantival, denoting the agent: e.g. Warrener, one who keeps a warren. The suffix -ach, on the other hand, is adjectival, corresponding to the English suffixes -ish, -ful, -some, etc. It may be recognized in some of the Celtic place names preserved in France-Pauillac, Mugillac, Callac, Pipriac, etc.

Monreith.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

IS 'O, KENMURE'S ON AND AWA, WILLIE,' A SONG OF 1715? It has generally been taken for granted that the popular song 'O, Kenmure's on and awa, Willie,' which Burns worked over and published in The Scots Musical Museum, relates to William Gordon, the sixth Viscount Kenmure, commander of the Jacobite forces in the south of Scotland in 1715. Lately, however, Mr. William Macmath suggested, in The Scots Peerage, that the hero of the song was possibly Robert Gordon, the fourth Viscount Kenmure. This daring soldier joined the Highland rising of 1653, and organized levies in Galloway to fight for Charles II., attracting recruits by exhibiting at the head of his corps a Rundlet of Strong-waters ... which they call Kenmore's Drum.'1 In Mr. Macmath's opinion, the grave, full-aged' gentleman on whom the command of the Border insurgents was thrust in 1715 is less likely than the dashing leader of 1653 to have inspired such a stirring lay as 'O, Kenmure's on and awa, Willie.'

It is certain that in 1715 there existed in Galloway little of that enthusiasm for the Stuart cause which in the North prompted so many fine songs. Memories of Claverhouse and Lag were still fresh in the South-West; and, as we are informed by Peter Rae in his History of the late Rebellion (Dumfries, 1718), many of the Galloway farmers were so strongly Hanoverian in sympathy that they went to Dumfries to defend the town against their own lairds.

That the Galloway song refers, not to the rising of 1715 but to that of 1 Mercurius Politicus, No. 176.

1653 appears to have been the tradition of the Kenmure family. In Ruskin's Præterita (volume iii. section 73) we read: 'I was staying with Arthur and Joan at Kenmure Castle itself in the year 1876, and remember much of its dear people; and, among the prettiest scenes of Scottish gardens, the beautiful trees on the north of that lawn on which the last muster met for King Charles; "and you know," says Joanie, "the famous song that used to inspire them all, of 'Kenmure's on and awa, Willie.'

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FRANK MILLER.

SCOTTISH PILGRIMS IN ITALY (S.H.R. ix. 387). A somewhat rare volume, La Garfagnana Illustrata, by Doctor Pellegrino Paolucci, printed at Modena in 1720, has the following reference to the shrine of San Pellegrino, one of the Scottish Saints still reverenced in the Garfagnana :

Sono io testimonio di veduta, nell' anno 1690, vi comparvero dodici Signori Scozzesi, i quali a ginocchia ignude (apparently they came in kilts) e ginocchioni in distanza della Chiesa circa cento passi cantavano in un istesso tempo e piangevano dirottamente. Giunti alla Porta del Tempio seguitarono ginocchioni, finche giunsero al Luogo del Sacro Deposito, baciando frequentemente il pavimento e bagnandolo di lagrime.

'Al vedere quel loro Santo Rè dentro a' Cristalli diedero in un rotto di pianto sì grande che mossero a lagrime tutti gli Astanti. Fecero la mattina seguente le loro divozioni, con esemplarità incomparabile, e discorrendo io seco in Idioma Latino, mi dissero che sospiravano di poter vivere, e morire in quel luogo santificato dal loro Monarca. E che ogni anno sarebbe venuta dalla Scozia una moltitudine incredibile a venerarlo, ma che non avevano di chi fidarsi. E che se fossero palesati sarebbero crudelmente giustiziati.'

This is the account of an eye-witness, and of one who wrote soberly as befitted a lawyer and a Sheriff of the district where the shrine of his patron lay. His words seem to prove that much later than one would have expected, the memory of San Pellegrino survived, not only in the Garfagnana, where indeed it still lives, but even in the distant land of his birth.

Florence.

J. WOOD BROwn.

BURGH OF DUNBAR CHARTERS.-A number of deeds belonging to the royal burgh of Dunbar were recently discovered in the office of an Edinburgh firm of writers. They include charters by James II., James VI., deed of gift by Queen Mary, and various instruments of sasine; they are in excellent preservation. The Town Council of Dunbar has requested Dr. Wallace-James of Haddington to report to them on these deeds.

1 The Garfagnana is noted for its rustic drama played in spring under the shade of the chestnut woods. One of these Maggi in my collection bears the following title: Maggio di San Pellegrino, figlio del Re di Scozia' (Ottava edizione, Volterra, Tip. Sborgi 1892), and shows that the legend of this errant Scot is very much alive in the neighbourhood of the church that bears his name and offers his body to the reverence of the faithful.

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