Holyrood Abbey

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The ruins of the former abbey church of Holyrood Abbey

Holyrood Abbey is the ruins of a canon monastery in Edinburgh , built by King David I in 1128 .

During the 15th century, the abbey's guest house was converted into a royal residence and after the Scottish Reformation , Holyrood Palace continued to expand. The abbey church was used as a parish church until the 17th century and has been in ruins since the 18th century. The abbey's preserved walls are next to the palace, at the east end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile . The site of the abbey is protected as a Scheduled Monument .

etymology

"Rood" is an English term for the triumphal cross . "Holy Rood" is supposed to refer to the " True Cross " from which the canonized Queen Margaret of Scotland had brought a relic from her English homeland. Her youngest son, King David I, gave them to the monastery he founded.

history

The royal chapel in the time of James VII.

Since the area around the monastery, a forest at the foot of Arthur's Seat , was used as a hunting area by the Scottish kings as early as the 12th century, the Hubertus legend was later transferred to the monastery founder: David I was on the hunt on the Exaltation of the Cross in 1125 bumped into a deer here and thrown from his horse. The variants of the legend agree that the animal recoiled due to the miraculous appearance of a holy cross that had fallen from the sky - or due to the sunlight suddenly flashing between the deer antlers and the king, reflected by a crucifix - so that the king shrank from being impaled the horns were saved. Legend has it that David founded Holyrood Abbey in this place three years later as thanks for his salvation. He actually founded numerous monasteries and five dioceses.

Holyrood was originally a branch of the Augustinian canons from Merton Priory , which was probably built in 1125 and is known today only from excavations. The complex of Holyrood consisted of a monastery building, a chapter house, a refectory and guest houses. These were probably from the start spaces that took advantage of the King himself occasionally, much like his father next to the founded by him Priory of Dunfermline to Malcolm's Tower was built. David I also expanded the latter priory into an abbey, and the tower later also became a royal palace.

The original Holyrood Abbey was generously renovated between 1195 and 1230. The completed building consisted of a six-bay choir , three-bay transepts with a centered tower above and an eight-bay nave with twin towers on its western facade.

Because of its location near the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh Castle Holyrood Abbey was early a place of important political meetings: in 1177 the papal legate Vivian took counsel here in 1189 met here, the Scottish nobles and prelates to a ransom for William the Lion to to discuss. The Parliament of Scotland met in the abbey in 1256, 1285, 1327, 1366, 1384, 1389 and 1410. In 1326, Robert the Bruce held parliament here and there is documentary evidence that the guest house west of the cloister served as a royal residence as early as 1329. The Treaty of Edinburgh – Northampton (1328), which ended the First Scottish War of Independence , was signed by Robert I in the "King's Chamber" in Holyrood in March 1328.

With the rise of Edinburgh to the headquarters of the royal court and the capital of the kingdom in the mid-15th century, the Scottish king increasingly used the monastery guest houses for his own secular purposes. Edinburgh Castle - the fortress located on a steep cliff - was not very comfortable: soldiers and servants, horses crowded into the complex, it was densely built up with warehouses full of supplies, weapons, cannons and powder and it had no garden.

In October 1430 the twins Jacob II and Alexander Stewart, Duke of Rothesay , were born in Holyrood. James II was crowned at Holyrood in 1437; before his marriage in 1449 the construction work was completed. Between 1498 and 1501, Jacob IV expanded the royal family's guest houses adjacent to the abbey into a palace that consisted of a four-wing complex that was about the same size as the present-day palace and stood in its place. On the south side he built a tower for himself, the foundation walls of which were excavated in 2006. Jacob V added a rectangular, typically Scottish tower house with corner tourelles to the north-western corner of this palace , which was provided with a drawbridge and moat and accommodated the living quarters of the royal family. This tower house now forms the tip of the left side wing of the palace.

The royal influence on the abbey increased in 1538 when Robert Stewart , the illegitimate son of Jacob V , was appointed commandant to Holyrood.

The ruins of the abbey church

During a war between Scotland and England , the English army of the Earl of Hertford destroyed the abbey in 1544 and 1547. This campaign from the Anglo-Scottish Wars is called The Rough Wooing . Lead was torn from the roof, the bells stolen and the abbey looted. During the Scottish Reformation in 1559, the abbey suffered further damage when zealots destroyed the altars and pillaged monasteries. With the Reformation the monastic function became obsolete and the sanctuary began to decline. In 1569, the Commander of Holyrood Adam Bothwell reported to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that the choir and transept would be torn down due to their desolate condition, leaving only the nave, which was previously used as the parish church of the free city of Canongate . An east gable was erected between 1570 and 1573, closing the end of the former nave, the royal tombs were moved to a new royal crypt on the south aisle and the old chancel was torn down. Most of the abbey was restored in 1633 for the coronation of Charles I.

The ruins of the nave

In 1686, Jacob VII founded a Jesuit college within Holyrood Palace , which was relocated to the new Kirk of the Canongate the following year . The abbey was rededicated as a Roman Catholic royal chapel and the chapel was given to the Thistle Order. The abbey church was rebuilt according to plans by James Smith and equipped with elaborate choir stalls carved by Grinling Gibbons for the individual knights of the thistle . In 1688, after the Glorious Revolution , the Edinburgh mob broke into the abbey, demolished the royal chapel and desecrated the royal tombs. During a storm in 1768, the poor quality vaulted stone roof collapsed in 1758, leaving behind a roofless ruin, as it is still today. Reconstruction of the abbey has been proposed several times since the 18th century - in 1835 by architect James Gillespie Graham as the building for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and in 1906 as a chapel for the Knights of the Thistle - both proposals were denied.

Coronations

Holyrood Abbey was the site of the coronations of James II in 1437 and Charles I in 1633. King Wives who were crowned in Holyrood:

Weddings

The abbey was the site of several royal weddings including:

Births

  • James II was born in Holyrood Abbey in 1430.

Funerals

The abbey was the site of royal burials and burials, mostly in the eastern bay of the southern nave, the "royal vault". Royals who were originally buried here:

Further:

  • Alexander Mylne († 1643), master mason. The monument was restored by his successor Robert Mylne in 1776.
  • Robert Douglas, 1st Viscount Belhaven († 1639). Reclining marble statue by Johann Schoerman , very similar to another work by Schoerman in Westminster Abbey .
  • Medieval grave slab around 1300 for Sibilla de Stratun (probably today's Straiton ).
  • Medieval coffin for Robert Ross († 1409), with an incised chalice .
  • Bishop George Wishart († 1671). Headless angels on the gable, apparently by Robert Mylne .
  • George Gordon, 15th Earl of Sutherland († 1703), memorial to James Smith, including family names on the pillars.
  • Jean Montgomerie, Countess of Eglinton († 1596). A box-shaped grave similar to others in Greyfriars Kirkyard .
  • Thomas Lowes († 1812)
  • Adam Bothwell († 1593).
  • Margaret Bakster (the old spelling of Baxter) († 1592)
  • Adjacent to the above illegible memorial to John (?) († 1543), with cross, compasses and tools.
  • Euphemia Stewart († 1817), an obelisk carved out of the wall.
  • George Douglas , Bishop of Moray

Web links

Commons : Holyrood Abbey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  • Burnett, Charles and Bennett, Helen, The Green Mantle: a celebration of the revival in 1687 of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Edinburgh, 1987.
  • Fawcett, Richard, The Palace of Holyroodhouse: official guide, HMSO, Edinburgh, 1988.
  • Gallagher, Dennis, "Holyrood Abbey: the disappearance of a monastery" (PDF; 1.9 MB), in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland , 128 (1998), pp. 1079-1099.

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b Deborah Clarke: The Palace of Holyroodhouse. Official Souvenir Guide. Scala Publishers, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-909741-13-3
  2. ^ Daniel, William S. (1852): History of the Abbey and Palace of Holyrood . Edinburgh, Duncan Anderson. P. 129.
  3. ^ A b c d e Colin McWilliam, John Gifford, David Walker: Edinburgh . In: The Buildings of Scotland . Penguin, 1984.
  4. ↑ a b c Fawcett 1988, p. 62.
  5. ↑ a b Gallagher 1998, p. 1079 f.
  6. ↑ a b c d Gallagher 1998, p. 1084 f.
  7. ↑ a b Burnett and Bennett. P. 7.

Coordinates: 55 ° 57 ′ 11.4 "  N , 3 ° 10 ′ 17.7"  W.