Chapter XXVII: Section X

_State of Society from the Seventh Century
to the end of the Eleventh._

In the preceding parts of the introduction little direct information as to the condition of the inhabitants could be found, and what was stated on this point had to be derived from a process of inference. From about the end of the seventh century onward social facts and incidents become more or less available, and increase in number and variety as we proceed towards the period of regular record. In this section I will present some of the features associated with kinship, early traces of tribal organisation, and its relation to the land, marriage customs, and other matters of a social and material character.

It has often been said that a common feeling of brotherhood, even among a small community, is a comparative late development; be this as it may, ample evidence has already been adduced in the fourth section to prove that the early tribes in Scotland had attained a considerable degree of organisation long before the arrival of the Aryan Celts in the island. So if we were to look for the earliest form of society in this country, we would require to go back to the prehistoric ages, which have been already treated, and without obtaining a more definite result, except by making a free use of conjecture and supposed analogies from primitive society in India and the ends of the earth.¹

¹ Maine’s _Village Community_, pages 21‒41. 1890.

The early form of Celtic society was the tribal community, which was based on actual consanguinity. Even in its most primitive form this is its natural base; although the tribe was the social unit and descent traced through females, still the natural associative elements led to the same result. Thus actual blood-relationship, kin, and kindred, was the original bond of union between the members of the Celtic tribe in its early form; whether kinship was traced through males or females did not affect the original associative bond of the tribe.

It has never been proved that society did not originate from single families, and indeed the point is not susceptible of proof on either view. But it is quite conceivable thus:――Following the instincts of human nature and the thinking faculty of the mind, the simple fact of blood-relationship or kinship is everywhere the first natural tie of social union which emerges; so this simple fact of kinship originating in single families may have become the recognised bond, as it is the natural associative factor, which in process of time linked the single families as they successively arose into the greater social unit of the tribe, and thus issuing in an organised community. In short, it is not only conceivable but even probable, that single families may have originally developed into tribal communities, and also into mighty nations.

I have already referred to the origin of historic conditions in Britain which affected the organisation of the early inhabitants of Scotland. One result of the operation of these conditions appears in the foundation of the historic monarchy at Scone in 844; external and internal causes were constantly modifying the tribal organisations throughout the four centuries under review. It seems evident that the independent tribes during these centuries were much larger and stronger than the clans in the north and west as we know them in more modern times. During the period under consideration the tribal organisations had arrived at the stage in which a number of tribes, not necessarily of one kin, were living under the rule of a local chief. In the pages of the chronicles these local rulers were sometimes called kings, but to the people over whom they ruled they were known as Mormaers and Toshachs. The prerogatives of the heads and all the officials of the tribe were strictly limited by custom. After the eleventh century the title of Mormaer began to fluctuate, and finally became represented by the Earl. Before the end of this period the central government had obtained a certain control over the heads of the local tribes in the districts between the Forth and the Spey.

Originally, under the tribal organisation, there was no private property in land. The land was the common heritage of every tribal community, and as such it was occupied and used in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, and in other quarters of the globe. But internal and external causes both, in process of time begin to operate and to modify this relation of the tribal community to the land. The long struggle of the chief tribes among themselves was touched on in the preceding pages, and this was one of the causes which affected changes in the original relation of the tribal community to the land. When one tribe conquered another, the spoil of the war usually was the common land of the defeated tribe; and then either the conquerors seized and colonised a part of this land or, as often happened, they restored the whole land to the conquered tribe to be held in dependence and under certain burdens to the tribe which had subjected them. On the other hand, when the victor tribe colonised and appropriated the common land of the conquered tribe, the land was not equally divided, seeing that a preference would be claimed and granted to those members of the tribe who had contributed most to the victory by which the land had been gained. Further, in cases where the land was restored to a subjected tribe, the superiority over it remained with the chief who had conquered it, and thus the chief of a conquering tribe acquired claims and rights over such lands as well as over the subject tribes which occupied them. But chiefs and leaders of tribes had other ways of acquiring rights in land; thus, when a tribe was in possession of an extensive tract of common land, colonies of families were sent out and each received a new patch of it, but whatever portion of this land remained unappropriated it was still the common land of the head of the tribe――that is to say, the chief or the king claimed a right of superiority over it. There is unimpeachable evidence that whatever rights the Kings of Scotland possessed in land were originally acquired by the means and proceedings indicated in the above sentences.¹ Again, the chief of a tribe often found means to aggrandise his own family, and whenever he became able or an opportunity occurred, he severed his own plot of land from the land of the tribe by enclosing it. In these ways the chiefs and officials of tribes and the kings acquired personal claims upon the lands of the tribal communities, and gradually personal rights connected with land were acquired; then step by step private property in land became established.

¹ “In the dreams of lawyers, as there has been an hereditary
king from all eternity, so there has been an hereditary lord
of the manor from a time only so far short of eternity as to
give the king time to make him a grant. In the realities of
history the king and the lord――that is, the lord on a great
scale and the lord on a small one――are each something which
has crept in unawares, something which has grown up at the
expense of rights more ancient than its own. Each alike,
king and lord, grew to its full dimensions by a series
of gradual and stealthy encroachments on the rights of
the people. As the king swallowed up the powers and the
possessions of the nation, so the lord swallowed up the
rights and the possessions of the mark.” Freeman’s _History
of the Norman Conquest of England_, Volume V., page 460.

Socially and politically this period was essentially transitional and progressive. In the first part of it the leading tribes were struggling hard to create a central authority, and the foundation of the Monarchy was the result of this struggle. Though the land still belonged to the tribal community, the chiefs and the kings had acquired rights and claims in connection with it. In the seventh century the local chief of Buchan, Aberdeenshire, granted lands to the monks of the monastery of Deer. In the eighth century Angus, King of the Picts, granted a territory to the Church of St. Andrews free from all secular burdens. This grant was transferred by the ceremonial of the ‘altar sod’ as the mark of its genuineness. Thus St. Regulus, with the relics of St. Andrew the Apostle on his head, followed by the king and the chiefs of his country on foot, marched in solemn procession seven times round the land so bestowed on the Church. Brude, a King of the Picts, founded the monastery on the island of Lochleven, and several early grants of land to this monastery have been recorded. There were other early grants of lands to monasteries by Macbeth and his Queen, Malcolm Canmore, Duncan, and Edgar, Kings of Scotland. It thus appears that grants of land and land rights were common, and sanctioned by the usual customs of the country many centuries before formal charters were introduced.¹

¹ _Chronicles_, pages 186, 187; _Register of the Priory of St.
Andrews_, pages 113, 114; _Register of Dunfermline_, page 3.

A number of entries of gifts and grants of lands to the monastery of Deer recorded in Gaelic belong to this period, and may be taken to stretch from the beginning of the eighth century to the early part of the twelfth. The names of eighteen granters of lands are recorded in the Book of Deer, which concludes with a charter in Latin, granted at Aberdeen by David I., in which the King declares that the clerics of Deer are free from all service of laymen and undue exaction, as it is written in their book, on which they had pleaded at Banff and sworn at Aberdeen. This shows that the Gaelic memoranda of these early grants of lands had been admitted in the regular courts as evidence of the tenure of the lands. The first grant was made by Bede, the Pictish Mormaer of Buchan, who gave to St. Columba and to Drostan “the town of Aberdour in freedom for ever from mormaer and toshach.” The next grant of land was by ♦Comgell, son of Aeda, after him Mordach, son of Morcunn, made a grant to Columba and Drostan. Then Matan gave the mormaer’s share of the land in Alteri, and Cuil, son of Baten, gave the toshach’s share of the same piece of land. Malcolm II. gave the King’s share in the lands of Bidbin, Pett meic Gobroig, and two davachs of Upper Rosabard. ♠Domnall and Cathal gave the land of Etanin to God and to Drostan; and then Carmech, Domnall, and Cathal immolated all these offerings from beginning to end to God and to Drostan, “in freedom from mormaer and toshach to the day of judgment.” Comgell, son of Cainnech, toshach of Clan Canan, gave certain lands, both mountain and field, to Christ, Drostan, and Columba, “free from chief for ever.” The names of seven of the old mormaers of the province of Buchan occur in connection with grants in the book.¹

♦ “Comgall” replaced with “Comgell”

♠ “Domnal” replaced with “Domnall”

¹ _Book of Deer_, pages 91‒95, and also the late Dr. Stuart’s
very able and valuable preface to the volume.

We learn from the record of grants in the Book of Deer that the mormaer, the local ruler of the province, the toshach, and the King of Scotland, each had separate or divisible rights in the same piece of land, which either of them could convey to another party. This indicates an organisation and gradation of landed rights which is rather surprising, and seems to show a pretty advanced stage of society. The brief descriptions, too, which accompany some of these grants, such as “the field of the clerics,” the number of davochs is stated――a well-known measure of land in the north-east of Scotland, or “both mountain and field,” which seems to imply a townland of varying extent, and which probably included rights of commonage. The clauses of freedom from mormaer and toshach meant the exemption of the lands of the monastery from taxes of various kinds, which were exacted by the local officials from the people over whom they ruled in the form of land rent: as it was from this source that the polity and organisation of the tribe were kept up. Further, the development of the Central Government, and the extension of the kingdom, had then reached the stage when a tax upon all land was exacted. In spite of all the explicit declarations that the lands of the monastery were free from mormaer and toshach, these lands were still liable for their proportion of the national tax. As this was a tax from which no land in early times was ever relieved, although it might be paid in various ways, such as a portion of the produce of the soil, or in military service; still, in some form, it was everywhere exacted. The rents paid by the people, the occupiers and toilers of the land, was a customary rent due to the local chiefs and headmen of the tribe, and consisted of a part of the produce,――cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, corn, and the like. There is evidence that the people lived under this form of local organisation in comparative comfort.¹

¹ _Book of Deer_, Preface, pages 82‒89, 91‒95; _Sculptured
Stones of Scotland_, Volume II., Preface, page 11. Those who
desire to make a special study of the early Celtic tribal
organisations in Britain and in Ireland, will find the
original sources of information in:――1, _Ancient Laws of
Ireland_, 4 Volumes; 2, _Ancient Laws and Institutes of
Wales_; 3, some fragments in the first volume of the _Acts
of Parliament of Scotland_. These have all been published by
the Royal Commission.

The names of two local clans were mentioned in the Book of Deer, the Clan Canan, and the Clan Morgan; and in each the toshach appears as the head and leader of the clan; and he also possessed rights in connection with the land, which rights, as we have seen, could be transferred to another party. It further appears that the Toshach at this period performed fiscal duties in connection with the taxes on land, and the local organisation of the tribe. We may then reasonably assume that similar tribal organisations prevailed in other parts of the country, at least from the Firth of Forth to Inverness; and also in Galloway and Argyle throughout this period. In the ancient laws of Ireland there was much care and humanity shown for all the members of the tribe who were unable to support themselves from old age or any other cause. On this matter the early law will compare favourably with that of the present day.¹

¹ _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, Volume II., pages 194, 341.

The culture of cereals was introduced in prehistoric times. Probably the earliest attempts at agriculture were made on the heights in association with the early settlements in similar positions. This seems probable from the fact that many of the chief towns of Scotland were originally erected on heights of moderate elevation. Agriculture was earnestly practised by the monks, who showed a noble example to the people. In this period the tillage of the soil was gradually advancing and spreading among the people, though the method of cultivation and the implements in use were still somewhat primitive. The staple food of the people consisted of oatmeal and some barley, milk, flesh, fish, venison, kail, and other vegetables, and small quantities of fruit. Cattle, sheep, and horses, formed the chief wealth of the people; and taxes and fines were paid in cows. There was as yet little manufacture, as most families had their own weavers, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters, within themselves. The minute division of labour only arises after a comparatively advanced stage of civilisation has been reached, when a more complex and artificial state of society causes a greater multiplicity of wants and luxuries. The clothing of the people mostly consisted of woollen stuffs and furs of home manufacture. Their dwellings were mostly formed of wood, clay, and turf, sometimes raised on stone foundations. One class of houses were formed by a wall of upright stakes with twigs interlaced between them, and a second wall of the same kind placed at a short distance apart, and then the intervening space was filled with turf or clay, making a pretty solid wall, which was then roofed.¹

¹ _Historians of Scotland_, Volume V., pages 16, 17, 57, 66,
67, 68; Volume VI., pages 39, 50, 63, 97; _Proceedings of
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume X., pages
616‒618; _Book of Deer_, pages 147‒154.

Shipbuilding had not made much progress. But they had vessels on which sails and oars were used, and these were then sufficient to carry on the intercourse and trade between the different quarters of the country. The centres of population were nowhere very dense. Scone, Dunkeld, Perth, Dundee, St. Andrews, Dumbarton, Stirling, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Paisley, and northward Brechin, Aberdeen, Burghead and Inverness, were centres of some trade and commerce, and having regular market-days at which business of all kinds was transacted. Markets arise at a comparatively early stage of social organisation and must have been quite common in every quarter of Scotland during this period.¹ Our towns and cities do not owe their origin to any king or chief in particular, as it was the intelligence and sagacity of the inhabitants which selected their sites in far gone ages, and their ♦descendants in succeeding ages who have extended and developed them by prolonged energy and industry.

¹ “In order to understand what a market originally was, you
must try to picture to yourself a territory occupied by
village communities, self-acting, and as yet ♠autonomous,
each cultivating its arable land in the middle of its waste,
and each, I fear I must add, at perpetual war with his
neighbour. But at several points, points probably where the
domains of two or three villages converged, there appears to
have been spaces of what we should now call neutral ground.
These were the markets. They were probably the only places
at which the members of the different primitive groups met
for any purpose except warfare, and the persons who came to
them at first were persons specially employed to exchange
the produce and manufactures of one little village for those
of another.” Maine’s _Village Communities_, page 192.

♦ “descendents” replaced with “descendants”

♠ “automatous” replaced with “autonomous”

Touching the department of crime and punishment, among the old laws of Scotland, some fragments appear to embody customs which prevailed in this period, though perhaps they were only in operation in certain quarters of the country. One of these fragments is called “Laws of the Britons and Scots,” it is preserved in Latin, in Norman-French, and in the vernacular Scotch, and has by some been attributed to David I.; and, as I said, it can only be assumed to embody the customs of certain localities, one of which was Strathclyde, the province of the Britons; but its application to the Scots is not so clear. The code contains the fines paid in compensation for crimes, and its peculiar feature is that it was the injured party or his kin who received the fines. The scale of fines was regulated by the rank of the injured party and the nature of the crime committed, thus:――The fine for the slaughter of the King of Scotland is stated to be one thousand cows or three thousand shillings; for the King’s son, one hundred and fifty cows or four hundred and fifty shillings; the fine for slaying an Earl of Scotland is the same as for the King’s son; and for an Earl’s son, one hundred cows. For slaying a Thane one hundred cows; for a Thane’s son, sixty-six and two-thirds of a cow; for the nephew of a Thane, forty-four cows and twenty-one pence and two parts of a penny. All those of lower rank were called carls, rustics, and villains, or serfs; the fine for slaying a carl, is said to be sixteen cows; but there is no other fine specified for any other injury which might happen to be inflicted upon this class. The lives of the unmarried women were estimated at the same value as their brothers, but the lives of the married females at one-third less than that of their husbands.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., page 299;
and also _Laws of David I._, pages 6‒8. On the same subject
there is a vast mass of information in the _Ancient Laws of
Ireland_, and the _Early Laws of the Saxons_, published by
the Royal Commission.

The mulcts for smaller crimes and assaults were stated with equal minuteness. If any one drew blood from the head of the King’s son, or the head of an Earl, the fine was nine cows; in the case of an Earl’s son, or a Thane, six cows; of a Thane’s son three cows; and of a carl one cow. The women as before were placed on equality with their brothers. The fine for a blow without drawing blood was tenpence. As a matter of course, compensation was taken for theft and all other crimes, as well as murder and personal assaults. Another old fragment of Scotch law presents the following exposition of the system: “All laws are either man’s laws or God’s laws. By the law of God, a head for a head, a hand for a hand, an eye for an eye, a foot for a foot. By the law of man, for the life of a man, one hundred and fifty cows; for a foot, a mark; for a hand, as much; for an eye, half a mark; for an eir, as much; for a tooth, twelvepence; for each inch of the breadth of the wound, twelvepence; for a stroke under the eir, sixteenpence; for a stroke with a staff, eightpence, and if he fall, sixteenpence; for a wound in the face he shall give an image of gold,” and so on.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 300,
301, ♦53, 72, 375, 376.

♦ probably “353” and “372”

Regarding social morality, much might be said on the relations of the different sexes. Marriage, like every social institution, has passed through many modifications.¹ It was not till after many thousands of years during which the lower passions sought gratification in various forms and degrees of intensity; not till long after the introduction of Christianity that marriage obtained its present position among the most civilised nations of Europe. The custom of capture seems to have been followed by that of purchase, and the custom of purchasing wives long prevailed in Europe, among the Jews, and many other communities. A sum of money, or something equivalent, was paid by the husband or his family to the family of the woman whom he desired to make his wife. Thus in early times a woman was supposed to be always under tutelage, in the position of a subordinate member of the family; and hence when married, she was still regarded as being under the protection of her own kindred. In the earliest of the Saxon Laws in England, which probably belong to the seventh century, the mode of purchasing a wife was stated thus:――“If a man buy a maiden with cattle, let the bargain stand, if it be without guile; but if there be guile, let him bring her home again, and let his property be restored to him. If she bear a live child, let her have half the property, if the husband die first. If she wish to go away with her children, let her have half the property. If the husband wish to have them, let her portion be as one child.”² From the same ancient code it appears that the Saxon was in the habit of carrying off young women by force.³ Even in the statutes of the first Christian King of Kent, ample provisions were made for the transfer of money or cattle as the price of the bride.⁴

¹ “The lowest races have no institution of marriage; true
love is almost unknown among them, and marriage, in its
lowest forms, is by no means a matter of affection and
companionship.” Sir J. Lubbock’s _Origin of Civilisation_,
page 50. Sir John thinks “that communal marriages, where
every man and woman in a small community were equally
regarded as married to one another,” was the first form
of it, page 67. Again, he says, “I believe that communal
marriage was gradually superseded by individual marriage
founded on capture,” page 70. He illustrates the capture
theory at great length, and with considerable force. But he
has not proved that communal marriage was the original form;
indeed individual marriage is as conceivable and far more
natural than communal marriage.

² _Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_, page 9.

³ “If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay fifty
shillings to the owner, and afterwards buy the object of his
will of the owner.” _Ibid._ page 10.

⁴ _Ibid._, pages 45, 53. “The principle was carried out with
the utmost consistency when the wife proved unfaithful to
her owner, nothing was then considered but the market value
of the woman; and the adulterer was compelled to spend the
equivalent of her original price in the purchase of a new
bride, whom he formally delivered to the injured husband.
The Church was compelled to accept this with many other
discreditable institutions, when it first made converts in
England. In the laws of a king of Wessex, who lived at the
end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth century,
the purchase of wives is deliberately sanctioned; and it
is stated in the preface that the compilation was drawn up
with the assistance of the Bishop of Winchester, and a large
assembly of God’s servants.” Pike’s _History of Crime in
England_, Volume I., page 91.

In the tenth century there was some improvement; though the essence of purchase was still recognised, it was more elaborately worked out, thus: “If a man desires to betroth a maiden or a woman, and if it so be agreeable to her and her friends, then it is right that the bridegroom, according to the law of God, and according to the customs of the world, first promise and give a pledge to those who are her forspeakers that he desires her in such ways that he will keep her, according to God’s law, as a husband should his wife, and let his friends guarantee that. After that, it is to be known to whom the fortesban belongs; let the bridegroom again give a pledge for this and let his friends guarantee it. Then, after that let the bridegroom declare what he will give her, in case she choose his will, and what he will grant her if she lives longer than he. If it be so agreed, then it is right that she be entitled to half the property, and to all if they have children in common, except she again choose a husband. Let him confirm all that which he has promised with a pledge, and let his friends guarantee that. If they then are agreed in everything, then let the kinsmen take it in hand, and betroth their kinsman to wife, and to a righteous life, to him who desires her, and let him take possession of the borh who has control of the pledge. At the nuptials there shall be a mass priest by law, who shall, with God’s blessing, bind their union to all prosperity.”¹ These minute arrangements embodied the feature of purchase, though it makes provisions to secure fair rights in the interest of the wife and children. The Saxons introduced slavery into Britain in some of its worst forms, but the custom of purchasing and endowing a wife involved the conditions that the husband must have had property and freedom, or the permission of his lord, and consequently marriage could not be contracted amongst the servile classes, who were simply regarded as cattle or stock, and joined or separated as it suited the interest and convenience of their masters. Indeed, for these unfortunate classes there was no law but their master’s will and caprice.² This social phenomena was a fatal and degrading weakness in the constitution and organisation of all the ancient empires and nations, and yet these empires and nations have often been held up as endowed with all the characteristics of humanity and all the emblems of true glory!

¹ _Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_, pages 108,
109. “With slavery in its worst form, the barbarians, who
became masters of Britain after the Roman power was broken,
introduced the custom of wife-buying. An unmarried woman was,
among them, in the position of a chattel, for the sale of
which the owner was entitled to make as good a bargain as
possible. It was only natural that, in a community in which
it was necessary to pay for taking a man’s life, it should
be considered equally necessary to pay for the permanent
possession of a woman’s person. The payment represented in
each case a rude attempt to supersede a primitive condition
of universal violence.” Pike’s _History of Crime in England_,
Volume I., pages 90, 91.

² _Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_, pages 282, 337,
353. These statutes belong to the legislation of the Church,
and probably attempted to make the condition of the serfs as
endurable as possible.

“In short, as amongst the strictly servile classes marriage
was scarcely a permanent bond until after the lapse of
many generations of Christianity, so amongst the dependent
freemen it could only be contracted with the permission of
their lord.” Robertson’s _Early Kings_, Volume II., pages
127, 328.

In Scotland the institution of marriage was far from being on a proper footing among the people, or even amongst the clergy. The custom of selling and purchasing wives was not as yet extinct in Scotland, and marriages were contracted within the forbidden degrees of relationship. Indeed, long after this period the ties of wedlock were rather lax. The Church often attempted to regulate and enforce marriage as a public and solemn institution, but she came into contact with habits connected with the intercourse of the different sexes which were extremely difficult to overcome, and her efforts were only partly successful. The people did not observe the Lord’s Day, but followed their usual occupations as on other days. Queen Margaret is represented by her biographer as holding a council for the reform of the Church from its strange customs, and the people from their evil habits, and with the Sword of the Spirit she contended with the ecclesiastics for three days. Touching the observance of the Lord’s Day Margaret said: “Let us keep the Lord’s Day in reverence on account of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead on that day, and let us do no servile work on that day on which, as we know, we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. The blessed Pope Gregory lays this down, saying that we must cease from earthly labour on the Lord’s Day, and continue instant in prayer, so that, if aught has been done amiss during the six days, it may be expiated by our prayers on the day of our Lord’s resurrection.” We are further told that “Many other practices which were contrary to the rule of faith and the observances of the Church she persuaded the council to condemn and to drive out of the bounds of her kingdom.” There is, however, nothing said about the marriage of the clergy themselves, nor about many of the high offices in the Church which were then filled by laymen, nor about the appropriation of benefices by certain parties, which were becoming hereditary in their own families.¹

¹ _Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, Volume I., pages 24, 309,
310; Volume II., pages 36, 37, 42, 59, 60, 68; Turgot’s
_Life of Queen Margaret_.

Many of the monasteries in the Western Isles and in other parts of the country had suffered severely from the ravages of the Norsemen, but their fierce warfare was moderated after they obtained a right to these isles: and the monastery of Iona, which they had destroyed, was restored by Queen Margaret, re-endowed, and filled with monks; and it seems probable that some fragments of the ruins which still exist on the island belong to her time. The Abbey Church of Dunfermline was founded by Malcolm Canmore shortly after his marriage with the Princess Margaret, in honour of that important event. The discipline of the monasteries had somewhat declined, and their usefulness had become impaired; the lands which had been granted for religious uses had become partly secularised and diverted from their original end. Still there were many earnest and religious men connected with the Christian institutions of Scotland; there were communities of anchorites, sometimes called Culdees. Queen Margaret gives her testimony as to the purity and devotion of this class of clerics, for her biographer says that “There were many in Scotland, in different places, who, enclosed in separate cells, lived even on earth the life of angels.” Through them the Queen did her utmost to love and venerate Christ, often visited them, and commended herself to their prayers; as she could not induce them to accept any earthly gift from her, she implored them to prescribe for her some work of charity or mercy. Whatever they desired she devoutly fulfilled, either relieving the wants of the poor or comforting the sick and afflicted. As the religious devotion of the people brought many from all quarters to the church of St. Andrews, she erected dwellings on both sides of the Firth of Forth, so that the pilgrims and the poor might find everything ready there which was required for the refreshment and rest of the body. Servants were appointed there to minister to them, and vessels were provided to ferry them across without payment.”¹

¹ _Book of Deer_, Preface, pages 105‒106; _Register of
Dunfermline_, page 3; Turgot’s _Life of Queen Margaret_,