Next to Aberbuthnot was the small thanage of Morphie. It is mentioned in 1362 in the Exchequer Rolls, and among the missing charters by David II. are two of annual rents furth of the thanage of Morphie.[347] It is situated in the parish of St. Cyrus, formerly called Ecclesgreig, and here we come in contact with another designation of land which we noticed in a previous volume, viz., that of the _Abbacia_ or _Abthanrie_.[348] This was land which had formerly belonged to an abbey or monastery of the Columban Church, but had fallen to the Crown either by the monastery falling into the hands of lay abbots or by its extinction, and when they became crown lands we find them classed with the thanages. These _Abthanries_ are in the main confined to the country lying between the great mountain chain of the Mounth and the Firth of Forth; and the first we meet with is that of Ecclesgreig, which was granted by King William the Lion to the priory of St. Andrews. By his charter the king conveys the church of Ecclesgreig, with the chapel of St. Regulus, and with the half carucate or ploughland in which it is situated, and with the land of the _abbacia_ of Ecclesgreig, according to its ancient rights, and with its common pasture, canons, and men, and with my thane and my men throughout the whole parish of Ecclesgreig. The thane here mentioned seems to have been the thane of Morphie, as that thanage was within the parish, the rest of the land forming the _abbacia_ or _abthanrie_; and the thanage appears to have passed into the hands of David, earl of Huntingdon, as King Alexander the Second confirms the above grant with the exception of his thane and his men, and Earl David grants to the priory of St. Andrews ‘the whole _Can_ and _Conveth_ which the canons were due to him for the land of Ecclesgreig, and the services which their men were bound to render to him, which is confirmed by Earl John, his son.’[349]