Abbeys -- Scotland; Cathedrals -- Scotland; Church architecture -- Scotland
According to Turgot, Queen Margaret, after her marriage, founded a
church "in that place where her nuptials were celebrated," and it was
dedicated to the Holy Trinity in 1074. It became the place of royal
sepulture, and Queen Margaret was buried within it. There are frequent
references from this time onwards of grants to the church of the Holy
Trinity, and to interments of royal personages therein. "The original
church of Canmore," says Professor Innes, "perhaps not of stone, must
have been replaced by a new edifice when it was dedicated in the reign
of David I.,"[333] and Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross add
"As no notice has been preserved of the erection of any new church
till the building of the choir in the first quarter of the
thirteenth century, it has been supposed that the nave of the
existing structure (which is in the Norman style) may have been the
church founded and erected by Queen Margaret. But the style of the
building forbids this supposition. None of the English cathedrals
were founded till the end of the eleventh century, and few were
carried out till the expiry of the first quarter of the twelfth
century. Scotland would certainly not be in advance of England in
its style of architecture, and we know that little, if any, Norman
work was executed in this country till the days of David I.... The
style of the structure is early Norman, and would naturally follow
the erection of Durham Cathedral, which took place about twenty-five
years earlier."[334]
The same authorities think that the original church of Malcolm stood
where the new choir was afterwards erected, and that David I. added the
Norman nave to it.
"The nature of the site seems to favour this view, as the ground to
the west slopes rapidly away, and scarcely allows room for the west
end of the nave; while the conventual buildings, for want of
suitable space, have had to be carried with an archway over a public
street."[335]
Alexander I. seems to have contemplated its erection into an abbey, and
in the year of his succession David I. remodelled it as a Benedictine
Abbey, and placed in it an abbot and twelve brethren brought from
Canterbury. By the close of the thirteenth century it had become one of
the most magnificent institutions in Scotland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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