The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 2/3MacGibbon, David
History
The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 2/3
MacGibbon, David
Church architecture -- Scotland
“Bower states (pp. 368-369) that Prior John of Haddington, who sat
1263-1304, ‘made the great chamber which is situated in the east
part of the monastery, beside the burying-ground;’ that Prior John
of Forfar (1313-1321) ‘built the new chamber adjoining the
cloister, which the priors have usually had, and which Prior
William of Lothian (1340-1354) afterwards enclosed on every side
with a very strong wall;’ also, that William of Lothian roofed ‘the
eastern chamber’ at great expense.” Lord Bute goes on to say--“My
impression is, that the ‘new chamber’ is that afterwards called the
senzie chamber; several priors and bishops are mentioned as having
died ‘in the prior’s chamber,’ but that Halderston rebuilt the
eastern chamber, erecting a fine house there, and also rebuilding
some rather decayed old oratory on a finer scale [_decentiori_]. He
was the first who obtained for the priors the use of the pastoral
insignia--viz., the mitre, staff, and ring. ‘He strikingly
increased for their glory the pomp of divine service, at the
celebration of the mass of our lady in her chapel. [Probably it was
the custom for the priors to sing or say it on certain days, or
every day].... In his days the Lord William Bower, vicar of St.
Andrews, completed the altar of [Christ] crucified in the nave of
the church, adorned with its permanent [_solido_] throne and
sumptuous figures; and likewise William of Ballochy, his sub-prior,
with the desire of the said prior, completed in a very beautiful
and comely manner the space of the dormitory at the sides and the
other pavements.’”
With regard to the work of William Bower, Lord Bute says:--
“I only know of one other instance of a permanent stone gallery of
one arch crossing the nave; this is at Frankfort, and I got there
an architectural work on it. At Frankfort, the imperial throne
stood upon it as the Commissioner’s throne used to stand in St.
Giles’, Edinburgh, before it was all pulled down a few years ago;
the throne of the King of France on the rood loft at Rheims, &c.
&c. But this throne was not permanent. I believe that at St.
Andrews there was this single span arch, bearing a platform, upon
which was a great canopy (as in St. Giles’), and under the canopy
the royal throne, looking eastwards, and the altar of the crucifix
back to back with it (as with the imperial throne and domestic
altar in the gallery at Aachen). In the rood loft at Rheims the
king’s domestic altar was not back to back with the throne, but at
the south end of the gallery at his right hand. Above the roof of
the baldaquin or canopy (at St. Andrews), over the throne and
altar, I imagine the great rood, with a multitude of ‘sumptuous
figures,’ to have towered up towards the roof.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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