Pluscarden Abbey: A Benedictine Monastery in Scotland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page14 sections
History
Pluscarden Abbey is a Catholic Benedictine monastery in Scotland, United Kingdom, in the glen of the Black Burn about 6 miles (10 km) southwest of Elgin. King Alexander II founded it around 1230 as a priory of the Valliscaulian Order, a small Burgundian monastic order shaped by austere Cistercian and Carthusian practices. The priory was dedicated to Our Blessed Lady, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Andrew.
Foundation and Valliscaulian prosperity
Pluscarden belonged to the Valliscaulian network associated with Val des Choux in Burgundy. Alexander II granted the new priory extensive estates between the rivers Ness and Spey, along with revenues from mills at Pluscarden, Elgin, Dunkinedir, Molen, Forres, and Dulpoten. Its resources also included salmon-fishing rights on the Findhorn and Spey and a tithe on iron mined in the forests of Pluscarden. These endowments supported the community’s growth.
A papal bull issued by Pope Urban IV in 1262 placed the monastery under papal protection and confirmed its possessions and privileges. The confirmation included lands, mills, iron mines, cultivated forest, fisheries, and other estates. The name Pluscarden appears in forms equivalent to “Pluscardyn” in 1226 and “Ploschardin” in 1233, although its origin remains uncertain. Proposed elements connect it with Brittonic, Gaelic, and Pictish words relating to an enclosure, an outer covering, or a height.
Damage and declining resources
The priory was probably damaged during Edward I of England’s campaign in Moray in 1303. A major fire in 1390 is traditionally attributed to Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, known as the Wolf of Badenoch, during his conflict with the Bishop of Moray. The resulting damage was never fully repaired, particularly in the transepts, because the priory’s resources were declining.
By the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, falling income, disrupted connections with France during the Hundred Years’ War, and disputes over the appointment of priors had deepened the community’s difficulties. Prior Thomas Fullonis resigned in 1398 after reporting the priory’s hardships. His successor, Prior Alexander, served from 1398 until about 1417 and was charged with repairing the deteriorating church and living quarters.
Union with Urquhart and late medieval repairs
In 1453–1454, Pluscarden was united with the Benedictine Priory of Urquhart at the request of Urquhart’s prior, John Bonally. Pope Nicholas V authorized the union because Pluscarden possessed more spacious buildings that could be restored, while the two communities had only six and two monks respectively. Pluscarden then became a daughter house of Dunfermline Abbey, and Bonally became its first Benedictine prior.
Bonally later resigned after a commission investigated alleged abuses in the two priories. William Boyce, formerly sacrist of Dunfermline Abbey, succeeded him, and major repairs and improvements were probably carried out during Boyce’s tenure. King James IV stayed at the priory in 1506 and gave money to the masons working there.
Reformation and secular administration
The sixteenth-century community numbered seven monks in 1500 and thirteen in both 1524 and 1548. After the Scottish Reformation, the 1561 rental listed five monks, a chamberlain with two servants, and workers including a cook, baker, porter, and gardener. George Learmonth and Alexander Dunbar were the last pre-Reformation priors. Before his death in 1560, Dunbar transferred much of the priory’s property to his own family.
After Dunbar’s death, the remaining community came under lay commendatory priors, administrators who held the title and revenues of a monastery without necessarily leading its religious life. Alexander Seton, later Earl of Dunfermline, and the monk Thomas Ross witnessed a grant of fishing rights in 1586. Ross was the last recorded monk. By 1587, Pluscarden no longer had official religious status, and lay priors administered its estates.
Decline, adaptation, and restoration
The priory became ruinous during the seventeenth century, and its buildings were extensively quarried for the rebuilding of St Giles Kirk in Elgin. The estates later passed through the Earls of Fife. The fourth Earl of Fife halted further deterioration by converting the east range into a shooting lodge.
In 1821, the priory’s calefactory, a heated communal room, was adapted for Protestant worship. The Free Church used it from 1843, and the eastern range was also given a roof. John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, acquired Pluscarden in 1897 and began restoring the church and priory buildings. His death in 1900 stopped the work, and the property passed to his son, Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart.
During the 1940s, Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart transferred Pluscarden and its land to Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. Benedictine monks arrived in 1948, when restoration resumed, and the church’s central bell tower was roofed by 1954. Further work was carried out with the architects Ian G. Lindsay and William Murray Jack. Pluscarden became independent of Prinknash in 1966 and was elevated from priory to abbey in 1974.
The modern Benedictine community
Since its restoration, Pluscarden has functioned as a Benedictine community devoted to worship, prayer, work, reflection, and the formation of novices. In 1987 it accepted a request from St Mary’s Monastery in Petersham, Massachusetts, to become its dependent house with canonical status. In 1989 it assisted in founding a Benedictine abbey in Ghana. Dom Anselm Atkinson served as superior of St Mary’s from 1990 and was elected Abbot of Pluscarden in 2011, receiving his abbatial blessing at Pluscarden that year. The abbey is now associated with the Diocese of Aberdeen; historically, it belonged to the Diocese of Moray.
Remains
Pluscarden’s monastic complex is organized around a medieval church and claustral buildings, with later additions extending the complex. The church stands on the north side and follows a west-to-east cruciform plan, with the nave at the west and the choir at the east. Medieval fabric survives alongside the results of nineteenth- and twentieth-century restoration.
The church
Cruciform church
The church retains the walls of the choir, central tower, sacristy, and both transepts. Only the fifteenth-century south wall of the nave survives. The building also preserves physical evidence of the major fire traditionally attributed to the 1390 attack, while the transepts retain the effects of damage that was never completely repaired. Restoration took place in stages from the late nineteenth century and resumed after the Benedictine community returned in 1948.
Stained-glass windows
Several twentieth-century stained-glass windows form part of the church’s restored interior. The choir’s 1983 east window uses leaded glass to depict Christ and the Eucharist. In the north-transept chapel, Brother Gilbert made the 1965 Annunciation window, along with windows showing the four Evangelists, the Agnus Dei, and the Madonna and Child, dating from 1960 and 1985.
The north wall of the north transept contains the Marian Window, made in 1964–1967 by Sadie McLellan of Glasgow using dalle de verre, a technique that sets thick coloured glass slabs into a supporting matrix. Its rose window represents the universe described in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, contrasting the dragon’s darkness with the light of Christ shining through Mary. The west wall has dalle de verre windows depicting Saint Benedict, Saint Gregory, Saint Peter, Saint Patrick, Saint Margaret, and Celtic saints. Brother Gilbert made the first two in 1988 and the others in 1992.
Claustral and later buildings
Medieval claustral buildings
The medieval claustral buildings include the Chapel of Our Lady, the chapter house, the library, and the day room. The day room now serves as a refectory and kitchen. The Chapel of Our Lady contains windows themed around the City of God and the monk’s path. Dom Ninian made the central and right-hand windows in 1958–1960, while Brother Gilbert made the left-hand window in 1960. All three use leaded glass.
West range
A west range was constructed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It serves as a hospitium, or guest accommodation, and forms part of the later architectural development of the monastic complex.
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