Glasgow Cathedral: A Medieval Cathedral and Parish Church of Scotland
Site at a Glance
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- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page16 sections
History
Glasgow Cathedral is a Gothic parish church of the Church of Scotland in the United Kingdom, dedicated to Saint Mungo, the patron saint associated with Glasgow. The present building was consecrated in 1197 and developed through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the cathedral church of the Archbishops of Glasgow and the mother church of the archdiocese and province until the Scottish Reformation.
Early Christian foundations
Tradition places an early sacred site on the western bank of the Molendinar Burn. Saint Ninian is reputed to have consecrated a burial ground there in the fifth century. In the sixth century, Saint Mungo, also known as Kentigern, is said to have brought the body of the holy man Fergus to the settlement of Cathures, later known as Glasgow. Mungo established a monastic cell at the site and was buried in his church in 614.
Mungo’s shrine became an important destination for medieval pilgrims, and his burial place remained at the centre of the cathedral’s Lower Church. The association with his grave shaped the later building’s religious importance. The site also acquired political and ecclesiastical prominence during the twelfth century, when David I initiated the establishment or re-establishment of a bishopric, the ecclesiastical area governed by a bishop.
The medieval cathedral
The first stone cathedral was consecrated in 1136 in the presence of David I and his court during the episcopate of John Capellanus. Fire then destroyed or severely damaged that building, and the present cathedral was consecrated in 1197. Its construction continued, with interruptions and alterations, for roughly 150 years.
Between 1207 and 1232, Bishop Walter Capellanus directed work that completed the choir and Lower Church and established the basis for the later transepts and nave. Bishop William de Bondington continued the rebuilding between 1233 and 1258, including the lengthening of the eastern arm so that Saint Mungo’s shrine could be accommodated at the main level. Work through much of the thirteenth century added the central tower, spire, and north-west bell tower. A south-west tower followed in the fourteenth century.
The cathedral’s standing also grew through its connections with church and crown. After Somerled was defeated at the Battle of Renfrew in 1164, his head was brought to the cathedral. In 1175, Pope Alexander III recognised Glasgow as a special daughter of Rome and released its diocese from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York. Around the same period, Bishop Jocelin received a charter from William I establishing Glasgow as a burgh of barony, a town created under a feudal charter with defined legal and commercial privileges. William attributed the birth of his only son, Alexander, to Saint Mungo’s intercession.
Edward I of England visited in August 1301 during the First War of Scottish Independence, a conflict over Scotland’s political independence from English rule. He made offerings at the high altar and at Saint Mungo’s tomb during four days at the cathedral.
Bishops, war, and learning
The cathedral was involved in the struggle that followed the killing of John Comyn at Greyfriars in Dumfries in February 1306. Robert the Bruce met Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, in the city. Wishart granted Bruce absolution, encouraged the Scottish clergy to support him, and accompanied him to Scone, where Bruce was crowned Robert I. Wishart later received timber supplied by the English for repairs to the cathedral’s bell tower, but used it instead to make siege engines for attacks on castles held by the English.
Wishart died in 1316 and was buried in the eastern part of the Lower Church. His tomb is uninscribed, and the head of its effigy was defaced at an uncertain date, probably during the Reformation. A lightning strike caused major damage in 1406, including damage to the wooden steeple. Bishops William de Lauder, John Cameron, and William Turnbull subsequently rebuilt the central tower, spire, and chapter house.
Turnbull also played a leading role in the creation of the University of Glasgow. At his prompting, James II, a canon of the cathedral, petitioned Pope Nicholas V. The pope’s bull of 7 January 1451 established a Studium generale, a medieval institution authorised to teach several recognised fields of higher learning. The university’s first classes met in the cathedral’s chapter house before moving to the Pedagogium, or Auld Pedagogy, on Rottenrow. The bishops of Glasgow served as the university’s chancellors.
By the fifteenth century, the cathedral stood within a walled precinct called the chanonry. It contained the Bishop’s Castle, residences for cathedral prebendaries and choir vicars, St Nicholas’ Hospital, founded in 1450, and a burial ground. Much of the precinct was cleared after the Reformation, while the late fifteenth-century Provand’s Lordship remained as its only surviving upstanding structure identified from the precinct.
Archbishopric and Reformation
Pope Innocent VIII raised Glasgow to archiepiscopal status in 1492. An archbishopric was a higher-ranking ecclesiastical jurisdiction headed by an archbishop. On 10 December 1502, James IV, a canon of the cathedral, ratified the treaty of Perpetual Peace with England at the high altar. The cathedral and the adjacent Bishop’s Castle were involved in the Battles of Glasgow in 1544 and 1560.
The Scottish Reformation transformed the Scottish church from Roman Catholicism to Protestant forms of worship. Archbishop James Beaton fled to France with the diocesan records, while the cathedral was stripped of Catholic furnishings, including altars and sculpture. Its lead roof was apparently removed, but the building was retained for Protestant worship. David Wemyss became its first Protestant minister in 1562.
Vandalism, plunder, and the removal of building materials had left the cathedral in serious disrepair by 1574. Glasgow town council raised a tax of 200 pounds for repairs, and work included repairing the roof lead in 1578. In 1579, members of the Glasgow Trades House defended the building against further depredation. James VI granted Glasgow income from several estates for the cathedral’s maintenance on 22 April 1581.
Religious conflict continued. In July 1584, town councillors and episcopalian supporters removed David Wemyss from the pulpit to make way for Robert Montgomery, whom the Duke of Lennox had appointed as a “tulchan” Archbishop of Glasgow. After the Reformation, three Church of Scotland congregations occupied the building. The Outer High congregation began worship in the nave in 1587, the Barony congregation was established in the Lower Church in 1595, and the choir became the Inner High Church in 1635. A stone partition completed a separate space for the Outer High congregation in 1647.
Seventeenth-century church life
After the signing of the National Covenant, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in the cathedral in November 1638. The Covenanters, who opposed royal and episcopal control of the national church, dominated the assembly. It annulled the acts of assemblies held between 1606 and 1618, abolished episcopacy in the Church of Scotland, and affirmed the assembly’s right to meet annually.
In 1798, the Barony congregation ceased using the Lower Church for worship, and the crypt was converted into a burial place. About one metre of earth was added over the floor, and railings marked the burial lairs. Changing attitudes toward medieval architecture during the 1830s encouraged detailed drawings and restoration proposals. By 1835, both the Outer High and Barony congregations had left, leaving the Inner High congregation as the sole congregation using the building.
Restoration and modern care
A major restoration in 1843 removed graves and accumulated earth from the Lower Church, restored the original floor levels in the crypt and chapter house, and reopened windows. The two towers flanking the west front were demolished in 1846 and 1848. Funds were unavailable for their intended replacement, so the present nave aisles were formed instead under Edward Blore. Galleries belonging to the Inner High Church were removed in 1852.
The entire cathedral passed into state care in 1857. It has been Crown property since 1587 and is now the responsibility of Historic Environment Scotland, while the congregation forms part of the Presbytery of Glasgow. Glasgow Cathedral is a Category A listed building, a classification for buildings of exceptional national or regional architectural or historic interest, designated on 15 December 1970. Along with St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney, it is described as one of the only medieval cathedrals in Scotland to have survived the Reformation virtually intact.
The cathedral’s later history also reflects Glasgow’s civic memory and contested wealth. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, monuments were erected to tobacco lords whose fortunes were connected with slave-produced tobacco. They included Alexander Spiers of Elderslie, Sir James Stirling of Keir, and Cecilia Douglas, who owned slaves in the West Indies. Douglas also commissioned a stained-glass window commemorating herself and her family; it has since been removed.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited officially in 1849. A memorial window unveiled by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 1954 commemorates members of the four Scottish divisions who died in the First and Second World Wars. The Chapel of Saint Andrew, also known as the chapel for nurses, was dedicated in 1961 to Scottish nurses who died during the Second World War. A memorial service took place in 1971 after the Ibrox Stadium disaster, which killed 66 football supporters, and the funeral of First Minister Donald Dewar was held in October 2000. Queen Elizabeth II attended services of thanksgiving at the cathedral for her Silver Jubilee in 1977 and Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Remains
Layout and medieval fabric
Glasgow Cathedral occupies high ground above the steep western bank of the Molendinar Burn. Its hillside position may be connected with the sacred burial site associated with Saint Mungo, over which the cathedral was constructed. The Gothic building measures approximately 285 feet (87 metres) in length, 65 feet (20 metres) in width, and 105 feet (32 metres) in height. Its surviving arrangement includes a choir, Lower Church, nave, transepts, central tower and spire, chapter house, sacristy or treasury, and the structure later known as the Blacader Aisle.
Excavations between 1988 and 1997 uncovered fragments of the first stone cathedral beneath the present floor. The west front of the 1136 building lay at the third pier of the current nave, while its eastern end extended into the area of Saint Mungo’s tomb. The present cathedral’s eastern arm was lengthened during the thirteenth century to accommodate the shrine at the main level.
Lower Church and tombs
The Lower Church forms the principal lower level of the cathedral, with Saint Mungo’s tomb at its centre. At the eastern end, the tomb of Bishop Robert Wishart lies between the chapels of Saints Peter and Paul and Saint Andrew. The tomb is uninscribed, and its effigy retains the damage to the head associated with an uncertain date, probably during the Reformation.
West towers and nave aisles
The north-west tower served as the bell tower until completion of the central tower in the fifteenth century. It stood approximately 144 feet (43 metres) high before being demolished in 1848. The south-west tower, about 70 feet (21 metres) high, served as a consistory house, containing diocesan records and the ecclesiastical courts of the Archbishops of Glasgow, before its demolition in 1846.
The present nave aisles were created under Edward Blore after the west-front towers were removed. They replaced the planned new towers, which could not be funded, and therefore form part of the nineteenth-century alteration of the west end.
Interior divisions and fittings
Congregational partitions
A partition at the pulpitum, a substantial medieval screen separating choir and nave, converted the choir into the Inner High Church in 1635. A stone wall built at the eastern end of the nave in 1647 created a separate architectural space for the Outer High congregation. The Lower Church was altered for burial in 1798, when its floor was raised with approximately one metre of earth and railings were installed around the burial lairs. The 1843 restoration removed these additions and restored the earlier floor levels.
Windows and organ
The nave and choir windows received stained glass from the Royal Bavarian Stained Glass Establishment in Munich during the 1860s. The scheme was among the largest public art commissions of the Victorian period. By 1938, the glass had faded and its leading had deteriorated, prompting its replacement with work by contemporary artists.
A four-manual Father Willis organ was installed in the choir triforium, an upper-level passage or gallery within a church interior, in 1879. It was the first organ in the cathedral since the Reformation. Harrison and Harrison rebuilt the instrument in 1996 and have maintained it since then.
Roofs and bell
Unsafe medieval timber roofs over the nave and choir were replaced with oak roofs between 1909 and 1912 under the direction of William Thomas Oldrieve. The work reduced the roof weight by replacing lead and slate with copper sheeting, producing the distinctive green copper roofing of the nave and choir.
The great bell now stands on the cathedral floor rather than hanging in a tower. Its inscription states that it was made in Holland in 1583 at the expense of Marcus Knox, a Glasgow merchant. After breaking in 1778, it was recast in London in 1790 by Thomas Mears.
Burials and memorials
The cathedral contains burials of civic and religious figures, including Lord Provosts John Anderson, John Anderson of Dowhill, Sir John Stewart of Minto, and Sir Matthew Stewart of Minto. The archbishops James Boyd, Gavin Dunbar, James Law, and Walter Stewart, together with Bishop Robert Wishart, are also buried there.
The associated Old Burial Ground contains the burials of Mary Hill of Gairbraid, George Hutcheson, Thomas Hutcheson, Peter Lowe, Charles Macintosh, Peter Murdoch of Rosehill, and Saint John Ogilvie. The people associated with these graves include landowners, lawyers, merchants, a surgeon, a chemist and inventor, a Glasgow lord provost, and a Jesuit priest.
The 1954 commemorative stained-glass window honours those who died in the First and Second World Wars from the four Scottish divisions. The Chapel of Saint Andrew was furnished by nurses and dedicated to Scottish nurses who died during the Second World War.
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