Museum: Sacred Landscapes of Fife
Dublin Core
Title
Identifier
Collection Items
St AndrewsSt Andrews (Latin: S. Andrea(s); Scots: Saunt Aundraes; Scottish Gaelic: Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, 10 miles (16…
Crail Parish Church in early SeptemberCrail Parish Church in early September. This is a photo of listed building number 23244.
Kirk, Anstruther WesterKirk, Anstruther Wester This fine old Kirk is now rather dilapidated and shored up in places. I suppose it's not in bad shape for something that has…
St. Monans Parish Church, Fife
Inverkeithing Friary, InverkeithingInverkeithing Friary, Queen Street, Inverkeithing, Fife, Scotland
Culross Abbey (Parish Church), FifeEarly Christian hand-bell formerly kept and used in St Fillan’s Church, Struan (near Blair Atholl), Perthshire, and possibly associated with that…
Interior of All Saints’ Church in about 1920. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, GMC-F-94.)
The original parish church of Holy Trinity was probably a little to the north of St Rule’s, in the area towards the centre and right side of this photograph. (Source: Bess Rhodes)The original parish church of Holy Trinity was probably a little to the north of St Rule’s, in the area towards the centre and right side of this…
Gospel Hall, Market Street, St Andrews. (Source: Bess Rhodes)
Reject - Detail St And SarcIn the ninth and tenth centuries a new monastic movement known as the Céli Dé arrived from Ireland. Céli Dé means servants of God and is sometimes…
By the tenth century St Andrews had become one of the most important churches in the kingdom of the Scots. In 965 the brother of the King of Tara died…
The Forth Bridge seen from the air near North Queensferry. The Victorian railway bridge crosses the Forth close to the route of Queen Margaret’s historic ferry. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)Around 1070 King Malcolm III’s wife Margaret (later known as St Margaret of Scotland) brought a group of Benedictine monks to Dunfermline. The…
The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries saw a wish for monks to follow stricter rules. A number of new religious orders such as the Cluniacs and…
King David I (one of the sons of Margaret and Malcolm III) supported major changes in the Scottish Church. He increased the number of bishops and gave…
In the 1160s work began on a grand new cathedral at St Andrews (to replace the smaller church now known as St Rule’s which was then in use). The new…
In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council officially declared the Roman Catholic Church’s belief in the doctrine of purgatory. This was the idea that most…
Queen Margaret (the wife of Malcolm III) seems to have been regarded as a saint by the residents of Fife soon after her death in 1093. Miracles were…
The origins of the close connection between St Andrew and the people of Scotland go back into the early Middle Ages. However, during the wars between…
During the thirteenth century some people felt that monasteries had become too wealthy. In response new religious orders of friars were created. The…
In the 1360s King David II spent a large amount of money rebuilding the church at St Monans. The king did this because in 1346 he had survived being…
During the late Middle Ages universities increasingly took over responsiblity for higher education. In 1410 a group of churchmen established a…
The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries saw major building projects at many Fife churches. New churches were built and old ones remodelled. The…
Like many religious orders, the Franciscans (or grey friars) grew slightly less strict over time. This concerned some people, and led to the…
In 1349 the Black Death (probably a severe epidemic of bubonic plague) reached Fife. Churchmen were particularly likely to catch the disease as they…
Pavel Kravar was burned at the stake beside the market cross in St Andrews. A saltire in the cobbles on Market Street shows where the cross once stood. (Credit: Bess Rhodes)In the early 1430s a doctor named Pavel Kravar (sometimes known as Paul Craw in Scotland) was burned for heresy in the centre of St Andrews. Kravar…
The bishops of St Andrews had for centuries claimed to be the most important churchmen in Scotland. In 1472 their special status was officially…
The 1540s saw fighting between Scotland and England. The conflict was partly driven by the English government’s wish to arrange a marriage between…
Between the 1520s and the 1550s the Roman Catholic authorities in Fife severely punished a number of Protestant sympathisers. No less than four…
Townhill village on the edge of Dunfermline. (Credit: The Majestic Fool / Wikimedia)The Second Vatican Council (held in the Vatican in Rome) sought to modernise Roman Catholicism. It agreed major changes to Roman Catholic worship. One…
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Presbyterian opposition to Christmas reduced. In 1958 Christmas became a public holiday in Scotland.…
During the Second World War the armed forces expanded and many people moved around the country. New places of worship were established in Fife for…
At a joint assembly in Edinburgh the United Free Church agreed to merge with the Church of Scotland. This meant that many places in Fife now had…
After centuries of the controversy about the relationship between church and state, the British Parliament passed the Church of Scotland Act. This…
Thousands of Fife residents served in the armed forces during the First World War. Many were killed. After the war communities across Fife put up…
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had seen several groups leave the Church of Scotland. In 1900 two of the largest of these break-away…
For several centuries the University of St Andrews had not celebrated Christmas. However, in 1887 the university decided to have a communal Christmas…
As discrimination against Roman Catholics reduced, the Papacy decided to re-establish a traditional church hierarchy in Scotland. Six Roman Catholic…
Since the early 1700s the role of lay patrons in church appointments had been a major cause of discontent in the Church of Scotland, and had triggered…
For some decades there had been debates about the fact that clergy ordained by Scottish Episcopal bishops could not legally be appointed to positions…
While the Church of Scotland was splitting again, some groups of seceders were joining together. In 1847 the United Secession Church and the Relief…
For more than a century there had been divisions in the Church of Scotland over how appointments were made and the relationship between church and…
In 1829 the British Parliament passed legislation lifting most restrictions on Roman Catholics. Among other new freedoms, Roman Catholics were now…
After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church…
After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church…
In the early 1790s the British Parliament decided to resolve the status of Roman Catholics in Scotland. More than a decade after the harshest…
Following the death of Charles Edward Stuart, the leaders of the Scottish Episcopal Church agreed to support George III. After some argument, the…
Since the Reformation the Scottish government had banned Roman Catholic worship. In 1778 the British Parliament tried to reduce the restrictions on…
During the 1750s and 1760s a dispute over the appointment of a new minister at Inverkeithing led to another split in the Church of Scotland. A group…
The new Secession Church had a number of internal divisions which came to a head in the late 1740s. A particular area of disagreement concerned…
1746 Increased Restrictions on EpiscopaliansFollowing the failed rebellion of 1745 and 1746 checks on Episcopalians increased. Episcopal ministers who failed to take an oath of loyalty were…
1745 – 1746 Jacobite Rising (The Forty-Five)In August 1745 Charles Edward Stuart (sometimes called the Young Pretender) landed on the West Coast of Scotland. His arrival triggered a far-reaching…
Disagreements about the appointment of ministers and the role of powerful landowners as patrons led to a split in the Church of Scotland. A small…
During the 1720s the popular preacher John Glas (a graduate of the University of St Andrews and minister at Tealing near Dundee) put forward a series…
In 1517 the German academic Martin Luther published a series of criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther’s protest rapidly developed into an…
In the spring of 1546 the Roman Catholic archbishop of St Andrews, Cardinal David Beaton, was assassinated by a group of Fife lairds who opposed his…
During the 1550s a number of Roman Catholics worked to bring improvements to the Church in Scotland. Fife was at the heart of this movement, which was…
In the spring and summer of 1559 Protestant activists set out to ‘reform’ Roman Catholic churches. Influenced by strict Calvinist ideas on the…
The Reformation Parliament of 1560 saw Scotland officially declared a Protestant country. However, it took time to establish the structures of a…
For many years there were bitter debates about how the new Protestant Church of Scotland should be governed. In the 1560s each region had a…
By the 1570s the Church of Scotland was adopting an increasingly hard line on religious festivals. In particular there was a campaign against…
The later decades of the sixteenth century saw ongoing tensions about how radical the Church of Scotland should be. Many of these arguments became…
Reading the Bible formed a vital part of Protestant religious activity. In particular Protestants believed that people should have access to the Bible…
As he grew older King James VI became opposed to the relatively democratic government of the Church of Scotland. He had bitter disputes with what he…
The 1630s saw growing tensions about religion in Scotland. At this time King Charles I tried to bring the Church of Scotland more in line with English…
In 1639 Scotland slipped into religious war. Supporters of the National Covenant (sometimes known as Covenanters) took up arms in defence of their…
In 1660 the English invited Charles II to return as king. Shortly afterwards Charles set about overturning the religious changes of the previous…
An eighteenth-century drawing of the monument to Archbishop Sharp in Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews. A relief near the base of the monument shows the archbishop's murder. (Credit: University of St Andrews)Archbishop James Sharp was a divisive religious leader. Many Presbyterians felt that he had sold out the Church of Scotland by agreeing to become…
In 1689 King James VII was replaced as ruler of Scotland by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. Soon afterwards the Scottish…
Many of Fife’s Episcopal clergymen were removed from their parishes by the restoration of Presbyterianism. In 1695 the Scottish Parliament passed a…
After much debate, the parliaments of Scotland and England passed legislation to create a new Kingdom of Great Britain. The Scottish Parliament in…
Lobbying from Scottish aristocrats led to the passing of the Church Patronage Act. This stated that the old patrons of Scottish parishes (typically…
The British government was initially more tolerant of Episcopalians than the Scottish Parliament had been. In 1711 the laws against Episcopal…
When Presbyterianism was re-established in 1690 the Scottish Parliament also passed legislation banning Christmas. In 1712 this ban was lifted and the…
The accession of George I to the British throne was soon followed by a rebellion backing James Francis Edward Stuart’s claim to be king instead. James…
After the Jacobite rising of 1715 the British government became increasingly suspicious of Scottish Episcopalians. Ministers in the Scottish Episcopal…
The former St Nicholas Hospital in the late seventeenth century. (Source: John Slezer, ‘The Prospect of the Town of St Andrews’, Theatrum Scotiae (1693). Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/91169135)
The coast at Kilminning. Remains of what may have been an early chapel have been discovered in this area. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
Gothic revival carving above the main entrance to Newburgh Parish Church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
The west end of the former Livingstone Hall. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)The west end of the former Livingstone Hall. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Dunbog Parish Church, Dunbog
Braehead Evangelical churchBraehead church, 2023.