St Martha’s Nunnery, Aberdour

St Martha’s Nunnery, Aberdour

James Douglas, earl of Morton (d.1493) founded St Martha’s hospital in Aberdour in 1474. However, by 1486 this project had not been realised, and the earl granted the lands and building to four Sisters of the Third Order of St Francis, Isobel and Jean Wright, Frances Henryson, and Jean Drossewith. The nuns of this order were generally associated with hospitals, and the convent at Aberdour was one of only two such communities in Scotland. The dedicatee, St Martha of Bethany was a biblical figure included in the gospels of Luke and John. She was the sister of Lazarus and witnessed his resurrection. In 1560 the house was disbanded, when the four remaining sisters Agnes Wrycht, Elizabeth Trumball, Margaret Crummy, and Cristina Cornawell leased their lands and buildings to James Douglas, 4th earl of Morton (d.1581).

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tt27@st-andrews.ac.uk

Site

161

04/08/2021

(1) William Ross, ‘Notice of the Hospital of St Martha at Aberdour, Fife’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, volume iii (1857-60), pp. 214-220 (2) Alison More, ‘Tertiaries and the Scottish Observance: St Martha’s Hospital in Aberdour and the Institutionalisation of the Franciscan Third Order’, Scottish Historical Review Vol. 94, No. 239, Part 2 (October 2015), 121-139

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current,56.057181622805174,-3.295927047292935;

St Martha’s Nunnery, Aberdour

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Building

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Catholic