Balmerino Abbey, Balmerino

Balmerino Abbey, Balmerino

Balmerino Abbey was founded in the 1220s by Queen Ermengarde and her son Alexander II. The new monastery at Balmerino was a Cistercian community, and was established with the assistance of monks from Melrose Abbey. Balmerino was a relatively small monastery and appears to have had some financial difficulties during the Middle Ages. It has been suggested that Balmerino struggled to compete for resources with the larger and richer religious houses at Lindores and St Andrews. On the evening of Christmas Day 1547 an English raiding party burned Balmerino Abbey, supposedly after Scottish forces had shot with hackbuts from the religious site. The extent of the damage done by the raiders is unclear, and by 1555 at least eight monks appear to have been living in the abbey. Soon afterwards, the Reformation rising of 1559 ended monastic life at Balmerino, although it is possible that the church continued to be used for parish worship until about 1611. Today the chapter house and a sixteenth-century residence are the most notable extant remains. As late as the 1780s stones from the abbey site were being removed for local building projects.

sacredlandscapesoffife

1220

Natalia Nikitin

Site

259

08/09/2023

09/26/2023 02:06:58 pm

Historic Environment Scotland, Canmore entry for ‘Balmerino Abbey’. Available at: http://canmore.org.uk/site/31746 R. Oram, ed., Citeaux: Life on the Edge – The Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Scotland) (2008). W. Turnbull, ed., The Chartularies of Balmerino and Lindores (1841).

cm x cm x cm

current,56.40975494089786,-3.0415105824067723;

Balmerino Abbey, Balmerino

TEXT

Building

545

1560

Catholic

Balmerino