The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland (review)

This collection of ten essays is a welcome addition to Boydell's series, Studies in Celtic History. It is the product of an ongoing research project, centered at the University of Edinburgh, which has already resulted in an online Survey of Dedications to Saints in Medieval Scotland, together with the earlier collection in the same series: Saints' Cults in the Celtic World, ed. Boardman et al. (2009). While the somewhat more restricted focus of the present volume is by no means a disadvantage, the international perspectives bearing on the connections between Scottish, Irish, and English saints are given considerable space; for her part, Mary is the focus of four of the essays.

Two contributions—Rachel Butter's "St Munnu in Ireland and Scotland: an exploration of his cult" (pp. 21-41), and Helen Birkett's "The struggle for sanctity: St Waltheof of Melrose, Cictercian in-house cults and canonisation procedure at the turn of the thirteenth century" (pp. 43-59)—consist of case-studies. Munnu is an excellent example of an early-medieval "fissile saint" (see Clancy's title, below) in the Celtic world. Munnu, aka Fintan, is known from Adomnán's Vita Columbae, and his main area of activity lay in Leinster. By the thirteenth century, however, he had begun to be associated with Scotland, where the main area of his cult was in Argyllshire. In the transfer, the ambiguity of the term Scotti may have played an important role. With Waltheof one is on securer geographical ground, and the abbey of Melrose is central to the story: his vita (by Jocelin of Furness) was, as Birkett argues, written to stimulate the growth of a local cult; it emerges as a text fraught with political consequences for the Melrose monastic community, who were unhappy at certain allegedly "anti-Benedictine" decisions taken by the saint's successor, abbot William. Both essays shed considerable light on murky topics.

Equally murky were the circumstances surrounding the death (murder?) of a member of the Scottish royal family, discussed by Steve Boardman in his "A saintly sinner? The 'martyrdom' of David, duke of Rothesay" (pp. 87-104). David was the son and heir of Robert III, and died (in March 1402) while in the care of his uncle, Robert, duke of Albany. Boardman's essay is a careful analysis of the accounts of this event, and he demonstrates that there was a clear attempt to manufacture a political martyr cult (e.g., Becket). This ultimately failed in its objective, possibly because the return (in 1425) of James I Stewart (David's brother) from exile in England rendered such a cult otiose.

The four Marian contributions in the book vary considerably as to purpose, methodology, and success. Matthew H. Hammond's "Royal and aristocratic attitudes to saints and the Virgin Mary in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Scotland" (pp. 61-85) concentrates on changing patterns of patronage as reflected in the dedications of monastic foundations, and he presents useful lists for the period 1093-1250 (for both royal and aristocratic foundations). Mark A. Hall's "Wo/men only? Marian devotion in medieval Perth" (pp. 105-24) opts for sharp geographical focus in the hope of achieving greater depth of coverage. Sim R. Innes, in "Is eagal líom lá na hagra [= Terrifying to me is the day of accusation]: devotion to the Virgin in the later medieval Gàidhealtachd" (pp. 125-41) considers the poetic literature in Scottish Gaelic. Audrey-Beth Fitch's essay—"Mothers and their sons: Mary and Jesus in Scotland, 1450-1560" (pp. 159-76)—also deals with the later medieval period, and perhaps suffers from the attempt to cram too much disparate factual information into the space allotted. The early and much lamented death of Dr. Fitch may have had an effect on her contribution: for a much better and fuller treatment of the same material the reader may be recommended to the fifth chapter...