Queen Ermengarde and the Abbey of St Edward, Balmerino

Queen ermengarde and the abbey of St edward, balmerino* Matthew H. Hammond On the feast-day of St Lucy the Virgin – 13 December 1229 – Dom Alan the abbot and a group of Cistercian monks left Melrose Abbey and headed for Balmerino in northern Fife, in the Scottish east midlands. According to the chronicle of the founding house, the new abbey ‘was made by King Alexander [II] and his mother’.1 Melrose, a daughter-house of Rievaulx, was by then nearly a century old, and by Scottish standards was a large and prosperous monastery. King Alexander likely had * This research was irst presented in a session on Balmerino Abbey at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds on 9 July 2007, in a session organized by Cîteaux–Commentarii Cistercienses. I would like to thank Dr Julie Kerr for inviting me to take part, as well as Prof Dauvit Broun for reading and commenting on drafts of this paper. abbreviations anderson, SAEC Alan Orr Anderson, Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers, A.D. 500 to 1286, new ed. with corrections by Marjorie Anderson (Stamford, Lincs 1991). Arb. Liber Liber S. Thome de Aberbrothoc, i, ed. Cosmo Innes, Bannatyne Club, no. 86 (Edinburgh 1848). Balm. Liber Liber Sancte Marie de Balmorinach, [ed. William B.D.D. Turnbull]. Abbotsford Club, no. 22 (Edinburgh 1841). Carpenter, ‘King henry iii’ David Carpenter, ‘King Henry III and Saint Edward the Confessor: the Origins of the Cult’, English Historical Review 122 (2007), p. 865-891. CDS, i Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland in the Public Record Ofice, i, ed. Joseph Bain (London 1881). CDS, ii Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland in the Public Record Ofice, ii, ed. Joseph Bain (London 1884). Chron. Bower Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, gen. ed. D.E.R. Watt. 9 vols (Aberdeen 1987-1998). Chron. Melrose The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey: a Stratigraphic Edition. Volume I: Introduction and Facsimile Edition, ed. Dauvit Broun and Julian Harrison (Scottish History Society 2007). Facsimiles of both MSS are provided on a DVD (British Library, Faustina B IX and Julius B XIII). Moray Reg. Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis, [ed. Cosmo Innes]. Bannatyne Club, no. 58 (Edinburgh 1837). 1 Chron. Melrose, DVD, Faustina B IX,fol. 41v. The full entry reads: Anno domini mccxxix. Facta est abbatia sancti edwardi de balmorinac a rege alexandro et matre ejus & missus est illuc conuentus de melros cum domino Alano abbate suo in die sancte lucie virginis. Broun has assigned this entry to ‘Stratum 15’ and states that it was entered into the chronicle itself between 11 Feb. 1233 and early 1240, possibly mid- or late 1233. See volume 1, p. 139-144. Cîteaux : Commentarii cistercienses, t. 59, fasc. 1-2 (2008) 2 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND a special affection for Melrose; he was buried there after his death on distant Kerrera in 1249. Balmerino was the irst daughter-house of Melrose – and the irst royal Cistercian foundation – in some sixty-ive years.2 Indeed, it was the irst new royal foundation of any order since the Tironensian Arbroath in 1178. This article is an examination of the rôle played by Alexander’s mother, Queen Ermengarde, in the founding of Balmerino. Her devotion to St Edward the Confessor, an English royal saint, was unique in this period within Scotland. The abbey’s charters reveal a irm identiication with the saint, a situation which ceased after Ermengarde’s death. Questions concerning Ermengarde’s motives for her reverence of St Edward and the foundation of the abbey, the Cistercian monks’ changing relationship with their initial patron saint, and the reasons why Balmerino eventually dissociated itself from Edward, will in turn be discussed. i. Queen ermengarde and the foundation of balmerino While the decision that the convent would come from Melrose may have been Alexander II’s doing3, the driving force behind this momentous new foundation was his mother, Queen Ermengarde (d. 1233). She was the daughter of Richard, vicomte of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe just north of Le Mans (d. 1200×01)4, a grandson of King Henry I by his illegitimate daughter Constance. Ermengarde was still a child when married to King William (1165-1214) at Woodstock in September 1186.5 Little is known of Ermengarde’s life during her twenty-eight years as the queen consort and nineteen years as queen mother; however, she was inluential enough to marry her niece, Marguerite de Tosny, to Earl Mael Coluim I (Malcolm) of Fife (1204-1229), the premier earl in Scotland.6 As Jessica Nelson points out in her thesis on medieval Scottish queens, Scotland had been without a queen since the death in 1131 of Maud de Senlis, wife of David 2 Since Coupar Angus, in 1164. See Ian B. Cowan and David E. Easson, Medieval Religious Houses Scotland, 2nd ed. (London 1976), p. 73. 3 An impressive thirty-three acts of Alexander II to Melrose Abbey survive, of which nine are new grants. See Liber Sancte Marie de Melros, ed. Cosmo Innes, Bannatyne Club; no. 56 (Edinburgh 1837), nos. 173-177, 183-185, 198, 202, 203, 207, 228, 229, 231, 237, 239-241, 245, 248, 254, 255, 257-259, 264-266, 270, 278, 299, 366. 4 Dates linked with an ‘x’ in this paper indicate an event occurring at some point between (and including) the dates given. This follows the style current in Britain and corresponds to the ‘/’ used on the continent. 5 Geoffrey W.S. Barrow, Scotland and its Neighbours in the Middle Ages (London 1992), p. 72. This chapter, ‘The Reign of William the Lion’, irst appeared as an article in Historical Studies, vii (1969), p. 21-44. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, I, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, no. 49 (London 1867), p. 351. Anderson, SAEC, p. 289, p. 293-294. 6 Daniel Power, ‘Terra regis Anglie et terra Normannorum sibi invicem adversantur: les héritages anglo-normands entre 1204 et 1244’, in La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Âge, ed. Pierre Bouet and Véronique Gazeau (Caen 2003), p. 200-202; George W. Watson, ‘Margaret de Toeny, Countess of Fife’, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica and British Archivist, ed. A. W. Hughes Clarke, vol. VII, 5th ser. (London 1929-1931), p. 329-332. My thanks to Mr Andrew MacEwen for bringing this article to my attention. It is noteworthy that Ermengarde held the lands of Crail and Kinghorn in Fife, as mentioned in King Alexander’s 1221 grant of £1000 in dowerlands to Queen Joan. CDS i, no. 808. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 3 I (although it could be argued that Countess Ada de Warenne – wife of Earl Henry of Northumberland and mother of Kings Malcolm IV and William I – acted in a quasi-queenly capacity).7 In this light, the period between 1221 (when Alexander II married Joan, a legitimate daughter of King John) and 1233 (when Ermengarde died) is something of an anomoly. During these twelve years, Scotland had two queens. Joan was born on 22 July 1210 and married to Alexander at york on 25 June 1221, about a month before her eleventh birthday.8 Whereas Ermengarde had provided an heir to the throne and lived a long life, Joan and Alexander failed to produce offspring. Moreover, Joan appears to have been sickly and died at the relatively young age of 27 on 4 March 1238.9 As queen, it is likely that Ermengarde looked after Joan in the early years, especially while she was still a child, and it seems probable that Ermengarde took an interest in Joan’s welfare and marital duties. It is worth keeping in mind that Joan was sixteen in 1226, by which time plans for the new abbey were underway.10 The prestige and position of both queens sprung from two sources: their rôle as queens of Scotland and their descent from kings of England. There was one historical igure who combined these two prestigious characteristics; Margaret (d. 1093), wife of King Mael Coluim III (Malcolm), was one of precious few descendants of the old Anglo-Saxon royal house of Wessex – the line of Alfred. Unfortunately, there are no surviving documents to suggest whether Ermengarde and Joan supported the nascent cult of Margaret at Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, but there is evidence to show that Margaret was considered a saint locally before papal approval for canonisation in 1249.11 The saintly reputation of Queen Margaret could only have relected well on Ermengarde and Joan. We should perhaps not overestimate the St Margaret effect, however; neither queen was buried beside her at Dunfermline.12 Nevertheless, Margaret was not yet oficially recognised as a saint at the time of Balmerino’s foundation, and thus was not available for the more highly scrutinised and often more public devotions of royalty. A saint who pointed to the Anglo-Saxon 7 Jessica Nelson, ‘Queens and Queenship in Scotland, circa 1067-1286’ (manuscript Ph.D. thesis King’s College, University of London, 2006), p. 120. I would like to thank Dr Nelson for providing me with access to her work on short notice. 8 For Joan’s death, see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Henry R. Luard, iii, Rolls Series, no. 57 (London 1876), p. 66-67. Anderson, SAEC, p. 335. 9 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iii, p. 479. Anderson, SAEC, p. 345. Chron. Melrose, DVD, Faustina B.IXfol. 44v. Nelson, ‘Queens and Queenship’, p. 159-183. 10 Margaret, daughter of Henry III and wife of Alexander III, was probably between 16 and 18 when their irst child, also called Margaret, was born in 1261. Dates of Queen Margaret’s birth range from 1240 to 1243. Anderson, SAEC, p. 363n. 11 Margaret is mentioned in several pre-1250 charters by laymen to Dunfermline Abbey, but not in royal or episcopal charters. Registrum de Dunfermelyn, ed. Cosmo Innes, Bannatyne Club; no. 74 (Edinburgh, 1842), nos. 165, 166, 178, 202. According to Roger of Howden, King William had a vision while passing the night at Margaret’s tomb in Dunfermline. Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. William Stubbs, iv. Rolls Series, no. 51 (London 1871), p. 100; Anderson, SAEC, p. 322. 12 Kings Edgar, Alexander I, David and Mael Coluim IV were buried at Dunfermline, but no other Scottish royals were interred there until 1275. Ermengarde was buried at Balmerino and Queen Joan was interred in England, where she died. See Steve Boardman, ‘Dunfermline as a royal mausoleum’, in Royal Dunfermline, ed. Richard Fawcett (Edinburgh 2005), p. 139-153, at p. 150. 4 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND background of Margaret and thus the prestige that such ancestry conveyed to European eyes on the Scottish royal line as a whole did, however, exist: Margaret’s greatuncle, Edward the Confessor, who had been canonised in 1161.13 At some point after the death of King William, Ermengarde granted the advowson of the church of Kettins in Perthshire to the Hospital of St Edward in Berwick-upon-Tweed.14 This is the earliest reference to the hospital, and it seems likely that Ermengarde was behind its foundation; dedications to St Edward were not yet common, even in England, and were unknown in Scotland. Although he was canonised in 1161, the cult of St Edward the Confessor had not spread far beyond its base at Westminster Abbey. Papal sanction for the addition of his feast day to the English church calendar came in 1227, and David Carpenter’s new study reveals that English royal devotion of the saint began in earnest with Henry III in the years between 1233 and 1238.15 It is remarkable that the Scottish developments in the saint’s cult appear to exist almost entirely independently of these English events, and that the foundation of Balmerino Abbey signiicantly predates them. The hospital in Berwick and the abbey of Balmerino are the only known medieval dedications to the saint in Scotland, and both are directly attributable to Ermengarde’s devotion and patronage.16 The queen’s motives for her devotion to St Edward appear, however, to have gone far beyond simply looking for a surrogate St Margaret. The Life of St Edward – commissioned by Laurence, abbot of Westminster, for the saint’s translation in 1163 – was written by Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, whose connections with the Scottish royal house and affection for King David I and his son Earl Henry are well known. David Carpenter has recently suggested that the Scottish royal court likely owned a copy, allowing Ermengarde to access its redolent imagery.17 Aelred’s Vita Sancti Edwardi Regis et Confessoris details the king’s deathbed prophesy, in which Edward described a green tree that was cut from its trunk and set apart by three yokes, but returns to its own trunk and roots and is able to lower and bear fruit again: ‘The root from which all this honour sprang was the royal seed that descended by a direct line of succession from Alfred, irst of the English to be anointed and consecrated king by the pope, to Saint Edward’ ... ‘The tree returned to its root when the glorious King Henry, to whom the whole honour of the kingdom had been passed, married Matilda, a great-great niece of Edward, compelled by no necessity and urged 13 Aelred of Rievaulx, a onetime member of the Scottish royal household, wrote the Vita for St Edward’s translation at Westminster on 13 October 1163. Aelred Squire, Aelred of Rievaulx: A Study (London, 1969), p. 93-97. Thanks to Julie Kerr for fruitful discussions on this topic. 14 Calendar of Writs preserved at Yester House 1166-1503, ed. Charles C.H. Harvey and John Macleod. Scottish Record Society. (Edinburgh 1930), no. 11; Edinburgh, National Archives of Scotland, Gifts and Deposits, 28/11. 15 Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’, p. 866. My thanks to Prof Carpenter for letting me see this paper before publication. 16 James M. MacKinlay, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland, ii (Edinburgh, 1914), p. 272-276; Database of Dedications to Saints in Medieval Scotland, http://webdb.ucs.ed.ac.uk/saints/, accessed 15 January 2008. According to MacKinlay, there was also an altar at St John’s parish church at Perth dedicated to ‘St Confessor’, but apparently the only evidence for this comes from the year 1510. MacKinlay, Church Dedications, ii, p. 276. 17 Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’, p. 867, n. 14. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 5 by no hope of gain but by a natural attachment, joining the seed of Norman and English kings and through the marriage act making one from the two’.18 With this prophesy, Aelred is continuing a theme irst set out in his Genealogy of the Kings of the English, written in 1153 and 1154 for Henry II, which began with a lamentation on the death of King David I of Scots. This emphasised David as a rôle model for the young Henry (whom David had knighted), but also threw light on the importance of Queen Margaret of Scotland and her daughter, Edith/ Matilda, who married Henry I and thus set the blood of Alfred lowing again in the veins of an English monarch, Henry Plantagenet.19 In this way, the imagery of the Life of St Edward highlighted not only the descent of King Alexander II from the prestigious line of Alfred, but also directed the reader’s mind to the theme of political unions – whether they be Normandy and England in 1066, England itself in 1154, or Scotland and England in the 1221 marriage of Alexander and Joan. This marriage followed a period of profound tension between the two kingdoms. The timing of Balmerino’s founding, moreover, suggests a wisely-chosen intercessor to help the young English wife of the Scottish king to conceive an heir to the kingdom, an heir who would simultaneously help guarantee not only the continuing success and lourishing of the Scottish kingdom and its kingship, but also the peaceful relationship between Scotland and her powerful southern neighbour. That monastic foundations could spring from political motivations was not a novelty in central medieval Scotland. Ermengarde’s husband, William I of Scotland, founded the richly-endowed abbey at Arbroath in 1178, dedicating it to St Thomas the Martyr of Canterbury. Historians have rightly interpreted this act as a response to William’s capture by the English at Alnwick in 1174 and the humiliation of his subsequent imprisonment at Falaise and the harsh terms agreed there.20 Contemporary writers directly attributed the taking of King William to King Henry’s penance for the murder of Archbishop Thomas. According to Jordan Fantosme, upon hearing the news of William’s capture Henry exclaimed, ‘Thanks be to God, and to St Thomas the Martyr, and to all the saints of God!’.21 Indeed, that Henry’s submission and William’s capture were believed to have occurred on the same day is highly indicative of the light of divine favour shining again on the English monarchy.22 This 18 Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works, ed. Marsha Dutton, trans. Jane P. Freeland (Kalamazoo, Michigan 2005), p. 205-209, with quotation on p. 208. The Latin text printed in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, series Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, 195 (Paris 1855), cols. 737-790, was taken from an earlier edition, in Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores X, ed. Roger Twysden (London 1652), cols. 370-414. 19 Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works, p. 72. The text printed in Patrologiae Latina 195, cols. 711-738, was reprinted from Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores X, cols. 347-370. 20 Archibald A.M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots, 842-1292: Succession and Independence (Edinburgh 2002), p. 114; Keith Stringer, ‘Arbroath Abbey in context, 1178-1320’, in The Declaration of Arbroath: History, Signiicance, Setting, ed. Geoffrey Barrow (Edinburgh 2003), p. 116-141, at p. 117 and 120. 21 Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle, ed. Ronald C. Johnston (Oxford 1981), p. 149. 22 Roger of Howden’s continuation of Benedict of Peterborough’s chronicle fails to draw any connection between the capture of King William and Henry II’s public penance at Canterbury. (Gesta Henrici 6 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND story, to which William must have been exposed during his time at Falaise, must have encouraged the king of Scots to placate the saint who had negotiated his downfall. Once free, gaining Thomas’s favour must have seemed a top priority for setting the ‘ship of state’ on an even keel again. The failure of the kingdom may have also been attributed partially to Columba (or Colmcille), who was normally called upon to guarantee success in battle. Columba’s relics were probably set into a shrine associated with the saint known as the Breccbennach. In the light of the ability of saints to protect the king and his realm, the granting of the Breccbennach to Arbroath Abbey, and by extension to St Thomas, is a highly signiicant element of William’s apparent belief in the need to placate the saint who had inexplicably permitted his capture and humiliation.23 Arbroath Abbey was one of William’s most lasting achievements, and his decision to be buried there does not come as a surprise. For whatever reason, Ermengarde seems to have wanted to distance herself from this aspect of her husband’s legacy. Perhaps this can be attributed to the diminishing relevance of St Thomas to Scotland’s political situation by the 1210s and 1220s, or maybe it is based more on Ermengarde’s devotion to St Edward and her apparent belief that he held the key to safeguarding Scotland’s position. On the other hand, it is equally possible that Ermengarde simply did not want to be buried next to her husband at Arbroath, preferring instead to step out of his shadow and arrange for a legacy of her own. This she achieved to great effect with Balmerino Abbey. If Ermengarde’s devotion to St Edward was directed towards helping Queen Joan produce an heir – and that much must remain a guess, however likely – there can be no doubt that the long-term function of the new abbey would be to provide a suitably prestigious resting place for the queen mother. Ermengarde was quite clearly in charge of the fairly well-documented process of obtaining the lands for the new house. The choice of Balmerino, a ‘greenield’ site with no known previous monastic or saintly associations, may have been dictated by Secundi, p. 67). This is not the case in the chronicle more explicitly associated with Roger, in which a lengthy account of Henry’s penance is followed immediately by the story of William’s capture. Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. William Stubbs, ii. Rolls Series, no. 51 (London 1869), p. 61-63. According to Jordan Fantosme, ‘the king of England had landed while these events were in train [i.e., King William’s capture] and made his peace with St. Thomas that very morning when the king of Scots was made prisoner and led away.’ (Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle, p. 141). 23 Regesta Regum Scottorum, ii: The Acts of William I King of Scots 1165-1214, ed. Geoffrey W.S. Barrow with the collaboration of William W. Scott (Edinburgh 1971), no. 499. The charter, which was dated at Aberdeen on 28 June 1208×11, probably 1211, records a conirmation to the monks of Arbroath of custody of the Breccbennach, and the grant of the land of Forglen, Banffshire, to the monks, and the granting of it to God, St Columba and ‘le Bracbennach’. Two points should be taken from this charter: the direct association of the reliquary (or other holy object) with St Columba, and, crucially, that the Breccbennach itself had been given to Arbroath Abbey prior to this charter, which seems to exist mainly to designate the land of Forglen for the upkeep of the object. Thus, the initial grant of the Breccbennach appears to have taken place at some point between 1178 and 1211. The Breccbennach, which means ‘the speckled, peaked one’, may or may not have been the reliquary known commonly as the ‘Monymusk Reliquary’. See Stringer, ‘Arbroath Abbey’, p. 123; and David H. Caldwell, ‘The Monymusk Reliquary: the Breccbennach of St Columba?’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 131 (2001), p. 267-282. On the interpretation of the above royal charter, as suggested by Prof Duncan, see Ibid., p. 270. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 7 circumstance rather than by choice. The lands of Balmerino in northeast Fife were acquired for the new monastery in 1225. This estate, which included Coultra, had been part of the large demesne of the abbey of Abernethy, but was transferred to Henry Revel by marriage to Margaret, daughter of the hereditary lay-abbot, Orm, in the 1170s.24 After Henry’s death, the estates passed to his nephew, Richard Revel; Alexander II conirmed these lands, including Balmerino, between 1215 and 1225.25 When Richard died, the estates passed to his brother, Adam of Stawell in Somerset, providing an opportunity for the king and his mother to acquire land in a central location that was appropriate for a new abbey. Adam of Stawell appeared in the king’s court at Forfar on Sunday, 12 October 1225, where he resigned the lands of Coultra and Balmerino in Fife, with the advowson of the church of Balmerino and the lands of Airdie, to Ermengarde, queen and mother of the lord king Alexander.26 The fourteenth-century Balmerino cartulary (National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 34.5.3) preserves a quitclaim charter of Adam and a chirograph agreement between Adam and the queen, both dated on 25 October 1225.27 The agreement states clearly that Queen Ermengarde owed Adam a thousand marks for the quitclaim of Coultra and Balmerino, and that Adam would get his money after handing over the charters of Kings William and Alexander to the master of the Knights Templar in London. The agreement laid out that Adam was to receive ive hundred marks on the following Christmas and a further ive hundred marks on the Nativity of St John the Baptist (24 June) from the queen or her messenger. The cartulary also preserves the receipt obtained from Adam by the Knights Templar in London,28 recording that Adam received ive hundred marks from the hand of Thomas, son of Ranulph, at the Temple in London on Tuesday, 30 December 1225, and the other ive hundred marks from the monks of Melrose on 24 June 1226. Thus, by the summer of 1226, Ermengarde owned the lands which she intended to endow on her new monastery. ii. the abbey of St edward The rôle of St Edward in the life of the new abbey at Balmerino relected the concerns – personal and political – of its founder and patron. The new community arrived from Melrose in December 1229, but the intervening years involved a lurry of activity and we are afforded glimpses of the foundation process by various documents. 24 Regesta Regum Scottorum, ii, nos. 114 (1166×71), 152 (1173×78), 147 (1173×78); Balm. Liber, no. 2. 25 Balm. Liber, no. 3 (1215×25); Handlist of the Acts of Alexander II 1214-1249, ed. James M. Scoular (Edinburgh 1959), no. 24. 26 Ermengarde’s prominent rôle in this event further highlights that she was the motivating force behind the project. 27 Balm. Liber, nos. 4 and 5. 28 Ibid., no. 6. 8 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND King Alexander must have approached the Cistercians about establishing a new monastery in 1226, if not before. Item 39 for the year 1227 of the Statutes of the General Chapter of the Cistercian order states: Petitio regis Scotiae de aediicanda Ordinis nostri abbatia committitur de Rievalle et de Cupro abbatibus, qui consideratis possessionibus et bonis quae dominus rex illi promisit abbatiae, si viderint quod illam abbatiam velit suficienter dotare, concedatur eodem conventus de domo de Melros auctoritate Capituli generalis.29 The petition of the king of Scots concerning the building of an abbey of our order is committed to the abbots of Rievaulx and Coupar, who, after examining the possessions and goods that the lord king promised to the abbey, if they have seen that he wishes to endow that abbey suficiently, a convent of the house of Melrose may be granted to the same by the authority of the General Chapter. The General Chapter thus committed the abbots of Rievaulx and Coupar Angus to decide whether the endowments promised by King Alexander were suficient to support a new foundation from Melrose Abbey. A fragment of a charter dated ‘1227’ recorded in the Balmerino cartulary appears to have been granted by Bishop William Malveisin of St Andrews. The grantor’s name and the granting clause are missing, but the charter uses the plural of majesty and states that the donation is being made by consent of King Alexander, the chapter of St Andrews and the archdeacon of St Andrews.30 That point notwithstanding, the fragment of extant text does not mention Balmerino Abbey by name. That the new house was given institutional approval in 1227 is supported by a later list of Cistercian monasteries, printed in the volume of Records of the Abbey of Kinloss, which cites that year as the date of the foundation of ‘domus Sancti Edwardi’.31 If approval for the new house was secured by 1227, there were other issues that had to be dealt with before the new colony of monks could arrive. According to Cistercian statutes, a new abbot and community were not to be sent to a new monastery until the oratory, refectory, dormitory, guest quarters and gatehouse had been constructed.32 It is probably safe to assume that between 1227 and December 1229, lay-brothers were sent ahead to prepare these buildings.33 An abbot had been chosen for the new house by 20 September 1229. The seals of all the abbots of the daughterhouses of Melrose were attached to a chirograph agreement between the Cistercian abbot and convent of Kinloss and the archdeacon and precentor of the diocese of 29 Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis, Tomus II, ed. Joseph Marie Canivez (Louvain 1934), p. 63; Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 73. 30 Balm. Liber, no. 11. The charter has been accepted as a legitimate act of Bishop William by Norman Shead, editor of the forthcoming Scottish Episcopal Acta. 31 Records of the Monastery of Kinloss, ed. James Stuart (Edinburgh 1872), p. 13. 32 Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell. Cîteaux–Commentarii cistercienses, Studia et Documenta, vol. IX (Brecht 1999), p. 408. 33 As Stalley pointed out, ‘The delays in preparing a site may explain the inconsistencies recorded in the foundation dates of some abbeys’. Roger Stalley, The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland (London 1987), p. 39. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 9 Moray, dated at Kinloss.34 It is surely signiicant that the abbots of Melrose, Newbattle, Coupar, St Serfs (Culross), Deer, and ‘St Edwards’ (as Balmerino is called) were gathered together in one place at this time, although the full context escapes us. The clear identiication of the new house with St Edward was thus emphasised in the title of the abbot before the convent had fully settled in their new home. The Melrose Chronicle identiies that abbot as ‘Dom Alan’ and his new house as ‘abbacia Sancti Eadwardi de Balmurinac’.35 It was somewhat unusual for Cistercian abbeys to be associated so strongly with a saint other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, but from the outset, charters relating to Balmerino emphasise the important rôle played by St Edward. The earliest two (complete) contemporaneous charters dealing with the new monastery survive as single sheets.36 Dating to ‘1230’ (i.e., probably between 25 March 1230 and 24 March 1231), a chirograph recorded the resolution of a dispute between Balmerino Abbey and Arbroath Abbey over the church of ‘Fethmuref’ or Barry, in the county of Angus.37 The agreement was made ‘in council at Dundee’ and was witnessed by the bishops of St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Brechin, Caithness and Dunblane, the abbots of Lindores and Culross, and the archdeacons of St Andrews and Dunkeld.38 Arbroath agreed to lease the church to Balmerino for forty marks annually. The association of the abbey with St Edward is very clear in this document, which is all the more signiicant given that it relects a decision made at a large church council. The agreement was made between ‘the abbot and convent of Arbroath’ on one side and ‘the abbot and convent of St Edward of Balmerino’ on the other; ‘the abbot and convent of Arbroath’ are to lease the church to ‘the abbot and convent of Balmerino of St Edward’ in perpetuity; ‘the abbot and convent of St Edward of Balmerino’ are to owe forty marks to ‘the abbot and convent of Arbroath’. No mention is made of Arbroath’s patron, St Thomas the Martyr. Moreover, the reversal of the usual formula ‘de Sancto Edwardo de Balmurinach’ in the second instance could be read as the scribe falling into the form being used for Arbroath (e.g., ‘abbati et conuentui de Balmurinach’) before remembering to add St Edward’s name; the irst and third instances retain the usual formula. A charter in the name of Ralph, abbot of Arbroath, making known the result of the above agreement and probably dating from around the same time, refers to the ‘abbot 34 Moray Reg., no. 77. The text reads ‘appensa sunt sigilla Abbatum de Melros, de Neubotyl, de Cuper, de Sancto Servano, de Deer, et de Sancto Edwardo’. 35 Chron. Melrose, DVD, Faustina B IX, fol. 41v. See also Chron. Bower, v, p. 142-143. 36 The ‘foundation charter’ was copied into Balmerino’s cartulary (Balm. Liber, no. 1) but the agreement with Arbroath Abbey was not. See Arb. Liber, no. 259. 37 Earl of Moray Charters, Darnaway Castle, Box 32, Div. V, Bundle I, no. 17; ‘Miscellaneous Monastic Charters’, ed. David E. Easson, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, viii. Scottish History Society, 3rd ser., no. 43. (Edinburgh 1951), ‘Charters of Balmerino Abbey’, no. 1. King William had granted the church there to Arbroath, while King Alexander gave the lands to Balmerino. The Cistercian monks of Balmerino claimed the right to hold the church as well. Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland. Scottish Record Society, Old Ser., no. 93. (Edinburgh, 1967), p. 14-15. 38 The only other witnesses are two magistri: no laymen witness the document. The bishopric of Dunkeld was vacant. See Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Medii Aevi Ad Annum 1638, rev. ed., ed. Donald E.R. Watt and Athol L. Murray. Scottish Record Society, New Ser., no. 25 (Edinburgh 2003), p. 124. 10 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND figure 1. King alexander ii’s ‘foundation charter’ to balmerino abbey, 3 feb. 1231. London, British Library, Lord Frederick Campbell Charters, xxx, no. 6. (By permission of the British Library) QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 11 and convent of the monastery of St Edward of Balmerino’. There was another agreement between the abbeys in the same year, for which the original has not survived. The witness list of this was regrettably not copied into the cartulary, but a separate agreement was made in 1230 at a ‘council of prudent men’ that refers only to the ‘abbey and convent of Balmerino’, with no mention of St Edward.39 King Alexander II’s ‘foundation charter’40 (Fig. 1), which also survives as a contemporary single-sheet parchment, but which (unlike the chirograph) was entered into the Balmerino cartulary (in the number one slot), also relects an assembly of some sort, but it was clearly not made at the same event as that which was recorded in the 1230 agreement.41 This charter was dated at Clackmannan on 3 February in the seventeenth year of Alexander’s reign (1230 n.s., or 1230×31), but it is possible that the event it recorded took place earlier, as such charters were often written up weeks after the ceremonies suggested by their witness lists.42 It is thus uncertain whether this charter came before or after the Dundee church council. In any event, it was probably attended by the bishop of Moray, who was conspicuously absent in the 1230 agreement, the earl of Menteith, the king’s steward and justiciar of Scotia, the earl of Dunbar, and a few knights and clerks, including Thomas, son of Ranulph, who was involved in the proceedings to acquire the lands. The king’s charter includes the following clause: Sciant presentes et futuri nos ad honorem Dei et gloriose Virginis Marie et sanctissimi Regis Eduuardi et ad exaltacionem sancte religionis . pro salute nostra et omnium antecessorum et successorum nostrorum . et pro animabus illustris Regis Willemi patris nostri et Ermengardis Regine matris nostre et omnium antecessorum et successorum nostrorum . quandam abbaciam Cisterciensis ordinis fundasse apud Balmurynach in Fyff. 43 Balm. Liber, no. 72. (Appendix, no. III), Arb. Liber, no. 259. This term is somewhat misleading, as they almost always were written up months, even years, after a convent came to a new monastic house. Nevertheless, unlike other grants, they stand out for their use of the verb fundatio and do seem to indicate the initial endowment of lands and privileges by the founder. 41 British Library, Lord Frederick Campbell charters, XXX, 6; James Anderson, Selectus diplomatum & numismatum Scotiae thesaurus (Edinburgh 1739) [usually known as Diplomata Scotiae], plate xxxiv (facsimile); Joseph Stevenson, Illustrations of Scottish History from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, Maitland Club, no. 28, (Glasgow 1834), no. xiv; Handlist of the Acts of Alexander II, no. 145; Balm. Liber, no. 1. 42 Geoffrey W.S. Barrow, ‘Witnesses and the Attestation of Formal Documents in Scotland, TwelfthThirteenth Centuries’, Legal History 16 (1995), 1-20; Matthew H. Hammond, ‘Assemblies and the writing of administrative documents in the central medieval kingdom of the Scots’, in Medieval Legal Process: Physical, Spoken and Written Performance in the Middle Ages, ed. Marco Mostert and Paul S. Barnwell (Brepols, forthcoming). 43 Chartulary of the Abbey of Lindores 1195-1479, ed. John Dowden. Scottish History Society, First Ser., no. 42 (Edinburgh 1903), no. 2; Charters, Bulls and other Documents relating to the Abbey of Inchaffray, ed. William A. Lindsay, John Dowden and John Maitland Thomson. Scottish History Society, First Ser., no. 56 (Edinburgh 1908), no. 9; William Douglas, ‘Culross Abbey and its charters, with notes on a ifteenth-century transumpt’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 60 (1925-26), p. 67-94. Note that of these three, Culross stands out as the only Cistercian house (Lindores is Tironensian and Inchaffray Augustinian) and that Lindores is unique in being the only monastery without a dedication to the saint predating the establishment of a reformed monastery. 39 40 12 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND Let it be known to those present and future that we, to the honour of God and the glorious Virgin Mary and the most holy (or saintly) King Edward and to the exaltation of the holy religion, for the health of us and of all our ancestors and successors, and for the souls of the illustrious King William our father and Queen Ermengarde our mother and of all our ancestors and successors, have founded a certain abbey of the Cistercian order at Balmerino in Fife. In this charter, God, Mary and the patron saint are grouped together in a way that is typical and unremarkable for contemporary monasteries with dual dedications, including Lindores (Mary and Andrew), Inchaffray (Mary and St John the Evangelist) and Culross (Mary and St Serf). It is also interesting that Ermengarde only appears in the pro anima clause of this opening phrase of the royal ‘foundation charter’, although mention is made of the lands of Coultra, Balmerino, and their pertinents, being quitclaimed by Adam of Stawell ‘ad opus domine Ermengardis Regine matris nostra’, which hints at a greater rôle for the queen behind the scenes. Surviving charter texts from the period between the abbey’s establishment and the death of Queen Ermengarde on 11 February 1233 suggest that the abbey was identiied almost exclusively with St Edward during that time. Despite the mention of the Virgin Mary in King Alexander’s foundation charter, a brieve (or writ) dated 10 February 1232 commanded his sheriffs to treat the causes of the ‘monks or brothers of St Edward in Fife’ as if they were his own.44 A document recording the sale of land in Perth by Laurence son of Guy and a conirmation of that sale by Bishop Gilbert of Dunkeld dated 1231 both mention the ‘abbot and convent of St Edward of Balmerino’.45 The only anomalous charter dating to before Ermengarde’s death is that of John of Scotland, earl of Huntingdon, who granted a toft in his burgh of Dundee to ‘God and the church of St Mary and St Edward of Balmerino’.46 That this charter is witnessed by Dom John, abbot of Lindores, is telling. Lindores, which was founded by Earl John’s father Earl David, is less than ten miles from Balmerino. The other witnesses to the charter were members of Earl John’s household, suggesting that it was more likely produced in a Lindores context than in a Balmerino one. Lindores Abbey had a dual dedication to St Mary and St Andrew, and contemporaneous charters by Earl John to Lindores Abbey use the formula ‘to God and the church of St Mary and St Andrew of Lindores’, which echoes the formula used in his charter to Balmerino.47 44 Earl of Moray Charters, Darnaway Castle, Box 32, Div. IV, Bundle I, no. 6; ‘Misc. Monastic Charters’, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, viii, ‘Charters of Balmerino Abbey’, no. 2; Handlist of the Acts of Alexander II, no. 157. 45 Balm. Liber, nos. 25, 26. 46 Ibid., no. 31. 47 Chartulary of the Abbey of Lindores 1195-1479, nos. 15, 17, 19; cf. no. 16, which mentions no saint, and no. 18, which mentions only Mary. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD Grantor Description 13 Date Reference ‘1230’ = 25 Mar. 1230 × 24 Mar. 1231 Moray Chrs., Balmerino & Agreement over Sancto Edwardo de Box 32, Div. V, Arbroath Abbeys church of Barry Balmurinach Bundle I, no. 17 Prob. at same Balm. Liber, time as above; no. 9 ante 11 Feb. 1233 Ralph, abbot of Arbroath ‘1230’ = 25 Mar. 1230 × 24 Mar. 1231 Arb. Liber, no. 259 Balmerino & Agreement Arbroath Abbeys 3 Feb. 1231 British Library, King Alexander Campbell II Chrs., xxx, no. 6 Before following charter Balm. Liber, no. 25 Laurence son of Guy ‘1231’ = 25 Mar. 1231 × 24 Mar. 1232 Balm. Liber, no. 26. Bishop Gilbert of Conirms land Dunkeld in Perth 10 Feb. 1232 Moray Chrs., Box 32, Div. IV, Bundle I, no. 6. King Alexander II ante 21 Nov. 1232 Balm. Liber, no. 31 John of Grants a toft in Scotland, earl of Dundee Huntingdon Latin formula Abbot notes the Abbas et Conventus results of above Monasterii Sancti agreement Edwardi de Balmurynach Abbatem et conuentum de Balmurynath Foundation grant ad honorem Dei et gloriose Virginis Marie et sanctissimi Regis Eduuardi Sells land in Perth domino abbati et conventui de Sancto Edwardo de Balmurynach in Fyff abbati et conventui de Sancto Edwardo de Balmurynach Commands his monachi uel fratres sheriffs to treat de sancto edwardo B’s causes as if in if their own Deo et ecclesie Sancte Marie et Sancti Edwardi de Balmurynach table 1. Charters of balmerino abbey, 1230 – 1233 According to the Chronicle of Melrose, Queen Ermengarde died on the third of the Ides of February (the 11th) 1233, in the 47th year of her marriage48 and was buried in the abbey of St Edward of Balmerino which she herself had founded.49 David of Lindsey made a donation to Balmerino ‘for the health of Sir Alexander, king of Scots, and for the soul of lady Ermengarde, of good memory, Queen of Scotland’, of 20 solidi ‘as a She was married in 1186. Chron. Melrose, DVD, BL Faustina B.IX, fol. 42v. The full text reads: ‘Obiit bone memorie Ermengardis regina Willelmi regis scocie mater Alexandri regis iii idus februarii anno desponsacionis eius xlvii et sepulta est in abbatia sancti edwardi de balmorinac quam ipsa fundauerat.’ For translation, see Anderson, Early Sources, ii, 488-9; see also Chron. Bower, v, 147. 48 49 14 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND pittance on the anniversary of the late Ermengarde, of good memory, Queen of Scotland, my lady’.50 This donation was probably made at Ermengarde’s funeral at Balmerino; it was certainly made by the time of the king’s conirmation, dated 28 March 1233. Alexander’s conirmation, which was dated by regnal year, makes clear that the year reckoning used the monks of Melrose was one starting on either Christmas or January 1st, not the 25th of March, a customary Cistercian practice which the most recent editor of the Melrose Chronicle conirms.51 Thus, the queen’s death took place in 1233, by our (‘New Style’) reckoning, and not in 1234, as some modern works claim.52 Immediately after Ermengarde’s death, the terminology of the charters switches to one that was much more typical of Cistercian houses with dual dedications.53 Even David of Lindsey’s donation at (or soon after) her funeral, and King Alexander’s conirmation of this gift, utilise the ‘St Mary and St Edward’ form that came to dominate the abbey’s charter diplomatic practice of the next few years.54 Other royal documents from the 1230s dealing with Balmerino Abbey omit the saints altogther; a grant dated 9 April 1234 is to the ‘monks of Balmerino’.55 Another document dated the following day granting Balmerino and Barry in free forest is to ‘the abbot and convent of Balmerino’.56 On Christmas Day 1234, the king granted lands worth forty marks (in Tarves, Aberdeenshire) to Arbroath Abbey in place of the annual rent paid by Balmerino for the church of Barry. The king had apparently promised to rid the Cistercians of this rent at the funeral of Queen Ermengarde at Balmerino.57 This charter again only makes mention of the ‘abbot and convent of Balmerino’. Charters by lay donors as well during this period of the 1230s after Ermengarde’s death are characterised by the dual dedication to the Virgin Mary and St Edward. Laurence of Abernethy – whose family had once held the lands of Balmerino – and his distant cousin Mael Coluim (Malcolm II), earl of Fife, granted charters ‘to God and St Mary and St Edward of Balmerino in Fife’.58 Other charters, like those of Walter (son of Alan II, steward of Scotland) and Richard of Leicester (a burgess of Perth) used the formula, ‘to God and the church of St Mary and St Edward of Balmerino (in Fife)’.59 Balm. Liber, no. 19. My thanks to Dauvit Broun for clarifying this point. 52 Balm. Liber, no. 20. It is for this reason that Ermengarde’s death is properly given as 11 February 1233 (N.S.), not 1234, as will be found in Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 73, and in Archibald Dunbar, Scottish Kings, (2nd ed. Edinburgh 1906), p. 90. This is because the Chronicle of Melrose sometimes employed dates before 25 March for the beginning of the year. In 1171, for example, Christmas was used as the beginning of the year. Chron. Melrose, p. 127. 53 If one accepts the argument that Earl John’s charter was drafted in a Lindores context; it is possible that this shift was made before Queen Ermengarde’s death. 54 David’s charter was witnessed by a royal chaplain and a royal clerk, suggesting royal inluence over its drafting; the king’s conirmation, though written soon afterwards, was witnessed by others, including the chancellor. 55 Balm. Liber, no. 35. 56 Ibid., no. 8. 57 Arb. Liber, no. 102; Balm. Liber, no. 71 [Appendix, no. II]. 58 Balm. Liber, nos. 7, 37. 59 Ibid., nos. 22, 23. 50 51 QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 15 Date Reference Grantor Description Latin formula 11 Feb. 1233 × 28 Mar. 1233 Balm. Liber, no. 19 David of Lindsey 20 solidi as a pittance Deo et Beate Marie et Sancto Edwardo de Balmurynach 28 Mar.1233 Balm. Liber, no. 20 King Alexander II Conirmation of 20s. Deo et Beate Marie et Sancto Edwardo de Balmurynach 9 Apr. 1234 Balm. Liber, no. 35 King Alexander II Remission of rent monachis de in Crail Balmurynach 10 Apr. 1234 Balm. Liber, no. 8 King Alexander II Balmerino and Barry in free forest 25 Dec. 1234 Arb. Liber, no. 102 King Alexander II Land to Arbroath abbatem et conventum in place of rent de Balmurinach ante 1241 Balm. Liber, no. 23 Walter, son of Alan, the steward Land in burgh of Deo et ecclesie Perth Beate Marie et Sancti Edwardi de Balmurynach in Fiff 11 Sept. 1233 Balm. Liber, × 1241 no. 7 Laurence of Abernethy Quitclaims Balmerino lands Deo et Beate Marie et Sancto Edwardo de Balmurynach in Fif 9 July 1233 × Balmerino Mael Coluim 18 July 1241 Liber, no. 37. (Malcolm) II, earl of Fife Grants mill water-course Deo et Beate Marie et Sancto Edwardo de Balmurynach in Fyff Mid-13th century Land in burgh of Deo et ecclesie Perth Sancte Marie et Sancti Edwardi de Balmurynach Balm. Liber, no. 22. Richard of Leicester, burgess Abbati et Conventui de Balmurynach table 2. Charters of balmerino abbey, 1233 – ca. 1241 iii. Cistercian abbeys and dual dedications The formulaic language used after Ermengarde’s death was much more typical of monasteries with dual dedications than the earliest charters, which mentioned St Edward almost to the exclusion of the Virgin Mary. Indeed, a survey of the granting clauses of twelfth- and thirteenth-century monasteries in the kingdom of Scotland reveals that there were two basic ‘rules’ when it came to saints and charter diplomatic: a) Mary always came irst in dual dedications, never second, and b) dedications to the second saint were sometimes omitted, but omissions of Mary were almost unheard of. Thus, the early charters of Balmerino, those written before Queen Ermengarde’s death, ‘break the rules’ of dual dedication monasteries, and the charters written after them follow those conventions. This suggests that Ermengarde 16 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND herself was responsible for this anomaly, an assessment which its well with her known devotion to St Edward. Dual dedications were rare among Cistercian houses, but Balmerino was not unique within Scotland in this regard. The Melrose chroniclers relate that the abbey of Culross was founded in 1217 by Earl Mael Coluim I (Malcolm) of Fife, and that Dom Hugh, a former prior of Kinloss in Moray, led a community from that house on 23 February 1217 to its new home at Culross (now in Fife, then an exclave of Perthshire), where they arrived on 18 March 1217.60 Culross was the only other Scottish Cistercian house to be dedicated to a saint in addition to the Virgin Mary, at least as far as the evidence goes (we know very little about the monasteries in Galloway). According to his Vita, St Serf, or Servanus, was buried at Culross, and the place had probably been associated with the saint for centuries.61 The locations of other Cistercian houses, however, had also been associated with local saints – Melrose with St Cuthbert, for example, and Deer with St Drostan – but the charters of these monasteries and the titles of their abbots make no mention of these saints.62 The foundation of Culross, where Cistercian monks devoted themselves to an Insular saint as well as to Mary, may have opened the door for the dual dedication – this time to a non-Scottish saint – at Balmerino.63 These dedications were expressed similarly in the charters of the two houses. The earl’s foundation grant, preserved in an inspection by King Robert I dated 5 December 1318, uses a formula not unlike the one found the Balmerino charters after Ermengarde’s death: Deo et beate Marie et beato Seruano de Culenros et monachis Cisterciensis ordinis.64 A similar formula – deo et beate Marie et Sancto Servano de Culenros – was used in a thirteenth-cen- 60 Given that the Melrose chroniclers used the Christmas or January 1 New year in 1233 (for Ermengarde’s death), we should perhaps lean towards an interpretation of these dates as being in 1217 ‘New Style’ rather than 1217×18.The founding of Culross was recorded in Stratum 10 by scribe 16. See Chron. Melrose, p. 135-136, esp. section on dating, and see DVD, BL Faustina B.IX, fol. 35r, lines 20 to 24. The text reads: Fundata est abbathia de Kilinros a domino Malcolmo comite de Fif, ad quam abbathiam missus est conventus vii kalendas Marcii de Kinlos cum dompno Hugone primo abbate de Kilinros, quondam priore de Kinlos; venit ergo idem conventus apud Kilinros xv. Kalendas Aprilis. ‘The abbey of Culross was founded by sir Malcolm, the earl of Fife. And the convent was sent to this abbey from Kinloss, on the seventh day before the kalends of March; along with Dom Hugh, formerly the prior of Kinloss, as the irst abbot of Culross. The same convent reached Culross on the ifteenth day before the Kalends of April.’ Translation taken from Early Sources of Scottish History 500 to 1286, ed. Alan O. Anderson (Edinburgh 1922), ii, p. 416; cf. Chron. Bower, v, p. 93. 61 Alan Macquarrie, ‘Vita Sancti Servani: The Life of St Serf’, The Innes Review 44 (1993), p. 143 (Latin text) and 152 (translation). 62 Liber Sancte Marie de Melros, infra; Illustrations of the Topography and Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, ii, ed. Joseph Robertson, Spalding Club, no. 17 (Aberdeen 1847), p. 426-428; Ibid., iv, ed. Joseph Robertson, Spalding Club, no. 32 (Aberdeen 1862), p. 3; Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Acc. 7079/1. Moray Reg., no. 28. It may be signiicant that the Cistercian houses in both of these places were built on new sites some distance from the earlier churches. Compare the titles of the abbots of the Melrose iliation in Moray Reg., no. 77. 63 It is perhaps signiicant that the Culross foundation came from Kinloss, where many of the monks were likely to be Scots, whereas the Balmerino foundation came from Melrose, where the monks were perhaps more likely to identify with an English saint like Edward. 64 Regesta Regum Scottorum v: The Acts of Robert I King of Scots 1306-1329, ed. Archibald A.M. Duncan (Edinburgh 1988), no. 141. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 17 tury grant by Reginald of Carriden.65 This formula echoed that of other dual dedications in Scotland, such as Lindores Abbey (Tironensian) and Inchaffray Abbey (Augustinian), but Culross and Balmerino were apparently the only Cistercian houses in Scotland to follow this practice. There were, however, two key differences between Culross and Balmerino. First, the dedication of Culross to St Serf rested on centuries of tradition linking that place and its church to a local saint. The continuing devotion to the St Serf there by Cistercian monks must surely have relected to some extent the beliefs and needs of the local community. St Edward’s association with the place called Balmerino was new in 1227; moreover, it was an association imposed on the place by its patron and founder, Ermengarde. Second, whereas the founders of both monasteries were buried there – Ermengarde at Balmerino, Mael Coluim at Culross – the nature of their identities may also have been crucial for the continued success of the houses. The earls of Fife represented an unbroken line of powerful local igures who would have carefully guarded their monastic house, which probably continued to act as a burial place for their family line. Presumably the monks at Culross carried on an existing rôle as interlocutors between St Serf and the local community. Balmerino’s patron and protector, however, was a queen. As history showed, a continuous line of queens in Scotland could not be taken for granted. In the twelfth century, Scotland had gone without a queen for ifty-ive years, from 1131 to 1186. The devotional priorities of various queens were bound to differ. In a certain sense, King Alexander II was also acting as the protector of the abbey, but his burial at Melrose and his shift in attention in the 1230s to the new mendicant orders suggested that his true attachments lay elsewhere. Looking back, King William had lavished his affections on Arbroath. Looking forward, the canonisation of St Margaret and her translation in 1250 meant that Dunfermline was once again the royal mausoleum and foremost in royal attention.66 With a queen as a founder, Balmerino and its rôle in the broader community, both political and religious, were much more tenuous. This difference became clear as a divergence occurred in the titles of the abbots of the two houses over the course of the thirteenth century. Much more than the charter diplomatic, the titles of the abbots of Culross make clear the extent to which the place was associated with St Serf.67 A marginal rubric in the Chronicle of Melrose next to the account of the foundation of Culross in 1217 reads: ‘primus abbas de sancto seruano de kilinros’.68 As we have seen, the agreement dated at Kinloss on 20 September 1229 refers to the seal of the ‘abbot of St Serf’, the same document Analecta Scotica, ii, ed. James Maidment, (Edinburgh 1837), p. 14, no. VI. Peter A. yeoman, ‘Saint Margaret’s Shrine at Dunfermline Abbey’, in Royal Dunfermline, ed. Richard Fawcett (Edinburgh 2005), p. 79-88, esp. p. 83; Steve Boardman, ‘Dunfermline as a Royal Mausoleum’ in Ibid., p. 139-153, esp. p. 143-144 and 150. 67 Few other monasteries used this method of identifying the ofice of abbot with the abbey’s saint. In one exception, the abbot of Arbroath was called in at least one instance, ‘the abbot of St Thomas’; however, this was rare. (Chartulary of the Abbey of Lindores, no. 13). 68 Chron. Melrose, DVD, BL Faustina B.IX, fol. 35r. This is Scribe 28, who was active adding rubrics in 1242×3 and January 1264. See Chron. Melrose, p. 110-11 and p. 172. 65 66 18 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND that mentioned the ‘abbot of St Edward’.69 The obituary entries in the Melrose chronicle for abbots of Culross employ without fail the title ‘abbot of St Serfs’: in 1232 when Abbot William of Ramsey died;70 in 1245 when Abbot Hugh [II] died;71 in 1246 when Abbot Matthew was deprived;72 in 1252 when Abbot Geoffrey died;73 and in 1260 when Abbot Michael resigned.74 References to the abbots of Balmerino follow the same pattern, as we have seen in the 1229 document from Kinloss as well as in various entries in the Melrose chronicle. The irst abbot, Alan, was called ‘primus abbas de sancti eduuardi de Balmurinach’ in his obituary notice under the year 1236.75 Similarly, under the annal for 1251, Radulf is called ‘abbas de sancto edwardo’ in his obituary.76 In 1252, John, ‘abbas de sancto edwardo’ resigned his ofice.77 The inal Melrose entry for a Balmerino abbot is that under 1260 for the resignation of Abbot Adam, who is described as ‘abbas A. de Balmurinach’.78 This change from ‘abbot of St Edwards’ to ‘abbot of Balmerino’ is relected in entries from Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, which found its present form in the 1440s, but which relied upon thirteenth-century sources, including the Melrose chronicle, another chronicle known as ‘Gesta Annalia I’, and other identiied contemporary sources.79 Adam’s successor, also named Adam, is termed ‘Adam abbas de Balmurynach’, a form that was also used when referring to an unnamed ‘abbot of Balmerino’ who was sent on a diplomatic mission to Norway in 1281.80 This change in the abbot’s title is also relected in the charter record: abbot Thomas was called ‘Domino Thoma, abbate de Balmurynach’ in a charter dating to between 1281 and 1296.81 69 Moray Reg., no. 77. Perhaps it should be St Serfs and St Edwards, as the form is no different from that of ‘prior of St Andrews’. The only difference is that in the case of St Andrews the name of the saint eclipsed the earlier name of the place, Cennrigmonaid or Kilrimont. It is possible that Culross and Balmerino were on a similar path towards being known as ‘St Serfs’ and ‘St Edwards’. 70 Chron. Melrose, DVD, BL Faustina B.IX, fol. 42r. 71 Ibid., fol. 49v. 72 Ibid., fol. 55r. 73 Ibid., fol. 56v. This year’s entry illustrates well the difference in the titles of the abbots of ‘St Edward’, ‘St Serf’ and ‘Deer’ and ‘Kinloss’. This difference is also relected in the marginalia. 74 Ibid., fol. 60r. 75 Ibid., fol. 44r. 76 Ibid., fol. 56r. 77 Ibid., fol. 56v. 78 Ibid., fol. 60r. 79 Dauvit Broun, ‘A New Look at Gesta Annalia attributed to John of Fordun’, in Church, Chronicle and Learning in Medieval and Early Renaissance Scotland, ed. Barbara E. Crawford (Edinburgh 1999), p. 9-30; Idem., Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain from the Picts to Alexander III (Edinburgh 2007), especially ‘Part IV: National History’. 80 Chron. Bower, v, p. 380-381; p. 410-411. 81 Rental Book of the Cistercian Abbey of Cupar Angus, ii, ed. Charles Rogers, Grampian Club, no. 17 (London 1880) p. 288, no. 6. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD Name Date Dom Alan 28 June 1236 Source Event Title Chron. Melrose death Dompnus Alanus primus abbas sancti eduuardi de Balmurinach Ralph82 1251 Chron. Melrose death Radulfus abbas de sancto edwardo John83 1252 Chron. Melrose resignation Johannes abbas de sancto edwardo Adam84 1260 Chron. Melrose resignation abbas A. de Balmurinach Adam 1270 Chron. Bower death Adam abbas de Balmurynach William? 1281 Chron. Bower mission to Norway abbate de Balmurynach Thomas 1281 × 1296 C.A. Rental, ii, p. 288, no. 6 charter Domino Thoma, abbate de Balmurynach William 1296 CDS, ii, p. 19686 fealty 85 19 Willelmus de Sancto Edwardo de Balmurinauche; William abbe de Seint Edward de Balmorinaghe table 3. titles of the abbots of balmerino87 The experience of both Balmerino and Culross as Cistercian houses with dual dedications was rare in thirteenth-century Britain. According to the Statutes of the Cistercian General Chapter, the order’s new abbeys were expected to follow the tradition of Molesme (whence Cîteaux was founded) in the dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This was laid out in a statute titled Quod omnia monasteria in honorem beatae Mariae dedicentur, number XVIII in the Instituta of the Cistercian order.88 Alison Binn’s list of the Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales to 1216 contains only four examples of Cistercian houses with dual dedications and three of these were of the order of Savigny, which joined with the Cistercians in 1147.89 Neath in Glamorganshire was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and Mary, but as Savigny itself was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, this can be discounted. Combermere in formerly cellarer of Balmerino. formerly prior of May, a Benedictine house. 84 formerly porter of Melrose. 85 formerly a monk of Balmerino. 86 See also Documents illustrative of the history of Scotland 1286-1306, ii, ed. Joseph Stevenson (Edinburgh 1870), p. 68. 87 See also The heads of religious houses in Scotland from twelfth to sixteenth centuries, ed. Donald E.R. Watt and Norman F. Shead, Scottish Record Society, New Ser., no. 24 (Edinburgh 2001), p. 12. 88 Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts (see above n. 32), p. 463; Statutes from Twelfth-Century Cistercian General Chapters, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell. Cîteaux–Commentarii cistercienses, Studia et Documenta, vol. XII (Brecht 2002), p. 541. 89 Alison Binns, Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales (Woodbridge 1989), p. 159-160; Janet Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300 (Cambridge 1994), p. 64. 82 83 20 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND Cheshire was dedicated to Mary and St Michael at its foundation in 1133. Buildwas in Shropshire presumably retained an earlier association with St Chad of Mercia after the Savigniac foundation of 1135. The only house identiied by Binns that was originally a Cistercian foundation was established in 1143, several years after the General Chapter’s statute. Revesby Abbey, a daughter of Rievaulx, comes the closest to the experience of our two Scottish dual dedications. However, Revesby is more of a precedent for Culross than for Balmerino, because of a pre-existing church dedicated to St Laurence.90 Binns notes the use of the form ‘Deo et sancte Marie et monachis de sancto Laurentio’. The term ‘the monks of St Laurence’, one might argue, is slightly less irm than citing the saint directly, but at least one of the abbey’s seals echoes clearly the Balmerino use: ‘SIGILLUM . ABBATIS . D’ . SC’O LAURENTIO’, although other seals not invoking the saint have also been recorded.91 Of the eleven Cistercian houses founded in England and Wales after 1216, two had dual dedications: Vale Royal in Chester, to the Virgin and St Nicholas (which was not made until the 1260s), and Netley Abbey in Hampshire, dedicated to Mary and St Edward the Confessor. As David Carpenter points out in his recent article on Henry III’s devotion to St Edward, the abbey of Netley was founded by Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, who ‘dominated king and government’ in 1233, around which time he began acquiring lands for a new monastery.92 The abbey was ultimately established by the executors of his will in 1239, but the king took a proprietorial attitude towards the new house from the outset.93 In a charter dated 7 March 1251 at Westminster, Henry III made a grant to ‘God and the church of St Mary de loco sancti Edwardi, which we founded in Southamptonshire’.94 The seals used by the abbey employ the same method of associating St Edward with the place rather than the church.95 Netley was not the only Cistercian house to employ such naming strategies: in Ireland, Graiguenamanagh or Duiske Abbey in County Kilkenny was also known as Vallis Sancti Salvatoris and Midleton in County Cork as Chorus Sancti Benedicti, although there were several Irish houses with dedications The Cistercians in Yorkshire, http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/, accessed 10 Mar. 2008. Binns, Dedications, p. 159; Sir William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum : a history of the abbies and other monasteries, hospitals, frieries, and cathedral and collegiate churches, with their dependencies in England and Wales : also of all such Scotch, Irish and French monasteries as were in any manner connected with religious houses in England, new ed., v, ed. John Caley, Henry Ellis and Bulkeley Bandinel, (London 1825), p. 454; The Victoria history of the county of Lincoln, ii, ed. William Page (London 1906), p. 141-143. See also Facsimiles of early charters from Northamptonshire collections, ed. Frank M. Stenton, Northamptonshire Record Society, no. 4, (London 1930), no. 1. 92 Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’, p. 876-877. 93 Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 122; A history of the county of Hampshire, vol. 2, ed. H. Arthur Doubleday and William Page (London 1903), p. 146-149. 94 Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, new edn., v, p. 695-697, no. 1. Similarly, Roger de Clere made a grant to ‘abbati et conventui loci sancti Edwardi’. Ibid., no. 2. Carpenter calls this ‘a form of dedication to the saint’. (Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’, p. 877). 95 Forms noted in Monasticon Anglicanum’s new edition include ‘S’ BEATE MARIE DE STOWE SCI EDWARDI’ and ‘S’ ABB’IS LOCI SCI EDWARDI’. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, new ed., v, p. 696. 90 91 QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 21 to St Benedict, a igure above all associated with monasticism, not politics.96 Parallels for a royal saint like Edward are hard to ind. Thus we can see two types of Cistercian houses with dual dedications: those which retained a pre-existing association with a saint, such as Revesby and Culross, and those which had a new saintly association, but carefully linked that saint’s name to the place rather than to the monastery itself, such as Netley. Balmerino Abbey, at least for the irst decade of its existence, was unique among Cistercian abbeys in Britain in that the dedication to St Edward was new and no attempt was made to keep Edward at arm’s length. While there was almost certainly a kind of ambivalence within the Cistercian order about dual dedications, especially new ones, we should perhaps not make too much of it. The monks of Melrose Abbey (and presumably the General Chapter) would seem to have been amenable to the new dispensation as long as King Alexander and Queen Ermengarde insisted, and the ability of the Melrose chroniclers to continue referring to the ‘abbot of St Edwards’ up until the 1250s or later suggests that the ambivalence was not too dificult for them to handle. It is much easier to see the shift from the almost sole emphasis on Edward in Balmerino’s charters prior to 1233 to the more balanced dual dedication period of 1233 to ca. 1238 as being a natural drift back into a more familiar Cistercian modus operandi, than to suggest that the subsequent omission of St Edward from the abbey’s charters was the result of some deliberate monastic policy. The Cistercians preferred that their abbeys keep other saints – if they were necessary – in second place after Mary, but they did not require that they be banished. iii. the disappearance of St edward The dropping of St Edward in the title of the abbots of Balmerino was mirrored in the language employed by that house in its charters, with a major shift happening between 1238 and 1241. This suggests a tripartite scheme for the treatment of saintly dedications in the charter diplomatic of Balmerino Abbey. The irst – from its inception to the death of Queen Ermengarde (1227-1233) – suggests a pre-eminent rôle for St Edward. The second period – from 1233 to between 1238 and 1241 – is suggestive of an equilibrium between Mary and Edward which echoes usage in other monasteries with dual dedications. The third group – charters dating from around 1238×1241 until the mid-fourteenth century, when the abbey’s cartulary was composed (most documents date to before 1289) – is striking for the total disappearance of St Edward: in the title of the abbey, the abbot, the monks, and any other context. Of the twenty-three extant charter texts that deinitely or probably date to the period between 1238 and 128997, none make any mention of St Edward. Instead, the Virgin Mary is emphasised as the relevant patron igure, with formulas such as ‘the house Stalley, Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland, p. 239. This trend continued into the 14th century, with references to ‘the monastery of St Mary of Balmerino’ (Balm. Liber, no. 45), ‘Blessed Mary of Balmerino’ (Ibid., no. 52), or simply ‘the abbot and convent of Balmerino’ (Ibid., nos. 49, 51, 54). 96 97 22 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND of St Mary of Balmerino’ and ‘the monastery of the Blessed Mary’ being used.98 The grantors of these charters range from the king and the pope to Scottish magnates, such as the steward and the constable, down to local landholders and burgesses. Many of these charters were probably produced by the monks of Balmerino, particularly those of local landholders like the Kinnear family.99 The change in usage, however, was also relected in those documents produced outside of Fife, such as those written up in the capella regis (wherein Scottish royal charters were produced) and the papal chancery. Date Reference Grantor Description Latin formula 9 July1238 × 31 Aug. 1244 Balm. Liber, no. 39 Simon of Kinnear Grants land in Kedlock, Fife Deo et Beate Marie et monachis de Balmurynach in Fyf 1241 × 1268, prob. ante 1255. Balm. Liber, no. 24 Alexander the steward Conirms father’s Deo et ecclesie Sancte grant Marie de Balmurynach in Fyff March, 1241 × Balm. Liber, 1249. no. 10 King Grant of lands Alexander II in Strathmiglo parish, Fife 31 Aug. 1244, Balm. Liber, at Balmerino no. 40 King Conirms land in Deo et Beate Marie Alexander II Kedlock et monachis de Balmurynach in Fyf 1240 × 1250 Balm. Liber, no. 46 Hugh of Nydie Grants Nydie quarry domui Sancte Marie de Balmurynach 28 June 1243 × 7 Dec.1254 Balm. Liber, no. 58 Pope Innocent IV General conirmation monasterium sancte Dei genetricis et Virginis Marie de Balmurynach 30 Mar. 1246 Balm. Liber, no. 61 Pope Innocent IV Bull of protection abbati et conventui Monasterii de Balmurynach Mid-13th century Balm. Liber, no. 30 Perth grieves Quitclaim by burgesses abbati et monachis de Balmurynach Mid-13th century Balm. Liber, no. 36 Harvey of Forfar Sells land in Forfar abbati et conventui de Balmurynach post 1240? Balm. Liber, no. 47 Richard of Nydie Conirms Nydie quarry domui Sancte Marie de Balmurynach post 1240? Balm. Liber, no. 48 William of Bruckley Right of way to quarry domui Sancte Marie de Balmurynach 98 99 Balm. Liber, nos. 10, 18, 46, 47, 48, 50. Ibid., nos. 12, 13, 14, 17. domui Sancte Marie de Balmurynach in Fyf QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD Date 23 Reference Grantor Description Latin formula Balm. Liber, no. 50 Richard of Nydie Land in Nydie Deo et Monasterio Beate Marie de Balmurynach 26 Dec. 1255 Balm. Liber, × 25 Apr. 1264 no. 38 Roger de Quincy, e. Winchester Grants part of peat moss Deo et ecclesie Beate Marie de Balmurynach By 21 Sept. 1260 Simon of Kinnear Grants land in Kinnear Deo et Beate Marie et monachis de Balmurynach in Fif Mid-late 13 century th Balm. Liber, nos. 12, 13, 14 21 Sept. 1260 Balm. Liber, no. 15 King Conirms land in Deo et Beate Marie Alexander III Kinnear et monachis de Balmurynach in Fyf 21 Aug. 1268 Henry of Hastings Balm. Liber, no. 32 Conirms Dundee abbati et conventui de land Balmurynach 31 Aug. 1268, Balm. Liber, at Balmerino no. 56 King Grant or Alexander III conirmation of lands Deo et beate Marie et monachis de Balmorinach in Fyffe 17 June 1285 Balm. Liber, no. 53 King Brieve of Alexander III protection viros religiosos abbatem et conventum de Balmurynach ante 5 July 1286 Balm. Liber, no. 18 Hugh of Kilmany Grants land in Wester Kinnear Deo et monasterio Sancte Marie de Balmurynach 5 July 1286 Balm. Liber, no. 17 John of Kinnear Conirms land in Deo et Beate Marie Wester Kinnear et monachis de Balmurynach in Fyff 29 Oct. 1289 Balm. Liber, no. 27 John of Moray Quitclaims Perth abbati et conventui de land Balmurynach table 4. Charters of balmerino abbey, 1238 – 1289 This does not appear to be a mere shift in the preferences of local clerks and scribes, but rather a deliberate policy. A couple of examples illustrate this point strikingly. King Alexander’s grant of lands in Strathmiglo parish between 1241 and 1249 echoes some of the language of his initial endowment to the abbey, but now it is merely ‘to the honour of God and the glorious Virgin Mary’, while the ‘most holy Saint Edward’ has been removed.100 Similarly, Alexander the steward’s post-1241 conirmation of his father’s grant, which had been made to ‘God and the church of Blessed Mary and St Edward of Balmerino in Fife’, was now conirmed to ‘God and 100 Ibid., no. 10; cf. no. 1. My thanks to Andrew MacEwen for his comments on the dating of this charter. 24 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND the church of St Mary of Balmerino in Fife’.101 Even in a conirmation, where obsolete usages are most frequently to be found, we see instead the deliberate omission of St Edward from the charter diplomatic. How can this sudden exclusion of St Edward’s name in the Balmerino charters be explained? One possibility rests on the person of the king of England. When Ermengarde began her devotion to St Edward, he had of course already been canonised and was the centre of a cult at Westminster Abbey, but he was not yet of any especial importance to King Henry III.102 By the late 1230s, however, this situation had changed dramatically. In the 1220s, support for St Edward could legitimately be seen as highlifigure 2. the seal of balmerino abbey, as ghting the roots of the Scottish used by abbot william in 1296. the legend royalty – and Scottish queenship in reads Sig’ abbiS SCi edwardi in SCoparticular – in the House of WesCia. sex. By 1240, Henry III’s conspiKew, The National Archives, SC 13/E 44. (By permission of The National Archives) cuous devotion to the saint risked overshadowing this subtle meaning and might have drawn a less welcome comparison to the current king of England. King Alexander II and his advisers may therefore have wished to downplay – even eliminate – the association with St Edward. On the other hand, it is also possible that King Henry III himself wished to dissociate Balmerino from ‘his saint’, particularly after the foundation of Netley Abbey and the king’s subsequent casting of himself as the patron of that other Cistercian house associated with, if not exactly dedicated to, Edward the Confessor. After all, part of the symbolic message of St. Edward’s story was that he conveyed the right to be king upon William the Conqueror, not a message that Henry III, descendant of both these eleventh-century kings, would want in the hands of the king of Scots. Nevertheless, even if Henry III really cared, that is still no guarantee that Alexander II would have pressed Balmerino to drop the saint, even after the death of Queen Joan. 101 102 Ibid., no. 24. Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’, p. 868- 873. QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 25 Perhaps it is more likely that a change in the political landscape after the deaths of Ermengarde (1233) and Joan (1238) simply made dropping Edward the easiest thing to do. If Ermengarde had indeed enlisted her favourite saint to help Queen Joan conceive an heir, then there was no getting around the fact that he had failed. Furthermore, it was not long after Joan’s death on 4 March 1238 that negotiations to ind a new queen began.103 Indeed, little more than a year had passed before Alexander married Marie, daughter of Enguerrand of Coucy in Picardy, at Roxburgh on 15 May 1239.104 With a Frenchwoman as queen, the bilateral symbolism of King Edward and an English princess evaporated. Any surviving political signiicance for St Edward would have disappeared with the birth in 1241 of Alexander, an heir to the throne. These events were echoed in a potential turn towards the possibility of alliance with the king of France by 1244.105 The canonisation of Margaret herself, and the re-emergence of Dunfermline Abbey as a royal mausoleum and now fully-ledged cult site, would have done away with any surrogate functions that Edward may have fulilled. But St Edward may have still been of some use to Balmerino, at least after Henry III’s son and the saint’s namesake, Edward I, had conquered the kingdom in 1296. Fealty was sworn to the king on 28 August 1296 at Berwick, and ‘Willelmus de Sancto Edwardo de Balmurinauche’ was present. Records in French from the same day refer to ‘Willam abbe de Seint Edward de Balmorinaghe e le covent de mesme le leu’.106 A seal dating from the same year contained the legend: ‘SIG’ ABBIS SCI EDWARDI IN SCOCIA’ (Fig. 2).107 It is perhaps not too fanciful to suggest that the abbot might have sought to re-emphasise the abbey’s links to St Edward in an attempt to curry favour with Edward I. With Robert I irmly in power in 1317, however, Abbot Alan was back to being just ‘the abbot of Balmerino’. A quite unparalleled little Scottish abbey’s strange journey with an English royal saint had come to an end. School of History, Classics and Archaeology University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH8 9LN Scotland Matthew H. Hammond 103 Henry III may have offered a sister of the English queen, Eleanor, in the summer after Joan’s death. Nelson, ‘Queens and Queenship’, p. 184-185. 104 Duncan, Kingship of the Scots, p. 123. 105 Ibid., p. 121. 106 CDS, ii, p. 196; Documents illustrative of the history of Scotland, p. 68. The abbot of Culross, on the other hand, is not associated with St Serf in this document. 107 Kew, Surrey, The National Archives, SC 13/E 44. CDS, ii, App. III, no. 116, p. 542. 26 MATTHEW H. HAMMOND La reine Ermengarde et l’abbaye Saint-Edouard de Balmerino À la in des années 1220, Ermengarde, reine des Écossais, et son ils, le roi Alexandre II, fondèrent une maison-ille de l’abbaye de Melrose à Balmerino dans le Fife. La nouvelle abbaye était dédiée à Édouard le Confesseur, un saint roi anglais, probablement sur l’ordre d’Ermengarde. Les chartes de l’abbaye montrent une baisse croissante de l’importance de saint Édouard après la mort de la reine en 1233, où il passe à la deuxième place après la Vierge Marie et en disparaît complètement dans les années 1240. De la même façon, les références aux titres abbatiaux au-delà du XIIIe siècle montrent une rupture de la relation avec saint Édouard. Cet article tente de situer le cas de Balmerino dans le contexte des autres abbayes cisterciennes à double patronage. Les raisons politiques sous-jacentes sont également examinées, notamment à la lumière du mariage d’Alexandre avec la sœur d’Henri III, Jeanne, et son remariage avec Marie de Coucy après la mort de Jeanne en 1238. Queen Ermengarde and the Abbey of St Edward, Balmerino In the late 1220s, Ermengarde, queen of Scots, and her son, King Alexander II, established a daughter-house of Melrose Abbey at Balmerino in Fife. The new abbey was dedicated to Edward the Confessor, an English royal saint, presumably at the behest of Ermengarde. The abbey’s charters indicate decreasing levels of importance for St Edward, who–following the queen’s death in 1233–was relegated to second place after the Virgin Mary, and who disappeared altogether from their charters by the 1240s. Similarly, references to the titles of abbots over the course of the 13th century indicate a disassociation with St Edward. This paper seeks to place the experience of Balmerino within the context of other Cistercian houses with dual dedications. The political motives behind these actions are also explored, particularly in the light of Alexander’s marriage to Henry III’s sister, Joan, and his subsequent remarriage to Marie de Coucy after Joan’s death in 1238. Königin Ermengarde und das Kloster von St. Edward von Balmerino In den späten 1220er Jahren etablierten Ermengarde, Königin der Schotten, und ihr Sohn, König Alexander II., ein Tochterhaus des Klosters Melrose in Balmerino in Fife. Das neue Kloster wurde wahrscheinlich auf Geheiß von Ermengarde dem englischen Königsheiligen Edward dem Bekenner geweiht. Die Urkunden des Klosters zeigen an, dass abnehmende Bedeutungsstufen für den heiligen Edward zu konstatieren sind, denn nach dem Tode der Königin im Jahr 1233 wurde er nach der Jungfrau Maria auf den zweiten Platz verbannt und verschwand in den 1240er Jahren komplett aus den Urkunden. Vergleichbar zeigen Belege der Titel der Äbte im Laufe des 13. Jahrhunderts eine Abkehr vom heiligen Edward an. In vorliegenden Artikel QUEEN ERMENGARDE AND THE ABBEy OF ST EDWARD 27 wird versucht, das Experiment Balmerinos, zwei Widmungen durchzusetzen, im Kontext der Praktiken anderer zisterziensischer Häuser verorten. Die dahinter liegenden politischen Motive werden ebenfalls erforscht und dies besonders im Licht der Hochzeit von Alexander mit Joan, der Schwester von Heinrich III., und der später, nach ihrem Tode im Jahr 1238 folgenden Wiederverheiratung mit Marie de Courcy.