976 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 $C m 33T 
 
 
 "^ 
 
\fi 
 
 y 
 
N'OTE S 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHAPEL, CROWN, 
 
 OTHER ANCIENT BUILDINGS 
 
 OP 
 
 KING'S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN. 
 
 BY 
 
 NORMAN MACPHERSON, LL.D. Abd. et Edin., F.S.A. 
 
 (REPRINTED FROM ARGH.^OLOGIGA SCOTICA.) 
 WITH SEVENTEEN PLATES (LIV.-LXX.) 
 
 ^ or THE 
 
 ''. UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY. 
 
 1889. 
 
^^.^1^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 N'ote. — While examining the siibject of Choir and Chancel Screen, I have 
 become acquainted with many beautiful examples in England, and by the kind 
 permission of the Publisher and the Artist, I have been able to add to the 
 illustrations of this paper the very effective (post-Reformation) Screen at 
 Croscombe, near Wells (Plate LXVIII.), which I first saw noticed in the 
 Magazine of Art for last year. yij j jfl f^ ^ 
 
 11' 
 

 fe 5 
 
 
LF 
 
 ^ iiS> 
 
 f\At 
 
 ON THE CHAPEL AND ANCIENT BUILDINGS 
 
 
 KING'S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN. V^'^'nnsiT^;^ 
 
 £5' I?' 
 
 Not long ago I walked over the University buildings, new and old, at 
 King's College, Aberdeen, with Principal Geddes. As we were parting, 
 he remarked that some of the details I mentioned to him regarding the 
 old parts of the structure seemed to him to possess an architectural and 
 ecclesiological interest that made them worth putting permanently on 
 record ; and he suggested that I should do this before the memory of them 
 passed away. Hence this paper, stating what I believe to have been some 
 points of the history of the Chapel — or " Templum " as it was called in old 
 writs, and of the " campanile " with its crown : these being all that remain 
 of the original buildings erected by Bishop Elphinstone, except perhaps 
 the round ivy-covered tower, now deprived of the spire added to it by 
 Bishop Stewart. It marks the south-east corner of the College as it stood 
 when first completed. 
 
 My connection with the University of Aberdeen may be said to be 
 hereditary. It is more than a century since my father, Dr Hugh 
 Macpherson, entered King's College as a student, where he afterwards 
 became Professor of Greek and Sub-Principal. My maternal grandfather, 
 Dr Eoderick Macleod, was one of the Regents, forty years earlier, and 
 after sixty-eight years ended his Professoriate as Principal. Many old 
 traditions of the place were consequently known to my parents, and I 
 can hardly distinguish between what I learnt from them and what I have 
 picked up from books. Much that I first heard from them 1 have been 
 able to corroborate from books. 
 
 I owe much to the old chroniclers, and cannot hope to rival either the 
 beauty or expressiveness of their quaint language. What, for instance, can 
 be better than this ? — 
 
 " Ther is in this Universitie" of Aberdeen " a magnifick and illustrious 
 
 119555 
 
4 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 CoUedge called the King's CoUedge, having a collegiat kirk and 
 
 steeple, both of hewin stone curiouslie wrought and covered with lead : 
 and the steeple hath within it an musicall harmonic of costlie and pleasant 
 bells, and above the covering of leid a most curious and statlie work of 
 hewin and corned stones, representing to the vieu of all beholders a brave 
 pourtrait of the royall diademe." ' 
 
 After this crown had stood for more than a century — the latter half of 
 the period being little favourable to the preservation of ancient ecclesiasti- 
 cal edifices^-we find, on 13th June 1620, very extensive repairs " ordanet," 
 and inter alia, " Seventintlie, that the held of the gryt Stepill sould be 
 mendit in steane leid and tymer as the samen was abefoir." ^ 
 
 Before proceeding farther, it is well to quote the terms of the general 
 instructions of 14th Sept. 1619 as to the "repairs of the haill edefeis," — 
 instructions which it would be well if all who venture to engage in such 
 works would observe. They were to be repaired " with leid quhair leid was, 
 sklaittis quhair sklaitt was, aik quhair aik was, fir quhair fir was, lyme 
 quhair lyme was, heuine steane quhair heuine steane was." 
 
 The repairs, which were ordered, seem not to have been executed, 
 for "this goodlie ornament was by an extraordinar tempest of stormie 
 wind in the moneth of Februar 1633 throun doune, quherby both the 
 roofes of tymber and lead and other adjacent works wer pitifuUie crushed, 
 and that Royall crown loosed to the great grieff of the Universitie." 
 "Bot the crown was quicklie afterwards restored in a better forme and 
 condition by the direction of Patrick Forbes of Corse, then Bishop of 
 Aberdeen."^ 
 
 Twice in the eighteenth, and also in the early part of the present 
 century, the crown seems to have fallen into a dangerous state of disrepair ; 
 and again in 1860— when the charge of the University buildings was taken 
 over by Government— the condition of the crown was found in need of 
 immediate attention. 
 
 The chroniclers, with general consent, speak of the wonderful harmony 
 and musical quality of the " Tunable "- bells in the tower, which is said to 
 
 1 Appendix to paper of representations to the king, dated 1634, Fasti Aberdonenses, p. 309. 
 
 2 Fasti Aberdonenses, p. 283. 
 
 3 Gordon's Description of Aberdeen, p. 23. The Magistrates of Aberdeen contributed out of the 
 common good, and sanctioned also a local subscription ; Burgh Eecords, 29th May 1633 and 6th 
 Aug. 1634. 
 
ARCH. SCOT. VOL, V 
 
 PL. LIV 
 
 
 James C.Watt. 
 
 THE CROWN OF KINGS COLLEGE 
 
 AS RESTORED AFTER DESTRUCTION. 
 IN 1633. 
 
Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 5 
 
 have been such that they might call the very stones to prayer by the sweet- 
 ness of their melody, 
 
 " Quffi vel lapides dulcissima melodia ad sacra vocarent." ^ 
 
 We learn from the Register of the furnishings of the College prepared in 
 1542/ that there were five great bells in the Tower, named Trinitas, Maria, 
 Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. 
 
 Five small bells for striking the half hours, with a like number of iron 
 hammers, two bells for daily use, besides three bells in the chapel. 
 
 Of the great bells we are told that " there were two of greater weight 
 each than any in Scotland besyde," ' which we can readily believe from the 
 measurement given of that named Trinitas, namely, 5 feet 5 inches.'' 
 
 Though these great bells were probably in their place down to 1700, it 
 is diflScult not to suppose that by that time they had either been damaged, 
 perhaps by the falling of the crown, or w^re considered too heavy to ring, 
 for in that year Mons. Gelly, a French founder, offered, if the College would 
 " breake doune the said bells and dely ver to him the mettall," he would, 
 " out of two parts of the said metall, cast for the College use five or six 
 good and sufficient musicall bells." He demanded the remaining third part 
 of the metal for himself.* 
 
 As it was " not possible to get the bells recasten so easily elsewhere," it 
 was "resolved that for a tryall the two beUs hingeing next to the eight houer 
 bell be broken and that out of them he be allowed to cast one, .... and 
 
 if this answer our expectation, then may we proceed by piecemeale 
 
 to brake doxin the rest." How far Mons. Gelly ultimately proceeded we do 
 not know. There remained till the present century bells so large that the 
 college architect ordered them not to be used, but whether they were of the 
 original five is not known. As they were condemned to sUence, and the 
 University was in great straits for want of money to complete repairs 
 
 1 Stracliaui Panegyricus luauguralis, 1631, p. 10. 
 
 - Fasti Aberdonenses, p. 571. ^ Gordon, p. 23. 
 
 * Orem, Old Aberdeen, p. 169. He has also preserved the inscription on each of the bells : — 
 
 (1) Trinitas — "Trinitate sacra fiat, haec campana beata." 
 
 (2) Maria — " Protege precor pia, quos convoco. Sancta Maria." 
 
 (3) Michael — "En annuncio vobis novum gaudium, quod erit omni populo." 
 
 (4) " Vocor Gabriel, Cantate Domino canticum novum bene. Psallite ei vociferatione." 
 
 (5) " Raphael Cantate Domino canticum novum bene. Psallite ei in vociferatione." 
 
 Per Geo. Weyhevens mdxix is inscribed on the three last. Bishop Elphinstone died 1514. 
 5 Fasti Aberdonenses, p. 438. 
 
G On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 and the new west front in 1823, the dismounted bells were sold, and the 
 largest door of the tower being too small for their removal, the wall had 
 to be broken for the purpose. I remember seeing inside the tower the 
 comparatively fresh plaster where the broken part of the wall was built up. 
 
 There were still two bells in the tower when I was at College — the 
 bell which rung the curfew ^ and for chapel services and the one known as 
 "Clatter Vengeance." An inscription on the former shows that it was recast 
 by Mons. Gelly in 1702. 
 
 " Clatter Vengeance " was certainly not one of the great bells. Before 
 1823 it hung in the tower at the south-east corner of the apse of the chapel* 
 The tower is shown in Gordon's drawing (Plate LV. fig. 2). The top of 
 the tower is also seen in the view printed by Wilson^ (Plate LXIV. fig. 1), 
 and in Slezer's view.* Many a time have I rung "Clatter Vengeance" in 
 my boyhood. It sent forth two very distinct sounds, according to different 
 traditional modes of ringing it. The one was used to call the students to 
 morning prayer and to lecture ; the other — and every student knew it well 
 — was only heard when the call was to " discipline." I cannot say that 
 " Clatter Vengeance," by its dulcissima melodia, was calculated to charm 
 the savage breast, much less call the stones to prayer, but it had rung out 
 the hours for centuries at the corner of that chapel, and had been written 
 of in prose and verse, and has, I understand, received an honoured place in 
 the University Museum. It bears the following inscription : — 
 
 "JOHANNES BVRGERHVYS ME FECIT, 
 
 1660. 
 COLLEGIUM REGIUM ABERDONEN8I8." 
 
 The " maxie " in the inscription is not creditable to a University bell. 
 
 There were belonging to the Church of Sta Maria ad nives, once the 
 parish church of Old Aberdeen, which was annexed to the college, two bells 
 known as Shochtmadony and Skellat. They were of sufficient importance 
 
 ' At nine o'clock, an hour for which one feels some- sympathy when reading the College rule, 
 " Mane hora quinta ad tiiitinnabuli sonum omnes surgunto." — Fasti Aberd., p. 228. 
 
 * It is possibly the bell referred to by Orem (p. 183) in the following passage : — " The timber 
 Muses or little chambers at the east end of the College Chapel were built when the building of 
 the said new work was built in which there is a bell that is rung at several hours both in tlie day and 
 night time." The want of such a bell at an earlier period appears from the fact that on 14th October 
 1640 the Provost and Bailies "agries to len" the " bell of the grammer schuill" to Dr Guild, "now 
 primar to the Kingis College, for the use of the said college wpoun his ticquat and for redelyverie 
 of the same." — Extracts from Burgh Records, p. 243. 
 
 5 Wilson's Delineation of Aberdeen. * Given in Gordon's Description of Aberdeen, Spald. Club Ed. 
 
> 
 
 
 Q 
 
 a: 
 
 < 
 
 ir 
 u 
 
 1/3 
 
 ««4! 
 
 
 *<^f^; 
 
 !l.!;C:l,:i4 
 
 ^^^^' 
 
 -^-.,a.S-^iil 
 
 
 I/) 
 
 CO 
 
 Z 
 
 o 
 
 I- 
 < 
 :> 
 
 UJ 
 
 o 
 
 I- 
 
 Q 
 Q 
 < 
 
 I 
 
 i ^ 
 
 t " 
 
 > u 
 
 UJ 1- 
 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 7 
 
 to have their transfer to that church recorded in a charter by the chapter 
 of the Cathedral on the penult of Sept. 1503(5).^ . 
 
 I have read no attempt to identify the saints to whom these bells 
 belonged. Some have suggested that we have in Shochtmadony notice of 
 a bell of the Madonna. I have not observed any other example in Scotland 
 of the Virgin being so designated. " Our Lady " is common enough. It 
 may be said " the exception proves the rule," but I incline to think we have 
 here a conveyance of a bell of St Modanus. There are two Scottish saints 
 of that name mentioned in the Aberdeen Breviary. Bishop Forbes, in his 
 Kalendar, tells us that in Auchmeddan, Pitmeden, and St Meddan of 
 Fintry, near Aberdeen, we have local modifications of Modanus, — they are 
 greater than the transposition of the o and a. " Shocht" I look upon as a 
 precatory prefix, whether addressed to the saint or to the custodier of the 
 bell. " Shog " or " Shoch " appear in many Scots words, always implying 
 unsteady movement; and Jamieson in his Dictionary says, " Shog " means 
 "to pull backwards and forwards." 
 
 As regards the other bell, — " Skellat," — that was a common name for 
 bells in early days, and no saint's name is here associated with it. 
 Doubtless in the Scotch word skelloch as well as in the German " schellen " 
 we have the same root, though Jamieson suggests a French origin ; he 
 says, " Skellat, a small bell. 0. Fr. eschelette petite sonnette crecelle. 
 We learn from Eoquefort that it was used in monasteries for awaking the 
 religious, and also for proclamations." 
 
 It seems to have been a general name applied to small bells — ecclesias- 
 tical and secular. The ecclesiastical skellats were sometimes highly ornate, 
 sometimes perfectly simple, cast in bronze (fig. 2, next page) or even rudely 
 hammered iron.^ 
 
 Among secular bells the word came to be applied as the technical name 
 for the bells used in burghs for making proclamations. The old Edinburgh 
 Skellat, now in the Antiquarian Museum, is shown in next page. Dougal 
 Graham, the ballad writer and historian of the '45, was " Skellat-bellman " 
 of the City of Glasgow. The word does not seem to have applied to the bells 
 carried at funerals, and we have notice that the " Deid-Bell " in Glasgow 
 
 ' Fasti Aberd., p. 47. 
 
 ^ See many engravings of such bells in Scotland in Early Christian Times, by Dr Josepli 
 Anderson. 
 
8 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 was not held by the Skellat-bellman. This distinction makes it not unlikely 
 that the Skellat referred to in the gift to St Maria ad nives may have been 
 the subject of a dispute two hundred years afterwards which is referred to 
 by Orem.^ " The present (1692) hand-bell belonged to the town being gifted 
 by the deceast John Ross, sometime janitor in the King's College. But in 
 1702 this right was renounced in favor of the Minister and Kirk Session on 
 the ground that the hand-bell which goeth before interments doth entirely 
 belong to the Church." 
 
 Fio. 1.— The Old Skellat Bell of Edinburgh. Fig. 2.— St Fillnn's Bell. 
 
 The College Chapel is on the north side of the quadrangle and of the 
 tower with the Crown. 
 
 On the south wall of the chapel abutted the library, and what better 
 support could a church have than learning ? This part of the building was 
 not completed by Bishop Elphinstone, nor even by his executor Bishop 
 Dunbar, but by Bishop Stewart, who " built the Librarie hous and with 
 a number of bookes furnisht the same, as also he built the Jewell or charter 
 house, and vestrie or Chapter house." Under the library were class-rooms. 
 
 ' History of Old Aberdeen, p. 129. 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 9 
 
 These buildings are shown in Gordon's sketch (Plate LVI. fig. 2), from 
 which it will be seen that they did not extend the whole length of the 
 chapel, but left one large window to the west of the apse. They were low 
 enough to give room above the almost flat roof for the small square-headed 
 windows which still light the chapel on the south. 
 
 The entrance to the quadrangle is very different from the old and 
 humble one (according to Jamieson's sketch), which had served good purpose 
 in its day, for doubtless it aided Principal Anderson,^ when he defended 
 the College from the mob of men of the Mearns, who, after plundering 
 the cathedral and robbing it of its lead, sought to do the same by the 
 College. " Forti manu vim vi repellere nititur, audacem fortuna juvante, 
 Integra et intacta hue usque manent augusta musarum tecta."^ The last 
 occasion on which the College was defended was about 1770, when students 
 still lived within its walls, and by means of the same gate.^ 
 
 Over the gate at one time was a stone, with the royal arms vigorously 
 sculptured on it, — probably the shield which is now seen on one of the 
 buttresses of the south side of the chapel (Plate LXIV. fig. 2), where it was 
 removed " some time ago," says Kennedy,^ when the gate was taken down. 
 That time we know was subsequent to 1725, when Orem^ wrote, for, besides 
 mentioning the " King's armorial coat above the entry gate," he enumerates 
 the arms that were on the wall of the library built by Fraser, and the royal 
 arms are not in his list, which was probably checked down to 1771. 
 
 The shield in question must have been substituted for an older one, for 
 
 1 He was the last Principal before the Reformation, and was in 1569 deprived of his office for 
 refusing to sign articles approving of the Confession of Faith. 
 
 2 Dmaides, Ker, 1725, p. 17. 
 
 3 Aberdeen was then but a small place, and its harbour small in proportion, and frequented by 
 few vessels and of light burden. There used to be frequent " bickers " between the students and the 
 younger sailors. After one of these contests, in which the sailors had the worst of it, the defeated 
 party went the round of the shipping in port, and having gathered a strong reinforcement, gave 
 chase to the students, who were quite unconscious of pursuit, on their way home, and they had 
 hardly reached the College when the mob came in sight. They had just time to rush in, and shut 
 and bar the gate. But sailors are eminently fuU of resource, and finding wood lying near where 
 two new professors' houses were being built, they soon improvised a battering-ram, and were at the 
 point of swinging it against the gate, when, lo ! it opened voluntarily, and out walked Professor 
 Gordon, who happened to be the hebdomadar, mth his hat in his hand and his white hair falling on 
 his shoulders, and implored the sailors to go home, and return next day, by which time he promised 
 that the whole facts should be inquired into, and that every satisfaction that was due would certainly 
 be given. Thereupon the sailors marched off with a cheer, and they were too busy to return next 
 day for the promised satisfaction. I had the tale half a century ago from an eye-witness. 
 
 * Annals of Aberdeen, vol. ii. p. 397, published in 1818. 
 
 ' Old Aberdeen, p. 40. . . 
 
 B 
 
10 071 the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 heralds tell us that it has various characteristics of date long subsequent to 
 the time of Jac. IV., whose name is on it. 
 
 Douglas, professing to write in 1780, tells us, p. 161 — "Several of 
 the professors have manses without the gates, and two very handsome 
 ones have lately been built adjoining to the west wall of the garden." 
 These two still stand at the south-west angle of the College buildings, and 
 no doubt it was when these were being built that the old gate was removed, 
 leaving a considerable part of the west front open, as seen in the drawing 
 of 1818^(PlateLXIV. fig. 1). 
 
 To the north of the gate, on the first buttress are the arms of A. Stewart, 
 archbishop of St Andrews ; while on the second are the royal arms of James 
 IV., and the date 1504; and on the north buttress of the chapel those of his 
 Queen, Margaret Tudor. 
 
 On the north side of the west door of the chapel is the inscription record- 
 ing the commencement of the building in 1500, per " serenissimum et 
 
 invictissimum Jacobum IV. Regem." Little did Elphinstone then 
 
 foresee the disaster of Flodden, which he felt so keenly that it is said he was 
 never after seen to smile. Over the west door is a remarkable round-headed 
 window of four lights, with a thick perpendicular mullion built up to the 
 top of the arch, the upper part of the window on either side being filled 
 with heavy cusped tracery. There are few examples of such heavy tracery 
 remaining in Scotland. But the old engravings of St Giles's before its 
 first restoration (?) show something similar. The north wall of the chapel 
 is divided into six bays, five pierced with windows nearly equally large, 
 while one is occupied by a doorway, over which are found again the arms 
 of the Archbishop. One only of the north windows is round-headed like 
 the west window. The others are pointed, and all but that farthest east 
 have the same heavy mullion running up the centre to the top of the arch. 
 This massive perpendicular mullion may be seen in Flanders, as in the large 
 east window in the Cathedral of Liege (Plate LXVIL), and in the church 
 of St Jacques in the same city. It is long since Principal Geddes directed 
 attention to the Flemish character of some of the windows.^ 
 
 The tracery of the windows of the apse and the windows next it, both 
 north and south, is entirely different in character. It is modern, dating 
 only from 1823. What it was before that date I do not know, farther 
 
 > Wilson's Delineation of Aberdeen. " "Local Aspects of the Fine Arts," Phil. Soc. Abd., 1874. 
 
12 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 ought to be done now). The chapel seems to have consisted of four 
 squares, two allotted to the nave and two to the choir, with the addition of 
 the apse, the breadth being equal to the height of the walls, above which 
 the roof was alcoved. 
 
 Half-way up the nave, on either side, was a door — one by which the mem- 
 bers of the College entered from the quadrangle, the other by which those who 
 died were borne out to their final resting-place in the cemetery of the College. 
 
 With regard to the other features of the nave, it must be remembered 
 that this was strictly a collegiate, not a parochial church, but yet one 
 in which it was provided that there should be public services. In proper 
 parochial churches, even where there were a considerable number of clergy, 
 the stalls were often arranged along the walls, and did not return across the 
 church, so that, where there was a choir screen with a loft above, it was 
 possible, by supporting the loft on open arches instead of a solid screen, to 
 enable the people in the nave to have a fuU view of the services at the high 
 altar. But when the church was attached to a convent or other collegiate 
 establishment, and a larger number of stalls was required, they were gene- 
 rally returned across the church, and a doorway left in the centre. 
 
 When this was so, those in the nave could neither see nor well 
 hear the services in the choir, and therefore special arrangements had to 
 be made for their benefit ; and these varied with the size of the church 
 and the taste and skill of the architect. The plan more ordinarily adopted 
 was this — The great crucifix, which in many churches hung from the roof, 
 or from a rood beam, often highly ornamented, stretching from wall to wall, 
 came to be fixed on a gallery above and to the west of the stalls, and on 
 this gallery were placed an ambone, or perhaps two, from which the Epistle 
 and Gospel were read to those in the nave. 
 
 Frequently the Host was exhibited from this gallery. It was not 
 uncommon to have an altar upon it, and it was usual to have altars under 
 it, at which those could worship who were strictly excluded from the 
 portion of the chapel intended for the accommodation of the members of 
 the Convent or College. 
 
 There have been fortunately preserved so much of the woodwork used in 
 this part of King's College Chapel as — with the aid of the written record 
 dated 1542, showing what altars were in the nave — to leave very few points 
 to conjecture. 
 
 The breadth of the nave was divided into three portions, the centre 
 
I 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 13 
 
 being occupied by the carved doorway communicating with the choir. 
 Above this there remained till the other day a loft, with an ambone of 
 carved oak over the doorway, while on either side extended a balustrade 
 of the same pattern as the ambone. Of this only six panels are now seen 
 and placed over the doorway, while the ambone and other six panels were 
 carried away at the date of the last repairs of the chapel. 
 
 Tell-tale marks of nails in the niches of this gallery disclose that they 
 were enriched with statues, and we know from the Register of 1542 that 
 the subjects were the Saviour and the Apostles.' 
 
 Above this gallery there stretched across from wall to wall, near the 
 roof, the three canopies which have been lowered and placed meaninglessly 
 where the gallery was formerly. 
 
 These canopies are of rich design, and are perhaps unique in Britain. 
 Up to the date when the chapel was last repaired (1872), they stood upon 
 the oak framework, upon which they had been originally erected, covered 
 with boarding on the west side to form the backs of bookcases, and separate 
 the choir from the nave. 
 
 The central canopy is much the richest and deepest, and whether sup- 
 ported from below or not, it was attached to a beam which stretched across 
 the church just above the top of the walls (and was possibly used as a Rood- 
 beam before the canopies were made). The special importance given to the 
 central canopy was no doubt due to its purpose, namely, to cover the great 
 Crucifix, on either side of which were statues of the Virgin and of Saint 
 John. Below these, on the gallery, was an altar — 
 
 "Altare solii crucifixi supra quod est crucifixus et statue dive Virginis et Joannis 
 apostoli et evangeliste." 
 
 There was also on the loft the organ,^ and on it a picture of the Virgin — 
 
 " In solio organorum. Organa ipsa cum imagine dive Virginis in superiore parte eorundem." 
 
 ' The list of the furnishings of the chapel mentions not only " Velamen lineum pro usu quadra- 
 gesimal! cooperiens crucifixum et duas predictas statuas," but also " Velamen magnum ex lino, ante 
 statuas Saluatoris et Apostolorum in facie solii crucifixi tempore quadragesimali appensum." Fasti 
 Abercl, p. 566, the spelling of Latin is given throughout, as the Kegister is printed in the Fasti 
 Aberdonenses. 
 
 2 The arrangement at Durham was, at one time, strikingly similar. 
 
 " There were three pairs of organs belonging to the said quire, for maintenance of God's service, 
 and the better celebrating thereof. One of the fairest pair of the three stood over the quire door, 
 only opened and played upon principal feasts." 
 
 " Also there was a lantern of wood like unto a pulpit standing and adjoining to the wood-organs 
 over the quire door, where they had wont to sing the nine lessons in the old time, on principal days, 
 standing with their faces towards the high altar." {Ancient Rites of Durham (Davies), p. 27.) 
 
14 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 I think it probable that the organ, in its case of fine wainscot, with 
 the painting of the Virgin, stood under the north canopy, on the same side 
 with the statue of the Virgin attached to the Holyrood. 
 
 We also find that on the loft was a picture of the Crucifixion. This is 
 mentioned among the " parue tabule templi " — 
 
 " Alia habens imaginem crucifixi pendens supra solium oi^anorum," 
 
 and it may have been placed immediately beside the altar. 
 
 There were on the floor of the nave two altars, one to the Virgin to 
 whom the chapel was dedicated, and whose name Bishop Elphinstone 
 originally intended the College should bear — 
 
 "Altars beate Marie Virginis in nave ecclesie habens tabulam arte statuaria at duas 
 statuas alteram ejusdem virginis, et alteram beati Kentigemi episcopi.''^ 
 
 The other to Saint German ^ — 
 
 " Altare sancti Germani habens tabulam arte statuaria et duas statuas alteram salvatoris 
 flagellati alteram sancti Christopheri." 
 
 These altars were almost certainly placed one on either side of the door 
 entering into the choir. Altars in this position are still common on the 
 Continent. When I first knew the Church of St Pierre at Louvain, the 
 rood-screen (Plate LVIII. fig. 1) had altars in this position, but they 
 have been removed. Still more remarkable as a jube is the beautiful 
 fantastic open gallery at Troyes (Plate LVIII. fig. 2). The choir screen 
 of Glasgow shows altars in this position (Plate LVIII. fig. 3), and in the 
 panels above them there once were statues.^ At Exeter the lines of the 
 arches (Plate LVIII. fig. 4) on either side of the door are admirably adapted 
 to the style of the carved oak at Aberdeen. 
 
 ' The saint of Glasgow, of which Bishop Elphinstone was a native, and at one time " Official," and 
 Rector of the University, appears also on Elphinstone's seal (Laing's Scottish Seals, 1866, pi. x. fig. 8). 
 
 ^ Saint German had special claims on the attention of those who came to worship in the College 
 chapel, for the revenues of his hospital in East Lothian had, by Koyal charter, been diverted 
 to the use of the College. There was some appropriateness in this diversion, for among what was 
 given to the College we find the tithes of Glenmuich, Glengarden, and Slains, all in the adjoining 
 district. 
 
 3 While this paper was passing through the press, Archbishop Eyre, on 21st March, read a paper 
 before the ArchsBologip^l Society of Glasgow, in which he says : — " On the left hand side of the Rood 
 
 screen entrance was the altar of the Holy cross The altar of Our Lady, known as St Mary 
 
 of Pity, stood at the right hand." The Archbishop assumed that the screen was erected by Bishop 
 Blackader, on whose promotion Elphinstone was appointed Bishop of Aberdeen. This would make 
 the two screens contemporary in date ; but the President of the Society, Mr Honeyman, who has 
 made a special study of the Cathedral, expressed a decided opinion that the Glasgow screen was 
 older than the time of Blackader. 
 
a, 
 
 i^' 
 
 Z 
 
 w 
 w 
 
 o 
 w 
 
 iT" 
 
 V V j"- \-,'; 
 
 > 
 
 A 
 o 
 
 > 
 
 o 
 u 
 
 O 
 
 a; 
 
 
 -v 
 
 > -( 
 
 Q 
 O 
 
 o 
 
OF THE 
 
 •UNIVERSITY 
 
 yi 
 
 OF 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 15 
 
 In King's College Chapel we know that these spaces could not have 
 been open, because the ancient stalls remain returning across the chapel, 
 interrupted only by the open carved doorway. 
 
 One other feature I felt inclined to introduce into the conjectural 
 sketch of the nave (Plate LVII.) as it must have originally appeared, 
 namely, the desk of Bishop Elphinstone. Orem^ speaks of it as " remain- 
 ing entire " even in his day, and Pococke speaks of it a quarter of a century 
 later. As preaching in the nave was contemplated by Elphinstone — the 
 Principal and various other members of the College were each ordained 
 " sexties in anno populo verbum Dei predicare " — it seems not unnatural 
 that a seat should have been provided for his use. 
 
 I have only farther to remind those who would try to recall the 
 impression and feeling of the nave as originally completed, not to forget 
 " lights of discolored glass " spoken of by the translator of Boece — " the 
 ancient bravery" of the parson of Rothiemay. All that could be said in 
 1772 was " some relics of their old splendour do yet remain."^ The restora- 
 tion of this feature was commenced with much taste in 1873 by the liberality 
 of John Webster, Esq., LL.D., who has acquired public confidence in so 
 remarkable a degree that, besides having been Lord Provost of and M.P. 
 for Aberdeen, he has, ever since the passing of the Universities Act, beei 
 appointed by each successive Rector to the office of Lord Rector's Assessor. 
 
 The choir still used as the chapel is entered by the carved door in the 
 choir screen. It is, indeed, robbed of much of the ancient glory of marble, 
 and painting, and brass, and coloured hangings, and carpets on the pave- 
 ment. But there remain the beautifully carved old oak stalls with their 
 canopies and the subsellia, which will stand comparison with the best of 
 those in the college chapels of Oxford and Cambridge. No one can but 
 be struck with the appropriate simplicity, dignity, and solemnity of the 
 building, and it is well that enough has survived to preserve the general 
 tone and efi'ect intended by the first architect. 
 
 All the stalls are there now as they were nearly four centuries ago, with 
 perhaps no change, but the absence of a row of desks in front of the sub- 
 sellia. Forty-two of the seats were appropriated to members of the College 
 — ^the four doctors of theology (the Principal's),^ canon law, civil law, and 
 
 1 Page 173. Fadi, p. 58. - Even in 1818 Kennedy says almost as much. 
 
 ^ The Principal's being the first on the south on entering from the nave. 
 
16 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 medicine, occupying the corner stalls. The curious on this subject may 
 refer to Bishop Dunbar's charter. Most of the old carved misereres are 
 gone, and all the back panels below the canopies, but not the framework of 
 the panels. When I first remember the chapel, the oak was not varnished, 
 and the framework of the panels was dark like the carved oak, but the 
 panels were modern and light wainscot. They were stained dark at a com- 
 paratively recent date. I think I have been told that the original panels 
 were carved with Gothic tracery, but were too much decayed to be repaired 
 in 1823 ; and Douglas,^ writing of the choir in 1780, says : — " On the west 
 end, the stalls and back linings on the side walls are wainscot, and richly 
 ornamented with most accurate carved work." If they were so carved, we 
 may form a fair idea of the character of the ornament, from the back lining 
 of the pulpit in the Collegiate Church of St Duthac at Tain (Plate LXII. 
 fig. 1), said to have been presented by the Regent Murray. I have not dis- 
 covered any authority but the Statistical Account of 1836 to support this 
 tradition, but the Rev. William Taylor, who mentions it in his Researches 
 into the History of Tain, was descended of a line of ancestors who had held 
 the office of town clerk of Tain in unbroken succession from the time of 
 Cromwell, so a more trustworthy tradition is not easily found. Had the 
 tradition been that the pulpit was an oflfering from James IV., frequently 
 a votary at the shrine of St Duthac, or from James V., who once, at least, 
 worshipped there, or from Bishop Elphinstone, who was for a time Bishop 
 of Ross, it would have been more natural. Murray is believed never to 
 have been in Tain. Ross, the Provost of the Collegiate Church of St 
 Duthac, must have met Murray at the Parliament of 1560, of which he was 
 a member. 
 
 In the choir there was originally but one altar, but by the time of 
 Bishop Stewart there were three. 
 
 1. The high altar in the apse. Upon it was a great picture — 
 
 " Una tabula magna arte pictoria miro ingenio confecta." 
 
 The Register of 1542 enables any one so minded to reconstruct Bishop 
 Elphinstone's ideal of what was becoming for the service of the church. 
 
 We know exactly the appearance of the high altar of Notre Dame at 
 Paris when Elphinstone studied there. VioUet le Due assigns the four- 
 
 ' Ead Coast of Scotland, p. 164. 
 

 CHATEL, KIND'S COLLLC.E 
 ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 J,3ms r Watt 
 
of 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 17 
 
 teenth century as its date, and he gives, in his Dictionnaire de L' Archi- 
 tecture, voc. "Autel," from an engraving dated 1662, the drawing reproduced 
 (Plate LXVIT. fig. 3), with this description: — 
 
 " Quatre anges tenant les instruments de la passion sont pos^s sur quatre colonnes de 
 
 cuivre portant les triangles sur lesquelles glissent les courtines I'autel etait fort 
 
 simple, rev6tu d'un parameut, ainsi que le ratable; derriere I'autel s'elevait le grand 
 reliquaire contenant la chasse de Saint Marcel." 
 
 Having this description, when we read in the Aberdeen Register that 
 there were among the furnishings in brass — 
 
 " Quatuor Columne, super quas effigies quatuor angelorum portantium insignia Christi : " 
 "candelabrum enneum pendulum ^ coram summo altari;" 
 
 and also, 
 
 " Cortini templi," " peramenta " — 
 
 we can easily imagine what the high altar in King's College Chapel was like. 
 At Aberdeen the College was too near the Cathedral to possess relics of 
 value likely to require a reliquary anything like so important as that at 
 Paris, which would have run up to the ceiling. Still there was a 
 
 " Cistula miro artificio confecta et variis margaritis exomata pro reliquiis sanctorum et 
 corporalibus," 
 
 which may have been brought out on special occasions and placed over the 
 great picture above referred to or on the retable behind the altar. 
 
 It is not easy to dispose of the sentences of the Eegister which follow 
 that as to the quatuor columne — 
 
 " Sunt etiam super easdem columnas decern candelabra ennea. 
 Tria candelabra ennea pro luminibus in choro tempore hyemali. 
 Duo parua candelabra ennea, ad ornatum alteris beate Catherine virginis." 
 
 I have been unable to have the MS. of the Eegister examined, and am 
 inclined to suspect that the words decern columne may have been omitted 
 or obliterated. But sometimes the curtains round the altars were supported 
 by columns bearing angels carrying candles. An example is given, also 
 from VioUet le Due (Plate LVII. fig. 4) ; and the insignia of Christ may 
 have been movable, and replaced by candelabra at certain festivals — as 
 Candlemas. 
 
 2. The second altar of the choir was that " venerabilis sacramenti," 
 probably on the north side as the place of honour. It and the " locus pro 
 
 1 Well represented by another gift from Dr Webster. 
 
18 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 Sacramento figure pyramidalis," ^ were both gifts of Alexander Galloway, a 
 prebendary of the Cathedral and also Rector of the University. He gave 
 also for this altar a statue " dive virginis patrone CoUegii ex alabastro seu 
 pario lapide," and a small picture " ex auro textili," and a brazen " lampas 
 pendula " which hung in front of it. 
 
 3. The third altar was that " Beate Catherine Virginis," adorned with 
 " Tabula continens eflSgies nostri domini et divarum Catharine et Barbara." 
 
 This altar was also a votive erected by the executors of Hector Boece, 
 the first Principal. It was most likely on the south side of the choir. 
 
 The removal of the oak panelling at this end of the chapel would almost 
 certainly disclose, by markings on the wall, where these altars were fixed, 
 and whether they were placed along the wall or at right angles to it ; also 
 at what point the steps up to the high altar occurred, and how many steps 
 there were. There are two corbels, one on either side just westward of the 
 apse. These may have been used in fixing up — 
 
 "Velum magnum ex candenti lino infra chorum et magnum altare tempore quadra- 
 gesimali appensum," — 
 
 if so, they would show the length of the platform of the high altar. But 
 the first rise must have commenced farther west, for Orem [Registrum, p. 
 174) says that the tomb of Elphinstone was on the first step of the altar. 
 In that case the second step would be to the east of the tomb, and after a 
 like space probably three more steps close to each other led to the platform. 
 
 Besides these altars the chief features of the choir must have been the 
 hanging lamps, and candelabra of brass, of which there were about a 
 score, and the three brazen ambones, at which the Gospel, the Epistle, and 
 the Legenda were read. 
 
 " Unus pro evangelic cantaudo ; alter pro epistola et tertius pro legenda," 
 
 — something more than " lecterns," in the modem sense, I presume, as they 
 are, by Boece in his Life of Elphinstone, alluded to as " cathedrae." 
 
 The two first, no doubt, were on the same platform as the high altar. 
 In foreign churches sedilia, such as we are familiar with in England for 
 
 1 Fasti, p. 565. Very likely this " locus pyramidalis " may have been as high as the stalls ; but if 
 it had run up to the roof, similar examples could easily be quoted. It would still have been described 
 as pyramidal There is not a single piece of carving but this in the whole chapel which could be 
 described as pyramidal. 
 
o 
 
 < 
 S 
 PC 
 o 
 
 w 
 Pi 
 
 w 
 an 
 
 w 
 o 
 
 (Q 
 
 a. 
 <; 
 
 i: 
 o 
 
 tJ 
 
 ID 
 
 w 
 
 o 
 a 
 
 en 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 ^ 
 
 o 
 a: 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 19 
 
 the officiating clergy, were not common. I cannot say what the general 
 rule was in Scotland, but stone sedilia were not uncommon. Abroad brazen 
 chairs were frequently used, sometimes highly ornate. More commonly, 
 they and the lecterns were made very simply of metal rods. The ambone 
 for the " legenda " must have stood between the stalls. 
 
 The whole would derive colour from the " much pretious stuffe layde up" 
 in the shape of tapestry and carpets, for the altars and walls and pavement 
 in front of the high altar and for the choir. The Register shows how much 
 of this was "attrabaceum" from Arras, then the great emporium of such work. 
 
 The last and not the least prominent feature must have been the tomb 
 of Bishop Elphinstone, and we have the detailed description of it in the 
 inventory of 1542, which tells us that the statue of the bishop lay, as was 
 most natural, arrayed in his pontificals, on the upper stone, which was 
 supported by statues of the three Theological Virtues and Contemplation 
 on the south, and the Cardinal Virtues on the north : — 
 
 " Sepulchrum domini Fundatoris, in cujus superiore parte imago ipsius in pontificalibus, 
 cum duobus angelis portantibus duo candelabra ad caput, et duobus mercenariis epitaphium 
 in ere insculptum ad pedes portantibus : inferius, ex australi parte, tres virtutes theologice 
 et Contemplatio, in boreali virtutes cardinales suis signis distinctae; in orientali et occidentali 
 partibus domini Fundatoris insignia ab angelis lata."^ 
 
 From these details it would be easy to restore the tomb. The spirit 
 of restoration of ancient monuments is spreading so fast that it is not 
 unreasonable to hope that the tomb may once more be made worthy of one 
 of the best bishops Scotland ever saw. 
 
 The next notice we have of it is in 1661 from Gordon of Rothiemay. 
 
 " In this church William Elphingstoune lyes buryed, his tombe-stone 
 of black towtch-stone ; the upper pairt upheld of old by thretteine statues 
 of brasse ; his statue of brasse lying betwixt the two stons "; " all these 
 robbed and sold long agoe." * 
 
 The only other allusions to the tomb I have observed are those of J. 
 Macky^ — " Here is a fine monument of Bishop Elphinstone ;" and Orem,* 
 who speaks of this tomb as " lately stripped of its canopy and ornaments, 
 for fear of accidents, and reduced to a plain blue marble slab." It is 
 
 1 Fasti, p. 562. ^ Description of the Two Towns of Aberdeen. 
 
 ' Journey through Scotland, p. 41, published in 1723. 
 
 * Or a narrative usually incorporated with his work, but dated 1771, p. 41. 
 
20 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 strange that so remarkable a feature as a canopy remained unnoticed if it 
 existed. The date of the destruction of Elphinstone's tomb nowhere appears. 
 Principal Anderson got credit for saving the chapel from the mob in 1580, 
 and it is not mentioned in the oflScial reports 1618-28' as to dilapidation of 
 the buildings, during the time of Bishop Patrick Forbes, who died in 1638. 
 Gordon mentions no particulars in his history, which contains so detailed an 
 account of the mischief done in Old Aberdeen by the Covenanting party 
 during and after the meeting of the General Assembly in Aberdeen in 
 1640. 
 
 It is not easy to estimate the effect upon the art of a district — of 
 workmen being familiar with examples of high taste — and I cannot but 
 think that the tomb of Elphinstone educated the Aberdeen carpenter, 
 who on 14th December 1636 "was ordainit" by the magistrates "to big 
 and erect in most decent and comelie forme, ane loft within the yle of 
 the Grayfrier kirk of this burghe, befoir the pulpett, for the use of prouest, 
 baillies, and counsall." 
 
 How he performed his task, and how the result was regarded when the 
 General Assembly met at Aberdeen in 1640, we learn from Gordon:^ — 
 "That yeare or not long befor the magistratts of Aberdeen had tackne 
 panes for to repaire the Grayfreer Church, and had adorned it with a costly 
 seate, in a lofte just opposite to the pulpitt. The carpenter had showed his 
 skill in cutting upon the several compartments of the frontispeece of that 
 lofte the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the Moral Vertwes, as 
 they use to be painted emblem wyse : There stood Faithe leaning upon the 
 Cross. This was as soon quarrelled at as espyed by severall ministers, com- 
 missioners of the Assemblye, who looked upon all that new frontispeece as 
 savouring of superstitione, and wold needs have Faithe or her Crosse re- 
 moved from ther. The magistratts durst not excuse it ; and many others 
 were silent least they should be suspected. In ende Mr Andrew Ramsay, 
 the moderator, interposed himself, .... so that by his mediatione they 
 were pacifyd, and Faith with the rest of the Vertwes were permitted to 
 stand still, wheir they as yett remain undefaced to this daye." 
 
 Bishop Forbes, " the best prelate," says Spottiswood, "that Scotland had 
 seen since Elphinstone," seems to have re-established public preaching in the 
 nave, and to have used the choir, among other purposes, for meetings of 
 
 > Fadi Aberd., p. 5. * Scots Affairs, voL iii. p. 219. 
 
CO 
 
 o 
 
 Z 
 
 I — I 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 t — I 
 
 w 
 
 2 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 21 
 
 the Synod of his diocese.^ Here he set up his own throne, or rather seat,'' 
 where the altar was, above the steps leading up to the apse, and arranged 
 pews rising on either side from Elphinstone's tomb to the windows, painting 
 on each pew the name of the presbytery whose members were to occupy it. 
 All these remained till 1823, including his seat. The canopied back of it 
 is there still, with a modern oak pulpit placed in front of it in 1828, when 
 Sunday services within the walls of the university were resumed. The desk 
 or front of his seat was at that time removed to the north side of the chapel, 
 and used for the seat occupied by the professor acting as " hebdomadarius." 
 It is now used as a base for Bishop Stewart's pulpit. My father gave me 
 the history of this piece of oak, and no one can look at it, and at the back 
 of the pulpit in the apse, without admitting that they belong to each other. 
 Bishop Forbes is said to have erected a second throne or seat, in the 
 nave on the right side of the carved door, while he placed a pulpit on the 
 other side for the public preaching above referred to. They could only have 
 been placed in that position after the altars of the Virgin and Saint German 
 were removed. This is not a matter of oral tradition ; I have read it some- 
 where recently, but, unfortunately, cannot give the reference.^ Note 3 re- 
 conciles what I had written with what Orem says (p. 173), referring to the 
 choir of the church, " There is a hearse in it," probably one of the original 
 candelabra referred to in the inventory of 1542, " and the bishop's seat or 
 pulpit in the east end thereof, where the altar stood formerly, with presby- 
 tery's desks on every side thereof;" "in this chapel there is a middle wall 
 of timber and above it an excellent loft, with a pulpit on the left side 
 thereof, where the priest preached, and Bishop Elphinstone's desk below 
 the said loft yet remains entire, in it likewise is the organ loft entire." 
 Thus, besides the " gallery with a pulpit or ambon there were two pulpits or 
 desks, one on each side of the door. Till after the time of Bishop Forbes, 
 the organ as well as the loft had remained entire ; "in the University of 
 Old Aberdeen there stood the remainder of ane old organ, upon which 
 was painted, in a course draught, the pourtraicte of some woman, nobody 
 
 1 And here for 200 years the Synods of Aberdeen, whether Episcopalian or Presbyterian, con- 
 tinued to meet. 
 
 2 1 presume a bishop has no throne except in the cathedral of his diocese. 
 
 ' Since this sentence was penned, I have seen Bishop Pococke's Tour in Scotland, 1760, p. 207. 
 He writes of King's College Chapel : — " The church is an oblong square, and the body is divided 
 from the Quire by a fine Covered Screen and Gallery, with a pulpit in it, and under that are two 
 Carved Seats The Stalls of the Quire are of the same beautifull Gothic carved work." 
 
22 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 could tell who, and had hunge there half brockne, wholly neglected for 
 many years ; this was brokne downe and complained upon," when the 
 General Assembly met at Aberdeen in 1640, "as a thing very intoUerable 
 in the churche of a College ;'" and again, "Anno 1642, Principal GuikP 
 causit tak doune the organ case quhilk wes of fyne wanescot and had stand 
 within the kirk since the Reformation." 
 
 Notwithstanding all the changes that took place, the pipes of the organ 
 were still lying on the organ loft in the present century, as I have been 
 told by those who had seen them there. 
 
 We do not hear of preaching in the nave after the Reformation, except 
 in 1642 by Principal Guild, who seems to have got small thanks for his 
 trouble, and in 1720 by Principal Chalmers, who seems to have met with 
 as little support. Bishop Pococke tells us, in 1760, "this Church is not 
 used but for giving degrees," and the students marched on Sundays to the 
 Cathedral-Machar's kirk, where they occupied " the College loft," at least 
 from 1634 to 1823. 
 
 A great change, however, came over the nave in its conversion into 
 the University library. The original library, as has been mentioned, was 
 built on the south side of the chapel, over class-rooms and beside the 
 chapter house and "Jewell house." Like the rest of the building, it had 
 by 1618 fallen into great disrepair, and the whole roof was ordered to 
 be taken off, and put in order and covered with lead. We see it in 
 
 ^ Gordon, Scots Affairs (ed. Spald.), vol. iii. p. 218. 
 
 2 Dr Guild, or Goold as he is often called, was one of those who at first stoutly objected to 
 Presbytery, and gave up his professorship at Aberdeen, and retired to Holland, rather than sign the 
 Covenant ; but he afterwards returned, and getting a church in Aberdeen, signed it with qualifications, 
 and on the bait of the Principalship of King's College being offered, he swallowed it entire, and showed 
 his zeal by many unfortunate acts of destroying ancient ecclesiastical buildings. This naturally 
 roused the Prelatists, who speak of him always with a sneer. Bishop Forbes's revival of preaching 
 in the nave was highly approved by them, but when some years after his death Dr Guild tried to have 
 them resumed, here is the way his efforts are recorded : — " Wednesday, 6 April 1642, Dr Goold began 
 to preiche within the College kirk ane weiklie sermon to be taught that day to the old toun people, 
 studentis, maisteria and memberis of the College. This ordour semit strange, to preiche outwith 
 Maucher Kirk, as wes sumtymis usit befoir, and bring down the people, man, wyf and maidis to 
 
 the College kirk, among young scolleris and students The gryt bellis of the College and 
 
 Maucher kirk rang both thrie tyms to ilk sermon, for conveining ane auditorie, quhilk wes never 
 usit befoir, and whiche schortlie decayit to his disgrace, as he justlie deservit." Again, "Upone 
 Wednesday, 4 May, Doctor Goold, principal!, began a noveltie, and to preiche upone this weik day 
 
 within the College Kirk at Old Aberdene His auditonres war feu, who had littell feist of the 
 
 doctrein, and at last himself wyreit, and shortlie gave over this weiklie sermon moir foolishlie nor 
 it began." — Spalding, Scots Affairs, vol. ii. p. 141. He had more serious troubles in store, for he was 
 deprived of the Principalship by Monk's four generals, who were sent to reform the University. 
 
' or 
 
 UNIVERI 
 
 K 
 
 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 23 
 
 Gordon's sketch (Plate LV. fig. 2), in its restored state, nearly flat, and 
 leaning against the chapel wall. A century later, on 3rd September 1719, 
 we find the masters of the College " took a view of the library in order to 
 make some reparations for accommodating severall books that are lying 
 loose," and ordered some temporary work to serve " untill such time as 
 the College shall be in a condition to enlarge the said library, by taking 
 down the partition wall on the east end " — there being by this time, un- 
 fortunately, no longer occasion for the "Jewell house." Happily, the state 
 of the library was brought specially to the notice of an old alumnus, Dr 
 Fraser, physician to the King and treasurer of Chelsea Hospital.^ Through 
 his generosity, the old building was taken down, and new class-rooms erected 
 on the ground floor, and a new library above nearly double the length of 
 the old one. This room must have been about 70 feet long. There is 
 reason to suppose that the roof was no longer flat, but raised in the centre. 
 
 " Bibliotheca nova longitudine duplo fere aucta ac quatuor Bcholse infra positae Grsecanim 
 literarum et Philosophiee praelectionibus sacratse, ab imis fundamentis polito lapide pulcherri- 
 mum in modum extruuntur."^ 
 
 The same authority tells of the efiect of the rebuilding, which he mainly 
 efi"ected, of the south side of the quadrangle erected by Bishop Dunbar — 
 
 "Area sublimibus fulget decorata columnis, 
 Marmore de Pareo ; cuncta superba micant." ^ 
 
 When next the library is heard of, it occupied the nave of the chapel ; 
 Dr Eraser's library (completed in 1725) and the class-rooms below had been 
 destroyed by fire. 
 
 I first heard of this from my father, in reply to my asking how the 
 north side of the chapel came to be of fresh-looking granite, whUe there 
 were- embedded in it a number of coats of arms evidently of much more 
 ancient date, and carved in sandstone. He told me there had been a 
 library there, which had been burnt, and that when this happened the 
 chapel wall required new support, and was then cased and buttressed 
 with granite as we now see it ; and that the old coats of arms had been 
 nearly all on the walls of the library, and having escaped the fire, were 
 along with some others inserted in the new granite work. 
 
 I have heard my mother tell of this burning. She had the story 
 
 1 " Vir nunquam sine laude nominandus," as says the inscription on the chapel wall, although 
 not one stone of his work has been allowed to remain upon another. ' Fraeereides, pp. 11 and 20. 
 
24 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 from her father, Principal Macleod, and said that it took place during his 
 connection with the university. I do not recollect any date being men- 
 tioned. The professor, who was "hebdomadar" for the week, and so in 
 charge of the buildings, had one afternoon, after the students' dinner at 
 which he had, ex officio, presided, put his hand on some wainscotting, and 
 finding it very hot, suspected fire, and caused some of the lining of the 
 room where he was to be torn down, when fire burst out, and there was 
 barely time to save the books of the library by " throwing them into the 
 nave of the chapel," then " neglected and disused," and there they remained 
 tiU 1870, when the present new library was built. 
 
 Dr Eraser's library, like its predecessor, was not on the ground floor, 
 as we have just seen. I venture to suggest that the books may have been, 
 in part at least, thrown into the nave of the chapel by the door which 
 communicated with the organ loft, the existence of which was ascertained 
 when the book presses were removed. So far as I know, that door was the 
 only access to that gallery.^ No doubt the principal access to the library 
 was from the quadrangle,- — perhaps from the porch at the south door ; but 
 following the analogy of other such buildings, there probably was an access 
 from the chapter-house, as at Crossraguel — or the "Jewell house" — to the 
 library, and this would form the most convenient communication for those 
 officiating in the choir to pass to the gallery, unless there was either a 
 narrow wooden stair behind one of the altars in the nave, or a stair in the 
 thickness of the wall. Unfortunately, when the library shelving and even 
 
 ' I believe no trace of a wooden stair to the rood loft was discovered. The late Mr Matheson, 
 then of H.M. Office of Works, promised me that I should be informed before the replastering of the 
 walls commenced, but I was not warned in time to reach Aberdeen until after the walls had been all 
 lathed, and had their first coat of plaster. Those in charge, however, were most obliging, and offered 
 to remove the lath at any point I chose. I did not trust my own skill in such matters sufficiently to 
 feel warranted in acting largely on this offer, but I could not resist the opportimity of testing an 
 opinion I had long entertained that the organ loft had been approached by a door on its level on 
 the south wall, and the plaster, when broken, accordingly disclosed the door, which has since been 
 left uncovered, to tell the position of the gallery. This door, and the mark on the roof where the 
 beam above the canopies was fixed, determine exactly the original position of the old carved oak 
 work. The door is small certainly, 4 feet x 2— but many a smaller door of access to rood lofts is 
 to be found in old churches — and it was filled up with bricks, and therefore it was said it must be 
 modern. Those who stated this view probably did not know that there had been a library immedi- 
 ately outside, in which the books required for use in the gallery may have been kept. But before the 
 library was burned — the organ was silent, and the voice of the preacher was dumb in the nave — a 
 door in that position could no longer be of use, and might have been built up when Fraser's enlai'ge- 
 nient of the library took place, and if still open must necessarily have been built up, when after the 
 fire the wall was cased in granite from the ground to the foot of the chapel windows. 
 
ARCH. SCOT VOL. V. 
 
 PLLXIII 
 
 NAVE OF KINGS COLLEGE CHAPEL. FITTED UP AS LIBRARY. 
 
 1770. 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 25 
 
 the stalls were removed from the wall in 1873, I understand that no one 
 made a thorough examination of the walls, from an ecclesiological poi^t of 
 view, to see how far there were traces of old stairs or doors. 
 
 It is not easy to fix precisely- the date of the destruction of the library 
 built by Dr Fraser. We know from Bishop Pococke that in 1760 the nave 
 was not fitted up for a library ; and in 1769 Pennant speaks of the chapel 
 as " ruinous within," with no hint that it was occupied by the library, of 
 which he speaks at some length, but on April 7, 1772, a resolution was 
 adopted by the Senatus to fit up the nave as a library, and to use the 
 materials of the library and schools in erecting the new professors' houses. 
 That library and the lecture rooms had been the pride of the University, 
 and were not fifty years old. Some catastrophe must have led to their 
 destruction. The nave might have been used as an enlargement of the 
 library to meet the increasing accumulation of books under the Copyright Act 
 of Queen Anne, without destroying that built by Dr Fraser. Moreover, the 
 public school, where the students in 1760 met for prayers (see next page), 
 came to be divided into class-rooms, which could only have been required by 
 the destruction of those under Fraser's library. Douglas, who gives the 
 first description of the library when occupying the nave of the chapel, 
 wrote as in 1780, and makes not the slightest allusion to Dr Fraser's 
 building, but does allude to the existence of the two, then new, detached 
 professors' houses at the south-west comer of the College, which are evi- 
 dently built with granite from the same quarry as the casing of the chapel. 
 Matters did not move fast in those days, but we may infer that not much 
 time was allowed to elapse between the fire and the fitting up of class- 
 rooms for the students, and providing accommodation for the library. The 
 six pages of a notice of Old Aberdeen, bearing date 1771, and printed with 
 Orem's work, pp. 39-45, describes Fraser's library as stiU existing. The 
 date — 177.2 or 1773 — would tally equally with the tradition that the fire 
 took place in my grandfather's time, and with the story of the conflict with 
 the sadors when the new houses were being built. 
 
 The next stage of interest in the history of the chapel we do not reach 
 till 1 823. From the time of Bishop Patrick Forbes, the choir had been 
 used for the meetings of the Synod of Aberdeen, for which he had fitted 
 it up, and for competitions for the chair of theology, the only chair in 
 Scotland filled up by public competition. The founder of the chair made 
 
 £> 
 
26 On the Chapel and -Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 members of the Presbyteries of the Synod and three Professors the 
 judges, and appointed the competition to take place here, as it has done 
 ever since. It was used also for various academic functions, such as gradu- 
 ation ceremonies. Here, too, the students met for morning prayers after 
 the fire,^ — not at the date of Bishop Pococke's visit, for he says, — 
 " This church is not used except for giving degrees. In the room where 
 they have morning and evening prayer is a large desk hung with a fine 
 carpet, in which the King's and Bishop Elphinstone's arms are worked " — 
 beyond doubt one of the aulea magna on which the Register more than 200 
 years before recorded that "Regia insignia simul atque fundatoris sunt 
 intexta." Where is such carpet-work to be found now ? I remember seeing 
 the table — a long old-fashioned many-legged one — of the room where the 
 Senatus used to meet covered with a carpet; and the front of " the CoUege 
 loft" in St Machar's, tUl it was removed about 1860, was also hung with 
 carpets. Were these also some of Elphinstone's furnishing ? 
 
 How early the choir ceased to be used for ordinary Sunday services 
 does not appear, but in 1634 the Principal was censured for remissness in 
 " going to the kirk before the studentis," and there is early mention of 
 "the College loft" in the cathedral. Down to 1823 the students of the 
 Arts classes, after meeting and receiving instruction from their various 
 professors, marched to the cathedral in their scarlet gowns up the narrow 
 street, in which most of the houses stood gablewise to the roadway, with 
 space between them for eaves-drop from the heavy thatched roofs. 
 
 I have heard old students amusing each other by confessing the short- 
 comings of their college days, and among others, that of having, when 
 they thought they were unobserved, slipped up one or other of these 
 eaves-drop slits, and let the procession pass on ; but they had also to tell 
 of being occasionally detected, and dragged out in disgrace. 
 
 It was not improbably the recollection of such scenes that prompted 
 Dr Alexander Murray of Philadelphia, a graduate of the University, in 
 making his will in 1793, to bequeath part of his estate, subject to the life- 
 rent of his widow — 
 
 1 John Thomson, "the sacrist," the "singular" if not apostolic successor of the chaplain 
 mentioned in the charter as having chaise of the fabric and furnishings of the church, and his 
 associate David Cromar — " John and Davie," as they were called — used, with a mixture of shame and 
 pride, to point out names of professors who, while students, had been so irreverent as to carve them 
 on the oak. 
 
ARCH SCOT. VOL .V. 
 
 PL.LXIV 
 
 Puh^liAd hy Jama J:>hiisUw JiefJuuv 
 
 EIIM'^SS .C'DILILIK-GS iJXlDi:AlBJEimiD:EEHc 
 
 SOUTH EiXVATION. 
 
 Sc«**/ric 
 
 James C IVaU 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 27 
 
 " For the encouragement, in the first place, of a clergyman to preach 
 
 a course of lectures in their College church on Sunday mornings 
 
 This donation is also intended to remove in some measiire the uncommon 
 grievance and indecorum of their processions to their Parish Church, in 
 an inclement and dangerous season. In this unprejudiced critical age it 
 were to be wished that this famous seminary would agree upon a form of 
 public prayer and worship with or without responses, and instrumental 
 music, to be read at these lectures, as is common in all other countries, to 
 move the youth to the greater solemnity and order," 
 
 On this bequest becoming available through Mrs Murray's death, about 
 the time when the west front of the College was being rebuilt, chiefly by 
 means of a public subscription, the restoration of the choir and its re- 
 adaptation as a College chapel was at once undertaken. 
 
 Up to that time the steps to the high altar had remained untouched, 
 and then Bishop Forbes's throne was bisected and used, as already told.^ 
 Behind the desk in its new position was placed an oak panel with Bishop 
 Elphinstone's arms, at that time removed from the old hall (Plate LXX.). 
 
 A deeply carved door may be noticed at the east end of the stalls, 
 on the south side of the chapel, where no door is usually found. This 
 door was removed from the cathedral (Plate LXVII.) when it was being re- 
 pewed early in the present century, and it owes its place in the College 
 chapel to the fact that a carpenter employed in the cathedral was also 
 engaged in repairing the chapel. Many of the old pews in the cathedral had 
 been made to the fancy of the occupiers, and the carpenter had so admired 
 this door that he saved it when the rest of the old work was swept away, 
 and was glad when he secured it a position where it could be both preserved 
 and admired." There was also used, — first as "the censor's" desk, and 
 
 » Supra, p. 433. 
 
 2 He was a worthy successor of the carpenter who refused to take part in the destruction of the 
 reredos of the altar of the cathedral till the evil work was commenced by the parish minister, Mr 
 John Strachan, at the instigation, it is said, of Dr Guild. Strachan was a remarkable man, and by 
 what inconsistency or crotchetiness of character he was led to such an act it is difficult to imagine. 
 Here is Orem's account of him condensed : — He was a professor as well as parish minister. He was the 
 best scholar that ever was in the college. He was to graduate his scholars, and after he had printed his 
 theses, and distributed them, and the day appointed for the graduation in the common school of the 
 college, Mr Andrew Cant, regent in Marischall College, and others, said he had set down Popish posi- 
 tions in his thesis. But Mr Strachan told them he would defend all that was inserted in his theses ; 
 whereupon the place of graduation was altered from the College to St Machar's Church. When the day 
 came, there was a great confluence of gentry ; then came over the Cants, and all the rest of the clergy of 
 
28 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 subsequently used as the " precentor's," — another piece of carved wood 
 It also came from the cathedral, and is somewhat in the style of Bishop 
 Stewart's pulpit, but probably later. 
 
 Whether the east window had ever been opened, in obedience to the 
 order of 1619, repeated in 1638, I do not know,^ but it was in 1823 dealt 
 with as we now see it, the monument to the younger Scougal being moved 
 and inserted above the pulpit. This monument Orem tells us was on the 
 north side of the chapel. " He lies interred in the College chapel on the 
 north side thereof, opposite to the high altar now called the Bishop's seat or 
 desk ; with an inscription upon the wall above his grave ....,' Multa 
 in tarn brevissimo curriculo didicit, prsestitit, docuit. Coeli avidus et coelo 
 maturus, obiit anno dom. md.clxxviii. ^tatis suae xxviii.'"^ 
 
 One other notable change was made in the appearance of the chapel in 
 1823, viz., the hanging on the walls of five large paintings of Scripture 
 subjects. They used to hang outside of the old hall in the vestibule, which 
 was long used as the Senatus room. The round ivy tower which abuts on 
 it, the spire of which was blown down on Candlemas Day 1715,* and never 
 restored;* and the tower and three-light window of the vestibule, were the 
 chief features of the south side of the college till the new class-rooms were 
 built. 
 
 The paintings may probably enough be of the date of Jameson, and 
 painted by his scholars. The subjects were, The Meeting of Jephtha and 
 his Daughter, David slaying Goliath, The Judgment of Solomon, The Queen 
 of Sheba, David and Abigail. The only one I have any recollection of 
 
 Aberdeen, and placed themselves in the Marquess of Huntley's loft, opposite to the pulpit ; for Mr 
 Strachan had taken the pulpit. Mr Strachan began with a prayer, and after he had a long harangue, he 
 invited them to impugn his theses. Then they began to object, and he answered their arguments readily; 
 but they all answered una voce, which made a great confusion. When this dispute was ended, coming 
 out of the church door, Mr Strachan accuses young Mr Andrew Cant for some reflecting answer in 
 the dispute, and would have trampled him under his feet, if the gentry had not interposed. " For 
 Mr Strachan was a gentleman, and a pretty man, both in parts and in body, and undervalued all the 
 Cants." He afterwards resigned his chair, turned Popish, and died at the head of the Scots College at 
 Paris. Notwithstanding his victory, however, I suspect the name of Cant is more familiar within 
 the walls of the university than that of Strachan. 
 
 ' One window was closed up anno 1715 (Orem, p. 173). It was reopened by an order of the 
 Senatus in 1821. « Orem, p. 191. ^ Orem, p. 182. 
 
 * It was mainly owing to the efforts of Dr John Hill Burton, the historian, that this tower was 
 preserved ; and now that the hall and its window have been removed and replaced by a much loftier 
 building, the tower, which is still interesting as a landmark, would require the replacing of the 
 quaint old spire to give it effect and significance. 
 
ARCH. SCOT VOLV. 
 
 PLUCVI, 
 
 University Buildings Old A 
 
 FROM 
 
 South West 1889. 
 
 BERDEEN 
 
 
 
 
 '!^^\^m~yf^.j^:^:-^^y> ^^-^^ ^^^^^^'^f^^^ 
 
 ■^>v/. 
 
 KiNGS College from South West isso. 
 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 29 
 
 having seen elsewhere treated identically was the Judgment of Solomon, 
 which I once saw painted on copper on a very small scale. 
 
 These pictures were removed from the vestibule, or " lobby," as it was 
 then called, of the hall, with no intention of their being replaced anywhere. 
 But the sacrist and janitor " John and Davie " had always admired them, 
 and wishing to contribute to the adornment of the chapel, carefully pre- 
 served them, had them varnished by the village painter, and, after all the 
 repairs had been completed and the day was fixed for their official inspection, 
 they had them during the night erected on the chapel walls over the stalls 
 and over the west door. 
 
 Regard for two faithful servitors, I believe, rather than the desire to 
 preserve specimens of early Scottish paintings, led to their being left on 
 the walls, to the astonishment of many an English tourist, who could hardly 
 believe their eyes when they thought they saw ante- Reformation pictures 
 allowed to remain on Presbyterian walls. I believe they are now elsewhere 
 preserved for their value in the history of Scottish art.^ 
 
 Only one other change was made in the chapel, so far as I can recollect, 
 before the recent remodelling of it. The Senatus got from the kirk-session 
 of Old Machar the 'remains of a pulpit which had been erected in the 
 cathedral by Bishop Stewart, the builder of the original College library. 
 Orem, when telling of the destruction wrought by the fall of the great 
 central steeple of the cathedral on 9th May 1688, remarks (p. 109): — "The 
 pulpit built by the said Bishop Stewart, as witness his name on it, was 
 also preserved, being removed some time before the fall of said steeple." 
 It had the " arms of Christ " carved on it ; but a party of Covenanters 
 
 1 To the question put to me by one of the Professors, How would it do to hang them now in the 
 nave ? the reply might be given, it would secure their preservation, and being seen better than any 
 other position that they are likely to be placed in, and it would be putting the nave to a better use 
 than the nave of the greater King's College chapel at Cambridge was put on the occasion of Queen 
 Elizabeth's visit. It appears (Mr T. J. Proctor Carter's King's College Chapel, Cambridge, pp. 59 and 
 60) that the authorities not only prepared a place for her Majesty in the quire — "Also a fair closet 
 glazed towards the quire was devised and made in the middle of the rood-loft ; if the Queen's 
 Majestie would perhaps there repose herself ; which was not occupied. At the same time a theatre 
 had been erected in the anti-chapel against the rood loft, the chantries on either side serving as 
 green-rooms for this somewhat inappropriately placed stage. Here on the following day the scholars 
 of the college performed with great success the Aulularia of Plautus for the diversion of the queen 
 and her court." Speak of Presbyterian want of reverence for churches after this ! James V., in 
 1541, and his Queen visited Aberdeen, and had their quarters in the College, and were entertained 
 with " divers triumphes and playes and comedies," but we have no hint that they were performed in 
 the chapel. 
 
30 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 (The Master of Forbes Dr Guild, Principal, 2>^o pudor !), on 5th 
 
 August 1640, "came aU ryding up the gate, came to Machar Kirk, and 
 ordained our blessed Lord Jesus Christ his armes to be hewn out of the 
 foir front of the pulpit thereof" It seems to have been used as the 
 ordinary pulpit of the cathedral till the reseating early in the century 
 already referred to, when it was cast aside as lumber into a room at 
 the bottom of the north-west steeple, its place being taken by a very weU- 
 designed mahogany one with Corinthian pillars.^ After some thirty or forty 
 years, it was given to the University on condition of its re-erection. Its 
 whole framework was complete, and one or two panels which were in part 
 wanting were restored from the fragments that remained. The canopy seems 
 the most doubtful part of it, but I remember well that the carpenter 
 employed was quite confident that what remained of the old work demon- 
 strated the accuracy of the restoration he was ordered to carry out. Besides 
 its being an interesting memorial of one of the greatest benefactors of the 
 College, and a good specimen of oak carving of its date, it is amusing to 
 think of it as the pulpit from which Strachan defied the Cants. It wiU be 
 observed that it was originally designed to be fixed agaiust one of the 
 round pillars of the cathedral. Unfortunately, no part of the base remained, 
 and the desk of Bishop Forbes's seat was used, being nearly a century later 
 in style and quite incongruous. It is high time that it should be replaced 
 where Forbes placed it, in the east end of the chapel and in front of his 
 canopy. Its position there would be in point of fact historically accurate, — 
 certainly consistent with early ecclesiastical usage as to the position of a 
 Bishop's seat, — and not unimportant as an index of the feelings of one of 
 the most respected of the bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church, not- 
 withstanding the suggestion of the editor of the Fasti Aberdonenses, that 
 the good bishop would have been displeased to see it where it is.* 
 
 We have now traced the chapel down to the present date. It was, I 
 believe, mainly due to the eflPorts of the Chancellor, the Duke of Richmond," 
 and of the Principal, Dr Peter Campbell, who interested himself in every- 
 
 ^ Suiely St Machar's Church has been singularly unfortunate in the taste of those who have super- 
 intended its repairs from time to time. No greater mistake could have been made in such a build- 
 ing than substituting the mahogany pulpit for a 300 years old oak one, unless it was removing the 
 mahogany one, excellent of its kind, for as mean a structure in the way of pulpit as ever diaiigured 
 the most unpretentious of parish churches. 
 
 ' Fasti, p. Ivii. 
 
/iJtCH. SCOT VOL.V. 
 
 PL. LXVIJ. 
 
 HIGH ALTAR, ARRAS 
 
 ALTAR, NOTRE DAME, PARIS 
 
•rrBR Aft "7* 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen, 31 
 
 thing that concerned the University as much as if he had been an alumnus 
 — Edinburgh was his alma mater — that the chapel, the roof of which was 
 found to be in a dangerous state of decay, was taken charge of and 
 restored by H.M. Office of Works. 
 
 I have seen the opinion stated more than once, that the roof and spire of 
 the chapel are evidently of the middle of the 17th century/ I am aware of 
 no warrant for this opinion except the occurrence of the name of Charles II. 
 on the lead.^ This can do no more than suggest that it was repaired in his 
 reign. If, as seems probable, not only the design of the chapel but the 
 woodwork itself be foreign, it is unsafe to try and fix dates by changes of 
 style in this country. The earliest notice I have observed of the spire is 
 under date "15 June 1638," when a report was obtained from the "Dean 
 of gild of Aberdeine," associated with " a wright " and " a plumbear," " who 
 gaue ther judgement in maner following : — Imprimis, they found ruiff of 
 the kirk, for ought they can persaue, sufficient, except it be in sylling and 
 sarking. Secundo, they find it neidful that the south syde of the kirke be 
 
 tirrit from the litle steipill to the east gavill of the kirk ; and the 
 
 litle stipill itself bothe theikit with leid and repairit in the timber wark."* 
 If it was old enough in 1638 to require repairs, we may be very certain 
 that it dates from the 16th century; and, looking to the history of the 
 times, it is probably coeval with the chapel, the contract for covering which 
 with lead is dated in 1506.* 
 
 Gratitude to those who procured the repair of the chapel in 1873 must 
 be tempered by regret for some of the things that were done, or rather that 
 were left undone. 
 
 A new library was budt, which left the nave available for securing 
 more space for the enlarged wants of the University after the union of 
 King's and Marischal Colleges, and so the stalls were moved westwards one 
 bay, after having been faithfully gone over and repaired. The change was 
 a reasonable one, but it alters considerably the original proportions. The 
 shortening of the nave by one-third cramps it and takes from its dignity, 
 while adding to the choir seems to lower the roof But much more serious 
 mischief was done than this, for alas ! in carrying out this scheme, the old 
 
 * Fasti Aherd., p. lix. 
 
 '^ The lead of the chapel roof was authorised to be sold, and slates substituted, in 1793. 
 
 ' Fasti Aherd., p. 410. * Ibid., p. Ivii. 
 
32 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 historical organ gallery with its ambone was ruthlessly destroyed. The 
 Reformers had not seen occasion to destroy it ; they had been satisfied with 
 the removal, probably by the hands of the members of the University, of all 
 the carved figures great and small, and of the paintings of the Virgin and 
 of the Crucifixion. They left the organ in its place, and when the nave was 
 turned into the library, the Senatus had the taste to preserve the beautiful 
 gallery and its ambone and the three canopies, although plans which in- 
 volved their destruction were laid before them by an architect. 
 
 We have already (page 434) quoted Pococke's reference to the screen 
 in 1760 ; it is thus noticed by Douglas in 1780: — 
 
 " Above the books, on the east end, is some very curious carved work 
 on the boards which divide the library from the chapel, to humour which, 
 the cross gallery has ancient rails ; but in my opinion they neither look 
 well nor at all correspond with the modern ones," an opinion which few 
 will concur in who turn to BiUing's drawing of the library.^ 
 
 The screen, however, was not removed till its beauty and historical 
 value had been recognised by many ecclesiologists. 
 
 From this point of view Dean Stanley has pointed out its great 
 interest, and has selected it as the typical one in Britain. "Nothing," he 
 says, " can be more splendid than the ambones in the church at Ravillo, 
 near Amalfi, which, though long deserted, remain a witness to the pre- 
 dominant importance attributed in ancient times to the reading of the 
 Bible in the public services. In the French Church the very name of the 
 lofty screens which parted the nave from the choir bears testimony to the 
 same principle. They were called Juhe from the opening words of the 
 introduction of the gospel Jvhe Domine. Those that still exist, like that 
 of Troyes, and also in the King's College at Aberdeen, by their stately 
 height and broad platforms, show how imposing must have been this part 
 of the service, now so humiliated and neglected. Few such now remain."" 
 
 It is melancholy to think that to the list of jub^s which have perished, 
 must now, at least for the present, be added that of King's College. That 
 the altars, statues, and statuettes should have disappeared at the time of 
 the Reformation was only natural ; but that the gallery and ambone should 
 have been thrown aside in 1873, would have seemed to me almost incredible 
 
 ' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Remains, vol. 1. 
 2 Stanley's Christian Institutes, p. 55. 
 
AliCHMOLOaiA St'OTICA. 
 
 Vol. f . Pi,ATK LXVIII. 
 
 ROODSOREEN, CrOSCOMBE CHURCH, NEAR WeLLS. 
 
 {Reprndveed frmn the Magazine of Art hy perinissi<yn of the Publishers.) 
 
or THE 
 
 I^NIVERSITY 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King' s College, Aberdeen. 33 
 
 were the fact not one within my own knowledge and that of hundreds; and 
 why should those three canopies have been lowered to a new and utterly 
 meaningless position, however effective^ from their intrinsic beauty, and 
 this after they had remained where originally placed for two hundred years 
 after the latest burst of fanaticism which discredited the Reformation ? y . 
 
 Was it in compliance with the order of the architect, or in bitter irony, 
 that the carpenter who lowered the canopy nailed to it the hideous 
 grotesque which till lately deformed the chapel ? 
 
 Glasgow alone, I believe, in Scotland has the distinction of having 
 retained its stone choir screen. In Linlithgow, the screen survived to the 
 present century. At Lincluden there are very interesting remains of a stone 
 one, with niches and statuettes. At Fowlis Easter there are some fragments 
 of a wooden one and of paintings connected with it. It would be endless 
 to discuss in detail all the traces of them still to be found in Scotland.^ 
 
 Can anything now be done to repair the mischief of 16 years ago? 
 
 To restore so much of the old gallery and screen and canopies as would 
 not offend the most sensitive Protestant, and yet show the original idea 
 of the chapel, and preserve an interesting monument, unique in the 
 history of art in Scotland, would be an easy matter, if there be the will. 
 
 The canopies are still unbroken, and in the chapel. The ambone still 
 exists, Mr Robertson, the present head of H.M. Office of Works in Scotland, 
 having discovered it in a vault below the Parliament House. Soon after 
 the dismantling of the old library I saw the ambone and part of the 
 carved gallery in Mr Matheson's room at H.M, Office of Works. He told 
 me that he had been going over Marischal College Buildings and found the 
 oak tossing about in a lumber room — probably removed for safety from the 
 confusion existing at King's College at the time, in connection with the 
 transference of the books from the nave of the chapel to the new buildings, 
 and he added, " I said to the person with me, a lumber room is no place 
 to leave such work, and ordered it to be sent to the Office of Works." Mr 
 Kerr, shortly before his death, told me that the missing part of the gallery 
 never was in the Office of Works. 
 
 1 No doubt the missing part of the gallery is very effective over some sideboard or over a 
 chimneypiece. 
 
 2 Billings, vol. i. No. 7. A drawing of a portion of it, the door of which is singularly like the 
 door of the choir screen of King's College Chapel, has been kindly sent me by Mr Eobertson, archi- 
 tect, Dundee, who is engaged in restoring Fowlis Easter Church. 
 
 E 
 
34 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 The portion of the carved gallery carried to Edinburgh is now in the 
 chapel. It can be replaced in its original position, and affords a model for 
 reproducing the remainder, if it be not restored. The spirit of reverence 
 must be weak in Aberdeen, or a notice that it is proposed to restore the 
 juhe would make the possessor of the missing portion eager to give it back,. . 
 
 What the old position was of each one of the various parts of the screen 
 is not open to question. The continuous notices of the Chapel from 1638. 
 already quoted, and lastly that of Douglas, who tells the number of feet 
 and even inches that the gallery was above the floor (14 feet 4 inches), bring 
 this history far within the memory of those I have talked to, and there 
 are hundreds alive who remember th« whole of it, still in the library, as 
 Douglas saw it, and as I have endeavoured to reproduce it from notea 
 I took some forty years ago, standing- on the stairs leading to the galleries, 
 shown in Mr Billing's sketch, from which last I have endeavoured to suggest 
 the modern balustrade so much admired by Douglas (Plate LXIIL). I 
 have tried also to have effect given to a strange peculiarity of the roof. On 
 each side of each rib, and round all the bosses and leaves planted on the 
 roof, was a border of black paint about 2 inched broad. In 1823 much of 
 the choir roof was renewed, and in various places where this was done the 
 new carving was not so rich as what remained of the old. 
 
 The only room for uncertainty is as to how the canopies, being where 
 we know they were, were originally supported. I can speak to nothing of 
 my own personal knowledge, except the great beam attached to the central 
 canopy. As to the side canopies, the means by which they were supported 
 were mere matter of speculation till the partition behind them was removed. 
 Of what was then discovered, I speak from what I was told by the late Mr 
 Andrew Kerr, F.S.A. Scot., an architect of no inconsiderable learning, and a 
 well-known member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 
 
 He was one of the staff in H.M. Office of Works, and went to Aberdeen to; 
 inspect the works in the Chapel. He told me that he found on the floor all 
 the old wood that had been found behind the bookcases, much oak and also 
 pine, that though much decayed he had no difiiculty whatever in. piecing 
 the oak together and seeing that each side canopy was supported by seven 
 uprights of oak, leaving six open spaces, that tlie upper ends of the uprights 
 were grooved on both sides, and from the analogy of the manner in which 
 the rest of the carving in the Chapel is fixed in position, he believed these. 
 
VRCH. SCOT. VOL. V. 
 
 PL. LXIX. 
 
 ?///y'///.'/////m 
 
 mm/////////////////, 
 I 
 
 m/w///j>//Mv/', 
 f 
 
 A 
 
 
 <3- 
 
 Si ' 
 
 Library 
 1870 
 
 Kit'chen and ;^auarrers of Economus! 
 ^/n t'aken down 
 
 ■A 
 
 DrawWell ["J ^ 
 
 1 500 
 
 Old Hall wiCh Public School below 
 
 Taken down and replaced by. classrooms 
 
 IB65 
 
 '/ /////////////^/////l( ^ 
 
 D BishopDunbar's 
 r-i Sourti side of^ 
 
 quadrangle repla&d 
 '~^;nl725byD'FRA^fel 
 ^bulidmos/see vieW 
 n of College Fr6jn 
 Q Soufh) Faketif 
 p. *down & replac'ed 
 
 S. by classrooms 
 □ ? 1865 i 
 
 \ 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 '//////W^/W///////////////i 
 
 
 «■//////// 
 
 V^//MM 
 
 Jr^ "^ 
 
 i 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 35 
 
 grooves must have been made to receive carved tracery, and he pointed to 
 the choir door as suggesting a probable mode of treatment. 
 
 Intending to put nothing by way of illustration of this paper for which 
 I had not absolute warrant, when giving instructions for the preparation of 
 Plates LVII. and LXL, I directed that the side canopies should be supported 
 by simple uprights. But I had mentioned Mr Kerr's opinion to the draughts- 
 man who drew the sketches and he inserted carving between the spars. I 
 was so much struck with its happy effect that I did not have it obliterated. 
 The idea is not mine. It was the deliberate opinion of Mr Kerr. 
 
 As regards the central space where the altar was and the crucifix with 
 the Virgin and St John, the canopy over them was certainly attached to the 
 beara stretching across the Church. It must have had support also from 
 the uprights supporting the side canopies, and no further support would 
 have been necessary. Mr Kerr said that the whole space under the central 
 canopy had been found backed with plain oak panellings without ornament. 
 I think it may be assumed that, had the panelling been there originally, 
 it would have been the most richly ornamented of all the rich oak in the 
 Chapel. Farther, it was not usual to have roods so backed. The plain 
 panelling spoken of by Mr Kerr may nevertheless have been from 250 to 
 300 years old. The College was attacked by the mob from the Mearns in 
 1569. In 1640 nothing offensive to the Reformers was found in the 
 Chapel except the portrait of the Virgin upon the organ. After the 
 warning of the attack in 1569, it is highly probable that the crucifix 
 and all the statues and plate were removed for safety, and the oak panelling 
 then inserted by the College anathorities, — indeed. Principal Anderson was 
 accused of putting church furnishings out of the way. 
 
 So much for the History of what remains of Elphinstone's College. 
 
 The history of the University buildings as a whole would tell a wider 
 story of the history of university education. 
 
 Jamieson's sketch (Plate LXV.) gives the original fabric, as completed 
 by Bishop Dunbar, destined for the accommodation of both teachers and 
 taught, for all but two or three of the teachers, who had duties (ecclesias- 
 tical or civil) outside, had to live within the walls. 
 
 We know that the Principal's chambers were adorned with beautifully 
 carved wainscot within, and the wall " well adorned with several paintings ;" 
 
36 On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 and that of the Chapter house, it was said " ther parlour is fair and bewtiful 
 within." Pococke tells us they had " a very handsome Hall where the 
 students eat who live all in the College." It was 90 feet long, including 
 the vestibule or "lobby," — "invidenda regibus." 
 
 We gather from the repairs ordered in the seventeenth century ^ that 
 besides the south window shown in Plate LXVI. there were three large 
 windows, one at least of which was muUioned and looked to the "wast," 
 " at the held of the buird"; probably the other" two also looked west into the 
 court. There was also a "degrie" (dais?) "at the heid of the Hall buird." 
 There were also seats with backs probably of oak along the walls. There 
 were "two folding tables for the masters and gentlemen's sons to dine and 
 sup at ; and six long old-fashioned tables for the use of the bursars to 
 dine and sup at." But lest the large party should be too much given to 
 revelry at their meals there was " in the said common hall a large and high 
 pulpit of wainscot for one of the bursars to read Church History at the 
 time of dinner and supper ; and when dinner and supper are ended he 
 reads a chapter of the Bible and sings some part of a Psalm." ^ 
 
 Its walls were hung with a selection of ancient worthies connected 
 with the University enumerated by Orem — Elphinstone, Dunbar, Lesley, 
 Scougall, and others. But in his list does not appear Hector Boece, the first 
 principal, nor is he mentioned by Pennant as among the worthies in the 
 hall, nor by Dr Johnson, though we have seen his portrait engraved " from 
 the original in the haU of the King's College, Aberdeen." My father told 
 me that this original (!) was first hung in the hall in the present century, 
 that one of his colleagues, I rather think Professor Duncan, who died about 
 1820, having been up in London, brought with him on his return this 
 picture, which none of the Senatus could discover any reason for supposing 
 to be, what he thought it, a portrait of Boece, — but to please the donor it 
 was allowed to be hung up, and on his death was not removed. It is 
 gradually acquiring a repute of genuineness from the assiduity with which 
 it has been engraved, and titled as " from the original in King's College." 
 
 The oak roof, alcoved like that of the chapel, though different in pattern 
 and with a double row of pendants from end to end, still existed in the first 
 quarter of the present century,^ but in an utterly decayed state, rendering 
 its removal necessary, as there were no funds for repairing it. 
 
 ^ Fasti Aberd., p. 282. ^ Orem, p. 182. ^ Kennedy, vol. ii. p. 399. 
 
ARCH. SCOT VOL.V 
 
 OVER fl PSE 
 KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL.ABERDEEN 
 
 PL, LZX. 
 
 j;"u»-iif«t 
 
 1,1 (i"'"^ 
 
 ■,J,lW|ii|int 
 
 U N( VE«SI 
 
 FOBAL WOOF 
 
 CATHEDRAL ROOF 
 
 SHIELD OF BISHOP ELPHINSTON 
 
 REMOVED FROM HALL IN 1823. 
 
On the Cha'pel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 37 
 
 I have in vain endeavoured to obtain any old sketch, however rude, of 
 the old Hall ; and of all the oak in which it was so rich, there exists, so far 
 as I can learn, but the one fragment transferred to the Chapel wall (Plate 
 LXX.). Under a canopy of vine leaves, such as is so frequently repeated in 
 the Chapel, we have the founder's arms, and below them the pot of lilies 
 with the three salmon fretwise ; but, instead of the formal lilies, as in the 
 rendering of the arms of the burgh of Old Aberdeen on the Cathedral roof, 
 or their somewhat freer treatment on the University seal, we have them in 
 rich blossom, encircling and embracing not only the arms, but the very 
 mitre, of Elphinstone, a conceit^ no doubt due to the special protection of 
 the Virgin, which, according to Boece, Bishop Elphinstone regarded himself 
 as possessing from his childhood, as well as to the honour in which she was 
 held in the diocesan town. For she had her aJtar in the Cathedral, if it 
 was not dedicated to her, as were the parish church of S*° Maria ad Nives 
 and the college and its chapel. 
 
 One symptom of educational change already appeared even in Jamieson's 
 picture, namely, the low buildings in front of the gate, called the Grammar 
 School by Gordon of Eothiemay. The " grammaticus " had to teach out- 
 side when people not members of the College body applied for education; 
 and when teaching the elements of Latin grammar was discontinued, he still 
 taught in a room adjoining his manse. The gateway of the old manse, with 
 a niche over it containing Elphinstone's shield and mitre, are still visible. 
 
 That portion of Gordon of Rothiemay's view, which is given in Plate 
 LV., shows us another stage of the history. There was an influx of students 
 whom the old buildings could no longer contain ; so in 1658 the " new 
 wark" of Gordon's day, the "square work" of later days, was built, six 
 stories high, consisting of students' " chambers, a school," a lecture room, 
 " and a billiard house," mirahile dictu ! Orem, the only authority^ for this 
 statement, died soon after 1725, so he must have been familiar with the 
 fact. The introduction of this " most gentUe, cleanly, and ingenious game " 
 as an amusement for Scots students at that date is surely a very remarkable 
 circumstance. The game is said not to have been introduced into France 
 tUl the time of Louis XIV. ; but must have been very common in England, 
 for Shakespeare makes Cleopatra say, " Let 's to billiards." Probably the 
 
 1 The same conceit may be seen differently treated on a shield over the door that led to thj^ 
 chapter house. ^ Except A. Robertson, in 1760, who probably quoted from a MS. of Orem. 
 
38 On the Chapel and Ayicient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 
 
 suggestion may have been due to some of the English officers then at Aber- 
 deen, who are said to have taken some interest in the building the square 
 work. The names of " the Lord General George Moncke" and other officers 
 appear in the list of benefactors in the Fasti. This building has. come 
 within the last few years to be called Cromwell's Tower, a name I had never 
 heard given to it, but which will no doubt soon become as authentic as the 
 portrait of Boece ! 
 
 The continuing increase of students had led to the necessity for still 
 further accommodation, and Bishop Dunbar's buildings on the south side of 
 the quadrangle, which are written of as much dilapidated, gave place in 1725 
 to the loftier south side shown (Plate LXVI. fig. 1), erected in Dr Eraser's 
 time, and in no small degree, like his library, at his expense, and of free- 
 stone, taken from the ruins of the cathedral (the central spire of which had 
 fallen) and of the bishop's palace. On the south side of the quadrangle 
 was a cloister, where in stormy weather the students in snow and rain 
 might be seen en masse safely walking and taking exercise in comfort, 
 before entering their class-rooms. The cloister was of square pillars, with 
 round arches, and the building was thoroughly uninteresting. The West 
 " Capitol," as it was called in Gordon's time, and the part of the west front 
 shown in Smith's sketch, stood spireless and unused, if not absolutely roof- 
 less, till 1825, when it was pulled down to mak6 room for the present 
 west front from the design of Mr Simpson, an Aberdeen architect of some 
 genius ; — considering the state of Gothic architecture at the time, a clever 
 solution of the problem of planning what would balance and not be out of 
 harmony with the grand old tower and west end of the chapel (Plate LV.). 
 
 The view from the south (Plate LXVI.) shows the mass of the building 
 of 1725 as well as the south end of that of 1825, whde in the distance are 
 seen the twin spires of the Cathedral, to the enlightenment and liberality 
 of whose bishops the College owed its existence, while it formed the brightest 
 jewel in their mitres. 
 
 To the east may be observed the low humble house of the " Oeconomus," 
 in which I remember the great arched chimney, not of the original kitchen, 
 but of that which replaced it after the numbers to be fed increased on the 
 building of the " square work." In the court between it and the Hall was 
 a draw-well, and in it an eel — no one could say how old ! This view, how- 
 ever, notwithstanding these traces of olden times, shows sighs of the growth 
 
On the Chapel and Ancient Buildings of King's College, Aberdeen. 39 
 
 of the demand for improved teaching accommodation. The six stories of 
 students' chambers in the " square work" are seen reduced to three stories 
 of lecture-rooms. At the date when the sketch was taken, about 1850, no 
 students lived within walls, and I have no recollection of more than two or 
 three at any time doing so. One of the Regents, however, still lived in 
 the Quadrangle. Two had been provided for outside about 1773. The 
 Grammarian had lived outside for centuries, so did the Mediciner, and the 
 old manse of the Canonist had long been allotted to the Sub-Principal. 
 The old Mediciner's manse I remember. It was taken down about 1840 ; 
 and the Canonist's, attached to the office of Sub-Principal, was replaced 
 by a modern residence after my father's death. Nothing now remains of 
 Elphinstone's extra-mural college buildings but the old gateway with the 
 shield and mitre, from which the old manse of the Grammarian derived its 
 popular name of " The sign of the mitre." 
 
 The last view shows the complete transformation of the building in 
 which teachers and taught had lived as one family. Now the accommoda- 
 tion for professors and students alike has disappeared. No one resides in the 
 College, and there is no hall to dine in. The "Oeconomus" and his kitchen, 
 the draw-well and its eel, are no more. Everything but the Chapel, the 
 Crown Tower, and the small Ivy Tower, has been swept away to make 
 room for new class-rooms, and no better can be found anywhere ; and the 
 constantly growing library, treble the size of the old one, is seen extending 
 to the east of the old quadrangle, doubling its southern frontage. 
 
 -- i. // VMS SISN ®r TMis. 
 
 x\ 
 
 SW 1 t^X 
 
 \A 
 
 „ or THE ^ 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subje« to immediate recall. 
 
 ^mr'62W\ 
 
 ^fcC't) LD 
 
 my. 9 196?. 
 
 LD 21A-50m-8,'61 
 (C1795b10)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley