J. Anderson Rose, Esq. Colonel Meadows Taylor, M. R.I.A. Right Honourable the Earl of Rosebery. Rev. Richard V. Taylor, B.A. W. H. Burch Rosher, Esq. Professor Ruskin, LL.D., F. R.S. E. Right Honourable Earl Russell, K.G. J. P. Rylands, Esq. John Burham Safford, Esq., F.G.S. Rev. S. J. W. Sanders, M.A., F.G.S. Philip Sayle, Esq., Jun., F.S.G. Peter Schonfeld, Esq. Helmuth Schwartze, Esq. Right Honourable Lord Selborne. Colonel J. D. Shakespear, F.G.S. J. Wainhouse Simpson, Esq. Henry Duncan Skrine, Esq. Edward Solly, Esq. Thomas Sopwith, Esq., F.R.S., F. G.S. Wm. H. Weldon, Esq., Rouge Dragon. Rev. Joseph Sorrell. Don Carlos E. Soto. Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Sowler. Hubert Smith, Esq. Thomas William Toone Smith, Esq. T. Cozens Smith, Esq., F.G.S. Professor Walter Smith. J. King Spark, Esq. James Frederick Spurr, Esq. Very Rev. Dean Stanley, D.D. Joseph Steele, Esq. Alderman David H. Stone. J. B. Stone, Esq. Edwin Story, Esq., M.A., F.L.S. Right Honourable Sir John Stuart, George Taylor, Esq. James Taylor, Esq. Rev. Albert H. Wratislaw, M. A. Rev. Charles J. Wynne, M.A., Oxon. TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. HISTORICAL NOTICES AND CHARTERS OF THE PRIORY OF BEAULY. BY EDMUND CHISHOLM-BATTEN, Esq., F.R.S.E. IT is difficult now to conceive of the rapid transmission of opinions and usages, which existed at the time when there was but one Church in Western Christendom. As in the age of the Antonines, a fashion at Rome was soon taken up in distant provinces, so during the pontificate of Innocent III., a novelty in religious practice quickly spread throughout Europe. The imperial roads and post-houses did not more securely send on the orders of the reigning Cæsar to Alexandria or York, than the lines of convents and parsonages passed the fiat of the occupant of St Peter's Chair to the extremity of Scotland or Spain. This is strongly exemplified in the origin of the Priory of Beauly, the religious House whose records are now for the first time collected. He who would judge best of the rigour of the rules of St Bruno, should climb the mountain of the Grande Chartreuse, where the Saint established his Reformed order with vows of unusual austerity, under the protection of the Virgin Mary, and also of John Baptist, whose severity of life was the A pattern. "Ora et labora" was the ruling maxim of the Charterhouse, and the wild and desolate region in which it is built, compelled as well as nerved the toil of the brethren. But very soon was introduced a distinction between the inmates of even Carthusian houses; and in these monasteries as well as others, the brethren were divided into two classes, the brethren of the choir, and the lay brethren (conversi). The first alone received holy orders, and performed the functions of the priesthood. These offices, and study and contemplation, occupied their time; while the bodily labour, both domestic and agricultural, prescribed by the rules, was the duty only of the lay brethren. Viard, a lay brother of the Charterhouse of Louvigny, in the diocese of Langres, in Burgundy, believing himself called to a life of more severity and greater freedom from temporal cares than his position of lay brother allowed, obtained permission from the superior to retire as a hermit to a cavern in a wood, a few miles off, and there practised the most extraordinary austerities. He was discovered by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and his strict observances soon gained him a just reputation. The Duke of Burgundy came often to visit him, and at last vowed that if success should attend the ducal arms in a military expedition then projected, a monastery would be founded on the spot which Viard had made holy, and Viard should be its head. Viard, like other hermits, and not forgetful of the maxims of St Bruno, worked in his own garden, and supplied his " vegetable store" by his own labours. In this way, probably, the valley in which his cavern was situated acquired the name of Vallis Caulium, or Vallis Olerum, the Valley of Herbs. The duke returning victorious from his expedition, built the promised monastery in the Holy Vale; and Viard, as the first prior, completed the foundation, and, according to an ancient inscription over the church, took up his abode there on the 2d November 1193. Viard framed a set of rules for the governance of the new society, and in the Register of the Bishopric of Moray, we have these regulations set out and approved by Innocent III., in a Bull of protection, dated the 10th of February 1205. No house of this order was ever established in England, but within twenty-five years from the confirmation of the new rules by Pope Innocent, three houses of the order were founded in Scotland, and that too in the extremities of that kingdom. This was brought about by William Malvoisin, Bishop of St Andrews. The history of the Alexanders, and of William the Lion, has yet to be written, and when this is done, full justice will be rendered to the character of Malvoisin. Among the band of prelates who surrounded the throne of William the Lion, none stands higher than Bishop Malvoisin, appointed before 1180 one of the Clerici Regis, or King's secretaries. It is impossible to doubt that even before his elevation to the chancellorship, he exercised considerable influence over the king. As the first instance of William insisting on the election of his own nominee as bishop takes place just about the time that Malvoisin first appears as the king's official, it was probably by his encouragement that the king introduced the rule; for it was a principle established by Charlemagne, and strictly adhered to by the Norman kings of England, that the cathedral chapters, if permitted to elect, should choose the nominees of the Crown as their bishops; and Malvoisin was a Norman, and doubtless taught this lesson of Norman tyranny, as Giraldus Cambrensis calls it,* to the Scottish king. It is probable that the young councillor supported the king in his resistance to the Pope, who ordered the elect of the chapter of St Andrews to be consecrated bishop in opposition to the king's nominee. The king banished the bishop from the kingdom, and the Pope laid Scotland under an interdict, and excommunicated the king. But in the end the Crown prevailed. And even in the days of Victoria, the queen's irresistible recommendation to a bishopric betokens its Nor * Giraldus Camb., De Instruct. Princ.; Robertson's Preface to Stat. Conc. Ecc. Scot., xxxiv., n. 2. man origin by assuming the form of a congé d'elire, with a letter-missive containing the name of the person to be elected.* In September 1199 Malvoisin was appointed Chancellor of Scotland. When made Chancellor he was only in deacon's orders, and not till his election to the bishopric of Glasgow was he advanced to the dignity of the priesthood. On Saturday the 24th September 1200, he was ordained priest at Lyons by the archbishop of that city; and on Sunday the 25th he was consecrated bishop by the same prelate under the mandate of Pope Innocent III. There is extant a letter addressed by this archbishop to Malvoisin, which shows how anxious the latter was to obtain the fullest information and the best advice as to the duties of the episcopal office he had just undertaken. The archbishop suggests to Malvoisin that on his proposed stay at Paris he would be able to consult those skilled in canon (divine) and civil (human) law. It is probable that Malvoisin was educated at Paris, and he seems to have kept up his connection with the learned there. In 1201, Malvoisin was translated from Glasgow to St Andrews, the see which, though not yet an archbishopric, constituted its possessor the Primus, or first in dignity of the Scottish bishops. Sent as ambassador‡ by his young king to John, sulking in the Isle of Wight after his mortification at Runnymede, Malvoisin proceeded from England to attend the Fourth Lateran Council at Rome in November 1215. This was the best attended Council of the Latin Church. It consisted of nearly five hundred archbishops and bishops, beside a great multitude of abbots and priors and ambassadors from *The Queen v. the Archbishop of Canterbury, II Queen's Bench Reports, 483. The letter is printed in Appendix to Preface to Stat. Conc. Ecc. Scot., XXX. + Malvoisin went to visit his parents in Normandy in 1212, and probably attended the Council at Paris that year. On his return he presided over a Synod of the Scottish clergy at Perth; on William the Lion's death, 4th December 1214, he enthroned the young king, with more than usual ceremony. He was appointed ambassador to England 9th July 1215. |