The ancient Church of Birnie was reopened on Sunday, 20th of February, 1891, by the
Rev. James Cooper, East Church, Aberdeen, after being internally renovated and thoroughly
repaired in strict accordance with its antique style and traditions.
BIRNIE is historically and ecclesiastically one of the most interesting parishes
in the North, and its ancient Church, which stands on top a conical knoll about two
and a half miles from Elgin, is perhaps the oldest building in Scotland which has
continually been worshipped in. It is older than any of our great abbey churches,
except perhaps the nave of Dunfermline, and while nearly all our Scottish cathedrals
and priories are in ruins, its walls still serve their original purpose, and look
strong ennough to stand as long again.
Externally the Church, as will be seen by the sketch which faces the title-page,
is a very plain structure. The older local historians, such as Shaw and Leslie, say
that the date of its erection is unknown, but although it bears no date there is
certain peculiarities about the style of the building which leave no doubt that it
cannot be later than the twelfth century. The Rev. Dr. Gordon, himself an authority,
and one who, as minister of the parish during the long period of fifty-seven years,
had many opportunities of getting his views confirmed by other eminent men, holds
that it must have been not later than 1140, and is thus fully 750 years old (in 1801).
The building consists of a nave and a chancel, separated by a round or "Norman" arch.
It is this complete and beautiful arch that really determins the antiquity of the
building, while the fact that there is no window in the east gable of the chancel
suggests the early basilian churches of Italy, and points to a time before the east
window became a special effort in architecture. The stones, traditionally taken from
the sea coast at Covesea, are very equal in size, well dressed, and have been built
with great regularity. The walls are of great thichness, and still straight and plumb
as a line. The west gable, however, which is of inferior workmanship, was built -or
rebuilt- at a much later date, in 1734: the church at that time seems to be shortened
by about two feet. The enlargement of the three windows of the nave, so as to admit
more light, is a change of uncertain date, but the style shows that they are not
ancient. Two small round-headed windows in the chancel are of considerable beauty:
They undoubtedly belong to the original design; while the Gothic arches, without
and within, surmounting "the priest's door" in the south side of the chancel, are
clearly medieval.
For many centuries prior to the date of the present building, Birnie appears to have
been a place of some importance. The Rev. Dr. Gordon, in the "New Statistical Account
of Scotland (1845)" tells us that in addition to the Church, the antiquities of the
parish comprise "the cairn of Kilforman, rectangular trenches, or as some say, a
Roman castra at the Foths, and a Danish a Danish encampment at the Shogle. The last
haveing hitherto escaped the ploughshare, is still to be traced in a well-aired,
dry situation, warered on the west side by the burn od Bardon, and fortified on the
east and north by the valley. I commands a prospect of the Moray Firth from Speymouth
to Cromarty bay, and is just atthat part of the ascending ground whence the first
view of the great Danish stronghold od Burghead can be had over the sandstone ridge
of the Knock of Alves. In confirmation of the opinion that there once existed a stronghold
of Danes in this situation, it may be stated that the adjoining farm still retains
the name of Edinburgh; and, notwithstanding the very different derivation for this
current name in the neighbourhood, the term burgh most likely marks it as a place
known to the Scandinavian tribes.".
The hillock on which the Church stands is a not likely place for a stone circle,
and several large granitic stones (some of them with figures resembling parallelograms
rudely drawn on them) remain to attest that there was some such primative work upon
the site. One or two of those boulders are built into the churchyard wall, and a
large one, certainly "sculptured", occupies a place at the northern entrance. Whether
these point to the use of the site for the purposes of heathen worship, or of the
rude justice of those early days -and the two are by no means incompatible- it is
easy to understand how the first steps of the first preachers of the Gospel should
have been directed to it. For it was the way with those pioneer missionaries to go
first to the chiefs, and through them to their subjects.
As is well known, the whole of the North of Scotland may be said to owe its conversion
to Chistianity to Saint Columba, a great Irish missionary, who in 563 crossed over
to Iona and founded on that sacred isle a monastary, which became, in the words of
Dr Johnson, " the luminary of the Caledonian regions". In the Church thus founded,
nearly the whole work of evangelizing this country was done by means of monastic
estabishments, which followed at first the rule of Iona. By degrees the discipline
relaxed: laymen got possession of the convent lands, and in the tenth century we
meet with communities of monks or canons -generally twelve in number- who bear the
title of "Culdees" or "Servants of God". So far from finding them, as fable pictures
them, the upholders of primative faith and piety, we are shown then by authentic
history, ignorant, lazy, corrupt, earning for themselves the contemptuous sobriquet,
" the comfortable Culdees". Inefficient, however, as the Culdees were, and far inferior
to their apostolic predecessors at Iona, their communities were probably in that
dark age the main support of religion, and their monasteries, or colleges, the centres
of such spiritual light as lingered in it. As yet there were neither dioceses nor
parishes in Scotland. The Bishop of St. Andrews was the one bishop of the Scots,
the others being hermits, who bore no rule, but emerged from their cells merely to
ordain the clergy. How could one man superiutend effectively the whole Church of
Scotland? There would, of course, be some priests scattered throughout the country
celebrating devine worship in remote churches and chapels, but they were few, isolated,
and poor. In such circumstances it was owing to the Culdees that so much as "a face
of Christianity" was maintained among us. The Roman monastic orders -Augustinians,
Benedictines, Cistercians- who in the reforms by S. Margaret and her sons took the
place of the Culdees, developed in their turn abuses more intolerable, if not more
deadly. The Reformation, abolishing these, abolished at the same time, much that
was beauiful and touching, and introduced an era of weary controversy and division.
The abuses of the Culdees were out of sight: even without the help of the fables
which grew up, it is not wonderful that the Christian sentiment of Scotland should
look back with fond effection to the sites of their establishments. Of such sites
there were several in the North -Deer and Monymusk (where the church in many respects
resembles that of Birnie) in Aberdeenshire, Rosemarkie in Ross, Dornock in Sutherland,
and, in Moray, Birnie. At the time of the establishment of the diocese of Moray,
in the reign of Akexander I., the Culdee college or monastery of Birnie seems to
have been the chief ecclesiastical establishment in the Province, and all local tradition
is tothe effect it was there that Gregorius, or Gregory, the first bishop of the
see of Moray -he was bishop in 1107 and 1115- fixed his seat. One of his successors,
Bishop Bricus, tells us in 1215 that the bishops of Moray had always been installed
in the Church of Spynie; but they did sit sometimes at Birnie, and there is reason
to think several of the earlier bishops, notably Simon de Toeny, who was elected
in 1172 and died in 1184, were buried there. The names which have come down to us
of these early Bishops are as follows: -Gregory, bishop in 1107, William, 1157-1161;
Felix, 1162-1171; Simon de Toeny, 1171-1189; Richard, 1187-1203.It must have been
one of these, or an unknown holder of the see between Gregory and William, who built
the Church of Birnie, for the style of the building will not allow it to be later
than Bishop Richard's time nor much earlier than Gregory's, even if itwere more likely
that the fabric is anterior to the erection of the see, which it is not, for the
churches of the Culdees were mean and paltry buildings of earth and wicker, or, at
the best, of wood. The bishop who built it probably intended to make it the cathedral
of the diocese; smal as it is, it is as big as was the Church of the Holy Trinity
at Spynie, which Bishop Bricius* errected into his cathedral, and where he founded
a chapter of eight secular canons constituted on the model of that of Lincoln. In
that sense the Church of Birnie never was a Cathedral: several bishops placed their
cathedra, or chair, in it, but it never had a chapter. When the Culdees disappeared
from the site we know not. (* Bishop Bricius belonged to the illusterous family of
Douglas, and is credited by Mr Cosino Innes with having given the first impulse to
the greatness of that hous. See preface to Registrum Moraviense.)
On the erection of the bishoprick and the choice of Birnie for one of the seats,
a residence for the bishop no doubt was built there. Bishop Pocoke, writing after
a visit to the place in 1760, tells that "on the hill to the south of the Church
were some marks of foundation called the castle, which, by tradition, was the bishop's
house". Dr Gordon, in the New Sastistical Account (1845), says the same -" About
fourty years ago the foundations of an extensive building were dug up in the corner
of a field which had formerly the name of Castlehill. On this site likely stood the
ancient Episcopal residence." He adds a warning footnote: "The place now called Castlehill
recieved its name from some families who, removing from the old situation, carried
the name along with them".
The dedication of the Birnie Church is unknown. We may reject the derivations of
the name given by Rev. Mr Joseph Anderson in the "Old Stastistical Account" from
Brae-nut, i.e. high land abounding in nuts, or from Burn-nigh, a village near the
burn, and we may be tempted to connect it, as Bishop Forbes does in his "Kalendars
of Scottish Saints", with the great name of Saint Branden, The famous voyager of
Irish hagiology. His legend tells of a mission to Scotland, and he is connected with
the shores of the Moray Firth by the dedication to him of the Church of Boyndie,
near which S. Brandau's (or S. Brenghan's) Fair is held to this present day. Moreover,
other places where he was held in honour have taken from him names which remind us
of Birnie - Dumbarney, Balbirnie, and Kilbrennan. So late as the last century, the
minister of Birnie, Mr. Anderson, was applied to by a Montrose ship-captain to have
his ship prayed for in the Kirk of Birnie -that has been thought to look like a reminisence
of the sea-faring S. Brandan. It would be interesting if we could prove that C.Brandan
was the founder of the Church at Burghead, from which the settlement at Birnie may
possibly have been a colony.
The skipper above referred to was by no means the only one who desired to be prayed
for in the Church of Birnie. At the end of the last century, in 1791, we read in
the old Statistical Report - The Church "is held in great veneration by many in this
country. They still in some measure entertain a superstitious conceit that prayers
offered up there three Sabbaths will surely be heard. Insomuch that when a person
is indisposed or of bad behavior, this common saying obtains, ' You have to be prayed
for thrice in the Church of Birnie, That you either end or mend'." The saying is
still well known far beyond the parish. This belief has been enshrined in verse by
Willie Hay, the "Lintie o' Moray" who, in singing the glories of Morayland, says
-
"Tis the land o' the parish o' Birnie,
Where prayers in the Kirk, they declare,
Three times will end you or mend you;
The Ronnel Bell is also there
Which no power on earth can remove frae
The Kirk where so snugly it lies,
But back to its ain native parish,
Like an arrow o' lightning it flies"
The Ronnel Bell, which the poet speaks of, is still preserved in the Church, though
it does not hang in the belfry, as people csme from far and near to see it sometimes
suppose. Its day for ringing is long past. It is a sort of oblong gong, having four
sides, welded together, and supposed to be an alloy of bronze. There has been a long
tradition that it was made at Rome, cosecrated by the Pope, and presented by him
to an early bishop. A gentleman who takes great interest in Birnie and its antiquites
wrote in the Moray and Nairn Express Query Column last year: Ancient as the Church
of Birnie is, the Ronnel Bell is probably older by some centuries. It is undoubtedly
older than the first diocesan bishop of Moray (Gregory circa 1115). It may not unlikely
have been the instument by which the very first Christian missionary in Morayland
summond our heathen ancestors to the hearing of the gospel.
All our early missionaries had their bells, and several of them remain, including
S. Ninian, the earliest the earliest preacher of our land whose name has come down
to us; but I believe the Ronnel Bell is the only one which has not been removed from
the church to which it properly belongs. Long may it remain at Birnie -a reminder
to all generations of what we owe to those pioneers of civilization and religion.
S. Ninian's bell is called Clogrinny, i.e., the bell (in French cloche) of Ringan
or Ninian. S. Ninian was the apostle of Galloway and of the Picts south of the Grampians.
Were it not that there is no record of his coming further north than Kincardinshire,
we might have been tempted to connect the word 'Ronnel' with his name -a name written
in heaven, if, in those later centuries, it has been too much forgotten upon earth.
If recent discovery is correct, and we must look to Burghead as the earliest Christian
settlement in Moray, we must be content to ascribe it to be cleric, a hether abbot
or bishop, who removed the central seat of Christianity in the Province to the hillock
of Birnie". Another explanation of the name connects it with the Gaelic word "renail",
which signifies "roaring". It was the roaring or ringing bell, as distinguished from
a second bell, the "coronach" or wailing bell employed at funerals. A coronach bell
remains at Birnie of much later date than the Ronnel Bell, but still of considerable
antiquity, and in use untill lately for gathering the neighbors to the burial of
the dead.
While we are on the "grave" subject, we may mention that, down to a comparatively
recent period the interior of the Church was used as a place of sepulture. Its floor
was formed in part of gravestones. The tradesmen engaged in laying the new floor,
found on removing these a large nunber of skulls and other bones lying quite neer
the surface. These were collected and buried at greater depth in a corner of the
Church.
The Church contains three monuments, the largest commemorating the clergyman of the
"second Episcopacy" in the reign of Charles II. It is inserted in the north doorway,
now built up. Our sketch shows its general appearance; the inscription is as follows:
-Here lyes under this pulpit the corps of Mr. Wm. Sauders, lait minister of this
parochin, who deceased the 13 of May, 1670, & of Katharin & Elspeth Suaders, his
children" The rude carving shows how greatly in the course of one century the sculptor's
art had deteriorated in Scotland. The second, a neat tablet in white marble with
a black border, is to the memory of the Rev. Joesh Anderson, who as a boy remembers
seeing the funeral in 1808, and the coffin deposited inside the church. It is rather
remarkable fact that this Mr Anderson was the last person who has died in the Manse
of Birnie, that is, during the long period of eighty-three years. The third monument,
at present lying in the vestry, though we belive it is intended to errect it against
the interior west gable, is a dark coloured slab believed by Dr. Gordon to have been
taken from the West Highlands for the purpose of laying on a dignitory of the Church.
It has, however, been appropriated by others, and it bears the inscription stating
that it was erected by John Donaldson, merchant in Elgin, "in memore of Mary Russell,
his spouse, who died the 6 of Apryle, 1726, and their children". Then follows the
Latin verse and the translation: -
"Well did she act the different scenes of life
A modest virgin and loving wife,
A darling daughter and mother kind,
A pleasent neighbour and a consteant freind;
By all who knen hir worth she liv'd belov'd,
And all with sorrou for hir death were mov'd.
"Vivit Post funera Virtus"
There are many old stones in the graveyard, but beyond the usual figures of death's
head and cross bones, they are not of great interest One stone is inscribed in phonetic
spelling by some one far in advance of his age.
Editor Note: From this point on, the Sermon presents an very, very, extensive dissertation
on the repairs, a list of the historic clergy, the contractors , their tasks (under
oath), the costs, and the financial contributors.
Transcribed ( with original spellings).
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