Elgin Cathedral - Cathedral Church at Elgin

Cathedral Church At Elgin

Despite Bricius's earlier appeal, it was not until Andreas de Moravia's episcopate that Pope Honorius III issued his bull on 10 April 1224 authorising his legates Gilbert de Moravia, Bishop of Caithness, Robert, Abbot of Kinloss and Henry, dean of Ross to examine the suitability of transferring the cathedra to Elgin. The Bishop of Caithness and the dean of Ross performed the translation ceremony on 19 July 1224. Before that, on 10 July, Alexander II (Alaxandair mac Uilliam) agreed to the transference in an edict that referred to his having given the land previously for this purpose. The land-grant predated the Papal mandate and there is evidence that the building had started in around 1215. Completion was after 1242 but the chronicler John of Fordun recorded without explanation that in 1270 the cathedral church and the canons’ houses had burned down. The cathedral was rebuilt in a larger and grander style to form the greater part of the structure that is now visible. The enlargement is supposed to have been completed by the outbreak of the Wars of Independence in 1296 and although Edward I of England took an army to Elgin in 1296 and again in 1303 the cathedral was left unscathed, as it was by his grandson Edward III during his assault on Moray in 1336.

Bishop David de Moravia (1299–1326) was the uncle of Andrew Moray who, together with William Wallace, defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 and where Moray was mortally wounded. In August 1306 Edward I ordered the arrest of Bishop David for complicity in the murder of John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch and had him excommunicated—he took refuge on Norwegian soil in Orkney. In 1325 he gave the lands of Grisy-Suisnes, outside Paris which formed the founding endowment of the Collège des Écossais. Soon after his election to the see in 1362–3, Bishop Alexander Bur requested funds from Pope Urban V for repairs to the cathedral citing neglect and hostile attacks. In August 1370 Bur began protection payments to Alexander Stewart, son of Robert the Steward, lord of Badenoch who would soon become King Robert II. Alexander, Earl of Buchan from 1382, and Bur had many disputes culminating in Buchan's excommunication in February 1390 and the bishop turning to Thomas Dunbar, son of the Earl of Moray, to provide the protection service.

These acts by the bishop and any frustrations Buchan may have had by the re-appointment of his brother Robert Stewart, Earl of Fife as guardian of Scotland may have caused him to react defiantly—in May, he descended from his island castle on Lochindorb and burned the town of Forres and followed this up in June by burning Elgin and the cathedral with its manses. It is believed that he also burned Pluscarden Priory at this time, which was officially under the Bishop's protection. Bur wrote to Robert III seeking reparation for his brother's actions in a letter stating:

—my church was the particular ornament of the fatherland, the glory of the kingdom, the joy of strangers and incoming guests, the object of praise and exaltation in other kingdoms because of its decoration, by which it is believed that God was properly worshipped; not to mention its high bell towers, its venerable furnishings and uncountable jewels.

Robert III granted Bur an annuity of £20 for the period of the bishop’s lifetime, and the pope provided income from the Scottish Church during the following decade. In 1400, Bur wrote to the Abbot of Arbroath complaining that the abbot's prebendary churches in the Moray diocese had not paid their dues towards the cathedral restoration. In the same year Bur wrote to the rector of Aberchirder church telling him that he now owed three years arrears for the subsidy that had been imposed on non-prebendary churches in 1397. Again, on 3 July 1402, the burgh and cathedral precinct were attacked, this time by Alexander of Lochaber, brother of Domhnall of Islay, Lord of the Isles. He spared the cathedral but burned the manses and for this act Lochaber and his captains were excommunicated prompting his return in September to give reparation and gain absolution. In 1408, the money saved during a vacancy was diverted to the rebuilding process and in 1413 a grant from the customs of Inverness was provided. Increasingly, the appropriation of the parish church revenues led in many cases to churches becoming dilapidated and unable to attract educated priests—by the later Middle Ages, the standard of pastoral care outside of the main burghs was totally inadequate.

Bishop John Innes (1407–14) contributed greatly to the rebuilding of the cathedral evidenced by the inscription on his tomb praising his efforts. When he died, the chapter met secretly— 'in quadam camera secreta in campanili ecclesie Moraviensis' —and agreed that should one of their number be elected to the see that the bishop would grant one third of the income of the bishopric annually until the re-building was finished. The major alterations to the west front were completed before 1435 and contain the arms of Bishop Columba de Dunbar (1422–35) and it is presumed that both the north and south aisles of the choir were finished before 1460 as the south aisle contains the tomb of John de Winchester (1435–60). Probably the last important rebuilding feature was the major restructuring of the chapter house between 1482 and 1501 and contains the arms of Bishop Andrew Stewart.