Dundrennan Abbey - History

History

In the mid 12th century, Fergus of Galloway resurrected the Bishopric of Whithorn, an ancient Galwegian See first established by the expansionary Northumbrians under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York. The last Bishop of Whithorn, Beadwulf, had been noted in c. 803. Thereafter nothing is heard; and it is likely the Bishopric disappeared with Northumbrian power, a decline marked by the sack and subsequent occupation of York by the Danes in 867. In the following two and a half centuries, Galloway, if and where jurisdiction actually existed, seems to have been under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Man in the west, with Durham and Glasgow in the east.

In terms of the See's resurrection, on 9 December 1125 Pope Honorius II wrote to the Bishop-elect of Whithorn, ordering him to appear before the Archbishop of York. The would-be Bishop was a cleric called Gille Aldan, and the Archbishop was Thurstan. York had been coming under increasing pressure from the ambitions of Canterbury, and the northern English metropolitan had only two suffragans (Durham and Man). He needed three in fact to hold proper Archiepiscopal elections. It is likely that York and Fergus did a deal. The involvement of King David I can be discounted on the grounds of his anti-York policies, and his total inclination to appoint English or French clerics, and not Gaelic ones like Gille Aldan. The deal ensured the Galwegian church would not undermine Fergus’ independence of both Man or Scotland, and secured an identity for the new kingdom in the framework of northern Britain and the Isles.