Foundation
Kelso abbey was founded at Roxburgh in 1128 by a community of monks of the Tironesian order, from Tiron, near Chartres, in France. The community had first entered Scotland, c. 1113, under the patronage of David I as Prince of the Cumbrians during the reign of his brother, Alexander I, when the monks were given a commission to found their community at a site near Selkirk. It is not known for certain why the community came to abandon this first site in 1128, although David, now King of Scots, was developing Roxburgh as a major economic and administrative centre for Southern Scotland. Other institutions established by David at Roxburgh included the royal mint.
Construction of the abbey is believed to have commenced immediately, and by 1143 progress was sufficiently advanced for the building to be dedicated to The Blessed Virgin and Saint John. The King's son, Henry, Earl of Northumbria, who predeceased his father, was interred in the abbey in 1152.
Read more about this topic: Kelso Abbey
Famous quotes containing the word foundation:
“Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement; a sanded floor and whitewashed walls and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the same with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings?”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“The most excellent and divine counsel, the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practised, is to study and learn how to know ourselves. This is the foundation of wisdom and the highway to whatever is good.... God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.”
—Pierre Charron (1541–1603)
“A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)