Chapter 8 - A Cathedral, a Flag and a Cross

The reader who associates a `St Andrew Cross' with St Andrew may be a little surprised to have read nothing so far about the famous X-shaped cross on which Andrew was crucified. The reason is very simple. There is no mention of such a cross in the literature or, legends in the first thousand years after Andrew's martyrdom. The flag of Scotland or saltire, which features such a cross, is said to date from the battle of Athelstaneford in 832, but the legend itself comes from a later century. It also has to compete with the fact that the King Angus who had the vision of the `St Andrew' cross in the sky is a different King Angus from the one who had the visions that are portrayed in the Augustinian and Episcopal legends. These had nothing to say about an X-shaped cross.

One was a blinding vision, similar to that of Saul (Paul) on the road to Damascus. The other was of the cross of Christ in the sky, seen by Angus and rather reminiscent of the story of how Emperor Constantine saw the chi-rho symbol in the sky prior to the battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 at which he triumphed and set up Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Dare one suggest that there is more than coincidence in these allusions? The writers of the legend of Angus I were trying to define a similar `Constantinian moment' when the monarch adopted St Andrew (and the settlement at Kilrymont). They are generally thought to be writing in the twelfth century, when King David was building up the importance of St Andrews as Scotland's answer to Canterbury; it became the nation's ecclesiastical capital in the medieval period. Both shrine and symbol played a part in bringing this about. We shall begin with the story of how the shrine on the cold, windswept promontory at Kilrymont grew into one of Europe's biggest cathedrals.

Scots history would be duller without bishops, who often played the role of bogeymen, especially after the Reformation. However, the Celtic Church, with its strongly monastic influence, was not unduly concerned about them. St Columba was not a bishop, although he kept one handy at Iona for the practical task of ordaining priests, a function which even the Celtic Church allowed to bishops. For the most part the churches of the Columban heritage operated without episcopal rule, as it was understood on the continent of Europe, right down to the time of the Culdees, who ran the Kilrymont site in the two centuries following the union of Picts and Scots under King Kenneth Macalpin in 839.

There were bishoprics of a sort. Dunkeld seems to have been chief among these sees after Columba's relics were taken there in 820. Then in the tenth century the bishop of St Andrews was made Primus - which meant he was first among equals rather than an archbishop. (It was not until 1472 that Scotland acquired an archepiscopate.)

The king who favoured Kilrymont was Constantine II (900-952), who also brought the Pict/Scot kingdom into uniformity in matters of faith and canon law. Note that it was the kings who called the shots in the Scottish Church of this era, not the Pope. Scotland was a long way from Rome and no monarch or bishop bothered to go there (until Macbeth in the eleventh century - presumably to seek absolution for killing his rival Duncan). Constantine II himself was eccentric compared with later ideas of monarchy. His reign is said to have abounded with ale, music and good cheer. But he had an ascetic side and abdicated as king in 943 in order to become abbot at Kilrymont until his death. A cave on the north side of the tip of Fife Ness is named after him. Possibly he went there for some privacy during the festivities of ale and music!

Sources for this period of history - a thousand years in our past - are, paradoxically, sparser than for two thousand years ago. Fortunately, there are few significant developments involving St Andrew which need concern us during these two hundred years. The Kilrymont site then was certainly substantially different from what exists there today. Buildings would have consisted of timber, or wattle and daub, rather than stone. There would have been perhaps a stone church on the site of St Mary's of the Rock (today only its foundations can be glimpsed just outside the cathedral wall above the harbour).

Any threat to the contemplative life came from the Norse raiders who plundered not only Scotland and England but even France. Other, less aggressive Scandinavian immigration to France came after 911. Rollo (whose wife was Scots) went to serve King Charles the Simple, and his kinsmen, the Normans (or Northmen), settled in northern France and were to make their mark on both England and Scotland. After the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, the entrepreneurial Normans found their way into all aspects of life, including the churches.

The happy-go-lucky independence of the Scots Church was bound to come to an end some time. The person who did most to bring Scotland in line with Roman Catholic practice throughout the rest of Europe was a woman - and a saint. Sainthood, in fact, was a family trait for St Margaret, who had several blue-blooded saints in her family tree. Her grand-uncle, St Stephen, did for Hungary what she hoped to do for Scotland to bring it into closer conformity with the papacy and sound Roman Catholic practices. As Queen of Scotland, the indomitable Margaret was well placed to effect these reforms. Her husband, Malcolm III (Canmore, or Fathead as he was unkindly called in Gaelic), provided the brawn and she the brains as they set about persuading the Scottish clergy to be less slack in their ways - to observe the sabbath more strictly, for example, and to take communion on Easter Day. Another factor in the process was the introduction into Scotland of monastic orders that would gradually supplant the Celtic monastic system.

Malcolm had moved his seat of government to Dunfermline, in west Fife, and Margaret wished to encourage more pilgrims to visit the St Andrew shrine in east Fife. She therefore endowed a free ferry across the Forth at Queensferry. Her amazing life and character were chronicled by her confessor, Turgot, who was himself to play a part in the story of St Andrews. Turgot was a Dane who became Prior of Durham in 1087 and, after Margaret's death in 1093, was elected Bishop of St Andrews in 1107. His election brought to a head the independence of the Scottish Church.

St Margaret had relied on the power of her unremitting persuasion to make the Scots clergy reach their own accommodation with Rome. However, the Norman dynasty in England and their archbishops of Canterbury and York far preferred that the Scots should be subject to Rome through them. William the Conqueror set the tone with a demand that Scotland's churches should be subject to the Archbishop of York. He had already made Malcolm III do homage to him at Abernethy in 1072, and taken certain Lothian churches under the authority of Durham. By the time Turgot was elected bishop, the Archbishop of York was unwilling to consecrate him unless he pledged loyalty to York. Turgot gave up and went back to Durham. Malcolm's and Margaret's son, Alexander, was on the throne and decided to work a 'flanker' on York by inviting Eadmer of Canterbury to take the job. In 1120 he was consecrated a bishop by Ralph, Archbishop of Canterbury, but soon fell foul of King Alexander by stating that he was subject to Canterbury. Alexander fiercely laid it on the line that the Scottish Church was independent, but when Eadmer said he would not renounce loyalty to Canterbury for the whole Scots kingdom, it was time to go. He resigned in 1121 and went to Canterbury, where he promptly changed his mind, but was told in no uncertain terms he would not be welcome back.

These developments were central to the future of St Andrews. Had the Scottish kings played along and allowed their Church to be a province of England, the whole future of religion in Scotland would have been different and the political consequences very different indeed. Critical to the process was the combination of the next king of Scotland (David I, 112453) and the next bishop of St Andrews, a Norman Frenchman and Augustinian named Robert, who was Abbot of Scone. Together they cemented the foundations of a new and powerful Church centred on St Andrews.

The observant reader will notice that I have dropped references to Kilrymont. It was around the time of the `Roman' bishopric that the old name of Celtic derivation gave way to the new name. As with many things about Andrew, no one seems exactly sure when it happened. The bishops of Kilrymont had been styled `ardepscop Alban' since 908, when King Constantine transferred the primacy there from Abernethy. Albion was originally a Greek name for Britain and came to mean the northern part of it. Alba is still the Gaelic name for Scotland. But Gaelic was on the way out in east central Scotland, especially among the nobility, who were learning new Frenchified ways. The old Scottish kings spoke Gaelic after the Pictish language had disappeared. So did the people of Lothian, despite being part of Northumbria.

However, after the Norman conquest the people of northeast England edged north into Lothian, bringing their English tongue with them. This differed from the English spoken in the south and gradually developed into what today is known as Lallans (or Lowland) Scots. This fact irritates the exponents of Lallans as a separate language, but it also explains the affinity between Lowland Scots and their northern English neighbours. It was in this crucial period, nine hundred years ago, that French became the language of the court, which was increasingly peopled by ambitious Normans: Latin remained, as ever, the language of scholars; and `North English' supplanted Gaelic as the common tongue of ordinary Scots. It was not surprising that in this sea change of culture and language, the name Kilrymont, with its Celtic connections, became passé.

We return now to the chess game being played between Scotland and England in which king and bishop (David and Robert) had significant moves to make. Before he died, King Alexander had endowed the church of St Andrew and regranted a piece of land known as the Boar's Raik to the church. Robert inherited the eye-catching church with its huge tower (108 feet high), now known as St Regulus's Tower, from which glorious views can still be had of St Andrews and all around if you have the energy to climb its narrow spiral stair. It was possibly built a century earlier to house the relics but was too small. Robert had plans, but before he could dream of a magnificent cathedral to take its place he had first to get himself consecrated.

David, equally concerned to have an autonomous Church, wrote to the Pope asking for permission to make Robert not just a bishop but an archbishop and thus make St Andrews into a metropolitan archdiocese. This would have given Scotland its own line to Rome which bypassed England, as is now the case. (An interesting modern echo of this issue came to light when Archbishop Gordon Gray of St Andrews and Edinburgh was made the first post-Reformation cardinal resident in Scotland. His mail from Rome began to arrive c/o the English Roman Catholic hierarchy until he returned it `Not known at this address'!)

The time was not yet ripe for David and Robert. Under English pressure, the Pope declined their request. Eventually in 1124, at York, Robert was consecrated bishop by the Archbishop of York with the words `for love of God and of worshipful King David' included, a judicious compromise in which all interests were conserved. Robert lost no time in bringing his brother Augustinians from Scone to St Andrews, where they gently but firmly began to push aside the ancient Culdees. The Augustinians in question were of French origin and were therefore `safe' as far as upholding the line - Scottish autonomy from England - was concerned. In 1147 a papal bull gave exclusive rights to the Augustinians in the election of the bishop of St Andrews, and this gave Bishop Robert complete control of the future.

It was to include a magnificent new cathedral, around which the town would take shape, like a great arrow head pointing out to sea. North and South streets were made wide enough for great parades to and from the dominant presence of the cathedral and its precincts, which contained the busy monastery and the church tower beneath which the bones of the fisherman/ apostle lay. Market street buzzed with commerce and the little harbour bustled with trade to and from the Low Countries of Europe. It was the dawn of a golden age for the little town on the king's headland. Alas for Robert, who had brought so much dynamism to his role, he did not live to see the foundations laid.

The cathedral was begun in 1160, the year after his death, first in Romanesque style and then in Gothic. It took 158 years to build, the episcopal lifetime of twelve bishops, from Robert who planned, to Arnold who founded and Lamberton who consecrated. During that time there were many quarrels, not least about the old question of English jurisdiction over the appointment of bishops. On one occasion the Archbishop of York forged a letter from the Scottish king, William (the Lyon), purporting to acknowledge his authority. On another William brushed aside the elected nominee for his own and brought down a papal interdict on the whole country. But in 1192 the matter was at last settled by a bull of Celestine III which made the Church of Scotland a `special daughter of the Holy See', immediately dependent on the papacy and not subject to any English archbishop.

The 158 years of construction were to see a deterioration in relations with England. In many ways the cathedral began to symbolise the aspirations of the Scottish people and their different ways in matters of religion. Eventually, wars of independence fought by Wallace and then Bruce for Scotland were effectively ended by the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Four years later, the victor of Bannockburn turned up in St Andrews on 5 July 1318 for the consecration of the great cathedral of St Andrew in the presence of seven bishops, fifteen abbots and most of the earls and knights of the realm, all of whom made offerings. The fact that Bruce had been excommunicated by a pope sympathetic to England did not worry anyone present. They had their cathedral - fought for by Scots kings, planned by French administrators and founded on the bones of St Andrew.

St Andrews was now a significant place in medieval Europe. It was to become the site of Scotland's first university in 1411 and was to play a leading role in the battle for supremacy between Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth century. The part St Andrew took in this development changed from being that of spiritual inspiration to that of symbolic significance. The symbol which came to be associated universally with the saint, and was used on coins, seals and the nation's flag, was the `St Andrew' cross.

The form of cross used by the Romans to crucify people was not the familiar shape we find in most of the world's churches and made immortal by some of the world's most famous painters and sculptors. The actual shape of the cross on which Jesus and others condemned to death in this way were crucified was more like a capital T. The arms were bound to the top of the T, and the legs hung down the vertical, which was firmly embedded in the ground. It is probable that the thick vertical post was left in the ground for use in other executions.

This would have been a stable structure. Not so an X-shaped cross. It would have been difficult to erect, as the cross pieces would enter the ground at an angle, and its height would have made it inclined to topple. This is amply illustrated by the painting by Preti in S. Andrea della Valle in which St Andrew is shown on his cross, propped up by extra planks and stones in order to keep him from falling over. This practical point should be enough to make us think twice that Andrew was crucified in such a way. The fact that for a thousand years after Andrew's death none of the martyrdom legends supports such a shape of cross is even more crucial.

Ursula Hall's study St Andrew and Scotland explores references to the cross on which Andrew died. The earliest, attributed to St Hippolytus in the third century, says that Andrew was not crucified on a cross at all but `upright on an olive tree in Patras'. Then in the fifth century St Peter Chrysologus, Archbishop of Ravenna, states that `St Peter died on a cross (crux) and St Andrew on a tree (arbor).' This vision is perpetuated in the bronze doors made in 1070 in Constantinople for the basilica of St Paul Without the Walls in Rome, which survive in a drawing clearly showing Andrew being attached to a tree.

The Laudatio, a text of the Acts of Andrew that dates from the ninth century, contains a passage describing the cross firmly planted in earth and Andrew looking up to Heaven, his arms spread wide to embrace the world - clearly a traditional cross. Gregory of Tours does not have the X cross, and neither do two other manuscripts that refer to Andrew's martyrdom and were widely read in the Middle Ages (the thirteenth-century Golden Legend, written by the Archbishop of Genoa in Latin and later printed by Caxton in English, and the tenth-century Vercelli Book, written in Anglo-Saxon).

Yet by the time of the Renaissance in many churches in Rome Andrew is portrayed with an X-shaped cross. Rochester Cathedral (an Andrean foundation from Augustine's time) altered its seal between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries so as to make the Andrew figure appear to be crucified on an X cross. The seal of Wells Cathedral (dedicated to Andrew) from 1275 shows an X-shaped cross alongside Peter's symbol. In France, as we shall see, the X-shaped cross was in use at this time. In Scotland St Andrew appears on an X-shaped cross on the Great Seal of Scotland at the end of the thirteenth century. We are driven to the conclusion that at some point - probably in the thirteenth century -the X shape was adopted and attached to the Andrew legend.

How and why did this happen? Ursula Hall quotes from De Cruce, the work of the Dutch scholar Lipsius. He uses for the X-shaped cross the word decussata, which is derived from decussis, the Latin name for the coin of ten asses, which has on it an X, the Roman numeral for ten. Of the X shape Lipsius states, `Today we call it St Andrew's cross because of the strong and sufficiently old tradition that the saint was martyred on such a cross.' Unfortunately, he does not say how old it is or where he found the tradition. The X files, if we can call them that, are missing.

The earliest seal of the bishops of St Andrews to show Andrew on the cross was that of Gameline in 1255 (motto: `Father Andrew, guide me and my rule'). Andrew, again in decussate mode, also appears on a cathedral chapter seal from the early thirteenth century. With the adoption of the saint in X shape, in 1286, on the Great Seal, the symbol of ultimate authority, St Andrew is seen for the first time as patron of the Scottish people. This was the era of conflict with England as Scotland fought to remain a separate nation.

St Andrews and its grand cathedral were by 1320 deeply rooted in the national psyche as symbols of nationhood. That was the year when the earls and barons of Scotland wrote their famous letter to the Pope asking him to urge the kings of England to let them live in peace (and independence). The patriotic language of one particular passage is oft quoted: `For as long as one hundred of us remain alive we will never allow ourselves to fall under the dominion of the English. We do not fight for glory or wealth or honours, but for liberty, which no honest man will give up while he has his life: For us, however, the significant point is the claim that the Scots were originally from `Greater Scythia'. The Declaration goes on to make the connection between the Scots and St Andrew: `Their true nobility and merits have been made plain, if not by other considerations, then by the fact that the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, after his passion and resurrection, brought them, the first of all, to his holy faith, though they lived in the furthest parts of the world, and He chose that they be so persuaded to faith by none other than the brother of the blessed Peter, the gentle Andrew, first-called of the apostles, though in rank the second or third, who he wished always to be over us as our patron.'

Here in one of the key documents of Scottish history appears the first explicit recognition of Andrew as the patron saint of Scotland. Was it simply an accident that Andrew took pride of place during the critical years of Scotland's fight for independence? Admittedly the evidence is circumstantial, but there are factors which suggest that the impetus may have been assisted by those whose native land was not Scotland but France.

When the French Augustinians began to play an influential role in Scottish Church affairs and promote the Regulus legend, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they might have been influenced by their own background.

There was considerable interest in Andrew in France. There is a legend that the church of St Victoire in Marseilles gave the cross of St Andrew to Burgundy in the first century, which, after being lost in the Crusades, was rediscovered in 1250 by a monk of St Victoire and eventually given to Patras Cathedral in 1980. In earlier centuries it had been used to strengthen the claim by the dukes of Burgundy to links with Andrew and Scythia. Their boast to have received the faith from Andrew himself was, no doubt, exaggeration but they remained promoters of the cult of Andrew. In 1429 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, whose family had Andrew as its patron, had founded the Order of the Golden Fleece, with the X as its symbol.

The traffic between France and Scotland was brisk from the end of the twelfth century. There are instances of French people being sent on pilgrimage to St Andrews as penance. We have already noted connections with Senlis. Robert and' the Augustinians who arrived at Scone were not the only imports from France to the Scottish Church. King David also brought artisan Cistercians from Tiron, near Chartres, to Melrose.

Put all these fragments together against a background of closer relations with France among the nobility, and we have a possible explanation of how the St Andrew legend in Scotland acquired features such as the decussate cross, the St `Rule', who was more Rieul than Riagail and who came from Greece not Ireland. A Frenchman who had made his home in Scotland would be unlikely to want it known that the relics of Kilrymont had come from Hexham. Why not alter the time scale slightly and make it appear they had bypassed England and come direct to Scotland? The Scots would not have seen it as a lie, since they believed the relics had come from the east in the first place. It was simply a way of cutting out Acca, the middleman.

There appears to be no clear explanation of how the decussate cross came to be used so widely, especially when it played no part in the early legends. Yet from the thirteenth century on, it came to be thought of as the St Andrew cross and developed into the saltire. One plausible explanation is contained in the foundation legend itself. The original ChiRho symbol (x + p) was a Christian logo - shorthand for Christus Redemptor. The Rho is not unlike a bishop's crozier. Put the figure of Andrew where the Rho is, at the centre of the Chi: what better way of combining Andrew the apostle with Christ and recalling the Constantine legend?

To complete this circle of Franco-Scottish connections, it is worth noting that the word `saltire' itself is of French origin - from sauter meaning `to jump'.

We are not quite finished with the evolution of the legends. In 1509 William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, produced a breviary or prayer book for the Church of Scotland `to provide an emotional and devotional basis for national consciousness', as its purpose has been described. There is no doubt that Andrew was the central saint in Scotland at that time. Although Elphinstone's breviary was overtaken fifty years later by the Reformation and the veneration of saints generally was to disappear in Scotland for three centuries, this was yet another step in St Andrew's ascendancy as the patron of Scotland.

The Reformation had a devastating effect on the magnificent St Andrews cathedral which had for so long been a focus for national and spiritual aspirations. Its windswept shell is all that remains. The building itself was not vandalised, as many believe, but allowed to decay through neglect. However, the images of saints were torn out of the churches in the town during a whirlwind preaching tour by John Knox in 1559, and the relics of Andrew disappeared in the wave of iconoclasm. No one knows what became of them and few physical signs of the legend remain. The tower of the church which once contained the relics still stands - renamed St Regulus's Tower in later years.

For relics of Andrew we have to look to more modern imports: in St James's Roman Catholic church on the Scores a St Andrew reliquary with a fragment of bone given to the church in 1950 by the cathedral in Amalfi, and another fragment of bone from Amalfi in St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral at the top of Leith Walk, Edinburgh, which Pope Paul VI gifted in 1968. They provide an echo of past glories, but for most Scots the spirit of Andrew is now a much more diffuse concept.

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