North-eastern Saints in the Aberdeen Breviary and the Historia Gentis Scotorum of Hector Boece: Liturgy, history and religious practice in late medieval Scotland

Citation

Turpie T (2016) North-eastern Saints in the Aberdeen Breviary and the Historia Gentis Scotorum of Hector Boece: Liturgy, history and religious practice in late medieval Scotland. In: Geddes J (ed.) Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology in the Dioceses of Aberdeen and Moray. The British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions. Leeds: Maney Publishing, pp. 239-247. https://www.routledge.com/Medieval-Art-Architecture-and-Archaeology-in-the-Dioceses-of-Aberdeen/Geddes/p/book/9781138640689

Abstract
The later Middle Ages, the period between the Black Death and the reform movements of the 16th century, was the golden age of the cult of the saints in medieval Europe. This article focuses on two attempts to manipulate and direct this devotion from the North-East of Scotland; the inclusion in the calendar of the Aberdeen Breviary (1510) of the feast days of eighty-one saints believed to be of Scottish origin, and a reference to four of these saints, Machar, Devenick, Comgan and Drostan, in the Historia Gentis Scotorum of Hector Boece (1527). Using these two examples from the late medieval diocese of Aberdeen, this article explores the role played by the saints in defining national and local history in the later Middle Ages. They also demonstrate how the liturgy and the literary genre of the chronicle were utilized by local and national clergy in the 16th century in order to direct religious fervour and lay patronage toward particular institutions and their saints.

Keywords
Saints; Chronicles; Boece; Aberdeen Breviary

People

Dr Tom Turpie

Lecturer, History