A Corpus of Scottish Medieval
Parish Churches

Historical outline

Dedication: unknown

By the mid-twelfth century the lands of Keith had been divided into two distinct components; Keith-Hundeby held by Simon Fraser and what became known as Keith-Hervey or Keith-Marischal held by Hervey the Marshal.  The parish church for both units seems originally to have been in Keith-Hundeby (qv), which before 1159 Simon Fraser had granted to the monks of Kelso.(1)  Kelso received a confirmation of its possession of the church from King Malcolm IV before 1159, for Bishop Robert had confirmed the king’s gift of the church before his own death in that year.(2)  The monks received a subsequent confirmation of the gift from Hugh Lorens and Ada his wife, daughter of Simon Fraser and from Bishop Arnold.(3)

Keith-Hundeby served both districts as mother-church down to the 1170s, but apparently around 1176 a dispute arose over the relationship between the parish church and the chapel serving Keith-Hervey/Marischal.  This was resolved in a composition between Kelso and Hervey the Marshal.(4)  The agreement was was ratified by Bishop Hugh of St Andrews in a charter of 1178x1188 which confirmed Kelso’s rights to receive an annual payment of 20s from the chapel of Keith-Hervey that was due following the composition arbirtrated by Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow, and Osbert prior of Paisley, between the monks and Hervey.(5)  Bishop Roger de Beaumont of St Andrews (1198-1202) confirmed Keith in proprios usus to the monks of Kelso but, confusingly, the chapel from which the annual payment of 20s was due was named as Keith-Hundeby.(6)

No formal record of the process is recorded but at some point in the thirteenth century the chapel of Keith-Hervey gained independent parish status, free from any entanglement with Kelso.  It was as an independent parsonage that the church was recorded in 1275 in the accounts of the papal tax-collector in Scotland, assessed at two merks for taxation and a further levy of one merk in the first year.(7)  The church appears to have remained unappropriated down to the mid-fifteenth century until in 1469 both were annexed as the source of a prebend in the collegiate church of St Salvator in St Andrews, with provision made for a vicar pensioner to serve the cure.(8)  The union remained in force at the Reformation, when the parsonage and vicarage fruits were together valued at £50.(9)

Notes

1. Liber S Marie de Calchou (Bannatyne Club, 1846), no.98 [hereafter Kelso Liber].

2. Regesta Regum Scotorum, i, The Acts of Malcolm IV, ed G W S Barrow (Edinburgh, 1960), no.186; Kelso Liber, no.94.

3. Kelso Liber, nos 86, 439.

4. Kelso Liber, no.95.

5. Kelso Liber, no.84.

6. Kelso Liber, no.83.

7. A I Dunlop (ed), ‘Bagimond’s Roll: Statement of the Tenths of the Kingdom of Scotland’, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, vi (1939), 35, 36.

8. R G Cant, The College of St Salvator (Edinburgh, 1950), 28-9.

9. J Kirk (ed), The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices (Oxford, 1995), 95.

Summary of relevant documentation

Medieval

Synopsis of Cowan’s Parishes: The church was claimed in 1176 as a chapel of Keith Huneby, and shortly after achieves parochial status. It was independent until 1469, when it was erected into a prebend of St Salvator’s, with a vicar pensioner to serve the cure thereafter.(1)

[No references to the church in the pre-Reformation records]

Post-medieval

Books of assumption of thirds of benefices and Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices: The Parish church parsonage and vicarage valued at £50; prebend of St Salvator’s.(2)

Account of Collectors of Thirds of Benefices (G. Donaldson): Third of parsonage and vicarage £16 13s 4d.(3)

1592 (12 Oct) Presbytery of Haddington decides to plant the church; the brethren are to speak to the Lord Marischal respecting the church.(4)

[No apparent references to the church or parish in the Statistical Accounts]

Notes

1. Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland, 92.

2. Kirk, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, 95.

3. Donaldson, Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices, 27.

4. NRS Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1587-96, CH2/185/1, fol. 170.

Bibliography

NRS Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1587-96, CH2/185/1.

Cowan, I.B., 1967, The parishes of medieval Scotland, (Scottish Record Society), Edinburgh.

Donaldson, G., 1949, Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices, (Scottish History Society), Edinburgh.

Kirk, J., 1995, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, (British Academy) Oxford.

Architectural description

Keith, or Keith Marischal, which was originally known as Keith Harvey, appears to have originated as a chapel of Keith Hundeby, but soon after 1176 it acquired parochial status. In 1469 it was erected as a prebend of St Salvator’s College in St Andrews, after which the cure was a pensionary vicarage.(1)

The church presumably passed out of use after it was merged with Keith Hundeby in 1618 to form the parish of Humbie.(2) It is now in an advanced state of ruination and is so heavily overgrown that it is very difficult to make out many features. However, the survey carried out for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland in 1913 recorded that it was a two compartment structure, with an overall length of 19.35metres, a chancel width of 5.8 metres, and a nave width of 6.8 metres.(3)

The east gable, which appears to have been the church’s most externally prominent feature, is built of carefully squared stone. It is pierced by two lancets with a vesica between their heads, the rear arches of which are widely splayed. The external reveal of the vesica is framed by a single chamfer, while the lancets have two orders of broad chamfers, all without hood moulds. However, the head of the inner order of the northern window is not quite concentric with the outer order, and it may be wondered if there has been some reconstruction. There have been internal rebates for glazing frames.

Combinations of two lights with a circlet or vesica between their heads were in favour with the English Cistercians from the later twelfth century, as in the transept chapels of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, or the south transept gable wall of Abbey Dore (Herefordshire). A relatively early Scottish example is to be seen in the sacristy of the Premonstratensian abbey of Dryburgh, a member of an order that took some of its architectural ideas from the Cistercians. A local variant of what is seen at Keith Marischal is to be seen at Cockpen, where the upper figure is a circlet rather than a vesica. A date in the early years of the thirteenth century appears most likely for the work at Keith Marischal.

Notes

1. Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish Record Society), 1967, p. 92.

2. David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, Edinburgh, vol. 3, 1897, p. 465.

3. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of East Lothian, Edinburgh, 1924, pp. 50-51.