NO. IX.

MEMORIAL RELATIVE TO THE HOSPITAL OF

ST. NICHOLAS:

BY

MICHAEL CONNAL, Esq.

[Read at a Meeting of the Glasgow Archæological Society, on 7th November, 1859.]

THE title of Magister of this Hospital has been revived within the last few years-the Lord Provost of the city being recognised as the head of this ancient charitable institution.

The ruins of the Hospital were removed in 1805, in opening up a street running to the south and west of Kirk Street, and which street in its turn has been obliterated by the extension of the Gas Works; but the institution itself has survived the neglect of centuries, though the small sum which is annually distributed, in conformity with the will of the founder, leaves it but the shadow of a claim to be ranked as an asylum for the aged poor.

Sir Thomas Hope, advocate to King Charles I., gives a list, in his Minor Practicks, of twenty-eight hospitals which had once been in Scotland for the reception of strangers, or the maintenance of poor and infirm people. All these were governed by a superior, who was called Magister; a title, however, that since the Reformation, has been applied promiscuously, though anciently attributed to the superiors of canons; the words which he quotes being "qui onera regiminis pertabat et temporalium curam habebat, Magister appellabatur."

The old writs to which he had access, disclosed to him, what we have no means now of confirming, an interesting feature of St. Nicholas' Hospital in Glasgow, that there were in it some waiting maids to attend the sick.

The obscurity which hung over the history of the Hospital excited the attention of the Town Council, and the memorial respecting it, which is embodied in this paper, was prepared in 1844, by the late chief Town Clerk, the venerable and learned Mr. Reddie.

The name of St. Nicholas appears to have been regarded with peculiar veneration in Scotland. From a remote period, churches, altars, and hospitals, had been erected to his honour in various parts of the country. In the Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, published by the Maitland Club, there is a "Breve Chronicon," which embraces a list of forty-five memorable events, from 1067 to 1413, some of them of national importance, such as the Battle of Bannockburn-the death of King Robert the Bruce-the captivity of James I. in England; and amongst these, the year 1372 is signalised by "Ventus Sancti Nicolai," and it appears from this chronicle that the public and authorised veneration of St. Nicholas preceded that of St. Kentigern by 37 years.

The city of Aberdeen, however, took the lead in the veneration of St. Nicholas. He was regarded as her "glorious patron saint." In the Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, notices of the Church of St. Nicholas occur as far back as the year 1220. The Aberdeen Burgh Records, published by the Spalding Club, from 1449 to 1508 more particularly, comprise details respecting the festival of the Saint, when the provost, bailies, council, and communities of the burgh rode through the town in solemn procession.

Brand, in his "Popular Antiquities," quotes Morysin to shew that Papal Rome, in imitation of heathenism, fabricated celestial guardians for cities and peoples, and assigned Nicholas to Aberdeen. This scarcely, however, accounts for the popularity in Scotland, 500 years ago, of that saint of the Roman calendar, who was first Bishop of Lycia, in Asia Minor, and who died A.D. 343.

1

The monastery that now stands in the plain of Myra-that seaport town where the apostle Paul and his fellow prisoners embarked for 1. a ship of Alexandria-claims to be the burial-place of -hen the late Professor Edward Forbes visited it d that the Russian Government had coveted removed them in a frigate to St. Peters'ution, the Emperor replacing them by a

wever, has associations nearer home. Peebles, as related by Fordun, was n the spot where the remains of a rine of stone, in the immediate with the inscription, "Locus

Apur crossan, or Aber-chesin, i.e., Applecross in Aber. It had an Irish monastery, founded in the seve

Dempster, who is followed by some Roman Catholic writers, such as Cressy, says, that Nicholas Culdeus was one of the first bishops of the Scottish Church, and suffered during the Maximian persecution in the third century; but Archbishop Usher, in his "Ecclesiastical Antiquities," throws doubt on the existence of this early Scottish martyr. It was not uncommon in these superstitious times to perpetrate a pious fraud, if such it was, to gratify the yearning of the popular mind for an object of veneration, linked with the national traditions, other than that of the sailors of the Grecian Archipelago.

The Breviarium Aberdonense, however, recognises only the St. Nicholas of the Roman calendar, whose festival day is the sixth of December.

A chapel which stood on the north side of the Gallowgate, near the Molendinar Burn, was dedicated to him, probably at a very early period, as in 1539, by a deed embodied in the Liber Collegii Nostre Domine, it is referred to as having ceased to exist. In the Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis, frequent reference is made to the chaplainrye of Sanct Nicholas in the Hie Kirk, and in the Laich Kirk (or the Crypt). The position of the Altar of St. Nicholas in the Cathedral is defined in the deed of Rolland Blacadyr, Subdean, a relation of Archbishop Blacadyr, and the founder of a chapel and hospital in 1524, as being on the south side of the nave, at the first pillar from the rood screen. The statutory place of meeting of the Faculty of Arts of the University, for the election of their Dean, took place on the 25th of June, and was either at this altar or at the Altar of St. Nicholas in bassa or inferiori ecclesia (in the Crypt), where the meetings of the congregation of the Faculty were held at various intervals from 1484 to 1555, for the admission of members and for the appointment of examiners for the degrees of Batchelor and Master of Arts. The annual banquet of the Faculty was celebrated on the feast next after the translation of St. Nicholas, which was the 19th of May. The earlier part of the day was occupied with a procession, in which masters, graduates, and students took part, and at the banquet every effort was made to reconcile parties, and to promote good feeling, that the brethren might dwell together in unity. The Cathedral, as Cosmo Innes remarks, was the cradle of the University.

The only other altar to St. Nicholas that we have traced within the city was in the chapel attached to the Hospital, and the deed of Archbishop Blacadyr in presenting Master Cuthbert Symson, priest,

to the perpetual chantry of St. Nicholas, the confessor, within the Hospital of St. Nicholas, dated 30th April, 1501, was under the condition that he should make his personal daily residence within the Pedagogy of Glasgow, for the instruction of youth in grammar-the Pedagogy of that period being on the site of the present College.

It may be added, that one of twelve prebends which was called after Saint Nicholas was endowed by Nicholas Witherspowne, Vicar of Strathaven, in the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary and Saint Anne, founded immediately prior to the Reformation, by James Houston, Sub-dean of Glasgow, and the site of which is now occupied by the Tron Church.

The founder of St. Nicholas' Hospital, was Bishop Andrew Muirhead. Nisbet, in his "Heraldry," remarks that he was of the family of the Muirheads of Lauchop, which has always been reputed one of the most ancient in all the Shire of Lanark. He was consecrated in 1455, and died 20th November, 1473, at his palace in Glasgow, and was interred in the Choir of the Cathedral Church. In the" Martyrology of the Church of Glasgow," he is remembered as "qui fuit fundator Collegii Vicariorum Chori Glasguensis."

His public services to the state are referred to by Gibson in his History, in his capacity of Royal Commissioner to England and to Denmark, in the time of James the Third; but he had also to contend with neighbours nearer home for justice to himself and others, and that in matters affecting the good things of this life. He takes the lead in an action, submitted to Parliament on 29th November, 1469, against the Burgh of Dumbartane, for preventing "as contrar thar fredome," the "Reverend fadir in Criste," and "Provost, Ballies, and communite of Glasgow," from "buying of certain wyne fra Peris Cokate Fransch man, and out of his schip in the water of Clide.” The case was given against the Burgh of Dumbartane.

Mr. Reddie's memorial as to the Hospital is as follows:

"Agreeably to the wish expressed by the Council, on the motion of Bailie Hastie, I have endeavoured to trace the history of this Hospital.

"It does not appear that there is any deed of foundation now extant, and the original object and date of the foundation are not well ascertained; but there can be no doubt the Hospital was founded by one of the Bishops of Glasgow, and that the building was erected on ground situated to the west of Castle Street. The Hospital appears

to have been intended for the reception and maintenance of a few aged and indigent men. In his 'History of Glasgow,' published in 1777, Mr. Gibson, apparently on the authority of Keith's 'Catalogue of Scottish Bishops,' states as follows:- In the year 1471, Bishop Muirhead founded, near his Episcopal, Palace, an Hospital, which he dedicated to the honour of St. Nicholas, upon the front of which his arms are still to be seen; this Hospital had endowments for twelve old men, and a priest to perform divine service at the hours of canonical devotion.' And there can be no doubt the Hospital was founded prior to 1501, for there is still in existence a deed of that date, by which Martin, Chancellor of the Cathedral, conveyed various small feu-duties or ground rents, payable from tenements and steadings of ground situated chiefly in Drygate, and between what is now known by the name of Montrose Lodgings, and what is now Duke Street, for the maintenance of a poor and indigent old man in the Hospital of St. Nicholas, founded by Bishop Muirhead.

"During the subsequent ecclesiastical contests and alternate prevalence of Presbyterian and Episcopal government, we cannot discover any traces of the Hospital, or ascertain whether the original endowment was large or the reverse; or if the former, how its revenues came to be dilapidated and reduced. The fabric or building of the Hospital appears to have been still in existence in 1788, though in rather a ruinous state; and during the seventeenth century the duties of the Preceptor, or, as he was called, Magister, appear to have been discharged by the Bishop, as the successor in office of the original founder, for in 1677 Bishop Leighton, by a deed, still extant, bequeathed £150 for the maintenance of two old men in the Hospital.

In this way the property of the fabric of the Hospital, and the charge and administration of its affairs, appear to have all along been vested in the Lord Bishops of Glasgow, or at least to have been so down to the time of Bishop Leighton. And as at the Revolution of 1688, and the final abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland, the Crown came in the place of the bishops, with regard to all civil or patrimonial rights, but in trust only with regard to lands granted to any hospital for charitable purpose, the conclusion to which we are led is, that the trust property and charge of the Hospital passed at the Revolution to the Crown.

"On the other hand, it appears that the principal part of the revenue of the Hospital now arises from the small ground rents bequeathed by Martin, the Chancellor of the Cathedral, in 1501, and from the

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