The River Tay has played a special part in the early history of the church in Scotland, for it links the three most important episcopal centres first of Pictland and then of Scotland in the 8th to the 10th centuries. Abernethy held supreme position in 8th-century Pictland, relinquishing that role to Dunkeld further up the Tay after the union of the Piets and Scots in the mid 9th century; Dunkeld in its turn gave way to St Andrews on the coast of Fife south of the "lay estuary by the early 10th century. A certain amount of stone carving survives at Abernethy (see p 16) and Dunkeld (see p 34) to testify to the patronage of the Church, but the magnificent sculptures at St Andrews, known then as Kilremont, convey more clearly the influence of the Church in stimulating the natural skills and tastes among the Piets for creating carved stone monuments.
There was certainly a monastery at St Andrews in the first half of the 8th century, because the death of its abbot was recorded in AD 747, yet there is no stone-carving in the great collection in the Cathedral Museum that can be dated earlier than the second half of the 8th century. Monasteries were usually founded in places already important to Church or king, but there are no symbol stones to suggest that St Andrews was a centre of Pictish activities before the 8th century. In fact there are relatively few carvings of symbols surviving from Fife generally. The most impxjrtant sculpture at St Andrews is the Sarcophagus, which was undoubtedly created by a sculptor working in the Pictish style but which belongs to a European tradition of Christian art and church furniture.
A major monastery such as this would have had a scriptorium or writing room in which the monks copied and illustrated the gospel-books. No manuscript has survived that can with certainty be hailed as the product of a Pictish monastery, perhaps because so many church treasures were lost at the Reformation, but it has been argued
Opposite:
St Andrews Cathedral and St Rule’s Tbuer.
The St Andrews Sarcophagus.
The surviving panels and corner-posts of the St Andress’S Sarcophagus are skilfully decorated in high relief. The long panel shows no fewer than three images of David, based on the Old Testament story: the scene is dominated by the large figure on the right, depicting David fighting the lion, both hands on the lion’s jaws. The monkey carved above David's left shoulder is echoed by the pairs of monkeys on the end panel. The horseman to the left of the main David figure also represents David fighting the lion, this time with the lion leaping up to claw at the horse’s neck while David holds a sword ready to strike. The falcon riding on David’s left arm underlines his royal status. Below the horseman another figure of David, armed as a warrior with spear and shield, walks behind two animals with a dog at his feet, while behind him a griffin, a creature half-eagle half-lion, is savaging a mule.
That the Book of Kells may have originated in eastern Scotland—many of its beautiful illustrations are certainly very close in style to the designs on Pictish stones. The sculptor of the Sarcophagus had a familiarity with Christian iconography, and with exotic animals such as the monkeys, that suggests that he had access to illuminated books and perhaps imported art objects from Europe and beyond.
The Book of Kells is likely to have been written and illustrated sometime in the last few decades of the 8th century, and it could well have been the work of a monastic scriptorium at St Andrews. No trace has yet been identified of any of the buildings belonging to this early monastery.
The Sarcophagus was a chance discovery entirely dependent upon an unusually deep grave having been dug at just the right spot, and there may be other carvings locked beneath the green turf of the Cathedral precinct. Others may have been found in the past and re-used as builders’ rubble-even the survival of the Sarcophagus fragments after their discovery in 1833 seems to have been a matter of some luck. A contemporary antiquary observed ‘so lightly were these priceless relics prized at the seat of the oldest University in Scotland, that for six years they lay tumbling about as if of no interest or consequence’, and the same antiquary allowed them to be taken to Cupar and back in a carrier’s cart so as to have casts made of them.
The Sarcophagus ranks high amongst early medieval European art and is certainly one of the most accomplished pieces of Pictish sculpture. It is an elaborate stone box consisting of corner-posts with vertical grooves into which the side-panels slot. It is in fact a shrine, created sometime in the later 8th or very early 9th century, probably to house a wooden box or reliquary containing the relics of a saint. Commissioned by the Church or by some rich lay patron, it would have been a prominent feature inside the church belonging to the great monastery that preceded both the Cathedral and St Rule’s Tower. The shrine has been reconstructed from fragments found during grave-digging near the Tower in 1833; the lid is missing hut it was probably a flat slab.
The Sarcophagus may originally have contained the relics of either St Rule (St Regulus) or St Andrew. According to the St Andrew’s foundation legend, the church was founded in the reign of Oengus or Angus, when St Rule brought from the east the relics of St Andrew (three fingers, an arm bone, a knee cap and a tooth). This king is thought most likely to have been Angus I, who reigned in the 8th century. Whichever saint inspired the Sarcophagus, in later medieval times it was used as an ordinary coffin, for it was found with a jumble of bones almost 2 m deep in the graveyard. Perhaps it was thrown out when the chapel of St Rule was built to house St Andrew’s relics in the early 11th century.
Free-standing crosses, such as this elaborately sculpted example at St Andrews (na 19), would originally have stood at strategic points in the open air within the monastic complex. Often decorated with biblical scenes, they have been described as ‘sermons in
Among other sculptures in the Cathedral Museum are two fragments (nos 28 and 29) that together portray David the harpist and may be part either of the missing back panel of the Sarcophagus or of another similar slab-built shrine. A number of carved stones had been reused by the Cathedral masons, including the great cross-shaft, no 19, and several cross-slabs, which were found built into the basal courses of the east end of the Cathedral. Despite the fact that these superbly sculpted stones were then less than 300 years old and part of the heritage of Scotland’s premier diocese, they were relegated to little more than builders’ rubble when the new Cathedral was begun around AD 1160.
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