HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH
C. P. Croly
Assistant Keeper (Research), Aberdeen City Council
It would be entirely fair to say that this is one of the most exciting times in the
interpretation of the history of St Nicholas Church. The archaeological excavation and
the associated historical research has helped us to better understand this venerable,
loved and outstandingly important building.
Sources and pre-Reformation
history
The earliest documentary evidence for St
Nicholas Church is a papal bull issued in
1157 by Adrian IV (coincidentally the only
British person to have ever been pope,
Nicholas Brakespeare). However the
church itself probably predates this
charter. There has always been a problem
understanding the actual position of St
Nicholas Church. It sat outside the
medieval Royal Burgh of Aberdeen outside the town's gates, in other words
outside the area which could be locked
and protected. Perhaps its position points
to it having earlier origins than Aberdeen
as a Royal Burgh. Indeed Aberdeen
became a Royal Burgh in the 12th
century, and it is possible that this church
predates that. Archaeological evidence
has gone some way to helping our
understanding of this fascinating anomaly.
However one of the Chartulary’s most
unusual and personal features is some
little doodles by one of its scribes in the
back leaves (below).
The scribe has drawn what may well be a
self portrait, including tonsure: providing
our only contemporary illustrations of one
of the late medieval clerics of St Nicholas
Church.
It has been said that Aberdeen has the
best civic archives in Scotland and it is
also true to say that St Nicholas Church is
also extremely well served with historical
evidence. Principally this comes in the
form of the Chartulary of St Nicholas. This
was probably compiled over a few
decades in the early to mid 16th century,
although some entries stretch to the late
16th century. In it the priests of St
Nicholas recorded all of their important
documents, gifts and rules and
regulations. There is some ornamentation
on capital letters at the start of certain
documents.
The following illustration, from a charter
dated 1482 in the Chartulary, shows an
ornate letter I.
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From the Chartulary we can trace the
growth and development of the Church of
St Nicholas. As part of this project the
Chartulary has been studied in order to
trace what it can tell us about the
development of the east end of the
church. By the 15th century St Nicholas
was the largest burgh church in Scotland.
In many ways the success of this church
was a function and reflection of the
success of Aberdeen as a Royal Burgh.
Technically only a Royal Burgh could
trade overseas. There is, therefore, a
symbolic importance in choosing St
Nicholas to be the patron saint of this
church. St Nicholas was amongst other
things the patron of merchants, mariners
and seafarers. A number of great
medieval cities, which traded overseas,
chose St Nicholas to be their patron:
amongst the others are Amsterdam,
Hamburg, Liverpool and Kiel.
Furnishings of the 15th century
church
The woodwork for this splendid new east
end was carved by John Fendour, one of
the most important wrights working at the
time. Fendour also did work for James IV
at Falkland Palace and completed the
choir stalls for King's College Chapel in
Old Aberdeen.
The illustration below, shows the ceiling of
the choir as completed probably in the
early 16th century. It is very similar to that
at King's College in Old Aberdeen.
As Aberdeen grew and prospered with its
overseas trade the merchants directed
much of their wealth to this church. It
came directly in the way of gifts of money,
candles, wax and other items, but most
importantly in the form of endowments for
what were called chantry altars. In these
cases rich people 'mortified' (or
bequeathed) all of their land, money and
income to the church to set up a small
individual altar and to hire a priest to say
mass at that altar for the founder, or
whomever the founder nominated.
So successful did this form of piety
become that by the early 16th century
over 30 different chantry altars were in St
Nicholas. It must have been one of the
busiest buildings at the time. The money
from this income allowed the building of
an ever grander church which expanded
eastwards with the construction of a new
choir, or east end (the choir is where the
clergy sat during mass, as opposed to the
nave or west end where the public sat
during mass), from the mid 15th century.
The building work for this stretched over
into the next century. The excavation took
place in the east end of the church and
has revealed much about the
development of the 15th century choir.
Remnants of the choir stalls carved for St
Nicholas Church by Fendour are now on
display in the Royal Museum of Scotland
(below).
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Some of these rich merchants and
magistrates from medieval Aberdeen
ordered stone effigies of themselves to be
produced to adorn their graves. In total St
Nicholas contains 7 effigies, four males
and three females (right, top); the largest
group of medieval effigies in Scotland.
They have been dated to between 1430
and 1465.
The figure to the right is often said to be
that of Provost Robert Davidson.
Davidson is a famous provost in
Aberdeen's history largely because he is
the only one known to have died in a
battle. He died at the battle of 'Reid' (or
Red) Harlaw in 1411 defending Aberdeen
against the 'wild and savage Highlanders'.
However if this effigy dates to between
1430 and 1465 then it is probably not
Provost Davidson. This is unfortunate as
Davidson is a fascinating character. He
was also a pirate: he was the subject of a
number of court cases brought against
him for piracy, including one claiming he
had stolen goods belonging to one
Richard Whittington, then Lord Mayor of
London and of future pantomime fame!
For example this is an entry from the third
volume of the Kirk and Bridge Work
Accounts and shows an inventory of
utensils and goods held in the church in
the early 18th century (below).
The Reformation and after
The Reformation itself reached Aberdeen
in late December 1559/January 1560. It
came in the form of mobs entering into the
town to despoil and rob the religious
houses and churches in Aberdeen. These
mobs were described as coming from
Angus and Mearns, but not, you
understand, from Aberdeen! This is
probably a 'smoke screen' and I have no
doubt that Aberdonians benefited from the
brief period of looting that ensued.
After the Reformation of 1560 the sources
for the history of St Nicholas remain as
vivid and extensive. The primary source
for the centuries following 1560 are the
Kirk and Bridge Work Accounts. These
are account ledgers written by the burgh
council in order to record income and
expenditure not only from St Nicholas
Church but also the various public bridges
around the city.
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These volumes provide an extremely
detailed insight into the history and
development of the church. Kimm Curran,
(right), a professional historian, with a
PhD on the history of female monasticism
in pre-reformation Scotland, was
commissioned to transcribe all the
relevant entries from the first volume of
the Kirk and Bridge Work Accounts. This
exciting new research has provided a full
transcript of all entries from the first
volume that covers the period 1570 to
1644.
This work has thrown up many fascinating
insights including some on the more
important events in the church's history.
For example in 1596, after the
Reformation, a stone wall was erected to
divide St Nicholas into two new churches,
the East and the West Churches. An entry
dated 20 March 1596 shows £20 being
paid to William Petre for taking ‘half a
hundred stones’ to the church and
building them up in the choir. This
probably represents the work leading to
the creation of the dividing wall. Although
the church today is the Kirk of St Nicholas
Uniting the physical division is still very
much there: the legacy of this wall is one
with which the church lives, to this day.
Gibbs. Gibbs was a native of Aberdeen
and Aberdeen's first internationally
important architect. He was responsible
for many buildings in Oxford and
Cambridge Colleges and also for many
churches including St Martin's in the
Fields in London. The West Church of St
Nicholas (below) represents the only
surviving example of his work in his native
city.
The photograph, middle right, shows an
extract from the second part of the first
volume of the Kirk and Bridge Work
Accounts.
The idea in dividing the church was very
much a product of Protestant thinking.
Central to Protestant theology is hearing
the word of God preached (in English as
opposed to Latin). Hence the old long
church of St Nicholas was divided into two
new 'preaching' churches which made
hearing the word of God easier for the
congregations.
The old medieval nave, or west end,
served as the primary place of worship for
the new congregation of the West Church
until the early decades of the 18th century
by which time it was in an advanced state
of disrepair. Plans for a new church were
given, free, to the Town Council by James
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The West Church also contains four
wonderful embroidered hangings. They
were purchased in 1688, by the town
council, from Baillie George Aedie for
£400 Scots. They are often attributed to
Mary Jamesone, daughter of the
Aberdonian painter George Jamesone
and wife of Baillie Aedie. All four scenes
are from the Old Testament or the
Apocrypha. There was a fifth scene which
has disappeared.
They are based on contemporary North
European engravings and date to the
early part of the 17th century, possibly to
the reign of Charles I. It had previously
been thought that they dated to the time
of the Restoration in the 1660s but that
interpretation is now in question. More
research now remains to be done on
these hangings. It will be necessary to
look at Mary Jamesone and her extended
family and to try and place them in the
political and religious spectrum of opinions
that existed in Aberdeen at that time.
the historical research project which
looked at newspaper accounts of the fire
and rebuilding and documents in the city
archives. These sources taken together
have provided a very complete picture of
the fire and the subsequent rebuilding
work. The newspaper accounts were
particularly detailed. All future work on the
19th and 20th century history of the
church will draw on the rich resource that
these represent. However more work
remains to be done in the city archives on
the rebuilding work after the fire.
The 19th century
The east end of the church, the 15th
century choir survived as the place of
worship for the congregation of the East
Church until the early 19th century. In
1837 it was pulled down to make way for
a more commodious church, which was
designed by Archibald Simpson.
In all St Nicholas has had a fascinating
history, much of which we are only now
coming to appreciate. The unique
combination of the excavation in the East
Church together with the rich historical
sources for the church as a whole have
combined to create a lively and vivid
picture of the twists, turns, highs and lows
of this church.
This burned to the ground several years
later in 1874. The fire started in the tower
and eventually brought the medieval tower
crashing down into the roof of the East
Church. The north and south walls of the
church were left structurally sound but the
roof and tower had to be replaced.
Previously some historians and
commentators had asserted that the entire
East Church had to be rebuilt after the
fire. The discovery by archaeologists of
scorch marks on the wall left this claim
open to some doubt (right, top).
The exact nature of the repairs and
building work was uncovered as part of
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