The medieval church of Montrose: a place ‘of much antiquity and abundantly populous’

• Published in: The Innes Review
• Main Author: Gray, Catriona Anna
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 2014
• Subjects: Religious studies; History; Cultural Studies; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/inr.2014.0064; https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full-xml/10.3366/inr.2014.0064

Montrose was one of Scotland's earliest royal burghs, but historians have largely overlooked its parish kirk. A number of fourteenth and fifteenth-century sources indicate that the church of Montrose was an important ecclesiastical centre from an early date. Dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, by the later middle ages it was a place of pilgrimage linked in local tradition with the cult of Saint Boniface of Rosemarkie. This connection with Boniface appears to have been of long standing, and it is argued that the church of Montrose is a plausible candidate for the lost Egglespether, the ‘church of Peter’, associated with the priory of Restenneth. External evidence from England and Iceland appears to identify Montrose as the seat of a bishop, raising the possibility that it may also have been an ultimately unsuccessful rival for Brechin as the episcopal centre for Angus and the Mearns.