34 Transactions. 



Notice of the Nun Slab at Dundrennan Abbey. 

 By James Starke, F.S.A., Scot. 



The old ruin of Dundrennan Abbey has many points of 

 great interest, both in its historical aspects and in the detail 

 of its examination. Among its old monuments is the Nun 

 Slab. This slab is broken into several pieces, and the legend 

 or inscription round the border is both abbreviated and 

 obliterated. But an epitaph can be plainly made out, and 

 the object of the present paper is to submit a conjecture that 

 it is the epitaph of the last prioress of Lincluden before the 

 change of that Abbey into a College. From the present 

 state of our information respecting the old Abbey of Lin- 

 cluden, any suggestion on the subject can be offered only as 

 an historical conjecture, but a direction may be given to 

 enquiry, and the burial place of the old prioress may be 

 found to be at once a vindication of her own personal char- 

 acter, and a testimony to the good feeling which subsisted 

 among the old Abbeys for one another. 



Some difference exists in the statements of writers as 

 to the founder of Dundrennan Abbey, where the present 

 Slab lies : Dempster and Fordun, with Hollinshed, ascribing 

 the foundation to David King of Scots, whereas Spottiswood, 

 an accurate and reliable authority, and the industrious Chal- 

 mers, say the Abbey was founded by Fergus, Lord of Gallo- 

 way. The latter opinion harmonizes with the whole circum- 

 stances of the case. 



The district of Galloway, in which Dundrennan Abbey is 

 situated, was at the time of its foundation a separate and 

 peculiar district, having its own lords or reguli, and its own 

 people, with their own language, laws, and customs. The 

 Abbey was not likely to be a royal foundation ; and the case 

 of Dryburgh Abbey shows that David, that sair sanct to the 



