Transactions. 45 



The Old Monastery of Dumfries. By James Starke, 

 F.S.A. Scot. 



The old Monastery of Dumfries has long ceased to exist. 

 Streets and houses now occupy the site. And a few names 

 of places — some portions and pieces of ancient structures — 

 and the occasional disinterment of old relics, are what remain 

 to attest its former existence. 



But the locality has a permanent and undying interest, 

 as the scene of a busy life which was characteristic of a 

 former period of our history, and still more as one of the 

 many memorable spots in the nation's struggles for liberty 

 and independence. 



I have therefore been induced to put together some notes 

 of the place. They are chiefly historical, as in too many 

 cases they must be from the want of material remains. 



There is reason to believe that Dumfries was early chosen 

 as a settlement, and first of all, perhaps, as an ecclesiastical 

 settlement. 



The venerable Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of 

 England,* tells us that in the time of St. Wilfred, who was 

 a zealous bishop of the north of England in the 7th century, 

 a Synod was held juoda fluvium Nidd. If this was the 

 Nith, it would be close by the river, or rather close by the 

 flowing stream of the Nith. These words describe the 

 locality of Dumfries happily enough. But no town is 

 named. Had any such existed at that time, the mention of 

 it would hardly have escaped the minute accuracy of Bede. 



However, in the list of towns in the historian Nennius, a 

 name occurs which Mr Skene, in a late paper in the Anti- 

 quarian TranSc%ptions " On the early Frisian Settlements in 

 * Bede Eccles. Hist., Lib. 5, cap. 20. 



