112 



Transactions. 



therefore occurred to me to supply this blank in our Transactions. 

 In treating of the subject there is room for an appeal to the eye 

 as well as to the ear, and I am indebted to Mr M'Lellan Arnott 

 for chalk drawings of the costumes or " habits " of these Orders 

 to illustrate this paper. 



The period from the first erection of stone Monastic buildings 

 in Scotland until their demolition extends from the 12th century 

 to the Reformation of the 16 th century ; and they were most 

 numerous and prosperous 500 years ago. At a little later period, 

 viz., A.D. 1400, Lincluden Abbey was being changed from a 

 Nunnery into a Collegiate institution, and a new church was being 

 erected, beautiful to us even in its ruins, in which services con- 

 tinued to be performed after the Eeformation. On this point Mr 

 M'Dowall writes : " The Galloway Monasteries were about the 

 last to yield. Lincluden withstood the shock of the Reformation 

 longer than its sister establishments." 



The religious sentiment which led to the erection of 

 Monasteries goes back to Pagan times, when the deserts of Egypt 

 became peopled by Hermits and Anachorites of both sexes, and 

 small communities were also formed called Coenobites, who had 

 everything in common, and withdrew from the world for religious 

 exercises and contemplation. This Monastic system became linked 

 with Christianity in the second century, when, owing to the perse- 

 cution of Christians by the Roman Emperors and their provincial 

 governors, they had to flee into solitary places to save their life 

 in this world and in the hope of saving their souls in the life to 



