Transactions. 117 



liad she been an Abbess she would have had the pastoral staff. I 

 think it very probable that this slab may have been removed to 

 Dundrennan from Lincluden." Now upon this opinion I have to 

 remark that when Mr Bloxam wrote it he had not had his atten- 

 tion drawn to the undisputed date of A.D. 1440 upon this slab, 

 which was 40 years after the time when Lincluden had ceased to 

 be a Nunnery, and when its Prioress — if this be her tombstone — 

 had ceased to carry the pastoral staff. I regret now that I 

 omitted to bring this historical fact to Mr Bloxam's attention 

 when we visited the ruins, several years before Mr M'Dowall's 

 book on Lincluden was published. I think that the want of a 

 pastoral staff is owing to this historical circumstance, and that the 

 representation of sheep under her feet was intended to show she 

 was not only a Nun but had exercised authority. I think it is 

 also probable that she died as a religieuse in old age, attending the 

 services of Dundrennan Church, and so at death was buried within 

 its precincts. Where no nunnery existed, or where it had been 

 dissolved, as at Lincluden, the inmates and female religieuses were 

 always made welcome to accommodation within or adjacent to an 

 abbey of the same or a similar Order. 



" And then our Provincial 

 Hath power to assoylen 

 All sustren and brcthern 

 That be'th of our Order.'' 



— Piers Ploioman. 



There need, therefore, be no surprise at finding the tombstone of 

 this Nun of Lincluden, after its suppression, within the walls of 

 Dundrennan, seeing that the Benedictine was the parent of the 

 Cistercian Order. 



The Abbey of Holy-wood — sacrum boscum, or nionasterium 

 sacri memoris, i.e., of the holy grove, as it is called in ancient 

 documents — ^belonged to the Premonstratensians, a branch of the 

 great Augustinian Order, which included all Orders not based upon 

 the rules of St. Benedict. This Order was first established in a 

 meadow {pre), said to have been pointed out {inontre)'bj the Virgin 

 to. St. Nerbert in France, A.D. 1120, and was introduced into Eng- 

 land A.D. 1134. They discarded the black habit as well as the 

 rule of St. Benedict, and wore a white woollen cloak and a white 

 four square cap to signify purity of mind and body. 



The Abbey is said to have been founded some time in the 



