T rartsactions. 2 1 



the eleventh century until i\\o breaking out of the war of inde- 

 pendence, the architecture of England and Scotland was in 

 agreement. The Norman style, in wliich the earliest churches of 

 the era were built, gradually underwent transition, culminating 

 in Early English, and that again reaching maturity began to 

 undergo change towards the Decorated style, when the progres- 

 sive development was suddenly checked in Scotland by the 

 breaking out of the war, and for a long time church building 

 there continued in abeyance. Meanwhile, in England, the 

 Decorated style of architecture became matured, and it, in its 

 turn, was superseded by another, the Perpendicular style. 



Wlien, about the end of the fourteenth century, Scotland had 

 in some measure recovered from the effects of the war, church 

 building revived. This revival period presented two great 

 changes compared with the earlier epoch. Formerly the 

 Religious Foundations, not Parochial, were chielly Cathedral or 

 Conventual ; now they are Collegiate. The other great change 

 relates to the architectural character of the fabric. The thread 

 of the development I'eached at the commencement of the war is 

 not taken up, nor is the expanded English type adopted. Tliere 

 is generally found in the chui-ches of the period a mi.Kture of 

 styles, some of the earlier Home forms being introduced along 

 with advanced Decorated, exhibiting peculiarities supposed to 

 indicate French influence. 



Our own district furnislies, in Sweetlieart Abbey, founded in 

 1275, one of the latest foundations in Scotland of the earlier 

 epoch ; and here, at Lincluden, is one of the earliest of tlie new 

 order and the revival period. 



Arcliibald, third Earl of Douglas and Lord of Galloway, in the 

 reign of Robert III., abolished the old Conventual establishment 

 at Lincluden, and superseded it by a Collegiate foundation. 

 Although the re-building of the Church receives no historical 

 mention, and is not necessarily implied by the change effected in 

 the order of the Foundation, the remains sufficiently indicate 

 that the greater part of it was about this time re-erected. The 

 architecture exhibited by the remains of the Abbey and that of 

 the remains of the College, appearing side by side, one charac- 

 terised by simplicity and inassiveness, and the other by profusion 

 of richness, points to the intervening of centuries between their 

 epochs ; and as the former is distinctive of the time of tlie early 

 foundation, so is the latter of the epoch of the new foundation. 



