1 1 2 Transactions. 



tliose acquainted with that ancient language. Other more common 

 forms, all conveying in their own fashion one and the same original 

 descriptive meaning, were : Dercongal, Sacrineraoris, Sacrobosco. 

 The Abbey of Holywood and the Priory of Saulseat, in Galloway, 

 as affiliated religious houses of the Premonstratensian order, had 

 claimed as their hereditary commendators the family of the 

 Johnstone of that ilk in Annandale. According to " Hutchison's 

 Cumberland," " John dominus de Kirkconnel founded the Abbey of 

 Holywood in the twelfth century, and William Fitzmichael de 

 Kirkconnel, about the year 1 200, made a grant of Kirkconnel in 

 favor of the Abbey of Holmcultran, in Cumberland" (II., 331), and 

 which Abbey, otherwise called of Holme, for several succeeding 

 centuries had held chartered possession of extensive lands in 

 Galloway. In the " Register Book of Holmcultran," besides 

 numerous charters touching those their Galloway possessions, 

 there is item " Convenlio ifi/er Domitm de Holme et Diindrayiian." 

 In the same record we have " Carta Will, filius Mich, de Kyrk- 

 connell," with the period of granting indicated by the mention 

 therein of Lord Gilbert, who was elected Bishop of Galloway in 

 anno 1235, and died in 1253 a.d. " Carta Hiittredi fil Fergus 

 consensu- Rollandi ville de Kyrkgimi?i" with indication of the period 

 through mention therein of Walter, Bishop of Galloway, circa 

 1209-35 A.D. These excerpts we owe to the care of the learned 

 John Goldie, " of Craigmuie," in Galloway, " Commissary of Dum- 

 fries," in and towards the close of the last century, the transcript 

 from his notes having been made by Dr Clapperton of Loch- 

 maben. Early in the thirteenth century King Alexander the 

 Second of Scotland had granted " locum de Dunscor in valle de 

 Nyth " to the monastery of Melros. There are many other early 

 grants of lands, &c., of a similar nature to the Abbots of those two 

 once great religious houses, whose baronial lands had originally 

 comprehended nearly the whole of Upper Nithsdale, as we find by 

 the record. Although the Abbey of Holywood, in common with 

 nearly all its kindred houses of the south-west of Scotland, 

 possesses not any history of its own, consecutively written by the 

 fraternity, yet there are still some scattered notices not without 

 interest to be found recorded in the general chronicle of Scottish 

 history. The memory of the Abbey in the " De Sphera " of its 

 once all famous mathematician, " Johannes de Sacrobosco — John 

 of Holywood," still survives in the literature of the land, while, 

 owing to the foresight and pious care of the Lord Maxwell, of the 



