112 TRANSACTIONS. 
those acquainted with that ancient language. Other more common 
forms, all conveying in their own fashion one and the same original 
descriptive meaning, were: Dercongal, Sacrinemoris, 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 1200, 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 ‘ Conventio inter Domum de Holme et Dundraynan.” 
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 Huttredi fil Fergus 
consensu Rollandi ville de Kyrkgunin,” 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 “ Jocum 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 
ee 
