Mr. J. Stuart on St. Ehha and Coldingham. 215 



grants of lauds and churclies from tlie kings and great men 

 of Scotland, the evidences of which will be found in the 

 Appendix toDr.K-aine's admirable History of North Durham * 



Dr. Kaine in a volume printed for the Surtees Society has 

 furnished us with the Correspondence, Inventories, Account 

 Rolls, and Law Proceedings of the Priory. From the mate- 

 rials thus preserved, many curious glimpses may be obtained 

 of the early condition of the country, its agricultural tenures 

 and progress, the relations between different classes of society, 

 and the working of the monastic system in its domestic 

 aspect, as well as in its more public dealings with the world 

 around. 



The position of the Priory of Coldingham was one of deli- 

 cacy and difficulty. It was a house of Scotch foundation, 

 dependent on another establishment, in a country often at 

 war with Scotland, but yet under the spiritual jurisdiction ot 

 the Bishop of St. Andrews. This was a circumstance which 

 strongly affected its subsequent history. It led the Monks 

 to obtain letters of protection both from the Scottish and 

 English kings, but it exposed them to many dangers and 

 difficulties which required their continual vigilance and 

 greatest efforts to avert and overcome.f 



At an early period, Anthony Bek, the warlike Bishop of 

 Durham, got the Pope to confer the Priory on the Bishop 

 of Biblis, who was in want of an endowment, but this 

 grant was frustrated, more through the English Parliament 

 than the reclamations of the Monks. At another time, 

 the Priory was claimed by the Monks of Dunfermline, but 

 the claim was rejected by the Scottish estates. Then in the 

 time of the Papal Schism, the Scotch King presented a monk 

 of his own country as Prior, pretending the authority of 

 Clement, the Anti-Pope ; and this gave much trouble for a 

 time. At another time, the Prior was troubled at a rumour 

 that the Bishop of St. Andrew's had gone to Pome to obtain 

 Coldingham in commendam, or to have it erected into the 

 seat of a suffragan bishop. J 



The many difficulties which surrounded them could not 

 be warded off by their charters of protection, and the Monks 

 were induced to seek for aid of a more practical kind. 



* lb., App.,p. 29. 



t Coldingham, p. 168. 



J The dangers came from both sides of the border. Thus in the accounts for 

 1400, there is entered for the teind sheaves of Coldingham, " nihil quia fuerunt 

 vastae et destructae per Scotos, et inimicos Anglic." 



2e 



