Dr. John Stuart on the History of Dunbar. 423 



Trie monastery of the latter saint was at Tiningham, not far 

 from Dunbar ; and we learn from Simeon of Durham, that 

 its territory extended from the Lammermuir to Eskmouth. 



At a later period of our history the country came to be 

 formed into parishes — or districts subject to the jurisdiction 

 of single priests — when the monasteries and their missionary 

 arrangements were superseded. 



It cannot be said at what time Dunbar was constituted a 

 parish, but it would seem to have been during the Saxon 

 occupation, and before the Manor of Dunbar, with many 

 other lands in Lothian, was conferred by Malcolm Canmore 

 on Cospatrick, the expatriated Earl of Northumberland, 

 who founded the great family of Earls of March and Dunbar. 

 His son, the second Cospatrick, granted to the monks of 

 Durham, at Coldingham, the churches of Edraham or Edrom 

 and Nisbet, and he, as well as his successors, were great bene- 

 factors to the house of St. Cuthbert, at Coldingham, which, 

 indeed, the Scottish King Edgar may be said to have founded. 



The patron saint of Dunbar was St. Bey, a female saint 

 of little fame, who is said to have led an anchoretical life in 

 the Island of Cumrae in the Firth of Clyde, and it is not 

 easy to follow the line of connection which led to the choice 

 of her tutelage lor a district which, at the period when it 

 may be held to have become parochial, was under Saxon 

 influence. The authorities for St. Bey's life are given in 

 " Kalendars of Scottish Saints," by the Bishop of Brechin ; 

 and in the Breviary of Aberdeen she is celebrated in com- 

 pany with St. Maura. St. Bey seems to have been so fond 

 of austere solitude, that her ordinary companions were the 

 beasts and birds by whom she was surrounded. She was 

 visited, however, by St. Maura, and the discipline which this 

 saint drew from St. Bey, she imparted to a company of vir- 

 gins associated with her in the religious life. St. Maura 

 died at last at Rilmaurs, of which she is the patron saint ; 

 and St. Bey died in her island of the little Cumrae, where a 

 chapel was raised over her remains, and where a ruined 

 chapel associated with " St. Vey" still remains. 



The Breviary records the following occurrence to show 

 that St. Bey's repugnance to leave her island did not end 

 with her life, but was manifested long after her death. A 

 certain rector of the Parish Church of Dunbar, where St. 

 Bey was held in veneration, having become desirous to pos- 

 sess some of her relics, and to transfer them to his own 



2 B 



