^61 



KELSO. 



By John Stuart, Sec. S.A. Scot., Edinburgh. 



Among the earliest of those many religious foundations by 

 which David, the first king of the Scots of that name, became 

 so illustrious, was the Abbey of Selkirk. While yet only 

 styling himself " David the earl, son of Malcolm king of the 

 Scots," by a charter probably of the date 1113, he founded a 

 monastery at Selkirk, in honor of St. Mary and St. John the 

 Evangelist. Here he planted a colony of Benedictine monks 

 from the Abbey of Tiron, and to this foundation he dedicated 

 many lands and fishings both in Scotland and England. 

 Whether the saintly David was drawn to place the Abbey in 

 this spot by the memory of some earlier foundation, as was 

 the case at Melrose, or whether it was merely to be near the 

 castle in his forest of Selkirk, which he then occupied, can- 

 not now be determined. But if we are to hold that Sele-Kirk 

 means something like holy or happy church, it is not im- 

 probable that the early sanctity of the spot may have been a 

 leading motive with David. We are at least certain that one 

 early offshoot from Lindisfarne took root at Melrose in the 

 same neighbourhood, while it seems probable that another 

 Saxon "familia" was settled at Jedburgh, before the middle 

 of the ninth century. We learn also from Venerable Bede, 

 that the holy Cuthbert, after he became Prior of Melrose, was 

 wont to traverse this district, preaching the gospel to the 

 people in the villages and hill-sides, being absent from his 

 monastery in these duties, oftentimes a week and sometimes 

 even a month. We learn also from Reginald* the monk of 

 Durham, who wrote about the middle of the twelfth century, 

 that of the many churches founded in honor of S. Cuthbert, 

 there was one on the Slitrig, a chapel of the mother church 

 of Cavers, neighbouring with Hawick. Here various miracles 

 were wrought by the Saint, of which Reginald got an account 

 from Dolfin the parson and others — from one of which we 

 gather the fact, that in the burial ground around the church 

 there stood a stone with a cavity on its top, which was always 

 filled with rain mixed with holy water. In Reginald's time, 

 the stone walls of the building yet remained, but it had for 



• Reginaldi Monach. Dunelm. Libell., p. 291. 



