The Heraldic Ceiling of St Machar's Cathedral Aberdeen. David McRoberts.

Occasional Paper No. 2.

 

For the art-historian it is very difficult to say anything very definite about the artistic achievement of Scotland in the Middle Ages. There is scarcely any evidence surviving on which we might base our judgement. The nineteenth century approach was usally to declare roundly that, in the middle ages, Scotland was a poverty-stricken country and a complete desert as far as things artistic and cultural were concerned. However, for those who take the trouble to look, there is a fair amount of indirect evidence to show that, in spite of its small population, medieval Scotland bred a normal proportion of men of artistic talent and appreciation. There is evidence to show that the greater churches, the royal palaces and the castles of the magnates were as well equipped with the amenities of civilized living as any other north European country.

 

Taking one particular line of indirect evidence, we might consider the large number of painted ceilings which survive (usually in fragmentary condition) from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in the churches, palaces, castles and burgh house of Scotland. It would be absurd to imagine that this type of decoration was something which suddenly developed in Scotland in the late sixteenth century. It is only reasonable to assume that these painted ceilings were part of a long-established artistic tradition and, in fact, some surviving fragments of decoration at Guthrie, Dunfermline, Foulis Easter and elsewhere, make it quite clear that richly coloured ceilings were not unusual in medieval Scottish buildings. Some of these ceilings at Guthrie, Dunkeld or Dunfermline for example were painted with scriptural imagery; others we know were resplendent with heraldry. Only two medieval wooden ceilings survive in their entirety in Scottish churches. These two ceilings are both in Old Aberdeen - the ceiling of King's College Chapel and the ceiling of the nave of St Machar's Cathedral. The survival of the ceiling of St Machar's Cathedral is a happy accident for which we should all be grateful, for that ceiling is an extraordinary thing. In the ture sense of the word it is quite unique; unique certainly in Scotland, unique in Great Britain, unique in Europe. It is not just a decorated ceiling; it is a vision of the political situation of Scotland and of Christendom at one particular moment in the early sixteenth century, expressed in that picturesque and precise short-hand of history that we call heraldry.

 

Medieval churches were seldom free from joiners and builders and glaziers and other workmen. Churches were constantly being repaired or remodelled. In spite of the disaster of Flodden, the early sixteenth century was a period of extraordinary activity, all over Scotland, in the renovation and extension of churches. In Old Aberdeen, during the episcopates of William Elphinstone and Gavin Dunbar, work was going on apparently continously at the cathedral, and one of the features added to the church at this time was the magnificient ceiling of the nave. Hector Boece, who saw the ceiling in the course of construction, says that along with the completion of the college buildings and the Brig O'Dee, this work was undertaken by Bishop Dunbar at the outset of his episcopate. Bishop Gavin Dunbar was consecrated as bishop in February, 1519, In 1520 or 1521 Hector Boece was preparing his lives of the bishops of Aberdeen for publication and at that time, he writes, the ceiling was almost completed. It is a very large piece of carpentry: the planning of its scheme of decoration, the collection of material for the work, the actual fabrication, the carving and colouring of the coats of arms and other ornaments, the setting of the whole thing in position, must all have entailed many months of work, and the consturction probably extended over the years from 1519 to 1521 or 1522. Orem, in his history of the Chanonry of Old Aberdeen records the tradition that the craftsman who made the ceiling was an Angus man called James Winter. We know nothing of James Winter beyond his name, but his ceiling at St Machar's is a lasting monument to his skill as a craftsman.

 

James Winter would not, of course, be alone in this enterprise. A new ceiling for the cathedral would be the concern of teh bishop and of the whole cathedral chapter. The subject matter of the decoration and the whole scheme of decoration would be discussed and worked out in detail before even James Winter or his apprentices set hand to hammer or chisel. We shall never know for certain who conceived the scheme of decoration for the ceiling, but Hector Boece tells us that the man who supervised all these enterprises of Bishop Dunbar was that same man who had enjoyed the friendship and confidence of Bishop Elphinstone and who had carried out that bishop's building projects. This was Alexander Galloway, rector of Kinkell, architect of the Brig O'Dee, of the Greyfriars Church and much else in sixteenth century Aberdeen.

 

There are two features of the ceiling of St Machar's which strike one immediately. In the first place it is a flat ceiling. This, as far as we can judge, was unusual in a Scottish medieval church where wooden ceilings were normally given the shape of a barrel vault or of an ogival vault such as that of King's College Chapel. The coffered treatment of this flat ceiling is reminiscent of the splendid renaissance ceilings in the churches and basilicas of Rome and from that source possibly came one of the strands of artistic inspiration which went to the making of this ceiling.

 

The second feature of the ceiling is its scheme of decoration, and this is what makes it quite unique in Europe. The decoartion of a medieval church had a twofold purpose: to embellish the House of God and to instruct the faithful. Normally the church was decorated with scenes from the Holy Scriptures or from the legends of the saints, so that even the illiterate might gain some knowledge of the teaching of the Holy Scripture or of the virtues of the saints. The obvious duty of the Church was to impart instruction in spiritual things, but the medieval Church did not confine itself within these limitations and there was secular knowledge also to be gleaned from the decoration of most medieval churches. Ordinary men, for example, must have gained some knowledge of zoology from the medieval bestiaries carved in churches, they must have gained some knowledge of astronomy form the complex astronomical clocks. Something of their own national history could be learnt from the royal statues and tombs of great men which filled some churches. One thinks of the bell-founders' window in York Minster from which even the twentieth century tourist can learn a great deal about the process of making bells. Much of this decoration and furnishing was a conscious effort to educate people in mundane as well as spiritual matters.

 

The person who designed the ceiling of St. Machar's Cathedral set out to educate the citizens of Aberdeen, and the theme of his instruction was unusual in a medieval church. What he has in fact given us is a comprehensive, illustrated lecture on the contemporary politics of Christendom about the year 1520 - a lecture given with a strong bias in favour of the Scottish Nation. This lesson in politics is as easily understood by us in the twentieth century as it was by the sixteenth century Aberdonians. The ceiling gives a panoramic view of the European community of nations at one of the most critical and dramatic moments of its evolution. The months occupied in the construction of this ceiling, between 1519 and perhaps 1522, saw the climax of the Lutheran revolt in Germany which was to destory the traditional concept of Europe as a united spiritual and political entity. This ceiling records that traditional unity just at the moment when it was about to disappear forever.

 

The first reaction of someone coming across this splendid vista of the medieval world in a quiet corner of Old Aberdeen might well be to wonder who, in such a locality, could have been interested in such a broad vision of the political world. But there is no need to wonder. The cathedral dignitaries and the university men who moved about the streets of Old Aberdeen in the early sixteenth century were not country yokels living in a remote backwater of civilisation. These were men for whom the European community of nations was a very real and familiar scene, a scene in which they moved about easily and confidently. One need only look at the lives of some of the men who were active in the cathedral and university in the early sixteenth century. One always thinks first of Bishop William Elphinstone. He was no stranger to the larger world of Europe. He had lectured in canon law for six years in the university of Paris and he was a personal friend of Jean de Ganai, who was chancellor of France. Elphinstone's predecessor and friend was Robert Blacader who, when he was archbishop of Glasgow, went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1508, and we have the eye-witness account, written by a prominent Venetian describing the pomp and ceremony with which he was received at Venice by the Doge and his council of state. Alexander Gallowy, the rector of Kinkell and canon of the cathedral, who probably designed our ceiling, was a man who conducted the affairs of the bishop not only in Aberdeen but also in Flanders. Jacobus Latomus, a professor of Louvain, mentions in one of his books his correspondence with Alexander Galloway of Aberdeen. In the National Library of Scotland there is a lovley manuscript prayer book which belonged to James Brown, dean of Aberdeen Cathedral at the very beginning of the sixteenth century. From that manuscript we can see how skilfully this dean of Aberdeen conducted negotiations at the Roman Curia on behalf of King James IV and how, on his way back home, while staying with Andrew Halyburton, the Scottish Conservator at Bruegs, he commissioned his beautiful prayer book. It seems fairly certain that the prayer book was produced in the atelier of Alexander Bening, one of the foremost artists of Flanders at its most brilliant epoch, and there is good reason to believe that Alexander Bening was a fellow Scot, probably from Edinburgh. If Dean Brown's prayer book was illustrative of the type of manuscript that sometimes found its way to Aberdeen Cathedral, then the choir books of St Machar's would have been of exceptional quality. These men made their purchases on the Continent just as a matter of course.

 

When Bishop Gavin Dunbar commissioned a new Epistle Book for the cathedral in 1527 he had it written at Antwerp; in the same way, when Robert Elphinstone, treasurer of Aberdeen, had to purchase an engraved brass for a tomb in 1529 he dealt with Pierre Prise, a master craftsman of Paris. Nor should we fail to mention Hector Boece, principal of King’s College, whose name was well-known on the Continent. Boece was a friend of Erasmus, the greatest literary figure of contemporary Europe, and it was a friendship that was mutual since Erasmus dedicates some of his work to his Aberdonian friend. The cathedral establishment of early sixteenth-century Aberdeen, therefore, was by no means a narrow and isolated community. The canons and dignitaries were men of wide experience, familiar with the latest trends and developments in the life and thought of Christendom and, as elsewhere, the cathedral establishment of Aberdeen was an important channel through which the new ideas and influences of European society flowed freely into the life of the diocese, ensuring that it remained a living part of the wider community of Christendom.

 

Here in this heraldic ceiling of St Machar’s then, we have an excellent example of how the churchmen and scholars of Aberdeen transmitted to the general public new political ideas which were developing on the European mainland. There is no place here for fanciful coats of arms of Julius Caesar, or Juda Maccabeus, or Alexander the Great or Prester John. The ceiling depicts a real practical and everyday world and, because it depicts a real world situation, the Aberdeen ceiling betrays a strong interest in nationalist sentiment. This is simply a reflection of reality because the growth of nationalist sentiment and the emergence of independent nation-states was the really significant political development of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

 

National rivalries had always been present in one form or another in medieval Christendom. The medieval ideal of the unity of Christendom visualised all Christian peoples of the west as united in one Holy Roman Empire where the supreme spiritual and political power was vested in Pope and Emperor as twin vicars of Christ, each exercising spiritual or political power in the name of God. This ideal never really materialised because Pope and Emperor never agreed on the limits of their separate authorities. Very often for good motives, and not infrequently for other motives, Pope and Emperor quarrelled and desultory warfare was endemic in Christendom. Kings and princes made use of the opportunities such warfare afforded to strengthen their own positions and build up the independence of their states. Lawyers, studying the ancient Roman code of laws, questioned the claims of the Holy Roman Emperor and gradually began to assert that each Christian King was sovereign and independent, and in fact, an emperor within his own frontiers. This nationalist movement, which undermined the central authority of both Pope and Emperor, was accelerated by the Great Schism of the West when, for forty years between 1378 and 1418, Christendom faced the unedifying spectacle of two and sometimes three Popes mutually excommunicating one another. This disastrous period was followed by the turbulent councils of Constance and Basle, which further weakened the central authority of the papacy and the empire, since these councils provided a stage for the effective display of international rivalries which weak Popes and weak Emperors could in no way control. Martin Luther’s revolt against the papacy is a further stage in this disintegration of the medieval ideal of unity; in large measure that revolt was successful because it was used by German princes to make themselves more independent of the Emperor.

 

The kingdom of Scotland was fully alive to this nationalist mood which pervaded European thinking. Its sense of national identity was undoubtedly heightened during those years of the Great Schism when, for a time, Scotland, with only the Kingdom of Aragon, supported Pope Benedict XIII of Avignon against all the other nations of Europe, including France. The activities of Scots ecclesiastics at the Council of Basle must also have strengthened the feeling of national independence. In the Council of Basle, which lasted from 1431 to 1449, some sixty Scottish churchmen took part in the most turbulent episodes of that council with men like Thomas Livingstone, abbot Dundrennan, who was one of those who promoted the deposition of Pope Eugen IV and the election of the anti-Pope Felix V. When these churchmen returned home from their Continental adventures, their experience enriched the Scottish nation in many ways and, in particular, they stirred up a strong current of nationalism in Scottish life. This mood of sturdy nationalism is evident in the important chronicle, the Scotichronicon, written by Abbot Walter Bower of Incholm in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. The trend increases throughout the fifteenth century in such writings as Blind Harry’s “Life of Wallace” and gradually pervaded all aspects of Scottish Life. One particular aspect of life in Scotland that was affected by this nationalist sentiment was the liturgical and devotional life of the Church. All over the Kingdom, a new revival of interest in national saints became fashionable. Liturgical feasts and offices of national saints were revived or rewritten and it was only a matter of time before a demand arose for the compilation of a proper liturgical use, peculiar to the Scottish nation. The centre of this nationalist liturgical revival was in Old Aberdeen : its principal figure was Bishop William Elphinstone who, assisted by a team of scholars and writers from King’s College and from the cathedral chapter, produced at least part of a series of liturgical books for the Scottish Church, the best knwon item in this series being the Aberdeen Breviary, printed in Edinburgh in 1509 and 1510. In the course of compiling these liturgical books, members of Bishop Elphinstone’s team of scholars travelled around Scotland collecting documents and traditional information about the saints venerated in each locality. The companion of Hector Boece on these travels seems to have been Alexander Galloway, who is almost certainly the designer of the cathedral ceiling. It is not surprising therefore that the ceiling should betray some indications of anti-English feeling combined with a strong patriotic assertion of the sovereignty and independence of the Scottish King and nation.

 

These features become evident as one examines the coats of arms on the Cathedral ceiling. The general appearance of the heraldic ceiling can be described quite simply. Its heraldic decoration consists of forty-eight shields, arranged in three series of sixteen coats of arms, running the length of the ceiling from east to west. As is fitting in a church, the principal series of coats of arms is that of the Holy Church and this row of shields occupies the central axis of the composition. The line of shields along the south side of the ceiling, which is heraldically the dexter or the more important side, depicts the coats of arms of the King of Scots and the nobility of Scotland. Along the north side of the nave, which is the heraldic sinister side, lesser in importance and dignity, we have the coats of arms of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Kings of Christendom.

 

Basic to the whole scheme of decoration is the idea that the essential source of unity in Europe was the Christian Church. The Church is central to the whole concept of Christendom, so here it occupies the centre of the scheme of decoration. In spite of the German attacks made on the medieval Church which, in the year 1520 when the ceiling was being made, were reaching their climax, the papacy was still regarded as the supreme spiritual power in Christendom and accordingly the coat of arms of the Pope stands at the head of the ecclesiastical dignitaries. Above this shield is the traditional threefold crown of the papacy, the tiara, and behind the shield are the keys of gold and silver, representing the promise of Christ to Peter. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven”. Medieval imagery had translated this promise into two real keys, one of gold, the other of silver; in Milton’s description of St Peter the symbolism of the two metals is made clear :

 

"Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, The golden opes, the iron shuts amain."

 

The actual Pope whose personal coat of arms is here depicted was Giovannie de ‘Medici of Florence, who bore the papal name of Leo X. Within the space of a few months, in 1520 and 1521, precisely at the time when our ceiling was under construction, Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther and conferred on King Henry VIII of England the title of "Defender of the Faith". This emphasises, as nothing else can, the dramatic movement of the time represented in Aberdeen’s heraldic ceiling.

 

In the series of ecclesiastical coats of arms, immediately following on the papal coat of arms, stand the archbishops of St Andrews and of Glasgow, followed by the other eleven territorial bishops of the Scottish Church, and at the end of the series are the coats of arms of the prior of St Andrews, the most important religious house in the kingdom, and the coat of arms of King’s College; those two representing the monasteries and other religious houses of Scotland and the centres of scholarship which the Scottish Church had proudly been founding and developing during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

 

The ecclesiastical series of coats of arms forms a simple and direct affirmation of the position of the Scottish Church in the year 1520. The Scottish Church acknowledges the traditional spiritual supremacy of the Pope but, under that supremacy, it is self-contained and independent. The ancient claims of York to jurisdiction over Scotland, or even over the diocese of Galloway, and the claims of the Norwegian archbishopric of Trondheim over Orkney, or over the Western Isles, are simply dismissed as irrelevant. The Scottish Church is an integral part of the universal Church but, within its own national boundaries, it is independent and free.

 

Much could be said about the Scottish Church as represented in this series of ecclesiastical coast of arms but it will suffice to note one aspect of it. Looking along the series of thirteen Episcopal coats of arms, that represent the leaders of the Scottish Church about the year 1520, one recognises the armorial bearings of several of the most powerful families of the Kingdom. The re heart of Douglas indicates Bishop Gavin Douglas of Dunkeld. The red cushions within the treasure of the earls of Moray are the coat of arms of Gavin Dunbar, Bishop of Aberdeen, who commissioned this ceiling. The arms of the powerful Hepburn family appear in no fewer than three places in this series representing James Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, John Hepburn, Bishop of Brechin and John Hepburn, Prior of St Andrews. The fess chequy of the Stewarts appears twice in the list for Andrew Stewart, Bishop of Caithness and Edward Stewart, Bishop of Orkney, and the silver cinquefoils of Hamilton secure a place in the hierarchy for David Hamilton, Bishop of Argyll.

 

The powerful noble families of Scotland clearly had a strong grip, as one would expect, on the spiritual estate of the realm but lest we indulge in superficial and hasty judgements we must notice that in this series of ecclesiastical coast of arms there are some armorial bearings that are much less familiar. These less well-known coats of arms belong to James Chisolm, Bishop of Dunblane, David Arnot, Bishop of Galloway, Robert Cockburn, Bishop of Ross and, in the tow most important sees, James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow and Andrew Forman, Archbishop of St Andrews. All of these bishops are from much less important families than those of the great nobles. This feature of the ceiling illustrates how in the rigidly stratified society of medieval Europe, the Church was the main channel by which men of ability and energy could hope to raise themselves from lowly ranks in society into positions of prominence and power. The classic example in early sixteenth-century Scotland is of course the family of Beaton of Balfour. James Beaton who, shortly after he was figured in our ceiling as Archbishop of Glasgow, was transferred to the primatial see of St Andrews. He secured the succession to that latter see for his nephew David Beaton, who in due course, as Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews became for a time, the most powerful political figure in Scotland.

 

Of the two lines of shields, which run parallel to the central ecclesiastical series, that which runs along the north side of the nave displays the coats of arms of the Emperor and the Kings of Christendom. At the date when our ceiling was being constructed, Christendom was in turmoil as medieval life was giving way to the modern world. The ceiling shows something of the relationship of Scotland with each of the other nations of Christendom at this crossroads of European history.

 

The dominant figure in early sixteenth-century European politics was the Holy Roman Emperor, the secular equivalent and often the rival of the papacy. The ceiling acknowledges the pre-eminence of the Emperor, whose coat of arms leads off the series of European potentates. The Emperor’s shield bears the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. The shield is surmounted by the characteristic Byzantine crown and it is described by the caption : “Imperatorie Maiestatis” declaring that this is the coat of arms of “his Imperial Majesty”. This is the only place in the ceiling where the term "Majesty" occurs because at that time this title was reserved exclusively to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The person who wore the imperial crown at that particular time was the Emperor Charles V. The designer of our ceiling has very sensibly depicted the official coat of arms of the Emperor (the double-headed eagle) and not the personal coat of arms of Charles V. Charles V had acquired so many kingdoms, territories and titles by inheritance, by marriage, by conquest, that his personal coat of arms, with its multiplicity of quarterings and bearings, is the most complicated and elaborate in the whole range of European Heraldry. Charles V bestrode the European political scene like a veritable colossus. In addition to the imperial title, he is the owner of another three shields in this heraldic series of monarchs - Spain, Aragon and Sicily, so that altogether he occupies more than one quarter of this series of European kingdoms. When our ceiling was being constructed about 1520, Charles V who had inherited all the fearful problems of Europe and Spanish America, was as yet only twenty years of age. Over the next thirty-six years, he was to be engaged in almost continual warfare, against France, against the Turks, against the papacy, against the Protestant princes of Germany. One is not surprised that finally he abdicated in favour of his son and retired to a Spanish monastery to nurse his gout, mend his clocks and say his prayers.

 

The order in which the other monarchs of Christendom are arranged illustrates their various relationships with the Scottish nation. As Scotland’s traditional ally in Europe, the shield with the fleurs-de-lys of France is placed immediately after the Emperor. Next in turn comes the coat of arms of the King of Spain - Leon and Castile, one of the hereditary domains of Charles V. Only in the fourth place comes the King of England, King Henry VIII, and the coat of arms assigned to him would have been regarded by that monarch as an insult. English Kings were accustomed to quarter the three English leopards with the fleurs-de-lys of France to assert their claim to the French crown. The designer of our ceiling shows scant sympathy for such English pretensions and allows King Henry only the three English leopards. There follow the lesser kingdoms and dukedoms of Christendom and, in the last place, there is the delightful inclusion of the pot of lilies and fret of salmon of the city of Old Aberdeen. This series of coats of arms outlines the full range of secular authority in Christendom from the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, throught the kings and princes of Europe down to the town council of Old Aberdeen. It was a hierarchical arrangement of jurisdiction which medieval men would have fully understood and appreciated for the medieval world was an orderly society in which every institution had its correct and proper place.

 

The third series of coats of arms represents the political scene within the realm of Scotland. This series runs along the south side of the nave. Placing the Scottish series in this position and indeed treating it separately is tantamount to an assertion, in heraldic terms, that the King of Scots and Scottish nation are sovereign and independent of all external secular authority, even that of the Holy Roman Emperor.

 

This third series of coats of arms begins with the King of Scots, King James V, who at that date was still a minor and had not taken over the reins of government. It depicts the coats of arms of the great nobles and ends with the coat of arms of the town of New Aberdeen.

 

Apart from the fact that the series of coats of arms of the king and nobles of Scotland is given precedence over the Emperor and monarchs of Christendom, the feature of greatest interest here is the crown placed over the royal coat of arms of King James V. In the series of European monarchs on the north side of the ceiling, each royal coat of arms is surmounted by a simple open crown - a jewelled circlet of gold ornamented with fleurs-de-lys. This was the normal type of crown in medieval Europe and as used here it suggests that each and all of these monarchs are subject to the overall jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Emperor.

 

The crown assigned to the King of Scots however is of a different type. Here the royal coat of arms is surmounted by a jewelled circlet of gold, adorned with crosses and fleurs-de-lys, but it has also four arches rising form the circlet, enclosing the top of the crown and carrying an orb and cross over it. This was a new form of crown which was coming into fashion in Christendom. The civil lawyers, imbued with the rising spirit of nationalism,, had been teaching that each individual King was actually an emperor in his own right within his own kingdom. As early as 1469, a Scottish Parliament, in the reign of King James III, had asserted that :”Our Sovereign Lord has full jurisdiction and free empire within his realm”. Such claims to imperial jurisdiction and authority within each kingdom came to be expressed by the use of a crown, enclosed by arches in imitation of the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. The practice became general and the French phrase “fermer la couronne” - to enclose the crown with arches, came to signify the efforts of a prince to free himself from vassalage to a superior. The French Monarch, Charles VIII adopted the closed crown in 1495. It is usually stated that King Henry VI of England adopted the closed crown in 1485. The King of Scots may have done so at an even earlier date because the closed crown appears on Scottish coins of the year 1483. The question of open and closed crowns was a live topic at the end of the middle ages and it is against such a background that we should view the action of Bishop Elphinstone when he surmounted the tower of his King’s College with a crown closed in the imperial style. And if, as seems probable, the imperial crown over King’s College was gilded then Bishop Elphinstone’s assertion of the independent sovereignty of King James IV would have looked even more spectacular than it does at the present day. The placing of the closed imperial-style crown over the coat of arms of King James V in the Cathedral ceiling was similar eloquent assertion of the independent sovereignty of King James IV’s successor. In the caption added to the coat of arms of the King of Scots, the designer of the ceiling has retained the medieval usage of referring to the royal dignity. The caption read “Regie Celsitudinis” - the coat of arms of "his Royal Highness". It was only at a later date that the imperial style would come into use which referred to a King as "His Majesty".

 

The second shield in the Scottish series is out of keeping with the other coats of arms.

 

King James V was as yet unmarried so there was no coat of arms of a queen consort that could be introduced here. The matrimonial adventures of the King’s mother, Queen Margaret Tudor, had made her unpopular so the artist had solved his problem by introducing, at this point, the coat of arms ascribed to a Queen Margaret who was both popular and revered, the saintly queen of Malcolm Canmore.

 

The third shield in the Scottish series is that of the Duke of Albany, the young King’s uncle who was acting as regent of Scotland when the ceiling was constructed. The series then continues with the early sixteenth-century earls of Scotland, and the final shield in the series carries the coat of arms of New Aberdeen, once again to relate the descending stages of jurisdiction and authority to the local circumstances of Aberdeen and, no doubt, also to emphasise the growing importance of the burghs in the life of the realm.

 

The whole ceiling is a superb bird’s-eye view of the political state of Christendom and of the political aspirations of the Scottish nation in the years 1519 to 1521 when medieval values were giving place to the modern world and for the historian this ceiling is an authentic document of absorbing interest.

 

There is one final point that should be made and that is the question of the treatment of the clerestorey walls in the nave of the cathedral. Two or three generations age, when the restoration of our medieval churches began to attract the attention of architects and ecclesiologists, an unfortunate fashion developed which imagined that bare, undressed stonework was the proper finish for the interior walls of a church. It is true some church interiors were intended by their original designers to be in stone, but, where undressed stone was used, as at Aberdeen Cathedral, it was intended that the interior walls would be rendered in plaster and either whitewashed or ornamented with painted designs. A great deal of damage was done to medieval churches in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when plaster was stripped off the interior walls. In many cases valuable evidence for the medieval decoration of the church was swept away. St Machar’s Cathedral has suffered from this fashion and the plaster has been stripped off the clerestorey area of the nave. This plastered surface, with its coloured decoration, was important for the overall appearance of the heraldic ceiling since it linked the coloured ceiling with the walls and integrated the ceiling into the general scheme of decoration of the interior of the building. The interior of a late medieval church was a riot of colour (rather too colourful for our modern taste). Apart from the altars with their painted reredoses and coloured hangings, tombs and monuments were brightly painted, windows displayed coloured glass, floors were enlivened with encaustic tiles; walls, pillars and architectural features were ablaze with colour. For example, in the mid-nineteenth century, there was still some evidence that the pillars of the nave of St Machar’s had been painted in medieval times in broad bands of red, blue and yellow. The heraldic ceiling was intended by its medieval designer to form part of such an elaborate scheme of decoration which extended over every internal surface of the church.

 

As it is, the present rough stonework of the clerestorey isolates the ceiling from any real relationship to the interior decoration of the nave and this isolation upsets the scale of the ceiling, making the mouldings of the ceiling look thin and ill-proportioned. This impression would be remedied by plaster and a little colour on the clerestorey walls.

 

The restoration of a rendered surface to the upper walls of the nave, together with a judicious addition of some colour would improve the appearance of the heraldic ceiling, and instead of being isolated, it would be brought into context with the rest of the church, the true proportions of the work and the colour effects envisaged by the original designer would once again be realised.

 

But to return to an earlier thought. This heraldic ceiling is quite unique. Nowhere else in Christendom can one stand and see at a glance the panorama of the European political situation as it appeared to an onlooker from one particular spot, at one particular moment of time. We can be grateful to its designer, who was probably Alexander Galloway; we can be grateful to the craftsmen who made it, worthy craftsmen led by James Winter of Angus. We can be grateful to the men, over the centuries, who saved it from harm and kept it in such excellent preservation. This ceiling is indeed a precious heritage, of which not only the citizens of Aberdeen but the whole Scottish nation can justifiably feel proud.