CATHEDRAL AND ROUND TOWER OF BRECHIN. THIS fragment of one of the smaller Scottish cathedrals, with its broad square tower surmounted by an octagonal stone steeple, and its still more interesting round tower, stands on the northwest side of the town of Brechin, in Forfarshire, on the north verge of a narrow picturesque cleft. These remains, along with the well-kept mansion of Brechin Castle, in their close vicinity, form the most conspicuous objects on the wooded banks of the North Esk-here a considerable stream—and give variety to a range of scenery otherwise uninteresting. But the reader of Scottish history will be disappointed if, in the aspect of the baronial dwelling, he expect to see a fortalice worthy of the memorable siege, in which Sir Thomas Maule, for three weeks, resisted the force of Edward. Though some ancient features of the edifice still remain, they are to be seen only in detail, and are absorbed in the reconstructions, which make the castle appear an irregularly built mansion, about a century old. The ecclesiastical edifices have been modernised, too, but not in a manner so distinctly conspicuous. The nave-the only roofed portion of the body of the Cathedral-has suffered the usual calamities incident to its being converted into a commodious galleried, unadorned parish church. In Grose's view, some buildings of a mixed character—rather abutments than transepts-appear to have been attached to the sides of the nave. But we have the history of their fate in the statement that, "in 1806, the north and south transepts were removed, new aisles were built on each side of the nave, and one roof made to cover the whole, thus totally eclipsing the beautiful windows in the nave, and covering up the handsome carved cornice of the nail-headed quatrefoil description, which ran under the eaves of the nave." * Some fragments of the choir, with the remains of lancetshaped windows, still remain, apparently in no more advanced state of decay than that in which they appear in GROSE'S "Antiquities." The square tower is a somewhat heavy specimen of the early English style, and the octagonal stone turret tops of both the towers, with their small dormer windows, as well as the crow-steps in the gavil, are peculiarities of the more modern developments of ecclesiastical architecture in Scotland. The richly-decorated western window-slightly flamboyant, which is the chief remaining ornament of the church-also bears the character of an age later than that in which even the square tower was built. The round tower slightly tapers upwards; but it has a decided inclination in one direction, so that, while the side towards the church is perpendicular, the other forms an obtuse angle with the horizontal line. It is on good authority reported that, in storms of wind, the huge mass is seen visibly to sway from side to side. The original doorway, raised several courses from the ground, has been long built up, the stones having been removed to admit of the excavation noticed further on. The usual entrance to the tower is by a covered passage through the church. The further description of this curious edifice naturally connects itself with an inquiry as to the probable period of its erection. This is, indeed, a matter of very considerable archæological interest, for no small portion of the great battle regarding the age and purpose of those mysterious buildings, so plentiful throughout Ireland, but of which there are just two examples in Scotland, has been fought around the tower of Brechin. The wildest theories of antiquarian speculation have, * Black's History of Brechin, 254. CATHEDRAL AND ROUND TOWER OF BRECHIN, 1-4. + Ibid., 259. 2 CATHEDRAL AND ROUND TOWER OF BRECHIN. from the days of Giraldus Cambrensis to those of O'Brien, hovered round these singular buildings; and there is scarcely a strange purpose suggestible by the fertile brain of speculative mankind, to which they have not been confidently devoted. Instead of the legitimate method of inquiry,—which, from the necessary tendency of all the produce of human industry towards decay, attributes no greater antiquity to a building than the latest period at which it can naturally and consistently be supposed to have been erected, those who call it older requiring to show reasons for holding it to be so, the method adopted as to the Round Towers has generally been, to take at once some age far beyond the period of ascertained history, and to call upon all impugners of their claims to so remote an antiquity, for specific evidence of their non-existence in an age not within the reach of archæological evidence. The absence of inscriptions-the plainness of the edifices—and the paucity of symbol or ornament-have afforded much opportunity for this kind of dogmatism. Upon one, at least, of the Irish towers, however, that of Donaghmore, there is a rude crucifix; and it will be seen that the Tower of Brechin exhibits a crucifix carved in low relief above the doorway, and two lateral figures, still exhibiting through the decaying effect of time and weather, characteristics of their having been originally images of saints. These undoubtedly Christian symbols have been treated in different fashion by disputants of different temper. The bold have triumphantly adduced them as evidence that the Christian symbols are older than Christianity, while the more timid have maintained that the ornaments are additions made to the buildings at a later period. The former argument must be left to its own strength; the latter is well answered by the architectural appearance of the Brechin Tower, where every thing but the conical roof has the appearance of being part of one original design, and where it is but barely possible that, with great exertion, a part of the lower range could have been removed for the incrustation of these Christian symbols, at a cost which might have been sufficient to erect a separate tower. Among the other purposes to which these stony cylinders have been attributed, we find respectively the religious rites of the followers of Budha and the Druids, and the early worship of fire and the sun. They have been identified with minarets for calling the people to prayer; they are supposed by some to have been penitentiary prisons, and, by others, monumental tombs; while at least one daring inquirer has scandalised them as representatives of the material object of Phalic worship, while he attributes to Solomon's Temple a similar origin and purpose. They have been found, under the name of "Celestial Indices," to have been the observatories of ancient astronomers, whose knowledge of the heavenly bodies was as far beyond that of later degenerate ages, as they were nearer the first dawn of human knowledge.† Some writers have maintained that they were raised by the Danes, others by the Phoenicians. The Brehon lawgiver was a kind of person with whom they could not fail to be associated; and the similarity of his title to the name of Brechin, was a coincidence too valuable to be overlooked. The example of St Simeon Styletes naturally suggested that the towers might have served the purpose of lifting ambitious anchorites above the unholy earth. That they should have been used for the purpose which their appearance naturally indicates—that of belfries-was too simple a theory to receive much toleration. It has been stated, that while several of them have a row of four or six windows, of considerable size, near the top, others have but small loopholes, through which the sound would have been imperfectly communicated; and it has been confidently maintained that they are all too narrow to admit of the swing of a bell. Unfortunately for this latter statement, the Round Tower at Abernethy at present holds the bell of the parish *The Round Towers of Ireland, or the Mysteries of Free Masonry, of Sabaism, and of Budhism, for the first time unveiled. By Henry O'Brien, Esq. B.A. + See Moore's Hist. of Ireland, i. 30. CATHEDRAL AND ROUND TOWER OF BRECHIN. 3 church, while that of Brechin contained, until about fifty years ago, the bells which now more conveniently hang in the neighbouring steeple.* Nor are we without evidence of their having been so used in Ireland. One writer says, "There was no doubt but the Round Tower at Ardmore was used for a belfray, there being, towards the top, not only four opposite windows to let out the sound, but also three pieces of oak still remaining, in which the bell was hung; there were also two channels cut in the cill of the door where the rope came out, the ringer standing below the door on the outside."† A passage in the Annals of the Four Masters, describing the destruction of the church of Doun, with its campanilis or belfry, is confidently said to apply to one of these towers, of which the remains were removed in 1789.§ Human bones have been found in the earth, both within and close around these remnants of ancient architecture, a circumstance readily accounted for by the mere fact of their being ecclesiastical edifices. A rumour having, however, arisen, that sepulchral urns, and other indications of ante-Christian sepulture, had been found connected with their foundations, it was resolved to make some investigations beneath the Tower of Brechin, which were not, however, conducted with any such glittering expectations as those which prompted an enthusiast to dig beneath the foundation of its neighbour at Abernethy, with the assurance of finding the golden cradle in which the children of the Pictish kings were rocked. Under the auspices of the intelligent historian of Brechin, an excavation took place, to a considerable depth, within the area of the Tower; very praiseworthy precautions being adopted for keeping the building closed in the absence of the confidential workman employed in the operation, "so as to prevent any person," says Mr Black, "introducing modern antiques for our annoyance." The earth was carefully sifted and preserved. In his letter to Mr Petrie, of 13th April 1842, Mr Black fully details every item of extraneous matter found in the earth, so far as it was travelled, and the following conclusion contains a brief account, as well of the various articles discovered, as of his opinion how they found their way thither. "My opinion is, the slates, glass, wood, and iron, had been tossed in at what in Scotland is called the Reformation, when our Scotch apostle, John Knox, drove your Roman Catholic apostles from what he called their rookeries; — that the bones and great part of the animal and vegetable matter had been carried to the top of the Tower by the rooks and jackdaws, for building their nests and feeding their young, and had tumbled from thence to the bottom of the Tower;-that the peats and various stuff had been thrown, at various times, into the bottom of the Tower, as a general receptacle for all refuse; and that the fragments of urns or jars are just the remains of ordinary articles belonging to the different kirk officers." || Uniform as are the general features of these buildings, there are more perplexing varieties in their details than could have been well anticipated in an architecture so simple. That they were of great antiquity was not to be doubted. The description of Barri, commonly called Giraldus Cambrensis, carries them back to the twelfth century. It has been remarked that Barri speaks of them as if they were in use in his own day for ecclesiastical purposes;¶ but it must be remembered that he attributes their origin to the Danes, and makes other allusions which show that, even in his day, many of them were antiquities. On the other hand, though in the instance of Brechin the New Statistical Account. Forfarshire, 133. + Smith's Hist. of Waterford,-Quoted, Ledwich Antiq. of Ireland, 295. "Dunum combustum totum cum sua ecclesia lapidea et cum suo campanile, fulmine."-O'Conner. Rer. Hib. Scrip. iii. 559. § Reeve's Eccles. Ant. 41, 230. || Petrie's Round Towers, 95. "Turres ecclesiasticas quæ more patrio arctæ sunt et altæ, necnon et rotundæ." 4 CATHEDRAL AND ROUND TOWER OF BRECHIN. curve over the door is cut into a block of solid stone, others indicate an acquaintance with the structure both of the round and the pointed arch; and these types, along with the Christian emblems already alluded to, show where a limitation must be sought to their age. On many of them, moreover, including both the Scottish specimens, there are monumental details which, if not purely Norman, have unequivocal symptoms of a cognate origin. All these matters having been fully and minutely analysed by Mr Petrie, he came, in his instructive Prize Essay, published by the Royal Academy of Dublin, to the following conclusions: "1, That the towers are of Christian and ecclesiastical origin, and were erected at various periods between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. 2d, That they were designed to answer, at least a twofold use,—namely, to serve as belfries, and as keeps or places of strength in which the sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables, were deposited, and into which the ecclesiastics to whom they belonged could retire for security in cases of sudden predatory attack. 3d, That they were probably also used, when occasion required, as beacons or watch-towers." In support of the first and main conjecture, he states that," The towers are never found unconnected with ancient ecclesiastical foundations." This argument is not insuperable, as it is known to have been the practice of the first missionaries to plant their churches on the sites of Pagan temples; but it is farther stated that—" Their architectural styles exhibit no features or peculiarities not equally found in the original churches with which they are locally connected, when such remain.” When we keep in view the early progress of Christianity in Ireland, and connect it with the circumstance that, in the twelfth century, a religious house of the Culdees,—who, having had their origin there, radiated throughout Scotland from the central institution in Iona,-existed in Brechin,† we are brought by natural steps to the simple fact, that the model of the ecclesiastical edifices of the parent country was adopted by the colony. "There can be no hesitation," says a late writer, fixing the middle of the twelfth century as nearly about the date of the Abernethy Tower, and a full century nearer our own time as that of the Tower at Brechin. ‡" But we have as little hesitation in pronouncing the Tower of Brechin to be fully as old as the twelfth century. "in The history of the See, which was founded about the year 1150, does not connect it with any remarkable events.§ * Petrie's Round Towers. Trans. R. Irish Ac. xx. 5. + Keith's Catalogue, 156. Descriptive Notices of Parochial and Collegiate Churches of Scotland, xxix. § Keith's Cat., 156 et seq. Copies of many of the muniments of the Bishopric, including bulls and charters, are in the Hutton MSS. Ad. Lib. |