Fothad II was the
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...
of St Andrews (1059–1093) for most of the reign of King
Máel Coluim III mac Donnchada (reigned 1058–1093). Alternative spellings include ''Fodhoch'', ''Fothach'' and ''Foderoch'', and ''Fothawch'' (by
Andrew of Wyntoun). A "Modach filius Malmykel" is mentioned in a grant, dated 1093, as the bishop of S. Andrews. As this bishop is certainly Fothad II, his father was a man named Máel Míchéil.
According to
Andrew of Wyntoun, Fothad performed the marriage ceremony between King Máel Coluim and the woman who would be his second wife,
Margaret. An early 12th-century cleric of
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
claimed that Fothad, on the instructions of Queen Margaret, had submitted to the
Archbishop of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...
, although modern historians are usually inclined to doubt this.
He was influential enough for his death in 1093 to be noticed by the ''
Annals of Ulster'', which calls him "Fothud ardepscop Alban" (i.e. "Fothad, High Bishop
rchbishop?of Scotland").
His immediate successor, according to the bishop list of
Walter Bower
Walter Bower (or Bowmaker; 24 December 1449) was a Scottish canon regular and abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, who is noted as a chronicler of his era. He was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian, in the Kingdom of Sc ...
, was Giric;
[MacQueen ''et al.'', ''op. cit.'', p. 345.] but the next consecrated bishop we know about from other sources is Turgot. The obvious question is, did the bishopric really lie vacant for a decade and a half, did Bower or his source invent Giric, or did Giric actually succeed? The former options hardly seem probable in the context.
Notes
References
*
Anderson, Alan Orr, ''Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500-1286'', 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922)
*Anderson, Alan Orr, ''Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers: AD 500-1286'', (London, 1908), republished, Marjorie Anderson (ed.) (Stamford, 1991)
*
Anderson, Marjorie Ogilvie, "St. Andrews before Alexander I", in G.W.S. Barrow (ed.), ''The Scottish Tradition'', (Edinburgh, 1994), pp. 1–13
*
Bannerman, John, "MacDuff of Fife," in A. Grant & K.Stringer (eds.) ''Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, Essays Presented to G.W.S. Barrow'', (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 20–38
*
Barrow, G.W.S., "The Clergy of St. Andrews", in ''The Kingdom of the Scots'', 2nd Ed., (Edinburgh, 2003), pp. 187–202
*
Lawrie, Sir Archibald, ''Early Scottish Charters Prior to A.D. 1153'', (Glasgow, 1905)
*MacQueen, John, MacQueen, Winifred & Watt, D.E.R. (eds.), ''Scottichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and English'', Vol. 3, (Aberdeen, 1995)
External links
Annals of Ulster s.a. 1093
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fothad 02 Of Cennrigmonaid
11th-century births
1093 deaths
Bishops of St Andrews
Medieval Gaels from Scotland
11th-century Scottish Roman Catholic bishops