Saint Adrian of May (sometimes given as "Magridin") (d. 875) was a martyr-saint of ancient

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, whose

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

became popular in the 14th century. He is commemorated on 3 December. He may have been a bishop of

Saint Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...

Life and martyrdom

Saint Adrian's Priory, Isle of May - geograph

Little is known of the life of this Scottish saint and

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

. He is held by some to have been an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

and

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 ca ...

, with the

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

name of

Ethernan Ethernan (or Ithernan, Etharnan, Itarnan) was a 7th century Scottish martyr and saint. Life and death Almost nothing is known about Ethernan's life. It has been speculated that he may have been a monk of Iona due to his death being mentioned ...

,Keys, David. "Archaeology: Secrets of St. Adrian's Isle", ''The Independent'', 4 August 1994
/ref> who, though he might have been the Bishop of St. Andrews, was drawn to remote locations and had built a series of monasteries and hermitages on the

Isle of May The Isle of May is located in the north of the outer Firth of Forth, approximately off the coast of mainland Scotland. It is about long and wide. The island is owned and managed by NatureScot as a national nature reserve. There are now no ...

(which is out to sea in the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meani ...

) and along the coast of

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

. Later he withdrew from his see of St. Andrews due to the invading

Danes Danes ( da, danskere, ) are a North Germanic ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. Danes generally regard t ...

and took refuge on the island. What is known is that about A.D. 875, marauding

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

s invaded the island of May. They then slaughtered the entire population of the monastery, traditionally numbered at six thousand six hundred. The island was then abandoned for centuries. In 1145, King

David I of Scotland David I or Dauíd mac Maíl Choluim (Modern: ''Daibhidh I mac haoilChaluim''; – 24 May 1153) was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians from 1113 to 1124 and later King of Scotland from 1124 to 1153. The youngest son of Malcolm ...

gave the island to

Reading Abbey Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, m ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, at which point, the island again became a religious centre. The English monks started the erection of a small

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, with a shrine to St. Ethernan. Early building was hampered due to raiding parties of Scandinavians who had settled in

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

. The privations and isolation of the location finally led the monks to transfer the island in some manner to the Bishop of St. Andrews in A.D. 1288. Shortly thereafter, in 1296, war broke out between the Kingdoms of Scotland and England over territorial claims along the border between the two realms. This was paralleled in a legal fight between the abbey and the bishop over who actually owned the island. Initially, the abbey was confirmed as the lawful owner. This, however, was overturned in 1313 and the island was declared a part of the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

. In consequence of this, English forces attacked the island and destroyed the monastery. After the conclusion of hostilities, the island became an important symbol of national pride, and pilgrimages to May became a common feature of religious life for the Scottish people.

Royal pilgrims

According to the chronicle of

Mathieu d'Escouchy Mathieu d'Escouchy (Le Quesnoy, Nord, 1420 – 1482) was a Picard chronicler during the last stages of the Hundred Years War. His ''Chronique'' was a continuation of the chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, with manuscripts of which it occurs a ...

Mary of Guelders Mary of Guelders (; c. 1434/1435 – 1 December 1463) was Queen of Scotland by marriage to King James II of Scotland. She ruled as regent of Scotland from 1460 to 1463. Background She was the daughter of Arnold, Duke of Guelders, and Cath ...

visited the Isle of May and the shrine of St Adrian when she first arrived in Scotland in 1449. He mentions that the cemetery contained the bodies of many holy men, and was surrounded by a high wall.

James IV James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513) was King of Scotland from 11 June 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He inherited the throne at the age of fifteen on the death of his father, James III, at the Battle of Sauchi ...

came on 3 May 1504, and 10 May 1506 on board the ''

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...

''. The royal treasurer's accounts mention that James IV wore new yellow breeches. The clerks of the Chapel Royal sang on the island, and James supported a hermit. On 24 August 1539

Mary of Guise Mary of Guise (french: Marie de Guise; 22 November 1515 – 11 June 1560), also called Mary of Lorraine, was a French noblewoman of the House of Guise, a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine and one of the most powerful families in France. She ...

and

James V James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was King of Scotland from 9 September 1513 until his death in 1542. He was crowned on 21 September 1513 at the age of seventeen months. James was the son of King James IV and Margaret Tudor, and duri ...

made a pilgrimage to the Isle of May. They took three ships, the ''Unicorn'', the ''Little Unicorn'', and the '' Mary Willoughby''. It was believed that a visit to the shrine of St Adrian could help a woman become pregnant. In October 1540 James V commissioned a reliquary for a bone of St Adrian of May from the court goldsmith John Mosman, to be made from Scottish gold.

Post-Reformation

When the

Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was the process by which Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland broke with the Pope, Papacy and developed a predominantly Calvinist national Church of Scotland, Kirk (church), which was strongly Presbyterianism, Presbyterian in ...

took hold in the 16th century, public devotion to the saints—and thus pilgrimages to the site—came to a halt and the Protestant bishop of St. Andrews soon decided to sell the island into private ownership. Slowly the island sank into ruin, with most of the surviving monastic buildings disappearing. Recently the island has become the site of archaeological excavations seeking the remains of the original monastic community which died at the hands of the Vikings.

Veneration

Ethernan

Ethernan was a 7th century Scottish monk martyred by the Picts and believed to be buried on the Isle of May. which became the centre of his

. He was honored in a number of places in Scotland, including

Madderty Madderty is a village in Strathearn, Perth and Kinross. It lies on the former railway line connecting Perth and Crieff. The Gask Ridge and its Roman road lie to the south and the remains of Inchaffray Abbey to the north. Madderty is mentione ...

and

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

It appears that

pilgrim A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on Pilgrimage, a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the a ...

s came to the Isle of May to pray at his shrine for healing. At some point during the Middle Ages, Ethernan got conflated with Adrian of May, whose shrine attracted pilgrims for the next several centuries. His cult is most likely a misremembering of Ethernan from a time when the Picts had ceased to function as an ethnic group within Scotland and ancient martyrdoms in Britain and Ireland were commonly attributed to Vikings.

Life and martyrdom

Royal pilgrims

Post-Reformation

Veneration

Ethernan

References

See also