Browse Items (515 total)
Between the 1520s and the 1550s the Roman Catholic authorities in Fife severely punished a number of Protestant sympathisers. No less than four…
The bishops of St Andrews had for centuries claimed to be the most important churchmen in Scotland. In 1472 their special status was officially…
Like many religious orders, the Franciscans (or grey friars) grew slightly less strict over time. This concerned some people, and led to the…
In the early 1430s a doctor named Pavel Kravar (sometimes known as Paul Craw in Scotland) was burned for heresy in the centre of St Andrews. Kravar…
During the late Middle Ages universities increasingly took over responsiblity for higher education. In 1410 a group of churchmen established a…
In the 1360s King David II spent a large amount of money rebuilding the church at St Monans. The king did this because in 1346 he had survived being…
In 1349 the Black Death (probably a severe epidemic of bubonic plague) reached Fife. Churchmen were particularly likely to catch the disease as they…
During the thirteenth century some people felt that monasteries had become too wealthy. In response new religious orders of friars were created. The…
The origins of the close connection between St Andrew and the people of Scotland go back into the early Middle Ages. However, during the wars between…
Queen Margaret (the wife of Malcolm III) seems to have been regarded as a saint by the residents of Fife soon after her death in 1093. Miracles were…
In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council officially declared the Roman Catholic Church’s belief in the doctrine of purgatory. This was the idea that most…
A plot of land on the south side of the Nethergate in Crail has long been known as ‘The Nunnery’. However, written records suggest that there was at…
By the late eighteenth century there was a tradition in Crail that there had once been a medieval priory by the sea, a little to the south of what is…
(1) Engraving of the Old Church of St Serf’s, 1853 (Source: William Muir, ed, Notices of the Local Records of Dysart (Glasgow: Maitland Club 1853), p. 22.The Baptist Chapel on the north side of the High Street in Newburgh was built in the early 1880s. It replaced an earlier chapel on a wynd on the south…