Chapter XX: Remains
Three sides of the cloister court are standing:—the north, formed by the south wall of the church; the east, by the Chapel of Saint Mirin; and the south, by the old residence of the Abercorn family. The cloister wall, which formed the west boundary, was twenty-four feet from the west front of the Abbey. About the end of the fifteenth century, another wall was erected, nine feet beyond the west front of the Abbey, and extended eighty-two feet southwards. A roof was erected on this wall and the cloister wall, and the inside fitted up for monastic purposes. The south front wall of the Abbey was made a gable to the building. That building was sold in 1874 to the Town Council, by the present Duke of Abercorn, for the purpose of widening the street from twenty-two feet to fifty feet in breadth. [7] The arms of Abbot Shaw, which were upon the interior wall, were taken down, and inserted in the west gable of a house on the south side of the court.
The only building in the court worthy of notice is the Chapel of St. Mirin and St. Columba, of the founding of which in 1499 we have given a full account. This chapel formed part of the south transept of the Abbey. It is entered from the court by a doorway which seems modern. The Chapel has a fine window divided into three mullions, but it is built up, and its beauty completely destroyed. The ceiling is beautifully groined. Two arches dividing the Chapel from the transept are built up. The eastmost part of the Chapel rises, with four steps, two feet higher than the other portion. The altar stood on this elevated platform. Immediately below the eastern window there is a frieze of one foot eight inches deep, between two cornices of eight inches deep, which were intended for sculpture. [8] Three compartments, measuring four feet, at the north or right side, and seven compartments, measuring ten feet, at the south or left side, have been carved and filled with sculptures of a very striking character. Various conjectures have from time to time been made as to what these sculptures represent. Most writers have given it as their opinion that they stand for the Seven Sacraments of the Roman Church. [9] Any person, however, who will read the legends of St. Mirin, which we have given in the fifth chapter of this work, will have no difficulty in recognising them in the antique work of these curious carvings. The reference of them to Mirin is clear beyond all doubt.
In the one on the extreme left we see Mirin's mother bringing him to St. Congal. In the next, St. Congal putting the religious habit on Mirin. In the next, Mirin taking oversight of the Monastery of Banchor. There is after this a blank, and then we have certain sculptures relating to Mirin's encounter with the Irish King, who wears a crown on his head. In the first, we have the servant of the King driving Mirin away from the door of the palace. In the next, the King roaring with pain and held by his servants. In the next, the Queen lying in bed with a picture of the Virgin on the wall, it being the custom to hang such before women during confinement. Then we have the King on his knees before Mirin, and afterwards Mirin received by him with joy. The next two sculptures represent the last two acts of the Saint—the brother looking through the keyhole and seeing Mirin illuminated by a celestial light, and the Saint restoring to life the dead man in the Valley of Colpdasch. The full account of these miracles we have already given from the Aberdeen Breviary. As they are evidently earlier than the date of the erection of the chapel they have probably been transferred with the relics of the Saint from an older shrine. They look like twelfth century work, but it is possible they may be even earlier.
[7] A full account of the taking down of these buildings is given by David Semple, F.S.A., in his “Second Supplement to Saint Mirin.” The sale of these houses occasioned considerable controversy as to their antiquity.
[8] For this description of the Chapel I am much indebted to an admirable paper by Mr. Semple, read to the Glasgow Archaeological Society.
[9] Mr. Billings says—“The ingenuity of antiquaries has failed to discover the subjects they represent.”