Chapter VII: The Abbey 1200-1248
A more serious dispute, involving greater issues, was waged by Abbot William in connection with certain lands belonging to the Abbey on the other side of the Clyde, and in the Earldom of Lennox. The church of St. Patrick, built on the supposed birth-place of the saint, and regarded as a place of sanctity and pilgrimage, had been largely endowed with lands by the Earls of Lennox. These lands, with the church itself, were, in 1227, conveyed by Maldowen, the Earl of the time, to the Monastery of Paisley.[19] Lying on the northern bank of the Clyde, and sloping to the sun, they formed a goodly possession, and probably on that account were difficult to retain. The wild Highlandmen who inhabited that part of the Lennox were continually seeking, by fair means and by foul, to obtain possession of them, and it took all the power of the Church to hold its own against their devices. The family of Lennox themselves seem no sooner to have parted with their fair lands than they sought to get them back. The eldest son of the Earl challenged the right of his father to bestow certain of the lands which he said belonged to him hereditarily, and the Abbot had to give him sixty merks to buy off his claim, or, as it is, put pro bono pacis.[20] Duffgal, the brother of Earl Maldowen, made himself particularly obnoxious. He was at the time of his brother's gift rector of the church of Kilpatrick, and probably thought the Abbot an intruder in his domains Being a churchman, and thus probably possessed of some skill in the drawing up of deeds, he forged some charters, making himself out proprietor of the lands of Cochmanach, Dalevanach, Bachan, Fimbalach, and others bearing similar Celtic names, and entrenching himself behind these titles defied Abbot William and his convent to meddle with him. The Abbot having found his former appeal to Rome successful, carried his grievance to Pope Gregory IX., [21] who issued a commission to his “beloved sons” the Deans of Cunninghame and Carrie, and the Master of the School of Ayr to try the case between Duffgal and the Abbot.[22] For a time the Kilpatrick rector kept to his own side of the river and refused to answer the citations of the papal judges or appear before them. At last, however, his courage gave way before the threat of excommunication, and being handed over to the secular arm, and in the parish church of Ayr, on the Sabbath following the Lord's day on which is sung Quasi modo geniti, he appeared before the deputies. The charge was brought against him of having forged charters in order to obtain possession of certain lands contrary to his own salvation, and the duty which he owed to the church. Duffgal made no answer to this grave accusation, but “smitten by his own conscience, and seeing the imminent danger to his body and soul if the charges were proved against him, sought mercy instead of judgment” and placed himself in the hands of the Abbot and convent, who, on the advice of the judges, gave him the mercy he sought, and allowed him to hold his church and half a carucate of land at Cochmanach. Duffgal then made formal resignation of his lands, confessing in the most abject manner his wickedness in forging the charters, and betook himself to his church and diminished acres, probably thankful to have got off so well.
[19] Ibid., pp. 158, 159, 160.
[20] Reg. de Pas., p. 16.
[21] June, 1232.
[22] Reg. de Pas., p. 104, et supra.