‘magnificent for the beauty and extent of its buildings and worthy of everlasting fame’ – the architecture of the Scottish late medieval Church

The 2013 Rhind Lectures by Professor Richard Fawcett
3rd to 5th May 2013

Lecture 3: Looking across Scotland
As part of the search for new ideas, some account was taken of the work of earlier generations within Scotland, perhaps as part of the process of rejecting anything that might be seen as English-inspired. Thus, in the small collegiate church of Maybole, for example, decorative details and window designs take their lead from forms that had been current in the thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries, though there was clearly never any intention of wholesale copying of earlier buildings. At the same time there was some cross-fertilisation with secular buildings, as seen particularly in a number of churches of middling scale that are covered by massively constructed stone barrel vaults of types that are also to be found in the fortified houses of the greater laity. As seen at the parish churches of Bothwell and Corstorphine, this was to result in a highly distinctive aesthetic that remained in favour over many years.

The Lectures
The church architecture of late medieval Scotland is particularly fascinating because it is so unlike what is to be seen elsewhere, either within the British Isles or across continental Europe. Indeed, it can be argued that the buildings erected between the later years of the fourteenth century and the middle years of the sixteenth should be regarded as representing the first phase in the nation’s architectural history during which an approach to architectural design took shape that is uniquely Scottish. And yet, for all its distinctive appearance, it was certainly not the result of cultural isolation, but was instead the consequence of a new openness to a wide range of sources of inspiration, including many drawn from mainland Europe. In this series of lectures the likely origins of these ideas will be explored as a prelude to considering how an altogether original architectural synthesis emerged.

The Rhind Lecturer
Richard Fawcett, who is now a part-time professor in the School of Art History of the University of St Andrews, spent most of his career in the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments of Historic Scotland, dealing with the conservation, interpretation and presentation of architectural monuments and buildings. While retaining wider interests, his present research is largely focused on the medieval architecture of Scotland, and especially on the sources of the ideas current in the later middle ages. He has published widely on many aspects of architectural history, and his most recent book is The Architecture of the Scottish Medieval Church (Yale University Press, 2011). He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches research project. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Societies of Antiquaries of London and Scotland. He was appointed OBE in 2008.

Recorded in the Royal Society of Edinburgh.