Dunfermline Abbey

People

• D

  King David I of Scotland

  Founded the Benedictine abbey in 1128

• M

  St Margaret of Scotland

  Queen whose shrine, cult and pilgrimage made the abbey; buried here 1093, enshrined 1250

• M

  Malcolm III ('Malcolm Canmore')

  King under whom the earlier priory existed; buried beside Margaret

• 

  Robert the Bruce

  King of Scots, buried in the choir 1329; remains rediscovered 1818

• 

  Geoffrey of Canterbury

  First Abbot of Dunfermline; former Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury

• 

  Charles I

  Born in Dunfermline in 1600; the last British monarch born in Scotland

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  Robert Henryson

  Northern Renaissance poet associated with the abbey

• V

  Queen Victoria

  Commanded the restoration and enclosure of the tomb of Margaret and Malcolm Canmore

Cultural influences

• Romanesque architecture — the abbey was a fine example of simple, massive Romanesque, surviving most fully in the 12th-century nave with its richly carved west doorway and the flanking western towers built by Alexander I.

• Benedictine monasticism — Dunfermline's first monks were probably supplied from Christ Church, Canterbury; at its height the abbey controlled four burghs, three courts of regality and lands from Moray to Berwickshire.

• Its design reached as far as India — the Afghan Church in Mumbai (dedicated to St John the Baptist) references the doorway and right side of Dunfermline Abbey's church.

Connections

• I

  Iona

  The only burial place in Scotland to have received more of the nation's royal dead than Dunfermline

• M

  Melrose Abbey

  Holds the heart of Robert the Bruce, whose body lies at Dunfermline

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  Dunfermline Palace

  Ruin adjoining the abbey, part of the original abbey complex and connected to it via the gatehouse

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  Christ Church, Canterbury

  Kent monastery that probably supplied Dunfermline's first monks and its first abbot

Discovery & excavation

In culture

• After Iona, Dunfermline has received more of Scotland's royal dead than any other place in the kingdom — among them David I, Malcolm IV, Alexander III, and Robert the Bruce — making it one of the country's foremost royal mausolea.

What to look for

• The 12th-century Romanesque nave — surviving from the original abbey church, with a beautiful carved doorway in its west front; it now serves as the vestibule of the 1821 church.

• The monumental brass set in the floor (1891) marking the royal vault where Robert the Bruce was reinterred beneath the pulpit.

• The restored, enclosed tomb of St Margaret and Malcolm Canmore within the ruined walls of the Lady chapel, restored by command of Queen Victoria.

• The surviving south wall of the refectory with its fine window, and the rooms over the gatehouse, which formed part of the former city wall.

• The tomb of William Schaw, Master of Work to the Crown of Scotland (d.1602), still visible in the abbey.

Standing there

• Entering through the surviving 12th-century Romanesque nave, you pass under a richly carved west doorway into a hall of massive cylindrical piers carved with bold geometric patterns — simple, heavy Norman stonework that now serves as the vestibule to the 1821 parish church built over the medieval chancel.
• In the floor a monumental brass set in 1891 marks the royal vault where Robert the Bruce's bones, rediscovered in 1818, were reinterred beneath the pulpit — a quiet spot that makes concrete that this was, after Iona, the resting place of more of Scotland's royal dead than anywhere in the kingdom.
• Outside, among the roofless ruins, you find the enclosed tomb of St Margaret and Malcolm Canmore within the broken walls of the Lady chapel, restored by command of Queen Victoria, alongside the surviving south refectory wall with its fine window and the rooms over the gatehouse that once formed part of the city wall.
• At its medieval height this was a great roofed Benedictine abbey loud with sung offices and the bustle of pilgrimage, the air of incense and candle-wax around St Margaret's gold-and-jewelled reliquary shrine at the high altar, drawing pilgrims to her cult from across Scotland.
• The open, broken east end carries the memory of repeated catastrophe — most of the abbey burned after Edward I's court wintered here in 1303-04, the church was sacked in 1560 during the Reformation, and across the following century the choir went roofless and the central tower finally collapsed in 1753.