Product Code Database
The Abbey of Dulce Cor, better known as Sweetheart Abbey ( An Abaid Ur), was a Cistercian monastery founded in 1273 in what is now the village of New Abbey, in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Dumfries and Galloway, south of Dumfries.
Under the first abbot, Henry, the abbey was built in deep-red, local sandstone in the Early English style. It was founded as a daughter house to the nearby Dundrennan Abbey; thus this novum monasterium (new monastery) became known as the "New Abbey ".
Other abbots included - Henry, 1275; Eric, 1290; John, 1300; Thomas, 1400; William, 1470; Robert, 1503; John, 1539; Gilbert, 1565–1612.
The Abbot of Sweetheart was a member of the First Estate and sat ex officio in the Parliament. The Cistercian Order—whose members were commonly known as the White Monks because of the white cowl which they wear over their religious habit—built many great abbeys after their establishment around 1100. Like many of their abbeys, the New Abbey's interests lay not only in prayer and contemplation but in the farming and commercial activity of the area, making it the centre of local life.
During the First War of Scottish Independence, King Edward I of England himself resided at the abbey in 1300, while campaigning in Galloway. After 50 years of warfare in the region, however, the abbey was left in a dilapidated state. The Bishop of Galloway bemoaned Sweetheart's "outstanding and notorious poverty". Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas (1328-1400), often referred to as Archibald the Grim, became a major benefactor of the abbey and financed wholesale repairs and the rebuilding of the abbey complex. The depredations suffered by the abbey in subsequent periods, however, caused the graves of the foundress and her husband to be lost.
The abbey continued in quiet obscurity until it was eventually suppressed in the Scottish Reformation.
When, in 1633, King Charles I established the Diocese of Edinburgh, he pleaded with Spottiswoode to relinquish the lands of New Abbey, which he wanted to grant to the new diocese. Though Spottiswoode agreed, he was not paid for the lands, and when the royal grant to the diocese was cancelled, the king restored the estate back to Spottiswoode in 1641. He was soon forced into exile, however, so the estate continued in possession of the Crown.
The abbey ruins dominate the skyline today and one can only imagine how it and the monks would have dominated early medieval life as farmers, agriculturalists, horse and cattle breeders. Surrounded by rich and fertile grazing and arable land, they became increasingly expert and systematic in their farming and breeding methods. Like all Cistercian abbeys, they made their mark, not only on the religious life of the district but on the ways of local farmers and influenced agriculture in the surrounding areas.
A 14th century prayer book known as The Sweetheart Abbey Breviary [2] is now in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
|
|
