Cambuskenneth Abbey

Cambuskenneth Abbey was founded by order of King David I of Scotland around the year 1140. It was a daughter house of the French Arrouaise Order, the only one to exist in Scotland. The Arrouaise canons also ran abbeys and churches in land owned by King David in England. The Arrouaise were a distinctive religious congregation among canons regular at the time of the abbey's founding due to their Cistercian-inspired more severe way of life; they gradually relaxed their more monastic practices and eventually became indistinguible from other groups of canons regular.[1] Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it was initially known as the Abbey of St Mary of Stirling and sometimes simply as Stirling Abbey. In 1147 Pope Eugene III declared the Abbey had his protection through a papal bull, a status confirmed by both Pope Alexander III in 1164 and Pope Celestine III in 1195. The abbey becomes known as Cambuskenneth rather than Stirling from around 1207 as shown by papal bulls of the time.[2] Cambuskenneth was one of the more important abbeys in Scotland, due in part to its proximity to the Royal Burgh of Stirling, a leading urban centre of the country and sometime capital. The establishment of abbeys in Scotland, including Cambuskenneth, under David I provided a new influence in Scottish public life by providing sources of literate individuals for the royal court and administrative duties.[