medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Machar (d. ca. 599, supposedly; in Latin, Mauricius as well as Macharius) is the legendary protobishop of Aberdeen. Our chief sources for him are a Middle Scots life in the late fourteenth-century Scottish Legendary and the hymn and lections for his his feast as given in the late fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century Aberdeen Breviary (printed 1507). On the basis of their partial agreement it is thought that these texts derive from a now-lost, episode-rich, and quite fictional Vita of the saint. Machar is supposed to have been the son of an Irish king and his wife; angels were seen singing at his cradle and his parents in gratitude determined that he should live in God's service. When Machar was yet a boy a younger brother was born stillborn; a touch from Machar revived him.
When Machar, whose name from birth had been Mocumma, was somewhat older he was given to St. Columba to be raised. The lad was a perfect adept; when at last he was ready for a life in the church Columba give him a new name, Machar. Machar was first into the boat at the setting off of Columba's first voyage to what now is Scotland and he was with his master at the founding of the monastery on Iona. Afterward, fleeing his growing fame (for he could effect cures), he went off on his own to evangelize among the Picts, both in the Isle of Mull and on the mainland. Divinely prompted to build a church where a river bent around in the shape of a pastoral staff, Machar found such a place on the Don not far from the sea and there established the first church at the site of the future Aberdeen.
Machar did not stay there very long. Instead, he continued his work as an itinerant evangelist. After a while Columba came to him and asked that he accompany him on a pilgrimage to Rome. Machar agreed and the two did go to Rome, though the journey was arduous. There the pope created Machar bishop of the Picts and gave him yet another name, Mauritius. On the return trip Machar and Columba stopped off at Tours to venerate St. Martin. Machar stayed at Tours, where on account of his exceptional sanctity he quickly was made bishop at the behest of the incumbent and where after three years he died, having at his deathbed received a vision of Christ and the Twelve Apostles and with them Sts. Martin and Columba ready to receive his soul in heaven. The people of Tours both buried him next to St. Martin and honored his grave with an expensive shrine. Ever since Machar has worked miracles for those who turn to him.
Thus far the legend. Few on this list will be surprised to learn that no record of Machar's time on the continent appears to have survived there, whether at Rome, Tours, or anywhere else. That part of the story is of course an explanation of Aberdeen's not possessing the body of its great saint. If in the later Middle Ages anyone were so impolite as to ask why the holy Machar appears to have no shrine at Tours, one could always answer that the Northmen had destroyed it when they sacked Tours long ago. Beyond that, Tours will have been selected to reinforce other parallels in the Vita between Machar and yesterday's St. Martin, both itinerant evangelists who attached themselves to senior patrons / guides / companions (St. Columba for Machar, St. Hilary of Poitiers for Martin) and whose combination of holiness and energy led to their selection as bishops.
Today (12. November) is Machar's feast day in Aberdeen and his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Machar's hymn and lections in the Aberdeen Breviary begin here (right-hand column):
http://digital.nls.uk/pageturner.cfm?id=74628770
The (ex-)Cathedral Church of St Machar in the Old Aberdeen section of Aberdeen is a mostly late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century fortified church belonging to the Church of Scotland. It replaced an originally earlier twelfth-century predecessor. Herewith an illustrated, English-language page on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Machar%27s_Cathedral
Single views (exterior):
http://tinyurl.com/2ay3hgz
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/2373946567/
http://tinypic.com/f53dkj.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45135207@N00/4005833706/
http://images.inmagine.com/img/pixtal/pt201/CD201049.jpg
Single views (interior):
http://tinyurl.com/2achq7p
http://tinyurl.com/2c78wy5
http://tinyurl.com/jucc693
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/61736175.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/29am2mx
http://tinyurl.com/h4gjt42
The tomb of bishop Gavin Dunbar (d. 1532) in the transept:
http://tinyurl.com/2bazuuu
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33563858@N00/494943581
Best,
John Dillon
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