Missal of Arbuthnott

Missal of Arbuthnott

A manuscript Scottish missal or mass-book, written in 1491 by James Sibbald, priest of Arbuthnott, in Scotland, for use in that church. After the Reformation, it, together with two other MSS. written by the same hand, became the property of the family of Arbuthnott, in whose possession it remained until 1897, when it was purchased by Mr. Archibald Coats of Paisley, who presented it to the museum of that town. The MS. is written on vellum, in large Gothic characters, with numerous miniatures, illuminated capitals and borders. It consists of 244 leaves, and is complete. It contains also a full-length painting of St. Ternan, the apostle of the Picts, and patron saint of the church of Arbuthnott. It is of unique historical and liturgical interest, as being the only missal of the Scottish Use now extant. It commences with a leaf of "Prayers before Mass," then follows a "Form of Excommunication" in Scottish and Latin, succeeded by three leaves of rubrics and the calendar. The Mass itself is mainly that of Sarum with some variations, and of the typical editions of the Sarum missal, that of 1498 agrees most closely with it. The Sarum Rite, as emended by St. Osmund of Salisbury in the eleventh century, after having been adopted in most of the English dioceses, penetrated into Scotland early in the twelfth century, and continued in use there up to the Reformation. The differences between the Arbuthnott and the Sarum missals lie chiefly in the Sanctorale, Masses for certain saints being found in the one which are not in the other. The Arbuthnott missal contains also a number of Sequences, not to be found in either the Sarum, York, or Hereford missals, nor yet in the MS. troparium in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

FORBES (ed.), Liber Ecclesioe Beati Terrenani de Arbuthnott (Burntisland, 1864); Kalendars of Scottish Saints (Edinburgh, 1872); INNES, Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland (Aberdeen, 1853); SPALDING, Of the Salisbury Liturgy used in Scotland in Miscellany (Edinburgh), II.

E.E. GREEN