Showing posts with label theologian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theologian. Show all posts

Tuesday 4 July 2023

Skulferatu #100 - The Lost Village of Gleghornie, North Berwick, East Lothian


I know, from the photographs it looks like nothing more than a grass covered hill and some rocks, but back in the 15th Century there was a small village nestling here.  A survey of the area in 1962 found some remnants of the village, a few traces of walls and the outlines of a building, but nothing much else. When the village was abandoned, and why, no-one knows. Maybe the inhabitants were wiped out in one of the plagues that swept through the country several hundred years ago, or maybe the village just died a natural death.  People moved out and away, the last of the old inhabitants died and the few remaining houses were abandoned to time and the elements.

 

a photo showing a hilly area with some rocks on it and a ploughed field in the background.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The land where the village of Gleghornie once stood

 

A photo showing a lumpy and bumpy landscape with some gorse bushes in the foreground - land where the village of Gleghornie would once have stood.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The land where the village of Gleghornie once stood

 

A photo showing the remains of an old stone wall with a small tree growing out from one side of it.Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The remains of a wall

 

A photo of a yellow flowering dandelion growing from out of a wall.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Dandelion in a wall

 

The village was once home to the philosopher, theologian, historian and scholar, John Major (also known as John Mair or John Mayr), 1469 – 1550. He was born in the village and spent his childhood and early youth there.

 

Major left the village, and Scotland, during the 1490s to study at Cambridge and then Paris. He later taught at both the Sorbonne and Montaigu College. While in Paris he wrote Historia Majoris Brittaniae, a history of both England and Scotland, which unlike previous histories written about Scotland, cut out much of the myth and magic, and saw the country as being an integral part of Britain. In 1518 he returned to Scotland as Professor of Philosophy and Divinity at Glasgow University. There his pupils included both John Knox (theologian, preacher, and misogynist nutter) and Patrick Hamilton (Protestant reformer burnt at the stake in 1521 for heresy). In 1522, Major moved to the University of St. Andrews, and taught there for a while before briefly returning to Paris. He then returned once more to Scotland and St Andrews, where he was made Provost of St Salvator's College. He remained there until his death in 1550.

 

A contemporary drawing of John Major, taken from his work In Petri Hyspani Summulas Commentaria, published in 1505 - the drawing is quite primitive in style and shows three men sitting at desks, two face to the side and the figure in the middle, while he faces out to the viewer.   John Major is the figure in the middle and is wearing a fancy hat.
A contemporary drawing of John Major, taken from his work
In Petri Hyspani Summulas Commentaria, published in 1505

 

Now largely forgotten, much like his namesake, you know the one – the Grey Man of politics, Major was seen as an important figure during his lifetime and beyond. Some of his teachings seem quite enlightened for the time, in that after the Spanish ‘discovery’ of America, Major argued that the native peoples there had political and property rights and that at the very least they should be compensated for any land taken from them.

 

Despite having travelled and lived in some of the fabulous cities of that age, Major never forgot his roots and he styled himself as ‘Glegornesis’ in the titles of several of his works. He was also known to often reminisce about the oatcakes his mother cooked on the gridle over the ashes in the fireplace hearth, of catching lobster and crabs at North Berwick, and of how the Solent Geese nested on the Bass Rock each year.

 

A black and white photo of a boulder on the ground with a skeletal looking tree growing behind it.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Rocky area near where the village once stood

 

A photo showing a small and nicely proportioned tree growing against a stone wall with a blue sky as the background.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Tree and boundary wall

 

I walked out from North Berwick to Halflandbarns, and then down a dirt farm track to Gleghornie farm. Just past the farm I made my way down another dirt track which led me out to the open and rocky area where the village once stood. There, in a gap in the old stone wall running around the boundary of the land, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

 

A photo showing a hand holding up a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 101) and in the background is the tree, the wall and the blue sky.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #100

 

A picture of a lichen covered stone wall - in a gap can just be seen a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 101).  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #100 in a gap in the boundary wall

 

A picture of a lichen covered stone wall with a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 101) in a gap within the wall.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #100 in a gap in the boundary wall

 

TomTom Map showing the location of Skulferatu #100
Map showing the location of Skulferatu #100

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.036317

Longitude -2.654008

 

what3words: bandstand.passwords.prowess

 

I used the following sources for information on Gleghornie and John Major –

 

Canmore - Gleghornie

Canmore - Gleghornie

 

Pre-reformation Scholars in Scotland in the XVIth Century

by William Forbes-Leith

1915

 

The Catholic Encyclopedia

Catholic Encyclopedia: John Mayor

 

 

John Major of Haddington

E. J. G. Mackay

1892