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Fall Asleep with Frank — The Lantern of the North: A Slow Visit to Elgin Cathedral
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A sleep story about Elgin Cathedral, the ancient 'Lantern of the North' — its quiet ruins, its long history, and the centuries settled gently into its stones. Let Frank's slow, unhurried voice guide you to sleep tonight.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
There's a name that was given to this place, long before it became a ruin. The Lantern of the North.
The Diocese of Moray had a complicated early history. The earliest known bishop, a man named Gregory, appears only briefly in the written record.
The man who initiated the building work was Bishop Andrew de Moravia. It was during his time that Pope Honorius III issued the formal authorisation.
Then came the fire of twelve seventy. The chronicler John of Fordun recorded it simply, without much explanation.
The chapter at Elgin was a community. Each morning, the canons gathered in the chapter house.
In August fifteen sixty, the Scottish Parliament declared the church to be Protestant. The Catholic mass became illegal.
The chapter house survived. The octagonal chapter house, with its vaulted ceiling and its stone detail, survived well enough that it was used by Elgin's Incorporated Trades from sixteen seventy-one to sixteen seventy-six, and again from seventeen-oh-one to around seventeen thirty-one.
Some of the people buried within the cathedral walls are known to us by name. Andrew de Moravia, the bishop who built it, was laid to rest on the south side of the choir, beneath a large blue marble stone.
Elgin Cathedral has stood, in one form or another, for eight hundred years. It has burned.
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