s one of the foremost and richest in
Scotland. Its monks were Tyronenses, and the first were brought from
Kelso Abbey.

"By the year 1178 part of the church was ready for dedication.
William the Lion died in 1214, and was buried in the east end of the
edifice, which was then finished. Shortly afterwards the south
transept was sufficiently well advanced to admit of the burial
within it, before the altar of St. Catherine, of Gilchrist, Earl of
Angus. On the 18th of March 1233, during the time of Abbot Ralph de
Lamley, the church was dedicated. The time occupied in the erection
and completion of the structure was thus a little over fifty-five
years, and when its dimensions are considered, it will be found in
comparison with other churches to have been carried on with great
rapidity."[432]

The abbots had several special privileges; they were exempted from
assisting at the yearly synods; they had the custody of the Brecbennach,
or consecrated banner of St. Columba; they acquired from Pope Benedict,
by Bull, dated at Avignon, the right to wear a mitre, and were in some
instances the foremost churchmen of the Kingdom. The abbey was
toll-free, _i.e._ protected against the local impositions which of old
beset all merchandise.

"But," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "the privilege the abbot most valued
(and intrinsically the most valuable) was the tenure of all his
lands, 'in free regality,' _i.e._ with sovereign power over his
people, and the unlimited emoluments of criminal jurisdiction....
Even after the Reformation had passed over abbot and monk, the lord
of regality had still the same power, and the Commendator of
Arbroath was able to rescue from the King's Justiciar and to
'repledge' into his own court four men accused of the slaughter of
William Sibbald of Cair--as dwelling within his bounds (quasi infra
bondas ejusdem commorantes). The officer who administered this
formidable jurisdiction was the Bailie of the Regality, or
'Justiciar Chamberlain and Bailie'--the Bailiary had become
virtually hereditary in the family of Airlie.[433] ... The mair and
the coroner of the abbey were the executors of the law within the
bounds of the regality, and the best thought it no degradation to
hold their lands as vassals of the great abbey."[434]

The monks made a harbour and fixed a bell on the Inchcape Rock as a
warning to sailors; t