alace (1470), "a large and fair court, having a high tower at each of
its four corners";[120] to the south stood the deanery. Aberdeen was
created a city or bishop's see by King David,[121] and the diocese
contained five deaneries, with 94 parishes.

5. DIOCESE OF MORAY

Previously to Elgin, the see was successively at Birnay, Kinnedor, and
Spyny, but without a proper cathedral.[122] Alexander I., shortly after
his accession in 1107, founded the bishopric, but it was not till the
time of Bricius, the sixth Bishop of Moray, who filled that position
from 1203 to 1222, that the bishops had any fixed residence in the
diocese.[123] When Bricius became bishop in 1203, he fixed his cathedral
at Spyny, founded a chapter of eight secular canons, and gave to his
church a constitution founded on the usage of Lincoln, which he
ascertained by a mission to England.[124] Andrew de Moravia succeeded
him in 1222, and in his time (1224) the transference of the episcopal
see and the cathedral of the diocese to Elgin was effected, which had
probably been designed and solicited by his predecessor.[125] This
bishop probably built the cathedral church, munificently endowed it,
increased the number of prebends to twenty-three, of which he held one,
and sat as a canon in the chapter.[126] The Cathedral of the Holy
Trinity was founded in 1224, on the site of an older church with the
same dedication, and the work proceeded under Bishop Andrew's
supervision during the eighteen remaining years of his life.[127] The
_Register_ of the see shows us "Master Gregory the mason and Richard the
glazier" at work in autumn 1237.[128] Of the building itself probably
now little is left, for it is recorded by Fordun under the year 1270
that the Cathedral of Elgin and the houses of the canons were burnt, but
whether by accident or design he does not add. The ruins now standing
probably date from a subsequent period, when there was raised the
stately building, of which Bishop Alexander Bur wrote to the king that
it was "the pride of the land, the glory of the realm, the delight of
wayfarers and strangers, a praise and boast among foreign nations, lofty
in its towers without, splendid in its appointments within, its
countless jewels and rich vestments, and the multitude of its priests,
serving God in righteousness."[129] This description is taken from a
letter addressed to King Robert III., complaining that on the feast of
St. Botolph, in 1390, the king's own b