The Whithorn Trust explore the archaeology and history of Whithorn and examine its role in the evolution of Christianity and society in Scotland.

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The Whithorn Trust explore the archaeology and history of Whithorn, Scotland

WHITHORN & ST. NINIAN - The excavation of a monastic town 1984-91

WHITHORN & ST. NINIAN - The excavation of a monastic town 1984-91
Peter Hill
Price: £65.00

The most important findings of the Trust's excavations have been the evidence for the evolving organization of the settlement and of the various activities it encompassed. The first settlement of c 500 AD comprised small wattle buildings beyond a ditch where presumably enclosed the church and other principal buildings. This pattern of an inner ritual precinct and outer residential zone endured until the fourteenth century. The original settlers introduced new technologies and the site rapidly developed as a focus of trade and manufacture. The interplay of domestic, ecclesiastical and mercantile aspects elements identifies Whithorn as a thriving community which functioned as a town as well as a monasterium from the mid-sixth century. The urban features were especially pronounced in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, and the distinct urban and ecclesiastical functions were only separated when the Burgh of Whithorn was established in the fourteenth century.

Whithorn and St. Ninian gives a detailed account of the complex stratigraphic sequence, and presents a series of speculative plans and reconstructions to explain the development of the site. A rich assemblage of artifacts includes important collections of Early Medieval vessel and window glass; sculptures, coins, iron-bound chests re-used as coffins, and a definitive group of comb-making debris. Environmental studies include detailed analyses of more than 1,600 thirteenth-fifteenth century skeletons.

Whithorn and St. Ninian was published in September 1997 and copies are available from the Whithorn Trust.
£ 65.00 - (Hardback) + post and packing (U.K. £7.00, overseas £14.00). SPECIAL OFFER: £40.00 if purchased in person at the Whithorn Trust Visitor Centre. 660pp 389 b/w illustrations 8pp colour plates ISDN 0 7509 0912 9

For orders, contact us at: enquiries@whithorn.com.

St Nynia

St Nynia
Prof J MacQueen
Price: £9.99

St Nynia (Ninian) is the earliest named Christian figure associated with modern Scotland. Over the years important archaeological discoveries have been made at Whithorn, his Galloway shrine. However, there is also a literary and linguistic record, which is at least as full, and in many ways as fascinating, as the archaeological.

John MacQueen examines, explores and expands upon this record. His material includes Bede's eight-century Ecclesiastical History, and other documentary sources, Northumbrian, Irish, Scottish and Welsh, together with evidence based on place-names and their ditribution. Winifred MacQueen contributes the first ever English translation of a late eigth-century Latin epyllion on Nynia, the Miracula Nynie Episcopi and a new translation of Ailred's twelfth-century Vita Niniani.

A supplement sets the subject in the context of recent research, and sheds a new light on the surviving evidence. There are 16 plates of sites relevant to Nynia's career.

The Life and Miracles & St Ninian

The Life and Miracles & St Ninian
Translated by C.E. Palmer
Price: £3.50

The Search for St Ninian

The Search for St Ninian
Daphne Brooke
Price: £2.50

The Medieval Cult of St Ninian

The Medieval Cult of St Ninian
Daphne Brooke
Price: £2.50

Lecture 15 - 2006
Ninian and the Picts
Professor John MacQueen - £4.00

Lecture 14 - 2005
Bede and the Britons
Clare Stancliffe - £4.00

Lecture 13 - 2004
A Monastery & Its Lanscape:Whithorn & Monastic Estate Management in Galloway (c1250-c1600)
Richard Oram - £4.00

- 2007
St Ninian and the Earliest Christianity in Scotland
Jane Murray (ed) - £17.00

Lecture 12 - 2003
St Ninian and Pictomania
Geoffrey Barrow - £4.00

Lecture 11 - 2002
The Reformed Church in Medieval Galloway and Cumbria: Contrasts, Connections and Continuities
Keith Stringer - £4.00

Lecture 10 - 2001
Ninian and Nendrum: Whithorn and the Early Church in East Ulster
Anne Hamlin - £0.00

Lecture 9 - 2000
'Imageis maid with mennis hand': Saints, Images and Popular Devotion in Later Medieval Scotland
John Higgitt - £4.00

Lecture 8 - 1999
Whithorn and the Viking World
James Graham-Campbell - £4.00

Lecture 7 - 1998
Saints and Goddesses: Interface with Celtic Paganism
Daphne Brooke - £4.00

Lecture 6 - 1997
Whithorn and the World
Wendy Davies - £4.00

Lecture 5 - 1996
The Churches of North Britain in the First Viking Age
David Dumville - £4.00

Lecture 4 - 1995
Ambiguous Birds and Beasts: Three Sculptural Puzzles in South-west Scotland
Richard Bailey - £4.00

Lecture 3 - 1994
Whithorn and the Northumbrian Expansion Westwards
Rosemary Cramp - £4.00

Lecture 2 - 1993
Whithorn Priory in the Late Middle Ages
Mark Dilworth - £4.00

Lecture 1 - 1992
Whithorn's Christian Beginnings
Charles Thomas - £4.00

Wild Men and Holy Places
Daphne Brooke
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My Ninian
Donna Brewster
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