New history of Arbroath Abbey published

Pictured at the launch are local historian Norman Atkinson; Dr Norman Reid, Strathmartine Press; author Dr Ishbel Barnes and Ron Wilson.

A new book has been published focusing on Arbroath’s prominent ecclesiastical history.

The first history of Scotland's richest abbey, ‘Arbroath Abbey and its Abbots’ describes how religious worship in Angus developed from Pictish Christianity into the new Roman faith, encouraged by the foundation of the abbey in 1178, richly endowed by King William the Lion.

The development of the abbey's estates and wealth through the centuries, its influence on the men and women living on the abbey's lands, and the reasons for the abbey's centrality to medieval Scottish politics, religion and education are all thoroughly explored, ending with a discussion of the Scottish Reformation, and the parts played by the abbots, the abbey and its religious community in that religious and political revolution. It is currently available from Ashbrook Nursery in Arbroath.