Small Churches in Orkney

The Reverend James Wallace, in 1684, is the first to remark upon the proliferation of ancient small churches (generally referred to as chapels in the written sources) in Orkney. He considers this to be a sign of the devotional fervour of the inhabitants in earlier times. There are a few pre-Reformation documents that support the existence of privately owned churches, the earliest of which is the 1425 ‘Complaint of the People of Orkney’ which includes in a long list of grievances, the pillaging of the lawman’s church. The next, a charter from 1448 implies the earl’s right of patronage of the chapel of St Duthac in Kirkwall was under question and Crawford suggests this chapel could have been founded in the mid-fourteenth century when Ross power was dominant since the centre of the Duthac cult was at Tain in Ross. Another is a disposition from 1550 where the ‘chapel of Essinque’ is included in the transaction. That there are only a few mentions of churches in the documentary record suggests that the majority of churches were founded before and were often no longer in use by the sixteenth century. Wallace comments on the ancient but still practised custom of frequenting pilgrimage chapels located at the extremities of Mainland. He also observed that people abstain from working on the holy day of the patron saint of their ‘chief ’ church and that the same practice was adhered to by those who lived next to smaller chapels. These comments by Wallace indicate a hierarchy of churches in pre-Reformation Orkney serving different (pastoral, devotional, and curative) needs within the community.