Medieval Benbecula
Medieval Benbecula
by Dr John Raven
Introduction
It would be hard to spend any time in Benbecula without tripping over signs of its mediaeval past.
Traces left behind by people living in the Middle Ages can be found in the names painted on the road signs and in archaeological traces peppered across the island's landscape. The impressive monuments of the influential lords, such as the MacRuaris/Clann Rhuairidh and the Clanranald/Clann Raghnaill, and the church are particularly prominent.
A rich tapestry of folklore further complements the archaeological record.
The Early Middle Ages and Low Status Settlement
The only glimpse we have of the Picts and Scots who lived in Benbecula in the earlier medieval period is the Pictish-style symbol stone which was found between where the airport now stands and the islet of Sùnamul. Around AD 800 they were ousted by the Vikings, but apart from a burial, which was found in the summer of 1808, their main legacy can be seen in the names of some of the townships, islands and other features in the landscape. Over time the Vikings who settled in Benbecula interacted and intermarried with Gaels from across the Irish Sea and west of Scotland. By the 1200s Gaelic had become the predominant language and Outer Hebrideans began to loose their links to Scandinavia.
Archaeological excavations suggest that the majority of people living in Benbecula from the 800s to the 1300s lived in small settlements on the east-coast machair, near to the best arable land. Most of these settlements were gradually abandoned and people began living in larger townships slightly further inland, nearer pasture grounds, and where their descendants lived through to the Clearances in the 1800s.
Rentals show that the tax system put in place by the Vikings also survived. Benbecula was divided into two areas, known as ouncelands, or tìr unga in Gaelic. Each ounceland was divided into four quarterlands and twenty pennylands. The pennyland was roughly equivalent to the land farmed by one farm. Each had access to an equal amount of arable land, pasture, peat, coast, etc. The ounceland was the most important unit as ownership of the twenty farms within an ounceland probably denoted a noble status to its owner. Each ounceland had a church and a fortified residence.
The Church
Christianity arrived in Benbecula in the early Middle Ages. Two main churches were established: Teampull Bhuirgh and Teampull Challuim Chille. To the west of Teampull Challuim Chille is a sacred well: Tobar Challuim Chille. Also nearby, on a tiny islet in the sea to the north east, is the Crois an t-Sleuchd (cross of prostration). This suggests that Teampull Challuim Chille sat at the centre of a complex of monuments marking out the church's lands there. Another tradition says that an earlier saint, Tarran, landed nearby to evangelise on Benbecula. However, the Tarran legend closely follows legends associated with other early saints, showing that the legend was deliberately borrowed to show the antiquity and importance of the church holdings in Benbecula. The building of Teampull Challuim Chille on the foundations of an earlier broch; itself built on a crannog, betrays similar attempts by the church to show the age of their establishments but also their triumph over earlier pagan powers. A similar design can be seen at Teampull Bhiurh which was not built on an island but a massive mound created from centuries, perhaps millennia of settlement and occupation. A thirteenth century enamelled bronze plaque showing a cruciform figure, imported from France was found near to the site. It shows the wealth of the Hebridean clergy and that there were links between here and continental Europe.
Smaller chapels were also built, like the one that the road passes over on the way to Port Pheadiar, Eilean nan Cille, although no remains have been identified here since the 1920s.
The best well-known ecclesiastical sites on Benbecula are Baile a' Mhanaich (monks' town) and Baile nan Cailleach (nuns' town). These were fourteenth or fifteenth-century foundations patronised by the MacRuaris and Clanranald. No remains of a small monastery at Baile a Mhanaich are known and it may be it was connected to Teampull Challuim Chille. This may explain the foundations of three large oval huts that can be seen around the church or a small chapel that was recorded to the west of the church in the late 1800s. Local tradtion maintains that most of a nunnery at Baile nan Cailleach was demolished to make way for the nearby Nunton Steadings. Only one chapel still stands, Cille Mhoire, now swamped by the surrounding graveyard. A bronze bell found on the site may indicate an early date.
MacRuaris and Clanranald
The MacRuaris were descended from Somerled, king of Argyll in the mid-1100s. In the early 1200s their power base had been in Kintyre but by the end of the century they had lost these lands and had become lords over the Uists (including Benbecula and Barra), the Small Isles and parts of the mainland. They were recognised as Kings in the Isles and played a significant part in political events and major battles in Scotland and Ireland, including the Wars of Independence. However, there are also hints that other lineages, or clans, held parts of Benbecula, such as the Siol Muiricheadh.
In the 1340s Ami MacRuari divorced her husband, John, Lord of the Isles. Their son Ranald was recognised as heir in most of the family's old lands on the presumption that John's other sons had overlordship. After Ranald died the lands were split between his sons and brothers, but, by the end of the 1400s, most of them were reunited under the Clanranald. However, much of the old MacRuari lands were lost to Ranald's descendents; North Uist to the MacDonalds of Sleat and Barra and the southend of South Uist to the MacNeills of Barra. Despite this loss of economic and social influence the Clanranald remained prominent figures in local politics and remained great patrons of Gaelic culture into the 1700s.
Duns and Castles
For a time the MacRuaris had contested the overlordship of Benbecula with the clan, the Siol Mhuirchaidh, who left their name behind, associated with the fortified island, or dun, in Loch Duin Mhuirchaidh. At the centre of this dun is a prehistoric broch, but the island around it was enlarged in the Middle Ages to accommodate a number of other rectangular buildings, all surrounded by a two metre high outer wall. The dun is linked to the mainland by a causeway that also crosses a larger natural island. This dun is similar in layout to other Hebridean power bases, such as Finlaggan in Islay, the capital of the Lordship of the Isles. A much smaller and artificial island, or crannog, was built further out on the loch: Eilean an t-Sagairt - the island of the priest. As the crannog is so much lower than the dun it may be that the two sites were never occupied at the same time. Along with nearby Teampull Challuim Chille this dun probably formed the main power centre in Benbecula until the castle at Buirgh was built.
It is unclear when Caisteal Bhuirgh was first built. Originally it was a relatively plain rectangular hall with a first floor entrance and an outer stairway. It is most similar in design to the hall houses which were being built in the late 1200s and early1300s by Gaelic lords in Ireland but hall-houses were also built in central Scotland into the late 1300s. What is clear, however, is that in the mid-1300s Caisteal Bhiurgh was by far the most important castle in the Western Isles. It was mentioned in charters and, perhaps more tellingly, it featured in a list of castles drawn up as a description of the political make-up of Scotland for the Scottish court.
When first built the castle probably stood on the edge of a sea loch, that provided a safe harbour. It also had wide viewsheds over the Atlantic. Excavations in South Uist show that large-scale deep-sea fishing had become important to the local economy and Hebridean fish were exported across Europe to feed urban and economic expansion - the MacRuaris would have profited extensively from this trade. Foreign fishermen also came to use the waters off the Benbeculan coast and would have paid the MacRuairis handsomely for access, protection from pirates and shelter in safe harbours. The MacRuaris could not have chosen a better place for their castle: Buirgh's vantage point gave the MacRuaris control of the fisheries and a good harbour. Unlike other castles on Scotland's west coast, Buirgh also presided over the vast flat arable expanses of Benbecula. Teampull Buirgh was also nearby.
However, a castle was a symbol of European nobility that was recognised throughout the continent and it was very expensive to build one. By building a castle the MacRuaris were also showing off their wealth, noble status and their connections to European culture. In addition to the imagery that castles evoked this is also evident in the MacRuaris' adoption of the image of a mounted knight on the seals on their charters.
Over the 1400s the Continental dependency on imported fish declined, the Clanranald lost access to routes from the Atlantic to their lands on the western Scottish mainland, and the loch began to fill in with sand. The prominence of the castle declined and there is no documentary reference to the castle in descriptions of the Isles until the later 1500s. It is unlikely to be little coincidence that this was the same time as when the Clanranald really re-emerged as a political entity. Nevertheless, the castle's strategic and economic importance never recovered. It is entirely overlooked in all the accounts which were concerned with the military and economic capability of the clan chiefs.
Spread in a semi-circle around Buirgh is a number of prehistoric island duns that were reoccupied during the Middle Ages. The stones from some of these duns, like Dun Iain, Dun Ailean and Dun Fhearchair (all named after prominent clan members in the sixteenth century), were largely robbed out over the1800s and little remains to be seen. Others remain fairly well preserved. The most impressive of these is Dun Aonais. A rectangular mediaeval building with splayed-windows was inserted into this massive island broch, probably to house one of the most important of the clan gentry. The concentration of duns around Buirgh reveals the importance the castle had in the Middle Ages, and the place Benbecula must have had for the Clanranald chiefs.
