Bishop of Galloway

The Bishop of Galloway, also called the Bishop of Whithorn, was the eccesiastical head of the Diocese of Galloway, said to have been founded by Saint Ninian in the mid-5th century. The subsequent Anglo-Saxon bishopric was founded in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and the first known bishop was one Pehthelm, "shield of the Picts". According to Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical tradition, the bishopric was founded by Saint Ninian, a later corruption of the British name Uinniau or Irish Finian; although there is no contemporary evidence, it is quite likely that there had been a British or Hiberno-British bishopric before the Anglo-Saxon takeover. After Heathored (fl. 833), no bishop is known until the apparent resurrection of the diocese in the reign of King Fergus of Galloway. The bishops remained, uniquely for Scottish bishops, the suffragans of the Archbishop of York until 1492 when Galloway was placed under the new Archbishopric of Glasgow. The diocese disappeared during the Scottish Reformation, but was recreated by the Catholic Church in 1878, although now based at Ayr.

Historical Bishopric

List of known Anglo-Saxon bishops of Whithorn

ee also

* Prior of Whithorn

References

* Clancy, T. O. "The real St Ninian," in "The Innes Review", 52 (2001)
* Dowden, John, "The Bishops of Scotland", ed. J. Maitland Thomson, (Glasgow, 1912)
* Hudson, Benjamin T., "Kings and Church in Early Scotland", in "The Scottish Historical Review"', Vol. 73, (October, 1994), pp. 145-70
* Oram, Richard, "The Lordship of Galloway", (Edinburgh, 2000)