Saint Balthere (Baldred of the Bass) 4 : Saints of the Forth

The previous two posts have explored the original Balthere and his world. Now we will look at the veneration of Balthere, now called Baldred, as it was in the early sixteenth century. We can do this because of the work of Bishop William Elphinstone of Aberdeen (1431-1514) who complied the Aberdeen Breviary, published in 1510, …

Saint Balthere (Baldred of the Bass) 3 : Saints of the Forth

Balthere is a saint of the sea and the coastlands of East Lothian and this post will concentrate on the saint’s places, beginning with the most dramatic. In Alcuin’s poem the Bass Rock, in addition to representing the rock from the gospels, is understood as a ‘desert’ in the context of the Christian ascetic tradition …

Saints of the Forth : Saint Balthere (Baldred of the Bass) 1

For the past three years I have been learning about the saints who lived in my local area. It is a short walk from my front door in north-west Edinburgh to a place in the grounds of Lauriston Castle where I can look across the Firth of Forth to St Columba’s isle of Inchcolm, the …