Missing statues are vital part of our history
Church of the Holy Rude
Have you ever wondered about the empty niches around the outside of the Church of the Holy Rude? These were designed for statues of Jesus, Mary and the saints and would have been highly decorated and vivid, almost gaudy to modern eyes and absolutely astonishing to our medieval ancestors.
They were all removed in the Reformation, which as you will know was the period in the middle of the 16th century when the majority of Scotland transitioned from Catholicism to Protestantism. There were thousands of such statues across Scotland and the vast majority were destroyed as Protestants considered them false idols, the worship of which is prohibited by the Bible. Needless to say, Catholics disagree on this interpretation.
The same process destroyed their stained glass as well as their rich interiors and contents. Stirling had at least 12 medieval Catholic institutions of which the Holy Rude is the only roofed survivor. Across Scotland there is only one piece of surviving pre-reformation in situ stained glass, in the Magdalen Chapel in Edinburgh’s Cowgate.
As to the statues perhaps a handful survive across Scotland.
Now of course the Reformation was not merely about destruction, it was a world-shaking intellectual movement, which paved the way for the Enlightenment ... moving fast and breaking things! It was about removing barriers between worshipers and God: the Bible would be printed and available (although, of course, having a complex, text ancient available to read by those without a lifetime of learning does tend to lead to complications), and it was also about ending the corruption of the Catholic Church.
It was the Reformation that allowed our King James VI to become James I of England and he was crowned here in Scotland’s first Protestant coronation. These mute empty niches therefore represent triumph and despair, radical change and revolution and a very small aspect of our very complex history.