Laurence de Ergadia

Laurence de Ergadia (d. 1299 × 1300) was a thirteenth-century Scottish bishop. Probably from the MacDougall kindred of Argyll, Laurence had become a Dominican friar and presumably university graduate before being elected Bishop of Argyll, an election which took place sometime between 1262 and 1264. Although the election was quashed by the Pope in 1264, the Pope gave him a fresh provision to the bishopric. Laurence appears intermittently in the records during his three and a half decade episcopate, but his activities in his own diocese are badly recorded. He died as Bishop of Argyll sometime in either 1299 or 1300.

Biography

Background Laurence is given the cognomen de Ergardia in a late note written into the margins of the Chronicle of Melrose. It is simply the Latin for "of Argyll", a region encompassing (roughly) the west coast of central Scotland; it does suggest, especially if it is meant as a surname, that Laurence came from the family of the MacDougall Lords of Argyll, who used de Ergadia as a "surname" in the Latin documents of the period.

Laurence was a Dominican friar by the time he became Bishop of Argyll in 1264, which meant he would have spent many of his earlier years abroad, and must have received a university education in the process. It is notable that during the long vacancy of the bishopric between the death of Bishop William in 1241 and the election of Bishop Alan 1248 × 1250, the bishopric was for several years under the custody of Clement, Bishop of Dunblane, himself a Dominican, the first Dominican to hold a bishopric in Scotland.

This custody occurred in a period when, urged on by Bishop Clement, King Alexander II of Scotland had become more assertive in the area, particularly in relation to overlordship over its MacDougall ruler, Eóghan of Argyll. The events of that decade thus may have induced Eóghan, at Clement's urging, to send a kinsman to be trained as a Dominican, and Laurence was indeed the first of three Dominican bishops of Argyll in the following century, another of whom appears to have been a MacDougall also. It might also be noted that the bishopric of Dunblane was partly dedicated to St Laurence, after whom Laurence may have been named.

Bishop of Argyll St Moluog's parish church on Lismore; it incorporates the remains of the cathedral of Lismore, at the time the seat of Laurence's Argyll bishopric. After the death of Bishop Alan in 1262, three compromissarrii (voting delegates) were selected by the cathedral chapter of the diocese of Argyll to elect a new bishop, and after the election of Laurence, the Dean of the chapter travelled to the papal curia to obtain confirmation. Pope Urban IV declared the election void on a technicality, but on 31 March 1264, issued a mandate to Gamelin, Bishop of St Andrews, and Richard de Inverkeithing, Bishop of Dunkeld, authorising them to confirm the election of Laurence to the bishopric of Argyll, and instructed them to arrange for his consecration, if they found him fit.

Although it is not definitively known when Laurence was consecrated, he had received consecration by the date he is found witnessing charters of Bishop Gamelin of St Andrews at Loch Leven, namely on 20–28 June 1268.

In the summer of 1274 Laurence was one of the four bishop from the Kingdom of Scotland to attend the Second Council of Lyon, and his seal is found attached to one of the Council's acts, dated 13 July 1274. In 1275 he was named as one of the three bishops chosen to consecrate Archibald Herok as Bishop of Caithness, the other two being Archibald, Bishop of Moray, and Hugh de Benin, Bishop of Aberdeen. Bishop Laurence is named as a papal mandatory once more on 5 April 1281, being authorised to legitimise a marriage of Hugh de Abernethy to Maria, sister of Alexander of Argyll, Laurence's probable kinsman.

On 2 September 1284, he issued a charter to Paisley Abbey from Kilfinan in the diocese of Argyll; sometime between 1286 and 1292 his seal was appended to a charter issued to the same abbey by Alexander Óg, Lord of Islay.