Aberdeen, Diocese of

ABERDEEN, DIOCESI di. - Located in Scotland (Great Britain), it is a suffragan of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh and comprises northern Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland islands. The see is said to have been founded at Mortlach in Banffshire in 1063, or rather in 1004, according to a worthless tradition, by the king of Scotland Malcolm II to celebrate the victory won over the Danes. But from about 1125 the bishop's seat was at A., today the most important city of northern Scotland, with 170,000 inhabitants, the capital of the county of the same name (5015 sq. km. and 300,000 inhabitants). In 1272 the building of the cathedral of St. Machar was begun, completed only in the 16th century; despite the damage received in that same century and afterward, considerable parts of it still exist, now officiated by the Presbyterians. The diocese existed until 1577, when the last Catholic bishop, William Gordon, died. In the 19th century, particularly after 1826, new churches were built there; on 4 March 1878 the diocese was re-established: today it has about 150,000 Catholics, with 50 secular priests, and 40 parishes. Near A., at Blairs, is located St. Mary's College (since 1829), the regional seminary of Scotland. At Fort Augustus there is a Benedictine abbey (1878).

1907, pp. 41-42; A. Taylor, s. v. in DHG, I, coll. 108-109; The Encyclopaedia Britannica, I, 13th ed., London-New York 1926, col. 48; Universal Knowledge. Dictionary and Encyclopaedia, I, New York 1927, pp. 47-50; Official Catholic Directory, New York 1940.

Cesario van Hulst

THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

It is the third in Scotland, after St. Andrews and Glasgow. It owes its existence to Bishop William Elphinstone (1483-1514), educated at the Universities of Glasgow, Paris and Orléans. The latter, in the name of King James IV, asked the Pope for a bull of foundation, which Alexander VI granted on 24 Feb. 1494 (Fasti Aberdoneses, ed. C. Innes [Spalding Club], Aberdeen 1854, p. 6); the bull, however, was published only in 1496 or 97.

It seems that Elphinstone was the inspirer of the The Scot Act of 1496, which obliged nobles and freeholders to educate their sons in the liberal arts and in law. In 1497 the bishop also obtained the royal charter, with which he assured the new university certain ecclesiastical revenues and the privileges enjoyed by the Universities of Paris, St. Andrews and Glasgow.

That of A. can be considered as the last medieval university. In its teaching it gave broad development to philosophy and to law, in which field it later became particularly famous. In 1500 the Scottish historian Hector Boece (Boyce), already a professor of philosophy in Paris, was its first principal, and he was the first to bring the ideas of the French Renaissance to Scotland.

The university had its seat, in Old A., in the College of Holy Virgin in Nativity, later called King's College, and was also provided with a hospital institution. The military victory of the Reformation arrested its development for some time. A Protestant "new erection" took place in 1560. In 1593 George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal of Scotland, founded, in the new A., a second university, the Marischal College, to which he assigned the ancient buildings of the suppressed religious orders: Black (Blackfriars, or Dominicans), Grey (Greyfriars, or Franciscans) and White Friars (Whitefriars, or Carmelites).

The two universities were united for a certain time (from 1640 to the Restoration), and a project of permanent union was proposed in the 18th century; but their definitive fusion took place only in 1859, after strong local opposition.

Today the University of Aberdeen has 5 faculties: those of Arts (Humanities) and Theology in the King's College, and those of Science, Law and Medicine in the Marischal College.

Igino Cecchetti