### ABERDEEN, Diocese of
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 would have been founded at Mortlach in Banffshire in 1063, or even in 1004, according to a tradition of no value, by King Malcolm II of Scotland to celebrate the victory over the Danes. However, from about 1125 the seat of the bishop has been at Aberdeen, now the most important city in northern Scotland, with 170,000 inhabitants, the capital of the county of the same name (5,015 sq. km. and 300,000 inhabitants). In 1272 the construction of the cathedral of St. Machar was begun, completed only in the 16th century; despite damage received in that same century and later, considerable parts of it still exist, now used by 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; on 4 March 1878 the diocese was re-established: today it has about 150,000 Catholics, with 50 secular priests, and 40 parishes. Near Aberdeen, at Blairs, is the college of St. Mary (since 1829), the regional seminary of Scotland. At Fort Augustus there is a Benedictine abbey (1878).
Cesario van Hulst
### The University of Aberdeen
It is the third university 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. On behalf of King James IV, he requested a founding bull from the Pope, which Alexander VI granted on 24 February 1494 (Fasti Aberdonenses, ed. C. Innes [Spalding Club], Aberdeen 1854, p. 6); the bull, however, was published only in 1496 or 1497.
Elphinstone seems to have been the inspiration behind the Scottish Act of 1496, which obliged nobles and freeholders to educate their sons in the liberal arts and law. In 1497 the bishop also obtained the royal charter, which secured for the new university certain ecclesiastical revenues and the privileges enjoyed by the Universities of Paris, St. Andrews, and Glasgow.
That of Aberdeen may be considered the last medieval university. In its teaching, it gave broad development to philosophy and law, in which field it later became particularly renowned. Its first Principal in 1500 was the Scottish historian Hector Boece (Boyce), already a professor of philosophy in Paris, who first brought French Renaissance ideas to Scotland.
The university had its seat in Old Aberdeen, in the College of the Holy Virgin in Nativity, later called King’s College, and was also provided with a hospital institution. The military victory of the Reformation temporarily halted its development. A “new foundation,” Protestant in character, took place in 1560. In 1593 George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal of Scotland, founded in New Aberdeen a second university, Marischal College, to which he assigned the ancient buildings of the suppressed religious orders: Black (Dominicans), Grey (Franciscans), and White Friars (Carmelites).
The two universities were united for a time (from 1640 to the Restoration), and a project for permanent union was proposed in the 18th century; but their definitive merger took place only in 1859, after strong local opposition.
Today the University of Aberdeen has five faculties: those of Arts (Letters) and Theology in King’s College, and those of Science, Law, and Medicine in Marischal College.