Note 45 — INTRODUCTION.

In the Chronicle of Melrose, under the date 1175, it is stated that “Laurentius, Abbot in Orkney, was made Abbot of Melrose.” But as his death is recorded in the year 1178, the priest here mentioned by Hoveden must have been a different person, though of the same name. At the same time, as this passage shows that Earl Harald had a hird-priest named Laurentius, it is not improbable that the so-called Orkney abbot, who was made abbot of Melrose, may also have been Harald’s family or court priest. Being himself the son of a Scottish earl, and allied by marriage first with the family of the Earl of Fife, and subsequently with the MacHeths, and having, moreover, such close relations with the abbey of Scone, it is not unlikely that he may have had Scottish priests about his family in preference to those of Norwegian extraction.