M. de Dunblan

M. de Dunblan is the way the first known Bishop of Dunblane is written in a copy of a papal bull of Pope Adrian IV preserved in England; the bull dates to 1155.^[1]

The papal bull was addressed to the bishops of Scotland ordering them to submit to the metropolitan authority of the Archbishop of York; the copyist made two other mistakes in the initials of bishops, so it is not totally reliable.^[2]

Cockburn speculated that M. might stand for Máel Ísu;^[3] it is very unlikely that M. was a mistake for La., standing for Laurence the successor of M. at Dunblane.^[4]

Notes

1. Cockburn, Medieval Bishops, p. 6; Dowden, Bishops, p. 193; Watt & Murray, Fasti Ecclesiae, p. 99.
2. Cockburn, Medieval Bishops, p. 6; Dowden, Bishops, p. 193.
3. Cockburn, Medieval Bishops, p. 6
4. Dowden, Bishops, p. 193, n. 1.

References

• Cockburn, James Hutchison, The Medieval Bishops of Dunblane and Their Church, (Edinburgh, 1959)
• Dowden, John, The Bishops of Scotland, ed. J. Maitland Thomson, (Glasgow, 1912)
• Watt, D. E. R., & Murray, A. L., Fasti Ecclesiae Scotinanae Medii Aevi ad annum 1638, Revised Edition, (Edinburgh, 2003)