In its summer visits, Soundyngs stood in front of a very beautiful thing in St Serf’s Church, in the Perthshire village of Dunning: a sandstone Pictish cross, decorated with images that connected the Scottish King Constantine (or Caustantin, son of Fergus) (c789-820AD) with tropes associated with the Biblical King David. Of particular relevance to music in Scotland, one side shows a helmeted harpist – possibly the Old Testament King David – playing a Pictish clarsach.
This early 9th century monument used to sit on a nearby hill, surveying both Forteviot and Dunning, possibly marking an area in which there had been a royal palace in the period when Scotland was beginning to emerge from the kaleidoscope of smaller Pictish kingdoms.
The east side of the cross shows a rider on a horse – possibly King Constantine himself – below whom are 4 shield-bearing warriors, and a hunting hound. The north side has the seated harpist, and above him, a curvacious serpent. The south side has beasts and more warriors, and the west side, a scene with a man and a dog doing battle with a lion (an episode in the life of King David, 1 Samuel 17). What the Lion might be in this particular historical context is now less obvious, but the story comes from a tale told by David as a youngster to the older Saul: kings, it could be suggested, are folk able to protect the weak (‘sheep’) from the strong.
The cross shows how music, interpreted through Biblical tropes, was part of the ideological apparatus of emerging Kingship. Recent research by Eward, Gallagher and Richie (see below) discusses this monument, and its significance to early Christian Scotland, alongside the evidence for there being a royal palace in the area.
For those interested in more modern and considerably more demotic sacred music, St Serf’s church also has a nice wee harmonium from the 20th century: not so kingly, perhaps, but, below, here is a picture of this more modest musical instrument. It’s got a wee coronet carved into its top decorations, although in other respects, there isn’t much to remind us of kingly music!
Further Reading
- St Serf’s Church and the Dupplin Cross – Historic Environment Scotland – access times and information, and link to the HES statement of significance (last revised 2019)
- Gordon Eward, Dennis Gallagher and Anna Ritchie, ‘The Dupplin Cross: Recent Investigations’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 137 (2008): 319-335. DOI: https://doi.org/10.9750/PSAS.137.319.335