Rosslyn Chapel, properly named the Collegiate Church of St Matthew, was founded on a small hill above Roslin Glen as a Roman Catholic collegiate church (with between 4 and 6 ordained canons and two boy choristers) in the mid-15th century. After the Scottish Reformation (1560) Roman Catholic worship in the Chapel was brought to an end, although the Sinclair family continued to be Roman Catholics until the early 18th century. From that time the Chapel was closed to public worship until 1861 when it was opened again as a place of worship according to the rites of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The purpose of the college was to celebrate the Divine Office throughout the day and night and also to celebrate Holy Mass for all the faithful departed, including the deceased members of the Sinclair family. During this period the rich heritage of plainsong (a single melodic line) or polyphony (vocal harmony) would be used to enrich the singing of the liturgy. An endowment was made that would pay for the upkeep of the priests and choristers in perpetuity and they also had parochial responsibilities.
Rosslyn Chapel and the nearby Rosslyn Castle are located at the village of Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland. The chapel was founded by William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness of the Sinclair family, a noble family descended from Norman knights, using the standard designs the medieval architects made available to him. Rosslyn Chapel is the third Sinclair place of worship at Roslin – the first being in Rosslyn Castle and the second (whose crumbling buttresses can still be seen today) in what is now Roslin Cemetery.
Construction of the chapel began on 20 September 1456, although it is often been recorded as 1446. The confusion over the building date comes from the chapel’s receiving its founding charter to build a collegiate chapel in 1446 from Rome. Sinclair did not start to build the chapel until he had built houses for his craftsmen. Although the original building was to be cruciform in shape, it was never completed; only the choir was constructed, with the retro-chapel, otherwise called the Lady Chapel, built on the much earlier crypt (Lower Chapel) believed to form part of an earlier castle. The foundations of the unbuilt nave and transepts stretching to a distance of 90 feet were recorded in the 19th century. The decorative carving was executed over a forty-year period. After the founder’s death, construction of the planned nave and transepts was abandoned – either from lack of funds, disinterest, or a change in liturgical fashion. The Lower Chapel (also known as the crypt or sacristy) should not be confused with the burial vaults that lie underneath Rosslyn Chapel.
The chapel stands on fourteen pillars, which form an arcade of twelve pointed arches on three sides of the nave. The three pillars at the east end of the chapel are named, from north to south, the Master Pillar, the Journeyman Pillar, and most famously, the Apprentice Pillar. These names only exist from the late Georgian period. Prior to this period they were called The Earl’s Pillar, The Shekinah and the Prince’s pillar or Matthew’s Staff. At the west end, another three pillars divide the nave and the Lady Chapel.
The “Apprentice Pillar”, or “Prentice Pillar”, gets its name from an 18th century legend involving the master mason in charge of the stonework in the chapel and his young apprentice. According to the legend, the master mason did not believe that the apprentice could perform the complicated task of carving the column, without seeing the original which formed the inspiration for the design. The master mason travelled to see the original himself, but upon his return was enraged to find that the upstart apprentice had completed the column anyway. In a fit of jealous anger the mason took up his mallet and struck the apprentice on the head, killing him.
It is also referred to as the “Princes Pillar” in An Account of the Chapel of Roslin (1778). On the architrave joining the pillar, there is the inscription Forte est vinum fortior est rex fortiores sunt mulieres super omnia vincit veritas: “Wine is strong, a king is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all” (1 Esdras, chapters 3 & 4)
Among Rosslyn’s many intricate carvings are a sequence of 213 cubes or boxes protruding from pillars and arches with a selection of patterns on them. It is unknown whether these patterns have any particular meaning attached to them — many people have attempted to find information coded into them, but no interpretation has yet proven conclusive.
One recent attempt to make sense of the boxes has been to interpret them as a musical score. The motifs on the boxes somewhat resemble geometric patterns seen in the study of cymatics. The patterns are formed by placing powder upon a flat surface and vibrating the surface at different frequencies. By matching these Chladni patterns with musical notes corresponding to the same frequencies, the father-and-son team of Thomas and Stuart Mitchell produced a tune which Stuart calls the Rosslyn Motet.
The Chapel has also acted as a burial place for several generations of the Sinclairs — a crypt was once reachable from a descending stair at the rear of the chapel. However, this crypt has for many years been sealed shut, which may explain the recurrent legends that it is merely a front to a more extensive subterranean vault containing (variously) the mummified head of Jesus Christ, the Holy Grail, the treasure of the Templars, or the original crown jewels of Scotland. In 1837 when the 2nd Earl of Rosslyn died, his wish was to be buried in the original vault, exhaustive searches over the period of a week were made, but no entrance to the original vault was found and he was buried beside his wife in the Lady Chapel.