Home > St Giles Cathedral

The cathedral is the High Kirk of Edinburgh, and is a very important part of the city's spiritual life, and has been for at least 900 years. Today it is often regarded as the mother church of Presbyterianism; since the Church of Scotland became Presbyterian in the 17th century, St Giles is no longer a cathedral in the technical sense, although the name survives colloquially. As the name implies, it is dedicated to Saint Giles, who was the patron saint of cripples and lepers and a very popular saint in the Middle Ages.

The oldest parts of the building are four massive central pillars, dating from 1120. Over the years many chapels have been added and by the middle of the sixteenth century (before the Reformation) there were about fifty altars in the church. Today the chapel of the Order of the Thistle is attatched to the eastern end of St Giles.

In 1637 King Charles I attempted to impose Anglican services on the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and on Sunday July 23 when Dean John Hanna began to read from the new Book of Prayer Jenny Geddes, a market-woman or street-seller, threw her folding stool at his head starting riots which led to the National Covenant and hence the Bishops' WarsThe Bishops' Wars a series of armed encounters and defiances between England and Scotland in 1639 and 1640, functioned as a curtain-raiser to the English Civil War. Origins King Charles I of England, who also ruled Scotland, had attempted to impose a new, the first part of the Wars of the Three KingdomsThe Wars of the Three Kingdoms also misleadingly (since the kingdoms were not a single political entity until the Act of Union 1800) called the British Civil Wars are a series of conflicts that took place in Scotland, Ireland, and England between 1639 and which included the English Civil WarThe English Civil War is the period of conflict in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland between 1639 and 1651, and also refers specifically to the two wars ( 1642 1645 and 1648 1649) between the Royalist supporters of Charles I of England and the.

Its many monuments and memorials as well as its sheer size and location has made it a very popular tourist attraction, drawing special notice during the annual Edinburgh FestivalThe Edinburgh Festival is a collection of various festivals in August of each year in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh International Festival The original and "official" festival consisting of classical and contemporary Theatre, Opera, Music and Dance., which centers on the Royal Mile.

Other resources:
Undiscovered Scotland
About Britain
The Capital Scot
Edinburgh Photo
ElectricScotland.com The Churches of Edinburgh