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"Ascending to the SCRIPTORIUM, or chamber over the Chapter House, we examine it with a renewal of interest and curiosity. Here, as has been repeatedly affirmed, Abbot Bower penned his continuation of Fordun's Scotichronicon; and if we could but be certain of that fact, we might safely feel that now we stand in one of the most famous places of Scotland. Certain it is that Bower wrote his history somewhere in these buildings, and where more probably than in this pleasant room? Doubtless this was the Library and Muniment room of the Abbey; it was free to the Abbot alone; it was isolated, quiet, and in every respect suitable for his literary pursuits. From its window the view is inspiring and magnificent. Standing a few feet from it, you can frame Edinburgh and the Forth like a glorious picture within its arched embrasure. One feels disposed to cling to the tradition, and to venerate this Scriptorium as a veritable birthplace of our national records."
Alan Reid, Inchcolme Abbey: A Notable Fifeshire Ruin (Dunfermline, 1901), pp.72-3; as quoted in Davies, Sharpe & Taylor, "Comforting sentences," (pp.261-2), who dismissed this interpretation as a "fanciful notion".
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