Archaeology Notes

Event ID 714329

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/714329

NT27SE 127 2625 7349.

(Name: NT 2625 7349) Site of Convent of St Mary of Placentia (NR)

OS 1:1056 plan, (1854)

The so-called nunnery of St Mary of Placentia, which is mentioned in all histories of Edinburgh and other works dealing with the ecclesiastical establishments of the city, is completely spurious. The only authority for its existence is Maitland (1753) who considered that the Pleasance, in which it stood, was a corruption of the name of the Italian city of Placentia. There is, however, no such saint in the Calendar as St Mary of Placentia, and it is safe to conclude that Maitland invented the convent to provide a derivation for the Pleasance, accepting a ruinous building near the NW end of the street as the remains of the structure.

W Maitland 1753; RCAHMS 1951.