Istic orientation are portraits and coins

of early Scottish royalty. For example,

William the Lyon (King of Scotland 1165—

1214) and David I the Saint (King of Scot-

land 1124-1153) are depicted on the Char-

i ter of Abroath in 1320 with a complete

absence of Christian symbolism. Rather,

two entwined snakes (a Cabalistic symbol)

surround the figures. King William and

King David, his grandfather, both have

crossed legs in the form of the Templar/

Cabalistic X mark, and William holds

what appears to be a fruit, possibly a pom-

egranate from the Song of Songs of Solo-

mon, builder of the First Temple. An oak

tomb effigy in Gloucester Cathedral dated about 1250 of Robert Curthose, Duke of Nor-

mandy, the crusading eldest son of William the Conqueror, shows him to have the same

posture (Douglas 2001, plate between pp. 108 and 109). A coin from the reign of Alexan-

der III (1249-1286) carries equilateral triangles in the form of six-pointed stars.

 

The Stewart monarchs, said by the latest claimant, Michael Stewart (2000), to be of

Davidic descent, use as their principal symbols the “Lion rampant” and “St. Andrew’s

Cross.” We have argued that the latter represents the Judaic or Templar X mark, used to

commemorate ties with the Holy Land. The Scot-

tish royal lion, we believe, is a direct representa-

tion of the Lion of Judah (“The scepter shall not

depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from

between his feet, ” Gen. 49: 9), widely adopted

to indicate the divine right and supremacy of

Davidic royal descent. For purposes of compari-

son, let us now examine some markedly Sephardic

iconography from roughly the same time period.

They include five coats of arms for Sephardic Jew-

ish families, prior to their expulsion from Spain.

Notably, the symbols used include the crescent,

tau symbol, lion rampant, tree of life, Star of

David, Cockle Shell (a Jacobite icon) and three

towered castle.

 

 

Bishop’s Emblems and the

Fraser Coat of Arms

 

Another very significant group of symbols

can be found on the emblems of the Bishops of

Aberdeen and St. Andrews. The seal of Bishop

Elphinstone of Aberdeen depicts on one side three

steeples that may symbolize the holy trinity of

Christian faith; they are set atop what appears to

be a structure containing the tablets of the Ten

Commandments. The obverse has a holy man

wearing a crown, holding a shepherd’s crook and

flanked on one side by a crescent moon and on

the other by a six-pointed star. Our interpreta-

tion of this imagery is that all three faiths were

permitted to be practiced in the city. 1

 

The Fraser family, which we have argued to

be carrying Sephardic and Ashkenazic DNA, pro-

duced a bishop of St. Andrews, William Fraser,

who served from 1279 to 1297. His two seals fea-

ture a bishop arranged within an arch with the tell-tale “X” mark in the center and a

flower etched on either side. The second shows the same holy man, but this time in an

“X” posture, flanked by a crescent moon and a six-pointed star, as we observed earlier.

Again, our interpretation is that all three faiths — Christian, Jewish, Muslim — were tol-

erated and practiced in the diocese of St. Andrews.

 

Turning to the Fraser coat of arms, itself, and Fraser banner (1300), we detect addi-

tional resonances with a Judaic heritage. The banner displays six five-petaled strawberry

 

Templar tomb carving showing crossed

legs in Tau /Tough image. Sketch by Eliz-

abeth Caldwell Hirschman.

 

 

flowers in a triangular pattern — a rebus or pictorial pun on the French meaning of the

Fraser surname, “strawberry grower.” Related floral designs are found on an Italian

Hebrew Bible, also from 1300, and on a Hebrew prayer book from Germany, ca. 1380.

The arms of the chief of Clan Fraser, a centered square with three strawberry flowers in

another triangular pattern, bolstered by two angels, also resembles contemporaneous

Judaic images.

 

 

Edward Raban Psalter, 1623

 

The most startling image of Judaic

culture from Aberdeen emerges in the cover

of the psalm book printed by Edward

Raban for the Town of Aberdeen in 1623.

 

Raban was from a Jewish-descended fam-

ily in Germany and had been active briefly

as a printer in London, Glasgow and Edin-

burgh, before coming to Aberdeen at the

request of the city burgesses in 1621. He was

the first printer to work in Aberdeen. The

first book he produced for the burgesses

was the Psalms of David, published in 1623.

 

Strikingly, the title page to this work not

only invokes the name of “the Princelie

Prophet David” but also carries the Hebrew

letters standing for the name of God. These

letters, appearing in the upper center sec-

tion of Raban’s page layout, were the pri-

mary meditative device among Cabalistic Jews. Notably, Raban’s printing of the

Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is without vowels, but using an extended final letter. This

pattern comes directly from the Torah. Further, the decorative border around the page

is Moorish Arabesque in pattern, and the arms of Aberdeen City itself incorporate two

leopards (an Oriental symbol for splendor) holding a shield with three towers or columns,

a Templar allusion. Arabesque motifs from Sephardic and Moorish inscriptions in

Andalusia are shown for comparison.

 

 

Opposite and above: Sephardic Jewish coats of

arms. Courtesy of Harry Stein: Sephardim.com.

 

Kings College and Aberdeen University

 

 

We now want to take a look at the intellectual and educational activities of Aberdeen

and focus on Kings College and its founder, Bishop William Elphinstone. The surname

itself was a common Medieval Jewish surname meaning “ivory”: most dealers in “ele-

phant stone” in the Middle Ages were either Jews or Arabs. Morgan (2000, pp. 42-42)

gives us some excellent insight into Elphinstone’s origins and career:

 

In April 1488, William Elphinstone, then fifty-seven years of age, was consecrated Bishop of

Aberdeen at St Machar’s Cathedral, in the presence of King James III. Unlike many of his prede-

cessors and his successor Gavin Dunbar, he was not a member of a mighty or powerful family,

but was the leading civil and canon lawyer in the kingdom and one of the monarch’s most

skilled ambassadors. He was dogged, hard-working and ambitious.... Born in Glasgow in 1431....

His mother is something of a mystery, though she is thought to have been Margaret Douglas,

daughter of a Laird of Drumlanrig. Elphinstone was subsequently dispensed from illegitimacy

by the pope in 1454 to allow him to take holy orders....

 

His career was not typical of an ambitious churchman. He ran the family estate for a

 

Of the Princelie Prophet

 

Printed in ABERDENE, By Edward Raban,

 

Title page from psalter printed by Edward Raban in 1629 for the City of Aberdeen. The tetragram-

maton uses Torah-style lettering forms. Courtesy of University of Aberdeen.

 

Arabesque motifs from Jewish and Moorish Andalusia. Photographs by Elizabeth Caldwell

Hirschman.

 

time, graduated in arts at Glasgow University in 1462 at the age of thirty-one, then went on

to study canon law there and pled in the consistorial court.... Elphinstone pled especially for

the poor, the personae miserabiles, “not for a fee but for the sake of equity and justice, ” wrote

Hector Boece in his Lives of the Bishops....

 

[W]ith a little persuading from his uncle, Laurence Elphinstone, [he] set off for the Uni-

versity of Paris to resume his studies in canon law. His aptitude for legal argument caught the

attention of his masters and after graduating he was made reader (lecturer) in that subject.

Next Elphinstone passed to Orleans to study civil law.... He returned home in 1471 after less

than a year at Orleans, possibly alerted by his father, still a canon of Glasgow Cathedral, that

the post of official of that diocese was about to fall vacant. He was duly appointed, then fol-

lowing in his father’s footsteps, was elected Dean of Faculty of Arts at Glasgow University.

 

 

Elphinstone next turned his attention to Aberdeen and decided to establish a uni-

versity there. Aberdeen had been a royal burgh since the 1100s and a commercial trading

partner with Danzig, Poland and the Netherlands; by the 1500s, it had a population of

4, 000. As Morgan (p. 47) writes, “A university would add to the burgh’s prestige and there

was no reason to suppose that the burgesses... would not assist financially in its fund-

ing.”

 

At its founding, Keith notes (p. 128) that Kings College employed

 

besides the Chancellor (Elphinstone) and the Rector, who were unpaid, thirty-six persons

[who] were to reside within the college and receive emoluments of some kind from its

endowments. The Principal, who had to be a master of theology, was the administrative

head, lectured on theology and preached.... The Mediciner was the first professor of Medi-

cine to be appointed in Britain. Cambridge did not have one until 1540, Oxford till 1546. The

Sub-Principal, a Master of Arts, deputized for the Principal and lectured on the liberal arts;

the Grammarian, also a Master of Arts, instructed in grammar.... The subjects were: First

Year: Logic; Second year: Physics and Natural Philosophy; Last year and half: Arithmetic,

Geometry, Cosmography and Moral Philosophy.... The Grammarian taught Latin, and at a

remarkably early date... he or one of his colleagues instructed in Greek.

 

The headmaster, or principal, of Kings College was a man named Hector Boece (i.e.

Boethius, a commonly adopted Roman surname equivalent to Ezra among Jews of the

Hellenistic and Roman periods). Morgan (p. 67) notes:

 

Elphinstone had head-hunted Hector Boece, of whom he had good reports from his conti-

nental contacts, as a potential principal. A St Andrews graduate in his early thirties, a Christ-

ian humanist with a reputation as a skilled writer of Latin prose, Boece was teaching

philosophy in Paris at that time. He had a minus point in that he had no degree in theology,

the latter a requisite for the principalship, but a plus in that he had begun the study of medi-

cine in Paris, the very subject that Elphinstone and King James sought to promote.

 

She then asks (p. 67):

 

With learned doctors of divinity on his doorstep, why did Elphinstone lure this stranger, not

yet even a bachelor of theology, from Paris? It was, perhaps, part of his aim to distance his

new university from the Chanonry and its “college of canons, ” which was purely a theologi-

cal college. Within a few years it seems that Boece had not only gained his first degree in

theology, but was running the university.... In spite of a heavy workload, Boece found time

to continue his study of medicine and to write two works, both in Latin, which were famous

in their day....

 

By the mid-1500s, Kings [University] was teaching not only Greek and Latin, but also

Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldean.... The inclusion of Hebrew, as well as the Mid-Eastern lan-

guages of Syriac and Chaldean, suggests a preoccupation with scientific rather than theologi-

cal texts, since Syriac and Chaldean (non-Biblical languages) were the threads by which a

large part of the corpus of Aristotle’s works, as well as unique Platonic and Neo-Platonic

treatises, were preserved, entering Western thought and learning through the stream of

“Averroeism, ” a materialistic philosophy created by Jews and Moors in northern Spain.

 

As many as three centuries later, when the Scotsman Adam Smith published The

Wealth of Nations, Hebrew still was not part of a common university education in England,

yet the Scots had pioneered its place in the curriculum. We would argue that in addition

to permitting the study of Judaic and Islamic scientific texts, the teaching of Hebrew, Syr-

iac and Chaldean also opened access to Palestinian and Babylonian philosophical and reli-

gious writings, a desirable skill for persons of Jewish and Muslim heritage.

 

 

Tellingly, when Elphinstone first became bishop of Aberdeen in 1488, he halted use

of the traditional Roman Catholic breviary in that city. In its place, and with the support

of King James IV, he had a new breviary printed in Edinburgh by a “wealthy merchant

burgess, ” Walter Chapman, and Andrew Myllar, a bookseller. Concurrently, James IV

banned the use of the Roman Catholic breviary throughout Scotland. Unfortunately,

only four partial copies of this work survive. We believe that it too would prove to be a

Crypto-Jewish devotional text, akin to Raban’s Davidic Psalm book. From this overview,

we see that a university education in Aberdeen during the 1500s certainly did not follow

a Christian, Catholic or even theological tradition. Rather, it resembled the “open” schol-

arship of the Babylonian Talmudic academy in Provence and of centers of secular learn-

ing in Muslim Spain and the more tolerant northern Christian kingdoms of Aragon and

Catalonia.

 

As is well known, many intellectual Jews in the anti-Semitic climate of Spain and

France following the pogrom of 1389 nominally or genuinely converted to Christianity

and became clerics, monks and even bishops, so they could retain access to Hebrew

books, which were otherwise forbidden. For instance, according to Gitlitz (2002, p. 475),

“The converso Pedro Alfonso was so well known as a Jewish scholar in Valencia in the

1480s that ‘when a Jew who was carrying a Hebrew book was asked who in Valencia could

read it, he answered, Pedro Alfonso.’ Alfonso was even reputed to speak Hebrew at home

with his wife (Haliczer 1990, 212).”

 

 

What Are Hebrew Letters Like These

Doing in a Place Like This?

 

As we did for the western region of Scotland in chapter 5, we now examine who was

living around Aberdeen from 1200 onward. Several aristocratic families whose ancestral

homes are near Aberdeen we have already identified as being of probable Jewish ances-

try. Among these are the Gordons, Frasers, Forbeses, and Feslies. They arrived in Scot-

land during the first Jewish in-migration, 1066-1250 C.E. The 1400s and 1500s brought

a new influx of families bearing Sephardic and French Jewish surnames, such as Men-

zies/Menezes (originally from Hebrew Menachem), 2 Davidson, Arnot (from Aaron),

and Perry (from “pear” in Spanish [Jacobs 1911]). Perhaps most blatantly, some of

the incoming families had surnames that were actually the names of letters in the

Hebrew alphabet: Gemmell (representing a camel), Hay (life) and Taw (tau, cross or

saltire).

 

 

Elgin

 

The earliest records available for Northeast Scotland are for Elgin 3 (“God’s spirit”

in Aramaic). A list of provosts (mayors) of the town begins with a Wisman in 1261 and

goes forward to a series of Douglases from 1488 to 1530. The Douglas family we already

have proposed to be Jewish. A new surname, Gaderer, then enters the list and alternates

with Douglas and Innes (Gaelic for “isles”) and Annand (Hebrew). 4 By the 1600s the

Pringill (Pringle) family appears on the list, together with several occurrences of Hays

and Seton. We believe the Hay surname (which is common even today among Jews) to

be derived from the name of the Hebrew letter Heh (pronounced “hay”), which corre-

sponds to the numeral 5 and symbolizes life ( hayyinv, hayat in Arabic). 5 The Seton fam-

ily is the one we encountered earlier at Fyvie Castle: the Seton coat of arms displays three

orange crescent moons.

 

Aberdour, Alford, Alvah and Alves

 

 

These four towns are also in northeast Scotland, and their cemetery inscriptions pro-

vide additional evidence of a large French/Sephardic Jewish (and possibly Islamic) popu-

lation. Indeed, Alves is the name of a city in Spain from which many Sephardic exiles

departed in 1492. Alvah is Hebrew and Arabic for “sublime.” In Aberdour, we find a woman

named Bassilia Cameron, also Davidsons, Riddells, Addan, Clyne (Klein), Peirie, and Gall

(Gaul). In Alford are buried persons named Imlah, Tawse (Hebrew letter Tau = 400),

Morrice (= Moses), Benzie (= Ben Zion), and Bandeen (Ben Din = “Son of Religion” in

Arabic). There are seven Templar tombs listed for the Farquarson family. Presumably, this

surname is derived from the common Arabic occupation name Al-Fakhkhar, “potter.” In

Alvah are found gravestones for Sherres (Sheretz), Ferrier (“iron worker”), Caies, Dow

(David), Davie (David), Massie and an Abram Syme (Simon). And in Alves we find stones

for persons surnamed Hosack, Aster (“one from Asturias in Spain”), Gilzean and Mallies.

 

 

Begg (Khazar “king”

 

Dow

 

Cowie, Daviot, Dyce, Echt, and Fyvie

 

At the Cowie cemetery we find some new Sephardic surnames. These include Lees,

Neper (Napier), Lyon (= Judah), Dallas, and Perrin (= Perone). The Daviot churchyard

takes its name from the French form of David; it has stones for Pape (Avignonese Jews

belonged to the Pope and often bore that name, as English and Italian Jews employed by

royalty often took the name King or Re, Reyes), Ritie, Valentine, Diack, Chesser (= Hezer)

and Kellas, among others. Dyce cemetery has several Sephardic surnames; among them

are Reiach (“wind” in Arabic), Low (an Askenazic form for Joseph), Raffan, Abel, For-

bas, Annan, Dalgarno and Jolly (French jolie, “happy”).

 

Echt cemetery includes surnames such as Russel, Achnach, Lyell, Norrie, Ferries and

Shewan ( schon is German and Yiddish for “beautiful, ” for which the Arabic popular name

was Jafeh). And Fyvie has the surnames Barrack, 15 Rainie, Joss, Florance (Florance, Italy),

Castel (from Castille), Gamack, Gabriel and Cassie. We also notice the popularity of

Alexander — in Gaelic, Alistair. 16

 

Cowie Cemetery

 

Leslie, New Machar, Rathen, Rhynie

 

These four cemeteries are all named either for families of proposed Jewish paternal

descent (e.g., Leslie/Ladislau) or utilize Hebrew/Jewish surnames, i.e., Machar, Rathen,

and Rhynie. In Leslie cemetery we find Riddells, Toughs (Tow), Benzie (Benzion), Hay

 

 

and Norrie. New Machar has tombstones carrying surnames such as Gill, Catto (Italian

and Spanish for “cat”: the German form, Katz, though actually formed from a Hebrew

anagram, is the most common Jewish surname today), Singer, Kiloti, Argo and Sherrilf

(= Arab, sherif). Rathen is smaller, but has several Sephardic surnames including Cheves,

Lunan, Shirras, Yool and Esslemont. Rhynie, smaller still, has Symon, Castell, Tocher,

Jessieman and Riach.

 

 

Forbes

 

Roper (Sp. “old clothes dealer”)

Riach (Arabic “wind”)

 

Skene, Tarves, Turriff, Tyrie

 

Again, these are cemeteries whose names are strongly redolent of the Mediterranean

world. Tyrie is likely named for Tyre, the ancient capital of Phoenicia (now Lebanon),

and Tarves invokes Tarshish, referred to in the Bible, located by some in southern Spain,

the homeland of the Sephardim. 25 Buried at Skene, just north of Aberdeen, are persons

named Low, Massey, Hector, Davnie, Kellas, Menzies, Gammie and Tawse (Thow). An

unusual feature of many of these names is their evident Greek origin. One might specu-

late that so much Greek in one place bears testimony to the vestiges of a colony of Roman-

iots (Greek Jews), perhaps displaced to faraway Scotland by the fall of Byzantium in 1453. 26

 

At Tarves cemetery several graves had flat stones and “open book” designs indica-

tive of Jewish burial practice. Names found here were Tough (= Thow), Godsman, Perry,

Norrie, Luias, Argo, Cassie, and Cheyne (= Hebrew letter Shin, with a pun on schon,

“beautiful”). Turriff cemetery also had several flat stones and names such as Chessar

(Hezar), Imlach, Taws, Shirof (Sharif), Grassie (- Grassi, Garcia, Gracia, the ancestral

village of a famous noble Sephardic family from the area of Barcelona), Chivas, and Loban

(perhaps from Lobbes, a commercial center in the Low Countries). Finally, Tyrie

graveyard had several Semitic surnames: Pirie, Lyon, Lee, Lovie, 27 Lowe (indicative of

lion/Loewe, for the tribe of Judah), Shirran, Lunan (Sp. de Luna) and Chivas.

 

 

Skene Churchyard

 

Hepburn

 

Aberdeen

 

We now turn to the population of Aberdeen proper, the earliest useful record for

which is the list of merchant and trade burgesses, beginning 1600-1620. To become a

burgess required social, political and economic standing in the community. It was a

hereditary status, passed from father to son and not granted to outsiders unless they mar-

ried the daughter of a burgess. The names of several burgesses in Aberdeen from 1600 to

1620, 1631 to 1639 and 1640 to 1659 are listed below. As the reader will see, they include

a great many names that are, prima facie, Sephardic, French Jewish and even Islamic.

 

From 1600 to 1620, for example, we find Allies (= Ali, Arabic for “man”), Balmanno,

Frachar, Gareauche, Horne (cp. Hebrew shofar), Menzies, Pantoune and Zutche. From

1621 to 1639, names such as Alshinor, Ezatt, Goldman, Omay, and Zuill appear on the

list. The time period of the 1640s and 1650s sees Arrat, Daniell, Dovie, Izods, Pittullo and

Yair added. By the time of the first Scottish national census in 1696, additional Jewish

and Islamic surnames had made their home in Aberdeen, including Deuran (cp. the rab-

binical family of Duran), Orem, Lucas, Scrimgeor, Monyman, Aeson, de Pamaer, and

Lorimer. By the late 1700s (1751-1796) a list of apprentices in Aberdeen included Chillas,

Gillet, Kemlo, Silver, and Tilleray.

 

 

1696 Census: Aberdeen Environs

 

The 1696 census also sheds light on who was living in the areas around Aberdeen.

For example, in Belkelvie and New Machar we find Barok, Brockie, Salmon, Talzor, Cow-

ane, Hervie, Wysehart, Pyet and Essell (Heb. Assael). And in nearby Daviot, Bethelnie

and Bourtie, there are the surnames Hebron, Gammie, Lunan, Shivas, Shirres, Argoe,

Currie, Yool, Benzie and Japp.

 

Although we have not listed all the surnames in the northeast section of Scotland,

we have given a representative sampling in the lists published here. What is striking is

the very low incidence of “traditional” Scottish surnames (once the origin of aristocratic

Jewish families like Gordon, Fraser, Leslie and their ilk is factored in). The candidate pop-

ulation for a significant paternal genetic legacy in Aberdeen strongly resembles the

Sephardic Jewish contribution to the founders of Colombia, a Spanish colony established

in South America at about the same time.

 

The male and female lines of the Colombian population were genetically mapped

in exacting detail by Carvajal-Carmona and his team of geneticists at the University of

Antioquia (2000). They found an unusually large (16 percent) frequency of paternal

 

 

9. The Judaic Colony at Aberdeen

 

Semitic ancestry, including the Cohen modal haplotype of Jewish priests (p. 1290). Sim-

ilarly, the correspondence between Jewish names mentioned in the records of the Span-

ish Inquisition and reflected in the Aberdeen burgess and merchant lists is much too high

to be coincidental. In both records one can trace the path of Jewish refugees fleeing the

Iberian Peninsula in order to escape the long arm of the Holy Office. If readers were to

tabulate the complete listings in the original documents we cite using the surname touch-

stones we have argued for in these pages, around 50 percent of the surnames would fall

into the French-Jewish/Sephardic/Islamic column. 31 Those marked with an asterisk appear

in the same form in a contemporaneous record of Jewish surnames compiled by the Span-

ish Inquisition. 32

 

 

Aberdeen Merchant and Trade Burgesses, 1600-1620

 

 

Merchant (= Heb. Jacob) 38

 

Further, there is also surname evidence that this exotic population extended north

to the Orkney Islands. The Orkneys were ruled by the Sinclair family — of Templar fame —

and thus it would make sense that they would permit Templar-linked refugees to settle

on their lands. In the Yell Cemetery on Orkney, likely named after the Hebrew Jehiel

(“God lives”) — there is also a Yell County, Arkansas, incidentally — we find, for exam-

ple, a Hosea Hoseason, a Basil Pole, a Jemima Jeromson and a Janet Tarel — all domi-

ciled there quite recently.

 

The Orkney Island surname genealogy listings include Annal, Arnot, Esson, Gor-

rie, Lyon, Davie, Gullion, Holland, Hourie and Omand as “native born.” Patterns such

as these call into serious question the presumption that even these northernmost por-

tions of Scotland were inhabited by persons primarily of Viking/Scandinavian descent.

Indeed, genetic investigations of the population in the remote north of Scotland have

found the gene pool there surprisingly low in “Viking genes, ” though how much of the

dominant Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) is Celtic and how much is Iberian has not

yet been reliably determined; see, for instance, Wilson et al. 2001, also Helgason et al.

2000.

 

Mid- and South Yell: Orkney Cemetery

 

 

Young

 

 

Source: http: //www.cursiter.com/pages/origins.htm  

 

 

Aberdeen and the World: 1200-1750

 

We believe that it was this Judaic community that provided Aberdeen its large role

as an international center of trade from the 1200s onward. Keith (1974, p. 46-47) writes:

 

As commerce went in those days, Aberdeen plied a busy trade in the fifteenth century with

both the Netherlands and the Baltic ports, Danzig and Poland particularly. The Danzig busi-

ness developed sharply after 1500 [when additional Sephardim would have arrived there

from Iberia], and during the next 200 years the number of Scotsmen trading in Poland was

so large as to become proverbial. Several observers put them at 40, 000.... After 1500 there

were Aberdonians of the name of Skene with cloth mills and sugar refineries in Poland....

 

The older and steadier commerce was with the Low Countries. Bruges, Middleburg, and

Campvere were in turn the Scottish staple there — the clearing-house for all Scottish

imports....

 

There were about half a dozen great Aberdonian shipping families— the Cullens, Blindse-

les, Rattrays, Fiddeses and Pratts. Greatest of all the town’s merchants were Andrew Cullen

and Andrew Buk. Cullen was Provost in 1506 and 1535.... Even Bishop Elphinstone engaged

in the overseas trade, though as a priest he must have procured a special licence to do so (! ).

When he was building King’s College he sent abroad wool, salmon, trout, and money, receiv-

ing in exchange carts, wheelbarrows, and gunpowder — to quarry and transport the freestone

from Elgin which he was using in Old Aberdeen.

 

Royalty also was closely aligned with Aberdeen. David II had opened a mint there

for the making of coins and his sister Matilda was married to Thomas Isaac (obviously

Jewish), a clerk and burgess of the city. By the early 1400s, a Sephardic family, the

Menezes/Menzies, had arrived. Keith (1974, p. 67) comments:

 

In the first half of the fifteenth century, a new family appears upon the scene. The

Chalmerses [from de Camera, Cameron, Chambers, meaning “chamberlain”] were still at the

height of their influence when the first member of this house, which was to rule the destinies

of Aberdeen for 200 years, made his appearance in the provost’s seat. This was Gilbert Men-

zies, surmised to have been a son of Sir Robert Menzies of Wemyss. Gilbert came from

Perthshire 40 to Aberdeen about 1408.... No more brilliant autocratic family than the Menzies

ever resided in Aberdeen. They held their heads high before royalty; they lived side by side

with the most opulent of the nobility.

 

Also prominent among Aberdeen’s leading families were the Bannermans, one of

whom, Alexander Bannerman, was physician to David II. Yet another was Robert David-

son. John Barbour (= Berber) became archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357. Keith (1974, p.

95) notes he “was a scholar and a man of business, as well as a priest and a poet... and

above all, he was a historian.... He several times audited the King’s household accounts

and those of the Exchequer.... He twice traveled in France. Both David II and Robert II

gave him pensions.” Another Aberdeen provost, in 1416, was Thomas Roull (= Raoul),

mentioned by Keith (p. 97).

 

Keith also records (p. 104) that an Andrew Schivas was the “Master of Schools” for

Aberdeen. And the same Skene family that was operating linen factories and sugar mills

in Poland also produced Gilbert Skene, who held the chair of medicine at Kings College

in 1556 and became physician to King James IV. Skene also authored the first book on

medicine in Scotland. Even earlier, Bernard Gordon had written an excellent treatise on

the subject (1305 c.E.), and this text was still in use at the renowned medical school of

Salerno (Italy) in 1480.

 

Another Gordon, one named Patrick, held the Hebrew chair at Marischal Univer-

sity in Aberdeen in 1642. Keith (p. 176) informs us he “learned Hebrew from a Jew”: most

likely, he already knew it. And yet another Gordon, Thomas, was making regular trips

to the island of Leghorn in Italy during the early 1600s. At this time, Leghorn, or Livorno,

had a large and prosperous Jewish population, thanks to licenses and special dispensa-

tions by the de Medici rulers of Florence; it was also the center of the coral export trade

with India (gems and metals were the import goods). John Burnet, another Aberdonian,

was already engaged in the tobacco trade with Maryland and Virginia. In English eyes,

the Scottish tobacco trade was illegal. It was carried out behind the backs of the mer-

chants of the Royal Exchange in London, becoming enormously profitable in years when

Aberdonian and Glaswegian traders managed to undercut the state contract with France.

 

A wealthy Scottish merchant and financier in Danzig, Robert Gordon, left £ 10, 000

for the establishment of a school for indigent boys in Aberdeen. Another Gordon from

London, William, was the doctor of medicine at Kings College from 1632 to 1640. He had

been educated at Padua in Italy and studied dissection, which he introduced into the

medical curriculum. He also served as the business manager for the college (Keith, pp.

306, 339).

 

Not all the scions of Jewish-descended families in the North of Scotland, however,

were pillars of polite society. Several were smugglers (Wilkins 1995). In France, an Alexan-

der Gordon of St. Martins and a Robert Gordon of Bordeaux supplied John Stewart of

Inverness, Scotland, with contraband salt and liquor. Similarly, Andrew Cruikshank,

John Sutherland, and Alexander Brodie smuggled tobacco from Port Hampton, Virginia,

to their factory in Gourdon during the American War of Independence, proving perhaps

once again that money outbids politics when it comes to power.

 

Finally we must ask the question: Did these Aberdonian families still maintain social

and economic ties with their ancestral families in France and with other Crypto-Jews in

that country or elsewhere? We believe the answer is a resounding Yes and will use the

overseas suppliers of Stewart et al. shown as a case in point. First, the reader is invited

to take at look at the list of cities with which these Scots had trading relationships. They

range from Scandinavia (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Bergen) to Holland (Rotterdam), to

France (Rouen, Boulogne), to Spain (Barcelona), to Italy (Livorno)— all places of

Sephardic Crypto-Jewish settlement after the Inquisition. Further, the trading partners

used in these cities included not only persons with relatives or ancestors now in Aberdeen

(e.g., Robert Gordon and John McLeod in Bordeaux; Campbell in Stockholm; Farquhar

in Bergen, Norway), but — very importantly — Jewish trading houses which would usu-

ally only trade with other Jewish companies. For example, Jacob Ferray in Le Havre;

Shalet, Vonder and Ferrant in Barcelona; and Rosenmeyer, Flor and Co. in Frederick-

swaag. This, we posit, is strong evidence of a common Judaic awareness and ethnic iden-

tity recognized on an international level.

 

Overseas Suppliers Used by John Stewart,

 

Equally eloquent of Scottish Jews’ ties to other countries are the names of Scots who

served in the Russian military or operated businesses in Russia during the 1600s and

1700s. Russia at this time was extremely accommodating to Jews from a variety of coun-

tries, Poland, Germany, Pomerania and Hungary among them, in an effort to interna-

tionalize its economy. Virtually all of Scotland’s leading families sent members to Russia.

Among the most noteworthy were the Gordons and Davidsons. The latter became

Davidoffs/Davidovs, and both of them have Russian (and doubtless also Israeli) descen-

dants recognized as Jewish. Indeed the two Russian Jewish Gordons whose DNA we tested

both carried the Kohanim gene.

 

 

Scots Serving in the Russian Army or Operating

Businesses in Russia, 1600-1800

 

 

Sir Robert Adair 1791

James Balfour 1770

James Bannatine 1632

 

John Carr /Kar 1618*

Robert Carr /Kerr 1610*

George Forbes 1675

James Forbes 1633

George Keith 1650s

George Keith 1661

James Keith 1696

John Muir 1661

Andrew Murray 1632

Ethan Murray 1632

James Murray 1632

Peter Murray 1632

William Murray /Morea

1636

George Napier 1730s

George Ogilvy 1648

 

 

*Still many descendants in Russia.

 

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