Since Aidan MacDonald delivered the 1992 Groam House Lecture on ‘Curadán, Boniface and the Early Church of Rosemarkie’—still the definitive work on Curetán—our understanding of the ecclesiastical landscape in the early medieval Moray Firthlands has deepened considerably.

Excavations at Portmahomack and Kinneddar have revealed much about the chronology and workings of the region’s major monasteries; toponymists have shed new light on the place-name elements cill, both and login; a new Pictish symbol-bearing cross-slab has been discovered at Logie Wester; and we can more confidently connect the 7th-century bishop Curetán with Rosemarkie. There is even growing evidence that the Book of Kells itself may have been produced in Easter Ross.

In this lecture, Fiona Campbell-Howes will build on these advances to provide an up-to-date overview of the early church in the region. Drawing on her ongoing interdisciplinary PhD research, she will consider new toponymic, sculptural, material, landscape and textual evidence for the early church in the region, including new insights into Curetán-Boniface and his medieval cult.

Fiona Campbell-Howes FSAScot was born in Inverness and grew up in Nairnshire and Moray. After a long career as a technology writer, she returned to academia in 2022 to further a lifelong interest in early medieval Moray. Having gained a scholarship to the MA History (Medieval Studies) programme at the University of Birmingham, she graduated with distinction in 2024.

Fiona is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Glasgow, taking an interdisciplinary approach to uncovering the early medieval ecclesiastical and secular history of the Moray Firthlands. She lives in Cornwall and writes a blog about her research at fortrenn.substack.com.