The Dominicans arrived in Oxford in 1221, in Cambridge in 1238, and soon had priories in the major centres of population in England. It was from England that the first band of Friars Preachers came to Scotland, led by a Scot, Clement, who had studied in Oxford, and who would eventually become bishop of Dunblane and one of the best known and influential Dominicans of his time.

Soon the brethren spread to the major centres of population in Scotland, especially the cathedral cities. There were as yet no universities in Scotland, but priories were founded, which became centres for preaching and teaching.

No great body of documentation regarding the life and work of the friars exists, but we can easily assume that the basic structure of Dominican life as laid down would have been followed and that these priories became the centres of preaching and teaching.

The Order, in whatever country it was established, became involved not only in the life and culture of the country where the friars lived and worked, but also, inevitably, in its politics. This was very much the case in Scotland, which for a long time had lived in a state of tension, and often in a state of war, with England. Very soon the friars found themselves drawn into Scotland’s struggle for independence. At first Scotland was part of the English province, with some limited autonomy. In 1349, soon after the successful outcome of the War of Independence under King Robert I (Bruce) Scotland became a vicariate, and in 1481 became an independent province.

The Dominicans in Glasgow are part of the wider presence of the Order in Scotland. Glasgow has had a long history as an important ecclesiastical centre. The British bishop Kentigern (more usually known by his pet name of Mungo), who became the patron saint of the city, established his episcopal see in Glasgow, on an eminence on the northern side of the city, above the river. Other, unreliable, sources state that there had already been an earlier ecclesiastical centre in that place, founded by Ninian, the British saint associated with Whithorn, in Galloway. Little is known of this centre until the beginning of the 13th Century, when the diocese was re-established by King David. In 1492 it was raised to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese, becoming the most important ecclesiastical centre along with St Andrew’s, Scotland’s primatial see.

The Dominicans founded their priory in Glasgow in 1246, when William de Bondington was bishop. The Bishop and the cathedral chapter made them welcome. In the 15th Century three of Scotland’s four ancient universities were founded, St Andrew’s (1411), Glasgow (1451) and Aberdeen (1495), and very soon the friars were engaged and involved in university teaching, a task for which they were well fitted.

In its very early days, Glasgow university used the Dominican priory for some of its classes, until the university acquired its own permanent premises. (The illustration shows the university with Blackfriars church in 1693.) The Glasgow Blackfriars, like most other religious foundations, in Scotland was destroyed at the Reformation. The friars did not settle again in Glasgow until 1965, when Fr Ian Hislop became chaplain to the University of Strathclyde.