Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/75

 with masons to build his church. Though Roman Britain could not have been destitute of stone churches or skilled artisans, this was not a solitary example, as we learn from the pages of Bæda at a later time, of recourse being had to the superior workmen of Gaul for purposes of church building and decoration.

It is highly probable that, in addition to building a mission church, Ninian founded a monastic establishment at Candida Casa, on the model of the community at Marmoutier, over which Martin presided. It is certain, at any rate, that Candida Casa appears within a century after his death as a celebrated training school of the monastic life, at which several of the more celebrated Irish saints were educated. The ‘Acts’ of Tighernach, Eugenius, Endeus, and Finan, state expressly that these saints, whose reputation as founders of monasteries in their native Scotia (Ireland) is celebrated by the old annalists, had recourse as students to the monastery of Rosnat, or the Great Monastery (Magnum Monasterium), as Candida Casa was called. Several of these early Irish missionaries are, in fact, mentioned as the disciples of Ninian [see art. ]. This statement, though involving an anachronism, may be regarded as accentuating the fact that they were taught in the celebrated institution which owed its discipline and educational character to the apostle of the southern Picts.

While the missionary and monastic establishment at Candida Casa thus retained its fame and vigour for at least a century after its founder's death, his mission among the inhabitants of Galloway and the district between the Forth and the Mounth appears to have borne very temporary fruits. St. Patrick in his ‘Epistle to Coroticus’ speaks of the ‘apostate Picts,’ and the lives of Kentigern and Columba contain frequent lamentation over the relapsed condition of the Pictish inhabitants of the district evangelised by Ninian. The influences of the age were, in fact, adverse to the permanent development of such a movement as his. The period of Ninian's activity is coincident with the fall of the Roman empire in Britain, and the repeated incursions of Saxon, Scotic, and Pictish invaders. The assertion of Bæda that the southern Picts renounced idolatry and accepted the faith through his preaching is thus only relatively accurate. Their conversion was neither so effective as adequately to maintain itself in an epoch of disorganisation, nor was it so thorough as to amount, according to Ailred, to a complete organisation of the church into dioceses and parishes. Bæda's assumption involves an anachronism of several centuries. Ninian was not the founder of the mediæval ecclesiastical system of Scotland; he was simply the first missionary and monastic bishop of North Britain. 

NISBET, ALEXANDER (1657–1725), heraldic writer, was son of Adam Nisbet, writer in Edinburgh, the youngest son of Sir Alexander Nisbet of that ilk in Berwickshire. His mother was Janet, only daughter of Alexander Aikenhead, writer to the signet (whose father, David Aikenhead, was provost of Edinburgh 1634–7). He was the third of ten children, and was born in April 1657, being baptised on the 23rd of that month. In 1675 he matriculated at the university of Edinburgh, and was laureated in 1682. Educated for the law, he followed for some years the profession of a writer, but devoted himself chiefly to heraldry and antiquities, and was described by contemporaries as a ‘professor’ and ‘teacher’ of heraldry. After laborious research he proposed in 1699 to publish his ‘System of Heraldry’ by subscription; but the response to his appeal proving inadequate, he, in 1703, applied to parliament for a grant in aid, and was voted a sum of 248l. 6s. 8d. Scots (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, xi. 50, 85, 195, 203), but the money was never paid. He died on 7 Dec. 1725, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh. He was the last male representative of his family.

His published works were: 1. ‘An Essay on Additional Figures and Marks of Cadency,’ 1702. 2. ‘An Essay on the Ancient and Modern use of Armories,’ 1718. 3. ‘A System of Heraldry, speculative and practical, with the true art of blazon,’ 1 vol. folio, 1722. What purported to be a second volume was issued in 1742 by R. Fleming, an Edinburgh printer, but it only contained mutilated extracts from Nisbet's manuscripts. Of the two volumes folio editions were issued in 1804 and in 1816 at Edinburgh.

Nisbet left in manuscript: 1. ‘Part of the Science of Herauldrie and the Exterior Ornaments of the Shield,’ 272 pp., 4to, preserved