This is the only known painting of St Duthac. It was discovered on a pillar in Cologne Cathedral. We are grateful to Tain Through Time Museum for permission to use it here.

St. Duthac (or Duthus in Latin) has occupied a significant role in the Royal Burgh of Tain for a thousand years. Although details of his early life are scanty, we do have his death recorded in Armagh in Ireland in 1065. Over the next few centuries, devotion to his cult grew, particularly with the sending of his relics back to Tain in 1253. Successive church buildings were constructed to contain these precious items: the saint’s head, breastbone, staff, shirt, cup and bell. Stories of his miraculous gifts abounded, from his boyhood in Tain to his great missionary journeys in North and West Scotland. It was no wonder that this local saint attracted so much attention that even the Royal Family became frequent pilgrims to his shrine in the later Middle Ages.

By the mid fifteenth century a new pilgrimage church was completed to house the shrine, and the Stewart Kings endowed it as a Royal Chantry. James III raised the church to Collegiate Status by a charter of 1487, giving the increased numbers of clergy considerable independence and prestige. In 1492, this was confirmed from Rome by Pope Innocent VIII, whose Papal Bull conferring this privilege is still preserved on site. James IV maintained a special devotion to St. Duthac throughout his reign, visiting Tain once or sometimes twice a year.

The Reformation brought Pilgrimage to an end and the relics were lost in 1561. However, the Pilgrimage Church survived, transformed internally for the practice of the reformed faith. Despite removal of all medieval decorative items, the people of Tain did not pull down a statue of St. Duthac on the West Front. His name is still in evidence on local streets and buildings and his status as a man of Tain is much respected.