Pittenweem

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PITTENWEEM

Incorporated into : 1975 North East Fife District Council (1996 Fife Area Council)

Official blazon

Azure, in the sea a galley with her oars in action Argent, and therein standing the figure of Saint Adrian with long garments close girt, and a mitre on his head Proper, holding in his sinister hand a crosier Or; on the stern a flag disveloped Argent, charged with the Royal Arms of Scotland.

With this Word "Deo Duce".

Origin/meaning

The arms were granted on August 2, 1673.

Pittenweem was created de novo a Burgh of Barony of the Prior of Pittenweem in 1526 and was made a Royal Burgh by King James V in 1541.

The arms repeat the device on an old seal of the Burgh of which a sixteenth century impression is on record. They show St. Adrian, the martyr of the May, on his hazardous sea journey to Scotland from Pannonia in Hungary. He established a community on the Isle of May, off the Fife coast, became a missionary to the Picts and is said to have been slain on the May about 870 during a Danish invasion.
St. Adrian is connected with Pittenweem, as a convent there was joined to the May community, and about the twelfth century monks from the May moved to Pittenweem to be nearer their property on the mainland. They built a priory and the town grew up around it.

The Latin motto "With God as leader" seems to refer to the Saint's journeys and his missionary enterprises.