St Andrews is a city, royal burgh, and university town in the north-east of the county of Fife in Scotland, some 55 miles north of Edinburgh. It developed from a royal fortress of the Picts situated on the site later built over by St Andrews castle. Celtic clergy were attracted to nearby Kilrymont. Never technically part of the medieval burgh, this area fostered the cult of St Andrew, which became national. Between 1160 and 1318 was built the cathedral which with its 357-foot long nave was the largest church in Scotland.

A municipality was erected under Bishop Robert around 1140. In 1412–13 Bishop Wardlaw and Pope Benedict XIII incorporated and chartered St Andrews University, the nation's first. An important medieval town, and from 1472 the seat of an archbishop, St Andrews was a cockpit of the Reformation. John Knox retired there, while Andrew Melville, father of Scots presbyterianism and bane of King James VI and I, was head of St Mary's College. Still the university of Scotland's aristocracy in the 17th cent., it declined in the 18th due to Jacobite associations, reviving in the 20th. Uniquely good golfing facilities helped the town to become a residential and resort centre from the mid-19th cent.

Bruce Philip Lenman

St Andrews Royal burgh and university town in Fife, on the ne coast of Scotland. It was the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland until the Reformation. The rules of golf were devised at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Pop. (2000 est.) 14,500.