Bishop Adam of Caithness was brutally murdered in his house at Halkirk. Tensions had been high since the time of his predecessor, John, over the collection of teinds. Indeed, Bishop John had also suffered attacks survived mutilation in 1201. Following Adam’s murder, Pope Honorius III asked the bishops of St Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld and Dunblane to issue excommunication against those who ‘stripped, beat, stoned, mortally wounded with a fork, and burned the bishop of Caithness’.
