Royal Burgh of Pittenweem
Latin Motto
“Deo Duce”
“With God as Leader”
Refers to St Adrian’s journeys and his missionary enterprises.
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 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 May moved to Pittenweem to be nearer their property on the mainland. They built a priory and the town grew up around it.