 He had obtained a licentiate in decrees at some point in his youth, and he must have become a Tironensian monk, for by 1329, and perhaps as early as 1327, he was Abbot of Kilwinning.Kilwinning Abbey was a Tironensian house in Cunninghame, in existence since the 1160s.He appears for the first time in this capacity as witness to a charter of Walter Comyn of Rowallan.