Book II. Church and Culture (part 1)

Chapter I. The Churches in the West.

In endeavouring to form a just conception of the history and characteristics of the early Celtic Churches of the British Isles, it is necessary at the very outset to discriminate between three consecutive periods, which are strongly contrasted. The first is that period which preceded the withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain and the termination of the civil government of the Roman province there in the beginning of the fifth century; the second, the period of isolation which followed, when the invasion of the Roman provinces in Gaul and Britain by the Barbarians interposed a barrier of paganism between the churches of Britain and the Continent, and for the time cut off all communication between them; and the third, that which followed the renewal of that intercourse, when they again came into contact in the end of the sixth century.

During the Roman occupation of Britain the Christian religion had unquestionably made its way under their auspices into the island, and the Roman province in Britain was, in this respect, no exception to the other provinces of the empire. It can hardly be doubted that, as early as the second century of their occupation, a Christian Church had been established within its limits, and there were even reports that it had penetrated to regions beyond it. It is unnecessary for the purpose of this work, and it would be out of place here, to enter into any inquiry as to the actual period and history of the introduction of the Christian Church into the British province, a subject which has been fully discussed by other writers. Our more immediate concern is with the churches founded beyond its limits, among those tribes termed by the Roman writers Barbarians, in opposition to the provincial Britons. Suffice it to say that during the Roman occupation the Christian Church in Britain was a part of the Church of the empire. It was more immediately connected with that of Gaul, but it acknowledged Rome as its head, from whom its mission was considered to be derived, and it presented no features of difference from the Roman Church in the other western provinces.

Towards the end of the Roman occupation the Christian Church seems to have penetrated in two directions beyond the limits of the province, but in other respects to have possessed the same character. During that troublous time when the province was assailed by the barbarians on the north and west, and its actual boundary had been drawn back from its nominal limits, a Christian Church was established in the district extending along the north shore of the Solway Firth, where Ptolemy had placed the tribe of the Novantæ, its principal seat being at one of their towns situated on the west side of Wigtown Bay, and termed by him ‘Leukopibia.’ The fact is reported by Bede as one well known to have taken place. The missionary was Ninian, a bishop of the nation of the Britons, who had been trained at Rome in the doctrine and discipline of the western Church, and who built at Leukopibia a church of stone, which was vulgarly called Candida Casa, and dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. This is the earliest account we have of him, and shows very plainly both his relation to Rome as the source of his mission and his connection with the Church of Gaul. It is probable that Ailred of Rievaulx, in his Life of Ninian, written in the twelfth century, but derived from older materials, repeats a true fact when he says that Ninian heard of the death of Martin while he was erecting this church; and this fixes the date of its foundation at the year 397. From Bede’s statement we learn that the object of his mission seems to have been the conversion of the Pictish nation, with the view probably of arresting, or at least mitigating, their attacks upon the provincial Britons. He founded his church of Candida Casa among the people occupying the district on the north side of the Solway Firth, extending from the Nith to the Irish Channel, who afterwards appear as the Picts of Galloway; and we are told that through his preaching the Southern Picts, extending as far north as the great mountain range of the Grampians, abandoned their idolatrous worship and received the true faith.

While the Christian Church had thus been extended into the southern province of the Pictish nation, it appears to have by this time penetrated also to the Scots of Ireland. If the old Irish Life of Ninian can be trusted, he is said to have left Britain and spent the last years of his life in Ireland, where he founded a church in Leinster called Cluain Conaire, and it is certain that he was commemorated there on the 16th of September under the name of Monenn. The date of Ninian’s death is not recorded. It has been almost uniformly stated by modern writers to have taken place on the 16th September in the year 432, and has been given by some on the authority of Bede, by others on that of Ailred; but no such date is to be found in either writer, and this supposed year of his death rests upon no authority whatever.

The Roman dominion in Britain came to an end in 410, when the troops were withdrawn from the province and the provincial cities left to protect themselves. Roman Britain thus ceased, to all intents and purposes, to form part of the empire; her intercourse with the Continent was almost entirely cut off by the incursions of the barbarian tribes into Roman Gaul; and, with the exception of a few contemporary notices of the Church during some years after the termination of the Roman dominion, all is silence for a century and a half, till it is broken in the succeeding century by the querulous voice of Gildas. The few facts which we learn from contemporary sources are these: that in the year 429 the churches of Britain had been corrupted by the ‘Pelagian Agricola, son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus,’ who had introduced the Pelagian heresy among them to some extent; that the orthodox clergy communicated the fact to the Gallican bishops, by whom a synod was held, when it was resolved to send Germanus bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus bishop of Troyes, to Britain; and that, at the instance of Palladius the deacon, Germanus received a mission from Celestine, bishop of Rome, to bring back to the Catholic faith the Britons tainted with this heresy. Two years after, in 431, according to the same chronicler, Pope Celestine ordained Palladius a bishop, and sent him to the Christian Scots of Ireland as their first bishop; and thus, ‘having ordained a bishop to the Scots, while he endeavoured to preserve Roman Britain as Catholic, he made the barbarian island Christian,’ in this sense at least that he had formed into a regular church those of its inhabitants who had already become Christian. Whether the Christian religion had been introduced into Ireland by the preaching of Ninian, or whether it had existed there from even an earlier period, there are now no materials to indicate; but the mission of Palladius seems to imply that Ninian was at this time dead.

Such are the few facts which we have from contemporary sources at this time; and all other accounts which we possess of the church among the barbarians are derived from tradition or legend, which will be dealt with in its proper place. These few isolated statements show us a church in Roman Britain, which had been extended, in one direction, into the districts north of the Roman wall, till arrested by the great mountain barrier separating the northern from the southern Picts, and, in another, to the island of Ireland, then the only country inhabited by the people called Scots. We find it in close connection with the Gallican Church, and regarding the Patriarch of Rome as the head of the Western Church and the source of ecclesiastical authority and mission. With the exception of the temporary prevalence of the Pelagian heresy in Britain, we can discover no trace of any divergence between them in doctrine or practice. There now follows a long period of utter darkness, during which all connection with the Continent was broken off; and we learn nothing further regarding the churches beyond the western limits of the empire, till the church of the extreme west came into contact with that of Gaul towards the end of the sixth century.

In the year 590 the ecclesiastical world in Gaul, in which the Franks and Burgundians were already settled, was startled by the sudden appearance of a small band of missionaries on her shores. They were thirteen in number—a leader with twelve followers. Their outward appearance was strange and striking. They were clothed in a garment of coarse texture made of wool, and of the natural colour of the material, under which was a white tunic. They were tonsured, but in a different manner from the Gaulish ecclesiastics. Their heads were shaved in front from ear to ear, the anterior half of the head being made bare, while their hair flowed down naturally and unchecked from the back of the head. They had each a pilgrim’s staff, a leathern water-bottle and a wallet, and a case containing some relics. They spoke among themselves a foreign language, resembling in sound the dialect of Armorica, but they conversed readily in Latin with those who understood that language. When asked who they were and whence they came, they replied,—‘We are Irish, dwelling at the very ends of the earth. We be men who receive naught beyond the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles. The Catholic faith, as it was first delivered by the successors of the holy apostles, is still maintained among us with unchanged fidelity;’ and their leader gave the following account of himself,—‘I am a Scottish pilgrim, and my speech and actions correspond to my name, which is in Hebrew Jonah, in Greek Peristera, and in Latin Columba, a dove.’ In this guise they appeared before the people, addressing them everywhere with the whole power of their native eloquence. Some learned the language of the country. The rest employed an interpreter when they preached before the laity. To ecclesiastics they spoke the common language of the Latin Church. Their leader, Columbanus, was a man of commanding presence and powerful eloquence, and endowed with a determination of character and intensity of purpose which influenced, either favourably or the reverse, every one with whom he came in contact. From the kings he soon obtained permission to settle in their territories and to erect monasteries; and two monastic establishments soon arose within the recesses of the Vosges mountains, which now divide Alsace from France—those of Luxeuil and Fontaines, to which the youth of the country flocked in numbers for instruction, or for training as monks.

They had not been long established there when the Gaulish clergy became aware that in the new monasteries the festival of Easter was occasionally celebrated on a different Sunday from that observed by the Roman Church, there being occasionally an interval of a week between the two, and sometimes even the violent discrepancy of an entire month. This arose from a difference in the mode of calculating the Sunday on which Easter ought to fall, both in regard to the week within which it ought to be celebrated and the cycle of years by which the month was to be determined. By the law of Moses the passover was to be slain on the fourteenth day of the first month of the year, in the evening (Exod. xii. 2, 3, 6), and the children of Israel were further directed to eat unleavened bread seven days:—‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one-and-twentieth day of the month’ (Ib. xii. 18). It was further declared that the month in which the fourteenth day or the full moon fell first after the vernal equinox was to be their first month. In applying this rule to the Christian Easter, the Eastern Church, in the main, adopted it literally, and celebrated Easter on the same day as the Jewish Passover, on whatever day of the week it might fall. The Western Church, however, held that, as our Saviour had risen from the dead on the first day of the week after the Passover, the festival of Easter should be celebrated on the Sunday between the fourteenth and the twentieth day of the moon on the first month of the Jewish lunar year. In order to bring the lunar date into connection with the solar year so as to fix the day of the month on which Easter was to be kept, various cycles were framed by the Church; till at length the Easter cycle of nineteen years was introduced at Alexandria by Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea, in 270, by which Easter was celebrated on the Sunday falling on the fourteenth day of the moon, or between that day and the twentieth on a cycle of nineteen years. In the Western Church, however, the time for celebrating Easter was calculated on a cycle of eighty-four years, which was improved by Sulpicius Severus in 410, and continued to be used till 457, when a longer cycle of 532 years was introduced by Victorius of Aquitaine, based upon the cycle of nineteen years; and in the year 525 the computation was finally fixed by Dionysius Exiguus on the cycle of nineteen years. By this time it was likewise held that, as the Passover was slain on the evening of the fourteenth day of the moon, according to the Jewish system of reckoning the days from evening to evening, the fifteenth, and not the fourteenth, ought to be considered as the first day of unleavened bread, and consequently Easter ought to fall on the Sunday between the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the moon; and by a canon of the fourth council of Orleans, held in the year 541, it was directed that the Easter festival should be observed by all at the same time, according to the tables of Victorius.

These changes in the mode of computation in the Western Church took place after the connection between Britain and the rest of the empire had ceased, and when the British Churches were left in a state of isolation. They therefore still retained the older mode of computation, which had been once common to the whole Western Church; and thus it came that when Columbanus went on his mission to Gaul he found the continental Churches celebrating the festival of Easter on the Sunday between the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the moon, calculated on the cycle of nineteen years, while the British and Irish Churches celebrated the same festival on the Sunday between the fourteenth and twentieth days of the moon, calculated according to the cycle of eighty-four years; the difference in the days of the moon causing an occasional divergence of a week, and that of the cycles a possible divergence of a month. The prelates of Gaul seem to have eagerly caught at a ground upon which they could charge these strange missionaries, who had taken such a hold upon the country, with following practices at variance with the universal Church, and thus pursuing a schismatical course. A council was summoned for the purpose of considering what steps they ought to take with regard to these strangers; but Columbanus, though probably included in the summons, contented himself by sending a letter, which is still extant, addressed to ‘our holy lords and fathers or brethren in Christ, the bishops, presbyters, and other orders of Holy Church,’ in which he vindicates the mode of keeping Easter which he had received from his fathers, according to the cycle of eighty-four years, refers to Anatolius as having been commended by Eusebius and St. Jerome, and denounces the change made by Victorius as an innovation. He claimed his right to follow the course derived from his fathers, and remonstrated with them for endeavouring to trouble him on such a point. What the result of this synod was we do not know; but it was followed by an appeal by Columbanus to the Pope himself. To Columbanus Rome was still the traditional Rome of the fourth and fifth centuries. Since then the Irish Church had not come into contact with her, and inherited the same feelings of regard and deference with which the early church had regarded her before the period of their isolation, and while she was still to them the acknowledged head of the churches in the western provinces of the Roman empire. In this letter, which also is extant, he addressed Boniface IV. as ‘the holy lord and Apostolic Father in Christ, the Pope.’ He tells him that he had long desired to visit in spirit and confer ‘with those who preside in the apostolic chair, the most beloved prelates over all the faithful, the most revered fathers by right of apostolic honour.’ He vindicates the doctrine of his church as no way differing from that of other orthodox churches, but claims to be regarded ‘as still in his fatherland, and not bound to accept the rules of these Gauls; but as placed in the wilderness and, offending no one, to abide by the rules of his seniors;’ and he appeals to ‘the judgment of the 150 fathers of the Council of Constantinople, who judged that the churches of God established among the Barbarians should live according to the laws taught them by their fathers.’ This was the second œcumenical council held at Constantinople in the year 381. The second canon directs that the bishops belonging to each diocese shall not interfere with churches beyond its bounds. It then regulates the jurisdiction of the great patriarchates, and concludes by declaring that the churches of God among the Barbarian people—that is, beyond the bounds of the Roman empire—shall be regulated by the customs of their fathers. The position which Columbanus took up was substantially this—‘Your jurisdiction as Bishop of Rome does not extend beyond the limits of the Roman empire. I am a missionary from a church of God among the Barbarians, and, though temporarily within the limits of your territorial jurisdiction, and bound to regard you with respect and deference, I claim the right to follow the customs of my own church handed down to us by our fathers.’

It is unnecessary for our purpose to enter further into the life and doings of Columbanus. They have been referred to here at the very outset, because it was by his mission that the churches of the extreme west were again, for the first time, brought into contact with the Roman Church; and he has left behind him authentic writings which present to us at once the points of contrast between the two churches, and the relation they bore to each other, and thus afford us a fixed point from which to start in our examination of the early history and peculiar characteristics of these Celtic churches during the dark period of their isolation, when all intercourse with the Continent was cut off.

There are two ancient documents, both belonging to the eighth century, which afford us, at the outset, a view of the characteristic features of the early Irish Church. One is a ‘Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland according to their different periods,’ in which they are arranged in three classes corresponding to three periods of the church; and the other is the Litany of Angus the Culdee, in which he invokes the saints of the early church in different groups. The Catalogue of the Saints proceeds thus:—‘The first order of Catholic saints was in the time of Patricius; and then they were all bishops, famous and holy and full of the Holy Ghost; 350 in number, founders of churches. They had one head, Christ, and one chief, Patricius; they observed one mass, one celebration, one tonsure from ear to ear. They celebrated one Easter, on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox, and what was excommunicated by one church, all excommunicated. They rejected not the services and society of women,’ or as another MS. has it, ‘they excluded from the churches neither laymen nor women; because, founded on the rock Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation. This order of saints continued for four reigns. All these bishops were sprung from the Romans, and Franks, and Britons, and Scots. The second order was of Catholic Presbyters. For in this order there were few bishops and many presbyters, in number three hundred. They had one head, our Lord; they celebrated different masses, and had different rules, one Easter on the fourteenth moon after the equinox, one tonsure from ear to ear; they refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries. This order has hitherto lasted for four reigns. They received a mass from Bishop David, and Gillas and Docus, the Britons. The third order of Saints was of this sort. They were holy presbyters, and a few bishops; one hundred in number; who dwelt in desert places, and lived on herbs and water, and the alms; they shunned private property,’ or, as the other MS. has it, ‘they despised all earthly things, and wholly avoided all whispering and backbiting; they had different rules and masses, and different tonsures, for some had the coronal and others the hair (behind); and a different Paschal festival. For some celebrated the Resurrection on the fourteenth moon, or on the sixteenth with hard intentions. These lived during four reigns, and continued to that great mortality’ in the year 666. This document presents us with a short picture of the church prior to the year 666, and it is hardly possible to mistake its leading characteristic features during each of the three periods. In the first period we find churches and a secular clergy. In the second, the churches are superseded by monasteries, and we find a regular or monastic clergy; and in the third, we see an eremitical clergy living in solitary places. But while this seems to indicate, and may to some extent have arisen from, a deepening asceticism—the clergy passing from a life under the ordinary canonical law of the church, through the discipline and strict rule of monastic observances, to a solitary life of privation and self-denial in what was called the Desert—there were probably causes connected both with the social state of the wild people among whom they exercised their clerical functions and with the result of their labours, which led to the church being reconstructed from time to time on a different basis, and thus presenting a different outward aspect. The distinction in order between the bishop and the presbyter, however, seems to have been preserved throughout, though their relation to each other, in respect to numbers and jurisdiction, varied at different periods.

The first order of Saints representing the Church during the first period had Christ for their head, and St. Patrick for their leader or chief. They claimed therefore to be peculiarly the Church of Saint Patrick. And here we are struck at the outset by the fact that there is no mention whatever of the mission of Palladius; and if we turn to the few notices of the early Irish Church in contemporary writers of other countries, we find the equally striking contrast that, while they record the mission of Palladius, they make no mention of Patrick. The life of Patrick, as usually told and accepted in history, is derived in the main from his acts, as contained in Lives of the Saint compiled at different times ranging from the eighth to the twelfth century. Seven of these lives were published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturga, and he has attempted to assign fixed dates to those which are anonymous; but it is obvious that they are, to a large extent, composed of legendary and traditional matter. The Book of Armagh, which was compiled about the year 807, presents us with two older narratives. One was compiled by Muirchu Maccumachtheni, or the son of Cogitosus, at the suggestion of Aedh, bishop of Sletty, who died in 698; the other by Tirechan, who is believed to be the author of the Catalogue of the Saints. Both, therefore, belong to the same period. Muirchu’s life is imperfect, as we only possess a short summary of the first part; and we can gather from it that Patrick had gone to Rome to prepare for his mission, but went no farther than Gaul, as he there met the disciples of Palladius, at a place called Ebmoria, who reported the death of Palladius, who, having failed in his mission, had died on his return to Rome in the territory of the Britons; and that Patrick then received the episcopal degree from Matho the holy king and bishop, and proceeded on his mission to Ireland. Tirechan’s account is more precise. He says, ‘In the xiii. year of Theodosius the emperor, Patricius the bishop was sent by Bishop Celestine, Pope of Rome, for the instruction of the Irish; which Celestine was the forty-second bishop of the apostolic see of the city of Rome after Peter. Palladius the Bishop was the first sent, who is otherwise called Patricius, and suffered martyrdom among the Scots, as the ancient saints relate. Then the second Patricius was sent by an angel of God, named Victor, and by Pope Celestine, by whose means all Ireland believed, and who baptized almost all the inhabitants.’ This account of his mission also appears in all the Irish Annals, and is apparently taken from the older chronicle of Marianus Scotus, who died in the year 1084, and who gives it thus:—‘In the eighth year of Theodosius, Bassus and Antiochus being consuls, Palladius, being ordained by Pope Celestine, was sent as first bishop to the Scots believing in Christ. After him St. Patricius, a Briton by birth, was consecrated by St. Celestine the Pope, and sent to the archiepiscopate of Ireland. There during sixty years, preaching with signs and miracles, he converted the whole island of Ireland to the faith.’ As Pope Celestine died in July 432, this supposed mission of Patrick must have taken place within a year at least of that of Palladius; and while Probus records the latter alone, without any hint of its sudden termination, we are asked to believe that it had proved at once unsuccessful, and that Palladius having either suffered martyrdom or died within the year, a second mission, headed by Patrick, was sent either directly by or during the life of Pope Celestine. If this be so, if it be true that the mission of Palladius effected nothing and came to an end either by his martyrdom or flight within a year, and that Patrick’s mission, which succeeded it, was followed by the conversion of the whole island, it seems strange that nothing should have been known on the Continent at the time of this great event, and that it should be noticed by no contemporary author. Not a single writer prior to the eighth century mentions it; and even Bede, who quotes the passage in Probus recording the mission of Palladius, and mentions those of Ninian and Columba, is silent as to that of Patrick. Columbanus, and the other missionaries from Ireland who followed him, seem to have told their foreign disciples nothing about him, and in the writings of the former which have been preserved,—in his letters to the Popes and the Gaulish clergy, and in his sermons to his monks,—the name of Patrick, the great founder of his church, never appears. We should be tempted to conclude, as many have done, that the account of Patrick and of his mission was entirely mythical, and that neither the one nor the other had any real existence, were it not that, when we turn to the writings of two of the contemporaries of Columbanus at home, we do find an occasional mention of Patrick at a sufficiently early date to leave no reasonable doubt of his existence, and that two documents are attributed to him which may fairly be accepted as genuine. The oldest authentic notice of Patrick occurs in a letter which is still extant, written by Cummian to Segienus, abbot of Iona, in the year 634, regarding the proper time for keeping Easter. In it he refers to the cycle ‘introduced into use by our pope, Saint Patricius;’ and Adamnan, writing in the end of the seventh century, in the second preface to his Life of Columba mentions ‘Maucta, a pilgrim from Britain, a holy man, a disciple of Saint Patricius the bishop.’ These early notices, though few in number, seem sufficient to prove his existence; but if we are to receive as genuine documents his Confession and the Epistle to Coroticus, as undoubtedly we ought, they not only afford conclusive evidence of his own existence and the reality of his mission, but give us his own account of the leading particulars of his life. The information he gives us may be shortly stated thus:—Patricius was born of Christian parents and belonged to a Christian people; for he ‘was the son of Calpornius a deacon, son of the late Potitus a presbyter, who lived in the village of Bannavem of Tabernia, where he had a small farm.’ He was of gentle birth, his father being also a ‘decurio,’ that is, one of the council or magistracy of a Roman provincial town. He lived at this little farm when, in his sixteenth year, he was taken captive and brought to Hibernia or Ireland with many thousands; and he adds, ‘as we deserved, for we had forsaken God, and had not kept his commandments, and were disobedient to our priests, who admonished us for our salvation.’ He remained six years in slavery in Ireland, where he was employed tending sheep; and then he escaped in a ship, the sailors of which were pagans, and after three days reached land, and for twenty-eight days journeyed through a desert. He was again taken captive, and remained two months with these people, when on the sixtieth night he was delivered from their hands. A few years after he was with his parents, or relations, in the Roman province of Britain, when he resolved, in consequence of a vision, to leave his native country and his kindred, and go to Ireland as a missionary to preach the gospel, which, he says, he was able to accomplish after several years.

Saint Patrick’s narrative of his early life conveys the impression that he was a simple youth, of an earnest and enthusiastic temperament, who, in the solitude of his captivity in Ireland, had communed with his own spirit and been brought under a deep sense of religion; and, when again restored to his native country and his home, had brooded over the desire which strong religious conviction creates in many a youth to devote himself to missionary labour, till he became persuaded that he had received a divine call. If he was taken captive in his sixteenth year and remained six years in captivity, he was twenty-two when he escaped, and was probably now between twenty-five and thirty years old. He had early been made a deacon, and must at this time have gone to Ireland probably in priest’s orders; for he tells us that he had lived and preached among the Irish from his youth up, and given the faith to the people among whom he dwelt. At the age of forty-five he was consecrated a bishop, and in his epistle to Coroticus he designates himself ‘Patricius, a sinner and unlearned, but appointed a bishop in Ireland.’

It is clear from Patrick’s own account of himself that he was a citizen of the Roman province in Britain; that his family had been Christian for at least two generations, and belonged to the aristocracy of a Roman provincial town, and that the district of Tabernia, in which it was situated, was exposed to the incursions of the Scots; that he had laboured among the Irish as a missionary for at least fifteen, if not twenty, years before he was consecrated a bishop, and it was only latterly that his labours were crowned with much success. His Confession appears to have been written towards the end of his life, as he concludes it by saying that it was written in Ireland, and that this was his confession before he died; and his epistle was written to Coroticus while the Franks were still pagan—that is, before their conversion in the year 496. In his Confession he tells us that through his ministry clerics had been ordained for this people newly come to the faith, and that in Hiberio or Ireland ‘those who never had the knowledge of God, and had hitherto only worshipped unclean idols, have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called the sons of God. The sons of the Scoti and the daughters of princes are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ.’ In the epistle to Coroticus he addresses his ‘beloved brethren and children whom he had begotten in such numbers to Christ.’ It is, however, remarkable that he does not in either document make the slightest allusion to Palladius or his mission, and this leads certainly to the inference that it had failed and had never become an efficient and operative episcopal mission in the country. Patrick’s episcopate must certainly have followed that of Palladius, and that possibly at no great distance of time; and if he was then forty-five years of age, this would throw his sixteenth year, when he was taken captive, to the first decade of the century, when the Roman province was exposed to the incursions of the Scots, and thus he must have himself already laboured as a missionary among the Irish people, to whom Palladius was sent as their first bishop.

Such is the account which Patrick gives of himself inhimself in these documents, which we accept as undoubtedly genuine; and we shall see how, at a later period, this simple narrative became incrusted with a mass of traditional, legendary, and fictitious matter, which had gradually accumulated in the minds of the people, and was brought into shape and added from time to time to the story of Saint Patrick’s life and labours by each successive biographer.

Patrick states in his Confession simply that he ordained clerics, but we are told in the Catalogue of the Saints that ‘they were all bishops, famous and holy, and full of the Holy Ghost, 350 in number, founders of churches;’ and this is confirmed by Angus the Culdee, in his Litany, where he invokes ‘seven times fifty holy bishops, with three hundred priests, whom Patraic ordained,’ and quotes the verse—

‘Seven times fifty holy cleric bishops
The saint ordained,
With three hundred pure presbyters
Upon whom he conferred orders.’

Upwards of one half of his clergy seem, therefore, to have been bishops, and he appears to have placed a bishop, consecrated by himself, in each church which he founded. The difference in order between bishop and presbyter is here fully recognised; and there was nothing in this very inconsistent with the state of the primitive church before it became a territorial church, and its hierarchical arrangements and jurisdiction were adapted to and modelled upon the civil government of the Roman empire. In the earlier period of the Christian Church there was, besides the chief bishop in each city, whose consecration required the action of at least three bishops, an order of ‘Chorepiscopi,’ or country bishops, who were consecrated by the chief bishop; and the relative proportion of bishops and presbyters was very different from what it afterwards became. We find in the Apostolical Constitutions in the ordinances of the church of Alexandria that ‘if there should be a place having a few faithful men in it, before the multitude increase, who shall be able to make a dedication to pious uses for the bishop to the extent of twelve men, let them write to the churches round about the place, in which the multitude of believers are established. If the bishop whom they shall appoint hath attended to the knowledge and patience of the love of God, with those with him, let him ordain two presbyters when he hath examined them, or rather three;’ and we are told that in Asia Minor alone there were upwards of four hundred bishops. Such a church as this could not have been very unlike the Irish Church at this period—the relative proportion of bishops and presbyters much the same; and Patrick seems to have adapted it to the state of society among the people who were the objects of his mission. Their social system was one based upon the tribe, and it consisted of a congeries of small septs united together by no very close tie. Anything like a territorial church, with a central jurisdiction, was hardly possible among them. Patrick tells us nothing of the mode in which he was consecrated a bishop; but the expression in his epistle to Coroticus, that he was constituted the bishop in Ireland, seems to imply that he regarded himself as chief bishop for the whole people. He founded churches wherever he could obtain a grant from the chief of the sept, and appears to have placed in each Tuath or tribe a bishop, ordained by himself, who may have had one or more presbyters with him. It was, in short, a congregational and tribal episcopacy, united by a federal rather than a territorial tie under regular jurisdiction; and this is implied by the statement that ‘what was excommunicated by one church was excommunicated by all.’ During Patrick’s life, he no doubt exercised a superintendence over the whole; but we do not see any trace of the metropolitan jurisdiction of the church of Armagh over the rest.

‘All these bishops,’ we are told in the Catalogue of the Saints, ‘were sprung from the Romans, and Franks, and Britons, and Scots.’ By the Romans and Britons probably those are meant who belonged to the Roman province in Britain, and followed Patrick in his mission; by the Franks those who came from Gaul appear to be intended; and whenever it was possible, he no doubt appointed a native Scot, and one of the tribe among whom he founded a church, to be its bishop. The extent to which the foreign element entered into the clergy of his church may be learnt from the Litany of Angus, who invokes ‘the Romans in Achudh Galma, in Hy Echach; the Romans in Letar Erca; the Romans and Cairsech, daughter of Brocan, in Cill Achudh Dallrach; Cuan, a Roman, in Achill; the Romans in Cluan Caincumni; and the Romans with Aedan in Cluan Dartada; the Gauls in Saillidu; the Gauls in Magh Salach; and the Gauls in Achudh Ginain; the Saxons in Rigar; and the Saxons in Cluan Muicceda; fifty men of the Britons with Monan, in Lann Leire.’ And, in another tract by Angus the Culdee on the Mothers of the Saints, he has, ‘Dina, daughter of the king of the Saxons, was the mother of the ten sons of Bracan, king of Britain, son of Bracha Meoc: viz. St. Mogoroc of Struthuir; St. Mochonoc, the pilgrim of Kil Mucraisse and of Gelinnia in the region of Delbhna Eathra; Dirad of Eadardr uim; Duban of Rinndubhain alithir; Carenn of Killchairinne; Carpre, the pilgrim of Killchairpre; Isiol Farannain; Iust in Slemna of Alban; Elloc of Kill Moelloc, near Lochgarman; Pian of Killphiain in Ossory; Coeman, the pilgrim of Kill Choeman, in the region of Gesille and elsewhere. She was also mother of Mobeoc of Gleanngeirg, for he was a son of Brachan, son of Bracha Meoc.’

The first order, too, ‘rejected not the services and society of women,’ or, according to another MS., ‘they excluded from their churches neither laymen nor women,’ which indicates their character as secular clergy, in contradistinction to those under a monastic rule. ‘They celebrated Easter on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox,’ that is, as we have seen elsewhere, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first day of the moon; and there appears to have been no difference in this respect between them and the Church of Rome prior to the year 457. Their clergy were tonsured; but at this time there were in the Church various forms of tonsure, and the first form, ‘from ear to ear,’ that is, having the hair removed from the fore part of the head and leaving it to grow behind the ears, was also practised in Gaul, from whence it was probably derived.

Although Patrick alludes to the great numbers he converted, there does not seem to have been anything like a national adoption of Christianity. It is remarkable enough that the Ardri or chief king of Ireland appears to have remained pagan during the entire period of his mission, and it was not till the year 513 that a Christian monarch ruled in Tara. Neither did the arrangement by which isolated bishops were placed in each sept or tribe whose chief or petty king had been converted prove well calculated to disseminate Christianity through the whole tribe, and to leaven the entire people with its influence.

This appears to have led, towards the end of his life, to the adoption of a very peculiar sort of Collegiate Church. It consisted in a group of seven bishops placed together in one church; and they were brought closer to the tribal system based on the family which prevailed in Ireland, by these bishops being usually seven brothers selected from one family in the tribe. We see the germs of something of the kind in Tirechan’s Annotations, where it is said that towards the end of his career ‘Patrick passed the Shannon three times, and completed seven years in the western quarter, and came from the plain of Tochuir to Dulo Ocheni, and founded seven churches there.’ And again, ‘The seven sons of Doath—that is Cluain, Findglais and Imsruth, Culcais, Deruthmar, Culcais and Cennlocho—faithfully made offerings to God and Saint Patrick.’ But Angus the Culdee in his Litany gives us a list of no fewer than one hundred and fifty-three groups of seven bishops in the same church, all of whom he invokes. A few of these we can identify sufficiently to show that they usually consisted of seven brothers living together in one church, and that they belong to this period. For instance, he invokes ‘the seven bishops of Tulach na’n Epscop,’ or Tulach of the Bishops; and we find in the old Irish Life of St. Bridget, who died in 525, that on one occasion at Tealagh, in the west of Leinster, ‘pious nobles, i.e. seven bishops, were her guests.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops of Drom Arbelaig;’ and in the Irish Calendar on 15th January we have ‘seven bishops, sons of Finn, alias Fincrettan of Druimairbealagh.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops in Tamhnach;’ and in the Calendars on 21st July we have this notice: ‘The seven bishops of Tamhnach Buadha, and we find seven bishops, the sons of one father, and their names and history among the race of Fiacha Suighdhe, son of Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachtmhar.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops of Cluan Emain;’ and we are told in the Life of Saint Forannan that, after the Council of Drumceatt Columba was met by a large concourse of ecclesiastics, among whom the descendants of Cennaine, the aunt of St. Bridget, are alone enumerated, and among these are ‘the seven bishops of Cluain-Hemain,’ now Clonown, near Athlone, and they are represented in the Genealogy of the Saints in the Book of Lecan as seven brethren, the sons of the same mother. Such appear to be in the main the characteristics of the early Irish Church in this the first period of its history; and we must now turn to Scotland to see to what extent they are reflected there.

The dark interval of a century between the death of Ninian and the coming of Columba when we find ourselves treading on firm ground, is thus filled up by Fordun:—

‘In A.D. 430 Pope Celestinus sent Saint Palladius into Scotia, as the first bishop therein. It is therefore fitting that the Scots should diligently keep his festival and church commemorations, for by his word and example he with anxious care taught their nation—that of the Scots to wit—the orthodox faith, although they had for a long time previously believed in Christ. Before his arrival, the Scots had, as teachers of the faith and administrators of the Sacraments, priests only or monks, following the rite of the primitive church. So he arrived in Scotland with a great company of clergy in the eleventh year of the reign of King Eugenius, and the king freely gave him a place of abode where he wanted one. Moreover, Palladius had as his fellow-worker in preaching and administering the Sacraments a most holy man, Servanus; who was ordained bishop and created by Palladius his coadjutor—one worthy of him in all respects—in order to teach the people the orthodox faith, and with anxious care perfect the work of the Gospel; for Palladius was not equal to discharging alone the pastoral duties over so great a nation.’ And again: ‘The holy bishop Terrananus likewise was a disciple of the blessed Palladius, who was his godfather and his fostering teacher and furtherer in all the rudiments of letters and of the faith.’ This statement has been substantially accepted as history by all historians of the Church in Scotland; but when we examine the grounds on which it rests, we shall see reason to doubt whether Palladius ever was in Scotland, and to place Servanus at a much later period. Terrananus alone appears to have any real claim to belong to this period.

The only real information we possess as to the acts of Palladius, in addition to the short notice of his mission given us by the contemporary chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine, is derived from the Lives of St. Patrick; and we shall see how this statement of Palladius’ missionary labours in Scotland grew out of these lives, combined with the fictitious character of the early history of Scotland as it is represented by Fordun. The oldest Lives of Patrick are those in the Book of Armagh; and Tirechan, whose annotations contain our first notices of his life, states that Palladius ‘suffered martyrdom among the Scots’—that is, the Irish—‘as the ancient saints relate.’ Muirchu, whose Life was compiled soon after, says, after narrating his mission to Ireland, ‘Neither did those rude and savage people readily receive his doctrine, nor did he wish to pass his time in a land not his own; but returning hence to him who sent him, having begun his passage the first tide, little of his journey being accomplished, he died in the territory of the Britons.’Britons.’ The next notice we have of him is in the Life attributed to Mark the Anchorite which belongs to the beginning of the ninth century, and is added to the Historia Britonum of Nennius. Here Palladius is not allowed to land in Ireland at all, ‘but tempests and signs from God prevented his landing, for no one can receive anything on earth except it be given him from above. Returning, therefore, from Ireland to Britain, Palladius died in the land of the Picts.’ Probus, who had the Book of Armagh before him, and embodies many passages of Muirchu’s Life in his own narrative, repeats his account of Palladius, but substitutes for the expression ‘in the territory of the Britons’ that of ‘in the territory of the Picts.’ The Life termed by Colgan the third follows that of Muirchu, and states that ‘he returned to go to Rome, and died in the region of the Britons.’ Another Life makes Palladius land in Ireland and found three churches there; but ‘seeing that he could not do much good there, wishing to return to Rome, he migrated to the Lord in the region of the Picts. Others, however, say that he was crowned with martyrdom in Ireland,’ alluding in the latter part to the statement of Tirechan. The Tripartite Life says that, ‘on turning back afterwards, sickness seized him in the country of the Cruithne, and he died of it.’

Thus far we find that the oldest view was that he suffered martyrdom in Ireland. This is followed by the statement that he died in the territory of the Britons on his way back to Rome. The territory of the Picts is then substituted for that of the Britons; but this evidently points to Galloway as the place where he landed and died, if he had not been martyred in Ireland. Finally the storm, which Mark the Anchorite tells us hindered his landing, is now made to execute a more remarkable feat. One of the earliest lives of Saint Patrick is the hymn attributed to Fiech of Sletty, and in the Scholia attached to it we are told that Palladius founded three churches in Ireland; ‘nevertheless he was not well received by the people, but was forced to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until, driven by a great tempest, he reached the extreme part of the Modhaid towards the south, where he founded the church of Fordun and Pledi in his name there.’ Another biographer, not satisfied with thiswith this, removes his martyrdom from Ireland, and, after narrating the founding of the three churches, tells us that ‘after a short time Palladius died in the plain of Girgin, in a place which is called Forddun. But others say that he was crowned with martyrdom there.’ The place meant is undoubtedly Fordun in the Mearns, the Irish form of which name was Maghgherginn, and the storm here drives him from Ireland to the north, through the Pentland Firth, and along the east coast southwards till he reaches the coast of Kincardineshire, and dies at Fordun.

This form of the legend, which takes him round Scotland to the territory of the Picts on the east coast, evidently owes its origin to the fact that the church of Fordun in the Mearns was dedicated to Palladius under the local name of Paldy, and was believed to possess his relics. How then came his dedication and his relics there if he had no mission himself in Scotland? The notices of Terrananus may throw some light upon this. He is said in the Breviary of Aberdeen to have been a native of the province of the Mearns, to have been baptized and instructed in the Christian faith by Palladius, and to have died and been buried at Banchory on the river Dee, called from him Banchory-Ternan. His day in the Calendar is the 12th of June, and on that day Angus the Culdee has in his metrical Calendar,—

‘Torannan, the long-famed voyager
Over the broad shipful sea.’

Now the scholiast upon this Calendar records a tradition that he was the same person with Palladius. He says,‘Torannan, the far-famed voyager, that is, Palladius, who was sent from the successor of Peter to Erin before Patraic. He was not received in Erin, whereupon he went to Alban. He is buried in Liconium.’ Liconium was probably the old name of the place afterwards called Banchory-Ternan. The probable solution is that Terrananus or Ternan really was a disciple of Palladius, and brought his relics either from Ireland or from Galloway to his native district in the territories of the southern Picts, who, we know from Bede, had been converted, perhaps not long before, by Ninian of Candida Casa, and, as the founder of the church of Fordun in honour of Palladius, became to some extent identified with him. Add to this Fordun’s assumption that the Scots to whom Palladius was sent as first bishop were the inhabitants of Scotland, and we see upon what his statement was based. There were, of course, no Scots in Scotland at that time. But, by thus appropriating Palladius, Fordun brought himself into a dilemma. According to his fictitious and artificial scheme of the early history of his country, the Scots had colonised Scotland several centuries before Christ, and had been converted to Christianity by Pope Victor I. in the year 203. But if Palladius was their first bishop in 430, what sort of church had they between these dates? He is therefore driven to the conclusion that it must have been a church governed by presbyters or monks only. Hector Boece gave the name of Culdees to the clergy of this supposed early church; and thus arose the belief that there had been in Scotland an early church of Presbyterian Culdees.

Although we may thus accept Terrananus as a disciple of Palladius, Servanus has no claim to be regarded as possessing the same character. Fordun tells us ‘In the History of Saint Kentigern we read that Servanus was the disciple of the reverend bishop Palladius, almost in the very earliest days of the Scottish Church;’ and again, ‘On his arrival in Scotia he (Palladius) found Saint Servanus there, and called him to work in the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth; and when afterwards the latter was sufficiently imbued with the teaching of the church, Palladius appointed him his suffragan over all the nation of the Scots. So runs the story in that work.’ These passages are quoted from a Life of Kentigern, a fragment of which, containing the passage in question, is still preserved. In this life the birth of Kentigern is placed at Culross, where he is received and educated by Servanus. Kentigern died in extreme old age in 603, which places his birth towards the beginning of the sixth century; but unless the life of Servanus had extended beyond the century, he could not have been found in Scotland by Palladius if he arrived in 430. It would be just possible that he might have been a disciple, were it not that the Life of Servanus has also been preserved. It is contained in the same MS. with one of the lives of Kentigern, and seems to have been recognised by the church of Glasgow as the life of the same Servanus who was his instructor; but when we turn to this life, we do not find in it the least mention of either Palladius or Kentigern. Servanus is there brought in contact with Adamnan, abbot of Iona, who flourished in the seventh century; and he founds the church of Culross in the reign of Brude, king of the Picts, who filled the throne from 697 to 706 in the latter part of the life of Adamnan. It is obvious, therefore, that there is a great anachronism in placing this Servanus as the instructor of Kentigern, and that he in reality belongs to the century after his death. We are thus left with Terrananus or Ternan alone, as having: any claim to belong to this period, and the dedications to him show that the field of his labours was the territory of the southern Picts, who are said by Bede to have been converted some time before by Ninian.

Although we thus lose two traditionary apostles of the early Scottish Church, we find, on the other hand, indications of a connection between this church of the southern Picts and the church in Ireland which belongs to the first period in the Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland and is said to have been founded by Patrick. Nectan, who is called in the Pictish Chronicle king of all the provinces of the Picts, and reigned from 458 to 482, is there said to have founded the church of Abernethy in honour of St. Bridget; and we are told in the Life of Boethius or Buitte, who founded the church of Mainister Buitte in Ireland and died in 521, that he arrived in Pictland with sixty followers, ten of whom were brothers and ten virgins; and finding Nectan, king of that land, just dead, he raised him to life, and received from him a grant of the fortress in which his miraculous recovery had taken place, where he founded a church. In the dedications of the churches in the territory of the southern Picts, we find traces of the presence of two other saints who belonged to this early period of the Irish Church. The church of Inchmocholmoc, now Inchmahome, in the Loch of Menteith, is dedicated to Mocholmoc, whose day in the Calendar was the 6th of June, and this identifies him with Colman of Dromore, in Ireland, who was called Mocholmoc. He was an Irish Pict, a disciple of Ailbe of Emly, and founded his monastery of Dromore at latest before the year 514. Fillan, called an lobar, or the leper, whose day is 20th June, was also a disciple of Ailbe, and is said in the Irish Calendar to have been of Rath Erenn in Alban, or ‘the fort of the Earn, in Scotland;’ and the parish of Saint Fillans, at the east end of Loch Earn, takes its name from him, while the church of Aberdour, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, is also dedicated to him. Further than this we can throw no light upon this early church among the southern Picts.

Towards the end of the fifth century, however, there took place among them a settlement of an Irish people who were already Christian. These were Scots from the district in Ireland termed Dalriada, forming the north-eastern part of Ulster, and extending from the river Ravel to the Bann. We are told in the Lives of St. Patrick that he visited this district of Dalriada, and founded several churches in it; and that when he again revisited it for the purpose of confirming and extending the faith, he found the twelve sons of Erc in possession of the sovereignty, and prophesied of one of them, Fergus mor, son of Erc, that he should be a king, and that the kings of that land, and also of Fortren, in the land of the southern Picts, should descend from him; and Tighernac records that ‘Fergus mor, son of Erc, with the people of Dalriada, takes possession of part of Britain and dies there.’ They appear to have landed in Kintyre and spread from thence along the coasts of Argyll, which from them took the name of Dalriada. For sixty years they appear to have gradually , until their extended their possessionspossessions encroachment upon the land of the Picts, towards the north, brought down upon them Brude, son of Maelcu, the powerful king of the northern Picts, from whom they sustained a great defeat; and they were for the time driven back into Kintyre. This Dalriadic people brought their Christian religion with them, and, during this period of sixty years of their advance into the country, appear to have extended themselves as far as the island of Mull, so as to embrace the island of Iona within their bounds, for in this island we are told the three sons of Erc—Loarn, Fergus, and Angus—were buried; and Fordun is probably recording real events when he tells us that Domangart, the son of Fergus, and Gabran his grandson, after whose death the Dalriads were driven back to Kintyre, were buried here. There does appear, in fact, to have been in the island of Iona, even at this early period, a Christian establishment of that peculiar collegiate form which appears at this time in Ireland: for among the groups of seven bishops whom Angus the Culdee invokes in his Litany, we find ‘the seven bishops of Hii’; and again, apparently the same group, as ‘the seven bishops of the church of Ia,’ another form of the name of the island.

The extensive prevalence of the dedications to Bridget or Bride in the West Highlands and Islands shows the influence of the Irish Church at this period in the western districts; and we learn from the old Lives of St. Bridget that she was visited shortly before her death, which took place in 525, by Nennidius, son of Ethath, ‘de partibus Mula,’ which Colgan rightly takes to mean the island of Mull. The dedications to Odhran or Oran, too, in the islands connected with Dalriada, probably belong to this earlier Dalriadic Church. Besides the cemetery in Iona called Reilic Odhrain, he appears in Tyree, where there is a burial-ground called Claodh Odhrain, in Colonsay at Killoran, and in Mull at Tiroran, on the north bank of Loch Scridan. He appears to be the same person as Odhran or Oran of Leitrioch-Odhrain, now Latteragh, in the barony of Upper Ormond and county of Tipperary in Ireland, whose death is recorded on the 2d October 548. He was of the same stock as the people of Dalriada.

When we turn to the district south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, which contained a mixed population of Britons, Picts, and Saxons, the former two of whom alone professed Christianity, we find, as we might expect, that there was a connection between the Christian Church there and both the British and the Irish Church. With the British Church we may connect those sons of Brachan or Brychan who are said to have founded churches in Manau. These are Rhun Dremrudd and Rhawin, two of his sons who are said to have founded churches there and to have been slain by the Saxons and Picts. Another son, Arthur, was buried in Manau; and Nevydd, the son of Rhun, is said to have been a bishop in the north and likewise to have been slain by the Saxons and Picts. In one account his church is said to have been at Lechgelyddon, or ‘the Stone of Celyddon’ or Caledonia, in the north; and his name is probably preserved in Rosneveth, now Roseneath.

The connection between this church and that of Ireland appears from the legend of St. Monenna, of which we have three versions. She is said to have been consecrated as a virgin by St. Patrick, and to have formed a society consisting of eight virgins and one widow, and founded the church of Cillsleibhe Cuillin, now Killevy in the county of Armagh. In one of these legends she is said to have sent one of her virgins called Brignat to Rosnat, a name by which, as we shall afterwards see, Candida Casa, or Whithern, was known. Three days after her death, one of her virgins who succeeded her, called Tannat, dies. In another form of the legend she is said to have founded seven churches in Scotland: one at Chilnecase in Galloway, a second on the hill of Dundonald in Ayrshire, a third on Dumbarton rock, a fourth in the castle of Strivelyn or Stirling, a fifth at Dunedene, ‘which in Anglic is called Edeneburg,’ a sixth on the hill of Dunpelder in East-Lothian, and the seventh at Lanfortin or Longforgund in Gowrie, where she is said to have died; and her relics were divided between the Scots, English, and Irish, the first portion being at Lanfortin and the last at Cillsleibhe. In the third form of the legend she founds many churches and monasteries in Scotland: one in Strivelyn or Stirling, one at Edeneburg on the top of the rock in honour of Saint Michael, three in Galloway, and one at LanfortinLanfortin. Here we see that her churches were mainly founded at the principal fortified posts in the country. Her death is recorded in the year 519.

Such are the few scattered notices of this church which we are able to substitute for the fabulous missions of Palladius and Servanus in Scotland at this time. It was confined to the southern Picts, the Dalriads, and the population south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, the tribes forming the nation of the northern Picts, and occupying the districts north of the great mountain range called the Mounth, being still pagan; and we find indications that the church, as then constituted, proved ineffectual to win over the people to any great extent to a thorough adoption of Christianity, and that a very general relapse to paganism had taken place.

Jocelin is probably reporting a genuine tradition when, in his Life of Kentigern, he says that the Picts, who had received the faith from Ninian, had lapsed into apostasy; and so also the author of the older Life of Kentigern, when he terms a king of the Picts of Lothian ‘semi-pagan.’ St. Patrick, in his epistle to Coroticus, written probably towards the end of his life, terms Coroticus, in whom we have already recognised that Ceretic Guledig from whom the kings of Alcluith or Alclyde were descended, ‘a tyrant who fears neither God nor his priests,’ and his followers ‘wicked rebels against Christ, and betrayers of Christians into the hands of the Scots and Picts.’ The latter, too, he repeatedly terms the apostate Picts, and says that the people ruled by Coroticus were no longer ‘his fellow-citizens, or the fellow-citizens of pious Romans, but were the fellow-citizens of demons,’ and the ‘associates of Scots and apostate Picts.’ It is apparent that the churches founded by Ninian and Patrick had in the main failed to effect a permanent conversion of the native tribes to Christianity, and that the latter was doomed to witness, even in his own life, a great declension from the Christian Church and relapse into paganism.

It required a different organisation to establish the Christian Church on a firm and permanent basis among them, and to leaven the whole people with its doctrines and rules of life. The introduction of the monastic element, and its application to the entire organisation of the Church, not only effected what a church with its secular clergy had failed to do, but led to that remarkable outburst of missionary zeal which sent from the shores of Ireland a stream of Christian missionaries invading the Continent in every direction, converting the people and founding monasteries among them, of whom Columbanus was the forerunner.

Chapter II. The Monastic Church in Ireland.

Assuming that the three orders of the saints pictured the leading characteristics of three periods of the Irish Church, there can be no question that the great feature of the second period was its monastic character. The principal points of difference in the constitution of the Church represented by the first two orders were these:—The first order ‘was of Catholic saints,’ the second ‘of Catholic presbyters.’ In the first they are said to have been ‘all bishops, founders of Churches’; in the second there were ‘few bishops and many presbyters, in number 300.’ In the first ‘they had one head, Christ, and one chief, Patricius’; in the second ‘they had one head, our Lord,’ but no chief. In the first ‘they observed one mass, one celebration’; in the second ‘they celebrated different masses, and had different rules.’ In the first ‘they excluded from the churches neither laymen nor women’; in the second ‘they refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries.’ The first, as we have said, exhibits a secular clergy founding churches; the second a clergy observing rules and founding monasteries. There were no doubt monasteries in the earlier church, and, as St. Patrick tells us in his Confession, ‘sons of the Scots and daughters of the princes are seen to be monks and virgins;’ but these were accidental features in a church essentially secular, and the monasteries were probably of the earliest type, when the monks were laymen, while the clergy, in common with the church at that period, consisted of bishops with their presbyters and deacons; but in the second period the entire church appears to have been monastic, and her whole clergy embraced within the fold of the monastic rule.

Bede well expresses this when, in describing one of her offshoots at Lindisfarne, he says, ‘All the presbyters, with the deacons, cantors, lectors, and the other ecclesiastical orders, along with the bishop himself, were subject in all things to the monastic rule.’ The Irish Church was therefore at this period a monastic church in the fullest sense of the term, and the inevitable effect of this was materially to influence the relation between the two grades of bishops and presbyters, both as to position and as to numbers. In order to estimate rightly the nature of this change, it is necessary to keep in view the distinction between the power of mission and that of orders. The former is the source of jurisdiction, and the latter of the functions of the episcopate. When the two are united, we are presented with a diocesan episcopacy; but the union is not essential. A monastic church requires the exercise of episcopal functions within her as much as any other church, and for that purpose possesses within her the superior grade of the bishop according to canonical rule; but when it became customary for the abbot of the monastery as well as several of the brethren to receive the ordination of the priesthood, for the purpose of performing the religious rites within the monastery, the tendency of all monasteries within a church was to encroach upon the functions of the secular clergy, and not only to claim exemption from the episcopal jurisdiction, but even to have within themselves a resident bishop for the exercise of episcopal functions within the monastery, to whose abbot he was subject as being under the monastic rule. The idea of transferring monachism entirely to the clergy of a particular district was not absolutely unknown in the Western Church. But at this period it was adopted by the Irish Church in its entirety; and when the entire church became monastic, the whole episcopate was necessarily in this position. There was nothing derogatory to the power of episcopal orders, nothing to reduce the bishops, as a superior grade, below or even to the level of the presbyters; but the mission, and the jurisdiction of which it is the source, were not in the bishop, but in the monastery, and that jurisdiction was necessarily exercised through the abbot as its monastic head. There was episcopacy in the church, but it was not diocesan episcopacy. Where the abbot, as was occasionally the case, was in episcopal orders, the anomaly did not exist. But the presbyters greatly outnumbered the bishops, and the abbot in general retained his presbyterian orders only.

When this was the case, the bishop appears as a separate member of the community, but ‘the presbyter-abbot was the more important functionary.’ Bede, the most observant as he is the most candid of historians, remarked this when he says that Iona ‘was wont to have always as ruler a presbyter-abbot, to whose jurisdiction the whole province and even the bishops themselves were, by an unusual arrangement, bound to submit;’ and again, that ‘the monastery in Iona (not the abbot but the monastery) for a long time held the pre-eminence over almost all those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the direction of their people.’ It was this inversion of the jurisdiction, placing the bishop under that of the monastery, which Bede pronounced to be an unusual order of things. The episcopate was in fact in the Monastic Church of Ireland a personal and not an official dignity; and we find at a later period that inferior functionaries of the monastery, as the scribe and even the anchorite, appear to have united the functions of a bishop with their proper duties.

Whence then did the Irish Church at this period derive its monastic character? Monasticism, as we know, took its rise in the East; but when Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, took refuge in Rome from the persecution of the Arians in the year 341, told of the life of the monks in the east, and wrote a Life of St. Anthony, the monastic life became at once popular in the west, and all Rome became filled with monasteries. The term religio, or ‘religion,’ was given to the monastic institutions, and that of ‘religious’ to all who followed a monastic rule, in contradistinction to that of ‘secular,’ which was applied to the clergy whose lives were regulated merely by the general law of the Church. From Italy it was introduced into Gaul, and it was finally established as an institution in that Church by Martin, monk and afterwards bishop, who founded the monastery of Ligugé, the most ancient monastery in Gaul, at the gates of Poitiers, in 361; and afterwards, when he became bishop of Tours in 372, a monastery near that city, which bore the name of ‘Majus Monasterium,’ or Marmoutier; and this monastery became the centre of monastic life in Gaul.

From Martin of Tours the monastic influence reached the Irish Church through two different channels, and became the means of infusing a new life into that Church, imparting to it a character which harmonised better with the tribal organisation of the social system and exhibited itself in that marvellous burst of energy which not only filled Ireland with monasteries, but was carried by its monkish missionaries across the sea to Britain and the Continent. The legend which connects Patrick with Martin, narrating that Conchessa, Patrick’s mother, was his niece, and that Patrick went to Martin at the age of twenty-five, and after four years’ instruction received from him the monastic habit, must be abandoned as irreconcilable with the chronology of St. Patrick’s life, and as introduced at a later period into his acts, as we shall afterwards see. That, however, which connects Ninian of Whithern with Martin is more trustworthy. He undoubtedly went to Rome during the lifetime of Martin, where, according to Bede, he was trained in the faith and mysteries of religion. He is said, on his return, to have visited that saint at Tours, and obtained from him masons for the purpose of building a church after the Roman manner, which, says Bede, was called Candida Casa, and dedicated to St. Martin.

This monastery, under the name of the ‘Magnum Monasterium,’ or monastery of Rosnat, became known as a great seminary of secular and religious instruction. In the legend of St. Cairnech we find it mentioned as ‘the house of Martain,’ and as ‘the monastery of Cairnech.’ He was the son of Sarran, king of the Britons, by Bobona, daughter of Loarn son of Erc, who had another daughter, Erca, mother of Murcertach, afterwards king of Ireland. As Murcertach is said in the legend to have been at that time with the king of Britain learning military science, the events there narrated must be placed before the date of the great battle of Ocha in 478, which was fought by Lughaidh, who then became king of Ireland, and by Murcertach mac Erca, and established the throne of Ireland in the line of the northern Hy Niall. The legend adds that ‘Cairnech went to Erin before him, and became the first bishop of the clan Niall and of Teamhar, or Tara, and he was the first martyr and the first monk of Erin, and the first Brehon of the men of Erin also.’ In this legend the introduction of monachism into Ireland is attributed to Cairnech, who had been bishop and abbot of the monastery or house of Martin, or in other words, of Candida Casa; and we find soon after several of the saints, mentioned as belonging to this second order, resorting thither for the purpose of being instructed and trained in the monastic life. We learn from the acts of Tighernac of Clones and of Eugenius of Ardstraw, who were both natives of Leinster, but connected with Ulster families on the mother’s side, that, with a number of others of both sexes, they had been carried off when boys by pirates and brought to Britain, where they were sent by the king, at the queen’s intercession, to a holy man, called in the Life of Tighernac, ‘Monennus,’ and in that of Eugenius, ‘Nennio, called also Mancennus’ and ‘Manchenius,’ and trained by him in his monastery of Rosnat, which is also called alba, or ‘white.’ When set at liberty and enabled to return to their own country, they both received episcopal orders; and Tighernac founded the monastery of Galloon in Lough Erne, and afterwards that of Cluain-eois or Clones in Monaghan; while Eugenius founded Ardstrath, now Ardstraw, near Derry. In the Acts of S. Enda of Aran, too, we are told that, when a youth, he was sent by his sister to Britain, to the monastery of Rosnat, where he became the humble disciple of Mancenus, the ‘magister’ of that monastery. He afterwards founded in one of the Aran islands, on the west coast of Ireland, a monastery containing one hundred and fifty monks, of which he was the presbyter-abbot. Saint Monenna too sends one of her family, named Brignat, to the British island, to the monastery of Rosnat, in order that she might be trained in the rules of monastic life, after which she returns to Ireland. Again we are told in the Acts of St. Finnian or Finbarr, of ‘Maghbile,’ or Moyville, that he went as a boy to St. Caelan, abbot of Noendrum, who placed him under the care of a most holy bishop called Nennio, who had come in a ship with some of his people to the harbour of the monastery; and by him he was taken to his own monastery, termed the ‘Magnum Monasterium,’ and there trained for several years in the rules and institutions of monastic life. In another Life, in which he is identified with St. Fridean of Lucca, his master’s name is called Mugentius, and his monastery ‘Candida.’ Finally, in the preface to the Hymn or Prayer of Mugint, we are told that ‘Mugint made this hymn in Futerna. The cause was this:—Finnen of Maghbile went to Mugint for instruction, and Rioc, and Talmach, and several others with him.’ Finnian, having received episcopal orders, afterwards founded the monastery of Magh Bile or Moyville, in the county of Down.

There can be little question that the monastery of Rosnat, called also ‘Alba’ and ‘Candida’ and ‘Futerna,’ and known as the ‘Magnum Monasterium,’ could have been no other than the monastery of Candida Casa, known to the Angles as Whithern, of which ‘Futerna’ is the Irish equivalent. The future bishops and abbots who were trained there were all more or less connected with Ulster; the monasteries founded by them were in the north of Ireland; and Finnian, the latest of them, was of the race of Dal Fiatach, occupying the districts of Down and part of Antrim, separated by the Irish Channel from Galloway. They would naturally resort to the great school of monastic life established there by Ninian in honour of St. Martin of Tours, to be trained in the rules. Whether Mancenus, or Manchenius, and Mugint were the same person, or the latter the successor of the former, it is difficult to say. Both appear to have borne the name of Nennio; but this appellation may have been applied to the abbots of Candida Casa as the successors of the founder Ninian. The former name of Manchenius is obviously the Irish name Manchan; and he is probably celebrated in the Litany of Angus the Culdee, when he invokes ‘thrice fifty disciples, with Manchan the master.’

While this monastic life, which Ireland thus received from Saint Ninian’s monastery in Galloway, affected mainly the north of Ireland, the second great channel through which monachism reached Ireland exercised a powerful and all-pervading influence on her central and southern districts. In the year 394 Tours was made the capital or civil metropolis of the province of Lugdunensis Tertia, and became a metropolitan city. Her ecclesiastical jurisdiction extended over the provinces now called Bretagne, Maine, and Anjou, with a part of Touraine; and Saint Martin became the metropolitan bishop. The monachism introduced into Gaul and fostered by him spread at once into Bretagne, where the monasteries of Landouart and Landevenech were founded; and from thence it passed into Wales. In the Catalogue of the Saints we are told that those of the second or monastic order ‘received a mass from bishop David, and Gillas and Docus, the Britons.’ Bishop David is of course the celebrated Saint David who founded the church of Cillemuine, or Menevia, now St. David’s. Gillas is no other than the historian Gildas; and by Docus is meant Saint Cadoc, who founded the great monastery of Nantgarvan, or Llancarvan, in South Wales, where Gildas was also associated with him. From these three eminent fathers of the monastic church of Wales the monastic institution also passed into Ireland through Finnian of Clonard. Finnian was of the race in Ireland termed Cruithnigh, or Picts; and we are told in his Acts, that after having been instructed in his youth by Fortchern of Trim and Caiman of Dairinis, an island in the bay of Wexford, he, in his thirtieth year, crossed the Irish Channel to the city of Kilmuine, where he found the three holy men, David and Cathmael and Gildas, and became their disciple. After remaining thirty years in Britain, partly in the monastery of St. David and partly in other monasteries in Wales, he returned to Ireland followed by several of the ‘religious’ Britons, ‘to gather together a people acceptable to the Lord.’

He eventually founded the great monastery of Cluain-Erard, or Clonard, in Meath, which is said to have contained no fewer than three thousand monks, and which became a great training school in the monastic life, whence proceeded the most eminent founders of the Irish monasteries. In an Irish Life of Finnian quoted by Dr. Todd in his Life of Saint Patrick, we are told, that ‘after this a desire seized Finnian to go to Rome when he had completed his education. But an angel of God came to him, and said unto him, “What“What would be given to thee at Rome shall be given to thee here. Arise and renew sound doctrine and faith in Ireland after Patrick.”’Patrick.”’ And in the Office of Finnian it is said that, ‘when he was meditating a pilgrimage to Rome, he was persuaded by an angel to return to Ireland, to restore the faith, which had fallen into neglect after the death of Saint Patrick.’ These expressions all point to an effete and decaying church restored through the medium of Finnian and his monastic school of Clonard, and to a great revival and spread of Christianity through a new and living organisation based upon the monastic institution.

This great work was carried out by twelve of his principal disciples, who filled the land with monasteries, and, as leaders of the new monastic church, became known as the twelve apostles of Ireland. In the Martyrology of Donegal Finnian is well described as ‘a doctor of wisdom and a tutor of the saints of Ireland in his time; for he it was that had three thousand saints at one school at Cluain Eraird, as is evident in his life; and it was out of them the twelve apostles of Erin were chosen;’ and it is added, ‘A very ancient vellum-book, in which are contained the Martyrology of Maelruain of Tamhlacht, and the list of the saints of the same name, states that Finnian was in his habits and life like unto Paul the apostle.’ Of these twelve apostles the earliest were the two Ciarans—Ciaran who founded the monastery of Saighir in Munster, and Ciaran, called Mac-an-tsaor, or ‘the son of the artificer,’ who founded, in 548, the more celebrated monastery of Clonmacnois in King’s County; Columba, son of Crimthan, a native of Leinster, who founded that of Tirrdaglas in the same year; Mobhi Clairenach, who founded the monastery of Glais-Naoidhen in Fingall; and Ninnidh, whose monastery was in an island in Lough Erne called Inismacsaint. Somewhat later were Brendan of Birr; the other Brendan, who became celebrated for his seven years’ voyage in search of the land of promise, and founded the monastery of Clonfert, where, like his master Finnian, he ruled as presbyter-abbot over three thousand monks; and Laisren or Molaisse of Devenish. Still later were Ruadhan of Lothra, Senell of Cluaininnis and Cainnech of Achabo, who lived till the end of the century. Of these, Brendan of Birr and Cainnech of Achabo were, like their master, of Pictish descent.

The number of the twelve apostles was made up by one who was destined to become more celebrated, and to leave a more extended and permanent impression on the church than any of the others. This was a disciple termed Colum or in Latin, Columba. By paternal descent he was a scion of the royal house of the northern Hy Neill. His father, Fedhlimidh, belonged to that tribe of them termed the Cinel Conaill from Conall Gulban, one of the eight sons of Niall, from whom they were descended, and was connected in the female line with the kings of Dalriada. Columba was born on the 7th December 521, and was baptized under that name by the presbyter Cruithnechan, but became soon known as Columcille or ‘Columba of the church,’ in consequence of the frequency of his attendance, when a child, at the church of Tulach-Dubhglaise, now Temple Douglas, near the place of his birth. When he had attained a proper age he became a pupil of Finnian, or Finbarr, of Maghbile, where he was ordained a deacon. He then, while yet a deacon, placed himself under the instruction of an aged bard called Gemman, by whom no doubt was fostered his taste for poetry, and that regard for the bardic order instilled, which led to their subsequently obtaining his warm support. Thus far the account of his youth is supported by Adamnan; but we must now trust to the ancient Irish Life alone for the further particulars of his early training. Leaving Gemman, he became a disciple of Finnian of Clonard, under whom he completed his training, and formed one of that band known as the twelve apostles of Ireland. He then joined Mobhi Clairenach, one of the number, at his monastery of Glaisnaoidhen, where he found Ciaran and Cainnech, who had been his fellow-disciples, and a third, Comgall, who belonged, like Ciaran and Cainnech, to the race of the Irish Picts, and was destined to become equally celebrated as a founder of monastic institutions. Columba thus united in himself the training of both monastic schools—that of Finnian of Maghbile, derived from the great monastery of Candida Casa, and that of his namesake of Clonard, derived from David, Gildas, and Cadoc of Wales. On leaving Mobhi, he probably obtained priest’s orders, having attained the age of twenty-five years; but the fact is not recorded in the Irish Life. |A.D. 545. Founds the monastery of Derry.|We are told, however, that immediately after the death of Mobhi, who died in 545, Columba founded the church of Derry. The account of it given in the old Irish Life will furnish a good illustration of how these monasteries were founded. ‘Columcille then went to Daire, that is, to the royal fort of Aedh, son of Ainmire, who was king of Erin at that time. The king offered the fort to Columcille; but he refused it, because of Mobhi’s command. On his coming out of the fort, however, he met two of Mobhi’s people bringing him Mobhi’s girdle, with his consent that Columcille should accept a grant of territory, Mobhi having died. Columcille then settled in the fort of Aedh, and founded a church there.’ Ainmire, the father of Aedh, and Columba were cousins-german, the sons of brothers. The grant of the royal fort to him as a commencement to his ecclesiastical career was therefore not unnatural. After this he is said to have founded the church of Raphoe in Donegal, and ten years after the foundation of Daire he founded at Dair-Mag, now Durrow, in the diocese of Meath, another church, which is called in the Irish Life a ‘Recles’ or monastery. It is termed by Bede a noble monastery in Ireland, which, from the profusion of oak-trees, is called in the Scottish language Dearmach, that is, the plain of oaks. Besides these, the first and last of which were his principal monasteries in Ireland, he is said in the Irish Life to have founded many others, as Cennanus, or Kells, in the north-west of the county of Meath, which the Irish Life tells us was a fort of Diarmada, son of Cerbaill, and ‘Columcille marked out the city in extent as it now is, and blessed it all, and said that it would become the most illustrious possession he should have in the land’—a prophecy fulfilled after two centuries had elapsed from his death; also Clonmore in the county of Louth; Rechra, now Lambay, an island off the coast of the county of Dublin; Swords, known as Sord-Choluimchille, in the county of Dublin; Drumcliffe, a little to the north of Sligo; Drumcolumb in the county of Sligo; Moone in the county of Kildare; Eas mic n Eirc, or Assylyn, near the town of Boyle; Easruadh, on the river Erne in Tyrconell; Torach, or Tory island, off the coast of Donegal; and others not mentioned in the Life.

In the year 558 the great monastery of Bennchar, or Bangor, was founded in the county of Down, the ancient territory of the Irish Picts, by Comgall, who was of that race and had been a companion of Columba at Glaisnaoidhen. It was situated on the south side of Belfast Lough; and the following account of it is given in his Life:—‘So great a multitude of monks then came to Comgall that they could not be maintained in one place, and hence they possessed several cells and many monasteries not only in the region of the Ultonians, but throughout the other provinces of Ireland; and in these different cells and monasteries three thousand monks were under the care of the holy father Comgall; but the greater and more memorable of them was the monastery of Bennchar.’ St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, in his Life of St. Malachy, written in the twelfth century, tells us that Bennchar was given to him by the lord of the land, that he might build, or rather rebuild, a monastery there; ‘for,’ he says, ‘a most noble monastery had existed there under its first father Comgall, which, as the head of many monasteries, produced many thousand monks. This sacred place was so fertile of saints and so abundantly bore fruit to God, that one of the sons of that holy fraternity, called Luanus, is said to have been alone the founder of no fewer than a hundred monasteries, filling Ireland and Scotland with its offspring, and not only in these, but even in foreign countries these swarms of saints poured forth like an inundation, among whom Saint Columbanus, penetrating thence to these our Gallican regions, erected the monastery of Luxeuil.’ Angus the Culdee in his Litany invokes ‘forty thousand monks, with the blessing of God, under the rule of Comgall of Bangor,’ but this number has probably been written for four thousand in the text. The Luanus mentioned by St. Bernard was Lugidus, or Molua, of Clonfert-Molua, now Clonfertmulloe, on the boundary between Leinster and Munster, and his monasteries were mainly founded in the southern half of Ireland. It was, as we have seen, by the mission of Columbanus to Gaul that this Monastic Church of Ireland was brought into contact with the Continental Church. We have already adverted to some of the external peculiarities which distinguished it from the Roman Church at this period; and we must now consider more in detail the features which characterised it in the aspect in which it presents itself to us in its home in Ireland.

When we read of such a number of monasteries constructed within a short period, so many of them, too, the work of one saint, we must not suppose that they at all resembled the elaborate stone structures which constituted the monastery of the Middle Ages. The primitive Celtic monastery was a very simple affair, and more resembled a rude village of wooden huts. We find from the Irish Life of Columba that, when he went to the monastery of Mobhi Clairenach, on the banks of the river Finglass, where no fewer than fifty scholars were assembled, their huts or bothies (botha) were by the water, or river, on the west, and that there was an ecclais, or church, on the east side of the river, which was no doubt, as was usual at the time, made of no better material. Thus it is told of Mochaoi, abbot of Nendrum, that on one occasion he went with seven score young men to cut wattles to make the ecclais, or church. When Ciaran of Saighir, who was one of the twelve apostles of Ireland, proceeded to erect his huts and church, he is said to have constructed them of the rudest materials, and when he went into the wood for these a wild boar assisted him by biting off with his sharp teeth the rods and branches for the purpose. Coemgen of Glendalough, too, built his oratory of rods of wood, planks, and moss; and in Conchubran’s Life of Monenna we are told that ‘she founded a monastery, which was made of smooth planks, according to the fashion of the Scottish nations, who were not accustomed to erect stone walls or get them erected.’ The church in these early monasteries was thus, as well as the huts or bothies for the accommodation of the monks, frequently built of wood; and the usual name given to this early wooden church was Duirthech, or Deirthech, of which the Latin equivalent was ‘oratorium.’ Of this word various etymologies are given; but the most probable is that contained in an old glossary which tells us that Duirtheach comes from Dairthech, a house of oak, and Deirthech from Dear, a tear, that is, a house in which tears are shed.

It was not till the end of the eighth century, when the ravages of the Danes and their repeated destruction of the churches by fire showed the great insecurity of these wooden buildings, that they began, when reconstructed, to be built of stone, and the cloicteach, or stone belfry, was then added to the ecclesiastical buildings. Of the repeated destruction of the wooden buildings by fire the Irish Annals afford sufficient evidence, and that the cloicteachs were added through fear of the Danes, is probable from the evidence that they were not only used as belfries, but also as places of safety both for the monks and for the valuables in possession of the monasteries. The stone churches were termed Damhliag, and are usually rendered in Latin by ‘templum,’ ‘ecclesia,’ and ‘basilica.’ In an ancient tract of Brehon laws, which treats of the different stipends given to artificers for their labours, there is a statement of the payments to be made to the Ollamh Saer, or master builder, who was required to be equally skilled in the art of building in stone and in wood, which well brings out the distinction between the modes of constructing these buildings. In this document we are told that he was to be paid ‘for the two principal branches of the art as from the beginning, that is, stone building and wood building, the most distinguished of these branches to remain as formerly—viz., the Daimhliag and the Duirthech. Twelve cows to him for these, that is, six cows for each.’

Attached to the Duirthech was usually a small side building termed Erdam, or in Latin ‘exedra,’ which was used as a sacristy. There was also a somewhat larger house which was the refectory, or common eating-hall, termed the Proinntigh, and in connection with it a Coitchenn, or kitchen, and when there was a stream of water fit for the purpose there was a Muilinn, or mill, and in connection with it a stone kiln for drying the corn. The Ollamh Saer was also to receive ‘six cows for coicthigis, or kitchen-building, and six cows for muilleoracht, or mill-building.’ Somewhat apart from the cells of the monks were the abbot’s house and the house set apart for the reception of guests, called the Tighaoid-headh, or ‘hospitium,’ and these two were of wood, as appears from the numerous notices in the Annals of those buildings being burnt by the Danes; while the Ollamh Saer is to receive ‘two cows for houses of rods.’ The whole of these buildings were protected by a circumvallation, sometimes of earth, or of earth and stone, termed the Rath, or Lios, and in Latin ‘vallum,’ at others of stone, or of earth faced with stone, and termed Caiseal, the remains of which still exist in connection with several of these foundations.

The size of these monasteries, as well as the number of monks which they contained, varied very much, but this did not affect their relative importance, which depended more upon the position of their founder and the jurisdiction they possessed from their foundation over other monasteries which had emanated from the same founder, or his disciples. The smallest in size appear to have usually contained one hundred and fifty monks. This was the number in the monastery founded in the Aran isles by Enda, who was one of those founders of monasteries who were trained at the ‘Magnum Monasterium’ of Candida Casa, or Whithern. We find the same number in the monastery of Lothra, founded by Ruadhan, one of the twelve apostles of Ireland; and Angus the Culdee in his Litany invokes ‘thrice fifty true monks under the rule of Bishop Ibar,’ ‘thrice fifty true monks under the rule of Munnu, son of Tulchan,’ and ‘thrice fifty true monks with the favour of God in Dairiu Chonaid.’ We have then a monastery three times as large, when he invokes ‘nine times fifty monks under the rule of Mochoe of Nendrum.’ The numbers of seven hundred and eight hundred occur in connection with Mochuda, when he invokes the ‘seven hundred true monks who were buried at Rathinn before the coming of Mochuda, upon being expelled thence to Lismore,’ and the ‘eight hundred who settled in Lismore with Mochuda, every third of them a favoured servant of God.’ Then we have a monastery at Lethglin containing fifteen hundred monks, when he invokes ‘the three hundred and twelve hundred true monks settled in Lethglin, who sang the praises of God under Molaisse, the two Ernas, and the holy martyr bishops of Lethglin.’ Finally, the great monastery and seminary of Clonard, from whence emanated the twelve apostles of Ireland, contained, as we have seen, three thousand monks.

When Brendan, one of the twelve, is said to have been the father of three thousand monks, and four thousand are said to have been under the rule of Comgall of Bennchar, or Bangor, it is probable that these numbers included the inmates of other monasteries, either founded by them or under their jurisdiction. The aggregate of monks in each monastery was termed its Muintir, or ‘familia;’ but this word seems to have been used both in a narrow sense for the community in each monastery and also in a broader signification, for the entire body of monks, wherever situated, who were under its jurisdiction. The monks were termed brethren. The elders, termed seniors, gave themselves up entirely to devotion and the service of the church, while their chief occupation in their cells consisted in transcribing the Scriptures. In the monastery of Lughmagh there were under Bishop Mochta sixty seniors; and of them it is said—

Three-score psalm-singing seniors
Were his household, royal the number;
Without tillage, reaping, or kiln-drying,
Without work, except reading.

There was then a class of working brethren who were occupied in the labours of the field, and from these were chosen too those required for mechanical work in the monastery. When Columba visited the monastery of Clonmacnois, some of the monks, we are told, were at their little grange farms near the monastery, and others within it. An important occupation, too, was the training of the young, and those under instruction were termed ‘juniores’ or ‘alumni,’ and were said to be ‘learning wisdom.’ These formed the congregation of the monastery.

The larger monasteries were usually situated on the mainland; but the small islands round the coast, or in the inland lochs, appear to have possessed an irresistible attraction for the founders of these monasteries, probably from the security against danger and the protection from intrusion which they afforded, and on them the smaller communities probably were settled. Of the islands round the coast of Ireland, the three Aran isles, which lie off the coast of Galway, seem to have at once attracted these settlements. Among the class of saints who were trained to the monastic life in the monastery of Whithern, while Finnian founded the great monastery and seminary of Maghbile or Moville in Ulster, Enda at once directed his steps to these islands, and we are told in his Acts that, having received a grant of the island of Aran from King Angus of Munster, he collected a company of disciples, and divided the island into ten parts, in which he constructed ten monasteries, placing in each one superior, as father, and another as second in power who should succeed the first on his death. He directed that the seniors should be buried with the rest, but that the bishops who succeeded them should be interred in their own proper cemeteries, and he founded his own monastery at the east end of the island, which is still called the Cell of St. Enda. This island is now known as Ara na Navach, or Aran of the Saints. Tory Island, off the north-west coast; Rachra, off the north-east; Rechra, or Lambay, in the Irish Channel, and other small islands, became likewise the seats of similar foundations. Of the twelve apostles of Ireland, we find that three—Molaisse of Devenish, Senell of Cluaininnis, and Ninnidh of Inismacsaint, founded their chief monasteries on three small islands in Lough Erne; and on two other islands in the same lake there were also monasteries. In Lough Ree, a lake formed by the Shannon, there were five; and in Lough Corrib and Lough Derg, both also formed by the Shannon, there were, in the former, three, and in the latter two monasteries. Wherever the river Shannon in its course formed a small island there was also a monastery; and the number of these island monasteries throughout Ireland generally was very great.

The monastic system which thus characterised the Irish Church in its second period and pervaded its organisation in every part, forming its very life, presented features which peculiarly adapted it to the tribal constitution of the social system of the Irish, and led to their being leavened with Christianity to an extent which no other form of the church could have effected. These large monasteries, as in their external aspect they appeared to be, were in reality Christian colonies, into which converts, after being tonsured, were brought under the name of monks. Thus we are told in the Life of Brendan that, as soon as he had been ordained priest by Bishop Erc ‘he also received from him the monastic garb; and many leaving the world came to him, whom he made monks, and he then founded, in his own proper region, cells and monasteries,’ till they reached the number of three thousand. There was thus in each tribe a Christian community to which the people were readily drawn, and in which they found themselves possessed of advantages and privileges without their actual social position with reference to the tribe and the land being essentially altered. They formed as it were a great ecclesiastical family within the tribe, to which its members were drawn by the attractions it presented to them. These were, first, greater security of life and property. Before the tribes were to any extent brought under the civilising influences of Christianity, life must have been, in a great measure, a reign of violence, in which every man had to protect his life and property as he best might; and the struggle among these small communities, either to maintain their own rights, or to encroach on those of others, and the constant mutual warfare to which it gave rise, must have exposed the lives of their members to incessant danger. To them the Christian community offered an asylum in which there was comparative rest and relief from danger at the cost of observing the monastic rule. An anecdote in Columba’s early life, told us by Adamnan, will show clearly enough what must have been the state of early society in Ireland in this respect. ‘When the holy man,’ he says, ‘while yet a youth in deacon’s orders, was living in the region of Leinster, learning divine wisdom, it happened one day that an unfeeling and pitiless oppressor of the innocent was pursuing a young girl, who fled before him on a level plain. As she chanced to observe the aged Gemman, master of the foresaid young deacon, reading on the plain, she ran straight to him as fast as she could. Being alarmed at such an unexpected occurrence, he called on Columba, who was reading at some distance, that both together, to the best of their ability, might defend the girl from her pursuer; but he immediately came up, and without any regard to their presence, stabbed the girl with his lance under their very cloaks, and leaving her lying dead at their feet, turned to go away back. Then the old man, in great affliction, turning to Columba, said, “How long, holy youth Columba, shall God, the just judge, allow this horrid crime and this insult to us to go unpunished?” Then the saint at once pronounced this sentence on the perpetrator of the deed; “At the very instant the soul of this girl whom he hath murdered ascendeth into heaven, shall the soul of the murderer go down into hell;” and scarcely had he spoken the words when the murderer of the innocent, like Ananias before Peter, fell down dead on the spot before the eyes of the holy youth. The news of this sudden and terrible vengeance was soon spread abroad throughout many districts of Ireland, and with it the wonderful fame of the holy deacon.’ Thus there soon sprang up a belief that any violation of the protection to life afforded by these Christian communities would draw down on the perpetrator the vengeance of the Christian’s God. Adamnan’s Life is pervaded by similar instances of the insecurity of life and property through crime and oppression.

But these monasteries, or Christian communities, likewise claimed the privilege of sanctuary within their bounds, which was fenced by similar religious sanctions. The loss of a battle, or any similar misfortune which befell any one who had violated this right of sanctuary, was directly attributed to such violation, till it became a confirmed belief that it could not be infringed with impunity. Thus, when the battle of Culdremhne was fought between Diarmaid, king of Ireland, and the northern Hy Neill, in 561, in which the former was defeated, it was said to have been ‘in revenge of the killing of Curnan, son of Aedh, son of Eochaidh Tirmcharna, while under the protection of Colum-cille.’ The same King Diarmaid, too, drew upon himself the curse of Ruadhan of Lothra, one of the twelve apostles of Ireland, by violating his sanctuary and carrying off by force to his palace at Tara a person who had taken refuge with Ruadhan. On his refusal to deliver him up, ‘Roadanus and a bishop that was with him took their bells that they had, which they rang hardly, and cursed the king and place, and prayed God that no king or queen ever after should or could dwell in Tarach, and that it should be waste for ever, without court or palace, as it fell out accordingly,’ and as stated in an old Irish poem,—

From the judgment of Ruadhan on his house
There was no king at Teamraigh or Tara.

The belief that the violation of the sanctuary of a Christian community would infallibly be avenged led to the fulfilment of the prophecy.

But a still more powerful influence arose from the intimate relation which the Christian community bore to the organisation of the tribe, and the extent to which the one was a reflection of the other. The publication of the Brehon Laws of Ireland, and the details with which they supply us, enable us now to understand better the precise nature of this relation. In estimating this, two facts must be kept in mind:—First, that the Irish Church of this second period cannot be regarded as forming one united church under a common hierarchy, recognising the authority of one central head, as may have been true of the church of the earlier period. While the first order of Catholic saints is said to have had ‘one head, Christ, and one chief, Patricius,’ the second order of Catholic presbyters is only said to have had ‘one head, our Lord,’ The church of this period must be viewed as consisting rather of different groups of monasteries, founded by the respective saints, either bishops or presbyters, of the second order, each group recognising the monastery over which the founder of the group personally presided, or which possessed his relics, as having jurisdiction over those which emanated from him and followed his rule. It was thus not one great ecclesiastical corporation, but an aggregate of separate communities in federal union. Secondly, that the abbots of each monastery, whether bishops or presbyters, were not elected by the brethren forming the community, but succeeded one another by a kind of inheritance assimilated to that of the tribe. As we have already seen, the foundation of a monastery usually commenced by a grant of a royal Rath or fort, or of a portion of land made by the head of the tribe to which it belonged to the saint, and in most instances the founder obtained this grant from the head of the tribe to which he himself belonged. These two tribes are in the Brehon Laws termed respectively the Fine Grin, or Tribe of the Land, that is, the tribe to whom the land belonged; and the Fine Erluma, or Tribe of the Saint, that is, the tribe to whom the patron saint, or founder, belonged. By the law of Tanistic succession in Ireland, the right of hereditary succession was not in the individual, but in the family to which he belonged. That is, it was hereditary in the family, elective in the individual. When the founder of the monastery belonged to the same tribe, or family, as the owner of the land which had been granted to him, the abbacy remained with this family, who provided from among the members of it a person duly qualified to fulfil the functions of abbot. There was thus connected with each monastery, to use the words of Dr. Reeves, a ‘Plebilis progenies,’ or lay family, ‘in‘in whom the tenancy of the lands was vested, possessing a regular succession, and furnishing from its members certain Coärbs, or successors, to the first abbot, who formed the Ecclesiastica progeniesEcclesiastica progenies and who, being unmarried, exhibit no lineal succession. In fact, the rule was, on each avoidance of the abbacy, to fill up the situation from founders’ kin, and, failing a qualified person in the direct line, to choose a successor from a collateral branch.’ The monastery of Derry is an instance of this. Aedh, son of Ainmire, the king of Ireland who granted the land, and Columba, the saint who founded the monastery, both belonged to the same tribe—that of the Cinel Conaill. The rule is thus stated in the Brehon Laws: ‘When it is a Church of the Tribe of the Land and the Church of the Tribe of the Saint and of the Land at the same time. That is, the tribe of the land succeeds to the church—that is, the tribe of the saint and the tribe of the land are one tribe in this case, and the saint is on his own land,—

The saint, the land, the mild monk,
The Dalta Church of fine vigour,
The Compairche, and the Deoruid De,
By them is the abbacy taken (in their order).’order).’

When, however, the saint who founded the monastery belonged to a different tribe from that of the chief from whom the grant was obtained and in whose tribe it was founded, the succession to the abbacy was often retained by the family to whom the saint belonged, from the members of which the abbot was in the same manner supplied. The monastery of Drumcliffe is an instance of this. It was founded by Columba in a district which belonged to a stranger tribe, and in the old Irish Life it is said that ‘he gave the authority, and the clergy and the succession to the Cinel Conaill for ever’—that is, to his own tribe. When this was the case, instead of the same tribe forming a lay and ecclesiastical ‘progenies,’ or family, the two families connected with the succession—the tribe of the land and the tribe of the saint—were different, and the following is the rule in the Brehon Laws:—

‘The Church of the Tribe of the Saint. That is, the tribe of the Saint shall succeed in the Church as long as there shall be a person fit to be an abbot (Damna Apaidh, or materies of an abbot), of the tribe of the saint, even though there should be but a psalm-singer of these, it is he that will obtain the abbacy. Where this is not the case, it is to be given to the tribe of the land until a person fit to be an abbot, of the tribe of the saint, shall be found; and when he is, it is to be given to him if he be better than the abbot of the tribe of the land who has taken it. If he be not better, he shall take it only in his turn. If a person fit to be an abbot has not come of the tribe of the saint or of the tribe of the land, the abbacy is to be given to the tribe of the monks (Fine Manach), until a person fit to be an abbot, of the tribe of the saint or of the tribe of the land, shall be found; and where there is such, he is preferable. If a person fit to be abbot has not come of the tribe of the saint, or of the tribe of the land, or of the tribe of the monks, the Annoit shall take it in the fourth place; the Dalta shall take it in the fifth place; the Compairche shall take it in the sixth place; the nearest Cill shall take it in the seventh place. If a person fit to be an abbot has not come in any of these seven places, the Deoruid De shall take it in the eighth place. If a person fit to be an abbot has not arisen of the tribe of the saint, or of the land, or of the monks together, and the Annoit, or the Dalta, or the Compairche, or the nearest Cill, or the Deoruid De, has the wealth, it must be given to the tribe of the saint, for one of them fit to be an abbot goes for nothing. The abbacy goes from them.’ The untranslated terms in these passages are used to designate the different churches which belonged to the same monastic group. The Annoit is the parent church or monastery which is presided over by the patron saint, or which contains his relics. The Dalta was a church affiliated to it. The Compairche was a church in the same ‘parochia.’ The Cill was the ‘Cella,’ as distinguished from the ‘Monasterium.’ The Deoruid De, literally ‘God’s stranger or pilgrim,’ was, as we shall afterwards see, the anchorite or solitary who lived secluded from his brethren in a stone cell. The Cell Manach, or ‘Cella Monachorum,’ is thus explained. ‘That is, a cell of monks is held by the tribe of monks; and the abbacy shall always belong to the monks as long as shall be a person of them fit to be an abbot; and whenever this is not the case, it is similar to that before mentioned of the tribe of the land, binding the tribe of the saint by a guarantee to the tribe of the land, upon the Annoit.’

These notices as to the succession in which the abbacy is held, obscure and fragmentary as are some of them, are sufficient to show the close connection in this respect between the church and the tribe; but that connection was rendered still more intimate by the claims which the church had now established upon the people of the tribe. They are thus defined:—‘The right of the Church from the Tuath or tribe is tithes and first fruits and firstlings; these are due to a church from her members,’ Tithes probably belong to a late period of the church; but the two others seem to be more archaic, and are thus defined:—‘What are lawful firstlings? Every first-born, that is, every first birth of every human couple, and every male child that opens the womb of his mother, being the first lawful wife, with confession according to their soul-friend, by which a church and souls are more improved; and also every male animal that opens the womb of its mother, of small or lactiferous animals in general. First fruits are the fruit of the gathering of every new produce, whether small or great, and every first calf and every first lamb which is brought forth in the year,’ ‘Every tenth birth afterwards, with a lot between every two sevens, with his lawful share of his family inheritance to the claim of the church, and every tenth plant of the plants of the earth and of cattle every year and every seventh day of the year to the service of God, with every choice taken more than another after the desired order.’ It is very characteristic of the spirit of these laws that the day of rest—the seventh day—should form one of the demands of the church upon the lay tribe, which its members were bound to render for the service of God with their other dues. The position of the son so given to the church is thus described: ‘The son who is selected has become the tenth, or as the firstling to the church; he obtains as much of the legacy of his father, after the death of his father, as every lawful son which the mother has, and he is to be on his own land outside, and he shall render the service of a free monk (saermanuig) to the church, and the church shall teach him learning; for he shall obtain more of a divine legacy than of a legacy not divine.’ The term Manach, or Monk, embraced all who were connected with, or subject to, the ecclais or monastery, and formed her muintir, or ‘familia,’ down to the lowest grade of those who occupied the church lands; and when they had any of the church orders conferred upon them, there was attached to it a very valuable privilege which must have powerfully attracted them to the service of the church. It is thus stated:—‘The enslaved shall be freed, the plebeians exalted, through the orders of the church and by performing penitential service to God. For the Lord is accessible; he will not refuse any kind of man after belief, among either the free or the plebeian tribes; so likewise is the church open for every person who goes under her rule.’

On the other hand, ‘the right of the Tuath or tribe against the church’ is thus stated:—‘They demand their right from the church, that is, baptism and communion and requiem of soul, and the offering (oifrend) from every church to every person after his proper belief, with the recital of the Word of God to all who listen to it and keep it.’ However difficult it may be for us now to comprehend the full import of these arrangements, they still indicate clearly enough how much the monastic church was a tribal institution, and how completely her rights were interwoven with those of the members of the tribe. This is implied, in a tract on the legal constitution and rights of privileged classes, when it is said, ‘It is no Tuath or tribe without three free neimhedh, or dignitaries—the Eclais, or church; the Flaith, or lord; and the File, or poet.’

The influence of the church, however, in her spiritual and moral aspect was as great as that which arose from her adaptation to the customs and laws of the tribe; and if we would understand how she so rapidly attained so powerful a position in the social organisation of the aggregate of tribes forming the population of Ireland, we must advert to her character and mode of operation as a missionary church. We can readily understand that these large monastic churches founded upon the mainland might at once exercise a great influence among the surrounding population; but when we consider the almost universal preference shown, in founding these churches, towards placing them in small islands, either near the coast or in the large inland lakes, and how numerous these island monasteries were, it seems difficult now to understand how there should have proceeded so great an influence from a small body of monastic clergy living on these isolated and unfrequented spots, as so rapidly to overthrow the heathenism of a great people, and to bring them so generally and speedily into subjection to the Christian Church. The monastic character of the church gave, however, a peculiar stamp to her missionary work which caused her to set about it in a mode well calculated to impress a people still to a great extent under the influence of heathenism. It is difficult for us now to realise to ourselves what such pagan life really was—its hopeless corruption, its utter disregard of the sanctity of domestic ties, its injustice and selfishness, its violent and bloody character; and these characteristics would not be diminished in a people who had been partially Christianised and had fallen back from it into heathenism. The monastic missionaries did not commence their work, as the earlier secular church would have done, by arguing against their idolatry, superstition, and immorality, and preaching a purer faith; but they opposed to it the antagonistic characteristics and purer life of Christianity. They asked and obtained a settlement in some small and valueless island. There they settled down as a little Christian colony, living under a monastic rule requiring the abandonment of all that was attractive in life. They exhibited a life of purity, holiness, and self-denial. They exercised charity and benevolence, and they forced the respect of the surrounding pagans to a life the motives of which they could not comprehend, unless they resulted from principles higher than those their pagan religion afforded them; and, having won their respect for their lives and their gratitude for their benevolence, these monastic missionaries went among them with the Word of God in their hands, and preached to them the doctrines and pure morality of the Word of Life. No wonder if kings and nations became converted to Christianity and incorporated the church into their tribal institutions in a manner which now excites our wonder, if not our suspicion. The lives of the saints show us these missionaries, owing to their devoted and self-denying lives, first received with respect by some chief, then obtaining a grant of land to found their monastery, and the people soon after converted by the preaching of the Word of God. Their influence, however, was soon enhanced by a less legitimate feature. We know how readily a rude and primitive people invest with superstitious and supernatural power those claiming superior sanctity, and the newly converted people soon surrounded these saints, as they termed them, with the same old halo of reverence and awe which had belonged to their pagan priests, such as they were. The power with which the latter were supposed to be endowed, of influencing the action of their native gods, was transferred to the Christian missionary, who was believed to exercise a similar power with regard to the Christian Deity. Their intercession was sought for, their malediction dreaded, and the claims and rites of the Christian Church invested with superstitious sanctions which brought the people more readily and universally into subjection to her. We can trace this feeling in the Brehon Laws. We are there told that ‘there are three periods at which the world is worthless: the time of a plague, the time of a general war, the dissolution of express contracts. There are three things which remedy them: tithes and first fruits and alms; they prevent the occurrence of plague; they confirm peace between the king and the people; they prevent the prevalence of war; they confirm all in their good contracts and in their bad contracts; they prevent the worthlessness of the world.’ And again, in explaining the rights of the Graid Feine, or country people, as to marriage, the commentary adds, ‘That is, the daughter of each of them to the other, such a person as is not under the word, or curse, of a patron saint.’

But these monastic establishments probably acquired a still greater influence from the extent to which they had obtained possession of the instruction of the young. They soon became, in fact, great educational seminaries to which the youth of the tribe were sent, not only to be trained to monastic life, but also for the purpose of receiving secular education. Each monastic church had, besides her community of monks, a body of young people who received instruction; thus in one of the laws it is said, ‘purity benefits the church in receiving every son for instruction, every monk to his proper penance, with the proper payments of all to their proper church.’ Even in the smaller monasteries, the number of scholars was usually fifty. In the larger, of course, a much greater number were taught. Hence a single generation was sufficient to convert the mass of the people to be devoted adherents of the Church.

The great evidence, however, of life and energy in a church is her missionary spirit towards foreign countries, and the irrepressible desire of her members to carry her teaching and her institutions into the neighbouring countries; and this evidence of her vitality the Irish Church at this period manifested in a very remarkable degree. It was natural that the opposite coast of North Britain and the islands which lay between it and Ireland should attract these missionaries at once to their shores. The first impulse seems to have been given by Brendan of Clonfert, who, it is said, soon after he had been ordained priest by Bishop Erc and assumed the monastic habit, sailed with fourteen of his monks in search of the land of promise of the saints, and spent seven years in the search before he returned home. The narrative of his seven years’ voyage became one of the most popular tales of the Middle Ages, and numerous editions exist of it. In its present shape it is, no doubt, a mere romance or monkish dream, in which the narrator, under the fiction of an imaginary voyage to different unknown islands, endeavours to realise his ideal of monastic and eremitical life, and it possesses some truly picturesque features. But there must have been some historic foundation for it; and such a romance could hardly have been interwoven into the acts of a real Brendan, if there had not been in the events of his life a missionary adventure in which he sought to extend the Christian Church to some distant island. There are not wanting some indications that this was so; but be this as it may, there seems no reason to refuse credit to the statement that, after his return from this voyage, he went to Britain to visit St. Gildas, who, as we have seen, was one of those from whom the monastic life passed to Ireland through the medium of Finnian of Clonard and his twelve disciples, of whom Brendan was one. After leaving Gildas, Brendan appears to have gone to the Western Islands, and to have founded in one of the islands a monastery called Ailech, and a church and its surrounding village in the land of Heth, and then returned to Ireland. This land of Heth we now know to have been the island of Tyree, but the precise situation of the other it is more difficult to fix. It must, however, certainly be looked for in one of the islands belonging to Britain. The name of Brendan is connected with more than one of the Western Isles. Fordun tells us that the island of Bute bore the name of Rothesay ‘until, when the faith of our Saviour had been diffused through all the ends of the earth, and the islands which are afar off, Saint Brandan constructed thereon a booth—in our idiom, bothe, that is, a shrine.’ But though the old chronicler’s etymology of the name of Bute is bad, the name of Brendan is preserved in the designation given to the people of Bute of ‘the Brandanes,’ and in the Kilbrandan Sound, which separates the island of Arran from Kintyre. The principal church in the island of Seil, which lies off the coast of Lorn, is also dedicated to Brendan, and one of the small islands forming the group called the Garveloch Isles, bears the name of Culbrandan, or the retreat of Brendan. This island is next to that called Eilean na Naoimh, or the Island of the Saints, and as the latter appears to have borne the name of Elachnave, it is not impossible that here may have been the monastery of Aileach. This visit to the Western Isles took place some time before the foundation of his principal monastery in Ireland, that of Clonfert, the date of which is known to have been 559; and we shall probably not be far wrong if we fix the the year 545 as the probable date.

The mainland of Argyll, off the coast of which these islands lay, was at this time in the occupation of the Scots of Dalriada, who had now possessed these districts for upwards of forty years. Their king was Gabhran, grandson of that Feargus Mor mac Erc who had led the colony from Ireland to Scotland in the beginning of the same century. Ireland had become nominally Christian before they left its shores, and they were, in name at least, a Christian people, and, during the first sixty years of the colony, had extended themselves so far over the western districts and islands, as to bear the name of kings of Alban. Whether Tyree was at this time included in their possessions may be doubted, but Seil certainly would be. They sustained, however, a great reverse in the year 560. Brude, the son of Mailchu, whom Bede terms a most powerful monarch, became king of the northern Picts, and had his royal seat at Inverness. By him the Dalriads were attacked, driven back, and their king Gabhran slain. For the time their limits were restricted to the peninsula of Kintyre and Knapdale and probably Cowal; but the islands were lost to them. This great reverse called forth the mission of Columba, commonly called Columcille, and led to the foundation of the monastic church in Scotland.

In investigating the lives of these great fathers of the Church, and endeavouring to estimate the true character of their mission, we have to encounter a very considerable difficulty. They filled so large a space in the mind of the people, and became in consequence the subject of so much popular tradition, that the few authentic facts of their history preserved to us became overlaid with spurious matter stamped with the feelings and the prejudices of later periods; and these popular conceptions of the character and history of the saint and his work were interwoven by each of his successive biographers into their narrative of his life, till we are left with a statement of their career partly true and partly fictitious, and a false conception is thus formed of their character and mission. So it was with Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland; and Columba, the Apostle of Scotland, shared the same fate. In both cases it is necessary to separate the older and more authentic tradition from the later stratum of fable. For this purpose we possess, in the case of Patrick, his own account of himself as contained in his Confession and his epistle to Coroticus, and can test the statements of his later biographers by their consistency with these documents. In the case of Columba we have no such record to appeal to, and can only bring the narratives of the later biographers to the test of a comparison with the statements of those who wrote more near to his own time. Fortunately for us, his two earliest biographers, Cummene and Adamnan, were both his successors in the abbacy of the monastery founded by himself, and collected its traditions regarding its founder within so short a period after his death that we may appeal to their statements of fact, irrespective of the colouring given to them by the circumstances of the time in which these biographers lived, with some confidence as affording us the means of testing the later narratives. Cummene became abbot just sixty years, and Adamnan eighty-two, after Columba’s death. We are warranted therefore in concluding that supposed facts in his life, which either are ignored by them or are inconsistent with their narrative, are the fruit of later and spurious tradition.

In the old Irish Life, which Dr. Reeves considers to be a composition probably as old as the tenth century, and which was originally compiled to be read as a discourse upon his festival, a few statements are found which bear this character; but the grand repertory of all these later and questionable additions to his biography is the elaborate Life by Manus O’Donnell, chief of Tyrconnell, compiled in the year 1532, which professesprofesses to be a chronological digest of all the existing records concerning the patron of his family. The tale which it tells of the cause of Columba’s mission to Scotland, and which is popularly accepted as true, is shortly this:—In the year 561 a great battle was fought at a place called Cuil-dremhne in Connaught, not far from the boundary between that province and Ulster. The contending parties were Diarmaid son of Cerbaill, head of the southern Hy Neill and king of Ireland, on the one side, and, on the other, the northern Hy Neill under the sons of Murcertach mac Erca, chiefs of the Cinel Eoghain, Ainmere, son of Sedna chief of the Cinel Conaill, and the people of Connaught under their king Aedh. The king of Ireland was defeated with great slaughter, and the cause of the battle was twofold: First, that King Diarmaid had taken Curnan, the son of the king of Connaught, by force from under the protection of Columba; and secondly, that he had given judgment against Columba in a dispute between him and Finnian of Moyville regarding the possession of a transcript of a copy of the Book of Psalms belonging to the latter, which Columba had made without his permission, and which the king had adjudged to belong to Finnian on the ground of the adage, To every cow belongs its calf. Columba, who himself belonged to the race of the northern Hy Neill, was said to have incited his tribe to avenge him upon the king of Ireland, and to have by his prayers contributed to their success. A synod of the saints of Ireland was held, before whom Columba was arraigned as responsible for the great slaughter caused by this battle; and they decided that he must win from paganism as many souls as had been slain in this battle. The mode in which it was to be fulfilled was referred to Laisren, or Molaisse, of Inishmurry, who imposed as a penance upon Columba perpetual exile from Ireland, whose shores his eyes were not again to see and whose soil his feet were not again to tread. Columba accordingly left Ireland for the Western Isles. He first landed on the island of Colonsay and ascended the highest ground, when, finding he could see the coast of Ireland from it, he dared not remain there; and a cairn called Cairn Cul ri Erin marks the spot. Proceeding farther east, he landed on the south end of the island of Iona; and, ascending the nearest elevation, where a cairn, also called Cairn Cul ri Erin marks the spot, he found that Ireland was no longer in sight; upon which he remained there, and founded his church on the island. Such is the popular account of Columba’s mission.

That he may have in some degree, either directly or indirectly, been the cause of the battle of Culdremhne is not inconsistent with the narrative of Adamnan. He not only twice mentions the battle of Culdremhne, and on both occasions in connection with the date of Columba’s departure for Scotland, but he gives some countenance to the tale when he tells us that Columba had been on one occasion excommunicated by a synod held at Taillte in Meath; but that when he came to this meeting, convened against him, St. Brendan of Birr, when he saw him approaching in the distance, quickly rose, and with head bowed down reverently kissed him; and when reproached by some of the seniors in the assembly for saluting an excommunicated person, he narrated that he had seen certain manifestations connected with his appearance, which convinced him that he was ‘foreordained by God to be the leader of his people to life. When he said this, they desisted, and so far from daring to hold the saint any longer excommunicated, they even treated him with the greatest respect and reverence.’ Adamnan does not connect this synod with the battle of Culdremhne, and only states that he had been excommunicated ‘for some pardonable and very trifling reasons, and indeed unjustly, as it afterwards appeared at the end’; but it is quite possible that these reasons may have been an imputation of responsibility for the blood shed at this battle. One of the causes given for the battle—that of the judgment given against Columba with regard to the transcript of the Book of Psalms—is, however, inconsistent with the terms of affection and respect which appear from Adamnan to have subsisted between Bishop Finnian and Columba, and bears the stamp of spurious tradition; but the other cause, the violation of the protection of Columba, touched one of the most cherished privileges of the Irish monastic church at the time—the right of sanctuary; and it was not unnatural that Columba should have deeply felt the necessity of vindicating it, and his tribe, the Cinel Conaill, as well as the whole race of the northern Hy Neill, should have considered their honour involved in resenting its violation.

The remainder of the tale is clearly at utter variance with the narrative of Adamnan. So far from the excommunication by the Synod of Taillte being followed by a sentence of exile from Ireland, he expressly tells us that it was not persisted in. He repeatedly alludes to Columba’s great affection for Ireland, and the yearning of his heart towards his early home; but not a word as to any prohibition against returning thither, or that his exile was otherwise than voluntary. He presents him to us as exercising a constant and vigilant superintendence over his Irish monasteries, and as repeatedly visiting Ireland, without a hint as to there being any reason for his refraining from doing so. We must therefore entirely reject this part of the story. Adamnan had no idea that Columba was actuated by any other motive than that of a desire to carry the gospel to a pagan nation, when he attributes his pilgrimage to a love of Christ. The old Irish Life knows no other reason than that ‘his native country was left by the illustrious saint and illustrious sage and son, chosen of God, for the love and favour of Christ.’ The author of the prophecy of Saint Berchan admits that he was responsible for the battle of Culdremhne:—

With the youth himself was the cause of
The great slaughter of the battle of Culdremhne;

but assigns as one reason of his going, the subjection of the Dalriads to the Picts:—

Woe to the Cruithnigh to whom he will go eastward;
He knew the thing that is,
Nor was it happy with him that an Erinach
Should be king in the east under the Cruithnigh.

His real motives for undertaking this mission seem therefore to have been partly religious and partly political. He was one of the twelve apostles of Ireland who had emerged from the school of Finnian of Clonard; and he no doubt shared the missionary spirit which so deeply characterised the Monastic Church of Ireland at this period. He was also closely connected, through his grandmother, with the line of the Dalriadic kings, and, as an Irishman, must have been interested in the maintenance of the Irish colony in the west of Scotland. Separated from him by the Irish Channel was the great pagan nation of the northern Picts, who, under a powerful king, had just inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Scots of Dalriada, and threatened their expulsion from the country; and, while his missionary zeal impelled him to attempt the conversion of the Picts, he must have felt that, if he succeeded in winning a pagan people to the religion of Christ, he would at the same time rescue the Irish colony of Dalriada from a great danger, and render them an important service, by establishing peaceable relations between them and their greatly more numerous and powerful neighbours, and replacing them in the more secure possession of the western districts they had colonised.

Chapter III. The Monastic Church in Iona.

‘In those days the Saint, with twelve disciples, his fellow-soldiers, sailed across to Britain.’ Such is the short and simple statement of Columba’s earliest biographer. Adamnan gives us the additional information that it was ‘in the second year after the battle of Culdremhne, that is, in the year 563, and in the forty-second of his age, that Columba, resolving to seek a foreign country for the love of Christ, sailed from Scotia, or Ireland, to Britain.’ In the same year, which is again marked by Adamnan as being two years after the battle of Culdremhne, we find him living in Britain with King Conall, son of Comgall, the successor of that Gabhran who had met his defeat and death in the battle with the powerful king of the Picts in 560. The territories occupied by the Scots of Dalriada had in consequence been much restricted, and for the time probably did not extend much beyond the peninsula of Kintyre, and perhaps Cowal, for while his predecessors are termed Ri Alban by the old annalist Tighernac, Conall bears the title of Ri Dalriada only. His chief seat appears at this time to have been at a place which the annalist calls Delgon, or Cindelgend, in Kintyre; and it seems to have been situated on the west coast of Knapdale. The curious cave chapel at Cove, on Loch Caolisport, which tradition says was Columba’s first church in Scotland before he sailed to Iona, is probably connected with his residence with King Conall.

Columba seems to have followed the mode usual at the time of commencing a missionary work, by exhibiting the Christian life in its purity and self-denial, as well as by preaching the Word; and accordingly Bede tells us that he converted the Pictish nation ‘by example as well as by the Word.’ His first object therefore would be to obtain the grant of some island suitably situated for his purpose, where he could found one of those primitive Celtic monasteries in which alone it was at the time possible to lead the Christian life. The island selected for the purpose was that small island which is separated from the great island of Mull by a narrow channel, and which bore the name of Ia or Hii, now called Iona. It has been made a subject of controversy whether Columba received the donation of this island from Conall, the king of Dalriada, or from Brude, the king of the Picts; and a rather profitless discussion has followed upon it. The principal authorities are, on the one side, the old annalist Tighernac, and on the other, the Venerable Bede; but although the latter historian preceded the former by at least three hundred years, it is maintained that Tighernac was likely to be better informed. In recording the death of King Conall in 574, he adds that ‘it was he who immolated the island of Ia to Columcille.’ Bede’s account, however, is very circumstantial. He says, on his first mention of the island of Hii, ‘which island belongs indeed to the realm of Britain, being separated from it by a sound of no great size; but was, by the donation of the Picts who inhabit these districts of Britain, given over to the Scottish monks from whose preaching they had received the faith of Christ.’ These accounts, though involving an apparent contradiction, are not in reality inconsistent with each other. Before the settlement of the Irish colonists in Dalriada, the districts forming it were occupied by a Pictish population. The Scots extended themselves by degrees, and some time prior to 560 their possessions had probably reached, at all events, the islands of Mull and of Iona. The Dalriads were already Christians. Whatever they won for themselves was also won for the Christian Church; and there is reason to think that there was an earlier Christian establishment on the island. Still, because it was situated on the frontiers of the Dalriads and the Picts, when the former were driven back by Brude, the king of the Picts, in 560, this part of the country must have been lost to them in actual possession. They would, however, claim it as their right, and hope to regain it. When Columba came on the avowed mission of endeavouring to convert these Picts, the Dalriadic king would naturally point to Iona as a suitable position for his mission, and convey to him such right in it as he possessed. On the other hand, Bede does not anywhere say that it was given to him by the Pictish monarch, but that it was a donation from the Picts who inhabited the districts of Britain from which the island was separated by a narrow strait. These would naturally form the first fruits of the saint’s mission, and their donation would be one, not of the Pictish nation at large, but of the tribe of the land, which we know was an essential preliminary to the foundation of these monastic establishments in Ireland. Accordingly the ancient tract called the Amra Choluimchilli describes Columba as ‘a noble one who sought seven tuaths, and definite for indefinite in it, or five tuaths of Erin and two tuaths in Alban.’

Columba thus commenced his mission by founding his monastery in the island of Iona. According to the old Irish Life, it was on Whitsun Eve, which in that year fell on the 12th of May, that he arrived in the island, when, we are further told, ‘two bishops who were in the island came to lead him by the hand out of it; but God now revealed to Columcille that they were not true bishops, whereupon they left the island to him, when he told of them their history and their true adventures.’ They were no doubt the remains of that anomalous church of seven bishops which here, as elsewhere, preceded the monastic church; and Columba appears to have refused to recognise them as legitimately entitled to the character of bishops, and the island was abandoned to him. It was an island well adapted in situation for his purpose, and must have possessed many attractions to one who, like Columba, possessed an intense love of nature and of natural objects, had the soul of a poet, and desired to combine with his active missionary work a life of purity and self-denial.

No one who pays merely a flying visit to Iona in an excursion steamer, with a crowd of tourists, and sees apparently a desolate-looking island with a few grey ruins, through which he is hurried by the guide in order that he may return in the steamer the same day, can form any conception of its hidden beauties,—its retired dells, its long reaches of sand on shores indented with quiet bays, its little coves between bare and striking rocks, and the bolder rocky scenery of its north-western and south-western shores, where it opposes wild barren cliffs and high rocky islets to the sweep of the Atlantic. Columba could hardly find a spot better adapted for the foundation of an island monastery which was to form the centre of a great missionary work, and to exhibit the Christian life in contrast with the surrounding paganism. He would find himself in possession of an island lying north-east and south-west, and separated from the island of Mull by a narrow channel of about a mile broad. Its length, about three miles and a half, and its breadth, about a mile and a half. In the centre of the island he would see a plain extending across it—at its narrowest part—from the eastern to the western sea, presenting apparently fertile land well adapted for agriculture or pasture, and, in the middle of it, a small green hillock surmounted by a circle of stones. North of this plain, on the western shore, he would see a tract of wilder ground consisting of small grassy patches, or dells alternating with rocky elevations, culminating in the highest hill in the island, now called Dunii; and on the northern shore, a strip of low land extending from the base of the hill to the sea, and terminating at the north-east end of the island in a stretch of the purest white sand, which was destined to be afterwards the scene of a cruel slaughter of the monks by the Danes. South of this plain he would see a tract of low fertile land, extending along the eastern shore, and sloping gently towards the sea; and through the centre of it a stream issuing from some marshy ground which separates the level fields from the bold barren tract on the west, and extends from the foot of Dunii, and trickling through a small channel into the sea. On the south of this stream he would find the plain hounded on the west by a natural bulwark of rocky elevations, and between it and the sea he would probably find the ancient cemetery in which the founders of the Dalriadic colony and their successors, down to his own time, were buried; and farther south, on the shore, a little harbour, or landing-place, for persons crossing the channel from Mull. If he ascended Dunii, he would find that Iona formed the centre of an archipelago of islands. On the north he would see the lofty island of Rum and the low shores of Canna, and behind them the distant and striking forms of the Coollin Hills in Skye. Looking west, the horizon would be bounded on the north-west by the island range consisting of the two islands of Coll and Tiree, and on the south-west the distant shores of Isla would be visible. Looking south over the low land of the Ross of Mull, the hills called the Paps of Jura would be very conspicuous, while the Garveloch islands, lying between it and Mull, are hidden by the intervening land. Below him, his eye would dwell on that part of the level fertile plain which extends from the foot of Dunii, where it is separated from the more northern plain by a line of rocky knolls, to the stream which flows from the marshy ground on the south. Here no object would arrest his gaze on the sloping plain save two isolated rocky hillocks on its highest level, and a large flat boulder stone between them and the sea, which must have travelled, in the glacial period of prehistoric times, across the channel from the opposite coast of Mull. This part of the plain would appear to him to present a favourable site for his monastery, while, by forming an artificial lake out of the marsh from which the stream flowed, he might increase its volume so as to enable it to turn a small mill, near which he would place a kiln for drying the grain, and a barn for storing it. We may well suppose that Columba, when he first surveyed his newly acquired island and thus looked around him, would form the silent resolution that here he would place his central monastery, and that he would not rest till he had planted a Christian church in every island within sight.

South of the central plain, the whole of the southern part of the island consists of rocky elevations separating small grassy ravines, and terminates in the bay called Port-a-churich, where tradition places the arrival of Columba in his curach; and at its south-west corner the island rises into the very perfection of bold rocky scenery. Here the rocky heights which bound the central plain on the south-west are termed Uchdachan, or breasts; and on the highest point overlooking the expanse of the western sea is the cairn called Cul ri Erin, which marks the spot where he is said to have ascended for the purpose of ascertaining if he could discern from it the distant shores of his beloved Erin. Among the several poems attributed to Columba, there is one which so remarkably describes the scene from this spot and the emotions it was calculated to excite in one of his temperament, that it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that it contains the genuine expression of his feelings. It bears the title Columcille fecit, and has been thus translated:—

Delightful would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailiun
On the pinnacle of a rock,
That I might often see
The face of the ocean;
That I might see its heaving waves
Over the wide ocean,
When they chant music to their Father
Upon the world’s course;
That I might see its level sparkling strand,
It would be no cause of sorrow;
That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,
Source of happiness;
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves
Upon the rocks;
That I might hear the roar by the side of the church
Of the surrounding sea;
That I might see its noble flocks
Over the watery ocean;
That I might see the sea monsters,
The greatest of all wonders;
That I might see its ebb and flood
In their career;
That my mystical name might be, I say,
Cul ri Erin (Back turned to Ireland);
That contrition might come upon my heart
Upon looking at her;
That I might bewail my evils all,
Though it were difficult to compute them;
That I might bless the Lord
Who conserves all,
Heaven with its countless bright orders,
Land, strand, and flood;
That I might search the books all,
That would be good for any soul;
At times kneeling to beloved heaven;
At times at psalm-singing;
At times contemplating the King of Heaven,
Holy the chief;
At times at work without compulsion;
This would be delightful.
At times plucking duilisc from the rocks;
At times at fishing;
At times giving food to the poor;
At times in a carcair (solitary cell).
The best advice in the presence of God
To me has been vouchsafed.
The King, whose servant I am, will not let
Anything deceive me.

In this island, then, of Iona, Columba founded his church, which not only for a time embraced within its fold the whole of Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and was for a century and a half the national church of Scotland, but was destined to give to the Angles of Northumbria the same form of Christianity for a period of thirty years.

In estimating the character of the Columban Church, it has hitherto been too much regarded from a narrow point of view, and its characteristics examined as if it stood alone—an isolated church founded by Columba and unconnected with any other. In addition to this, it has been made the subject of controversy between the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches, and their historians have regarded it through the medium of their own ecclesiastical prepossessions, and claimed it as possessing the essential characteristic of their own church. It must be viewed, however, as in reality a mission from the Irish Church, and as forming an integral part of that church, with which it never lost its connection. We should not therefore expect to find that, in character, it materially differed from that church, and we must interpret the indications afforded to us of the peculiarities of the Columban Church, if we are rightly to estimate their nature, by the known institutions of the parent Church of Ireland, of which it was an offshoot. We shall find accordingly that in every respect it resembled the Irish Church of this period. Like that church, it was essentially a monastic church, and also like it we find in it neither a territorial episcopacy nor anything like Presbyterian parity, but the same anomalous position of the episcopal order. The bishops were under the monastic rule, and as such were, in respect of jurisdiction, subject to the abbot, even though a presbyter, as the head of the monastery; but the episcopal orders were fully recognised as constituting a grade superior to that of the presbyters, and the functions which, by the general law of the church, were the exclusive privilege of the episcopate, were not interfered with. Thus while Bede, on the one hand, tells us that the monastery founded by Columba in Iona was wont to have always at its head a presbyter-abbot, to whose jurisdiction the whole province and even the bishops themselves were by an unusual arrangement subjected, Adamnan, on the other hand, records two instances of the exercise of episcopal functions, in which they are plainly recognised as the exclusive privilege of a superior ecclesiastical grade. Thus we are told that Findchan, a priest and founder of the monastery of Artchain in Tiree, brought with him from Ireland, under the clerical habit, a certain Aid the Black, who was of a royal family and of the race of the Irish Picts, that he might remain in pilgrimage in his monastery for several years, for Aid had been a very bloodthirsty man, and had slain even the king of Ireland; and that, after Aid had spent some time in his retirement, Findchan, having called in a bishop, had him improperly ordained a priest. ‘The bishop, however, would not venture to lay his hands on the head of Aid, unless Findchan, who was attached to Aid in a carnal way, would place his right hand on his head as a mark of his approval.’ When this ordination became known to Columba he disapproved of it, not because there was anything irregular in the intervention of the bishop, but ‘because Findchan had, contrary to the laws of God and the Church, placed his right hand upon the head of a son of perdition.’ On another occasion, when a stranger from the province of Munster, ‘who,’ says Adamnan, ‘concealed through humility the fact that he was a bishop, was invited, on the next Lord’s day, by Columba to join with him in consecrating the body of Christ, that as two priests they might break the bread of the Lord together, Columba, on going to the altar, discovered his rank and thus addressed him:—“Christ bless thee, brother; do thou break the bread alone, according to the episcopal rite; for I know now thou art a bishop. Why hast thou disguised thyself so long, and prevented our giving thee the honour due to thee?”’ We thus see two of the episcopal functions—viz., that of ordination and that of celebrating the eucharist with the pontifical rite—as well as the honour due to those possessing episcopal orders, as fully recognised as was the jurisdiction of the presbyter-abbot over them. The monastery founded by Columba in the island was, like many others of the island monasteries, one which was to consist of one hundred and fifty monks, or persons under the monastic rule. It is thus described in a stanza quoted in the old Irish Life:—

Illustrious the soldiers who were in Hii,
Thrice fifty in monastic rule,
With their curachs across the sea;
And for rowing threescore men.

The principal buildings of this earliest monastery were, as Adamnan clearly indicates, constructed entirely of wood and wattles, and therefore we cannot expect to find any remains of them to mark the precise spot on which they stood. The present ruins are the remains of stone buildings constructed at a much later period; but we should expect to be able to trace the course of the vallum, or rampart, which bounded the original monastery, and must have been, as is usual, either an earthen rampart, or one composed of mixed earth and stones, if it was not a stone cashel. We should expect, too, to find some indications of what formed its cemetery or burial ground. Then the stream which issues from the Lochan Mor, and is termed the Mill-stream, must have turned the wheel of a small mill; and near it we should find the remains of the kiln, which was of course a stone building. On the north side of the Mill-stream, near its issue from the lake, is an elevated piece of ground, rectangular in shape, flat on the top, and in part enclosed at the sides, which does not appear to be artificial, though adapted to some purpose. Where this abuts on the stream are the remains of a stone kiln. On its western side, at a little distance from where the stream issues from the lake, is the commencement of an outer rampart, composed of mixed earth and stones, which extends to the end of the plateau and then proceeds north between the lake and the plain, passing the two isolated rocky knolls on the east side, and terminates in two parallel straight terraces about one hundred and eighty yards long. These are termed Iomaire nan achd ann an breithe, or ‘the Ridge of the Acts in judgment,’ and approach within about fifty yards of the rocky knoll which bounds this plain on the north. Such indications as Adamnan gives of the site of the monastic buildings would place them on the sloping ground between this rampart and the channel. He mentions the vallum, or rampart, the canaba, or kiln, and the horreum, or barn by name; and, though he does not expressly mention a mill, he shows that there was one, as he tells us that one of the crosses was placed in a mill-stone as a pedestal. He speaks of the monasterium, or monastery proper, in terms which show that it contained a refectory of considerable size, in which was a fireplace and a vessel of water. He mentions the hospitium, or guest-chamber, which was wattled, and the houses, or cells of the monks, with the plateola, or little court, which they surrounded, and he indicates that these monastic buildings were constructed of wood. He repeatedly mentions the church with its exedra, or side chamber, and terms it an oratorium, which shows that it was a Duirthech or oak building. He frequently alludes to the house, or cell, occupied by Columba himself, which he says was built of planks and placed on the highest part of the ground. Although no remains of these buildings exist, we can gather what their relative position probably was from the buildings of another early monastery founded by Columba, which appear to have been all constructed of stone, and have thus left some remains behind them. In one of the Garveloch islands termed Eilean na Naomh, or the Isle of the Saints, are the remains of some very primitive ecclesiastical buildings which, as we shall afterwards see, we can identify with those of the first monastery Columba founded after that of Iona, and which, fortunately for us, owing to the island being uninhabited, not very accessible, and little visited, have not disappeared before the improving hand of man. The remains are grouped together about the middle of the island, on its south-eastern side. Here there is a small sheltered port or harbour, and near it a spring of water termed Tobar Challum na Chille, or Columba’s well. Near the shore, south of this, in a sheltered grassy hollow, are the remains of the cemetery, with traces of graves of great age; and adjoining it a square enclosure, or small court, on the east of which are the remains of buildings of a domestic character. North of this is the church, a roofless building, formed of slates without mortar, and measuring twenty-five feet by fifteen. North-east of this is a building resembling the cells appropriated to the abbots of these primitive monasteries. Farther off, on higher ground, are the remains of a kiln, and on a slope near the shore are two beehive cells resembling those used by anchorites. Somewhat of the same arrangement characterised the early monastic buildings at Iona, so far as the existing remains and the indications afforded by Adamnan enable us to fix their site. The small creek now called Port na muintir, or the harbour of the community, considerably to the south of where the mill-stream enters the sea, is, from its situation opposite a similar harbour on the coast of Mull, probably the portus insulæ, or landing-place of the island, mentioned by Adamnan. The remains of the stone kiln fix its site. Columba’s cell was, he tells us, on the highest ground, and another passage shows that it was near a small hillock overlooking the monastery. On the east side of the rampart, however, just where it passes near the isolated rocky knoll called Cnoc na bristeadh clach, is an elevated piece of level ground where the fragments of a cross were found; and here it must have been, for Adamnan tells us that Ernan the priest, who was Columba’s uncle, and presided over the monastery he had founded in the island of Hinba—that is, the very monastery the remains of which we have been describing—feeling himself seriously ill, desired to be taken back to Columba, who set out from his cell to the landing-place to meet him, while Ernan, though feeble, attempted to walk from the landing-place to meet Columba; and, when there were only twenty-four paces between them, Ernan suddenly died before Columba could see his face, and breathed his last as he fell to the ground; and Adamnan adds, ‘that on the spot where he died a cross was raised before the door of the kiln, and another where Columba stood.’ It is obvious from this narrative that the kiln was between Columba’s cell and the landing-place, and the former must have been nearly as far to the north as the latter was to the south-east of it. There in his cell, overlooking the monastery, Columba sat and wrote or read, having one attendant and occasionally two of the brethren standing at the door and awaiting his orders; and here he slept on the bare ground with a stone for his pillow. From his cell there appears to have been a via or road which crossed the mill-stream in front of the kiln, and led from thence to the harbour or landing-place now called Port na muintir. Then the flat boulder stone fixes the site of the refectory and the other conventual buildings which formed the monastery proper. Adamnan indicates that it was at some distance from the eminence immediately behind Columba’s cell which overlooked it. We learn from an incident mentioned by Adamnan in connection with Cainnech’s monastery of Achaboe in Ireland, that it contained a refectory in which was a table whereon the eulogia, or blessed bread, was divided; and a curious passage in the preface to an old poem attributed to Columba shows us that the same custom was used at Iona, but that a large flat stone was used for a table. It is as follows:—‘On a certain day Columcille was in Hii, and no one was with him except Boithin; and they had no food except a sieve of oats. Then said Columcille to Boithin, “Illustrious guests are coming to us to-day, O Boithin;” and he said to Boithin, “Remain thou here ministering to the guests, whilst I go to the Muillinn, or mill.” He took upon him his burden from off a certain stone that was in the Recles or monastery; Blathnat was its name, and it exists still, and it is upon it that division is made in the Proinntig, or refectory. However, the burden was heavy to him; so that he made this hymn in alphabetical order from that place until he arrived at the mill.’ Another version of the preface says that ‘the name of that stone is Moelblatha, and he left prosperity on all food which should be placed upon it.’ The refectory, therefore, was at some distance from the mill, and its site was marked by a stone remarkable enough to have a special name, to be capable of being used as a table, and to survive the building which enclosed it. Between this spot and the sea are the remains of an old burial-ground, marked by two upright pillar stones, over which a third was once placed, resembling a rude cromleac, or stone gateway. The Duirthech, or oratory, was placed probably on a higher part of the sloping ground between the conventual buildings and Columba’s cell. The site thus indicated of the older wooden monastery places it about a quarter of a mile north of the present ruins, which are on the south side of the mill-stream and therefore between the kiln and the shore. Outside of the vallum, or rampart, was the Bocetum, or cowhouse, mentioned by Adamnan; and the land on the east side of the island, south of the mill-stream, appears to have been used for pasture, while the fertile land forming the western part of the central plain, as well probably as the level land at the north end of the island, was used for tillage; and there appear to have been two granaries for storing the grain—one near the monastery, and the other close to the fields under tillage.

The members of this community were termed brethren. They took a solemn monastic vow on bended knees in the oratorium, and were tonsured from ear to ear—that is, the fore part of the head was made bare, and the hair was allowed to grow only on the back part of the head. They were addressed by Columba as his familia or chosen monks. They consisted of three classes. Those of advanced years and tried devotedness were called seniors. Their principal duty was to attend to the religious services of the church, and to reading and transcribing the Scriptures. Those who were stronger and fitter for labour were termed the working brothers. Their stated labour was agriculture in its various branches, and the tending of the cattle; and probably, in addition to this, the service within the monastery in the preparation of food and the manufacture of the various articles required for personal or domestic use. Among these Adamnan mentions the pincerna, or butler, who had charge of the refectory and its appointments, and the pistor, or baker, who was a Saxon. The third class consisted of the youth who were under instruction, and were termed alumni, or pupils. The dress of the monks consisted of a white tunica, or under garment, over which they wore a camilla, consisting of a body and hood made of wool, and of the natural colour of the material. When working or travelling their feet were shod with sandals, which they usually removed when sitting down to meat. Their food was very simple, consisting of bread sometimes made of barley, milk, fish, eggs; and in Iona they appear to have also used seals’ flesh. On Sundays and festivals, and on the arrival of guests, there was an improvement of diet; and an addition, probably of flesh meat, as mutton or even beef, was made to the principal meal.

With regard to divine worship, Adamnan does not specially mention a daily service; but the recitation of the Psalter is so repeatedly alluded to as an important part of the service, that a part of the day was probably given to it, from which, however, the working brethren were exempt. But the principal service was unquestionably the celebration of the Eucharist, which took place on the dies dominica, or Lord’s day, on the stated festivals of the church, as well as on such particular occasions as the abbot may have appointed. It is termed by Adamnan ‘the Sacred Mysteries of the Eucharist,’ or ‘the Mysteries of the Sacred Oblation.’ The priest, standing before the altar, consecrated the elements. When several priests were present, one was selected, who might invite a brother presbyter to break bread with him in token of equality. When a bishop officiated, he broke the bread alone, in token of his superior office. The brethren then approached and partook of the Eucharist. The chief festival in the year was the Paschal solemnity, or Easter. The practice of making the sign of the cross is repeatedly mentioned by Adamnan. One very important feature of this monastic system was the penitential discipline to which the monks were subjected. The ordinary discipline consisted of fasting on Wednesday and Friday and during Lent, to which those who practised extreme asceticism added the strange custom of passing a certain time with the body entirely immersed in water, and in that uncomfortable condition reciting the whole, or part, of the Psalter; but when any one, whether lay or cleric, desired to enter upon a special course of exercises, it was usual to select a distinguished saint as his Anmchara, soul-friend, or spiritual director, under whose direction it was fulfilled. After the commission of any offence, the penitent was required to confess his sin before the community, generally on his knees, and to perform such penance as the abbot prescribed, when he was either absolved or enjoined a more lengthened discipline. Adamnan records two instances of this severer discipline. In one, where the sin was a very great one, Columba imposed as a penance perpetual exile in tears and lamentations, among the Britons; and in another, the penitent, who had assumed the clerical habit, was sentenced to do penance for seven years in the island of Tiree, and accomplished his penance in the monastery of Maigh Lunge in that island. In conclusion, all the members of the community, as well as the affiliated monasteries, were, by their monastic vow, bound to yield prompt and implicit obedience to the abbot of the mother church, who was termed holy father and holy senior.

Such is a short view of the character of the monastic system established by Columba in the island of Iona. It presented the same life of strict submission to a rule enforcing observance of religious duty, ascetic practice and self-denial, which characterised the monastic church in Ireland, and its doctrines in no respect differed from those of that church. Their doctrinal system was that common to the Western Church prior to the fifth century, and it is pervaded by the ecclesiastical language of that early period. The divergence which took place between the Irish and the Roman Churches related to points of doctrine, or matters of observance, which emerged in the Western Church after that date, when all intercourse between it and the Churches of Britain and Ireland, beyond the bounds of the Roman empire, had been for the time interrupted; and to the authority of the Church of Rome with regard to such matters of faith and practice, when they again came into contact, the Columban Church, in common with the Irish Church, opposed the custom of their fathers, for which they claimed the sanction of the second general council, held in the year 381. To use the language of Columbanus, the Columban Church ‘received nought but the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles;’ and, as we learn from Adamnan, the foundation of Columba’s preaching, and his great instrument in the conversion of the heathen, was the Word of God.

Such then was the form in which, in the monastery founded by him in the island of Iona, Columba exhibited the Christian life to the surrounding heathen, and such the spirit in which he proceeded to do battle with the paganism which confronted him. Directly facing him to the east was the great pagan nation of the northern Picts, occupying the whole of Scotland north of the great range of the Mounth, and extending from sea to sea. Immediately before him, separated from Iona by a narrow channel, was the large island of Mull, with its low flat promontory stretching out towards the island; and behind it, on the mainland, extended the western districts of Ardnamurchan, Morven, and Lochaber, separated from the main body of the Pictish kingdom by the western part of the range of Drumalban, that part of it which was situated south of the Mounth forming the eastern boundary of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada.

It was probably not long before the influence of the little colony of Christian monks, and that of its founder, was felt in the neighbouring districts occupied by a Pictish population. Columba appears to have been two years on the island before he attempted to approach the powerful monarch of the Pictish nation, who was the more direct object of his mission, and in that period he probably won over the greater part of the people of the districts of Ardnamurchan and Lochaber. In Adamnan’s narrative he appears three times in the former district, which he appropriately terms that ‘stony region;’ on one occasion, travelling through it with two of his monks; on another, baptizing a child presented to him by its parents, who must have been already converted; and, on a third, denouncing some Scottish pirates, who had robbed Columban, whose guest he was then, and who is termed his friend. In Lochaber he appears twice: once as the guest of a man of humble condition, who was the owner of five heifers, and whom the Saint blessed; and, a second time, when he relieves a very poor peasant who had come to him. These notices seem to indicate that Columba had at an early period made his way as a missionary among the rural population of these districts.

It was in the year 565, two years after he landed in Iona, that he appears to have crossed the great mountain barrier of Drumalban and made his way to the court of King Brude, whose royal palace was situated near the river Ness. Adamnan relates that, when the Saint made his first journey to King Brude, the king would not open his gates to him. When Columba observed this, ‘he approached the folding doors with his companions, and, having first formed upon them the sign of the cross, he knocked at and laid his hand upon the gate, which instantly flew open of its own accord, the bolts having been driven back with great force. The Saint and his companions then passed through the gate thus speedily opened.’ Adamnan does not tell us who his companions were, which is unusual with him; but we learn from the Life of St. Comgall that they were, in point of fact, two of the most distinguished saints of the period,—Comgall of Bangor and Cainnech of Achaboe. They both belonged to the race of the Irish Picts; and therefore Columba probably thought that his mission to the king of the Picts of Scotland would be materially aided by their presence. According to this Life, Comgall made the sign of the cross upon the gates of the castle, and they immediately fell broken to the ground. Columba made the sign of the cross on the door of the royal house, with the same effect. Cainnech, however, made the sign over the hand of the king, which held a sword with which he intended to slay them, and the king’s hand was instantly withered; and it so remained till he believed in God, and, being made faithful to God, his hand was restored. The old Irish Life of Columba, in narrating the same occurrence, says simply that ‘the gate of the castle was shut against him, but the iron locks of the town (Baile) opened instantly through the prayers of Columcille;’ and we may well suppose that the bolts may have been withdrawn and the anger of the king disarmed through no greater miracle than the impression created by the imposing presence of the three ecclesiastics with their attendants. Adamnan implies this when he says that, ‘when the king learned what had occurred, he and his councillors were filled with alarm, and immediately setting out from the palace, advanced to meet, with due respect, the holy man, whom he addressed in the most conciliatory and respectful language. And ever after from that day, as long as he lived, the king held this holy and reverend man in very great honour, as was due.’ Although Adamnan does not specifically say that the king was then converted, we may infer that it was so, on the authority both of the Life of St. Comgall and of the Pictish Chronicle, which places the event in the eighth year of King Brude, and expressly says that he was in that year baptized by St. Columba. The Irish Life adds an incident which is nowhere else recorded, that ‘Mailcu, the son of the king, came with his Drui to contend against Columcille, through paganism; but they perished through the words of Columcille, both the king’s son and his Drui with him; and the name of God and Columcille was magnified through it.’

The indications which we receive from Adamnan and from other sources, as to what the character of the paganism of these northern Picts really was, are extremely slight; but such as they are, we may infer that the pagan system which Columba had to encounter among the heathen Picts in no respect differed from that which characterised the pagan tribes of Ireland, and which St. Patrick found opposed to him when executing his own Christian mission. The popular belief undoubtedly is that the so-called Druidical religion preceded Christianity both in Scotland and in Ireland; but, before examining the grounds of the traditionary belief as to the leading features of this system, it may be well to ascertain what we can really learn from the oldest sources as to its real character. The ancient metrical Life of St. Patrick, ascribed to Fiacc of Sleibhte, says of him—

He preached threescore years
The Cross of Christ to the Tuatha of Feni.
On the Tuatha of Erin there was darkness.
The Tuatha adored the Side.
They believed not the true Godhead
Of the true Trinity.

And who these Side were we learn from the Book of Armagh, which tells us that on one occasion St. Patrick and his attendants assembled one morning at a well, or fountain, near Crochan or Cruachan, the ancient residence of the kings of Connaught, in the county of Roscommon; ‘and lo! the two daughters of King Laoghaire, Ethne the Fair and Fedelm the Ruddy, came early to the well to wash, after the manner of women, and they found near the well a synod of holy bishops with Patrick. And they knew not whence they were, or in what form, or from what people, or from what country; but they supposed them to be men of Sidhe, or gods of the earth, or a phantasm. And the virgins said unto them, “Where are ye? and whence come ye?” And Patrick said unto them, “It were better for you to confess to our true God, than to inquire concerning our race.” The first virgin said, “Who is God, and where is God, and of what is God, and where is his dwelling-place? Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver? Is he everliving? Is he beautiful? Did many foster his Son? Are his daughters dear and beauteous to men of the world? Is He in heaven or on earth? in the sea? in rivers? in mountainous places? in valleys? Declare unto us the knowledge of Him! How shall He be seen? How is He to be loved? How is He to be found? Is it in youth? Is it in old age He is to be found?”’

Whatever may be the traces of a higher and more advanced mythology among the Irish, we can see from the questions of the king’s daughter that the objects of the popular belief were rather the personified powers of nature. Mysterious beings, who were supposed to dwell in the heavens or the earth, the sea, the river, the mountain, or the valley, were to be dreaded and conciliated. These they worshipped and invoked, as well as the natural objects themselves in which they were supposed to dwell; and this conception of them runs through the early history of Ireland during the pagan period. Thus Tuathal Teachmhar, a mythic monarch of Ireland, is stated in the Book of Conquests to have received as pledges from the nation ‘sun and moon and every power which is in heaven and in earth,’ that the sovereignty should be for ever allowed in his family; and King Laogaire, the contemporary of St. Patrick, when he attacked the people of Leinster in order to exact from them the tribute called the Borumha, and was defeated and taken captive, was obliged to give as pledges ‘sun and moon, water and air, day and night, sea and land,’ that he would not ask the Borumha as long as he lived; but having again attempted to exact the Boroime, he was killed by the ‘sun and wind and the other elements by which he had sworn: for no one dared to dishonour them at that time.’ By the Christian Church they were regarded as demons. Thus in an ancient tract, contained in the Leabhar na h-Uidhri, we are told that ‘the demoniac power was great before the introduction of the Christian faith; and so great was it, that they, that is, the demons, used to tempt the people in human bodies, and that they used to show them secrets and places of happiness, where they should be immortal; and it was in that way they were believed. And it is these phantoms that the unlearned people call Sidhe and Aes Sidhe.’

In connection with this belief was the class of people called Druadh, who were supposed to be able to conciliate these gods of the earth, or, by their influence with them, practise incantations and work spells. Thus, in the ancient hymn called Ninine’s Prayer, he says of St. Patrick—

He fought against hard-hearted Druide.
He thrust down proud men with the aid of our Lord of fair heavens.
He purified the great offspring of meadow-landed Erin.
We pray to Patrick, chief apostle, who will save us at the judgment from doom to the malevolence of dark demons.

St. Patrick himself, in the very old hymn attributed to him, prays to be protected

Against snares of demons,
Against black laws of heathenry,
Against spells of women, smiths, and Druadh.

And Fiacc in his poem says, ‘The Druids of Laogaire concealed not from him the coming of Patrick.’ In the Book of Armagh we find, from the indications there given of the paganism which St. Patrick overthrew, that it bore the same character. Thus we are told in the Life of St. Patrick that ‘the gentiles were about celebrating an idolatrous solemnity accompanied with many incantations and some magical inventions and other idolatrous superstitions; their kings being collected, also their satraps with their chief leaders, and the principal among the people, and Magi and enchanters and soothsayers and doctors, inventors of all arts and gifts, as being summoned before Laogaire in Temar.’ Again the Magus of King Laogaire challenges St. Patrick ‘to perform signs’ to show their respective powers. The Magus, in presence of them all, ‘commenced his magical incantations, and brought down snow upon the whole plain;’ but St. Patrick blesses the plain, when ‘the snow immediately vanished without rain, clouds, or wind.’ The Magus, ‘having invoked the demons, brought down very thick darkness upon the earth,’ which also St. Patrick dispelled. In Tirechan’s Annotations we are told that St. Patrick ‘came to the fountain of Findmaige, which is called Slan, because it was indicated to him that the Magi honoured this fountain and made donations to it as gifts to God,’ and further, ‘that they worshipped the fountain like a God.’ And again we are told that St. Patrick ‘came to Muada; and behold the Magi of the sons of Amolngid heard that the Saint came into the country, a very great crowd of Magi assembled, with the chief Magus, named Recrad, who wished to slay Patrick; and he came to them with nine Magi clad in white garments, with a magical host.’ Besides the objects of nature—the clouds of heaven, the water of the earth, the trees and fountains—in which these gods of the earth were supposed to dwell, they seem also to have been adored in the shape of idols. The word in Fiacc’s Hymn translated ‘darkness’ is glossed by ‘the worship of idols;’ and the few notices we have of them indicate that they were usually pillar stones. Thus, in the Dinnsenchus, Magh-Sleacht is said to have been thus called ‘because there was the principal idol of Erin, that is, the Cromcruach and twelve idols of stone around it, and himself of gold; and he was the God of all the people which possessed Erin till the coming of Padric;’ and in Cormac’s Glossary the word Indelba is glossed as ‘the names of the altars of these idols, because they were wont to carve on them the forms of the elements they adored there.’

Among the Picts of Ireland we find indications of the same system. Thus, in an account of the foundation of Emain Macha, the chief seat of their kings, which is contained in the Book of Leinster, we are told that ‘three kings that were over Erin in co-sovereignty, who were of the Ultonian, or Pictish, race, made an arrangement that each man of them should reign seven years. There were three times seven guarantors between them: seven Druid, seven Filid, or poets, seven Octighern, or military leaders—the seven Druid to scorch them by incantations; the seven poets to satirise and denounce them; the seven toisechs to wound and burn them, if each man of them did not vacate the sovereignty at the end of his seven years.’

The legendary accounts of the settlement of the Picts in Scotland are pervaded by the same pagan system. According to these legends, the Cruithnigh came from Thrace to Ireland under six brothers, and the king of Leinster offered them a settlement if they would expel a people called the Tuatha Fidhbha. One of the brothers, ‘Drostan, the Drui of the Cruithnigh, ordered that the milk of seven score white cows should be spilled when the battle should be fought. This was done, and the battle was fought by them, viz., Ardleamhnachta in Ibh Ceinnselaigh. Every one, when wounded, used to lie down in the new milk, and the poison did not injure any of them.’ They are then driven out to Scotland, but ‘six of them remained over Breaghmuigh. From them are every spell, and every charm, and every sreod, and voices of birds, and every omen.’ In the old poem which is quoted in these legends, Drostan, a thoroughly Pictish name, is called ‘the powerful diviner,’ ‘The plundering host of Fea’ are said to have been aided by poison. Then it is added—

The Drui of the Cruithnech in friendship
Discovered a cure for the wounded,
New milk in which they were washed
In powerful bathing.

The six who remained are thus described:—

There remained of them in Ealga,
With many artificers and warriors;
They would not leave Breaghmach—
Six demon-like Druadh—
Necromancy and idolatry, illusion,
In a fair and well-walled house.
Plundering in ships, bright poems,
By them were taught;
The honouring of sreod and omens,
Choice of weather, lucky times,
The watching the voice of birds
They practised without disguise.

In another legend, when Cruithnecan, who had settled in Pictland, demands wives for his people from the Irish, ‘he swore by heaven and by earth, and the sun and the moon, by the dew and the elements, by the sea and the land, that the legal succession among them for ever should be on the mother’s side.’ There is a poem, attributed to Columba, in which the same account is given of the pagan system opposed to him. He says—

It is not with the sreod our destiny is,
Nor with the bird on the top of the twig,
Nor with the trunk of a knotty tree,
Nor with a sordan hand in hand.

And again—

I adore not the voice of birds,
Nor the sreod, nor a destiny on the earthly world,
Nor a son, nor chance, nor woman;
My Drui is Christ the Son of God.

The indications afforded by Adamnan of the characteristics of the pagan system which Columba found opposed to him among the northern Picts, are quite in harmony with these notices. Thus, as we found King Laogaire with his Druid opposed to Patrick during his mission, so we find, in Adamnan’s account of Columba’s mission, Broichan the ‘Magus’ occupying an influential position at the court of King Brude, whose tutor he had been. We have already seen that in the Book of Armagh the term ‘Magi’ is applied to those who in the Irish documents are termed Druadh; and that the one is the recognised equivalent in Latin for the other there can be no doubt, for in a tract contained in the Leabhar Breac, giving an account of the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, the title is, ‘Of the story of the “Druad” incipit;’ and in another tract in the same book, giving an account of the parentage and country of King Herod, and of the ‘Magi,’ or Wise Men of the East, the account of the latter begins, ‘It shall now be inquired what was the family of these Druad, and what country they came from.’ Adamnan too uses the name as one well known, when he tells of a robber who dwelt in the island of Colonsay and was in the habit of crossing to Mull and stealing the young seals which were bred for the use of the monastery of Iona, and whom he terms Erc Mocudruidi, or Erc the Druid’s son.

We find too, that their beliefs, so far as Adamnan indicates them, possessed the same character. Thus he tells us that on one occasion, when Columba had been tarrying some days in the province of the Picts, he converted a certain peasant with his whole family, through the preaching of the Word of Life; and that the husband was, together with his wife, children and domestics, baptized. A few days afterwards one of his sons is attacked by a dangerous illness and brought to the point of death; whereupon the ‘Magi,’ or Druadh, began with great bitterness to upbraid the parents, and to extol their own gods as more powerful than the God of the Christians, and thus to despise God as though he were weaker than their gods. The son dies; but Columba comes and raises him from the dead, and thus confirms the faith of the peasant. These gods, too, appear as demons dwelling in fountains. Thus we are told that again, when Columba was staying in the province of the Picts, he heard that there was a fountain ‘famous among the heathen people, which the foolish men, having their senses blinded by the devil, worshipped as God. For those who drank of this fountain, or purposely washed their hands or feet in it, were allowed by God to be struck by demoniacal art, and went home either leprous or purblind, or at least suffering from weakness or other kind of infirmity. By all these things the pagans were seduced and paid divine honour to the fountain.’ Columba blesses the fountain in the name of Christ; and, having washed his hands and feet, he and his companions drank of the water he had blessed. ‘And from that day,’ adds Adamnan, ‘the demons departed from the fountain,’ and people, instead of being injured, were cured of many diseases by it. Then we find Broichan, the ‘Magus,’ or Drui, of King Brude, informing Columba that he will prevent him from making his voyage along Loch Ness; ‘for,’ he says, ‘I can make the winds unfavourable to thy voyage, and cause a great darkness to envelope thee in its shade.’ The Saint goes to the lake with a large number of followers, and the ‘Magi’ begin to exult, seeing that it had become very dark and that the wind was very violent and contrary. ‘Nor should we wonder,’ says Adamnan, ‘that God sometimes allows them, with the aid of evil spirits, to raise tempests and agitate the sea.’ Columba calls on Christ the Lord, and embarks in his small boat, which at once carries him along against the wind.

These Christian missionaries appear not to have denied the reality of those powers exercised by the Druids through their earth gods, but to have attributed them to the agency of evil spirits, and to have believed that their gods were demons; and this seems to have called forth the counter-superstition that these old Celtic saints held familiar intercourse with the angels of God, and in their turn received powerful aid from them—a belief which these saints themselves perhaps were not unwilling to recognise. We can see how such a belief would colour mere natural phenomena, and we have perhaps a very striking instance of it in an incident narrated by Adamnan. While Columba, he tells us, was living in Iona, ‘he went to seek in the woods a place more remote from men and fitting for prayer. And there, when he began to pray, he suddenly beheld, as he afterwards told a few of the brethren, a very black host of demons fighting against him with iron darts. These wicked demons wished, as the Holy Spirit revealed to the saint, to attack his monastery and with the same spears kill many of the brethren. But he, singlehanded against innumerable foes of such a nature, fought with the utmost bravery, having received the armour of the Apostle Paul. And thus the contest was maintained on both sides during the greater part of the day; nor could the demons, countless though they were, vanquish him, nor was he able, by himself, to drive them from his island, until the angels of God, as the saint afterwards told certain persons, and those few in number, came to his aid, when the demons in terror gave way.’ On the same day, when the saint was returning ‘to his monastery, after he had driven the devils from his island, he spoke these words concerning the same hostile legions, saying, Those deadly foes who this day, through the mercy of God and the assistance of his angels, have been put to flight from this small tract of land, have fled to Tiree; and there, as savage invaders, they will attack the monasteries of the brethren and cause pestilential diseases, of which many will be grievously ill and die.’ We can understand how such a persuasion should, to Columba’s mind, have peopled a dark thunder-cloud with a host of demons preparing to attack his monastery, and converted its flashes of lightning into iron darts; and how when as it passed over to Tiree his prayers brought angels to his assistance—a belief that would be confirmed if, after seeing the thunder-clouds hang over Tiree, he received the news of a sudden outbreak of sickness there. We may compare this incident with the verses attributed to Columba, and believed to have formed the prayer with which he aided his kinsmen at the great battle of Culdremhne:—

O God! why wilt thou not drive from us
This mist which envelopes our number?
The host which has deprived us of our judgment,
The host which proceeds round the cairn?
He is a son of storm who betrays us.
My Drui—he will not refuse me—
Is the son of God and truth with purity.

We thus see that the paganism which characterised the Irish tribes and the nation of the northern Picts exhibits precisely the same features; and all the really ancient notices we possess of it are in entire harmony with each other in describing it as a sort of fetichism, which peopled all the objects of nature with malignant beings to whose agency its phenomena were attributed, while a class of persons termed Magi and Druadh exercised great influence among the people from a belief that they were able through their aid to practise a species of magic or witchcraft, which might either be used to benefit those who sought their assistance, or to injure those to whom they were opposed. How unlike this is in every respect to the popular conception of what is called the Druidical religion will be at once apparent. The process by which this monstrous system has been evoked was simply to invest these same Druadh with all the attributes which Cæsar and the classical writers give to the Druids of Gaul, and to transfer to those northern regions all that they tell of Druidism in Gaul; to connect that with the stone monuments—those silent records of a remote age, and possibly of a different race, which have outlived all record of their time; and to assume that the stone circles and cromlechs, which are undoubtedly sepulchral monuments, represent temples and altars. Add to this some false etymologies of terms which are supposed to contain the name of Bel or Baal, and we have at once the popular conception of the Druidical religion, with its hierarchy of Archdruids, Druids, Vates, and Eubates, and all its paraphernalia of temples, altars, human sacrifices and the worship of Baal.

Adamnan, unfortunately, gives us no details of the conversion of the nation of the northern Picts from the pagan system which prevailed among them; but so powerful a monarch as their king, Brude mac Maelchon, having been won over to the Christian faith, the task of spreading the knowledge of the true religion among the nation at large would be greatly facilitated, and less reluctance would be shown to follow his example. Columba, no doubt, proceeded in the usual way by establishing monasteries, or small Christian colonies, among the Pictish tribes. Adamnan records but two instances of conversion beyond the districts which more immediately surrounded Iona; but as we find, in the former, Columba in friendly intercourse with the families of peasants whom he had won over to the Christian faith, so, in the latter, the conversions are of those in the rank of chiefs. In the one case he was travelling near Loch Ness, and hearing that an old man, who was a heathen, but ‘who had preserved his natural goodness through all his life even to extreme old age,’ was at the point of death, he hurried on to the district of Airchartan, or Glen Urquhard, on the north side of the lake, where he found ‘an aged man called Emchat, who, on hearing the Word of God preached by the saint, believed and was baptized, and immediately after, full of joy and safe from evil and accompanied by the angels who came to meet him, passed to the Lord. His son Virolec also believed and was baptized with all his house.’ In the other instance he was staying for some days in the Island of Skye, when ‘a boat came into the harbour, on the prow of which sat an aged man, the chief of the Geona cohort. Two young men took him out of the boat and laid him at the feet of the saint. After being instructed in the Word of God, through an interpreter, the old man believed and was at once baptized by him; and when the baptism was duly administered, he instantly died on the same spot, and was buried there by his companions, who raised a heap of stones over his grave.’grave.’ In both cases these old men, who were obviously of the Flaith, or chieftain class, seem to have been prepared to accept the true religion, and probably partially instructed in its truth, and hastened to be received into the church before death carried them off.

The position which Columba appears now to have held at the court of King Brude, and the disappearance of the ‘Magi,’ or Druadh, from the struggle, show the extent to which the Christian Church had been adopted in the land; for we find him staying among the Picts, and addressing King Brude in the following terms, in the presence of the ruler of the Orkneys:—‘Some of our brethren have lately set sail, and are anxious to discover a desert in the pathless sea. Should they happen, after many wanderings, to come to the Orcadian islands, do thou carefully instruct this chief, whose hostages are in thy hand, that no evil befall them within his dominions. The saint took care to give this direction because he knew that, after a few months, Cormac would arrive at the Orkneys.’ This is the language of one in a position of influence and authority. It is unfortunate that Adamnan should tell us so little of St. Columba’s real history and work among the heathen Picts, and so much of his miracles, prophetic utterances, and the manifestations of angels towards him; but his work is rather a panegyric than a biography, and his object is more to throw light upon his character, and to demonstrate his superior holiness, than to contribute a detail of historical events. The early period at which he wrote makes every hint, however slight, of great value; and we must be thankful for what we have got.

Columba seems to have been mainly engaged in the work of spreading the truth among the Pictish tribes for nine years after the conversion of King Brude, when he appears to have at length also attained the political object of his mission. In the year 574 died Conall, son of Comgall, king of Dalriada, in the thirteenth year of his reign. The territories over which he ruled were, as we have seen, greatly restricted in extent, as compared with those of the previous rulers, who were termed kings of Alban; and Saint Berchan says of him—

Thirteen years altogether
Against the hosts of the Cruithnigh ruled the illustrious.
When he died he was not king,
On Thursday in Kintyre.

According to the law of Tanistry, the succession fell to his cousin Eogan, son of that Gabran who had been defeated and slain by King Brude in 560; and Columba would have preferred to see him succeed, as he regarded him with affection; but he probably thought that his brother Aidan would suit his purpose better. Aidan was connected through his mother with the Britons of Strathclyde, and had played his part for a few years in the British wars. Columba announced that he had seen, ‘on a certain night, in a mental ecstasy, an angel sent to him from heaven, and holding in his hand a book of glass, containing the appointment of kings; and having received the book from the hand of the angel, had read therein the name of Aidan; and on his being reluctant to appoint him king, the angel had struck the saint with a scourge,’ and added these words,—‘Know for certain that by God am I sent to thee with the book of glass, that in accordance with the words thou hast read therein, thou mayest inaugurate Aidan into the kingdom.’ This was repeated three times.

There was no gainsaying such a statement by one in Columba’s position. Aidan came to Iona, and Columba there ordained him king. During the words of consecration, he prophesied that the throne would remain to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and, laying his hand upon his head, he consecrated and blessed him. Columba’s object in inaugurating Aidan with this solemn rite was to place him in the rank of an independent king, and to induce the Pictish monarch to recognise him as such over the whole of the Dalriadic territories. In order to secure the former object, he took advantage of an approaching synod, summoned to meet at Drumceatt, a mound on the river Roe, in the county of Londonderry. This great convention was called together by Aedh, son of Ainmire, king of Ireland, in the year 575, and consisted of all the petty kings and heads of tribes, and of the principal clergy of Ireland. Columba attended it, accompanied by King Aidan, and by a retinue who are thus described by the poet Dallan Forgaill:—

Forty priests was their number,
Twenty bishops, noble, worthy,
For singing psalms, a practice without blame,
Fifty deacons, thirty students.

The assembly was held not far from Columba’s monastery of Derry; and no doubt this retinue would consist of persons taken from his Irish monasteries, as well as of those who accompanied him from Iona. Columba’s object would be to make as imposing an appearance as possible; and there is no improbability in its having been composed not only of priests but of bishops.

According to the ancient tract called the Amra Columcille, there were ‘three causes for which Columcille came from Alban to Erin at that time—viz., for the releasing of Scannlan Mor, son of Cendfaelad, king of Ossory, with whom he went in pledge; and for the staying of the poets in Erin—for they were in banishment on account of their burdensomeness, for there used to be thirty in the company of each ollamh or chief poet, and fifteen in the company of each anrad, or poet next in rank; and for pacification between the men of Erin and Alban about Dalriada.’ Columba then came to the assembly, and ‘all rose up before him for welcome to him. According to another tradition, however, there rose not up one before him but Domnall, the king’s son. For the king said there should not rise up one before him; for he knew that about which he had come, and his coming was not thought well of by him; for the staying of the poets or the releasing of Scannlan was not pleasing to him. So that it is then Columcille blessed this Domnall, because he was reverent to that extent.’ The burdensomeness of the poets arose from their right to exact what was called coinmed, or refection from the tribes for themselves and their retinue; and Columba, who, as a poet himself, sympathised with them, succeeded in having their sentence of banishment revoked on condition of the retinue, for which coinmed could be exacted, being reduced to twenty-four for each ollamh, and twelve for each anrad. The chief ollamh of Erin at this time was Dallan Forgaill; and out of gratitude for Columba’s efforts on behalf of the poets, he composed the poem termed the Amra, or praise of Columcille. The preface from which this account is taken states the superstitious use that was made of it. ‘Columcille promised to Dallan the gifts and produce of the earth for this praising; and he took not them, but heaven, for himself and for every one who would recite it each day, and would understand it between sense and sound. Ut quidam dixit,

‘Amra Coluim—every day
Whoever will recite it completely,
Will reach the good bright kingdom,
Which God granted to Dallan.’

Columba did not, however, succeed in obtaining the liberation of Scannlan Mor. With regard to Dalriada, which was the main object of his attending the assembly, the question was how far the colony, now that Aidan had been solemnly inaugurated king, should be made independent of the mother country. As a colony or subject state, it was liable to the same burdens as were exacted from all the petty principalities in Ireland. These consisted in the payment of certain rents and tributes known as cain and cobach, and certain military services which consisted of what was called fecht, or the obligation of joining the superior king in expeditions, and sloged, or ‘hosting,’ that is, taking part in the general levy of the country for war. This question was referred to Colman, son of Comgellan, who was of Dalriada, ‘and Columcille said it is he who should make pacification between the men of Erin and of Alban; and this is the judgment he gave:—Their fecht and their sloged with the men of Erin always, for there is sloged with territories always; their cain and their cobach with the men of Alban, or their sea gathering only with the men of Alban, but all beyond that with the men of Erin.’ That is, the kingdom of Dalriada in Scotland was to be freed from all tribute towards the supreme king of Ireland, but they were to join in expeditions and hostings when called upon, with the exception of the sea gathering, or maritime expedition. This made Aidan practically independent, and Dalriada ceased to be a subject state to Ireland. On his return from the assembly, Columba had probably little difficulty in obtaining from King Brude a recognition of Aidan’s character as independent king over the western districts which were occupied by the Scots of Dalriada.

Chapter IV. The Family of Iona.

Twelve years had now elapsed since Columba first set foot on the island of Iona, and he had already to a great extent accomplished the task he had set before him. He had founded his monastery in the island, as the central point of his mission; and the exhibition of the Christian life, as alone it was possible to present it in the state of society which prevailed among these pagan tribes, as a colony of tonsured monks following a monastic rule, had its usual effect in influencing the population of the adjacent districts. He had converted and baptized the most powerful monarch that ever occupied the Pictish throne, and secured his friendship and support; and this was soon followed by the whole nation ostensibly professing the Christian faith. He had succeeded in re-establishing the Irish colony of Dalriada in the full possession of its territories, and obtained from the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, the recognition of its independence. He now found himself occupying a position of great influence and authority both in Ireland and Scotland—as the founder of numerous monasteries in the former, and as the acknowledged head of the Christian Church in the latter. Adamnan tells us that he had founded monasteries within the territories both of the Picts and of the Scots of Britain, who are separated from each other by the great mountain range of Drumalban. These monasteries, as well as those which he had founded in Ireland, regarded the insular monastery of Iona as the mother church, and as having, as such, a claim to their obedience; and became subject to her jurisdiction, while their inmates constituted the great monastic fraternity which was termed the Muintir Iae, or family of Iona, in the extended sense of the term. Adamnan mentions only a few of these monasteries, and gives no details which might enable us to fix the exact date of their foundation; though we can gather from his narrative that some of them existed during the earlier years of his mission, and all must, of course, have been founded at some period during the thirty-four years of his life in Iona.

Among the islands in which he founded monasteries, the two most important are those termed by Adamnan ‘Ethica terra’ and ‘Insula Hinba,’ or ‘Hinbina:’ the former has been conclusively identified with the low-lying and fertile island of Tiree, the Tireth, or ‘land of corn,’ which lies about twenty miles to the north-west of Iona, and whose dim outline would be barely seen on the horizon were it not for the elevated promontory of Ceannavara at the south end of the island. The name Hinba or Hinbina seems to designate the group of islands called the Garveloch Isles, situated in the centre of the great channel which separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Lorn, and which were the Imbach, or ‘sea-surrounded.’ The most westerly of the four islands which constitute this group is termed Elachnave and Eilean na Naomh, or the Island of Saints. It is a grassy island rising to a considerable height, and has at the west side a small and sheltered bay, on the lower ground facing which are a fountain, called St. Columcille’s Well, and the foundations of what must have been a monastic establishment, near which are the remains of two beehive cells. It is probable that on these two islands were founded the two earliest monasteries by Brendan before they were lost to the Scots of Dalriada by the defeat of the year 560, by which event they were probably swept away. In the year 565 Comgall of Bangor, who had come to the assistance of Columba on his first visit to King Brude, erected a monastery at a certain village in the land of Heth, or Tiree, where he is said in his Life to have abode some time; and that too was ruined by the Picts. We are told in his Life that, ‘one day when Comgall was working in the field, he put his white hood over his garment; and about the same time a number of heathen plunderers from the Picts came to that village to carry away everything that was there, whether man or beast. Accordingly when the heathen robbers came to Comgall, who was labouring in the field, and saw his white hood over his cape, thinking that this white hood was Comgall’s Deity, they were deterred from laying hands on him, for fear of his God. However, they carried off to their ship the brethren of Comgall and all their substance.’ The pirates are of course shipwrecked through the prayers of the Saint, and gave back their plunder; but afterwards Comgall was conducted back to Ireland by a company of holy men. This took place during the interval of fourteen years between the defeat of the Dalriads in 560 and their re-establishment in 574; and during this period the islands around Iona, which had been occupied by the Scots and from which they were driven by the Picts, seem to have formed a sort of debateable ground with a mixed population of Scots and Picts, who carried on a kind of guerilla warfare with each other; and any Christian establishments which existed among them would form points of attack for the heathen Picts. Thus we have here Pictish sea-robbers attacking the monastery in Tiree; and Adamnan tells us of a noted pirate of the royal tribe of Gabhran, and therefore a Scot, called Johan, son of Conall, whose seat appears to have been the rude fort which gave the name of Dunchonell to one of the Garvelochs, and whom we find plundering in the district of Ardnamurchan. He also tells us of a robber, Erc, the Druid’s son, who resided in Colonsay, and who plunders in the island of Mull.

Of Columban monasteries in Tiree, Adamnan mentions two. One he calls ‘Campus Lunge,’ or the plain of Lunge. It was situated near the shore over-against Iona, and had a portus, or harbour, which is probably the little creek or bay still known as Portnaluing; and the site of the monastery has been identified with that of Soroby on the south-east side of the island, where a large churchyard with some old tombstones and an ancient cross are the only remains of an ecclesiastical establishment. The monastery is frequently mentioned by Adamnan. It seems to have been founded at an early period, and was under the charge of Baithen, afterwards the successor of Columba in the abbacy of Iona. The second is termed by Adamnan Artchain, and said to have been founded by Findchan, one of Columba’s monks, whose name also appears in Kilfinichen in the island of Mull. The island, too, which he calls Hinba, is repeatedly mentioned by Adamnan, and seems also to have been an early foundation. He tells us that at one time Columba sent Ernan, his uncle, an aged priest, to preside over the monastery he had founded many years before in that island; and it seems to have been especially connected with the penitential discipline of the order, and a place of retirement for those who wished to lead a more solitary life. Thus, we find Columba on one occasion visiting Hinba, and ordering that the penitents should enjoy some indulgence in respect of food, which one of the penitents in that place, a certain Neman, refused to accept. Again, one of the brethren, Virgnous, after having lived for some time in the monastery of Iona, resolved to spend the rest of his life in Hinba, and led the life of an anchorite for twelve years in the hermitage of Muirbulcmar. The church and the house occupied by Columba are mentioned by Adamnan, and it is not impossible that the hermitage here referred to yet exists in one of the two beehive cells, which is still entire. Here, too, he tells us that four holy founders of monasteries came from Ireland to visit Columba, whom they found in Hinba. These were Comgall of Bangor and Cainnech of Achaboe, the two who had accompanied him in his first visit to King Brude, Brendan of Clonfert, and that Cormac for whom, when on a voyage in search of a solitary island in which to found a hermitage, he asked King Brude to secure the protection of the ruler of the Orkneys. This meeting must have taken place before the year 577, when Brendan died. They are termed by Adamnan ‘founders of monasteries,’ and he probably means here monasteries in Scotland; for Cormac is not known to have founded any monastery in Ireland, where he was superior of the monastery of Durrow, founded by Columba shortly before he began his mission in Iona; but in Galloway the church of Kirkcormac probably takes its name from him. The other three had all founded monasteries in Scotland—Brendan one in Tiree, and another probably in the island belonging to the Garveloch group, called Culbrandon; Comgall, in Tiree; while Cainnech founded several monasteries in Scotland. In his Life he is said to have lived in Heth, or Tiree, where the remains of a church called Cillchainnech still exist. He was also in Iona, where the remains of a burying-ground are still called Cillchainnech. He is also said to have dwelt at the foot of a mountain in the Drumalban range, referring, no doubt, to the church of Laggankenney, at the east end of Loch Laggan, and two islands are mentioned, Ibdone and Eninis, or the ‘island of birds,’ one or other of which was probably the island now called Inchkenneth, on the west side of Mull. Adamnan mentions one other island monastery, that of Elena, of which one of Columba’s twelve followers, Lugneus Mocumin, became superior—probably Eilean Naomh on the west coast of Isla; and two monasteries on the mainland, one called Cella Diuni, of which Cailtan was superior, on the lake of the river Aba, which is probably Lochawe; and the other called Kailleauinde, of which Finten was superior, and which may be Killundine in the old parish of Killintag in Morvern. A few of Columba’s other foundations in western districts and islands can be traced by their dedications to him. In the island of Skye, where he is mentioned by Adamnan as having been twice, in the very remarkable ruins on an island in a loch now drained, called Loch Chollumcille, in the north of Skye. Also, on an island in the river of Snizort, one which was of old called Sanct Colme’s kirk in Snizort; and one on a small island in the bay of Portree, called Eilean Columcille. The church in Canna too bore his name. In Morvern one of the two old parishes was called Cillcholumchille, and within the limits of Dalriada, on the mainland, were a few churches bearing the same name.

Of churches founded during his life, and no doubt in connection with him by others, three were sufficiently prominent to be occasionally mentioned in the Irish Annals. The first was that of Lismore, founded on the long grassy island of Lismore, lying between the coast of Lorn and that of Morvern, by Lugadius, or Moluoc, a bishop. He is termed by Angus the Culdee, under June 25th, ‘Lamluoc the pure, the bright, the pleasant, the sun of Lismore;’ and the gloss adds, ‘that is, Moluoc of Lismore in Alban.’ His death is recorded by Tighernac in 592. He is said by the Breviary of Aberdeen to have been a disciple of Brendan; but it is more probable that he was attached to Columba, as his pedigree takes him up to Conall Gulban, the ancestor of Columba and the founder of the tribe to which he belonged. The name of Kilmaluog in Lismore still commemorates his church there. The second of these monasteries is that of Cinngaradh, or Kingarth, a church in the south end of the island of Bute, which was founded by Cathan, who also was a bishop. He was of the race of the Irish Picts, and the contemporary and friend of Comgall and Cainnech; and from him were named the churches termed Cillchattan. The third was founded in the island of Egea, or Egg, which, with its strangely-shaped hill called the Scuir of Egg, can be seen from the north end of Iona. The founder was Donnan. He is commemorated by Angus the Culdee in his Felire, on the 17th of April, as ‘Donnan of cold Eig,’ to which the gloss adds, ‘Eig is the name of an island which is in Alban, and in it is Donnan. This Donnan went to Columcille to make him his Anmchara, or soul-friend; upon which Columcille said to him, I shall not be soul-friend to a company of red martyrdom, for thou shalt come to red martyrdom and thy people with thee; and it was so fulfilled;’ and in his Litany he invokes the ‘fifty-four who suffered martyrdom with Donnan of Ega.’ This would place the settlement in the island of Egg in the lifetime of Columba, and probably during the interval between the defeat and death of Gabran in 560 and the succession of Aidan in 574, when it required no great gift of prophecy to anticipate such a fate for a Christian establishment in one of the group of islands which were at the time the scene of warfare between the two nations, though this fate did not in fact overtake them till some time after. The churches termed Cill Donnan were either founded by him or dedicated to him. The numerous churches in the west Highlands bearing the names of Cillmaluag, Cillchattan, and Cilldonnan show that these were centres of missionary work.

Of the monasteries which must have been founded by Columba in the Pictish territories east of the Drumalban range Adamnan gives us no account, nor does he even mention any by name; but of the foundation of one we have an instructive account in the Book of Deer, which shows that they extended as far as the Eastern Sea. The tradition of the foundation of the churches of Aberdour in Banffshire and of Deer in the district of Buchan are thus given. ‘Columcille and Drostan, son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from Hi, or Iona, as God had shown to them, unto Abbordoboir, or Aberdour, and Bede the Cruithnech, or Pict, was Mormaer of Buchan before them; and it was he that gave them that cathair, or town, in freedom for ever from Mormaer and Toisech. They came after that to the other town; and it was pleasing to Columcille, because it was full of God’s grace, and he asked of the Mormaer—viz., Bede—that he should give it him, and he did not give it; and a son of his took an illness after refusing the clerics, and he was nearly dead. Then the Mormaer went to entreat the clerics that they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to him, and he gave in offering to them from Cloch in tiprat to Cloch pette mic Garnait. They made the prayer, and health came to him. Then Columcille gave to Drostan that cathair, and blessed it, and left as his word “Whosoever should come against it, let him not be many-yeared victorious.” Drostan’s tears came on parting with Columcille. Said Columcille, “Let Dear be its name henceforward.”’ In this traditional account preserved by the monks of Deer, we have a type of the mode in which these monasteries, or Christian colonies, were settled among the heathen tribes—the grant of a cathair, or fort, by the head of the tribe, and its occupation by a colony of clerics,—which is quite in accordance with what we learn as to the settlements of this monastic church in Ireland. The church of Rosmarkyn, now Rosemarky, on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, and that of Muirthillauch, or Mortlach, in the vale of the Fiddich, were dedicated to Moluog of Lismore, and were probably founded by him, as was that of Kildonan in Sutherland, by Donnan.

In 584 an event happened which appears to have opened up an additional field for Columba’s missionary labour. This was the death of his steady friend and supporter King Brude, who died in that year. Adamnan seems to be at a loss to account for death having been allowed to overtake King Brude while the powerful intercession of the great saint might have been exercised on his behalf, and attributes it to the disappearance of a mysterious crystal which Columba had blessed, and which, when dipped in water, was believed to impart to it a curative virtue. It was preserved among the king’s treasures, but could not be found, though sought for in the place where it was kept on the day when King Brude died in his palace near the river Ness. His successor was Gartnaidh, son of Domelch, who belonged to the nation of the southern Picts, and appears to have had his royal seat at Abernethy, on the southern bank of the Tay, near its junction with the river Earn. The only fact recorded of his reign is that he built the church of Abernethy two hundred and twenty-five years and eleven months before the church of Dunkeld was built by King Constantin. The statement is so specific, that it seems to embody a fragment of real history contained in some early chronicle, and places the date of the foundation of Abernethy during the first ten years of Gartnaidh’s reign. The nation of the southern Picts had, as we have seen, been converted early in the previous century by Ninian; and the Pictish Chronicle attributes the foundation of the church of Abernethy to an early King Nectan, who reigned from 457 to 481; but the Christianity established among them had no permanence, and they gradually fell off, till hardly even the semblance of a Christian church remained. What King Gartnaidh did, therefore, was to found a new monastic church where the earlier church had been, which, like it, was dedicated to St. Bridget of Kildare, and this not only took place during Columba’s life, but is, in the ancient tract called the Amra Columcille, directly attributed to his preaching, for in alluding to his death it contains this line: ‘For the teacher is not, who used to teach the tuatha, or tribes, of Toi;’ and the gloss upon it is, ‘The teacher who used to teach the tribes who were around Tai. It is the name of a river in Alban;’ and again, ‘He subdued the mouths of the fierce who were at Toi with the will of the king,’ which is thus glossed: ‘He subdued the mouths of the fierce with the Ardrig, or supreme king of Toi; though it was what they wished—to say evil, so it is a blessing they used to make, ut fuit Balam.’ Gartnaidh is here called the supreme king of Toi, or of the Tay, and the people whom Columba taught, the tribes about the Tay, which leaves little doubt that the church of Abernethy on the banks of the Tay, at this time the chief seat of government, had been refounded in connection with his mission to the southern Picts. In this work Columba had also the assistance of his friend Cainnech, whose Pictish descent would render his aid more effective. Cainnech appears to have founded a monastery in the east end of the province of Fife, not far from where the river Eden pours its waters into the German Ocean at a place called Rig-Monadh, or the royal mount, which afterwards became celebrated as the site on which the church of St. Andrews was founded, and as giving to that church its Gaelic name of Kilrimont. In the notice of Cainnech on 11th October in the Martyrology of Angus the Culdee, the following gloss is added: ‘And Achadh-bo is his principal church, and he has a Recles, or monastery, at Cill Rig-monaig in Alban. Once upon a time, when Cainnech went to visit Finnin, he asked him for a place of residence. I see no place here now, said Finnin, for others have taken all the places up before thee. May there be a desert place there, said Cainnech, that is, in Alban;’ and this seems to be alluded to in the Life of Cainnech when it is said, ‘Afterwards the Irish saints sent messengers to Cainnech, having learnt that he was living as a hermit in Britain; and Cainnech was then brought from his hermitage against his will.’ The churches dedicated to Moluog, to Drostan, to Machut the pupil of Brendan, and to Cathan, and the church founded at Dunblane by Blaan of Cinngaradh, the son of King Aidan and nephew of Cathan, show the spread of the Columban Church in the territory of the southern Picts.

In the latter years of his life we find Columba residing for a few months in the midland part of Ireland, and visiting the brethren who dwelt in the celebrated monastery of Clonmacnois. His reception there shows the estimation in which he was now held. ‘As soon as it was known that he was near, all flocked from their little grange farms near the monastery, and, along with those who were within it, ranged themselves with enthusiasm under the Abbot Alither; then, advancing beyond the enclosure of the monastery, they went out as one man to meet Columba, as if he were an angel of the Lord; humbly bowing down, with their faces to the ground, in his presence, they kissed him most reverently, and, singing hymns of praise as they went, they conducted him with all honour to the church. Over the saint, as he walked, a canopy made of wood was supported by four men walking by his side, lest the holy abbot Columba should be troubled by the crowd of brethren pressing upon him.’ In 593 Columba completed thirty years of his missionary work in Britain, and this seems to have given him a foreboding of his coming end; but he survived four years longer, and then his thirty-four years’ pilgrimage in Britain was brought to its close with his life.

The touching narrative which both his biographers, Cummene and Adamnan, give of his last days has been often quoted; but it presents such a charming picture of what his life in the island was, that it may well be repeated here. In the year 597 Columba had reached his seventy-seventh year, and towards the end of May in that year, says Cummene, the man of God, worn with age and carried in a car, goes to visit the working brethren, who were, adds Adamnan, then at work on the western side of the island, and addresses them, saying, ‘During the Paschal solemnities in the month of April just past I could have desired to depart to Christ, but lest a joyous festival should be turned for you into mourning my departure has been deferred,’ Hearing these words, the brethren, or, as Adamnan calls them, the beloved monks, were greatly afflicted. The man of God, however, as he sat in his car, turned his face towards the east and blessed the island with its insular inhabitants. After the words of blessing, the saint was carried back to his monastery. On Sunday the second of June we find him celebrating the solemn offices of the eucharist, when, as his eyes were raised to heaven, the brethren observed a sudden expression of rapture on his face, which he explained to them was caused by his seeming to see an angel of the Lord looking down upon them within the church and blessing it, and who, he believed, had been sent on account of the death of some one dear to God, or, as Adamnan expresses it, ‘to demand a deposit dear to God, by which he understood was meant his own soul, as a deposit intrusted to him by God.’

Columba seems to have had a presentiment that the following Saturday would be his last day on earth, for, having called his attendant Diormet, he solemnly addressed him—‘This day is called in the sacred Scriptures the Sabbath, a day of rest; and truly to me this day will be a day of rest, for it is the last of my life, and in it I shall enter into my rest after the fatigues of my labours; and this night preceding Sunday I shall go the way of my fathers, for Christ already calls me, and thus it is revealed to me.’ These words saddened his attendant, but the father consoled him. Such is Cummene’s short narrative. Adamnan, who amplifies it, states that Columba had gone with his attendant Diormet to bless the nearest barn, which was probably situated close to the mill and not far from the present ruins. When the saint entered it, he blessed it and two heaps of winnowed corn that were in it, and gave thanks in these words, saying, ‘I heartily congratulate my beloved monks that this year also, if I am obliged to depart from you, you will have a sufficient supply for the year.’ According to Adamnan, it was in answer to a remark which this called forth from his attendant that he made the revelation to him, which he made him promise on his bended knees that he would not reveal to any one before his death. Adamnan then introduces after it the incident that Columba, in going back to the monastery from the barn, rested half-way at a place where a cross which was afterwards erected, and was standing to his day fixed into a millstone, might be observed at the side of the road; and there came to him a white pack-horse, the same that used, as a willing servant, to carry the milk vessels from the cowshed to the monastery. It came up to the saint, and, strange to say, laid its head on his bosom and began to utter plaintive cries and, like a human being, to shed copious tears on the saint’s bosom, foaming and greatly wailing. The attendant, seeing this, began to drive the weeping mourner away; but the saint forbade him, saying, ‘Let it alone, as it is so fond of me—let it pour out its bitter grief into my bosom. Lo! thou, as thou art a man and hast a rational soul, canst know nothing of my departure hence, except what I myself have just told you, but to this brute beast devoid of reason the Creator himself hath evidently in some way made it known that its master is going to leave it;’ and saying this the saint blessed the work-horse, which turned away from him in sadness.

According to both Cummene and Adamnan, he then went out, and, ascending the hillock which overhangs the monastery, he stood for some little time on its summit, and, uplifting his hands, he blessed his monastery; and, looking at its present position and future prospects, he uttered a prophecy, the terms of which Adamnan alone adds: ‘Small and mean though this place is, yet it shall be held in great and unusual honour, not only by the kings of the Scots with their people, but also by the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations and by their subjects; the saints also of other churches even shall regard it with no common reverence.’ After this, both biographers tell us, descending from the hill and returning to the monastery, he sat in his cell and transcribed the Psalter. When he came to that verse of the thirty-third Psalm (the thirty-fourth of our version) where it is written, ‘They that seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good.’—‘Here,’ he said, ‘I think I can write no more: let Baithen write what follows.’ Having thus written the verse at the end of the page, he entered the holy church in order to celebrate the nocturnal vigils of the Lord’s Day; and, as soon as they were over, he returned to his cell and spent the rest of the night on his bed, where he had for his couch the bare ground, or, as Adamnan says, a bare flag, and for his pillow a stone. While reclining there, he commended his last words to his sons, or, as Adamnan says, to the brethren. ‘Have peace always and unfeigned charity among yourselves. The Lord, the Comforter of the good, will be your helper; and I, abiding with Him, will intercede for you that He may provide for you good things both temporal and eternal.’ Having said these words, St. Columba became silent. Then, as soon as the bell rang at midnight, rising hastily, he went to the church, and, running more quickly than the rest, he entered alone and knelt down in prayer beside the altar. Diormet, his attendant, however, following more slowly, saw from a distance the whole interior of the church filled at the same moment with a heavenly light; but, when he drew near to the door, the same light, which had also been seen by some of the brethren, quickly disappeared. Diormet, however, entering the church, cried out in a mournful voice, ‘Where art thou, father?’ and, feeling his way in the darkness, the lights not having yet been brought in by the brethren, he found the saint lying before the altar; and raising him up a little, and sitting down beside him, he laid his holy head on his bosom. Meantime the rest of the brethren ran in, and, beholding their father dying, whom living they so loved, they burst into lamentations. The saint, however, his soul having not yet departed, opened wide his eyes and looked around him from side to side as if seeing the holy angels coming to meet him. Diormet then, raising his right hand, urged him to bless the brethren; but the holy father himself moved his hand at the same time as well as he was able, and, having thus signified to them his holy benediction, he immediately breathed his last. His face still remained ruddy and brightened in a wonderful way from the heavenly vision: so that he had the appearance not so much of one dead as of one that sleepeth.’

‘In the meantime,’ as both biographers inform us, ‘after the departure of his saintly soul, the matin hymns being finished, his sacred body was carried, the brethren chanting psalms, from the church to his cell, where his obsequies were celebrated with all due honour for three days and as many nights; and when these praises of God were finished, his holy body, wrapped in fine clean linen cloths’cloths’ and, Adamnan adds, placed in a coffin, or tomb, prepared for it, was buried with all due veneration. The stone which St. Columba had used as a pillow was placed, as a kind of monument, at his grave, where it still stood in Adamnan’s day. His obsequies, which lasted three days and nights, were confined to the inhabitants of the island alone; for there arose a storm of wind without rain, which blew so violently during the whole time that no one could cross the sound in his boat; but immediately after the interment the wind ceased and the storm was quelled, so that the whole sea became calm.

Columba died on Sunday morning the 9th of June in the year 597, and left behind him an imperishable memory in the affections and veneration of the people whom he first brought over to the Christian faith. It is unfortunately the fate of all such men who stand out prominently from among their fellows and put their stamp upon the age in which they lived, that, as the true character of their sayings and doings fades from men’s minds, they become more and more the subject of spurious traditions, and the popular mind invests them with attributes to which they have no claim. When these loose popular traditions and conceptions are collected and become imbedded in a systematic biography, the evil becomes irreparable, and it is no longer possible to separate in popular estimation the true from the spurious. This has been peculiarly the case with Columba, and has led to a very false estimate of his character. It has been thus drawn by a great writer, in language at least of much eloquence:—‘He was vindictive, passionate, bold, a man of strife, born a soldier rather than a monk, and known, praised and blamed as a soldier—so that even in his lifetime he was invoked in fight; and continued a soldier, insulanus miles, even upon the island rock from which he rushed forth to preach, convert, enlighten, reconcile and reprimand both princes and nations, men and women, laymen and clerks. He was at the same time full of contradictions and contrasts—at once tender and irritable, rude and courteous, ironical and compassionate, caressing and imperious, grateful and revengeful—led by pity as well as by wrath, ever moved by generous passions, and among all passions fired to the very end of his life by two which his countrymen understand the best, the love of poetry and the love of country. Little inclined to melancholy when he had once surmounted the great sorrow of his life, which was his exile; little disposed, save towards the end, to contemplation or solitude, but trained by prayer and austerities to triumphs of evangelical exposition; despising rest, untiring in mental and manual toil, born for eloquence, and gifted with a voice so penetrating and sonorous that it was thought of afterwards as one of the most miraculous gifts that he had received of God; frank and loyal, original and powerful in his words as in his actions—in cloister and mission and parliament, on land and on sea, in Ireland as in Scotland, always swayed by the love of God and of his neighbour, whom it was his will and pleasure to serve with an impassioned uprightness. Such was Columba.’ Or rather, such is the Columba of popular tradition, described in the beautiful and forcible language of his most eloquent biographer; but much of this character is based upon very questionable statements, and, as the facts which appear to sanction it do not stand the test of critical examination, so the harder features of his character disappear in the earlier estimates of it. Adamnan says of him, ‘From his boyhood he had been brought up in Christian training, in the study of wisdom, and by the grace of God had so preserved the integrity of his body and the purity of his soul, that, though dwelling on earth, he appeared to live like the saints in heaven. For he was angelic in appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work, with talents of the highest order and consummate prudence; he lived during thirty-four years an island soldier. He never could spend the space even of one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some other holy occupation. So incessantly was he engaged night and day in the unwearied exercise of fasting and watching, that the burden of each of these austerities would seem beyond the power of all human endurance. And still, in all these, he was beloved by all; for a holy joy ever beaming on his face revealed the joy and gladness with which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul.’

Dallan Forgaill, in the ancient tract called the Amra Choluimchille, speaks of him in the same strain. He describes his people mourning him who was ‘their souls’ light, their learned one—their chief from right—who was God’s messenger—who dispelled fears from them—who used to explain the truth of words—a harp without a base chord;—a perfect sage who believed Christ—he was learned, he was chaste—he was charitable—he was an abounding benefit of guests—he was eager—he was noble—he was gentle—he was the physician of the heart of every sage—he was to persons inscrutable—he was a shelter to the naked—he was a consolation to the poor;—there went not from the world one who was more continual for the remembrance of the cross.’ There is no trace here of those darker features of vindictiveness, love of fighting, and the remorse caused by its indulgence; nor do the events of his life, as we find them rather hinted at than narrated, bear out such an estimate of it. He was evidently a man of great force of character and determined zeal in effecting his purpose—one of those master-minds which influence and sway others by the mere force of contact; but he could not have been the object of such tender love and implicit devotion from all who came under the sphere of his influence, if the softer and more amiable features pictured in these earlier descriptions of him had not predominated in his character.

Three peculiarities he had, which led afterwards to a belief in his miraculous powers. One was his sonorous voice. Dallan Forgaill tells us

The sound of his voice, Columcille’s,
Great its sweetness above every company;
To the end of fifteen hundred paces—
Vast courses—it was clear.

Adamnan includes this among his miraculous gifts, and adds that to those who were with him in the church his voice did not seem louder than that of others; and yet, at the same time, persons more than a mile away heard it so distinctly that they could mark each syllable of the verses he was singing, for his voice sounded the same whether far or near! He gives us another instance of it. Columba was chanting the evening hymns with a few of his brethren, as usual, near King Brude’s fortress, and outside the king’s fortifications, when some ‘Magi,’ coming near to them, did all they could to prevent God’s praises being sung in the midst of a pagan nation. On seeing this, the saint began to sing the 44th Psalm; and, at the same moment, so wonderfully loud, like pealing thunder, did his voice become, that king and people were struck with terror and amazement. Another trait, which was ascribed to prophetic power, was his remarkable observation of natural objects and skill in interpreting the signs of the weather in these western regions. Dallan Forgaill says: ‘Seasons and storms he perceived, that is, he used to understand when calm and storm would come—he harmonised the moon’s cocircle in regard to course—he perceived its race with the branching sun—and sea course, that is, he was skilful in the course of the sea—he would count the stars of heaven.’ When Adamnan tells us that Baithene and Columban asked him to obtain from the Lord a favourable wind on the next day, though they were to sail in different directions, and how he promised a south wind to Baithene next morning till he reached Tiree, and told Columban to set out for Ireland at the third hour of the same day, ‘for the Lord will soon change the wind to the north,’ it required no more than great skill in interpreting natural signs to foretell a south wind in the morning and the return breeze three hours after. The third quality was a remarkable sagacity in forecasting probable events, and a keen insight into character and motives. How tales handed down of the exercise of such qualities should by degrees come to be held as proofs of miraculous and prophetic power, it is not difficult to understand.

After Columba’s death, the monastery of Iona appears to have been the acknowledged head of all the monasteries and churches which his mission had established in Scotland, as well as of those previously founded by him in Ireland. To use the words of Bede, ‘This monastery for a long time held the pre-eminence over most of those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the direction of their people,’ a position to which it was entitled, as the mother church, from its possession of the body of the patron saint. Of the subsequent abbots of Iona who succeeded Columba in this position of pre-eminency, Bede tells us that, ‘whatever kind of person he was himself, this we know of him for certain, that he left successors distinguished for their great charity, divine love and strict attention to their rules of discipline; following, indeed, uncertain cycles in their computation of the great festival (of Easter), because, far away as they were out of the world, no one had supplied them with the synodal decrees relating to the Paschal observance; yet withal diligently observing such works of piety and charity as they could find in the Prophetic, Evangelic and Apostolic writings.’

According to the law which regulated the succession to the abbacy in these Irish monasteries, it fell to the tribe of the patron saint to provide a successor; and Baithene, the cousin and confidential friend and associate of Columba, and superior of his monastery of Maigh Lunge in Tiree, who was also of the northern Hy Neill, and a descendant of Conall Gulban, became his successor, ‘for,’ says the Martyrology of Donegal, ‘it was from the men of Erin the abbot of I was chosen, and he was most frequently chosen from the men of Cinel Conaill.’ He appears to have been designated by Columba himself as his successor, and to have been at once acknowledged by the other Columban monasteries; for Adamnan tells us that Finten, the son of Tailchen, had resolved to leave Ireland and go to Columba in Iona. ‘Burning with that desire,’ says Adamnan, ‘he went to an old friend, the most prudent and venerable cleric in his country, who was called in the Scotic tongue Columb Crag, to get some sound advice from him. When he had laid open his mind to him, he received the following answer: “As“As thy devout wish is, I feel, inspired by God, who can presume to say that thou shouldst not cross the sea to Saint Columba?” At the same moment two monks of Columba happened to arrive; and when they remarked about their journey, they replied, “We have lately come across from Britain, and to-day we have come from Daire Calgaich,” or Derry. “Is he well,” says Columb Crag, “your holy father Columba?” Then they burst into tears, and answered, with great sorrow, “Our patron is indeed well, for a few days ago he departed to Christ.” Hearing this, Finten and Columb and all who were there present fell on their faces on the ground and wept bitterly. Finten then asked, “Whom did he leave as his successor?” “Baithene, his disciple,” they replied. And we all cried out, “It is meet and right.” Columb said to Finten, “What wilt thou do now, Finten?” He answered, “With God’s permission, I will sail over to Baithene, that wise and holy man; and if he receive me, I will take him as my abbot.”’ Baithene enjoyed the abbacy, however, for two years only, and died in the year 599, on the same day of the year as Saint Columba, on which day his festival was likewise held.

His successor was Laisren, son of Feradhach, who was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and had been superior of Durrow during Columba’s life. It was in his time that the discussion commenced between the Roman and the Irish Church regarding the proper time for keeping Easter. The mission of Columbanus to Gaul in the year 590, and that of Augustine to Britain in 597, had now brought the Roman Church in contact with the British and Irish Churches, and this—the most salient point of difference between them—became at once the subject of a contest for the enforcement of uniformity on the one part, and the maintenance of their ancient customs, to which the Celtic mind clings with peculiar tenacity, on the other. Augustine, on his death in 604, was succeeded by one of his companions, named Laurentius; and this prelate, Bede tells us, ‘did not only attend to the charge of the new church that was gathered from the English people, but also regarded with pastoral solicitude the old natives of Britain, and likewise the people of the Scots who inhabit the island of Ireland adjacent to Britain. For observing that the practice and sentiments of the Scots in their own country, and also those of the Britons in Britain itself, were contrary to church order in many things, particularly because they used not to celebrate the solemnity of Easter at the proper time, but supposed, as we have shown above, that the day to be observed in commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection was included in the week from the fourteenth to the twentieth day of the moon, he, in conjunction with his fellow-bishops, wrote them a letter of exhortation, beseeching and entreating them to keep the bond of peace and Catholic observances with that church of Christ which is extended all over the world. The beginning of his letter is here given: “To“To our lords and most dear brethren the bishops or abbots throughout all Scotia (or Ireland), Laurentius, Mellitus and Justus, bishops, the servants of the servants of God. When the Apostolic See, according to her practice in all the world, stationed us in these western parts to preach to the pagan nations here, and so it came to pass that we entered into this island which is called Britain, before we were acquainted with it, supposing that they walked in the ways of the universal church, we felt a very high respect for the Britons as well as the Scots, from our regard to their sanctity of character; but when we came to know the Britons, we supposed the Scots must be superior to them. However, we have learned from Bishop Daganus coming into this island and Abbot Columbanus coming into Gaul, that the Scots differ not at all from the Britons in their habits. For Bishop Daganus, when he came to us, would not take meat with us, no, not so much as in the same lodging where we were eating.”’eating.”’ This letter does not appear to have had any effect; but it shows the spirit in which the two churches came into contact with each other.

Laisren died in the following year. His successor was Fergna Brit, or the Briton. From what he derived this epithet it is impossible to say, for certain it is that he also was of the tribe of the patron saint and a descendant of Conall Gulban. He had apparently been a pupil in the monastery of Iona during Columba’s life, and Adamnan mentions him as Virgnous—the Latin form of Fergna—‘a youth of good disposition, and afterwards made by God superior of this church in which I, though unworthy, now serve.’ In his time we again hear of two of the three great island monasteries which are specially mentioned in the Irish Annals. In 611 Tighernac records the death of Neman, bishop of Lismore; and in 617 of Donnan of Egg having been burnt on the fifteenth day before the kalends of May, or 17th April, with his martyr clerics. The tale of their martyrdom is thus told in the gloss upon the Martyrology of Angus the Culdee already quoted. It says, ‘Donnan then went with his muintir, or monastic family, to the Gallgaedalu, or Western Isles, and they took up their abode there, in a place where the sheep of the queen of the country were kept. This was told to the queen. Let them all be killed, said she. That would not be a religious act, said her people. But they were murderously assailed. At this time the cleric was at mass. Let us have respite till mass is ended, said Donnan. Thou shalt have it, said they. And when it was over, they were slain every one of them,’ The Calendar of Marian Gorman has the following commemoration: ‘Donnan the great with his monks. Fifty-two were his congregation. There came pirates of the sea to the island in which they were, and slew them all. Eig is the name of that island.’ The island of Egg is the most easterly of a group of islands lying between the promontory of Ardnamurchan and the island of Skye. It faces a wild and rugged district on the mainland, extending from Ardnamurchan to Glenelg, still known by the name of the Garbhcriochan, or rough bounds. The Christian religion appears to have as yet hardly penetrated the western districts north of Ardnamurchan, as is indicated by the dedications of their churches. The island of Egg was probably at this time connected with this district as a pasture island reserved for their flocks of sheep; and, while the people would seem to have been favourable to the little Christian colony established in the island by Donnan, the rule had passed into the hands of a queen who was still pagan and employed pirates to destroy them, who burnt the wooden church in which they were celebrating the eucharist, and the whole community accordingly perished. We have also at this time a slight trace of the Columban Church in the eastern districts of the northern Picts in the Irish Annals, which record in 616 the death of Tolorggain or Talarican, who is associated in the Scotch Calendars with the Church of Fordyce on the south shore of the Moray Firth, and who gives his name to the great district of Cilltalargyn, or Kiltarlity, in the district of the Aird, extending from the river Ness to the bounds of Ross-shire.

The only other event which took place while Fergna Brit was abbot was one which was destined to lead to a great extension of the Columban Church. In the year 617 there arrived at Iona some young and noble Angles of Bernicia. They were the sons of Aidilfrid, king of Bernicia, who, while still pagan, as were his people, had been slain by Aeduin, king of Deira. Bede tells us that his sons, with many of the youth of the nobility, took refuge among the Scots or Picts, where they lived in banishment during the whole of Aeduin’s reign, ‘and,’ says Bede, ‘were there catechised according to the doctrine of the Scots, and regenerated by the grace of baptism.’ Many of them were no doubt sent to the monastery of Iona to receive this catechetical instruction, and among them was certainly Osuald, the second son of Aidilfrid, who was at that time about thirteen years old, and who, we are expressly told, with his followers had, ‘when in banishment, received the sacraments of baptism among the seniors of the Scots,’ by whom those of the monastery of Iona are meant. He appears to have remained there during the rest of Fergna’s tenure of the abbacy, and the first ten years of that of his successor.

Fergna died in the year 623, and was succeeded by Segine, son of Fiachna and nephew of Laisren the third abbot, who of course also belonged to the tribe of the patron saint, the race of Conall Gulban. The presidency of Segine over the family of Iona was chiefly remarkable for two great events in two opposite directions. One was the extension of the Columban Church into the Anglic kingdom of Northumbria; the other, that a large section of the Irish Church conformed to Rome: and both events appear to have taken place at the same time.

At the time that the sons of Aidilfrid fled from the face of King Aeduin, the latter and his people were still pagans; but the king having married the daughter of the Christian king of Kent, in the eleventh year of his reign he was converted to Christianity by the preaching of Paulinus, who had been ordained bishop by Archbishop Justus of Canterbury, and accompanied the queen to York. Aeduin was baptized at York on Easter Sunday in the year 627, ‘in the church of Saint Peter the apostle, which he himself had there built of timber whilst he was being catechised and instructed in order to receive baptism. In that city also he appointed the see for the bishopric of his instructor and bishop, Paulinus.’ The people of the two provinces of Bernicia and Deira followed their king, and ostensibly embraced Christianity. As soon as the news reached Rome that the nation of the Northumbrians with their king had been, by the preaching of Paulinus, converted to the faith of Christ, Honorius I., who was at that time Pope, sent the ‘pallium’ to Paulinus, and at the same time wrote letters of exhortation to King Aeduin, exhorting him with fatherly charity that his people should persist in and profess the faith of truth which they had received. When this letter reached York, King Aeduin had been slain, the heathen Penda of Mercia and the apostate Caedwalla of Wales were in possession of the country, the infant Christian Church was trampled under foot, and Paulinus, with his ‘pallium,’ had fled back to Kent. After a year, in which the land had been given up to paganism, Osuald, who was now thirty years old, and to whom the right to the Anglic throne had opened by the death of his brother Ainfrid, invaded Northumbria, and won his kingdom by the battle of the Heavenly Field, at Denisburn, near Hexham. His first object was to restore the Christian Church which had been swept away; and for this purpose he naturally turned to the church where he himself had been trained in the Christian faith. As Bede tells us, ‘He sent to the seniors of the Scots, among whom himself and his fellow-soldiers, when in banishment, had received the sacrament of baptism, desiring they would send him a bishop, by whose instructions and ministry the Anglic nation which he governed might be taught the advantages of faith in the Lord and receive its sacraments. Nor were they slow in granting his request, but sent him Bishop Aidan, a man of singular meekness, piety and moderation.’ Bede further tells us that ‘it is reported that when King Osuald had asked a bishop of the province of the Scots to minister the word of faith to him and his nation, there was first sent another man of more austere disposition, who, after preaching for some time to the nation of the Angles and meeting with no success, and being disregarded by the Anglic people, returned home, and in an assembly of the seniors reported that he had not been able to do any good in instructing that nation he had been sent to preach to, because they were untameable men, and of a stubborn and barbarous disposition. They, as is testified, in a great council seriously debated what was to be done, being desirous of the good of the nation in the matter which it demanded, and grieving that they had not received the preacher sent to them. Then said Aidan, who was also present in the council, to the priest then spoken of, “I am of opinion, brother, that you were more severe to your unlearned hearers than you ought to have been, and did not at first, conformably to the apostolic discipline, give them the milk of more gentle doctrine, till, being by degrees nourished with the Word of God, they should be capable of greater perfection, and be able to practise God’s sublimer precepts.” Having heard these words, all who sat with him, turning on him their eyes, began diligently to weigh what he had said, and presently concluded that he deserved to be made a bishop, and ought to be sent to instruct the unbelievers and unlearned, since he was found to be endowed with the grace of a singular discretion, which is the mother of other virtues; and accordingly, being ordained, they sent him to preach.’ Bede adds that ‘most of those that had come to preach were monks, and that Bishop Aidan was himself a monk of the island called Hii, whose monastery for a long time held the pre-eminence over almost all those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts;’ and again, ‘that from the aforesaid island, and from this college of monks, was Aidan sent to instruct the province of the Angles in Christ, having received the episcopal grade. At this time Segine, abbot and priest, presided over that monastery.’ There can therefore be little doubt that the great council was held in Iona under the presidency of Abbot Segine; and it would almost appear that he himself had gone personally to Northumbria on the failure of the first mission, as Adamnan refers to a conversation which he says Abbot Failbe solemnly declared that he himself heard between King Osuald and Abbot Segine after the battle of the Heavenly Field had been fought.

As the first missionary sent had been a priest, and the result of Aidan’s interposition was that all declared him worthy of the episcopate, there can be little doubt that, as we have already had occasion to show, the distinction of the orders and the superiority of the episcopal grade were fully recognised. By the custom of the Scottish Church, only one bishop was necessary for the consecration of another bishop. That there were bishops in the Columban Church we know, for Bede tells us that ‘all the province, and even the bishops, were subject to the abbot of Iona;’ and, as we have seen, two of the monasteries subject to Iona—Lismore and Cinngaradh, or Kingarth—had episcopal heads. There may have been an especial reason why it should be better that Aidan should have episcopal orders, which did not exist in the case of the Columban monasteries; for, as the head of a remote church, he might have to ordain priests from among his Anglic converts; while the Columban Church had Ireland at its back as a great storehouse of clerics, both bishops and priests. When, therefore, it is said that he received the episcopal grade, no doubt a bishop had been called in to consecrate him. But though he was thus enabled to exercise episcopal functions, in other respects the organisation of the church thus introduced into Northumbria, both with respect to jurisdiction and to its monastic character, was the same as that of the Columban Church at home; for, instead of fixing his episcopal seat at York, he followed the custom of the monastic church by selecting a small island near the Northumbrian coast, bearing the Celtic name of Inis Metcaud, but known to the Angles as Lindisfarne, as the site of his monastery, which he was to rule as episcopal abbot. Bede tells us that, ‘on the arrival of the bishop, the king appointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Lindisfarne, as he himself desired; which place, as the tide flows and ebbs, twice a day is enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island, and again, twice in the day, when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land,’—a very apt description of the island, which is now called Holy Island; and Bede adds, in his Life of Cudberct, ‘And let no man marvel that in this same island of Lindisfarne, which is of very small extent, there should be, as we mentioned above, the seat of a bishop, and, at the same time, as we now state, the residence of an abbot and monks. For so it is, in truth. For one and the same habitation of the servants of God contains both at the same time. Yea, all whom it contains are monks; for Aidan, who was the first bishop of this place, was a monk, and was always wont to lead a monastic life, with all his people. Hence, after him, all the bishops of that place until this day exercise the episcopal functions in such sort, that, while the abbot, who is chosen by the bishop with the consent of the brethren, governs the monastery, all the priests, deacons, chanters, readers and the other ecclesiastical orders, with the bishop himself, observe in all things the monastic rule.’ This Northumbrian church was therefore an exact counterpart of the monastic church of which Iona was the head; and Bede bears a noble testimony to its efficiency as a missionary church. He says, ‘From that time many from the region of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word of faith to those provinces of the Angles over which King Osuald reigned; and those among them that had received priests’ orders administered to the believers the grace of baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; possessions and lands were given of the king’s bounty to build monasteries; the younger Angles were by their Scottish masters instructed; and greater care and attention were bestowed upon the rules and observances of regular discipline.’

The same year which brought to Segine this important request from King Osuald of Northumbria brought him likewise a letter of not less importance, but one of a very different tenor, from the head of one of the dependent monasteries in Ireland. This letter was written by Cummian, one of the most learned of the Irish ecclesiastics, and believed to have been abbot of the monastery of Durrow in King’s County, founded by Columba shortly before he passed over from Ireland to Iona; and it is still extant. It is addressed to the abbot ‘Segine, successor of Saint Columba, and other holy men, and to Beccan the anchorite, his dear brother according to the flesh and in the spirit, with his wise companions.’ In this letter he tells him that, when the Roman mode of computation was first introduced into Ireland, he did not adopt it; but, retiring in private for a year, he entered into the sanctuary of God, that is, the holy Scripture, and examined it as well as he was able; after that, works on history; lastly, whatever cycles he could meet with. He then gives a very learned summary of the result of his investigations which led him to adopt the Roman system as correct. When the year had expired, he says, he applied to the successors of our ancient fathers, of Bishop Ailbe, of Kieran of Clonmacnois, of Brendan, of Nessan and of Lugidus, that they might tell him what they thought of the excommunication directed against them from the Apostolic See; and they having assembled together, some in person, others by representatives, at Magh Lene, or the plain of Lene, in which the monastery of Durrow was situated, came to the resolution that they ought to adopt without scruple the more worthy and approved practice recommended to them by the successors of the apostles of the Lord. They accordingly enjoined him to celebrate Easter in the following year with the universal church. Not long after, however, there arose up a certain whited wall, pretending that he was for upholding the traditions of his elders, which caused disunion and partly rendered void what had been agreed to. Upon this it was determined by ‘our seniors’ that if questions of a more weighty character should arise, they ought to be referred, according to the decree of the synod, to the head of cities. They therefore sent some that they knew to be wise and humble, as children to a mother, and having a prosperous journey by the will of God, and some of them having come to the city of Rome, they returned in the third year, and they saw everything accord with what they had heard, or rather they obtained a much clearer view of the matter, as seeing instead of hearing; and, being in one lodging with a Greek and a Hebrew, a Scythian and an Egyptian, they all celebrated their Easter together in St. Peter’s Church, while they differed from them by a whole month. And they solemnly assured him of this, saying, This Easter is celebrated to our knowledge all the world over. ‘These statements,’ adds Cummian, ‘I have made, not with a view to attack you, but to defend myself.’ Such is the substance of Cummian’s letter; and as the times for celebrating Easter according to the Roman and to the Irish computation would be separated by the interval of a month in the year 631, the synod must have been held about 630, the return of the deputies taken place in 633, and the letter have been written in the following year. According to Bede, Pope Honorius in this year ‘wrote to the nation of the Scots, whom he had found to err in the observance of Easter, earnestly exhorting them not to esteem their small number, placed in the utmost borders of the earth, wiser than all the ancient and modern churches of Christ throughout the world, and not to celebrate a different Easter, contrary to the Paschal calculation and the synodical decrees of all the bishops upon earth;’ and the result was that, as Bede tells us, ‘the Scots which dwelt in the southern districts of Ireland, by the admonition of the bishop of the Apostolic See, learned to observe Easter according to the canonical custom;’ while the northern province of the Scots and the whole nation of the Picts adhered to the old custom of the country.

The distinction here drawn by Bede between the Scots inhabiting the southern districts and the northern province of the Scots obviously refers to the old traditional division of Ireland into two parts, termed severally Leth Mogha and Leth Cuinn, which were divided from each other by a ridge extending from the mouth of the Liffey to Galway, and termed Eisgir Riada. The southern districts were Munster and Leinster south of the Liffey. The northern division contained the rest of Leinster, Ulster and Connaught. Durrow, though a Columban monastery, was situated in the southern division, and probably now broke off from the jurisdiction of Iona and, along with the rest of the Irish Church in the southern division of Ireland, conformed to Rome.

We meet with a passing notice of the monastery of Lismore in the following year, when Tighernac records the death of its abbot Eochaidh; and in the same year Abbot Segine appears to have founded a church in Rechrann, or the island of Rathlin off the north coast of Ireland.

Some years after a letter appears to have been sent from the Irish Church to Pope Severinus, who succeeded Honorius in 640, but died within the year, which called forth a reply from his successor John, while Pope-elect, by the person who had taken the letter, which Bede tells us was ‘full of great authority and erudition for correcting the same error,’ and at the same time admonished them to be careful to crush the Pelagian heresy, which, he had been informed, was reviving amongst them. Bede gives us the opening of this epistle thus:—‘To our most beloved and most holy Tomianus, Columbanus, Cromanus, Dinanus, and Baithanus, bishops; to Cromanus, Ernianus, Laistranus, Scellanus, and Segenus, priests; to Saranus and the rest of the Scottish doctors or abbots, greeting from Hilarius, the arch-priest and keeper of the place of the holy Apostolic See; from John, the deacon and elect in the name of God; from John the chief secretary and keeper of the place of the holy Apostolic See, and from John the servant of God and councillor of the same Apostolic See.’ These Scottish doctors or abbots, with Tomianus, who was bishop of Armagh, at their head, all belonged to the northern province, and this appeal had no effect in altering their relation towards the Church of Rome. But it is instructive to observe that Segenus or Segine, abbot of Iona, is placed among the clergy of the Irish Church, of which his monastery, with its dependent monasteries in Scotland, was ranked as forming a part. Ten years afterwards news came of the death of Aidan, after a sixteen years’ episcopate over the church of Northumbria; and Finan, ‘who had,’ says Bede, ‘been sent from Hii, the island and monastery of the Scots,’ succeeded him.

Segine’s own death followed a year after. His successor was Suibhne, of whom we know nothing except that his father’s name was Cuirtri, but it is unlikely that at this early stage any one who did not belong to the tribe of the patron saint could be elected an abbot, and the only notice we have of him is his death after having been five years in the abbacy.

He was succeeded in the abbacy by Cummene Ailbhe, the nephew of his predecessor Segene, whose tenure of office was signalised by equally important events. His first year is coincident with the extension of the dominion of Osuiu, the Northumbrian king, over the Britons of Strathclyde, the southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada; but, though the latter ceased for a time to possess an independent king, the rule of Northumbria could not have affected the church to which her own church was affiliated. Accordingly, when Finan, the successor of Aidan, died, we find that Colman was also ‘sent out of Scotia,’ and succeeded him as bishop. Tighernac records, in the same year, the death of Bishop Finan and of Daniel, bishop of Cinngaradh or Kingarth, in Bute; and in the following year, a visit of Abbot Cummene to Ireland; and, as Bede says of Finan that he was ordained and sent by the Scots, while, in the case of Colman, he uses the expression that he was sent out of Scotia, or Ireland, this rather confirms our suspicion that the bishops called in to consecrate these Northumbrian missionaries were the bishops of Kingarth, and that the death of Bishop Daniel in the same year rendered an appeal to Ireland necessary.

While, however, Segine’s tenure of the abbacy saw the extension of the Columban Church into Northumbria, that of his nephew Cummene was doomed to see its extinction after it had for thirty years been the church of the country. The cause was the controversy regarding the proper time for celebrating Easter. It had been raised, during the episcopate of Finan, by some ecclesiastics who came from Kent or France; and among them, says Bede, ‘was a most zealous defender of the true Easter, whose name was Ronan, a Scot indeed by nation, but instructed in ecclesiastical truth either in the parts of France or of Italy, who, by disputing with Finan, corrected many, or at least induced them to make a more strict inquiry after the truth; yet he could not amend Finan, but on the contrary made him the more inveterate by reproof, and an open opposer of the truth, he being of a hot and violent temper.’ The royal family, too, were divided. The queen, Eanfled, being from Kent and having a Kentish priest, Romanus, with her, followed the Catholic mode, so that one year the king and queen both celebrated their Easter at different times. Under Colman the controversy became more bitter, and the king Osuiu and his son Alchfrid were now opposed to each other, the latter having been instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had been originally trained in the Scottish monastery of Lindisfarne, but had gone from thence to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfin, archbishop of Gaul, from whom he had received the coronal tonsure. Agilberct, bishop of the West Saxons, a friend to Alchfrid and to Abbot Wilfrid, having come to Northumbria, suggested that a synod should be held to settle the controversy regarding Easter, the tonsure and other ecclesiastical affairs. This was agreed to; and it was accordingly held, in the year 664, at the monastery of Streanashalch, near Whitby, where the abbess Hilda, a woman devoted to God, then presided. The king Osuiu and his son Alchfrid were both present. On the Catholic side was Bishop Agilberct, with the priests Agatho and Wilfrid, James and Romanus. On the Scottish side was Bishop Colman with his clerics from Scotia, or Ireland, the abbess Hilda and her followers, and Bishop Cedd of Essex, who had been ordained by the Scots, and acted as interpreter for both parties. The king called upon Colman and Wilfrid to conduct the discussion. It is given at length by Bede, but it is unnecessary to say more than that the usual arguments were used. Colman pleaded that the Easter he kept he received from his elders; and all his forefathers, men beloved of God, are known to have celebrated it after the same manner. Wilfrid opposed the custom of the universal church and the authority of Rome. Colman asks, ‘Is it to be believed that our most reverend father Columba, and his successors, men beloved by God, who kept Easter after the same manner, thought or acted contrary to the divine writings? whereas there were many among them whose sanctity is testified by heavenly signs and the working of miracles which they performed, whose life, customs and discipline I never cease to follow, nor question their sanctity.’sanctity.’ Wilfrid replied, ‘Concerning your father Columba and his followers, whose sanctity you say you imitate and whose rule and precepts you observe, which have been confirmed by signs from heaven, I might answer that when many, on the day of judgment, shall say to our Lord that in his name they prophesied and cast out devils and wrought many wonders, our Lord will reply that He never knew them. But far be it from me that I should say so of your father, because it is more just to believe what is good than what is evil of persons whom one does not know. If that Columba of yours—and I may say ours also, if he were Christ’s—was a holy man and powerful in miracles, yet should he be preferred before the most blessed prince of the apostles, to whom our Lord had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven?’ And as Colman admitted that these words were spoken to Peter, and could not show that any such power was given to Columba, the king decided to obey the decrees of Rome, and all present gave their assent and, renouncing the more imperfect institution, hastened to conform themselves to that which they found to be better. Bede then tells us ‘that Colman, perceiving that his doctrine was rejected and his sect despised, took with him such as were willing to follow him and would not comply with the Catholic Easter and the coronal tonsure—for there was much controversy about that also—and went back into Scotia, or Ireland, to consult with his people what was to be done in this case.’ And he adds that Colman carried home with him part of the bones of the most reverend father Aidan, and left part of them in the church where he had presided, ordering them to be interred in its sacristy.

The character which this most candid historian gives of the church of the Scots in Northumbria so much reflects that of the parent church of Iona, that it may be well to insert it. He says of Bishop Colman, ‘How great was his parsimony, how great his continence, the place which they governed shows for himself and his predecessors, for there were very few houses besides the church found at their departure, indeed no more than were barely sufficient for their daily residence. They had also no money but cattle; for, if they received any money from rich persons, they immediately gave it to the poor, there being no need to gather money or provide houses for the entertainment of the great men of the world? for such never resorted to the church except to pray and hear the Word of God. For this reason the religious habit was at that time in great veneration, so that, wheresoever any cleric or monk happened to come, he was joyfully received by all persons, as God’s servant; and, if they chanced to meet him as he was upon the way they ran to him and, bowing, were glad to be signed with his hand or blessed with his mouth. Great attention was also paid to their exhortations; and on Sundays the people flocked eagerly to the church or the monasteries, not to feed their bodies, but to hear the Word of God; and, if any priest happened to come into a village the inhabitants flocked together forthwith to hear from him the Word of Life. For the priests and clerics went into the villages on no other account than to preach, baptize, visit the sick and, in few words, to take care of souls; and they were so free from the curse of worldly avarice, that none of them received lands and possessions for building monasteries, unless they were compelled to do so by the temporal authorities.’

Though Bede tells us in general terms that Colman returned to Ireland, he did not actually do so till after four years; for he mentions afterwards that Colman ‘repaired first to the isle of Hii, or Iona, whence he had been sent to preach the word of God to the Anglic nation. Afterwards he retired to a certain small island which is to the west of Ireland, and at some distance from its coast, called, in the language of the Scots, Inisboufinde,’ and’ and Tighernac places this event in the year 668. As he had taken the relics of Aidan with him, it was probably during this interval that he founded the church of Fearn in Angus, dedicated to Aidan, and the church of Tarbet, in Easter Ross, with which his own name is connected; and if he reported to Abbot Cummene, as no doubt he would, the discussion he had held with Wilfrid, and the appeal which he had made in vain to the authority of Columba as a man whose sanctity was testified by heavenly signs and the working of miracles, it probably led to Cummene’s writing the Life of their great saint, which Adamnan calls ‘the book which he wrote on the virtues of St. Columba,’ in vindication of the assertion. This Life is still extant, and the whole of it has been embodied in Adamnan’s more elaborate production. Tighernac records the death of Cummene in the year 669, and along with it those of two saints who belonged to the church among the southern Picts—Itharnan or Ethernanus, of Madderdyn, now Madderty in Strathearn, and Corindu, or Caran, of Fetteresso in the Mearns.

His successor was Failbhe, son of Pipan, also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and the first year of his tenure of the abbacy also saw Wilfrid in possession of the diocese of York. According to Bede, he at this time administered the bishopric of York and of all the Northumbrians, and likewise of the Picts as far as the dominions of king Osuiu extended. His diocese therefore comprehended the territories of the southern Picts, the Britons of Strathclyde and the Scots of Dalriada, over all of which King Osuiu had extended his rule. Wilfrid retained this extensive diocese during the entire period of Failbhe’s abbacy; and, so far as he could make his power felt, his influence would no doubt be exercised against the Columban Church; for, as Eddi tells us, ‘under Bishop Wilfrid the churches were multiplied both in the south among the Saxons and in the north among the Britons, Scots and Picts, Wilfrid having ordained everywhere presbyters and deacons, and governed new churches.’ But the territories of the northern Picts were beyond his reach; and Failbhe’s tenure of the abbacy is chiefly remarkable for the extension of the Columban Church to those rugged and almost inaccessible districts which lay on the western seaboard between Ardnamurchan on the south and Loch Broom on the north.

The principal agent in effecting this was Maelrubha, who was of the race of the northern Hy Neill, but belonged to a different sept from that which had the right of furnishing abbots to the monastery of Iona. He was connected through his mother with Comgall of Bangor, and became a member of that monastery which, as situated among the Picts of Ireland, well fitted him to be a missionary to those of the same race in Scotland. He came over to Britain in the year 671, and two years afterwards he founded the church of Aporcrosan, now Applecross, from which as a centre he evangelised the whole of the western districts lying between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, as well as the south and west parts of the island of Skye, and planted churches in Easter Ross and elsewhere. The dedications to him show that his missionary work was very extensive. In the same year Failbhe went to Ireland, where he appears to have remained three years, and was probably engaged in arrangements for extending the missionary work; for it is probably at this period that we must place the arrival of Comgan with his sister Kentigerna and her son Fillan in the district of Lochalsh, where they planted churches, as well as in the districts south of it as far as Loch Sunart. At this time too the church in Egg appears to have been restored. In the year 678 Wilfrid was ejected from his extensive bishopric, but Failbhe only survived this event one year, when his death is recorded; and at the same time we have a trace of the church in the eastern territories of the northern Picts, in the death of Neachtan Neir, who can be identified with the great saint of Deeside in Aberdeenshire, called by the people there, Nathalan, or Nachlan.

We are now brought in our narrative to the very important period when Adamnan, the biographer of Columba, ruled over his monastery as ninth abbot. He was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and belonged to the tribe of the patron saint. He was born in 624, just twenty-seven years after the death of Saint Columba. During the first six years of his abbacy, the rule of the Angles, under King Ecgfrid, still extended as far as it did during the reign of his father Osuiu. After the ejection of Wilfrid from the diocese in this its fullest extent, it was divided between Bosa and Eata, the latter being appointed bishop of the northern part; and three years afterwards it was still further divided, Trumuin being appointed bishop over the province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles. The defeat and death of King Ecgfrid, however, at the battle of Dunnichen in the year 685 terminated this rule of the Angles, and with it the interference of the Anglic bishops with the Columban Church. The Scots of Dalriada recovered their independence. The southern Picts were relieved from the more direct yoke of the Angles, and Trumuin fled from his diocese.

The new king Aldfrid had been long in exile in Ireland, where he was known by the name of Flann Finn, and Adamnan was on terms of friendly acquaintance with him. His first proceeding was to go on a mission to him to ask the release of the Irish captives whom Berct, King Ecgfrid’s general, had carried away from the plain of Breg; and the Irish Life of Adamnan gives us the route he took. It says ‘The North Saxons went to him and plundered Magh Bregh as far as Bealach-duin; they carried off with them a great prey of men and women. The men of Erin besought of Adamnan to go in quest of the captives to Saxonland. Adamnan went to demand the prisoners, and put in at Tracht-Romra. The strand is long, and the flood rapid; so rapid that if the best steed in Saxonland ridden by the best horseman were to start from the edge of the tide when the tide begins to flow, he could only bring his rider ashore by swimming, so extensive is the strand, and so impetuous is the tide.’ Adamnan appears therefore to have gone in his curach and entered the Solway Firth, which is evidently the place meant, and landed on the southern shore. He succeeded in his undertaking, and brought sixty of the captives back to their homes.

His next step was to repair the monastery, which had probably fallen into disrepair during Failbhe’s time; and for this purpose he sent twelve vessels to Lorn for oak trees to furnish the necessary timber. In this monastery he received Arculfus, a bishop of Gaul, who had gone to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and returning home was driven by a violent storm on the west coast of Britain and made his way to Iona and passed the winter there. During the dreary winter months, Adamnan committed to writing all the information he could obtain from him as to the holy places; and this work is still extant.

In 688 Adamnan proceeded on a second mission to King Aldfrid, with what object is not known; but it appears to have been connected with the affairs of Dalriada. This second visit to Northumbria had very important consequences both for himself and for his church; for Bede tells us that ‘Adamnan, priest and abbot of the monks that were in the isle of Hii, was sent ambassador by his nation to Aldfrid, king of the Angles, where, having made some stay, he observed the canonical rites of the church, and was earnestly admonished by many who were more learned than himself not to presume to live contrary to the universal custom of the church in relation to either the observance of Easter or any other decrees whatsoever, considering the small number of his followers, seated at so distant a corner of the world. In consequence of this he changed his mind, and readily preferred those things which he had seen and heard in the churches of the Angles to the customs which he and his people had hitherto followed. For he was a good and a wise man, and remarkably learned in the knowledge of the Scriptures;’ and Abbot Ceolfrid of Jarrow, in his letter to King Naiton of the Picts, who calls him ‘Adamnan, the abbot and renowned priest of the Columbans,’ says that he visited his monastery, and narrates at length the conversation he had with him, to which he attributes Adamnan’s conversion. ‘Returning home,’ continues Bede, ‘he endeavoured to bring his own people that were in Hii, or that were subject to that monastery, into the way of truth, which he himself had learned and embraced with all his heart; but in this he could not prevail.’ We have thus the anomalous state of matters that the abbot of the monastery had conformed to Rome, but that his monks and those of the dependent monasteries refused to go along with him. In the year after his return to Iona, the death of Iolan, bishop of Cinngaradh, or Kingarth in Bute, is recorded; and in 692, which the annalist marks as the fourteenth after the decease of his predecessor Failbhe, he went to Ireland, but for what especial purpose which might render the reference to Failbhe appropriate, we do not learn; and the following year we find him again in Iona, when the body of Brude mac Bile, king of the Picts, who died in 693, is brought for interment.

Four years after, in the year 697, he goes again to Ireland, and on this occasion he was accompanied by Brude, son of Derile, king of the Picts. His object was to obtain the sanction of the Irish people to a law exempting women from the burden laid upon all, of what was called Fecht and Sluagad, or the duty attending hostings and expeditions. For this purpose a synod was held at Tara, which was attended by thirty-nine ecclesiastics presided over by the abbot of Armagh, and by forty-seven chiefs of tribes, at the head of whom was the monarch of Ireland. The law exempting women from this burdensome duty was termed ‘Lex innocentium;’ and the enactments of the synod were called Cain Adhamhnain or ‘Lex Adamnani,’ because among its results was the privilege of levying contributions under certain conditions. In the list of those present occurs the name of Brude mac Derili ri Cruithentuaithe, or King of Pictland. It is to the occasion of this visit to Ireland that must be referred the statement of Bede that ‘he then sailed over into Ireland to preach to those people, and, by modest exhortation declaring the true time of Easter, he reduced many of them, and almost all that were not under the dominion of those of Hii, from their ancient error to the Catholic unity, and taught them to keep the proper time of Easter. Returning to his island after having celebrated Easter in Ireland canonically, he most earnestly inculcated the observance of Easter in his monastery, yet without being able to prevail; and it so happened that he departed this life before the next year came round. For the divine goodness so ordained it that, as he was a great lover of peace and unity, he should be taken away to everlasting life before he would be obliged, on the return of the time of Easter, to have still more serious discord with those that would not follow him in the truth.’ It would therefore appear that Adamnan did not return to Iona till the year of his death, which took place on the 23d of September in the year 704, and in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

At what period of Adamnan’s abbacy he wrote his life of the patron saint and founder of the monastery cannot be fixed with any accuracy, but it was after his visit to Aldfrid in 688; and, as he states that he did so at the urgent request of his brethren, and alludes incidentally to the discord which arose among the churches of Ireland on account of the difference with regard to the Easter feast, it was probably compiled before the same discord had arisen between the brethren of Iona and himself as their abbot. Neither can the precise period be fixed when he founded those churches in the eastern districts which are dedicated to him; but no doubt, after the termination of the Anglic rule over the southern Picts and Scots of Dalriada, he would be desirous to strengthen the Columban Church; and his relations with the kings of the Picts who reigned after the overthrow of the Angles were, as we have seen, cordial and friendly. In this work he appears to have been assisted by the family who had already evangelised the rugged district termed the ‘Rough Bounds,’ as the churches dedicated to them and him are found adjacent to each other. Among the northern Picts, Adamnan’s principal church was that of Forglen on the east bank of the river Doveran, in which the Brecbannoch, or banner of Columba, was preserved; and separated from it by the same river is Turriff, dedicated to Comgan. South of the range of the Mounth Adamnan’s most important foundation was the monastery of Dull in the district of Atholl, which was dedicated to him, and to which a very extensive territory was annexed; and closely contiguous to it was the district of Glendochart, with its monastery dedicated to Fillan, whose name is preserved in Strathfillan. Fillan again appears in Pittenweem on the south coast of the peninsula of Fife; and in the Firth of Forth which it bounds is Inchkeith, ‘on which Saint Adamnan the abbot presided.’