_The Culdees of the British Isles, as they appear in History,
with an Appendix of Evidences._ By William Reeves, D.D. Gill,
Dublin, 1864, pp. v.--163.
In treating of the life of St. Columba, some years ago, Dr. Reeves
expressed his hope that he should have an early opportunity of
dealing with the Culdee question in a special dissertation. Much to
the satisfaction of all lovers of Irish sacred antiquities, among whom
Dr. Reeves' reputation is deservedly great, this hope was realised towards
the close of 1860, when the author read before the Royal Irish Academy
two papers on the Culdees. These papers form the matter of the work
under notice; and we propose to give an account of it to our readers as
much as possible in the author's own words.
Before entering upon his subject, Dr. Reeves sets forth the object
he has in view, and the method by aid of which he proposes to attain
it. Persuaded that indulgence in speculation has brought great detriment
to the cause of Irish history and antiquities, he puts forward in these
pages "not so much his own views on the subject, as a comprehensive
statement of trustworthy materials upon which to form a sound and
philosophical opinion". With this object in view, but one method was
open to him, namely, to collect and arrange all the scattered evidence
upon the subject which his thorough and varied acquaintance with Irish,
Scotch, and English materials of history, both published and unpublished,
enabled him to accumulate. This he has done with fulness and precision,
and having completed his task, he leaves it to the impartial reader
to combine the details placed before him, and draw his conclusions
for himself. Of this impartiality the author believes that he sets an
example in his own proper person; whatever his private sentiments may
be on the points at issue, he professes to hold them back. Not that he
is cold or indifferent to his subject, for he declares that there is
"one weakness, if it be a weakness, to which he must plead guilty,
and that is, earnestness in the cause of Ireland's ancient dignity".
By that earnestness we are all gainers, and the labours it has dictated
to the author will always hold a high place in Irish literature.
The work consists of four parts, with a valuable appendix. The first part
contains preliminary observations, and is divided into two sections--one
on the origin of the name Cele-de, or Culdee, the other being devoted
to an analysis of that name. Part II. is entitled "_The Cele-de in
Ireland_", and consists of ten sections, respectively treating of
strangers in Ireland called Cele-de, of the Cele-de of Tallaght,
of Armagh, of Clonmacnoise, of Clondalkin, of Monaincha, of Devenish,
of Clones, of Pubble, and of Scattery Island. Part III. is headed
"_The Cele-de or Kelidei of Scotland_", and has fourteen sections,
the first being occupied with general remarks, the others with the
Kelidei of St. Andrew's, of Dunkeld, of Brechin, of Rosemarkie, of
Dunblane, of Dornoch, of Lismore, of Hy, of Lochleven, of Abernethy,
of Monymusk, of Muthill, and of Monifreth. Part IV., on the _Colidei
of England and Wales_, has two sections--one on the Colidei of York,
the other on the Colidei of Bardsey. The appendix consists of evidences
from authorities referred to in the essay, and constitutes a valuable
collection of documents, the importance of some of which extends far
beyond the question which they are here intended to illustrate.
In laying before our readers the substance of the contents of Part I., we
shall take the liberty of inverting the author's order of arrangement,
and commence by the analysis of the word. The name Cele-de is
composed of the two words _cele_ and _de_. The word _cele_ is
of frequent occurrence in the early Irish manuscripts, and is the
usual gloss on the words _socius_, _maritus_, where they occur in the
Wurtzburg copy of St. Paul's Epistles and the St. Gall Priscian. From
this it passes into the pronominal sense of _alius_, _alter_, and the
adverbial of _seorsum_. More rarely it has the sense of _servus_,
and in O'Davoren's Glossary is explained by _gilla_ = "a servant";
and with this interpretation it is found in modern Irish and Gaelic
dictionaries. The other component, _de_, is the genitive of _Dia_,
"God", and is found as a kind of religious intensitive in combination
with certain monastic terms, as anchorita Dei, monialis Dei.
Thus Cele-de may mean "spouse of God", or "friend of God", or "servant
of God". Dr. Reeves prefers the last-mentioned interpretation, for the
following reasons. The devotion and self-denial peculiar to the monastic
life procured for those who followed it the special designation of _servi
Dei_, which in time acquired a technical application, so that _servus
Dei_ and _monachus_ became convertible terms, _ancilla Dei_ signified a
nun, and _servire Deo_ a monastic life. In this sense, as Dr. Reeves shows
by numerous quotations, it runs through the works of the Latin fathers,
the acts of councils, and the biographies of saints. The writings of
St. Gregory the Great (called in Ireland Bel-oir, the golden-mouthed)
recommended this meaning especially to Ireland, where that father was in
the highest repute. "Familiarised, therefore, to the expression _servus
Dei_, it is only reasonable to suppose that the Irish would adopt it in
their discourse, and find a conventional equivalent for it in the language
of their country. To this origin we may safely refer the creation of
the Celtic compound _cele-De_, which in its employment possessed all
the latitude of its model, and in the lapse of ages underwent all the
modifications or limitations of meaning which the changes of time and
circumstances or local usage produced in the class to whom the epithet
was applied" (pag. 2). Of this there are many examples: thus--1, the Four
Masters, in the Irish Annals of 1595, apply the term to the Dominican
Friars of Sligo; 2, the Book of Fenagh uses it of St. John the Evangelist;
3, in the Book of Leinster and the Book of Lismore, St. Moling, Abbot
and Bishop of Ferns (ob. 697), classes himself among the cele-n-De,
and implies that his associates were the miserable, that is, the sick
and lepers; 4, In Scotland, whither the term entered with the Scotic
immigrants, we find in the middle of the thirteenth century certain
ecclesiastics entitled _Keledei sive Canonici_. Hence Dr. Reeves is
of opinion that the term Cele-de was not a distinctive name borne
uniformly by any one order, but a term of most various application--now
borne by hermits, now by conventuals; now regulars, now seculars; now
those bound by poverty, now those free to hold property. Even when they
became relaxed and corrupt, they retained their ancient name. Speaking
of the Kelidei of St. Andrew's in Scotland, Dr. Reeves believes that the
estate of matrimony was no disqualification for the office of a Kelideus;
while Van Hecke, the Bollandist (_Acta SS._ Octobr., tom. viii. p. 166,
b), from the same passage of the _Historia_ draws the very opposite
conclusion. When at last Cele-de does become a distinctive term,
it is only so as contrasting the old-fashioned Scotic monks with the
children of mediaeval institutions.
The name Cele-de is taken by Toland, O'Reilly, and O'Curry, to
mean "spouse of God", and to contain an allusion to the celibacy,
the seclusion, and the devotion of the ancient monks of Ireland. But
Dr. Reeves thinks that there is an incongruity in the expression
"spouse of God", and the nature of the compound does not require such
an interpretation. No doubt _sponsa Dei_ does occur in ecclesiastical
language for _monialis_, but he has not been able to discover an instance
where _sponsus Dei_ has been used as an equivalent for _monachus_.
The York Chartulary, Giraldus Cambrensis, and the Armagh records, make
Cele-de = _colideus_ and _coelicula_, as if _cele_ was equivalent to
the Latin _colo_. Thus Cele-de, would be the same as the Latin word
_Deicola_. The English name _Culdee_ grew out of the form _Culdeus_,
first introduced by Hector Boece, and sanctioned by the practice of
George Buchanan.
One of the earliest examples on record of the use of the term
Cele-de occurs in the _Life of St. Findan_, published by Goldastus
(_Rer. Alamannicar. Scriptores_, vol. i. p. 318). This saint flourished
in the year 800, and his life was compiled not long after.
In the first section of Part II. it is shown that the _Cele-de_ were
not supposed by the Irish to be peculiar to this country. In section the
second the community at Tallaght is noticed as presenting to us, if we
may credit certain Irish records, the term Cele-de in a definite sense,
and in local connexion with a religious institution. In the rule composed
by Maelruain the members of that community are styled _Cele-n-De_,
either in the sense of an order strictly so-called, or more likely in
the sense of "ascetics", or "clerics of stricter observance". As to the
rule of St. Carthach of Lismore (printed from O'Curry's MSS., pag. 112,
172, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. i. part 1), Dr. Reeves observes
that "if it be a genuine composition, or even a modernized copy, it will
follow that the Cele-de were a separate class previously to the year
636, when St. Carthach died, and that they were distinct from the order
called monks"--(pag. 8). Now of the whole family of monastic rules to
which St. Carthach's belongs, O'Curry writes that "of the authenticity of
these pieces there can be no reasonable doubt; the language, the style,
and the matter are quite in accordance with the times of the authors".[24]
In Armagh, the Colidei were officiating attendants at the altar and choir,
before 1126, when the introduction of the canons regular diminished
their influence and importance. They were, however, continued in
their endowments and religious functions, but in a less prominent
position. Their head became precentor, and the brethren performed the
duties of vicars in the choir. At Clonmacnoise they were connected with
an hospital; at Clondalkin, Monahincha, Devenish, Clones, Pubble, and
Scattery, they had establishments more or less important.
From Ireland the Colidei passed into Scotland, the primitive history of
the Church of which is essentially Irish in its character. The Keledei
of Scotland appear for the first time in the history of St. Kentigern,
or Munghu, as compiled by Jocelin at the close of the twelfth century
from much earlier authorities. They were understood by the Scotch,
in the twelfth century, to have been "a religious order of clerks,
who lived in societies, under a superior, within a common enclosure,
but in detached cells, associated in a sort of collegiate rather than
coenobitical brotherhood--solitaries in their domestic habits, though
united in the common observances, both religious and secular, of a strict
sodality. Such was the nucleus of the great city of Glasgow". Pinkerton
says of them: "The Culdees were surely only Irish clergy. In the
gradual corruption of the monastic order they married, and left their
Culdeeships to their children". But he is mistaken in deriving their
origin from St. Columba; no doubt they were found in lapse of time in
churches which that saint or his disciples founded, but in Dr. Reeves'
opinion their name was in no way distinctive. Irish annals have only
one mention of Celi-de as existing in Hy, and that example is of so
late a period as 1164. F. Van Hecke, the Bollandist, says: "Ceterum et
nos quoque ejus sumus opinionis ut nullam inter Columbranos monachos
et Culdees cognatsinem intercessiore credemus"--(_Act. SS._, Octob.,
tom. viii. p. 166 a).
It would far exceed our limits to follow Dr. Reeves in treating of the
Scotch Kelidean houses.
In York, at the dissolution of monasteries, there existed an hospital
called St. Leonard's, the chartulary of which tells us that in 836
King Athelstan found in St. Peter's Church, York, men of holy life,
called _Kolidei_, who maintained out of scanty resources a number of poor
men. The king, in return for their prayers, and to enable them to do good,
granted to them a thrave of corn from every plough-land in the diocese
of York, a donation which existed until a late period under the name
of Peter-corn. The community founded an hospital which was afterwards
called St. Leonard's. "The presence of this community in York is a
curious vestige of Irish influence, discernible amidst long continued
Saxon usage, which, as we learn from Bede, was, in ecclesiastical polity,
antagonistic to the Scotic system".
In Wales, the Isle of Bardsey, off Carnarvon, alone offers an example
of Celi-de. Giraldus Cambrensis describes them in his _Itinerarium
Cambriae_, 2, 6, p. 865.
The practical value of Dr. Reeves' work is much increased by an excellent
index.