CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCHES OF CUMBRIA AND LOTHIAN.

[Sidenote: A.D. 573.

Battle of Ardderyd. Rydderch Hael becomes king of

Strathclyde.]

Ten years after the landing of St. Columba in Iona the great battle of

_Ardderyd_, or Arthuret, was fought between the pagan and the Christian

parties in Cumbria; and the same year which saw Aidan, who had taken

part in it, inaugurated by St. Columba as independent king of Dalriada,

likewise witnessed the establishment of another of the chiefs who fought

in that battle, Rydderch Hael, or the Liberal, as Christian king of

Strathclyde, and the restoration of a Christian Church to its Cumbrian

population. As Columba was the founder of the Christian Church among the

northern Picts, so Kentigern was the great agent in the revolution which

again christianised Cumbria. We are not, however, so fortunate in the

biographers of Kentigern as we are in those of Columba. While those of

the latter lived when the memory of his words and acts was still fresh

in the minds of his followers, Kentigern found no one to record the

events of his life till upwards of five centuries had elapsed after his

death. A fragment of the life which had been used by John of Fordun and

a complete biography by Jocelyn of Furness are all we possess, but

neither of them was compiled before the twelfth century.[355]

[Sidenote: Oldest account of birth of Kentigern.]

The older life, of which a fragment only remains, states that ‘a certain

king Leudonus, a man half pagan, from whom the province over which he

ruled in northern Britannia obtained the name of Leudonia, had a

daughter under a stepmother, and the daughter’s name was Thaney.’ This

girl, having become Christian, ‘meditated upon the virginal honour and

maternal blessedness of the most holy Virgin Mary,’ and desired, like

her, to bring forth one who would be for the honour and salvation of her

nation in these northern parts. She ‘had a suitor, Ewen, the son of

Erwegende, sprung from a most noble stock of the Britons,’ but she

refused to marry him; upon which the king her father gave her the

alternative of either marrying him or being handed over to the care of a

swineherd, and she chose the latter. The swineherd was secretly a

Christian, having been converted by Servanus, a disciple of Palladius,

and respected her wishes. Her suitor Ewen, however, succeeded by a

stratagem in violating her in a wood, and she became with child, upon

which her father ordered her to be stoned according to the laws of the

country; but as none of the officers presumed to cast stones at one of

the royal family, she was taken to the top of a hill called Kepduf and

precipitated from it; having made the sign of the cross, however, she

came down to the foot of the mountain unhurt. The king then ordered her

to be given over to the sea, saying, ‘If she be worthy of life, her God

will free her from the peril of death, if He so will.’ They brought her,

therefore, to the firth, which is about three miles from Kepduf, to the

mouth of a river called Aberlessic, where she was put into a curach,

that is, a boat made of hides, and carried out into deep water beyond

the Isle of May. She remained all night alone in the midst of the sea,

and when morning dawned she was in safety cast on the sand at Culenros,

which, according to sailors’ computation, is thirty miles distant from

the Isle of May. Here she suffered the pains of labour; and, as she lay

on the ground, suddenly a heap of ashes which the day before had been

gathered together close to the shore by some shepherds, was struck by a

gust of the north wind, which scattered around her the sparks which lay

hid within it. When, therefore, she had found the fire, the pregnant

young woman dragged herself at once, as best she could, to the place

indicated by God, and in her extreme necessity, with anxious groans, she

made a little heap with the wood which had been collected the day before

by the foresaid shepherds to prepare the fire. Having lighted the fire,

she brought forth a son, the chamber of whose maturity was as rude as

that of his conception. Some herds found her there with the child, and

while some gave her food, others went straight to the blessed Servanus,

who at that time was teaching the Christian law to his clerics, with one

accord saying, ‘Sir, thus and thus have we found;’ to whom the saint

said, _A Dia cur fir sin_, which in Latin means ‘O utinam si sic

esset,’[356] and the youths replied, ‘Yea, father, it is a true tale and

no fable which we tell; therefore we pray you, sir, come and see, that

thy desire may without delay be satisfied;’ and he also, when he had

learnt the order of the events, rejoiced with great joy, and said,

‘Thanks be to God, for he shall be my dear one.’ For as the child was

being born, when he was in his oratory after morning lauds, he had heard

on high the _Gloria in excelsis_ being solemnly sung. And after an

address to his clerics, in which he vindicates the manner in which the

conception of the blessed Kentigern had taken place, and ‘praises Him

who alone governeth the world, and hath, among others, blessed our

country Britain with such a patron,’ this fragment unfortunately

terminates.[357]

[Sidenote: Jocelyn’s account of his birth.]

Jocelyn, whose narrative, as the Bishop of Brechin well observes, is

here directed at undoing the weird legend of the earlier life, which

gives the unedifying account of the conception of Kentigern, does not

name either father or daughter. He calls Kentigern’s mother simply ‘the

daughter of a certain king, most pagan in his creed, who ruled in the

northern parts of Britannia.’ Neither does he name the suitor who

betrayed her, but declares that she had no consciousness by whom, when,

or in what manner she conceived, and had possibly been drugged. He

states that, according to the law of the country, any girl in her

situation was to be cast down from the summit of a high mountain, and

her betrayer beheaded; that she was taken to the top of a high hill

called Dunpelder, and was cast down, but came to the bottom uninjured;

that she was then taken out to sea by the king’s servants, and placed in

a little boat of hides made after the fashion of the Scots, without any

oar, and, ‘the little vessel in which the pregnant girl was detained

ploughed the watery breakers and eddies of the waves towards the

opposite shore more quickly than if propelled by a wind that filled the

sail, or by the effort of many oarsmen;’ that the girl landed on the

sands at a place called Culenros, in which place at that time Servanus

dwelt, and taught sacred literature to many boys who went to be trained

to the divine service. The birth then takes place as in the other

narrative, and they are brought and presented to Servanus, who ‘in the

language of his country exclaimed, _Mochohe, Mochohe_, which in Latin

means “Care mi, Care mi,” adding, Blessed art thou that hast come in the

name of the Lord. He therefore took them to himself, and nourished and

educated them as if they were his own pledges. After certain days had

passed, he dipped them in the laver of regeneration and restoration, and

anointed them with the sacred chrism, calling the mother Taneu and the

child _Kyentyern_, which by interpretation is Capitalis Dominus.’ He

then educates him, and the gifts of grace manifested by the boy were so

great that ‘he was accustomed to call him, in the language of his

country, _Munghu_, which in Latin means Karrissimus Amicus.’[358]

Kentigern is brought up by Servanus, and the usual boyish miracles are

recorded as evidences of his sanctity, till, having excited the jealousy

and hatred of his fellow-students, he resolves, under Divine guidance of

course, to leave the place. He accordingly retreated secretly, and

‘journeying arrived at the Frisican shore, where the river, by name

Mallena, overpassing its banks when the tide flows in, took away all

hope of crossing;’ but the river is miraculously divided to enable him

to pass, the tide flowing back so that the waters of the sea and of the

river stood as walls on his right hand and on his left. He then crosses

a little arm of the sea near a bridge, which by the inhabitants is

called Servanus’s bridge; and on looking back, he saw that the waters

had not only flowed back and filled the channel of the Mallena, but were

overflowing the bridge and denying a passage to any one. Servanus, who

had followed in pursuit of the fugitive, stood above on the bank and

endeavoured to persuade him to return, but without success; and ‘having

mutually blessed each other, they were divided one from the other, and

never looked in each other’s face again in this world. And the place by

which Kentigern crossed became after that entirely impassable; for that

bridge, always after that covered by the waves of the sea, afforded to

no one any longer means of transit. Even the Mallena altered the force

of its current from the proper place, and from that day to this turned

back its channel into the river Ledone; so that forthwith the rivers

which till then had been separate from each other now became mingled and

united.’ Kentigern passes the night at a town called Kernach, where he

finds an old man, Fregus, on his death-bed, who dies in the night; and

‘next morning Kentigern, having yoked two untamed bulls to a new wain,

in which he placed the body whence the spirit had departed, and having

prayed in the name of the Lord, enjoined upon the brute beasts to carry

the burden placed upon them to the place which the Lord had provided for

it. And in truth the bulls, in no way resisting or disobeying the voice

of Kentigern, came by a straight road, along which there was no path, as

far as Cathures, which is now called Glasgu’, and halted near a certain

cemetery which had long before been consecrated by Saint Ninian. Here

Kentigern lives for some time; and then ‘the king and clergy of the

Cumbrian region, with other Christians, albeit they were few in number,

came together and, after taking into consideration what was to be done

to restore the good estate of the church, which was well-nigh destroyed,

they with one consent approached Kentigern, and elected him, in spite of

his many remonstrances and strong resistance, to be the shepherd and

bishop of their souls;’ and ‘having called one bishop from Ireland,

after the manner of the Britons and Scots of that period, they caused

Kentigern to be consecrated bishop.’[359]

[Sidenote: Anachronism in connecting St. Servanus with St. Kentigern.]

Such is the substance of these narratives; and here we are met, at the

very outset, by a great anachronism. Along with the lives of Kentigern

there is found a life of Servanus, in which he is made the founder of

the church of Culenros; but there is not one syllable about his having

been the master of Kentigern, or in any way connected with him, but the

whole events of his life, as there given, indisputably place him, as we

shall afterwards see, nearly two centuries later.[360] In spite,

therefore, of the statements of his biographers and of the belief of

popular tradition, the only conclusion we can come to is that Servanus

and St. Kentigern were divided by a more impassable barrier than the

river Mallena—the stream of time, and that they had never looked in each

other’s face at all. The scenery, however, of the narrative can be

easily identified. The hill called in the one narrative Kepduf, and in

the other Dunpelder, is Traprain Law, formerly called Dumpender Law, in

the county of Haddington. It is an isolated hill and, along with North

Berwick Law, forms a conspicuous object in the landscape. It is about

700 feet above the level of the sea, and on the south side it is nearly

perpendicular. It is distant about seven or eight miles from Aberlady

Bay, the Aberlessic of the older narrative. Culenros is Culross, on the

north shore of the Firth of Forth, here called the Frisican shore, as

the Forth itself is called by Nennius the Frisican Sea. The names of the

two rivers Mallena and Ledone are simply the Latin terms for the flood

and ebb tide, but the course of the two rivers, the Teith and the Forth,

seems to have suggested the legend. They run nearly parallel to each

other till they approach within three miles of Stirling, when the

southern of the two rivers, the Forth, takes a sudden bend to the north,

as if it would flow backwards, and discharges its waters into the Teith,

the two forming one river, but adopting the name of the former. Kernach

is Carnock, in the parish of Saint Ninian’s in Stirlingshire.

[Sidenote: Earlier notices of St. Kentigern.]

If, however, that part of the legend which introduces Servanus must be

rejected, the remainder derives some support from the old Welsh

documents. In the Triads of Arthur and his Warriors, which are

undoubtedly old, the first is termed ‘Three tribe thrones of the island

of Prydain;’ and the third of the tribe thrones is ‘Arthur, the chief

lord at Penrionyd in the north, and Cyndeyrn Garthwys, the chief bishop,

and Garthmwl Guledic, the chief elder.’[361] The chronology of the life

of Kentigern is not inconsistent with that which here connects him with

the historic Arthur, and the epithet Guledic, which was applied to the

chief among the Cymric kings of the north, gives us Garthmwl as the name

of the king of the district in which Glasgow was situated. In the

_Bonedd y Seint ynys Prydain_, or Pedigrees of the Saints of Britain, we

find the following pedigree: ‘Kyndeyrn Garthwys, son of Ywein, son of

Urien Reged, son of Cynfarch, son of Meirchiawngul, son of Grwst Ledlwm,

son of Cenau, son of Coel; and Dwynwen, daughter of Ladden Lueddog of

the city of Edwin (_Ddinas Edwin_, or Edinburgh), in the north, was his

mother.’[362] We have seen that prior to this period Monenna had founded

a church on the summit of Dunpelder, in which she established nuns;[363]

and it is possible that Dwynwen or Taneu may have been one of these

nuns, who, by the violation of her religious vow, had incurred the

sentence of being exposed in a curach in the adjacent firth. There is

nothing impossible in a small boat being driven before an east wind as

far as Culross; and certain it is that on the shore where she is said to

have landed there was a small chapel dedicated to Kentigern.[364] We

learn from the narrative that there had been an earlier church at

Glasgow founded by Ninian, which Kentigern may have restored, and he

makes his appearance in the martyrologies in the ninth century as ‘Saint

Kentigern, Bishop of Glasgow and Confessor.’[365]

[Sidenote: Kentigern driven to Wales.]

Jocelyn, after describing Kentigern’s mode of life and how he spread the

faith of Christ in his diocese, tells us that, ‘a considerable time

having elapsed, a certain tyrant, by name Morken, had ascended the

throne of the Cumbrian kingdom,’ who ‘scorned and despised the life and

doctrine of the man of God in much slandering, in public resisting him

from time to time, putting down his miraculous power to magical

illusion, and esteeming as nothing all that he did.’ But after a time

Morken dies and is buried in the royal town, which from him was called

Thorp Morken. ‘After this,’ says Jocelyn, ‘for many days he enjoyed

great peace and quiet, living in his own city of Glasgow, and going

through his diocese;’ but, ‘when some time had passed, certain sons of

Belial, a generation of vipers of the kin of the aforenamed King Morken,

excited by the sting of intense hatred and infected with the poison of

the devil, took counsel together how they might lay hold of Kentigern by

craft and put him to death.’ In consequence of this Kentigern resolved

to leave the north and proceed to Menevia in South Wales, now Saint

David’s, where St. David then ruled as bishop. The Morken here mentioned

is probably one of the kings termed Morcant by Nennius; and it is quite

in accordance with the history of the period that the increasing power

of the pagan party in the northern districts of Cumbria should have

driven Kentigern from Glasgow and forced him to take refuge in Wales.

Jocelyn describes him as proceeding by Carlisle, and says that, ‘having

heard that many among the mountains were given to idolatry or ignorant

of the divine law, he turned aside, and, God helping him and confirming

the word by signs following, converted to the Christian religion many

from a strange belief, and others who were erroneous in the faith.’ ‘He

remained some time in a certain thickly-planted place, to confirm and

comfort in the faith the men that dwelt there, where he erected a cross

as the sign of the faith, whence it took the name of, in English,

Crossfeld, that is, _Crucis Novale_, in which very locality a basilica,

recently erected, is dedicated to the name of the blessed Kentigern.’

Jocelyn then tells us that, ‘turning aside from thence, the saint

directed his steps by the sea-shore, and through all his journey

scattering the seed of the Divine Word, gathered in a plentiful and

fertile harvest unto the Lord. At length safe and sound he reached Saint

Dewi.’

[Sidenote: Kentigern founds the monastery of Llanelwy in Wales.]

St. David was, as we have already seen, one of the great founders of the

monastic church; and Kentigern had not been long with him when he

applied to the king for land to build a monastery, where he might unite

together a people acceptable to God and devoted to good works; and the

king, whom Jocelyn calls Cathwallain, allowed him to choose his own

place. Kentigern, ‘with a great crowd of his disciples along with him,

went round the land and walked throughout it exploring the situations of

the localities, the quality of the air, the richness of the soil, the

sufficiency of the meadows, pastures and woods, and the other things

that look to the convenience of a monastery to be erected;’ and is

finally conducted by a white boar ‘to the bank of a river called Elgu,

from which to this day, as it is said, the town takes its name.’ Here he

commenced to construct his monastery; ‘some cleared and levelled the

situation, others began to lay the foundation of the ground thus

levelled; some cutting down trees, others carrying them and others

fitting them together, commenced, as the father had measured and marked

out for them to build a church and its offices of polished wood, after

the fashion of the Britons, seeing that they could not yet build of

stone, nor were so wont to do.’[366] Here we are treading on somewhat

firmer ground. The monastery described is that of Llanelwy, afterwards

called St. Asaph’s. It is in the vale of Clwyd, at the junction of the

river Elwy with the Clwyd, a name possibly given to it by Kentigern from

some fancied resemblance to the river and valley in the north where he

had his original seat; and the Red Book of St. Asaph’s records several

grants made to Kentigern by Maelgwyn Gwyned, the king of North Wales at

this time.[367]

The description given by Jocelyn of the construction of the monastery is

probably not an inapt account of how these early Irish monasteries were

erected; and indeed it may be considered a type of the larger

monasteries, for Jocelyn tells us, ‘There flocked to the monastery old

and young, rich and poor, to take upon themselves the easy yoke and

light burden of the Lord. Nobles and men of the middle class brought to

the saint their children to be trained unto the Lord. The tale of those

who renounced the world increased day by day both in number and

importance, so that the total number of those enlisted in God’s army

amounted to 965, professing in act and habit the life of monastic rule,

according to the institution of the holy man. He divided this troop,

that had been collected together and devoted to the divine service, into

a threefold division of religious observance. For he appointed three

hundred, who were unlettered, to the duty of agriculture, the care of

the cattle, and the other necessary duties outside the monastery. He

assigned another three hundred to duties within the enclosure of the

monastery, such as doing the ordinary work and preparing food and

building workshops. The remaining three hundred and sixty-five, who were

lettered, he appointed to the celebration of divine service in church by

day and by night; and he seldom allowed any of these to go forth out of

the sanctuary, but they were ever to abide within, as if in the holy

place of the Lord. But those who were more advanced in wisdom and

holiness and who were fitted to teach others, he was accustomed to take

along with him when, at the urgent demand either of necessity or reason,

he thought fit to go forth to perform his episcopal office.’[368]

Allowing for some exaggeration in the numbers of those in the second and

third divisions, this is probably a very correct picture of the

monasteries in the early monastic church of Ireland and Scotland when

the head of the monastery was also a bishop.

[Sidenote: A.D. 573.

Rydderch Hael becomes king of Cumbria and recalls Kentigern.]

After some account of Kentigern’s life at his monastery in North Wales,

Jocelyn returns to the north in order to ‘show what his adversaries

suffered, how he returned to the Cumbrian region, and what he did

there.’ He tells us, after an imaginative account of the fate of those

who had driven out Kentigern, that, ‘when the time of having mercy had

arrived, that the Lord might remove the rod of his fierce anger and that

they should turn unto Him and He should heal them, He raised up over the

Cumbrian kingdom a king, Rederech by name, who, having been baptized in

Ireland in the most Christian manner by the disciples of Saint Patrick,

sought the Lord with all his heart and strove to restore Christianity.’

‘Wherefore,’ continues Jocelyn, ‘King Rederech, seeing that the

Christian religion was almost entirely destroyed in his kingdom, set

himself zealously to restore it; and, after long considering the matter

in his own mind and taking advice with other Christians who were in his

confidence, he discovered no more healthful plan by which he could bring

it to a successful result than to send messengers to Saint Kentigern, to

recall him to his first see.’ It was by the great battle of _Ardderyd_,

fought at Arthuret on the river Esk a few miles north of Carlisle, in

which the pagan and Christian parties met in conflict, and a decisive

struggle for the supremacy took place between them, that the victory of

the Christian chiefs placed Rydderch Hael, or the Liberal, on the

throne; and as this battle took place in the year 573, it gives us a

fixed date for the recall of Kentigern. He responded to the call, and,

having appointed Asaph, one of the monks, his successor, he enthroned

him in the cathedral see; and, ‘blessing and taking leave of them all he

went forth by the north door of the church, because he was going forth

to combat the northern enemy. After he had gone out, that door was

closed, and all who witnessed and heard of his egress and departure

bewailed his absence with great lamentations. Hence a custom grew up in

that church that that door should never be opened save once a year, on

the day of St. Asaph, that is, on the kalends of May, for two

reasons—first in deference to the sanctity of him who had gone forth,

and next that thereby was indicated the great grief of those who had

bewailed his departure.’ Jocelyn tells us that six hundred and

sixty-five of the monks accompanied him, and that three hundred only

remained with St. Asaph.[369]

[Sidenote: Kentigern fixes his see first at Hoddam.]

King Rydderch and his people went forth to meet him, and they

encountered each other at a place called Holdelm, now Hoddam, in

Dumfriesshire, where Kentigern addressed the multitude who had assembled

to meet him; and in the supposed address which Jocelyn puts in his mouth

we have probably a correct enough representation of the paganism which

still clung to the people and influenced their belief—a sort of cross

between their old Celtic heathenism and that derived from their pagan

neighbours the Angles, who now occupied the eastern districts of their

country. According to Jocelyn, he showed them ‘that idols were dumb, the

vain inventions of men, fitter for the fire than for worship. He showed

that the elements, in which they believed as deities, were creatures and

formations adapted by the disposition of their Maker to the use, help

and assistance of men. But Woden, whom they, and especially the Angles,

believed to be the chief deity, from whom they derived their origin, and

to whom the fourth day of the week is dedicated, he asserted with

probability to have been a mortal man, king of the Saxons, by faith a

pagan, from whom they and many nations have their descent.’ The ground

on which he sat there ‘grew into a little hill, and remaineth there unto

this day;’ and ‘men and women, old men and young men, rich and poor,

flock to the man of God to be instructed in the faith.’ And here he

fixed his see for a time; for Jocelyn then tells us that ‘the holy

bishop Kentigern, building churches in Holdelm, ordaining priests and

clerics, placed his see there for a time for a certain reason;

afterwards, warned by divine revelation, justice demanding it, he

transferred it to his own city Glasgow.’[370]

[Sidenote: Mission of Kentigern in Galloway, Alban, and Orkneys.]

It was while his see was still at Hoddam, and before he returned to

Glasgow, that we are told by Jocelyn that Kentigern, ‘after he had

converted what was nearest to him, that is to say, his diocese, going

forth to more distant places, cleansed from the foulness of idolatry and

the contagion of heresy the home of the Picts, which is now called

Galwiethia, with the adjacent parts.’ There are, however, in Galloway

proper no dedications to Kentigern, which somewhat militates against the

accuracy of this statement. We are also told that ‘he went to Albania,

and there with great and almost unbearable toil, often exposed to death

by the snares of the barbarians, but ever standing undeterred, strong in

the faith, the Lord working with him and giving power to the voice of

his preaching, he reclaimed that land from the worship of idols and from

profane rites that were almost equal to idolatry, to the landmarks of

faith, and the customs of the church, and the laws of the canons. For

there he erected many churches, and dedicated them when erected,

ordaining priests and clerics; and he consecrated many of his disciples

bishops. He also founded many monasteries in these parts, and placed

over them as fathers the disciples whom he had instructed.’[371] By

Albania are meant the eastern districts of Scotland north of the Firth

of Forth, and Jocelyn here entirely ignores the work of Columba; but

that the missionary labours of Kentigern were to some extent carried

into these northern districts appears from the dedications to him; and,

strangely enough, the traces of his missionary work are mainly to be

found north of the great range of the Mounth, where, in the upper valley

of the Dee, on the north side of the river, we find a group of

dedications which must have proceeded from a Welsh source. These are

Glengairden dedicated to Mungo, or Kentigern, Migvie and Lumphanan to

Finan, the latter name being a corruption of Llanffinan, and Midmar

dedicated to Nidan; while in the island of Anglesea we likewise find two

adjacent parishes called Llanffinan and Llannidan. In the Welsh Calendar

Nidan appears on 30th September, and his pedigree in the _Bonedd y

Seint_ makes him a grandson of Pasgen, son of Urien, and therefore a

cousin of Kentigern.[372] Jocelyn’s statement that Kentigern likewise

sent forth missionaries ‘towards the Orcades, Norwagia and Ysalanda,’ or

Iceland, must be rejected as improbable in itself and inconsistent with

the older and more trustworthy account given by Diciul, the Irish

geographer, in the early part of the ninth century, that the earliest

Christian missionaries to the northern islands were anchorites who had

all proceeded from Ireland.[373] ‘All this being duly done,’ says

Jocelyn, ‘he returned to his own church of Glasgow, where as elsewhere,

yea, where as everywhere, he was known to shine in many and great

miracles;’ and among those which he relates is the incident of the

queen’s ring found in the salmon, which appears in the arms of the city

of Glasgow.

[Sidenote: Meeting of Kentigern and Columba.]

The only remaining incident which may be considered as historical is the

meeting of Kentigern with Columba. Adamnan tells us that ‘King Roderc,

son of Tothail, who reigned on the rock of Cluaith,’ that is, at

Alcluith, or Dumbarton, ‘being on friendly terms with the holy man, sent

to him on one occasion a secret message by Lugbe Mocumin, as he was

anxious to know whether he would be killed by his enemies, or not,’ and

received from the saint the assurance that he should never be delivered

into the hands of his enemies, but would die at home on his own pillow;

and, says Adamnan, ‘the prophecy of the saint regarding King Roderc was

fully accomplished, for, according to his word, he died quietly in his

own house.’[374] It is plain, therefore, on better authority than that

of Jocelyn, that during King Rydderch’s life some friendly intercourse

had taken place between him and his people and Columba, and that clerics

proceeded from Iona to Strathclyde. This could hardly have taken place

without a meeting between the two saints, though Adamnan does not

mention the name of Kentigern. Kentigern could hardly have returned to

Glasgow much before 582; and we have seen that, after 584, Columba

extended his missionary work into the region about the river Tay. He

would thus be brought very near to the frontiers of the Strathclyde

kingdom, and so be led to visit Kentigern. Jocelyn’s description of the

meeting is too graphic to be omitted. ‘Saint Columba the abbot, whom the

Angles call Columkillus, a man wonderful for doctrine and virtues,

celebrated for his presage of future events, full of the spirit of

prophecy, and living in that glorious monastery which he had erected in

the island of Yi, desired earnestly, not once and away, but continually,

to rejoice in the light of Saint Kentigern. For, hearing for a long time

of the fame in which he was estimated, he desired to approach him, to

visit him, to behold him, to come into his close intimacy, and to

consult the sanctuary of his holy breath regarding the things which lay

near his own heart. And, when the proper time came, the holy father

Saint Columba went forth, and a great company of his disciples and

others, who desired to behold and look upon the face of so great a man,

went with him. When he approached the place called Mellindonor, where

the saint abode at the time, he divided all his people into three bands,

and sent forward a message to announce to the holy prelate his own

arrival and that of those who accompanied him. The holy pontiff was glad

when they said unto him these things concerning them, and, calling

together his clergy and people similarly in three bands, he went forth

with spiritual songs to meet them. In the front of the procession were

placed the juniors in the order of time; in the second, those more

advanced in years; in the third, with himself, walked the aged in length

of days, white and hoary, venerable in countenance, gesture and bearing,

yea, even in grey hairs. And all sang “In the ways of the Lord how great

is the glory of the Lord;” and again they answered, “The way of the just

is made straight, and the path of the saints prepared.” On Saint

Columba’s side, they sang with tuneful voices, “The saints shall go from

strength to strength, until with the God of gods appeareth every one in

Sion,” with the “Alleluia.”’ When they met, ‘they mutually embraced and

kissed each other, and,’ says Jocelyn, naïvely enough, ‘having first

satiated themselves with the spiritual banquet of divine words, they

after that refreshed themselves with bodily food.’ Jocelyn then narrates

a miracle of the usual character, and concludes by telling us that ‘they

interchanged their pastoral staves, in pledge and testimony of their

mutual love in Christ. But the staff which Saint Columba gave to the

holy bishop Kentigern was preserved for a long time in the church of

Saint Wilfrid, bishop and confessor at Ripon, and held in great

reverence, on account of the sanctity both of him who gave it and of him

who received it.’[375] It must, however, have reached Ripon after St.

Wilfrid’s time, as otherwise he could hardly have expressed ignorance of

Columba, as he did at the council of Whitby. Jocelyn concludes by saying

that, ‘during several days, these saints, passing the time together,

mutually conversed on the things of God and what concerned the salvation

of souls; then saying farewell, with mutual love, they returned to their

homes, never to meet again.’

[Sidenote: Death of Kentigern.]

Of Kentigern’s death Jocelyn gives the following strange account, which

probably reports the tradition of the church:—‘When the octave of the

Lord’s Epiphany, on which the gentle bishop himself had been wont every

year to wash a multitude of people in sacred baptism, was dawning—a day

very acceptable to Saint Kentigern and to the spirits of the sons of his

adoption—the holy man, borne by their hands, entered a vessel filled

with hot water, which he had first blessed with the sign of salvation;

and a circle of the brethren standing round him awaited the issue of the

event. And when the saint had been some little time in it, after lifting

his hands and his eyes to heaven, and bowing his head as if sinking into

a calm sleep, he yielded up his spirit.’ ‘The disciples, seeing what was

taking place, lifted the body out of the bath, and eagerly strove with

each other to enter the water; and so, one by one, before the water

cooled, they slept in the Lord in great peace; and, having tasted death

along with their holy bishop, they entered with him into the mansions of

heaven.’ ‘The brethren,’ continues Jocelyn, ‘stripped the saint of his

ordinary clothes, which they partly reserved and partly distributed as

precious relics, and clothed him in the consecrated garments which

became so great a bishop. Then he was carried by the brethren into the

choir with chants and psalms, and the life-giving victim was offered to

God for him by many. Diligently and most devoutly, as the custom of the

church in those days demanded, celebrated they his funeral; and on the

right side of the altar laid they beneath a stone, with as much becoming

reverence as they could, that abode of virtues, etc. The sacred remains

of all these brethren were devoutly and disposedly consigned to the

cemetery for sepulture, in the order in which they had followed the holy

bishop out of this life.’[376] He is thus said to have died on the 13th

of January, which is the octave of the Epiphany. If we are to understand

that he died on a Sunday, then the year of his death may most probably

be fixed as 603, in which year the 13th of January fell upon a Sunday.

The _Annales Cambriæ_, however, record his death in the year 612, which

may otherwise be accepted as the true date.[377] Jocelyn tells us that

he died full of years, when he was one hundred and eighty-five years

old, but we cannot give him so many years. Such long periods of life are

not an unusual feature in the traditionary acts of these early saints,

and are usually inserted to reconcile some anachronism in the events of

their life. The great anachronism in Kentigern’s life is the tale that

he was a disciple of Servanus, and the latter of Palladius, and as

Palladius died in the year 432, one hundred and eighty years before the

death of Kentigern according to the Cambrian Annals, this long life was

given him in order to fill up the interval; but, if we drop the century

which has been added to it, we shall find that a life of eighty-five

years is more consistent with the narrative, and furnishes us with an

unexceptionable chronology. This would place his birth either at 518 or

527, according to the date we assume for his death; and, as Jocelyn

states that he was twenty-five when he was consecrated a bishop, this

gives us 543 or 552 as the date of it. We have thus an interval of about

twenty or twenty-five years for his life at Glasgow, his expulsion to

Wales, and his foundation of the monastery of Llanelwy, as his return

under the auspices of King Rydderch must have taken place soon after the

year 573.

[Sidenote: A.D. 627.

Conversion of the Angles to Christianity.]

Of the immediate successors of Kentigern we have no record whatever; but

a quarter of a century had not elapsed from his death when the nation of

the Angles were by the conversion of their king Aeduin, brought over to

the Christian faith. Bede tells us that Aeduin was baptized at York by

Paulinus on the holy day of Easter in the year 627, and that, ‘at a

certain time, coming with the king and queen to the royal seat which is

called Adgefrin, now Yevering, one of the Cheviots near Wooler, Paulinus

stayed there with them thirty-six days, fully occupied in catechising

and baptizing; during all which days from morning till night he did

nothing else but instruct the people resorting thither from all villages

and places in Christ’s saving word, and, when instructed, he washed them

with the water of remission in the river Glen, which is close by.’

‘These things,’ says Bede, ‘happened in the province of the

Bernicians,’[378] which at this time extended to the Firth of Forth. By

the continuator of Nennius, however, a different tradition has been

handed down to us. He states that ‘Eadguin received baptism on Easter

day, and that twelve thousand men were baptized along with him;’ and

adds, ‘If any one would know who baptized them, Rum, son of Urbgen,

baptized them, and for forty days did not cease to baptize the whole

nation of the Ambrones; and by his preaching many believed in

Christ.’[379] The Urbgen of Nennius is the Urien of the Welsh pedigree

of Kentigern, which would place Rum in the position of being his uncle,

which is hardly possible. But the tradition seems to indicate that the

Cumbrian Church did play a part in the conversion of their Anglic

neighbours; and the Angles occupying the district between the Tweed and

Forth, being more immediately within their reach and coming directly in

contact with them, may have owed their conversion to one who was of the

same race as Kentigern, and, as belonging to the tribe of the patron

saint, had succeeded him as head of the Cumbrian Church. Be this as it

may, the short-lived church of Paulinus could not have had much

permanent effect in leavening these Anglic tribes with Christianity; and

the whole of the Cumbrian and Anglic districts were speedily thrown into

confusion by the revolution which restored paganism for a time under the

pagan Anglic king Penda and the apostate Welsh king Ceadwalla. When

Christianity was again revived in Northumbria, it was in a different

form, and one more assimilated to the church of Kentigern; but the

Cumbrian kingdom fell, not long after, under the dominion of the Angles;

and during the period of their rule there was probably no independent

church there. It is to the Columban Church, established in Northumbria

by King Osuald in 635, that we must look for the permanent conversion of

the Angles who occupied the eastern districts between the Tweed and the

Forth, and for the foundation of churches, or rather Columban

monasteries, among them. The two principal of these were founded, the

one by Aidan, the first of the Columban bishops; the second, in the time

of Finan, his successor. Bede tells us that on the arrival of Aidan,

‘the king appointed him his episcopal see in the island of Lindisfarne,

as he himself desired,’ and that ‘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.’[380] And in another

place he says that, when Aidan was first made bishop, ‘he received

twelve boys of the Anglic nation to be instructed in Christ.’[381]

[Sidenote: The monasteries in Lothian.]

‘Among the monasteries so founded by him was that of Mailros, situated

on the banks of the Tweed not far from the later foundation at the

place, and called Old Melrose, a peninsula nearly surrounded by the

Tweed, which is overhung on the farther side by its lofty precipitous

banks, and is strongly guarded by natural defences on every quarter

except the south, where a wall was drawn across the narrow

isthmus.’[382] And the first abbot we hear of in connection with this

monastery was Eata, one of the twelve boys whom Aidan had

instructed.[383] The other monastery was that termed by Bede _Urbs

Coludi_, the Saxon equivalent of which is _Coldingaham_, now Coldingham,

built on a rock overhanging the sea, a short way south of the promontory

termed Saint Abb’s Head. The neck of land on which it was built

stretches into the sea, having for its three sides perpendicular rocks

of great elevation. The fourth side was cut off from the mainland, and

rendered impregnable, by a high wall and deep trench.[384] This

monastery was founded by Aebba, daughter of King Aedilfrid, and

half-sister of the kings Osuald and Osuiu, who became its first

abbess.[385] It was a double monastery, and contained two distinct

communities of men and of women, who lived under her single government.

It is from her that the promontory of Saint Abb’s Head takes its name.

[Sidenote: Saint Cuthbert.]

But, if the great name in the Cumbrian Church was that of Kentigern,

that which left its greatest impress in Lothian, and one with which the

monastery of Mailros was peculiarly connected, was that of Cudberct,

popularly called Saint Cuthbert. Several Lives of him have come down to

us; but undoubtedly the one which, from its antiquity, is most deserving

of credit, is that by the venerable Bede. In this respect Cudberct was

more fortunate even than Columba, for this Life was written within forty

years of his death. Bede, too, was born in the lifetime of the saint

whose life he records, and must have been about thirteen years old when

he died; and he tells us himself that he had frequently shown his

manuscript to ‘Herefrid the priest, as well as to several other persons

who, from having long dwelt with the man of God, were thoroughly

acquainted with his life, that they might read it and deliberately

correct or expunge what they judged advisable.’ ‘Some of these

amendments,’ he adds, ‘I carefully adopted at their suggestion, as

seemed good to me; and thus, all scruples having been entirely removed,

I have ventured to commit the result of this careful research, conveyed

in simple language, to these few sheets of parchment.’[386] Bede tells

us nothing of the birth and parentage of Cudberct; and, though he

relates an incident which occurred when the saint was in his eighth

year, and which he says Bishop Trumuini of blessed memory affirmed that

Cudberct had himself told him, he does not indicate where or in what

country he had passed his boyhood. When he first connects Cudberct with

any locality, he says that ‘he was keeping watch over the flocks

committed to his charge on some remote mountains.’ These mountains,

however, were the southern slope of the Lammermoors, which surround the

upper part of the vale of the Leader, in Berwickshire; for the anonymous

history of St. Cuthbert, which, next to his Life by Bede, has the

greatest value, says that ‘he was watching over the flocks of his master

in the mountains near the river Leder.’[387] There ‘on a certain night,

when he was extending his long vigils in prayers, as was his wont,’

which shows the bent of his mind towards a religious life, he had a

vision in which he saw the soul of Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne being

carried to heaven by choirs of the heavenly host; and resolved in

consequence to enter a monastery and put himself under monastic

discipline. ‘And,’ says Bede, ‘although he knew that the church of

Lindisfarne possessed many holy men by whose learning and examples he

might well be instructed, yet, allured by the fame of the exalted

virtues of Boisil, a monk and priest, he chose rather to go to Mailros.

And it happened, when he arrived there, as he leaped from his horse and

was about to enter the church to pray, that he gave his horse to an

attendant, as well as the spear which he held in his hand (for he had

not as yet laid aside his secular dress), Boisil himself, who was

standing at the gate of the monastery, first saw him.’ Boisil ‘kindly

received Cudberct as he arrived; and, on his explaining the object of

his visit, viz., that he preferred a monastery to the world, he kindly

kept him near himself, for he was the provost of that same monastery.

And after a few days, on the arrival of Eata of blessed memory, then a

priest and the abbot of that monastery of Mailros, and afterwards abbot

of Lindisfarne, and likewise bishop of the church of Lindisfarne, Boisil

spoke to him of Cudberct, and, telling him how well disposed he was,

obtained permission to give him the tonsure, and to unite him in

fellowship with the rest of the brethren;’[388] and thus Cudberct became

a monk of the monastery of Melrose. As Bishop Aidan died in the year

651, this gives us the first certain date in his life.

[Sidenote: Irish Life of St. Cuthbert.]

The only Life which professes to give his earlier history is ‘The Book

of the Nativity of Saint Cuthbert, taken and translated from the

Irish.’[389] According to this Life, Cuthbert was born in Ireland, of

royal extraction. His mother Sabina, daughter of the king who reigned in

the city called Lainestri, was taken captive by the king of Connathe,

who slew her father and all her family. He afterwards violated her, and

then sent her to his own mother, who adopted her, and, together with

her, entered a monastery of virgins which was then under the care of a

bishop. There Sabina gave birth to the boy Cuthbert, and the bishop

baptized him, giving him the Irish name of Mullucc. He is said to have

been born in ‘Kenanus,’ or Kells, a monastery said to have been founded

by Columba on the death of the bishop who had educated him. His mother

goes with him to Britain by the usual mode of transit in these legends,

that is, by a stone which miraculously performs the functions of a

curach, and they land in ‘Galweia, in that region called Rennii, in the

harbour of Rintsnoc,’[390] no doubt Portpatrick in the Rinns of

Galloway. Then, leaving their stone curach, they take another vessel and

go to ‘a harbour called Letherpen in Erregaithle, a land of the Scots.

This harbour is situated between Erregaithle and Incegal, near a lake

called Loicafan.’ A harbour between Argyll and the Isles must be on its

west side, and the inlet called Lochmelfort may be meant, near the head

of which is the lake called Loch Avich; or, if Loch Awe is meant, it may

have been at Crinan, near which was Dunadd, the capital of

Dalriada.[391] Here they landed, the mother and son and three men, and

wishing to warm themselves, they collect for the purpose dry branches,

and heap them up to light a fire. The place, however, was much exposed

to robbers, and the glitter of the golden armlets of the mother

attracted the notice of some, who rushed upon her with lances, and would

have slain her, but were discomfited by the prayers of the holy boy.

From that day to this, when that spot is covered with branches or pieces

of wood, they ignite of themselves, which the inhabitants attribute to

the merits of the boy.[392] Then they go to the borders of Scotia,[393]

where Columba, the first bishop of Dunkeld, receives the boy and

educates him with a girl, a native of Ireland, named Brigida, who tells

him that the Lord destines him for the Angles in the east of this

province, but reserves her for the western population of the land of the

Irish. Here he excites the envy of three southern clerics from the

region of the Angles.[394] They then go to the island which is called

Hy, or Iona, where they remain some time with the religious men of that

place. Then they visit two brothers-german of the mother, Meldanus and

Eatanus, who were bishops in the province of the Scots, in which each

had an episcopal seat; and these take the boy and place him under the

care of a certain religious man in Lothian, while the mother goes on a

pilgrimage to Rome. In this place in Lothian a church was afterwards

erected in his honour, which is to this day called Childeschirche, and

here the book of the nativity of St. Cuthbert, taken from the Irish

histories, terminates.[395] Childeschirche is the old name of the parish

now called Channelkirk, in the upper part of the vale of the Leader; and

the Irish Life thus lands him where Bede takes him up.

It is certainly remarkable that Bede gives no indication of Cudberct’s

nationality. He must surely have known whether he was of Irish descent

or not. He is himself far too candid and honest a historian not to have

stated the fact if it was so, and it is difficult to avoid the suspicion

that this part of his narrative was one of those portions which he had

expunged at the instance of the critics to whom he had submitted his

manuscript. Unfortunately Bede nowhere gives us Cudberct’s age. He

elsewhere calls him at this time a young man, and he says that his life

had reached to old age.[396] Cudberct resigned his bishopric in 686, and

died in 687. He could hardly have been under sixty at that time, and it

was probably on his attaining that age that he withdrew from active

life. This would place his birth in the year 626, and make him

twenty-five when he joined the monastery at Mailros. The Irish Life

appears to have been recognised by the monks of Durham as early as the

fourteenth century,[397] and it is perfectly possible that these events

may have taken place before Bede takes up his history, though they are

characterised by the usual anachronisms. Dunkeld was not founded till

more than a century after his death, and, as it was dedicated to St.

Columba of Iona, he no doubt appears here as its bishop half-a-century

after his death.[398] The Brigida there mentioned is also obviously

intended for St. Bridget of Kildare, who belongs to a much earlier

period; and the Bishop Eatanus, his mother’s brother, is surely no other

than Eata, abbot of Melrose, and afterwards bishop of Lindisfarne. The

truth may possibly be that he was the son of an Irish kinglet by an

Anglic mother; and this would account for her coming to Britain with the

boy, and his being placed under a master in the vale of the Leader.

[Sidenote: A.D. 651-661.

Cudberct’s life in the monastery of Melrose.]

Bede gives us no particulars of Cudberct’s life in the monastery of

Melrose from 651, when he joined it, to the year 661, when he

accompanies Abbot Eata to Ripon, where King Alchfrid had given the

latter a certain domain to found a monastery, which he did, and having

instituted in it the same monastic discipline which he had previously

established at Mailros, Cudberct was appointed provost of the

guest-chamber. During this period of ten years we may place the events

recorded in the chapter annexed to the Irish Life. According to this

chapter, ‘after the blessed youth Cuthbert had arrived in Scottish land,

he began to dwell in different parts of the country, and coming to a

town called Dul forsook the world, and became a solitary.’ Not more than

a mile from it there is in the woods a high and steep mountain called by

the inhabitants Doilweme, and on its summit he began to lead a solitary

life. Here he brings from the hard rock a fountain of water which still

exists. Here too he erects a large stone cross, builds an oratory of

wood, and out of a single stone, not far from the cross, constructs a

bath, in which he used to immerse himself and spend the night in prayer,

which bath still exists on the summit of the mountain. Cuthbert remains

some time in the territory of the Picts leading a solitary life, till

the daughter of the king of that province accuses him of having violated

her; but, at the prayer of the saint, the earth opened and swallowed her

up at a place still called Corruen, and it was on this account that he

never permitted a female to enter his church—‘a custom,’ says the

writer, ‘which is still rigidly observed in the country of the

Picts;[399] and churches were everywhere dedicated in his honour.’ The

saint, however, would no longer remain in these parts, but exchanged

them for another part of the country.[400] The localities here mentioned

can be easily recognised. Dul is the village of Dull in Strathtay in

Atholl, where Adamnan, not long after Cudberct’s death, founded a

monastery; and about a mile east of Dull is the church of Weem, situated

under a high cliff called the Rock of Weem, about six hundred feet high,

and in some places so steep as to be almost perpendicular.[401] In the

year 657 Osuiu, king of Northumbria, had extended his sway not only over

the Britons and Scots, but also over the territories of the southern

Picts. The district in which these places are situated was now under the

dominion of the Angles, which may have led to Cudberct having proceeded

thither. Cudberct did not remain long at Ripon, for Bede tells us that,

‘since the whole condition of this world is fragile and unsteady as the

sea when a sudden tempest arises, the above-named abbot Eata, with

Cudberct and the rest of the brethren whom he had brought along with

him, was driven home, and the site of the monastery he had founded was

given for a habitation to the monks.’ This sudden tempest, as we learn

from Bede’s history, was the return of St. Wilfrid to England, when King

Alchfrid, ‘who had always followed and loved the Catholic rules of the

church,’ gave him ‘the monastery of thirty families at a place called In

Wrypum (Ripon), which place he had lately given to those that followed

the doctrine of the Scots to build a monastery upon. But forasmuch as

they afterwards, being left to their choice, would rather quit the place

than adopt the Catholic Easter and other canonical rites according to

the custom of the Roman and Apostolic Church, he gave the same to

him.’[402]

[Sidenote: A.D. 661.

Cudberct becomes prior of Melrose.]

Boisil having soon after died, Cudberct was appointed prior of Mailros

in his room, ‘and performed its functions for several years with so much

spiritual zeal, as became a saint, that he gave to the whole community

not only the counsels, but also the example, of a monastic life.’ He was

also zealous in converting the surrounding populace, ‘and frequently

went out from the monastery, sometimes on horseback, but more generally

on foot, and preached the way of truth to those who were in error, as

Boisil had been also wont to do in his time in the neighbouring

villages. He was also wont to seek out and preach in those remote

villages which were situated far from the world in wild mountain places

and fearful to behold, and which, as well by their poverty as by their

distance up the country, prevented intercourse between them and such as

could instruct their inhabitants. Abandoning himself willingly to this

pious work, Cudberct cultivated these remote districts and people with

so much zeal and learning that he often did not return to his monastery

for an entire week, sometimes for two or three, yea occasionally even

for an entire month, remaining all the time in the mountains, and

calling back to heavenly concerns these rustic people by the word of his

preaching as well as by his example of virtue.’[403] It was during this

time that we find him visiting Aebbe at _Coludi_ or Coldingham, and

spending the greater part of the night in prayer and prolonged vigils,

‘entering the sea till the water reached to his arms and neck;’ and that

on one occasion he went to the land of the ‘Niduari Picts,’ or Picts of

Galloway, who were then under the dominion of the Angles. He is

described as quitting his monastery on some affairs that required his

presence, and embarking on board a vessel for the land of the Picts who

are called _Niduari_, accompanied by two of the brethren, one of whom

reported the incident. They arrived there the day after Christmas,

expecting a speedy return, for the sea was smooth and the wind

favourable; but they had no sooner reached the land than a tempest

arose, by which they were detained for several days exposed to hunger

and cold; but they were, by the prayers of the saint, supplied with food

under a cliff where he was wont to pray during the watches of the night;

and on the fourth day the tempest ceased, and they were brought by a

prosperous breeze to their own country.[404] The traces of this visit

have been left in the name of Kirkcudbright, or Church of Cuthbert.

[Sidenote: A.D. 664.

Cudberct goes to Lindisfarne.]

In the year 664 the Columban Church in Northumbria was brought to an end

by the adverse decision of the Council of Whitby, and Bishop Colman left

the country with those of his Scottish clerics who would not conform to

Rome. Eata, the abbot, however, and his provost, Cudberct, gave in their

adhesion to the Roman party, and, at Bishop Colman’s suggestion, the

monastery of Lindisfarne was placed under Eata’s charge, who thus became

abbot both of Mailros and of Lindisfarne. To the latter monastery Eata

transferred Cudberct, ‘there to teach the rules of monastic perfection

with the authority of a superior, and to illustrate it by becoming an

example of virtue.’ He appears to have become zealous in endeavouring to

assimilate the Scottish system to the customs of the Roman Church, for

Bede tells us that there still remained ‘in the monastery certain monks

who chose rather to follow their ancient custom than to obey the new

rule. These, nevertheless, he overcame by the modest power of his

patience, and by daily practice he brought them by little and little to

a better disposition.’[405] In the meantime Tuda, who had been initiated

and ordained bishop among the southern Scots of Ireland, having also the

coronal tonsure according to the custom of that province, and observing

the Catholic time of Easter, and had come from thence while Colman was

yet bishop, was appointed bishop of the Northumbrians in his place. ‘He

was a good and religious man,’ says Bede, ‘but governed his church a

very short time,’ being cut off by the great pestilence of that

year.[406] King Alchfrid had sent Wilfrid to Gaul to be consecrated

bishop over him and his people, and being still absent, King Osuiu sent

Ceadda, abbot of the monastery of Laestingaeu, who had been one of

Bishop Aidan’s disciples, to Kent to be ordained bishop of the church of

York, where, as the archbishop had just died, he was consecrated bishop

by Bishop Vini of Wessex, to whom were joined two bishops of the British

nation who adhered to the Roman party.

[Sidenote: A.D. 669-678.

St. Wilfrid bishop over all the dominions of King Osuiu, and

founds church of Hexham, which he dedicates to St. Andrew.]

Wilfrid now returned from Gaul a consecrated bishop. ‘Whence it

followed,’ says Bede, ‘that the Catholic institution gained strength,

and all the Scots that dwelt among the Angles either submitted to these

persons or returned to their own country.’ Ceadda soon gave way to

Wilfrid, and was translated to the province of the Mercians; while from

the year 669 to 678, when he was expelled, Wilfrid administered the

bishopric of York and of all the Northumbrians, and likewise of the

Picts as far as the dominions of King Osuiu extended. During the period

of his episcopate, Wilfrid, as we are informed by Eddi, founded the

monastery of Hagustald, or Hexham, in the valley of the Tyne, the

district having been given him by the queen Etheldreda, whose property

it appears to have been; and he dedicated it to St. Andrew,[407] in

commemoration of an early incident in his life recorded by Eddi, who

tells us that, when he first conceived the purpose of endeavouring to

turn the Northumbrians from the Columban institutions to Rome, he went

in Rome to a church dedicated to St. Andrew, and there knelt before the

altar and prayed to God, through the merits of his holy martyr Andrew,

that He would grant him the power of reading the Gospels aright, and of

preaching the eloquence of the Evangelists to the people. His prayer was

answered by the gift of persuasive eloquence; and feeling himself

peculiarly under the guidance of that apostle, he dedicated his

monastery of Hexham to him. And thus were the dedications to St. Andrew

first introduced into the northern parts of Britain.

[Sidenote: A.D. 670.

Cudberct withdraws to the Farne island.]

Returning to Cudberct, after he had been twelve years in charge of the

monastery of Lindisfarne, he resolved, according to the custom of the

time, to withdraw from the monastery and lead a solitary life in some

remote island. Bede tells us that he had already ‘begun to learn the

rudiments of a solitary life, and that he used to withdraw into a

certain place which is yet discernible on the outside of his cell, than

which it is more secluded.’ This place can still be identified. It is a

low detached portion of the basaltic line of rock which runs in front of

the ruins of the priory at the south-west corner of the island of

Lindisfarne, which becomes an islet at high-water, while at low-water it

is accessible by a ridge of stone covered with sea-weed. It still bears

his name; and here subsequently existed a small chapel dedicated to him,

which was called ‘the Chapel of St. Cuthbert on the Sea.’[408] Bede

tells us that ‘when he had for a while learned as a recluse to contend

thus with the invisible enemy by prayer and fasting, then in course of

time he ventured still higher, and sought a place of conflict farther

off and more remote from the abode of men.’ For this purpose he retired

to the solitary island of Farne, at a greater distance from the mainland

than Lindisfarne, and then uninhabited. It is about two miles and a half

from the mainland, and presents to the land a perpendicular front of

about 40 feet in height, from which there extends a grassy plain. Here

he constructed an anchorite’s cell; and the description which Bede gives

of it affords us a good idea of what such establishments usually were.

‘How this dwelling-place,’ says Bede, ‘was nearly circular, in measure

from wall to wall about four or five perches. The wall itself externally

was higher than the stature of a man, but inwardly, by cutting the

living rock, the pious inhabitant thereof made it much higher, in order

by this means to curb the petulance of his eyes as well as of his

thoughts, and to raise up the whole bent of his mind to heavenly

desires, since he could behold nothing from his mansion except heaven.

He constructed this wall not of hewn stone, nor of brick and mortar, but

of unwrought stones and turf, which he dug out of the centre of the

place. Of these stones, some were of such a size that it seemed scarcely

possible for four men to lift them; nevertheless it was discovered that

he had brought them from another place and put them on the wall,

assisted by heavenly aid. His dwelling-place was divided into two

parts—an oratory, namely, and another dwelling suitable for common uses.

He constructed the walls of both by digging round, or by cutting out

much of the natural earth, inside and outwardly, but the roof was formed

of rough beams and thatched with straw. Moreover, at the landing-place

of the island there was a large house, in which the monks, when they

came to see him, might be received and rest; and not far from this there

was a fountain of water adapted for the supply of their wants.’ The

remains of this establishment can still be traced on the island, and

here, ‘having constructed the above abode and outhouses with the aid of

the brethren, Cudberct, the man of God, began now to dwell alone.’[409]

He had hardly done so two years when a discussion broke out between

Wilfrid and King Ecgfrid. Wilfred was expelled from his see, ‘and two

bishops were substituted in his stead to preside over the nation of the

Northumbrians—viz., Bosa, to preside over the province of the Deiri, and

Eata, over that of the Bernicians—the former having his episcopal chair

in the city of York, the latter, in the church of Hagustald, or Hexham,

or else in that of Lindisfarne, both of them being promoted to the

episcopal dignity from a college of monks.’ Three years afterwards the

great diocese of York was still further divided, and two other bishops

were added to their number—‘Tunberct, in the church of Hagustald, while

Eata remained in that of Lindisfarne, and Trumuini in the province of

the Picts, which at that time was subject to the Angles.’[410]

[Sidenote: A.D. 684.

Cudberct becomes bishop of Lindisfarne.]

Cudberct had remained eight years in his solitude when Tunberct was for

some cause deposed from his bishopric, and, at a great synod assembled

at Twyford on the Alne, in the year 684, in presence of King Ecgfrid,

and presided over by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, Cudberct by the

unanimous consent of all was elected to the bishopric of Hagustald in

his place, and was consecrated bishop at the Easter of the following

year in the city of York, and in presence of King Ecgfrid, ‘seven

bishops meeting at the consecration, among whom Theodore was primate;’

but, as he preferred being placed over the church of Lindisfarne, in

which he had lived, it was thought fit that Eata should return to the

see of the church of Hagustald, over which he had been first ordained,

and Cudberct should take upon him the government of the church of

Lindisfarne. This was done, says the anonymous history, ‘with the

general assent of King Ecgfrid and of the archbishop and these seven

bishops and of all the magnates.’[411] Two months after his consecration

as bishop King Ecgfrid was slain in the battle of Dunnechtain by the

Picts, Trumuini fled from his diocese, and the dominion of the Angles

over the Picts, Scots and Strathclyde Britons came to an end.

[Sidenote: A.D. 684.

Cudberct becomes bishop of Lindisfarne.]

Cudberct, who had accepted the bishopric with great reluctance, after he

had filled the office for two years from his election, becoming aware

that his end was drawing near, resolved to lay down his pastoral office

and return to his solitary life; and after making a complete visitation

not only of his diocese but also of all the other dwellings of the

faithful, in order to confirm all with the needful word of exhortation,

he, soon after Christmas in the year 686, returned to the hermit’s life

he loved so well, in his cell in the island of Farne. And as a crowd of

the brethren stood around him as he was going abroad, one of them asked

him, ‘Tell us, lord bishop, when we may hope for your return.’ And

Cudberct, who knew the truth, answered his simple question as simply,

saying, ‘When you shall bring my body hither.’ ‘After he had passed

nearly two months,’ says Bede, ‘greatly exulting in the repose which he

had regained, he was seized with a sudden illness, and by the fire of

temporal pain he began to be prepared for the joys of everlasting

happiness.’ The account which Bede gives us of his death was, he says,

narrated to him by Herefrid, a devout and religious priest, who at that

time presided over the monastery of Lindisfarne as abbot, and was with

Cudberct when he died. It is too long for insertion, but one or two

incidents recorded by him throw light upon some points relevant to our

inquiry.

[Sidenote: A.D. 687.

Death of Cudberct.]

‘After three weeks of continued wasting infirmity, Cudberct came to his

end thus. He began to be taken ill on the fourth day of the week, and in

like manner on the fourth day of the week, his sickness having been

accomplished, he departed to the Lord.’ Herefrid visited him on the

morning after he was taken ill, and when he took leave of him, and said,

‘Give us your blessing, for it is time for us to go on board and return

home,’—‘Do as you say,’ he said; ‘go on board and return home safe; and

when God shall have taken my soul bury me in this cell, at the south

side of my oratory, opposite the east side of the holy cross which I

have erected there. Now there is at the north of the same oratory a

stone coffin, hidden by sods,[412] which formerly the venerable abbot

Cudda presented to me. Place my body in that, and wrap it in the fine

linen which you will find there.’ Herefrid was prevented from returning

by a storm which lasted five days, but, when calm weather returned, he

went back to the island and found that Cudberct had left his monastery

and was sitting in the house built outside the enclosure for the

reception of visitors, in order that any of the brethren who came to

minister to him should find him there, and have no need to enter his

cell. When Herefrid returned to Lindisfarne, he told the brethren that

their venerable father had given orders that he should be buried in his

own island; they resolved therefore to ask him to permit his body to be

translated hither, and to be deposited in the church with suitable

honour. On his coming to the bishop and laying this request before him

he replies, ‘It was my wish to rest in the body here, where I have

fought my little wrestling, such as it has been, for the Lord, and where

I desire to finish my course, and whence I hope to be raised up by the

merciful Judge to a crown of righteousness. Moreover, I think it would

be more advantageous to you that I should rest here, on account of the

trouble you would have from fugitives and evil-doers, who will probably

fly to my tomb for refuge; for whatsoever I am in myself, I know that

the report will go abroad of me that I am a servant of Christ; and you

would necessarily have very often to intercede with the powerful of the

world, and so to undergo much labour and trouble from the possession of

my body.’ But, on their pressing their request, he says, ‘If you would

really overcome what I had disposed, and should bear my body from this

place, it seems to me that it would be better, in that case, to bury me

inside your church, so that you may visit my tomb whenever you please,

and have it in your power to admit or not to admit those that come

thither.’ The monks thanked him for his permission, knelt down, and then

returned home, from that time forth visiting him frequently. ‘And when,

his sickness continuing, he saw that the time of his dissolution was at

hand, he commanded that he should be carried back to his little cell and

oratory.’ Now it was at the third hour of the day. ‘There we accordingly

carried him,’ says Herefrid, ‘for through his exceeding weakness, he was

unable to walk. But, when we came to the door, we begged him to allow

some one of us to enter along with him and minister to him; for no one

but himself, had for many years, ever entered therein.’ He accordingly

allowed one of the brethren to remain. When Herefrid returned about the

ninth hour of the day, he found him reclining in a corner of his oratory

opposite the altar; and when he pressed him ‘to leave some words which

might be considered as a bequest and as a last farewell to the brethren,

he began to speak a few words—but they were powerful—concerning peace

and humility, and cautioning us against those persons that chose rather

to wrestle against such things than take delight therein. “Keep peace,”

he said, “one with another, and heavenly charity; and, when necessity

demands of you to hold counsel as to your state, take great care that

you be of one mind in your conclusions; and, moreover, maintain mutual

concord with other servants of Christ, and despise not the household of

the faith who come to you seeking hospitality, but be careful to receive

such persons, to entertain them, and to send them away with friendly

kindness; and do not think you are better than other followers of the

same faith and conversation.” But, with the spirit characteristic of one

who had just emerged from an ecclesiastical controversy, he adds,—“But

with those that err from the unity of Catholic peace, either by not

celebrating Easter at the proper time, or by living perversely, have no

communion.”’ ‘Thus he spent a quiet day till evening, and tranquilly

continued the wakeful night also in prayer. Now when the wonted time of

nocturn prayers was come, having received the salutary sacraments at my

hands, he fortified his departure, which he knew had now come, by the

communion of the body and blood of our Lord; and, having lifted up his

eyes to heaven and extended his hands on high, his soul, intent on

heavenly praises, departed to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.’[413]

The similarity of his death to that of Columba, both in the time and

manner of its occurrence and in the touching simplicity of the

narrative, is very striking, and not less so the mode in which it was

made known and received by the monks of Lindisfarne. Herefrid says that

he immediately went out and ‘announced the death to the brethren, who

had in like manner been passing the night in watching and prayer; and it

happened that, in the order of nocturnal lauds, they were at that moment

chanting the fifty-ninth,’ or, as it is in our English prayer-books, the

sixtieth psalm; ‘and forthwith one of them ran and lighted two candles,

and, holding one in each hand, he went up to a higher place, to show to

the brethren who remained in the monastery of Lindisfarne that the holy

soul of Cudberct had now departed to the Lord; for such was the signal

agreed upon among them to notify his most holy death. And when the monk

who was intently watching afar off, on the opposite watch-tower of the

island of Lindisfarne, saw this, for which he had been waiting, he ran

quickly to the church, where the whole congregation of the monks were

assembled to celebrate the solemnities of nocturnal psalmody; and it

happened that they also, when he entered, were singing the

before-mentioned psalm,’ The body of Cudberct was then brought in a boat

to the island of Lindisfarne, where ‘it was received by a great

multitude of people, who, together with choirs of choristers, met it,

and it was deposited in a stone coffin in the church of the blessed

apostle Peter, on the right side of the altar.’[414]

[Sidenote: Α.D. 698.

Relics of Cudberct enshrined.]

Eleven years after his death, the remains of Cudberct were enshrined,

and, as the custom of enshrining the relics of their saints was now

beginning in the Irish Church, the circumstances here detailed are very

instructive. The Divine power, Bede tells us, ‘put it into the hearts of

the brethren to raise his bones, which they expected to have found dry,

as is usual with the dead when the rest of the body has been consumed

and reduced to dust, in order that they might enclose his remains in a

light chest; and they intended, for the sake of decent veneration, to

deposit them in the same place, but above instead of below the pavement.

When they expressed this their desire to Eadberct, their bishop, he

assented to their proposal, and commanded that they should remember to

do this on the day of his deposition, which occurred on the thirteenth

of the kalends of April, or the 20th of March. This they accordingly

did; but, on opening the sepulchre, they found his whole body as entire

as when he was yet living, and more like one in a sound sleep, for the

joints of the limbs were flexible, than one who was dead.’ They hastened

to inform the bishop, who was at the time dwelling as a solitary in the

island of Farne, of what appeared to them a miraculous preservation of

the remains, and he desired them ‘to gird the body with fresh wrappings

instead of those which they had removed, and so place him in the chest

they had prepared.’ The monks did as they were commanded; ‘and the body

having been wrapped in new raiment and laid in a light chest, they

deposited it upon the pavement of the sanctuary.’[415] This is a very

early example of enshrining, and shows that the shrine they had prepared

was large enough to receive the entire body, and that the custom then

was to inter a saint in a stone coffin under the pavement, at the right

side of the altar; but to place a shrine, enclosing his remains, above

the pavement.[416]

[Sidenote: A.D. 688.

Strathclyde Britons conform to Rome.]

Adamnan’s first visit to Northumbria was made in the year 686; but we

know nothing of it beyond the fact that the object of it was to redeem

from Aldfrid the captives who had been carried off from Ireland by his

predecessor, King Ecgfrid. Cudberct was at this time bishop of

Lindisfarne, and it is extremely probable that they met. Adamnan’s

second visit, however, was in 688, after Cudberct’s death, but while the

whole kingdom was still full of his memory and the report of his sayings

and doings; and these may have probably had their effect in bringing

Adamnan over to the adoption of the Roman system, of which Cudberct had

latterly been such a strenuous supporter. Bede tells us that, through

his efforts, a great part of the Scots in Ireland, and some also of the

Britons in Britain, conformed to the proper and ecclesiastical time of

keeping Easter. By the latter expression, the Britons of Strathclyde,

who had recently regained their freedom from the yoke of the Angles, are

meant,[417] as the Britons of North Wales did not conform till the year

768, nor those of South Wales till the year 777. With the Britons of

Strathclyde, too, we may connect at this time Sedulius as their bishop,

who was present at a council held at Rome in the year 721, under Pope

Gregory II., and subscribes its canons as Sedulius, a bishop of Britain

of the nation of the Scots.[418] The Strathclyde Britons therefore, on

regaining their independence, appear to have obtained a bishop from

Ireland, probably from the southern Scots; and his presence at this

council proves that he was of the Roman party.

[Sidenote: A.D. 705-709.

Wilfrid founds chapels at Hexham, dedicated to St. Michael

and St. Mary.]

On Cudberct’s death, Wilfrid, who had been restored to his bishopric of

York by King Aldfrid in the previous year, held the episcopal see of

Lindisfarne one year, till such time as a bishop was chosen to be

ordained in his room,[419] and seems to have not a little troubled the

monks during his short rule, as no doubt Bede alludes to his temporary

government of the monastery when he says, ‘For in truth, after the man

of God was buried, so violent a storm of temptation shook that church,

that several of the brethren chose rather to depart from the place than

to encounter such dangers. Nevertheless Eadberct was ordained to the

bishopric the year after; and, as he was a man noted for his great

virtues and deep learning in the Scriptures, and above all given to

works of almsdeeds, he put to flight the tempest of disturbance which

had arisen.’[420] Wilfrid was not more fortunate in the management of

his restored diocese of York, for he was again expelled after having

held it five years.[421] Wilfrid, as usual, appealed to Rome, and the

Pope, as usual, decided in his favour; and we learn both from Bede and

Eddi that on his return journey he was suddenly seized with illness in

the city of Meaux in Gaul, where he lay four days and nights as if he

had been dead; but on the dawn of the fifth day he sat up in bed, as it

were awakening out of a deep sleep, and saw numbers of the brethren

singing and weeping about him. He asked for Acca the priest, and, when

he came, told him that he had a dreadful vision. ‘There stood by him,’

he said, ‘a certain person remarkable for his white garments, who told

him that he was Michael the Archangel, and was sent to recall him from

death; for the Lord had granted him life through the prayers and tears

of his disciples and the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary; and

that he would recover from his illness. “But be ready,” he added, “for I

will return and visit thee at the end of four years. Go home and rear a

church in her honour who has won for thee thy life. You have already

built churches in honour of St. Peter and St. Andrew, but hast done

nothing for St. Mary who interceded for thee. Amend this, and dedicate a

church to her.”’[422] The bishop accordingly recovered, and setting

forward on his journey arrived in Britain. Notwithstanding the decision

of the Pope, King Aldfrid refused to admit him, but, on the king’s death

in 705, a synod was held near the river Nidd in the first year of the

reign of his successor Osred, and after some contention he was, by the

consent of all, admitted to preside over his church, and his two

principal monasteries—Ripon and Hexham—were restored to him; and thus he

lived in peace four years, that is, till the day of his death. His

troubled life came to an end in 709; and he was carried to his first

monastery of Ripon, and buried in the church of the blessed Peter the

apostle close by the south end of the altar. During this period of four

years Wilfrid had, as we have seen, regained possession of the monastery

of Hexham, which he had founded and dedicated to St. Andrew; and now,

according to the injunction of the archangel, as Eddi tells us, the

church of St. Mary at Hexham had its beginning; and, as a thank-offering

to St. Michael himself, another temple in the same place, or near it,

was erected soon afterwards.

[Sidenote: A.D. 709-731.

Relics of St. Andrew brought to Hexham by Acca.]

Wilfrid was succeeded, as Bede tells us, in the bishopric of the church

of Hagustald by Acca his priest, who, ‘being himself a most active

person and great in the sight of God and man, much adorned and added by

his wonderful works to the structure of his church, which is dedicated

to the blessed apostle Andrew. For he made it his business, and does so

still (for Acca was still bishop of Hexham when Bede wrote), to procure

relics of the blessed apostles and martyrs of Christ from all parts, to

erect altars in honour of them, dividing the same by porches in the

walls of the church. Besides which he very diligently gathered the

histories of their sufferings together with other ecclesiastical

writings, and erected there a most numerous and noble library.’ Bede

adds that ‘Acca was bred up from his youth and instructed among the

clergy of the most holy and beloved of God, Boza, bishop of York.

Afterwards coming to Bishop Wilfrid in the hope of improving himself, he

spent the rest of his life under him till that bishop’s death, and,

going with him to Rome, learnt there many profitable things concerning

the government of the holy church which he could not have learnt in his

own country.’[423] Among the relics of the blessed apostles thus

collected and brought to Hexham by Acca were most certainly the relics

of St. Andrew,[424] and among the histories gathered together by him

would no doubt be the legend of that apostle. When Bede finishes his

history in the year 731, he tells us that at that time four bishops

presided in the province of the Northumbrians. Wilfrid (second of the

name) in the church of York, Ediluald in that of Lindisfarne, Acca in

that of Hagustald, or Hexham, and Pecthelm in that which is called

Candida Casa, or the White House, ‘which, from the increased number of

believers, has lately become an additional see, and has him for its

first prelate.’[425]

[Sidenote: Monastery of Balthere at Tyninghame.]

From the time when the great diocese of York was broken up in the year

681, its history has had no bearing upon that of the churches of Cumbria

or Lothian. The diocese of Lindisfarne, however, extended to the Firth

of Forth; and about this time the monastery of Tyninghame, at the mouth

of the river Tyne in East Lothian, must have been founded within it by

Balthere the anchorite. Simeon of Durham, in his History of the Kings,

records in the year 756 the death of Balthere the anchorite, and, in his

History of the Church of Durham, he adds ‘in Tiningaham.’[426] He is

popularly known in the district as St. Baldred of the Bass. By Bower St.

Baldred is connected with Kentigern, and said to have been his suffragan

bishop; and he reports a tradition that, a contest having arisen between

the parishioners of the three churches of Haldhame, Tyninghame, and

Lyntoun, in Lothian, for the possession of his body, and arms having

been resorted to, they were at night overcome with sleep, and on awaking

found three bodies exactly alike, one of which was buried in each

church. This sufficiently connects St. Baldred with Tyninghame; and

Alcuin, who wrote in the eighth century, as clearly connects Balthere

with the Bass.[427] He was thus removed from Kentigern’s time by more

than a century, was in reality an anchorite, and connected, not with the

British diocese of Cumbria, but with the Anglic see of Lindisfarne. This

diocese contained the territory extending from the Tyne to the Tweed,

including the district of Teviotdale; and we learn from the anonymous

history of Cudberct that its possessions beyond the Tweed consisted of

the districts on the north bank from the sea to the river Leader, and

the whole land which belonged to the monastery of St. Balthere, which is

called Tyningham, from the Lammermoors to the mouth of the river

Esk.[428] Beyond this western boundary the church of Lindisfarne

possessed the monastery of Mailros with its territory; Tighbrethingham,

which cannot be identified with any certainty; Eoriercorn or Abercorn,

on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, and the monastery in which

Trumuini had his seat when he ruled over the province of the Picts

during their subjection to the Angles, and from which he fled after the

disastrous battle of Dunnichen; and Edwinesburch, or Edinburgh, where

the church dedicated to St. Cuthbert still bears his name.[429] The

history of the church of Hagustald, or Hexham, will be found to have an

important bearing upon that of one of the more northern churches.

[Sidenote: Anglic bishopric of Whithern founded about A.D. 730, and

comes to an end about 803.]

Between the diocese of Lindisfarne and the Western Sea lay that of

Glasgow, or Strathclyde, now freed from the yoke of the Angles and under

an independent bishop; but the district of Galloway was still under the

rule of the Angles of Northumbria, and here the church of Ninian appears

to have been revived under an Anglic bishop some few years before Bede

terminates his History. By the increased number of believers Bede no

doubt means those of the Anglic nation who had settled there. The line

of the Anglic bishops was kept up here for upwards of sixty years,

during which five bishops filled the see; and, when King Eadberct added

the plain of Kyle and other regions to his kingdom, they would become

more firmly seated. It was probably at this time that the veneration of

Cudberct and Osuald was extended into Ayrshire, where there are numerous

dedications; but soon afterwards the power of the Angles began to wane,

and the Anglic diocese of Candida Casa, or Whithern—owing, according to

William of Malmesbury, to the ravages of the Scots or Picts—came to an

end in the person of Beadulf, its last bishop, who lived to about

803.[430] In other words, the disorganisation of the Northumbrian

kingdom at this time and the decrease of its power enabled the native

population to eject the strangers and assert their independence.

-----

Footnote 355:

The life by Jocelyn is printed in Pinkerton’s _Vitæ Sanctorum_, but

very inaccurately. The fragment was first printed in the Glasgow

Chartulary; but both have been re-edited with a translation by the

late Bishop of Brechin, in his Life of Saint Ninian and Saint

Kentigern, forming the fifth volume of the _Historians of Scotland_.

Footnote 356:

This sentence would be in modern Gaelic, _A Dhia gur fior sin_, and

means, ‘O God, that that might be true.’

Footnote 357:

_Vit. Anon. S. Kent._, cc. i. ii. iii. iv. v.

Footnote 358:

In this narrative Servanus speaks a mongrel language. _Mochohe_ seems

a Gaelic form, as the prefix _Mo_ appears in the Gaelic interjections,

as _Mo thruaigh!_—woe’s me! and _Chohe_ is probably meant for _Oche,

Ochon!_—alas! well-a-day! but ‘Capitalis Dominus’ is only applicable

to the Welsh form of his name. Cyndeyrn and Munghu are pure

Welsh—_Cyndeyrn_ from _Cyn_, chief, _teyrn_, lord. _Mwyngu_ from

_Mwyn_, amiable; _Cu_, dear.

Footnote 359:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, cc. i. ii. iii. iv.

Footnote 360:

The Breviary of Aberdeen attempts to get over the difficulty by

supposing two Servanuses—one the disciple of Palladius, the other the

Servanus of the life; but this does not help matters much, as it

involves the improbability of both having founded Culenros, and both

dying on the same day, the 1st of July.

Footnote 361:

_Four Ancient Books of Wales_, vol. ii. p. 457. It is possible that

the epithet Garthwys may be the word Jocelyn has converted into

Cathures.

Footnote 362:

_Myvyrian Archæology_, vol. ii. p. 34.

Footnote 363:

See p. 37.

Footnote 364:

_Old Stat. Ac._, vol. x. p. 146.

Footnote 365:

_Id. Jan._ In Scotia sancti Kentigerni episcopi Glascuensis et

confessoris.—_Mart. Usuardi_, A.D. 875.

Footnote 366:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, cc. xxii. xxiii. xxiv.

Footnote 367:

Thomas’s _History of the Diocese of Saint Asaph_, p. 5. See also Index

of the Llyfr Coch Asaph, printed in _Archæologia Cambrensis_, 3d

series, vol. xiv. p. 151, where we have, ‘Nomina villarum quas

Malgunus rex dedit Kentigerno episcopo et successoribus suis episcopis

de Llanelwy.’

Footnote 368:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, c. xxv.

Footnote 369:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, cc. xxx. xxxi.

Footnote 370:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, c. xxxii.

Footnote 371:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, c. xxxiv.

Footnote 372:

Rees’s _Essay on Welsh Saints_, pp. 240 and 295. It is probable that

some others of the dedications north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde

have come through the Welsh Calendar, as Saint Modocus, or Madoc of

Kilmadock, but these are the only ones which can be directly connected

with Kentigern.

Footnote 373:

Diciul _de Mensura orbis terræ_, c. vii.

Footnote 374:

Adamnan, B. i. c. 8.

Footnote 375:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, c. xxxix.

Footnote 376:

Jocelyn, _Vit. S. Kent._, c. xliv.

Footnote 377:

The _Annales Cambriæ_ have at 612 ‘Conthigirni obitus.’—_Chron. Picts

and Scots_, p. 14. The 13th January fell on a Sunday in the years 603

and 614; and, if this is to regulate it, the first year is preferable,

as Jocelyn says that Kentigern and King Rydderch died in the same

year, and this is the year in which we find King Aidan of Dalriada

heading the Cumbrian forces, which he could hardly have done in the

life of King Rydderch. The Aberdeen Breviary, in the Life of Saint

Baldred, says he died on 13th January 503, by which 603 is probably

meant.

Footnote 378:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. ii. c. 14.

Footnote 379:

Si quis scire voluerit quis eos baptizavit, Rum map, Urbgen baptizavit

eos, et per quadraginta dies non cessavit baptizare omne genus

Ambronum, et per predicationem illius multi crediderunt in

Christo.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 13.

Footnote 380:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. iii. c. 3.

Footnote 381:

_Ib._, B. iii. c. 26.

Footnote 382:

_N. S. A._, vol. iii. p. 56.

Footnote 383:

_Vita S. Eatæ_ (Surtees).

Footnote 384:

_N. S. A._, vol. ii. p. 281.

Footnote 385:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cudbercti_, c. x.

Footnote 386:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cudbercti_, Præf.

Footnote 387:

Alio quoque tempore, in adolescentia sua, dum adhuc esset in populari

vita, quando in montanis juxta fluvium, quoad dicitur Leder, cum aliis

pastoribus pecos a domini sui pascebat.—_Vita Anon. S. Cuth.: Bedæ

Opera Minora_, p. 262.

Footnote 388:

_Vit. S. Cud._, cc. iv. vi.

Footnote 389:

Libellus de nativitate Sancti Cuthberti de Historiis Hybernensium

excerptus et translatus—a MS. of the fourteenth century, in the

Diocesan Library at York, printed by the Surtees Club.

Footnote 390:

Et miro modo in lapidea devectus navicula, apud Galweiam in regione

illa, quae Rennii vocatur, in portu qui Rintsnoc dicitur,

applicuit.—C. xix.

Footnote 391:

Post hæc, curroc lapidea in Galweia derelicta, navim aliam subiit, et

alio portu, qui Letherpen dicitur, in Erregaithle, quæ est terra

Scottorum, applicuit. Portus ille inter Erregaithle et Incegal situs

est, lacus vero, qui ibi proximus adjacet, Loicafan vocatus est. Non

tamen amplius quam tres viri cum matre et filio extiterant qui

applicuerant.—_Ib._

Footnote 392:

_Ib._, c. xx.

Footnote 393:

Scotia is here distinguished from Erregaithle, or Argathelia, which

indicates a certain antiquity.

Footnote 394:

_Ib._, c. xxi.

Footnote 395:

_Ib._, cc. xxii. xxiii.

Footnote 396:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. iv. c. 27. Reverentissimus ecclesiæ

Lindisfarnensis in Britannia ex anachorita antistes Cuthberctus, totam

ab infantia usque ad senilem vitam miraculorum signis inclitam

duxit.—Bede, _Chronicon Adam._, 701.

Footnote 397:

See Preface to the volume containing the Life, p. ix.

Footnote 398:

It is on the authority of this life alone that a Columba is sometimes

called the first bishop of Dunkeld; but it is impossible to accept

this as historical.

Footnote 399:

This is true of the Columban monasteries generally.

Footnote 400:

This account is abridged from the Irish Life, cc. xxvi. and xxvii. See

Surtees’ edition, pp. 82, 83.

Footnote 401:

In the _Statistical Account_ we are told that there is a spring of

water about the middle of the Rock of Weem, of which St. David is said

to be the patron, who had a chapel on a shelf of the rock called

Craig-an-chapel. The fair is called Feill Dhaidh, and there is a

burying-ground called Cill Dhaidh. St. David seems to have superseded

St. Cuthbert here. The fair was held in March. St. Cuthbert’s day is

20th March.

Footnote 402:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 19.

Footnote 403:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cud._, c. ix.

Footnote 404:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cud._, cc. x. xi. See also for locality of Niduari

Picts vol. i. p. 133, note.

Footnote 405:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cud._, c. xvi.

Footnote 406:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. iii. c. 27.

Footnote 407:

Eddii, _Vita S. Wilfridi_, cap. 22

Footnote 408:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cudbercti_, c. 17; Raine’s _North Durham_, p. 145.

Footnote 409:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cud._, c. xvii.

Footnote 410:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. iv. c. 12.

Footnote 411:

_Ib._, B. iv. c. 28. Sim. Dun. _Opera_ (Surtees Club), p. 140.

Footnote 412:

Sarcophagum terræ cespite abditum.

Footnote 413:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cud._, cc. xxxvii. xxxviii. xxxix.

Footnote 414:

Bede, _Vit. S. Cud._, c. xl.

Footnote 415:

_Ib._, c. xlii.

Footnote 416:

The expression by Bede for the stone coffin is _arca_, and for the

shrine, _theca_ in the _Ecc. Hist._; and in the _Vita S. Cudbercti_,

_Sarcophagus_ and _theca_ are used.

Footnote 417:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 15. The expression is, ‘Nonnulla etiam de

Brettonibus in Britannia,’ and Bede uses a similar expression when he

says that a part of the Britons recovered their freedom in 655.

Footnote 418:

Sedulius, Episcopus Britanniæ de genere Scottorum, huic constituto a

nobis promulgato subscripsi.—Haddan and Stubbs’ _Councils_, vol. ii.

p. 7.

Footnote 419:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. iv. c. 29; B. v. c. 19; Eddi, c. 43.

Footnote 420:

_Vit. S. Cud._, cap. 40.

Footnote 421:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 19; Eddi, c. 44.

Footnote 422:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 19; Eddi, _Vit. S. Wilf._, c. 54.

Footnote 423:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 20.

Footnote 424:

In the _Liber de Sanctis Ecclesiæ Hagustaldensis et eorum miraculis_

there is this statement—‘Ipsa insuper ecclesia pretiosis decorata

ornamentis et _Sancti Andreæ_ aliorumque sanctorum ditata _reliquiis_

tam advenientium quam inhabitantium devotionem adauxit.’—Mabillon,

_A.SS._, sec. iii. part i. p. 204.

Footnote 425:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. cap. 23.

Footnote 426:

Eodem anno (DCCLVI.) Balthere anachorita viam sanctorum patrum est

secutus, migrando ad Eum Qui se reformavit ad imaginem Filii Sui.—Sim.

Dun., _Hist. Regum, ad an._ 756.

Footnote 427:

_Scotichron._, B. iii. c. 29. Alcuin, in his poem _De Pontificibus et

Sanctis Ecclesiæ Eboracensis_, has the following lines, obviously

referring to the Bass, under the head of ‘Nota. Baltheri Anachoretæ

res gestæ’:—

Est locus undoso circumdatus undique ponto,

Rupibus horrendis prærupto et margine septus,

In quo belli potens terreno in corpore miles

Sæpius aërias vincebat Balthere turmas, etc.

Gale, _Scriptores_, xv. p. 726.

Footnote 428:

Et illa terra ultra Tweoda ab illo loco ubi oritur fluvius Edre ab

aquilone, usque ad illum locum ubi cadit in Tweoda, et tota terra quæ

jacet inter istum fluvium Edre et alterum fluvium, qui vocatur Leder,

versus occidentem; et tota terra quæ jacet ab orientali parte istius

aquæ, quæ vocatur Leder, usque ad illum locum ubi cadit in fluvium

Tweoda versus austrum; et tota terra quæ pertinet ad monasterium

Sancti Balthere, quod vocatur Tinningaham a Lombormore usque ad

Escemathe.—Sim. Dun., _Opera_ (Surtees ed.), p. 140.

Footnote 429:

Omnes quoque ecclesia ab aqua quæ vocatur Tweoda usque Tinam australem

et ultra desertum ad occidentem pertinebant illo tempore ad præfatam

ecclesiam; et hæ mansiones, Carnham et Culterham et duæ Geddewrd ad

australem plagam Tevietæ, quas Ecgfridus episcopus condidit; et

Mailros, et Tigbrethingham, et Eoriercorn ad occidentalem partem,

Edwinesburch et Petterham, et Aldham, et Tinningaham, et Coldingaham,

et Tollmathe, et Northam.—Sim. Dun., _His. Rec._, p. 68.

Footnote 430:

Eum (Pehtelmum) subsecuti sunt Frithewald, Pectwine, Ethelbriht,

Beadulf, nec præterea plures alicubi reperio, quod cito defecerit

episcopatus, quia extrema, ut dixi, Anglorum ora est et Scottorum vel

Pictorum depopulationi opportuna.—W. Malm., _Gest. Pontific. Ang._,

Lib. iii. § 118.