THE COÄRBS OF COLUMCILLE.
[Sidenote: A.D. 717-772.
Schism still exists in Iona.]
‘It appears to have been a wonderful dispensation of the Divine
goodness, that the same nation which had wittingly and without envy
communicated to the people of the Angles the knowledge of the true
Deity, should afterwards, by means of the nation of the Angles, be
brought, in those points on which they were defective, to the rule of
life;’ such is the reflection of the Venerable Bede when contemplating
the change which had taken place in the Columban Church in the beginning
of the eighth century, which he thus expresses: ‘The monks of _Hii_, or
Iona, by the instruction of Ecgberct, adopted the Catholic rites under
Abbot Dunchad, about eighty years after they had sent Bishop Aidan to
preach to the nation of the Angles.’[505] He had previously stated that,
not long after the year 710, ‘those monks also of the Scottish nation
who lived in the island of Hii, with the other monasteries that were
subject to them, were, by the procurement of our Lord, brought to the
canonical observance of Easter and the right mode of tonsure;[506] and
this had been effected by the most reverend and holy father and priest
Ecgberct, of the nation of the Angles, who had long lived in banishment
in Ireland for the sake of Christ, and was most learned in the
Scriptures and distinguished for the perfection of a long life, and who
came among them, corrected their error, and changed them to the true and
canonical day of Easter.’[507] Bede implies that this took place in the
year 716; but the change was not so general or so instantaneous as might
be inferred from this statement. The monks of Iona, or a part of them at
least, had certainly in that year adopted the Catholic Easter;[508] but
it is not till two years after that date, and a year after the death of
Abbot Dunchad, that they adopted the coronal tonsure. The expression of
the Irish annalist who records the event rather implies that it had been
forced upon an unwilling community;[509] and, so far from the other
monasteries that were subject to them having generally submitted to the
change in 716, the resistance of those within the territories of the
Pictish king to the royal edict commanding the adoption of the Catholic
Easter and the coronal tonsure throughout all the provinces of the Picts
led to the expulsion of ‘the family of Iona’—by which expression the
Columban monks are meant—from the Pictish kingdom in 717. This conflict
then appears to have led to two results. In the first place, it
separated the churches of the eastern districts from Iona, broke up the
unity of the Columban Church, and terminated the supremacy of the parent
monastery of Iona over the churches in the Pictish kingdom, which had
been subject to them; and, in the second place, it seems undoubtedly to
have caused a schism in the community on the island, as such innovations
usually do when the attempt to force upon an entire body the views of a
majority is sure to be met by a resisting minority.
[Sidenote: Two parties with rival abbots.]
There were thus at this time two parties among the brethren in Iona. One
party, who had reluctantly given way on some points, but in the main
adhered to the customs of their fathers, and clung with tenacity to the
monastic system hallowed by their veneration for the founder Columba;
the other, and probably the larger and more influential, conforming in
everything to the Roman party, and leaning towards a modification of
their monastic institution by the introduction of a secular clergy—each
party putting up a rival abbot as soon as they found themselves
sufficiently powerful to do so. By the death of Dunchad, in 717, Faelchu
was left for the time sole abbot of Iona. He was of the race of Conall
Gulban, and the legitimate successor of the old abbots according to the
law which regulated the succession to the abbacy in the Monastic Church;
and his party would be strengthened by those of the refugee monks from
the monasteries in King Nectan’s dominions who took shelter in Iona. Of
the monks who had been driven out of the Pictish kingdom, some would
merely pass over the Drumalban range into the territory of the Scottish
kings of Dalriada, or seek a farther home among the Columban monasteries
in Ireland; but many would no doubt be drawn to the parent monastery in
Iona, which was beyond King Nectan’s power, and add numbers and force to
what might be termed the Conservative party in the island. On the other
hand, Ecgberct was still alive and resident in Iona, and would naturally
be at the head of what may be called the Reforming party, and use all
his influence in promoting and extending their authority in the island.
The account Bede gives of his life there shows that his efforts were not
so immediately and entirely successful as one would infer from his other
statements, and that his progress was slow. He says, ‘This man of God,
Ecgberct, remained thirteen years in the aforesaid island which he had
thus consecrated again to Christ, by kindling in it a new ray of divine
grace, and restoring it to ecclesiastical unity and peace. In the year
of our Lord’s incarnation 729, in which the Easter of our Lord was
celebrated on the eighth day before the kalends of May—that is, on the
24th April—when he had performed the solemnity of the mass in memory of
the same resurrection of our Lord, on that same day he departed to the
Lord; and thus finished, or rather never ceases to celebrate, with our
Lord, the apostles and the other citizens of heaven, the joy of that
greatest festival, which he had begun with the brethren whom he had
converted to the grace of unity. But it was a wonderful provision of the
divine dispensation that the venerable man not only passed out of this
world to the Father at Easter, but also when Easter was celebrated on
that day on which it had never been wont to be kept in these parts. The
brethren, therefore, rejoiced in the certain and Catholic knowledge of
the time of Easter, and rejoiced in the protection of their father,
departed to our Lord, by whom they had been corrected. He also rejoiced
that he had been continued in the flesh till he saw his followers admit
and celebrate with him as Easter that day which they had ever before
avoided. Thus the most reverend father, being assured of their
correction, rejoiced to see the day of our Lord; and he saw it, and was
glad.’[510] These expressions are hardly consistent with the statement
that he had brought the entire community over to the adoption of the
Catholic customs thirteen years before, in 716; and we find that during
his life, after Faelchu had been left in sole possession of the abbacy,
it was not till he had possessed it for five years that a rival abbot,
Feidhlimidh, is put forward in the year 722, who is recorded as holding
the abbacy in that year,[511] though Faelchu was still in life. His
pedigree is not recorded, and he could have had no claim as belonging to
the tribe of the saint, to whom the succession belonged. Again, when
Faelchu dies in 724, we find that a certain Cillene Fada, or the Long,
succeeds Faelchu in the abbacy,[512] and on his death, in 726, another,
Cilline, surnamed _Droichteach_,[513] appears as abbot, though during
the whole of this time Feidhlimidh also is abbot of Iona. Ecgberct did
not, therefore, see entire conformity during his life, and the schism
was in full vigour up to the day of his death.
[Sidenote: Two missionaries, St. Modan and St. Ronan, in connection with
Roman party.]
We must place probably at this time and in connection with these events
two missionaries, who likewise appear to have proceeded from the south
towards the western districts and the Isles. These are Modan and Ronan.
Modan appears in the Scotch Calendars as an abbot on the 4th February,
and as a bishop on the 14th November; but the dedications to him are so
much mixed up together that it is probable that the same Modan is meant
in both. Ronan appears as bishop on the 7th of February. The dedications
to them are usually found so close together as to show that they both
belonged to the same mission. We first find Modan at Dryburgh, on the
south bank of the Tweed, and then at the church called by the Celtic
people _Eaglaisbreac_, and by the Anglic population _Fahkirk_, now
called Falkirk, both meaning ‘the speckled church.’ We then find him at
Rosneath, in the district of Lennox, and near it is the church of
Kilmaronok dedicated to St. Ronan.[514] They appear to have proceeded to
Lorn, where _Balimhaodan_, or ‘St. Modan’s town,’ is the old name of
Ardchattan, and where on the opposite side of Loch Etive, is again
Kilmaronog. Ronan appears then to have carried his mission to the Isles.
He has left his trace in Iona, where one of the harbours is Port Ronan.
The church, afterwards the parish church, was dedicated to him, and is
called Teampull Ronaig, and its burying-ground Cladh Ronan. Then we find
him at Rona, in the Sound of Skye, and another Rona off the coast of
Lewis; and finally his death is recorded in 737 as Ronan, abbot of
_Cinngaradh_, or Kingarth, in Bute.[515] The church, too, in the island
of Eigg again appears about this time, when we hear in 725 of the death
of Oan, superior of Ego.[516]
[Sidenote: A.D. 726.
An anchorite becomes abbot of Iona.]
A new element seems now to have been introduced into the controversies
at Iona, and probably still further complicated the state of parties
there. This was the appearance, after the death of Cillene the Long, but
while Feidlimidh, the rival abbot, was still alive, of an anchorite as
abbot of Iona. Tighernac tells us that in 727, the year after Cillene’s
death, the relics of St. Adamnan were carried to Ireland and his law
renewed,[517] that is, what was called the law of the innocents, which
exempted women from the burden of hosting. An ancient document, however,
in one of the Brussels MSS. explains this to mean not that the bones of
Adamnan had been enshrined and carried to Ireland, but other relics
which had been collected by him. The passage is this: ‘Illustrious was
this Adamnan. It was by him was gathered the great collection of the
relics (_martra_) of the saints into one shrine; and that was the shrine
which Cilline Droichteach, son of Dicolla, brought to Erin, to make
peace and friendship between the Cinel Conaill and the Cinel
Eoghain.’[518] Cilline Droichteach, however, appears in the Martyrology
of Tallaght as ‘Abb Iae,’ or abbot of Iona; and the Martyrology of
Marian expressly says, ‘Abbot of la Cholumcille was this Cilline
Droichteach;’[519] while his death is recorded by Tighernac in 752 as
‘anchorite of Iona.’[520] Here then we have an anchorite who was abbot
from 727 to 752 during the tenure of the same office by Feidhlimidh.
Cilline was not of the race of Conall Gulban, and therefore not of the
line of legitimate successors to the abbacy, but belonged to the
southern Hy Neill. The collecting of the relics of the saints by Adamnan
is clearly characteristic of that period in his history when he had
conformed to Rome; and Cilline’s bearing the shrine as a symbol of his
authority in renewing Adamnan’s law connects him also with the same
party. The results then of the controversy at Iona correspond with those
which we have already found among the Picts after the expulsion of the
Columban monks—that, besides the secular clergy who made their
appearance in connection with the Roman party, there likewise came
clergy belonging to the more ascetic order of the anchorites; and they
now appear as forming one of the parties in Iona. The epithet of
_Droichteach_ means literally bridger, or bridgemaker, a name apparently
little appropriate in an island where there are no streams large enough
to render bridges necessary; but behind the _vallum_ of the monastery,
and extending from the mill-stream to the hill called Dunii, was a
shallow lake, occupying several acres, which fed the stream, and which
was probably partly natural and partly artificial. Through the centre of
this lake, which is now drained, there runs a raised way pointing to the
hills. It is a broad and elevated causeway constructed of earth and
stones, and is now called _Iomaire an tachair_, or ‘the ridge of the
way.’ It is 220 yards long and about 22 feet wide.[521] In a hollow
among the hillocks to which it points, and at some little distance, is
the foundation of a small oval house measuring about 18 feet long by 14
broad, outside measure, now called _Cabhan Cuildeach_; and from the door
of the house proceeds a small avenue of stones, which grows wider as it
ascends to a hillock; and there are traces of walls which appear to have
enclosed it. It is difficult to avoid the conjecture that it was the
construction of this causeway which gave to Cillene, the anchorite
abbot, his epithet of Bridgemaker, more especially as it points towards
what appears to have been an anchorite’s cell, to which it was probably
designed to give ready access across the lake; and, if he constructed
it, we have only to look to an old anchorite establishment in Ireland to
find what afforded him his pattern. In the island of Ardoilen, on the
west coast of Ireland, already referred to as affording an example of an
early anchorite establishment, we find that ‘on the south side of the
enclosure there is a small lake, apparently artificial, from which an
artificial outlet is formed, which turned a small mill; and along the
west side of this lake there is an artificial stone path or causeway,
220 yards in length, which leads to another stone cell or house, of an
oval form, at the south side of the valley in which the monastery is
situated. This house is eighteen feet long and nine wide, and there is a
small walled enclosure joined to it, which was probably a garden. There
is also, adjoining to it, a stone altar surmounted by a cross, and a
small lake which, like that already noticed, seems to have been formed
by art.’[522] There is no appearance of a stone altar near the cell in
Iona. In other respects the resemblance seems too striking to be
accidental.
[Sidenote: The term _Comhorba_, or Coärb, applied to abbots of Columban
monasteries.]
It is during this period, while Feidhlimidh and Cilline the anchorite
appear as rival abbots, that a catastrophe is recorded by Tighernac in
737,[523] in which Failbe, son of Guaire, the heir of Maelruba of
_Apuorcrosan_, was drowned in the deep sea with twenty-two of his
sailors. The monastery founded by Maelruba at _Apuorcrosan_, now
Applecross, had therefore remained intact. The word ‘hæres,’ or heir, is
here the equivalent of the Irish word _Comharba_, pronounced coärb,
signifying co-heir or inheritor,[524] which occasionally appears as
applied to the heads of religious houses in Ireland during the preceding
century, in connection with the name of its founder, and which now makes
its first appearance in Scotland. In the Monastic Church in Ireland,
when land was given by the chief or head of a family, it was held to be
a personal grant to the saint or missionary himself and to his heirs,
according to the ecclesiastical law of succession. Heirs of his body
such a founder of a monastery, who was himself under the monastic rule,
of course could not have; but, as we have seen, when the tribe of the
land and the tribe of the patron saint were the same, the former
supplied the abbacy with a person qualified to occupy the position; and,
when they were different, the abbot was taken from the tribe to which
the patron saint belonged. These were his ecclesiastical successors and
co-heirs. As such they inherited the land or territory which had been
granted to the original founder of the church or monastery, and as such
they inherited, as coärbs, or co-heirs, his ecclesiastical as well as
his temporal rights.[525] When the integrity of the monastic
institutions in Ireland began to be impaired in the seventh century
under the influence of the party who had conformed to Rome, the heads of
the religious houses found it necessary to fall back more upon the
rights and privileges inherited from the founders; and hence in this
century the term of Coärb, in connection with the name of some eminent
saint, came to designate the bishops or abbots who were the successors
of his spiritual and temporal privileges, and eventually the possessor
of the land, bearing the name of abbot, whether he were a layman or a
cleric. Thus, at A.D. 590, the annals record the appointment of Gregory
the Great to be coärb of Peter the Apostle, that is, bishop of Rome. At
606 we have the death of Sillan, son of Caimin, abbot of Bangor and
‘coärb of Comgall,’ who was its founder. In 654 we find the superior of
the church of Aranmore called ‘coärb of Enda’ its founder; and in 680
the superior of the monastery at Cork is termed coärb of St. Barry, who
founded it.[526] Here in 737 the abbot of the monastery at Apuorcrosan
is termed the heir, that is coärb, of Maelruba, who founded it; and, as
we shall see, the abbots of Iona became known under the designation of
coärbs of Columcille. Twelve years afterwards a similar catastrophe
befell the family of Iona, who were drowned in a great storm in the year
749,[527] a not unnatural occurrence if they were caught in their curach
between Iona and Colonsay in a southwesterly gale; but which party
suffered by this loss we do not know—probably that which supported
Cilline the anchorite, as, on his death in 752, we find the abbacy
assumed by Slebhine, son of Congal, who was of the race of Conall
Gulban, and therefore belonged to what may be termed the Columban party.
In the same year Tighernac records the death of Slebhine’s brother
Cilline in Iona, and of Cuimine, grandson or descendant of Becc the
religious of Ego, or the island of Eigg.[528] Slebhine, the Columban
abbot, appears to have endeavoured to get his authority as the
legitimate successor of Columba recognised by the Columban monasteries
in Ireland; for we find him going to Ireland in 754, and enforcing the
law of Columcille three years after, when he seems to have returned to
Iona, but again went to Ireland in the following year.[529] Feidhlimidh,
the rival abbot, dies in the year 759, having completed the
eighty-seventh year of his age.[530] But this did not terminate the
schism: for we find a Suibhne, abbot of Iona, who goes to Ireland in the
year 765,[531] apparently for the purpose of endeavouring to win the
Columban monasteries there; but the death of Slebhine two years
after[532] leaves him sole abbot for five years, when, on his own death
in the year 772,[533] he is succeeded by Breasal, son of Seghine, whose
pedigree is unknown; and in him the schism seems to have come to an end.
Slebhine appears to have been the last of the abbots who at this time
were of the race of Conall Gulban and had thus a hereditary claim to the
abbacy; and more than a hundred years elapsed before another of the race
obtained the abbacy. The fall of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada about
this time may have contributed to this suspension of the rights of the
tribe of the patron saint. But all opposition to the entire conformity
of the whole family of Iona to the Roman Church appears now to have
ceased, and there is no indication of any further division among
them.[534]
[Sidenote: A.D. 772-801.
Breasal, son of Seghine, sole abbot of Iona.]
Breasal appears to have held the abbacy without challenge for nearly
thirty years; and, five years after his accession, he seems to have been
fully recognised by the Columban monasteries in Ireland, as we find that
the law of Columcille was enforced in 778 by Donnchadh, king of Ireland,
and head of the Northern Hy Neill, and by him as abbot of Iona.[535] In
782 we have the first notice of a new functionary in Iona, in the death
in that year of Muredach son of Huairgaile, steward of Iona.[536] His
functions were probably connected with the law of Columcille, which
involved the collection of tribute. We find, too, during this period,
some incidental notices of two of the other foundations in the Isles. In
775 dies Conall of Maigh Lunge,[537] the monastery founded by Columba in
Tyree. In 776 the death of Maelemanach, abbot of Kingarth[538] in Bute,
and in 790 that of Noe, abbot of the same monastery, are recorded.[539]
We learn, too, that while Breasal was abbot two Irish monarchs retired
to Iona and died there. Niall Frosach, formerly king of all Ireland,
died there in 778.[540] Airtgaile, son of Cathail, king of Connaught,
assumed the pilgrim’s staff in 782, and in the following year retired to
Iona, and died there after eight years spent in seclusion.[541] The last
connection of the Scots, too, with Dalriada was severed for the time by
the removal of the relics of the three sons of Erc, the founders of the
colony, who had been buried in Iona, to the great cemetery of Tailten in
Ireland.[542]
[Sidenote: A.D. 794.
First appearance of Danish pirates, and Iona repeatedly
ravaged by them.]
Breasal’s tenure of the abbacy, however, was to be characterised by a
greater event, which was to exercise a fatal influence on the fortunes
of the Scottish monasteries for many a long and dreary year. This was
the appearance in the Isles, in 794, of a host of sea pirates from the
northern kingdom of Denmark, who were to render the name of Dane
equivalent in the ears of the Columban monks to the spoliation of their
monasteries and the slaughter of their inmates. In 794 there appears in
the Irish Annals the ominous entry of the devastation of all the islands
of Britain by the Gentiles, as they were at first called, followed, in
795, by the spoliation of Iae Columcille, or Iona, by them. Again, three
years after, the spoliation of the islands of the sea between Erin and
Alban by the Gentiles.[543] The Danes soon discovered that the richest
spoil was to be found in the monasteries, and directed their destructive
attacks against them. Breasal, however, though doomed to witness these
acts of spoliation, was spared the sight of the total destruction of his
monastery; for in 801 he died, in the thirty-first year of his tenure of
the abbacy.[544]
[Sidenote: A.D. 801-802.
Connachtach, abbot of Iona.]
In the following year the monastery of Iona was burnt down by the Danes,
and the Annals of the Four Masters place in the same year the death of
Connachtach, a select scribe and abbot of Iona; and four years
afterwards the community of Iona, then consisting of only sixty-eight
members, were slain by the Danes,[545] [Sidenote: A.D. 802-814.
Cellach, son of Congal, abbot of Iona.] Cellach, son of Conghaile, the
abbot who succeeded Connachtach, having apparently taken refuge in
Ireland. The monastic buildings thus destroyed belonged, no doubt, to
the original monastery, which, as we have seen, had been originally
constructed of wood, and repaired by Adamnan. Hitherto there had been no
feeling of insecurity in connection with such wooden buildings, but
since the ravages of the Danes began there is abundant evidence of the
frequent destruction of such buildings by fire; and in the present
instance there seems to have been not only the entire destruction of the
monastery, but also the slaughter of those of the community who remained
behind. So complete was the ruin, and so exposed had the island become
to the ravages of the Danes, that the abbot Cellach appears to have
resolved to remove the chief seat of the Columban order from Iona to
Kells in Meath, of which he had obtained a grant two years previously.
The Irish Annals record, in the year following the slaughter of the
community, the building of a new Columban house at Kells; and we are
told that in 814 Cellach, abbot of Iona, having finished the building of
the church at Kells, resigns the abbacy, and Diarmicius, disciple of
Daigri, is ordained in his place.[546] This monastery at Kells, which
thus took seven years to build, was constructed of stone,[547] which now
began universally to supersede wood in the construction of
ecclesiastical buildings, as less likely to suffer total destruction
from the firebrand of the Danes.
[Sidenote: A.D. 802-807.
Remains of St. Columba enshrined.]
At this time, too, the remains of St. Columba seem to have been raised
from the stone coffin which enclosed them, and carried to Ireland, where
they were enshrined. We know from Adamnan that the body of the saint had
been placed in a grave prepared for it, and apparently enclosed in a
stone coffin, and that the place in which it lay was perfectly well
known in his day. We also know that, at the time Bede wrote his History
in 735, his remains were still undisturbed; but, at the time the Book of
Armagh was compiled, that is, in 807, they were enshrined and preserved
at the church of Saul Patrick on the shore of Strangford Lough in the
county of Down in Ireland.[548] It is therefore between these dates, 735
and 807, that they must have been removed.
Among the customs which sprang up in the Irish Church after she had been
brought into contact and more frequent correspondence with the Roman
Church, and had, to some extent, adopted her customs, was that of
disinterring the remains of their saints and enclosing them in shrines
which could be moved from place to place, and which were frequently used
as a warrant for enforcing the privileges of the monasteries of which
the saint was the founder. Notices of such enshrining of their relics
first appear in the Irish Annals towards the middle of the eighth
century. Thus we read, in 733, of the enshrining of the relics of St.
Peter, St. Paul and St. Patrick for enforcing his law;[549] in 743, of
the enshrining of the relics of St. Treno of Celle Delgon, and in 776,
of those of St. Erc of Slane and St. Finnian of Clonard;[550] in 784, of
the relics of St. Ultan; in 789, of those of St. Coemgin and St.
Mochua.[551] Then, in 799, we have the placing of the relics of Conlaid,
who was the first bishop of Kildare, and, in 800, of those of Ronan, son
of Berich, in shrines of gold and silver.[552]
We have already seen that the remains of St. Cuthbert were enshrined
eleven years after his death; and the circumstances are given in so much
detail by Bede, who is a contemporary authority, that the proceedings of
the Lindisfarne monks will throw light upon those of the monks of Iona.
St. Cuthbert had wished to be buried in a stone coffin which had been
given him by the abbot Cudda, and was placed under ground on the north
side of his oratory in the island of Farne, but which he wished to be
placed in his cell on the south side of his oratory opposite the east
side of the holy cross which he had erected there.[553] However, he
accedes to the request of the Lindisfarne monks that they should bury
him in their church at Lindisfarne. Accordingly, after his death his
body was taken to Lindisfarne and deposited in a stone coffin in the
church on the right side, that is, the south side, of the altar.[554]
Eleven years later the Lindisfarne monks resolved to enclose his remains
in a light shrine, and, for the sake of decent veneration, to deposit
them in the same place, but above, instead of below, the pavement.[555]
On opening his sepulchre they find the body entire, and they laid it in
a light chest and deposited it upon the pavement of the sanctuary.[556]
Bishop Eadberct, St. Cuthbert’s successor, then died, and they deposited
his body in the tomb of St. Cuthbert, and placed above it the shrine
which contained the relics of the latter saint.[557]
We see then that at this time, and in a church which derived its origin
from Iona and preserved many of its Scottish customs, the place where
the patron saint was buried was on the right, or south, side of the
altar, and that when his remains were enshrined the shrine was placed in
the same situation, but above the pavement of the church, instead of
being sunk beneath it, that they might more readily be made the object
of veneration. As the saint’s body was said to have been found entire,
the light chest or shrine must have been large enough to contain it. We
know from Simeon of Durham’s History of the Church of Durham that, when,
owing to the cruel ravagings of the Danes, the monks resolved to abandon
Lindisfarne, they took this shrine with them, and that it was finally
deposited at Durham. He then tells us that in the year 1104 ‘the body of
St. Cuthbert was disinterred, on account of the incredulity of certain
persons, and was exhibited, in the episcopate of Bishop Ralph, in the
presence of Earl Alexander, who afterwards became King of Scots, and
many others. Ralph, abbot of Seez, afterwards bishop of Rochester, and
ultimately archbishop of Canterbury, and the brethren of the church of
Durham, having examined it closely, discovered that it was uncorrupted,
and so flexible in its joints that it seemed more like a man asleep than
one dead; and this occurred four hundred and eighteen years, five months
and twelve days after his burial.’[558] The description here given of
the state of the body of St. Cuthbert is a _verbatim_ repetition of that
given by Bede when his tomb was opened eleven years after his death, and
must be taken as having no other foundation; but we have from Reginald
of Durham what is more material, an exact description of the shrine
which enclosed it. He says—‘We have hitherto treated of the manner in
which St. Cuthberct, the glorious bishop of Christ, was placed in his
sepulchre; we will now give a description of the inner shrine (theca)
itself. In this inner shrine he was first placed in the island of
Lindisfarne, when he was raised from his grave; and in this his
incorruptible body has been hitherto always preserved. It is
quadrangular, like a chest (archa), and its lid is not elevated in the
middle, but flat, so that its summit, whether of lid or sides, is all
along level and even. The lid is like the lid of a box, broad and flat.
The lid itself is a tablet of wood, serving for an opening, and the
whole of it is made to be lifted up by means of two circles, or rings,
which are fixed mid-way in its breadth, the one towards his feet and the
other towards his head. By these rings the lid is elevated and let down,
and there is no lock or fastening whatever to attach it to the shrine.
The shrine is made entirely of black oak, and it may be doubted whether
it has contracted that colour of blackness from old age, from some
device, or from nature. The whole of it is externally carved with very
admirable engraving, of such minute and most delicate work that the
beholder, instead of admiring the skill or prowess of the carver, is
lost in amazement. The compartments are very circumscribed and small,
and they are occupied by divers beasts, flowers, and images, which seem
to be inserted, engraved, or furrowed out in the wood. This shrine is
enclosed in another outer one, which is entirely covered by hides, and
is surrounded and firmly bound by iron rails and bandages. The third,
however, which is decorated with gold and precious stones, is placed
above these, and, by means of indented flutings projecting from the
second, for which, in due order, similar projections are fabricated in
this, is closely attached and fastened to it by long iron nails. This
cannot possibly be separated from the rest, because these nails can by
no device be drawn out without fracture.’[559]
The Irish shrine was probably not so elaborate, but it too, as we have
seen, was decorated with silver and gold; and in the Life of St.
Bridget, written probably in the first half of the ninth century, and
attributed to Cogitosus, an account is given us of the shrines in the
church of Kildare. We have seen that the remains of Conlaid, the first
bishop of Kildare, were disinterred and enshrined in the year 799; and
Cogitosus, in his description of the church of St. Bridget, says, ‘in
which the glorious bodies both of Bishop Conleath and of this virgin St.
Bridget repose on the right and left sides of the altar, placed in
ornamented shrines decorated with various devices of gold and silver and
gems and precious stones, with crowns of gold and silver hanging above
them.’[560] If we are to look, then, to the period between the years 735
and 807 for the circumstances which led to the remains of St. Columba
being disinterred, taken over to Ireland, and enshrined at the church of
Saul Patrick, one of the nearest churches to Iona on the Irish coast,
the most natural inference certainly is that they were connected with
the piratical incursions of the Danes and the destruction of the
original monastery by fire in 802.
[Sidenote: A.D. 814-831.
Diarmaid abbot of Iona. Monastery rebuilt with stone.]
In the year 818, Diarmaid, abbot of Iona, returned to the island,
bringing with him the shrine of St. Columba.[561] This implies that
there had been by this time a reconstruction of the monastery at Iona.
The same causes which led to the new foundation at Kells being
constructed of stone applied with equal force at Iona; and, looking to
the time which was spent in erecting the buildings at Kells, which
required seven years to complete them, and that four years had elapsed
before Diarmaid could bring the shrine to Iona, there can be little
doubt that the new monastery there was now likewise constructed of
stone. The site, however, was changed. The position of the original
wooden monastery was, we have seen, in the centre of the open level
ground which extends between the mill-stream on the south and the rocky
hillocks which project from the east side of Dunii on the north, and
about a quarter of a mile to the north of the present ruins; but of this
no vestiges now remain, save the western _vallum_, or embankment, which
can still be traced, and the burying-ground near the shore, marked by
two pillar-stones about five feet high and three feet apart, across the
top of which a third stone lay, forming a rude entrance or gateway.[562]
This monastery had never before been exposed to any hostile attack; but,
now that it had become the object of the plundering and ravaging
incursions of the Danes, it was discovered to be in a very exposed
situation. In front was the sea, and behind it, on the west, from which
it was separated by the _vallum_, was the lake extending from the
mill-stream to the base of Dunii. The ground south of the mill-burn
presented a much more secure site, for here it was bounded on the west
by a series of rocky heights which could be fortified; and here, where
the present ruins of a late Benedictine monastery are situated, can be
discovered the traces of older stone buildings, which must have belonged
to an earlier monastery.[563] These no doubt may not be part of a stone
monastery erected so long ago as the beginning of the ninth century, but
the monastery then erected would merely be repaired, and such parts as
entirely gave way rebuilt from time to time; and it may be assumed that,
when the monastic buildings were once constructed of stone, the
monastery would always be preserved in the same place. Here, then, the
new stone monastery was probably constructed, consisting of an oratory
or church, a refectory, the cells of the brethren and an abbot’s house.
Behind the latter is a small rocky hillock called _Torrabb_, or the
abbot’s mount, in which is still to be found the pedestal of a stone
cross; and on a higher rocky eminence on the west, which overhangs the
monastery, are still to be seen the remains of entrenchments and
outworks by which it appears to have been strongly fortified.[564]
[Sidenote: Shrine of St. Columba placed in stone monastery.]
Here the brethren were reassembled, and hither was brought the shrine
containing the relics of St. Columba, which, according to what we have
seen was the usage of the time, would be placed on the right, or south,
side of the altar in the church, so as to be exposed for the veneration
of the inmates of the monastery. It might be supposed that the monks of
Iona would have felt a reluctance to leave a site hallowed by the
memories of their venerated patron saint, even though the new site may
have promised greater security; but it must be recollected that it is
the presence of the saint’s body that hallows the site of the monastery
he has founded, and confers upon it the privileges of an _Annoid_, or
mother church. Any spot to which his relics might be taken would be
equally sacred in the eyes of the community, and the new monastery
equally endowed with the privileges connected with them. It was so with
the monks of Lindisfarne, whose veneration accompanied the body of St.
Cuthbert when forced to retreat from their monastery under very similar
circumstances; and it hallowed every spot in which it was deposited,
till it finally invested the church at Durham, which held his shrine,
with the same feeling of devotion and reverence which had attached to
their first seat in the island of Lindisfarne.
[Sidenote: A.D. 825.
Martyrdom of St. Blathmac protecting the shrine.]
Whether the new stone monastery in Iona was to afford them better
security against their pagan plunderers the Danes was now to be tested,
as seven years had not elapsed before they renewed their attack; and we
now get a glimpse into the state of the monastery at this time from a
contemporary, in the metrical life of St. Blathmac, written by Walafrid
Strabo, who himself died only in the year 849.[565] He tells us that
Blathmac was of royal descent, heir of a throne in that rich Ireland
which had given birth to him as her future king; that, renouncing all
secular prospects, he resolved to lead a religious life and do honour to
his name, which signifies in Latin ‘pulcher natus;’[566] that he
surreptitiously joined a certain monastery, which his biographer does
not name, but which was in his father’s principality, and finally, as
abbot, ruled a venerable body of monks; that he finally, in order to
attain the height of perfection, coveted the crown of martyrdom, and, in
order to attain his desire, thought he could not do better than go to ‘a
certain island on the shores of the Picts placed in the wave-tossed
brine, called _Eo_,’ or Iona, ‘where Columba, the saint of the Lord,
rests in the flesh. This island he sought under his vow to suffer the
marks of Christ, for here the frequent hordes of pagan Danes were wont
to come armed with malignant furies.’ He seems to have had the care of
the monastery intrusted to him, and had not long to wait, ‘for the time
soon came when the great mercy of God decreed to associate his servant
with his glorious hosts above the stars, and confer a sure crown,’ viz.
that of martyrdom, ‘upon the pious victor.’ He became aware that an
attack on the island was about to be made by the Danes, and he thus
addressed the brethren:—‘“Ye, O companions, seek within your own minds
whether it be your determination to endure with me the coming fate, for
the name of Christ. Whoever of you can face it, I pray you arm
yourselves with courage; but those who are weak at heart and
panic-struck should hasten their flight, that they may avoid the obvious
danger, arming their hands for better vows. Before us stands the
imminent trial of certain death. May a firm faith keep us prepared for
future events; may the careful guardian of the flying protect those less
strong.” The community, touched by these words, determined to act
according to their strength. Some, with a brave heart resolved to face
the sacrilegious bands, and rejoiced to have to submit their heads to
the raging sword; but others, whom the confidence of mind had not yet
persuaded to this, hasten their flight to known places of refuge.’
Blathmac was aware that in attacking the monasteries the great object of
desire to the Danes was the shrines enriched with precious metals; and
therefore the monks ‘took the shrine from its place,’ which was, no
doubt, on the right side of the altar, and ‘deposited it in the earth in
a hollowed tumulus, or grave, and covered it with sods.’[567] The fatal
day is then ushered in rather poetically, showing how thoroughly the
narrator realised the scene. ‘The golden aurora,’ he says, ‘dispelling
the dewy darkness, dawned, and the glittering sun shone again with
glorious orb, when this pious cleric stood before the holy altar,
celebrating the holy offices of the mass, himself a victim acceptable to
God to be offered up to the threatening sword. The rest of the brethren
lay commending their souls with prayers and tears, when, behold, the
cursed bands rushed raging through the unprotected houses, threatening
death to those blessed men, and, furious with rage, the rest of the
brethren being slain, came to the holy father, urging him to give up the
precious metals which enclosed the sacred bones of Saint Columba,’—a
description which shows that there was a church or oratory, with an
altar—that the services of the church were again observed, and that
there were houses or cells for the monks. ‘This booty,’ he proceeds,
‘the Danes coveted; but the holy man stood firm with unarmed hand, by a
stern determination of the mind taught to resist battle and to challenge
encounter, unaccustomed to yield. He then poured out in the barbarous
tongue—that is, in Danish—the following words: “I know not truly what
gold ye seek, where it may be placed in the ground, and in what recesses
it may be hid; but, if it were permitted me to know, Christ permitting,
never would these lips tell this to your ears.[568] Savagely bring your
swords, seize their hilts and kill. O God, I commend my humble self to
Thy protection.” Hereupon the pious victim is cut in pieces with severed
limbs, and what the fierce soldier could not compensate with a price he
began to search for by wounds in the stiffened entrails. Nor is it a
wonder, for there always were and always will arise those whom evil rage
will excite against the servants of the Lord.’ And so Blathmac attained
his desire, and was made ‘a martyr for the name of Christ.’ This event,
so graphically described by the abbot of Augiadives, or Reichenau, took
place in the year 825.[569]
Four years after the martyrdom of Blathmac, we find Diarmaid, the abbot
of Iona of whose presence in Iona while the Danes attacked the monastery
in 825 we saw no trace, coming to Scotland with the _Mionna_ of
Coluimcille.[570] The word _Mionna_, as Dr. Reeves has pointed out,
‘signifies articles of veneration, such as the crozier, books, or
vestments of a saint, upon which oaths used in after-times to be
administered,’ in contradistinction to the word _Martra_, denoting the
bones or remains of the body of the saint. Thus we find Adamnan
mentioning the brethren endeavouring to avert the effects of a drought
by walking round a field, with the white tunic of St. Columba and some
book written in his own hand.[571] By this time, then, the brethren who
had escaped were reassembled at Iona under their abbot; and to this
period we may assign the construction, over the spot where the shrine
had been concealed, of a small oratory for its reception. At the west
end of the present ruins of the abbey church, and attached to the west
wall of the cloister, are the foundations of a small quadrangular cell
which goes by the name of St. Columba’s tomb. The walls are about three
and a half feet high, but it has been partly excavated, as the interior
floor is somewhat below the surface of the surrounding ground. It has at
the west end a regularly formed entrance, and within it—at the east
end—are two stone cists placed along the north and south walls, with the
space of a few feet between them. That this so-called cell is, in fact,
the remains of a small oratory, is at once evident when we compare these
remains of the building with oratories of this description in Ireland;
and of one of these, which is more entire, it seems to be almost a
reproduction. In the parish of Templemolaga and county of Cork there are
the remains of some ecclesiastical buildings. They consist of a central
or enclosing wall, within which are the remains of a church about
twenty-five feet long by twelve feet broad inside measure, and on the
north side of this, at a little distance, is a small oratory, which goes
by the name of Leaba Molaga, or St. Molaga’s bed. It measures internally
ten feet by seven feet two inches clear of walls, which are two feet
nine inches thick. The cell at Iona measures internally ten feet five
inches by seven feet, and the walls are about two feet thick. The west
gable of St. Molaga’s bed is partly preserved, and shows in the centre a
doorway formed of two upright stones for jambs, which support a massive
horizontal lintel. It is five feet six inches in height and two feet
four inches in width. The entrance to the cell at Iona is in the same
place and of the same width. This kind of oratory in Ireland has one
peculiarity, and that is a prolongation of the side walls beyond either
gable to the extent of from eighteen inches to two feet, which is
carried up the gables on a line with the stone roof, forming a species
of pilaster. These exist in Leaba Molaga, being about two feet three
inches wide and one foot four inches deep; and the same peculiar feature
is seen in the cell at Iona. At the east end of Leaba Molaga there were
a small window and an altar of stone on which were preserved two stones
believed to have been candlesticks; and on the south side of the altar,
and along the south wall of the oratory, was a stone cist, or tomb,
which measures five feet six inches in height, one foot eight inches in
width, and one foot in depth. Within the cell at Iona there are two
stone cists, one lying along the south wall of the oratory, and the
other along the north wall, with the space of a few feet between them.
The cist on the south wall is eight feet ten inches in length, and that
on the north wall six feet nine inches, and both cists are also one foot
eight inches broad. The east end of the cell now forms the wall of the
cloister, and, if a window existed, it has been built up, but the
resemblance between the two buildings is so striking, that we can hardly
doubt that it was an oratory of the same kind, and that the space
between the two cists was once filled, at the east end, by a stone
altar.[572] The stone cist on the right, or south, side of the altar
would, according to custom, contain the shrine of St. Columba, the
patron saint; that on the north side probably the remains of St.
Blathmac, who died a martyr in protecting it from the Danes and who, we
are told by his biographer, ‘reposes in the same place, where, for his
holy merits, many miracles are displayed.’[573]
[Sidenote: A.D. 831-854.
Innrechtach ua Finachta, abbot of Iona.]
Abbot Diarmaid did not remain long in Iona, for we find him in the year
831 returning to Ireland with the _Mionna_,[574] and we hear no more of
him. In 849 Innrechtach, abbot of Iona, is said to have gone to Ireland
with the _Mionna_ of Columcille, from which we may infer that they had
been restored to Iona, and that some time between the year 831 and 849
Innrechtach had become abbot. We know nothing of his race except that
his surname was Ua Finachta, and nothing of his history except that he
was slain by the Saxons when on a journey to Rome in the year 854, and
that he is then called heir, or coärb, of Columcille.[575] In the
meantime that great revolution had been effected which placed a Scottish
dynasty on the throne of the Picts. This is the most obscure portion of
the history of Scotland, and it is now hardly possible to trace the
circumstances which combined to elevate a Scot, in the person of Kenneth
mac Alpin, to a position of so much power, or to ascertain to what
extent the ecclesiastical element entered into this revolution; but we
can gather that it led to the reintroduction of the Scottish clergy into
the eastern districts thus added to Kenneth’s kingdom, and to an attempt
to reclaim for them these monasteries from which they had been expelled
in the preceding century. And this appears to have extended even to the
Scottish foundations in Lothian; for Kenneth, we are told, invaded
Saxonia, as the country south of the Firth of Forth was still termed,
six times, and burnt Dunbarre and Mailros, which had been usurped. In
whatever sense Dunbarre was held to be usurped, or whether this epithet
was intended to apply to it as well as to Mailros, the latter was
unquestionably founded by the Scottish missionaries from Iona, who were,
as we know, expelled from the monasteries they had founded, if they
would not conform to Rome; and it is possible that Dunbar may also have
been a Scotch foundation. It was undoubtedly in the possession of the
Angles of Northumbria; but Melrose appears to have been transferred to
the Britons of Strathclyde, as we find it afterwards in the diocese of
Glasgow; and it was probably in retaliation that the Britons burnt
Dunblane.[576] Be this as it may, Kenneth certainly resolved to
re-establish the Columban Church within the territories of the southern
Picts, which now formed the heart of his kingdom, on a different basis;
and, for this purpose, selected Dunkeld, where Constantine, king of the
Picts, had founded a church, probably as being the nearest of the
Pictish churches to the former Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, and the
most central for the whole kingdom.
[Sidenote: A.D. 850-865.
Tuathal, son of Artguso, first bishop of Fortrenn and abbot
of Dunkeld. Cellach, son of Aillelo, abbot of Kildare and of
Iona.]
Here, we are told, he built a church, and removed to it the relics of
St. Columba—that is, probably, only a part of them—in the seventh year
of his reign,[577] which corresponds with the year 850, the year after
Innrechtach had departed to Ireland with the _Mionna_. Iona, as we have
seen, had already lost her primacy over the Columban monasteries in
Ireland, which, in consequence of the destruction of her monastery by
the Danes, was transferred to Kells; and, in taking the relics to
Dunkeld, Kenneth constituted it too as an _Annoid_, or mother church,
over the Columbans in Scotland, and seems to have resolved to place the
abbot of his new monastery of Dunkeld as bishop over the church in the
territories of the southern Picts which had now come under his rule,
with a view to the more ready reorganisation of Scottish monasteries
within them, so that it should form one diocese, as it were, under one
bishop. Accordingly, five years after Kenneth’s death, we find recorded
the death of Tuathal mac Artguso, abbot of Dunkeld and first bishop of
Fortrenn, as the kingdom of the southern Picts was then called.[578] As
abbot of Dunkeld, a church dedicated to St. Columba and possessing part
of his relics, he thus occupied towards the Columban monasteries in
Scotland the same position as had belonged to Iona, and would be
regarded by them as coärb of Columcille. As bishop of Fortrenn he was
the recognised head of the Pictish church.[579]
The same year in which the death of the first bishop of Fortrenn is
recorded contains also the record of the death in the territory of the
Picts of Cellach son of Aillel, abbot of Kildare, and abbot of
Iona.[580] Nothing can better show how completely Iona had lost her
position for the time, and how difficult it now was to find a person to
occupy the post of danger, than the abbacy falling to an abbot of
Kildare; but, though he is said to have been also abbot of Iona, he did
not die either there or in his own monastery of Kildare, but in the
country of the Picts. He had probably been driven from his own monastery
in the province of Leinster by its exposure to the attacks of the Danes,
by whom it was plundered and its church burnt in the year 836; and in
845 its vice-abbot was slain,[581] a title which seems to indicate the
absence of the abbot. Kildare was, as we know, dedicated to the great
virgin saint of Ireland, St. Bridget, or St. Bride, and was the mother
church of all her foundations; but there was within the country of the
Picts one church in especial which was also dedicated to St. Bride, and
was held to be in a manner affiliated to that of Kildare, and that was
the church of Abernethy; and when we find an abbot of Kildare seeking
refuge in the Pictish kingdom and dying peacefully within its bounds, it
could hardly be elsewhere than in this church of Abernethy that he took
refuge; and he appears, when Innrechtach had left his monastery of Iona
and been slain on his way to Rome in 854, to have been appointed abbot
of Iona. Abernethy thus comes again into view for the first time since
it was refounded by St. Columba at the end of the sixth century. The
Columban monks were, no doubt, expelled from it in the beginning of the
eighth century, but now, in the reign of Kenneth mac Alpin, it was once
again occupied by Irish clergy. It is at this time probably that we may
place the erection of the round tower there, which could only have been
the work of Irish clergy; and this is the more probable as it is
undoubtedly of an older type than the round tower at Brechin, the date
of the building of which can be placed with some degree of certainty
late in the succeeding century, and as a round tower had been erected at
Kildare, which Dr. Petrie places at the close of the preceding
century.[582]
[Sidenote: A.D. 865-908.
Primacy transferred to Abernethy, where three elections of
bishops take place.]
The year 865, which saw the deaths both of the first bishop of Fortrenn
and of the abbot of Kildare, corresponds with the second year of the
reign of Constantine, the son of Kenneth; and he seems to have
transferred the bishopric from Dunkeld to Abernethy, for we find the
next abbot of Dunkeld, who died during this reign, called simply
superior of Dunkeld, while the title of bishop of Fortrenn is
dropped;[583] and Bower, the abbot of Inchcolm, tells us of Abernethy
that ‘in that church there had been three elections of bishops when
there was but one sole bishop in Scotland; and at that time it was the
principal royal and episcopal seat, for some time, of the whole kingdom
of the Picts.’[584] He is surely here reporting a genuine tradition, and
the statement as to the three elections during the time when there was
one sole bishop is so specifically made that it must have been derived
from some authentic record. But the time when there was one sole bishop
cannot have been before the nomination of the abbot of Dunkeld as first
bishop of Fortrenn. It must, however, have been before the bishops of
St. Andrews appear as sole bishops in the succeeding century. We are
driven, therefore, to place it in this interval between the death of
Tuathal, first bishop of the Picts, in the year 865, and the first
appearance of that position being occupied by a bishop of St. Andrews,
which, as we shall see, was in the year 908. We have no record of the
three bishops elected at Abernethy during this interval; but we may
possibly find the name of one of them in the dedication of a
neighbouring parish. The church of Lathrisk, now Kettle, was dedicated
to St. Ethernascus, whose day in the Scotch Calendar is the 22d
December; and we find on the same day in the Irish Calendar Saints
Ultan, Tua and Iotharnaisc, at _Claonadh_, now Clane, in the county of
Kildare, which too connects him with the mother church of St. Bridget of
Kildare.[585]
[Sidenote: Legend of St. Adrian.]
There is a legend which seems intimately connected with the events of
this very obscure portion of Scottish history. It is the legend of St.
Adrian, and, like all such legends, possesses some features which may be
considered historical. It is thus told in the Aberdeen Breviary at 4th
March, the day of St. Adrian:—Adrian, a distinguished soldier of Christ,
derived his origin from the province of Pannonia, a part of the region
of Hungary. He was, as usual, of royal descent, and, from his
transcendent merits, was early raised to the episcopate; and a large
number of clerics and laymen can testify to his labours among them.
Desirous of extending them to other countries, and inflamed with zeal
for the Christian religion, he took with him a venerable company and set
out for the central parts of Scotia, which were then occupied by the
Picts, and landed there, having with him confessors, clerics, and common
people to the number of six thousand and six, among whom the most
notable were Glodianus, who was crowned with martyrdom, Gayus and
Monanus, white-robed confessors, Stobrandus and other chief priests
adorned with the mitre. These men with their bishop Adrian, the Pictish
kingdom being destroyed, did many signs and wonders among the people,
but afterwards desired to have a habitation of their own on the Isle of
May, at the entrance of the Firth of Forth. But the Danes, who then
devastated the whole of Britain, came to the isle and there slew them.
In this island of May there was anciently a monastery founded, built of
fair-coursed masonry in honour of God and of his martyred saints, which
was afterwards destroyed by the nation of the Angles; but there still
remains a church often frequented by the faithful people on account of
their merits. There is also a celebrated cemetery where the bodies of
the martyrs repose.[586] At 1st March, on which day St. Monanus was
celebrated, the Breviary legend further tells us that ‘Monanus, born in
Pannonia, a province of the region of Hungary, belonged to that company
who, with the blessed Adrian, came from the pagan inhabitants of Noricum
to the Isle of May, where they were crowned with martyrdom. But, before
that the aforesaid company was destroyed by the fury of the Danes,
blessed Monanus preached the Gospel to the people on the mainland and in
a place called Inverry in Fyf. There his relics rest. Many miracles of
healing were performed there.’[587] The only other version we have of
this legend is that given by Wyntoun, who was prior of Lochleven and
there composed his Chronicle, and possessed no doubt sources of
information as to church legends now lost to us. He thus in his quaint
verse tells the tale in connection with Constantin, son of Kenneth, who
reigned from 863 to 876:—
This Constantyne than regnand
Oure the Scottis in Scotland,
Saynt Adriane wyth hys cumpany
Come off the land off Hyrkany,
And arryẅed into Fyffe,
Quhare that thai chesyd to led thar lyff.
At the king than askyd thai
Leve to preche the Crystyn fay.
That he grantyd wyth gud will,
And thaire lykyng to fullfille,
And to duell in to his land,
Quhare thai couth ches it mayst plesand.
Than Adriane wyth hys cumpany
Togydder come tyl Caplawchy.
Thare sum in to the Ile off May
Chesyd to byde to thare enday.
And sum of thame chesyd be northe
In steddis sere the Wattyr off Forth.
In Invery Saynct Monane,
That off that cumpany wes ane,
Chesyd hym sa nere the sé
Till lede hys lyff: thare endyt he.
Hwb, Haldane, and Hyngare
Off Denmark this tym cummyn ware
In Scotland wyth gret multitude,
And wyth thare powere it oure-yhude.
In hethynness all lyvyd thai;
And in dispyte off Crystyn fay
In to the land thai slwe mony,
And put to dede by martyry.
And upon Haly Thurysday
Saynt Adriane thai slwe in May
Wyth mony off hys cumpany:
In to that haly Ile thai ly.[588]
The chronology of this tale is quite clear. They came just at the time
when the so-called destruction of the Picts by Kenneth mac Alpin took
place; and they themselves perished by the Danes in the reign of his son
Constantin. Of so remarkable an event, however, as the invasion of Fife
by a body of six thousand and six Hungarians history knows nothing, and
it is obvious that we have here to deal with a myth somewhat similar to
that which brought St. Bonifacius and St. Servanus from Palestine. It
appears, however, that there were two traditions as to the origin of
these people, and Boece, who reports the fact, may probably here be
trusted. He says—‘There are not wanting those who write that these holy
martyrs of Christ were Hungarians, who, flying from the pagan fierceness
which was then rampant in Germany, passed into Scotland to preserve
their religion. Others say they were a company gathered together from
Scots and Angles.’[589] The first refers to the legend in the Breviary;
the second contains probably an admission of the truth; and an
examination of the legend will confirm this. The names of most of the
company are disguised under Latin forms, but one seems to preserve its
original shape. Monanus is simply the Irish _Moinenn_, with a Latin
termination. His relics are preserved at Inverry, now St. Monans, and he
is venerated on the 1st of March; but this is the day of St. Moinenn in
the Irish Calendar, who was first bishop of Clonfert Brenain on the
Shannon, and whose death is recorded by Irish annalists in 571.[590]
This leads us at once to Ireland as the country from whence they came;
and, so far from being accompanied by a living St. Monan, who lived at
Inverry, they had probably brought with them the relics of the dead St.
Moinenn, bishop of Clonfert, of the sixth century, in whose honour the
church, afterwards called St. Monans, was founded. But, when we turn to
the history of Ireland at this period, we find Turgesius the Dane had
placed himself at the head of all the foreigners in Ireland, and had
brought the whole of the south of Ireland under subjection to him. In
the year 832 he attacked Armagh and sacked it three times in one month.
During the next nine years he appears to have remained content with his
secular possession of the country, and did not attempt to overthrow the
power of the ecclesiastical authorities; but in 841 he banished the
bishop and clergy and usurped the abbacy of Armagh, that is to say, the
full authority and jurisdiction in Armagh and the north of Ireland; and
he seems not only to have aimed at the establishment of a permanent rule
of the Northmen over Ireland, but to have attempted the establishment of
his national heathenism in place of the Christianity which he found in
the country.[591] This continued for four years, till his death in 845.
Now, at this very time Kenneth mac Alpin was establishing his Scottish
kingdom in Pictland, and reclaiming for the Scottish clerics their old
ecclesiastical foundations. This must naturally have led to an extensive
immigration of Scots, both lay and cleric, into his new territories, and
we find that, after Turgesius had usurped possession of Armagh, he went
to Loch Ree, with a fleet of his countrymen, and from thence ‘plundered
Meath and Connaught; and Cluainmicnois was plundered by him, and _Cluain
Ferta Brenain_ and Lothra, and Tirdaglas, and Inisceltra, and all the
churches of Loch Derg-dheirc, or Loch Derg on the Shannon, in like
manner.’[592] This took place between 841 and 845; and under the latter
year the Irish Annals report the destruction as still more complete, for
they tell us that at Loch Ree ‘a fortress was erected by Turgesius for
the foreigners, so that they spoiled Connaught and Meath, and burned
Cluain mic Nois with its oratories, and _Cluainferta Brennain_, and
Tirdaglas, and Lothra, and numerous cities.’[593] Clonfert then was one
of a group of monasteries which were plundered and burnt by the Danes at
the very time when a body of clerics and laymen are said to have arrived
in Fife and erected a church at Inverry, which was dedicated to St.
Monenn, the first bishop of Clonfert, and where his relics were
deposited. It seems, therefore, a reasonable conclusion that the two
events were connected, and that it was probably owing to the state into
which the church in Ireland had been brought by the Danes, and to the
coincident establishment of a Scottish dynasty on the throne of the
Picts, that we find an abbot of Kildare appearing as also abbot of Iona,
and dying in the country of the Picts which had come under Scottish
rule, and that the arrival of so large a body of Scots in Fife is
intimately connected with the revolution which placed these Pictish
districts under the rule of a Scottish king.[594]
The Caplawchy of Wyntoun is now called Caiplie, on the shore of Fife
opposite the Isle of May, and Inverry is now called St. Monans. Both are
within the eastern district of Fife, which was said to have been given
to St. Regulus as a ‘parochia.’ Wyntoun tells us that some of the
company who landed there chose to remain on the Isle of May, and others
in places beyond the north shore of the Forth; and we may infer that,
while the great body of them spread over Fife and the neighbouring
districts, some resorted to an eremetical life and were slain by the
Danes.[595]
[Sidenote: A.D. 878.
Shrine and relics of St. Columba taken to Ireland.]
In the meantime the security of Iona was threatened by new enemies.
These were the Norwegian Vikings who occupied the Western Isles about
the middle of this century, and continued to do so from time to time,
till their permanent settlement in the Orkney Islands, towards the end
of the century, led to a more continued possession of the Isles; and in
the year 878 it appears to have been necessary to remove the relics of
St. Columba from Iona to Ireland for safety. These consisted not only of
the _Mionna_, or reliquaries, which had been so frequently taken to
Ireland, but also of the shrine which contained the remains of his body;
for we are told that in this year ‘the shrine of Colum Cille and all his
reliquaries were taken to Ireland to escape the foreigners,’[596] and
two years later Feradach, son of Cormac, abbot of Iona, dies.[597] He
was, no doubt, the successor of Cellach, the abbot of Kildare, but his
pedigree is unknown, and there is nothing to show whether he was
connected with any other religious house. The line of Conall Gulban,
however, the ancestor of the tribe of the patron saint, now comes in
again, but merely to give to the abbacy of Iona its last independent
abbot for many a long year. Flann, the son of Maelduin, whose death as
abbot of Iona is recorded in the year 891,[598] was a descendant of
Conall Gulban; but one of the same tribe, Maelbrigde, son of Tornan,
having been in 888 elected abbot of Armagh, the abbacy of Iona seems to
have fallen under his rule also, and thus he is described as ‘coärb of
Patrick and of Columcille’ in the Martyrology of Donegal, which adds
that he was ‘a man full of the grace of God, and a vessel of the wisdom
and knowledge of his time.’[599] His death is recorded in 927.[600]
In his time, however, the shrine of St. Columba must have been restored
to Iona, as we learn from the Life of St. Cadroë, a work of the eleventh
century. Cadroë was a native of Scotia, or Scotland,[601] and was born
about the year 900.[602] His father was Faiteach, a man of royal blood;
his mother, Bania, of similar wealth and nobility. She had been
previously married and had sons by her first husband; but after her
marriage with Faiteach she continued childless, till, with her husband,
she applied to the merits of St. Columba, and, going to his sepulchre
and passing the night in prayer and fasting, had hardly slept, when they
saw themselves in a vision holding two different candles, which suddenly
united into one light, and a man of shining apparel appeared and told
her that her tears had stained her stole and assisted her prayers in the
sight of God, and that she should bear a son called Kaddroë, a future
light of the church, who should have courage like his name; a warrior in
the camp of the Lord, he shall go up unconquered against the opposing
wall, prepared to stand in battle for the house of Israel.[603] They
awake full of joy, and after a time the woman has a son whom, according
to the divine command, they called Kaddroë. When the child is old
enough, his father’s brother Beanus, an aged priest, wishes to put him
to school, but the father objects, and insists that the child must be
dedicated to him who gave it. The mother then has another child called
Mattadanus. They then go a second time to the tomb of St. Columba, and
offer to him the second boy, and deliver the eldest to Beanus to be
educated.[604] The expressions used of the sepulchre and the tomb of St.
Columba imply that they went to Iona; and the small cell at the west end
of the abbey church, now called the tomb of St. Columba, is, as we have
seen, in all probability the remains of the oratory in which the shrine
of St. Columba was kept, and to which it must have been restored when
the parents of St. Cadroë passed the night in prayer and fasting before
it. And this connection with Iona is further indicated; for, when the
boy reaches an age to require more advanced instruction, he is sent to
Armagh, the metropolitan town of Ireland, to be further trained, at a
time when, as we have seen, the abbacy of Iona was under the rule of the
abbot of Armagh.
-----
Footnote 505:
Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 22.
Footnote 506:
_Ib._
Footnote 507:
_Ib._, B. iii. c. 4.
Footnote 508:
716 Pasca in Eo civitate commotatur.—_Tigh._
Footnote 509:
718 Tonsura corona super familiam Iae datur.—_Tigh._
Footnote 510:
Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 22.
Footnote 511:
722 Feidhlimidh principatum Iea tenet.—_Tigh._
Footnote 512:
724 Faelchu mac Dorbene abbas dormivit. Cillenius longus ei in
primatum Ie successit.—_Tigh._
Footnote 513:
726 Cillenius longus abbas Ie pausat.—_Tigh._ For Celline Droichteach,
see note 528.
Footnote 514:
This is an example of a peculiar form in which the names of many of
the saints appear in Irish. As a mark of affection, the syllable _mo_,
meaning ‘my,’ was prefixed, and the syllable _og_, meaning ‘little,’
added to the name; and when the name ended with the diminutive form
_an_, it was altered to _og_. Thus, Ronan becomes _Moronog_, or my
little Ronan; Colman, _Mocholmog_; Aedan, _Moaedog_ or Madoc, etc.
Footnote 515:
737 Bass Ronain abbatis Cindgaradh.—_Tigh._ For the legends of St.
Modan and St. Ronan see Bishop Forbes’s _Calendars of the Scottish
Saints_, pp. 400, 441.
Footnote 516:
725 Oan, princeps Ego, mortuns est.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 517:
727 Adamnani reliquie transferuntur in Hiberniam et lex
renovatur.—_Tigh._
Footnote 518:
This passage is quoted by Dr. Reeves in his edition of Adamnan (Ed.
1874, p. clxv.), on whose authority it is here given.
Footnote 519:
3d July. _Cilline Abb. Iae._—_Mart. Tam._
_Abb. Iae Cholaimcille an Cilline Droichteach sin._—_Mart. Marian._
_Ib._, p. clxxiii.
Footnote 520:
752 Mors Cilline Droichtigh ancorite Iea.—_Tigh._
Footnote 521:
Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, pp. cxxxix.-cxliii.
Footnote 522:
Petrie’s _Round Towers_, p. 423.
Footnote 523:
737 Failbe mac Guairi eires (hæres) Maelrubai in Apuorcrossan in
profundo pelagi dimersus est cum suis nautis numero xxii.—_Tigh._,
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 76.
Footnote 524:
Colgan gives the following correct explanation of the word:—‘Vox autem
Hibernica _comhorba_ vel radicitus _comh-fhorba_, a qua desumitur,
derivata videtur a _comh_, id est, con vel simul; et _forba_, id est,
terra, ager, districtus; ut ex vocis origine Comhorbanus idem sit quod
Conterraneus.’—_Tr. Th._ p. 630.
Footnote 525:
See Dr. Todd’s _St. Patrick_, p. 155, for an account of the Coärbs;
also Dr. Reeves’s paper in _Proceedings of R. I. A._, vol. vi. p. 467.
Footnote 526:
See King’s _Introduction to the Early History of Armagh_, p. 17.
Footnote 527:
749 Ventus magnus. Dimersio familiæ Iea.—_Tigh._
Footnote 528:
752 Mors Cilline _Droictigh_ ancoritæ Iea. Cumine hua Becc religiosus
Eco mortuus est. _Bass_ Cilline mac Congaile in Hi.—_Ib._
Footnote 529:
754 Slebine abbas Iea in Hiberniam venit.—_Ib._
757 Lex Coluimcille la Slebine.—_Ib._
758 Reuersio Slebine in Hiberniam.—_Ib._
Footnote 530:
For this we have only the Annals of the Four Masters, who have in 754
(_recte_ 759) ‘_Feidhlimidh mac Failbe abb Iae decc iar secht
mbliadhna ochtmoghat a aeisi._’
Footnote 531:
766 Suibne abbas Iae in Hiberniam venit.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 532:
767 Quies Slebine Iae.—_Ib._
Footnote 533:
772 Mors Suibne abbas Iae.—_Ib._
Footnote 534:
It may be useful to insert here a table showing these rival abbots
from the death of Adamnan in 704 to the accession of Breasal in 772.
Those who belonged to the race of Conall Gulban are printed in old
English letters; the strangers in Roman.
=Adamnan=, abbot of Iona, dies 704.
704-710 Conamhail, son of │704-707 Interval of three years.
Failbhe, first abbot of a │
different race. │
710-712 Coeddi, bishop of Iona. │707-717 =Dunchadh=, son of
│Cinnfaeladh, abbot of Iona.
713 =Dorbeni= obtains chair of │
Iona, and dies same year. │
713-716 Interval of three years.│
716-724 =Faelchu= mac Dorbeni │717-722 Interval of five years.
obtains chair of Iona 29th │
August 716. │
724-726 Cillene the Long │722-759 Feidhlimidh mac Failbhe
succeeds Faelchu in abbacy. │holds abbacy of Iona.
726-752 Cilline Droichteach the │
anchorite, abbot of Iona. │
752-767 =Slebhine=, son of │759-766 Interval of seven years.
Congal, abbot of Iona. │
767-772 Interval of five years. │766-772 Suibhne, abbot of Iona.
772 Breasal, son of Seghine, becomes abbot for thirty years.
Footnote 535:
778 Lex Coluimcille la Donnchadh acus Bresal.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 536:
782 Muredach mac Huairgaile equominus Iae periit.—_Ib._
Footnote 537:
775 Mors Conaill Maighe Luinge.—_Ib._
Footnote 538:
776 Mors Maelemanach Ab. Cinngaradh.—_Ib._
Footnote 539:
790 Mors Noe abbatis Cinngaradh.—_Ib._
Footnote 540:
765 (_recte_ 770) Niall Frosach mac Ferghaile _secht mhliadhna os
Eirinn na righ, co nerbail in I Cholaimchille aga oilithre iar nocht
mhliadhna iaromh_ (was seven years king over Ireland, and died in Iona
on his pilgrimage eight years afterwards).—_An. F. M._
Footnote 541:
782 Bacall Airtgaile mic Cathail R. Conacht et peregrinatio ejus in
sequenti anno ad insulam Iae.—_An. Ult._
790 Artgal mac Cathail rex Conacht in Hi defunctus est.—_Ib._
Footnote 542:
784 Adventus reliquiarum filiorum Eirc ad civitatem Tailten.—_Ib._
Footnote 543:
794 Vastatio omnium insolarum Britanniæ a gentibus.—_Ib._
795 _Orcain Iae Choluimchille._—_An. Inis._
798 _Indreda mara doaibh cene itir Erinn et Albain._—_An. Ult._
Footnote 544:
801 Bresal mac Segeni, abbas Iae, anno principatus sui 31
dormivit.—_Ib._
Footnote 545:
802 _Hi Coluimbea cille_ a gentibus combusta est.—_An. Ult._
797 (_recte_ 802) Condachtach, _Scribbneoir tochaidhe acus_ abb. Iae
deg.—_An. F. M._
806 Familia Iae occisa est a gentibus .i. lx octo.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 546:
807 Constructio novæ civitatis Columbæ Cille _hi Ceninnus_ (in
Kells).—_Ib._
814 Ceallach, abbas Iae, finita constructione templi Cenindsa reliquit
principatum, et Diarmitius, alumpus Daigri, pro eo ordinatus
est.—_Ib._
Footnote 547:
This appears from the term ‘templum,’ usually applied to a stone
church, and from its being afterwards called a _Damhliag_ or stone
church.
Footnote 548:
Adamnan, B. iii. c. 24, says that the body of St. Columba was placed
in a coffin prepared for it, and buried. He uses the strange word
‘ratabusta,’ which the transcribers of the Life apparently did not
understand, as the MSS. present the following readings:—‘Rata busta,’
‘intra busta,’ ‘rata tabeta;’ and the Bollandists alter it to
‘catabusta,’ an inversion of ‘busticeta,’ which Ducange defines as
‘sepulchra antiqua,’ ‘sepulchra in agro.’ It seems to have been an
attempt to render in Latin the Irish _ferta_, which was either
generally a grave, or, as Dr. Reeves has shown in his _Ancient
Churches of Armagh_, p. 48, the equivalent of sarcophagus, or stone
coffin, in which sense it is used here; but in Adamnan’s time his
grave was undisturbed, and the place of his burial was well known; for
he says that the stone which he had used as a pillow stands to this
day as a monument at his grave, and that ‘until the present day the
place where his sacred bones repose, as has been clearly shown to
certain chosen persons, doth not cease to be frequently visited by
holy angels, and illuminated by the same heavenly light.’ Bede, also,
in talking of the ‘Monasterium insulanum’ founded by St. Columba,
adds, ‘in quo ipse requiescit corpore.’—_Hist. Ec._, B. iii. c. 4. The
passage in the Book of Armagh is as follows:—‘Colombcille, Spiritu
Sancto instigante, ostendit sepulturam Patricii, ubi est confirmat, id
est, in Sahul Patricii, id est, in ecclesia juxta mare proxima ubi est
conductio martirum, id est, ossuum Columbcille de Britannia et
conductio omnium sanctorum Hiberniæ in die judicii.’ The passage is
obviously somewhat corrupt, and has been well explained by Dr. Reeves
in the Introduction to his _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. lxxx. The word
‘proxima’ is in the original ‘pro undecima;’ but Mr. Henry Bradshaw,
of the University Library, Cambridge, has happily suggested that the
transcriber mistook the letters xi in proxima for the numeral undecim.
Conductio is the word frequently used in connection with enshrining,
and _Martra_, here rendered Martirum, has been shown by Dr. Reeves to
be the word used to designate the enshrined bones of a saint, the word
_Mionna_ being used for other relics, consisting of articles hallowed
by his use. The passage clearly shows that in 807, when the book of
Armagh was compiled, the bones of St. Columba had been enshrined, and
were then at the church of Saul Patrick.
Footnote 549:
734 Commutatio martirum Petri et Pauli et Patricii ad legem
perficiendam.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 550:
743 Commutatio martirum Treno Cille Deilgge.—_Ib._
776 Commutatio martirum Sancti Erce Slane et Finniain Cluaina
Irard.—_Ib._
Footnote 551:
784 Commutatio reliquiarum Ultani.—_Ib._
789 Commutatio reliquiarum Coimgin et Mochuæ mic Culugedon.—_Ib._
Footnote 552:
799 Positio reliquiarum Conlaid _hi Scrin oir ocus airgid_.—_Ib._
800 Positio reliquiarum Ronain filii Berich in arca auri et
argenti.—_Ib._
Footnote 553:
In hac mansione juxta oratorium meum ad meridiem contra orientalem
plagam Sanctæ Crucis, quam ibidem erexi.—_Vit. S. Cuth._, c. 37.
Footnote 554:
Atque in ecclesia beati apostoli Petri in dextera parte altaris
petrino in sarcophago repositum.—_Ib._, c. 40. At that time the right
side of the altar was the south side, but in 1485 this was altered in
the Roman Church, and the right side declared to be the north side,
because the right hand of the crucifix on the altar pointed to that
side.
Footnote 555:
Atque in levi arca recondita in eodem quidem loco, sed supra
pavimentum, dignæ venerationis gratia, locarent.—_Ib._, c. 42.
Footnote 556:
Et involutum novo amictu corpus levique in theca reconditum super
pavimentum sanctuarii composuerunt.—_Ib._
Footnote 557:
Cujus corpus in sepulcro beati Patris Cudbercti ponentes, adposuerunt
desuper arcam, in qua incorrupta ejusdem Patris membra
locaverunt.—_Ib._ c. 43.
Footnote 558:
Sim. Dun, _Hist. Reg._, ad an. 1104.
Footnote 559:
Reg. Mon. Dun. Lib. _de admirandis Beati Cuthberti_, c. 43.
Footnote 560:
Nec et de miraculo in reparatione ecclesiæ tacendum est, in qua
gloriosa amborum, hoc est, Episcopi Conleath et hujus virginis S.
Brigidæ corpora a dextris et a sinistris altaris decorati in
monumentis posita ornatis vario cultu auri et argenti et gemmarum et
pretiosi lapidis, atque coronis aureis et argenteis desuper
pendentibus requiescunt.—Messing. Florileg., _Vit. S. Brigidæ_, p.
199.
Footnote 561:
818 _Diarmaid Ab. Iae co sgrin Colaim Cille do dul a nAlbain_
(Diarmaid, abbot of Iona, went to Scotland with the shrine of St.
Columba).—_Chron. Scot._ The same notice appears in the Annals of the
Four Masters.
Footnote 562:
This burying-ground is now called _Cladh an Diseart_. It was carefully
examined this summer (1876) by the author and Mr. James Drummond,
R.S.A., and some excavations they made disclosed the foundations of a
rude stone oratory, about 26 feet long by 14 broad, the wall being two
feet thick. At the eastern end is a small recess in the wall, and in
this recess was found some years ago the stone which is figured in the
_Proceedings of the Antiq. Society_, vol x. p. 349, and believed to be
the stone pillow which was placed as a monument at St. Columba’s
grave. The oratory may have been erected over his grave by Abbot
Breasal, as he appears in the Calendars at 18th May as _Breasal o
Dertaigh_, or Breasal of the Oratory.—Colg. _A.SS._
Footnote 563:
In examining the existing ruins there is a peculiarity which cannot
fail to be observed. On the north side of the abbey church, and at a
little distance from it, is a chapel or oratory, about 33 feet long by
16 broad. This chapel, however, is not parallel to the abbey church,
but has an entirely different orientation. It points more to the
north, and the deflection amounts to no less than fourteen degrees. If
the chapel was connected with the abbey church, it is impossible to
account for this variation; but if it existed before the abbey church
was built, we can quite understand that the orientation of the latter
may have been quite irrespective of the former. Alongside of this
chapel are the foundations of a large hall, probably a refectory,
which have the same orientation. Then on the west of the ruins is a
building which goes by the name of Columba’s House, and this, too, has
nearly the same orientation. It was, no doubt, the abbot’s house. On
the south side of the present ruins there is, at a little distance,
another chapel called St. Mary’s Chapel, and here again we find the
same orientation. It can hardly be doubted that these buildings formed
part of the establishment which preceded the Benedictine monastery,
and this is confirmed by the discovery, between the abbot’s house and
the abbey church, of the foundations of an enclosure, the pavement of
which consists of monumental stones, two of them bearing Irish
inscriptions of the same character as the two oldest in the Relic
Orain.
Footnote 564:
Martin, in his account of Iona, speaking of St. Martin’s cross
says—‘At a little farther distance is _Dun Ni Manich_, i.e. _the
monks’ fort_, built of stone and lime in the form of a bastion, pretty
high. From this eminence the monks had a view of all the families in
the _Isle_, and at the same time enjoyed the free air’ (page 259). Dr.
Reeves remarks ‘that the artificial part does not now exist.’ He
looked for it, however, on the small eminence called Torr Abb; but
immediately behind it is a higher rocky eminence which better answers
the description, now called _Cnoc nan Carnan_, or the hillock of the
heaps or cairns, on which the remains of a fortification with outworks
are still quite discernible.
Footnote 565:
Printed in Messingham’s _Florilegium_, p. 399, and Pinkerton, _Vitæ
Sanctorum_, p. 459.
Footnote 566:
From _Blath_, beautiful, and _Mac_, a son.
Footnote 567:
... Quam quippe suis de sedibus arcam
Tollentes tumulo terra posuere cavato
Cespite sub denso....
This reminds one of St. Cuthbert’s ‘sarcophagus terræ cespite
abditus.’
Footnote 568:
The shrine appears to have been hid by the monks, and Blathmac
purposely remained ignorant of the spot where they buried it.
Footnote 569:
825 _Martre Blaimhicc mic Flainn o gentib in Hi Coluim Cille._ (The
martyrdom of Blaithmaic by the pagans in Iona.)—_An. Ult._
Footnote 570:
829 _Diarmait ab Iae do dul an Albain cominnaib Coluim Cille._—_Ib._
Footnote 571:
Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 232; and the Life, B. ii. c. 45.
Footnote 572:
For a description of these Irish oratories, and especially St.
Molaga’s Bed, see Brash, _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p.
8, and Lord Dunraven’s magnificent work on _Irish Architecture_, p.
62, where it is figured.
Footnote 573:
Ille igitur Christi factus pro nomine Martyr,
Testis fert ut fama, loco requiescit eodem,
Multa ubi pro meritis dantur miracula sanctis.
At the west end of the oratory at Iona, overlapping its side walls, is
an enclosure, which is of late construction, but is filled with
gravestones, two of which bear Irish inscriptions. Inserted in the
west end of the enclosure is a cross, which, however, is not in the
centre, but directly faces the end of the cist on the south side of
the oratory.
Footnote 574:
831 _Diarmait totiachtain in hErin comminaib Coluim Cille._—_An. Ult._
Footnote 575:
849 _Innrechtach ab Iae do tiachtain do cum nErenn commindaib
Coluimcille._—_Ib._
854 Heres Columbecille sapiens optimus iv Id. marcii apud Saxones
martirizatur.—_Ib._
Indrechtaig hua Finechta abbas Iae _hi mardochoid oc dul do Roim
Saxanu_.—_An. Inis._
Footnote 576:
Concremavit Dunbarre atque Malros usurpata, Britanni autem
concremaverunt Dunblain.—_Pict. Chron._ The name Dunbarre seems
connected with St. Bar or Finbar, and may have been a Scotch
foundation, and been named from him, as Dunblane is from St. Blane.
Footnote 577:
Septimo anno regni sui reliquias Sancti Columbæ transportavit ad
ecclesiam quam construxit.—_Chron. Pict._ Dunkeld was dedicated to St.
Columba, and possessed some of the relics. Hickes, in his _Thesaurus_
(vii. 117), has published a Saxon document compiled about 1058, giving
the localities in England in which the relics of eminent saints were
placed; and in it we find a passage which he thus translates:—‘Sanctus
Columcylle requiescit in loco Duncahan juxta flumen Tau.’ This does
not imply that his body, or his tomb, was there, but merely part of
his relics; and that by Duncahan Dunkeld is meant—the letters _ld_
having been read _h_—appears from an incident preserved by Alexander
Mylne, a canon of Dunkeld, who died in 1549, in his Lives of the
Bishops of Dunkeld. He says that in the year 1500, when a severe
pestilence afflicted the whole kingdom of Scotland, the town of
Dunkeld alone remained unaffected by it through the merit of its
patron saint Columba, and that the bishop visiting some who were sick
of the pest in the church lands of Caputh, administered the sacrament
to them, and next day having blessed some water in which he had dipped
a bone of St. Columba, sent it to them by his chancellor to drink and
many receiving it were made whole.—Mylne, _Vit. Ep. Dunk._ pp. 40, 43.
Footnote 578:
865 Tuathal mac Artguso, primus episcopus Fortren et abbas
Duincaillenn dormivit.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 579:
Kenneth seems to have taken for his model the establishment of a
bishop from Iona in Northumbria, where the whole kingdom formed one
diocese under one bishop. The term ‘primus episcopus’ here
unquestionably means first in time, not in dignity. The Scotch
Episcopal Church appears to have understood it in the latter sense,
and thus presents the anomaly of one of the successors of a long line
of bishops bearing the title of ‘primus episcopus.’ An elective
primacy, too, is as great an anomaly.
Footnote 580:
865 Ceallach mac Aillelo abbas Cilledaro et abbas Ia dormivit in
regione Pictorum.—_Ib._
Footnote 581:
_Chron. Scotorum_, ad an. 836-845.
Footnote 582:
In a note by Dr. Petrie appended to Sir James Simpson’s Essay on a
Stone-Roofed Building in the Island of Inchcolm, as printed in his
_Archæological Essays_, edited by Dr. John Stuart, vol. i. p. 134, he
states that no one can doubt that the age of the Abernethy tower is
much greater than that of Brechin, and adds, ‘This is the opinion I
formed many years ago, after a very careful examination of the
architectural peculiarities of each, and I came to the conclusion that
the safest opinion which could be indulged as to the age of the
Abernethy tower was that it had been erected during the reign of the
third Nectan, _i.e._ between 712 and 727, and by those Northumbrian
architects of the monastery of Jarrow for whose assistance the king,
according to the high authority of Bede, had applied to build for him,
in his capital, a stone church in the Roman style.’ It appears to the
author that this opinion, though proceeding from so high an authority
as Dr. Petrie, is not tenable, for, first, Bede says nothing about the
church being in his capital, but he distinctly says that it was to be
dedicated to St. Peter, and there is no dedication to St. Peter at
Abernethy; secondly, though undoubtedly older than the tower at
Brechin, it cannot, he thinks, be taken so far back as the beginning
of the eighth century; and thirdly, the author has been unable to
discover any peculiarity so marked as to take it out of the class of
the Irish round towers altogether, or to warrant the supposition that
it is a solitary instance of a round tower built by Anglic architects
in the Roman style.
Footnote 583:
873 Flaithbertach mac Murcertaigh princeps Duincaillden obiit.—_An.
Ult._
Footnote 584:
Et in illa ecclesia fuerunt tres electiones factæ, quando non fuit
nisi unus solus episcopus in Scotia. Nunc fuit locus ille sedes
principalis regalis et pontificalis, per aliquot tempora, totius regni
Pictorum.—_Scotichron._, B. iv. c. 12.
Footnote 585:
Bishop Forbes’s _Calendars_, p. 334.
Footnote 586:
This legend is printed in the _Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, p.
423.
Footnote 587:
_Breviary of Aberdeen_, Pars Hyem. f. lix.
Footnote 588:
Wyntoun, _Chron._, B. vi. cap. 8.
Footnote 589:
Non desunt qui scribant sanctissimos Christi martyres Hungaros fuisse
genere in Scotiam ethnicorum feritate, quæ sub idem tempus in Germania
debacchabatur fugientes, servandæ religionis causa trajecisse. Alii ex
Scotis Anglisque gregarie collectos.—_Boetii Scot. Hist._, fol.
ccxiii.
Footnote 590:
571 Moenen Eps Cluanaferta Brenand quievit.—_Tigh._ 1st March,
_Maoineann espoc Cluana Ferta Brenainn_.—_Mart. Don._
Footnote 591:
See this view brought out by Dr. Todd in his Introduction to the _Wars
of the Gaedhel with the Gaill_, pp. xlii.-xlviii.
Footnote 592:
_Wars of the Gaedhel with the Gaill_, p. 13.
Footnote 593:
_Annals of Ulster_, ad an. 844; _Chron. Scot._, 845.
Footnote 594:
How the Hungarian story should have arisen it seems difficult to
guess, but possibly it may have been brought forward about the time of
Queen Margaret, when her own connection with Hungary might lead some
of the ecclesiastical parties to suppose that a legend of this kind
would find favour with her. There is a cluster of Adrians in the
Martyrologies about this time. On 1st March, Adrianus, a Roman martyr
of Bologna; Adrianus, martyr in Africa; Adrianus of Marseilles. On the
4th March, Adrianus, martyr, with thirty-three companions of
Nicomedia, under Diocletian; and on the 5th, Adrianus, martyr of
Cæsarea; but there is no Adrianus of Hungary. Bishop Forbes notices,
in his _Calendars_ (p. 267), that Usuardus has also a St. Gagius on
the 4th, who seems to correspond with the Gayus of the legend. The
Irish name that seems to come nearest Adrian in form is Odhran; and
the Martyrology of Donegal has this name on 6th March, and we find a
subsequent bishop of St. Andrews called Mac Gilla Odran, or the son of
the servant of Odran. The parishes of Flisk and Lindores, both within
the parochia, are dedicated to a St. Macgidrin, and his name is
connected with Macduff’s Cross, the boundary-stone of the region of
Fife. It is possible that the name which appears under this form may
be that which was Latinised Adrianus. He may also have been one of the
three bishops elected at Abernethy.
Footnote 595:
See the interesting notice of the Coves at Caiplie and other places on
the coast of Fife in the _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, vol. ii.,
appendix to preface, p. lxxxvii.; and Dr. John Stuart’s remarks in his
Preface to the _Chartulary of the Isle of May_, p. v.
Footnote 596:
878 _Scrin Coluim Cille ocus aminna orchena do thiachtain do cum
n-Erenn for teicheadh na Gallaibh_.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 597:
880 Feradach mac Cormac abbas Iae pausat.—_Ib._
Footnote 598:
891 Flann mac Maileduin abbas Iae in pace quievit.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 599:
_Mart. Donegal_, p. 55.
Footnote 600:
927 _Maelbrigda mac Tornain Comhorba Patraic et Coluimcille_, felici
senectute quievit.—_An. Ult._
Footnote 601:
At the time this Life was compiled, the name of Scotia had already
been transferred to Scotland, and a candid examination of the Life
shows the scene of his early years was in Scotland.
Footnote 602:
He is said in the Life to have died in the seventieth year of his age
and the thirtieth of his pilgrimage, but it began when Constantin was
king of Alban, and Eric ruled at York. Eric’s reign at York began
about 938, and Constantin died in 942, which limits us to four years
for the year of his birth.
Footnote 603:
Colgan explains Kaddroë as _Cath_, battle, _Roe_, the same as _Agon_,
place of contest.—_A.SS._, p. 503.
Footnote 604:
This part of the Life is printed in the _Chronicle of the Picts and
Scots_, p. 106.