EXTINCTION OF THE OLD CELTIC CHURCH IN SCOTLAND.
[Sidenote: Causes which brought the Celtic Church to an end.]
The causes which combined to bring the old Celtic Church to an end may
be classed under two heads—internal decay and external change. Under the
first head the chief cause was the encroachment of the secular element
upon the ecclesiastic, and the gradual absorption of the latter by the
former. As long as the old monastic system remained intact there was a
vitality in its ecclesiastical organisation which to a great extent
preserved the essential character of these monasteries as great
ecclesiastical foundations; but this was to some extent impaired by the
assimilation of the church to that of Rome in the seventh and eighth
centuries, which introduced a secular element among her clergy; and the
Danish invasions, with all their devastating and destructive
consequences, completed the total disorganisation of the Monastic
Church. The monasteries were repeatedly laid waste and destroyed, and
her clergy had either to fly or to take up arms in self-defence; her
lands, with their ruined buildings and reduced establishment, fell into
the hands of laymen, and became hereditary in their families; until at
last nothing was left but the mere name of abbacy applied to the lands,
and of abbot borne by the secular lord for the time. The external change
produced in the church was the result of the policy adopted towards it
by the kings of the race of Queen Margaret. It was in the main the same
policy as that adopted towards Ireland by the Norman kings of England.
It mainly consisted, first, in placing the church upon a territorial in
place of a tribal basis, and substituting the parochial system and a
diocesan episcopacy for the old tribal churches with their monastic
jurisdiction and functional episcopacy; secondly, in introducing the
religious orders of the Church of Rome, and founding great monasteries
as centres of counter influence to the native church; and, thirdly, in
absorbing the Culdees, now the only clerical element left in the Celtic
Church, into the Roman system, by converting them from secular into
regular canons, and merging them in the latter order.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1093-1107.
See of St. Andrews remains vacant and churches founded in
Lothian only.]
During the war of succession which followed the death of Malcolm the
Third and ended in the firm establishment of the sons of the Saxon Queen
Margaret upon the throne of Scotland in the person of Edgar, her eldest
son, no successor appears to have been appointed to Fothad, the last
native bishop of St. Andrews, and no attempt appears to have been made
to follow out the policy which had been inaugurated by that queen of
assimilating the native church to that of Rome. During this interval
Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde was left without a
bishop, and the conflict between the Celtic and the Saxon element in the
population of the country, which was to determine whether Scotland was
to remain a Celtic or a Teutonic kingdom, probably threw the northern
portion of it into too great a confusion to render any attempt to
reorganise the church possible. The only ecclesiastical foundations made
during this period were confined to the southern districts, where the
sons of Malcolm, who owed to English assistance the vindication of their
right to the throne, showed their gratitude by grants to the church of
Durham. Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm, made over to the monks of
Durham Tiningeham, Aldeham, Scuchale, Cnolle, Hatherwich, and all right
which Bishop Fodan had in Broccesmuthe.[694] These lands are in East
Lothian, and formed part of the possessions of St. Balthere’s monastery
of Tyningham. The allusion to the rights of Bishop Fodan or Fothad shows
that this part of Lothian at least had by this time come under the
bishops of St. Andrews; and we find that these lands afterwards reverted
to that see.[695]
Edgar, the eldest son of Queen Margaret, had no sooner made good his
right to the throne by English assistance, than we find him refounding
the monastery of Coldingham, which had been destroyed by the Danes. In
his charter he says that he had come to the dedication of the church of
St. Mary at Coldingham, which dedication had been honourably completed
to the praise of God and to his contentment, and that he had immolated
on the altar to the same church, in endowment, and granted, the whole
town of Swintun, to be held for ever free and quit from all claim, and
to be disposed of at the will of the monks of St. Cuthbert. He adds that
he had ordained to the men of Coldinghamshire, as they themselves have
chosen and confirmed in his hand, that they every year pay to the monks
half a mark of silver for each plough.[696] The mention of
Coldinghamshire, and the burden imposed upon the men of the district to
contribute to the support of the church, indicate something like a
parochial district attached to the church; and we find, in another
charter, the establishment of a parish church clearly presented to us,
as well as the process by which it was accomplished. In this document,
Thor informs his lord, Earl David, that King Edgar had given him
Ednaham, now Ednam, in Berwickshire, waste; that he had inhabited it,
and built from the foundation the church which King Edgar caused to be
dedicated to Saint Cuthbert, and had endowed it with one plough; and he
prays his son to confirm the donation he had made of the church to St.
Cuthbert and the monks of Durham.[697] Here we have in fact a formation
of a manor with its parish church, and in a subsequent document it is
termed the mother church of Ednam.[698]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1107.
Turgot appointed bishop of St. Andrews, and the Sees of Moray
and Dunkeld created.]
Edgar appears to have made no attempt to introduce a parochial church
north of the Forth, or even to fill up the vacancy in the see of St.
Andrews; but, on his death, when the territory which formed his kingdom,
with its heterogeneous population, was divided between his two
brothers—the districts north of the Forth and Clyde, with Lothian as far
as the Lammermoors, falling, under his will, to Alexander as king, and
the districts of the Cumbrian Britons, with the rest of Lothian, to
David as earl—the policy which had been inaugurated by their Saxon
mother, Queen Margaret, of assimilating the native church to that of
England, was at once resumed by both. Alexander’s first step was to fill
up the vacancy in the bishopric of St. Andrews, by the appointment, in
the first year of his reign, of Turgot, prior of Durham, and at the same
time to create two additional bishoprics for the more remote and Celtic
portion of his kingdom. The first was that of Moray, to which he
appointed a bishop named Gregorius; and the second was that of Dunkeld,
which he revived in the person of Cormac.[699]
[Sidenote: Establishment of the bishopric of Moray.]
The districts beyond the Spey were at this time so little under the
influence of the Crown, and their connection with what formed the
kingdom proper so slender, that the position of a bishop of Moray
appointed by the king can have been little more than nominal. In fact,
we know very little of the state of the church in that great Celtic
district at this time, except what may be gathered from the dedications
of the churches. The low-lying portion of its territory, extending along
the south shore of the Moray Firth from the Spey westward, with its
fertile soil and temperate air, must always have formed an attractive
position for ecclesiastical establishments; and in that part of it which
lies between the Spey and the Findhorn three churches come now rather
prominently forward. These are the churches of Brennach, or Birnie,
Spyny and Kenedor; and we learn something of this last church from the
legend of Saint Gervadius or Gernadius, whose day is the 8th of
November. He was a native of Ireland, and leaving his home to preach the
Word of Life in Scotland, he came to the territory of Moravia or Moray,
in which place he associated with himself many fellow-soldiers in
Christ, and under angelic direction, as it is said, built an oratory or
cell in a place called Kenedor. Here he had a stone bed, and led the
life of an Anchorite.[700] A cave near Elgin and a spring of water in
the rock above bear his name. An allusion in his legend to a war by the
king of the Angles against the Scots, which brought the Anglic soldiers
to his neighbourhood, fixes his date to the year 934, when Athelstane,
king of Northumbria, invaded Scotland both by sea and land; and his
establishment has all the features of a Culdee church. There was no
trace, however, of the name of Culdee in this district when Alexander
founded his bishopric, and it was not till the time of Bricius, the
sixth bishop of Moray, who filled that position from 1203 to 1222, that
the bishops had any fixed residence in the diocese. They are said before
his time to have had their episcopal seat in one or other of the three
churches of Birnie, Spyny and Kenedor. When Bricius became bishop in
1203 he fixed his cathedral at Spyny, and founded a chapter of eight
secular canons, giving to his cathedral a constitution founded on the
usage of Lincoln, which he ascertained by a mission to England.[701]
After his death the seat of the bishopric was removed to Elgin.
[Sidenote: Establishment of bishopric of Dunkeld.]
The bishopric of Dunkeld was in a very different position, and its
relations with the Crown were of the most intimate character. A church
had been built there by Kenneth mac Alpin, the founder of the Scottish
dynasty, and a part at least of the relics of St. Columba had been
transferred to it by him. The abbot, in his time, was the first bishop
of his Pictish kingdom. It had then, along with the great territory
forming the lay abbacy of Dull, passed into the possession of a line of
lay abbots, from whom the family on the throne were the male
descendants; and it had now, probably by the death of Ethelred the young
lay abbot, again reverted to the Crown, as we hear no more of him after
the reign of Edgar. Mylne, who was a canon of Dunkeld in the fifteenth
century, tells us in his Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld ‘that, when it
seemed good to the Supreme Controller of all Christian religion, and
when devotion and piety had increased, St. David, the sovereign, who was
the younger son of King Malcolm Canmor and the holy Queen Margaret,
having changed the constitution of the monastery, erected it into a
cathedral church, and, having superseded the _Keledei_, created, about
the year 1127, a bishop and canons, and ordained that there should in
future be a secular college. The first bishop on this foundation was for
a time abbot of that monastery, and subsequently a counsellor of the
king.’[702] Mylne is, however, wrong both in the date and in the name of
the founder; for, as we have seen, the bishopric was founded by
Alexander, the predecessor of King David, as early as the year 1107. The
possession of the ample territories belonging to the lay abbacy of
Dunkeld would enable him at once to refound the bishopric with its
cathedral and chapter in proper form. And here we find the remains of
the old Columban Church brought into sharp contact with the Culdee
foundations. The church which Kenneth had founded there certainly
inherited, along with a part of the relics of the great founder of the
Columban Church, to a certain extent also the primatial jurisdiction of
the monastery of Iona over the Columban monasteries on the mainland.
These monasteries had, with few exceptions, become lay abbacies, and
Mylne appears so far to have given a correct representation of the
revival of the episcopate, as we find that the rights of the original
monastery of Dunkeld over the Columban foundations do appear to have
been now exercised by the bishop. Besides the two great lay abbacies of
Dull and Glendochart, founded respectively by St. Adamnan and St. Fillan
in the seventh century, whose united territory comprised the entire
western districts of Atholl, bounded by Drumalban on the west, and the
districts beyond this range, which afterwards formed the diocese of
Argyll, we find the new bishopric possessing within the limits of other
dioceses disconnected parishes which represented old Columban
foundations. In Stratherne it had the parishes of Madderty and Crieff,
the former dedicated to St. Ethernanus, whose death is recorded by
Tighernac in 669, and who therefore belonged to the Columban Church; and
here we find the bishop dealing with the rights of Can and Conveth which
the clerics of the church of Dunkeld had from ‘the lands of Madderty,
which in Scotch are termed Abthen.’[703] In charters to the monastery of
Dunfermline the rights of Dunkeld in Fife and Fotherif are specially
reserved;[704] and here the bishopric possessed Incholm, dedicated to
St. Columba, and adjacent lands on the mainland. In Angus it possessed
the parishes of Fearn and Menmuir, dedicated to St. Aidan, the Columban
bishop of Lindisfarne; and it even penetrated beyond the Firth of Forth
on the south, where it possessed Cramond dedicated to St. Columba, and
on the north beyond the Mounth, when we find in a charter granted by the
Mormaer, or earl of Buchan, in the earlier years of the reign of King
David, of the lands of Pet-mec-Cobrig ‘for the consecration of a church
of Christ and Peter the apostle (at Deer) and to Columcille and to
Drostan,’ that is, for the reconsecration of the church of Deer to St.
Peter, which had previously been dedicated to St. Columba and St.
Drostan, and the lands are granted ‘free from all exactions with their
tie to Cormac, bishop of Dunkeld.’[705] This monastery of Deer is one of
the few Columban foundations which preserved its clerical character
intact down to this period, and here we find no trace of the name of
Culdee in connection with it.
[Sidenote: Rights of _Keledei_ pass to St. Andrews.]
On the other hand, and in contrast to these rights of Dunkeld, Turgot
was no sooner elected bishop of St. Andrews than the fate and fortunes
of the Culdee establishments were committed into his hands; for we are
told that ‘in his days the whole rights of the _Keledei_ over the whole
kingdom of Scotland passed to the bishopric of St. Andrews.’[706] The
appointment of Turgot, the prior of Durham, to the bishopric of St.
Andrews, in conformity with the policy adopted towards the native church
by the sons of Queen Margaret, had one result which probably King
Alexander did not anticipate when he made it. It brought upon him the
claim of the archbishop of York to supremacy over the Scottish Church,
whose bishops he regarded as his suffragans. It is not necessary for our
purpose to enter at length on this intricate subject. His claim was, no
doubt, founded upon the original commission by Pope Gregory to Augustine
in the end of the sixth century, by which he placed all the churches
north of the Humber under the bishop of York, and to the convention
between the archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1072, by which it was
attempted to revive this arrangement, and to place all the churches of
the northern province, as far as the extreme limits of Scotland, under
the latter;[707] but such a right had never been either recognised or
exercised, and the only substantial ground upon which it could be based
was one very similar to that on which the supremacy claimed by the king
of England over Scotland could be founded. It is certain that the
province of York extended ecclesiastically, as the kingdom of
Northumbria did civilly, to the Firth of Forth; and so far as concerned
the churches of Lothian and Teviotdale, the former of which were now
under the rule of the bishop of St. Andrews, while the latter were
claimed by Glasgow, there may have been some ground for the assertion of
such a right, similar to that which the annexation of Lothian to the
kingdom of Scotland gave for the civil claim; but beyond the Firths of
Forth and Clyde the claims of both were shadowy in the extreme, and
Alexander, in his jealousy for the independence of his kingdom, saw the
necessity of resisting the threatened encroachment of the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of York. In the end Turgot was consecrated at York on 1st
August 1109, with reservation of the rights of either see. He died on
31st August 1115, and during his tenure of office, owing mainly to these
disputes, he appears to have done nothing to affect the rights of the
Culdees. In order to avoid a recurrence of this question, Alexander
applied to the archbishop of Canterbury to recommend him an English
cleric as bishop, stating that the bishops of St. Andrews had hitherto
been consecrated either by the Pope or by the archbishop of Canterbury.
The former assertion was probably true in so far as regards the later
bishops; but the incautious admission of the latter, which was totally
inconsistent with fact, led the king into a new and unprofitable
dispute, which had an equally awkward bearing upon the more important
question of the independence of the kingdom. Eadmer, a monk of
Canterbury, was sent, but was not elected till 1120; and in the
following year he returned to Canterbury,[708] and the bishopric
remained unfilled up for three years.
[Sidenote: Canons regular introduced into Scotland.]
During this time, however, while St. Andrews was, practically speaking,
without a bishop, Alexander commenced to carry out another part of this
policy, by introducing the canons-regular of St. Augustine, or the black
canons, as they were called, into Scotland; and for this purpose he
selected the most central and important position in his kingdom, that of
Scone, which was peculiarly associated with the very heart of the
monarchy, and had been the scene of previous legislation regarding the
church. Here he brought a colony of canons regular from the church of
St. Oswald at Nastlay, near Pontefract, in Yorkshire, and founded a
priory in the year 1115, which was confirmed by the seven earls of his
kingdom, and by Gregory and Cormac, the bishops of the two additional
bishoprics he had created, who here term themselves bishops by the
authority of God, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and of Saint
Andrew the apostle. The church, which was previously dedicated to the
Trinity, was placed under the patronage of the Virgin, St. Michael, St.
John, St. Lawrence and St. Augustine.[709] Some years later Alexander
introduced the regular canons into the diocese of Dunkeld. In the year
1122 he founded a priory of canons on an island near the east end of
Loch Tay, which became a cell of Scone, and here his queen, Sibylla,
died and was buried; and in 1123 he founded a monastery for the same
canons in the island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth.[710] In the
following year Alexander heard of the death of Eadmer, and filled up the
bishopric of St. Andrews by appointing Robert, the English prior of
Scone; but, four months after this appointment, and before Robert was
consecrated, he died in the April of that year. Probably the last act of
his life was the right which he conferred upon the church of the Holy
Trinity of Scone, to hold a court, in a charter which is addressed to
the bishops and earls of Scotland, and is witnessed by Robert,
bishop-elect of St. Andrews, Cormac the bishop, and Gregory, bishop of
Moray.[711]
[Sidenote: Diocese of Glasgow restored by Earl David.]
During the whole period of Alexander’s reign, his younger brother David
was carrying out the same policy in the southern districts of Scotland,
over which he ruled as earl. In the year 1113 he founded a monastery at
Selkirk, in which he placed Benedictine monks of the order of Tyron; but
his great work there was the reconstitution of the bishopric of Glasgow.
This diocese he restored about the year 1115, and caused an inquisition
to be made by the elders and wise men of Cumbria into the lands and
churches which formerly belonged to the see of Glasgow. In this
document, which has been preserved, and which may be placed in the year
1120 or 1121, its framers relate the foundation of the church of Glasgow
by St. Kentigern, and that he was succeeded by several bishops in the
see; but that the confusion and revolutions of the country at length
destroyed all traces of the church, and almost of Christianity, till the
restoration of the bishopric by Earl David, and the election and
consecration of John, who had been his tutor, and is commonly called the
first bishop of Glasgow. The bishopric, as reconstituted after the
information derived from this inquisition, extended from the Clyde on
the north to the Solway Firth and the march with England on the south,
and from the western boundary of Lothian on the east to the river Urr on
the west; and it included Teviotdale, which had remained a part of the
diocese of Durham while the Lothian churches north of the Tweed were
transferred to St. Andrews, and which was now reclaimed as properly
belonging to Glasgow. Here we find no traces of the _Keledei_, who had
formerly formed the chapter of Glasgow; but in the reign of Malcolm the
Fourth the pope confirmed a constitution of the dean and chapter, which
had been introduced after the model of Sarum by Herbert, elected bishop
in 1147.[712] Here, too, the foundation of the new bishopric of Glasgow
brought upon him the claims of the archbishop of York, which were
equally resisted, and the non-dependence of the diocese on any
metropolitan bishop established. The rights of York were, however,
recognised in the case of the bishopric of Candida Casa, likewise
restored some years later, when Gilda Aldan was appointed its first
bishop, as this see had been first established by the Anglic king of
Northumbria in the eighth century. Galloway, though civilly united to
Scotland, was considered ecclesiastically to belong to England, and its
bishop owed obedience as one of his suffragans to the archbishop of
York, by whom Gilda Aldan was consecrated soon after David’s accession
to the throne of Scotland.[713]
[Sidenote: Bishoprics and monasteries founded by King David.]
Ailred of Rivaux, who was King David’s contemporary, tells us of him
that ‘he seemed not undeservedly loved both by God and men. He was
plainly beloved by God, for at the very outset of his reign he
diligently practised the things which belong to God in erecting churches
and founding monasteries, which he endowed with possessions and covered
with honours. For whereas he had found in the whole kingdom of Scotland
three or four bishops only, the other churches, without a shepherd or
bishop, going to wrack and ruin in respect both of morals and substance;
what with ancient ones which he restored and new ones which he founded,
he left nine at his death. He left also monasteries of the Cluniac,
Cistercian, Tyronian orders (who were Benedictines), and the Arovensian,
Præmonstratensian, and Belvacensian (who were canons-regular from
Aroise, Prémontré, and Beauvais), not few in number or small in size,
but full of brethren.’[714] There is a catalogue of religious houses at
the end of Henry of Silgrave’s Chronicle, written about A.D. 1272, which
belongs however to an earlier period, and does not come down later than
the reign of William the Lion; and from it alone do we obtain any
information as to the _Keledean_ character of these foundations.[715]
The bishoprics which he found at his accession were those of St.
Andrews, Moray, and Dunkeld, to which Ailred, probably with some
hesitation, adds Glasgow. Galloway was not included, as it properly
belonged to England. We find no trace of _Keledei_ in either Glasgow or
Moray; and the catalogue mentions only secular canons, that is, the
chapters established after their restoration. The greater part of the
new bishoprics which he added were founded in the first few years of his
reign; and he appears to have commenced his proceedings by having
Robert, bishop-elect of St. Andrews, consecrated in 1128 by the
archbishop of York, in the same manner as Turgot had been consecrated,
that is, reserving the rights of both sees; and by completing the
division of Scotland north of the great range of the Mounth into
separate sees.
[Sidenote: Establishment of bishopric of Ross.]
The first of these appears to have been the diocese of Rosemarky, or
Ross. A charter granted by King David to the monks of Dunfermline,
between the years 1128 and 1130, is witnessed by Robert bishop of St.
Andrews, who had now been consecrated, John bishop of Glasgow, Cormac
bishop of Dunkeld, and Gregory bishop of Moray—these are the four
bishoprics alluded to by Ailred—and there now appears as a witness an
additional bishop—Makbeth, bishop of Rosmarkyn, or Rosemarky.[716] This
church, as appears by its dedication, was originally founded as a
Columban monastery by Lugadius, or Moluoc, abbot and bishop of Lismore,
whose death is recorded in 577; but, as we have seen, Bonifacius
refounded it in the eighth century, and dedicated the church to St.
Peter. Here he placed, according to Wyntoun, secular canons, and we now
find the canons designated as _Keledei_ in the catalogue of religious
houses. The chapter, however, was reconstituted early in the succeeding
century, when the term _Keledei_ disappears, and instead there is a
regular cathedral body of canons under a dean.[717]
[Sidenote: Establishment of bishopric of Aberdeen.]
The next bishopric established appears to have been that of Aberdeen,
embracing the extensive districts between the Dee and the Spey, and
including the earldom of Mar and Buchan. The memorandum of the charter
by the Mormaer, or Earl, of Buchan, refounding the church of Deer, which
has been already referred to, in which Cormac, bishop of Dunkeld, is
mentioned, is witnessed by Nectan, bishop of Aberdeen; and this is the
earliest notice of that see. According to Fordun, it succeeded an
earlier see founded at Mortlach, on the banks of the river Fiddich,
which falls into the Spey, and therefore not far from the western
boundary of the diocese. Fordun gives the following account of its
foundation. After narrating a victory by King Malcolm the Second over
the Norwegian army in the north, he proceeds:—‘In the seventh year of
his reign Malcolm, thinking over the manifold blessings continually
bestowed upon him by God, pondered anxiously in his mind what he should
give Him in return. At length, the grace of the Holy Ghost working
within him, he set his heart upon increasing the worship of God; so he
established a new episcopal see at Murthillach, not far from the spot
where he had overcome the Norwegians and gained the victory, and endowed
it with churches and the rents of many estates. He desired to extend the
territory of the diocese, so as to make it reach from the stream or
river called the Dee to the river Spey. To this see a holy man and one
worthy the office of bishop, named Beyn, was at the instance of the king
appointed, as first bishop, by our lord the Pope Benedict.’[718] The
church of Aberdeen appears, however, somewhat earlier to have had a
tradition that the see was originally founded at Mortlach, and was
transferred to Aberdeen by King David in the thirteenth year of his
reign; but the foundation of the church at Mortlach is ascribed to
Malcolm Canmore in the sixth year of his reign. This tradition is
contained in five charters, or memoranda of charters, prefixed to the
Chartulary of Aberdeen, and the interval between Beyn, the supposed
first bishop, and Nectan is filled up by Donercius, the second bishop,
and Cormauch, the third bishop.[719] That a bishopric was founded there
by Malcolm the Second is clearly at variance with the undoubted fact
that there was at that time but one bishop in Scotland, whose seat was
at St. Andrews, and who was termed the _Epscop Albain_, or Episcopus
Scottorum; and the five documents which contain the Aberdeen tradition
have been shown by the learned editor of the Chartulary to be
unquestionably spurious.[720] The first authentic writ in that
Chartulary is a bull by Pope Adrian IV. in 1157, confirming to Edward,
bishop of Aberdeen, the church of Aberdeen, the church of St. Machar,
with the town of Old Aberdeen and other lands, in which are included the
monastery of Cloveth and the town and monastery of Murthillach, with
five churches and the lands belonging to them.[721] There is here no
allusion to Murthillach having been an episcopal see, the seat of which
had been transferred to Aberdeen. The designation of monastery points
unequivocally to these churches having been old Columban monasteries;
and accordingly we find that Murthillach was dedicated to St. Moluoc,
the founder of the churches of Lismore and Rosemarky in the sixth
century. Of the three bishops who are said to have preceded Nectan, Beyn
probably belongs to the Columban period,[722] Donercius has all the
appearance of a fictitious name, and Cormauch is probably Cormac, bishop
of Dunkeld, who, as we have seen, appears in the charter in which Nectan
is first mentioned as having rights connected with the church of Deer,
and who may have possessed similar claims upon the monasteries of
Cloveth and Murthillach, as old Columban foundations, from which
probably any clerical element had by this time disappeared.
[Sidenote: Monasteries of Deer and Turiff.]
We fortunately now possess an invaluable record in the Book of Deer,
which throws some light upon two Columban foundations in the district of
Buchan, forming the north-eastern portion of the diocese of Aberdeen, as
well as upon the social organisation of the Celtic inhabitants of that
district. These are the monasteries of Deer and Turriff, the one founded
by St. Columba and placed under the care of his nephew St. Drostan, the
other founded by St. Comgan in the following century; and the notices in
the Book of Deer are peculiarly valuable, as it shows these monasteries
retaining their clerical element and Celtic character unimpaired down to
the reign of David I. It is here, if anywhere, that we should expect to
find, according to popular notions, these Columban clergy bearing the
name of Culdees; but the term _Cele De_ nowhere appears in this record
in connection with them. The peculiar value of this MS. consists in
memoranda of grants to the monastery of Deer, written in the Irish
character and language on blank pages or on the margins. These are in
two handwritings. The first contains notices of grants preceding the
time of Gartnait, Mormaer or Earl of Buchan, who lived in the earlier
years of King David’s reign. These are written on three blank pages at
the end of the MS. and on the margin of the first page. The second
begins with the grant by Gartnait refounding the church and dedicating
it to St. Peter, and is followed by a short notice of a grant, by the
same earl, which probably preceded it, as the grant is to Columcille and
Drostan alone, without mentioning St. Peter; and on the margin of the
second page, in the same handwriting, is a grant by Colban, the
son-in-law and successor of Gartnait. The scribe appears to have added
to two of the grants in the first handwriting the important statement
that they were made in freedom from Mormaer and Toisech to the day of
judgment, with ‘his blessing on every one who shall fulfil, and his
curse on every one who shall go against it.’ The second of the grants by
Earl Gartnait, which appears to have immediately preceded the
reconstitution of the church, is witnessed by ‘Gillecalline the
_sacart_, or priest, Feradach, son of Maelbhricin, and Maelgirc, son of
Tralin,’ in whom we have probably the small society to which the clerics
of Deer had by this time been reduced, and which rendered a refoundation
necessary. As the grant refounding the church is witnessed by the
_Ferleighinn_, or man of learning, of _Turbruad_, or Turriff, it is not
a very violent supposition that he may have been the scribe. The charter
granted by King David towards the end of his reign, declaring that the
clerics of Deer shall be free from all lay interference and exaction, as
written in their book, shows that they had become exposed to the
encroachments of the laity and required protection; and the foundation
by William, earl of Buchan, of the Cistercian abbey of Deer in the year
1219 seems to have brought to a close its history as a Celtic monastery.
The monastery of _Turbruad_, or Turriff, appears also to have existed as
a Celtic monastery at the same time, and we have some incidental notices
of it in the Book of Deer. Domingart, _Ferleighinn Turbruad_, or ‘lector
of Turriff,’ witnesses one of Earl Gartnait’s grants, and that by his
successor Colbain is witnessed by Cormac, _Abb. Turbruad_, or ‘abbot of
Turriff;’ but it probably passed into lay hands before the end of
David’s reign, as his charter of confirmation is witnessed by ‘Cormac de
Turbrud,’ or Cormac of Turriff, without any designation implying a
clerical character.[723] The charter by Cainnech, Mormaer or Earl of
Buchan, refounding the church of Deer, contains the last notice of
Cormac bishop of Dunkeld; and Gregorius, the bishop of Moray, appears to
have been translated to Dunkeld, as in a charter by David the First to
Dunfermline, granted before the death of his queen, Matilda, in 1130, we
find as witnesses Robert bishop of St. Andrews and Gregorius bishop of
Dunkeld; and along with them appears, for the first time, Andreas bishop
of Cataness, or Caithness.[724]
[Sidenote: Establishment of bishopric of Caithness.]
This great district, which comprised both the modern counties of
Caithness and Sutherland, and extended from the Dornoch to the Pentland
Firths, was at this time in the possession of the Norwegian earl of
Orkney; and, though he held the earldom of Caithness nominally under the
crown of Scotland, its connection with the Scottish kingdom was as yet
but a slight one. The erection of it into a diocese and the appointment
of a bishop by the king of Scotland could have had little reality in
them till they were accepted by the Norwegian earl; and David appears to
have provided his new bishop with the means of supporting his position
by conferring upon him the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunkeld, with
its possessions of Fordouin, Dunmernoch, Bendacthin, or Bendochy,
Cupermaccultin, Incheturfin and Chethec, or Keithock. Towards the end of
David’s reign Andrew probably obtained a footing in Caithness, as he
made over this church to the monks of Dunfermline;[725] and we find his
immediate successors, John and Adam, living in Caithness, and claiming
certain subsidies from the people. The principal church of the diocese
was that of Dornoch, situated in the district of Sutherland, on the
north side of the Dornoch Firth. This church was dedicated to St. Bar or
Finbar, and his festival was held on the 25th of September. This is the
day of St. Bar or Finbar, bishop of Cork in the Irish Calendar; but the
legend given in the Aberdeen Breviary obviously identifies him with St.
Finbar of Maghbile, the preceptor and friend of St. Columba, whose day
in the Irish Calendar is the 10th of September. There seems, therefore,
to be some confusion between the two, and it is more probable that it
was, like Rosemarky, a Columban foundation. The name of St. Duthac, to
whom the church of Tain on the opposite shore of the firth is dedicated,
is connected also with the church at Dornoch, where he is said to have
performed a miracle on St. Finbar’s day;[726] and in his time the
_Keledei_ may have been introduced here, where we find them in the
catalogue of religious houses. In the year 1196 that portion of the
earldom of Caithness which lay between the Ord of Caithness and the
Dornoch Firth appears to have been taken from the Norwegian earl and
bestowed upon Hugh of Moray, of the then rising family of De Moravia;
and the appointment of another member of the family, Gilbert de Moravia,
soon after to the bishopric of Moray led to the proper organisation of
Dornoch as a cathedral. But the Culdees had by this time disappeared,
and the clerical element reduced, as was usual, to a single priest; for
his deed establishing a cathedral chapter of ten canons, with the usual
functionaries of dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer and archdeacon,
proceeds on the narrative ‘that in the times of his predecessors there
was but a single priest ministering in the cathedral, both on account of
the poverty of the place and by reason of frequent hostilities; and that
he desired to extend the worship of God in that church, and resolved to
build a cathedral church at his own expense, to dedicate it to the
Virgin Mary, and, in proportion to his limited means, to make it
conventual.’[727]
[Sidenote: The communities of _Keledei_ superseded by regular canons.]
As far as we have gone, the Celtic Church appears mainly as dying out by
internal decay, and as being superseded by the bishoprics founded in the
earlier years of King David’s reign, and the establishment of the
ordinary cathedral staff of canons with their dean and other
functionaries. We have now arrived at that period of David’s reign when
an active war against the Culdee establishments commenced, and every
effort was made to suppress them entirely, and when the process of
internal decay was accompanied by a course of external aggression which
we must now follow as it rolled from St. Andrews, into whose hands their
fate was committed, westward, till it finally reached the far shores of
the island of Iona.
[Sidenote: Suppression of _Keledei_ of St. Andrews.]
In the year 1144, Robert, bishop of St. Andrews, who had been prior of
the monastery of regular canons of St. Augustine at Scone, founded a
priory for the same canons at St. Andrews, and, besides various lands,
granted to them two of the seven portions of the altarage of St.
Andrews, which then belonged to lay persons, and likewise the hospital
of St. Andrews, with the portion which belonged to it; and this grant
was confirmed in the same year by the pope Lucius II. The object of this
foundation evidently was that it should in time supersede the Culdees.
Accordingly, in the same year King David grants a charter to the prior
and canons of St. Andrews, in which he provides that they shall receive
the _Keledei_ of Kilrimont into the canonry, with all their possessions
and revenues, if they are willing to become canons-regular; but, if they
refuse, those who are now alive are to retain them during their lives,
and, after their death, as many canons-regular are to be instituted in
the church of St. Andrews as there are now _Keledei_, and all their
possessions are to be appropriated to the use of the canons. Three years
later Pope Eugenius III., by a bull directed to the prior of St.
Andrews, deprived the _Keledei_ of their right to elect the bishop, and
conferred it upon the prior and canons of St. Andrews, and at the same
time decreed that, as the _Keledei_ died out, their places were to be
filled up by canons-regular. The _Keledei_ appear to have resisted these
changes, and to have continued to assert their right to participate in
the election of the bishop, as the decree depriving them of it was
renewed from time to time by subsequent popes down to the year 1248.
About the year 1156, Robert, bishop of St. Andrews, granted to the prior
and brethren of St. Andrews the whole of the portions of the altarage,
with the exception of the seventh, which belongs to the bishop, thus
adding three more later to the three portions they already possessed;
and six years later Bishop Arnald gave the whole of the altarage, which
was divided into seven portions, and had been held by seven persons not
living a conventual life, to the canons professing a regular life and
living in community.[728] Of the two bodies into which the community of
St. Andrews had been divided, that one which had passed, with the
exception of the bishop’s share, into the hands of secular persons, thus
came to be represented by the priory of regular canons. In 1220 we find
a bull by Pope Honorius III. requiring the legate of the apostolic see
to inquire into a dispute between the Prior and convent of St. Andrews
on the one hand, and the Bishop and those clerics of St. Andrews who are
commonly called _Keledei_ on the other, in regard to their respective
possessions. The Keledean community at St. Andrews now appears under the
name of the Provost and _Keledei_ of the Church of St. Mary; and they
are so designated in a document connected with the controversy between
the prior and convent of St. Andrews and the provost of the church of
St. Mary of St. Andrews and the Keledei living there as canons and their
vicars;[729] and in the same year there is a bull by Pope Innocent the
Fourth to the prior and canons, who are now termed the Chapter of St.
Andrews in Scotland of the order of St. Augustine, which narrates that
it had been ordained by his predecessors that, on the decease of the
_Keledei_, their place should be filled up by canons-regular, and their
prebends and possessions made over for their use; but that, the prebend
of Gilbert the _Keledeus_ having become vacant, the _Keledei_ refused to
give it up or to allow a regular canon to be introduced in his place,
contrary to these statutes; and it directed the _Keledei_ to be
excommunicated if they did not obey them. Master Richard Vermont,
_Keledeus_, appears on behalf of the _Keledei_, and resigns the prebend,
which is made over to the canons. Three years later we find in another
bull ‘the provost and chapter of the _Caledei_ of the church of St. Mary
in the city of St. Andrews’ still claiming to participate in the
election of the bishop, and supported by the archdeacon. In a subsequent
bull, two years after, addressed to the prior and chapter of the
cathedral church of St. Andrews of the order of St. Augustine, on the
narrative that ‘two of the _Keledei_ of the church of Saint Mary of
Kilrimont, who term themselves canons,’ had been allowed to take part in
the election of a previous bishop, it is decreed, with consent of the
_Keledei_, that this shall not operate to their prejudice.[730] In the
year 1258 they are finally deprived of their parochial status as vicars
of the parish church of the Holy Trinity of St. Andrews.[731] It is
evident from these deeds that the _Keledei_ asserted their claim to be
considered as canons, and did not submit without a struggle to be
deprived of the right of participating in the election of bishop, from
which they are finally excluded in the year 1273. We again find them in
a document in 1309, and the position which they had now come to occupy
is clearly defined. It is a decision given by Sir Thomas Randulph, the
guardian of Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in a controversy
between the _Keledei_ and the bishop regarding territorial jurisdiction,
in which he finds that ‘within the bounds of the district termed the
Boar’s Chase there are only three baronies, viz., the barony of the
bishop of St. Andrews, the barony of the prior of St. Andrews, and the
barony of the _Keledei_, and that these baronies with their inhabitants
are under the immediate jurisdiction of the bishop of St. Andrews and of
the church, and of no one else.’[732] While, therefore, the priory of
the canons-regular of St. Andrews ‘soon took its place as first in rank
and wealth of the religious houses of Scotland, and the prior, with the
ring and mitre and symbols of episcopacy, had rank and place in
Parliament above abbots and all other prelates of the regular
clergy,’[733] the name of _Keledei_ gradually disappears, being
mentioned for the last time in the year 1332, when the usual formula of
their exclusion in the election of a bishop is repeated; and instead of
them we hear only of the provostry of ‘the church of Saint Mary of the
city of St. Andrews,’ of ‘the church of the blessed Mary of the Rock,’
and of the ‘provostry of Kirkheugh,’ the society consisting of a provost
and ten prebendaries.[734]
[Sidenote: Suppression of _Keledei_ of Lochleven.]
The _Keledei_ of Lochleven fared no better than those of St. Andrews,
and were extinguished in much the same manner by being converted into
canons-regular, though the process was a shorter one. They were a small
community, and preserved, even as late as the reign of Malcolm Canmore,
their original character of an eremetical society. They were the oldest
_Keledean_ establishment in Scotland, and thus exhibited its earliest
form. By an arrangement between them and the bishop of St. Andrews,
their establishment had been made over to him prior to the year 961; and
this enabled Bishop Robert, when he established the priory of regular
canons in St. Andrews, to convey to the prior ‘the abbacy of the island
of Lochleven, with all its pertinents, in order that he might establish
in it a body of canons-regular. He conveys to him all the lands which
had from time to time been granted to the _Keledei_ of Lochleven, with
all their revenues, and likewise the ecclesiastical vestments which
belonged to the _Chelede_, as well as the books which constituted their
library.’[735] This was followed by a charter by King David, in which he
declared ‘that he had given and granted to the canons of St. Andrews the
island of Lochleven, that they might establish canonical order there;
and the _Keledei_ who shall be found there, if they consent to live as
regulars, shall be permitted to remain in society with and subject to
the others; but, should any of them be disposed to offer resistance, his
will and pleasure was that such should be expelled from the
island.’[736] A century later we find that the conversion of the
community of _Keledei_ into a priory of canons-regular had been fully
accomplished, as in the year 1248 the prior and convent of
canons-regular of St. Andrews, on the narrative that ‘Kings David and
William of Scotland and Bishops Robert and Richard of St. Andrews had
given and confirmed to them the abbacy of _Keledei_ in Lochleven, and
that it was desirable to improve the position of their priory of
Lochleven and of their brethren the canons-regular of the order of St.
Augustine instituted and dwelling there, make over to the church of St.
Servanus of Lochleven the property of the island of St. Servanus
situated on that lake;’[737] and we hear no more of the _Keledei_ of
Lochleven.
[Sidenote: Suppression of _Keledei_ of Monimusk.]
Another community of _Keledei_ connected with the church of St. Andrews
was treated much in the same manner. Among the possessions of that
church beyond the great chain of the Mounth was Monimusk, situated in
the vale of the river Don. The popular tradition of its foundation is
that Malcolm Canmore, when proceeding on a military expedition against
the people of Moray, came to Monimusk, and, finding that the barony of
Monimusk belonged to the crown, he vowed it to St. Andrew in order to
procure him victory. This tradition is so stated by Hector Boece, and if
it rested upon no better authority it could hardly be received as
historical; but it is certain that Malcolm Canmore did make an
expedition against the race of Moray in 1078, from which he returned
victorious;[738] and in a bounding charter said to have been transcribed
from the Register of St. Andrews, between the lands of Keig and
Monimusk, there is added that ‘these are the marches which King Malcolm
gave to God and the church of Saint Mary of Monimusk on account of the
victory granted to him.’[739] So far we may infer that it was not an
ancient Columban foundation; and it is certain that the bishop of St.
Andrews was termed the founder of the house, and that it, like the
church of _Keledei_ at St. Andrews, was dedicated to St. Mary, and
contained a community of _Keledei_ which probably emanated from that
church. Their possessions, too, included those northern churches which
were connected with the legend of St. Andrew, or were dedicated to him,
as Kindrochet in Mar, Alford and Eglismenythok in Angus. The notices of
these _Keledei_ are all to be found in the Register of the Priory of St.
Andrews, which contains various grants made to them. They first appear
in the year 1170 simply as the ‘_Keledei_ of Munimusc,’ when they
receive a grant from Roger, earl of Buchan; but their principal
benefactor was Gilchrist, earl of Mar, who flourished between the years
1199 and 1207. He appears to have built them a convent, and enforced the
canonical rule upon the _Keledei_, who now call themselves canons; for
we find him granting the church of Loychel to God and St. Marie of
Munimusc and the _Keledei_ serving there, and the bishop of Aberdeen
confirms this grant to the church of the blessed Mary of Munimusc and
the canons, who are called _Keledei_, serving God there; and again the
bishop confirms the grant which Gilchrist, earl of Mar, had made to this
monastery which he had founded at Munimusc in the church of St. Mary in
which the _Keledei_ previously were. In another confirmation by the same
bishop, as well as in one by the bishop of St. Andrews, they are termed
simply the canons of Munimusc.[740] So far then the _Keledei_ seem to
have been recognised and favoured, but the storm soon after broke upon
them. In 1211 a complaint was laid before the pope by William, bishop of
St. Andrews, that ‘certain _Keledei_ who professed to be canons, and
certain others of the diocese of Aberdeen in the town of Munimusc, which
pertained to him, were endeavouring to establish a regular canonry,
contrary to justice, to the prejudice of his church;’ whereupon a
commission was issued to the abbots of Melrose and Dryburgh and the
archdeacon of Glasgow to inquire into the matter, which resulted in a
convention between the bishop of St. Andrews and the _Keledei_ of
Munimusc to the following effect:—‘That the _Keledei_ in future should
have one refectory and one dormitory in common, and one oratory without
a cemetery; and that the bodies of the _Keledei_ and of clerks or laymen
who might die when with them should receive the rights of sepulture at
the parish church of Munimusc; further, there were there twelve
_Keledei_ and a thirteenth, Bricius, whom the _Keledei_ were to present
to the bishop of St. Andrews for confirmation, in order that he should
be their master, or prior; that on his retirement or death the _Keledei_
were to choose three of their society, from among whom the bishop was to
select the one he considered best suited to become their prior, or
master, and who was to do fealty to him as the founder of the house of
the _Keledei_;’ that the election of the prior, or master, of the
_Keledei_ should be so conducted in future, with this addition, that it
should not be lawful for them at any future time to profess the life or
order of monks or canons-regular without the bishop’s consent, or to
exceed the number; that, when a _Keledeus_ died or withdrew, those who
remained were at liberty to fill up the vacant place; but that such
_Keledeus_ was, upon his admission, to swear before the bishop or his
deputy that he would observe the terms of this composition. The
_Keledei_ were to retain the lands called Eglismenythok, which they had
received from Robert, bishop of St. Andrews, and other dues commonly
belonging to _Keledei_. They promised to do nothing to the prejudice of
the church of St. Andrews or the parish church of Munimusc; and when the
bishop of St. Andrews came to Munimusc, the _Keledei_ were to receive
him with a solemn procession.[741] They were thus brought under the more
direct control of the bishop of St. Andrews, who is there called the
founder of their house, and assimilated to the state into which the
_Keledei_ of St. Andrews had been brought. Like them, they consisted of
a prior, or head, with twelve members. Like them, they were excluded
from all parochial functions. As their position gave them no claim to be
considered as a capitular body, it was unnecessary to exclude them from
participation in the election of a bishop; and the same provision seems
to have been made, though in a more correct manner, for gradually
superseding them by regular canons and inhibiting them as each
_Keledeus_ died. In a charter granted a few years after by Duncan, earl
of Mar, of the church of Loychel and other possessions, they are termed
_Keledei_ or canons; but in the confirmation by Alexander the Second the
former term is dropped, and they are called simply canons; and in 1245
the _Keledei_ of Munimusk have entirely disappeared, and instead we
have, in a confirmation by Pope Innocent IV., ‘the prior and convent of
Munimusc, of the order of Saint Augustine.’[742]
[Sidenote: Monastic orders of Church of Rome introduced.]
Another feature of the policy by which the kings of this race
endeavoured to assimilate the native church to that of Rome, was that of
introducing the monastic orders of that church, and establishing
monasteries which should form centres of influence for the spread of the
new system. Upon these monasteries the remains of the old Columban
foundations were to a large extent conferred, and in this policy the
monarchs were very generally seconded by the great earls and barons of
Scotland. King David, soon after his accession, remodelled the church at
Dunfermline which had been founded by Queen Margaret, and placed in it
Benedictine monks, consisting of an abbot and twelve brethren, brought
from Canterbury;[743] and he introduced the same monks into the district
of Moray, by founding at Urquhart, not far from its eastern boundary, a
priory of Benedictines which became a cell of Dunfermline.[744] Towards
the end of his reign, and after the great district of Moray had been
brought under subjection to the Crown, he founded at Kinloss, somewhat
farther west, and not far from the mouth of the Findhorn, a monastery,
in which he placed Cistertians brought from Melrose.[745] In the
following reign another colony of the same monks was brought from
Melrose by Malcolm IV., and placed at Cupar-Angus, in the diocese of St.
Andrews, where he founded a monastery in the year 1164.[746] In the
reign of his successor another order of Benedictines—those of Tyron—who
had been established by King David at Kelso, was introduced into the
diocese of St. Andrews. Their principal house was that of Aberbrothock,
or Arbroath, founded by King William the Lion in 1173, and dedicated to
St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr. The same year his brother David,
earl of Huntingdon, founded a monastery at Lindores in Fife, for the
same order, and in the following year the earl of Buchan, founded at
Fyvie, in the diocese of Aberdeen, a priory which was affiliated to
Arbroath, and belonged to the same order.[747]
[Sidenote: Columban abbacies, or _Abthens_, in possession of lay
abbots.]
During the reign of King William the possessions of their principal
monastery at Arbroath increased with great rapidity, and estates in
land, churches and tithes were heaped upon the new foundation by the
earls and barons of Angus and the north. These included many of the old
Columban foundations; and, if the Book of Deer throws much light upon
the state of Buchan, both as regards the position of its Columban
monasteries and the social organisation of its old Celtic population,
the Chartulary of Arbroath is in this respect the most important record
we have, and we derive from it much insight into the state and
characteristics of the old territorial system south of the great range
of the Mounth. Among the churches granted by King William, we find in
Angus the church of St. Mary of Old Munros, with its land, called ‘in
the Scottish speech _Abthen_,’ or, as it is afterwards termed, ‘the land
of the abbacy of Munros,’ with other churches there; in Mar, the
churches of Banchory St. Ternan and Coul; in Buchan, Fyvie, Tarves and
Gameryn; and in Banff, the churches of St. Marnan of Abirchirdir,
Inverbondin, or Boindie, dedicated to St. Brandan, and Banff; and the
king likewise grants to them the lands of Forglen, the church of which
was dedicated to St. Adamnan, with the custody of the Brecbennach, or
banner of St. Columba. Margery, countess of Buchan, grants to them the
church of _Turfred_, or Turriff, dedicated to St. Comgan, which, as we
have seen, had preserved its Celtic character as late as the reign of
David I. The grants by the earls of Angus give us, however, the most
interesting information; and in one of these we come upon an incidental
mention of the Culdees. Gilchrist, earl of Angus, grants to the monks of
Arbroath ‘the church of Monifod, with its chapels, lands, tithes and
oblations, and with the common pasturage and other privileges belonging
to it,’ which grant is confirmed by King William.[748] Malcolm, earl of
Angus, grants about the year 1220 the land of the _Abthein_ of Munifeth
to Nicholas son of Bricius, priest of Kerimure; and this grant is
confirmed by his daughter, Countess Matilda, whose charter is witnessed
by William, vicar of Monifeit. Another charter by the same countess is
witnessed by William vicar of Monifodh, and Nicholas abbot of Monifodh.
Countess Matilda then grants to the monks of Arbroath ‘the land on the
south side of the church of Monifodh, which the _Keledei_ held in the
life of her father, with a croft at the east end of the church;’ and
finally Michael, lord of the _Abbathania_ of Monifoth, holds this croft
in feu-farm from the monks of Arbroath.[749] Here we see an old
_Abthen_, or abbacy, granted to the son of a priest, who then calls
himself abbot, while the church is served by a vicar; and a late
descendant appears, as in other cases, with the simple designation of
‘de Monifoth,’ and calls himself lord of the _Abbathania_, or territory
of the abbacy. The ancient monastery had therefore now passed into the
hands of a hereditary lay abbot, but we also find part of the land held
by a body of _Keledei_, who are only once mentioned, and then pass away
for ever. The dedications throw some light on this. The church of
Monifieth, situated on the north shore of the Firth of Tay, was
dedicated to St. Regulus, or St. Rule; but within the parish was the
chapel of Eglismonichty, dedicated to St. Andrew. The dedications,
therefore, reflect the two legends of the foundation of St. Andrews—the
older Columban foundation under St. Regulus, and the later Pictish one,
when the relics of St. Andrew were really introduced. The lay abbacy
represents the former. The _Keledean_ establishment belongs to the later
foundation. We find, too, John Abbe, son of Malise, granting to the
monks the privilege of taking charcoal in the wood of Edale, which is
confirmed by Morgund, son of John Abbe. The church of Edale, now Edzell,
was dedicated to St. Drostan, the founder of the church of Deer; and
here, too, we find one of the old Columban foundations in the possession
of a lay family, who seem even to have adopted Abbe as a surname.
[Sidenote: Establishment of bishoprics of Dunblane and Brechin.]
Among other churches granted to the monks of Arbroath by King William
was ‘the church of Abyrnythy, with its chapels, lands, tithes and
oblations, its common pasturage, and all other privileges belonging to
it;’[750] but this church belonged to the diocese of Dunblane, one of
the latest bishoprics founded by King David I. Towards the end of his
reign he appears to have added two bishoprics to those already founded
by him. These were the bishoprics of Dunblane and Brechin. They are
mentioned as already existing, in a bull by Pope Adrian addressed to the
bishops of Glasgow, Whithern, St. Andrews, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Brechin,
Aberdeen, Moray, Ross and Caithness, ten in number, in the second year
after King David’s death, in which he directs them to submit to the
archbishop of York,[751] a command which was not obeyed except by the
bishop of Candida Casa, or Whithern. The struggle for the independence
of the Scottish Church was, however, terminated in the year 1188, when
the pope, Clement III., in a bull addressed to King William the Lion in
that year, recognised the independence of the Scottish Church, and
declared ‘the Church of Scotland to be the daughter of Rome by special
grace, and immediately subject to her.’[752] In this bull the church is
said to contain the following episcopal sees—viz., St. Andrews, Glasgow,
Dunkeld, Dunblane, Brechin, Aberdeen, Moray, Ross and Caithness, that
is, nine of the bishoprics mentioned in the previous bull—that of
Candida Casa, or Whithern, remaining subject to the archbishop of York;
and these nine bishoprics are obviously the episcopal sees referred to
by Ailred of Rivaux, when he states that King David found at his
accession only three or four bishops, and founded or restored so many as
to leave nine at his death. We find accordingly Samson, bishop of
Brechin, witnessing the charter granted by King David to the Church of
Deer in the last year of his reign; and again, along with Laurence,
bishop of Dunblane, a charter granted by Malcolm IV. to the monks of
Dunfermline between 1160 and 1162;[753] but, although Laurence is first
mentioned in the bull of Pope Adrian in 1155, his bishopric is included
in the nine left by King David at his death, and must have been founded
shortly before and probably at the same time as that of Brechin. The
reorganisation of the church under a diocesan episcopacy was thus
completed during the lifetime of King David; and during the subsequent
reigns we find the occasional appearance of a representative body of
seven bishops, in obvious connection with that other body termed the
seven earls of Scotland.[754] The seven bishops of Scotland appear to
have consisted of the bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, and the five
bishops added by King David himself during his reign, omitting the
bishops of Dunkeld and Moray, whose bishoprics had been restored in the
previous reign of Alexander the First.
[Sidenote: Bishoprics of Brechin and Dunblane formed from old see of
Abernethy.]
The two bishoprics of Brechin and Dunblane thus founded towards the end
of King David’s reign were probably formed from the remains of the old
Pictish bishopric of Abernethy, in so far as the churches which had been
subject to it had not been absorbed by the growing bishopric of St.
Andrews which immediately succeeded it. We may infer this from the facts
that, though Abernethy was within the limits of the diocese of St.
Andrews and surrounded on all sides by her churches, it belonged
ecclesiastically to the diocese of Dunblane; that Abernethy was
dedicated to St. Bridget, and that we find a Panbride in the diocese of
Brechin and a Kilbride in that of Dunblane, indicating that the
veneration of the patroness of Abernethy had extended to other churches
included in these dioceses. Abernethy, too, was the last of the
bishoprics which existed while the kingdom ruled over by the Scottish
dynasty was still called the Kingdom of the Picts, while that of St.
Andrews was more peculiarly associated with the Scots; and it was in
Stratherne and in the northern part of Angus and in the Mearns that the
Pictish population lingered longest distinct from that of the Scots,
while the latter had their main seat in the central region consisting of
the rest of Angus, Gowrey, Fife and Fothrif. The two bishoprics of
Dunblane and Brechin on the one hand, and that of St. Andrews on the
other, to some extent represented what had at one time been the main
territory occupied by the two populations. Abernethy has, by popular
tradition, always been peculiarly associated with the Pictish
population, and its history, so far as it can be ascertained, shows its
connection with the church among the southern Picts from the very
earliest period. The legend of its first foundation connects it with the
church of St. Ninian, when a church is said to have been established
there by King Nectan, who had, while in exile, visited Kildare in the
fifth century, and who dedicated his church to St. Brigid, or St. Bride.
When the Columban church entered the province of the southern Picts in
the end of the sixth century, it was refounded by King Garnard for
Columban monks, while the dedication to St. Bride was preserved; but,
like Kildare itself, it now contained an establishment of monks. What
its fate was during the interval between the expulsion of the Columban
monks in the beginning of the eighth century and their reintroduction
under Kenneth mac Alpin—whether the monks of Abernethy were expelled and
secular clergy introduced, or whether they conformed to the decree of
the Pictish king and were allowed to remain—we do not know; but during
the reign of the first king of the Scottish dynasty, when the abbot of
Dunkeld became the first bishop of his kingdom, Abernethy appears to
have been visited and reorganised by the abbot of the mother church of
Kildare, and to this period the erection of its round tower can be most
probably assigned. On the death of the bishop-abbot of Dunkeld, it
became the seat of the bishop of the kingdom, and three elections of
these bishops had taken place there when it was in its turn superseded
by St. Andrews.
[Sidenote: Suppression of _Keledei_ of Abernethy.]
In the reign of Edgar the _Keledei_ of Abernethy first appear on record,
but whether they were introduced, as at Lochleven in the eighth century,
or, as at St. Andrews, in the tenth, we have no means of ascertaining;
but we are told by Bower that this community of _Keledei_, whom he terms
the prior and canons, possessed the lands and tithes which formerly
belonged to St. Bridget and her times, and that, as usual with the
_Keledei_, their church had become dedicated to St. Mary.[755] By King
William the church of Abernethy was granted to Arbroath; and we now find
the one half of the church and its dependencies in the possession of a
hereditary lay abbot, while the other half belonged to the _Keledei_,
for in that reign—some time between 1189 and 1198—Laurence, son of Orm
de Abernethy, conveys to the church and monks of Arbroath his whole
right ‘in the advowson of the church of Abernethy, with its pertinents,
that is, the chapel of Dron, the chapel of Dunbulcc, with the chapel of
Erolyn and the lands of Belache and Petenlouer, and with the half of all
the tithes which belonged to him and his heirs, the other half belonging
to the _Keledei_, and with all the tithes of the territory of Abernethy
and its proper rights, with the exception of those tithes which are
appropriated to the churches of Flisk and Cultram and the tithes from
his lordship of Abernythy, which the _Keledei_ of Abernethy have and
which properly belong to him, viz., those of Mukedrum and Kerpul and
Balehyrewelle and Ballecolly and Invernythy on the east side of the
river,’ that is, the land extending along the south shore of the Firth
of Tay from the river Nethy to the east boundary by Mugdrum. This very
instructive grant thus presents to us a picture of Abernethy in which
the ancient abbacy is now represented by a family of lay abbots, while
the possessions of the old nunnery are held by _Keledei_, and the lay
lord of the territory conveys his abbatial rights to Arbroath, retaining
the land, and becomes to all intents and purposes a secular baron of
Abernethy, from whom sprang the baronial house of Abernethy. In the
succeeding century we find a dispute between the abbot and monks of
Arbroath and the prior and _Keledei_ of Abernethy regarding the tithes
of certain lands which the abbot declared belonged to their parish
church of Abernethy; but it was decided by the bishop of Dunblane
against the _Keledei_.[756] These _Keledei_ were eventually disposed of
in the same manner as the others had been, and were in 1272 converted
into a community of canons-regular of St. Augustine. We have no record
of the process; but there is no reason to doubt the fact as stated by
Bower,[757] and the name of _Keledei_ no longer occurs in connection
with Abernethy.
[Sidenote: Failure of the Celtic Church of Brechin.]
The church of Brechin, which became the seat of the bishopric founded by
King David, has no claim to represent an old Columban monastery; for its
origin as a church is clearly recorded in the Pictish Chronicle, which
tells us that King Kenneth, son of Malcolm, who reigned from 971 to 995,
immolated the great town of Brechin to the Lord; and its dedication
likewise indicates a later foundation, for it was dedicated to the Holy
Trinity. Like the other churches which belong to the period after the
establishment of a Scottish dynasty on the throne in the person of
Kenneth mac Alpin, it emanated from the Irish Church, and was
assimilated in its character to the Irish monasteries; and to this we
may, no doubt, attribute the well-known round tower at Brechin. We hear
nothing more of this church till the reign of David the First; but one
of the witnesses to the charter granted by him, in the eighth year of
his reign, to the church at Deer, is ‘Leot, abbot of Brechin.’ The later
charter granted by the same king to the church of Deer is, as we have
seen, witnessed by Samson, bishop of Brechin; and that, in this case as
well as that of Dunkeld, the abbot had become the bishop is probable,
for a charter granted by his successor Turpin, bishop of Brechin, is
witnessed by ‘Dovenaldus, abbot of Brechin;’ and the same Dovenaldus,
abbot of Brechin, grants a charter to the monastery of Arbroath, of the
lands of Ballegillegrand for the health of the souls, among others, of
his ‘father Samson,’ thus showing that though Samson had become bishop,
the abbacy passed to his son. The charter of Bishop Turpin, which is
witnessed by this Dovenaldus, contains among the witnesses ‘Bricius,
prior of the _Keledei_ of Brechin,’ who ranks immediately after the
bishop of St. Andrews; and it is apparent that the abbacy had now become
secularised, for Dovenaldus does not appear among the clerical
witnesses, but follows Gilbride, earl of Angus. Brechin thus presents at
this time the same features as Abernethy, and shows us the abbacy in the
possession of a lay abbot and a community of _Keledei_ under a prior.
That the abbacy now passed into the possession of a family of hereditary
lay abbots, who, as in other cases, bore the name of Abbe, appears from
the chartulary of Arbroath, where we find a grant to the monastery by
‘Johannes Abbe, son of Malisius,’ which is witnessed by Morgund and
John, his sons, and Malcolm his brother. He himself too witnesses a
charter as ‘Johannes, abbot of Brechin,’ and this grant is confirmed by
‘Morgundus, son of Johannes Abbe.’ The community of _Keledei_ with their
prior appear as in other cases to have formed the chapter of the
diocese, till they were gradually superseded by a regular cathedral
chapter. In the charter by Abbot Dovenaldus we find the prior, who in
the earlier charters ranked after the bishop, giving place to the
archdeacon of Brechin, while the appearance of ‘Andreas, parson of
Brechin,’ indicates that they had now lost their parochial functions.
They then appear conjoined with other clergy in forming the chapter in a
charter granted by the prior and _Keledei_ and the other clerics of the
chapter of the church of Brechin to the monks of Arbroath, and a dean
appears among the witnesses. In a charter granted by the bishop of
Brechin, the archdeacon, the chaplain of Brechin, and two other
chaplains and the dean take precedence of the prior of the _Keledei_.
After the year 1218 we find the _Keledei_ distinguished from the
chapter; and in 1248 they have entirely disappeared, and we hear only of
the dean and chapter of Brechin.[758]
[Sidenote: Failure of the Celtic Church in the bishopric of Dunblane.]
The other bishopric, however, which had been formed by King David from
the old Pictish bishopric of Abernethy, and to which that church was
more immediately attached—the bishopric of Dunblane—was undoubtedly
connected with an old Columban foundation. The church of Dunblane dates
back to the seventh century, and seems to have been an offshoot of the
church of Kingarth in Bute, for its founder was St. Blane. He was of the
race of the Irish Picts, and nephew of that Bishop Cathan who founded
Kingarth; and was himself bishop of that church, and his mother was a
daughter of King Aidan of Dalriada.[759] The church of Dunblane was
situated in the vale of the river Allan, not far from its junction with
the Forth, and is mentioned in the Pictish Chronicle under the reign of
Kenneth mac Alpin, when it was burnt by the neighbouring Britons of
Strathclyde. We hear no more of this church till the foundation of the
bishopric by King David. The catalogue of religious houses places
_Keledei_ as the religious community of the church, but the only
_Keledei_ we have any record of appear as located at Muthill, situated
farther north, and not far from the river Earn; while a later record
shows us that the Columban monastery, like many others, had fallen into
lay hands, and the clerical element then was limited to a single cleric,
who performed the service. In a document containing the judgment of the
pope’s delegates in a question between the bishop of Dunblane and the
earl of Menteith, in the year 1238, we read that the bishop had gone in
person to Rome and represented to the pope ‘that the church of Dunblane
had formerly been vacant for a hundred years and more, and almost all
its possessions had been seized by secular persons; and, although in
process of time several bishops had been appointed to her, yet by their
weakness and indifference the possessions thus appropriated had not only
not been recovered, but even what remained to them had been almost
entirely alienated; in consequence of which no one could be induced to
take upon himself the burden of the episcopate, and the church had thus
remained without a chief pastor for nearly ten years; that the present
bishop, when appointed, had found the church so desolate that he had not
a cathedral church wherein to place his head; that there was no
collegiate establishment; and that in this unroofed church the divine
offices were celebrated by a certain rural chaplain, while the bishop’s
revenues were so slender that they scarce afforded fitting maintenance
for half the year.’[760] This picture of clerical desolation does not
differ from what we have found in other churches the possessions of
which had fallen into the hands of lay families, and it is quite
inconsistent with the statement that there was a body of _Keledei_ in
the church of Dunblane. The _Keledei_ referred to must have been those
at Muthill, which at this time was one of the principal seats of the
earls of Stratherne. We unfortunately know little of the early history
of this church. It adjoins the old parish of Strageath, which has been
united to it from beyond the memory of man; and, as we have seen, after
the expulsion of the Columban monks in the beginning of the eighth
century, St. Fergus or Fergusanius, a bishop of the Roman party who came
from Ireland, is said to have founded three churches in the confines of
Strageath. The church of Strageath was dedicated to St. Patrick, and the
other two churches were probably those of Blackford, also dedicated to
St. Patrick, and of Muthill, within the bounds of which parish were St.
Patrick’s well and a chapel dedicated to him; but whether we are to
place the introduction of the _Keledei_ at this period or in the reign
of Constantine, the son of Kenneth mac Alpin, when the _Keledei_ were
re-established under the canonical rule in Scotland, and when St. Cadroë
was reviving religion in Stratherne under the auspices of his uncle St.
Bean of Foulis and Kinkell, neighbouring parishes, there is nothing now
to show. We find the _Keledei_ with their prior at Muthill from 1178 to
1214,[761] when they disappear from the records, and Muthill becomes the
seat of the dean of Dunblane, who had already taken precedence of the
prior of the _Keledei_. It is probable that under the growing importance
of Dunblane as a cathedral establishment, the possessions of the
_Keledei_ had fallen into secular hands. In the meantime the earls of
Stratherne had introduced the canons-regular from Scone into the diocese
by the foundation of the priory of Inchaffray, separated from the
parishes of Muthill and Strageath only by the river Earn. This took
place some time before the year 1198. The founders were Earl Gilbert and
his countess, and it was dedicated to St. Mary and St. John the apostle,
to whom they give ‘Incheaffren, which is called in Latin Insula
Missarum,’ placing it under the care of Malise, the parson and hermit,
for canons under the rule of St. Augustine, and bestowing upon it the
ancient Columban foundations of St. Cattan of Aberruthven and St.
Ethernan of Madderdy, and the more modern churches of St. Patrick of
Strageath, St. Makessog of Auchterarder and St. Bean of Kinkell.[762]
Bower, whose authority in matters of church history at this period must
not be underrated, tells us that, when Earl Gilbert founded this
monastery, he divided his earldom into three equal portions, one of
which he gave to the church and bishop of Dunblane, another to the
canons of Inchaffray, and the third he reserved for himself and his
heirs;[763] but this is inconsistent with the account which the bishop
of Dunblane gives of the state of the church five years after the death
of that earl, and probably its only foundation was the arrangement
proposed by the adjudicators, by which a fourth of the tithes of all the
parish churches in the diocese was to be assigned to the bishop, in
order that he might, after receiving a sufficient part for his own
maintenance, appropriate the rest to the establishment of a dean and
chapter; otherwise the episcopal see was to be transferred to the
monastery of Inchaffray, whose canons were to form the chapter, and the
bishop was to receive the fourth part of the tithes of those churches
which had been appropriated by secular persons. This alternative plan
did not take effect; and what Bower reports of the lands of the earldom
may have been true in so far as regards the tithes of the secularised
churches.
[Sidenote: Failure of the Celtic Church in the bishopric of Dunkeld.]
The bishopric of Dunkeld prior to the thirteenth century was not
confined to the district of Atholl alone, with the isolated churches
which belonged to it within the limits of other dioceses, but extended
as far as the Western Sea, and included the districts stretching along
its shores, from the Firth of Clyde to Lochbroom, and forming the great
province of _Arregaidhel_, or Argyll. It possessed this extensive
jurisdiction as representing the primatial supremacy of Iona over the
Columban churches, though the monastery of Iona itself, being within the
bounds of the Norwegian kingdom of the Isles, came to belong to the
metropolitan diocese of Trontheim. It is within the bounds of this
diocese that, if popular notions regarding the Culdees are correct, we
ought to find the most abundant traces of them; but, except in the
church of Iona itself, they have left no record of their presence, and
we do not find their name connected with any of the old Columban
foundations. The great abbacy of Dull, founded in the seventh century by
St. Adamnan, had, with its extensive territory, long been in lay hands.
The church of Dull had been granted to the priory of St. Andrews by
Malcolm, earl of Atholl, in the reign of King William the Lion, ‘after
the decease of his own cleric,’ and the grant was confirmed by his son
Henry and by the bishop and chapter of Dunkeld; and, in a memorandum of
the proceedings of a court held at Dull by the prior in 1264, we find
mention of a vicar of Dull and of a cleric of Dull. The names of William
of Chester and John of Carham, canons, indicate a foreign infusion, and
the name of a solitary _clerauch_ witnesses for the Celtic element, but
there is no appearance of any _Keledei_.[764] Another great Columban
abbacy—that founded by St. Fillan in the same century in the vale of
Glendochart—appears also to have passed into the hands of a lay abbot.
In one of the laws of King William, ‘called Claremathane,’ we find the
abbot of Glendochart ranking as a great lord with the earls of Atholl
and Menteith, and sharing with the former the jurisdiction over the
dwellers of the adjacent part of Argyll.[765] And, in 1296, among the
barons holding of the crown who do homage to Edward the First are
Malcolm of Glendochart and Patrick of Glendochart,[766] of the county of
Perth, who are obviously simple laymen taking their name from the
abbacy. But while the lands of the monastery thus passed into the
possession of a secular family, the monastery seems, like many others,
to have had connected with it a _Deoradh_, or anchorite, to whose
descendants as coärb, or heir, of St. Fillan, the ecclesiastic
jurisdiction, with the custody of his pastoral staff, called the
Coygerach, seems to have fallen, as we find from an inquest held at
Kandrochid, or Killin, on the 22d April 1428, that ‘the office of
bearing the said relique belonged hereditarily to the progenitor of
Finlay Jore, who appeared before the jury as the successor of Saint
Felan with that office, and that these privileges had been preserved in
the time of King Robert Bruce, and in the time of the subsequent kings
to the present day,’ in virtue of which the family possessed a certain
jurisdiction which bears an obvious relation to that possessed in the
reign of King William by the abbot of Glendochart; and in the year 1487
there is a letter by King James, in which the king states that his
‘servitour Malice Doïre and his forebearis has had ane relik of Sanct
Fulane, called the quegrith, in keping of us and of our progenitors’
since the time of ‘King Robert the Bruys and of before, and made nane
obedience nor answer to na persone spirituale nor temporale in ony thing
concerning the said haly relik,’ and charging all and sundry to ‘mak him
nane impediment, letting, or distroublance in the passing with the said
relik throch the contre as he and his forebearis wes wount to do.’[767]
[Sidenote: Formation of the diocese of Argyll or Lismore.]
The districts, belonging to the bishopric of Dunkeld, which lay to the
west of the great range of Drumalban were, about the year 1200,
separated from it and formed into a new bishopric termed first that of
Argyll and afterwards that of Lismore. Canon Mylne of Dunkeld tells us,
in his Lives of the Bishops,[768] that John, called the Scot, but an
Englishman by birth, who had been archdeacon of St. Andrews, was elected
bishop in the year 1167, and that he divided the diocese of Dunkeld, and
obtained letters from the pope constituting his chaplain Eraldus bishop
of Argyll. This name is no doubt the Norwegian Harald, which had become
naturalised among the Gael in the form of Arailt or Erailt. The seat of
the bishopric appears to have been fixed first in the district of
Mucarn, or Muckairn, on the south side of Loch Etive, which belonged in
property to the bishop of Dunkeld, and here his church bore the name of
_Killespeckerrill_, or the church of bishop Erailt. The catalogue of
religious houses states the community of the bishopric of ‘Argiul’ to
have been _Keledei_, but we find no trace of this name in connection
with any church in the diocese. It is possible, however, that some of
the _Keledei_ from Dunkeld may have accompanied the new bishop, and been
established here. In 1230 or 1231 the priory of Ardchattan was founded,
on the opposite shore, for monks of the order of Vallis Caulium by
Dunkan mak Dougall, the head of the great family of lords of Lorn, and
like most of these foundations, had many of the older churches bestowed
upon it. The dependencies upon this priory were the churches of
Balivedan, within which parish it was situated, and which was dedicated
to St. Modan; of Kilninvir in Lorn, Kilbrandan in Seil, Kirkapol in
Tiree, Kilmanivaig in Lochaber, and Kilmarow in Kintyre.[769] A few
years later it was resolved to remove the seat of the bishopric,
probably for greater security, to the island of Lismore. In this island
a Columban monastery had been founded by St. Lughadh, or Moluoc, but
like many others, it had become secularised, and the possessions of the
monastery, including the territory on the mainland which had formed part
of the Abthania, or abbey lands—a name corrupted into Appin—had now
passed into the hands of the great lords of Lorn. Like the abbacy of
Glendochart, the only vestige of its former character was the existence
of a family of hereditary custodiers of the old bishop’s crozier, called
_bachuill more_; and we find ‘in 1544 Archibald Campbell, fiar of the
lands of Argyll, Campbell and Lorn, in honour of the blessed Virgin, and
of his patron saint Moloc, mortifying to John mac Molmore vic Kevir and
his heirs-male half the lands of Peynabachalla and Peynchallen,
extending to a half-merk land in the island of Lismore, with the keeping
of the great Staff of St. Moloc, as freely as his father, grandfather,
great-grandfather and other predecessors held the same.’[770] In order
to carry this resolution into effect, the bishop of the Isles, within
whose diocese the island of Lismore was, prays the pope to relieve him
from the care of this episcopal church, which, he says, from the
perverseness of the times, had been brought into a state of extreme
destitution; and the pope addresses a mandate to the bishop of Moray, in
the year 1236, directing him to dissever the church of Lismore from the
bishopric of the Isles, in order that another bishop might be placed
there.[771] Lismore now became the seat of the bishop, and the
designation became changed from that of Argyll to that of Lismore. On
the death of Bishop William, who was drowned in the year 1241, the
bishopric remained vacant for some years, and we find Pope Innocent the
Fourth directing the bishops of Glasgow and Dunblane in 1249 to take
steps for supplying the church of Argyll, which had been deprived of a
chief pastor for more than seven years, with a canonically elected
bishop; and in another mandate he directs the same bishops, as the seat
of the bishopric was now situated in a certain island in the sea, and
almost inaccessible from the stormy channel, across which the people
could not pass without danger, to transfer it to a more convenient
site.[772] The first mandate was carried into effect by the election, in
1250, of Bishop Alan, but no attempt was made to carry out the second;
and the position of the bishop in Lismore was improved by grants of land
and the institution of a cathedral chapter, for we find in 1249
Alexander the Second granted to the episcopal see of Argyll, for the
episcopal table, the parish church of St. Brigid the Virgin in Lorn,
that is, Kilbride; and two years after, in 1251, Eugenius the knight,
the son of Duncan of _Erregeithill_, or Argyll, grants to William,
bishop of Argyll, fourteen penny lands in Lismore, free of all secular
exactions; and this charter is witnessed by Gillemeluoc, dean of
Lismore, and the whole chapter.[773]
[Sidenote: Condition of Columban Church of Kilmun.]
Of the Columban foundations in this great western district, we find
traces of only two which throw light upon the condition of the church.
In the southern division of the district, which was usually termed
‘Argyll pertaining to Scotia,’[774] on the north shore of the Holy Loch,
was the church of Kilmun, which had been founded by St. Fintan Munnu of
Teach Munnu in Ireland, whom St. Adamnan notices as having wished to
become a monk under St. Columba, but having arrived in Iona only after
his death.[775] We find this church in lay hands in the thirteenth
century, as, between 1230 and 1246, Duncan, son of Fercher, and his
nephew Lauman, son of Malcolm, grant to the monks of Paisley lands which
they and their ancestors had at Kilmun, with the whole right of
patronage in the church of Kilmun; and in 1294 a charter to the monks of
Paisley is witnessed by Humfred of Kylmon;[776] and here, too, we have
traces of certain lands on the west side of Loch Long being held with
the hereditary custody of the staff of St. Mund, to which the name of
‘Deowray’ was attached.[777]
[Sidenote: Condition of the Columban Church of Applecross.]
We have also traces of the condition to which a much more important
monastery in the northern part of the district had been brought. This
was the monastery of Apurcrosan, now Applecross, founded by St.
Maelrubha, in the year 673, in that part of the province which was
termed Ergadia Borealis, or North Argyll. Of the abbots of this
monastery the Irish Annals, as we have seen, notice three—Maelrubha, who
died in 822; Failbe, son of Guaire, termed his heir, or coärb, who was
drowned with twenty-two of his crew, who were probably brethren of the
monastery, on his passage to Ireland in 736; and Macoigi of
Apuorchrosan, who became abbot of the monastery of Bangor in Ireland,
the monastery from which Maelrubha had proceeded on his mission to
Britain, and died there in 801. The possessions of this monastery were
very extensive, and comprehended the entire district extending along the
shores of the Western Sea from Loch Carron on the south to Loch Broom on
the north. They appear to have fallen into the hands of a family of
hereditary _sagarts_ or priests, who, according to tradition, bore the
name of O’Beollan. The name of one of these priests is connected with an
upright slab in the churchyard, bearing the figure of a collared cross,
which is known as the stone of _Ruairidh mor mac Caoigan_, who was said
to have been proprietor of Applecross, and to have been slain by the
Danes. His name undoubtedly connects him with abbot Macoigi; but we find
ourselves on surer ground in the reign of Alexander the Second, when
Ferchar, called _Macintsagart_, that is, the son of the _sagart_, or
priest, gave such powerful support to the king in suppressing
insurrections both in the north and in Galloway, that he was created
earl of Ross as his reward. His position as hereditary lord of the
extensive possessions of the monastery made him, in fact, a very
powerful chief; and from him the later earls of Ross were descended.
From him, too, descended, according to Mac Vurich, ‘Gillapatrick the
Red, the son of Ruairidh, the son of the green abbot,’ who is known in
tradition as the ‘red priest,’ and whose daughter brought the
possessions of the monastery into the family of the Macdonalds, Lords of
the Isles. Besides other churches dedicated to St. Maelrubha, there was
one in the parish of Muckairn, on a small island in a lake called
Kilvarie Loch; and here was the usual relic of the crozier kept by the
possessors of a small portion of land; for, in 1518, Sir John Campbell
of Calder receives the services of some of the small clans, ‘who were
sworn upon the mess buik and the relic callit the _Arwachyll_, at the
isl of Kilmolrue;’ and there is a township near it called Ballindore,
that is, _Baile-an-deoradh_, the town of the _Deoradh_, or Dewar, as he
came to be called.[778]
[Sidenote: State of the Celtic monastery of Iona.]
It only remains for us now to terminate this inquiry into the decadence
of the old Celtic Church with the island of Iona, whence it originally
took its rise; and here too we shall find that the efforts made to
preserve the old Celtic establishment failed, and that it had to give
way before the invasion of one of the religious orders of the Roman
Church. The last of the old abbots, of whom we have any notice, died in
the last year of the eleventh century; and for upwards of fifty years
there is an unbroken silence regarding Iona. During this period the
whole of the Western Islands were under the rule of the Norwegian kings
of the Isles, and the connection between the church in the Isles and the
mainland of Scotland, on the one side, and Ireland, on the other, must
have been to a great extent cut off. The abbots of the Irish monastery
of Kells were at this time the coärbs of Columcille there; but they do
not appear to have had anything to do with Iona, and there is no trace
of the bishop of Dunkeld having at this time exercised any jurisdiction
over the island. The Norwegian kings of the Isles, though professing
Christianity, showed no desire to foster the church; and the whole
establishment in Iona was probably in a state of decay. The Norwegian
king of the Isles was at this time Godred, who succeeded his father,
Olaf Bitling, in the year 1154; but his rule becoming too tyrannical and
oppressive to be borne, a powerful Norwegian chief, Thorfinn, went to
Somerled, the Celtic kinglet of Argyll, who had already almost entirely
expelled the Norwegians from that mainland district, and requested to
have his son Dubgal, whose mother was the daughter of Olaf Bitling, that
he might set him on the throne of the Isles. To this Somerled gladly
consented, and Thorfinn took the young prince, and, conducting him
through all the Isles, forced the chiefs to acknowledge him for their
king. This led to a war between Godred and Somerled, and in 1156 a naval
battle was fought between them during the night of the Epiphany, with
great slaughter on both sides. Next morning, however, at daybreak, they
came to a compromise, and divided between them the sovereignty of the
Isles, ‘so that,’ says the Chronicle, ‘from that period they have formed
two distinct kingdoms to the present day.’[779] The part assigned to
Somerled consisted of the islands which lay to the south of the point of
Ardnamurchan; and among them was the island of Iona. Somerled appears,
some years after, to have endeavoured to restore the abbacy of Iona to
its original state by placing it under the care of the abbot of Derry,
Flaithbertach O’Brolchan, who had been raised in 1158 to the dignity of
a bishop, and had the coärbship of Columcille conferred upon him; and we
find in 1164 that the chiefs of the family of Iona went to him and
invited him to accept the abbacy of Iona by the advice of Somerled and
the men of Argyll and the Isles, but the abbot of Armagh, the king of
Ireland and the chiefs of Cinel Eoghan prevented it. The chiefs of the
family of Iona, who thus represented the community at this time, were
the _Sacart mor_, or great priest, the _Ferleighinn_, or lector, the
_Disertach_, or head of the _Disert_ for the reception of pilgrims, and
the head of the _Cele De_ or Culdees;[780] and the ground of the
opposition of the civil and ecclesiastical heads of the state in Ireland
is not told us. Somerled was slain two years afterwards, and, in the
division of his extensive territories among his sons, the Isles and
Kintyre fell to the share of his second son Reginald or Ranald.
Macvurich, the sennachy of the clan, says of him that he was ‘the most
distinguished of the Galls (that is, the Norwegians) and of the Gaels
for prosperity, sway of generosity, and feats of arms;’ and undoubtedly
the church benefited largely by these qualities. He appears to have
rebuilt the ruined monastery of Iona on a larger scale. The Catalogue of
religious houses places _Keledei_ in the ‘abbatia in insula,’ or abbacy
of Iona, at this time; and apparently it was at this time under the
charge of Donald O’Brolchan, whose name is inscribed on one of the
pillars of the abbey church as having built it, and whose death as prior
is recorded in the year 1202 as having taken place on the 26th of
April;[781] but the annalist who records it does not tell us of what
place he was prior. His name, however, connects him with Derry; and,
though the heads of the Irish Church and State may have objected to the
bishop of Derry being also abbot of Iona, they may have consented to
Iona being placed under the prior.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1203.
Foundation of Benedictine abbey and nunnery, and
disappearance of Celtic community.]
The Lord of the Isles seems, however, to have resolved to adopt the
policy of the Scottish kings, and to introduce into his territories the
religious order of the Roman Church; and Macvurich tells us that ‘three
monasteries were formed by him—a monastery of black monks in I, or Iona,
in honour of God and Saint Columchille; a monastery of black nuns in the
same place; and a monastery of grey friars at Sagadul or Saddle, in
Kintyre.’ We learn from other sources that Reginald did found a
religious house at Saddle for Cistercian, or white, monks;[782] and he
appears to have established the Benedictines, or black monks, in Iona in
the year 1203, after the death of the prior Donald O’Brolchan, and to
have founded in connection with it a nunnery for Benedictine, or black,
nuns, of which Beatrice or Bethok, the sister of Reginald, was the first
prioress. It is of this Benedictine monastery and nunnery that the
present ruins are the remains; and they were formerly connected by a
causeway which extended in a straight line from the nunnery to the
monastery. On the west side of it, next the nunnery, was the church
called _Teampul Ronain_, which became the parish church; and on both
sides of the causeway were the houses which formed the town
traditionally called _Baile Mor_, in the middle of which stood the cross
called Maclean’s Cross, and between it and the abbey was, on the west
side of the causeway, _Relic Odhrain_, with its chapel termed _Teampul
Odhrain_. The deed of confirmation of the Benedictine monastery still
exists in the Vatican. It is dated on the 9th December 1203, and is
addressed to Celestinus, abbot of St. Columba, of the island of Hy, and
his brethren professing a religious life; and the pope takes the
monastery of St. Columba under the protection of St. Peter and the Pope,
in order that the monastic order which has been instituted in that place
according to the rule of St. Benedict may be preserved inviolate in all
time to come; and he confirms to them the place itself in which the said
monastery is situated, with its pertinents, consisting of churches,
islands and lands in the Western Isles.[783] King William at the same
time grants to the abbey of Holyrood four churches in Galloway which had
belonged to the abbacy of Hy Columcille.[784] These churches are not
included in the pope’s confirmation of the possessions of the new
monastery, and must have belonged to the prior abbacy. This Benedictine
monastery was no sooner established than its abbot, Celestine, appears
to have attempted to thrust out the prior Celtic community and place
them in a separate building nearer the town; for we are told in the
Ulster Annals that in 1203 ‘a monastery was erected by Cellach’—no doubt
the Celestinus of the Benedictine monastery—‘in the middle of the Cro of
Iona (_Croi Ia_), without any legal right, and in despite of the family
of Iona, so that he did considerable damage to the town (_Baile_). A
hosting by the clergy of the north (of Ireland), viz., by Florence
O’Carolan, the bishop of Tyrone, Maelisa O’Deery, bishop of Tyrconnell,
and abbot of the abbey church of Saints Paul and Peter at Armagh, and by
Aulay O’Ferghail, abbot of Derry, with a great number of the family of
Derry and of the northern clergy beside; and, in obedience to the law of
the church, they pulled down the monastery.’[785] Although the right of
the old Celtic community to remain in the monastery which had been
rebuilt by Reginald was thus vindicated by the assistance of their Irish
brethren, we hear no more of the _Keledei_ at Iona. They probably
adopted the Benedictine rule and became amalgamated with the monks;
while the functionary formerly known as the Head of the Culdees was
represented by the prior of Iona, whom we afterwards find in the
monastery.
[Sidenote: Remains of the old Celtic Church.]
And thus the old Celtic Church came to an end, leaving no vestiges
behind it, save here and there the roofless walls of what had once been
a church, and the numerous old burying-grounds to the use of which the
people still cling with tenacity, and where occasionally an ancient
Celtic cross tells of its former state. All else has disappeared; and
the only records we have of their history are the names of the saints by
whom they were founded preserved in old calendars, the fountains near
the old churches bearing their name, the village fairs of immemorial
antiquity held on their day, and here and there a few lay families
holding a small portion of land, as hereditary custodiers of the
pastoral staff or other relic of the reputed founder of the church, with
some small remains of its jurisdiction.
[Illustration:
Map illustrating
STATE OF CHURCH
IN REIGN OF DAVID I.
_J. Bartholomew, Edin^r._
]
-----
Footnote 694:
_National MSS._, part i. p. 4. This is the charter which has formed
the subject of so much controversy, in which Duncan calls himself
‘constans hereditarie Rex Scotiæ,’ but the genuineness of which is now
admitted.
Footnote 695:
See Theiner, _Monumenta Historica_, p. 9.
Footnote 696:
_National MSS._, part i. p. 5.
Footnote 697:
_National MSS._, part i. p. 8.
Footnote 698:
Mater ecclesia de Hedenham.—_Ib._ p. 15.
Footnote 699:
They are first mentioned by name when they confirm the charter of
erection of Scone in 1115; but Eadmar mentions in his History that,
when Turgot was elected, the bishop of Durham proposed that he should
consecrate him ‘associatis sibi episcopis Scotiæ et Orcadarum
insularum.’ These ‘episcopi Scotiæ’ can only have been these two
bishops, who must have been already appointed.—Haddan and Stubbs’
_Councils_, vol. ii. p. 171.
Footnote 700:
_Brev. Aberd, Pars Æstiv._ f. cxlviii.
Footnote 701:
_Regist. Ep. Morav._, p. 40.
Footnote 702:
_Vit. Dunk. Ec. Ep._ pp. 4, 5.
Footnote 703:
_Lib. Insulæ Missarum_, 15, 26, 71, 73, 76.
Footnote 704:
_Regist. de Dunf._, pp, 6, 20, 29, 41, 47.
Footnote 705:
_Book of Deer_, p. 93. Mr. Whitley Stokes translates _conanascad_
‘with the gift of them,’ but _nascad_ is the modern _nasgadh_, an
obligation, from _nasgain_, to bind or tie, and in his Irish glosses
he so renders it (817).
Footnote 706:
In diebus illis totum jus Keledeorum per totum regnum Scotiæ transivit
in episcopatum Sancti Andreæ.—Quoted by Dr. Reeves, _British Culdees_,
p. 36; and Haddan and Stubbs’ _Councils_, p. 178.
Footnote 707:
Usque ad extremos Scotiæ fines.—Haddan and Stubbs’ _Councils_, vol.
ii. p. 159.
Footnote 708:
See Haddan and Stubbs’ _Councils_, vol. ii. pp. 189-208, for the
account of these disputes.
Footnote 709:
_Lib. Ec. de Scon._, p. 1.
Footnote 710:
_Ib._ p. 3; Fordun, _Chron._ B. v. c. 28.
Footnote 711:
_Lib. Ec. de Scon._, p. 4.
Footnote 712:
_Regist. Ep. Glasg._, Nos. 1 and 28.
Footnote 713:
Haddan and Stubbs’ _Councils_, vol. ii. pp. 24, 25.
Footnote 714:
Pinkerton, _Vit. Sanct._, p. 442.
Footnote 715:
This document, so far as it relates to Scotland, is printed in the
Appendix.
Footnote 716:
_Regist. de Dunf._, p. 3.
Footnote 717:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 46; _Orig. Par. Scot._, vol. ii. p.
573-580.
Footnote 718:
Fordun, _Chron._, B. iv. c. 40.
Footnote 719:
_Regist. Ep. Ab._, pref. pp. xvii. xviii.
Footnote 720:
See Preface to _Chartulary of Aberdeen_ by the late Cosmo Innes.
Footnote 721:
_Regist. Ep. Ab._, p. 5.
Footnote 722:
In the Scotch Calendars St. Beyn appears both on 26th October and on
16th December. The Breviary of Aberdeen has, on 26th October, Beyn
Episcopus, and in Adam King’s Calendar he is called bishop of
Murthillach; but in the Martyrology of Aberdeen he is identified with
St. Beyn of Fowlis in Stratherne, who, we learn from the Life of St.
Cadroë, lived in the ninth century. Dempster, in his Menologium, has
him also at 16th December as bishop of Murthlach, but this is also the
day of St. Mobheoc in the Irish Calendar, whose name was also Beoan;
and, as he is mentioned in the Felire of Angus, he must have lived
before the eighth century. See _Mart. Donegal_, p. 337.
Footnote 723:
For these notices see the _Book of Deer_, edited for the Spalding Club
by Dr. John Stuart, and his valuable Preface.
Footnote 724:
_Regist. de Dunf._, p. 5.
Footnote 725:
_Regist. de Dunf._, p. 74.
Footnote 726:
_Brev. Ab., Pars Hyem._, fol. lxvi.
Footnote 727:
Original at Dunrobin, quoted in _Orig. Par._, vol. ii. part ii. p.
601.
Footnote 728:
These deeds will be found conveniently brought together in Reeves’s
_British Culdees_, Evidences, M.
Footnote 729:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 114.
Footnote 730:
Theiner, _Vetera Monumenta_, pp. 16, 53, 59, 67.
Footnote 731:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 113.
Footnote 732:
_Regist. Prior. S. And._, appendix to preface, p. xxxi.
Footnote 733:
_Ib._, p. xiii.
Footnote 734:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 41.
Footnote 735:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 130. Dr. Reeves remarks that the name
here appears in its Irish form of _Cele De_.
Footnote 736:
_Ib._, p. 52.
Footnote 737:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 132.
Footnote 738:
See Vol. I., p. 426.
Footnote 739:
_Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Βanff_
(Spalding Club), pp. 169, 171.
Footnote 740:
See Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 136, for a note of these charters.
Footnote 741:
_Regist. Prior. S. And._, pp. 368, 369.
Footnote 742:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 141.
Footnote 743:
_Scotichron._, B. v. c. 48; _Regist. de Dunf._, pp. 1, 3.
Footnote 744:
_Regist. de Dunf._, p. 17.
Footnote 745:
_Records of Kinloss_, edited by Dr. J. Stuart, pref. p. ix.
Footnote 746:
Anno Mclxiv de consilio Walthevi, abbatis de Melros, rex Malcolmus
fundavit nobile monasterium de Cupro in Angus—_Scotichron._, B. viii.
c. 7.
Footnote 747:
See _Regist. vetus de Aberbrothoc_ and _Liber Sanctæ Mariæ de
Lundois_.
Footnote 748:
See for these grants _Regist. Vetus de Aberbrothoc_.
Footnote 749:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, pp. 142, 143.
Footnote 750:
_Regist. Vet. de Aberbrothoc_, p. 5.
Footnote 751:
Haddan and Stubbs’ _Councils_, vol. ii. p. 231.
Footnote 752:
_Ib._, p. 273.
Footnote 753:
_Book of Deer_, p. 95; _Regist. de Dunf._, p. 24.
Footnote 754:
Fordun’s _Chron._, vol. ii. pp. 436, 437.
Footnote 755:
Postquam illuc introduxit beatus Patricius Sanctam Brigidam, sicut in
quadam chronica ecclesiæ de Abirnethy reperimus, cum suis novem
virginibus in Scotiam, et obtulit Deo et beatæ Mariæ et beatæ Brigidæ
et virginibus suis omnes terras et decimas quas prior et canonici
habent ex antiquo.—_Scotichron._, B. iv. c. 12.
Footnote 756:
Reeves’s _British Culdees_, pp. 133, 134.
Footnote 757:
Hoc anno factus est prioratus de Abernethy in canonicos regulares, qui
prius fuerunt Keldei.—_Scotichron._, B. x. c. 33.
Footnote 758:
The charters referred to will be found conveniently brought together
in Reeves’s _British Culdees_, Evidences, O.
Footnote 759:
He appears in the Felire of Angus as _Blann cain Chindgarad_—‘Blann
the mild of Kingarth;’ and the gloss has _.i. Espuc Cind-garadh .i.
Dumblaan a prim cathair agus o Chindgaradh do .i. hi n
Gallgaedelaib_—that is, ‘Bishop of Kingarth—_i.e._ Dumblaan is his
principal city, and he is also of Kingarth among the Gallgael.’
Footnote 760:
_Lib. Ins. Missarum_, app. to preface, p. xxix.
Footnote 761:
See Reeves’s _British Culdees_, Evidences, S, p. 141.
Footnote 762:
_Lib. Ins. Missarum_, p. 3. This Malisius, ‘persona et eremita,’ was
probably the Malisius, ‘persona de Dunblane,’ who witnesses a charter
of the bishop about 1190.—Reeves’s _British Culdees_, p. 142.
Inchaffray comes from _Inisaifrenn_, ‘the island of masses.’ This word
_aifrenn_, ‘an offering or mass,’ has in the river names been
corrupted into Peffer and Peffery.
Footnote 763:
Qui divisit comitatum suum in tres equales portiones, unam ecclesiæ et
episcopo Dumblanensi, aliam Sancto Johanni Evangelistæ et canonicis de
Insula Missarum, tertiam vero sibi et suis usibus et heredibus suis
reservavit.—_Scotichron._, B. viii. c. 73.
Footnote 764:
_Regist. Prior. S. And._, pp. 245, 246, 294, 295, 296, 349.
Footnote 765:
Item si calumpniatus vocaverit warentum aliquem in Ergadia quæ
pertinet ad Scociam tunc veniat ad comitem Atholiæ vel ad abbatem de
Glendochard et ipsi mittent cum eo homines suos qui testentur supra
dictam assisam. Si autem warentus vocatus fuerit de Kintire vel de
Comghal similiter Comes de Menteth mittet homines suos cum calumpniato
qui testentur supra dictam assisam.—_Acta Parl._, vol. i. p. 50 (now
373).
Footnote 766:
_Instrumenta Publica_ (Bannatyne Club), pp. 125, 128, 137.
Footnote 767:
_Black Book of Taymouth_ (Ban. Club), preface, pp. xxxv. xxxvi. The
Coygerach has now been acquired by the Antiquarian Society, and is
deposited in the National Museum.
Footnote 768:
Mylne, _Vitæ Ep. Dunk._, p. 8.
Footnote 769:
_Orig. Par._, vol. ii. pp. 149, 151.
Footnote 770:
_Origines Parochiales_, vol. ii. p. 163, where there is a
representation of the staff.
Footnote 771:
Theiner, _Monumenta_, p. 33.
Footnote 772:
Theiner, _Monumenta_, p. 54.
Footnote 773:
_Reg. Mag. Sig._, B. xiv. No. 307. The name Gillemeluoc is obviously
_Gillemaluog_, ‘the servant of St. Maluog.’
Footnote 774:
Ergadia quæ ad Scotiam pertinet.—_Act. Parl._, vol. i. 50.
Footnote 775:
Adam. _Vit. S. Col._, B. i. c. 2.
Footnote 776:
_Chart. of Paisley_, pp. 132, 203.
Footnote 777:
In 1497, John Colquhoun of Luss sold to John, earl of Argyll, the
lands and superiority of the two Ardinblathis, the two Craigquholdis,
and a half-merk land in the territory of Innerquhappel, occupied by a
certain procurator, ‘cum baculo sancti Mundi,’ called in Scotch
_Deowray_, and in the tenendas it is called ‘medietatem unius mercatæ
nuncupat _per deowry_.’—_Orig. Par._, vol. ii. p. 72.
Footnote 778:
All the notices above referred to will be found in a valuable and
exhaustive paper by Dr. Reeves on St. Maelrubha: his History and
Churches, in the _Proc. Ant. Soc. Scot._, vol. iii. p. 258. Dr. Reeves
considers that this family sprang from the _herenachs_, or hereditary
farmers of the abbey lands, but the notices rather indicate a family
of hereditary _sagarts_ or priests.
Footnote 779:
_Chron. of Man_, ed. by Munch, p. 10.
Footnote 780:
1164 _Maithi muinnteri Ia .i. in Sacart mor Augustin agus in
Ferleighinn .i. Dubside agus in Disertach .i. MacGilladuibh agus Cenn
na Ceile n-De .i. Mac Foirrcellaigh agus Maithi Muinnteri Ia archena
do thiachtain ar cenn Comarba Coluimcille .i. Flaithbertach ua
Brolcain do gabail abdaine Ia a comairli Shomarlidh agus fer
Aerergaidhel agus Innsegal coro astaei comorba Patraic agus Ri Eirenn
.i. ua Lochlainn agus maithi Cenel Eoghain e._—_An. Ult._; _Chron.
Picts and Scots_, p. 372.
Footnote 781:
One of the columns which supports the great tower of the abbey church
has on the upper portion the inscription ‘Donaldus O’Brolchan fecit
hoc opus;’ and the Irish Annals have at 1202, ‘_Domnall h. Brolchain
prior uasal shenoir togaide ar ceill ar cruth ar deilb ar
dutchus ar mine ar mordhacht ar midchaire ar crabud ar ecna_’ (Donald
O’Brolchan, prior of , an elect noble senior, for sense, for
shape, for form, for birth, for gentleness, for majesty, for
affability, for piety, for wisdom), post magnam tribulationem et
optimam penitentiam in quintas Kalendas Maii ingressus est viam
universæ carnis.—_An. Ult., A. F. M._, etc.
Footnote 782:
_Orig. Par._, vol. ii. p. 23.
Footnote 783:
Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 353. It has usually been stated that
the monks established here were Cluniacs; but the only authority for
this is Spottiswoode, in his account of religious houses. The deed of
confirmation, however, is in exactly the same terms as those of
Arbroath and Lindores, founded for Benedictines of Tyron, and differs
from that of Paisley, founded for Cluniacs. It was also a peculiarity
of the Cluniacs that the parent house at Clugny was alone governed by
an abbot, and the affiliated houses by priors only. See the paper on
the ruins at Iona in Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 342.
Footnote 784:
_Lib. Cart. S. Crucis_, p. 41.
Footnote 785:
_Mainistir do dhenumh do Chelluch ar lar Croi Ia gan nach dlighedh,
tar sarugadh muinnteri Ia, coro mill an baile co mor. Sloghadh, dno,
le Cleirchibh Erenn .i. la Florent hua Cerballan la hEspuc tiri
h-Eogain acus la Maelisa hua nDoirigh .i. Espuc tiri Conaill acus la
hAbbadh Reiclesa Phoil acus Phetair in Ardmacha acus la h-Amalgaidh
hua Cobthaidh acus sochaidhe mor do muinntir Doire acus sochaidhe mor
do cleirchibh an tuaiscert coro sgailset in mainistir do reir dlighidh
na hecailsi._—_An. Ult._; Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 351. Dr. R.
suggests that the glen in Iona called _Gleann-an-teampul_ may have
been the site of this monastery and taken its name from it; but the
passage implies that the _Baile_, or town, was situated in _Cro Ia_,
and was injured by it. It was probably near where the parish church is
situated, behind which there are the remains of an old burying-ground.