[Footnote 16: From the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland_, vol. ii. part iii.]
[Footnote 17: These contributions by the "Abbas Aemoniae Insulae" are
alluded to by Boece, who wrote nearly a century afterwards, as one of
the works upon which he founded his own _Scotorum Historiae_.--(See his
_Praefatio_, p. 2; and Innes' _Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants
of Scotland_, vol. i., pp. 218 and 228.) Bower, in a versified colophon,
claims the merit of having completed eleven out of the sixteen books
composing the _Scotichronicon_ lib. xvi. cap. 39:--
"Quinque libros Fordun, undenos auctor arabat,
Sic tibi clarescit sunt sedecim numero,
Ergo pro precibus, petimus te, lector eorum," etc.]
[Footnote 18: See _Scotichronicon_, lib. xiii. cap. 34 and 37; lib. xiv.
cap. 38, etc. In 1547 the Duke of Somerset, after the battle of Pinkie,
seized upon Inchcolm as a post commanding "vtterly ye whole vse of the
Fryth it self, with all the hauens uppon it," and sent as "elect Abbot,
by God's sufferance, of the monastery of Sainct Coomes Ins, Sir Jhon
Luttrell, knight, with C. hakbutters and l. pioners, to kepe his house
and land thear, and ii. rowe barkes, well furnished with municion, and
lxx. mariners to kepe his waters, whereby (naively remarks Patten) it is
thought he shall soon becum a prelate of great power. The perfytnes of
his religion is not alwaies to tarry at home, but sumetime to rowe out
abrode a visitacion; and when he goithe, I haue hard say he taketh
alweyes his sumners in barke with hym, which ar very open mouthed, and
neuer talk but they are harde a mile of, so that either for loove of his
blessynges, or feare of his cursinges, he is lyke to be soouveraigne
ouer most of his neighbours."--(See Patten's _Account of the late
Expedition in Scotlande_, dating "out of the parsonage of S. Mary Hill,
London," in Sir John Dalyell's _Fragments of Scottish History_, pp. 79
and 81.) In Abbot Bower's time, the island seems to have been provided
with some means of defence against these English attacks; for, in the
_Scotichronicon_, in incidentally speaking of the return of the Abbot
and his canons in October 1421 from the mainland to the island, it is
stated that they dared not, in the summer and autumn, live on the island
for fear of the English, for, it is added, the monastery at that time
was not fortified as it is now, "non enim erant tunc, quales ut nunc, in
monasterio munitiones" (lib. xv. cap. 38).]
[Footnote 19: Iona itself has not an air of stiller solitude. Here,
within view of the gay capital, and with half the riches of the Scotland
of earlier days spread around them, the brethren might look forth from
their secure retreat on that busy ambitious world, from which, though
close at hand, they were effectually severed.--(Billings' _Baronial and
Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland_, vol. iii. Note on Inchcolm.)]
[Footnote 20: Alexander Campbell, in his _Journey through North Britain_
(1802), after speaking of a fort in the east part of Inchcolm having a
corps of artillery stationed on it, adds, "so that in lieu of the pious
orisons of holy monks, the orgies of lesser deities are celebrated here
by the sons of Mars," etc., vol. ii. p. 69.]
[Footnote 21: See MS. Records of the Privy Council of Scotland, 23d
September 1564, etc.]
[Footnote 22: Bellenden's translation of Boece's _History of Scotland_,
vol. ii. p. 500.]
[Footnote 23: _Works_ of William Drummond, Edinburgh, 1711, p. 7.]
[Footnote 24: Bishop Lesley's _History of Scotland_, p. 42.]
[Footnote 25: See General Hutton's MSS. in the Advocates' Library, as
quoted in Billings' _Ecclesiastical Antiquities, loc. cit._]
[Footnote 26: See his Life in Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, vol. ii. p.
466.]
[Footnote 27: _Scotichronicon_, lib. xv. cap. 23.]
[Footnote 28: _Scotichronicon_, lib. xv. cap. 38.]
[Footnote 29: _Ibid._ lib. xv. cap. 48.]
[Footnote 30: Images, or statues in wood, of the founders or patrons of
churches of the sixth and seventh centuries, were common in Ireland, and
no doubt in the Gaelic portion of Scotland. Some of these "images" are
still preserved in islands on the west coast of Ireland. "St. Barr's
wooden image" was preserved in his church in the island of Barray.--See
Martin's _Western Isles of Scotland_, pp. 92, 93. But Macaulay, in his
_History of St. Kilda_, p. 75, says, that this was an image of St.
Brandan, to whom the church was consecrated.--P.]
[Footnote 31: _Ibid._ lib. xiii. cap. 34. When, in 1355, the navy of
King Edward came up the Forth, and "spulyeit" Whitekirk, in East
Lothian, still more summary vengeance was taken upon such sacrilege. For
"trueth is (says Bellenden) ane Inglisman spulyeit all the ornamentis
that was on the image of our Lady in the Quhite Kirk; and incontinent
the crucifix fel doun on his head, and dang out his harnis."--(Bellenden's
_Translation of Hector Boece's Croniklis_, lib. xv. c. 14; vol. ii.
p. 446.)]
[Footnote 32: _Scotichronicon_, lib. xiii. cap. 37.]
[Footnote 33: See George Chalmers' _Caledonia_, vol. i. p. 320.]
[Footnote 34: "Within the bay call'd _Loch-Colmkill_, three miles
further south, lies _Lough Erisort_, which hath an anchoring-place on
the south and north."--Martin, p. 4. "The names of the churches in Lewis
Isles, and the saints to whom they were dedicated, are St.
_Columbkil's_, in the island of that name," etc.--_Ibid._ p. 27. I
suspect that all the churches founded by Columba bore anciently the name
of Columbkill. Bede tells that the saint bore the united name of
Columbkill.--_Hist. Ec._ v. 9; and all the churches founded by him in
Ireland, or places called after him, are, I think, invariably so
designated. Thus also the lake near Mugstot, in Skye, now drained, and
on the island of which the most undoubted remains of a monastic
establishment of Columb's time still exist, was called Lough Columbkill,
and the island Inch Columbkill.--P.]
[Footnote 35: See, for example, the notes on this passage in the
editions of Steevens and Malone.]
[Footnote 36: Holinshed's _Chronicles_, vol. v. p. 268.]
[Footnote 37: _Scotorum Historiae_, lib. xi. f. 225, 251.]
[Footnote 38: See his great work on the _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_,
plate cxxv. p. 39.]
[Footnote 39: I do not believe that there is a single example of
armorial bearings to be found either in Scotland or Ireland of an
earlier date than the close of the twelfth century.--P.]
[Footnote 40: Bellenden's _Translation of Boece's Croniklis of
Scotland_, lib. xii. 2, vol. ii. p. 258.]
[Footnote 41: _Scotorum Historiae_ (1526), lib. xii. p. 257.]
[Footnote 42: _History of Fife and Kinross_, p. 35.]
[Footnote 43: _A Tour in Scotland_, part ii. p. 210. See also Grose's
_Antiquities of Scotland_ (1797), vol. ii. p. 135.]
[Footnote 44: I feel quite satisfied that this monumental stone is of a
much earlier date than the thirteenth century, and that it is most
probably a Danish or Dano-Scottish monument.--P.]
[Footnote 45: In the _Buik of the Croniclis of Scotland_, or metrical
version of the History of Hector Boece, by William Stewart, lately
published under the authority of the Master of the Rolls, and edited by
Mr. Turnbull, there is a description of the Danish monument on Inchcolm
from the personal observation of the translator; and we know that this
metrical translation was finished by the year 1535. The description is
interesting, not only from being in this way a personal observation, but
also as showing that, at the above date, the recumbent sculptured "greit
stane," mentioned in the text, was regarded as a monument of the Danish
leader, and that there stood beside it a Stone Cross, which has since
unfortunately disappeared. After speaking of the burial of the Danes--
Into an yle callit Emonia,
Sanct Colmis hecht now callit is this da,
and the great quantity of human bones still existing there, he adds in
proof--
As _I myself quhilk has bene thair and sene._
Ane croce of stane thair standis on ane grene,
Middis the feild quhair that they la ilk one,
Besyde the croce thair lyis ane greit stane;
Under the stane, in middis of the plane,
Their chiftane lyis quhilk in the feild was slane.
(See vol. ii. p. 635). Within the last few months there has been
discovered by Mr. Crichton another sculptured stone on Inchcolm. But the
character of the sculptures on it is still uncertain, as the stone is in
a dark corner, the exposed portion of it forming the ceiling of the
staircase of the Tower, and the remainder of the stone being built into,
and buried in the wall. The sculptures are greatly weather-worn, and the
stone itself had been used in the original building of the Tower. The
Tower of St. Mary's Church, or of the so-called Cathedral at Iona, is
known to have been erected early in the thirteenth century. Mr. Huband
Smith, who believes the Tower of the Cathedral in Iona, and perhaps the
larger portion of the nave and aisles, to be "probably the erection of
the twelfth and next succeeding century," found, in 1844, on the abacus
of one of the supporting columns, the inscription "DONALDUS OBROLCHAN
FECIT HOC OPUS;" and already this inscription has been broken and
mutilated.--(See Ulster _Journal of Archaeology_, vol. i. p. 86.) The
obit of a person of this name, and probably of this builder, occurs, as
Dr. Reeves has shown, in the _Annals of Ulster_ in 1203, and in the
_Annals of the Four Masters_ in 1202; and Dr. Reeves considers the
Church or Cathedral at Iona as "an edifice of the early part of the
thirteenth century."--(_Life of Columba_, pp. 411 and 416.) But the
Tower of the Church of Inchcolm is so similar in its architectural forms
and details to that of Icolmkill, that it is evidently a structure
nearly, if not entirely, of the same age; and the new choir (novum
chorum) built to the church in 1265 (see _Scotichronicon_, lib. x. c.
20) is apparently, as seen by its remaining masonic connections,
posterior in age to the Tower upon which it abuts. Hence we are,
perhaps, fairly entitled to infer that this sculptured stone thus
incidentally used in the construction of the Tower on Inchcolm, existed
on the island long, at least, before the thirteenth century, as by that
time it was already very weather-worn, and consequently old.[46]]
[Footnote 46: I, too, consider this church to be of the early part of
the thirteenth century. Parts of it, however, I believe to be of the
twelfth century. I allude particularly to that portion on one of the
columns of which the name of the builder appears, and who, I have little
doubt, was the eminent person whose death--1202--is recorded by the
Annalists. Pinkerton, vol. ii. p. 258, is in error in supposing any
portion of the church to be of the eleventh century. The family of the
O'Brolchans were of distinguished rank in the county of Derry, and
intimately connected with the churches there. See my notices of them in
the _Ordnance Memoir of the Parish of Temple More_, pp. 21, 22, 29. It
may be worthy of remark that this family of O'Brolchain, or a branch of
it, appear to have been eminent, hereditarily, after the Irish usage, as
architects or builders. At the year 1029 the _Annals of Ulster_ record
the death of Maolbride O'Brolchan, "_chief mason_ of Ireland." And at
the year 1097, the death of Maelbrighde _Mac-an-tsaeir_ (son of the
mason) O'Brolchan. And, lastly, we have the name of Donald O'Brolchan as
the architect of the great church at Iona. But if this Donald be the
person whose death is recorded in the _Annals_ as "a noble senior" in
1202, that part of the building in which the inscription is found must
be surely of the twelfth century; and the style of its architecture
supports that conclusion.--P.]
[Footnote 47: Twelfth.--P.]
[Footnote 48: Square recesses or ambries of this kind are common in the
most ancient Irish oratories.--P.]
[Footnote 49: The unusual breadth, 4 feet, of this doorway, is perhaps
the only feature in the structure likely to excite a doubt of its early
antiquity. I cannot remember ever having seen in any very ancient church
or oratory in Ireland a doorway so wide. The widest doorway that I have
met with is, I think, that of the great church at Glandelough, which is
3 feet 10 inches wide at its base. The usual width in doorways of small
churches and oratories is from 2 feet to 2 feet 10 inches.--P.]
[Footnote 50: When I first visited Inchcolm the ancient cell described
in the present paper was the abode of one or two pigs; and on another
occasion I found it inhabited by a cow. In consequence of the attention
of the Earl of Moray (the proprietor of the island), and his active
factor, Mr. Philipps, having been directed to the subject, all such
desecration has been put an end to, and the whole building has been
repaired in such a way as to retard its dilapidation. The plans required
for its proper repair were kindly drawn out by my friend Mr. Brash of
Cork, a most able architect and archaeologist, who had performed on
various occasions previously a similar duty in reference to the
restoration of old ecclesiastical buildings in the south and west of
Ireland. All these restorations preserve, as far as possible, in every
respect the original characteristics of the building. In making these
restorations, several points mentioned in the text as visible in the
former dilapidated state of the building, are now of course covered up,
such as the section of the arch of the roof, represented in woodcut,
Fig. 9, etc. Other new points, not alluded to in the text, were cleared
up and brought to light as the necessary repairs were proceeded with.
The opening in the western part of the south wall of the building was
found to be the undoubted original door of the cell; and when the earth
accumulated up against it externally was cleared away, there was
discovered, leading from this door to the south, and in the direction of
the well of the island, a built way or passage,[52] gently sloping
upwards out of the cell, 4 feet in width, like the door itself, but
becoming slightly wider when it reached the limit to which it has been
as yet traced--viz., about 13 or 14 feet from the building. The built
sides of this passage still stand about 3 or 4 feet in height; the lime
used, as cement in constructing these sides is apparently the same as
that used in the construction of the walls of the cell itself; and,
further, the passage has been coated over with the same dense plaster as
that still seen adhering at different points to the interior of the
oratory. It is impossible to fix the original height of the walls of
this passage, but probably these walls were so high at one time, near
the entrance at least into the oratory, as to be there arched over; for,
as stated in the text, the stones composing the outer or external arch
of the doorway offer that appearance of irregular fracturing which they
would necessarily show if the archway had been originally continued
forward, and subsequently broken across parallel with the line or face
of the south side wall. It is perhaps not uninteresting here to add,
that in Icolmkill a similar walled walk or entrance led into the small
house or building of unknown antiquity, named the "Culdee's Cell." In
the old _Statistical Account_ (1795), this cell is described as "the
foundation of a small circular house, upon a reclining plain. From the
door of the house a walk ascends to a small hillock, with the remains of
a wall upon each side of the walk, which grows wider to the
hillock."--(_Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xiv. p. 200.) At the
old heremetical establishment of St. Fechin, on High Island, Connemara,
there is "a covered passage, about 15 feet long and 3 wide," leading
from the oratory to the supposed nearly circular, dome-roofed cell of
the Abbot.--(Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 425.)]
[Footnote 51: This window seems very ancient, and no mistake! Compare it
with the window of the oratory near Kilmalkedar, in my _Towers_, p. 184.
First edition.--P.]
[Footnote 52: This fact is, I think, very interesting and important as
an evidence of the great antiquity of the building. Such built-passages
are often found in Ireland connected with small churches and oratories
of the sixth and seventh centuries, but never, to my knowledge, with any
of a later age. They may, in fact, be considered as characteristic
appendages, or accompanying features, to the ecclesiastical structures
of those times. There is one at Rathmichael, near Dublin, where there is
the butt of a round tower. I have seen many of them in various states of
preservation, and I think all were about 4 feet both in breadth and
height. They were, however, never arched, but roofed with large flags,
laid horizontally, and their upper surface level with the surrounding
ground.--P.]
[Footnote 53: After this sentence Dr. Petrie adds, "Good--very good."]
[Footnote 54: This is a strong evidence in favour of the antiquity of
the structure.--P.]
[Footnote 55: See other similar notices of the visit of Alexander I. to
Inchcolm in Buchanan's _Rerum Scoticarum Historia_, lib. vii. cap. 27;
Leslaeus _de Rebus Gestis Scotorum_, lib. vi. p. 219, etc.]
[Footnote 56: Joannis de Fordun _Scotichronicon_, cum Supplementis et
Continuatione Walteri Boweri Insulae St. Columbae Abbatis; cura Walteri
Goodall (1759), vol. i. p. 286.]
[Footnote 57: My friend Mr. David Laing, with his usual kindness, has
examined, with a view to this point, several manuscripts of the
_Scotichronicon_, and has found that the account in that work of King
Alexander's visit to Inchcolm is from the pen of Bower, and, as Mr.
Laing adds in his note to me, "not the less curious and interesting on
that account." In his original portion of the History, Fordun himself
merely refers to the foundation of the Monastery of Inchcolm by
Alexander.]
[Footnote 58: _Extracta e Cronicis Scocie_, p. 66.]
[Footnote 59: _History of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 336.]
[Footnote 60: See Mr. Turnbull's Introductory Notice to the Abbotsford
Club edition of the _Extracta_, p. xiv.]
[Footnote 61: _Extracta e Cronicis Scocie_, p. 66.]
[Footnote 62: Boece's _History and Chronicles of Scotland_, translated
by John Bellenden, book xii. chap. 15, vol. ii. p. 294.]
[Footnote 63: _Scotorum Historiae_, lib. v. fol. cclxxii. First Paris
Edition of 1526.]
[Footnote 64: _De Divinitate_, cap. 46.]
[Footnote 65: Though Roman houses, temples, and other buildings of stone
and lime abounded in this country in the earlier centuries of the
Christian era, yet the first Christian churches erected at Glastonbury
in England, and at St. David's in Wales, were--according to the
authority, at least, of William of Malmesbury and Giraldus
Cambrensis--made of wattles. The first Christian church which is
recorded as having been erected in Scotland, namely, the _Candida Casa_,
reared at Whithern, towards the beginning of the fifth century, by St.
Ninian, was constructed, as mentioned in a well-known passage of Bede,
of stone, forming "ecclesiam insignem ... de lapide insolito Britonibus
more."--(_Historia Ecclesiast._, lib. iii. cap. 4.) According to the
_Irish Annals_, the three churches first erected by Palladius, in
Ireland, about the year 420, were of wood, one of them being termed
House of the Romans, "Teach-na-Romhan," but not apparently from its
Roman mode of building.--(See Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Four
Masters_, vol. i. p. 129.) The church of Duleck, one of the earliest, if
not the earliest, which St. Patrick erected in Ireland, and the first
bishop of which, St. Cianan, died in the year 490, was built of stone,
as its original name of Daimhllag (stone house) signifies; and the same
word, _damhliag_ or _stone house_, came subsequently to be applied as a
generic term to the larger Irish churches.--(See Dr. Petrie's
_Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 142, with a quotation from
an old Irish poem of the names of the three masons in the household of
St. Patrick, who "made damhliags first in Erin.") When, in the year 652,
Finan succeeded to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne, he built there a
suitable Episcopal church, constructed of oak planks, and covered with
reeds, "more Scotorum non de lapide, sed de robore secto totam
composuit, atque arundine texit."--(Bede's _Hist. Eccl._, lib. iii. cap.
25.) When St. Cuthbert erected his anchorite retreat on the island of
Farne he made it of two chambers, one an oratory, and the other for
domestic purposes; and he finished the walls of these buildings by
digging round and cutting away the natural soil within and without,
forming the roof out of rough wood and straw, "de lignis informibus et
foeno."--(Vita S. Cuthberti, cap. 17.) Planks or "tabulae," also, were
employed in building or reconstructing the walls of this oratory on
Farne Island, as St. Ethelwald, Cuthbert's successor, finding hay and
clay insufficient to fill up the openings that age made between its
boards, obtained a calf's skin, and nailed it as a protection against
the storms in that corner of the oratory, where, like his predecessor,
he used to kneel or stand when praying.--(_Ibid._, cap. 46.) St.
Godric's first rude hermitage at Finchale, on the Wear, was made of turf
(vili cespite), and afterwards of rough wood and twigs (de lignis
informibus et virgulis).--(See chaps 21 and 29 of his Life by Reginald.)
On the construction, by wattles and wood, of some early Irish and
Scoto-Irish monastic and saints' houses and oratories, as those of St.
Wolloc, St. Columba, and St. Kevin, see Dr. Reeves' notes in his edition
of the _Life of St. Columba_, pp. 106, 114, and 177. In some districts
where wood was scarce, and stone abundant and easily worked, as in the
west coast of Ireland, all ecclesiastical buildings were--like the far
more ancient duns and forts in these parts--made principally or entirely
of stone. But even in parts where wood was easily procured, oratories
seem to have been sometimes, from an early period, built of stone. Thus,
in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, the devout virgin Crumtherim is
described as living in a stone-built oratory, "in cella sive _lapideo_
inclusorio," in the vicinity of Armagh, as early as the fifth
century.--(Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 163.) And, at the city of
Armagh again, we have an incidental notice of a stone oratory in the
eighth century; for, in the _Ulster Annals_, under the year 788, there
is reported "Contentio in Ardmacae in qua jugulatur vir in hostio
[ostio] Oratorii _lapidei_."--(Dr. O'Conor's _Rerum Hibernicarum
Scriptores_, tom. iv. p. 113.) Dr. Petrie believes that all the churches
at Armagh erected by St. Patrick and his immediate successors were built
of stone, as well indeed as all the early abbey and cathedral churches
throughout Ireland.--(_Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 159.)]
[Footnote 66: The _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, anterior to
the Anglo-Saxon Invasion, comprising an Essay on the Round Towers of
Ireland, pp. 437, 435 and 430.]
[Footnote 67: "That these buildings (St. Columb's House at Kells and St.
Kevin's at Glendalough), which are so similar in most respects to each
other, are of a very early antiquity, can scarcely admit of doubt;
indeed, I see no reason to question their being of the times of the
celebrated ecclesiastics whose names they bear."--(Dr. Petrie's
_Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 430.) In his late edition of Adamnan's
_Life of St. Columba_, Dr. Reeves, when describing the Columbite
monasteries and churches founded in Ireland, speaks (p. 278) of Kells as
"having become the chief seat of the Columbian monks" shortly after the
commencement of the ninth century. Among the indications of the ancient
importance of the place which still remain, he enumerates the fine old
Round Tower of Kells, its three ancient large sculptured crosses, the
"curious oratory called St. Columbkille's House," and its great literary
monument now preserved in Trinity College, Dublin--namely, the _Book of
Kells_. He quotes the old Irish _Life of St. Columba_, followed by
O'Donnell, to show that it is there stated that the saint himself
"marked out the city of Kells in extent as it now is, and blessed it;"
but he doubts if any considerable church here was founded by Columba
himself, or indeed before 804. He grounds his doubts chiefly on the
negative circumstance that there is "no mention of the place in the
_Annals_ as a religious seat" till the year 804. But the _Annals of the
Four Masters_ record two years previously, or in 802, that "the church
of Columcille at Ceanannus (or Kells) was destroyed" (vol. i. p. 413),
referring of course to an _old_ or former church of St. Columba's there;
whilst the _Annals of Clonmacnoise_ mention that two years afterwards,
or in 804, "there was a new church founded in Kells in honour of St.
Colume."--(See _Ibid._, footnote.)[68] The learned editor of the _Annals
of the Four Masters_, Professor O'Donovan, has translated and published,
in the first volume of the _Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological
Society_, an ancient poem attributed to St. Columba, and which, at all
events, was certainly composed at a period when some remains of Paganism
existed in Ireland. In this production the poet makes St. Columba say,
"My order is at Cennanus (Kells)," etc.; and in his note to this
allusion Dr. O'Donovan states that at Kells "St. Columbkille erected a
monastery in the sixth century."--(_Miscellany of Archaeological
Society_, vol. i. p. 13.) Some minds would trust such a question
regarding the antiquity of a place more to the evidence of parchment
than to the evidence of stone and lime. The beautiful _Evangeliarium_,
known as the _Book of Kells_, is mentioned by the _Four Masters_ under
the year 1006 as being then the "principal relic of the western world,"
on account of its golden case or cover, and as having been temporarily
stolen in that year from the erdomh or sacristy of the great church of
Kells. In the same ancient entry this book is spoken of as "the Great
Gospel of Columcille," and whether originally belonging to Kells or not,
is certainly older than the ninth century, if not indeed as old as
Columba. The corresponding _Evangeliarium_ of Durrow, placed now also in
Trinity College, Dublin,--"a manuscript" (says Dr. Reeves, p. 276)
"approaching, if not reaching to the Columbian age,"--is known from the
inscription on the silver-mounted case which formerly belonged to it, to
have been "venerable in age, and a reliquary in 916" (p. 327). In the
remarkable colophon which closes this manuscript copy of the
Evangelists, St. Columba himself is professed to be the copyist or
writer of it, the reader being adjured to cherish the memory "Columbae
scriptoris _qui hoc scripsi_." In the _Ulster Annals_, under the year
904, there is the following entry regarding Kells: "Violatio Ecclesiae
Kellensis per Flannum mac Maelsechnalli contra Donchad filium suum, et
alii decollati sunt circa _Oratorium_."--(Dr. O'Conor's _Rerum Hibern.
Scriptores_, tom. iv. p. 243.) Is the scene of slaughter thus
specialised the Oratory or "House of St. Columb," which is still
standing at Kells?[69]]
[Footnote 68: I would say yes, beyond question! It was both oratory and
house, like that of St. Cuthbert on Farne island, described in the
passage quoted _ante_, p. 101, note.--P.]
[Footnote 69: St. Colume, as translated by Mageochagan or Macgeoghegan.
In the original this would be Columbkille, as in all the other
Annals.--P.]
[Footnote 70: In treating of the subsequent fate of the old Irish
oratories, Dr. Petrie remarks, "Such structures came in subsequent times
to be used by devotees as penitentiaries, and to be generally regarded
as such exclusively. Nor is it easy to conceive localities as such
better fitted, in a religious age, to excite feelings of contrition for
past sins, and of expectations of forgiveness, than those which had been
rendered sacred by the sanctity of those to whom they had owed their
origin. Most certain, at all events, it is, that they came to be
regarded as sanctuaries the most inviolable, to which, as our annals
show, the people were accustomed to fly in the hope of safety--a hope,
however, which was not always realised."--(P. 358.)]
[Footnote 71: _Scotichronicon_, lib. v. cap. 36. Goodall's edition, vol.
i. p. 286.]
[Footnote 72: Such cells or oratories, as relics of the holy men who had
been their founders, were always regarded by the Irish, like every other
kind of relics, as their bells, croziers, books, etc. etc., with the deepest
sentiments of veneration, and their injury or violation--"dishonouring,"
as the annalists often term it--was regarded as a sacrilege of
the most revolting and sinful character. And to this pious feeling we may
ascribe the singular preservation to our own times of so many of such
buildings--though, indeed, in many instances, they may only retain the
general form, or a portion of the walls, of the original structure--owing
to the injuries inflicted by time, or, as more frequently, by foreign
violence. Thus, in the great Aran of the _Tiglach Enda_, or "House of
Enda," a portion only--the east end--is of the Saint's time, the rest is
some centuries later; and of St. Ciarn's oratory at Clonmacnoise--called
in the _Irish Annals_ "Temple Ciaron," or "Eaglais-beag," and, sometimes,
"_Temple-beg_," or "The Little Church," though the original form was
carefully preserved, there was, when I first examined it, more than
forty years ago, apparently no portion of its masonry that was not
obviously of much later times--in parts even as late as the seventeenth
century. Our annalists record the names of Airchinneachs of this oratory
from 893 to 1097.--P.]
[Footnote 73: In reference to this observation, it is scarcely necessary
to refer to the teachings in Scotland of St. Kentigern of Strathclyde in
the first half of the sixth century, of St. Serf of Culross in the
latter, and of St. Palladius and St. Ninian in the earlier parts of the
fifth century, with the more immediate converts and followers of these
ancient missionaries. In his _Demonstratio quod Christus sit Deus contra
Judaeos atque Gentiles_, written about the year 387, St. Chrysostom avers
that "the British Islands ([Greek: Bretanikai nesoi]), situated beyond
the Mediterranean Sea, and in the very ocean itself, had felt the power
of the Divine Word, churches having been found there, and altars
erected." (_Opera omnia_, vol. i. p. 575, Paris edition of Montfaucon,
1718.) Perhaps St. Chrysostom founded his statement upon a notice in
reference to the alleged extension of Christianity to the northern parts
of Britain, given a hundred and fifty years previously by Tertullian,
when discussing a similar argument. In his dissertation _Adversus
Judaeos_, supposed to be written about 210, Tertullian, when treating of
the propagation of Christianity, states (chap. vii.), that at that time
already places among the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, were yet
subject to Christ--"Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero
subdita." (Oehler's edition of _Tertullian_, vol. iii. p. 713.) Among
the numerous inscriptions and sculptures left here by the Romans while
they held this country during the first four centuries of the Christian
era, not one has, I believe, been yet found containing a single
Christian notice or emblem, or affording by itself any direct evidence
of the existence of Christianity among the Roman colonists and soldiers
in Britain. But there is indirect lapidary or monumental evidence of its
propagation in another manner. In England, as in Germany, France, etc.,
there exist among the old Roman remains, altars and temples dedicated to
Mithras, originally the god of the Sun among the Persians, with
sculptures and inscriptions referring to Mithraic worship. They have
been found in the cities along the Roman wall in Northumberland; at
York, etc. Various references among the old Fathers seem to show that
when a knowledge of the Christian religion began to spread to the
Western Colonies of Rome, the worship of Mithras was set up in
opposition to Christianity, and Christian rites were imitated by the
Mithraic priests and followers. Thus, for example, the author whom I
have just cited, Tertullian, tells us, in his tract _De Praescriptione
Haereticorem_, chap. 40, that the worshippers of Mithras practised the
remission of sins by water (as in baptism), made a sign upon their
foreheads (as if simulating the sign of the cross), celebrated the
offering of bread (as if in imitation of the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper), etc. (See his _Works_, vol. iii. p. 38, of Oehler's Leipsic
edition of 1854.)]
[Footnote 74: See Dr. Reeves' admirable edition of Adamnan's _Life of
St. Columba_, pp. lxxiv and lxxv,--a book which is a perfect model of
learned annotation and careful editing.]
[Footnote 75: I think it might be well to strengthen your statement by
adducing a few examples--thus, as for example, the remains of a
monastery of Columba's time on an island--now drained--called Lough
Columbkill, in the island of Skye--the churches and clochans, or
stone-houses of the monks, on St. Kilda, and probably many similar
remains on other islands of the Hebrides.--P.]
[Footnote 76: Of St. MacDara of Cruach MicDara, an island off the coast
of Connamara, of St. Brendan in Inis Gloria, an island off the coast of
Errus, and very many more.--P.]
[Footnote 77: Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 129.]
[Footnote 78: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 195.]
[Footnote 79: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 194.]
[Footnote 80: And which, moreover, had often chancels attached to
them.--P.]
[Footnote 81: _Ibid._, pp. 365, 351.]
[Footnote 82: _Ibid._, p. 351.]
[Footnote 83: I should, perhaps, have written _almost_ always. The very
few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me. Perhaps, indeed, there
is but one exception, that most important one, on Bishop's Island, the
others belonging rather to churches.--P.]
[Footnote 84: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 352.]
[Footnote 85: South doorways are certainly very rarely to be met with in
the very ancient churches or oratories in Ireland. In addition to this
important one on Bishop's Island, I can only call to mind three others,
namely, in Kilbaspugbrone, near Sligo; the Templemor, or great church of
St. Mochonna, in Inismacnerin, or, as now called, Church Island, in
Lough Key, county of Roscommon; and Killcrony, near Bray, in the county
of Wicklow. The two last named are fine specimens of doorways of
Cyclopean style and masonry.--P.]
[Footnote 86: Wakeman's _Archaeologia Hibernica_, pp. 59, 60.]
[Footnote 87: My pupil is in error in this supposition. He should have
remembered--for he drew it on the block for me--that the window in the
oratory near the church of Kilmalkedar, county of Kerry, which is built
without cement, splays both externally and internally.--See my work, p.
184.
I should also observe another feature common to both these windows,
namely, that it is only the jambs that are splayed.--P.]
[Footnote 88: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 186.]
[Footnote 89: _Ibid._ p. 437.]
[Footnote 90: Was.--P.]
[Footnote 91: But now considers as of the tenth or perhaps
eleventh.--P.]
[Footnote 92: See his _Illustrated Handbook of Architecture_, vol. ii.
p. 918.]
[Footnote 93: I confess that I should not like to adduce this
stone-roofed church of Killaghy in support of the antiquity of the
oratory; for I could never bring myself to believe that it was of an age
anterior to the thirteenth century.--P.]
[Footnote 94: See Dr. Petrie's work (p. 291) for full quotations in
confirmation of this date, from the _Annals of Clonmacnoise and
Kilronan_, the _Annals of Munster_, the _Annals of the Four Masters_,
the _Chronicon Scotorum_, etc.]
[Footnote 95: When discussing the history of the pointed arch, Mr.
Parker observes: "The choir of Canterbury Cathedral, commenced in 1175,
is usually referred to as the earliest example in England, and none of
earlier date has been authenticated."--_Glossary of Terms in
Architecture_ (1845), p. 28.]
[Footnote 96: Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 133.]
[Footnote 97: Pointed arches, constructed both on the radiating and
horizontal principles, are found still standing in the antiquated
mason-work of Assyria, Nubia, Greece, and Etruria. (See drawings and
descriptions of different specimens from these countries in Mr.
Fergusson's _Handbook of Architecture_, vol. i. pp. 253, 254, 257, 259,
294, 381, etc.) The pointed arch was used in the East in sacred
architecture as early as the time of Constantine, as is still witnessed
in the oldest existing Christian church, namely, the church built by
that emperor, in the earlier part of the fourth century, over the
alleged tomb of our Saviour at Jerusalem.[99] For notices of the
prevalence of the pointed arch in early Eastern and in Saracenic
architecture, see Fergusson's _Handbook_, p. 380, 598, etc.]
[Footnote 98: In this opinion of Mr. Brash's I fully concur.--P.]
[Footnote 99: I must confess that I am very sceptical as to any portion
now existing of the church of the Holy Sepulchre being of the time of
Constantine, and also as to the early age of any portion of it in which
a pointed arch is found. More walls of the original edifice may
_possibly_ exist; but it is certain that the church was more than once
modified, and the ornamental work is assuredly of a much later age.--P.]
[Footnote 100: "Alanus de Mortuo Mari, Miles, Dominus de Abirdaur, dedit
omnes et totas dimidietates terrarum Villae suae de Abirdaur, Deo et
Monachis de Insula Sancti Columbi, pro sepultura sibi et posteris suis
in Ecclesia dicti Monasterii." (Quoted from the MS. Register or
Chartulary of the Abbey by Sir Robert Sibbald in his _History of Fife_,
p. 41.) The same author adds, that, in consequence of this grant to the
Monastery of Inchcolm for leave of sepulture, the Earl of Murray (who
represents "Stewart Abbott of Inchcolm," that sat as a lay Commendator
in the Parliament of 1560, when the Confession of Faith was approved of)
now possesses "the wester half of Aberdour." Sir Robert Sibbald further
mentions the story that "Alain, the founder, being dead, the Monks,
carrying his corpse in a coffin of lead, by barge, in the night-time, to
be interred within their church, some wicked Monks did throw the samen
in a great deep betwixt the land and the Monastery, which to this day,
by the neighbouring fishermen and salters, is called _Mortimer's deep_."
He does not give the year of the preceding grant by Alain de Mortimer,
but states that "the Mortimers had this Lordship by the marriage of
Anicea, only daughter and sole heiress of Dominus Joannes de Vetere
Ponte or Vypont, in anno 1126." It appears to have been her husband who
made the above grant. (See Nisbet's _Heraldry_, vol. i. p. 294.)]
[Footnote 101: Thus, in 1272, Richard of Inverkeithing, Chamberlain of
Scotland, died, and his body was buried at Dunkeld, but his heart was
deposited in the choir of the Abbey of Inchcolm. (_Scotichronicon_, lib.
x. c. 30.) In Hay's _Scotia Sacra_ is a description of the sepultures on
this monument in Inchcolm Church, p. 471. In 1173, Richard, chaplain to
King William, died at Cramond, and was buried in Inchcolm. (Mylne's
_Vitae_, p. 6.) In 1210, Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, died at Cramond, and
was buried in Inchcolm. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. viii. c. 27); and four
years afterwards, Bishop Leycester died also at Cramond, and was buried
at Inchcolm (_Ibid._ lib. ix. c. 27). In 1265, Richard, Bishop of
Dunkeld, built a new choir in the church of St. Columba on Inchcolm; and
in the following year the bones of three former bishops of Dunkeld were
transferred and buried, two on the north, and the third on the south
side of the altar in this new choir. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. x. c. 20,
21.) See also the _Extracta e Cronicis Scocie_ for other similar
notices, pp. 90, 95, etc.; and Mylne's _Vitae Dunkeldensis Ecclesiae
Episcoporum_, pp. 6, 9, 11, etc.]
[Footnote 102: Many, if not all of.--P.]
[Footnote 103: "There are" (observes Father Innes) "still remaining many
copies of Fordun, with continuations of his history done by different
hands. The chief authors were Walter Bower or Bowmaker, Abbot of
Inchcolm, Patrick Russell, a Carthusian monk of Perth, _the Chronicle of
Cupar_, the Continuation of Fordun, attributed to Bishop Elphinstone, in
the Bodleian Library, and many others. All these were written in the
fifteenth age, or in the time betwixt Fordun and Boece, by the best
historians that Scotland then afforded, and unquestionably well
qualified for searching into, and finding out, what remained of ancient
MSS. histories anywhere hidden within the kingdom, and especially in
abbeys and monasteries, they being all either abbots or the most learned
churchmen or monks in their respective churches or monasteries." (Innes'
_Critical Inquiry_, vol. i. p. 228.)]
[Footnote 104: I confess I have still some doubt as to this island
having received its name from a church founded by S. Columba-_cill_, or
that he ever resided in it, and I should like to have your present
opinion upon the matter. Fordun _alone_ seems to me a very insufficient
authority for a fact which is very improbable; and the legend of the
seal, which I published, appears to me to be a better authority for the
ancient name of the island--"_Colmanus nomine, qui ab alijs
Mocholmocus._ Quia Colmoe & Colman sunt diminutiva, a _Colum._ 1.
Columba, et affectus vel venerationis causa additur _mo_; et hinc
_Mocholmocus_," Colgan, vol. i. p. 155. Colgan's authority is of no
value, as his statement is wholly founded on Fordun. This is proved by
his notice of the monastery in his catalogue of the churches founded by
Columba. "Colmis-inse Monasterium canonicorum Regularium in AEmonia
insula inter Edinburgum et InverKithin. _Fordonus, ibid._" As the
cautious Dr. Lanigan observes--"Colgan was, to use a vulgar phrase,
bewitched as to the mania of ascribing foundations of monasteries to our
eminent saints." Further, it should not be forgotten that Fordun tells
us that in his time the island was called "_Saint Colmy's Inche_." See
the passage quoted by Ussher, _De Brit. Ec._, p. 704. Now, I know of no
instance of the corruption of Columb, or Columba, into Colmy, which
appears rather a corruption of Colmoc or Colman.
If this be not the Insula Colmoci of the _regal_ seal--"round seals have
something royal"--where are we to find it? Not in Ireland, certainly,
though our calendars record the names of two islands called Inch
Mocholmoc, from saints of that name. One of these was in Leinster; the
locality of the other is unknown. They also record the patron day of a
St. Mocholmoc, _na hainse_, "of the island," at the 30th October. Could
we find what was the patron day of the saint of Inche Colm it might help
to settle the matter. One of the above saints is called Colman
_Ailither_, or the pilgrim. Chattering in my discursive way, let me add
that a Saint Mocholmoc appears to have been a favourite with the Danes
of Dublin in the twelfth century, for we find in the lists of the Danish
Kings of Dublin that of Donald MacGilloholmoch as reigning from 1125 to
1134; and another of the name is noticed by Regan as an Irish king, who
lived not far from Dublin, and who offered his services to the English
against the Irish and Danes in 1171. There was a Gillmeholmoc's Lane in
Dublin, near Christ's Church, where, as Harris conjectures, he, or some
of his family, inhabited. Did this royal Danish family adopt its surname
in honour of St. Colman of Lindisfarne, of whom it must have heard a
great deal during the Danish occupation of Northumbria, the kings of
which were for a long time also kings of Dublin? Or may it have been
from a remembrance of the shelter and honourable interment to their
dead, given to their predecessors in the little island of St. Colme (or
Colmoch!) something more than a century before--said island having
derived its name from the Lindisfarne Saint, who may have occasionally
occupied it as his desert or hermitage? I do not expect that you will
not laugh at all this! but a hearty laugh is not a bad thing in this
gloomy weather.--P.]
[Footnote 105: See extract in Goodall's edition of the _Scotichronicon_,
vol. i. p. 6. (footnote), and in Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, vol. ii.
p. 466.]
[Footnote 106: Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland_, vol.
i. p. 557.]
[Footnote 107: In Scotland we have various alleged instances of caves
being thus employed as anchorite or devotional cells, and some of them
still show rudely cut altars, crosses, etc.--as the so-called cave of
St. Columba on the shores of Loch Killesport in North Knapdale, with an
altar, a font or piscina, and a cross cut in the rock (_Origines
Parochiales_, vol. ii. p. 40); the cave of St. Kieran on Loch Kilkerran
in Cantyre (_Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 12); the cave of St. Ninian on the coast
of Wigtonshire (_Old Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xvii. p.
594); the cave of St. Molio or Molaise, in Holy Island, in the Clyde,
with Runic inscriptions on its walls (see an account of them in Dr.
Daniel Wilson's admirable _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, pp. 531 to
533, etc). The island of Inchcolm pertains to Fifeshire, and in this
single county there are at least four caves that are averred to have
been the retreats which early Christian devotees and ascetics occupied
as temporary abodes and oratories, or in which they occasionally kept
their holy vigils; namely, the cave at Dunfermline, which bears the name
of Malcolm Canmore's devout Saxon queen St. Margaret, and which is said
to have contained formerly a stone table or altar, with "something like
a crucifix" upon it (Dr. Chalmers' _Historical Account of Dunfermline_,
vol. i. pp. 88, 89); the cave of St. Serf at Dysart (the name
itself--Dysart--an instance, in all probability, of the "_desertum_" of
the text, p. 124), in which that saint contested successfully in debate,
according to the _Aberdeen Breviary_, with the devil, and expelled him
from the spot (see _Breviarium Aberdonense_, Mens. Julii, fol. xv, and
Mr. Muir's _Notices of Dysart_ printed for the Maitland Club, p. 3); the
caves of Caplawchy, on the east Fifeshire coast, marked interiorly with
rude crosses, etc., and which, according to Wynton, were inhabited for a
time by "St. Adrian wyth hys cumpany" of disciples (_Orygynale Chronykel
of Scotland_, book iii. c. viii.); and the cave of St. Rule at St.
Andrews, containing a stone table or altar on its east side, and on its
west side the supposed sleeping cell of the hermit excavated out of the
rock (_Old Statistical Account_, vol. xiii. p. 202). In _Marmion_(Canto
i. 29) Sir Walter Scott describes the "Palmer" as, with solemn vows to
pay,
"To fair St. Andrews bound,
Within the _ocean-cave_ to pray,
Where good St. Rule his holy lay,
From midnight to the dawn of day,
Sung to the billows' sound."]
[Footnote 108: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, lib. v. cap.
12.]
[Footnote 109: _Ibid._ lib. v. c. 9. Bede further states that this
anchoret subsequently went to Frisland to preach as a missionary there,
but he reaped no fruit from his labours among his barbarous auditors.
"Returning then (adds Bede) to the beloved place of his peregrination,
he gave himself up to our Lord in his wonted repose; for since he could
not be profitable to strangers by teaching them the faith, he took care
to be the more useful to his own people by the example of his virtue."]
[Footnote 110: Published in 1845 by the Surtees Society, _Libellus de
Vita, etc., S. Godrici_, p. 65, etc.]
[Footnote 111: _Ibid._ pp. 45 and 192.]
[Footnote 112: See Wordsworth's beautiful inscription--"For the spot
where the hermitage stood on St. Herbert's island, Derwentwater."--Ed.
of 1858, p. 258.--P.]
[Footnote 113: _Ibid._ footnote, p. 46.]
[Footnote 114: Bede's _Vita Sancti Cuthberti_, cap. 16, 28, 46, etc.]
[Footnote 115: _De Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus_, pp. 63 and 66.]
[Footnote 116: See, _The Flowers of the Lives of the most renowned
Saincts of the Three Kingdoms_, by Hierome Porter, p. 321.]
[Footnote 117: Boece's _History and Chronicles of Scotland_, book ix. c.
17, or vol. ii. p. 98; Leslie's _De Rebus Gestis Scotorum_, lib. iv. p.
152; Dempster's _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum_, lib. ii. p.
122, or vol. i. p. 66.]
[Footnote 118: The poem alluded to is designated "De Pontificibus et
Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracencis." A copy of it is printed in Gale's
_Historiae Britannicae, etc. Scriptores_, vol. iii. p. 703, _seq._ The
famous author of this poem, Alcuin, who was brought up at York, and
probably born there about the year 735, became afterwards, as is well
known, the councillor and confidant of Charlemagne. The application to
the Bass of the lines in which he describes the anchoret residence of
St. Balther is evident:
Est locus undoso circumdatus undique ponto,
Rupibus horrendis praerupto et margine septus,
In quo belli potens terreno in corpore miles
Saepius aerias vincebat Balthere turmas; etc.
The Bass was not the only hermit's island on our eastern coasts which
was imagined, in these credulous times, to be the occasional abode of
evil spirits. According to Bede no one had dared to dwell alone on the
island of Farne before St. Cuthbert selected it as his anchoret
habitation, because demons resided there (propter demorantium ibi
phantasias demonum). _Vita Cuthberti_, cap. 16. See also the undevilling
of the cave of Dysart by St. Serf in the footnote of page 125, _supra_;
and some alleged feats of St. Patrick and St. Columba in this direction
in Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Four Masters_, vol. i. p. 156. Two
other islands in the Firth of Forth are noted in ancient ecclesiastical
history--viz., Inch May and Inch Keith. "The ile of May, decorit (to use
the words of Bellenden) with the blude and martirdome of Sanct Adriane
and his fallowis," was the residence of that Hungarian missionary and
his disciples when they were attacked and murdered about the year 874 by
the Danes (Bellenden's _Translation of Boece's History_, vol. i. p. 37);
see also vol. ii. p. 206; Dempster's _Historia Eccl. Gentis Scotorum_,
lib. i. 17, and vol. i. p. 20; and Fordun, in the _Scotichronicon_, lib.
i. c. vi., where he describes "Maya, prioratus cujus est cella
canonicorum Sancti Andreae de Raymonth; ubi requiescit Sanctus Adrianus,
cum centum sociis suis sanctis martyribus." Inch Keith is enumerated by
Dr. Reeves (_Preface to Life of Columba_, p. 66) as one of the Scotch
churches of St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona from A.D. 679 to 704, and the
biographer of St. Columba[119]--Fordun having long ago described it as a
place "in qua praefuit Sanctus Adamnanus abbas, qui honorifice suscepit
Sanctum Servanum, cum sociis suis, in ipsa insula, ad primum suum
adventum in Scotiam." Andrew Wynton, himself the Prior of St. Serf's
Isle in Lochlevin, describes also, in his old metrical _Orygynale
Chronykil of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 128, this apocryphal meeting of the
two saints
"at Inchkeith,
The ile betweene Kingorne and Leth."
_The Breviary of Aberdeen_, in alluding to this meeting, points out that
the St. Serf received by Adamnan was not the St. Serf of the Dysart
Cave, and hence also not the baptiser of St. Kentigern at Culross, as
told in the legend of his mother, St. Thenew, or St. Thenuh--a female
saint whose very existence the good Presbyterians of Glasgow had so
entirely lost sight of, that centuries ago they unsexed the very name of
the church dedicated to her in that city, and came to speak of it under
the uncanonical appellation of St. Enoch's. This first St. Serf and
Adamnan lived two centuries, at least, apart. In these early days Inch
Keith was a place of no small importance, if it be--as some (see
Macpherson's _Geographical Illustrations of Scottish History_) have
supposed--the "urbs Giudi" of Bede, which he speaks of as standing in
the midst of the eastern firth, and contrasts with Alcluith or
Dumbarton, standing on the side of the western firth. The Scots and
Picts were, he says, divided from the Britons "by two inlets of the sea
(duobus sinibus maris) lying betwixt them, both of which run far and
broad into the land of Britain, one from the Eastern, and the other from
the Western Ocean, though they do not reach so as to touch one another.
The eastern has in _the midst of it_ the city of Giudi (Orientalis habit
in medio sui _urbem Giudi_). The western has on it, that is, on the
right hand thereof (ad dextram sui), the city of Alchuith, which in
their language means the 'Rock of Cluith,' for it is close by the river
of that name (Clyde)." (Bede's _Hist. Ecclesiast._, book i. c. xii.) In
reference to the supposed identification of Inch Keith and this "urbs
Giudi," let me add (1.) that Bede's description (in medio sui) as
strongly applies to the Island of Garvie, or Inch Garvie, lying midway
between the two Queensferries: (2.) it is perhaps worthy of note that
the term "Giudi" is in all probability a Pictish proper name, one of the
kings of the Picts being surnamed "Guidi," or rather "Guidid" (see
Pinkerton's _Inquiry into the History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 287, and
an extract from the _Book of Ballymote_, p. 504); and (3.) that the word
"urbs," in the language of Bede, signifies a place important, not so
much for its size as from its military or ecclesiastic rank, for thus he
describes the rock (petra) of Dumbarton as the "urbs Alcluith," and
Coldingham as the "urbs Coludi" (_Hist. Eccl._, lib. iv. c. 19.
etc.),--the Saxon noun "_ham_" house or village, having, in this last
instance, been in former times considered a sufficient appellative for a
place to which Bede applies the Latin designation of "urbs."]
[Footnote 119: As I have not the _Life of Columba_ at hand to refer to,
I must assume that so able an archaeologist as my friend Dr. Reeves had
sufficient authority for this statement. If it rested only on Fordun or
Wynton, I should deem their authority insufficient to establish as a
fact what seems to me so improbable. Assuming the story to have had a
foundation, might not the real Adamnan have been the priest and monk of
the monastery of Coludi or Coldingham, of whom Bede has written?
Coldingham, in his time, belonged to the Northumbrian kingdom.--P.]
[Footnote 120: See his edition of Adamnan's _Life of Saint Columba_, p.
366.]
[Footnote 121: Colgan refers to the Life of _S. Fintani Eremita ad 15
Novemb., Tr. T._, p. 606:--"Tir mille anachoritas in Momonia est. S.
Hibaro Episcopo cujusdam quaestionis decidendae causa simul collect
[illegible] & Angelus Dei ad convivium a S. Brigida Christo paratum
invitativies had so in auxilium per Jesum Christum." Quoted from the
_Book of Litanies of S. AEngus_, on the same page.
See also the _Summary of the Saints_ in that _Litany_ in Ward's _Vita S.
Rumoldi_, pp. 204, 205.
In short, the notices of deserts, hermits, and anchorites to be found,
lives of saints, etc. etc., are innumerable.--P.]
[Footnote 122: I think it very improbable, if the monastery founded by
Alexander be meant.--P.]
[Footnote 123: This is no fit place to discuss the ages of the two Round
Towers of Brechin and Abernethy. But it may perhaps prove interesting to
some future antiquary if it is here mentioned, that when Dr. Petrie, in
his _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_ (p. 410), gives "about the
year 1020"[124] as the probable date of the erection of the Bound Tower
of Brechin, he chiefly relied--as he has mentioned to me, when
conversing upon the subject,--for this approach to the era of its
building, upon that entry in the ancient _Chronicon de Regibus
Scotorum_, etc., published by Innes, in which it is stated that King
Kenneth MacMalcolm, who reigned from A.D. 971 to A.D. 994, "tribuit
magnam civitatem Brechne domino." (See the Chronicon in Innes' _Critical
Inquiry_, vol. ii. p. 788.) The peculiarities of architecture in the
Round Tower of Brechin assimilate it much with the Irish Bound Towers of
Donoughmore and Monasterboice, both of which Dr. Petrie believes to have
been built in or about the tenth century. If we could, in such a
question, rely upon the authority of Hector Boece, the Round Tower of
Brechin is at least a few years older than the probable date assigned to
it by Dr. Petrie. For, in describing the inroads of the Danes into
Forfarshire about A.D. 1012, he tells us that these invaders destroyed
and burned down the town of Brechin, and all its great church, except
"_turrim quandam rotundam_ mira arte constructam." (_Scotorum Historiae_,
lib. xi. 251, of Paris Edit, of 1526.)[125] This reference to the Round
Tower of Brechin has escaped detection, perhaps because it has been
omitted by Bellenden and Holinshed in their translations. No historical
notices, I believe, exist, tending to fix in any probable way the exact
age of the Round Tower of Abernethy; but one or two circumstances
bearing upon the inquiry are worthy of note. We are informed, both by
the _Chronicon Pictorum_ and by Bede, that in the eighth or ninth year
of his reign, or about A.D. 563, Brude, King of the Picts, embraced
Christianity under the personal teaching of St. Columba. At Brude's
death, in 586, Garnard succeeded, and reigned till 597; and he was
followed by Nectan II., who reigned till 617. Fordun (_Scotichronicon_,
lib. iv. cap. 12) and Wynton (book v. ch. 12), both state that King
Garnard founded the collegiate Church of Abernethy; and Fordun further
adds that he had found this information in a chronicle of the Church of
Abernethy itself, which, is now lost; "in quadam Chronica ecclesiae de
Abirnethy reperimus." But the register of the Priory of St. Andrews
mentions Garnard's successor on the Pictish throne, Nectan II., as the
builder of Abernethy, "hic aedificavit Abernethyn" (Innes' _Critical
Inquiry_, p. 800). The probability is, that Garnard, towards the end of
his reign, founded and commenced the building of the church
establishment of Abernethy, and that it was concluded and consecrated in
the early part of the reign of Nectan. The church was dedicated to St.
Brigid; and the _Chronicon Pictorum_ (Innes' _Inquiry_, p. 778), in
ascribing its foundation to Nectan I. (about A.D. 455) instead of Nectan
II., commits a palpable anachronism, and very evident error, as St.
Brigid did not die till a quarter of the next century had elapsed.
(_Annals of the Four Masters_ under the year 525; Colgan's _Trias
Thaumaturga_, p. 619.) Again, according to the more certain evidence of
Bede, another Pictish king, still of the name of Nectan (Naitanus Rex
Pictorum), despatched messengers, about the year 710, to Ceolfrid, Abbot
of Bede's own Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, requesting, among other
matters, that architects should be sent to him to build in his country a
church of stone, according to the manner of the Romans et architectos
sibi mitti petiit, qui juxta morem Romanorum ecclesiam in lapide in
gente ipsius facerent. (_Hist. Eccles._, lib. v. c. xxi.) Forty years
previously, St. Benedict or Biscop, the first Abbot of Jarrow, had
brought there from Gaul, masons (caementarios) to build for him
"ecclesiam lapideam juxta Romanorum morem." (See Bede's _Vita Beatorum
Abbatum_.) Now it is probable that the Round Tower of Abernethy was not
built in connection with the church established there by the Pictish
kings at the beginning of the seventh century, for no such structures
seem to have been erected in connection with Pictish churches in any
other part of the Pictish kingdom; and if at Abernethy, the capital of
the Picts, a Round Tower had been built in the seventh century of stone
and lime, the Abbot of Jarrow would scarcely have been asked in the
eighth century, by a subsequent Pictish king, to send architects to show
the mode of erecting a church of stone in his kingdom. Nor is it in the
least degree more likely that these ecclesiastic builders, invited by
King Nectan in the early years of the eighth century, erected themselves
the Round Tower of Abernethy; for the building of such towers was, if
not totally unknown, at least totally unpractised by the ecclesiastic
architects of England and France within their own countries.[126] The
Scotic or Scoto-Irish race became united with the Picts into one kingdom
in the year 843, under King Kenneth MacAlpine, a lineal descendant and
representative of the royal chiefs who led the Dalriadic colony from
Antrim to Argyleshire, about A.D. 506. (See the elaborate genealogical
table of the Scottish Dalriadic kings in Dr. Reeves' edition of
_Adamnan's Life of Columba_, p. 438.) The purely "Scotic period" of our
history, as it has been termed, dates from this union of the Picts and
Scots under Kenneth MacAlpine in 843, till Malcolm Canmore ascended the
throne in 1057; and there is every probability that the Round Towers of
Abernethy and Brechin were built during the period between these two
dates, or during the regime of the intervening Scotic or Scoto-Irish
kings,--in imitation of the numerous similar structures belonging to
their original mother-church in Ireland. We may feel very certain, also,
that they were not erected later than the commencement of the twelfth
century, for by that date the Norman or Romanesque style,--which
presents no such structures as the Irish Round Towers, was apparently in
general use in ecclesiastic architecture in Scotland, under the pious
patronage of Queen Margaret Atheling and her three crowned sons.
Abernethy--now a small village--was for centuries a royal and pontifical
city, and the capital of a kingdom, "fuit locus ille sedes principalis,
regalis, et pontificalis, totius regni Pictorum" (Goodall's
_Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 189); but all its old regal and
ecclesiastical buildings have utterly vanished, with the exception only
of its solitary and venerable Round Tower. And perhaps the preservation
of the Round Tower in this, and in numerous instances in Ireland, amidst
the general ruin and devastation which usually surround them, is owing
to the simple circumstance that these Towers--whatever were their uses
and objects--were structures which, in consequence of their remarkable
combination of extreme tallness and slenderness, required to be
constructed from the first of the very best and strongest, and
consequently of the most durable building materials which could be
procured; while the one-storeyed or two-storeyed wood-roofed churches,
and other low and lighter ecclesiastical edifices with which they were
associated, demanded far less strength in the original construction of
their walls, and consequently have, under the dilapidating effects of
centuries, much more speedily crumbled down and perished.]
[Footnote 124: The recollection of the error which I made by a
carelessness not in such matters usual with me, in assigning this date
1020 instead of between the years 971 and 994, as I ought to have done,
has long given me annoyance, and a lesson never to trust to memory in
dates; for it was thus I fell into the mistake. I had the year 1020 on
my mind, which is the year assigned by Pinkerton for the writing of the
_Chron. Pictorum_, and, without stopping to remember or to refer, I took
it for granted that it was the year of Kenneth's death, or rather his
gift.--P.]
[Footnote 125: I congratulate you warmly on the discovery of this
interesting and most valuable notice. Surely Boece could have had no
object to serve by forging such a statement, nor had he such antiquarian
knowledge as would have enabled him to forge a statement so consistent
with the conclusion fairly to be drawn from the entry in the chronicle,
and the characteristics of the architecture of the tower itself. It
appears to me that no rational scepticism can in future be indulged as
to the conclusion that the erection of this beautiful tower must be
referred to the last quarter of the tenth century.--P.]
[Footnote 126: The determining the age of the Brechin tower--a question
which I consider as now settled--must go far towards enabling us to come
to a right conclusion as to the age of the tower of Abernethy; for I
think that no one possessed of ordinary powers of observation and
comparison, who has examined both, can for a moment doubt that the age
of the Abernethy tower is much greater than that of the tower of
Brechin. This is the opinion which I formed many years ago, after a very
careful examination of the architectural peculiarities of each; and I
came to the conclusion that the safest opinion which could be indulged
as to the age of the Abernethy tower was, that it had been erected
during the reign of the third Nectan, _i.e._ between 712 and 727, and by
those Northumbrian architects of the monastery of Jarrow, for whose
assistance that king, according to the high authority of Bede, had
applied to build for him in his capital a stone church in the Roman
style. In the features of that style, during the eighth century, as
exhibited in its doorway, and, still more, its upper apertures, this
tower appeared to stand alone--there is nothing similar to it to be seen
either in Scotland or Ireland. The tower of Brechin has indeed a
Romanesque doorway, but it is plainly of a later age, and its other
features are quite Irish. The circumstance of the Abernethy doorway
being placed on a level with the ground, and not, as almost universally,
at a considerable height from it, seemed also to support this opinion,
as it indicated that the erection of the tower was of a period anterior
to the irruption of the Northmen, which rendered such a defensive
feature an imperative necessity. I cannot agree with you in opinion as
to the cause assigned for the preservation of the towers; for, in the
first place, it is not true that their materials were stronger or
better, or their construction in any way different from that of the
churches with which they were connected, as proved by numerous examples
in Ireland. Their walls are rarely found of greater thickness than those
of their contemporaneous churches, where such have remained; and in all
such cases the character of the masonry is identical. The cause which I
should rather assign for this greater longevity would be their
rotundity, and still more, their superior altitude. A church of moderate
size, and humble height, might be easily injured, or even destroyed, by
neighbouring or foreign assailants, but the destruction of a tower, or
even its injury, beyond the burning of its wooden floors and doorway,
would be a tedious and difficult labour, requiring ladders, with which
we are not to suppose the incendiaries came provided; and hence their
worst antagonist was found to be the flame from heaven.--P.]
[Footnote 127: Might not _oratory_ be a safer term than _habitation_?
Surely the clochans or monks' houses, called _stone pyramids_ by Martin,
in St. Kilda, and of which many are still perfect, are as old as
Christianity in the _north_ of Scotland, or as any similar buildings to
be found in Ireland.--P.]