CHAPTER IX.

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.