^. % i^^ THE PICTISH NATION ITS PEOPLE & ITS CHURCH THE PICTISH NATION ITS PEOPLE & ITS CHURCH • BY ARCHIBALD B. SCOTT B.D. AUTHOR OF S. NINIAN APOSTLE OF THE BRITONS PICTS, &'c. T. N. FOULIS, PUBLISHER, EDINBURGH y LONDON This work is published by -^ •'?-^ T. N. FOULIS ^ LONDON : 91 Great Russell Street, W.C. EDINBURGH : 15 Frederick Street BOSTON : 15 Ashburton Place {Le Roy Phillips, Agent) And may also be ordered through the following agencies, where the work may be examined AUSTRALASIA : Messrs, G. J. Hicks & Company, Wellington, New Zealand CAPE COLONY : Markhams Buildings, Adderley Street, Cape Town (C. R. Mellor) TORONTO : 25 Richmond Street West {Oxford University Press) First edition puhlished September nineteen hundred and eighteen Printed in Scotland by R. & R. Clark, Ltd., Edinburgh TO MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER AND TO THE MEMORY OF MY YOUNGEST BROTHER WHO DIED, IN 1 9 1 6, OF WOUNDS RECEIVED IN ACTION AND SLEEPS IN FRANCE WITH OTHER COMRADES OF THE 1ST CAMERON HIGHLANDERS PREFACE A HISTORY of the Nation and Church of the Picts is centuries overdue. Others have contem- plated the task; but they shrank from it almost as soon as they began to enter the maze of deliber- ately corrupted versions of ancient manuscripts, of spurious memoranda introduced into ancient documents, of alleged donations to Gaidheals or Scots of what had been Pictish property, and of fabulous claims to great antiquity made for pre- tended missions of the Church of Rome to the Britons, the Picts, and the Scots. To these the late Dr. Wm. F. Skene referred when he stated, in spite of his regard for the Scotic ecclesiastics, that ' the fictitious antiquity given by Roman ec- clesiastics to the settlement of the Scots is ac- companied by *^ supposed introduction of Christi- anity, by Roman dig^nis, equally devoid of historic foundation.' Several mediaeval fabricators of early history are now known and have been ex- posed. The late Bishop Forbes timidly drew at- tention to the fabulists employed by the prelates of Armagh, York, and Glasgow, in the interests of their Sees and the claims of their Churches to antiquity and primacy. These fabulists were sometimes more honest under one employer than under another. When Jocelinewrote up the Life of S. Partick for Armagh, he was much less scrupulous than when he elaborated the ancient Life of S. Kentigern; because in the latter in- vii THE PICTISH NATION Stance he retained much that is valuable from the original which was before him. Consequently, in writing an Introduction to the H istory of the N ation and Church of the Picts, the research and patience have at times been ex- acting. It has not only been necessary, where poss- ible, to get back to ungarbled original sources, or fragments of sources; but, where these have perished, to collect and to compare versions drawn up from motives not often historical, and then by critical examination, and elimination of what might turn out to be mutually destructive, or unconfirmed, to get close up to what had been before the author of the version. Although, for example, there is more than one version of the original Pictish Chronicle; it is not difficult for an equipped and experienced student to isolate what now remains of the original, or at least of the oldest versions, and even to tell the dialects of Celtic in which the latter were written. The mediaeval hands that wrote introduction or added information to this Chronicle have not always re- vealed their actual identity like the York copyist of the most valuable of the manuscripts, Robert de Popilton; but it is nearly always possible to tell where they wrote, with what motive they wrote, and to identify the source or sources of their additions, when they had any. In connection with the critical examination and comparison of documents, and the identific- viii PREFACE ation of places, referred to under their ancient names, the author is indebted to many corre- spondents and librarians both at home and abroad. The history of the Pictish Nation and Church does not provide a mere pastime for antiquaries. It has a modern interest and value, especially to a world which in these past years has been com- pelled to contrast the spirit of the Teutons with the soul of the Celtic peoples, and to ask the ex- planation of the moral gulf between. Men have learned in these latter days that Culture and Civilization devoted to materialistic ideals,though wearing Christianity hypocritically as a mask, may suddenly plunge back into primeval savag- ery. The appreciation of the Celtic soul is more likely to grow than to wane, because it has a natural affinity for the spiritual and moral ideals of decent men and women. The Picts cherished Culture and Civilization as means to attain moral ideals. They believed in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men, and strove that personal and communal righteousness should be recognized as necessities of life and progress. The memories of the heroic Pictish Christian leaders proclaim to the modern Church that it is false to Christ, if it does not take pains to secure that His Spirit pervades human life and governs human action. Put another way, neither sincerity of assent to theological dogmas nor abject submission to alleged apostolic tradi- ix THE PICTISH NATION tionscantake the place of individual conformity to the moral standard of life set up by Jesus Christ in Himself as the abiding rule for all mankind. A study of the Pictish Church cannot but have a rousing effect on the modern Church with its materialistic ideals of success; calling it back from the idolatry of Mammon, and from theological to ethical and evangelical standards. At the time when the Picts ceased to continue as an undiluted people, independent, organized, under their own native sovereigns, they were no effete and decadent nation. They were the same indomitable soldiers that their fathers had been when freedom, home, and country were assailed. They knew that their ancestors had thwarted and baffled the legions of Imperial Rome, and had swept them behind the Wall of Antonine which remained a standing monument to their triumph. They remembered * Dun-Nechtain,' and how their fathers had smashed the last great army which the first Teutons sent into Pictland that they might complete the conquest of Britain, and how they had left but a handful of fugitives to reach the safe side of the same Wall of Antonine. That liberty and the maintenance of their own nation were still Pictish ideals in the eighth cen- tury is seen in the way that the Pictish people arose to throw back into the sea the second Teuton inrush, known as the Viking invasions. If they failed, it was through no cowardice, and no sec- PREFACE tional cry of ' safety first ' on the part of individual clans. Their clan-organization was broken ; be- cause it had been penetrated simultaneously in several places from the sea, and the clans were isolated from helping one another, and were sub- dued singly. * Fortrenn,' the Pictish kingdom of the Earn, heroically as on other occasions to save Pictland, lost her leaders and the flower of the Pictish army in a vain attempt to stem the con- centrated onrush of the Teutons in mass. Lead- ers, and rank and file, fell fighting like brave men ; there was no effort to buy off the Vikings in the humiliating fashion set by Constantine II. Mac Kenneth, of the Scotic dynasty. Leaderless and politically disorganized, the Men of Earn might have saved their throne for native rulers by a final rally, if it had not been for the results of the treacherous rebellion of Alpin, grandson of Aed Finn, and the later felon blow ' in the rear ' of the national Pictish army by Kenneth who, to win the title 'King of the Picts,' betrayed the interests of the Celtic race. In those days, as the following pages show, the Picts lost their own leaders, lost their system of clan-organization, lost their separate existence ; but as a people they continued to occupy Pictland, although diluted by the incomers, both Teutons and Gaidheals or Scots. Their national name became eclipsed by the name of the Scotic ruling caste. That they strove to leaven Teutonic savagery is evident b xi THE PICTISH NATION from the devoted labours of the Pictish Cele De, who struggled to continue the ancient Church. To the Pictish blood in our people, in spite of Teutonic dilution, we owe the love of freedom, the love of Country, and the love of Church, as much as we owe it to the blood of the Gaidheals or Scots. That is why, until the era of railways, fam- ilies, villages, and even small towns on the east coast, or in the midland counties of Scotland, were distinguished by strong and well-marked Celtic characteristics, although their speech for centuries had been the Lowland tongue. It is not without interest at the present time, that after the third westward march of the Teu- tons began in 1 9 1 4, Britain again being one of the ultimate objectives, the British divisions that most gallantly stemmed and threw back the Teu- tonic armies numbered thousands of men with Pictish blood in their veins, in Lowland as well as in Highland regiments, who fought with the ancient Pictish spirit like their ancestors who, twice before, opposed themselves to Teutonic savagery in defence of freedom, civilization, home, and Christianity. This time, they did not stand alone ; but were federated in a great array of the descendants of Celtic peoples, their kin and allies — the Britons of the west of Britain, the Scots or Gaidheals both of Dalriada and Ireland, exiled Celts from Canada and beyond the Seven Seas, the Belgae, the Gauls and Bretons of France, and xii PREFACE soldiers of mixed Moorishand Celtic blood, living reminiscences of the ancient Celtic migration into the north-western corner of Africa. Amazing as Teutonic 'frightfulness' has been to the civilized people of the present day; it is not a new phase of Teutonic brutality. The Picts saw it, suffered from it, survived it, during the invasions of the Teutonic Vikings. The Kultured Germans of the twentieth century have been scientific, but slavish imitators of the eighth- century Viking sea-sots. The gallant descendants of the Belgae have seen and suffered no novelty in savagery that was not seen and suffered by a large section of the ninth-century Picts. These Picts witnessed the same drunken, Teutonic fero- city, heard the same declaration * Wotan mit uns^ saw the same murder of non-combatants, viewed the same brutalizing of women and violation of children, watched the same systematic burn- ing of Churches, schools, and manuscripts, from Bangor of the Irish Picts to Isle of May in Pict- land of Alba, and from Kingarth to the Orkneys; and, under Olaf the Fair, they were subjected to the same deportations and bondage. Yet the spirits of the Pictish people and their descend- ants were neither cowed nor broken. They con- tinued to cherish the ancient passion for freedom. Although, by the falseness of the Gaidheals or Scots, they were not able to revenge themselves under their own pure-blooded leaders, they were xiii THE PICTISH NATION content to strike once and again under kings of the Scotic dynasty; and they struck so hard and often that Teutonic domination was restricted to the northern Islands and toaverysmall partof the PIctlsh mainland. The movement for ' Scottish Independence ' in the thirteenth century Is only half-explained until it is recognized that it was the revival of the ancient freedom-loving spirit of the Picts, asserting itself in favour of nation- ality under a native leader, William, whose sur- name, ' Wallace,' indicates that he was In name, as in fact, a true and worthy Briton with the same blood in his veins as the Picts. A. B. S. The Manse of Kildonnan, Helmsdale, 19 17. CONTENTS OF CHAPTERS I. PERIOD AND ORIGIN OF THE PICTISH CHURCH page i II. PICTLANDOFALBA .... „ 6 III. THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS . ,,15 IV. THE LITERATURE OF THE PICTS . ,,41 V. HOW THE PICTS LIVED ... ,,63 VI. THE BEGINNING AND GROWTH OF THE PICTISH CHURCH .... page yj VII. CANDIDA CASA (WHITHORN) . . ,,90 VIII. THE MEN WHO CONTINUED S. NINIAN'S MISSION-WORK, AND ORGANIZED THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS . . . page 107 IX. RACIAL, POLITICAL, AND OTHER CHANGES IN BRITAIN IN THE SIXTH CENTURY. THE EFFECT ON THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS, THE ORGANIZING OF THE THREE CELTIC NATIONS . . page 171 X. BANGOR OF THE IRISH PICTS, AND GLAS- GOW OF THE BRITONS, GIVE HELP TO CANDIDA CASA IN CONTINUING AN EDUCATED MINISTRY TO THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS OF ALBA . . . pa^e 233 THE PICTISH NATION XI. S. DAGAN OF CANDIDA CASA ; AND THE ATTEMPTS OF THE ROMAN MISSION TO ABSORB THE BRITO-PICTISH CHURCH page 275 XII. THE LEADERS OF THE CHURCH IN PICT- LAND IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY/^^^ 291 XIII. THE FIRST ENGLISH ATTEMPT AT CON- QUEST IN PICTLAND NORTH OF THE FORTH AND CLYDE LINE ; AND THE INCIDENT OF TRUMWINE'S EPISCO- PATE page i\\ XIV. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS COMPLETE EVERY- WHERE IN PICTLAND AT THE BEGIN- NING OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY page 332 XV. CHURCH AND KING IN PICTLAND DUR- ING THE PUBLIC LIFE OF NECHTAN THE SOVEREIGN OF PICTLAND A.D. 706-724 page 360 XVI. STATE AND CHURCH IN PICTLAND DUR- ING THE REIGN OF ANGUS I. MAC FER- GUS, SOVEREIGN OF THE PICTS, 12 AUGUST A.D. 729-761 . . . page 396 ♦XVII. THE PROGRESS OF UNION, BY ABSORP- TION, BETWEEN THE PICTS AND SCOTS. THE EFFECT OF THE COMING OF THE VIKINGS, AND ALSO OF KENNETH MAC ALPIN page 433 CONTENTS OF CHAPTERS XVIII. THE SCANDINAVIAN VIKINGS: THEY DISORGANIZE EXTENSIVELY THE PICTISH SOVEREIGNTY AND PICTISH CHURCH : THEY DESTROY CULTURE AND REVIVE PRIMEVAL SAVAGERY IN MANY PARTS OF PICTLAND . page 447 XIX. AN ANTICIPATION OF THE DEVICES BY WHICH KENNETH MAC ALPIN AND HIS SUCCESSORS PENETRATED THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS WITH ROMAN AND SCOTIC INFLUENCES . page 468 XX. KENNETH MAC ALPIN'S EFFORT TO SET UP ROMAN MONARCHIC AND DIO- CESAN EPISCOPACY IN PICTLAND. THE TRANSFERENCE OF THE SOLE BISHOP OF ' FORTRENN ' TO ABER- NETHY. KING GIRIC'S GIFT OF ' LIBERTY ' TO THE ROMANIZED SCOTIC CHURCH IN PICTLAND. ITS EFFECT ON THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF THE PICTS .... page ^77 XXI. CONSTANTINEIII.MACAEDHANDCEL- LACH THE BISHOP OF ALBA MOCK THE PICTISH CHURCHMEN WITH A PROMISE OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY WHICH IMPLIED CONFORMITY TO THE CHURCH OF ROME . . page 487 THE PICTISH NATION XXII. CORRECTIVE OBSERVATIONS CONCERN- ING THE CELE DE (' CULDEES ') OF PICTLAND OF ALBA . . . page 4^6 XXIII. HOW THE C^Z^ Z'^" ADAPTED THEM- SELVES IN ORDER TO CONTINUE THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS IN ALBA AND FAILED. THEIR GRADUAL AB- SORPTION INTO THE CHURCH OF ROME page 505 XXIV. THE SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL VALUE OF THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS TO CHRISTENDOM .... page S^ 9 Index page 545 PRINCIPAL SOURCES I. Those collated and critically analysed. Used in so far as by internal evidence they remain true to the ancient original sources; or where they are wholly or partly confirmed by external documentary evid- ence, by the inscribed stones, or by the ancient Church-sites of Pictland. Version of Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum (Col- bertine MS.), discarding the Isidorean preface ; but, for the kings of the Scotic dynasty, retaining the confirmed Addi- tions of the Scottish Continuator. The other Versions QixhtPictish Chronicle^ including that added to Historia Briionum, ' Do Bunadh Cruithneach.' The historical matter in the Fragment relating to the Irish Fids, especially the Picts of Dalaraidhe and Uladh (MSS. Rawlinson B, 506 Bodleian; Sind. Book of Lecain). The De Fxcidio of Gildas, and the Historia Britonum (Nennius). The Additions to Historia Britonum, for the early Anglian kings; and for the names and pedigrees of the chiefs and kings of the Britons. The Synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach (MSS. Rawlin- son, Book of Lecain, and Kilbride), checked by the Duan Al- banach and the Irish Annals for the Scotic kings of Dalriada, and for the kings of the Pictish dynasty of Dalriada, after Angus I. Mac Fergus. The historical part of the pedigrees of the Saints of the Britons and Iro-Picts as recorded by the genealogists and in the Senchus; Y Cymmrodor, 9, 173; Bonedd Saint Ynys Fry- dain, Myvrian Archaiology (Morris). The life and Acts of S, Martin of Tours as related by Sul- picius Severus, Fortunatus, and Gregory. The fragments relating to S. Ninian and Candida Casa, and S. Ninian's successors there, in Bede's History, in the ancient Irish Kalendars and lives, and in the basic matter from the 'Old Life' in the Vita S. iVzWaw/ of Ailred. The Versions of the Old Lives of the Saints of the Britons including fragments from Irish sources relating to Caranog, Pawl Hen('Pauldoc'), Servanus, Nidan, and others. THE PICTISH NATION The Versions of the Old Lives of the Iro-Pictish Saints, the fragments belonging to S, Finbar's Life scattered under the Irish, the Britonic, and the Pictish forms of his name, the references to him in the Vita S. Comgalli and in the Vita S. Columbae, and other Lives. The Tract on the Mothers of Saints in Ireland^ and especi- ally the reference to the historical S. Servanus. The Confession of S. Patrick and the Epistle to Coroticus. The Papyrus, No. 417 British Museum, and other frag- ments referring to the Papas. The Chronicle of St. Mary's Huntingdon, for the account of the rebellion of Alpin grandson of Aed Finn, and his clan. The Spelman Fragment dealing with the Paschal date. The Geographike of Ptolemy, and the Versions of the Latin translators. Vita S. Comgalli, Vita S. Cainichi, various Versions and Texts. Vita S. Columbae, Adamnan et Cumine, various Texts; and the 'Old Life' or Eulogy (three Texts). The Black Book of Molaga, and the preface to ' Altus Pro- sator,' Leabhar Breac. Vita S. Columbani, by Jonas of Bobbio. Rerum Hibemicarum Scriptores, ed. O'Conor. Fragments relating to S. Kentigern in the ancient Kalen- dars and Lives; and the basic matter from the Old Celtic Life in the Vita Xentigerni of ]ocelme. De Mensura Orbis Terrae, Dicuil ; ed. Letronne. Annales Cambriae, checked by other sources, and com- pilation by J. W. ab Ithel. Annals of Tighernac, Annals of Ulster, Annals by the Four Masters, (checked by various sources, and corrected where, especially in the latter, place-names belonging to Alba have been confused with similar names in Ireland. The author has found the verified dates compiled by the late Dr. Reeves of great use). Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Thorpe. The Chronicon Scotorum, W. M. Hennessy. Fragments of Annals, MS. 5301, Burgundian Library, Brussels. Vita S. Malachi, S. Bernard. PRINCIPAL SOURCES S. Maelrubha, Reeves, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. vol. iii. Texts of Bede's Historia Ecdesiastica gentis Anglorum^ and his Continuator. Extracts in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland; ed. Haddan and Stubbs. Versions, in Chronicles of Picts and Scots; ed. by Skene. The Martyrology of Tallagh (MS. in possession of the Franciscans). Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, Stokes and Strachan. The '■ Antiphonary^ of S. Comgall's Bangor. Books of Ballymote and Lecain. Feilire of Aengus and Glosses. Liber Hymnorum and Glosses, ed. Todd. Saltair na Rann, ed. Stokes. Amra Cholumchille, by Dalian Forgall. The Martyrology of Donegal, ed. Reeves and Todd. The Entries in the Book of Deer. The Martyrology of Aberdeen. The Breviary of Aberdeen. Kalendar of Feam. '■Litany of Dunkeld.^ Rerum Orcadensium Historia, Torfaeus. Statistical Account of Scotland, comp. Sir John Sinclair. The Inscribed Stones of the Britons and Picts. II. Authors whose vi^orks contain matter belonging to the history of the Picts of Alba or to the Church of the Picts; noted, quoted, or considered. In several instances authors have not taken pains to relate this matter correctly to the proper division of the Celtic people, or to the proper branch of the Celtic Church. For early references to the Picts — Tacitus, Agricola; Summary of Dion Cassius by Xiphili- nus; Eumenius; Ammianus Marcellinus. For the period covering the reorganization of the Britons after the departure of the Roman legions — Prosper of Aquitaine's Chronicle. THE PICTISH NATION 'The works of Gildas, Nennius, and Bede's H.E.G.A. • Skene, J^bttr Ancient Books of Wales. •Skene, Preface to the Chronicles oftlie Picts and Scots. 'Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. ii. * Ussher, Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates ; and the earlier De Primordiis. Forbes, Lives of SS. Ninian and Kentigern. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints. Camerarius, De '■Scotorum^ Fortitudine. Simeon of Durham, Historia Regum. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus. Mabillon, Annates ordinis S. Benedicti. Innes, Civil and Ecclesiastical History, (Spalding Club). Chalmers, Caledonia. Lanigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. Whitley Stokes, Tripartite Life of Patrick, etc. Whitley Stokes, Lives of Saints from Book of Lismore. - Reeves, Antiquities of Down and Connor. —Reeves, Culdees of the British Islands. "Reeves, Adamnan's Vita S. Columbae, Appendices and Notes. Rees, W. J., Lives of the Cambro-British Saints. O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints. Maxwell, Early Chronicles Relating to Scotland. Keller, Bilderund Schriftszilge indenlrischenManuscripten. Zimmer, Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland. Zimmer, Irish Element in Mediaeval Culture. Zimmer, Nennius Vindicatus. Muratori, Antiquitates lialicae. Hefele, Konziliengeschichte. -Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica. illarmichael. Customs of the Outer Hebrides. ^Watson, Place- Names of Ross and Cromarty. "^MacLure, British Place-Names. Blaeu, Le Grand Atlas, vol. vi. Nicholson, Keltic Researches. View of the Diocese of Aberdeen. Collection on the Shires of Aberdee?i and Banff, (Spalding Club). PRINCIPAL SOURCES Mackay, Urquhart and Glenmoriston ; Saints of the Ness Valley. Macbain, Exafnination of the Book of Deer (Inverness Gaelic Society). O'Curry, Lectures on MS. Materials for Irish History. Rom illy Allen, Early Christian Monuments of Scotland. Scott, S. Ninian or the Founding of the Church among the Britons and Picts. Scott, S. Moluag. (Printed from Transactions of the Scottish Ecclesiological Society, 191 2). Publications of Spalding Club, Bannatyne Club, Scottish Ecclesiological Society, Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments (Scotland), Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the Gaelic Society of Inverness. Timothy Pont's maps of Scotland, Longnon's map of Gaul, the Tabulae based on Ptolemy relating to Britain and Henry Bradley's map in Archaeologia, vol. xlviii. MAPS I. SHOWING PICTLAND ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY .... To face page 80 II. SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF BRITONS, PICTS, AND GAIDHEALS OR SCOTS WITH TRUE POSITION OF DRUM-ALBAN To face page 171 III. SHOWING RANGE OF THE CHURCHES OF THE PICTS. . . . To face page iiS INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS PERIOD &> ORIGIN OF THE PICTISH CHURCH CHAPTER ONE The Church of the Picts originated from the great mission * conducted along the east f coast of Alba (Pictland) by S. Ninian,! a Briton, dur- ing some period between the years 400 and 432 A.D.§ While a native ministry was being reared, the ministry of the Church thus founded was supplied from the muinntirs^\ or religious com- munities of the Celtic Britons who lived south of the Wall of Antonine; and, also, from the relig- ious communities of the Irish Picts,ir particu- larly from the overflowingcommunityof the Picts of Ulster at Bangor where S. Comgall the Great ruled as Ab. It continued to be the sole Church of the Picts of Alba until a.d. 842, when Kenneth * Of. v. Bede's H.E. G.A. lib. Hi. cap. iv,, and his reference thereto, which will be explained afterwards in these pages. t Owing to the geographical ideas of the time, Bede's * Southern Picts' would be our Eastern, i.e. east oiDrum-Albain. X For a full discussion of 8. Ninian's work, see the author's S. Ninian and the Founding of the Celtic Church among the Britons and the Picts. § S. Ninian died in 432. He began his work about 397 at the place then called Candida Casa, now Whithorn, in Galloway. II Muinntir was the Celtic name for a clerical ' family,' or community. IT The Northern Irish Picts (' Cr«zM»«'),attheend of the fifth century, occupied most of Antrim, Down, Louth, and Armagh. Their chief king- dom was Dal-Araidhe. The kings were descended from Fiacha Araidhe. The Southern Irish Picts, who included Manapians and Brigantes, occupied Dublin, Wexford, Wicklow, and Waterford with their hinter- lands. Spike Island in Cork harbour was 'Innis Pict.'' Originally the Picts occupied the whole east coast of Ireland; but the southern branch of the Gaidhealic Nialls drove a wedge through them at Meath. B I THE PICTISH NATION Mac Alpin, king of the Gaidheals,* or Scots f of Dalriada, seated himself on the throne of the Picts in Fortrenn (Kingdomof Earn), and assumed the sovereignty. By this act, the Kingship of the Gaidhealic colony of Dalriada became merged in the High-kingshipjof Pictland. The Gaidheals, or Scots, had a Church of their own, founded at Hy (lona) a.d. 563 by S. Columba, a Gaidheal. Clerics of this Church naturally followed their king and his court into his new realm; and we possess a record of their presence there, in Fort- * Gaidheal is the name owned by the Q -using Celts. At the begin- ning of the sixth century they occupy the West, the Upper Midlands, and the North-west of Ireland. They were descendants of Cairbre Righfada, and claim to have migrated northward by the west coast from Munster. Their north-eastward pressure drove the Picts to the eastern sea-fringe in Ulster. The Gaidheals of the North and Upper Midlands were the race of Niall; those on the West the race of Brian; the Gaidheals who emigrated to Scotland and founded the colony of Dalriada (Argyll) were the race of Ere ; and related to the Nialls. t This name occurs in Claudian (fourth century) referring to certain Irish Allies of the Picts of Alba. Continental Latin-speaking people applied the name to all natives of Ireland. S. Columbanus and S. Gall, although both were Picts, are * Scots ' to the people on the Continent. The Vikings {c. 800) restrict the name ' Scot ' to the Gaidheals of Dal- riada and the name Pict to the Picts of Alba. In the Leabhar na h- Uidhre the Gaidheals of Scotland are Albanaich — men of Alba. After the tenth century, Latin writers begin to restrict the name ' Scot ' to the Gaidheals of Scotland; and ultimately these Gaidheals monopolized this name entirely. X At first the Gaidhealic kings followed Kenneth's example and were styled ' rex Pictorum ' ; but in a. d. 900 there is a sudden change, and they begin to be styled ' rex Alban,' which was a return to the pretentious title which the Annalists dropped after the disastrous defeat of the Gaidh- eals by Brude Mac Maelchon in 560. Righ Alban was then changed to Righ Dalriada. When the style of ' rex Alban ' was revived after 900 we find that it began to be translated ' King of Scotland ' and also ' King of Scots.' THE PICTISH CHURCH renn,*aboutacentury after Kenneth Mac Alpin's time, trying to adjust their claims with the in- terests of the clerics of the native Pictish Church. Although, in name, Kenneth united the two dom- inions of Gaidheal and Pict at once, he did not unite thetwopeoples, or the twoChurches. Union of the peoples and Churches was a gradual pro- cess which continued through centuries. It was effected, district by district, sometimes by absorp- tion on the part of the Picts, sometimes by sup- pression and penetration on the part of the Scotic dynasty. For example, the people in the districts once ruled by the Pictish mormaors of Moray with- held recognition from the Gaidheals until com- pelled by the terrors of the sword; and the old native Church was still represented at St. Andrews in the tenth century. \ Again, the ancient Pictish Churches at Deer| and Turriff § were not taken over by Gaidheals until the early part of the twelfth century, after the Roman episcopate had been organized with the help of the Ceanmor group of Scottish kings. Although the Gaidh- ealic intrusionists had the countenance of the Crown, they required some sortof title with which to soothe the local sentiment before entering into * Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, Skene, p. 9. t C. 906 attempts were made apparently by Cellach, first Roman bishop at St. Andrews under the Scotic kings, to bring the clerics of the Pictish Church into communion with the new Gaidhealic clerics. \ In Buchan ; founded by S. Drostan, a Briton, and dealt with later. § Also in Buchan; founded by S. Comgan, a fugitive Pictish prince from Erin. THE PICTISH NATION possession of these old native establishments. They were equal to the situation, however, here as elsewhere, and proceeded to edit in their own interest the history of the origin of Deer, sub- ordinating S. Drostan, the founder, to their own Saint Columba, thus creating what is known as ' The Legend of Deer' ^ Although they could use Columba'sname to influence the Celtic sentiment of local officials, they show nevertheless that, by that time, this Saint had been deposed from his oncehighplaceintheesteemofGaidhealic ecclesi- astics; because in the memorandum of a genu- ine dedication of property made after the Gaidh- ealic intrusion was complete, ^ Petir Abstoil,' that is Peter the Apostle, is added to 'Columcille and Drostan ' and takes precedence of both, f We thus learn that the Gaidheals who took posses- sion of Deer in the twelfth century had already been romanized. Farther north, in the diocese of Caithness, the clerics who represented the very ancient Pictish foundation of S. Finbar at Dor- noch \ continued to survive into the early thir- teenth century in spite of and apart from Gilbert Murray, the fourth prelate but the first Gaidhealic bishop who had been able to secure a footing in that part of the diocese. The community of S. Finbar worked undisturbed; but Saint Gilbert ♦ Cf. The Book of Deer. t See Entry iii. fol. 4, first side, Book of Deer. X Now the county town of Sutherland. THE PICTISH CHURCH required to import a colony of IM^urrays to insure his security. These are merely three widely separated ex- amples of survivals of the ancient Pictish Church, indicating the long period that elapsed before the churchmen of the Gaidheals gained effective con- trol of the congregations that gathered affection- ately to the sacred centres of the ancient native Church. Incidentally, we learn that the Celts of Scotland have never been for long without a dis- senting minority somewhere. Most interesting, however, it is to note that altogether, apart from isolated survivals later than the reigns of Kenneth Mac Alpin and King Giric or Grig (c. 889), the ChurchancientlyfoundedbyS.Ninian, the Briton, flourished as the sole Church of the Pictish people iox four hund^'ed and seventy years (c. 4.20-c. 890), that is, roughly, one hundred and ninety years longer than the period in Dalriada of the Church of the Gaidheals, or Scots, founded by S. Columba (563-^. 842), and two hundred and five years longer than the period of the mixed Church of Alba [c. 842-1107) which was partially roman- ized, and recognized by the Scotic dynasty of Pictish sovereigns; and, roughly, twenty years longer than the period in Scotland of the organ- ized and conformed Roman Catholic Church of the Scots (i 109-1560), and, roughly, nearly one hundred and thirteen years longer, to date, than the period of the Reformed Church in Scotland. 5 PICTLAND OF ALBA* CHAPTER TWO Albion] is the name of Britain preserved by the Greek writers; probably it was taken down from the early shipmasters of the Mediterranean. Ptolemy's spelling (c. 127) is Alouion, due, very likely, to a copyist's error. Pliny also gives the name as Albion. The early literary Irish use the forms Alba and Alban, and ultimately apply the name to what is now Scotland, that beingthe part of Britain with which they had most traffic. When the Vikings (c. 800) landed on the northern part of Britain they called the country ' Pictland.' This is exactly the name which is applied to that part of the country in the Annals of Ulster (a. 866) in the Celtic form ' Cruitin- tuait,' where Cruitin stands for Pict, and tuath \ for land or nation. Cruithne, a Pict, comes to us in the spelling of the C-using Gaidheals. 1 1 was the name which the Gaidheals of northern Ireland applied to the Picts of Ulster. Adamnan, Abbot of lona, also a Gaidheal, latinizes it into ^Cruithnii,'\ and uses it in referring to the same people. This short excursus among national names brings us round in a circle to the point from which * Latinized as Pictavia, and the people's name as Picti or Pictones. There was also Pictland of Erin, namely the east-coast districts of Ireland. The Gaidheals called these districts Crich-na- Cruithne, that is, Bounds of the Picts. Cf. Reeves, V. S. Columbce, p. 94, note h. t Whiteland. % Not tuath meaning north, as Dr. Skene states, § V.S. C. lib. i. cap. vii. 6 PICTLAND OF ALBA we started. The P-using Britons spelt ^Cruitin' (Pict) as Priten* and Pryden. This the Teu- tonic Angles transformed into Briton. There- fore, Cruitkne or Cruitin, on the one hand, and Priten (or Briton) on the other, are one and the same name, meaning Pict, and taken from two different Celtic dialects. An early Greek name for the British Isles is Pretanikai Nesoi. This is based on the native name for Britain, ' Ynys Prydain,' which means, literally, Picts' Island. f Britain takes its name from the Picts \ and the use of this name stamps the fact in every literature throughout the world. It is manifest to any patient inquirer that, so far as Britain is concerned, the Picts who sub- mitted to Imperial Rome, and who took on some- thing of Roman manners and Roman culture, came, through Latin usage, to have the name 'Britons' reserved for themselves alone; where- as the Picts who had spurned Roman power and culture, and who had retired, independent, north of the Wall of Antonine, came, through the in- fluence of Gaidhealic writers, to be distinguished as 'Cruitnich' or 'Cruithnii.' After the Roman general, Lollius Urbicus, had driven the powerful Pictish tribe known as thei5r2^«;«/^5 beyond the Wall ofAntonine(^. 139) this wall became the southern boundary of Pict- * Y. Cymnirodor, ix. 179. t Keltic Researches t E. W. B. Nicholson, pp. 25, 173. THE PICTISH NATION land. From this frontier-line, stretching between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, Pictland extended northwards to the remotest island of Shetland; and the Hebrides, outer and inner, were included in the country. . This was the territorial extent of Pictland when S. Ninian led his mission along the whole east coast, and crossed the sea as far as Shetland between 400 and 432 a.d. This also represents the territory over which Brude Mac Maelchon, the Sovereign of Pictland, reigned at his capital in Inverness from 554 to 584 a.d. Canty re with its colony of Gaidheals or Scots was at this time within the lordship of Mac Maelchon; because A.D. 560 this sovereign had expelled many of the encroaching Gaidheals from South Argyll, had shut up a remnant in Cantyre, and after slaying their righ, or king, Gabhran, in battle, had left their new chief with the title of a mere tributary Hoiseachy* or military magistrate. It was into the Pictish dominions thusdefined, and to this sovereign, Brude Mac Maelchon, that, A.D. 563, SS. Comgall and Cainnech, the Pictish ecclesiastical leaders, introduced S. Columba the Gaidheal, outcast | from the Gaidheals of Ire- land who had turned to the Dispersed among the Picts of Argyll. Columba was discreetly * Conall, Gabhran's successor, is so termed by the authorities on which the Fotir Masters drew. t S. Columba was exiled from Ireland after 561, the year of the battle of Cul-Dreimhne which he provoked. 8 PICTLAND OF ALBA angry* at the broken state of his race-brothers, the colonists in Cantyre; but he restrained him- self enough to crave from Brude, the Sovereign, an island in the West, where he could dispense the consolations of Religion to the children of the Captivity who wept among the Isles to the moan of the Atlantic; and where, afar from the super- vision of the monarch, he could exercise warily his aggressive diplomatic genius to restore free- dom and progress to the conquered Gaidheals. I n the I rish additions to the Historia Britonum the mainland of thePicts is described as * O chrich Chat CO Foirciu,' that is, from Caithness to the Forth. Within this stretch of territory Ptolemy of Alexandria places ten tribes or provinces. The Epidioi, Horsemen,inhabited.£)^2^z?^w,f Cantyre and South Argyll. The Kerones,% Shepherds, occupied the whole West Coast from about Loch Linnhe to Cape Wrath. The Kornavioi, People * * Woe to the Picts to whom he will go East, He knew the thing that is, It gave him no pleasure that a Gaidheal Should reign in the East under the Picts. ' The explanation of S. Columba's missionin the Prophecy of S. Berchan. \ This name not only indicates Ptolemy's accuracy; but the P in the name indicates one of the distinctive features of the Pictish dialect of Celtic. Professor Kuno Meyer discovered the form of this name used by the Gaidh- eals, namely Echidium. \ The best authorities regard KreoneSy Karini, Karndnes, and Karndn- akaidiS copyists' variants of this name. The writer considers that, as the Aarw^wa/Ja? were flanked on both sides by Kerones, KamSnaktyiz.^ merely a sectional name for a part of the Kerones who were distinguished by their prominent burial Karns^ Celtic Cam. At the present time ' Chman Cruithneachd' is a place-name in the locality of the Karndnakai. THE PICTISH NATION of the Horn of Pictland, dwelt in the parts repre- sented by the present county of Caithness. The Z^^^^^^' occupied the arable coast-land of Suther- land between the Ord of Caithness and the Dor- noch Firth. A large, chambered burial-cairn on the left bank of the I lidh within a quarter of a mile of Helmsdale is still called Carn-Lougie. The Smertai,'^i\iG. Quick-people, lived in the interiors of Sutherland and north Ross. One of their sur- viving burial-cairns is situated on the bank of the eastern Carron, and still bears the name Cam Smeirt.'\ The Z?^^d!;^^^^ dwelt on the fertile coast- lands that extend from the Dornoch Firth to Moray. The Taizaloivf^ro. on the coasts of Banff and Aberdeen. The Vernikones, or Vernikomes^ occupied the plains by the sea, from Kincardine, through Forfar and across the Tayinto Fife. As /^ in Ptolemaic names sometimes represents Celt- ic MhX as well as Fh^ and 6^,|| it is possible that * With this name Dr. Watson compares the Gaulish Ro-S??terta, Deep- thinking. t Discovered by Dr. Watson in the parish of Kincardine, Ross-shire. X As in Ptolemy's ' Varar^ which is an attempt to render the Celtic accusative for the sea. § As in Ptolemy's Vir-, which is an attempt to render.the Celtic Fhar-, over, in the sense oiio^er'mg over, or projecting , III. % d. A.D. 735. 15 THE PICTISH NATION English, British, Scottish, and Pictish. Bede was quite untravelled*and his workshowsthathehad little personal knowledge of the Celts, and was not in a position to distinguish between a dialect and a language. Nevertheless, he has been much relied on by those who, as Dr. Macbain expressed it, with 'wasted ingenuity' theorized that Pictish was non-Aryan and pre-Celtic. We have seen that the 'Cruitin'(Pict) and the Briton were one in name; it would have been con- trary to expectation if they had differed in speech otherwise than dialectically. Nevertheless, how- ever similar the dialects of the British tribes, in- cluding the Picts, were at the time of the Roman occupation; it is well not to forget that between the days of the Roman colony and the eighth cent- ury, when Bede wrote,the speech of the conquered Britons would, owing to the influenceof the Gaul- ish Legions and Latin culture, diverge markedly from the speech of the unconquered Britons or Picts which for a long time was preserved from foreign influences. On the other hand, the expulsion of the Brig- antes to the north of Antonine's Wall, a.d. 139, before the legionsof Lollius Urbicus, would only intensify the Britonic nature of Pictish speech. These Brigantes were the most numerous and * ' In this Community ( Jarrow) Bede spent his whole life' (Adolf Ebert). ' Except for a few short absences, such as the visits to York and Lindis- farne, we may fairly assume that his whole life was spent in the monastery' (Miss Sellar's sketch of Bede's Life, E.H.E. p. xxxvi). 16 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS powerful people among the Britons. They occu- pied the country from the H umber and Mersey line to the Firth of Forth, that is, all the ground that became the province ^Maxima Caesariensis^' and the eastern half of Valentia\ and with their relatives the Manapian Picts they also occupied the south-eastern coasts of Ireland. Pausanias tells us that the Brigantes were deprived of their lands.* Julius Capitolinus adds to this that they were expelled from the province by Lollius, that is, driven with the Otadinoi north of the Forth and Clyde line, behind the new Wall which the Roman general had made; and, as we have already noticed,penned up inPictland among the southern Vakomagoi and the Vernikones making a mixture of peoples that unite and emerge later as Miathi, Midlanders, out of whom, still later, emerge the Verturiones or Men of Fortrenn. The expulsion of th^SQ Brigantes^ not to mention the Oifadmotjrom their far-stretching territories, and their with- drawal behind the Wall before the Roman drive must have turned Pictland into a * Congested Dis- trict' for the first time in history. This event must also have increased the Britonic character- istics of the Picts, if that were possible, and ac- centuated the Britonic features of Pictish speech to an extent that ought to have enlightened the sceptics who doubted the close original affinity of the Cruitin (Pict) and the Briton. * Cf. Sir Herbert Maxwell's Chronicles relating to Scotland, p. 19. c 17 THE PICTISH NATION The close affinity between the speech of Pict and Briton is further indicated in the ease and speed with which the British Christians occupied the mission-fields of Pictland. H ardly had S. N in- ian, a Briton, completed the foundation of Can- dida Casa in Galloway as a centre of the Christian religion when he set out* with a number of his community to found Churches, and to place min- isters all along the east coast of Pictland. | From the then border-town of Glasgow the line of his Churches extended to S. Ninian's Isle in Shet- land. Ailred, who drew his facts about Ninian from the Old Lif CySt^X^s that thesaint taught the Picts 'the truth of the Gospel and the purity of the Christian faith, God working with him and "con- firming the Word with signs following." 'J There is not the slightest hint that either S. Ninian or his helpers had the least difficulty with the langu- age. Even Bede lays stressonS. Ninian's /r^^^^- ing^ asthe means by which he converted the Picts of the East coast. || In the beginning of the sixth century S. Fin- bar of Maghbile and Dornoch, a pupil at Can- dida Casa but an Irish Pict by birth, took up and * Between a. d. 400 and 432. t See the Author's .S". Ninian, Apostle of the Britons and Picts. X Vita Niniani, Ailred, cap. vi. § H.E. G.A., Bede, lib. iii. cap. iv. II Bede calls these particular Picts ^Southern.'' The Picts were not divided into 'Northern' and 'Southern' either politically or geographic- ally. Bede's geography was Ptolemaic, as he indicates. His ' South ' was our East, and his 'North' our West, so far as Pictland is concerned. 18 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS continued S. Ninian's work in Sutherland, Ross, and elsewhere. He,ofcourse,would have no diffi- culty with the Pictish tongue. About the same time S. Drostan,* another Briton, established a missionary-base at Deer in the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, from which he worked with the members of his community and strengthened the Faith in Buchan and Caithness. Later, in the same century, S. Kentigern, an- other Briton, with his base at Glasgow, led a mis- sion to the uplands of Aberdeenshire, and sent members of his community 'towards the Ork- neys.'f Joceline, his biographer, who also drew his facts from an old Celtic Life, emphasizes the effect o{ his preaching, 'the Lord working with him, and giving power to the voice of his preach- ing.' Again, there is no suggestion that preach- ing to the Picts was other than easy to a Briton. About the same time that S. Kentigern was in the Pictish mission-field S. Comgall the Great, J another Irish Pict, friend of S. Finbar and neigh- bour to him, was teaching the Western Picts; S. Cainnech of Achadh-Bo, also a Pict, was teaching the Pictsof Fife; and S. Moluag,yet another Pict, a relative of S. Comgall, was joining up his mis- sionary community at Lismore in Argyll with his other community at Rosemarkie in Ross, andlink- ing this in turn to the missionary-communities * See the history of S. Drostan's mission in the body of this book, t V. Kentigerni, Joceline, cap. xxxiv. X See the history of S. Comgall's work in the body of this book. 19 THE PICTISH NATION ofthe Britons in Aberdeenshire. Here,oncemore, we have no sign that the Britons were divided from the Picts by any difficulties of language. The first outstanding Celtic ecclesiastic who appears in history as having difficulties with the speech of Pictland was a Gaidheal; and he, none other than S. Columba of Hy. He stands in hist- ory, written too by a Gaidheal,* to confirm all that philologists and historians have discovered in the way of indicating that the speech of Pictland though closely akin to the speech of the Britons was decidedly different from the Celtic dialect spoken by the Gaidheals or Scots. Thrice we hear of S. Columba depending on interpreters in his conversations with the Picts. When he went to Brude Mac Maelchon to seek permission to settle in Hy, or lona, for his work among the Gaidhealic colonists, he required to attach himself to the company of two Picts, S. Comgall the Great and S. Cainnech. This fact is only hinted at by Adamnan, but is suppressed altogether in the Old Life of S. Columba, which was of Gaidhealic origin. Dr. Reeves, on the other hand, candidly directs attention to it.f Again, whenS. Columba was visitingthePictish island of Skye an old chief called A r^drannan was brought to him for baptism. When the Saint proceeded to give the necessary preliminary instruction he * See his biography by Adamnan. t Adamnan's F.i'.C, Reeves, p. 152, note a?. 20 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS could only convey the 'Word of God through an interpreter."^ Once more, an interpreter appears in connection with an incident which Adamnan associates with S. Columba's second journey to Brude. S. Columba had halted in some Pictish district when 'a certain rustic, with all his house- hold, heard the Word of Life through an interpre- ter when the holy man (Columba) preached. As a result he believed; and believing was baptized, the husband with his wife and children and ser- vants.'! Yet this is the man to whom is credited the Christianizing of Pictland, J although he had been preceded there by distinguished British and Pictish teachers; and although in S. Columba's own time famous missionaries like S. Moluag, S. Kentigern, and S. Cainnech were at work in the very heart of Pictland where no enemy Gaidheal would have been allowed to travel on any pretext. ThepleahasbeenputforwardthatS. Columba only required an interpreter 'twice,' and at a time when he was imparting the Gospel. § It would have been more accurate to say that Adamnan onlygives two instances tohis Gaidheahcreaders * V.S.C. lib. i, cap. 33. t Ibid. lib. ii. cap. 32. X Bede's reference to S. Columba converting the Northern (our West- ern) Picts is dealt with elsewhere in this volume. § The most puerile attempts have been made by the Exaggerators of Columba, and bytheGaelic-everywhere-and-from-all-timephilologists to explain away S. Columba's need of an interpreter in Pictland. ' On two occasions only,' pleads Skene, 'does S. Columba require an interpreter.' Adamnan, who wrote for Gaidheals, did not require to be continually men- tioning what they knew, that Pictish was a different tongue fromGaidhealic. 21 THE PICTISH NATION of what to them was an obvious necessity; and, surely, if S. Columba could not give simple in- struction in Pictish to an adult candidate for bapt- ism, or to a rural family interested in hearing the Gospel, he could not make any effective use of the speech of thePicts whom some writers allege that he converted; and his work among the Picts cannot for a moment be compared with the work of Pictish teachers such as S. Comgall the Great, S. Moluag, or S. Cainnech, not to mention the missionaries from the Church of the Britons. Beyond what has been stated, some ancient names in our present-day speech witness to the differences between Gaidhealic and Pictish; and show the Bri tonic character of the latter tongue. For example, the name of S. Maelrubha of Aber- crossan,* a Pict, means Red Cleric. f In the dis- tricts of Pictland where he laboured the tradi- tional pronunciation of his name, still used, is 'Malruf,' 'Maruf,' or 'Maruve.'J The b in his name is clearly aspirated. Among the descend- ants of the Gaidhealic Colonists in the West, however, his name is spelt Maolruadha. It has the same meaning; and in colloquial Gaelic has frequently been translated Sagart Ruadh, * Red Priest.' The Gaidhealic form is seen in the west- country names, 'Kil-Molruy,' *Kil-Marow,' and * Now Applecross in Ross, t Literally Red Tonsured -one. X As in ' Keth-Malruf ' for Keith in Banffshire and in * Sa-Mariive' for Sanct Malrubh. 22 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS 'Kil-Maree.' The important point is that the name gives us the Pictish rubh and the Gaidh- ealic ruadk, both meaning red. Again the Landnamabdk of Iceland informs us of certain place-names 'Papeya and ^Papyli' The places sodesignatedwereoccupiedby Clerics called ^Pdpas' before the Scandinavians went to Iceland. Dicuil,* the Irish geographer, knew of these Clerics being in Iceland about a.d. 725. But the names are in everyday use among our- selves designating /*«/«; Stourm Shetland, P^/a; Westra in Orkney, P^^-^z in the outer Hebrides; and other places. ^Pdpa^ came into the child- speech of Greece with Phrygian nurses, took the form/4^^^; and needless to state meant* father, 'or later, 'grandfather.' The Greek-speaking Christ- ians applied the namej to ministers of the Church, regarded as 'fathers' of their congregations. It came into Gaul on the lips of various bodies of Christian, Greek-speaking exiles, not to mention traders and professional men. Having been al- ready applied to monks in Greek-speaking dis- tricts, the name was naturally transferred to S. Martin and other presidents of Celtic monastic communities who were imitating the Greek- speaking monks. The president of the monastic community generally spoke of the members as his 'children' or 'family,' or to use the Celtic word, * He wrote A.D. 825. t Kaor, Papa of Hermopolis, is the writer of a letter preserved yn Papyrus 417, British Museum, dated c. A.D.350. 23 THE PICTISH NATION his 'muinntir^'^ 2i name which still survives at S. Martin's establishmentat Tours, in ' Marmoutier or Mormuinntir^ that is 'Magnum Monasterium,' Great Monastery. 'Papa found its way to the daughter 'Magnum Monasterium' in Galloway with S.Martin's disciples, Ninian the Briton and his followers. It is a word that no Gaidheal ever popularized; because no Gaidheal could easily pronounce it. In fact the Gaidheals rejected it, and adopted the Syriac 'Ab,' the title of the pre- siding monk in certain communities of the East. On the other hand, 'Papa with its /-sounds is such a word as Britons and Picts would welcome. It occurs in early documents, in the Epistle wrongly attributed to Cumine of Hy, and is ap- plied to S. Patrick, a Briton. The survival of the name in Iceland goes to confirm Joceline's state- ment that S. Kentigern sent his missionaries 'towards Iceland.' The use of the word at all by the Picts and Britons reveals to any one who knows the early history of the Church in Gaul that their missionaries had been in touch with S. Martin's monasticism and its nomenclature among the Celts of Gaul while the Roman Church was still looking askance at monasticism, and while the Bishop of Rome had little influence * Dr. Macbain stated that Stokes, Zimmer, and Guterbock regarded this word as an early borrowing from Latin. The early nomenclature of monasticism, with which the Celts of Gaul were familiar, was mostly from Greek and slightly from Chaldaic and Coptic. The Latin Church was at first opposed to monasticism. 24 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS among the Gallic bishops. Although monasticism and its nomenclature were brought to Gaul from Greek-speaking centres the name Papa disap- peared and Ab or Abbas took its place there and elsewhere in the West as soon as the Bishop of Rome won control; because with clever humility- he had chosen Papa as his own particular title, re- jecting Pa^rtarc^es or other namesequallygrand. Papa survived only in places where it had been firmly rooted in the speech of the people before the influence of Rome overtook it, as on the coasts of Pictland; or throughout the Eastern Church where the influence of Rome was never felt, and where it still designates the humbler clergy. Other borrowed words seen in the place-names of the Pictsare — 07/*(EnglishKil-),dative of C^^//(Early Irish Ce//), from Latin Ce//a, a cell. The name now means Church. Originally it was attached to the founder's name. The cell of the Ab was the centre of the monastic settlement, and close by stood the Church of the community. The great Pictish monastery of Bangor was a town of detached cells within a guarded rampart. The missionaries from Bangor and other centres of the Irish Picts in- * In this and other words the current Scottish Gaelic is given for con- venience even when it does not represent the present or the old vernacular pronunciation. It is not clear how inital Latin C was articulated; but the Gaidhealic scribes reproduced as ' Circ ' and ' Ctrtc ' the names which in Pictland were pronounced 'Grig,' for example, 'Eccles-Grig' in Kincardine; and ^Mc Giric ' and 'Mai- Giro ' in the Book of Deer. 25 THE PICTISH NATION troduced the detached bee-hivecell intoPictland, just as S. Columba, the Gaidheal, introduced it into Dalriada according to the examples which all had seen at Clonard and Glasnevin. 1 1 is worth noting, in this connection, that S. Columba's teacher at Clonard was educated among the Brit- ons, and that his teacher at Glasnevin was an I rish Pict. 'Ciir was not applied originally to Churches founded by missionaries from the Britons; Llan was common. Among thePicts andGaidhealsthe Church frequently grewout ofthe Cell; amongthe Britons the Church and Cell were contemporane- ous. S. Ninian's Cell was Casa, a hut; because it was an effort to keep true to the type of Bothy at whichS. Martin introduced and began to organize monasticism in Gaul, on the farm which S. Hilary gave to him for his great experiment. Here S. Martin began in the ' Logo-Tigiac' "^ or White- Hut which was the original of Candida Casa. 'Casula' was the name applied to the Cells of S. * Mr. Nicholson, Keltic Researches, p. 145, gives this as a sixth-century form ofthe name. The place is now Liguge, Poictiers. Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus preserve the name as ^ Loco-ciacum' and ^Logotegiacum' and "■ Logotigiacum.'' Longnon gives ^ Loco-diacus'' of which there is a variant ' Lticoteiac-. ' The latter part of the name is clearly the diminutive ofthe Celtic Tigh ( Teach) or Ty, a House. The root ofthe first part of the name is seen in the Greek prefix leuko- which means Bright- white; and in the ancient Celtic prefix Letue (Leucetios, God of Lightning). The Celtic root also survives in the personal name '■Luag' which Angus the Culdee paraphrases as 'clear and brilliant ' ; or in ' Cat-luan, ' Light of Battle. It is seen also in the current Gaelic word Itiachair (rush), the light-maker. The whole name means literally Bright- white Hut, and is correctly trans- lated hy^Candida Casa.' Compare with the last part of the name '■Mogun- tiacum. House ofthe god Mogun, the ancient name of Mainz. 26 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS Kentigern's settlement, showing that in his time the 'little houses' were maintained. In an old Irish manuscript, ' Botha "^ is the name applied to the cells at Glasnevin. Both- was also used in Pictlandof Alba. Eaglais, formerly eclais (Brit, eglwys), is the Greek ekklesia, Assembly or Church. It occurs throughout Pictland, and, when associated with the Ancient Church-foundations, is attached to the ecclesiastical founder's name. It is seen in such names as Eccles-Machan, West Lothian; in 'Egglis,' the short name recorded in the early twelfth century for the ancient Eccles-Ninian^ now S. Ninian's near Stirling; in Eccles-Grig, Kincardineshire; and in Egilshay, Church-island, Orkney. Tempul {^ni. tempel) is a name that abounds in Pictland; and, indeed, wherever Celts were settled. It came to mean Church. In the preface to the //;);^^^-^^^^^A who was oneofS. Ninian's successors and presided at Candida Casa at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, the scholiast calls the Church at Candida C^j^'templum.' The Church-site which S. Ninian onhisnorthern mission marked off at Glen Urqu- hart,and where his Church stood for centuries, is still called ' Tempul!\ Notwithstanding the later use of ' TempuV and its application to the Church * Quoted by Dr. Reeves, V.S. C. (Adamnan), p. 360, noter. t Saints of the Valley of the Ness {J^x. W. Mackay), p. 5. 27 THE PICTISH NATION at Candida Casa, there is evidence that in Pict- land the name was not restricted to buildings but sometimes was used in its original sense of a place marked off and enclosed for a sacred purpose. The name had been, apparently, first applied in Pictland to the sacred enclosures of the heathen Picts; and, afterwards, bestowed upon the Christ- ian Churches erected there. When Ailred, doubt- less following the Old Life, relates concerning S. Ninian's northern mission 'temples are cast down and Churches erected,' he means no more than that the templum proper, the inclosed space, was broken into by the Christian pioneer, and the ceremonial standing stones laid flat. Seipeal (\r. Sepel), Chapel, is an interesting name. It has been applied in Pictland, in the vernacular, to the most ancient Church-sites, foundations not dedications, where therehasbeen nothingbutdry-built stone foundations time out of mind, andperhapsadisused Churchyard. Thus we have in the north of S cotland, where ancient names have been little displaced, such examples as 6'4^//- Ninian, S^pU-Finbar, SdpH-Drostan^Sdpdl-Don- nan, and the like. Yet the philologists declare that SdpSl, because of the initial S which is artic- ulated as 5^, was imported from English after the tenth century when extra apses with an altar came to be added to the main structures and were called 'Chapels.' The Gaidheals, for example, had no need to borrow from English; because they took 28 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS their word Caibeal, Chapel, direct from the Latin Capella ; and it is seen in such a name as Portin- caple, Port of the Chapel, reproduced in the four- teenth century as •/'^r//^^^^/'/.' Manifestly the ini- tial Sk- sound in 5^^/ was due, not to English, but to the influence of a tongue which disliked simple initial S as much as initial C. Both the BritonsandPicts had these dislikes,henceinPict- land there still survives in the native pronuncia- tion of place-names s^pdlioxcapella\ ^shantor'^iox cantor, a choirmaster; 'shant ' f for sanct, and even 'SkanonryioY Canonry,|the place where Canons resided.§ There is a further indication that 'sdpdl^ a chapel, was used by the Celts long before its application in the tenth century to extra apses. The name goes back to the period of the true capella, that is, little capa or covering. The true 'chaplain' was the minister who dispensed the sacraments under the capella, which was an ex- temporized canopy of thatch- work raised over the field Communion-table of a minister accompany- ing the Christian legions of the Emperor, or of a pioneer missionary sealing his converts. As Ailred, with the OldLife before him, states thatS.NinianinhisnorthernmissionthroughPict- * ' Ach-na-Shantor,' the Precentor's glebe, is at Dornoch. t ' Shant's Cross ' is in Buchan. I ' Canonries ' were in Aberdeen, Ross, and Moray and elsewhere. § To these may be added : 'Giltrioh' for ' Gilchrist,' where both the C and the 5 are avoided — a pronunciation which has been foolishly explained as a desire to avoid pronouncing the sacred name of Christ. 29 THE PICTISH NATION land joined his converts 'to the body of Believers, by faith, by confession, and by the Sacraments, ' the Capella would be a feature of his field-services; and it is only natural that the dry-stone building with heather-thatched roof which succeeded it as a permanent shelter for the Holy Table, should continue to possess the name S^pdl, Capella, or Chapel. In the early Celtic Church * Capella' 2,.^^ ^Casula' became interchangeable names,* appar- ently because of the thatch-work covering com- mon to both; for, of course, while the Casula had walls, the early Capella was supported on poles. Disert is from the Latin ^(^i-^r/o;, waste-places; but the meaning was enlarged. There is a recorded Church of S. Ninianat'Disert'in Moray, believed to be at Dyke. The place is no longer known by its first name. Disert, originally, meant any soli- tary place where the cleric might retire for a short time from the community for meditation and de- votion. S. Martin had his Casa some miles away from Poictiers; and his cave on the Cher, well outside Tours; S. Ninian had his cave on the sea- shore some distance from the 'Magnum Monast- eriuni at Candida Casa) S. Servanus had his cave * This usage was even applied to the Cucullaot Hooded Garment which covered the Cleric. Sometimes it was called Capa, sometimes Casula. The hood of the Capa was the only head-covering of the Celtic Clerics ; and it was used only in cold or storm. Those who seek an explanation of the un- explained word Cap should note this. Those, also, who wish a further ex- ample of how initial C was avoided in Pictland, should note the word • Hap' still applied there to any garment like the ancient Capa or Cuculla which was a wrap for the day and a blanket for the night. 30 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS atDysartinFife; S. Kentigern retired 'addeserta loca' where his dwelling was a cave; S. Finbar and S. Comgall had retreats in the 'Holy- Wood'; S. Cainnech had a solitude on an island in a loch. In these solitary places these leaders of menmed- itated on God and rejoiced in Nature. They made friends with the wild creatures around them; the wild swans came toS. Comgall at his call; S. Kenti- gern had a wolf and a stag for companions; and S. Cainnech was followed by a hind. I n their mon- astic organizations the Picts and Britons left room for the anchoret as well as the cenobite. The Irish Christians at a later period recognized Diserts specially intended for men who had no external in- terests, religious or otherwise, who had imprisoned themselves ar Dia, * for God,' that is, for con- tinued devotional exercises. The I rish also, in the late period, used Dithreabh, Wilderness, for Di- sert. Disert is still in use in Pictland, but only in secular place-names. Bachall{fix\x.. bagl), from Latin baculum, was the pastoral staff of an Ab or bishop. When sent by a messenger who was the bearer of a verbal order from the Ab; the staff was a sign that the order had been authorized. The pastoral staves ofSS. Moluag and Fillan are still preserved. The staff of S. Donnan the Great vanishedatAuchter- less Church at the Reformation. Certain lands at Kilmun went with the custody of S. Mund's staff; and the property called ' Bachul' in Lismore is 31 THE PICTISH NATION Still held bythe hereditary keepers of S.Moluag's staff. After the period of the Celtic Church the Bachalls of the saints were venerated as relics, used in healing the sick, and, to bring victory, were carried in front of the fighting-men as they marched into battle, which explains why the ^BachuV of S. Moluag was in the custody of the standard-bearer of the lords of Lorn. Cathair is a name associated with the sites of many cities and muinntirs in the territories of the Britons and Picts. Etymologists insist that it represents two words — (i) Cathair (Brit. Caer, Latin Castrum), a fort; seen in ^Caerleon^' Forti- fied camp of the Legions; and in ^CaerPheriSy the thirteenth -century Dun-Fres (Dumfries), Fort of the Frisians. (2) Cathair (Welsh C^^^a^V, Latin Cathedra), a chair, particularly a bishop's Cathedra or Chair. I f the etymologists are right ; mediaeval Latin translators of Celtic documents would be wrong; because they call early monas- tic settlements 'cities,' not seats, and indicate, what is correct, that as a rule they were fortified. *Car-Budde' near Forfar, for example, is known to be 'Castrum Boethii,' *Fort of S. Buidhe; not Chair of S. Buidhe. J oceline writes 'ad Cathures ' f in the sense of 'ad castra,' that is, to the place that became known as \)c\^camp of S. Kentigern's community. On the other hand, there are places * It was a gift from Nectan, the Sovereign of Pictland. t The first name of the City of Glasgow. 32 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS in Pictland connected with the early Celtic mis- sionaries called 'Suidke,' a seat, and an altern- ative name among the people is 'Cat hair.' The Suidke-Donnan* in Sutherland, for example, is a deeply concave rock, associated with the field- preaching of S. Donnan the Great. It is also called * Cathair\ and it is in a protected position. These stones called Cathair or Suidhe are not all associated with saints, the best known is the Lia Fail now in Westminster. ^Cathair,' if equi- valent to Suidhe, appears in Pictland to have the simple sense of the original Greek kathidra, a seat. There seems, however, to have been but one word 'Cathair^ which in course of time took a secondary meaning, designating not the fort but the seat protected by the fort. In neither sense was 'Cathair' an episcopal word. It was used in Pictland centuries before the introduc- tion of the monarchic or diocesan bishop with his official 'cathedra' It was not the Chair of the bishop, but the Chair of the Ab which was the seat of authority in Pictland for many long centuries. The writers who interpreted C^M^zV, when linked to a saint's name, as referring to his 'city' rather than to an episcopal chair were conforming to historical truth. Bangor I n Pictland this name takes the forms * Apart from the fact that it was one of S. Donnan's preaching- places ; the tradition is that at the Suidhe Donnan he 'judged ' the people. In Ireland the Suidhe is frequently associated with some Brehon or Law- giver. D 33 THE PICTISH NATION Bangor, Banchor-y, Banagher. Among the Bri- tons are 'Bangor Padarn,'^ 'Bangor y Ty Gwyn ar Dav ' f and many others. Among the I rish are the 'Bangor Mor' of S. Comgall, 'Lis- Banagher^ and Church of 'Ross Bennchuir,' besides many others. One I rish writer refers to 'BenncairBrit- onum,' that is,Bangor of the Britons. Also, among the Britons were the famous 'Cor Tewdws^ de- stroyed in the fifth century during a raid from the Irish coast and restored by S.Illtyd; J and,besides others, * Cor Tathan which originated in the be- ginning of the sixth century, and sometimes C2i}\- ^A Bangor Tat kan.^ Associated with many of the Bangors among the Britons were the houses bear- ing the name 'Ty Gwyn,' that is. White House, a name already noticed at S. Ninian's Candida Casa, Whithorn. Legends have been invented, and etymologi- cal analyses applied to explain '^a;2^^r' as a topo- graphical name. The results have been amazing. The name has been discussed at length in this work in connection with S. Comgall's labours. It is sufficient to state here that * Bangor ' was the name of an organization or institution. All the features of a 'Bangor' were present in S. Martin's Mag- num Monasterium, and in the daughter-house at * Padam ap Pedredin. This place is now Llanpadarn Vawrxa. Cardi- ganshire. t Now Whitland Abbey, Caermarthenshire. X 'iio'w Llan-IUtyd Vawr, Glamorganshire. S. Illtyd died A. D. 512. § In Caer Went. 34 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS Candida Casa, namely, the monastic community with means for training anddiscipline; a Church; Schoolsforthetraining of outsiders not intending the Church. Only in two features did the Bangors improve on S. Martin's or S. Ninian's establish- ments; the communities were more numerous, and the Laus perennisy^ the continuous course of Divine praise, was more perfectly celebrated by huge choirs, which were divided into large groups f who took regular turns of the duty and sang with a refinement not possible when S. Martin was organizing his choir out of the raw converts in Gaul. So far as dates can be compar- ed, they are in favour of the view that the name 'Bangor' was carried from the Britons to Ireland along with the perfected organization of the Laus perenms, which wa-S a feature of S. Comgall's Ban- gor, I by men educated among the Britons like S. Finian of Clonard and others who were Britons by birth as well as education. Just as the monastic- ism of S. Martin in Gaul was for a long time re- garded with disfavour by certain authorities in the Western Church, so in the Eastern Church the cenobiteswhogave themselves to the celebration oi Laus perenms wererGga.rded as a sect and were called ^Acoimetae.' Their great centre in the * Mabillon states that S. Martin's ^/^^/^(PM/jifrwasoneof the first places in Western Europe to adopt the celebration of the ^Lausperennis.' t At Bangor Illtyd each group numbered one hundred, according to the Triads. X Columbanus also made it a feature of the daughter-house at Luxeuil. 35 THE PICTISH NATION East was at Constantinople, in the famous Studion founded c. a.d. 460. The following names are Celtic, most of them are Pictish or Brito-Pictish. Andat or Annat meant a Church whose staff ministered to outlying congregations,or a Church which provided ministerial supply to other small- er Churches when required. The word has been happily translated, Mother-Church. 'Andat' is still the name of the site of a Church at Methlick in Aberdeenshire founded by S. Ninian on his northern mission. The name alone indicates the antiquity of this place. 'AndaV and 'Annaf are found throughout Pictland, and mostly at sites dating from before the Roman Catholic period. In Ireland one oftheChurches*founded there by the earliest British missionaries was called 'An- do6it.' Afters. 727, when veneration of 'Relics' began among the Irish Celts under Roman influ- ence, the relics were enshrined at the Andat or Mother-Church. Relics were not venerated in the Church of Pictland until it had been overtaken by Roman influence in the eighth century. The original meaning of *^^/z^' in Ireland was Ceme- tery. Nemhidh is a name that came to be applied to a place rendered sacred by the existence of a Church orothersacred institution. It is, however, * The Church of a certain Earnan regarded {c. 8oo)asoneof S. Patrick's disciples. 36 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS a pre-Christian name, and is one of the oldest names in Pictland. It was originally applied to a sanctuary in a grove. The people pronounce it 'Nevie and Ndvie. Professor Watson equates it with the Gaulish Nemeton, and quotes Zeuss, 'de sacris silvarum quae nimidias vacant.'* The Indo-European root of the word is seen in the name of the famous Nemioithe. Alban mount in ItdXyyth^'sdJ^ciudiryoWianaNemorensisoY'Did^ndL of the wood.' The wood where S. Comgall and S. Finbarhadtheir*retreats,'nowHolywood,was called 'Nemus sacrum' There is a parish Nevay in Forfarshire, and the name is frequent in Pict- land. Dair, genitive darach, means Oak. It is the original of the place-names Deer, Darra, and •Tear,' the Caithness pronunciation of a Church founded from and named after Deer. Z^^/rcame to mean Oak-grove, as we know from the place where the Celtic fort of Derry originally stood. 'Derteach' and 'Deartaighe' meant Oak-house, and also an oak-built prayer-house. Drostan, the anchoret of the heights of Brechin, was known as 'Drostan Dairthaighe,'\ that is, Drostan of the Oak-house cell. Gomrie, Comrie, and in Ireland ' Innis-Coim- righi.' S. Maelrubha's, Abercrossan (Apple- cross), is 'Combrich' Maelrubha. Irish has also * See Prof. Watson's full discussion of the name in Place-names of Ross, p. Ixii. t Died 719. 37 THE PICTISH NATION 'Comaircke.' Modern Gaelic is Comraich. The Comraich was the defined area around the Church where the shedder-of-blood could claim the pro- tection of the Church and fair trial. It was the Pictish'City of Refuge,' and restricted the range of the blood-feud. If a refugee reached the com- raich of a daughter-Church; he could claim the intervention of the Ab of the Mother-Church however distant he might be; and this ensured trial away from local prejudices. An Irish ruler's son slew a man who had claimed sanctuary at the Church of one of S. Columba's monks, for which actS.Columbaorganizedarmedhostility*against him. Garth, seen in 'Girth-Cross,' Kingarth, and other names, is the Scandinavian rendering of Comraich. Garth originally meant an inclo- sure. 'Girth-cross'f is one of the Cross-marked stones that marked the boundaries of the Com- raich. Llan is a Britonic word. It originally meant a place marked off and inclosed, then it came to mean the fortified inclosure of the Church, and was finally applied to the Church itself. Llan is seen in Lamlash, the Church of S. Mo- Lias; in Lumphanan (Llan-Fhinan)the Church of Finan; * This was the battle of Cuil-Feadha, organized by S. Columba against Colman mac Diarmid because Cuimin, son of the latter, slew Baedan mac Ninnidh. t One of the Girth-crosses of Kildonnan, Sutherland, was on a rock- face at Suisgill. 38 THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS in Lhanbride, Church of Brit^. This name has nothing to do with S.Brigit. The two latter names, referring to a certain Finan and a certain Brit6, are in the area of Pictland worked by the British missionaries. The first name, Lamlash, is in the old territory of the Britons. Lis (Britonic llys, Breton lis) also originally meant an inclosure with a rampart. It afterwards came to be applied to the Church-inclosure, and in modern times to a garden. In Ireland /2^^means a fortification. The name is seen in S. Moluag's 'Lismore' and in many minor places throughout Pictland. The ramparts of S. Donnan's lis at the Church of Auchterless used to be visible. The fortifying ditch and wall can still be seen at some of theearly Church-sites in Pictland where they have not been disturbed. The sites of the Churches founded by S. Ninian on his northern mission at Dunottar, Navidale, and Wick Head were on sea-washed cliffs protected on the land side by ditches or natural ravines and approachable only by narrow footways. S. Ninian's 'TempuV in the Great Glen at Glenurquhart was inclosed in the ' Lis-ant-Rinian,' S. Ninian's inclosure. DabhackyS&Qnin'Doch-Vm,' S. Finbar'sDav- ach at Dornoch, and in 'Doch-Moluag,' S. Mol- uag's Davach, was a measure of land in Pictland. Wherever it is used with a Celtic saint's name it indicates the old benefices and endowments of the Pictish Church. 39 THE PICTISH NATION Examples of secular names drawn from Pict- ish speech are — Pit as a prefix. Originally it meant Portion or share. From 'share of land,' it came to mean homestead and town. Pen, Head. Seen in Caer-pen-tulach now * Kirkintilloch.' Tulach is Gaelic duplicate oipen. Dol, in Pictland as in Britanny, is Flat-ground on a higher plane than the machair or plain-land. Oykel and Ochil, High. The Pictish pronun- ciation of the original word is indicated in the 'Uxella' of the early Greek geographers. Rkos is Moor. Pefr is Clear (applied to water). Preas (-fhreas) is Bush. Cardenn is a Thicket. Gwydd is a Wood, seen in * Keith.' Gwaneg is a Wave of sea or loch, seen in * Fan- nich.' P^ze^r (-fhawr) is Pasture, seen in Bal-four.* * For these last and other unquoted examples see Place-names of Ross, Prof. Watson, p. Hi. THE LITERATURE OF THE PICTS CHAPTER FOUR 'No scrap of Pictish literature ever existed.'* Such was the ill-founded decision of an accepted Scottish historian. It was an audacious deliver- ance to make to a generation which had seen the literary treasures of Europe greatly enriched by the manuscripts from the libraries of the famous Celtic monasteries founded,one at Bobbio in Lom- bardy by S. Columbanus,! the other at St. Gall in Switzerland by S. Gall.J Both founders were Pictish scholars educatedby S. Comgall the Great at Bangor in Ulster, the chief centre of learning among the Irish Picts. Both were born in the ancient territories of the northern Irish Picts in the north of Leinster, S.Gail in the north of Louth on the Ulster border; and S. Columbanus, also on the border-land, in the district lying between Louth and southern Loch Erne. S. Columbanus surveyed the locality about Lake Constance with- in the two years of his wanderings after his ban- ishment from Luxeuil, a.d. 6io; and there he left S. Gall to settle. S. Columbanus then made * Yet in the Irish Nennuis reference is made to the Books of the Picts, ' As it is written in the Books of the Cruitneach. ' t BornA.D, 543. His first instructor was S. Sinell, who had been a pupil of Finnian of Clonard, who was educated in Britain. S. Sinell's cell was on Cluain Innis, Loch Erne. % He was born c. 545. In an old MS. from the St. Gall library his father's name is given as 'Kethernac Mac Unnchun.' His own name means Stranger. 'Kethern' was the name of one of the early Pictish heroes. Dr. Reeves states that he was of the race of Ir, progenitor of one branch of the Irish Picts. Ir was a sovereign of Ireland. 41 THE PICTISH NATION his way into Lombardy, and in a.d. 6 1 2 he settled at Bobbio in the Apennines. The catalogues of the libraries of Bobbio and St. Gall have been published.* The tenth-cent- ury catalogue used by the students at Bobbiofhas been reproduced; and the catalogue of St. Gall, compiled there for the convenience of readers in the ninth century, is still accessible. In the ninth century St. Gallpossessedfivehundred and thirty- three volumes; and in the tenth century Bobbio contained seven hundred. From the Bobbio col- lection carnQthQ A nltpkonaryl of Bangor. It con- tains prayers, canticles, hymns, especially an al- phabetical Hymn in honour of S. Comgall, the founder of Bangor, and rules as to the order of prayer. It is a purely Pictish 'Liber Officialis' \ and it enables us to have an idea of the service which S. Moluag introduced from Bangor among the Picts of Alba,and to realize that the same order of worship was followed in Alba that was followed at Bangor, and at its daughter-houses at Luxeuil, Bobbio, and St. Gall. Bobbio naturally possessed the manuscript of the Gospels which, as we know from his Life, S. Columbanus carried with him wherever he went. It bore the inscription *Ut tra- ditum fuit illud erat idem liber quem Beatus Col- * The Catalogue of Bobbio, by Muratori and Peyron. For St, Gall see Ferdinand YitWex^s Bilder und Schrifiszuge in den irischen Manttskripien. f See Muratori, Antiquitates Italicae, vol. i. pp. 493-505. X The MS. is now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It was edited in 1893 by Dr. Warren. 42 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS umbanus Abbas in pera secum ferre consuevat.' In the University library at Turin are fragments of a Commentary on S. Mark's Gospel with notes in Celtic. In the Ambrosian Library at Milan is a complete Commentary on the Psalms,^ also with Celticnotes. Both works belonged to Bobbio; and both are ascribed to S. Columbanus. The latter is regarded as the ' Commentary on the Psalter ! catalogued in the tenth century as part of the Bobbio collection. To this library founded in a Pictish monastery we owe the only surviving Canon of the New Testament, the famous Mura- torian Fragment. Among its manuscripts, as frag- ments in the Imperial Library at Vienna indicate, confirming the old catalogue, were most of the Apostolic Epistles, texts of Aristotle, Demo- sthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Martial, andmanyotherGreek and Latin authors. These texts were copiously annotated, often in Celtic, f The library of St. Gall was more than once pill- aged by scholars who entered it as borrowers and left it thieves. A certain Poggio of Florence, who was interested in the works of Cicero, arrived at St. Gall in 141 6 with two confederates, and on his de- parture to Constance took with him two cart-loads of priceless manuscripts which included Texts of Cicero, Quintilian, Lucretius, Priscian, the un- finished Argonautica of C. V. Flaccus, and other * Codex Ambrosianus, C. 301. t Cf. Dr. Heinrich Zimmer's Irish Element in Mediaeval Culture. 43 THE PICTISH NATION writings. These manuscripts were taken to Italy ultimately. An 'Oecumenical' Council receives much blame for these thefts. To this library of a monastery founded by a Pictish scholar came secretaries from the most Catholic Council of Constance* to borrow books which would rein- force any inspiration or knowledge that this de- spised Synod presumed to possess. One sign of knowledge in the borrowers was that they knew something of the value of the manuscripts; be- cause they never returned them. It is not out of harmony with other acts of this Council that the members apparently sought authority for their doings in the works of pagan orators and poets while they left excellent copies of the Gospels and Epistles uncon suited. Europe owes to St. Gall the Dresden Codex Boernerianus which has S. Paul's Epistles in Greek; various Fragments of the Gospels\ a pal- impsest of Virgil; athirteenth-centuryiV^?'^^/?^;^^- enlied] and certain books with unread glosses in Celtic, together with the 'iron-bound book' ascribed to S. Gall himself There was also at St. Gall what from old descriptions appears to have been another copy oixh&Antiphonary of Bangor.] Of the thirty volumes written in Celtic script, which were in the library of St. Gall in the ninth century, according to the surviving catalogue of * A.D. I4I4-I418. t From a reference by Notker Balbulus. 44 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS that periodjOnly one volume remained twenty-five years ago. Continental scholars are generally very wary in referring to the Celtic glosses in the manuscripts that belonged to Bobbio and St. Gall. They are usually satisfied to call the language 'Celtic'; but some British writers have boldly pronounced it ' Goidelic'; although they candidly admit that it is often difficult to interpret, except through known Britonic words and orthography. Gaidhealic scholars doubtless wandered to the Continent of Europe as well as Picts, especially after the Vik- ings began their ravages; but the organized mis- sions from Bangor and the communities of the Britons in the sixth century, which founded Lux- euil,Bobbio,St. Gall, and other Celtic monasteries in the European uplands, were led and staffed by men who were born Picts, or Britons, educated at Pictish or British monasteries, who spoke a Pictish or Britonic dialect of Celtic when they did not speak Latin or Greek. Many writers have followed the Gaidheals in assuming that the continental designation'Scot'signifiedaGaidhealic Celt; but from early times on the Continent 'Scot' was ap- plied to a native of 'Scotia,' that is Ireland, with- out consideration as to whether he belonged to the Pictish or Gaidhealic branch of the Celts.* No scholar has yet applied himself seriously to * Among others, Columbanus was called a Scot on the Continent, and he spoke of himself as a native of ' Scotia,' i.e. Ireland. 45 THE PICTISH NATION the Continental Celtic writings for the purpose of separating what is Pictish or British dialect from what is Gaidhealic dialect. In like manner no scholar has yet attacked the Celtic manuscripts of Britain and Ireland for the purpose of separating the literature which originated among the Picts of Alba or Ireland from the literature which origin- atedamongtheGaidheals. After the deluge ofVik- ing barbarism had subsided in the Pictish terri- tories of Alba and Ireland, the Gaidheals gradu- ally served themselves heirs to Pictish lands and heritages; and, when they had secured control of education, served themselves heirs to Pictish literature. The memory of Pictish scholars like Cainnech and Columbanus was revived; but in a Gaidhealic atmosphere. S. Comgall, the greatest Pictish Abbot, was represented as a protege of S. Columbathe Gaidheal. The motive for the Gaidh- ealic usurpation of all Celtic greatness that had preceded the rise of the Gaidheals was at first pol- itical, and was also designed in view of the Pictish properties. The romanized Church of the Gaidh- eals, too, saw and seized its own opportunity of forwarding its own claims to primacy, and to the property of the old Celtic Church. It exalted the Gaidhealic claims into a system, and applied it everywhere without scruple. In Ireland the old Pictish territory of Armagh was represented as having been Gaidhealic from all time. When the inventions of the Irish Churchmen were ex- 46 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS hausted Latin Churchmen were brought from England* to rewrite the Lives of the old Celtic Churchmen, in the professed interests of elegant Latin and orthodoxy; but, really, to ground the claims of the new Church.The saints of the ancient Pictish Church are put into the background to show up the figure of an unhistorical S. Patrick. Although the Gaidheals and their king Laeghaire were hostile to the historical S. Patrick and the king died an 'obstinate pagan '; f the S. Patrick of fable is represented as rising into power through the favour of the Gaidheals of the race of Niall who in course of time became the patrons and pro- tectors of Armagh, the seat of the primacy. The 'ob- stinate pagan, 'Laeghaire, is also passed through history as S.Patrick's convert. Again, the histori- cal S.Bridget, who belonged to the Pictish dis- trict of Louth, is transformed into the slave of a Gaidhealic bard, and exalted to later ages as the 'Mary of the Gaidheal.' Other pre-Gaidhealic saints and heroes are treated in similar fashion. Many fragments of history, poems, and stories now presented to the world as Gaidhealic litera- * Joceline of Furness and others. Joceline re- wrote the Life of Kentigern from a Celtic original. At the request of Thomas of Armagh, John de Courcy, and others, he re- wrote ih^Life of S. Patrick. He gave hoih. Lives abundance of Roman colouring. John de Courcy had a political purpose in getting the Life of Patrick garbled; just as the purpose of Thomas was ecclesiastical. t Another of the old Lives states that Laeghaire had vowed to his father that he would never receive Christianity. His brother Cairbre led S. Patrick's followers naked into a cold river, and ordered them tobeflogged there. 47 THE PICTISH NATION ture can be detected by internal as well as exter- nal evidence as having been altered from their or- iginal form. They are merely Gaidhealic versions, bearing traces of the Gaidhealic editor, of works composed where Pictish was the dialect of Celtic in general use. In various Gaidhealic vocabula- ries, many words marked 'early Irish' and 'old Irish' are word-forms current among the Picts. As an example of a Gaidhealic version of a work originally written in a different dialect of Celtic there survives the lorica called Feth-Fia- dha, 'Cry of the Deer,' S. Patrick's well-known Celtic hymn. There are various editions; but one often figures as a specimen of 'Gaidhealic literature.'* The matter may be little changed from the original; but the form is certainly much changed. The author, S. Patrick, was a Briton, his dialect was Britonic, his historical work was performed in the territories of the northern and southern Irish Picts where his Britonic dialect would be understood. The pagan Gaidheals were, as we have seen, hostile to him, and did not allow him to do more than touch the fringes of their clan settlements. Once, he visited their king after the Gaidheals had begun to wedge themselves in between the Picts of the north and south in Ireland. He and his disciples, who were Britons and Picts, approached, chanting this hymn. In the strange dialect it was so unintel- * ' Gaelic Composition,' Dr. Magnus MacLean calls it. 48 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS ligible to the Gaidheals, that it sounded with no more meaning than the 'Cry of the Deer' on the hill-slope, so they expressed it, and thus the lorica received its popular name. Another work frequently represented as a 'Gaelic composition' is the metrical memoir of S. Patrick known as the 'Hymn,' ascribed to S. Fiac or Fiag of Sleibhte in Leinster. The work is partly Celtic and partly Latin with extensive Scholia. If S. Fiac really composed the work, and if the surviving manuscript is 'Gaelic,' then it is merely a version; because S. Fiac lived and laboured in Leinster among the Manapian Picts and the Brigantes who were Britons. It is safe to assume that he wrote for his own clerics and people in their own dialect of Celtic, and not for their enemies the Gaidheals, who had little interest in Patrick while he lived, and only took up his name many long years after S. Fiac's time, when the romanized Gaidheals were seeking to centre the primacy in Armagh ; and when they required a saintly founder who could more easily be set up as in communion with Rome, and as of ' Catholic' ways than any of the Pictish or Gaidhealic Saints. ThePictsofLeinster(whereS.Fiaclaboured)had even more reason to keep clear of the Gaidheals than the Picts of Ulster; because the Picts of the north-east sought only to keep their lands against the covetous Gaidheals, when at the end of long intervals they came out for an increase of terri- E 49 THE PICTISH NATION tory ; but the Picts of Leinster required to contend with the yearly fever of blood-lust which seized the Gaidhealic Nialls of the Midlands, who tried to wedge them apart from their kin in the north- east under the excuse of collecting the notorious Boromhe.'^ It was not hymns about Patrick that the Gaidheals tookfrom Leinster in S. Fiac's time, or long after, but tribute, when they were able to collect it. The authenticity of S. Fiac's 'Hymn' has been doubted because of the reference in it to the desola- tion of Tara, the old capital. That reference, on the contrary, might be a sign of genuineness; be- cause, in the eyes of a Pict, Tara was desolated when the Gaidheals took it and hoisted their flag there early in the fifth century, long before it was cursed, and made desolate after the death of King Diarmait,theGaidheal,A.D.565. The correct criti- cism of the Fiac manuscript is, that if S. Fiac was the author of the hymn, the manuscript is aGaidh- ealic version of a Pictish work which was written by a Pict for Picts in the Pictish dialect of Celtic. Once more, therefore, we may have an item of Pictish literature ; but it has come to us through a Gaidhealic editor, like many another Pictish work. Itis asked why Pictish compositions have come down to us through Gaidhealic hands. The answer is, that the turn of historical events towards the * The Gaidheals wished the Picts to bribe them with this payment to let them alone, but the Picts steadily refused. 50 . ^ LITERATURE OF THE PICTS close of the first millennium gave the Gaidheals the hegemony of the Celts in Ireland and Scot- land, and the control of education and literature. The Viking invasions laid the Pictish colleges of Ireland and Scotland in ashes. Pictish libraries were burned, or their contents were scattered and mostly lost. The scholars who escaped massacre fled to the Continent, some of them to the Pictish communities already securely established there. At a few places in Pictland of Alba (Scotland), units of the scattered forces of the Pictish Church managed to survive; but they represented rem- nants doomed to ultimate decay. Their controlling and supplying monasteries, both in Ireland and in their own land, were 'burned,' as the Annalists put it. Bangor, the mother of Churches, was left desolate. WhentheChurchwas,incourseoftime, revived there, and at other centres, it was a new Church, Gaidhealicnot Pictish, Roman not Celtic. The Vikings paralysed Pictish power, and shattered Pictish organization in Church and State. The Picts fell a comparatively easy prey to the Vikings; because, while they fought the Vikings on their front, they were assailed in the rear by Gaidheals; and both in I reland and in Scot- land the Gaidheals never relaxed their pressure on their possible lines of retreat from the easily accessible and much devastated East Coasts of both countries. As the Viking deluge subsided, it became plain that the Gaidheals would possess 51 THE PICTISH NATION the future. They had been able to keep their government, their organization, and some ele- ments of culture; because their lines of retreat to inaccessible mountains and quiet islands had re- mained open. TheGaidhealspossessedalsoeither a power or opportunity of absorbing the Vikings which was not given to the Pict. In Shetland, Orkney, and Caithness, the Viking absorbed the Pict, putting it broadly; but in the Southern Heb- rides and in North-western Ireland the Gaidh- eal absorbed the Viking. The resurrection of Celtic power from the grave of Viking barbarism was a Gaidhealic re- surrection. Everywhere in the Celtic territories of Great Britain, except among the remnant of Britons penned up in Wales, Gaidhealic lords or Gaidhealic ecclesiastics began to dominate. The Picts gradually ceased to exist as a separate people and became mergedamong the other Celts. They lost most of their ancestral lands in Alba, some- timesby force under the excuse of exacting tribute for the sovereign, sometimes by the high hand of the Gaidhealic provincial rulers, sometimes by intermarriage with Gaidheals. After a.d. 842, in Alba, their clan-organizations, their system of monarchy, their Church organization, and their central monastic communities began todisappear or to change by degrees as each new Gaidhealic king stepped to the throne. In a.d. 851 the Gaidh- ealic clerics forsook lona, which like the Pictish 52 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS monasteries had been repeatedly desolated by- Vikings, and tried to centre themselves at Dun- keld within the borders of the old Pictish kingdom. Each succeeding half-century sees their tentacles seizing the ancient Pictish Church-centres one by one. First it is Abernethy, then St. Andrews, by and by Brechin, and later Deer. Mortlachwas left to itself, but new centres were fixed at Birnay and Aberdeen. The Gaidhealic propaganda was persistent but slow, in spite of special missions conducted at refractory Pictish centres like Dor- noch by such men as S. Dubthac, a much-lauded saint of theGaidheals, who came from theGaidh- ealicized Church of Armagh to establish a mis- sion at Tain in Ross about the beginning of the eleventh century. Before theGaidheals had com- pleted the control of the religious and educational centres of Pictland, the Roman Church, under political influence, threatened to undo much of theirworkbysendinginto the Highlands Norman or Anglo-Saxonprelates. This policy reanimated the few scattered details of the ancient Pictish Church thatsurvived in oddplacesjbutthe Roman Churchmen soon saw their error, and took up the Gaidheals anew, sending to the Highlands, as far as possible, only those who could speakwhat they called Trish.' The result of these carefully calculated efforts was that if the Picts did not consent to be Gaidh- ealicized, they were left outside education and 53 THE PICTISH NATION power, and tended to become hewers of wood and drawers of water to the Gaidhealic and, later, to the Saxon incomers. The Gaidheals thus con- trolled education and the care of the literature of past and present. This Gaidhealic control of power and education , which continued slowly to extend from a.d. 842 on- wards, is the reason why what remained of Pictish literature after the Vikings, has come down to us through Gaidhealic editors. They were the most unscrupulous editors that, perhaps, the world has known. Everything was altered in favour of their own interests and their own race. There is one document, typical of many, where ' Scoti ' is substi- tuted for* Picti.'* The Gaidheals were overween- ingly vain, and loved to exalt the age and exploits of their race to the Anglo-Saxons, whohad emerg- ed from barbarism before their eyes. 1 1 helped their political and ecclesiastical claims too. For this reason they represented themselves as older than the Picts or Britons, or any other Celts. They did not hesitate to garble versions of the Pictish Chronicle in their own favour, apart from the cor- ruptions due to Gaidhealic orthography. They traced the origin of the Gaidheals to the Greeks, the Hebrews, and the Egyptians, and repudiated a half-hearted romancer who was content to start the race from the Trojans. Although two Picts and a scholar of the Britons had educated and * One of the Fragments of the Pictish Chronicle. 54 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS trained S. Columba, the greatest ecclesiastic of the Gaidheals, the Gaidhealic writers regularly refer to the Picts as 'ravenous,* 'savage,' or 'bar- barous,' descriptions hailed by many historical writers down to Mr. Andrew Lang. Although the Gaidhealic writers annex S. Patrick in face of the historical truth that their forefathers spurned him theyhave very little to sayabout S. Ninian, whose community at Candida Casa sent out many of the most successful missionaries to Ireland. If the world depended on Gaidhealic writers, men would believe that the Picts, S. Comgall the Great and S. Cainnech, had been humble followers and depend- ents of S. Columba the Gaidheal. With similar historical recklessness the historical S. Servanus * is lifted away from his true period and associated with S. Adamnan,a romanized Gaidheal. That there was a Pictish literature in Alba (Scotland) before the Vikings is beyond doubt. The evidence is too strong even for cynical his- torical writers. That some of this literature sur- vives to the present time in Gaidhealic versions which wait the critical analyses of some competent Celtic scholar is apparent. Th^Pictisk Chronicle at least had a Pictish original. The confusing efforts of the Gaidhealic copyists to render Pictish proper names is evidence of that, apart from other considerations. * A version of the fabulized Life, with all its extravagances, is printed by Skene, Chronicles of Picts and Scots, p. 412. 55 THE PICTISH NATION One of our oldest native Latin hymns is the work of a Pictish author. It was written by Mugent,* the Ab, a successor of S. Ninian in the presidency of the Brito- Pictish monastery at Candida Casa (Whithorn). In passing, let us not forget that Latin was a living tongue to the early Picts. S. Ninian's flock heard the Roman legions drilled in the Imperial tongue; traded with them in the regi- mental market in Latin; actually,as weknow from remains, helped the Roman colonists to erect headstones on their family graves, graven with Latin inscriptions; and when the Imperial armies were retreating, said 'Good-bye' to them in their own Latin speech, colder than Celtic. It was, therefore, not merely ecclesiastical fashion that moved Mugent to write his dignified prayer in the Latin, so restraining to the deeply-moved Celt. Mugent's prayer is usually called Mugent' s Nymn, sometimes it is referred to by the opening words, 'Pane, Domine, parce populo Tuo qtiem redimisti' It is a remarkable devotional appeal. It dates from the first years of the sixth century. Incidentally we learn from the ancient scholi- ast's preface to the 'Farce, Domine,' concerning the schools which at this early period were at Candida Casa for young men and women, other than those who intended the Church. Two of these pupils are named, Talmag, a Pict, and Drus- * a. LiberHymnorum,'ToM,V3iXt\.'p.^'j. See also Bishop Forbes* Notes to S. Ninian, p. 292. 56 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS ticc, daughter of Drust, sovereign of Pictland of Alba. The schools for laity and clerics imply a literature: and Drusticc* indicates that there was a Library at Candida Casa\ because, as a bribe to gain a certain end, she offers to one of the masters, S. Finbar, 'all the books which Mugent has.' This is S. Finbar of Maghbile and Dornoch who continued S. Ninian's mission- work in what is now Ayrshire, and the East and North of Scot- land. We know from his Life that he was a lover of manuscripts and very jealous of those which he possessed. He made his own manuscript copy of the Gospels, the Psalter, and other parts of Holy Scripture. The Scholiast in the Kalendar of Angus states that he brought tho, first com- plete manuscript of the Gospel inio Ireland, when he returned from Pictland. The Kalendar of Cashel goes further and states that he brought the manuscript of the Mosaic Law and the com- plete Gospel into Ireland. The uniqueness, in Ireland, of S. Finbar's Gospel is confirmed by the account of how it was stolen for a time by strategy in order that S. Fintan might have a copy of it. S. Columba, while a pupil of S. Finbar, also secretly copied this same Gospel ox Psalter] with disastrous consequences; because a royal * DaughterofDrustGurthinmoc, King of Pictland, died r. A,D. 510. t One account states that it was the ' Gospel,'' another, that it was the * Psalter^ which S. Columba copied. The explanation probably is that *■ GospeV is used, in the not uncommon Celtic fashion, to include the Psalter as well as the Gospels proper. 57 THE PICTISH NATION demand that he should give up the copy to S. Finbar helped to bring on the sanguinary battle of Cul Dreimhne. The early Gaidheals called this version *S. Martin's Gospel,'* indicating clearly that S. Ninian had brought the manu- script from S. Martin's community at Tours to Candida Casa, and that through S. Finbar it came into use in Ireland. The mention of the School at Candida Casa brings to mind the Schools founded, later, in the sixth century and after, throughout Pictland of Alba (Scotland) by missionaries from the Britons; and also by S. Moluag and other Picts from Ire- land. The names of these schools remain attached to the sites until the present time. Wherever in Scotland the names 'Bangor,' 'Banchory,' or 'Banagher' survive, we have the locality of one of the schools that was attached to a community of Pictish or British Clerics. It is safe to assume that these schools were not conducted without the aid of native literature. One feature of the Bangors was that the Psalms were learned and sung with artistic care. Another Pictish manuscript which long sur- vived in Ireland was the famous 'Glas Cainic written by S. Cainnech of Achadh-Bo and St. Andrews. 1 1 was, apparently, a manuscript of the * TheGaidhealicfabulistsofalater period invented a story that Colum- cille went to Tours, opened S. Martin's grave, and took from it the actual manuscript which S. Martin used. 58 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS Gospels with expositions. S. Cainnech's powers as an expositor were so widely admitted that even S. Columba's admiration was freely given to him. * The Picts had their bards as well as the other Celts. One of their widely known compositions was the Brito-Pictish historical romance, Llallo- gan.\ The characters are historical, but they are brought together without regard to their correct places intime. Vortigern,the leader of the Brito- Pictish confederation, Llallogan the bard, S. Ken- tigern the Briton and missionary to the Picts, all appear together. Historically, Llallogan was the twin-brother of Gwendyddand kinsman of Urien Rheged of the Strathclyde Britons. His life was a weird one. He went mad after he had gazed on the horrible slaughter of the Brito-Pictish hosts at the close of a battle which had been instigated by his own perfervid verses. Demented he fled to the wilds, lived in the recesses of the woods like a wild beast among wild beasts, and fed on the roots and herbs of the forests. It happened on a day when S. Kentigern was in his retreat in the woods near Glasgow that he encountered this wild creature. After hearing the madman's storyofhislifetheSaintgavehimhis blessing, and the outcast came to himself, and was re-admitted to Christian fellowship. * Cf. V. S. KyniciAbbatisyZZ.^. xlviii. p. 15$. t ' Llallogan' was his pet name. He is Myrdinn, otherwise ' Merlinus Caledonicus.' 59 THE PICTISH NATION Joceline in the twelfth century was acquainted with some version of this story, because he refers to Llallogan as 'homo fatuus,'* who was kept by the Kingof the Britons. Walter Bower had also a version of this romance before him in the fifteenth century, and he quotes the main part of the story, f Incidentally he indicates that the acquisitive Gaidhealic editor had not disappeared in his time; because not only is the British name Gaidhealic- ized to 'Lailocen,' but he candidly avows that some people regarded the bard as a 'wonderful prophet of the Scots' (Gaidheals). How little of the Gaidheal was about Llallogan can be seen from the Avellanau in the verses ascribed to him, where his friends and the localities named are British and Pictish. Ah me; Gwendydd shuns me, loves me not! The chiefs of Rhydderch hate me. After Gwenddolen no princes honour me Although at Ard'eryd I wore the golden torques. ***** Long used to solitude, no demons fright me now; Not at the dragon presence do I quake Of the lord Gwenddolen, J and all his clan Who have sown death within the woods of Celyddon. A fragment of another purely Pictish poem§ * V.S. Kentigemi, cap. xlv. t In the continuation of the Scotichronicon. \ Gwenddolen ap Ceidian, who, along with Saxon allies and S. Colum- ba's friend, KingAedhan 'the False,' fought against Rhydderch the Briton and were defeated at Ard'eryd, c, 573. § Quoted byReevesfrom.<4««a/j(7/"M3^/i>3M, MS. Brussels 5301, p. 80. 60 LITERATURE OF THE PICTS has come down to us through Gaidhealic hands. It is known by the opening Hnes: ''Iniuferas Bruide cath Itnforba a shenathar^ (To-day Bruide fights in battle * For the land of his ancestor). This poem was written in Pictland of Alba, A.D. 686, by Riaghuil, titular Abbot of Bangor in Ulster. Riaghuil had fled for safety to Pictland of Alba; because the Gaidheals of the race of N iall had invaded the kingdoms of the I rish Picts. The Gaidheals burned Dungal the Pictish King, Suibhne,thePictishlordofKianachta,Glengiven, and captured the great border-fortress of Dun Ceithern. They then wasted the Pictish king- doms with fire and sword. Apparently the clerics of Bangor and the other religious houses of S. Comgall took flight for a time to the daughter- churches of Bangor in Pictland of Alba. Ria- ghuil was hospitably received by Brude Mac Bil^, theSovereign of Pictland of Alba(Scotland). He repaid Brude by becoming his laureate and inter- cessor, and in this surviving fragment champions him in verse against Egfrid the Anglian invader. This is not a history of Pictish literature. That subject still awaits the competent Celtic scholar who can divest himself of Gaidhealic and Anglo- Saxon prejudices. Enough has been written to show that thePictishChurchmen did not minister * The Battle of Dunnichen (' Nechtansmere'), 20th May A.D. 686. 6i THE PICTISH NATION to a people without a literature ; and also to show that the Picts did not derive their love and prac- tice of literature from the Gaidheals. On the con- trary it is apparent that the Gaidheals were taught and schooled by Britons and Picts. S. Columba, the greatest of the Gaidheals, was instructed by Pictish and British masters. HOW THE PICTS LIVED CHAPTER FIVE A STORY used to be current at a southern uni- versity of a student, fresh from the works of a certain historian, who declared that Pictland of Alba was a ' land of lakes and shallow estuaries where the people lived in crannogs.' In Pictland certain fishing communities did live in crannogs amid the shallow waters of lakes and estuaries; and artificial islands, planned with much engineer- ing skill, were constructed as defendable habit- ations in the same areas; but the majority of the Picts had no special affection for the marshes where ague and rheumatism prevailed. The Picts, considered as a whole, were a pastoral people as is indicated by the wide range of the name Ker- ones, shepherds. These pastoral folk owned three precious possessions — their dog, their flocks, and their pasture. The Celtic names for these enter into the three expressions of intense love which still survive in colloquial speech. Mynghu * (S. Kentigern's pet name), my dear one, means, literally, my dog; meiidail, my kind one, means my little cattle; mullie, my treasure or my precious one, meansmy pasture. The Picts supplemented their pastoral work by agriculture and hunting. Stone querns,the hand-mill for grinding corn still used in Eastern countries, have been recovered from hut-circles, lake-dwellings, brochs, and even * Mochu in Gaelic. Myn is the British form of the pronoun mo, and among the Britons and Picts g took the place of ch, giving the form Mungo, 63 THE PICTISH NATION from the earth-houses and caves. These querns are constructed with wonderful mechanical bal- ance. The upper stone revolves sunwise with perfect smoothness; but jams if revolved in the opposite direction, just as the shaped, Pictish, stone-weapons and implements, when laid on a smooth surface, can be spun sunwise successfully; but if turned contrary to the sun they wobble and refuse to revolve. Indeed, this is a test of the genuineness of Pictish stone weapons and imple- ments; and the most skilled modern forgers have not yet discovered the secret of this feature. The Picts were enthusiastic sportsmen. On foot they hunted the deer and wild cattle with dogs and weapons. They fought the wolves in their dens. They knew the best salmon-pools in rivers; and^in banks on which they watched for their prey the flint heads of their fish-spears are frequently found embedded. They were ac- quainted with the fishing net, and could make fish-traps of woven willow-wands which they set at the head of streamy parts of rivers. They marked the haunts oidoran, the otter, whom other Celts called the 'fish-hound.' The number of Pictish names signifying Otters' Bank or Otters' Burn indicate how carefully the Picts followed the ways of this fisher; doubtless because they knew his habit of leaving an acceptable salmon on the bank minus his favourite mouthful. In the kitchen-middens of the brochs remains of nearly 64 HOW THE PICTS LIVED all our common animals, birds, and fishes are found, together with the remains of creatures now extinct. In a grave within the area of S. Ninian's Churchyard, Sutherland, were found, along with human bones, a flint implement and part of a palmated antler of one of the larger, ex- tinct, deer. That the Picts were prouder of their prowess in the chase than in battle may be inferred from their carved stones which oftener show fights with beasts than with men. Their beasts of bur- den were the horse and the ox. For transport they used a two- wheeled cart of which a sketch has survived on one of their incised stones. The Picts were acquainted with the working of iron and bronze. Charcoal and slag-heaps have been discovered deep in the peat at the sites of primitive iron-furnaces. Flint weapons and im- plements continued in use among the Picts long after they had learned to work metals. A per- fectly constructed bronze swivel, which various modern artificers could imitate but badly, was found in Sutherland on the gravel, beneath the peat, beside a flint hide-scraper and a flint spear- head. The smith ranked almost as a noble among the Picts as among other Celts. His professional name is linked with many Pictish place-names. The capital* of one of the principalities of Pict- landwas called 'The Smith's Mount.' This worker * Dr. Carmichael's Barra Gowan or ^^r<^«2«w, capital ofthe Western Picts before the coming of the Dalriad Gaidheals. F 65 THE PICTISH NATION might be called on to make any metal article from a sword or spade to a golden torque for a lady, a chief, or a poet. One of the Pictish saints had learnedthe smith's craft, and one of his 'miracles* was the makingof charcoal from reeds for the forge fire. He was brazing the plates of a Celtic hand- bell, and probably 'miracle' was the popular de- scription of some special flux which he had dis- covered for uniting the metals. The remains of wood-charcoal heaps have been found in the Www ofbrochsnearthe excavated fire-places; although, a mile or so away, there was an outcrop of coal on the sea-beach. The Picts were exceedingly fond of the precious metals, which they worked into torques, brooches, and other ornaments of simple but artistic de- signs. Amulets of pebble and serpentine, and necklaces of shale have been recovered from Pictish burial-cairns. Bronze armlets were used by men to reinforce the biceps in a thrust blow from the hand, or in a lightning sword-stroke. The Picts knew the use of the potter's wheel. Food-vessels as well as urns associated with the dead have been found on the sites of dwellings and in graves. The pottery is usually of a heavy type, due more to the coarse nature of the clay and inferior kilns than to want of skill on the part of the potter; because the latter frequently at- tempted to atone for coarse material by skilful and symmetrical ornamentation. The genuine 66 HOW THE PICTS LIVED ' Barvas pottery' of comparatively recent times is primitive compared with some of the food-vessels and urns dug up on the west coast, and dating back more than a thousand years earlier. Frag- ments of Samian ware, found in forts and brochs, point back to Mediterranean and Gaulish traders, or to the Pictish raids into the Imperial Roman colony in Britain. Recently, while a foundation was being dug in what was formerly part of Caithness, an early Greek coin was found four feet from the surface beside encisted burials in an ancient Pictish burial-ground. If it were not for Ptolemy's Geo^raphyai^A certain referencesof early ecclesiastical writers, we would forget that Mediterranean and Gaulish merchants visited Pictland. Spinning, weaving, and dyeing were practised by the Picts. The carding-comb, which also may have been adressing-comb,is the least mysterious of the symbols carved on the stones of Pictland. Although the Pictish warriors, according to Latin and Greek authors, loved to expose the emits or figures tattooed upon their bodies, and so fought with the minimum of clothing, knowing the benefit of laying aside every weight; they also knew how to clothe themselves comfortably, and even gaily, in time of peace. The Picts of Alba do not appear to have differed from the Picts of Ireland, who came to the battle-ground clothed, but they divested themselves of their garments before entering the 67 THE PICTISH NATION fight. A king of the Gaidheals when entering a battle refused to wear a short cape ahhough it had been given to him by S. Columba, and to this was ascribed his defeat. The Pictish clerics, although they denied themselves all luxuries, wore woollen garments of native make. We learn of an undergarment, apparently a long shirt, reaching below the knees, and of an outer gar- ment reaching equally far down, and having wide sleeves and a capacious hood. The colour was ap- parently the native shade known as ^moorag! The Picts could also weave vegetable fibres. Part of what appeared to be a woman's skirt made of coarse fibrous material was unearthed* from a deep bed of dry peat which had acted as a pre- servative. The Picts understood the dressing and curing of pelts. The flint flaying-knife, the flint hide- scraper, and the stone for smoothing the inside of thehidearecommonrelicsinPictland. Fleece and fur furnished clothing, and hides and skins were spread out to sleep on within the huts. Slaves and furs, secured apparently by raids, are understood to have been the attractions which brought the tradingshipsofMarseillesf to Pictland from before the time of Christ. There was also considerable intercourse between the Celts of northern Gaul * In Sutherland, and was in the care of the late Rev. J. M. Joass, LL.D. t The traders of this port sent an expedition to Pictland before the Christian era, which sailed as far as the Orkneys. 68 HOW THE PICTS LIVED and the Celts of Pictland, until the 'migrations of the barbarians' in the fifth century interrupted communications. The Britons and Picts have not been regarded as sea-going folk for the extra- ordinary reason that manyof the nautical terms in modernScottishGaelicareofScandinavian origin. As a matter of historical fact, when the ships of Caesar met the fleetofthe Britons,the British ships were largerandofbetter build; S.Ninian'sC^;e^/^<3; Casa in the early fifth century possessed a fleet which sailed on regular voyages; and there was sea-borne trafific between the Picts of Ireland and the Britons and the Picts of Alba. The Picts organized warlike expeditions by sea; and even the Gaidheals, in spite of the Scandinavian terms in Gaelic, were no mean sailors. The Irish Gaidh- eals organized a raid by sea on the island of Islay while it was still Pictish; and the Gaidheals of Scottish Dalriada in the sixth century sent their battle-fleet from Argyll in the direction of the Pictish Orkneys. The Picts did not excel in architecture. Almost all their erections were circular. In districts like Sutherland, where the face of the land has been little changed by agriculture, the sites of Pictish villages may still be seen. Groups of hut-circles with adjacent groups of burial-cairns occupy sun- ny slopes on the sides of valleys, or comfortable situations on plateaux where once there were clearings in the original forest. It is evident from 69 THE PICTISH NATION remains that exist that the mackair, or plain-land by the sea, and the flat stretches by the rivers were also occupied by these villages, although the modern road-boards and cultivators have within recent years competed in removing the last traces of them. ThePict evidently built on the principle that here we have no continuing city. His dwell- ing was of the simplest. His finished hut was like a hollow cone, the apex being slightly open to draw away the smoke. This cone-like structure was made with the trunks of forest trees and thatched with branches, reeds, or heather. The heavy ends of the trunks were firmly bedded at the desired angle in a thick circular retaining wall, the remains of which are known to-day as a 'hut circle.' The doorway was made through this retaining wall and faced invariably towards the south. Frequently it was defended by mas- sive stone outworks which concealed a short angular passage with one or even two guard- rooms. Sometimes huts contained underground chambers with a tunnelled exit into the open beyond the circle of the hut-wall. The sides of these chambers and of the passage were built up with irregular-shaped stones; and all, roofed over with heavy flat undressed stones. Inclosures with wide entrances, as if for cattle, oblong in shape, square in a few instances, are found in or near the hut villages. The Pictish towns and villages were situated 70 HOW THE PICTS LIVED on some naturally strong site, or close to a brock,* From S. Ninian's time, the first Churches were planted near these strong places, which reminds us how old the proximity of Church and Castle is. Some of the Pictish settlements were within earthen ramparts still clearly defined. A Pictish brock was constructed by raising two massive concentric walls tied together by long stones winding round the outer circumference of the inner wall and ascending gradually to the top, forming steps to the summit for the defenders or watchers. There was no opening in the outer wall except one low and narrow doorway lead- ing, through a narrow passage easily blocked and indented with guard-chambers, into the circular area within the inner wall. The structure was roofless. Chambers on the ground level were opened out in the inner wall and entered from the interior. Windows also opened through the inner wall, letting in light from the interior to the stairways between the walls. Very often these brocks were accessible by only one narrow foot- way. They are believed to have been places of refuge for women and children and their de- fenders, in time of sudden attack. Although some brocks had wells others had none, and these could not have sustained long sieges. Weapons and implements of stone, bronze, and iron have * Called also Caer ( Cathair), Dun, Tor, and Caisteal. To different brochs within the single parish of Kildonnan these names are applied, 71 THE PICTISH NATION been found in the brocks, as well as women's ornaments, combs, bone hair-pins, and bone needles threaded by the side of the eye. Built hearths have been uncovered in the inner area; and, in one case, bones broken for the sake of marrow, were found beside two grease-stained stones that had served as hammer and anvil. Some have thought that the Picts learned the art of broch-buildingfrom the Phoenician traders and slave-raiders who visited the coasts; because structures nearly akin in type have been found in Sardinia and North Africa. Towers resembling them in many features have been noted as part of the remarkable buildings at the Phoenician gold- workings at Zimbabwe. Whatever the origin of the brocks they agree with the Pictish preference for circular buildings. In what is now the main- land and islands of northern Scotland we see them arranged in such relation to one another that fire- signals lighted on the summit of one would con- vey information to another, and so to every brock over an extensive area. The site of one of the best known brocks bears a Celtic name meaning, Rock of the signal-fire. When the Vikings came to the locality of this brock they found it necessary to erect a fort to watch it, and, in the old Icelandic, continued the name, calling their stronghold, 'Town of the signal-fire.' The Churches of the Picts were at first con- structed of oak-logs on stone foundations. One 72 HOW THE PICTS LIVED of the native colloquial names for them vfdisDair- teack, the oak-house, and among the Celts this name came in time to mean prayer-house or Church. The Churches were apparently rectang- ular and for a long time represented an innov- ation upon the circular building favoured by the Picts. In storm-swept districts like the north coast of Caithness, where wood was scarce, the whole Church appears to have been of stone, roofed with logs and heather-thatch, as was the case into the early Roman Catholic period. The high Round Towers associated with rectangular Pictish Churches emphasize the Pictish partiality for circular building. They were used as watch- towers to anticipate foreign raiders ; ecclesiastical valuables and manuscripts were carried into them in time of danger. The only entrance was at a considerable height from the ground, and was reached by a ladder which was hoisted inside and thedoor locked, while theenemy continued tolurk about. The doorwaycould be defended with mis- siles from above, and the tower was proof against fire laid to it. Examples of these Pictish towers are seen at S. Cainnech's, Kilkenny, at Aber- nethy, Brechin, and Deerness, the headland of the Daire, or Oak-Church. Venerable Bede is responsible, through mis- interpreting his information, for the impression that stone buildings were unknown to the Britons and Picts until S. Ninian built Candida Casa. n THE PICTISH NATION This of course is incorrect, because wherever the Imperial Roman colonists settled, or the legions formed permanent camps, stone buildings were erected, before the date of Candida Casa. The Picts in their many successful raids were only too familiar with these buildings and with their contents. Archaeologists have shown that after the Romans departed the Picts occupied the Roman structures, although they do not appear to have imitated them, except in the construc- tion of a few of their churches. The Picts, like many other fighting nations who gave their enemies a bad time, were wanton- ly libelled by their foes. Roman historians of the minor order accepted the slanders of the mercen- aries, and stated that the Picts were cannibals, and that they offered human sacrifices. They allege that their women submitted to polyandry. The Gaidheals called the Picts 'savage' and 'cruel.' The Angles spoke of them as 'vile.' There is not a word in the story of the dealings of the Pictish missionaries with their converts which indicates that these charges were true, or that the Picts were worse than their unscrupulous assailants. Domestic infelicities with which S. Comgall, S. Kentigern and others were called upon to deal, in- dicate that a woman's unfaithfulness to her own husband was regarded as a serious breach of the tribal as well as of the moral law. The wives of kings, chiefs, and commoners are always repre- 74 HOW THE PICTS LIVED sented as living in family with their own hus- bands. Certain historians have professed to see con- firmation of the charge of polyandry in the pecul- iar law regulating the Pictish sovereignty, by which a sovereign's brother, or his sister's son, or, in certain circumstances, his elder daughter's son, was preferred before the sovereign's son. These historians have failed to make clear that the Pictish sovereign acceded from the royal race after election and approval by the petty kings and chiefs of Pictland. The story that the Gaidh- eals supplied wives from time to time for the Pictish kings so that their children only might claim the throne of Pictland is a stupid fable pro- mulgated by the Gaidheals to justify the acces- sion of Kenneth Mac Alpin and the continuation in Hne of his dynasty to the Pictish sovereignty; an accession which the Picts considered illegal, because won by treachery; and a continuation which they disputed and which was only main- tained by force of the Gaidhealic soldiery when the Picts had been weakened by repeated Viking onslaughts. Although the system of Pictish succession offers no room for the moral reflections of some historians; its practical advantages* should be * Mr. Andrew Lang regarded succession in the direct line of the father as a sign of superior civilization. It may have been so ; but it had serious practical disadvantages when a nation depended on unity and strong leadership. 75 THE PICTISH NATION noted. It bound those chiefs whousedtheirvotes in favour of the sovereign to support him on the throne, a very important result among a people organized in clans any one of which was some- times more powerful than the clan of the success- ful nominee. Again, the election of a grown-up member of the ruling caste to the supreme power always saved the Picts from the rule of a minor, with a consequent regency and the intrigues and abuses connected therewith. The succession of a minor or incompetent king, apart from the will of the people, simply because he, or she, was nearest heir in direct line from a royal father was the cause of some of the greatest woes that befell Pictland after it came under the rule of the Scotic dynasties. Science, forethought, and adaptation to the needs of a nation of clans, were all in the Pictish system of succession; in spite of the fact that certain historians have been able to see only signs of moral laxity and want of moral progress. THE BEGINNING AND GROWTH OF THE PICTISH CHURCH CHAPTER SIX Between the years 400 and 432 a.d. the Church OF THE PiCTS, as we have noted, was founded, and gradually extended, by S. Ninian* the bishop, a Briton, working from the Brito-Pictish mother- Church which he ha.dGsta.h\isheda.t Candida Casa (Whithorn) about a.d. 397. S. Ninian had been a pupil of S. Martin wholabouredamongthe Celts of Poictiers, and who also ministered as bishop at the Celtic military city of Tours from the year 372. S. Martin was regarded as the inventor of a new organization for the Christian ministry; although, in reality, he only revived the old apostolic organ- ization and multiplied it. He embodied active, ascetic, missionary ministers in small clans called muinntirs under a president or father, known, at first, among the Celts by the Greek title o{Pdpa\ and, later, by the Syrian title of Ab. These re- ligious clans S. Martin fitted into the clan-system of the Celts of Gaul. S. Ninian imitated his master S. Martin to the smallest detail in method and organization. When he returned from Gaul to Britain, shortly before A.D. 397, he settled at Candida Casa in Galloway with certain companions. Ailred, who had the 0/d Life of S. Ninian to guide him, but interpreted it * The history of S. Ninian and his Mission will be found in the Author's S, Ninianandthe Foundingof the Celtic Churchamongthe Britons and Picts. t This name, lifted from the Greek nurseries, was in S. Martin's time a current title among the Greek Christians for a Christian minister. n THE PICTISH NATION by his own mediaeval ideas, assumed that these companions were 'masons.'* They were, with- out doubt, his muinntir or 'family' including artisan brethren such as accompanied S. Martin's other missionaries, and all the Celtic missionaries after them, for the purpose of helping to organize and build up congregations; because to the Celts the Church was the Christian people rather than the Christian buildings. S. Ninian imported even the names of S. Martin's houses from GaultoGal- loway. CandidaCasa^Mit^ Hut,issimplyatrans- lation oi ' Logo-Tigiac' \ or Leuko-Teiac, Bright- White Hut, the name of the bothy on S. Hilary's farm near Liguge where S. Martin first organized his 'family' or community. The use of the diminutive /^e^^or casa prevents us from thinking of Candida Casa as the conspicuous stone build- ing which Ailred implies. It was more likely to have been, like the buildings which were after- wards modelled from it, a modest house suited for prayer and the dispensation of the sacraments to small gatherings. This view is supported by the references to Candida Casa when Paulinus of York and F. A. Alcuin gave help to prevent its dilapidation. These 'White Houses' are found associated with Celtic Churches from Dor- noch in the north of Pictland to Ty Gwyn ar Dav among the Britons, in Wales. * Vita Nyniani, ii, iii. t For the various forms of this name in \j&'Cva,Logotigiacum,Locotegiacum, Lucoteiac, cf. Gregory of Tours, Fortunatus, and Longnon's map of Gaul. 78 PICTISH CHURCH GROWS Again, S. Martin's community were housed, like S. Ninian's followers who imitated them, in hutlets or cells. The whole community at Tours was called, and the name still survives, 'Marmo- utier,' Magnum Monasterium, the big muinntir or community. S. Ninian'scommunityatC^««f2^« Casa was called 'Magnum Monasterium'' by the Latin writers, indicating that he had also im- ported the name Mormuinntir. J ust as S. Martin had his Cave or Retreat in the sandstone rocks 2XMarmoutier\ so S. Ninian had his Retreat at the Cave in the rocks on the shore atGlaston,* nowGlasserton,aplace much vener- ated of yore, which has yielded many interesting sculptured stones, and whose traditions and anti- quity have been ascribed by the fabulists and ignorant writers of the middle ages to Glaston of Somerset, now Glastonbury. In describing S.Ninian'smission-workinPict- land of Alba, now Scotland, Ailred,f drawing on the Old Life, writes: 'The holy bishop began to ordain presbyters, consecrate bishops, distribute the other dignities of the ecclesiastical ranks, and divide the whole land into distinct districts. Hav- ing confirmed in faith and good works the sons whom he had begotten in Christ, and having set in honour all things that referred to the honour of God and the welfare of souls, S. Ninian bade the * Near Candida Casa. t Ailred's dates are 1 109-1 166. 79 THE PICTISH NATION brethren farewell and returned tohisown Church (Candida Casa).' This description, allowing for Ailred's rather grand way of expressing himself, appears to be taken from the Old Life \ because the procedure ascribed to S. N inian and the nature of the work accomplished were contrary to the rules and claims of the Roman Church in whose interest Ailred was re-writing the Saint's Life. Venerable Bede,* as Ailred knew, had previ- ously in the eighth century, incidentally, and with- out details, described S. Ninian's mission into Pictland. Bede, however, was quite untravelled, and drew his geographical details from the library at Jarrow, with the result, as his writings indicate, that he fell a victim to Ptolemy's Geography diVid its famous error f with regard to Scotland. If a map be sketched according to the measurements given by Ptolemy; Pictland, orthegreater part of what isnow Scotland, is thrown into the North Sea at right angles to England. Consequently,our«/^^^ of Pictland (Scotland) was Ptolemy's and Bede's north, and our east of Pictland was Ptolemy's and Bede's5{??^^^.Thepersistentfailureofhistoriansto translate Bede'sgeographical terms into harmony withmoderngeographyhas led to the falsification of the localities and the extent both of S. Ninian's and of S. Columba's work in Pictland. To bolster * Bede's period was c. 673-735. t Ptolemy was wonderfully accurate in the data which he tabulated. The error in this instance was due to a mistake in the distance from his initial meridian line to the coast of Pictland or Scotland. 80 BRITAIN A.ND IRELAND AccoRDif^G TO PTOLE:tJ . Sfcearer (Old. Nlo.p »y^i Mapm/afLtTs) WTttes,'ll,)3 wtUiD state cUarty that PloUnnis ma^ loUcfi m» KnoioTv lo tkt clullt'zt'i. "'"X'-''- Co-niliTvucA lo btan auinorttA/ U'l ateut 1500 A.o' oktttk ouHliot of jfoAhrn. ?frxi(ii«j haw. ike )na]v asiocialtd wvlfr liwe. loprk.^ of Maltttfu; farib c.iaso; U tUusiTaU tdt tOTvUnuaivcc of tk fioltTitaU vii{lu.£iict . Tki wisjilaanj of loucns andlrtvtTS l^lht work. oMkc laTC^ E-tialisK aulkoT . To face p. 80. PICTISH CHURCH GROWS Up the blunder, the 'Grampians,' which werenever either a political frontier or a name* in ancient Pictland,wereinventedftoplaythepartof'Drum- Alban.' Drum-Alban was the chain of mountains which runs, roughly, northwards from the head of LochLomondtoBenHeeinSutherland,dividing the rivers of Scotland and sending some to the East and some to the West. The southern end of Drum-Alban corresponds, roughly, to the line of the border between Argyll and Perthshire. It was the true historical divide between the con- solidated nation of the Picts who lay to the East, and the diluted Picts who lay to the West, whose territory had been penetrated by the Gaidheals of the Dalriad Colony, and actually overrun by them, for a time, between the death of Brude Mac M aelchon, a. d. 5 84, and the reign of Angus I . Mac Fergus,^, a.d. 729-761. With regard to the ^;ir/^;2^ of S. Ninian'smission tothe Picts, AilredconfirmsBede's account. Bede makes,it clear that S.Ninian evangelized the whole Pictish nation, as Bede knew it, namely, Pictland east (Bede's south)! of Drum-Alban, the Gaidh- ealic or Scotic border. * The true name really belongs to Perthshire, and is, correctly, with Latin termination, Graupius (Stokes). The Gaidheals varied it to *Dor- sum Crup' and ^MonidChroibh,' to accommodate their dislike of initial G. t M&c\^\xxe,ia.h\s British Place Names, -writes tivly: 'The Grampian mountains are an antiquary's invention of the sixteenth century.' X Distinct from this, Bede states that the conversion of the Picts west (Bede's north) of Drum Alban was due to S. Columba, that is to say all the Picts in the area ultimately occupied by the Gaidhealic Colonists until the kingdoms of the Picts and Gaidheals were united. G 3l THE PICTISH NATION Bede's statement is — 'For the Southern (our Eastern) Picts themselves, who have settlements uptotheinner side of the samemountains(Drum- Alban), long before, as is told, having left the error of idolatry , had received the faith of the Truth from the preaching to them of the Word by Ninian the Bishop, amost reverend andmost holy man of the nation of the Britons.** Archaeological examinations of the actual surface of eastern Scotland have confirmed these accounts of S. Ninian's work. A chain of S. Nin- ian's Church-sites has been traced northwards from Candida Casa, passing through the former border-city of Glasgow on the old Brito-Pictish frontier, and extending to S. Ninian's Isle, Dun- rossness, Shetland. At this last site an ancient stonef was dug up bearing the inscription in Ogham, 'The lis I (or inclosure) of the son (or disciple) of Ninian the Baptizer.' The ancient Church-sites that represent S. Ninian's actual foundations among the Britons and Picts were, or are: at Candida Casa, the mother-establishment, Whit- horn, Galloway; at S. Ninian's, Colmonell, Ayrshire; at ' Kil Sanct Ninian,' Ardmillan, Ayrshire; * H.E.G.A. lib. iii. cap. iv. Bishop Moore's MS. t Discovered by Mr. Goudie, and now in the Scottish National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, The stone is fully discussed in the author's S. Ninian, etc. , Chap. x. % Z?j was a regular ecclesiastical word meaning inclosure^ of theChurch, etc. It is seen in Lismore which is the Big Inclosure of S. Moluag. 82 PICTISH CHURCH GROWS at 'Cathures'* on the Molendinar.nowthe site of S. Kentigern's Cathedral, Glasgow; at 'An Eaglais,' the Church, now the Church of St. Ninian's, Stirling; at Coupar in Angus, where are S. Ninian's lands; at Arbirlot, Forfarshire, where S. Ninian's Well remains. Here the memory of the locality of S. Ninian's muinntir was preserved in the name 'the Col- lege,'! which was on the north bank of the 'Rot- tenrow' burn, about a mile north-west of the pre- sent Church of Arbirlot. Over twenty years after the dedication, in a.d. i i "]%, of the Roman Abbey of Arbroath, the ancient Celtic community of Arbirlot was still represented by a lay Ab and a clerical chaplain, evidently his vicar.J Another site was at *S. Ninian's Inch,' Ar- broath, Forfarshire. The Celtic 'Inch' or Innis is no longer current in Arbroath speech. The ' Inch' was apparently the pasture-stretch on the shore at Seaton, where S. Ninian's Well is, and where there was an ancient Churchyard. The Churchyard was on the high ground of Whiting- Ness headland above the Well. Here several * The name is Joceline's. It is apparently a bad reproduction of CVz/A- flt>, a fortified city or seat. t The authority is Rev. R. Watson, minister of Arbirlot, 1792. There are three sites of ancient Pictish muinntirs remembered by the name ' Col- lege,' one at KLildonnan, Sutherland, one in Buchan, Aberdeenshire, and this one. X ' Mauricius, Abbe of Abereloth,' witnessed four charters of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, between 1201 and 1207. Si THE PICTISH NATION ancient burials were opened out. The original Church was, of course, also at this spot. The situation of the ancient Churchyard, and the pos- ition of the Well, with all the surroundings, are strikingly duplicated at S. Ninian's, Navidale, Sutherland. The whole district is rich in remains of the Pictish Church, including the sites of the Churches of S. Vigean,* S. Muredoc, and the graven crosses dug up thereat. George de Brana erected a new Church here in 1483, and dedic- ated it to S. Ninian, the original founder. Tracing S. Ninian's actual foundations farther north, there are sites : at Dunottar, Kincardineshire, where Earl Maris- chal, extending the Castle about 1380, in- vaded the inclosure of the ancient Church of S. Ninian, then in ruins; at Andat,\ Methlick, Aberdeenshire. Andat means a Mother-Church; at S. Ninian's, Pit Medan, Aberdeenshire. A. S. Medan was nearly contemporary with S. Ninian; at S. Ninian's, Morayshire, 'near where Spey enters the sea,' apparently the pre-Roman Catholic Church of Fochabers; at S. Ninian's, 'Diser,' % in Moray, believed to be * Thelocalpronunciationis 'S. Vigean's'orFigean's. TheGaelicform of the namewould probably be Fechin. The Picts used (? where the Gaidh- eals used C. Frepresents /^or Fh. t Old Celtic ^«dfi>iV, modern Gaelic Annat. X The Celtic Disert. Compare Dysart. A Retreat for the clerics of a Celtic Church. 84 PICTISH CHURCH GROWS at Dyke; at 'An Teampuir or ' Tempul Rinian' Loch Ness, Inverness-shire; at Fearn, Edderton, Ross-shire, the original site oftheCeltic Abbey of Fearn; and, for a short time, the site of the Roman Catholic Abbey of Fearn. The Roman Abbey was moved to Nova Farina, the present Fearn, south of Tain, ^. 1238. The Abbey of Fearn remained a daughter-house of Candida Casa^ivom the Celtic Church period until about the time of the Reformation. Part of the memorial cross, dating eighth century, of Reo- datius, Ab of the Celtic Abbey, has been re- covered, and the uncial inscription has been read, 'In the name of Jesus Christ. A cross of Christ, in memory of Reodatius. May he rest (in Christ).'* Reodaidhe, Ab of Fearna, accord- ing to the Annals of Ulster, died a.d. 762. Tracing S. Ninian's foundations still farther northward there are sites : at S. Ninian's, Navidale('AV'«;2^d;/'), Sutherland, where in one of the graves of the Churchyard were found a bronze knife, a flint implement, and the palmated antler of one of the extinct deer. His well, 'Tober 'inian,' flows in the gorge near the Churchyard. At S. Ninian's, Head of Wick, where the inlet be- * Fearn Abbey and this stone have been fully treated in the author's S Ninian, etc.. Chap. x. 85 THE PICTISH NATION low is known as Papigoe,the/*«/^'j'(Cleric's) inlet, at S. Ninian's, Orkney, now North Ronaldshay; at S. Ninian's Isle, Dunrossness, Shetland, where the stone with Ogham characters was re- covered, which indicates that the site was occu- pied by members of S. Ninian's ecclesiastical 'family.' This chain of Church-sites, almost prehistoric, and the Church-sites, bearing later native names, that historically were linked on to it, and the anci- ent stones with Pictish symbols whose meaning hasbeen forgotten, which these siteshave yielded, confirm decidedly and accurately Bede's inform- ation that S. Ninian christianized the Southern (our Eastern) Picts; and also Ailred's statement, drawn doubtless from the Old Life, that he divided the whole land, namely Pictland, into distinct districts.* When, further, we consider thischain of ancient Church-sites bearingS. Ninian'snameinthelight of the historical canon f that early Celtic,and espe- cially Pictish, Churches took their names from their founders, the confirmation of Bede and Ailred is conclusive. Historians have seldom troubled to differentiate between Churches which were actual foundations by a missionary-saint, and late Churches which were merely dedications to * 'Totam terrain per certas parrochias dividere,' V.N, cap. vi. t Haddan and Stubbs. 86 PICTISH CHURCH GROWS his memory, or dedications under his supposed protection. Even the Roman Church did not dedicate its Churches for some centuries; and, at first, to martyrs only. The Celts did not dedicate their Churches until the eighth century when they began to be romanized. The Pictish Church, as a Church, did not dedicate at all. The attempts to dedicate Churches in the eighth century, under the Sovereigns Nechtan and Angus I., and later, when the Pictish Church was closing its exist- ence, were the efforts of individuals who had come under Roman Catholic influences. Such few dedications as were made in Pict- land during the last period of the Pictish Church were made by Roman Catholics to Roman, not to native saints. Wherever the Roman mission- aries were able to assert any power they systema- tically sought to displace the original and native saint who had founded the Church of a town, and tried tosubstituteaRomansaint. AtSt. Andrews they displaced S. Cainnech by S. Andrew ; at Rosemarkie they tried to displace S. Moluag by S. Peter; at Deer they tried to displace S. Drostan by S. Peter; at Dornoch they tried to displace S. Finbar by S. Mary; at Arbroath, somewhat later, William the Lion, who betrayed so many of his country's interests, set up a shrine and stately abbey dedicated to Thomas a Becket, in an at- tempt to supersede the neighbouring Churches of S. N inian and S. Vigean, men to whom the district 87 THE PICTISH NATION owed a real debt of veneration. Frequently when the native clerics did not themselves resist, the people refused to allow the ancient Celtic founda- tions to be superseded. At Arbroath Thomas h, Becket's Abbey became a melancholy desecrated ruin; but in theoriginal parish of S. Vigean's,into which the Abbey was intruded, one of its two an- cient Churches, namely, S. Vigean's, still survives with someof its ancient Pictishstonecrosses; and it has happened similarly elsewhere in Pictland. There was more resentment at the Reformation against the Roman Church because it was foreign than has been allowed. The people, frequently, steadily insisted on burying their dead around the spots where the Pictish missionaries had first preached the Gospel to their forefathers, even when the Roman and post- Reformation clergy had withdrawn their patronage from these Pictish pioneers. The efforts of the Roman mission to blot out such names as S. Nihian's from local memory often resulted in imprinting them more deeply; and so indicating clearly to later gener- ations the older and native missionaries of the Christian Church. After S. Ninian had established his Mission- Churches in Pictland and had put them in charge of 'brethren,' as Ailred tells us, 'he bade the bre- thren farewell and returned to his own Church' at Candida Casa. At this point the historians usu- ally take farewell of S. Ninian and drop all notice 88 PICTISH CHURCH GROWS of his Pictish mission, as if it had been 'left in the air.' S. Ninian, however, had organized his great mission to christianize the Picts that there might be abiding protection to the interests of the growing Christianity and civilization of the Brit- ons. He was an ecclesiastical statesman too thorough in his methods to leave his chief mission 'in the air.' The existence of the names of his successors in connection with Pictish Churches that owed their origin to Candida Casa ought to have warned historians that S. Ninian's Mission- Churches survived and continued in communion with Candida Casa; and that they were supplied with a ministry therefrom, or from daughter- houses, long after S. Ninian had passed away. Fortunately there are fragments in the Lives of the Irish Pictish missionaries which settle this beyond dispute. CANDIDA CASA (WHIT- HORN) CHAPTER SEVEN It is now hardly realized that Candida Casa, be- sides beingagreat ecclesiastical community under S. Ninian, became, like its prototype S. Martin's, Tours, a great school and training centre for Celtic missionaries. S. Ninian, as we have seen, brought the nucleus of a community with him from Tours; and by the importation of the institutional names belongingtothe parent communityseems tohave desired to be regarded as presiding over one of the outpostsof thenovel missionary system which S. Martin had set up in Christendom. One of the early I rish names, therefore, besides those already mentioned, for Candida Casa was TaighMartain^ that is, House of Martin; and, indeed, the first 'White- Hut' on S. Hilary's farm which was given by the latter for S. Martin's experiment in com- munal asceticism and culture became ' Taigh ' Mar- tain,2L 'house'as distinct from a Church. We have forgotten now that S. Martin was an innovator,* suspected by the orthodox clergy in Gaul ; that no recognized ecclesiastical names fitted his novel- ties; and that muinn^ir ((am'ily) and ^aigA(house) were taken from common secular speech and ap- plied to his institutions. To the Christians of the Imperial Roman garrison and colony among the Britons, S. Ninian, also, would appear an intro- ducer of strange methods. His use of S. Martin's own name and of S. Martin's institutional names * Sulp. Sev., Chron. ii. 50. 90 CANDIDA CASA to cover his work was designed to throw the re- sponsibility on S. Martin for any departure from usual methods. The Irish sources inform us that S. Ninian, besides his mission to the Picts of Alba (Scot- land), conductedamission to the Pictsof Ireland.* This mission cannot be treated in detail here; but it is necessary to refer to it, because from the converts which it produced, or from their suc- cessors, came some of the most famous of the pupils of Candida Casa, and some of the most zealous of the missionaries who took up and con- tinued S. Ninian'swork in Pictland of Alba(Scot- land). Across the North Channel, nearly opposite Candida Casa, in the shelter of ' Loch Cuan,' now Strangford Loch, inthe territory of the Irish Picts, a mission-community was organized in the fifth century at 'n-Aondruim, corrupted into 'N en- drum.' The first resident president of Aondruim, towards the end of the same century, was S. Mochaoi, son of Bronag, daughter of Maelchon, the man to whom S. Patrick was a slave for six years. The community of Aondruim was depend- ent on Candida Casa ; because we find that the * ships ' f of S. N inian's house were in the habit of * The Irish have preserved S. Ninian's name in its original Britonic form, namely, Nan or Nen. They add the honorific prefix Mo-. The name becomes Monann or Monenn. t Brit. Ecc, Antiq. (Ussher) vol. vi. cap. xvii. p. 494, and A.SS. (Colgan), p. 438. 91 THE PICTISH NATION calling there; and also that S. Finbar, by order of S. Caolan, his master, who was second Ab of Aondruim, took passage on one of them to Can- dida Casa for the purpose of completing his educ- ation. In the same Pictish district as Aondruim, S. Finbar in the sixth century organized his own community at Maghbile ; and S. Comgall the Great organized the most famous of all the Pictish communities at Bangor. The relations of these Pictish communities with one another and with the communities among the Southern Irish Picts, on the one hand, and with the parent community at Candida Casaon the other, explain why so many Irish Picts figure among the pupils of Candida Casa, and why so many of the same people took up and continued S. Ninian's mission-work in Pictland of Alba (Scotland). One of the first of S. Ninian's pupils to follow his master's example and to organize missions under his own leadership was Caranogap Ceredig, a Briton, more easily recognized under the later spelling of his name, Caranoc ap Ceretic* He was of the family of Ceredig, 'Guletic,' who ac- ceded to the supremacy of the British chiefs in the districts between Severn and Clyde after the Imperial Roman legions had retired. His name will appear again in connection with S. Ninian's * See author's .S*. Ninian, etc. , Chap, xii, Caranoc is not to be confused with Carnech, son of Saran, a Gaidheal who belonged to a much later period, and with whom he had nothing in common but similarity of name. 92 CANDIDA CAS A work in Pictland of Alba; but his missions ex- tended to all the Celts, to his fellow- Britons, to the Irish Picts across the North Channel, and to the Gaidheals or Scots of Ireland, at that time dwelling nearer the Atlantic seaboard than a cen- tury later. The Gaidheals regarded S. Caranoc as the first evangelist to visit them. He baptized his fellow-Briton the historical S. Patrick. The Gaidheals also declared that he bequeathed to them his 'Miosach,' which the Nialls carried at the head of their armies. In one of their ancient books it is stated that he belonged to ' Taigh Mar- tain among the Britons, that is, Candida Casa. He is designated as *Ab,' and so must have filled the presidency for a time between S. Ninian's death and the appointment of S. Ternan. He was, however, constantly engaged on mission journeys until his martyrdom. Hehad communities which he himself had organized, and a settled place for rest and 'retreat' at the Cave 'Edilg.'* He kept S. Ninian's most distant converts in touch with the parent community at Candida Casa, and ex- tended S. Ninian's mission enterprises both in Pictland of Alba (Scotland) and in Ireland. One of the Pictish Church-sites bearing his name is as far north as the banks of the Deveron, near Turriff. He is regarded as having introduced the Celtic monastic system into Ireland, as being the * Cf. Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. ii. p. 46, and Owea's ^Sanctorale Catholicum, and their authorities. 93 THE PICTISH NATION first Christian Brehon, and as the first martyr.* In the ancient Irish poem which deals with S. V^X.- rick'smmnnltrit is stated that Caranocf baptized S. Patrick. This, according to the Lt/e of the historical Patrick, must have taken place some considerable time after he was fifteen years of age; because in the Confession Patrick writes: *I know not, God knoweth, whether at that time I was fifteen years old, but I believed not in the living God,neitkerkadlfrom infancy,! r^mmn^d in death and unbelief.' The fabulists forgot Pat- rick's testimony about himself; and also that in- fantbaptism was not a practice of the time. When S. Patrick began to work in Ireland, Caranoc and he agreed that the one (Patrick) should work to 'the left,' that is, the southward, and the other (Caranoc) would continue to work to 'the right,' in the northward part. J The range and influence of S. Caranoc's work in Pictland (Scotland), among the Britons, and among the Picts and part of the Gaidheals of Ireland, show that he con- sidered Candida Casa adequately equipped to furnish a steady supply of ministers to occupy and hold the spheres of work which he was opening up to the Church. * Cf, Preface to Senchus Mor, Harleian MSS. , vol. i, p. xxvii ; vol, ii. p. viii. t 'Carniuch (Caranoc) was the presbyter that baptized him (Patrick).' The baptism apparently took place, as we know from other information, during one of Caranoc's early missions while he was yet a presbyter. X Cf. Brit. Ecc, Antiq. (Ussher) cap. xvii, p. 441. 94 CANDIDA CASA Although no connected history of Candida Casa has survived,* we are able to secure glimpses of it after S. Caranoc's time in the Lives of its various pupils. The names of two other Abs who ruled between S. Ninian's death, a.d. 432, and the early years of the sixth century have been preserved from oblivion, namely, 'Tervanus,' a scribe's error for Ternanus, and 'Nennio,' or 'Monen,' a bishop. f Nennio, to distinguish him from his namesake the founder, S. Ninian 'the Old,' or 'the Great,' was called in Latin 'Man- cenus,' and in native speech 'Manchan,' which is Manack, a. monk with the diminutive of endear- ment. He is also referred to as 'Manchan, the Master' of the community. One of the features of the ipa.rent-muinn^ir a.t S. Martin's, Tours, had been that education was provided for high andlow,thepeople were trained in agriculture, and gifts of seed distributed to encourage them. S. Ninian, and his community after him, faithfully followed S. Martin's example. One of the pupils who went to 'Rosnat,']: the name given by the Irish sailors to the locality of Candida Casa, was S. Endeus or Eany. He was * Alcuin, in the eighth century, by his remarks of appreciation, indic- ates that he knew about its early history. t Cressy and his authorities, who give A.D. 520 as the approximate date of Nennio's rule. This is apparently about the date when he ceased to rule. Colgan and others carelessly confuse Nennio with S. Ninian, the founder of Candida Casa. X This is evidently Ros-Nan(t), the promontory of Ninian, and applied to the ' Isle-head ' at Whithorn, 95 THE PICTISH NATION there in the latter half of the fifth century. He belonged to the district evangelized by S. Caranoc and the community at Aondruim. His devoted sister Fanchea had been converted first, and in her enthusiasm moved her brother to train for a religious life. S. Eany was a man of influence, an Irish Pict, son of ConallDerg, Prince of Oriel, his mother, Aebhfhinn, being daughter of Ain- mire Mic Ronan, king of the Ards (Ulster). After finishing his education at Candida Casa he organized a community of his own and settled at Aranmhor in Ireland. 'Thrice fifty' was the number of his 'family' there. Through him the influence of Candida Casa and its methods reached to his pupils S. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, S. Finian of Clonard, and S. Kevin of Glenda- lough ; and through them again to some of the most distinguished missionary saints of Ireland. S. Eany died on the 21st of March a.d. 540. While Nennio, known as the ' little monk,' was 'Master' at Candida Casa, two Pictish boys were kidnapped from their homes in Ireland, probably to be detained as hostages, and they were carried into the territory of the Britons. The queen of the Britons pitied them, and, at her entreaty, the king sent them to be educated at the monastery of 'Rosnat,' called 'Alba or the White,' that is, to Candida Casa. These boys were called respect- ively Tighernac and Eogan. Tighernac was son of a Leinster captain who had married Dearfra- 96 CANDIDA CAS A oich, daughter of the king of Oriel. Eogan was son of Cainech Mac Cuirp of Leinster, who had married Muindecha, who belonged to the district now called Down. After they had been educated at Candida Casa both these men organized com- munities and settled with them in Ireland. S. Tighernac's headquarters were at Cluain-Eois in Monaghan, where still exists the'Cloichteach* or Bell-house, similar to the Round-towers of Eastern Scotland. Angus the Culdee records of Tighernac, 'Out of him burst a stream of know- ledge.' He died on the 4th of April a.d. 548. Eogan, with his Community, settled first at Kil- na-manach in Cualann, in East Wicklow, and afterwards at Ardsratha, on the river Dearg in Tyrone. He died on the 23rd of August ^.a.d. 5 70, in extreme old age. At Candida Casa one of S. Eogan's other fellow-students was Coirpre, who settled at Coleraine among the Irish Picts, and was ordained a 'bishop.' We have noted a ' bishop ' at Candida Casa and, in this instance, at Coleraine; but it is necess- ary to remember that at this time there were no monarchic or diocesan bishops among the Celts. The bishop might be an Ab,but more frequently he was simply a member of a 'family' or commun- ity, and subordinate to an Ab. The only preced- ence which he was sometimes allowed was that he dispensed the Sacraments before a presbyter. About A.D. 520 S. Finbar came as a scholar H 97 THE PICTISH NATION to Candida Casa. He had been a pupil at Aon- druim in the territory of the Irish Picts under S. Caolan, the second Ab. When the 'ships' of Nennio 'the little monk 'came toStrangford Loch from Candida Casa^ S. Caolan directed Finbar to sail with them in order to complete his educ- ation at the parent-house. Finbar was at Can- dida Casa, or connected with its work, for 'twenty years.' Calculating back from his settlement* at Maghbile, this period must have been from about A.D. 5 20 until a.d. 540. The scholars at Can- dida Casa when Finbar was a teacher, we learn in- cidentally, included Rioc, who afterwards became one of the most popular missionary-saints in Ire- land; Talmag, a layman; and Drusticc, daughter of Drust, sovereign of the Picts. Another lady, Brignat,! one of the 'family' of S. Mo'ennaJ was educated at Candida Casa, and S. Mo'enna her- self worked in communion with the same house. During S. Finbar's period at Candida Casa, Nennio 'the little monk' ceased to rule; and Mugent, who is also referred to as 'Master in the city called Candida,' became Ab. Documentary testimony which, thus far, has been comparatively full with regard to the mis- sionaries who went from Candida Casa to Ireland becomes scant with regard to many of the mis- * In A.D. 540. t In the minds of the Scottish people, and by some writers, she is confused with S. Brigid. % Her name of endearment is sometimes varied to Moninne. Her proper name was Darerca. 98 CANDIDA CASA sionaries who, before and after S. Finbar's time, maintained S. Ninian's Mission-Churches in the east and north of Pictland of Alba (Scotland). We frequently require to appeal to the face of Scotland for traces of journeys; and when we find ancient Church-sites in the south-west, that is in the Candida Casa district, bearing the names of SS. Ternan, the historical Servanus, Pauldoc ('Paw/ N en), Rum map Urbgen, Donnan the Great, Earnoc, Vigean, and Walloc, the foreigner or Welshman, with a score of others not ac- counted for from the Irish houses; and, again, other ancient Church-sites in the east and north of Pictland bearing the same names; we are con- firmed in the knowledge that Candida Casa was the spiritual home and starting-place of these founders. As we have seen, Ternan is recorded as Ab of Candida Casa after S. Ninian the Great and before Nennio 'the little monk'; S. Donnan is known to have gone from Candida Casa and to have visited S. Ninian'sChurches in the north- east of Pictland, and he and his disciples are known to have founded new Churches in extension of S. Ninian's work at the various locaHties where they laboured c. a.d. 580. At the time when S. Donnan, with the unusu- ally large number of 'fifty-two' disciples, left Gallo- way, Candida Casa must have become a rather in- secure place to some of the inmates. The Angles, who were pagans, had begun in the sixth cent- 99 THE PICTISH NATION ury to Spread themselves across the island from the North Sea to the coasts of the North Channel and Solway. Their aim was to drive a Teutonic wedge through the heart of the Celts, to separate the Britons of Strath-Clyde from the Britons of what is now Wales; and to force back the Picts of the east coast to the north of the Tay. S. Kentigern of Glasgow found his fellow- Britons driven into the uplands of Lanarkshire, Galloway , and Cumberland, partly as a result of the aggres- sion of the barbarian Angles, and partly by pres- sure from Brito-Pictish clans expelled from their own domains by the Angles. These disturbances of the native population and the savagery of the Teutons brought a temporary check to the pro- gress of Christianity. Very likely at this time the documents of Candida Casa were scattered, lost, or destroyed. Some of them survived in the hands of the Angles, because there was an ancient Life of S. Ninian translated into Saxon to which Ailred had access. It was at this time that S. Kenti- gern was moved to lead a mission southward from Glasgow to preserve the Faith in districts where S. Ninian, or the workers of his house, had long beforeplantedChurchesandorganized Com- munities; and, incidentally, to make some effort to Christianize the pitiless Angles. By the advance of the Angles, Candida Casa was, at times, surrounded on the land side by un- sympathetic foreigners; and cut off for periods lOO CANDIDA CASA from safe communication with its Churches in Pictland. However, the great Pictish community of S. Comgall the Great at Bangor in Ireland arose to help, and continued to supply a ministry and supervision to the Churches in Pictland which owed their being directly or indirectly to Candida Casa. Although Candida Casa was thus obstructed in its work, it was not overwhelmed by the intru- sion of the pagan Angles into Galloway, because Paulinus, Roman Archbishop of York {c. 627), showed interest* in the Church and community of Candida Casa, during his stay at York. It is important to note this; because Venerable Bede who wrote the Life of S. Cudberct (Cuth- bert) knew that Cuthbert visited the Picts of Galloway f when he was Ab of Mailros (Melrose) shortly after a.d. 661. Cuthbert was a pupil of the Celts who had gone over to the Roman Mis- sion. He laboured among the Angles who had been formally 'converted' to Christianity by the Roman missionaries a.d. 627, although the Celtic missionaries under Rum map Urbgen, a Briton, had made Christians of the whole Ang- lian tribe called * Ambrones ' at an earlier date.J * Some of the mediaeval scribes, in ignorance, have transferred this interest in Innis Wytrin, Isle of Whithorn, away from the diocese of Paulinus to Glastonbury of Somerset. They knew nothing of Glaston of Whithorn apparently. t Vita S. Cudbercti, Bede, cc. x, xi. J Cf. Chron. Picts and Scots, Skene, *p. 13. lOl THE PICTISH NATION Cuthbert was not only zealous to convert Angles ; but to romanize the Celts who adhered to the methods and usages of the monastic Church of the Britons and Picts. It was in the interests of Rome, therefore, that Cuthbert journeyed to the gates of Candida Casa. It is not without in- terest that Venerable Bede gives no particulars concerning Cuthbert's reception at the mother- Church of British missions. His silence is no accident. Does it mark one of the places in his manuscript, where, as Bede himself candidly tells us, he excised historical information at the re- quest of those critics who could tolerate no in- formation about Christian work which preceded the Roman Mission and detracted from its claims ? Or is it simply one of the many instances in which a Roman author refrains from due refer- ence to the mother-Church of the Britons and Picts, because the ancient date of its foundation and the wide radius of its missions rendered ridi- culous the pretensions to primacy of the growing Church of the Angles, and conflicted with the claims of the See of York to jurisdiction wher- ever the Angles had penetrated.-* Cuthbert's mission was earnest enough; because across the bay from Candida Casa he planted the rival Roman Church of 'Kirkcudbright,' where we see a ^oxndin foundation, as distinct from a de- dication, with the Saxon 'Kirk' attached to the founder's name instead of the older Celtic I02 CANDIDA CAS A * cm. ' 1 1 looks an unimportant difference ; but it indicates that wherever a romanizing agent suc- ceeded, his centre of influence was a Church in charge of a presbyter in some secular township, instead of the Casa or C^//of an Ab in the midst of a religious 'family' with Churches, Schools, places of Retreat, and other peculiar pertinents of the Celtic religious clan. Some have inferred from Bede's strange silence regarding S. Ninian's establishment that Candida Casa had ceased to exist in Cuthbert's time; but this was not the case, because c. a.d. 785 F. A. Alcuin aided and honoured Candida Casa 'because of the holy men who had laboured there.'* The truth manifestly is that in Cuth- bert's time the Celtic brethren of Candida Casa had no dealings with the representatives of the Roman Mission, and there is no indication that they had been specially enthusiastic over the kindly patronage of Archbishop Paulinus. However, the steady pressure of the Roman missionaries, reinforced by the civil power of the converted Angles, brought, in course of time, the desired change to Candida Casa. In the third decade of the eighth century it conformed to Rome. From being the mother-Church of the Britons and Picts it was degraded to be the Church of a local diocese, subordinate to York. Even then, some memory of its former position * Councils, Haddan and Stubbs. 103 THE PICTISH NATION adhered to It; because its first monarchic bishop, A.D. 730-735, is called Pechthelm, Protector of the Picts, and its third Roman bishop bears the name Pechtwine, Friend of the Picts. The Roman Church did not treat Candida Casa with due respect as the years passed by. Complaint has been made by the modern Roman- ist and Anglican that the Protestant reformers after a.d. 1560 esteemed it not. The Protestant only allowed its walls to decay, and its hallowed stones to sink into the dust to be trodden by irreverent feet; but the Roman innovators from the eighth century onwards, although they knew the facts, obscured its true origin and character, misrepresented S. Ninian, its great founder, and his work, in the interests of a foreign Church with monarchic forms of government that suited the barbarous Angle, but proved irksome to the Celt with his democratic clan-life and patriarchal chiefs. Moreover, the prelates of York belittled Candida Casa in the interests of the precedence of that growing metropolis of the Angles ; just as, in a later period, the prelates of Glasgow belittled it in the interests of the precedency of the See of Glasgow, although they were not above putting forward the historical priority of Candida Casa when it was necessary for the See of Glasgow to resist the pretensions of the prelates of York to spiritual jurisdiction in Scotland. 104 CANDIDA CASA Nevertheless, Candida Casa under Roman control did not forget all her ancient daughter- Churches in Pictland with their possessions and interests. About a.d. 1223-7, Candida Casa sent out two of her Canons in the footsteps of her early Celtic missionaries. One was a Celt called Maol- Choluim or Malcolme. His object was to win control for Rome over those Celtic Commun- ities and Churches, some of them founded by S. Ninian, which in the isolated and conservative North still adhered to the old ways, and steadily resisted the innovations of the romanized clergy. Maol-Choluim, probably without a thought of his inconsistency, actually carried with him al- leged bones of S. Ninian to re-sanctify Churches which the living Ninian had consecrated. Fer- quharof Ross, a western Celt, who, by his sword, was carving a way to favour with the king and to an earldom in the east, found Maol-Choluim wandering in the vicinity of S. Ninian's Celtic abbey at Fearn, Edderton, which S. Finbar had visited when he was at Candida Casa, and where Reodatius had been Ab in the eighth century. Ferquhar diplomatically gave his support to Maol-Choluim, and established him at Fearn in the old daughter-house of Candida Casa, which was thus romanized. The recovery of the old house was not followed by peace. The native Celts resented the presence of the romanized intruders. About a.d. 1238-42, in the time of the 105 THE PICTISH NATION second Roman abbot, 'owing to the hostility of the natives,' the abbey was transported to Nova Farina,"^ the present site, where it remained under the control of Candida Casa until near the Reformation. * Now Fearn, south-east of Tain, East Ross. THE MEN WHO CONTINUED S. NINIAN'S MISSION - WORK AND ORGANIZED THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS CHAPTER EIGHT Owing to the loss or destruction of records and the indifference or jealousy of the Roman clergy of the middle ages, the names and history of hundreds of Celtic clerics who left Candida Casa, or its daughter-houses, to carry on the work of the Church in Pictland have passed into ob- livion. Some of the names of these missionary clerics who regarded Candida Casa as their mother-Church have, however, been preserved, attached to the Church-sites which they them- selves selected, and at which they ministered; but for this we are indebted more frequently to the people than to the Roman clergy. There are instances in which the Roman clergy actu- allyinhibited the parishioners from burying their dead in the Churchyards of these ancient Celtic Church-sites; in order that they might turn the people to the Roman Churches.* Fortunately the ordinary folk of a district refused to with- draw their veneration from the names and sites of the earlier Church. Although the personal * Some of the clergy of the powerful Roman abbey of Aberbrothoc were not well-disposed to the Celtic Church-sites. One notable exception was George de Brana, who actually protected them and even restored a Church to the site of S. Ninian's ancient Church near Arbroath. He also restored a Church to the site of S. Vigean's original Church. 107 THE PICTISH NATION names borne by Church-sites of the Celts, even when taken along with their associated trad- itions, do not provide much information by them- selves; they frequently provide enough to en- able us to distinguish the Brito-Pictish clerics who were trained at Candida Casa, or its daughter- houses, from those trained at the centres of the Irish Picts; and in instances where these Brito- Pictish clerics happened to be connected with places outside Pictland of Alba, where inform- ation was preserved, we are enabled to procure dates for their work, and particulars about them- selves more or less full. A selection from the personal names borne by Brito-Pictish Church- sites indicates how S. Ninian's work was carried on continuously after his death in a.d. 432. S. Caranoc the Great, called also * the Elder,' a Briton who lived c. 433,* who was of the family of Ceredig ' Guletic,' was one of S. Ninian's first group of missionaries to Pictland. * His day is the 1 6th May. His name in the various dialects takes the forms Caranog, Carantoc, Caranoc, Carnoch, Carnech, Carniuch, and one scribe has achieved ' Gornias. ' There is a manuscript Life of S. Carantoc in the British Museum, and another in Trinity College, Dublin. S. Caranoc is introduced in the tales relating to Muircheartach mac Erca the Gaidheal, The hero goes to Britain to S. Caranoc to get his arms blessed, and invokes his help in punishing certain rebellious clansmen. The Gaidheals claimed S, Caranoc as their patron before the rise of S. Columba. See the author's S. Ninian, etc. , Chap. xii. According to the tale MtdrcertacK s Death (MS., H2, i6, Col. 312, Trin. Coll. Dublin), it is claimed that the 'miosack' of Caranoc or Car- nech was given to the Gaidhealic Nialls of the north as a standard to be carried in battle. 108 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN A hand in the Book of Ballymote has preserved the information that he belonged to the Haigh Martain,' house of Martin, among the Britons, that is the later Gaidhealic way of referring to Candida Casa. S. Caranoc is designated * Ab.' Apparently he only held the presidency of Can- dida Casa until Ternan was appointed to S. Ninian's seat; because, apart from seasons of re- treat at the cave 'Edilg,' he spent most of his life on mission journeys in Britain and Ireland, where he organized various communities of con- verts. He was only a presbyter; but he baptized the historical S. Patrick, when the latter had grown up, as is recorded in the ancient poem enumerating S. Patrick's friends which is pre- served in the Books of Ballymote and of Lecan, He was martyred, and is referred to as * the first martyr of Erin.' His most northerly Church- site in Pictland of Alba is on the banks of the Deveron, near Turriff, Aberdeenshire. One of S. Caranoc's contemporaries was S. Ternan* who founded the Bangor, which afterwards took his name, at Banchory-Ternan in Aberdeenshire. The early Roman Catholic * His day is the 1 2th June. Angus the Culdee writing in Ireland refers to him as 'Toranan long-famed for exploits across the broad ship-laden sea.' By an early scribe's error Ternan's name was sometimes written 'Tervan.' Lesley among others adopted the misspelling. In the De Ori- gine, lib. iv. p. 137, among other fables invented to give a Roman origin to the Brito-Pictish Church, it is stated that Palladius destined 'S. Ter- van to be Archbishop of the Picts,' and S. Servan to be apostle to the ' Orkneys,' the latter is a misreading of a contraction for Ochils. 109 THE PICTISH NATION writers, especially those of the Aberdeen hist- orical group, had access to information about S. Ternan which is now no longer available. Un- fortunately they glossed that information in the interests of their own Church, Knowing that S. Ternan succeeded to the control of S. Ninian's work in Alba, they began their perversions by bestowing on him the unwarranted and anachron- istic title 'Archbishop of the Picts.' Cressy, a later and different historian, was more careful when he referred to S. Ternan* as second Ab of Candida Casa, although he was strictly the ^/itrd, if S. Caranoc's short term be reckoned. Camer- arius, discarding the early Roman glosses, notes S. Ternan thus, 'Sanctus Ternanus Episcopus et Confessor et post Ninianum Sanctum Pictorum austrahum (recte, orientalium) veluti Apostolus.' The following details came from the original sources. He was a Pict of Mearns in Alba, he was converted during S. Ninian's Pictish mis- sion, he was educated at Candida Casa, he was baptized in early manhood by that disciple of S. Ninian whom the Roman Catholic writers con- fused with Palladius, whose native name, pre- served in Perthshire and the Mearns, was 'Pal- doc' or 'Paldy,' whose historical name is 'Pawl Hin' or Paul the Aged, a missionary who was a Briton, who worked with S. Ninian, who * Cressy, as quoted in Chronicles of the British Church, is made to adopt the misspelling ' Tervan.' I lO MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN survived into the early years of the sixth cen- tury, who lived long enough to meet S. David m his childhood; he could not see him because he was blind through great age. S. Ternan's manu- script of the Gospels in a case ornamented with gold and silver was preserved at Banchory- Ternan into the Roman Catholic period, and his bell ' Ronnecht ' until the Reformation. Some of the writers of the Aberdeen group were more candid than others. One hand in the Martyro- logy of Aberdeen, which bears evidence of Moray origin, viewing S. Ternan's position as S. Nin- ian's successor calls him * Archipraesul' which in this instance means president of the chief and parent community at \Candida Casa. Besides Banchory-Ternan, S. Ternan had Church-sites at Slains, Arbuthnot, and Findon, where is also his well. If any one wishes to understand how culture in Pictland suffered from the Viking invasions, he has only to visualize Banchory and other like places in the fifth century with their schools, manuscripts, and active missionary teachers, spreading the Gospel and Christian civilization; and then to think of the state of these places five hundred years later. S. Erchard or M'erchard* a Pict, also a nat- ive of 'Mearns' Alba, was one of S. Ternan's con- verts and became his disciple. Erchard's birth- * Cf. Dr. William Mackay and his authorities in Saints associated with the Ness Valley, p. 7. Ill THE PICTISH NATION place was near Kincardine O'Neil, Aberdeen- shire. In course of time S. Ternan ordained him a presbyter, and Erchard resolved to devote him- self to continuing S. Ninian's mission-work a- mong the Picts of Alba. It is interesting to note that he settled near aChurch which S. Ninian had founded during his northern mission at Temple on Loch Ness. His headquarters were in Glen- moriston,off the Great Glen of Alba, now the line of the Caledonian Canal. In silent testimony toS. Erchard's establishment, there are still in Glen- moristoniheSmMeAfercAat'rdyS.'Erchsird'sseait, his well called Fuaran M' erchaird, the ancient Churchyard known as Cladh M erchaird, and S. Erchard's Church-site. S. Erchard, like his mas- ter, left a famous bell.* S. 'Paldy,' so well known through his connec- tion with Mearns, falls to be noticed with this group of missionary workers. His name will ap- pear again, at a period when he was blind through great age, in connection with the boyhood of S. Dewi (David) of Wales. In Perthshire his name appears with the uncorrupted diminutive in the form 'Paldoc' Among the Britons he came to be known as Pawl Hen, and Peulan Hen, that is, S. Paul the Aged. The early Irish Picts, judging from the Martyrology of Tallagh, knew him as ' Polan, \}ci2X is' Paul' with the diminutive an. He * Dr. Mackay's translation of S. Erchard's warning is — 'lamMerchard from across the land, keep ye my sufferings deep in your remembrance; see that ye do not for a test place this bell in the pool to swim.' 112 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN was the founder, among other centres, of Candida Casa on Tav among the south Britons. He was also associated with S. Ninian's foundation at Dunottar in the Mearns; and in the Martyrology of Tallagh he and Nennio the fourth Ab of Candida Gz5« (Whithorn) are commemorated to- gether at the 2 1 st day of May. In parts of South Wales he is commemorated on the 22nd day of November. In the early Roman Catholic period the Aber- deen group of historical writers confused* this S. 'P^ldy' or 'Paldoc' with Palladius who was sent on a mission to the Irish a.d. 430 by PopeCelest- ine. Palladius, we are told, was rejected by the 'rude and savage' Irish. As he did not wish to spend time in a land not his own, but desired to return 'to him who sent him,' that is to Celestine; he crossed to the territory of the Britons, which lay opposite to Ireland, where he was seized with illness and died.* In passing, it may be well to recollect that some authorities consider that the historical Palladius is one and the same with the historical Patrick; and that the name 'Palladius' is nothing more than an exact Latin translation of S. Patrick's original native name, Sucat. Whether or not, it is clear about the historical Palladius that * Murchu's Life of Patrick and the annotations to Tirechan. See also Skene and his authorities, Celtic Scotland, book ii. chap. i. p. 27. The confusion of S. 'Paldy' with Palladius threatened to become continuous after David de Bernham in 1244 dedicated a new Church to 'Paldy' at Fordun but gave him the name ' Palladius. ' I 113 THE PICTISH NATION he was unsuccessful in his mission to the Irish; that, having retired, he died on the way back 'to him who sent him,' somewhere amongthe Britons to the south-west of Pictland; that, therefore, he could not have conducted a mission in Pictland of Alba subsequent to the Irish one, or have taken any part in continuing S. Ninian's work there. When, therefore, a scholiast on the Hymn of Fiac of Sletty declares that Palladius 'reached the ex- treme part of the Monaid*^ towards the south, where he founded the Church of Fordun and " Pledi " is his name there '; it is evident that he is confusing two different men, and is transferring a fragment of biography to Palladius which belongs to S. 'Paldy' of Fordun (Paul Hen); because Auchinblae and Fordun, where, among other places, S. 'Paldy' laboured, lie slightly to the south of the extreme end of the 'Monad' (the correct name of the eastern end of the 'Gram- pians'); and within sight of the Cairn o' Mont which preserves the original name. Moreover, we can trust certain definite scraps of history preserved, by one of the hands, in the Breviary of Aberdeen and by Fordun himself, which tell how S. Ternan was a native of the Mearns and that his baptizer was the native saint whom they confused with Palladius. Consequently this 'Pawl,' or 'Paldoc,' or 'Paldy' who baptized the man who became third Ab of S. Ninian's Candida * By the error of a scribe ' Modhaid ' is a reading. MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN C^j-^wasnot the ecclesiastical foreigner Palladius who never came to Mearns or to anywhere else in Pictland of Alba; but a native minister, a member of one of the earlier missionary groups which S. Ninianhad arranged alongthe east coast of Pictland. One of those groups was, at the time, in this very locality. S. Ninian on his northern mission had organized a missionary community and founded a Church at the fortress of Dunottar on the sea, about ten miles from Auchinblae and Fordun, where S. 'Paldy's' name survives in con- nection with a Church-site and a fair. The names of S. 'Paldy'and Fordun recall the daring series of Romano-Gaidhealic fables which long passed for history in Scotland. These fables are generally connected with the Aberdeen group of historical writers, and frequently with John of Fordun alone, one of the group. 1 1 is fair to remem- ber that John of Fordun simply took a hand in a scheme which began before he was born and which did not end when he died. H istorical critic- ism, even when it has been unrelenting, has been directed more at the system, into which he had to fit himself and his writings, than at the man. John of Fordun, priest of the Roman Catholic Church, who wrote before a.d. 1385, garbled his- tory, in the interests of the Romano-Gaidhealic Church and the Scots,* who had won ecclesiastical * Chron. bk. iii. cc. 8, 9. The Cronica Gentis Scotorum and the Gesta Annalia were Fordun's contributions. "5 THE PICTISH NATION and political ascendency in Pictland, with the object of obliterating the history of the ancient Celtic Church of the Picts and the history of the ancient and independent Kingdom of Pictland, by what the late Dr. Skene called his 'fictitious and artificial scheme.' The fictions of Fordun* and the Aberdeen group of historians make the historical mind reel. They alleged that the Scots or Gaidheals had colonized Alba, that is Pictland as well as Dalriada, several centuries before the beginning of the Christian era; that the Scots had been converted to Christianity^. a.d. 203 by Pope Victor I.; that, nevertheless, in a.d. 430, Pope Celestine sent S. Palladius to these Gaidheals or Scots to be their 'first' bishop; that S. Palladius arrived in * Scotia ' (which at that time was not Alba but I reland) with a great company in the eleventh year of King ' E ugenius ' (whom Fordun invents) who gave him a place of abode where he desired it. Mearns is indicated, because Fordun adds that the 'holy bishop' Ternan became the disciple of Palladius, or 'Paldy.' Incidentally he states, too, that Servanus was a fellow-worker and bishop with Palladius. It is thus manifest that Johnof Fordun hesitated at nothing in his effort to create a belief in the antiquity of the Gaidheals or Scots, and in the antiquity of the Roman Catholic Church in * It is due to Fordun's memory to state that Bower, his continuator, not only mishandled the Gesta Annalia, but garbled the main text of the Cronica. 116 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN Alba or Pictland; but even in his falseness he has bornewitnessto the ancient activities of the earli- est Pictish missionaries. By using the name of Palladius, the unsuccessful Roman missionary to Ireland (Scotia), to eclipse the work of S. Ninian and hisdiscipleswho truly initiated theChristian- ization of Pictland, and who founded the Celtic Church of the Picts; by confusing Paul Hen, locally S. 'Paldy' of Fordun, with this same Palladius; and by representing that S. Ternan and the historical S. Servanus continued the work of Palladius, instead ofstating that they were associated with Paul Hen, or S. ' Paldy,' in con- tinuing the work of S. Ninian; John of Fordun has unwittingly confirmed that these disciples of S. Ninian were as old, or about as old, as the time of Palladius, namely a.d. 430. Apart from local traditions, John knew that others besides himself had access to ungarbled historical documents, and that he would defeat his purpose unless he kept historical ministers of the early Church in their correct historical periods. He was astute enough to realize that he could not remove them from history; although he might belittle them and con- fuse them with the Roman missionaries to whom he wished to give pre-eminence. John's inven- tions were long accepted as genuine history. Many followed him in ante-dating the Christian- ization of Pictland by about two hundred years, in ante-dating the first attempt to romanize the 117 THE PICTISH NATION Celtic Church of PIctland by over four hundred years, in ante-dating the Gaidhealic or Scotic ascendency throughout Pictland by over four hundred years, and in placing the Gaidheals or Scots in Pictland several hundreds of years be- fore a single Gaidheal or Scot had settled in Dalriada, to which they first came from Ireland (Scotia). John ofFordun's fables were not isolated efforts. They make one series among many which issued at different periods from the Scotic eccle- siastical centres. S. Servanus was lifted away from his true historical period in the Pictish Church, and represented as a subordinate and contemporary of the romanized Gaidheal, Adam- nan; S.Columba(Columcille) was substituted for S.Colm of Deer and exalted over S. Drostan,the Briton, who lived and laboured at Deer before Col- umcille's day; S. Riaghuil (Rule) of St. Andrews was represented as a Roman delegate, and his name used to obscure the name and work of S. Cainnech,a Pict; and the Roman monksofFearn transformed S. Bar of Cork into another Roman delegate, and used his name to obscure the name and work of S. Finbar*of DornocWand Maghbile. As we have seen, the earliest continuators of S. Ninian's work in Alba were Britons like S. Caranoc, or native Picts like Ternan and Erchard. * The Breviary of Aberdeen entered him correctly as 'Fynberr epi,' Finbar the bishop, to distinguish him from S. Barfhionn, the hermit of Cork. The Martyrology of Aberdeen also makes the confusion of the two men impossible. ii8 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN S. Ninian, however, by his Irish mission, and favoured by the proximity o( Candida Casa to the north-east coast of Ireland, had attracted many pupils to his monastery from among the Irish Picts.* In the latter half of the fifth century, the century in which S. Ninian died, these pupils began to appear in Pictland of Alba continuing S. Ninian's work. Some of them served their apprenticeship to mission work in Pictland be- fore returning to Ireland to settle as heads of clerical communities; others remained labouring there until the end of their days. The historical! S. Ailbhe of Emly would have been found in the former group, if he had not been prevented from leaving Ireland by a * 'n-Aondruim on Mahee Island, Strangford Loch, was one of the first communities organized by the Irish Picts for themselves. It was in com- munion with Candida Casa, and sent its advanced pupils there. The 'ships' of Candida Casa visited it. S. Finbar of Maghbile and Dornoch was sent from 'Aondruim to Candida Casa on one of these ships that he might complete his training with the bigger community. S. Mochaoi, son of Bronag, daughter of Maelchon, to whom S. Patrick was a slave, was first Ab of 'Aondruim. S. Mochaoi is stated to have visited western Pictland before the Gaidheals occupied it. One of his Church-sites is at Kilmoha, on the western shore of Loch Awe. The churchyard here was for centuries the burial-ground of the Campbells of Inverlevir. (Cf. The Duke of Argyll's paper to the Scottish Ecclesiological Society at Glasgow, 25th Oct. 1915.) t There is a fanciful S. Ailbhe of the mediaeval Latin fabulists who is represented as having been brought up by a wolf, as having gone to Rome to a Pope Hilarius, as having become a disciple of S. Patrick. It is worth noting that the historical S. Ailbhe is given first in the Pas- chal Epistle of Cummian ; and that he is represented in the earliest sources as opposing S. Patrick. Bishop Forbes puts the death of Ailbhe of Senchus at the date of the deathof Ailbhe of Emly, a.d. 526. 119 THE PICTISH NATION chief who loved him. S. Ailbhe, however, sent deputies to Pictland. S. Ailbhe was an Irish Pict and died a.d. 526. His father was Olcnais, of the family of Fertlachtga, of the clan Rudh- raighe of Dal-Araidhe. His mother was a slave, and her master took the infant Ailbhe from her arms and exposed him in the wilds. The child was found by a kind-hearted heathen called Lochan, who carried him to his own house, and afterwards gave him to certain 'Christian Bri- tons,'* who apparently were missionaries. The authentic ^^/^ . "jiT. 132 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN Briton. His father was prince of Demetia* (the Demetae), now part of South Wales. The saint was an elder brother of the mother of Aedhan 'the false.' When Aedhan had proved himself a military leader of ability, S. Columba of lona ordained him king of the Dalriad Scots or Gaidh- eals, against the wishes of many of the people, in spite of the rights of Duncan (Donnchadh), son of the previous king, and in defiance of Scotic law. Aedhan behaved treacherously to the Brit- ons, hence the epithet by which he is known, and he became the steady foe of the Picts of Alba. The Buchan authorities give S. Drostan's date as c. A.D. 500, and the date of his fellow-worker S. Fergus is given in the View of the Diocese of Aberdeen as 'the beginning of the sixth age,' c. A.D.520. So far it has not been discovered at what British or Pictish school S. Drostan was trained. All that is authentic is that he came off the sea with his disciples, landed at Aberdour in Aber- deenshire,andafteratimewent inland and settled with his muinntir at Deer under the sanction of Bede, I who was then Pictish mormaor of Buchan. Bede had at first been hostile to the saint's settle- ment. Centuries after S. Drostan's time, during the Gaidhealic ascendencyinPictland,the names of SS. Drostan, Colm, and Fergus were removed * Now Dyfed. In Monmouthshire there was a Llan-Trostroc, now 'Trosdre.' t Book of Deer, fol. 3, first side, mid. THE PICTISH NATION from their proper historical setting, and woven into legends intended to create a belief in the priority of the Roman mission in Pictland, and to support the romanized Gaidheals in the usurp- ation of the propertyof the old Pictish Church. In the famous legend,* entered in the Book of Deer by an eleventh-century Gaidhealic hand, S.Colm is boldly transformed into S. Columba (Colum- cille) the Gaidheal; and S. Drostan the Briton, and head of a mission in Pictland, is subordin- ated to him. The reckless fabulist was probably unaware that S. Drostan laboured in Buchan before S. Columba began his work even in Ire- land, that in S. Columba's time the Gaidheals re- garded the Picts as implacable foes, and were meditating to get back the parts of Dalriada out of which they had been hunted by the Pictish sovereign, and that, to this end, S. Columba had ordained to the Gaidhealic or Scotic throne of Dalriada, Aedhan, the arch-enemy of the Picts, and the man who betrayed the very Britons who had helped him to repair his broken fortunes when he was a wanderer from his own people. Another legend, the Legend of Fergusianus,] gives the credit of the missionary work of S. Fergus of Buchan and Caithness to a certain romanized Celt of late date bearing the same name. The object of this fabulist was evidently to make it * Book of Deer, first entry by Scribe I. t Cf. Skene's Celtic Scotland, book ii. chap. vi. p. 232. MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN appear that the beginnings of the I^oman mission in Pictland were much earlier than was actually the case. S. Drostan and his fellow-workers in- creased the churches on the south of the Moray- Firth, and afterwards crossed the Firth to Caith- ness and the Orkneys, where they brought many outlying Pictish tribes under the influence of the Gospel. South of the Moray Firth the following ancient Church-sites represent S.Drostan's foun- dations: Aberdour in Buchan; the site of the muinntir of Deer* in Buchan; the Church-sites at Insch in the Garioch, at Rothiemay on the Deveron.at Aberlour on Spey, at Alvie on Spey, at Glen Urquhart, where SS. Ninian and Erchard had previously prepared a way for the Church. S. Colm's foundations are at Inzie Head, Lon- may; Alvah on the Deveron; Oyne; Daviot, Aber deenshire; Belhelvie;f and Birse on the Dee, Aberdeenshire. S. Medan's foundations are at Philorth, near Faithlie ( Fraserburgh), with which was connected the site occupied by a muinntir, and now called *the College,' at 'Achyseipel,' Field of the Chapel, Fingask, near Fraserburgh. Also the chapel-site, Pitmedan of Udny. S. Fer- gus's sites are at Kirktonhead, formerly Lung- * From this community, at a later period, the community of 'Tur- bhruad,' now Turriff, was organized. When S. Comgan (brother of S. Kentigerna, and uncle of S. Fillan, arrived at Turriff, he became Ab of the community. This was some years before A.D. 734, the year of S. Kentigerna's death. t That is, Bal-Cholume, Monycabo. THE PICTISH NATION ley, described in documents as 'near Inverugie.' The following are the Church-sites of S. Dros- tan and his fellow-workers in Caithness, across the Moray Firth from Buchan. S.Drostan's found- ations are Kirk o' 'Tear,'* that is the Caithness pronunciation of 'Deer.' The saint carried the name of his Buchan muinntir into this new field. Also 'S. Drostan's,* the site of the Church of Canisbay; 'S. Drostan's,' Church-site at Brab- stermire; S. Drostan's, 'Trothan's,' Castletown ofOlrig; a Church-site and churchyard at Wester- dale on the Thurso river; and the Church-site and churchyard at 'S. Trostan's,' Westfield, Caith- ness. S. Colm's foundations are at the sand- buried township of Old Tain, Caithness, and at Hoy, Orkney. f S. Medan's foundations are at Freswick and 'Bower-Madan,' that is, House of Medan. This name is regarded as the Viking equivalent of the earlier Both-Medan. Found- ations of S.Fergus are at Wick, where his church, after the town had extended in that direction, superseded the earlier foundation of S. Ninian at 'the Head'; and at Halkirk (High Church), which, in later centuries, became the first seat of * The D of Drostan and of Deer became a Tm this part of Pictland. Mr. Mackay, of Westerdale, recovered the charter which disclosed the ori- ginal name of this church, and also, that into the Roman Catholic period the Abbot of Deer still held its lands. A popular legend turned the name into 'Kirk of Tears,' and connected it with a celebration of Innocents' Day, which was really a celebration of S. Drostan's Day, Old Style. t Camerarius, founding on an authority no longer available, refers to him as ' bishop,' and states that he laboured throughout Orkney. 136 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN the Roman Catholic bishops of Caithness. While S. Drostan and 'his three 'were extend- ing the Church in the northern parts of Pictland of Alba, other Britons and certain Irish Picts were maintaining a ministry in the southern parts, or in the Brito-Pictish border districts. The names of many of these workers have been forgotten within a comparatively recent period. Some names have been corrupted beyond identification by foreign scribes of charters. Other names, how- ever, still associated with ancient Church found- ations in the south are noteworthy. For example, Mochaoi or Mochai, Kessoc, Cadoc, Gildas, Dewi (David), Machan, Llolan, and Brioc. Re- membering the canon of Celtic Church history, that the early Celts gave to a Church the name of its actual founder and did not dedicate, the affili- ation of ancient Church-sites to these men is a guarantee, apart from any records, of personal work at the site in time bygone. Moreover, the locality of these men's activities in the late fifth or the early sixth century shows clearly that the historical S. Patrick's denunciation of the Picts as 'apostatae"^ was either an embittered cleric's wrathful exaggeration, or a reference to a very local declension from orthodox ways. As early as the latter half of the fifth century S. Mochaoi or Mochai had taken part in S. Nin- ian's evangelization of the western Britons and * In the Epistle to Coroticus. THE PICTISH NATION the PIcts to the north of them. S. Mochaoi was an Irish Pict. He died c. a.d. 496.* He was the son of Bronag, daughter of Maelchon, S. Patrick's taskmaster. It is not told where he was trained; but he became first Ab of Aondruim on Mahee Island, Strangford Loch. The religious com- munity at Aondruim worked in concert with the greater community organized by S. Ninian at Candida Casa. The pupils of Aondruim after a certain stage of progress were sent to Candida Casa to complete their training, the best-known example being S. Finbar of Maghbile and Dor- noch. S. Mochaoi's foundations in Alba are still indicated at Kirkmahoej in Dumfriesshire, 'Kil- mahew'J at Cardross in Lennox, and'Kilmoha'§ on the western shore of Loch Awe in Argyll. This field as opened up by S. Mochaoi was effectively occupied in the early years of the sixth century by S. Kessoc or Mokessog, who chris- tianized the ancient district of Lennox while its inhabitants were Brito-Pictish. S. Kessoc was one of the sons of the ruler of Munster who had his capital at Cashel. He was educated and train- ed in Munster, throughout which S. Ailbhe, whose * The Annals of Ulster give the date of his death as 493. t The Roman Catholic Church superseded this Church by a dedication to S. Quintin. X This Church was rebuilt by the Roman Catholics in 1467. The re- built Church was dedicated to the original founder 'S. Mohew' by George, bishop of Argyll. § See Duke of Argyll's paper to the Scottish Ecc. Soc. at Glasgow, 25th Oct. 191 5. 138 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN community was at Imleach, taught under the king's protection. The date of S. Kessoc's ac- tivities is given as from c. a.d. 520.* This is con- firmed by the date of S. Ailbhe's death which took place a.d. 526.f The following historical items are all more or less related to one another, and to S. Kessoc's work. S. Mochaoi was the first Ab of the community of Aondruim, which was one of the earliest religious communities in Ireland, and which was also in commun ion with the greater and older community which was founded by S. Ninian at Candida Casa, Before settling at Aondruim he conducted a mission which extended from the Nith into Lennox and what afterwards became Argyll while these two last districts were Brito-Pictish. Among others sent to occupy the field opened 'up by S. Mochaoi, S. Kessoc came in the course of a few years. He not only particip- ated in religious work among the Britons but completed the conversion of the Picts of Lennox. While S. Kessoc was gathering converts in Len- nox two other missionaries were engaged in like work on the borders of that district. One was S. Fillan or Faolan who, as we have noticed, was a member of the royal family of Munster, like S. Kessoc himself, and so related to him ; and both S. Fillan and S. Kessoc had been attracted to re- * A Scottish Kalendar puts his death 40 years later, t Annals of Ulster and Innisfallen quoted by Ussher. The Chronicum Scotorum enters the 'rest' of Ailbhe at 531. THE PICTISH NATION ligious work through the efforts of the mission composed of Irish Picts which S. Ailbhe led into Munster, and which he established there by the goodwill of the king. The other missionary was S. Colm or Colman or Colmoc, first of Inchma- holm in Menteith, and afterwards of Dromore in Ulster, like S. Ailbhe, an Irish Pict. S. Ailbhe, who had a working intercourse with both Can- dida Casa and Aondruim, selected S. Colm from the latter community while S. Caolan, S. Moch- aoi's successor, was Ab,to accompany himself and his Pictish fellow-workers in the mission which resulted in the conversion of Munster. When S. Ailbhe was inhibited from going to Alba by the king ofMunster.SS.Fillan and Colm were mem- bers of the missionary band, as we have already noted, who went in his stead. It is evident that S. Kessoc also went with them, or joined them later, because we find one Church-site bearing S. Kessoc's name at Comrie near S. Fillan's head- quarters, andanother at Callander * near S. Colm's headquarters. S. Colm was Ab and bishop, S. Fillan an Ab, S. Kessoc an Ab and bishop. Church- sites bearing S. Kessoc's name, besides those mentioned, are, or were, at Auchterarder, at Luss, at ' Bal-mokessaik,'S. Kessoc's town, onthe lands of Ardstinchar in Carrick, and * Kessoktoun' in the old parish of 'Senwick' now merged in Borgue, ♦ The traditional site is *Tom-na-Kessoc.' The chief local fair was the * Fell Kessoc: 140 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN Galloway. S. Kessoc's muinntirw2is accommod- ated on ' Innis na mhannock' in Loch Lomond. There is a Lennox tradition that the saint was buried* in Carn-mokessoc at Bandry, Luss, in Lennox. S. Kessoc was venerated as a martyr by the people, although martyrs were most rare in early times among the Celtic saints of Alba. There is nodoubt that this veneration had a hist- orical foundation; and there is something sus- picious in the fact that the details of his martyr- dom have not been preserved. From an early period S. Kessoc was honoured as the soldier's saint. His name was a rallying cry in battle. In old sketches he is depicted as a soldier with his bow and arrow at 'the ready.' All that is known about him in this connection is that the saint was a soldier-prince before he became a missionary. A biographical fragment states that he died among aliens, and that his body was carried to Luss for burial. The traditional year of his death is a.d. 560. It illuminates this occurrence to remember that the year 560 was the one in which Brude Mac Maelchon, sovereign of Pictland, began the war which ended in the great drive, 'inmirge^'m which the Gaidheals or Scots, who had begun to intrude too farintoPictland, were expelled fromthePictish dominions, except a broken remnant which was shut up in Cantyre. S. Kessoc's mission-area was partly involved in this drive ; and it is known that * His day is lOth March. 141 THE PICTISH NATION the region of his headquarters was devastated by the embittered fugitives, anticipating the ven- geance which twenty odd years later Aedhan 'the false' was to exact from that same district, after S. Columba had ordained him head of the Gaidh- eals or Scots. It is more than likely that in king Brude'swar topreserve the independence of Pict- land, which incidentally included the independ- ence of the Pictish Church, S. Kessoc laid aside his staff and resumed the weapons of his youth, took part in the struggle, and fell in the territory of Dalriada from whence his body was returned to Luss. The Gaidheals, or Scots, who supplied almost the sole editors of our earliest records, would naturally take care that the details of such a martyrdom did not filter through to history; although popular tradition, as in other instances, could not be silenced. It was in no inconspicuous military enterprise that S. Kessoc fell; and it must have been in a cause regarded as sacred and na- tional before the descendants of the Brito-Pictish tribes in the Clyde area would have persisted in remembering him as the only soldier-saint and soldier-martyr in our history. S. Cadoc, who also laboured in the Brito- Pictish borderland, was a Briton; and he falls into direct succession to S. Ninian, S. Caranoc the Great, Paul H^n, the historic S. Servanus, and S. Drostan. Only a few historical facts about S. Cadoc are recoverable. The versions substituted 142 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN for the Old Life by the mediaeval Latin fabulists are shameless perversions* of the original. S. Cadoc was active in maintainingS. Ninian'swork among the Strathclyde Britons in the first half of the sixth century. The authorities who give the approximate time of his death as c. a.d. 57o| are correct. This is confirmed by the fact that S. Cadoc was a great-grandson of that Brychan of South Wales,who was grandfather to S. Drostan of Buchan and Caithness. S. Cadoc was baptized by S. Tathan of Bangor, Caer Went (Benevent- um), where he received the first part of his educ- ation. S. Cadoc's muinntir contained twenty- four disciples. For seven years | he lived with his disciples near the mount called 'Bannauc' in what afterwards became Scotland. 'Bannauc' is an attempt to give the genitive case oi Manach'^ representing the earlier Britonic Mynach, The * S. Cadoc's headquarters in his later days were atLlancarvan in Glamor- gan. This place was not far from the market-town called ' Beneventum* which had been named originally by the Imperial Roman garrison. This town has been identified with Venta of the Silures(Caer Went), S.Tathan's. In the Old Life it was said that S. Cadoc was in the habit of visiting Bene- ventum. The fabulists turned this into Benevento in Italy. They next invented a story of miraculous flights on a cloud from Llancarvan to Italy. This gave opportunity for a visit to the Pope and favours from the See of Peter which the historical S. Cadoc neither sought nor received. Other hands represented him as bishop of the Italian Benevento, and con- fused him with a Continental bishop who bore a slightly similar name. t Ferrarius was misled by the fabulists into putting his death a century earlier. The object of this ante-dating was to give an earlier date to the Roman mission in Britain. X V. S. Cadoci, c. 22, and Rees' Lives, p. 57. Brychan died c. 450. § That is Mhannaich, pronounced Vannach. THE PICTISH NATION place indicated is now Carmunnock on the Cath- kin hills near Glasgow. The elements of this name are Caer and Mynach ; and the complete name means Monk's 'City.' S. Cadoc's Life in- forms us that his settlements were fortified Gj:^^^. A Church-site representing a foundation of S. Cadoc was at Cambuslang, also near Glasgow. After he had completed seven years of mission- work in Alba, S. Cadoc organized a w^^n muinntir with which he settled at ' Nantcarvan' now Llan- carvan.* This place is in Glamorgan ; and not far away was a market-town used in the days of the Roman occupation by the Imperial garrison, and called by the soldiers 'Beneventum,' Good- market. Beneventum is identified as Caer Went in Monmouthshire. In this market-town also, S. Cadoc had some spiritual responsibility which has not been particularized; but it is known that there he was taught, baptized, and partly trained at *C6r Tathan,' that is, 'Bangor Tathan.' Prob- ably it was indicated in the Old Life that at S. Tathan's death S. Cadoc assumed responsi- bility for his work; because the fabulists call him ' bishop of (at) Beneventum.' At Llancar- van S. Cadoc successfully established a great Christian training centre. From particulars that have come down, it was organized like Candida Casa. There was a Church, education was ar- * This form of the name may be due to a Church of 'Gnavan,' pro- nounced Gravan. He is one of the recorded disciples of S. Cadoc. 144 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN ranged for the people and for those intending the ministry, and provision was organized for the poor. Llancarvan was one of the Bangors of the Britons, and was known, for a time, as 'Ban- gor Catog.' S. Cadoc was martyred by Saxons at Beneventum, South Wales, ^. a.d. 570, and his work was continued by his disciple S. ' Elli,' who succeeded him as Ab. S. Machan was one of S. Cadoc's workers in Alba.* Judging from the number of his own foundations he was evidently one of those left to carry on the work when S. Cadoc departed for South Wales. S. Machan is not only a link with S. Cadoc but a link with the historical Servanus. One of his foundations was at Dalserf on the Clyde, a parish which has resumed the name which indicates its first missionary, S. Serf or Servanus, although it had been known for many years as Machan -shire. Another foundation is Eccles- Machan in Linlithgowshire, near to Abercorn where there used to be a Church-foundation and Fair of S. Servanus. This and many other ex- amples show how the supply of ministers among the Britons was not allowed to fail. The muinntir of an Ab existed not only for its own president and for itself; but for supply of a ministry to Churches founded before its time. S. Machan is another saint who carried his work into Lennox insupportof the Churches already founded there. * O'Hanlon and his authorities. L 145 THE PICTISH NATION The Church of Campsie Is one of his Lennox foundations ; and there is an age-long tradition that he was buried there.* He died in the sixth century ; but the yearof hisdeathisnowunknown. Adam King following the practice of the Gaidh- ealic or Scotic editors seeks to date him by a Scotic king whom he calls 'Donalde'; but Domh- nall, prince of Dalriada,who was S. Machan's con- temporary, never ascended any throne, not even in Dalriada; and S. Machan did not labour in Dalriada but among the Strathclyde Britons and among the Picts. This practice of dating British and Pictish men and events of note by the reigns of Dalriad kings or their sons, who were only local chiefs, was a device of the Gaidhealic or Scotic editors and annalists to create a belief among the ignorant of the middle ages that the Gaidhealic or Scotic ascendency in Alba began centuries before the accession of Kenneth Mac Alpin, a.d. 842, to the Pictish throne. S. GiLDAS, the Briton, was born in a.d. 5i6f * The writer oiOrigines Parochiales was misinformed about a 'dedic- ation' to S. Machan in 'Clyne.' Clyne was probably read for Clyde. In the Roman Catholic period an altar was dedicated to S. Machan in Glas- gow Cathedral. S. Machan's day is the 28th of September. t As he himself informs us 'in the year of the battle of Badon,' 516 is the date in the Annales Cambriae. See also Skene, Chronicles P. andS. p. 14. The original Lives of Gildas were by S. Caradoc and an unknown author who lived in the monastery of Rhuys in the later diocese of Vannes, Brittany. Bede gives the approximate date of Badon in the last decade of the fifth century. Mommsen, Zimmer and other Germans give c. 504 to fit in with 146 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN at Dunbarton, the capital of Lennox, when the city was still the capital of the Britons of Clyde and called 'Alcluyd.' For part of his life, he was a fellow-worker with S. Cadoc who laboured in the Clyde district, as we have seen. He departed with S. Cadoc when the latter returned to the territories of the southern Britons ; and for a short time he taught in one of S. Cadoc's schools at Llancarvan. He transcribed a famous manu- script of the Gospels which was kept in a case bound with gold and ornamented with gems. Caradoc saw this manuscript at Llancarvan in the twelfth century. S. Gildas came to be known as 'Badonicus,' to distinguish him from others bearing the same name but belonging to later times, because the battle of Badon Hill* in which king Arthur led the victorious Britons was fought in the year of his birth. Being a Briton of Alba, he was also known on the Continent as Gildas ' Albanius.' | Latin andGaidhealic scribes of the middle ages have mangled the names connected with Gildas almost beyond recognition. How- ever, this is certain, that while Gildas was still certain speculations. Unless the date 516 in the Annates Cambriae can be proved to be a scribe's error for 506 the date 516 should stand. * Skene locates Badon Hill at Bowden Hill between Stirling and Edinburgh. Arthur's Warriors were ^Gwyr y Gogledd^ — men of the North. t The Gaidheals or Scots in later times considered themselves 'Alban- aich? On the strength of this surname the Gaidhealic fabulists of the middle ages appropriated Gildas the Briton and presented him as a Gaidh- eal or Scot. THE PICTISH NATION alive, the chiefs of the Britons of the North and their allies who steadily resisted the encroach- ment of the Angles under Hussa, from a.d. 567 on- wards, were Morcant; Gua//auc •,\Jrhgen(\Jrien), S. Kentigern's paternal grandfather; and Rhyd- derch,* who became King-paramount of Strath- clyde and S. Kentigern's protector. S. Gildas was the son of a chief of the Britons, and his eldest brother was one of their military leaders. This brother's name was Hywel, latin- ized as 'Howelus'f and 'Cuillus.'J Manifestly he is the same as Rhydderch's ally (G)uall or (G)uall-auc§ who helped to lead the Britons against Hussa the Angle, as is told by one of the contributors to JVenmus. The name of the father of Gildas is given as ' N au ' 1 1 by S . Caradoc which agrees with the name of the father of Hywel or 'Guallauc'whichisgiveninNenniusas'Laenauc,' that is, Lae-Nau-oc. The latter was of the race of Hywel, or ' Coyl hen,' the old. S. Gildas had a younger brother called 'S.Mael-oc' He followed the example of Gildas and became acleric. H e or- ganized a muinntir in the district called * Luihes' or 'Leuihes,' evidently an attempt to reproduce * See Additions to Historia Britonum. \ ByJohnofTeignmouth. X By the Monk of Rhuys. § Cf. Skene, Chronicles P. andS. pp. 12, 16. Compare the other royal name ' Gust' which was written * Uist.' II John Bale (1495-1 563) latinizes it as 'Nauus,' and designates him 'rex Pictorum.' Considering that he reigned in ancient Lennox, his subjects would be part Britons and part Picts. 148 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN the Britonic name of his native Lennox. U in Brito-Pictish names sometimes represents V* The root of the district name is in the name of its river, * Leven.' The latest hand in the Annals of Ulster called the province 'Lemhnach' (Lev- nach); and the Scottish barons in their letter to the Pope call it ' Leuenax.' It is of some import- ance to be sure of Maeloc's field of work; because he sometimes occupied a 'retreat' in it, near the township called 'El-mael'or 'Almail.' In other words,partofMaeloc'sestablishmentwasa'^25^r/' such as was possessed by the historic S. Serf or S. Servanus who laboured in Alcluyd or Dun- barton, in Maeloc's time, and who extended his activities to another 'Leven' in Fife. On the northern border of ancient Lennox is Dal-Mally, the original name of which is ' Dysart.* f S. Gildas himself preached the Gospel among the Britons, according to the biographer of Rhuys, * in the northern part ' of their country , which would point to his labours with S. Cadoc inStrathclyde. As we have seen, he went with S. Cadoc to Llan- carvan. In this locality these two saints also possessed retreats or diserts at 'Ronech' and 'Echni, 'now Barry Isle and the Flat Holm % in the Bristol Channel. When S. Gildas was about * For example, Uip for Veip. t An ancient Church-foundation called 'Kilmalyn,' 1296, and *Kil- male,' 1 532, is Kilmallie, Fort William. The diminutive -an instead of -oc would give 'Kilmalyn.' X Identified by Rees. 149 THE PICTISH NATION thirty years of age, * that is about a. d. 546, Saxon raiders burst in among the South Britons and 'devastated and profaned 'f their provinces and Churches. Hundreds of Britons fled to the sea- coasts and took ship to their fellow-Celts in Armorica. SS. Cadoc and Gildas joined in the flight. J During his exile, S. Cadoc organized another religious community, and settled on an islet, in what afterwards came to be called the 'Morbihan' or Big Bay. Chastelain states that the isle became known as Innis Caidoc. S. Cadoc did not lose touch with the remnant that had rallied at his headquarters among the Britons of South Wales. After a period in Brittany he re- visited Llancarvan; but, during a raid, he was seized by the pagan Saxons, and martyred at * According to the biographer of Rhuys. t According to Caradoc. X M. le Moyne de la Borderie has been criticized for his statement that fugitive Britons began to seek an asylum in Armorica or Brittany after the Saxon victoryat Crayford in457. It is certain, however, that many Britons sought refuge in Brittany in the early sixth century. Wurdestan, who wrote before A. D. 884, confirms this as well as Caradoc. Gildas is quite clear on the matter. Writings. 557, he states that part of theBritons perished bythe sword or famine, some gave themselves up to be slaves to the Saxons; and some 'passed beyond the sea.' Armorica received many detachments of Britons from Alba from the Romano-British auxiliaries to the last band of fugitives from Saxon brutality. The idea of certain English writers that Brittany was celticized by British fugitives from Cornwall and the west country is not only unhistorical but absurd. Brittany and all Gaul was Celtic before the Teutonic barbarians moved west in A. D. 406. The Celts among whom SS. Cadoc and Gildas and their fellow-fugitives settled had, owing to the poverty of their country, been saved from penetration by the Teutonic hordes. Moreover, they were off the direct line of the barbaric migrations. MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN Beneventum (Caer Went) c. a.d. 570.* He fore- saw his fate as is shown by his saying, 'If you wish for glory, march, faithful to death.' S. Gildas, his fellow-worker, remained in Brittany. Apart from the dangers of Saxon raids in the district which he had left on the northern shores of the Severn estuary, he had made enemies of the petty kings of the Britons by his fierce de- nunciations in his tract De Excidio Britanniae. After the departure of S. Cadoc for Alba, S. Gildas retired from the personal control of his community at Rhuys, and settled on one of the Morbihan islands near Innis Caidoc. The name of his island is given as'Horat' and * Houat.' He ' made it his disert or retreat, and died there a.d. 570.t S. Gildasjwas one of the earliest of our native writers to make a critical review of historical events. He wrote the De Excidio Britanniae\\ * Pitseus. The English martyrologists ante-date his martyrdom by put- ting it about the year of his birth; and they shift the scene of his martyrdom from England to Benevento in Italy. The early English writers appear to have had no desire to perpetuate the memory of the infamies of their Saxon ancestors, t Many causes that needed the support of inventions have appropri- ated S. Gildas or have presented garbled versions of his biographies to make it appear that he appropriated them. The claims of Armagh to primacy and to be the chief original centre of Irish Christianity; the pretensions of Glastonbury to great antiquity; the apologists for the Anglo-Saxon brutal- ities to the Britons, all lurk behind the falsifications of the Lives of S, Gildas, J Several works have been wrongly ascribed to Gildas. His name was also put upon the title-page of manuscripts penned long after his time. § Printed at London by Polydore Virgil, 1525. Gildas wrote this tract before A.D. 560. THE PICTISH NATION and certain historical fragments are ascribed to him. The texts which we now possess are not entirely ungarbled; but they are purer than the versions of some manuscripts much younger. S. Gildas, judged by his tract, was a moody, medita- tive Celt who sought peace and pursued it, at one time on the banks of Clyde, at another on the holms of Severn, and at still another on the is- lets of the Morbihan. He was embittered and disappointed by the political follies of the tribal kings, and by certain sections of his flighty, disunited, wrangling fellow- Britons. His fierce satire was lauded by the Anglo-Saxons after they became civilized; and frequently it was misquoted or emphasized to justify their own excesses against the Britons; although these excesses were mainly responsible for reviving among the Britons the spirit of destruction and barbarism which Christianity had done much to lay.* S. Gildas, contemplating the past, had a de- cided conviction of the political shortsightedness of Vortigern, the prince of a British tribe which inhabited what is now, roughly, central England, who about the middle of the fifth century invited the Angles and Saxons from the sea-swamps of Friesland and the Elbe that they might help him to crush other Brito-Pictish tribes. Brothers and * Bede with unconcealed delight suggests that the Saxon terror was introduced into Britain 'by the Lord's will that evil might fall on them (the Britons) for their wicked deeds.' MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN cousins of the first guests came uninvited, and turned their swords against their hosts; and Gil- das, reflecting over the sufferings of the Britons, writes of 'the Saxons, of execrable name, most ferocious of peoples, filling God and men alike with hate.' Continuing his reflections, Gildas appears to have thought that the Saxons hav- ing been allowed to settle, the British Christians should have converted them. In this he showed a disposition to overrate the powers of Christ- ianity and the patience of his fellow-countrymen. The Saxons gave little encouragement to the missionary efforts of his fellow-worker S. Cadoc, seeing that they martyred him. Only when their lust was sated, their eyes sick of the sight of blood, and their homesteads planted on the best land in the country, did the Saxons turn their materialistic, lumbering minds to a superstitious acceptance of the Gospel. Few subjects have ever dealt more candidly with kings than Gildas with the kings of the various British tribes. He de- mands that Constantine,king of the Dumnonii,* 'despising the vile food of swine,' should return to his most loving Father, He was very severe towards the kings in whose dominions he had lived. He charges Vortipor, king of the DemS- tae,f with vice and cruelties; and exhorts him not to be 'old in sin,' not to spend his few remaining • In the district now Devon and Cornwall, t III what is now S. W, Wales. THE PICTISH NATION days in vexing God. Maelgon or Maelgwyn,* whose ancestral dominions were near the home of Gildas at Alcluyd, he denounces with a vehe- mence that seems to have a memory of personal suffering behind it. The saint calls this king 'a monster' who had deprived other kings both of their territories and their lives. Whatever the personal feelings of Gildas, he succeeds in leav- ing the impression that the Britons, disunited by clan jealousies and tribal divisions, and ill ruled by their incompetent kings, were utterly unfitted to present an organized and sustained resistance to the Teutonic invaders. Alcuin referred to Gildas as 'the wisest of the Britons.' At the time of the revival of learning on the Continent of Europe, the resurrection of * Ma.e\gonoTMa.t\gvfynvfa.sVmgo{Gwjfnedcl{'Gwendote'a.nd Vene- dotia) that is properly what is now North Wales. But the dominions of his ancestors were from the Forth southwards, through what is now central Scotland. He is called ' Magnus Rex' in the Historia Britonum, and it is evident that he was High- King or Sovereign overlord of the petty Brito- Pictish kings a long way north of North Wales. He is generally referred to as a king of the Britons. It would be more accurate to call him a Brito-Pictish king. He was descended from the Pictish kings of ^Manau Guotodin^ that is the Otadinoi of the Forth area. By a scribe's error in the Annales Cambriae the beginning of his reign in Gwynedd\s given as the end at 547. Bishop Forbes, Lives of Ninian and Kentigern, p. Ixx, says 547 ' was in reality the beginning of his reign and he was alive in 560 when Gildas wrote.' Maelgon or Maelgwyn, as the late Mr. Nicholson of the Bodleian pointed out, is the same as Maelchon whose son Brude Mac Maelchon was elected sovereign of Pictland and who reigned there as King-paramount from 554 to 584. The Historia Britonum indicates that Maelgwyn was contemporary with Ida, the Angle, who reigned over an eastern section of England north of the Humber from 547 to 559. On authority cited by Humphrey Lhuyd, Maelgwyn was made King-paramount of the Britons about 560. MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN the De Excidio, and the part oi Nennius ascribed to Gildas, evoked surprised admiration at the en- lightenment of the Celtic religious communities in Alba from the end of the fifth century onwards. The scholar's lamp had burned in Alba and Ire- land when it had almost flickered out elsewhere in the West. Apart from what he learned from S.Cadoc, the foundation ofthe learning of Gildas was laid at Candida Casa* If, as is indicated, he went there in his boyhood from Dunbarton, when Nennio 'the little monk was Ab, one of his contemporaries, as senior pupil and, later, as a master, would be S. Finbar of Maghbile and Dor- noch; and he would complete his studies under Mugent who succeeded Nennio, also called 'Man- chan the Master.* Many early references to Can- dida Casa were displaced by inventions from the pens of the professional mediaeval Roman Catholic fabulists who canvassed the claims of Armagh and York to primacy, j One hand inter- polates astatement that S. Gildas wasa'professor' at Armagh; but Armagh was not a centre of or- ganized Christian teaching when S. Gildas lived. Another hand introduces a story that S. Gildas was educated at Caer Worgorn now Llanilltyd Vawr'm Glamorgan by S. Illtyd or Iltutus; but, * See Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland (Innes), book ii. P- 154. t Archbishop Ussher became utterly confused especially in his dates when treating of S. Gildas. He was unwilling to throw over the fabulists, but his efforts to reconcile them failed. THE PICTISH NATION apart from the fact that the home of Gildas was in Strathclyde, S. Illtyd* was dead some years before Gildas was born. S.;DEWit (David) of Mynyvl (St. David's) was also associated with the Church of Northern Alba. The competition for primacy which raged in the Roman Catholic period between Caerleon, St. David's, and Llandaff has left its taint in every surviving version of S. Dewi's Life. Every form of interested fable has been devised to vitiate the life-story of this Celtic bishop. Evenhis birth and death have been ante-dated; and the places where he grew up or ministered have been misrepre- sented almost out of recognition. The date of his death requires to be taken from the Irish annals; because they were not affected by the particular pens that corrupted the history of S. Dewi's mis- sion. According to the Chronicum Scotorum\ S. Dewi died a.d. 589. He was born earlyin the six- th century, and was ordained a monastic bishop ^.540.11 S. Kentlgern or Mungo visited him about 567. Maelgon or Maelgwyn, who was a Celtic pagan, was elected to the sovereignty of the Brit- ons c. 560; 11 and when S. Dewi died, Maelgon requested that the saint should be buried in his * Hisdeathtookplace A.D. 512. t Now patron saint of the Welsh. X In Pembroke. There is an Old Mynyv [Hen Fenyv) near Aberaeron, in Cardigan. The Irish call S. David's Cill Muine, § Hennessy's edition, corrected. The Annals of Innisf alien y 589. II According to Lanigan. If According to Lhuyd and Lanigan. • 56 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN own Church at Menevia. These dates recall S. Dewi's name from the fabulists, and set it in sober history. Although in Scotland there is now onlythebaretraditionthatS.Dewihimselfunder- took missionary work in northern Alba; there is a statement in one of his biographies that his dis- ciples at 'Mynyvvf&nt forth to preach and to teach both in Ireland and in Alba. The best-remem- bered of these disciples both in Pictland of Alba and in Ireland is 'Maidoc,' more formally known as S. Aidan of Ferns in Wexford {c. 555*-62 5).f The Breviary of Aberdeen calls him 'Modoc,' which corresponds to the Pembrokeshire form of his name, Modog, with the honorific prefix. His Church-sites in Alba were, among the Britons, at Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire,andamongthePicts at 'Kilmadock,' Doune, and at Kenmore, Perth- shire. This last site was formerly known as ^Innis Aidhan! At Weem,| in the same district, was an old Church-foundation associated with the name of S. Dewi, whose Feil was formerly celebrated here. The name *Weem' is itself ecclesiastical, and suggests a cave-retreat such as SS. Ninian andServanus used; and such a retreat appears to have existed. S. Dewi is moreover linked to Alba through his education and training. This is seen * Rev. Dr. Reeves. t Chronicum Scotorum. Bishop Forbes gives 628. X There is a foolish folk-story current among the clan Menzies con- necting Father David Menzies (1377-1449), Master of St. Leonard's Hos- pital, Lanark, with this ancient Celtic foundation. THE PICTISH NATION from the following basic facts in S. Dewi's life tak- en from the ancient Celtic Life, and, incidentally, perverted or misinterpreted by Ricemarc,* Gir- aldus,| and others. S.Dewiwasthesonof 'Non,'j: which, by the way, is the same name, without the diminutive, that was borne by S. Ninian the Great. This Non was a chiefwho became a cleric; because his Church-foundations, called 'Llan- Non,' stood beside the older and later Churches of S.Dewi in the counties of Cardigan and Pem- broke. The celibate fabulists of the mediaeval Roman Catholic period were so offended by the emergence in a saintly biography of this clerical parent § that they invented a fictitious father, to whom they gave the name ' Sanctus.' They then transferred his father's name to his mother, mod- ifying it to 'Nonna,' which they interpreted as Monacha\ and they represented that the Churches called Llan-Non were the Churches of the moth- er, who, they pretended, became a nun. Dewi went, in his childhood, for some slight teaching || and a blessing to PaulH^n,\h2X is, Paul the aged. * His date is f. 1090. t He wrote c. 1200. X Cf. Prof. Anwyl's communications to Nicholson, Keltic Researches, p. 172. § Married clerics were not uncommon throughout the history of the Celtic Church. If they entered a religious community after marriage they were not allowed to correspond with their wives. Angus the Culdee and other writers frequently emphasize the distinction of the clerics who were 'Virgins.' Writers in the middle ages, misled by this appellation, fre- quently represent men as women-saints. II The fabulists state also that S. Dewi went to school under S. lUtyd ; but S. lUtyd was dead before S. Dewi was born. 158 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN At this time Paul was sightless and frail; but the most venerated cleric among the Britons. He is, as we have seen, the same Paul the Briton whose name, with the diminutives of honour and endear- ment, takes the forms 'Peulan' among the later Welsh, 'Polan among the Irish Picts, 'Pdldoc' in Perthshire, and 'Pdldy' in the Mearns. The Scottish fabulists confused Palladius with him, as has been noted, Paul the aged was the living link between S. Ninian the Great and S. David. He had taken part in the missions sent from Candida Casa into Pictland of Alba. When he organized and settled his own chief community on the Tav in Caermarthen, a.d. 480,* he named it Candida Casa, or, in the vernacular, Ty Gwyn ; and it be- came one of the many 'White Houses' named after S. Ninian's Candida Casa, just as the latter had been named after the original White-Hut of the master S. Martin, the ' Louko-teiac at Poic- tiers. Paul the Briton continued to visit and to sustain some of the communities which he had or- ganized in his early manhood, at a time of life when most men retire from strenuous work. He was about seventy years of age when he organized his best-known community at TyGwynar Dav\\ but he at once handed over the care of the new ' family ' to Flewyn ap Ithel, a continental Celt from 'Civi- tatibus Armoricis,' because of his Churches and * The author of Chronicles of the Ancient British Church. f Known later as * Bangor Ty Gwyn ar Dav.^ THE PICTISH NATION Communities elsewhere, to which he was required to minister. His untiring vitalityaccounts forthe range of his Church-foundations from the terri- tories of the Britons to the territories of the Picts of Alba, where SS. Servanus, Mailoc, Dewi, Mai- doc, and other Britons, or British-trained mis- sionaries, laboured in his day and afterwards. His foundations are found in the straths of the Lyon, the Tay, and the Earn. On the Lyon is Beinn na Mkanack, the monk's mountain, and Rui^he PhdroCy or, as locally pronounced, Ruighe Phdldoc^ and interpreted as Paul's shieling-site, that is, where his casula stood. One of the little waterfalls on a burn flowing into the Lyon was ^Eas Phdldoc,' and, what is more significant, an- other was Eas 'Inian, that is, S. Ninian's water- fall or water. I n the Den of Moness at Aberfeldy on Tay was Cathair Phdroc^ which in Gaelic is correctly translated by thepresent natives as*C«^- tail Phdldoc'* It indicates the site of Paul's or Paldoc's muinntir, which, like the early Celtic re- ligious settlements, was fortified, f At Dunning, one of the foundations of the historic S. Servanus * These details about the Lyon and Tay localities I owe to my session- clerk, Mr. Jas. Campbell, F. E. I. S. , late schoolmaster at Helmsdale. He died at the age of ninety-four in 1915. He knew every yard of the Lyon and upper Tay valleys, which he ranged in his boyhood. He was bom in Glenlyon, and was filled with old memories of the places and the people. t When we find Christianity established in this district at this period, we can understand how the presence of S. Columba, the Gaidheal, on his political missions was resented in the locality, and can comprehend Dalian's boast that the Saint required 'to shut the mouths of the fierce ones at Tay.' 160 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN or Serf, the Briton, on the Burn of Dunning, was S. Paldoc's Linn, where the local tradition is maintained that there S. Servanus or Serf bap- tized* the converts. Incidentally, therefore, it is revealed in a flash, through the light from the Welsh annalists and the testimony of the face of Scotland, that the bishop who made the historical Servanus his 'assistant'! at Dunning and else- where wasneitherthemythical'Palladius'of John of Fordun and Hector Boece,J nor the histor- ical Palladius whom Prosper of Aquitaine states§ that the Roman bishop Celestine sent on an un- successful mission to the Irish; but, as we have seen, Paul Hin, the Briton, Ab and bishop, founder, among other places, of Candida Casa, on Tav in Caermarthen, first teacher of S. Dewi (David of Wales), continuator of S . N inian's work in Pictland, whose name, given according to the various languages or dialects, is, as we have al- ready noted, 'Pawl Hen,' 'Peulan Hin,' Taldy,' * Paldoc,' and ' Paul the Aged.'|| In the Litany of Dunkeld and in the list of early Celtic Abbots * Adult baptism, of course, and historically more correct than the stories of infant baptism at this period which the fabulists give. t Cf. Forbes, Kalendars, p. 445. % Cf. Bellenden's Boece, H. C.S., vol. i. book vii. cap. 18, p. 286. § In his Chronicle. II He is also described as * Fanau,' that is, native of Manau, now Mannan. The old province name is preserved in * Slamannan. ' The English fabulists who make him a disciple of Germanus are not far behind the Scotic and other fabulists. In the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 21st of May there is this entry, 'Monind ocus Polan,' that is, Monenn or Nennio and Paul. M 161 THE PICTISH NATION and Bishops the name of the unhistorical 'Pal- ladius'has been put in the placeof Paul the Aged, that is, between S. Ninian and S. Serf. It cannot however be other than evident that ' Paldy ' of the Mearns or ' Paldoc' of Perthshire is not different from the name of Paul the Briton, with the Brit- onic suffixof endearment ocand the af of euphony. When S. Dewi (David) was a boy sojourning with Paul the Aged in the early years of the sixth century, the venerable saint was unable to see him with his failing eyes, which fact gives oppor- tunity to the fabulists to interpolate a miracle in which the boy Dewi revives his teacher's sight so that he is able to look 'once upon his pupil.' After spending some time with Paul the Aged, Dewi set out for the monastery, 'Rosnat.' It is now known, what S. Dewi's mediaeval biogra- phers did not know, that 'Rosnat'* was the name given by the Irish to Isle of Whithorn in Gallo- way, where S. Ninian's community was estab- lished. The Irish also knew, as their annalists state, that 'the other name' for the monastery of Rosnat was 'A /da or White.' But Dewi's biog- raphers make quite clear, although they did not know it, that the Rosnat to which Dewi went was Candida Casa\ because they state that Dewi's father was warned in a dream at Cardigan to send an offering of honey, fish, and the dressed car- * The name has been already explained as Ros-Nan(t), the promontory or Headland of Ninian, otherwise the ' Isle-head' at Isle of Whithorn. 162 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN case of a stag to the 'monastery of Manchan' on behalf of his son. Now ' Manchan,' the Little Monk, was the surname of Nennio, who was ' Master' at Candida Casa in the early part of the sixth century when Dewi went there. Among the pupils of Nennio or 'Manchan' at Candida Casa was the much venerated S. Endeus or Eany,* and many others already noticed. It is further confirmed that Candida Casa was the school for which S. Dewi set out, and also that the mediaeval biographers possessed this information accur- ately, although they could not interpret it; be- cause one of them states that the place to which S. Dewi made his way was 'the Isle of White- land.' f This is of course Isle of Whithorn. In their geographical ignorance, some of the medi- aevalists proceeded from blunder to blunder. They decided, in order to get themselves out of the maze, that * Rosnat ' must mean S . Dewi's own monastery in 'the hollow' at S. David's, Pem- broke, the only site connected with S. David of which they had apparently heard ; and they sug- gested that this hollow had borne of yore the name ' Ros-nant' which, in course, they varied to ' Ros-dela,' interpreting this 'Vale of Roses.' All this is characteristic mediaeval nonsense ; the only good which came out of it was the pre- servation of the correct form ' Ros-Nan(t)' for the * He is believed to have died on the 2ist of March 540. t Alban Butler, with greater opportunities than the mediaevalists, turns this into ' Isle of Wight ' ! 163 THE PICTISH NATION headland of S. Ninian, Isle of Whithorn. More- over, when S. Dewi did set out to organize a Com- munity of his own, he did not settle at once at S. David's, Pembroke. He went first to a place which one of the saint's biographers gives as 'Vetus Mynyv.' This is Old Mynyv, still ' Hin Fenyvi near Aberaeron in Cardigan, four miles from which is a Church bearing S. David's fath- er's name, 'Llan-Non.' Another place at which S. Dewi was during his training at Candida Casa was 'Glaston,' close to Whithorn, and the site where S. Ninian's cave-retreat was and is. The fabulists treat this as Glastonbury of Somerset, and construct elaborate myths in which S. Dewi is made to reside at Glastonbury, and, among other things, to dedicate there a Church to the 'Virgin Mary.' The facts are that, in spite of the multiplied fables of this religious house, there was no organized community at Glastonbury in S. Dewi's time; nor did the Britons dedicate their Churches at this period to the Virgin Mary or to any other saint. The fabulists also represent S. Dewi as a monarchic bishop and 'primus'; he was in fact an Ab and bishop of the Celtic type, presiding over a missionary muinntir which had branch organizations throughout the territories of the Britons and Brito-Pictish tribes. This is fully confirmed by a note in an old transcript of the laws of Hwyl Dha, which conveys that S. Dewi organized 'twelve' muinntirs in the Brito- 164 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN Pictish territories, and those among the Dem^- tae were exempt from the king's tax. S. Llolan, another Briton who laboured in the Forth area, is represented by the Scotic Church- men of the fourteenth century as 'a nephew' of the unhistorical Servanus. He certainly took up the work of the historical Servanus or Serf, and taught and died at Kincardine-on-Forth. The true story of his life had been almost completely forgotten, and the fabulists invented a biography for him. A hand in the Breviary of Aberdeen at- taches such absurd fables to his name that even a Bollandist editor* was shocked, and wished them erased from the Breviary. The Scotic an- nalists dated him, after their manner, by the reign of one of their own princes, * Duncan, \ filius Con- aiir king of Dalriada, who was slain by Aedhan a. d. 576. Aedhan had usurped the Dalriad throne under the patronage of S. Columba,and disposed of his rival, Duncan, at the battle of 'Telocho' in Cantyre. Challoner|had some information which indicated that S. Llolan was one of the bishops who came from Candida Casa.% The lands of his muinntir Z2}\^A ^ Croft Llolan were at Kincard- * ASS. tomus vi. sept. xxii. \ Duncan (Donnchadh) was grandson of Comghall,fourth King of Dal- riada, and tried to maintain himself on the throne in face of Aedhan : but unsuccessfully. X He makes the mistake of imagining that Llolan lived in thetimeof the later King Duncan. Qi. Memorial of British Piety, ^^^ 133. § One edition has ' Whitern,' another 'Whithorn.' It is stated that S. Llolan had a Church-foundation near Broughton, Tweed-dale. 165 THE PICTISH NATION ine on-Forth, wherehis bachuldiVidi bell were pre- served. The old Earls of Perth were the custod- ians. The bell was still in existence in a.d. 1675. S. Brioc, a Briton, falls into this group of Brit- ons, because he laboured among the Britons and Picts in the early sixth century, before the Celtic population of the south-west of what is now Scot- land had been penetrated by Anglian raiders and settlers. His known Church-foundations were at Dunrod,* Kirkcudbright; Rothesay; 2SiA' Innis Brayoc^ Montrose. He ought not to be confused withthatother Briton, S. Briocof Brieuxin France. When the Gaidheals or Scots became dominant in the Church of Pictland their pronunciation and spellingof hisnamecaused some of his found- ations to be confused in later years with dedic- ations to S. Brigid. Two other missionaries in Pictland, whose names are still conspicuous in the Church, fall to be noted here, although it is now impossible to give exact dates for them. One is 'Mochrieha,' whose work lay along the rivers Don and Dee in Aberdeenshire; the other is the saint whose name is contained in the thirteenth-century spelling * Lesmahago,'that is, Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire. S. * Mochrieha,' to take his name as preserved by the Celts of Deeside, founded one Church, among others, opposite Crook o' Don, near what after- * In the Roman Catholic period his foundation at Dunrod was dedic- ated to the Virgin Mary. 166 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN wards became the city of Aberdeen; and the site of this Church became in later centuries the site of the Cathedral of Aberdeen. S. Mochrieha's Cross* — a conical stone with a primitive incised Greek cross similar to an example taken from S. Ninian's Cave at Glasserton — stands on the top of a tumulus among the hut circles and cairns of an ancient Pictish settlement, about two miles north-west of Aboyne. Here also is S. Mochrieha's Well; and, before it was broken up and removed, stood the ' Cathair Mochrieha. ' The name of this ancient Pictish settlement has been completely forgotten. It is overgrown with thick wood. The high ground behind is ' Baragowan,'and the wood 'Balnagowan Wood.' If there is any grain of historic truth in the folk-tale f of the miraculous bag of seed which S. Mochrieha received from S. Ternan of Banchory, it probably lies in the indic- ation of a working fellowship between the two saints. Every authentic detail relating to S. Mo- chrieha was garbled by the conformed Gaidheals or Scots of the early Roman Catholic period, pro- bably to secure precedence for Aberdeen over the ancient centre of the Pictish Church at Mortlach. Just as S. Drostan of Deer, a Briton, who lived * An account of this Cross is given by the minister of Aboyne in the N.S.A. Scot. ; and a shrewdly written paper on the Cross and its situation is contributed by Professor Ogston to the Transactions Scot. Ecc. Society, 1912. This paper indicates most careful and accurate observation. t A version of this tale is among the fables relating to S. 'Machar' in the Breviary of Aberdeen. 167 THE PICTISH NATION before S.Columba, was transformed into adisciple of S. Columba; so, also, S. Mochrieha was repre- sented by the Gaidheals as one of S. Columba's followers; and their legends proceed to add that he led a mission into Pictland. The scribe who in- vented that legend of a mission of Gaidheals was probably not aware that even S. Columba was pre- vented by the language difficulty from undertak- ing missions into Pictland; that whenhe visited the Pictish sovereign his interpreter was the great- est Pictish ecclesiastic of the period; that when he ministered to a Pict in the Dalriad area, he requir- ed the assistance of an interpreter; that thepolitic- al relations between the Gaidheals and Picts in S. Columba's time precluded friendly intercourse and religious missions; and, finally, that Pictland, including the stretch of the Dee, had been more thoroughly christianized than S. Columba's own Dalriada, in his own time, by S. Ninian and his successor S.Ternan,whohadestablishedhis Ban- gor on the Dee with its Church, its manuscript of the Gospels, and its school, at a time when S. Caranoc, S. Ninian's other pupil, was striving in Columba's native Donegal to win from paganism the very tribes of the Nialls from whom S. Col- umba in another and later century was born. S. Columba's disciples are known,* and S. Mochrie- ha is not among them, not even when we look for * They will be found conveniently in the notes of Dr. Reeves to Adam- nan's V.S. C. p. 245. 168 MEN WHO FOLLOWED NINIAN him under the name 'Machar,' which the Latin Churchmen from the Lowlands gave him when they mistook the name of his Church-site on the 'Mac hair of Don for the saint's personal name, and latinized it as 'Macharius' and 2,^' Mauritius' The late Dr. Reeves, who in this matter has even misled many who were in a position to know better, never entered on a more hopeless quest than when he set out to identify the saint of Aberdeen in the preserved list of S. Columba's disciples. His decision lighted on TochannuMac- U-Fircetea, whose surname he broke up, to suit his predilection, into the amazing form ' Mocufir- cetea'; and he xA^nXx^^d,' Machar' viixh.' Mocufir' Apart from the absurdity of this name, if the identification had held, it would have resulted in this saint being commemorated by a formal surname instead of by the Christian name, which was the constant practice of the Picts; although, in the case of S. Kentigern,the people substituted the pet name for the stately 'Kentigern' which had more befitted the civil dignity which he had rejected. The actual result of the hypothesis of Dr. Reeves has been that certain writers now make confusion worse confounded by referring to S. • Machar ' of Aberdeen as * Tochannu or * Dochannu,' a name which belonged to a man of alien race in an alien Church. Lesmahagow marks the site of a Muinntir which was governed by an Ab. The community 169 THE PICTISH NATION dates back to a time when this part of Lanarkshire was still Brito-Pictish, that is, before the north- ward advance of the Angles. The site-name sug- gests the foundation of an Irish Pict as in the instance of Lismore. The^ in the second section of the place-name, which is also the name of the founder oftheZw,isBritonic,andrendersthesaint difficult of identification. In a.d. i 144 the Rom- an Churchmen glossed the saint's name as *Mac- hutus,' presumably S. Brendan's disciple; but he certainly was not this S. Machute. Neither was he S. Maclou or Malo with whom he hasalsobeen identified. Extraordinary as it may seem, to any- one but a Celt, the saint's name was probably -^^^i^^^, which with the honorific ;;^^ becomes Mo- aedhoc\ giving the phonetics, with the euphonic h, Mokaego\'wh\ch. agrees with the locally accent- ed pronunciation, and the forms * Lesmahago' (c. 1 1 30) and * Lismago '(1298). The modern equi- valent of the Celtic y4^^ is Hugh, and it is signifi- cant that at farms in the uplands of Lanarkshire, and certain districts of Ayrshire, the diminutive of H ugh still takes the form ' H ugoc. ' Where the saint of Lesmahagow came from is nowhere indi- cated. Like many other British and Pictish mis- sionaries of his period, whose names only are left, he remains to later generations,like Melchizedec, 'without father, without mother, without genea- logy.' To/ace p. lyi. RACIAL, POLITICAL, AND OTHER CHANGES IN BRITAIN IN THE SIXTH CENTURY. THE EFFECT ON THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS, THE ORGANIZ- ING OF THE THREE CELTIC NATIONS CHAPTER NINE When S. Ninian, between a.d. 400 and a.d. 432, began to preach the Gospel to the Picts and to organize a Church, it would have been possible on a map to represent the political divisions of Britain by a single cross-country line. South of Antonine's Wall, the Forth and Clyde line, were the Celtic * Britons who had submitted to the control of Imperial Rome; and who even after the legions had departed showed that they had assimilated something of the Imperial organiz- ation and culture. North of the Forth and Clyde line were the remainder of the Celtic Britons, organized in tribes or clans under chiefs or kings, all being federated under a Sovereign. These * The adjective is not used to imply that there were other Britons who were not Celts. It is used, in view of certain German and other argu- ments, to emphasize that the Britons were Celts and not 'Teutons.' If we ignore the aboriginal elements in Britain, it is clear to all save a few faddists and cranks that the Britons were Celtic speaking, Celtic in body, mind, and soul. They were sportsmen and fought like sportsmen, they were irrepressible talkers, they were fickle, jealous, and disunited. They were also reverent and chivalrous. They had little likeness to those silent, dour, cohesive, 'pitiless pagans' who entered the Humber about the middle of the fifth century, who were not content to fight with fighting men ; but murdered the unarmed and defenceless, especially, as Bede tells us, the presbyters, bishops and Abs of the Celtic muinntirs. THE PICTISH NATION Britons north of the wall were mostly pastoral folk, hunters and fishers, sportsmen to a man, and invincible soldiers. They entered battle stripped, and from the cruits, or figures, tattooed on their smeared bodies, the C-using Celts called them 'Cruithne,' and with this designation the Latin writers equated the name 'Pict.' As 'Picts,'the Britons who rejected the government and cul- ture of Imperial Rome are best known. The first sign that this political division would be disturbed was given shortly after a.d. 449, when three 'ships of war' arrived on the east coast of Britain, about the H umber, with Teu- tonic Angles from the swamps of the Elbe who had come to settle in the island. Soldiers of these Angles had already been invited to Britain, and had been hired by Vortigern, a Celtic Chief who was fighting for his own interests,and apparently for supremacy among the Celts. These mercen- aries had found the land good, and the Celtic in- habitants weak, because disunited, as was their wont; so they sent for their kin toSchleswig, who steadily obeyed the summons until,as Bede states, that part of the Danish peninsula was 'deserted.' The second sign was the arrival from Ireland in A.D. 498* on the coast of Cantyre,in the west of Britain, of one hundred and fifty Gaidheals or * Calculated by Skene from the note of Flann Mainistreach. Tigher- nac notices the colonization under 501, in connection with the death of Fergus Mor, the Gaidhealic Chief. 172 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY Scots, under the sons of Ere mac Muinreamhar, who proceeded to found the Gaidhealic or Scotic colony and kingdom which, afterwards, came to be known as * Dalriada.' These Gaidheals or Scots carved out a place for themselves in the Cantyre limb of Pictland, not apparently without difficulty; because one of their pioneers and their second chief or 'king,' Fergus Mor, died in the third year of the colony. The colonists had left Ire- land, because they had been crushed out. They had tried to find a resting-place on the shore- lands between the estuary of the Foyle and Fair Head ; but the pressure on the south and west from their fellow-Gaidheals,and on the south and east from the Irish Picts,into whose Antrim ter- ritories they had intruded, was unbearable ; and so on a momentous day they took ship for Can- tyre, which they could see from their own shore through the sea-mist. These colonists did not at this time denounce their tribal or federal oblig- ations in Ireland; but remained liable for tribute, for military service in Ireland,and subject to their tribal chief, or king, of the Gaidhealic family of Niall, who happened also, at the time, to be high- king, or sovereign, of Ireland. Their position in Cantyre also rendered them subject, whether they liked it ornot, to the high-king, or sovereign, of Pictland of Alba. This double allegiance was obviously destined to bring trouble in the future, especially as these colonists of a proud aggress- ^73 THE PICTISH NATION ive race were planning to be independent both of their Gaidhealic kin in Ireland, and of the Pictish sovereign whose uninvited guests they were. The effect of these two invasions was that both flanks of Pictland of Alba were menaced. The Angles and Gaidheals began independently, and for a time acted unconsciously, the one of the other; and their methods were different. As the Angles expanded northwards from the H um- ber they smote down whoever obstructed them. The insidious Gaidheals advanced slowly, in- truding themselves, peacefully where possible, into possession and power among the Picts of Argyll, and of the Southern Hebrides, without unduly alarming their hosts. The pressure of the Angles forced the Eastern Britons westward to- wards the Cambrian Mountains, the Pennine Hills, the mountains of south-western Scotland, and northward towards the Forth. The conges- tion thus set up was felt not only among the Britons of the west, but also, through reaction, among the Picts of the Forth and Clyde line. While the pressure of the Gaidheals or Scots on the Picts was at first indirect; the pressure of the Angles was always direct and patent. The expansion of the Angles towards Pict- land in the sixth century may thus be summed up. Ida the Angle organized his fellow-pagans A.D. 547 and founded an Anglian kingdom in Ber- nicia, with its capital at Bamborough. This dis- 174 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY trict the Britons had called ' Breenych.' The Bernician Kingdom stretched, on the east, from the H umber northwards, with an insecure shift- ing frontier towards the Firth of Forth. On the west* the frontier varied according to the re- sistance of the Britons. Sometimes the Angles reached to the sea, and held the stretch of coast between the mouth of the Mersey and the head of Morecambe Bay; in order to cut off the Brit- ons of Strathclyde and Cumbria from the Brit- ons in what afterwards came to be known as Wales. From Morecambe the line of the Anglian frontier turned inland and followed the chain of the Pennines, crossed the Cheviots, skirted the eastern flanks of Hart Fell, Broad Law, and the Fentlands. Ida was slain in battle, a.d. 559, by Owain, father of S. Kentigern. Before Ida's time, however. In a.d. 537, f Angles as well as Gaidheals, the latter under a certain * Gwydyon,' had been engaged, apparently as mercenaries, by Loth, otherwise Llewddyn Lueddag, and his rebel son Medraut J in the battle oi Camlann% gu- * Not to complicate this description the kingdom of Deira is ignored. It was not founded until after Ida's death, and later on it was reunited with Bernicia. t Saxon and Welsh Additions to Historia Britonum. Cf. Skene, Chronicles P. andS. p. 14. X This man headed a rebellion against the historical Arthur ; although Arthur had rescued Loth and his lands in Lothian from an invasion of Angles and Saxons from the sea. Cf. Forbes, Life ofS. Kentigern, Intro- duction, Ixxv. Loth had married Arthur's sister. § This is now the unromantic Camelon near Falkirk. Not only were Arthur's opponents Loth and Medraut who ruled the Brito-Pictish tribes THE PICTISH NATION Otadin* that is, Cdmelon in the district of the Otadinoim Pictland of Alba, where the historical Arthur and Medraut fell together in a fight to the death. The end of these men, who have figured in so many romances, is simply entered by Nen- nius, under a.d. 537, thus, * Gueith Camlann in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere.' Vortigernwas thus not the only Chief in Britain who had called in the Angles or their Saxon kin as mercenaries. Like him, the Brito-Pictish tribes in southern Pictland were to find them returning uninvited as conquerors. When Hussa, son of Ida, was rul- ing the Angles, a.d. 567-5 74, and directing them northward between Tweed and Forth, the Brito- Pictish tribes were thoroughly aroused against the Teutonic danger. Hussa was opposed by four tribal kings, Urien (Urbgen), grandfather of S. Kentigern, Rhydderch (H^n), both Britons, Guallauc and Morkan ('Morcant, grandson of Morcant Bulg'). Again,betweenA.D. 58oand587, when Deodric, 'the Fire-spreader,* another son of the Lothians ; but we are distinctly told that Arthur's soldiers were Gwyry Gogledd, i.e. Men of the North. Camelon is at the Roman Wall. Arthur was 'Gwledig' or 'Guletic,' that is, war-lord or sovereign of the tribes of the Britons, who in other matters were ruled by their chiefs or kings. Axih.wT'sna.vaQv/z.s'ArturmapUthr.^ Skene identifies Dunipace {Dun y bass, in the same locality as Camelon), noted for its twin ' Basses,' as the scene of that other battle which Arthur fought called ' Bassas. ' Cf. The Bass of Urie, Inverurie. ) * The Otadinoi were a British tribe which in Ptolemy's time lay be- tween the Firth of Forth and the Tyne, and were neighbours of the Brigantes. In the fifth and early sixth century they had been pushed into the districts now represented by West Lothian and S.E. Stirlingshire. 176 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY of Ida, was leading the Angles northward, he was opposed by Urien and his sons, one of the latter was Owain, who vanquished Ida. Some differ- ence had arisen between Urien and his former confederates, because he and his family fought alone against the Angles. The expedition led him as far as the island 'Medcaut,' which was one of the Fame group, a short distance south-east of Tweedmouth. Either on the island, or returning from it, Urien was slain by his former ally Morkan who, as Nennius states, struck at Urien through envy, and because of the distinction which he had won in throwing back the Angles. This tragedy throws light upon Morkan's persecution of S. Kentigern at Glasgow. What the Angles Hussa and Deodric had aimed at, their nephew Ethel- frid, grandson of Ida, accomplished. He ravaged more of the territories of the Britons and of the tribes on the Brito-Pictish border than any Ang- lian raider before his time. He made good the subjugation of the Angles of Deira, and reigned over Bernicia and Deira from a.d. 594 to 6 1 7. He fixed the northern border of the Bernicians at the Firth of Forth and extended it to the west into Pictland as far as the present borders of West Lothian and Stirlingshire. Here he had to think of his rearguard. He evidently had aimed at driving a wedge of Angles behind Alcluyd (Dunbarton) to cut off the Strathclyde Britons from the Picts to the northward, and from N 177 THE PICTISH NATION the Gaidheals or Scots to the westward, thus threatening Lennox and Argyll. This movement brought into the field Aedhan, king of the Dal- riad Gaidheals or Scots, who was S. Columba's friend, whose mother was the daughter of a chief of the Britons in the south, who were at this time being persecuted by Ethelfrid's subjects. Aedhan had no desire to have a powerful neigh- bour like Ethelfrid on the eastern borders of Argyll. Besides, the presence of Angles on the eastern side of Drum-Alban meant that his own ambitions for territorial extension at the expense of the Picts would be frustrated. Aedhan offered no frontal opposition (he would have had the watchful Picts on his lines of communication), but, cunningly, with the aid of the fleet which he is known to have possessed, transported his army from Cantyre to the northern side of the Solway. He knew that region well. In a.d. 573 he had fought with certain Britons against Rhydderch of Strathclyde and Maelgon or Maelgwyn. His object was apparently to cross the territory of the Britons, to enter Bernicia far in the rear of Ethel- frid, and to strike at the very heart of the Anglian kingdom. It does not appear that Aedhan re- ceived any authorized assistance from the Strath- clyde Britons, who had painful memories of him, and knew him, like the other Britons, as Aedhan 'the False.' Aedhan's expedition,* like other ex- * Bede calls it ' This war' which Ethelfrid brought to an end in 603. 178 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY peditions of the time, meant a campaign, not a single battle. Consequently the Gaidhealic anna- lists date it a.d. 600; but the battle of Degsa- stane which ended the campaign is dated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a.d. 603.* The Gaidh- ealic annalists claim that Aedhan won. Bede states that at Degsa-stane, Theobald, Ethelfrid's brother, was killed with almost all the forces which he commanded; but that Aedhan fled from the field with only 'a few followers,' leaving his third son Domhangart among the slain. Degsa- stane is now Dawstane Rig in Liddesdale. This expedition exhibits Aedhan as a most competent and enterprising military leader. He had also sufficient political insight to realize that the un- checked advance of Ethelfrid and his Angles into Pictland meant the death of all Gaidhealic or Scotic hopes that the Gaidheals themselves would one day penetrate and dominate Pictland. Ethelfrid and Aedhan were well matched. Both were foreign, pitiless, blood-thirsty savages, and it is difficult to say which the Britons and Picts regarded as the worse. Ethelfrid had been a brutal foe from the beginning of his career; but Aedhan had once received protection from the Britons, and had grown up amid their friendship and hospitality. Bede, adopting the view of his Roman Catholic predecessors, thoroughly ap- * The Phillipps MS. of the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, as edited, also gives the date 603. 179 THE PICTISH NATION proved of Ethelfrid's treatment of the Britons and Picts; and regarded him as an instrument of the Lord, 'like Saul of old, save only in this, that he was ignorant of Divine religion,'* whose mission was to murder and pillage among the Britons. Aedhan also had been regarded as the Lord's instrument by S. Columba, who had anointed and blessed him in his mission, to rein- state the Gaidheals or Scots in the west of Pict- land, and to hew down Briton, Pict, or Angle who should dare to block the way. Ethelfrid is responsible, along with his instig- ators, for a massacre of Celtic clerics belonging to the Church of the Britons which is still regarded with horror. About ten years after the campaign which finished at Degsa-stane, he set out to do among the Britons on the west of what is now England what he had tried to do in the north. He planned to separate the Britons to the south- ward from those on the northward. With this ob- ject in view, he determined to make effective the settlement of Angles from Deira, in the region between the Mersey and the head of Morecambe Bay. This resulted in a battle between the Britons and himself at * Legacaester ' (Chester) a.d. 6 1 3. •[• The Britons were led by Brocmael, about whom * Bede's H.E. G.A. book i. cap. xxiv. and lib. ii. cap. ii, t This is the date in the Annates Catnbriae. Bede gives no exact date, but indicates that it was some time after the death of Augustine of Kent which took place about 604 or 605. Others give the date of this battle as 616. 180 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY nothing is known. In a place of comparative safety, 'apart' from the British host, an assembly of British clerics gathered to encourage the Brit- ish soldiers. They were mostly, as Bede states, from the Celtic mmnn^tr ohhe. Bangor of S. Dun- od(Donatus). This was 'Bangor Vawry Maelor situated on the Dee between Malpas and Wrex- ham. It was also known as ' Bangor Iscoed.'* This ;;^^^^;^;^/^V, in the beginningof the seventh century, numbered two thousand one hundred, all conse- crated to a simple life of Christian devotion and learning, with a view to keeping alive the Faith of Christ among the Britons, and helping to keep up the supply of a ministry to the numerous mis- sion outposts in the island. This goodly company was governed by seven Abs or superintendents who ruled groups of three hundred each. Before the battle of Legacaester these clerics had fasted three days, and in their anxiety many went to the battle area; and, standing away from the fighting men, prayed for the success of the British arms. Theyknewthat continued safetytoalarge section of the Church of the Britons, and continued in- dependence to many of the British tribes depend- ed on the battle. When the cynical Ethelfrid saw these men trembling and interceding before Heaven, for home, and Church, and freedom; he inquired who they were. Being told that they * It was founded by S. Dunod map Pabo, Deiniol Cynwyl, and Gwar- than, on lands granted by Cyngen, Chief of Powis. i8i THE PICTISH NATION were the Christian ministers of the Britons, en- gaged in intercession, he replied, in words that Bede has preserved, 'Seeing they entreat their God, though they are unarmed; they in truth war against us, because they invoke curses upon us.' Probably Ethelfrid slandered those gentle Churchmen whobelongedtoa Church which poss- essed hardly asingle martyr until the Angles.Sax- ons, Frisians, and Scandinavians made them in battalions, after they had established themselves in Britain. Ethelfrid, on this occasion, gave the Church of the Britons about twelve hundred mar- tyrs in one day. Bede puts it, 'about twelve hun- dred who came to pray on that day were killed, as is related, and only fifty escaped in flight.' When Ethelfrid had drawn up his men in battle array he kept enough to contain the British sol- diers and detached a section to hack and stab among the unarmed clergy. The dismay and panic which this horror created among the soldiers of the Britons lost them the battle, and Brocmael fled defeated.* Something more than suspicion rests upon the Anglican Roman Catholic Mission with respect to this massacre of Christian ministers. When Augustine of Kent had arranged the conference with the Celtic clergy, c. a.d. 603, at 'the Oak' on the borders of 'the Hwiccas and West Saxons'; it was from this same Bangor of S. Dunod that * Bede's H.E. G.A. lib. ii. cap. ii. 182 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY 'sevenbishops of the Britons, men of great learn- ing,' went forth to hear what the Roman bishop wished to say. Augustine demanded that the Celtic Church should keep Easter at the Roman date, that the clergy should administer the sacra- ment of baptism in the Roman manner, that the CelticClergy should join the Roman missionaries in preaching to their ferocious foes the Angles; and, as a reward, he offered to tolerate any other differences. Before the Celtic deputies from S. Dunod's set out from their community, they had gone to their Disert where 'a certain holy and dis- creet superior,' probably S. Dunod himself, was living. They asked how they should treat Augus- tine's overtures. 'If he is a man of God; follow him,' said their adviser. 'How shall we know that."*' they asked. He replied: 'Our Lord saith. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: if, therefore, Augustine is meek and lowly in heart, it is to be believed that he bears the yoke of Christ himself, and offers it to you to bear. But, if he is harsh and proud ; it is plain that he is not of God, nor are we to regard his words.' 'Arrange,' continued their adviser, 'that Augustine should arrive first with his company at the place of the Synod. If, at your approach, he rises up to greet you'; hear him submissively, being assured that he is the servant of Christ; but if he despises you, and does not rise to greet you, although you 183 THE PICTISH NATION represent the majority; let him be despised by you.'* Augustine enthroned on a chair received the Celtic bishops and presbyters without rising; and made a bad impression. When he had presented his demands, the Celtic Churchmen refused as- sent. Whereupon Augustine, according to Bede's information, 'prophesied,' or threatened, that as they would not accept peace in the Church on his terms they must be prepared for war; and as they would not preach 'the way of life,' he meant the Roman Catholic way, to the savage Angles, they would receive death at their hands. These clerical prophecies or threats had always a way of fulfil- ling themselves, whether made to the continental Celts and fulfilled by the savage Merovingian instruments of Rome; or made in Britain and fulfilled by the equally savage Angles and Saxons. Bede exhibits the view that his prede- cessors in the Roman Mission took of the mar- tyrdom of the clergy of the Bangor of S. Dunod, who had refused Augustine's demands, when he vigorously libels and castigates the whole Celtic Church, referring to Ethelfrid's massacre as 'the slaughter of that heretical nation, 'and to the Brit- ish soldiers as their 'impious army.' But Bede actually knew better. He knew how the Celtic ministers lived, and taught, and preached to all who would receive them in peace. He could not * Bede's IT. E.G. A. lib. u. cap. ii. 184 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY but know of the conversion of a whole 'nation' of the Angles, 'Ambrones,' that is Umbrones or Umbrians by Rum map Urbgen, a Briton. He himself has preserved for us a sacred description of the holylife of aCeltIc muinntir, and its bishop, Colman the Gaidheal, which takes the mind back to the sanctity, simplicity, and reality of the re- ligious life of the first apostles.* Yet he rounds off his reference to the tragic massacre by Ethel- frid with this apparently pious reflection, 'Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the holy bishop Augustine (of Kent), though he himself had, some time before, been taken up into the heavenly kingdom, namely that the heretics should suffer also the vengeance of temporal death; because they had despised the offer of life eternal.' More accurately, the British Christians had refused to conform to the ways of the Roman mission on the demand of Augustine, or to alter times and seasons, or to give up methods or organization. Church government, and administration of the Sacraments, all of which had been regular and orthodox before the Church which Augustine represented, so often itself unorthodox, had arro- gated to itself the power to demand uniformity in non-essentials from Churches that had been influencing the western world before the Roman Church was other than parochial. It is now possible to trace the movements on * Bede's H.E. G.A. lib. iii. cap. 26. 185 THE PICTISH NATION the British side which led to the isolation of the Britons of the north from those in the south, and to the organization in the sixth century of the kingdom of the Britons of Strathclyde with its capital at Alcluyd,* now Dunbarton. Its northern border was the south-western border of Pictland along the line of the Lennox hills, its southern border was near the head of Morecambe Bay, its eastern border was the Anglian frontier- line from the Pentlands to the Pennines, and, on the west, it touched the sea. It is necessary to keep continually in mind that the isolation of this kingdom was the successful result of Anglian strategy; and that this isolation was followed by Anglian tactics which aimed at weakening, raid- ing, and piercing the British territory whenever opportunity offered, so that it could be annexed piece by piece. These Anglian manoeuvres also resulted in the cutting of direct communications between the mother-Church at Candida Casa and its daughter-Churches, and also separated it from sister-Churches among the Britons, in what afterwards became Wales, and South Cornwall. Moreover, as the isolation of the Strathclyde Britons left them to a great extent at the mercy of the political aggression of the Angles; so, also, after the Roman mission had put the seal of Roman baptism and the name 'Christian' upon * That is the Rock of Clyde. 'Dunbarton' is, of course, a corruption o{ Dun-Briton, Fortress of the Britons. 1 86 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY the Angles by the hand of Paulinus of York, A.D. 625-627, twelve years after Ethelfrid and the Angles had massacred the British saints at Chester, Candida Casa and some of its daughter- Churches were at the mercy of the propaganda of these new Anglian Roman Catholics supported by Anglian soldiers. When the last of the Imperial Roman legions retired from Britain a.d. 410, the Britons had been left without rulers and administrators. They were left with empty forts in garrison cities, and law-courts from which the judges had fled. They still had the market-towns, the Roman and native coinage, excellent roads, the spas and health re- sorts, most of the comforts, and many of the luxuriesof Latin civilization. Someof the Britons, as the Roman soldiers knew to their cost, had re- tained the old Celtic military spirit, and worried the garrisons. Others, in the occupied districts, who refused to settle down to the arts of peace, had been taken into the Imperial army and sent abroad. The greater part of the British Celts, however,had been transformed into city-dwellers, traders, and farmers. Let any one look at Ptol- emy's list of towns in Britain, or at the city names given in the Antonine Itinerary, the Notitia Dig- nitatum, or by the Ravenna Geographer, and he will realize at a glance the extent to which the Britons of the Imperial territory had become dwellers in cities; and it will also be borne in upon 187 THE PICTISH NATION him how completely the Romans had shattered the ancient clan organizations of the Britons, and had substituted the control of the pro-consul for the patriarchal government of the British chiefs. He will also understand how helpless the Britons were left, with respect to protection against external enemies, enforcement of law and order within, or the setting up of authority that would be universally respected, when the Roman authority ceased with the recall of the legions, a.d. 410. In a.d. 368 the Picts of Alba, and the recalcitrant British tribes whom the Romans had driven in upon them had march- ed to the gates of London. After a.d. 410, they again began to press steadily southward. The shadows of the Teuton savages in their ceols had already, before a.d. 449, been thrown on the east coasts of Britain by the rising sun. The Gaidh- eals or Scots had not then crossed to Cantyre; but, congested behind the Irish Picts, their clans- men were ready to sell their swords to any ad- venturer; and, besides, about this time they were looking out for territory beyond Ireland in which their surplus population could settle. Surely there could not be a more melancholy indication of how trade and luxury and tutelage can emas- culate even a martial people, who had once taxed the utmost power of the Caesars, than the pitiful letter from the Britons, c. a.d. 446, to the Roman consul Aetius, the destined victor of Chalons, 188 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY while he was in Gaul, shepherding back Attila and his Huns beyond the sources of the Marne. Bede has preserved the lamentation that was expected to wring help from the consul of their former masters. 'The barbarians drive us into the sea; the sea drives us back to the barbarians: between them we are faced with two forms of death; we are either slaughtered or drowned.' Already in the first half of the fifth century these feeble Britons were driven from the Roman cities back to the wildernesses in which their fathers had been made strong. The former garrison towns, market towns, and grain-store towns were left desolate, and the fine Roman roads took on the dust and grass that have never since been scraped from some of them. In this extremity certain northern Britons came forward who were made of sterner stuff than the writers of the letter to Aetius. They had a clear idea that unity as well as valour was necessary to save the British people. They con- sented to the election of a chief who would be over all the clan chiefs and who would act as war- lord and sovereign. This ruler was known by the native title, Gwledig\ or, as the Gaidheals wrote it, 'Guktic,''^ which indicates sovereignty. One of the first aspirants to the sovereignty of the Britons in these leaderless days was Vortigern \ (Great-lord), the chief of the Britons in the mid- * It was the title which the Britons gave in Roman times to the usurper Maximus (383). f c. a.d. 449. 189 THE PICTISH NATION lands of what is now England, who invited the Angles from across the North Sea to help him against the more virile British and Pictish clans- men of the north. His aspirations were clearly disappointed; because the first name in the His- toria Britonum associated with the title 'Guletic' is Ceredig. He is the Coroticus to whom the his- torical S. Patrick addressed his querulous and wrathful letter. It is important to note, as has been pointed out, because it indicates the part of Bri- tain with which Patrick was acquainted, that the friends of Coroticus or ' Ceretic ' are of British and Roman descent, as is but natural, and his army 'PidiJ* living to the north and east of the Clyde, whom Patrick in his orthodox wrath calls 'apos- tatae' This letter was written between 432 and 459 A.D. and indicates the period of Ceredig. That Ceredig ruled the Pictish and British tribes from the Forth and Clyde area southwards is put beyond all doubt by what is told about his suc- cessor in the sovereignty, Cuned-og, or 'Cinuit,' his son. I n the reliable genealogies of the Britons in the Historia Britonum he is entered ' Cinuit map Ceretic Guletic' In another entry it is ex- plained how he migrated from Manau gu- Ota- din^ that is, from the district now represented * Prof. Zimmer brackets Scotti with Pidi in the Clyde region in the time of Coroticus. They did not settle in the Clyde region until 498. In the time of Coroticus the Gaidheals or Scots were in Ireland, but always ready to send armed men over to the British mainland when fighting or plunder or both were possible. 190 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY by the south-east corner of Stirlingshire, West Lothian and the Edinburgh area, into what is now North Wales,* in the fifth century. He found on his arrival that a colony of Gaidheals or Scots from Ireland, taking advantage of the leaderless state of the Britons, had settled there. Cunedog with his sons immediately drove them out of Wales, with great slaughter; and the nar- rator states 'on no occasion did they return a second time for the purpose of settling.' This definite historical note deserves the attention of those who, basing on the fabulists of Glaston- bury, believe that Gaidheals or Scots settled in Wales in numbers sufficient to influence its his- tory. Cunedog was the second of his family to hold the sovereignty of the British chiefs. Some time after a.d. 449, as Bede states, a Briton of Roman descent, Ambrosius Aurelianus had been chosen sovereign of the Britons; and, for a short time, led his countrymen with success against the invading Angles. In the beginning of the sixth century Arthur map Uthr, the his- torical Arthur, led the Britons as sovereign until he fell, A.D. 537, at the battle of Camelon in Stir- lingshire, in combat with the 'traitor and rebel' Medraut (* Modred'). In connection with Arthur, the locality of his death goes to confirm the British annalists who state distinctly, in opposi- • Called ^Gwendote^ that in the Britonicjform is^Cztyw^aS/. Latin writers put it as Venedotia, 191 THE PICTISH NATION tion to the indications of the Romances, that Arthur's soldiers were drawn from the Gwyr y Gogledd, Men of the North, who were of the same tribes, and from the same localities, as the fighting men of his predecessors Ceredig and Cunedog. It is certain that they did not come from the spiritless Britons of the South who wrote to Aetius. Medraut was a 'rebel'; because the rising which he headed was mainly directed against Arthur's position as Guletic to which Medraut's father Loth or 'Llewddyn Lueddag' as king of the Brito-Pictish tribes in Lothian had presumably consented. He was Arthur's brother-in-law, and although he pretended to stand aloof from his son's rebellion, he allowed his people to take the field. Medraut was also a 'traitor,' because he had called to his assistance the Angles, the enemies of the Britons, whom Arthur was beating back. Theoretically the position of Guletic was given by election; but after Arthur fell, a.d. 537, the sovereign, so long as the office continued, required to assert his control by force of arms. This was certainly the experience of 'Maelgon ' or Maelgwyn. * The earlier authorities possessed some information indicating that after Arthur's death Constantine, kingof the Dumnonii (Devon * There are other dialectal variants. The Latin writers actually achieved 'Maglocunus.' Cf. Forbes, Lives of 3'6'. Ninian and Kentigern, p. Ixx. 192 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY and Cornwall), was called to the sovereignty of the Britons. Although Matthew of Westmin- ster credits him with disposing of the two sons of Medraut of Lothian, who had continued their father's rebellion, his control of the British league could only have been nominal, because he resigned after 'three years.' Maelgon, on the other hand, enforced control, even depos- ing factious chiefs, as Gildas indicates. Mael- gon was one of the descendants in the direct line from Ceredig and Cunedog, and was one of their successors in the kingdom of North Wales, which suggests that this Brito-Pictish family re- garded themselves as possessing a preference to the sovereignty. Gildas calls Maelgon ^insularis Draco' which was a title, veiling, in this instance, a sneer. The insula, of course, was Britain. The 'Draco' was a poetical way of referring to the sovereigns who claimed succession to the Im- perial Roman control and military leadership; and so the right to have carried before them in battle, the purple draco of Caesar's generals. But as Gildas was upbraiding Maelgon that he had de- prived other chiefs of the Britons of their terri- tories and lives, and had abused his position as sovereign; the sting of this poetical title in satir- ical prose was that Maelgon was exhibited as an island-monster to his fellow-countrymen. True, Maelgon * was a pagan; but, in spite of Gildas, he * By a not unusual type of copyist's blunder in the MS. of the Annates o 193 THE PICTISH NATION was far-seeing, tolerant, firm, the type of ruler needed by a people who so frequently refused to sink their tribal jealousies and to unify against the implacable Angles. Maelgon's tolerance and interest in good work are seen in his confirmation of Llan-Elwy toS. Kentigern during the saint's exile c. 567; his statesmanship in the assistance which he gave to the victorious Christian chief of the northern Britons, Rhydderch of Strathclyde, during the campaign which ended at Ard'eryd (Arthuret) near Carlisle a.d. 573,* even allowing for the fact that Rhydderch like himself was one of the descendants of Ceredig Guletic. Maelgon knew that the policy of the Angles to wedge the Britons apart necessitated the maintenance of a powerful ruler in Strathclyde. He alsoknewhow to meet the desires of his Christian subjects, when he decided that S. David [Dewi) on his death, a.d. 589, should be buried in his own Cambriae Maelgon's death is entered at the year when he began to reign in his own kingdom, namely, 547. Bishop Forbes has already pointed out this, in his Life of Kentigern, p. Ixx. According to Lhuyd, Lanigan, and others, Maelgon became sovereign of a// the Britons c. 560. There is evidence that his claims had been put forward when he entered into his own kingdom ; although they were not recognized until later. Maelgon's predecessor, Caswallawn, was evident- ly Constantine's rival for the sovereignty when the latter resigned c. 540. Maelgon's death took place, according to the best authorities, c. 590 ; and he appears to have died an unusually old man for a British chief. This period certainly agrees with the statement in the Historia Britonum that Cunedog, Maelgon's ancestor,[left the Firth of Forthregion to take over the rule of North Wales 146 years before the end of Maelgon's reign. * This is the date in the Harleian MS. Chronicle. Dr. Reeves puts this battle in 577 to support his idea that it took place after Aedhan be- came king of Dalriada. 194 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY Church at Mynyv. The campaign of Ard'eryd, just alluded to, brought about political rearrangements that were most favourable to the Christians among the Britons; and settled who, under Maelgon's sove- reignty, was to hold the hegemony of the Britons between Lennox and Morecambe. The war was reallya civilwar among Britons. Theclans of the Britons on the East had beendriven in upon their brethren on the west by Hussa and his Angles. The jurisdiction of various British chiefs was confused on the West, all the way from the Pen- nines to the Pentlands. The struggle first arose over a trivial dispute about boundaries which gave rise to the ancient satire that the cause of Ard'eryd was a quarrel about 'the ownership of a lark's nest.'* The war became serious enough. The following chiefs of the Britons were con- cerned in it: Rhydderchj map Tudgual,]: known as Zr<3;^/, the Liberal, a Christian, who ruled at Dun- barton; Urien (Urbgen map Cinmarc), paternal grandfather of S.Kentigern, whose territory con- tained parts of Kyle, Clydesdale, Nithsdale, An- nandale, and extended eastwards to the territory of the Angles who constantly harassed him; Mor- * So it is stated in the Triads. t The Welsh state that he also possessed lands between the Towy and the Neath in S. Wales. Rhydderch in later years was also known as ' Hln,' the Old. X Tudgual's uncle was Cinbelin, the original of Shakespeare's Cym- beline, ' King of Britain. ' Outside poetry, he was a king of the Britons. THE PICTISH NATION kan (Morcant map Coledauc) who, c. a.d. 567, when he persecuted S. Kentigern, ruled at Glasgow, and to the northward and eastward; Guallauc ("Hywer) map Laenauc, brother of S. Gildas. Guallauc had fought with Rhydderch against Hussa and the Angles. Urien, Guallauc, and Morkan were all descended from Coyl Hen, a local king of the Britons, of whose territories Ayrshire had formed part; whereas Rhydderch was descended from Ceredig and Cunedog who both had been sovereigns of all the Britons. Clinog Eitin, that is, of 'Eiddyn' (Eid-dun), now Edinburgh, a relation of Rhydderch, was also contemporary with him; and about the time of Ard'eryd had been much pressed by Hussa and his Angles. Finally, there was Gwenddolen map Ceidian who ruled in the Solway region and southwards. He adhered to the paganism of the Celts, encouraged the native bards, and was osten- tatiously anti-Christian. He, however, does not appear to have imposed any sufferings on the clerics of the Britons. The trivial border dispute which led to Ard'eryd, grew until the contest became a life and death struggle between Celtic paganism supported by the rulers and bards of one section of the Britons; and Christianity sup- ported by the most distinguished of the British chiefs, Rhydderch the Liberal and his people. Selfish political considerations attracted some Christians to the pagan side; and some pagans 196 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY to the Christian side. Rhydderch had assisted the chiefs of his own house, and the chiefs of the other British house of Coyl Hen, already named, against Hussa the Angle; they in return now assisted him against his internal enemies, and are referred to by the bards as 'the chiefs of Rhyd- derch.' Gwenddolen the pagan and his forces were assisted by the Angles, who were delighted to take a hand in helping the Britons to destroy one another; and by Aedhan,* the Gaidheal or Scot, a professed Christian, and his clansmen. Aedhan was at this time an exile from Dalriada and a guest of the Britons. He was considered to have dishonoured his sword, and to have dis- graced his Christian name at Ard'eryd; and for his ingratitude then, and his hostility to Rhyd- derch, the Christian champion, f at a later time, even the bards stigmatized him as 'the False,' or 'the Traitor.' J Rhydderch's success at Ard'eryd was not what Aedhan had expected; and at the close of the campaign he found it prudent to flee from the people who had adopted him, and he became once more a wanderer. It was in this * Cf. Reeves, Adamnan's V.S. C. p. 44, note e. t The bards honour him as Rwyfadur Ffydd, i.e. Champion of the Faith. t Bishop Forbes, with perversity hard to explain, represents Aedhan as the ' Christian champion,' and states that Aedhan 'conquers Gwenddo- len.' (See his Life of S. Kentigern, p. Ixxvii). On pp. 360 and 361, he holds up Chalmers {Caledonia) to derision, and charges him with pervert- ing the Welsh annals, because, like Dr. Reeves, he pointed out that Aedhan was opposedVo Rhydderch. Chalmers on this matter was right, and Bishop Forbes wrong, and several have followed him in his error. 197 THE PICTISH NATION plight that S. Columba received him in Dalriada; and when the throne of Dalriada became vacant, A.D. 574, the year after Ard'eryd, S. Columba broke the law of succession, ignored king Don- nchadh ('Duncan')* andthe other sons of the de- ceased king Conaill of the senior royal house of Comghall; and, at the cost of civil war among his fellow-Gaidheals or Scots ordained Aedhan 'the False,' of the house of Gabhran, to the Dalriad throne. Aedhan fared better than many with whom he was allied, in escaping from Ard'eryd. Gwenddolen was slain. Myrdinn (Llallogan) the bard, his counsellor, who wore the 'golden torques'! of royal favour at the battle, went mad. Gwenddolen's clan continued to fight after their allies had accepted defeat, keeping up the struggle for forty-six days in a vain effort to re- venge their master. There had been one critical period in the main action when the struggle looked ill for Rhydderch; but the forces of Mael- gon, the sovereign, suddenly appeared on the scene coming to the aid of Rhydderch. The duet of the bards in the Black Book of Caermarthen has the lines — Fortunate was it that the host of Maelgon came Hewing down the fighting men, ploughing the bloody field Of Ard'eryd's fight. The political results of the campaign of Ar- .* Donnchadh fell in the war, raised to keep him on the throne, in 576. t \x\.\S\& Avellanau. 198 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY d'eryd were, the constitution of the federated clans and chiefs of the Britons of the north, not con- quered by the Angles, into one kingdom under the sovereign control of Rhydderch of Strath- clyde who became independent, except for the nominal suzerainty of Maelgon of North Wales, sovereign of all the Britons; the acquisition by Rhydderch of the lands of Gwenddolen in the Galloway-Cumbria region which became an ex- tension of the Strathclyde kingdom, although as early as the end of the sixth century it had been liable to raids by the Angles on the east; the est- ablishment of a united people in the Clyde region who barred the westward progress of the Angles, and the eastward progress of the Gaidheals or Scots from Cantyre and the southern Hebrides. The ecclesiastical results of Ard'eryd were that centres of Christian activity at Candida Casa and Glasgow, and the territorial daughter-Churches founded by the missionary Britons, came to be in- cluded together in the dominions of a confessed Christian king; and one of the earliest acts of Rhydderch as sovereign was to recall S. Kenti- gern from Llan-Elwy, in Maelgon's kingdom, to his own kingdom, where he reinstated him, first at 'Holdelm,' now Hoddam, in Dumfriesshire, and finally at Glasgow, S. Kentigern's original seat. Rhydderch was thus the first Christian sovereign in the island of Britain who regarded the Christian Church in his dominions as national; 199 THE PICTISH NATION and the Jirsi* to establish this national, as dis- tinguished from a tribal Church, under the pro- tection of a sovereign monarch and his govern- ment. The date of these events is also that of Rhydderch's accession to the enlarged kingdom which he ruled from his capital of Alcluyd or Dunbarton, a.d. 573 to 601. Joceline introduces into his version of the Life ofS. Kentigern a statement that Rhydderch was baptized in Ireland 'by the disciples of S. Patrick.'! The disciples of the historical Patrick, of whom a list survives, were dead before Rhyd- derch was born. But the statement bears signs on its face that it is precisely one of those inven- tions which Joceline was employed by the Roman Catholic prelates of Armagh and Glasgow to introduce into the old biographies; in order that the Churchmen of the Britons might be brought into apparent harmony, on paper, with Roman Catholic orthodoxy. Rhydderch was baptized, writes Joceline, 'in the most Christian manner,' that is Joceline's way of saying, not according to the practice of the Celtic Church, which dif- fered from the practice of the Roman Catholic * Other kings of the Britons had been unofficially kind to the Church of the Britons long before Rhydderch's time. S. Caranoc, a prince of the house of Ceredig.the sovereign, became a pupil and successorof S. Ninian. Nectan, the Pictish sovereign, helped S. Buidhe. Bede, the chief of Buchan, helped S. Drostan. The historical Arthur was a Christian, These kindnesses, however, were personal and local, and granted at a time when many of the rulers were still pagans. t V.S.K. cap. xxix. 200 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY Church. The early prelates of the Roman Catho- lic See of Armagh, in promoting their claims to primacy, systematically connected every possible ecclesiastical event with that See, and the early Roman Catholic prelates of Glasgow, in promot- ing the claims of their See over Candida Casa and against York, strove to erase from history all memory of the organized Church of the Britons before S. Kentigern, whom they represented as a Roman Catholic. Joceline was one of their known literary agents in this manipulation of history, and his handiwork survives in a Life ofy the unhistorical, S. Patrick, and in a Life of S. Kentigern, which is a garbled and elabor- ated form of the Old Life, which he held in his hands. The historical truth about Rhydderch is that there was no need whatever that he should go to Ireland to seek baptism. The Church of the Britons and Picts was organized in Lennox, as has been stated, long before Rhydderch was born, by the workers sent thither by S. Ailbhe the Irish Pict. The Britons, SS. Cadoc, Machan, and Gildas, were ministering in the neighbour- hood of Alcluyd or Dunbarton, when Rhydderch was young; and S. Gildas was actually a citizen of Alcluyd, at the service of Rhydderch's father, as well as a fellow-worker with S. Cadoc. More- over, the historical Servanus, S. Kentigern's foster-father, had been labouring in the city of Alcluyd, had founded a Church there, and Rhyd- 20I THE PICTISH NATION derch's brother* bore this saint's name, in the fashion, frequent among all Christian Celts from the earliest times, of bestowing the baptizing saint's name upon his spiritual son. These par- ticulars were deliberately suppressed, or as in the case of S. Servanus, perverted by the Gaidhealic or Scotic Churchmen of the early Roman Catholic period. In tracing the displacement of the native Britons during the sixth century, and the expan- sion of the Teutonic Angles, glimpses have oc- curred of the Gaidheals or Scots. These Celts crossed the North Channel to Cantyre, as has been noted, a.d. 498, from Ireland (the original 'Scotia'). They had moved up from the north- west of Ireland, and had tried to get a settlement in Irish Dalriada before they embarked for their new home, which, through their presence, came also to be called Dalriada. The ancient Pictish name of Cantyre was 'Epidium, ' which the Gaidh- eals or Scots pronounced Echidium,\ because they spelled it so. Earlier in the fifth century the Gaidheals or Scots had nearly effected a settle- ment in North Wales, but Cunedog,| who be- came 'Guletic' of the Britons, left the Forth re- * See the pedigree in the HengwrtMSS. t Prof. ,Kuno Meyer's discovery. \ Although this powerful leader and his men issued from the Forth region in Pictish territory, it ought not to be forgotten that they were re- turning to their own ancestral regions. Their ancestors were the powerful Brtgantes, who with the Otadinoi had been driven north of Antonine's wall by the Romans. 202 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY gion of Pictland of Alba, and he and his sons drove them out, and regained possession of that part of Britain. When the Gaidheals or Scots made good their footing in Cantyre, ' Drust Gurt- hinmoc* (480-510) was sovereign of Pictland of Alba. It is not clear how his subject clans of the western (Bede's northern) Picts received the in- vading Gaidheals or Scots, of whom at first there were only 'three times fifty men.'f The Chron- icle of the Scots\ states that the Gaidheals 'took '§ land for a 'kingdom.' It is significant of local Pictish opposition that Loam Mor, their first chief or 'king,' disappears from history after the seizure, and Fergus Mor, their second chief, meets his death in the third year of his leader- ship. The Gaidheals or Scots, however, under- stood their precarious position, even with the support of their Irish kin behind them; and so they aimed at peaceful penetration of western (Bede's northern) Pictland as far as possible. Before many years had passed they had control of what is now Knapdale, as well as Cantyre, and their capital was a strongly fortified site at Dun- Add, just north of the isthmus which separates Lochs Crinan and Gilp. While the colony was expanding, the colonists were, according to Scotic law, liable to be called on to render military ser- * Chronicle of the Picts, Cf. Skene's Chronicles, p. 7. t The Irish Tract on the Men of Alba. Cf. Reeves' Adamnan, p. 433. J The Colbertine MS. § ' Susceperunt.' 203 THE PICTISH NATION vice to the supreme chief of the Gaidheals in Ire- land; and, if they were in danger, they in turn were entitled to call for military support from the supreme chief of the northern Gaidheals in Ireland. The consciousness of this reserve, and the constant augmentation of their ranks from Ireland gave the colonists a sense of power, which though they exercised it cautiously, fired their ambitions. Although they were on Pictish ground and subject to the Sovereign of Pictland of Alba, their petty kings are called, in anticip- ation, by the proud title ' Righ Alban,' King of Alba. After Fergus Mor, and up to a.d. 560, three of these petty kings ruled in Dalriad Argyll, over the Scots: Domangart Mac Fergus, a.d. 501- 505; Comghall Mac Domangart, a.d. 505-538; Gabhran Mac Domangart, a.d. 538-560.* In a.d. 560 Gabhran was slain in battle by the Picts, and the eyes of the Gaidheals or Scots were opened to the might of the Pictish sovereign, as will be told. Conaill Mac Comghall now became ruler of the Scots, no longer designated by the usurped title, 'King of Alban' ; but by the ' fourth-grade '| title of Hoiseachy imposed upon him by his over- lord the sovereign of Pictland. In a.d. 563, dur- ing the rule of toiseach Conaill, S. Columba, exiled from his own people in Ireland, appear- ed in Dalriada and settled with his muinntir of * All these dates are from Tigernac. t Dr. Reeves, ^(iawMflw'j V.S.C. p. 435. 204 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY twelve at I or Hy (lona) with the permission of the Pictish sovereign. Conaill governed until his death. in a.d. 574. In the same year S. Columba solemnly ordained Aedhan Mac Gabhran 'the False' to be 'King' of the Gaidheals or Scots, in succession to;,Conaill the toiseach. In those Gaidhealic adventurers, who had attached them- selves to the limb of a great kingdom, there was a strange mixture of piety and moral indifference, of high profession and mean intrigue, which is scarcely paralleled outside the stories of the Spanish Main. They were, at this stage, the dis- owned children of the Gaidheals. Their brethren in Ireland had failed to fulfil their obligations to proceed to their rescue, when the Picts swept them out of upper Argyll in a.d. 560, and left only a toiseach's following in Cantyre. Aedhan, their new king, had been twice a fugitive. First he had fled from his own home in Cantyre to the Britons who became his hosts; then, after Ard'eryd, be- cause he had turned his sword against his pro- tectors, he had fled to Cantyre. Even S. Columba was an exile. For the fratricidal 'war' of Cul- Dreimhne A.D. 561,* which he had instigated, his fellow-clansmen of the northern Nialls had re- jected him, and a majority of the Celtic clergyf * Cf. The quotation from Keating's History, and the extract from the Black Book of Malaga^ Reeves, Adamnan^s V.S. C. p. 248. t Cf. Adamnan's version of the Synod, V.S.C. lib. iii. cap. iii. And the ancient poem, *■ Oibind beii ar Beind Edair,' where Columba declares that he would not have permitted disease and distemper in Ire- 205 THE PICTISH NATION in Ireland had recommended him to deport him- self beyond the sea. They were all Ishmaelites; their hands were against every man, and every man's hand against them. But they believed in themselves. The rank and file knew that no one wanted them, and that they were fighting for existence. Aedhan was a skilled military leader, vindictive, unscrupulous, daring, and ambitious. S. Columba loved the simple things of nature, human life, and religion, and he pitied his fellow- exiles in their precarious homelessness, but at the recollection that they were Gaidheals his pity became fierce anger, and bitter hatred of their opponents. He was insensible to the sufferings of the Picts whose lands had been seized, hostile to the Pictish clergy* who sought to protect their own kin, and he appeared to believe that the Picts should reckon it an honour to be command- ed by men of Gaidhealic or Scotic blood. All these strangely collected seekers after a better country than Ireland thought that they were an elect people, and S. Columba hastened to put the seal of ordination on the lucky Aedhan whom he presented to be theirking,as a defiance on the one hand to the Pictish overlord, that he might never again reduce to the rank of toiseach the anointed of the Lord; and, on the other hand, a defiance to land, but for S. Molaise's words (of excommunication) at the Cross of the Fordoflmlais. * The Lives of S. Columba and S. Comgall the Pict are dealt with elsewhere, and these matters are reviewed in detail. 206 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY the supreme chief of the Irish Gaidheals,who hap- pened to be sovereign of Ireland, that he might be warned off from interfering in the interest of the Clan Comghall (the senior branch in Cantyre of the family of Ere, whose chiefs by Scotic law had the first claim to the throne) with this solemnly sanctioned appointment. S. Columba's solemn- ities over Aedhan were followed by civil war among the Gaidheals or Scots of Cantyre. The Clan Comghall, under Donnchadh or Duncan, son of Aedhan's predecessor, took the field against the Clan Gabhran, to assert the right of the Clan Comghall to furnish the king. Donnchadh fell at the battle of Teilcho in Cantyre a.d. 5 76,* where there was a great loss on both sides, and with him fell the precedency of the family of Comghall. S. Columba had lost no time after Aedhan's ordin- ation in proclaiming to the world that he meant to reorganize the Gaidheals or Scots of Argyll as an independent people. H is first step was to attack and reduce the overlordship exercised by the supreme chief of the Clan Niall, the sovereign of Ireland. He seized the opportunity of a legislat- ive Convention held at Drumceatt in Ireland, A.D. 5 75, by the clans of the Irish Gaidheals under the presidency of Aedh, sovereign of Ireland, to present his demands. How his reappearance among his kin in Ireland was resented; f how the * See Annals of Ulster, under this year. t See the Old Irish Life of S. Columba, Leabhar Breac MS. , and Advocates' Library MS. , where the details are candidly given. 207 THE PICTISH NATION sovereign threatened anyone who might connive at his coming; how the members of the royal family (except a younger son whom S. Columba, with his wonderful dexterity, detached from the king, his father) tried violence and used insult upon the saint; how S. Columba took the control of the Convention out of the sovereign's hands, and dictated, through a young disciple, an agree- ment securing the independence of the Scots of Cantyre from the parent clan and country, and the recognition of his new-made king, Aedhan, is all told in the Old Irish Life and elsewhere. Aedhan died in a.d. 606 when he was seventy- four years of age. The military genius of this king saved the Gaidheals or Scots for a long time from degenerating into a mere clan, obscured by the mass of the Picts. Through the individuality that he gave them, they contrived, in time, to provide a ruling caste in what is now Scotland, until men of Anglo-Saxon and Norman blood superseded them in various parts of that country. Having traced as far as the end of the sixth century the organization and development of the two hosts. Angles and Gaidheals or Scots, who invaded the northern parts of Britain, and having followed the reorganization and readjustment of the Britons south of Antonine's Wall, who had formerly been subject to Imperial Rome, it is nec- essary to complete the review by considering, as far as the same period, the political position of 208 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY the Britons north of the Wall, the natives of the country who are known as the Picts of Alba, and who occupied as their native land the whole country from the Forth and Clyde line to the farthest isle of Shetland. The Picts of Alba left a skeleton record of their sovereigns in what is known as the Pictish Chronicle, and from it we can trace the political development of their federated clans and petty kings or chiefs under a king-paramount. In days when the Celtic records were unstudied, the Pun- ish Chronicle was regarded as an arbitrary list of sovereigns who never existed. Most names in it, however, have been confirmed from the Irish annals; and all might be, if other contemporary records had survived. The copy of the Pictish Chronicle, least tampered with, which has come down to our day, is that written in Latin and form- ing part of the Colbertine MS. The part of the manuscript beyond folio 33 was evidently tran- scribed at York, c. a.d. 13 16, by a certain cleric, Robert of Popilton, who endorses the manu- script with a statement and a petition; but the folios relating to the Picts are in a different hand.* The manuscript, as known to us, is considered, from internal evidence, to be a compilation of the tenth century from various sources, on some of which other versions of the Pictish Chronicle are based. There is internal evidence in the spelling * See Nicholson's remarks and note in Keltic Researches, p. 44. P 209 THE PICTISH NATION that there were both Britonic and Gaidhealic versions. One of the Latin-writing editors or transcribers had a most imperfect knowledge of these Celtic dialects, as is shown byhis treatment of Celtic prepositions and contractions for Celtic numerals. Another hand in the document is that of an early Roman Catholic who added one or two notes to certain of the entries. These notes, which are not all quite accurate, were intended to be for the interests or honour of his own Church ; but they have proved useful in confirming the dates of two sovereigns, Drust, son of Erp or Wirp, and Brude, son of Maelchon (Maelgon), enabling the intervening reigns to be dated by years, and the recorded totals of the reigns in the manuscript to be checked from itself and from other sources. As the late Mr. Nicholson of the Bodleian pointed out, the numerals in the manu- script within the above period have been vindi- cated, and work out with 'practical correctness.' The list of Pictish sovereigns was headed with Cruithne, the eponymous of the people, and the names of the seven original Pictish clans, all of which some zealous editor took for the names of kings, and affixed arbitrary numbers to their names to represent the duration of their reigns.* * This piece of editorial zeal was surpassed by a Latin cop5rist at the point where the Brudes emerge. Nicholson says the Brudes were the * Speakers ' in the Council of the Chiefs. The original Pictish list ran — ur Gest brude Pant ur Pant brude Leo, in which ur is the Celtic preposition, ffver, beyond, and Brude is a title. The Latin copyist transcribes this Gest, 2IO CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY From the fact that at the stage when the Pict- ish clans had multipHed, fourteen sovereigns bear the title Brude (Speaker), which afterwards be- came a royal name, it is apparent that the sove- reigns of the Picts developed from the presidents of the assembly of clan-chiefs. Even as late as S. Columba's time, among the Gaidheals, we find the sovereign presiding over a national assem- bly of the clan-leaders to determine decisions of national importance. It is also apparent, from certain earlynames in the list of the Pictish sove- reigns, that their control reached south of Anto- nine's Wall to tribes that afterwards became fed- erated with the reorganized Britons. ThelateMr. Nicholson has stated a plea for the identification of Brude Grid with 'Cridius,'* Caesar's oppon- ent, and for the identification of the sovereign Gilgidh (Gilgig) with Galgac, who fought Agri- cola A.D. 83, and is represented by Tacitus f as the Brude or Speaker. Tacitus also represents Galgac as calling his people 'Britanni,' which is commended to the notice of those who think that the Picts were other, in race, than the Britons who refused Roman rule and culture. It has to be borne in mind that the original of the list of the sovereigns of Pictland was a Pictish document. Urgest, Brude Panty Brude Urpant, and so on, duplicating the sovereigns on about fourteen occasions by creating new names with the aid of the preposition that signified who came next on the list. * Mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing before 1 140. t Agricola, Tacitus, par. 29. 211 THE PICTISH NATION The concluding words of an old list transcribed into the Leabhar Gabhala after a.d. 1580 were 'ut est a leabharach na Cruithnech,' that is, As it is in the Books of the Picts. Apart from this, the meanings of the personal names in the list and the spellings, in spite of translation and re-trans- lation, bear witness to a Pictish or Brito-Pictish original. Although the list of the Pictish sove- reigns begins with men who reigned before the beginning of the Christian era, at a period dated 226-211 B.C., it is sufficient for the purposes of this work to give the names of the sovereigns in order, with the years during which they ruled, beginning with the monarch who was reigning when S. Ninian introduced Christianity to the Britons at Candida Casa, afterwards spreading it throughout the East of Pictlandof Alba. The list is as follows : Talorg son of * reigned as sovereign from c. A.D. 388 to ^. 413.1 His name is distinct- ively Pictish, and means Bright-browed. He was ruling Pictland of Alba when S. Ninian returned to Britain, and founded Candida Casa c. a.d. 397. * It is not easy to make out his father's name. The Latin copyist has plainly blundered the whole entry. He was working from a Gaelic version and writes Achivir; but the initial ac is the end of a preceding mac, son of. The St. Andrews MS. gives the name as Keother:ixA the Phillipps MS. as Keocher. t The copyist, or perhaps an earlier hand, has also blundered the date by writing Ixxv as the number of years of his reign ; through taking the preposition trwi (Brit. ) or tri (O. G. ) for three, and adding 25 three times. The suggestion is Mr. Nicholson's. 212 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY He would be leader of the Picts in a.d. 396, when they invaded the Romano-British provinces of Valentia and Maxima Caesariensis, and were turned northwards again by the forces sentagain- st them by Stilicho the minister of the Emperor Honorius. Talorg before the end of his reign would hear with joy, c. a.d. 410, that the last of the hated legions of Imperial Rome had retired from the shores of Britain. The Picts after their long defiance had triumphed. Drust son of Erp (variants Yrb and Wirp) reigned* as sovereign from c. a.d. 413 to c. 453. In the Bodleian Yrdigm^nioith^Pictisk Chronicle there is the entry against his name, V. catka rogni,' he fought a hundred battles. Evidently this c. which is a contraction for cet (ceud), one hundred, misled the translator of the Gaelic ver- sion into taking another *c.' as equal to one hun- dred when it represented cefraca, forty. This moved a Latin scribe to assign one hundred years for this king's reign. The transcriber of the St. Andrews manuscript of the Chronicle attempts to correct the obvious blunder by stating that Drust 'lived' one hundred years. But as his suc- cessor entered into power a.d. 453; and as one of the old editors states that S. Patrick f entered * Throughout the list, 'reigned ' means that the ruler reigned as sove- reign. Frequently the sovereigns reigned as petty kings over their own clans before being elected to be sovereign of the federated clans. t We have pointed out that the Colbertine version of the Pictisk Chronicle was edited by York ecclesiastics. Although the arrival of S. 213 THE PICTISH NATION into Ireland in the 'nineteenth year'* of Drust's reign, it is clear that he reigned during the forty years between a.d. 413 and 453. That Drust would be under the necessity of fighting the 'hundred battles' is comprehensible when we realize that to him fell the task of retrieving the original Pictish territories south of the Wall which the Romans had vacated; and of reorganizing a new frontier for the south of Pictland. During his reign, also, the Angles came in force to settle in the Humber region. Talorg son of Aniel reigned from a.d. 453 to 456. Nectanf Morbet son of Erp or Wirp reigned from A.D. 456 to 480. He is called 'the Great.' His clan-lands were in the region of Tay, embrac- ing parts of Forfarshire, Perthshire, and Fife. Tradition represents that he was a Christian. He certainly favoured the Christian mission- aries. In his reign S. Buidhe Mac Bronach, an Irish Pict, as has been noticed, entered the Tay area with sixty followers to continue S. Patrick in Ireland is noted in it rather irrelevantly, the relevant arrival in Britain of S. Ninian the Apostle of the Picts is suppressed. We have in this one of many tokens of how unscrupulously the early Roman Catholics of York promoted their claims to primacy by keeping the antiquity of Candida Casa and the great work of S. Ninian out of sight. * From other sources, this was A. D. 432. t Evidently a younger brother of Drust son of Erp. Nectan is dis- tinguished in other versions of the Chronicle by the untranslated word 'Telchamoth' which is varied to 'Celchamoth' and 'Celtaniech.' These forms, with the confusion of T and C, strongly suggest that in the original MS. of the Chronicle the uncials used on the Pictish stones were the initial letters. 214 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY Ninian's work; and Nectan established him near his own fort at Dunnichen. A member of this early missionary band was a certain S. Brigh or Brioc; and his name still lingers in the Tay region* attached to old Church foundations. The early Roman Catholics confused him with S. Brigid,as they confused others of like name else- where. One early Roman Catholic cleric who anno- tated the Colbertine MS. of the Pictish Chronicle interpolated a fable into the Chronicle, based on some charter from which extracts are given, to the effect that Nectan the Great gave Abernethy (on Tay) to God and S. Brigid \ 'till the day of judgment' in the presence of Darlugdach (a young member of S. Brigid's sisterhood), who had been exiled from Ireland, and Darlugdach thereupon sang a Hallelujah for the offering. The charter which inspired this interpolation was evidently one of those spurious writs by which the Gaidhealic or Scotic clerics of the ear- ly Roman Catholic period sought to serve them- selves heirs to the property of the Pictish Church. It is as clumsy an invention as the similar entry in the Book of Deer, where the Pictish ruler of Buchan is represented as bestowing the monast- ery of S. Drostan the Briton on S. Columba the * From Kingennie westward to Abernethy in Perthshire. f One wonders what the Gaidheal who invented this story would have felt if he had known that the so-called ' Mary of the Gael ' was really a Pictish slave held by a Gael. THE PICTISH NATION Gaidheal who probably was not born at the time. There are manifest impossibilities in the story. Nectan the Great was dead in a.d. 480, before S. Brigid had collected her sisterhood and founded Kildare. Darlugdach, S. Brigid's favourite, was still young when she succeeded her mistress a.d. 525, so that she was not even born when Nectan the Great died. This fable, "apart from its use in supporting Gaidhealic or Scotic claims to the property of the Pictish Church, served also to obscure the true origin of Christianity in Eastern Pictland through theworkof SS. Ninian, Buidhe, Brigh, and Cainnech. Drust, called by the Latin copyist * Guorthin- moc''^ reigned from a.d. 480 to 510. During his sovereignty, in a.d. 498, the Gaidheals or Scots of the Irish Dalriada intruded their colonists into Pictland at Cantyre. This event, the beginning of important political changes, appears to have received only local attention. There is no indic- ation that the sovereign as protector of the Pict- ish territories took any action at the time. Galan, designated by the untranslated word 'arilith,' varied to 'erilich,' reigned from a.d. 510 to 522. In his reign the historical Arthur, sove- * The variant in the St. Andrews MS. is *^ Gemot'' and in the Phillipps MS. ' Gocineth,^ an evident blunder for Gorineth or some such form. The St. Andrews form suggests that the original Pictish entry was Drust guor Neht, i.e. Drust (the King) beyond Nect, or Nectan. In Y Cynwirodor the Britonic pedigrees are ^ guor Cein, Dolt. Guor Doli, Dumm. ' Guor is the Britonic preposition, beyond. It is quite apparent that one of the originals of the Pictish Chronicle had this preposition ^«<7r in this place. 216 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY reign of the Britons, led the 'Men of the North,' and won the victory of Badon Hill* on the Pictish borders in a.d. 516. The enemy were certain Saxons f (aided apparently by Humber Angles), who had first raided the northern islands of Pict- land; and, afterwards, had attempted to settle on the shores of Forth. J From A.D. 522 to a.d. 527 there was a joint sovereignty in Pictland. Drust son of Gyrom and Drust ' filius Udrost ' § reigned together. Each would keep his seat in the capital of his clan; but in affairs that concerned all the clans they would lead together. From a.d. 527 to 532, Drust son of Gyrom reigned alone. From A.D. 532 to A.D. 539 Gartnaidh, another son of Gyrom, reigned. During his reign, in a.d. 537, the historical Arthur fell at the battle of Camelon in Stirlingshire, on Pictish territory, in combat with the rebel Medraut, son of Loth or Llew || of 'Dinas Eiddyn (Edinburgh), in the North.' Celtran, still another son -of Gyrom, reigned from a.d. 539 to 540. This family of Gy- rom furnishes an example of one of the features of * Bowden Hill (Torphichen) between Edinburgh and Stirling. t Led by Octha and Ebussa. The former is said to have been Hengist's son, the latter, Hengist's nephew. J See Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol, i. p. 58. § ^Films'' is a gratuitous insertion by the Latin editor; and ''Wdrosf is a blundered reading. The fF attached to the genitive Drost was a con- traction in the original Pictish document representing later Welsh wyr or {j>)ua, that is, grandson or descendant of. II Called also in the Boneddy Saint ' Llewddyn Lueddag.' 217 THE PICTISH NATION the Pictish succession. Although the monarchy was elective so far as the individual was con- cerned, yet so long as one eminent matro-regal family could furnish suitable candidates, these appear to have had preferable claims to the sovereignty. Talorg, son of Murtholoic,* reigned from a.d. 540 to 5 5 1 . During his reign ^. 547 f the * Yellow Plague' raged throughout Britain. The Britons called it 'Vdd Velen \ the Irish called it 'Galar buidhCy 'Chron Chonaill^' and ' Buidhe Chonaill! From references, it appears to have been a virulent, rapidly-spreading fever with intestinal symptoms, and characterized by jaundice. It dis- located social life. It was in Ireland as early as A.D. 544, and broke up S. Mobhi's muinntir dhout that time. Many kings, abs, and chiefs perished from the pestilence. J Probably Talorg and his successor, who reigned onlyone year, were among the victims. Drust, son of Munaith, reigned from a.d. 551 to 552. Galan, designated by the untranslated name 'Cennaleph,'§ succeeded him and reigned alone one year, from 552 to 553. In a.d. 553 Brude son of Maelchon (Maelgon) was associ- ated with him in the sovereignty; and theyreign- * This is the form of the name in the Chronicle annexed to Nennius. The Latin Chronicle gives ^Muircholaich.' \ Annates Cambriae. X c. 664 it again visited Britain and depopulated great districts. § The Gaidheals or Scots translated this into one of their dialects as ' Cendaeladh. ' 218 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY ed together for one year. In a.d. 554 Brude Mac Maelchon received the sovereign control of Pict- land into his own hands ; although Galan Cen- naleph remained alive. How Galan relinquished the joint occupancy of the throne is not told; but we know that he died a.d. 580, in the same year that Aedhan, king of Dalriada, S. Columba's friend, was conducting a naval expedition to- wards the Orkneys and against the Picts. From the fact that in the notice of Aedhan's expedition and Galan Cennaleph's death the latter is styled *rex Pictorum,' it has been inferred that the clan-territories over which he reigned as chief, or petty king, were on the northern or north- western coasts of Pictland. Brude Mac Maelchon reigned as undisputed sovereign of Pictland for thirty years, a.d. 554 to a.d. 584. His father has been identified as Maelgon or Maelgwyn, whose name varies to 'Mailcun' and 'Melcondus,' who was king of Gwynedd'^ and sovereign of all the Britons at this time, and also the most powerful ruler in the island. He was a pagan ; the home of his ancestors had been among the Brito-Pictish tribes of the Forth region, and they had pre- vented the Gaidheals or Scots from colonizing North Wales. Brude displayed great tact as a ruler, and all the military genius of his ancestors. When Brude was appointed sovereign, one of his subject chiefs, the petty king of the Western * Gwendote, or North Wales. 219 THE PICTISH NATION (Bede's Northern) Picts, could hardly have been comfortable. His authority and territories were being steadily disturbed by the Gaidhealic or Scotic colonists who had intruded into Cantyre, and had been persistently pushing northward and spreading over Argyll. Very little is known of these Western Picts or their chiefs except what remains in weird Celtic tales and laments. Their capital was at Barr-an-Righy^ better located through the name of the adjoining ioxtBarr-nan- Gobhan,\ George Buchanan's * Beregonium.'J They buried their dead at the Cladh nan Righ- rean, burial-place of the kings, on Lismore, the holy island of the Western Picts, soon to be made famous by the Pictish missionary S. Moluag. Brude, with the same antipathy to the Gaidh- eals as his ancestor Cunedog, determined that the menace and encroachment of the Gaidheals or Scots on the west of Pictland should come to an end. In a.d. 560 he attacked the Gaidheals or Scots, when led by Gabhran their king, and de- feated them with great slaughter. The survivors were hunted southward from Lorn and the bor- ders of Lennox; and those who did not flee from Pictland were shut up in Cantyre. Gabhran their king was slain. Conaill, son of Comghall, who * The King's (fortified) height. It is one ofa series of vitrified' forts, t The (fortified) height of the Armourers. % By the northern shore of Lower Loch Etive, on the precipitous height which ends Beinn Laoire. Dr. Carmichael, author of Carmina Gadelica, describes it in his notes to Deirdere, p. 143. 220 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY represented the direct line of the house of Ere in Dalriada, was made chief of the vassal remnant with the much reduced title of toiseach under Brude the sovereign. It was in this broken state that S. Columba the Gaidheal found his fellow- Gaidheals or Scots when he settled on I, or lona, A.D. 563. He had already visited Brude, as the Life of S. Comgall the Great states, under the care of the Irish Picts, S. Comgall and S. Cainnech, who at that time were consulting Brude with a view, doubtless, to receive his sanction to the missions which they both contemplated initiat- ing in Pictland. The Gaidheals of a later time, forgetting that S. Columba could not make him- self understood in the Pictish dialect, even to Brude's subjects, tried to leave the impression in history that S. Columba introduced SS. Comgall and Cainnech, both Picts, to the Pictish sovereign. Dr. Reeves has pointed out that this impression is prevented by the Life of S. Comgall.^ S. Col- umba's sympathies were aroused by the plight of his fellow-Gaidheals; but he kept his thoughts to himself, and secured a settlement on lona, where he began to scheme for the revival and re-exten- sion on Pictish territory of Gaidhealic power. He found a ready and unprincipled agent in Aedhan whom, on the death of Conaill a.d. 574, he or- dained to be ruler over the Scots with the revived title of king. Brude from his relationships with * V, S. Comgalli, c. 44. 221 THE PICTISH NATION the Britons would know Aedhan and all his 'false- ness.' Moreover, Aedhan had taken the field against Brudes father a year before; so that Brude would watch him with an alert eye. It was more difficult to watch the subtle S. Columba. Even the pagan Celtic sovereigns were never ready to provoke a cleric, although they might know him to be disloyal. S. Columba by his commanding ability stood to gain for his people by diplomacy what Aedhan would have failed to win by arms. Aedhan during his reign conducted four cam- paigns against the Picts. In a.d. 580* he sent a naval expedition against the northern islands of the Pictish Kingdom. I n a. d. 5 8 2 he threw a force across DrumAlban, his frontier, into what is now Stirlingshire, and was not halted until he reached the Moor of 'Manann' (Slamannan), where he received battle. In a.d. 590 he again crossed as far as the same district, and fought a battle at ^ Leithreid.' \ Adamnan indicates that Aedhan's opponents were the Pictish 'Miati' J(Midlanders) who occupied the southern central district north from Antonine's Wall. He also gives us a pic- ture§ of S. Columba summoning the community at lona to pray for Aedhan in this hostile act against Brude and his people. The saint calls the Picts 'barbarians who turn in flight' ; but belittles * The dates are from Reeves' Kalendar, V.S. C. (Adamnan), p. 370. t The Cath Let'fkn'^'oiTigh.erna.c. J The * MaiataV of the summary of Dion Cassius. § V.S. C. lib. i. cap. viii. 222 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY the 'victory' and calls it 'unhappy,' because Ae- dhanlostthree hundredandthreemen. InA.D. 596 Aedhan was across Drum Alban, and into Pict- land once more. On this occasion he was held up at the line of the Wall, on the Brito-Pictish bor- der at a place which the Gaidheals called ' Chir- cind"^ but the Britons 'Caer pen^\ which Dr. Reeves has identified with Kirkintilloch ('Caer pentalloch'). Here he was severely punished, and his first, second, and sixth sons, Artur, Eochaidh Fion, and Bran, were slain. Yet the Gaidheals or Scots of the early Roman Catholic period, among otherpretensions, wished to represent S. Columba, the maker, councillor, and chaplain of this relentless foe of the Picts, as the man who christianizedV\Q,\\.2iXiA, and baptized Brude mac Maelchon. The clerical annotator of the St. Andrews MS. of the Pictish Chronicle states that S. Columba 'converted' Brude. The clerical annotator in the Cambridge MS. im- proves on this with the extraordinary statement that the Roman missionary S. Palladius was as- sociated with S. Columba in converting Brude. The clerical annotator in the earlier Colbertine MS. states that S. Columba 'baptized' Brude. The truth is, that Brude, like his father, adhered to the old native pagan religion, and maintained a pagan court, as Adamnan shows, although, also like his father, he tolerated and could even be * Tighernac under 596. f In the C and L Manuscripts oiNennius. 223 THE PICTISH NATION kind to the Christians, of whom there were many among his subjects. Bede, indeed, states that S. Columba ' converted ' the nation of which Brude was the 'powerful king.' But that is to be inter- preted by his earlier statement that the 'North- ern (our Western) Picts are separated from the 'Southern' (our Eastern) Picts by steep and rug- ged mountains, and the Southern (Eastern) Picts had 'long before forsaken the errors of idolatry, and received the true faith by the preaching of Bishop Ninias' (Ninian).* Plainly, V. Bede re- stricted S. Columba's Pictish converts to the area of the 'Northern' (Western) Picts, over which Brude was over-lord. Bede's geography was Ptolemaic, and so far as Pictland was con- cerned, the Ptolemaic North was our West, and the Ptolemaic South our East. Consequently V. Bede's statement amounts to this, that S. Col- umba converted the Picts, west of the boundary mountains called Drum Alban, which means the Picts of Argyll, who, under Aedhan, had become directly subject to the intruding Gaidheals or Scots, although, of course, these Picts, as well as Aedhan and his Scots, were under the para- mountcy of Brude as sovereign of all Pictland, with this difference, that the Picts acknowledged the paramountcy while the Scots sought to abol- ish it. That S. Columba's ministry followed the Gaidhealic or Scotic flag as it advanced from * Bede, ff.E.G. A. lib. iii. cap. iv. 224 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY Cantyre through Argyll, on the western side of Drum Alban, is undeniable. To what extent he 'converted' the Western (Bede's Northern) Picts is another matter; because, even in S. Columba's time, S. Moluag, an Irish Pict whose missions ex- tended over most of Pictland, controlled a mu- inntir and mission-centre on the island of Lis- more, where the Western Picts buried their kings. Adamnan gives glimpses of S. Columba, with the aid of an interpreter,* striving to instruct one or two Western Picts; but it is clear that the Picts, possessing a well -organized ministry of their own, showed no special enthusiasm to take their teaching from an ecclesiastic who was an alien, and hostile to their nation. Cumine and Adam- nan, who were S. Columba's earliest biographers, and near successors, make no claim that S. Col- umba ' baptized 'Brude or 'converted' the Pictish nation. The utmost that Adamnan asks his read- ers to believe is, that the saint 'affrighted Brude greatly,' and the latter conciliated the saint, and treated him 'with very great honour all his re- jnaining days, as was due.' The Old Irish Life of S. Columba, which was specially composed to eulogize him, claims merely, and that only in an interpolated passage, that the names of ' God and Columcille' were magnified before Brude. The beginning of the Columban fable is however in that same Life^ where it is stated that after the * V.S. C. lib. i, cap. xxxiii. ; et lib. ii. cap. xxxii. Q 225 THE PICTISH NATION saint settled in lona he went on *a circuit of in- struction' among 'the Men of Alba, and the Brit- ons and Saxons, until he brought them to Faith and Religion.' Apart from S. Columba's lin- guistic shortcomings, the fabulist probably did not knowthat Christianity was taught and organ- ized among the Britons, and many of the Picts, long before the saint was born, and that S. Col- umba never went among the pagan Saxons.* 'Men of Alba' was an early way of speaking about the Gaidheals of Dalriada, among whom he did work very zealously. Adamnan, so far from reveal- ing a 'converted' Brude, gives a very distinct im- pression of the sovereign presiding over a pagan court at Inverness, with pagan Draoidhean in attendance, all ready and willing to discomfit S. Columba. Brude Mac Maelchon died a.d. 584. Surely no monarch in Britain has ever been more persistently misrepresented in history than Brude Mac Maelchon. He was a capable ruler and successful military leader. The traditions of his father's family were hostile to the Gaidheals or Scots. He was the first sovereign of the Picts to take the measure of their aggressive tend- encies; and to foresee the danger of their estab- lishment in strength on the right flank of the Picts. By his victorious sweep through Dalriada in A.D. 560 he threw back their attempt to pene- * Many years after the saint's time, some of the most distinguished of the disciples at lona did go among the Angles. 226 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY trate Pictland, for at least a century. Aedhan, S. Columba's nominee, had a wholesome fear of him; and, except by sea, never attacked Pictland in the North where Brude had his headquarters. Brude, like his ancestors, adhered to the old native paganism; but he tolerated the Christians and their ministers, although he gave them no enthusiastic encouragement. He allowed S. Col- umba to settle at lona near his fellow-Gaidheals. Even for S. Comgall the Great or S. Moluag, his deputy in Pictland, both Irish Picts, he had no very special privileges. At the famous interview at Inverness he evidently satisfied S. Comgall that he might send his missionaries to Pictland with safety; but there was no permission to settle at Inverness his capital. S. Moluag organized his central community on the sacred Pictish island of Lismore, and organized a powerful branch- community at Rosemarkie ; but the latter was separated from Brude's court by an arm of the sea. Yet the Gaidheals or Scots, whose church- men, after they had conformed to Roman Catho- licism, got command of a large part of the native literature, misrepresent this monarch as a sort of tame king, like the *sair sanct,' moved about at the will of S. Columba, an alien and an enemy. Their first motive was the glorification of the great Scotic ecclesiastic and the insinuation of an ancient dominance of the Gaidheals. The misre- presentation, amplified as the years passed, play- 227 THE PICTISH NATION ed its part during the early Roman Catholic period in supporting the Scots against the 'English Claims/ and in keeping alive a false im- pression of the antiquity of the Roman Catholic Church in Pictland. Gartnaidh, son of Domneth, * succeeded Brude Mac Maelchon, and reigned as sovereign from A.D. 584 to 599. Brude's home-territories and capital were in the Inverness district; Gartnaidh's were on the east of Scotland in the Tay region. He was a Christian. While he led the Picts, Aedhan and his Gaidheals or Scots invaded the south of Pictland. The Picts caught up the in- vaders at ' Chircind' (* Caer pen') with disastrous results to Aedhan, as has been noted. About six years before Gartnaidh had been called to the sovereignty, when he was a local chief in the Tay region, S. Cainnech of Fife and Achadh- Bo was ministering and teaching in the same locality, where Christianity had been organized for a long time. Gartnaidh was succeeded by Nectan of the race of Erp, who reigned as sovereign from a.d. 599 to 621. He also was a Christian, and his home-territory was also on the east coast in the Tay region, mainly in what is now Forfarshire. The St. Andrews MS. of the Pictish Chronicle ascribes to him the build- * The Latin Chronicle\\z.% 'Domelch^', the St. Andrews MS. 'Domp- 7idh ' ; and the Chronicle in the Historia Britonum * Domech. ' As the St. Andrews Chronicle vizs compiled in Gartnaidh's home-territory it is likely to be correct. 228 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY ing of the Church of Abernethy. The copyist and translator of the Cambridge MS. of the Chronicle used in the Scalacronica ascribes the same work to his predecessor Gartnaidh with very definite time notes, intended to bring outthe priority of Abernethy to the Pictish foundation at Dunkeld. The explanation probably is that as both were east coast chiefs and both Chris- tians, both were interested in the Church of Abernethy, and the building of a stone Church was begun in the reign of Gartnaidh and finished in the reign of Nectan.* The names of many of these Pictish sovereigns are names with few biographical details attached. Yet they stand for the political and military or- ganization of the Picts who defied successfully, in turn, the Imperial Romans, the Teutonic Angles and Saxons, and also the Gaidheals or Scots un- til the time when the Pictish clan-organizations all along the east coast were wrecked by the pagan Vikings, and a claimant with Scotic sym- pathies crept into power in Pictland, through treachery, by attacking the Pictish army in the * The following gives the succession and dates of the Pictish sovereigns from the death of Brude Mac Maelchon to the reign of Brude Mac Bile. The dates are from the Irish Annals, and are checked by the lists of Reeves, Macbain, and the author. Brude Mac Maelchon died in 584. Gartnaidh son of Domneth, 584-599. Nectan son of Canonn of the race of Erp, 599-621. Ciniath son of Luthrenn, 621-631. Gartnaidh sonofWid('Foith'), 631-635. Brude son of Wid, 635-641. Talorgtheir brother, 641-653. Talorgan son of Enfred, 653-657. Gartnaidh son of Donnel, 657-663. Drust his brother, 663-672. Brude Mac Bile, 672-693. 229 THE PICTISH NATION rear when it was fully occupied with the Vikings in front. The Britons from the time of their re- organization under Rhydderch, being the close kin of the Picts, were generally allied with the Picts; and it was the reserve of the Pictish power which enabled the Britons to prolong their in- dependent existence for so many generations in face both of Anglian and Gaidhealic or Scotic encroachment. The frequent strugglesof the Four Nations for mastery in what is now Scotland, which began to be serious about the middle of the sixth century, retarded the advance of the Pictish Church and demolished much of the previously organized work of the Church of the Britons. Candida Casa, the mother-community, especially suffered. Not only was the existence of this community threat- ened by the waves of Anglian barbarism during the frequent raids of the Teutons into the terri- tory of the Britons; but the clergy of Candida Casa felt that the conversion of the barbarians at their own door was as imperative an obligation as the maintenance of a ministry to the daughter- Churches of Pictland. These tasks apparently became too great for Candida Casa unaided. It was at this juncture that two other great Com- munities were organized in safer areas whose members, along with other work, began to take up the spiritual care of the Christian congreg- ations in Pictland. One was the greatcommunity 230 CHANGES IN SIXTH CENTURY of the Irish Picts at Bangor, in the Ards of Ulster, organized by S. Comgall the Great, an Irish Pict; the other was the community at Glasgow, organ- ized, at the site of the ancient foundation of S. Ninian on the Molendinar, by S. Kentigern the Briton. Another danger of a more subtle kind began to form, about this time, behind the Teutonic in- vaders, so far as Candida C^j^ was concerned. The Roman Mission which entered England c. 597'un- der S. Augustine made slow headway among the Celtic Britons, who possessed their own Church with its own organizations and traditions. The Roman clergy realized, therefore, that their sole hope of hastening the conformity of the Brit- ons to Roman ways was to take the Teutonic bar- barians under their care and to organize them as a Church on the Roman model. Such a Church, when once organized, could push its methods and usages under the political protection of the An- gles and Saxons. Opportunity and working room could be refused to the Celtic clergy, and the brethren of Candida Casa themselves could be made so uncomfortable under the political and military pressure of the dominant Teutons that they would either have to forsake their ancient Church-centre or conform to Rome. Thus while the clergy of Candida Casa were exerting them- selves to assist in converting the Angles to Chris- tianity, the clergy of the Roman mission were ex- 231 THE PICTISH NATION erting themselves to force the clergy of Candida Casa to conform to the Church of Rome. The determination of the zor^vci\m\\.y oi Candida Casa, or rather that section which remained, to be loyal to the Celtic Church, and the efforts of the Ro- man mission to absorb the community, were con- tinued into the early part of the eighth century. BANGOR OF THE IRISH PICTS, AND GLASGOW OF THE BRITONS, GIVE HELP TO CAN- DIDA CASA IN CONTINUING AN EDUCATED MINISTRY TO THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS OF ALBA CHAPTER TEN The energies of those Christians who were Irish Picts by nationality were, as has been shown, directed at a very early period to mission-work among the Picts of Alba(Scotland). When, there- fore, S. CoMGALL THE Great, the most distin- guished Irish Pict of his time, resolved to guide part of the ministerial power of his great com- munity at Bangor in Ulster into Pictland of Alba, he was not initiating a new movement, but con- tinuing that begun by S. Ninian himself over one hundred years before. S. Comgall had greater resources to draw upon, and more widespread missionary enthusiasm to help him than S. Nin- ian, and also an unique opportunity of showing his nation's gratitude to its first teacher by tak- ing up his most conspicuous work, and by reliev- ing to some extent the strain upon Candida Casa, burdened with the maintenance of a ministry to Alba, and with anxiety as to how to deal with the terror of pagan Teutonism creeping westward from the shores of the North Sea. 233 THE PICTISH NATION S. Comgall founded the College of Bangor A.D. 558, at a place originally known as Aber-Beg. From the presence of S. Comgall's community- it received the name ' Bangor,' and it came to be distinguished from the other Bangors as ' Bangor in the Ards of Ulster.' Bangor was quite near to Maghbile, where S. Finbar, an earlier worker in Pictland, presided over his own community, and not far from 'n Aondmtm, 3i community which regarded itself as dependent on Candida Casa. S. Bernard describes Bangor in S. Comgall's time as a most noble institution, the nurse of many thousands of monks, the parent of many monas- teries, a centre truly sacred, the home of saints. One of its sons, ' Luanus,'* went forth from it and founded one hundred communities elsewhere; and another, S. Columbanus, journeyed to the continent of Europe and penetrated into Gaul, where he founded Luxeuil, and there 'organized a great multitude.' This great centre of religion and learning continued at Bangor as a commun- ity of the Celtic Church until a.d. 822, when the pagan Vikings pillaged it and burned it, and martyred ninety of the brethren. A remnant appears to have continued S. Comgall's work, because in A.D.938 Muircertach of the daughter- house of Cambus, bore the founder's title 'Ab of * The latinized form of the aspirated contraction Lua for Luaghadh, the name of S. Moluag of Lismore and Rosemarkie in Pictland of Alba. He was related to S. Comgall. BANGOR &' GLASGOW Bangor.' S. Comgall was one of the most successful organizers of Christian missions in history. The missionaries inspired and taught by him ranged from between the mountains of Mar in Pictland to the Apennines in Italy. His workers were a living denial of the insinuation, promulgatedafter their time by Bede, to the effect that the spirit of Brito-Pictish Christianity was exclusive and parochial. About a.d. 558 S. Comgall had inten- tions of leaving Ireland to take part in the mis- sion-work in Pictland of Alba ; but his kinsman S. Moluag* prevailed upon him to found Bangor and to train others for the work, and S. Moluag became one of his first pupils. In a.d. 562 S. Comgall detached S. Moluag from Bangor; and sent him with a group of workers to take up the work which he himself had intended in Pictland. In order that his deputy's work might not be impeded, he set out himself as the leader\ of a deputation, according to his own Life, to inter- view Brude Mac Maelchon the Pictish sover- eign, at Inverness. His object was manifestly to obtain sanction for his missions, protection for his missionaries, and respect for any settle- * The early Latin writers latinized his name as 'Luanus'; the later a&^Mo-Luacus^ and ' Mo-Luocus.^ f V. S. Cotng. cap. 44. Dr. Reeves, knowing that Adamnan repre- sented S. Columba as the leader of this deputation, writes : ' The Life of S. Comgall represents S. Columba as only one of the agents on this occasion.' 235 THE PICTISH NATION ments that the subordinate chiefs might grant them. S. Cainnech, another Pictish ecclesias- tic, afterwards of Fife and Achadh-Bo, accom- panied S. Comgall, and they were joined by S. Columba, a Gaidheal or Scot, soon to be leading ecclesiastic of the Gaidhealic or Scotic colonists in Dalriada. The interview was followed by the unrestricted advance of S. Moluag and his workers into the Pictish Islands of the Hebrides; among the Picts of the western mainland, includ- ing those dispersed among the Gaidheals ; and into the central and northern parts of Pictland. S. Columba settled on lona near his fellow- Gaidheals; and S. Cainnech established himself in due course in Fife. S. Moluag's plan for working Pictland was to organize three great muinntirs or communities to be the centres of education and ministerial supply for the Churches in their respective dis- tricts; and, of course, for the maintenance of these central communities he had the reserves of Bangor. He first organized the great community of Lismore in Lorn. This island was the sacred island of the Western (Bede's 'Northern') Picts, and contained the burial-place of their kings who reigned at 'Beregonium.' The Churches depend- ent on Lismore,* still traceable, are Teampul * S. Moluag founded two Churches in southern Argyll, evidently for the Picts dispersed among the Gaidheals : one was in Glen Barr, Cantyre; and the other in South Knapdale at Loch Killisport. 236 BANGOR ^ GLASGOW M6r in Lewis; the Church of Pabbay, that is, Isle of the pdpa\ Cill Moluag in Raasay; Cill Moluag in Skye ; Cill Moluag in Tiree ; Cill Moluag m Mull; 'Kilmalu" in Morvern; 'Kil- malu' ' of Inverary; and Cill Moluag"^ at Balla- gan, Inverfarigaig. S. Moluag's second central community was organized at Rosemarkie on the northern shore of the Inverness Firth. Many of the Churches founded from this centre were afterwards, in the Roman Catholic period, dedicated to Roman saints, and they cannot now be definitely dis- tinguished as S. Moluag's; but there was an old Church in the strath of the Peffray (Strath- peffer) whose temporalities are still designated as Davoch-Moluag, and the submerged Church of Cromarty was evidently one of S. Moluag's foundations. His third central community was at Mortlach in Banffshire. Dependent upon it was the smaller community at Clova or Cloveth near Lumsden village. The foundations that still bear S. Moluag's name in this quarter are at * Maol- Moluag's,' now New Machar, at Clatt in the Garioch, and at Migvie and Tarland. Another of S. Moluag's known foundations was at Alyth in Perthshire. S. Moluag continued to labour in Pictland until his death on the 25th June 592 a.d. According to the old tradition he died while visit- * See Dr. Wm. Mackay's Saints of the Ness Valley. THE PICTISH NATION ing his Churches in the Garioch* and was buried at Rosemarkie. It must not be supposed that the trained clergy from Bangor or from S. Moluag's own centres kept themselves apart from the Britonic and the native Pictish clergy who were at work in Pictland at this time; because there is evidence that the Bangor clergy assisted in manning Churches founded long before their arrival as well as looking to the care of congre- gations gathered by themselves. The only sign of want of co-operation between the Celtic clergy, as might be expected from the political relations, was between the Picts and the Gaidheals or Scots, in the territory occupied by the Scotic colonists in Dalriada. There was certainly no co-operation between the Pictish ecclesiastics and the Gaidhealic ecclesiastics in the island of Tiree. In A.D. 565,1 three years after S. Moluag had led his mission into Pictland, S. Comgall himself set out from Bangor to revisit Pictland. It is stated that his object was to visit 'certain ecclesi- astics' and incidentally it is noted that he 'con- stituted' a monastery in the granary island Tir * There is a reference to S. Moluag on the Shevack stone now at Newton, Insch. The writing is in debased uncials. His name is written *Maolouoeg i h-innsi Loaoaruin ' ; that is, Moluag ... he was of the Island of Lorn, namely Lismore. Lismore, Rosemarkie, and Mortlach became in the Roman period the seats of the diocesan bishops respectively of Argyll, Ross, and what afterwards became the See of Aberdeen. t 'Septimo anno postquam monasterium Bennchor fundatum est,* V. S. Comg. p. 307, 238 BANGOR &> GLASGOW B^k, that is, Tiree. An ancient Church found- ation there still bears S. Comgall's name. In this lit tie island, important because of its food-supplies, four ecclesiastics had interests to protect. Two of them were Irish Picts, S. Moluag who was S. Comgall's deputy and relative; and Findchan, Ab of the Pictish monastery of Ardchain, who was evidently subject to S. Comgall. The other two were Gaidheals or Scots, Baithene, Ab of Magh Luinge, cousin of S. Columba, and S. Columba himself, his superior. Baithene was a practical farmer, and at one period of his life grew the corn- supplies for S. Columba's community, and this doubtless accounts for his settlement on Tiree, the 'barley island.' The two Gaidhealic leaders set up a quarrel with the two Pictish leaders. Apart from national differences, all the potenti- alities of quarrel were already latent in the needs of the large ever-growing clerical communities, and the consequent scramble for the limited corn- supplies of Tiree. But in a.d. 565, when S. Com- gall set out for Tiree, a political event of the first magnitude made friendly relations between the Picts and Gaidheals of Tiree impossible. In the .centre of the storm was Aedh Dubh, ruler of the Pictish Kingdom of Uladh (Ulster). Diarmait Mac Cerbhaill, a Gaidheal of the southern Nialls and the sovereign against whom S. Columba had raised the civil war of Cul-Dreimhne, was King- paramount of all Ireland in Aedh's time. Diar- 239 THE PICTISH NATION mait had killed Aedh's father,* and while Aedh was still a lad had taken him as his ward; but had treated him badly. After Aedh had ascended the throne of Uladh, Diarmait, on the excuse of his paramountcy, presented himself in the Pictish territory over which Aedh ruled. The two mon- archs held an unfriendly interview at the fort of Magh-line near Antrim, with the result that Aedh in hot blood slew Diarmait. Aedh immediately repented, and to atone for his crime went with Findchan, a presbyter of the Picts, to his monas- tery inTiree; where, to give reality to his repent- ance, he assumed the garb and work of a humble cleric, and was ordained. The name of the bishop who ordained Aedh has been suppressed; al- though Adamnan states that he had been specially summoned. Findchan himself took part in the laying on of hands. When S. Columba heard of Aedh's reception at Ardchain and his ordination, his rage was unbounded. He pronounced a fierce curse f on all concerned, declared that the ordin- ation was irregular, that Findchan's hand which had been laid on Aedh's head would rot J and be interred before the rest of his body, that Aedh would return to murder as a dog to his vomit, and * He was called ' Suibhne the mild -judging.' t This curse and other details are given in a way that' makes Aedh Dubh much blacker than he really was, and they will be found in Adam- nan's V.S.C. lib. i. cap. xxxvi. X Adamnan tells us that Findchan's hand did rot: but it is significant that it required a blow to fulfil Columba's prophecy. 240 BANGOR (§f GLASGOW would in the end have his throat pierced with a spear, and be cast into water to die from drowning. Adamnan describes Aedh's crime as the slaying of Diarmait, 'ordained, by God's will, ruler of all Ireland.' On this and on other occasions S. Col- umba's prophecies had a way of being quickly ful- filled. It is not therefore to be wondered at that S. Comgall hastened to Bangor to protect Find- chan and his penitent king; and *to visit certain saints, and to remain in Tiree for some time.' During his sojourn he founded the Church which formerlyborehis name. S. Comgall interveningon behalf of his maligned and persecuted presbyter, and Findchan,guiding the miserable and remorse- ful king to salvation, place themselves into line with the best judgments of the Church; but S. Columba, who had striven to destroy both Diar- mait and his kingdom at Cul Dreimhne, indicat- ing where Findchan should receive the wound that lamed him, and how Aedh's enemies should revenge themselves upon him,* places himself into line with the worst. His attitude turned the friendship of S. Comgall into watchful civility, which owing to S. Columba's continued aggres- sion was, at a later time, changed to open hostil- ity; f and it boded ill for any Pictish ecclesiastics • Aedh returned to Ireland c. 581. On the death of Baedan Mac Cairill, who had filled the throne of Uladh during his penitential stay in Tiree, Aedh resumed his throne. He reigned until 587, when he was slain and thrown from a boat by Fiachna, Baedan's son. t When, after S. Columba's return to power in Ireland, he called out R 241 THE PICTISH NATION who might be unprotected, and over whom the Gaidheals could exercise political control. Aftera sojourn in Tiree, which the community of Bangor considered too prolonged, the brethren recalled their master to themselves. The little muinntir dit Bangor which S. Comgall had first organized was being rapidly augmented. The numbers were rising from a few score to thousands — 'many thousands,' says S. Bernard. In the ancient Celtic writings the site is called * Bangor of the hosts.' The author of the Spelman Frag- ment states the number of S. Comgall's commun- ity at 'three thousand.' Picts, Britons, Gauls, and even a few men with Teutonic names, were attracted to S. Comgall's teaching. Besides the education and ministerial training which these brethren received, they were all compelled by S. Comgall's Rule to take part in the agricultural work for the maintenance of the community; and to take turn in keeping up the service of choral de- votion which!never ceased day or night. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were taught and read. The copy- ing of manuscripts was a definite part of each cleric's education. Tho, Antiphonary of Bangor stiW exists at Milan. Ifa record was keptof the various missions sent out from Bangor, it must have per- ished when the Vikings ravaged the monastery his fellow-clansmen to fight the Picts of Dalaraidhe and Uladh, for posses- sion of S. Comgall's Church at Ros Torathair. The battle took place at Cul-Rathain (Coleraine). 242 BANGOR &' GLASGOW A.D. 822. Happily sufficient information was pre- served outside Bangor concerning S. Moluag's great mission to Pictland. The unknown author of the Spelman Fragment knew of some source, now lost, which told how another mission-leader, 'blessed Wandeloc was sent by S. Comgall the Ab, on a ministry of preaching,' but whither, he states not. One hand in the Breviary of Aber- deen drew from a source, now untraceable, that S. 'Myr'an,' commonly called 'Mirran,'* Ab of the first Celtic muinntir at Paisley, was trained at Bangor by S. Comgall. Through the preservation of many of the books belonging to the libraries of St. Gall and Bobbio, and especially the Life of S. Columbanus by Jonas, and the ancient anony- mous Life of S. Gall; it is possible to gain a very full knowledge of the missions which S. Comgall * In one particular, a story connected with S. Finbar of Maghbile, the Breviary has, probably through a copyist's error, confused Mirran with Meldan, another of S. Comgall's disciples. S. Mirran was evidently a Briton, his chief house was at Paisley, and his other foundations were at Kelton, Kilsyth, Jnnis Mirran, Loch Lomond, among the Britons or on their borders. It is said that remains connected with his name were on the Burn of Mirran at Edzell. It is stated that he co-operated with S. Kentigem. His day is the 15th September. Afurther confirmation of his British birth is that he had working relations with his neighbour S. Con- stantine, Ab of Govan, who was a British king, whose day is the nth of March. S. Constantine also went to Ireland to train as a cleric; where, is not clear. He also is stated to have associated himself with S. Kentigem. His *conversio' which apparently means his death, because 'ad Domi- num ' is added, occurs in the Annales Cambriae at A. D. 589. Constantine had been king of the Britons of Cornwall, and it is important to note that there, his and S. Mirran's names are associated. At the ancient village of S. Mirran, called by the Cornish Har-Llan- IVirran, there was also a Church of S. Constantine. Cf. Lyson's Cornwall, p. 226. THE PICTISH NATION sent into Gaul, and to learn the stories of the founding of Anagrates,* Luxeuil,f St. Gall,J and Bobbio.§ From the particulars furnished con- cerning these ancient Celtic monasteries it is possible to get a very clear idea of the organiza- tion, government, discipline, and education at the parent institution in Bangor; because again and again S. Columbanus defended himself against the Roman clergy by the declaration that he had learned what he practised from S. Comgall and other fathers of the Church at Bangor. The names of twenty-eight regular, resident, Celtic Abs of Bangor have been preserved, besides S. Comgall. The twenty-fifth Ab in the succession, MacOigi,waspromotedfrom the daughter-house of Abercrossan in Ross, Pictland. He died a.d. 802. After Mac Oigi's time|| the Abs of Bangor were sometimes unable to reside at the parent- settlement owing to the ravages of the Vikings. In A.D. 938 Muircertach was 'Ab of Bangor,' but he resided at Cambus, a branch-community, also among the Irish Picts, which S. Comgall had organized in his lifetime. In a.d. i i 20 S. Malachi o' Morgair, a Celt belonging to the Church of Rome and the friend of S. Bernard, sought to * Now Faucogney in Haute-Sa6ne. t Roman Lexovium in Burgundy. % Switzerland. § Near the Trebbia on the slopes of the Apennines. II Among the later Abs were Robhartach, died 805; Maeltuile, died 818; Maelgamhridh Uogaidke,^ Ancorite, and Ab of Bangor, died 838. Earnan, Ab of Bangor, died 847. 244 BANGOR &" GLASGOW revive the glories of ancient Bangor by founding a monastery of Roman type on S. Comgall's site. The first community of Bangor, the one which began the missions that won the unqualified ad- miration of Christian Europe, was governed by S. Comgall until his death on the loth MayA.D. 602 in the forty-fourth year third month and tenth day of his presidency. He was succeeded in the presidency by Beogna, one of the seniors of the community. The missionary energy of Bangor continued to be regarded as a tradition of the community to be maintained ; and her missionary scholars persevered in supplying the Faith to Pictland, Britain, and Gaul, or wherever their ministrations were required. There were some among the missionaries who had their days of de- pression, owing perhaps to faint hearts or feeble bodies. Autiernus, for example, wished to return even to the stern discipline and restricted meals of Bangor rather than to continue amid the hard- ships and destitution of the desert of the Vosges. There is humour as well as pathos in the cure which S. Columbanus gave to this home-sick fellow-Celt and another brother called Sonichar. He went with the two downcast brethren to a lonely corrie in the mountains, and passed the time in prayer and meditation with only one loaf to feed them for twelve days. At the close of the retreat, he sent them to one of the rivers below, where they procured a supply of fish which made 245 THE PICTISH NATION a rich feast to the famished pupils, causing them 'to praise the providence of God.'* S.Kentigern (Mungo) was recalled from his exile at Llan-Elwy to Strathclyde shortly after Ard'eryd, a.d. 573, by Rhydderch. It has been noted that when S. Kentigern took charge of the body of S. Fergus of Carnoch and buried it at S. Ninian's foundation at Glasgow, he thereafter organized a muinntir of his own. This was the saint's first settlement at Glasgow. After a time, owing to his family connections, the local author- ity considered him a dangerous political factor. He was the son of Owain, son of Urien Rheged, one of the neighbouring kings of the Britons. Some time between a.d. 567 and 5 74 another local king, Morkan, who had once been an ally of Urien the saint's grandfather, quarrelled with him. Morkanj extended his hostility to the saint, and carried his violence as far as assault to his person. The saint thereupon fled to the territories of the southern Britons, where he organized andgovern- ed a community, at Llan-Elwy, from which he was recalled by Rhydderch the British sovereign, to his earlier community at Glasgow. After S. Kentigern had re-established himself at Glasgow, he not only reorganized the com- munity there to supply the local spiritual needs * Jonas, V. S. Columb. cap. ii. t Morkan ultimately slew Urien while on or returning from an expedi- tion to Medcaut ( Lindisfarne) sometime between 580 and 587. 246 BANGOR &• GLASGOW of the Britons of northern Strathclyde; but he took measures to make Glasgow a centre of min- isterial supply and control for the Congregations of Pictland, in co-operation with the Clerics of Bangor. S. Kentigern conducted several distinct mis- sions. Apart from fugitive scraps of information and the local remains of his Church-foundations, the chief authority for his work is Joceline. Joce- line wrote with an ancient CelticZ?/^ of the Saint before him which is now lost. He is an untrust- worthy guide unless steps are first taken to elim- inate the garbling matter from his biographies so as to isolate the basic matter of his original docu- ments. This is easily done in the case of S. Ken- tigern's Life, where he steadily lets the original Life shine through; as whenhe tells of the ordin- ation of S. Kentigern by anointing at the hands of a single bishop, as customary among the Britons; although he interpolates at a later stage the fable of a visit to Rome to rectify this, in his eyes, grave irregularity. Joceline is known to have been only an employee. He wrote under the direction of certain early Roman Catholic prelates whose de- sires were to bring the Lives of the Celtic saints into harmony with Roman Catholic notions, to link up the Celtic clergy into some sort of con- nection with Rome, and to throw back the age of certain Roman Catholic Sees in Britain, so as to sustain their claims to primacy. Although Joce- 247 THE PICTISH NATION line invented lavishly to satisfy his employers, he was, fortunately, frequently content to make ex- tracts from the ancient authorities before him ; and, as in the instance of S. Kentigern's Life, to strive to explain them away, or to give them a touch of Roman Catholic colouring. There need be no difficulty to the critical historian acquaint- ed with the special characteristics of the Celtic Church, in distinguishing where Joceline iswork- ing on what he learned from the ancientoriginals. This is speciallythe case inthe description which Joceline gives of the extent of S. Kentigern's work which is verified by local remains. Indeed, it was the range of S. Kentigern's surviving British and Pictish foundations which directed modern researchers, towards the close of the nineteenth century, to a more careful scrutiny of all documentary references to the saint's life. S. Kentigern's first mission was accidental. It was undertaken in the course of his flight from Glasgow to Llan-Elwy. Neither Joceline nor his source seem tohaveunderstood why S.Kentigern was moved, amid his own trials, to undertake this mission-tour. It was no journey to the heathen; butavisitand ministryof consolation to hisfellow- Britons who had been pushed into the hills of Cumberland by the westward pressure of the Angles, and the southward pressure of the de- ranged Brito-Pictish tribes between theCheviots and the Forth. It is to this mission that we owe 248 BANGOR (gf GLASGOW his eight* foundations in the old British territory of the Cymri in the north-west of England. After the return to Glasgow S. Kentigern organized four distinct missions. The first mis- sion f was 'to correct the condition of his own diocese' as Joceline calls it. 'District' would be a more accurate word, because S. Kentigern was not a diocesan or monarchic bishop. Joceline makes it clear that this mission was into a district where Christianity had been already established; but he takes no pains to explain that political convulsions had caused much injury to the organ- ization of the Christians, necessitating just such a circuit as S. Kentigern undertook. The second mission J was into what Joceline describes as ' Pictorum patriam, que modo Galwiethia dicitur, et circumjacentia ejus' J oceline undoubtedly con- veys the impression that this mission was into the whole of Galloway, the district of Candida Casa. If his statement is tested by S. Kentigern's sur- viving foundations it will be found that he ex- aggerates; because all these foundations lie not in Galloway proper but on itsborders. However, Joceline makes quite clear that this mission also was conducted in a region which had already been christianized. Again he takes no pains to * Represented by the old Churches of Aspatria, Bromfield, Caldbeck of Allerdale, Crosthwaite, Grinsdale, Irthington, Sowerby, Mungriesdale in Greystock. These Teutonic names are eloquent of the change that afterwards came over these once British localities. t V-S.K. cap. xxxiv. sec. i. % F. 5. A"., cap. xxxiv. sec. ii. H9 THE PICTISH NATION point out that the Christian organization in this locality had been much disturbed and injured by- political changes, and that masses of fugitive Britons had been crushed into it by pressure due to the advancing Angles. Joceline nevertheless spares no effort to convey that in this mission S. Kentigern corrected whatever he found contrary to * the Christian Faith and wholesome education '; and, also, that he rooted out 'vile idolatry and pestilential heresy.' The historian is not per- turbed for the theological reputation of Candida Casa by this motive-statement, especially coming from Joceline. The latter had to meet the wishes of his employers, and to indicate somehow that in the far past the pastoral and teaching activity of Glasgow superseded the pastoral and teaching activity of the ancient Candida Casa. Only thus could the Roman Catholic prelates of Glasgow press their claims for precedence over Candida Casa, andagainst the pretensions of York. More- over, 'pestilential heresy' to Joceline's mind was nothing worse than the adherence of the Celts to the ancient mode of calculating Easter, certain differences between them and the Roman Ca- tholics in the administration of Baptism, and the absence of monarchic bishops. The important point is that Joceline testifies to S. Kentigern's mission on the eastern fringe of Galloway which has been confirmed by surviving foundations that still bear S. Kentigern's name. The motive 250 BANGOR &' GLASGOW of the Latin Churchman is seen in this that al- though earlier he had recorded that the Picts first received the Faith 'chiefly by S. Ninian'; yet he has not one word to say either about S. Ninian or Candida Casa in his reference to S. Kentigern's visit to the borders of Galloway. From these two missions, in the Glasgowdistrict and in the neigh- bourhood of Galloway, arose the ancient Church foundations of Lanark, Borthwick (Lochwer- weth), Penicuik, Currie, Peebles, Hassendean, Polwarth, and St. Mungo. With this last, falls to be associated Holdelm or Hoddam in Dumfries- shire where Rhydderch, the sovereign of the Britons, halted the saint on his return from Llan- Elwy until his old seat at Glasgow was made quite secure. The saint's third mission* from Glasgow was into 'Alban' which in this instance means Pict- land of Alba. The line of his route, as disclosed by his foundations, followed the Churches founded byhisearlymaster, S.Servanus, beside the Ochils and in Perthshire. From this journey arose S. Kentigern's Churches at Alloa and Auchterarder. From Perthshire he held northwards into the up- landsof Aberdeenshire where hecouldjoinhands with the workers from S. Drostan's foundations at Deer, and with S. Moluag's fellow-workers from Bangor. His surviving foundations in this district are the old Church of Glengairn, and * V, S. K. cap. xxxiv. sec. 3. 251 THE PICTISH NATION the 'Annaf or 'Andat^ that is, Mother-Church, of Kynor near Huntly. Among the native titles of S. Kentigern (Mungo) few are older than 'Apostol Kynoir^ Apostle of Kynor. S. Kenti- gern's master, the historical Servanus, had been at work in this district many years before, and S. * Ser's ' foundation at Culsalmond is about eight miles from Kynor. S. Kentigern's zeal is com- memorated by the local proverb, expressed in native Celtic until thebeginningofthe nineteenth century, * Like S. Mungo's work, never done.' S. Nidan, 'grandson of Pasgen, son of Urien Rheged,' the cousin of S. Kentigern, was a mem- ber of this mission and founded the old Churches of 'Invernochty' and Midmar. Among the part- ners of the Brito-Pictish activities in this district, besides S. Nidan, are S. Finan* of Llan-Finan (Lumphanan), S. Brite of Llan-Brit6 (Lhan- bryde), S. Walloc of Dunmeth in Glass and of Logie-Mar, S. Fumoc of Botriphnie and Din- net,! S. Monire of Crathie and Balveny, and S. Fiacroc J of Nigg, Aberdeen. S. Monire was ap- parently one of S. Drostan's successors at Deer, and had a foundation in that district near Aber- dour. If we divest Joceline's account of this third * S. Nidan's day is 30th Sept. SS. Nidan and Finan appear to have been members of S. Kentigern's »i«z««//r at Llan-EIwy because in Angle- sey the old foundations of Llan-Nidan and Llan-Finan are also together. t Not Dunnet in Caithness but Dinnet in Mar. Various writers have substituted the former place. \ Now corrupted locally into 'Fittoc,' but the old spelling is given in one of the Arbroath Abbey Charters. 252 BANGOR &> GLASGOW mission from Glasgow of the Roman Catholic colouring which he gave to it; and of his at- tempt to convey that S. Kentigern was aptoneer- missionary in the north-east of Pictland; we get the following particulars which doubtless re- present his Celtic source: 'There S. Kentigern erected many Churches* . . . and consecrated many of his disciples bishops. He also founded many monasteries in these parts, and placed over them 2.s fathers the disciples whom he had instructed.' This is a description ofChurch organ- ization quite unlike the organization with which Joceline was acquainted; and it is also a generally accurate description of how the Celtic Church was organized. The multiplied muinntirs under the 'father' or papa; and the multiplied bishops who were resident or missionary members of the muinntirs under the president, who might not be a bishop, were unfamiliar types to Joce- line's Church. Joceline is also candid enough to let us see that the natives of Mar and the Gari- och had previously some acquaintance with re- ligion; because in his zeal to depict S. Kentigern as a Roman bishop, he not only credits him with reclaiming the natives to the customs of the Roman Church and the observance of the Roman canons ;f but also with reclaiming them from * Joceline states that the saint '■dedicated' the Churches when erected; but at this period the Celts did not dedicate to saints, the Churches were named after the actual founders. t V.S.K. cap. xxxiv. sec. 3. THE PICTISH NATION 'profane rites almost equal to idolatry.' Joceline in his Celtic source doubtless found indications of rites that were strange to his Roman Catholic mind; that they were profane is most unlikely; that they were cured through the teaching of Roman Catholic customs and canons by S. Kenti- gern is pure invention; because S. Kentigern was innocent of the knowledge of these. The true S. Kentigern would have been as great a heretic to Joceline's fellow-Churchmen as S. Dunod was to S. Augustine of Canterbury. S. Kentigern's fourth mission from Glasgow was not conducted by himself in person. He had become ^silicernus' and unfit for the hardships of younger days. 'Therefore he sent forth those of his own, whom he knew to be strong in faith and fervent in love to the islands that are afar, to- wards the Orkneys, Norway, and Iceland.'* This is one of the most interesting passages in Joce- line's biography. Along with what is known of the work of S. Ninian and S. Ailbhe it indicates that Glasgow contributed its men to the pro- cession of daring missionaries who went forth from the muinntirs of the Britons or Picts to the most distant northern islands. When M. Let- ronne made known the contents of the De Men- sura Orbis Terrae,\ it was found that Dicuil the Celtic geographer had conversed with monastic * V.S.K. cap. xxxiv. sec. 4. t De Mensura (Ed. Letronne), p. 39. BANGOR (^ GLASGOW clerics of the Celtic Church who had sojourned in Iceland before the end of the eighth century. In the Landnamabdk^ of Iceland it is stated that when the Norsemen arrived on that island in the ninth century, they found bells, books, and pas- toral staves such as the Celtic clerics used. The clergy who used these relics bore the name 'pd- pa \\ and their island homes in Iceland and the Hebrides bear this old ecclesiastical title in their names to the present day. Pdpa is Joceline's 'father,' the ^ praepositus' of a Celtic muinntir or family. Even at coast settlements in Norway, to vindicate Joceline, relics of the Celtic clergy have been recovered. The title pdpa fell out of use in Britain. Its use had been confined to the Churches of the Britons and Picts as being P- using Celts. No Gaidheal could have pronounced the name. It occurs once in surviving literature in an early Epistle wrongly attributed to Cumine, and is there used of a cleric of the Britons. The modern historian is grateful to Joceline that in spite of his motives and prejudices he pre- served so much in S. Kentigern's biography from the original Celtic Life\ and that he has been supported from most unexpected quarters. Besides the accounts of S. Kentigern's mis- sions, Joceline has preserved the account of S. Columba's visit J to the saint on the Molendinar * Antiqq. Celt-Scand. (Johnstone), p. 14. t This name has been fully dealt with on p. 23. J K^.A^capp. xxxix. xl. THE PICTISH NATION at Glasgow. Some writers have treated this as one of Joceline's inventions; but Joceline did not invent anything that exalted the Celtic Church. Moreover, Joceline had before him the old Celtic Life of S. Kentigern in which such an incident would certainly appear. Two internal evidences of truth are in the narrative, namely, the appear- ance to meet S. Columba of the great companies who took their turns in chanting the 'perpetual praise' — one of the features of the monasteries of the Britons at this time, and the exchange of bachalls or pastoral staves when the saints parted. Both these ceremonials were foreign to Joce- line's experience, although practised by the Celts. The exchange of bachalls was no sentimental act but signified the ratification of some agreement. Joceline describes these incidents in a way which shows that he could not explain them. He did not know that no Celtic Ab or bishop ever parted with his backall, except to a person to whom he had delegated his authority to carry out some parti- cular act, or as a pledge of his authority to some agreement. Then, also, afterone of king Aedhan's successful eastward thrusts, S. Columbahadcome and had organized a congregation in a district that had been christianized long before, at Dry- men in Lennox, the only foundation of S. Col- umba east of Drum-Alban in the region of the Britons. Having travelled as far as Drymen, there was no reason why he should not continue 256 BANGOR &' GLASGOW on to Glasgow, especially as he was following his Scots or Gaidheals into territory that had always belonged either to the Britons or Picts. But apart from the possibilities, there were high necessities of State for such an interviewbetween the saints, and there are actual indications else- where of negotiations between the leaders of the Britons and the Gaidheals or Scots. Aedhan.the king of Dalriada, had been obnoxious to Rhyd- derch,the sovereign of the Britons, before S.Col- umba set him on the throne. He had not been long enthroned until he began to lead raids into the territory of the Britons, and into Pictland along the British border, not always with happy results to himself. These expeditions into the realm of Rhydderch — who was regarded as the Protector of the Christians — by the nominee of S. Columba were evidently not considered becoming, because Rhydderch secured as an ambassador one of S. Columba's intimate friends called Lugbe Mocu- min,* and sent him, not to Aedhan, whom he and the Britons hated for his * falseness,' but to S. Col- umba himself. Lugbe was commissioned to get an explanation of Aedhan's hostile attitude, and, if possible, guarantees for his future conduct. He was able to extract this declaration from S. Col- umba concerning Rhydderch, 'Never will he be given into the hands of his foes; but he will die within his own house upon a bed of down.' As * Adamnan's version ofthis embassy is given V.S.C. lib. i. cap. xv. s 257 THE PICTISH NATION Rhydderch, owing to his nation's hatred of Aedh- an, would never have consented to treat with a man whose word few Britons trusted, it was manifestly necessary, negotiations having already been opened up with S. Columba, that the lead- ing clerics of the two peoples should meet to allay the mutual hostility, and to arrange that the ministers of religion belonging to lona and Glas- gow should not aggravate it by operating out- side their respective kingdoms. The Church of the Britons had as much interest as Rhydderch in keeping the Gaidheals or Scots within their own frontiers, in view of the tradition that the Scots had martyred S. Kessoc, the Irish Pict, who worked in Lennox, and had also martyred S. Constantine, a Briton. S. Cainnech, or Kenneth, Ab of Achadh- Bo,* sometimes called the 'Apostle of Fife,' en- tered Pictland of Alba after the end of the year A.D. 562 at the head of his own muinntir. Along with S.Comgall the Great he interviewed Brude, the sovereign of Pictland. He is carelessly repre- sented as a Gaidheal or Scot by certain writers, but he was, in fact, one of the leading Pictish eccle- siastics of his time. He was born in the territory of the Irish Picts, near the border fort of Dun- Gimhen, a.d. 516. He was educated under a British-trained teacher, S. Finian the Wise, at * Near the head- waters of the Nore in the ancient kingdom of Ossory in Ireland, the hinterland of the Manapian Picts. 258 BANGOR &> GLASGOW Clonard, and afterwards at S. Mobhi's College at Glasnevin. After S. Mobhi's community had been broken up by the 'Yellow Plague,' in a.d. 544, he 'went to Doac among the Britons,' that is, to the community and school founded at Llancar- van in Glamorganshire by Cattwg Doeth, better known as S. Cadoc, whose College came to be called 'Bangor Catog.' After S.Cainnech's return to Ireland he organized a community in the terri- tory of the Irish Picts at Drumachose, in his native district of Kiannaght in Ulster, about eigh- teen miles east from the 'Black Church' of Derry, where in Gaidhealic or Scotic territory S. Col- umba ministered to the clansmen of Aedh, the Gaidhealic chief. Towards the end of a.d. 562 he left his muinntirdX Drumachose under a deputy, and went to Pictland of Alba. For a time he laboured among the Western (Bede's Northern) Picts. He was present at Tiree with the Pictish ecclesiastical group of which the leading mem- bers were S. Comgall the Great, S. Moluag, and Findchan. One of his Church-foundations is in Tiree. According to one Life he visited 'Eninis or 'Avium Insula,' now 'Eun Innis' near the entrance to Loch Buie in Mull. He had a com- munity on Inch-Kenneth in the mouth of Loch- na-Cille Mull— 'Voce ubi Cennethus populos domuisse feroces, dicitur.' The ancient Church -site near the parish 259 THE PICTISH NATION Church of Coll is Cill Chainnech. 1 1 is stated also that he had foundations in Islay, and at Kilchen- zie in Cantyre. After he had organized his work in the west of Pictland, S. Cainnech crossed to Fife. In the Franciscan Manuscript of the Latin Life, it is re- corded that S. Cainnech worked at a place which is given as ^Ibdone! This is a Latin scribe's attempt to reproduce from the old Celtic Life a Celtic genitive or locative, of which the parts are Hb (Fkib), that is, 'Fib' or Fife, and Dtin, that is. Dun, a fortified height. This eminence is like- wise referred to as 'monadh.''^ The locality of this Dun or Monadh is put beyond doubt by the ancient entry in the Feilire of Aengus at the nth October with respect to S. Cainnech, 'Cainnech mac h-Ui D aland; Achadh-Bo a prim Chell, ocus ata Redes do h-i Cill Rig-Monaidh i nAlbain.' The last words are altered by Tighernac into 'Cind rigk Monaidky which is. The head of the hill-slope; the former is The Church of the king's Mount. The whole entry reads, 'Cainnech, son of the family of Dalann; his chief Church is at Achadh-Bo, and he has a Regies at Cill Rig-Mo- naidh,' or according to Tighernac 'OWT??^^ Mo- naidh,' which is now St. Andrews in Fife. It is possible that after S. Cainnech's time, ecclesi- astics, influenced by the locality of his Church at the king's castle, turned CindRigh Monaidh into * F;5.A:cap. XX. p. 148. 260 BANGOR &^ GLASGOW cm Rig-Monaidhy2inA as'Kilrymont' the ancient name of St. Andrews continues. S. Cainnech's Church is here called ^Redes' A Regies was a Church with a muinntir or community of clerics whose Ab directed and supplied its daughter- Churches. Itwas the seat of the Ab, and he ruled there personally-or through a deputy nominated by himself In the Kalendar of Gorman S. Cain- nech is called 'Ardabb^ sovereign Ab, which ap- pears to have been fixed upon by certain writers to vindicate the pretended ancient supremacy of the See of St. Andrews; but it must be remem- bered that S. Cainnech helps little with these claims, because he was not a bishop but only a presbyter- Ab. The early Roman Catholic pre- lates felt that the name of S. Cainnech was of so little use to their claims and pretensions thattheir fabulists invented the daring 'Legend of S. An- drew yvciw\i\QS\ either the Celt, Riaghuil,who was associated with S. Cainnech at Muc Innis and at 'Cill-Rule,'* St. Andrews, or Riaghuil, a titular Ab of Bangor, who was an exile in Pictland c. a.d. 685, was tricked out as 'S. Rule' and latinized as 'S. Regulus.' This S. 'Rule' or 'Regulus' is placed by the fabulists at Patras in Greece, where the Z^^^;/^ represents that S. Andrew had been buried. Moved by a revelation, he rescued part of the relics of S. Andrew, and, as the result of an * In Celtic ' riagtiV means rule, Latin, regula, hence * Regulus,' the name of the hero in the *■ Legend of S, Andrew.^ 261 THE PICTISH NATION angelic command, set out with them to Pictland, where a certain king of the Picts with all his nobles received and venerated the relics, taking them to Kilrymont, where he dedicated a great part of the place to God and S. Andrew. In one of the versions of the Legend \i is stated that the king gave Kilrymont *to God and S. Andrew' that it might be the 'head and mother of all the Churches in the Pictish Kingdom.' The Legend not only obscures the historical S. Riaghuil or Rule, but ignores S. Cainnech, S. Servanus and S. Ninian, and many who had been associated with them. The first purpose of the Legend was to support the early Roman Catholic claims for the primacyoftheSee of St. Andrews in Pictland. It, however, was used in latertimes by the Roman Catholic Scots, jealous of their national and eccle- siastical independence, as a menace to the Pope, and as an answer to the pretensions of the English Archbishops. A people who could write to the Bishop of Rome as follows were not going to take 2Siy second 1^X2.0,^. 'Jesus Christ brought the na- tion of the Scots, settled in the confines of the world, almostyf^i"/ to His most holy Faith. It was His desire to confirm them in the Faith by no other than His first apostle, Andrew; and him the nation desires to be always over the people as their protector.'* Perhaps nowhere else in his- tory have Roman Catholic fables been used so * Skene's Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 292. 262 BANGOR &' GLASGOW audaciously to humble the claims of their own Bishop of Rome. The Scots barons, who wrote thus to the Pope, were all the time unaware that the hero of theZ^^^^^onwhich they founded was the historical S. Riaghuil or Rule, a Pict. Except for the 'temple of blessed Kenneth,' which stood near 'Maiden Castle 'in Fife, and the memory of 07/ Riaghuil or *Cill-Rule' at St. Andrews, the foundations laid by S. Cainnech and the workers from his Regies or mother- Church at St. Andrews have been largely oblit- erated throughout Fife by dedications of the Roman Catholic period. While S. Cainnech laboured in Fife, Gartnaidh mac Domneth, a Christian, who afterwards became sovereign of Pictland, was the local king. One of his seats was at Abernethy-on-Tay, where S. Cainnech and his workers would take their part in supply- ingthe ministryof the royal Church. The Church of Abernethy and S. Cainnech's Church at Ach- adh-Bo were both noted for their ancient * Round Towers.' S. Cainnech, in a dream duringhis earlier days in Britain, had been warned that in Irelandwould be 'the place of his resurrection.' Consequently he returned to his native land a.d. 578 to make his headquarters at Achadh-Bo in the modern Queen's County. Here he organized a community of which some particulars are given in his Life, which indicate that its members were trained to 263 THE PICTISH NATION go out, as from Bangor, to supply and help the earlier communities which he had organized. He died on the nth day of October a.d. 600, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. The work which he organized in Fife, on ground that had already been prepared by the historical S. Servanus and others, continued to grow until in the course of time his Regies at St. Andrews became not only the mother-Churchof Fife, butthe central Church of a large part of the Pictish realm. This shifting of the chief religious centre of the Picts from the territory of the Britons was due partly to the gradual absorption oi Candida Casahyxh^ Angles, and partly to the political dominance exercised by the Picts of Fife and their chiefs who, from the time of Gartnaidh mac Domneth, continued to give active support to the Christian Church. S. Cainnech's Regies and its Community were still maintained in a.d. 747, because at that year the Annals of Ulster record the death of 'Tuatalan' the Ab. Contemporaneously with the coming to Pict- land of Alba of SS. Comgall, Cainnech, and Mol- uag an innocent-looking event took place which was destined in later centuries to affect the de- velopment and character of the whole Church of the Picts. This was the settlement at I (lona) among the Western ( Bede's Northern) Picts of S. CoLUMBA, CoLUMCiLLE, a Gaidheal or Scot, with a muinntiroii^NoivG. clerics. When, at the Inver- 264 BANGOR (Sf GLASGOW ness interview, Brude MacMaelchon,the Pictish sovereign, in the presence of the Pictish ecclesi- astics, SS. Comgall and Cainnech, conceded a settlement on I (lona)to S. Columba,the avowed purpose of the latter was to minister to his fellow- - Gaidheals or Scots, who as colonists had pene- trated Cantyre and some of the southern islands under their own chiefs. But no sooner had S. Columba ordained Aedhan to be the king of these colonists than it became apparent that the designs of the Gaidheals or Scots were to pene- trate and occupythe whole of what is now Argyll, from the Atlantic to Drum- Alban on the east, and such other parts of Pictland towards the north as they could secure. From the days, in a.d. 560, when Brude Mac Maelchon and the Pictish Army slew Gabhran, the king of Dalriada, and drove his Gaidheals or Scots out of Argyll, except a rem- nant that was allowed to survive in Cantyre, the hostility between Pict and Scot became a chronic trouble in the western part of north Britain. As Gaidhealic or Scotic aggression increased, the enmity between the two peoples became deeper rooted. The Gaidheals or Scots were striving for elbow-room, and seeking to maintain it; the Picts were striving to preserve their wives and children, their homes, and their native land. As the political relations of the two peoples wid- ened, their Churches and Clergy drifted further and ever further apart. The extent of the breach 265 THE PICTISH NATION can be seen in S. Columba successfully instigat- inghis fellow-clansmen in I reland to take up arms, and to fight the Irish Picts for the possession of S. Comgall's Church at Ros-Torathair. It can be seen again in the haughty contempt with which Adamnan, S. Columba's eighth successor, refers to the Pictish people. No reader would ever think that he was referring to a nation which had been politically organized and also widely Chris- tianized before his own people. The Gaidheals or Scots are to him as they had been to S. Columba, God's elect people. The Picts, on the other hand, are to him 'barbarians,' or taking his language from the Scriptures, 'Gentiles.' The hostility of the two peoples began definitely with Brude Mac Maelchon's 'drive' and the death of the Scotic king in a.d. 560. The communion between the Churches received a shock when, in A.D. 565, S. Columba denounced Findchan and the Pictish ecclesiastics at Tiree over Aedh Dubh, king of Uladh; and it was utterly broken off before a.d. 582 and 590, when Aedhan, king of the Gaidheals or Scots, raided Pictland and fought the battles of 'Manann' and 'Leith- reid,' on the occasion of which S. Columba and the Community of lona prayed for victory to Aedhan, which does not appear to have been very complete. As the Church of S. Columba and the Gaidheals or Scots grew, it developed apart from the Church of Pictland, and along the 266 BANGOR ^ GLASGOW lines of the political interests of the Gaidheals or Scots. The history of its growth, the story of its famous mission to the Angles, and notices of its numerous, forceful but fascinating ecclesias- tics do not fall within the scope of this work, except in so far as they have affected the Pictish Church. While Bangor, Glasgow, and the Regies at St. Andrews, with Achadh-Bo behind it, had been providing an organized ministry to Pictland dur- ing the last forty years of the sixth century, Can- dida Casa, in spite of nearer demands, had not been negligent. The lastof thebig missions asso- ciated with this ancient Community of S. Ninian, while it still remained part of the Celtic Church, left its gates, c, a.d. 580, under 'Donnan Mor,' S. DoNNAN THE Great, an Irish Pict. The story of the life and sufferings of S. Donnan, which were known to the early scholiasts on the ancient Irish Kalendars, has been lost; but various ex- tracts indicate the range of his work, and many of his Church-foundations survive to speak for themselves. His itinerary is clearly traced by these foundations stretching from the doors of Candida Casa to Caithness, and then across Pict- land to the island of Eigg, where he and his fol- lowers were martyred. It is of some importance to note that the first and intermediate Churches which he founded on his journey, except where he turned aside to visit lona, are all near to 267 THE PICTISH NATION Churches originally founded by S. Ninian, a de- cided indication in itself of his interest in the charges of Candida Casa. His foundations are Cill-Donnan in Kirkmaiden(now part of a farm), Cill-Donnan, two miles west of Kirkcolm, both in the same district as Church-foundations of S. N in- ian,and in the same county as Candida Casa; Cill- Donnan in Colmonell, and another Cill-Donnan in Carrick, both near to foundations of S. Nin- ian; Cill-Donnan in Arran, and Cill-Donnan in Cantyre; Cill-Donnan on the Inverness-shire Garry, not far away from Tempul Ninian on Loch Ness; Cill-Donnan in Sutherland, in the same parish as S. Ninian's Church, Navidale. This is the place described by the scholiast as 'Alda- fain Cattaibh in boreali Albania.'* The name has been blundered by some other copyist tran- scribing from a Celtic document. 'Aldafain' is simply ///fl'-^ afon,\ Ilidh river, that is, the Helms- dale, formerly the Ilidh ; and Cattaibh is the old name of Caithness, of which Sutherland is the southern part. The original Celtic description probably ran like this: *Cill Donnan on the river Ilidh, in the territory of the Catti in the north of Alba.' Where the Alt-Donnain joins the Ilidh, * This is the transcript made from a MS. by Thomas O'Sheerin of Louvain in the seventeenth century, and furnished to Henschenius. 'Aldafain,'itself corrupt, has been found even more corrupt. Dr. Whitley Stokes selected the reading ^ Alsasain^ from one copyist, and, consider- ing the context, gave it the extraordinary interpretation, 'Old Saxons.' t This, be it noted, is the Britonic form, pointing to a manuscript of Britonic origin. 268 BANGOR ^ GLASGOW Stand S. Donnan's Church and Churchyard. About a mile away, on land where are abundant hut circles and burial-cairns, marking Pictish vil- lages, is the locality called 'the College,' where his muznn^tr settled; and, in the background, the mountain which in its name preserves the nation- ality of some of the ancient Clerics, *Cnoc-an- Erinach,' Hill of the Irishman. In Kildonnan parish is also S. Donnan's sanctuary marked off by Girth -crosses, and the Cathair Donnan or Suidhe Donnan. The old stagnum by the Church is called ' Loch-an-Ab^ although now quite dry. S. Donnan's Church at Auchterless was prob- ably founded by a voyage across the Moray Firth from Helmsdale. It is near an *.^;?;^^^' or mother- Church, founded by S. Ninian. S. Donnan's foundations among the Western ( Bede's N orthern) Picts are at Cill-Donnan, Little Loch Broom; at Eilan Donnan, Kintail; Cill- Donnanat Lyndale, Skye ; Cill-Donnan on Little Bernera (Uig), Lewis ; Cill-Donnan in South Uist; and Cill-Donnan in Eigg, where he and his mutnnHr perished. Many ancient foundations from Caithness to Aberdeenshire, and from the North Sea to the Atlantic, bear the names of his known disciples; and one of his disciples, Tarlog, founded a Church and laboured in Ross close to the Celtic Abbey of S. Ninian at Edderton, where S. Finbar, another pupil of Candida Casa^ had also laboured. 269 THE PICTISH NATION An interesting effort of S. Donnan on his northward journey was his attempt to renew communion between the Pictish Church and S. Columba, as representing the Church of the Gaidheals or Scots. One district of Pictland had been left practically uninfluenced by the many missions that had entered Pictland under Brito- Pictish leaders, namely, the district on the north- west between Cape Wrath and Loch Moidart. It is evident from what afterwards happened to S. Donnan that he had contemplated organizing a muinntir there, to minister to the Picts of that long stretch. Such a design would, of course, have been obnoxious to the political designs of the Gaidheals or Scots, owing to their ambition to extend their power and influence northward from Argyll. With this purpose in view, S. Don- nan went to S. Columba at lona to secure his friendship and mutual communion between his own and S. Columba's clerics. S. Columba's re- cognition would also have meant protection for himselfandhis workers against Aedhan, the king of the Gaidheals or Scots. When the Pictish and Gaidhealic Abs met, S. Columba refused S. Don- nan's request, indicating that there was to be no communion between the Churches. The story of the interview and its result is best told in a translation of the quaint account in Celtic:* 'It is this Donnan who went to Columcille to get him * By the early scholiast in the Feilire of Aengtts, 270 BANGOR Sf GLASGOW to be a soul-friend {^'anmckaraW). Columcille replied to him, "I shall not be soul-friend to folk destined to red-martyrdom "; * says he, "thou shalt go to red-martyrdom, thou and thy muinntir^iih thee"; and so it, afterwards, happened.' Thus ended one of the earlier attempts to renew com- munion with the Church of the Gaidheals or Scots after S. Columba's denunciation of Find- chan, his quarrel with S. Comgall, and the de- clared hostility of Aedhan, his nominee, against the Pictish sovereign and people. S. Donnan perished with fifty-two| members of his muinntir, in the refectory adjoining his Church on the island of Eigg, on the 1 7th dayj of April A.D. 6i7,§ after celebrating the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Kalendar of Donegal calls the authors of the massacre 'bergaigh,' rob- bers. The scholiast in the Kalendar of Gorman calls them 'pioraiti na fairgi,' pirates of the ocean, which would indicate the early Frisian Vikings who were on the coasts of Scotland long before the Scandinavian Vikings. The later scholiast in the Feilire gives this account of the.martyrdom: * Donnan then went with his muinntir into Gall- gaedelaib.W And (in course of time) they settle where the chief-lady of the district was wont to * There was 'white martyrdom' among the Celts. *Red martyrdom' was when life was taken. t The original Irish authority was read both as 'lii' and as *liv'. X Feilire of Aengus. § Tigkernac, Annals of Ulster, Keevts. Ij ^ Gallgaedelaib' is not 'Galloway,' as some writers translate it, nor 271 THE PICTISH NATION keep her sheep. This was told to the lady. " Let them all be killed." " That would be impious," re- plied everyone. But, at length, men come to slay them. The Cleric was now at the ''Oifrend'' (the celebration of the Eucharist). " Let us have re- spite till the Oifrend is ended," asked Donnan. "It will be granted," replied they. Afterwards, the whole company were martyred together.' Tighernac and the Annals of Ulster designate the tragedy as a 'combustio,' which would indic- ate that the buildings were set on fire, and such clerics as came forth, slain by the sword. Up to this time the Pictish Church had, so far as is known, only one martyr* on its roll of honour. The ancient notes concerning S. Donnan's Churches are historically most valuable. Con- sidered along with the particulars of S. Moluag's mission in Western Pictland, they reveal that c.K.Y). 617 the northern Hebrides and the north- the ' Hebrides,* as Reeves translates it. It was a name applied after the Viking invasions to several districts of Ireland and Scotland, where there wasa population bred from a mixtureof the Gall and the Gaidheal, or from the Gall and the Picts either of Erin or Alba. The Gall in this instance were, of course, the Scandinavians. ^ Gallgaedelaib,' as here used, indicates Caithness, which is still currently referred to by Celts as Gallaibh (the shortened form) which displaced Cattaibh, the Pictish name for Caithness and Sutherland. ' Gallgaedelaib ' is a misnomer at best. It shows that the scholiast had a very imperfect idea, not uncommon after the Viking invasions, of how much of the north of Scotland the Gaidheals had pene- trated ; and how much the Vikings had occupied. He appears also to have had the impression that Donnan was martyred at Cill-Donnan, Sutherland. * Namely S. Kessoc. S. Cadoc and S. Constantine belonged really to the Church of the Britons. 272 BANGOR &> GLASGOW west of the mainland, where both laboured, con- tained a population in which the Picts predomin- ated. They also show how the way was opened up for S. Maelrubha in his later and more wide- spread operations in north-western Pictland. They help to vindicate Nenntus, and they indic- ate that 'pirates of the ocean' raided parts of the coast of Pictland many years before the ap- pearance of the Scandinavian Vikings. They ex- pose Joceline's manoeuvres in the interests of the Roman See of Glasgow by showing that S. Donnan was engaged in Galloway, in the active care of the Churches of Candida Casa, at the very time when Joceline wished the world to believe that these Churches and their districts had fallen to the care of Glasgow. Further it is to be noted that while S. Donnan was busily employed as the deputy of Candida Casa in extending the Church in the north-west of Pictland, and in ministering to congregations at earlier foundations of Can- dida Casa elsewhere in the North; S. Dagan* bishop and Ab, another Irish Pict, who had been trained at S. Comgall's Bangor, was actually the ruling Cleric and President of Candida Casa. In passing, the presence of these and other Irish Picts occupying leading ecclesiastical positions in the Galloway of this period suggests how this province came to be considered Pictish. Origin- ally it had been part of Roman Britain, and,after- * He is referred to in Bede's H.E.G.A. lib. ii. cap. iv. T 273 THE PICTISH NATION wards, it became part of the revived kingdom of the Britons. But it lay opposite, and close to the territory of the northern Irish Picts whom the Irish Gaidheals or Scots were continually press- ing into the sea. It is certain that ecclesiastics like SS. Dagan and Donnan were not the only Irish Picts who had crossed into Galloway; and it is hardly likely that they would have taken the positions there which they did, if there had not been a considerable Iro-Pictish element and in- fluence among the original Britonic population. Even in Bede's time, when Galloway was subject to the Angles of Bernicia, the leading clergy of the new Church of the Roman Mission bear names like 'Pechthelm' and 'Pechtwine' which indicate Pictish owners. S. DAGAN OF CANDIDA CASA; AND THE ATTEMPTS OF THE ROMAN MISSION TO ABSORB THE BRITO-PICTISH CHURCH CHAPTER ELEVEN The Roman missionaries under the leadership of Augustine, who entered Kent c. a.d. 597, had taken the invading Teutons as their particular charge. Wherever the military or political power of Angle or Saxon prevailed, they took advant- age of it to push forward the ecclesiastical or- ganization of the Roman Church. Across the Saxon or Anglian borders, however, they always came up against the older organization of the Church of the Britons which had ministered throughout the island long before their arrival. It has already been noted that, c. a.d. 603, August- ine aspired to impose the authority and or- ganization of the Roman Church upon this branch of the Celtic Church among the Britons; and, to this end, secured a conference with the British clergy who came mostly from the Bangor of S. Dunod. It has also been noted that Augustine's aspirations were defeated by his own arrogance and pretensions, by the fact that the clergy of the British Church were fully conscious of the authority and history of their own Church, and regarded the Roman clergy as innovators and foreigners whose aggression rested on the secu- 275 THE PICTISH NATION lar power commanded by the national foes of the Britons. The failure of the Roman clergy on this occasion was followed by threats which even the pious Bede saw fulfilled in the ghastly massacre of the brethren of S. Dunod's community on the eve of the rout of Legacaester (Chester) a.d. 613, of which the hero was Ethelfrid, the most savage of the Teuton Invaders, whom Bede admiring- ly but most unjustly likened to Saul, king of Israel, except that he declared him Ignorant of 'Divine religion.' About a.d. 606, after the death of Augustine, and when Laurentlus occupied his precarious seat at Canterbury, the new prelate and two other members of the Roman Mission, Mellitus, bishop of London, and Justus, bishop of Rochester, made a second attempt to bring the Celtic clergy. Church, and people, into the Roman fold. Although Augustine at the time of hisdeathhadonlyan insecure hold of the Kentish corner of the Saxon possessions with the good- will of Ethelbert, one of the Saxon kings, whose subjects were really pagan; hehad,if the compos- ite version of Bede can be trusted, with the recog- nition of Rome, arrogated to himself the title of 'Archbishop of Britain.'* By the promulgation of this title Rome refused consideration to the Church of the Britons, and denied it the respect duetothedaughterofthe ancient Church of Gaul. Laurentlus directed his attempt at the control * Bede, lib. ii. cap. iii. 276 ROME ^ CANDIDA CAS A of the Celtic Church through S. Dagan* oi Can- dida Casa, in the first instance. No details are given, and nothing would be known of the effort if Bede had not referred to it in the preface to a letter which Laurentius and his two colleagues addressed to the bishops and presbyters of the Celtic Church in Ireland. f They also addressed a similar letter to the bishops of the Church of the Britons which, as Bede indicates, had no effect. The letter to the Irish was superscribed as follows: 'Laurentius, Mellitus, and Justus, Bishops, servants of the servants of God; to the lords Bishops and Abbots throughout all the country of the Irish.' The letter proceeds to state that before they came to Britain they had held both the Britons and Irish in great esteem for sanctity; and had believed that they walked ac- cording to the usage of the universal Church, they meant the Church of Rome as they knew it. They had been disappointed with the Britons, however, but continued to hope better conduct on the part of the Irish. 'Now,' the letter continues sadly, 'we have learned from Bishop Dagan, who has come into this aforesaid island (Britain), and from the Abbot Columban (S. Columbanus from Ban- * Bede, lib. ii. cap. iv. t Referred to as ' Scots,' the usual designation on the Continent of the Irish generally, at that time. This name is now the current designation of the Gaidheals, and is usually restricted to the Gaidheals of Scotland. The two Celtic ecclesiastics referred to in the letter of Laurentius were, however, pupils of the great Pictish College of Bangor in Ulster, and were Pictish ecclesiastics. ^11 THE PICTISH NATION gor) in Gaul, that the Irish in no way differ from the Britons in their walk; because when Bishop Dagan came to us, not only did he refuse to eat at the same table, but refused even to eat in the same guest-house.' Evidently there had been a conference at some convenient centre like that arranged by Augustine at 'the Oak on the border of the Hwiccas.' The Celts, never destitute of humour, could hardly help being amused by this letter. The Celtic bishops, bound by a strong rule to humility, taking their turn of menial work with the humblest brother in the muinntir, living under the rule and authority of the Ab, clad in coarse garments, subsisting on the plainest fare, holding no gifts and no property for themselves, aspiring to the severest apostolic simplicity, must have marvelled to find themselves addressed as ' lords Bishops. ' 1 1 was in extreme contrast to the ways of their own people, who the greater that their clergy happened to be, only loaded their names with diminutives of affection; and even though they were the sons of kings, addressed them in the terms that they applied to their pet children, and even to their pet animals. The letter of the prelates, so far as quoted by Bede, mentions that S. Dagan had come into Britain; but whence or whither is suppressed. S. Dagan's name is the last in the list of Celtic bishops* in * They are not in chronological order. Some names are, others are arranged by groups. 278 ROME &' CANDIDA CAS A the Litany of Dunkeld. Camerarius* has pre- served the information that he was bishop in 'Galloway,' the later diocesan name of Candida Casa, and that he had been trained at Bangor, Bangor of Ulster is meant. In the letter he is bracketed with S. Columbanus, another of S. Comgall's pupils at Bangor of Ulster. It is plain that the Roman missionaries wished, in this in- stance, to rope in the Irish Celts by the agency of the Pictish ecclesiastics of Bangor, the training- centre which at this time {c. a.d. 606) was send- ing into Britain and over the continent of Europe the most learned and most influential men of the Celtic world. When the Roman bishops in Gaul first assailed S. Columbanus {c, a.d. 585), it was not regarding any essential of the Faith nor any point of morals, then so lax among the Prankish clergy, but simply that he might adopt Rome's latest method of calculating Easter, and that he might allow himself and his muinntirs to be ab- sorbed into the Roman ecclesiastical system. Among the Gallican clergy there was sympathy with S. Columbanus, because all bore witness to his irreproachable life; but the poorly-educated, domineering. Prankish clergy, who were the cor- rupt creatures of an immoral court, persecuted * As late as the sixteenth century Camerarius had access to some MS. of Britonic origin which has since disappeared, because to him we owe our knowledge of Euchad of Candida Casa, whom Colgan knew of as an 'Apostle to the Picts,' ofcertainactsof S. Finbar, pupil at Candida Casa, and of S. Dagan, the last of its prominent Abbot-bishops. 279 THE PICTISH NATION him. He was summoned to Synods which he never attended. One of his letters still survives which is believed to have been written to the second Council of Macon, a.d. 585. The biting ironyand laughing humility which it contains were probably wasted on the gross Teutonic minds of the Franks and Burgundians. Intellectually he was as a giant among these men; morally, as an angel of light. But the superscription of his letter is, from 'Columbanus, a sinner,' to the bishops 'his holy lords.' He expresses thanks that so many 'holy men' convene to judge him. He hopes that 'assembled in Christ' they would con- cern themselves not merely with the Paschal date; but with discipline in the interests of the moral purity of the Church, a condition for which he had already denounced some of the bishops as being responsible. He points out that he came to Gaul for the cause of Jesus Christ, and he pleads that he be left unmolested. He declares that he did not originate the difference about Easter; but in- dicates, as afterwards to the Bishop of Rome,* that it began in the method of Anatolius, whowas approved by S. Jerome. He indicates also that he was loyal to the traditions of the CelticChurch and the ways of S. Comgall the Great, his teacher. He then closes his letter with a noble appeal: 'Let all follow the Gospel and Jesus Christ our Head.' 'Fathers of the Church,' he continues, * In his letter to Gregory. 280 ROME ^ CANDIDA CASA 'pray for us, as we, though vile mortals, pray for you. Do not cast us out from you as aliens. We are joint members of the one Body whether we be Gauls, Britons, or Irish,* or of whatsoever other nation. Forgive my prolonged epistle and firm- ness, as of one struggling beyond his strength. Do not forget that you, most holy and most patient fathers, are also our brothers.* The Celtic Church had developed out of S. Martin's revolt against the luxury, moral laxity, and hankering after temporal power which char- acterized the Church of the West in the fourth century when the influence of the bishopric of Rome was limited by the character of its bishops. In the interval between S. Martin and S. Col- umbanus the Roman Church had aggrandized itself by giving countenance to the 'barbarians,' after they had settled, in return for their support. The 'barbarians' in the time of S. Columbanus were still only nominal Christians. There was some outward polish to the vice of the decaying Roman civilization which S. Martin denounced; but the public lewdness of the Prankish barbar- ians which roused S. Columbanus was brutally coarse and disgusting. Many of the clergy had compromised with their Teutonic masters, with the result that the moral obligations and ideals of the Church were thrust aside in many quarters. Many of her ministers cared only for centralizing * The reading has been taken as ' Ivernian ' and as * Iberian. ' 281 THE PICTISH NATION the control of the Church in the Bishop of Rome, for unquestioning submission to the recent mon- archic type of bishop, for formal adherence to ap- proved dogma, and evenness of organization. S. Columbanus showed that he fully comprehend- ed the deteriorated condition of the Church, he stood for purity and cleanness of life, for human- ity in thought and action, for honest adhesion to Christ's example; and he held that there was as much need in his own time as there had been in the fourth century to maintain the tradition of S. Martin, his spiritual father, and to manifest within the Church the apostolic pattern of its ministry, and to demand Christ's own require- ments from His converts. S. Dagan acted exactly like S. Columbanus. As President of Candida Casa, the treasury in Britain of the traditions that S. Ninian had brought direct from S. Martin, he fearlessly stood aloof from the Roman mission- aries. The attitude of both these great pupils of Bangor was the attitude of Bangor itself, and of all its dependent communities, both among the Picts of Erin and the Picts of Alba. The whole of the Northern Picts of Ireland still held out against the dictation of Rome in a.d. 64 1 , because in that year John IV., Bishop of Rome, wrote once more to the Irish clergy trying to attract them into the Roman organization, and under Roman discipline, that is if certain versions of Bede's original can be trusted. Part of the super- 282 ROME ^ CANDIDA CASA scription of the letter, however, is suspect, and the part of it relating to an abbot and bishop of Armagh in a.d. 641 is certainly an interpol- ation in the interests of the claims of that See to primacy. However, among the clergy alleged to have been addressed by Bishop John are Lais- ranus or Mac Laisre, presbyter-abbot of Bangor in Ulster, who died i6th May a.d. 646, and Cronan, bishop and abbot of the neighbouring smaller but more ancient community of Aond- ruim which had been dependent on Candida Casa. S. Dagan's behaviour in refusing to eat with Laurentius and the bishops of London and Rochester has generally been represented as a contemptible example of Celtic pettiness, but this is due to historical ignorance. S. Dagan lived under the very strict Rule of S. Comgall which was observed wherever the pupilsof Bangor ruled or ministered. Laurentius and his fellow-bishops were hindered by no such Rule. S. Dagan was not allowed to feast; but was restricted to a min- imum quantity of the simplest food, to be eaten only in the evening. He was not allowed to enter into contentious conversations, which was the reason assigned by S. Columbanus, another Ban- gor pupil, for not meeting the bishops of Gaul in Council. He was compelled to avoid worldly am- bition and temptation, and, therefore, the honours held out by the Roman missionaries to those who would submit to Rome. Moreover, S. Dagan, 283 THE PICTISH NATION used not only to a strict life, but to demand a high moral standard from his disciples, could not ap- prove of the Church represented by Laurentius which, as is visible from the pages of Bede him- self, tolerated the greatest moral laxity in its secu- lar supporters. We see the state of public life and ignorance among the Teutonic Saxons of Kent in the paganism and immorality of the prince Eadbald* under the eyes of the professedly Chris- tian king Ethelbert and his chief bishop; and among the princes and people of the East Sax- ons who, during the life of a professedly Christian king, Sabert, openly practised the coarse idolatry of the Teutons; and as they looked on at Mellitus, the Roman bishop of London, celebrating the Holy Eucharist, demanded of him, 'Why do you not give also to us that white-bread which you used to give to our father Saba? ' Is it possible to imagine a sensitive, reverent Celt like S. Dagan, brought up in an atmosphere of impressive de- votion, giving countenance to those who were content with such a condition of public morals and manners; or to think of him accepting an invit- ation to enter a Church supported by these gross Teutons who were the hated foes of his nation? However, there was humour as well as pain in the whole situation. While Laurentius and his fel- low-bishops were calling upon the Britons, Picts, and other Celts to submit to Rome and to re- * Bede, lib. ii. cap. v. 284 ROME &" CANDIDA CASA cognize the new Archbishop of Canterbury as their Archbishop, they had actually not secured their own foothold in England. In a.d. 6i6 the East Saxons revived idolatry, and Mellitus, the bishop of London, and Justus, the bishop of Rochester, fled to Gaul. Laurentius the Arch- bishop was about to follow their example when he was restrained by a change in the affections of the king, who suddenly put away his father's wife, his stepmother, with whom he had been liv- ing, and professed sympathy for the sufferings of his chief cleric. Justus was recalled to Rochester; but the people of London refused to receive Mel- litus their bishop, preferring their heathen priests. Yet the attitude of S. Dagan, S. Columbanus, and other Pictish and British ecclesiastical leaders towards the overtures of these foreign ecclesias- tics, hardly able to keep their heads above the flood of Teutonic'paganism, has been contented- ly described by historians as a typical example of Celtic ignorance and obstinacy. The truth is that the Celtic Church had inherited a tradition as to the necessity of moral as well as theological purity in the Church to which its ministers refused to prove false. S. Dagan's day in the Kalendars is the 29th May, but the year of his death in the seventh century has not been preserved. Some time after S. Dagan's death the milit- ary power of the Angles opened a way for Rome into Galloway, where ecclesiastical diplomacy 285 THE PICTISH NATION had failed. The Anglian domination of the an- cient British district, so closely associated with S. Ninian and his work, was not brought about by sudden conquest and extermination, but by gradual penetration. No precise dates can be given for it ; but it certainly began after the battle of Legacaester (Chester), a.d. 613, when Ethel- frid attempted to secure the separation of the Strathclyde Britons from those to the southward by a wedge of Anglian settlers. The domination was becoming effective in the reign of Edwin the Angle, slain a.d. 633, whose control reached from the North Sea across to the Irish waters;* and it appears to have been complete in the reign of Oswy, who died a.d. 670. During this period the place names began to change, which has been a source of much confusion in later times. Candida Casa was translated into early English, and it became Hwit-ErnCy now Whithorn. The Celts gave the district a name which the Latin scribes reproduce as 'Galweya,' that is, the province of the Gall or Strangers (Angles). Part of the local- ity of Candida Casa received the hybrid name, ' Glaston,'f still so pronounced, but spelled ' Glas- serton.' Another part was known by another hy- brid name, * Ynswitrin,'that is, I nnis J- Whithorn, * According to Bede. t The fabulists, who wrote in the interests of the antiquity of Glaston- bury, deliberately transferred much historical matter that applied to * Yns- witrin' of 'Glaston' in Galloway to Glastonbury of Somerset. X The Pictish Innis is not always applied to a complete island. 286 ROME af CANDIDA CASA Still known as 'Isle of Whithorn.' During the reign of King Edwin, just mentioned, the king's chief cleric, the tactful Roman missionary, Paul- inus, in the time of his uncertain tenure of the new bishopric of York, between a.d. 626 and 633, visited 'the first church in Britain, built at Yns- witrin,** that is, of course, the church founded at Candida Casa by S. Ninian, and 'Ynswitrin' is Isle of Whithorn to the present day. The bene- volent bishop, finding the hurdle-work of the building dilapidated, strengthened the Church with wood and metal-sheathing. That kindness of Paulinus was an act of true Christian charity; because, though Candida Casa was in his nominal diocese, there is no indication that its clergy had yet conformed to Rome. The visit, however, was ominous for the future oi Can- dida Casa\ because, if the mother-Church of the Britons was going to fall under the care of the chief cleric of the Angles, it was manifest that York, from its geographical position and its im- portance as a political centre, would become the ecclesiastical centre of the future, and not Can- dida Casa. After the flight of Paulinus from his bishopric at York in a.d. 633, the Celts of Gallo- way were left to the undisturbed ministry of their * Cf. Reeves, Adamnan's V.S.C. p. io6, and authorities. Even the careful Dr. Reeves makes no protest against the fabulists who transferred this act of Paulinus away from his own diocese to distant Glastonbury, whither, at the time, Paulinus could not have gone except at the risk of his life. 287 THE PICTISH NATION own clergy. In a.d. 635 the mission, headed by Aidan from the Columban Church of the Gaidh- eals or Scots of lona, came among the Angles at the request of king Oswald; but even then Candida Casa was undisturbed, because it was in close touch with Bangor, and the centre of Aidan's activities was far away at Lindisfarne on the eastern coast of the Angles. In a.d. 664 Ceadda, a disciple of Aidan, was ordained 'bishop of the church of York.'* This wise and good bishop, who declined to adopt the grand manners of the Roman 'lord bishops,* applied himself 'to humil- ity, self-denial, and study, travelling about, not on horseback, but on foot, and preaching the Gospel in towns, the open country, villages, cottages, and castles, after the manner of the Apostles.' Bede indicates that through his teaching ' the Scots who dwelt among the Angles' — by 'Scots,'f of course, he means Irish, whether Gaidheals or Picts — conformed to the ways of the Roman Church or returned *to their own country.'^ After the Roman bishops, John,§ Wilfrid II.,|| and Egbert, ^had by their administrative abilities restored York to be a centre of control, Candida Casa again comes into the light. This time it is * Bede, lib. iii. cap. xxviii. \ Such was the meaning of the name at this time. X Bede, lib. iii. cap. xxviii. § Transferred to York, 705 ; retired and died, 721. II Succeeded John, 718 ; resigned, 732 ; died, 745. Highly praised by Alcuin. ^ Received the pallium as Archbishop of York, 735. 288 ROME ^ CANDIDA CASA as a diocesan bishopric of the Roman Church, and it is governed by a monarchic bishop, who is a suffragan of the Archbishop of York. Two of the first four Roman bishops bear Anglian names that indicate their Pictish origin and Pictish sym- pathies. Pechthelm was bishop a.d. 730, and Pechtwine a.d. 776. Thus Candida C^5«,the mother-Church of the Britons and Picts, cut off from her own children by an unsympathetic secular power, passed into the organization and service of the Church of a foreign invader, controlled from an alien State. Even then she did not forget her former glory, but by the jealousy of the Sees of York and Glas- gow she was kept humble. In later times, when a fresh inflow of Celtic blood into Galloway re- vived the old Celtic spirit of the bishopric, she insisted on renewing her former interest in the Celts. It is to her honour that, after the Viking period, she sent out her missionary 'Malcolme' with a companion, who, c. a.d. 1223-27, occupied and revived S. Ninian's ancient foundation at Fearn of Edderton, * in Ross, on territory also hal- lowed by the work of SS. Finbar and Donnan, both connected with Candida Casa. About a. d. 1238-42, this interesting house was transported to Nova Farina'^ (Fearn), south of Tain, where it * The Celtic remains of Fearn of Edderton, and the story of the later house at Nova Farina, are fully given in the author's S. Ninian, chapter x. u 289 THE PICTISH NATION continued to maintain its connection with Can- dida Casa until the Reformation of the Church of Rome in Scotland. THE LEADERS OF THE CHURCH IN PICTLAND IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY CHAPTER TWELVE Of the rankand file of the ministers of the Church of the Picts sent out in the seventh century from Candida Casa, Glasgow, and Bangor, little is known except their bare names attached to some cross-marked stone, well, pool in a stream, or disused Churchyard, with, perhaps, a chance confirmationof their existence in theZ^^ or Acts of some Celtic Ab or bishop. Fortunately some- thing more is recoverable concerning some of the leaders. While S. Donnan the Great was still active in the north and north-west of Pictland S. BJaan* took up the work of his uncle, S. Catan, and concentrated his attention on the south-west and south. S. Blaan was born in the island of Bute, trained at the great Pictish school of Bangor in Ulster, and associated afterwards with his master S. Comgall and the latter's friend S. Cainnech (Ken- neth) of Fife and Achadh-Bo in their work in Pictland. His mother was Ertha,f sister of S. Catan, J: who had gone in her youth with her * See Vita Catani, notes, A A. SS. Hib. Colgan. S. Blaan'sZ^yJf was written by Newton, Archdeacon of Dunblane. Cf. also Aberdeen Brevi- ary. His story was much garbled by the fabulists. t The Gaidheals or Scots spelled her name 'Erca,' a favourite name with them, because an Erca had been daughter of Loam Mor, % Not to be confused with S. Cadan of Magilligan in Derry . S. Catan's 291 THE PICTISH NATION brother from Ulster to Bute, where S. Catan organized a muinntir som& years after the found- ing of Bangor, A.D. 558. It is out of theungarbled particulars about S. Catan that most information about S. Blaan is recovered. S. Catan was the son of Madan, descended from I rial the son of Conall Cearnach, and was thus a member of the great Clan Rudhraighe of the Ulster Picts. He was consequently related toS. Comgall the Great and to S. Moluag, which determined S. Blaan's interest in the work of these leading Pictish ec- clesiastics. The husband of S. Catan's sister is described as a 'man of that country'* where she had settled, indicating that he was either a Briton or Pict of Alba. S. Catan is referred to as the foster-father and teacher of S. Blaan; and the Martyrology of Donegal is careful to explain that this is 'Blaan of Cinn-Garadh.' From the fact that S. Blaan was able to get his early educ- ation in Bute, it is apparent that the newer and later muinntirs continued to make the education day in Scotland was 17 th or i8th May. In certain Irish Kalendars he is noted at 1st February. * The Scotic fabulists, with a view to appropriating S. Blaan as a Gaidheal or Scot, state that Aedhan Mac Gabhran, king of Dalriada, was S. Blaan's father. Apart from the grossness of the suggestion, it is known to be untrue. Aedhan's wife and children are known ; and, of course, Blaan is not among the latter. Another phase of the fable which makes S. Blaan to be uncle of S. Molais or Molaisren of Lamlash is there- fore untrue also; because this Molaisren was son of Maithgemm, daughter of Aedhan. The Molaisren to whom S. Blaan was related was Ab of Bangor and died on the i6th of May 646. Both were relatives of S. Com- gall the Great. 292 SEVENTH CENTURY LEADERS of the young a feature of their work as at Candida Casa and the Bangors. S. Catan's muinntir of Pictish clergy was organized within a Lis at the south end of Bute. The place took its name from it, and came to be known as * Cinn-garadk,' Head of the Inclosure. Near it, on Kilchattan Bay, was the Church founded by the saint* and bearing his name. A Suidke, a feature of the locality of so many Pictish muinntirs, called after S. Catan, is in Kingarth parish behind the ancient Lis, while the Suidke Blaan is opposite. The date of S. Catan's death has not been pre- served; but it occurred about the end of the sixth century, because he was still alive when S. Blaan returned from completing his training at Bangor. S. Catan's connection with Bangor and its distinguished president, and his filial appreciation of the advantages of that great * S. Catan also founded Churches in Pictland and the western islands. His known foundations on the islands are in Gigha, Colonsay, Luing, and at Stornoway in Lewis. Scarinch chapel, if the Macleod tradition can be trusted, is a dedication of the Roman Catholic period at the instigation of a chief of Macleod. S. Catan's foundations on the mainland were at Kilchat- tan, Southend, Cantyre ; Ardchattan in Lorn ; and Aber Ruthven. As S. Catan was a contemporary and relative of S. Moluag and, like him, related to S. Comgall, and as all were Irish Picts, it is interesting to find them working in the old Pictish territory of Argyll and the islands, in spite of the Gaidhealic or Scotic colonists and their ecclesiastical leader S. Columba. It is plain from this: (i) that the Dalriads took a long time to make their penetration of the Pictish territories in the west effective; (2) that in Cantyre itself and elsewhere in Argyll, S. Columba's act of enthron- ing Aedhan at the expense of the royal clan of Comghall MacDomangart, which produced civil war, gave many of the Dalriads political reasons for remaining detached from the Columban clergy. THE PICTISH NATION college of the Picts, naturally moved him to send S. Blaan thither. There the young man spent the greater part of seven years. It is stated also that S. Blaan was for a time with the other eminent Pictish Ab S. Cainnech; but whether this was in Fife, or after S. Cainnech had organ- ized Achadh-Bo, a.d. 578, is not made clear. S. Blaan eventually succeeded his uncle, and he became Ab and bishop of the Pictish community at Kingarth. It is instructive that the scholiast in the Feilire of Aengus* indicates the district in which Kingarth is situated as ' Gallgaedelaib' Once more, this is not Galloway, nor was it so understood in the earlier Kalendars. The use of 'Gallgaedelaib' to cover Bute indicates that the note was made subsequent to the Viking inva- sions, at a time when the Norsemen had inter- married with Briton, Pict, or Gaidheal along the coasts, and when a breed half-Teutonic and half- Celtic occupied and ruled the island of Bute. This was actually the situation in the tenth century.f The Feilire refers to ' Blaan of beauti- * Leabhar BreacWS), t ^ Gallgaedelaib' •^2& an inaccurate name from a national point of view; because the Celtic side of the cross-breed was represented by Britons and Picts as often as Gaidheals. The Scotic clerics gave the name currency. In 1034 ' Gallgaedelaib^ was correctly used of a large part of the west coast, including the Islands. Once it is used of Caithness and Sutherland. In 1034 the dominions of the Galls, under Thorfinn the Jarl, included the Northern, Western, and Southern Islands, Caithness, parts of Suther- land, Ross, Argyll, and Galloway, not to mention coast settlements in Moray, Buchan, Mearns, and Angus. After the death of Olaf of Man in 1 153, Godred his son and Somerled, 294 SEVENTH CENTURY LEADERS ful Cenn Garad,' which in this instance is not poet- ical licence. Few more beautiful Church-sites exist in Britain. The Feilire also describes the community as spiritually healthful, fair, and 'as- sertive.' S. Blaan also founded a Church at * Kil- blain' near Kilchattan Cantyre. He carried his work into 'Levinia' (Lennox) and Stirling. He was the founder of the Church of Dunblane, and this site, in later centuries during the Roman Catholic period, became the seat of the bishops of -that diocese.* This accident gave a promin- ence to the name of S. Blaan which threatened to eclipse the earlier work of his predecessor S. Catan. The year of S. Blaan's death is not known, but his next recorded successor was Daniel, Ab and bishop, who died at Kingarth a.d. 660. lolan, the next Ab and bishop at Kingarth, died a.d. 689. The community was very ably led during S. Ronan's presidency. At a.d. 737 Tighernac records the death of Ronan, Ab of * Cind-Garadh.' Maelmanach, a successor of S. Ronan, died a.d. 776. This and the other dates are confirmed by lord of Argyll, his son-in-law, quarrelled over the Islands. Following a naval battle fought on the night of the Epiphany 1156 it was settled that Godred should take Man and Arran and the Outer Isles, while Somerled's people received Bute, and the Islands clinging to the Argyll coast south of Ardnamurchan. * In the Breviary of Aberdeen it will be seen how the fabulists invented for him a journey to Rome, and the miracle of raising a dead boy, for which he received four lordships in England. The whole fable was invented to justify the possession by the Roman See of Dunblane of the revenues of Appleby, Troclyngham, Congere, and Malemath. THE PICTISH NATION the corrected Annals of Ulster* Angus the Culdee began to write at the end of the century in which S. Ronan,| Ab and bishop, and Ab Maelmanach died. The epi- thet 'assertive,' which he applies to the com- munity at Kingarth, was amply justified by S. Ronan's own activities. This Ab founded ChurchesJ not only in the districts where his predecessors SS.Catan and Blaanhad ministered but on lona, the sanctuary of the Gaidheals or Scots. More has to be said about this hereafter. Associated with the community and work of Kin- garth at this period was the later S. Mo-'dan,§ distinguished as 'of Rosneath.' He also laboured in Argyll, Lennox, and Stirling, and has founda- tions at Kilmodan {' Kilmkodkan')'m Glendaruel; * Cf. corrected A'a/^waTar by Dr. Reeves. t Skene (C«//.6'(r^7 THE PICTISH NATION five -years old episcopal chair established by- Canterbury at Abercorn-on- Forth, and the dis- appearance of the usurped title 'Bishop of the Picts,' a people who in the seventh century had no desire for monarchic, 'regional,' or diocesan bishops ; although they honoured and loved the bishops who lived with the presbyters under their Abs in the Pictish muinntzrs, dispensing the Sacra- ments, teaching, ministering to the poor, study- ing, and helping to keep their communities by toiling with their own hands in the fields, working the nets in the rivers and the sea, sewing clothes or sandals, and all the while taking turn in main- taining the praise of God which ceased not night or day. When Trumwine reached Northumbria he 'commended his followers wheresoever he could' to the charity of friends; he himself, with a few of his own brethren, found what appears to have been a comfortable asylum at Sron-na-so/ts,* the Promontory of the beacon-light, in Hilda's 'monastery,' where he acted as chaplain to the English princess Elfied,f who was abbess at the time. One obvious lesson from the ejection of Trumwine from Abercorn was that if the Roman Catholics wished to succeed in introducing their hierarchy into Pictland, it would have to be done * Bede spells it ' SfreanaesAa/cA,' which he interprets as Bay of the Lighthouse, lib, iii. cap. xxv. t She was dedicated to holy virginity by her father, king Oswy, when she was a year old as a thankoffering for victory over the pagan Angle Penda and the Mercians. ENGLISH FAIL AND FLEE by peaceful suasion and penetration, after the manner which they finally adopted in Galloway to capture Candida Casa^ and not by bullying, and pretensions of superiority at the points of the swords of English battalions. Until the time of Angus, another of the great soldier sovereigns of Pictland, who became a new terror to the English, the national army of the Angles avoided the Picts. Even Adamnan, the spiritual chief of the Gaidheals or Scots, sought the patronage and goodwill of the hero of *Dun- Nechtain.'* Brude Mac Bil6 died in a.d. 693.! The chiefs of Pictland appointed Taran Mac Enti- fidich to succeed him. He was apparently a weak sovereign, and wasdeposedafterrulingfouryears. Two of those years were nominal, the real power during that time being in the hands of Brude, chief of the powerful house of Derelei, who eventually was called to the sovereign's place. During his * The Gaidheals or Scots forged his name to the ^ Lex Adamnani^ and style him ' King of the Region of the Picts.' t The Pictish sovereigns between Ciniath Mac Luthrenn and Brude Mac Bile are: Gartnaidh Mac Wid (G. Foith), died 635; Brude Mac Wid, died 641 ; Talorg Mac Wid, died 653; Talorgan Mac 'Enfred,' son by a Pictish mother of the fugitive Angle Eanfrid son of Ethelfrid, followed. Eanfrid had been banished from England, and had found asylum among the Picts {cf. Bede, lib. iii. cap. i. ). He was recalled to England, and died the apostate king of the Bernicians. Talorgan his son, whose right of elec- tion to the sovereignty of the Picts arose from his mother, died in 657. Gartnaidh son of Donnel followed him, and died in 663. Drust his brother succeeded him, and was sovereign until 672, when he was deposed, and Brude Mac Bil^ was appointed. The Pictish Chronicle gives the duration of his reign as 21 years; and Tighernac confirms by giving his death at 693. THE PICTISH NATION reign, in A.D.698,theEnglish general, Berct,*who had been Egfrid's pitiless instrument in ravaging the territory of the Irish Gaidheals or Scots, and who, under king Aldfrid, had been living as a rural 'ealdorman,' essayed on his own account to find out what the new sovereign of the Picts was like, and took the field. The Picts, who had a long account against him, made him pay with his life. Brude Derelei died in a.d. 706. f He was suc- ceeded in the sovereignty by a second member of the family, Nechtan Derelei. This sovereign was destined to make trouble for his subjects. The knowledge that Brude Derelei had practi- cally wrested the sovereignty from the elected monarch ; and that he was the second member of the clan Derelei to hold the supreme power, evid- ently made him irresponsible and careless to- wards the feelings of his subjects. He was drawn into friendly intercourse with the English over matters relating to the government and usages of the Church of Pictland, which fall to be con- sidered later. This, in spite of the fact that inA.D. 71 1| the English showed their feelings towards him and the people whom he ruled by appearing in force on the Moor of Mannan,§ on the borders * His full name was ' Berctred.' ( Cf. Bede v. xxiv. ) t The date is Tighernac's. The Pictish Chronicle states that he reigned 'xi.' years. This is a transposition of 'ix.' However, if two of the four years credited to the weak Taran be reckoned, he reigned xi. years. I Bede, lib. v. cap. xxiv. § This is the ^Campus Mannand'' of the Irish sources. Bede mentions this fight in his summary, but it is kept out of the narrative. ENGLISH FAIL AND FLEE of Stirlingshire and East Lothian, under king Osred's chief ealdorman, Bertfrid. Both sides suffered severely. The Anglican historian re- cords no victory, and in the Irish sources no vic- tory is claimed; but the annalists confess that, to the disappointment of the Picts, a chief, Findgane Mac Deleroith, was slain. These incidents show that Nechtan's subjects were not being very tactfully prepared for the international and inter- ecclesiastical relations into which their sove- reign was soon to be drawn. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS COM- PLETE EVERYWHERE IN PICT- LAND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY CHAPTER FOURTEEN At the beginning of the eighth century the or- ganized Pictish Church was the sole ministering body throughout every corner of the Pictish do- minions, excepting a few square miles at one or two different points on the eastern borders of Dalriada, on the line of Drum-Alban, where the Gaidheals or Scots had intruded their clergy from I (lona). As Dicuil* and others show, confirm- ing the passage paraphrased by Joceline from the Old Life of S. Kentigern, the Pictish clergy had occupied the field not only to its verge in Caith- ness, in the Orkneys, and in the Shetlands, but as far north as Iceland.f It is well to grasp not only how these Pictish clerics were organized in their wide operations; but how and from whence they were directed. They were not independents; they were all members of some religious clan which itself might be a branch of some great cen- tral community like Candida Casa or Bangor. Even if a single cleric desired only to go into * Cf. De Mensura Prov. Orbis Terrae; Edd. Letronne and Parlhey. Dicuil wrote a.d. 825. t Cf. V. S. Kent., Joceline, cap. xxiv., and the Landnamabok, Ari Frodi, who came to Iceland c. 1075. CHURCH ORGANIZATION temporary 'retreat' on a lonely island, or into a 'disert,' he asked the sanction, or took the direc- tion, of his Ab.* All the Celtic clergy, wherever they might go, remained loyal to their Ab, and subject to the discipline of the central commun- ity in which they had been trained, or to the branch with which they had been affiliated. Even S. Columbanus, among the Vosges mountains, far away from his parent-community at Bangor of the Irish Picts, although he refused to submit to the episcopal jurisdiction of the Roman bishops, or to regard himself as subject to the discipline of the Bishop of Rome, made no claim to be an independent; but declared, on the contrary, that he was loyal to the rules and discipline authorized by his Ab, S. Comgall the Great of Bangor. He made clear too that he considered the govern- ment and usage under which he had been trained at Bangor as in accordance with the teaching and practice of the Apostles. Monarchic,diocesan epis- copacy he regarded as an innovation; and he was not slow in indicating that the opulence and mag- nificence of the monarchic clergy, and their con- sequent relations with a corrupt court, were injuri- ous to the whole Christian Church and to Society. In striving to explain the organization and government of the Celtic Churches, historians have as a rule not been able to prevent them- * Sometimes ' Retreat' was enforced as a matter of discipline; as when an Abbot of Zona retired to a 'disert' and a junior official took his place among the brethren. Z17> THE PICTISH NATION selves from reading into them the formsof Church government familiar to themselves. Episcopal- ians have persisted in regarding the Celtic bish- ops as monarchic and diocesan, which they were not. They were members of their muinntirs, and were under the government of the Abs, and they had no dioceses; but they had power to refrain from an ordination,* even though the candidate were the Ab's nominee. Presbyterians, on the other hand, have professed to see in the Celtic bishop living in subordination to the Ab only a simple presbyter with a special duty relating to the Sacraments, and to solemnities like ordin- ation. But though the bishop was less in authority than the Ab, he was more in the administration of ordinances than the presbyter, because no pres- byter was expected to dispense any Sacrament if a bishop happened to be present, f Sometimes, of course, an Ab was also an ordained bishop; but some of the greatest Abs deliberately re- mained presbyters. The relations of bishop and Ab were much like those of the chaplain of a modern British regiment to his battalion com- mander. At divine services the chaplain is senior officer, but in all other work and service he is sub- ject to his battalion commander; so in the Celtic * S. Columba expected the unnamed bishop to exercise this right when Findchan called him to ordain king Aedh of the Picts of Uladh. t No bishop would dispense the Sacrament in the Church of Kildare when a presbyter was present. The story was that on a bishop insisting on his right to dispense the Sacrament rather than the resident presbyter, the latter in a moment of temper murdered him. 334 CHURCH ORGANIZATION muinntirs, at sacramental services the bishop, if invited to act,* was for the time being incommand of the community; but in all other work and ser- vice he was, with the rest of the community, sub- ject to the Ab. Consequently diocesan bishops or bishops with monarchic powers f are not to be found in the Church of the Picts before, or at, the begin- ning of the eighth century; though they be looked for never so imaginatively. As has already been pointed out, the executive ministry of the Church of the Picts throughout all Pictland and the Pictish Islands was organized in small ecclesiastical clans in which the Ab was sub- stituted for the chief. In the early period these ;;^2<2;^;^/?Vi'or families consisted of twelve members on the model of the Apostolic band; but later, the Abs, like S. Comgall or S. Dunod, who led in mis- sionary enterprise, or who aimed at making their colleges centres of education, presided over mui- nntirs numbering hundreds and even thousands. So soon as S. Maelrubha had established his muinntir at Abercrossan, Pictland was supplied with efficient communities under governing Abs throughout its entire length and breadth. Some early communities like S. Ninian's, Stir- * There is on record the instance of a presbyter- Ab who was greatly annoyed because he dispensed the Lord's Supper in the presence of a visiting bishop who did not reveal his office, t Unless, of course, they were Abs who had been ordained as bishops; and then they were monarchic not as bishops but as! Abs. 335 THE PICTISH NATION ling,* and the Banchoriesf of SS. Ternan and Demhanoc had become diminished at this period, or were staffed like collegiate Churches. Some, on the other hand, like S. Ninian's Glasgow, J S. Ninan's Loch-Ness,§ and S. Ninian's Fearn of Edderton, had increased in strength and useful- ness. Even solitary cells and DisertSy which ori- ginally had been places of retreat, had become, or were becoming, associated with active com- munities, as, for example, Abthein of Kinghorn, Z^w^r^of Angus, Cloveth, and I sle of Loch- Leven. Tribal Churches like Abernethy, Dunblane, and Brechin, which at first had been dependent on the big communities, had now become centres of training, government, and supply. The following tables show at a glance the distribution of the Pictish muinntirs throughout Pictland at the be- ginning of the eighth century so far as these are known. The tables are not exhaustive. Some communities like Banchory on the Isla have hardly left a memory behind them; others like S. Findomhnan's at the buried town of Forvie in Buchan, and S. Fergus's at Dalarossie, have left little more than the bare names of the founders, and remains that tease the antiquary. * This community was disturbed by the Anglian invasion of the southern bank of the Forth. t These suffered through proximity to the later central community at Mortlach, and the branches at Cloveth and Dunmeth. X Which became S. Kentigem's (Mungo). § Following Dalriad penetration, taken over by clerics of the Gaidh- eals or Scots in Adamnan's time. 336. To face p. 336. o t— I I— ( o M PQ W W H < < CQ J Q < <5 J (■r h< y-i u o fe C4 Q ^e y, £^ < c4 o hJ ^K. fn W H ,H CJ Ph pu, W tL. O ^!: K o o 1-4 (^ D X u 1— 1 S Q < f^ O C/5 W Pi H Z W (J w * a t5 ° aj o II b O op o u oS .-SO ^ ■" K c « •■2 S - d u '^ B < U2 t< g B ^ f-o S <« rt m c °|£.^ j; o « ^■« iv . o M A ^ CO r5 t - he (L) rO -^ :_rJJoo " o 4i o Sirs lilt "3 -a. 2 -a o s.s a, M oco ?i « § C/3 . 0! o r? ft; e t! M •< T i; '^ ti « c a S U J£.3z"5 ^ . " 2 o g ^ 2'«6u So-. a 8n „ 2 <« « 8, 2 ft I . q ■" 2 2 S «i o t: i2 2 3 ^ ^ c o oj u "•■-* s.-" o y " w J 5.!2C3S2SK.§'S^ZS^S0 < CO td a O o s < zO O X d) z fc o "2^ ^5 g -1 " 2 o ^-5 ^ • H " X OS X pq o X §x % Am oy •H- - „n. O J3l-'i-< z P o£ ft! "(3 rt 0--3 8 337 o H H Q Eg ? W o I— I w K H O P < o C/3 H W u h^ <1 u o 338 Of. 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J « J3 « < o en Su HhJ P Q O O K, ^1 Ota J 6: 343 o IS 1-4 o » K H H < Q < ►J H U w o <: fa o a> fa oi H iz: fa o o Oh, • c u E w rt *;i ** o y) " 8u^ I E.t; sr " O-Q O clt-1 s i* J< c • o "jt 0) go ._ ^ o J3 O o n'-J u « V) 6 ^ 0)-. ►J ■/I -ij ►^ re ago en S < K o & ^ b K B; w u on S 5 2 S t: « u S § M « Q c u H •"be S* • u " rt PQ O -■S.'S rt u ° = S.S?SE.bc„< S> j:e8£-2<-> •* en w 6. £ o X <» X H ^ 9 H O ^ PtPQg en 5H 344 s *> ^ u u, 5.°'. 2 •- 5tJ rs * c J3 ui 3 ■« 4) M o o^ £••30) wj ^ 4) arA o ^ t*^ ^ o - « « f?^S ^ •- • 3 o «Jp3 oi-i -5 • c c c wJL .a S !2; 3_M u (U Ws "^ Ue5 rt 3 S ^ " •3 "" o « - ^ * ■" o siilssJsi?fli§aiyiii9j 345 w OS H Ed ft. H Q §^§ Heights of Brechin a.d. 833. Like S. Dubhoc he was also connected with Monifod. One of his Churches was at Barry and another in the Mearns. The Iris A A nnalists also appro- priate him for Ard-Brecain, Ireland. Artgus was Ab and bishop c. a.d. 865. Duncan was Ab up to A.D. 965, when he was slain. Kin^ Kenneth's community of Scotic clerics was represented by a titular Ab (known as ■ •John Abbe ') as late as i2ip. "The spiritual duties were dis- charged by the prior ' Maol- bride.' None recorded ; but the com- munity continued until the Roman Catholic period, and became the centre of one of the reorganized parishes. S. Nidan A Bkiton and relation of S. Kentigern. Probably also S. Walloc. There was an Aberdeenshire tradition that KynOr superseded the Andat of Methlick ; but both con- tinued until the Roman Cath- olics reorganized the parishes. (3 5 C5 op ^ o Q Q ■< ■< 1 1 P3 « Q z S. Ninian the Great. S. Kentigern (MuNGO). < Abbrdbbnbhire. Near Huntly, Aberdeenshire. o < s O H PS •< !2i Brito-Pictish. Brito-Pictish. community) of Methlick. 'Andat '(parent community) of KynOr. 346 ft. a c s < < i;i y a < 2 Q S 2: < ■ 5 tj 2 = £ in i/i 3 c O 01 o f w ui op; Sm . G ^ 2 "3 o c u u U 1} j3 ^^■SfflCJ c o o « o CM 5 uW „ P3 5 v ■«i5 z « < o PQ S o »*^ U o fc. .00 «5 _1 ,„ 1) rt «». _ 'S a<; S c" t^ 2 4) mo 'i rt S hflO.liO rt 10 "6 rt o S ja £ iS S o rt ^-^-^ . C4i',3>-<^ 13 1) C r/. V) « ^^ A^ "^ *U 5 (U Qi C en ,, -, ^ O 4) t-> C H^ is J C 8^ OS Oh «j2 s^ a t-JO jj-g a,« W W H ^ >,5 WH'5 «« ^'■S W ^ iw T3 J3 c C rn o « « c ^ ^ -S ^-c OhJ^ §.y § S 0) o > whJ o 2 c 5 H-t r ) *j c o J- O" g-S 1, p- •^ :::3 -S ^ 2 "* ^o Si: S.a 350 M O ^1 W E SH W f- d! OS W B a <: 5 I* « < h a < z Q5 ^S5 ^4 o a l< ^ H ..■H 3-. «1 (4 c< > o.^ d *' «- ^ in w. .v: 0) f j2 3 i3 *j I a; O g 4J o i 8l-^ .2 u S rt H 5 X ■ SB ._ « o ,, ca », v« Ss. w ='-'-2 o u n] 4>j eg o 4; e "•£! i, " e i3--^ u C tX ki (2 - U13 o 3 ^•5 ■r. c 5 c m —-a M3 3 o d >.Q "5 c E>i: ?^ 3 ■< w a o >J s U a . o C/30 bo in C . .2 a (-;5t/J2^;^CJ.oSE2 6-^ = o o- ^^1 u o c « S "^ ; 2 o 5 M iSia > u C 'SCO «-3 " a-g, •a c Jf-S 3 oj ■SS--0 S H rt I g^3 jj U b <3 S I • E li! " o rt ■< I < " i> S h--- rt ( c c e ;q o ° Sj ^ c S ■= h 5-a ! n O^T3 O u U jj C U-O >: rt^ 3 3 «J S c ooo e g ^►^'^ 2-n^ '^ rtM'Sbi; S >^ S 2 o o-oPa^Q-3j3 se;? £ c .2-0-2 351 THE PICTISH NATION A short Study of the foregoing tables will re- veal that the greater centres of culture, control, and supply which had educated and supplied a continuous ministry to the Church of the Picts, Candida C«5<3;, ^ Bangor, and Glasgow among them, were at the beginning of the eighth cent- ury actually outside the dominions of the Pictish State and sovereignty. This, however, did not prevent the Church from being national, and it saved it from being insular in its culture and re- ligious views. Incidentally, also, this saved the Church of Pictland from local political control, and from becoming an instrument in the hands of the Pictish sovereigns. In this respect, it presents a striking contrast to the Church of the Gaidheals or Scots of Dal- riada. That Church from its origin continued to be one of the chief political factors in the Dalriad kingdom, S. Columba had found Dalriada a tribu- tary province and had made it a kingdom. He not onlycreated the Church of the Gaidheals or Scots; but he created the State of Dalriada, and from his time onwards every Gaidhealic or Scotic con- gregation continued to be a political outpost and centre of propaganda on behalf of the Gaidhealic or Scotic State. It was this which caused one of the Pictish sovereigns to allow the expulsion of the few communities which the Gaidheals or Scots had intruded into Pictland along the line of the Drum-Alban frontier. The Picts objected 352 CHURCH ORGANIZATION to have their independence sapped under cover of religion. Besides, a political Church hanker- ing after temporal power and interference was obnoxious to the Picts whose own Churchmen had adhered to the ideal of teaching the citizens the religion of Jesus Christ and the morality of the Gospel, demanding only from the State freedom and protection while prosecuting their work. At its origin, after a.d. 399, the Church of Pictland of Alba had been Celto-Catholic. As it grew, it kept up communion with the Church of Celtic Gaul and the christians among the Britons and Irish. When the barbarian migrations into Gaul had cut it off from S. Martin's, Tours, the mother-Church of all the Celts, Candida Casa continued to be the repository of S. Martin's ideals, a new ' Taigk-Martain,' 2ind foster-mother to the Brito-Celtic christians. At the beginning of the eighth century the Church of Pictland of Alba was still Celto-Catholic; but it was on the eve of being cut off from Candida Casa. The Angles at this time had at last succeeded in bringing the greater part of Galloway within the Anglian kingdom. This meant not only that Candida Casa came under the authority of the English king; but that it would be compelled to conform to the Church of the Angles, which was Roman Catholic, and to accommodate itself to a place in the system and organization of the 2 A 353 THE PICTISH NATION Roman Catholic Church. The absorption of Candida Casa into the Roman Catholic organiz- ation took place c. a.d. 730. Its first Roman Catholic bishop was a Pict; but as he was an Anglian prelate his jurisdiction was restricted, under York, to the portion of Galloway ruled by the English. The English prelates tactfully re- frained from disestablishing the old muinntir\ but the conforming members were changed into Canons. Bangor of Ulster, which had been co- operating with Candida Casa for a long time, now became the chief fostering centre of the Pictish Church outside the realm of Pictland. The change at Candida Casa does not appear to have been accomplished without dissent. There was, however,noroomfor dissenters underthegovern- ment of the English. Those who adhered to the ancient ideals, and to the Church government of the Celto-Catholics, were forced to betake them- selves to Bangor, in the kingdom of the Irish Picts, or to some of the muinntirs in Pictland of Alba. At this time S.Comgan* (Cowan) severed his connection with Galloway and betook himself to Pictland of Alba where he ultimately became Ab of the Pictish Community at Turriff, a branch of Deer in Buchan. Before his departure, among other works in Galloway, he founded the Church * By aspiration after a preceding word the name becomes^ Comhghan,' pronounced ' Cowan. ' 354 CHURCH ORGANIZATION of Kirk*- Cowan in Wigtownshire, northward from Candida Casa. H is nephew,S. Fillan, •j-found- ed Kilfillan also in Wigtownshire, and Kil'illan (Houston) in the territory of the Strath-Clyde Britons. S. Comgan was the son of Ceallaigh Cual- ann, a petty king ofthePicts of Leinster, who died A.D. 715. His sister was Kentigerna one of the few authentic early religious women who laboured in Pictland. Her 'retreat' was Innis na Cailleach in Loch Lomond and her death is recorded a.d. 734. The fabulists as usual have garbled the Lives of S. Comgan and his relations, and have added some members to the family group who had no histor- ical connection with it. The established facts are as follow. Previous to c. a.d. 715, S. Comgan laboured in Galloway as one of the community oi Candida Casa to which he had come, like other Irish Picts, from Bangor. Meanwhile his nephew Fillan was being trained at the 'muinntir Hnbar\ near the home of his father Feredach§ who was a Pict of Ulster. In course of time Fillan joined his uncle at Candida Casa, as is apparent from the proximity of their Church-foundations in * The extension of English power and speech to;Galloway is seen in the use of Teutonic ^Kirk' for Latino-Celtic ' Cill.' t Not to be confused with 'S. Faolan "Uafar" of Rath-Erann' Perth- shire; nor with S. Fillan of Pittenweem, Aberdour, and Forgan, who died at the disert of ' Tyrus,' Tyrie, near the Ahthein of Kinghorn. The early Scottish Roman Catholics failed to distinguish one from the other. X This is the only intelligible interpretation of the account corrupted by the Scottish fabulists that he was educated at Muinntir ' Ibar.' 'Muinn- tir 'inbar' is the uttered form oi Muinntir Fhinbar. § HewasoftheraceofFiatachFinn. 355 THE PICTISH NATION Wigtownshire. Shortly after S. Fillan's arrival in Galloway the English Roman Catholics, taking advantage of the penetration and occupation of Galloway by the Angles, annexed Candida Casa, and absorbed it, with those Celts who are known to have conformed like Pechthelm, into the Roman Catholic organization. Among those who did not conform and went elsewhere were SS. Comgan and Fillan. They set out for the west of Pictland of Alba to the same locality* into which S. Donnan the Great, from Candida Casa, had journeyed about one hundred years earlier, and they founded Churches quite near to Eilan Donnan in Kintail. Here S. Comgan founded the Church, which still bears his name, at Kirk- ton Lochalsh, and S. Fillan founded 'Cill 'Ulan near Dornie,the churchyard of which is still used. During their stay here, Kentigerna, the mother of S. Fillan, who had been recently widowed and had resolved to devote herself to religious work and meditation, joined her son and her brother. Her recorded presence with them is confirmed by the existence of the site of her cell at 'Kil- Kinterne'f in Glenshiel, across Loch Duich from her son's foundation at Cill 'illan at the head of Loch Long. Other Church-foundationsJ of S. * S. Comgan and S. Fillan would find themselves in touch also with their fellow- Pict S. Maelrubha from Bangor who at this time was at Aber- crossan. t Spelling of 1543. Cf. Prof, Watson's /Vaf<;-«aw^Jo/AVjJ, p. 172. X The other Church -foundations called 'Kilquhoan' in Sele and Ardnamurchan were within the kingdom of the Gaidheals or Scots, and CHURCH ORGANIZATION Comgan are, S. Comgan's in Glendale, Duirinish, Teampull Choan in Strath, both in Skye; Kil- choan in Knoydart, and Kilchoan in Kiltearn, Ross. From Ross-shire S. Comgan passed east to the Pictish community at Turriff and became their Ab. The old parish Church of Turriff still stands on the picturesque site ofthe Church which S. Comgan founded. This muinntir^ which he ruled in the eighth century after his retreat from Roman Catholic aggression at Candida Casa, had itself conformed to Rome by a.d. 1132. At that date its members were clerics of Celtic race; but they are found acting along with the prelates ofthe new Roman hierarchy, as can be seen from the entries in the Book of Deer, when a certain Cormac was Ab. S. Comgan died at Turriff but the year of his death in the eighth century is not now known. On S. Comgan's translation toTurriff S.Fillan returned toStrath-Clyde,and connected himself with the daughter establishment of Ban- gor at Paisley. He died at his Church of Kil- 'illan Houston, a.d. 749.* Kentigerna went south probably belong to S. Comgan Mac Degill a relation of S. Columlia. Dr. Reeves does not think so; but at this date there was little chance of a Brito-Pictish minister being allowed to found Churches in Dalriada; al- though after Angus Mac Fergus overran Dalriada, he evidently tried to force the Pictish clergy upon the Scots, It must not be overlooked either that Kentigerna and her family had been disinherited by the Irish Gaidh- eals or Scots. * This is the corrected date of Camerarius. In his early printed work ' 649 ' is given along with several obvious misspellings. 749 is meant as is evident from the date ofthe death of his mother, which is confirmed. She died before him. 357 THE PICTISH NATION also to be near S. Fillan, and she established her- self not far away from him on Innis na Cailleach where she died a.d. 734. The incident of Kentigerna* and her devotion to S. Fillan get behind the historical imagination to the heart. She lived up to the meaning of her name, perhaps title, 'Lady of Grace.' Widowed, disinherited by the pitiless, everlasting lust of conquest on the part of the Gaidheals or Scots, homeless, a ministry of goodness in Pictland of Alba was preferable to a life of idle humiliation in Erin. She sought out her son in the wilds of far KintaiL Barred from living with him by his vows, under which he had agreed to ministerwith- out luxuries — without even the comforting at- tentions of a tender mother — she could yet live near him, take part in the same work, and cheer- fully endure similar hardships. It sufficed her that he was near by, and that sometimes she could speak to him. And when S. Comgan was called eastwards to the duties of a bigger 'family' and * She had a sister called Muirenn who died A. d. 748. Muirenn be- came the wife of Irgalach, a Gaidheal or Scot on his father's side and chief of Bregia in Meath. Through his mother he became lord of the Pictish territory of Kiannaght, He slew his cousin at Inis mac Nesan, which roused the Scotic Abbot Adamnan against him. Adamnan stood in the waters of the Boyne on the borders of Irgalach's territory and 'cursed' him. He afterwards secured his excommunication at a Synod of Scotic clerics. Irgalach defied Adamnan. Certain writers, owing to a similarity of names, have imagined that the big island in Loch Lomond next toKenti- gerna's was the residence of Muirenn, Irgalach's wife; but Muirenn resided in Ireland. The isles of Loch Lomond were ' retreats ' for the Brito-Pictish clerics long before Kentigerna's time. S. Mirran of Paisley had a * retreat ' at Loch Lomond, 358 CHURCH ORGANIZATION a more responsible charge; and when S. Fillan resolved to return to his former field among the Britons; Kentigerna, once more, took up her pilgrimage, through difficult mountains, that she might continue to breathe the same air as her son. From the highgroundbesideher island-retreat, in the intervals of work, she could often look across the intervening Clyde to the plains of Renfrew, and assure herself that at Kil'illan the one soul she held dearest was responding to her tenderest thoughts. CHURCH AND KING IN PICT- LAND DURING THE PUBLIC LIFE OF NECHTAN THE SOVEREIGN OF PICTLAND A.D. 706-724 CHAPTER FIFTEEN During the first half of the eighth century two aggressive movements, that had threatened to disturb Pictland of Alba for some time, suddenly became violently active, and shook up the old life and organization of the people from the depths. One movementwasnative, internal, and political; the other was foreign, external, and ecclesiastical. The POLITICAL MOVEMENT was directed at the sovereignty of Pictland of Alba, and was designed toeffectthatonavacancy the successful candidate should always be selected from one or other of the powerful regal clans controlling Angus, Earn (Fortrenn),* or Fife. This involved dispensing with formal election by the convened chiefs of all Pictland, as required by Celtic law. It required that the successful candidate should possess sufficient political and militarypower to overawe the minor chiefs who had not been consulted. It also involved the risk of the accession to the sovereignty being settled by battle between candidates with nearly equal claims and power, * This form is simply a gloss on the older Pictish name Rath-Erann which is connected with the still older Verturiones and also with the original of the modern name ' Earn. ' 360 CHURCH &> KING while the chiefs of Pictland supported neither one nor the other. In this connection one word of caution is necessary. The names Angus, Earn, and Fife must not be interpreted at this time geographically but politically; because it is evid- ent that in the beginning of the eighth century the chiefs of these places held possessions and exercised control far beyond the geographical areas of their respective clan-kingdoms. For ex- ample, Nechtan whose lordship was Angus had a fortress in Strathspey, and owned property in the vicinity of Inver,ness; Brude mac Bile by the success of his arms added to the petty kingdom of Earn (Fortrenn) all the old Pictish territory that he had retrieved from the Angles, an addition which pushed forward the frontier of ' Fortrenn' far to the south of Stirling; and there are indic- ations that all, or the greater part of Fife became merged about this time in the kingdom of the Earn. Again, however, the Celtic tendency to divide up a wide property between a number of sons was as strong among the Pictish chiefs as among other Celts. Hence, one property might be associated with another in one chiefs life-time; but entirely separated from it in the life-time of his successor; although still held by a member of the first chief's family or clan. In this respect the ownership of parts of Fife, especially the north- west corner, is a continual puzzle. In the reign of one sovereign the north-west of Fife may 361 THE PICTISH NATION appear to belong to the chiefs of Angus; but in the reign of the next sovereign it will appear to belong to the chief of Earn (Fortrenn). The ex- planation probably is that, as among the Gaidh- eals or Scots of Ireland, certain lands were owned and controlled by the sovereign during his tenure of office. The ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENT aimed at the conversion of the ministers and members of the Church of the Picts to Romanism which meant ultimately for them, among other things, sub- mission to the rule of the foreign Bishopof Rome; the introduction into Pictland of a Roman hier- archy under an alien archbishop who had his seat in England, in the midst of the steady enemies of the Picts; conformity to Roman usage, especially the acceptance of Rome's re- vision of the old Catholic date for celebrating the Resurrection of the Lord; and the adoption by the Pictish clergy of the coronal tonsure, instead of the frontal tonsure, as worn in certain parts of the Eastandby the Celtic ministers. Onehundred years before this time the Roman archbishop of the English had stated the conditions* on which he would welcome the Celto-Catholics into the Roman Communion, although no Celt had sought for them. The Celts were invited to keep the Paschal celebrations at the Roman date; to ad- minister Baptism according to the Roman prac- * Bede, H.E. G.A. lib. ii. cap. ii. 362 CHURCH &> KING tice, accepting the dogma of Baptismal regener- ation; and to put the highly successful missionary organizations of the Celtic Church, and the in- comparable preaching and teaching ability of the Celtic clergy under Roman control for the en- lightening of the Teutonic invaders of Britain in the Anglian and Saxon kingdoms. If the Celtic clergy had agreed to all this, the Roman arch- bishop was prepared to ' gladly suffer' the many other practices and usages in the Celtic Church that differed from Roman order. The archbishop, however, had spread the Roman net in vain for the Celts in the beginning of the seventh century. The romanized Angles then resorted to the method foreshadowed in Augustine's threat* of carrying fire and sword among the Celts, achiev- ing extermination and calling it 'conversion,' establishing a bishop for a Teutonic garrison, like the unfortunate Trumwine, and calling his charge a 'bishopric of the Picts.' This sort of missionary enterprise had been effectively dis- credited and defeated by the military genius of Brude mac BiM the sovereign of Pictland. This is why, in the beginning of the eighth century, the Roman prelates were preparing a new plan of campaign for the capture of the Church of the Picts; and the first move in the new scheme was to secure the goodwill and co-operation of Nech- tan the sovereign of Pictland. * Bede, lib. ii. cap. ii. 3^3 THE PICTISH NATION The Chequered Reign of Nechtan Derelei, Sovereign of Pictland Nechtan became chief of the Pictish clan Der- elei in a.d. 706, on the death of his kinsman Brude, the sovereign of Pictland. Nechtan also, at the same date, assumed the sovereignty of Pictland, as would appear from the sequel, with- out having taken the formal consent of the chiefs of the Pictish clans. The territories of the clan Derelei, at this time, included Angus, Stormont, Atholl, as far as the western frontier of Pictland at Drum-Alban, Badenoch to the same western frontier,* and thence northward to both shores of the Inverness Firth. Nechtan's brother, or half-brother Talorg Mac Drostain, as Dr. Skene has pointed out, was chief of Atholl. Nechtan himself possessed a fortress in Strath-Spey near Loch Insh, the ruins of which still bear his name. Bede states that 'Naiton' was king of the Picts who inhabit the northern parts of Britain, "f But, as has been pointed out, Bede's geography was Ptolemaic, and his north of Pictland is our west. This agrees with the fact that, excepting Angus and Stormont, which are on the east, the greater part of the Derelei territories stretched along the western borders of the Pictish sove- reignty; and Nechtan's fortified seat was also in * The Gaidheals or Scots of Dalriada had for a time at this period pushed their frontier east as far as Glen Urquhart. t Bede, H.E.G.A. lib. v. cap. xxi. CHURCH &> KING this area. Bede indicates that Nechtan possessed considerable education, and 'meditated on the ec- clesiastical writings.' It is interesting to notice in this connection that one of the Pictish Bangors, with its combined religious and educational work had been established, near his fortress in Strath- Spey,on the Calder, beside the modern Newton- more. The locality still bears the name ' B an- chor.' Nechtan developed a fondness for ecclesi- astical affairs and an extraordinary interest in Paschal cycles, clerical tonsures, and the fatal ambition, for a king, to introduce innovations into the Church of the Picts. In trying to explain to ourselves how a Pictish chief could raise this strange interest in the by-products of Roman ec- clesiasticism, leading inevitably to unpopular re- lations with both sets of the national enemies, the English and the Gaidheals or Scots, it is not necessary to look for all the explanation among the Roman propagandists in England. It is ad- visable not to overlook the probability that, in his youth, Nechtan was educated in one of the Scotic muinntirs under Adamnan, while the lad was a hostage among the Gaidheals or Scots, in pledge of the peace that subsisted between the Picts of AthoU and Badenoch, on one hand, and their neighbours, the Scots of Lorn, on the other, at the time when Ferchar Fada* the Scotic chief * He died king of Dalriada, a.d. 697. He was 15th king of Dalriada and first king from the clan Lorn since the time of Loarn Mor, c. 503. THE PICTISH NATION was wresting supremacy in Dalriada to the clan Lorn from the clan Gabhran, whose chiefs had been an abiding curse alike to their kinsmen in Lorn and to the Picts across Drum-Alban. There is clear evidence that Adamnan was the master- operator behind the defection of Nechtan. He was Abbot of lona from a.d. 679 until 23rd Sep- tember 704. He had no control over, and no com- munion with the Pictish Church; and, judging from his expressions, he possessed the current Gaidhealic or Scotic hatred of, and contempt to- wards the Pictish people. In spite of his limit- ations he deserved the epithets 'good and wise' bestowed upon him by Bede. He won distinct places in literature and diplomacy, and attained considerable success as a legislator. He was the trusted counsellor of the liberal-minded Fin- nachta Fledach, sovereign of Ireland. He re- nounced the doctrines and usages of the Celtic Church, and adopted the doctrines and usages of the Church of Rome while adhering to his office as presbyter- Abbot of lona, an action which cre- ated a Celto-Catholic and a Roman-Catholic party in lona; and ultimately rent the commun- ity in twain, resulting in rival Abs within the one little island. Adamnan was fond of public life, and for seven years absented himself from his post in lona, being taken up with Irish affairs. He was credulous, superstitious, and extremely susceptible to foreign influence. In his desire to 366^ CHURCH &> KING further the extension of the Church of Rome to include the Celto-Catholics, he displayed all the enthusiasm of the pervert and the unwearied toil and intolerance of a zealot. There are indic- ations in his Li/e that he intrigued with Brude Mac Bi\6 to gain access to Pictland. His master- stroke in this direction, which gave him opport- unity to influence Nechtan and his clansmen, was his taking advantage of the peace which reigned between the Scots of Lorn and the sec- tion of the Derelei Picts in Atholl, Badenoch,and part of Lochaber, to intrude a community of the Scotic Church from lonato Dull, within the Pict- ish frontier, and near the southern bounds of Nechtan's clansmen, and to intrude a staff of Scotic clerics into the ancient Pictish foundation of S. Ninian's, Loch Ness, on the north-west- ern borders of Nechtan's home-territories, to which the clan Lorn had at this time penetrated. Adamnan,from his known sympathies and policy, ,would take very good care that Dull was staffed with Celtic clerics who had conformed to Roman- ism; and, indeed, Cairell,* a monastic bishop who appears at this time at S. Ninian's Tempul, Loch Ness, was of the conformed group in Ireland. Nechtan was thus, from his youth up, before and after he became Sovereign, subjected within his home-territories to the near influence * The Duke of Argyll deals with his foundations in Lorn in Trans- actions of the Scottish Ecclesiological Society, vol. V. parti., 1915-16. 2>^1 THE PICTISH NATION not only of the proselytizing Adamnan, but to the attentions of two groups of his agents. But there is more to connect Adamnan with Nechtan than these arrangements for diluting the Christianity of the clan Derelei and their chiefs. Bede informs us that during Adamnan's diplomatic mission, c. 687, to Aldfrid,* king of the Northumbrian Angles, the English Roman Catholics of 'the more learned sort'f utilized the opportunity to press Adamnan to conform to Rome. Ceolfrid, Abbot of the Roman monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, unhesitatingly claims the chief credit J for influencing Adamnan to enter the Roman fold, and even repeats some of the ex hortations and arguments that he uttered to him.§ Therefore, when c. a.d. 710, six years after Adamnan's death, Nechtan, the Sovereign of Pictland, writes to this same Ceolfrid, Roman Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, asking for more exact particulars regarding the Roman date for celebrating the time of the Lord's Re- surrection, and also particulars concerning the Roman tonsure, 'notwithstanding that he him- self already possessed no small knowledge of * Formerly a pupil at lona. t Bede, H.E. G.A. lib. v. cap. xv. X About this time Adamnan had been greatly impressed by the Gaul- ish bishop Arculf, who was shipwrecked in the west and reached lona on his way home from Palestine. From him he learned about the veneration of relics and dedication of churches — practices unknown to the Celtic Church. § Bede, lib. v. cap. xxi. 368 CHURCH & KING these things,'* it is clear that the sovereign's in- spiration had arisen from the earlier associations with Adamnan, or from the two communities that he had left to proselytize among his clans- men. Ceolfrid the Angle was unknown to the Picts, and was shut off from them by racial anti- pathy; and no Pictish sovereign would have thought of appealing to him except under exter- nal direction with some special end in view. In his letter, Ceolfrid exposes his dealings with Adamnan as one with whom Nechtan is already familiar. Nechtan candidly confesses that he had found the way of an ecclesiastical innovator hard, because he begs a written reply from Ceolfrid, 'by the help of which he might the better con- fute those who presumed to celebrate the Resur- rection out of due time,'f meaning the clergy and people ofthe Church of his own realm of Pictland. After Ceolfrid's reply had been delivered, in A.D. 710, Nechtan summoned a Synod at which he presided, and the letter was read in the sove- reign's presence. The Synod was composed of Pictish clergy, chiefs of the Pictish clans, and contained 'many learned men,' a note for which the shades ofthe Picts must be grateful to Bede, in view of the contemptuous references to them as 'the tribes' and 'the barbarians' by the Gaidh- eals or Scots. The letter of Ceolfrid is given at length in Bede's history. The spectacle, which * Bede, lib. v. cap. xxi. f Bede, lib. v. cap. xxi. 2 B 369 THE PICTISH NATION he also describes, of Nechtan the sovereign of Pictland kneeling on the ground before the As- sembly as the reading finished, 'giving thanks to God that he had been found worthy to receive suchablessingfrom the land of the English, 'must, as the sequel shows, have roused contempt and scorn in the Men of Earn (Fortrenn); and in the other Picts whose forefathers for generations had interposed their bravest and best to stem the un- ending waves of Teutonic savagery that had rolled in from England upon the territories of the more southerly clansmen. Was it for this that twenty- four years earlier the Men of the Earn and their sovereign-king, under the walls of the Angus capital of Nechtan's clan at Dun-Nechtain, had crushed Egfrid and his army of butchers who set out to treat the Picts of Alba as they had treated the Gaidheals of Ireland a few months before, sickening even their own clergy with horror, and rousing them to protest? Bede's picture of Nech- tan reveals a royal fanatic, such as became too common in Alba, mad with zeal for forms and ceremonial, and times and seasons; but icily un- appreciative of the Christ-like example and apos- tolic faith, fervour, and manner of life of the Brito- Pictish clergy who had founded and maintained the Church of his realm; and, elsewhere, had evoked reverence and admiration, from the Apen- nines to Hecla. When Nechtan had closed his thanksgiving, he solemnly affirmed and declared 370 CHURCH &' KING that henceforward he would observe the Roman Paschal date; and then and there decreed that the clerics of his kingdom* should be tonsured in Roman fashion. Up to this time the Church of the Picts did not venerate the relics of the holy, did not dedicate their Churches to saints, did not hold the doctrine of patron saints, and did not esteem one Apostle above another. But Ceolfrid in his letter to Nechtan lays stress upon S. Peter, and Bede informs us that the nation of the Picts 'reformed' by Nechtan's decree, 'rejoiced as be- ing newly put under the guidance of Peter, the most blessed chief of the Apostles, and committed to his protection.'! If Bede, as seems, wishes to convey that the christians within the Pictish sovereignty at once turned romanist in type he is indulging in pious exaggeration and historical inaccuracy. The events following, in the reigns of Nechtan and his successors, show that Nechtan had merely introduced a romanizing party into the Pictish Church whose watchword was 'S. Peter'; and whose labours in proselytizing and usurping the earlier Churches of the Picts were restricted to a few sites in the clan-territories of Nechtan's family. Nechtan's party were soon to * This was of course his own petty kingdom. This sovereign had no power to make such a decree for the whole sovereignty without the assent of a majority of the chiefs. This appears not to have been given, and Bede is silent on the point; although he states that Nechtan's decree was sent throughout 'all the provinces' of the Picts. We know that it was un- heeded in many of them, t Bede, lib. v. cap. xxi. THE PICTISH NATION be weakened and discredited by another party of Roman proselytizers whose watchword was to be *S. Andrew.' Doubtless Nechtan had a shrewd notion that although royal edicts had been the English instruments for converting Angles in the mass; more than edicts would be required for his conservative Celtic subjects, with their inborn love of freedom in thought, and their peculiar ten- acity to first religious knowledge. The Arrival of S. Curitan (Bonifacius), a FRIEND OF S. AdAMNAN, IN AlBA AS NeCHTAn's CLERICAL AGENT In support of Nechtan's edict and the royal policy, S. Curitan, who received the Latin name ' Bonifacius,' was brought into Pictland, He was also called 'Aldanus,' which in his time meant a native of Alba, that is, a Briton or Pict; al- though later in history, when the Scottish mon- archs usurped the title 'king of Alba,' the Gaidh- ealic or Scotic scribes gave this designation to Dalriad Gaidheals, to distinguish them from the Gaidheals of Ireland. S. Curitan's Acts are no longer available, or rather they are, but fabu- lized at least twice over by Roman Catholic scribes of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, until what remains is the stupid and grotesque story known as the Legend of Bonifacius. This Legend not. only shames the intelligence of those who constructed it; but it must have insulted the 372 CHURCH &> KING intelligence of those who supported the 'English Claims,'* to defeat which, this bit of fiction and other literary monstrosities were manufactured. Certain valid details about S, Curitan are, how- ever, recoverable. Judging from his reception at the Bangor foundation at Rosemarkie, S. Curitan had probably been trained at Bangor of the Irish Picts, or at one of the daughter-houses in Alba. Although Bangor had not conformed to Rome; Cennfaeladh, Ab of Bangor, and S. Curitan joined S. Adamnan in his efforts to humanize the milit- ary laws of Ireland, c. a.d. 697, when the Gaidh- eals or Scots both of Ireland and Dalriada left him unsupported.! This confirms Bede, and helps further to show that S. Curitan was not a Gaidheal or Scot; because Bede states that Adamnan drew no supporters in his ecclesiastic- al and civil policy from his own community in lona, and also takes pains to show that in Ireland he attracted supporters only from communities that were not Columban, or as he puts it, 'those that were free from the dominion of Iona.'| Again, S. Curitan was not expelled from Pictland, * The 'English Claims' took literary form, A.D. 1300, through Pope Boniface VIII. and Edward. The unblushing audacity of the Scotic Churchmen is nowhere better manifested than in that version of the Legend which transforms Curitan into a Pope of Rome, whom they call by Boniface's name, and then tell the world how this Boniface of fiction behaved in the Papal Chair. \ Even the minutes garbled in the interests of the primacy of Armagh show that the clergy were from Leinster and the south of Ireland. t Bede, H.E.G.A. lib. v. cap. xv. 373 THE PICTISH NATION in A.D. 717, when the Gaidhealic or Scotic com- munities intruded within the Pictish border were banished furth of Pictland. Besides his I rish con- nections, S. Curitan was also in touch with the English Roman Catholics. He and the Anglo- Roman zealot Egbert* were present with Adam- nan in the Synod atTara which exempted women from military expeditions organized within the Irish sovereignty. In the garbled copyf of the original minutes his name is retained as 'Curitan epscop.' He was an Ab as well as bishop.J In the 2inciQ.nt Marty ro logy of Tallagh his entry appears as ^Curitani sci epi agus ab ruis m bairind'% The copyist blundered the entry. It should have ended at 'm.' 'bairind' belongs to the entry that should have followed which related to 'S. Bar-find.' II The corrected entry would mean 'of Curitan Ab and bishop in Ros .' As a matter of local knowledge, the place which the copyist ought to have designated was ' Ros-mhaircni \ * In the Synod minutes his name is written ^ Ichbrocht'' the Irish for Egbert. Through the dream of a companion he drew^back from a mission to Germany in order that he might go into residence with the Scotic com- munity at lona with a view to influencing them to conform to Rome. His mission to lona had the same aim as Curitan's mission to Pictland. Egbert worked so well in lona that he split the community of Columba into two parties with rival Abs. t The O'Clery MS. at Brussels. X Monastic, not diocesan. § The Franciscan MS. II Cf. Kalendars of O^Gorman and Donegal. In the MS. of that of Marianus O'Gorman is written ^ Rosmean^ and then, apart, ^ Barindi Ep.'' Elsewhere the latter saint appears as ^ Bar-Fionn' and 'Bar-'indus.' ^ Spelling in Book of Clan Ranald. Cf. Watson, Place-names of Ross and Cromarty, p. 128. 374 CHURCH (§f KING in Ross of Pictland, now 'Rosemarkie.'* It is now possible to make use of certain state- ments that are contained in the least fabulized of the old accounts f of S. Curitan; because they are confirmed by local remains. When * Albanus Kiritinus' (S. Curitan) sailed to Pictland, prob- ably from a port of the Northumbrian Angles, he landed on the northern shore of the firth of Tay. This was in Angus, the eastern portion of Nechtan's clan-territory. He was bent on found- ing Roman Churches, dedicating them to S . Peter, under whose 'protection' Nechtan had decided to place the kingdom. He was accompanied by followers whom he could detach to minister in the new Churches. As he is at this time desig- nated * Ab and bishop,' it is plain that he adhered to the Celtic form of organization; and was not beginning diocesan episcopacy. After landing, Curitan proceeded to the mouth of the river 'Gobriat' in Pictland and there founded the first Roman Catholic Church in Pictland. 'Gobriat' is Invergowrie near Dundee; and there in the seventeenth century a Church-site still remained called Kil-Curdy,% Church of Curitan. He then went to Restennot, near the modern capital of * The blundered entry has caused much vain speculation that local knowledge of Pictland would have saved. Probably the copyist was writ- ing to dictation; and there is not much difference to a careless ear in the enunciation of ' mhaircin ' and ' bhar-fhin. ' t For this account see Skene's Celtic Scotland, Book II. chap. vi. p. 230. % Since corrupted into 'Kin- Curdy' and 'Kincuddy.' 375 THE PICTISH NATION Angus, and founded another Church which he dedicated to S. Peter. Apparently he had dedic- ated the former Church to S. Peter also, but the Picts of Invergowrie adhered to the native cus- tom of calling a Church after its founder. Evid- ently, even with the sovereign's help, Curitan could not establish his working-centre in Angus wherethe Pictish Church had always been strong- ly organized. He was therefore moved on to Rosemarkie where there was the muinntir and Church originally established by S. Moluag of Bangor and Lismore between a.d. 562 and a.d. 592. Whether he succeeded in influencing all the community of Rosemarkie to conform to Rome is not told; but as late as the thirteenth century there was still a Celtic religious community at Rose- markie which had remained outside the Roman episcopal organization. Curitan dedicated S. Moluag's old Church to S. Peter; and the sur- rounding earlier Celtic Churches were also, in certain instances, dedicated to saintsin the Roman Kalendar; and their founders' names, which they had borne over a century and a half, ignored by the Roman party. The zealot and the pervert are often destitute of conscience; and the name of Simon Peter has seldom been so outraged as when used to insult the memory of S. Moluag, of 'the hundred communities,' to whose work S. Bernard of more charitable mind testified handsomely. As if in scorn of S. Curitan's efforts 376 CHURCH & KING to silence the testimony of the stones to the men who had personally evangelized the Picts of Ross, the folk of Ross not only preserved the names of the old saintsabove S. Peter's and othereastern saints; but adhered to the old ways, and even named the Churches which S. Curitan founded and dedicated, by his own name. The site of the Church at Rosemarkie which he dedicated to S. Peter is still called Kil-Curdy,^ Curitan's Church. S. Curitan also founded Churches at Bona near Inverness, Corrimony off the Great- Glen, Struy in Strath-Glass, Farnuaf in Kirk- hill, a Church at Assynt of Novar, and Cill-Chur- daidh in Avoch. All, in pursuance of S. Curitan's and Nechtan's programme were probably dedi- cations to S. Peter; but their sites still carry Curitan's name. Even the Churchyards of Bona and Corrimony are still 'Cladh Churitain.' Nech- tan's and his cleric's efforts had resulted not only in ecclesiastical,but in political schism. The king's in- ability to establish Curitan in Angus, or anywhere in the southern provinces where the muinntirs of the Church of the Picts were numerous and strongly manned; the indicated restriction of S. Curitan'sactivities,on the northwardjtothe shores * A church still stood here in 1641, The present form of the name here as in Gowrie is 'Kincurdy.' When the seat of the bishop of Ross was transferred to Fortrose c. 1309, the Cathedral was dedicated to SS. Peter and Boniface (Curitan). t Called by the author of the Wardlaw MS. Church of 'Corridon.' Cf. Saints associated with the Valley of the Ness y p. 14. THE PICTISH NATION of Cromarty Firth, and southward, to the neigh- bourhood of Inverness; show that the Pictish clergy stood aloof from Nechtan's Roman mis- sionaries. The Menofthepowerfulpetty kingdom ofthe Earn (Fortrenn)were, as after events show- ed, moving against the sovereign; and were mak- ing up their minds that if protecting saints were available for Pictland; they would choose one for themselves, and certainly not the same one as the hated English. These sturdy clansmen, who had so long been a wall of flesh and blood against the Teutonic invaders, failed to see how S. Peter could be, at once, Protector of the Picts and of their immemorial enemies. Nechtan left nothing undone that would keep his reign from being dull. As if to quicken the coming liveliness, in the year after Nechtan had taken action on Ceolfrid's letter, Bertfrid, the chief ealdorman ofthe E nglish.let loose, as noted,a raid- ing army into what is now the Lothians and part of Stirlingshire. The raiders were checked, and turned, on the Moor of Mannan; but not with- out loss to the Men ofthe Earn (Fortrenn), and regret to the nation in the untimely fall of a chief of the leading clan in the south-east, the Dele- roith. Clearly, this was neither a happy way of commending S. Peter to these clansmen, nor a likelymethod of popularizing Nechtan the Sove- reign, S. Peter's latest champion. Two years after this, in a.d. 713, Kenneth Derelei, a chief Z7^ CHURCH (§f KING of Nechtan's own clan was slain in a movement not described; but that popular dissatisfaction with Nechtan was active is seen in the * obligat- ing' of Tolarg Mac Drostain, his brother or half- brother and the chief of Atholl, to a share in the government.* The promotion of Tolarg was connected with the next important event, be- cause it was his clan-territories that had been chiefly affected by the intrusions of the Scotic clergy. The Gaidhealic or Scotic Clergy under lona, are driven out of pictland from the Border Stations into which they had in- truded ON THE Western Frontier In A.D. 717, within four years after Tolarg had become Nechtan's deputy, the Gaidhealic or Scotic clergy under lona who had intruded into Pictland, just within the western frontier, were 'expelled.' The action was neither of the * There is some difficulty as to the exact position of Tolarg at the Court of Nechtan the Sovereign. One reading of the word used to de- scribe that position is ^legatus' which would describe a lieutenant- governor, a position occupied by the near relatives of other chiefs. The Pidish Chronicle does not recognise Tolarg's joint authority; but neither does it recognise Cennaleph's, Brude Mac Maelchon's col- league for a short time. Two printed copies of the Irish Annals give the describing w6rd as '■ligatus^ and this is varied to 'ligatur' in a third copy. But Tolarg was an extremely difficult person to 'bind.' He was 'king of Atholl,' and binding Tolarg would not have restrained the Men of Atholl who re- sented the presence of the Gaidheals or Scots within their borders. Unless Tolarg and the Men of Atholl and the Men of Fortrenn had been parties to the expulsion of the Gaidhealic or Scotic clergy, that 379 THE PICTISH NATION magnitude nor importance that certain writers have stated. It only affected the muinntirs of Dull, ' Kailli an Find,' S. Ninian's, Loch Ness, and Drymen, all on the border at that time. Nechtan as titular sovereign receives credit for the expulsions from the Annalists; but the policy was manifestly Tolarg's, backed by the Picts of Atholl and the Picts of Fortrenn; be- cause these two provinces were most affected by Gaidhealic or Scotic aggression, especially by the activities of the principal intruded com- munity at Dull, which Adamnan had founded. It is certain that the expulsion could not have been effected without the consent and active participation of Tolarg and his Men of Atholl, along with the Men of Fortrenn. The historians who followed the misinter- pretation of Bede's geographical references to Pictland have treated the expulsion of the Scotic clergy from the Pictish borders as a national upheaval. Having interpreted Bede's reference to S. Columba's work, not of the Picts in the modern west, but of the Picts in the modern north] they were shut up to the conclusion that expulsion could not have taken place ; because it was into their terri- tories that the Scotic clergy had intruded, and the expulsion had to be carried out by them. The connection of Nechtan and his family with Angus and Atholl is seen in the Legend of 'Triduana' where 'the tyrant Nechtan neamh' (S. Nechtan) is her lover; and pursues her from Rescobie in Angus to Dunfallandy in Atholl {cf. Aberdeen Breviary). 380 CHURCH &> KING the expulsion by Nechtan meant the emptying out of all the religious communities in northern Pictland, at least, and the leaving unmanned of all the northern Churches. A little local know- ledge of the face of Pictland would have saved these historians from the unhistorical speculations and huge blunders in which they became utterly mazed. Apart from what is known and related of the actual ministries in Pictland of the native clergy, and of clergy from the Britons and from the Irish Picts; the following considerations ought to have guided the historians to correct conclu- sions about the Pictish Church on the one hand, and regarding the Gaidhealic or Scotic clergy on the other. Dalian, the contemporary pane- gyrist of S. Columba (Columcille), knew noth- ing of any settled or acceptable ministry among the christians of Pictland, east of the frontiers of Dalriada, by S. Columba; but he tells of the hostility with which S. Columba was re- ceived on the upper reaches of the Tay, and how the saint 'silenced the fierce ones.' Yet at that very time, when S. Columba was being treated with hostility, S. Cainnech, the great Pictish teacher, a former fellow-student with S. Col- umba, was conducting a peaceful and accept- able ministry on the shores where that same river enters the sea. Adamnan the great Scotic Ab of lona, and chief authority about S. Col- umba, knew nothing of Scotic establishments in 381 THE PICTISH NATION Pictland remote from the frontiers of Dalriada. His picture of S. Columba shows a wary dip- lomat taking journeys to the Pictish sovereign across Drum-Alban on behalf of the Gaidhealic or Scotic kingdom of Dalriada. He gives us glimpses of the saint's kindly attentions to Pictish folk whose paths he crossed on his jour- neys; but takes pains to show that S. Columba was helpless when trying to teach in the Pictish dialect of Celtic. It isAdamnan,also,whomakesit plain that S. Columba's master-hand set Aedhan 'the False' on the broken throne of Dalriada. Not only does he enable us to trace the steps by which Aedhan extorted the independence of Dalriada from his suzerain and clan-chief, the sovereign of Ireland; but he shows us S. Col- umba, in defiance of Brude his host, ordaining Aedhan to kingship instead of to the Toiseach- ship fixed by Brude; and, moreover, shows Aedhan challenging the Pictish sovereignty with every soldier that he could mobilize. Adamnan also candidly exhibits S. Columba, and the whole community at lona, offering special intercessory prayer for the success of the Gaidheals or Scots, who were fighting in one of the Pictish provinces, and only desisting when they could congratulate themselves that 'the barbarians,' the Picts, were in flight. These praying Gaidheals or Scots had manifestly no spiritual interest in, or respons- ibility for the Picts, and the hard terms of the 382 CHURCH ^ KING biographer show that he had no affinity for the non-conforming subjects of Nechtan. Moreover, if there had been any Gaidhealic or Scotic re- Hgious communities in Pictland, away from the intruded border communities, in Adamnan's time; Adamnan himself would have ruled them and directed them to carry out his policies. Consequently, he would not have required to in- trude a Scotic community into Pictland through a side door at Dull, in extension of his romaniz- ing schemes; and he would not have left the Angle Ceolfrid to expound the designs of the romanizing party to Nechtan; he could have done all himself, and more efficiently, because more directly, and through numerous local agencies. But the fact was, neither Adamnan, nor any other Scotic Ab before the ninth century, controlled any religious communities within Pict- land, apart from the few already mentioned on the frontier line. This is remarkably confirmed by the testimony of the face of Pictland. Professor Watson* has stated that in the great Pictish district repre- sented by the county of Ross, there is not on the mainland one single Church-foundation by S. Columba (Columcille). In the town of Inverness where S. Columba had interviews with the Pict- ish sovereign there is also not one Church found- ation by S. Columba. The same is true of the * Place-names of Ross and Cromarty^ p. Ixvii. THE PICTISH NATION former Pictish districts, now known as Suther- land,* Caithness,! Orkney, J and Shetland. In the county of Inverness there are two, perhaps three, § places on the roads where S. Columba journeyed at which the saint is commemorated. On the east of I nverness, there is not an old^Church or Church- site bearing the name of S. Columba (Columcille) which cannot be shown to be a dedication of the Roman Catholic period to S. Columba, and not 2i foundation during a mission in Pictland; the truth being that the alleged mission of the Scotic saint in Pictland is as much acreation of the imag- ination as the 'Myth of Deer,' by which the rom- anized Scotic clerics who usurped that ancient monastery, after the Scotic ascendency, wished the world to think that it had been founded by S. Columba (Columcille). The very stones of these ancient so-called Columban Church-sites of Pictland cry out the names of their true founders, the Colms,|| Colmans, and Colmocs with whom * Sir Robert Gordon's 'Kilcalmkill' in Strath- Brora was his own in- vention. It is not a Church-site, but a property by a ravine. On 14th Nov- ember 1456 the Laird of Dunbeath gives the name as ' Gillyecallomgil ' which is the Gil or ravine of the servant of Columba. 'Gillyecallora' was the name of an early Sutherland family, and the whole name was a pro- perty-name in Strath-Brora. t S. Columba's Dirlot is a dedication of the Roman Catholic period. J The Church in Hoy, like other Churches of S. Colm, has been as- cribed to Columcille. In this case by the author of the Statistical Account. The natives always called it S. Colm's. § The old Church of Invermoriston, perhaps Kingussie, possibly Petty, but there is strong charter indication that Petty, like Auldearn, is a dedi- cation of the Roman Catholic period. II There are places that a Colm occupied in Pictish times where the CHURCH &' KING the fabulists, for S. Columba's glory, deliberate- ly confused his name. Even the stones of the Church-sites within the Scotic kingdom of Dal- riada witness against the fabulists; because they keep S. Columba's true designation, and in the abundant 'Kil-Columcilles' of Argyll and the Western Isles leave no possible doubt as to the original founder, S.Columba(Columcille). Much that in this respect is true of S. Columba is also true of S. Adamnan. Great and powerful as S. Adamnan was among the Gaidheals or Scots, there is not one old Church or Church-found- ation in Pictland, Dull excepted, which bears his name, that cannot be shown to be a dedication of the Roman Catholic period. This would not have been the case if there had been Gaidhealic or Scotic communities in the interior of Pictland under this distinguished Ab and zealous prosel- ytizer. He would have had numerous found- ations.* When therefore Nechtan's subjects expelled the Scotic clergy, the greatest exodus would be Gaidheals or Scots, after their ascendency, actually dedicated Churches to S. Columba, if Fordun can be trusted, and Inchcolm in Forth is an ex- ample. * Dr. Reeves and Dr. Skene felt the need of showing something for Adamnan in Pictland, Forvie ascribed to him is, unfortunately for them, ' St. Findomhnan's.' 'Teunon' (Forglen) is a dedication of the Roman Catholic period after the property fell to Aberbrothoc. S. Skeulan's Aboyne and S. Arnty's in the Mearns have been arbitrarily referred to S. Adamnan. It is true that the aspirated form of his name varies, but it is always recognizable between 'Adamnan' and *Adnan.' 2C 385 THE PICTISH NATION from the strong muinntir of Dull, on the Pictish side of the western frontier. Certainly Dull was the disturbing community in theeyesofthePicts. Having been founded and staffed by Adamnan,it became of necessitypart of the romanizing organ- ization, and could hardlyhelp being aggressive. A foreign Church can seldom be aggressive without abusinghospitality, and rousingpoliticalhostility. The Gaidheals or Scots had not only abused the hospitality of the Picts from the first days that they entered Pictland; but S. Columba in abus- ing Brude's hospitality on lona had challenged the whole political interests of Pictland when he set Aedhan 'the False' on the Dalriad throne. Adamnan was just as unscrupulous, and penetra- tive at the expense of the Picts, as S. Columba. Both had regarded the world as made for the Gaidheal or Scot. Wherever theScoticclericwas able to establish himself the Scotic flag was sure to follow sooner or later. The reasons for the ex- pulsion of the alien clergy were political. It was the menace to the Pictish State of these hostile propagandists within the Pictish frontier-line that roused the Picts of Atholl and Fortrenn to compel Nechtan and Tolarg to drive them out. Dalriada could do nothing to help her clergy; because her people were in the midst of civil war, with two kings, Duncan Becc reigning in Cantyre possess- ing the support of Clan Gabhran, and Selbac reigning in Lorn with the support of the Clan 386 CHURCH & KING Lorn, and recognized as the rightful king. This state of affairs existed until a.d. 719 when after a decisive naval battle at Ard- Anesbi * the power of Selbac of Lorn began to wane. Certain writers have confidently stated that Nechtan's reason for expelling the Scotic clergy- was 'because they would not conform to Rome at his decree.' This would, indeed, have been a curious position in which to find the chief Scotic community at Dull, which had been established by S. Adamnan, seeing that Adamnan had been an earlier and keener Roman propagandist than Nechtan who, in seeking conformity, was Adam- nan's pupil. However, such a reason does not har- monize with historical facts; because in a.d. 716, a year before the expulsion of Adamnan's com- munity from Dull, certain clergyof lona, who had rebelled against Adamnan, had begun to conform. One authorityf states that in this yearthe Paschal celebrations were entirely changed, another that they had been moved, namely, to the Roman date. Bede also states that in this same year Eg- bert, the zealot, was at work proselytizing in lona with success;]: indeed, under the year a.d. 716 he enters, 'The man of God Egbert brought the monks of Hi to observe the Catholic Easter and the ecclesiastical tonsure. '§ Tighernac dates the * On the west coast, but not known now by this name. t Cf. Annals 0/ Ulster Bind Tighernac. X Bede, H.E.G.A. lib. v. cap. xxii. § Bede, lib. v. cap. xxiv. THE PICTISH NATION adoption of the Roman tonsure at lona in a.d. 718. This slight difference does not alter the fact that the Gaidhealic or Scotic clergy were con- forming to Rome with great rapidity, and no one could reasonably have quarrelled with them on that ground, which all goes to confirm that the reasons why the Scotic clergy were barred out of Pictland lay in the old, well-grounded, political suspicion and antipathy with which theGaidheals or Scots were regarded by the Pictish people. lona, or even Dalriada, was comparatively small, and full conformity to Roman usage should soon have been complete, if it had been pressed; but, at this time, there is no sign that the Roman party urged the alteration of the organization of the Scotic Church, or the introduction of mon- archic and diocesan episcopacy. The same re- strained policy was observed by the Roman party in the circumscribeddistrict occupied by S. Curitan within the wider area of the Church of Pictland. S. Curitan's position as Ab and monastic bishop at Rosemarkie indicates that there was still no attempt to set up monarchic and diocesan epis- copacy in Pictland. By A.D. 724, Nechtan's foreign relations, his ecclesiastical innovations, his evident desire to keep the supreme power in his own family, and popular dissatisfaction with his colleague Tolarg, who was at this time in exile, had roused political forces, against which he declined to make a stand. 388 CHURCH &• KING The Annalists state that in this year Nechtan be- came a cleric, but are silent as to the community which he joined. They content themselves by stating that Drust* became sovereign on his re- tiral. Nechtan apparently still continued to inter- fere in the realm; because two years later, in a.d. 726, Drust still reigning, Nechtan was put under restraint. In the same year, however, Drust was ejected from the Pictish throne by Alpin or Elphin. Alpin was a Gaidheal or Scot by birth and train ing, and,asappearsfromcertain incidents in his career, possessed a claim to the Pictish sovereignty through his Pictish mother. His sudden leap into the midst of the troubled political life of Pictland has all the appearance of an attempt to avenge the expulsion of the Scotic clerics from their bor- der settlements; and, probably, if Alpin had been allowed to continue in power, he would have re- stored them; but the Picts refused to tolerate a sovereign with Gaidhealic or Scotic sympathies. Once again in their history the Picts produced a great military leader and born ruler, Angus I . Mac Fergus, who was destined to rank with their greatest soldiers and sovereigns, and to be named along with Brude Mac Maelchon and Brude Mac Bil6. In A.D. 728, after Alpin had ruled less than two years, Angus took the field and challenged his whole power. In the first battle he routed the * His own province or clan is not given, but he was evidently of British descent on his father's side. THE PICTISH NATION army which Alpin sent against him. In the same year Alpin reorganized a second army against Angus. An unexpected feature of this expedition is the dramatic re-appearance of Nechtan, ex- sovereign, cleric, and prisoner, at the head of his mobilized and marshalled clan, allied as usual with an outlander, Alpin. Alpin was driven from the field; but although the honour of victory went to Angus, the chief prize, namely the throne, was seized by Nechtan, who had fought on the side of the vanquished. It is the one touch of comedy in a tragic battle. Nechtan had kept his wits, and enough men, ready for immediate action, no mat- ter how the battle might go; and, while Angus was proceeding leisurely to take over the complete spoils, the old sovereign had reseated himself on the throne, and taken up the familiar reins of power. This meant another campaign for Angus. I nA.D. 729, before Nechtan had been many months in his old seat, Angus and his army were again in the field. He and his forces encountered Nechtan and his army at 'Monith-Carno,'* near a loch called 'Loogdae.'f Nechtan was defeated, and the 'ExactatoresJ Nechtain' fell in the action, namely, Biceot Mac Moneit and his son, and Fin- guine Mac Drostain, and Feroth Mac Finguine. * Mynydh Cam, Mountain of the Cairn. Locality not known. t These places were somewhere in what is now central Scotland, and with sufficient local knowledge might yet be identified. % A difficult word in connection with Nechtan. Probably the collectors of the sovereign's share of the produce of certain lands. Cf. 'the king's share' in Book of Deer. CHURCH af KING Nechtan himself escaped, but, on his flight, Angus became sovereign. Nechtan died in a. d. 732, about three years after his defeat; whether he returned to the seclusion of his monastic retreat, or retired to his fortress in Strath-Spey, is not told, and when the Annalists record his death, it is as 'Nech- tan "mc" Derelei' without the proud title *Rex Pictorum.' Nechtan in his time had played many parts. He was the first ruler in the northern part of Britain, so far as is known, but not the last, to dis- cover the variety of adventure which lies open to the leader of a Celtic people who wishes to innov- ate upon the accepted religion. All his intrigues, persistence,sacrifices,and sufferings were reward- ed by the establishment of only one romanizing community, namely S. Curitan's at Rosemarkie. There is no sign of any attempts on S. Curitan's part to do more than alter the Paschal date, to popularize the Roman tonsure, and to secure veneration for S. Peter. Outside the neighbour- hood of Rosemarkie the muinntirs and Churches of Pictland were antagonistic to this Roman mission. At Nechtan's death his innovations had resulted in a great deal of confusion within the realm, and much faction. If Nechtan had ever contemplated introducing a Roman hierarchy,* * Strenuous efforts have been made by Roman Catholic and Anglican writers to show that Nechtan would not have introduced his Roman in- novations without also introducing Roman prelates. They have no sup- port in history, and seeing S. Curitan remained an Ab and monastic bishop THE PICTISH NATION and clergy who would be independent of the w^^^V ntirs of the Pictish Church, he ended his work without accomplishing his designs. Even S. Curi- tan, his agent, adhered to the old organization and government of the Pictish Church; and, in spite of his innovations, died Ab of Rosemarkie and monastic bishop in the community there — not 'bishop of Ross* as some have carelessly stated. In A.D. 732, when Nechtan died, there was still not a single monarchic and diocesan bishop in Pictland. Leading Clergy of the Pictish Church WHO WERE ACTIVE IN NeCHTAn's ReIGN During the first sixteen years of Nechtan's reign, S. Maelrubha and his community at Aber- crossan were diligently taking their part in man- ning the Pictish Church over an extensive part of northern Pictland and the Islands. Although neither Abercrossan nor the parent community at Bangor had conformed to Rome; that did not keep S. Maelrubha out of S. Curitan's district. It probably attracted him thither; and S. Maelrubha's Church-foundations are found close to the Rose- markie district, and as far east of Rosemarkie as Keith in Banffshire. If the Church-foundations it is vain to go beyond him. Besides, the Roman plea from Augustine downwards was for uniformity at Easter and in the tonsure. Doubtless they had the hierarchy in the back of their minds; but they were too fer- seeing to insist on it until uniformity in other matters had been secured. CHURCH &> KING of S.Maelrubha and those of S.Curitan be marked into the same map of Pictland; it will be seen at a glance that the Church of Pictland as represented by S. Maelrubha shows signs of much greater activity and acceptance than the romanizing mission intruded by Nechtan, even although S. Curitan survived S. Maelrubha many years, when the work from Abercrossan was being continued by Failbhe Mac Guaire. The muinntir, first organized by S. Donnan the Great, was actively operating from the Island of Eigg in Nechtan's time; and for the first nine- teen years of Nechtan's public life it was govern- ed by Oan* who was succeeded by Cumine Ua Becce.f SS. Comgan and Fillan were colleagues with S. Maelrubha in the work of the Pictish Church in Ross; and sometime previous to a.d. 734 when Nechtan was still alive, S. Comgan became Ab of the muinntirdX Turriff, Aberdeenshire. In one of the territories of Nechtan's wide- spread clan, at Brechin in Angus, S. Drostan Dairtaighej helped to carry on the work of the * DiedA.D. 725. t DiedA.D. 751. X His retreat and ' Oakhouse' (oratory) were in Glen-Esk at Ard-Brec- cain. The Irish Annalists have treated him, and certain others, as belong- ing to the monastery of Ard-Brecain in Ireland. However, S. Drostan's work was at Breccain (Brechin) in Pictland. His cell-site in Glen-Esk, where his name is preserved, used to be known. His ancient memorial cross, with its well-known uncial inscription, still survives and is now at S. Vigean's Church in Angus. Cf. Aberdeen Breviary as to his retreat in Glen-Esk. 393 THE PICTISH NATION Pictish Church for thirteen years after Nechtan became sovereign. Before Nechtan died, Tuatalan was Ab of S. Cainnech's Regies and community at Cind Righ Monaidh (St. Andrews), still a centre of the old Church. During Nechtan's term of public life and be- yond it, S. Ronan was Ab of the Pictish Com- munity at Cinn-Garadh in Bute; and contem- porary with S. Ronan was Mac Coigeth, Ab of the Pictish Community, first organized byS.Moluag, in Lismore. Two years before N echtan's death, Pechthelm, Protector of the Picts, became in a.d. 730 the first monarchic and diocesan bishop north of what afterwards became theborder-line between Scot- land and England. His seat was at Candida Casa, and his diocese also took this name, although more frequently referred to as 'Galloway.' Sometime previous to Pechthelm's consecration the section of the community of Candida C«j<2 which adhered to the site, under English protection, had con- formed to Rome. The great Iro-Pictish Community of Bangor in Ulster which had co-operated with Candida Casa in fostering the Churches of Pictland of Alba had not conformed to Rome at this time; and, so far as can be perceived, was as cold to- wards the Paschal controversy and the change of tonsure as the other Communities in the north 394 CHURCH ^ KING of Ireland. During Nechtan's public lifetime Bangor was governed successively by Cenn- faeladh,* who had helped Adamnan in his efforts to reform the military law of Ireland, and by S. Flannf of Antrim. * He died 8th April 704. t He died in 722. STATE AND CHURCH IN PICT- LAND DURING THE REIGN OF ANGUS I MAC FERGUS, SOVEREIGN OF THE PICTS, 12 AUGUST A.D. 729-761 CHAPTER SIXTEEN Angus I. Mac Fergus was chief of the Men of the Earn (Fortrenn); and, at first, ruled in Fortrenn* which, in his time, through Brude Mac Bile's re- conquests, had become the most important divi- sion of Pictland. In a.d. 729, after defeating Nechtan, he assumed the sovereignty of all Pict- land. He will always be remembered as the man who enthroned S. Andrew, 'first of the Apostles,* as the Protector of Pictland, while he deposed S. Peter. S. Andrew is frequently referred to as the patron saint of 'Scotland'; but it need not be forgotten that he was, at first, patron saint of Pictland, and the Scots in later days took him over with much else that was Pictish. Other acts of Angus were not so harmless to Pictland. Even more violently than Nechtan he ignored the Cel- tic law which required that the sovereign should be elected at a convention of the chiefs. There is this to be said for the chiefs of the southern clans of Pictland; they had suffered most of the hard- ships, and provided most of the resistance de- manded by the invasions of the English of North- * According to the Transcript of the ^af£^(a:«y4«^w/r. Fragment No. 5301 in the Brussels collection of MSS. ANGUS I MAC FERGUS umbria, and the Gaidheals or Scots from Argyll; consequently, they feltthat the sovereign, who by hisoffice was Commander-in-chief,should be chos- en from among themselves as being nearest to the enemy, and as having most to lose through the selection of a weak ruler. Nevertheless, by dis- pensingwith election, Nechtanand Angusleftthe supremepowerat the mercy of thechiefwhosemili- tary power was strongest and most far-reaching. This political blunder endangered the unity and integrity of Pictland. It facilitated civil war; and it invited any alien Gaidheal or Scot, or An^le, who could provide an excuse, to take part in set- tling the accession to the supreme power while, at the same time, it afforded him a chance to wrest it to himself. Again, Angus, in carving a way to the supreme control of Pictland, had been greatly aided by Nechtan's unpopular foreign policy, especially his relations with the English; and the consequent efforts to introduce the doctrines and usages of the Church of Rome; but Angus him- self became friendly with the E nglish, after he had beaten them, and gave his support to a new effort to romanize the Church of the Picts. The Campaigns by which Angus secured him- self IN THE Supreme Power. Alpin Mac Eachaidh the Half-Pict The military activity of Angus I. Mac Fergus in so far as it affected Nechtan has been noticed. It 397 THE PICTISH NATION is necessary, however, to deal with it as it affected the position of his country and the development of his own political life and power. After Nechtan became a cleric in a.d. 724, Drust assumed the sovereignty of Pictland. The Pictish Chronicle indicates that he and Alpin were joint-sovereigns; but it is apparent from the Irish Annals that Drust reigned alone from a.d. 724 until 726, when he was driven from power and Alpin became sovereign. Then, instead of the joint-sovereignty which the Pictish Chronicle in- dicates, there was a competition for the supreme power which could not avoid disturbing Angus's kingdom of Fortrenn, and exasperating Angus himself and his people. According to the Annals of Ulster, Angus intervened, probably as much in the interests of the peace of his own province as in the interests of the sovereignty. He met the army of Alpin, the half-Pict and nominal sove- reign, at 'Monith-Craebh'* in a.d. 728. Alpin's forces were apparently led by his son who, along with many of his men, fell, and left Angus to en- joy the first of a series of victories. Alpin lost no time in trying to avenge his loss, and to check the growing power of Angus. In the same year, with a new army, he sought out the forces of Angus at 'Caislen Craebhi,' called 'Credhi'\ by * Believed to be Moncrieff in Perthshire. t The 'Castellum Credi' had not been so named at this date. The correct name is without doubt ' Craebhi,' and indicates one of the various places in Perthshire, named with ' Crieff'' as a second element. ANGUS I MAC FERGUS playing on the name or by a copyist's blunder. The resulting battle was disastrous to Alpin. His army was captured, his territories in Pictland were seized by Angus, and he fled from the field. This was the battle at which Nechtan reappeared, and slipped into the throne while Angus was complet- ing the punishment of Alpin. Alpin retreated to his paternal country, among the Gaidheals or Scots, destined to reappear in a more distant field. One would like to know what were Angus's feel- ings as he turned back in his victorious pursuit towards the centre of affairs, to find Nechtan, the old sovereign, snugly settled on the throne from which he had just driven Alpin. Angus's next ac- tion shows that he had not meant to clear a way for the return of the sovereign whose rule had caused an upheaval in Pictland, and also that he aimed at exercising the supreme power himself. In the fol- lowing year, A. D. 729, before Nechtan had time to secure himself in his old seat, Angus and his clan — that is, the Men of Fortrenn — marched against Nechtan, and encountered him and his army, as has been noticed, at the Mountain of the Cairn, near the loch * Loogdae. ' T he old monarch was de- feated, many of his supporters were slain, he him- self fled, and when he left the victory to Angus he also left the way open to the sovereign's throne. Angus, however, was not allowed to take that way at once, or unchallenged. Drust, who had been sovereign of Pictland, a.d. 724, when 399 THE PICTISH NATION Nechtan became a cleric, and who had been ejected from the supreme power by Alpin in a.d. 726, suddenly appeared in the field with an army against Angus. Drust doubtless thought, like Nechtan, that having once filled the throne, he had preferable claims to Angus. In a.d. 729 the two armies met at ' Drum-derg Blathmig,' the Red Ridge of Blathmig, which is believed to be Drum-derg on the western side of the Forfar- shire Isla. In the battle Drust fell, and his army was defeated. Angus I. Mac Fergus was now, from the date of the battle, 1 2th August 729,* the un- challenged sovereign of Pictland. To win the supreme power he had fought four great battles, all against former sovereigns. For two weary years Pictland had suffered the horrors of civil war, because one or two of the more powerful chiefs had chosen to break away from the old con- stitutional law of the Celts that the sovereign should be duly elected at a convention of the chiefs. The Picts had honoured this law longer and more consistently than any other branch of the Celts ;f but the hankering of leaders for ab- solute power was in the atmosphere of the time, and was apparently due to the example of the kings of the Teutonic Angles, and the fostering of romanist intriguers who hated the democratic clan-system of the Celts, because an absolute * Tighernac's date. t In Ireland the sovereignty was early monopolized by the clan Niall, although election was reverted to, even in the late period, in times of crisis. 400 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS ruler served their purposes better than a group of chiefs, or a sovereign who was limited by his chiefs. The idea that the sovereign should be limited by the chiefs, which was so often asserted during the later history of northern Alba, was im- bedded in the original political organization of the Picts. Some incidents of this period deserve passing notice. The Picts have not usually been regarded as a maritime people; but after Angus had dis- posed of Nechtan,the Pictish fleet to the number of one hundred and fifty ships was wrecked on a headland called ' Ros-Cuissine' (not identified), in A.D. 729. The Gaidheals or Scots of Dalriada were at this time, and had been for a long time previous, divided among themselves. From the year a.d. 689, when the crown of Dalriada passed from the clan Gabhran to the clan Lorn, the former clan persistently tried to recover the supremacy from the latter. Just before Angus became sovereign of Pictland, the Scots were ruled by two kings, one in Lorn and the other in south Argyll; and each claimed and sought to assert supremacy over all Dalriada. This strife* among the Gaidh- * The Gaidhealic or Scotic kings of Dalriada, showing their clan and title in the Annals^ are, after the death of Maelduin of clan Gabhran, king of Dalriada, who died 689, as follow — Ferchar Fada of Lorn, claimed to reign over all Dalriada, d. 697. Eochaidh Rineaval of the clan Gabhran (claimant), d. 697. Ainbh-cellach of Lorn, expelled from the 'kingdom' in 698 by help from Ireland. Killed in war with his brother in 719 while still dethroned. 2D 401 THE PICTISH NATION eals or Scots was a constant menace to Pictland, because the border Picts were in danger of being unwillingly involved, or willingly attracted to- wards the Scotic quarrels for the sake of their own interests. After Angus had become sovereign of Pictland, the chief of the clan Gabhran, Eochaidh Mac Eachaidh, occupied the throne of Dalriada for about six years; but Muredach, grandson of Ferchar Fada, chief of Lorn, was also claimant to Eochaidh's seat and to the supremacy among the Scots. This king of Dalriada, Eochaidh Mac Each- aidh, who died a.d. 733, has more than passing in- terest in connection with the reign of Angus Mac Fergus over the Picts. Alpin the half-Pict, who inA.D. 726 ejected Drust from the supreme power In 714 Selbac of Lorn was rising to power. He was of the family of Ferchar Fada, and claimed the crown of Dalriada, In 7 19 Selbac defeated his brother and began to reign. In the same year he was in action against the clan Gabhran under Duncan Becc, who died in 721 as 'king of Can- tyre.' Selbac became a Cleric in 723. He died in 730. Dungal, son of Selbac, now became king in 723. He was ejected from power c. 726 by Eochaidh Mac Eachaidh, and the latter began to reign. Eochaidh died 'king of Dalriada' in 733. Alpin Mac Eachaidh now claimed the crown, and persisted until 736-7. Dungal meanwhile had become a free- booter. He was wounded in 734, and put in chains, in 736, by Angus, sovereign of the Picts. In the year 733 Muredach Mac Ainbhcellach, grandson of Ferchar Fada, became king of Lorn. For a time, the Scotic monarchy of Dalriada ceased to exist after A.D. y^f. When Angus Mac Fergus died 'king of the Picts' in 761, he is styled by one authority ' Ri Alban ' ; that, in this instance, meant all northern Britain. Flann and the Albanic Duan displace certain of the above kings, but the above dates are from the Irish Annals. The Latin editors begin their deliberate falsifications with certain kings in the above list, and put four of them about a century away from their correct dates. This was to hide the effects of Angus's occupation of Dalriada. 402 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS inPIctland, seizing it for himself, and who in turn was defeated in battle and driven out of Pictland by Angus, is regarded by the best authorities as Eochaidh's brother.* As Dr. Skenef pointed out, his designation in the oldest lists is 'Alpin Mac Eachaidh.' The compilers of the later Latinlists of Scotic kings, with a view to hiding the exploits of Angus I. Mac Fergus in Dalriada,and also for the purpose of strengthening Kenneth Mac Alpin's claim to the Pictish supremacy in the ninth cent- ury, have deliberately falsified the position of this Alpin in the lists of the Scotic chiefs, and have dat- ed him about one hundred years later than his real period.^ Nevertheless, Alpin was a very active agent in shaping the events of Angus's reign. He had tried to prevent the rise of Angus to power. No sooner was he ejected from Pictland in A.D. 728 than he began to seek power among his father's people in Dalriada; and after his brother's death in 733 he became a claimant to the throne of Dalriada. According to the eleventh-century list of Scotic kings, he actually reigned in the south of Dalriada for four years, which would be A.D. 72>2>-7?)7* disputing the throne of all Dal- riada with Muredach, chief of Lorn, just as Muredach had disputed it with Alpin's brother Eochaidh. * One writer calls him his 'son,' due to the fact that their father was also Eochaidh (Gen. Eachaidh). t Chronicles P. andS. pp. clxxxv-clxxxvii, X Cf. Skene's remarks, Chronicles P. andS. p. cxxviii. THE PICTISH NATION Angus and the Picts conquer the Gaidheals OR Scots of Dalriada Revenge wascertainly not the ruling motive in Angus I.Mac Fergus; but incidentally he aveng- ed the Picts most thoroughly for what they had suffered, especially in the western Pictish pro- vinces of Lennox, Fortrenn, and Atholl, from long repeated and vindictive aggression by the Gaidheals or Scots, To a masterful soldier and swift-acting ruler like Angus, the anarchic fer- ment among the Scots on the right flank of his sovereignty was an unendurable danger and pro- vocation. Alpin the half-Pict, his rival, whom he had ousted from the Pictish sovereignty, was in Dalriada and was related to one of the ruling clans there; and at any hour he might spring a sur- prise on Angus. Dungal, also, the son of Selbac andgrandson of Ferchar Fada, was there, and after his dethronement in a.d. 726-7, had turned free- booter and raider. In a.d. 733 he organized two expeditions 'for plunder,' attacking first 'Innis Cumennraighe'^ and then 'Toraidh,' both attacks * Clearly these two places were not only in Angus's dominions, but in his clan territories. The names have been corrupted by the copyists of the Annals. Tighernac gives * Cumennraighe, ' but the Annals of Ulster, ' Cul- renrigi.' To make matters more confused the various Irish editors tried to locate the places in Ireland. Toraidh, the place of towers, is given as ' Tor- aigh* and as ' Toraic.^ The Irish editors have identified it with Tory Island ! The sequel shows that both places were in the dominions of Angus. * Innis ' in Pictland is as often as not an island in a river or loch. I offer as an inter- pretation of both places Comrie and Turret, both near Dundurn (Dun-d- Earn), Angus's stronghold on the Earn. 404 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS in Angus's absence. Brude, Angus's son, who had been left in charge, was evidently surprised during the raid on 'Toraidh,' because he sought 'sanctuary.' This sanctuary Dungal violated, and he laid violent hands on Brude. The violation of ecclesiastical or royal sanctuary* was a capital crime among all the Celts; and, in Ireland, had not only been followed by instant punishment, but, sometimes, by grievous war, if the culprit was protected. In this instance, as Dungal was a subject of Dalriada, which at the time was in a lawless state, his crime necessitated an expedi- tion by Angus against him and against the clan Lorn, which harboured him. Angus located him at his fort ' Dun-Leitkfinn,'\ on the northern modern border of Lorn, and engaged him. This wasinA.D. 734. Dungal was wounded, but escap- ed, and fled to Ireland from * the power of Angus.' It is quite evident that Dungal had not been without confederates, because, while his army was in Lorn, Angus distributed other punishments. Talorg Mac Congusa, a Pictish chief from the north, who had shown disaffection to the house of Angus in a.d. 73 i, and who had been punished by the same Brude whom Dungal attacked, was now in A.D. 734 seized by his own brother, and deliv- * Comrie owes its name to its sanctuary. Near the neighbourhood of the sovereign's seat there was always a sanctuary, where people, though at feud, could have access to his person for redress. t The last part of the name is ^Leven,' and is now preserved in the river and loch of the name which divides the counties of Inverness and Argyll. THE PICTISH NATION ered to Angus's men, by whom he was drowned. Tolarg Mac Drostain, chief of Atholl, brother or half-brother of Nechtan, the former sovereign, who had been in exile in Lorn, was now fettered and imprisoned near Dunolly, the fortress of the chief of Lorn, evidently to restrain him from annoying Angus. It is also a sign that Mure- dach, the chief, professed to be friendly to Angus. What movement occurred to break the peace we are not told; but in a.d. 736 Angus, at the head of the Pictish army, marched into the very heart of Dalriada. Eochaidh Mac Eachaidh, the 'king of Dalriada' who ruled the clan Gabhran and the other southern Dalriad clans, had died in A.D. 733, just before Angus's expedition into Lorn against Dungal. The man who claimed to succeed Eochaidh was Alpin, his brother, the half-Pict, Angus's rival; and, according to one authority, he did succeed, and reigned in south Dalriada 'four years,'* which, as already noted, were from a.d. 733 to 736-7. It is manifest from Angus's line of march, and from consideration of the earlier history of Alpin, that Angus was out in A.D. 736 mainly to strike at Alpin and the Gabhran clan, or such others as might be inclin- ed to support them. On his march Angus laid waste Dalriada as far as Knapdale. He assaulted and captured the Scotic capital at Dun-Add\\ * Cf. the Duan Albanaich. t On the river Add at Crinan. Here the ruins still exist. They have been examined and described to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 406 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS and he burned Creich. * He appears then to have wheeled about, and having marched towards Lorn, he encountered Dungal the freebooter and his brother Feradach, both sons of Selbac and grandsons of Ferchar Fada and so of the royal line of the Scots, and these he fettered and made prisoners. Angus's own son, Brude, succumbed after this campaign. Alpin, his chief adversary, escaped. Angus, in putting Dungal and Feradach in chains, thought that he had robbed Lorn of leaders who were hostile to him; but he over- looked their kinsman, Talorgan Mac Fergus, a great-grandson of Ferchar Fada formerly head of the clan Lorn and king of Dalriada. Talorgan was a mere youth. He thought that the sooner Angus's attention was diverted from his country the better. He raised the clan Lorn, and with sound but daring strategy cut through Angus's line of communications, and took a line that threatened Angus's capital at Dun-d-Earn, and the road to the south. The Anna/s make clear that he struck directly at Fortrenn, and did not waste his small force on the rearguard of Angus's power- ful army occupying Dalriada. His enterprise is called an invasion (bellum), not a raid. It took its name from 'Cnoc CoirpriJ now 'Cnoc Cophair^\ * This name abounds in Pictland and in Dalriada. In this instance the place is to be sought in Argyll. t From this point Talorgan had the choice of the road through Glen Gyle and Strath Gartney in Angus's dominions with its facilities for sur- prise, or the more exposed road by Balquhidder. 407 THE PICTISH NATION near the head of Glen Gyle. It covered the dis- trict * Calatros' as far as ' Etar Linndu.' The Be- tween ofLinddu is the Pass of Leny. The student of place-names will find an historical parallel for equating 'Calatros"^ with the modern Callanderf at the south end of this Pass, which commanded the road to and from Angus's capital on the Earn. Talorgan, in spite of his well-devised strategy, failed to get his blow home to the heart of Fort- renn. Angus had not left his home territories without a sufficient garrison. Talorgan's army was turned, and put to flight, and was pursued through the passes, and many chiefs fell. Angus took one significant step at the close of these deal- ings with the Scots. In a.d. 734 he had left Tolarg Mac Drostain, brother or half-brother of Nechtan and chief of Atholl, in captivity at the capital of Lorn, Dunolly. In a.d. 739 this Tolarg, who had rarely been out of trouble with his fellow- Picts, was seized by Angus and drowned. In a.d. 74 1 the Scots of Dalriada made one more attempt to rid themselves of the dominance of Angus, but the attempt was in vain, and Dalriada was once more 'smitten' by the conqueror. The early fabulists and certain modern his- torians who follow them have wasted much in- genuity in explaining away the result of Angus's * Certainly not Culross on Forth as offered by Dr. Reeves. 'Cardross' on the upper Forth would have been better. Even the ' Trossachs' may contain an element of the old district name. t For the ' Calatria' at Falkirk compare the Glasgow Charter of 1 136. 408 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS campaigns in Dalriada. He conquered Dalriada; but he did not exterminate its male inhabitants. Unlike the Teutonic English in southern Pict- land, he did not make a wilderness and call it peace. He broke the regal power of the clans Gabhran and Lorn, and cut them off from succes- sion to the Dalriad monarchy. So effectively was this accomplished in the case of the clan Lorn that not until the time of Maelcoluim, who died in A.D. 1034, did that clan furnish a candidate to royal power. The Picts recovered sole control of the territories in the south and west of what is now Inverness-shire, which the Gaidheals or Scotsof Lorn had penetrated. These districtsand the original Lorn fell under the sway of Pictish chiefs, connected with the family of Angus; and these chiefs styled themselves 'kings of Dalri- ada,'* and were so recognized. As regards the clan Gabhran, the most powerful among the Gaidheals or Scots, and the most aggressive to- wards the Picts, because they inherited the trad- itions of Aedhan Mac Gabhran, 'the False,' S. Columba's nominee to the throne, Angusand the Pictish army awarded them extreme punishment. * The names of some of them will be found preceding Kenneth Mac Alpin's name in the Synchronisms of Flann; and in the Duan Albanaich. Both these documents are eleventh century. Their fault is that in one or two instances they have entered a clan chief who was claimant to the crown as having actually reigned. Their entries are supported, almost wholly as to this period, from the Irish Annals. The twelfth-century Latin lists of the Scotic kings, as regards this period, were deliberately falsified in the interests of the Scotic ascendency, and are quite untrustworthy. 409 THE PICTISH NATION Alpin the half-Pict, who was related to the clan Gabhran through his father, again succeeded in making his escape. While Angus lived, not one of their other leaders dared to lift his head. After his death, Aed Finn Mac Eachaidh and his brother set up to rule from Cantyre; but they were quickly displaced by the Pictish chiefs of the family of Angus, who at this time figure in the lists as 'kings' of Dalriada; although they were really the lieutenant-governors of the Pictish sovereign. In the two oldest documents, witness is borne to the humbled position of the chiefs of the clan Gabhran in the title ' Ardfhlaith^'^ high chief, instead of Ri^ king, which is bestowed on Aed Finn. Some recent historians, while compelled by completer knowledge of the old Celtic docu- ments to admit the conquest of Dalriada by An- gus, are nevertheless still so swayed by the inven- tions of the Scotic fabulists regarding Kenneth Mac Alpin's origin that they declare that An- gus's occupation produced no 'fusion' of the two nations of Picts and Scots. Doubtless there was not much fusion between the regal families of the two nations; but already, especially in Lorn, there had been a great deal of fusion among the masses. Before Angus's time the Dalriad colonists had already fused extensively with the western * ^omih^DtmnAlbanaich. Flann's copyists have mangled the word, varying in the three MSS. from * Airgneck' to * AireatecJ' It should be noted that this Aed Finn and his brother Fergus were sons of Eachaidh, consequently brothers of Alpin, and so half- Picts. 410 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS (Bede's 'northern') Picts; and the clan Lorn had absorbed the Picts of 'Beregonium' and their power so completely that little was afterwards left to mark the difference between them and the Gaidheals or Scots, apart from the laments and relics associated with their capital. The Reappearance of Alpin the half-Pict The chief disappointment of Angus's cam- paigns in Dalriada had been the escape of Alpin Mac Eachaidh, the half-Pict, ex-Sovereign of Pictland, and, according to Flann and the Duan Albanaich, ex-king of Dalriada. Until recently he eluded the historians as completely as he had eluded Angus. His career in Dalriada, and after, is left out of the Irish Annals, for reasons not ap- parent; but he appears, after his brother, among the kings of Dalriada in the two eleventh-century documents mentioned. Alpin's reign, or attempt to reign, in Dalriada began on the death of his brother, Eochaidh, in a.d. 733. He reigned three* or fourf years, according to the Chronicles. Three is the accurate number, because his de- thronement and flight from his seat took place in A.D. 736, when Angus I. Mac Fergus and the Pictish army entered Dalriada, laid it waste, and stormed and seized Dun-Add, the fortified capital. As Angus entered, Alpin left. Once before, when * Gray's transcript of the (twelfth century) Chronicle of the Scots. t Duan Alhanaich. 411 THE PICTISH NATION he had been ejected by Angus, he left the crown of Pictland behind him; on this occasion he left the crown of Dalriada. With his flight the Gaidh- ealic or Scotic kingdom of Dalriada came to an end, in spite of the fact that Aed Finn, 'the high-chief,' and his brother, of the same family as Alpin, made attempts to revive it. Their failures only emphasized how completely the sceptre had passed from the Gaidhealic or Scotic clans to the Pictish family of Mac Fergus, Angus's people. But Alpin was determined to have a kingdom. Where he found it is told in the 'Short Chronicle of the twelfth century, transcribed in the time of James V. by James Gray, priest of Dunblane. The manuscript from which Gray copied must have been badly torn or badly faded; because no scribe, even if partially illiterate, could have achieved the blunders in spelling which James accomplished unless his original had been worn and dim. N evertheless the original was clear con- cerning Alpin. It preserved the duration of his reign correctly as three years. It knew the full designation of Alpin as 'Alpin filius Eachaidh Anghbaidh,' the last epithet being applied to his father by Flann also, in a still earlier manuscript. It states with strict historical accuracy that after Alpin's reign ceased, the kingdom of the Scots passed into the kingdom of the Picts.* But con- * 'tunc translatum est regnum Scotorum in regnum Pictorum.' 412 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS cerning Alpin himself this manuscript tells that he was killed in Galloway after he had wasted and made havoc in it. One of the tainted Chronicles^ describes the actual manner of his death: 'Hewas killed by a single man who lay in wait for him among thick wood at the entrance to a river-ford, and at the time, he was riding at the head of his followers.' Dr Skenef has identified the scene of Alpin's death at ' Laicht '-Alpin, f near a stream which falls into Loch Ryan. Unfortunately the Annalists give no clue to the length of time which intervened between Alpin's flight from Dalriada and his death in Galloway. All that is clear is that some years had passed, because before Alpin came to his end he had succeeded in subduing part of Galloway. This Galloway J enterprise brought Alpin into conflict withtheEnglish of Northumbria; because, before this time, as has been noted, the Brito- Pictish population of Galloway had submitted to the kings of Northumbria; and the English had not only penetrated into parts of the province but had superimposed the Anglo-Roman ecclesiasti- cal system on the native Church. * That in the Scalacronica. t Chronicles, Picts and Scots^ p. clxxxv. 'Laicht '-Alpin means Alpin's stone. X Incidentally, Alpin's occupation of Galloway helps to explain the un- doubted traces of the Gaidheals or Scots in that province which appear alongside remains of the original Brito-Pictish population. 413 THE PICTISH NATION The Campaigns of Angus against the Eng- lish. PiCTS AND English come to Terms; and TURN THEIR ArMS AGAINST THE BrITONS OF Strathclyde. Alpin in Galloway The Scottish writers, through whose hands most of the old documents passed, have not allowed us to know much about the English campaign of Angus I. Mac Fergus. The English writers have been only a little less reticent. In the days of the 'English Claims,' and the con- sequent Scotic pretensions, the Scottish writers kept Angus the Pict out of the national story; and the English writers had no wish to enlarge upon his exploits in their country. The chief authority now for Angus's English campaign is the memorandum, by the continuator of Bede's history, that in a.d. 740 Northumbria was 'cruelly and unjustifiably wasted by Ethel- bald, king of Mercia, while Eadbert, the English king, and his army were absent and employed against the Picts.' An echo of this campaign ap- pears to be contained in the words, also by Bede's continuator, that Angus, king of the Picts, con- tinued to the end of his reign to be 'a blood- stained and tyrannical butcher.' Fierce enough words, but inappropriate to an Annalist of the Teutonic English who had recreated brutality in the midst of Celtic civilization; and, in their frequent aggressions, had pitilessly heaped the 414 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS valleys of the Britons and of south Pictland with slain, and caused the streams to run blood. What happened when Eadbert and his Angles met Angus and his army has been dropped out of history. The sequel shows that it was not Angus and his Picts who suffered or were driven back, but Eadbert and his Angles. From one of the fragments of real history woven into the Legends of S. Andrew, it is seen that on this expedition Angus camped at an ancient Roman camp called ' Kartinan ' * ( Caer Tinan\ near the mouth of the Northumbrian Tyne, and at some period in his operations 'wintered 'in theMerse, Berwickshire, where, ofcourse, food would be abundant. Angus's army had the blood of the ancient Brigantes in them, because it was into Angus's territory that this great Celticpeople had retired when centuries before, c. a.d. 139, Lollius Urbicus had driven them out of the very country where Angus en- camped. It was something that, ^. a.d. 740, Angus could plant his triumphant flag on a former camp of the enemiesof his people; and also in the realm of the later Teutonic invaders who, unlike the Romans, possessed no culture to offer as a con- solation for conquest. Eadbert, king of Northumbria, when he went forth against the Picts suddenly found himself between the hammer and the anvil. Defeated by * The Legend in the Colbertine MS. In the amplified Legend of the Harleian MS. this is explained as 'ad ostium fluminis Tyne.' THE PICTISH NATION Angus and the Pictish army somewhere between Forth andTyne,he could not fall back on his own kingdom because it had been overrun by his Saxon neighbours in the interval; and there Ethelbald and his army waited to annihilate him. Judging from what followed, he made terms with Angus, and entered into alliance with him that both might join up their forces and march to crush Ethelbald.* It was just as important to Angus to get rid of an aggressive Saxon, like Ethelbald on his southern frontier, as an aggres- sive Angle like Eadbert. Again we are not told what happened when the armies of Angus and Ethelbald met; but these leaders also came to terms and operated together; because the con- tinuator of Bede states that in the year a.d. 750 — ten years after Eadbert, king of Northumbria, had brought Angus into the field against him — 'Cuthred, king of the West Saxons, rose up against Ethelbald and Angus'-, so that Angus must have lent his name and troops to the Mer- cian king. What reasons Angus had for helping the Mercian king are not apparent now; but he had good reasons for accepting an alliance with Ead- bert in A.D. 740, after he had defeated him. Alpin the half-Pictwas hovering aboutthe west looking * The scribe in the Harleian MS. Legend of S. Andrew calls him •Athelstan,' in error. The earlier Colbertine MS. of the Legend states that Angus marched against the British nations inhabiting the south- eastern part of the island. This is quite right. 416 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS for his opportunity. 1 1 was in the year after Angus had defeated Eadbert that he gave Dalriada its decisive 'smiting.' After this, Alpin andhis force of Scots invaded and subdued part of Galloway which was then in Eadbert's kingdom. The subsequent events show that Alpin must have had some encouragement and perhaps assistance from Taudar Mac Bile, king of the Strath-Clyde Britons. Itwas against thetradition of the Britons and Picts that they should take the field against one another; and, moreover, this king of the clan Bil6 was probably related to Angus. He was cer- tainly related to part of the royal stock in Angus's kingdom. Alpin's subjugation of part of Gallo- way, and his association with the king of the Bri- tons, menaced the power of Angus and obliter- ated all Pictish ties. Consequently in a.d. 750 Angus and the Pictish army, with whom Eadbert was associated, met the Britons under Taudar on the field of 'Catoc'* or Maes-y-dawc.\ The bat- tle ended in victory for Angus and some spoil to Eadbert. Tolarg the brother of Angus fell in the action. What happened to Alpin and Galloway we are again not told; but Bede's continuator states significantly that the 'plain of Kyle' in Ayrshire was added to Eadbert's kingdom. Tau- dar died A.D. 752. One not very trustworthy * Spelling in Annals of Ulster is 'Catohic' (genitive). Reeves gives 'Cato.' t In the Annales Cambriae called Mocetauc. ' Maes ' means field. 2E 417 THE PICTISH NATION source reports that Angus took Taudar's sub- mission at the castle of Dunbarton after the lat- ter's defeat.* We are left to infer that the death of Alpin, as noted, followed closely on this battle oi Maes-y-dawc. It is to be regretted, in spite of the 'English Claims,' that the Scotic fabricators and editors did not allow Alpin's fate in relation to this de- feat to remain in the originals, on which the An- nalists drew, and also the exact date of his tragic death. It is equally to be regretted that they have not told us whether Alpin's Scots maintained their hold on Galloway, or whether Eadbert's garrison was established in Kyle to keep them and the Britons apart. These essential details would have fully established the account which is given by Giraldus and others, that the Scotic forces which supported Kenneth Mac Alpin when he acceded to the Pictish sovereignty in the ninth century came 'out of Galloway.' If they so came, they were the descendants of Alpin's clansmen; because Galloway had not been peopled by Scots until Alpin seized it. The undisturbed continuity at this time of one Galloway institution strongly suggests that al- though the effects of Alpin's occupation may have been felt throughout Galloway, the Scotic colony which resulted became restricted to the Rhynns * The original authority is said to be an English or Britonic MS,, but if so I have not been able to trace it. 418 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS and the districts on the Ayrshire border.* The institution that was unaffected by Alpin and his Scots was the Anglo- Roman diocesan bishopric set up A.D. c. 730 under Pechthelm at Candida Casa, the mother- Church of the Britons and Picts. In Alpin's time this bishop was no longer the simple member or president of a Celtic muin- n^zr,hut wasmonarchic and diocesan. Manifestly if Alpin had disorganized all Galloway for any length of time he would have disorganized the bishopric, I especially as the bishop was a Teuton, Frithwald, with little sympathy for Alpin or any of his race. But, as Bede's continuator shows, the bishopric was not disorganized, because he states that Frithwald was ordained| a.d. 735, and he died in his chair at Candida Casa a.d. 764. The bishop who succeeded him was not a Gaidheal or Scot but Pechtwine,§ whose name speaks for itself. * This is also indicated by the death of Alpin at Loch Ryan. t The succession of Anglo-Roman bishops over this period were — Pechthelm, 730-735; Frithwald, 735-764; Pechtwine, 764-776. Richard of Hexham erred in suggesting that Acca came into this succession. % By Archbishop Nothelm. § Or 'Pictuine,' which means Friend of Picts. Ci. Historia Regunty S. of D. pp. 22, 28. THE PICTISH NATION By English Inspiration Angus also takes a Hand in the Veneration of Saints and Relics; and makes way for S. Andrew to BE Patron and Protector of Pictland In deference to the association of S. Andrew with modern Scotland, and to the new romanizing movement which began in Pictland under Angus, with the prestige of S. Andrew's name; it may be permissible to turn from the historical memor- anda of the Annals to the scrap of valid history on which the Legend of S. Andrew is founded, be- cause there is a fragment of history in the midst of the grotesque fables of the three versions of the Legend. It has been noted that in his first English campaign Angus Mac Fergus the Pictish sove- reign encamped with his army at Caer-Tinan near the Newcastle end of Hadrian's Wall. This camp was also close to the Roman monastery at Jarrow and Wearmouth, formerly ruled by Ceol- frid, from whence the Roman Catholic influence had been exerted on Nechtan that brought him into trouble with many of his Pictish subjects, Angus among the rest. Angus's hostility to Nechtan and S. Peter would be well known to the united brethren of Jarrow and Wearmouth. Angus's camp was also near Hexham ('Hagus- tald') where there was a Cathedral-Church which had been dedicated not long before to the 'bles- 420 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS sed Apostle Andrew with manifold decorations and wonderful craftsmanship.' Its dismissed bis- hop, Acca, was a fanatic about relics, especially relics of the Martyrs and Apostles; and as he had travelled extensively in Europe with Wilfrid he had gathered a considerable stock of the alleged sacred remains, and had built altars for them in the side chapels which he arranged within this Cathedralof S.Andrew.* Now Acca had learned great veneration for S. Andrew from Wilfridf who was the ambitious and aggressive Anglian prelate who had once gone to Rome, and before the uninformed hierarchy there, with character- istic audacity, had confirmed his subscription to Roman doctrine in the name, among others, 'of the Picts.' Sometime before Angus's expedition, in 731, Acca had been driven from his episcopal chair. Bede's continuator does not say why; al- though he certainly knew. Like other bishops, in like plight, Acca was probably residing among the monks of Jarrow and Wearmouth,^. a.d. 740, when Angus was in the vicinity. This monastery was in the diocese of St. Andrews of Hexham, and *S. Andrew' was in the atmosphere of the whole district. These proselytizing monks had caught Nechtan in the net of S. Peter; but the * See Bede, H.E. G.A. lib, v, cap. xx. This Church was built between 672 and 678. f Wilfrid believed that he got his persuasive eloquence through inter- cession to S. Andrew. He had gone over to Rome after being a pupil of the Scotic clerics at Lindisfarne. 421 THE PICTISH NATION same instrument had failed with the Pictish peo- ple; and, especially, with Angus. Why should they not try the net of S. Andrew upon Angus, seeing that they had such a tempting opportun- ity? The 'real' relics of an actual Apostle might appeal to the reverent spirits of the Celts of Pict- land; although relics were not yet venerated there. As Angus walked in broad daylight with his seven chiefs* in his camp at Caer-Tinan,f amid surroundings suffused with S. Andrew, a divine lightj shone round them, and the king heard a 'heavenly voice' calling 'Angus, Angus, give heed, I am Andrew the Apostle of Christ come to defend thee and to take thee into my care. Be- hold the sign of the Cross§ elevated in the skies, preceding thee against thine enemies ;|| and take care to dedicate a tenth of thine inheritance to God Almighty and his Apostle S. Andrew.' Such is the oldest version of the tale that can * Evidently representative of the seven provinces of Pictland. t Of the three versions of the Legend which we possess two are com- posite documents, and different accounts of the same incidents have been thrown together without any attempt to reconcile them. In one account the vision appeared at Caer-Tinan (near Newcastle), and in another in the Merse. X The details here are borrowed from the Acts of the Apostles. § Cf. Constantine's Vision. II Who were Angus's enemies at that moment? Not the Angles or the Saxons, because he had come to terms with them ; but Alpin and the Gaidheals or Scots. He did march against them in the following year, 741, and gave them their final 'smiting.' When the Scots, therefore, took over ' S. Andrew ' in the ninth century, they took over the saint who is alleged to have led in their greatest punishment as a nation. 422 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS now be got. The closing exhortation is in the true Roman ecclesiastical style; and if it formed part of the original exhortation to Angus, it would not be irreverent to suggest that it was originally framed, and, it may be, uttered, by one of the zeal- ous proselytizers of Ceolfrid's monastery on Tyne who had already tried to secure the conformity of the Church of the Picts to Rome. Whatever experience of Angus on Tyneside is hidden under this part of the Legend^ it is his- torically true that with the approval of certain members of Angus's family a new romanizing effort began in Pictland. The Scottish trans- lation of a still older Chronicle is relating an actual event in the entry, 'The zeire of God sevyn hun- dir Ixi ye relikis of Sanct Androw ye Apostle com in Scotland.'* a.d. 761 was the year in which Angus I. the Sovereign of the Picts died. The relics were in all probability brought from St. Andrews, Hexham. The legend of their removal from Patras is doubtless an echo of the story given by the credulous Acca to the worshippers on Tyneside. On the arrival of the relics in Pict- land they found a resting-place near the Regies or mother-Church founded by S. Cainnech of Achadh-Bo at CindRigh Monaidh in Fife. I n due course, after a.d. 761, a new Church was built, and dedicated to S. Andrew the Apostle. From * From internal evidence the earlier part of this Chronicle was tran- scribed about 1530. THE PICTISH NATION that time Cind Righ Monaidh^ became the city of S. Andrew; and as 'St. Andrews' it is still known. The muinntir attached to the Regies of S. Cainnech, which in Angus's time was under the presidency of the Ab Tuatalan, was appar- ently ignored by the Roman pioneers, or allowed to lead a separate existence ; because at a much later time it is found represented by dissenting Cde D^\ who cling to some of the ancient pro- perty of the Church of the Picts. Leading Celtic Clergy and their known Activities in the Church of the Picts in the Time of Angus One striking feature of the Celtic Chronicles is that though the originals were compiled by clerics, these clerics have comparatively little to say about the activitiesof the great religious com- munities. Sometimes there is nothing more than the recorded death of some leading Ab to indic- ate to the world that some ancient community continued the work for which it had been or- ganized. * The Latin Chronicle which was the original source of Sibbald's tran- script was falsified in the interests of the priority of Dunkeld, and to ob- scure the exploits of Angus I, It therefore ascribed the founding of ' Kil- remont' to Angus 11. It ought to be noted that it was not 'Kilremont' that had been founded, but St. Andrews. ' Kilremont' was already old. t It was into the monastery of the C6le Di of Cind Righ Monaidh (ac- cording to S. Berchan) that Constantine, second of the name who ruled the Scots, retired in his old age A.d. 940. His retiral was really the result of his defeat by Athelstan at Brunanburg a.d. 937. The Pictish Chronicle says, 'feeble with age, he took to himself the '■'■bcuhuV (staff), and served the Lord.' ANGUS I MAC FERGUS The outstanding Pictish clerics during part of the reign of Angus I. Mac Fergus were S. Ronan, Ab of the Pictish niuinntiroi Cinn-Garadh (Kin- garth), Bute; and Tuatalan, Ab of Cind Righ Monaidh (St. Andrews). In A.D. 729, the year that Angus took up the sovereignty of the Picts, Egbert the English zealot died. His later proselytizing activities were carried on among the Gaidheals or Scots; and consequently outside the Pictish Church. For thirteen of his latter years he devoted himself in lona to secure conformity to Rome, and suc- ceeded in creating a Celto-Catholic and a Roman Catholic party in the island. In a sentence which, in view of the work of S. Columba, every Scot must regard as audacious, Bede states that by Egbert's thirteen years' work in lona he 'conse- crated the island to Christy as it were, by a new ray of the grace of fellowship 2LXidi peace in the Church.' Bede regards as a remarkable dispens- ation of Divine Providence that Egbert ceased from his labours after he had celebrated the Pas- chal feast on the Roman date, which he had striven so hard to introduce, on this occasion 24th day of April 729.* During the first eight years of Angus's sove- reignty, Failbhe Mac Guaire presided over the distant Pictish muinntir established by S. Mael- rubha at Abercrossan in the west of Ross, main- * Cf. Bede, H.E.G.A. lib. v. cap. xxii. THE PICTISH NATION taining a ministry to the numerous Churches founded by S. Maelrubha in Banff, Moray, Ross, Sutherland, and the Hebrides. Failbhe and twenty-two of his sailors were drowned in the deep sea in a.d. "ji"], very likely during a voyage to the outer islands where some of S. Maelrubha's Churches had been planted. During Angus's reign the muinntir at Fearn of Edderton in Ross, founded by S. Ninian, and visited by S. Finbar while he was attached to Candida Casa,wa.s still active. I ts Ah,' ReoddaidAe' ('Reodatius'), died in a.d. 762,* one year after the end of Angus's reign. Part of the memorial cross f of Reodatius was recently recovered from the garden wall of Tarbat manse in the Fearn district, and not far from New Fearn, J the site chosen for the monastery after the community had been reorganized by Roman clerics from Candida Casa c.k. d. i 2 23-7.§ The translation of the uncial inscription on the cross of Reodatius is, 'In the name of Jesus Christ: a cross of Christ: in memory of Reodatius: may he rest (in Christ).* * Four Masters give 758. The Irish Annalists thought that Reodatius was Ab of Ferns in Ireland; but, as his memorial cross shows, this is an- other of their frequent blunders in crediting clerics of Pictish muinntirs to Irish communities of similar name. t 'No. 10' of the Tarbat Stones. Conveniently described by Romilly Allen in Sculptured Stones of Scotland. Some of his particulars concerning the reading of the stone are inaccurate. X Whither the romanized community was transported about 1238. Fearn remained a daughter-house of Candida Casa until the Reformation. § For a full account of Fearn, the inscribed cross, and other details, see the author's 5. Ninian, Apostle of the Britons and Picis, pp. 86-103. 426 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS Farther south S. Curitan, and the romanized community, intruded by Nechtan at Rosemarkie, continued their efforts to popularize S. Peter and Roman usage. S. Curitan lived* through most or all of Angus's reign. On the west the native Church of the Picts possessed, besides Abercrossan, the still active community of Eigg. Nine years before Angus's death, Cumineof the family of Becce,*religiosus'of Eigg, died a.d. 75 1 . The designation * religiosus ' deserves to be noted at this date. It is differenti- ated from 'ancorite.' The anchoret was a solitary; the 'religiosus' might, as in this instance, live in a community. The 'religiosus' was a rigorist in doctrine and discipline. His appearance in the Pictish Church is contemporaneous with the Romanist proselytizers who exalted uniformity above personal sanctity. In the east of Pictland, at Turriff in Aberdeen- shire, S. Comgan presided over his Pictish com- munity during part of Angus's reign. In a.d. 734 Kentigerna, S. Comgan's sister, died at her re- treat in Loch Lomond while her son S. Fillan was still labouring in the neighbourhood of Paisley. For eighteen years during Angus's reign Tuatalan presided over the Pictish community founded by S. Cainnech at Cind Righ Monaidh * The year of his death is not recorded; but it is stated that he taught among the Picts ' sixty years.' 427 THE PICTISH NATION (St. Andrews). Tuatalan died a.d. 747. This community must have grown to be one of the most influential in Pictland as, indeed, the traces of its ramifications on the east coast of Pictland indicate; and this doubtless explains why the Roman agents who aimed at exalting S. Andrew and popularizing Roman usage decided to estab- lish themselves there shortly before Angus's death. If they had captured the Pictish muinntir at Cind Righ Monaidh on their arrival, or im- mediately after, their success in romanizing Pict- land might have been speedier and more accept- able than S. Curitan's efforts. At Cind Righ Monaidh, however, as at Rosemarkie, and as at lona among the Scots, the Roman mission created two parties. The Pictish Celto-Catholics took up an attitude of opposition and adhered to their property; while the Roman Catholics, fav- oured by the family* of Angus, pushed ahead and tried to assert themselves above the native Church. The Ab of the mother-Churchf oiCind Righ Monaidh in Tuatalan's time was the vener- able Seannal Ua Taidhg who ruled his muinntir at Achadh-Bo forty- three years, and died there * According to the possible scrap of history in one of the versions of the Legend of S. Andrew, where the Roman mission goes to one of Angus's seats at Forteviotand receives favours from ' Ow^en, Nectan, and Finguine,' sons of Angus, and from Finchem, queen of Angus I. Mac Fergus. This version of the Z^^^m^/ ascribes the work of Angus I. to Angus II. t Cind Righ Monaidh was not founded from Achadh-Bo; but Achadh- Bo superseded the Regies of Cind Righ Monaidh as S. Cainnech's chief community and centre of supply. 428 ANGUS I MAC FERGUS on the festival of S.Comgall the Great, loth May A.D. 782. An interesting and informing figure during the early part of Angus's reign is S. Ronan,* Ab of Cinn-Garadh (Kingarth), Bute. This Iro- Pictish community, founded from Bangor, in this island of the Britons, a.d. 558-578, had been under S. Ronan's care before Angus became sovereign of Pictland; but the saint was contem- porary with Angus, after he had assumed the supreme power, for eight years. Bute was in the kingdom of the Strath-Clyde Britons, and Bil6 Mac Eilpin and Taudar, son of the former, were the kings who reigned at Dunbarton in S. Ronan's time. S. Ronan died at Kingarth a.d. 737. S. Ronan did not restrict his ministry to the Britons and the Picts. He was enabled by the events of his time to take a most unusual step, and to carry his ministry into lona among the Gaidheals or Scots. There were two reasons for this. Egbert's romanizing propaganda had split the community of the mother-Church of the Scots at lona into two bodies. Cilline Droicteach, 'Ab'of Iona,A.D. 726-752, who held the appoint- * As has been stated already, S. Ronan is not to be confused, as by Skene and others, with ' Ronan the Scot ' and romanizer who already in 664, seventy-three years before S. Ronan's death, was a man of ripe ecclesiastical experience with residence in Italy and Gaul behind him, ' Ronan the Scot ' (Irishman) championed Roman usage in Northumbria against Finan, bishop at Lindisfarne, and the other Gaidheals or Scots from lona. Finan resisted this innovator with much spirit, Bede calls it bad temper. See H.E. G.A. lib. iii. cap, xxv, 429 THE PICTISH NATION ment according to the rule which restricted the succession to members of S. Columba's clan, adopted the Roman cult of relics, and ruled over the group which had conformed to Rome. On the other hand, Fedhlimidh,* *Ab' of lona, a.d. 722-759, an outsider, ruled the group which had refused to conform to Rome. These evidently looked for support to the Iro-Pictish community at Kingarth among the Britons. Consequently S. Ronan, president of an Iro-Pictish community among the Britons, was able to extend his minis- try to the very gates of the chief Church of the Gaidheals or Scots. S. Ronan's Church-found- ations are found not only at Kingarth over which he presided, and at 'Kilmoronoc' in the Brito-Pic- tish territory of Lennox; but at ^Kilmoronog' on Loch Etive, in the very heart of Dalriada; and, most remarkable of all, at Tempul Ronoc or Ron- ain\ in lona, the site of which was occupied by the old parish Church of lona. The landing place of S. Ronan, near by, is still known as Port Ronain. Few people to-day realize that the base of the present Christian work in lona is not the * He was ' Ab' of lona during part of the time that Faelcu was ' Ab,' and during all the time of Cillene Fada and Cilline Droicteach, and part of the time of Slebhine. These were ' Abs' of the group which had con- formed to Rome. Fedhlimidh died in 759 at the age of eighty-seven. Dr. Reeves with absence of his usual candour calls Fedhlimidh 'coadjutor Abbot. ' Skene was historically correct when he wrote, * Egbert did not see entire conformity (at lona) during his life;^ and the schism was in full vigour up to the day of his death. ' \ Ruinous in 1796. ANGUS I MAC FERGUS site occupied by S. Columba and his muinntir] but the site occupied by S. Ronan the president of an Iro-Pictish community established in Bute from Bangor. The work of S. Ronan and his fellow-workers in Dalriada was, of course, facili- tated by the reopening of this kingdom to the Picts through the extension of the power of Angus Mac Fergus. It was in a.d. 736, the year before S. Ronan's death, that Angus and the Pictish army entered Dun-Add, the capital of Dalriada, as conquerors. S. Ronan's contemporary in the parent com- munity at Bangor was Fidhbhadach, Ab, who died A.D.762. During his rule Bangor suffered through an accidental outbreak of fire. At this time, so far as the Annals show, Bangor still remained aloof from the cult of relics and other Roman innovations. Across the Irish sea from Bangor, Candida Casa had now firmly adapted itself to Roman ways. Before S. Ronan's death, Frithwald had become bishop in a.d. 735, and he ministered to the Angles and the Picts of Galloway until A.D. 764. With the transportation, about the close of Angus's reign in a.d. 761, of the alleged relics of S. Andrew to Cind Righ Monaidh, the Roman cult of relics began inPictland among those Celts who had conformed. About a.d. 697 relics had been venerated bytheromanized Celts in various 431 THE PICTISH NATION parts of southern Ireland. In a.d. 727 the cult of relics was practised by the romanized group of the Gaidhealic or Scotic clerics of lona. The spurious sanctity through alleged relics of the saints was a poor substitute for the real sanctity, that had emanated from the personal holiness of the ministers, which had formerly hallowed the Churches. THE PROGRESS OF UNION, BY ABSORPTION, BETWEEN THE PICTS AND SCOTS. THE EFFECT OF THE COMING OF THE VIKINGS, AND ALSO OF KENNETH MAC ALPIN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The realms of Pictland and Dalriada were first unitedafterA.D. 741* when Angus I.Mac Fergus had subjugated the Gaidheals or Scots. The union aimed at was union by absorption. Dal- riada now took a place among the federated petty kingdoms of Pictland; and, after its subjugation, was ruled by the petty kings whom Angus set over the Scots, from his own family. These Pict- ish rulers naturally became members of the col- lege of Pictish chiefs, and so eligible for the supreme power in Pictland. This is the reason that, after Angus's death, some of these Pictish chiefs who ruled Dalriada are found acceding to the sovereignty of Pictland. As noticed, Angus had left a remnant of Scots in Cantyre, responsible to him, under Aed| Mac Eachaidh 'high-chief As also noticed, Aed and the Mac Eachaidh family had, after Angus's death, attempted to assert their own, and the in- * The year of Angus's last campaign against the Scots, and the date of the ' Percussio Dalraiti' by Angus. t Brother of Alpin the Half-Pict ejected (i) from the sovereignty of Pictland, (2) from the throne of Dalriada by Angus I. Mac Fergus. 2F 433 THE PICTISH NATION dependence of southern Dalriada. It was out of this remnant, or from their fellow-clansmen forced over to the Galloway coast, that Kenneth Mac Alpin emerged when he acceded to the supreme power in Pictland in a.d. 842. Of Pictish descent on the female side, which furnished his claims to the Pictish throne, Kenneth was on the male side, and by education and sympathy, a Gaidheal or Scot. His rise resulted in the displacing of An- gus's Pictish dynasty and clan; but his accession confirmed and continued the Union of the realms, with this difference, that the ruling caste, although partly of Pictish descent, and claiming power on account of that descent, was violently Gaidhealic or Scotic in sympathies, and worked for the dom- inance of the Gaidheals or Scots in the State and in the Church. Just as Angus and his family had been annoyed by a Scotic remnant who refused them complete recognition; so Kenneth Mac Alpin and his family were, in turn, annoyed by a section of the Picts, in the localities undisturbed by the Vikings, who did not recognize either their claims or their position. It was not until c. 889, after the expulsion of the joint-sovereigns of Pict- land — Eochaidh Run, a Brito-Gaidheal son of Kenneth's daughter, and Giric or Grig, a Pict of Fortrenn — by Donald II. Mac Constantine, who took the title 'king of Alba,' that the people of the two realms acquiesced, more or less content- edly, in the inevitable union. The sovereign's 434 UNION BY ABSORPTION change of title marks not only a change on the part of the two peoples, and a desire to live at peace; but it marks a change in outlook on the part of the ruling caste who no longer regarded the ruler as the sovereign-chief of the chiefs ot federated clans; but as the king of apeople united in spite of tribal divisions. The change in the sovereign's title, and his assumption of direct authority over the people as his subjects were fol- lowed by a change in the method of providing the sovereign's successor. The Celtic principle of electing the king's successor was preserved by Donald II. ; but the successor was neither pre- ferred from the sons of royal females, as among the Picts, nor elected from the deceased king's own sons, as among the later Gaidheals or Scots; he was selected from the sons of the deceased king's predecessor and he might, or might not be the eldest.* The benefits of this method of ar- ranging the royal succession were that the king always knew his successor, the people were re- lieved, as under the Pictish system, from the dread of a minority and a regency; and, from the point of view of the Gaidhealic or Scotic section of the subjects, a continuance of the Scotic line of kings was assured. Apparently, owing to the intrusion ofGiric or Grig the Pict, aboutA.D. 878, * A reference to the list of ' the kingsofAlban,* as they were now called, given at the end of this chapter will show how this method worked out in practice. 435 THE PICTISH NATION the ruling caste, with its Scotic sympathies, de- vised this new arrangement to exclude any member of the ancient royal clans of Pictland from the throne of the united realms. Angus I . Mac Fergus had designed to keep the succession to the supreme power in Pictland in his own family; and he was succeeded by his brother, Brude* of the clan Fergus; but on Brude's death the Ficts reverted to their own peculiar method of election which, however, did not exclude Angus's family from their chance of election to the supreme power. The following table of Pictish sovereigns, with its parallel list of the 'kings' of Dalriada, is designed to show both the succession of the Pict- ish sovereigns, and the occasions on which the Pictish petty kings of Dalriada were elected to the supreme power in Pictland, between the reigns of Angus Mac Fergus and Kenneth Mac Alpin. It will also be possible from this list to perceive at a glance the inter-relations of the Picts with the subjugated Gaidheals or Scots. * Brude, Angus's son, had died before this time during the campaigns in Dalriada. [Table oS z °- i< (fl 2H) fe wo S a o z K ■< 9 ^ U 0$ b S U O _ s: Z S B o "* h w eg 6 < y u K s w p > D M fi) « t < 2^* . £: z »-o „ O I, ■" SnC i?"?! vV.yo ^ .■" o c ■"<« i u u o -'^ -So ^■3 = bW o o S 1 2 -S ^ o c V o be ,o a rt < > (b Z So J U " (U Z a «i.S S 2 c *j 2 o ^ " H 01 "2 bS * j3 D OC/3 e 3 U'S O o-o ioa, 9 3 -"^ c O rt^ o-o « « S 5\* •"^•2 g-^ iir\. 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After all, there are really no mysteries; but much falsification and garbling of ancient documents by Latin Churchmen, to sup- port the usurpation of ecclesiastical positions and property, in the Pictish Church, by the Gaidhealic or Scotic clerics who had conformed to the Roman Church; and, at a later time, to support the pre- tensions oftheScots against the * English Claims' which were ecclesiastical as well as political. There is still extant in a manuscript dating earlier than a.d. 1372 an ungarbled genealogy,* belonging to a much earlier period, which in giv- ing the pedigree of Constantine IV. Mac Cuillen reveals clearly who Kenneth Mac Alpin was. He was 'sonof Alpin, son of Eachaidh, sonof Aed Fin,* ' ardfklaitk,' 'high chief of the Scots, after their conquest by Angus, sovereign of Pictland. This Aed Finn is also known as 'Mac Eachaidh' todis- tinguish him from another chief, and to mark his membership of the family of the eldest Eochaidh. Aed was thus a younger brother of Alpin the half- Pict who set up a Scotic kingdom in part of Gallo- * There are three versions: (i) Book of Ballymote; {2) Book of Lecain, and (3) MS. H. 2. 7. , Trinity College, Dublin. The last is considered the best transcript. UNION BY ABSORPTION way after he had been dethroned and driven out successively from Pictland, and from Dalriada by Angus I. Mac Fergus, the Pictish sovereign. Aed is the same who with diminished power and title, along with his brother Fergus, held on precari- ously to Cantyre, from which they doubtless kept in touch with the exiled Alpin in Galloway or his men, keeping alive their claims to be kings of the Scots of Dalriada; although, throughout both their lives, Dalriada was ruled from Lorn to Knap- dale by Domnall Mac Constantine, lieutenant- governor there, and relation to Angus the Pictish conqueror. Kenneth MacAlpin was therefore the great-grandson of Aed Finn Mac Eachaidh, and the great-grand-nephew of Alpin, the half-Pict, ejected sovereign of Pictland, and ejected king of Dalriada. Keeping in mind the respective peculi- arities of succession in Dalriada and Pictland, it is evident that Kenneth Mac Alpin grounded his claims to the throne of Dalriada on the follow- ing facts: ( I ) on his father's side he was a member of the royal Gaidhealic or Scotic clan Gabhran which had furnished most of the Dalriad kings; (2) his ancestor Eochaidh* had been king of Dalriada, and also the latter's son Alpin Mac Eachaidh; and Kenneth's great-grandfather Aed, and his great-grand-uncle Fergus had both been claimants to the Dalriad crown. With regard to the sovereignty of Pictland^ * In the Genitive Eachaidh. 439 THE PICTISH NATION Kenneth could ground his claims on the following facts: (i) on the female side, the side that usually- determined the eligibility of the candidate, he was descended from the royal house of Fortrenn; (2) his great-grand-uncle, Alpin Mac Eachaidh, had actually been sovereign of Pictland, until his ejection by Angus I. Mac Fergus, which gave the family of Mac Eachaidh rights of their own that they had persistently tried to assert. Over against these claims and rights was the fact that Ken- neth Mac Alpin's sympathies were Gaidhealic or Scotic; and, like his great-grand-uncle, he sought to intrude the Scots into Pictland at the expense of the native Picts. The Latin fabulists, the Roman Catholic garb- lers of Scottish History, and the transcribers and continuators of some of the early Celtic docu- ments have vied with one another in loading the life of Kenneth Mac Alpin with every variety of myth. They have placed him years before his time; they represent him as a mighty conqueror; they tell a story which implies the extermination of the whole Pictish people; they exalt him as the king who made religion, by which is meant the Roman Catholic Church, possible in Pictland. The exact truth is neither so grand nor so heroic. About a.d. 834 the pagan Teutonic Vik- ings, who had already gained a footing in the northern islands of Pictland, began to descend into the heart of Pictland from their settlements, 440 UNION BY ABSORPTION and also to swarm in from across the North Sea. The Picts once more in their history began a long fight for home, and existence, such as aforetime they had fought against the Romans, and against the Teutonic Angles. The horrors associated with the savagery of the Scandinavian invaders staggered the thoughts, and paralysed the pens even of the descendants of the kindred Angles. But the Picts steadily set their faces to the tidal inrush of men maddened with blood-lust. They were defending the Christian religion, and Celtic civilization, as well as home and life. It was at this moment that one of their Christian fellow- Celts, instead of joining up with them, took ad- vantage of the preoccupation of the Picts to rise in rebellion against Angus II. Mac Fergus, Pict- ish king of Dalriada and sovereign of Pictland. According to the chronicler of Huntingdon, who had access to authorities now lost, this rebel was Alpin the father of Kenneth. He succeeded in defeating a body of the Picts with considerable slaughter on Easter day a.d. 834, the year in which the Irts/i A nna/s record the death of Angus II. He tried to follow up this success; but in August of the same year he came into touch with the main army of the Picts, and was defeated, captured, and beheaded. In A.D. 839 the pagan Vikings had entered Fortrenn (the kingdom of Earn), the principal division of Pictland. Then began the life-and- 441 THE PICTISH NATION death struggle for Celtic freedom in face of Teu- tonic savagery. The pagans won their first great triumph. Ewen Mac Angus II., Pictish king of Dalriada and sovereign of the Picts, Bran his brother, Aed Mac Boanta, a former king of Dal- riada, and 'numberless others' were left dead upon the field. It was the Flodden of the Picts; but they continued to resist stoutly, although bereft of their most experienced leaders. I n a. d. 84 1 , at this criticaltime,when thenational Pictish armies were making their undismayed stand defending their native shores, Kenneth Mac Alpin, 'the Scot,' attacked the Picts ^in the rear and defeated them. The narrative continues, 'so the king of Scots ob- tained the monarchy of the whole of Alba, which is now called Scotland.' It came to that in the time of Kenneth's descendants, but the chroni- cler was anticipating. What Kenneth actually gained by his treachery was the Pictish kingdom of Fortrenn. The other provinces of Pictland were being devastated by the Vikings, and al- though Kenneth assumed the title 'king of the Picts,' the sovereignty was for the time being nominal. The hands that wrote history under the title of the Prophecy of S. Berchan were not Pictish. Theylaud Kenneth as the 'raven-feeder' who 'disordered battles'; and even praise him for his second great act of treachery at 'Scone of the noble shields,' where he, having inveigled the sur- viving Pictish leaders to a conference, and during 442 UNION BY ABSORPTION the time that they were hisguests, 'plunged them in the pitted earth, sown with deadly blades'; on which, while the Pictish nobles writhed, Kenneth Mac Alpin and his Gaidheals or Scots subjected them to cowardly massacre. The old writer is careful to emphasize the resulting 'plunder, ' which means that the bodies were stripped of their orna- ments and clothing. But the utmost that even this Scotic chronicler claims for Kenneth Mac Alpin is that 'He was \h^ first king of the men of Erin in Alba Who possessed (land) in the East (Pictland).' This is rather a disconcerting avowal for the modern historians who have asserted that Gaidh- ealic or Scotic power and culture were 'ancient' influences within the realm of the Picts; and the writer in S. Berchans Prophecy is fully support- ed, outside the writings of the fabulists. The mass- acre of the Pictish nobles at Scone by Kenneth is the foundation of the story, in the Latin con- tinuators and fabulists, that the Picts were 'ex- terminated.' The betrayal of the Celtic cause by Kenneth, in face of the Teutonic peril, and the treachery at 'Scone of the noble shields,' indicate that there is a very ancient tradition behind the inborn belief of the East-Coast man that the Celt of the West-Coast is treacherous and untrust- worthy, a belief that had practical results as late as A.D. 1745. It is one of the curiosities of history that no 443 THE PICTISH NATION people have lamented longer or more bitterly than the Scots, both of Dalriadaand Ireland, the savagery and tyranny of the Teutonic elements in Britain; yet no people did more than the Scots of Alba to help Teutonic ascendency in Britain. The earlier Scots of Dalriada, as has been noticed, were ever eager and ready to strike at the rear of the armies of the Picts and Britons when they were fighting for their freedom, their homes, and their Church, against the Teutonic Angles; and when the Teutonic Vikings, in this later period, surged in on the coasts of Pictland, it was the swords of Kenneth Mac Alpin's Scots *in the rear' of the Pictish armies that made victory easy to the Vikings, and made many of their island and coastal colonies possible. When Kenneth Mac Alpin by right of his Pictish blood, and by the massacre of candidates of purer Pictish origin, seated himself on the throne of Pictland,only Fortrenn and Mearns and Dalriada were comparatively free of the Viking invaders; and that did not continue. Kenneth, on his accession, adhered to the title 'sovereign of the Picts'; and this was borne by his successors until the end of the ninth century, when Donald* Mac Constantine took the title ' Ri Albain,' which meant that Pictland and Dalriada had become united, without challenge, under one monarch; although this is not indicated by the incorrect * Died A. D. 900. 444 UNION BY ABSORPTION translation of this title as 'king of Scots,' which soon became current among the Latin writers. Kenneth Mac Alpin and his family aimed at keeping the succession to the Pictish throne in the direct male line of Kenneth, although this was a contravention of Pictish law. Nothing better indicates the surviving political power of the Picts than the fact that for a long time Ken- neth's family were obstructed in their efforts. At the close of the short reign of Kenneth's second son, Aedh, an attempt was made to revive the Pictish system of succession in bringing to the throne Eochaidh Mac Run, son of Kenneth's daughter by a king of the Britons, with whom was associated as joint ruler Giric or Grig, son of Dun- gal. The real power was in the hands of Giric, who was a Pict. In a little over ten years both were expelled from power; and Donald, the son of Kenneth's elder son, was placed on the throne. Although the Union of the Kingdoms of the Picts and Scots was continued by the accession of Kenneth Mac Alpin, there was still no Union of the Churches. That Union came gradually and later. The following listof rulersof Pictland is given for reference in connection with events after Ken- neth's time. Where the title 'Rex Pictorum' ceases, and that oi'RiAlbain' begins, is marked. Dates are mostly from the Annals of Ulster. The Latin lists are frequently untrustworthy. 445 < Q a H S P s H fa O CO % O > O C/3 00 M ' 00 00 _ •5 •3 N 3 00t3 ■ 0> 3ooJi T3 3--; a ••O - -00 og . t^ tdO^ , >J o' c ^ 3-OJ2 t,-a 3-0 „ T3i2 1) iS c c 3"rt ■" 0\ C S "o o V 4) U J- 0* V 'O -U "O *o ^3 TJ ■ V 4) V C U V U U U 13 2.13 bo « «3^ 6^«//f (Danish Vik- ings); andthejarlsOttirand Gragabai. The main forces met in battle in a.d. 918. 'By what sinful influence I know not,' writes Simeon of Durham, 'the heathen Ranald was victorious, putting Con- stantine to flight, routing the army of the Scots, and killing Elfrith with all the best of the Angles.' The annalist in the Annals of Ulster describes exactly what happened. The Vikings divided themselves into four battalions. The first was under Godfrey of the race of Ivar, |the second was under Ottir and Gragabai, the third under * Simeon of Durham indicates the date as 915. 461 THE PICTISH NATION certain young commanders, and the fourth went into ambush under Ranald himself. The Scots broke the first three battalions and 'there was great slaughter of the Danes round Ottir and Gragabai'; then Ranald sprang from his hiding- place at the head of his force, took the Scots in the rear, and drove their king and the mormaors from the field in headlong flight. The resultof this battle was that all the country from the Pictland Firth to the H umber threatened to become a Scandinavian kingdom. Constantine III., 'king of Alba,' now followed the example of his Scotic predecessors. He allied himself with the Vikings. He gave his daughter in marriage to Olaf Cuaran son of Sitriuc, Ranald's brother and successor in the leadership of the Vikings. He took steps to help these Danish Vikings to retain their hold of England against the opposi- tion of Athelstan the Saxon king, for which he was punished by a humiliating invasion of Alba in which a land army operated with a fleet, and made havoc as far as Angus. About A.D. 937 Olaf Cuaran the Dane and Con- stantine in., his father-in-law, appeared in the H umber with a battle-fleet and transports num- bering 6 1 5 ships. Across E ngland from the north- west, co-operating with them, marched Olaf son of Godfrey, Viking king of Dublin, with an army composed of Danes, and half-breeds from the con- quered territories of the Britons. In a.d. 937 462 THE SCANDINAVIAN VIKINGS Athelstan and his army met the combined forces at Brunanburg and inflicted on them decisive de- feat. Constantine III., Olaf Cuaran, and Olaf of Dublin fled to their ships; but the field was piled with dead, and Constantine left his son there. He had no cause to boast, That grey-haired warrior, That old deceiver. He had no cause to exult In the clash of swords. Here were his kindred bands Of friends o'erthrown ; And his son he left On the bloody field. Torn with sword-thrusts. Young in battle. These are stinging words from a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle-, but Constantine III. de- served them. He had immolated his daughter to the pagan Olaf He, a professedly Christian king, had been prepared to sacrifice Christianity to paganism. He had subordinated the interests of all the Picts, whose crown his caste had usurped; to save the kingdom of the Picts of Fortrenn to the dynasty of Alpin, the clan Mac Eachaidh, and their following of Scots. It is hard to compre- hend how this monarch who ignored every moral and Christian sanction was reckoned as Chris- tian.* Under the Roman usage, to which these Scots had conformed, the high ideals of Christian- * Some time later he resigned the crown and entered a religious com- munity. THE PICTISH NATION ity which the PIctish Church had maintained were being displaced by formal and insincere profes- sions. It is beyond the scope of this work to follow the Viking ravages, to trace the ultimate settle- ments of the Scandinavians in Pictland and the islands; or to deal with the gradual, partial absorp- tion of the Vikings by the Celts. Enough has been written to show how the Vikings shattered the political and ecclesiastical organizations of the Picts, how they destroyed Celtic civilization, how they burned and desolated the centres of re- ligion and culture within the Pictish sovereignty, and how they cut off the Pictish clergy from such homes of learning as Bangor of the Irish Picts. The repeated burning of the monastic settle- ments, and the unceasing martyrdom of the Pict- ish clergy involved the loss of many of the orig- inals of the earliest Celtic records, and the de- struction of those copies of sacred and other books on which the Picts, like other Celts, lavished the Celtic penman's art. If it had not been for the revelations of such libraries as Bobbio and St. Gall; and the Lives of such men as SS. Comgall, Moluag, Colurnbanus, and Gall, the world would have forgotten that the Picts had been a cultured people. The Scots resident on the Dalriad coast and islands, especially the Scotic clerics, also suffered grievously at the hands of the Vikings. Their 464 THE SCANDINAVIAN VIKINGS leaders, however, and their mobile army had bet- ter fortune. With that uncanny foresight of the Scots, which seemed to be quickened in their darkest days, Kenneth Mac Alpin perceived the chance of saving the remnant of his own people when the Pictish rulers of Dalriada had been stricken down or paralysed by the oncoming Vik- ing swarms. By helping the royal Pictish army to its fate at the hands of the Vikings, c. a.d. 839- 841, he was able to remove the headquarters of the Scots into Fortrenn, so long the Promised Land to the Gaidheal; and, because of its moun- tainous and inland character, so comparatively sheltered from Viking inroads, during the rule of Kenneth and his brother. The Scots had thus peace to establish themselves in the new king- dom. Insinuating in speech, tireless, though often unscrupulous, in diplomacy; the Scots fre- quently succeeded by their statecraft where they had failed by the sword. On the strength of almost forgotten claims their leader, Kenneth, with their army at his back, negotiated himself into the government of leaderless Fortrenn. Once in control of the government, these Gaidh- eals or Scots hedged in the succession to the Crown, so that only a Scot of the ruling caste could reach the sceptre, and then they proceeded to fill the State and the Church with Gaidhealic or Scotic nominees; so that their law, learning, language, and ecclesiastical usages might gradu- 2H 465 THE PICTISH NATION ally be imposed on the whole Pictish people, ex- cept where the Picts had been almost swamped by the Vikings, as in Shetland, the Orkneys, or in Caithness. The entries in the Book of Deer, and copied fragments of old formal grants or re- grants of property, still indicate how the State and the ecclesiastical machinery were all gradu- ally directed towards obliterating all trace of the ancient Pictish sovereignty, or the ancient rights of the original Pictish chiefs and sub- chiefs. Some of the campaigns of the Scotic kings of the Alpin dynasty against local chiefs are plainly instances of the king asserting himself, by force of arms, against Pictish chiefs who refused to be dispossessed of their power or territory. The best-known example is the attempt, in a.d. 995, on the part of Kenneth IV. Mac Maelcoluim to make his claims to sovereignty over all Pictland effective. This effort brought him into conflict with Findle Cunchar who ruled the old Pictish petty kingdom of Angus; and Kenneth paid for his interference with his life. Nevertheless, by negotiation or by direct resort to arms, the Scotic statesmen and ecclesiastics gradually pushed themselves into control over most of Pictland, and laid the foundations of the Scotic State and Church, except where Scandinavian power re- fused either to be controlled or absorbed. Yet, though the State, and the official Church, and the court language, in the period of the Alpin dyn- 466 THE SCANDINAVIAN VIKINGS asty.wereScotic, the great majority of the popul- ation were Pictish, except in places like Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and Lewis, where the migra- tion of Scandinavian women, in course of time, almost obliterated all traces of Pictish blood. No historical note is more eloquent of the thoroughness with which paganism superseded Christianity wherever the Scandinavian Vikings had settled than this: V. a.d. iooo, the Orkneys converted to Christianity.' The annalist means that the pagan Scandinavians who had settled there and the mixed breed which had sprung from their occupancy were 'converted.' After all, the fact is suppressed that it was only a 'conversion' by order of the civil ruler, and it is not stated that the earlier representatives of these converts had wiped out the Pictish Christians and mis- sionary organizations which had made the Ork- neys one of the most interesting of the Celtic missionary bases. AN ANTICIPATION OF THE DEVICES BY WHICH KENNETH MAC ALPIN AND HIS SUC- CESSORS PENETRATED THE CHURCH OF THE PICTS WITH ROMAN AND SCOTIC INFLU- ENCES CHAPTER NINETEEN After Kenneth Mac Alpin had acceded to the throne of Fortrenn and had claimed the sover- eignty of the Picts, he restricted membership of his court to Scotic chiefs, and kept command of the soldiery and control of politics in Scotic hands, a policy which the kings of his dynasty jealously pursued. This, however, was not enough for the maintenance of his power; it was also necessary to penetrate the Church of the Picts with Scotic influence. In the train of Kenneth there had come into Pictland many of the clergy of his own people, men of Gaidhealic or Scotic origin with perfervid Scotic sympathies. Many ways were taken to work these clerics into, or over the Church of the Picts. Kenneth himself began by setting up new ecclesiastical centres, manned en- tirely by Scotic ecclesiastics to whom the recog- nition and support of the king was given. Again, when a vacancy occurred in the headship of a Pict- ish muinntir, no effort was spared in attempting to negotiate the appointment of a Scotic instead of a Pictish Ab. Yet again, much zeal was spent 468 ROMAN & SCOTIC INFLUENCES in extending the Scotic ministry wherever a sec- tion of Scots might penetrate among the Pictish population. To a small extent a way was open even for Scotic ministers in districts that were purely Pictish. There were places like Rose- markie and St. Andrews where, as a result of Nechtan's attempt to popularize S. Peter in the one instance, and Angus's attempt to popularize S. Andrew in the other, parties of Picts had con- formed to Rome. To these the Scotic clerics could join themselves, not, of course, as Scots but as Roman Churchmen. Such quiet penetration of the Church of the Picts was slow; but it was effectual. Time was on the side of the Scots, if they could show patience, rarely one of their virtues; although they often made up for the want of it by refusing to be defeated, and by persist- ency. Doubtless, however, Kenneth meant to profit by Nechtan's experiences, and realized that violent handling of an ancient institution would mean tumult, and, perhaps, resistance that would break his new-found power. And, besides, the Vikings were doing the violent work, and thus helping Kenneth. What a people are to be to-morrow is determined by their education to- day. The Vikings were taking pains to deprive the Picts of all education. They were burning Bangor, Maghbile, Kingarth, Lismore, Aber- crossan, besides most of the east-coast religious and educational centres, on which the Picts and 469 THE PICTISH NATION their Church had depended. These brave Pictish clerics who had lived for their Churches and schools, betrayed by hope that the Viking terror would pass, frequently proceeded to reconstruct, before the ashes of their sanctuaries had cooled after the first fires; but the pagans returned and burned again, and the heroic reconstructors were fortunate when they escaped being caught and thrown into the fires. Some grew old and weak in the work of reconstruction and elected to be burned at their posts. Younger ministers fled across the sea to Bobbio, or St. Gall, or to other establishments of their own missionaries and scholars. Whether they went to Heaven or to the Continent of Europe, their departure meant that the Picts were left without the only men who cared, and who were able to keep before them the spiritual and intellectual achievements of their race in past days, and who cared and were able to unfold ideals for the future. These men carried in their souls and in their records, the tradition of Pictish progress above the brute- stage of human development; and that tradition was made glorious by the memory of lives of im- perishable devotion to God and humanity. The young Pict might grow up in the days to be ; but he would grow up unblessed by the hands of the saints of his race, without a vision of the Soul of the Picts, which had elected to go to and fro on the earth rather than to suffer the polluting touch 470 ROMAN & SCOTIC INFLUENCES of the Teutonic beast, or the formal courtship of the materialistic Scot whose eyes were fascin- ated by her dowry. The Vikings spared neither the agents nor the sources of Pictish education for the Pictish people. Although the Vikings also destroyed the chief educational and ecclesiastical institution of the Scots, at lona, the Scots were compensated, through their political position, by gradually ab- sorbing the few Pictish ecclesiastical centres in the South that the Vikings failed to ruin. Besides, the Scots had conformed to Rome; and were re- warded with access to every Roman training- school in the West. Thus, as educated Pictish teachers and ministers died out, Roman-trained Scotic clerics increased; and, with every political advantage on their side, pressed their services upon the Picts who had either to reject them, which was not always wise in view of the force behind, or to accept them, which was not always pleasant to a proud and patriotic people. Re- jection left the rejectors entirely dependent on St. Andrews, Abernethy, Brechin, Deer, Turriff, and certain other Pictish ecclesiastical centres on the east coast which succeeded, in impaired efficiency, in surviving the Vikings; but these places were sometimes cut off from one another, and sometimes from the world, by blockading wedges of Viking colonists. Moreover, part of the Pictish clergy of Fife had conformed to Rome; 471 THE PICTISH NATION and these were no help to those fellow-country- men who refused to follow their examples. Naturally the advances of the Scotic clerics pro- voked dissent among the Picts. Like all Celtic dissent it was stubbornly maintained. By the necessities of human fellowship the Scotic clerics speedily overcame this dissent in Fife, Perth, and Angus; but round the outlying centres, like Turriff, Fearn of Ross, Dornoch, and various other places less known, the Scotic clergy did not gain a secure footing among the Picts, or their kindred of mixed blood, until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One law of the Picts, however, threatened for a time to block the efforts of Kenneth Mac Alpin and his successors to Scoticize the Church of the Picts. It was a law of the Pictish Church, as of the old unconformed Scotic Church, that the suc- cessor to the Ab of a Pictish muinntir should be a member of the family or clan of the Ab who had first organized the community; or if the muinn- tir was the daughter-community of a greater house, the Ab required to be taken from the parent-community, or, failing, from the leaderless community, but with the parent-community's consent. Sometimes the parent-community was outside the Pictish realm, as in the instances of Bangor of Ulster, and Kingarth of the Britons. Obviously if the Pictish muinntirs continued to conform to Pictish law in filling up the vacant 472 ROMAN & SCOTIC INFLUENCES chairs of deceased Abs, Pict would succeed Pict; and the Scoticizing designs of Kenneth and his dynasty would be obstructed or defeated, so far as the most important positions were con- cerned. Therefore the Scots legalized a scheme which was not more nor less than a simoniacal bribe; and this scheme is found in course of time operating throughout all Pictland. On the occur- rence of a vacancy in the presidency of a Pictish muinntir^ the successor, according to Pictish law, from the founder's clan, or from the parent-com- munity, was allowed to take up the title of Ab and the control of the landed property of the muinntir\ but he received permission, and evid- ently encouragement, to engage a Scotic vicar to dispense the sacraments, to control the teach- ing, and to direct all the spiritual work of the com- munity. This legalized fraud, and robbery of the muinntirs, for whom the Abs held all lands in trust, was grievously detrimental to the honour, efficiency, and spiritual life of many of the Pictish ecclesiastical families. It led to the rise of the lay abbot who, in course of time, forgot his oblig- ations to the muinntir; and, sometimes, his pay- ments to his Scotic vicar. The titular muinntir- chiefs grew to be secular lairds, began to found families, and some of them, in course of time, became powerful 'Scottish' barons. It has been stated that the secular clan-chiefs, who were fighting-lords and not land-lords, first showed 473 THE PICTISH NATION the way to robbing the clansmen of their land; but centuries before the secular chiefs were in- dependent enough of their clansmen to attempt this breach of trust, some of the muinntir-ohiQh had successfully accomplished it, with the aid of the Scotic kings and the Roman clergy. This cunning Scotic scheme for the strengthening of the Scotic kings and the Roman Church was as successful as the authors could have expected. It operated, in course of time, over all Pictland, and its effects can be traced from Kinghorn-on- Forth to Abercrossan in West Ross. If in some instances the proselytizing success and impa- tience of the Scotic vicars brought grief to their royal patrons, in other instances it gave uncon- cealed joy. At the Pictish 'college' of Brechin Kenneth IV. Mac Maelcoluim was tempted to make a premature display of this Scoticizing pol- icy by planting a Roman Church staffed with Scot- ic clerics, although he was superseding the Pict- ish clergy In their own ancient petty kingdom of Angus, and was endowing aliens at the expense of the natives; but he paid for his zeal with his life at the hands of FindM Cunchar the chief of Angus, and the court had no reason to bless the Scotic vicars at Brechin. An instance, later, but more favourable to the Scotic rulers, is furnished by the O' Beollans. These became secular lairds in West Ross, through possessing the lands of S. Mael- rubha's community at Abercrossan and district. 474 ROMAN & SCOTIC INFLUENCES They devoted themselves so whole-heartedly to the Scotic kings that on several occasions they saved the Scotic power, and established the Roman Church securely in Ross, their descend- ants becoming Earls of Ross. One other innovation was legalized by the Scotic kings in Pictland to advance the power of the Roman Church, which had adopted them, and to cripple and denationalize the ancient Church of the Picts. They took this final step towards conforming to Rome by setting up monarchic and diocesan bishops in Pictland. They had never dared to take this step in their home-kingdom of Dalriada, although it is clear that by Egbert's in- spiration it had been considered. It indicates that the Scotic dynasty used their new position in Pictland to shake themselves free of the incon- venient control of their own Scotic clansmen. The setting up of Scotic clergy as Roman mon- archic and diocesan bishops meant the begin- ning of an episcopal State Church in Pictland, the beginning of a Roman hierarchy in Pict- land composed of alien clergy, and it also meant that these Scotic episcopal officials, co-operating with the State, would claim and insist upon con- trol of the Scotic vicars acting for the simoniacal abbots, and would claim and assert authority over the minority of Pictish clergy who had the care of those who had conformed to Rome through the missions which had sought to popularize the 475 THE PICTISH NATION veneration of S. Peter and S. Andrew. In legalizing the monarchic and diocesan bis- hop of the Roman type, Kenneth Mac Alpin not only introduced an innovation into the Church of the Picts,but he also introduced an innovationin- to the organization of his own Church, the Church of the Scots. It was this act which marked Ken- neth's final renunciation of the ancient system of ecclesiastical government favoured by all the Celto-Catholics. It meant that he had broken with lona, and that he no longer recognized the supremacy of the Columban Ab of lona over the organized religious communities of the Scotic Church, including the numerous bishops who were simple members of the muinntirs with spec- ial duties connected with ordination, but in their ecclesiastical life and work wholly under the juris- diction of the local Ab under whose presidency they served. It cannot, therefore, be too clearly set forth that it was Kenneth who, in spite of his Scotic sympathies, turned his back on the ancient sys- tem of government within his own Church; and turned his back on the system of Church govern- ment practised formerly by all the Celts, sub- stituting for it the episcopal system of the Roman Church with its prelates who claimed to legislate for the Churches of the kingdom, and actually did legislate, along with the king, in name of the foreign Bishop of Rome. 476 KENNETH MAC ALPIN'S EFFORT TO SET UP ROMAN MONARCHIC AND DIOCESAN EPISCOPACY IN PICTLAND. THE TRANSFERENCE OF THE SOLE BISHOP OF 'FORTRENN' TO ABERNETHY. KING GIRIC'S GIFT OF 'LIBERTY' TO THE ROMANIZED SCOTIC CHURCH IN PICTLAND. ITS EFFECT ON THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF THE PICTS CHAPTER TWENTY With the contents of the preceding chapter in mind it is easy to understand the recorded ecclesi- astical events which originated in the reign of Kenneth Mac Alpin, and to comprehend the very natural ecclesiastical developments which followed, in the reigns of his successors. In A.D. 849,* owing to the Vikings, Innrech- tach, Ab of lona, fled to Ireland with the relics of S. Columba. The year 849 was the seventh year of Kenneth Mac Alpin's reign as king of Fort- renn and titular sovereign of the Picts. This was the second, perhaps the third, flight of an Ab of lona. On this occasion it is clear that the * This date is from the Annals of Ulster. Ml THE PICTISH NATION government of the Scotic Church was being con- ducted not from lona, but from one of the Colum- ban monasteries in Ireland. Kenneth Mac Alpin forthwith took advantage of this flight, and vacant chair* at lona, the mother-Church of the Scots, to erect a new mother-Church which, he evid- ently hoped, would be regarded as the chief ec- clesiastical centre of his new kingdom by both Picts and Scots. He planned his effort with great tact; and tried to please both nationalities. The continuator of the Pictish Chronicle states that Kenneth in the seventh year of his reign, that is, in A.D. 849, the year that Innrechtach left lona derelict, transported to the Church which he had constructed the relics of Columcille. These relics now become suspiciously abundant; but their transportation to a new Church indicates that it was to be regarded as a mother-Church, because, at this period of Celtic history, relics were de- posited only in Churches at governing centres. The continuator does not name the locality of this new Church; but it is stated in a Saxon document f that it was ^in loco Duncahan juxta flumen Tau' — Dunkeld is meant. In choosing Dunkeld, Kenneth fixed on a centre accessible both to the Scots of Dalriada and to the Picts of Fortrenn. This centre had al- * Ceallach mac Ailella, Ab of Kildare and titular Ab of lona, who died A.D. 865, was not able to take up his duties in lona, owing to the Vikings, and died * in the country of the Picts. ' t 7)^«a«r«j{Hickes), vii. 117. 478 LIBERTY TO ROMAN AGENTS ready Scotic ecclesiastical memories, because it was near the site of the old intruded Scotic mu- inntir known as ' Muinntir Kailli an Find,' from which, among other places, Nechtan's subjects had evicted the Scotic clerics. The Scots would be pleased to recover their lost Church. But Dunkeld was also the site of a noted Church which had been built by Constantine* I. Mac Fergus, sovereign of the Picts, and doubtless Kenneth hoped that the recollection of this fact would attract his Pictish subjects to the new centre. Kenneth intended his new Church to be a Cathedral; because he was setting up th^ first Roman monarchic and diocesan bishop that had ever been legally set up either in Pictland or in Dalriada. But he acted very warily, and com- promised between the Roman and Celtic systems of ecclesiastical government by appointing as first Roman monarchic bishop an Ab of the Celtic Church. The Celts had been used to leading clericswho were bishops as well as Abs; but none of these had ever administered dioceses, and if an Ab-bishop had been monarchic in the rule of his muinntir, it was because he was the Ab, and not because he was a bishop. Tuathal Mac Artguso was appointed by Ken- neth to the new Church; and his diocese was the * The authority is the ' Chronicle of Lochlevcn' quoted in the Scala- cronica. 479 THE PICTISH NATION whole of Kenneth's new kingdom of 'Fortrenn,' which at this time included Dalriada. Tuathal died in a.d. 865, seven years after Kenneth; and it is of some interest to reproduce the entry of his death: ^Tuathal Mac Artguso primus Epis- copus Fortrenn, Abbas Duin C allien dormivit' With their strange love of inappropriate ecclesi- astical titles, and with equally strange perversity in interpretation, the modern Scottish Episco- palians have taken the word 'primus' from this entry, have treated it as a title instead of a numeral, have interpreted it 2iS first in dignity in- stead of first in line, and have applied it to the elected life-president of their college of bishops. Kenneth's attempt to make Dunkeld the seat of the Roman monarchic and diocesan bishop of Fortrenn failed; because when the annalist enters the death of Tuathal's successor, in a.d. Z'j'i^, he designates him 'Princeps* Duin-Caillden.' 'Prin- ceps' in this, as in other instances, means the President or Ab of a Celtic muinntir. Where the next Roman monarchic bishop of Fortrenn was set up would not have been known, if it had not been for information preserved by Bowerf from some source now lost. He states that, at the time when there was but one bishop in 'Scotia, 'there were three (successive) appoint- * 873 — Flaithbertach Mac Murcertaigh, Princeps Duin-Caillden obiit {An. Ulst.). t Scotichronicon, iv. 12, and Bower's addition. 480 LIBERTY TO ROMAN AGENTS ments of bishops at Abernethy, which at that time was for awhile 'the principal royal and episcopal seat of the whole kingdom of the Picts.' The time when there was 'one bishop for Scotia,' and when it was possible for that one bishop and two of his successors to have their seat at Abernethy, was immediately after the breakdown of Ken- neth's effort to set up the episcopal chair of Fort- renn at Dunkeld. Bower's statement is verified to this extent that it is now known that 'the palace' of Kenneth Mac Alpin, in which he resided and died, was at Forteviot, close to Abernethy. A note preserved in the composite Chronicle known as the Chronicle of Lochleven gives support to Bower. Dealing with Gartnaidh Mac Domneth, sovereign of Pictland, the original hand wrote: 'He built the Church of Abernethy two hundred and twenty-five years and eleven months before the Church of Dunkeld was built by king Con- stantine, sovereign of the Picts.' Now, however innocent that note may look in the thirteenth- century chronicle which preserves it, its insertion carries us back to a time when Abernethy was insisting on its rights, as one of the oldest Pictish ecclesiastical centres, to take precedence of Dun- keld. The Church of Abernethy in Kenneth's time was the successor of that royal Chapel which Gartnaidh, the patron of S. Cainnech of Cind Righ Monaidh (St. Andrews) founded. It is therefore not stretching the evidence that has 2 1 481 THE PICTISH NATION survived to conclude that the opposition of the Pictish clergy of Abernethy prevented Dunkeld from becoming the seat of the first Roman bishop of Fortrenn. The Pictish Church was still strong enough in the reigns of Kenneth's nearer suc- cessors to keep the romanized Scotic clergy from getting their own way in arranging ecclesiastical affairs within Pictland, which accounts for the next event. As has been stated, c. a.d. 878, after the short reign of Kenneth Mac Alpin's second son Aedh, an attempt was made to revive the Pictish system of succession. As a compromise two kings ruled jointly, one was Eochaidh, son of Kenneth's daughter, and the other was Giric, a Pict, who resided at the old stronghold of the Pictish kings of Fortrenn at Dun(d)Earn. Eochaidh was a mere figure-head to appease the Scotic popul- ation, the real power was in the hands of Giric. While Giric was ruling, the romanized Scotic clergy became restive and apprehensive. They had apparently not recovered from the failure of the Dunkeld episcopal scheme; and the trans- ference of episcopal power to the ancient Pictish Church at Abernethy. They were also finding it difficult to surmount the laws and usages of the ancient Church of the Picts, which have been in- dicated in the previous chapter. This much can be gathered from their representations to Giric, the Pictish sovereign. Through Gray's transcript of 482 LIBERTY TO ROMAN AGENTS a twelfth -century manuscript Chronicle the fol- lowing important information concerning Giric is preserved: ' This is he who first gave ''liberty'' to the Scotic Church which until then had been under servitude according to the law and custom of the Picts.' Incidentally, the name 'Ecclesia Scoti- cana' occurs for the first time. This note has been a surprise revelation to certain historians; at least, they have affected difficulty in understanding why the Scotic Church required 'liberty' inPictland. It required liberty, because at this time it was an alien Church; and this note records only a very natural develop- ment. The Church of the Scots was alien to the Picts, because it had become Roman instead of Celto-Catholic. It was also alien because it was manned by Scots, and because its organization was used by the Scots to extend Scotic power and influence. Almost every step that the Scotic Church took in Pictland carried it into contact, and often into conflict, with the ministers and the organization of the ancient Celtic Church of the Picts, the native Church. The Picts had no idea of allowing their Church to be readily absorbed; and, indeed, were much more willing to absorb the incomers. What more natural, than that the romanizing Scotic clerics should take alarm, and become apprehensive at what they consid- ered Pictish prejudice and legal obstacles; and should set up a grievance in true Scotic fashion, 483 THE PICTISH NATION and declare themselves 'enslaved' by the Pictish law and usage, because they could not force their own particular ecclesiastical methods on their fellow-subjects. Giric had a pressing motive for making a con- cession to these agitating Scotic clerics. He was a ruler of considerable power and apparently wished to add to his triumphs. It had been no mean feat to break through the family line of Kenneth and to reach the throne, even although he had to submitto a nominal colleague belonging to Kenneth's family. Giric had also won fame in Ireland as a soldier; and had wrested territory from the Angles. He undoubtedly wished to be in name, as well as in fact, sole ruler of Fortrenn. Therefore he was willing to buy the support of the Scotic clergy by allowing them to push their plans for proselytizing and absorbing the Picts, agreeably to the canon law of the Roman Church; but unhampered by the civil and ecclesiastical laws of the Picts. Coming from a ruler of Pictish origin, Giric's concession could not be challenged by the Picts in the same way that it would have been challenged if it had come from a ruler of Scotic origin. What the old chronicler, from his point of view, calls Giric's 'gift of liberty to the Scotic Church' was, therefore, a legislative act of the first magnitude, and opened the way for the trans- formation of the ecclesiastical and national life of 484 LIBERTY TO ROMAN AGENTS Pictland. The Celtic Church of the Picts had never been formally established by the State; al- though it had grown up with the growth of the State, and had been honoured and considered by the State as the Church of the Picts. If the Vik- ings had never come with their ravages; it is doubtful if that relationship could have been seri- ously disturbed. The Pictish clergy would then have been able to hold their own. Kenneth Mac Alpin's efforts to advance the Roman Scotic Church had been acts of royal partiality, in the interests of his dynasty and the Scotic section of his subjects. Giric's 'gift of free- dom' to this Church was, on the other hand, a formal legislative act by a Pictish sovereign legal- izing and establishing it in a privileged position, and giving to it the freedom of the whole realm of Pictland. The act said nothing about abolish- ing the ancient Church of the Picts; but it auto- matically forced that Church into an attitude of dissent in self-defence. It was a mortal blow at the continuance of the already crippled Church of the Picts as a national Church. All that the aggressive Roman Scotic Church required to do in its own interests was to hold firmly by the privi- leges conceded by Giric, work them for all they were worth, backed by those* Scotic kings and their courts who were to follow Giric; and it was only a question of time when the Scotic clergy would secure ascendency throughout all Pictland. 485 THE PICTISH NATION The Church of the Picts, with its organization greatly shattered by the Vikings, and cut off from its former sources of training and culture, was too weakened to stand out indefinitely against the Scotic Church, with all the resources and organiz- ation of the Roman Church behind it. It is not told what effectGiric's 'gift of liberty' to the Scotic Church produced upon the Picts; but it is significant that, shortly afterwards, he and his nominal colleague were expelled* from the throne; and Donald 1 1. Mac Constantine, another king of the line of Kenneth, was called to reign; and he was the first to rule as ' king of Alban ' — a title which was maintained, and which ignored the two peoples, Picts and Scots. Donald had evidently made up his mind to treat the two nations as one people; and his Pictish subjects had evidently decided that it was better to sub- mit to another king of Kenneth's line than to continue under a king of their own blood who had betrayed their ancient Church to Rome and to the Scots. * .S". Berchan indicates that Giric or Grig was slain by his fellow-Picts of Fortrenn. CONST ANTINE III MAC AEDH AND CELLACH THE BISHOP OF ALBA MOCK THE PICTISH CHURCHMEN WITH A PROMISE OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY WHICH IMPLIED CONFORMITY TO THE CHURCH OF ROME CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE That the Roman Scotic Churchmen, exulting in Giric's 'gift of liberty,' and supported by the Scotic kings, had at once begun to assert themselves as the representatives of the only Church that, in their eyes, counted in the kingdom of 'Alban,' is evident from the chief ecclesiastical event of the reign of the second king after Giric. The Picts and Scots were now, in fact as well as in name, politically united; and their national divergences were to be considered as forgotten in the interests of 'Alban.' But the Pictish Churchmen clearly felt that the Scotic Churchmen had outmanoeuvr- ed them, and had gained a position and privileges in the kingdom, through Giric's gift, which had affected their status before the people, and was laying disability upon them in carrying on their work. It was now the Pictish Churchmen who announced a grievance and began to agitate. How far the agitation reached, or how great it 487 THE PICTISH NATION was, has not been disclosed; but it caused Con- stantine III. Mac Aedh, the second monarch to bear the title 'king of Alban,' to summon an Ec- clesiastical Council, the only national Ecclesiasti- cal Council since the time of Nechtan Derelei. The minutes of Constantine's Council have not been preserved; but the continuator of the Pictish Chronicle sums up what was decided. Constan- tine ascended the throne c. a.d. 900. The con- tinuator states, 'In the sixth yearof Constantine, on the Hill of Faith near the royal city of Scone, Constantine the king and Cellach the bishop solemnly vowed to protect the laws and discipline of the Faith, and the rights of the Churches* and of the Gospel, equally with the Scots' Cellach, who figures as legislating along with the king, was first Roman monarchic and diocesan bishop at St. Andrews; and is regarded as the first to bear the title 'epscop Albain,' that is, bishop of Alba. Some have made difficulty over the phrase in the above summary 'equally with the Scots.' The phrase is certainly part of an elliptic sentence; but if it be remembered that the passage in which it occurs is from the Pictish Chronicle, dealing with the history and the interests of the Picts; it is obvious that Constantine and Cellach were pledg- ing themselves to treat the Picts ' equally with the Scots' in all religious and ecclesiastical legislation ; * The plural refers to the ancient Church of the Picts and the new Church of the Scots. 488 ' RELIGIOUS EQUALITY ' or, in other words, to act impartially in all that concerned the religious interests of the people. It is apparent that the Council of Scone was a final despairing effort on the part of the Pictish Churchmen to put an end to the special favours and privileges which the Scotic kings, along with Giric, had bestowed on the Scotic Churchmen. The Pictish clergy gained nothing from the Coun- cil. 'Equally with the Scots' was a phrase that sounded impartial and consoling; but Cellach the Roman bishop could not treat the uncon- formed Pictish clergy 'equally with the Scots' who had conformed to Rome, because the Roman Church refused to recognize the Pictish Church, and in practice excommunicated it. The only Picts who could benefit from the Council's prom- ise were the Picts who had conformed. Inpractical effect, the Council's decision meant that the Pict- ish Churchmen would be treated equally with the Scotic Churchmen, if they put themselves into the attitude of the Scotic Churchmen, that is, submitted to Rome and adopted Roman usages and Roman discipline. Even if the Roman Scotic Churchmen could have relaxed the discipline of their own Church so far as to tolerate the uncon- formed Picts, and to bear with their discipline, usages, and organization; the civil power, which the Scots controlled, showed no tendencies that way. In a State where the rulers were selected for their Scotic sympathies, and where the executive 489 THE PICTISH NATION was fully charged with Scotic sentiment; the favouring of the interests of the Scotic Church- men and the Scotic Church was inevitable, Scotic human nature being what it was. As the years passed this is clearly demonstrated. The practic- al worthlessness of the vows which Constantine and Cellach made at Scone is seen before the end of the century in which they were made, in the treatment of the Pictish Church and the Pict- ish people by Kenneth IV. Mac Maelcoluim,king of Alba. This monarch, fired by zeal to Scoticize the Church and people of the province of Angus, which had formerly been a petty kingdom of the Picts containing a venerable, active, and highly organized part of the ancient Pictish Church, carried war into this part of his kingdom of Alba and fought his own subjects. As has been noted, his Scotic zeal cost him his life. But he had suc- ceeded in dedicating 'to the Lord, the great city of Brechin,' as the continuator of the Pictish Chronicle puts it. The continuator of the Pictish Chronicle suppresses the fact that in order to bestow this great Pictish ecclesiastical city on the Lord, he had required to steal it from the Pict- ish Church. The Pictish 'college' and clergy of Brechin had evidently refused to conform, or had been too slow in conforming to Rome, and the Picts of Angus had been looking coldly on the uniforming passion of the Scotic kings; therefore, by force of arms, Kenneth gave their ecclesiasti- 490 ' RELIGIOUS EQUALITY ' cal heritage to Rome, and intruded a detachment of Scotic clergy who set up a new Church which in course of time was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The native Picts who stood aloof from the new establishment were ministered to by a remnant of Pictish clergy who succeeded somehowinhold- ing on to a fragment of the old lands of the muinntirox 'college' of Brechin. The Council of Scone, with its mocking prom- ise to the Picts of religious equality, on condition of conformity to the romanized Scotic Church, serves to emphasize how completely the Pictish Church had been deprived of power to influence the State, or to extort an acknowledgment of its rights. Such was the effect of Giric's concession to the alien Church and its continued monopoly of royal and State favour. The Picts were still in a majority, even within the realm of Fortrenn, and still adhered to their native Church; but they had no way of making their strength felt in that age when force was the deciding factor; be- cause their leaders did not occupy the seats of the mighty, and the Scotic ruling caste kept con- trol of the army and the law. After the Council of Scone the Scots showed that they had decided that there was no future for the Church of the Picts, apart from absorption into the romanized Church of the Scots; because they changed the designation of the sole mon- archic bishop, then at St. Andrews, from 'bishop 491 THE PICTISH NATION of Fortrenn' into 'bishop of Alban,' making the new episcopal title parallel with the new royal title 'king of Alban'; and indicating that as the Picts and Scots had become politically united, so the Scots expected the two Churches to become one. Therefore, when king Constantine and Cel- lach offered the Pictish Church equality with conformity; they sentenced the ancient Church of the Picts to death — to a lingering death. The brain died slowly, within the century that saw the Council of Scone; but the extremities died more slowly still, and there, life continued to palpitate for almost two more centuries. Isolated Celts change with difficulty. Those Picts who had con- formed became absorbed into the Roman Scotic Church and their national identity became lost in the name of the dominant caste, 'Scots of Al- ban.' Those who did not conform, and those who conformed onlypartiallybyaccepting the ministry of the romanized Scotic clerics, while clinging to the property of the ancient Church of the Picts, continued to figure in the history of the Scots for a long time after the tenth century. The suc- cessors of those who did not conform at first, sur- vive in history among the much misunderstood 'Cele D^y although they did not originate the Cele De. The successors of those who conformed only partially, survived as the dishonoured, and, it must be added of some, degenerate lay abbots 492 ' RELIGIOUS EQUALITY ' whose names are most widely preserved as wit- nesses to charter signatures, or as creatures of the Scotic kings and the episcopal supplanters of the Picts. This Constantine, who dismissed the Pictish Churchmen at the Council of Scone with his pro- mise of sham protection, was the same who after- wards intrigued to betray Christianity and Celtic civilization to the Viking savages; in order that he might keep the Scotic throne and maintain the Scotic power. It was he also who left his allies, the Angles of Northumbria, in their helplessness, to the ferocity of the barbarians; he who bought a new alliance with the Vikings by his baptized christian daughter; he who, before Athelstan, at Brunanburg, was defeated, dishonoured, and discredited; he who, compelled to resign the Scotic crown, sought retreat from the wrath of the men of Alba, but found it not in the Scotic branch of the Roman Church, which had with- drawn countenance from him because of the rage of the brethren of the Anglo-Saxon clergy. At last, in pity such as he himself had never shown, Constantine was received, aged, broken, clad in poor raiment, leaning on a pilgrim-staff, by the Cele De of St. Andrews, who, at the time, repre- sented the ancient Pictish muinntir, organized at Cind Righ Monaidh centuries before by S. Cainnech. That the Roman Scotic Church should have fostered for the greater part of his hfe this 493 THE PICTISH NATION royal anarchist who spurned every religious and moral law that safeguarded righteousness and the foundations of civilization, is a grave exposure both of the formality of the profession required from its baptized members, and of its own in- difference to the morals of the time. In a fragment of Annals there is a glimpse of what the Roman Scotic christian considered re- ligion at this date. S. Columba receives divine honours, and his name is joined to the name of God in Scotic intercessions. The Divine powers are tribal. The second and third Persons in the Trinity are not named. The patrons, S. Peter, or S. Andrew, are not invoked, although the oc- casion is a battle in Fortrenn. There is decided veneration for the relics of S. Columba. Merit is bought by acceptance of the rites of the Church, and obedience to the clergy. Nothing is said about the prayers of the Picts of Fortrenn, who were fighting alongside the Scots at the time. It is the Scots with the aid of their tribal deities and tribal relics who win the battle. Religion has been degraded into a superstition. But the extract speaks for itself. 'About the same time,' c. a.d. 909, when the same Constantine was king, 'the men of Fortrenn * (Picts) fought against Norse Vikings {'Locklan- naigk'). * Valiantly also in this battle did the men of "Alban" (Scots) fight; because Columcille was 494 ' RELIGIOUS EQUALITY ' assisting them, for they had fervently invoked his help, seeing that he had been their apostle, and that through him they had received the Faith. On a former occasion when Ivar Conung (Viking) was a young man he came to plunder " Alban " with three large divisions. What the men of "Alban" (Scots), both laity and clergy, did was to remain fasting and praying, until dawn, to God and to Columcille. They cried aloud to the Lord, and gave much alms of food, and clothing, to the Churches and to the poor; and they received the body of the Lord from the hands of the priests, making promise to do whatever good the clergy might order, and they were to have as their stand- ard in the van of every battle the bachalloiQ,yvcCoo\ which did not become general in Pictland. These crosses are skilfully carved, because they were executed at a date when the Imperial Roman craftsman, or his pupils, and his excellent tools had not become ex- tinct. But there are stones with the simplest in- cised crosses, that can be dated at least one hun- dred and fifty years later, in the remote northern parts of Pictland, where the outline of the cross is irregular and rude, and the space between the lines chipped roughly out on an undressed stone. Yet, again, in the same district, belonging, of course, to a later period, is the much admired and most elaborate Cross of Farr. These crosses of the Picts were erected like the Cross of Reodatius to commemorate the dead, or like one of the lona Crosses to commemorate the favourite meditat- ing place of a saint, or like the 'girth crosses' of Kildonnan to mark the bounds of the 'city of Re- fuge.' It is not lack of art or of power of execu- tion which explains the absence of the Crucifixion from Celtic stones; but the mentality of the Picts. The Pictish mind did not advertise the Cross as associated with the Saviour's travail and suffering or with the savagery of his persecutors, but as associated with the ground which, in their work for Christ, they had won and hallowed, with the commemoration of the blessed dead, and with 538 VALUE OF CHURCH OF PICTS the Church's assurance of protection and justice to fugitives from the rage and hate of men. The carved crosses of Pictland, in many instances, besides showing the Cross associated with the peculiar Celtic interlacing like the symbol of In- finity, without beginning or end, show it associ- ated with beasts and birds of the Pictish forests and with creatures of the Pictish imagination — a combination amazing enough to modern eyes, but natural enough to a clergy, who, though they toiled among men, set their own habitations among the wild creatures that they loved. In trying to understand or to explain the Church of the Picts with its distinct and peculiar characteristics, it is necessary to visualize the ancient pre-Christian life and religion of the Celtic people. It is futile to attempt to under- stand or to explain this Church of a Celtic people out of the materialistic mentality of the Teuton, or through the m,achine-made clergy and religion of the mediaeval Church of Rome. The Picts, like all the Celts, were an emotional, imaginative, romantic, and chivalrous people. They imparted into their practice of Christianity all the inherited vivacity of their race; and the points in the Chris- tian faith to which they held most strongly were similar to the points to which they had attached themselves in the ancient pre-Christian religion of the Celts. As Professor Anwyl has pointed out, the 539 THE PICTISH NATION Britons, and this term includes the Picts, reck- oned Time by nights, instead of days; because, according to the ancient Celtic religion, Time began for them in the night of the underworld* out of which they grew to Light and activity after God the Father (Dis) had given them life. A people thus taught were already prepared for the Hebrew revelation of God the Creator and Father, for the origin of Light, and for the rise of conscious life in a beautiful and ordered world, as told in Holy Scripture. The call of Jesus for dis- ciples who would convert the world was peculiarly suited to the Pict who was reared to live in brotherhood and to follow a leader; and it ap- pealed strongly to his romantic and daring nature which inclined to enterprise, and grudged no sacrifice which gave the exhilaration of advent- ure. In the old Celtic religion the doctrine of re- birth was taught, which accounts for the tenacity and enthusiasm with which the Picts seized the Christian teaching relating to immortality and the resurrection. The angels of Scripture captured the Celtic imagination. This was natural to a people whose ancient religion had taught them to look for spirits on mountain and moor, in tree and forest, in well and river, in lake and sea. The attach- ment of the names of Pictish saints to crags and * Not to be equated with ' Hell ' as some have done. The Celtic under- world was not a place of destruction and death. VALUE OF CHURCH OF PICTS trees, and wells, river-pools and lochans in Pict- land is not fully explained by the fact that they were associated with preachings and baptisms. The name of a saint often displaced the name of a supposed spirit that the Christian teachers de- sired to be forgotten. The ancient Pict, like other Celts, loved his native land. The Brito-Picts who went south to occupy what is now North Wales, in the time of Cunedog, never forget the forests of Pictland; and in their songs pictured the spirits of the de- parted as wandering in the woods of Celyddon (Caledonia). But, apart from scraps of literature, the Pictish place-names suffice to show how care- fully the Pict marked and named the features of his country. All these place-names were artistic- ally, accurately, and often fondly bestowed. The only loveless and unlovely land known to the pre-Christian Pict was where the unblest went, behind the gates of death. His paradise was just beyond mortal sight, beyond the hori- zon, and it was a fair land like his own, only fairer; and youth continued, joy abounded, and beauty was universal. He exulted so sincerely in the beauty of the earth that he transferred all the delightful features of this world to heaven. So when he named the details of his environment on earth, it was with appreciation and love; and he named them as if he had been naming his favourite children. It was the prosaic Teutonic 541 THE PICTISH NATION mind, at a later time, that vulgarized the place- names of Pictland, and robbed them of their poetry and suggestiveness. It is this love of home and country which re- veals the full heroism of the Pictish Christian teachers. Much as they loved their beautiful land, they consented, under the influence of Christi- anity, to confessing that the Presence of God with its unfading light, its moral beauty, and dazzling sanctity, was the ideal home of man. They declared themselves pilgrims and sojour- ners prepared, when God called, to say ' Good- bye ' with a will, to the scenes that they loved so intensely. Other Christians took the staff pre- scribed to the Apostles in their hands, and to them it was the symbol of settled rule on earth over a defined flock; but, on the other hand, when the Pict took up the bachall it was a sign that he looked elsewhere for a continuing city, and that, as he expressed it, he was deoradk, pilgrim, and his resting-place the Presence of God. Nevertheless, these Pictish teachers were not rapt, abstracted, and oblivious of the land and people about them in their temporary home. By their complete self-consecration, and the high moral standard which they demanded from all who sought to ally themselves with religion and the work of God, they taught that this life should be clean and holy as a preparation for God, and that this fair world should be made fairer by the 542 VALUE OF CHURCH OF PICTS elimination of all that defiled or made a lie, as be- fitted the passage-way to Heaven. Though they saw a new heaven; they did not cease to labour for a new earth. The earnestness and the zeal of these Pictish workers were sublime. Few scenes in historyare more worthy of the painter's pencil than the in- terview between S. Columbanus and his mother, when he was about to set out for Bangor of the Irish Picts to become the pupil and disciple of S. Comgall the Great. As soon as his mother learned of his decision to go to Bangor, she knew that the tie which had kept her son at her side was on the point of breaking for ever. At the blindingprospect of her own loss she sawnothing of the gain to the Church of the Picts. Every argument that her wit could suggest, she used to dissuade him; every tenderness that her mother- love could devise, she put into action to retain him; but Columbanus kept his face towards Ban- gor. Finally, as he moved to take leave of his family and home, she threw herself down in the narrow doorway in a last despairing effort to block his departure with her body, but Colum- banus remained resolute. No imagination can picture the strain on these two Celtic natures. Tenderly and reverently he strode over that barrier of living love, and took his way to Bangor, to receive, in time, from S. Comgall's lips the divine commission already given to S. Moluag, 543 THE PICTISH NATION S. Catan, and hundreds of other pupils of Bangor whose names have not been preserved: * Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, unto the end of the world,' INDEX Ad, Addas, i, 25, 77, 334 Abbot, rise of the lay, 473, 513 Aberchirder, 299 Abercorn, 128, 318, 328 Abercrossan (Applecross), 14, 302, 305. 335. 343. 392, 425, 454. 469, 474 Aberdeen, 53, 169, 297 Aberdour, Buchan, 135, 340 Aber-Eloth (Arbirlot), 124, 125, 338 ^ Aberlour on Spey, 135 Abernethy, 53, 73, 125, 215, 263, 336, 344, 471, 481 Royal Chapel at, 228, 336, 481 'Abthein,' 125, 336 Acca, Anglo-Roman bishopof Hex- ham, 421 Achadh-Bo, 58, 236, 258, 263, 294, 337. 344, 428 Abs of, 337 Acoimetae, 35 Adamnan, S., of lona, 6, 20, 55, 225, 240, 322, 329, 350, 365, 373, 381. 387, 501, 536 Church foundations of, 351, 385 Aedh, king of Ailech, 449 Aedh, sovereign of Ireland, 207, 259 Aedhan, king of Dalriada, 60, 133, 178, 197, 205, 221, 224, 226, 256, 265, 292, 382, 386 Aedh Dubh, king of Uladh, 239, 241 Aedh Mac Kenneth, Scotic sove- reign of the Picts, 446, 482 Aed Finn Mac Eachaidh, chief of Cantyre, 410, 433, 437 Aed Mac Boanta, king of Dalriada, 437. 442, 457 Aetius, letter to, 189 Agatho, Bishop of Rome, 315 Agricola, 211 Aidan, S. , the Scot, of Lindisfarne, 288, 527 Ailbhe, S., of Emly, 119, 139, 254, 344 Ailred, 28, 79 Ainbh-cellach, king of Dalriada, 401 Air-Gharadh (Urquhart), 454 Airlie, 125 ^Aiseag Marui,^ 305 Alba (Pictland), Albion, i, 6, 204, 209 Alban (Scotic form of above), 204, 446 Albanaich (Scots), 2, 495 Alcluyd (Dunbarton), 186, 200 Alcuin, 78, 103, 154 Aldfrid, king of the English and Scholar, 325, 368 Alloa, 251 Alpin Mac Eachaidh, the Half- Pict, sovereign of the Picts, 389, 397 ' king ' of Dalriada, 402, 404, 406, 411,416,418,437,438 Alpin Mac Eachaidh mic Aed Finn, claimant, 438 his defeat and death, 441 Alvah on Deveron, 135 Alvie, 135 Ambrosius Aurelianus, 19 Ammianus Marcellinus, 1 1 Anagrates, 244 Anatolius, 280 '■Ancorite,^ 427, 508 Andat or Annat, 36, 84, 252, 338, 346 Andrew, S., 261, 372, 420, 422, 469, 536 Angels of Scripture, 540 Angles (the English), 172, 174,192, 214, 217, 229, 231, 275, 311, 353, 413, 452, 455 'conversion' of, loi Angus, the Cele De, 296 Angus (Forfar), 345, 361, 364 Angus I. Mac Fergus, sovereign of the Picts, 13, 351, 389, 396, 400, 411, 414, 420, 433, 437, 536 Angus II., sovereign of the Picts and Scots, 437, 441, 456 Animals, 65 ^Anmcharait^ anamcaraidh, soul- friend, 271, 510 'Antiphonary' of Bangor, 42, 242 Antonine, Wall of, 1,7, 16, 171,208 2 N 545 THE PICTISH NATION Aondruim (•Nendruim'), 98, 1 30, 234, 283 Arbroath, 124 Architecture, 69 Ard-Anesbi, naval battle of, 387 Ardchain, 240 Ard'eryd, campaign of, 60, 1 94, 246 Argyll, 8, 178, 385 Cele Dem, 517 Ari Freda, 342 Arisaig, 304 Armagh, 46, 49, 53, 155, 200, 283 Armorica (Brittany), 159 Artbrannan, 20 Arthur, king of the Brito-Picts, 147, 191, 216, 217 his soldiers, 176, 192, 216 Assynt Novar, 377 Athdiath (Dublin), 457 Athelstan, king of the Saxons, 462, 493 Atholl {Ath-Fodla), 12, 364, 367, 379. 380, 386 Auchterarder, 140, 251 Auchterless, 39, 269, 347 Augustine, S., of Canterbury, 182, 275. 363, 531, 535 Austin, the Viking, 460 Autiernus, 245 AvellanaUy the, 60, 198 Bachall, Bachul, 31, 256, 527 of Columcille, 495 of S. Fillan, 122 of S. Moluag, 32 Badenoch, 365, 367 Badon Hill (Bowden Hill), battle of, 147, 217 Baithene, Ab of Magh Luinge and lona, 239 Balquhidder, 407 Banchor-y, 34, 58 Banchory Demhanoc, 336 on Isla, 336 Ternan, 109, 336 Banff, 426 •Bangor,' ' Banagher,' 33, 58, 125, 365 Bangor Catog, 145, 259 Dunod {'Iscoed')y 181 of the Britons, 34 Bangor on Spey, 365 Bangor the Great, Ulster (S. Com- gall's), I, 34,41,61,230, 233, 267, 273, 279, 302, 310, 333, 337, 347, 352, 354. 373. 376, 394, 431, 455, 457. 469, 524, 529, 543 burnmg of, 234, 455 later Abs of, 244 Baptism, infant, 535 Barry Angus, 345 Bede, Mormaor of Buchan, 133 Bede, Venerable, 15, 80, loi, 224, 235, 274, 276, 312, 322, 327, 364, 373, 380, 387, 425, 527, .529 his continuator, 414 Belhelvie, 135 Bells, III Beneventum, 143 Beogna, Ab of Bangor, 245 Berchan, S. (Inchmaholmand Ab- erfoyle), 344 Beret, English general, 322, 330 ' Beregonium ' {Barr nan Gobhan), 220, 236, 411 Bernard, S., 234, 242, 244, 376 Bernicia, 177, 318 Bertfrid, English general, 331 Birnay, 53 Birsay, 342 Bishops, Celtic monastic, 97, 334, 523 Roman monarchic and diocesan, set up in Pictland by the Scots, 475 Blaan, S., of Dunblane, 291, 343 Church foundations of, 295 Blathmac Mac Flann of lona, 456 Bobbio, 41, 243, 464, 470, 505 'Bolgyne,' Fife, 500 Bollandists and the fabulists, 521 Bona (Inverness), 377 'Books of the Picts,' 212 Borgue, 140 Borthwick, 251 Botha, Both-, 27, 126, 298 Bower, Walter, 60, 480 Bran Mac Angus II. , 437, 442, 457 Breccain Ard. See wider Brechin Brechin, 37, 53, 73, 125, 336, 345, 393.471,474,490,508 INDEX Brechin, CeUDedii, 517 Brian, race of, 2 Brigantes, i, 7, II, 16, 49, 415 Brigh or Brioc, S., of Tayside, 215 Brigid, S., 215 Brignat, 98 Brioc, S., the Briton, 125, 137, 166 'Britain,' Prydain, 7 •Britanni,'2ii Brite, S. , of Lhanbryde, 252 Brit^, S., of Menteith, 344 'Briton,' Priten, 7 Britons, 17,49.93. 123, 149, 152, 311. 337 ofStrathclyde, 59, ICX3, 186,311, 312, 458 Brochs, 71 Brotherhood of man, Picts and the, 534. Bruce, King Robert, 320 Brude Derelei, sovereign of the Picts, 329, 503 Brude Grid or ' Cridius,' 21 1 Brude Mac Angus I., 405 Brude Mac Bile, sovereign of the Picts, 61, 229, 320, 329, 366, 389 Brude ( ' Mac Dergart '), last sove- reign of regular Pictish line, 437, Soo, 501, 503 Brude Mac Fergus, sovereign of the Picts, 436, 437 Brude Mac Maelchon, sovereign of the Picts, 2, 8, 20, 211, 218, 226, 229, 234, 26s, 350, 386, 389 alleged conversion of, 223 Brude Mac Wid ('Foith'), sove- reign of the Picts, 229, 311, 329 Brunanburg, battle of, 462, 493 Buchan, 19, 135, 297, 323, 340, 347 Buidhe, S., 32, 123, 214, 323 Bute, 292, 299, 343, 431 Cadoc, S., 137, 142, 149, 201, 259 ' Caer Pen,' « Chircind,' Kirkintil- loch, battle of, 223, 228 Caer Tinan (' Kartinan '), 415, 420 Caer Went, 143, 151 Cainnech, S. (Kenneth), 8, 55,221, 236, 258, 263, 291, 337, 344, 381, 423, 427, 481, 493, 507, 527. 533 Cairbre Righfada, 2 Cairell, Bishop, 349, 351, 367 Caislen Craebhi, called ^ Credhi^ battle of, 398 Caithness, 'Cait,'' 10, 12, 19, 52, 132, 136, 267, 332, 384, 458, 466 Celt Dem, 517 Calatros, 408 Caledonia, woods of, 541 Callander, 140, 408 Cambuslang, 144 Camerarius, 279 Caw/a««(Camelon), battleof, 175, 191,217 Candida Casa, i, 18, 55, 74, 77, 98, 105, 163, 186, 212, 230, 233, 249, 264, 267, 273, 287, 289, 300, 329, 337, 340, 346, 349, 352, 353. 394. 419, 426, 431, 454, 529 crosses at, 538 Canisbay, 136 Canterbury, 317, 319, 328 Cantyre {Epidium), 8, 173, 202, 216,410,433,437 Capella, 30 'Caran,' S. {Coran-dhu), 298 Caranoc, S., the Great, 108, 118, 337 'Car-Budde,' 32 Cardross, 138 Carmunnock, 144 Carrick, 268 Carron, East Ross, 306 Casula, 30, 5(X) Catan, S., of Kingarth, 291, 343, 544 Church foundations of, 292 Cat hair, 32 Cathbuaidh, the, 495 Cathedra, 33 ' Catoc ' or Maes-y-dawc, battle of, 417 Cave retreats, 79, 507 Ce, 12 Ceadda, Anglo-Roman bishop, 288 ' Cele De,' 499, 505, 506 Cele De, the, 496 decline of, 514 2 N 2 547 THE PICTISH NATION Cele de of Ireland, 504 opponents of, 497 organization of, 509 Queen Margaret and, 512 relations with the Ab, 507 Roman institutions and, 497, 509 Celestine, Pope, 113 Cellach, Bishop of ' Alban,' 488 Celtic Church, usages of, 183, 277, 281, 285, 315, 333, 354, 362, 368, 387. 513, 515 Celto - Catholicism of Pictish Church, 353, 362, 521 Kenneth Mac Alpin breaks away from, 476 Celtran, sovereign of the Picts,i2i7 Cennfaeladh, Ab of Bangor, 373, 395 Ceolfrid, Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, 368 his letter to king Nechtan, 369 Ceredig ' Guletic,' 108, 190, 192, 194, 196 Chi-Ro symbol, 538 Cliurch, the first National and Es- tablished (in Britain), 199 Church-buildings, 73 Church of the Gaidheals or Scots, intruded communities of, 350 Church of the Picts of Alba, Tables relating to, 337 cm (Kil-), 25 Cillene Fada, *Ab' of lona, 430 Cilline Droicteach, 'Ab' of lona, 429, 430, 508 ' Cind righ Motiaidh,'' ' Cill Rig- Monaidhy St. Andrews, 260, 338, 344, 394. 423, 427, 481, . 493.512 Ciniath Mac Luthrenn, sovereign of the Picts, 229, 329 Ciniod Mac Wredech, sovereign of the Picts, 437 Cirigh, Chircin, 12 Cladh, a churchyard, 377 Clan-life of the Picts and religion, 534 Claudian, 2 Clinog Eid-Dun (Edinburgh), 196 Clonard, 26, 258, 337 Clova, Cloveth, 237, 336, 348 Clyde, 17, 146, 458 Cnoc Coirpri (Cophair), battle of, 407 Coleraine, 97 * Colidei,' the, 503 Coll, 260 'College,' 124, 13s, 269, 345 of Brechin, 474, 490 Colm, S., Buchan and Caithness, 132, 347, 384 Colm (Colmoc), S., Inchmaholm, 122, 140, 344 Colman, S., bishop among the Angles, 314 Colmonell, 268 Columba, S. (Columcille), 20, 55, 134, 208, 221, 224, 225, 256, 265, 350, 381, 386, 456, 494 Church foundations of, 385 Columban fable, the, 225 Columbanus, S., 2, 41, 244, 277, 333, 524, 527, 529, 533, 543 letters of, 280 Comgan, S., 3, 123, 337, 347, 354, 393, 427, 507 Church foundations of, 357 Comgall,S., the Great, 1,8,19,41, 55, 132, 221, 233, 238, 241, 258, 259, 291, 333, 337, 340, 347,455,511,527,533, 543 Comgall Mac Domangart, king of Dalriada, 204 Comrie, -gomrie, Comraich, 38, 140, 405 Conadh Cerr, king of Dalriada, 312 Conaill Mac Comghall, toiseach of Dalriada, 204, 221 Conall Caeim, king of Dalriada, 437 Conall Mac Taidg, king of Dalri- ada, sovereign of the Picts, 437 Conchobar, 505 Constantine, king of Devon and Cornwall {c. 537), 192 Constantine, Saint and Prince, 243,337 Constantine I. Mac Fergus, king of Dalriada, sovereign of the Picts, 437, 479, 481 Constantine II., Scotic sovereign of the Picts, 446, 459 INDEX Constantine III., king of 'Alban,' 424, 446, 461, 463, 488, 493 Constantine IV., king of 'Alban,' 438, 446 Contin, 306 Conval, S., 337 Conversions in mass, loi, 342, 531 Corrimony, 377 Council of Constance, 44 Council of Pictish Church, under Nechtan, 369 at Scone, 488, 491 Coyl, king, ' the Old,' 148, 197 Crafts, 65 Creich, 407 Critan, Ab of Bangor, 298 Cromarty, 237, 378 Cronan, Ab of Aondruim, 283 Cross, Pictish use of the symbol of the, 538 Crosses, 38, 167, 291, 304, 306, 343, 426, 537 Crutthmz, i, 6, 7, 16 Cruitin-tuait , 6, 458 Cruits, 67 ' Cry of the Deer,' 49 Cuchullin, 505 Cuillen Mac Ilduib, king of 'Alban,' 446 Cul Dreivthne, battle of, 8, 58, 205, 239, 241 Culross, 128, 129, 337, 501, 506 Culsalmond, 128, 252 Cumberland, 248 Cumbria, 175 Cumine Ua Becce, Ab of Eigg, 343, 393, 427 Cunedog or Cinuit ' Guletic,' 190, 192, 196, 202, 220, 541 Curitan, S. (Boniface), 372, 388, 391, 427 Currie, 251 Cuthbert, S., loi, 325 Cuthred, king of the West Saxons, 416 Cymri, 249 Dabhach, davach, dock-, 39 Dagan, S. , of Candida Casa, 273, 27s, 337 Dair, Dana, ' Deer,' 37 Daire, 73 Dal-Araidhe, kingdom of the Irish Picts of, I Dalarossie, 336 Dalian Forgall, the bard, 381 Dalmally, 149 Dal-Riada (Scottish), 173, 325, 352, 381, 386, 388, 431, 444, 475, 478 conquest of, by the Picts, 404, 406,408,411,417,431,433 kings of, 312, 402, 410 Danes, 448, 462 Daniel, Ab of Kingarth, 295 Darlugdach, 215, 345 David, S. (Dewi), of Wales, 112, 137, 157, 162, 194 Daviot, Aberdeenshire, 135 Dedication of Churches, 37 1 Deer, 3, 19, 37, 53, 135, 251, 346, 354,471 Book of, 466, 521 Legend of, 4, 134, 215, 356, 502 Deerness, 342 De Excidio Britanniae, 151 Degsa-stane, battle of, 179 '' Deicolae,^ the, 503 Deira, 177, 318 Dekantai, 10 Dem^tae, 133 Denmark, 453 Deodric, king of the Angles, 176 Deoradh, pilgrim, 542 Derelei Clan, 367 Derry, Black Church of, 259 Derteack, Deartaighe, 37 Deveron, the, 135, 299 Diarmait Mac Cearbhaill, sove- reign of Ireland, 50, 239 Diarmat, Ab of lona, 456 Dicalydones, il Dicuil, Celtic geographer, 254, 332, 340 Dion Cassius, 1 1 Dirlot, Church at, 384 Disert, 30, 183, 507 Dithreabh, 31 Domangart Mac Fergus, king of Dalriada, 204 Domhnall Breac, king of Dalriada, 312 Domnall, Mac Constantine, Pictish king of Dalriada, 437, 439 549 THE PICTISH NATION Domongart, the Ferlegin, 347 Donald I. Mac Alpin, Scotic sove- reign of the Picts, 446 Donald II. Mac Constantine, first to take title 'king of Alban,' 434, 444, 446, 486 Donnan, S., the Great, 33, 39, 99, 267, 271, 347, 448, 454, 507 Church foundations, 268 Dornie, 356 Dornoch, 18, 131, 341, 472 Draco, the, 193 Draoidhean, the, 13 Drest Mac Talorgen, sovereign of the Picts, 437 Drontheim, 342 Drostan, S. , of Deer , 3, 4, 1 32, 25 1 , 340, 347 Church foundations of, 135 * Drostan Dairthaighe ' of Angus, 37, 345, 393, 508 Drowning, punishment by,4o6, 408 Drumachose, 259 Drum Albain, 81, 178, 225, 256, 313, 324, 332, 382 Drumceatt, Convention of Gaidh- eals at, 207 Drum-dergBlathmig, battle of, 400 Drust Gurthinmoc, sovereign of the Picts, 57, 203, 216 Drusticc, 57, 98 Drust, Nechtan's successor, sove- reign of the Picts, 389, 398, 402 Drust Mac Constantine, sovereign ofthe Picts, 437 Drust Mac Donnel, sovereign of the Picts, 229, 329 Drust Mac Erp, sovereign of the Picts, 210 Drust Mac Gyrom, sovereign of the Picts, 217 Drust Mac Munaith, sovereign of the Picts, 218 Drust Mac U' Drosl, sovereign of the Picts, 217 Drymen, 256, 350, 380 Dubh-Galls, 448, 452, 460 Dubh Mac Maelcoluim, king of ' Alban,' 446 Dubhoc, S., of Brechin, 345 Dubhoc or Dubhi, S., of Lismore, 343 Dublin, Viking kingdom of, 457, 459 Dubthac, S., of Tain, romanized Gaidheal, 53 Duirinish, 357 Dull, 350, 367, 380, 383, 385, 387 Dumna (Lewis), 12 Dumnonii, 192 Dun Add, capital of the Gaidheals or Scots, 203, 406, 411, 431 Dunbarton, 128, 177, 186, 195, 200, 312,418,458 Dunblane, 295, 319, 336, 344 Celt de at, 517 Duncan Becc, 'king' of Cantyre, 386, 402 Duncan Mac Conaill, superseded king of Dalriada, 198, 207 Duncan Mac Crinan, king of •Alban,' 446 Dun Ceithern, 61 Dun{d)Earn, 12, 407, 482. See under Fortrenn Dungal Mac Selbac, 'king' of Dalriada, 402, 407 Dun-Gimhen, 258 Dunkeld, 11, 229, 299, 350, 481 attempt to transfer Mother- Church of Scots there, 478 Cele deat, 516 Constantine's Church at, 48 1 'Liturgy' of, 122, 537 projected seat for Bishop of Fortrenn, 480 Dun Leithfinn, 405 Dunmeth, Glass, 349 Dunnichen {Dun Nechtain), 124, 215 battle of, 61, 323, 324, 326; political results of, 326, 370 Dunning, 128, 160 Dunod, S. (Donatus), 181, 183, 254, 275, 335 Dunolly, 406, 408 Dunottar (Dun Fother), 39, 115 Durness, 306 Dwellings, 70 Dyeing, 67 Eadbald, king of Kent, 284 Eadbert, king of the English, 414, 415 INDEX Eaglais, Eecles-, 27, 297 Eanfrid, apostate king of Bernicia, 329 Earn, 'Erann, 121, 122 kingdom of (Fortrenn), 2, 320, 361 Easter controversy, the, 183, 280, 315. 371, 387. 394 Ebussa, 447 ^ Ecclesia Scoticana,^ 483 Edderton, Ross, 82, 269, 336 Edinburgh, 191, 196, 217, 312 Editors, Gaidhealic and Latin, 54, 438, 440, 460 Education, 35, 57, 92, 98,292,365, 469 Edwin, king of the English, 286 Egbert, Anglo-Roman zealot, 374, 387, 425, 429, 475 Egbert, Bishop of York, 288 Egfrid, king of the English, 317, 321, 326 Egilshay, 342 Eigg, island of, 267, 269, 271, 393, 427, 448, 454 Eilan Donnan, Kintail, 269, 356 Elfled, princess, 328 Elfrith, king of the English, 461 Elpin Mac Wroid (Alpin Mac Feroid), sovereign of the Picts, 437 Emly (Imlach), 121, 344 Endeus, or Eany, S., 95, 120 English, the, 311, 321, 353, 378, 394, 397, 414 claims to conquest, 312, 326 'English Claims,' the, 373, 414, 418 Eochaidh Buidhe, kingof Dalriada, 312 Eochaidh Mac Aed Finn, grand- father of Kenneth Mac Alpin, 438 Eochaidh Mac Eachaidh, 'king' of Dalriada, 402, 406, 41 1 Eochaidh Rineaval, 'king' of Dal- riada, 401 Eochaidh Run, joint-sovereign of the Picts, 434, 446, 482 Eogan, 'Eugadius' or 'Euchinus' of Deer, 347 Eogan of Ardsratha, 97 Eormenburg, English queen, 325 Epidioi, Epidium (Cantyre), 9 Episcopacy, Roman monarchic, . 523 Episcopal State Church set up in Alba by the Scots, 475 Ere, race of, 2 Erchard, S. (M'erchard), 111,349 ' Etar Linndu' (Leny), 408 Ethelbald, king of Mercia, 414, 416 Ethelbert, king of Kent, 276 Ethelfrid, kingof the English, 177, 276 Ethelred, lay Ab of Dunkeld, 513 Ethical aims of the Pictish Church, 518 Eun Innis (Avium insula), 259 Ewen or 'Uven' Mac Angus II., sovereign of the Picts and Scots, 437, 442, 457 Excommunication of S. Columba, 205 Expulsion of the Gaidhealic or Scotic clergy by Picts, 379, 385, 387 Faelcu, Ab of lona, 430 Failbhe Mac Guaire, 310, 343, 393, 425 Faith, Picts and the Christian, 533 Falkirk, 297 Fame Islands, 177, 288, 449, 455 Farnua (Kirkhill), 377 Farr, Sutherland, 306 Cross of, 537 Fearn, Edderton, 105, 269, 289, 336, 340, 426 Fearn (Nova Farina), 106, 289, 472 Fedhlimidh, 'Ab' of lona, 430 Feradach Mac Selbac of Lorn, 407 Ferchar, king of Dalriada, 312 Ferchar Fada of Lorn, king of Dal- riada, 365, 401, 407 Ferghil, S., the Geometer, 337 Fergus, S., of Buchan and Caith- ness, 132, 347 Fergus, S., of Carnoch, 129, 246, 337 Fergus, S., of Dalarossie, 336 Fergus Mac Eachaidh of Cantyre, 410, 437 THE PICTISH NATION Fergus Mor, reputed second king of Dalriada, 173, 203 Feth Fiadha, the, 48 Fiac, or Fiag, S., 49, 114 Fiacha Araidhe, i Fiacroc (Fittoc), S., of Nigg, 252 Fictitious grants of property, 502 Fidach, 12 Fidhbhadach, Ab of Bangor, Ulster, 431 Fife, Fib, 10, 12, 214, 236, 260, 294, 297,361,423,471 Mother- Church of, 264, 361, 423, 427 Fillan or Faolan, S., ^ Llafar,^ 121, 139. 344 Fillan, S., of Fife, 338, 355 Fillan, S., of Houston, 123, 355, 357, 393. 427 Finan, S. , of Lumphanan, 252 Finan, S. , Scotic bishop at Lindis- farne, 429 Finbar, S., of Maghbile and Dor- noch, 57, 97, 129, 234, 340, 355 Findchan the Presbyter (Tiree), 241, 259 Findgane Mac Deleroith, Pictish chief, 331 Findomhnan, S., of Forvie, 336 Finghin, Celede, 'Ab' of lona, 517 Finian, S., of Clonard, 35, 258, 337 Finle Cunthar or Cunchar, Pictish chief of Angus, 466, 474 Finn-Gall, the, 448, 452 Fintan, S., 350 Fishing, 64, 245 Flaithbertach, princeps of Dun- keld, 480 Flann, S., of Antrim, 395 Flann-Abhra,Ab of Maghbile, 456 Fleet, Pictish, 401 Viking, 458 Flodden of the Picts, 442 Fordun, 114 Fordun, John of, 115 Forfar, Angus, 10, 214, 297, 299, 323 Forres, 306 Forteviot, 12, 481 Forth, river and firth of, 9, 11, 17, 190, 217, 312, 318, 327, 338 Fortrenn, Fort Earn, Dun(d)Earn, 2, 12, 17, 122, 320, 323, 370, 378, 380, 386, 396, 407, 444, 457. 459. 468, 478, 494, 501 Scotic headquarters removed to, 46s seat of Roman bishop of, 480 ; removed to Abernethy, 481 title of Roman bishop changed to ' bishop of Alban, ' 492 Forvie, 336 Fothad I., Roman bishop of 'Alban,' 515 Fotla, 12 ' Four Nations,' the, 230 Frankish clergy, 279 Franks, the, 452 Fraserburgh (Faithlie), 135 Freedom for the Church, 520 Freswick, 136 Frisian Vikings, 27 1 , 447 Frithwald, Roman bishop of Can- dida Casa, 419, 431 Fumoc, S., of Botriphnie, 252 Furs, 68 Fusion of Picts and Scots in the west, 410 Gabhran Mac Domangairt, king of Dalriada, 8, 13, 204, 265, 347 the Clan, 366, 386, 401, 410 Gaidhealic dialect of Celtic, 20 Gaidheals or Scots, the, 2, 172, 188, 191, 202, 216, 229, 265, 302, 311, 352, 365, 379, 401,434, 460, 464, 478 of Ireland, 172, 274, 322 Galan, sovereign of the Picts, 216 Galan Cennaleph, sovereign of the Picts, 218 Gall, S., 2, 41 Gall, St., 45, 244 library at, 42 ' Gallaibh ' generally, and referring to Caithness, 451 ' Gallgaedelaib,^ 294, 450 Gall-Gaidheal, the, 449, 457 Galloway, i, 18, loi, 249, 273, 285, 286, 289, 312, 337, 353, 356, 394, 413. 418 Alpin the half-Pict settles in, 413,417 INDEX Garioch, 238, 253 Garth, 38 Gartnaidh Mac Domneth, sove- reign of the Picts, 228, 263, 344 Gartnaidh Mac Donnel, sovereign of the Picts, 229, 329 Gartnaidh Mac Gyrom, sovereign of the Picts, 217 Gartnaidh Mac Wid (Foith), sove- reign of the Picts, 229, 329 Gaul, 245, 279 Church of, 234, 522 Geographical idea of Pictland of Alba in early and mediaeval periods (compare with refer- ences the map of Matthew Paris), I, 224, 236, 364, 380 Gilbert Murray, Roman bishop and saint, 4, 131, 341 Gilbert de Sterling, Roman bishop, 348 Gildas, saint and censor, 137, 146, 193, 201 Gilgidh, Gilgic, or Galgac, sove- reign of the Picts, 211 Giric or Grig, last Pictish titular sovereign of the Picts, 5, 434, 445, 446, 482, 484 his gift of 'Liberty 'to the roman- ized Scotic Church, 483, 487 * Glas Cainic,^ the, 58 Glasgow, 18, 104, 129, 196, 200, 231, 246, 257, 273, 299, 319, 337, 352, 529 S. Columba's visit to, 256 Glasnevin, 26, 259 Glaston, Glasserton, 79, loi, 286 Glastonbury, loi, 191 Glen, the Great, 112 Glen Esk, 508 Glen Gyle, 407 Glenmoriston, 112 Glen Shiel, 356 Glen Urquhart, 39, 13S Godfrey of the race of Ivar, 461 Gospel MSS., 57, 532 S. Martin's, 58 Govan, 243, 337 Gragabai, thejarl, 461 Gruoch, queen, 500 Guallauc, or Hywel, 148, 176, 196 Gureit, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, 311 Gwenddolen ap Ceidian, 60, 196 Gwendydd, 59 Gwledigox Guletic, the, 189 Gwynedd, Gwendote, Venedotia (N. Wales), 191, 219 Hadrian, abbot at Canterbury, 317 Hadrian, Wall of, 420 Haldane, the Viking, 458 Halkirk, 131, 136, 342 Hebrides, 8, 52, 426 Helmsdale, 39, 131 Hexham or Hagustald, 420 Hierarchy of Rome, and Pictland, 391 Hilary, S., 78, 337 Hilda's abbey, 328 ' Hill ofFaith,' Scone, 488 Hinba, 299 Hoan, king of the Britons of Strath- clyde, 312 'Holdelm,'nowHoddam, 199,251 Honorius, emperor of Rome, 213 Houston, 123, 355 Hoy and Church, 342, 384 Hubba, the Viking, 458 Humber, the, 17, 462 Huns, the, 453 Hussa the Angle, 148, 176 Hut circles, 70 Hy or lona, which see, 2 Hymn of S. Fiac, 49 I, Hy, or lona, 221. See lona Iceland, 254, 332 Ida, the Angle, 174 Ilduib (misread 'Illulb') Mac Con- stantine, king of ' Alban,' 446 Ilidh, ulligh, Ila, the Helmsdale river, 10, 268 lUtyd, or Iltutus, S., 155 Inchmaholm {Innis na Cholm), 122, 344 Inguar, the Viking, 458 Jntiis Cumennraighe, plundering of, 404 Innis na Cailleach, 123, 355 Innis Pict, i Innis Wiirin, Isle of Whithorn, 286 553 THE PICTISH NATION Insch, Garioch, 135 Inverarity, 125 Invergowrie, 375 Invermoriston, 384 Inverness, 8, 227, 235, 237, 378, 383 lolan, Ab of Kingarth, 295 Zona, 2, 20, 52, 221, 227, 264, 267, 270,311, 325, 332, 350, 367, 373, 381, 386, 425, 428, 455, 538 Abs who conformed to Rome, 430 CeleDezi, 517 clergy expelled from Pictland, 379 Kenneth MacAlpin the Scot breaks away from, 476 left derelict by Innrechtach, 477 old parish Church of, 431 Pictish Churchmen found a Church there, 296, 430 Ireland, 52, 460, 477, 496 Isla, Angus, 400 Islay, 304 Ithernan, or Ethernoc, S., 297 Ivar, king of the Vikings in Ireland, 458, 460 Ivar Conung ua Ivar, 461, 495 Jarrow-on-Tyne, 368, 420 Jerome, S., 280 Joceline of Furness, 19, 60, 100, 200, 247, 256, 273 John, bishop of York, 288 John IV,, Pope, 282 Jonas, biographer of S. Colum- banus, 243 Julius Capitolinus, 17 Justus, bishop of Rochester, 276, 285 ^ Kaillian Fittd,'' 350, 380, 479 Kaledonioi, II Keith, 303, 306, 392 Kenneth Derelei, 378 Kenneth III. Mac Alpin, Scotic sovereign of the Picts, 418, 434, 437, 438, 442, 444, 446, 457, 460, 465, 468, 477, 485 breaks away from Columban Church of lona, 476 554 Kenneth III. Mac Alpin, estab- lishes the Roman Mission in Alba, 476 his attack 'in the rear' of the Pictish army, 442 his innovations in the Scotic and Pictish Churches, 476 his scoticizing designs, 472 Kenneth IV. Mac Maelcoluim, king of 'Alban,' 345, 446, 466, 474, 490 Kenneth V. Mac Duibh, king of 'Alban,'446 Kentigern (Mungo), S. , 19, 59, 100, 194, 196, 200, 246, 332, 337, 499,507,511,527 Missions of, 248 Kentigerna, S., 121, 135, 347, 355, 358, 427 Kerones, 9, 14 Kessoc, S., 137, 138 Kiannaght, 123, 259 * Kilcalmkill ' for ' Gillyecallomgil,' 384 Kil-Curdy (Kil-Curitan), 375, 377 Kildonnan, Arran, 268 Kildonnan, Eigg, 343 Kildonnan, Sutherland, 268, 342, 538 Kilfillan, Kil'illan, 355, 356 Kilkenny, Round tower of, 73 Kil-Kinterne, 356 Kilmarnock, 299 Kilmoha, Argyll, 138 *■ Kilmoronoc ^ ^Kilmoronog,' 297, 430 Kilrenny, 297 Kilrymont (^Cill Rig • Monaidh). See Cindrigh Monaidh Kiltearn, Ross, 356 Kincardine, Mearns, 10 Kincardine, Ross, 10 Kingarth {Cinn-garadh), 293, 319, 343, 344, 430, 431. 469, 508 Kinghorn, 336, 338, 474 Kingussie, 384 Kintail, 14, 269, 356 Kirkcolm, 268 Kirk-Cowan, 355 Kirkcudbright, 102 Kirkintilloch, 'Chircind,' ^Caer pcjt,' 228 INDEX Kirkmahoe, 1 38 Kirkmaiden, 268 Knapdale, 203, 406 Knoydart, 357 Kornavioi, 9 Kynor, 252, 346 'Kyrkenes,' 500 Laeghaire, king of the Irish Gaidh- eals, 47 'Laicht Alpin,'4i3 Lairg, 306 Laisranus, Mac Laisre, Molaisren, Ab of Bangor, 283, 292 Lamlash, 38, 292 Lanark, 251 LandnamabSk, the, 23, 255, 458 Lands of the muinntirs stolen under the Scots, 473 of the clansmen stolen, 474 Latin among the Picts, 56 Laurentius, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 276, 285 his letter to the Irish, 277 ^Lausperennis,' 35, 122, 256 •Law of the Innocents, 'Adamnan's, 373.374 . . Law regulating succession of Pict- ish Abs, 472 Leabhar na h- ilidkre, 2 Learning among the Picts, 369 Leathlobhair, chief of Irish Picts, 456 'Legacaester,' Chester, Battle of, 180, 276, 286 Legions, in Britain, 187 Leinster, 49, 355 Leithreid, Battle of, 222 Lennox, 138, 145, 149, 178, 256, .295.313.350 Lerins, 523 Lesmahagow, 169 Leven (Lochaber border), 405 Leven, Loch (Kinross), 336, 501, 51S Leven, the, Dunbarton, 149 Lewis, 12, 269, 305, 449, 467 Lhanbride, 39 Lia Fail, The, 33 ' Liberty ' to romanized Scotic Church by Giric, 483, 487 Libraries of Bobbio and St. Gall, 41 Library at Candida Casa, 57 Liguge, 337 Lindisfarne, 318, 455 Lis, lios, 39 Lismore (Lorn), 19, 39, 170, 236, 343. 347. 469 Llallogan, 59, 198 Llan, 38 Llancarvan, 144, 155 Llan-Elwy, 194, 246 Llolan, S., 137, 165 Loam Mor, reputed first king of the Scots of Dalriada, 203 Lochaber, 14, 367 Loch Broom, 10 Loch Carron and Carron river, 306 Loch Duich, 356 Loch Fyne, 304 Lochlann, 451 Lochlannaibh, the, 450, 459, 494 Loch Leven (Kinross), 336, 501, 515 Cele De at, 500 Loch Lomond, 123, 355 Loch Long in Kintail, 356 Loch Maree {Ma ruf), 306 Loch Ness, 85, 349, 351, 367 Logo- Tigiac, Leuko Teiac, Logoti- giacum, 26, 78, 159 LoUius Urbicus, 7, 16, 17, 415 London, 188 Lonmay, 135 'Loogdae' Loch, 390 Lord's Supper, 272, 284, 533, 536 Lorn, 343, 406, 409 Clan, 366, 387, 401,407. 411 Loth, or Llewddyn Lueddag, king of Eastern Brito- Picts, 175, 192, 217 Lothians, 191, 378 Lougoi, 10 Louth, 41 Love of country, Pictish, 541 Lugbe Mocumin, 257, 350 Lumphanan (Llan-Fhinan), 38, 446, 500 Lumsden Village, 348 Lungley, St. Fergus, 136 Luss, 140 Luxeuil, 244 Lyon, Churchfoundationsin Valley of the, 160 555 THE PICTISH NATION Mac Alpin, Kenneth. See under K Macbain, Dr., i6 Macbeth, king of ' Alban,' 446, 500 Machan, S., 137, 145, 201 * Mac Maelchon, Brude. See under B Mac Oigi, Ab of Bangor and Aber- crossan, 244, 304, 343, 455 Macon, Council of, 280 Madderty, 297 ■Maelcoluim I., king of 'Alban,' 446 , Maelcoluim II., king of 'Alban,' 446 Maelduin, bishop of 'Alban,' 517 Maelduin, king of Dalriada, 401 ^'Maelgon, Maelgwyn or Maelchon, king of Gwynedd, and sove- reign of the Brito - Pictish tribes, 154, 178, 192, 194, 219 Maelmanach, Ab of Kingarth, 295 — Maeloc, S., 148 Maelrubha, S., 22, 37, 273, 307, . 335, 343. 392, 426, 454 his Church foundations in the East, 306, 392 his Church foundations in the North, 306 his Church foundations in the West, 304, 343 Maelrubha, Moruf, or Morubh of Angus, 345 Maes y dawc or Catoc, battle of, 417 Maghbile, 18, 98, 129, 234, 337, 355,456,469 ' Magnum Monasterium ' of S. Mar- tin, 24, 34, 79 of S. Ninian, 34, 79 Mailros, Melrose, loi Malcolm Mac Duncan, Ceanmor, king of 'Alban,' 446 Malcolme or Maol-Choluim of Fearn and Candida Casa, 105 Man, Isle of, 449 Manapian Picts, i, 17, 49 Manau gu-0tadin{'N\.&x\n2iXi), 190, 222, 266, 330 Maolruadha, for Maelrubha, which see Mar, 300, 323 Margaret, queen of 'Alban,' 510, 514 Margaret and the Pictish Church- men, 513 ' Marmoutier,^ Mor Muinntir, 24, 79 Marnoc, or Marnan, S. , 298 Marriage of Celtic clerics, 515 Martain, Taigh, 109, 353 Martan, S., of Angus, 339 Martin, S., 26, 77, 282, 353, 507, 522 Martyrdom of S. Donnan, 271 ^Maxima Caesarienszs ,' 17 May, Isle of, 338, 449 Mearns, 11, 12, no, 323, 345, 444 Meath, i Medan, S., of Airlie, 125 Medan, S., of Buchan and Caith- ness, 132, 347 Medan, S., of Candida Casa, 84 Medrautjor Modred, 175, 191, 193, 217 Mellitus, bishop of London, 276, 285 Mentality, Pictish, 539 Menteith, 122, 313, 344 Merovingians, 185 Mersey, 17, 312 Methlick, 36, 84, 346 M'eudail, 63 Miathi, II, 17 Midmar, 252 Ministry, Pictish, 530 Mirran, S., of Paisley, 243, 337 Missions and missionaries, Pictish, 530 Mobhi, S., 218, 259 Mochaoi, S., 137 Mochrieha, S. (misnamed ' Mac- har'), 166 Mo'dan, S., of Rosneath, 296 Church foundations of, 296 Mo'enna, S., 98 Molendinar, the, 231 -Moluag, S., 19, 58, 220,225, 235, 251, 259, 292, 300, 305, 340, 343, 347, 348,511,543 Church foundations of, 234, 237, 343, 376 Monarchic and Diocesan bishops, 392, 394 Monasticism, S. Martin's, 77 Monifod, Monifieth, 125, 338 INDEX Monire, S., of Crathie, 252 Monith Carno, battle of, 390, 399 Monith Craebh, battle of, 398 Moray, 3, 323, 426, 507 Firth, 135 Morecambe, 195 Morkan, Morcant, Brito - Pictish chief, 148, 176, 177, 196, 246 Mortlach, 53, 237, 347 bishops at, 347 Muckairn, 304 Mugent, Ab of Candida Casa, 98, 155. 337 'Hymn' of, 27, 56 ^ Ahiintitir,' i, 24, 32, 78 Muircertach, Ab of Cambus and Bangor, 234 Mull, 259 M'lillie, 63 Mun-Ros, Montrose, 125, 339, 507 Munster, 2, 458 Muredach, 'king' of Lorn, 402, 406 Mynghu, Mungo, 63. See Kentigern Mynyv, Fenyv, 164, 195 'Mynyv Veins, ^ 164 Myr'an, S. See Mirran Myrdinn, Llallogan, 198 Nairn, 306 Nathlan, S., of Meldrum, 301 Naver, 'Nawarn,' 'Nair,' river and strath, 306, 454 Navidale, 'Ni'andal,' 39, 85, 131 Nechtan Derelei, sovereign of the Picts, 330, 350, 360, 364, 370, 378, 386, 388, 390, 396, 399, 522 becomes a cleric, 389, 398 'Nechtan'smere' (Dunnichen), 61, 323, 325 Nectan Mac Canonn, sovereign of the Picts, 228, 229, 344 Nectan the Great, Mac Erp, sove- reign of the Picts, 124, 214, 323 Nemhidh, 36 Nemi, 37 Nennio, S, , ' Manchan,' Ab of Can- dida Casa, 95, 98, 113, 155, 163, 337 Nennius, 41, 148, 273 Newcastle, 420 Nialls, the, i, 2, 173, 303, 457 Nidan, S., 252, 346 Ninian the Great, S., i, 8, 18, 55, 77, 100, 212, 233, 254, 337, 340, 346, 349, 507, 511, 522, 527 Churches founded by, 84, 336 North Sea, the, 453 Northumbria, 413, 455 Norway, 254, 453 Norwegians, 448, 450. See'ZtJ^A- lannaibh ' Nothelm, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 419 Oan, 'princeps' of Eigg, 343, 393 O'BeoUans of Ross, the, 474 Octha, the Viking, 447 'Oifi-end,' Eucharist, the, 272 Olaf Cuaran, the Dane, 462 Olaf, son of Godfrey, Viking king of Dublin, 462 Olaf the Fair, Viking king of Dub- lin, 458, 459 Olaf Tryggvesen, king of Norway, .342 Olrig, Castletown of, 136 O'Morgair, S. Malachi, 244 Orders of the clergy of the Scots, ^ 517 Organization of the Pictish Church, form of, 525 complete, 332 Ork, Orcades, Orkney, 12, 52, 254, .332, 342, 384, 447, 449. 466 Vikings converted by Rome, 342, 466 Viking kingdom of, 461 Ornaments, 60, 66 Osred, king of the English, 331 Oswald, king of the English, 288, 311 Oswy, kingoftheEnglish,3i2, 325 Otadinoi, the, 11, 176 Otter, the, 64 Ottir, the jarl, 461 Owain, father of S. Kentigern, 177, 246 Oyne, 135 /'-using Celts, 7, 15 Paisley, 243, 299, 337, 427 Papas, Papa, 23, 77, 253, 454 557 THE PICTISH NATION Paradise of the Celts, 541 'Parce Domifie,' the, 56 Paschal date, the, 280, 365, 371, 387, 394 at lona, 425 Pasgen, son of Urien, 252 Patras, 423 Patrick, S., 47, 49, 109, 113, 137, 213, 535 PaulHin, 'Paldoc,' 'Paldy,' «Po- lan,' 99, no, 112, 159, 160 Paulinus, Archbishop of York, 78, loi, 287, 300 Pausanius, 17 Pechthelm, Roman bishop of Can- dida Casa, 104, 274, 289, 394, 419 Pechtwine, Roman bishop of Can- dida Casa, 104, 274, 289, 419 Peebles, 251 Pelagius, 533 Penicuik, 251 Pennines, 195 Pentland (Pictland) Firth, 13, 449 Pentland Hills, 195 Periods of the Churches, 5 Perth, 214, 299 'Peter Abstoil,' S. Peter, 4, 314, 376, 391, Peter, S., his protection for the Picts, 371, 391. 420, 427, 469 Pet-names, 63 Petty, 384 Phoenicians, 72 Pictish Chronicle, The, 54, 55, 209, 213 Pictish Church, aims of, 526 penetration by Scotic clergy be- gins, 468 Pictish dialect of Celtic, 15,48 Pictish dissent after beginning of Scotic dynasty, 472 Pictish kings of Dalriada, 433, 437 Pictish literature, 55 Pictland, 'Cruitin-tuait,^ of Alba, 7. 9, 12 penetration by Scotic chiefs and clergy begins, 468 Picts of Alba, 54, 209, 301 Picts of Alba, western (Bede's 'northern'), 220, 225, 236, 259, 264, 269, 410 558 Picts ofthe north-east of Ireland, i, 61,259,266,301,312,337 Picts of the south-east and midlands of Ireland, 1,258, 337 Pilgrim, the Pictish, 542 Pitmedan of Fintray, 84 Pitmedanof Udny, 135 Pittenweem, Pet-na- Weem, 338 Place-names, Celtic, 541 Poictiers, Celts of, 77, 522 Polwarth, 251 Polyandry, 74 Pope, Scots and the, 262 Portree, 305 Port Ronain, lona, 430 Pottery, 66 Precious metals, 66 Pretanikai Nesoi, 7 ' Princeps,' President, 480 Priten, Pryden, Cruitin, Briton, 7 Psalter MSS,, 57, 532 of Bobbio, glosses on, 505 Ptolemy, and the influence of his geographical error with regard to Pictland on early historians, 9, 12, 80, 187, 224, 364, 380 Qu-tC-, A'-using Celts, 2, 15 Rafford, 306 Ranald, the Dane, 461 'Red Priest, 'the, 302. ^^^S. Mael- rubha Regies, Redes, at St. Andrews, 261, 267, 338 Regulus, S. See Riaghuil or Rule, S. Relics of ' S. Andrew, ' 423 Relics, veneration of, 422, 430, .455.461,478,494, 536 Religion and politics, 352 pre-Christian, among the Celts, 540 'Religiosus,' 427, 508 ' Religious Equality,' 488 Reodatius (Reodaidhe), Ab of Fearn, Edderton, 85, 340, 426, 538 Rescobie, 380 Restennot, 126, 375 Resurrection, 263, 532 Retreats, 507 INDEX ^Rex Pictorum,^ high-king or sove- reign of the Picts, 2, 446 Rhydderch *Hael,' later, *Hen,^ sovereign of the Britons of Clyde, 60, 148, 176, 194, 200, 230, 246, 251 Riaghuil, Rule, S., of Bangor, 61, 261, 324, 338 Riaghuil, Rule, S., oi Muc Innis, 261, 338 ^Righ Dalriada,' '■Righ Albain^ ^Rex Alban,' 2, 444, 446 Rioc, S.,98 Robert of Popilton, 209 Roman and Celto - Catholic Churches, 522, 525 Roman hierarchy organized in Alba by the Scots, 475 Roman mission of S. Curitan (Boni- face), 372, 378, 391, 393, 428 Roman Mission, the, 182, 231, 247, 27s. 289, 323, 327, 329, 354, 362, 387, 391, 394, 420, 425, 427, 429, 452, 454, 471, 485, 515, 522 promoted in Alba by the Scots, 476 Rome, Imperial, 7, 187, 213, 415, 453 Ronan, S., Ab of Kingarth, 295, 394, 425, 429 at lona, 429 other Church foundations of, 296 Ronan, the, Cele De, 515 Ronan, 'the Scot' (Irishman), 429 Rosemarkie, 19.227,237,340,375, 391, 428 Rosnat, 'Rosnan(t),' Whithorn, 96, 163 Rosneath, 296 Ross, 19 absence of Columban Churches in, 383 Cele De'm, 517 Earls of, 475 Easter, 105, 269, 289, 307, 340, 377, 426, 458 Roman Church in, 475 Wester, 302 Ros Torathair, battle of, 266 Rothiemay, 135 Round towers, 73, 97, 342 Rule of Bangor, 242, 283 Rum map Urbgen, 99, loi Sacraments in Celtic Church, 185, 362, 513, 533 ^ Sagart Ruadk,' 302. See S. Mael- rubha Sanctuary, Ecclesiastical, 38, 269, 305, 539 Royal, 405 'Saxanacaibh,' 458 Saxons, 226, 229, 231, 275, 284, 452, 458 Scandinavian Vikings, the, 447 Schools, 58 Scone, 12, 125, 443 Ecclesiastical Council at, 488, 491 Kenneth Mac Alpin's treachery at, 442 'Scot,' 2, 54 Scotic religion in tenth century, 494 Scotic vicar in Pictland, the, 473 Scots, the, 2. See under Gaidheals Scriptures in Pictish Church, 531 Seannal UaTaidhg, Abof Achadh- Bo, 428 Seipeal, Sipil, Chapel, 28 Selbac, chief of Lorn, 386, 402 Servanus, S., 30, 55, 99, 127, 129, 201,251,252, 337, 500,507 of the fabulists, 501 Severus, L, S., 11 Shetland, 8, 52, 332, 342, 384,453. 466 Shipping, 69, 401 Sidlaw hills, 323 Simoniacal bribe of the Scots to the Pictish Abs, 473 Sitriuc, the Dane, 462 Skail, 454 Skaoc, S., 126, 339 Skye, 'Sketis,' 12, 269 Slebhine, 'Ab' of lona, 430 Sleibhte, 49, 114 Smertai, 10 Smiths, 65 Solitary, the, 507 Sol way, the, 312 Sonichar, 245 Soul of the Picts, 470 559 THE PICTISH NATION Spike Island, i Spinning, 67 Stilicho, 213 Stinchar, 140 Stirling, 295, 312, 318, 321, 378 Stormont, 364 Strath-Clyde, 175, 177, 246, 286, 337. 457, 458 Strath- Earn, 321, 323 Strath-Gartney, 407 Strathmore, 324 Strathpeffer, 237 Strath-Spey, 365 Studion, the, 36 Succession, Law of, 75, 435, 445 Suidhe, 33 Sunday, 513 Sutherland, 10, 33, 384, 426, 458 S. Andrew, 261, 372, 420, 422, 469, 536 Legend of, 261, 415, 420, 423 St. Andrews, 3, 53, 58, 260, 338, 344, 394, 423, 428, 469, 471, 488,491,493,496, 512 Cele DezS., 516 Councilor, 513, 531 Hexham, 421 St. Cainnechs (Kilkenny), 73 St. Colms, Buchan, 135 St. Davids (^Mynyv), 156, 164 St. Drostans (Deer and Canisbay), 135, 136 St. Fergus, Buchan, 135 St. Fillans('Rath-Erann'), 121 St. Fittocks, 252 St. Gall, 42, 243, 464, 470 St. Mungos, 129, 251 Tacitus, 211 Tain, Old, 136 Tain, Ross, 53 Taizaloi, the, 10 Talmag, 56, 98 Talorg Mac , sovereign of the Picts, 212 Mac Aniel, sovereign of the Picts, 214 Mac Congusa, 405 Mac Murtholoic, sovereign of the Picts, 218 Mac Wid ('Foith'), sovereign of the Picts, 229, 312, 329 560 Talorgan, Mac Angus, sovereign of the Picts, 437 Mac 'Enfred,' sovereign of the Picts, 229, 329 Mac Fergus of Lorn, 407 Mac Wthoil, joint-sovereign of the Picts, 437 Tara, 50, 374 Synod of, 374 Taran Mac Entifidich, sovereign of the Picts, 329 Tarbat, Easter Ross, 426 Tarlagan or Talorgan, S. , 305 Tarlog or Talorg, S. , 269 Tathan, S., 143 Taudar Mac Bile, king of the Strath- clyde Britons, 320, 417 Tay, 10, 160, 214, 323, 381 Teaching of the Pictish ministers, 529 'Tear' (Deer), Kirk o', 136 Teilcho, battle of, 207 Teimnen of Kingarth, 508 Tenipul, 27 Maelrubha, 306 Ninian, Loch Ness, 85, 268, 349, 35i> 367, 380 Ronoc, or Ronain, 430 Ternan, S., Ab of Candida Casa, 95,99, 109, 116, 129, 168 Teunon (Forglen), 400 Teutonism, 322, 363, 400,409,415, 444, 448, 452, 470 Teutons, 281, 284, 363, 450 Theodore, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 317 Thorstein the Red, 458 Tighernac, S. , of Cluain Eois, 97 Time, Celtic reckoning of, 540 Tiree, 238, 259, 266 Toiseach, 8, 204, 382 Tolarg, brother of Angus I., 417 Tolarg Mac Drostain of Atholl, 379, 380, 386, 406, 408 Tonsure, the Celtic, 316, 362, 365 the Roman, 368, 387 Toraidh, plundering of, 404 Tours, >]>], 337, 522 Towers, round, 73, 97, 342 Triduana, legend of, and Nechfan, 380 Trumwine, bishop among the INDEX Angles at Abercorn, 316, 318, 327, 363 Tuatalan, Ab at St. Andrews, 264, 338, 394, 424, 425, 427 Tuathal Mac Artguso, ' first bishop of Fortrenn,' 480 Turgot, Roman bishop at St. An- drews, 516 Turriff, 3, 14, 109, 347, 354, 357. 393,427,471 TyGwyn, 34,78, 159 Tyne, 420, 423 Ullapool, 10 Ulster, Uladh, 2, 49, 61, 123, 129, 234, 239> 337, 457 Underworld, the Celtic, 540 Union of Picts and Gaidheals, or Scots, 3, 433, 445 Ur-ghard,Ar-gkard,Air-Gharaah, 307 Urquhart, Loch Ness, 307 Urquhart (on Cromarty Firth ), 306 Urien Rheged (Urbgen), 59, 148, 176, 196, 246 fin Ptolemaic names, 10 Vakomagoi, 11, 17 Valentia, 17 Veneration of relics, 422, 430, 455, 461, 478, 494, 536 of Saints, 371,455 Vernikones, 10, 17 Verturiones, Men of Fortrenn, II, 17, 320 Vigean, S., 99, 107, 126 Vikings, 51, 72, 301, 437, 44°, 444, 447, 452, 494 detailed raids of, 454 Frisian, 271,273, 447 Vikings, their destruction of re- ligious life and education, 470 Vision, alleged, to Angus I. , 422 Vortigern, 59, 189 Vosges, 245 Wales, 52, 100, 191 Wallace, William, 319 Walloc, S., 99, 252, 300, 346, 349 Wearmouth, 368, 420 Weaving, 67 Weem, 157 Wells, 83, 167, 291, 301 Welsh, the, 300 Westerdale on Thurso, 136 Westfield, Caithness, 136 Westminster, 33 Whithorn, 'Hwiterne,' i, 56, lOi, 163, 286, 337. See Candida Casa Wick, 39, 136, 342 Wigtownshire, 355 Wilfrid I. , bishop of Northumbria and York, 314, 318,421,531 and the Picts, 316 Wilfrid II., bishop of York, 288 Worship, 35, 122, 256 Wrad (Ferat) Mac Bargoit, sove- reign of the Picts, 437 Wrexham, 181 Xiphiline, 11 'Yellow Plague,' the, 218 ' Yns-witrin,' Isle of Whithorn, 286 Ynys Prydain, 7 York, and See of, 104, 201, 287, 289, 314, 318 Zimmer on the Roman fabulists, 521 THE END -mm^w^*''^'^?^^!^ Return to desk from which '^''"''-«^. This hook is DVE on the lastdatestampedb^ 24Mar'59ES| MAR 10 1959 I,I,21-100».9,'47(A5t0a.l6)476 ^-i^-^^^/ 7 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY '• t' ■'■■ ■••',•«*■'