Chapter 11

[Footnote 65: Though Roman houses, temples, and other buildings of stone and lime abounded in this country in the earlier centuries of the Christian era, yet the first Christian churches erected at Glastonbury in England, and at St. David's in Wales, were--according to the authority, at least, of William of Malmesbury and Giraldus Cambrensis--made of wattles. The first Christian church which is recorded as having been erected in Scotland, namely, the _Candida Casa_, reared at Whithern, towards the beginning of the fifth century, by St. Ninian, was constructed, as mentioned in a well-known passage of Bede, of stone, forming "ecclesiam insignem ... de lapide insolito Britonibus more."--(_Historia Ecclesiast._, lib. iii. cap. 4.) According to the _Irish Annals_, the three churches first erected by Palladius, in Ireland, about the year 420, were of wood, one of them being termed House of the Romans, "Teach-na-Romhan," but not apparently from its Roman mode of building.--(See Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Four Masters_, vol. i. p. 129.) The church of Duleck, one of the earliest, if not the earliest, which St. Patrick erected in Ireland, and the first bishop of which, St. Cianan, died in the year 490, was built of stone, as its original name of Daimhllag (stone house) signifies; and the same word, _damhliag_ or _stone house_, came subsequently to be applied as a generic term to the larger Irish churches.--(See Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 142, with a quotation from an old Irish poem of the names of the three masons in the household of St. Patrick, who "made damhliags first in Erin.") When, in the year 652, Finan succeeded to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne, he built there a suitable Episcopal church, constructed of oak planks, and covered with reeds, "more Scotorum non de lapide, sed de robore secto totam composuit, atque arundine texit."--(Bede's _Hist. Eccl._, lib. iii. cap. 25.) When St. Cuthbert erected his anchorite retreat on the island of Farne he made it of two chambers, one an oratory, and the other for domestic purposes; and he finished the walls of these buildings by digging round and cutting away the natural soil within and without, forming the roof out of rough wood and straw, "de lignis informibus et foeno."--(Vita S. Cuthberti, cap. 17.) Planks or "tabulae," also, were employed in building or reconstructing the walls of this oratory on Farne Island, as St. Ethelwald, Cuthbert's successor, finding hay and clay insufficient to fill up the openings that age made between its boards, obtained a calf's skin, and nailed it as a protection against the storms in that corner of the oratory, where, like his predecessor, he used to kneel or stand when praying.--(_Ibid._, cap. 46.) St. Godric's first rude hermitage at Finchale, on the Wear, was made of turf (vili cespite), and afterwards of rough wood and twigs (de lignis informibus et virgulis).--(See chaps 21 and 29 of his Life by Reginald.) On the construction, by wattles and wood, of some early Irish and Scoto-Irish monastic and saints' houses and oratories, as those of St. Wolloc, St. Columba, and St. Kevin, see Dr. Reeves' notes in his edition of the _Life of St. Columba_, pp. 106, 114, and 177. In some districts where wood was scarce, and stone abundant and easily worked, as in the west coast of Ireland, all ecclesiastical buildings were--like the far more ancient duns and forts in these parts--made principally or entirely of stone. But even in parts where wood was easily procured, oratories seem to have been sometimes, from an early period, built of stone. Thus, in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, the devout virgin Crumtherim is described as living in a stone-built oratory, "in cella sive _lapideo_ inclusorio," in the vicinity of Armagh, as early as the fifth century.--(Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 163.) And, at the city of Armagh again, we have an incidental notice of a stone oratory in the eighth century; for, in the _Ulster Annals_, under the year 788, there is reported "Contentio in Ardmacae in qua jugulatur vir in hostio [ostio] Oratorii _lapidei_."--(Dr. O'Conor's _Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores_, tom. iv. p. 113.) Dr. Petrie believes that all the churches at Armagh erected by St. Patrick and his immediate successors were built of stone, as well indeed as all the early abbey and cathedral churches throughout Ireland.--(_Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 159.)]

[Footnote 66: The _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, anterior to the Anglo-Saxon Invasion, comprising an Essay on the Round Towers of Ireland, pp. 437, 435 and 430.]

[Footnote 67: "That these buildings (St. Columb's House at Kells and St. Kevin's at Glendalough), which are so similar in most respects to each other, are of a very early antiquity, can scarcely admit of doubt; indeed, I see no reason to question their being of the times of the celebrated ecclesiastics whose names they bear."--(Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 430.) In his late edition of Adamnan's _Life of St. Columba_, Dr. Reeves, when describing the Columbite monasteries and churches founded in Ireland, speaks (p. 278) of Kells as "having become the chief seat of the Columbian monks" shortly after the commencement of the ninth century. Among the indications of the ancient importance of the place which still remain, he enumerates the fine old Round Tower of Kells, its three ancient large sculptured crosses, the "curious oratory called St. Columbkille's House," and its great literary monument now preserved in Trinity College, Dublin--namely, the _Book of Kells_. He quotes the old Irish _Life of St. Columba_, followed by O'Donnell, to show that it is there stated that the saint himself "marked out the city of Kells in extent as it now is, and blessed it;" but he doubts if any considerable church here was founded by Columba himself, or indeed before 804. He grounds his doubts chiefly on the negative circumstance that there is "no mention of the place in the _Annals_ as a religious seat" till the year 804. But the _Annals of the Four Masters_ record two years previously, or in 802, that "the church of Columcille at Ceanannus (or Kells) was destroyed" (vol. i. p. 413), referring of course to an _old_ or former church of St. Columba's there; whilst the _Annals of Clonmacnoise_ mention that two years afterwards, or in 804, "there was a new church founded in Kells in honour of St. Colume."--(See _Ibid._, footnote.)[68] The learned editor of the _Annals of the Four Masters_, Professor O'Donovan, has translated and published, in the first volume of the _Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological Society_, an ancient poem attributed to St. Columba, and which, at all events, was certainly composed at a period when some remains of Paganism existed in Ireland. In this production the poet makes St. Columba say, "My order is at Cennanus (Kells)," etc.; and in his note to this allusion Dr. O'Donovan states that at Kells "St. Columbkille erected a monastery in the sixth century."--(_Miscellany of Archaeological Society_, vol. i. p. 13.) Some minds would trust such a question regarding the antiquity of a place more to the evidence of parchment than to the evidence of stone and lime. The beautiful _Evangeliarium_, known as the _Book of Kells_, is mentioned by the _Four Masters_ under the year 1006 as being then the "principal relic of the western world," on account of its golden case or cover, and as having been temporarily stolen in that year from the erdomh or sacristy of the great church of Kells. In the same ancient entry this book is spoken of as "the Great Gospel of Columcille," and whether originally belonging to Kells or not, is certainly older than the ninth century, if not indeed as old as Columba. The corresponding _Evangeliarium_ of Durrow, placed now also in Trinity College, Dublin,--"a manuscript" (says Dr. Reeves, p. 276) "approaching, if not reaching to the Columbian age,"--is known from the inscription on the silver-mounted case which formerly belonged to it, to have been "venerable in age, and a reliquary in 916" (p. 327). In the remarkable colophon which closes this manuscript copy of the Evangelists, St. Columba himself is professed to be the copyist or writer of it, the reader being adjured to cherish the memory "Columbae scriptoris _qui hoc scripsi_." In the _Ulster Annals_, under the year 904, there is the following entry regarding Kells: "Violatio Ecclesiae Kellensis per Flannum mac Maelsechnalli contra Donchad filium suum, et alii decollati sunt circa _Oratorium_."--(Dr. O'Conor's _Rerum Hibern. Scriptores_, tom. iv. p. 243.) Is the scene of slaughter thus specialised the Oratory or "House of St. Columb," which is still standing at Kells?[69]]

[Footnote 68: I would say yes, beyond question! It was both oratory and house, like that of St. Cuthbert on Farne island, described in the passage quoted _ante_, p. 101, note.--P.]

[Footnote 69: St. Colume, as translated by Mageochagan or Macgeoghegan. In the original this would be Columbkille, as in all the other Annals.--P.]

[Footnote 70: In treating of the subsequent fate of the old Irish oratories, Dr. Petrie remarks, "Such structures came in subsequent times to be used by devotees as penitentiaries, and to be generally regarded as such exclusively. Nor is it easy to conceive localities as such better fitted, in a religious age, to excite feelings of contrition for past sins, and of expectations of forgiveness, than those which had been rendered sacred by the sanctity of those to whom they had owed their origin. Most certain, at all events, it is, that they came to be regarded as sanctuaries the most inviolable, to which, as our annals show, the people were accustomed to fly in the hope of safety--a hope, however, which was not always realised."--(P. 358.)]

[Footnote 71: _Scotichronicon_, lib. v. cap. 36. Goodall's edition, vol. i. p. 286.]

[Footnote 72: Such cells or oratories, as relics of the holy men who had been their founders, were always regarded by the Irish, like every other kind of relics, as their bells, croziers, books, etc. etc., with the deepest sentiments of veneration, and their injury or violation--"dishonouring," as the annalists often term it--was regarded as a sacrilege of the most revolting and sinful character. And to this pious feeling we may ascribe the singular preservation to our own times of so many of such buildings--though, indeed, in many instances, they may only retain the general form, or a portion of the walls, of the original structure--owing to the injuries inflicted by time, or, as more frequently, by foreign violence. Thus, in the great Aran of the _Tiglach Enda_, or "House of Enda," a portion only--the east end--is of the Saint's time, the rest is some centuries later; and of St. Ciarn's oratory at Clonmacnoise--called in the _Irish Annals_ "Temple Ciaron," or "Eaglais-beag," and, sometimes, "_Temple-beg_," or "The Little Church," though the original form was carefully preserved, there was, when I first examined it, more than forty years ago, apparently no portion of its masonry that was not obviously of much later times--in parts even as late as the seventeenth century. Our annalists record the names of Airchinneachs of this oratory from 893 to 1097.--P.]

[Footnote 73: In reference to this observation, it is scarcely necessary to refer to the teachings in Scotland of St. Kentigern of Strathclyde in the first half of the sixth century, of St. Serf of Culross in the latter, and of St. Palladius and St. Ninian in the earlier parts of the fifth century, with the more immediate converts and followers of these ancient missionaries. In his _Demonstratio quod Christus sit Deus contra Judaeos atque Gentiles_, written about the year 387, St. Chrysostom avers that "the British Islands ([Greek: Bretanikai nesoi]), situated beyond the Mediterranean Sea, and in the very ocean itself, had felt the power of the Divine Word, churches having been found there, and altars erected." (_Opera omnia_, vol. i. p. 575, Paris edition of Montfaucon, 1718.) Perhaps St. Chrysostom founded his statement upon a notice in reference to the alleged extension of Christianity to the northern parts of Britain, given a hundred and fifty years previously by Tertullian, when discussing a similar argument. In his dissertation _Adversus Judaeos_, supposed to be written about 210, Tertullian, when treating of the propagation of Christianity, states (chap. vii.), that at that time already places among the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, were yet subject to Christ--"Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." (Oehler's edition of _Tertullian_, vol. iii. p. 713.) Among the numerous inscriptions and sculptures left here by the Romans while they held this country during the first four centuries of the Christian era, not one has, I believe, been yet found containing a single Christian notice or emblem, or affording by itself any direct evidence of the existence of Christianity among the Roman colonists and soldiers in Britain. But there is indirect lapidary or monumental evidence of its propagation in another manner. In England, as in Germany, France, etc., there exist among the old Roman remains, altars and temples dedicated to Mithras, originally the god of the Sun among the Persians, with sculptures and inscriptions referring to Mithraic worship. They have been found in the cities along the Roman wall in Northumberland; at York, etc. Various references among the old Fathers seem to show that when a knowledge of the Christian religion began to spread to the Western Colonies of Rome, the worship of Mithras was set up in opposition to Christianity, and Christian rites were imitated by the Mithraic priests and followers. Thus, for example, the author whom I have just cited, Tertullian, tells us, in his tract _De Praescriptione Haereticorem_, chap. 40, that the worshippers of Mithras practised the remission of sins by water (as in baptism), made a sign upon their foreheads (as if simulating the sign of the cross), celebrated the offering of bread (as if in imitation of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper), etc. (See his _Works_, vol. iii. p. 38, of Oehler's Leipsic edition of 1854.)]

[Footnote 74: See Dr. Reeves' admirable edition of Adamnan's _Life of St. Columba_, pp. lxxiv and lxxv,--a book which is a perfect model of learned annotation and careful editing.]

[Footnote 75: I think it might be well to strengthen your statement by adducing a few examples--thus, as for example, the remains of a monastery of Columba's time on an island--now drained--called Lough Columbkill, in the island of Skye--the churches and clochans, or stone-houses of the monks, on St. Kilda, and probably many similar remains on other islands of the Hebrides.--P.]

[Footnote 76: Of St. MacDara of Cruach MicDara, an island off the coast of Connamara, of St. Brendan in Inis Gloria, an island off the coast of Errus, and very many more.--P.]

[Footnote 77: Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 129.]

[Footnote 78: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 195.]

[Footnote 79: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 194.]

[Footnote 80: And which, moreover, had often chancels attached to them.--P.]

[Footnote 81: _Ibid._, pp. 365, 351.]

[Footnote 82: _Ibid._, p. 351.]

[Footnote 83: I should, perhaps, have written _almost_ always. The very few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me. Perhaps, indeed, there is but one exception, that most important one, on Bishop's Island, the others belonging rather to churches.--P.]

[Footnote 84: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 352.]

[Footnote 85: South doorways are certainly very rarely to be met with in the very ancient churches or oratories in Ireland. In addition to this important one on Bishop's Island, I can only call to mind three others, namely, in Kilbaspugbrone, near Sligo; the Templemor, or great church of St. Mochonna, in Inismacnerin, or, as now called, Church Island, in Lough Key, county of Roscommon; and Killcrony, near Bray, in the county of Wicklow. The two last named are fine specimens of doorways of Cyclopean style and masonry.--P.]

[Footnote 86: Wakeman's _Archaeologia Hibernica_, pp. 59, 60.]

[Footnote 87: My pupil is in error in this supposition. He should have remembered--for he drew it on the block for me--that the window in the oratory near the church of Kilmalkedar, county of Kerry, which is built without cement, splays both externally and internally.--See my work, p. 184.

I should also observe another feature common to both these windows, namely, that it is only the jambs that are splayed.--P.]

[Footnote 88: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 186.]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid._ p. 437.]

[Footnote 90: Was.--P.]

[Footnote 91: But now considers as of the tenth or perhaps eleventh.--P.]

[Footnote 92: See his _Illustrated Handbook of Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 918.]

[Footnote 93: I confess that I should not like to adduce this stone-roofed church of Killaghy in support of the antiquity of the oratory; for I could never bring myself to believe that it was of an age anterior to the thirteenth century.--P.]

[Footnote 94: See Dr. Petrie's work (p. 291) for full quotations in confirmation of this date, from the _Annals of Clonmacnoise and Kilronan_, the _Annals of Munster_, the _Annals of the Four Masters_, the _Chronicon Scotorum_, etc.]

[Footnote 95: When discussing the history of the pointed arch, Mr. Parker observes: "The choir of Canterbury Cathedral, commenced in 1175, is usually referred to as the earliest example in England, and none of earlier date has been authenticated."--_Glossary of Terms in Architecture_ (1845), p. 28.]

[Footnote 96: Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 133.]

[Footnote 97: Pointed arches, constructed both on the radiating and horizontal principles, are found still standing in the antiquated mason-work of Assyria, Nubia, Greece, and Etruria. (See drawings and descriptions of different specimens from these countries in Mr. Fergusson's _Handbook of Architecture_, vol. i. pp. 253, 254, 257, 259, 294, 381, etc.) The pointed arch was used in the East in sacred architecture as early as the time of Constantine, as is still witnessed in the oldest existing Christian church, namely, the church built by that emperor, in the earlier part of the fourth century, over the alleged tomb of our Saviour at Jerusalem.[99] For notices of the prevalence of the pointed arch in early Eastern and in Saracenic architecture, see Fergusson's _Handbook_, p. 380, 598, etc.]

[Footnote 98: In this opinion of Mr. Brash's I fully concur.--P.]

[Footnote 99: I must confess that I am very sceptical as to any portion now existing of the church of the Holy Sepulchre being of the time of Constantine, and also as to the early age of any portion of it in which a pointed arch is found. More walls of the original edifice may _possibly_ exist; but it is certain that the church was more than once modified, and the ornamental work is assuredly of a much later age.--P.]

[Footnote 100: "Alanus de Mortuo Mari, Miles, Dominus de Abirdaur, dedit omnes et totas dimidietates terrarum Villae suae de Abirdaur, Deo et Monachis de Insula Sancti Columbi, pro sepultura sibi et posteris suis in Ecclesia dicti Monasterii." (Quoted from the MS. Register or Chartulary of the Abbey by Sir Robert Sibbald in his _History of Fife_, p. 41.) The same author adds, that, in consequence of this grant to the Monastery of Inchcolm for leave of sepulture, the Earl of Murray (who represents "Stewart Abbott of Inchcolm," that sat as a lay Commendator in the Parliament of 1560, when the Confession of Faith was approved of) now possesses "the wester half of Aberdour." Sir Robert Sibbald further mentions the story that "Alain, the founder, being dead, the Monks, carrying his corpse in a coffin of lead, by barge, in the night-time, to be interred within their church, some wicked Monks did throw the samen in a great deep betwixt the land and the Monastery, which to this day, by the neighbouring fishermen and salters, is called _Mortimer's deep_." He does not give the year of the preceding grant by Alain de Mortimer, but states that "the Mortimers had this Lordship by the marriage of Anicea, only daughter and sole heiress of Dominus Joannes de Vetere Ponte or Vypont, in anno 1126." It appears to have been her husband who made the above grant. (See Nisbet's _Heraldry_, vol. i. p. 294.)]

[Footnote 101: Thus, in 1272, Richard of Inverkeithing, Chamberlain of Scotland, died, and his body was buried at Dunkeld, but his heart was deposited in the choir of the Abbey of Inchcolm. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. x. c. 30.) In Hay's _Scotia Sacra_ is a description of the sepultures on this monument in Inchcolm Church, p. 471. In 1173, Richard, chaplain to King William, died at Cramond, and was buried in Inchcolm. (Mylne's _Vitae_, p. 6.) In 1210, Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, died at Cramond, and was buried in Inchcolm. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. viii. c. 27); and four years afterwards, Bishop Leycester died also at Cramond, and was buried at Inchcolm (_Ibid._ lib. ix. c. 27). In 1265, Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, built a new choir in the church of St. Columba on Inchcolm; and in the following year the bones of three former bishops of Dunkeld were transferred and buried, two on the north, and the third on the south side of the altar in this new choir. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. x. c. 20, 21.) See also the _Extracta e Cronicis Scocie_ for other similar notices, pp. 90, 95, etc.; and Mylne's _Vitae Dunkeldensis Ecclesiae Episcoporum_, pp. 6, 9, 11, etc.]

[Footnote 102: Many, if not all of.--P.]

[Footnote 103: "There are" (observes Father Innes) "still remaining many copies of Fordun, with continuations of his history done by different hands. The chief authors were Walter Bower or Bowmaker, Abbot of Inchcolm, Patrick Russell, a Carthusian monk of Perth, _the Chronicle of Cupar_, the Continuation of Fordun, attributed to Bishop Elphinstone, in the Bodleian Library, and many others. All these were written in the fifteenth age, or in the time betwixt Fordun and Boece, by the best historians that Scotland then afforded, and unquestionably well qualified for searching into, and finding out, what remained of ancient MSS. histories anywhere hidden within the kingdom, and especially in abbeys and monasteries, they being all either abbots or the most learned churchmen or monks in their respective churches or monasteries." (Innes' _Critical Inquiry_, vol. i. p. 228.)]