CHAP. V CELTIC MONASTICISM 85 And it has been remarked1 as a singular fact that many of the monastic churches, which grew in after times to be bishops' sees, were founded by presbyters. Dr. Reeves gives seven of these in Ireland; and two of the seven, Derry and Raphoe, were founded by Columba. His own Iona, also, came to be the seat of the bishopric of the Isles. The election to the abbotship of the monastery followed the same rule as obtained in the election to the headship of the tribe. That headship always remained in the first chief's family, though it was elective as to the particular member to be chosen. The Church so far accommodated itself to the social institutions of the tribe. The head of the monastery was chosen from the family of the founder, who in some instances was also the chief of the tribe. St. Columba as the founder of Iona became its patron, and the rule of succession was duly observed there. The first nine abbots, up to Adamnan, were all his blood relations. This somewhat exclusive system was expressed in the adage of that day, "though he were but a psalm singer, if he were fit, he should have it." The tribal tie was strong in Celtic monasticism. The tribe provided abbots for government, and the monastery became a home for many of the founder's kin. But there was no lineal succession in Iona as there came to be in many of the Irish houses, where secular influence made. the office of abbot hereditary, not only in the tribe but in the abbot's own lineage, and so far frustrated the founder's intentions by the extinction of the conventual observance. Adamnan says nothing of any "rule" of the Columban community, and it is doubtful whether Columba or his Irish contemporaries framed any code of discipline for their families" such as St. Benedict enjoined upon his order, or Columbanus in a still more severe form upon 1 Reeves, Adamnan, Introduction, p. c. the brethren under him. Wilfrid, at the Conference of Whitby, spoke of the regula ac precepta of Columba, but nothing like a written rule of life is known to have existed in Iona.1 It is probable that the customary canonical hours were observed, though even as to this Adamnan is silent. He tells us of Columba's singing vespers under the walls of king Brude's fort, and we read in his pages of several services following at intervals in the oratory of Iona on the eve of the saint's death. The monastic system of Iona, though sufficiently strict to favour devotion and discipline, was probably less rigid than the Benedictine rule which early spread over Christendom. The Iona brotherhood were not mere recluses seeking a shelter from the stress of life and the temptations of the world, but a Christian community banded together for the extension of Christ's kingdom among the nations. They were, in their own language, "militia of Christ," pledged "athletes," vowed to a life's warfare against sin and ignorance. In Highland glens, and on lonely islands, where they established their humble missions, they stood as sentries for Christ for many a long night "until the day dawned" and pagan shadows fled away. This missionary feature specially distinguishes the Columban foundations from some monasteries of the same period in other countries, and from those which followed in our own. The head of the brotherhood was known as abbot, or father (the old Abba of the Hebrews), and the brethren were, in the Gaelic tongue, his muintir or family. Whether in the parent monastery, or in similar houses springing from and subordinate to it, they were all regarded as one family under one head. Columba, as the founder of both monasteries and churches, became their 1 Reeves, Adamnan, p. cii. AUTHORITY OF THE ABBOT patron and exercised jurisdiction over them. 87 This he did in the case of his own foundations and of those founded by disciples responsible to him. There thus accrued to him an extensive "parochia," as the sphere of abbatial authority was called, both in Scotland and Ireland. Some historians have applied the word primacy to Columba's jurisdiction and designated him the primate of the Scotic or Celtic Church. He certainly exercised a substantial authority over monasteries and over churches which were their missions, but to import into the monastic relations of the sixth century an ecclesiastical term which was not known, in its technical sense, to the Scottish Church until the fifteenth, is at least an anachronism and calculated to make confusion. It should be borne in mind that Iona and its dependencies were fashioned upon Irish models,—that it was a missionary outpost of the Irish Church. The solution of the question as to abbatial jurisdiction is, therefore, to be sought in the contemporary ecclesiastical history of Ireland. The abbot was generally a presbyter; sometimes, but more rarely, a bishop; but whether bishop or presbyter, it was as abbot that he ruled his monastery and its dependent missions. The qualification for the office was administrative capacity, not ecclesiastical rank. If a bishop were thus qualified he might be chosen abbot, but his episcopal status gave him no claim to the office. It must also be remembered that diocesan bishops did not then exist; the only bishops, and they were many, were tribal bishops, that is, bishops to a tribe or clan, not bishops of a district or diocese. There were no territorial bishops till a much later day. An abbot, therefore, had none to oversee or overrule him: he was practically supreme 1 In the Leabhar Breac or Speckled Book, in which the Old Irish Life of St. Columba, composed in the tenth century, is preserved, the duties of a |