garet, Countess of Moray. Then on the 18th July the Countess came to Lintrathen to be formally seised in possession, according to use and wont, the manner of which was as follows:-The Countess and her brother-in-law as witness in her behalf, having come to the church, and the deeds having been publicly recited, the Countess entered the house and toft pertaining to the bell, and being enclosed therein by herself, received delivery of the feudal symbols of earth and stone to complete the seisin. We learn no more of St. Medan's bell from the records. But Mr. Jervise states that about twenty years ago he was informed that when an aged woman died at Burnside of Airlie, and her effects were disposed of by public roup, "an auld rusty thing like a flagon, that fouk ca'd Maidie's Bell," was sold with a lot of rubbish. What became of it nobody knew.

So late as 1675, the bell of St. Kessog and the bell of St. Lolan1 were included among the feudal investitures of the earldom of Perth. In that year James, Earl of Perth, was retoured in the lands of Barnachills with the chapel and holy bell of St. Kessog, and also in the mill and manor of Kincardine-on-Forth, along with the holy bell of St. Lolan. We know no more of the bell of St. Kessog, which does not again occur on record. But the bell of St. Lolan is known from the end of the twelfth century, when William the Lion granted the church of Kincardine to the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, with its teinds and a toft with a garden pertaining to the bell of St. Lolan, and a toft with a garden to the staff of St. Lolan. Neither bell nor staff is now known to exist. An ancient manuscript missal of the Celtic Church, written in the Irish character, is still preserved at Drummond Castle,

1 St. Kessog's principal church in Scotland was at Luss. A fair called the Feil-ma-chessaig was held at Callander on 21st March (10th old style), and a mound where the old church stood is called Tom-ma-chessaig. The church of Auchterarder is also dedicated to him. The legend of St. Lolan in the Aberdeen Breviary makes him a nephew of St. Serf.

and it is barely possible that one or other of the bells, if sought for, might yet be discovered.

There is a legend told in the parish of Strath in Skye, that St. Maelrubha used to preach at Askimilruby (now called Ashig), and that he hung a bell in a tree, where it remained for centuries, but was subsequently removed to the church of Strath. Possibly it may still exist, as such relics were never wilfully destroyed by the people of the localities in which they were preserved.

Captain Thomas informs me that he was told that in the recollection of persons still living, an ancient bell used to lie in the ruins of the church of Kilmory, at Nuntown, in Benbecula, but it was carried off by a tinker for old metal. As each of these objects is actually in itself a portion of the history of art, and in its associations a portion of the history of the ecclesiastical and social condition of the country, their loss in the lamentable way in which it has usually occurred is all the more to be regretted, because it has often occurred after there was an institution open to receive them for preservation in all time coming, among the national memorials of times that have no other record.

In this lecture I have shown that there was a form of bell peculiar to the early Celtic Church, tall, narrow, and tapering, with flattened ends and bulging sides, and having a looped handle at the top-that it was made sometimes in iron and sometimes in bronze-that when it was made in

1 Reeves on St. Maelrubha's history and churches, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 291.

2 Other instances might be added, such as the bell of St. Duthac at Tain, which had a keeper in 1505 when King James IV. made his pilgrimage to St. Duthac, as we learn from an entry in the Lord High Treasurer's accounts for that year, of a payment of three shillings "in Tayn to the man that beris Sanct Duthois bell," but there is nothing to show what was the form of the bell, which is not now known to exist.

iron it was constructed, like a caldron, of a flat plate hammered into shape and fastened with rivets, and then coated with bronze by being dipped into the melted metal-that when it was made in bronze it was cast in a mould, and is of more

Fig. 80.-The Bell of St. Gall, Switzerland.

graceful form and better proportioned, exhibiting a higher style of ornament in the dragonesque terminations of the handles that the iron form is probably older than the bronze, and that both were contemporary in the ninth and tenth centuries that the original group of these objects exists in Ireland, where they are most abundant, and the secondary group in Scotland, where they are less abundant-that sporadic

groups are found in Wales, England, Brittany, France, and Switzerland (Fig. 80), attesting the early relations of each of these countries with the primitive church of our forefathers and its peculiar institutions-that these bells had personal associations which attracted to them a share of that passionate reverence for the founders of the churches to which they belonged, which was the special characteristic of the Celtic people that the reverence thus accorded to their bells was peculiar to this branch of the Christian church, as the form of the bell itself was also peculiar-that this reverence gave rise to the practice of enclosing these early bells in shrines enriched with gems and adorned with the costliest workmanship in gold, silver, or bronze;-and that these, with other and kindred relics that are yet to be described, afford abundant evidence of the technical skill and the artistic ability of a time whose every product bears the stamp of that earnestness of purpose and concentration of energy which always accompany a mind inspired by genuine devotion to the work for the work's own sake.

LECTURE VI.

(30TH OCTOBER 1879.)

EXISTING RELICS OF THE EARLY CELTIC CHURCH

CROSIERS AND RELIQUARIES.

IN the month of July 1782 a travelling student from Christ Church College, Oxford, found his way to the village of Killin, at the head of Loch Tay. In the house of Malise Doire, a day labourer there, he was shown a relic, which, as the people told him, was called the Quigrich, and which formerly belonged to St. Fillan, who gave his name to the neighbouring strath. He was also shown a certified copy under the Privy Seal of a document1 in which King James III., on the 6th July 1487, granted confirmation to the Malise Doire of that day of the peaceable possession of the holy relic of St. Fillan, called the Quigrich, which he and his ancestors had "had in keeping from the time of King Robert Bruce and

1 The text of this document is as follows:

JAMES, be the grace of God King of Scottis, to all and sindri our liegis and subditis spirituale and temporale to quhois knaulege thir our lettres sal cum greting: Forsamekle as we haue undirstand that our servitour Malice Doire and his forebearis has had ane Relik of Sanct Fulane callit the QUEGRICH, in keping of us and of oure progenitouris of maist nobill mynde, quham God assolye, sen the tyme of King Robert the Bruys and of before, and made nane obedience nor ansuere to na persoun spirituale nor temporale in ony thing concernyng the said haly Relik uthir wayis than is contenit in the auld infeftmentis thare of made and grantit be oure said progenitouris. We chairg you therefor strately and commandis that in tyme to cum ye and ilk yane of you redily ansuere, intend and obey to the said Malise Doire in the peciable broiking and joising of the said Relik, and that ye, na nain of you, tak upon