across the east end, and 4 feet 9 inches at the west end. The walls are about 3 feet thick, so that its external length is about 22 feet. The original doorway is in the south wall,1

near the west end. It is 5 feet high, and 4 feet wide, with slightly inclining jambs. It is arched externally by a radiating arch, roughly constructed (Fig. 26), but internally the

1 This is an unusual feature in the early stone-roofed churches or oratories of Ireland, but not so unusual as to be quite exceptional. Dr. Petrie gives the following instances, viz., Kilaspugbrone, near Sligo; the church of St. Mochonna in Church Island, in Lough Key in Roscommon; and the church of Kilcrony, near Bray, in Wicklow, the two last of which, he says, have

arch is changed into the older form, which is constructed by overlapping stones on the horizontal principle (Fig. 27). There is only one window, placed in the east end, 23 inches in height, and 10 inches in breadth, splaying inwardly to a width of 2 feet 3 inches. The roof of the building is vaulted with stones placed in the form of a radiating arch, somewhat pointed at the apex, and the centring stones roughly wedgeshaped (Fig. 28). The space between the upper surface of the vaulting and the stone roof is filled in with small stones and a grouting of lime. In this are bedded the oblong-squared stones which form the roof. Such are the simple features of the Scotic structure to whose existence on the island the larger monastery in the European style of architecture which has overshadowed it for seven centuries owes its origin. In Bower's Continuation of Fordun it is recorded that when King Alexander was storm-stayed for three days on the island in the year 1123, he shared the hospitality of a hermit who then lived upon it, and who, belonging to the service of St. Columba, devoted himself to his duties at a certain little chapel there, content with such poor food as the milk of one cow, and the shell and small sea fishes he could collect. It adds to the interest of this testimony, that these words were written by Abbot Bower in the monastery of Inchcolm, which was erected by the king in fulfilment of a vow made in the hermit's chapel.

In that rude edifice, as I have said, we have reached the primitive type, but not the primitive form in which that earliest

"fine specimens of doorways of Cyclopean style and masonry. The oratory of St. Senan, on Bishop's Island, on the coast of Clare (of which an engraving has been given by Mr. Wakeman) also presents this peculiarity. It measures 18 feet by 12, and the thickness of the walls is 2 feet 7 inches. The doorway, which is flat-headed, with inclined instead of perpendicular jambs, is 6 feet in height, and 2 feet 4 inches wide at the bottom, and 1 foot 10 inches at the top. The jambs of the small east window are splayed, both internally and externally.

type appears. Rude as it is, the hermit's chapel or oratory1 on Inchcolm possesses features in the radiating vault of its roof, its grouted and squared-stone covering, the arching of its doorway, its position, and even in the approximately quadrangular form of its ground-plan, which will all take rank as features of advancement after I have shown (as I hope to do in my next lecture) what were the characteristics of the earliest forms of structure consecrated to the service of religion when the church was first permanently planted in

1 In dealing with these structures by archæological methods, it is not necessary to observe ecclesiological distinctions that may exist regarding the precise application of such terms as "oratory," "chapel," or "church." Wherever they are used throughout these lectures, they are used without reference to ecclesiological limitations, and the word "church" is employed as a generic term, embracing all the varieties of the type of structure designed for Christian rites. Dr. Petrie, speaking of the early stone-roofed structure on Cruach MacDara, which measures 15 feet by 11 feet internally, calls it sometimes the church, and sometimes the oratory of St. MacDara. Teampull Cennanach, measuring 16 feet by 12 feet internally, he also terms indifferently an oratory and a church. In fact there is no possibility of applying the ecclesiological distinctions between an oratory and a church to the actual remains, because it is a distinction founded on the ancient use of the edifice of which there usually exists no record. It might be otherwise if there could be a distinction drawn from existing characteristics, such as from dimensions or architectural features; but while it may be possible to say that a singlechambered structure of the Christian type, which exceeds 30 feet in length, is not likely to have been an oratory (in the ecclesiological sense), it is not possible to say that a very much smaller one may not have been a church. On the one hand we read in the Irish Annals of an oratory in which 260 persons were burnt; and on the other we know that the small cell called Teampull Ronan, on North Rona (described in the next lecture), was the church of the islanders as long as the isle was inhabited. It may have been an oratory in the ecclesiological sense, when the founder was the only Christian worshipper on the island, but in this view every primitive church erected by an individual founder in a Pagan district must have been originally in the same position. But even if it were possible to make the distinction, it is rendered unnecessary by the fact that such edifices as are known to have been "oratories" or "hermit's chapels" do not differ in their typical character from the smaller variety of single-chambered church.

Scotland. And to learn the special features of that earliest style of Christian construction we must look to Ireland, the ancient Scotia, where the genius of the people, their immemorial customs, their language and institutions, were so similar to those of our own country that when the new faith was finally established by the labours of her missionaries, the converts accepted with it the ecclesiastical customs, constitution, and usages already established there.

In this lecture I have traced the typical form of the twelfth century church back to the transition stage through which it passed out of the simpler form that preceded it. We have seen it associated with the Round Tower of the Irish type, and deduced from this and other indications that the Round Towers of Scotland, like the principal group in Ireland from which they are derived, are not the associates of the earliest types of the architecture of the Celtic church, but of the latest, that is of the type that passes directly into the decorated style and elegant construction of the Norman manner. We have traced the type of the chancelled church through various gradations back to a degree of rudeness and simplicity, which substitutes for the chancel-arch a flat-topped opening having its sides inclined towards each other instead of perpendicular, and differing in no respect of size or construction from the entrance doorway. We have seen the transition from the double- to the single-chambered form of structure by the addition of a chancel not bonded into the nave, and the primitive type has been finally reached in the small church of one chamber, one door, and one window. In

"The voice of all Antiquity pronounces Ireland to have been Scotia : To omit a host of authorities, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba and Bede's Ecclesiastical History ought to have been sufficient to prevent a question being raised on the subject." To this testimony of Dr. Reeves the reader may add that of W. F. Skene in the introduction to his Celtic Scotland.

the next lecture I shall trace this utterly simple form through farther gradations until it reaches the utterly simple character of construction that consists in the placing of stone upon stone without any binding material to keep them together, and becomes associated with fortified enclosures, and beehive-shaped cells, thus linking the Christian types of structure with other types which stretch back into purely Pagan times.