proper time of Easter. Returning to his island after having celebrated Easter in Ireland canonically, he most earnestly inculcated the observance of Easter in his monastery, yet without being able to prevail; and it so happened that he departed this life before the next year came round. For the divine goodness so ordained it that, as he was a great lover of peace and unity, he should be taken away to everlasting life before he would be obliged, on the return of the time of Easter, to have still more serious discord with those that would not follow him in the truth.' 93 It would therefore appear that Adamnan did not return to Iona till the year of his death, which took place on the 23d of September in the year 704, and in the seventy-seventh year of his age.94

At what period of Adamnan's abbacy he wrote his life of the patron saint and founder of the monastery cannot be fixed with any accuracy, but it was after his visit to Aldfrid in 688; and, as he states that he did so at the urgent request of his brethren, and alludes incidentally to the discord which arose among the churches of Ireland on account of the difference with regard to the Easter feast, it was probably compiled before the same discord had arisen between the brethren of Iona and himself as their abbot.95 Neither can the precise period be fixed when he founded those churches in the eastern districts which are dedicated to him; but no doubt, after the termination of the Anglic rule over the southern Picts and Scots of Dalriada, he would be desirous to strengthen the Columban Church; and his relations with the kings of the Picts who reigned after the overthrow of the Angles were, as we have seen,

93 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15. 94 A.D. 704 Adamnanus lxxvii anno ætatis suæ, in nonas kalendis Octobris, abbas Ie, pausat.-Tigh.

95 See Adamnan, Pref. i. and B. i. c. 3. Dr. Reeves considers

that it was written between the
years 692 and 697, but it was more

probably compiled
probably compiled immediately
after his return from England in
688, and before his visit to Ireland
in 692.

In this work he appears to have

cordial and friendly. been assisted by the family who had already evangelised the rugged district termed the Rough Bounds,' as the churches dedicated to them and him are found adjacent to each other. Among the northern Picts, Adamnan's principal church was that of Forglen on the east bank of the river Doveran, in which the Brecbannoch, or banner of Columba, was preserved; and separated from it by the same river is Turriff, dedicated to Comgan. South of the range of the Mounth Adamnan's most important foundation was the monastery of Dull in the district of Atholl, which was dedicated to him, and to which a very extensive territory was annexed; and closely contiguous to it was the district of Glendochart, with its monastery dedicated to Fillan, whose name is preserved in Strathfillan. Fillan again appears in Pittenweem on the south coast of the peninsula of Fife; and in the Firth of Forth which it bounds is Inchkeith, 'on which Saint Adamnan the abbot presided.' 96 Adamnan, though, as Bede says, a man of peace and providentially removed before the coming Easter, when matters Schism at would have been brought to a crisis between him and Iona after his recalcitrant monks, seems notwithstanding to have left Adamnan. a legacy of discord behind him. For the first time since the foundation of the monastery of Iona, we find in the successor of Adamnan an abbot who was not a descendant of Conall Gulban, Conmael, son of Failbhe, was of the tribe of Airgialla in Ireland, who were descended from Colla. Uais; but three years after Adamnan's death we find Duncadh, who belonged to the tribe of the patron saint, obtaining the abbacy. Then three years after we have the death. of Conmael as abbot of Iona. After his death appears Ceode, bishop of Iona, who dies in 712, and in 713 Dorbeni obtains the chair of Iona, but after five months' possession of

96 Inchekethe, in qua præfuit Sanctus Adamnanus abbas.'-Scotichronicon, B. i. c. 6.

A. D.

704-717.

death of

the primacy dies on Saturday the 28th of October in the same year. During the whole of this time, however, Duncadh is likewise abbot.97 The explanation seems to be that the community of Iona had become divided on the subject of the Easter question, and that a party had become favourable to Adamnan's views. As he had not succeeded in bringing over any of the Columban monasteries, they were driven to obtain an abbot elsewhere, and procured the nomination of Conmael; while the opposing party having got the upper hand three years after, Duncadh, the legitimate successor of the line of Conall Gulban, obtained the abbacy, and there was thus a schism in the community-one section of them celebrating their Easter after the Roman system, who had at their head Conmael, Ceode the bishop, and Dorbeni; and the other and more powerful section maintaining, under the presidency of Duncadh, the old custom of their church. After narrating how at that time,' that is, in 710, Naiton, king of the Picts who inhabit the northern parts of Britain, taught by frequent study of the ecclesiastical writings, renounced the error by which he and his nation had till then been held in relation to the observance of Easter, and submitted, together with his people, to celebrate the Catholic time of our Lord's resurrection,' Bede closes his notices of the monastery of Iona by telling us that 'not long after, those monks also of the Scottish nation who lived in the isle of Hii, with the other monasteries that were subject to them, were, by the procurement of our Lord, brought to the canonical observance of Easter and the right mode of tonsure. For in the year after the incarnation of our Lord 716, the father and priest Ecgberct, beloved of God

97 A.D. 707 Dunchadh principatum Iae tenuit.-Tigh.

710 Conmael mac abbatis Cilledara Iae pausat.—Tigh.

712 Ceode episcopus Iea pausat.Tigh.

713 Dorbeni cathedram Iae obti

nuit, et v. mensibus peractis in primatu v kalendis Novembris die Sabbati obiit.--Tigh. The 28th day of October fell on a Saturday in the year 713. The passage recording the death of Conmael is corrupt.

and worthy to be named with all honour, coming to
them from Ireland, was very honourably and joyfully re-
ceived by them. Being a most agreeable teacher and most
devout in practising those things which he taught, he was
willingly heard by all; and, by his pious and frequent ex-
hortations he converted them from the inveterate tradition
of their ancestors. He taught them to perform the principal
solemnity after the Catholic and apostolic manner;' and Bede
adds, "The monks of Hii, by the instruction of Ecgberct,
adopted the Catholic rites, under Abbot Dunchad, about
eighty years after they had sent Bishop Aidan to preach
to the nation of the Angles.'98 It is rarely, however, that,
when a change is proposed in matters of faith or practice, a
Christian community is unanimous, and there is always an
opposing minority who refuse their assent to it. So it must
have been here, for in the same passage in which Tighernac
notices the adoption of the Catholic Easter in 716 he adds
that Faelchu mac Dorbeni takes the chair of Columba in
the eighty-seventh year of his age, and on Saturday the 29th
of August; while he records the death of Abbot Duncadh
in the following year."
99 We have here again a schism
in the community; and no sooner does Abbot Duncadh
with his adherents go over to the Roman party, than the
opposing section adopt a new abbot.

Expulsion

of the

The greater part, if not the whole, of the dependent A.D. 717 monasteries among the Picts seem to have resisted the change, and to have refused obedience to the decree Columban which Bede tells us King Naiton had issued, when cycles of nineteen years were forthwith by public com- kingdom of mand sent throughout all the provinces of the Picts to

98 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 22.

99 A.D. 716 Pasca in Eo civitate commotatur. Faelchu mac Doirbeni cathedram Columbæ lxxxvii ætatis anno, in iiii kal. Septembris

VOL. II.

the

die Sabbati suscepit.-Chron. Picts
and Scots, p. 73. The 29th day of
August fell on a Saturday in the
year 716.

A.D. 717 Dunchadh mac Cindfae-
ladh abbas Ie obiit.—Ib. p. 74.
M

monks

from the

the Picts.

be transcribed, learned and observed;' for we are told by Tighernac that in 717, when Abbot Duncadh had died and Faelchu remained alone in possession of the abbacy, the family of Iona were driven across Drumalban by King Naiton. In other words, the whole of the Columban monks were expelled from his kingdom; 100 and there is reason to think that Faelchu had been at the head of one of these dependent monasteries in the territories of the northern Picts. 101 It is possible that the monks of the monasteries recently established among the southern Picts by Adamnan may have conformed; but those of the older foundations, such as Abernethy and Cillrigmonadh, or St. Andrews, were probably driven out; and thus with the expulsion of the family of Iona terminated the primacy of its monastery over the monasteries and churches in the extensive districts of the east and north of Scotland which formed at that time the kingdom of the Picts.

100 A.D. 717 Expulsio familiæ Ie trans dorsum Britanniæ a Nectono rege.-Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 74.

101 In the Breviary of Aberdeen is the legend of S. Volocus, patron

saint of Dunmeth and Logy in Mar, both in Aberdeenshire. Volocus is the Latin form of Faelchu, as Vigeanus is of Fechin, Vynanus of Finan, and Virgilius of Fergal.