and this year synchronises with the last year of the reign of
Angus mac Fergus, who was one of the most powerful kings
of the Picts. If, then, the relics of St. Andrew were brought
into Scotland in the reign of this Angus, king of the Picts,
the question at once arises, Where did they come from?-
and here the mind naturally reverts to the church of Hexham.
It too was dedicated to St. Andrew. It too possessed relics
of St. Andrew. But in both it preceded in date the foundation
of St. Andrews in Scotland; for Hexham was founded in
674 by Wilfrid, who dedicated it to the apostle, and the
relics were brought there by his successor, Bishop Acca, whose
episcopate lasted from 709 to 732. In one remarkable
respect, too, one church was a reflection of the other; for
Wilfrid dedicated his church to St. Andrew in consequence
of his belief that he had received the gift of persuasive
eloquence through the intercession of the apostle, in answer
to his prayers offered up in the church of St. Andrew in
Rome; and he afterwards erected two chapels at Hexham,
dedicated to St. Mary and St. Michael, owing to his belief
that he had recovered from a mortal sickness through the
intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, announced to him
in a vision by Michael the Archangel. This peculiar com-
bination, therefore, at Hexham, of a principal dedication to
St. Andrew with chapels to St. Mary and St. Michael, arose
out of incidents in Wilfrid's life. And yet we find the same
combination at St. Andrews in Scotland, for the second
legend tells us, after narrating the foundation of St. Andrews,
'Afterwards in Chilrymont the holy men erected seven
churches-one in honour of St. Regulus, the second in honour
of St. Aneglas the Deacon, the third in honour of St. Michael
the Archangel, the fourth in honour of St. Mary the Virgin,
the fifth in honour of St. Damian, the sixth in honour of St.
Brigida the virgin, and the seventh in honour of a certain
virgin Muren.' The first of these churches belongs, of course,
to the older foundation; but here we find that the third and

fourth are chapels dedicated to St. Michael and St. Mary. There seems, too, to have been a tradition that about this time the foundation of an episcopal see among the Picts proceeded from Hexham. When Bede wrote his history in 731, Acca was still living at Hexham, and exercising his episcopal functions there apparently without disturbance; but Simeon of Durham tells us that in 732-that is, in the following year-Acca was expelled from his see; 69 and Prior Richard of Hexham adds to this statement, 'By what urgent necessity he was driven forth, or whither he directed his steps, I do not find recorded. But there are some who say that at that time he commenced and prepared the episcopal see at Candida,' 70 or Whithern. He certainly founded no see at Whithern, for we have the contemporary authority of Bede for the fact that it had been founded some years before, and that Pecthelm was its first bishop; but, at the time Prior Richard wrote, the memory of the great Pictish kingdom had passed away, the Picts of Galloway alone retained the name, and writers of that period transferred to Galloway events that truly belonged to the northern portion of the race. Thus Florence of Worcester placed Trumuini as bishop of Candida, though it is clearly stated by Bede that the Picts. he presided over were those north of the Firth of Forth; and Prior Richard, in quoting the passage from Bede, where he says that Wilfrid's bishopric extended over the Picts as far as Osuiu's dominion extended, over whom Trumuini was afterwards placed, adds the expression, 'because Whithern had not yet its own bishop,' 71 thus transferring what was intended by Bede to apply to the Picts north of the Forth to those of Galloway. The Hexham tradition was probably

69 732 Acca Episcopus eodem anno de sua sede fugatus est. -Sim Dun. Hist. Regum.

70 Qua autem urgente necessitate pulsus sit, vel quo diverterit, scriptum non reperi. Sunt tamen qui

VOL. II.

dicunt quod eo tempore episcopalem sedem in Candida inceperit et præperaverit. Cap. xv.

71 Quia Candida Casa nondum episcopum proprium habuerat.-Cap. vi. S

no more than that it was believed Acca had gone to the nation of the Picts and founded a bishopric among them. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence that Acca, the venerator of St. Andrew, and the importer of his relics into Hexham, should have fled in 732, and that a report should have sprung up that he had founded a bishop's see among the Picts; and that St. Andrews should have been actually founded by a Pictish king between the years 736 and 761, and part of the relics of St. Andrew brought to it at that time. Indeed, the correspondence between the church history of the Northumbrian and Pictish kingdoms in this respect is at this time very striking:-the Northumbrians expelling the Columban clergy, introducing secular clergy with dedications to St. Peter, and then dedicating Hexham to St. Andrew, and receiving the relics of the apostle brought there by one of its bishops; and, sixty years later, the Picts expelling the Columban monks, introducing the secular clergy, placing the kingdom under the patronage of St. Peter, and then receiving from some unknown quarter the relics of St. Andrew, and founding a church in honour of that apostle, who becomes the national patron saint. The second legend concludes with this statement :-These are the names of those holy men who brought the sacred relics of St. Andrew the apostle into Scotia-St. Regulus himself; Gelasius the deacon; Maltheus the hermit; St. Damian, presbyter, and his brother Merinach; Nervius and Crisenius from the island Nola; Mirenus, and Thuluculus the deacon; Nathabeus and Silvius his brother; Seven hermits from the island of the Tiber-Felix, Juranus, Mauritius, Madianus, Philippus, Eugenius, Lunus; and three virgins from Collossia, viz., Triduana, Potentia, Cineria. These virgins are buried at the church of St. Aneglas. Thana, son of Dudabrach, wrote this document for King Pherath son of Bergeth, in the town of Migdele.' The king here meant is probably the last king but one of the Picts, called in the Pictish Chronicle Wrad

son of Bargoit, who reigned from 840 to 843; and Migdele is Meigle in Perthshire.

of St.

hermits.

The church of St. Andrews, then, is represented in this Keledei legend as consisting of three groups-First, one of secular Andrews clergy, viz., Bishop Regulus himself, with two priests and originally two deacons, and three others, whose quality is not given; secondly, a group of hermits, viz., Maltheus, with two from the island of Nola, and seven from the island of Tiber-in all, a community of ten; and, thirdly, three virgins. The second group is that of the hermits, representing a community of Keledei similar to those established by Servanus in Lochleven. The legend of Triduana, which is preserved in the Aberdeen Breviary, tells us that she led a heremitical life, with her virgins Potentia and Emeria, in a desert place at Roscoby (Rescobie in Forfarshire). The tyrant Nectanevus, prince of the neighbourhood, pursued her, whereupon she fled to Dunfallad (Dunfallandy) in Athol. There his ministers coming to her and telling her that the beauty of her eyes had attracted the prince, she plucked them out and gave them to them. Triduana then devoting herself to prayer and fasting in Lestalryk, now Restalrig, in Laudonia, passed into heaven.72 Here, as usual, the legend is supported by the dedications. At Rescobie is St. Triduan's fair. Restalrig is also dedicated to her; and here too a connection with Northumbria, to which it then belonged, seems to peep out.

rule

The canonical rule appears to have been adopted in Canonical Scotland not long after it had been introduced into Ireland; brought for, as we learn from the Chronicles, two hundred and into Scotland, and twenty-five years and eleven months after the church of Keledei Abernethy had been founded by Gartnach, son of Domelch, become who reigned from 584 to 599, the church of Dunkeld was founded by Constantin, son of Fergus king of the Picts, who reigned from 790 to 820. This places the foundation of

72 Brev. Aberd. Pars Hyem. fol. lxx.

canons.

Conclusion

of the Cul

dees.

Dunkeld some time between the years 810 and 820, and the tradition of Dunkeld, as reported by Alexander Mylne, a canon of that church in 1575, is that he placed there religious men who are popularly called Keledei, otherwise Colidei, that is God-worshippers, who, according to the rite of the Oriental Church, had wives, from whom, however, they withdrew while ministering, as was afterwards the custom in the church of St. Regulus, now St. Andrew ; ' 73 while Wyntoun, the prior of Lochleven, tells us that

Awcht hundyr wyntyr and fyftene

Fra God tuk fleysch off Mary schene,
Leo and Charlys bath ware dede,
And Lowys than in Charlys stede.
The kyng off Peychtis Constantyne
Be Tay than foundyd Dwnkeldyne,
A place solempne cathedrale,
Dowyd welle in temporalle.

The byschape and chanownys thare
Serwys God and Saynct Colme, seculare,

Off oure byschoprykis, off renowne

The thryd, and reputatyowne.74

The date assigned by Wyntoun to the foundation of Dunkeld is probably correct, and those religious men who Mylne says were popularly called Keledei, Wyntoun here calls 'chanownys seculare.'

The result, then, that we have arrived at is that the as to origin Culdees originally sprang from that ascetic order who adopted a solitary service of God in an isolated cell as the highest form of religious life, and who were termed Deicola; that they then became associated in communities of anchorites, or hermits; that they were clerics, and might be called monks, but only in the sense in which anchorites were monks; that they made their appearance in the eastern districts of Scotland at the same time as the secular 73 Mylne, Vita Episcoporum Dunkeldensium, p. 4. 74 Wyntoun, Chron., B. vi. c. vii.