clergy were introduced, and succeeded the Columban monks who had been driven across the great mountain range of Drumalban, the western frontier of the Pictish kingdom; and that they were finally brought under the canonical rule along with the secular clergy, retaining, however, to some extent the nomenclature of the monastery, until at length the name of Keledeus, or Culdee, became almost synonymous with that of secular canon.

A.D. 717-772. Schism

CHAPTER VII.

THE COÄRBS OF COLUMCILLE.

'IT appears to have been a wonderful dispensation of the Divine goodness, that the same nation which had wittingly still exists and without envy communicated to the people of the Angles

in Iona.

the knowledge of the true Deity, should afterwards, by
means of the nation of the Angles, be brought, in those
points on which they were defective, to the rule of life;'
such is the reflection of the Venerable Bede when contem-
plating the change which had taken place in the Columban
Church in the beginning of the eighth century, which he
thus expresses: The monks of Hii, or Iona, by the in-
struction 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.'1 He
had previously stated that, not long after the year 710,
'those monks also of the Scottish nation who lived in the
island 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;2 and this had been effected by the most reverend
and holy father and priest Ecgberct, of the nation of the
Angles, who had long lived in banishment in Ireland for
the sake of Christ, and was most learned in the Scriptures
and distinguished for the perfection of a long life, and who
came among them, corrected their error, and changed them to
the true and canonical day of Easter.' Bede implies that
1 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 22.
3 Ib., B. iii. c. 4.

2 Ib.

this took place in the year 716; but the change was not so general or so instantaneous as might be inferred from this statement. The monks of Iona, or a part of them at least, had certainly in that year adopted the Catholic Easter ;1 but it is not till two years after that date, and a year after the death of Abbot Dunchad, that they adopted the coronal tonsure. The expression of the Irish annalist who records the event rather implies that it had been forced upon an unwilling community; 5 and, so far from the other monasteries that were subject to them having generally submitted to the change in 716, the resistance of those within the territories of the Pictish king to the royal edict commanding the adoption of the Catholic Easter and the coronal tonsure throughout all the provinces of the Picts led to the expulsion of 'the family of Iona'-by which expression the Columban monks are meant from the Pictish kingdom in 717. This conflict then appears to have led to two results. In the first place, it separated the churches of the eastern districts from Iona, broke up the unity of the Columban Church, and terminated the supremacy of the parent monastery of Iona over the churches in the Pictish kingdom, which had been subject to them; and, in the second place, it seems undoubtedly to have caused a schism in the community on the island, as such innovations usually do when the attempt to force upon an entire body the views of a majority is sure to be met by a resisting minority.

with rival

abbots.

There were thus at this time two parties among the Two part brethren in Iona. One party, who had reluctantly given way on some points, but in the main adhered to the customs of their fathers, and clung with tenacity to the monastic system hallowed by their veneration for the founder Columba; the other, and probably the larger and more influential, conforming in everything to the Roman party, and leaning

4716 Pasca in Eo civitate commotatur.-Tigh.

5 718 Tonsura corona super familiam Iae datur.-Tigh.

towards a modification of their monastic institution by the introduction of a secular clergy-each party putting up a rival abbot as soon as they found themselves sufficiently powerful to do so. By the death of Dunchad, in 717, Faelchu was left for the time sole abbot of Iona. He was of the race of Conall Gulban, and the legitimate successor of the old abbots according to the law which regulated the succession to the abbacy in the Monastic Church; and his party would be strengthened by those of the refugee monks from the monasteries in King Nectan's dominions who took shelter in Iona. Of the monks who had been driven out of the Pictish kingdom, some would merely pass over the Drumalban range into the territory of the Scottish kings of Dalriada, or seek a farther home among the Columban monasteries in Ireland; but many would no doubt be drawn to the parent monastery in Iona, which was beyond King Nectan's power, and add numbers and force to what might be termed the Conservative party in the island. On the other hand, Ecgberct was still alive and resident in Iona, and would naturally be at the head of what may be called the Reforming party, and use all his influence in promoting and extending their authority in the island. The account Bede gives of his life there shows that his efforts were not so immediately and entirely successful as one would infer from his other statements, and that his progress was slow. He says, 'This man of God, Ecgberct, remained thirteen years in the aforesaid island which he had thus consecrated again to Christ, by kindling in it a new ray of divine grace, and restoring it to ecclesiastical unity and peace. In the year of our Lord's incarnation 729, in which the Easter of our Lord was celebrated on the eighth day before the kalends of May—that is, on the 24th April—when he had performed the solemnity of the mass in memory of the same resurrection of our Lord, on that same day he departed to the Lord; and thus finished, or rather never ceases to celebrate, with

our Lord, the apostles and the other citizens of heaven, the joy of that greatest festival, which he had begun with the brethren whom he had converted to the grace of unity. But it was a wonderful provision of the divine dispensation that the venerable man not only passed out of this world to the Father at Easter, but also when Easter was celebrated on that day on which it had never been wont to be kept in these parts. The brethren, therefore, rejoiced in the certain and Catholic knowledge of the time of Easter, and rejoiced in the protection of their father, departed to our Lord, by whom they had been corrected. He also rejoiced that he had been continued in the flesh till he saw his followers admit and celebrate with him as Easter that day which they had ever before avoided. Thus the most reverend father, being assured of their correction, rejoiced to see the day of our Lord; and he saw it, and was glad.' These expressions are hardly consistent with the statement that he had brought the entire community over to the adoption of the Catholic customs thirteen years before, in 716; and we find that during his life, after Faelchu had been left in sole possession of the abbacy, it was not till he had possessed it for five years that a rival abbot, Feidhlimidh, is put forward in the year 722, who is recorded as holding the abbacy in that year, though Faelchu was still in life. His pedigree is not recorded, and he could have had no claim as belonging to the tribe of the saint, to whom the succession belonged. Again, when Faelchu dies in 724, we find that a certain Cillene Fada, or the Long, succeeds Faelchu in the abbacy, and on his death, in 726, another, Cilline, surnamed Droichteach, appears as abbot, though during the whole of this time Feidhlimidh also is abbot of Iona. Ecgberct did not, therefore, see entire con6 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 22.

7 722 Feidhlimidh principatum Iea tenet.-Tigh.

8 724 Faelchu mac Dorbene abbas

8

dormivit. Cillenius longus ei in primatum Ie successit.-Tigh.

9 726 Cillenius longus abbas Ie pausat.--Tigh. For Celline Droichteach, see note 24.