The assimilation of the Church to the Roman system, and the introduction of the secular clergy, led in Scotland, as it had done in Northumbria, to the secularisation of the monasteries. Through the operation of the Celtic rules of succession they fell into the hands of laymen, who retained the title of abbot, and with it the possession of the monastic lands, but without any pretence to clerical office.[32] The old Celtic system of monasticism thus perished, first, from internal decay and change to the eremitical system; and, second, from its being gradually superseded by the introduction of the secular clergy on the Roman system.
Meanwhile at Iona, and in all the Western Islands and coasts, a new enemy to the Columban establishments sprung up. In 794 the Northern Rovers made their first appearance, and during many succeeding years the monastery of Iona was frequently attacked and pillaged, the monks being slain or driven to seek safety in Ireland. The connection between Ireland and Scotland was thus almost entirely severed during the ninth century, and the Columbans having (as above stated) been expelled from the Pictish kingdom, the previous active relations between the Church in the two countries was for the time entirely brought to a close.
In Alban or Pictland a revolution seems to have occurred about the year 850, and Kenneth M‘Alpine, a king of the Scotic race, ascended the throne of the Picts. By him an effort was made to re-establish the Columban Church. For this purpose he erected a chief religious centre at Dunkeld, and brought to it some of the relics of St. Columba, with the view of making it an inland Iona. However, in the latter half of the ninth century, the see of the primacy was removed to Abernethy, in Perthshire. Here, Cellach, Abbot of Kildare and also of Iona, had sought refuge from the persecution of the Norsemen in Ireland, and there he died in 865. Irish clergy who had returned to Scotland are thus found at this period at Abernethy, and Dr. Skene supposes that the round tower which still stands there was probably erected about this date.[33] The increasing strength of the Roman influence may be gathered from the fact that in 878-89 King Giric is said to have “given liberty to the Scottish Church;” the meaning of which is, that he decreed that all church lands should be free from secular exactions.[34] In 908 the primacy was transferred to St. Andrews, and Cellach was appointed first Bishop of Alban.[35] A church was founded at Brechin about the year 1000, and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It was probably a monastery after the Irish model, with a College of Culdees. The round tower there is a mark of its early association with Ireland.
The Culdees long continued to assert their position and maintain their rights, but they became gradually absorbed into the cathedral chapters established in the country. We thus finally arrive at the period when, in the eleventh century, the adoption of the Roman system in Scotland, under Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret, was completed.
We have now followed the history of the Church in Scotland up to the point where the two streams of influence we have been observing, one from Ireland and the other from Rome through England, meet. We have noticed the powerful influence of the former in imparting to Scotland, under the Columban system, its early rudiments of education, religion, and art. Although this phase of culture did not display itself prominently in architectural results, yet there are other departments in which it excelled. It is to it we are indebted for the beautiful examples of caligraphy and decorated metal work of which the relics are preserved in the MSS., shrines, croziers, and ornaments of the Celtic race.[36]
The marvellous sculptured ornaments and crosses in which Scotland still abounds are also relics of the culture and artistic elements introduced by the missionaries from Ireland. These features of Celtic art form one of the most remarkable series of monuments in any country.
In Ireland, as we have already seen, this monumental art is chiefly exhibited in the recumbent cross-bearing slabs at Clonmacnoise and other ecclesiastical sites, while its later development assumes the form of free standing crosses of the Celtic pattern carved with the interlacing ornaments characteristic of the style, or with figure sculptures enclosed in panels, each panel representing a Scriptural or symbolic subject.
The Scottish sculptured monuments, although bearing a general resemblance to the Irish, have several peculiarities. The earliest form of sculptured monuments in Scotland, as in the other Celtic divisions of Britain, consists of rude upright stones, engraved with an equal-armed cross enclosed in a circle, accompanied with an inscription in debased Roman capital letters, generally comprising the formula “hic jacet” and the chi-rho symbol. The carving is invariably incised in the stone. We have already met with examples of this class of monument, probably of the fifth century, in the South-West of Scotland, in connection with the Candida Casa of St. Ninian. (See [Fig. 1.])
Certain peculiar forms of sculptured symbols, carved on undressed upright stones, seem to have originated amongst the Northern Picts. These symbols ([Fig. 3]) consist of the well-known symbol of (a) the “crescent and sceptre,” (b) the “double disc” or “spectacles,” (c) the above with sceptre, (d) the oblong with sceptre, (e) the “elephant,” and other forms which are very common in the East of Scotland north of the Forth, but are unknown anywhere else. The meaning of these symbols has never been satisfactorily explained. In the earliest monuments the symbols and occasional figures are the only ornaments found on the stones. They are invariably incised and plain, containing no interlaced or other ornament. It has been pointed out by Dr. J. Anderson that these simple incised symbols probably belong to the period before the beginning of the eighth century, when the Columbans were expelled from Pictland by King Nectan, while the later form of decorated monuments which succeeded them possibly dates from the return of the Columban clergy from Ireland in the middle of the ninth century, when they were re-established in the land by King Kenneth.
That period probably marks the later style of ornamentation which is found on the monuments. The original idea of an upright stone with sculptured symbols is retained, but the monument is no longer a rough unhewn block. It is now a shaped slab, dressed on both sides and on the edges, and the ornamental work is no longer incised, but carved