[61] Extracta e Cronicis Scocie, p. 66.
[62] Boece's History and Chronicles of Scotland, translated by John Bellenden, book xii. chap. 15, vol. ii. p. 294.
[63] Scotorum Historiæ, lib. v. fol. cclxxii. First Paris Edition of 1526.
[64] De Divinitate, cap. 46.
[65] Though Roman houses, temples, and other buildings of stone and lime abounded in this country in the earlier centuries of the Christian era, yet the first Christian churches erected at Glastonbury in England, and at St. David's in Wales, were—according to the authority, at least, of William of Malmesbury and Giraldus Cambrensis—made of wattles. The first Christian church which is recorded as having been erected in Scotland, namely, the Candida Casa, reared at Whithern, towards the beginning of the fifth century, by St. Ninian, was constructed, as mentioned in a well-known passage of Bede, of stone, forming "ecclesiam insignem ... de lapide insolito Britonibus more."—(Historia Ecclesiast., lib. iii. cap. 4.) According to the Irish Annals, the three churches first erected by Palladius, in Ireland, about the year 420, were of wood, one of them being termed House of the Romans, "Teach-na-Romhan," but not apparently from its Roman mode of building.—(See Dr. O'Donovan's Annals of the Four Masters, vol. i. p. 129.) The church of Duleck, one of the earliest, if not the earliest, which St. Patrick erected in Ireland, and the first bishop of which, St. Cianan, died in the year 490, was built of stone, as its original name of Daimhllag (stone house) signifies; and the same word, damhliag or stone house, came subsequently to be applied as a generic term to the larger Irish churches.—(See Dr. Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 142, with a quotation from an old Irish poem of the names of the three masons in the household of St. Patrick, who "made damhliags first in Erin.") When, in the year 652, Finan succeeded to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne, he built there a suitable Episcopal church, constructed of oak planks, and covered with reeds, "more Scotorum non de lapide, sed de robore secto totam composuit, atque arundine texit."—(Bede's Hist. Eccl., lib. iii. cap. 25.) When St. Cuthbert erected his anchorite retreat on the island of Farne he made it of two chambers, one an oratory, and the other for domestic purposes; and he finished the walls of these buildings by digging round and cutting away the natural soil within and without, forming the roof out of rough wood and straw, "de lignis informibus et fœno."—(Vita S. Cuthberti, cap. 17.) Planks or "tabulæ," also, were employed in building or reconstructing the walls of this oratory on Farne Island, as St. Ethelwald, Cuthbert's successor, finding hay and clay insufficient to fill up the openings that age made between its boards, obtained a calf's skin, and nailed it as a protection against the storms in that corner of the oratory, where, like his predecessor, he used to kneel or stand when praying.—(Ibid., cap. 46.) St. Godric's first rude hermitage at Finchale, on the Wear, was made of turf (vili cespite), and afterwards of rough wood and twigs (de lignis informibus et virgulis).—(See chaps 21 and 29 of his Life by Reginald.) On the construction, by wattles and wood, of some early Irish and Scoto-Irish monastic and saints' houses and oratories, as those of St. Wolloc, St. Columba, and St. Kevin, see Dr. Reeves' notes in his edition of the Life of St. Columba, pp. 106, 114, and 177. In some districts where wood was scarce, and stone abundant and easily worked, as in the west coast of Ireland, all ecclesiastical buildings were—like the far more ancient duns and forts in these parts—made principally or entirely of stone. But even in parts where wood was easily procured, oratories seem to have been sometimes, from an early period, built of stone. Thus, in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, the devout virgin Crumtherim is described as living in a stone-built oratory, "in cella sive lapideo inclusorio," in the vicinity of Armagh, as early as the fifth century.—(Colgan's Trias Thaumaturga, p. 163.) And, at the city of Armagh again, we have an incidental notice of a stone oratory in the eighth century; for, in the Ulster Annals, under the year 788, there is reported "Contentio in Ardmacae in qua jugulatur vir in hostio [ostio] Oratorii lapidei."—(Dr. O'Conor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores, tom. iv. p. 113.) Dr. Petrie believes that all the churches at Armagh erected by St. Patrick and his immediate successors were built of stone, as well indeed as all the early abbey and cathedral churches throughout Ireland.—(Ecclesiastical Architecture, p. 159.)
[66] The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, anterior to the Anglo-Saxon Invasion, comprising an Essay on the Round Towers of Ireland, pp. 437, 435 and 430.
[67] "That these buildings (St. Columb's House at Kells and St. Kevin's at Glendalough), which are so similar in most respects to each other, are of a very early antiquity, can scarcely admit of doubt; indeed, I see no reason to question their being of the times of the celebrated ecclesiastics whose names they bear."—(Dr. Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture, p. 430.) In his late edition of Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, Dr. Reeves, when describing the Columbite monasteries and churches founded in Ireland, speaks (p. 278) of Kells as "having become the chief seat of the Columbian monks" shortly after the commencement of the ninth century. Among the indications of the ancient importance of the place which still remain, he enumerates the fine old Round Tower of Kells, its three ancient large sculptured crosses, the "curious oratory called St. Columbkille's House," and its great literary monument now preserved in Trinity College, Dublin—namely, the Book of Kells. He quotes the old Irish Life of St. Columba, followed by O'Donnell, to show that it is there stated that the saint himself "marked out the city of Kells in extent as it now is, and blessed it;" but he doubts if any considerable church here was founded by Columba himself, or indeed before 804. He grounds his doubts chiefly on the negative circumstance that there is "no mention of the place in the Annals as a religious seat" till the year 804. But the Annals of the Four Masters record two years previously, or in 802, that "the church of Columcille at Céanannus (or Kells) was destroyed" (vol. i. p. 413), referring of course to an old or former church of St. Columba's there; whilst the Annals of Clonmacnoise mention that two years afterwards, or in 804, "there was a new church founded in Kells in honour of St. Colume."—(See Ibid., footnote.)[68] The learned editor of the Annals of the Four Masters, Professor O'Donovan, has translated and published, in the first volume of the Miscellany of the Irish Archæological Society, an ancient poem attributed to St. Columba, and which, at all events, was certainly composed at a period when some remains of Paganism existed in Ireland. In this production the poet makes St. Columba say, "My order is at Cennanus (Kells)," etc.; and in his note to this allusion Dr. O'Donovan states that at Kells "St. Columbkille erected a monastery in the sixth century."—(Miscellany of Archæological Society, vol. i. p. 13.) Some minds would trust such a question regarding the antiquity of a place more to the evidence of parchment than to the evidence of stone and lime. The beautiful Evangeliarium, known as the Book of Kells, is mentioned by the Four Masters under the year 1006 as being then the "principal relic of the western world," on account of its golden case or cover, and as having been temporarily stolen in that year from the erdomh or sacristy of the great church of Kells. In the same ancient entry this book is spoken of as "the Great Gospel of Columcille," and whether originally belonging to Kells or not, is certainly older than the ninth century, if not indeed as old as Columba. The corresponding Evangeliarium of Durrow, placed now also in Trinity College, Dublin,—"a manuscript" (says Dr. Reeves, p. 276) "approaching, if not reaching to the Columbian age,"—is known from the inscription on the silver-mounted case which formerly belonged to it, to have been "venerable in age, and a reliquary in 916" (p. 327). In the remarkable colophon which closes this manuscript copy of the Evangelists, St. Columba himself is professed to be the copyist or writer of it, the reader being adjured to cherish the memory "Columbæ scriptoris qui hoc scripsi." In the Ulster Annals, under the year 904, there is the following entry regarding Kells: "Violatio Ecclesiæ Kellensis per Flannum mac Maelsechnalli contra Donchad filium suum, et alii decollati sunt circa Oratorium."—(Dr. O'Conor's Rerum Hibern. Scriptores, tom. iv. p. 243.) Is the scene of slaughter thus specialised the Oratory or "House of St. Columb," which is still standing at Kells?[69]
[68] I would say yes, beyond question! It was both oratory and house, like that of St. Cuthbert on Farne island, described in the passage quoted ante, p. 101, note.—P.
[69] St. Colume, as translated by Mageochagan or Macgeoghegan. In the original this would be Columbkille, as in all the other Annals.—P.
[70] In treating of the subsequent fate of the old Irish oratories, Dr. Petrie remarks, "Such structures came in subsequent times to be used by devotees as penitentiaries, and to be generally regarded as such exclusively. Nor is it easy to conceive localities as such better fitted, in a religious age, to excite feelings of contrition for past sins, and of expectations of forgiveness, than those which had been rendered sacred by the sanctity of those to whom they had owed their origin. Most certain, at all events, it is, that they came to be regarded as sanctuaries the most inviolable, to which, as our annals show, the people were accustomed to fly in the hope of safety—a hope, however, which was not always realised."—(P. 358.)