Thus Célé-dé may mean "spouse of God", or "friend of God", or "servant of God". Dr. Reeves prefers the last-mentioned interpretation, for the following reasons. The devotion and self-denial peculiar to the monastic life procured for those who followed it the special designation of servi Dei, which in time acquired a technical application, so that servus Dei and monachus became convertible terms, ancilla Dei signified a nun, and servire Deo a monastic life. In this sense, as Dr. Reeves shows by numerous quotations, it runs through the works of the Latin fathers, the acts of councils, and the biographies of saints. The writings of St. Gregory the Great (called in Ireland Bel-oir, the golden-mouthed) recommended this meaning especially to Ireland, where that father was in the highest repute. "Familiarised, therefore, to the expression servus Dei, it is only reasonable to suppose that the Irish would adopt it in their discourse, and find a conventional equivalent for it in the language of their country. To this origin we may safely refer the creation of the Celtic compound célé-Dé, which in its employment possessed all the latitude of its model, and in the lapse of ages underwent all the modifications or limitations of meaning which the changes of time and circumstances or local usage produced in the class to whom the epithet was applied" (pag. 2). Of this there are many examples: thus—1, the Four Masters, in the Irish Annals of 1595, apply the term to the Dominican Friars of Sligo; 2, the Book of Fenagh uses it of St. John the Evangelist; 3, in the Book of Leinster and the Book of Lismore, St. Moling, Abbot and Bishop of Ferns (ob. 697), classes himself among the céle-n-Dé, and implies that his associates were the miserable, that is, the sick and lepers; 4, In Scotland, whither the term entered with the Scotic immigrants, we find in the middle of the thirteenth century certain ecclesiastics entitled Keledei sive Canonici. Hence Dr. Reeves is of opinion that the term Céle-dé was not a distinctive name borne uniformly by any one order, but a term of most various application—now borne by hermits, now by conventuals; now regulars, now seculars; now those bound by poverty, now those free to hold property. Even when they became relaxed and corrupt, they retained their ancient name. Speaking of the Kelidei of St. Andrew's in Scotland, Dr. Reeves believes that the estate of matrimony was no disqualification for the office of a Kelideus; while Van Hecke, the Bollandist (Acta SS. Octobr., tom. viii. p. 166, b), from the same passage of the Historia draws the very opposite conclusion. When at last Céle-dé does become a distinctive term, it is only so as contrasting the old-fashioned Scotic monks with the children of mediaeval institutions.
The name Céle-dé is taken by Toland, O'Reilly, and O'Curry, to mean "spouse of God", and to contain an allusion to the celibacy, the seclusion, and the devotion of the ancient monks of Ireland. But Dr. Reeves thinks that there is an incongruity in the expression "spouse of God", and the nature of the compound does not require such an interpretation. No doubt sponsa Dei does occur in ecclesiastical language for monialis, but he has not been able to discover an instance where sponsus Dei has been used as an equivalent for monachus.
The York Chartulary, Giraldus Cambrensis, and the Armagh records, make Céle-dé = colideus and coelicula, as if céle was equivalent to the Latin colo. Thus Céle-dé, would be the same as the Latin word Deicola. The English name Culdee grew out of the form Culdeus, first introduced by Hector Boece, and sanctioned by the practice of George Buchanan.
One of the earliest examples on record of the use of the term Céle-dé occurs in the Life of St. Findan, published by Goldastus (Rer. Alamannicar. Scriptores, vol. i. p. 318). This saint flourished in the year 800, and his life was compiled not long after.
In the first section of Part II. it is shown that the Céle-dé were not supposed by the Irish to be peculiar to this country. In section the second the community at Tallaght is noticed as presenting to us, if we may credit certain Irish records, the term Céle-dé in a definite sense, and in local connexion with a religious institution. In the rule composed by Maelruain the members of that community are styled Céle-n-Dé, either in the sense of an order strictly so-called, or more likely in the sense of "ascetics", or "clerics of stricter observance". As to the rule of St. Carthach of Lismore (printed from O'Curry's MSS., pag. 112, 172, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vol. i. part 1), Dr. Reeves observes that "if it be a genuine composition, or even a modernized copy, it will follow that the Céle-dé were a separate class previously to the year 636, when St. Carthach died, and that they were distinct from the order called monks"—(pag. 8). Now of the whole family of monastic rules to which St. Carthach's belongs, O'Curry writes that "of the authenticity of these pieces there can be no reasonable doubt; the language, the style, and the matter are quite in accordance with the times of the authors".[ 24]
In Armagh, the Colidei were officiating attendants at the altar and choir, before 1126, when the introduction of the canons regular diminished their influence and importance. They were, however, continued in their endowments and religious functions, but in a less prominent position. Their head became precentor, and the brethren performed the duties of vicars in the choir. At Clonmacnoise they were connected with an hospital; at Clondalkin, Monahincha, Devenish, Clones, Pubble, and Scattery, they had establishments more or less important.
From Ireland the Colidei passed into Scotland, the primitive history of the Church of which is essentially Irish in its character. The Keledei of Scotland appear for the first time in the history of St. Kentigern, or Munghu, as compiled by Jocelin at the close of the twelfth century from much earlier authorities. They were understood by the Scotch, in the twelfth century, to have been "a religious order of clerks, who lived in societies, under a superior, within a common enclosure, but in detached cells, associated in a sort of collegiate rather than coenobitical brotherhood—solitaries in their domestic habits, though united in the common observances, both religious and secular, of a strict sodality. Such was the nucleus of the great city of Glasgow". Pinkerton says of them: "The Culdees were surely only Irish clergy. In the gradual corruption of the monastic order they married, and left their Culdeeships to their children". But he is mistaken in deriving their origin from St. Columba; no doubt they were found in lapse of time in churches which that saint or his disciples founded, but in Dr. Reeves' opinion their name was in no way distinctive. Irish annals have only one mention of Céli-dé as existing in Hy, and that example is of so late a period as 1164. F. Van Hecke, the Bollandist, says: "Ceterum et nos quoque ejus sumus opinionis ut nullam inter Columbranos monachos et Culdees cognatsinem intercessiore credemus"—(Act. SS., Octob., tom. viii. p. 166 a).
It would far exceed our limits to follow Dr. Reeves in treating of the Scotch Kelidean houses.
In York, at the dissolution of monasteries, there existed an hospital called St. Leonard's, the chartulary of which tells us that in 836 King Athelstan found in St. Peter's Church, York, men of holy life, called Kolidei, who maintained out of scanty resources a number of poor men. The king, in return for their prayers, and to enable them to do good, granted to them a thrave of corn from every plough-land in the diocese of York, a donation which existed until a late period under the name of Peter-corn. The community founded an hospital which was afterwards called St. Leonard's. "The presence of this community in York is a curious vestige of Irish influence, discernible amidst long continued Saxon usage, which, as we learn from Bede, was, in ecclesiastical polity, antagonistic to the Scotic system".