The prefixed woodcut of an impression of an ancient monastic seal hitherto unpublished, will, we think, interest some of our readers both in Scotland and Ireland, as, though it is certainly not Irish, it is intimately connected with that bright period of our history when Ireland sent forth her crowds of learned ecclesiastics to preach the gospel and instruct the people, not only to Scotland and England, but also to Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Mecklenburg, and even distant Iceland, in all which their memories are still venerated as patron saints—that period to which Spenser alludes in the lines:
“Whylome, when Ireland flourished in fame
Of wealth and goodness, far above the rest
Of all that bear the British island’s name.”
The matrix, which is of bronze or brass, was discovered among old brass at a foundry in London some three or four years ago, and is now in the possession of Mr Thomas, a merchant of that city, who has the largest collection of remains of this kind ever formed in the British empire.
The legend, which is in the semi-Saxon character of the twelfth century, reads—
SI . COMMUNE . DE . INSULA . SANCTI . COLMOCI:
or,
THE COMMON SEAL OF THE ISLAND OF SAINT COLMOC.
The locality of this seal has been hitherto referred to the celebrated Irish monastery of Iona, or Hy-Columbkille, and such we ourselves deemed it when the impression was first sent to us. But on maturer reflection we are now disposed to consider this conclusion erroneous, and that the seal should with greater probability be referred to the monastery of Inch-Colm, a small island in the Frith of Forth, lying between Edinburgh and Inverkeithing, and which was anciently called Emonia, or Y-mona, i. e. the Island of Mona. On this island the Scottish King Alexander I., in gratitude for his escape from a violent storm, by which he was driven on the island in 1123, founded a monastery dedicated to its patron saint, and of which there are still considerable remains. It was plundered by the English in the reign of Edward III., who, as it is said, suffered shipwreck for their sacrilege; and if we might hazard a conjecture, it would be, that the seal may have been carried into England at that time. But be this as it may, the seal perfectly agrees in style with similar remains of the twelfth century, and we have little doubt, that this is its true locality, as the name in the legend will not with correctness or propriety apply to any other known to exist. For, in the first place, the monastery of Iona, the only other religious house to which it could be referred, is invariably called Insula Columbæ, or I-Columbkille, in all ancient documents, and it would be against all probability that it should bear a different appellation on its seal. In the second place, the name of the patron saint of Iona is never written Colmoc, which is an Irish diminutive form of the name Colum, and which, as in the Latin, means a dove. But this name Colmoc was applied by the ancient Irish and Scotch indifferently to persons bearing the name of Colman, both being but synonymous and convertible diminutives of the name Colum—and hence it would follow that this seal must have belonged to some monastery which was dedicated not to St Columb, but to St Colman or Colmoc. It may however be objected that the island called Inch-Colm was dedicated to the celebrated apostle of Scotland, St Columbkille; and it is true that Colgan, on the authority of Fordun, does place it among the list of his foundations. But Fordun is a weak authority to rely on in such matters; and from the greater contiguity of this island to Lindesfarn, of which the Irish St Colman was the third bishop, it would seem more rational to attribute the origin of its name to him than to the saint of Iona. In either case, however, the seal is one of great interest to Scottish topography and Irish history.
P.