Danger of Britons, extinction of Galls,
Mariner of Ile and Arann.
Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 99.
[557]. The Nials Saga tells of Kari Solmundson, that on hearing of the battle of Cluantarbh he sailed south to Wales. ‘Then they sailed north to Beruwick and laid up their ships, and fared up into Whitherne in Scotland, and were with Earl Melkolf that year.’ Beruvik is probably the bay in the parish of Whitehern now called Port Yarrock.
[558]. Orkneyinga Saga, c. 1. Saga of Saint Olaf. Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis, pp. 340, 346.
[559]. Simeon of Durham gives the following picture of the Durham clergy in the tenth century. In mentioning the slaughter of the monks of Lindisfarne, and the escape of the bishop with the body of St. Cuthbert, he adds that ‘Tradita sibi districtione paulatim postposita, ecclesiasticam disciplinam odio habuerunt, remissioris vitæ illecebras secuti. Nec erat qui eos sub ecclesiastica censura coerceret, utpote cultura Dei destructis monasteriis et ecclesiis pene deficiente. Seculariter itaque omnino viventes carni et sanguini inserviebant, filios et filias generantes. Quorum posteri per successionem in ecclesia Dunelmensi fuerunt nimis remisse viventes, nec ullam nisi carnalem vitam quam ducebant, scientes nec scire volentes. Clerici vocabantur, sed nec habitu, nec conversatione clericatum prætendebant.’—Sim. Hist. Ec. Dun. Pref. The step was but a short one from this state of matters to that of lay possessors of the benefices. The oldest legend of St. Andrew bears a title which contains the following: ‘Et quomodo contigerit quod tantæ abbatiæ ibi factæ antiquitus fuerint quas multi adhuc seculares viri jure hereditario possident.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 138.
[560]. A.D. 865 Tuathal mac Artguso primus episcopus Fortrenn et abbas Duincaillenn dormivit. 873 Flaithbertach mac Murcertaigh Princeps Duncaillden obiit.—Ann. Ult. See Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. cxxiii, for the meaning of ‘princeps.’
[561]. Fordun calls Crinan ‘Abthanus de Dull et seneschallus insularum.’ There was no such title as Abthanus de Dull, but there was an Abthania de Dull, consisting of the possessions of that monastery. They were of great extent, and embraced the whole of the present parishes of Dull and Fortingall. If this[this] monastery had become secularised, they may have belonged to the lay abbot of Dunkeld, and if Malcolm had now re-acquired part of the Western Isles, Crinan may have occupied some important position in connection with them also.
[562]. In his history of the kings, Simeon has under the year 1018, ‘Ingens bellum apud Carrum gestum est inter Scottos et Anglos, inter Huctredum filium Waldef Comitem Northymbrorum, et Malcolmum filium Cyneth regem Scottorum. Cum quo fuit Eugenius Calvus, rex Lutinensium;’ but we have the authority of the Saxon Chronicle for the fact that Huctred was slain two years before, and that Cnut had made Eric, a Dane, his successor, while Simeon makes his brother Eadulf Cudel succeed him. Lutinensium is with reason supposed to have been written for Clutinensium.
[563]. Siquidem paulo post, id est, post triginta dies, universus a flumine Tesa usque Twedam populus dum contra infinitam Scottorum multitudinem apud Carrum dimicaret, pene totus cum natu majoribus suis interiit.—Sim. Hist. Ec. Dun. c. v.