The Pope's legates at Constantinople (a.d. 1054) were called to discuss with Nicetas, "one of the most learned men at that time in the East," says Bower, whose position was "that the Sabbath ought to be kept holy, and that priests should be allowed to marry."—"History of the Popes," Vol. II, p. 358.
The people of north Scotland, the ancient Culdee church founded by Columba and his followers, far removed from direct papal influence, was still keeping the seventh-day Sabbath in the eleventh century. Of this church Andrew Lang says in his "History of Scotland:"
"They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner."—Volume I, p. 96.
Skene, in his classic work, "Celtic Scotland," says of these Sabbath keepers:
"They seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early monastic church of Ireland, by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath, on which they rested from all their labors."—Book 2, chap. 8.
Margaret, of England, married Malcolm the Great, the Scottish king, in 1069. An ardent Catholic, Queen Margaret at once set about Romanizing the Celtic church. She called in the church leaders, and held long discussions with them. At last, with the help and authority of her royal husband, and quoting the instructions of "the blessed Pope Gregory," she succeeded in turning the ancient Culdee church in Scotland away from the Sabbath. (See "Life of St. Margaret," by Turgot, her confessor.)
Twelfth to Fourteenth Century
Among the numerous sects of southern Europe and the Alpine valleys, that were pursued and persecuted by Rome, were at least some who saw and obeyed the Sabbath truth. Thus, of one of these bodies, the historian Goldastus says:
"They were called Insabbatati, not because they were circumcised, but because they kept the Sabbath according to the Jewish law."—"Deutsche Biographie," Vol. IX, art. "Goldast.," p. 327.