The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

128 THE HIGHLANDERS [part I
had been founded by the primate, and the abbots of which were
ordained bishops, and the monasteries which had emanated from
those ruled b\- a bishop-abbot, which, being intended to remain
subordinate to the monastery from which they proceeded, and
not to form a separate jurisdiction, were governed by presbyterabbots,
and resembled in many respects the chorepiscopi of the
ancient church, and the archdeaconries of the present established
church of England.
The character of the CuMee church, then, may be considered
to have been in its polity a collegiate system, as carried to its
fullest extent. In its mode of operation it may be viewed as a
missionary church, and this was a system which was evidently
peculiarly adapted to the state and character of the people
among whom the church was established.
Both the nation of the northern Scots of Ireland and that of
the northern Picts of Scotland consisted at that time of a union
of several tribes, when the power of the king was circumscribed
while the turbulent chiefs, almost inde-
and his influence small ;
pendent, and generally at war with each other, rendered the
royal protection unavailable for the security of any church constituted
as most Christian churches at that time were. The
Culdee polity preserved the principle of clerical subordination
and centralisation, then and justly considered indispensable for
the efficiency of a Christian church, while it avoided the dangers
arising from the peculiar form of society of their converts by the
peculiar form of government which their church assumed.
Enclosed in a monastery with their ecclesiastical superior, the
clergy were safe from aggression, and issuing forth as missionaries
from its walls in time of peace, they carried the blessings
of Christianity to the savage members of the tribe in which they
had been cast.
Of the history of the Culdee church little is known, and the
annalists merely afford a few of the leading changes which took
place in its external form. At first it consisted of the province
of the northern Scots in Ireland alone, and the primacy over the
whole church was vested in the monastery of Armagh, the
bishop of which was styled Primus Episcopus. The province
was inhabited by numerous tribes, in each of which a monastery
was gradually founded, governed by a bishop-abbot, whose