The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VIII] OF SCOTLAND 129
jurisdiction extended over the territorities of the tribe ^ in which
his monastery was placed; and where the spiritual necessities'
of his diocese required an additional establishment of clergy, a
subordinate monastery was founded, over which a presbyter only
was placed. In 565, Columba, the presbyter-abbot of the monas-
tery of Dearmagh, which had emanated from that of Cluanirard,
over which Finan ruled as bishop-abbot, converted Brude,
king of the northern Picts, and added that nation to the Culdee.
church. The monastery of lona, of course, remained of that
subordinate species ruled by a presbyter-abbot, and accordingly
it appears that the additional monasteries required by the
exigencies of the infant church in the Highlands were still for
many years afterwards supplied from the episcopal monasteries
of Ireland. In the middle of the seventh century the primacy
was removed, for what cause we know not, from Armagh to
Scotland. 2 The great veneration and sanctity which attached
to the character of Saint Columba, as first apostle of the Picts,
had invested the monastery of lona, which he had founded,
with a superiority over the other Pictish monasteries, and
consequently the primacy became the undoubted right of that
monastery ; but the almost idolatrous veneration entertained
for Saint Columba, produced the anomalous and extraordinary
departure from the principle of episcopacy of the abbot of lona
assuming the primacy of the Culdee church and retaining his
character of presbyter. That such was the fact it is impossible
to avoid admitting, if full force be given to the passage of Bede,
frequently alluded to ; but that this is incompatible with the
existence and privileges of the episcopal order there is no reason
for thinking ;
nor if this explanation, resulting from an impartial
examination of the history of the church and the language of
the old writers, be admitted, is it possible to produce a single
passage which would infer that the Culdee church was not
' In Tighernac the bishop-abbots of See two instances in the former
the different monasteries are fre- note.
quentlv styled bishop of the tribe in „ A . . • /t x •
^
-
, , \,
-^ ^ , Cuius monastenum (lona) in cuncwhich
the monastery was situated, ..
'
^ ^ ^^ a ,.,.
,
tis pene septentrionalium Scottorum
A.D. 579. Death of Mani, Bishop
et omnibus Pictorum monasteriis non
of
the O'Fiatachs.
parvo tempore arcem tenebat.—Bede,
lib. iii., cap. 3.
I