The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VIII] OFSCOTLAND 131
There are few facts in the early history of the Christian
church more striking than the remarkable ease and pliability
with which the church adapted itself in its outward form to the
political constitution of the countries in which it was established.
When Christianity was established by the Emperor Constantine
as the religion of Europe, we see the extreme facility with
which the church assumed a polity formed after the model of
the Roman. On the fall of the empire by the invasions of the
northern barbarians, the Christian church alone maintained its
position, and again adapted itself to the forms of society which
arose among these nations when settled in its territories.
In the Culdee church this quality of the early Christian
societies is no less apparent. When confined to the north of
Ireland, which was inhabited by a number of independent tribes,
scarcely owing subjection to a common head, we find the diocese
of the episcopal monasteries corresponding to the extent and
numbers of these tribes and when the same ; system was introduced
into Scotland, we should naturally expect to find the
same accurate adaptation of the church to its territorial divisions.
The districts occupied by the early tribes of Scotland are in
every respect the same with those territorial divisions which
were afterwards known as earldoms, and accordingly there is
nothincf more remarkable than the exact accordance between
these earldoms and the position of the episcopal monasteries, so
far as they can be traced. This will appear from the following
table :—
Culdee Monasteries. Earldoms or Tribes.
St. Andrews Fife.
Dunblane Stratherne ; Menteith, not an old
Scone
Gowrie.
earldom.
Brechin Angus
Angus.
Monymusk
Mar.
Mortlach
Kuchan.
Birney (Moray)
Moray.
Rosemarkie Ross.
Dornoch Caithness.
; Mearns, formerly part of
lona Garmoran.
Dunkeld Atholl ; Argyll, part of .Atholl.