The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Warren)

The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Warren)

Frederick E. Warren

Worship of the 5th–12th century

Frederick Warren’s account of the Celtic Church and its worship: what the Celtic Church was and how it differed from Rome, then the ritual of its churches and services point by point, with the evidence from the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Cornish sources and the lives of the saints. The Latin fragments and the Stowe Missal that make up his third chapter are not included.

Chapter I: Introduction: the Celtic Church

1 It would be alien to the purpose with which this volume is written, and impossible within the limits which it is intended to assume, to present to the reader a complete history of the 'Celtic Church;' but it is necessary to define at the outset what is meant by that term, and it will be advantageous to add to this definition a notice of such of its more important features and general characteristics as have an a priori bearing on the probable genus of its Liturgy and Ritual, which will then be described with as much detail as the nature of the subject-matter and the amount of evidence at our disposal render possible. Central England.—The Celtic Church in Central England became extinct at the close of the fifth century, its members being then either exterminated in war, or retiring to the [CH. I. remoter parts of the country for shelter from the attacks of heathen invaders from Jutland, Sleswick, and Holstein. In those more distant quarters the ancient national Church maintained a separate existence and a corporate continuity long after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons which was begun by the Roman mission under the leadership of St. Augustine.

2 Wales.—The Britons of North Wales did not conform to the usages of the Anglo-Saxon Church till A.D. 768, those of South Wales not till A.D. 777. The supremacy of the See of Canterbury was not fully established here till the twelfth century. Southern England.—The British Church in Somerset and Devon, or to speak more exactly the British population dwelling within the territory conquered by the West-Saxons, conformed at the beginning of the eighth century, through the influence of Aldhelm, who became Abbot of Malmesbury A.D. 671, Bishop of Sherborne A.D. 705. In Cornwall the Bishops of the British Church were not subject to the See of Canterbury before the time of King Athelstan (925-940), the submission of Bishop Kenstee to Archbishop Ceolnoth (833-70) being the only exception. On the conquest of Cornwall by the Saxons the British Bishop Conan submitted to Archbishop Wulfhelm, and was recognised by King Athelstan, who formally nominated him to the Cornish See of Bodmin A.D. 936.

3 Northumberland.—The Celtic Church, established in Northumberland by King Oswald A.D. 634-5, after having flourished thirty years under the Scottish bishops Aidan, Finan, and Colman, successively, conformed to the Roman practice at the Synod of Whitby A.D. 664; when Colman, who had throughout unsuccessfully opposed the change, 'perceiving that his doctrine was rejected and his sect despised, took with him such as were willing to follow him, and would not comply with the Catholic Easter and coronal tonsure,—for there was much controversy about that also,—and went back into Scotia, to consult with his people what was to be done in this case.' Strathclyde.—The Britons of Strathclyde conformed A.D. 688, the year after the death of St. Cuthbert, on the occasion of a visit among them of Adamnan, Abbot of Iona, who himself had been persuaded about this time to adopt the new policy. Sedulius, the first British Bishop of Strathclyde who conformed to Roman usage, is mentioned as present at a council held at Rome under Gregory II, A.D. 721.

4 Scotland.—Adamnan attempted to force the Scottish Church to conform to Roman usage at the close of the seventh century, after his return from his second mission to King Aldfrith in Northumbria A.D. 688, but unsuccessfully. His action is thus recorded by Bede:— 'Adamnan, priest and abbot of the monks who were in the isle of Hii, was sent ambassador by his nation to Aldfrith, King of the Angles, where, having made some stay, he observed the canonical rites of the Church, and was earnestly admonished by many who were more learned than himself, not to presume to live contrary to the universal custom of the Church in relation to either the observance of Easter or any other decrees whatsoever, considering the small number of his followers seated at so distant a corner of the world. In consequence of this he changed his mind, and readily preferred those things which he had seen and heard in the Churches of the Angles to the customs which he and his people had hitherto followed. For he was a good and wise man and remarkably learned in the knowledge of the Scriptures. Accordingly returning home he endeavoured to bring his own people that were in Hii, or that were subject to that monastery, into the way of truth, which he himself had learned and embraced with all his heart, but in this he could not prevail.' [CH. I.

5 After the death of Adamnan, A.D. 704, there were two parties in this controversy, which was eventually settled in favour of the Roman rule by a decree of Nectan, King of the Picts, A.D. 710. 'Not long after which,' says Bede, 'those monks also of the Scottish nation who lived in the isle of Hii, with the other monasteries that were subject to them, were, by the procurement of our Lord, brought to the canonical observance of Easter and the right mode of tonsure. For in the year after the incarnation of our Lord A.D. 716, the father and priest Ecgberet, beloved of God, and worthy to be named with all honour, coming to them from Ireland was very honourably and joyfully received by them . . . and by his pious and frequent exhortations he converted them from the inveterate tradition of their ancestors. He taught them to perform the principal solemnity after the Catholic and Apostolic manner. The monks of Hii by the instruction of Ecgberet adopted the Catholic rites, under Abbot Dunchad (A.D. 710-717), about eighty years after they had sent Bishop Aidan to preach to the nation of the Angles.'

6 But the acceptance of the Paschal rule at Hii in 716 did not settle the practice of that Church finally, for we are informed that the Easter-tide of Ecgberet's death (A.D. 729) was the first Easter celebrated according to the Roman calculation. A schism had taken place at Iona A.D. 704, and rival abbots existed till A.D. 772, when on the death of the Abbot Suibhne the conformity of the whole monastery of Iona to the Roman Church may be considered to have been established. But this remark does not apply to the whole of Scotland. Customs and ritual peculiar to the ancient Church of the country existed long after the eighth century. When St. Margaret, a Saxon Princess, married King Malcolm III, A.D. 1069, she promoted a religious reformation, which is said to have included the abolition of the following four Scottish customs:— 1. The commencement of Lent on the first Monday in Lent instead of on Ash Wednesday. This is the custom at Milan to the present day. It may perhaps be traced in the Sarum direction to cover up all crosses, &c. on the first Monday in Lent.

7 2. The non-reception of the Holy Eucharist on Easter Day. It is difficult to understand this statement, because Easter Day in the early Scottish Church was 'the festival of joy,' and the Easter Communion was especially singled out for mention. In the early Irish Church it was enjoined on all the faithful by one of the canons attributed to St. Patrick. A King of Leinster is said to have paid a visit to St. Bridget, in order to listen to preaching and celebration on Easter Day. 3. Labour on the Lord's Day. 4. Strange customs in the Mass. St. Margaret's biographer tells us that 'in some places among the Scots there were persons who, contrary to the custom of the whole Church, had been accustomed to celebrate Masses by some barbarous rite, which the Queen, kindled with God's zeal, so laboured to destroy and bring to nothing, that thenceforth there appeared no one in the whole race of the Scots who dared to do such a thing.' [CH. I.

8 In the absence of any direct statement as to what these liturgical peculiarities were, we are left to conjecture either that they were connected with the celebration of Mass in the vernacular instead of in the Latin language, or, with more probability, that up to the eleventh century the Ephesine and the Roman Liturgies were used contemporaneously in Scotland, somewhat in the same way that in France a transition period can be traced through such service books as the 'Sacramentarium Gallicanum,' in which Ephesine and Petrine forms present themselves alternately. The above charges also indicate that the final extinction of the old Celtic Church in Scotland was partly owing to internal decay, as well as to the line of policy adopted by Queen Margaret and Malcolm Canmore, which was the same as that adopted in the next century by the Anglo-Norman kings towards Ireland. Neither a national Church nor a religious movement can be easily extinguished by royal authority, unless there are other and co-operating influences at work. St. Margaret was not immediately successful in her attempts at suppression. Fifty years later, in the reign of King David, we learn that the Culdees 'in a corner of their church which was very small used to celebrate their own office after their own fashion.' It is the last spark in the expiring embers of the controversy and the struggle for supremacy between two elements in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland; the old national Celtic element represented by Extent and Duration of the Celtic Church.

9 the independence of the Scottish episcopate and the retention of the ancient Missal; and the Anglicising element, patronised by the royal authority of Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret, subjecting the Scottish episcopate to the supremacy of York, and introducing the Anglicanised (Roman) Missal. It is possible but not certain that this was the Use of Sarum. St. Osmund published that Use in A.D. 1085. St. Margaret died in A.D. 1093. There was therefore time for her to have seen, approved, and initiated the circulation of the Sarum Missal; but considering the slowness of communication in those days, and the time necessarily occupied in the transcription of copies, it is more probable that she introduced the Anglican rite in the form in which it existed before it was arranged by St. Osmund. This probability is increased by the fact that the Sarum Use was not introduced into the Cathedral and See of Glasgow till the time of Bishop Herbert (A.D. 1147-64.)

10 Ireland.—The Celtic Church in the South of Ireland conformed to Rome on the Paschal controversy, and probably in other respects as well, during the pontificate of Honorius (A.D. 626-638). The letter of that Pope, urging such conformity, has been preserved by Bede, and the letter of Cummian, Abbot of Durrow, written A.D. 634 to Segine, fifth Abbot of Iona, announcing the determination of Southern Ireland to conform to Roman usage, is still extant. The Church in Northern Ireland was induced to take a similar step, at the instance of Adamnan, at the Synod of Tara, A.D. 692. But in the case of Ireland, as in Scotland, complete conformity to Roman usage was not secured for many centuries [CH. I. afterwards. The last vestiges of the old national rite, and of liturgical and ritual independence, were not swept away till the time of St. Malachy, the great Romaniser—the Wilfrid—of the Irish Church. Born A.D. 1075, he became Bishop of Armagh (1134-1148), and in that capacity visited Pope Innocent II, demanded the pallium, which had not hitherto been worn by Irish bishops, and was invested with legatine authority over the Irish Church. His biographer St. Bernard expressly states that 'Roman laws and ecclesiastical customs were introduced by him into his native country.' And again, 'He established in all Churches the Apostolical constitutions, and the decrees of the holy fathers, and especially the customs of the holy Roman Church.' Gillebert, the papal legate, Bishop of Limerick (1106-1139), implies that there had been more than one Liturgical Use in Ireland previously to that date. He said in the Prologue of a book 'De Usu Ecclesiastico,' addressed to the whole clergy of Ireland:—

11 'At the request and also at the command of many of you, most dearly beloved, I have endeavoured to set down in writing the canonical custom of saying the hours, and performing the office of the whole ecclesiastical order, not presumptuously, but desiring to serve your most godly command, in order that those diverse and schismatical orders, with which nearly all Ireland has been deluded, may give place to one Catholic and Roman Office.' At a Synod held at Kells A.D. 1152, under the papal legate Johannes Paparo, further steps were taken to enforce conformity to Roman usage. In the year 1172, at the Synod of Cashel, presided over by Christianus, Bishop of Lismore and papal legate, the Anglican Use, that is to say the Sarum modification of the Roman Missal, was ordered to be introduced into every Church in Ireland, by the following canon:— 'From this time forward let all the divine offices of the Holy Church be performed in all parts of the (Irish) Church, according to the Use of the Church of England.'

12 The above-quoted passages, while implying a previous diversity of liturgical usage and a discrepancy between that of Ireland and that of Rome, unfortunately afford no direct information as to what the nature of the early Celtic Liturgy was. It will be the endeavour of the following pages to throw some light on this at present unsolved and perhaps, to a certain extent, insoluble question. Continent.—The Celtic Churches on the Continent, founded by the missionary enterprise of the native Church of these islands chiefly during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, included parts of modern France, Belgium, Prussia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain. Iceland and the Faroe Islands also were colonised by Celtic missions. The cessation of Celtic usage in the greater part of this Continental Church is closely connected with the life and efforts of the Anglo-Saxon apostle of Germany, St. Boniface (A.D. 680-755). In Spanish Gallicia Celtic usage as to Easter, &c. was abrogated by the Fourth Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, can. 41. In Brittany British customs prevailed [CH. I.

13 till A.D. 817, when they were abolished under Louis le Débonnaire, and at the same time the Rule of St. Benedict was everywhere substituted for that of St. Columbanus. Among the peculiar features and distinguishing characteristics of this wide-spread Celtic Church, the following are deserving of especial mention:— Success in missionary enterprise can only be achieved, and has only been achieved, on any large scale, from the time of the Apostles downwards, by men who have so far caught the ascetic spirit as to surrender this world and its ties to the exclusive and absorbing task of the evangelisation of mankind. But a Church which attempts to frame almost its whole constitution on a monastic basis, which provides no outlet for the zeal and earnestness which, while shrinking from the total self-surrender and separation from the world involved in the monastic life, will fill the avocations of a secular priesthood, may achieve a brilliant but shortlived success, but aims at too high an ideal for permanent success. This fact, added to the intolerable severity of the Columban Rule (p. 17), seems to be the key to the rise and fall of the Celtic Church.

14 There are however passages which prove that a married priesthood was not unknown in various parts, and at various periods in the history of the Celtic Church. St. Patrick (fifth century) says that he was the son of a deacon and the grandson of a priest. An early Irish canon alludes to priests' wives:— 'Quicunque clericus ab hostiario usque ad sacerdotem sine tunica visus fuerit . . . et uxor ejus si non velato capite ambulaverit pariter a laicis contemnentur et ab ecclesia separentur.' The words of Gildas (A.D. 547) may imply a married priesthood in Britain in the sixth century, and have been quoted in that sense by Archbishop Ussher. They form part of the 'increpatio in sacerdotes' with which the 'Epistola i. Gildae' concludes:— '[Paulus dicit] "unius uxoris virum." Quid ita apud nos quoque contemnitur quasi non audiretur et idem dicere et "virum uxorum." . . . Sed videamus et sequentia. "Domum" inquit "suam bene regentem, filios habentem subditos, cum omni castitate." Ergo imperfecta est patrum castitas, si eidem non et filiorum accumuletur. Sed quid erit ubi nec pater, nec filius mali genitoris exemplo pravatus, conspicitur castus? Si quis autem domui suae praeesse nescit, quomodo Ecclesiae Dei diligentiam adhibebit?' [CH. I.

15 Notices of married bishops, priests, and deacons, and of various attempts to enforce clerical celibacy in the tenth century, and of the opposition encountered, prove that a married clergy existed in Wales till the eleventh or twelfth century. There are also allusions to married priests in the Celtic Church in Brittany. These facts have led a modern Roman Catholic author to make the unhistorical assertion that 'l'Eglise Romaine tolera quelque temps chez les Brétons et les Irlandais l'ordination des hommes mariés, comme elle la tolere encore chez les catholiques des rites orientaux.' Why did he not add 'comme elle la tolera autrefois chez les catholiques de Rome'? There are allusions to married episcopi, presbyteri, and diaconi in the inscriptions in the Catacombs. But the existence of married priests in the Celtic Church was due to independence of, not to toleration by, the Roman See. Some idea of the monastic character and extent of the Celtic Church may be gained from a bare enumeration of a few of its more famous houses.

16 In England (including Northumbria): Lindisfarne, Lastingham, Ripon, Whitby, St. Bees, Malmesbury, Glastonbury, Burgh Castle, Mailros (old Melrose), Coldingham, &c. In Wales: Hentland-on-the-Wye, Caerwogern, Caerleon, Bangor-Deiniol (or Mawr), Bangor-Garmon, Llandabarnfawr, Llancarvan, Bangor-Iscoed, Clynnog-Fawr, Llan-Iltut, Llanelwy, afterwards St. Asaph, Caergybi, Enlli, Tygwyn-ar Daf, Docwinni. In Ireland: Durrow, Clonard, Kildare, Clonmacnois, Aghaboe, Kells, Bangor, Birr, Tirrdaglas, Glaisnaoidhen, Inismacsaint, Clonfert, Dromore, Moville, &c. One of the successors of St. Patrick, Luan by name, is asserted by St. Bernard to have founded alone a hundred monasteries. The smaller islands round Ireland swarmed with them. Ten monasteries were founded by St. Enda alone on one of the Aran isles off the coast of Galway. In Scotland numerous monasteries were founded by St. Columba and his monks among the Picts and Scots, the names of fifty-three of which, in addition to his own central monastery at Iona, have been preserved, at Soroby, Dunkeld, Inchcolm, &c. Many of the Scottish monasteries were placed on islands, which, perhaps on account of their superior safety, had a great fascination for the Celtic monk.

17 In France: Remiremont, Lure, Besançon, Romain-Moutier, Bezieres, Brezille, Cusance, St. Ursanne, Jouarre, Reuil, Rebais, Faremoutier, St. Maur-les-Fosses, Lagny, Moutier-la-Celle, Hautvilliers, Moutier-en-Der, St. Salaberga, Fontenelles, Jumièges, St. Saens, Luxeuil (A.D. 599), Anegray, Fontaines, Peronne, Toul, Amboise, Beaulieu, Strasbourg, in addition to other countless and nameless 'Hospitalia Scotorum,' alluded to in the Capitularies of Charles the Bald, A.D. 846. The above mentioned were Irish foundations. Brittany had been colonised by British Christians at a much earlier date. The single Welsh monastery of Llan-Iltut numbered among its disciples SS. Malo, Samson, Teilo, Magloire, Brieuc, Frugdual, Corentin, Gildas, &c., all of whom are reported to have passed over into Brittany, in consequence of the persecution of the Saxons, and there to have founded [CH. I. towns, or built monasteries, or established bishoprics, which in many instances still bear their names. In the Netherlands: Namur, Liege, Gueldres, Hautmont, Soignes, &c. In Germany and Switzerland: Hohenau, Erfurt, Freyburg, Ettenheimmünster, Schuttern, Nüremberg, Würtzburg, Memmingen, Mentz, Cologne, Regensburg, Constance, St. Gall, Mont St. Victor, Reichenau, Bregenz, Rheinau, Seckingen.

18 In Italy: Bobbio (A.D. 612), Taranto, Lucca, Faenza, Fiesole. This list might be largely extended. It does not include many monasteries which, Celtic in their origin, passed subsequently into foreign hands, as was the case with Great St. Martin's at Cologne, where, as elsewhere, when the first fervour of its Celtic inmates dwindled away, their places were filled up by the inhabitants of the country in which the monastery was situated. St. Bernard compared the missionary inundation of foreign countries by the Irish to a flood. A list of 122 monasteries founded by Irishmen in England, Scotland, and on the Continent was collected by Colgan in a lost work, of which the Index has been preserved and is printed in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. vi. p. 106. They were of various sizes. Those planted on the barren islands off the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland must have been small. Others were very large. The Irish monastery of St. Finnian of Clonard, and that of St. Comgall at Bangor, were said to contain three thousand inmates. The Welsh monastery of Bangor-Israel contained, according to Bede, two thousand one hundred monks, of whom twelve hundred were slaughtered under the Northumbrian King Æthelfrith. St. Patrick asserted that the number of Irish men and women who embraced the monastic life in his own time was incalculable.

19 The structure of the monasteries was of a simple and inexpensive character. Like the early Celtic churches (ch. iii) they were built at first of earth, and wattles, or wood. It was not till the end of the eighth century that stone buildings began in Scotland and Ireland to be substituted for wooden ones, as a protection against the ravages of the Danes. The Rule of the Western monks, as laid down in the writings of St. Columbanus, was very severe, far more so than the Rule of St. Benedict. Its principles were absolute and unreserved obedience, constant and severe labour, daily self-denial and fasting; and the least deviation from the Rule was visited with corporal punishment or a severe form of fast, the precise number of blows and of days or hours of fasting being minutely prescribed. [CH. I. The chief occupation of all the monks, and the only occupation of the more aged, apart from the services of the Church, consisted of reading and writing. It was said of the Irish monastery of Lughmagh under Bishop Mochta, that

20 'Threescore psalm-singing seniors Were his household, royal the number,- Without tillage, reaping, or kiln-drying, Without work except reading.' The office of Scribe (Scribhnidh or Scribhneoir) was of such honour and importance in an Irish monastery, that the penalty for shedding his blood was as great as that for killing a bishop or abbot. Sometimes in Scotland, in the seventh to tenth centuries, a scribe was elected to be an abbot or a bishop, and the head of a diocese or monastery thought that it added to the dignity of his position to be able to append the title of 'scriba' to his name. Baithene, the second Abbot of Iona, was an accomplished scribe, and was selected by Columba before his death to finish the Psalter left incomplete by himself. The eighteenth and thirtieth Abbots of Iona, in 797 ceptoribus Scottis parvuli Anglorum, una cum majoribus studiis et observatione disciplinae regularis.' Hist. Ec. iii. 3.

21 The Irish Rule at Bangor in the seventh century is described in the Antiphon. Benchor. p. 156:— 'Benchuir bona regula Recta atque divina, Stricta, sancta, sedula,' etc. Ozanam attributes the eventual failure of Columban rule on the Continent to its Eastern severity: La Civilization Chretienne, p. 140. and 978, and the Bishop of the Isles of Alba in 961, are also recorded to have been scribes. 22 St. Patrick is said to have first taught his converts letters in a passage which is interpreted as attributing to him the introduction of a written alphabet. If so, it was probably the Irish or Latin-Irish alphabet supplanting the earlier Ogham characters; and the books of Durrow, Kells, Dimma, Mulling, &c. survive to show what apt scholars the Irish were, and to what a marvellous pitch of perfection calligraphy reached within a few centuries after St. Patrick's death. The art of writing was transferred from Ireland to Scotland by St. Columba and his followers. It may have flourished at an earlier date in Southern Pictland at the time of St. Ninian's mission, as doubtless it flourished in the early British Church in England, but invading waves of heathenism had swept that earlier Christian civilisation away, and all traces of its sacred and liturgical writings are irrecoverably lost. But in connection with Iona there are many references to books. St. Columba himself wrote a volume containing hymns for the various services of the week. He possessed a volume containing the Prayers and Ceremonial for the Consecration and Coronation of Kings, which, perhaps on account of its beautiful binding, was called the 'book of glass' and considered to be of celestial origin. His last occupation on earth was the writing of a Psalter, and he was engaged in transcribing the thirty-fourth Psalm for it on the evening before his death. Baithene wrote a Psalter so correctly that a single omission of the vowel 'i' was the only [CH. I.

23 mistake which St. Columba could find throughout it. There are many other allusions to books and writing, as in the case of the awkward monk who dropped the book which he was reading into a vessel full of water, and of the impetuous guest who in his anxiety to greet St. Columba managed to spill that saint's ink-horn. Sometimes the monks wrote on wax tablets, ceracula, pugillaria, tabulae, with a hard pointed instrument, graphium, or stimulus. 'Cum in agro ipse sederet allato angelus Domini ceraculo eum litterarum docuit elementa'. Adamnan narrates in his work 'De Locis Sanctis' how Bishop Arnulf 'primo in tabulas describenti fideli et indubitabili narratione dictavit quae nunc in membranis brevi textu scribuntur'. 24 In the Codex Sangallensis, 242, entitled 'De pugillaribus id est parvis tabulis,' there is a gloss written over v. 3, Sicut videtur in tabulis Scotorum. The parchment skins ('membranae'), the use of which superseded the 'ceracula,' were either bound together in the form of a volume, or assumed the shape of a long scroll. The word commonly in use for writing was caraxare, charaxare; craxare, crassare, or xraxare. The Irish monk Arbedoc, who wrote the MS. Cod. Lat. Paris. 12021, begins by invoking the Divine blessing thus: 'Mihi xraxanti literas missereatur trinitas.' Adamnan closes his work 'De Locis Sanctis' by a request that the reader would offer a prayer 'pro me misello peccatore eorundem craxatore.' The same Abbot closes his Vita S. Columbae with this adjuration, 'Obsecro eos quicumque voluerint hos describere libellos, immo potius adjuro per Christum judicem saeculorum, ut postquam diligenter descripserint, conferant et emendent cum omni diligentia ad exemplar unde caraxerunt et hanc quoque adjurationem hoc in loco subscribant.' Specimens of the early Scottish style of writing survive in an eighth-century MS. Life of Columba by Adamnan, Codex A at Schaffhausen, and in the Book of Deer written by a native scribe of Alba in the ninth century. These two MSS. are specially mentioned because the facsimiles of the originals which accompany the careful editions of the books by Dr. Reeves and Mr. Stuart place samples of early Scottish calligraphy within the reach of every modern reader.

25 Their ornamentation and initial letters, though less elaborate than those of the Book of Kells and other early Irish MSS., confirm the statements so often made in the Lives of the Saints, that the arts of designing, drawing, and illuminating were extensively practised in these early times. Other monks were skilful workers in leather, metal, and wood. St. Patrick himself was said to have been accompanied by workers in bronze and artificers of sacred vessels. It was recorded of St. Dega, an Irish monk and bishop (d. 586), that he spent his nights in transcribing MSS., his days in reading them, and in carving in copper and iron. Among the articles of most frequent construction were costly reliquaries for enshrining the remains of saints, metal cases of embossed [CH. I. 26 bronze or silver (cumhdachs) for enclosing copies of the Gospels or other MSS., and leathern cases (polaires) for carrying about portable missals and other service books. Education was also carried on by these early monks. Their monasteries were seminaries for the training of the native youth, and were frequented by adult foreigners, who flocked to Ireland from all parts of Great Britain, France, and the Continent generally for purposes of study. Among the distinguished persons who thus visited Irish or Scottish monasteries were Egbert and Chad, the French Agilbert, who succeeded Biriuus as second Bishop of Dorchester A.D. 650, Aldfrith, who succeeded his brother Ecgfrith as King of Northumbria A.D. 685, Willibrord, the Anglo-Saxon missionary to Frisia A.D. 690, &c. While the seniors were exclusively engaged in the sedentary occupations of reading, writing, and teaching, the younger monks also laboured in the various departments of husbandry, at least so far as to provide for the wants of their own monasteries. When St. Columba visited the monastery of Clonmacnois the monks at work in the fields flocked together to receive him. St. Cuthbert and St. Furseus worked with their own hands. St. Gall went fishing while his monks were, some of them, working in the garden, and others were dressing the orchard.

27 One short fragment of an ancient Celtic Pontifical survives in the Public Library, Zurich, in an Irish handwriting of the tenth century. The first page is quite illegible, having been made the outside cover of a book. Page 2 contains these words:—

[De Virgine Investienda.]

28 '(a) Permaneat ad prudentibus qui . . . virginibus vigilantia . . . adferte copuletur . . . per. (b) Oremus, fratres carissimi, misericordiam ut euntum bonum tribuere dignetur huic puellae N. quae Deo votum candidam vestem perferre cum integritate coronae in resurrectione vitae aeternae quam facturus est; orantibus nobis, praestet Deus. (c) Conserva, Domine, istius devotae pudorem castitatis dilectionem continentiae in factis, in dictis, in cogitationibus; Per te, Christe Jesu, qui. (d) Accipe, puella, pallium candidum quod perferas ante tribunal Domini.' This fragment is interesting as showing that the office for the reception of a nun into a Celtic monastery included, in addition to the ceremony of crowning, the formal presentation of a white dress, which is not part of the 'Ordo de Consecratione Virginum' in the present Roman Pontifical. Nor are (a) (b) (c) (d) found elsewhere, although a formula resembling (d) accompanies the presentation of the veil, in a tenth-century order for the 'Consecratio Sacrae Virginis' printed in Gerbert, Liturg. Aleman. ii. 96: 'Accipe velum sacrum, puella, quod praeferas sine macula ante tribunal Domini nostri Jesu Christi.'

29 And again in the tenth-century copy of the Pontifical of [CH. I. Egbert, Archbishop of York, at the presentation of the 'pallium' in the 'Consecratio Viduae:'— 'Post haec imponis viduae pallium et dicis. 'Accipe viduae pallium quod perferas sine macula ante tribunal Domini nostri Jesu Christi.' The monastic was closely connected with the missionary character of the Celtic Church. The list of monasteries given on pp. 14-16 proves how widespread was the area once covered by its evangelistic agency and monastic development; but such development was not the work of one century, nor due to the energy of a single portion of the Celtic Church. It began by the colonisation of Brittany from the British Church in the fifth century. A British colony was established in Spanish Gallicia in the sixth century, where a Celtic See was occupied by a bishop named Madoc, c. A.D. 570. 30 In the same century the Irish Church began to exhibit its missionary power. The Christianising of the whole of the north and north-west of Scotland and its adjacent islands was due to St. Columba, chief among the missionary Irish. He was Abbot of Iona, and patron saint of Mull, Tirce, Islay, Oronsay, and Lewis. Maccaldus, a native of Down, became Bishop of Man in the fifth century; St. Donnan of Egg; St. Maelrubha of Skye; St. Moluoc of Lismore, and Raasay; St. Brendan of Seil; St. Molaise of Arran; SS. Catan and Blaan of Bute. St. Columba's successors at Iona converted in a similar way the whole of the Anglo-Saxon population north of the Humber. St. Aidan, the Apostle of the Northumbrians (A.D. 634), whose diocese extended from the Humber to the Frith of Forth, was an Irishman and a monk of Iona; so were his successors Finan and Colman, the latter of whom resigned his see after the Synod of Whitby A.D. 664, and retired to his native country rather than accept its anti-Scottish decisions. Diuma, the first bishop of the Mercians, and his successor Ceollach, were both of them Irishmen, the former certainly and the latter probably having been brought up at Iona. Other distinguished Irish saints in England were St. Fursa, who planted Christianity at Burghcastle in Suffolk; Mailduf (Meildulfus), the founder of Malmesbury; St. Bega, the foundress of St. Bees in Cumberland; St. Moninna (Modwenna), the patron saint of Burton-on-Trent; St. Ciaran, or Piran, whose name occurs frequently in the dedications of Cornish churches.

31 But Irish missionary zeal sought a vent beyond the confines of Great Britain. Early in the sixth century (A.D. 511) the Irish St. Fridolin appeared at Poitiers, Strasbourg, and Seckingen near Basle, as the pioneer of future missionary hosts. Late in the sixth and early in the seventh centuries St. Columbanus and St. Gall, with their companions, traversed Gaul, Italy, and Switzerland, founding their chief monasteries at Luxeuil, Bobbio, and St. Gall. Soon afterwards St. Kilian, with his companions the priest Totman and the deacon Colman, penetrated to Würzburg, where he was martyred A.D. 687; and the later names of Fiacrius, Chillenus, Furseus, Ultanus, Foillanus, &c., celebrated at Lagny near Paris, at Meaux, Peronne, &c., indicate the Irish nationality of many who laboured successfully in propagating the Christian faith [CH. I. in France, Belgium, and other parts of central Europe. Less known Irish missions also carried Christianity to the Faroe Isles c. A.D. 725, and to Iceland A.D. 795. Thus between the fifth and eighth centuries the Celtic Church extended, with intermissions, North and South from Iceland to Spain, East and West from the Atlantic to the Danube, from Western-most Ireland to the Italian Bobbio A.D. 612, and the German Salzburg A.D. 696.

32 Even beyond these limits Irishmen were afterwards and occasionally elected bishops, as Cataldus at Taranto and his brother Donatus at Lupiae in the eighth century, and another Donatus at Fiesole a century and a half later. It will have been noticed that all the great leaders in this Celtic wave of missionary enterprise were of Irish origin, viz. St. Columba, the Apostle of the Picts and Scots; St. Aidan, the Apostle of Northumbria; St. Columbanus, the Apostle of the Burgundians of the Vosges district of Alsace; St. Gall, the Apostle of North-east Switzerland and Alemannia; St. Kilian, the Apostle of Thuringia; and Virgilius, the Apostle of Carinthia. Certainly Britain, like the rest of Christendom, may have been partially tainted with Arianism in the fourth century, when certain British bishops at Ariminum A.D. 359 were deceived or terrified into signing a semi-Arian creed; and with Pelagianism in the fifth century, which was the cause of the joint visit of Germanus Bishop of Auxerre and Lupus Bishop of Troyes A.D. 429, and of another visit of Germanus with Severus Bishop of Treves, A.D. 447. But the Gallican bishops are recorded to have been eminently successful in their mission, and to have returned across the Channel leaving the Catholic faith firmly established in these islands. The real difficulty here is to understand how the rationalism of Pelagius can have had even a passing attraction for the naturally superstitious and mystic Celt, not how Germanus succeeded in stamping it out. There is nothing in these admitted facts to justify us in inferring from the above-quoted words of St. Gregory that the Celtic Church was destitute of any 'forma recte credendi;' or in acquiescing in the language of an Anglo-Saxon Synod (A.D. 705), which took steps for 'the destruction of the malignant and too flourishing heresy of the Britons.'

33 On the other hand, a catena of evidence can be produced to disprove the charge of heresy and in support of the orthodoxy of the first Church of the British Isles. Hilary of Poitiers (A.D 358) congratulates the bishops of the British [CH. I. provinces on 'their having continued uncontaminated and uninjured by any contact with the detestable heresy' (of Arianism). Athanasius (A.D. 363) states that the British Churches had signified by letter to him their adhesion to the Nicene faith. St. Chrysostom (A.D. 386-398) said that 'even the British Isles have felt the power of the word, for there too churches and altars have been erected. There too, as on the shores of the Euxine or in the South, men may be heard discussing points in Scripture, with differing voices but not with differing belief, with varying tongues but not with varying faith.' St. Jerome (c. A.D. 400) asserted that 'Britain in common with Rome, Gaul, Africa, Persia, the East, and India, adores one Christ, observes one rule of faith.' Venantius Fortunatus (c. A.D. 580) testified to British orthodoxy in the sixth century, and Wilfrid in the seventh century. The testimony of the latter, whose hostility to the Celtic Church was notorious, is as honourable to himself, as it is placed beyond all suspicion of inaccuracy or exaggeration. Present at Rome A.D. 680 at a council of a hundred and twenty-five bishops, held in anticipation of the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the same year against the Monothelites, Wilfrid asserted that the true Catholic faith was held by the Irish, Scottish, and British, as well as by the Anglo-Saxon Church. It had therefore been no vain boast of Columbanus to Pope Boniface (A.D. 612) that his Church was not schismatical or heretical, but that it held the whole Catholic faith.

34 Had it been otherwise, could British bishops have been present certainly at the Council of Arles A.D. 314, perhaps at Nice A.D. 325, probably at Sardica A.D. 347? Could the conferences have taken place at Augustine's Oak A.D. 603, and at Whitby A.D. 664, without at all events far more serious questions having been raised than the form of the tonsure or the calculation of Easter? Would Wini Bishop of Winchester have associated two British bishops with himself in the consecration of St. Chad A.D. 664? Both direct testimony and indirect inference lead us to conclude with reference to the whole Celtic Church what Montalembert allows with regard to primitive Ireland, that it was 'profoundly and unchangeably Catholic in doctrine, but separated from Rome in various points of discipline and liturgy .' Before the sixth century Roman claims were not opposed, partly because such claims were not yet in existence in the form which they assumed after St. Augustine's mission, partly because, so far as they may have existed potentially, there was an entire unconsciousness of them on the part of the Christian Church in these islands.

35 The contrary view has notwithstanding been entertained, and rests on the testimony of early and generally trustworthy witnesses on the Roman side, or on later native haereticus, nullus Judaeus, nullus schismaticus fuit, sed fides Catholica sicut a vobis primum, sanctorum scilicet Apostolorum successoribus tradita est, inconcussa tenetur.' Epist iv. ad Bonifacium; Fleming, Collectan. 139. [CH. I. writers, who however do not profess to be independent or original authorities on this subject. Bede attributes the conversion of England to the agency of Pope Eleutherus (A. D. 171-190), during the joint reigns of Aurelius and Verus (161-9), in the time of the British prince Lucius. This story is now known to have originated in Rome in the fifth or sixth century, 300 years or more after the date assigned to that event. In the eighth century Bede introduced it into England, where by the ninth century it had grown into the conversion of the whole of Britain, while the full-fledged fiction, connecting it specially with Wales and Glastonbury, and entering into further details, grew up between the ninth and twelfth centuries.

36 Prosper of Aquitaine (A. D. 402-463), who went to Rome on a mission to Pope Cælestine, A. D. 431, and was afterwards secretary to Pope Leo the Great, writing c. 455, asserts with regard to the conversion of Ireland that 'Palladius was consecrated by Pope Cælestine (422-432), and sent to the Scots believing in Christ, as their first bishop.' This is the original source of a statement which reappears in substance, though not in this exact form, in many later documents, and with considerable additional detail. It would be difficult to find any other sentence penned by any ecclesiastical historian which has caused so much confusion, or which has been so variously interpreted. In the first place, who were the Scots to whom Prosper refers? We know beyond a doubt that they were the inhabitants of Ireland, but this necessary limitation of the meaning of the term before the tenth century has only recently become generally accepted and understood, and it is probable that the later legends connecting Palladius with Scotland, as found in the Aberdeen Breviary, in the Leabhar Breac, and in the Scoti-chronicon of John of Fordun (14th cent.), have originated in a misinterpretation of Prosper's language. Secondly, who was Palladius? Was he, as Prosper intimates rather than asserts, a Roman, or, as is stated in the Book of Armagh, an archdeacon of the Church of Rome? or was he, as Dr.

37 Todd concludes, a Gaul, and is to be identified with a certain Gallican bishop, commemorated under the name of Patricius, at Clermont, in the Roman martyrology on March 16? or was he an Irishman? and as the annotations of Tirechan on the Life of St. Patrick state that 'Palladius was also called Patrick,' has there been some confusion between St. Palladius and St. Patrick, and can statements which were meant to apply to the one have become transferred to the other? Thirdly, what is the force of 'primus'? Is it to be interpreted chronologically, and accepted as a disproof of numerous later legends, which allude to the existence of Christianity and of Christian bishops in Ireland before A. D. 431? or are we to infer that there was previously a presbyterian form of Christianity in that country? or is 'primus' to be taken in the sense of precedence, and is it the primacy of Ireland which was conferred at this early date by a Bishop of Rome upon Palladius? There is no contemporaneous evidence for the Roman mission of St. Patrick, for the earliest authority for which see p. 37.

38 The first introduction of Christianity into Scotland was due to the labours of Ninian among the Southern Picts [CH. I. (c. A. D. 401), who, 'according to Bede,' had been regularly instructed in the faith and the mysteries of the truth at Rome; and who, according to Ailred, had been consecrated a bishop by Pope Siricius. These statements appear again and again in the later annals and lives of the saints, acquiring a more circumstantial character the further they are removed from the period of which they profess to give an account. Their truth has been generally taken for granted by modern writers, until the careful research of Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs has given the death-blow to the story of King Lucius and Pope Eleutherus, and it may be suspected, although the difficulty of proving the negative has not been fully overcome, that the stories of the consecration of Palladius by Pope Celestine and of Ninian by Pope Siricius are equally without foundation. For while Prosper and Bede must be accepted as generally impartial and trustworthy historians, no one can read the works of the former without noticing that his chief object was to magnify the importance of the Papacy; and, on the other hand, Bede, who was removed by more than a century from the events recorded in the first Book of his Ecclesiastical History, was actuated by an intense dislike of the independent Celtic Church, which has been stigmatised by a modern Roman Catholic writer in the following words:—

39 'This (i. e. the feeling and attitude of the British Church) is called by Bede, in language too like that which Muscovite writers of our own day employ in respect to the Poles, "a domestic and immoral hatred:" "Britones maxima ex parte domestico sibi odio gentem Anglorum et totius Ecclesiae Catholicae statum Pascha, minus recte moribusque improbis pugnant." There is no just reason for imputing to the British Christians a lower rate of morals than those of the Saxon converts; but our venerable historian, blinded by his passions and prejudices, goes still further, and yields, as so many have done after him, to the hateful temptation of identifying the work of God with a human conquest. "Tamen et divina sibi et humana prorsus resistente virtute, in neutro cupitum possunt obtinere propositum; quippe qui quamvis ex parte sui sint juris, nonnulla tamen ex parte Anglorum sunt servitio mancipati." (H. E. v. 23.) He says elsewhere (v. 18) that St. Aldhelm wrote "librum egregium adversus errorem Britonum, quo vel Pascha non suo tempore celebrant, vel alia perplura ecclesiasticae castitati et paci contraria gerunt." In all Aldhelm's writings that have been preserved to us there is not the least allusion to the irregular morals of the Celtic clergy.'

40 So Bede uses such epithets as 'nefanda' and 'perfida' of dote qui, &c. De Vita Germani, i. 19. This is also Bede's account, H. E. i. 7. For further evidence of the pro-papal tendency of Prosper, read his Praeteritorum Sedis Apostolicae Episcoporum auctoritates, Praef. cap. vii, viii; Liber contra Collatorem, cap. v, xxi, xliii; Carmen de Ingratis, pt. i. ll. 40, 78, 184. [CH. I. the British nation when he records their defeat by Æthelfrith at the battle of Chester A. D. 613, and the massacre of the monks of Bangor, in accordance with the prophecy of St. Augustine. The clue to such language is the fact that Bede wrote under the influence of two motives, independent in their origin but conducing to the same result. Firstly, there was a national hatred of the British Church and nation. This was no doubt largely due to a feeling of resentment at the absence of British evangelistic enterprise in Anglo-Saxon heathendom, of which Bede complains once and again. But we have seen that the British Church was not destitute of missionary power; and more allowance must be made in the instance before us than Bede is inclined to make for the difficulties of the case. It is easier for the conquerors to preach to the conquered, than vice versa. Mission work must have been very difficult while the state of feeling between the two nationalities was as embittered as it was still in the eleventh century, when any Welshman found armed east of Offa's Dyke was legally punishable by mutilation. A second motive for Bede's violence may have been a desire to aggrandise Rome at the expense of the rest of Christendom, and to represent her as the mother of all Western Churches; a desire which began to exhibit itself as early as the fifth century in the writings of Prosper, and which became intensified instead of diminished in each succeeding century.

41 The following facts tend to prove a non-Roman origin of the Celtic Church. (a) Incidental allusions in ancient documents to the existence of a primitive Christian Church in these islands differing from the Anglo-Roman or Scoto-Roman Church of later days. Giraldus Cambrensis in his description of Ireland (A. D. 1185) narrates how 'in North Munster there is a lake containing two islands; in the greater island there is a church of the ancient monastic rule (ecclesia antiquae religionis'), and in the lesser a chapel wherein a few monks, called Culdees, devoutly serve God.' In South Munster the same traveller visited the church of St. Michael ('ecclesiam antiquae nimis et authenticae religionis'). This ancient monastic rule may have been that not only of SS. Patrick, Columba, &c., but also of (1) Mansuetus, first Bishop of Toul in France (fourth century); (2) Sedulius, the Christian poet (fifth century); (3) Caelestius, the Pelagian (third and fourth centuries); (4) Eliphius and Eucharius, martyrs in France (fourth century). All these were Irishmen, and though much obscurity hangs over the history and date of (2) and (4), they may all have been trained under the pre-Roman 'antiqua et authentica religio Hiberniae.'

42 There are also allusions to an 'ecclesia primitiva' in Scotland in the Aberdeen Breviary, the strange Masses of which were finally abolished by Queen Margaret. The independence of the ancient Cornish Church is attested by a passage in the Leofric Missal, an eleventh-century MS. in the Bodleian Library, which describes how Eadulf, the [CH. I. first Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Crediton (A.D. 909-34), acquired three properties in Cornwall that he might more frequently visit the erroneous and unruly Church in that county. Its divergence from the Roman Church early in the eighth century had been complained of by Aldhelm Abbot of Malmesbury A.D. 705. (b) The absence of any allusion to a Roman mission or jurisdiction in the few surviving genuine writings of Celtic saints, Gildas, Fastidius, Aileran, Patrick, Sechnall, Fiacc, Columbanus, Columba, Cuminius, Adamnan. (c) The presence in such writings of passages which are inconsistent with any recognition of Roman mission or authority. St. Patrick in his Confession and his 'Epistola ad Corotici subditos' is not only silent as to any commission from a Bishop of Rome, but describes himself in general terms as a bishop in Ireland, deriving his commission directly from God Himself. The latter letter opens thus: 'Patricius peccator indoctus, Hiberione constitutus episcopus, a Deo accepi id quod sum.'

43 In other passages he attributes his Irish apostleship to an inward call, which he regarded as a divine command, and to a vision of a man (or an angel) in the night beckoning him over to Ireland. The earliest written records of St. Patrick, the Hymn attributed to St. Fiacc Bishop of Sletty, near Carlow, a convert and disciple of St. Patrick—the Hymn of St. Sechnall (S. Secundinus), another contemporary of St. Patrick, whose sister's son he is said to have been,—the ancient Life of St. Patrick, written by Muirchu Maccumachtheni at the dictation of Aedh Bishop of Sletty, (d. 698), and preserved in the Book of Armagh, all alike are silent as to any Roman mission of St. Patrick. The language of a later Irish saint—Columbanus—representing the attitude of that portion of the Celtic Church to Rome at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the [CH. I.

44 seventh century, is quite inconsistent with any theory of its Roman origin, and must sound strange in the ears of a modern Ultramontane. The position assumed by Columbanus, writing on the Continent to the Pope, substantially amounted to this: an acknowledgment of the Bishop of Rome as a true bishop of the Church of Christ, and of the need of courteous language in addressing the occupant of so distinguished a See, with, throughout, an implied assertion of exemption from his jurisdiction, and a claim to be allowed to criticise freely, and from the independent standpoint of an equal, the character and conduct of any Roman pontiff. The language which he used to Boniface IV is not that of a subordinate, but is couched in terms the freedom of which may have been resented then, but would certainly be resented now. He laments over the infamy attaching itself to the Chair of St. Peter in consequence of disputes at Rome. He exhorts the Pope to be more on the watch, and to cleanse his See from error, because it would be a lamentable thing if the Catholic faith was not held in the Apostolic See. He says that many persons entertain doubts as to the purity of the faith of the Roman bishop. He allows a high post of honour to the See of Rome, but second to that of Jerusalem, the place of our Lord's resurrection. He upbraids the Roman Church for proudly claiming a greater authority and power in divine things than was possessed by other Churches merely because of a certain fact recorded in the Gospels, and denied by no one, that our Lord entrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven to St. Peter, and points out that the prerogative of the keys stands upon a different basis, and must be wielded on other grounds.

45 Writers from a Roman standpoint have resorted to curious devices to escape the necessary inference from such passages. Dr. von Döllinger collects the courteous expressions contained in the Epistles of Columbanus, and deduces from them the conclusion that the Celtic saints 'recognised in the Roman Bishop the Head of the Church, and were in unbroken communion with him, and through him with the Church universal!' He sees in St. Columbanus' claim to Catholicity in a passage previously quoted 'a clear proof of the Roman mission of St. Patrick!' Ozanam's explanation of Columbanus' language is still more amazing. It is due 'to the disordered eloquence of the seventh century. This period was one of those in which thought, ceasing to be the mistress of language, betrays itself orbis terrarum caput et ecclesiarum, salva loci Dominicae resurrectionis singulari praerogativa.' Ep. iv. p. 143. [CH. I. either by an excess or defect of expression, whereby a writer says less than he means, or more than he means, seldom what he means to say.'

46 The whole subsequent history of the Celtic Church, both in these islands and on the continent, exhibits occasional proofs of its independence of, and hostility to, the claims of Rome. In A.D. 601 Gregory entirely ignored the existence of the Celtic bishops, as bishops, in his answer to Augustine's sixth question whether consecration by a single bishop is valid. 'Yes,' he replied, 'in the English Church, while you are the only bishop, you can only consecrate in the absence of other bishops. But when bishops shall come over from Gaul they will assist you as witnesses at the ordination of a bishop.' In answer to his seventh question Gregory committed all the bishops of Britain to his supervision and control, a position of subordination which they repudiated, not surely through any misapprehension of the nature and grounds of St. Augustine's claims, but because they ignored the theory of papal supremacy.

47 In A.D. 604 Augustine was succeeded in the See of Canterbury by one of his companions, Laurentius by name. 'Archbishop Laurence,' Bede tells us, 'not only attended to the charge of the new Church that was gathered from the English people, but also regarded with pastoral solicitude the old natives of Britain, and likewise the people of the Scots who inhabit the island of Ireland adjacent to Britain. For observing that the practice and profession of the Scots in their own country, and also those of the Britons in Britain itself, were less in accordance with Church order in many things, particularly because they used not to celebrate the solemnity of Easter at the proper time . . . he in conjunction with his fellow-bishops wrote them a letter of exhortation, beseeching and entreating them to keep the bond of peace and Catholic observance with that Church of Christ which is extended all over the world; of which letter these were the opening words: To our lords and most dear brethren the bishops or abbots throughout all Scotia, Laurentius, Mellitus, bishops, the servants of the servants of God.

48 When the Apostolic See, according to her practice in all the world, directed us to preach to the pagan nations in these western parts, and so it came to pass that we entered into this island which is called Britain, before we were acquainted with it, believing that they walked in the ways of the Universal Church, we felt a very high respect for the Britons as well as the Scots, from our great regard to their sanctity; but when we came to know the Britons we supposed the Scots must be superior to them. However, we have learned from Bishop Daganus coming into this island, and from Abbot Columbanus coming into Gaul, that the Scots differ not at all from the Britons in their habits; for Bishop Daganus, when he came to us, not only would not take food with us, but would not even eat in the same lodging where we were eating.'

49 Daganus was the Celtic bishop of Inverdaoile in Wexford. The Saxon Archbishop's letter cannot have had all the desired effect, for writing 127 years later (A.D. 731) Bede implies that the state of separation and the feelings of enmity between the two Churches remained at least unchanged. In fact they became gradually intensified. The Roman attitude towards the Celtic Church, both British and Irish, in the latter part of the seventh century was one of unmitigated hostility. Late in A.D. 664 St. Wilfrid went to France for consecration to his Northumbrian See, refusing to be consecrated at home by bishops out of communion with the See of Rome. The [CH I. whole of England, except Kent, East Anglia, Wessex, and Sussex, was at this time in communion with the Scoto-Celtic Church. Of the excepted parts, Sussex was still heathen. Wessex was under a Bishop Wini, in Gallican orders, and in communion with the British bishops. Kent and East Anglia alone remained in complete communion with Rome and Canterbury.

50 In A.D. 667 Pope Vitalian wrote to Oswy, saying that he would look out for a fit person to fill the Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury, a person who would eradicate the tares from the whole of the island, alluding under this expression to the clergy of the Celtic Church. We learn from the Penitential of Archbishop Theodore (A.D. 668-690) that the validity of its Orders was denied, if not entirely, at least so far as to need a fresh imposition of hands by a Catholic bishop; the consecration of its churches was not recognised; its members were refused communion, without first making a formal submission; and doubts were thrown out even as to the validity of their baptism. And the Arch- nobis necessarium est considerare, quomodo cum electione vestra sine accusatione Catholicorum virorum, ad gradum episcopalem cum dei adjutorio venire valeam; sunt enim hic in Britannia multi Episcopi, quorum nullum meum est accusare, quamvis veraciter sciam, quod aut quartadecimani sunt ut Britones, ut Scoti, aut ab illis sunt ordinati quos nec Apostolica sedes in communionem recipit, neque eos qui schismaticis consentiunt. Et ideo in multa humilitate a vobis posco, ut me mittatis cum vestro praesidio trans mare ad Galliarum regionem, ubi Catholici Episcopi multi habentur, ut sine controversia Apostolicae sedis, licet indignus, gradum Episcopalem merear accipere. Vit. S. Wilf. cap. xii. Eddius, like Bede, betrays a strong anti-Celtic bias, speaking of the 'schismatici Britanniae et Hiberniae' (ib. c. v.), and of 'peccatum ordinandi a Quartadecimanis in sedem alterius' (ib. c. xv).

51 1 'Ut ipse et viva voce et per divina oracula omnem inimici zizaniam ex omni vestra insula cum divino nutu eradicet.' Bede, II.E. iii. 29. The meaning of the passage is obvious from the context. 2 '1. Qui ordinati sunt a Scottorum vel Britonum episcopis, qui in Pascha vel tonsura catholici non sunt, adunati ecclesiae non sunt, sed iterum a catholico episcopo manus impositione confirmentur. 2. Similiter et aeeclesiae quae ab ipsis episcopis ordinantur, aqua exorcizata aspergantur et aliqua collectione confirmentur. 3. Licentiam quoque non habemus eis poscentibus crismam vel Eucharistiam dare, nisi ante confessi fuerint velle nobiscum esse in unitate ecclesiae. Et qui ex horum similiter gente vel quicunque de baptismo suo dubitaverit, baptizetur. Poenitentiale Theodori, ii. 9. bishop gave a practical proof that he meant what he said, by objecting to the regularity of Chad's consecration as Bishop of York (A.D. 665-6) because two of his consecrators, assistants of Wini of Winchester, had been British bishops, probably summoned from Cornwall for the purpose; and on Chad's transference to Mercia Theodore 'completed his consecration afresh in the Catholic manner,' A.D. 669.

52 In A.D. 687 the dying words of St. Cuthbert, himself a convert to Roman usage, with reference to that Celtic Church in which he had spent some thirty years of his life, exhibit much bitterness. 'Keep peace,' he said, 'one with another, and heavenly charity; and when necessity demands of you to hold counsel as to your state, take great care that you be of one mind in your conclusions; and, moreover, maintain mutual concord with other servants of Christ, and despise not the household of the faith who come to you seeking hospitality, but be careful to receive such persons, to entertain them, and to send them away with friendly kindness; and do not think you are better than other followers of the same faith and conversation; but with those that err from the unity of Catholic peace either by not celebrating Easter at the proper time, or by living perversely, have no communion.'

53 On the other hand, the members of the British Church reciprocated by in their turn regarding the Christianity of the Anglo-Saxons a thing of nought, and refusing to hold any intercourse with them. In the year A.D. 705, Aldhelm Abbot of Malmesbury, instructed by a West Saxon Synod, wrote a letter to Geruntius (Geraint) King of Damnonia (Devonshire and Cornwall), in which he complained that 'beyond the mouth of the Severn, the priests of Cambria, proud of the purity of their morals, have such a horror of [CH. I. communication with us, that they refuse to pray with us in the churches, or to seat themselves at the same table: more than this, what is left from our meals is thrown to dogs and swine, the dishes and bottles we have used have to be rubbed with sand or purified by fire, before they will condescend to touch them. The Britons give us neither the salutation nor the kiss of peace; and if one of us went to live in their country, the natives would hold no communication with him till after he had been made to endure a penance of forty days.'

54 Aldhelm then proceeds to assume that these British Christians, with their bishops, are outside the pale of the Catholic Church, and to assert in language, which has often been heard in more modern times, that it is impossible to be a Catholic and yet not in visible union with the See of St. Peter. 'We entreat you on our knees, in view of our future and common country in heaven, and of the angels our future fellow-countrymen, do not persevere in your arrogant contempt of the decrees of St. Peter and the traditions of the Roman Church, by a proud and tyrannical attachment to the decrees of your ancestors. Whatever may be the perfection of faith and good works, they are unprofitable out of the Catholic Church. . . . To sum up everything in one word, it is vain for any man to take credit to himself for belonging to the Catholic faith, so long as he rejects the doctrine and rule of St. Peter. For the foundation of the Church and the consolidation of the faith, placed first in Christ and secondly in St. Peter, will not waver before the assaults of any tempest. It was on St. Peter that the Truth Himself conferred the privilege of the Church, saying, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church.'

55 In A.D. 816, the Council of Celchyth, under Wulfred Archbishop of Canterbury and Kenulf King of Mercia, passed a resolution questioning the ordination of certain Irish clergy and the efficacy of Sacraments administered by them. The same state of antagonism between the Roman Church and the Celtic communities existed on the Continent. The Anglo-Saxon Winfrid, A.D. 680–755, better known as Boniface Archbishop of Mentz, and styled 'The Apostle of Germany,' regarded the Irish and British missionaries with whom he came in contact in Germany as little or nothing else than heretics. He induced Pope Gregory III (A.D. 731–741) to write a letter exhorting the bishops of Bavaria and Alemannia to reject the 'teaching and the ritual of the Gentiles,' and 'of those Britons who came there,' as well as of 'other false priests and heretics'. He delated two of them, Virgilius the Apostle of Carinthia, who had been known in Ireland as Ferghal Abbot of Aghabo, and Sidonius, to Pope Zachary A.D. 746, for incorrectly administering baptism, and though the Pope acquitted them on this score, Boniface secured their condemnation in the following year on a question of the existence and character of the antipodes. A third Irishman was charged with holding heretical views of baptism, and a fourth, named Clement, was condemned for heterodoxy A.D. 742, and afterwards imprisoned by Carloman.

56 The above facts present to our view a vast Celtic communion existing in Great Britain and Ireland, and sending its missions among the Teutonic tribes on the Continent, and to distant islands like Iceland; Catholic in doctrine and practice, and yet with its claims to Catholicity ignored or impugned by the Church of Rome; with a long roll of saints, every name of note on which is either that of one like [CH. I. St. Columbanus taking a line wholly independent of Rome, or, like Bishop Colman at the Synod of Whitby, directly in collision with her; having its own Liturgy, its own translation of the Bible, its own mode of chanting, its own monastic rule, its own cycle for the calculation of Easter; and presenting both internal and external evidence of a complete autonomy . On the other hand, Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs speak of 'the groundlessness of the so often alleged Orientalism of the early British Church,—Oriental in no other sense than that its Christianity originated like all Christianity in Asia, and found its way to Britain through (most probably) Lyons, and not through the then equally Greek Church of Rome, but without imprinting one single trace upon the British Church itself of any one thing in a peculiar sense Greek or Eastern Origin.

57 Oriental. Elsewhere Mr. Haddan speaks of 'the common but utterly groundless idea of a specially Greek origin of the British Church.' After such decided expressions of opinion from persons so qualified to form them, it is yet hoped that it may not be considered as labour thrown away to accumulate and lay before the reader the various converging facts which, though they do not establish a specially Oriental origin of the Celtic Church, yet go far to save such a theory from the charge of being 'utterly groundless,' and explain how it grew up. This theory is of course quite distinct from the ethnological question as to the origin of Celtic nations, and from the philological question as to the relation of the Celtic language to the Indo-Germanic family. Its discussion is complicated by the fact that the date of the evidence offered is sometimes difficult to ascertain. Such similarities as that of British weapons found in barrows, in form and alloy, to those found in the plains of Phœnicia, and of cromlechs and pillars in Ireland to stone monuments in Palestine, have reference to an original connection long anterior to the introduction of Christianity, and are chronologically irrelevant to the subject in hand. The similarity in these and other points between Cornwall, Ireland and the East, is almost certainly due to the fact that in the earliest historical times the great traders and navigators were the Phœnicians, who brought their commerce to these shores, and may have influenced the manners and customs of their inhabitants in their architecture, arts, and manners. With regard to the carved symbol of the Greek cross which is frequently found, but not in a majority of cases, on the ancient sculptured stones of Christian Scotland, while in Cornwall and Brittany the same form of the cross preponderates, and with regard to other supposed signs of [CH. I.

58 an Eastern origin said to be exhibited by the British Christian architectural remains in Cornwall, their use may be traced in all early Continental Western art, and is only due to the original connection of all Western Christianity with the East. Architectural Evidence.—Mr. Fergusson makes the following remarks on the general Eastern character of early Christian Irish architecture:— Ireland possesses what may properly be called a Celtic style of architecture, which is as interesting in itself as any of the minor local styles in any part of the world, and, so far as at present known, is quite peculiar to the island. None of the buildings of this style are large, though the ornaments of many of them are of great beauty and elegance. Their interest lies in their singularly local character and in their age, which probably extends from the fifth or sixth century to the time of the English conquest in 1176. They consist chiefly of churches and round towers... No Irish church of this period, now remaining, is perhaps even 60 feet in length, and generally they are very much smaller, the most common dimensions being from 20 to 40 feet. Increase of magnificence was sought more by extending the number than by augmenting the size. The favourite number for a complete ecclesiastical establishment was seven, as in Greece, this number being identical with that of the seven Apocalyptic Churches of Asia. Thus, there are seven at Glendalough, seven at Cashel, and the same sacred number is found at several other places, and generally two or three, at least, are found grouped together.

59 'No church is known to have existed in Ireland before the Norman Conquest that can be called a basilica, none of them being divided into aisles either by stone or wooden pillars, or possessing an apse, and no circular church has yet been found; nothing in short that would lead us to believe that Ireland obtained her architecture direct from Rome; while everything, on the contrary, tends to confirm the belief of an intimate connection with the farther East, and that her early Christianity and religious forms were derived from Greece by some of the more southerly commercial routes which at that period seem to have abutted on Ireland. 'Both in Greece and Ireland the smallness of the churches is remarkable. They never were, in fact, basilicas for the assembly of large congregations of worshippers, but oratories, where the priest could celebrate the divine mysteries for the benefit of the laity. It is not only at Mount Athos, and other places in Europe, but also in Asia Minor, that we find the method of grouping a large number of small churches together, seven being the favourite number and one often attained.'

60 A little further on Mr. Fergusson alludes to the still older class of antiquities—'the circular domical dwellings found in the west of the island, constructed of loose stones in horizontal layers, approaching one another till they meet at the apex like the old so-called treasuries of the Greeks, or the domes of the Jains in India.' Some words of Tertullian with reference to the Eastern sect of the Marcionites have been somewhat fancifully quoted as fitly describing these early Irish beehive-shaped buildings: 'Habent apes favos, habent et ecclesias Marcionitae,' &c. Similar Christian architectural remains have been found [CH. I. in Cornwall (A.D. 250-450), and are described by Mr. Borlase in his 'Age of the Saints.' In his Preface to the Sculptured Stones of Scotland Mr. Stuart quotes Dr. Wise's assertion that there is a striking similarity between the stone monuments of the East and those of Britain, and Mr. Chalmers' assertion that there are figures on some of the stones in Scotland identical with those on Gnostic gems.

61 These and such like facts, without amounting to proof, are suggestive of Eastern origin or influence, more probably the latter. On the other hand, the explanation which has already been given of the existence of Greek crosses in Cornwall may be extended to all the other points of architectural similarity between the early Christian remains of Great Britain and Ireland and those of the East. Palaeographical Evidence.—The palaeographical evidence is at first sight strongly in favour of an Eastern connection, though the tendency of recent writers and of fuller investigation has been to modify the extent of the connection, or even to deny it altogether. The distinctive style of ornamentation adopted or invented by native artists consisted of intricate designs formed— 1. By the use of dots, generally in different coloured inks. 2. By simple lines, straight or curved. 3. By the step-like angulated pattern. 4. By the Chinese-like z pattern.

62 5. By interlaced ribbons. 6. By interlaced zoomorphic patterns. 7. By various spiral patterns, which are by far the most characteristic of the whole. 8. By the formation of gigantic initial letters, sometimes occupying a whole page, which are filled up with geometrical designs of interlaced work, convoluted serpeutine figures, spiral ornaments, grotesque birds, insects, quadrupeds, &c. What is the origin of this style of Celtic art? A Roman origin is impossible, because not a single Italian MS. nor a single piece of Italian sculpture can be produced older than the ninth century having a close resemblance to those of this country. The illuminations in the Book of Kells find no exact parallel in Italy. They resemble Assyrian or Egyptian rather than Italian work. A Scandinavian origin, suggested by the existence of Runic inscriptions on stones found in various places, especially in the Isle of Man, is impossible, because all such stones are several centuries more recent than the oldest Celtic MSS., the writers of which had no intercourse with the inhabitants of Denmark or Norway.

63 An Eastern origin is suggested by the similarity of much of the Celtic ornamentation to that found in early Syriac, Egyptian, Ethiopic, &c. MSS., by a resemblance in the delineation of birds and animals to Egyptian fresco painting, in the manner of drawing the wings, in the conventional representations of eagles, lions, calves, &c., in the swathed mummy-like figures of Christ. The theory of such an origin is facilitated by the early commercial intercourse which is known to have existed between this country and the East, and by the frequent expeditions recorded to have been made by early Christian pilgrims of the Celtic Church to the Holy Land, and by the immigration of foreign ecclesiastics. On the other hand, it is rendered doubtful by the fact that work resembling Byzantine work, and some features of Oriental ornamentation, are to be found in very early MSS. not only in the East, but also throughout Western Christendom.

64 [CH. I. A peculiarity of Greek writing, sometimes adopted by Celtic scribes, as in the Scottish Book of Deer; the Welsh ninth-century Ovid preserved in the Bodleian Library (Auct. F. iv. 32); the Irish Stowe Missal (ff. 18, 20-24); consists in the written letters depending from the line above them, instead of resting on the line beneath. Another feature suggestive of Oriental influence is the introduction of the serpent as a common form of ornamentation in the elaborate illuminations of interlaced work which adorn the early Irish MSS. It is also prominent among Christian emblems on the rudely carved stone crosses, most of which are earlier than the ninth century, and some of which are coeval with the introduction of Christianity into these islands. This serpentine ornamentation reaches a climax on the case of St. Patrick's Bell (eleventh century), 'one side of which is beautified with stones with ornaments of fine gold representing serpents, curiously and elegantly intertwined in most intricate folds, and in various knots, like the complicated involutions in the collar of the Order of the Knights of St. Patrick. On one of the ends below the knob and ring by which it is suspended there are eight serpents so singularly infolded and intermingled with one

65 'The collection of many of these MSS. has also furnished additional though unlooked-for evidence that the ancient Church in these islands was independent of Rome, and that it corresponded, on the contrary, with the Eastern Churches. . . . These apparently trifling circumstances (ornamental details) seem to me to prove, more forcibly than the most laborious arguments, the connexion between the early Christians in these islands and those of the East, so strongly insisted on by various writers.' It is fair to add that in 1868 the Professor seems so far to have modified his opinion of the Eastern origin of the style of illumination as to speak of it as probable rather than as capable of positive proof; Facsimiles, &c., Introd. p. 5. another, that it requires minute attention and singular discrimination to trace each separately and to distinguish it from its fellows. Their eyes are skilfully formed of blue glass. Above the cross are four of the same kind, and in each of the four compartments into which it is divided there are two golden serpents in relief. Below the knob of suspension, on the opposite end or side, are six other serpents, with blue eyes, but differently intertwined. On the top is a strange representation of two of these creatures with two legs.

66 The serpent continued to make its appearance in the Ritual of the Anglo-Saxons, according to a traditional use possibly perpetuated from their Celtic predecessors. On Maundy Thursday, after Nones, a procession went down to the church door, bearing with it a staff which ended at the top in the shape of a serpent. There, fire, struck from a flint, was first hallowed, and then used for lighting a candle which came out of the serpent's mouth. From this all other candles were lighted; and the same ceremonial was repeated on Good Friday and Easter Eve. The serpent appears in the Mozarabic Liturgy, which contains the following rubric amid the ceremonial of Easter Eve: 'Hic exeat Subdiaconus cum cruce hoc ordine. Ceroferarii cum cereis pergant coram cruce; et cereus paschalis coram cereis, et serpens coram cereo,' &c. There is no evidence as to early Gallican usage on this point, but the serpent-rod was in use at Rouen as late as the commencement of the eighteenth century, and in England up to the sixteenth century.

67 Another custom common to Ireland and the East, though [CH. I. not exclusively confined to Ireland among Western nations, was that of providing their more precious sacred books with leather satchels called 'polaires,' furnished with straps for slinging round the shoulder, and ornamented in a kind of basso-relievo produced by stamping the leather. Woodcuts of the polaire of the Book of Armagh and of the shrine of St. Maidoc are given in Mr. Petrie's Round Towers, pp. 329, 322; Archæologia, vol. xliii. plate xiv. There are before the writer at this moment the leather satchel of the Irish Missal belonging to C. C. C. Library, Oxford, and the leather satchel of an Æthiopic MS. of about the same date belonging to St. John's College, Oxford. They resemble each other so closely in texture and design that they might be thought to have come from the same workshop. An independent origin is claimed for the Celtic style of ornamentation by some modern writers; as by Mr. French, who thinks that it is an imitation of the interlaced wicker-work of gigantic animals within which the natives in a pre-Christian period immolated their victims. The anonymous writer of a recent article on this subject gives it as his view that 'English interlacings and Irish spirals are not traditional or taught ornament, but the special fancies of a race;' and again, speaking of the miniatures in the Book of Kells the same writer says that 'they are constructed not without power or beauty, but with the quaintness which marks the work of an isolated Church, which owed Rome nothing, and to which Greece or Syria had taught nothing but the faith.'

68 Liturgical Evidence.—The monastic rule of the Celtic Church has been often ascribed to an Eastern origin. Its canons, so far as they can be judged from the extant remains of the Rules of St. Columba, Columbanus, Adamnan, &c., are not identical with any other Eastern or Western code. They are found on comparison rather to resemble the former than the latter in the greater severity of their regulations, which probably caused them to give way eventually before the milder Rule of St. Benedict, and in the appearance in the Rule of St. Columbanus of such Eastern words as paximacium, paracaraximus, Archimandrita, Nonnus. The scattered traces of Oriental influence in the remains of the Celtic Liturgy and Ritual may be summed up as consisting of the following points:— (a) The episcopal benediction immediately preceding the communion of the people, and sometimes bestowed in the Eastern fashion 3. (b) The veiling of women at the reception of the Eucharist 4. (c) The use of unleavened bread 5. (d) The custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays is spoken of by Archbishop Ussher as 'agreeable to the custom of the Grecian rather than of the Roman Church'. But there does not seem to be sufficient authority for drawing such a distinction. (e) Several of the points of Celtic Ritual, specified on p. 61 as Gallican, are Oriental in their origin.

69 Historical Evidence.—Mention may be made, in con[CH. I. nection with the above facts, of the constant allusions to the East, and especially to Jerusalem, in the legendary lives of the saints; e.g. in the legend connecting Scotland with St. Andrew as its patron saint, and describing the arrival of Regulus, a monkish pilgrim from the city of Constantinople, bringing the bones of the Apostle from the East. The oldest document containing this legend is of the twelfth century, and is printed in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots. So in the legendary lives of St. Bonifacius, St. Servanus, and of others enumerated in Haddan and Stubbs' Councils, &c., in the legendary consecration at Jerusalem, in the sixth century, of St. David first Bishop of St. David's, St. Teilo second Bishop of Llandaff, St. Patern Bishop of Llandabarn. Sometimes Eastern pilgrims visited Ireland. Seven Egyptian monks, buried at Disert Ulidh, are invoked in the Félire of Oengus.

70 Celtic saints sometimes referred to Eastern authority in self-defence, in their controversies with Rome. St. Columbanus, soon after the arrival of his mission in Gaul A.D. 590, protected himself from the charge of schism, and defended the Celtic mode of determining the fall of Easter, by referring to the authority of Anatolius Bishop of Laodicea, A.D. 270. He accused the continental Church of innovation; its computation having been altered by Sulpicius Severus A.D. 410, by Victorius of Aquitaine 450, by Dionysius Exiguus 525; and he finally declared to Pope Boniface his readiness to abide by the second canon of the Second Council of Constantinople, 'Let not bishops go out of their dioceses to churches out of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the Churches,' &c. At the Synod of Whitby, while St. Wilfrid urged the acceptance of the Roman calculation of the fall of Easter on the authority of St. Peter, Bp. Colman defended the Celtic cycle on the authority of St. John. 'Then Colman said, The Easter which I keep I received from my elders who sent me bishop hither; all our forefathers, men beloved of God, are known to have kept it after the same manner; and that the same may not seem to any contemptible or worthy to be rejected, it is the same which St. John the Evangelist, the disciple beloved of our Lord, with all the Churches over which he presided, is recorded to have observed.

71 British clergy are recorded to have visited Constantinople during the patriarchate of Methodius (842-847) for the sake of obtaining information about the Paschal cycle. The above facts go far to explain and justify the opinion that there must have been originally some connection between the Celtic and Oriental Churches. But this connection need not have been direct. The most probable hypothesis is that Christianity reached the British isles through Gaul, and that whatever traces of Eastern influence may be found in the earliest Liturgy and Ritual of Great Britain and Ireland are not due to a direct introduction of Christianity from the East, but to the Eastern character and origin of that Church through which Christianity first reached these shores. [CH. I. of the Gallican Church in the fierce persecution which raged in Gallica Celtica—the district round Lyons and Vienne—A.D. 177 probably brought Christian refugees across the Channel, and in accordance with a law of growth often exemplified in the early history of Christianity, the blood of Gallican martyrs became the seed of the British Church. This early Gallican Church was a colony from Asia Minor. Pothinus the first Bishop of Lyons had come directly from that country, bringing with him Irenaeus the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John. The names of its bishops and martyrs were Greek. The writings of its saints and some of its earliest extant inscriptions are in the same language. The account of its sufferings under Marcus Aurelius was sent by the Christians of Lyons and Vienne by letter to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia. Any features of Oriental ritual in the British Church may be accounted for and traced, as has been already suggested, through this intermediate Gallican channel.

72 Other proofs are forthcoming of the intercourse which existed at a subsequent date between these islands and France. Passages indicating an intercourse of the British and Gallican Churches during the first six centuries are found in the writings of the anonymous author of a tract De Septem Ordinibus Ecclesiae, Arnobius junior, St. Patrick, and Venantius Fortunatus. During the fourth and fifth centuries there was a constant emigration of British Christians into Armorica, and legendary lives exist of many saints who migrated from Wales or Cornwall into Brittany A.D. 450-600. The presence of loca Christo vero subdita . . . in quibus omnibus locis Christi nomen qui jam venit regnat . . . utpote in quibus omnibus locis populus nominis Christi inhabitet . . . Christi autem regnum et nomen ubique porrigitur, ubique creditur, ab omnibus gentibus supra enumeratis colitur, &c. Adv. Jud. vii. British bishops at various Gallican Councils is attested by their signatures, as at Tours A.D. 461, at Vannes 465, at Orleans 511, at Paris 555. Mansuetus the first Bishop of Toul was an Irishman; Mansuetus was also the name of the first known Breton bishop; St. Beatus Bishop of Lausanne, and Apostle of Switzerland (fourth century), was likewise Irish. There was also constant commercial intercourse between the two countries. Diodorus Siculus states that tin was exported from Britain to Gaul, and transported through Gaul to the mouths of the Rhone and to Narbonne. Strabo speaks generally of the exchange of commerce between Britain and Gaul. When St. Columbanus was at Nantes, and the authorities there wished to send him back to Ireland, an Irish merchant-ship was found lying in the harbour ready for the purpose. Gallic traders are reported to have visited Clonmacnois in the days of St. Kieran, A.D. 548-9. Gallic sailors with their ship came to Iona or its immediate neighbourhood in the sixth century.

73 The intimate connection between Wales and Brittany can be traced up to the eleventh century, when Rhys ap Tewdwr, the representative of the royal line of South Wales, took refuge there, returning thence to his throne in 1077 with the unanimous consent of the people. There are traces of the presence or influence of many Gallican bishops in England; St. Martin of Tours (371-97), Hilary of Poictiers (350-67), Victricius of Rouen (c. 407), [CH. I. Germanus of Auxerre (429 and 447), Lupus of Troyes (429), Severus of Treves (447), Gregory of Tours (573-95), and of Arculfus, who was entertained by Adamnan at Iona A.D. 686. We may also note the dedication of Celtic churches to Gallican saints; as in the case of the very ancient churches at Canterbury and Whithern to St. Martin; the many churches in Cornwall and Wales dedicated to St. Germanus; two churches in Glamorganshire dedicated to St. Lupus.

74 The missions, derived according to some accounts from Gallican sources, of St. Keby into Wales in connection with St. Hilary; of St. Ninian to Scotland, and of St. Patrick into Ireland, in connection with St. Martin. The employment by the British Church of the Paschal Cycle of Gaul as drawn up by Sulpicius Severus, the disciple of St. Martin, c. 410. The Irish Church followed the still earlier cycle of Anatolius. The use of the Gallican Psalter. The approximation to Gallican usage in certain features of the Liturgy and ritual; e. g. lections, proper prefaces, position of the benediction, the 'deprecatio' for the departed, the Hymnus trium puerorum, the use of ecclesiastical colours, of Eulogiae, of bracelets, crowns, &c. The observance of Rogation Days. The commemoration of S. Eugenia by name in the Canon of the Drummond Missal, as in the Gallican Missale Vesentionense (p. 207), where her name is added in the Commemoratio pro defunctis in the Canon, and where she is commemorated on Dec. 25 instead of S. Anastasia. Her name also appears on Dec. 25 in the Liber S. Trinitatis, a fourteenth-century Irish Martyrology; and also with that of St. Anastasia in the Sacramentary of Leo.

75 Whole passages, in addition to many isolated phrases, from the Gallican Liturgy appear in the Stowe Missal, and in the liturgical fragments in the Books of Deer, Dimma, and Mulling. The second and often-quoted question of St. Augustine to Gregory I, together with the papal answer, imply either the identity of the British and Gallican Liturgies, or that St. Augustine found the Gallican Rite in use in Britain; probably in the church of St. Martin at Canterbury, where Liudhard Bishop of Senlis, who had accompanied Queen Bertha from the court of Charibert at Paris, on her mar- Itali, quae de Graeco in Latinum a Symmacho et Aquila sumpta est secundum lux interpretes Ptolomaei regis. Gallica est qua precipue Galli utuntur. Haec autem praecipue sumpta est rogatu Damasi Papae a beato Hieronymo de Hebraeo ad sententiam.' Praefatio ad Psalmos, tom. viii. col. 423, fol. Basiliae, 1563. Until a complete collation shall have been made of the Celtic text of the Old Testament it is impossible to verify or refute the inference drawn by Ussher from the doubtful authority of Sedulius. The materials for such a collation are indicated in H. and S., i. pp. 170-198. They seem to prove the existence of a special Celtic revision of the text of the Vetus Latina.

76 [CH. I. riage with Ethelbert of Kent, would naturally have been using it. St. Augustine asked: 'Whereas the faith is one and the same, why are there different customs in different Churches, and why is one form of Mass observed in the holy Roman Church, and another in the Gallican Church?' To which St. Gregory replied: 'You know, my brother, the custom of the Roman Church, in which you remember you were bred up. But it pleases me that if you have found anything either in the Roman, or the Gallican, or any other Church, which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, you carefully make choice of the same, and sedulously teach the Church of the English, which as yet is new in the faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several Churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Choose, therefore, from every Church those things which are pious, religious, and upright, and when you have, as it were, made them up into one body, let the minds of the English people be accustomed thereto.'

77 In A.D. 380 certain Priscillianist bishops were banished from Spain to the Scilly Islands. The existence of a British See of Bretona in Gallicia in N.W. Spain is alluded to in the Council of Lugo (Lucus Augusti), A.D. 569. The Second Council of Braga, A.D. 572, is subscribed to by Mailoc, a British bishop, suffragan of Martin Archbishop of Braga. There are traces of the prevalence in Spain of the British mode of calculating Easter c. A.D. 590. The Fourth Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, can. 41, abolished a particular—probably the British—form of tonsure, said to have prevailed in Galicia, and to have caused an undesirable want of uniformity in Spain. It was subscribed by Metopius, a British bishop. The signature of an 'Episcopus Britonensis,' sometimes with a Gothic sometimes with a Celtic name, is found appended to the Councils of Toledo VII, A. D. 646; Toledo VIII, A. D. 653; Braga IV, A. D. 675; Toledo XIII, A. D. 683; Toledo XVI, A. D. 693. Traces of the existence of this British See of Britona or Britonia (Sedes Britoniensis) are found in lists as late as A.D. 1156; but the See had become merged in or united with that of Montenedo or Oviedo A.D. 830.

78 Passages which are found likewise in the Mozarabic Liturgy are incorporated in Celtic liturgical fragments in the Books of Deer, Dimma, Mulling, and in the Stowe Missal. The chief points of divergence were these:— 1. The Calculation of Easter.—There was a difference be[CH. I. tween the Roman and Celtic Churches in determining the date of Easter, which, though intrinsically of an unessential nature, became the crucial point of controversy in the seventh century, being prominently insisted on by St. Augustine at the Bangor conference with the seven British bishops. Some points in connection with it have been already alluded to. The real state of the controversy and the important facts to be remembered are these,—that before the Council of Nice the practice of the British harmonised with that of the Roman Church, the most ancient Roman table for Easter agreeing with that of the British Church; but that owing to its isolation from the rest of Western Christendom, the Celtic Church had never adopted the various alterations and improvements which, on astronomical and not on theological grounds, had been from time to time accepted by the Continental Church.

79 2. Baptism.—One of the conditions of union offered by St. Augustine to the British bishops was that of their consenting to administer baptism according to the custom of the Roman Church. Bede does not inform his readers in what the difference between the two baptismal rites consisted, but it probably lay in one or more of the following points:— (a) Single immersion.—The practice of immersion, as against affusion, is proved by the large size of still surviving fonts, such as the font of sixth-century workmanship found at St. Brecan's Bed, and another of twelfth-century workmanship at Cashel, in the chapel of Cornac King of South Munster (1123–38). Single immersion was the custom 'in tota diocesi Macloviensi' in Brittany up to A.D. 1620. It prevailed in the sixth century in Spain, where Gregory I advised its retention under the peculiar circumstances in which the Spanish Church stood at that time with regard to Arianism, and where a British bishopric existed at that date. It is left optional in the three extant 'Ordines Baptismi' of the ancient Gallican Church, while a rubric directing trine immersion is contained in the earliest Ordines Romani. Trine immersion, with the alternative of aspersion, is ordered in the earliest extant Irish Baptismal Office, in the composition of which however Roman influence is strongly marked.

80 (b) The omission of unction.—Lanfranc complained to Tirlagh, chief king of the Irish A.D. 1074, that the Irish baptized their infants without any chrism; and St. Bernard asserted in the twelfth century that they omitted confirmation. This almost incredible accusation of the disuse of confirmation is possibly based on the fact that unction was sometimes omitted in that rite as administered in the Celtic Church. Alcuin sent a present of some oil to a lector named Colcu in Ireland in the eighth century, and requested him to distribute it among the bishops because oil was scarce, a fact which suggests that the occasional omission of unction may have been due to the difficulty of obtaining the necessary material. But if St. Bernard's exaggerated accusations were true of the Irish in the twelfth century they do not apply to an earlier date. St. Patrick, writing to the subjects of Coroticus c. A.D. 497, alludes to chrism, along with the sign of the cross and the white chrism, as all connected with the baptismal rite. The [CH. I.

81 earliest extant Irish Baptismal Office—in the volume known as the Stowe Missal—enjoins three separate acts of unction:— (i) At an early point in the service between the interrogations of the candidate: 'Deinde tanges pectus dorsum de oleo et crismate.' (ii) Shortly before the act of Baptism: 'Incipit oleari oleo et crismate in pectus et item scabulas antequam baptizaretur.' (iii) Immediately after Baptism: 'Postquam baptizaretur oleatur cresmate in cerebrum in fronte.' The personal formula following, with the vernacular rubric introducing it, is peculiar to the Stowe Missal. Of these three rites, (i) is unrepresented in the present Roman Ordines Baptismi; (ii) is directed to be performed with the oil of the catechumens only; (iii) is performed somewhat differently: 'perungat verticem Electi in modum crucis' (Ordo Bapt. Adult.), 'ungit infantem in summitate capitis,' &c. (Ordo Bapt. Parvulor.) (c) The 'Pedilacium,' or ceremonial washing of the feet after baptism. In connection with the subject it may be mentioned that one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon decrees, under Augustine, provided for the invocation of each Person of the Holy Trinity in Baptism. Pope Zachary writing to Boniface of Mentz A.D. 748 told him that the following canon on Baptism had been passed in England A.D. 597-603: 'Dinoscitur ut quicunque sine invocatione Trinitatis lotus fuisset, quod sacramentum regenerationis non haberet . . . Hoc quoque observasse in supradicta synodo sacerdotes, ut qui vel unam

82 Leoghaire were clothed in white garments after their baptism by St. Patrick. Book of Armagh, fol. 12a. Ch. iii. § 14. Personam de Trinitate in baptismo non nominaret, illud baptismum esse non posset, quod pro certo verum est quia qui Unum ex sancta Trinitate confessus non fuerit perfectus Christianus esse non potest. In describing the proceedings of the Synod of Cashel A.D. 1172 Benedict of Peterborough mentions the following curious facts: 'In illo autem concilio statuerunt, et auctoritate summi pontificis praeceperunt, pueros in ecclesia baptizari, In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, et hoc a sacerdotibus fieri praeceperunt. Mos enim prius erat per diversa loca Hiberniae, quod statim cum puer nasceretur, pater ipsius vel quilibet alius eum ter mergeret in aqua. Et si divitis filius esset, ter mergeret in lacte.' Archbishop Theodore's doubts of the validity of British Baptism have been noticed. If there was any reason for supposing that the abuses in Ireland in the twelfth century had any counterpart in England in the seventh century, they would have been justifiable. It is curious that the formula of Baptism is omitted in the Office preserved in the Stowe Missal.

83 3. The Tonsure.—The Roman tonsure was formed by the top of the head being shaved close, and a circle or crown of hair left to grow around it. The Eastern tonsure, styled St. Paul's, was total. The Celtic tonsure consisted in shaving all the hair in front of a line drawn over the top of the head from ear to ear. The Roman party traced their form of tonsure to St. Peter, and attributed that of their opponents to Simon Magus. Abbot Ceolfrid discussed the subject at length in his letter to Nectan King of the Picts A.D. 710. [CH. I. Although not brought forward by St. Augustine, this question of the tonsure (together with that of Easter) formed the subject of the most frequent and violent controversy in Britain during the seventh century. There are traces of the same controversy in France, where a Saxon colony at Bayeux had copied the Celtic tonsure from the Bretons before A.D. 590; and in Spain, where a tonsure like the Celtic was condemned by the fourth Council of Toledo.

84 4. The Ordinal. (a) The Consecration of Bishops by a single Bishop.— In the Life of St. Kentigern it is related that he was consecrated to the episcopate by a single bishop who had been summoned from Ireland for that purpose, according to the custom of the Britons and Scots. A similar fact is recorded in the legendary lives of the Welsh SS. David, Dubricius, Teilo, &c. There is a curious legend of the consecration of St. Columba by Bishop Etchain, who conferred on him priest's instead of bishop's orders by mistake. Was this the flaw which caused Archbishop Theodore to suspect the imperfection of Celtic Orders, and think it necessary to confirm the consecration of Chad to the see of York? That consecration had been performed by Wini Bishop of Winchester, assisted by two British bishops, A.D. 665, but such assistance may have been regarded as valueless. In Ireland the custom of single consecration still obtained in the eleventh century, and was complained of by St. Anselm writing to the Irish king Tirlagh, A.D. 1074, and by Lanfranc writing to King Muriardach, A.D. 1100. It is strange that such a custom should have prevailed in the British Church, as three of its bishops had been present and had subscribed to the canons of the Council of Arles, A.D. 314, which ordered that at least three, and if possible seven, bishops should take part in every episcopal consecration.

85 (4) The Lections of Scripture used in the British Ordinal differed from those in use in other Western Ordinals. Their variations are exhibited in the following table:— BRITISH ORDINAL. (From Gildas.): At Ordination. 1 Pet. i. 3, 13, 14, 22; ii. 1, 9. Acts i. 15, 16. 'Secunda Lectio Pauli.' 1 Tim. iii. 1 &c. Matt. xvi. 16-18. GALLICAN ORDINAL. (From Lectionarium Lux-oviense.): Ordination of Deacons. Exek. xliv. 15, 16. 1 Tim. iii. 8-13. Luke ix. 57-62. Of Priests. Tit. i. 1-6. Luke xii. 42-44. Of Bishops. Mol. i. 6-11. 1 Cor. ix. 7-12. Luke xx. 45-xxi. 4. ROMAN ORDINAL. (From Div. Hieron. Comes Pamelii Liturg. ii. 60.): Ordination of Deacons. 1 Tim. iii. 8. John xii. 24. Of Priests. Ecclus. xxxv. 2. Matt. xxiv. 42. Of Bishops. Matt. x. 1; xxiv. 42. Mark vi. 6. Luke x. 1. John x. 12; xii. 24. 1 Tim. iii. 1. Tit. i. 7.

86 St. Gregory, in his celebrated answers to St. Augustine, distinctly recognised the validity of consecration by single bishops in case of necessity, and authorised and commissioned him to consecrate single-handed. 'Truly in the Church of the English, in which as yet you are found the only bishop, you cannot ordain a bishop otherwise than without other bishops.' Bede, H. E. i. 27. Respons. vi. St. Anselm said, 'Episcopi quoque qui debent esse forma et exemplum aliis canonicae religionis, inordinate, sicut audimus, aut a solis episcopis, aut in locis, ubi non debent, consecrantur.' Ussher, Vet. Epist. Hibern. Sylloge, Ep. xxxv; also in Ep. xxxvi. Lanfranc complained 'Quod episcopi ab uno episcopo consecrantur.' Ib. Ep. xxvii. 2 'Ut sine tribus episcopis nullus episcopus ordinetur. De his qui usurpant sibi quod soli debeant episcopos ordinare, placuit ut nullus hoc sibi praesumat nisi assumptis secum septem aliis episcopis: si tamen non potuerit septem infra tres non audeat ordinare.' Mansi, Conc. tom. ii. p. 474. can. xx.

87 [CH. I. (c) The anointing of the hands of deacons and priests at ordination. This custom, together with the above use of lections, is vouched for by the contemporaneous authority of Gildas: 'Recurrere tandem aliquando usque ad lectiones illas, quae ad hoc non solum ut recitentur, sed etiam adstipulentur benedictioni, qua initiantur sacerdotum vel ministrorum manus,' &c. The earliest extant formula for such unction is found in the Pontifical of the Anglo-Saxon Egbert Archbishop of York (732-766), and runs as follows:—

'Ad Ordinandos Presbiteros. — (1) Consecratio Manus.

88 (2) Benedic, Domine, et sanctifica has manus sacerdotis tui Ill. ad consecrandas hostias quae pro delictis atque neglegentiis populi offeruntur, et ad cetera benedicenda quae ad usus populi necessaria sunt; et praesta, quaesumus, ut quaecunque benedixerint benedicentur, et quaecunque sacrauerint sacrentur, Saluator mundi, qui uinis et regnas. (3) Faciens crucem sanctam de chrismate in manibus eius (uel eorum) et dicis: (4) Consecrentur manus istae, quaesumus, Domine, et sanctificentur; per istam sanctam unctionem et nostram invocationem, adque diuinam benedictionem, ut quodquod benedixerint sit benedictum, et quodquod sanctificauerint sit sanctificatum. Per.

(5) Consecratio capitis oleo.

89 (6) Unguatur et consecretur caput tuum coelesti benedictione in ordine sacerdotali, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Pax tibi. Presp. Et cum Spiritu tuo.' In the ordination of deacons in the same Pontifical there is the following rubric and collect:— (7) 'Consecratio manuum Diaconi de oleo sancto et chrisma. (8) Consecrentur manus, iste, quaesumus Domine, et sanctificentur per istam unctionem, ut quaecunque benedixerint benedicta sint, et quaecunque sanctificauerint sanctificata sint. (1) and (4) are found in the Gregorian Sacramentary; not in the Gelasian; and in three ninth-century Gallican Sacramentaries. The rubric and formula for the unction of the hands in the consecration of priests, in the present Roman Pontifical, are as follows:— 'Pontifex cum oleo catechumenorum inungit unicuique ambas manus, simul junctas, in modum crucis, producendo cum pollice suo dextero in dictum oleum intincto duas lineas, videlicet, a pollice dexterae manus usque ad indicem sinistrae, et a pollice sinistrae usque ad indicem dexterae, ungendo mox totaliter palmas, dicens, dum quemlibet inungit:

90 Consecrare et sanctificare digneris, Domine, manus istas per istam unctionem et nostram benedictionem. R. Amen. Pontifex producit manu dextera signum crucis super manus illius, quem ordinat, et prosequitur: Ut quaecunque benedixerint benedicantur, et quaecunque consecruauerint consecrentur et sanctificentur in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Amen.' [CH. I. The anointing of the hands at the ordination of deacons [(7) and (8)] is not found in any form of the Roman Ordinal, ancient or modern, nor in any Gallican Ordinal. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon Ordinals of St. Dunstan, of Egbert, of Bec; and is asserted by Martene to have been a peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon Church. With the passage of Gildas in view, it seems a safe inference that it was imported into the Anglo-Saxon Ordinal from the more ancient forms of the British Church. A similar inference has been drawn with reference to the following points, but with less certainty, as there is no passage of Gildas, or other Celtic author, which can be produced to throw light on the earlier British practice.

91 (d) The Prayer at the giving of the stole to deacons at Ordination:— 'In nomine sanctae Trinitatis et unicae divinitatis accipe stolam quam tibi Dominus per humilitatis nostrae famulatum, seu per manus nostras, accipiendam praeparavit; per quam seias sarcinam Domini Dei tui cervicibus tuis impositam, et ad humilitatem atque ministrationem te esse connexum, et per quam te cognoscant fratres tui ministrum Dei esse ordinatum, ut qui in diaconatus ministerio es constitutus, leuitice benedictionis ordine clarescas, et spiritali conversatione praefulgens gratia sanctificationis eluecas; sed et in Christo Jesu firmus et stabilis perseveres, quatenus hoc quod per hanc stolam significatur in die districti iudicii ante tribunal Domini siue macula representare ualeas; ipso auxiliante cui est honor et gloria in saecula saeculorum. Amen.' deservimus, ecclesia, neutris agitur.' Martene expresses his astonishment at this passage. Certainly Amalarius (ob. 837), writing some years previously, had asserted the custom in the case of the ordination of priests: 'Hunc morem tenent episcopi nostri; manus presbyterorum ungunt de oleo.' De Div. Off. lib. ii. c. 13. Rodolph and Amalarius were familiar with Gallican, and perhaps also with Anglo-Saxon Ritual.

92 This prayer is found in the Winchester Pontifical, and in the English Pontificals of Egbert and St. Dunstan at Paris, and in that of Jumièges, but not in any other Western ordinals. (e) Rite of delivering the book of the Gospels to Deacons at Ordination. This rite, which is now in general use in the Roman Church, is not found in any of the Ordines Romani in the Western Pontificals prior to A. D. 1000, except in the above-mentioned Pontificals of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The words with which it is there accompanied are these:— [CH. I. mentioned, whence it probably spread, like the Delivery of the Gospels, into the rest of Western Christendom. The Pontifical of Egbert contains the following directions:— 'Presbyter cum ordinatur, circumdentur humeri eius cum stola ab episcopo. Quando datur stola Presbytero. Stola(m) iustitiae circumdet Dominus cervicem tuam et ab omni corruptione peccati purificet Dominus mentem tuam.'

93 The same reason exists as in (c) for supposing a Celtic origin for this rite. 5. Peculiar mode of consecrating Churches and Monasteries. (a) Celtic Churches as a rule, to which those of St. Martin and of the 'Quatuor Coronati' at Canterbury and that of St. Martin at Whithern must be considered exceptions, were not named after departed saints, but after their living founders. On one occasion Archbishop Theodore supplied an Anglo-Roman dedication to the wooden cathedral which had been built some fourteen years previously at Lindisfarne by the Celtic Bishop Finan. Bede narrates how (A.D. 651) 'Aidan, the Bishop, having departed this life, Finan, who was ordained and sent by the Scots, succeeded him in the bishopric, and built a cathedral church in the isle of Lindisfarne; nevertheless after the manner of the Scots, he made it not of stone, but of hewn oak, and covered it with reeds; and the same was afterwards dedicated in honour of St. Peter the Apostle by the most reverend Archbishop Theodore.' The dedications of Celtic churches may be divided into two classes, those to native saints before the existence of the Anglo-Saxon Church, those to saints in the Anglo-Saxon or Roman Calendar imposed at a later date. Sometimes the earlier dedication lingered on in use by the Celtic population, side by side with the later one, as in the case of 'St. Elider and St. James,' 'St. Beuno and St. Michael,' 'St. Dogmael and St. Thomas' &c. in Wales; 'St. Mawnanus and St. Stephen,' 'St. Manacus and St. Dunstan,' 'St. Meran and St. Thomas a Becket' in Cornwall.

94 (b) The consecration of a church or monastery was preceded by a long fast. Bishop Cedd of the East Saxons (653-664) told Æthelwald, King of Deira, that 'it was the custom of those from whom he had learned a rule of regular discipline that they should first consecrate with prayer and fasting those places which had been newly obtained for founding a monastery or church.' Accordingly he fasted 'for the whole forty days of Lent,' and the exercise of fasting and prayer being completed he built a monastery, which is now called Lastingham, and established it with religious customs, according to the practice of Lindisfarne, where he had been educated.

6. The Liturgy and the Ritual of the Mass.

95 The surviving fragments of the Celtic Liturgy have been put together in ch. iii, and the information which can be gleaned about its ritual is contained in ch. ii. It will therefore be sufficient to group together here certain passages which supply historical evidence of the existence of a Liturgy, other than the Roman, in these islands. In England and Wales.—The use of a Liturgy here, certainly different from the Roman, and either identical with or very like the Gallican Liturgy, is an inference from the second of the questions put by Augustine to Gregory I, and from that [CH. I. Pope's reply. It is strengthened by the language in which Augustine addressed the British bishops at the Synod of Bangor: 'In many respects you act in a manner contrary to our customs, and indeed to those of the Universal Church; and yet if you will obey me in these three things; to celebrate Easter at the proper time; to perform the office of baptism, in which we are born again to God, according to the custom of the Holy Roman and Apostolic Church; and to join us in preaching the word of God to the English people (Anglorum genti), we will tolerate all your other customs, though contrary to our own.' The last clause almost certainly includes a difference of Liturgy, which however Augustine had previously received instructions from Gregory not to elevate into a casus belli.

96 Gildas c. A.D. 570 had asserted a difference between the British and Roman Liturgies in these words: 'The Britons are at variance with the whole world, and are opposed to Roman customs, not only in the Mass, but also in their tonsure.' The Council of Clovesho, A.D. 747, can. xiii, ordered the general adoption of Roman Sacramental usages throughout the English dioceses: 'Tertio decimo definitur decreto: Ut uno codemque modo Dominicae dispensationis in carne sacrosanctae festivitates, in omnibus ad cas rite competentibus rebus, id est, in Baptismi officio, in Missarum celebratione, in cantilenae modo celebrantur, juxta exemplar videlicet quod scriptum de Romana habemus Ecclesia. Itemque ut per gyrum totius anni natalitia sanctorum uno codemque die, juxta martyrologium ejusdem Romanae Ecclesiae, cum sua sibi convenienti psalmodio seu cantilena venerentur.' This passage proves that in A.D. 747 the Roman Liturgy was only in partial, not in universal use in England. Possibly the Gregorian Canon had been introduced in some places without the whole service having been assimilated to the Roman type, as is concluded, from an examination of the old Gallican Liturgies, to have been the case in France.

97 The Irish Catalogue of the Saints, A.D. 750, asserts that a British Liturgy, different from St. Patrick's, had been introduced into Ireland, in the latter half of the sixth century, by St. David, St. Cadoc, and Gildas. At the close of the eighth century the Scottish Liturgy was said to be still in daily use in the church of York, and Alcuin writing from France (790-800) urged Archbishop Eanbald to abolish it, just as Charles the Great, in 789, had ordered the Roman rite to be substituted everywhere in France for the old Gallican Liturgy. In Ireland.—The following account of the origin of the Scottish (=Irish) Liturgy, and of the British (after A.D. 429) assumed to be the same, tracing it through Germanus and Lupus to St. Mark and distinguishing it from the Gallican, was drawn up by some foreign Scoto-Irish monk probably in the eighth century:— [CH. I. Cursus Gallorum.—Inde postea relatione beati Photini martyris, cum quadraginta et octo martiribus retrusi in ergastulum, relatione ad beatum Clementem IV loci successorem beati Petri Apostoli deportaverunt, et beatum Irenaeum Episcopum beatus Clemens ordinavit. Hoc in libro sancti ipsius Irenaei, Episcopi et martiris, reperies. Edoctus a beato Polycarpo Smyrnaeorum Episcopo et martyre, qui fuit discipulus Johannis Apostoli, sicut refert Historiographus Josephus, et Irenaeus Episcopus, in suo libro.

98 Johannes Evangelista primum cursum Gallorum decantavit; inde postea beatus Polycarpus discipulus Sancti Johannis; inde postea Irenaeus qui fuit Episcopus Lugdunensis Gallei, tertius ipse, ipsum cursum decantaverunt in Galleis. Inde per diversorum prudentium virorum, et modulationibus, series Scripturarum Novi ac Veteris Testamenti diversorum prudentium virorum paginis, non de propriis sed de sacris Scripturis, reciproca, antiphonas, et responsus seu sonus, et alleluyas composuerunt; et per universum mundum peragravit, atque per universum orbem terrarum Ecclesiae ordo cursus Gallorum diffusus est. Quem beatus Hieronimus presbiter, et Germanus et Lupus Episcopi, Pelagianam haeresim (non sicut multi opinantur et Gallicanus quidam clericus Britto modulatione deditus, quod ipsum edidisset, quod non fecit) quod beatus Hieronimus presbiter, Germanus et Lupus, Pelagianam haeresim vel Gallianam (quae nomen ipsius titulatur) ex Britannis et Scotiis provinciis expulerunt. Cursus Scottorum.—Unde et alium cursum, qui dicitur praesenti tempore Scottorum, quae sit opinione, jactatur. Sed beatus Marcus Evangelista, sicut refert Josephus et Eusebius in libro quarto, totum Aegyptum vel Italiam taliter praedicaverunt sicut unam Ecclesiam, ut omnis sanctus, vel Gloria in Excelsis Deo, vel Oratione Dominica, et Amen, universi tam viri quam foeminae decantarent. Tanta fuit sua praedicatio unita, et postea Evangelium ex ore Petri Apostoli edidit.

99 Beatus Hieronimus affirmat, ipsum cursum, qui dicitur praesenti tempore Scottorum, beatus Marcus decantavit, et post ipsum Gregorius Nanzianzenus, quem Hieronimus suum magistrum esse affirmat. Et beatus Basilius, frater ipsius sancti Gregorii, Antonius, Paulus, Macarius, vel Johannes et Malchus, secundum ordinem Patrum decantaverunt. Inde postea beatissimus Cassianus, qui Linerensi monasterio beatum Honorium habuit comparem. Et post ipsum beatus Honoratus primus abba, et sanctus Caesarius Episcopus qui fuit in Arelata, et beatus Porcarius abbas, qui in ipso monasterio fuit, ipsum cursum decantaverunt, qui beatum Lupum et beatum Germanum monachos in eorum monasterio habuerunt. Et ipsi sub normam reguli ipsum cursum ibidem decantaverunt, et postea in Episcopatus cathedra summi honoris, pro reverentia sanctitatis eorum, sunt adepti. Et postea in Britannis vel Scotiis praedicaverunt, quae Vita Germani Episcopi Autisiodorensis, et Vita beati Lupi adfirmant. Qui beatum Patricium spiritaliter litteras sacras docuerunt atque innutrierunt, et ipsum Episcopum pro eorum praedicatione Archiepiscopum in Scotiis et Britannis posuerunt; qui vixit annos CLIII, et ipsum cursum ibidem decantavit.

100 Et post ipsum beatus Wandilochus senex, et beatus Gomogillus, qui habuerunt in eorum monasterio monachos circiter tria millia. Inde beatus Wandilochus in praedicationis ministerium a beato Gomogillo missus est, et beatus Columbanus, partibus Galliarum; destinati sunt Luxogilum monasterium, et ibidem ipsum cursum decantaverunt. Et inde postea percrebuit forma sanctitatis eorum per universum orbem terrarum, et multa coenobia ex eorum doctrina, tam virorum quam puellarum, sunt congregata. Et postea inde sumpsit exordium sub beato Columbano, quod ante beatus Marcus Evangelista decantavit. Et si nos non creditis, inquirite in Vita beati Columbani et beati Eustacii abbatis; plenius invenietis, et dicta beati Athleti abbatis Edbovensis. Cursus alius Orientalis.—Est alius cursus Orientalis a sancto [CH. I. Cromacio, et Eliodoro, et beato Paulino, seu Athanasio Episcopo editus, qui in Gallorum consuetudine non habetur; quem sanctus Macarius decantavit, hoc est, per duodenas, hoc est, unaquaeque ora. Cursus S. Ambrosii.—Est et alius cursus, quem refert beatus Augustinus Episcopus, quem beatus Ambrosius papa propter haereticorum ordinem dissimilem composuit, qui in Italia antea decantabatur.

101 Cursus S. Benedicti.—Est et alius cursus beati Benedicti, qui ipsum singulariter pauco discordante a cursu Romano; in sua regula repperies scriptum. Sed tamen beatus Gregorius, urbis Romae pontifex, quasi privilegium monachis, ipsum sua auctoritate in Vita S. Benedicti in libro Dialogorum affirmavit; ubi dixit, "Non aliter sanctus vir docere poterat, nisi sicut ipse beatus Benedictus vixit." Another document, drawn up about the middle of the eighth century, is entitled 'Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae secundum diversa tempora.' It is believed to be the work of Tirechan, the author of the Annotations on the Life of St. Patrick in the Book of Armagh. It gives the following information, which is generally accepted as historical:— 'A. D. 440(?)–534. The first order of Catholic saints was in the time of Patricius; and then they were all bishops, famous and holy, and full of the Holy Ghost; 350 in number, founders of churches. They had one head, Christ; and one chief, Patricius; they observed one mass, one celebration, one tonsure from ear to ear. They celebrated one Easter, on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox; and what was excommunicated by one Church, all excommunicated. They rejected not the services and society of women; because founded on the Rock of Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation. This order of saints continued for four reigns. All these bishops were sprung from the Romans, and Franks, and Britons, and Scots.

102 'A.D. 534-572. The second order was of Catholic presbyters. For in this order there were few bishops, and many presbyters, in number 300. They had one head, our Lord. They celebrated different masses, and had different rules; one Easter, on the fourteenth moon after the equinox; one tonsure, from ear to ear; they refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries. This order has hitherto lasted for four reigns. They received a mass from Bishop David, and Gillas and Docus, the Britons. 'A.D. 572-666. The third order of saints was of this sort:—They were holy presbyters and a few bishops; 100 in number; who dwelt in desert places, and lived on herbs and water, and the alms; they shunned private property; they had different rules and masses, and different tonsures, for some had the coronal, and others the hair [behind]; and a different Paschal festival. For some celebrated the Resurrection on the fourteenth moon or on the sixteenth, with hard intentions. These lived during four reigns, and continued to that great mortality [A.D. 666].'

103 In Scotland.—There are no historical documents extant about the character of the ancient Scottish Liturgy. The existence of such a Liturgy is proved by the character of the solitary fragment in the Book of Deer; by the frequent Liturgical and Ritual allusions in the works of Adamnan and other writers of the Celtic Church in Scotland; by the account of the steps taken by Queen Margaret to get it abolished in the eleventh century. St. Serf is said in the Aberdeen Breviary to have lived 'sub forma et ritu primitivae Ecclesiae'. When Palladius arrived in Scotland he is said to have found persons 'habentes fidei doctores et sacramentorum ministros presbiteros et monachos, primativae ecclesiae solum modo sequentes ritum et consuetudinem.' At Culross he found St. Serf 'virum devotum, mansuetum, et pium quem, ejus exigentibus meritis, catholicum juxta Romanae Ecclesiae morem rite ordinavit episcopum, et in eadem fide divinitus informavit,' &c. Passing on through Scotland, 'ecclesias consecravit, vestimentis sacerdotalibus modum imposuit, et ab eisdem horas canonicas dicendas, prout ecclesia instituebat Romana, sollenniter jussit.' The use of the old Scottish Liturgy at York has been already alluded to.