Subject to the necessary
limitations
of one man's life and powers, and
to the exceptions already described, Patrick was both the converter of
Ireland to the Christian religion, and the founder and organiser of the
Church in that island.
to the exceptions already described, Patrick was both the converter of
Ireland to the Christian religion, and the founder and organiser of the
Church in that island.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
), Begistrum Sacrum Anglicanum, 2nd edit.
Oxford, 1897. Appendix vn.
s Leabhar Breac, fol. 62 a. s Ibid. fol. 81.
ch. xvi (a). 32—2
## p. 500 (#532) ############################################
500 Orthodoxy of the Britons
There is no serious doubt about the orthodoxy of the British Church.
Gildas accuses its clergy of immorality, and of venality, not of heresy.
On the other hand testimony to its orthodoxy is plentiful. Athanasius
stated that the British Churches had signified by letter to him their
adhesion to the Nicene faith. Chrysostom 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. " Jerome asserted that " Britain in common with Rome,
Gaul, Africa, Persia, the East, and India, adores one Christ, observes
one rule of faith. " Venantius Fortunatus speaks of Britain cherishing
the faith, and Wilfrid himself, though openly hostile to the British
Church, asserted before a Council held in Rome in 680 that the true
Catholic faith prevailed throughout the British, Irish, and Pictish as well
as the English race, thus claiming for the whole Keltic Church in these
islands what Columbanus claimed for his own Irish Church, when he told
Pope Boniface that it was not schismatical or heretical, but that it held
the whole Catholic faith1.
But in defending the orthodoxy of the British Church we must not
be supposed to mean that no heretical opinions ever obtained temporary
ground, or attracted individuals.
Victricius, bishop of Rouen, came to Britain c. 896 at the request
of the bishops of North Italy. Nothing is known of the purpose of his
journey, except that in his own language it had to do with the making
of peace, it has been conjectured, in connexion with the attempted
introduction of Arianism, or of some other form of false doctrine. In
429 Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, bishop of Troyes, were
sent by a Gallican synod according to Constantius, but by Pope Celes-
tine according to Prosper, to Britain to stem Pelagianism, and in 447
the same Germanus, and Severus, bishop of Treves, came to Britain for
the same purpose. Pelagianism would naturally establish a footing in
Britain because Pelagius himself was most probably a Briton by birth,
a member of one of those Gaelic families who had crossed from Ireland
and settled themselves on the south-western coast of Great Britain'.
His companion Caelestius, no doubt, was an Irishman, but Faustus of
Riez and Fastidius, both semi-Pelagian authors, were the first a Breton,
the second British, and the same may be surmised of a certain Agricola,
1 A serious attack on the orthodoxy of the British Church has been recently
made by Mr F. C. Conybeare, who seeks to prove that this Church held heretical
views about the Trinity, and did not use the Trinitarian formula in the administra-
tion of baptism (Cymmrodorion Transactions, 1897-8). It is impossible here to follow
him point by point; it must suffice to say that he does not seem to have proved bis
case.
* Bury, J. B. , Life of St Patrick, p. 15.
## p. 501 (#533) ############################################
Remains left by the British Church 501
the son of a Pelagian bishop named Severianus, who taught and spread
Pelagianism in Britain, as Prosper tells us sub an. 429. Their names
have more a Roman than a Keltic sound, but that point cannot be
pressed, because Britons frequently assumed a Roman or a Romanised
name. But thanks mainly to the Gallican bishops previously referred
to all efforts to Pelagianise the British Church were unsuccessful. The
last recorded communication between the British Church and Western
Christianity took place in 455, in which year, according to an entry in
the Annates Cambriae, the British Church changed its ancient mode of
calculating Easter, and adopted the cycle of 84 years then in use
at Rome. This was shortly afterwards exchanged at Rome for the
Victorian cycle of 532 years, and that again was changed there in the
next century for the Dionysian cycle of 19 years; but neither the
Victorian nor the Dionysian cycle was ever adopted in the British
Church, which still retained an older Roman cycle.
The archaeological evidence which is forthcoming as to the character
and even as to the existence of Christianity in Britain in Roman times
is extremely limited; nor is this to be wondered at when we consider
the wave of destruction which swept over Britain through the Saxon
invasions.
In only one case has a whole church so far survived that we can
trace the outline of the building, and measure its dimensions. This
church was recently discovered at Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum). It
bears a close resemblance to fourth century churches discovered in Italy,
Syria, and Africa. Traces of the foundations of a Roman basilica have
likewise been found underneath the churches at Reculver and Lyminge
in Kent, and at Brixworth in Northamptonshire; but whether those
basilicas were used for secular or ecclesiastical purposes is uncertain.
The only claim of the above-named churches, and of a few other churches,
such as St Martin's at Canterbury, to be regarded as Romano-British,
lies in the fact that they have a few stones or bricks of Romano-British
date used up a second time in their construction.
Apart from churches the Chi-Rho monogram (f) has been found in
the mosaics, pavements, or building stones of three villas at Frampton in
Dorsetshire, Chedworth in Gloucestershire, and Harpole in Northampton-
shire; on a silver cup at Corbridge-on-Tyne; on two silver rings from
a villa at Fifehead Neville in Dorsetshire; on some bronze fragments at
York; on some masses of pewter found in the Thames, on one of which
it is associated with A and a> and with the words spes in deo; on the
bezel of a bronze ring found at Silchester, though the nature of the
ornament in this case has been doubted1. There was also found at
Silchester a fragment of white glass with a fish and a palm roughly
scratched upon it.
There are no distinctively Christian inscriptions of a very early date,
1 Archaeologia, lv. p. 429.
CH. XVI (a).
## p. 502 (#534) ############################################
602 Inscriptions
but there are several which suggest a Christian origin by the use of the
phrase plus minus with reference to the length of a person's life, a phrase
often found on early Christian inscriptions abroad; and there are some
pagan altar inscriptions which point to a pagan restoration and a
revival after some other influence—possibly the Christian influence—had
allowed such altars to fall into neglect or decay.
Archaeological evidence is therefore in itself distinctly weak; and
yet it may be considered sufficiently strong to support facts which are
known to us on other and independent grounds; while further evidence
of this kind may be discovered hereafter.
(2) IRELAND.
No exact answer can be given to the question, When was Christianity
first introduced into Ireland?
The popular idea is that it was introduced into Ireland for the first
time by St Patrick. This is negatived by the following facts—St Patrick's
mission work in Ireland commenced in 432. It is quite true that
Patrick as a youth, aged 15-21, had spent six years in captivity in
Ireland under a heathen master named Miliucc, 405-411, but it is
impossible that at that age and under those conditions he can have done
any evangelistic work. Indeed he himself nowhere claims to have done
any. In the year before the date of St Patrick's missionary advent to
Ireland, that is to say in 431, we find the following distinct statement
made in the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine," Ad Scotos in Christum
credentes ordinatur a Papa Celestino Palladius, et primus episcopus
mittitur. '"
This statement must be accepted as historical. There may be some
difficulty in interpreting it, but there is no ground whatever for doubting
it. Prosper has sometimes been accused of bias; but bias is one thing,
deliberate invention or forgery is another. Nor is there the slightest
ground for suggesting that Prosper may have been misinformed. Though
not himself a native of Great Britain or Ireland, Prosper belonged to the
neighbouring country of Gaul, which he permanently left when he went
to Rome in 440, and became secretary to Leo I as bishop of Rome.
Prosper was alive in 463, but the exact date of his death is unknown.
If Prospers statement that there were Christians in Ireland before
the arrival there of Palladius were unsupported we should feel bound to
accept it; and we are much more bound to accept it if we find it
corroborated by a series of incidents or facts which, if not conclusive
singly, have a combined weight in substantiating it.
Before enumerating these facts reference must be made to a passage
written by Prosper about six years later. In his Liber contra Collatorem,
written when Sixtus III was Pope, i. e. between 432 and 440, and
N
## p. 503 (#535) ############################################
Conversion of Ireland 503
speaking in praise of that Pope's predecessor Celestine, he says, "et
ordinato Scottis episcopo dum Romanam insnlam studet servare
catholicam fecit etiam barbaram Christianam. "
There is no allusion here to the early death of Palladius—the
episcopus referred to—nor to the failure of his mission; obviously,
writing a panegyric on Celestine, it was not to Prosper's purpose to
refer to them: nor on the other hand is there any reference to the
mission of St Patrick; though, as Prof. Bury has pointed out, if
Celestine had sent Patrick, and still more if he had consecrated him,
Prosper would almost certainly have referred to the fact, as enhancing
the achievements and the reputation of that Pope. The passage is
obviously rhetorical and need not be pressed as superseding or cancelling
any part of his statement about the mission of Palladius previously
quoted.
Its truth is supported by the following statements and allusions,
which may be legendary, because the earliest form in which they have
come down to us is several centuries later than the events to which
they refer, but which may still be true. It is hardly possible to say more
of them than this, that if they are true they imply the existence of
a pre-Patrician church in Ireland.
Tirechan records that when St Patrick ordained a certain Ailbe as
presbyter he shewed him or told him of a wonderful stone altar in the
mountain of the children of Ailill1, to which the Tripartite Life, calling
Ailbe an archpresbyter, adds that this altar was in a cave, and that
there were four glass chalices standing at the four angles of it2.
In the Additions to TirecharCs Collections it is recorded that Bishop
Colman at Cluain Cain in Achud (Clonkeen) presented his own church
to St Patrick for ever*.
Tirechan tells a story, also told with unimportant variations by
Muirchu Maccu-Machtheni4, of St Patrick finding a cross (signaculum
cruris Christi) which had been, through a mistake, erected over a
heathen's grave8.
The Lives of the Irish Saints represent some of them, e. g. Ailbeus,
Ibar, Declan, Ciaran, etc. , as older, or as partly older, partly con-
temporaneous with St Patrick. But these Lives are too late in their
present form to be accepted as historical, and are only or chiefly
valuable for Irish words, and for incidental allusions surviving in
them.
The general policy of Loigaire, High King of Ireland, 428-463, who
without apparently becoming himself a convert to Christianity was not
1 Book of Armagh, fol. 11 b. 1, in Whitley Stokes' Tripartite Life of St Patrick,
n. p. 313.
s Ibid. i. p. 95. » Ibid. fol. 17 a. 1 ; ibid. ii. p. 337.
4 Ibid. fol. 14 a. 1; ibid. n. p. 325. 6 Ibid. fol. 8 a. 1 ; ibid. n. p. 295.
CH. XVI (a).
## p. 504 (#536) ############################################
504 Times before St Patrick
hostile to its promulgation by St Patrick, and the curious policy of the
Druids concerning the advent of Patrick, betraying in its language some
acquaintance with the ritual of the Christian Church, have been noted
as indicating the previous existence of Christianity in Ireland1.
Pelagius, who must have been bom c. 370 though the exact date of
his birth is unascertained, is known on the authority of St Jerome, and
on other grounds, to have been an Irishman, and as such the presumption
is in favour of his having been born in Ireland, and of Christian parents;
but too much stress must not be laid upon this fact, or supposed fact.
Though accepted as a fact by Professor Zimmer, it has been rejected by
Professor Bury, who thinks that the evidence points to Pelagius having
been born in western Britain8. His contemporary and chief disciple,
Caelestius, was likewise an Irishman, and probably born in Ireland.
An Irish Christian named Fith, better known under his Latin or
Latinised name of Iserninus, was with St Patrick at Auxerre, was
ordained there, and also went, though somewhat against his will, when
St Patrick went, as a missionary to Ireland8.
All these facts go to substantiate the statement of Prosper that
there were "Scoti in Christum credentes" in Ireland in 431, before the
great mission of St Patrick was commenced. But how did they get
there? How did Christianity in Ireland originate? To these and such-
like questions no certain answer is forthcoming. Although Ireland was
never conquered by the Romans, and therefore never became an integral
portion of the Roman Empire, as England and the larger part of Great
Britain did, yet there are traces of Roman influence in Ireland at a very
early date.
Large and not infrequent, discoveries of Roman coins in Ireland,
ranging from the first to the fifth century, prove that there must have
been considerable intercourse during that time between Ireland and
Great Britain and the Continent; and some knowledge, possibly some
seeds, of Christianity may have been sown by Roman sailors, or merchants,
or commercial travellers.
In the third century an Irish tribe, named the Dessi, were driven
out of their home in Meath and migrated partly south into Co. Water-
ford, and partly across the sea to South Wales, where they were
permitted to form a settlement, and there are indications that they
penetrated into Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. The Dessi at this
1 E. g. by Professor Bury, to whose Life of St Patrick the writer of this chapter
is much indebted. The wording of the Druids' prophecy will be found there in two
forms, pp. 79, 299.
2 One of St Jerome's expressions is significant, "Progenies Scotticae gentis de
Britannorum vicinia. " For a complete review of the evidence see Hermathena,
xxx. p. 26.
3 Additions to Tirechan'g Collections in W. Stokes' Tripartite Life of St Patrick,
ii. p. 343.
## p. 505 (#537) ############################################
Times before St Patrick 505
time were of course not Christians, but they paved the way, or they
formed a highway, by which a century or so later British Christianity
may have reached, and probably did reach, Ireland. Irish raids into
England and Wales in the course of the fourth century may have
brought Christian captives back into Ireland, as one of such raids in the
early part of the fifth century brought the captive youth Patrick.
Inhabitants of the south-west of England, whether Brythonic occu-
piers or Goidelic settlers, establishing and pursuing intercourse with
Ireland would naturally land at Muerdea at the mouth of the Vartry
near Wicklow, or at some other port on the south-east coast of Ireland,
which is the nearest coast of Ireland to that of England; and Christian
settlers from Britain would thus influence first of all the south rather
than the north of Ireland.
There is an ingenious argument of a philological character which we
owe to the keen insight of Professor Zimmer, and which has been
explained by him at length in his Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland.
We can hardly reproduce all the linguistic details here, but a convenient
and concise summary of Zimmer's argument has been printed by Professor
Bury1. It is to this effect. A number of ecclesiastical loan-words assume
forms in Irish, which they could not have assumed if they had been
borrowed straight from the Latin, and which can only be explained by
intermediate Brythonic forms. The presence of these forms in Ireland
can, again, be best explained on the supposition that Christianity was
introduced into Ireland in the fourth century by Irish-speaking Britons;
and the further conjecture arises that the transformation of Brythonic
Latin loan-words into Irish equivalents was made in the Irish settle-
ments in western, and especially south-western, Britain, which are thereby
indicated as the channel through which the Christian religion was
transmitted originally into Ireland.
There is no authority for the legend that the British Ninian laboured
in Ireland about the commencement of the fifth century, other than an
Irish life existing in the time of Archbishop Ussher, but now lost.
Ussher unfortunately does not give its date, or supposed date, but he
quotes from it several facts which, if not impossible, do not seem to be at
all credible*. Yet the story of Ninian's connexion with Ireland gained
some footing there, for his name under the affectionate form of Moenenn
or Moinenn or Monenn—" my Nynias or Ninian "—is found at 16 Sept.
in the Martyrologies of Tallaght, Gorman, Oengus and Donegal.
Though, then, there is sufficient evidence to prove the existence of
some Christianity in Ireland before a. d. 432, yet the majority of the popu-
lation of Ireland at that date was pagan, and the conversion of Ireland to
Christianity was mainly though not entirely the work of St Patrick:
he is not, therefore, to be robbed of his title of Apostle of the Irish.
1 Life of St Patrick, pp. 360-1.
2 Ussher, Whole Works, Dublin, 1847, vi. p. 209.
OH. XVI (a).
## p. 506 (#538) ############################################
506 Arrival of St Patrick [432
Pre-Patrician Christianity in Ireland was scanty, sporadic, and
apparently unorganised. Exactly when and by whom it was introduced
we know not and it is unlikely that we ever shall know. The Roman
mission of Palladius in 431 was a failure either through his missionary
incapacity, or more probably through his early death, though his death
is not recorded; or less probably through his withdrawal from Ireland,
according to Scottish legends, to preach the Gospel among the Picts
in Scotland, or as is more probable the Pictish population in Dalaradia
in the northern part of Ulster, amongst whom he was working, and
died before he had spent a whole year in Ireland1. Then on learning
of the death or departure of Palladius, St Patrick went to Ireland as his
successor.
A complete biography of St Patrick cannot be attempted here, but
a compressed account of his mission work in Ireland is necessary.
It was in the year 432 that Patrick, then in his forty-third year, was
consecrated bishop by Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, and started from
Gaul for Ireland, fired by a love for that country in which many years
before he had spent six years as a captive slave (405-411).
His wise policy was to approach the kings of the petty kingdoms
which went to make up Ireland in the fifth century, and among them
Loigaire, son of Niall, who in the year of Patrick's arrival in Ireland
ranked as High King, with certain rights over all other kings. Tribal
loyalty was strong, and if the petty king or chieftain was won over (or
even if like king Loigaire he sanctioned the mission without being con-
verted himself), the conversion of his tribe was much facilitated, if not
certain to follow.
Landing near Wicklow, Patrick coasted northwards, stopping at the
little island afterwards called Inis-patrick, eventually passing up the
narrow sea-passage into lake Strangford in that southern part of
Dalaradia which is now Co. Down. On the southern shore of this lake
he landed, and Dichu the proprietor of that part became his first
convert, and granted him, after his return from an ineffectual attempt
to convert his old master Miliucc, a site for a Christian establishment at
Saul; and in its vicinity Bright, Rathcolpa, Downpatrick also have a
legendary connexion with him. Then in Co. Meath, Trim and Dun-
shaughlin, both not far from the royal hill of Tara, Uisnech, and
Donagh-patrick where Conall, brother of king Loigaire, was converted, are
all places associated with the activities of Patrick. Thence he advanced
into Ulster, destroying the idol Crom Cruaich in the plain of Slecht,
founding churches at Aghanagh, Shancough, Tannach, and Caissel-
ire-all in Co. Sligo. Then turning south he founded the church of
Aghagower on the confines of Mayo and Gal way, not far from the hill
Crochan-Aigli (Croagh Patrick), on the summit of which he was believed
to have spent forty days and nights in solitude and contemplation.
1 This is the conclusion of Professor Bury, Life of St Patrick, p. 55.
## p. 507 (#539) ############################################
444-461] Work of St Patrick 507
Traces survive of a second journey into Connaught full of interesting
incidents, and of a third journey (to be dated thirteen years after
Patrick's arrival in Ireland), into the territory of king Amolngaid
including the wood of Fochlad, where, according to the most probable
interpretation of documents, he had wandered in the days of his early
captivity. Here a church was built and a cross set up, in a spot which
still bears the local name of Crosspatrick.
The year 444 saw the foundation of Armagh (Ardd Mache) on
a small tract of ground assigned to Patrick by Daire, king of Oriel or
of one of the tribes of Oriel, at the foot of the hill of Macha, sub-
sequently exchanged for a site on the hill-top.
Traces of Patrick's work in south Ireland are less distinct, but
tradition points to his having been there, and he is said to have
baptised the sons of Dunlang king of Leinster, those of Natfraich king of
Munster, and Crimthann son and successor of Endoe a sub-king, whose
residence and territory were on the banks of the river Slaney in Co.
Wexford. But Christianity had an earlier footing in the south than in the
north of Ireland. Patrick's mission work was therefore less needed there,
and his glory clusters rather round northern Armagh than round any
place in the south of Ireland.
In 461 Patrick died and was buried at Saul near the mouth of the
river Slaney in Co. Down, where he had first landed at the commence-
ment of his missionary enterprise in Ireland.
Subject to the necessary limitations of one man's life and powers, and
to the exceptions already described, Patrick was both the converter of
Ireland to the Christian religion, and the founder and organiser of the
Church in that island. Not that he extinguished heathenism. An ever
increasing halo of glory surrounded his memory in later times, until
it came to be believed that he converted the whole of Ireland. We
are told in a late Life of a saint that "the whole of Hibernia was
through him filled with the faith and with the baptism of Christ1. " But
such a sudden and complete conversion of a whole country is unlikely,
unnatural, and practically impossible; and there are proofs that paganism
survived in Ireland long after St Patrick's time, though the successive
steps of its disappearance, and the date of its final extinction cannot be
traced or stated with certainty.
Very little light is thrown on this point by the Irish Annals. They
are a continuous and somewhat barren record of storms, eclipses, pesti-
lences, battles, murders, famines, and so forth. But there are occasional
allusions to charms of a Druidical or heathen nature, which imply either
that heathenism was not extinct or that heathen practices continued to
exist under the veil of Christianity.
In a. d. 560 at the famous battle of Culdreimne (Cooledrevny) we are
told in the Annals of Ulster that, "Fraechan, son of Temnan, it was
1 Vita Kierani, quoted in Ussher, Works, ti. p. 332.
ch. xvi (a).
## p. 508 (#540) ############################################
508 Survivals of Heathenism,
that made the Druids' erbe for Diarmait. Tuatan, son of Diman. . . it
was that threw overhead the Druids' erbe. ""
The exact meaning of erbe is not known, but it was evidently some
kind of Druidical charm.
Another mysterious entry made a. d. 738 points in a similar direc-
tion: "Fergus Glutt King of Cobha died from the envenomed spittles of
evil men. "
Later, from the last few years of the eighth century onwards, there
are many records of conflicts with the Gentiles; but the reference is in
all these cases to the new wave of heathenism which swept over Ireland
through the Danish invasions.
Evidence is however forthcoming from other sources.
For example, in the form of baptismal exorcism used in Ireland in
the seventh and ninth centuries we find the clause "expelle diabolum
et gentilifatem,"" but the last two words have disappeared from the same
form as used in Continental and English service-books of the tenth
century—in countries where the extinction of paganism had by that
time rendered the words obsolete.
The Canon of the Mass in the earliest extant Irish Missal contains a
petition that God would accept the offering made "in this church which
thy servant hath built to the honour of thy glorious name; and we
beseech thee, O Lord, that thou wouldest rescue him and all the people
from the worship of idols, and convert them to thee the true God and
Father Almighty1. "
This passage, which has not been found in any other liturgy, tells us
of some place in Ireland, probably in Co. Tipperary, where there was
still in the ninth century a pagan population among whom some pagan
landowner seems to have been at that time sufficiently favourable to
Christianity to build a Christian church, although he himself had not
yet become a convert.
It is true, as has been already noted, that a fresh inroad of heathenism
into Ireland took place through the Danish invasions which began in
a. d. 795, and that one of the fleets of their leader Turgesius sailed up
the Shannon, which forms the northern boundary of Tipperary; but their
paganism was fierce, and it is impossible to think of any Danish settler
being sufficiently favourable to Christianity to allow the building of a
Christian church at all events within two centuries after the date of
their first arrival.
1 The Stowe Missal (ninth century) in The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church,
Oxford, 1881, p. 236.
## p. 509 (#541) ############################################
Sources of our knowledge 509
(3) SCOTLAND.
When and by whom and under what circumstances was Christianity
first introduced into Scotland? It is not easy to reply to these questions
with certainty because of the unsatisfactory character of the later
authorities and the scanty character of the earlier authorities on which
we have to rely.
Writing c. a. d. 208 Tertullian refers to the fact that Christianity
had already reached Britannorum inaccessa Romania loca—an expression
which must include the north of Scotland, and probably also some of its
numerous adjacent islands.
Origen, c. 239, speaks of the Christian Church having extended to the
boundaries of the world, yet evidently not as all-embracing, for he refers
to very many among Britons, Germans, Scythians, and others who had
not yet heard the word of the Gospel.
No other Father of the first three centuries refers to Britannia or the
Britanni. We turn then to Scottish authorities.
Scotland possesses no early historian at all resembling Bede. The
earliest formal history of Scotland is the Chronicle of John of Fordun,
who died in 1385, and which takes us up to the reign of David I,
inclusive. It was afterwards re-edited and continued from 1153 to 1436
by Walter Bower or Bowmaker, abbot of Inchcolm, a small island in the
Firth of Forth, and in that form is generally known as the Scotichronicon.
After Fordun come such writers as Andrew of Wyntoun, who between
1420-24 wrote the "orygynale Chronykil of Scotland" from the Creation
to 1368; Maurice Buchanan, a cleric in the priory of Pluscarden, a cell
of the abbey of Dunfermline, who compiled the Liber Pluscardensis in
1461 at the desire of Bothuele, abbot of Dunfermline, which was
largely, and especially in the earlier books, a reproduction of the
Scotichronicon; Hector Boethius (Boece), 1470-1526, who wrote a history
of Scotland in seventeen books (Scotorum Historiae Libri XVII). Later
Scottish historians need not be enumerated or referred to here.
Now these writers make a definite statement that the inhabitants
of Scotland were first converted to Christianity in a. d. 203, in the
time of Pope Victor I in the seventh year of the reign of the Emperor
Severus. Fordun (lib. n. cap. 35) gives no further details, and the only
authority quoted consists of four lines of anonymous Latin poetry which
look very much as if they had been composed by himself. Hector Boece,
writing later, gives further details of the conversion of Donald I by the
missionaries of Pope Victor in 203, the seventh year of Severus.
Now there is no authority for this statement earlier than Fordun,
and we can hardly avoid the conclusion that it is a deliberate invention
on his part; possibly from a desire that Scotland should not be so very
CB. XVI (a).
## p. 510 (#542) ############################################
510 Legends
far behind Britain, which claimed to have been converted to Christianity
in the second century by Pope Eleutherus in the time of a king Lucius1.
The statement also stands self-condemned through the anachronisms
and the inaccuracies which it contains. There were no Scoti in Scotland
in 203, Zephyrinus was then Pope, not Victor, and it was the tenth not
the seventh year of the Emperor Severus.
Still there must have been Christians among the soldiers composing
the Roman armies of invasion and occupation during, soon after,
and even before the reign of Severus. May not some knowledge of
Christianity have entered Scotland through them? Unfortunately
the traces of Roman occupation in Scotland are extremely scanty.
No decorations, emblems, or relics of any kind have been found
suggestive of Christianity, and there is not only no proof but there
are not the slightest traces of a Romano-Scotic church in the third
century. No reliance can be placed on certain statements made to
the contrary in the Lives of the Saints. The hagiological literature
of Scotland is for the most part very late, and for historical purposes
more than usually worthless. With the exception of the two seventh
century Lives of St Columba by Cuminius (Cumine) and Adamnan, there
is nothing earlier than the Life of St Ninian by Ailred who died in
1166 and two Lives of St Kentigern belonging to the same century, an
anonymous and now fragmentary Life written while Herbert was bishop
of Glasgow (1147-64), and a Life by Joceline of Furness written during
the episcopate of Joceline, bishop of Glasgow (1174-99). All the
traditions and legends assigning extremely early dates to certain
Scottish saints are without foundation, such as the story in the Aberdeen
Breviary which makes St Serf a Christian of the primitive church of
Scotland before the arrival of Palladius, whose suffragan he becomes;
and the story representing Regulus as bringing relics of St Andrew
to Scotland, c. 360. In addition to its purely fictitious details, this
latter story antedates the connexion with St Andrew, and the importa-
tion of his relics into Scotland, by some four hundred years.
Legends, then, and fiction apart, when was Christianity introduced
into Scotland?
In answering this question we have to remember that Scotland
as we know it, and as it exists to-day, was not in existence in
the earlier centuries of the Christian era. In the seventh century
the country which now makes up Scotland comprised four distinct
kingdoms.
(1) The English kingdom of Bernicia, extending from the Tyne to
the Firth of Forth, with its capital at Bamborough.
(2) The British kingdom of Cumbria, or Cambria, or Strathclyde,
extending from the Firth of Clyde on the north, to the river Derwent in
1 For the unhistorical character of this claim, though it has the authority
of Bede, see Harnack, Brief d. brit. KOnigs Lucius.
## p. 511 (#543) ############################################
Conversion of Straihclyde 511
Cumberland, and including the greater part both of that county and of
Westmoreland; its capital being the rock of Dumbarton on the Clyde,
with the fortress of Alclyde on its summit.
(3) The kingdom of the Picts, north of the Firth of Forth,
extending over the northern and eastern districts of that part of Scotland,
with its capital near Inverness.
(4) The Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, corresponding very nearly to
the modern county of Argyle, with the hill-fort of Dunadd as its capital.
In addition to these four kingdoms there was a central neutral
ground corresponding to the modern counties of Stirling and Linlithgow,
with a mixed population drawn from all four of the above populations
though specially from the first three; and there was a British settlement
in Galloway, corresponding to the modern counties of Wigtown and
Kirkcudbright, known in Bede's time as the county of the Niduarian
Picts. Niduari probably means persons living on the banks or in the
neighbourhood of the river Nith, which runs into the Solway Firth
between the counties of Kirkcudbright and Dumfries, though the
derivation of the word is not certain.
In discussing the introduction of Christianity into these various parts
of Scotland we may at once dismiss (1). The history of Bernicia falls
more properly under the history of England than under that of Scotland.
(2) The conversion of Strathclyde has been generally ascribed to
St Ninian (Nynias) who was engaged in building a stone church at
Whithern (Ad Candidam Casam) in Galloway at the close of the fourth
century, in 397, if we may accept the statement of Ailred that
he heard of St Martin's death while the church was in building, and
that he dedicated it, when finished, to that saint. But we really know
nothing with certainty about St Ninian beyond the scanty account of
him given by Bede, for which see below under (3). Bede tells us that
he was a Briton—de natiane Britonum—and it has been generally
concluded that he was a Briton of Strathclyde. This seems a very
probable inference, though Bede does not say so. If then he was a
Cumbrian and not a Welsh or any other Briton, Strathclyde must have
been already at least a partially Christian county to have produced this
eminent Christian teacher; and the church at Candida Casa was only
the first stone church built amongst an already Christian people.
But the earlier history of Strathclyde is in any case obscure and, so
far as Christianity is concerned, is quite unknown to us. Ailred tells
us that Ninian's father was a Christian king, but whether he was
inventing facts, or whether he was perpetuating a tradition, or how he
obtained his information we know not. At all events it must be
remembered that Ailred was separated from Ninian by a gap of over
seven centuries. This is not the place to discuss the traces of Ninian's
influence and work, or supposed work, in Ireland and the Isle of Man1.
1 See p. 505.
CH. XVI (A).
## p. 512 (#544) ############################################
512 Conversion of the Picts
NiniarTs time is usually given as c. 353-432, but there is no good evidence
for the year of either his birth or death.
For about a century afterwards the history of Strathclyde is a blank
till we come to St Kentigern or Mungo the great Strathclyde saint,
whose life extended from 527 to 612. The latter date is given in the
Annates Cambriae; the former date rests on the supposition that he
was eighty-five years old at his death. For the facts of Kentigern's
life we are even worse off" than we are for those of the life of Ninian.
Unfortunately there is no mention of Kentigern in Bede, and our earliest
biographies of him date from the twelfth century, namely, as stated above,
an anonymous Life written in the time of Bishop Herbert of Glasgow,
who died in 1164, existing only in one early fifteenth century MS.
in the British Museum, and a Life by Joceline, a monk of the abbey
of Furness in Lancashire, written c. 1190 in the lifetime of another
Joceline, bishop of Glasgow (1174-99). If we may trust Joceline,
Kentigern having been consecrated bishop by a single bishop sum-
moned from Ireland for that purpose, and having fixed his see at
Glasgow, practically re-converted Strathclyde to Christianity, the vast
majority of its inhabitants having apostatised from the faith since
the days of Ninian. This re-conversion included that of the Pictish
inhabitants of Galwiethia or Galloway, who had likewise apostatised.
He is also credited by Joceline with missionary work in Albania or
Alban, which means the eastern districts of Scotland north of the Firth
of Forth, and dedications to Kentigern north of the Firth of Forth
seem to corroborate Joceline's statement, which however is otherwise
unsupported, and cannot be accepted as certainly established: his
other statements that Kentigern sent missionaries to the Orkneys,
Norway, and Ireland are improbable in the extreme; and it is only the
general and inherent difficulty of proving a negative which makes it
impossible to refute them.
It may be of interest to add that traces of Strathclyde Christianity
coeval with Ninian survive in the names of two, possibly three,
bishops engraved on fifth century stones at Kirkmadrine on the bay of
Luce, Co. Wigtown, and in the remains of a stone chapel of St Medan, an
Irish virgin and a disciple of Ninian, at Kirkmaiden on the same bay.
(3) The Picts. Bede tells us that Ninian converted the southern
Picts, Australes Picti. It has been thought that these Picts were the
Picts of Galloway, the Galwegian or Niduarian Picts, but as Bede
describes them as occupying territory within, that is, to the south of, the
Mounth, he must refer to the southern portion of the northern Pictish
kingdom, which would correspond to the six modern counties of
Kincardine, Forfar, Perth, Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan.
Bede also records the conversion of the northern Picts by St Columba.
He gives the date of Columba's arrival in Scotland as 565, but he
appears to have landed on and occupied Iona in 563, and in 565 to have
## p. 513 (#545) ############################################
Columba 513
crossed the mountain range of Drumalban on his missionary enterprise
to the northern Picts. His first arrival in Scotland is dated by other
authorities and in the Annals of Ulster, the Annates Cambriae, and the
Annals of Tighernac as 562 or 563. Iona1 was probably assigned to him
in the first instance by Conall Mac Comgaill, king of Dalriada, and
afterwards confirmed to him by Brude Mac Maelchon, king of the Picts,
whom Columba visited at his palace near Inverness, converting both him
and his nation to Christianity. Iona was situated between the Pictish
and the Dalriadic kingdoms.
We know very few details about this mission work among the
northern Picts, which extended over nine years. Neither Bede, nor
Adamnan in his Life of Columba, which is rather a panegyric than
a biography, give us any history of it, but the many churches dedicated
to him are a witness to his success, and details of two foundations of
Columban churches have been preserved in the Book of Deer, viz.
Aberdour in Banffshire, and Deer in the district of Buchan.
Columba's activity extended also to many of the small islands
adjacent to Scotland, of which next to Iona itself the most important
settlements were at Hinba and Tiree; but other islands, including Skye,
bear witness to his presence and work by the dedications of their
churches.
(4) The Scottish kingdom of Dalriada was founded by a colony
from Dalriada in the extreme north of Ireland at the end of the fifth or
early in the sixth century: and there can be no reason to doubt that
the Dalriadic Irish or Scoti, as they were then called, were a Christian
people, and brought their Christianity with them into Scotland c. a. d. 490.
Therefore when Columba arrived in Scotland in 563, or 565, he
found a Christian people and king in Dalriada, ready to welcome him
and to assign Iona to him as his home: and this was the beginning of a
new movement which was destined to influence not Scotland only, but
England also.
1 More properly Ioua. See Fowler's note in his edition of Adamnan, p. lxv.
C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. XVI (a). 33
## p. 514 (#546) ############################################
514
CHAPTER XVI (b).
THE CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONS.
(1) THE ENGLISH.
When Teutonic tribes of mixed descent invaded Britain they came
as heathen unaffected by Roman Christianity against Keltic tribes
partly heathen and partly Christian; the old inhabitants had been
Romanised and Christianised in different degrees, varying coastwards
and inland, in cities and country, to the south-east and to the west: the
invaders moreover covered and at first devastated more land than they
could hold, and their own settlement was a long process, varying in
length in different districts. The separation of the Britons from the
government and influence of Rome had been also slow and reluctant.
Hence for many reasons it is hard to generalise about the Christianity
with which the Teutonic invaders came into touch. Where this Chris-
tianity was not strong or long implanted it tended towards weakness
and decay: here and there revivals of heathenism took place: here and
there in the long years of Teutonic settlement revivals of Keltic Chris-
tianity began. Hence, as time passes on, new vigour of a Keltic and not
a Romanised type is found as in Wales among the British: elsewhere
the influence of Christianity lessens, and the Britons of some parts, so
far from being able to convert the newcomers, keep their own religion
more as a custom than as a living force. In either case the result is
the same: the invaders are for long years wholly unaffected by the
Christianity of the land they are conquering.
Little need be said here of the religion the invaders brought with
them: in some points of morals they may have been above some other
races and hence the moral code of Christianity might appeal to them,
but it is idle to speculate as to elements in their religion which possibly
made them readier later on to accept Christian doctrines. Their
whole outlook, however, upon the unseen world brought it into close
touch with their lives and the fortunes of their race: their religion so
far as it was effective was a source of joy in life, and of strength in
action, not of fear or weakness. Hence, when they received Christianity,
it was with the freedom of sons, not the timidity of slaves, with a ready
understanding that its discipline was to strengthen their characters
## p. 515 (#547) ############################################
Gregory the Great 515
for action. English Christianity was thus marked off from Teutonic
Christianity elsewhere by moral differences, slight and not to be over-
estimated: moreover, because it started afresh, free from the political
and social traditions of the Empire, and because its conditions, in spite
of much intercourse with the Continent, were locally more uniform and
more insular than elsewhere, its growth took a somewhat peculiar turn.
Christianity came to the English from the Papacy, and not from the
Empire: it came at one great epoch, and when the Conquest was well
under way, rather than by the gradual influence of daily life, as it
did with the Teutonic races elsewhere. "The wonderful vitality of
imperialist traditions. . . took no hold here. Escaping this, the English
Church was saved from the infection of court-life and corruption. . . : it
escaped the position forced upon the bishops of France as secular officers,
defensors and civil magistrates. " And this original impulse as described
by Stubbs kept on its way in spite of later Frankish influence and inter-
course. But at the same time the mission brought with it a larger life
and a broader outlook: it is significant that Aethelberht of Kent, the
first to accept the new faith, is also the first in the list of kings who put
forth laws. Later kings who did the same were also noted for their
interest in the Church1.
The part taken by Gregory the Great, and the impulse he gave to
the mission, have been spoken of elsewhere. But it should be noted here
as a sign of the responsibility for the whole West felt by the Papal See
in face of the barbarian inroads; furthermore the letters of commen-
dation given to the missionaries by the Pope to bishops and rulers
amongst the Franks opened up more fully lines of connexion already
laid down for the future English Church. Two of Gregory's letters
would, indeed, suggest that the English had already expressed some
wish for missionaries to be sent to them: "it has come to us that the
race of the English desires with yearning to be turned to the faith
of Christ. . . but that the bishops in their neighbourhood'1—and this
apparently applied to the Franks, not solely at any rate to the Welsh—
"are negligent. " And the Pope (at an uncertain date) had formed
a plan for buying English youths "to be given to God in the mon-
asteries. " This may be taken along with the beautiful tradition current
in Northumbria of Gregory's pity for the English boys in the Roman
slave-market. But at any rate the time was favourable for a mission
owing to the marriage of Aethelberht of Kent, the most powerful
English ruler of the time, with Berhta, daughter of Chariberht of Paris;
and this Christian queen had taken across to her new home the Frankish
bishop Liudhard as her chaplain. But from other indications little seems
to have been known in the Rome of that day about the heathen invaders,
and the English invasion had cut off the British Christians from inter-
course with the Continent.
1 See (Imp. xvii. pp. 548-9.
ch. xvi (b). 33—2
## p. 516 (#548) ############################################
516 Augustine's Mission [596-597
The mission left Rome early in 596: during the journey its members
wished to return from the perils in front of them, but, encouraged by
Gregory's fatherly firmness and knit together by his giving their leader
Augustine the authority of an abbot over them, they went on and
landed, most probablv at Richborough1, 597. Aethelberht received them
kindly, and gave them an interview—in the open air for fear of magic.
Augustine—taller than his comrades—led the procession of 40 men
(possibly including Frankish interpreters), chanting a Litany as they
went, carrying a silver cross and a wooden picture of the crucifixion;
Aethelberht heard them with sympathy, and yet with an open mind.
He gave them a home in Canterbury in the later parish of St Alphege:
here they could worship in St Martin's church, and they were also
allowed to preach freely to the king's subjects. By Whitsuntide the
king himself was so far won over as to be baptised—on Whitsunday or
its eve, probably at St Martin's church (1 or 2 June 597). The king
used no force to lead his subjects after him, but he naturally favoured
those who followed him, and soon many were won by the faithful lives
of the missionaries, shewn so easily by the common life of a brotherhood.
Throughout the story of the Conversion it is indeed to the lives rather
than to the preaching of the missionaries that Bede assigns their success,
and the tolerance of the English kings in Kent and elsewhere gave them
a ready opening. If here and there the missionaries met persecution, it
never rose to martyrdom.
According to the Pope's directions, Augustine ought now to be
consecrated, and for this purpose he went to Aries, where Vergilius
(the usually accurate Bede mistakes the name) consecrated him (16 Nov.
597)*.
Oxford, 1897. Appendix vn.
s Leabhar Breac, fol. 62 a. s Ibid. fol. 81.
ch. xvi (a). 32—2
## p. 500 (#532) ############################################
500 Orthodoxy of the Britons
There is no serious doubt about the orthodoxy of the British Church.
Gildas accuses its clergy of immorality, and of venality, not of heresy.
On the other hand testimony to its orthodoxy is plentiful. Athanasius
stated that the British Churches had signified by letter to him their
adhesion to the Nicene faith. Chrysostom 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. " Jerome asserted that " Britain in common with Rome,
Gaul, Africa, Persia, the East, and India, adores one Christ, observes
one rule of faith. " Venantius Fortunatus speaks of Britain cherishing
the faith, and Wilfrid himself, though openly hostile to the British
Church, asserted before a Council held in Rome in 680 that the true
Catholic faith prevailed throughout the British, Irish, and Pictish as well
as the English race, thus claiming for the whole Keltic Church in these
islands what Columbanus claimed for his own Irish Church, when he told
Pope Boniface that it was not schismatical or heretical, but that it held
the whole Catholic faith1.
But in defending the orthodoxy of the British Church we must not
be supposed to mean that no heretical opinions ever obtained temporary
ground, or attracted individuals.
Victricius, bishop of Rouen, came to Britain c. 896 at the request
of the bishops of North Italy. Nothing is known of the purpose of his
journey, except that in his own language it had to do with the making
of peace, it has been conjectured, in connexion with the attempted
introduction of Arianism, or of some other form of false doctrine. In
429 Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, bishop of Troyes, were
sent by a Gallican synod according to Constantius, but by Pope Celes-
tine according to Prosper, to Britain to stem Pelagianism, and in 447
the same Germanus, and Severus, bishop of Treves, came to Britain for
the same purpose. Pelagianism would naturally establish a footing in
Britain because Pelagius himself was most probably a Briton by birth,
a member of one of those Gaelic families who had crossed from Ireland
and settled themselves on the south-western coast of Great Britain'.
His companion Caelestius, no doubt, was an Irishman, but Faustus of
Riez and Fastidius, both semi-Pelagian authors, were the first a Breton,
the second British, and the same may be surmised of a certain Agricola,
1 A serious attack on the orthodoxy of the British Church has been recently
made by Mr F. C. Conybeare, who seeks to prove that this Church held heretical
views about the Trinity, and did not use the Trinitarian formula in the administra-
tion of baptism (Cymmrodorion Transactions, 1897-8). It is impossible here to follow
him point by point; it must suffice to say that he does not seem to have proved bis
case.
* Bury, J. B. , Life of St Patrick, p. 15.
## p. 501 (#533) ############################################
Remains left by the British Church 501
the son of a Pelagian bishop named Severianus, who taught and spread
Pelagianism in Britain, as Prosper tells us sub an. 429. Their names
have more a Roman than a Keltic sound, but that point cannot be
pressed, because Britons frequently assumed a Roman or a Romanised
name. But thanks mainly to the Gallican bishops previously referred
to all efforts to Pelagianise the British Church were unsuccessful. The
last recorded communication between the British Church and Western
Christianity took place in 455, in which year, according to an entry in
the Annates Cambriae, the British Church changed its ancient mode of
calculating Easter, and adopted the cycle of 84 years then in use
at Rome. This was shortly afterwards exchanged at Rome for the
Victorian cycle of 532 years, and that again was changed there in the
next century for the Dionysian cycle of 19 years; but neither the
Victorian nor the Dionysian cycle was ever adopted in the British
Church, which still retained an older Roman cycle.
The archaeological evidence which is forthcoming as to the character
and even as to the existence of Christianity in Britain in Roman times
is extremely limited; nor is this to be wondered at when we consider
the wave of destruction which swept over Britain through the Saxon
invasions.
In only one case has a whole church so far survived that we can
trace the outline of the building, and measure its dimensions. This
church was recently discovered at Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum). It
bears a close resemblance to fourth century churches discovered in Italy,
Syria, and Africa. Traces of the foundations of a Roman basilica have
likewise been found underneath the churches at Reculver and Lyminge
in Kent, and at Brixworth in Northamptonshire; but whether those
basilicas were used for secular or ecclesiastical purposes is uncertain.
The only claim of the above-named churches, and of a few other churches,
such as St Martin's at Canterbury, to be regarded as Romano-British,
lies in the fact that they have a few stones or bricks of Romano-British
date used up a second time in their construction.
Apart from churches the Chi-Rho monogram (f) has been found in
the mosaics, pavements, or building stones of three villas at Frampton in
Dorsetshire, Chedworth in Gloucestershire, and Harpole in Northampton-
shire; on a silver cup at Corbridge-on-Tyne; on two silver rings from
a villa at Fifehead Neville in Dorsetshire; on some bronze fragments at
York; on some masses of pewter found in the Thames, on one of which
it is associated with A and a> and with the words spes in deo; on the
bezel of a bronze ring found at Silchester, though the nature of the
ornament in this case has been doubted1. There was also found at
Silchester a fragment of white glass with a fish and a palm roughly
scratched upon it.
There are no distinctively Christian inscriptions of a very early date,
1 Archaeologia, lv. p. 429.
CH. XVI (a).
## p. 502 (#534) ############################################
602 Inscriptions
but there are several which suggest a Christian origin by the use of the
phrase plus minus with reference to the length of a person's life, a phrase
often found on early Christian inscriptions abroad; and there are some
pagan altar inscriptions which point to a pagan restoration and a
revival after some other influence—possibly the Christian influence—had
allowed such altars to fall into neglect or decay.
Archaeological evidence is therefore in itself distinctly weak; and
yet it may be considered sufficiently strong to support facts which are
known to us on other and independent grounds; while further evidence
of this kind may be discovered hereafter.
(2) IRELAND.
No exact answer can be given to the question, When was Christianity
first introduced into Ireland?
The popular idea is that it was introduced into Ireland for the first
time by St Patrick. This is negatived by the following facts—St Patrick's
mission work in Ireland commenced in 432. It is quite true that
Patrick as a youth, aged 15-21, had spent six years in captivity in
Ireland under a heathen master named Miliucc, 405-411, but it is
impossible that at that age and under those conditions he can have done
any evangelistic work. Indeed he himself nowhere claims to have done
any. In the year before the date of St Patrick's missionary advent to
Ireland, that is to say in 431, we find the following distinct statement
made in the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine," Ad Scotos in Christum
credentes ordinatur a Papa Celestino Palladius, et primus episcopus
mittitur. '"
This statement must be accepted as historical. There may be some
difficulty in interpreting it, but there is no ground whatever for doubting
it. Prosper has sometimes been accused of bias; but bias is one thing,
deliberate invention or forgery is another. Nor is there the slightest
ground for suggesting that Prosper may have been misinformed. Though
not himself a native of Great Britain or Ireland, Prosper belonged to the
neighbouring country of Gaul, which he permanently left when he went
to Rome in 440, and became secretary to Leo I as bishop of Rome.
Prosper was alive in 463, but the exact date of his death is unknown.
If Prospers statement that there were Christians in Ireland before
the arrival there of Palladius were unsupported we should feel bound to
accept it; and we are much more bound to accept it if we find it
corroborated by a series of incidents or facts which, if not conclusive
singly, have a combined weight in substantiating it.
Before enumerating these facts reference must be made to a passage
written by Prosper about six years later. In his Liber contra Collatorem,
written when Sixtus III was Pope, i. e. between 432 and 440, and
N
## p. 503 (#535) ############################################
Conversion of Ireland 503
speaking in praise of that Pope's predecessor Celestine, he says, "et
ordinato Scottis episcopo dum Romanam insnlam studet servare
catholicam fecit etiam barbaram Christianam. "
There is no allusion here to the early death of Palladius—the
episcopus referred to—nor to the failure of his mission; obviously,
writing a panegyric on Celestine, it was not to Prosper's purpose to
refer to them: nor on the other hand is there any reference to the
mission of St Patrick; though, as Prof. Bury has pointed out, if
Celestine had sent Patrick, and still more if he had consecrated him,
Prosper would almost certainly have referred to the fact, as enhancing
the achievements and the reputation of that Pope. The passage is
obviously rhetorical and need not be pressed as superseding or cancelling
any part of his statement about the mission of Palladius previously
quoted.
Its truth is supported by the following statements and allusions,
which may be legendary, because the earliest form in which they have
come down to us is several centuries later than the events to which
they refer, but which may still be true. It is hardly possible to say more
of them than this, that if they are true they imply the existence of
a pre-Patrician church in Ireland.
Tirechan records that when St Patrick ordained a certain Ailbe as
presbyter he shewed him or told him of a wonderful stone altar in the
mountain of the children of Ailill1, to which the Tripartite Life, calling
Ailbe an archpresbyter, adds that this altar was in a cave, and that
there were four glass chalices standing at the four angles of it2.
In the Additions to TirecharCs Collections it is recorded that Bishop
Colman at Cluain Cain in Achud (Clonkeen) presented his own church
to St Patrick for ever*.
Tirechan tells a story, also told with unimportant variations by
Muirchu Maccu-Machtheni4, of St Patrick finding a cross (signaculum
cruris Christi) which had been, through a mistake, erected over a
heathen's grave8.
The Lives of the Irish Saints represent some of them, e. g. Ailbeus,
Ibar, Declan, Ciaran, etc. , as older, or as partly older, partly con-
temporaneous with St Patrick. But these Lives are too late in their
present form to be accepted as historical, and are only or chiefly
valuable for Irish words, and for incidental allusions surviving in
them.
The general policy of Loigaire, High King of Ireland, 428-463, who
without apparently becoming himself a convert to Christianity was not
1 Book of Armagh, fol. 11 b. 1, in Whitley Stokes' Tripartite Life of St Patrick,
n. p. 313.
s Ibid. i. p. 95. » Ibid. fol. 17 a. 1 ; ibid. ii. p. 337.
4 Ibid. fol. 14 a. 1; ibid. n. p. 325. 6 Ibid. fol. 8 a. 1 ; ibid. n. p. 295.
CH. XVI (a).
## p. 504 (#536) ############################################
504 Times before St Patrick
hostile to its promulgation by St Patrick, and the curious policy of the
Druids concerning the advent of Patrick, betraying in its language some
acquaintance with the ritual of the Christian Church, have been noted
as indicating the previous existence of Christianity in Ireland1.
Pelagius, who must have been bom c. 370 though the exact date of
his birth is unascertained, is known on the authority of St Jerome, and
on other grounds, to have been an Irishman, and as such the presumption
is in favour of his having been born in Ireland, and of Christian parents;
but too much stress must not be laid upon this fact, or supposed fact.
Though accepted as a fact by Professor Zimmer, it has been rejected by
Professor Bury, who thinks that the evidence points to Pelagius having
been born in western Britain8. His contemporary and chief disciple,
Caelestius, was likewise an Irishman, and probably born in Ireland.
An Irish Christian named Fith, better known under his Latin or
Latinised name of Iserninus, was with St Patrick at Auxerre, was
ordained there, and also went, though somewhat against his will, when
St Patrick went, as a missionary to Ireland8.
All these facts go to substantiate the statement of Prosper that
there were "Scoti in Christum credentes" in Ireland in 431, before the
great mission of St Patrick was commenced. But how did they get
there? How did Christianity in Ireland originate? To these and such-
like questions no certain answer is forthcoming. Although Ireland was
never conquered by the Romans, and therefore never became an integral
portion of the Roman Empire, as England and the larger part of Great
Britain did, yet there are traces of Roman influence in Ireland at a very
early date.
Large and not infrequent, discoveries of Roman coins in Ireland,
ranging from the first to the fifth century, prove that there must have
been considerable intercourse during that time between Ireland and
Great Britain and the Continent; and some knowledge, possibly some
seeds, of Christianity may have been sown by Roman sailors, or merchants,
or commercial travellers.
In the third century an Irish tribe, named the Dessi, were driven
out of their home in Meath and migrated partly south into Co. Water-
ford, and partly across the sea to South Wales, where they were
permitted to form a settlement, and there are indications that they
penetrated into Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. The Dessi at this
1 E. g. by Professor Bury, to whose Life of St Patrick the writer of this chapter
is much indebted. The wording of the Druids' prophecy will be found there in two
forms, pp. 79, 299.
2 One of St Jerome's expressions is significant, "Progenies Scotticae gentis de
Britannorum vicinia. " For a complete review of the evidence see Hermathena,
xxx. p. 26.
3 Additions to Tirechan'g Collections in W. Stokes' Tripartite Life of St Patrick,
ii. p. 343.
## p. 505 (#537) ############################################
Times before St Patrick 505
time were of course not Christians, but they paved the way, or they
formed a highway, by which a century or so later British Christianity
may have reached, and probably did reach, Ireland. Irish raids into
England and Wales in the course of the fourth century may have
brought Christian captives back into Ireland, as one of such raids in the
early part of the fifth century brought the captive youth Patrick.
Inhabitants of the south-west of England, whether Brythonic occu-
piers or Goidelic settlers, establishing and pursuing intercourse with
Ireland would naturally land at Muerdea at the mouth of the Vartry
near Wicklow, or at some other port on the south-east coast of Ireland,
which is the nearest coast of Ireland to that of England; and Christian
settlers from Britain would thus influence first of all the south rather
than the north of Ireland.
There is an ingenious argument of a philological character which we
owe to the keen insight of Professor Zimmer, and which has been
explained by him at length in his Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland.
We can hardly reproduce all the linguistic details here, but a convenient
and concise summary of Zimmer's argument has been printed by Professor
Bury1. It is to this effect. A number of ecclesiastical loan-words assume
forms in Irish, which they could not have assumed if they had been
borrowed straight from the Latin, and which can only be explained by
intermediate Brythonic forms. The presence of these forms in Ireland
can, again, be best explained on the supposition that Christianity was
introduced into Ireland in the fourth century by Irish-speaking Britons;
and the further conjecture arises that the transformation of Brythonic
Latin loan-words into Irish equivalents was made in the Irish settle-
ments in western, and especially south-western, Britain, which are thereby
indicated as the channel through which the Christian religion was
transmitted originally into Ireland.
There is no authority for the legend that the British Ninian laboured
in Ireland about the commencement of the fifth century, other than an
Irish life existing in the time of Archbishop Ussher, but now lost.
Ussher unfortunately does not give its date, or supposed date, but he
quotes from it several facts which, if not impossible, do not seem to be at
all credible*. Yet the story of Ninian's connexion with Ireland gained
some footing there, for his name under the affectionate form of Moenenn
or Moinenn or Monenn—" my Nynias or Ninian "—is found at 16 Sept.
in the Martyrologies of Tallaght, Gorman, Oengus and Donegal.
Though, then, there is sufficient evidence to prove the existence of
some Christianity in Ireland before a. d. 432, yet the majority of the popu-
lation of Ireland at that date was pagan, and the conversion of Ireland to
Christianity was mainly though not entirely the work of St Patrick:
he is not, therefore, to be robbed of his title of Apostle of the Irish.
1 Life of St Patrick, pp. 360-1.
2 Ussher, Whole Works, Dublin, 1847, vi. p. 209.
OH. XVI (a).
## p. 506 (#538) ############################################
506 Arrival of St Patrick [432
Pre-Patrician Christianity in Ireland was scanty, sporadic, and
apparently unorganised. Exactly when and by whom it was introduced
we know not and it is unlikely that we ever shall know. The Roman
mission of Palladius in 431 was a failure either through his missionary
incapacity, or more probably through his early death, though his death
is not recorded; or less probably through his withdrawal from Ireland,
according to Scottish legends, to preach the Gospel among the Picts
in Scotland, or as is more probable the Pictish population in Dalaradia
in the northern part of Ulster, amongst whom he was working, and
died before he had spent a whole year in Ireland1. Then on learning
of the death or departure of Palladius, St Patrick went to Ireland as his
successor.
A complete biography of St Patrick cannot be attempted here, but
a compressed account of his mission work in Ireland is necessary.
It was in the year 432 that Patrick, then in his forty-third year, was
consecrated bishop by Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, and started from
Gaul for Ireland, fired by a love for that country in which many years
before he had spent six years as a captive slave (405-411).
His wise policy was to approach the kings of the petty kingdoms
which went to make up Ireland in the fifth century, and among them
Loigaire, son of Niall, who in the year of Patrick's arrival in Ireland
ranked as High King, with certain rights over all other kings. Tribal
loyalty was strong, and if the petty king or chieftain was won over (or
even if like king Loigaire he sanctioned the mission without being con-
verted himself), the conversion of his tribe was much facilitated, if not
certain to follow.
Landing near Wicklow, Patrick coasted northwards, stopping at the
little island afterwards called Inis-patrick, eventually passing up the
narrow sea-passage into lake Strangford in that southern part of
Dalaradia which is now Co. Down. On the southern shore of this lake
he landed, and Dichu the proprietor of that part became his first
convert, and granted him, after his return from an ineffectual attempt
to convert his old master Miliucc, a site for a Christian establishment at
Saul; and in its vicinity Bright, Rathcolpa, Downpatrick also have a
legendary connexion with him. Then in Co. Meath, Trim and Dun-
shaughlin, both not far from the royal hill of Tara, Uisnech, and
Donagh-patrick where Conall, brother of king Loigaire, was converted, are
all places associated with the activities of Patrick. Thence he advanced
into Ulster, destroying the idol Crom Cruaich in the plain of Slecht,
founding churches at Aghanagh, Shancough, Tannach, and Caissel-
ire-all in Co. Sligo. Then turning south he founded the church of
Aghagower on the confines of Mayo and Gal way, not far from the hill
Crochan-Aigli (Croagh Patrick), on the summit of which he was believed
to have spent forty days and nights in solitude and contemplation.
1 This is the conclusion of Professor Bury, Life of St Patrick, p. 55.
## p. 507 (#539) ############################################
444-461] Work of St Patrick 507
Traces survive of a second journey into Connaught full of interesting
incidents, and of a third journey (to be dated thirteen years after
Patrick's arrival in Ireland), into the territory of king Amolngaid
including the wood of Fochlad, where, according to the most probable
interpretation of documents, he had wandered in the days of his early
captivity. Here a church was built and a cross set up, in a spot which
still bears the local name of Crosspatrick.
The year 444 saw the foundation of Armagh (Ardd Mache) on
a small tract of ground assigned to Patrick by Daire, king of Oriel or
of one of the tribes of Oriel, at the foot of the hill of Macha, sub-
sequently exchanged for a site on the hill-top.
Traces of Patrick's work in south Ireland are less distinct, but
tradition points to his having been there, and he is said to have
baptised the sons of Dunlang king of Leinster, those of Natfraich king of
Munster, and Crimthann son and successor of Endoe a sub-king, whose
residence and territory were on the banks of the river Slaney in Co.
Wexford. But Christianity had an earlier footing in the south than in the
north of Ireland. Patrick's mission work was therefore less needed there,
and his glory clusters rather round northern Armagh than round any
place in the south of Ireland.
In 461 Patrick died and was buried at Saul near the mouth of the
river Slaney in Co. Down, where he had first landed at the commence-
ment of his missionary enterprise in Ireland.
Subject to the necessary limitations of one man's life and powers, and
to the exceptions already described, Patrick was both the converter of
Ireland to the Christian religion, and the founder and organiser of the
Church in that island. Not that he extinguished heathenism. An ever
increasing halo of glory surrounded his memory in later times, until
it came to be believed that he converted the whole of Ireland. We
are told in a late Life of a saint that "the whole of Hibernia was
through him filled with the faith and with the baptism of Christ1. " But
such a sudden and complete conversion of a whole country is unlikely,
unnatural, and practically impossible; and there are proofs that paganism
survived in Ireland long after St Patrick's time, though the successive
steps of its disappearance, and the date of its final extinction cannot be
traced or stated with certainty.
Very little light is thrown on this point by the Irish Annals. They
are a continuous and somewhat barren record of storms, eclipses, pesti-
lences, battles, murders, famines, and so forth. But there are occasional
allusions to charms of a Druidical or heathen nature, which imply either
that heathenism was not extinct or that heathen practices continued to
exist under the veil of Christianity.
In a. d. 560 at the famous battle of Culdreimne (Cooledrevny) we are
told in the Annals of Ulster that, "Fraechan, son of Temnan, it was
1 Vita Kierani, quoted in Ussher, Works, ti. p. 332.
ch. xvi (a).
## p. 508 (#540) ############################################
508 Survivals of Heathenism,
that made the Druids' erbe for Diarmait. Tuatan, son of Diman. . . it
was that threw overhead the Druids' erbe. ""
The exact meaning of erbe is not known, but it was evidently some
kind of Druidical charm.
Another mysterious entry made a. d. 738 points in a similar direc-
tion: "Fergus Glutt King of Cobha died from the envenomed spittles of
evil men. "
Later, from the last few years of the eighth century onwards, there
are many records of conflicts with the Gentiles; but the reference is in
all these cases to the new wave of heathenism which swept over Ireland
through the Danish invasions.
Evidence is however forthcoming from other sources.
For example, in the form of baptismal exorcism used in Ireland in
the seventh and ninth centuries we find the clause "expelle diabolum
et gentilifatem,"" but the last two words have disappeared from the same
form as used in Continental and English service-books of the tenth
century—in countries where the extinction of paganism had by that
time rendered the words obsolete.
The Canon of the Mass in the earliest extant Irish Missal contains a
petition that God would accept the offering made "in this church which
thy servant hath built to the honour of thy glorious name; and we
beseech thee, O Lord, that thou wouldest rescue him and all the people
from the worship of idols, and convert them to thee the true God and
Father Almighty1. "
This passage, which has not been found in any other liturgy, tells us
of some place in Ireland, probably in Co. Tipperary, where there was
still in the ninth century a pagan population among whom some pagan
landowner seems to have been at that time sufficiently favourable to
Christianity to build a Christian church, although he himself had not
yet become a convert.
It is true, as has been already noted, that a fresh inroad of heathenism
into Ireland took place through the Danish invasions which began in
a. d. 795, and that one of the fleets of their leader Turgesius sailed up
the Shannon, which forms the northern boundary of Tipperary; but their
paganism was fierce, and it is impossible to think of any Danish settler
being sufficiently favourable to Christianity to allow the building of a
Christian church at all events within two centuries after the date of
their first arrival.
1 The Stowe Missal (ninth century) in The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church,
Oxford, 1881, p. 236.
## p. 509 (#541) ############################################
Sources of our knowledge 509
(3) SCOTLAND.
When and by whom and under what circumstances was Christianity
first introduced into Scotland? It is not easy to reply to these questions
with certainty because of the unsatisfactory character of the later
authorities and the scanty character of the earlier authorities on which
we have to rely.
Writing c. a. d. 208 Tertullian refers to the fact that Christianity
had already reached Britannorum inaccessa Romania loca—an expression
which must include the north of Scotland, and probably also some of its
numerous adjacent islands.
Origen, c. 239, speaks of the Christian Church having extended to the
boundaries of the world, yet evidently not as all-embracing, for he refers
to very many among Britons, Germans, Scythians, and others who had
not yet heard the word of the Gospel.
No other Father of the first three centuries refers to Britannia or the
Britanni. We turn then to Scottish authorities.
Scotland possesses no early historian at all resembling Bede. The
earliest formal history of Scotland is the Chronicle of John of Fordun,
who died in 1385, and which takes us up to the reign of David I,
inclusive. It was afterwards re-edited and continued from 1153 to 1436
by Walter Bower or Bowmaker, abbot of Inchcolm, a small island in the
Firth of Forth, and in that form is generally known as the Scotichronicon.
After Fordun come such writers as Andrew of Wyntoun, who between
1420-24 wrote the "orygynale Chronykil of Scotland" from the Creation
to 1368; Maurice Buchanan, a cleric in the priory of Pluscarden, a cell
of the abbey of Dunfermline, who compiled the Liber Pluscardensis in
1461 at the desire of Bothuele, abbot of Dunfermline, which was
largely, and especially in the earlier books, a reproduction of the
Scotichronicon; Hector Boethius (Boece), 1470-1526, who wrote a history
of Scotland in seventeen books (Scotorum Historiae Libri XVII). Later
Scottish historians need not be enumerated or referred to here.
Now these writers make a definite statement that the inhabitants
of Scotland were first converted to Christianity in a. d. 203, in the
time of Pope Victor I in the seventh year of the reign of the Emperor
Severus. Fordun (lib. n. cap. 35) gives no further details, and the only
authority quoted consists of four lines of anonymous Latin poetry which
look very much as if they had been composed by himself. Hector Boece,
writing later, gives further details of the conversion of Donald I by the
missionaries of Pope Victor in 203, the seventh year of Severus.
Now there is no authority for this statement earlier than Fordun,
and we can hardly avoid the conclusion that it is a deliberate invention
on his part; possibly from a desire that Scotland should not be so very
CB. XVI (a).
## p. 510 (#542) ############################################
510 Legends
far behind Britain, which claimed to have been converted to Christianity
in the second century by Pope Eleutherus in the time of a king Lucius1.
The statement also stands self-condemned through the anachronisms
and the inaccuracies which it contains. There were no Scoti in Scotland
in 203, Zephyrinus was then Pope, not Victor, and it was the tenth not
the seventh year of the Emperor Severus.
Still there must have been Christians among the soldiers composing
the Roman armies of invasion and occupation during, soon after,
and even before the reign of Severus. May not some knowledge of
Christianity have entered Scotland through them? Unfortunately
the traces of Roman occupation in Scotland are extremely scanty.
No decorations, emblems, or relics of any kind have been found
suggestive of Christianity, and there is not only no proof but there
are not the slightest traces of a Romano-Scotic church in the third
century. No reliance can be placed on certain statements made to
the contrary in the Lives of the Saints. The hagiological literature
of Scotland is for the most part very late, and for historical purposes
more than usually worthless. With the exception of the two seventh
century Lives of St Columba by Cuminius (Cumine) and Adamnan, there
is nothing earlier than the Life of St Ninian by Ailred who died in
1166 and two Lives of St Kentigern belonging to the same century, an
anonymous and now fragmentary Life written while Herbert was bishop
of Glasgow (1147-64), and a Life by Joceline of Furness written during
the episcopate of Joceline, bishop of Glasgow (1174-99). All the
traditions and legends assigning extremely early dates to certain
Scottish saints are without foundation, such as the story in the Aberdeen
Breviary which makes St Serf a Christian of the primitive church of
Scotland before the arrival of Palladius, whose suffragan he becomes;
and the story representing Regulus as bringing relics of St Andrew
to Scotland, c. 360. In addition to its purely fictitious details, this
latter story antedates the connexion with St Andrew, and the importa-
tion of his relics into Scotland, by some four hundred years.
Legends, then, and fiction apart, when was Christianity introduced
into Scotland?
In answering this question we have to remember that Scotland
as we know it, and as it exists to-day, was not in existence in
the earlier centuries of the Christian era. In the seventh century
the country which now makes up Scotland comprised four distinct
kingdoms.
(1) The English kingdom of Bernicia, extending from the Tyne to
the Firth of Forth, with its capital at Bamborough.
(2) The British kingdom of Cumbria, or Cambria, or Strathclyde,
extending from the Firth of Clyde on the north, to the river Derwent in
1 For the unhistorical character of this claim, though it has the authority
of Bede, see Harnack, Brief d. brit. KOnigs Lucius.
## p. 511 (#543) ############################################
Conversion of Straihclyde 511
Cumberland, and including the greater part both of that county and of
Westmoreland; its capital being the rock of Dumbarton on the Clyde,
with the fortress of Alclyde on its summit.
(3) The kingdom of the Picts, north of the Firth of Forth,
extending over the northern and eastern districts of that part of Scotland,
with its capital near Inverness.
(4) The Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, corresponding very nearly to
the modern county of Argyle, with the hill-fort of Dunadd as its capital.
In addition to these four kingdoms there was a central neutral
ground corresponding to the modern counties of Stirling and Linlithgow,
with a mixed population drawn from all four of the above populations
though specially from the first three; and there was a British settlement
in Galloway, corresponding to the modern counties of Wigtown and
Kirkcudbright, known in Bede's time as the county of the Niduarian
Picts. Niduari probably means persons living on the banks or in the
neighbourhood of the river Nith, which runs into the Solway Firth
between the counties of Kirkcudbright and Dumfries, though the
derivation of the word is not certain.
In discussing the introduction of Christianity into these various parts
of Scotland we may at once dismiss (1). The history of Bernicia falls
more properly under the history of England than under that of Scotland.
(2) The conversion of Strathclyde has been generally ascribed to
St Ninian (Nynias) who was engaged in building a stone church at
Whithern (Ad Candidam Casam) in Galloway at the close of the fourth
century, in 397, if we may accept the statement of Ailred that
he heard of St Martin's death while the church was in building, and
that he dedicated it, when finished, to that saint. But we really know
nothing with certainty about St Ninian beyond the scanty account of
him given by Bede, for which see below under (3). Bede tells us that
he was a Briton—de natiane Britonum—and it has been generally
concluded that he was a Briton of Strathclyde. This seems a very
probable inference, though Bede does not say so. If then he was a
Cumbrian and not a Welsh or any other Briton, Strathclyde must have
been already at least a partially Christian county to have produced this
eminent Christian teacher; and the church at Candida Casa was only
the first stone church built amongst an already Christian people.
But the earlier history of Strathclyde is in any case obscure and, so
far as Christianity is concerned, is quite unknown to us. Ailred tells
us that Ninian's father was a Christian king, but whether he was
inventing facts, or whether he was perpetuating a tradition, or how he
obtained his information we know not. At all events it must be
remembered that Ailred was separated from Ninian by a gap of over
seven centuries. This is not the place to discuss the traces of Ninian's
influence and work, or supposed work, in Ireland and the Isle of Man1.
1 See p. 505.
CH. XVI (A).
## p. 512 (#544) ############################################
512 Conversion of the Picts
NiniarTs time is usually given as c. 353-432, but there is no good evidence
for the year of either his birth or death.
For about a century afterwards the history of Strathclyde is a blank
till we come to St Kentigern or Mungo the great Strathclyde saint,
whose life extended from 527 to 612. The latter date is given in the
Annates Cambriae; the former date rests on the supposition that he
was eighty-five years old at his death. For the facts of Kentigern's
life we are even worse off" than we are for those of the life of Ninian.
Unfortunately there is no mention of Kentigern in Bede, and our earliest
biographies of him date from the twelfth century, namely, as stated above,
an anonymous Life written in the time of Bishop Herbert of Glasgow,
who died in 1164, existing only in one early fifteenth century MS.
in the British Museum, and a Life by Joceline, a monk of the abbey
of Furness in Lancashire, written c. 1190 in the lifetime of another
Joceline, bishop of Glasgow (1174-99). If we may trust Joceline,
Kentigern having been consecrated bishop by a single bishop sum-
moned from Ireland for that purpose, and having fixed his see at
Glasgow, practically re-converted Strathclyde to Christianity, the vast
majority of its inhabitants having apostatised from the faith since
the days of Ninian. This re-conversion included that of the Pictish
inhabitants of Galwiethia or Galloway, who had likewise apostatised.
He is also credited by Joceline with missionary work in Albania or
Alban, which means the eastern districts of Scotland north of the Firth
of Forth, and dedications to Kentigern north of the Firth of Forth
seem to corroborate Joceline's statement, which however is otherwise
unsupported, and cannot be accepted as certainly established: his
other statements that Kentigern sent missionaries to the Orkneys,
Norway, and Ireland are improbable in the extreme; and it is only the
general and inherent difficulty of proving a negative which makes it
impossible to refute them.
It may be of interest to add that traces of Strathclyde Christianity
coeval with Ninian survive in the names of two, possibly three,
bishops engraved on fifth century stones at Kirkmadrine on the bay of
Luce, Co. Wigtown, and in the remains of a stone chapel of St Medan, an
Irish virgin and a disciple of Ninian, at Kirkmaiden on the same bay.
(3) The Picts. Bede tells us that Ninian converted the southern
Picts, Australes Picti. It has been thought that these Picts were the
Picts of Galloway, the Galwegian or Niduarian Picts, but as Bede
describes them as occupying territory within, that is, to the south of, the
Mounth, he must refer to the southern portion of the northern Pictish
kingdom, which would correspond to the six modern counties of
Kincardine, Forfar, Perth, Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan.
Bede also records the conversion of the northern Picts by St Columba.
He gives the date of Columba's arrival in Scotland as 565, but he
appears to have landed on and occupied Iona in 563, and in 565 to have
## p. 513 (#545) ############################################
Columba 513
crossed the mountain range of Drumalban on his missionary enterprise
to the northern Picts. His first arrival in Scotland is dated by other
authorities and in the Annals of Ulster, the Annates Cambriae, and the
Annals of Tighernac as 562 or 563. Iona1 was probably assigned to him
in the first instance by Conall Mac Comgaill, king of Dalriada, and
afterwards confirmed to him by Brude Mac Maelchon, king of the Picts,
whom Columba visited at his palace near Inverness, converting both him
and his nation to Christianity. Iona was situated between the Pictish
and the Dalriadic kingdoms.
We know very few details about this mission work among the
northern Picts, which extended over nine years. Neither Bede, nor
Adamnan in his Life of Columba, which is rather a panegyric than
a biography, give us any history of it, but the many churches dedicated
to him are a witness to his success, and details of two foundations of
Columban churches have been preserved in the Book of Deer, viz.
Aberdour in Banffshire, and Deer in the district of Buchan.
Columba's activity extended also to many of the small islands
adjacent to Scotland, of which next to Iona itself the most important
settlements were at Hinba and Tiree; but other islands, including Skye,
bear witness to his presence and work by the dedications of their
churches.
(4) The Scottish kingdom of Dalriada was founded by a colony
from Dalriada in the extreme north of Ireland at the end of the fifth or
early in the sixth century: and there can be no reason to doubt that
the Dalriadic Irish or Scoti, as they were then called, were a Christian
people, and brought their Christianity with them into Scotland c. a. d. 490.
Therefore when Columba arrived in Scotland in 563, or 565, he
found a Christian people and king in Dalriada, ready to welcome him
and to assign Iona to him as his home: and this was the beginning of a
new movement which was destined to influence not Scotland only, but
England also.
1 More properly Ioua. See Fowler's note in his edition of Adamnan, p. lxv.
C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. XVI (a). 33
## p. 514 (#546) ############################################
514
CHAPTER XVI (b).
THE CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONS.
(1) THE ENGLISH.
When Teutonic tribes of mixed descent invaded Britain they came
as heathen unaffected by Roman Christianity against Keltic tribes
partly heathen and partly Christian; the old inhabitants had been
Romanised and Christianised in different degrees, varying coastwards
and inland, in cities and country, to the south-east and to the west: the
invaders moreover covered and at first devastated more land than they
could hold, and their own settlement was a long process, varying in
length in different districts. The separation of the Britons from the
government and influence of Rome had been also slow and reluctant.
Hence for many reasons it is hard to generalise about the Christianity
with which the Teutonic invaders came into touch. Where this Chris-
tianity was not strong or long implanted it tended towards weakness
and decay: here and there revivals of heathenism took place: here and
there in the long years of Teutonic settlement revivals of Keltic Chris-
tianity began. Hence, as time passes on, new vigour of a Keltic and not
a Romanised type is found as in Wales among the British: elsewhere
the influence of Christianity lessens, and the Britons of some parts, so
far from being able to convert the newcomers, keep their own religion
more as a custom than as a living force. In either case the result is
the same: the invaders are for long years wholly unaffected by the
Christianity of the land they are conquering.
Little need be said here of the religion the invaders brought with
them: in some points of morals they may have been above some other
races and hence the moral code of Christianity might appeal to them,
but it is idle to speculate as to elements in their religion which possibly
made them readier later on to accept Christian doctrines. Their
whole outlook, however, upon the unseen world brought it into close
touch with their lives and the fortunes of their race: their religion so
far as it was effective was a source of joy in life, and of strength in
action, not of fear or weakness. Hence, when they received Christianity,
it was with the freedom of sons, not the timidity of slaves, with a ready
understanding that its discipline was to strengthen their characters
## p. 515 (#547) ############################################
Gregory the Great 515
for action. English Christianity was thus marked off from Teutonic
Christianity elsewhere by moral differences, slight and not to be over-
estimated: moreover, because it started afresh, free from the political
and social traditions of the Empire, and because its conditions, in spite
of much intercourse with the Continent, were locally more uniform and
more insular than elsewhere, its growth took a somewhat peculiar turn.
Christianity came to the English from the Papacy, and not from the
Empire: it came at one great epoch, and when the Conquest was well
under way, rather than by the gradual influence of daily life, as it
did with the Teutonic races elsewhere. "The wonderful vitality of
imperialist traditions. . . took no hold here. Escaping this, the English
Church was saved from the infection of court-life and corruption. . . : it
escaped the position forced upon the bishops of France as secular officers,
defensors and civil magistrates. " And this original impulse as described
by Stubbs kept on its way in spite of later Frankish influence and inter-
course. But at the same time the mission brought with it a larger life
and a broader outlook: it is significant that Aethelberht of Kent, the
first to accept the new faith, is also the first in the list of kings who put
forth laws. Later kings who did the same were also noted for their
interest in the Church1.
The part taken by Gregory the Great, and the impulse he gave to
the mission, have been spoken of elsewhere. But it should be noted here
as a sign of the responsibility for the whole West felt by the Papal See
in face of the barbarian inroads; furthermore the letters of commen-
dation given to the missionaries by the Pope to bishops and rulers
amongst the Franks opened up more fully lines of connexion already
laid down for the future English Church. Two of Gregory's letters
would, indeed, suggest that the English had already expressed some
wish for missionaries to be sent to them: "it has come to us that the
race of the English desires with yearning to be turned to the faith
of Christ. . . but that the bishops in their neighbourhood'1—and this
apparently applied to the Franks, not solely at any rate to the Welsh—
"are negligent. " And the Pope (at an uncertain date) had formed
a plan for buying English youths "to be given to God in the mon-
asteries. " This may be taken along with the beautiful tradition current
in Northumbria of Gregory's pity for the English boys in the Roman
slave-market. But at any rate the time was favourable for a mission
owing to the marriage of Aethelberht of Kent, the most powerful
English ruler of the time, with Berhta, daughter of Chariberht of Paris;
and this Christian queen had taken across to her new home the Frankish
bishop Liudhard as her chaplain. But from other indications little seems
to have been known in the Rome of that day about the heathen invaders,
and the English invasion had cut off the British Christians from inter-
course with the Continent.
1 See (Imp. xvii. pp. 548-9.
ch. xvi (b). 33—2
## p. 516 (#548) ############################################
516 Augustine's Mission [596-597
The mission left Rome early in 596: during the journey its members
wished to return from the perils in front of them, but, encouraged by
Gregory's fatherly firmness and knit together by his giving their leader
Augustine the authority of an abbot over them, they went on and
landed, most probablv at Richborough1, 597. Aethelberht received them
kindly, and gave them an interview—in the open air for fear of magic.
Augustine—taller than his comrades—led the procession of 40 men
(possibly including Frankish interpreters), chanting a Litany as they
went, carrying a silver cross and a wooden picture of the crucifixion;
Aethelberht heard them with sympathy, and yet with an open mind.
He gave them a home in Canterbury in the later parish of St Alphege:
here they could worship in St Martin's church, and they were also
allowed to preach freely to the king's subjects. By Whitsuntide the
king himself was so far won over as to be baptised—on Whitsunday or
its eve, probably at St Martin's church (1 or 2 June 597). The king
used no force to lead his subjects after him, but he naturally favoured
those who followed him, and soon many were won by the faithful lives
of the missionaries, shewn so easily by the common life of a brotherhood.
Throughout the story of the Conversion it is indeed to the lives rather
than to the preaching of the missionaries that Bede assigns their success,
and the tolerance of the English kings in Kent and elsewhere gave them
a ready opening. If here and there the missionaries met persecution, it
never rose to martyrdom.
According to the Pope's directions, Augustine ought now to be
consecrated, and for this purpose he went to Aries, where Vergilius
(the usually accurate Bede mistakes the name) consecrated him (16 Nov.
597)*.
