236 



ing to the Scotto-Irish fashion, because they do not ordinarily (non 

 Solent) erect stone walls."* And when Bede writes that Columba 

 built his church in a certain place called the plain of oaks, from 

 the abundance of that timber there growing,-|- it is manifest, he 

 insinuates, that the monastery was constructed of these oaks, for 

 describing a church founded in 635, by Finan, an Irish Bishop of 

 Lindisfarne, he says, that Finan built a church in that island, accord- 

 ing to the fashion of the Irish, not of stone, but of worked oak, and 

 covered it with reeds. The woodwork, however, was so very solid, that 

 in the instance of this very church, the roof of reeds was taken away 

 and replaced by one of lead.;]: The plate given in Spelman's Con- 

 cilia,§ and the account of another ancient chapel at Greensted, in 

 Essex, sketched in Ducarell's Anglo-Norman Antiquities, (p. 100,) 

 seem calculated to give the curious reader an adequate notion of the 

 common Irish church architecture of this day. There may have 

 been, however, some of a much superior class, and it is not unreason- 

 able to claim such an admission in favour of the several Irish annals 

 that so represent them. If full faith could be given to Cogitosus, 

 the church and nunnery of Kildare were finished with a splendour 

 that would do honour to much later artists. He states this structure 

 to have been " solo spatiosa et in altum minace proceritate porrecta;" 

 enumerates its " tria oratoria ampla," notices the " altaris decorati," 



* "Ecclesiam in ejus monasterioe tabulis dedolatis constructam juxta morem Scottorum 

 gentium, quia macerias non solent facere." — Cited O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Script, vol. 4. p. 135. 



f " Fecerat autem, priusquam in Britanniam veniret, monasterium nobile in Hibemia, 

 quod a copia roborum Dearmach lingua Scotorum, hoc est campus roborum, cognominatur." — 

 Eccl. Hist. lib. 3. c. 4. 



J " A Scotis ordinatus ac missus * * * * in insula Lindisfamensi fecit ecclesiam 

 episcopali sede congruam, quam tamen more Scotorum non de lapide sed de robore secto totam 

 composuit, atque arundine texit. * * * Eadbert ablata arundine plumbi laminis earn totam, 

 hoc est et tectum et ipsos quoque parietes ejus, cooperire curavit." — Eccl. Hist. lib. 3. c. 25. 



§ Vol. 1. p. 11. 



