44 THE president's address. 



religious, it might almost be said monastic establishment, and 

 at the head of this was the chief ecclesiastic about the court. 

 The house of the chaplain was the residence of this personage. 

 Probably this was a survival of the times when the Celtic chief 

 was surrounded by the Magicians and Sorcerers ; these the 

 Christians had supplanted, and in their place the king was, on 

 becoming a christian, surrounded with monks. As Pagans, 

 their duty had been by their magic arts to ward off danger 

 from the king, as Christians, it was the same, but the means 

 used were different."* 



The Priest of the Household was entitled to receive a third 

 of the king's tithes, and a third of everything the people about 

 the court received. 



"All the chapels of the king were served by monks, that 

 is, the monks about the king's court. They were under the 

 control, not of the king, but of the head of their o-wn tribe, the 

 Priest of the Household, and it was provided that the ' bishop 

 was not to present anyone to the king's chapels without the 

 permission of the Priest of the Household except by the advice 

 of the king.' That is, that according to the Celtic idea, the 

 bishops had no right to interfere in the monastery attached to 

 the court." 



It is clear, then, that we have in Celtic Christianity two rival 

 ecclesiastical institutions, the monastic, or tribal, governed by 

 the Abbot, who was Saint to the Clan ; and secondly, the 

 royal ecclesiastical monastery, governed by the Household Priest 

 attached to the king, and with his residence in the royal Dun. 

 Very often the king got his House Priest to be consecrated 

 bishop, and then we have a bishop, head of the military retainers 

 of the king on one side, and on the other the abbot with bishops 

 under his jurisdiction in close connexion with the tribe. When 

 Bishop Kenstec of Dinnurrin, in Cornwall, made submission to 

 the See of Canterbury (833-70), he was probably the Household 

 Bishop of the Cornish king, whose dun was Dingerein. Gradually 

 and inevitably in Ireland, the Household Priests became 

 bishops, extended their authority, and came to be regarded as 

 bishops of fixed sees. 



*" The Celtic Church in Wales," Lond. 1897, p. 314. 



