208 Mr. J. Stuart oti St. Ehha and Coldingham. 



which covered the tops of so many hills of the Green Island, 

 or were surrounded by walls of strength. 



We know that Finan, the successor of Aidan in the See of 

 Northumhria, erected his church at Lindisfarne of wood, 

 after the fashion of the Scots, and that the illustrious Cuth- 

 "bert's establishment on the Island of Fame, consisted of an 

 oratory and house, the walls of which were formed of rough 

 stones and earth, roofed with shingles, the whole being sur- 

 rounded by a circular wall. 



There seems much reason to believe, that the impulse which 

 led to the foundation of St. Ebba's Monastery, on the lonely 

 cliffs which have ever since been known by her name, as to 

 that of the kindred institution founded by St. Hilda on the 

 " Island of the Hart," arose out of that devotional fire which 

 attended the labours of the Scottish missionaries, whose 

 influence in the days of Finan (from whom, according to the 

 tradition of the Scottish Church, Ebba received the veil,) 

 extended in a greater or less degree over all the English 

 provinces from the Forth to the Thames. 



We may well believe that the buildings of Ebba's Monas- 

 tery partook also of the style of her Scottish friends, and that 

 like the Monastery of St. Columba at lona, of St. Gall on 

 the banks of the Steinach, or St. Columbanus at Luxieu and 

 Bobbio, it consisted of separate " mansiunculcc per gyrum 

 dispositas," probably of turf or wood, covered with reeds.* 

 Accordingly, an account of the foundation of St. Ebba's Mon- 

 astery quoted by Dugdale from a manuscript in the Bodleian, 

 states — *' In Coludi enim monasterio, virorum et virginum 

 eongregationi beata Ebba proefuit ; et contigua utrique ibi- 

 dem habebant habitacula."t They are called "domunculae" 

 by Bede, when he comes to tell how the houses erected for 

 prayer or study, had been turned into places of gluttony, 

 drunkenness, story-telling, and other unbecoming practices.^ 



But humble as these little cells must have been, the mon- 

 astery would seem for a time to have been an active agent in 

 quickening the religious life of the country of Northumhria. 

 It sheltered Ethelreda, a daughter of the East Saxon kings, 

 who became the unwilling wife of Ecgfrith, of Northumbrian 

 and it was the resort of men like the monk Adamnan, who, 



• The first monastery at the mouth of tlie South Tyne was of wood. Leland 

 records — " S. Oswaldus Monasteriolnm de Tinemuthe ex ligneo lapideum fecit." 

 Collectanea, Vol. IV., p. 43. 



I Dugdale's Monasticon, Vol. VI., p. 1149. 



X Hist Ecc, Lib. V., cap. 25. 



