484 



C U L D E E S. 



Ciildee?. Rome, to which the Snxons of the West and of Kent 

 "^ had subjected themselves. See Rede, Hint. iii. 21 — 

 26. 



The seniors at Iona did not confine their attention 

 to England. They established religious houses, similar 

 to their own, in many places in Scotland. The most 

 ancient of these seems to have been at Abernethy, ac- 

 counted the capital of the Pictish kingdom. The Cul- 

 dean monastery, or college there, appears to have been 

 founded about the year 6'0(). The idea, that this was 

 .the primary seat of the chief episcopate among the 

 Picts, which, it is said, was afterwards transferred to 

 St Andrews, most probably originated from the misap- 

 prehension, or misrepresentation, by monkish writers, 

 of the power that belonged to the Culdean council, 

 which, in an early age, might extend over a great part 

 of Scotland, by reason of the remote situation of Iona. 

 It appears that there was a society of Culdees in St 

 Serf's isle, in Lochlevin, before the close of the seventh 

 century. They were soon after this established at 

 Dunkeld ; long before it became an episcopal see. The 

 Pictish princes were disposed to make this a second 

 Iona, either because of the distance, or on account of 

 the desolation, of the other by the invasions of the 

 Scandinavians. Hence the abbot of Dunkeld was also 

 called primate of Pictland. The Culdees, it would 

 seem, had a foundation at St Andrews about the be- 

 ginning of the ninth century. They were settled at 

 Brechin before it was made a bishopric. We have 

 some proof of their establishment at Dunblane about 

 the year 1000. They were also fixed at Monimusk, 

 Dunfermline, and Scone. Kirkaldy, Culross, and Mel- 

 rose, are numbered among their seats, as well as Go- 

 van, Abercorn, Tyningham, &c. 



Their doctrines were not less unpalatable, than their 

 mode of government, to the friends of the church of 

 Rome. In England, in a very early period, the adhe- 

 rents of the popish missionary Augustine were viewed 

 by the delegates from Iona in the light of heretics. 

 They accordingly refused to hold communion with 

 them. Matters were carried so high in support of the 

 Roman authority in the synod of Stroneschalch, now 

 Whitby, in England, A. 662, that Colman, the Scottish 

 bishop of Lindisfarne, left his bishopric, and with his 

 adherents returned to Scotland. Thus, as Bede informs 

 us, " the catholic institution daily increasing, all the 

 Scots who resided among the Angles either conformed 

 to them, or returned to their own country ;" Hint. iii. 

 25, 26", 29- It was decreed in the council of Ceal- 

 hythe, A. 816, that no Scottish priest should be allow- 

 ed to perform any duty of his function in England. 

 But in Scotland the Culdean doctrine had taken deeper 

 root, and, although equally offensive to the votaries of 

 Rome, kept its ground for several centuries. The po- 

 pish writers themselves celebrate the piety, the purity, 

 the humility, and even the learning, of the Culdees ; 

 but while they were displeased with the simplicity, or 

 what they deemed the barbarism of their worship, 

 they charged them with various deviations from the 

 faith of the Catholic church. It was not the least of 

 these, that they did not observe Easter at the proper 

 time. They did not acknowledge auricular confession ; 

 they rejected penance and authoritative absolution ; 

 they made no use of chrism in baptism ; confirmation 

 was unknown ; they opposed the doctrine of the real 

 presence; they withstood the idolatrous worship of 

 saints and angels, dedicating all their churches to the 

 Holy Trinity ; the}' denied the doctrine of works of su- 

 pererogation j they were enemies to the celibacy of the 



clergy, themselves living in the married state. One Culdees. 

 sweeping charge brought against them is, that they s ""~ V w ' 

 preferred their own opinions " to the statutes of the 

 holy fathers." 



The Scots, having received the Christian faith by 

 the labours of the Culdees, long withstood the errors 

 and usurpations of Rome. It was not till the twelfth 

 century that their influence began to decline. Till 

 the close of the eleventh, it appears that they con- 

 tinued to differ from the Romish church as to the time 

 of observing Lent and Easter. The pious Margaret, 

 queen to Malcolm Canmore, who has been canoni- 

 zed as the patroness of Scotland, being an Anglo Saxon 

 princess, and having been educated on the continent, 

 may well be supposed to have been partial to those 

 modes of worship to which she had been accustomed 

 from her infancy. We find, accordingly, that sh»- was 

 offended at " certain erroneous practices" which pre- 

 vailed in the Scottish church ; and, with the view of re- 

 forming these, held frequent conferences with the cler- 

 gy, in which the king acted as interpreter. Her argu- 

 ments, as we learn from Turgot, her confessor, at 

 length prevailed. They agreed to observe Lent ac- 

 cording to the Catholic institution. The same writer 

 says : " In some places of Scotland there were certain 

 persons who were accustomed to celebrate masses, I 

 know not by what barbarous rite, contrary to the uni- 

 versal practice of the church." He adds, that " the 

 queen, from holy zeal, was at the greatest pains to an- 

 nihilate this custom, that no one of the Scottish nation 

 might henceforth presume to observe it ;" Fit. Marga- 

 ret, c. 2. s. 16. Papebroch, in his Notes, strangely 

 views the word missai as signifying fairs. Lord Hailes 

 does not seem to have understood the meaning of this 

 crimination. Vid. Annals, i. 38, 39, N. But this is the 

 very charge that was afterwards brought against the 

 Culdees in the Register of the Priory of St Andrews, 

 supposed to have been written about the year 1140. 

 They " celebrated their office, after their own manner, 

 in a certain very small corner of the church." More 

 suo of the Register, is equivalent to nescio quo ri/u bar- 

 baro of Turgot. This also exactly accords with the 

 account given by the celebrated St Bernard of the 

 Irish Culdees, when Malachy entered on the bishopric 

 of Connor. " He never had met with any," he says, 

 " so perverse in their manners, so beastly in their rites, 

 so impious in their faith, so barbarous as to their insti- 

 tutes ;" Vit. Malack c. 6. ap. Messingham, p. 357. The 

 similarity of the language used in the Register of St 

 Andrews to that of Turgot, affords a proof that, not- 

 withstanding the concessions made to the zealous 

 queen, the influence of her exertions had not outlived 

 herself. 



We hear of no further attempts against them till the 

 reign of Alexander I. He, although attached to St Co- 

 lumba, thought the modes of worship observed by his 

 followers too simple ; and therefore " delivered up the 

 church" at Scone, which had been dedicated in honour 

 of the Holy Trinity, " to God himself, and St Mary, 

 and St Michael, and St John, and St Laurence, and St 

 Augustine." Vid. Chart. Dalripnple's Coll. p. 371, 372. 

 His brother David, the Saint, pursued measures still 

 more effectual. These were at first of an artful de- 

 scription. As he increased the number of the epis- 

 copal sees, which tended greatly to weaken the au- 

 thority of the Culdees; he promoted some of the abbots 

 of their monasteries to the dignity of the episcopate, 

 preserving to the Culdees, possessed of parochial 

 churches, their benefices during life. Those whom he 



