196 



MISS ELEANOR H. HDLL, ON THE 



date of St. Patrick's death, about a.d. 461, we hear little of 

 native Welsh and Irish foundations either by way of churches or 

 of monasteries, though liere and there, generally in the extreme 

 w^est of Ireland, some anchorite settlers seem to have begun to 

 build themselves huts and to gather a few pupils around them. 

 But less than a century later, the whole country is absolutely 

 covered with ecclesiastical establishments of more or less size 

 and importance, according to the reputation of their founders for 

 sanctity or learning, and we can hardly put our finger on any 

 spot on the map of Wales, Scotland and Ireland or of Devon and 

 Cornwall (the humble relics of Celtic days have, alas ! all been 

 swept away from the eastern and central portions of England)^ 

 without still finding some tiny cell or church, some mouldering 

 wall of an ancient oratory, some solitary cave or place of 

 retreat, or some shaft or crown of a Celtic cross which carries, 

 down to this day either by its own name or by that of the 

 farmland upon which it stands, the memory of the early saint 

 who built the cell or taught and worked in the neighbourhood. 

 The extension of the monastic system at this moment was 

 something utterly abnormal, and it cannot be understood unless 

 we have formed in our mind a clear idea of what a Celtic 

 monastic foundation was like. 



A monastery in Celtic times was a very different place to a 

 similar institution in our own days. We must put out of our minds 

 alto.sjether the idea of a stone-built establishment capalile of 

 holding a large number of persons. For an Irish or British 

 foundation of the sixth or the seventh century there was no 

 need to collect funds or hire stone-masons to lay foundations and 

 draw architectural plans. Nearly all the famous monasteries 

 began in groups of stone or wattled huts in every way similar 

 to those in which the people ordinarily dwelt, each student 

 building his own little cell witli his own liands when he had 

 fixed upon tlie monastic school in wliicli he had deteriniued to 

 pursue ins studies. In Wales the usual method was for a saint 

 (and every professed Christian might easily earn for himself a 

 title that was wilHngly bestowed, without need of Canonical 

 sanction, on any Christian person of distinction) to seek a spot 

 where in solitude lie might ])ursue his religious devotions 

 or perfect himself in piety. He would retire to a sequestered 

 place, and after a fortnight of fasting and prayer would proceed 

 to erect his wattled hut and his primitive oratory, which hence- 

 forth l)ecame called by liis name. In Ireland we do not hear of 

 the ])revious fixed i)erio(l of ])re])aration, but tlie process was 

 otherwise the same. l>ut gradually the belief in the sanctity 



