18 ACRE. 
time the monastery oi Ely was founded, and 
the abbeys of Abingdon, Chertsey, and Barking, 
were builded'. The monastery of Gloucester 
was also established ^ But before this time, 
Idna, upon the western coast of Scotland, was 
a seat of letters: the writings of Adamnanus, 
its abbot, have been often cited in these Travels. 
There can be no doubt^ therefore, but that an 
abbey church existed in that island prior to the 
foundation of the monastery at Rly. Adamnanus 
was born, in the beginning of the seventh 
century^ at Rathboth, now called Raphoe, in the 
County of Donegal, in Ireland ; which country he 
left when he became abbot of Idna'*. As at that 
time the model of every Christian sanctuary was 
derived from the Holy Land, and generally 
from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre *, where 
the pointed style may yet be discerned in the 
(1) Stow's Summary of the Chronicles of England, pp. S7, 2(3. 
Lond. 1598. 
(2) Ibid. 
(3) A. D. 626. 
(4) Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. IX. p. 303. Edin. 1799. 
(5) Witness the interesting: though almost unnoticed model of the 
Church of the Holi/ Sepulchre, called " the Round Church," in Cam- 
bridge, built by the Knights of Jerusalem, and shewing precisely the 
form of the building as it existed in the seventh century. See the Plan 
given by Adamnanus, apud Mabillon. Acta Sanctor. Ordin. Benedicti, 
Scpc, 3. Par. 2. p. 505. L. Par. 1672. 
