20 ACRE. 
CHAP, and of edifices erected by the mother of Cow-. 
stantine, than of an ecclesiastical establishment 
upon a small island in the Hebrides; and upon 
an island, too, which was already thus distin- 
guished, before the inhabitants of England 
could be said to be converted to Christianity ; 
at an eera when the king of the East Angles 
was actually sending into Burgundy for mis- 
sionaries to preach the Christian faith'. The 
state of Jdna, indeed, at that period, can only 
be accounted for by the intercourse which 
was then maintained with the Holy Land by all 
parts of the Christian world. As a seat of 
learning, Idna was so renowned, that its abbot 
was appointed to act as ambassador from 
Ireland to an English monarch"; and it is well 
known that Bede borrowed his account of the 
Holy Land from Arculfe's, testimony, as afforded 
by Adamnanus. We may therefore with justice 
ask, " Has it been proved, that, prior to the 
introduction of the Saxon arch in the southern 
l) 5<02t''s Summary, &c. p. 27. Land. 1598. 
("i) Bede, as cited by Alabdlon, mentions the embassy of Adamnanui 
to Euldfrith (called Al'JJrid by Bede), king of the Northumbrians, a 
short time before the abbot's death, iu 705. " Adanuiunum mor- 
tuum esse paullo post suani legatinnem ad /Jld/riduni , anno Dccv 
defunctiim, teste Bedu in lib. v. cap. 19. amio regidsiii vigesimo necdum 
iniplelo." (Vide Mahdlon. Acta Ord. S. Bened. Ssc. 3. Par. 1. p. 500. 
L. Par. 1672.) 
