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Earliest Writing Charters Chronicles Old Scotch collections of laws
The Berne MS. The Ayr MS. Materials of early history State
papers from Alexander III. Records of Parliament from Robert I.
Barbour, Wyntoun, Fordun Scotland in the twelfth century Scots
Picts Lothian The Norse settlement Strath-Clyde Cumbria
Language of old Scotland, Celtic After Malcolm Canmore, tendency to
anglicize Scotch princes anglicizing The Scotch courtiers and
settlers all Saxon or Teutonic Northumberland under David I. Walter
Espec at the battle of the Standard David's troops The Galwegians
The Scots Bruce at the battle of the Standard Early Christianity
Saint Ninian Columba Iona Conversion of Northumbria The see of
Lindis-farne founded AEdan Bishop of Lindisfarne St. CuthbertIona
the source of Christianity in Scotland The Culdees Their later
irregularities Ancient Bishoprics restored by David I. Munificence
to the Church David I. His character.
Perhaps it does not require
much apology when I request your attention to that part of European
policy, which was developed in our own country. I cannot think that even
among strangers, the history of Scotland could be regarded as
uninteresting. We know that it is not the mere size, or population, nor
the actual power of a nation, that gives it a prominent place in the
history of mankind, since the little provinces and single cities of Greece
have made an impression on the history of the world, which nothing else
can rival, and which time cannot efface.
An English writer an
English lady speaking of her own country, has challenged a comparison
even with the ancients: "Nor is it only valour and generosity that
renowne this nation. In arts wee have advanced equall to our neighbors,
and in these that are most excellent, exceeded them. The world hath not
yielded men more famous in navigation, nor ships better built or furnisht.
Agriculture is as ingeniously practised. The English archery were the
terror of Christendom, and their clothes the ornament. But these low
things bounded not their I. great spirits. In all ages, it hath yielded
men as famous in all kinds of learning as Greece or Italy can boast of."
[Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson.]
I venture to claim a part
of the same character for Scotland. If it has been denied to our country
to create and perfect art, and to preserve immortal thoughts in language
as immortal, we have yet been allowed to treasure up some associations
with our bygone events, which have commanded a sympathy far beyond our
political influence or the spread of our language. Our poor and narrow
country has developed principles and feelings that know no limits of time
or space; and our history and literature are regarded, if I am not
mistaken, with a heartier sympathy over the civilised world, than those of
many countries of the greatest political importance.
We have no extant Scotch
writing, so early as the reign of Malcolm Canmore, who died in the . year
1093. That the art of writing was known and practised among us to a small
extent before, we cannot doubt; but it was probably used only for books
connected with the Church, its forms and service. At least there is no
evidence of the existence, so early as that reign, of any charter, record,
or chronicle. The oldest Scotch writing extant, is a charter by King
Duncan (not "The gracious Duncan," murdered by Macbeth, but his grandson,
who reigned in 1095), granted to the monks of St. Cuthbert of Durham. It
is kept in the treasury of Durham, and is in perfect preservation. The
rude pinning of a seal to it has raised some suspicion with regard to its
genuineness; but I think without foundation. The appending of the seal is
apparently a modern and clumsy attempt to add a sort of authentication,
which the charter did not want. It is executed in the Anglo-Saxon manner,
by the granter and the several witnesses affixing their crosses, and in
most Anglo-Saxon charters, seals were not used. We have several charters
still preserved of Edgar, the brother and successor of Duncan, who reigned
till 1106, and who uses a seal after the Norman fashion, on which he takes
the barbaric style of Basileus. From his time, that is, from the beginning
of the twelfth century, we have charters of all the Scotch kings, in an
unbroken series, as well as of numerous subjects, and derive from them
more information for public and domestic history, than is at all generally
known.
There is still preserved a
poor fragment of a Scotch chronicle, which appears to have been written
about the year 1165. It is a single leaf, now inserted in the MS. of the
chronicle of Melros, in the Cottonian library. The rest of that venerable
chronicle, written in the thirteenth century, in the Abbey of Melrose, is
the most ancient Scotch writing I. of the nature of continuous history
that is now extant. A few other fragments of chronicles of that century
perhaps, but being for the most part bare lists of the Scotch and Pictish
kings, are now deposited in the royal library at Paris. When used by
Camden and other historians, they were in the library of Cecil, Lord
Burleigh.
Of collections of the laws
of Scotland, the oldest is one which has been lately restored to this
country, from the public library at Berne. It is a fine and careful MS.,
written about 1270; and, what adds greatly to its interest, containing an
English law treatise and English styles, as well as some of the most
ancient laws of Scotland, particularly David I..'s venerable code of Burgh
laws; and last of all, the ancient laws of the Marches, concerted by a
grand assize of the borderers of the two kingdoms in 1249. This singular
mixture of the laws of two countries (which might have served as the
materials for the mysterious fabrication of a so-called Scotch code)
excites our curiosity as to the owner of the book; but the only clue we
find to guide us is a memorandum scribbled on the last leaf, of an account
of sheep taken from John, the shepherd of Malkaris-ton, on Sunday next
before the feast of St. Andrew, in the year 1306, when the flock is
counted in ewes, dynmonts, and hogs. Next in interest to the Berne MS., is
a book of Scotch laws, chiefly Burghal, which was picked up in a
book-stall in Ayr in 1824, and its previous history cannot be traced. It
is a fine MS., of the age of Robert T., or at least of the early half of
the fourteenth century. After that period, there is no want of MS.
collections of our laws; but all of the character of private and
unauthentic compilations.
State papers, properly so
called, few, but of great importance, begin in the reign of Alexander
III., or the latter half of the thirteenth century; and there are still
preserved imperfect records of parliamentary proceedings, from the age of
Robert Bruce downwards. These are all the materials of the civil history
of Scotland which we still possess, previous to the work of John Barbour,
of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Soon after his time,
Andrew Wyntoun, prior of Loch Leven, wrote his rhyming chronicle, and John
Fordun laid the foundation of Scotch history, in his Scoti-Chronicon.
These two writers were engaged upon their works at the same time, about
the latter years of the fourteenth century ; but neither seems to have
been aware of the other's undertaking.
Looking at the kingdom of
Scotland, then, at the beginning of the twelfth century, as the very
earliest period for which we have any historical materials, the dominions
of the Scotch king consisted of several states recently amalgamated. The
Scots, properly so called, a people who seem to have [. come from Ireland
as early as the fourth century, when they become known by name as the
terror of the degenerate Romanized Britons, had their original seat on the
west coast, and to the north of the Firth of Clyde. The Caledonians or
Picts, whom Tacitus, and a better authority, the venerable Bede, describe
as differing in their size, their red hair, [Rutilae comae, magni artus
Germanicam originem asseverant. Agric. II.] and in their language, from
the Scots, possessed in the eighth century, and down to the end of it, all
the Eastern Lowlands of modern Scotland, including Lothian; but the last
probably only for a short period. At the end of that century, they
possessed also Galloway and the Orkney islands.
In the middle of the ninth
century, these two nations were joined under Kenneth Mac Alpine, and from
that time the proper kingdom of the Scots extended from sea to sea, across
Scotland; but it was confined on the south by the powerful kingdom of
Northumbria, which extended to the Forth; and soon afterwards, on the
north, the northern sea-kings, who had long ravaged the coasts, made good
a settlement, which for two centuries, extended their power over the
Orkney and Shetland islands, the Hebrides, and the northern peninsula of
Scotland, reaching to the Moray Firth. The kingdom of the Scots continued
in the line of Kenneth for many generations, though not succeeding
according to the modern and feudal notions of inheritance. One of his
descendants, Kenneth, the son of Malcolm, succeeded in wresting from Edgar
of England the northern district of the province of Northumberland, which
then began to be known by the name of Lothian. One of the fragments of
chronicles, formerly mentioned, relates, that in the time of Indulfus, a
king a few years earlier than Kenneth, Edinburgh (oppidum Eden) was given
up to the Scots. I cannot but think that this was a part of the same
transaction by which the English Saxons solemnly conceded to the Scots the
northern district of Northumberland; and it is remarkable that the
earliest historical fact precisely recorded in the chronicles of both
countries, should relate to the accession of this rich province which
Scotland has never since abandoned, and the city which was destined to
become the capital of the kingdom.
To exhaust the map of
Scotland, it is necessary to allude to the district on the south of Clyde;
but I shall not at present open up the much vexed question of the kingdoms
of Strath-Clyde and Cumbria. Of the ancient British kingdom, having
Dumbarton for its capital, we know chiefly from notices of the Northmen,
who for centuries reaped their harvest of plunder along the shores of the
Clyde. Whether this kingdom were the same with that of Cumbria, or whether
Cumbria included with modern Cumberland the whole or part of the
south-western peninsula of Scotland, I shall not stop to examine; but it
is necessary to mention the fact, that Malcolm I. of Scotland obtained
from Edmund of England, a formal recognition of his rights to the kingdom
of Cumbria, which evidently consisted, in part at least, of modern
Cumberland, and it became from that time the usual appanage of the Tanist,
presumptive heir or prince of Scotland.
The red hair and large
limbs which Tacitus has bestowed on the inhabitants of Caledonia, and from
which he argued a Germanic descent, have naturally enough led some of our
historians to seek for a Teutonic origin for the Picts, whom they hold to
be the same with the Caledonians; and the contest between them and their
Celtic opponents has raged loud and fierce, with more of passion than one
would at first sight imagine could be excited by such a subject. If you
remember the animated discussion in the dining-parlour of Monkbarns,
between Mr. Oldbuck and Sir Arthur Wardour, which was stopped at last by
the baronet choking upon the hard names of the list of Pictish kings; you
learn that the controversy rests upon the narrowest possible foundation
upon the etymology of a single word, found in Bede, [Bede, in describing
the Roman wall, draws it from a place "qui sermone Pictorum Peanfa-hel
appellatur" to Dumbarton.] and which is said to be the only ascertained
remnant of the ancient Pictish language. I would not wish to interpose,
even as a mediator, in such a quarrel.
Long before the period of
ascertained history in Scotland, all marks of two distinct aboriginal
races had disappeared. The language of the hereditary natives of Scotland,
from the Mull of Galloway to the Moray Firth, was a Celtic speech, which
remained in Galloway until the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and which
is still spoken over the Highlands. We cannot doubt that another tongue
was spoken in the sea-ports and along the level shores of the eastern
coast. If we consider what was going on along the eastern coast of
England, from the time of the Romans and for centuries afterwards, we must
be satisfied that the tribes who so eagerly sought for settlements along
her coasts, were not likely to be limited by the Firths of Forth or Tay;
and there are plain marks in the appearance and language of the people,
and some indications in the names of places and families, of a Teutonic
and sea-borne colonizing, along our eastern sea-bord from Tweed to
Burghead.
Still, I think, it cannot
be questioned that the language of Scotland,king, court, and people.
Highland and Lowland, except a narrow strip of sea coast, in the reign
of Malcolm Canmore, was Celtic or Gaelic. When the sainted Margaret,
speaking the language of Saxon England, wished to convince the Scotch
clergy of their error with regard to the times of Easter and Lent, her
husband, Malcolm Canmore, was obliged to translate the discourses of the
queen, even for the clergy, into Gaelic.
Even under Malcolm Canmore,
there are sufficient proofs of a tendency in the rulers of Scotland
towards southern manners and civilization. Malcolm recovered his father's
kingdom, and slew Macbeth by the aid of Edward the son of Edmund Ironside,
along with Siward, the giant Earl of Northumberland. Soon afterwards, he
married the daughter of Edward, the last of the kingly line of the
Anglo-Saxon monarchs, who exercised great influence over him, and made his
court the object of all the affection and sympathy of the Saxons of
England, after the death of Edward the Confessor. How many a poor follower
of the AEtheling from Hungary, how many a Northumbrian thane and churl,
would find a reward and resting place in the castles and glens that had
belonged to the faction of Macbeth ! But if Malcolm, had motives for an
English feeling, these were much increased in his family. Henry I. of
England, upon his accession to the throne, feeling his doubtful title, and
opposed by all the Normans, threw himself upon the favour of the Saxon
population, and found no way better than to choose his wife from the line
of their ancient kings. He married Maud, the daughter of Malcolm and
Margaret of Scotland, who was so long and so affectionately remembered in
England by the title, which was even inscribed upon her monument at
Winchester, "Mold the god quen." [Angl. Sac, 1. 277.] She had much cause
to use her influence with her oppressive husband, as a chronicler tells us
she did, "Mold the god quen gaf him conseile to luf his folc." [Robert
of Brunne, p. 98.] The English connection was kept up by Alexander I., son
of Malcolm Canmore, marrying a daughter of Henry T. of England. But the
young David, the most distinguished of his race, was especially
Anglicized. He was brought up in his youth at the court of his sister, the
queen of England, and the seal which he used before his accession to the
throne, sets forth his titles simply as "Earl David, brother of the queen
of the English." He had some difficulty in obtaining possession of his
appanage of Cumberland from his brother, king Alexander, and succeeded at
last through his influence with Robert the Bruce and the great Norman
barons, who afterwards boasted that the terror of their name had gained it
for him without bloodshed. Thus we see that when he came to the throne, he
had many bonds of attachment to England, even independent of his marriage
with Maud, the coheiress of Northumberland and Huntingdon.
Long before this time, the
high officers of state, the attendants of the court, were of the southern
strangers. The witnesses to the charter of Duncan, besides the king's
brothers, Malcolm and Edgar, are Aceard, Ulf, Hermer, AElfric, Hemming,
Teodbald, Vinget, Earnulf, and Grenton the scribe, apparently all Saxon or
Danish.
A charter of his brother
Edgar, free from all suspicion of forgery, gives the following witnesses:
AElfwyn, Oter, and Thor the long, and Aelfric the steward, and Algar the
priest, and Osbern the priest, and Cnut Carl, and Ogga and Lesing, and
Swein son of Ulf kill, and Ligulf of Bamburgh, and Uhtred, Eilav's son,
and Uniaet hwite and Tigerne, in all which list we do not find a name,
unless perhaps the last, which the most zealous Celt can claim for a
countryman.
The tide of English
favourites and courtiers had now begun, and although we have no records
during that time of their acquiring lands, that is probably for the simple
reason, that there are no records of the acquisition of lands by laymen
earlier than the reign of David. In that interval, the progress they had
made is remarkable. The great family descended from the Earls of
Northumberland, which afterwards took its name from its castle of Dunbar,
had already obtained immense grants in the Merse and Teviot-dale. The De
Umphravills, the De Morvills and Somervills; the Lindsays, the Avenels,
the Bruces, the Balliols, the Cumins, the De Sulis, the De Vescis, the
great family of Fitzalan, hereditary Stewards, had possession of immense
territories in the south of Scotland, upon which they were rapidly
settling their families, and the martial retainers to whom they owed so
much of their consequence.
These were all Normans, and
for the most part brought their territorial names from their castles in
Normandy. But there were not wanting settlers, whose names speak their
Saxon and Danish blood. Such were Alwin fitz Arkil, the progenitor of the
race of Lennox; Swain and Thor, the ancestors of the Ruthvens; Oggu and
Leising; Osolf, Maccus, the original of the Maxwells; Orm, Leving and
Dodin, who have given names to Ormiston, Levingston, and Dodingston;
Elfin, Edulf and Edmund, whose names remain in Elphinston, Edilston, and
Edmun-ston; and many others, who had not yet given into the new fashion of
surnames. Some had grants of forfeited lands or of the ancient demesne of
the crown; some married heiresses; all obtained charters, and held their
lands according to the most approved feudal form of England and Normandy;
and in turn, their followers got grants from them, subject to the same
conditions of service and profitable casualties.
David himself, attached as
we have seen by many ties to England, held for the greater part of
his reign the Earldom of Northumberland, and made his favourite and
frequent residence at Newcastle upon Tyne. He thus in a manner united once
more the whole northern section of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.
Ruling Lothian as king, and Northumberland as earl, he had power and
leisure during the distractions of the reign of Stephen, to introduce into
his territories order and civilization, which were unknown in southern
England. "In those days," says an old English chronicle, "England was foul
with many sores; for the king was powerless and the law was weak. But the
northern region, which had come into the power of David king of Scots, as
far as the river Tees, enjoyed peace through his diligent care." [Newbr.
and Brornpt.]
When David had been
deprived of Northumberland, and endeavoured to recover it by force of
arms, he led with him a motley army of his subjects; and their
depredations soon roused the resistance of his old companions in arms, the
Barons of Yorkshire and Northumberland. They gathered round the Standard
of the Bishopric, few in number, but confident in the ascendancy of the
gentle Norman blood. When some of the hastily-raised force were showing
signs of panic, old Walter Espec, the leader of the English barons,
climbed up on the waggon of the Standard and made a speech. He told the
barons, that if they had as much experience as himself, he would willingly
be silent and take his sleep; "or I should play at dice or chess, or if
these games were unsuitable for my age, I would study legends and church
histories, or after my own manner would listen to some bard, relating the
high deeds of our forefathers." He pointed out the unreasonableness of
their fear of the enemy, however numerous "Why should we despair of
victory, when victory has been given by the Most High as an inheritance to
our race? Did not our forefathers with a few soldiers invade the greatest
part of Gaul, and wipe out from it the nation and the very name of Gaul?
How often have they routed the armies of the Franks! How often beaten, few
against a multitude, the forces of Cenomania, Anjou, and Aquitaine !
Verily our fathers and we, have in brief space, subdued and brought under
our laws, this island, which of old the victorious Julius scarcely
conquered in many years, and with the slaughter of multitudes of his
troops. . . . Who but our Normans have subdued Apulia, Sicily, and
Calabria? . . . Who would not laugh then rather than fear, when against
such warriors comes this vile Scot with his naked breech! To our lances,
our swords, our arrows, they present a naked hide; for they use a
calf-skin for a shield, animated by an unreasonable contempt of death,
rather than I. by true courage. Why should that unwieldy length of spears,
which we see so far off, frighten us? The wood is brittle, the point
blunted as it strikes. It is destroyed when it clashes on our armour,
scarcely enduring a single blow. Receive the thrust upon your staff, and
the Scot will stand unarmed before you." ... He then tells of the goodness
of their cause, fighting for their king, their country, their church, and
their hearths, and relates the horrible barbarities perpetrated by the
enemy, especially by the Galwegians. The chronicler puts in Espec's mouth
a speech of the greatest spirit throughout, concluding with an oath, that
this day he would either overcome the Scots or be killed by the Scots.
On the other side, the king
of Scots called together his earls and nobles to consult on the order of
battle. The majority were of opinion that the men-at-arms and the archers
should lead the van. The Galwegians opposed this, and said that it was
their right to form the first line, and to attack first. The others
resisted the placing of unarmed men in front, and the king leant to that
side. The historian makes the Galwegians remonstrate "Why are you so
much afraid, oh king ! of these iron coats? . . What the better were the
Normans of their mail at the field of Clitherow? Did not these unarmed men
oblige them to throw away their coats of mail, their shields and helmets?
. . . We gained the victory over the mailed warriors at Clitherow, and,
to-day, you will see us lay low those boasters with our lances, taking
courage for our shield."
The king still resisting,
Malis Earl of Strathern, representing the ancient Scotch nobility,
addressed him in a rage; "Why is it that you follow the wishes of the
Frenchmen? Not one of them, with all his arms, shall be more forward in
battle this day than myself." Alan de Percy, a Norman, took offence at
these expressions. "These are proud words, but for your life, you shall
not make them good this day." The king interposed to prevent a quarrel,
and yielded to the demand of the Galwegians.
The king's son, Henry,
commanded the second line of men-at-arms and archers, with the men of
Cumbria and Teviotdale. The prince is painted in glowing colours
unrivalled for beauty, courage, modesty. With him was Eustace Fitz-John,
lord of Alnwic, one of the great nobles of England, a favourite of the
late king Henry I., a man of the greatest skill and prudence in civil
affairs, who had retired from the English court, being offended that,
contrary to the custom of his country, he had been seized in the king's
court, and obliged to restore the castles which king Henry had committed
to his charge.
The third brigade was
composed of the men of Lothian, with the Isles-men and the Lavernans (a
name which seems corrupt). In the fourth line, were the Scots or men of
proper Scotland, and the Moray men; and as the king was there among them,
he had a band of English and French men-at-arms for his body-guard.
When the armies were just
joining battle, and the priests on either side in their white robes, with
crosses and relics of saints, were shriving the soldiers, Robert de Brus,
an aged baron of great possessions, grave in his demeanour, of few words,
who spoke with a certain dignity and weight, stepped forward. He was a
subject of England, but from his youth had been attached to the king of
Scotland, and had been admitted to his greatest confidence and friendship.
He then, a man of veteran service and great experience, seeing with his
natural sagacity the danger that threatened the king, and prompted by his
long friendship, asked leave from his comrades, and went to the king to
dissuade him from fighting, or, according to the custom of his country, to
take his leave and retire; for he was bound to the king, not only by his
friendship, but by the bond of fealty. He told him to consider against
whom he was about to fight, against English and Normans, in whom he had
always found good counsel and ready aid and willing service. "How long is
it," he asked, "that you have found so much faith in Scots, as to give up
the English and Norman side, and take theirs instead ? . . . Think by
whose assistance your brother Duncan routed the army of the usurping
Donald. Who restored your more than brother Edgar to his kingdom? Who but
our Normans? Remember only last year, when you called for our help against
Malcolm, the heir of his father's hatred and rebellion. How cheerfully and
readily this very Walter Espec and many other English nobles came to your
assistance at Carlisle. . . . Whatever hatred the Scotch have against us,
it is all on your account; for whom we have so often fought against them,
repressed their rebellions, and subdued them to your will."
The whole speech is
affectedly rhetorical, and unsuitable to the character given to the
speaker; but I cannot refrain from giving the concluding sentence.
He tells the king that
despair had given them courage, and that he had no doubt of victory.
Hence," said he, "is my grief, hence my tears, that I shall see the death
or the flight of my sweetest lord, my most loving friend, my old
companion, in whose friendship I have grown grey, whose munificence I have
experienced in gifts of all kinds, and grants of many lands and estates;
and I grieve the more, when I remember the days when we played together as
children, and the deeds of arms and perils that we have encountered, and
the pleasant sport that we have enjoyed together, with our hawks and
hounds." The king was moved to tears by the baron's friendly remonstrance;
but evil counsellors interrupted their concord, and Bruce, renouncing his
fealty (patrio more), returned to his own party.
The result of the battle is
well known. The Galwegians rushed on with their three yells, but were
beaten back by the English men-at-arms, and the archers, which had even
then become a terrible arm of English war; and their flight occasioned the
confusion and defeat of the rest of the army. Only the king's brigade
stood firm, and formed, with its royal standard of the dragon (so says our
author), a rallying point for the fugitives, and presented a formidable
body in retreat.
I have given these details
from the contemporary chronicler, Abbot Ailred, because they seem to me,
not only to exhibit the fortune of that famous battle, but to give us a
vivid glance of the situation of David, between his native subjects and
the Norman and Saxon strangers.
Part of the great design of
David, for the civilization of his subjects, was effected in planting
everywhere those southern settlers, carrying with them the refinement and
high feeling of Christian chivalry. Another channel, through which the
great reformer prepared to attack the barbarism of his native people, was
through the Church; and this leads me to speak of the ancient Scotch
Church. I wish I had ability and time to do justice to the subject.
We have reason to believe
that Palladius was the first who preached the gospel in Scotland, in the
fifth century. We are told by the venerable Bede you will notice that he
lived and wrote about the year 700, and spent his life in the district of
England, nearest to the Scotch border that the Southern Picts those
seated to the south of the mountains reported that they had received
their Christianity from Ninian, who came from Rome in the fifth or sixth
century, founded the See of Whithern (in Latin, Candida Casa), called so
from a church which he built there, of stone, a practice unusual among the
Britons. But this is only a preface of Bede to his history of the
conversion of the northern Picts by St. Columba. He tells us, that Columba,
a priest and abbot, came from Ireland to Britain, to preach the gospel to
the northern Picts, those who are separated by steep and dreadful
mountains from their southern provinces, and obtained as a site for his
monastery the island of Hii, "which," says Bede, "is not large, but only
about five families, according to the calculation of the English." Columba,
by his preaching and example, converted that people to the faith of
Christ, and after thirty-two years spent in his British ministry, he was
buried there. "Of his life and preaching," says Bede, "there are said to
be some accounts written by his disciples; but," he continues, " whatever
he may have been, we know this of him for certain, that he left successors
of great continence, and remarkable for their love of God and regular
institution." Bede was reserved in his praise of the founder of that
church which dared to celebrate Easter at an uncanonical season. He seems
only to have heard of the lives of St. Columba, written by his disciples,
Adomnan and Cumin. They are still preserved, and are now accessible to
every student of history. They manifest the simplicity and credulity of a
rude age; but it is impossible to charge them with any intention to
deceive. From them, we learn the mode of life adopted in Iona. But it is
not only what they have written that was not an age of writing it is
from what they have done, that we learn the effects of the preaching of
St. Columba and his disciples.
I do not know anything in
the history of Christian Europe, that, if rightly considered, is more
interesting than the island of Iona in the sixth century. Columba obtained
a gift of the island from Conal, a king of the Scots, who then held the
western shore of Scotland, and settled his followers there. The handful of
Christian priests, who built their humble thatched church on that little
island, could look out on one side on a boundless and tempestuous sea, on
the other, on the mountains inhabited by Pagan savages. They might be
carried in thought and in prayer to other regions of the earth and beyond
it; but to the visual eye there was no support, no sympathy around. There
was nothing of pomp to fascinate, nothing to tempt ambition. Praise and
the approbation of man were shut out. We must not call them monks, those
devoted men; at least those of us who think monk another name for a
selfish, lazy fellow. But in truth, as each age of this globe is said to
have its peculiar growth of plants and animals, every age of the world of
man develops the institutions and forms that suit its progress. Religious
men and preachers of the truth do not now retire into desert islands and
weary heaven with prayer; but neither are whole nations won over now to
the true faith by the preaching of a poor missionary, himself claiming no
inspiration. The life of those monks of Iona was divided between prayer,
reading or hearing the Scriptures, and works of needful labour, either of
agriculture or fishing. Those qualified were employed in teaching the
young, and in the important work of writing the books required for the
service of the Church. Columba himself was a great penman, and some fine
copies of the Psalter and Gos. pels in Ireland are still attributed to his
hand, on better evidence than might be expected. He and his immediate
followers, undoubtedly practised celibacy, and enforced penance and the
most rigid asceticism. Without discussing the use of such mortification of
the body, to the zealot who practises it, it has always been and always
will be, a great engine for swaying a simple and uninformed people. They
associate such self-denial with the absence of all the passions to which
they feel themselves most addicted, and soon come to think the preacher,
who can so subdue his human nature, as something raised above humanity.
Education soon became the
great object to which the successors of St. Columba devoted themselves.
Hither resorted the young from all the adjacent continents, from Scotland,
from Ireland and England, and even from Scandinavia, to acquire the
learning and study the discipline of the Columban church. From hence, for
centuries, went forth priests and bishops to convert and instruct, to
ordain, and to found similar establishments; and hither, as to a holy
refuge, more than one, when their course of duty was run, retired to be at
rest, and to lay their bones beside the blessed Columba.
The Columbites sent
continual preachers among the rude people of the opposite continent. In
the midst of war and plunder, they made their way through the fastnesses
of that difficult land, converted the northern Picts, and penetrated
Scotland from sea to sea. That was too near and too easy a task. The
desire for new dangers and yet greater hardships, joined to some mystical
love of retirement, led some of their number to dare the northern seas, in
their boats of skins, and carry the cross into the extreme islands of the
Orkneys, Shetland and Faroe. The Norsemen called these missionaries Papae;
and many of the islands, on which they found some preacher from Iona,
still bear the names of Papey and Papeyar. Even Iceland was not too remote
or inhospitable. We do not know the daring and zealous man who carried
Christianity thither. He is said to have been Aurlig, a Norwegian educated
in the Hebrides. But we know that the first Christian church in Iceland,
which was at Esinberg, was dedicated to St. Columba. The little colony of
Columbites in Iceland sunk, perhaps, under the severity of the climate.
Long afterwards, when the Norwegians went first thither, they found no .
traces of civilization, but the crosses, bells and books in the Irish
ritual, of the monks of Iona. [Arii scheda de Islandia, F. Joannis. The
first constitutions by which Christianity was established in Iceland, are
extremely curious, and partake even more than Pope Gregory's policy in
Kent, of the nature of a compromise between Christianity and Paganism.
After the assembly in which they had been voted, our historian tells us,
all the people were signed with the cross immediately, and some baptized;
but many refused baptism, on account of the coldness of the water, for
which a remedy was found in the hot springs of the island. These
proceedings, however, were long after the preaching of the Columbites of
Iona. I must not omit to mention, that in the conversion of those northern
peoples, there was something which throws a doubt upon their zeal for
Christianity, whilst it shows at the same time perhaps, how lightly they
held by the superstitions of their fathers. As soon as Christianity was
preached among them, they seem to have turned an eager eye to the revenues
of the new church, which arose at first from the offerings of the
faithful, and afterwards, from tithes and other sources. The nobles, in
many cases, became ecclesiastics, priests and even bishops, and retained
both their civil and ecclesiastical dignities. They built churches,
reserving the usufruct to themselves, and giving the property in heritage
to their heirs.]
But nearer to us, and more
interesting, is the conversion of Northumbria by the monks of Hy. In one
of those commotions to which the petty kingdoms of the heptarchy of
England were from their nature liable, Oswald, a pagan prince of the royal
blood of Northumbria, was obliged to seek refuge in the court of the king
of Scots, somewhere on our Argyllshire coast; and there, by the preaching
of the Columbites, was converted to the Christian faith. Soon afterwards
he succeeded to his kingdom, and having, in his wars with Kedwel, king of
Cumbria, fought and conquered under the banner of the Cross, he vowed to
establish Christianity in Bernicia, the northern province of his kingdom.
For this purpose he solicited, and obtained one of the Columban family of
lona. He was not fortunate in the first selection. The monk Corman was
disgusted with c the rude Northumbrians, and soon returned to the shelter
of his island cloister. But his place was taken by one more fitted for the
task. AEdan was consecrated bishop, and was the first successful teacher
of the faith in Northumberland. His taste in the site of his church was
remarkable. With all Northumbria to choose, he built it and the humble
dwellings of his followers, on the little island of Lindisfarne, destined
to be the Iona of the eastern coast. The island is in sight of the castle
of Bamburgh, where the kings of Northumbria had not long before fixed
their dwelling. The church and cloisters were a merely temporary edifice,
and in that lowly structure, AEdan and his brethren daily taught the
assembled multitudes. Bede says, "It was a beautiful spectacle, when the
bishop was preaching, and was not quite understood, from his imperfect
English, and the king, who had learned Scotch in his exile, acted as his
interpreter." With such assistance, Christianity spread fast. Churches
were built in populous places; monasteries were endowed by the zealous
king; and in each of these a school was established for qualifying a
regular succession of ministers. AEdan and his monks conducted the
education of twelve English youths, two of whom we are able to trace in
after life; for AEta became successively Abbot of Melrose and Bishop of
Lindisfarne, and Cedde became the Bishop of Mercia, and afterwards the
patron saint of Lichfield the popular St. Chad.
Bede, who did not approve
AEdan's tenets in regard to Easter, may be trusted as free from
prepossession in favour of the monks of Lindisfarne. "Among other rules of
life," says that venerable authority, "he left the most wholesome example
to his clergy of abstinence and continence; he taught nothing that he did
not practise; he sought nothing, loved nothing, cared for nothing, of this
world; whatever was bestowed upon him by kings or nobles, he loved to give
to the poor. It was his custom to travel everywhere, in towns and through
the country, not on horseback, but on foot, unless necessity compelled,
that he might, wherever he went, invite rich and poor to the faith if they
were unconverted, or comfort them if already Christians, and excite them
to alms and good works by his preaching and his example. His daily work,
and that of all who were with him, clerks or laics, travelling or
stationary, was reading the Scriptures and repeating the Psalms. On the
rare occasions, when he went to the king's banquet, he sat down with a
single clerk or two, and hurried over his meal that he might go out with
his attendants to read or to pray. Following his example, the religious
men and women of that time practised fasting on the fourth and sixth days
of the week to the ninth hour, except the remission of the fifty days of
Easter. He never spared the offences of the rich, for honour or fear of
any man, but corrected them with sharp reproof. He never made gifts to the
great, except only their food if he received them as his guests, but
rather employed what he received from them for the use of the poor, or for
the redemption of those who were sold into slavery unjustly. Many slaves
whom he had redeemed became his disciples, and he instructed them and gave
some of them church ordination, even up to the rank of a priest. AEdan
died on the 31st August 651, in the seventeenth year of his episcopacy,
and was buried in the cemetery of his little church of Lindisfarne." He
was succeeded in his bishopric by Finan, by Colman, by AEta, all monks of
Iona, or educated in their school, and finally by Cuthbert, the shepherd
boy of Lauderdale, brought up in the discipline of St. Columba at Melrose.
The history of Cuthbert's earthly ministry, and of the wandering of his
poor bones, when the monks, driven out of the island by the Danes, carried
his body along with them, seeking a place of rest, is exceedingly
picturesque and interesting; but I believe that it is pretty generally
known. I will only say a word on the subject of his canonizing. At the end
of the seventh century, when all the Saxon sees had canonized bishops of
[. their own, and boasted of their patronage, it became necessary for the
honour of the cathedral church of Lindisfarne to do the like. But
Lindisfarne was peculiarly circumstanced. Its first four bishops were
Columbites, and heterodox in the matter of the observance of Easter, as
well as in the shape of the tonsure; and AEta, the fifth, had been called
from the island see to the bishopric of Hexham, where he soon after died,
in the odour of sanctity, and became the tutelar saint of that see.
Cuthbert, therefore, was the first bishop of Lindisfarne, out of whom a
patron saint could fairly be made. Upon the important subjects of Easter
and the tonsure, though brought up in the opinions of the Church of
Scotland, he had conformed to the Romish observance. This was plainly the
reason of his being preferred over AEdan, the founder of the see.
From Lindisfarne flowed the
christianizing of the midland English or Mercians, and of the east Saxons,
the inhabitants of modern Essex.
Bede tells us that such was
the reverence for St. Columba, that the whole province, and even the
bishops within it, were subject to the authority of the Abbots of Hy.
From the settlement of St.
Columba to the ruin of his monastery, two hundred years afterwards, by the
invasions of the Danes, it would be possible to collect a tolerably
complete list of the succession of the abbots. Iona had gone on, not
perhaps with all its original humility; for kings and nobles sent their
sons to be educated there, and the persecuted prince of Northumbria found
a secure refuge among its monks; but still zealous and active, propagating
the faith by its missionaries, and forming the centre of respect and
reverence for a great part of Christendom. In the middle of that period
lived Adomnan and Cumin, to whom we owe our chief information regarding
Columba and his family of Hy. But their progress in the great work for
which they were established is to be gathered from still better sources.
The names of places are little liable to change; and churches over all
Scotland, in the recesses of the mountains and in the open valleys,
dedicated to the early disciples of St. Columba, and still bearing their
names, though now forgotten by the people, mark the extent of their
preaching, and the attachment of their followers.
From the circumstances of
the Church and the time, the distinction had not yet arisen between the
secular clergy and the regular monastic orders. In a pagan or lately
converted country, I need not say there were no churches or church
districts. Iona was the college, whence poured out streams of zealous
missionaries, who founded chapels and oratories where they could obtain
means and a body of hearers; and although sometimes looking to Iona as
their support and place of rest, yet they often lived and died amongst
their converts. Upon their rude foundations, in after times, rose the
baptismal churches and the parish divisions of Scotland the oldest of
our existing institutions. Many of these I believe I may say hundreds
can still be connected with their dedication to the preachers who first
taught there the faith and doctrines they had received from St. Columba.
As the district of their
ministry extended, it became necessary to found other houses for
preserving the discipline and the education of the clergy. Other primeval
religious orders no doubt participated in the work of organising a system
of national instruction; but the order of the Culdees has left more traces
of its establishments than any other, and they have had the undeserved
fortune of being claimed as Protestants by the zealous opponents of Rome.
The first of these Culdee
houses was Abernethy, a place of mysterious and unknown antiquity. Its
foundation is placed as high as the middle of the fifth century, in the
time when St. Columba was still alive. Fordun describes it as the
principal seat of royalty and Episcopacy of the kingdom of the Picts, and
gives three successions of bishops there when its bishop was as yet the
only one in Scotland. The translation of the Pictish see from Abernethy to
St. Andrews, soon after the union of the Picts and Scots, may have
introduced the Culdees into St. Andrews, where they flourished so long.
Of the first foundation of
St. Andrews, which is said to have taken place about the year 825, we have
no details ; but some of the earliest records of its church are connected
with its Culdees, who then formed the chapter of the bishop.
The Church tradition, and
indeed somewhat better evidence, ascribes the first foundation of the
church of Dunkeld to St. Columba himself; but its re-founding and
dedication to St. Columba seem to have taken place about the middle of the
ninth century. From that period, at least, the Culdees were established
there; and we know that they were the chapter of the bishopric until they
were outed by King David, in the beginning of his reign.
The church of Dunblane was
in a different situation from the other bishoprics of Scotland. That
diocese was dependent upon the great Earls of Stratherne; and among other
indications, some of which we have already seen, that Malis Earl of
Stratherne did not come willingly into the new notions of David I., it may
perhaps be counted one, that the Culdees continued to act as the chapter
of that cathedral for a century after they had been outed at St. Andrews
and Dunkeld.
The same, however, happened
in the church of Brechin, where the Culdees of the chapter appear acting
with the bishop, and engaged in all the transactions of the time, down to
the middle of the thirteenth century.
We have many other Culdee
establishments, not connected with bishops' sees and cathedrals, as at
Muthil, in Perthshire; the island of St. Servanus, in Loch Leven a house
that has left us a catalogue of its little library before the middle of
the twelfth century and Monymusk in Mar.
In the ninth century came
the hordes of Northmen to ravage the coasts of Western Europe. Scotland in
general suffered less from those pirates than the fertile plains of
England; but it fared ill with her coasts and islands. Their island site
and sanctity were no protection for the family of Columba against the
heathen Vikingr, any more than Lindisfarne could defend the bones of St.
Cuthbert. The Irish annals record, in quick succession, "the ravaging of
Icolumkill," "the Hebrides laid waste by the Danes," "Icolumkill burnt by
the Gentiles," "the family of Y slain by the Gentiles." That light was put
out which had shed religion and civilization over Britain, and the
harassed successors of Columba found uncertain shelter in the monasteries
of Ireland. Then comes a period of thick darkness, and when we again
become acquainted with Iona (in the reign of William the Lion), it is the
seat of a convent of Cluniac monks of unknown foundation; and the memory
of St. Columba and his family is gone.
Whatever may have been
their original institution and discipline, the Culdees, in the time of
David I., lived in a manner that must have been inconsistent with any
monastic or collegiate discipline. They were generally married, which
brought about the appropriation of the common property by the individual
members of the house; and not less certainly led to a hereditary
succession in the office of the priesthood, than which no greater mischief
can befall a church and country. We are not to be surprised, then, that
David, the friend of religion and civilization, endeavoured first to
reform those irregular monks, and afterwards, finding them irreclaimable,
everywhere superseded them, by the introduction of the strict monastic
orders brought from France and England. For the most part, the canons
regular of St. Augustine took the place of the Culdees. They became the
chapters of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Brechin, and obtained possession of
the property of many of the rural houses of Culdees. One of David's
charters concerning them, is short and characteristic: "I give to the
canons of St. Andrews the island of Loch Leven, that they may there
institute their :. order of canons; and the Culdees, who shall be found
there, if they please to live regularly, let them remain in peace under
the canons; but if any of them resist this rule, I will and command that
he be turned out of the island." It is said by his biographer, AElred,
that David found three bishoprics in Scotland and left nine. Several of
these were restorations of Episcopal churches, fallen into decay and
neglect, through the dreadful convulsions of the government and society in
Scotland. In Glasgow, for instance, there was an old tradition, still
fresh in memory, of a church founded by St. Kentigern in the middle of the
sixth century, and endowed with ample possessions by the munificence of
the early converts. In such a case, David appointed an assize, or great
jury of the country to enquire what possessions of right belonged to the
see of Glasgow, and the return of that inquest, the earliest title of the
property of the Church, is still preserved to us. Much of this property,
thus reclaimed to the Church, was then undoubtedly without lawful owner,
from the changes of dynasty, and the continual forfeitures of the
unsuccessful party.
This was still more the
case in the wild Northern districts, where whole provinces had stood in
arms against their sovereign, in favour of some claimant of the Crown,
under the old Celtic custom of succession, and unwilling to be ruled by an
innovating Norman. Whether the lands thus given or restored to the Church,
were also waste and uncultivated, it is not now so easy to say. We know
little of the cultivation of the soil, till it had got into the hands of
those industrious agriculturists, the monks; but if there was upon them
the usual agricultural population, they made no bad exchange, in being
subjected to the unchanging and peaceful sway of the Church, instead of
the fluctuating and lawless lay lords of the soil.
Many of the monasteries,
which are said to owe their foundation to David, were restorations of
decayed houses of the Culdees. Such was Melrose, which still preserved
much of its old sanctity in the estimation of the people, though ruined
and impoverished. Upon these the king bestowed partly the old possessions
of the house, partly the estates forfeited by rebels, and in some few
instances, portions of the demesne lands and property of the Crown. Even
if he had given more of such property, I do not know that he would have
deserved the character which his successor gave him, of "Ane soir sanct
for the Crown." However it may have become the fashion in later times to
censure or ridicule this sudden and magnificent endowment of a church, the
poor natives of Scotland of the twelfth century had no cause to regret it.
Before, they had nothing of the freedom of savage life, none of the
picturesqueness of feudal society. For ages, they had enjoyed no settled
government. Crushed by oppression, without security of life or property,
knowing nothing of the law but its heavy gripe, alternately plundering and
plundered; neglecting agriculture, and suffering the penalty of famine and
disease; the churches venerated by their forefathers had gone to ruin, and
religion was for the most part degraded and despised. At such a time, it
was undoubtedly one great step in improvement to throw a vast mass of
property into the hands of that class, whose duty and interest alike
inculcated peace, and who had influence and power to command it. Repose
was the one thing most wanted, and the people found it under the
protection of the crozier.
The donations of Crown
lands to monasteries were not altogether uncompensated; the greater abbeys
were for many ages the dwellings of the court, in its frequent progresses;
and in this way, they paid a return for the royal munificence. But if a
sovereign is to look to something more than mere revenue from royal lands,
it may be doubted whether they could be turned at that time, more to the
benefit of the country, than in the administration of the religious
houses.
That it was not merely as a
priest-ridden king, that David augmented the power and possessions of the
Church, we may judge from the equal attention which he bestowed upon the
law. I shall have another opportunity of directing your attention to the
law reforms of David. It is perhaps improper to use these words, for he
was the founder of the law, still more than of the Church in Scotland. We
cannot get beyond him. We owe to him all the civil institutions and
structure of our present society. When any legislators of a later age
wished to stamp their institutions with a name of authority, they founded
them upon the laws and statutes of the good king David: and this was not a
mere image magnified in the distance; I shall be able to show you
hereafter, enough of the actual laws and institutions of David, to justify
that impression. His life has been written by a companion and friend, and
it is remarkable, that this has happened with three of the four great
monarchs, whom I have had occasion to notice, as builders of the great
fabric of civilizationCharlemagne, Alfred, and David. The others had a
wider field; but none of them has left a character of greater usefulness,
or more endearing than David. His biographer, AElred, writes of him with a
hearty and fervent affection, that makes us overlook the affectation of
his style. With one or two of his simple traits of character, I must
conclude:
"I have seen him," says the
Abbot, "with his foot in the stirrup, going to hunt, at the prayer of a
poor petitioner, leave his horse, return into the hall, give up his
purpose for the day, and kindly and patiently hear the cause."
"He often used to sit at
the door of the palace, hear the causes of the poor and old, who were
warned upon certain days, as he came into each district."
"If it happened that a
priest or a soldier, or a monk, rich or poor, foreigner or native,
merchant or rustic, had audience of him, he conversed so condescendingly,
and gave such attention to the affairs of each, that each thought he cared
only for him, and so all went away happy and satisfied."
The improvement David
effected, even in his own time, in the prosperity of his country, is
described in the most absurd style of his panegyrist; but we can make
allowance for his partiality and magniloquence, and we must not exclude
the testimony of an eye-witness "The land, which was uncultivated and
barren, he has made productive and fertile. Thou Scotland, formerly the
beggar from other countries, bore on thy own hard clod nothing but famine
to thy inhabitants; now, softer and more fertile than other lands, thou
relievest the wants of neighbouring countries from thy abundance. He it
was who adorned thee with castles and cities, who filled thy ports with
foreign merchandise, and brought the riches of other nations to mix with
thy own. It was he who changed thy shaggy cloaks for costly robes, and
covered thy former nakedness with fine linen and purple; he, who reformed
thy barbarous manners with Christian religion, and taught thy priests a
more becoming life!" |
