Many conjectures have
been made respecting the religion of the early inhabitants of Scotland,
but comparatively little appears to be known about it. Both Iberians and
Celts were pagan, but what their faith and rites and ceremonies were is
not so certain.
The Iberians buried their
dead, sometimes in caves which they had previously used as dwellings,
and sometimes in tombs, which probably represent the huts of the living.
Both caves and tombs contain skeletons of all ages, and both of them
appear to have been used as vaults common to the family or tribe. The
interments were successive, not simultaneous. This appears from the
bones being in various stages of decay, as well as from the fact that
the bodies could not have been crowded into the space in which the
skeletons are found. The tombs consist of barrows or cairns of different
sizes, and are long, oval, or circular in plan. The more important
contain a small chamber. In a number of instances the mounds have a
boundary wall of rubble stone from two to three feet high, with large
upright blocks at intervals, which recalls the saying of Aristotle that
the Iberian people were in the habit of placing as many obelisks round
the tombs of the dead warrior as he had slain enemies. From the number
of cleft skulls found in these tombs, it has been argued that human
sacrifices were offered, as was the custom in Gaul. The domestic and
wild animals which were offered in sacrifice were afterwards eaten in
honour of the dead. Along with the bones are found various implements,
some of them broken, such as arrowheads, scrapers, celts and pottery,
the presence of which indicates a belief in a future state.
The bronze-using Celts
introduced the practice of cremation. Their barrows or cairns are
usually round. In Scotland, as in Ireland and France, it is not uncommon
to find large sepulchral chambers in them, and for a barrow or cairn to
contain examples of both modes of disposing of the dead. In cases of
inhumation the dead were usually buried in a contracted posture.
Sometimes, however, the body was covered with a linen or woollen cloth,
and laid at full length in a coffin formed of the trunk of an oak tree,
split and hollowed. Drinking-cups, implements, weapons, and personal
ornaments, as among the Iberians, were usually, if not always, deposited
in the tombs. When cremation was practised, the ashes of the dead were
collected into a funeral urn, usually from twelve to eighteen inches in
height, and placed in a chamber, sometimes in an upright position with
the mouth closed, and sometimes upside down. Various articles and
implements in daily use were thrown into the fire, and their burnt
remains were sometimes placed among the ashes in the urn. Cremation, it
has been argued, indicates a change in religious belief. Possibly it
does; but the practice of including the remains of charred implements,
etc., in the urns containing the ashes of the dead, proves that the
bronze-using Celts held, like their forerunners, the belief in a future
state.
The Celts had a fairly
numerous pantheon, which included female as well as male divinities.
They were believed to be invisible, but were supposed to have the power
of making themselves known under various forms whenever they chose. The
priests and priestesses did not form an hereditary class, but recruited
their ranks from among the people. As they were believed to be the
depositories of all the wisdom of the time, to give instruction was
regarded as a part of their ordinary duties. The doctrine of the
transmigration of souls appears to have been one of the principal tenets
of their faith. For their restoration to health, slave owners afflicted
with a painful malady would sometimes cause one or more of their slaves
to be offered in sacrifice.
Christianity was probably
introduced into the district during the Roman occupation. About the
middle of the fourth century the father of S. Patrick served as a priest
or deacon at a Christian church situated on the north shore of the Clyde
opposite to Renfrewshire, either between Bowling and Dumbarton or at one
or other of these places, and it is not unlikely that the first
preachers of the Cross in the shire came from there. Subsequently, if we
may trust Ailred’s narrative, Renfrewshire fell within the mission field
of S. Ninian.
During the internecine
strife which followed the withdrawal of the Romans there was a great
falling away from the faith. “ Different tribes,” it is said, “ poured
into the kingdom of Cumbria and maintained paganism rather than the
cultivation of the faith.”
One of the first acts of
Roderick the Liberal after the victory obtained by the Christian princes
over the pagans at the battle of Arderydd in 573, was to invite S.
Kentigern to resume the work of evangelization in Strathclyde, which he
had been obliged to relinquish in consequence of the opposition of
Morken. S. Columba had then been in Iona ten years, and his disciples
were already beginning to pass to and fro in the land. S. Modwenna had
also visited the country and built her seven churches, one of which was
at Dundonald in Ayrshire, and another at Dumbarton. About the same time
a number of monks from Ireland had crossed over, and penetrated into the
County of Renfrew, and from their several churches were carrying on
their work of conversion and civilization among the people.
Among the best known of
these monks was S. Mirin, a native of Ireland who had been educated
under the famous S. Comgall, at Bangor, where he had become a monk and
was appointed prior of the monastery. Leaving Bangor and Ireland, he
finally settled at Paisley, where he appears to have laboured long and
successfully. The church which he built had a parochial territory
attached to it some time before the neighbouring monastery was built,
and continued down to the period of the Reformation to be used as the
Parish Church of the town of Paisley, the original part of which stood
around or near it in the Seedhill. The priest who served it was known as
the chaplain of Paisley. The churchyard in which it stood and the
priest’s house are referred to as late as the year 1620, and the tomb of
the Saint is mentioned in a charter dated at Paisley, May 21, 1491,
whereby George Shaw, the Abbot, conveyed to the Bailies and community of
the newly-erected Burgh of Paisley the Heyt House to be used as a common
Tolbooth.
S. Berchan or Barchan is
less known for his labours in Kilbarchan than for the series of
prophecies attributed to him but written in the eleventh century, when
it was the fashion to write history in the shape of prophecy. The most
important of them have been printed and translated by Dr. Skene. Doubt
exists as to Berchan’s date and even as to his day, there being several
saints of the same name. According to Dr. Skene he lived towards the end
of the seventh century, and in the opinion of his latest biographer
while “there is no reason whatever for putting him later than 700 A.D.,
he may have been as early as 550 a.d.” In the Four Masters he is
mentioned in conjunction with Columba (521-597) and his contemporary and
friend, Brendan of Birr. Ussher, says that he was “ the contemporary of
Keivinus,” who died in 622, at the phenomenal age of 120. We shall not
be far wrong, therefore, if we set him down as living in the second half
of the sixth century and as contemporary with S. Mirin in Paisley and S.
Kentigern in Glasgow. He was bishop of Clonsast, King’s County, Ireland,
and is mentioned by Colgan as one of the Four Illustrious, who gave a
name to the church near which they are buried—a church in Inishmore, the
largest and most northerly of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. The
Calendars mention a S. Berchan on April 6, August 1, August 4, and
December 3. This last, as the old style of reckoning is used, agrees
fairly well with the date on which the Kilbarchan fair is now held, the
first Tuesday after December 12. Of S. Berchan’s labours in Kilbarchan
nothing is known. He is supposed to have built a church there, and then,
after labouring for some time, to have returned to Ireland. It may be,
however, that the parish was the locality in which one of his disciples
or admirers laboured, and that the church was built by him and dedicated
to the saint’s memory, just as the church at Whithorn was built by S.
Ninian and dedicated by him to his friend S. Martin of Tours.
The church of the ancient
parish of Killallan, which by a decree of the Court of Teinds in 1760
was united to the adjoining parish of Houston, is dedicated to S. Fillan.
At a little distance from its ruins is a large stone with a hollow in
the middle, called S. Fillan’s chair. Under a rock, a little beyond it,
shaded by overhanging bushes, is S. Fillan’s well, to which sickly
children used to be brought for the healing of their diseases. In the
month of January a fair used to be held in the parish called St.
Fillan’s Day, and the festival of S. Fillan was kept by the church on
January 9. With this evidence it is impossible not to assume that S.
Fillan, or at least some disciple or admirer of his, built the church
and laboured in the parish of Killallan, and that too at an early
period.
The S. Fillan referred to
was the son of Feradach, a nobleman, and Kenti-gerna, daughter of
Killach Cualann, King of Leinster. His mother died in 734, and his
maternal grandfather in 715. He was educated by S. Ibar, and received
the monastic habit from S. Munna, who died in 635, and whose name is
preserved in Kilmun, on the Holy Loch, in Argyllshire. Dedications to S.
Fillan are numerous. The esteem in which he was held in Scotland was
greatly increased by the part he was supposed to have taken in the
battle of Bannockburn. Boece gives the Latin legend, which Bellenden has
translated as follows :—“ All the nicht afore the battall, K. Robert was
right wery, hav-and gret solicitude for the weil of his army, and micht
tak na rest, bot rolland all jeoperdeis and chance of fortoun in his
mind, and sum times he went to his devoit contemplatioun, makand his
orisoun to God and Sanct Phillane, quhais arme, as he belevit, set in
silver, ves closit in ane cais within his palyeon ; traisting the better
fortoun to follow be the samin. In the mein time the cais chakkit to
suddanlie but ony motion or werk of mortal creaturis. The priest
astonist be this wounder went to the alter quhare the cais lay ; and
quhen he fand the arme in the cais, he cryit, ‘ Heir is ane gret mirakle
’ ; and incontinent he confessit how he brocht the tume case in the
field dredand that the rellik suld be tint in the feild, quhair sa gret
jeoperdeis afferit. The King rejosing of this mirakill, past the
remanent nicht in his prayaris with gud esperance of victorie.” It was
to this “ merakle ” that the King alluded in his speech before the
battle, after the Abbot of Inchaffray, had “ said masse on ane hie mote,
and ministret the Eucharist to the King and his nobillis.”
The chief scene of S.
Fillan’s labours in Scotland appears, however, to have been Strathfillan,
in Perthshire, where, besides a long stone called S. Fillan’s seat, are
seven small stones which he is said to have endowed with the power of
curing diseases, and a pool, called the Holy Pool, in which insane
people were dipped to cure them. The name and the tradition alone
connect the saint with Killallan, but considering the vagrant habits of
his class, it is not an impossible supposition that he at one time
laboured in the parish, though it is more likely that the church was
erected and the traditions imported into the parish by one of his
disciples or admirers.
Convallanus, to whom the
ancient church of Pollok was dedicated and assigned, is described as
abbot in Scotland and confessor under King Couranus. According to Boece,
he introduced the Rogation or Gang Days into Scotland. The same writer
makes him Abbot of Iona, but among the abbots of that monastery his name
does not appear. The same writer’s statement to the effect that he had
the gift of prophecy is of about the same value as that just referred
to. “ This Convallanus,” it is said, “ was in the time of Arthure,
quhilk was King of the Britonis effcer the deith of Uter.”
Convallus is said to have
taken up his abode at Inchinnan. A recent writer has identified him with
Convallanus or Convallane of Pollok, but apparently on insufficient
grounds. According to the legend, Convallus of Inchinnan was the son of
an Irish prince, an ornament of the primitive Church of the Scots.
“Wishing to leave his native country, the stone on which he chanced to
be standing by the sea, suddenly became a skiff, whereon he was borne
across the sea to the River Clyde, where he landed. The stone was
thereafter called S. Convall’s Stone, and by the touch of it men and
cattle were healed.” The stone stood near the ancient fort of Inchinnan,
and is now called Argyll’s stone as marking the spot where the Earl of
Argyll was taken in 1685. Boece attests that the relics of S. Convall
were honoured at Inchinnan in his day. Cumnock is dedicated to him, and
according to a pre-Reformation will his dust lay there. Leslie makes out
that he preached at the coronation of Kenneth I., and Camerarius says
that he was honoured by Aidan, whom S. Columba ordained King of the
Scots.
Another dedication to S.
Convall stood in the village of Fereneze, to the south of Paisley. The
church had no territory attached to it, and appears to have been of late
date. It belonged to the Semple family, by whom it was given to the
Collegiate Church of Semple, which they erected in the parish of
Lochwinnoch.
S. Winoc, who is said to
have built the church around which the Kirktown of Lochwinnoch grew up,
is described as an abbot. He is also described as a bishop, and
sometimes bears the name of S. Gwynoch. He is said to have
excommunicated the Scots for their war against the Picts, and to have
assisted King Kenneth by his advice and prayers at a great battle in
which the power of his enemies was completely broken. About 853, April
13, is given as the date of the saint’s death.
Two of the above
mentioned saints—SS. Mirin and Convall—it has been conjectured, set up
monasteries after the Irish type in the county. There is nothing
incredible in the conjecture. The construction and organization of one
of these monasteries were by no means formidable undertakings. For the
construction all that was needed was a few huts made of wattle, a
church, a hut somewhat larger than the rest for the abbot, a
scriptorium, a guest house— all enclosed by a mound of earth, with a
byre and mill standing beyond it.
The Irish monasteries
were then teeming with students, all more or less capable of teaching
the small amount of scholarship which was then to be had, and an abbot
would have no difficulty in securing the assistance he needed.
But whether SS. Mirin and
Convall set up monasteries or not, they and their companions who were
labouring in Renfrewshire, would, as elsewhere, be obliged to keep
school, in order to teach the men and boys, and probably the women and
children, of their flocks to read and to chant the Psalms and to make
the responses in .the services of the Church. Doubtless, too, they were
continually on the outlook for youths of promise to train and educate
for taking up and carrying on the work they themselves had begun and
would one day be obliged to lay down. If their success in spreading the
lights of civilization and religion was not great, it was due less to
their want of zeal and more to the barbarous condition of the people
whom they tried to raise. |