APPENDIX B.

KELEDEI (vulgo “CULDEES") IN SCOTLAND, c. A.D. 800—c. A.D. 1150. (Not extinct however until the middle of the 14th century.)

Keledei: what I. "Keledeus"=Servus Dei (according to the more probable they were. derivation), and at first merely an Irish appellation for a monk (Céle-dé), is first found as the name of a monk of a special and more strict rule, differing however in no way whatever from the doctrine or ordinary discipline of the then Church, at Tamhlacht near Dublin under S. Maelruain, ob. A.D. 792a. It occurs first, in Scotland, and in a like special sense, either at Dunkeld before A.D. 820, if Constantine were the founder of the Church there (other authorities name Kenneth and A.D. 849), or at Lochleven before A.D. 842 (see above, pp. 118, 147). It is applied to hermits in the latter of these two places, but at Dunkeld, S. Andrew's, and Glasgow, to a conventual body (usually a priorb and twelve monks), but described in the last two cases as living in separate abodes: akin to the secular canons of Chrodegang of Metz cir. A.D. 757; regulated by the Council of Aix-laChapelle, A.D. 817.

Keledei in Scot- II. Keledei are found in Scotland, certainly, at the following places :

land.

*

i. At Glasgow, according to Jocelin's V. S. Kentegerni (see above, pp. 28, 29), but there is no evidence as to when they came there; and it is against all probability to suppose (as Jocelin does) that they were established by S. Kentegern himself. They had disappeared before David's restoration of the bishopric in A.D. 1119. Henry of Silgrave (see below) speaks of Canonici Seculares there.

ii. At *Dunkeld, from its foundation, according to Dean Mylne (see below), i. e. from either before A.D. 820 or before A.D. 849 (A.D. 729 is an obvious error in Mylne, who wrote in the end of the 15th century, corrected by the name and date of the founder whom he names), according as we prefer the evidence of the Pictish Chronicle or of the Register of S. Andrew's. King David A.D. 1127 established there a body of canons (Canonici Nigri or of S. Augustin) and a Bishop; but the Dunkeld Keledei, although no doubt displaced, survived for a considerable period, being mentioned in

[KELEDEI (CULDEES) IN SCOTLAND.]

Henry of Silgrave's catalogue A.D. 1272 (see Reeves, Culdees, 30), as co-existing there with Canonici Nigri.

iii. At Lochleven, where is the earliest certain record of them in Scotland, viz. A.D. 842 (see above, pp. 118, 147), which proves however that they must have been established in the island some time previously. The last record of them there under the name of Keledei is A.D. 1248, but David made them into Canons Secular A.D. 1144 × 1150.

iv. At *S. Andrew's, first mentioned A.D. 943, when King Constantine became their (probably lay) abbat (see above, p. 148); but established there, not at its first foundation, but some time subsequently (see the Hist. Eccl. S. Andr. as quoted below), and therefore probably early in the 9th century: last mentioned A.D. 1332; co-existing there with Canonici Nigri from A.D. 1144, and so also Henry of Silgrave, but finally superseded by those Canons after a long struggle, which began in A.D. 1144.

*

v. At Brechin, founded by Kenneth son of Malcolm, A.D. 971 × 995 (see above, p. 149), and probably for Keledei (who were then still, so to say, the fashion in the matter of Scottish monastic foundations), inasmuch as King David, when establishing the episcopal see A.D. 1124 x 1130, found Keledei there, and left them in possession. They are last mentioned by name A.D. 1219 × 1222, and were supplanted by Dean and Canons before A.D. 1248. They are however in Henry of Silgrave's list A.D. 1272.

vi. At Abernethy, founded by King Nectan, but by which of the Kings so called is uncertain; Fordun and (in effect) Dean Mylne, however, fixing it to c. A.D. 600, but giving two slightly varying dates: the seat of the Pictish primacy for three episcopates prior to A.D. 849 (Fordun, IV. 12): first known as of Keledei, A.D. 1093 x 1107 (see Reeves, Culdees, 127, 128); and transferred to Canons A.D. 1272.

vii. At Hy, which is in Henry of Silgrave's list, but the solitary record of Keledei there dates A.D. 1164 (Ann. Ult.), and is of a subordinate section only of the ecclesiastics of the island.

viii. At Monymusk, on the Don, in Aberdeenshire; founded or (more probably) restored by Malcolm Canmore A.D. 1080, and affiliated to [the Keledei of] S. Andrew's: Keledei there A.D. 1170; still so called A.D. 1214 × 1234, but with an alternative of "Canones;" styled, absolutely, "Prior et Conventus Ordinis S. Augustini," A.D. 1245.

ix. At Muthill, not far from Dunblane in Perthshire: earliest record A.D. 1178, latest A.D. 1214.

x. At *Lismore, in Argyllshire, an Irish foundation of S. Moluoc or Lughaidh, ob. A.D. 592; which became, c. A.D. 1200, the see of the new diocese of Argyll, taken out of that of Dunkeld. It is only known from Henry of Silgrave's list to have been Keledean, but there is no evidence as

[KELEDEI (CULDEES) IN SCOTLAND.]

to how or when it became so; and a Dean and Canons were certainly there A.D. 1249, 1251.

xi. At *Dornoch, in Sutherlandshire, the see of the diocese of Caithness, known to have been at some time or other Keledean from Henry of Silgrave's list, but Keledei had disappeared there either before or during Bishop Gilbert's episcopate c. A.D. 1222.

xii. At *Dunblane, in Perthshire, an old Irish foundation of probably Columbite times, S. Blaan's mother being said to have been daughter of King Aidan: known to have been Keledean at some time or other from Henry of Silgrave's list only.

xiii. At *Rosemarkie, in Ross-shire; also an old Irish foundation, viz. of S. Boniface (see above, pp. 116, 140), but of later date than Dunblane: known likewise to have been Keledean at some time or other from Henry of Silgrave's list. It had ceased to be so A.D. 1224, but whether from the time of King David's foundation of a bishopric there, no evidence exists to show.

xiv. At Monifieth, in Forfarshire, where Keledei are once mentioned, viz. in A.D. 1242, but as having existed in the previous generation.

Keledei are also said to have existed at Scone (so Buchanan), Montrose, Abirlot, Dull, Ecclesgirg, and elsewhere in Scotland, but there is no evidence of records to the fact, however probable it may be in itself. No doubt many Keledean institutions existed, of which no record happens to have been preserved.

It follows from the facts thus stated, that the original Irish monastic institutions introduced into Scotland, whether by S. Columba or by other fellowworkers of that time, were not Keledean ;-that Keledean institutions began there about A.D. 800, as either new foundations, or in the lapse of years engrafted on older ones;-that these foundations followed a like course of deterioration with the similar Irish, and with the Celtic Welsh, monasteries; that partly by their own decadence, but perhaps more through English ecclesiastical influence (which began with Malcolm and Margaret, and culminated under King David), they, with the other monasteries of an Irish type, were either transformed, or destroyed, by a revolution beginning about the middle of the 12th century, being principally converted into the monastic order nearest akin to them, viz. Augustinian canons;—and that by the middle of the 14th century they had disappeared altogether, even in

name.

It will be seen likewise by this list, and by the names in it marked by an asterisk, that (even omitting Glasgow, where the Keledei, if they ever existed, had wholly disappeared, possibly in the general wreck of Church institutions

VOL. II.

N

[KELEDEI (CULDEES) IN SCOTLAND.]

there, prior to King David's earldom of Cumbria) all the Bishoprics, found or established by King David, except only Moray and Aberdeen, and, in addition, the later Bishopric of Lismore or Argyll,-were created out of Keledean foundations; and, further, that in each such case, except only (for a time) Brechin, and again with the addition of the other non-episcopal Keledean institutions,―Keledei were superseded, after more or less of a struggle, by (usually) Canons. It is easy therefore to perceive how such a transformation of abbatial jurisdictions into a regular system of diocesan episcopacy, and this under the (eventual) primacy of S. Andrew's, could be naturally, although not accurately, described by a Durham chronicler of a later period, as follows: "Anno ab Incarnatione Domini MCVIII, electus fuit Turgotus Prior Dunelmensis in Episcopum Sancti Andreæ, &c. In diebus illis totum jus Keledeorum per totum regnum Scotiæ transivit in Episcopatum Sancti Andreæd." It is to be added also, that the change then effected was also a change from old Celtic foundations to new ones of the Anglo-Norman type, together with a large influx of English monks: analogous to the contemporaneous change which transformed or destroyed the older British monasteries in Wales.

a The authorities for this and the list that follows are taken from Dr. Reeves, On the Culdees, Dublin, 1864.

b Called sometimes abbat, e. g. twice at S. Andrew's; but in many cases the abbat and prior became distinct offices, the latter the spiritual superior, the former a lay hereditary lord of the Church lands.

became.

......

A list of Celtic Scottish monasteries, in part Keledean, in part merely (so to say) Irish, will be found in Mr. Joseph Robertson's article on Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals, Quarterly Review, LXXXV.; and a brief list from it in Grub, I. 243.

d Quoted in Selden's Pref. to Twysden's X. Scriptores, p. vi.

What Keledei III. Special asceticism was the original character of the Keledean rule. Special laxity, after the natural course of monastic orders, and in this case no doubt coloured more highly by national and ecclesiastical antipathies, became their character by the 12th century. But the particular Keledean laxity appears to have been, that, precisely like their Irish and Welsh congeners, they gradually lapsed into something like impropriators (to use the modern term), married, and transmitting their Church endowments as if they had been their own to their children, but retaining, at any rate in most cases, their clerical office; although the abbats, as e.g. at Dunkeld and Abernethy, became in some cases mere lay lords of the Church lands thus misappropriated, leaving a prior to be the spiritual superior. The councils under Queen Margaret (see above, pp. 156-158) may serve to indicate the extent and character of their divergence, in common with the rest of the Scottish Church, from the then approved English type. It is needless, after Dr. Reeves's exhaustive essay, to notice the groundless theories which in modern times polemics and ignorance

[KELEDEI (CULDEES) IN SCOTLAND.]

combined have invented respecting them. The following accounts, drawn up however (as Dr. Reeves rightly reminds the reader) by opponents, the first of them in the middle of the 12th century, the second in the end of the 15th, will serve to show what they became before their downfall. And the list which follows supplies the evidence for the existence of many of them.

1. Extract from the Register of S. Andrew's, drawn up A.D. 1144 X 1153.

HIST. ECCLES. S. ANDR. - Sublatis vero a presenti vita Sanctis quorum supra mentionem fecimus, qui cum reliquiis beati Apostoli advenerant [sc. Regulus and his companions], et eorum discipulis atque imitatoribus, cultus ibi [in regia urbe Rymont] religiosus deperierat, sicut et gens barbara et inculta fuerat. Habebantur tamen in ecclesia Sancti Andreæ, quota et quanta tunc erat, tredecima per successionem carnalem, quos Keledeos appellant, qui secundam [sic] suam æstimationem et hominum traditionem magis quam secundum sanctorum statuta patrum vivebant. Sed et adhuc similiter vivunt, et quædam habent communia, pauciora scilicet et deteriora, quædam vero propria, plura scilicet et potiora; prout quisque ab amicis suis aliqua necessitudine ad se pertinentibus, videlicet consanguineis et affinibus, vel ab iis quorum animæ charæb sunt (quod est animarum amici), sive aliis quibus libet modis, poterit quis adipisci. Postquam Keledei effecti sunt, non licet eis habere uxores suas in domibus suise, sed nec alias de quibus mala oriatur suspicio mulieres. Personæ nihilominus septemd fuerunt oblationes altaris inter se dividentes, quarum septem portionum unam tantum habebat Episcopus, et Hospitale unam; quinque vero reliquæ in quinque cæteros dividebantur, qui nullo e omnino altari vel ecclesiæ impendebant servitium, præterquam peregrinus [sic] et hospites, cum plures quam sex adventarunt, more suo hospitio suscipiebant, sortem mittentes quis quos vel quot reciperet. Hospitale sane semper sex et infra suscipiebat. Sex [leg. sed] quod nunc, donante Deo, postquam in manum Canonicorum devenit, omnes suscepit eo advenientes. Personæ autem supra memoratæ reditus et possessiones proprias habebant, quas, cum e vitæ [sic] decederent, uxores eorum, quas publice tenebant, filii quoque vel filiæ, propinqui vel generi, inter se dividebant: nihilominus f altaris oblationes cui non deserviebant: quod puduisset dicere, si non libuisset eis facere. Nec potuit tantum aufferri malum usque ad tempus fœlicis memoriæ Regis Alexandri, sanctæ Dei Ecclesiæ specialis amatoris, qui et Ecclesiam beati Andreæ Apostoli possessionibus et redditibus ampliavit, multisque et magnis muneribus cumulavit, libertatibus et consuetudinibus quæ sui regii muneris erant, cum regali possessione donavit. Terram etiam quæ Cursus Apris dicitur, quam, cum allatæ fuissent reliquiæ beati Andreæ Apostoli, Rex Hungus, cujus