530. For this we have only the Annals of the Four Masters, who have in 754 (recte 759) ‘Feidhlimidh mac Failbe abb Iae decc iar secht mbliadhna ochtmoghat a aeisi.’
531. 766 Suibne abbas Iae in Hiberniam venit.—An. Ult.
532. 767 Quies Slebine Iae.—Ib.
533. 772 Mors Suibne abbas Iae.—Ib.
534. It may be useful to insert here a table showing these rival abbots from the death of Adamnan in 704 to the accession of Breasal in 772. Those who belonged to the race of Conall Gulban are printed in old English letters; the strangers in Roman.
| Adamnan, abbot of Iona, dies 704. | |
| 704-710 Conamhail, son of Failbhe, first abbot of a different race. | 704-707 Interval of three years. |
| 710-712 Coeddi, bishop of Iona. | 707-717 Dunchadh, son of Cinnfaeladh, abbot of Iona. |
| 713 Dorbeni obtains chair of Iona, and dies same year. | |
| 713-716 Interval of three years. | |
| 716-724 Faelchu mac Dorbeni obtains chair of Iona 29th August 716. | 717-722 Interval of five years. |
| 724-726 Cillene the Long succeeds Faelchu in abbacy. | 722-759 Feidhlimidh mac Failbhe holds abbacy of Iona. |
| 726-752 Cilline Droichteach the anchorite, abbot of Iona. | |
| 752-767 Slebhine, son of Congal, abbot of Iona. | 759-766 Interval of seven years. |
| 767-772 Interval of five years. | 766-772 Suibhne, abbot of Iona. |
| 772 Breasal, son of Seghine, becomes abbot for thirty years. | |
535. 778 Lex Coluimcille la Donnchadh acus Bresal.—An. Ult.
536. 782 Muredach mac Huairgaile equominus Iae periit.—Ib.
537. 775 Mors Conaill Maighe Luinge.—Ib.
538. 776 Mors Maelemanach Ab. Cinngaradh.—Ib.
539. 790 Mors Noe abbatis Cinngaradh.—Ib.
540. 765 (recte 770) Niall Frosach mac Ferghaile secht mhliadhna os Eirinn na righ, co nerbail in I Cholaimchille aga oilithre iar nocht mhliadhna iaromh (was seven years king over Ireland, and died in Iona on his pilgrimage eight years afterwards).—An. F. M.
541. 782 Bacall Airtgaile mic Cathail R. Conacht et peregrinatio ejus in sequenti anno ad insulam Iae.—An. Ult.
790 Artgal mac Cathail rex Conacht in Hi defunctus est.—Ib.
542. 784 Adventus reliquiarum filiorum Eirc ad civitatem Tailten.—Ib.
543. 794 Vastatio omnium insolarum Britanniæ a gentibus.—Ib.
795 Orcain Iae Choluimchille.—An. Inis.
798 Indreda mara doaibh cene itir Erinn et Albain.—An. Ult.
544. 801 Bresal mac Segeni, abbas Iae, anno principatus sui 31 dormivit.—Ib.
545. 802 Hi Coluimbea cille a gentibus combusta est.—An. Ult.
797 (recte 802) Condachtach, Scribbneoir tochaidhe acus abb. Iae deg.—An. F. M.
806 Familia Iae occisa est a gentibus .i. lx octo.—An. Ult.
546. 807 Constructio novæ civitatis Columbæ Cille hi Ceninnus (in Kells).—Ib.
814 Ceallach, abbas Iae, finita constructione templi Cenindsa reliquit principatum, et Diarmitius, alumpus Daigri, pro eo ordinatus est.—Ib.
547. This appears from the term ‘templum,’‘templum,’ usually applied to a stone church, and from its being afterwards called a Damhliag or stone church.
548. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 24, says that the body of St. Columba was placed in a coffin prepared for it, and buried. He uses the strange word ‘ratabusta,’ which the transcribers of the Life apparently did not understand, as the MSS. present the following readings:—‘Rata busta,’ ‘intra busta,’ ‘rata tabeta;’ and the Bollandists alter it to ‘catabusta,’ an inversion of ‘busticeta,’ which Ducange defines as ‘sepulchra antiqua,’ ‘sepulchra in agro.’ It seems to have been an attempt to render in Latin the Irish ferta, which was either generally a grave, or, as Dr. Reeves has shown in his Ancient Churches of Armagh, p. 48, the equivalent of sarcophagus, or stone coffin, in which sense it is used here; but in Adamnan’s time his grave was undisturbed, and the place of his burial was well known; for he says that the stone which he had used as a pillow stands to this day as a monument at his grave, and that ‘until the present day the place where his sacred bones repose, as has been clearly shown to certain chosen persons, doth not cease to be frequently visited by holy angels, and illuminated by the same heavenly light.’ Bede, also, in talking of the ‘Monasterium insulanum’ founded by St. Columba, adds, ‘in quo ipse requiescit corpore.’—Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 4. The passage in the Book of Armagh is as follows:—‘Colombcille, Spiritu Sancto instigante, ostendit sepulturam Patricii, ubi est confirmat, id est, in Sahul Patricii, id est, in ecclesia juxta mare proxima ubi est conductio martirum, id est, ossuum Columbcille de Britannia et conductio omnium sanctorum Hiberniæ in die judicii.’ The passage is obviously somewhat corrupt, and has been well explained by Dr. Reeves in the Introduction to his Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. lxxx. The word ‘proxima’ is in the original ‘pro undecima;’ but Mr. Henry Bradshaw, of the University Library, Cambridge, has happily suggested that the transcriber mistook the letters xi in proxima for the numeral undecim. Conductio is the word frequently used in connection with enshrining, and Martra, here rendered Martirum, has been shown by Dr. Reeves to be the word used to designate the enshrined bones of a saint, the word Mionna being used for other relics, consisting of articles hallowed by his use. The passage clearly shows that in 807, when the book of Armagh was compiled, the bones of St. Columba had been enshrined, and were then at the church of Saul Patrick.
549. 734 Commutatio martirum Petri et Pauli et Patricii ad legem perficiendam.—An. Ult.
550. 743 Commutatio martirum Treno Cille Deilgge.—Ib.
776 Commutatio martirum Sancti Erce Slane et Finniain Cluaina Irard.—Ib.
551. 784 Commutatio reliquiarum Ultani.—Ib.
789 Commutatio reliquiarum Coimgin et Mochuæ mic Culugedon.—Ib.
552. 799 Positio reliquiarum Conlaid hi Scrin oir ocus airgid.—Ib.
800 Positio reliquiarum Ronain filii Berich in arca auri et argenti.—Ib.
553. In hac mansione juxta oratorium meum ad meridiem contra orientalem plagam Sanctæ Crucis, quam ibidem erexi.—Vit. S. Cuth., c. 37.
554. Atque in ecclesia beati apostoli Petri in dextera parte altaris petrino in sarcophago repositum.—Ib., c. 40. At that time the right side of the altar was the south side, but in 1485 this was altered in the Roman Church, and the right side declared to be the north side, because the right hand of the crucifix on the altar pointed to that side.
555. Atque in levi arca recondita in eodem quidem loco, sed supra pavimentum, dignæ venerationis gratia, locarent.—Ib., c. 42.
556. Et involutum novo amictu corpus levique in theca reconditum super pavimentum sanctuarii composuerunt.—Ib.
557. Cujus corpus in sepulcro beati Patris Cudbercti ponentes, adposuerunt desuper arcam, in qua incorrupta ejusdem Patris membra locaverunt.—Ib. c. 43.
558. Sim. Dun, Hist. Reg., ad an. 1104.
559. Reg. Mon. Dun. Lib. de admirandis Beati Cuthberti, c. 43.
560. Nec et de miraculo in reparatione ecclesiæ tacendum est, in qua gloriosa amborum, hoc est, Episcopi Conleath et hujus virginis S. Brigidæ corpora a dextris et a sinistris altaris decorati in monumentis posita ornatis vario cultu auri et argenti et gemmarum et pretiosi lapidis, atque coronis aureis et argenteis desuper pendentibus requiescunt.—Messing. Florileg., Vit. S. Brigidæ, p. 199.
561. 818 Diarmaid Ab. Iae co sgrin Colaim Cille do dul a nAlbain (Diarmaid, abbot of Iona, went to Scotland with the shrine of St. Columba).—Chron. Scot. The same notice appears in the Annals of the Four Masters.
562. This burying-ground is now called Cladh an Diseart. It was carefully examined this summer (1876) by the author and Mr. James Drummond, R.S.A., and some excavations they made disclosed the foundations of a rude stone oratory, about 26 feet long by 14 broad, the wall being two feet thick. At the eastern end is a small recess in the wall, and in this recess was found some years ago the stone which is figured in the Proceedings of the Antiq. Society, vol x. p. 349, and believed to be the stone pillow which was placed as a monument at St. Columba’s grave. The oratory may have been erected over his grave by Abbot Breasal, as he appears in the Calendars at 18th May as Breasal o Dertaigh, or Breasal of the Oratory.—Colg. A.SS.
563. In examining the existing ruins there is a peculiarity which cannot fail to be observed. On the north side of the abbey church, and at a little distance from it, is a chapel or oratory, about 33 feet long by 16 broad. This chapel, however, is not parallel to the abbey church, but has an entirely different orientation. It points more to the north, and the deflection amounts to no less than fourteen degrees. If the chapel was connected with the abbey church, it is impossible to account for this variation; but if it existed before the abbey church was built, we can quite understand that the orientation of the latter may have been quite irrespective of the former. Alongside of this chapel are the foundations of a large hall, probably a refectory, which have the same orientation. Then on the west of the ruins is a building which goes by the name of Columba’s House, and this, too, has nearly the same orientation. It was, no doubt, the abbot’s house. On the south side of the present ruins there is, at a little distance, another chapel called St. Mary’s Chapel, and here again we find the same orientation. It can hardly be doubted that these buildings formed part of the establishment which preceded the Benedictine monastery, and this is confirmed by the discovery, between the abbot’s house and the abbey church, of the foundations of an enclosure, the pavement of which consists of monumental stones, two of them bearing Irish inscriptions of the same character as the two oldest in the Relic Orain.
564. Martin, in his account of Iona, speaking of St. Martin’s cross says—‘At a little farther distance is Dun Ni Manich, i.e. the monks’ fort, built of stone and lime in the form of a bastion, pretty high. From this eminence the monks had a view of all the families in the Isle, and at the same time enjoyed the free air’ (page 259). Dr. Reeves remarks ‘that the artificial part does not now exist.’ He looked for it, however, on the small eminence called Torr Abb; but immediately behind it is a higher rocky eminence which better answers the description, now called Cnoc nan Carnan, or the hillock of the heaps or cairns, on which the remains of a fortification with outworks are still quite discernible.
565. Printed in Messingham’s Florilegium, p. 399, and Pinkerton, Vitæ Sanctorum, p. 459.
566. From Blath, beautiful, and Mac, a son.
567.
This reminds one of St. Cuthbert’s ‘sarcophagus terræ cespite abditus.’
568. The shrine appears to have been hid by the monks, and Blathmac purposely remained ignorant of the spot where they buried it.
569. 825 Martre Blaimhicc mic Flainn o gentib in Hi Coluim Cille. (The martyrdom of Blaithmaic by the pagans in Iona.)—An. Ult.
570. 829 Diarmait ab Iae do dul an Albain cominnaib Coluim Cille.—Ib.
571. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 232; and the Life, B. ii. c. 45.
572. For a description of these Irish oratories, and especially St. Molaga’s Bed, see Brash, Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 8, and Lord Dunraven’s magnificent work on Irish Architecture, p. 62, where it is figured.
573.
At the west end of the oratory at Iona, overlapping its side walls, is an enclosure, which is of late construction, but is filled with gravestones, two of which bear Irish inscriptions. Inserted in the west end of the enclosure is a cross, which, however, is not in the centre, but directly faces the end of the cist on the south side of the oratory.
574. 831 Diarmait totiachtain in hErin comminaib Coluim Cille.—An. Ult.
575. 849 Innrechtach ab Iae do tiachtain do cum nErenn commindaib Coluimcille.—Ib.
854 Heres Columbecille sapiens optimus iv Id. marcii apud Saxones martirizatur.—Ib.
Indrechtaig hua Finechta abbas Iae hi mardochoid oc dul do Roim Saxanu.—An. Inis.
576. Concremavit Dunbarre atque Malros usurpata, Britanni autem concremaverunt Dunblain.—Pict. Chron. The name Dunbarre seems connected with St. Bar or Finbar, and may have been a Scotch foundation, and been named from him, as Dunblane is from St. Blane.
577. Septimo anno regni sui reliquias Sancti Columbæ transportavit ad ecclesiam quam construxit.—Chron. Pict. Dunkeld was dedicated to St. Columba, and possessed some of the relics. Hickes, in his Thesaurus (vii. 117), has published a Saxon document compiled about 1058, giving the localities in England in which the relics of eminent saints were placed; and in it we find a passage which he thus translates:—‘Sanctus Columcylle requiescit in loco Duncahan juxta flumen Tau.’ This does not imply that his body, or his tomb, was there, but merely part of his relics; and that by Duncahan Dunkeld is meant—the letters ld having been read h—appears from an incident preserved by Alexander Mylne, a canon of Dunkeld, who died in 1549, in his Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld. He says that in the year 1500, when a severe pestilence afflicted the whole kingdom of Scotland, the town of Dunkeld alone remained unaffected by it through the merit of its patron saint Columba, and that the bishop visiting some who were sick of the pest in the church lands of Caputh, administered the sacrament to them, and next day having blessed some water in which he had dipped a bone of St. Columba, sent it to them by his chancellor to drink and many receiving it were made whole.—Mylne, Vit. Ep. Dunk. pp. 40, 43.
578. 865 Tuathal mac Artguso, primus episcopus Fortren et abbas Duincaillenn dormivit.—An. Ult.
579. Kenneth seems to have taken for his model the establishment of a bishop from Iona in Northumbria, where the whole kingdom formed one diocese under one bishop. The term ‘primus episcopus’ here unquestionably means first in time, not in dignity. The Scotch Episcopal Church appears to have understood it in the latter sense, and thus presents the anomaly of one of the successors of a long line of bishops bearing the title of ‘primus episcopus.’ An elective primacy, too, is as great an anomaly.
580. 865 Ceallach mac Aillelo abbas Cilledaro et abbas Ia dormivit in regione Pictorum.—Ib.
581. Chron. Scotorum, ad an. 836-845.
582. In a note by Dr. Petrie appended to Sir James Simpson’s Essay on a Stone-Roofed Building in the Island of Inchcolm, as printed in his Archæological Essays, edited by Dr. John Stuart, vol. i. p. 134, he states that no one can doubt that the age of the Abernethy tower is much greater than that of Brechin, and adds, ‘This is the opinion I formed many years ago, after a very careful examination of the architectural peculiarities of each, and I came to the conclusion that the safest opinion which could be indulged as to the age of the Abernethy tower was that it had been erected during the reign of the third Nectan, i.e. between 712 and 727, and by those Northumbrian architects of the monastery of Jarrow for whose assistance the king, according to the high authority of Bede, had applied to build for him, in his capital, a stone church in the Roman style.’ It appears to the author that this opinion, though proceeding from so high an authority as Dr. Petrie, is not tenable, for, first, Bede says nothing about the church being in his capital, but he distinctly says that it was to be dedicated to St. Peter, and there is no dedication to St. Peter at Abernethy; secondly, though undoubtedly older than the tower at Brechin, it cannot, he thinks, be taken so far back as the beginning of the eighth century; and thirdly, the author has been unable to discover any peculiarity so marked as to take it out of the class of the Irish round towers altogether, or to warrant the supposition that it is a solitary instance of a round tower built by Anglic architects in the Roman style.
583. 873 Flaithbertach mac Murcertaigh princeps Duincaillden obiit.—An. Ult.
584. Et in illa ecclesia fuerunt tres electiones factæ, quando non fuit nisi unus solus episcopus in Scotia. Nunc fuit locus ille sedes principalis regalis et pontificalis, per aliquot tempora, totius regni Pictorum.—Scotichron., B. iv. c. 12.
585. Bishop Forbes’s Calendars, p. 334.
586. This legend is printed in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 423.
587. Breviary of Aberdeen, Pars Hyem. f. lix.
588. Wyntoun, Chron., B. vi. cap. 8.
589. Non desunt qui scribant sanctissimos Christi martyres Hungaros fuisse genere in Scotiam ethnicorum feritate, quæ sub idem tempus in Germania debacchabatur fugientes, servandæ religionis causa trajecisse. Alii ex Scotis Anglisque gregarie collectos.—Boetii Scot. Hist., fol. ccxiii.
590. 571 Moenen Eps Cluanaferta Brenand quievit.—Tigh. 1st March, Maoineann espoc Cluana Ferta Brenainn.—Mart. Don.
591. See this view brought out by Dr. Todd in his Introduction to the Wars of the Gaedhel with the Gaill, pp. xlii.-xlviii.
592. Wars of the Gaedhel with the Gaill, p. 13.
593. Annals of Ulster, ad an. 844; Chron. Scot., 845.
594. How the Hungarian story should have arisen it seems difficult to guess, but possibly it may have been brought forward about the time of Queen Margaret, when her own connection with Hungary might lead some of the ecclesiastical parties to suppose that a legend of this kind would find favour with her. There is a cluster of Adrians in the Martyrologies about this time. On 1st March, Adrianus, a Roman martyr of Bologna; Adrianus, martyr in Africa; Adrianus of Marseilles. On the 4th March, Adrianus, martyr, with thirty-three companions of Nicomedia, under Diocletian; and on the 5th, Adrianus, martyr of Cæsarea; but there is no Adrianus of Hungary. Bishop Forbes notices, in his Calendars (p. 267), that Usuardus has also a St. Gagius on the 4th, who seems to correspond with the Gayus of the legend. The Irish name that seems to come nearest Adrian in form is Odhran; and the Martyrology of Donegal has this name on 6th March, and we find a subsequent bishop of St. Andrews called Mac Gilla Odran, or the son of the servant of Odran. The parishes of Flisk and Lindores, both within the parochia, are dedicated to a St. Macgidrin, and his name is connected with Macduff’s Cross, the boundary-stone of the region of Fife. It is possible that the name which appears under this form may be that which was Latinised Adrianus. He may also have been one of the three bishops elected at Abernethy.
595. See the interesting notice of the Coves at Caiplie and other places on the coast of Fife in the Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii., appendix to preface, p. lxxxvii.; and Dr. John Stuart’s remarks in his Preface to the Chartulary of the Isle of May, p. v.
596. 878 Scrin Coluim Cille ocus aminna orchena do thiachtain do cum n-Erenn for teicheadh na Gallaibh.—An. Ult.
597. 880 Feradach mac Cormac abbas Iae pausat.—Ib.
598. 891 Flann mac Maileduin abbas Iae in pace quievit.—An. Ult.
599. Mart. Donegal, p. 55.
600. 927 Maelbrigda mac Tornain Comhorba Patraic et Coluimcille, felici senectute quievit.—An. Ult.
601. At the time this Life was compiled, the name of Scotia had already been transferred to Scotland, and a candid examination of the Life shows the scene of his early years was in Scotland.
602. He is said in the Life to have died in the seventieth year of his age and the thirtieth of his pilgrimage, but it began when Constantin was king of Alban, and Eric ruled at York. Eric’s reign at York began about 938, and Constantin died in 942, which limits us to four years for the year of his birth.
603. Colgan explains Kaddroë as Cath, battle, Roe, the same as Agon, place of contest.—A.SS., p. 503.
604. This part of the Life is printed in the Chronicle of the Picts and Scots, p. 106.
‘This is he who first gave liberty to the Scottish Church which had been until now under servitude, according to the law and custom of the Picts.’[605] Such is the almost unanimous testimony of the chronicles as to King Giric, who reigned from 878 to 889; and this is the first appearance of the church under the name of ‘the Scottish Church.’ At this time the kingdom ruled by the new dynasty of kings of Scottish race was still the kingdom of the Picts, and the kings were still called kings of the Picts. Giric therefore must be regarded as such; and he seems also to have broken in upon the Tanistic law of succession, and reintroduced the Pictish law, by which the throne descended to the sister’s children in preference to the son’s; while by ‘the Scottish Church’ could only be meant that church which his predecessor Kenneth had constituted and placed under the rule of one bishop. The first, as we have seen, was the abbot of Dunkeld; but the election of this bishop was now in the hands of the church of Abernethy. Giric’s object therefore probably was to secure the support of the Scottish clergy by conferring a boon upon their church. Whatever that boon may have been, the expression ‘that he first gave it’ seems to imply that it was something which the Pictish kings had not previously given, but in which he was followed by his successors. What then was implied by the church being under servitude, and having liberty given to it? These are terms which, in connection with the church lands, have a very definite meaning. About thirty years before this date Ethelwulf, king of Wessex, as we are told in the Saxon Chronicle, in the year 855, ‘chartered the tenth part of his land, over all his kingdom, for the glory of God and his own eternal salvation;’ and in the deeds rehearsing this grant we find the same expressions used. Thus, in one grant he says that he has not only given the tenth part of his lands to the holy churches, but also ‘that our appointed ministers therein should have them in perpetual liberty, so that such donation shall remain permanently freed from all royal service, and relieved from all secular servitude;’ and in another there is a still more detailed explanation of it. He grants the tenth part of his lands ‘to God and St. Mary, and to all the saints, to be safe, protected and free from all secular services, not only the greater and lesser loyal tributes or taxations, which we call Witeredden, but also free from every thing, for the remission of souls and my sins, to the sole service of God, without hosting or construction of bridges or fortification of citadels, that they may pray for us without ceasing, in as far as we have freed them from their servitude.’[606] In the early Irish Monastic Church, the land granted for the endowment of a church or monastery to its first founder or patron saint, was usually called its Termon land, and was considered by right to have the privilege of sanctuary and to be free from any rents, tributes, or other exactions by temporal chiefs; but the close connection between the church and the tribe, and the rights of the latter in connection with the succession to the abbacy, led to a constant attempt on the part of the secular chiefs to bring these lands under the same obligations towards themselves as affected the tribe lands; and, when they succeeded in this, they were held to have brought the church under servitude. This appears even as late as the Synod of Cashel, in 1172, the fourth act of which is as follows:—‘That all church lands, and possessions belonging to them, be wholly free from exaction on the part of all secular persons, and especially that neither petty kings, nor chieftains, nor any other powerful men in Ireland, nor their sons with their families, are to exact, as has been customary, victuals and hospitality in lands belonging to the church, or presume any longer to extort them by force;’[607] and there is an instructive passage in the Annals of the Four Masters, about the same time, where we find it stated, in the year 1161, ‘It was on this occasion that the churches of Columcille in Meath and Leinster were freed by the Coärb of Columcille, Flaithbheartach Ua Brolchain; and their tributes and jurisdiction were given to him, for they had been previously enslaved.’[608]
When the Columban monks were expelled from the Pictish territories in the beginning of the preceding century, and a different system introduced, the church lands would no doubt be brought under the same burdens and exactions as applied to other lands. This appears to have taken place about the same time in England; for St. Boniface, archbishop of Mentz, who was himself an Englishman, writes to Cudberht, archbishop of Canterbury about 745, regarding ‘the enforced servitude of the monks in royal works and buildings, which is not heard of in the whole Christian world save only among the nation of the Angles—which cannot be acquiesced in or consented to by the priests of God—which is an evil unknown to past ages.’[609] So it seems also to have been among the Picts; and it had become their custom and usage that the church lands and their occupants should not be exempted from secular services. It is therefore probably by a prolepsis that the first grant of St. Andrews by King Hungus is accompanied by exemptions really due to King Giric, when we are told that the donation is ‘with such freedom that its occupiers should always be free and quit from all hosting and construction of castles and bridges, and the vexation of all secular exactions.’ The ordinary burdens of the land among the Picts were exigible by their kings, mormaers and toiseachs; and the proportion received by each was termed their share, as appears from the grants in the Book of Deer. What King Giric did, therefore, was probably to issue a decree, similar in terms to that of the Synod of Cashel at a later period, ‘that all church lands and possessions belonging to them be wholly free from exaction on the part of all secular persons, and that neither kings nor mormaers nor toiseachs are to exact, as has been customary among the Picts, victuals and hospitality in lands belonging the church, or presume any longer to extort them by force.’[610]
Though the church benefited by this act of King Giric, it does not appear to have availed much, so far as his personal object was concerned; for he was, along with his pupil the British son of Kenneth’s daughter, driven out, and the throne was once more occupied by his male descendants. They now were called no longer kings of the Picts, but kings of Alban; and the districts between the Forth and the Spey are no longer Fortrenn, or Pictland, but Alban. The reign of the second of these kings of Alban was an important one for the Church, for in his sixth year—that is, about 908—a great meeting was held on the Moothill of Scone, at which King Constantin and Bishop Cellach ‘solemnly vow to protect the laws and discipline of the faith, and the rights of the churches and of the Gospel, equally with the Scots.’[611] Two facts may fairly be deduced from the short notice of this meeting given in the Pictish Chronicle; first, that it secured the rights and liberties of the church as now amalgamated into one body; and secondly, that the leading part taken in it by Bishop Cellach obviously places him at the head of the church, and the primacy must now have been transferred from Abernethy to St. Andrews. There are two lists of the bishops of St. Andrews given to us; one by Bower, who was abbot of Inchcolm, and the other by Wyntoun, who was primate of Lochleven. These lists agree, and in both Cellach appears as first bishop of St. Andrews.[612] This meeting may be held to have in fact finally constituted the Scottish Church under its then organisation, in which it was placed under the government of one bishop, who was designated Epscop Alban, or bishop of Alban.[613]