An ancient curio—Second oldest book of Scotland—Where did it come from?—Its contents threefold—Gaelic colophon from the ninth century—The work of a native scribe of Alba—Peculiarities—The ecclesiastical art of the period—The Gaelic entries—“Legend of Deer”—Drostan’s tears—Some very quaint history—The earliest source for Scottish Gaelic—Authentic glimpses into the Celtic condition of Scotland—Origin of shires, parishes, burghs, individual freedom, and the use of the English language—Three editions of the Gaelic of the Book of Deer—Now one of the very oldest MSS. of native origin that Cambridge can boast of.
In the year 1860, Mr. Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of Cambridge University, while rummaging among old books, came upon a curious production which at once usurped his attention. Here, thought he, is surely a survival from some remote time. And examining the MS., he found it to consist of eighty-six parchment leaves, six inches long, four and a half wide, and closely written on both sides.
The language was Latin, written in the Irish character, “not very unlike the Bodleian Cædmon.” Each page showed marks of ruling with a sharp instrument, and the letters hung from the ruled lines instead of resting on them. The pages were surrounded by ornamented borders, most of them filled in with interlaced work in panels, and with fretwork of a peculiar kind.
On a casual inspection of the subject-matter, the accomplished librarian had no difficulty in ascertaining that it consisted of the first six chapters of St Matthew’s Gospel, and part (verses 1–22) of the seventh; the first four chapters of St. Mark, and part of the fifth (to middle of verse 35); the first three chapters of St. Luke, with the first verse of the fourth; the whole of the Gospel of St. John; a fragment of an Office for the Visitation of the Sick, in a later hand; and the Apostles’ Creed. The writing of the Gospels was all in one uniform hand, the ink dark-brown with age, and the initial letters of paragraphs designed in fanciful dragonesque forms and variously coloured. At the end of the book, just after the Apostles’ Creed, the writer had added a colophon in another language, which looked like Gaelic, and on the margins and vacant spaces of the volume there was a number of entries in the same vernacular, but evidently inserted much later.
What greatly enhanced the rarity and interest of this remarkable codex, in the finder’s eyes, was that it also contained a collection of coloured pictures and ornamental designs contemporary with the writing, executed in the same style, and apparently by the same hand that penned the Gospels.
Where did this ancient curio come from? It was easy for him to trace its entrance into the Library, for he found it among the remainder of the books of John Moore, at one time Bishop of Norwich, and later of Ely. These books had come into the possession of the University in a very interesting way. After the prelate’s death, which took place in 1714, it appears that King George the First, acting on the suggestion of Lord Townshend, bought the extensive library of the deceased for the sum of 6000 guineas, and gifted it to the College Library.
The small octavo MS. of which we are speaking, and now known as the Book of Deer, had formed part of Bishop Moore’s collection in 1697, and strange to say, after its removal to Cambridge, it lay apparently neglected for a century and a half on the shelves of that University Library, until the discriminating eye of Mr. Bradshaw singled it out as of exceptional antiquity and value—as, in fact, one of the very oldest MSS. of native origin that Cambridge can boast of.
Thus far the history of the quaint foundling. For the rest, it must tell its own tale.
Obviously one of the few relics of the Celtic Church now extant, it required an expert in the Gaelic language and antiquities to elicit the desired information regarding its origin and long past. And when Whitley Stokes sought a perusal, we can almost fancy the eager Bradshaw addressing his fellow-linguist in the language of Marcellus to Horatio when the ghost of Hamlet’s father suddenly appeared, “Thou art a scholar; speak to it.” Here was the worn and faded form of a book resurrected from the dust of oblivion, and, like the shade of the dead king, once more catching the eye of men, and making their hearts quiver with eerie curiosity.
A rising Celticist, Mr. Whitley Stokes soon applied himself to the interesting inquisition, following the venerable scroll back for a thousand years to the ancient time when it first took shape. And in the Saturday Review of December 1860 appeared an anonymous article from his pen, in the form of an appreciative notice, giving translations of the Gaelic, and otherwise making known to the public the importance of this latest literary discovery.
In the contents of the volume he found sufficient internal evidence to be able to trace its past, so far as many details of its early origin and environment are concerned.
These contents, as already hinted, are threefold. First, the original substance of the book; second, its ornamentations; and third, the notes and memoranda inserted at a later time on the margins and blank pages.
And into what age and environment, we naturally ask, do these lead us?
As on receipt of an unknown letter, the receiver turns with eager eyes to scan the signature at the end, so here the expert first directs his attention to the colophon or postscript of the scribe.
In this particular instance it happens to be in Gaelic, and may be rendered thus: “Be it on the conscience of every one in whom shall be for grace the booklet with splendour, that he give a blessing on the soul of the poor wretch (truagain) who wrote it” (“Forchubus caichduini imbia arrath inlebran colli aratardda bendacht forainmain in truagain rodscribai”).
This Gaelic, says Whitley Stokes, is identical with the oldest Irish glosses given by Zeuss in his Grammatica Celtica, and “certainly as old as the ninth century.” Professor Westwood, from a study of the written characters, which are those at that time common to the Irish and Anglo-Saxon schools, came to the same conclusion as to the age of the book.
The version of the Gospels which it contains is one of a class which has been called “Irish,” because, while mainly corresponding with Jerome’s Vulgate, it preserves occasional readings from versions of earlier dates. The text, in other words, agrees with the text of the various Books of Gospel used in the Scoto-Irish monasteries of the period, such as the Books of Durrow, Kells, Dimna, Moling, Armagh, etc.
It would appear that Jerome’s recension made its way early among Gaelic scholars, and during the isolation of the Celtic Church, there had been a sort of revision which produced a native version exhibiting characteristics peculiar to itself and common to all the above-mentioned texts. Hence the wonderful uniformity alike in the text and in the peculiarities of spelling found in all the surviving Gaelic MSS. of that early period.
It is not known whether the book was produced in the place whose name it bears or in Iona, or whether it was written by a Pict or a Scot. Scholars are content to affirm their opinion that it is the work of a native scribe of Alba, without particularising too confidently.
Dr. Stuart, who edited it for the Spalding Club in 1869, observed that though the handwriting is good and uniform, casual examination of the MS. will show that it is a careless transcript of a corrupt text. The spelling is frequently barbarous and capricious. There are many violations of grammar, with omissions, transpositions, repetitions and interpolations of various kinds, while the prepositions are almost always joined to the word which they govern.
Generally speaking, this Book of Deer exhibits many of the peculiarities of spelling which Tischendorf noted in the Vulgate, for example:—
But the copying is otherwise of such a kind that it appears very doubtful if the scribe really knew Latin well. It certainly indicates a great falling away from the high scholarship of Adamnan and the verbal accuracy of Baithene. And this itself might confirm us in the idea that it may have been written in Deer or somewhere in Buchan rather than in Iona. Very curious blunders might be quoted; but perhaps none more grotesque than that in the genealogy in St. Luke, where Seth is set down as the first man and father of Adam, or again in John xviii. 22, “Sic respondis Pontifici” (Answerest thou the high priest so?) is written “Sicrespem dispontifici.” In other cases words are introduced which entirely destroy the sense.
The second feature of this remarkable codex to arrest the attention, is the decoration, which also is found to exhibit the character of the ecclesiastical art of the period at which it is presumed to have been written. The style of ornament of the illuminations is in fact entirely similar to that used in the well known Irish Books of Gospel prior to the ninth century, and on its own account is exceedingly interesting. The first folio has its page divided into four panels by a plain Latin cross, with a rosette in the centre. In these are four figures representing, most likely, the four evangelists, though they might very well stand for clerics. Fronting the beginning of the first Gospel is a figure, full-page size, taken to represent St. Matthew, the author of that Evangel. He appears with a beard, and clothed in ecclesiastical vestments, all but the feet, which are bare. In his right hand he holds a sword of unusual form, turned downwards with the point of the scabbard resting between his feet; the handle is guarded before and behind, the guards being curved and reversed.
On either side of the evangelist there looks forth a smaller figure, which seems to be intended for an angel.
At the beginning of St. Mark’s Gospel is another figure in the same style, with an object in front of his breast like a book in ornamental binding. In his own place, St. Luke appears in the attitude of prayer, his arms outspread. St. John is surrounded by six smaller figures, similar to those accompanying St. Matthew. The two last pages of the MS. have also designs of which one repeats with variations that at the beginning of the book; while the other is a combination of similar figures with geometric ornament. Throughout the volume are found here and there small drawings—quaint little flourishes representing fern leaves, birds, and animals, curiously wrought, and words as if in trial of the pen, some of which show very delicate and correct lines. The initial letter of each Gospel is enlarged and ornamented with patches of different colours, about two inches high, and the ends of the principal strokes of the letters terminate in dogs’ heads.
Yet it must be added that with all its similarity of style and attractive colouring, the art is poor in comparison with that of contemporary Irish MSS.
Such are the original contents of the codex. There remain the later notes and memoranda on the margins and blank spaces. And these are of two kinds—those written in Latin and those in Gaelic. The Latin ones consist of (1) the fragment of an Office for the Visitation of the Sick inserted between Mark and Luke, and with a single line of Gaelic rubric in the body of it, namely, “Hisund dubeir sacorfaic dau” (“Here give the sacrifice to him”); (2) a Charter by King David confirming to the monks of Deer their lands and their privileges. As the Office for the Sick may have been the first insertion, perhaps 200 or 250 years after the original book was written, so the King’s Charter, granted some time before his death in 1154, was with a single exception apparently the last, for in declaring that the clerics of Deer were free from all lay interference and undue exaction, “as it is written in their book,” it is implied that the rest of the entries had already been made.
These latter are the six Gaelic ones, and they contribute the chief value to the Book of Deer. They all relate to grants of land and other privileges given from time to time to the Monastery of that name. At Banff and Aberdeen, in the early part of the twelfth century, the book was produced in the King’s Courts in evidence of the rights of the clerics to the land in question, and their claim was thereby substantiated. The entries were made at different times, from the end of the tenth or the beginning of the eleventh century down to the middle of the twelfth. They occur in the earlier part of the book, and though inferior in point of penmanship and even of ink to the original contents of the MS., they are well written and perfectly legible throughout. Inscribed as they were in the Gaelic of the place and of the period, these entries introduce us direct and at once into the community of monks who owned the codex.
The first is of exceeding great interest. It is known as the “Legend of Deer.” Based upon a tradition of some 500 years, it cannot be regarded as strictly historical, which all the others are. The tradition was that the monastery of Deer was founded by St. Columba. According to the legend, the great Abbot came with his pupil Drostan from Hy (Iona) to Abbordoboir, the modern Aberdour in Aberdeenshire, but whether by land or sea is not stated. The record simply says, “As God had directed them.” Bede the Pict was, at the time, Mormaer or Grand Steward of Buchan, and gave them the town in freedom for ever from mormaer and toisech (chieftain). They came after that to the other town of the district, now known as Deer, and “it was pleasing to Columcille because it was full of God’s grace,” and he asked Bede to give him that one too, but the Pict refused.
Then a son of this ruler took ill and was at the point of death, when his father sent to the clerics—Columba and his pupil—to pray for the lad that he might recover, and he gave them in offering the land from “Cloch in tiprat to Cloch pette meic Garnait” (“From the stone of the well to the stone that marks the bounds of the son of Garnat’s place”). They offered a prayer and health came to the dying youth. After that, Columcille departed from the district, gifting the town to Drostan. But before he set out he blessed it, and left as his “word,” “Whosoever shall come against it, let him not be many-yeared or victorious.”
Drostan’s tears (deara), we are told, flowed freely on parting with his famous Chief, whereupon the immortal Columba said, “Let Dear be its name henceforward.” And thus the town and monastery derived their name, since variously spelt as Dear, Der, Deir, Dere, and Deer.
The facts underlying the legend are not at all improbable. On the contrary, they are quite in keeping with the character of St. Columba and the range of his mission. Arguing from the circumstance that no Drostan is mentioned in history in connection with the saint, an attempt has been made by Dr. Macbain to show that the founder of the monastery may have been another individual of that name who lived about 700 A.D., but there is no sufficient data. The word is a diminutive of the British name Drust. And whoever Drostan was, as a saint he has been held in honour in the Buchan district from very early times. The church of Aberdour was dedicated to him, and Drustie’s fair used to be held annually at Deer on the 14th of December.
In connection with the “word” said to have been left by Columcille, there is some very quaint history in after years. The Celtic Earls of Buchan, partly influenced by it, no doubt, showed a munificent spirit towards the Church of Deer till the fall of their House with the Comyns, when Robert the Bruce came to the throne.
The Comyns had opposed the latter and were so utterly overthrown that, according to a chronicle of the period, of a name which numbered at one time the three Earls of Buchan, Mar, and Menteith, and more than thirty belted knights, there remained no memorial in the land “save the orisons of the monks of Deer.”
Sir Robert de Keith, the influential Marischal of Scotland and staunch supporter of the Bruce, got a grant of some pleasant lands in the neighbourhood of the monastery from the King as a reward for his services. Thereafter, partly through intermarriage, the Marischals in succession became the leading family in the district, and at the time of the Reformation were tenants of the abbey lands. By authority of a member of the family who had become “Abbot and Commendator of Deer,” the property was by a certain process rather mendaciously made over to the Earl of the day. But the Earl’s wife, “a woman both of a high spirit and of tender conscience, forbade her husband to leave such a consuming moth in his house as was the sacrilegious meddling with the Abisie of Deir.” Unfortunately, however, “fourteen chalders of meill and beir was a sore tentatione, and he could not weel indure the randering back of such a morsell.” Her demand was met with “absolut refusall.” So she had a vision of the impending ruin of the house. It is thus curiously recorded by Patrick Gordon, a writer of the eighteenth century, in his book entitled, A Short Abridgement of Britanes Distemper from the year of God 1739 to 1749.
The night following, “in her sleepe, she saw a great number of religious men in their habit, cum forth of that Abbey to the stronge Craige of Dunnoture which is the principall residence of that familie. She saw them also sett themselves round about the rock, to gett it down and demolishe it, having no instruments nor toilles wherewith to perform this work, but only penknyves; wherewith they foolishly (as it seemed to her), began to pyk at the Craige. She smyled to sie them intend so frutles are interpryse; and went to call her husband to scuffe and geyre them out of it. When she had fund him and brought him to sie these sillie religious monckes at their foolishe work, behold! the wholl Craige, with all his strong and statly buildings, was by their penknyves undermynded and fallen in the sea, so as ther remained nothing but the wrack of ther rich furniture and stufe flotting on the waves of a raging and tempestuous sea. Som of the wiser sort, divining upon this vission, attrebute to the penknyves the lenth of time befor this should com to pass; and it hath bein observed, by sundrie, that the Earles of that house before wer the richest in the kingdom, having treasure in store besyd them; but ever since the addition of this so great revenue, they have losed their stock by heavie burdeines of debt and ingagment.”
The writer who relates this wonderful vision did not live to see the downfall of the House in the following century, or, it is surmised, he would have regarded it in the light of a literal fulfilment.
But a much more distinguished author in recent times, the French Comte de Montalembert, has not hesitated to connect the ruin of the family fortunes with the sinister “word” of the famous Columcille: “Whosoever shall come against it, let him not be many-yeared or victorious.” The scribes who inserted the later entries had kept up the ominous prediction by concluding the fourth with the sentence, “And the Lord’s blessing on every mormaer and on every toisech who shall fulfil this, and to their seed after them;” and the fifth, with the alternative, “And his blessing on every one who shall fulfil this after him, and his curse on every one who shall go against it.”
In Gaelic entry No. 2 we suddenly emerge from the traditionary elements of the first into the region of historical fact. We need not detail the various grants referred to in the entries 2 to 6 or the names of the donors. Our chief interest in these vernacular addenda lies in the circumstance that they throw an ancient and fresh light on the language and history of the period. Philologically, they are of great value as the earliest specimens of Scottish Gaelic extant. In Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba there are, of course, some Celtic words, but these are merely names of persons or places and the book is the work of a scholar born and educated in Ireland.
Hitherto, therefore, so far as the Gaelic literary monuments of Scotland have survived, they may all be regarded as more or less of Irish origin, character, and inspiration. But here at length and for the first time we have one that is distinctly Scottish, both in language and the manner of writing. As Windisch has expressed it in his Celtic Speeches, “the oldest source for Scottish Gaelic is the Book of Deer.” After it there is no other for 400 years, till the Dean of Lismore’s book is produced between 1512 and 1526.
Before the sixteenth century you will look in vain for a scrap of any literature or even record in Scottish Gaelic outside the Book of Deer. The arguments that may be adduced to show that in the latter we have the genuine native vernacular, as distinct from the Irish Gaelic in vogue in contemporary MSS., are these.
First, the book was evolved in a corner of Scotland as remote as could be from Ireland. The district formed part of the country of the Picts, who had asserted a kind of independence in ecclesiastical affairs.
Second, the Norsemen by their frequent incursions had inserted a wedge as it were between the two countries that hitherto had so much in common. They destroyed Iona and forced the Church to adopt Dunkeld as its chief abbatial centre. Since Malcolm Canmore’s time, Scotland was thus becoming a separate kingdom, independent of English and Irish influences, and the establishment of bishoprics by the Kings Alexander and David freed even the Church from both England and Ireland. The twelfth century was therefore a likely time for the birth of a native literature.
Third, the writing in the Book of Deer is of a thoroughly practical kind, relating to business transactions, and the Gaelic of the district must have been used. The very purpose of the memoranda was to substantiate claims against future mormaers and toisechs who might be disposed to dispute their legality.
Fourth, it is believed that even in the Western Highlands, not to speak of Buchan, the difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic was then wider than the literature would lead us to infer. For this reason, that the Gaelic MSS. of the period were produced by men who derived their culture from Ireland and naturally followed the Irish standard in their written compositions. The contents of the Book of Deer fully justify that conclusion.
The Gaelic text is of the same age with that in the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre and Book of Hymns. Yet a comparison with these typical Irish monuments shows that the monks of Deer had developed peculiarities in writing Gaelic which differed considerably from the standard of the Irish scholars. Windisch, commenting upon this circumstance, says, “The manner of expression, words, and forms are as in the Irish, but the manner of writing shows already a stronger phonetic decay; whether it be that the Scotch Gaelic has lived faster, or that only the manner of writing has remained less ancient, and has fitted itself more exactly to the pronunciation of the time.”
It is in this respect more like the Middle than the Ancient Irish.
Those who are interested in the study of archaic words and grammatical forms will find the Book of Deer not a bad quarry; in fact our very oldest bed-rock for Scottish idioms. There are few declensional specimens, it is true, but these suffice to show, as Dr. Whitley Stokes observed, that the Highlanders declined their nouns in the eleventh century as fully as the Irish, which is very far from being the case to-day. Some of the peculiarities of the newly-fledged Scottish Gaelic may here be noticed. For example, that distinction of vowels so noticeable in the Authorised Version of the Scriptures, where we have the Irish o in focal instead of the Scottish a as in facal, may be observed in the colophon of the Book of Deer, where we have truagain, “the poor wretch,” and not trogan as in the Irish Priscian of St. Gall. Another feature is the confusion of vowels if ending words, as i for e, the sinking of c and t to g and d, and the assimilation of ld and ln to ll. The spelling has further local characteristics, perhaps due to Pictish influence, as, for example, cc for ch; thus imacc is for imach, modern a mach, “out of,” “henceforth;” buadacc is for buad(h)ach, “victorious.”
The aspirated d or g is dropped, as in blienee, just as from Jocelyn of Furness (1180) we learn that the pronunciation of tighearn was at that time tyern, though in Irish tigerna. Another Gaelic Scotticism is the manner of treating n in the preposition in. In early Irish the n disappears before s and p; here it is retained, as insaere, inpett. We also find ibbidbin for im-bidbin and ig-ginn for in-cinn. Thus the two peculiar features of Celtic grammar known as aspiration and eclipsis, or vocalic infection and nasal infection of tenues, are observed.
The great rule for spelling known as “Leathan ri leathan is caol ri caol,” that is, “broad (vowel) to broad, and small (vowel) to small,” forced on Scottish Gaelic from Ireland, is, with very rare exceptions, ignored in the Book of Deer. The orthography of the latter has many contractions, and is more phonetic than that of the Irish MSS. All of which peculiarities and circumstances point to the conclusion arrived at by Celtic scholars in general, that the Scottish Gaelic dialect of the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, and especially the accent, differed much from the language of educated Irishmen.
The next two literary monuments of this vernacular, namely, those of the Dean of Lismore and of Duncan Macrae of Inverinate, both of whom wrote phonetically, bring out this difference between the two dialects still more clearly. It is an interesting fact, apparent from the Book of Deer, that the present Aberdeenshire, now so Teutonic, was, when the entries were made, a Gaelic-speaking district. The names of the kings, mormaers, and toisechs mentioned are all Celtic, indeed most of them are common enough names to-day in the Highlands,—Cathal, Domnall, Muridach, Maelcolum, Cainnech, Donnchad, Gartnait, Aedh, Comgall, Maledoun, Matadin; Nectan was Bishop of Aberdeen, Leot Abbot of Brechin, Domangart, a ferlegin or “man of learning,” and Cormac Abbot of Turiff. A few are non-Celtic, such as Andrew, Samson, and David. Unhappily, in these records the names of women do not figure much. Two very euphonious and beautiful ones, however, are given,—Eua, the “wedded wife” of Colban, and Ete, daughter of Gillemichel. It is a wonder that these delightful names, especially Ete or Eite, have gone out of use in the Highlands.
The Celts seem to have had a genius for coining melodious appellations, sweet and endearing, as well as strong, rough, and uncouth.
Unlike Adamnan’s Vita Columbæ and Bede’s History, there is no hint in this MS. of any language other than Latin and Gaelic. The latter was in evidence in the Courts of Banff and Aberdeen, and we would gather from the line of vernacular inserted in the Latin fragment of an Office for the Visitation of the Sick that the monks of Deer were more familiar with their Gaelic than their Latin; for in the Irish Book of Dimna the direction is not the Gaelic “Hisund dubeir sacorfaic dau,” but it is the Latin “Das ei Eucharistan.”
But apart from their philological value, the memoranda in the Book of Deer throw a welcome light on an early and obscure period of our national history. Where the student of the social, political, and ecclesiastical machinery of the time would otherwise have to grope his way among dim and doubtful hints and analogies, he has here authentic glimpses into the Celtic condition of Scotland.
And these notices are all the more valuable because they were made at the time when a great social and ecclesiastical revolution was impending. There was, on one side, the change from the primitive patriarchal polity to the feudal regime, and on the other, from the monastic to the parochial system. The period covered by the entries is towards the close of the Celtic epoch, before this momentous transition had taken place. We see the old order ready to depart, and we get some light on the origin of the new institutions which were about to supersede it.
Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore, had much to do with the remoulding of the ancient structure of society in Scotland. This old system of inherited peculiarity was first confronted with one founded on different principles, when the Celtic clergy of Scotland met in council, to listen during three days to the addresses of the Saxon princess, whose speeches were translated into the language of the Gael by her husband the King. Just as in the other great social movements of later times in the Highlands, the influences that undermined the old order were not the result of natural progress in the Celtic polity, but of foreign ideas and principles introduced from without. It was these that led to the destruction of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions on which the old regime rested. In the train of Queen Margaret had come into Scotland a race of Saxon, and afterwards of Norman settlers, whose presence in the country led to a quickening of the national life, and the awakening of a feeling of unity such as could find no place among the divided clans of a Celtic people.
In the Book of Deer we still have the old patriarchal system in full swing. There is the Ardrigh or High King. Under him and over the provinces are the mormaers, and under the mormaers the tribal or district chieftains known as toisechs. All these had their exactions out of the land, besides having their own fat manor lands. They had rights of personal service, civil and military; of entertainment when travelling; and of exacting rent in kind or in money. There were neither dioceses nor parishes as yet. The patriarchal idea was carried out even in the monastic system. Each tribe or tuath had a monastery. Its abbot belonged to a leading family of the tuath or of the founder, in which family the office was hereditary. The system gave rise to great abuses; for as the monastery grew rich in lands the abbot took to do more with the temporal than with the spiritual management, and often the lands passed out of the possession of the monastery altogether into the hands of the laymen.
“It was not so in the case of Deer, the clerics of which down to the middle of the twelfth century were still receiving from the bounty of the Gaelic chiefs of this district additions to their monastic inheritance, in the whole of which they were secured by King David I., with full immunity from all secular exactions.” It is plain, however, from the terms of the royal charter, that attempts had been made to fleece them, and that they were able to maintain their rights in virtue of the grants recorded in their book.
The abuses of the lay abbacies, though not wholly removed, were fairly checked by Queen Margaret and her sons, through the creation of bishoprics and the gradual supersession of the monastic by the parochial system. Soon, dioceses and parishes, which cannot be traced farther back than the time of Alexander I., began to appear in the records. They had been established in England much earlier.
Other new civil divisions and distinctions emerge. The old “countries” and “provinces” become shires. Towns spring up, and the number of individuals and corporations holding personal property and corporate rights increased. A large part of the best land was given by charter from King David to men who held of the crown in feudal tenure.
The mormaer became merged in the Earl, and the toisech in the Thane. In short, with the growth of feudal law, and the change to the parochial system, the old Celtic regime was fast becoming a thing of the past, though many of the customs and traditions associated therewith lingered on till the great overthrow of the Forty-five, and even in some localities almost to our own times.
We are thus able, through the medium of this venerable Book of Deer, to reach a hand over time to Columcille and his faithful Drostan, to Bede the Pict, to the monks of Buchan, and that succession of the Ardrighs, mormaers, and toisechs who lived in the old and primitive conditions, before the new institutions and the regime under which we ourselves exist were evolved. We can hardly think of Scotland to-day apart from the categories of parishes, burghs, individual freedom, English language, and many others, and yet in these far-off times the monks of Deer and their contemporaries had to be doing without them. For all this, these men were not lacking in culture or pious devotion. Their book shows us that they revered the spiritual Columba as their Chief, and founder of their monastery, and besides being expert caligraphists, having some skill in painting and illumination, they were educated with a sufficient knowledge of Latin to transcribe it intelligently and use it in the services of the church. “This is not much to say of them,” says Dr. Anderson in his Rhind Lectures, “but,” he adds, “it is a great deal more than we have it in our power to say of any other community or institution from similar evidence, if we except the parent community of Iona itself.”
Of the Gaelic of the Book of Deer there are three editions. The first was prepared, Latin and Gaelic together, with valuable preface and facsimile plates, by Dr. Stuart, and published by the Spalding Club in 1869. It is one of the many excellent and beautifully printed volumes we owe to that distinguished Association. Mr. Stokes was responsible for the English translation. The second publication he has given himself, in his own Goidelica. There we find all the later entries of the codex with translation, notes, and glossary. A similar service has since been rendered by Dr. Macbain of Inverness, who provides the text with translation, notes, and glossary of his own, founded on the work of the previous editors, but throwing additional light on the vocabulary. This contribution appears in the eleventh volume of the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness (1884–85), and is a welcome aid to the study of the text.
As in the case of the oldest book of Scotland, so in the case of this second oldest, it is to be regretted that the Book of Deer has strayed outwith our own land, yet no doubt, it is to this fact that we owe the existence of both to-day; for no other book of so ancient a calibre has been able to survive the many stormy convulsions and turbulent ferments known as Scottish history. Cast up like flotsam and jetsam in a late age, and treasured in the high places of learning, they both add a lustre and a glory now to our ancient language and literature which we would otherwise in vain desiderate.