THE CULDEES.
52
men
ing
church in the absence of the abbot.
in the
the head of the Culdees.
If,
as
priest,
a hermit, and
say, the Culdees
had no connec-
There was a
Dr Lanigan and Dr Eeeves
lona brethren were not represented at all in this
arrangement altogether improbable. The head of the Culdees in this extract
can only be understood as having been the principal man amongst the brethren in the
tion with the
— an
election
Columban
order, then the
absence of the abbot.
Mr
According to
a solitary sei-vice of
Skene the Culdees originally sprang from that ascetic order who adopted
God in an isolated ceU as the highest form of religious life, and who
were denominated Bcicolce; they then became associated in communities of anchorites of
hermits
they were clerics, and might be called monks, but only in the sense in which
anchorites were monks; they made their appearance in the eastern districts of Scotland
;
were introduced, and succeeded the Columban monks
who had been driven across the great mountain range of Drumalban, the western frontier
of the Pictish kingdom; and were finally brought under the canonical rule along with the
secular clergy, retaining, however, to some extent, the nomenclature of the monastery, until
at the
same time
at length the
as the secular clergy
name
became almost synonymous with that
of Keledeus, or Culdee,
of secular
canon.^
After 1382
^
both
name and
use of an
That the Scottish
Scotland entirely disappear.
ecclesiastical term should run
office in
parallel
with
its
em-
naturally be expected, considering the relation of the two
countries as regarded both their church and language.
But that we should find in the
of Saxon Northumbria such a term as Colidcus lingering ages after the Irish impress
heart
ployment in
Ireland might
on the religion of that province had been obliterated,
is,
as
Dr Eeeves
observes,
"very
remarkable."
There existed at York, until the dissolution of these associations, an hospital called
St Leonards, the chartulary of which, a beautifully-written volume, engrossed in the reign
of Henry V., passed into the Cotton collection, where it is now preserved in that section
of the British
an
Museum
Library.
From
this
book Dugdale has printed in his
—
"
Monasticou
"
which furnishes the following particulars
"When King Athelstan was on his march against the Scotch in
abstract,
:
936,^ he halted at York,
and there besought of the ministers of St Peter's church, who were then called Colidci, to
offer up their prayers on behalf of himself and his expedition,
promising them that, if
he j;eturned victorious, he would confer suitable honour upon the church and its ministers.
Accordingly, after a successful campaign, he revisited this church, and publicly returned
thanks for the favour which Heaven had vouchsafed to him. And observing in the same
church
number
men
of holy life
of poor people,
and honest conversation, then styled Colidci, who maintained a
little whereon to live, he
granted to them and
and withal had but
'
Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. ii., p. 277.
In this ye.-ir they were prohibited at St Andrews from taking part in the election to the bishopric (Reeves, The
Culdees of the British Islands as they appear in History, p. 40).
'
'
It is highly probable that the legend which connects English Masonry with a charter granted by Athelstan at
York, A.D. 926, has been derived from the incident narrated above. The form of the legend, as given by Dr Anderson
in the constitutions of 1723, varies slightly from that in the edition of 1738.
In the former, he places the date of the
occurrence at
abmU 930
;
in the latter, at 926
the latter, a Grand Lodge (Constitutions, 1723,
;
in the former he styles the congregation at
p.
32
;
1738, p. 64).
York
a General
Lodge
;
in