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We have no clearer account of the Culdee peculiarities that St Margaret reformed. The hereditary tenure of benefices by lay protectors she did not reform, but she restored the ruined cells of Iona, and established hospitia for pilgrims. She was decidedly unpopular with her Celtic subjects, who now made a struggle against English influences.
"The pure Culdee" of whom we know so little did not survive, any more than did the Celtic kings, her influence and the transformation she effected. Her life and legend formed the stepping-stone for Scotland into authentic history as into a consolidated and independent existence. The veil of fable and uncertainty cleared away before the mild shining of her name and story.
The Culdee monasteries were dying out; north of the Forth, Scone had been founded by Alexander I as a pioneer of the new civilization, and, after the defeat of Malcolm MacHeth and the settlement of Moray, David, in 1150, founded the Abbey of Kinloss.
The Bible has been translated into Gaelic, and Gaelic has become the language of Highland religion. In the Lowlands of the twelfth century, the whole influence of the Church was directed to the extermination of the Culdee religion, associated with the Celtic language and with Celtic civilization. Above all, the difference lies in the rise of burghs in the Lowlands. Speech follows trade.
All Burmese men are priests for a certain time, even though it be but for a few months; for that time they must wear the simple yellow dress and renounce all worldly desires . So it was in the earliest Scottish Church; the Culdee clergy were teachers as well as preachers, and taught arts and crafts as well as their faith.
The history and music of Scotland threw fresh light upon each other under his researches. He delighted to trace the reciprocal influence of national events and national music, from the time of the Culdee establishments of the sixth century, when 'Iona was the Rome of the north, down to the Covenanter's Lament, and the Jacobite songs of the last century.
Again, in the martyrology of Tallaght, from which Gorman, a later martyrologist, says that Oengus, the Culdee, drew his materials, is found under date May 3rd, a mention of the celebration of the Conception of Mary. It is to be regretted that even in the new Breviary the lessons for the second nocturn of this feast are taken from the composition, Cogitis me, falsely attributed to St. February.
I have no data in reference to this interesting relic, and am not aware that antiquarians have ever attempted to trace out its origin. The probability is that it was built by some of those Culdee anchorites of whom Dasent speaks as the first settlers of Iceland. The interior of the church contains an altar, and some wooden carvings on the head-boards of the pews, evidently of great antiquity.
The Annals of the Four Masters give 'the years of foundations and destructions of churches and castles, the obituaries of remarkable persons, the inaugurations of kings, the battles of chiefs, the contests of clans, the ages of bards, abbots, bishops, &c. Through other divisions of this mass of materials, the books of pedigrees and genealogies, the martyrologies and festologies, such as the Felire of Angus the Culdee, the topographical tracts, such as the Dinnsenchas, we touch 'the most ancient traditions of the Irish, traditions which were committed to writing at a period when the ancient customs of the people were unbroken. We touch 'the early history of Ireland, civil and ecclesiastical. We get 'the origin and history of the countless monuments of Ireland, of the ruined church and tower, the sculptured cross, the holy well, and the commemorative name of almost every townland and parish in the whole island. We get, in short, 'the most detailed information upon almost every part of ancient Gaelic life, a vast quantity of valuable details of life and manners.
You, who have spent your life in this quiet old house, who have been almost as secluded as some Cambrian Culdee, can really know nothing of that public life you condemn so bitterly." "The history of those who have walked in the path you are now preparing to follow, proves the deleterious influences and ruinous associations that surround that class of women."
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