Archaeological Essays Part 8

"To fair St. Andrews bound, Within the _ocean-cave_ to pray, Where good St. Rule his holy lay, From midnight to the dawn of day, Sung to the billows' sound."]

[Footnote 108: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, lib. v. cap.

12.]

[Footnote 109: _Ibid._ lib. v. c. 9. Bede further states that this anch.o.r.et subsequently went to Frisland to preach as a missionary there, but he reaped no fruit from his labours among his barbarous auditors.

"Returning then (adds Bede) to the beloved place of his peregrination, he gave himself up to our Lord in his wonted repose; for since he could not be profitable to strangers by teaching them the faith, he took care to be the more useful to his own people by the example of his virtue."]

[Footnote 110: Published in 1845 by the Surtees Society, _Libellus de Vita, etc., S. G.o.drici_, p. 65, etc.]

[Footnote 111: _Ibid._ pp. 45 and 192.]

[Footnote 112: See Wordsworth's beautiful inscription--"For the spot where the hermitage stood on St. Herbert's island, Derwent.w.a.ter."--Ed.

of 1858, p. 258.--P.]

[Footnote 113: _Ibid._ footnote, p. 46.]

[Footnote 114: Bede's _Vita Sancti Cuthberti_, cap. 16, 28, 46, etc.]

[Footnote 115: _De Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus_, pp. 63 and 66.]

[Footnote 116: See, _The Flowers of the Lives of the most renowned Saincts of the Three Kingdoms_, by Hierome Porter, p. 321.]

[Footnote 117: Boece's _History and Chronicles of Scotland_, book ix. c.

17, or vol. ii. p. 98; Leslie's _De Rebus Gestis Scotorum_, lib. iv. p.

152; Dempster's _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum_, lib. ii. p.

122, or vol. i. p. 66.]

[Footnote 118: The poem alluded to is designated "De Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracencis." A copy of it is printed in Gale's _Historiae Britannicae, etc. Scriptores_, vol. iii. p. 703, _seq._ The famous author of this poem, Alcuin, who was brought up at York, and probably born there about the year 735, became afterwards, as is well known, the councillor and confidant of Charlemagne. The application to the Ba.s.s of the lines in which he describes the anch.o.r.et residence of St. Balther is evident:

Est locus undoso circ.u.mdatus undique ponto, Rupibus horrendis praerupto et margine septus, In quo belli potens terreno in corpore miles Saepius aerias vincebat Balthere turmas; etc.

The Ba.s.s was not the only hermit's island on our eastern coasts which was imagined, in these credulous times, to be the occasional abode of evil spirits. According to Bede no one had dared to dwell alone on the island of Farne before St. Cuthbert selected it as his anch.o.r.et habitation, because demons resided there (propter demorantium ibi phantasias demonum). _Vita Cuthberti_, cap. 16. See also the undevilling of the cave of Dysart by St. Serf in the footnote of page 125, _supra_; and some alleged feats of St. Patrick and St. Columba in this direction in Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Four Masters_, vol. i. p. 156. Two other islands in the Firth of Forth are noted in ancient ecclesiastical history--viz., Inch May and Inch Keith. "The ile of May, decorit (to use the words of b.e.l.l.e.n.den) with the blude and martirdome of Sanct Adriane and his fallowis," was the residence of that Hungarian missionary and his disciples when they were attacked and murdered about the year 874 by the Danes (b.e.l.l.e.n.den's _Translation of Boece's History_, vol. i. p. 37); see also vol. ii. p. 206; Dempster's _Historia Eccl. Gentis Scotorum_, lib. i. 17, and vol. i. p. 20; and Fordun, in the _Scotichronicon_, lib.

i. c. vi., where he describes "Maya, prioratus cujus est cella canonicorum Sancti Andreae de Raymonth; ubi requiescit Sanctus Adria.n.u.s, c.u.m centum sociis suis sanctis martyribus." Inch Keith is enumerated by Dr. Reeves (_Preface to Life of Columba_, p. 66) as one of the Scotch churches of St. Ad.a.m.nan, Abbot of Iona from A.D. 679 to 704, and the biographer of St. Columba[119]--Fordun having long ago described it as a place "in qua praefuit Sanctus Ad.a.m.na.n.u.s abbas, qui honorifice suscepit Sanctum Servanum, c.u.m sociis suis, in ipsa insula, ad primum suum adventum in Scotiam." Andrew Wynton, himself the Prior of St. Serf's Isle in Lochlevin, describes also, in his old metrical _Orygynale Chronykil of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 128, this apocryphal meeting of the two saints

"at Inchkeith, The ile betweene Kingorne and Leth."

_The Breviary of Aberdeen_, in alluding to this meeting, points out that the St. Serf received by Ad.a.m.nan was not the St. Serf of the Dysart Cave, and hence also not the baptiser of St. Kentigern at Culross, as told in the legend of his mother, St. Thenew, or St. Thenuh--a female saint whose very existence the good Presbyterians of Glasgow had so entirely lost sight of, that centuries ago they uns.e.xed the very name of the church dedicated to her in that city, and came to speak of it under the uncanonical appellation of St. Enoch's. This first St. Serf and Ad.a.m.nan lived two centuries, at least, apart. In these early days Inch Keith was a place of no small importance, if it be--as some (see Macpherson's _Geographical Ill.u.s.trations of Scottish History_) have supposed--the "urbs Giudi" of Bede, which he speaks of as standing in the midst of the eastern firth, and contrasts with Alcluith or Dumbarton, standing on the side of the western firth. The Scots and Picts were, he says, divided from the Britons "by two inlets of the sea (duobus sinibus maris) lying betwixt them, both of which run far and broad into the land of Britain, one from the Eastern, and the other from the Western Ocean, though they do not reach so as to touch one another.

The eastern has in _the midst of it_ the city of Giudi (Orientalis habit in medio sui _urbem Giudi_). The western has on it, that is, on the right hand thereof (ad dextram sui), the city of Alchuith, which in their language means the 'Rock of Cluith,' for it is close by the river of that name (Clyde)." (Bede's _Hist. Ecclesiast._, book i. c. xii.) In reference to the supposed identification of Inch Keith and this "urbs Giudi," let me add (1.) that Bede's description (in medio sui) as strongly applies to the Island of Garvie, or Inch Garvie, lying midway between the two Queensferries: (2.) it is perhaps worthy of note that the term "Giudi" is in all probability a Pictish proper name, one of the kings of the Picts being surnamed "Guidi," or rather "Guidid" (see Pinkerton's _Inquiry into the History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 287, and an extract from the _Book of Ballymote_, p. 504); and (3.) that the word "urbs," in the language of Bede, signifies a place important, not so much for its size as from its military or ecclesiastic rank, for thus he describes the rock (petra) of Dumbarton as the "urbs Alcluith," and Coldingham as the "urbs Coludi" (_Hist. Eccl._, lib. iv. c. 19.

etc.),--the Saxon noun "_ham_" house or village, having, in this last instance, been in former times considered a sufficient appellative for a place to which Bede applies the Latin designation of "urbs."]

[Footnote 119: As I have not the _Life of Columba_ at hand to refer to, I must a.s.sume that so able an archaeologist as my friend Dr. Reeves had sufficient authority for this statement. If it rested only on Fordun or Wynton, I should deem their authority insufficient to establish as a fact what seems to me so improbable. a.s.suming the story to have had a foundation, might not the real Ad.a.m.nan have been the priest and monk of the monastery of Coludi or Coldingham, of whom Bede has written?

Coldingham, in his time, belonged to the Northumbrian kingdom.--P.]

[Footnote 120: See his edition of Ad.a.m.nan's _Life of Saint Columba_, p.

366.]

[Footnote 121: Colgan refers to the Life of _S. Fintani Eremita ad 15 Novemb., Tr. T._, p. 606:--"Tir mille anachoritas in Momonia est. S.

Hibaro Episcopo cujusdam quaestionis decidendae causa simul collect [illegible] & Angelus Dei ad convivium a S. Brigida Christo paratum invitativies had so in auxilium per Jesum Christum." Quoted from the _Book of Litanies of S. aengus_, on the same page.

See also the _Summary of the Saints_ in that _Litany_ in Ward's _Vita S.

Rumoldi_, pp. 204, 205.

In short, the notices of deserts, hermits, and anchorites to be found, lives of saints, etc. etc., are innumerable.--P.]

[Footnote 122: I think it very improbable, if the monastery founded by Alexander be meant.--P.]

[Footnote 123: This is no fit place to discuss the ages of the two Round Towers of Brechin and Abernethy. But it may perhaps prove interesting to some future antiquary if it is here mentioned, that when Dr. Petrie, in his _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_ (p. 410), gives "about the year 1020"[124] as the probable date of the erection of the Bound Tower of Brechin, he chiefly relied--as he has mentioned to me, when conversing upon the subject,--for this approach to the era of its building, upon that entry in the ancient _Chronicon de Regibus Scotorum_, etc., published by Innes, in which it is stated that King Kenneth MacMalcolm, who reigned from A.D. 971 to A.D. 994, "tribuit magnam civitatem Brechne domino." (See the Chronicon in Innes' _Critical Inquiry_, vol. ii. p. 788.) The peculiarities of architecture in the Round Tower of Brechin a.s.similate it much with the Irish Bound Towers of Donoughmore and Monasterboice, both of which Dr. Petrie believes to have been built in or about the tenth century. If we could, in such a question, rely upon the authority of Hector Boece, the Round Tower of Brechin is at least a few years older than the probable date a.s.signed to it by Dr. Petrie. For, in describing the inroads of the Danes into Forfarshire about A.D. 1012, he tells us that these invaders destroyed and burned down the town of Brechin, and all its great church, except "_turrim quandam rotundam_ mira arte constructam." (_Scotorum Historiae_, lib. xi. 251, of Paris Edit, of 1526.)[125] This reference to the Round Tower of Brechin has escaped detection, perhaps because it has been omitted by b.e.l.l.e.n.den and Holinshed in their translations. No historical notices, I believe, exist, tending to fix in any probable way the exact age of the Round Tower of Abernethy; but one or two circ.u.mstances bearing upon the inquiry are worthy of note. We are informed, both by the _Chronicon Pictorum_ and by Bede, that in the eighth or ninth year of his reign, or about A.D. 563, Brude, King of the Picts, embraced Christianity under the personal teaching of St. Columba. At Brude's death, in 586, Garnard succeeded, and reigned till 597; and he was followed by Nectan II., who reigned till 617. Fordun (_Scotichronicon_, lib. iv. cap. 12) and Wynton (book v. ch. 12), both state that King Garnard founded the collegiate Church of Abernethy; and Fordun further adds that he had found this information in a chronicle of the Church of Abernethy itself, which, is now lost; "in quadam Chronica ecclesiae de Abirnethy reperimus." But the register of the Priory of St. Andrews mentions Garnard's successor on the Pictish throne, Nectan II., as the builder of Abernethy, "hic aedificavit Abernethyn" (Innes' _Critical Inquiry_, p. 800). The probability is, that Garnard, towards the end of his reign, founded and commenced the building of the church establishment of Abernethy, and that it was concluded and consecrated in the early part of the reign of Nectan. The church was dedicated to St.

Brigid; and the _Chronicon Pictorum_ (Innes' _Inquiry_, p. 778), in ascribing its foundation to Nectan I. (about A.D. 455) instead of Nectan II., commits a palpable anachronism, and very evident error, as St.

Brigid did not die till a quarter of the next century had elapsed.

(_Annals of the Four Masters_ under the year 525; Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 619.) Again, according to the more certain evidence of Bede, another Pictish king, still of the name of Nectan (Naita.n.u.s Rex Pictorum), despatched messengers, about the year 710, to Ceolfrid, Abbot of Bede's own Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, requesting, among other matters, that architects should be sent to him to build in his country a church of stone, according to the manner of the Romans et architectos sibi mitti petiit, qui juxta morem Romanorum ecclesiam in lapide in gente ipsius facerent. (_Hist. Eccles._, lib. v. c. xxi.) Forty years previously, St. Benedict or Biscop, the first Abbot of Jarrow, had brought there from Gaul, masons (caementarios) to build for him "ecclesiam lapideam juxta Romanorum morem." (See Bede's _Vita Beatorum Abbatum_.) Now it is probable that the Round Tower of Abernethy was not built in connection with the church established there by the Pictish kings at the beginning of the seventh century, for no such structures seem to have been erected in connection with Pictish churches in any other part of the Pictish kingdom; and if at Abernethy, the capital of the Picts, a Round Tower had been built in the seventh century of stone and lime, the Abbot of Jarrow would scarcely have been asked in the eighth century, by a subsequent Pictish king, to send architects to show the mode of erecting a church of stone in his kingdom. Nor is it in the least degree more likely that these ecclesiastic builders, invited by King Nectan in the early years of the eighth century, erected themselves the Round Tower of Abernethy; for the building of such towers was, if not totally unknown, at least totally unpractised by the ecclesiastic architects of England and France within their own countries.[126] The Scotic or Scoto-Irish race became united with the Picts into one kingdom in the year 843, under King Kenneth MacAlpine, a lineal descendant and representative of the royal chiefs who led the Dalriadic colony from Antrim to Argyleshire, about A.D. 506. (See the elaborate genealogical table of the Scottish Dalriadic kings in Dr. Reeves' edition of _Ad.a.m.nan's Life of Columba_, p. 438.) The purely "Scotic period" of our history, as it has been termed, dates from this union of the Picts and Scots under Kenneth MacAlpine in 843, till Malcolm Canmore ascended the throne in 1057; and there is every probability that the Round Towers of Abernethy and Brechin were built during the period between these two dates, or during the regime of the intervening Scotic or Scoto-Irish kings,--in imitation of the numerous similar structures belonging to their original mother-church in Ireland. We may feel very certain, also, that they were not erected later than the commencement of the twelfth century, for by that date the Norman or Romanesque style,--which presents no such structures as the Irish Round Towers, was apparently in general use in ecclesiastic architecture in Scotland, under the pious patronage of Queen Margaret Atheling and her three crowned sons.

Abernethy--now a small village--was for centuries a royal and pontifical city, and the capital of a kingdom, "fuit locus ille sedes princ.i.p.alis, regalis, et pontificalis, totius regni Pictorum" (Goodall's _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 189); but all its old regal and ecclesiastical buildings have utterly vanished, with the exception only of its solitary and venerable Round Tower. And perhaps the preservation of the Round Tower in this, and in numerous instances in Ireland, amidst the general ruin and devastation which usually surround them, is owing to the simple circ.u.mstance that these Towers--whatever were their uses and objects--were structures which, in consequence of their remarkable combination of extreme tallness and slenderness, required to be constructed from the first of the very best and strongest, and consequently of the most durable building materials which could be procured; while the one-storeyed or two-storeyed wood-roofed churches, and other low and lighter ecclesiastical edifices with which they were a.s.sociated, demanded far less strength in the original construction of their walls, and consequently have, under the dilapidating effects of centuries, much more speedily crumbled down and perished.]

[Footnote 124: The recollection of the error which I made by a carelessness not in such matters usual with me, in a.s.signing this date 1020 instead of between the years 971 and 994, as I ought to have done, has long given me annoyance, and a lesson never to trust to memory in dates; for it was thus I fell into the mistake. I had the year 1020 on my mind, which is the year a.s.signed by Pinkerton for the writing of the _Chron. Pictorum_, and, without stopping to remember or to refer, I took it for granted that it was the year of Kenneth's death, or rather his gift.--P.]

[Footnote 125: I congratulate you warmly on the discovery of this interesting and most valuable notice. Surely Boece could have had no object to serve by forging such a statement, nor had he such antiquarian knowledge as would have enabled him to forge a statement so consistent with the conclusion fairly to be drawn from the entry in the chronicle, and the characteristics of the architecture of the tower itself. It appears to me that no rational scepticism can in future be indulged as to the conclusion that the erection of this beautiful tower must be referred to the last quarter of the tenth century.--P.]

[Footnote 126: The determining the age of the Brechin tower--a question which I consider as now settled--must go far towards enabling us to come to a right conclusion as to the age of the tower of Abernethy; for I think that no one possessed of ordinary powers of observation and comparison, who has examined both, can for a moment doubt that the age of the Abernethy tower is much greater than that of the tower of Brechin. This is the opinion which 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 a.s.sistance that king, according to the high authority of Bede, had applied to build for him in his capital a stone church in the Roman style. In the features of that style, during the eighth century, as exhibited in its doorway, and, still more, its upper apertures, this tower appeared to stand alone--there is nothing similar to it to be seen either in Scotland or Ireland. The tower of Brechin has indeed a Romanesque doorway, but it is plainly of a later age, and its other features are quite Irish. The circ.u.mstance of the Abernethy doorway being placed on a level with the ground, and not, as almost universally, at a considerable height from it, seemed also to support this opinion, as it indicated that the erection of the tower was of a period anterior to the irruption of the Northmen, which rendered such a defensive feature an imperative necessity. I cannot agree with you in opinion as to the cause a.s.signed for the preservation of the towers; for, in the first place, it is not true that their materials were stronger or better, or their construction in any way different from that of the churches with which they were connected, as proved by numerous examples in Ireland. Their walls are rarely found of greater thickness than those of their contemporaneous churches, where such have remained; and in all such cases the character of the masonry is identical. The cause which I should rather a.s.sign for this greater longevity would be their rotundity, and still more, their superior alt.i.tude. A church of moderate size, and humble height, might be easily injured, or even destroyed, by neighbouring or foreign a.s.sailants, but the destruction of a tower, or even its injury, beyond the burning of its wooden floors and doorway, would be a tedious and difficult labour, requiring ladders, with which we are not to suppose the incendiaries came provided; and hence their worst antagonist was found to be the flame from heaven.--P.]

[Footnote 127: Might not _oratory_ be a safer term than _habitation_?

Surely the clochans or monks' houses, called _stone pyramids_ by Martin, in St. Kilda, and of which many are still perfect, are as old as Christianity in the _north_ of Scotland, or as any similar buildings to be found in Ireland.--P.]

ON THE CAT-STANE, KIRKLISTON.

The Mediaeval Archaeology of Scotland is confessedly sadly deficient in _written_ doc.u.ments. From the decline of Roman records and rule, onward through the next six or eight centuries, we have very few, or almost no written data to guide us in Scottish historical or antiquarian inquiries. Nor have we any numismatic evidence whatever to appeal to. In consequence of this literary dearth, the roughest lapidary inscriptions, belonging to these dark periods of our history, come to be invested with an interest much beyond their mere intrinsic value. The very want of other contemporaneous lettered doc.u.ments and data imparts importance to the rudest legends cut on our ancient lettered stones. For even brief and meagre tombstone inscriptions rise into matters of historical significance, when all the other literary chronicles and annals of the men and of the times to which these inscriptions belong have, in the lapse of ages, been destroyed and lost.

It is needless to dwell here on the well-known fact, that in England and Scotland there have been left by the Roman soldiers and colonists who occupied our island during the first four centuries of the Christian era, great numbers of inscribed stones. British antiquarian and topographical works abound with descriptions and drawings of these Roman lapidary writings. But of late years another cla.s.s or series of lapidary records has been particularly attracting the attention of British antiquaries,--viz., inscribed stones of a late Roman or post-Roman period. The inscriptions on this latter cla.s.s of stones are almost always, if not always, sepulchral. The characteristically rude letters in which they are written consist--in the earliest stones--of debased Roman capitals; and--in the latest--of the uncial or minuscule forms of letters which are used in the oldest English and Irish ma.n.u.scripts. Some stones show an intermixture of both alphabetical characters. These "Romano-British" inscribed stones, as they have been usually termed, have hitherto been found princ.i.p.ally in Wales, in Cornwall, and in West Devon. In the different parts of the Welsh Princ.i.p.ality, nearly one hundred, I believe, have already been discovered. In Scotland, which is so extremely rich in ancient sculptured stones, very few inscribed stones are as yet known; but if a due and diligent search be inst.i.tuted, others, no doubt, will betimes be brought to light.

An inscribed Scottish stone of the cla.s.s I allude to is situated in the county of Edinburgh, and has been long known under the name of the Cat-stane or Battle-stone. Of its a.n.a.logy with the earliest cla.s.s of Romano-British inscribed stones found in Wales, I was not fully aware till I had an opportunity of examining last year, at the meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Society, a valuable collection of rubbings and drawings of these Welsh stones, brought forward by that excellent antiquary, Mr. Longueville Jones; and afterwards, _in situ_, one or two of the stones themselves. I venture, in the following remarks, to direct the attention of the Society to the Cat-stane, partly in consequence of this belief in its a.n.a.logy with the earliest Welsh inscribed stones; partly, also, in order to adduce an old and almost unknown description of the Cat-stane, made in the last years of the seventeenth century, by a gentleman who was perhaps the greatest antiquary of his day; and partly because I have a new conjecture to offer as to the historical personage commemorated in the inscription, and, consequently, as to the probable age of the inscription itself.

_Site and Description of the Stone._

The Cat-stane stands in the parish of Kirkliston, on the farm of Briggs,[128] in a field on the north side of the road to Linlithgow, and between the sixth and seventh milestone from Edinburgh. It is placed within a hundred yards of the south bank of the Almond; nearly half-a-mile below the Boathouse Bridge; and about three miles above the entrance of the stream into the Firth of Forth, at the old Roman station of Cramond, or Caer Amond. The monument is located in nearly the middle of the base of a triangular fork of ground formed by the meeting of the Gogar Water with the river Almond. The Gogar flows into the Almond about six or seven hundred yards below the site of the Cat-stane.[129] The ground on which the Cat-stane stands is the beginning of a ridge slightly elevated above the general level of the neighbouring fields.

The stone itself consists of a ma.s.sive unhewn block of the secondary greenstone-trap of the district, many large boulders of which lie in the bed of the neighbouring river. In form it is somewhat prismatic, or irregularly triangular, with its angles very rounded. This large monolith is nearly twelve feet in circ.u.mference, about four feet five inches in width, and three feet three inches in thickness. Its height above ground is about four feet and a half. The Honourable Mrs. Ramsay of Barnton, upon whose son's property the monument stands, very kindly granted liberty, last year, for an examination by digging beneath and around the stone. The accompanying woodcut is a copy of a sketch, made at the time, by my friend Mr. Drummond, of the stone as exposed when pursuing this search around its exposed basis. We found the stone to be a block seven feet three inches in total length, and nearly three feet buried in the soil. It was placed upon a basis of stones, forming apparently the remains of a built stone grave, which contained no bones[130] or other relics, and that had very evidently been already searched and harried. I shall indeed have immediately occasion to cite a pa.s.sage proving that a century and a half ago the present pillarstone was surrounded, like some other ancient graves, by a circular range of large flat-laid stones; and when this outer circle was removed,--if not before,--the vicinity and base of the central pillar were very probably dug into and disturbed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 14.]

_Different Readings of the Inscription._

The inscription upon the stone is cut on the upper half of the eastern and narrowest face of the triangular monolith. Various descriptions of the legend have been given by different authors. The latest published account of it is that given by Professor Daniel Wilson in his work on _Scottish Archaeology_. He disposes of the stone and its inscription in the two following short sentences:--"A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted Catt Stane in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely-lettered inscription--the work, most probably, of much younger hands than those that reared the ma.s.s of dark whinstone on which it is cut--IN [H]OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA.. VICTR.. About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stane a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons; but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared."[131]

In the tenth volume of the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, collected by Sir John Sinclair, and published in 1794, the Rev. Mr. John Muckarsie, in giving an account of the parish of Kirkliston, alludes in a note to the "Cat-stane standing on the farm of that name in this parish." In describing it he observes "The form is an irregular prism, with the following inscription on the south-east face, deeply cut in the stone, in a most uncouth manner:--

IN OC T VMVLO IACI VETTA D VICTA