When Columba landed on Iona he was attended by twelve followers whom he had formed into a religious body of which he was the head. To these, as occasion required, others were from time to time added, so that the original number was always kept up. Their institution was called a monastery and the superior an abbot, but the system had little in common with the monastic institutions of later times. The name by which those who submitted to the rule were known was that of Culdees, probably from the Latin “cultores Dei”—worshippers of God. They were a body of religious persons associated together for the purpose of aiding each other in the common work of preaching the gospel and teaching youth, as well as maintaining in themselves the fervor of devotion by united exercises of worship. On entering the order certain vows were taken by the members, but they were not those which were usually imposed by monastic orders, for of these, which are three,—celibacy, poverty, and obedience.—the Culdees were bound to none except the third. To poverty they did not bind themselves; on the contrary they seem to have labored diligently to procure for themselves and those dependent on them the comforts of life. Marriage also was allowed them, and most of them seem to have entered into that state. True, their wives were not permitted to reside with them at the institution, but they had a residence assigned to them in an adjacent locality. Near Iona there is an island which still bears the name of “Eilen nam ban,” women’s island, where their husbands seem to have resided with them, except when duty required their presence in the school or the sanctuary. Campbell, in his poem of “Reullura,” alludes to the married monks of Iona: “. . . The pure Culdees Were Albyn’s earliest priests of God, Ere yet an island of her seas By foot of Saxon monk was trod, Long ere her churchmen by bigotry Were barred from holy wedlock’s tie. ’Twas then that Aodh, famed afar, In Iona preached the word with power, And Reullura, beauty’s star, Was the partner of his bower.” In one of his “Irish Melodies,” Moore gives the legend of St. Senanus and the lady who sought shelter on the island, but was repulsed: “O, haste and leave this sacred isle, Unholy bark, ere morning smile; For on thy deck, though dark it be, A female form I see; And I have sworn this sainted sod Shall ne’er by woman’s foot be trod.”