Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 2 (of 3), Church and cultureSkene, W. F. (William Forbes)
History
Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 2 (of 3), Church and culture
Skene, W. F. (William Forbes)
Celts -- Scotland; Civilization, Celtic; Scotland -- Antiquities, Celtic; Scotland -- History -- To 1603
time connected with this district as a pasture island reserved for their
flocks of sheep; and, while the people would seem to have been
favourable to the little Christian colony established in the island by
Donnan, the rule had passed into the hands of a queen who was still
pagan and employed pirates to destroy them, who burnt the wooden church
in which they were celebrating the eucharist, and the whole community
accordingly perished. We have also at this time a slight trace of the
Columban Church in the eastern districts of the northern Picts in the
Irish Annals, which record in 616 the death of Tolorggain or Talarican,
who is associated in the Scotch Calendars with the Church of Fordyce on
the south shore of the Moray Firth, and who gives his name to the great
district of Cilltalargyn, or Kiltarlity, in the district of the Aird,
extending from the river Ness to the bounds of Ross-shire.[302]
The only other event which took place while Fergna Brit was abbot was
one which was destined to lead to a great extension of the Columban
Church. In the year 617 there arrived at Iona some young and noble
Angles of Bernicia. They were the sons of Aidilfrid, king of Bernicia,
who, while still pagan, as were his people, had been slain by Aeduin,
king of Deira. Bede tells us that his sons, with many of the youth of
the nobility, took refuge among the Scots or Picts, where they lived in
banishment during the whole of Aeduin’s reign, ‘and,’ says Bede, ‘were
there catechised according to the doctrine of the Scots, and regenerated
by the grace of baptism.’[303] Many of them were no doubt sent to the
monastery of Iona to receive this catechetical instruction, and among
them was certainly Osuald, the second son of Aidilfrid, who was at that
time about thirteen years old, and who, we are expressly told, with his
followers had, ‘when in banishment, received the sacraments of baptism
among the seniors of the Scots,’ by whom those of the monastery of Iona
are meant. He appears to have remained there during the rest of Fergna’s
tenure of the abbacy, and the first ten years of that of his successor.
[Sidenote: A.D. 623-652.
Segine, son of Fiachna.]
Fergna died in the year 623,[304] and was succeeded by Segine, son of
Fiachna and nephew of Laisren the third abbot, who of course also
belonged to the tribe of the patron saint, the race of Conall Gulban.
The presidency of Segine over the family of Iona was chiefly remarkable
for two great events in two opposite directions. One was the extension
of the Columban Church into the Anglic kingdom of Northumbria; the
other, that a large section of the Irish Church conformed to Rome: and
both events appear to have taken place at the same time.
[Sidenote: A.D. 634.
Extension of Columban Church to Northumbria.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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