As the first missionary sent had been a priest, and the result of Aidan’s interposition was that all declared him worthy of the episcopate, there can be little doubt that, as we have already had occasion to show, the distinction of the orders and the superiority of the episcopal grade were fully recognised. By the custom of the Scottish Church, only one bishop was necessary for the consecration of another bishop. That there were bishops in the Columban Church we know, for Bede tells us that ‘all the province, and even the bishops, were subject to the abbot of Iona;’ and, as we have seen, two of the monasteries subject to Iona—Lismore and _Cinngaradh_, or Kingarth—had episcopal heads. There may have been an especial reason why it should be better that Aidan should have episcopal orders, which did not exist in the case of the Columban monasteries; for, as the head of a remote church, he might have to ordain priests from among his Anglic converts; while the Columban Church had Ireland at its back as a great storehouse of clerics, both bishops and priests. When, therefore, it is said that he received the episcopal grade, no doubt a bishop had been called in to consecrate him. But though he was thus enabled to exercise episcopal functions, in other respects the organisation of the church thus introduced into Northumbria, both with respect to jurisdiction and to its monastic character, was the same as that of the Columban Church at home; for, instead of fixing his episcopal seat at York, he followed the custom of the monastic church by selecting a small island near the Northumbrian coast, bearing the Celtic name of _Inis Metcaud_,[310] but known to the Angles as Lindisfarne, as the site of his monastery, which he was to rule as episcopal abbot. Bede tells us that, ‘on the arrival of the bishop, the king appointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Lindisfarne, as he himself desired; which place, as the tide flows and ebbs, twice a day is enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island, and again, twice in the day, when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land,’—a very apt description of the island, which is now called Holy Island; and Bede adds, in his Life of Cudberct, ‘And let no man marvel that in this same island of Lindisfarne, which is of very small extent, there should be, as we mentioned above, the seat of a bishop, and, at the same time, as we now state, the residence of an abbot and monks. For so it is, in truth. For one and the same habitation of the servants of God contains both at the same time. Yea, all whom it contains are monks; for Aidan, who was the first bishop of this place, was a monk, and was always wont to lead a monastic life, with all his people. Hence, after him, all the bishops of that place until this day exercise the episcopal functions in such sort, that, while the abbot, who is chosen by the bishop with the consent of the brethren, governs