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
During the three years that followed this plundering of the monastery,
we find Dunnchadh Ua Robhacain coärb of Columcille and Adamnan, which
implies that he was abbot of Raphoe; but, on his death in 989, we find
that Dubdahthe, the abbot of Armagh, takes the coärbship of Columcille
by the advice of the men of Erinn and Alban.[640] The monastery of Iona,
however, appears soon after in an efficient state, as we find it
governed by a local abbot whose death is recorded in 1005.[641] In the
same year Malcolm the Second commenced his thirty years’ reign over
Alban, now for the first time called Scotia. He is said, in a chronicle
of the twelfth century, after the great battle of Carham in 1018, ‘to
have on that day distributed many oblations to the churches as well as
to the clergy.’[642] In Iona he appears for the time to have restored to
the abbot the title of coärb of Columcille, for we find that in 1007
‘Muredach mac Crican resigns the coärbship of Columcille for God’—that
is, becomes a recluse; and Ferdomnach is elected to the coärbship by the
advice of the men of Erinn at the fair of Taillten,[643] which implies
that his coärbship was limited to Ireland; and we find that he was in
fact abbot of Kells, as was his successor; while, on the other hand, the
death of Flannobra, coärb of Iona, is recorded in 1025.[644] In the
following year Maelruanaidh Ua Maeldoraigh, lord of Cinel Conall, that
is, of the tribe of Conall Gulban, went over the sea on his
pilgrimage.[645] The expression ‘over the sea’ implies that he went to
Iona.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1025-1028.
Alwynun bishop of Alban.]
Cellach, the bishop of Alban, is said to have filled that office for
twenty-five years, which brings his death towards the end of the tenth
century. The first bishop to whom we can assign a fixed date after that
is Alwynus, who is said to have been bishop three years, and whose death
must have taken place in 1028, which places his election as bishop in
the year 1025. Between Cellach and Alwyn we have two names given us by
Bower and Wyntoun, those of Malmore and Malisius; but we know nothing
beyond their names. During the tenure of one or other of them, the
district of Lothian was ceded to Malcolm the Second by Eadulf Cudel
after the battle of Carham in 1018, and the churches of Lothian
naturally fell under the superintendence of the bishop of St. Andrews as
sole bishop in Scotland. But not the least important event connected
with Malcolm the Second was that he gave his eldest daughter in marriage
to Crinan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and by this marriage the hereditary lay
abbots of Dunkeld gave to the Scottish throne a dynasty of kings who
were destined to extinguish that ancient church, with its peculiar
institutions, from which their ancestors had emerged.
[Sidenote: Lay abbots of Dunkeld.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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