The last point, one which also savoured somewhat of Judaism, was that it was not unusual for a man to marry his stepmother or his deceased brother’s wife; but Giraldus Cambrensis accuses the Irish church of the very same custom—that in some parts of Ireland men married the widows of their brothers;[666] and it does not appear in either case that this was a custom sanctioned by the church. ‘Many other practices which were contrary to the rule of faith and the observances of the church she persuaded the council to condemn and to drive out of the borders of her kingdom.’[667] It seems, however, strange that more important questions than these were not touched upon. There is nothing said about the marriage of the clergy, about high offices in the church being filled by laymen, about the appropriation of the benefices by the laity, and their being made hereditary in their families. But possibly she was restrained by the knowledge that the royal house into which she had married owed its origin to the lay abbots of one of the principal monasteries, and was largely endowed with the possessions of the church; and if in the Council her eye lighted upon her young son Ethelred, who, even in boyhood, was lay abbot of Dunkeld, her utterances on that subject could hardly be otherwise than checked. [Sidenote: Anchorites at this time.] The biographer of St. Margaret bears testimony, however, in favour of the Anchorites. He says that at this time ‘there were many in the kingdom of the Scots, who, in different places, enclosed in separate cells, lived in the flesh, but not according to the flesh, in great straitness of life, and even on earth lived the life of angels. In them the queen did her best to love and venerate Christ, and frequently to visit them with her presence and converse, and to commend herself to their prayers; and, as she could not induce them to accept any earthly gift from her, she earnestly requested them to deign to prescribe for her some work of charity or of mercy. Whatever was their desire she devoutly fulfilled, either in recovering the poor from their poverty, or relieving the afflicted from the miseries which oppressed them; and as the religious devotion of the people brought many from all parts to the church of St. Andrews, she constructed dwellings on both sides of the sea which divides Lodoneia, or Lothian, from Scotia—that is, the Firth of Forth—that the pilgrims and the poor might put up there and rest and find there ready everything required for the refreshment of the body. Servants were placed there to minister to them, and vessels provided in which they were ferried across without payment.’[668] It is probable that among those anchorites who commended themselves so much to her favour were the _Cele De_ of Lochleven, for we find Malcolm and Margaret, king and queen of Scotia, giving devoutly the town of Ballechristin to God the Omnipotent and the _Keledei_ of Louchleven,