Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys

RELATION OF CELTIC CHURCH TO ROMAN CATHOLIC

CHURCH

T

he period begun by the influence of Queen Margaret (1047-1093), con-

tinued by her sons and their successors on the Scottish throne, and cul-

minating in the Scottish Reformation of 1560, is that with which this book

deals.

The old Celtic Church of Scotland was brought to an end by two causes-

internal decay and external change. Under the first head, notice must be

taken of the encroachment upon the ecclesiastic element by the secular, and

of the gradual absorption of the former by the latter. There was a vitality in

the old ecclesiastical organisation, but it was weakened by the assimilation

of the native Church to that of Rome in the seventh and eighth centuries,

which introduced a secular element among the clergy; and the frequent Dan-

ish invasions, which may be described as the organised power of Paganism

against Scottish Christianity, grievously undermined its native force. The

Celtic churches and monasteries were repeatedly laid waste or destroyed, and

the native clergy were compelled either to fly or take up arms in defence; the

3 DUGALD BUTLER

lands, unprotected by the strong arm of law, fell into the hands of laymen,

who made them hereditary in their families, and ultimately nothing was left

but the name of abbacy, applied to the lands, and that of abbot, borne by

a secular lord. Under the second head-external change-may be noted the

policy adopted towards the Celtic Church by the kings of the race of Queen

Margaret. It consisted (1) in placing the Church upon a territorial in place of

a tribal basis, in substituting the parochial system and a diocesan episcopacy

for the old tribal churches with monastic jurisdiction and functional episco-

pacy; (2) in introducing the orders of the Church of Rome, and founding

great monasteries as counter influences to the Celtic Church; (3) in absorb-

ing the Culdees or Columban clergy into the Roman system, by first con-

verting them from secular into regular canons, and afterwards by merging

them in the latter order.[1] King David especially founded bishoprics and

established cathedrals, equipped with the ordinary cathedral staff of deans,

canons, and other functionaries, and monasteries equipped with represen-

tatives of the monastic orders. Thus the native Celtic Church, undermined

by internal decay, was extinguished by external change and a course of ag-

gression which rolled from St. Andrews until it reached the far-off shores of

Iona. All that remained to speak of its vitality and beneficence to the peo-

ple of Scotland consisted of the roofless walls of an early church, or an old

churchyard with its Celtic cross; the names of the early pastors by whom the

churches were founded, or the neighbouring wells at the old foundations,

dedicated to their memory; the village fairs, stretching back to a remote an-

tiquity, and held on the saint's day in the Scottish calendar; here and there a

few lay families possessing the church lands as the custodiers of the pastoral

staff or other relics of the founder of the church, and exercising