leader. Each had its attractions,-the latter often affording more real power than the former. Though in Iona he lived as a recluse, holding rule only over his own small community, Columba, when in Ireland, was deeply involved in the state affairs of his day. It was not until the commencement of the ninth century that, in Ireland, the functions of the soldier were made incompatible with the position of the ecclesiastic; and from the manner in which the severance was made, it is clear that these powerful priests of royal origin were often terrible in battle. There is considerable ground for believing that Columba was concerned in three great battles, and that he crossed over to Iona at a time when the power of his enemies rendered it prudent that he should leave Ireland. The cause assigned for one of these-the battle of Coldreim-curiously illustrates the devotion with which transcripts of sacred books-of which, even in that age, there were a few -were valued. Columba had copied St Finnian's Cathac,” or manuscript of the Psalms. A question arising as to the ownership of the copy, King Dermod decided scornfully that " to every cow belongs its calf" -to every book belongs its transcript; and this decision was, as some authorities maintain, the cause of the great battle between the two branches of the Hy Nial.

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It was in the year 563 that Columba seriously commenced his mission by sailing for Hy or Iona with twelve disciples. The geographical position of this remote island seems to have been important to his purpose. It had ready communication on either side with the two great races inhabiting Scotland. Towards the south, both on the mainland and the islands, the saint's own countrymen, the Dalriads from Ireland,

were thickly colonising. To the north and east stretched the territories of the Picts, whom it was his mission to convert.

It is not to be understood that any of the ruins, primitive as some of them may appear, which now bring visitors to Iona, were raised by Columba, or for many a generation after his time. The oldest of them, St Oran's Chapel, is in that great transition style between the classic and the Gothic known by the name of Norman, and seems to be no older than the twelfth century. There is some evidence that ecclesiastical buildings were raised in stone so early as the period of Columba in Ireland, and much interest attaches to their reputed remains, because they exhibit no traces of classic origin, as if they had been raised by worshippers who took neither the internal organisation nor the external symbols of their religion from Rome. Among these early and very simple relics a small dome is of frequent occurrence-a dome so small as to be constructed of large stones without a scaffolding, and therefore practicable to builders whose architectural science had not reached the structure of the arch. They are supposed to have been cells or oratories: their size is insufficient to have enclosed any congregation. Of these quaint beehive-shaped edifices the researches of the Irish antiquaries had discovered traces among the Western Isles. The hint thus given has been followed up, and we know of several such vestiges of primitive Christianity scattered through these remote solitudes-buildings which show ambition and skill, yet leave it evident that those who raised them had not attained the knowledge of the structure of the arch from those who took their ecclesiastical discipline

and their architectural skill from Rome.1 It is noticeable that none of these very early buildings have been found in Iona.

Stone buildings of any kind were, however, the exception. We have already seen that the churches and the houses of their ministers were then generally constructed of wattles, and there is evidence of the use of this material in Iona. It is recorded by the saint's biographer, that having sent some of his disciples to fetch bunches of sticks for constructing the hospitium, they returned with their boat loaded with sticks, but indignant at the plebeians who occupied the ground for complaining of the loss suffered by their removal. Thus the coppice, or plants whatever they were, which supplied the wattles for edifices, appear to have been held in commercial value. The saint made restitution to the grumblers in the shape of six measures of corn-seed, the rapid sprouting and fructification of which are recorded as one of his miracles. It did not infer poverty or sordidness, even for a considerable period afterwards, that sacred edifices were built of wattles. Down to the eighteenth century, the Highland gentleman who could not obtain a castle or fortress would as readily live in "a creel-house" as any other kind of edifice. The method of structure was this:-A wall-plate was made of uprights, with twigs interlaced between them in the usual method of basket-making; the pattern, thus so familiar to the eye, is supposed, as we have seen, to have suggested the basket-work decorations on the ancient sculptured stones.

1 See Mr Muir's extremely interesting volume, 'Characteristics of Old Church Architecture, &c., in the Mainland and Western Islands of Scotland,' 1861.

2 See above, p. 162.

A second fabric of the same kind was placed within the other at a short distance, and the space between was filled with turf or clay, forming a pretty solid wall. In numerous spots over Argyleshire and the Western Isles, where sculptured stones and crosses now exist in profusion, but where there are no remains of a stone building, we may presume that the church or other religious house around which they clustered was built of timber or wattles. The church at Iona, as well as the hospitium, the refectory, the kitchen, and a cluster of huts which formed the cells of the brotherhood, appear to have been made with wattles. The church was either of the same material or of wood. Whoever chooses to do so, may infer that the altar was of stone, from a story in the hagiologies, how St Kannechan, kissing it too impetuously, cut his head and lost some blood, which became a valuable relic. The abbot possessed a house or chamber, built, as it appears, of logs, apart from the others, where he maintained the seclusion suited to his position, and was ever attended by messengers ready to communicate with the other departments of the establishment. All the principal buildings were surrounded by a fen or ditch like the smaller fortresses of the day, which were erected on a similar system.

The method of government in the early Church of the West has been a source of much dispute, carried on less for the purpose of finding out what it really was, than of citing it as an example on one side or the other in modern ecclesiastical contests.

One thing is clear, that no bishop held authority in Iona or its dependencies. The monastic dignitaries

1 Note by Reeves, 357.

held absolute sway. There was no bishop in any way connected with Iona in the days of Columba; but subsequently there were bishops there, who were under the authority of the abbot, and were apparently bound to the same absolute conventual obedience as the other clergy. Bede, in whose days diocesan episcopacy had settled down into the established rule dictated from Rome, distinctly mentions it as a strange exception and irregularity, that in Iona the bishops were subjected to the abbot.1

But even in Columba's day bishops were not unknown in Iona, and they appear as persons endowed with peculiar functions and a certain dignity. A bishop seems to have been received in the conventional hierarchy with the same kind of honours of courtesy which we may find shown in one kind of government to an officer of another kind of government; such, for instance, as might be shown in a king's court to a Doge of Venice or a Stadtholder of Holland. There is one instance in the life of Columba of a bishop ordaining a presbyter-an instance which has given rise to volumes of controversy. It is involved in strange incidental peculiarities, which render its reference to any broad principle provokingly equivocal. St Findchan was the superior of a Columbian monastery in the island of Tyree. Here he procured the ordination to the ministry of Black Aida or Aidus, a person of great influence and regal descent, but in his character a man of blood-the murderer of King Dermot, and the perpetrator of many other crimes. Findchan called in a bishop to execute the ceremony, as one calls in a notary to

1 III. 4.