northern Picts were beyond his reach; and Failbhe's tenure of the abbacy is chiefly remarkable for the extension of the Columban Church to those rugged and almost inaccessible districts which lay on the western seaboard between Ardnamurchan on the south and Loch Broom on the north. 81 Foundation The principal agent in effecting this was Maelrubha, who A.D. 673. was of the race of the northern Hy Neill, but belonged to a of church of Appledifferent sept from that which had the right of furnishing cross by abbots to the monastery of Iona. He was connected through Maelrubha. his mother with Comgall of Bangor, and became a member of that monastery which, as situated among the Picts of Ireland, well fitted him to be a missionary to those of the same race in Scotland. He came over to Britain in the year 671, and two years afterwards he founded the church of Aporcrosan, now Applecross, from which as a centre he evangelised the whole of the western districts lying between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, as well as the south and west parts of the island of Skye, and planted churches in Easter Ross and elsewhere. The dedications to him show that his missionary work was very extensive. In the same year Failbhe went to Ireland, where he appears to have remained three years,82 and was probably engaged in arrangements for extending the missionary work; for it is probably at this period that we must place the arrival of Comgan with his sister Kentigerna and her son Fillan in the district of Lochalsh, where they planted churches, as well as in the districts south of it as far as Loch Sunart.83 At this time too the church in Egg appears to have been restored.84 In the year 678 Wilfrid was ejected from his extensive bishopric, but Failbhe only survived this event one year, when his death is recorded; and at the same time we have a trace of 81 A.D. 671 Maelruba in Britanniam navigat. A.D. 673 Maelruba fundavit ecclesiam Aporcrosan.-Tigh. 82 A.D. 673 Navigatio Failbe ab batis Iea in Hiberniam. A.D. 676 84 Dr. Reeves' Adam.,ed. 1874, p. 296. A.D. 679704. son of Ronan. the church in the eastern territories of the northern Picts, in the death of Neachtan Neir, who can be identified with the great saint of Deeside in Aberdeenshire, called, by the people there, Nathalan, or Nachlan.85 We are now brought in our narrative to the very imAdamnan, portant period when Adamnan, the biographer of Columba, ruled over his monastery as ninth abbot. He was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and belonged to the tribe of the patron saint. He was born in 624, just twenty-seven years after the death of Saint Columba. During the first six years of his abbacy, the rule of the Angles, under King Ecgfrid, still extended as far as it did during the reign of his father Osuiu. After the ejection of Wilfrid from the diocese in this its fullest extent, it was divided between Bosa and Eata, the latter being appointed bishop of the northern part; and three years afterwards it was still further divided, Trumuin being appointed bishop over the province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles. The defeat and death of King Ecgfrid, however, at the battle of Dunnichen in the year 685 terminated this rule of the Angles, and with it the interference of the Anglic bishops with the Columban Church. The Scots of Dalriada recovered their independence. The southern Picts were relieved from the more direct yoke of the Angles, and Trumuin fled from his diocese. A.D. 686. bria. The new king Aldfrid had been long in exile in Ireland, where he was known by the name of Flann Finn, and Adamnan was on terms of friendly acquaintance with him. His first proceeding was to go on a mission to him to ask the release of the Irish captives whom Berct, King Ecgfrid's general, had carried away from the plain of Breg; and the Irish Life of Adamnan gives us the route he took. It says, 85 A.D. 674 Quies Failbe abbatis Iea. Dormitatio Nechtain.-Tigh. He appears in the Felire of Angus on 8th January as Nechtain Nair de albae, which is glossed Anair de Albain-from the east, from Alban. The North Saxons went to him and plundered Magh Bregh as far as Bealach-duin; they carried off with them a great prey of men and women. The men of Erin besought of Adamnan to go in quest of the captives to Saxonland. Adamnan went to demand the prisoners, and put in at TrachtRomra. The strand is long, and the flood rapid; so rapid that if the best steed in Saxonland ridden by the best horseman were to start from the edge of the tide when the tide begins to flow, he could only bring his rider ashore by swimming, so extensive is the strand, and so impetuous is the tide.' Adamnan appears therefore to have gone in his curach and entered the Solway Firth, which is evidently the place meant, and landed on the southern shore. He succeeded in his undertaking, and brought sixty of the captives back to their homes.86 His next step was to repair the monastery, which had pro- Adamnan bably fallen into disrepair during Failbhe's time; and for this repairs the monastery purpose he sent twelve vessels to Lorn for oak trees to furnish of Iona. the necessary timber.87 In this monastery he received Arculfus, a bishop of Gaul, who had gone to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and returning home was driven by a violent storm. on the west coast of Britain and made his way to Iona and passed the winter there. During the dreary winter months, Adamnan committed to writing all the information he could obtain from him as to the holy places; and this work is still extant. 88 Second In 688 Adamnan proceeded on a second mission to A.D. 688. King Aldfrid, with what object is not known; but it appears mission to to have been connected with the affairs of Dalriada. This bria. 86 A. D. 687 Adamnanus captivos reduxit ad Hiberniam lx.-Tigh. Reeves' Adam., ed. 1874, p. cli. Adamnan alludes to this mission, B. ii. c. 1. 87 Adam., B. ii. c. 46. Boece states that the monastery was rebuilt by Maelduin, king of Dalriada, whose death is recorded by Tighernac in 690. 88 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15. Reeves Adam., ed. 1874, p. clxi. Northum '89 and second visit to Northumbria had very important consequences both for himself and for his church; for Bede tells us that 'Adamnan, priest and abbot of the monks that were in the isle of Hii, was sent ambassador by his nation to Aldfrid, king of the Angles, where, having made some stay, he observed the canonical rites of the church, and was earnestly admonished by many who were more learned than himself not to presume to live contrary to the universal custom of the church in relation to either the observance of Easter or any other decrees whatsoever, considering the small number of his followers, seated at so distant a corner of the world. In consequence of this he changed his mind, and readily preferred those things which he had seen and heard in the churches of the Angles to the customs which he and his people had hitherto followed. For he was a good and a wise man, and remarkably learned in the knowledge of the Scriptures;" Abbot Ceolfrid of Jarrow, in his letter to King Naiton of the Picts, who calls him 'Adamnan, the abbot and renowned priest of the Columbans,' says that he visited his monastery, and narrates at length the conversation he had with him, to which he attributes Adamnan's conversion.90 Returning home,' continues Bede, 'he endeavoured to bring his own people that were in Hii, or that were subject to that monastery, into the way of truth, which he himself had learned and embraced with all his heart; but in this he could not prevail.' We have thus the anomalous state of matters that the abbot of the monastery had conformed to Rome, but that his monks and those of the dependent monasteries refused to go along with him. In the year after his return to Iona, the death of Iolan, bishop of Cinngaradh, or Kingarth in Bute, is recorded; and in 692, which the annalist marks as the fourteenth after the decease of his predecessor Failbhe, he goes to Ireland, but 89 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15. bas et sacerdos Columbiensium egregius.' for what especial purpose which might render the reference to Failbhe appropriate, we do not learn; and the following year we find him again in Iona, when the body of Brude mac Bile, king of the Picts, who died in 693, is brought for interment.91 Synod of Scots, with tion of the monas Rome. Four years after, in the year 697, he goes again to Ireland, A.D. 692. and on this occasion he was accompanied by Brude, son of Derile, Tara. The king of the Picts. His object was to obtain the sanction of the northern Irish people to a law exempting women from the burden laid the excepupon all, of what was called Fecht and Sluagad, or the duty Columban attending hostings and expeditions. For this purpose a synod teries, conwas held at Tara, which was attended by thirty-nine ecclesi- form to astics presided over by the abbot of Armagh, and by forty-seven chiefs of tribes, at the head of whom was the monarch of Ireland. The law exempting women from this burdensome duty was termed 'Lex innocentium;' and the enactments of the synod were called Cain Adhamhnain or 'Lex Adamnani,' because among its results was the privilege of levying contribu tions under certain conditions.92 In the list of those present occurs the name of Brude mac Derili ri Cruithentuaithe. It is to the occasion of this visit to Ireland that must be referred the statement of Bede that he then sailed over into Ireland to preach to those people, and, by modest exhortation declaring the true time of Easter, he reduced many of them, and almost all that were not under the dominion of those of Hii, from their ancient error to the Catholic unity, and taught them to keep the proper time of Easter. Returning to his island after having celebrated Easter in Ireland canonically, he most earnestly inculcated the observance of Easter in his monastery, yet without being able to prevail; and it so happened that he departed this life before the next year came round. For 91 A.D. 689 Iolan episcopus Cindgaradh obiit. 692 Adamnanus xiiii annis post pausam Failbe Ea ad Hiberniam pergit.—Tigh. See Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 408. 92 Dr. Reeves' Adam., ed. 1874, p. |