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Bede was so concerned at

who brought in their wives and families. this condition of affairs that he wrote to Archbishop Ecgbert, of York, to entreat him to put a stop to such irregularities, as he with his Latin ideas considered them. He says that in Northumbria there were many nunneries over which the chiefs set their wives.

In the Irish monasteries, as at Iona, the brethren constituted a monastic family, divided into three classes: (1) The Elders, seniores, dedicated to prayer and the instruction of the young, and to preaching; (2) The lay brothers, operarii, who were principally engaged in manual labour; and (3) The students and servitors, juniores alumni, or pueruli familiares.54 When S. Samson constituted his monastery at Dol, he had, as his biographer says, the same three classes: monachi, discipuli, famuli. When he went to Paris to visit Childebert (circ. 554), he was attended by seven monks, seven pupils, and seven servitors.55

The head of the monastic family was called abbot, abba pater, pater spiritualis, or simply pater, very often senex. He lived apart from the rest of the monks, probably on higher ground than the others, so that he might command the entire community with his eye. Under him was the economus or steward, often mentioned in the Lives of the Saints, notably in those of S. David, S. Cadoc, and S. Samson. His duty was to look after the temporal affairs of the monastery, and in the abbot's absence he took his place. Below the œconomus was the pistor or baker, who was not limited to making the bread of the community, but had oversight over all the food required. S. Samson was invested with this office in Ynys Byr, and was accused of having been extravagant, and wasting the money belonging to the convent.56 The only other office of significance was that of the cook, coquus.57 Among the pupils, the students were not limited to study : they divided among them the looking after the sheep and oxen, and the grinding of the corn in the mill.58 They were set an A B C to acquire, but this probably means, not only the letters, but the rudiments of Christian belief. They had also to acquire the Psalms of David by heart, as already stated.

The monks were habited in a tunic and cowl; the tunic was white, and the cowl the natural colour of the wool. In addition, in cold and bad weather, a mantle (amphibalus) was worn, sometimes called

54 Reeves, Life of S. Columba, 1874, p. cvii.

55 Vita IIda, ed. Plaine, ii, c. 20, p. 66.

56 Vita Ima, i, c. 35.

57 Book of Lismore, p. 207.

58 Ibid., pp. 206, 207, 269.

a casula, or chasuble. 59 A good many of the abbots, and even monks, seem to have delighted in clothing themselves in goat or fawn skins.69

The Greek tonsure, which is called that of S. Paul, consisted in shaving the entire head; the Roman tonsure, as that of S. Peter, was restricted to the top of the head, leaving a band of hair round it. The tonsure of the Britons and Scots consisted in shaving all the front of the head from ear to ear. As we see by the Bayeux tapestry, a non-ecclesiastical tonsure was practised by the Normans in the eleventh century, which was that of shaving the back of the head. The meaning of a tonsure was the putting a mark on a man to designate that he belonged to a certain class or tribe, just as colts or sheep are marked to indicate to whom they belong. The knocking out of certain teeth, the deforming of the skull, and tattooing among Indian and other savage races, has the same significance. All men are born alike, and to discriminate among them, artificial means must be had recourse to. Circumcision among the Jews, Egyptians and Kaffirs, has the same meaning.

The tonsure was known in pagan Ireland, and was probablyalmost certainly-general among all Celtic races, the Druids being tonsured to mark the order to which they belonged; and each tribe, if it did not wear its tartan, was distinguished by some sort of trimming of the hair.

The Celtic tonsure for ecclesiastics was possibly purposely adopted from that of the Druids; but this is not certain, as adze-head " was a term applied to the Christian clergy as derisive, because their long faces and curved bald crowns bore a sort of resemblance to a tool, the so-called celt. Probably it was the Druidic tonsure with a difference. 61 It was this tonsure, so unlike that adopted by the monks of the Rule of S. Benedict, which caused such indignation among the Latin missionaries. They could not away with it. It was the tonsure of Simon Magus.

Another point of antagonism between the Latin ecclesiastics and those of the Celtic Church was the observance of Easter. The Celtic rule has been repeatedly explained, and here we will only give it in brief from the lucid account of Mr. Hodgkin, in his account of S. Columbanus in Gaul. "In this matter the Irish ecclesiastics, with true Celtic conservatism, adhered to the usage which had been universa in the West for more than two centuries, whilst the Frankish bishops

59 Reeves, Life of S. Columba, p. cxviii; Book of Lismore, pp. 218, 219, 273. 60 Cambro-British Saints, p. 128.

61 Three kinds of tonsure are mentioned by the early Irish writers: the monastic (berrad manaig), the servile (berrad mogad), and the Druidical forms (airbacc giunnae). Tripartite Life, i, p. clxxxv.

dutifully following the see of Rome, reckoned their Easter day according to the table which was published by Victorinus in the year 457, and which brought the Roman usage into correspondence with the usage of Alexandria. The difference, much and earnestly insisted upon in the letters of Columbanus, turned chiefly on two points: (1) The Irish churchmen insisted that in no case could it be right to celebrate Easter before the vernal equinox, which determined the first month of the Jewish calendar; (2) they maintained that since the Passover had been ordained to fall on the night of the full moon, in no case could it be right to celebrate Easter on any day when the moon was more than three weeks old. In other words, they allowed the great festival to range only between the 14th and the 20th day of the lunar month, while the Latin Church, for the sake of harmony with the Alexandrian, allowed it to range from the 15th to the 22nd. In theory it would probably be admitted that the Irishmen were nearer to the primitive idea of a Christian festival based on the Jewish Passover; but in practice-to say nothing of the unreasonableness of perpetuating discord on a point of such infinitely small importance-by harping as they did continally on the words 'the 14th day', they gave their opponents the opportunity of fastening upon them the name of Quarto-deciman, and thereby bringing them under the anathema pronounced by the Nicene Council on an entirely different form of dissent." 62

As has been frequently pointed out, in the earliest monasteries the abbot had under him one or more bishops, subject to his jurisdiction. This condition of affairs did not last very long. The kings and chiefs had been accustomed to have their Druids at their sides, to furnish them with charms against sudden death and against sickness, and to bless their undertakings and curse their enemies. The abbot could not be with the chief or king; as head of a tribe he had to rule a territory, and attend to the thousand obligations that belonged to his position. Accordingly, a bishop was sent to the chieftain to do the work of medicine-man for him; this was the beginning of a change in the system, approximating it to that of the Church in the Empire. The bishop about the person of the chief eclipsed the abbot, and became the chief man in ecclesiastical matters belonging to the tribe. The Lebar Brecc describes the duties of a bishop: "A bishop for every chief tribe-for ordaining ecclesiastics and for consecrating churches, for spiritual direction to princes and superiors and ordained persons, for hallowing and blessing their children after baptism (i.e.

62 Italy and her Invaders Oxford, 1895, vi, pp. 115-6.

confirming), for directing the labours of every church, and for leading boys and girls to cultivate reading and piety." And the same authority gives as the duties of every priest in a small church: "Of him is required baptism and communion, that is the Sacrifice, and sung intercession for the living and the dead, the offering to be made every Sunday, and every chief solemnity, and every chief festival. Every canonical hour is to be observed, and the singing of the whole Psalter daily, unless teaching and spiritual direction hinder him." 63

We will now pass to a consideration of what is of importance relative to the saints of Cornwall. Here a very remarkable condition of affairs is found to exist. The whole of Penwith, or the Land's End District, and the Lizard promontory as well, seem to have been laid hold of, and its churches founded by Irish saints.

Then again, in all the north-east and east of Cornwall, even down to the sea at Looe, are found saints of the Brychan family of Brecknock. Unhappily, we have no early history of Cornwall that can account for this. Only a glimmer of light comes to us through such few Lives, or notices of Lives, as remain.

But if the historians hold their peace, the stones cry out, and testify to a very extensive colonisation by Irish.

We have scanty notices that Caradog Freichfras, who was prince of Gelliwig, the territory about Callington, about 480 conquered Brecknockshire. He was himself related to the royal family of Brychan through his mother. Whether he entered into any compact with the ecclesiastics of that family and bade them occupy East and North-east Cornwall, on condition that they vacated all their holdings in Brecknock, or whether he drove them out, and they fled to Cornwall to the Irish colonists there, we do not know; but certain it is that the Brychan family is represented very fully there. The Brychan family was Irish, and that there were Irish inhabiting the region to which they moved we shall proceed to show. We know from an entry in Cormac's Irish Glossary that in the time of Crimthan the Great the Irish held Map Lethain in the lands of the Cornish Britons, 64 i.e., 366–378.

The lapidary inscriptions give us Irish names, and bear also the Ogam script. The Maccodechet stone at Tavistock shows that a portion of the Deceti sept from Kerry was settled there. We find their names on monuments both in the west of Ireland and in Anglesey. Another stone is that of Dobunnus, son of Enobar. Dobunnus 63 Tripartite Life, i, p. clxxxiii.

64 Three Irish Glossaries, by W. Stokes, Lond., 1862, p. xlviii.

meets us again several times in Kerry. The Cumregnus stone at Southill has the Goidelic Manci on it, and one of the Lewannic stones the no less Irish ingen; the other bears the name of Ulcagnus, the Irish Olcan, that we find in Kerry as Olacon.65 The Endellion stone to Breocan also has its relatives in Kerry and also in Pembrokeshire.

It can hardly be by accident that Cormac represents Map or Mac Lethain as a fortress of the Irish in Cornwall. This shows that it had been erected by the Hy Liathain, who occupied a tract of country in Munster close to Kerry. And if we suppose that the Brychan family derived from the Hy Brachain in Thomond, then their original seat was separated from Kerry by the estuary of the Shannon only. But it is not only the family of Brychan that is represented in North-east Cornwall; the closely related family of Gwent was also there. To this belonged Petroc of Padstow. Cadoc has also left his mark there, so has Glywys, and possibly Gwynllyw at Poughill. The Stowford stone inscribed to Gungleus looks as though it marked the resting-place of one of the same family. On account of the way in which the Saxons and Normans supplanted the Celtic saints with fresh dedications from the Roman Martyrology in Devon, we are not able to determine to what an extent North Devon was settled with ecclesiastical foundations from Brycheiniog and Gwent. But Brynach, son-in-law of Brychan, is found at Braunton, Nectan, a reputed son, at Hartland and Wellcombe. In Cornwall it is otherwise. We find them extending from Padstow Harbour to the Tamar, and south as far as to the river Fal.

Let us now turn to the west of Cornwall, to Penwith, or the Land's End district, and to Meneage, that of the Lizard. Here the whole district is ecclesiastically Irish. But, indeed, the invasion extends further east, as far as to Newquay, for we have near that S. Piran and S. Carannog, which latter, though not actually Irish by birth, laboured long in the Emerald Isle, and in the south it seems to have stretched with breaks to Grampound.

Happily we have some account of the invasion that took place there. This is in the Life of S. Fingar, written by a monk named Anselm, probably of S. Michael's Mount. There were in existence other records, to which Leland refers, and which he had seen, and from which he made all too scanty extracts, but these are lost for ever.

From such sources we learn that in the reign of Tewdrig, King of Cornwall, who had palaces or duns at Reyvier on the Hayle river, and at Goodern near Truro, and, if we may judge by the place-name,

65 Studies in Irish Epigraphy, by R. A. S. Macalister, London, 1897.

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