صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

as being willing so to be accounted, and these be mecr Coseners." This thesis is worked out in sixteen books, with great learning and acuteness, in a spirit of righteous indignation against the witchmongers. Scot was far in advance of his time, and his book, of which the first edition appeared in 1584, was burned by order of King James I. The book is still interesting, not only as having anticipated Bekker by a century, but for the great mass of curious details as to every branch of so-called witchcraft which it contains. It also takes up natural magic and conjuring at considerable length (bk. xiii.), and contains an argument against "alchymistry" (bk. xiv.).

Scot also published in 1574 A perfite Platforme o, a Hoppe Garden (3d ed. 1578), which is noteworthy as having originated the cultivation of the hop in England. A second edition of the Discoverie appeared in 1651 and a third in 1665; the latter contained nine new chapters, prefixed by an anonymous hand to bk. xv. of the Discoveric, and the addition of a second book to the "Discourse concerning Angels and Spirits.

[ocr errors]

in the Theatrum Chimicum, and containing more alchemy | these are abused and not abusers), the other by acceptation, than astronomy, the sun and moon being taken as the images of gold and silver; De Chiromantia, an opuscule often published in the 15th century; and, perhaps best known of all, De Physiognomia et de Hominis Procreatione, which saw no fewer than eighteen editions between 1477 and 1660. This treatise is divided into three books, of which the first deals with generation according to the doctrine of Aristotle and Galen, the second with the signs by which the character and faculties of individuals may be determined from observation of different parts of the body. The Physiognomia (which also exists in an Italian. translation) and the Super Auctorem Spheræ expressly bear that they were undertaken at the request of the emperor Frederick. To the above list should be added certain treatises in manuscript,-De Signis Planetarum; Contra Averrhoem in Meteora; Notitia Convinctionis Mundi Terrestris cum Cœlesti, et de Definitione utriusque Mundi; De Prasagiis Stellarum et Elementaribus. Michael is said to have foretold (after the double-tongued manner of the ancient oracles) the place of Frederick's death, which took place in 1250. The Italian tradition makes Scot die in Sicily not long afterwards, stating that he foretold the manner of his own death. Jourdain is inclined to agree with this approximate date, observing that Scot is spoken of by Albert the Great as if he were already dead, and that Vincent of Beauvais (d. c. 1268) quotes him with the epithet "vetus." But the generally received tradition makes him return by way of England (where he was received with much honour by Edward I.) to his native country. The ordinary account gives 1291 as the date of Scot's death. According to one tradition he was buried at Holme Cultram in Cumberland; according to another, which Sir Walter Scott has followed in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, in Melrose Abbey. In the notes to that poem, of which the opening of the wizard's tomb forms the most striking episode, Scott gives an interesting account of the various exploits attributed by popular belief to the great magician. "In the south of Scotland any work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed either to the agency of Auld Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or the devil." He used to feast his friends with dishes

brought by spirits from the royal kitchens of France and
Spain and other lands. His embassy to France alone on
the back of a coal-black demon steed is also celebrated, in
which he brought the French monarch to his feet by the
effects which followed the repeated stamping of his horse's
hoof. Other powers and exploits are narrated in Folengo's
Macaronic poem of Merlin Coccaius (1595). But Michael's
reputation as a magician was already fixed in the age im-
mediately following his own. He appears in the Inferno
of Dante (canto xx. 115-117) among the magicians and
soothsayers-

"Quell' altro, che ne' fianchi è cosi poco,
Michele Scotto fù; che veramente
Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco."

He is represented in the same character by Boccaccio, and
is severely arraigned by John Pico de Mirandola in his
work against astrology, while Naudé finds it necessary to
defend his good name in his Apologie pour les grands per-
sonnages faussement accusés de magie.

SCOT, REGINALD (c. 1538-1599), was the son of Richard. third son of Sir John Sot of Scotshall, Smeeth (Kent), studied at Hart Hall in Oxford, and afterwards lived in studious retirement at Smeeth, dying in 1599. He was the author of a very remarkable book, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, the object of which was to put an end to the cruel persecution of witches, by showing that "there will be found among our Witches only two sorts; the one sort being such by imputation, as so thought of by others (and

[ocr errors]

See B. Nicholson's Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, London, 1856. SCOTER, a word of doubtful origin, perhaps a variant of "Scout," one of the many local names shared in common by the GUILLEMOT (vol. xi. p. 262) and the RAZORBILL (vol. xx. p. 302), or perhaps primarily connected with Coor (vol. vi. p. 341),1 the English name of the Anas nigra of Linnæus, which with some allied species has been justifiably placed in a distinct genus, Edemia (often misspelt Oidemia) -a name coined in reference to the swollen appearance of the base of the bill. The Scoter is also very generally known around the British coasts as the "Black Duck from the male being, with the exception of a stripe of orange that runs down the ridge of the bill, wholly of that colour. In the representative American form, E. americana, the protuberance at the base of the bill, black in the European bird, is orange as well. Of all Ducks the Scoter has the most marine habits, keeping the sea in all weathers, and rarely resorting to land except for the purpose of breeding. Even in summer small flocks of Scoters may generally be seen in the tideway at the mouth of any of the larger British rivers or in mid-channel, while in autumn and winter these flocks are so increased as to number thousands of individuals, and the water often looks black with them. A second species, the Velvet-Duck, E. fusca, of much larger size, distinguished by a white spot under each eye and a white bar on each wing, is far less abundant than the former, but examples of it are occasionally to be seen in company with the commoner one, and it too has its American counterpart, E. velvetina; while a third, only known as a straggler to Europe, the Surf-Duck, E. perspicillata, with a white patch on the crown and another on the nape, and a curiously particoloured bill, is a not uncommon bird in North-American waters. All the species of Edemia, like most other Sea-Ducks, have their true home in arctic or subarctic countries, but the Scoter itself is said to breed occasionally in Scotland (Zoologist, s.s. p. 1867). females display little of the deep sable hue that characterizes their partners, but are attired in soot-colour, varied, especially beneath, with brownish white. The flesh of all these birds has an exceedingly strong taste, and, after much controversy, was allowed by the authorities to rank as fish in the ecclesiastical dietary (cf. Graindorge, Traité de l'origine des Macreuses, Caen, 1680; and Correspondence of John Ray, Ray Soc. ed., p. 148).

The

1 In the former case the derivation seems to be from the O. Fr. Escoute, and that from the Latin auscultare (comp. Skeat, Etymol. Dictionary, p. 533), but in the latter from the Dutch Koet, which is said to be of Celtic extraction-cwtiar (op. cit., p. 134). The French Macreuse, possibly from the Latin macer, indicating a bird that may signification, meaning in the south of France a Coot and in the north a be eaten in Lent or on the fast days of the Roman Church, is of double Scoter. By the wild-fowlers of parts of North America Scoters aro commonly called Coots.

[ocr errors]

471

SCOTLAND

PART I.-HISTORY.

|

was sent round Britain. Starting probably from the Forth and rounding the northern capes, it returned after establishing the fact, already suspected, and of so much consequence in future history, that Britain was an island,planting during its progress the Roman standard on the Orkneys, which had for several centuries been known by report, and sighting Shetland, the Thule of earlier navigators. Agricola, with one legion-probably the IXth, which had suffered most-was now recalled by Domitian.

The absence of any notice of Britain for twenty years implies the cessation of further advances,-a change of policy due to the reverses in the Dacian War and the financial condition of the empire.

I. Román Period.-The first certain lines of the history | camps between the Forth and the Clyde, while the fleet 78-1202 of Scotland were written by the Romans. Their account of its partial conquest and occupation for more than three hundred years gives the earliest facts to which Agrico- fixed dates can be assigned. The invasion commenced la's cam- by Julius Cæsar reached in Agricola's last campaign paigns. limits never afterwards exceeded. It was in the last year of Vespasian's life that Julius Agricola, the ablest general bred in his camp, came to command the army in Britain. Landing in midsummer 78, he at once commenced a campaign against Wales. In his second campaign he passed the Solway and, defeating the tribes of Galloway, introduced rudiments of Roman civilization in the district where Ninian taught the rudiments of Christianity three centuries later. This was the first conquest within modern Scotland. Two main roads, of which traces can still be seen, mark his advance: the western, from Carlisle through Dumfries and Lanark, extends across the Clyde to Camelon on the Carron; and the eastern, from Bremenium (High Riechester) in Northumberland, passes through Roxburgh and Lothian to the Forth at Cramond. Next year Agricola subdued unknown tribes, reached the estuary of the Tay, and occupied camps at various points of central Scotland, in the future shires of Stirling and Perth. Traces of them are still visible at Bochastle near Callander, Dalginross near Comrie, Fendoch on the Almond, Inveralmond at the junction of the Almond with the Tay near Perth, Ardargie on the north of the Ochils, and the great camp at Ardoch south of Crieff. The fourth year of his command was devoted to the construction of a line of forts between the Forth and the Clyde. This barrier, strengthened by a wall in the reign of Antoninus Pius, guarded the conquests already made against the Caledonians-the general Latin name of the northern tribes of the forests and mountains, the Highlanders of later times-and, in connexion with camps already occupied in the lowlands of Perthshire, formed the base for further operations. In the fifth year Agricola crossed the Clyde, and, without making any permanent conquest on the western mainland, viewed from Cantyre the coast of Ireland. Statements by one of its chiefs as to the character and factions of that country, whose ports were already known to Roman merchants, led to the opinion communicated to Tacitus by Agricola, that with a single legion and a few auxiliaries he could reduce it to subjection. The number of legions in the Roman army of Britain was fixed at five, besides auxiliaries and cavalry, a total of perhaps 50,000 men. The resistance of northern Britain explains why the easier conquest was not undertaken. A year was required to explore the estuaries of the Forth and the Tay with the fleet. The absence of camps indicates that no attempt was made to conquer the peninsula of Fife, .perhaps a separate kingdom; and Agricola prepared to advance against the Caledonians. Two years' fighting, although Tacitus chronicles only an assault on the advanced camp of the IXth legion (at Lintrose (?) near Coupar Angus), passed before the final engagement known in history as the battle of the Grampians (84). It was probably fought in the hilly country of the Stormont near Blairgowrie, the Celts descending from strongholds in the lowest spurs of the Grampians and attacking the Romans, whose camp lay near the junction of the Isla and the Tay. It decided that the Roman conquest was to stop at the Tay. Galgacus, the Caledonian leader, was, according to the Roman historian, defeated; but in the following winter Agricola retreated to the

The indefatigable Hadrian came to Britain (120) with Hathe VIth legion, named Victrix, which replaced the IXth, drian .He began, and his favourite general Aulus Plautorius wall. Nepos completed, between the mouth of the Tyne near Newcastle and the Solway near Carlisle, the great wall' of stone (see HADRIAN, WALL OF), about 80 miles in length, 16 feet high, and 8 feet thick, protected on the north by a trench 34 feet wide and 9 deep, with two parallel earthen ramparts and a trench on the south,proving the line required defence on both sides. Massive fragments of the wall, its stations, castles, and protecting camps, with the foundation of a bridge over the North Tyne, may be still seen. It was garrisoned by the VIth legion, and by the XIth and XXth, which remained throughout the whole Roman occupation. The conquests of Agricola in what is modern Scotland were for a time abandoned. Hadrian's wall was the symbol of the strength of Rome, and also of the valour of the northern Britons. There must have been a stubborn resistance to induce the conquerors of the world to set a limit to their province, though the roads through the wall showed they did not intend this limit to be permanent. The first step had been taken. The country between the Tyne and Solway and the Forth and Clyde, including the southern Lowlands of Scotland, was now within the scope of Roman history, if not yet of Roman civilization. The country north of the last two rivers remained barbarous and unknown under its Celtic chiefs. Hadrian had thus resumed the task of Agricola, in one of the rapid campaigns by which he consolidated the empire through visits to its most distant parts; but it is doubtful whether he passed beyond the wall, which continued to separate the Romans from the barbarians. In the reign of his successor, Antoninus Pius, Lollius Urbicus recovered the country from the wall of Hadrian to the forts of Agricola, and built an earthen rampart about half the length of the southern wall, 20 feet high and 24 thick, protected on the north by a trench 40 feet wide and 20 deep. It was known later as Grim or, Graham's dyke. Remains may yet be seen between Carriden near Borrowstounness on the Forth and West Kilpatrick on the Clyde, with forts either then or subsequently erected at intermediate stations, connected by. military road on the south of the wall.

About this period Ptolemy composed, the first geography of the world, illustrated by maps-probably constructed somewhat later Scotland the plan and description of the distances are generally -of Ireland and Britain, still called Albion. South of modern accurate, but north of the Solway (Itune Estuarium) and the Wear (? Vedra) the island is figured as lying west and east instead

1 His information must have come from Roman officers, who, we know, studied this branch of the military art, as maps have been found painted on the porticos of their villas.

161-364. of north and south. Learned ingenuity corrects this error and, by | In the reign of Aurelius, the philosophic emperor, war was other modifications and the use of a few points deemed certain, not encouraged; but Calphurnius Agricola had to be sent applies the names of Ptolemy to places on the map of modern Scotland. But the certain points are almost confined to the Clyde (161) as legate and proprætor to Britain to prevent incur (Glotta Estuarium), the Forth (Bodcra Estuarium), the Tay (Tava sions of the northern tribes. In that of Commodus a Estuarium), and perhaps the Wear (Vedra) and the Nith (Novius), more formidable invasion passed the wall, but Ulpius the Caledonian Wood (Caledonia Silva), and the Orkneys (Orcades). Marcellus drove back the Britons and repaired it, gaining Even if the other identifications were clear, it would not add much for Commodus the title of Britannicus. While Septimius to our knowledge of ancient Scotland. The names of Ptolemy are names on his map and in books only. No tribe (except the Severus was removing rivals from his path, his legate, Caledonii), no town, no river (except the Forth and Clyde and Virius Lupus, purchased peace (201) from the Meatæ, a Tay), no island (except the Orkneys), was, so far as we know, tribe of central Scotland now first named, who along with called before or since by the names which there appear. No in- the Caledonii supersede the older designations of Tacitus, scription or coin confirms them. No mountains in this land of mountains are to be found on the plan of the geographer. Etymo- and Ptolemy for the population in the vicinity and to the logical conjecture, after allowance for mispronunciation and errors north of Antonine's wall, until in the latter half of the 4th of transcribers, fails to reconcile the names of Ptolemy with the century the Picts and Scots appear. Seven years later oldest names of Celtic origin still retained by the rivers and hills. (208) Severus, with his sons Caracalla and Geta, came, Severus Yet the attempt represents the highest knowledge embodied in writing to which the Romans attained of this distant and disputed like Edward I. in his last campaign, worn out in body Britain. part of the empire, for the Itineraries, except the forged one attri- but not in spirit, to Britain. After repairing the buted to Richard of Cirencester, stop at Hadrian's wall. His breaches in Hadrian's wall he not only reconquered the treatise remained until the revival of learning the only written country between it and the wall of Antonine, which he geographical description of the country from which the learned could picture northern Britain. With all its imperfections and restored, but, passing beyond the steps of Agricola, mistakes, it conveyed in rough outline the figure of a country to carried the Roman eagles to the most northern points the west of the European continent, to the north of the Roman they reached. The traces of Roman roads from Falkirk province of Britain, to the east of Ireland, surrounded by the German Ocean, the Northern Ocean, and the Irish Channel, with to Stirling, through Strathearn to Perth, thence through bold promontories and many rivers (several tidal), peopled by Forfar, Mearns, and Aberdeen to the Moray Firth, and various tribes, its towns chiefly on the rivers or the coast, and in of Roman camps at Wardykes (Keithock), Raedykes its centre the vast forest to which the Caledonians gave or from (Stonehaven), Norman Dykes (on the Dee), and Raedykes which they received their name, itself the northern part of the on the Ythan belong to this period and represent an largest British island, with groups of smaller isles lying off its The northern and western shores. This region was unknown to Cæsar attempt to subdue or overawe the whole island. and imperfectly known to Tacitus,-the only writer of the first historian Dion does not conceal the failure of the enterTacitus's century to whom we can resort. Yet the description of the prise, which he ascribes to the illness that terminated in account Britons by the greatest historical genius of Rome, based on the the death of Severus at York (211). He adds a little to of inha- account of one of its greatest generals, attempts a discrimination bitants. between the Celtic tribes first and those afterwards conquered, our knowledge of the Caledonians by describing the which may perhaps be applied to the inhabitants of the north as painting of their bodies with forms of animals, their scanty contrasted with those of the south of Britain. clothing and iron ornaments, their arms—a sword, small shield, and spear, without helmets or breastplates-their chariots, and their mode of warfare by rapid attack and as rapid retreat to the forest and the marsh. Being without towns, they lived on the produce of herds and the chase. not on fish, though they had plenty. Their mode of government he calls democratic, doubtless from the absence of any conspicuous king rather than of chiefs.

Hadrian

tc

Whether the inhabitants of Britain were indigenous or foreigners, being barbarian, they did not take the trouble to inquire. The different character of their bodily appearance in different parts of the island gave rise to arguments. The red hair and big limbs of the natives of Caledonia point to a German origin, The coloured faces of the Silures, their hair generally plaited, and Spain being opposite give credit to the opinion that the ancient Iberi had migrated and occupied these settlements. Those nearest the Gauls were like them, whether on account of the enduring force of descent or the position of the sky determining in lands adjoining the character of the races. On a general view it is credible that the Gauls occupied the neighbouring island. You may detect the same sacred rites and superstitions. There is not much difference in their language. There is the same daring in demanding, the same fear in declining danger. The Britons exhibit greater fierceness, as a long peace has not yet softened them. For we have heard that the Gauls also were distinguished in war, until sloth came with ease and valour was lost with freedom. This too has been the case with the Britons formerly conquered. The rest remain what the Gauls were. Their strength is in their foot; some tribes, however, fight also from chariots. The noble drives; his followers are in front. Formerly they obeyed kings. Now they are distracted by parties and factions amongst their chiefs, and the want of common counsel is most useful to us.

An agree

ment between two or three states to resist a common danger is rare; so while they fight singly the whole are defeated."

In the account of the battle of the Grampian Mount and the speech of Galgacus there is little that is local or individual. What the Celtic chief said in an unknown tongue can scarcely have been literally interpreted to the Romans. The historian trained in oratory embodies in Latin eloquence the universal sentiments of freedom. It may be thought, however, that the soil and air of Scotland favour independence of action and thought, and that the words, whether of Tacitus or of Galgacus, contain an unconscious prophecy of passages in its future annals and traits in the character of its people not yet obliterated. In the first century of the Christian era Scotland was the scene of events which belong to universal history.

The necessity of the walls of Hadrian and Antonine to protect the Roman province soon appeared. It is doubtSeverus. ful how long or during what intervals the country between them remained subject. Few coins of emperors later than Antonine have been found to the north of Hadrian's wall.

From the death of Severus to the accession of Constan- Constantius Chlorus, a period of nearly a century, the history of tius to departnorthern Britain is unknown. In the first (305) of the ure of two years of his reign Constantius defeated the tribes Romans between the walls called by Eumenius the Panegyrist "the Caledonians and other Picts,"-a name now first heard, and by this association identified with the Caledonians. Next year Constantius died at York; and for more than fifty years a veil is again drawn over northern Britain. It was during this period that Constantine was converted to Christianity, which his father Constantius had favoured during the persecutions of Diocletian. So rapid was the progress of the church in the British province that only ten years after the martyrdom of St Alban Celtic bishops of York, London, and Caerleonprobably the place of that name on the Usk-were present at the council of Arles. In 360 the Scots are for the first time named, by Ammianus Marcellinus, who records their descent along with the Picts upon the Roman province in terms which imply that they had before passed the southern wall. Four years later the Picts, Saxons, Scots, and Attacotts are said by the same writer to have caused the Britons perpetual anxiety; but Theodosius, father of the emperor of the same name, repulsed them

1 Papinian, the great jurist, then administered justice at York. Whether the Roman law so introduced survived in any part of modern England is a problem not yet solved; it certainly did not beyond the wall. The Roman substratum of Scottish law was of later origin. derived chiefly from the canon law of the church.

Roman occupation.

to acquire their name,—a name of awe to the provincial cent..
Britons and their English conquerors. Their language,
though Celtic, is still a problem difficult to solve, as so few
words have been preserved. Its almost complete absorp-
tion in that of the Gaels or Scots suggests that it did not
differ widely from theirs, and with this agrees the fact
that Columba and his followers had little difficulty in
preaching to them, though they sometimes required an
interpreter. Some philologists believe it to have been
more allied to Cymric, and even to the Cornish variety;
but the proof is inconclusive.

and recovered the country between the walls, which | times using, the deserted wall of Hadrian, they caused it 368-6th became (368) a fifth province of Britain, called in honour of the reigning emperor Valentia. It remained so for a very brief space: the revolt of Maximus (391), which reduced the Roman troops to two legions, led to fresh raids of the Picts and Scots. A legion sent by Stilicho drove them back to the northern wall. But it was soon recalled, and the garrisons were permanently removed prior to 409. Effects of The Roman empire in Britain left widely different results in the southern and in the northern portions of the island. The former became an organized, and in the centres of population a civilized province, in which Latin was spoken by the educated, the arts cultivated, Roman law administered, and Christianity introduced. The latter, with the partial exception of the district south of Antonine's wall, remained in the possession of barbarous heathen races, whose customs had altered little since Roman writers described them as similar to, though ruder than, those of the Celts in Gaul before its conquest. The condition of the population between the walls was probably intermediate between that of the southern provincial Britons and that of the northern savages of the same original Celtic stock, more nearly resembling the latter, perhaps not unlike the condition of the people of Wales, which the Romans in like manner overran, but could not hold, or of Afghanistan as compared with British India. No Roman towns existed, and only one or two villas have been found north of York, and quite near to that place. The camp, the altar, the sepulchral monument, possibly a single temple (the mysterious Arthur's Oven or Julius's Hof on the Carron, now destroyed, but described by Boece and Buchanan and figured by Camden), the stations along the wall, the roads with their milestones, a number of coins (chiefly prior to the 2d century), and a few traces of baths are the only vestiges of Roman occupation in this part of Britain. So completely had Britain passed beyond the serious attention of the emperor of the East that in the beginning of the 6th century Belisarius, Justinian's general, sarcastically offered it to the Goths in exchange for Sicily; while Procopius, the Byzantine historian, has nothing to tell of it except that a wall was built across it by the ancients, the direction of which he supposes to have been from north to south, separating the fruitful and populous east from the barren serpent-haunted western district, and the strange fable that its natives were excused from tribute to the kings of the Franks in return for the service of ferrying the souls of the dead from the mainland to the shores of Britain.

Brets or

2. Early Celtic Period to Union of Picts and Scots by Britons. Kenneth Macalpine. It is to the Celts, the first known inhabitants of Britain, that our inquiry next turns. This people were not indigenous, but came by sea to Britain. A conjecture, not yet proved, identifies as inhabitants of Britain before the Celts a branch of the race now represented in Europe only by the Basques. Amongst many names of British tribes in Latin writers three occur, two with increasing frequency, as the empire drew near its close - Britons, Picts, and Scots-denoting distinct branches of the Celts. Britain was the Latin name for the larger island and Britons for its inhabitants; Albion, a more ancient title, has left traces in English poetry, and in the old name Alba or Albany for northern Scotland. The Britons in Roman times occupied, if not the whole island, at least as far north as the Forth and Clyde. Their language, British, called later Cymric, survives in modern Welsh and the Breton of Brittany. Cornish, which became extinct in the 17th century, was a dialect of the same speech. Its extent northwards is marked by the Cumbraes-the Islands of Cymry in the Clyde-and Cumberland, a district originally stretching from the Clyde to the Mersey.

Picts or

[ocr errors]

The Picts, a Latin name for the northern tribes who Cruthne. preserved longest the custom of painting their bodies, called themselves Cruithne. Their original settlements appear to have been in the Orkneys, the north of Scotland, and the north-east of Ireland-the modern counties of Antrim and Down. They spread in Scotland, before.or shortly after the Romans left, as far south as the Pentland Hills, which, like the Pentland Firth, are thought to preserve their name, occupied Fife, and perhaps left a detachment in Galloway. Often crossing, probably some

The Scots came originally to Ireland, one of whose names from the 6th to the 13th century was Scotia ; Scotia Major it was called after part of northern Britain in the 11th century had acquired the same name. Irish traditions represent the Scots as Milesians from Spain. Their Celtic name Gaidhil, Goidel, or Gael appears more akin to that of the natives of Gaul. They had joined the Picts in their attack on the Roman province in the 4th century, and perhaps had already settlements in the west of Scotland; but the transfer of the name was due to the rise and progress of the tribe called Dalriad, which migrated from Dalriada in the north of Antrim to Argyll and the Isles in the beginning of the 6th century. Their language, Gaidhelic, was the ancient form of the Irish of Ireland and the Gaelic of the Scottish Highlanders. No clear conclusion has been reached as to the meaning of Briton, Cruithne, Scot, and Gael.

The order of the arrival of the three divisions of une Order of
Celtic race and the extent of the islands they occupied are arrival of
uncertain. Bede in the beginning of the 8th century gives
the most probable account.

"This island at the present time contains five nations, the Angles,
Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins, each in its own dialect cultivat-
The
ing one and the same sublime study of divine truth.
Latin tongue by the study of the Scriptures has become common to
all the rest. At first this island had no other inhabitants but the
Britons, from whom it derived its name, and who, carried over into

Britain, as is reported, from Armorica, possessed themselves of the
southern parts. When they had made themselves masters of the
greatest part of the island, beginning at the south, the Picts from
Scythia, as is reported, putting to sea in a few long ships, were
driven by the winds beyond the shores of Britain, and arrived on
the northern coast of Ireland, where, finding the nation of the Scots,
they begged to be allowed to settle among them, but could not
succeed in obtaining their request. The Scots answered that the
island could not contain them both, but we can give you good
advice what to do: we know there is another island not far from
ours, to the east, which we often see at a distance, when the days
are clear. If you go thither you will obtain a settlement; or, if any
should oppose, you shall have our aid.' The Picts accordingly,
sailing over into Britain, began to inhabit the northern part of the
island. In process of time Britain, after the Britons and Picts,
received a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating from Ireland
under their leader Renda, either by fair means or force secured
those settlements amongst the Picts which they still possess.
"There is," he says in another passage, "a very large estuary of the
sea which formerly divided the nation of the Picts from the Britons,
which gulf runs from the west far into the land, where to this day
stands the strong city of, the Britons called Alclyth. The Scots
arriving on the north side of the estuary settled themselves there
as in their own country."

"

This statement in its main points (apart from the country from which the Picts are said to have come) is confirmed by Latin authors, in whose meagre notices the Picts appear before the Scots are mentioned, and both occur later than the Britons; by the legends of the three Celtic races; by the narratives of Gildas and Nennius, the only British Celtic historians, the Irish Annals, and the Pictish Chronicle. It is in harmony with the facts contained in the Life of Columba, written in the 7th century, but based on an earlier Life, by one of his successors; Cumine, abbot of Iona, who may have seen Columba, and must have known persons who had. The northern Britain brought before us in connexion with Columba in the latte

Celtic

races.

Conversion to Chris. tianity

Ninian.

haif of the 6th century is peopled by Cruithne or Picts in the north and central Highlands, having their chief royal fort on the Ness, and by Scots in Argyll and the Isles, as far north as Iona and on the mainland Drumalban, the mountain ridge which separates Argyll from Perth and Inverness; there is a British king ruling the south-west from the rock on the Clyde then known as Alclyth or Alclyde, now Dumbarton; and Saxony, under Northumbrian kings, is the name given to the district south of the Forth, including the eastern Lowlands, where by this time Angles had settled. The scarcity of Celtic history1 belonging to Scotland indicates that its tribes were less civilized than their Irish and Welsh kin.

It is in the records of the Christian church that we first touch historic ground after the Romans left. Although the legends of Christian superstition are almost as fabulous as those of heathen ignorance, we can follow with reasonable certainty the conversion of the Scottish Celts. Three Celtic saints venerated throughout Scottish history -Ninian, Kentigern, Columba-Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, David, the patron saint of Wales, and Cuthbert, the apostle of Lothian and patron saint of Durham, belonging to the Celtic Church, though probably not a Celt, mark the common advance of the Celtic races from heathenism to Christianity between the end of the 4th and the end of the 6th century. The conversion of Scotland in the time of Pope Victor I. in the 2d century is unhistoric, and the legend of St Rule (Regulus) having brought the relics of St Andrew in the reign of Constantius from Achæa to St Andrews, where a Pictish king built a church and endowed lands in his honour, is, if historical at all, antedated by some centuries. There is no proof that amongst the places which the Romans had not reached, but which had accepted Christianity when Tertullian wrote, there was any part of modern Scotland; but, as Christian bishops from Britain without fixed locality begin to appear in the 4th century, possibly the first converts in Scotland had been made before its close.

NINIAN (q.v.), the son of a British chief in Galloway already Christian, after converting or reforming his countrymen-one of his converts being Tudwalla, king of Alclyde (? Tothael, father of 1 Of the three branches of the Celts which appear as the first known inhabitants of Scotland the native records are scanty and of late date. Respecting the Britons nothing remains except the History of Gildas in the 6th and that of Nennius in the 9th century, of which very small parts relate to Scotland; the poems of Aneurin and Taliessin, commonly called Welsh bards, but perhaps natives of Strathclyde; the lives of saints; and a fragment of criminal law, common to them and the Scots, preserved at the time of its suppression by Edward I.

Dealing with the Picts there is a Latin Chronicle of the 10th century and additions of later date, containing a valuable list of kings in their own language, and the entries in the Book of Deer of the gifts to that monastery by the Pictish mormaers (chiefs) of Buchan: but the earliest of these is in an old form of Gaelic.

The Scots are noticed in the Life of Columba, e Duan Albanacn of the 11th century, a Latin Chronicle of the 12th century, a few poems treating of their origin and migration, later Latin tracts describing their settlement in Scotland, and the lives of saints, not written in their existing form till the 12th century. But a considerable amount of legendary material, chiefly consisting of additions to or glosses on the earlier sources, has been collected. When all is told, Scotland has nothing to compare with the Irish Annals and the Welsh Triads, whose fulness of detail and fabulous antiquity in the early portions raise suspicious as to the later which are perhaps undeserved. It has no equivalent to the collection of laws contained in the Senchas Mor or Kain Patrick of Ireland and the Dimetian and Venedotiau codes of Wales, where, in the midst of a crowd of minute customs implying a long settlement in western lands, there are traces of others that seem to have come with the Celts from their far-off Eastern birthplace. From these sources-especially from the Irish Annals, and in particular the Annals of Tigernach, who died in 1088, the Synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach, who died in 1056, the Annals of Innisfallen, compiled in 1215, and of Ulster, compiled in 1498, but from older authorities-the dearth of proper Scottish material has been supplemented; but this source of information has to be used with caution. The whole materials are collected in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, edited by Mr Skene for the lord clerk register of Scotland

Rydderick Hael)—and organizing a diocese, went as a missionary to the southern Picts, who lived amongst or near the mountains north of the Forth and Clyde in the modern counties of Stirling, Perth, and Forfar. His fame grew with the church, and as far north as Shetland, as far south as Westmoreland and Northumber. land, churches were dedicated in his name. His wonder-working relics in the shrine of Candida Casa (at Whithorn in Galloway) became an object of pilgrimage for more than a thousand years. Three other missionaries belong to the period between Ninian and Kentigern, his successor amongst the Britons of the west: Palladius, sent to the Christians in Ireland by Pope Celestine, died at Fordoun in Mearns labouring amongst the Picts, and his disciples Serf and Ternau converted respectively the Picts of Fife and those of the lowlands of Aberdeen. KENTIGERN (q.v.) of Strathclyde was sup- Kenti- › ported by Rydderick or Roderick, called Hael (“the Liberal ") from gern. his bounty to the church. Columba visited Kentigern at the cemetery of Ninian, on the Molendinar Burn, where courtesies were interchanged between these representatives of the two branches of bishops declined at the meeting at St Augustine's oak to submit to the Celtic Church in western Scotland, shortly before the British the Roman missionary who had converted the Saxons of southern England. Jocelyn of Furness states that Kentigern was at Rome seven times and obtained the privilege of being the pope's vicar free from subjection to any metropolitan. The prince of Cumbria is even said to have acknowledged his precedency. These are inventions of a later age; but the large possessions, extending over the whole western kingdom, conferred by Rydderick, and after a long lapse of time found by the inquest of David I. when prince of Cumbria to have belonged to the see, may be historical. He died about the beginning of the 7th century, and a long period of darkness hides the British kingdom and church of Strathclyde. St PATRICK (q.v.), succeeding where Palladius failed, Christianized Ireland in the middle of the 5th century. A passage in his Conof the church in Scotland for two generations before Patrick's birth, fession, if all of it applies to Scotland, seems to prove the existence and the allowance during these of marriage to the clergy.

Scotland gave Patrick to Ireland, and Ireland returned the gift in Columt Columba. A rare good fortune has preserved in Adamnan's Life the picture of the monastic Celtic Church in the 6th and 7th centuries, tradition of the acts of the greatest Celtic saint of Scotland, and a -an almost solitary fragment of history between the last of the Roman and the first of the Anglo-Saxon historians. Born in 521 at Gartan in Donegal, COLUMBA (q.v.) spent his boyhood at Doiro Eithne near Gartan, his youth at Moville on Strangford Lough under Abbot Finian, called the foster-father of the Irish saints from the number of his disciples. Here he was ordained deacon, and, after completing his education under Gemmian, a Christian bard, at the monastery of Clonard, he received priest's orders. In 561 ho took part in the battle of Culdrevny (in Connaught), when the chiefs of the Hui Néill (Dalriad Scots), his kindred, defeated Diarmid (Diarmait), a king of eastern Ireland. Excommunicated by the synod of Teltown in Meath, the country of Diarmid, for his share in the battle-according to one account fought at his instance -and moved by missionary zeal, he crossed two years afterwards the narrow sea which separates Antrim from Argyll with twelve companions and founded the monastery of Iona (Hy), on the littlo island to the west of Mull, given him by his kinsman Conall. The Dalriad Scots, who had settled in the western islands of Scotland and in Lorn early in the 6th century, were already Christians; but Columba soon after visited the Pictish king Brude, the son of Mailochon, at Craig Phadrich, the isolated hill fort on the Ness, whom he converted, and from whom he received a confirmation of Conall's grant. Columba, on the death of Conall, gave the sanction of religion to the succession of his cousin Aidan, and at the council of Drumceat in Derry obtained the exemption of the Dalriads of Iona from tribute, though they were still bound to give military service to the Irish king, the head of the Húi Néill. He frequently revisited Ireland and took part in its wars: the militant spirit is strongly marked in his character; but most of his time was devoted to the administration of his monastery of Iona, and to the planting of other churches and religious houses in the neighbouring isles and mainland, till his death in 597. None of the remains now found in almost every island-not even those in Iona itself-date from his time, when wood was still used for building. But the original foundations of the churches of Skye and Tireo were his work; those extending from Bute and Cantyre-on Islay, Oronsay, Colonsay, Mull, Eigg, Lewis, Harris, Benbecula, and even the distant St Kilda-to Loch Arkaig on the northern mainland of Scottish Dalriada are to be ascribed to him or his immediato followers or successors in the abbacy, as well as thoso in the country of tho Picts, from the Orkneys to Deer in Buchan. The churches which received his name farther south were later foundations in his honour. The most celebrated of his disciples were Baithene, his successor as abbot; Machar, to whom the church of Aberdeen traces its origin ;

2 In a cave at Glasserton rude crosses incised on stone-probably font-and the letters SANCTNI. P. (?) have recently been found.

« السابقةمتابعة »