The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP, viii] OF SCOTLAND 127
the same position with the bishops of the other churches ; and
we find the monasteries over which these abbots presided possessing
a jurisdiction over a certain extent of territor)- in the
neighbourhood, in the same way as the bishops did in other
churches. Now, when we add to this fact that although, as we
have seen, the episcopal order existed in this church, we find it
impossible to trace the existence of any individual bishop dis-
tinct from the abbot of the monastery, the presumption naturally
arises in the mind that the great peculiarity of the Culdee church
was the union of the clerical and monastic orders into one collegiate
system, where the abbot and the bishop was the same
person, and the inferior orders of presbyters and deacons formed
accordingly, on an
the monks who were under his control ; and
attentive examination of the older historians, we find that this
was actually the case. We can distinctly trace a division of the
Culdee abbots into two orders, of " "
abbates et episcopi and of
"
abbates et
"
presbyteri ; thus, in the letter addressed by Pope
John to the Culdees, the superscription implies that the five
bishops as well as the five presbyters were abbots, and w^e
accordingly find in the Irish Annals several of these bishops
and presbyters mentioned as abbots. Besides this, the bishopabbots
are frequently alluded to in these Annals.^ This distinc-
tion appears to have been drawn between monasteries which
'
In Tighernac the following of those
to whom the letter is addressed are
meniioned :—
OF THE BISHOPS.
A.D. 661. Deith of Tomene, Abbot-
bishop of Armagh.
654. Death of Colman, Bishop of
tlie OTelly's and Abbot of
Cluanirard.
643. Death ot Cronan, Bishop of
Antrim.
659. Death of Dima, Bishop of
Conere.
OF THE PRESBYTBR8.
650. Deatli of Cronan, Abbot of
Mtiighe Bile.
6-16. Death of Laisre, Abbot of
Bencair.
A.D. 652. Death of Segine, Abbot of
Zona.
662. Death of Saraii, Abbot of
the O'Cridans.
One of the Bishops and two of the
presbyters are not mentioned in these
Annals, and were therefore probably
in Scotland.
Of bishop-abbots, besides the two
above mentioned, I find in Tighernac
the following :—
A.D. 663. Tuenoc, the son of Findlain,
Abbot of Ferna, and Dim-
na, i%co bishops, died.
687. Death of Osen, i?isAoyO of the
Monaster!/ of Finntan.
715. Celine, Bishop-abbot of Ferna,
died.
718. Death of Dubduin, Bishopabbot
of Cluanirard.