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Columcille and Brethren at lona
need. Itinerant beggars, who went about with wallets,
had only a cold welcome, and grievous transgressors were
excluded.
Adamnan, himself an aristocrat belonging
to Colum-
cille's own line, and an intimate friend of at least three
kings, Finnachta of Ireland, Aldfrid of Northumbria,
and Buite of Pictland, shows in his narration of facts
a lively sense of difference in rank. He refers habitually
to the station of visitors and mentions whether they are
of high or lowly position, and birth. He Latinizes into
tigernes the Irish word "tigherna," lord. The type of
historian who takes comfort in the delusion that the mon-
arch of Ireland was a merely nominal figure-head, will
find little consolation in Adamnan. He is a distinct
believer in the divine right of kings. The high monarch
is "the king of all Ireland." He is "by divine appointment
(ordinatus a Deo) king of all." It is Adamnan
indeed who gives us the story of the first Christian inaugu-
1
ration of a sovereign. But there is a proper honor and
rubric pertaining to each rank, spiritual and secular. A
for instance is received in the conventional hier-
bishop
archy with the sort of honor which one officer of a state
might extend towards another. Marked respect
is shown
to him by the abbot, who in his turn receives the homage
of those of inferior spiritual rank. Fintan, for example,
arriving at lona and being presented to Baithene, the
cousin and immediate successor of Columcille, kneels and
remains in that posture until ordered by the abbot to rise
and be seated.
1 This was Columcille's inauguration of Aidan as King: of the Irish Scots
to succeed Conaill in 575. The Irish coronation service used by Columcille
was introduced by Irish missionaries into England and was thenceforth used
for the inauguration of the English kings. It has been continued in large
part in England to this day. The stone beneath the throne at Westminster
Abbey, brought from Scone, is likewise supposed to have been Irish.
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