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26 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
seems doubtful. That he wrote poetry, .and was a friend and
patron of l)ards, is beyond all doubt, and Bede mentions that
writings of his were said to bo in existence in his time. It would
rather appeal-, therefore, that as the lives of the Columban clergy
were an effort to translate its teaching into practice, so their
learning consisted in a knowledge of the Bible, the transcribing
of which was one of their chief occupations.
Their architecture was of the simplest and rudest, and if their
general state of culture were to be jutlged by it, we should pronounce
it of the lowest. Their churches
wattle work of branches, covered with clay.
were constructed of
We frequently hear
of the cutting of branches for the building or repair of churches
and Bede tells us that when Aidan settled at Lindesfarne he built
a church there, after the manner of his country, of wood thatched
with reeds. The monks, as has been said, lived in "bothies, " and
these seem to have been ei-ected by the occuj)ants, and to have
been of slight construction. In the Irish Life of St Columba, we
are told of his asking, when he went to a monastery for instruction,
where he was to set up his bothy, and in another place mention is
made of a bothy being removed from one side of a river to
another. But, as we should commit a grievous error if we judged
of the general intelligence and culture of our own peasantry by
the houses in which they live, so we should commit a like error if
we judged of the culture of these monks by their churches and
dwellings. That they had examples of more substantial and
elaborate structures we know, and the poorness of their building
was probably only one mode of expressing the highest thought
that was in them, that taking for themselves no more of this
world's goods than was necessary for existence, they should teach
and illustrate
and holy lives.
their religion not by stately edifices, but by pure
In metals they seem to have been skilful workers. Adamnan
tells us that, on one occasion, St Columba had blessed a certain
knife, and said that it would never injure man or beast, and that
thereu))on the monks had the iron of which it was made melted,
and a number of other tools in the monastery coated with it. The
ceard or artificer seems to have been a regular ofiicial in the
monasteries, and specimens which have come down to us in the
decoration of shrines, cases for books, bells, itc, show that they
had acquired a pi'oficiency in art work of this descri[)tion which
has never been surpassed.
Another branch of art in wliicli they have never been excelled
was the ornamentation and illumination of tiicir Bil)l('S and service
;