Chapter V: Is the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a Metrological (5)

[Footnote 73: In reference to this observation, it is scarcely necessary to refer to the teachings in Scotland of St. Kentigern of Strathclyde in the first half of the sixth century, of St. Serf of Culross in the latter, and of St. Palladius and St. Ninian in the earlier parts of the fifth century, with the more immediate converts and followers of these ancient missionaries. In his _Demonstratio quod Christus sit Deus contra Judaeos atque Gentiles_, written about the year 387, St. Chrysostom avers that "the British Islands ([Greek: Bretanikai nesoi]), situated beyond the Mediterranean Sea, and in the very ocean itself, had felt the power of the Divine Word, churches having been found there, and altars erected." (_Opera omnia_, vol. i. p. 575, Paris edition of Montfaucon, 1718.) Perhaps St. Chrysostom founded his statement upon a notice in reference to the alleged extension of Christianity to the northern parts of Britain, given a hundred and fifty years previously by Tertullian, when discussing a similar argument. In his dissertation _Adversus Judaeos_, supposed to be written about 210, Tertullian, when treating of the propagation of Christianity, states (chap. vii.), that at that time already places among the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, were yet subject to Christ--"Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." (Oehler's edition of _Tertullian_, vol. iii. p. 713.) Among the numerous inscriptions and sculptures left here by the Romans while they held this country during the first four centuries of the Christian era, not one has, I believe, been yet found containing a single Christian notice or emblem, or affording by itself any direct evidence of the existence of Christianity among the Roman colonists and soldiers in Britain. But there is indirect lapidary or monumental evidence of its propagation in another manner. In England, as in Germany, France, etc., there exist among the old Roman remains, altars and temples dedicated to Mithras, originally the god of the Sun among the Persians, with sculptures and inscriptions referring to Mithraic worship. They have been found in the cities along the Roman wall in Northumberland; at York, etc. Various references among the old Fathers seem to show that when a knowledge of the Christian religion began to spread to the Western Colonies of Rome, the worship of Mithras was set up in opposition to Christianity, and Christian rites were imitated by the Mithraic priests and followers. Thus, for example, the author whom I have just cited, Tertullian, tells us, in his tract _De Praescriptione Haereticorem_, chap. 40, that the worshippers of Mithras practised the remission of sins by water (as in baptism), made a sign upon their foreheads (as if simulating the sign of the cross), celebrated the offering of bread (as if in imitation of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper), etc. (See his _Works_, vol. iii. p. 38, of Oehler's Leipsic edition of 1854.)]

[Footnote 74: See Dr. Reeves' admirable edition of Adamnan's _Life of St. Columba_, pp. lxxiv and lxxv,--a book which is a perfect model of learned annotation and careful editing.]

[Footnote 75: I think it might be well to strengthen your statement by adducing a few examples--thus, as for example, the remains of a monastery of Columba's time on an island--now drained--called Lough Columbkill, in the island of Skye--the churches and clochans, or stone-houses of the monks, on St. Kilda, and probably many similar remains on other islands of the Hebrides.--P.]

[Footnote 76: Of St. MacDara of Cruach MicDara, an island off the coast of Connamara, of St. Brendan in Inis Gloria, an island off the coast of Errus, and very many more.--P.]

[Footnote 77: Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 129.]

[Footnote 78: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 195.]

[Footnote 79: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 194.]

[Footnote 80: And which, moreover, had often chancels attached to them.--P.]

[Footnote 81: _Ibid._, pp. 365, 351.]

[Footnote 82: _Ibid._, p. 351.]

[Footnote 83: I should, perhaps, have written _almost_ always. The very few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me. Perhaps, indeed, there is but one exception, that most important one, on Bishop's Island, the others belonging rather to churches.--P.]

[Footnote 84: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 352.]

[Footnote 85: South doorways are certainly very rarely to be met with in the very ancient churches or oratories in Ireland. In addition to this important one on Bishop's Island, I can only call to mind three others, namely, in Kilbaspugbrone, near Sligo; the Templemor, or great church of St. Mochonna, in Inismacnerin, or, as now called, Church Island, in Lough Key, county of Roscommon; and Killcrony, near Bray, in the county of Wicklow. The two last named are fine specimens of doorways of Cyclopean style and masonry.--P.]

[Footnote 86: Wakeman's _Archaeologia Hibernica_, pp. 59, 60.]

[Footnote 87: My pupil is in error in this supposition. He should have remembered--for he drew it on the block for me--that the window in the oratory near the church of Kilmalkedar, county of Kerry, which is built without cement, splays both externally and internally.--See my work, p. 184.

I should also observe another feature common to both these windows, namely, that it is only the jambs that are splayed.--P.]

[Footnote 88: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 186.]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid._ p. 437.]

[Footnote 90: Was.--P.]

[Footnote 91: But now considers as of the tenth or perhaps eleventh.--P.]

[Footnote 92: See his _Illustrated Handbook of Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 918.]

[Footnote 93: I confess that I should not like to adduce this stone-roofed church of Killaghy in support of the antiquity of the oratory; for I could never bring myself to believe that it was of an age anterior to the thirteenth century.--P.]

[Footnote 94: See Dr. Petrie's work (p. 291) for full quotations in confirmation of this date, from the _Annals of Clonmacnoise and Kilronan_, the _Annals of Munster_, the _Annals of the Four Masters_, the _Chronicon Scotorum_, etc.]

[Footnote 95: When discussing the history of the pointed arch, Mr. Parker observes: "The choir of Canterbury Cathedral, commenced in 1175, is usually referred to as the earliest example in England, and none of earlier date has been authenticated."--_Glossary of Terms in Architecture_ (1845), p. 28.]

[Footnote 96: Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 133.]

[Footnote 97: Pointed arches, constructed both on the radiating and horizontal principles, are found still standing in the antiquated mason-work of Assyria, Nubia, Greece, and Etruria. (See drawings and descriptions of different specimens from these countries in Mr. Fergusson's _Handbook of Architecture_, vol. i. pp. 253, 254, 257, 259, 294, 381, etc.) The pointed arch was used in the East in sacred architecture as early as the time of Constantine, as is still witnessed in the oldest existing Christian church, namely, the church built by that emperor, in the earlier part of the fourth century, over the alleged tomb of our Saviour at Jerusalem.[99] For notices of the prevalence of the pointed arch in early Eastern and in Saracenic architecture, see Fergusson's _Handbook_, p. 380, 598, etc.]

[Footnote 98: In this opinion of Mr. Brash's I fully concur.--P.]

[Footnote 99: I must confess that I am very sceptical as to any portion now existing of the church of the Holy Sepulchre being of the time of Constantine, and also as to the early age of any portion of it in which a pointed arch is found. More walls of the original edifice may _possibly_ exist; but it is certain that the church was more than once modified, and the ornamental work is assuredly of a much later age.--P.]

[Footnote 100: "Alanus de Mortuo Mari, Miles, Dominus de Abirdaur, dedit omnes et totas dimidietates terrarum Villae suae de Abirdaur, Deo et Monachis de Insula Sancti Columbi, pro sepultura sibi et posteris suis in Ecclesia dicti Monasterii." (Quoted from the MS. Register or Chartulary of the Abbey by Sir Robert Sibbald in his _History of Fife_, p. 41.) The same author adds, that, in consequence of this grant to the Monastery of Inchcolm for leave of sepulture, the Earl of Murray (who represents "Stewart Abbott of Inchcolm," that sat as a lay Commendator in the Parliament of 1560, when the Confession of Faith was approved of) now possesses "the wester half of Aberdour." Sir Robert Sibbald further mentions the story that "Alain, the founder, being dead, the Monks, carrying his corpse in a coffin of lead, by barge, in the night-time, to be interred within their church, some wicked Monks did throw the samen in a great deep betwixt the land and the Monastery, which to this day, by the neighbouring fishermen and salters, is called _Mortimer's deep_." He does not give the year of the preceding grant by Alain de Mortimer, but states that "the Mortimers had this Lordship by the marriage of Anicea, only daughter and sole heiress of Dominus Joannes de Vetere Ponte or Vypont, in anno 1126." It appears to have been her husband who made the above grant. (See Nisbet's _Heraldry_, vol. i. p. 294.)]

[Footnote 101: Thus, in 1272, Richard of Inverkeithing, Chamberlain of Scotland, died, and his body was buried at Dunkeld, but his heart was deposited in the choir of the Abbey of Inchcolm. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. x. c. 30.) In Hay's _Scotia Sacra_ is a description of the sepultures on this monument in Inchcolm Church, p. 471. In 1173, Richard, chaplain to King William, died at Cramond, and was buried in Inchcolm. (Mylne's _Vitae_, p. 6.) In 1210, Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, died at Cramond, and was buried in Inchcolm. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. viii. c. 27); and four years afterwards, Bishop Leycester died also at Cramond, and was buried at Inchcolm (_Ibid._ lib. ix. c. 27). In 1265, Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, built a new choir in the church of St. Columba on Inchcolm; and in the following year the bones of three former bishops of Dunkeld were transferred and buried, two on the north, and the third on the south side of the altar in this new choir. (_Scotichronicon_, lib. x. c. 20, 21.) See also the _Extracta e Cronicis Scocie_ for other similar notices, pp. 90, 95, etc.; and Mylne's _Vitae Dunkeldensis Ecclesiae Episcoporum_, pp. 6, 9, 11, etc.]

[Footnote 102: Many, if not all of.--P.]

[Footnote 103: "There are" (observes Father Innes) "still remaining many copies of Fordun, with continuations of his history done by different hands. The chief authors were Walter Bower or Bowmaker, Abbot of Inchcolm, Patrick Russell, a Carthusian monk of Perth, _the Chronicle of Cupar_, the Continuation of Fordun, attributed to Bishop Elphinstone, in the Bodleian Library, and many others. All these were written in the fifteenth age, or in the time betwixt Fordun and Boece, by the best historians that Scotland then afforded, and unquestionably well qualified for searching into, and finding out, what remained of ancient MSS. histories anywhere hidden within the kingdom, and especially in abbeys and monasteries, they being all either abbots or the most learned churchmen or monks in their respective churches or monasteries." (Innes' _Critical Inquiry_, vol. i. p. 228.)]

[Footnote 104: I confess I have still some doubt as to this island having received its name from a church founded by S. Columba-_cill_, or that he ever resided in it, and I should like to have your present opinion upon the matter. Fordun _alone_ seems to me a very insufficient authority for a fact which is very improbable; and the legend of the seal, which I published, appears to me to be a better authority for the ancient name of the island--"_Colmanus nomine, qui ab alijs Mocholmocus._ Quia Colmoe & Colman sunt diminutiva, a _Colum._ 1. Columba, et affectus vel venerationis causa additur _mo_; et hinc _Mocholmocus_," Colgan, vol. i. p. 155. Colgan's authority is of no value, as his statement is wholly founded on Fordun. This is proved by his notice of the monastery in his catalogue of the churches founded by Columba. "Colmis-inse Monasterium canonicorum Regularium in AEmonia insula inter Edinburgum et InverKithin. _Fordonus, ibid._" As the cautious Dr. Lanigan observes--"Colgan was, to use a vulgar phrase, bewitched as to the mania of ascribing foundations of monasteries to our eminent saints." Further, it should not be forgotten that Fordun tells us that in his time the island was called "_Saint Colmy's Inche_." See the passage quoted by Ussher, _De Brit. Ec._, p. 704. Now, I know of no instance of the corruption of Columb, or Columba, into Colmy, which appears rather a corruption of Colmoc or Colman.

If this be not the Insula Colmoci of the _regal_ seal--"round seals have something royal"--where are we to find it? Not in Ireland, certainly, though our calendars record the names of two islands called Inch Mocholmoc, from saints of that name. One of these was in Leinster; the locality of the other is unknown. They also record the patron day of a St. Mocholmoc, _na hainse_, "of the island," at the 30th October. Could we find what was the patron day of the saint of Inche Colm it might help to settle the matter. One of the above saints is called Colman _Ailither_, or the pilgrim. Chattering in my discursive way, let me add that a Saint Mocholmoc appears to have been a favourite with the Danes of Dublin in the twelfth century, for we find in the lists of the Danish Kings of Dublin that of Donald MacGilloholmoch as reigning from 1125 to 1134; and another of the name is noticed by Regan as an Irish king, who lived not far from Dublin, and who offered his services to the English against the Irish and Danes in 1171. There was a Gillmeholmoc's Lane in Dublin, near Christ's Church, where, as Harris conjectures, he, or some of his family, inhabited. Did this royal Danish family adopt its surname in honour of St. Colman of Lindisfarne, of whom it must have heard a great deal during the Danish occupation of Northumbria, the kings of which were for a long time also kings of Dublin? Or may it have been from a remembrance of the shelter and honourable interment to their dead, given to their predecessors in the little island of St. Colme (or Colmoch!) something more than a century before--said island having derived its name from the Lindisfarne Saint, who may have occasionally occupied it as his desert or hermitage? I do not expect that you will not laugh at all this! but a hearty laugh is not a bad thing in this gloomy weather.--P.]

[Footnote 105: See extract in Goodall's edition of the _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 6. (footnote), and in Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, vol. ii. p. 466.]

[Footnote 106: Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland_, vol. i. p. 557.]

[Footnote 107: In Scotland we have various alleged instances of caves being thus employed as anchorite or devotional cells, and some of them still show rudely cut altars, crosses, etc.--as the so-called cave of St. Columba on the shores of Loch Killesport in North Knapdale, with an altar, a font or piscina, and a cross cut in the rock (_Origines Parochiales_, vol. ii. p. 40); the cave of St. Kieran on Loch Kilkerran in Cantyre (_Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 12); the cave of St. Ninian on the coast of Wigtonshire (_Old Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xvii. p. 594); the cave of St. Molio or Molaise, in Holy Island, in the Clyde, with Runic inscriptions on its walls (see an account of them in Dr. Daniel Wilson's admirable _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, pp. 531 to 533, etc). The island of Inchcolm pertains to Fifeshire, and in this single county there are at least four caves that are averred to have been the retreats which early Christian devotees and ascetics occupied as temporary abodes and oratories, or in which they occasionally kept their holy vigils; namely, the cave at Dunfermline, which bears the name of Malcolm Canmore's devout Saxon queen St. Margaret, and which is said to have contained formerly a stone table or altar, with "something like a crucifix" upon it (Dr. Chalmers' _Historical Account of Dunfermline_, vol. i. pp. 88, 89); the cave of St. Serf at Dysart (the name itself--Dysart--an instance, in all probability, of the "_desertum_" of the text, p. 124), in which that saint contested successfully in debate, according to the _Aberdeen Breviary_, with the devil, and expelled him from the spot (see _Breviarium Aberdonense_, Mens. Julii, fol. xv, and Mr. Muir's _Notices of Dysart_ printed for the Maitland Club, p. 3); the caves of Caplawchy, on the east Fifeshire coast, marked interiorly with rude crosses, etc., and which, according to Wynton, were inhabited for a time by "St. Adrian wyth hys cumpany" of disciples (_Orygynale Chronykel of Scotland_, book iii. c. viii.); and the cave of St. Rule at St. Andrews, containing a stone table or altar on its east side, and on its west side the supposed sleeping cell of the hermit excavated out of the rock (_Old Statistical Account_, vol. xiii. p. 202). In _Marmion_(Canto i. 29) Sir Walter Scott describes the "Palmer" as, with solemn vows to pay,

"To fair St. Andrews bound,
Within the _ocean-cave_ to pray,
Where good St. Rule his holy lay,
From midnight to the dawn of day,
Sung to the billows' sound."]

[Footnote 108: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, lib. v. cap. 12.]

[Footnote 109: _Ibid._ lib. v. c. 9. Bede further states that this anchoret subsequently went to Frisland to preach as a missionary there, but he reaped no fruit from his labours among his barbarous auditors. "Returning then (adds Bede) to the beloved place of his peregrination, he gave himself up to our Lord in his wonted repose; for since he could not be profitable to strangers by teaching them the faith, he took care to be the more useful to his own people by the example of his virtue."]

[Footnote 110: Published in 1845 by the Surtees Society, _Libellus de Vita, etc., S. Godrici_, p. 65, etc.]

[Footnote 111: _Ibid._ pp. 45 and 192.]

[Footnote 112: See Wordsworth's beautiful inscription--"For the spot where the hermitage stood on St. Herbert's island, Derwentwater."--Ed. of 1858, p. 258.--P.]

[Footnote 113: _Ibid._ footnote, p. 46.]

[Footnote 114: Bede's _Vita Sancti Cuthberti_, cap. 16, 28, 46, etc.]

[Footnote 115: _De Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus_, pp. 63 and 66.]

[Footnote 116: See, _The Flowers of the Lives of the most renowned Saincts of the Three Kingdoms_, by Hierome Porter, p. 321.]

[Footnote 117: Boece's _History and Chronicles of Scotland_, book ix. c. 17, or vol. ii. p. 98; Leslie's _De Rebus Gestis Scotorum_, lib. iv. p. 152; Dempster's _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum_, lib. ii. p. 122, or vol. i. p. 66.]

[Footnote 118: The poem alluded to is designated "De Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracencis." A copy of it is printed in Gale's _Historiae Britannicae, etc. Scriptores_, vol. iii. p. 703, _seq._ The famous author of this poem, Alcuin, who was brought up at York, and probably born there about the year 735, became afterwards, as is well known, the councillor and confidant of Charlemagne. The application to the Bass of the lines in which he describes the anchoret residence of St. Balther is evident:

Est locus undoso circumdatus undique ponto,
Rupibus horrendis praerupto et margine septus,
In quo belli potens terreno in corpore miles
Saepius aerias vincebat Balthere turmas; etc.

The Bass was not the only hermit's island on our eastern coasts which was imagined, in these credulous times, to be the occasional abode of evil spirits. According to Bede no one had dared to dwell alone on the island of Farne before St. Cuthbert selected it as his anchoret habitation, because demons resided there (propter demorantium ibi phantasias demonum). _Vita Cuthberti_, cap. 16. See also the undevilling of the cave of Dysart by St. Serf in the footnote of page 125, _supra_; and some alleged feats of St. Patrick and St. Columba in this direction in Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Four Masters_, vol. i. p. 156. Two other islands in the Firth of Forth are noted in ancient ecclesiastical history--viz., Inch May and Inch Keith. "The ile of May, decorit (to use the words of Bellenden) with the blude and martirdome of Sanct Adriane and his fallowis," was the residence of that Hungarian missionary and his disciples when they were attacked and murdered about the year 874 by the Danes (Bellenden's _Translation of Boece's History_, vol. i. p. 37); see also vol. ii. p. 206; Dempster's _Historia Eccl. Gentis Scotorum_, lib. i. 17, and vol. i. p. 20; and Fordun, in the _Scotichronicon_, lib. i. c. vi., where he describes "Maya, prioratus cujus est cella canonicorum Sancti Andreae de Raymonth; ubi requiescit Sanctus Adrianus, cum centum sociis suis sanctis martyribus." Inch Keith is enumerated by Dr. Reeves (_Preface to Life of Columba_, p. 66) as one of the Scotch churches of St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona from A.D. 679 to 704, and the biographer of St. Columba[119]--Fordun having long ago described it as a place "in qua praefuit Sanctus Adamnanus abbas, qui honorifice suscepit Sanctum Servanum, cum sociis suis, in ipsa insula, ad primum suum adventum in Scotiam." Andrew Wynton, himself the Prior of St. Serf's Isle in Lochlevin, describes also, in his old metrical _Orygynale Chronykil of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 128, this apocryphal meeting of the two saints

"at Inchkeith,
The ile betweene Kingorne and Leth."

_The Breviary of Aberdeen_, in alluding to this meeting, points out that the St. Serf received by Adamnan was not the St. Serf of the Dysart Cave, and hence also not the baptiser of St. Kentigern at Culross, as told in the legend of his mother, St. Thenew, or St. Thenuh--a female saint whose very existence the good Presbyterians of Glasgow had so entirely lost sight of, that centuries ago they unsexed the very name of the church dedicated to her in that city, and came to speak of it under the uncanonical appellation of St. Enoch's. This first St. Serf and Adamnan lived two centuries, at least, apart. In these early days Inch Keith was a place of no small importance, if it be--as some (see Macpherson's _Geographical Illustrations of Scottish History_) have supposed--the "urbs Giudi" of Bede, which he speaks of as standing in the midst of the eastern firth, and contrasts with Alcluith or Dumbarton, standing on the side of the western firth. The Scots and Picts were, he says, divided from the Britons "by two inlets of the sea (duobus sinibus maris) lying betwixt them, both of which run far and broad into the land of Britain, one from the Eastern, and the other from the Western Ocean, though they do not reach so as to touch one another. The eastern has in _the midst of it_ the city of Giudi (Orientalis habit in medio sui _urbem Giudi_). The western has on it, that is, on the right hand thereof (ad dextram sui), the city of Alchuith, which in their language means the 'Rock of Cluith,' for it is close by the river of that name (Clyde)." (Bede's _Hist. Ecclesiast._, book i. c. xii.) In reference to the supposed identification of Inch Keith and this "urbs Giudi," let me add (1.) that Bede's description (in medio sui) as strongly applies to the Island of Garvie, or Inch Garvie, lying midway between the two Queensferries: (2.) it is perhaps worthy of note that the term "Giudi" is in all probability a Pictish proper name, one of the kings of the Picts being surnamed "Guidi," or rather "Guidid" (see Pinkerton's _Inquiry into the History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 287, and an extract from the _Book of Ballymote_, p. 504); and (3.) that the word "urbs," in the language of Bede, signifies a place important, not so much for its size as from its military or ecclesiastic rank, for thus he describes the rock (petra) of Dumbarton as the "urbs Alcluith," and Coldingham as the "urbs Coludi" (_Hist. Eccl._, lib. iv. c. 19. etc.),--the Saxon noun "_ham_" house or village, having, in this last instance, been in former times considered a sufficient appellative for a place to which Bede applies the Latin designation of "urbs."]

[Footnote 119: As I have not the _Life of Columba_ at hand to refer to, I must assume that so able an archaeologist as my friend Dr. Reeves had sufficient authority for this statement. If it rested only on Fordun or Wynton, I should deem their authority insufficient to establish as a fact what seems to me so improbable. Assuming the story to have had a foundation, might not the real Adamnan have been the priest and monk of the monastery of Coludi or Coldingham, of whom Bede has written? Coldingham, in his time, belonged to the Northumbrian kingdom.--P.]

[Footnote 120: See his edition of Adamnan's _Life of Saint Columba_, p. 366.]

[Footnote 121: Colgan refers to the Life of _S. Fintani Eremita ad 15 Novemb., Tr. T._, p. 606:--"Tir mille anachoritas in Momonia est. S. Hibaro Episcopo cujusdam quaestionis decidendae causa simul collect [illegible] & Angelus Dei ad convivium a S. Brigida Christo paratum invitativies had so in auxilium per Jesum Christum." Quoted from the _Book of Litanies of S. AEngus_, on the same page.

See also the _Summary of the Saints_ in that _Litany_ in Ward's _Vita S. Rumoldi_, pp. 204, 205.

In short, the notices of deserts, hermits, and anchorites to be found, lives of saints, etc. etc., are innumerable.--P.]

[Footnote 122: I think it very improbable, if the monastery founded by Alexander be meant.--P.]

[Footnote 123: This is no fit place to discuss the ages of the two Round Towers of Brechin and Abernethy. But it may perhaps prove interesting to some future antiquary if it is here mentioned, that when Dr. Petrie, in his _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_ (p. 410), gives "about the year 1020"[124] as the probable date of the erection of the Bound Tower of Brechin, he chiefly relied--as he has mentioned to me, when conversing upon the subject,--for this approach to the era of its building, upon that entry in the ancient _Chronicon de Regibus Scotorum_, etc., published by Innes, in which it is stated that King Kenneth MacMalcolm, who reigned from A.D. 971 to A.D. 994, "tribuit magnam civitatem Brechne domino." (See the Chronicon in Innes' _Critical Inquiry_, vol. ii. p. 788.) The peculiarities of architecture in the Round Tower of Brechin assimilate it much with the Irish Bound Towers of Donoughmore and Monasterboice, both of which Dr. Petrie believes to have been built in or about the tenth century. If we could, in such a question, rely upon the authority of Hector Boece, the Round Tower of Brechin is at least a few years older than the probable date assigned to it by Dr. Petrie. For, in describing the inroads of the Danes into Forfarshire about A.D. 1012, he tells us that these invaders destroyed and burned down the town of Brechin, and all its great church, except "_turrim quandam rotundam_ mira arte constructam." (_Scotorum Historiae_, lib. xi. 251, of Paris Edit, of 1526.)[125] This reference to the Round Tower of Brechin has escaped detection, perhaps because it has been omitted by Bellenden and Holinshed in their translations. No historical notices, I believe, exist, tending to fix in any probable way the exact age of the Round Tower of Abernethy; but one or two circumstances bearing upon the inquiry are worthy of note. We are informed, both by the _Chronicon Pictorum_ and by Bede, that in the eighth or ninth year of his reign, or about A.D. 563, Brude, King of the Picts, embraced Christianity under the personal teaching of St. Columba. At Brude's death, in 586, Garnard succeeded, and reigned till 597; and he was followed by Nectan II., who reigned till 617. Fordun (_Scotichronicon_, lib. iv. cap. 12) and Wynton (book v. ch. 12), both state that King Garnard founded the collegiate Church of Abernethy; and Fordun further adds that he had found this information in a chronicle of the Church of Abernethy itself, which, is now lost; "in quadam Chronica ecclesiae de Abirnethy reperimus." But the register of the Priory of St. Andrews mentions Garnard's successor on the Pictish throne, Nectan II., as the builder of Abernethy, "hic aedificavit Abernethyn" (Innes' _Critical Inquiry_, p. 800). The probability is, that Garnard, towards the end of his reign, founded and commenced the building of the church establishment of Abernethy, and that it was concluded and consecrated in the early part of the reign of Nectan. The church was dedicated to St. Brigid; and the _Chronicon Pictorum_ (Innes' _Inquiry_, p. 778), in ascribing its foundation to Nectan I. (about A.D. 455) instead of Nectan II., commits a palpable anachronism, and very evident error, as St. Brigid did not die till a quarter of the next century had elapsed. (_Annals of the Four Masters_ under the year 525; Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 619.) Again, according to the more certain evidence of Bede, another Pictish king, still of the name of Nectan (Naitanus Rex Pictorum), despatched messengers, about the year 710, to Ceolfrid, Abbot of Bede's own Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, requesting, among other matters, that architects should be sent to him to build in his country a church of stone, according to the manner of the Romans et architectos sibi mitti petiit, qui juxta morem Romanorum ecclesiam in lapide in gente ipsius facerent. (_Hist. Eccles._, lib. v. c. xxi.) Forty years previously, St. Benedict or Biscop, the first Abbot of Jarrow, had brought there from Gaul, masons (caementarios) to build for him "ecclesiam lapideam juxta Romanorum morem." (See Bede's _Vita Beatorum Abbatum_.) Now it is probable that the Round Tower of Abernethy was not built in connection with the church established there by the Pictish kings at the beginning of the seventh century, for no such structures seem to have been erected in connection with Pictish churches in any other part of the Pictish kingdom; and if at Abernethy, the capital of the Picts, a Round Tower had been built in the seventh century of stone and lime, the Abbot of Jarrow would scarcely have been asked in the eighth century, by a subsequent Pictish king, to send architects to show the mode of erecting a church of stone in his kingdom. Nor is it in the least degree more likely that these ecclesiastic builders, invited by King Nectan in the early years of the eighth century, erected themselves the Round Tower of Abernethy; for the building of such towers was, if not totally unknown, at least totally unpractised by the ecclesiastic architects of England and France within their own countries.[126] The Scotic or Scoto-Irish race became united with the Picts into one kingdom in the year 843, under King Kenneth MacAlpine, a lineal descendant and representative of the royal chiefs who led the Dalriadic colony from Antrim to Argyleshire, about A.D. 506. (See the elaborate genealogical table of the Scottish Dalriadic kings in Dr. Reeves' edition of _Adamnan's Life of Columba_, p. 438.) The purely "Scotic period" of our history, as it has been termed, dates from this union of the Picts and Scots under Kenneth MacAlpine in 843, till Malcolm Canmore ascended the throne in 1057; and there is every probability that the Round Towers of Abernethy and Brechin were built during the period between these two dates, or during the regime of the intervening Scotic or Scoto-Irish kings,--in imitation of the numerous similar structures belonging to their original mother-church in Ireland. We may feel very certain, also, that they were not erected later than the commencement of the twelfth century, for by that date the Norman or Romanesque style,--which presents no such structures as the Irish Round Towers, was apparently in general use in ecclesiastic architecture in Scotland, under the pious patronage of Queen Margaret Atheling and her three crowned sons. Abernethy--now a small village--was for centuries a royal and pontifical city, and the capital of a kingdom, "fuit locus ille sedes principalis, regalis, et pontificalis, totius regni Pictorum" (Goodall's _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 189); but all its old regal and ecclesiastical buildings have utterly vanished, with the exception only of its solitary and venerable Round Tower. And perhaps the preservation of the Round Tower in this, and in numerous instances in Ireland, amidst the general ruin and devastation which usually surround them, is owing to the simple circumstance that these Towers--whatever were their uses and objects--were structures which, in consequence of their remarkable combination of extreme tallness and slenderness, required to be constructed from the first of the very best and strongest, and consequently of the most durable building materials which could be procured; while the one-storeyed or two-storeyed wood-roofed churches, and other low and lighter ecclesiastical edifices with which they were associated, demanded far less strength in the original construction of their walls, and consequently have, under the dilapidating effects of centuries, much more speedily crumbled down and perished.]

[Footnote 124: The recollection of the error which I made by a carelessness not in such matters usual with me, in assigning this date 1020 instead of between the years 971 and 994, as I ought to have done, has long given me annoyance, and a lesson never to trust to memory in dates; for it was thus I fell into the mistake. I had the year 1020 on my mind, which is the year assigned by Pinkerton for the writing of the _Chron. Pictorum_, and, without stopping to remember or to refer, I took it for granted that it was the year of Kenneth's death, or rather his gift.--P.]

[Footnote 125: I congratulate you warmly on the discovery of this interesting and most valuable notice. Surely Boece could have had no object to serve by forging such a statement, nor had he such antiquarian knowledge as would have enabled him to forge a statement so consistent with the conclusion fairly to be drawn from the entry in the chronicle, and the characteristics of the architecture of the tower itself. It appears to me that no rational scepticism can in future be indulged as to the conclusion that the erection of this beautiful tower must be referred to the last quarter of the tenth century.--P.]

[Footnote 126: The determining the age of the Brechin tower--a question which I consider as now settled--must go far towards enabling us to come to a right conclusion as to the age of the tower of Abernethy; for I think that no one possessed of ordinary powers of observation and comparison, who has examined both, can for a moment doubt that the age of the Abernethy tower is much greater than that of the tower of Brechin. This is the opinion which I formed many years ago, after a very careful examination of the architectural peculiarities of each; and I came to the conclusion that the safest opinion which could be indulged as to the age of the Abernethy tower was, that it had been erected during the reign of the third Nectan, _i.e._ between 712 and 727, and by those Northumbrian architects of the monastery of Jarrow, for whose assistance that king, according to the high authority of Bede, had applied to build for him in his capital a stone church in the Roman style. In the features of that style, during the eighth century, as exhibited in its doorway, and, still more, its upper apertures, this tower appeared to stand alone--there is nothing similar to it to be seen either in Scotland or Ireland. The tower of Brechin has indeed a Romanesque doorway, but it is plainly of a later age, and its other features are quite Irish. The circumstance of the Abernethy doorway being placed on a level with the ground, and not, as almost universally, at a considerable height from it, seemed also to support this opinion, as it indicated that the erection of the tower was of a period anterior to the irruption of the Northmen, which rendered such a defensive feature an imperative necessity. I cannot agree with you in opinion as to the cause assigned for the preservation of the towers; for, in the first place, it is not true that their materials were stronger or better, or their construction in any way different from that of the churches with which they were connected, as proved by numerous examples in Ireland. Their walls are rarely found of greater thickness than those of their contemporaneous churches, where such have remained; and in all such cases the character of the masonry is identical. The cause which I should rather assign for this greater longevity would be their rotundity, and still more, their superior altitude. A church of moderate size, and humble height, might be easily injured, or even destroyed, by neighbouring or foreign assailants, but the destruction of a tower, or even its injury, beyond the burning of its wooden floors and doorway, would be a tedious and difficult labour, requiring ladders, with which we are not to suppose the incendiaries came provided; and hence their worst antagonist was found to be the flame from heaven.--P.]

[Footnote 127: Might not _oratory_ be a safer term than _habitation_? Surely the clochans or monks' houses, called _stone pyramids_ by Martin, in St. Kilda, and of which many are still perfect, are as old as Christianity in the _north_ of Scotland, or as any similar buildings to be found in Ireland.--P.]

ON THE CAT-STANE, KIRKLISTON.

The Mediaeval Archaeology of Scotland is confessedly sadly deficient in _written_ documents. From the decline of Roman records and rule, onward through the next six or eight centuries, we have very few, or almost no written data to guide us in Scottish historical or antiquarian inquiries. Nor have we any numismatic evidence whatever to appeal to. In consequence of this literary dearth, the roughest lapidary inscriptions, belonging to these dark periods of our history, come to be invested with an interest much beyond their mere intrinsic value. The very want of other contemporaneous lettered documents and data imparts importance to the rudest legends cut on our ancient lettered stones. For even brief and meagre tombstone inscriptions rise into matters of historical significance, when all the other literary chronicles and annals of the men and of the times to which these inscriptions belong have, in the lapse of ages, been destroyed and lost.

It is needless to dwell here on the well-known fact, that in England and Scotland there have been left by the Roman soldiers and colonists who occupied our island during the first four centuries of the Christian era, great numbers of inscribed stones. British antiquarian and topographical works abound with descriptions and drawings of these Roman lapidary writings. But of late years another class or series of lapidary records has been particularly attracting the attention of British antiquaries,--viz., inscribed stones of a late Roman or post-Roman period. The inscriptions on this latter class of stones are almost always, if not always, sepulchral. The characteristically rude letters in which they are written consist--in the earliest stones--of debased Roman capitals; and--in the latest--of the uncial or minuscule forms of letters which are used in the oldest English and Irish manuscripts. Some stones show an intermixture of both alphabetical characters. These "Romano-British" inscribed stones, as they have been usually termed, have hitherto been found principally in Wales, in Cornwall, and in West Devon. In the different parts of the Welsh Principality, nearly one hundred, I believe, have already been discovered. In Scotland, which is so extremely rich in ancient sculptured stones, very few inscribed stones are as yet known; but if a due and diligent search be instituted, others, no doubt, will betimes be brought to light.

An inscribed Scottish stone of the class I allude to is situated in the county of Edinburgh, and has been long known under the name of the Cat-stane or Battle-stone. Of its analogy with the earliest class of Romano-British inscribed stones found in Wales, I was not fully aware till I had an opportunity of examining last year, at the meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Society, a valuable collection of rubbings and drawings of these Welsh stones, brought forward by that excellent antiquary, Mr. Longueville Jones; and afterwards, _in situ_, one or two of the stones themselves. I venture, in the following remarks, to direct the attention of the Society to the Cat-stane, partly in consequence of this belief in its analogy with the earliest Welsh inscribed stones; partly, also, in order to adduce an old and almost unknown description of the Cat-stane, made in the last years of the seventeenth century, by a gentleman who was perhaps the greatest antiquary of his day; and partly because I have a new conjecture to offer as to the historical personage commemorated in the inscription, and, consequently, as to the probable age of the inscription itself.

_Site and Description of the Stone._

The Cat-stane stands in the parish of Kirkliston, on the farm of Briggs,[128] in a field on the north side of the road to Linlithgow, and between the sixth and seventh milestone from Edinburgh. It is placed within a hundred yards of the south bank of the Almond; nearly half-a-mile below the Boathouse Bridge; and about three miles above the entrance of the stream into the Firth of Forth, at the old Roman station of Cramond, or Caer Amond. The monument is located in nearly the middle of the base of a triangular fork of ground formed by the meeting of the Gogar Water with the river Almond. The Gogar flows into the Almond about six or seven hundred yards below the site of the Cat-stane.[129] The ground on which the Cat-stane stands is the beginning of a ridge slightly elevated above the general level of the neighbouring fields. The stone itself consists of a massive unhewn block of the secondary greenstone-trap of the district, many large boulders of which lie in the bed of the neighbouring river. In form it is somewhat prismatic, or irregularly triangular, with its angles very rounded. This large monolith is nearly twelve feet in circumference, about four feet five inches in width, and three feet three inches in thickness. Its height above ground is about four feet and a half. The Honourable Mrs. Ramsay of Barnton, upon whose son's property the monument stands, very kindly granted liberty, last year, for an examination by digging beneath and around the stone. The accompanying woodcut is a copy of a sketch, made at the time, by my friend Mr. Drummond, of the stone as exposed when pursuing this search around its exposed basis. We found the stone to be a block seven feet three inches in total length, and nearly three feet buried in the soil. It was placed upon a basis of stones, forming apparently the remains of a built stone grave, which contained no bones[130] or other relics, and that had very evidently been already searched and harried. I shall indeed have immediately occasion to cite a passage proving that a century and a half ago the present pillarstone was surrounded, like some other ancient graves, by a circular range of large flat-laid stones; and when this outer circle was removed,--if not before,--the vicinity and base of the central pillar were very probably dug into and disturbed.

_Different Readings of the Inscription._

The inscription upon the stone is cut on the upper half of the eastern and narrowest face of the triangular monolith. Various descriptions of the legend have been given by different authors. The latest published account of it is that given by Professor Daniel Wilson in his work on _Scottish Archaeology_. He disposes of the stone and its inscription in the two following short sentences:--"A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted Catt Stane in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely-lettered inscription--the work, most probably, of much younger hands than those that reared the mass of dark whinstone on which it is cut--IN [H]OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA.. VICTR.. About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stane a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons; but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared."[131]

In the tenth volume of the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, collected by Sir John Sinclair, and published in 1794, the Rev. Mr. John Muckarsie, in giving an account of the parish of Kirkliston, alludes in a note to the "Cat-stane standing on the farm of that name in this parish." In describing it he observes "The form is an irregular prism, with the following inscription on the south-east face, deeply cut in the stone, in a most uncouth manner:--

IN OC T
VMVLO IACI
VETTA D
VICTA

We are informed," continues Mr. Muckarsie, "by Buchanan and other historians, that there was a bloody battle fought near this place, on the banks of the Almond, in the year 995, between Kennethus, natural brother and commander of the forces of Malcolm II., King of Scotland, and Constantine, the usurper of that crown, wherein both the generals were killed. About two miles higher up the river, on the Bathgate road, is a circular mound of earth (of great antiquity, surrounded with large unpolished stones, at a considerable distance from each other, evidently intended in memory of some remarkable event). The whole intermediate space, from the human bones dug up, and graves of unpolished stones discovered below the surface, seems to have been the scene of many battles."[132]

In the discourse which the Earl of Buchan gave in 1780 to a meeting called together for the establishment of the present Society of Scottish Antiquaries, his Lordship took occasion to allude to the Cat-stane when wishing to point out how monuments, rude as they are, "lead us to correct the uncertain accounts which have been handed down by the monkish writers." "Accounts, for example, have (he observes) been given of various conflicts which took place towards the close of the tenth century between Constantine IV. and Malcolm, the general of the lawful heir of the Scottish Crown, on the banks of the River Almond, and decided towards its confluence to the sea, near Kirkliston. Accordingly, from Mid-Calder, anciently called Calder-comitis, to Kirkliston, the banks of the river are filled with the skeletons of human bodies, and the remains of warlike weapons; and opposite to Carlowrie there is a well-known stone near the margin of the river, called by the people _Catt Stane_. The following inscription was legible on the stone in the beginning of this (the eighteenth) century; and the note of the inscription I received from the Rev. Mr. Charles Wilkie, minister of the parish of Ecclesmachan, whose father, Mr. John Wilkie, minister of the parish of Uphall, whilst in his younger days an inhabitant of Kirkliston, had carefully transcribed:--

IN HOC TUM . JAC . CONSTAN . VIC . VICT."[133]

Lord Buchan adduces this alleged copy of the Cat-stane inscription as valuable from having been taken early in the last century. The copy of the inscription, though averred to be old, is, as we shall see in the sequel, doubtlessly most inaccurate. And there exist accounts of the inscription both older and infinitely more correct and trustworthy.

The oldest and most important notice of the Cat-stane and its inscription that I know of is published in a work where few would expect to find it--viz., in the _Mona Antiqua Restaurata_ of the Rev. Mr. Rowlands. It is contained in a letter addressed to that gentleman by the distinguished Welsh archaeologist, Edward Lhwyd. The date of Mr. Lhwyd's letter is "Sligo, March 12th, 1699-1700." A short time previously he had visited Scotland, and "collected a considerable number of inscriptions." At that time the Cat-stane was a larger and much more imposing monument than it is now, as shown in the following description of it. "One monument," says he, "I met with within four miles of Edinburgh, different from all I had seen elsewhere, and never observed by their antiquaries. I take it to be the tomb of some Pictish king; though situate by a river side, remote enough from any church. It is an area of about seven yards diameter, raised a little above the rest of the ground, and encompassed with large stones; all which stones are laid length-wise, excepting one larger than ordinary, which is pitched on end, and contains this inscription in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETTA F. VICTI. This the common people call the _Cat-Stene_, whence I suspect the person's name was _Getus_, of which name I find three Pictish kings; for the names pronounced by the Britons with _G_, were written in Latin with _V_, as we find by Gwyrtheyrn, Gwyrthefyr, and Gwythelyn, which were written in Latin Vortigernus, Vortimerus, and Vitelinus."[134]

Besides writing the preceding note to Dr. Rowland regarding the Cat-stane, Mr. Lhwyd, at the time of his visit, took a sketch of the inscription itself. In the _Philosophical Transactions_ for February 1700, this sketch of the Cat-stane inscription was, with eight others, published by Dr. Musgrave, in a brief communication entitled, "An Account of some Roman, French, and Irish Inscriptions and Antiquities, lately found in Scotland and Ireland, by Mr. Edward Lhwyd, and communicated to the publisher from Mr. John Hicks of Trewithier, in Cornwall." The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 15) is an exact copy of Mr. Lhwyd's sketch, as published in the _Philosophical Transactions_. In the very brief communication accompanying it, the Cat-stane is shortly described as "A Pictish monument near Edinburgh, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETA F. VICTI. This the common people call the Ket-stean; note that the British names beginning with the letter Gw began in Latin with V [and the three examples given by Lhwyd in his letter to Dr. Rowland follow]. So I suppose (it is added) this person's name was Gweth or Geth, of which name were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of Ketstone."[135]

In the course of the last century, notices or readings of the Cat-stane inscription, more or less similar to the account of it in the _Philosophical Transactions_, were published by different writers, as by Sir Robert Sibbald, in 1708,[136]--by Maitland, in 1753,[137]--by Pennant, in his journey through Scotland in 1772,[138]--and by Gough, in 1789, in the third volume of his edition of Camden's _Britannia_.[139]

All the four authors whom I have quoted agree as to the reading of the inscription, and give the two names mentioned in it, as VETTA and VICTI. But in printing the first of these names, VETTA, Maitland and Pennant, following perhaps the text in the _Philosophical Transactions_, carelessly spell it with a single instead of a double T; and Gough makes the first vowel in VICTI an E instead of an I. Sir Robert Sibbald gives as a K the mutilated terminal letter in the third line, which Mr. Lhwyd deciphered as an F. Sibbald's account of the stone and its inscription, in 1708, is short but valuable, as affording an old independent reading of the legend. It is contained in his folio essay or work entitled, _Historical Inquiries Concerning the Roman Monuments and Antiquities in Scotland_ (p. 50). "Close (says he) by Kirkliston water, upon the south side, there is a square pillar over against the Mannor of Carlowry with this inscription:--

IN OC TV
MVLO IACIT
VETTA K
VICTI

This (Sibbald continues) seemeth to have been done in later times than the former inscriptions [viz., those left in Scotland by the Romans]. Whether it be a Pictish monument or not is uncertain; the vulgar call it the CAT _Stane_."

Mr. Gough, when speaking of the stone in the latter part of the last century, states that the inscription upon it was "not now legible." It is certainly still even sufficiently legible and entire to prove unmistakably the accuracy of the reading of it given upwards of a century and a half ago by Lhwyd and Sibbald. The letters come out with special distinctness when examined with the morning sun shining on them; and indeed few ancient inscriptions in this country, not protected by being buried, are better preserved,--a circumstance owing principally to the very hard and durable nature of the stone itself, and the depth to which the letters have been originally cut. The accompanying woodcut is taken from a photograph of the stone by my friend Dr. Paterson, and very faithfully represents the inscription. The surface of the stone upon which the letters are carved has weathered and broken off in some parts; particularly towards the right-hand edge of the inscription. This process of disintegration has more or less affected the terminal letters of the four lines of the inscriptions. Yet, out of the twenty-six letters composing the legend, twenty are still comparatively entire and perfectly legible; four are more or less defective; and two nearly obliterated. The two which are almost obliterated consist of the first V in TVMVLO, constituting the terminal letter of the first line, and the last vowel I, or rather, judging from the space it occupies, E in JACIT. A mere impress of the site of the bars of the V is faintly traceable by the eye and finger, though the letter came out in the photograph. Only about an inch of the middle portion of the upright bar of I or E in JACIT can be traced by sight or touch. In this same word, also, the lower part of the C and the cross stroke of the T is defective. But even if the inscription had not been read when these letters were more entire, such defects in particular letters are not assuredly of a kind to make any palaeographer entertain a doubt as to the two words in which these defects occur being TVMVLO and JACIT.