Adamnan (d. 704), the ninth successor of Columba, in consequence of a visit to the Saxons,
conformed his observance of Easter to the Roman Church; but his brethren refused to follow him
in this change. After his death, the community of Iona became divided on the Easter question, until
the Columban monks, who adhered to the old custom, were by royal command expelled (715).
With this expulsion terminates the primacy of Iona in the kingdom of the Picts.
The monastic church was broken up or subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular clergy.
§ 19. The Culdees.
After the expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom of the Picts in the eighth century,
the term Culdee or Ceile De, or Kaledei, first appears in history, and has given rise to much
controversy and untenable theories.^92 It is of doubtful origin, but probably means servants or
worshippers of God.^93 it was applied to anchorites, who, in entire seclusion from society, sought
the perfection of sanctity. They succeeded the Columban monks. They afterwards associated
themselves into communities of hermits, and were finally brought under canonical rule along with
the secular clergy, until at length the name of Culdee became almost synonymous with that of
secular canon.
The term Culdee has been improperly applied to the whole Keltic church, and a superior
purity has been claimed for it.
There is no doubt that the Columban or the Keltic church of Scotland, as well as the early
Irish and the early British churches, differed in many points from the mediaeval and modern church
of Rome, and represent a simpler and yet a very active missionary type of Christianity.
The leading peculiarities of the ancient Keltic church, as distinct from the Roman, are:
- Independence of the Pope. Iona was its Rome, and the Abbot of Iona, and afterwards of Dunkeld,
though a mere Presbyter, ruled all Scotland. - Monasticism ruling supreme, but mixed with secular life, and not bound by vows of celibacy;
while in the Roman church the monastic system was subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular
clergy. - Bishops without dioceses and jurisdiction and succession.
- Celebration of the time of Easter.
- Form of the tonsure.
(^92) To Adamnan and to Bede, the name was entirely unknown. Skene (II. 226) says: "In the whole range of ecclesiastical
history there is nothing more entirely destitute of authority than the application of this name to the Columban monks of the
sixth and seventh centuries, or more utterly baseless than the fabric which has been raised upon that assumption." The most
learned and ingenious construction of an imaginary Protestant Culdee Church was furnished by Ebrard and McLauchlan.
(^93) The word Culdee is variously derived from the Gaelic Gille De, servant of God; from the Keltic Cuil or Ceal, retreat,
recess, and Cuildich, men of the recess (Jamieson, McLauchlan, Cunningham); from the Irish Ceile De, the spouse of God
(Ebrard), or the servant of God (Reeves); from the Irish Culla, cowl, i.e. the black monk; from the Latin Deicola, cultores Dei
(Colidei), worshippers of God the Father, in distinction from Christicolae (Calechrist in Irish), or ordinary Christians (Skene);
from the Greekκελλεω̑ται, men of the cells (Goodall). The earliest Latin form is Kaledei. in Irish Keile as a substantive means
socius maritus, also servus. On the name, see Braun, De Culdeis, Bonn, 1840, McLauchlan pp. 175 sq.; Ebrard pp. 2 sq., and
Skene, II. 238.