Culdees
Culdees
(Gaelic: ceile, servant; De, of God) Their origin is unknown, but they first appear as holy men who loved solitude and lived by the labor of their hands in Ireland and Scotland. Gradually they came together in community, and, though never attaining the position of a religious order, they replaced the Columban monasticism. Saint Maelruan drew up rules for the Culdees of Tallaght, Ireland , but there is no evidence that this rule was widely accepted. In the 8th century secular priests were added, who lived according to monastic rules. At Clonmacnoise, Ireland , in the 11th century the Culdees were laymen and married, while those at Monahincha and Scattery Island gave way to the regular canons. At Armagh regular canons were introduced into the cathedral church and henceforth took precedence of the Culdees; but six of the latter continued a corporate existence, and these Armagh Culdees long outlived their brethren in Ireland , dying out about 1603 . Their estates were given to a new Protestant body of 8 members, called “vicars choral,” incorporated in 1627 by Charles I, which body, reduced to two members, exists at the Protestant cathedral of Armagh today (1923 ). In 1633 the last mention is made of the Catholic Culdees in the announcement of Archbishop Hugh O’Reilly, the Catholic primate, that he had incorporated the College of Culdees in the Catholic Cathedral Chapter of Armagh . There was one English establishment at York. Its date of disappearance is unknown, as is that of the single house at Bardsey, Wales. The 300 years dating from 750 may be called the Culdee period of the Church in Scotland. It was this “Culdean Church” which Saint Margaret found when she came from England , 1067, to marry King Malcolm Canmore, and while she lived they retained their position fully. The predominant influence they once had in affairs of Church and State steadily decreased from c.1332 with the advent of newer religious orders and Norman chivalry. The history of the 13 establishments in Scotland is almost identical with that of the Irish houses; gradually all of them converged on Saint Andrews (the primatial see) before the Reformation; they finally disappeared in 1616 when their lands were annexed to the See of Saint Andrews.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Culdees
A word so frequently met with in histories of the medieval Churches of Ireland and Scotland, and so variously understood and applied, that a well-informed writer (Reeves) describes it as the best-abused word in Scotic church-history. The etymology of the term, the persons designated by it, their origin, their doctrines, the rule or rules under which they lived, the limits of their authority and privileges have all been matters of controversy; and on these questions much learning and ability has been shown, and not a little partizan zeal. In the Irish language the word was written Ceile-De, meaning companion, or even spouse, of God, with the Latin equivalent in the plural, Colidei, anglicized into Culdees; in Scotland it was often written Kelidei. All admit that, in the beginning at all events, the Culdees were separated from the mass of the faithful, that their lives were devoted to religion, and that they lived in community. But the Scotch writers, unwilling to trace the name to an Irish source, prefer to derive it from “cultores Dei”, worshippers of God, or from cuil, a shelter, or from kil, a church. The Irish derivation, however, is the easiest and the most natural, and the one now generally accepted. From Ceile-De the transition is easy to Colideus and Culdee; and in the Irish annals the epithet Ceile-De is appropriately given to St. John, one of the twelve Apostles, to a missioner from abroad whose coming to Ireland is recorded in the Four Masters at the year 806, and to Aengus (q.v.), the well-known monk and author of Tallaght, whose penances and mortifications, whose humility, piety, and religious zeal, would specially mark him out as the companion of God.
Taking him as an example of the class to which he belonged, probably the highest example which could be given, when we remember the character of his life, we find that the Culdees were holy men who loved solitude and lived by the labour of their hands. Gradually they came together in community, still occupying separate cells, still much alone and in communion with God, but meeting in the refectory and in the church, and giving obedience to a common superior. St. Maelruan, under whom Aengus lived, and who died as early as 792, drew up a rule for the Culdees of Tallaght which prescribed the time and manner of their prayers, fasts, and devotions, the frequency with which they ought to go to confession, the penances to be imposed for faults committed. But we have no evidence that this rule was widely accepted even in the other Culdean establishments. Nor could the Culdees at any time be said to have attained to the position of a religious order, composed of many houses, scattered over many lands, bound by a common rule, revering the memory and imitating the virtues of their founder, and looking to the parent house from which they sprang, as the children of Columbanus looked to Luxeuil or Bobbio, or the Columban monks looked to Iona. After the death of Maelruan Tallaght is forgotten, and the name Ceile-De disappears from the Irish annals until 919, when the Four Masters record that Armagh was plundered by the Danes, but that the houses of prayer, “with the people of God, that is Ceile-De”, were spared. Subsequent entries in the annals show that there were Culdees at Clonmacnoise, Clondalken, and Clones, at Monahincha in Tipperary, and at Scattery Island.
To those of the eighth century, such as were represented by Aengus, were soon added secular priests who assumed the name of Culdees, lived in community, subjected themselves to monastic discipline, but were not bound by monastic vows. Such an order of priests had, in the middle of the eighth century, been founded at Metz. As they lived according to rules and canons of councils, they came to be called secular canons and were usually attached to collegiate or cathedral churches. They became popular and quickly extended even to Ireland, and it is significant that in the accounts given of the Culdee establishments at Clones, Devenish, and Scattery Island, Culdee and canon are taken as convertible terms. The Danish wars, which brought ruin on so many proud monastic establishments, easily effected the destruction of the Culdee houses with their feebler resisting powers. Some such as Clondalken and Clones, disappeared altogether, or dragged out a miserable existence which differed little from death. At Clonmacnoise, as early as the eleventh century, the Culdees were laymen and married, while those at Monahincha and Scattery Island being utterly corrupt and unable, or unwilling, to reform, gave way to the regular canons, with their [p. 564] purer morals and stricter discipline. (See CANONS AND CANONESSES REGULAR.)
Those at Armagh were more tenacious of existence. Like their brethren throughout Ireland, they had felt the corrupting influence of the Danish wars; and while lay abbots ruled at Armagh the Culdees had so far departed from their primitive piety that in the twelfth century regular canons were introduced in to the cathedral church and henceforth took precedence of the Culdees. But the latter, six in number, a prior and five vicars, still continued a corporate existence at Armagh. They were specially charged with the celebration of the Divine offices and the care of the church building, had separate lands, and sometimes had charges of parishes. When a chapter was formed, about 1160, the prior usually filled the office of precentor, his brethren being vicars choral, and himself ranking in the chapter next to the chancellor. He was elected by his brother Culdees and confirmed by the primate, and had a voice in the election of the archbishop by virtue of his position in the chapter. As Ulster was the last of the Irish provinces to be brought effectually under English rule, the Armagh Culdees long outlived their brethren throughout Ireland. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign, however, they had died out, and in 1628, a new body was incorporated by Charles I – the “Prior and Vicars Choral” of the cathedral church of Armagh – to which were transferred the lands formerly held by the Culdees. Five years later, the Catholic primate, O’Reilly, announced to Rome that he had been elected “Prior of the College of the Culdees”, and he wanted to know if in assuming the title he had acted in accordance with canon law. We do not know what was the nature of the answer he received, but this is the last mention made of the Irish Culdees.
At York was their only English establishment, where they performed in the tenth century the double duty of officiating in the cathedral church and of relieving the sick and poor. When a new cathedral arose under a Norman archbishop, they ceased their connexion with the cathedral, but, with resources augmented by many donations, they continued to relieve the destitute. The date at which they finally disappeared is unknown. Nor do we know the fate of the single Culdean house in Wales, which existed at Bardsey in the days of Giraldus Cambrensis. In Scotland they were more numerous even than in Ireland. No less than thirteen monastic establishments were peopled by them, eight of which were in connexion with cathedral churches. National pride induced some of the Scotch writers to assert that the Culdees were Scotch and not Irish. But the influence of Ireland on the primitive Christian Church of Scotland was so overwhelming, and facts to show this are so many, that the ablest among the Scotch historians, such as Pinkerton, Innes, and Hill- Burton, are compelled to admit that the first Culdees were Irish, and that from Ireland they spread to Scotland. They were not, however, Columban monks, for there is no mention of any Culdees at any Columban monastery, either in Ireland or in Scotland, until long after Columba was in his grave; nor was it until 1164 that Culdees are mentioned as being in Iona, and then only in a subordinate position. Appearing, then, first in Ireland, they subsequently appeared in Scotland, and in both countries their history and fate are almost identical. Attached to cathedral or collegiate churches, living in monastic fashion, though not taking monastic vows, the Scotch, like the Irish Culdees, were originally men of piety and zeal. The turbulence of the times and the acquisition of wealth sowed the seeds of decay, zeal gave way to indolence and neglect, a celibate community to married men, church property was squandered or alienated, even the altar offering, grasped by avarice, were diverted to personal uses, and by the end of he thirteenth century the Scotch Culdee houses had in almost every case disappeared. Some, like Dunkeld and Abernethy, were superseded by regular canons; others, like Brechin and Dunblane, were extinguished with the introduction of cathedral chapters; and one at least, Monifieth, had passed into the hands of laymen. At St. Andrews they lived on, side by side with the regular canons, and still clung to their ancient privilege of electing the archbishop. But their claim was disallowed at Rome, and in 1273 they were debarred even from voting. Before the Reformation they had finally disappeared, and in 1616 the lands they once held were annexed to the See of St. Andrews.
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REEVES, The Culdees in Royal Irish Academy Transactions (Dublin, 1864); LANIGAN, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland (Dublin, 1822); STOKES (ed.), The Felire of Aengus in Royal Irish Academy Transactions (Dublin, 1880); STUART, ed. COLEMAN, Historical Memoirs of Armagh (Dublin, 1900); PINKERTON, An Enquiry into the History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1814), I; COSMO INNES, Scotland in the Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1860); THOMAS INNES, A Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of the Northern Parts of Britain and Scotland (London, 1729).
E.A. D’ALTON Transcribed by Anna Dixon
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Culdees
The name Culdee is variously derived and explained by several different authorities. Ebrard gives Kile De man of God; Dr. Braun, Gille De servant of God. But the latest, and perhaps best authority, gives us Cuildich as the only name of the Culdees known among native Celts. This word means a secluded corner; a Culdee, therefore, is the man of the recess. This accurately enough describes the Culdees’ mode of life; though not monks, they were in a certain sense recluses.
The Scottish Church, when it first meets the eye of civilization, is not Romish, nor even prelatical. When the monk Augustine, with his forty missionaries, in the time of the Saxon Heptarchy, came over to Britain under the auspices of Gregory, the bishop of Rome, to convert the barbarian Saxons, he found the northern part of the island already well-nigh filled with Christians and Christian institutions. These Christians were the Culdees, whose chief seat was the little island of Hi or Iona, on the western coast of Scotland. An Irish presbyter, Columba, feeling himself stirred with missionary zeal, and doubtless knowing the wretched condition of the savage Scots and Picts in the year 565, took with him twelve other missionaries, and passed over to Scotland. They fixed their settlement on the little island just named, and from that point became the missionaries of all Scotland, and even penetrated into England. Before the end of the 6th century they had filled the country with their institutions, and subjected it, at least nominally, to Christ. Invited to England by Oswald, king of Northumberland, to preach the Gospel to his people, they sent Corman, who failed because of too great austerity of behavior, and then Aidan, who, without knowing the people’s language, succeeded, and proved himself one of the noblest of missionaries. The people in the south of England converted by Augustine and his assistants, and those in the north who had been won by Culdee labor, soon met, as Christian conquest advanced from both sides; and when they came together, it was soon seen that Roman and Culdee Christianity very decidedly differed in a great many respects. The Culdees, for the most part, had a simple and primitive form of Christianity, while Rome presented a vast accumulation of superstitions, and was arrayed in her well-known pomp.
The result was, that in England the Culdee soon gave place to the Roman, and retired to his Northern home. Columba no doubt chose the little island of Iona as a place of safety from barbarian attack, as also because it was near to Ireland, whence he had brought his divine message. Besides, the loneliness of a small island in the sea was favorable to meditation, and accorded with the ascetic tendencies which at least touched the best men of those ages. The institution set up by Columba has been called a monastery, but, in truth, it had no claim to that name. True, the members of the community lived in cells, to which they retired for devotion and study, but this no more made them monks than a similar life makes monks of theological students of our own day. The Culdee recluses were not pledged to celibacy; many of them were married; many of them were succeeded in office by their own sons ; they were not dedicated for life to their calling, but were free at any time to change it for another. Their families did not live within the sacred enclosure, but the husbands, their work within being done, passed out to spend the rest of their time with their families. Nor, indeed, was the aim of the institution at all kindred to that of monachism. The monk generally retires for his own improvement solely; he is weary of the world, and will have no more contact with it. He renounces it. The Culdee went to Iona that in quiet, with meditation, study, and prayer, he might fit himself for going out into the world as a missionary. Indeed, Iona was a great mission institute, where preachers were trained who evangelized the rude tribes of Scotland in a very short time. To have done such a work as this in less than half a century implies apostolic activity, purity, and success. With the exception of the principal men, they must have been much more out of their cells than in them. Traces of the schools and churches they established are found all over Scotland. The reason of this freedom from Romish asceticism may be found, at least in part, in the doctrines of these men.
They had no dogma of purgatory, no saint worship, no works of supererogation, no auricular confession, or penance, or absolution; no mass, no transubstantiation, no chrism in baptism, no priesthood, and no third order (bishops). They knew nothing of any authoritative rule except the Holy Scriptures. These were held to be the one standard of truth, and were made by the missionaries a subject of close and constant study. Columba’s own home work and that of his disciples was transcribing the Scriptures. These early missionaries were thoroughly Biblical. Columba’s life by Adamnan represents him in almost every page as familiar with the Word of God, and ready to quote it on all occasions as of supreme authority. . . . The great subject of their teaching was the simple truth of the Gospel of salvation. It was verbum Dei,’ the Word of God. Adamnan says of Columba that from his boyhood he was instructed in the love of Christ. The spirit of the Culdean Church may suitably and rightfully be described as an evangelical spirit, because it was free and independent of Rome; and when it and the papal Church came into contact, it always and obstinately repudiated its authority, under appeal to the single and supreme authority of holy Scripture; but, above all, because in its inner life it was penetrated throughout by the main principles of the evangelical Church. The Culdees read and understood the Scriptures in their original texts. Wherever they came they translated them orally and in writing into the language of the country, explaining them to the inhabitants, exhorting them to diligent and regular Bible reading. But the Scriptures were more to them than a codex of authoritative doctrines of faith. They were the living word of Christ. In the most earnest manner they preached the natural, inborn inability of man for good; the atoning death of Christ; justification without all merit of works; the worthlessness, especially, of all mere outward works; and the necessity of the new birth (Ebrard). These views of life and doctrine reveal sufficiently the reason why the Culdees were missionaries rather than monks. The truths of the Gospel, pure and simple, just as they warmed the hearts of the apostles, had possession of them, and all their work was to make men feel and accept them. Their theory of Church government was very simple.
The institution at Iona was under the presidency of a presbyter called a presbyter abbot, who had associated with him twelve other presbyters. In case of a vacancy in the headship, these brethren elected their abbot. That he was a presbyter simply there can be no doubt. Bede, who belonged to the Romish Church, himself mentions it as a very strange thing that a man who is merely a presbyter should govern a diocese, and have even bishops under him. The truth is, that the missionaries sent out from these Culdee seminaries were appointed and ordained pastors of the churches they founded, and the pastor of the church was the overseer of it, i.e. the bishop. The presbyter abbot, therefore, had ordained an elder, but, by appointment to a parish, had made him a bishop. They evidently knew nothing of the distinction between the order of presbyter and that of bishop. After the success of Augustine and his monks in England, the Culdees had shut themselves up within the limits of Scotland, and had resisted for centuries all the efforts of Rome to win them over. At last, however, they were overthrown by their own rulers. Margaret, the daughter of William the Conqueror, the queen of Malcolm Canmore, devoted to the cause of Rome, notable for piety, of powerful mind and skillful in the management of others, set her heart upon exchanging the Culdee for the Romish Church in Scotland. She got the Culdee presbyters together, and for three days discussed the matter with them in person. She succeeded by persuasion and artifice. This was in the latter part of the 11th century. It was not, however, till the 13th century that Culdeeism was completely overturned and Romanism established. Nay, it is more than probable that Culdeeism, with its simple and powerful Gospel influence, continued to live in the hearts of the people long after its forms and public ministrations had been buried beneath the finery of triumphant Romanism. There was a readiness among the Scotch to embrace the Reformation when it came, which, together with their sturdy evangelical character, reminds the historical reader of Culdeeism.
Literature. McLauchlan, The Early Scottish Church from the 1st to the 12th centuries (Edinb. 1865, 8vo); Alexander, Iona (Edinb. 1866); Ebrard, Kirchen-und Dogmengeschichte (4 vols., vol. 2); Zeitschr. f. d. hist. Theol. 1862, 1863; King, The Culdees and their Remains, 1864; Meth. Quart. Rev. Oct. 1861; Brit. and For. Ev. Rev. Jan. 1866; Princeton Rev. Jan. 1867; The Church of Iona, by the Bishop of Argyll, 1866. See IONA.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Culdees
a body of religious, who chiefly resided in Scotland, Ireland, and some of the adjacent isles. The name has been also written Keldees and Kyldees. Various etymons have been given of it. Two of these seem to have superior claims to attention. It may be deduced either from Irish ceile, or, gille, a servant, and De, Dia, God; or from cuil, ceal, in Welsh cel, a sequestered corner, a retreat. The latter seems to derive support from the established sense of kil, retained in the names of so many places, which, in an early age, have been consecrated to religion. It is more than probable that Christianity had found its way into Scotland before the close of the second century; and that it continued to be professed by a few scattered individuals even before the arrival of Ninian, in the beginning of the fifth. But we have no proof of the existence of any religious societies observing a particular institute, till the year 563, when Columba landed in Hii, or Ions; which, in honour of him, was afterward called I-colum-kill; that is, the isle of Colum, or Columba, of the cells. He was born in Ireland, A.D. 521; and, after founding many seminaries of religion there, prompted by zeal for the propagation of Christianity, set sail for Scotland with twelve companions. According to Bede, having converted the northern Picts, he received from Brudi, their king, the island of Hii in possession, for the purpose of erecting a monastery. Here he almost constantly resided till the year 597, when he died. He made occasional visits to the mainland, proceeding even as far as to Inverness: also to Ireland, where he was held in high estimation. As he was himself much devoted to the study of the Holy Scriptures, he taught his disciples to confirm their doctrines by testimonies brought from this unpolluted fountain, and declared that only to be the divine counsel which he found there. His followers, faithful to his instruction, would receive those things only which are contained in the writings of the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, diligently observing the works of piety and purity. They lived, indeed, according to a certain institute, which, it is said, was composed by their venerable instructer. But there was this remarkable distinction between them and those societies properly called monastic, that they were not associated expressly for the purpose of observing this rule. While they seem to have reckoned something of this kind necessary for the preservation of order, and for the attainment of habits of diligence, their great design was, by the instruction of those committed to their charge, to train them up for the work of the ministry. Hence it has been justly observed, that the Culdean fraternities may more properly be viewed as colleges than as monasteries; as being in fact, the seminaries of the church both in North Britain and in Ireland. There were also Culdees in Wales; and, for many ages, the Christians of that country held the same doctrines, and observed the same rites, with their Scottish and Irish brethren. The presbyters not only acted as the ministers of religion to those in their vicinity, but were still instructing others, and sending forth missionaries whenever they had a call, or any prospect of success.
2. In each regular establishment of the Culdees, it would appear that there were twelve brethren, with one who presided over them. Their ecclesiastical government has been viewed as materially the same with the Presbyterian. Their president, or abbot, was not a bishop, but a presbyter; to whose authority, as we learn from Bede, even the bishops of the district were subject. In their meetings, all matters were settled by plurality of voices. The members of this council had the general designation of seniores, or elders. To them, collectively, belonged the trial of the gifts of those who had been educated in their seminaries, when they were to be employed in the public ministry; from them they received ordination and mission, and to them they were amenable in the discharge of their office. Those whom they thus employed are, by ancient writers, often denominated bishops. But that they attached to this designation no dignity superior to that of presbyter, appears incontrovertible from their being afterward called to account, and sometimes censured by the fraternity. It has been asserted by the friends of diocesan episcopacy, that a bishop must always have resided at Iona for the purpose of conferring ordination. But there is not the slightest evidence of this. The contrary appears from all the records of these early ages. We learn from the Saxon Chronicle, that there was always an abbot at Hii, but no bishop. It is a singular fact, that those who were first acknowledged as bishops in the northern parts of England, and were indeed instrumental in the introduction of Christianity there, were not only trained up at Iona, but received all their authority from the council of seniors in that island. This was the case with respect to Corman, the bishop of the Northumbrians, as well as Aidan, Finan, and Colman, who succeeded each other in this mission. From the testimony of Bede, it is evident that by means of Scottish missionaries, or of those whom they had instructed and ordained, not only the Northumbrians, but the Middle- Angles, the Mercians and East-Saxons, all the way to the river Thames, that is, the inhabitants of by far the greatest part of the country now called England, were converted to Christianity; and for some time acknowledged subjection to the ecclesiastical government of the Scots. The latter lost their influence merely because their missionaries chose rather to give up their charges than to submit to the prevailing influence of the church of Rome, to which the Saxons of the west and of Kent had subjected themselves.
3. Their doctrines were not less unpalatable than their mode of government to the friends of the church of Rome. In England, in a very early period, the adherents of the Popish missionary Augustine were viewed by the delegates from Iona in the light of heretics. They accordingly refused to hold communion with them. Matters were carried so high in support of the Roman authority in the synod of Stroneschalch, now Whitby, in England, A.D. 662, that Colman, the Scottish bishop of Lindisfarne, left his bishopric, and with his adherents returned to Scotland. Thus, as Bede informs us, the Catholic institution daily increasing, all the Scots who resided among the Angles, either conformed to them or returned to their own country. It was decreed in the council of Cealhythe, A.D. 816, that no Scottish priest should be allowed to perform any duty of his function in England. But in Scotland the Culdean doctrine had taken deeper root; and, although equally offensive to the votaries of Rome, kept its ground for several centuries. The Popish writers themselves celebrate the piety, the purity, the humility, and even the learning, of the Culdees; but while they were displeased with the simplicity, or what they deemed the barbarism, of their worship, they charged them with various deviations from the faith of the Catholic church. It was not the least of these, that they did not observe Easter at the proper time. They did not acknowledge auricular confession; they rejected penance and authoritative absolution; they made no use of chrism in baptism; confirmation was unknown; they opposed the doctrine of the real presence; they withstood the idolatrous worship of saints and angels, dedicating all their churches to the Holy Trinity; they denied the doctrine of works of supererogation; they were enemies to the celibacy of the clergy, themselves living in the married state. One sweeping charge brought against them is, that they preferred their own opinions to the statutes of the holy fathers.
4. The Scots, having received the Christian faith by the labours of the Culdees, long withstood the errors and usurpations of Rome. It was not till the twelfth century that their influence began to decline. The difference between the lower classes of society in England and those of the same description in Scotland, both with respect to religious knowledge and moral conduct, in generally considered to be very striking. Some writers, whose attention has been arrested by this singular circumstance, and who could not be influenced by local attachments, have ascribed the disparity to the relative influence, however remote it may seem, of the doctrine and example of the Culdees. Notwithstanding their great disinterestedness and diligence in propagating the Gospel in England, these good men, it has been remarked, within thirty years after the commencement of their mission, were obliged to give way to the adherents of Rome; whereas the Scots, it is certainly known, enjoyed the benefit of their labours for more than seven centuries, and seem to have still retained their predilection for the doctrines and modes which they so early received.