School of Iona
Iona is the modern name derived by change of letter from Adamnan's
Ioua; in Bede it is Hii; the Gaelic form is always I or Y, which
becomes Hy by prefixing the euphonic h. This rugged, storm-swept
island, three miles long and one in average breadth, and about a
mile distant from the Ross of Mull, was next to Armagh the
greatest centre of Gaelic Christianity -- the latter was Patrick's
city and primatial see; the former Columba's monastic city, a
"primatial island", and the light of all the North. Yet closely
connected with Ireland for at least 600 years it may be described
as an Irish island in the Scottish seas. Columba, born in 521
landed with twelve of his monks at the southern extremity of the
island -- ever since called Porta Churraich, or the Bay of the
Island -- on Whitsun Eve 12 May, 563. Whether he came to do
penance for his share in the battle of Cuildreinhne two years
before, or, as the Irish "Life" says, "to preach the Gospel to the
men of Alba and to the Britons and to the Saxons" -- which in any
case was his primary purpose -- we cannot now determine. It
appears that he got a grant of the island from his relative Conall
King of Dalriada, which was afterwards confirmed by Brude, King of
the Picts, when the latter was converted by the preaching of
Columba, who immediately set to work to build his monastery, more
Scottorum of earth, timber, and wicker-work. Hence not a trace now
remains of those perishable buildings -- all the existing ruins
are medieval. A Celtic monastery consisted of a group of beehive
cells around a central church or oratory, the other principal
buildings being the common refectory or kitchen, the library or
scriptorium, the abbot's house, and the guest-house. Adamnan,
after Columba himself the brightest ornament of the School of
Iona, in his "Life" of the founder, makes explicit references to
the tabulae, waxen tablets for writing; to the pens and styles,
graphia and calami, and to the ink-horn, cornicula atramenti, to
be found in the scriptorium. Columba was certainly a most
accomplished scribe if the "Book of Kells" be his own work, and he
was engaged in copying one of the psalms when, overtaken by mortal
illness, he directed his nephew Baithen to write the rest. And we
are told, too, that Baithen during his brief abbacy of three years
in succession to Columba was, like his master engaged in "writing,
praying and teaching up to the hour of his happy death". When
asked about the learning of Baithen, Fintan one of his monks
replied: "Be assured that he had no equal on this side of the Alps
in his knowledge of Sacred Scripture, and in the profundity of his
science" -- and he was at once a pupil and a professor of the
School of Iona. Language like this might be considered exaggerated
if we did not possess the writings of Adamnan, the ninth abbot and
the most illustrious scholar of Iona.
Adamnan, otherwise Eunan, a native of Drumhome, in County Donegal,
and a tribal relative of Columba, was educated from his youth in
Iona, and it may be said that all his learning was the learning of
Iona. His "Life of Columba", written at the request of the
brotherhood, in Latin, not in Gaelic, is on the whole one of the
most valuable works of the Western Church of the seventh century
that have come down to us. He gives us more accurate and authentic
information of the Gaelic Churches in Ireland and Scotland than
any other writer, not excepting even Venerable Bede, who described
him as "a good and wise man, and most nobly instructed in the
knowledge of the Scriptures". But he was much more. We know from
his writings that he was an accomplished Latin scholar, a Gaelic
scholar too-Gaelic was his mother tongue-while he had a
considerable acquaintance with Greek and some even with Hebrew. He
was, moreover, painstaking, judicious, and careful in citing his
authorities. He has also left us an admirable treatise "On the
Holy Places" in Palestine which he compiled from the narrative of
a shipwrecked French bishop named Arculfus, who returning from the
Holy Land was cast on the shores of Iona. This is an invaluable
treatise from which Bede has extracted long passages for his
history, showing that its authority was as great in his own day as
it has ever since continued to be in the estimation of scholars.
This learned man was a true monk, and like Columba himself took a
share in the manual labour of the monastery. With his own strong
arms he helped to cut down as many oak trees in one of the
neighbouring islands -- perhaps Erraid -- as sufficed to load
twelve boats, and no doubt he had a share in building the boats
and framing the monastic cells, like the cell of Columba, which
was, he tells us, tabulis suffulta, framed of planks, and
harundine tecta, thatched with reeds.
During the century that closed with the death of Adamnan, Iona was
in its glory, Columba and his monks had converted to the faith the
whole of Pictland with its rulers. It sent three famous prelates
to found and rule over Lindisfarne, second only to Iona itself as
a centre of religious learning and influence in the North of
Saxonland. Aidan, Finan, and Colman are men whose well-deserved
eulogy has been recorded by Venerable Bede. The unhappy disputes
about the frontal tonsure and the true time for celebrating
Easter, caused much disturbance during the seventh century both in
Iona itself and in its daughter houses. Even when Ireland and
England had given up the strife and adopted the Roman Easter, the
monks of Iona, true to the traditions of their sainted founder,
still clung tenaciously to the old Easter. And so late as 716,
when Iona itself conformed to the Roman usage, some of the
daughter houses in Pictland stubbornly held to the ancient
discipline. This stubbornness brought about a few years later the
expulsion of the Columban monks from Pictland by Nectan, King of
the Picts, who had accepted the Roman discipline.
The ninth century brought woe and disaster to both Iona and
Lindisfarne from the pagan Danes who ravaged all the British
coasts. In 793 they destroyed the church of Lindisfarne with great
rapine and slaughter. In 795 they made their first attack on Iona,
but the monks on that occasion appear to have escaped with their
lives. But in 806 sixty-eight of the community were slain at Port
na Mairtir on the eastern shore of the island, and the white sands
somewhat north were the scene of the massacre of another band of
martyrs. A few years later again, in 814, Abbot Cellach found it
necessary to transfer the primacy of the Columban Order from Iona-
which Adamnan calls "this our primatial island"-to the monastery
of Kells in Ireland, bringing with him the shrine containing
Columba's relics which was however brought back later on. In 825
there was a further massacre of Iona monks, namely of St.
Blaithmac who refused to give up the shrine, and his holy
companions. Blaithmac's heroic death was celebrated in Latin verse
by Walafridus Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, South Germany. In 908
St. Andrews was formally recognized as the primatial see of
Scotland, from which year we may date the disappearance of Iona's
insular primacy. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, 1204,
the ancient Celtic monastery finally disappeared, and a new
Benedictine one was established by authority of the pope; but the
original graveyard -- the Reilig Odhrain -- was still regarded as
the holiest ground in Scotland, and is now crowded with the
inscribed tombstones of the kings, chieftains and prelates who
rest beneath.
JOHN HEALY
Transcribed by Tomas Hancil
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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