alludes to the stone altars of British churches. A stone altar is mentioned as having been discovered by St. Patrick in a cave, a possible proof of the existence of Christians in Ireland before the arrival of that saint; and stone altars of the Celtic period have been found on the island of Ardoilan, six miles from the coast of Orney, on the site of the antique monastery of St. Fechin 3; in the oratory of St. Molaise at Inismurray; at Temple Molaga, with two stone candlesticks close to it; in the oratory of St. Piran at Perranzabuloo in Cornwall; and in that of St. Michael at Penkivel in the same county".

Vestry.-There was frequently an outside vestry attached to the church, 'exedra' or 'exedriola",' where the sacred vessels were kept, and which served for the other purposes of a sacristy.

Bells. Each church had its bell, clocca' or 'campana,' used for summoning the congregation together for the divine offices. The bells of St. Columba and St. Ninian, the former being possibly the very bell alluded to by St. Adamnan, are still in existence in the collection made by the late Mr. John Bell of Dungannon. Pictures of them, with minute description and measurements, are given in Stuart Sculptured Stones of Scotland', Wilson's Archæology of Scotland 10, Archæologia Scotica 11. A similar bell was found six hundred years ago in the ruins of Bangor Abbey, of which there is a woodcut in the Ulster Journal of Archæology 12. There is a handbell in

of the British St. Mel (Moel or Mael) Bishop of Ardagh, bowing her head she touched with her hands one of the wooden pillars of the altar, which ever afterwards remained green and sound.

1 'Inter altaria jurejurando demorantes, et haec eadem ac si lutulenta paulo post saxa despicientes.' H. and S. i. 49.

* St. Evin's Life of St. Patrick, ap. Colgan, Trias Thaum. p. 134; Todd's Life of St. Patrick, p. 222; see Leabhar Breac, fol. 26a.

• Transactions of Royal Irish Academy, xx. 421-3.

• Ib. vol. iv. p. 91.

* Dunraven, Lord, Notes on Irish Architecture, pp. 47, 62. Transactions of Exeter Dioc. Arch. Soc. vol. ii. p. 95. 'Adamnan, Vit. S. Columbae, iii. 19; Id. de Locis Sanctis, i. 8. 'Cloccam pulsa, cujus sonitu fratres incitati ad ecclesiam ocius currunt.' Vit. S. Columbae, i. 8; iii. 23; Cummian, Vit. S. Columbae, p. 41. 10 p. 652.

ꞌ ii. p. liii.

11 iv. 119.

1a i. 179.

the hands of a very ancient sculptured figure of an ecclesiastic1. A'campanarius' is mentioned in the list of various persons who formed the household of St. Patrick, who is also said to have given fifty bells to the churches of Connaught. St. Fillan's bell, with its possibly phallic ornamentation, and with an account of the superstitious usages with which till lately it has been connected, is described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland3. Small quadrangular hand-bells of great age, very similar in construction to the Irish type of workmanship, have been found in Wales: an account of one dug up on the site of the oratory of St. Cenan, and of another formerly preserved in the church of Llangwynodd, is given in the Archæologia Cambrensis. Various ancient Irish bells still exist, of which the earliest is perhaps that of St. Patrick. A description of it has been published by Dr. Reeves".

A short account of the ancient bells of other Celtic saints is given by Professor Westwood. St. Mogue's bell and three others are figured in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London', where Mr. Franks describes them as presumably 'hand-bells used by the early missionaries and eremitical bishops of the British Church to summon their followers to prayer.' They were kept either in the vestry, or in those round towers both of Scotland and Ireland which were so long a puzzle to antiquaries, but which are believed by some persons to have been belfries, as well perhaps as repositories for relics, books, and other valuablesR.

Strange miracles sometimes attested the sanctity of these

In a folio volume with five plates, 1850.

• Facsimiles of the Miniatures, &c., p. 152.

Fourth Series, ii. 274.

↑ Second Series, iii. 150.

'Adamnan, Vita S. Columbae, iii. 15; Stuart, Sculptured Stones of Scotland, notice of plate i. p. 1; Petrie, Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 120. This theory of the use of the round towers is combated by Mr. Brash in Ulster Journ. Archæol. viii. 280-91. And Miss Stokes, as Editor of Lord Dunraven's Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Ireland, assigns to the earliest of them a date not earlier than the close of the ninth century.

bells, as in the case of the construction of a 'ferrea campana et quadrata suae ecclesiae pernecessaria' by St. Molocus1, and of the bell which followed St. Ternan day by day all the way from Rome to Scotland. They were also used, as well as pastoral staves, in the administration of oaths3.

Churchyards. In close proximity to the British church, then as now, was the churchyard, in the midst of which was planted the emblematic evergreen yew-tree. Many of the trees now standing date from the British period. The yewtree at Aldworth, Berks, was examined A.D. 1841, and then concluded to be 1377 years old; i.e. it must have been planted C. A.D. 464, shortly after the preaching of St. Germanus against the Pelagian heresy. Crowhurst yew in Surrey is said to be 1450 years, and the yews at Fountains Abbey are of great antiquity. Giraldus Cambrensis noticed the abundance and age of yews in Ireland, especially in churchyards and cemeteries".

LITURGY AND RITUAL OF THE CELTIC CHURCH.

We now pass on from the church itself and its surroundings to some account of the service which took place within its walls. § 2. TITLES OF THE LITURGY.-The Altar Service itself was entitled Communio, Communio altaris7, Comna, Conviaticum, Eucharistia 10, Hostia 11, Oblatio 12, Oiffrenn 13,

1 Brev. Aberdon. June 25, fol. vi.

2 Ib. June 12, fol. cvi.

'Kilkenny Archæol. Soc. 1852, p. 51; Girald. Cambreus. Top. Hib. iii. 33. Rock, D., Church of our Fathers, ii. 320; Loudon, Arboretum, iv. 2073. The precision with which these calculations have been made is ridiculous, but the author is assured by the Professor of Botany in Oxford that there is nothing abstractly impossible in the existence of certain trees, such as the yew, more than a thousand years old.

* ‘Maxime vero in coemeteriis antiquis, locisque sacris, sanctorum virorum manibus olim plantatas.' Top. Hib. Dist. iii. c. 10.

• Poenitentiale Uinniani, §§ 34, 36; Hibernensis, lib. ii. c. 16.

• Poenitentiale Uinniani,, § 14.

$ [= Communion], Senchus Mor, iii. 32, 39; Comann, Leabhar Breac, fol. 29 b; F. cxxxiv, cxciv.

• Hibernensis, ii. 16.

10 Ib. iii. 8; Prefat. Gildae de Peniten.; Book of Dimma.

"Hibernensis, ii 21.

13

12 Ib. iii. 6; Reg. Columbani, cap. iv.

(= Offering, modern Irish Aifrion), Senchus Mor, i. 126; ii. 344; F.

lxxv, cxciv.

Sacorfaice', Sacrificium, Sacrificale mysterium, Viaticum.

The word 'sacrificium' was used equally for that which was offered to God, and for that which was given to and received by the communicant. St. Gall told his scholar Magnoaldus, 'My master Columbanus is accustomed to offer unto the Lord the sacrifice of salvation in brazen vessels". The twelfth canon of the synod of St. Patrick runs thus: He who de serveth not to receive the sacrifice in his life, how can it benefit him after his death '?' St. Patrick said to the newlybaptized virgin daughters of Laoghaire, 'Ye cannot see the face of Christ except ye taste of death, and except ye receive the sacrifice. And they answered, Give us the sacrifice, that we may behold the Son, our Spouse. And they received the Eucharist of God and they slept in death".' The two words 'communion and sacrifice' are frequently used together in one phrase in the Leabhar BreacR.

To celebrate the Holy Eucharist was expressed by Offerre', Sacra offere 10, Offerre sacrificium 11, Christi corpus conficere 12, Eucharistiae celebrare mysteria 13, Sacra Eucharistiae mysteria

Book of Deer; Sacarbaic, Leabhar Breac, fol. 29 b; F. ccxxxviii.

* Reg. S. Columbani, c. xii; Gildae, Prefat. de Peniten. §§ 6, 7, 8; Hibernensis, xli. 4.

• Hibernensis, ii. 16.

Cuminius, Vit. S. Col. p. 29. 'Preceptor meus beatus Columbanus in vasis aeneis Domino solet sacrificum offerre salutis.' Walafrid Strabo, Vita S. Galli, i. 19.

• Qui in vita suâ non merebitur sacrificium accipere, quomodo post mortem illi potest adjuvare?' Canons attributed to St. Patrick, xii, H. and S. ii. pt. ii. p. 335.

"Book of Armagh, fol. 12 a.

Rofaid Patraic aspirut iarsin 7 rogab comaind 7 sacarbaic dolaim tassaig escuip' 'Thereafter Patrick sent forth his spirit and he received communion and sacrifice from Bishop Tassach's hand.' Leabhar Breac,

=

fol. 29 b; also on fol. 65 a, 66 a. Sacorfaicc is used for the reserved sacrament given to the sick in a rubric in the Book of Deer (ch. iii. § 5); and Sacrificium is used in the same way in a rubric in a tenth century German Rituale printed by Gerbert, Lit. Aleman. ii. 129.

• Gildas, Pref. de Penit. xxiv; Hibernensis, lib. xviii. c. 6.

10 Gildas, ib. xxiii.

"Liber Davidis, can. xii; Patricii Confessio, xiv.

12 Adamnan, Vita S. Columbae, i. 44.

18 Ib. iii. 12.

conficere1, Sacra oblationis mysteria ministrare, Missarum peragere sollemnia, Sacra Eucharistiae consecrare mysteria, Missarum sollemnia celebrare', Sacram oblationem con secrare, Sacrosancta ministeria perficere', Frangere panem, Sacra celebrare mysteria, Sacrosancta mysteria perficere 10, Immolare hostiam 11, Offerre sacrificium 12, Altario jungi 13.

§3. MULTIPLICITY OF COLLECTS.-A peculiar feature of the Celtic Liturgy, at least in its Irish form, was a multiplicity of collects. A synod was held at Matiscon (Macon) in Gaul A.D. 623, to consider the charges brought by a certain monk Agrestius against the Rule of St. Columban.

Mabillon gives a full account of the controversy, and mentions, after several trivial objections brought by Agrestius, the following more important one, that the Irish differed from the ritual and rule of other Churches, and celebrated the Holy Eucharist with great variation and multiplication of collects and prayers 14.

Eustasius, the disciple and successor of Columbanus in the monastery of Luxovium (Luxeuil), admitted the charge, but pleaded in defence the general acceptableness of all prayer before God.

It is impossible to decide with certainty to what Agrestius referred in his charge. Benedict XIV interpreted it of the substitution of several collects for the one collect which ordinarily precedes the Epistle in the Roman Missal, and which is thus referred to in one of the opening rubrics in the Gregorian Sacramentary: 'Postmodum dicitur oratio, deinde sequitur Apostolus 15' Commenting on this rubric Benedict XIV

4 Ib. iii. 17. 'Cuminius, Vita S.

11 Secundini Hymnus; Book of 12 Patricii Confessio, xiv.

13 [= to be admitted to communion], Poenitentiale Uinniani, §§ 15, 35. 14 In summa quod a caeterorum ritu ac norma desciscerent, et sacra missarum sollemnia orationum et collectarum multiplici varietate celebrarent.' Annals of the Bened. Order, i. 320.

15 Migne, Bibl. Pat. Lat. Ixxviii. 25; on which Menard remarks, 'In hoc sancti Eligii codice ut in Codicibus Rodradi et Ratoldi, atque in Editis, et in