Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 4, 1896

234
THE CELTIC MONTHLY,
and meu of the world. Under the Benedictine
rule everj' monk was compelled to learn
some trade. Many of them became the ablest
artists, writers, . architects, goldsmiths, black-
smiths, sculptors, and agriculturists in the
khigdom. They cultivated the waste lauds.
They made wool. The wool of the monks of
Newbattle had long the reputation of being the
best in the mai'ket. They bred horses. Some
abbeys, like Melrose, possessed manj' hundreds
of them. They produced honey. They culti
vated fruits and flowers, particularly the rose.
The monks of Lindores are said to have raised
the finest pears and grapes in the country.
The monks of Newbattle were the first to mine
for coal. The monks of Dunfermline worked
for lead in Clydesdale and for coal in Pinkie,
Inveresk, and Tranent "The monks." says
Gasquet in Ilenrii the Eiylith and tlie Eii'//i.i/i
MoiHisterii'.'i, '' were not merely anchorites
enclosed in narrow walls, but were att'ected by
all the movements of public life. They were
not men of war, but like the kuight and the
baron, they had to provide meu for the musters.
As great landowners they, more than the
yoemen, were concerned in the crops and the
weather. They resided on the laud, in the
midst of their people, and the barns, farm
houses, and cottages were no less objects of
their care than the roof which covered their
own heads. Beyond this, they were more than
landowners to those rouud about them. The
advisers and teachers of all, they had the work
now undertaken by the guardian, the relieving,
officer, the parish doctor, and the schoolmaster."
The monks of lona gathered in their island
home a magnificent collection of manuscripts.
So extensive and varied were its contents that
it was at one time supposed that the lost books
of Livy would be found there. Paulus Jovius
(Description of Britain, Venice, 15^8) relates
" it is also reported that in the same library
(of lona) there are ancient works of Roman
history from which we may expect the
remaining decades of Titus Livius, which
indeed we have lately heard letters from
Scotland have promised to Francis, King of
France." So stroug was this expectation in
the fifteenth century that Aeneas Sylvius
(afterwai-ds Pope Pius the Second) was about
t(j undertake a journey to lona to make search
for the lost books, when he was prevented by
the confusion which followed the assassination
of King .) ames the First. Not only in lona,
but at Beauly and Rosemarkie, Dornoch and
Saddell, libraries were to be found. At the
Reformation these collections disappeared and
the treasures of the monastic scii/ii'nia were
scattered over the land. It is said that most
of the library of lona fell into the possession of
the Argyll family. The following morcemi of
history points to the ultimately fate of the
manuscripts over which the patient monks of
lona had poi-ed. '' When the old castle of
Inveraray," says Sobieski Stuart, "was taken
down to make room for the new building, it
was remarked that many old books appeared in
the town, and that long after the surrounding
peasantry in making their small purchases at
the little merchant's shop -then the only oue
in Inveraray — received their pennyworths of
salt and ounces of tobacco wrapped in reumants
of ancient writings — craiciouu dealbhach —
painted vellum, or pages of dark yellow paper,
covered with thick black letters. When the
last Duke of Montague was at Inveraray some
of these remains came under his notice and he
saw some remnants of the manuscripts ' used
in the shop as suutt' paper.' " It is melancholy
to read such facts as these. The lona manu-
scripts were not solitary in their fate. Other
methods of destruction were resorted to. It
is, for example, stated that several \ery ancient
manuscripts of the Clanranald collecfion were
cut up by tailoi's to make measures of the
parchment. The destruction of the Highland
libraries consequent on the Reformation, meant
the destruction of the records which might
have enabled future generations to learn some-
thing of the work of the church among the
Kelts. I'juough, however, is known to prove
that Holy Kirk was a living power in the High-
lands as well as in the Lowlands, and that the
Highlanders were by no means as destitute of
the ordinances of religion as is generally
supposed. J. A. LovAT Fbaser.
THE M'CRINDLES.
fT has been asked '• who are the .M 'Criudles '. '
and the writer, who has undertaken the
— task of throwing some light on their
history, has had the usual difficulty caused by
the phonetic spelling used in all old records,
which has been still more confused by local
orthography, leaving the mind in doubt whether
all the versions given can possibly apply to the
same person or family. We have Bunuatyne,
Ballendyne, Bellenden, Buntene, Ballantyne,
and Vallantiue, all apparently representing
the same family name, and such names as
Makindoguhy, MacUownache, MKowloche,
Makleud, and many others give a fair sample
of the orthography of the sixteenth century ;
such names as Bracunrug, Balcanquall, and
C^uhytefurde are found, and have to be traced
more by sound than by spelling. Once estab-
lished they have to be located ; one ancestor