Book 2 — CHAPTER IV. THE FAMILY OF IONA. (continued 2)
Reading edition
A.D. 717 Expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom of the Picts.
The greater part, if not the whole, of the dependent monasteries among the Picts seem to have resisted the change, and to have refused obedience to the decree which Bede tells us King Naiton had issued, when ‘the cycles of nineteen years were forthwith by public command sent throughout all the provinces of the Picts to 178be transcribed, learned and observed;’ for we are told by Tighernac that in 717, when Abbot Duncadh had died and Faelchu remained alone in possession of the abbacy, the family of Iona were driven across Drumalban by King Naiton. In other words, the whole of the Columban monks were expelled from his kingdom;[353] and there is reason to think that Faelchu had been at the head of one of these dependent monasteries in the territories of the northern Picts.[354] It is possible that the monks of the monasteries recently established among the southern Picts by Adamnan may have conformed; but those of the older foundations, such as Abernethy and Cillrigmonadh, or St. Andrews, were probably driven out; and thus with the expulsion of the family of Iona terminated the primacy of its monastery over the monasteries and churches in the extensive districts of the east and north of Scotland which formed at that time the kingdom of the Picts.
MAP illustrating History of MONASTIC CHURCH prior to 8th. Century J. Bartholomew, Edin.
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