Note 178 — Chapter VI · The Line of Atholl Restored.

The principal point which Margaret succeeded in carrying out was connected with Lent, which the Gaelic Church kept from Quadrigesima Sunday instead of from Ash Wednesday. The Gaelic practice was long the universal custom, and it is still doubtful who added the four days. Pope Gregory the Great speaks of the thirty-six days of abstinence, though some maintain that he was the first to begin Lent from Ash Wednesday, whilst others refer the change to the time of Gregory the Second (Bingham, bk. 21, c. 1), in which they are probably correct, as the custom would otherwise have penetrated into the Gaelic Church when it conformed to the Roman practice in the days of Nectan and Ceolfrith. The other practices which Margaret endeavoured to reform were—1. A reluctance to communicate on Easter Sunday. 2. Labour on Sundays. 3. Marriage with the widow of a father or brother. 4. The celebration of the service with barbarous rites, or, in other words, in a manner to which she was unaccustomed. In the latter point she seems to have been unsuccessful, for the Culdees still continued to celebrate their office more suo in the days of Alexander and David (Vide Margaret’s Life by Turgot, c. 2). It is worthy of remark that Margaret seems to have made no attempt to separate the Culdees from their wives; and as numbers of the Anglo-Saxon clergy were married men at that time, particularly in the provinces beyond the Humber, where the customs of the Northmen were little interfered with, it is probable that she did not consider their manner of life contrary to ecclesiastical discipline. The system of Hildebrand did not penetrate into England until after the Norman Conquest. In one of his Charters (Ancient Laws, etc., of England, vol. i., p. 495) William says, “Sciatis ... quod episcopates leges, quæ non bene nec secundum sanctorum canonum precepta usque ad mea tempora in regno Anglorum fuerunt ... emendandas judicavi.”