monastery

Maelrubha’s monastery

Wooden or stone buildings?

I think that the answer is that nobody knows for sure what materials would have been used, but from what I can gather wooden buildings seem most likely. The building of a stone church by the Pictish king Nechtan was recorded because it was a novelty. Bede reports that in 710 AD Nechtan approached Ceolfrid of Jarrow in Northumbria, asking ‘to have architects sent him to build a church in his nation after the Roman manner’. Stone is not actually mentioned but it is assumed that that is what was meant. The fact that he asked for architects suggests that he didn’t have anyone in his own kingdom who knew how to build a stone church.

Although Adomnan, in his book ‘The life of St Columba’ talks mostly of Columba’s time (the sixth century), he does give some clues to his own, and therefore Maelrubha’s, time. In Book II chapter 45 when he describes a ‘present-day’ miracle he has seen himself, he says ‘pine trees and oaks had been felled and dragged overland… and besides ships’ timbers there were also beams for a great house to be brought here to Iona’. He also says, several years later ‘again, oak trees were being towed by a group of twelve curraghs from the mouth of the River Shiel to be used here in repairs to the monastery.’ This is not proof that there were no stone buildings but still an indication that timber was still very important in Adomnan’s, and Maelrubha’s, time.

The archaeological evidence for any stone building at Iona in Adomnan’s time is lacking. The Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (Canmore database http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/) says ‘A monastery was founded on Iona by St Columba in 563 and existed until about the turn of the 8th - 9th centuries when the wooden complex was destroyed by Norse raiders. After periodic rebuilding in wood and destruction, the monastery was rebuilt in stone and survived comparatively intact until 986 when it was again destroyed’. This would place the first stone buildings well after the Norse destruction which was around 800.

In Lindisfarne, which was founded in 635 by St Aidan from Iona, there were at least two churches, ‘a small timber edifice built by Aidan and a later church erected by Finan … which was also made of timber, although Bede states that Bishop Eadberht (688-98) "removed the thatch and covered both roof and walls with sheets of lead"’ (Book of Lindisfarne: holy island, English Heritage, 1995). Finan (died 661) was Aidan successor and also came from Iona so he would probably have built his church in the same way as churches were being built in Western Scotland at the time, ie just before Maelrubha came to Applecross. The book says that the current stone church at Lindisfarne is basically thirteenth century but that there are traces that it was based on a previous church possibly built in the eighth or ninth century. So even here in northern England there is no suggestion of a stone church before 700 at the very earliest.

At Whithorn, then part of the Northumbrian kingdom, it is suggested that around the eighth or early ninth century there were wooden buildings but a stone church (Monasteries in the landscape, Mick Aston, 2000 p53).

At Tarbat, Easter Ross, archaeologist Martin Carver of York University thinks he has found Nechtan’s stone church, mentioned above – although previously it has been thought that the stone church was built at Restenneth near Forfar. He writes, ‘Based on documentary sources, we had expected to find somewhere in Pictland a Northumbrian monastic foundation dating from the early 8th century; and this I believe we found at Portmahomack.’

In 1999 he suggested the following:

‘A settlement is founded at Portmahomack in the 8th century. It has stone buildings, a stone church, produces sculpture and is most probably to be identified as a Pictish monastery. The church is on the hill, the residence is on the slope, and a farm is on the flat in the south field. The farm grows grain (querns), and has cattle (bones). There is extensive water management. One or more ditches collect water off the slope. A stream runs through the enclosure so formed, perhaps to drive a mill.’ (Tarbat Discovery Programme homepage http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/staff/sites/tarbat/)

After the excavation in the year 2000, however, it was decided that there had been a pre-existing monastery – ‘new 6th century dating evidence from the graves, seems to confirm that the site was one of Scotland's earliest monasteries… The site was previously thought to date from the 8th century…. [but more recently] graves produced radiocarbon dates of the mid to later 6th century which suggest that Portmahomack may have been a Columban foundation linked to Iona’ (British Archaeology, Dec 2000, http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba56/ba56news.html#monastery). However there is no mention of any buildings for this early period, again suggesting that they were wooden and have therefore left no trace.

All of this suggests that at the time of Maelrubha monasteries were made primarily of wood, and that Northumbrian influence led to stone buildings, with Portmahomack being possibly an early example, but others not following till much later, well after the start of the Viking incursions. There were small stone beehive-shaped cells in places like Eileach an Naoimh in the Garvellachs, but their date is unknown and they were small barren places, where it was probably difficult to get timber.

As for the layout of the monastery the situation is similarly vague. In Richard Sharpe’s introduction to Adomnan’s Life of St Columba he suggests:

He suggests that the church ‘like St Aidan’s church at Lindisfarne, was probably built of timber planks set vertically, but other buildings were more likely constructed of wattles supported by posts.’ Archaeological excavation on Iona has revealed postholes of a large circular building, 65 feet in diameter, dated to the later 7th century, which it is suggested was the communal building which housed the monks. Adomnan mentions a vision of Columba’s in which he saw someone fall from the top of a great round house then under construction in Durrow, Co Offaly (p216-7). A note suggests (page 366) ‘the ordinary monks slept in one large building… partitioned internally into divided cubicula giving on to an open floorspace. The popular picture of individual beehive huts is not supported’.

Aston (page 761) suggests that while Anglo Saxon monasteries of the 7th and 8th centuries could be very regular in layout with rows of buildings aligned east west parallel with their church(es), Celtic sites were far less regular.

At Portmahomack, interestingly, a millpond was found with channels leading to what is assumed to have been a horizontal mill, although the mill buildings have not yet been excavated. Horizontal water wheels were in use in Ireland by the 7th century.

[All the following references to Adomnan are from an internet site (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html ) and I’ve noticed their book/chapter numbers don’t tally with the Penguin edition I’ve used before.]

As far as windows are concerned I don’t think there necessarily were any – Adomnan’s Life of St Columba says (Bk 3 Ch 19) Columba ‘… remained confined in a house which was filled with heavenly brightness. Yet out of that house, through the chinks of the doors and keyholes, rays of surpassing brilliancy were seen to issue during the night.’ No mention of light issuing through windows or any other openings. Interesting that keys were used, they’re mentioned several other times too – (Bk 2 Ch 37) ‘when he arrived at the church the keys of the oratory could not be found. When the saint observed the brethren lamenting to one another about the keys being astray, and the door locked, he went himself to the door and said, "The Lord is able, without a key, to open his own house for his servants." At these words, the bolts of the lock were driven back with great force, and the door opened of itself’ and (Bk 3 Ch 22) ‘Berchan however … went, contrary to this command, to the blessed man's house in the dead of night while others were at rest, and cunningly put down his eyes on a line with the keyholes…’

Columba had a little cell of his own for writing (Bk 2 Ch 15) ‘…a certain youth, named Columban, grandson of Brian, came forward hurriedly, and stopped at the door of the little cell in which the blessed man was writing’ and (Bk 1 Ch 19) ‘On another day a shout was given on the other side of the Sound of the Iouan island (Sound of Iona); the saint hearing the shout, as he was sitting in his little hut, which was made of planks, said...’ and (Bk 3 Ch 23) ‘... two men, who at the same hour were standing at the door of his hut, which was built on the higher ground...’.

As for height it’s very difficult to say. Not very high as far as houses were concerned Bk 2 Ch 38 ‘Concerning a certain Peasant who was a beggar, for whom, the Saint made and blessed a stake for killing wild beasts’ says ‘… he took the stake again back with him from the water, and placed it outside on the top of his house…’ and ‘… the miserable man, yielding again to the advice of his foolish wife, took down the stake from the house-top, …’. This makes it sound fairly easy, which would mean that the roof was probably not much higher than head height – although if it was a round house, the centre would be higher. There is also the story of Columba ‘seeing’ the man about to fall from a big house that was being built, I think I mentioned it in my previous e-mail. This would suggest it was quite high.

To return to materials (stone vs wood) I came across some information in British Archaeology No 24 May 1997 ‘New 7th century remains found at Ripon’ – ‘Excavations near Ripon Cathedral's 7th century crypt have uncovered further remains of St Wilfrid's AngloSaxon monastic church, including numerous large pieces of Roman masonry possibly transported from Aldborough, to the south, or York. … at a time when even kings lived in timber buildings - yet the recent work suggests that his church would seem large even today… The fact that he was prepared to bring the stone from a distance suggests that the skills of quarrying and stone-dressing were still foreign to the Anglo-Saxons of 7th century Northumbria.’

Another glimpse of building technique comes from Adomnan (Bk 2 Ch 7) ‘Colga … obtained from the saint a lump of salt which he had blessed, for the cure of his sister… hung it up on the wall over her bed; and after some days it happened by accident that a destructive fire entirely consumed the village... Yet, strange to say … the portion of the wall from which it was suspended still stood uninjured after the rest of the house had been burned down; nor did the fire venture to touch even the two uprights from which the lump of salt was suspended.’

 

An interesting though not necessarily relevant description of St Cuthbert’s (634-87) house in his retreat on Farne Island is given by Bede

‘… The building is almost of a round form, from wall to wall about four or five poles in extent: the wall on the outside is higher than a man, but within, by excavating the rock, he made it much deeper, to prevent the eyes and the thoughts from wandering, that the mind might be wholly bent on heavenly things, and the pious inhabitant might behold nothing from his residence but the heavens above him. The wall was constructed, not of hewn stones or of brick and mortar, but of rough stones and turf, which had been taken out from the ground within. Some of them were so large that four men could hardly have lifted them, but Cuthbert himself, with angels helping him, had raised them up and placed them on the wall. There were two chambers in the house, one an oratory, the other for domestic purposes. He finished the walls of them by digging round and cutting away the natural soil within and without, and formed the roof out of rough poles and straw.’

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Alan Gillies 2007