Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/163

PEEFACE. civ large share in their conversion; for, according to the additions to the " Historia Britonum," they are said to have been baptized by Eun, the son of Urien ; while Kentigern was, according to Welsh tradition, either the son or the grandson of the same Urien. The seat of this Church was fixed at York. If we may judge by the dedications of the churches, there is reason to believe that the Church of Ken- tigern Hkewise extended itself beyond the Firth of Forth into the regions of the southern Picts. On the other hand, the Columban Church, the prin- The ciiurch cipal seat of which was the Monasteiy of lona, soon advanced beyond the frontiers of the northern Picts, and completely superseded the other Church over the whole territories of the Picts. In 633 the conquest of Northumbria by the pagan Penda, king of the Mercians, and the semi-pagan CeadwaUa, king of North Wales, and the death of Edwin, ex- tinguished the infant Church which had been founded at York ; and when the Christian Church was again restored by Oswald, who had dwelt in exile at lona during the reign of Edmund, and been educated by its monks, he introduced the Columban Church into Northumbria, which remained the sole Church of that country for thirty years, having its chief seat in the small island of Lindisfarne, where they founded a monastery on the exact model of that of lona. It is when alluding to lona at the time of the introduction of the Columban Church into Northumbria, that Bede says of it, " Cujus