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 Preface vii

Acknowledgments
William Vatter and George Benston motivated my interest in managerial accounting. The
genesis for this book and its approach reflect the oral tradition of my colleagues, past
and present, at the University of Rochester. William Meckling and Michael Jensen stimu-
lated my thinking and provided much of the theoretical structure underlying the book, as
anyone familiar with their work will attest. My long and productive collaboration with
Ross Watts sharpened my analytical skills and further refined the approach. He also fur-
nished most of the intellectual capital for Chapter 3, including the problem material. Ray
Ball has been a constant source of ideas. Clifford Smith and James Brickley continue to
enhance my economic education. Three colleagues, Andrew Christie, Dan Gode, and Scott
­Keating, ­supplied particularly insightful comments that enriched the analysis at critical
junctions. Valuable comments from Anil Arya, Ron Dye, Andy Leone, Dale Morse, Ram
Ramanan, K. Ramesh, Shyam Sunder, and Joseph Weintrop are gratefully acknowledged.
This project benefited greatly from the honest and intelligent feedback of n­ umerous
instructors. I wish to thank Mahendra Gupta, Susan Hamlen, Badr Ismail, Charles Kile,
Leslie Kren, Don May, William Mister, Mohamed Onsi, Ram Ramanan, Stephen Ryan,
Michael Sandretto, Richard Sansing, Deniz Saral, Gary Schneider, Joe Weber, and
­William Yancey. This book also benefited from two other projects with which I have been
involved. Writing Managerial Economics and Organizational Architecture (McGraw Hill
Education, 2016) with James Brickley and Clifford Smith and Management Accounting
in a Dynamic Environment (Routledge, 2016) with Cheryl McWatters helped me to better
understand how to present certain topics.
To the numerous students who endured the development process, I owe an enormous
debt of gratitude. I hope they learned as much from the material as I learned teaching them.
Some were even kind enough to provide critiques and suggestions, in particular Jan Dick
Eijkelboom. Others supplied, either directly or indirectly, the problem material in the text.
The able research assistance of P. K. Madappa, Eamon Molloy, Jodi Parker, Steve Sand-
ers, Richard Sloan, and especially Gary Hurst, contributed amply to the manuscript and
problem material. Janice Willett and Barbara Schnathorst did a superb job of editing the
manuscript and problem material.
The very useful comments and suggestions from the following reviewers are greatly
appreciated:

Urton Anderson William M. Cready Steven Huddart

Howard M. Armitage James M. Emig Robert Hurt
Vidya Awasthi Gary Fane Douglas A. Johnson
Kashi Balachandran Anita Feller Lawrence A. Klein
Da-Hsien Bao Tahirih Foroughi Thomas Krissek
Ron Barden Ivar Fris A. Ronald Kucic
Howard G. Berline Jackson F. Gillespie Daniel Law
Margaret Boldt Irving Gleim Chi-Wen Jevons Lee
David Borst Jon Glover Suzanne Lowensohn
Eric Bostwick Gus Gordon James R. Martin
Marvin L. Bouillon Sylwia Gornik-Tomaszewski Alan H. McNamee
Wayne Bremser Tony Greig Marilyn Okleshen
David Bukovinsky Susan Haka Shailandra Pandit
Linda Campbell Bert Horwitz Sam Phillips
viii Preface

Frank Probst Richard Saouma Clark Wheatley

Kamala Raghavan Arnold Schneider Lourdes F. White
William Rau Henry Schwarzbach Paul F. Williams
Jane Reimers Elizabeth J. Serapin Robert W. Williamson
Thomas Ross Norman Shultz Peggy Wright
Harold P. Roth James C. Stallman Jeffrey A. Yost
P. N. Saksena William Thomas Stevens S. Mark Young
Donald Samaleson Monte R. Swain
Michael J. Sandretto Heidi Tribunella

To my wife Dodie and daughters Daneille and Amy, thank you for setting the right
priorities and for giving me the encouragement and environment to be productive. Finally,
I wish to thank my parents for all their support.
Jerold L. Zimmerman
University of Rochester
 Brief Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 The Nature of Costs 22
3 Opportunity Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting 85
4 Organizational Architecture 127
5 Responsibility Accounting and Transfer Pricing 161
6 Budgeting 216
7 Cost Allocation: Theory 280
8 Cost Allocation: Practices 327
9 Absorption Cost Systems 392
10 Criticisms of Absorption Cost Systems: Incentive to Overproduce 448
11 Criticisms of Absorption Cost Systems: Inaccurate Product Costs 483
12 Standard Costs: Direct Labor and Materials 538
13 Overhead and Marketing Variances 575
14 Management Accounting in a Changing Environment 609

Solutions to Concept Questions 655

Glossary 665
Index 675

ix
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
A. Managerial Accounting: Decision Making and Control   2
B. Design and Use of Cost Systems   4
C. Marmots and Grizzly Bears   8
D. Management Accountant’s Role in the Organization   9
E. Evolution of Management Accounting: A Framework for Change   12
F. Vortec Medical Probe Example   15
G. Outline of the Text   18
H. Summary  18

2 The Nature of Costs   22

A. Opportunity Costs  23
1. Characteristics of Opportunity Costs   24
2. Examples of Decisions Based on Opportunity Costs   24
B. Cost Variation  29
1. Fixed, Marginal, and Average Costs   29
2. Linear Approximations  31
3. Other Cost Behavior Patterns   33
4. Activity Measures  33
C. Cost–Volume–Profit Analysis  35
1. Copier Example  35
2. Calculating Break-Even and Target Profits   36
3. Limitations of Cost–Volume–Profit Analysis   39
4. Multiple Products  41
5. Operating Leverage  42
D. Opportunity Costs versus Accounting Costs   45
1. Period versus Product Costs   46
2. Direct Costs, Overhead Costs, and Opportunity Costs   46
E. Cost Estimation  48
1. Account Classification  49
2. Motion and Time Studies   49
F. Summary  49
Appendix: Costs and the Pricing Decision   50

3 Opportunity Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting   85

A. Opportunity Cost of Capital   86
B. Interest Rate Fundamentals   89
1. Future Values  89
2. Present Values  90
x
Contents xi

3. Present Value of a Cash Flow Stream   91

4. Perpetuities  92
5. Annuities  93
6. Multiple Cash Flows per Year   94
C. Capital Budgeting: The Basics   96
1. Decision to Acquire an MBA   96
2. Decision to Open a Day Spa   97
3. Essential Points about Capital Budgeting   98
D. Capital Budgeting: Some Complexities   99
1. Risk  99
2. Inflation  100
3. Taxes and Depreciation Tax Shields   102
E. Alternative Investment Criteria   104
1. Payback  104
2. Accounting Rate of Return   105
3. Internal Rate of Return (IRR)   107
4. Methods Used in Practice   110
F. Summary  110

4 Organizational Architecture  127
A. Basic Building Blocks   128
1. Self-Interested Behavior, Team Production, and Agency Costs   128
2. Decision Rights and Rights Systems   133
3. Role of Knowledge and Decision Making   134
4. Markets versus Firms   135
5. Influence Costs  137
B. Organizational Architecture  139
1. Three-Legged Stool  139
2. Decision Management versus Decision Control   143
C. Accounting’s Role in the Organization’s Architecture   145
D. Example of Accounting’s Role: Executive Compensation Contracts   147
E. Summary  148

5 Responsibility Accounting and Transfer Pricing   161

A. Responsibility Accounting  162
1. Cost Centers  163
2. Profit Centers  165
3. Investment Centers  166
4. Economic Value Added (EVA®)  170
5. Controllability Principle  173
B. Transfer Pricing  175
1. International Taxation  175
2. Economics of Transfer Pricing   177
3. Common Transfer Pricing Methods   181
4. Reoragnization: The Solution if All Else Fails   186
5. Recap  186
C. Summary  188
xii Contents

6 Budgeting  216
A. Generic Budgeting Systems   219
1. Country Club  219
2. Large Corporation  222
B. Trade-Off between Decision Management and Decision Control   226
1. Communicating Specialized Knowledge versus Performance
Evaluation  226
2. Budget Ratcheting  227
3. Participative Budgeting  229
4. New Approaches to Budgeting   230
5. Managing the Trade-Off   232
C. Resolving Organizational Problems   233
1. Short-Run versus Long-Run Budgets   233
2. Line-Item Budgets  235
3. Budget Lapsing  236
4. Static versus Flexible Budgets   236
5. Incremental versus Zero-Based Budgets   239
D. Summary  241
Appendix: Comprehensive Master Budget Illustration   242

7 Cost Allocation: Theory   280

A. Pervasiveness of Cost Allocations   281
1. Manufacturing Organizations  283
2. Hospitals  284
3. Universities  284
B. Reasons to Allocate Costs   286
1. External Reporting/Taxes  286
2. Cost-Based Reimbursement  287
3. Decision Making and Control   288
C. Incentive/Organizational Reasons for Cost Allocations   289
1. Cost Allocations Are a Tax System   289
2. Taxing an Externality   290
3. Insulating versus Noninsulating Cost Allocations   296
D. Summary  299

8 Cost Allocation: Practices   327

A. Death Spiral  328
B. Allocating Capacity Costs: Depreciation   333
C. Allocating Service Department Costs   333
1. Direct Allocation Method   335
2. Step-Down Allocation Method   337
3. Service Department Costs and Transfer Pricing of Direct
and Step-Down Methods   339
4. Reciprocal Allocation Method   342
5. Recap  344
D. Joint Costs  344
Contents xiii

1. Joint Cost Allocations and the Death Spiral   346

2. Net Realizable Value   348
3. Decision Making and Control   352
E. Segment Reporting and Joint Benefits   353
F. Summary  354
Appendix: Reciprocal Method for Allocating Service Department Costs   354

9 Absorption Cost Systems   392

A. Job Order Costing   394
B. Cost Flows through the T-Accounts   396
C. Allocating Overhead to Jobs   398
1. Overhead Rates  398
2. Over/Underabsorbed Overhead  400
3. Flexible Budgets to Estimate Overhead   403
4. Expected versus Normal Volume   406
D. Permanent versus Temporary Volume Changes   410
E. Plantwide versus Multiple Overhead Rates   411
F. Process Costing: The Extent of Averaging   415
G. Summary  416
Appendix A: Process Costing   416
Appendix B: Demand Shifts, Fixed Costs, and Pricing   422

10 Criticisms of Absorption Cost Systems:

Incentive to Overproduce   448
A. Incentive to Overproduce   450
1. Example  450
2. Reducing the Overproduction Incentive   453
B. Variable (Direct) Costing   454
1. Background  454
2. Illustration of Variable Costing   454
3. Overproduction Incentive under Variable Costing   457
C. Problems with Variable Costing   458
1. Classifying Fixed Costs as Variable Costs   458
2. Variable Costing Excludes the Opportunity Cost of Capacity   460
D. Beware of Unit Costs   461
E. Summary  463

11 Criticisms of Absorption Cost Systems: Inaccurate

Product Costs  483
A. Inaccurate Product Costs   484
B. Activity-Based Costing  488
1. Choosing Cost Drivers   489
2. Absorption versus Activity-Based Costing: An Example   495
C. Analyzing Activity-Based Costing   499
1. Reasons for Implementing Activity-Based Costing   499
2. Benefits and Costs of Activity-Based Costing   501
3. ABC Measures Costs, Not Benefits   503
D. Acceptance of Activity-Based Costing   505
E. Summary  509
xiv Contents

12 Standard Costs: Direct Labor and Materials   538

A. Standard Costs  539
1. Reasons for Standard Costing   540
2. Setting and Revising Standards   541
3. Target Costing  545
B. Direct Labor and Materials Variances   546
1. Direct Labor Variances   546
2. Direct Materials Variances   550
3. Risk Reduction and Standard Costs   554
C. Incentive Effects of Direct Labor and Materials Variances   554
1. Build Inventories  555
2. Externalities  555
3. Discouraging Cooperation  556
4. Mutual Monitoring  556
5. Satisficing  556
D. Disposition of Standard Cost Variances   557
E. The Costs of Standard Costs   559
F. Summary  561

13 Overhead and Marketing Variances   575

A. Budgeted, Standard, and Actual Volume   576
B. Overhead Variances  579
1. Flexible Overhead Budget   579
2. Overhead Rate  580
3. Overhead Absorbed  581
4. Overhead Efficiency, Volume, and Spending Variances   581
5. Graphical Analysis  585
6. Inaccurate Flexible Overhead Budget   587
C. Marketing Variances  588
1. Price and Quantity Variances   588
2. Mix and Sales Variances   589
D. Summary  591

14 Management Accounting in a Changing Environment   609

A. Integrative Framework  610
1. Organizational Architecture  611
2. Business Strategy  612
3. Environmental and Competitive Forces Affecting Organizations   615
4. Implications  615
B. Organizational Innovations and Management Accounting   616
1. Total Quality Management (TQM)   616
2. Just-in-Time (JIT) Production   621
3. Six Sigma and Lean Production   624
4. Balanced Scorecard  626
C. When Should the Internal Accounting System Be Changed?   632
D. Summary  633
Solutions to Concept Questions   655
Glossary  665
Index  675
Chapter One

Introduction
Chapter Outline
A. Managerial Accounting: Decision Making
and Control
B. Design and Use of Cost Systems
C. Marmots and Grizzly Bears
D. Management Accountant’s Role in the
Organization
E. Evolution of Management Accounting:
A Framework for Change
F. Vortec Medical Probe Example
G. Outline of the Text
H. Summary

1
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2 Chapter 1

A. Managerial Accounting: Decision Making and Control

Managers at Hyundai must decide which car models to produce, the quantity of each
model to produce given the selling prices for the models, and how to manufacture the
automobiles. They must decide which car parts, such as headlight assemblies, Hyundai
should manufacture internally and which parts should be outsourced. They must decide
not only on advertising, distribution, and product positioning to sell the cars, but also the
quantity and quality of the various inputs to use. For example, they must determine which
models will have leather seats and the quality of the leather to be used. Similarly, in decid-
ing which investment projects to accept, capital budgeting analysts require data on future
cash flows. How are these numbers derived? How does one coordinate the activities of
hundreds or thousands of employees in the firm so that these employees accept senior
management’s leadership? At Hyundai, and at other organizations small and large, manag-
ers must have good information to make all these decisions and the leadership abilities to
get others to implement the decisions.
Information about firms’ future costs and revenues is not readily available but must be
estimated by managers. Organizations must obtain and disseminate the knowledge to make
these decisions. Organizations’ internal information systems provide some of the knowledge
for these pricing, production, capital budgeting, and marketing decisions. These systems
range from the informal and the rudimentary to very sophisticated, electronic management
information systems. The term information system should not be interpreted to mean a
single, integrated system. Most information systems consist not only of formal, organized,
tangible records such as payroll and purchasing documents but also informal, intangible bits
of data such as memos, special studies, and managers’ impressions and opinions. The firm’s
information system also contains nonfinancial information such as customer and employee
satisfaction surveys. As firms grow from single proprietorships to large global corporations
with tens of thousands of employees, managers lose the knowledge of enterprise affairs
gained from personal, face-to-face contact in daily operations. Higher-level managers of
larger firms come to rely more and more on formal operating reports.
The internal accounting system, an important component of a firm’s information
system, includes budgets, data on the costs of each product and current inventory, and
periodic financial reports. In many cases, especially in small companies, these accounting
reports are the only formalized part of the information system providing the knowledge
for decision making. Many larger companies have other formalized, nonaccounting–based
information systems, such as production planning systems. This book focuses on how
internal accounting systems provide knowledge for decision making.
After making decisions, managers must implement them in organizations in which
the interests of the employees and the owners do not necessarily coincide. Just because
senior managers announce a decision does not necessarily ensure that the decision will be
implemented.
Organizations do not have objectives; people do. One common objective of owners of
the organization is to maximize profits, or the difference between revenues and expenses.
Maximizing firm value is equivalent to maximizing the stream of profits over the organiza-
tion’s life. Employees, suppliers, and customers also have their own objectives—usually
maximizing their self-interest.
Not all owners care only about monetary flows. An owner of a professional sports
team might care more about winning (subject to covering costs) than maximizing profits.
Nonprofits do not have owners with the legal rights to the organization’s profits. ­Moreover,
nonprofits seek to maximize their value by serving some social goal such as education or
health care.
Introduction 3

No matter what the firm’s objective, the organization will survive only if its inflow of
resources (such as revenue) is at least as large as the outflow. Accounting information is
useful to help manage the inflow and outflow of resources and to help align the owners’
and employees’ interests, no matter what objectives the owners wish to pursue.
Throughout this book, we assume that individuals maximize their self-interest. The
owners of the firm usually want to maximize profits, but managers and employees will do
so only if it is in their interest. Hence, a conflict of interest exists between owners—who,
in general, want higher profits—and employees—who want easier jobs, higher wages, and
more fringe benefits. To control this conflict, senior managers and owners design systems
to monitor employees’ behavior and incentive schemes that reward employees for generat-
ing more profits. Not-for-profit organizations face similar conflicts. Those people responsi-
ble for the nonprofit organization (boards of trustees and government officials) must design
incentive schemes to motivate their employees to operate the organization efficiently.
All successful firms must devise mechanisms that help align employee interests with
maximizing the organization’s value. All of these mechanisms constitute the firm’s control
system; they include performance measures and incentive compensation systems, promo-
tions, demotions, and terminations, security guards and video surveillance, internal audi-
tors, and the firm’s internal accounting system.1
As part of the firm’s control system, the internal accounting system helps align the
interests of managers and shareholders to cause employees to maximize firm value. It
sounds like a relatively easy task to design systems to ensure that employees maximize
firm value. But a significant portion of this book demonstrates the exceedingly complex
nature of aligning employee interests with those of the owners.
Internal accounting systems serve two purposes: (1) to provide some of the knowledge
necessary for planning and making decisions (decision making) and (2) to help motivate
and monitor people in organizations (control). The most basic control use of accounting is
to prevent fraud and embezzlement. Maintaining inventory records helps reduce employee
theft. Accounting budgets, discussed more fully in Chapter 6, provide an example of both
decision making and control. Asking each salesperson in the firm to forecast his or her sales
for the upcoming year is useful for planning next year’s production (decision making).
However, if the salesperson’s sales forecast is used to benchmark performance for compen-
sation purposes (control), he or she has strong incentives to underestimate those forecasts.
Using internal accounting systems for both decision making and control gives rise to
the fundamental trade-off in these systems: A system cannot be designed to perform two
tasks as well as a system that must perform only one task. Some ability to deliver knowl-
edge for decision making is usually sacrificed to provide better motivation (control). The
trade-off between providing knowledge for decision making and motivation/control arises
continually throughout this text.
This book is applications oriented: It describes how the accounting system assembles
knowledge necessary for implementing decisions using the theories from microeconomics,
finance, operations management, and marketing. It also shows how the accounting system
helps motivate employees to implement these decisions. Moreover, it stresses the continual
trade-offs that must be made between the decision making and control functions of a­ ccounting.

1
Control refers to the process that helps “ensure the proper behaviors of the people in the organization.
These behaviors should be consistent with the organization’s strategy,” as noted in K. Merchant, Control in
Business Organization (Boston: Pitman Publishing Inc., 1985), p. 4. Merchant provides an extensive ­
discussion of control systems and a bibliography. In Theory of Accounting and Control (Cincinnati,
OH: South-Western Publishing Company, 1997), S. Sunder describes control as mitigating and resolving
­conflicts among ­employees, owners, suppliers, and customers that threaten to pull organizations apart.
4 Chapter 1

A survey of senior-level executives (chief financial officers, vice presidents of finance,

controllers, etc.) asked them to rank the importance of various goals of their firm’s account-
ing system. Eighty percent of the respondents reported that cost management (controlling
costs) was a significant goal of their accounting system and was important to achieving
their company’s overall strategic objective. Another top priority of their firm’s account-
ing system, even higher than cost management or strategic planning, is internal reporting
and performance evaluation. These results indicate that firms use their internal accounting
system both for decision making (strategic planning, cost reduction, financial manage-
ment) and for controlling behavior (internal reporting and performance evaluation).2
The firm’s accounting system is very much a part of the fabric that helps hold the
organization together. It provides knowledge for decision making, and it provides informa-
tion for evaluating and motivating the behavior of individuals within the firm. Being such
an integral part of the organization, the accounting system cannot be studied in isolation
from the other mechanisms used for decision making or for reducing organizational prob-
lems. A firm’s internal accounting system should be examined from a broad perspective,
as part of the larger organization design question facing managers.
This book uses an economic perspective to study how accounting can motivate and
control behavior in organizations. Besides economics, a variety of other paradigms also are
used to investigate organizations: scientific management (Taylor), the bureaucratic school
(Weber), the human relations approach (Mayo), human resource theory (Maslow, ­Rickert,
Argyris), the decision-making school (Simon), and the political science school (Selznick).
Behavior is a complex topic. No single theory or approach is likely to capture all the
­elements. However, understanding managerial accounting requires addressing the behav-
ioral and organizational issues. Economics offers one useful and widely adopted framework.

B. Design and Use of Cost Systems

Managers make decisions and monitor subordinates who make decisions. Both manag-
ers and accountants must acquire sufficient familiarity with cost systems to perform their
jobs. Accountants (often called controllers) are charged with designing, improving, and
operating the firm’s accounting system—an integral part of both the decision-making and
performance evaluation systems. Both managers and accountants must understand the
strengths and weaknesses of current accounting systems. Internal accounting systems,
like all s­ ystems within the firm, are constantly being refined and modified. Accountants’
responsibilities include making these changes.
An internal accounting system should have the following characteristics:
1. Provide the information necessary to assess the profitability of products or
­services and to optimally price and market these products or services.
2. Provide information to detect production inefficiencies to ensure that the
­proposed products and volumes are produced at minimum cost.
3. When combined with the performance evaluation and reward systems, create
incentives for managers to maximize firm value.
4. Support the financial accounting and tax accounting reporting functions. (In some
instances, these latter considerations dominate the first three.)
5. Contribute more to firm value than it costs.

2
Ernst & Young and IMA, “State of Management Accounting,” www.imanet.org/pdf/SurveyofMgtAcctingEY
.pdf, 2003.
 Introduction 5

FIGURE 1–1
Taxing Board of
The multiple role of Regulation
Authorities Directors
accounting systems

IRS & Foreign Regulatory Senior Management

Tax Authorities Authorities Compensation Plans

External Debt
Shareholders SEC/FASB Bondholders
Reports Covenants

Accounting
System

Internal
Reports

Control of
Decision
Organizational
Making
Problems

Figure 1–1 portrays the functions of the accounting system. In it, the accounting
system supports both external and internal reporting systems. Examine the top half of
Figure 1–1. The accounting procedures chosen for external reports to shareholders and
taxing authorities are dictated in part by regulators. In the United States, the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
regulate the financial statements issued to shareholders. The Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) administers the a­ ccounting procedures used in calculating corporate income taxes. If
the firm is involved in international trade, foreign tax authorities prescribe the accounting
rules applied in c­ alculating foreign taxes. Regulatory agencies constrain public utilities’
and financial institutions’ ­accounting procedures.
Management compensation plans and debt contracts often rely on external reports.
Senior managers’ bonuses are often based on accounting net income. Likewise, if the firm
issues long-term bonds, it agrees in the debt covenants not to violate specified accounting-
based constraints. For example, the bond contract might specify that the debt-to-equity
ratio will not exceed some limit. Like taxes and regulation, compensation plans and debt
covenants create incentives for managers to choose particular accounting procedures.3
As firms expand into international markets, external users of the firm’s financial state-
ments become global. No longer are the firm’s shareholders, tax authorities, and regula-
tors domestic. Rather, the firm’s internal and external reports are used internationally in a
variety of ways.
The bottom of Figure 1–1 illustrates that internal reports are used for decision making
as well as control of organizational problems. As discussed earlier, managers use a vari-
ety of sources of data for making decisions. The internal accounting system provides one

3
For further discussion of the incentives of managers to choose accounting methods, see R. Watts and
J. Zimmerman, Positive Accounting Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986).
6 Chapter 1

Managerial Multiple accounting systems are confusing and can lead to errors. An extreme example
Application: of this occurred in 1999 when NASA lost its $125 million Mars spacecraft. Engineers
Spaceship at Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and specified the spacecraft’s thrust in English
Lost Because pounds. But NASA scientists, navigating the craft, assumed the information was in
Two Mea- metric newtons. As a result, the spacecraft was off course by 60 miles as it approached
sures Used Mars and crashed. When two systems are being used to measure the same underlying
event, people can forget which system is being used.
SOURCE: A. Pollack, “Two Teams, Two Measures Equaled One Lost Spacecraft,” The New York Times. October 1, 1999, p. 1.

i­mportant source. These internal reports are also used to evaluate and motivate (control)
the behavior of managers in the firm. The internal accounting system reports on manag-
ers’ performance and therefore provides incentives for them. Any changes to the internal
accounting system can affect all the various uses of the resulting accounting numbers.
The internal and external reports are closely linked. The internal accounting system
affords a more disaggregated view of the company. These internal reports are generated
more frequently, usually monthly or even weekly or daily, whereas the external reports
are provided quarterly for publicly traded U.S. companies. The internal reports offer costs
and profits by specific products, customers, lines of business, and divisions of the com-
pany. For example, the internal accounting system computes the unit cost of individual
products as they are produced. These unit costs are then used to value the work-in-process
and ­finished goods inventory, and to compute cost of goods sold. Chapter 9 describes the
details of product costing.
Because internal accounting systems serve multiple users and have several purposes,
the firm employs either multiple systems (one for each function) or one basic system that
serves all three functions (decision making, performance evaluation, and external report-
ing). Firms can either maintain a single set of books and use the same accounting methods
for both internal and external reports, or they can keep multiple sets of books. The decision
depends on the costs of writing and maintaining contracts based on accounting numbers,
the costs from the dysfunctional internal decisions made using a single system, the addi-
tional bookkeeping costs arising from the extra system, and the confusion of having to
reconcile the different numbers arising from multiple accounting systems.
Inexpensive accounting software packages and falling costs of information technol-
ogy have reduced some of the costs of maintaining multiple accounting systems. However,
confusion arises when the systems report different numbers for the same concept. For
example, when one system reports the manufacturing cost of a product as $12.56 and
another system reports it at $17.19, managers wonder which system is producing the
“right” number. Some managers may be using the $12.56 figure while others are using
$17.19, causing inconsistency and uncertainty. Whenever two numbers for the same con-
cept are produced, the natural tendency is to explain (i.e., reconcile) the differences.
­Managers involved in this reconciliation could have used this time in more productive
ways. Also, using the same accounting system for multiple purposes increases the
­credibility of the financial reports for each purpose.4 With only one accounting system,
the ­external auditor monitors the internal reporting system at little or no additional cost.

4
A. Christie, “An Analysis of the Properties of Fair (Market) Value Accounting,” in Modernizing U.S.
S­ ecurities Regulation: Economic and Legal Perspectives, K. Lehn and R. Kamphuis, eds. (Pittsburgh, PA:
­University of Pittsburgh, Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, 1992).
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
a missionary church. He says, ‘From that time many from the region
of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with great devotion
preached the word of faith to those provinces of the Angles over
which King Osuald reigned; and those among them that had
received priests’ orders administered to the believers the grace of
baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people joyfully
flocked together to hear the Word; possessions and lands were
given of the king’s bounty to build monasteries; the younger Angles
were by their Scottish masters instructed; and greater care and
attention were bestowed upon the rules and observances of regular
discipline.’[312]
A.D.634. The same year which brought to Segine this
Church of the important request from King Osuald of
southern Scots of Northumbria brought him likewise a letter of not
Ireland conforms
to Rome. less importance, but one of a very different tenor,
from the head of one of the dependent
monasteries in Ireland. This letter[313] was written by Cummian, one
of the most learned of the Irish ecclesiastics, and believed to have
been abbot of the monastery of Durrow in King’s County, founded by
Columba shortly before he passed over from Ireland to Iona; and it
is still extant. It is addressed to the abbot ‘Segine, successor of Saint
Columba, and other holy men, and to Beccan the anchorite, his dear
brother according to the flesh and in the spirit, with his wise
companions.’ In this letter he tells him that, when the Roman mode
of computation was first introduced into Ireland, he did not adopt it;
but, retiring in private for a year, he entered into the sanctuary of
God, that is, the holy Scripture, and examined it as well as he was
able; after that, works on history; lastly, whatever cycles he could
meet with. He then gives a very learned summary of the result of his
investigations which led him to adopt the Roman system as correct.
When the year had expired, he says, he applied to the successors of
our ancient fathers, of Bishop Ailbe, of Kieran of Clonmacnois, of
Brendan, of Nessan and of Lugidus, that they might tell him what
they thought of the excommunication directed against them from
the Apostolic See; and they having assembled together, some in
person, others by representatives, at Magh Lene, or the plain of
Lene, in which the monastery of Durrow was situated, came to the
resolution that they ought to adopt without scruple the more worthy
and approved practice recommended to them by the successors of
the apostles of the Lord. They accordingly enjoined him to celebrate
Easter in the following year with the universal church. Not long after,
however, there arose up a certain whited wall, pretending that he
was for upholding the traditions of his elders, which caused disunion
and partly rendered void what had been agreed to. Upon this it was
determined by ‘our seniors’ that if questions of a more weighty
character should arise, they ought to be referred, according to the
decree of the synod, to the head of cities. They therefore sent some
that they knew to be wise and humble, as children to a mother, and
having a prosperous journey by the will of God, and some of them
having come to the city of Rome, they returned in the third year, and
they saw everything accord with what they had heard, or rather they
obtained a much clearer view of the matter, as seeing instead of
hearing; and, being in one lodging with a Greek and a Hebrew, a
Scythian and an Egyptian, they all celebrated their Easter together in
St. Peter’s Church, while they differed from them by a whole month.
And they solemnly assured him of this, saying, This Easter is
celebrated to our knowledge all the world over. ‘These statements,’
adds Cummian, ‘I have made, not with a view to attack you, but to
defend myself.’ Such is the substance of Cummian’s letter;[314] and as
the times for celebrating Easter according to the Roman and to the
Irish computation would be separated by the interval of a month in
the year 631,[315] the synod must have been held about 630, the
return of the deputies taken place in 633, and the letter have been
written in the following year. According to Bede, Pope Honorius in
this year ‘wrote to the nation of the Scots, whom he had found to
err in the observance of Easter, earnestly exhorting them not to
esteem their small number, placed in the utmost borders of the
earth, wiser than all the ancient and modern churches of Christ
throughout the world, and not to celebrate a different Easter,
contrary to the Paschal calculation and the synodical decrees of all
the bishops upon earth;’[316] and the result was that, as Bede tells
us, ‘the Scots which dwelt in the southern districts of Ireland, by the
admonition of the bishop of the Apostolic See, learned to observe
Easter according to the canonical custom;’ while the northern
province of the Scots and the whole nation of the Picts adhered to
the old custom of the country.[317]
The distinction here drawn by Bede between the Scots inhabiting
the southern districts and the northern province of the Scots
obviously refers to the old traditional division of Ireland into two
parts, termed severally Leth Mogha and Leth Cuinn, which were
divided from each other by a ridge extending from the mouth of the
Liffey to Galway, and termed Eisgir Riada.[318] The southern districts
were Munster and Leinster south of the Liffey. The northern division
contained the rest of Leinster, Ulster and Connaught. Durrow,
though a Columban monastery, was situated in the southern
division, and probably now broke off from the jurisdiction of Iona
and, along with the rest of the Irish Church in the southern division
of Ireland, conformed to Rome.
We meet with a passing notice of the monastery of Lismore in the
following year, when Tighernac records the death of its abbot
Eochaidh; and in the same year Abbot Segine appears to have
founded a church in Rechrann, or the island of Rathlin off the north
coast of Ireland.[319]
Some years after a letter appears to have been sent from the Irish
Church to Pope Severinus, who succeeded Honorius in 640, but died
within the year, which called forth a reply from his successor John,
while Pope-elect, by the person who had taken the letter, which
Bede tells us was ‘full of great authority and erudition for correcting
the same error,’ and at the same time admonished them to be
careful to crush the Pelagian heresy, which, he had been informed,
was reviving amongst them. Bede gives us the opening of this
epistle thus:—‘To our most beloved and most holy Tomianus,
Columbanus, Cromanus, Dinanus, and Baithanus, bishops; to
Cromanus, Ernianus, Laistranus, Scellanus, and Segenus, priests; to
Saranus and the rest of the Scottish doctors or abbots, greeting from
Hilarius, the arch-priest and keeper of the place of the holy Apostolic
See; from John, the deacon and elect in the name of God; from John
the chief secretary and keeper of the place of the holy Apostolic See,
and from John the servant of God and councillor of the same
Apostolic See.’[320] These Scottish doctors or abbots, with Tomianus,
who was bishop of Armagh, at their head, all belonged to the
northern province, and this appeal had no effect in altering their
relation towards the Church of Rome. But it is instructive to observe
that Segenus or Segine, abbot of Iona, is placed among the clergy of
the Irish Church, of which his monastery, with its dependent
monasteries in Scotland, was ranked as forming a part. Ten years
afterwards news came of the death of Aidan, after a sixteen years’
episcopate over the church of Northumbria; and Finan, ‘who had,’
says Bede, ‘been sent from Hii, the island and monastery of the
Scots,’ succeeded him.[321]
A.D. 652-657. Segine’s own death followed a year after. His
Suibhne, son of successor was Suibhne, of whom we know
Cuirtri. nothing except that his father’s name was Cuirtri,
but it is unlikely that at this early stage any one who did not belong
to the tribe of the patron saint could be elected an abbot, and the
only notice we have of him is his death after having been five years
in the abbacy.[322]
A.D. 657-669. He was succeeded in the abbacy by Cummene
Cummene Ailbhe, Ailbhe, the nephew of his predecessor Segene,
son of Ernan. whose tenure of office was signalised by equally
important events. His first year is coincident with the extension of
the dominion of Osuiu, the Northumbrian king, over the Britons of
Strathclyde, the southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada; but,
though the latter ceased for a time to possess an independent king,
the rule of Northumbria could not have affected the church to which
her own church was affiliated. Accordingly, when Finan, the
successor of Aidan, died, we find that Colman was also ‘sent out of
Scotia,’ and succeeded him as bishop.[323] Tighernac records, in the
same year, the death of Bishop Finan and of Daniel, bishop of
Cinngaradh or Kingarth, in Bute; and in the following year, a visit of
Abbot Cummene to Ireland;[324] and, as Bede says of Finan that he
was ordained and sent by the Scots, while, in the case of Colman, he
uses the expression that he was sent out of Scotia, or Ireland, this
rather confirms our suspicion that the bishops called in to consecrate
these Northumbrian missionaries were the bishops of Kingarth, and
that the death of Bishop Daniel in the same year rendered an appeal
to Ireland necessary.
A.D. 664. While, however, Segine’s tenure of the abbacy
Termination of saw the extension of the Columban Church into
Columban Church Northumbria, that of his nephew Cummene was
in Northumbria.
doomed to see its extinction after it had for thirty
years been the church of the country. The cause was the
controversy regarding the proper time for celebrating Easter. It had
been raised, during the episcopate of Finan, by some ecclesiastics
who came from Kent or France; and among them, says Bede, ‘was a
most zealous defender of the true Easter, whose name was Ronan, a
Scot indeed by nation, but instructed in ecclesiastical truth either in
the parts of France or of Italy, who, by disputing with Finan,
corrected many, or at least induced them to make a more strict
inquiry after the truth; yet he could not amend Finan, but on the
contrary made him the more inveterate by reproof, and an open
opposer of the truth, he being of a hot and violent temper.’[325] The
royal family, too, were divided. The queen, Eanfled, being from Kent
and having a Kentish priest, Romanus, with her, followed the
Catholic mode, so that one year the king and queen both celebrated
their Easter at different times. Under Colman the controversy
became more bitter, and the king Osuiu and his son Alchfrid were
now opposed to each other, the latter having been instructed in
Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had been originally
trained in the Scottish monastery of Lindisfarne, but had gone from
thence to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much
time at Lyons with Dalfin, archbishop of Gaul, from whom he had
received the coronal tonsure. Agilberct, bishop of the West Saxons, a
friend to Alchfrid and to Abbot Wilfrid, having come to Northumbria,
suggested that a synod should be held to settle the controversy
regarding Easter, the tonsure and other ecclesiastical affairs. This
was agreed to; and it was accordingly held, in the year 664, at the
monastery of Streanashalch, near Whitby, where the abbess Hilda, a
woman devoted to God, then presided. The king Osuiu and his son
Alchfrid were both present. On the Catholic side was Bishop
Agilberct, with the priests Agatho and Wilfrid, James and Romanus.
On the Scottish side was Bishop Colman with his clerics from Scotia,
or Ireland, the abbess Hilda and her followers, and Bishop Cedd of
Essex, who had been ordained by the Scots, and acted as interpreter
for both parties. The king called upon Colman and Wilfrid to conduct
the discussion. It is given at length by Bede, but it is unnecessary to
say more than that the usual arguments were used. Colman pleaded
that the Easter he kept he received from his elders; and all his
forefathers, men beloved of God, are known to have celebrated it
after the same manner. Wilfrid opposed the custom of the universal
church and the authority of Rome. Colman asks, ‘Is it to be believed
that our most reverend father Columba, and his successors, men
beloved by God, who kept Easter after the same manner, thought or
acted contrary to the divine writings? whereas there were many
among them whose sanctity is testified by heavenly signs and the
working of miracles which they performed, whose life, customs and
discipline I never cease to follow, nor question their sanctity.’ Wilfrid
replied, ‘Concerning your father Columba and his followers, whose
sanctity you say you imitate and whose rule and precepts you
observe, which have been confirmed by signs from heaven, I might
answer that when many, on the day of judgment, shall say to our
Lord that in his name they prophesied and cast out devils and
wrought many wonders, our Lord will reply that He never knew
them. But far be it from me that I should say so of your father,
because it is more just to believe what is good than what is evil of
persons whom one does not know. If that Columba of yours—and I
may say ours also, if he were Christ’s—was a holy man and powerful
in miracles, yet should he be preferred before the most blessed
prince of the apostles, to whom our Lord had given the keys of the
kingdom of heaven?’ And as Colman admitted that these words were
spoken to Peter, and could not show that any such power was given
to Columba, the king decided to obey the decrees of Rome, and all
present gave their assent and, renouncing the more imperfect
institution, hastened to conform themselves to that which they found
to be better.[326] Bede then tells us ‘that Colman, perceiving that his
doctrine was rejected and his sect despised, took with him such as
were willing to follow him and would not comply with the Catholic
Easter and the coronal tonsure—for there was much controversy
about that also—and went back into Scotia, or Ireland, to consult
with his people what was to be done in this case.’ And he adds that
Colman carried home with him part of the bones of the most
reverend father Aidan, and left part of them in the church where he
had presided, ordering them to be interred in its sacristy.[327]
The character which this most candid historian gives of the church
of the Scots in Northumbria so much reflects that of the parent
church of Iona, that it may be well to insert it. He says of Bishop
Colman, ‘How great was his parsimony, how great his continence,
the place which they governed shows for himself and his
predecessors, for there were very few houses besides the church
found at their departure, indeed no more than were barely sufficient
for their daily residence. They had also no money but cattle; for, if
they received any money from rich persons, they immediately gave
it to the poor, there being no need to gather money or provide
houses for the entertainment of the great men of the world? for
such never resorted to the church except to pray and hear the Word
of God. For this reason the religious habit was at that time in great
veneration, so that, wheresoever any cleric or monk happened to
come, he was joyfully received by all persons, as God’s servant; and,
if they chanced to meet him as he was upon the way they ran to him
and, bowing, were glad to be signed with his hand or blessed with
his mouth. Great attention was also paid to their exhortations; and
on Sundays the people flocked eagerly to the church or the
monasteries, not to feed their bodies, but to hear the Word of God;
and, if any priest happened to come into a village the inhabitants
flocked together forthwith to hear from him the Word of Life. For the
priests and clerics went into the villages on no other account than to
preach, baptize, visit the sick and, in few words, to take care of
souls; and they were so free from the curse of worldly avarice, that
none of them received lands and possessions for building
monasteries, unless they were compelled to do so by the temporal
authorities.’[328]
Though Bede tells us in general terms that Colman returned to
Ireland, he did not actually do so till after four years; for he
mentions afterwards that Colman ‘repaired first to the isle of Hii, or
Iona, whence he had been sent to preach the word of God to the
Anglic nation. Afterwards he retired to a certain small island which is
to the west of Ireland, and at some distance from its coast, called, in
the language of the Scots, Inisboufinde,’ and Tighernac places this
event in the year 668.[329] As he had taken the relics of Aidan with
him, it was probably during this interval that he founded the church
of Fearn in Angus, dedicated to Aidan, and the church of Tarbet, in
Easter Ross, with which his own name is connected; and if he
reported to Abbot Cummene, as no doubt he would, the discussion
he had held with Wilfrid, and the appeal which he had made in vain
to the authority of Columba as a man whose sanctity was testified
by heavenly signs and the working of miracles, it probably led to
Cummene’s writing the Life of their great saint, which Adamnan calls
‘the book which he wrote on the virtues of St. Columba,’[330] in
vindication of the assertion. This Life is still extant, and the whole of
it has been embodied in Adamnan’s more elaborate production.
Tighernac records the death of Cummene in the year 669, and along
with it those of two saints who belonged to the church among the
southern Picts—Itharnan or Ethernanus, of Madderdyn, now
Madderty in Strathearn, and Corindu, or Caran, of Fetteresso in the
Mearns.[331]
A.D. 669-679. His successor was Failbhe, son of Pipan, also a
Failbhe, son of descendant of Conall Gulban, and the first year of
Pipan. his tenure of the abbacy also saw Wilfrid in
possession of the diocese of York. According to Bede, he at this time
administered the bishopric of York and of all the Northumbrians, and
likewise of the Picts as far as the dominions of king Osuiu extended.
[332]
His diocese therefore comprehended the territories of the
southern Picts, the Britons of Strathclyde and the Scots of Dalriada,
over all of which King Osuiu had extended his rule. Wilfrid retained
this extensive diocese during the entire period of Failbhe’s abbacy;
and, so far as he could make his power felt, his influence would no
doubt be exercised against the Columban Church; for, as Eddi tells
us, ‘under Bishop Wilfrid the churches were multiplied both in the
south among the Saxons and in the north among the Britons, Scots
and Picts, Wilfrid having ordained everywhere presbyters and
deacons, and governed new churches.’[333] But the territories of the
northern Picts were beyond his reach; and Failbhe’s tenure of the
abbacy is chiefly remarkable for the extension of the Columban
Church to those rugged and almost inaccessible districts which lay
on the western seaboard between Ardnamurchan on the south and
Loch Broom on the north.
A.D. 673. The principal agent in effecting this was
Foundation of Maelrubha, who was of the race of the northern
church of Hy Neill, but belonged to a different sept from
Applecross by that which had the right of furnishing abbots to
Maelrubha.
the monastery of Iona. He was connected
through his mother with Comgall of Bangor, and became a member
of that monastery which, as situated among the Picts of Ireland, well
fitted him to be a missionary to those of the same race in Scotland.
He came over to Britain in the year 671, and two years afterwards
he founded the church of Aporcrosan, now Applecross,[334] from
which as a centre he evangelised the whole of the western districts
lying between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, as well as the south
and west parts of the island of Skye, and planted churches in Easter
Ross and elsewhere. The dedications to him show that his
missionary work was very extensive. In the same year Failbhe went
to Ireland, where he appears to have remained three years,[335] and
was probably engaged in arrangements for extending the missionary
work; for it is probably at this period that we must place the arrival
of Comgan with his sister Kentigerna and her son Fillan in the district
of Lochalsh, where they planted churches, as well as in the districts
south of it as far as Loch Sunart.[336] At this time too the church in
Egg appears to have been restored.[337] In the year 678 Wilfrid was
ejected from his extensive bishopric, but Failbhe only survived this
event one year, when his death is recorded; and at the same time
we have a trace of the church in the eastern territories of the
northern Picts, in the death of Neachtan Neir, who can be identified
with the great saint of Deeside in Aberdeenshire, called by the
people there, Nathalan, or Nachlan.[338]
A.D. 679-704. We are now brought in our narrative to the
Adamnan, son of very important period when Adamnan, the
Ronan. biographer of Columba, ruled over his monastery
as ninth abbot. He was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and
belonged to the tribe of the patron saint. He was born in 624, just
twenty-seven years after the death of Saint Columba. During the
first six years of his abbacy, the rule of the Angles, under King
Ecgfrid, still extended as far as it did during the reign of his father
Osuiu. After the ejection of Wilfrid from the diocese in this its fullest
extent, it was divided between Bosa and Eata, the latter being
appointed bishop of the northern part; and three years afterwards it
was still further divided, Trumuin being appointed bishop over the
province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles. The defeat
and death of King Ecgfrid, however, at the battle of Dunnichen in the
year 685 terminated this rule of the Angles, and with it the
interference of the Anglic bishops with the Columban Church. The
Scots of Dalriada recovered their independence. The southern Picts
were relieved from the more direct yoke of the Angles, and Trumuin
fled from his diocese.
A.D. 686. The new king Aldfrid had been long in exile in
His first mission Ireland, where he was known by the name of
to Northumbria. Flann Finn, and Adamnan was on terms of
friendly acquaintance with him. His first proceeding was to go on a
mission to him to ask the release of the Irish captives whom Berct,
King Ecgfrid’s general, had carried away from the plain of Breg; and
the Irish Life of Adamnan gives us the route he took. It says ‘The
North Saxons went to him and plundered Magh Bregh as far as
Bealach-duin; they carried off with them a great prey of men and
women. The men of Erin besought of Adamnan to go in quest of the
captives to Saxonland. Adamnan went to demand the prisoners, and
put in at Tracht-Romra. The strand is long, and the flood rapid; so
rapid that if the best steed in Saxonland ridden by the best
horseman were to start from the edge of the tide when the tide
begins to flow, he could only bring his rider ashore by swimming, so
extensive is the strand, and so impetuous is the tide.’ Adamnan
appears therefore to have gone in his curach and entered the
Solway Firth, which is evidently the place meant, and landed on the
southern shore. He succeeded in his undertaking, and brought sixty
of the captives back to their homes.[339]
Adamnan repairs His next step was to repair the monastery,
the monastery of which had probably fallen into disrepair during
Iona. Failbhe’s time; and for this purpose he sent
twelve vessels to Lorn for oak trees to furnish the necessary timber.
[340]
In this monastery he received Arculfus, a bishop of Gaul, who
had gone to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and returning home
was driven by a violent storm on the west coast of Britain and made
his way to Iona and passed the winter there. During the dreary
winter months, Adamnan committed to writing all the information he
could obtain from him as to the holy places; and this work is still
extant.[341]
A.D. 688. In 688 Adamnan proceeded on a second
His second mission to King Aldfrid, with what object is not
mission to known; but it appears to have been connected
Northumbria.
with the affairs of Dalriada. This second visit to
Northumbria had very important consequences both for himself and
for his church; for Bede tells us that ‘Adamnan, priest and abbot of
the monks that were in the isle of Hii, was sent ambassador by his
nation to Aldfrid, king of the Angles, where, having made some stay,
he observed the canonical rites of the church, and was earnestly
admonished by many who were more learned than himself not to
presume to live contrary to the universal custom of the church in
relation to either the observance of Easter or any other decrees
whatsoever, considering the small number of his followers, seated at
so distant a corner of the world. In consequence of this he changed
his mind, and readily preferred those things which he had seen and
heard in the churches of the Angles to the customs which he and his
people had hitherto followed. For he was a good and a wise man,
and remarkably learned in the knowledge of the Scriptures;’[342] and
Abbot Ceolfrid of Jarrow, in his letter to King Naiton of the Picts, who
calls him ‘Adamnan, the abbot and renowned priest of the
Columbans,’ says that he visited his monastery, and narrates at
length the conversation he had with him, to which he attributes
Adamnan’s conversion.[343] ‘Returning home,’ continues Bede, ‘he
endeavoured to bring his own people that were in Hii, or that were
subject to that monastery, into the way of truth, which he himself
had learned and embraced with all his heart; but in this he could not
prevail.’ We have thus the anomalous state of matters that the abbot
of the monastery had conformed to Rome, but that his monks and
those of the dependent monasteries refused to go along with him. In
the year after his return to Iona, the death of Iolan, bishop of
Cinngaradh, or Kingarth in Bute, is recorded; and in 692, which the
annalist marks as the fourteenth after the decease of his
predecessor Failbhe, he went to Ireland, but for what especial
purpose which might render the reference to Failbhe appropriate, we
do not learn; and the following year we find him again in Iona, when
the body of Brude mac Bile, king of the Picts, who died in 693, is
brought for interment.[344]
A.D. 692. Four years after, in the year 697, he goes again
Synod of Tara. to Ireland, and on this occasion he was
The northern accompanied by Brude, son of Derile, king of the
Scots, with the
exception of the Picts. His object was to obtain the sanction of the
Columban Irish people to a law exempting women from the
monasteries, burden laid upon all, of what was called Fecht
conform to Rome. and Sluagad, or the duty attending hostings and
expeditions. For this purpose a synod was held at Tara, which was
attended by thirty-nine ecclesiastics presided over by the abbot of
Armagh, and by forty-seven chiefs of tribes, at the head of whom
was the monarch of Ireland. The law exempting women from this
burdensome duty was termed ‘Lex innocentium;’ and the
enactments of the synod were called Cain Adhamhnain or ‘Lex
Adamnani,’ because among its results was the privilege of levying
contributions under certain conditions.[345] In the list of those present
occurs the name of Brude mac Derili ri Cruithentuaithe, or King of
Pictland. It is to the occasion of this visit to Ireland that must be
referred the statement of Bede that ‘he then sailed over into Ireland
to preach to those people, and, by modest exhortation declaring the
true time of Easter, he reduced many of them, and almost all that
were not under the dominion of those of Hii, from their ancient error
to the Catholic unity, and taught them to keep the proper time of
Easter. Returning to his island after having celebrated Easter in
Ireland canonically, he most earnestly inculcated the observance of
Easter in his monastery, yet without being able to prevail; and it so
happened that he departed this life before the next year came
round. For the divine goodness so ordained it that, as he was a
great lover of peace and unity, he should be taken away to
everlasting life before he would be obliged, on the return of the time
of Easter, to have still more serious discord with those that would
not follow him in the truth.’[346] It would therefore appear that
Adamnan did not return to Iona till the year of his death, which took
place on the 23d of September in the year 704, and in the seventy-
seventh year of his age.[347]
At what period of Adamnan’s abbacy he wrote his life of the
patron saint and founder of the monastery cannot be fixed with any
accuracy, but it was after his visit to Aldfrid in 688; and, as he states
that he did so at the urgent request of his brethren, and alludes
incidentally to the discord which arose among the churches of
Ireland on account of the difference with regard to the Easter feast,
it was probably compiled before the same discord had arisen
between the brethren of Iona and himself as their abbot.[348] Neither
can the precise period be fixed when he founded those churches in
the eastern districts which are dedicated to him; but no doubt, after
the termination of the Anglic rule over the southern Picts and Scots
of Dalriada, he would be desirous to strengthen the Columban
Church; and his relations with the kings of the Picts who reigned
after the overthrow of the Angles were, as we have seen, cordial
and friendly. In this work he appears to have been assisted by the
family who had already evangelised the rugged district termed the
‘Rough Bounds,’ as the churches dedicated to them and him are
found adjacent to each other. Among the northern Picts, Adamnan’s
principal church was that of Forglen on the east bank of the river
Doveran, in which the Brecbannoch, or banner of Columba, was
preserved; and separated from it by the same river is Turriff,
dedicated to Comgan. South of the range of the Mounth Adamnan’s
most important foundation was the monastery of Dull in the district
of Atholl, which was dedicated to him, and to which a very extensive
territory was annexed; and closely contiguous to it was the district of
Glendochart, with its monastery dedicated to Fillan, whose name is
preserved in Strathfillan. Fillan again appears in Pittenweem on the
south coast of the peninsula of Fife; and in the Firth of Forth which it
bounds is Inchkeith, ‘on which Saint Adamnan the abbot
presided.’[349]
A.D. 704-717. Adamnan, though, as Bede says, a man of
Schism at Iona peace and providentially removed before the
coming Easter, when matters would have been
after death of brought to a crisis between him and his
Adamnan. recalcitrant monks, seems notwithstanding to
have left a legacy of discord behind him. For the first time since the
foundation of the monastery of Iona, we find in the successor of
Adamnan an abbot who was not a descendant of Conall Gulban.
Conmael, son of Failbhe, was of the tribe of Airgialla in Ireland, who
were descended from Colla Uais; but three years after Adamnan’s
death we find Duncadh, who belonged to the tribe of the patron
saint, obtaining the abbacy. Then three years after we have the
death of Conmael as abbot of Iona. After his death appears Ceode,
bishop of Iona, who dies in 712, and in 713 Dorbeni obtains the
chair of Iona, but after five months’ possession of the primacy dies
on Saturday the 28th of October in the same year. During the whole
of this time, however, Duncadh is likewise abbot.[350] The explanation
seems to be that the community of Iona had become divided on the
subject of the Easter question, and that a party had become
favourable to Adamnan’s views. As he had not succeeded in bringing
over any of the Columban monasteries, they were driven to obtain
an abbot elsewhere, and procured the nomination of Conmael; while
the opposing party having got the upper hand three years after,
Duncadh, the legitimate successor of the line of Conall Gulban,
obtained the abbacy, and there was thus a schism in the community
—one section of them celebrating their Easter after the Roman
system, who had at their head Conmael, Ceode the bishop, and
Dorbeni; and the other and more powerful section maintaining,
under the presidency of Duncadh, the old custom of their church.
After narrating how ‘at that time,’ that is, in 710, ‘Naiton, king of the
Picts who inhabit the northern parts of Britain, taught by frequent
study of the ecclesiastical writings, renounced the error by which he
and his nation had till then been held in relation to the observance
of Easter, and submitted, together with his people, to celebrate the
Catholic time of our Lord’s resurrection,’ Bede closes his notices of
the monastery of Iona by telling us that ‘not long after, those monks
also of the Scottish nation who lived in the isle of Hii, with the other
monasteries that were subject to them, were, by the procurement of
our Lord, brought to the canonical observance of Easter and the
right mode of tonsure. For in the year after the incarnation of our
Lord 716, the father and priest Ecgberct, beloved of God and worthy
to be named with all honour, coming to them from Ireland, was very
honourably and joyfully received by them. Being a most agreeable
teacher and most devout in practising those things which he taught,
he was willingly heard by all; and, by his pious and frequent
exhortations he converted them from the inveterate tradition of their
ancestors. He taught them to perform the principal solemnity after
the Catholic and apostolic manner;’ and Bede adds, ‘The monks of
Hii, by the instruction of Ecgberct, adopted the Catholic rites, under
Abbot Dunchad, about eighty years after they had sent Bishop Aidan
to preach to the nation of the Angles.’[351] It is rarely, however, that,
when a change is proposed in matters of faith or practice, a
Christian community is unanimous, and there is always an opposing
minority who refuse their assent to it. So it must have been here, for
in the same passage in which Tighernac notices the adoption of the
Catholic Easter in 716 he adds that Faelchu mac Dorbeni takes the
chair of Columba in the eighty-seventh year of his age, and on
Saturday the 29th of August; while he records the death of Abbot
Duncadh in the following year.[352] We have here again a schism in
the community; and no sooner does Abbot Duncadh with his
adherents go over to the Roman party, than the opposing section
adopt a new abbot.
A.D. 717 The greater part, if not the whole, of the
Expulsion of the dependent monasteries among the Picts seem to
Columban monks have resisted the change, and to have refused
from the kingdom
of the Picts. 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 be 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.

252. Exceptis duobus populis, hoc est, Pictorum plebs et Scotorum

Britanniæ, inter quos utrosque Dorsi montes Britannici
disterminant.... Cujus (Columbæ) monasteria intra utrorumque
populorum terminos fundata ab utrisque ad præsens tempus valde
sunt honorificata.—B. ii. c. 47·

253. For an account of the remains on this island, see p. 97.

254. See Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, App. I. p. 306.

255. Adamnan, B. ii. 23, 25.

256. Ib., B. i. cc. 24, 41; B. ii. c. 15; B. iii. c. 8. See ed. 1874,
Appendix I., for an account of the monasteries in Tiree.

257. Ib., B. i. c. 29.

258. Ib., B. i. c. 35.

259. Adamnan, B. i. c. 15.

260. Ib., B. i. c. 24.

261. See Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, App. No. I., for an account
of the remains on this island.

262. Vit. S. Kannechi, cc. 19, 27, 28.

 263. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 17; i. 25; ii. 32.

264. See the edition of 1874, p. 274, for a description of these

ruins in Skye.

265. 592 Obitus Lugdach Lissmoir .i. Moluoc.—Chron. Picts and

Scots, p. 67.

266. Colgan, Tr. Th., p. 481. Obits of Christ Church, Dublin, p. 65.

267. Colgan, A.SS., p. 233.

268. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 293.

269. Cetrar for coicait lotar hi martrai la Donnan Ega.

270. Book of Deer, published by the Spalding Club in 1869, p. 91.

271. 584 Mors Bruidhe mac Maelchon Rig Cruithneach.—Chron.

Picts and Scots, p. 67.

272. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 34.

273. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 201. Constantin reigned from 790
to 820 and Gartnaidh from 584 to 599, which places the foundation
of Abernethy during the ten years from 584 to 596.

274. Amra Columcille, by O’Beirne Crowe, pp. 29, 63.

275. Introduction to Obits of Christ Church, by Dr. Todd, p. lxxvii.

276. Vit. S. Cainneci in Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin, cap.

19. The Breviary of Aberdeen gives his festival as ‘Sancti Caynici
abbatis qui in Kennoquy in diocesi Sancti Andree pro patrono
habetur.’—Pars Æstiv. for cxxv.

277. Blaan is mentioned in the Martyrology of Angus the Culdee,

at 10th August as ‘Blann the wild of Cinngaradh;’ and the gloss adds,
‘i.e. bishop of Cinngaradh, i.e. Dumblaan is his chief city, and he is
also of Cinngaradh in the Gall-Gaedelu, or Western Isles.’—Int. to
Obits of Christ Church, p. lxviii.

278. Adamnan, B. i. c. 3. Alither became fourth abbot of

Clonmacnois on 12th June 585, and died in 599.—Reeves’s
Adamnan, orig. ed., p. 24, note.

279. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 23.

280. This little hill is twice mentioned by Adamnan. In B. i. c. 24,

he describes the saint as ‘in cacumine sedens montis qui nostro huic
monasterio eminus supereminet;’ and on this occasion he has
‘monticellum monasterio supereminentum ascendens in vertice ejus
paululum stetit.’ If the monastery and Columba’s cell have been
rightly placed, it must have been the rocky knoll behind Clachanach
called Cnoc an bristeclach.

281. Vit. Columbæ, autore Cummenio, apud Pinkerton, Vitæ

Sanctorum, cc. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 24.
Cummene’s account is enlarged by Adamnan, and he has added the
visit to the barn and the incident of the white horse; but, as
Cummene wrote so much earlier, it has been thought desirable to
discriminate between the two accounts.

282. Adamnan’s word is ‘Ratabusta,’ an unknown word either in

classical or mediæval Latin; and it appears to have puzzled the
transcribers, as other MSS. read ‘Rata busta’ ‘Intra busta,’ ‘In rata
tabeta.’ The Bollandists propose ‘Catabusta.’ Bustum is used for a
sepulchre; and Ducange has Busticeta, which he defines ‘sepulchra
antiqua,’ ‘sepulchra in agro.’ Dr. Reeves thinks it is used here for a
coffin.

283. This frequently happens when the wind blows strongly from
the south-west.
 284. St. Columba’s day was the 9th of June, and the year on
which he died is determined by the consideration of whether he
must be held to have died on Saturday evening or on Sunday
morning. If on Sunday, then the 9th of June fell on a Sunday in the
year 597. If on Saturday, then the 9th of June fell on a Saturday in
596. The former is most consistent with Adamnan’s narrative, who
places his death after midnight, and states the duration of his life in
Iona at 34 years, which, added to 563, gives us the year 597. Bede’s
statement, though made on different data, brings us to the same
year. He brings him over in 565, but gives 32 years as the duration
of his life after, which also brings us to 597. Tighernac seems to have
adopted the other view, for he says that he died on the eve of
Whitsunday, ‘in nocte Dominica Pentecosten,’ and Whitsunday fell on
the 10th of June 596; but this is inconsistent with his other
statement, that he came over to Britain in 563, and died in the
thirty-fifth year of his pilgrimage, which brings us to 597.

285. Montalembert’s Monks of the West, vol. iii. p. 269.

Montalembert accepts the whole of O’Donnel’s biography of St.
Columba as true.

286. Adamnan, Pref. 2. His expression ‘insulanus miles’ has been

entirely misunderstood by Montalembert.

287. Amra Choluimchille, by O’Beirne Crowe, pp. 27, 39, 49, 51,
53, 65.

288. Ib., p. 39.

289. Adamnan, B. i. c. 29.

290. Amra Choluimchille, pp. 43, 45.

291. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 14.

292. Bede, Η. E., B. iii. c. 3.

 293. Bede seems to refer to this when he says, ‘in quibus omnibus
idem monasterium insulanum, in quo ipse requiescit corpore,
principatum teneret.’—B. iii. c. 4.

294. The expression, ‘whatever kind of person he was himself,’—

verum qualiscumque fuerit ipse,—has been held to imply that Bede
had no great opinion of St. Columba’s sanctity, or, at all events,
referred to traits in his character which were unfavourable, and Dr.
Reeves suggests that he may refer to current stories of the saint’s
imperious and vindictive temper; but the expression appears to the
author to refer to the immediately preceding sentence—‘de cujus
vita et verbis nonnulla a discipulis ejus feruntur scripta haberi’—
which surely refers to the Lives by Cummene and Adamnan. As Bede
was acquainted with Adamnan’s work on the Holy Places, he could
hardly have been ignorant of his Life of St. Columba; and probably
all Bede meant to express was that he had some hesitation in
accepting as true all that Adamnan said of him.

295. Adamnan, B. i. c. 2. It is unnecessary to follow Finten’s

proceedings further. He is the Finten, surnamed Munnu, who
founded Tach Munnu, now Taghmon, in Ireland, and to whom the
churches of St. Mund in Lochleven and Kilmund in Cowal were
dedicated.

296. 598 Quies Baethin abbatis Ea anno lxvi etatis sue.—Tigh.

Tighernac antedates the deaths of Columba and Baithene one year.
The Martyrology of Donegal records two anecdotes of him. ‘When he
used to eat food, he was wont to say Deus in adjutorium meum
intende between every two morsels. When he used to be gathering
corn along with the monks, he held one hand up beseeching God,
and another hand gathering corn.’—Mart. Don. p. 165.

297. Bede, Η. E., B. ii. c. 4.

298. 605 Obitus Laisreni abbatis Iae.—Tigh.

299. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 20.

 300. 611 Neman Abbas Lesmoir.—Tigh. 617 Combustio Donnain
Ega hi xv kalendas Mai cum clericis martiribus.—Tigh. Chron. Picts
and Scots, pp. 68, 69.

301. Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, 1874, p. 294.

302. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 168. Bishop Forbes’s Calendars, p.

449.

303. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 1.

304. 623 Bass Fergna abbas Iae.—Tigh.

305. Bede, Η. E., B. ii. c. 14.

306. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. ii. c. 17.

307. Ib., B. iii. c. 3.

308. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 5.

309. ‘Hanc mihi Adamnano narrationem meus decessor, noster

abbas Failbeus, indubitanter enarravit, qui se ab ore ipsius Ossualdi
regis Segineo abbati eamdem enuntiantis visionem audisse
protestatus est.’—Adamnan, B. i. c. 1.

310. 632 Inis Metgoit fundata est.—Tigh. Tighernac antedates at

this period transactions in Northumbria by about three years.

311. Bede in Vit. S. Cudbercti, c. xvi.

312. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 3.

313. The title of the letter is—‘In nomine Divino Dei summi
confido. Dominis sanctis et in Christo venerandis Segieno abbati,
Columbæ Sancti et cæterorum sanctorum successori, Beccanoque
solitario, charo carne et spiritu fratri, cum suis sapientibus,
Cummianus supplex peccator, magnis minimus, apologeticam in
Christo salutem.’

314. The letter is printed at length in Usher’s Veterum Epistolarum

Hibernicarum Sylloge, p. 24, and in Migne’s Patrologia, vol. xxxviii.

315. According to the Irish method Easter in 631 fell on 21st April,
according to the Roman on the 24th of March.

316. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. ii. c. 19.

317. Ib., B. iii. c. 3.

318. Keating’s History of Ireland, cap. ii. § 7.

319. 635 Seigine abbas Ie ecclesiam Recharnn fundavit. Eocha

abbas Lismoir quievit.—Tigh.

320. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. ii. c. 19.

321. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 17. 651 Quies Aidain episcopi Saxan.
—Tigh.

322. 652 Obitus Seghine abbas Iea .i. filii Fiachna.—Tigh.

657 Quies Suibne mic Cuirthre abbatis Iea.—Tigh.

323. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 25.

324. 660 Obitus Finain mac Rimeda episcopi et Daniel episcopi

Cindgaradh.
661 Cuimine abbas ad Hiberniam venit.—Tigh.

325. Bede, H. E., B. iii. c. 25.

326. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 25.

327. Ib., c. 26.

 328. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 26.

329. Ib., B. iv. c. 4.

A.D. 668 Navigatio Colmani episcop cum reliquiis sanctorum ad
insulam vacce albe in qua fundavit ecclesiam.—Tigh.

330. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 6.

331. A.D. 669 Obitus Cumaine Ailbe abbatis Iea. Itharnan et

Corindu apud Pictores defuncti sunt.—Tigh.

332. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iv. c. 3.

333. Eddii Vit. S. Wilf., c. xxi.

334. A.D. 671 Maelruba in Britanniam navigat.

A.D. 673 Maelruba fundavit ecclesiam Aporcrosan.—Tigh.

335. A.D. 673 Navigatio Failbe abbatis Iea in Hiberniam. A.D. 676
Failbe de Hibernia revertitur.—Tigh.

336. Bishop Forbes, Scottish Calendars, pp. 310-341.

337. Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 296.

338. A.D. 674 Quies Failbe abbatis Iea. Dormitatio Nechtain.—Tigh.

He appears in the Felire of Angus on 8th January as Nechtain Nair
de albae, which is glossed Anair de Albain—from the east, from
Alban.

339. A.D. 687 Adamnanus captivos reduxit ad Hiberniam lx.—Tigh.

Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. cli. Adamnan alludes to this mission,
B. ii. c. 1.

340. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 46. Boece states that the monastery was
rebuilt by Maelduin, king of Dalriada, whose death is recorded by
Tighernac in 690. He therefore reigned at the very time when
Adamnan was abbot, and this fixes the date of these repairs as
between 687 and 690.

341. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p.

clxi.

342. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15.

343. Ib. c. 21. He calls him ‘Abbas et sacerdos Columbiensium

egregius.’

344. A.D. 689 Iolan episcopus Cindgaradh obiit. 692 Adamnanus

xiiii annis post pausam Failbe Ea ad Hiberniam pergit.—Tigh. See
Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 408.

345. Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. clvi. A.D. 697 Adamnan
tuc recht lecsa in Erind an bliadhna seo (brought a law with him this
year to Ireland).—Tigh.

346. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15.

347. A.D. 704 Adamnanus lxxvii anno ætatis suæ, in nonas kalendis
Octobris, abbas Ie, pausat.—Tigh.

348. See Adamnan, Pref. i. and B. i. c. 3. Dr. Reeves considers that

it was written between the years 692 and 697, but it was more
probably compiled immediately after his return from England in 688,
and before his visit to Ireland in 692.

349. ‘Inchekethe, in qua præfuit Sanctus Adamnanus abbas.’—

Scotichronicon, B. i. c. 6.

350. A.D. 707 Dunchadh principatum Iae tenuit.—Tigh.

710 Conmael mac abbatis Cilledara Iae pausat.—Tigh.
712 Ceode episcopus Iea pausat.—Tigh.
713 Dorbeni cathedram Iae obtinuit, et v. mensibus peractis in
primatu v kalendis Novembris die Sabbati obiit.—Tigh. The 28th day
of October fell on a Saturday in the year 713. The passage recording
the death of Conmael is corrupt.

351. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 22.

352. A.D. 716 Pasca in Eo civitate commotatur. Faelchu mac

Doirbeni cathedram Columbæ lxxxvii ætatis anno, in iiii kal.
Septembris die Sabbati suscepit.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 73. The
29th day of August fell on a Saturday in the year 716.
A.D. 717 Dunchadh mac Cindfaeladh abbas Ie obiit.—Ib. p. 74.

353. A.D. 717 Expulsio familiæ Ie trans dorsum Britanniæ a

Nectono rege.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 74.

354. In the Breviary of Aberdeen is the legend of S. Volocus,

patron saint of Dunmeth and Logy in Mar, both in Aberdeenshire.
Volocus is the Latin form of Faelchu, as Vigeanus is of Fechin,
Vynanus of Finan, and Virgilius of Fergal.
 MAP
illustrating History of
MONASTIC CHURCH
prior to 8th. Century

J. Bartholomew, Edin.
 CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCHES OF CUMBRIA AND LOTHIAN.

A.D.573. Ten years after the landing of St. Columba in

Battle of Iona the great battle of Ardderyd, or Arthuret,
Ardderyd. was fought between the pagan and the Christian
Rydderch Hael
becomes king of parties in Cumbria; and the same year which saw
Strathclyde. Aidan, who had taken part in it, inaugurated by
St. Columba as independent king of Dalriada,
likewise witnessed the establishment of another of the chiefs who
fought in that battle, Rydderch Hael, or the Liberal, as Christian king
of Strathclyde, and the restoration of a Christian Church to its
Cumbrian population. As Columba was the founder of the Christian
Church among the northern Picts, so Kentigern was the great agent
in the revolution which again christianised Cumbria. We are not,
however, so fortunate in the biographers of Kentigern as we are in
those of Columba. While those of the latter lived when the memory
of his words and acts was still fresh in the minds of his followers,
Kentigern found no one to record the events of his life till upwards of
five centuries had elapsed after his death. A fragment of the life
which had been used by John of Fordun and a complete biography
by Jocelyn of Furness are all we possess, but neither of them was
compiled before the twelfth century.[355]
Oldest account of The older life, of which a fragment only
birth of remains, states that ‘a certain king Leudonus, a
Kentigern. man half pagan, from whom the province over
which he ruled in northern Britannia obtained the name of Leudonia,
had a daughter under a stepmother, and the daughter’s name was
Thaney.’ This girl, having become Christian, ‘meditated upon the
virginal honour and maternal blessedness of the most holy Virgin
Mary,’ and desired, like her, to bring forth one who would be for the
honour and salvation of her nation in these northern parts. She ‘had
a suitor, Ewen, the son of Erwegende, sprung from a most noble
stock of the Britons,’ but she refused to marry him; upon which the
king her father gave her the alternative of either marrying him or
being handed over to the care of a swineherd, and she chose the
latter. The swineherd was secretly a Christian, having been
converted by Servanus, a disciple of Palladius, and respected her
wishes. Her suitor Ewen, however, succeeded by a stratagem in
violating her in a wood, and she became with child, upon which her
father ordered her to be stoned according to the laws of the
country; but as none of the officers presumed to cast stones at one
of the royal family, she was taken to the top of a hill called Kepduf
and precipitated from it; having made the sign of the cross, however,
she came down to the foot of the mountain unhurt. The king then
ordered her to be given over to the sea, saying, ‘If she be worthy of
life, her God will free her from the peril of death, if He so will.’ They
brought her, therefore, to the firth, which is about three miles from
Kepduf, to the mouth of a river called Aberlessic, where she was put
into a curach, that is, a boat made of hides, and carried out into
deep water beyond the Isle of May. She remained all night alone in
the midst of the sea, and when morning dawned she was in safety
cast on the sand at Culenros, which, according to sailors’
computation, is thirty miles distant from the Isle of May. Here she
suffered the pains of labour; and, as she lay on the ground,
suddenly a heap of ashes which the day before had been gathered
together close to the shore by some shepherds, was struck by a gust
of the north wind, which scattered around her the sparks which lay
hid within it. When, therefore, she had found the fire, the pregnant
young woman dragged herself at once, as best she could, to the
place indicated by God, and in her extreme necessity, with anxious
groans, she made a little heap with the wood which had been
collected the day before by the foresaid shepherds to prepare the
fire. Having lighted the fire, she brought forth a son, the chamber of
whose maturity was as rude as that of his conception. Some herds