The Culdee or Céli Dé (lit. "vassals of God") sprang from the stern disciplinary reform of Máel-Rúain (d.792) at Tallaght, which constituted a revival and codification of the earlier anchorite life.

The Céli Dé formed an ancient monastic order of Celtic Christianity with settlements in Ireland and Scotland. A unified Irish proto-state had been coalescing from the multitude of small tribal kingdoms that existed circa AD 500, similar to the pattern elsewhere in Europe. At an early stage the Scottish Culdees seem to have lived as anchorites, subject to the direction of an abbot. They appear in the role of clerics with appointed duties at Lochleven, Monymusk, Abernethy, Dunkeld, St. Andrews, Brechin, and elsewhere. When King Brude (MacFerdach), the Pictish predecessor of Kenneth MacAlpin presented the island of Lochleven to St. Serf and the Keledei hermits as stated in the Registry of St. Andrews priory, it was so that the Culdees there thought of themselves as spirtual descendants of the sixth century saint. St. Benedict of Nursia was a contemporary of Irish abbots Columba and the Finnians. The written rules attributed to Columba, Comgall, Ailbe of Emly (Imlech) in Munster, Carthach are products of the eigth century Culdee revival of discipline led by Mael-ruain of Tallaght. This reformer's death in 702 was followed by Viking raids and rule for Culdees attributed to St. Carthach (d.637) who founded the monastery at Rathen in Offaly from which his monks fled to Lismore.

The original inhabitants of the Isle of Man most probably migrated from Britain. The Keeills of Man became subject to the kings and princes of Wales, who ruled from Anglesea and were built by the Culdees.

In early Irish manuscripts the name is Céli Dé, that is, God's sworn ally. Thence the term was latinized to Coli dei, leading to Boece's culdei, which term seems to have been applied generally to Iro-Scottish monks and hermits. In the Greek language, the term monk can apply to men or women, but in English, it usually applies only to men, while nun is more commonly used to refer to female monastics. Christian monasticism sees its origin in St John the Baptist who lived alone in the desert. The first Christian known to adopt this lifestyle was St. Anthony the Great sometime in the latter part of the 3rd century and wherefrom monasticism spread throughout the Byzantine-Roman Empire. From a religious point of view, the solitary life is a form of asceticism, wherein the hermit renounces wordly concerns and pleasures in order to come closer to the deity or deities they worship or revere. This practice appears in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Sufism. Anthony the Great, who attracted such a large body of followers in the Egyptian desert that he is considered by both Catholics and the Orthodox to be the "Founder of Monasticism", and Gautama Buddha, who, having abandoned his family for a solitary quest for spiritual enlightenment, ended up as the founder of Buddhism. The order of Buddhist monks and nuns was founded by Gautama Buddha during his lifetime of over 2,500 years ago.

In Scotland the Iona monks had been expelled by the Pictish king Nechtan son of Derile in 717, and the vacancies thus caused were by no means filled by the Roman monks who thronged into the north from Northumbria. Bede's Ecclesiastical History includes a letter from Abbot Ceolfrid of the twin monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow to Nechtan on the subject of the dating of Easter, sent around 710. The issue of church supremacy and antiquity was first raised in the Synod of Whitby in 664 by the Roman Catholic Church who protested the Celtic Christian practices that differed from the Roman practices. The island of Iona celebrated Easter on the Roman date in 716; and Wales in 768; some Christians to be celebrating Easter while others were still undergoing the severe fasting of Lent. The most famous Irish saints to preach extensively in Britain were Saint Brigid (439–524) and Saint Columba (Colum Cille) (520–593). In the inverse direction, Saint Patrick (d. 492/3) was a Briton who established himself in Armagh and became 'apostle of Ireland'.

The Northumbrians had been gradually extending their territory to the north, their constituent kingdom of Bernicia having captured Edinburgh from the Gododdin around 638. For the next thirty years they established political dominance over the Kingdoms of Strathclyde and Dál Riata, as well as Pictish Fortriu. King Ecgfrith of Northumbria invaded lands held by the Picts in 685, apparently to stop them from raiding to the south. They met in battle on May 20 near Dunnichen; the Picts pretended to retreat, drawing the Northumbrians into the swamp of Dunnichen. The Pictish King Bridei III killed Ecgfrith and destroyed his army and enslaved many of the survivors. After the battle, Northumbria's influence never again extended past the Firth of Forth. Bede's claim that Nechtan of the Picts dedicated his kingdom to Saint Peter has led to Nechtan being linked to the Peterkirks at Rosemarkie, Duffus and elsewhere in north-east Scotland. Traditionally the kingdom Fortrui has been seen as centered on central Scotland, equivalent to the Kingdom of the Southern Picts, with a heartland perhaps in Strathearn. The creation of Alba or Scotland from Pictland, traditionally associated with a conquest by Cináed mac Ailpín in 843. Alba became Latinized in the High Medieval period as "Albania." The Older Scottish Chronicle is a vital source for the period it covers, and, despite some later Francization, is very much written in Hiberno-Latin, showing evidence of a scribe with some knowledge of contemporary Middle Irish orthography. The features of Culdees' life in Scotland, which is the most important epoch in the history of the order, seem to resemble closely those of the secular canons of England and the continent. It seems probable that the Rule of Chrodegang, archbishop of Metz (d. 766), was brought by Irish monks to their native land from the monasteries of north-eastern Gaul, and that Irish anchorites originally unfettered by the rules of the cloister bound themselves by it.

Irish and Scottish missionaries (Iro-Scottish, Hiberno-Scottish) were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the 6th and 7th centuries. The Latin term Scotti refers to the Scotti, the Gaelic cultural group who existed in Ireland and in western Scotland. Thus, the "Scots" missionaries who were so influential in the early Church history of Germany included men from both Ireland and Scotland in the modern sense, but were predominantly Irish. In the course of the 9th century we find mention of nine places in Ireland (including Armagh, Clonmacnoise, Clones, Devenish and Sligo) where communities of these Culdees were established as a kind of annex to the regular monastic institutions. They seem especially to have had the care of the poor and the sick, and were interested in the musical part of worship.

Towards the end of the 8th century, came the Culdees from Ireland. The most notable survival of the name is in the largest town in the Scottish county of Fife, Kirkcaldy ('the church of the culdee'). It seems likely that this name was chosen deliberately by the author, an Anglican priest. The name of the Island of Sodor was based on a Church of England diocese named Sodor and Man. The Papar (from Irish pap, father or pope) were, according to early Icelandic historical sources, a group Irish monks that inhabited Iceland at the time of the arrival of the Norsemen. The Scandinavians began settling in Iceland in the 9th Century, but the oldest source which mentions the existence of the Papar was only about 250 years later, in the Íslendingabók ("Book of the Icelanders"), written between 1122 and 1133. They are also referred to in the Landnámabók (the Icelandic Book of Settlements) which mentions that the Norse found Irish priests in Iceland when they arrived, together with bells and crosiers.

It is believed that the Irish Culdee movement included those who fled from Ireland at the time of Danish ascendancy there to Scotland. The name of Maenach the Culdee, from the chronicles would have come over in 920 to establish the ordinances of Erinn and may have been the rule of St. Maelruain. According to the Annals:

St. Flannan first bishop of Killaloe Nothing is recorded of St. Molua who gave name to this parish, but of St. Flannán, his disciple and successor, it is stated that he was the first bishop of the place, being promoted to that office about the yeare 639 after his consecration at Rome. He was the son of that Toirdhealbhach from whom the territory was named; in other words, he was of the family from whom was descended Brian Boroimhe.

From County Roscommon, the Sil Mailruain held a large district in the barony of Ballintubber, comprising the parishes of Kilkeeran, Kilkeevin, Kiltullagh, and in County Galway, the parish of Ballynakill. The Síl Mailruanaidh, alias Uí Floinn led by the O'Flynns (of Slieve Ui Fhloinn or O'Flynns Mountain) hence Clan Teige, Clan Cian, septs of Hy-Many, in the 12th century were in Southwest Derry. This was within the traditional territory of the Uí Thuirtre and Fir Lí, west of the River Bann. The Uí Tuitre of co. Derry are known to have moved west across the river Bann, into county Antrim, supplanting the lands of the Eilne branch of the Dal nAraide by the 10th century. There was also a tribal group of the Clann Colla, in North Ireland, referred to as Uí Cremthainn. Ua Floinn (O'Flynn, O'Lynn) were Uí Tuirtre leaders as were the later kings of Derlas. In Cork, Ross and Cloyne.

Feara Li, or Fer Li, i.e. the men of Mag Lí, was located west of the River Bann in the barony of Coleraine, Co. Derry. The Book of Lecan notes that Fir Li (and Uí mac Uais) in Ulster extended from Bir (Moyola river) to Camus (south of Coleraine). The Moyola river was anciently the boundary between the Feara Li and the Húi Tuirtre. The Fir Lí are noted as an Aighiallan people who came under the dominion of the Cenél Eóghain by the 9th century. Their neighbors appear to have been the Uí Tuirtre and factions of both groups are said to have been driven to the east of the Bann (into Ulidia) by the advance of Ua Cathain of the Cenél Éoghain. Another Airghiallan group, the Fir na Chraíbe, were also noted at an early date in the region west of the Bann. Oisin in the Tír na nÓg

The Culdees of York, a name borne by the canons of St Peter’s about 925, and of Snowdon and Bardsey Island in north Wales, mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1190) in his Speculum Ecclesiae and Itinerarium respectively. The former was oppressed by the covetous Cistercians where the Culdees are found in England and Wales. Gerald was a nephew of the Bishop of St David's, and a grandson of Gerald de Windsor by his (de Windsor's) marriage to the notorious Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr; the family also claimed a relationship with the family of The Lord Rhys (Rhys ap Gruffydd). Culdee in the North Atlantic may have helped Christianity spread in Iceland. The Icelandic Landnámabók (Book of Settlements) mentions that the Norse found Irish priests in Iceland when they arrived, together with bells and crosiers. The Norse called the priests papar, and this name can be found as an element in many placenames of Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland. The traditional accounts have stated that the papar left when the Norse arrived, some sources indicating the Norse persecuted and forced the Culdees to sail further west to Greenland and Labrador, perhaps such that the Culdees may have been the first Europeans to visit America. Canons Regular were instituted by Qu. Margaret's sons and some of the Culdees joined the new order or as it appears in the fourteenth century, otherwise excluded from voting at the election of the bishop. However, the existence of over 275 stone beehive huts in Maine, New Hampshire, and various huts in New England are quite similar to the Culdee architecture in Ireland and Scotland in the early Middle Ages.


Some of the Scottish Culdees were among those who were appointed to be the diocesan bishops in the twelfth century. Some of them in sharp contrast with Mael Ruain's principles, were married men. A family succession (succesio carnalis) in church offices was something practiced and appears to have gone largely unblamed. The coarb system of abbatial succession within the founder's family lent itself to a direct father-son transmission of office. The clerical marriage was common at that time in all the West and the reforms still in the future made the designation of Culdee, to have become equivalent to cleric in medieval Scotland. At Dunkeld, Crinan, the grandfather of Malcolm Canmore, was a lay abbot, and tradition says that even the clerical members were married, though like the priests of the Eastern Church, they lived apart from their wives during their term of sacerdotal service. The Culdee of Lochleven lived on St Serf’s Inch, which had been given them by a Pictish prince, Brude, about 850. In 1093 they surrendered their island to the bishop of St Andrews in return for perpetual food and clothing, but Robert, who was bishop in 1144, handed over all their vestments, books, and other property, with the island, to the newly founded Canons Regular, in which the Culdees were likely incorporated.

The inevitable infiltration of non-Celtic influences into Scottish Christianity was promoted by the gifted queen-saint, Margaret, who in 1059 became the consort fo King Malcolm Canmore. She spent her early years in Hungary and was advised by her tutor Lafranc for the Benedictine Turgot to come with her to Scotland as she would press for reforms that would change the ecclesiastical life of Scotland. Malcolm spoke English and Gaelic, having spent some time in exile at the court of Edward the Confessor. In 1093, four days after Malcom's death in battle, St. Margaret herself died at age forty-eight, leaving six children. One son Duncan II bid for power by his earlier marriage with Ingeborg of Denmark but order was restored by Margaret's sons Edgar and Alexander in turn. Her third son David I, during his long reign (1124-1153) best perpetuated her policy toward the church. During his reign Ross, Caithness, Aberdeen, Brechin, Dunblane, and Lowlands-Galloway were added. He bestowed church endowment with liberality. David was sair saint for the crown and for the first time Scotland had a nation-wide diocesan episopate similar to the continued approach of Wales to Saxon England as it was to Benedictine Canterbury and unlike the Scottish Church depended on the English metropolitans while becoming and integral part of the Roman system. David and his brothers before him strongly resisted the claims of York to ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Scotland. The Northamptonshire religious houses of Carthusian; Cluny are peculiarly interesting as illustrating the gradual way in which foreign rule was lost, and diocesan control substituted. St. Andrew's will be found to differ materially from that of Daventry; while the record of the convent of Delapré admits of no comparison, for it was one of the very few houses of Cluniac nuns in England. Fountains abbey was the second of the Yorkshire houses to be founded. The austere order of the Cistercians, another reformed Benedictine branch, was first established in England in 1128. The Premonstratensian, or White Canons, a reformed order of canons regular, founded their first English house in 1140 at Newhouse, Lincolnshire; thence a colony established themselves at Sulby in 1155. Norbertine priests are designated by O Praem following their name. The order was founded in 1120.

When in 1107 Turgot was made bishop of St. Andrews he was consecrated by the Archbishop of York, but demanded by King Alexander that no subjection to York was implied by this. Both Alexander and David opposed papal decisions that would have suboridinated the Scottish to the English church. Glasgow as well as St. Andrews was involved in the resistance to the claims of York. David ruled in alienation from Rome during the thirties while he was at war with England, making peace with a papal legate of Eugenius III. With David I, the Celtic era of Scottish church history comes to an end. The Culdee organization remained the longest through the primacy among the bishoprics while St. Andrews was not to be designated an Archbishopric until 1492... Elsewhere the Culdee order was replaced by Augustinian canons and a ministral corporation of ten prebendaries with a provost survived to the Reformation.

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