Culdees, or KELDEES (Celt. Ceile De, 'a companion of God;'; Lat. Colidei, Culdei, Calledei, Keldei, Keledei), the name given to an ancient order of ecclesiastics with monasteries in Scotland and Ireland, those in the former country being best known. In England and Wales only two instances of their occurrence seem to be authenticated—the first, where the canons of St Peter's at York were called Culdees in the reign of Athelstan (924–31), and the second, where Giraldus Cambrensis, writing about 1190, describes the island of Bordsey on the coast of Carnarvon as inhabited by 'most devout monks called celibates or Culdees.'
The origin and early history of these bodies is involved in almost hopeless obscurity. The name is not mentioned in the works of Adamnan, Eddi, or Bede, and makes its first appearance only about the 8th century. The conclusion at which Dr Skene arrives is 'that the Culdees originally sprang from that ascetic order who adopted a solitary service of God in an isolated cell as the highest form of religious life, and who were termed Deicolae; that they then became associated in communities of anchorites or hermits; that they were clerics, and might be called monks, but only in the sense that anchorites were monks; that they made their appearance in the eastern districts of Scotland at the same time as the secular clergy were introduced, and succeeded the Columban monks, who had been driven across the great mountain-range of Drumalban, the western frontier of the Pictish kingdom; and that they were finally brought under the canonical rule along with the secular clergy.'
When the Culdees appear clearly in history in the 12th century each monastery was evidently an independent community, connected with the others by no ties whatever, and owning no control except that of its own abbot, in this and other respects resembling the secular canons or monastic 'families' of England, Ireland, and the Continent in the 11th century. The monasteries seem indeed to have undergone a similar secularising process to that which took place in the Northumbrian Church after the withdrawal of the Columban clergy, when, according to Bede, false monks, under pretext of founding monasteries, purchased for themselves territories, and caused 'these to be assigned to them by royal edicts for an hereditary possession.' There seem to have been at this period two sections in each community, one still performing divine service and other religious duties pertaining properly to the body; while the other had become thoroughly lay, and so free from monastic discipline as to marry. Indeed, if a tradition of the 16th century can be received as authority for what passed in the 12th, the Culdees of Dunkeld were all married; but, like the priests of the Greek Church, lived apart from their wives during their period of service at the altar.
According to the records of the see of St Andrews, the state of the Culdee monastery there (and it may probably be taken as typical of all the rest) was in the middle of the 12th century far from satisfactory. They tell that there were thirteen Culdees holding their office by hereditary tenure, and living rather according to their own pleasure and the traditions of men, than after the rules of the holy fathers; that some few things of little importance they possessed in common; that the rest, including what was of most value, they held as their private property, each enjoying what he got from relatives and kinsmen, or from the benevolence granted on the tenure of pure friendship, or otherwise; that after they became Culdees they were forbidden to have their wives in their houses, or any other women of whom evil suspicion could arise; that the altar of St Andrew was left without a minister, nor was mass celebrated there except on the rare occasion of a visit from the king or the bishop, for the Culdees said their own office after their own way in a corner of the church. The first attempt to reform this state of matters was made by Queen Margaret, and her efforts were followed up by her sons, Alexander I. and David I.; so that from the time of the appointment of Turgot to the see of St Andrews, when we are told that 'the whole rights of the Keledei over the kingdom of Scotland passed to the bishopric of St Andrews,' the history of the Culdees is simply that of a vain resistance to foes backed by all the weight of the royal power.
If tradition could be trusted, the first appearance of Culdees in Scotland was later than in Ireland, and should be placed about the middle of the 9th century. A leaf of the Register of St Andrews, written about 1130, relates that Brude, the son of Dergard, the last king of the Picts (who ceased to reign about 843), gave the island, since called St Serf's Inch, in Lochleven, to God, St Servan, and the Culdee hermits serving God there. They were governed by an abbot; and about the year 1093, during the rule of Abbot Ronan, they gave up their island to the Bishop of St Andrews on condition that he should find them in food and raiment. On this island they remained in peace, receiving grants of lands or immunities from all the kings of the Scots from the time of Macbeth till that of David I.; but in 1144, Robert, Bishop of St Andrews, gave their island, and all their possessions, including their church vestments and their books (a complete list of which is given in the charter), to the newly-founded Canons Regular of St Andrews, in order that a priory of that rule might supplant the old abbey of Culdees on St Serf's Inch. The bishop's grant was enforced by a charter from King David, in which it was ordered that such of the Culdees as chose to live canonically and peacefully under the new canons should remain in the island. We hear no more of the Culdee hermits of Lochleven.
The Culdees of St Andrews were of more importance than those of Lochleven, and when the Canons Regular were established there, the members of the older body were treated much more considerately than their unfortunate brethren of St Serf's Inch, those who refused to become Canons Regular being allowed to retain a liferent of their revenues. Not only was this so, but they had sufficient influence to manage to remain a distinct community down to the early part of the 14th century, and were even able to assert their right to take part in the election of the bishop till 1273. In that year they were excluded under protest, and in 1332 they were excluded entirely, and thereafter the name seems to have disappeared.
The Culdees of the church of St Mary at Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire, appear to have been settled by the Bishop of St Andrews towards the end of the 11th century. In the beginning of the 13th century they are found making a claim to be regarded as Canons Regular, which was, after an appeal to Rome, settled by a compromise.
Culdees are found at Abernethy, in Strathearn, about 1120. In the end of that century part of their possessions passed to their hereditary lay-abbot (the founder of the noble family of Abernethy), and in 1273 they were transformed into Canons Regular. After a similar division at Brechin, the prior and his Culdees were absorbed into the chapter of the new bishopric, founded by King David I. about 1145, and in less than a hundred years the name of Culdee disappears. The same silent change of Culdees into secular canons took place during the 13th century at Dunblane, at Dunkeld, at Lismore, at Rosemarky, and at Dornoch. At Dunkeld, as at Brechin and at Abernethy, great part of the Culdee revenues was held by a lay-abbot, whose office was of such mark as to be hereditary in the royal family. The father of 'the gracious Duncan,' and the son of St Margaret, were Culdee abbots. Culdees are found holding land at Monifieth, near Dundee, about 1200; at Muthil, in Strathearn, in the beginning of the 13th century; and at Iona in the middle of the 12th.
The Culdees of Armagh, dissolved at the Reformation in 1541, were resuscitated for a brief space in 1627. Their old possessions—among which were seven town-lands, containing 1423 acres, seven rectories and four vicarages, were in 1634 bestowed upon the vicars-choral of the cathedral. There were at least seven other houses of Culdees in Ireland—viz., at Clonmacnois, Clondalkin, Devenish, Clones, Popull, Monaninchach, and Sligo.
Such is a concise recapitulation of all that is certainly known of the Culdees. Before their history was ascertained, opinions were held regarding them which now find few if any supporters among archaeologists. It was believed that they were our first teachers of Christianity; that they came from the East before corruption had yet overspread the church; that they took the Scriptures for their sole rule of faith; that they lived under a form of church-government approaching to Presbyterian parity; that they rejected prelacy, transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, the veneration of relics, image-worship, and the celibacy of the clergy; and that they kept their simple worship and pure doctrines undefiled to the last, and were suppressed only by force and fraud, when the Roman Catholic Church triumphed over their older and better creed. For all this it is now clearly seen that there is no foundation. There is no reason to suppose that the Culdees differed in any material point of faith, discipline, or ritual from the other clergy of the British Islands and Western Christendom.
See Reeves, in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy for 1860, and his Culdees of the British Islands (1864); and Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii., whose views have found acceptance both with Catholics and Presbyterians. The opinions formerly held regarding the Scottish Culdees (controverted by Pinkerton and Chalmers) will be found in Selden's preface to the Decem Historice Anglicane Scriptores, and Jameson's Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees (1811).