Part 10

In short, the notices of deserts, hermits, and anchorites to be found, lives of saints, etc. etc., are innumerable.--P.]

ON THE CAT-STANE, KIRKLISTON.

The Mediæval Archæology of Scotland is confessedly sadly deficient in written documents. From the decline of Roman records and rule, onward through the next six or eight centuries, we have very few, or almost no written data to guide us in Scottish historical or antiquarian inquiries. Nor have we any numismatic evidence whatever to appeal to. In consequence of this literary dearth, the roughest lapidary inscriptions, belonging to these dark periods of our history, come to be invested with an interest much beyond their mere intrinsic value. The very want of other contemporaneous lettered documents and data imparts importance to the rudest legends cut on our ancient lettered stones. For even brief and meagre tombstone inscriptions rise into matters of historical significance, when all the other literary chronicles and annals of the men and of the times to which these inscriptions belong have, in the lapse of ages, been destroyed and lost.

It is needless to dwell here on the well-known fact, that in England and Scotland there have been left by the Roman soldiers and colonists who occupied our island during the first four centuries of the Christian era, great numbers of inscribed stones. British antiquarian and topographical works abound with descriptions and drawings of these Roman lapidary writings. But of late years another class or series of lapidary records has been particularly attracting the attention of British antiquaries,--viz., inscribed stones of a late Roman or post-Roman period. The inscriptions on this latter class of stones are almost always, if not always, sepulchral. The characteristically rude letters in which they are written consist--in the earliest stones--of debased Roman capitals; and--in the latest--of the uncial or minuscule forms of letters which are used in the oldest English and Irish manuscripts. Some stones show an intermixture of both alphabetical characters. These "Romano-British" inscribed stones, as they have been usually termed, have hitherto been found principally in Wales, in Cornwall, and in West Devon. In the different parts of the Welsh Principality, nearly one hundred, I believe, have already been discovered. In Scotland, which is so extremely rich in ancient sculptured stones, very few inscribed stones are as yet known; but if a due and diligent search be instituted, others, no doubt, will betimes be brought to light.

An inscribed Scottish stone of the class I allude to is situated in the county of Edinburgh, and has been long known under the name of the Cat-stane or Battle-stone. Of its analogy with the earliest class of Romano-British inscribed stones found in Wales, I was not fully aware till I had an opportunity of examining last year, at the meeting of the Cambrian Archæological Society, a valuable collection of rubbings and drawings of these Welsh stones, brought forward by that excellent antiquary, Mr. Longueville Jones; and afterwards, in situ, one or two of the stones themselves. I venture, in the following remarks, to direct the attention of the Society to the Cat-stane, partly in consequence of this belief in its analogy with the earliest Welsh inscribed stones; partly, also, in order to adduce an old and almost unknown description of the Cat-stane, made in the last years of the seventeenth century, by a gentleman who was perhaps the greatest antiquary of his day; and partly because I have a new conjecture to offer as to the historical personage commemorated in the inscription, and, consequently, as to the probable age of the inscription itself.

Site and Description of the Stone.

The Cat-stane stands in the parish of Kirkliston, on the farm of Briggs, in a field on the north side of the road to Linlithgow, and between the sixth and seventh milestone from Edinburgh. It is placed within a hundred yards of the south bank of the Almond; nearly half-a-mile below the Boathouse Bridge; and about three miles above the entrance of the stream into the Firth of Forth, at the old Roman station of Cramond, or Caer Amond. The monument is located in nearly the middle of the base of a triangular fork of ground formed by the meeting of the Gogar Water with the river Almond. The Gogar flows into the Almond about six or seven hundred yards below the site of the Cat-stane. The ground on which the Cat-stane stands is the beginning of a ridge slightly elevated above the general level of the neighbouring fields. The stone itself consists of a massive unhewn block of the secondary greenstone-trap of the district, many large boulders of which lie in the bed of the neighbouring river. In form it is somewhat prismatic, or irregularly triangular, with its angles very rounded. This large monolith is nearly twelve feet in circumference, about four feet five inches in width, and three feet three inches in thickness. Its height above ground is about four feet and a half. The Honourable Mrs. Ramsay of Barnton, upon whose son's property the monument stands, very kindly granted liberty, last year, for an examination by digging beneath and around the stone. The accompanying woodcut is a copy of a sketch, made at the time, by my friend Mr. Drummond, of the stone as exposed when pursuing this search around its exposed basis. We found the stone to be a block seven feet three inches in total length, and nearly three feet buried in the soil. It was placed upon a basis of stones, forming apparently the remains of a built stone grave, which contained no bones or other relics, and that had very evidently been already searched and harried. I shall indeed have immediately occasion to cite a passage proving that a century and a half ago the present pillarstone was surrounded, like some other ancient graves, by a circular range of large flat-laid stones; and when this outer circle was removed,--if not before,--the vicinity and base of the central pillar were very probably dug into and disturbed.

Different Readings of the Inscription.

The inscription upon the stone is cut on the upper half of the eastern and narrowest face of the triangular monolith. Various descriptions of the legend have been given by different authors. The latest published account of it is that given by Professor Daniel Wilson in his work on Scottish Archæology. He disposes of the stone and its inscription in the two following short sentences:--"A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted Catt Stane in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely-lettered inscription--the work, most probably, of much younger hands than those that reared the mass of dark whinstone on which it is cut--IN OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA.. VICTR.. About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stane a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons; but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared."

In the tenth volume of the Statistical Account of Scotland, collected by Sir John Sinclair, and published in 1794, the Rev. Mr. John Muckarsie, in giving an account of the parish of Kirkliston, alludes in a note to the "Cat-stane standing on the farm of that name in this parish." In describing it he observes "The form is an irregular prism, with the following inscription on the south-east face, deeply cut in the stone, in a most uncouth manner:--

IN OC T VMVLO IACI VETTA D VICTA

We are informed," continues Mr. Muckarsie, "by Buchanan and other historians, that there was a bloody battle fought near this place, on the banks of the Almond, in the year 995, between Kennethus, natural brother and commander of the forces of Malcolm II., King of Scotland, and Constantine, the usurper of that crown, wherein both the generals were killed. About two miles higher up the river, on the Bathgate road, is a circular mound of earth (of great antiquity, surrounded with large unpolished stones, at a considerable distance from each other, evidently intended in memory of some remarkable event). The whole intermediate space, from the human bones dug up, and graves of unpolished stones discovered below the surface, seems to have been the scene of many battles."

In the discourse which the Earl of Buchan gave in 1780 to a meeting called together for the establishment of the present Society of Scottish Antiquaries, his Lordship took occasion to allude to the Cat-stane when wishing to point out how monuments, rude as they are, "lead us to correct the uncertain accounts which have been handed down by the monkish writers." "Accounts, for example, have (he observes) been given of various conflicts which took place towards the close of the tenth century between Constantine IV. and Malcolm, the general of the lawful heir of the Scottish Crown, on the banks of the River Almond, and decided towards its confluence to the sea, near Kirkliston. Accordingly, from Mid-Calder, anciently called Calder-comitis, to Kirkliston, the banks of the river are filled with the skeletons of human bodies, and the remains of warlike weapons; and opposite to Carlowrie there is a well-known stone near the margin of the river, called by the people Catt Stane. The following inscription was legible on the stone in the beginning of this (the eighteenth) century; and the note of the inscription I received from the Rev. Mr. Charles Wilkie, minister of the parish of Ecclesmachan, whose father, Mr. John Wilkie, minister of the parish of Uphall, whilst in his younger days an inhabitant of Kirkliston, had carefully transcribed:--

IN HOC TUM · JAC · CONSTAN · VIC · VICT·"

Lord Buchan adduces this alleged copy of the Cat-stane inscription as valuable from having been taken early in the last century. The copy of the inscription, though averred to be old, is, as we shall see in the sequel, doubtlessly most inaccurate. And there exist accounts of the inscription both older and infinitely more correct and trustworthy.

The oldest and most important notice of the Cat-stane and its inscription that I know of is published in a work where few would expect to find it--viz., in the Mona Antiqua Restaurata of the Rev. Mr. Rowlands. It is contained in a letter addressed to that gentleman by the distinguished Welsh archæologist, Edward Lhwyd. The date of Mr. Lhwyd's letter is "Sligo, March 12th, 1699-1700." A short time previously he had visited Scotland, and "collected a considerable number of inscriptions." At that time the Cat-stane was a larger and much more imposing monument than it is now, as shown in the following description of it. "One monument," says he, "I met with within four miles of Edinburgh, different from all I had seen elsewhere, and never observed by their antiquaries. I take it to be the tomb of some Pictish king; though situate by a river side, remote enough from any church. It is an area of about seven yards diameter, raised a little above the rest of the ground, and encompassed with large stones; all which stones are laid length-wise, excepting one larger than ordinary, which is pitched on end, and contains this inscription in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETTA F. VICTI. This the common people call the Cat-Stene, whence I suspect the person's name was Getus, of which name I find three Pictish kings; for the names pronounced by the Britons with G, were written in Latin with V, as we find by Gwyrtheyrn, Gwyrthefyr, and Gwythelyn, which were written in Latin Vortigernus, Vortimerus, and Vitelinus."

Besides writing the preceding note to Dr. Rowland regarding the Cat-stane, Mr. Lhwyd, at the time of his visit, took a sketch of the inscription itself. In the Philosophical Transactions for February 1700, this sketch of the Cat-stane inscription was, with eight others, published by Dr. Musgrave, in a brief communication entitled, "An Account of some Roman, French, and Irish Inscriptions and Antiquities, lately found in Scotland and Ireland, by Mr. Edward Lhwyd, and communicated to the publisher from Mr. John Hicks of Trewithier, in Cornwall." The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 15) is an exact copy of Mr. Lhwyd's sketch, as published in the Philosophical Transactions. In the very brief communication accompanying it, the Cat-stane is shortly described as "A Pictish monument near Edinburgh, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETA F. VICTI. This the common people call the Ket-stean; note that the British names beginning with the letter Gw began in Latin with V [and the three examples given by Lhwyd in his letter to Dr. Rowland follow]. So I suppose (it is added) this person's name was Gweth or Geth, of which name were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of Ketstone."

In the course of the last century, notices or readings of the Cat-stane inscription, more or less similar to the account of it in the Philosophical Transactions, were published by different writers, as by Sir Robert Sibbald, in 1708,--by Maitland, in 1753,--by Pennant, in his journey through Scotland in 1772,--and by Gough, in 1789, in the third volume of his edition of Camden's Britannia.

All the four authors whom I have quoted agree as to the reading of the inscription, and give the two names mentioned in it, as VETTA and VICTI. But in printing the first of these names, VETTA, Maitland and Pennant, following perhaps the text in the Philosophical Transactions, carelessly spell it with a single instead of a double T; and Gough makes the first vowel in VICTI an E instead of an I. Sir Robert Sibbald gives as a K the mutilated terminal letter in the third line, which Mr. Lhwyd deciphered as an F. Sibbald's account of the stone and its inscription, in 1708, is short but valuable, as affording an old independent reading of the legend. It is contained in his folio essay or work entitled, Historical Inquiries Concerning the Roman Monuments and Antiquities in Scotland (p. 50). "Close (says he) by Kirkliston water, upon the south side, there is a square pillar over against the Mannor of Carlowry with this inscription:--

IN OC TV MVLO IACIT VETTA K VICTI

This (Sibbald continues) seemeth to have been done in later times than the former inscriptions [viz., those left in Scotland by the Romans]. Whether it be a Pictish monument or not is uncertain; the vulgar call it the CAT Stane."

Mr. Gough, when speaking of the stone in the latter part of the last century, states that the inscription upon it was "not now legible." It is certainly still even sufficiently legible and entire to prove unmistakably the accuracy of the reading of it given upwards of a century and a half ago by Lhwyd and Sibbald. The letters come out with special distinctness when examined with the morning sun shining on them; and indeed few ancient inscriptions in this country, not protected by being buried, are better preserved,--a circumstance owing principally to the very hard and durable nature of the stone itself, and the depth to which the letters have been originally cut. The accompanying woodcut is taken from a photograph of the stone by my friend Dr. Paterson, and very faithfully represents the inscription. The surface of the stone upon which the letters are carved has weathered and broken off in some parts; particularly towards the right-hand edge of the inscription. This process of disintegration has more or less affected the terminal letters of the four lines of the inscriptions. Yet, out of the twenty-six letters composing the legend, twenty are still comparatively entire and perfectly legible; four are more or less defective; and two nearly obliterated. The two which are almost obliterated consist of the first V in TVMVLO, constituting the terminal letter of the first line, and the last vowel I, or rather, judging from the space it occupies, E in JACIT. A mere impress of the site of the bars of the V is faintly traceable by the eye and finger, though the letter came out in the photograph. Only about an inch of the middle portion of the upright bar of I or E in JACIT can be traced by sight or touch. In this same word, also, the lower part of the C and the cross stroke of the T is defective. But even if the inscription had not been read when these letters were more entire, such defects in particular letters are not assuredly of a kind to make any palæographer entertain a doubt as to the two words in which these defects occur being TVMVLO and JACIT.

The terminal letter in the third line was already defective in the time of Edward Lhwyd, as shown by the figure of it in his sketch. (See woodcut, No. 15.) Sibbald prints it as a K, a letter without any attachable meaning. Lhwyd read it as an F (followed apparently by a linear point or stop), and held it to signify--what F so often does signify in the common established formula of these old inscriptions--F(ILIVS). The upright limb of this F appears still well cut and distinct; but the stone is much hollowed out and destroyed immediately to the right, where the two cross bars of the letter should be. The site of the upper cross-bar of the letter is too much decayed and excavated to allow of any distinct recognition of it. The site, however, of a small portion of the middle cross bar is traceable at the point where it is still united to and springs from the upright limb of the letter. Beyond, or to the right of this letter F, a line about half-an-inch long, forming possibly a terminal stop or point of a linear type, commences on the level of the lower line of the letters, and runs obliquely upwards and outwards, till it is now lost above in the weathered and hollowed-out portion of stone. Its site is nearer the upright limb or basis of the F than it is represented to be in the sketch of Mr. Lhwyd, where it is figured as constituting a partly continuous extension downwards of the middle bar of the letter itself. And perhaps it is not a linear point, but more truly, as Lhwyd figures it, the lower portion of a form of the middle bar of F, of an unusual though not unknown type. The immediate descent or genealogy of those whom these Romano-British inscriptions commemorate is often given on the stones, but their status or profession is seldom mentioned. We have exceptions in the case of one or two royal personages, as in the famous inscription in Anglesey to "CATAMANUS, REX SAPIENTISSIMUS OPINATISSIMUS OMNIUM REGUM." The rank and office of priests are in several instances also commemorated with their names, as in the Kirkmadrine Stone in Galloway. In the churchyard of Llangian, in Caernarvonshire, there is a stone with an ancient inscription written not horizontally, but vertically (as is the case with regard to most of the Cornish inscribed stones), and where MELUS, the son of MARTINUS, the person commemorated, is a physician--MEDICVS. But the inscription is much more interesting in regard to our present inquiry in another point. For--as the accompanying woodcut of the Llangian inscription shows--the F in the word FILI is very much of the same type or form as the F seen by Lhwyd in the Cat-stane, and drawn by him. (See his sketch in the preceding woodcut, Fig. 15.) The context and position of this letter F in the Llangian legend leaves no doubt of its true character. The form is old; Mr. Westwood considers the age of the Llangian inscription as "not later than the fifth century." An approach to the same form of F in the same word FILI, is seen in an inscribed stone which formerly stood at Pant y Polion in Wales, and is now removed to Dolan Cothy House. Again, in some instances, as in the Romano-British stones at Llandysilir, Clyddan, Llandyssul, etc., where the F in Filius is tied to the succeeding I, the conjoined letters present an appearance similar to the F on the Cat-stane as figured by Lhwyd.

While all competent authorities are nearly agreed as to the lettering and reading of the first three lines, latterly the terminal letter of the fourth or last line has given rise to some difference of opinion. Lhwyd, Sibbald, and Pennant, unhesitatingly read the whole last line as VICTI. Lhwyd, in his sketch of the inscription, further shows that, following the last I, there is a stop or point of a linear form. The terminal I is three inches long, while the linear point or stop following it is fully an inch in length. Between it and the terminal I is a smooth space on the stone of five or six lines. Latterly this terminal I, with its superadded linear point, has been supposed by Mr. Muckarsie to be an A, and by Dr. Wilson to be an R. Both suppositions appear to me to be erroneous; and of this one or two considerations will, I think, satisfy any cautious observer who will examine carefully either the stone itself, or the cast of the inscription that was made in 1824--copies of which are placed in our own and in other museums. Mr. Muckarsie and Dr. Wilson hold the upright bar forming the letter I to be the primary upright bar of an A or R; and they think the remaining portions of these letters to be indicated or formed by the linear stop figured by Lhwyd. That the letter is not A, is shown by the bar being quite perpendicular, and not oblique or slanting, as in the two other A's in the inscription. Besides, the middle cross stroke of the A is wanting; and the second descending bar of the letter is quite deficient in length--a deficiency not explicable by mutilation from the weathering of the stone, as the stone happens to be still perfectly entire both at the uppermost and the lowest end of this bar or line. This last reason is also in itself a strong if not a sufficient ground for rejecting the idea that the letter is an R; inasmuch as if it had been an R, the tail of the letter would have been found prolonged downwards to the base line of the other letters in the word. For it is to be held in remembrance, that though the forms of the letters in this inscription are rude and debased, yet they are all cut with firmness and fulness.

The idea that the terminal letter of the inscription is an R seems still more objectionable in another point of view. To make it an R at all, we can only suppose the disputed "line" to be the lowest portion of the segment of the loop or semicircular head of the R. The line, which is about an inch long, is straight, however, and not a part of a round curve or a circle, such as we know the mason who carved this inscription could and did cut, as witnessed by his O's and C's. Besides, if this straight line had formed the lower segment of the semicircular loop or head of an R, then the highest point of that R would have stood so disproportionately elevated above the top line or level of the other letters in this word, as altogether to oppose and differ from what we see in the other parts of this inscription. This same reason bears equally against another view which perhaps might be taken; namely, that the straight line in question is the tail or terminal right-hand stroke of the R, placed nearly horizontally, as is occasionally the form of this letter in some early inscriptions, like those of Yarrow and Llangian. But if this view be adopted, then the loop or semicircular head of the R must be considered as still more disproportionately displaced upwards above the common level of the top line; for in this view the whole loop or head must have stood entirely above this straight horizontal line, which line itself reaches above the middle height of the upright bar forming the I. Immediately above the horizontal line, for a space about an inch or more in depth, and some ten or twelve inches in length, there has been a weathering and chipping off of a splinter of the surface of the stone, as indicated by its commencement in an abrupt, curved, rugged edge above. This lesion or fracture of the stone has, I believe, originally given rise to the idea of the semblance of this terminal letter of the inscription to an R. Probably, also, this disintegration is comparatively recent; for in the last century Lhwyd, Sibbald, Maitland, and Pennant, all unhesitatingly lay down the terminal letter as an I. But even if it were an A or an R, and not an I and hyphen point, this would not affect or alter the view which I will take in the sequel, that the last word in the inscription is a Latinised form of the surname VICTA or WECTA; as, amid the numberless modifications to which the orthography of ancient names is subjected by our early chroniclers, the historic name in question is spelled by Ethelwerd with a terminal R,--in one place as UUITHAR, and in another as WITHER. Altogether, however, I feel assured that the more accurately we examine the inscription as still left, and the more we take into consideration the well-known caution and accuracy of Edward Lhwyd as an archæologist, the more do we feel assured that his reading of the Cat-stane legend, when he visited and copied it upwards of a hundred and sixty years ago is strictly correct, viz.--

IN OC TV MVLO JACIT VETTA F. VICTI.

Palæographic Peculiarities.

The palæographic characters of the inscription scarcely require any comment. As in most other Roman and Romano-British inscriptions, the words run into each other without any intervening space to mark their separation. The letters all consist of debased Roman capitals. They generally vary from two and a half to three inches in length; but the O in the first line is only one and a half inch deep. The O in TVMVLO in these ancient inscriptions is often, as in the Cat-stane, smaller than the other letters. M. Edmond Le Blant gives numerous marked instances of this peculiarity of the small O in the same words, "IN HoC TVMVLo," in his work on the early Romano-Gaulish inscriptions of France. Most of the letters in the Cat-stane inscription are pretty well formed, and firmly though rudely cut. The oblique direction of the bottom stroke of L in TVMVLO is a form of that letter often observable in other old Romano-British inscriptions, as on the stone at Llanfaglan in Wales. The M in the same word has its first and last strokes splaying outwardly; a peculiarity seen in many old Roman and Romano-British monuments--as is also the tying together of this letter with the following V. In the Romano-British inscription upon the stone found at Yarrow, and which was brought under the notice of the Society by Dr. John Alexander Smith, there are three interments, as it were, recorded, the last of them in these words;