among Celtic saints there existed quite a rage after
multiplication of foundations, daltha churches, as
they were called. Unless a saint could point to his
baker's dozen of churches founded by himself, he
was nought. But not all churches bearing a saint's
name, say that of Petrock, were founded by him
in person. A saint was supposed never to die, never
to let go his hold over his territory. And when in
after-years a chief surrendered land to a monastery,
he gave it, not to the community, but to the saint;
and the church built on that land would bear the
name of the saint whose property it was.
The reader may like to hear something about the organisation of the Church in Celtic lands. But to understand this I must first very shortly explain the political organisation.
This among all Celtic people was tribal. The tribe, cinnel, clan, was under a chief, who had his dun or fort. Every subdivision of the tribe had also its camp of refuge and its headman.
When the British became Christian, Christianity in no way altered their political organisation. This we may see from the conduct of S. Patrick, who converted the Irish. He left their organisation untouched, and accommodated his arrangements for the religious supervision of the people to that, as almost certainly it existed in Britain, except perhaps in the Roman colonial cities.
Now this was very peculiar, quite unlike anything that existed in the civilised Roman world.
This organisation consisted in the creation of an ecclesiastical tribe side by side with the tribe of the
