Cellach I is traditionally said to have been the first Bishop of the Scots (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

878x889-906x), the bishopric later based at

St. Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourt ...

. He is mentioned in the historical writings of

Walter Bower Walter Bower (or Bowmaker; 24 December 1449) was a Scottish canon regular and abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, who is noted as a chronicler of his era. He was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian, in the Kingdom of Sco ...

and

Andrew of Wyntoun Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and, later, a canon of St. Andrews. Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled metre entitled, ' ...

as a bishop of St. Andrews, but no pre-15th century sources say anything more than merely "Bishop". Wyntoun and Bower make him bishop as early as the reign of King

Giric of Scotland Giric mac Dúngail ( Modern Gaelic: ''Griogair mac Dhunghail''; fl. c. 878–889), known in English simply as Giric and nicknamed Mac Rath ("Son of Fortune"), was a king of the Picts or the king of Alba. The Irish annals record nothing of G ...

(877x878-885x889). He was still bishop in the reign of King Causantín II of Scotland in 906 when, "in his sixth year King Causantín and Bishop Cellach met at the hill of belief near the royal city of Scone and pledged themselves that the laws and disciplines of the faith, and the laws of churches and gospels, should be kept in conformity with the customs of the Gaels". One interpretation of this passage is the demise of the "Pictish church" to the reforming Gaels, however it is certain that by the 15th century the bishop-list of the principal Scottish see was looking back at Cellach as its first bishop.Molly Miller, "The Last Century of Pictish Succession", in ''Scottish Studies'', 23, 1979, pp. 48-9. His death date is unknown, but unsurprisingly he was certainly dead by the 960s when his successor Fothad I died as bishop.

Notes

References

* Anderson, Alan Orr (1922), Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. 500 to 1286, I (1990 revised & corrected ed.), Stamford: Paul Watkins, ISBN 1-871615-03-8 * Broun, Dauvit, "Dunkeld and the origin of Scottish identity", in ''Innes Review'' 48 (1997), pp. 112–124, reprinted in ''Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots'', eds. Broun and Clancy (1999), pp. 95–111. *MacQueen, John, MacQueen, Winifred & Watt, D.E.R. (eds.), ''Scottichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and English'', Vol. 3, (Aberdeen, 1995) *Miller, Molly, "The Last Century of Pictish Succession", in ''Scottish Studies'', 23, 1979, pp. 39–67 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cellach 01 9th-century births 10th-century deaths Bishops of St Andrews Medieval Gaels from Scotland 9th-century Scottish bishops 10th-century Scottish bishops