em being termed
House of the Romans, "Teach-na-Romhan," but not apparently from its
Roman mode of building.--(See Dr. O'Donovan's _Annals of the Four
Masters_, vol. i. p. 129.) The church of Duleck, one of the earliest, if
not the earliest, which St. Patrick erected in Ireland, and the first
bishop of which, St. Cianan, died in the year 490, was built of stone,
as its original name of Daimhllag (stone house) signifies; and the same
word, _damhliag_ or _stone house_, came subsequently to be applied as a
generic term to the larger Irish churches.--(See Dr. Petrie's
_Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 142, with a quotation from
an old Irish poem of the names of the three masons in the household of
St. Patrick, who "made damhliags first in Erin.") When, in the year 652,
Finan succeeded to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne, he built there a
suitable Episcopal church, constructed of oak planks, and covered with
reeds, "more Scotorum non de lapide, sed de robore secto totam
composuit, atque arundine texit."--(Bede's _Hist. Eccl._, lib. iii. cap.
25.) When St. Cuthbert erected his anchorite retreat on the island of
Farne he made it of two chambers, one an oratory, and the other for
domestic purposes; and he finished the walls of these buildings by
digging round and cutting away the natural soil within and without,
forming the roof out of rough wood and straw, "de lignis informibus et
foeno."--(Vita S. Cuthberti, cap. 17.) Planks or "tabulae," also, were
employed in building or reconstructing the walls of this oratory on
Farne Island, as St. Ethelwald, Cuthbert's successor, finding hay and
clay insufficient to fill up the openings that age made between its
boards, obtained a calf's skin, and nailed it as a protection against
the storms in that corner of the oratory, where, like his predecessor,
he used to kneel or stand when praying.--(_Ibid._, cap. 46.) St.
Godric's first rude hermitage at Finchale, on the Wear, was made of turf
(vili cespite), and afterwards of rough wood and twigs (de lignis
informibus et virgulis).--(See chaps 21 and 29 of his Life by Reginald.)
On the construction, by wattles and wood, of some early Irish and
Scoto-Irish monastic and saints' houses and oratories, as those of St.
Wolloc, St. Columba, and St. Kevin, see Dr. Reeves' notes in his edition
of the _Life of St. Columba_, pp. 106, 114, and 177. In some districts
where wood was scarce, and stone abundant and easily worked, as in the
west coast of