User:Billreid/Religious houses

Religious houses in Scotland before the reign of Malcolm III of Scotland were unlike those in the rest of Western Europe. Monasticism in the Roman church was completely separate from the priesthood and was almost completely controlled by the Rule of St Benedict while that of Celtic Christianity embraced both the clergy and the episcopacy and was more ascetic and less stuctured. Malcolm's wife, the English princess, Margaret of Wessex, was the stimulus for the re-shaping of the Scottish medieval church into accordance with religious life as practiced in the western church.

The first historically attested monastic settlement in Scotland took place in 565 when St Columba and his followers established the monastery at Iona. Many more Columban settlements followed, among them were the island monastories in Tiree, Jura, Lismore, Eileach an Naoimh and Eigg and Cella Diuni on the shores of Loch Awe. The Columban church converted Pictland and the Northern Isles to Christianity before expanding southwards to restore Chritianity to the kingdom of Northumbria. By the middle of the eleventh century, Scotland had practically achieved political accord and was more responsive to other religious authority. This coincided with the Benedictine and then later, the Cisterician and Premonstratenian movements leading to the four main orders of friars and finally to the collegiate churches of the 15th century.

Houses of the Trinitarian monks
Also known as the Red Friars.