Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/641

 CUEVA

563

CULDEBS

It has a population of 951)4. Conquered by the Az- tecs about the middle of the fifteenth century, it was taken by the Spaniards in April, 1521. It was the favourite rcsidi'ntr of llernan Cortes and of the unfor- tunate Emperor Maximilian. Since 1870 it has been the capital of the new State of Morelos.

i;erarchia Callotua (.Rome, lUOS) ; Baitandier, Ann. Pont. Calk. tParis, 1908).

Francisco Plancarte y Navarrete.

Cueva, Juan de la, poet and dramatist, b. oF a noble family at Seville, Spain, in 1550; d. in 1607. Little is known of his lite save that in liis later years he visited the West Indies and lived for some time in Portugal. It is as a dramatic writer that Cueva merits notice. He was a prolific writer for the stage, yet but few of his plays have been preserved. They were represented in 1579 and the years following, and are important because most of them are his- torical. He must be given credit also for his dramatic initiative, for he ignored Greek and Latin traditions, and developed his plots, characters, incidents, and situations with Uttle regard for "the unities" of the classical model. He was thus one of the first to for- sake the classical for the romantic drama. In addition he reduced the number of jornadas, or acts, from five to four, and introduced a number of metrical fonns liitherto unknown upon the' stage. Several of the plays are on national subjects, such as "La Libertad de Espana por Bernardo delCarpio" and "Los Siete Infantes de Lara ". Among those dealing with ancient history may be mentioned "La Muerte de Ajax", "Telamon Sobre las Armas de Aquiles", and "La Muerte de Virginia y Apio Claudio". One of them, "El Saco de Roma y Muerte de Borbon", deals with a great event which was then recent, and describes the Italian triumplis of Charles V. Another, " El In- famador", foreshadows in one of its characters, Leu- cino, the type of libertine which Tirso de Molina afterwards immortalized with his Don Juan.

These plays are somewhat crude in structure, and a noticeable fault is that the avithor makes all the characters, whether of high or low degree, talk in the same lofty vein. Again, he involves his char- acters in difficulties and situations whence escape seems impossible, and then, without regard to plau.sibility, grasps the first solution that presents itself, such as a murder or some supernatural inter- vention. Among his non-dramatic works are: a collection of lyric poems and sonnets, published under the title "Obras de Juan de la Cueva" (Seville, 1582); "Coro Febeo de Romances historiales", a collection of one hundred romances (1587). of which A. Duran has reproduced sixty-three in his " Ro- mancero"; and an epic poem in twenty-four cantos, "La Conquista de la Betica" (Seville, 1603), describ- ing the conquest of Seville by the King Saint Ferdi- nand.

TicKNOR. //f's/orr/ of Spanish Literature (New York. 18-'i7); Fitzmaurice-Kelly, History of Spanish Literature (London, 1907).

Ventura Fxtentes. Cujas, Jacques. See L.\w.

Culdees, a word so frequently met with in histories of the medieval Churches of Ireland and Scotland, and so variously understood and applied, that a well- informed writer (Reeves) describes it as the best- abused word in Scotic church-history. The etymol- ogy of the term, the persons designated by it, their origin, their doctrines, the rule or rules under which they lived, the limits of their authority and pri\nlcges have all been matters of controversy; and on these questions muoh learning and ability has been shown, and not a little (lartizan zeal. In the Irish language the word was written Ceile-De, meaning companion, or even spouse, of God, with the Latin equivalent in the plural, Colidei, anglicized into Culdees; in Scot-

land it was often written Kdidei. All admit that, in the beginning at all events, the Culrlees were separated from the mass of the faithful, that their lives were de- voted to religion, and that they lived in community. But the Scotch writers, unwilling to trace the name to an Irish source, prefer to derive it from "cultores Dei", worshippers of God, or from mil, a shelter, or from kit, a church. The Irish derivation, however, is the easiest and the most natural, ami the one now generally accepted. From Ceile-De the transition is easy to Colideus and Culdee; and in the Irish annals the epithet Ceile-De is a])propriately given to St. John, one of the twelve Apostles, to a missioner from abroad whose coming to Ireland is recorded in the Four Masters at the year 806, and to Aengus (q.v.), the well-known monk and author of Tallaght, whose penances and mortifications, whose hiunijity, piety, and religious zeal, would specially mark him out as the companion of God.

Taking him as an example of the class to which he belonged, probably the highest example which couki be given, when we remember the character of his life, we finil that the ('uldees were holy men who loved solitude and lived by the labour of their hands. Gradually they came together in commvmity, still occupying separate cells, still much alone and in com- munion with God, but meeting in the refectory and in the church, and giving obedience to a common superior. St. Maelruan, under whom Aengus lived, and who died as early as 792, drew up a rule for the Culdees of Tallaght which prescribed the time and manner of their prayers, fasts, and devotions, the frequency with which they ought to go to confession, the penances to be imposed for faults committed. But we have no evidence that this rule was widely accepted even in the other Culdean establishments. Nor could the Culdees at any time be said to have attained to the position of a religious order, composed of many houses, scattered over many lands, bound by a common rule, revering the memory and imita- ting the virtues of their founder, and looking to the parent house from which they sprang, as the children of Columbanus looked to Luxeuil or Bobbio, or the Columban monks looked to lona. After the death of Maelruan Tallaght is forgotten, and the name Ceile-De disappears from the Irish annals until 919, when the Four Masters record that Armagh was plun- dered by the Danes, but that the houses of prayer, "with the people of God, that is Ceile-De", were spared. Subsequent entries in the annals show that there were Culdees at Clonmacnoise, Clondalken, and Clones, at Monahincha in Tipperary, and at Scattery Island.

To those of the eighth century, such as were rejire- scnted by Aengus, were soon added secular priests who assumed the name of Cvddees, lived in commu- nity, subjected themselves to monastic discipline, but were not bound by monastic vows. Such an order of priests had, in the middle of the eighth century, been founded at Metz. As they lived according to rules and canons of councils, they came to be called secular canons and were usually attached to collegiate or cathedral churches. They became pop\ilar and quick- ly extended even to Ireland, and it is .significant that in the accounts given of the Culdee establishments at Clones, Devenish, and Scattery Island, Culdee an terms. The Danish wars, which brought ruin on so many proud monastic establishments, easily effected the destruction of the Culdee houses with (heir feebler resisting powers. Some, such as Clondalken and Clones, disappeared altogether, or dragged out a miserable existence which differe<l little from death. At Clonmacnoise, as early as the eleventh century, the Culdees were laymen and married, while those at Monahincha and Scaltery Island, being utterly corrupt and unable, or unwilling, to reform, gave way to the regular canons, with their