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 IONIAN

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IONIAN

tery. With his own strong arms he helped to cut down as many oak trees in one of the neighbouring islands — perhaps Erraid — as sufficed to load twelve boats, and no tloubt he had a share in building the boats and framing the monastic cells, like the cell of Columba, which was, he tells us, tahulis xiitTnlfi'. framed of planks, and harundine tecta, thatched with reeds.

During the century that closed with the death of Adamnan, lona was in its glory; Columba and his monk^ had converted to the faith the whole of Pict- land with its rulers. It sent three famous prelates to found anil rule over Lindisfarne, second only to lona itself as a centre of religious learning and influence in the North of Saxonland. Aidan, Finan, and Colman are men whose well-deserved eulogy has been re- corded by Venerable Bede. The unhappy disputes about the frontal tonsure and the true time for celebrating Easter, caused much disturbance during the seventh century both in lona itself and in its daughter houses. Even when Ireland and England had given up the strife and adopted the Roman Easter, the monks of lona, true to the traditions of theirsainted founder, still clung tenacious- ly to the old Easter. And so late as 71fi, when lona itself con- formed to the Ro- man usage, some of (he daughter houses in Pictland stub- bornly held to the ancient discipline. This stubbornness brought abovil a few years later the ex- pulsion of the t'o-

iumban monks from I'ictlaml Ijy Xectan, King of the Picts, who had accepted the Roman discipline.

The ninth century brought woe and disaster to both lona and Lindisfarne from the pagan Dane< who ravaged all the British coasts. In 793 they destroyed the church of Lindisfarne with great rapine and slaughter. In 795 they made their first attack on lona, but the monks on that occasion appear to have escaped with their lives. But in 806 sixty-eight of the community were slain at Port na Mairtir, on the eastern shore of the island, and the white sands some- what north were the scene of the massacre of another band of martyrs. A few years later again, in S14, Abbot Ccllach found it necessary to transfer the primacy of the Columban Order from lona — which Adamnan calls "this our primatial island" — to the monastery of Kells in Ireland, bringing with him the shrine containing Columba's relics which was however brought back later on. In 825 there was a further massacre of lona monks, namely of St. Blaithmac who refused to give up the shrine, and his holy com- panions. Blaithmac's heroic death was celebrated in Latin verse by WalafridusStrabo. Abbot of Reichenau, South Germany. In 90S St. .Vndrews was formally recognized as the primatial see of Scotland, from which year we may date the disappearance of lona's insular primacy. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, 1204, the ancient Celtic monastery finally disajipeared, and a new Benedictine one was estab- lished liy authority of the pope — but the original graveyard — the ReiUij Odhrnin — was still regarded as the holiest ground in Scotland, and is now crowded with the inscribed tomli-stones of the kings, chieftains and prelates who rest beneath.

Adamnan, Life of Sf. Columba, ed. Relves (Edinburgh, 1847); Skene, Celtic Scotland (Edinburgh, 1880); Life of St. Columba (Irish), tr. Henne.ssy (Dublin, 1900) : Healt, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars (,5th ed., Dublin, 1908); Tren- HOLME, Story of lona (Edinburgh, 1909).

.lOHN He.\LY.

Ionian Islands, a group of seven islands (whence the name Heptanesus, by which they are also desig- nated) and a number of islets scattered over the Ionian Sea to the west of Greece, between .36° and 40° N. lat., and 19° and 23-5° E. long. The seven islands are: Corfu (K^pKvpa, CorcjTa), Paxos, Leu- cadia or Santa Maura, Ithaca or Thiaki, Cephalonia, Zante or Zacynthus, and Cerigo or Cythera. Of the islets the most important are: Antipaxos, Othronos, and .\nticythera or Cerigotto. The Ionian Isles have a total area of about 1095 square miles. The popu- lation amounts to 261,930, among them being 6615 Catholics of the Latin Rite, while the remainder, with the exception of a few thousand Jews ami a small number of Mussul- mans, belong to the (ireek Orthodox ( hurch. The cli- mate of the islands is in general very mild and salubrious, and, in spite of the mountainous char- acter of the land, t here is a fairly exten- sive output of cotton, wine, oil, and raisins. The Ionian Lsles are frequently men- tioned or described by the ancient Greek and Latin authors, for whom they had many mythological associations. Many remains of antiquity are even to-day found on these islands (Rieman, " Recherchesarcht-ologiques sur les iles ioniennes", Paris, 1S79-S0). They all re- mained under Byzantine rule until al>out the end of the eleventh century, when the Normans of the_ Two Sicilies obtained possession of Corfu. In 1.3S6 Venice took the islands, and retained them until the end of the eighteenth century. The Treaty of Campo For- mio in 1797 gave them to France, which formed them into the three provinces of Ithaca, Corfu, and the JEgean Sea. In 1799 the Russian fleet seized the Ionian Isles, and they were constituted a small state tributary to Turkey, but in 1802 the Treaty of Amiens 'declared them free under the protectorate of Russia. In 1.S07 the Peace of Tilsit gave them back to France, and General Berthier was installed as their governor. The Second Treaty of Paris (November, 1815) placed them under English protection. An aristocratic government was then once more organ- ized; the legislative functions were vested in a chamber of seventy deputies, eleven nominated by the Government and fifty-nine elected by the people; the executive power belonged to a Senate consisting of a president, appointed by the protecting power, and five senators elected for five years by the deputies from their own body. -\n English lord commissioner controlled foreign relations and the police. England enjoycil the right of garrisoning the forts and of mili- tary administration. After the French Revolution of 1848, an insurrection broke out in Cephalonia with the object of uniting the islands to (ireece, but was rigorously repressed by England in 1849. I'rom that time, however, the first vote of the Chamber, whenever it assembled, was in favour of the union with Greece, after which vote it was immediately dissolved.

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