Cellach I is traditionally said to have been the first

Bishop of the Scots The Bishop of St. Andrews ( gd, Easbaig Chill Rìmhinn, sco, Beeshop o Saunt Andras) was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of St Andrews in the Catholic Church and then, from 14 August 1472, as Archbishop of St Andrews ( gd, Àrd-easbaig ...

(

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 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 Fothad I (died 963) is the second alleged Bishop of the Scots (906x955). We know he had the status of "bishop" during the reign of King Dub mac Maíl Coluim because the ''Chronicle of the Kings of Alba'' has his death in the period of his reign ...

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