tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61631458572113444122024-03-19T08:48:07.207+00:00Omnium Sanctorum HiberniaeMarcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.comBlogger1205125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-22381533511850931552024-03-17T06:30:00.088+00:002024-03-17T06:30:00.128+00:00Saint Patrick's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeaEJAOWP26C4E6xctYKMlii0j7pTeFH06nonUSe-7jRSqB_4cDCTleTRcF_Kv2Ed87k9BKObnlUOfdPZGQs0XvOztXbJQ_2KFIjwh_D_P40Um5Fbn8Wit1xVPVffohJZUj8oqtxrhvK_tA3DTUIHcOrNHiBRUFC7Kk86zqZp4M05CJhcKZPX0kx__hQ/s442/ThePilgrimOfOurLadyOfMartyrsVolV1889_0126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="442" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeaEJAOWP26C4E6xctYKMlii0j7pTeFH06nonUSe-7jRSqB_4cDCTleTRcF_Kv2Ed87k9BKObnlUOfdPZGQs0XvOztXbJQ_2KFIjwh_D_P40Um5Fbn8Wit1xVPVffohJZUj8oqtxrhvK_tA3DTUIHcOrNHiBRUFC7Kk86zqZp4M05CJhcKZPX0kx__hQ/s320/ThePilgrimOfOurLadyOfMartyrsVolV1889_0126.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Research for this blog has led me to read a great deal of amateur poetry published in the popular religious press of the Victorian era. Whilst much of it is of no great literary merit, I am nevertheless interested in the sentiments expressed as they indicate attitudes towards the Irish saints held at the time. What struck me about the offering below, published in the American monthly <i>The Pilgrim of Our Lady of Martyrs</i> in 1899, was that although the poem is entitled <i>Saint Patrick's Day</i>, our national patron is curiously not the main protagonist. Instead the author, known only as M. L. M., starts off by praising the Irish saints collectively and the fame they have brought to the <i>insula sanctorum</i>. I am not sure where the number 500 for the saints has originated, since that can be multiplied by three, but I like how s/he then goes on to see the innumerable Irish martyrs and confessors clustering around them. The final verse reminds us this piece was written in the days of the national revival as the poet addresses Ireland itself as a 'brave motherland' and asks the Irish saints to hasten the dawning of freedom: <br /><br /><b>ST. PATRICK'S DAY. </b><br /><br />HAIL, Saints of Ireland, peerless band! <br />A brighter crown than that which gleams <br />Upon St. Patrick's brow. <br />Five hundred names are flashing there <br />Of heroes, faith-renowned; <br />Thro’ them thy fame, O Isle of Saints, <br />Has circled earth around. <br /><br />But who may count those other lights <br />That cluster round each star — <br />The Martyrs and Confessors brave <br />Through centuries of war? <br />Unknown to earth their humble names; <br />But well do angels know, <br />And chant them in the strains that blend <br />Their Church with ours below. <br /><br />Mother of many nations! Thou <br />To God hast brought them forth; <br />No King, or Caesar's patronage, <br />Has helped that second birth. <br />The Irish priest worked in the strength <br />Born of St. Patrick's sod — <br />His title held from Rome, his wealth, <br />A boundless trust in God. <br /><br />Like Mary in rude Bethlehem, <br />Thy glory is unseen; <br />Like Mary, too, on Calvary, <br />Thy tears have made thee Queen. <br />Brave Mother-land, full long thou'st borne <br />The Cross, with patient pain! <br />O Saints of Erin, speed from God <br />The dawn of Freedom's reign! <br /><br />M. L. M. <br /><br /><a href="https://archive.org/details/ThePilgrimOfOurLadyOfMartyrsVolXV1899">The Pilgrim Of Our Lady Of Martyrs Vol. XV, 1899, 114</a><div class="MsoNormal">
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Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-55474405802684586382024-03-13T06:00:00.434+00:002024-03-13T06:00:00.142+00:00Saint Gerald: Legends of a Great Saint of County Mayo<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgziB5Gro0j6t0PPnL9-ArNhXAip42izS5ikZEczNQynPHYd4UE4af_8D46so5UHLB_JWjGtrjm7xPZ7wDIjY48qmYYfkmXrqsnfO53L-vu6ZDMfFgbV5-df9bzZ9OtgigKZm4s6ik7xtjDiBhXIkhezb5cbkvY3PxZr7va6haAy7_fz7YR5u8_HE4Iyw/s216/nla.news-page000028809093-nla.news-article258694477-L3-fca788e44d09262e9f5950243ad23465-0001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="78" data-original-width="216" height="78" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgziB5Gro0j6t0PPnL9-ArNhXAip42izS5ikZEczNQynPHYd4UE4af_8D46so5UHLB_JWjGtrjm7xPZ7wDIjY48qmYYfkmXrqsnfO53L-vu6ZDMfFgbV5-df9bzZ9OtgigKZm4s6ik7xtjDiBhXIkhezb5cbkvY3PxZr7va6haAy7_fz7YR5u8_HE4Iyw/s1600/nla.news-page000028809093-nla.news-article258694477-L3-fca788e44d09262e9f5950243ad23465-0001.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><br />March 13 is the feast of Saint Gerald of Mayo, an English saint who came to Ireland as a result of the controversy surrounding the dating of Easter. I have previously posted about the circumstances in which he came to be at Mayo of the Saxons <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/03/saint-gerald-of-mayo-march-13.html">here</a>. Below is a 1928 newspaper account of Saint Gerald which looks at his career in Ireland drawing on the fourteenth-century <i>Life</i> of the saint produced by the Augustinian canons who were his later successors at Mayo Abbey. It begins in a rather disjointed way with an account of a powerful local druid being vanquished. Perhaps this is just a legend added for a bit of extra local colour as one assumes the champions of paganism had been seen off long before the time of Saint Gerald, who is not mentioned directly in the tale. Author P. L. O'Madden is correct to point out in his postscript that some of the events contained within the <i>Life of Saint Gerald </i>cannot be reconciled with other historical sources. Today, almost a century after he was writing, the difference between hagiography and history has been clearly established. That said, however, there are some enjoyable hagiographical tropes here as Saint Gerald parts the sea, performs healings, participates in a royal synod with Saint Fechin of Fore and tackles the spectre of the dreaded <i>buidhe Conaill </i>plague which took the lives of so many of the Irish saints, including that of Saint Fechin himself. I particularly enjoyed the description of how Saint Gerald's monastic cowl grew large enough to encompass all of the people who sought his help, cowls were often listed among the most powerful relics of monastic saints as they were something the saint had actually worn next to his own body: <b><br /></b><p></p><p><b>SAINT GERALD</b></p><p><b>Legends of a Great Saint of County Mayo</b></p><p>By P. L. O'Madden <br /></p><p> In that district there dwelt at that time a famous druid who had many disciples. He had his abode nigh to the monastery of the saints, claiming a hereditary right in the place, known to this day as Druid Hill.</p><p>The disciples of the man of God, with great fervour of spirit, impelled therein, made a large fire. The druid on seeing the smoke, said to his disciples "I know by my magical powers that that fire now burning will never be extinguished if it be not put out at once"; and going forth he donned his armour and mounted his charger to extinguish the fire forthwith.</p><p>But it was the will of God that his horse's feet remained immoveably fixed in the ground, and the druid himself became glued to his horse so that he was unable to move. The amazed magician seeing the Divine Goodnews prevail over his magical arts, thus addressed his followers:</p><p>"Hearken to me, my friends, and know that the prayers of these men of God have conquered my druidic arts, therefore I implore ye to petition those Christians to release me from this dreadful torment, and I promise that myself and my posterity shall be their servants henceforth forever. Having thus avowed, both himself and his horse are miraculously released, but there remain to this day the indelible traces in the rock.<br /></p><p> St. Gerald divided his disciples into three groups: one party to be deputed to England to collect the necessary requirements for the labouring brotherhood; a second group to be employed in building a wall to enclose the monastery establishment, and after that to build a church and monastery; a third division he assigned to sing the Divine Office, and to pray for the Christian people.</p><p>With such regulations inspired by Heaven, under the zealous pastor the flock of Christ advanced daily in fervour and virtue. </p><p>When all had been accomplished there came a party of robbers, numbering nine, and seized some oxen from the monastery lands. When St Gerald heard this he had them pursued, and discovered them in a certain island wherein they were accustomed to hide their booty, God, who dried up the Red Sea for his servant Moses, caused the water to disappear so as to open a passage for his servant.</p><p>The robbers, on witnessing this miracle, prostrated themselves before the servant of God, repented of their crime, and avowed themselves to him and his successors forever.</p><p>At that time two kings reigned jointly in Ireland, namely Diarmaid and Blathmac, and they issued an edict that the people - clergy and laity- should assemble at Tara, for there was then a great famine in the land. The population had become so great that there was not sufficient to feed them all. It was ordered that all, clergy and laity should fast and pray that God might remove by a pestilence some of the people so that the rest might be able to live. And when they assembled, and a difference of opinion manifested itself them, they elected the two illustrious abbots, St. Gerald and St. Fechin, to arbitrate on the matter at issue. But even the saints could not agree. St. Gerald maintained that it was not just to ask God to remove some of the people by a plague, for he is all powerful and able to feed the many out of a small supply, as he did the Israelites in the desert with manna, and the five thousand with five loaves and a few fishes. St. Fechin, however, maintained the justice of the petition, for the famine was occasioned by the surplus population; and when the popular party prevailed in seeking pestilence, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to a certain holy man saying: "Why do you not seek food from the source of all bounty. He will not refuse you, for it is not more difficult for God to multiply food than men. But, because, contrary to his will, you seek the death of the lower order of people, by a just dispensation of Heaven the elder will die." And so it befell. For the anger of God was made manifest, in that the two reigning kings and also the kings of Ulster and Munster with many others died of the plague called in Irish "Buidh Conaill" so many died of this pestilence that there scarcely remained a third of the population.</p><p>Afterwards St. Gerald came in a district called Corran, where he found a vast number of inhabitants stricken with the plague. The famous chief Etran was stricken also. Seeing the holy man St. Gerald in their midst, the people hastened to him, firmly believing he had power to free them from the dread visitation. They cried out to the man of God, saying: "Have pity on us and heal us of our infirmities, which press so heavily on us; we shall surely perish unless you come to our assistance." And the holy man bade the chief Etran hasten with his son and came under his cowl. At the same time the people also hastened to do likewise. But the modest dimensions of the garment were not sufficient to cover them all, but so great was the efficacy of the saint's prayers that the cowl (or cloak) grew large enough to cover the multitude, and all were cured of their infirmities.</p><p>Afterwards St. Gerald went forth in the monastery of Eltheria. He learned there of the death of his beloved sister Sigretia, who, together with a hundred nuns of the convent and fifty of his disciples, had perished in the plague. He went forth to Mayo, accompanied by his disciple, and there the saint remained to the end in the love of God and his neighbour. The holy abbot, Adamnan, having made the visitation of all Ireland, came at length to St. Gerald at Mayo to enjoy the sweet society of his friend.</p><p>Not long afterwards St Gerald, having performed countless miracles, and founded many monasteries, rested at peace at Mayo Abbey, on the 13th day of March (tertio idea Martii) A.D. 732.</p><p>P.S. - The Chronology of these legends of St. Gerald is very confused. It is to be remembered that these records were not written down for many centuries - some five or six at all events - afterwards. And while many of the traditions herein related are corroborated by the 'Irish Annals' it is impossible to reconcile others with the known facts of Irish history. <br /></p><p>
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<p><i>Catholic Advocate</i>, Thursday 23 February 1928, page 42.
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</div></div></div></div><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-70730013258547080332023-12-14T10:28:00.001+00:002023-12-14T10:29:03.754+00:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, December 15<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifPhMvpxUTDZIDhkg8Vhmtbdd2D9QbdMzhDWtrhyphenhyphenuenvOLmVSj2hXPq9PD6613MwzFnyD-DsxcozN3LacAHYxCr9a648Cit6ljexh1DaaH2lPut-UdfmHyDR3jzFdITR5YdpWdmQdqxh4pfsUGgPzAQ1ij6rwwmEvYUxLyB3LdbREWsfrGfhBLjRBJRQ/s800/St%20Lucy%20Day%201943.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="800" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifPhMvpxUTDZIDhkg8Vhmtbdd2D9QbdMzhDWtrhyphenhyphenuenvOLmVSj2hXPq9PD6613MwzFnyD-DsxcozN3LacAHYxCr9a648Cit6ljexh1DaaH2lPut-UdfmHyDR3jzFdITR5YdpWdmQdqxh4pfsUGgPzAQ1ij6rwwmEvYUxLyB3LdbREWsfrGfhBLjRBJRQ/s320/St%20Lucy%20Day%201943.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The first of December's two All the Saints of Ireland programmes will be broadcast on Friday, December 15 at 7pm on Radio Maria Ireland. I will be looking at the Irish dimension to some of the saints of the Universal Church whose feasts occur around this time, including <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2012/12/saint-nicholas-irish-connection.html">Saint Nicholas</a>, <a href="http://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/12/saint-brigid-and-saint-lucy.html">Saint Lucy</a>, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2015/11/saint-regulus-and-relics-of-saint-andrew.html">Saint Andrew</a> and <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2012/12/saint-john-apostle-and-early-irish.html">Saint John the Apostle</a>. I will be asking is Saint Nicholas really buried in Ireland? Did the traditions surrounding Saint Lucy influence the hagiography of Saint Brigid of Kildare? Did an Irishman bring the relics of Saint Andrew to Scotland? How did the early medieval Irish Church view Saint John, the beloved disciple? So join host Thomas Murphy and me for another exploration of the rich legacy of our Irish saints. Details of how to access the programme can be found <a href="https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/ ">here</a>, previous broadcasts are available at the station's podcast library. <br /><p></p><p> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-14464726122147971162023-11-23T06:00:00.045+00:002023-11-23T06:00:00.137+00:00Saint Columbanus<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwICxPf9e3ZcMMjUzErvboMkx0hez5zPnTjL5rOtYijyPix4AHB2DvGkhMTJq9BhM__u5lvR0TcPQYpni_9sA6o0GDzRcMuEryIXMWlLCfRZvIr805smXwjJx8UB9PmYVtLi-TZSLwbER_kPy2WuU3weymH0ttcfT4Pz1qQ8ljase0UJcpS0t8HzJBw/s699/NZT19231122.2.50-a3-699w.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="699" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwICxPf9e3ZcMMjUzErvboMkx0hez5zPnTjL5rOtYijyPix4AHB2DvGkhMTJq9BhM__u5lvR0TcPQYpni_9sA6o0GDzRcMuEryIXMWlLCfRZvIr805smXwjJx8UB9PmYVtLi-TZSLwbER_kPy2WuU3weymH0ttcfT4Pz1qQ8ljase0UJcpS0t8HzJBw/s320/NZT19231122.2.50-a3-699w.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In 1923 the 1300th anniversary of Saint Columbanus was celebrated at Bobbio and below is a report from <i>The New Zealand Tablet </i>describing the festivities. In addition to capturing something of the pride with which the newly-established Irish Free State regarded this important saint, it also links the spiritual and secular European dimension as the Irish delegates leave Bobbio to seek admission to the League of Nations: <br /><p></p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b>The New Zealand Tablet </b></p><p><b>THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1923. </b></p><p><b>ST COLUMBANUS </b><br /> </p><p>LAST week we published accounts of the centenary celebrations held at Bobbio in honor of St. Columbanus, giving such extracts from the Pope's brief as had come to hand. The latest mails brought us the complete text of this edifying and masterly review of the labors of the great Irish missionary saint. Our readers will find the Pope's glowing and eloquent words in another page of our present issue, and they will note for themselves how the Supreme Pontiff honors Columbanus by placing him among the men of Providence, chosen in the designs of God to protect the Church and safeguard her interests in times of storm and stress. In the person of her Primate, the land of St. Columbanus was worthily represented at the ceremonies, while the presence of the President of the Free State, with his attendant staff, further identified Catholic Ireland with the extraordinary memorial of her glorious past which took place in that Italian town in September last, thirteen hundred years after the death of the Saint. </p><p>The celebrations, and the Papal brief, bring into brighter light the pictures of the far-away years painted for us by historians who love to dwell on the Golden Age of the Island of Saints and Scholars. It was in Irish schools and by Irish monks that Columbanus was educated; and, equipped with the learning acquired there in his youth, he was called by God to leave his own native land and to become as a torch-bearer in many parts of the Continent of Europe. Other Irish missionaries received the same call and answered it as gladly as the Saint whose ashes are honored at Bobbio. Memory readily recalls a long bead-roll of their bright names, and the map of Europe has preserved many of them to the present day. But that a special mission was given Columbanus is evident from the remarkable testimony of Pope Pius XI., that this Irish monk, by his zeal and learning, had an influence on the rebirth of Christian knowledge and civilisation throughout France, Germany, and Italy, so great that it is only now becoming adequately appreciated by the students of history. He was a luminous example of the virtues of the priesthood, a man of profound learning, a courageous champion of the truth, a fearless lover of Christ, a captain among that chosen band of exiles from Erin who in different ages were inspired by the desire to become pilgrims for their Lord — <i>Peregrinari pro Christo</i>, was their watchword. With gratitude, all sons of Ireland will read the passage in which the Pope bears witness to the purity of faith and the excellence of learning which in those distant ages fitted Ireland to be the fruitful mother of missionaries: </p><p></p><blockquote><p>Christian civilisation (he says) had almost collapsed, and the glory of the arts which are the ornament of civil life seemed to be gone forever. It is marvellous how Ireland, justly called the Island of Saints; and no less justly the home of the arts and sciences, shone forth amid the darkness and the clouds of those days in her love of religion and civilisation. History tells us that the deep recesses of her valleys and forests echoed with the prayers and the works of her hermits, and that there arose numerous monasteries, which stood as so many schools of sanctity, and, for those times, of perfect learning in every branch of knowledge. </p><p>Thither eager young men hurried to learn literature and science. Excellently prepared in the various branches of learning, trained in the virtues under the holy discipline of Cungallius, and burning with desire to accomplish great —and these were times that required his zeal —Columbanus, accompanied by a few companions, abandoned his fatherland and commenced those successive migrations from Ireland, which down through the centuries have brought blessings innumerable to so many peoples. </p></blockquote><p></p><p> Columbanus, thirteen centuries ago, inspired a new spirit into a Europe that was sick almost unto death from wars and barbarian invasions. His voice— voice of the schools of Ireland— a message of hope, of faith, of charity, of consolation to the struggling peoples. To him was it, under God, due that the reconstruction which then began moved along Christian lines, and, by paths of sanity and reasonableness, achieved a success that endured for centuries. Ireland, still the most Catholic country in the world, still, the most faithful to the teachings of Christ, again comes into the midst of a gathering of nations groping helplessly towards the light and needing, just as the peoples did in the days of Columbanus, all the guidance and all the inspiration that Christianity can give them. "In the name of God, to this assembly, life and health!"' were the words with which President Cosgrave greeted the nations on behalf of Ireland. May it be her mission once more to recall them all to God, in whom alone is the healing of their wounds, as He alone is the source of life, here and hereafter. From Bobbio, full of the inspiration of the past, the Irish delegates went to seek admission to the League of Nations. And from that little town in the Apennines, the spirit of the great missionary saint will surely be with his countrymen to-day when a task not unlike his own is before them. </p><p>ST COLUMBANUS,New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 46, 22 November 1923.</p></blockquote><p></p><p> The Papal address referred to in this article was published previously at the blog and can be read <a href="https://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2016/10/pope-pius-xi-on-saint-columbanus.html">here</a>. </p><p><br />
Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-90638705404037454892023-11-14T06:00:00.028+00:002023-11-14T06:00:00.141+00:00Saint Laurence O'Toole's Devotion to the Mother of God<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmn5N6Ugot-N_44wVnlmC7uHHp4xPSdjatlNYKjd0X9ATktOOIZ9mpXOZEa5btnlbxcBufAOthh5INwp30Fk8yFaY2nWkhIZS-OoqcemU0FASx6fGG5qe1QRtFoJ9yQuUUrJtDDMofuddGC9bkCm3g0emrZ0w5InSJVA4E-oYmCrRR-a2RmvdEE7WrfQ/s4899/IMGP1107.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4899" data-original-width="3072" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmn5N6Ugot-N_44wVnlmC7uHHp4xPSdjatlNYKjd0X9ATktOOIZ9mpXOZEa5btnlbxcBufAOthh5INwp30Fk8yFaY2nWkhIZS-OoqcemU0FASx6fGG5qe1QRtFoJ9yQuUUrJtDDMofuddGC9bkCm3g0emrZ0w5InSJVA4E-oYmCrRR-a2RmvdEE7WrfQ/s320/IMGP1107.JPG" width="201" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Lady of Dunsford, Co. Down<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />November 14 is the feast of Saint Laurence O'Toole a post on whose life can be found <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2015/11/saint-laurence-otoole-november-14.html">here</a>. Below is a tribute to Saint Laurence's devotion to the Mother of God as recorded by Cardinal Moran in 1864:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote>St. Laurence O'Toole was the last saint of our Church before our island became a prey to every disorder, and well nigh barbarism, in consequence of the English invasion. In his life we read of his having "built a new church in Dublin, to the honour of God and of the blessed Virgin Mother." Another church was dedicated by him in Wales to the same holy Virgin; but the most striking proof of his devotion to the Mother of God was evinced in restoring to life a priest of the diocese, named Gallwed. The first act of this priest on awakening from his slumber of death, was to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin; and he declared to the bystanders, "I saw the Archbishop Laurence on bended knees before God and the glorious Virgin Mary, His Mother, humbly entreating for my restoration to life." </blockquote><p></p>Rev. Dr P.F. Moran, <i>Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and Discipline of the Early Irish Church</i>, (Dublin, 1864), p.239. <br /><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-85246011954251948462023-11-06T06:30:00.129+00:002023-11-08T14:10:24.347+00:00'Cherish in your Memories': All the Saints of Ireland, November 6<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqhppstA4_MgXfHaJUrQu5KVQRCLTlnSbpg-9skZD3d6bEtsfH58vN41DKvXo5Pf9vWjanfZg07IZMCSre_lDoy6oOdr1cDlEjWoX10kFalXv5H_GURzKgQxaAyYvPDALtaZA5pmeN8UwyVWvWzc91slKsMtlhsEh0UwdwkcjrieExuCphiU8klhq6w/s552/thelivesandtimes07artauoft_0008.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="424" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqhppstA4_MgXfHaJUrQu5KVQRCLTlnSbpg-9skZD3d6bEtsfH58vN41DKvXo5Pf9vWjanfZg07IZMCSre_lDoy6oOdr1cDlEjWoX10kFalXv5H_GURzKgQxaAyYvPDALtaZA5pmeN8UwyVWvWzc91slKsMtlhsEh0UwdwkcjrieExuCphiU8klhq6w/s320/thelivesandtimes07artauoft_0008.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><br />November 6 is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland, a feast established just over a century ago. It is also the day on which I launched Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae just over a decade ago to try and keep the memories of our Irish saints alive and to encourage a greater devotion to them. This same motivation was expressed in 1927 by Mary Maher in her book <i>Footsteps of Irish Saints in the Dioceses of Ireland</i> and she found an interesting support for it in an eighteenth-century pontifical brief addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland by Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758):<p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>When I placed my notes on Irish Saints in book form, I did so with one intention only - viz., to plead with the readers for increased devotion to our great Irish saints. For that purpose I began writing an explanatory Preface, but had only written a few lines, when a very old and valuable book came, by accident, into my hands. In this book I found a special devotion to Irish Saints, coming from a saintly and venerable Pontiff, Benedict XIV, addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland........: <br /></p><p> "Cherish in your memories," said the illustrious Pontiff, "St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, whom our predecessor Celestine sent to you, of whose apostolic mission and preaching, such an abundant harvest has grown, that Ireland, before his time idolatrous, was suddenly called, and deservedly, 'The Island of Saints'. Cherish in your memories St Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, who stood forth undaunted in every manner, prepared to convert the wolves into sheep, to admonish in public, to touch the chords of the heart. Cherish with yet more sincerity St Lawrence, Archbishop of Dublin, whom, born as he was of royal blood, our predecessor, Alexander III, constituted his Legate Apostolic for Ireland; and whom Honorius III, alike our predecessor, canonized. Yet more, we were to exhort you to cherish in your memories the very holy men Columbanus, Kylian, Virgil, Rumold, St Gall, with many others, who, coming out of Ireland, carried the True Faith over the provinces of the Continent, or established it with the blood of their martyrdom. Suffice it to commend you to bear in memory the religion and the piety of those who have preceded you, and their solicitude for the duties of their station, which has established their everlasting glory and happiness. And, <i>in fine</i>, cherish the virtues of your fathers - their piety and reverence for their pastors. Cherish the Faith that made them strong and invincible; be yours firm and immovable, as the rock on which it is founded; be yours illustrated with the earnest constancy of a Peter, the burning zeal of a Paul, the abiding confidence of a John."</p><p>Mary Maher, <i>Footsteps of Irish Saints in the Dioceses of Ireland</i> (London, 1927), v-vii.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Wishing everyone the blessings of the Feast and thank you to all who supports my work here at Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae and on All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria. Beannachtaí na Féile oraibh go Léir<span face="'Arial','sans-serif'">!</span> Orate pro nobis omnes Sancti Hiberniae!</p><br /><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-31092060724014800882023-09-07T06:00:00.010+01:002023-09-08T10:39:36.739+01:00'Great Mary's Holy Nativity': September 8<p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5v18BHxomN1rmiZuBSn56KKyoK_XrlNBesEJeGTAxwjD0O9U2ov9fOPvLxQfJyGUEC1QxHqh83zS2Bvp3jOBu9mOrNl13i00fG4qqcv1Uf-9UJx-ExkI-34maCjDqAiCn4WGjBurlZdJEhrxHNIF5wQ2773LGM2VfHDqWptCUjqvX6ACFG0MCVKdo1Q/s635/MartyrologyOfOengusTheCuldee_0250.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="635" height="59" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5v18BHxomN1rmiZuBSn56KKyoK_XrlNBesEJeGTAxwjD0O9U2ov9fOPvLxQfJyGUEC1QxHqh83zS2Bvp3jOBu9mOrNl13i00fG4qqcv1Uf-9UJx-ExkI-34maCjDqAiCn4WGjBurlZdJEhrxHNIF5wQ2773LGM2VfHDqWptCUjqvX6ACFG0MCVKdo1Q/s320/MartyrologyOfOengusTheCuldee_0250.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="column"> </div><div class="column">The birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary is commemorated on September 8 and is a feast found on our earliest Irish calendars. The <i>Martyrology of Oengus</i> records: <br /><blockquote>8. Thou shalt commemorate Mary: thou art not deadened on a scanty meal: with Timothy and three hundreds of martyrs. </blockquote></div><div class="column">and the scholiast notes:</div><div class="column"><blockquote>8. is commemorated .i. natiuitas etc. Mary's nativity is commemorated
here, on a scanty meal, for <i>pit</i> means a meal, quasi dixisset thou
shouldst not fast on Mary's feast. </blockquote></div><div class="column"></div><div class="column">It is obviously a mark of the joyful nature of the feast and its importance that the normal fasting rules are set aside and a 'scanty meal' is not deemed appropriate. </div><div class="column"> </div><div class="column">The <i>Martyrology of Tallaght</i> also records the feast as:</div><div class="column"> </div><div class="column"><i>Natiuitas Mariae matris Iesu </i></div><div class="column"><i> </i></div><div class="column">and the later twelfth-century <i>Martyrology of Gorman</i> notes: </div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"><br /><i>Noemghein Maire móre</i> </div><div class="column">Great Mary's holy nativity.</div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"></div><div class="column"> </div><div class="column">Canon O'Hanlon in the September volume of his <i>Lives of the Irish Saints</i> has a short article about the Feast in which he mentions that the County Wexford parish of Kilnenor was one of those which held a traditional pattern on September 8. I was able to consult an online version of the<i> Ordnance Survey Letters</i> which Canon O'Hanlon had cited in his footnotes and there I learnt that this pattern 'was held on the 8th of September till the year 1798, when it was abolished'. <br /> <br /></div></div></div>
<b><blockquote>Article VI. Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. </blockquote></b><blockquote>In the ancient Irish Church, the Festival of the Birth of our Divine Lord's Mother was celebrated on the eighth day of September, as we learn from the Feilire of Aengus. On this there is a short comment. About the year 695, this feast was appointed by Pope Servius. In various parts of Ireland, this festival was celebrated formerly with very special devotion, as parishes, churches and chapels had been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and this was a favoured festival day. The patrons or patterns that until of late were yearly celebrated very conclusively attest it. In Kilnenor parish, County of Wexford, there is a holy well, at which a patron was formerly held on the 8th of September. According to a pious tradition a concert of angels is said to have been heard in the air to solemnize the Nativity or Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary.</blockquote><p> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-75163865200155432652023-09-03T06:00:00.052+01:002023-09-03T06:00:00.139+01:00The Night when the Book-Satchels Fell: Death of Saint Lon-garadh<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBShtaYwQ-DkWmxeNrsWM_9TPOssamJqG0QkxRTKeI452WCFFKEFLHwHrjpYutNKGD98zsg79FrtcNXqBy3VcRhCZhaqUEAt8zGV_SLvXoOe1cc0IqMW8pPz0CPGZIACiLYyg-65-8ypI_deSwSvZ29hFoKBTYbix1VLZZlBDOGQpglmhr1MuPAPFlyQ/s2338/TCD-MS-52-Satchel_Front_GAL.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2338" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBShtaYwQ-DkWmxeNrsWM_9TPOssamJqG0QkxRTKeI452WCFFKEFLHwHrjpYutNKGD98zsg79FrtcNXqBy3VcRhCZhaqUEAt8zGV_SLvXoOe1cc0IqMW8pPz0CPGZIACiLYyg-65-8ypI_deSwSvZ29hFoKBTYbix1VLZZlBDOGQpglmhr1MuPAPFlyQ/s320/TCD-MS-52-Satchel_Front_GAL.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Book of Armagh Satchel. Source: <a href="https://www.tcd.ie/library/exhibitions/directors-choice/armagh-satchel/">TCD</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />September 3 is the feast of Saint Lon-garadh, a saint with a reputation as one of the chief scholars of Ireland. I have previously posted a full account of this saint <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2014/09/saint-lon-garadh-of-of-magh-tuathat.html">here</a>, but below a reminder of the famous story about how the book satchels fell to the ground in all the monasteries of Ireland in sorrow at his death. Sadly, little historical information has survived about Saint Lon, but the legend associated with him was mentioned in the first lecture given by Professor Eugene O'Curry in March 1855 at the Catholic University of Ireland:<br /><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>There is a curious account of a private collection of books, “of all the sciences", as it is expressed, given in a note to the <i>Féliré</i>, or metrical Festology of Aengus <i>Celé Dé</i>, or the "Culdee"; it is to this effect: Saint Colum Cille having paid a visit to Saint Longarad of Ossory, requested permission to examine his books, but Longarad having refused, Colum then prayed that his friend should not profit much by his refusal, whereupon the books became illegible immediately after his death; and these books were in existence in that state in the time of the original author, whoever he was, of the note in the Féliré.<br />The passage is as follows: it is a note to the stanza of the great poem, for September 3; which is as follows:</p><div style="text-align: left;">"COLMAN OF DROM-FERTA,</div><div style="text-align: left;">LONGARAD, A SHINING SUN;
</div><div style="text-align: left;">MAC NISSE WITH HIS THOUSANDS,
FROM GREAT CONDERE".
</div><p>[NOTE.]—"Longarad the white-legged, of<i> Magh Tuathat</i>, in the north of Ossory (<i>Osraighé</i>); i.e., in <i>Uibh Foirchellain</i>; ie in <i>Magh Garad</i>, in <i>Disert Garad</i> particularly, and in <i>Cill Gabhra</i> in <i>Sliabh Mairge</i>, in <i>Lis Longarad</i>. The ‘white legged', i.e., from great white hair which was on his legs; or his legs were transparently fair. He was a <i>Suidh</i> (Doctor or Professor) in classics, and in history, and in judgment (law), and in philosophy [<i>filidecht</i>]. It was to him Colum Cille went on a visit; and he concealed his books from him; and Colum Cille left a ‘word' [of imprecation] on his books, i.e., 'May it not be of avail after thee', said he, that for which thou hast shown inhospitality'. And this is what has been fulfilled, for the books exist still, and no man can read them. Now, when Longarad was dead, what the learned tell us is, that all the book-satchels of Erinn dropped [from their racks] on that night. Or they were the satchels which contained the books of sciences [or, professions] which were in the chamber in which Colum Cille was, that fell. And Colum Cille and all that were in that house wondered, and they were all astounded at the convulsions of the books, upon which Colum Cille said: 'Longarad', said he, in Ossory, i.e., a <i>Sai</i> (Doctor) in every science [it is he] that has died now'. 'It will be long until that is verified', said Baithin. May your successor [for ever] be suspected, on account of this', said Colum Cille; et dixit Colum Cille:</p><div style="text-align: left;">Lon is dead [Lon is dead];</div><div style="text-align: left;">To <i>Cill Garad</i> it is a great misfortune;</div><div style="text-align: left;">To Erinn with its countless tribes;</div><div style="text-align: left;">It is a destruction of learning and of schools.</div><div style="text-align: left;">
Lon has died, [Lon has died]; </div><div style="text-align: left;">
In <i>Cill Garad</i> great the misfortune;<br />It is a destruction of learning and of schools, <br />To the Island of Erinn beyond her boundaries".
</div><p>However fabulous this legend may appear, it will suffice, at all events, to show in what estimation books were held in the time of the scholiast of the works of Aengus, and also the prevalent belief in his time in the existence of an Irish literature at a period so long antecedent to his own. The probability is that the books were so old at the time of this writer as to be illegible, and hence the legend to account for their condition.<br /></p><p>Eugene O’Curry, <i>Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History</i> (Dublin, 1861), 17-18. </p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-33593444363440131112023-09-02T06:00:00.067+01:002023-09-02T06:00:00.131+01:00Irish Teachers in the Carolingian Revival of Learning Part II<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF6aP4BQpTBXQTUj89RAvomFnIlFg6FBJIrDKLzJ7lLG5hVsLyDQXOPKhAz5SzwJRZGak1id2mBi4I1IFxVLMQOriaGo6vFYMXezsF-_2LDv5OV4GG8wUWfrWxjsMttFumNKe3_Xu1RINYkFYvsphefNua5MUdiYN5xwSs84XAEaiz5AZcDeQxQWEfUw/s724/CatholicUnivBulletinV13_0576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="724" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF6aP4BQpTBXQTUj89RAvomFnIlFg6FBJIrDKLzJ7lLG5hVsLyDQXOPKhAz5SzwJRZGak1id2mBi4I1IFxVLMQOriaGo6vFYMXezsF-_2LDv5OV4GG8wUWfrWxjsMttFumNKe3_Xu1RINYkFYvsphefNua5MUdiYN5xwSs84XAEaiz5AZcDeQxQWEfUw/s320/CatholicUnivBulletinV13_0576.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In the concluding part to his 1907 paper on 'Irish Teachers in the Carolingian Revival of Letters', Bishop William Turner brings together a further selection of interesting Irish scholars active in continental Europe. He deals with the famous John Scotus Eriugena in this section but some of the lesser-known figures are also quite intriguing. Whilst I was aware that the Irish took Latin names, this paper made me aware of how many <i>aliases</i> were also scripturally-based. I had no idea, for example, that there was at least one Irish scholar called Israel. Bishop Turner's writing perhaps shows its age in its ready acceptance of stereotypical imaginative Celts versus stolid Anglo-Saxons, but he has brought many overlooked and neglected figures to our attention here, some of whom I hope to follow up on in future posts.<br /><p></p><p> </p><p><b>IRISH TEACHERS IN THE CAROLINGIAN REVIVAL OF LETTERS.<br />(CONTINUED.)</b><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">Contemporaneous with the Irish colony at Liège was the no less important Irish colony at Laon. That very ancient center of Christianity in France had, as early as the sixth century, been the scene of the missionary activity of the wandering Celt. Thither in the ninth century, flocked many of those scholars whom Eric of Auxerre described as a "herd of philosophers' from Ireland. Eric himself studied there, and had for his teacher <i>Elias</i>. This Elias was, apparently, one of those who changed their native names for the latinized form of a scriptural name. That he was an Irishman is proved by the testimony of Gautbert (tenth century), which occurs in a Leyden manuscript, to the effect that "Elias, of the same nation as John the Scot (Scotigena), taught Eric (of Auxerre) and, as a reward for his learning (sapientia), was made Bishop of Angoulème." Another contemporary document published by Delisle gives Elias as bishop of Angoulème, and a third contemporary witness, Ademar (in the third book of his Histories), tells us that the celebrated Theodulf of Orleans had for "his heir in philosophy" Elias the Irishman, Bishop of Angoulème. The first mentioned document goes on to enumerate the members of the Laon colony, and among the names that occur are <i>Daoch, Israel, Egroal, Gono, and Remi,</i> the successor of Eric at the school of Auxerre. Of these, all except the last two were Irish. From other sources we know that among the scholars at Laon were <i>Martin, Luido and Duncan, or Dunchad</i>. Martin was beyond doubt, an Irishman; for the Annals of Laon have the following entry under the year 875: "Martin the Irishman fell asleep in the Lord." He wrote poems in Greek which bear his name and in which he styles himself "a Greek." There may be some doubt as to the nationality of Luido; but Dunchad was certainly an Irishman and a bishop. While teaching at St. Remigius' at Rheims, Dunchad composed a commentary on the astronomical section of the work of Martianus Capella on the seven liberal arts. The commentary exists, in part, at least, in a tenth century manuscript in the British Museum, and is there entitled distinctly "COMMENTUM DUNCHAT (H superscr) PONTIFICIS HlBERNIENSIS QUOD CONTULIT SUIS DISCIPULIS IN MONASTERIO SCI. REMIGII DOCENS SUPER ASTROLOGIA CAPELLAE, etc." By a strange misreading of DUNIS for DOCENS, O'Connor interprets the title to mean that Dunchad taught at Down. The authors of <i>l'Histoire litteraire</i> are at a loss to account for Dunchad's journey to France; they consider it to be undeniable that he taught at Rheims, but cannot determine whether he was bishop of an Irish or of a French see; indeed it is not necessary to suppose that he was bishop of any diocese. Besides mentioning the astronomical commentary they tell us of another work of Dunchad, a book of "observations" on Pomponius Mela, in which he tried to give his pupils a taste for geography, "then so universally neglected." This Dunchad is not to be confounded with Duncan, or <i>Donnacan</i>, another Irishman, who, according to the <i>Chronicon Scotorum</i>, was son of Maeltuile, was a scribe and an anchorite, and died in Italy in 843. To the school of Laon belonged also John Scotus Eriugena and his brother Aldhelm, of whom mention will be made later.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">From Laon sprang the school of Auxerre. The city of St. Germain had, even in the earliest times, been associated with the legendary accounts of the life of St. Patrick. And when, in the ninth century, Eric and Remi learned profane wisdom from the Irish teachers at Laon, Ireland was simply making return for the sacred lore which St. Patrick was supposed to have received at the school of St. Germain. The school of Auxerre is well known in medieval history as an important center of literary and philosophical activity. There Eric and Remi, following in the footsteps of their Irish teachers at Laon, expounded the text of Martianus Capella and the treatises of the Latin grammarians, and showed in their own writings the influence of Eriugena, Elias and Israel. Perhaps it should be added here that, besides the Israel who taught at Laon, there was another <i>Israel</i>, also an Irishman, who, in 947, was present at the Council of Verdun. He was a monk of the monastery of St. Maximin of Trier, and, as the teacher of Bruno of Cologne, influenced the educational reform of the Rhineland in the tenth century. Of his pupil, Bruno, it is said that he carried his books about with him as the Hebrews carried the Ark of the Covenant. Mention should also be made of the curious manuscripts found at Laon, which date from the time of the Irish settlement there. Among them are a glossary (an explanation of words) attached to a Greek grammar, written, probably, by the Martin of whom we have already spoken, a Greek lexicon, and a Hebrew alphabet, with explanations. These are very interesting specimens of early medieval knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and are highly prized by modern students of philology.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Charles the Bald, who, after the treaty of Verdun, (842), reigned over the Western half of the empire, and from 875 to 877 bore the title of emperor, emulated the example of his grandfather, Charlemagne, as a patron of letters. During his reign Irish scholars flocked in great numbers to the Continent. The monarch was fond of discussing knotty questions, and had a keen taste for the subtle disputations to which the Irish dialecticians were devoted. Encouraged by his patronage, the Irish monks migrated in so great numbers to France that hostelries were built for their exclusive use. The most eminent of these, the scholar who found most favor with the emperor and attained the highest fame as a learned man, was <i>John Scotus Eriugena</i>. From the time when he first set foot in France (about 845), he was recognized as the most accomplished linguist in the empire and one of the ablest theological thinkers in the world of Latin Christianity. At the emperor's request he translated from the Greek the works of the Neo-Platonic writer known as Pseudo-Dionysius, and at the invitation of some of the prelates of the Church in France he entered into the controversy then waged concerning the theory of Predestination propounded by the monk Gotteschalk. According to a tale first told by William of Malmesbury and since often repeated, the emperor, on one occasion, asked the Scot, who sat opposite him at table, "What is the difference between a Scot and a sot?" "The table is all that is between them just now," promptly answered the royal guest. Of John's extraordinary learning, of his profound, though heterodox, philosophical interpretation of nature, of his theological errors, of his ingenious poems, in which Greek and Latin are often intermingled in the most bewildering fashion, the historians of medieval philosophy, theology and letters have treated at great length. It will be sufficient here to call attention to what is new in the literature, already vast, which has grown up around the biography and criticism of John the Scot. First, with regard to the name. It is now proved by a careful examination of the manuscripts that, while "John the Scot" was the only name by which he was known to his contemporaries the name by which he called himself, and by which he was known to the earliest copiers of his translations was "Eriugena." This form is to be preferred to "Erigena" and "lerugena," both because, as Professor Baeumker has shown, it has in its favor the authority of the oldest manuscripts, and also because it is the more correct philological compound, its meaning being "a native of Erin." Recent investigationhas also shown that Eriugena is not the author of the satiricalpoem so long ascribed to him, in which the manners and customs of ecclesiastical Rome are mercilessly arraigned.The poem is now known to have been written by a Neapolitangrammarian about the year 878. That there was, however,a keen edge to John's wit is evident from his epitaph on a miserly bishop, Hincmar by name, "who never did a noble deed, <i>till he died</i>." It has also been shown, in recent times, that Eriugena had disciples, not only among his contemporaries, such as Elias, Bishop of Angouleme, Wicbald, Bishop of Auxerre, Martin, and Luido of Laon, and Eric and Remi of Auxerre, but also in subsequent times among the Cistercians. Finally, Dr. Rand, Assistant Professor of Latin at Harvard, has published (Munich, 1906), the glosses which are found in so many ninth and tenth century copies of Boethius' Opuscula Sacra, and shown that they are to be ascribed to John the Scot.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">From an entry in a book preserved in the National Library of Paris it appears that there was at Laon in the middle of the ninth century a certain "<i>Aldhelm</i>, brother of John the Scot." Notwithstanding the Anglo-Saxon form of the name, this student at Laon is believed by critics to have been John's brother in the literal sense, and, therefore, one of the Irish colony at that place.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Another Irish teacher who attained prominence and enjoyed royal favor at the court of Charles the Bald was <i>Manno</i>, at one time Master of the palace school, and, probably, Eriugena 's successor in that post. He was head of the Chapter at St. Oyen in Burgundy in 870. He died in 880. Manno had among his pupils at the palace school many of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the time, such as Bishops Stephen, Mancio and Ratbold. By an inexcusable error arising from Manno 's knowledge of Greek, the Jesuit writer Dessel in his <i>Bibliotheca Belgica</i> (Louvain 1643) affirms that Manno was of Greek nationality, a blunder which is repeated by Stockl in his <i>Geschichte der Padogogik</i>. Dümmler has published a letter which after referring to "the doctrine of John the Scot" in the matter of the accent of a Greek word, goes on to say, "When I was at the palace at Compiegne, Manno told me the meaning of <i>mechano</i> and <i>mechania</i> (leg. mechanica)." The letter was written about the year 870, and is interesting not only for the mention of Manno, but also for the light it throws on the educational, scientific and general cultural conditions at that time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Before we turn from the northern kingdoms of the empire to study the foundations of Irish schools in the southern provinces, we must notice, if only briefly, the Irish teachers who found their way to the various ecclesiastical settlements in Lorraine and the neighboring countries. In the diocese of Metz, the monastery of Vassor (Vallis decor, Walciodorus) was founded by Irish monks in the ninth century and had for its first abbot <i>Maccallin</i>. In 950 Maccallin was succeeded by <i>Cadroe</i>, who, though a Scotchman, was educated in Ireland. To Cadroe succeeded <i>Fingan</i>, to whom was entrusted, later, the monastery of St. Symphorianus at Metz. In Ghent "the holy Irish Abbot <i>Columban</i>," (died 987), in Burgundy<i> Anatolius</i> and <i>Maimbod</i>, and in Cologne <i>Mimborinus</i> renewed in the tenth century the monastic spirit which had first been implanted in those regions by Irish missionaries three hundred years previously. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Among the most famous of all the Irish foundations of learning in Europe were those which in the ninth and tenth centuries flourished in the country of the Allemanien in Southern Germany. At Rheinau, on the Rhine, about five miles above Schaffhausen, there appeared about the middle of the ninth century <i>Fintan</i>, or Findan. Fintan was born about the year 800 in Leinster; while still a youth he fell into the hands of the Danes, was taken to the Orkney Islands, escaped to France, made a pilgrimage to Rome, returned to Switzerland under the patronage of Count Wolf, and in 851 was made Abbot of Rheinau. There he died in 878. This Irish exile spending his lonely vigils among the hills of the Allemanien heard voices of angels and demons calling to him through the night. And the language of the spirits was the ancient tongue of the Gael. Fortunately, the author of the <i>Life of St. Fintan</i>, written in the tenth century, was an Irishman, who could remember and write down the words spoken in the vision to the saint, and the words, as recorded by him are among the very oldest specimens of the Irish language that have come down to us. There were Irishmen at Rheinau, however, even before the time of Fintan, as is evident from the records of the monastery. This fact accounts for the presence at Schaffhausen of a celebrated Irish manuscript, Adamnan's<i> Life of Columba</i>, transcribed by Dorbene, Abbot of Iona (died 713). The manuscript was discovered in 1851 by Dr. Keller. It had lain, how long no one can tell, at the bottom of a heap of rubbish on an old book shelf in the public library of Schaffhausen.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Not far from Rheinau, situated on Lake Constance, was the still more celebrated monastery of Reichenau (Augia dives), which, during the early middle ages, was seldom without a number of Irish monks within its walls. Thither, in the ninth century, during the reign of Abbot Walahfrid, came Irish scholars, teachers of Greek, who inaugurated a period of literary activity and brought with them many valuable manuscripts. And, despite the numerous incursions of the Hungarians, despite the repeated destruction of the monastery and its library by fire, Reichenau continued to be one of the most important centers of the book industry in Germany. The manuscripts now in the library of Carlsruhe are the remnants of the literary treasures amassed by the monks at the abbey of Reichenau. Unfortunately, we do not know the names of these Irish teachers and scribes. For instance, we have no record of the name of the Irishman who was the teacher of the abbot Erlebold (823-838) at the beginning of the literary era of the monastery. It will be remembered that it was at Reichenau Walahfrid wrote of the "Irish to whom the habit of travel has become a second nature."</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Reichenau's fame, great as it was, was outshone by that of the neighboring monastery of St. Gall. This monastic retreat, situated in the heart of the Alpine range above Lake Constance, was founded in the seventh century by St. Gall, the companion and countryman of St. Columban. It became during the ninth century the favorite stopping place for Irish pilgrims, who in their journeys to and from Rome and the Holy Land, loved to linger round the shrines which contained the sacred relics of their own saints, such as Kilian, Columban and Gall. Two such pilgrims, <i>Moengal</i> (called in Latin Marcellus), and his uncle, <i>Marcus</i>, a bishop, returning from Rome, in the year 841, were induced to remain at St. Gall and, becoming members of the community (this is not certain in the case of Marcus), donated all their books to the monastic library. Moengal had been Abbot of Bangor; that is, if he is the same person as the Moengal mentioned both in the <i>Annals of the Four Masters</i> and in the <i>Annals of Ulster</i>. His influence as a teacher was evidently appreciated at St. Gall; for he was placed at the head of the "inner school" (for the training of clerics, the future monks of St. Gall, while Iso, the representative of the learning of Fulda, was given charge of the "outer school" for the education of lay students). Moengal’s activity as a teacher continued until 871, the date of his death. He had for pupils, Notker, Tutilo, Ratpert, Hartmann and Waltramm. We are told expressly that he taught the seven liberal arts as well as theology, and that, under his guidance, the monks of St. Gall became proficient in the art of music. Indeed, the achievements of his pupils are the best tribute to his success as a teacher. Notker's activity in the various departments of sacred and profane learning are well known; especially is he noted for his use of the vernacular (Old German) in many of his writings most important material for the study of German philology. Tutilo was the artist of the group; we are told that he attained extraordinary proficiency in the use of stringed instruments (the harp?), and the visitor to St. Gall can still see and admire his carvings in ivory. Fortunately these men found in the writer of the <i>Annals of St. Gall</i> a faithful chronicler of their daily life, and, thanks to him, we can form a vivid detailed picture of the group of scholars: Notker, surnamed the Stammerer, the student of logic and translator of Boethius; Tutilo, the poet, musician, painter and sculptor; Waldramm, the librarian of the monastery, and poet ; Salomon and Hartmann, both of whom were afterwards bishops. These were accustomed to gather, at night, in the writing-room (<i>scriptorium</i>), to discuss their literary projects; and when their enemy, Sindolf, the <i>refectorarius</i>, who suspected that their midnight gatherings had something to do with the "dark art," was caught playing the spy, the sons of learning were not slow to mete out to him the punishment which his eavesdropping deserved. Whatever these men achieved in the realm of literature and art they owed, in large measure, to the training they received from Moengal. In the tenth century, <i>Faillan</i> and <i>Clemens</i>, both Irishmen, were teachers at St. Gall. The former is distinctly styled "head of the school " (<i>magister scolarum</i>); he died in 991, as appears from the Necrology of the monastery. In 841, the year in which Moengal arrived, there arrived also another Irish teacher, <i>Eusebius</i>. Soon, however, he retired, like many of his countrymen before him, to some mountain fastness, where he led the life of a recluse. Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, Irish scholars continued to arrive at St. Gall, such as <i>Brendan, Dubslan, Adam, David, Melchomber, Fortegian, Chinchon, Hepidan, </i>and<i> Dubduin,</i> whose names occur in the necrologies and other records. The last of these it was who in somewhat rude verses deplores the ascendancy of the German element in the monastery founded by an Irish saint, and extols the achievement of the monks of Irish nationality, to whose credit he places the conversion of England and Germany.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Not only are the Irish teachers associated with the school of dialectic that flourished at Auxerre and with the logical studies of the monastery of St. Gall (we have from the school of logic in St. Gall not only the treatises published by Hattemer and Piper, but also several hitherto unedited works, including a set of verses on the valid moods in the three syllogistic figures a kind of forerunner of the "<i>Barbara, Celarent</i>" of Peter the Spaniard). They are also associated with abstruse metaphysical and mystical theological speculations suggested by the works of the Neo-Platonists, of which the rest of Europe at that time understood very little. For example, the Irishman, <i>Macarius Scotus</i>, who lived in the ninth century in the abbey of Corbey, commenting on a passage of St. Augustine's <i>De Quantitate Animae</i>, revived the doctrine of monopsychism; that is to say, he taught that there is but one mind, or intellect, in which all men participate. Unfortunately, his work is lost; we have, however, an answer to it from the pen of the celebrated Ratramnus .</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The influence of the Irish teachers was felt not only in Southern Germany, but also in Austria and Northern Italy. In the tenth century Coloman and several companions, returning from Rome, settled in Austria, founded several monasteries in the neighborhood of Vienna, and, no doubt, inaugurated there the literary activity for which their fellow countrymen were distinguished. At Verona, in the ninth century, appeared an Irish monk from Bobbio, who was placed at the head of the school of St. Zeno. He seems, judging from a poem of his which has come down to us, to have run away from Bobbio, and the verses in which he describes his longing for the old home and the community of St. Columban have the ring of genuine pathos:</div><p><i>Nocte dieque gemo quia sum peregrinus et egens</i>.<br />(Poet. Aevi Carol, III, 688.)</p><div style="text-align: left;">Towards the end of the same century there was another Irish teacher at Verona. (Ibid., 639, n.)</div><p>At Bobbio, on the Trebia, among the wildest, but most picturesque, of the Ligurian Appenines, Columban had made his monastic home, and there, after all his missionary labors, he found a final resting place. To this shrine of the greatest of Ireland's missionary saints pious scholars from Erin frequently found their way, bent on honoring the relics of their monastic founder. There <i>Cummian</i>, the aged bishop, found a haven of rest (about 750); there, by his piety and devotion, he earned the esteem of Luitprand, king of the Lombards. His epitaph was written by John, whom we judge from the title <i>magister</i> to have been the head of the school at Bobbio. It was to Bobbio that, as we have seen, Dungal, the poet and astronomer, retired from the field of active work as a teacher, and it was to the library of Bobbio that he bequeathed his books, as a gift to St. Columban. Fortunately, we are as well informed about the library of Bobbio as we are about the school of St. Gall. We have a catalogue made in the tenth century showing the titles of the books it contained at that time. In it we find many interesting entries; for example,"Also the books which Dungal, the chief scholar among the Irish, gave to St. Columban ... a book in Latin on the Irish language." As is well known, the Muratorian Fragment, which contains the oldest extant list of the Books of the New Testament, now in the Ambrosian Library, formerly belonged to the library of Bobbio. Finally, students of the history of mathematics will remember that it was while Abbot of Bobbio (982) that Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, wrote his work on geometry, making use of the manuscripts which he found in the library of the monastery, especially of the works of the Roman surveyors.<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">In addition to all those whose names we have succeeded in gathering from various sources, both edited and unedited, there were, no doubt, many teachers from Ireland of whom the continental records make no mention whatsoever. It is equally certain that, among anonymous works composed during the ninth and tenth centuries, there were some which are to be added to the credit of the Irish scholars. Sometimes there is an indication, a point of style, a characteristic mistake in orthography, an allusion, a turn of phrase, which warrants the critic in surmising that the author of the work was Irish. Thus, Dümmler is able to hazard the hypothesis that an elegy to Bishop Gunthar of Cologne is the work of an Irish scholar. Frequently, the mere fact that a work contains Greek words, or reveals an acquaintance with Greek, is taken as a sufficient proof of its Irish origin.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Whenever the Irish scribe used the characteristic Irish script, the origin of the book is, of course, evident even to the casual observer. It is as easy to distinguish a page of Latin written in Irish script from a page written in the continental style as it is to distinguish a printed page of German from a printed page of English. The Irish scribes, however, did not always use their own style of writing. In fact, the continental student found the Irish style of writing so difficult that he would have none of it. In the old booklists we often meet the entry, "Written in Irish characters: cannot be read" "Scottice scriptus, legi non potest." And when parchment became scarce, as it did in the eleventh century, or when the supply in the monastery gave out, the Irish books were often the first to be sacrificed. Sometimes they were used in binding other books; we find pages from them pasted inside bookcovers, and if a still greater number of them were not sacrificed in this way it was probably because of the illuminations which gave them a value independently of their legibility. Nevertheless, the Irish form of letters influenced the style of alphabet generally used on the continent in the ninth and tenth centuries. And not only in respect to the form of letters, but also in such matters as the preparation of the parchment, the mixing of the ink, etc., did the Irish scribes influence the technique of bookmaking. Dr. Keller, Nigra, and others who have devoted attention to the matter, tell us that the ink used by the Irish scribes was of superior quality, and that it is still distinguishable by its extraordinary freshness; even Bede remarked the durability and brightness of the red ink used by the Irish scribes of his time. The perfection to which the Irish brought the art of illumination is well known. Their work in this department of the fine arts is an unceasing source of astonishment to the modern critic, who knows how far the continental artist fell below the level of their attainment. The Irish illuminated manuscripts are distinguishable principally by the delicate, and at the same time complicated, geometrical tracings, the curiously symbolical representations of men, animals and plants, the symmetrical wordspacing, all of which, however, was done with the quill (the usual implement of writing among the Irish, as appears from a representation of St. John in the <i>Book of Kells</i>), and, so far as we know, without the aid of a compass. Examined under a microscope, these intricate designs do not reveal a single flaw. The <i>Book of Kells</i>, the <i>Book of Armagh</i>, the <i>Lindisfarne Gospels</i>, etc., which are to be seen in the libraries of Ireland and England, are not the only samples that have come down to us of the "Illuminated Hosts of the Books of Erin.' Dr. Keller has made a study of the Irish manuscripts in the libraries of Switzerland, and, in an interesting work on the subject, has given some beautiful specimens of illumination and other ornamental work. He has a theory that not only the knowledge of Greek, for which the Irish teachers were famous, but also their art of illumination, was taught them by Greek monks from Alexandria who, he thinks, began to settle in Ireland early in the Christian era. However this may be, the specimens of Irish scroll work which he gives and the illustrations which are so generally reproduced nowadays from the <i>Book of Kells</i>, though they do not do full justice to the originals, give some idea of the perfection to which the Irish scribes brought the art of bookmaking. The Irish manuscripts are, however, interesting also from another point of view. The scribe whose sometimes uncongenial task it was to copy a treatise on Latin grammar would often adorn the margin of his page with a short poem of his own composition or with some side remark, such as "This is a dull page," "Night is drawing nigh," "The parchment is bad, the ink is bad; I'll say no more about it." These remarks and the marginal verses are sometimes in Irish, and constitute some of the most precious specimens of the old forms of the Gaelic language. The St. Gall copy of Priscian is especially interesting from this point of view. It is described by Nigra in his <i>Reliquie celtiche</i> (Turin, 1892). In it we meet invocations of Irish saints written on the margin (e.g., "St. Patrick, help me," "St. Brigit, aid the writer"), the names of Irish scribes who wrote the book, e.g., Maelpatrick, Dongus, Finguin, Cobtach, (Coffey), and an occasional set of verses, such as the quatrain in which the scribe, turning aside for a moment from the text of the grammarian, commemorates the song of the thrush singing in the green hedge outside the monastery walls. Finally, the Irish scribes who wrote in the schools of Switzerland and Germany left in their marginal notes and in the vocabularies which they drew up for the use of their students specimens of the old German language, for which the modern philologist is very grateful. For instance, among the most cherished treasures in the library of St. Gall is the little volume, Vocabularius Sancti Galli, said to have been used by St. Gall himself, but more probably written about 750. It contains Latin words with their German equivalents, written in Irish characters.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">From the manuscript records alone it would not be difficult to show that the Irish teachers in the ninth and tenth centuries possessed a knowledge of Greek which was quite beyond the attainments of the continental scholars of that time. We have, however, more striking proofs in the achievements of John Scotus Eriugena, Sedulius and the Irish colony at Laon. In fact, the only question among modern critics is how to account for a condition which was certainly exceptional. The contemporaries of John the Scot expressed their surprise that one who came from the farthest regions of the earth could be so familiar with a language which was a closed book to those who stood closest to the center of ancient classic culture. And modern French and German scholars, students of the history of the early middle ages, can do little more than re-echo the note of astonishment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The records of the ninth and tenth centuries give us some interesting, though all too meagre, details of the personal appearance and habits of the Irish scholars who appeared at every center of learning on the continent. The "Scots," they tell us, traveled in groups. They often made the pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land before taking up their abode at some French or German school. They presented a somewhat unusual appearance, having, we are told, the curious custom of dyeing, or tattooing, their eyebrows. They carried their books about from place to place in a kind of satchel, called a <i>capsa</i> (these were sometimes very highly ornamental), and generally used, instead of the ordinary pilgrim's staff, a crooked stick which was sometimes called <i>cambutta Scottorum</i>. From kings and princes who loved learning they received a royal welcome, at monasteries where the Irish were already known they were given hospitality, if not for their own sake, at least for the sake of the books and the learning they brought with them. There is in the Stadts u. Universitäts Bibliothek at Munich a manuscript volume (cod. lat. 14412, the text of the book was written in the 14th cent.), which, according to a note on the inside of the cover, was acquired by a monastery from a "foreign priest for four loaves of bread 'a sacerdote peregrino pro quattuor panibus.'" The note may, perhaps, refer to the time when "peregrinus" and "Irishmen" were synonymous. One would like to know the circumstances of this barter of the cherished book for the bare necessities of life, though the exchange may have been common enough at the time of which we are treating. That the Irish scholars were not always received with favor, however, is only too evident. When Alcuin's monks at Tours saw some strange ecclesiastics at the gate, they exclaimed, "Here are some more of the British (Irish) strangers." And the incident may be taken as typical. Indeed, the naturally ardent temperament of the Irish teachers, their light, airy way of referring to their own superiority, as when the two of whom the monk of St. Gall speaks cried out in the market-place, "If any one desire wisdom, let him come to us and he will receive it," their occasional boastfulness, as when Sedulius, describing the scene at Bethlehem, remarks that, as the Magi from the "Orient brought gold, frankincense and myrrh as an offering to Christ, so the Irish from the West brought Him the tribute of their wisdom, all this was calculated to provoke opposition. And it did. We have seen how St. Boniface denounced the Irishman Clement for rejecting the authority of the Latin Fathers, Jerome, Augustine and Gregory. Similarly, Alcuin, contrasting his own loyalty to the Latin Fathers with the well known preference of the Irish for the Greeks, complained that the "Egyptians" had supplanted the "Latins" at the court of Charlemagne. In many of his letters he returns to the same charge, sometimes indirectly, as when he says, "There are some who seek their own praise by striving to throw blame on others," "There are some who are better prepared to carp at the sayings of others than to put their own sayings before the public," sometimes more pointedly as, "They esteem it less to answer according to custom and authority than to add reason by way of confirmation". There was a twofold occasion for this conflict. In the first place, there was a real incompatibility between the Anglo-Saxon and the Celtic temperament, an incompatibility which explains much of medieval as well as of modern history. In the next place, there was a real divergence of views between Alcuin and his followers on the one hand and the Irish teachers on the other. The Anglo-Saxon mind, as represented by Alcuin, was not highly speculative. Its range was bounded by facts; its self-imposed task was to understand and expound the positive in the Christian system. The Celtic mind, on the contrary, was highly speculative. It was eager to know and to explain, and, as far as natural inclination went, it stopped at nothing in its effort to grasp the speculative principles of all truth. It fed, by preference, on the Greek theological literature of the early Church. The favorite gospel of the Irish was St. John's, their favorite theologian was Pseudo-Dionysius, and their favorite profane author was Martianus Capella, who, though he wrote in Latin, was looked upon with suspicion by men like Alcuin because of the free Hellenic mould in which his treatment of the seven liberal arts was cast. It is easy to see that Benedict of Aniane, the pupil of Alcuin, must have felt the keen edge of some Irishman's wit when he denounced the "syllogism of delusion," with which the Scots were accustomed to overwhelm their opponents. The most violent, one might say virulent, of the opponents of the Irish on the continent, was Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans. He ridiculed the Irish pronunciation of Latin. His favorite name for an Irishman was "Scotellus." In speaking of Clement, the Irishman, he employed language which may be said to represent the utmost limit of odium theologicum: "a lawless thing," "a dull horror," "a deadly foe," "a malignant pest." Even John the Scot, towering in gigantic proportions over all his contemporaries, did not escape the shafts of malignant criticism. Although he had been invited to take sides in the great theological controversy concerning Predestination, he received but scant courtesy from friend as well as foe. "Irish porridge" (<i>pultes scottica</i>), was the phrase applied by his critics to that particularly subtle mode of argumentation in which he and his countrymen excelled.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Notwithstanding hostile criticism, which, after all, was an unconscious tribute, the Irish teachers left a lasting impression on their own and subsequent generations. Not only were they the chief teachers of grammar, poetry, astronomy, music and geography at a time when these branches of culture had no other, or scarcely any other, representative on the continent of Europe, but they also profoundly influenced the course of medieval thought in matters of philosophy and theology. Their elucidations of the Gospel of St. John and their commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul formed a new school of exegesis, and it may be remarked, in passing, that their exposition was based, not on the commonly accepted Vulgate, but on an earlier Latin version and, sometimes, on the Greek text itself. They introduced the Neo-Platonic point of view in metaphysical speculation, and carried the art of dialectic to a higher point than it had ever before attained. It is no exaggeration to say that they were the founders of scholasticism and that Ireland is the Ionia of medieval philosophy. At the same time it is true that if the free, intellectual Hellenism with its background of Celtic imaginativeness and spirituality, which they represented, had not been held in check by the definite, inelastic Latinism, which stood for precise, juristic formularies in the place of vague ideals, the history of medieval thought would be very different from what it really is.</div><p>Those Irish teachers must have been dimly conscious of the sublimity of their aims and the magnitude of their mission. For, in all their trials and amid all the clamor of race hatred and professional jealousy they preserved their ideals and were sustained in their devotion to learning. One can see in their writings that, though their mission called them to far distant lands, where their lot was that of an alien and an exile (<i>peregrinus</i> and <i>exul</i> occur very frequently in their descriptions of themselves), their heart yearned for Eire of their birth and the peaceful monastic homes from which they had been driven by the invader. What was said of Columkille might be said of each of his exiled brethren: "In his native land everything was dear to him, its mountains and valleys, its rivers and lakes, the song of its birds, the gentleness of its youth, the wisdom of its aged. He loved to steer his bark round its coast and to see the waves break on its shore. He even envied the driftwood which floated out from the shore of Iona, because it was free to land on the coast of Erin. He thought that death in Ireland was to be preferred to life in any other land, and when an Irishman was leaving Iona, he would say pathetically, "You are returning to the country which you love." <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">The foregoing pages are intended to set forth the details of the work of the Irish teachers, as far as it is possible to do so, from the scanty records which have come down to us. Of general tributes to the importance of that work there is no lack. That the Irish were the first teachers of scholastic theology as Mosheim expresses it, that, by carrying their talents and their learning to other lands, they won for their own country the high title of "Island of the Holy and the Learned," as Newman says: that their work formed, as Zimmer remarks, the actual foundation of our present concontinental system of civilization; that, as the distinguished historian of the Carolingian schools writes, "Ireland was thenone land where the Church achieved a double conquest unaidedmby the civil arm and unstained by the effusion of blood;" that from Ireland went forth that "enquiring, restless and often unruly Celtic spirit, touched and quickened by Hellenic thought, delighting in the discovery of new paths, impatient of every unproved formula, and accepting half mistrustfully, at best, what comes to it stamped with the highest sanction of wisdom and experience" all this is nowadays accepted as a commonplace in the history of medieval education. To show, however, that in these and similar statements there is no exaggeration, it seemed necessary to trace out the men who took a share in that work, to set down their names and recall their achievements, thus adding one more tribute to their fame, the tribute of their own writings, "for the glory of God and the honor of Erin," as the ancient scribes themselves were wont to express it. </div><p>WILLIAM TURNER.<br /><br /><i>Catholic University Bulletin </i>Vol 13 (1907), 562-581.</p><p><br /><br /><br /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-42559591363336189202023-09-01T06:00:00.004+01:002023-09-01T06:00:00.133+01:00Irish Teachers in the Carolingian Revival of Learning, Part I<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCOpn2nXTNUYTz2FgSXGDRUVL3BICMacfANJyuMb5jF30R96RbgHoKvMrY9_3bui-RhvEwOnuJi2EkWO4tl2vCwWMuQxY3wQjehWr4EERjp8_Qslws4gDO_yzAQUpXqcVXiAEilGrmxu6qQiZoZwYnuohmOw7qa2TPoYJvvzdjdIkif4HFbIKxZtWvig/s714/CatholicUnivBulletinV13_0396.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="714" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCOpn2nXTNUYTz2FgSXGDRUVL3BICMacfANJyuMb5jF30R96RbgHoKvMrY9_3bui-RhvEwOnuJi2EkWO4tl2vCwWMuQxY3wQjehWr4EERjp8_Qslws4gDO_yzAQUpXqcVXiAEilGrmxu6qQiZoZwYnuohmOw7qa2TPoYJvvzdjdIkif4HFbIKxZtWvig/s320/CatholicUnivBulletinV13_0396.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Following on from Archbishop John Healy's article on the Irish scholar <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2023/08/ancient-irish-scholars-dicuil-geographer.html">Dicuil the Geographer</a>, below is the first part of a paper by the Most Reverend William Turner (1871-1936) on 'Irish Teachers in the Carolingian Revival of Learning', published in the Catholic University of America's <i>Bulletin</i> in 1907. Bishop Turner, a noted educationalist in his Diocese of Buffalo, published a <i>History of Philosophy</i> in 1903. Although his scholarship is now over a hundred years old, there is still much of value in his work. For a modern scholar's assessment of the medieval Irish scholars on the continent there is a video of a talk by Dr. Alexander O'Hara on 'The Irish at the Carolingian Court and the Europeanization of Europe' available <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSkr6Z9sWHQ">here</a>. Dr O'Hara remarked in response to a question that there are roughly forty Irish scholars who have been identified in the sources, Bishop Turner will introduce us to many of them. I will reprint Part Two of his paper tomorrow.<p></p><p><b>IRISH TEACHERS IN THE CAROLINGIAN REVIVAL OF LEARNING.</b><br /><br />Historians have often deplored the fact that the Irish teachers who contributed so largely to the success of the Carolingian revival of letters lacked a proper sense of the importance of the work they were doing. Indeed, the charge might with justice be brought against the medieval teachers generally that they were deficient in historical insight, that they took no adequate care that the growth and development of the work in which they were engaged should be recorded for the benefit of posterity. Important though that literary revival was which took its origin from the patronage extended to learning by Charles the Great, yet, there is not a single contemporary narrative to tell us who they were that contributed to its success, or to trace its progress through the various provinces of the vast empire over which Charles reigned. It is known, however, that the movement owes much to the Irish teachers who, under Charles and his successors, appeared here and there throughout the Continent of Europe, and were acknowledged to be the traditional custodians of the light of learning which everywhere else except in Ireland was almost totally extinguished. But, though none of those pioneers of learning thought it worth while to leave behind him a narrative of his achievements and those of his contemporaries, we have in the manuscripts to be found in the principal libraries of Germany, France and Italy a trustworthy and perfectly objective account of the literary activity of the Irish scholars of the ninth and tenth centuries. We regret that these men carried the spirit of self-effacement so far as completely to avoid the tribute of public monuments, laudatory epitaphs and state or ecclesiastical record of their public services; for that very reason, however, when we find the undying record of their intellectual work in the books which they wrote and copied, we feel that the modern world has a right to know how much it owes to them, and we are sure that the praise which they were far from seeking will be generously conceded, once the magnitude of their work is known.<br /><br />Ussher was the first to recognize that the truest record of the activity of the Irish teachers of Charlemagne's time is to be found in the manuscripts dating from the ninth and tenth centuries. In his <i>Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge</i> he publishes valuable material from unedited letters on Irish topics. Since Ussher's time, however, much has been done towards editing the literary legacy of the early middle ages, and in all the works relating to that period attention is naturally given to the share which the Irish monks took in the Carolingian revival of letters. Dümmler and Traube, editors of the Carolingian poets, have rescued the names of many of these Irish scholars from oblivion, and given us the sometimes too scanty record of their career as teachers. Zimmer, who has contributed so much to the scientific study of the Irish language, has collected in a brief essay an array of names and facts to justify his judgment that it was the Irish teachers who “laid the foundation stone of that edifice of culture which we are still building." Hauréau, too a diligent student of the manuscripts, devotes a special chapter to the Irish schools in his <i>Singularités historiques et littéraires</i> (Paris, 1894). Perhaps no one has written more sympathetically than Ozanam, especially in his <i>Études germaniques</i> and in his <i>Documents inédits</i>. More recently, Canon Bellesheim, taking advantage of the materials furnished in the “Monumenta Germaniae," describes at length the labors of the Irish monks in the first volume of his <i>History of the Church in Ireland</i>. The writer of the present article not only aims at summarizing and arranging the results of the foregoing studies, but also hopes to be able to add something from his own study of the manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries.<br /><br />It is beyond the scope of this article to describe the work done during the seventh and eight centuries by the missionaries who left their monastic cells in Ireland to carry the tidings of the Gospel to the newly arrived conquerors of Gaul, Germany and Italy. Their deeds are part of the history of the Christianization of Europe. It is sufficient for our present purpose to remark that they prepared the way for the teachers who were to follow in their footsteps. Columban in the country of the Jura Alps and the Appenines, St. Gall among the hills of the Allemanien, St. Fursey along the banks of the Marne, St. Foilan in what was afterwards the imperial city of Aix-la-Chapelle, St. Kilian in Würzburg, St. Cataldo in Tarentum, and many others less well known, such as St. Disibod at Kreuznach on the Rhine, St. Livinius at Ghent, exorcised a ministry which was educational as well as religious. They not only preached the doctrines of Christianity, but, also, as far as was possible, imparted to their converts some of that love of learning which they brought with them from their native land. Columban, for instance, is recognized to have been the greatest poet of his time. Poetry, however, may have been a pastime for him; it was a profession for his successors of the ninth and tenth centuries. Their mission was different from his. They had to deal with a people completely, or almost completely Christianized, and the task which they were called on to perform was not the religious conversion, but the intellectual and literary education of the nations.<br /><br />In order to avoid a confusion which, in spite of reiterated assertion on the part of historians, is still to be met in the treatment of this subject, it is necessary to point out that, in the records of the ninth and tenth centuries, "<i>Scotia</i>" meant, not the present Scotland (<i>Scotia Minor</i>), but Ireland (<i>Scotia Major</i>); that "<i>Scotus</i>," consequently, is to be translated "Irishman." Ussher proves this at great length and with extraordinary wealth of learning, quoting from the classical writers of antiquity and the medieval writers down to Caesar of Heisterbach (13th cent.). The reader will, therefore, not be misled by the name <i>Scot</i>, or <i>Scottish monk</i>, applied to the Irish scholars by recent writers such as Traube, Dümmler and Zimmer.<br /><br />In trying to account for a phenomenon which is extraordinary, if not unique, in the history of education, namely the appearance of so many Irish teachers at widely distant places on the continent during the ninth and tenth centuries, we must not only bear in mind the Celtic love of change, which has often been adduced as an adequate explanation of that extraordinary exodus, but must take into account also the peculiar conditions of the time. The organization of the Irish Church was almost entirely monastic; there were bishops, of course, but some of these, at least, were without sees, <i>episcopi vagantes</i>, it being the custom to raise to the episcopal dignity monks who had distinguished themselves by piety or learning. Perhaps we are to interpret in this light the enigmatic words of St. Gall monk Ekkehard IV (died about 1036), who in his <i>Liber Benedictionum</i> says "In Ireland the priests and bishops are one and the same: <i>In Hibernia Episcopi et Presbyteri unum sunt</i>." Where the Church organization was largely monastic the clergy did not feel that they were “addicted to the glebe," and, once their monasteries were destroyed, they turned naturally to the foundations which their fellow-countrymen, Columban, Gall, Fintan and others had established on the continent of Europe. It does not surprise us, therefore, to find that the date of the first invasions of the Danes is coincident with the beginning of that exodus which carried the light of learning from the ruined sanctuaries of Ireland to the monastic schools of France, Italy and Germany. Besides, it was a custom among the clergy of Ireland to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to Rome, and in many instances the returning pilgrim, instead of going back to his native land, was induced to settle down with his fellow-countrymen in their new monastic home on the continent. All these circumstances were added to the Irish teachers' love of learning, which outweighed their love for their native land, and sent them into voluntary exile. It was not long after the first Danish incursion into Ireland that Walahfrid Strabo writing from the monastery of Reichenau, on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) refers to the "Irish, to whom travel has become a second nature." Walahfrid was writing from personal knowledge, as is evident from the records of his monastery, in which the names of many Irishmen appear. Eric of Auxerre (about 850), who was personally indebted to the teaching of the Irish monks, writes to Charles the Bald in the words so often quoted: "Why should I mention Ireland, whose sons, undeterred by the perils of the seas, have flocked to our shores, the whole country, one might say, having emigrated with its crowd of philosophers." Alcuin, too, though not, as we shall see, a willing witness to the fame of Ireland's scholars, tells us that "it has long since been a custom for very learned teachers to come from Ireland to Britain, Gaul and Italy."<br /><br />With <i>Virgil</i>, Bishop of Salsburg, the well-known Irish scholar, and his conflict with St. Boniface concerning the existence of the Antipodes, we are not here concerned, as it falls outside the scope of this study. So also does the literary activity of <i>St. Kilian</i> of Würzburg. It must, however, be noted that these were by no means the only Irish men of learning who appeared in continental Europe during the seventh and eight centuries. Virgil had for contemporary a certain <i>Sampson</i>, or Samson, "genere Scottus," about whom, also, St. Boniface complained. He had also for companion a bishop named <i>Dobdan the Greek</i>, who accompanied him from Ireland. To explain the singular fact of a Greek bishop coming from Ireland, Ussher tells us that, down to his day, there was a Greek church near Trim in County Meath. A simpler explanation, however, is given by Zimmer, namely, that <i>Dobdagrecus</i> is merely the latinized form of the Irish name <i>Dubdachrich</i> which occurs in many of the continental annals of that time; for instance, in the Lorscher Annals for the year 726 “Martin and Dobdecric abbots died.”<br /><br />Another contemporary and fellow-countryman of Virgil, <i>Thaddaeus</i>, Abbot of Ratisbon, tells us that St. Kilian of Wurzburg was accompanied by <i>Colonatus</i> and <i>Totnan</i>, and that Virgil had for companions "seven other bishops, who, according to the custom of their venerable Irish predecessors, proposed to visit the Holy Land and to see with the eyes of the body the ground which the Lord had trodden.” This custom, we shall see, prevailed also in the ninth century, the pilgrimage to Rome or to Jerusalem being, as has been said, the preliminary to a permanent settlement in Germany, France, or Switzerland. In the correspondence between St. Boniface and Pope Zachary we find mention of a <i>Clement</i>, an Irishman, against whom many irregularities are alleged. In view of the misunderstanding which later on arose between the Irish teachers and the Anglo-Saxons on the Continent, it is interesting to note that Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon, brings Clement, the Irishman, to task for not accepting the treatises and the teachings of "the Holy Fathers Jerome, Augustine and Gregory" similarly, it will be alleged in the following century that the celebrated Irishman, John the Scot, inclined too much to the opinions of the Greek Fathers, and underrated the Latin Fathers. <br /><br />We come now to the reign of Charlemagne, whose enlightened efforts on behalf of education resulted in a revival of learning far more important in its consequences than that which is known as the Renaissance. The edict by which Charles commanded the establishment of schools throughout his vast empire has been called "the charter of modern education" and it may be said, without exaggeration, that never in the whole history of the intellectual life of Europe was authoritative legislation more sorely needed, and seldom, if ever, was legislative interference in educational matters more happy in its results. Alcuin, the English monk whom Charles appointed as the first master of his Palace School, deserves credit for the wisdom he displayed in advising the monarch in his educational reforms, and the ability with which he carried out the emperor's design. Whether he studied in Ireland or, as is more probable, received all his early education at the Cathedral School of York, he is justly considered as a representative of the learning which, at a time when Britain, like the rest of Europe, was plunged in darkness, was carried by the Irish missionaries to their Saxon neighbors. It is not necessary to detract from Alcuin 's fame in order to do full justice to the Irish teachers who preceded him, accompanied him, or followed him to the court of Charlemagne and were, it would seem, received with special favor there. Indeed, the monarch seems to have had a special affection not only for the wandering Irish scholars who sought hospitality within his realm, but also for the Irish nation generally. If we are to believe the Monk of St. Gall, who wrote the <i>History of Charles the Great</i>, two Irish scholars appeared in France before the arrival of Alcuin, were welcomed by the king, and entrusted by him with the execution of his educational schemes. One of these was named Clement and the other, <i>Joseph</i> (?). Too much importance, however, should not be attached to the details of the story. Still, we know from other sources that there were two Irish scholars named Clement and Joseph in France shortly after the arrival of Alcuin. We know, too, that as early as 786 Charles erected at Amarbaric, near Verden, a monastery “for the Irish”, over which an Irishman named <i>Patto</i> ruled as abbot. After the death of Suibert Bishop of Verden, Patto was promoted to that See and succeeded at the monastery by a countryman named <i>Tanco</i>. Equally certain, inexplicable as it may seem, is the fact that cordial relations of a very special kind existed between Charlemagne and the Irish princes and people. The writer known as the Saxon poet (end of the 9th century) bears explicit testimony to the fact that the Irish professed allegiance to the Frankish king and Einhard, the contemporary and biographer of Charles, tells us that by his munificence he had attached to himself the Irish chiefs and that there were extant letters from them to him in which they professed their allegiance. Whatever the explanation of these allusions, it is undeniable that during the reign of Charlemagne andmhis immediate successors the chief share of the literary revival which belongs to that period and is known as the Carolingian Renaissance fell to the Irish teachers in Frankland, and if we except Alcuin, Rhabanus and Fredegis, the men who founded that educational system to which the latter Middle Ages owe everything and the modern world more than it generally acknowledges were Irishmen.<br /><br />Among Alcuin's associates was <i>Josephus Scotus</i>. He accompanied Alcuin to France about the year 790, became a friend of St. Liudger, the Apostle of the Frisians, was made abbot (of what monastery, we do not know), and, as appears from a letter of Alcuin, died before the year 804. He is author, of the numerous Latin poems, some of which are addressed to Alcuin, some to Charlemagne, and some to St. Liudger. Several of these are acrostics, and very ingenious, for example, the verses in which he treats of the various titles conferred on Our Lord by the sacred writers. He also wrote a treatise consisting of extracts from St. Jerome's commentaries on Isaiah; the work exists in several manuscripts, the most beautiful of which is the ninth century Ms.(No. 254) in the library of St. Gall, where, however, it is officially attributed to Bede. Students of the history of philosophy know of a celebrated manuscript containing <i>Glosses on the Isagoge of Porphyry</i>, belonging to the ninth century, discovered by Cousin, in which the line occurs:<br /><br />Iepa hunc scripsi glossans utcunque libellum.<br /><br />The word "Iepa," more correctly "Icpa," which has puzzled so many critics, is acknowledged to be written on the space left by an erasure; but all attempts to restore the original name have failed. Now it is, to say the least, interesting to find that in a seventeen-line poem of Josephus which he prefixed to the excerpts from St. Jerome there are eleven lines which end with some form of the word “libellus”; from his other poems we see that he liked to introduce his own name, and the manuscripts tell us that he often spelled it "Ioseppus." It is possible that in place of "Iepa" there stood in the original copy some contraction of "Ioseppus." If this surmise be correct, we are entitled to give to Josephus a place among the dialecticians as well as among the poets and exegetes.<br /><br />A man whose name should be mentioned in this account of the Carolingian revival is <i>Colcu</i>, or Colga, who was Josephus' teacher in Ireland, and, according to some, Alcuin's teacher also. For although he lived and died at Clonmacnoise, it is no exaggeration to say that he contributed to the revival of learning on the Continent as much as many of those whose names are associated with that movement. He is mentioned in Dunelm's <i>History of the Anglo-Saxon Kings</i> and by Alcuin; the latter calls him the teacher of Josephus Scotus. Colcu is known to be the author of the collection of prayers entitled "Scuab Crabhaigh" or "Besom of Devotion." <br /><br />More immediately connected with the literary revival inaugurated by Charlemagne was <i>Clement the Irishman</i>. He was, as we have seen, one of the teachers who, according to the monk of St. Gall, landed in France “about the time when Charles began to reign alone," that is, after Karlman's death in 791. Apparently he was not long in acquiring a reputation as a grammarian and a teacher; for, when Alcuin left the court of Charles to become Abbot of the monastery of Tours Clement succeeded him as Master of the Palace School. (This is the incident to which Alcuin is understood to refer when he speaks of the “Egyptians” having taken the place of the "Latins" at the Court). After the death of Charles he seems to have retained his prominent position under Louis the Pious, to whom he dedicated his work on grammar. The esteem in which he was held is evident from the complimentary reference to him in the poems of Prudens, a contemporary, and from the fact that scholars were sent to him from the monastery of Fulda, among whom was Modestus (Reccheo) the friend of Candidus (Bruun), the latter being, probably, the author of the celebrated <i>Dicta candidi de Imagine Dei</i>. Clement was present at Ingelheim in 826, when the court celebrated with great pomp the baptism of the Danish King Harald. At the end of his career he retired from his duties as teacher at the Palace School and went to spend his last days with his countrymen at Wurzburg, where lay the remains of St. Kilian. From an entry in the Würzburg Necrology it may be inferred that he died there. Clement wrote a grammatical work, remarkable for its erudition and for the extraordinary range of reading which it shows. Especially interesting is the allusion to “the Greeks who are our teachers in every branch of learning” This is a precious testimony to the knowledge of Greek among the Irish scholars at a time when that language was almost unknown in Latin Europe.<br /><br />A contemporary and fellow-countryman of Clement was the grammarian <i>Cruindmelus</i>, who wrote a treatise on the art of versification, <i>Tractatus de Metrica Ratione</i>. The work is published by Keil, and in a special edition by Huemer.It is found in a great many manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries.<br /><br />These grammarians, useful as their literary activity was, must be assigned inferior rank in comparison with the poets, astronomers and philosophers of Charlemagne's time. First among these is <i>Dungal</i>, who flourished between the years 811 and 827. We find mention of him in 812 as an Irish priest and scholar at the monastery of St. Denis under the protection of Abbot Waldo. We still have the letter which he wrote in 811 to Charlemagne in order to explain the eclipse of the sun which occurred, or was believed to have occurred, in 810. It is published by Migne and in the <i>Monumenta Germaniae</i>. It is remarkable for the expression of astronomical views which at that time were considered to be advanced because they seemed to call in question the truth of the Ptolomaic system.<br /><br />In 823 Dungal is mentioned in a <i>Capitulary</i> of Lothair, in 825 he was appointed by imperial decree to the position of teacher, or "Master" at Pavia; in 828 he appeared in controversy against Claudius of Turin who had written against the veneration of images. This is the last that we hear of Dungal except that he presented his library to the monastery of Bobbio, and from this fact we may, perhaps, infer that he spent his last years among his countrymen there. His library, or, at least, a part of it, is still preserved among the most precious treasures of the Ambrosian at Milan, and several volumes have the inscription, possibly in Dungal's own handwriting:<br /><br /><i>Sancte Columba, tibi Scotto tuus incola Dungal<br />Tradidit hunc librum, quo fratrum corda beentur.<br />Qui legis ergo, Deus pretium sit muneris ora. </i><br /><br />Besides this Dungal there was, possibly, another scholar of the same name at Charles' court. Indeed, the name Dungal was common enough in the Irish records of the time; it occurs, for instance, twenty-four times in the <i>Annals of the Four Masters</i>, and it occurs once in the letters of Alcuin, where apparently, the Pavia teacher is meant. Writing to some monks in Ireland, Alcuin says: “Audiens per fratrem venerabilem vestrae eruditionis doctorem, Dungal episcopum etc.;” this, if it refers to our scholar, is the only place in which he is called a bishop. We shall not here delay to discuss the question agitated by Muratori, Tiraboschi, and, more recently by Dümmler, Simson and others, as to the existence of two Dungals at the court of Charlemagne. Dungal was a poet as well as an astronomer. He is the author of the poem which bears his name, and, according to the editor of the <i>Poetae Aevi Carolini</i>, probably also of the poems usually ascribed to "The Irish Exile" (<i>Hibernicus exul</i>.) Some of these poems are addressed to Charlemagne and some to members of the imperial family, for instance, to Grundrada, the emperor's cousin. In a poem addressed to this royal lady, Dungal, or the exile, shows that he could turn a neat compliment: “Quae ore nitens pulchro pulchrior es merito;" which is not at all clumsy for a ninth century astronomer-poet. Here and there, too, a reflection of the mood of the writer appears, which is somewhat unusual in the ninth century author; he refers to his exile, to his poverty, to his lowliness. Dungal was something of a philosopher, at least, as the word was then understood; among his poems are two which treat of the “seven liberal arts," the seven branches of science taught in the schools of that age.<br /><br />Among the poets of the Carolingian age is to be reckoned the author of the verses inscribed “Planctus Caroli”, which is sometimes published as a work of Rhabanus Maurus (for example, by Migne), but which is now acknowledged to have been written in the Irish monastery of Bobbio. Some critics have sought to connect the poem with the name of a certain <i>Columban</i>, Abbot of St. Trond; this, however, is obviously a mistake arising from the mention of the Saint of that name towards the end of the poem. We must, therefore, be content with the somewhat vague identification of the author as an Irish monk of Bobbio. <br /><br />One of the most interesting of the Irish poets on the Continent during the Carolingian age is <i>Donatus</i>, who was bishop of Fiesole from 829 to 875. He was not only a poet, but also an ardent lover of learning and patron of the liberal arts. His <i>Life</i>, published in part by Ozanam from an eleventh century manuscript in the Laurentian Library of Florence, is interspersed with poems composed by the saintly bishop himself. Among these is the well-known description of Ireland. There is also extant the epitaph which Donatus composed and in which he describes himself as "Scottorum sanguine cretus," and tells how he united to his duties as a bishop those of a teacher of grammar and poetry.<br /><br />After the death of Charlemagne and the dismemberment of the Empire the political conditions did not always favor the development of the educational system which the great emperor had inaugurated. The invasions of the Northmen and the Saracens disrupted many a school and scattered many a group of learned men. Nevertheless, the successors of Charles were, as a rule, favorable to the new learning, and continued to extend to the teachers from Ireland the welcome which he had always accorded to them. Thus, during the reign of Louis the Pious (814-840), flourished the famous astronomer and geographer, <i>Dicuil</i>, who dedicated an astronomical treatise to the emperor. That Dicuil was an Irishman is perfectly certain; he alludes more than once to Ireland as his country and to the "Scots" as his countrymen. The name, indeed, was a common one in Ireland at that time: at least seven persons of the name Dicuil, Dichul, or Dichull, appear in the Irish Annals of the seventh to the ninth century. The astronomer and geographer is, perhaps, the same as the Dicuil who was Abbot of Pahlacht in the ninth century. All that we know about him is: 1. That he is the author of (a) a celebrated geographical work entitled <i>De Mensura Orbis Terrae</i> (b) a poem, twenty-seven hexameters which he prefixed to a copy of a short treatise by Priscian; (c) an astronomical work in prose and verse, still unpublished. (The work is found in the Valenciennes Codex 386, pp. 73 to 76; it contains a dedication to Louis the Pious and mentions Dicuil by name). 2. That he had for teacher Suibneus. Now there were many Irish ecclesiastics and teachers who bore the name Suibhne (Sweeney); the person whose date seems to render it probable that he was the teacher of Dicuil is the abbot who died in 776, unless we admit with Ussher that Dicuil's master lived at a later period and was Suibne MacMailehuvai “anchorite and scribe” who died at Clonmacnoise. 3. That he wrote his geographical treatise in the year 825. The work by which Dicuil is best known, his geographical treatise <i>De Mensura Orbis Terrae</i> is more than a mere compilation from the writings of the ancients. It draws, of course, from the works of Pliny and Solinus, but it makes use also of the surveys of the Roman <i>agrimensores</i>, and, what is of more importance, of the personal observation of the author and his friends. Thus, Dicuil is the first geographer to speak of Iceland, which he calls Thule, and which he describes from the account given him by the (Irish) monks who had dwelt there from the first of February to the first of August. He describes the Faroe Islands according to the account of “a cleric on whom I can rely”, being in this case also the first to mention those regions. Again, when describing the Nile he introduces the narrative of a "Brother Fidelis," who, with a party of priests and monks made the journey from Ireland to the Holy Land. Our author was not more critical, however, than were his contemporaries. Still, he was a more than usually conscientious writer. For, when Pliny's figures seemed to him to be unreliable he left a blank space, so that the reader could fill it in according to the extent of his credulity. And who can blame him if he repeats without contradicting it the saying of Solinus that so great is the fertility of the soil of Ireland that the cattle had to be driven off the land at times for fear of overfeeding? It is easy, of course, to point to the mistakes and inaccuracies of Dicuil's work. We must, however, be just, and judge it, not by modern standards of scientific accuracy but by the standard which prevailed in the ninth century. "Antioch," writes Professor G. Stokes, "was the centre (about 600) of Greek culture and Greek tradition, and the Chronicle of Malalas, as embodied in Niebuhr's series of Byzantine historians, is a mine of information on many questions; but, compare it with the Irish work of Dicuil, and its mistakes are laughable."<br /><br />Under the Emperor Lothair (840-855) there was formed at Liège a colony of Irish teachers and writers, the best-known of whom is <i>Sedulius</i> (Siadhal, or Shiel), sometimes called Sedulius the Younger, to distinguish him from another Sedulius, also an Irishman, who lived in the fifth century, and is the author of the famous <i>Carmen Paschale</i> and other sacred poems. Sedulius the Younger flourished from 840 to 860. He was beyond doubt an Irishman; it is difficult, however, to say with which of the six Siadhals he is to be identified who are mentioned by the <i>Annals of the Four Masters</i> between the years 785 and 855, certainly not with Siadhal, son of Fearadhach, who was Abbot of Kildare and died in 828. Of his life on the Continent we know merely that he was a teacher at St. Lambert at Liège about 850, that he enjoyed the favor of Lothair II (840-855), that he was a scribe and a poet. He had for patron and protector Bishop Hartgar of Liege (840-855), to whom he dedicated many of his poems. He wrote a very important treatise on the theory of government entitled <i>De Rectoribus Christianis</i> and a commentary on Porphyry's <i>Isagoge</i>, (or Introduction to the Logic of Aristotle) for which the basis may have been the Greek text, though the work was known to other Christian logicians only in the Latin translation. It is possible that towards the end of his days he went to Milan, as his countryman Dungal had gone to Pavia, and continued to teach there under the patronage of Lothair II. When contemporary writers, such as Dicuil and the author of the <i>Annals of St. Gall</i> mention Sedulius it is not always easy to say whether they meant the Older or the Younger. The former ranks high among the Latin poets; the latter, too, though he is often referred to as a mere grammarian, shows in his verses that he had the true gift; many of the poems he addressed to Hartgar exhibit a playfulness of imagination and lightness of touch that would have done credit to a writer of the most cultured period. His work <i>De Rectoribus Christianis</i> is a remarkable contribution to the medieval theory of the duties of a Christian prince, and deserves to be ranked with the classics on that subject, such as St. Thomas' <i>De Regimine Principis</i> and Dante's <i>De Monarchia</i>.<br /><br />From incidental references in Sedulius' poems we infer that there was at Liege a regular colony of Irish scholars. We find, for example, mention of <i>Fergus</i>, a poet who wrote in praise of Charles the Bald, a scribe to whom we very probably owe one of our oldest copies of the great work of John Scottus Eriugena. We find mention also of <i>Dermot</i>. These, judging by their names, were Irish. The name, however, was not always a sure indication of the nationality of the monk, in those days. Many, like Clement, changed their Irish names into Latin equivalents, which could be more easily pronounced by their French or German contemporaries. Thus, we read of two Irish clerics, <i>Caidoc</i> and <i>Fricorius</i>, who went to France before the time of Alcuin. Caidoc, we are told, retained his name, but Fricorius changed his into "Hadrian," because "Fricorius" sounded barbarous to those not accustomed to the Irish language. How often did it happen that an Irish missionary, teacher, or scribe, by assuming a Latinized name, blotted out forever, as far as the records of the time are concerned, all trace of his nationality? Sedulius mentions in one of his poems <i>Fergus, Blandus, Marcus and Beuchell,</i> "the fourspan of the Lord, the glory of the Irish nation.” Since the publication of Sedulius' poems further light has been thrown on the Liège colony by the discovery of a collection of letters written in the ninth century and addressed, for the most part, to Franco, Bishop of Liège or of Tongres (854-901). The first of these is from an Irish cleric, perhaps <i>Electus</i>, to some bishop, possibly Franco, and offers no special problem. The second is from an Irish pilgrim, “Pauperculo et Scotto peregrino," who says that he is not a grammarian, that he is without skill in Latin, that he has returned “tired” from Rome, and that he will appreciate any favor granted him in Christ's name. The third is a petition on behalf of an aged Irish priest (the name, unfortunately, is illegible), who is footsore from his journey and unable to accompany his brethren in their pilgrimage to Rome; the petitioner begs that this pilgrim be kindly received by the Franks and given hospitality. The fourth letter is the most interesting of the collection. It is written by an Irish priest named <i>Electus</i> and addressed to Bishop Franco. It begins by setting before the bishop the sad mishap which took place during the petitioner's return from Rome, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage ("orationis causa"). His belongings, it seems, were seized and carried off by certain subjects of the bishop, who had been his fellow travelers on a ship. The belongings included vestments and various other articles, among them four garments ("osae") of Irish cloth ("Scotticae vestis"). He knows the culprits, and, since they reside near Namur, within the jurisdiction of the bishop, he begs that they be punished and compelled to restore the stolen property. There is nothing further known about Electus, though it is natural to suppose that he was a companion, or perhaps, a pupil of Sedulius.<br /><br />WILLIAM TURNER.<br />(To be continued)<br /></p><p><i>Catholic University Bulletin </i>Vol 13 (1907), 382-399. </p><p><br /></p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-26104336437553041792023-08-23T06:30:00.002+01:002023-08-23T08:25:50.876+01:00Ancient Irish Scholars: Dicuil the Geographer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5LxQ146BBQN0X50RcdSq7QfgzI5tAd2n_9wP90n5FjvS_PvQAPikfspBARMpGqfExhfv66Rp7-HpPyxB0UuGSW5VslT8z91uMnbGs4zu3IU1a7-sAGo2MkYrolyVmY-lFc-crXJeN6Bq-YB3qQGQUV3VIMgCv3wIAzaZDHexKIaDMn5DImwK-xfAxwQ/s1240/insulasanctorume00heal_0006.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="963" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5LxQ146BBQN0X50RcdSq7QfgzI5tAd2n_9wP90n5FjvS_PvQAPikfspBARMpGqfExhfv66Rp7-HpPyxB0UuGSW5VslT8z91uMnbGs4zu3IU1a7-sAGo2MkYrolyVmY-lFc-crXJeN6Bq-YB3qQGQUV3VIMgCv3wIAzaZDHexKIaDMn5DImwK-xfAxwQ/s320/insulasanctorume00heal_0006.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><br />Early medieval Ireland was not only the <i>insula sanctorum,</i> the island of saints but, as the title of Archbishop John Healy's 1890 work <i>Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum</i> suggests, also an island of scholars. Archbishop Healy devoted a chapter within his book to the eighth-/ninth-century scholar Dicuil, author of a famed geographical treatise and teacher at the court of Louis the Pious, successor to Charlemagne. The chapter was also published as part of an occasional series in <i>The Irish Ecclesiastical Record</i>, which I reproduce below. Modern scholars continue to debate the value of Dicuil's work and his legacy, Archbishop Healy's complaint that Dicuil's treatise, <i>De Mensura Orbis Terrae</i> had not been published in Ireland was not addressed until 1967 when J.J. Tierney edited the text as Volume 6 in the series<i> Scriptores Latini Hiberniae</i>. His translation is available electronically at University College Cork <a href="https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T090000-001.html">here</a>.<br /><div class="page" title="Page 162">
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<div class="column"><br /></div></div></div><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b>ANCIENT IRISH SCHOLARS.<br />DICUIL THE GEOGRAPHER.</b><br /><br />ONE of the most interesting monuments of ancient Irish scholarship is Dicuil's treatise, <i>De Mensura Orbis Terrae</i> written so early as the year A.D. 825. It is not very creditable to the Irish learning of the present day that no attempt has yet been made even by any of our learned societies to print this little work in Ireland. It is to French scholars we are indebted for printing and annotating Dicuil's treatise. In 1807 the <i>editio princeps</i> was published by M. Walckenaer from two manuscripts in the Imperial Library of Paris. In 1814 M. Letronne produced a still more accurate edition, enriched, too, with many learned notes, and important dissertations, in which he shows the advantages that scholars may derive from a careful study of this geographical treatise of the Irish monk. There is no doubt that M. Letronne expended much time and labour in the execution of this work, of which the full title is as follows : Recherches Geographiques et Critiques sur Le Livre De Mensura Orbis Terrarum compose en Irlande au Commencement du Neuvieme siecle par Dicuil. This work is now very rare, and hence we shall present our readers with a brief account of this most valuable and interesting monument of ancient Irish learning.<br /><br />Unfortunately we know nothing whatsoever of the personal history of Dicuil except what can be gathered from a few incidental references which he makes to himself in this treatise; but these, though very brief, are clear and definite. He tells us first of all that his name was Dicuil, and that he finished his task in the spring of the year A.D. 825. Like most of his countrymen at that time, he was fond of poetry, and gives us this information in a neat poem, written in Latin hexameters at the end of the MS., to which we shall refer again. He also implies in his opening statement, or prologue, that he had already written an Epistola de questionibus decem Artis Grammaticae which was probably intended to be copied and circulated amongst the Irish monastic schools of the time, but of which we know nothing more. He tells us that a certain Suibneus (Suibhne), or Sweeny, was his master to whom under God he owed whatever knowledge he possessed. His native country was Ireland, which he describes in affectionate language as "nostra Hibernia," our own Ireland in opposition to the foreign countries of which he had been speaking. Elsewhere he calls it in accordance with the usage of the time nostra Scottia. He also adds when referring to the islands in the north and north-west of Scotland, that he had dwelt in some of them, he had visited others, more of them had he merely seen, and some of them he had only read of.<br /><br />This is really all the information we have about Dicuil, and from data so meagre, it is very difficult to identify Dicuil the Geographer, amongst the many Irish monks who bore that name.<br /><br />By a careful examination, however, of these and some other facts to which he refers, we can conjecture with some probability where and by whom he was educated.<br /><br />When speaking of Iceland Dicuil refers to information communicated to him thirty years before by certain Irish clerics, who had spent some months in that island. This brings us back to A.D. 795, so that when Dicuil wrote in 825, he must have been a man considerably advanced in years. We may infer, too, that his master, Suibhne, to whom he owed so much, flourished as a teacher at a still earlier period than A.D. 795. There were several abbots who bore that name between A.D. 750 and A.D. 850 ; but it appears to me that the master of Dicuil must have been either Suibhne, Abbot of Iona, who died in 772, or Suibhne, son of Cuana, Abbot of Clonmacnoise, who died A.D. 816, and the former appears to be the more probable hypothesis. If Dicuil were, suppose, seventy-five when he wrote his book, he must have been born in 750. He would then be about sixteen years of age when Suibhne, Vice-Abbot of Iona, came over to his native Ireland in 766, where he remained some time. Suppose that Dicuil returned with him as a novice in that year, he could have been six years under the instruction of Suibhne before that abbot's death in 772. It is likely that Dicuil remained in Iona for several years after the death of his beloved master, it was, doubtless, during these years that he visited the Scottish islands, and dwelt with some of the communities whom St. Columba had established there. On this point his own statement is clear and explicit. <br /><br />But towards the close of the eighth century a storm burst upon the heads of the devoted inmates of these religious houses, when they were slain or scattered abroad. In A.D. 794 the Danes devastated all the "Islands of Britain," and in 795 they attacked and plundered Iona itself. In 798 they renewed their inroads, and harried "all the islands between Erin and Alba." Iona was burned again by " the gentiles" in 802, and the family of Hy, to the number of seventy-eight persons, was slaughtered by them four years later. Then nearly all the survivors fled to Erin, and built the City of Columcille, in Kells, next year, A.D. 807, to which, shortly after, the relics, or at least some of the relics, of the founder, were solemnly transferred. It is highly probable that it was at this period, when the community of Iona was dispersed, that Dicuil returned to his native country. It is very difficult, however, to identify him with any of the holy men who bore that name, and whose festivals are recorded in our calendars. Colgan mentions nine saints of this name; some of whom, however, certainly flourished at a much earlier period.<br /><br />The founder of Iona, Columcille, with his kinsmen, originally came from Donegal, and the monastery seems to have been principally recruited at all times by members of the Cenelconaill race. Amongst the saints who were called Dicuil, or Diucholl, were two who were venerated in Donegal; one the son of Neman, whose memory was venerated at Kilmacrenan on Dec. 25 the other was Dicuil of Inishowen, whose feast-day is Dec. 18th. The latter is described as a hermit; and it may be that our geographer, after his return from Iona, retired to a life of solitude in Inishowen, and there, towards the close of his life, composed this treatise, of which the most valuable portion is that containing the reminiscences of his early life in the Scottish islands.<br /><br />The chief difficulty against this hypothesis, that Suibhne, Dicuil's master, was the Abbot of Iona who died in 772, is the great age at which, in that case, the pupil must have written his book, in A.D. 825. The monks of those days, however, were often intellectually and physically vigorous at the age of eighty, and even of ninety years.<br /><br />If, however, anyone prefers the other hypothesis, which certainly fits in better with the dates, then we must assume that Dicuil was trained at the great College of Clonmacnois, which at this period was certainly the most celebrated school in Ireland, if not in Europe. Suibhne, we are told, was abbot for two years before his death in 816; but had been, no doubt, for many years previously, a fer-legind, or professor, in Clonmacnoise. It was nothing new for the younger monks to travel to other religious houses in pursuit of knowledge and sanctity; and in this way Dicuil, like so many of his countrymen, would visit Iona and the Scottish islands.<br /><br />The treatise <i>De Mensura Orbis Terrae</i> is especially valuable as affording evidence of the varied classical culture that existed in the Irish monastic schools at this period. In the prologue the author tells us that he derived his information mainly from two sources; first, from the Report of the Commissioners whom the Divine Emperor Theodosius had sent to survey the provinces of the Roman Empire; and secondly, from the excellent work of Pliny Secundus that is, the Natural History which is so well known to scholars. Dicuil complains that the manuscripts of the Report in his possession were very faulty; but still, being of more recent date than Pliny's work, he values it more highly. He adds that he leaves vacant places in his own manuscript for the numbers, in order to be able to fill them in afterwards when he can verify or correct them by collating his own with other manscripts of the Report. He also quotes numerous passages from other writers, who, I am afraid, are not very familiar to the classical scholars of our own times. The first of these works is that of Caius Julius Solinus, known as the Polyhistor. Of his personal history we know as little as we do of Dicuil himself. He flourished about the middle of the third century, and appears to have borrowed his matter, and sometimes even his language, from Pliny's Natural History. The contents of this work of Solinus may be inferred from the title of an English translation, published in 1587: "The Excellent and Pleasant Work of Julius Solinus, Polyhistor, containing the Noble Actions of Humaine Creatures, the Secretes and Providence of Nature, the Description of Countries, the Manners of the People, &etc., Translated out of the Latin by Arthur Golding, Gent." Another work, equally unknown to the present generation, but frequently quoted by Dicuil, is the Periegesis of Priscian. It is a metrical translation into Latin hexameters of a Greek work bearing the same title, which was originally composed by Dionysius, surnamed from that fact Periegetes, or the "Traveller," in Goldsmith's sense. He appears to have flourished in the second half of the third century of the Christian era.<br /><br />Such are the principal authorities whom Dicuil follows; and as he knew nothing of foreign countries himself, he cites his authorities textually for the benefit of his own countrymen. It is surely a singular and interesting fact that we should find an Irish monk, in the beginning of the ninth century, collating and criticising various manuscripts of these writers either in some Irish monastic school at home, or in the equally Irish school of Iona, though surrounded by Scottish waters and in view of the Scottish hills.<br /><br />For us, however, the information which Dicuil gives us of his own knowledge, or gathered from his own countrymen, is far more valuable; and to this I would especially invite the reader's attention.<br /><br />In the sixth chapter, when speaking of the Nile, he says; <br /></p><p>"Although we never read in any book that any branch of the Nile flows into the Red Sea; yet Brother Fidelis told in my presence, to my master Suibhne (to whom, under God, I owe whatever knowledge I possess), that certain clerics and laymen from Ireland, who went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage, sailed up the Nile for a long way' <br /><br />and thence continued their voyage by canal to the entrance of the Red Sea.<br /><br />This Irish pilgrimage to Jerusalem is worthy of notice, for many of our critics where they find mention of such pilgrimages to Rome and to Jerusalem in the Lives of our early Saints, seem to regard it as an exaggeration, if not a kind of pious fraud. But here we have the testimony of one in every way worthy of credit, who himself spoke to such pilgrims after their return from the Holy Land.<br /><br />Then their testimony is peculiarly valuable in reference to a vexed geographical question regarding the existence of a navigable canal in those days from the Nile to the Red Sea. A canal called the "River of Ptolemy" and afterwards "the River of Trajan," was certainly cut from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to the Red Sea at Arisnoe. It was certainly open for commerce in the time of Trajan, but during the decline of the Roman empire became partially filled with sand. Trajan, it seems, however, when re-opening the canal connected it with the river at a point higher up the river than the old route, opposite Memphis, near Babylon, in order that the fresh water might flow through the canal and help to keep it open. Under the Arabians this canal of Trajan was re-opened, but geographers have asserted that it became choked shortly afterwards and remained so ever since. The testimony of the Irish pilgrims quoted by Dicuil is the only satisfactory evidence that we now possess to prove that this canal was open at the end of the eighth century for the purposes of commerce and navigation.<br /><br />The pilgrims also give some interesting information with reference to the Pyramids, which they call the "Barns of Joseph." "The pilgrims," he says, "saw them from the river rising like mountains four in one place and three in another." Then they landed to view these wonders close at hand, and coming to one of the three greater pyramids, they saw eight men and one woman and a great lion stretched dead beside it. The lion had attacked them, and the men in turn had attacked the lion with their spears, with the result that all perished in the mutual slaughter, for the place was a desert and there was no one at hand to help then. From top to bottom the pyramids were all built of stone, square at the base, but rounded towards the summit, and tapering to a point. The aforesaid brother Fidelis measured one of them and found that the square face was 400 feet in length. Going thence by the canal to the Red Sea, they found the passage across to the eastern shore at the Road of Moses to be only a short distance. The brother who had measured the base of the pyramid wished to examine the exact point where Moses had entered the Red Sea, in order to try if he could find any traces of the Chariots of Pharaoh, or the wheel tracks ; but the sailors were in a hurry and would not allow him to go on this excursion. The breadth of the sea at this point appeared to him to about six miles. Then they sailed up this narrow bay which once kept the murmuring Israelites from returning to Egypt.<br /><br />This is a very interesting and manifestly authentic narrative. Another interesting chapter is that in which Dicuil describes Iceland and the Faroe Islands. "It is now thirty years," he says, "since certain clerics, who remained in that island (Ultima Thule) from the 1st of February to the 1st of August, told me that not only at the Summer solstice (as Solinus said), but also for several days about the solstice, the setting sun at eventide merely hid himself as it were, for a little behind a hill, so that there was no darkness even for a moment, and whatever a man wished to do, if it were only to pick vermin off his shirt vel pediculos de camisia abstrahere he could do as it were in the light of the sun, and if he were on a mountain of any height, he could doubtless see the sun all through." This way of putting it is certainly more graphic than elegant, but it is at the same time strictly accurate, and shows that the Irish monks had really spent the summer in Iceland. For the arctic circle just touches the extreme north of Iceland, and therefore in any part of that country the sun would even at the solstice set for a short time, but it would be only, as it were, going behind a hill to reappear in an hour or in half an hour. So that by the aid of refraction and twilight a man would always have light enough to perform even those delicate operations to which Dicuil refers.<br /><br />He then observes with much acuteness that at the middle point of this brief twilight it is mid-night at the equator, or middle of the earth ; and in like manner he infers that about the Winter solstice there must be daylight for a very short time in Thule, when it is noon-day at the equator. These observations show a keen observant mind, and would lead us to infer that Dicuil like his countryman Virgilius, who flourished a little earlier, had been taught the sphericity of the earth in the schools of his native country. He says also in this same chapter, what is certainly true, that those writers are greatly mistaken who describe the Icelandic Sea as always frozen, and who say that there is a perpetual day from Spring to Autumn, and perpetual night from Autumn to Spring. For the Irish monks sailed thither, he says, through an open sea in a month of great natural cold, and whilst they were there enjoyed alternate day and night except about the Summer solstice, as already explained. But one day's sail further north brought them to the frozen sea. Dicuil's reference to Iceland is interesting from another point of view. In almost all our books of popular instruction, and even in many standard works on geography, it is stated that the Danes, or Norwegians, "discovered" Iceland about the year 860, and shortly afterwards colonized it during the reign of Harold Harfager. But Dicuil clearly shows that it was well known to Irish monks at least more than half a century before Dane or Norwegian ever set foot on the island, as is now generally admitted by scholars who are familiar with Icelandic literature and history.<br /><br />The following interesting passage which shows the roving spirit that animated some of the Irish monks at that period is contained in the third section of the same seventh chapter. "There are several other islands in the ocean to the north of Britain, which can be reached in a voyage of two days and two nights with a favourable breeze. A certain trustworthy monk (<i>religiosus</i>) told me that he reached one of them by sailing for two summer days and one night in a vessel with two benches of rowers (<i>duorum navicula transtrorum</i>). Some of these islands are very small and separated by narrow straits. In these islands for almost a hundred years there dwelt hermits, who sailed there from our own Ireland (<i>nostra Scottia</i>). But now they are once more deserted, as they were from the beginning, on account of the ravages of the Norman pirates. They, are, however, still full of sheep, and of various kinds of sea birds. We have never found these islands mentioned by any author."<br /><br />It is quite evident that Dicuil here refers to the Faroe Islands, which are about 250 miles north of the Scottish coast. A glance at the map will show that they are rather small, and separated from each other by very narrow channels, and in this respect differing from the Shetland Islands, to which this description would not therefore apply. Besides, the Shetlands are only 50 miles from the Orkneys, about 100 from the mainland, and hence could easily be reached in a single day by an open boat sailing before a favourable wind ; whereas the islands occupied by the Irish hermits could only be reached after a voyage of two days and a night, even in the most favourable circumstances. The word " nostra Scottia" of course refers to Ireland; for up to the time that Dicuil wrote, that word had never been applied to North Britain. Skene, himself a learned Scot, has shown by numerous citations from ancient authors that beyond all doubt the name " Scottia" was applied to Ireland, and to Ireland alone, prior to the tenth century. Up to that time the name of Scotland was Alban or Albania.<br /><br />The love of the ancient Irish monks for island solitudes is one of the most remarkable features in their character. There is hardly an island round our coasts, which does not contain the remains of some ancient oratory or monastic cells. But they did not always remain in sight of land. Inspired partly with the hope of finding a "a desert" in the ocean, partly, no doubt, also with a love of adventure and a vague hope of discovering the "Land of Promise," they sailed out into the Atlantic in their currachs in search of these lonely islands. Every one has heard of the seven years' voyage of St. Brendan in the western ocean. St. Ailbe of Emly had resolved to find out the island of Thule, which the Roman geographers placed somewhere in the northern sea. He was, however, prevented from going himself, but " he sent twenty men into exile over the sea in his stead." St. Cormac the Navigator, made three voyages in the pathless ocean seeking some desert island where he might devote himself to an eremitic life. It is highly probable he went as far north as Iceland; for Adamnan tells us that he sailed northwards for fourteen days, until he was frightened by the sight of the monsters of the deep, when he returned home touching on his way at the Orkney Islands.<br /><br />When the Norwegians first discovered Iceland in A.D. 860, they found Irish books, and bells, and pilgrims' staffs, or croziers, which were left there by men who professed the Christian religion and whom the Norwegians called "papas"or " fathers." Dicuil, however, gives us the earliest authentic testimony that Iceland and the Faroe Isles had been discovered and occupied by Irish monks long before the Danes or Norwegians discovered these islands. Of Ireland itself, Dicuil unfortunately gives us no information. He was writing for his own countrymen, and he assumed that they knew as much about Ireland "our own Ireland" as he did. The only observation he makes in reference to Ireland is that there were islands round the coast, and that some were small, and others very small. But he takes one quotation from Solinus, who says that <br /><br />"Britain is surrounded by many important islands, one of which Ireland, approaches to Britain itself in size. It abounds in pastures so rich, that if the cattle are not sometimes driven away from them they run the risk of bursting. The sea between Britain and Ireland is so wild and stormy throughout the entire year that it is only navigable on a very few days. The channel is about 120 miles broad."<br /><br />Dicuil, however, good Irishman as he was, does not quote two other statements which Solinus made about the pre-christian Scots for he wrote before the time of St. Patrick first, that the Irish recognised no difference between right and wrong at all; and, secondly, that they fed their children from the point of the sword a rather inconvenient kind of spoon we should think. In fact the Romans of those days knew as little, and wrote as confidently about Ireland as most Englishmen do at present, and that is saying a good deal.<br /><br />There is one incidental reference in Dicuil chapter v section ii. which is of the highest importance, because it settles the question as to the nationality of the celebrated Irish poet, Sedulius, the author of the hymns <i>Crudelis Herodes</i>, and <i>A solis ortus Cardine</i>, in the Roman Breviary. Dicuil quoting twelve lines of poetry from the Report of the Commissioners of Theodosius, observes, that the first foot of the seventh and eighth of these hexameter lines is an amphimacrus. Here are the lines :<br /><br />" Conficiter quinis aperit cum fastibus annum.<br />Supplices hoc famuli, dum scribit, pingit et alter."<br /><br />"At the same time," says Dicuil, " I do not think it was from ignorance of prosody these lines were so written, for the writers had the authority of other poets in their favour, and especially of Virgil, whom in similar cases <i>our own Sedulius</i> imitated, and he, in his heroic stanzas, rarely uses feet different from those of Virgil and the classical poets." "Noster Sedulius," here applied to the great religious poet by his own countryman, in the ninth century, settles the question of his Irish birth, The reader will observe also, what a keen critic Dicuil was of Latin poetry, and will probably come to the conclusion that they knew Prosody better in the Irish schools of the ninth than they do in those of the nineteenth century.<br /><br />In the closing stanzas of his own short poem on the classic mountains, Dicuil implies that he finished his work in the Spring of 825, when night gives grateful rest to the wearied oxen who had covered the seed-wheat in the dusty soil.<br /><br />"Post octingentos viginti quinque peractos<br />Summi annos Domini terrae, aethrae, carceris atri,<br />Semine triticeo sub ruris pulvere tecto,<br />Nocte bobus requies largitur fine laboris."<br /><br />+ JOHN HEALY, D.D. <br /></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><i>The Irish Ecclesiastical Record</i>, Vol X (1889), 203-213.<br /><br /></p></blockquote><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-82025456847747754752023-08-17T14:26:00.000+01:002023-08-17T14:26:39.195+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, August 18<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHsZuac92j24e7NJ0Rn7F1fsUfjxO36f72ZneYg6FxA8gpJ4-l-If8s3eKfJr6Yp_JC_Y0keOP700SEXG_JzIaxJOHE9FhebTkCooqOFdeV_BPnOk9yqd1MeugBWReJPPvrzXp4gkWPBdJnvvgu9E8Ng4D9dXuhkINFexqgXJTV1DHDZGI4nL3VY9WmQ/s447/livesofirishsain08ohanuoft_0265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="447" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHsZuac92j24e7NJ0Rn7F1fsUfjxO36f72ZneYg6FxA8gpJ4-l-If8s3eKfJr6Yp_JC_Y0keOP700SEXG_JzIaxJOHE9FhebTkCooqOFdeV_BPnOk9yqd1MeugBWReJPPvrzXp4gkWPBdJnvvgu9E8Ng4D9dXuhkINFexqgXJTV1DHDZGI4nL3VY9WmQ/s320/livesofirishsain08ohanuoft_0265.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In the second of our two programmes for the month of August in the series All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria at 7 pm on Friday, August 18 I will be looking at some of the saints whose feasts fall this month. They will include <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/08/saint-daigh-of-iniskeen-august-18.html">Saint Daigh of Inishkeen</a> and <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2015/08/saint-ernin-mac-creisin-of-rathnoi.html">Saint Ernán mac Creisin</a>, whose feasts are on August 18, plus two other saints who share the name, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2022/08/saint-earnan-of-cloonrallagh-august-5.html">Ernán of Cloonrallagh</a> and <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2014/08/saint-ernan-of-tory-island-august-17.html">Ernán of Tory</a>, who also have August feast days on the 5th and the 17th respectively. I will also have a look at the Feast of the Assumption in Ireland and at the martyrdom of <a href="https://www.deprocessumartyriali.com/2020/08/blessed-john-roche.html">Blessed John Roche</a>. So join host Thomas Murphy and me for another exploration of the rich
heritage of our Irish saints. For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/ <p></p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-35250538602497336172023-08-11T07:53:00.002+01:002023-08-11T08:00:11.600+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, August 11<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp8-PtlDcDZrpHNkhnJfdgb2mARtmXWwpZSID-IY13ZTpUA8Iy7ZYOQFazzuuoJJrEhnjx6OdtV6rdML22yNZsl5sC9cb6PuarvbCrZYlWnpcrEGASCqTNiVQlNjV_giadK8VjcVu9q0HPeOf_iiy-wS3pKJDwTbSIa5BMlWpka4-X0WXhu2fYXvz7Hg/s1000/Harbinson%20Pilgrimage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="641" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp8-PtlDcDZrpHNkhnJfdgb2mARtmXWwpZSID-IY13ZTpUA8Iy7ZYOQFazzuuoJJrEhnjx6OdtV6rdML22yNZsl5sC9cb6PuarvbCrZYlWnpcrEGASCqTNiVQlNjV_giadK8VjcVu9q0HPeOf_iiy-wS3pKJDwTbSIa5BMlWpka4-X0WXhu2fYXvz7Hg/s320/Harbinson%20Pilgrimage.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br />The first of two programmes for the month of August in the series All the Saints of Ireland at 7 pm tonight, Friday, August 11 on Radio Maria Ireland will feature <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/08/saint-attracta-of-killaraght-august-11.html">Saint Attracta</a>, whose feast day this is, plus the intriguing hermit <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/08/saint-pellegrino-delle-alpi-di.html">San Pellegrino delle Alpi</a>. We will also discuss some of the Irish traditions around pilgrimage at home and abroad. So join host Thomas Murphy and me for another exploration of the rich heritage of the Irish saints. For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/ <p></p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-86818103073140323762023-08-02T09:14:00.002+01:002023-08-02T09:14:50.511+01:00Saint Cobrán of Cluain Cúallachta<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfTsLj-do2uLSWsp0kAFvBgUnRxI3O4T1PtOwoDtLu3Co0HVPaiIjsK7vYFDiUrvGOa2qjJMyLjNBXN0uUobxJba-aXV6jaPNlcfcYI4RI20POWq-gk2T2bY2CjgJph5nOnCEzXdG5RVa0h8YlhPVEepMB3ei_jfy0QyvHkyFwqsWGYYvV8XltebGq8A/s510/Lives%20of%20Irish%20Saints.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfTsLj-do2uLSWsp0kAFvBgUnRxI3O4T1PtOwoDtLu3Co0HVPaiIjsK7vYFDiUrvGOa2qjJMyLjNBXN0uUobxJba-aXV6jaPNlcfcYI4RI20POWq-gk2T2bY2CjgJph5nOnCEzXdG5RVa0h8YlhPVEepMB3ei_jfy0QyvHkyFwqsWGYYvV8XltebGq8A/s320/Lives%20of%20Irish%20Saints.jpg" width="203" /></a></div><br />Completing a quartet of obscure Irish saints who share August 2 as a feast day with <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Cobrán of Cluain Cúallachta. In his entry for the saint in Volume VIII of his <i>Lives of the Irish Saints</i>, Canon O'Hanlon has to admit defeat in identifying the place name associated with the saint. All he can record is the fact that the name of </span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Cobrán of Cluain Cúallachta is found on the Irish calendars on August 2 and the speculations of the 17th c. hagiologist, Father John Colgan, who sought to link him to the bloodline of Saint Colum Cille:</span><p></p><div class="page" title="Page 54"><br />Article III. St. Cobhran or Cobran, of Cluana Cuanlach, or of Cluain-Cuallachta. </div><div class="page" title="Page 54"> </div><div class="page" title="Page 54">St. Cobran, of Cluana Cuanlach, is venerated on this day, as stated in the Martyrology of Tallagh. If we adopted the first reading so far as the name of his place is concerned, perhaps Cuanlach might be resolved into Loch Cuan, the ancient name for Strangford Lough; yet, it seems correctly to have been Cluain Cuallacta, and we know of no place in Ireland, with which it can be identified. A saint of this name is found, and whose pedigree is given by Colgan, who thinks he may be identical with the present holy man. He was known as Cobhran, the son of Enan,and the nephew of St. Columba, through Minchotha, who was sister to the latter, and the mother of Cobhran. A festival in honour of Cobhran, of Cluain Cuallachta, was celebrated at the 2nd of August, according to the Martyrology of the O'Clerys. </div>
<p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"> </span> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-80879562974881754252023-07-27T06:30:00.041+01:002023-07-27T11:28:26.242+01:00Homonymous Saints of Ireland<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiGgTmgOFBa01Fr-097evbzYJYPqfcs6PYYU_u9-wL6tFvNuAGM5to7DmPPqyQoG0QsdAenOjabtktG3T_o_S3KhHQRwPeVyIw25YqfnEDTHPpYY6jlEMwh7W9BO_0Vl5bTYeuXRlfZcak2HMamdPIiVMiH_-Dcugv6l-ifuORX4xbTDA5c_RvWZ8eqA/s383/Integral%20Irish%20Tradition.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="245" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiGgTmgOFBa01Fr-097evbzYJYPqfcs6PYYU_u9-wL6tFvNuAGM5to7DmPPqyQoG0QsdAenOjabtktG3T_o_S3KhHQRwPeVyIw25YqfnEDTHPpYY6jlEMwh7W9BO_0Vl5bTYeuXRlfZcak2HMamdPIiVMiH_-Dcugv6l-ifuORX4xbTDA5c_RvWZ8eqA/s320/Integral%20Irish%20Tradition.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br />One of the problems that adds an extra challenge to the study of the early Irish saints is the fact that so many of them share the same name. In the list below, attributed to the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, by An tAthair Donnchadh Ó Floinn, we can see the problem quite clearly. It is most acute, of course, when attempting to disentangle the myriad saints called Colman, of whom this list gives roughly one hundred and twenty, but the earlier <span><i>Comainmnigud noem hErenn</i> lists over one hundred more: <br /></span><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>I pass over [says John Colgan] very many homonymous saints whose names occur in smaller-number groups than the following; but in our calendars and martyrologies we find that there were 10 saints named Gobban, 11 Lasrian, 12 Brigid and 12 Coeman, and the same number named Diucoll and Maedhog and Otteran; 13 were named Coman and 13 Dimman, 14 Brendan and as many Mochuma, Finnan and Ronan; Conall, Cormac, Diarmaid and Lughaidh - 15 of each name; 16 were named Mochua, 17 Lassair and as many Saran; 18 Ernin, 18 Failbhe, 19 Cummin and the same number Foillan and Sillan; 20 Kieran and 20 Ultan; 22 Killen or Killian; 23 Aedh; 24 Columba or Columban; 25 Senan; 27 Fintan; 28 Aidan; 30 Cronan; and - most surprising of all - of those named Colman there were about hundred and twenty. All of these, though having the same names, since they have different feast-days or belong to different places, or are of different parentage, or for some other reason, can be shown to be distinct persons. </p><p>Donnchadh Ó Floinn, 'The Integral Irish Tradition' in <i>The Furrow</i>, <span class="src" data-qa="item-src-info" data-v-4feba758="">Vol. 5, No. 12 (Dec., 1954), 759-760.</span></p></blockquote><p><span class="src" data-qa="item-src-info" data-v-4feba758=""></span> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-39607951419968909052023-07-13T11:20:00.000+01:002023-07-13T11:20:14.411+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, July 14<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiev9mYxwPKyLsUr_Ztvdfjjoiu_pVO_Fu0eRAV3EDTpc-WA5CbrZuFb7d6S7egb9f-fmwoIVKJWlxlxzudklwT5oT0efAII20rlTpa0KJK9-Jj3le5cI9c7zpPmXSiKVEWP-GD-oWNgdIYnAI_tZcFGHimfUEfQuCspB5n49Rq1_J7Uxe8ljaHsFQjYA/s510/bardsofgaelgalle00sigeiala_0008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="371" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiev9mYxwPKyLsUr_Ztvdfjjoiu_pVO_Fu0eRAV3EDTpc-WA5CbrZuFb7d6S7egb9f-fmwoIVKJWlxlxzudklwT5oT0efAII20rlTpa0KJK9-Jj3le5cI9c7zpPmXSiKVEWP-GD-oWNgdIYnAI_tZcFGHimfUEfQuCspB5n49Rq1_J7Uxe8ljaHsFQjYA/s320/bardsofgaelgalle00sigeiala_0008.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><br />The first of two All the Saints of Ireland programmes for the month of July is scheduled for Friday, July 14 at 7pm on Radio Maria Ireland. Saints featured will include <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2015/07/saint-moninne-july-6.html">Saint Moninne of Killeavy</a>, continental martyr <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2014/07/saint-killian-of-wurzburg-july-8.html">Killian of Wurzburg</a>, martyrologist <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2017/07/saint-mael-muire-ua-gormain-marianus.html">Marianus O'Gorman</a> and Irish Vincentian martyr <a href="https://www.deprocessumartyriali.com/2020/06/an-irish-vincentian-martyr-in.html">Thaddeus Lye</a>, whose martyrdom was noted by Saint Vincent de Paul himself in one of his letters. So join host Thomas Murphy and myself at 7 pm on Friday, July 14, for a look at just a few of the saints whose feasts are commemorated this month. And enjoy the music of Turlough O'Carolan too! For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/ <p></p><p> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-30321734587534914722023-06-29T08:40:00.005+01:002023-06-29T08:40:59.843+01:00A Eucharistic hymn of fine theological and devotional quality': Sancti Venite<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYnQ-gvCNLScXbiCBYniKFcQO0q-6GYpPmyTLaxyrieDVA1zwhLLmrbsxpvsPsDRdvxpnFHYd3Od9CE-zQOwHaPL3NTjBo43s9meEaphXNBW6sRHxszxTqzeFRPT4_PjASW0sVuPtkOvh5t5EOAjQEFjQXyYUIZp-9_79cu6Byd1Wwxi0tX4TCyIx2Q/s305/Curran%20Bangor%20Antiphonary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="210" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYnQ-gvCNLScXbiCBYniKFcQO0q-6GYpPmyTLaxyrieDVA1zwhLLmrbsxpvsPsDRdvxpnFHYd3Od9CE-zQOwHaPL3NTjBo43s9meEaphXNBW6sRHxszxTqzeFRPT4_PjASW0sVuPtkOvh5t5EOAjQEFjQXyYUIZp-9_79cu6Byd1Wwxi0tX4TCyIx2Q/s1600/Curran%20Bangor%20Antiphonary.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p> The seventh-century Antiphonary of Bangor with its collection of Latin
texts is one of the greatest surviving treasures of early medieval Irish
Christianity. The twelve hymns preserved within include one, the <i>Sancti Venite</i>, labelled as '<i>Hymnus quando communicarent sacerdotes</i>'.
F.E. Warren, the Victorian editor and translator of the manuscript of
the Antiphonary, now housed at the Ambrosian Library at Milan,
commented: <br /></p><p></p><blockquote>This Hymn is evidently from its title a
‘Communio’ or ‘Antiphona ad accedentes ’ to be used during the
Communion of the Priests, of whom there would be many, headed by the
Abbot himself, in such a monastery as Bangor. </blockquote>He goes on to say: <br /><blockquote>It
consists of eleven quatrains or stanzas of four lines each. The lines
are iambic penthemime, and trochaic dimeter catalectic alternately. It
has been fancifully suggested that there are eleven stanzas in this Hymn
because there were eleven Apostles who were present at the institution
of the Eucharist and received it worthily.</blockquote>F.E.Warren, ed. and trans., <i>The Antiphonary of Bangor</i>, Part II (London, 1895), 44. <br /><p></p><p> The very fact that the <i>Sancti Venite</i>
is a Eucharistic hymn marks it out from the other hymns in the
Antiphonary of Bangor, which relate to the monastic hours. It indicates
that a hymn was sung during the taking of communion in early Irish
monasteries, at least in Bangor, plus the Antiphonary also includes
seven communion antiphons. <br /></p><p>Father Michael Curran, MSC, in his 1984 study <i>The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy</i>, describes the <i>Sancti Venite</i>
as a 'Eucharistic hymn of fine theological and devotional quality'. He
also mentions the 'picturesque and fictional occasion of its
composition', a tradition which has been preserved in the
fifteenth-century<i> Leabhar Breac</i>, and summarised by Cardinal Moran in his 1864 essay on the teaching of the Early Irish Church regarding the Blessed Eucharist:</p><p></p><blockquote>In
the ancient Irish preface to the hymn of St. Sechnall on St. Patrick,
preserved in the Leabhar Breac, it is said that, on a certain occasion,
whilst Sechnall was offering the holy sacrifice, our apostle went to
visit him; and it was when Sechnall had finished the Mass, except taking
the body of Christ, that he heard that Patrick had arrived at the
place: leaving the altar, he prostrated himself at the feet of St.
Patrick, and when both subsequently approached the church, they heard a
choir of angels chanting a hymn at the Offertory in the church, and what
they chanted was the hymn whose beginning is Sancti venite, Christi
corpus ,' etc., so that, from that time to the present, that hymn is
chanted in Erin when the body of Christ is received".</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Dr Moran goes on to give the entire text of the <i>Sancti Venite,</i> and a translation, which I reprint below so that we may all enjoy this wonderful hymn: </p><p>1. "Sancti venite, <br />Christi corpus sumite; <br />Sanctum bibentes, <br />Quo redempti sanguinem. <br /><br />2. Salvati Christi<br />Corpore et sanguine, <br />A quo refecti, <br />Laudes dicamus Deo.<br /><br />3. Hoc sacramento,<br />Corporis et sanguinis,<br />Omnes exuti<br />Ab inferni faucibus.<br /><br />4. Dator salutis,<br />Christus filius Dei, <br />Mundum salvavit, <br />Per crucem et sanguinem.<br /><br />5 Pro universis<br />Immolatus Dominus, <br />Ipse sacerdos <br />Existit et hostia.<br /><br />6. Lege praeceptum<br />Immolari hostias: <br />Qua adumbrantur <br />Divina mysteria.<br /><br />7. Lucis indultor<br />Et salvator omnium, <br />Praeclaram sanctis <br />Largitus est gratiam.<br /><br />8. Accedant omnes,<br />Pura mente creduli; <br />Sumant aeternam <br />Salutis custodiam:<br /><br />9. Sanctorum custos,<br />Rector quoque Dominus, <br />Vitae perennis, <br />Largitor credentibus<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">10. Coelestem panem</div><div style="text-align: left;">Dat esurientibus; </div><div style="text-align: left;">De fonte vivo</div><div style="text-align: left;">Praebet sitientibus.</div><p>11. Alpha et omega<br />Ipse Christus Dominus<br />Venit, venturus<br />Judicare homines."</p><div style="text-align: left;">1. Approach, you who are holy, </div><div style="text-align: left;">Receive the body of Christ,</div><div style="text-align: left;">Drinking the sacred blood
</div><div style="text-align: left;">By which you were redeemed. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">2. Saved by the body
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And blood of Christ,
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Now nourished by it
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Let us sing praises unto God. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">3. By this sacrament
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Of the body and blood, </div><div style="text-align: left;">All are rescued
</div><div style="text-align: left;">From the power of hell.</div><p>4. The giver of salvation, <br />Christ, the Son of God, <br />Redeemed the world<br />By his cross and blood. <br /><br />5. For the whole world <br />The Lord is offered up; <br />He is at the same time <br />High-priest and victim. <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">6. In the law it is commanded </div><div style="text-align: left;">To immolate victims:
</div><div style="text-align: left;">By it were foreshadowed </div><div style="text-align: left;">These sacred mysteries. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">7. The giver of all light,
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And the Saviour of all, </div><div style="text-align: left;">Now bestows upon the holy </div><div style="text-align: left;">An exceeding great grace.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">8. Let all approach,
</div><div style="text-align: left;">In the pure simplicity of faith; </div><div style="text-align: left;">Let them receive the eternal </div><div style="text-align: left;">Preserver of their souls:</div><p>9. The guardian of the saints, <br />The supreme Ruler and Lord, <br />The Bestower of eternal life, <br />On those who believe in Him. <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">10. To the hungry he gives to eat </div><div style="text-align: left;">Of the heavenly food;
</div><div style="text-align: left;">To the thirsty he gives to drink </div><div style="text-align: left;">From the living fountain. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">11. The alpha and omega,
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Our Lord Christ Himself
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Now comes: He who shall one day come </div><div style="text-align: left;">To judge all mankind.</div><p>Rev Dr. P. F Moran, <i>Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and Discipline of the Early Irish Church</i>, (Dublin, 1864), 166-167.</p><p>In an article on Irish Latin Hymns written in 1941 Dean Mulcahy lamented:</p><p>“The
hymn ought to be better known in the Ireland of our day; beautiful in
itself, its value is enhanced by its antiquity, and by the glorious and
irrefutable record it furnishes of the sound faith planted by St.
Patrick in the Irish church.” </p><p><span>"The <em>Irish Latin Hymns</em>: "Sancti Venite" of St Sechnall and "Altus Prosator" of St Columba', <em>Irish</em> Ecclesiastical Record,</span>Vol. 52 (1941), 386.</p>What a blessing that this hymn was preserved at Bobbio and rediscovered in Milan and reintroduced to its native land.<p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-11063801802411182742023-06-08T08:17:00.000+01:002023-06-08T08:17:52.618+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, June 9<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizO7JY5TQ9yGprkh7E30UchDRH2cgPMXVzRuc3iVbCaz58r3JNdPLuGQvXeP1viULEj1myVTvzZCWNb7GnjPi81He0RLktaIzEWY0yX2WOAXcFzYzzJYVQU6eB8wKrEKSFZH_B9vUf6nPVRSvwflEG8Iym9M3N1SxK5SXahOwZMG80OEO0RqVgSK8/s527/Colmcille%201997%20Stamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="392" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizO7JY5TQ9yGprkh7E30UchDRH2cgPMXVzRuc3iVbCaz58r3JNdPLuGQvXeP1viULEj1myVTvzZCWNb7GnjPi81He0RLktaIzEWY0yX2WOAXcFzYzzJYVQU6eB8wKrEKSFZH_B9vUf6nPVRSvwflEG8Iym9M3N1SxK5SXahOwZMG80OEO0RqVgSK8/s320/Colmcille%201997%20Stamp.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><br />I am delighted that the first of the All the Saints of Ireland programmes for the month of June will be on air tomorrow night, Friday June 9, the feast day of <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/06/saint-colum-cille-of-iona-june-9.html">Saint Colum Cille</a> (Columba). I will be speaking on the extraordinary life of our tertiary patron and on the stories and writings associated with him and his famous monastery at Iona. There are many further posts on all aspects of the cult of Saint Colum Cille at my other site dedicated to the three Irish patrons, which you can find <a href="http://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/search/label/Saint%20Colum%20Cille">here</a>. I plan to include some of the other feasts which share his day on June 9, starting with that of his kinsman and immediate successor <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2014/06/saint-baithin-of-iona-june-9.html">Baithín</a>, before moving to the feast of the <a href="http://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/06/translation-of-relics-of-saints-patrick.html">translation of the relics of the three patrons</a> and concluding with the sad story of martyred Irish priest <a href="https://www.deprocessumartyriali.com/2021/06/the-john-nepomucene-of-ireland-john.html">Father John O'Dowd</a>, who refused to break the seal of the confessional. <p></p><p>So join host Thomas Murphy and myself at 7 pm on Friday, June 9, 2023 as we look at the life of a man who is not only one of our most important Irish saints, but also one of the most significant historical figures of the sixth century. For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/</p><p> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-59271329660562253542023-05-28T06:00:00.124+01:002023-05-28T16:22:22.213+01:00Domhnach na Cincíse: An Spiorad Naomh umainn<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisArhPiGI-9rPLQvvo3BuZZtcqW21DieE7kQZ-83OM8pCGNHfWWCv09moGHogMUCM_bV8-GjyvsWaNs5l4f9HbRgd-sLr33v7GjF4rBfDpRKubzrgQVOoi9XnFW-ILwHbJfxH2UzbXDsOn64VABHL7l2Cb7rS3_P-awMuzlAzz_xD0eXYZ4ph739o/s912/Maol%20Iosa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="584" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisArhPiGI-9rPLQvvo3BuZZtcqW21DieE7kQZ-83OM8pCGNHfWWCv09moGHogMUCM_bV8-GjyvsWaNs5l4f9HbRgd-sLr33v7GjF4rBfDpRKubzrgQVOoi9XnFW-ILwHbJfxH2UzbXDsOn64VABHL7l2Cb7rS3_P-awMuzlAzz_xD0eXYZ4ph739o/s320/Maol%20Iosa.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br />To mark the feast of Pentecost below is a short poem, an <i>Invocation of the Holy Spirit</i>, by Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin, a scholar saint of Donegal, who died in 1086 and whose feast day is commemorated on January 16. A 2013 post on the saint and his work can be found in the blog archive <a href="https://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/01/saint-mael-isu-ua-brolchain-january-16.html">here</a>. The original Irish text and a Modern Irish version can be found in Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin's 1986 study <i>Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin</i>, below is the text in Modern Irish plus an English translation from George Sigerson's 1897 anthology <i>Bards of the Gael and Gall</i>:<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">An Spiorad Naomh umainn</div><div style="text-align: left;">ionainn agus linn,</div><div style="text-align: left;">an Spiorad Naomh chugainn;</div><div style="text-align: left;">tagadh, a Chríost go tobann.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">An Spiorad Naomh ag áitreabh</div><div style="text-align: left;">ár gcoirp is ár n-anama;</div><div style="text-align: left;">dár slánú go réidh</div><div style="text-align: left;">ar ghuais, ar ghalar,</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">ar dheamhain, ar pheacaí</div><div style="text-align: left;">ar ifreann lena ilolc;</div><div style="text-align: left;">A Íosa! go mbeannaí</div><div style="text-align: left;">agus go saora do Spiorad sinn. </div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b>HOLY SPIRIT</b></p><p><b>MAELISU</b> *</p><div style="text-align: left;">Holy Spirit of Love</div><div style="text-align: left;">In us, round us, above;</div><div style="text-align: left;">Holy Spirit, we pray</div><div style="text-align: left;">Send, sweet Jesus! this day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Holy Spirit, to win</div><div style="text-align: left;">Body and soul within,</div><div style="text-align: left;">To guide us that we be </div><div style="text-align: left;">From ills and illness free,</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">From sin and demons' snare,</div><div style="text-align: left;">From Hell and evils there,</div><div style="text-align: left;">O Holy Spirit, come!</div><div style="text-align: left;">Hallow our heart, Thy home.</div><p>* Maelisu, grandson of Brolcan, of Derry, died in the year 1038. 'Mael-Isu" means "Client of Jesus" (literally, the "Tonsured of Jesus". <br /></p><p>George Sigerson, Bards of the Gael and Gall (London, 1897), 192.</p></blockquote><p><b>Note:</b> Sigerson has given the date of the poet's death as 1038. The <i>Annals of Ulster</i> however record Máol Íosa's death in 1086, describing him as 'eminent in wisdom and piety and in poetry in both languages ', i.e. Irish and Latin. A more literal translation can be found in Gerard Murphy's 1956 anthology, <i>Early Irish Lyrics: Eighth to Twelfth Centuries</i>. <br /> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-83004322449505535052023-05-18T12:19:00.001+01:002023-05-18T12:22:40.869+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, May 19<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGi-dOsU2-2r_rogBEbLU3y45wHw_k5X06DXEknAlXI4nQlhybnH_Qg35NIjdjkERZdop0QqMg8c9RSb20cJ9kpmcCI1-NDczXbgSizAbzwAGB0FdNUKsrVg6YrXLJLKlKWx5tnMpbVvbUBQ4akR9npZpzpWR92py_Q3N2qRHjfQ489nY1v2xWQ9I/s1600/Dymphna%20relic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGi-dOsU2-2r_rogBEbLU3y45wHw_k5X06DXEknAlXI4nQlhybnH_Qg35NIjdjkERZdop0QqMg8c9RSb20cJ9kpmcCI1-NDczXbgSizAbzwAGB0FdNUKsrVg6YrXLJLKlKWx5tnMpbVvbUBQ4akR9npZpzpWR92py_Q3N2qRHjfQ489nY1v2xWQ9I/s320/Dymphna%20relic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Friday, May 19 at 7pm is the second of the two All the Saints of Ireland programmes on Radio
Maria Ireland for this month. Saints featured will include <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2014/05/st-mumbolus-of-lagny-may-9.html">Saint Mumbolus</a>, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2017/05/saint-dymphna-of-gheel-may-15.html">Saint Dymphna </a>and <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/05/saint-carthage-of-lismore-may-14.html">Saint Carthage of Lismore</a>. I will also be speaking about two people who had a special link to Saint Dymphna, one of them a <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2012/12/ohanlons-lives-of-irish-saints.html">writer on the Irish saints</a> and the other an <a href="https://www.deprocessumartyriali.com/2020/05/the-blessed-john-meagh-sj.html">Irish martyr</a>. <br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So join host Thomas Murphy and myself for an exploration of the
rich heritage of our Irish saints. For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/</p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2020. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-13742265148723825712023-05-11T16:52:00.002+01:002023-05-11T17:08:04.133+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, May 12<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT3zAST5fp8c76ZJL8pmW2EJ0tdlsxd2dTzsp03Sx3ZwvUgywjCCEoZqgn3KdHoLs6qC2F3Jk4A4VAPF2CcgVFmjG9zDmJ9nD1L_MktideD1nY7WSQ2R9DFZRUIppJ4IBz6u1vqU4oUo1-3Kplbh1uNw_AcVpUizVq73TZrP2ryxr2ZpGjfYWitI/s401/index.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="126" data-original-width="401" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT3zAST5fp8c76ZJL8pmW2EJ0tdlsxd2dTzsp03Sx3ZwvUgywjCCEoZqgn3KdHoLs6qC2F3Jk4A4VAPF2CcgVFmjG9zDmJ9nD1L_MktideD1nY7WSQ2R9DFZRUIppJ4IBz6u1vqU4oUo1-3Kplbh1uNw_AcVpUizVq73TZrP2ryxr2ZpGjfYWitI/s320/index.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I will be taking part in another All the Saints of Ireland programme on Radio
Maria Ireland at 7pm on Friday, May 12. Saints featured will include <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2014/05/saint-cathaldus-of-taranto-may-10.html">Saint Cathaldus of Taranto</a>, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2021/05/an-odysseus-of-irish-church.html">Saint Brendan of Clonfert</a>, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/05/saint-comgall-of-bangor-may-10.html">Saint Comgall of Bangor</a> and Irish Carmelite Martyr <a href="https://www.deprocessumartyriali.com/2023/03/brother-peter-of-mother-of-god-odc.html">Brother Peter of the Mother of God.</a> And, as May is the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady, we will also be looking at <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2023/05/mary-virgin-your-own-holy-mother.html">devotion to Her in the Irish Church</a> in the period 700-1200. <br /><p></p><p></p><p>So join host Thomas Murphy and myself for an exploration of the
rich heritage of our Irish saints. For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/</p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-67272999088258594592023-05-10T06:00:00.312+01:002023-05-10T06:00:00.136+01:00'Mary the Virgin: your own holy mother': Devotion to Our Lady in the Early Irish Church<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjm44xPHiOXtrr6ZjwCv0vkXxXYisI5TXNLgYeuJgEn1_8O8XwNwh1APatB4EXLL-n4hWpMwmtRkqwRRSq2H6pJFD-q_M52D6HvEXJEWOp0u1FNC8i-IzZR3K3UKB9O9XKlxrWoyj1qNmPqs5iwyZ8BQ6vI2C9ZodGsArP01_r6Zz6bZpTiNqVW0c/s4899/IMGP1107.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4899" data-original-width="3072" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjm44xPHiOXtrr6ZjwCv0vkXxXYisI5TXNLgYeuJgEn1_8O8XwNwh1APatB4EXLL-n4hWpMwmtRkqwRRSq2H6pJFD-q_M52D6HvEXJEWOp0u1FNC8i-IzZR3K3UKB9O9XKlxrWoyj1qNmPqs5iwyZ8BQ6vI2C9ZodGsArP01_r6Zz6bZpTiNqVW0c/s320/IMGP1107.JPG" width="201" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Lady of Dunsford, Co. Down<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />As May is the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady, I have been enjoying some of the early Irish sources which pay tribute to her. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the year 431, the year in which Pope Celestine sent Palladius as the first bishop to the Irish believing in Christ, is the same year in which Saint Cyril of Alexandria was defending Mary's claim to be <i>Theotokos</i>, the god-bearer, at the Council of Ephesus. So, what evidence is there of devotion to Our Lady in the centuries following Christianity's arrival up until the year 1200?<br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">I will begin with the Irish calendars which refer to both the person of the Blessed Virgin and to her feast days. The Prologue to the ninth-century <i>Martyrology of Oengus</i> draws a contrast between Pilate's haughty queen 'whose splendour has vanished since she went into into a place of mould. Not so is Mary the Virgin..Adam's race...magnifies her, with a host of angels.' Saint Oengus often describes Christ in relation to His Mother as the 'Son of holy Mary' or as 'Mary's great Son', and he begs God in the Epilogue to his Martyrology to 'heal my heart for sake of Mary's Son'. He is no less enthusiastic when recording Marian feasts. February 2 is 'The reception of Mary's Son in the Temple', August 15 the 'great feast of her commemoration, very Mother of our Father, with a host of kings, right splendid assembly!', September 8 is the day 'Thou shalt commemorate Mary' and at December 25 he declares 'At great marvellous Christmas, Christ from white-pure Mary was born'. We can find the idea of Our Lady as Queen of All Saints reflected in the Irish Martyrologies too. In the Epilogue to the <i>Martyrology of Oengus,</i> there is a description of the various companies of heaven being grouped around important figures of the universal Church. Stanza 249 begins with 'the troop of martyrs around Stephen' and ends with 'the troop of holy virgins around Mary.' The later martyrologist, Marianus O'Gorman, whose very name is a Latinization of the Irish <i>Máel Muire, </i>meaning someone devoted to Our Lady,<i> </i>records at November 1 'On the venerable day of Allhallowtide behold ye the Lord Himself, the angels, a mystical band and all the saints of heaven, hosts with clear white purity, around great honourable Mary.' </p><p>Irish monastic poems, hymns and devotional texts reflect the same understanding. A Litany to Christ known as the <i>Scúap chrábaid</i> ‘The Broom of Devotion’, ascribed to Colcu úa Duinechda, an eighth-century scholar and lector from Clonmacnoise, includes this petition "I beseech you by all the holy virgins throughout the whole world, with Mary the Virgin, your own holy mother'. Later the author begs to be heard 'For the sake of the pure and holy flesh which you received from the womb of the virgin' and 'For the sake of the holy womb from which you received that flesh without loss of dignity'. Also from the eighth century are the two poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan, published in 1964 by Professor James Carney, having been re-discovered as a neglected seventeenth-century manuscript of Friar Michael O'Clery's in the National Library of Ireland in the 1950s. The poet addresses both of his works to Our Lady and the first poem is all the more remarkable because it begins with Blathmac wishing to join with Her in keening Her son: </p><div style="text-align: left;">Come to me loving Mary that I may keen</div><div style="text-align: left;">with you very dear one.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Alas that your son should go to the cross, </div><div style="text-align: left;">he who was a great emblem, a beautiful hero. <br /></div><div class="page" title="Page 265"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><br /></div><div class="column">The image of Our Lady of Sorrows is something we associate more with the later Middle Ages, with Saint Brigid of Sweden, with the Servites etc., yet here this Irish poet centuries earlier wishes to compassionate the sorrowful mother. He ends his poem saying:</div><div class="column"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Come to me loving Mary,<br /></div><div class="column"><div style="text-align: left;">head of pure faith,</div><div style="text-align: left;">that we may hold converse with the </div>compassion of unblemished heart. Come.</div><div class="column"><br /></div><div class="column">Blathmac also uses a particularly Irish form of endearment when seeking Our Lady's intercessory power, asking:</div><div class="column"> </div><div class="column"> Let me have from you my three petitions, </div><div class="column">beautiful Mary, little bright-necked one; </div><div class="column">get them, sun of women, </div><div class="column">from your Son who has them in His power'. </div><div class="column"><br /></div><div class="column">Another eighth-century work of special interest is the hymn composed by Cú Cuimhne of Iona, <i>Cantemus in omni die, </i><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">'Let us sing every day... a hymn worthy of holy Mary. I have previously published a Victorian hymnographer's translation of the text <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2017/12/the-hymn-of-saint-cuchumneus-in-praise.html">here</a>, but below is a more recent and literal translation:</span></div><div class="column"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"> </span></div><div class="column"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Let us sing every day,<br />harmonising in turns,<br />together proclaiming to God<br />a hymn worthy of holy Mary.<br /><br />In two-fold chorus, from side to side,<br />let us praise Mary,<br />so that the voice strikes every ear<br />with alternating praise.<br /><br />Mary of the Tribe of Judah,<br />Mother of the Most High Lord,<br />gave fitting care<br />to languishing mankind.<br /><br />Gabriel first brought the Word<br />from the Father’s bosom<br />which was conceived and received<br />in the Mother’s womb.<br /><br />She is the most high, she the holy<br />venerable Virgin<br />who by faith did not draw back,<br />but stood forth firmly.<br /><br />None has been found, before or since,<br />like this mother - <br />not out of all the descendants <br />of the human race.<br /><br />By a woman and a tree <br />the world first perished;<br />by the power of a woman<br />it has returned to salvation<br /><br />Mary, amazing mother,<br />gave birth to her Father,<br />through whom the whole wide world, <br />washed by water, has believed.<br /><br />She conceived the pearl<br />- they are not empty dreams-<br />for which sensible Christians<br />have sold all they have.<br /><br />The mother of Christ had made<br />a tunic of a seamless weave;<br />Christ’s death accomplished,<br />it remained thus by casting of lots.<br /><br />Let us put on the armour of light,<br />the breastplate and helmet,<br />that we might be perfected by God,<br />taken up by Mary.<br /><br />Truly, truly, we implore,<br />by the merits of the Child-bearer,<br />that the flame of the dread fire<br />be not able to ensnare us.<br /><br />Let us call on the name of Christ,<br />below the angel witness,<br />that we may delight and be inscribed<br />in letters in the heavens.</span></div><div class="column"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"> <br /></span></div>In addition to these devotional texts, we also have an Irish apocryphal text, the <i>Transitus Mariae</i>, the Passage of Mary, which deals with the traditions surrounding Her Assumption into heaven. Scholars believe these traditions reached Ireland, possibly from Syria, in the seventh century. Here is how the <i>Transitus Mariae</i> depicts the end of Our Lady's life:</div><div class="layoutArea"></div><blockquote><div class="layoutArea">24 Thereupon Christ, son of the living God, came with the angels of heaven, who were singing heavenly harmonies for the Saviour, and in honour of Mary. Christ greeted the apostles, and Mary saluted him, saying: "I bless you, son of the heavenly father. You have fulfilled all your promises, and have come yourself [for me]". </div><div class="layoutArea"><br /></div><div class="layoutArea">25-27 When Mary had finished saying these words, the spirit of life departed from her, and the Saviour took it in his hands with reverence and honour. The archangels of heaven rose up around her, and the apostles saw her being raised up by the angels, in human form, and seven times brighter than the sun. Then the apostles enquired whether there was any other soul as bright as the soul of Mary. Jesus answered and said to Peter: "All souls are like that after baptism. When in the world, the darkness of bodily sin adheres to them. No one else in the world is able to avoid sin as Mary could, therefore Mary's soul is brighter than the soul of every other person in the world". </div></blockquote><div class="layoutArea"></div><div class="layoutArea"></div><div class="layoutArea"> Finally, we have the tradition of regarding our national patroness Saint Brigid as <i>Muire na nGael</i>, the Mary of the Irish, a type of the Virgin Mary. This tradition can be traced through the centuries beginning with the early seventh-century prophecy preserved in genealogical sources relating to Leinster. It tells of the great saint to come ..'who shall be called, from her great virtues, truly pious Brigit; she will be another Mary, mother of the great Lord'. Various of the <i>Lives</i> of Saint Brigid describe her in similar terms, and she is equated with Mary in the <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2012/11/the-list-of-irish-parallel-saints.html">List of Parallel Saints</a>, which compares Irish saints with important figures of the universal Church. And I can think of no better way to close than with the ending to the hymn of Saint Broccán Clóen, published by the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, in his <i>Trias Thaumaturga</i> which says:</div><div class="layoutArea"> </div><div class="layoutArea"> 'There are two virgins in heaven who will not give me a forgetful protection, Mary, and Saint Brigid. Under the protection of them both may we remain'. </div><div class="layoutArea"> </div><div class="layoutArea">Amen to that.</div><div class="layoutArea"><br />
</div><div class="layoutArea"><b>Sources and Resources:</b></div><div class="layoutArea"><br />
</div><div class="layoutArea">The two major historical studies of devotion to Our Lady in Ireland I used are (1) Helena Concannon's<i> The Queen of Ireland: An Historical Account of Ireland's Devotion to the Blessed Virgin</i> (Dublin, 1938) and (2) Peter O'Dwyer, O.CARM., <i>Mary: A history of devotion in Ireland</i> (Dublin 1988). </div><div class="layoutArea"><br /></div><div class="layoutArea">Translations of the Irish martyrologies are available through the Internet Archive at https://archive.org</div><div class="layoutArea"> </div><div class="layoutArea">For the poems of Blathmac see James P. Carney [ed.], <i>The poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan: together with the Irish Gospel of Thomas and a poem on the Virgin Mary</i>, Irish Texts Society, 47, London: Irish Texts Society, 1964.</div><div class="layoutArea"><br /></div><div class="layoutArea">The 'Broom of Devotion' is one of the texts included in the collection edited by Oliver Davies and Thomas O'Loughlin <span><cite>Celtic Spirituality. Classics of Western Spirituality </cite></span>(Paulist Press, 1999).<span><span> </span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span>The translation of <i>Cantemus in omni die</i> can be found in the anthology edited by T.O. Clancy and G. Márkus O.P., <i>Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery</i> (University of Edinburgh Press, 1995).</span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span>The <i>Transitus Mariae</i> is among the texts included in M. Herbert and M. McNamara MSC., <i>Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation</i> ( Edinburgh, 1989). </span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span>Sources for Saint Brigid can be found in Noel Kissane, <i>Saint Brigid of Kildare- Life, Legend and Cult </i>(Dublin, 2017). </span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div class="layoutArea"><span><span>Finally, the photograph shows the medieval stone statue of Our Lady of Dunsford taken on a visit to Saint Mary's church in Chapeltown in 2017. Local historian Duane Fitzsimons has written a book about the statue's rediscovery and the parish which houses it called <i>Under the Shade of Our Lady's Sweet Image - The Story of a Unique Coastal Parish in the Diocese of Down and Connor</i> (Killyleagh, 2016).<br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-298708829805673792023-05-01T06:00:00.054+01:002023-05-07T12:17:11.699+01:00The Old Irish Litany of Our Lady<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihd8FqIJ60kyXvcAXcj7i8ibtJGThy0BBhFDN7RYwMnGTOQjoZazc-mO9sM4Yk10nfX5OgcibmPRZl5C1t67T5EEKNWdpB2w_xGTTN_3M6j8Qp_zcCIdciEkvd3EAFyrPZZzlMoiz1A8nsjKHCf7UNZ6xqWhn25LemoR3Hcf1ZtDEZx-Lawb0rkh0/s1082/ancientirishlita00unknuoft_0005.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="710" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihd8FqIJ60kyXvcAXcj7i8ibtJGThy0BBhFDN7RYwMnGTOQjoZazc-mO9sM4Yk10nfX5OgcibmPRZl5C1t67T5EEKNWdpB2w_xGTTN_3M6j8Qp_zcCIdciEkvd3EAFyrPZZzlMoiz1A8nsjKHCf7UNZ6xqWhn25LemoR3Hcf1ZtDEZx-Lawb0rkh0/s320/ancientirishlita00unknuoft_0005.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br />May is the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady and below is the translation of an Old Irish Litany in her honour. It has been taken from a work in the public
domain, which includes not only the Irish original but also a Latin
translation to enable its use by Catholic religious
communities. Professor Eugene O'Curry, who first drew attention to the
existence of this text, described it on page 380 of his 1861 <i>Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History</i>, as:<br /><p></p><p></p><blockquote>A beautiful and ancient litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, differing in
many ways from her litany in other languages, and clearly showing that,
although it may be an imitation, it is not a translation. I believe it
to be as old, at least, as the middle of the eighth century. It consists
of sixty invocations, beginning: "O great Mary! O Mary, greatest of
all Marys! O greatest of women! O Queen of angels," etc., and it
concludes with a beautiful and eloquent entreaty that she will lay the
unworthy prayers, sighs, and groans of us sinners before her merciful
Son, backed by her own all-powerful advocacy for the forgiveness of
their sins.'</blockquote><p>Not everyone agreed. Fellow nineteenth-century scholar and translator Whitley Stokes questioned O'Curry's decision to describe the prayer as a litany and felt that the form of the Irish used suggested it was more likely to be a twelfth-century composition. Irish Jesuit, Father Patrick Bartley, published an article on the subject in <i>The Irish Monthly</i> in 1919. He too questioned the text's description as a litany, saying:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote>In 1862, the Rector of the Catholic University, Monsignor Woodlock, petitioned Pope Pius IX to "attach Indulgences to the following <i>Prayer, </i>or Litany of the Blessed Virgin", i.e. the Old Irish Litany. In the brief granting the Indulgence, the Pope never uses the term "Litany". He speaks twice of a "Prayer" and once of a "Pious Prayer or Form of Supplication". This cautious phraseology seems to indicate a doubt as to whether the prayer is really a litany. </blockquote>Various continental clerics added to the debate. A German priest, Father Joseph Sauren, in his 1895 study <i>Die Lauretanische Litanei</i>, accepted O'Curry's view completely and declared that this Irish prayer was the oldest known Litany of the Blessed Virgin, pre-dating the Litany of Loretto by centuries. Italian Jesuit, Father Angelo de Santi, writing two years later on the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin strongly disagreed, saying:<p></p><p></p><blockquote>We cannot accept as a litany properly so called a composition totally lacking the essential form of a litany. There is no question here of anything more than simple praises of the Blessed Virgin, praises followed by a beautiful and charming prayer. We may add that these laudatory titles closely resemble invocations frequently found in the 'Praises of Mary', which were so common in the middle ages.</blockquote>Father Bartley's sympathies were with his Italian <span><span data-dobid="hdw">confrère, saying:</span></span><p></p><p><span><span data-dobid="hdw"></span></span></p><blockquote>A litany, as usually understood, consists of a series of invocations, <i>to each of which a petition is attached</i>. The beautiful prayer at the end of the Old Irish Litany contains a long list of petitions... but there is nothing to show that any of these petitions were repeated after the invocations in the way characteristic of litanies. Neither is there any evidence that a petition such as "Pray for us" was repeated after each title of Our Lady. There is, therefore, no positive proof that "the essential form of a litany" was observed in the case of the Old Irish Litany. In the absence of such proof, its claim to rank as a true litany cannot be established. </blockquote><p>Rev. Patrick Bartley, S.J., 'The Old Irish Litany' in <i>The Irish Monthly</i>, Vol. 47, <span class="src" data-qa="item-src-info" data-v-b8cfe0ba="">No. 552 (June, 1919), pp. 293-300.</span></p><p><span class="src" data-qa="item-src-info" data-v-b8cfe0ba="">Father Bartley went on to discuss the possible sources on which this Old Irish Litany may have drawn, concluding that two medieval sermons known as the <i>Sermones Dubii</i> of Saint Ildephonsus, which share about half the titles given to Our Lady in the Irish text and in the same order, were the most likely candidates. In addition, both Litany and Sermons had probably borrowed from a common source, most likely a hymn. But whatever its source, status or dating, there is no doubt that what remains known as the Old Irish Litany of Our Lady is a beautiful song of praise in Her honour: </span> </p> <p></p><p></p><blockquote>O GREAT Mary, <br />Mary, greatest of Marys, <br />Most great of women, <br />Queen of the angels, <br />Mistress of the heavens, <br />Woman full and replete with the grace of the Holy Spirit, <br />Blessed and most blessed, <br />Mother of eternal glory, <br />Mother of the heavenly and earthly Church, <br />Mother of love and indulgence, <br />Mother of the golden light, <br />Honor of the sky, <br />Harbinger of peace. <br />Gate of heaven, <br />Golden casket, <br />Couch of love and mercy, <br />Temple of the Divinity, <br />Beauty of virgins, <br />Mistress of the tribes, <br />Fountain of the gardens, <br />Cleansing of sins, <br />Washing of souls, <br />Mother of orphans, <br />Breast of the infants, <br />Refuge of the wretched, <br />Star of the sea, <br />Handmaid of God, <br />Mother of Christ, <br />Abode of the Godhead, <br />Graceful as the dove, <br />Serene like the moon, <br />Resplendent like the sun, <br />Destruction of Eve's disgrace, <br />Regeneration of life, <br />Perfection of women, <br />Chief of the virgins, <br />Garden enclosed, <br />Fountain sealed, <br />Mother of God, <br />Perpetual Virgin, <br />Holy Virgin, <br />Prudent Virgin, <br />Serene Virgin, <br />Chaste Virgin, <br />Temple of the Living God, <br />Throne of the Eternal King, <br />Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, <br />Virgin of the root of Jesse, <br />Cedar of Mount Lebanon, <br />Cypress of Mount Sion, <br />Crimson rose in the land of Jacob, <br />Fruitful like the olive, <br />Blooming like the palm, <br />Glorious son-bearer, <br />Light of Nazareth, <br />Glory of Jerusalem, <br />Beauty of the world, <br />Noblest born of the Christian people, <br />Queen of life, <br />Ladder of Heaven, </blockquote><blockquote>Hear the petition of the poor; spurn not the wounds and the groans of the miserable. <br /><br />Let
our devotion and our sighs be carried through thee to the presence of
the Creator, for we are not ourselves worthy of being heard because of
our evil deserts. <br />O powerful Mistress of heaven and earth, wipe out our trespasses and our sins. <br />Destroy our wickedness and depravity. <br /><br />Raise the fallen, the debilitated, and the fettered. Loose the condemned. <br />Repair through thyself the transgressions of our immorality and our vices. <br />Bestow
upon us through thyself the blossoms and ornaments of good actions and
virtues. Appease for us the Judge by thy prayers and thy supplications.
Allow us not, for mercy's sake, to be carried off from thee among the
spoils of our enemies. Allow not our souls to be condemned, but take us
to thyself for ever under thy protection. <br /><br />We, moreover, beseech
and pray thee, holy Mary, to obtain, through thy potent supplication,
before thy only Son, that is, Jesus Christ, the son of the living God,
that God may defend us from all straits and temptations. Obtain also for
us from the God of Creation the forgiveness and remission of all our
sins and trespasses, and that we may receive from Him further, through
thy intercession, the everlasting habitation of the heavenly kingdom,
through all eternity, in the presence of the saints and the saintly
virgins of the world; which may we deserve, may we enjoy, in saecula
sceculorum. Amen.</blockquote><br />Rev. John Greene, S.J. ed., <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/ancientirishlita00unknuoft"> Ancient Irish Litany of the Ever Blessed Mother of God in the original Irish with translations in English and Latin</a> (New York, 1880).<p></p><p></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-83563478334196649492023-04-14T06:00:00.244+01:002023-04-14T11:22:45.931+01:00All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria, April 14<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixhXHje7rbDYFAI8K1oxBH4p5PQIAZTPv6gjTUwbRpRlwhiKRUJHpBNOIorOBdCo8fK0Tu1asU6-_cy86PttzdsSieDhtAgsRliojuzwq4gCgu82G9VfvkTOnq7xQVV39SP2CjIHmnlrZ0vPc1SA0gOZennCBSxkqCCUxSdG-EzkhaMWUj7dqrkTQ/s401/index.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="126" data-original-width="401" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixhXHje7rbDYFAI8K1oxBH4p5PQIAZTPv6gjTUwbRpRlwhiKRUJHpBNOIorOBdCo8fK0Tu1asU6-_cy86PttzdsSieDhtAgsRliojuzwq4gCgu82G9VfvkTOnq7xQVV39SP2CjIHmnlrZ0vPc1SA0gOZennCBSxkqCCUxSdG-EzkhaMWUj7dqrkTQ/s320/index.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> I will be taking part in another All the Saints of Ireland show on Radio
Maria Ireland at 7pm on Friday, April 14. Tonight I will share some of the Patrician flavour to the calendar for the month of April with <a href="http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-feast-of-saint-patricks-first.html">The Feast of Saint Patrick's First Baptism</a> on April 5, <a href="http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspot.com/2015/04/feast-of-ordination-of-saint-patrick.html">The Feast of Saint Patrick's Ordination</a> on April 6 as well as some of the saints associated with his mission in County Down. These include <a href="http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/saint-dichu-of-saul-april-29.html">Dichú of Saul</a>, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2015/04/saint-ros-of-downpatrick-april-7.html">Ros of Downpatrick</a>, and <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2023/04/saint-tassach-of-raholp-april-14.html">Tassach of Raholp.</a> You can see some of the localities featured at my other site <a href="https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/03/in-footsteps-of-saint-patrick-around.html ">here</a>. I will also be looking at Saint Tassach's association with the <i>Bachall Ísu, </i>the Staff of Jesus<i>, </i>the<i> </i>most famous of Saint Patrick's relics in the medieval period. The March 2018 archive at my Trias Thaumaturga site contains a short series of posts on the fascinating history of this relic but a summary from March 2023 can be found <a href="https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2017/08/saint-patricks-staff-of-jesus.html">here</a>. I will also be looking at the hagiographers' accounts of how Saint Brigid spent her Easter and at the question of where she was born. A recent addition to the blog, <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2023/04/saint-fionan-cam-of-kinnity-april-7.html ">Saint Fíonán Cam</a>, will feature too.<br /><p></p><p>So join host Thomas Murphy and myself for an exploration of the
rich heritage of our Irish saints. For details of how to listen to the
programme see: https://www.radiomaria.ie/how-to-listen/</p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p><p><br /></p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6163145857211344412.post-91199090842657507282023-04-14T06:00:00.163+01:002023-04-14T06:00:00.163+01:00Saint Tassach of Raholp, April 14<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia3DRBR8aw-mbJbRV4OpkbjNkem91D6pcpNEfBahWGurdNBVPnN-8u4pxk5C6sjrF2i1cLaO9kgNhzjJmLwnyTU7CGsInYk0QmRc_eCLCYU9Lb3EpgOSXYzr9DwgfvLON8_6a9Lw-XTvL7qa6_fsAMaWUvQD0lZTnDtUbXVyoU8q9gcxBLpggJoH0/s4928/IMGP1034.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="4928" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia3DRBR8aw-mbJbRV4OpkbjNkem91D6pcpNEfBahWGurdNBVPnN-8u4pxk5C6sjrF2i1cLaO9kgNhzjJmLwnyTU7CGsInYk0QmRc_eCLCYU9Lb3EpgOSXYzr9DwgfvLON8_6a9Lw-XTvL7qa6_fsAMaWUvQD0lZTnDtUbXVyoU8q9gcxBLpggJoH0/s320/IMGP1034.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Tassach's Church <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />April 14 is the feast of Saint Tassach of Raholp, an early saint in the Lecale district of County Down. He features in the hagiography of Saint Patrick where he is credited with bringing the Viaticum to Saint Patrick on his deathbed but is also depicted as Saint Patrick's artisan. In this role as a skilled metalworker Tassach's most famous commission was perhaps the making of 'a case for the staff of Jesus', the most celebrated of Saint Patrick's relics. In 2018 I made a short series of posts on this fascinating relic at my Trias Thaumaturga site and published a summary last month <a href="https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2018/03/saint-patrick-and-staff-of-jesus.html">here</a>. Although he has always been firmly associated with the Lecale district of County Down, Saint Tassach later becomes confounded with <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/04/saint-assicus-of-elphin-april-27.html">Saint Assicus</a>, the diocesan patron of Elphin, whose feast also falls this month on April 27th. I have previously posted Canon O'Hanlon's account of Saint Tassach <a href="http://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/04/saint-tassach-of-raholp-april-14.html">here</a> but below is a reminder of his career taken from Father James O'Laverty's monumental work on The Diocese of Down and Connor, the final volume of which looks at the Bishops of the diocese: <br /><p></p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote><p>THE SEE OF RAHOLP (RATH-COLPA). <br /><br />Tassach, who gave
communion to St. Patrick, immediately before his death, in
Saul, is styled Bishop of Rath-Colpa in the ancient documents,
commemorating that event. The Hymn of St. Fiech, Bishop of
Sletty, a contemporary poet, thus notices it : — <br /><br />"Tassach
remained after him, when he had given the communion to him.
He said that would soon go: Tassach's word was not false."
Dr. Whitley Stokes translates the following ancient note on
this passage, written in the margin of the Franciscan copy of
the Liber Hymnorum, <br /><br />Tassach— Patrick's artisan. "He is
the first that made a case for Jesus' staff *, and Raholp, to
the east of Down, is his church." <br /><br />St. Aengus, in his Calendar, treating of the 14th of April, <br />St. Tassach's festival, gives the following stanza: — <br /><br />The royal bishop Tassach <br />Gave when he came <br />The body of Christ, the truly strong King, <br />By the communion to Patrick. <br /><br />On this passage, the Leabhar Breacc enters the note: — <br />Tassach,
to wit, in Raholp, in Lecale, in Ulster— that is Tassach,
Patrick's artisan and bishop. And this is the festival of
his decease. <br /><br />From these ancient documents we see that
the glorious privilege of having given the Viaticum to our
national apostle forms the distinguishing trait in the notice of
St. Tassach. The Martyrology of Donegal at the 14th of April,
says: — "Tassach of Raholp, in Ulidia i.e. Lecale. This is the
Tassach who gave the body of Christ to St. Patrick before
his death in the monastery of Saul." </p><p>In a sub-denomination of
the townland of Raholp, called Banaghan, or Banagh, are the
ruins of the ancient church of Raholp, locally called
Church-Moyley. The church was 33 feet 4 inches in length and
21 feet 4 inches in width. <br /></p><p>Dr. Reeves writes of it — " The
south wall is overturned; the east and west walls are about
12 feet high; the east window is 4 feet 6 inches high and
10 inches wide, splayed inside to the width of 3 feet 2
inches, and ends not in an arch, but in a large flag. In
building the walls yellow clay has been used instead of
mortar. The plot of ground which the ruins and cemetery occupy
is about half a rood in extent, and seems from its elevation
above surrounding field to have been a rath." Dr. Todd, in
the Obits and Martyrology of Christ Church, surmises that
Tassach may have become first bishop Elphin— " In part II., c.
39, Vit. Trip. Assicus, first Bishop of Elphin, is called
"faber aeris S. Patricii." One can hardly help suspecting that
Assicus and Thassicus were one and the same: especially as
the former is not mentioned in the ancient Martyrology of
Aengus." <br /></p><p>St. Tassach seems to have been the only
bishop of Raholp; at least our early annals do not record any
succession, the lands of the ancient church, however, merged
into the see lands of the diocese of Down, and even after the
change in religion, remained in possession of the protestant
bishop until the disestablishment...<br /></p><p>* <i>Baculus Jesu</i>
was a celebrated crozier, brought to Ireland by St. Patrick.
St. Bernard mentions it in his Life of St. Malachy, as one of
those insignia, which were supposed to confer on the possessor
a title, to be considered the successor of St. Patrick. It
was carried off from Armagh, A.D. 1180, by the English, and
deposited in Christ Church, Dublin, where it remained to the
year 1538, when Browne, the first Protestant Archbishop, caused
it to be publicly burned by the common hangman, as an
instrument of superstition. </p></blockquote><p>Rev. James O'Laverty, <i>An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern</i>, Vol. V (Dublin, 1895), 23-24.</p><p>Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.</p>Marcellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02234781374292930330noreply@blogger.com0