[1]It is a common tradition that Columcille would not allow a cow on Iona, because, said he, "where there is a cow there will be a woman"! This tradition is entirely contradicted, however, by Adamnan's life.
[1]It is a common tradition that Columcille would not allow a cow on Iona, because, said he, "where there is a cow there will be a woman"! This tradition is entirely contradicted, however, by Adamnan's life.
[2]Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 169.
[2]Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 169.
[3]There is a story of Columcille when in Aran discovering the grave of an "abbot of Jerusalem" who had come to see Enda, and died there, printed by Kuno Meyer from Rawlinson B. 512 in the "Gaelic Journal," vol. iv. p. 162.
[3]There is a story of Columcille when in Aran discovering the grave of an "abbot of Jerusalem" who had come to see Enda, and died there, printed by Kuno Meyer from Rawlinson B. 512 in the "Gaelic Journal," vol. iv. p. 162.
[4]Literally: "Farewell from me to Ara, it is it anguishes my heart not to be in the west among her waves, amid groups of the saints of heaven. It is far, alas! it is far, alas! I have been sent from Ara West, out towards the population of Mona to visit the Albanachs. Ara sun, oh Ara sun, my affection lies buried in her in the west, it is the same to be beneath her pure soil as to be beneath the soil of Paul and Peter. Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, may he be given for it shortness of life and hell. Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, may their cattle decay and their children, and be he himself on the other side (of this life) in evil plight. O Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her," etc.
[4]Literally: "Farewell from me to Ara, it is it anguishes my heart not to be in the west among her waves, amid groups of the saints of heaven. It is far, alas! it is far, alas! I have been sent from Ara West, out towards the population of Mona to visit the Albanachs. Ara sun, oh Ara sun, my affection lies buried in her in the west, it is the same to be beneath her pure soil as to be beneath the soil of Paul and Peter. Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, may he be given for it shortness of life and hell. Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, may their cattle decay and their children, and be he himself on the other side (of this life) in evil plight. O Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her," etc.
[5]See ch. VII, note1.
[5]See ch. VII, note1.
[6]It has been edited both by a Frenchman, M. Jubinal, and a German, Karl Schroeder, from eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth century MSS. preserved in Paris, Leipsic, and Wolfenbuttel, and by Cardinal Moran from, I believe, a ninth-century one in the Vatican. Giraldus Cambrensis alludes to it as well known in his time, "Hæc autem si quis audire gestierit qui de vita Brendani scriptus est libellum legat" ("Top. Hib.," II. ch. 43). There is a copy of Brendan's acts in the so-called Book of Kilkenny in Marsh's Library, Dublin, a MS. of probably the fourteenth century.
[6]It has been edited both by a Frenchman, M. Jubinal, and a German, Karl Schroeder, from eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth century MSS. preserved in Paris, Leipsic, and Wolfenbuttel, and by Cardinal Moran from, I believe, a ninth-century one in the Vatican. Giraldus Cambrensis alludes to it as well known in his time, "Hæc autem si quis audire gestierit qui de vita Brendani scriptus est libellum legat" ("Top. Hib.," II. ch. 43). There is a copy of Brendan's acts in the so-called Book of Kilkenny in Marsh's Library, Dublin, a MS. of probably the fourteenth century.
[7]"Eccles. Hist.," lib. iii. c. 19. He calls him "Furseus, verbo et actibus clarus sedet egregiis insignis virtutibus," and dedicates five pages of Mayer and Lumby's edition to an account of him and his visions.
[7]"Eccles. Hist.," lib. iii. c. 19. He calls him "Furseus, verbo et actibus clarus sedet egregiis insignis virtutibus," and dedicates five pages of Mayer and Lumby's edition to an account of him and his visions.
[8]Father O'Hanlon, in his great work on the Irish saints, has pointed out a large number of close parallels between Fursa's vision and Dante's poem which seem altogether too striking to be fortuitous. (Seevol. i. pp. 115-120.) There are a poem and a litany attributed to St. Fursa in the MS. H. 1. 11. in Trinity College, Dublin. The visions of Purgatory seen by Dryhthelm, a monk of Melrose, as recorded by Bede, which are later than St. Fursa's vision, are conceived very much in the same style, only are much more doctrinal in their purgatorial teaching. "Tracing the course of thought upwards," says Sir Francis Palgrave ("History of Normandy and England"), "we have no difficulty in deducing the poetic genealogy of Dante's 'Inferno' to the Milesian Fursæus."
[8]Father O'Hanlon, in his great work on the Irish saints, has pointed out a large number of close parallels between Fursa's vision and Dante's poem which seem altogether too striking to be fortuitous. (Seevol. i. pp. 115-120.) There are a poem and a litany attributed to St. Fursa in the MS. H. 1. 11. in Trinity College, Dublin. The visions of Purgatory seen by Dryhthelm, a monk of Melrose, as recorded by Bede, which are later than St. Fursa's vision, are conceived very much in the same style, only are much more doctrinal in their purgatorial teaching. "Tracing the course of thought upwards," says Sir Francis Palgrave ("History of Normandy and England"), "we have no difficulty in deducing the poetic genealogy of Dante's 'Inferno' to the Milesian Fursæus."
[9]Seeabove, p.97.
[9]Seeabove, p.97.
[10]The same story, as Whitley Stokes points out, is told in two ninth-century lives of St. Machut, so that a tenth-century version of Sindbad's first voyage cannot have been the origin of it.
[10]The same story, as Whitley Stokes points out, is told in two ninth-century lives of St. Machut, so that a tenth-century version of Sindbad's first voyage cannot have been the origin of it.
[11]This is evidently the passage upon which Keating's description of hell in the "Three Shafts of Death," Leabh. III. allt. ix., x., xi., is modelled. He quite outdoes his predecessor in declamation and exuberance of alliterative adjectives. Compare also the description in the vision of Adamnan of the infernal regions as it is elaborated in the copy in the Leabhar Breac, in contradistinction to the more sober colouring of the older Leabhar na h-Uidhre.
[11]This is evidently the passage upon which Keating's description of hell in the "Three Shafts of Death," Leabh. III. allt. ix., x., xi., is modelled. He quite outdoes his predecessor in declamation and exuberance of alliterative adjectives. Compare also the description in the vision of Adamnan of the infernal regions as it is elaborated in the copy in the Leabhar Breac, in contradistinction to the more sober colouring of the older Leabhar na h-Uidhre.
[12]Beginning:—"Celebra Juda festa Christi gaudiaApostulorum exultans memoria.Claviculari Petri primi pastorisPiscium rete evangelii corporisAlleluia."This hymn, says Dr. Todd, "bears evident marks of the high antiquity claimed for it, and there seem no reasonable grounds for doubting its authenticity."
[12]Beginning:—
"Celebra Juda festa Christi gaudiaApostulorum exultans memoria.
Claviculari Petri primi pastorisPiscium rete evangelii corporisAlleluia."
This hymn, says Dr. Todd, "bears evident marks of the high antiquity claimed for it, and there seem no reasonable grounds for doubting its authenticity."
[13]"The correct system lays down three principles. First, Easter day must be always a Sunday, never on butnext afterthe fourteenth day of the moon; secondly, that fourteenth day of the full moon should be that on or next after the vernal equinox; and thirdly, the equinox itself was invariably assigned to the 21st of March" (Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 234). At Rome the 18th had been regarded as the equinox; St. Patrick, however, rightly laid it down that the equinox took place on the 21st.
[13]"The correct system lays down three principles. First, Easter day must be always a Sunday, never on butnext afterthe fourteenth day of the moon; secondly, that fourteenth day of the full moon should be that on or next after the vernal equinox; and thirdly, the equinox itself was invariably assigned to the 21st of March" (Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 234). At Rome the 18th had been regarded as the equinox; St. Patrick, however, rightly laid it down that the equinox took place on the 21st.
[14]Late professor of Ecclesiastical History in Dublin University.See"Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1892, p. 195.
[14]Late professor of Ecclesiastical History in Dublin University.See"Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1892, p. 195.
[15]The first verse runs thus:—"Ni beir Luimneach for a druimDi sil Muimhneach i Leth CuinnMarbán in noi bu fiú doDo Cuimmine mac Fiachno"—"The lower Shannon bears not upon its surface, of Munster race in Leath Cuinn, any corpse in boat, equal to him, to Cuimin, son of Fiachna." His corpse was apparently brought home by water.
[15]The first verse runs thus:—
"Ni beir Luimneach for a druimDi sil Muimhneach i Leth CuinnMarbán in noi bu fiú doDo Cuimmine mac Fiachno"—
"The lower Shannon bears not upon its surface, of Munster race in Leath Cuinn, any corpse in boat, equal to him, to Cuimin, son of Fiachna." His corpse was apparently brought home by water.
[16]There is a verse ascribed to Ciaran in the "Chronicon Scotorum," beginning "Darerca mo mháthair-si," and a poem ascribed to him in H. 1. 11. Trinity College, Dublin.
[16]There is a verse ascribed to Ciaran in the "Chronicon Scotorum," beginning "Darerca mo mháthair-si," and a poem ascribed to him in H. 1. 11. Trinity College, Dublin.
[17]Thus admirably translated by my friend Mr. Rolleston in "Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland," Dublin, 1888, a little volume which seems to have been the precursor of a considerable literary movement in Ireland. Literally: "The city of Ciaran of Clonmacnois, a dewy-bright red-rose town, of its royal seed, of lasting fame, the hosts in the pure-streamed peaceful town. The nobles of the clan of Conn are in the flag-laid brown-sloped churchyard, a knot or a branch above each body and a fair correct name in Ogam. The sons of Cairbré over the seven territories, the seven great princes from Tara, many a sheltering standard on a field of battle is with the people of Ciaran's Plain of Crosses. The men of Teffia, the tribes of Breagh were buried beneath the clay of Cluain[macnois]. The valiant and hospitable are yonder beneath the sod, the race of Creidé and the Clan Conaill. Numerous are the sons of Conn of the Battles, with red clay and turf covering them, many a blue eye and white limb under the earth of Clan Colman's tomb." The first verses run in modern spelling thus:"Cáthair Chiaráin Chluain-mic-NóisBaile drucht-solas, dearg-rois.Da shíl rioghraidh is buan bládhSluaigh fá'n sith-bhaile sruth-ghlan.Atáid uaisle cloinne ChuinnFa'n reilig leacaigh learg-dhuinnSnaoidhm no Craobh os gach cholainAgus ainm caomh ceart Oghaim."The clan of Conn here mentioned are principally the Ui Neill and their correlatives. Teffia is something equivalent to Longford, and Breagh to Meath. Clan Creidé are the O'Conors of Connacht, and the Clan Colman principally means the O'Melaughlins and their kin. "Colman mor, a quo Clann Cholmáin ie Maoileachlain cona fflaithibh" (Mac Firbis MS. Book of Genealogies, p. 161 of O'Curry's transcript). Colman was the brother of King Diarmuid, who was slain in 552.
[17]Thus admirably translated by my friend Mr. Rolleston in "Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland," Dublin, 1888, a little volume which seems to have been the precursor of a considerable literary movement in Ireland. Literally: "The city of Ciaran of Clonmacnois, a dewy-bright red-rose town, of its royal seed, of lasting fame, the hosts in the pure-streamed peaceful town. The nobles of the clan of Conn are in the flag-laid brown-sloped churchyard, a knot or a branch above each body and a fair correct name in Ogam. The sons of Cairbré over the seven territories, the seven great princes from Tara, many a sheltering standard on a field of battle is with the people of Ciaran's Plain of Crosses. The men of Teffia, the tribes of Breagh were buried beneath the clay of Cluain[macnois]. The valiant and hospitable are yonder beneath the sod, the race of Creidé and the Clan Conaill. Numerous are the sons of Conn of the Battles, with red clay and turf covering them, many a blue eye and white limb under the earth of Clan Colman's tomb." The first verses run in modern spelling thus:
"Cáthair Chiaráin Chluain-mic-NóisBaile drucht-solas, dearg-rois.Da shíl rioghraidh is buan bládhSluaigh fá'n sith-bhaile sruth-ghlan.
Atáid uaisle cloinne ChuinnFa'n reilig leacaigh learg-dhuinnSnaoidhm no Craobh os gach cholainAgus ainm caomh ceart Oghaim."
The clan of Conn here mentioned are principally the Ui Neill and their correlatives. Teffia is something equivalent to Longford, and Breagh to Meath. Clan Creidé are the O'Conors of Connacht, and the Clan Colman principally means the O'Melaughlins and their kin. "Colman mor, a quo Clann Cholmáin ie Maoileachlain cona fflaithibh" (Mac Firbis MS. Book of Genealogies, p. 161 of O'Curry's transcript). Colman was the brother of King Diarmuid, who was slain in 552.
[18]Published a couple of years ago by the late Father Murphy, S.J., for the Royal Antiquarian Society of Ireland.
[18]Published a couple of years ago by the late Father Murphy, S.J., for the Royal Antiquarian Society of Ireland.
[19]"Airgid cealla ardnaomh Ereann uile ocus as ar altoir Cluana mac Nois do bhereadh Otta bean Tuirghes uirigheall do gach ae[n]" (Mac Firbis MS. of Genealogies, p. 768 in O'Curry's transcript). Also "Gael and Gall," p. 13.
[19]"Airgid cealla ardnaomh Ereann uile ocus as ar altoir Cluana mac Nois do bhereadh Otta bean Tuirghes uirigheall do gach ae[n]" (Mac Firbis MS. of Genealogies, p. 768 in O'Curry's transcript). Also "Gael and Gall," p. 13.
[20]Claudius was Bishop of Turin, and a man of much culture and ability; so disgusted was he with the congregation of ignorant Italian bishops—culture was then at the lowest ebb in Italy—before whom he argued his case that he called them acongregatio asinorum, and says Zimmer, "Ein Ire, Dungal, musste für sie die Vertheidigung des Bilderdienstes übernehmen."
[20]Claudius was Bishop of Turin, and a man of much culture and ability; so disgusted was he with the congregation of ignorant Italian bishops—culture was then at the lowest ebb in Italy—before whom he argued his case that he called them acongregatio asinorum, and says Zimmer, "Ein Ire, Dungal, musste für sie die Vertheidigung des Bilderdienstes übernehmen."
[21]Pronounced "Keevin," not "Kĕvin." The Irish form is Caoimh-[= keev, "aoi" being in Irish always pronounced likeee, and "mh" likev] ghinn, the "g" being aspirated is scarcely pronounced.
[21]Pronounced "Keevin," not "Kĕvin." The Irish form is Caoimh-[= keev, "aoi" being in Irish always pronounced likeee, and "mh" likev] ghinn, the "g" being aspirated is scarcely pronounced.
[22]The celebrated Evangelistarium, or Book of Moling, was, with its case or cover, deposited in Trinity College, Dublin, in the last century by the Kavanaghs of Borris. Giraldus Cambrensis classes Moling as a prophet with Merlin, and as a saint with Patrick and Columba. One of the prophecies assigned to him is given by O'Curry, MS. Mat., p. 427. The oldest copy of any of Moling's poems is in the monastery of St. Paul in Carinthia, contained in a MS. originally brought from Augia Dives, or Reichenau. It is in the most perfect metre, and runs:—"Is en immo niada sásIs nau tholl diant eslinn guas,Is lestar fás, is crann crínNach digni toil ind rig tuas."("He is a bird round which a trap closes,He is a leaky bark in weakness of peril,He is an empty vessel, he is a withered treeWho doth not do the will of the King above.")I.e., "Is eán um a n-iadhann sás / is nau (long) thollta darb' éislinn guais. Is leastar fas (folamh) is crann crion, [an te] nach ndeanann toil an righ shuas."The poem is also given in the Book of Leinster, and contains eight verses. One would perhaps have expected the third line to run, "is crann crín is lestar fás." The St. Paul MS., which is of the eighth century, contains two of Molling's poems, and they scarcely differ in wording or orthography from copies in MSS. six hundred years later.
[22]The celebrated Evangelistarium, or Book of Moling, was, with its case or cover, deposited in Trinity College, Dublin, in the last century by the Kavanaghs of Borris. Giraldus Cambrensis classes Moling as a prophet with Merlin, and as a saint with Patrick and Columba. One of the prophecies assigned to him is given by O'Curry, MS. Mat., p. 427. The oldest copy of any of Moling's poems is in the monastery of St. Paul in Carinthia, contained in a MS. originally brought from Augia Dives, or Reichenau. It is in the most perfect metre, and runs:—
"Is en immo niada sásIs nau tholl diant eslinn guas,Is lestar fás, is crann crínNach digni toil ind rig tuas."
("He is a bird round which a trap closes,He is a leaky bark in weakness of peril,He is an empty vessel, he is a withered treeWho doth not do the will of the King above.")
I.e., "Is eán um a n-iadhann sás / is nau (long) thollta darb' éislinn guais. Is leastar fas (folamh) is crann crion, [an te] nach ndeanann toil an righ shuas."
The poem is also given in the Book of Leinster, and contains eight verses. One would perhaps have expected the third line to run, "is crann crín is lestar fás." The St. Paul MS., which is of the eighth century, contains two of Molling's poems, and they scarcely differ in wording or orthography from copies in MSS. six hundred years later.
[23]Patrick, Columcille, and Berchan of Clonsast, are the others. Even the English settlers had heard of their fame. Baron Finglas, writing in Henry VIII.'s reign, says, "The four saints, St. Patrick, St. Columb, St. Braghane [i.e., Berchan], and St. Moling, which many hundred years agone made prophecy that Englishmen should have conquered Ireland, and said that the said Englishmen should keep their owne laws, and as soon as they should leave, and fall to Irish order, then they should decay, the experience whereof is proved true." (From Ryan's "History and Antiquities of the co. Carlow," p. 93.) A still more curious allusion to the four Irish prophets is one in the Book of Howth, a small vellum folio of the sixteenth century, written in thirteen different hands, published in the Calendar of State Papers. "Men say," recounts the anonymous writer, "that the Irishmen had four prophets in their time, Patrick, Marten [sic], Brahen [i.e., Berchan], and Collumkill. Whosoever hath books in Irish written every of them speak of the fight of this conquest, and saith that long strife and oft fighting shall be for this land, and the land shall be harried and stained with great slaughter of men, but the Englishmen fully shall have the mastery a little before doomsday, and that land shall be from sea to sea i-castled and fully won, but the Englishmen shall be after that well feeble in the land and disdained; so Barcan [Berchan] saith: that through a king shall come out of the wild mountains of St. Patrick's, that much people shall slew and afterwards break a castle in the wooden of Affayle, with that the Englishmen of Ireland shall be destroyed by that." The prophecy that the Englishmen fully shall have the mastery a little before Doomsday is amusingly equivocal!
[23]Patrick, Columcille, and Berchan of Clonsast, are the others. Even the English settlers had heard of their fame. Baron Finglas, writing in Henry VIII.'s reign, says, "The four saints, St. Patrick, St. Columb, St. Braghane [i.e., Berchan], and St. Moling, which many hundred years agone made prophecy that Englishmen should have conquered Ireland, and said that the said Englishmen should keep their owne laws, and as soon as they should leave, and fall to Irish order, then they should decay, the experience whereof is proved true." (From Ryan's "History and Antiquities of the co. Carlow," p. 93.) A still more curious allusion to the four Irish prophets is one in the Book of Howth, a small vellum folio of the sixteenth century, written in thirteen different hands, published in the Calendar of State Papers. "Men say," recounts the anonymous writer, "that the Irishmen had four prophets in their time, Patrick, Marten [sic], Brahen [i.e., Berchan], and Collumkill. Whosoever hath books in Irish written every of them speak of the fight of this conquest, and saith that long strife and oft fighting shall be for this land, and the land shall be harried and stained with great slaughter of men, but the Englishmen fully shall have the mastery a little before doomsday, and that land shall be from sea to sea i-castled and fully won, but the Englishmen shall be after that well feeble in the land and disdained; so Barcan [Berchan] saith: that through a king shall come out of the wild mountains of St. Patrick's, that much people shall slew and afterwards break a castle in the wooden of Affayle, with that the Englishmen of Ireland shall be destroyed by that." The prophecy that the Englishmen fully shall have the mastery a little before Doomsday is amusingly equivocal!
[24]Described in O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 375, but I do not know where the original is.
[24]Described in O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 375, but I do not know where the original is.
[25]Quoted in O'Halloran's "History of Ireland," bk. ix. chap. 4. "Celeres vastissima Rheni / jam vada Teutonici, jam deseruere Sicambri; / Mittit ab extremo gelidos Aquilone Boemos / Albis et Arvenni cöeunt, Batavi-que frequentes, / Et quicunque colunt alta sub rupe Gehennas. / ... Certatim hi properunt diverso tramite ad urbem / Lesmoriam [Lismore] juvenis primos ubi transigit annos."Seealso corroborative proof of the numbers of Gauls, Teutons, Swiss, and Italians visiting Lismore about the year 700 in Ussher's "Antiquities," Works, vi., p. 303.
[25]Quoted in O'Halloran's "History of Ireland," bk. ix. chap. 4. "Celeres vastissima Rheni / jam vada Teutonici, jam deseruere Sicambri; / Mittit ab extremo gelidos Aquilone Boemos / Albis et Arvenni cöeunt, Batavi-que frequentes, / Et quicunque colunt alta sub rupe Gehennas. / ... Certatim hi properunt diverso tramite ad urbem / Lesmoriam [Lismore] juvenis primos ubi transigit annos."Seealso corroborative proof of the numbers of Gauls, Teutons, Swiss, and Italians visiting Lismore about the year 700 in Ussher's "Antiquities," Works, vi., p. 303.
[26]Reprinted by Windisch in his "Irische Texte," Heft 1., p. 5. The first verse runs—"Sén De don fe for don teMac maire ron feladar!For a fhoessam dún anochtCia tiasam, cain temadar,"which is in no wise easy to translate! There are fifty-six verses not all in the same metre. Another acknowledges St. Patrick as a patron saint, it would run thus, in modernised orthography—"Beannacht ar erlám [pátrún] PádraigGo naomhaib Eireann uimeBeannacht ar an gcáthair-seAgus ar chách bhfuil innti!"A three-quarter Latin verse runs thus—"Regem regum rogamus / in nostris sermonibusAnacht Noe a luchtlach / diluvi temporibus."
[26]Reprinted by Windisch in his "Irische Texte," Heft 1., p. 5. The first verse runs—
"Sén De don fe for don teMac maire ron feladar!For a fhoessam dún anochtCia tiasam, cain temadar,"
which is in no wise easy to translate! There are fifty-six verses not all in the same metre. Another acknowledges St. Patrick as a patron saint, it would run thus, in modernised orthography—
"Beannacht ar erlám [pátrún] PádraigGo naomhaib Eireann uimeBeannacht ar an gcáthair-seAgus ar chách bhfuil innti!"
A three-quarter Latin verse runs thus—
"Regem regum rogamus / in nostris sermonibusAnacht Noe a luchtlach / diluvi temporibus."
[27]Seep.67.
[27]Seep.67.
[28]See"Proceedings of R. I. Academy for 1884."
[28]See"Proceedings of R. I. Academy for 1884."
[29]Whose name is preserved in O'Connell's residence, "Derrynane," which is really "Derry-finan" (Doire-Fhionáin).
[29]Whose name is preserved in O'Connell's residence, "Derrynane," which is really "Derry-finan" (Doire-Fhionáin).
[30]Seep.140and Ch. XIII note12.
[30]Seep.140and Ch. XIII note12.
[31]"Habebatur psalterium, cujus unicum tantum quaternionem mihi videre contigit, obelis et asteriscis diligentissime distinctum; collatione cum veritate Hebraica in superiore parte cujusque paginæ posita, et brevibus scholiis ad exteriorem marginem adjectis." (See"Works," vol. vi. p. 544. Quoted by Professor G. Stokes, "Proceedings R. I. Academy," May, 1892.)
[31]"Habebatur psalterium, cujus unicum tantum quaternionem mihi videre contigit, obelis et asteriscis diligentissime distinctum; collatione cum veritate Hebraica in superiore parte cujusque paginæ posita, et brevibus scholiis ad exteriorem marginem adjectis." (See"Works," vol. vi. p. 544. Quoted by Professor G. Stokes, "Proceedings R. I. Academy," May, 1892.)
It is very difficult to say what was exactly the curriculum of the early Irish colleges, and how far they were patronised by laymen. Without doubt their original design was to propagate a more perfect knowledge of the Scriptures and of theological learning in general, but it is equally certain that they must have, almost from the very first, taught the heathen classics and the Irish language side by side with the Scriptures and theology. There is no other possible way of accounting for the admirable scholarship of the men whom they turned out, and for their skill in Latin and often also in Irish poetry. Virgil, Ovid, Terence, and most of the Latin poets must have been widely taught and read. "It is sufficient," says M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, talking of Columbanus who was born in 543, and who was educated at Bangor, on Belfast Loch, "to glance at his writings, immediately to recognise his marvellous superiority over Gregory of Tours and the Gallo-Romans of his time. He lived in close converse with the classical authors, as later on did the learned men of the sixteenth century, whose equal he certainly is not, but of whom he seems a sort of precursor." From the sixth to the sixteenth century is a long leap, and no higher eulogium could be passedupon the scholarship of Columbanus and the training given by his Irish college.[1]All the studies of the time appear to have been taught in them through the medium of the Irish language, not merely theology but arithmetic, rhetoric, poetry, hagiography, natural science as then understood, grammar, chronology, astronomy, Greek, and even Hebrew.
"The classic tradition," sums up M. Darmesteter, "to all appearances dead in Europe, burst out into full flower in the Isle of Saints, and the Renaissance began in Ireland 700 years before it was known in Italy. During three centuries Ireland was the asylum of the higher learning which took sanctuary there from the uncultured states of Europe. At one time Armagh, the religious capital of Christian Ireland, was the metropolis of civilisation.""Ireland," says Babington in his "Fallacies of Race Theories,"[2]"had been admitted into Christendom and to some measure of culture only in the fifth century. At that time Gaul and Italy enjoyed to the full all the knowledge of the age. In the next century the old culture-lands had to turn for some little light and teaching to that remote and lately barbarous land."
"The classic tradition," sums up M. Darmesteter, "to all appearances dead in Europe, burst out into full flower in the Isle of Saints, and the Renaissance began in Ireland 700 years before it was known in Italy. During three centuries Ireland was the asylum of the higher learning which took sanctuary there from the uncultured states of Europe. At one time Armagh, the religious capital of Christian Ireland, was the metropolis of civilisation."
"Ireland," says Babington in his "Fallacies of Race Theories,"[2]"had been admitted into Christendom and to some measure of culture only in the fifth century. At that time Gaul and Italy enjoyed to the full all the knowledge of the age. In the next century the old culture-lands had to turn for some little light and teaching to that remote and lately barbarous land."
When we remember that the darkness of the Middle Ages had already set in over the struggles, agony, and confusion of feudal Europe, and that all knowledge of Greek may be said to have died out upon the Continent—"had elsewhere absolutely vanished," says M. Darmesteter—when we remember that even such a man as Gregory the Great was completely ignorant of it, it will appear extraordinary to find it taught in Ireland alone, out of all the countries of Western Europe.[3]Yet this is capable of complete and manifold proof. Columbanus for instance, shows in his letter to Pope Boniface that he knows something of both Greek and Hebrew.[4]Aileran, who died of the plague in 664, gives evidence of the same in his book on our Lord's genealogy. Cummian's letter to the Abbot of Iona has been referred to before, and, as Professor G. Stokes puts it, "proves the fact to demonstration that in the first half of the seventh century there was a wide range of Greek learning, not ecclesiastical merely, but chronological, astronomical, and philosophical, away at Durrow in the very centre of the Bog of Allen." Augustine, an un-identified Irish monk of the second half of the seventh century, gives many proofs of Greek and Oriental learning and quotes the Chronicles of Eusebius. The later Sedulius, the versatile abbot of Kildare, about the year 820 "makes parade of his Greek knowledge," to quote a French writer in the "Revue Celtique," "employs Greek wordswithout necessity, and translates into Greek a part of the definition of the pronoun."[5]St. Caimins's Psalter, seen by Bishop Ussher with the Hebrew text collated, convinced Dr. Reeves that Hebrew as well as Greek was studied in Ireland about the year 600. Nor did this Greek learning tend to die out. In the middle of the ninth century John Scotus Erigena, summoned from Ireland to France by Charles the Bald, was the only person to be found able to translate the Greek works of the pseudo-Dionysius,[6]thanks to the training he had received in his Irish school. The Book of Armagh contains the Lord's Prayer written in Greek letters, and there is a Greek MS. of the Psalter, written in Sedulius' own hand, now preserved in Paris. Many more Greek texts, at least a dozen, written by Irish monks, are preserved elsewhere in Europe. "These eighth and ninth century Greek MSS.," remarks Professor Stokes, "covered with Irish glosses and Irish poems and Irish notes, have engaged the attention of palæographers and students of the Greek texts of the New Testament during the last two centuries." They are indeed a proof that—as Dr. Reeves puts it—the Irish School "was unquestionably the most advanced of its day in sacred literature."
This remarkable knowledge of Greek was evidently derived from an early and direct commerce with Gaul, where Greek had been spoken for four or five centuries, first alongside of Celtic, and in later times of Latin also.[7]The knowledgeof Hebrew may have been derived from the Egyptian monks who passed over from Gaul into Ireland. Egypt and the East were more or less in close communication with Gaul in the fifth century, and the Irish Litany, ascribed to Angus the Culdee, commemorates seven Egyptian monks amongst many other Gauls, Germans, and Italians who resided in Ireland. The close and constant intercommunication between Greek-speaking Gaul and Ireland accounts for the planting and cultivation of the Greek language in the Irish schools, and once planted there it continued to flourish more or less for some centuries. There is ample evidence to prove the connection between Gaul and Ireland from the fifth to the ninth century. We find Gaulish merchants in the middle of Ireland at Clonmacnois, who had no doubt sailed up the Shannon in the way of commerce, selling wine to Ciaran in the sixth century. We find Columbanus, a little later on, inquiring at Nantes for a vessel engaged in the Irish trade—quæ vexerat commercium cum Hibernia. In Adamnan's Life of Columcille we find mention of Gaulish sailors arriving at Cantire. Adamnan's own treatise on Holy Places was written from the verbal account of a Gaul. In the Old Irish poem on the Fair of Carman in Wexford—a pagan institution which lived on in Christian times—we find mention of the
"Great market of the foreign Greeks,Where gold and noble clothes were wont to be;"[8]
the foreign Greeks being no doubt the Greek-speaking Gaulish merchants. Alcuin sends his gifts of money and oil and his letters direct from Charlemagne's court to his friends in Clonmacnois, probably by a vessel engaged in the direct Irish trade, for, as he himself tells us, the sea-route between England and France was then closed. If more proof of theclose communication between Ireland and Gaul were wanted, the fact that Dagobert II., king of France in the seventh century, was educated at Slane,[9]in Ireland, and also that certain Merovingian and French coins have been found here, should be sufficient.
The fame of these early Irish schools attracted students in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries from all quarters to Ireland, which had now become a veritable land of schools and scholars. The Venerable Bede tells us of the crowds of Anglo-Saxons who flocked over into Ireland during the plague, about the year 664, and says that they were all warmly welcomed by the Irish, who took care that they should be provided with food every day, without payment on their part; that they should have books to read, and that they should receive gratuitous instruction from Irish masters.[10]Books must have already multiplied considerably when the swarms of Anglo-Saxons could thus be supplied with them gratis. This noble tradition of free education to strangers lasted down to the establishment of the so-called "National" schools in Ireland, for down to that time "poor scholars" were freely supported by the people and helped in their studies. The number of scribes whose deaths have been considered worth recording by the annalists is very great, and books consequently must have been very numerous. This plentifulness of books probably added to the renown of the Irish schools. An English prince as well as a French one was educated by them in the seventh century; this was Aldfrid, king of Northumbria, whowas trained in all the learning of Erin, and who always aided and abetted the Irish in England, in opposition to Wilfrid, who opposed them. That the king got a good education in Ireland may be conjectured from the fact that Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated to him a poetic epistle on Latin metric and prosody, in which, says Dr. Healy, "he congratulates the king on his good fortune in having been educated in Ireland." Aldhelm's own master was also an Irishman, Mael-dubh, and his abbacy of Malmesbury is only a corruption of this Irishman's name Maeldubh's-bury.[11]In another place Aldhelm tells us that while the great English school at Canterbury was by no means overcrowded, the English swarmed to the Irish schools like bees. Aldfrid himself, when leaving Ireland, composed a poem of sixty lines in the Irish language and metre, which he must have learned from the bards, in which he compliments each of the provinces severally, as though he meant to thank the whole nation for their hospitality.[12]
"I found in Inisfail the fairIn Ireland, while in exile there,Women of worth, both grave and gay men,Learned clerics, heroic laymen.I travelled its fruitful provinces round,And in every one of the five I found,Alike in church and in palace hall,Abundant apparel and food for all."
St. Willibrord, a Saxon noble educated in Ireland about the same time with King Aldfrid, went out thence and ultimately became Archbishop of Utrecht. Another noted scholar of the same period was Agilbert, a Frank by birth, who spent a long time in Ireland for the purpose of study and afterwards became Bishop of Paris.[13]We have seen how the Office of St. Cathaldus states that the school of Lismore was visited by Gauls, Angles, Scotti, Teutons, and scholars from other neighbouring nations. The same was more or less the case with Clonmacnois, Bangor, and some others of the most noted of the Irish schools.
It was not in Greek attainments, nor in ecclesiastical studies, nor in Latin verses alone, that the Irish excelled; they also produced astronomers like Dungal and geographers like Dicuil. Dungal's attainments we have glanced at, but Dicuil's book—de mensura orbis terrarum—written about the year 825, is more interesting, although nothing is known about the author's own life, nor do we know even the particular Irish school to which he belonged.[14]His book was published by a Frenchman because he found Dicuil's descriptions of the measurements of the Pyramids a thousand years ago tallied with his own.
"Antioch," writes Professor G. Stokes, "about A.D. 600, was the centre of Greek culture and Greek erudition, 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."
"Antioch," writes Professor G. Stokes, "about A.D. 600, was the centre of Greek culture and Greek erudition, 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."
A great deal of his work is founded of course upon Pliny, Solinus, and Priscian, but he shows a highly-developed critical sense in comparing and collating various MSS. which he had inspected to ensure accuracy. What he tells us at first-hand, however, is by far the most interesting. In speaking of the Nile he says that:—
"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 [Sweeny]—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 a long way."
"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 [Sweeny]—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 a long way."
They sailed thence by a canal into the Red Sea, and this statement proves the accuracy of Dicuil, for this canal really existed and continued in use until 767, when it was closed to hinder the people of Mecca and Medina getting supplies from Egypt. The account of the Pyramids is particularly interesting. "The aforesaid Brother Fidelis measured one of them and found that the square face was 400 feet in length." The same brother 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 appeared to him at this point to be about six miles. Dicuil describes Iceland long before it was discovered by the Danes.
"It is now thirty years," said he, writing in 825, "since I was told by some Irish ecclesiastics, who had dwelt in that island from the 1st of February to the 1st of August, that the sun scarcely sets there in summer, but always leaves, even at midnight, light enough to do one's ordinary business—vel pediculos de camisia abstrahere"!
"It is now thirty years," said he, writing in 825, "since I was told by some Irish ecclesiastics, who had dwelt in that island from the 1st of February to the 1st of August, that the sun scarcely sets there in summer, but always leaves, even at midnight, light enough to do one's ordinary business—vel pediculos de camisia abstrahere"!
Those writers are greatly mistaken, he says, who describe the Icelandic sea as always frozen, and who say that there is day there from spring to autumn and from autumn to spring, for the Irish monks sailed thither through the open sea in a monthof great natural cold, and yet found alternate day and night, except about the period of the summer solstice. He also describes the Faroe Isles:—
"A certain trustworthy monk 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.... In these islands for almost a hundred years there dwelt hermits who sailed there from our own Ireland [nostra Scottia], but now they are once more deserted as they were at the beginning, on account of the ravages of the Norman pirates."
"A certain trustworthy monk 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.... In these islands for almost a hundred years there dwelt hermits who sailed there from our own Ireland [nostra Scottia], but now they are once more deserted as they were at the beginning, on account of the ravages of the Norman pirates."
This is proof positive that the Irish discovered and inhabited Iceland and the Faroe Islands half a century or a century before the Northmen. Dicuil was distinguished as a grammarian, metrician, and astronomer,[15]but his geographical treatise, written in his old age, is the most interesting and valuable of his achievements.
Fergil, or Virgilius, as he is usually called, was another great Irish geometer, who eventually became Archbishop of Salzburg and died in 785. He taught the sphericity of the earth and the doctrine of the Antipodes, a truth which seems also to have been familiar to Dicuil. St. Boniface, afterwards Archbishop of Mentz, evidently distorting his doctrine, accused him to the Pope of heresy in teaching that there was another world and other men under the earth, and another sun and moon. "Concerning this charge of false doctrine, if it shall be established," said the Pope, "that Virgil taught this perverse and wicked doctrine against God and his own soul, do you then convoke a council, degrade him from the priesthood, and drive him from the Church." Virgil, however, seems to have satisfactorily explained his position, for nothing was done against him.
These instances help to throw some light upon a most difficult subject—the training given in the early Irish Christian schools, and the cause of their undoubted popularity for three centuries and more amongst the scholars of Western Europe.
[1]Here are a few lines from the well-known Adonic poem which he, at the age of 68, addressed to his friend Fedolius—"Extitit ingensImpia quippeCausa malorumPygmalionisAurea pellis,Regis ob aurumCorruit auriGesta leguntur.Munere parvo* * * * *Cœna Deorum.Ac tribus illisFœmina sœpeMaxima lis estPerdit ob aurumOrta Deabus.Casta pudorem.Hinc populavitNon Jovis auriTrogugenarumFluxit in imbreDitia regnaSed quod adulterDorica pubes.Obtulit aurumJuraque legumAureus illeFasque fides queFingitur imber."Rumpitur aure.Dr. Sigerson in "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 407, prints as Jubainville also does, the whole of this noted poem, and points out that it is shot through and through with Irish assonance. "Not less important than its assonance," writes Dr. Sigerson, "is the fact that it introduces into Latin verse the use of returning words, or burthens with variations, which supply the vital germs of the rondeau and the ballad." I am not myself convinced of what Dr. Sigerson considers marks ofintentionalassonance in almosteveryline.His chief remaining works are a Monastic Rule in ten chapters; a book on the daily penances of the monks; seventeen sermons; a book on the measure of penances; a treatise on the eight principal vices; five epistles written to Gregory the Great and others; and a good many Latin verses. His life is written by the Abbot Jonas, a contemporary of his own.
[1]Here are a few lines from the well-known Adonic poem which he, at the age of 68, addressed to his friend Fedolius—
"Extitit ingensImpia quippeCausa malorumPygmalionisAurea pellis,Regis ob aurumCorruit auriGesta leguntur.Munere parvo* * * * *Cœna Deorum.Ac tribus illisFœmina sœpeMaxima lis estPerdit ob aurumOrta Deabus.Casta pudorem.Hinc populavitNon Jovis auriTrogugenarumFluxit in imbreDitia regnaSed quod adulterDorica pubes.Obtulit aurumJuraque legumAureus illeFasque fides queFingitur imber."Rumpitur aure.
Dr. Sigerson in "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 407, prints as Jubainville also does, the whole of this noted poem, and points out that it is shot through and through with Irish assonance. "Not less important than its assonance," writes Dr. Sigerson, "is the fact that it introduces into Latin verse the use of returning words, or burthens with variations, which supply the vital germs of the rondeau and the ballad." I am not myself convinced of what Dr. Sigerson considers marks ofintentionalassonance in almosteveryline.
His chief remaining works are a Monastic Rule in ten chapters; a book on the daily penances of the monks; seventeen sermons; a book on the measure of penances; a treatise on the eight principal vices; five epistles written to Gregory the Great and others; and a good many Latin verses. His life is written by the Abbot Jonas, a contemporary of his own.
[2]P. 122.
[2]P. 122.
[3]"Grössere oder geringere Kenntniss klassischen Alterthums, vor allem Kenntniss des Griechischen ist daher in jener Zeit ein Mazstab sowohl für die Bildung einer einzelnen Persönlichkeit als auch fur den Culturgrad eines ganzen Zeitalters" (Zimmer, "Preussische Jahrbûcher," January, 1887).
[3]"Grössere oder geringere Kenntniss klassischen Alterthums, vor allem Kenntniss des Griechischen ist daher in jener Zeit ein Mazstab sowohl für die Bildung einer einzelnen Persönlichkeit als auch fur den Culturgrad eines ganzen Zeitalters" (Zimmer, "Preussische Jahrbûcher," January, 1887).
[4]He plays on his own name Columba, "a dove," and turns it into Greek and Hebrew, περιστερά and הנוי.
[4]He plays on his own name Columba, "a dove," and turns it into Greek and Hebrew, περιστερά and הנוי.
[5]Dr. Sigerson prints an admirably graceful poem either by this or another Sedulius of the ninth century at p. 411 of his "Bards of the Gael and Gaul." It shows how far from being pedants the Irish monks were. This poem is a dispute between the rose and lily.
[5]Dr. Sigerson prints an admirably graceful poem either by this or another Sedulius of the ninth century at p. 411 of his "Bards of the Gael and Gaul." It shows how far from being pedants the Irish monks were. This poem is a dispute between the rose and lily.
[6]This translation which Charles sent to the Pope threw Anastasius, the Librarian of the Roman Church, into the deepest astonishment. "Mirandum est," he writes in his letter of reply, dated 865, "quomodo vir ille barbarus in finibus mundi positus, talia intellectu capere in aliamque linguam transferre valuerit" (SeeProf. Stokes, "R. I. Academy Proceedings," May, 1892).
[6]This translation which Charles sent to the Pope threw Anastasius, the Librarian of the Roman Church, into the deepest astonishment. "Mirandum est," he writes in his letter of reply, dated 865, "quomodo vir ille barbarus in finibus mundi positus, talia intellectu capere in aliamque linguam transferre valuerit" (SeeProf. Stokes, "R. I. Academy Proceedings," May, 1892).
[7]St. Jerome tells us that the people of Marseilles were in his day trilingual, "Massiliam Phocæi condiderunt quos ait Varro trilingues esse, quod et Græce loquantur, et Latine et Gallice" (Migne's edition, vol. vii. p. 425).
[7]St. Jerome tells us that the people of Marseilles were in his day trilingual, "Massiliam Phocæi condiderunt quos ait Varro trilingues esse, quod et Græce loquantur, et Latine et Gallice" (Migne's edition, vol. vii. p. 425).
[8]Seeappendix to O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. 547—"Margaid mor na n-gall ngregachI mbid or is ard étach."
[8]Seeappendix to O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. 547—
"Margaid mor na n-gall ngregachI mbid or is ard étach."
[9]He is said to have spent eighteen or twenty years there and to have acquired all the wisdom of the Scots. The reason why he was sent to Slane, as Dr. Healy well observes, was, not because it was the most celebrated school of the time, but because it was in Meath where the High-kings mostly dwelt, and it was only natural to bring the boy to some place near the Royal Court. ("Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 590.)
[9]He is said to have spent eighteen or twenty years there and to have acquired all the wisdom of the Scots. The reason why he was sent to Slane, as Dr. Healy well observes, was, not because it was the most celebrated school of the time, but because it was in Meath where the High-kings mostly dwelt, and it was only natural to bring the boy to some place near the Royal Court. ("Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 590.)
[10]"Quos omnes Scotti libentissime suscipientes victum eis quotidianum sine pretio, libros quoque ad legendum, et magisterium gratuitum, præbere curabant" ("Ecc. Hist.," book iii. chap. 27). Amongst these were the celebrated Egbert, of whom Bede tells us so much, and St. Chad.
[10]"Quos omnes Scotti libentissime suscipientes victum eis quotidianum sine pretio, libros quoque ad legendum, et magisterium gratuitum, præbere curabant" ("Ecc. Hist.," book iii. chap. 27). Amongst these were the celebrated Egbert, of whom Bede tells us so much, and St. Chad.
[11]He is called Mailduf by Bede, and Malmesbury Maildufi urbem, which shows that the aspirated "b" indubhhad twelve hundred years ago the sound of "f" as it has to-day in Connacht.
[11]He is called Mailduf by Bede, and Malmesbury Maildufi urbem, which shows that the aspirated "b" indubhhad twelve hundred years ago the sound of "f" as it has to-day in Connacht.