The Cult of Saints Brigid and Patrick in 12th-Century England

I have recently been reading a paper on the cult of Irish saints in medieval England. The evidence points to Saint Brigid being perhaps the best-known. She was, for example, the only Irish saint found in the Litany of the Saints in the late-12th century English Psalter Gough liturgica 2, which contains the names of 113 saints. She also appears in virtually all the English monastic kalendars of the Middle Ages. In the early 1130s Laurence of Durham composed a Life of Brigit that he dedicated to Aelred, the latter abbot of Rievaulx, on the basis of a Life given to him by Aelred's father, Eilaf, who had ended his days as a monk of Durham. I was especially interested to learn that in the 12th and 13th centuries, a number of English cathedrals and abbeys claimed relics of Saint Brigid, namely Abingdon, Durham, Exeter, Glastonbury, Leominster, Reading, Waltham and York. I will try to follow up on the references given as I would be keen to know if there is a description of these relics and whether any of them survived.

By contrast, Saint Patrick took second place to Saint Brigid in English cult, having fewer ancient dedications (7 for Patrick compared to 15 for Brigid), fewer relics in English churches (with the exception of Glastonbury which claimed his entire body!) and fewer commemorations in monastic kalendars. There were, however, three Latin Lives of Saint Patrick composed in 12th-century England, the first an anonymous Life preserved in the Legendary in Gloucester Cathedral MS 1, copied around 1200, the second a Life by William of Malmesbury written for the monks of Glastonbury but now lost and finally, the Life by Jocelin of Furness. Jocelin was a monk from the Cistercian monastery of Furness in Cumbria who wrote a number of saints' lives in the period 1175-1215. His Life of Patrick was written at the request of Tomaltach, Archbishop of Armagh, Echmilid, the bishop of Down and John de Courcy, the Anglo-Norman ruler of Ulster. This Life was thus written in England for export to Ireland as part of de Courcy's attempt to secure the blessing of the three native Irish patrons, whose relics he had translated to Downpatrick in the 1180s.

Source: Robert Bartlett, 'Cults of Irish, Scottish and Welsh Saints in 12th-century England' in B.Smith (ed.), Britain and Ireland, 900-1300: Insular Responses to Medieval European Change (C.U.P., 1999), 67-86.

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Dóchas linn Naomh Pádraig

Dóchas Linn Naomh Pádraig (a hymn in honour of St Patrick, with the English translation of Father Seán Coyle from his blog Bangor to Bobbio).

Dóchas linn Naomh Pádraig, Aspal mór na hÉireann,

Bring hope to us, St Patrick, great Apostle of Ireland,

Ainm oirearc gléigeal, solas mór an tsaoil é.

Illustrious, glorious name, he is the great light of the world.

D'fhill le soiscéal grá dúinn d'ainneoin blianta i ngéibheann.

He came back to us with the gospel of love, despite years of captivity.

Grá mór Mhac na páirte, d'fhuascail cách ón daorbhruid.

Great love of the Son, freed all from oppression.

Sléibhte, gleannta, máighe,'s bailte mór’ na hÉireann:

Hills, valleys, plains, large towns of Ireland

Ghlan sé iad go deo dúinn, míle glóir dár naomh dhil.

He cleaned them for ever, a thousand praises to our dear saint

Iarr’maid ort, a Phádraig, guí orainn na Gaela,

We ask you, Patrick, pray for us Irish,

Dia linn lá 'gus oíche 's Pádraig Aspal Éireann.

God and St Patrick Apostle of Ireland be with us day and night.

You can hear a wonderful recording of the hymn by singer Éamonn Ó Faogain here. Father Seán's blog also has an extra verse and all I can say is that if there was supposedly some lingering affection among early Irish Christians for the pagan past it cetainly doesn't show here:

Sé a chloigh na draoithe,

He who defeated the druids

Croíthe dúra gan aon mhaith.

Hard of heart and no good.

D'ísligh dream an díomais

Brought down the arrogant

Trí neart Dé ár dtréan-fhlaith.

Through the strength of God our powerful lord.

The hymn is based on an eighth-century poem by Niníne Éces, but in this form is attributed to Tomás Ó Flannghaile (1846-1916), a poet of the 19th-century Gaelic revival.

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Saint Sechnall's Hymn to Saint Patrick

Below is an early twentieth-century translation of the hymn in praise of Saint Patrick traditionally attributed to Saint Sechnall. Previous generations of scholars have been unenthusiastic about this hymn, known as Audite omnes amantes from its opening lines, on the grounds that it did nothing to increase understanding of the historical Saint Patrick. In Dumville's volume of revisionist studies, however, Andy Orchard has made a much more appreciative re-examination of it and provided a fresh translation. Hopefully in the future I can reprint the preface to this hymn from the Liber Hymnorum, but for now, this is a 1905 translation, also in the public domain. Modern scholars would be less confident than this translator about claiming that the hymn was definitely written before 452, but the concensus still remains that it is a very early work. In the original Latin, 'Audite omnes amantes' is an abcedarian hymn, with each stanza beginning with successive letters of the alphabet. X is Xpistus (Christ in the Greek spelling), Y is Ymnos (hymn) and Z is Zona (Girdle) in case you were wondering!

ST. SECHNALL'S HYMN TO ST. PATRICK

Circ. a.d. 452 ; Translated from the original Celtic Latin by Fr. Atkinson, S.J., Wimbledon College

With Introductory Note by Fr. Power, S.J., Edinburgh

[Among Celtic scholars there is as much unanimity as to the very early date of the Hymn of St. Sechnall, as there is about the genuineness of the two documents written by the hand of St. Patrick the Confession and the Epistle to Coroticus.

St. Sechnall's Hymn in honour of 'The Master of the Scots' cannot be dated later than A. D. 452, that is, about twenty years after the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland. It is thus by far the earliest document, metrical or otherwise, written in Celtic Latin.

Tradition ascribes it to Sechnall (Secundinus), the contemporary and kinsman of the Apostle of the Scoti.

The internal evidence (see especially Stanza I.) points unmistakably to the fact that when the poem was written St. Patrick was still alive and in the zenith of his fame.

Haddan and Stubbs, Bishop Dowden, and many others have remarked on the absence of any reference in the panegyric to the miracles of the man celebrated in Irish legends as the greatest Thaumaturgus since the days of the Twelve Apostles. The traditional explanation of the Irish legend is, that Patrick not only fell foul of his panegyrist, but ruthlessly revised many passages which he considered too complimentary to the 'rusticissimus peccator.' However that may be, the whole composition tends to show that all Scotia (Ireland) became Christian in an incredibly short time.

The evolution of the Continental Latin, first introduced with its script into Scotia by St. Patrick, is another interesting fact attested by the pseudo-classical alphabetic poem of St. Sechnall. No one, as far as I know, has yet noticed the extraordinary resemblance of St. Patrick's Latinity to that of St. Gregory of Tours. The latter wrote in what is now admitted to have been the vulgar tongue of Christian Europe in the fifth century. St. Sechnall, who must have been taught by some Italian of the Celestino-Palladio-Patrician mission, shows a marked advance on the portentous syntax of the uncouth Gaulish Latin of St. Patrick. The improvement was steadily maintained till it reached a very fair degree of perfection in the Latin works of St. Columbanus of Bangor, Iona, Luxeuil, and Bobbio.

The accompanying hymn was printed for the first time by Muratori. Its popularity in modern days has been quite eclipsed by the Eucharistic Hymn of St. Sechnall, found in the Antiphonary of Bangor, and beginning

Sancti venite,

Christi Corpus sumite.

A good translation of the latter from the pen of Dr. Neale may be read in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

The best MS. of the 'Praise of St. Patrick' is to be found in the Book of Armagh. There is another venerable copy with a few variants, formerly preserved at St. Isidore's, Rome, but now transferred to the Franciscan monastery, Merchant's Quay, Dublin. This MS. in Stanza III. gives the reading Petrus, instead of Petrum, and is followed I do not know why by Haddan and Stubbs, and Cardinal Moran.

A rhymed translation of the following poem has been printed by Miss Cusack on pp. 597sqq. of her immense volume, Trias Thaumaturga. Father Atkinson's version will, I think, be preferred. The worst that I can say of it is that, as a piece of poetry, it is superior to the original. The task of the translator was a difficult one. St. Sechnall's composition, however historically interesting, is little better than prose cut into lengths. Father Atkinson's duty was to eschew ornament, like his original, and yet to write poetry. His fidelity to St. Sechnall and his self-restraint in the use of poetic diction can only be appreciated by those who will compare his rendering with the Latin Hymn as given in Canon Warren's noble edition of the Antiphonarum Banchorense.

Readers acquainted with the muscular conciseness and elliptical Latin of St. Sechnall's Hymn to St. Patrick, beginning Audite omnes amantes, may at first blush be surprised that the new translator, who is not new to poetry, should have chosen the far-extended line of the hexameter. Like other translators, he is under the law of faithfulness to the meaning of the first Irish poet, but no one would require of him to render a congested verse of somewhat 'barbarous' Celtic Latin by an equally short verse of English that would puzzle the modern reader and jar on the musical ear.]

Listen ye lovers of God as I tell you of Patrick the Bishop,

Man whom the Master hath blest, hero of saintly deserts ;

How for the good that he does upon earth, he is likened to angels,

How for his life without flaw, peer of Apostles he stands.

Every tittle he guards of the mandates of Christ the All-Blessed ;

Bright in the sight of the world glitters the light of his works ;

Wondrous and holy indeed the example he sets and men follow,

Praising the Lord for it all, praising the Father above.

Steadfast is he in the fear of his Maker; his faith is unshaken ;

Firm as on Peter the Church rises up-builded on him ;

God hath allotted to him the place of Apostle within it,

'Gainst it the portals of hell never are strong to prevail.

Him hath the Master elected a teacher of barbarous races,

Cunning with seine of the truth, fishing for men with his net,

So that from waves of the world he may win unto grace the believing,

Making them follow their Lord up to His throne in the skies.

Christ's are the talents he sells, the excellent coin of good tidings,

Claiming them back from our clans, fruitful with usury's gain ;

Certain for meed of his toil, for price of his prodigal labour,

Some day with Christ to possess joy in His heavenly realm.

Faithful in service to God is he God's most glorious envoy,

Model and type to the good what an Apostle should be,

Preacher with word and with action to such as God calls for His people,

So that if word be too weak, action may urge them to good.

Christ hath his glory in keeping, yet here upon earth is he honoured,

Worshipped by all who behold, e'en as an angel of God ;

Yea, for as Paul to the Gentiles, so God hath sent him His Apostle,

Guiding the steps of men home, unto the Kingdom of God.

Humble in spirit and body, the fear of his Maker hath filled him,

Though for his goodness the Lord loveth to rest on his soul ;

Deep in his flesh that is sinless he carries the mark of the Master,

Patiently bearing nor e'er glorying save in the Cross.

Dauntless and restless he feeds the believing with heavenly banquets,

Lest they that journey with Christ, faint as they walk on the road,

Furnishing forth unto all for their bread the words of the Gospel

Lo ! as the manna of old multiplied still in his hands.

Chaste for the love of his Lord, he warily keepeth his body

Wrought and adorned as a shrine, meet for the Spirit of God :

Yea, and the Spirit for ever abides amid works that are cleanly,

Yea, 'tis a victim he gives living and pleasing to God.

Light of the world is he, kindled ablaze, as was told in the Gospel,

Lighted and set on the stand, shining far out to mankind :

Stronghold is he of the King, a city placed high on the hill-top

Plentiful riches are there, stored for the Master of all.

Surely shall Patrick be called in the heavenly kingdom the greatest,

Who what his holy words teach, bodies in goodness of deed ;

Pattern and model of all, he guides the van of the faithful,

Keeping in pureness of heart trust ever clinging to God.

Boldly he blazons the name of the Lord to the infidel races,

Giving them grace without end, out of the laver of life.

Day after day for their sins unto God he makes his petition,

Slaying for health of their souls victims worthy of God.

Worldly acclaim doth he flout, that God's law may yet be established,

While at God's Table he stands, all is as dross in his eyes ;

Thunder of this world may crash ; undaunted he faces its crashing,

Glad in the tempest of wrong, since that he suffers for Christ.

Shepherd so faithful and true of the flock that the Gospel has won him,

Chosen by God's own self ward of the people of God,

Chosen to pasture His people with teaching appointed from heaven,

Risking his life for the flock, after the pattern of Christ.

Him hath the Saviour raised to be Bishop because of his merits,

Counsellor unto the priests fighting the battle of God,

Giving them raiment to wear and food from a heavenly storehouse,

Holy celestial words, quitting his task to the full.

Lo ! to the faithful he bears the call of the King to His nuptials,

Wearing the nuptial robe, clad with the garment of grace.

Heavenly wine doth he draw without stint in celestial vessels,

Bidding God's people approach unto the heavenly cup.

Hid in the sacred Books, a sacred treasure he found him,

Seeing the Godhead clear under the Saviour's Flesh,

Holy and all complete are his merits that purchase the treasure.

'Warrior of God,' is he called, looking on God with his soul.

Faithful witness is he of the Lord in Catholic precepts,

Precepts carefully stored, salt with the message divine ;

So that man's flesh may never corrupt into food for the earth-worms,

Kept by the heavenly juice fresh to be offered to God.

Labourer noble and loyal is he in the field of the Gospel,

Sowing in sight of the world seeds of good tidings of Christ ;

Sowing with lips that God guards seed in the ears of the wary,

Making their hearts and their minds tilth of the Spirit of God.

Christ for Himself hath made choice ; His deputy here hath He placed him,

Out of two tyrants' holds setting their prisoners free

Ransoming slaves from the chains of men who held them in bondage,

Freeing from Satan's rule numberless souls that were his.

Hymns and psalms doth he sing to the Lord with St. John's Revelations ;

Chanting to hasten his work, building the people of God.

Into their keeping he gives the law in the Name of the Triune,

Teaching the Persons are Three, simple the Substance of God.

Girt with the girdle of God, by day and by night never ceasing

Unto his Lord and his God, riseth his prayer without rest ;

Mighty the toil is, and sure the guerdon that waits for his labour

Lordship along with the Twelve over the people of God.

Listen ye lovers of God as I tell you of Patrick the Bishop,

Man whom the Master hath blest, hero of saintly deserts ;

How for the good that he does upon earth, he is likened to angels

How for his life without flaw, peer of Apostles he stands.

The Celtic Review, Vol.2 (1905), 242-245

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The Rediscovery of Saint Patrick's Letters

I found Philip Freeman's summary of the use of Saint Patrick's writings by later writers very useful. It seems to me such a blessing that we have the actual writings of our 5th-century patron saint that it is sobering to reflect that it is really only in the last hundred years that they have been made accessible to the general reader:

Though Patrick's letters survived, they were never well known. The Irishman Muirchú, who wrote the first biography of Patrick about 650, had access, if not to copies of Patrick's letters, at least to some source that contained parts of them. In the writing of Muirchú, amid the fanciful miracles of a wonder-working Patrick and the comical transformation of the tyrant Coroticus into a fox as punishment for his evil raid, we see only glimpses of the real Patrick known from his letters.

Bishop Tírechán, who wrote soon after Muirchu, gives an imaginative and elaborate account in which Patrick arrives on the island accompanied by a vast entourage of bishops, priests, deacons, and exorcists. He travels the land founding churches, performing miracles, and ordaining hundreds of bishops, but little of the historical Patrick shines through in Tírechán's story either. Others - Nennius, William of Malmesbury, Jocelin of Furness - wrote of Patrick in the following centuries, but their work is fiction meant to inspire Christians to a heavenly life, not to describe accurately the labours of a fifth-century Roman missionary.

Copies of Patrick's letters did survive, however, and as they spread to France and Britain, they were occasionally read by a curious monk. Patrick was moderately well known throughout the Middle Ages, but only via the fanciful tales of Muirchú and similar stories. Almost no one knew the genuine writings of Patrick himself.

His letters were finally rediscovered in the seventeenth century by churchmen in France and the British Isles. The Irish bishop James Ussher, best known for dating the creation of the world precisely to 4004 B.C., consulted the letters. James Ware, a Protestant minister, produced the first scholarly edition of Patrick's letters in 1656, using the manuscripts from Ireland and England. The French Catholic clergyman Denis discovered the manuscript of Patrick's letters at Arras, and published them in 1668.

Patrick's letters were restricted to those who read Latin until the nineteenth century, when the first English translations appeared. In the last hundred years more than a dozen editions of the letters have been published. In spite of this proliferation, the writings of Patrick are poorly known to this day. Everyone has heard of Saint Patrick, of course, but the man most people know is little more than an icon who drove the snakes out of Ireland. This lack of knowledge about the real Patrick is truly regrettable, because he has such an amzing story to tell: a tale of slavery and brutality, pain and self-doubt, sorrow and constant struggle, but ultimately of perseverance, hope and faith. His letters, in the end, remain as a remarkable gift from an extraordinary man.

Philip Freeman, Saint Patrick of Ireland - a Biography (Simon and Schuster, 2005), 167-169.

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Saint Patrick's Letters: The Manuscript Sources

Below is a post I made a couple of years ago to the Celt List. At the time I had been reading Philip Freeman's biography of Saint Patrick and found his epilogue on Patrick's Letters a useful summary of the sources for these texts. In general, I was pleasantly surprised by Freeman's book, forgive me if I offend here but American works are often filled with stereotypes of Ireland and its patron. Freeman's work, however, is a million miles away from all that 'Saint Patty's Day' nonsense and attempts to place Saint Patrick in his historical context. Whilst the book is aimed at the general reader and thus a basic introduction to the person and the world of Saint Patrick, it is solidly-based on scholarship and has a useful bibliography of the sources for each of the chapters. As the author is a Classics Professor he has made his own translation of Saint Patrick's writings, although the very modern feel of these wasn't appealing to me personally. In the extract below Freeman explains that there are only seven surviving manuscript sources for Saint Patrick's writings, tomorrow I will post a second extract which describes how these sources were rediscovered after many centuries of obscurity:

...In a dark corner of the same room [at Trinity College, Dublin where the Book of Kells is on display], often overlooked by visitors, is a small and comparatively dull-looking manuscript known as the Book of Armagh. Inside the fragile pages of this book is the oldest surviving copy of the Confession, written out by the scribe Ferdomnach around the year 807, more than three centuries after the death of Patrick.

...It's remarkable that the Confession and Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus survived at all. The Book of Armagh contains one of only seven copies of Patrick's letters that have been preserved to the present day. These precious manuscripts are our only links to the genuine Patrick who lived more than fifteen centuries ago. They are copies of copies of his original two letters reproduced by monastic scribes in medieval Europe. As with any document copied repeatedly, mistakes and omissions crept in, so that the surviving manuscripts of Patrick's letters differ in subtle and not so subtle ways. Aside from the Book of Armagh in Dublin, the other six manuscripts are in the National Library in Paris, the municipal libraries of Arras and Rouen in northern France, the British Library in London, and two at Salisbury Cathedral in southern England. Each has its unique and sometimes troubled history.

The Book of Armagh, even though it is the oldest manuscript, is not necessarily the best for discovering the original text of Patrick's letters. To begin with, it omits entirely the Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus and leaves out significant portions of the Confession. The missing parts of the Confession are frequently the sections in which Patrick appears most human and least saintlike - the passages in which he admits his weaknesses and failings. It seems likely that the scribes and authorities at Armagh wanted to present a Patrick who better fit their own model of what a saint should be. Why the letter to Coroticus and his men is omitted is more of a mystery. It doesn't make Patrick look bad at all; rather it shows him at his strongest, fighting evil and exerting his authority - qualities the churchmen of Armagh would have prized. Thus the shorter letter was probably not deliberately left out but rather lost to the scribes at Armagh sometime during the three centuries between Patrick's original composition and the year Ferdomnach made his copy.

The Book of Armagh sat quietly on a library shelf until, in the year 937, an Irish king recognized its immense value and ordered it enshrined and placed in a leather case. In 1004 a priest recorded on a blank page of the manuscript that Brian Boru, high king of Ireland, visited Armagh and affirmed the privileges of that church. A century later an Armagh clergyman angry at being replaced briefly ran away with the manuscript in a huff. It was then decided that such an important book needed a special protector, so a man was chosen who became known as the Maor na Canoine (Keeper of the Book). The position was hereditary, so his descendants bore the responsibility for guarding the book for centuries thereafter. Anyone today with the name MacMaoir or MacMoyre (son of the Keeper) is a member of this family.

Hard times fell on Ireland with the English incursions of the seventeenth century; in 1680 Florence MacMoyre, last of the hereditary Keepers of the Book, pawned it for five pounds. The book changed hands several times before ending up in the Royal Irish Academy in 1846. Seven years later the archbishop of Armagh purchased the manuscript and presented it to Trinity College, where it remains to this day.

Much less is known about the history of the other six manuscripts of Patrick's letters. The best evidence suggests that all of them derive from a single copy of both letters that arrived on the continent in the early seventh century. The letters were copied and recopied by scribes and deposited in monasteries in northern France. The Paris manuscript, dating to the tenth century, is the earliest complete copy of both letters. This small volume was part of the abbey library at Saint-Corneille in nearby Compiegne until Napoleon's minister of the interior confiscated it in 1802 and sent it to Paris. It has survived the centuries beautifully, unlike the manuscripts from Arras and Rouen. The Arras volume lost parts in the seventeenth century, while the Rouen manuscript is a crumbling fragment preserving only the first pages of the Confession. The manuscripts in England, preserving both letters, derive from earlier French copies and date to the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Philip Freeman, Saint Patrick of Ireland - a Biography (Simon and Schuster, 2005), 165-167.

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The Problem of Saint Patrick

In this essay, scholar Dorothy Africa provides a brief look at the writings of and about Saint Patrick.

Saint Patrick, Problem of

Two documents written by this fifth-century British-born missionary to Ireland survive. One is a letter to the British chieftain named Coroticus concerning a raid by his henchmen who had seized some Irish Christians. The other, known as the Confessio, is a self-defense of Patrick's own missionary career, apparently submitted to an ecclesiastical body of some kind conducting a disciplinary review or formal inquiry. Most of what is known about the man comes from these two pieces. The evolving legend of the saint is reflected in a series of medieval lives and stories about him, the earliest of those extant dating to the late seventh century.

Patrick is presumed to have lived and worked in Ireland from the middle to the latter part of the fifth century, though some scholars have argued for both earlier and later dates. The continental chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine in the year 431 reports that Pope Celestine had ordained Palladius as the first bishop to the Irish. According to the Irish hagiographical tradition, Palladius failed in his mission and was succeeded by Patrick, but we have no independent contemporary confirmation of the claim.

In the Confessio, Patrick provides a brief sketch of his own life in the course of describing his personal spiritual evolution. He was born to a prosperous Romano-British Christian family of some local prominence. When he was sixteen, Patrick was seized by raiders and sold as a slave in Ireland, where he experienced an intense spiritual conversion. He was able to escape and return to his family, but some time later (how much later Patrick does not say) he returned to Ireland in obedience to a divine summons received in a dream vividly described in the Confessio.

It is not known what official ecclesiastical backing Patrick had for his mission to Ireland. He refers to his ordination as a bishop but does not say where or by whom he was made one, nor does he name associates in his mission. The persons to whom the Confessio is addressed are never named. What does emerge very clearly from the Confessio is Patrick's own conviction that the authority for his ministry in Ireland was divine in origin and therefore not subject to question because of his own personal failings. The letter to Coroticus adds little information about Patrick himself, but it attests to the hardships of his mission and the perilous environment for his converts. In both documents Patrick shows a particular concern for the women among them, respecting their courage and the strength of their faith, and fearing for them.

The two earliest surviving lives of the saint were composed in Ireland in the late seventh century, nearly two hundred years after Patrick's time. Most scholars consider the career of the saint presented in these early lives as an amalgam drawn from the careers of Patrick, the shadowy Palladius mentioned by Prosper, and perhaps other members of their missions. Both accounts are also highly colored by the political environment of their authors' own time, in which the ecclesiastical community at Armagh was vigorously asserting itself as the seat of the saint's cult and therefore as leader of the Christian church in Ireland. This claim was more explicitly and stridently asserted in the anonymous work called the Tripartite Life, which was probably composed in the tenth century at Armagh and certainly reflects the views of the community's members. This life seeks to establish Patrick as the apostle to all of Ireland and, by doing so, make Armagh the administrative head of all of its ecclesiastical institutions, despite Ireland's political fragmentation. All these early lives were composed in Ireland for an Irish audience and depict the saint as a powerful miracle worker whose deeds serve political ends as often as spiritual ones. In these lives Patrick blesses kings and dynasties, or curses their opponents, as often as he cures the sick and helps the poor.

The medieval lives of Patrick from the English and continental tradition are in marked contrast to the earlier Irish ones. They use the Irish tradition but are more in conformity with continental hagiography: The topographical and political details are reduced, and the intimidating ferocity of the Irish saint is tempered with a more decorous Christian humility. This trend was greatly advanced in the late twelfth century, after the Norman conquest of Ireland, when the professional hagiographer Jocelyn of Furness was commissioned by John de Courcy in 1185 to write a life of Patrick. It was this life that was widely circulated and eventually selected by the Catholic religious order known as the Bollandists for their great collection of saints' lives, the Acta Sanctorum. Another highly influential text of the late twelfth century was the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii (Tract on Saint Patrick's purgatory) written by a Cistercian monk at Saltrey. Although this tract was a literary vision of hell, not a life of the saint, its popularity helped to spread the reputation of the saint and his cult outside of Ireland.

Bibliography

Hanson, Richard Patrick Crosland. The Life and Writings of the Historical Saint Patrick. 1983.

Ó Cróinín, Dábhí. Early Medieval Ireland, 400–1200. 1995.

Picard, Jean-Michael, trans. Saint Patrick's Purgatory: A Twelfth-Century Tale of a Journey to the Other World. Introduction by Yolande de Pontfarcy. 1985.

Dorothy Africa

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Palladius and Patrick

Palladius and Patrick is the title of a most stimulating and entertainingly-written paper by Charles Thomas, published in a collection edited by Ailbhe Mac Shamhráin called The island of St. Patrick : church and ruling dynasties in Fingal and Meath, 400-1148 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2004), 13-37. Thomas is a doughty champion of Saint Palladius and amasses evidence from history, archaeology, linguistics and placename study to argue the case that there was an attempt by later Patrician writers to turn the first bishop of the Irish into a type of 'Orwellian non-person'. Let's start with the historical evidence of Prosper of Aquitaine and its importance in preventing the total erasure of Palladius from the record:

'Prosper of Aquitaine, a cultured Christian layman, was born around 390 and when young lived in Marseilles, where he became swept up into the exciting and challenging new world of monastic endeavours there. He also became a fervent champion, against the heresies of Pelagius, of St Augustine's teachings about Grace and free will. In 430 he went to Rome, met Pope Celestine the First, and urged him to write to the bishops of Gaul condemning anti-Augustinian views. Then he returned for a while to Marseilles, where he wrote, among other things, an Epitome Chronicae, a potted world history to AD 433 (this was a special interest of his). Finally he went back to Rome, entered the service of Pope Leo I as a notarius and, having updated his Chronicle to AD 455, died in that year.

'In 429, Prosper noted that heresy was present in Britain as well as Gaul. Specifically a Pelagian heretic, Agricola, son of a Pelagian bishop Severianus, was insidiously corrupting the congregations of Britain, ecclesias Britanniae, with his teachings; this suggests that the unknown Agricola, wherever he operated, was influential. But through the negotiation of the deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sent Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, to act on his behalf; and Germanus routed these heretics and directed the Britons to the Catholic Faith.

'Under the year 431 Prosper again mentions Palladius, whom he must have known personally; of a notable gens, either a personal deacon to bishop Germanus at Auxerre, or acting as a papal deacon. ' Palladius was ordained by Pope Celestine, and sent to the Irish believers in Christ' (ad Scotos, in Christum credentes) 'as the first bishop'. Why? We get the answer in cap.21 of Prosper's short tract Liber contra collatorem(a riposte to John Cassian, who had dared to question St Augustine's stand on grace and free will). Listing steps taken by successive popes to defend orthodoxy, and to assert papal primacy in outlying provinces of the empire, Prosper spells out the actions of Celestine, pope from 422 to 432, including these several Insular interventions:

'And with no less active a concern, he freed Britain from the same disease (i.e., Pelagian heresy)when he shut out, from their remote Ocean retreat, certain enemies of grace who were in possession of their ancestral lands (this is the 429 visit by Germanus and Lupus) and, ordaining a bishop for the Irish, he made the barbarian island Christian, while taking care to keep the Roman Island Catholic (i.e. to keep Britain orthodox).

'There you have it clear as daylight. The statement that in AD 431, absolute date, Celestine despatched Palladius as primus episcopus, ad Scotos in Christum credentes, is the single most important external reference in Ireland's history. Building on the earlier undated introduction of some element of Latin literacy, it marks Ireland's tardy incorporation into Europe; and it sheds more light on Irish Christian beginnings than all of St Patrick's writings. It also provides a starting-point for Irish monasticism. And in the morass, manoeuvring, and muddles, of the next 250 years within Irish Christian records, Prosper's little chronicle-entry could not be set aside, and it was not forgotten; despite the later Armagh drive to render Palladius a kind of Orwellian non-person.'

Thomas has started as he means to go on, as far as the Armagh promoters of Saint Patrick are concerned:

'It is a truism among historians, and I suppose it remains the favourite argument for a 'late' Patrick, that revisionists at the alleged proto-Patrician foundation, the episcopal church of Armagh, faced with this immutable record of what happened in 431 were stuck, and knew they were stuck, with 432 as the earliest credible date for Patrick's return to Ireland as a bishop – a second bishop. The hard pill could be mollified by having Palladius fail dismally, or die, or quit in despair for Pictland as soon as possible. Further awkwardness arose, probably by the seventh century, from the annalistic date of 493 for the death of Patrick; and worse, a date of 535 (or 103 years on from 432) for the death of an acceptably historic Mochta or Maucteus, said to have been Patrick's younger disciple, a Briton whose existence was still known to Adomnan of Iona in the 680s.'

The Armagh dirty tricks department knows no shame:

'The reason that we cannot turn at once to modern critical editions of any Vita Palladii, Acta Palladii, Dicta Palladii, is not that none of them ever existed. They did, and quite a few people knew of them. It is that by the early eighth century, almost without exception, all and any records of Palladius had been misappropriated to St Patrick, bypassing a slight obstacle that Patrick's writings make no reference to any other named evangelist. The monolithic claim of the post-Patrick church of Armagh is fancifully set out in the mid-seventh century tract Liber Angeli. In imitation of the Confessio, Patrick is made to undergo yet another angelic dream visitation. The angel assures him (and all intended readers) that Armagh merits a terminus vastissimus, a paruchia, embracing the whole of Ireland, a spiritual overlordship that reflects Patrick's missionary labours. But here, from whatever tangled background, is a mind-set, that must have known – in writing – far more about Palladius than we ever can today; knew that Prosper's uncompromising record of a 431 arrival was beyond challenge; but was on course to reduce the Leinster landing of Palladius with his companions to the intrusion of a funny foreigner, who dithered ineffectually for a bit, and then died, or departed. You can indeed fool most people for a very long time.'

Thomas then moves on to a more sober dissection of the implications of Prosper's information:

'The Scoti, believing in Christ, were Christians in Ireland, generally the barbarian island because it was outside the Imperial limites, but that does not mean they all had to be exclusively Irish natives. They had no previous bishop (and per Professor Dan Binchy, as yet no loanword from episcopus). But, as Christian groupings, ecclesiae, they were, in 431, numerous enough, or spatially concentrated enough, or both, to warrant a first bishop. It is then likely that a Christian presence went back some decades; at a diffused scale, those believers could have had some rudimentary churches already and some officiating priests, perhaps later elevated in memory as those obscure pre-Patrician saints. We can certainly assume worship and instruction took place in Latin, using pre-Vulgate Biblical texts; and that goes along with a previously-conveyed picture of Latinity in Ireland by, and considerably before, the year 400. Their first bishop Palladius, was not a provincial chosen for them by a British synod. He was a man of standing, influentially connected, a papal favourite chosen for the job, and he had already been prominent (as Prosper knew) in a campaign to combat the Pelagian heresy threatening Britain. Ergo, Rome had perceived a danger of heretical infection reaching the Christian innocents of Hiberione, which argues for repeated Irish-British contact (west Wales to Leinster and south-east Munster, say), and a measure of correspondence, if not official visits, to arrange a suitable reception for Bishop Palladius. But do not picture Palladius wading ashore wherever it was, a lonely figure, with a grip in his hand, slithering among seaweed. Germanus and Lupus were supported by a regular throng of their Gaulish followers. We shall identify likely members of Palladius' familia; and make a good guess as to at least part of his volumina atque impedimenta. ...'

This view of Palladius as a man handpicked for the job at the very highest level is in stark contrast to the traditional view that he simply wasn't up to the task and quit at the first sign of trouble. Thomas then goes on to examine another twist in the Patrician tale, the idea that there was more than one Patrick:

'One by-product of Armagh's drive to establish, historically-justifiable, hegemony over the entire realm of Ireland's Christianity was an invention, in the seventh century, of a doublet. The concept of a Patrick, Apostle to the Irish was divided like an amoeba. It was claimed that the 431 Palladius was really, or also, called Patricius (qui Patricius alio nomine appellabatur), whence a distinction became necessary between an 'Old Patrick', senex Patricius, Sen Phatric, or Palladius; and a younger, later one, Patricius secundus, Patrick the Briton, who died 493. The more readily then could all and any of the doings, remembered sayings, written references, and associated dramatis personae of Palladius – senex Patricius – be transferred to the inflated Patrick of what some have called "the Armagh propagandists"'.

Thomas now turns his attention to the biographers of Patrick, Muirchu and Tirechan:

'It is in the Collectanea, the so-called Memoir of Tirechan, regarded as slightly earlier than Muirchu's Life – about 670- that the partly-planned mythologizing takes off. Tirechan, a bishop, had been pupil of Bishop Ultan of Connor; he had read material in a book that Ultan possessed... In the Book of Armagh collection that contains this earlier Memoir, ..one section of which is headed 'On the names of the Franks of Patrick'; and in someone's supplementary notes, a very precise statement:

In the thirteenth year of the emperor Theodosius, bishop Patricius is sent by bishop Celestine, pope of Rome, for the teaching of the Scots.

'Notice the Imperial, though not also western Consular, dating; this comes ultimately from Prosper's Chronicle, in which year 430-1 is headed 'Theodosio XIII, tredecimo'. Then we have: 'Bishop Palladius is sent first'; Palladius episcopus primo mittitur (here Prosper has Palladius, et primus episcopus mittitur) 'who was named Patricius with another name, who suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Scots'. Next, this particular Armagh writer redresses the imbalance: 'Then Patricius is sent second by the angel Victor and Pope Celestine; - he was believed by all Ireland and baptised almost all of it'.

Thomas then turns to another source, the four 'Sayings of Patrick', two of which he introduces as evidence, adding though 'if Patrick the Briton ever uttered any one of them I will personally be Joan of Arc':

'The fear of God I had as my guide through the Gauls (per Gallias) and Italy, and the islands which are in the Tyrrhene sea.

Church of the Irish (ecclesia Scottorum), nay of the Romans, in order that you be Christians, as are the Romans, you must sing at every hour of prayer that praiseworthy utterance, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, let each and every Christian flock that makes up my following (omnis aeclessia quae sequitur me) sing Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Deo gratias.'

For Thomas these sayings

'are remnants, having percolated north from at least one centre in Leinster to Armagh and probably other Ulster churches, of the acta, the contemporary records, and a few numbered sayings, of Palladius. Actually there is a lot of valuable historical detail here. Remembering that Palladius was in the first place chosen, consecrated and sent under the twin aegis of Pope Celestine and Bishop Germanus it would be incredible that he and his companions would not have sent reports of progress, success, safeguarding against heresy, back to base: back to Auxerre, if not also Rome, to Celestine and Leo.'

He bolsters this thesis by drawing attention to what he sees as a giveaway line in Tirechan's Memoir, possibly taken from whatever book Bishop Ultan had compiled:

Haec Constans in Gallis invenit.

(These things, Constans discovered in Gaul).

Thomas believes that this shows that some Irish cleric of the seventh century was able to access and copy material from the Palladian dispatches. He further refutes Tirechan's statement, again derived from Bishop Ultan, that Patrick 'stayed for 30 years in one of these islands which is called Aralensis'. For Thomas this proves not that Patrick experienced monasticism in Lerins, but that Palladius spent time in the city of Arles.

Thomas then goes on to fulfill his promise that we would be able to make a guess at the volumina atque impedimenta of Palladius:

'When in 431 Palladius arrived to oversee the credentes of Leinster, I (for one) believe that he brought not only sufficient companions in appropriate clerical orders to set up a papally-approved diocese, or more than one diocese; but also a large selection of the literature one would expect, including the available range – by 430 quite extensive – of monastic books, Desert Fathers' work, histories, collections, rules. Palladius, unusually as a named person in a known year, stands for Ireland's monastic origins. We recall why he had been sent; to make the barbarian Ireland Christian but also to prevent heretical infection from Christian Britain. In that second of the Dicta Patricii (recte Dicta Palladii) 'in order that you be Christians, as are the Romans' may imply a little more. Does it mean 'orthodox Christians, as are the Romans', a state to be ensured by following their new bishop's teaching in every respect?'

Thus has Palladius the 'funny foreigner who dithered ineffectually for a bit' been transformed into a symbol of Ireland's monastic origins. But Thomas admits that there are still unanswered questions, if we accept that so far from being a short-lived failure, the mission of Palladius was a long-lived success:

'If Palladius worked in Ireland for, say, 20 to 30 years, gradually extending his initial East Leinster, episcopate to further notional dioceses under additional bishops in southern Leinster and most of Munster, does absolutely no trace of this survive? What Tirechan's Bishop Ultan had in a book, which the mysterious Constans found somewhere in Gaul, apparently dealt only with Palladius' Gaulish-Italian backgound, Auxerre, Amator and Germanus, and perhaps reports from the spiritual front line. But we do have a very strange document indeed; called variously 'The Synod of the Bishops' and 'The First Synod of Saint Patrick'. It starts with:

Here begins the synod of the bishops (episcoporum), that is of Patricius, Auxilius, Isserninus. We give thanks to God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. To the priests and deacons and every cleric, the bishops Patricius, Auxilius, and Isserninus, greetings.

There follow 34 rulings, or provisions, or canons, plainly out of order – out of 5 logical groupings – and some probably of secondary insertion.'

Thomas goes on to helpfully summarize the views of earlier scholars regarding this strange document:

'Ludwig Bieler persisted in arguing that this was genuinely a product from the real Patrick, the Briton, and even produced a date of 457 by emending an annalistic year, Binchy, on the strength of several canons dealing with native Irish legal points, and his reading of wording in others, thought it a wholly native product of the mid-seventh century reflecting the Romanizing versus native parties' controversy on the date of Easter and related disputes. Kathleen Hughes offered a compromise of the mid-sixth century. And I think that likely -a very early Leinster copy of the original, ending up at Armagh, where 'PALLADIUS' was altered to 'PATRICIUS', perhaps just a palimpsest, scraping out the four letters LLAD and writing in TRIC (both names, nine letters, start PA and end IUS)'.

Thomas himself, not surprisingly, champions the claims of Palladius and a fifth-century date for the Synod text:

'I believe we have here an ecclesiastic governance, for a part of Ireland, issued possibly 15 or 20 years on from 431 by Palladius and two others – Auxilius, Iserninus – who were, by then, bishops of new dioceses. It is the words used that lead me to the conclusion (and a certainty that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Patrick). One could pick out, as fifth-century Gaulish Latin and possibly southern British Latin – but not taken into Irish usage – plebs to mean what we would now call 'a parish'; aecclesia for both 'the Church' (an abstract word) and 'a church as a building', where for canon 24, aecclesiam (aedificet), my guess is that Patrick would have written dominicum; a distinction, talking about bishops, between episcopus, a bishop in an administrative guise, but sacerdos as to his priestly function; and then we have episode 33, one of a group governing the status of intrusive or of wandering clerics (vagus, vagulus). 'A cleric whom comes to us from the Britains without a letter, although he may be resident in a parish (in plebe), is not permitted to minister'. 'From the Britains' is de Britanis, geographical plural, in the fourth-early fifth century, suggesting the four (or five) provinciae of Brittania (single). This, with perhaps two more canons, takes us back to Palladius as Prosper shows him; the papally-authorized custodian of orthodoxy, and these are precautions against would-be Pelagians drifting across from Britannia'.

For the remainder of his argument, Thomas introduces placename evidence, illustrated by maps. Put simply, the prefix Donagh (as Donaghmore, Donaghadee) comes from an extremely early word, British Latin Dominicum, Primitive Irish Dominech, then Domnach, 'a Christian church building'. Placenames beginning with Donagh tend to be found in the north, where Thomas believes Patrick was active. By contrast, names beginning with another loanword, the Old Irish cell are found more in Leinster, the site of the Palladian mission. This borrowing is from a purely literary Latin source, cella 'Christian locality, of eremitic or monastic nature', and this literary borrowing points to the continental Palladius rather than the British Patrick as far as Thomas is concerned.

I found this paper most thought-provoking, whilst academic it was far from dry and it was interesting to see that Patrician studies can still provoke passion. Whilst I do see Palladius as emerging as one of the winners from revisionist scholarship, for me this does not necessarily make Saint Patrick a loser. It still remains a wonderful treasure to have the personal writings of Saint Patrick, his Confession and Letter to Coroticus, and as a northern woman I am not displeased by the idea that he primarily operated in this part of the country. The saint himself is not responsible for the injustice that was done to Palladius by later writers, indeed, we don't really know if Saint Patrick was even aware of the existence of this southern bishop. Whilst the debate continues among the current generation of scholars, the traditional view of Palladius as a short-lived failure who did the decent thing and departed to leave the way clear for Patrick as the all-Ireland success story, is untenable. As Thomas remarks 'Palladius cannot, alas, come across to us in the same intensely human guise as Patrick, but he deserves a better treatment than footnotes.' I will be curious to see if the revisionist view finds any resonance within popular culture, will there, for example, ever be a parade or national celebration for Palladius? Somehow I think the traditional view of Patrick as the sole national apostle will remain unchallenged in the popular mind for many years to come.

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