Saint Fiachra and Kilfera by the Nore

August 30 is the feast of Saint Fiachre of Brieul. In the 1904 poem below, Alice Esmonde suggests that even in his French exile Saint Fiachra never quite forgets another quiet hermitage - that of Kilfera by the Nore in Ireland. The poem is typical of the many which were published on native saints in popular Catholic magazines in Ireland at this time, it is not great literature just a sentimentally naive tribute to the holy man:

Saint Fiacre

On a slope beside the Norey
St. Fiacre built his cell,
Raised his Church and by the door
Found and blessed his holy well.
In the summer near the gloaming,
Should your footsteps there go roaming,
You would think that down he passes,
While a hush comes, in the air,
Yon could hear the tender grasses
Rustling as he knelt in prayer,
For he lived in days of yore
At Kilfera by the Nore.

Still the spot is calm and fair,
Tho' decayed is his sweet cell,
And he's half forgotten there,
By the banks he loved so well.
But the faithful river stealing,
When the years brought men less feeling,
By the Hermitage once holy,
'Mid a silence most profound,
Seems to sigh and whisper slowly.
All around is sacred ground —
For Fiacre years before
Blessed Kilfera by the Nore.

Did he hold the place so dear
That the Lord who watched above
Filled his heart with tender fear,
Exiled him with jealous love?
Solitude he sought more lasting,
Calmer days for prayer and fasting,
And across the parting ocean,
At Breuil in alien land,
He, with tears and deep emotion,
Built a cell with his own hand:
Still he loved as years before
Lone Kilfera by the Nore.

Sorrows came and centuries,
But his Irish heart has rest
At Breuil beside the trees,
And the flowers he once loved best—
Till the Angel's trumpet calls him,
While the joy of Heaven enthralls him,
Where a thousand years go faster
Than the moments of a day,
In the Presence of the Master
Who has wiped all tears away.
Still we hope he watches o'er
Calm Kilfera by the Nore.

Alice Esmonde

The Irish Monthly, Volume 32 (1904),662-3

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Saints Marinus and Anianus, August 16

At August 16 in Volume 8 of his Lives of the Irish Saints, Canon O'Hanlon mentions that the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, had intended to publish an account of a saintly duo, Marinus and Anianus on this date. Sadly, he died before he could do so. Canon O'Hanlon did not know of this pair, which is surprising since his Anglican contemporary, the scholarly Bishop William Reeves, with whose work O'Hanlon was certainly acquainted, delivered a paper on them to the Royal Irish Academy in 1861. Their accepted feast day is November 15 so on what basis Colgan assigned them to August 16 is not clear. The pair were seventh-century missionaries to Bavaria, Marinus, a bishop and his companion Anianus of a lesser ecclesiastical rank. Both were martyred, there is some interesting speculation on the identity of their 'Vandal' attackers here. I will, however, hold over the Reeves paper until November 15, he too has some interesting speculations to offer on the original Irish names that might lie behind the Latinized forms in which they have come down to us. For now, Canon O'Hanlon has to admit defeat:

Saints Marinus and Anianus.

At the 16th of August, Colgan intended to have published the Lives of Saints Marinus and Anianus, as we learn from the posthumous list of his Manuscripts. Elsewhere, I have not been able to find any account, that might serve to explain their connection with Irish hagiology.



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Saint Dymphna of Gheel, May 15

May 15 is the feast of Saint Dymphna of Gheel, a saint whose cult continues to flourish. According to the traditional account she was an Irish princess who fled to continental Europe to escape the incestuous attentions of her widowed father and was there martyred by his agents. She has become associated with the patronage of the mentally ill, a role in which her popularity is undimmed today. From the point of view of modern scholarship, there are a number of problems with the Dymphna story as it has come down to us. First, she does not appear on the Irish calendars of the saints. Now it is true that the Martyrology of Donegal ( a 17th-century compilation) does record at May 15 'Dymphna, Virgin and Martyr', but this entry is not based on an earlier native source. Her name is not to be found in the 8th/9th-century calendars of Oengus or Tallaght, nor does it occur in the 12th-century Martyrology of Gorman. There is a good reason for this: the cult of Saint Dymphna was only established in the 13th century when a Flemish hagiographer composed her Life. Secondly, the relationship between the saint of Gheel commemorated on May 15 and a native holy woman, Damhnat of Slieve Beagh, commemorated nearly a month later on June 13, is a complex one. It seems that the great 17th-century hagiologist, John Colgan,  thought he had found proof positive in manuscript sources for the Dymphna legend in a reference to a Damnoda or Dymna schene, 'the fugitive' whom he tied into the royal line of the kingdom of Oirgialla, the territory of Saint Damhnat. Later writers like our old friend Canon O'Hanlon, whose account I published at the blog here, were happy to accept Colgan's view uncritically, even though when he came to write about Saint Damhnat in his June volume, the same Canon O'Hanlon expressed his scepticism that she and Dymphna of Gheel were one and the same individual! Below is a paper on Saint Dymphna from one of Canon O'Hanlon's contemporaries, Father J. F. Hogan (1858-1918). Father Hogan had the chance to study on the continent and was a prolific contributor to the religious press of his day. He acted as a specialist in the study of Irish saints in Europe for the Irish Ecclesiastical Record and this 1893 article on Saint Dymphna was one of a series on such saints. In it he presents the traditional story, including the identification of the Belgian fugitive princess with the Ulster holy woman, but does seem uncomfortable at times with aspects of it. Writers of this period were convinced that the Irish were inherently a holy people so the fact of Dymphna's father taking an unholy interest in his own daughter created a major difficulty. This is overcome by the author first suggesting that this Irish king was a pagan (despite Christianity having been established in Ireland in the fifth century) and then by somewhat more desperately trying to blame the 'eastern' influence of the earliest races to inhabit Ireland, especially the Milesians! Rather more likely for modern scholars is the scenario that thirteenth-century Gheel wanted to associate itself with Ireland, the insula sanctorum, and thus a legend was born.


ST. DYMPNA OF GHEEL.

There are certain features in the life of St. Dympna which not only distinguish her from all the other saints of her native land, but which, in some respects, have scarcely their parallel in the annals of the universal Church. The number of virgin-martyrs on the roll of the early Irish calendar is comparatively small, owing, no doubt, to the peaceful manner in which the conversion of the country was effected. The Irish virgins who secured the crown of martyrdom received it in foreign lands, and amongst them St. Dympna undoubtedly holds the most prominent place. Well worthy, indeed, she seems, to be enumerated amongst the frail but heroic witnesses to divine faith, whose firmness in the midst of persecution constitutes one of the most miraculous elements in the establishment of Christianity. The physical pain which she endured was not comparable, of course, in intensity or barbarity, to that which was inflicted on the virgin-martyrs of an earlier period. One has only to cast a glance at the history of the persecutions under Nero or Diocletian to realize the difference. The mind absolutely recoils from contemplating the tortures inflicted on such helpless victims as St. Euphemia of Chalcedon, St. Theodosia of Persepolis, St. Febronia of Nisibe, St. Philomena of Ancyra, St. Eulalia of Merida, not to speak of the great Roman virgin-martyrs — Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Anastasia, Cecilia, Agnes, whose names the Church has taken into the Canon of the Mass, and whose memory will there be honoured as long as the sacrifice of expiation is offered up in any part of the world.

The constancy of St. Dympna was, in its special circumstances, not less admirable than that of these noble victims. Physically speaking, indeed, it was not put to so severe a test; but it was made to endure the strain of a moral ordeal which did not accompany the sufferings of these or of any other martyr with whose history we are acquainted. Saints there were, no doubt, in the early days of the Church who were sacrificed by those who should have been their natural protectors. Flavia Domitilla, the niece of Titus and Domitian, was not spared on account of her kinship with the persecutors; and, later on, the eldest son of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths of Spain, was put to death by the orders of his own father in one of the dungeons of Seville because he would not renounce the orthodox faith, and conform, like his brother Reccaredo, to the Arian creed. But in these cases the fatal deed was perpetrated by strangers and by servants, whereas the martyrdom of St. Dympna presents all the features of a domestic tragedy. The blow was struck by her own father, whose passion had blinded him to such a degree that he was in the end bereft of the commonest instincts of nature and of all human sense. The loss of life was in itself, we imagine, but a small thing to St. Dympna. The weight of her affliction came rather from the circumstances by which it was surrounded, and the flower of her martyrdom is to be found in the patience, the fortitude, the stainless purity with which she maintained her peace, and bore the heavy cross by which her fidelity was tried. No wonder, therefore, that she should be called, in the old Flemish tongue " Een Lilie onder de Doornen " — a lily amongst thorns — and be honoured as such in the Latin verses: —

"O Castitatis lilium!
Virgo decus regium!
Dei martyr gloriosa!
Christo regi gratiosa!"

The oldest life of St. Dympna now in existence was written by Pierre de Cambrai, in the thirteenth century. But this work would seem to he merely a translation of an older life written in Flemish at a much earlier date. In addition to the authors of the Acta Sanctorum, Molanus, Colgan, Miraeus, Baillet, a large number of historians have dealt with the life and martyrdom of St. Dympna. Special lives of the saint were written by Ludolphusvan Craywinckel, canon of the Norbertine Abbey of Tongerloo, in 1652; by Felix Bogaerts of Antwerp, in 1840; and Peter Dominick Kuyl, curate of Antwerp Cathedral, in 1863.

These writers all, with the exception of Henschenius, the Bollandist, admit, without reserve, the Irish nationality of St. Dympna, following in this the example of her oldest biographer. Nor is Ireland's claim positively denied by Henschenius. He admits that his theory of her English origin is a mere conjecture, and the difficulties which he puts forward have already been satisfactorily answered by Lanigan and other historians.

According, then, to the best authorities, St. Dympna was the daughter of one of the petty kings or princes who ruled this country about the beginning of the sixth century. Although Ireland was at that time practically converted to Christianity, a few princes seem to have still clung to pagan ideas and practices. Dympna's father was, undoubtedly, a pagan. He is said to have ruled over that part of Ulster which was called Oirghialla, or Orgiel, and which embraced the territory of the modern counties of Louth, Armagh, and Monaghan. Her mother, who was as remarkable for her goodness as for her beauty, died at an early age, and Dympna's education fell to the lot of some Christian attendants, who had her baptized and instructed in the true faith. The young princess entered thoroughly into the spirit of Christian life. She despised the dancing and light songs which were indulged in by the maidens of her age, and secretly vowed herself body and soul to the service of Christ.

The King who was greatly afflicted by the death of his wife, soon commissioned his counsellors to seek a spouse for him, who should resemble in every respect the lady he had lost. They were not successful in their undertaking, but when all else failed them, they directed the attention of the King to his daughter Dympna, who became each day more and more the image of her mother. Infatuated with this idea, the King now began the importunities which his daughter so firmly and so consistently repudiated from the first, and which, after years of annoyance, were to end in her destruction.

"Matre defuncta, filie rex concupivit speciem,
Cerneus illius faciem, sponsae vultus effigiem."

This strange proposal will appear somewhat less astonishing, perhaps, when we remember that the King was an absolute pagan and that unions of the kind were not unfrequent amongst the heathen peoples of ancient times. They were condemned, no doubt, by the more civilized pagans of Greece and Rome, and we may recall with what dramatic power Sophocles has disposed of such relations. It is impossible for anyone who has read the drama of Oedipus, to forget the woe and despair of the unhappy King who, without his knowledge or his fault, had contracted an incestuous marriage. "When the mystery of his life is unravelled, his grief knows no bounds. He believes himself unworthy of the light of day, and puts out his eyes with his own hands. He foresees the cruel destiny of his sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and of his beloved daughter Antigone, and goes to his fate with an overwhelming consciousness of wrong.

In many parts of the East, however, no such strong feeling existed. In Persia, in particular, from the earliest times, the law of consanguinity was violated. Even amongst the chosen people, the angels of heaven had not long rescued Lot and his family from the doom of the cities of the plain, when they gave to the world an example of the dissolute manners that prevailed around their former domicile; and we know that Thamar pined away in the house of Absalom her brother, not so much on account of the wrong inflicted upon her by her elder brother Amnon, as because the consent of their father, David, had not been asked to regulate the intercourse. At a later period also we learn from the Epistles of St. Paul, that in Greece itself, and particularly in the corrupt city of Corinth, instances of this same vice had to be deplored. Some of the earliest races that inhabited Ireland — the Milesians, in particular — are believed to have come more or less directly from the East, and it is no wonder that they should have brought with them customs that were prevalent in the territory of their origin.

However this may be, the relentless monarch pursued his purpose without any respite. Entreaties, threats, promises, were all employed in turn, but with not the slightest effect, except to fill with sadness and affliction the soul of the pure virgin to whom they were addressed. When driven thus to the extreme limits of distress, Dympna was inspired, like Judith of old, to ask for a term of forty days, in order that she might consider maturely the proposals that had been made to her. This request having been readily granted, the King rejoiced when he saw his daughter occupied at the preparation of the ornaments of dress suitable to the nuptials of a person in her state. Such outward appearances were, however, only intended to cover the design which she had conceived, to fly from the peril.

In all her troubles, Dympna found a wise and trustworthy guide in the person of the aged priest Gerebernus, who had secretly converted her mother to the Christian faith, and who had watched over her own education and spiritual interests with the most paternal care. At the crisis which had now arrived, this faithful counsellor saw that flight alone could save Dympna from the most miserable fate, and to this expedient the princess readily consented. Gerebernus himself was prevailed upon to accompany her to a place of safety, whilst her father's court-jester and his wife, who were both Christians, and whose devotion could be relied upon, were taken into the secret, and agreed to follow her as attendants.

The small company of fugitives made their way to the sea-side, and took shipping to some foreign coast. It is not stated whether they passed through England on their journey outward; but in due course they landed at the port of Antwerp, in Belgium. Here they remained for a short time; but, anxious for greater solitude, they resolved to seek a quiet retreat in the country, and they proceeded inland as far as Gheel. Close to this town, in a quiet and secluded spot, then surrounded by dense woods and thickets, they built themselves a house, in which, as their biographer tells us, they led an angelic life. They went regularly to the neighbouring church of St. Martin at Gheel, where Gerebernus celebrated Mass, and on their return the day was spent in prayer and other religious exercises. About the middle of July, 1892, we passed by this sacred spot, in company with the Abbe de Vel, the good "pastoor" of St. Dympna's parish. A handsome little oratory now marks the spot in which the Irish virgin lived. Statues of the two saints are erected there on either side of the altar. At noon of the summer's day, the country all around was peaceful and still. The peasants were all occupied in the fields, and there was scarcely a sound to be heard on any side. We could imagine what it must have been when Dympna and her companions selected it for their abode, and when the woods and thickets cut it off from the noise of the outer world.

The anger of the father, when he heard of Dympna's departure, was utterly uncontrollable. He ordered the country to be searched high and low, in order to discover her hiding-place; and when he had found that she had already fled from the country, he fitted out a fleet to pursue her. With a number of followers he traced her by different stages, till at last he landed at Antwerp, having evidently been informed of the course she had taken. From Antwerp he sent envoys through the surrounding country in the hope of finding some trace of her whereabouts. Some of these messengers, when paying for their food in Irish coin at the village of Westerloo, were informed that money of a similar stamp had recently been received from a young Irish lady, who, with an aged priest and two servants, was living in seclusion in the woods close by. This was the first clue which the pursuers had found, and it naturally led to almost immediate discovery.

The anger of the king, when brought face to face with the fugitives, fell chiefly on the venerable priest Gerebernus. When the courageous old man warned Dympna, in the presence of her father, to be faithful to the spouse whom she had chosen, and to yield neither to the threats nor to the entreaties of the tyrant, he was ordered by the King to be seized at once, taken away, and beheaded. These commands were instantly obeyed, and the foul deed was aggravated by almost every expression of hatred and contumely which furious passions could excite. The aged priest received with joy his glorious crown of martyrdom, and sealed with his blood the love of chastity and truth which distinguished him during life.

The infatuated monarch next employed all his powers of persuasion in endeavouring to induce his daughter to return with him to Ireland to share his kingdom, to be the pride of his people, and to have her statue placed amongst those of the goddesses that were still worshipped in his temples. But to all such inducements the answer of Dympna was prompt and firm. "With all my soul I despise thy kingly delights. I repudiate the honours thou desirest to confer upon me. It is useless to persist in thy entreaties." Enraged at her steadfastness, the King had now recourse to threats of violence. "Do at once what I wish, or thou shalt incur thy father's anger, like that malignant priest, Gerebernus, who has lost his head for his treachery. Spare thy own youth. Submit to thy father's wishes. Sacrifice to our gods, or thou shalt die, and be an example to all who dare oppose our will." Dympna replied: "O cruel tyrant! Didst thou kill the venerable priest of God, who was guilty of no crime? Know now that thou shalt not escape the judgment of the Almighty. Thy gods and goddesses I abhor and detest, and commit myself altogether to my Lord Jesus Christ, who is my spouse, my glory, my salvation, my hope, my desire. Whatever pain thou canst inflict, I shall bear with joy in fidelity to Him."

Whilst listening to this uncompromising declaration, the King was overcome with passion. He saw that his plans were frustrated, that his labour had been spent in vain, that he should return to Ireland baffled and defeated in his project. In his frenzy nothing short of the death of his own daughter would satisfy him. To the miscreants who had already killed the faithful Gerebernus he issued the fatal order. But even they had too much regard for the youth and beauty and purity of the princess to obey him. They feared, moreover, that in calmer moments he would repent of his harshness, and that whosoever should dare to do injury to his daughter would become the victims of his altered mood. Seeing their unwillingness to act, the unhappy father drew his own sword from its scabbard, and wielding it high in the air, delivered the inhuman blow which deprived him for ever of his daughter, and added one more to the heavenly train that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. It was thus that the blood of the Irish virgin was shed on the land of Gheel, and in presence of the crime we have only to repeat the words, in which, in after ages the inhabitants recorded their gratitude at the event: 

" 0 felix patria quam sacrat sanguine Dympna."

We have before us a long list of the miracles by which, in the course of history, God showed His appreciation of the fidelity of His servants Dympna and Gerebernus. Through them the divine life of the Church was manifested by graces of a special kind. It poured its compassion upon a class of human creatures who are, perhaps, more to be pitied than any other afflicted mortals in the world; namely, on those who, like the father of the virgin-martyr herself, had been deprived of the guiding light of reason. Even to this day a colony of poor demented creatures find refuge at Gheel, lender the benign protection of the angelic virgin. At the foot of her altar they seem to yield to the influence of her memory, and to submit with unusual patience to the lot which Providence has designed for them. "Whoever contrasts their treatment with that to which their fellow-sufferers are subjected in other lands, must admit that the ways of Catholic charity are wonderful indeed. For although it is a pitiable sight to see them going about the streets with "the noble mind o'erthrown " —" Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh."

Yet it is surely consoling to think that they are not altogether cut away from the society of their fellow-creatures, and that a ray, however faint, of earthly happiness may still shine, at intervals, on their existence.

But the blessings obtained through the influence of St. Dympna were not confined to any class or section of the people. She is the patron saint of the whole district, known as the Campine; and in the year 1682 the bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Hertogensbosh in Holland, in a letter in which he exhorts his spiritual subjects to have constant recourse to the powerful protection of St. Dympna, bears testimony to the innumerable favours, both spiritual and temporal, which the whole country had received through the influence of its virgin patron. And what is still more important, several Popes, including John XXII., John XXIII., and Eugene IV., testified to her miracles in Apostolic letters.

The bodies of the two saints were religiously preserved together at Gheel for many centuries. So great was the veneration of the people for these relics, and so widespread the fame of their miracles, that when a great pilgrimage came from the distant town of Xanten, in Germany, in the Middle Ages, the men in their enthusiasm carried away the bodies of the two saints which they wished to have in their church. They were pursued, however, by the people of Gheel, and the contentions which followed resulted in a compromise by which the relics of St. Dympna were restored to their owners, whilst those of Gerebernus were transferred to Xanten or Sonsbeck. The "pious robbers of Xanten " have since then a very bad reputation for honesty amongst the peasants of the "Campine." These, however, have not forgotten St. Gerebernus, and on the feast of St. Dympna, his name is invariably associated with that of the Virgin.

The remains of St. Dympna are preserved in a beautiful silver shrine designed in Gothic shape and exquisitely ornamented. There are many other memorials of the virgin-martyr at Gheel and in the surrounding country. The principal church in the town is dedicated to St. Dympna. It is a handsome Gothic structure, with a nave and two aisles. The high altar is relieved by a reredos, showing in curious figures scenes from the life of the saint. At the back of this reredos is a large Gothic shrine containing the tombs in which SS. Dympna and Gerebernus were first interred. The inscription indicates what is there: —

"Quod jacet hic intus dum transis pronus honora."
"Tumbae sanctorum Dympnae sunt et Gereberni."

In the choir there is an interesting mausoleum of the family of the Counts de Merode-Westerloo. In it are buried John III., Baron of Merode, and his eldest daughter, Anna van Ghistelle, who founded the Chapter in St. Dympna's church, in 1552. Over the choir there is a beautiful stained-glass window presented by the present Countess de Merode. Beneath it, under the shield of her family, the Princes of Arenberg, is inscribed the motto, "Plus d’honneur que d'honneurs." Honours, however, have been no obstacle to honour in the family of Merode. Through many vicissitudes and revolutions they have preserved the faith of their fathers, firm and strong, under the shadow of St. Dympna. Whenever the interests of the Church required faithful, discreet, and trustworthy ser-vice, they could always be relied upon, and at the end of a long line of statesmen and soldiers the present Count holds the honourable position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Conservative and Catholic government of his country. From his castle at the little village of Westerloo, a long avenue, shaded by two splendid rows of lime trees, leads to the old historic monastery of Westerloo, where the sons of St. Norbert have always kept alive the memory of St. Dympna. Nor is there any sign of this general devotion falling off. It is rather the other way. Several memorials of the martyrdom of St. Dympna have recently been erected, and at the foot of one of these we noticed a Latin inscription the date of which speaks for itself.

In Ireland there are several memorials of St. Dympna. In the days of Colgan she was regarded as the patroness of the whole country of Orghialla or Orgiel in Ulster and Louth. The parish of Tydavnet, in the Co. Monaghan, is said to have been originally consecrated to her; and there is a spot in the townland of Curraghwillan, in Cavan, which also seems to be associated with her name. Another church called Kill-Alga or Killdalkey, between Trim and Athboy, in the Co. Meath, was placed under the protection ofSt. Dympna. Dr. Petrie, in his work on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, says that he had in his possession the staff of the "Virgin and Martyr, Damhnad Ochene, or Dympna the Fugitive." It is to this “baculus " or staff that Colgan alludes when he speaks of the honour in which St. Dympna was held by the gentry and people of Orgiel. In later times the name of Dympna has become more popular than it had been as a Christian name in Ireland. We are happy to contribute a word to the fame of the virgin-martyr who bore it, and to join in the honour which is paid her in Belgium and Holland.

J. F. HOGAN.

 IER, 3rd series, Volume XIV(1893), 577-589.

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Companions of Saint Ursula, January 23

At January 23 Canon O'Hanlon has the first of a number of entries in his Lives of the Irish Saints relating to Saint Ursula and her companions. The story of the martyrdom of Saint Ursula was enormously popular during the later Middle Ages and it seems that Canon O'Hanlon believes there is an Irish connection, not to the saint herself, who is said to have been a British princess, but to the maidens who accompanied her and shared her fate. This particular date of commemoration is found at the city most closely associated with the martyrs, Cologne, itself the site of an Irish monastery. That said I would be far from convinced that there is any Irish link with Saint Ursula and her martyred maidens at all.  A vague claim of 'Scottish' origin does not seem a firm basis on which to proceed, given that the idea of having a link to Ireland and its saints carried a certain cachet in medieval continental Europe, where many were pleased to claim that their monastery or mission was originally founded by natives of this country. In the heat of their enthusiasm for reclaiming Ireland's glorious religious past, writers of Canon O'Hanlon's generation were also keen to press claims of Irish origins for the holy men and women associated with other countries on the basis of such 'tradition' that they were Irish or 'Scottish'. In the Middle Ages Ireland was often referred to as Scotia and its natives as Scotti, just to complicate matters even further.  O'Hanlon has noted at least eight separate commemorations associated with Saint Ursula in various volumes of his Lives of the Irish Saints so he certainly ran with this idea, but trying to disentangle what, if any, historical basis, lies behind the legend of Saint Ursula and her maidens is no easy task:

Reputed Festival of St. Ursula and of her Companions, Martyrs. [Fifth Century]

As many of these holy virgins are believed to have been Scottish or Irish, we should feel an interest in learning that their memory is said to have been celebrated at the Church of St. Cunibert, at Cologne, on this day. To their chief festival, however, we shall refer the reader for more detailed particulars regarding them.

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Saint Virgil of Salzburg, November 27

November 27 is the feastday of a saint into whose interesting life and career I hope to do much more research - Virgil of Salzburg. Behind this classical name lies an eighth-century Irishman, Fearghal, whose love of learning threatened to lead him into trouble, especially with his contemporary, Saint Boniface, who, like Virgil, laboured among the Germans. Below is a paper from the American Ecclesiastical Review on the life of Saint Virgil, not only a great Irish missionary, but also a great Irish scholar.

ST. VIRGIL THE GEOMETER, BISHOP OF SALZBURG AND APOSTLE OF CARANTANIA

SOME time ago an item of news made the rounds of the Catholic press that must have cheered the heart of every missionary. Catholic Ireland, it said, has begun to take an active share in the evangelization of China. On St. Patrick's Day the Chinese Missionary Society of Maynooth, one of the youngest of our missionary organizations, sent forth its first band of apostles to the Far East. Their destination is the Province of Hupe on the Yangtzekiang. Others will follow soon, for the Mission Seminary is filled to overflowing with students.

On reading this welcome news my thoughts turned back to the glorious days of the ancient Irish Church, when Ireland's sons went over the seas in shiploads to bring Christianity and civilization -to every country of Europe; when Columkille converted the Pict, Columbanus and Gall preached to the Alamannian and the Lombard, and Kilian laid down his life in defence of the faith in the Thuringian Forest. What a pity that, with but a few exceptions, these Irish heroes of Christianity found no contemporary biographers to tell the world of their deeds and sufferings. Of many of them we know hardly more than their names; with others legend and folklore have been so busy that it is no easy task to separate the chaff from the wheat in the accounts that have come down to us. In this paper we shall attempt to sketch the career of one of the last great Irish missionaries of the early Middle Ages St. Virgil of Salzburg. His so-called biography was written four hundred years after his death and is of no historical value. For our knowledge of him we are indebted to occasional notices in various contemporary sources.

I."THE PILGRIMAGE OF THE LORD."

About the early life of Virgil, or Fergil, as he was called in his native land, we know nothing at all. When we first hear of him, he was abbot of Aghaboe in the present Queen's County, Ireland. His superior knowledge of mathematics had gained for him the surname of the Geometer. About 743 he left his monastery to spend the rest of his days on the Continent as a voluntary exile "for the love of Christ ". The fame of St. Fursy's tomb and of the great Irish monastery that had sprung up round it drew him to Peronne in Western Gaul. At Quierzy on the Oise he met the Neustrian Mayor of the Palace, Pippin the Short, who had just returned from his successful expedition against his rebellious brother-in-law, Duke Odilo of Bavaria, The Prince became greatly attached to the learned monk and kept him in his palace for two years. Then he sent him to Odilo, who after a short period of imprisonment had been permitted to resume the government of his dukedom. Of Virgil's companions two are known to us by name : Tuti, or Dobda, an Irish Bishop, called the Greek, and Sidonius, who was probably also an Irishman.


2. CONFLICT WITH ST. BONIFACE.

Several years before Virgil's arrival St. Boniface had organized and reformed the Bavarian Church. He had divided the country into four dioceses, viz., Passau, Ratisbon, Freising, and Salzburg, and appointed able and God-fearing men to preside over them. A synod, which met in Ratisbon in 740, crowned the work of reform and ushered in a long period of bloom for the Church in Bavaria. Amongst the clergy there were, however, still some whose unclerical conduct or lack of theological training was a constant source of annoyance to Boniface and of disedification to the faithful. It was an unlettered priest who occasioned the famous controversy between Boniface and Virgil which was attended with such unpleasant consequences for both. Owing to his ignorance of Latin he had baptized with the words: "Baptizo te in nomine patria et filia et Spiritus Sancti" (" I baptize thee in the name fatherland and daughter and of the Holy Ghost"). Boniface, always scrupulous, and still more so as he advanced in years, decided that baptisms administered in this manner were not valid, and ordered rebaptism. Virgil and his friend Sidonius, whom he appears to have charged with this task, questioned his ruling and sought from Pope Zachary a clear decision in the matter. The Pontiff pronounced in favor of the Irishmen. "If the person who baptized," he wrote to Boniface on I July, 746, " had no intention to introduce either error or heresy, but merely from ignorance of the Roman tongue made use of such words, we cannot agree with you that on this account the baptisms must be repeated. Therefore, if the report that has reached us is true, you must not in future issue such orders, but zealously hold to what the Fathers teach." Boniface submitted, but the friction between him and Virgil did not end here.

About this time Bishop John of Salzburg died. Without consulting either the Pope or his Legate, Odilo appointed Virgil to succeed him, making him at the same time abbot of St. Peter's monastery in that town. Virgil took upon himself the administration of the vacant see, but for some reason or other deferred his episcopal consecration indefinitely. The purely episcopal functions were performed by his friend Dobdagrec. Such arrangements were frequently found in Ireland in those days and in Continental districts where Irish influence was paramount When Boniface, who was by no means inclined to give up his rights over the Bavarian Church, contested his position, Virgil replied that he held it with the sanction of the Pope. Zachary flatly denied this: he did not even know, he said, whether to call Virgil a priest or not. We may suppose that Virgil acted in good faith, and that he was misled by Odilo into believing that the matter had been arranged with the Holy See.

Virgil's uncanonical position in Salzburg was only one of the charges that Boniface lodged against him in Rome; another was that he strove to poison the mind of Odilo against him; a third, that he was a teacher of heresy. What truth there was in the second accusation, we have no means of determining.

In regard to the third, we have no first-hand information as to Virgil's supposed heretical teachings, but only the Pope's answer to Boniface's report. According to this, he taught that "there was another world, and other men beneath the earth, and sun, and moon." From these words it is not altogether clear what Virgil's doctrine was, or where his error lay. A glance at the cosmographical ideas current at the time may throw some light on this much-mooted question.

The earth, anciently believed to be a flat surface, was already known to the educated Greeks and Romans to be a globe. On the question of antipodes, or inhabitants on the other side of the globe, opinion was divided. Those who believed in their existence maintained that they were a race of men wholly independent of us and separated from us by an impassable barrier of heat and water. Called upon to express their views on these matters, the Christian doctors left the question of the sphericity of the earth open, but emphatically rejected the doctrine of antipodes as repugnant to the scriptural teaching on the unity of the human race, the universality of original sin, and the redemption of all men by Christ.

In the eighth century the great mass of the uneducated and no doubt the vast majority of the educated also, regarded the earth as a plane; but neither the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth nor the supposed existence of dwellers under the earth was entirely forgotten. Being a great scholar, Virgil must have been acquainted with Martianus Capella, Bede, and Isidore of Seville, perhaps also with Pliny and Macrobius. In Bede, Pliny or Macrobius he found scientific proofs for the sphericity of the earth, and in Isidore he read of the "unknown regions beyond the ocean" and of the races of men "fabled" to dwell there. In his lectures to the monks of St. Peter's, in his conversations with his friends, perhaps even from the pulpit, he may have given expression to these views without the necessary explanations. If he had merely spoken of another world beneath our earth with another sun and moon or the same sun and moon that illumine ours, his doctrine might have aroused astonishment and even contradiction, but neither Boniface nor any other bishop would have branded it as heretical ; for these are questions that can in no way be a matter of faith; but if he spoke of other men beneath the earth, of antipodes, he was universally understood to mean, even if he did not expressly say so, a race of men not descended from Adam and not redeemed by Christ, and Boniface was perfectly justified in denouncing him to the Pope.

Zachary pronounced no immediate sentence in the case. He was evidently not fully convinced of Virgil's guilt. "In regard to the said Virgil's sinful and perverse doctrine," he wrote to Boniface on 1 May, 748, "which he has taught against God and his own soul if it be proved that he holds that there is another world, and other men beneath the earth, and sun and moon summon a council, expel him from the Church, and degrade him from the priesthood." He also wrote to Duke Odilo, requesting him to send Virgil to Rome to be examined. To Virgil and Sidonius the latter had evidently again identified himself with his countryman he sent a letter of reprimand and a summons to appear before him. Boniface himself he admonished "not to give way to anger in dealing with the erring, but rather to reprove, convict, and rebuke them in all patience that they may the more surely return from error to the path of truth".

We do not know whether Virgil went to Rome or not; nor is there any trace of a Bavarian council having been summoned to decide his case. The war that broke out between the Franks and the Bavarians after the death of Odilo in the summer of 748 and ended in the defeat of the latter, probably made the holding of a synod impossible. It has been suggested that Pippin interfered in favor of his former protege, and prevented further action against him by his fellow bishops. I am inclined to believe that Boniface followed the advice of the Pope and in a friendly conference gave Virgil the opportunity of clearing himself entirely from the imputation of heresy. At all events, what we know of Virgil's subsequent career precludes even the possibility of his having been deposed from his office or subjected to any ecclesiastical penalty.

3. EPISCOPAL LABORS.

At the urgent request of the clergy and laity of Salzburg Virgil received episcopal consecration on 15 June, 767. All our sources agree that he ruled his diocese with wisdom and energy. Immediately after his consecration he began the erection of a cathedral church. It was finished in 774 and dedicated to St. Rupert, the Apostle of Bavaria, whose relics he had removed to it from their former resting-place in St. Peter's monastery. An incident which occurred in 767 shows that he had completely broken with the views of his native land on the episcopal office, and that he had become a "Continental bishop" in the full sense of the word. A certain nobleman, named Gunther, had erected a monastery at Otting near the present town of Waging and requested Virgil to help him to find monks for it and to consecrate the monastery church. Virgil promised to do so, but only on condition that the new foundation should be subject to his jurisdiction. Virgil did not, it seems, found any monasteries himself, several, however, such as Tegernsee, Kremsmunster and Chiemsee, owed their erection to his initiative. He was, on the other hand, a great church builder, as his epitaph testifies :

Interim et erexit pulchro molimine multa
Templa, loco quaedam nunc quae cernuntur in isto.

Virgil also took an active part in the ecclesiastical life of Bavaria. In 774 he was present at the important synod held at Dingolfing in Lower Bavaria. The acts of the synod are still preserved. They show how zealously the bishops watched over the spiritual and temporal welfare of their flocks. They insist on the strict observance of Sunday, on discipline in the monasteries, and on the rights as well as the duties of serfs and slaves. To restrain duelling, they decreed that a peaceful settlement must be attempted before an appeal to arms was permitted. It was at this synod, too, that the bishops and abbots of Bavaria formed a union, or confraternity, of prayer, the members of which pledged themselves to assist each other by prayers and good works in life and by Masses after death.

4. APOSTLE OF CARANTANIA.

Endowed with a full share of the missionary zeal of his countrymen, Virgil also turned his attention to the pagan nations settled on the borders of his diocese. About the middle of the eighth century Borut, the ruler of the Carantanian Slavs, sought the aid of the Bavarians against the fierce Avars, who had been harassing and pillaging his lands for years. Duke Odilo acceded to the request, but Borut had to acknowledge his overlordship and send his son Gorazd and his nephew Cheitmar as hostages to Bavaria. Here the princes were instructed in the Christian religion and received baptism. Borut was succeeded by Gorazd, who thus became the first Christian ruler of the Alpine Slavs. His premature death prevented him, however, from doing anything for the spread of the Christian faith amongst his subjects. His successor Cheitmar requested Virgil, to whom he was bound by ties of devoted friendship, to preach the Gospel to the Carantanians. Unable to do so himself, Virgil sent his countryman Modestus with a number of priests and clerics in his stead.

For ten years Modestus labored untiringly amongst the rude peasants and shepherds of the Carinthian and Styrian mountains. In spite of the difficulties and dangers with which he had to cope, he succeeded in establishing Christianity firmly in the land. Christian communities sprang up in various parts, and with Virgil's aid half a dozen churches, rough wooden structures, but sufficient for the needs of the faithful, could be erected. After the death of Modestus in 760 the infant Slavish Church was threatened with utter ruin. The pagans took up arms against the Bavarians, fired the churches and expelled the missionaries. Still Virgil did not lose heart. As soon as the insurrection was quelled, he dispatched a fresh band of apostles to take up the abandoned work. The ruined churches were rebuilt, the scattered Christians returned to their homes, and better days began to dawn for the mission. Virgil did not live to see the full fruits of his efforts for the conversion of the Slavs. Still it was he who had prepared the soil and sown the seed and sent the laborers, and therefore he has been justly styled the "apostle of the Carantanians ". He had also planned the evangelization of the Avars, who dwelt farther to the east; but as no favorable opening presented itself, he desisted from the attempt.

5. VIRGIL'S LIBER VITAE. His DEATH.

After his conflict with St. Boniface, Virgil to all appearance gave up his speculations in cosmography; his restless mind, however, was busy in another direction. He took the liveliest interest in the preservation of the historical traditions of the Bavarian Church. He gathered the materials for a life of St. Rupert and encouraged his episcopal colleague, Aribo of Freising, to write the life of St. Corbinian. But the most important historical document which we owe to him is the Salzburg Liber Vitae (Book of Life). It was begun in the year of his death, and contains the names of all persons, clerical and lay, living and dead, who were in spiritual communion with the monks of St. Peter's monastery in Salzburg, and for whom commemoration was to be made at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Among the thousand names entered on the lists are those of all the Abbots of Iona (Hy) from 597, the year of the death of St. Columkille, to 767. Among the living potentates we find the name of the Pictish King Cinadhon. A letter is still extant in which a certain Abbot Adalbert recommends a deceased monk to the prayers of Virgil and his associates.

Virgil died 27 November, 784. Alcuin celebrated his virtues and learning in a poem which is still preserved. On 5 April, 1167, the Cathedral of St. Rupert in Salzburg was destroyed by fire. In 1181 some workmen, while clearing away the debris, discovered Virgil's tomb with an image of the saint bearing the inscription :

Virgilius templum construxit scemate pulchro.

Numerous miracles ascribed to his intercession led to the introduction of his cause in Rome and his canonization by Gregory IX in 1233. His feast is celebrated on the 27th of November. This is all that authentic history tells us of Virgil, the scholar, bishop, apostle, and saint. Only total ignorance of the facts, or the wish at all costs to cast an aspersion on the papacy, can make of him, as has been frequently done, a "martyr of science and a victim of Roman intolerance ".

GEORGE METLAKE.

American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol LXIII, (1920) 13-21.

Saint Columbanus, November 21

November 21 is the feast of Saint Columbanus and to mark the occasion below is a paper by Archbishop John Healy, one of a series on Irish monastic schools, which appeared in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in the closing decades of the nineteenth century:

The School of Bangor - St. Columbanus.

ST. COLUMBANUS was the great glory of the school of Bangor. He is one of the most striking figures of his age; his influence has been even felt down to our own times. The libraries which contain manuscripts written by his monks are ransacked for these literary treasures, and the greatest scholars of France and Germany study the Celtic glosses which the monks of Columbanus jotted down on the margins or between the leaves of their manuscripts. Hence we think it right to call special attention to the literary labours of Columbanus, because he is at once the highest representative of Celtic culture and Celtic monasticism.

We need not dwell at length on the facts of his life, striking and interesting as his marvellous career undoubtedly is. His life, published by Surius, was written by an Italian monk of Bobbio, called Jonas, at the request of his ecclesiastical superiors, and, though full enough in details regarding his life on the Continent, it is meagre as to facts of his youth in Ireland. It is, however, so far as it goes, authentic, for the informants of Jonas, were the members of his own community of Bobbio, who were companions of the saint, and eye-witnesses of what they relate.

Columbanus, or Columba, was the Latin name given to the saint, probably on account of the sweetness of his disposition. For although in the cause of God he was impetuous, and sometimes even headstrong, we are told that to his companions and associates he was ever gracious and quiet as the dove. We know for certain that he was a native of West Leinster, and born about the year 543, if not earlier, for he was at least 72 years at his death in 615. In his boyhood he gave himself up with great zeal and success to the study of grammar, and of the other liberal arts then taught in our Irish schools, including geometry, arithmetic, dialectics, astronomy, rhetoric, and music. He was a handsome youth, too, well-shaped and prepossessing in appearance, fair and blue-eyed like most of the nobles of the Scots. This was to him a source of great danger, for at least one young maiden strove to win the affections of the handsome scholar, and wean his heart from God. Old Jonas, the writer of the life, shudders at the thought of the danger to which Columbanus was exposed, and the devilish snares that were laid for his innocence. The youth himself was fully sensible of his danger, and sought the counsel of a holy virgin who lived in a hermitage hard by. At first he spoke with hesitation and humility, but afterwards with confidence and courage, which showed that he was a youth of high spirit, and therefore all the more in danger. "What need," replied the virgin, "to seek my counsel. I myself have fled the world, and for fifteen years have remained shut up in this cell. Remember the warning examples of David, Samson, and Solomon, who were led astray by the love of women. There is no security for you except in flight." The youth was greatly terrified by this solemn warning, and bidding farewell to his parents, resolved to leave home and retire for his soul's sake to some religious house where he would be secure. His mother, with tears, besought him to stay; she even threw herself on the threshold before him, but the boy, declaring that whoever loved his father or mother more than Christ, is unworthy of him, stepped aside, and left his home and his parents, whom he never saw again.

He went straight to Cluaninis, in Lough Erne, whose hundred islets in those days were the homes of holy men, who gave themselves up to prayer, penance, and sacred study. An old man named Sinell, was at that time famous for holiness and learning, and so Columbanus placed himself under his care, and made great progress both in profane learning, and especially in the study of the Sacred Scriptures.

At this time the fame of Bangor was great throughout the land: so Columbanus leaving his master Sinell of Lough Erne, came to Comgall, and prostrating himself before the Abbot begged to be admitted amongst his monks. The request was granted at once, and Columbanus, as we are expressly informed, spent many years in that great monastery by the sea, going through all the literary and religious exercises of the community with much fervour and exactness. This was the spring-time of his life, in which he sowed the seeds of that spiritual harvest, which France and Italy afterwards reaped in such abundance. His rule was the rule of Bangor. His learning was the learning of Bangor, His spirit was the spirit of Bangor.

When fully trained in knowledge and piety, Columbanus sought his Abbot Comgall, and begged leave to go, like so many of his countrymen, on a pilgrimage for Christ. It was the impulse of the Celtic mind from the beginning- it is so still-the Irish are a nation of Apostles. It is not a mere love of change or foreign travel, or tedium of home, the pilgrimage, or peregrinatio, was essentially undertaken to spread the Gospel of Christ. The holy Abbot Comgall gladly assented. He gave him his leave and his blessing, and Columbanus, taking with him twelve companions, prepared to cross the sea. Money they had none: they needed none. The only treasure they took with them was their books slung over their shoulders in leathern satchels, and so, with their staves in their hands, and courage in their hearts, they set out from their native country never to return. At first they went to England, and traversing that country, where it seems, too, they were joined by some associates, they found means to cross the channel and came to Gaul, about the year 575.

Gaul at that time was in a deplorable state. The country was nearly depopulated by a century of cruel wars; and although the Kings of the Franks were nominally Christians, and their people Catholics, yet partly from the disturbances of the times, and partly from the negligence of the prelates, vice and crime were everywhere triumphant. The apostolic man with his companions at once set about preaching the Gospel in these half-Christian towns and villages. Poor, half-naked, hungry, their lives were a sermon; but moreover, Columbanus was gifted with great eloquence, and a sweet persuasive manner that no one could resist. They were everywhere received as men of God, and the fame of their holiness and miracles even came to the court of Sigebert, King of Austrasia, of which Metz was the capital. He pressed them to stay in his dominions, but they would not. They went their way southward through a wild and desert country, preaching and teaching, healing and converting, until they came to the Court of Gontran, grandson of Clovis, at that time King of Burgundy-one of the three kingdoms into which the great monarchy of Clovis had come to be subdivided.

Gontran received the missionaries with a warm welcome, and at first established them at a place called Annegray, where there was an old Roman castle in the modern department of the Haute-Saone. The King offered them both food and money, but these things they declined, and such was their extreme poverty, that they were often forced to live for weeks together on the herbs of the field, on the berries, and even the bark of the trees. Columbanus used from time to time bury himself alone in the depths of the forest, heedless of hunger, which stared him in the face, and of the wild beasts that roamed around him, trusting altogether to the good providence of God. He became even the prince of the wild animals. The birds would pick the crumbs from his feet; the squirrels would hide themselves under his cowl; the hungry wolves harmed him not; he slept in the cave where a bear had its den. Once a week a boy would bring him a little bread or vegetables: he needed nothing else. He had no companion. The Bible transcribed, no doubt, at Bangor with his own hand, was his only study and his highest solace. Thus for weeks, and even months, he led a life, like John the Baptist, in the wilderness, wholly divine.

Meanwhile the number of disciples in the monastery at the old rained castle of Annegray daily increased, and it became necessary to seek a more suitable site for a larger community. Here too the Burgundian King Gontran proved himself the generous patron of Columbanus and his monks. There was at the foot of the Vosges mountains, where warm medicinal springs pour out a healing stream, an old Roman settlement called Leuxeil. But it was now a desert. The broken walls of the ancient villas were covered with shrubs and weeds. The woods had extended from the slopes of the mountain down to the valleys covering all the country round. There was no population, no tillage, no arable land; it was all a savage forest, filled with wolves, bears, foxes, and wild cats. Not a promising site for a monastic settlement, but such a place exactly as Columba and his companions desired. They wanted solitude, they loved labour, and they would have plenty of both. In a few years a marvellous change came over the scene. The woods were cleared, the lands were tilled, fields of waving corn rewarded the labour of the monks, and smiling vineyards gave them wine for the sick and for the holy Sacrifice. The noblest youths of the Franks begged to be admitted to the brotherhood, and gladly took their share in the daily round of prayer, penance, and ceaseless toil. They worked so long that they fell asleep from fatigue when walking home. They slept so little that it was a new penance to tear themselves from the mats on which they lay. But the blessing of God was upon them; they grew in numbers, and in holiness, and in happiness, not the happiness of men who love this world, but the happiness of those who truly serve God.

But now a sore trial was nigh. God wished to purify his servants by suffering, and to extend to other lands the sphere of their usefulness. The first trial came from the secular clergy. Those Irish monks were men of virtue and austerity, but they were also in many respects very peculiar. They had a liturgy of their own somewhat different from that in use around them; they had a queer tonsure, like Simon Magus, it was said, in front from ear to ear, instead of the orthodox and customary crown. Worst of all, it sometimes happened that they celebrated Easter on Palm Sunday, so that they were singing their alleluias when all the churches of the Franks were in the mourning of Passion time. Remonstrance was useless; they adhered tenaciously to their country's usages; nothing could convince them that what St. Patrick and the saints of Ireland had handed down to them could by any possibility be wrong. They only wanted to be let alone. They did not desire to impose their usages on others. Why should others impose their usages on them? They had a right to be allowed to live in peace in their wilderness, for they injured no man, and they prayed for all. Thus it was that Columbanus reasoned, or rather remonstrated, with a synod of French bishops that objected to his practices. His letters to them and to Pope Gregory the Great on the subject of this Paschal question are still extant, and he cannot be justified in some of the expressions which he uses. He tells the bishops in effect in one place that they would be better employed in enforcing canonical discipline amongst their own clergy, than in discussing the Paschal question with him and his monks. Yet here and there he speaks not only with force and freedom, but also with true humility and genuine eloquence. He implores the prelates in the most solemn language to let him and his brethren live in peace and charity in the heart of their silent woods, beside the bones of their seventeen brothers who were dead. "Surely it is better for you," he says, "to comfort than to disturb us, poor old men, strangers, too, in your midst. Let us rather love one another in the charity of Christ, striving to fulfil his precepts, and thereby secure a place in the assembly of the just made perfect in heaven." Language of this character, used, too, in justification of practices harmless in themselves, but not in accordance with the prevalent discipline of the Church at the time, was by no means well calculated to beget affection towards the strangers in the minds of the Frankish clergy. Other troubles, too, soon arose.

Gontran, the steady friend of Columbanus, died childless in 593, and was succeeded in Burgundy by his nephew Childebert II., already King of Austrasia, the son of the infamous Queen Brunehaut. He too died three years later, leaving his kingdoms to his young sons Theodebert, who got Austrasia, and Thierry, who took Burgundy. Brunehaut, their grandmother, the daughter of the Arian King of the Visi-Goths of Spain, was in her youth handsome, generous, and pious. But her heart was soured by the murder of her sister, the Queen of Neustria; she gave her whole soul to the demon of vengeance, and she wished for power to compass her vengeance. So she took the guardianship of the young princes into her own hands (596), and in order to secure her own power she encouraged the princes to indulge in every debauchery. This was especially the case after she was driven by the nobles from Austrasia and forced to take refuge in Burgundy, where she had the young Thierry at her own bad disposal. A lawful queen might dispossess the wicked Brunehaut from the place of influence which she held over the king, and so she encouraged him in the pursuit of unlawful love, in order to secure her own power. Leuxeil was in Burgundy, and King Thierry, pious after the fashion of the Merovignians, sometimes visited Columbanus and his monks. The latter was no respecter of persons, and on these occasions he rebuked the king with apostolic zeal and courage for keeping concubines at his palace instead of a lawful queen. The king took the rebuke patiently, and promised amendment; but Brunehaut was more dangerous to touch. On one occasion when Columbanus was at Bourcheresse she brought the four children of Thierry to be blessed by the saint. "What would you have me do?" he said. "To bless the king's children," answered Brunehaut. "They will never reign," he cried out, "they are the offspring of iniquity." The woman retired wrathful and humiliated, plotting revenge. All the neighbouring people, even the religious houses, were forbidden to hold any communication with Columbanus and his monks, or to yield them any succour. But Columbanus, so far from yielding, wrote a reproachful letter to the king, in which he even threatened excommunication if he persisted in his evil courses. Here no doubt was the height of insolence-a foreign monk to threaten to excommunicate a king of the Franks. It was intolerable. Yet when Columbanus came to the royal villa at Epoisses to remonstrate with the king, he was hospitably received. He however indignantly refused to accept the hospitality of the persecutor of his poor monks, and under his withering curse the vessels containing the repast were broken to pieces. On this occasion both Thierry and Brunehaut, in terror of their lives, asked pardon, which was readily granted. But the truce only lasted for a short time. Thierry relapsed again into his crimes, and again Columbanus threatened excommunication. This time both Thierry and the queen came to Leuxeil in person, but Columbanus strictly adhering to the Irish rule excluding women from the cloister, forbade them to cross the threshold of his monastery. The king persisted, and made his way to the refectory, "Know then," said the intrepid monk, "that as you have broken our rules we will have none of your gifts, and, moreover, God will destroy your kingdom and your race." "I won't make you a martyr," said Thierry ; "I am not such a fool: but since you and your monks will have nothing to do with us, you must leave this place and go home to your own country whence you came." This was about the year 610.

For the present, however, he was only made a prisoner, and conducted to Bensancon, where he was kept under surveillance, until one day, looking with longing to his beloved Leuxeil, and seeing no one at hand to prevent him, he descended the steep cliff which overhangs the river Doubs, and returned to his monastery. When the king heard of his return, he sent imperative orders to have him and all his companions from Ireland and Britain forcibly removed from the monastery, and conveyed home to their own country. The soldiers presented themselves at Leuxeil when the holy man was in the choir with his monks. They told him their orders, and begged him to come voluntarily with them-they were unwilling to resort to force. At first he refused; but lest the soldiers might be punished for not resorting to that violence which they were unwilling to make use of, he finally yielded. He called his Irish brethren around them: "Let us go," he said, "my brothers, in the name of God." It was hard to leave the scene of their labours, their sorrows, and their joys; hard to leave behind them the graves of the seventeen brethren with whom they had hoped to rest in peace. But go they must; the soldiers would not for a moment leave them. It was a brief and sad leave-taking. Wails of sorrow were heard everywhere for the loss of their beloved father; brother was torn from brother, friend from friend, never to meet again in this world. Thus it was that Columbanus and his Irish companions left that dear monastery of Leuxeil, and were conducted by the soldiers to Nevers. There, still guarded by the soldiers, they embarked in a boat that conveyed them down the Loire to its mouth, where they would find a ship to convey them back again to Ireland.

But it was not the will of Providence that Columbanus and his companions, when driven from Leuxeil, should return to Ireland: other work was before them to do. Accordingly, when they came to the mouth of the Loire, their baggage, such as it was, was put on board, and most of the monks embarked. But the sea rose mountains high, and the ship which Columbanus intended to rejoin when under weigh, was forced to return to port. A three days' calm succeeded, and the captain, fearing to provoke a new storm, caused the monks and their baggage to be put on shore, for he feared to take them with him. Thus left to themselves, Columbanus and his companions went to Soissons to Clotaire, King of Neustria, by whom he was received with every kindness and hospitality. The king cordially hated Brunehaut and her grandson-his mother, Fredegonda, had murdered Brunehaut's sister- and he was anxious to keep Columbanus in his own kingdom, but the latter would not stay. He pushed on, with his companions, to Metz, the capital of Austrasia, where Theodebert, the brother of Thierry, then reigned. Here he was joined by several of his old monks from Leuxeil, who preferred to follow their father in his wanderings, to remaining behind in the kingdom of his persecutor.

Columbanus now resolved to preach the Gospel to the pagan populations on the right bank of the Rhine and its tributary streams. So embarking at Mayence, after many toils and dangers, they came as far as Lake Zurich, in Switzerland, and finally established themselves at Bregentz, on the Lake of Constance, where they fixed their headquarters. The tribes inhabiting these wild and beautiful regions-the Suevi and Alemanni-were idolaters, though nominal subjects of the Austrasian kingdom. Woden was their God, and they worshipped him with dark mysterious rites, under the shadow of sacred oaks, far in the depths of the forest. Discretion was not a gift of Columbanus, so he not only preached the Gospel amongst them, but, axe in hand, he had the courage to cut down their sacred trees; he burned their rude temples, and cast their fantastic idols into the lake. It was not wise; the people became enraged, and the missionaries were forced to fly. After struggling for three years to convert this savage people, Columbanus, perceiving that the work was not destined to be accomplished by him, crossed the snow-covered Alps by the pass of St. Gothard, though now more than seventy years of age, and after incredible toil, succeeded, with a few of his old companions, in making his way to the Court of the Lombard King Agilulph, whose Queen was Theodelinda, famous for beauty, for genius, and for virtue.

At this time the Lombards were Arians, and Agilulph himself was an Arian, although Queen Theodelinda was a devout Catholic. Mainly we may assume through her influence the Arian monarch received the broken down old man and his companions with the utmost kindness, and Columbanus had an ample field for the exercise of his missionary zeal amongst the rude half-Christian population. But first of all it was necessary to have a permanent home -and nowhere could he find rest except in solitude. Just at this time a certain Jucundus reminded the King that there was at a place called Bobbio a ruined church once dedicated to St. Peter; that the place round about was fertile and well watered with streams, abounding in every kind of fish. It was near the Trebbia, almost at the very spot where Hannibal first felt the rigours of that fierce winter in the snows of the Appenines, so graphically described by Livy. The King gladly gave the place to Columbanus, and the energetic old man set about repairing the ruined church and building his monastery with all that unquenchable ardour that cleared the forests of Leuxeil, and crossed the snows of the Alps. His labours were regarded by his followers as miraculous. The fir trees, cut down in the valleys of the Appenines, which his monks were unable to carry down the steep and rugged ways, when the old man himself came and took a share of the burden were found to be no weight. So, speedily and joyfully, with the visible aid of heaven, they completed the task, and built in the valley of the Appenines a monastery, whose name will never be forgotten by saints or scholars. Whilst it was building, Clotaire, King of Neustria, now monarch of all the Franks according to the prediction of Columbanus, sent a solemn embassy to Bobbio, and invited him in most courteous language to return again to France to dwell with his companions where he pleased. He declined, however, the tempting offer of the king. France had cast him out; he had now found a home; he was too old to become a wanderer any more.

The holy old man lived but one year after he had founded Bobbio. His merits were full; the work of his life was complete; he had given his rule to the new house; he left behind him some of his old companions to complete his work, and now he was ready to die. To the great grief of the brotherhood, Columbanus passed away to his reward on the eleventh day before the Kalends of December, in the year 615, probably in the seventy-third year of his age. He was buried beneath the high altar, and long afterwards the holy remains were enclosed in a stone coffin, and are still preserved in the old monastic Church of Bobbio.

It is not too much to say that Ireland never sent a greater son than Columbanus to do the work of God in foreign lands. He brought forth much fruit and his fruit has remained. For centuries his influence was dominant in France and in Northern Italy, and even in our own days, his spirit speaketh from his urn. His deeds have been described by many eloquent tongues and pens, and his writings have been carefully studied to ascertain the secret of his extraordinary influence over his own and subsequent ages. His character was not indeed faultless, but he was consumed with a restless untiring zeal in the service of his Master, which was at once the secret of his power and the source of his mistakes. He was too ardent in character, and almost too zealous in the cause of God. In this respect he is not unlike St. Jerome, but we forget their faults in our admiration for their virtues and their labours. A man more holy, more chaste, more self-denying, a man with loftier aims and purer heart than Columbanus, was never born in the Island of Saints.

JOHN HEALY.

The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. VI, (1885), 209-219.

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The Martyr of Roeux

October 31 is the feast of Saint Foillan, one of a trio of saintly brothers who went as missionaries to seventh-century Gaul.  It was in his new territory that Foillan met a martyr's death, a story recounted by Dame Augusta Drake in her collection of Catholic Legends:

XXVII. THE MARTYR OF ROEUX.

 "At the time when the children of Clovis reigned in Gaul,” says an old chronicle, “ there was in Ireland a king by name Finnloga, who had a brother, the pious Bishop Brendan. Adfin, one of the kings of Scotland, had a daughter named Gelgés, who had embraced the religion of Christ. King Finnloga’ s son was smitten with her beauty, and married her, but privately, because it was necessary to conceal it from King Adfin, who was an implacable enemy of the faith. He soon discovered it, however, and had his daughter seized and condemned to be burnt. In vain his relations and other persons of influence represented to him that man ought not to separate what God had joined; he ordered the stake to be prepared. But no sooner had Gelgés placed her foot upon the burning wood than it was extinguished. Her father was not convinced by this prodigy, but he consented to spare the life of his daughter, and he condemned her to perpetual exile. She retired with her husband to good Bishop Brendan, her uncle, and there gave birth to three sons — Fursy, Folllan, and Ultan. On the death of the grandfather, Finnloga, their father was raised to the throne; but instead of returning to the court, they resolved, by Brendan’s instructions, to devote themselves to the service of God, and they embarked as missionaries for Gaul.” So far the chronicler.

 Fursy, after many labours and hardships, attained the crown of martyrdom. Foillan, the second brother, was preparing on the 31st October, 655, the day on which our narrative commences, to leave Nivelles, where he had been resting for a short space. Gertrude was at this time the abbess of the convent of Nivelles, and had given to Foillan, in 633, the domain of Fosses, where he had built a church and monastery, the tower of which, in fact, exists to this day. His brother Ultan was now at the monastery of Fosses, and Foillan was about to join him; but before doing so he wished to celebrate the festival of All Saints with his friend the blessed Vincent Maldegher. He took his journey therefore through an opening in the forest by the route of Soignies, where he was to receive hospitality for the night in the monastery of Vincent.

 After traversing many intricate paths in solitude and silence, without meeting any living being; and having moreover, as he thought, lost his way, he began to look about for some human habitation where he might obtain shelter and direction. At last he perceived some rude straw-built huts, and thither he accordingly directed his steps. This was the hamlet of Soneffe.

Foillan seeing that it was now late, and that he had not completed half his journey, was glad to enter a hut and ask for a guide. The frightful appearance and fierce looks of the inmates of the cabin would have frightened any one but the holy missionary. But, like the glass which we read of in the Arabian tale, that did not reflect any deformed object, the heart of the saint suspected no evil, and he at once desired two of the men to accompany him as guides. Foillan conversed with the men from time to time as they proceeded along the rough and unequal path; but they said little in reply. Finding they were still pagans, he spoke to them of God, His goodness and mercy, of the redemption of man by the blood of the Crucified, and of the paradise prepared for those who believe and do His will. All his words, however, fell unheeded on their ears, and he could only be silent and pray for them. At last the saint arrived with his guides at a part of the forest where an idol was worshipped; and there, whether it was that these pagans wished to force him to sacrifice like them to their god, or whether they thought only of robbing him, the four men threw themselves upon him and dispatched him with their clubs, heedless alike of his entreaties, or of the prayers which with his last voice he offered up for his murderers.

Night now set in cold and dismal. A violent wind began to howl among the trees; and next morning a thick snow, which lay for several months, covered the face of the country. Meantime, the companions of Foillan became alarmed at his prolonged absence, and at not having seen him at the feast of Christmas, which he was accustomed to celebrate at Fosses. The most dreadful fears began to be entertained, which were confirmed by several visions. His brother Ultan, as he was at prayers, saw pass before his eyes a dove white as snow, but with wings reddened with blood; a similar prodigy was seen by the abbess Gertrude; and on the 5th January, 656, information was given her in her cell at Nivelles, that in a certain spot of the forest of Soignies the snow was red. Next day she repaired thither, guided by a bloody vapour which hovered in the sky, and discovered the dead body of Foillan. It was at first earned with pomp to Nivelles, but Ultan desired it might be buried at Fosses, as the martyr himself had requested. In order to arrive at this monastery it was necessary to cross the Sambre, then swollen by the melted snow and ice. Not knowing where to cross, it is related that Gertrude ordering them to leave the horses free, the latter passed, followed by the crowd, through the place which has ever since been called the "Ford of St. Gertrude.”

 The body of the martyr was afterwards enclosed in a beautiful chapel; and on the same spot, at a later period, was raised a magnificent church, to which was added, in 1123, an abbey of Premonstratensians. The colour of the snow, which had revealed the place of the crime, gave to this place the name of Rood (red), which was afterwards known by the name of Le Roeux, an important barony in the middle ages, and at this day a thriving little village. Soneffe, whence the murderers of the holy Foillan came, continued, and still continues, to hear the marks of the divine malediction ; for while all the other hamlets around became flourishing towns, this alone has remained as in the times of paganism, a collection of miserable huts.

Drake, Dame Augusta Theodosia, ed. and trans., Catholic Legends: A New Collection (London, 1855), 208-211.





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The Monastery and Library of Saint Gall

October 16 is the feast of Saint Gall, a contemporary of Saint Columbanus, whose journey led him to part company with his master and to go on to labour in Switzerland, where the canton of Saint-Gallen preserves his name. Saint Gall's other great contribution to the religious culture of his adopted homeland was the monastery which also bears his name. Below is a paper on the Monastery and Library of Saint Gall from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record of 1894. I am unable to reproduce the footnotes and some of the foreign language material, so please refer to the original volume for the complete work. The author is the journal's German expert, Father J. F. Hogan, who contributed a series of articles on Irish monastic foundations in Germany. In this paper he introduces us to the successors of Saint Gall and the reputation for learning which their monastery enjoyed. Along the way we will meet some of Saint Gall's most famous sons, including the Irish scholar Moengal, the hymnographer Notker Balbulus and the physician Notker Medicus, among many others, before ending on a wistful, romantic note:

THE MONASTERY AND LIBRARY OF ST. GALL

AFTER the death of St. Gall his disciples did not disperse but continued under the rule of Columbanus to carry out the intentions of their founder. They were for the most part Irish monks who had been attracted to Switzerland by the fame of their countryman. During the disturbances that followed the decadence of the Merovingians, they had much to suffer from the barbarians who invaded the country from the north. They would, in all probability, have been completely exterminated had it not been for the protection of Talto, a powerful neighbour who earned for himself the well-deserved title of "Protector Hibernorum." They also induced a native priest, well known for his zeal, and for his important connections in the district to join them and become their abbot. This was Othmar of Chur, who brought to the service of the abbey the most devoted and enlightened zeal, and who died a martyr in its cause and in the cause of religion. His first care was to renew the cells of the monks, to rebuild the church, which was falling into decay, and to have the relics of St. Gall transferred from their resting-place and laid beneath the high altar of the new building. His energy and success soon became known abroad. Carloman, when about to retire for ever to the solitude of Monte Casino, stopped at the monastery on his way to Italy, and was so much impressed with its discipline and spirit, that he warmly recommended it to his brother Pepin. This monarch sent to its abbot a present of a bell, of sixty pounds in money, and of a right to twenty vassals in Breisgau beyond the Rhine. Such an example of royal munificence was quickly followed. Donations from smaller, but not less devoted personages, rapidly multiplied. In the modern cantons of Zurich, Thurgau, Appenzell, Schweitz, and St. Gall, the monastery received an enormous number of fiefs. Meyer von Knonau gives an immense list of them in one of his works. Those which were donated on the northern side of the Rhine are enumerated by Bishop Hefele in his History of the Introduction of Christianity into Southern Germany. They also are very numerous, and are scattered broadcast over the territory that extends from Basle and Strasburg on the one side, to the banks of the Danube on the other.

All these fiefs or properties did not come in to the monastery at once. They gradually accrued. But in the days of St. Othmar the movement had begun. The records of donations were carefully kept in the register of the monastery, and the motives of each one were usually inscribed in the act of transfer. Some gave up their possessions "for the glory of God and the propagation of His kingdom on earth;" others, "because the monastery teaches the Gospel and the doctrine of the Apostles." A rich proprietor, named Albrih, makes over a territory on account of " the instability of this chequered life."  The pious Countess Beata bequeathes her property " in view of the salvation of her soul, and in order to obtain an eternal recompense." Adalsind of Recchinbach is influenced by a motive, to which her sex is perennially sensitive "a desire to beautify and maintain the Church of our Blessed Lady." And thus to the end of the long chapter the formulas are renewed and repeated.

For centuries these large possessions were turned to the best account. Wherever a property fell into the hands of the monks, a church was built, and the pastorate of the country around it served from the monastery. Hence, as Bishop Hefele points out, the enormous number of churches dedicated to St. Gall, not only in Switzerland, but in Wurteinburg, Bavaria, and the Rhineland. The vassals of the surrounding country preferred to depend upon the monastery rather than on the exacting and rapacious lords who plundered and crushed them. The serfs, in particular, were delighted when they became subjects of the great institution. It meant for them kind masters, security, humane and considerate treatment, and a part, moreover, in the work of civilization which was going on, and which they looked upon, not only as conducive to a much better state of things in this world, but salutary even unto life eternal. There were, however, motives in abundance of a worldly kind to attach them to the monks. The monastery had its weavers, its tailors, its shoemakers, its blacksmiths, its smelters, its brewers, gardeners, grooms, shepherds, swineherds, besides a regular service of sailors and shipmen to manage its flotilla of boats on the Bodensee and the Rhine. All these contributed their part to the wealth of the monastery, whilst at the same time they enjoyed its privileges and protection. But, as the French proverb says, "qui a terre a guerre." The wealth of St. Gall did not escape the covetous eyes and the jealous greed of its neighbours. Two adventurous dukes, named Warin and Ruodbart, were the first to harrass the new establishment. The dispute began about some property which was bequeathed to the monks, and which these pretenders claimed as their own. In the course of the contest St. Othmar was taken prisoner, cast into a dungeon at the castle of Bodman, and afterwards at Stein, where he died on the 16th November, 759, having been practically starved to death by his jailors. The monastery, however, survived its persecutors, and freed itself ultimately from the power of all secular enemies. Its struggle for exemption from the jurisdiction of the bishops of Constance was longer and more envenomed, but in the end equally successful. Both successes were, no doubt, only transient, and were destined in subsequent ages to undergo many vicissitudes ; but they were of sufficient duration for the time to enable the institution to develop its interior life, and to acquire a fame for science and letters as well as for sanctity that was not equalled in Europe for two centuries.

These broils, whether of secular or ecclesiastical origin, occupied a good part of two hundred years, and during that time paralyzed, to a great extent, the intellectual influence of St. Gall. It was only in the year 818 that Louis the Mild, King of France, issued the edict which liberated St. Gall from the domination of the bishops of Constance, and left it absolutely free and unfettered to pursue its mission of civilization and benevolence. All the conditions were now favourable for such a career - wealth in abundance, exterior and interior peace, schools sufficient for the education of the poor, as well as of the nobles. It required only a man of genius or at least a man of good education and commanding talents to give a new impulse to the arts and sciences, in order to bring the influence of the establishment to maturity. This man appeared in due time in the person of Moengal or Marcellus, an Irish monk, who is regarded as the real founder of the school of St. Gall.

Moengal accompanied to Rome his uncle, named Marcus, who was a bishop in Ireland, and who went, with a large retinue of pilgrims, to visit the tombs of the apostles. On their return journey they made a pilgrimage to St. Gall, and were, as usual, hospitably received. The superiority of Moengal's education soon made its impression, with the result that he was implored by the monks to remain with them altogether, and assume the direction of their school. Moengal consented; and, as his uncle was now old and feeble, he also asked to be allowed to end his days in the monastery. He was freely accommodated, and welcomed as a permanent inmate of the cloister ; but his followers from Ireland were indignant at being deserted by the two leaders of their expedition. When they realized, however, the good that was to be done by their countrymen, they were satisfied, and received, before starting for Ireland, the blessing of the Bishop and of Moengal, who gave them over their mules, horses, money, and other accommodation for travelling, retaining for themselves only their books, vestments, and sacred vessels.

The direction of the monastic schools was now divided between Marcellus, or Moengal, and Iso. The young monks were confided to Marcellus, and the seculars to Iso. Iso was a native of Switzerland, of noble birth, and of uncommon talent. He was soon called away by the monks of Grandval, in Burgundy, who made him their abbot. After his departure, the whole responsibility of the schools fell upon Moengal. Under his direction some of the brothers were told off to make a special study of Greek ; they were the " Fratres Hellenici." Others cultivated Latin verse. Another class was set to master the ordinary arts of the "trivium" and "quadrivium." Others, again, were employed in the "Scriptorium," or in the laboratory. It was a perfect division of labour, in which nothing was neglected.

Amongst the many scholars trained by Marcellus, three became celebrated all over Europe. They were Notker, Ratpert, and Tuotilo. Notker belonged to a noble family of Thurgovia. He was, in every sense, the most admirable of the three. From his youth he had been afflicted with a delicate constitution, and with a defect in his speech, which gained him the name of Balbulus. He had, however, studied with the greatest diligence under Marcellus, and became a polished Latin scholar. His Martyrologium is one of the most important historical works of the period. He copied the Greek manuscripts of the canonical letters of the New Testament that were sent to him by Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, and translated a few of the works of Aristotle. He wrote, besides, a book of Sequences, a sort of new lyrical church poetry then in vogue, and several other works on Scriptural and historical subjects. One of his canticles, a sequence on the Holy Ghost, was sung before Innocent III., in the eleventh century. The Pope inquired if the author were canonized ; and, on being informed that he was not, he expressed a desire that his process should be commenced. It was only centuries later, however, that Notker was beatified. Several other hymns were also composed by him. Those most generally adopted in the liturgy of the Middle Ages were the hymn for the feast of Columbanus :

" Nostri solemnis saeculi,
Refulgit dies inclyta
Quo sacer coelos Columba
Ascendet ferens trophoe.
Qui post altus Hybernia
Sacro edoctus dogmate,
Gallica arva adiens
Plebi salutem tribuit ;"

and the hymn for the Feast of All Saints :

"Omnes superni ordines
Quibus dicatur hic dies
Mille milleni millies
Vestros audite supplices."

A very different man from the gentle and delicate Notker was the ardent Tutilo. He was a powerful, man, well built, and equal to any labour. He was an orator, a linguist, an engineer, a painter, an illuminator, a musician, a poet, a sculptor. A perfect portrait of him has been drawn for us by Ekkehart. He was particularly skilled in music, painting, wood-carving, and decoration. It is related of him that once, in the city of Metz, when painting a figure of the Virgin, he was assisted by our Blessed Lady herself, and left behind him an image that was considered the most perfect work of art of the whole period. On another occasion, at the monastery of St. Alban's, at Mayence, he carved and decorated a high altar; which, according to Ekkehart, was not surpassed in the whole of Christendom. The ivory decorations on the covers of the Evangelium Longum are the work of his hands. They are marvels of delicacy and artistic combination. In music he surpassed all others; and, as Ekkehart reminds us, reflected the greatest credit on his Irish master, Marcellus. He could play on all kinds of musical instruments, and took particular delight in combining melodies and composing verses to suit them. The most famous of his hymns were the "Hodie Cantandus est," for the feast of Christmas, and the " Omnium virtutum gemmis" for the Ascension. Many tropes and fragments of hymns in honour of other festivals were also composed by him. Thus, for the Resurrection, he writes:

" Exurge rector gentium,
Nec moriturus amplius,
Orbemque totum posside
Tuo redemptum sanguine."

Some desultory verses were turned off at a moment when he was impressed with the infinite goodness of the Redeemer:

"Rex pie, rex regum, regnans, Christe, per aevum."
"Qui mare, qui terras, coeli qui sceptra gubernas."
"Noxia depellens, culparum debita solvens."
"Qui super astra sedes, Patri deitate cohaeres."
"Es quoque sermo Patris summi, reparator et orbis."
"Lux, via, vita, salus, spes, pax, sapientia, virtus."
"Hic tibi laus resonet ; chorus hic in laude resultet."

In addition to these numerous accomplishments Tuotulo was an inveterate traveller, a fencer, and an athlete. When attacked in the forests his assailants usually suffered for their temerity. On one occasion in particular two powerful men waylaid his companions ; but when Tuotulo came up with them they surrendered all their plunder, and were glad enough to escape with their lives. The calm and home-loving Rathpert often warned his companion against the dissipation of travelling; Tuotilo in his turn joked at the slippers of his mentor, and proved by his marvellous activity how much he had benefited by a change of air.

Nothing is known [writes the late Dr. W. K. Sullivan] of the origin of this singularly gifted man. If he were a Swiss or German, something would be known of his parentage or birthplace, as in the case of his friends Batpert and St. Notker. But if he were a foreigner, as he may have been, there is nothing singular in the silence of the monastic chroniclers concerning the events of his early life, about which they could know nothing except incidentally. Of the crowd of Irishmen who poured out of Ireland from the end of the sixth to the beginning of the tenth century, and who took an active part in the intellectual movement of the time, how few have left sufficient evidence to enable us even to connect them with the land of their birth. Their lot was cast in the darkest period of the Middle Ages, and they have consequently suffered the fate which too often befalls those who are the precursors or originators of great intellectual or moral movements, or founders of new branches of science or art.

In the second half of the ninth century there appear to have been many Irishmen at St. Gall, besides Moengal ; and everything that we know of Tuotilo favours the view that he also was one. In the first place, the name is, to say the least, as much like a latinized form of the Irish Tuatal, Tuotal, or Tuathal, as of the Gothic Totilo. Again, the wandering disposition, the warm, impulsive spirit which made him equally ready to use his tongue or his arm against an enemy, remind us forcibly of St. Columbanus ; and lastly, his great skill in instrumental music, and especially the decidedly Irish character of the melodies of the two tropes 'Hodie Cantandus est' and 'Omnipotens Genitor' which have been published by Father Schubiger, seem conclusive as to his nationality. This Irish strain in his melodies may be the reason why these were considered in the Middle Ages to be peculiar and easily distinguishable from those of the other St. Gall composers. It is worth remarking that one of the oldest musical monuments of this period, the Liber Ymnorum Notkeri (still preserved at Einsiedlen, Codex 121), noted in Neunies, was illuminated, if not entirely written, by an Irish hand."

Tutilo was buried in the chapel of St. Catherine, in the church of St. Gall, and the inscription placed over his resting-place in after ages gratefully recorded that "no one ever went away sad from his tomb."

Ratpert was the third of the inseparable companions who formed what has been designated as the " Trifolium Sangalleuse." To him we are indebted for a most valuable history of his monastery from the death of St. Othmar down to his own times. He also is the author of several hymns, amongst others of the processional litany which begins:

"Ardua spes mundi, solidator et inclyte coeli."

But he was particularly successful as a teacher in the schools. Before his death his pupils came to present him with a book which they had ornamented and illuminated in the style of which he himself was such a master. Their address, which was read by the youngest, ran as follows :

" Hoc opus exiguum puerili pollice scriptum."
" Sit Ruhtperte tibi magnum, promtissime doctor."
"Largo lacte tuo potatus, pane cibatus."
"Ipse, precor, vigeas, valeas venereris, ameris."
" Hoc optant mecum pueri, juvenesque, senesque."

There were several other Notkers at St. Gall besides Notker Balbulus. Notker Medicus was the great physician of his age. He wrought wonderful cures by means of his art, and varied his occupations by painting a series of frescoes in the church of St. Gall and decorating manuscripts with inimitable miniatures. He was particularly devoted to the memory of St. Othmar, in whose honour he composed the hymn " Rector aeterni metuende saecli."

Another Notker was a nephew of the Emperor Otho I. He became Dean of St. Gall, Abbot of Stavelot, and Bishop of Liege. Notker Labeo was one of the earliest writers in the German language, into which, about the end of the tenth century and commencement of the eleventh, he translated a considerable portion of the Bible, and the works of several ecclesiastical and profane authors.

A contemporary of most of those mentioned above was Salomon, Abbot of St. Gall and Bishop of Constance. Salomon was one of the most troublesome friends the monastery ever had. From being a spoiled and wayward child he became an exceedingly clever but worldly ecclesiastic. The wise men of St. Gall shook their heads with good reason when he was allowed to put on the robe of St. Benedict and enter their community. His handsome appearance, and his noble connections, the protection of kings and courts, contributed to make him believe that monastic severity was not intended for such as he. He was, however, too powerful to be refused admittance; and once within, he behaved with discretion, if not with humility and submission. He bided his time until political disturbances gave him an outlet for his ambition, and the Emperor Arnulph, whom he served, was in a position to order the monks to elect him as their Abbot. Later on he also obtained for him the bishopric of Constance. And thus the monastery was brought once again under the sway of the Bishop. For the time it gained materially by the transaction, but a wide gap was opened to abuses from which the establishment was free in the days of its autonomy. It must be said, however, that once Salomon had reached the height of his ambition, he worked earnestly for the good of religion and the advancement of learning. As a minister under four successive emperors, he was one of the most powerful men in Europe. Yet he never lost his affection for St. Gall, and loved to retire there every year to discharge his functions as Abbot, and take his part in the simple and laborious life of the monks. He was, moreover, like Wolsey and Richelieu, a munificent patron of art and letters, and the Vocabularium Salamonis, drawn up under his directions, is one of the earliest encyclopaedias that was printed in Europe.

The Ekkeharts, like the Notkers, formed a regular dynasty amongst the distinguished sons of St. Gall. Ekkehart I. was at the head of the schools for many years, and afterwards councillor of the Emperor Otho the Great. The most famous of them, however, was the fourth of the name.

About the year 1040, the Emperor Conrad II. was led to believe that the discipline at St. Gall was fast on the decline, and he had recourse to the extreme measure of sending some monks from Cluny to reform the monastery. This proceeding was resented at St. Gall, and life was practically made so uncomfortable for the reformers that they had to withdraw. Ekkehart IV., who had spent some years directing the royal school at Mayence, just then returned to his old home at St. Gall. He was known to be a writer of talent, and was asked by his brethren to take up and immortalize the ancient glories of his Alma Mater. Ekkehart did not require to be pressed. He was passionately devoted to the grand old monastery, and was determined to relate its great achievements and confound its enemies. It is evident, however, from the first page that he and his monastery are on their defence. There is gall in his pen, and cutting sarcasm and bitter invective in his pages. The enemies of St. Gall are roundly denounced, and their treacherous intentions exposed to the world. There is little of the historic calm in this work. It is on the face of it a partisan production. Nevertheless, it gives many interesting glimpses into the interior of the monastery, draws life-like pictures of its most famous monks, and says the last word on the merits of its most glorious days. It is by turns jovial and angry, generous and unjust, accurate in detail and plainly dishonest. Nor are its pages altogether free from the coarse joke and the questionable anecdote, which are the surest signs of monastic decay and.the clearest proof that reform was urgently needed.

Some of the institutions of the monastery, as described by Ekkehart and others, are worthy of attention. From the importance of the gardener, that of higher officials may be judged. He had under his orders a regular cohort of servants, who lived together in a vast farm-house, of which he was the director. He had carefully read the treatise De Villis, and knew how to cultivate not only the ordinary garden vegetables but also chervil, coriander, dill, cummin, sage, fennel, mint, rosemary, loveage, and other plants required for the preparation of infusions, and general medical and curative purposes. Another officer had charge of the mill, the granaries, the fruit gardens, the waggons and boats for the transfer of corn and merchandise. The reign of the land steward extended over vast herds of oxen, cows, horses, swine, and the numerous flocks of goats and sheep that ranged over his wide domain. He also had his retinue of servants, and ruled them with all the authority of an autocrat. Nearer to the monastery was a great group of workshops, in one series of which lances, swords, gauntlets, cuirasses, shields, and coats of arms were manufactured ; in another, stalls for the church choirs, panels, screens, pulpits, tabernacles. Further on, sculptors and stonecutters plied their chisels. In a building by itself, well guarded, and full of mystery, worked the jewellers, goldsmiths, the lapidaries, the bezellers. Here the gold and silver are melted, ores are tested, alloys are combined, which make the metals solid and pleasant to the eye ; Bible covers in ivory or wood are enriched with plates of gold or with precious stones. Here also the finishing touch is given to the rich chasubles and mitres, to the reliquaries, shrines, lustres, altar-pieces, and to the elaborate iron and steel decorations for the great doors of the castles and manor houses.

But the wonder of the whole establishment is the Scriptorium. Here the fine parchment specially prepared from the skin of the mountain goat or the young reindeer is furnished to the copyists, the illuminators, the miniaturists. It is here those wonderful initial letters were illuminated in colours that are as fresh and strong to-day almost as on the day on which they were executed. Like the decorations of the Book of Kells at home they will stand the minutest inspection and the powers of the strongest microscope. They retain their proportions and their perfection of tint and shade, no matter how they are enlarged:

"Scarcely was there any other establishment so celebrated for the beauty of its manuscripts [writes Wattenbach], nor did any other so highly prize the art or develop with such care and ardour the ornamentation of initial letters. Therein, especially, do these monks show that they were faithful followers of their Irish brethren, whom they soon surpassed and left far behind. The Scottish manuscripts are distinguished by very elaborate execution, by brilliant colouring of unfading splendour, and by the richness and beauty of their ornamentation. Their favourite ornaments are the interlaced serpents, and by them as well as by the serpents' heads one can trace the influence of Irish art, as may be seen, for instance, in the gospels of Charles the Bald."

It was an Irish monk who taught this art, and the study and perseverance necessary to bring it to perfection. Two strophes composed by him are still venerated in the monastery. We quote them in the translation of an admiring Frenchman, not being able at this moment to lay our hands on the original:

[please consult original volume for this French text]

One of the most famous of the copyists and illuminators of St. Gall was the monk Sintram, who wrote the Evangelium Longum which is still preserved, and is one of the great treasures of St. Gall. In the early times even the Latin works were written in Irish characters. Of these, only two complete volumes and a few fragments now remain. The others were destroyed by fire in different conflagrations at the abbey, or lost during the numerous wars and confiscations from which it suffered. The labour of transcription was often exceedingly wearisome, as attested by casual notes of the copyists on the margins, or at the end of the book. " Written with great trouble," is a common observation. " As the sick man desireth health," runs another, " so doth the transcriber desire the end of his volume." Another is of a happier temperament; for he writes: -

"Libro complete
Saltat scriptor
Pede laeto."

Others, again, invoked imprecations on the heads of those who should presume, after all their trouble, to remove the book from the library. Thus one, who had just finished a copy of St. Jerome's translation of the Psalter, writes at the end :

" Auferret hoc in quis damnetur mille flagellis.
Judicioque Dei succumbat corpore pesti ;"

and at the end of the prophets, he adds :

" Si quis et hos auferat, gyppo, scabieque redundet."

The copyists were, no doubt, provoked to this rude method of defence. Noble visitors to the library often coveted, and obtained as presents, some of the best books that issued from the "Scriptorium." The Emperors Charles the Fat and Otho I. were great amateurs of books ; and on the occasions of their visits to the monastery had to be accommodated in this way. " Who would have thought," writes the chronicler, speaking of Otho, "that so powerful a brigand would stoop to pillage the cloister and rob a poor community of monks?"

The library of St. Gall remains to the present day one of the richest in Europe. It contains over twenty thousand volumes of very rare and costly books. It counts, moreover, one thousand five hundred manuscripts, and a large number of fragments and stray quaternios or sheets which embrace all kinds of works pagan, Christian, prose, poetry, Greek, Latin, German. Early in the ninth century the whole catalogue was composed of about twenty volumes of Latin, written in Irish characters Libri Scottice Scripti. We give them below as they are found in the catalogue of Weidman, published in 1841. Of these there is now but one solitary volume remaining. It is the Gospel of St. John, written on good parchment, and in large, clear Irish letters. It is certain, however, that all the old Irish books are not included in this list, for one whole book of the Gospels in similar handwriting is still extant. It is supposed to have been brought to St. Gall by Marcellus or Marcus. These two works are splendid specimens of calligraphy. They are based on the Vetus Itala version of the Bible which was the only version used in Ireland until St. Finian of Moville brought over St. Jerome's translation which he received as a present from Pope Palagius in 557. They agree, moreover, almost without a variant, with the Vercelli Codex published by Father Bianchini, in 1749. In addition to these there are several fragments of works written in Irish characters, and contained chiefly in the Codices Nos. 1394-1395 in the Library Catalogue. The Irish glosses of most importance in the library are those on Priscian's Grammar. They have been to a great extent deciphered and published by Zeuss. Amongst the valuable manuscripts of general interest to be seen in the cases are nine palimpsests or " Codices rescripti" of the fifth and sixth centuries ; a complete Bible of the ninth century, in royal folio ; the " Psalter of Notker," in Latin and German ; the " Psalter of Folchard ;" the " Psalterium Aureum ;" the " Evangelium Longum,'' all of which are written in Roman characters but decorated in Celtic style. There are two homilies of St. Isidore of Seville, written on Egyptian papyrus, dating from the seventh century ; the Antiphonarium of Pope Gregory the Great; four missals from the tenth century; the four books of the Odes of Horace, the Satires of Juvenal, Lucan's Pharsalia, a few works of Ovid and Statius, all from the ninth or tenth centuries. The most important manuscripts in the modern tongue comprise very early copies of the Nibelungenlied, and of the romances and exploits of Percival and Roland. Soon after the invention of printing, in 1450, several exceedingly rare books were procured for the monastery. There are two Bibles, one Latin and one German, dating from 1464 and 1466, respectively ; the Commentaries of Nicholas of Lyra, published at Strasburg, in 1492 ; a Commentary of St. Thomas of Aquin on the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius, printed by Octaviari Skotus of Venice, in 1494; several very early copies of the Imitation of Christ, from the presses of Strasburg and Nuremburg ; the Missals of Chur, Augsburg, Constance and Basel, from 1483 to 1497. In addition to these, nearly all the great valuable collections illustrating the sciences of theology, history, and philosophy, are to be found there. Indeed it is one of the peculiarities of the library of St. Gall, that nearly all its works are rare and costly. The early cultivation in its schools of the science as well as of the art of music makes it also a favourite resort for those who are interested in the history of the notation of music and the primitive trials of counterpoint and harmony.

After the Council of Constance, the Roman Curia sent a commission, composed of three "savants," to examine the library, and obtain copies of the works of any of the ancient writers that they might discover there. These three men were Poggio, Cencio, and Bartolomeo di Monte Politiano. They discovered a large portion of the Argonauticon of Valerius Flaccus ; eight speeches of Cicero, bound up in a speech of Q. Asconius Pedianus ; a small work by Lactantius, De Utroque Homine ; the work of Vitruvius, on Architecture; Priscian's treatise on Grammar. A complete Quintilian (adhuc salvum et incolumen) was found by Poggio hidden away in an old tower, under a heap of rubbish. Several other works of minor importance were also discovered ; and the learned world was in ecstasy, particularly in Italy. Niebuhr's researches were not so fruitful. The poem of Merobaudes seems to have been the only thing of importance brought to light by him. There is no library in Europe, in which the work of research is easier than at St. Gall. This is chiefly due to the intelligence and foresight of two distinguished librarians of last century, Father Pius Kolb and Father Ildephonsus von Arx, who had all the manuscripts carefully catalogued and arranged in order, and to the most obliging and painstaking priest, Dr. Kah, who has charge of the library at the present time.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century the intellectual glory of St. Gall gradually declined. The monastery got mixed up in the political disputes of the empire and in the social troubles of later times. In 1204, its Abbot Ulrich Baron of Hohensax, was made a Prince of the German Empire, and his successors retained the title till the French Revolution. One of them led an army against Rudolf of Hapsburg, in 1280, to maintain the rights of the monastery, and they all had to contend with the revolutionary spirit of their vassals and serfs, who on several occasions made organized attempts to shake off the claims of the monastery. In 1795 a general insurrection of the tenants and labourers took place, and the Abbot Beda yielded to nearly all their demands. Cardinal Buoncompagni, Secretary of State to Pope Pius VII., negotiated a settlement between the Swiss Government and the authorities of the monastery. In 1806, however, the revolutionists got the upper hand, and the monastery was suppressed. During all these years the moral character of St. Gall was perfectly sound. In this respect its enemies had never a word to say against it. The tone and spirit may have been worldly, but the personal lives of its monks were beyond the breath of reproach. In the seventeenth century it had even a short revival of its old intellectual spirit. It was during the time that the learned Cardinal Sfondrati was Abbot of the monastery. This great canonist, theologian, and devoted churchman, was buried in Rome, in the church of St. Caecilia ; but he bequeathed his heart to St. Gall, where it is now enshrined in one of the chapels off the choir. Beneath the eloquent inscription that records the merits of the great abbot may be seen the words :

" Bene sperate."
"Ego dormio, sed cor meum vigilat."
"Vigilate."

The buildings of the great old monastery are now used for State purposes. The library alone has been left under the care of the bishop, who appoints the librarian. The splendid Cathedral of St. Gall, with its fine choir, its rich frescoes and windows, has always remained in Catholic hands. It is one of the most spacious churches in Europe ; and, what is better still, is well filled at the Masses and evening services.

Before we take leave of the monastery we must not neglect to mention that at the rear of the old building there was a spacious enclosure surrounded by high walls, and intersected within by rows of shrubs and cypress trees. It was the last resting-place of the monks and their dependents. This field of death, "ager mortis " as it was called, saw the end of many an interesting career. It witnessed many a touching scene which proved that the human heart was not dead under the cowl of the monk, and that the sacrifice of liberty and worldly enjoyment was amply soothed and rewarded by religion. Here lie the fathers and brethren of a thousand years, awaiting the blessed hope.

"Jusqu'au jour du grand reveil
On y trouve un doux sommeil."

Over their graves there is no name, no cross, no stone, but the green sward and the clear blue sky. Alone in the centre of the enclosure a large wooden crucifix arises and seems to embrace the land around it. At its base are inscribed the solemn words : " Of all the trees of the earth the holy cross alone bears fruit that tastes of life eternal."

In the graves around lie the ashes of many Irish monks who in the ardour of faith and through love of learning and higher things became voluntary exiles. They sleep far away from their native land of Erin. But nature took their mortal bodies back to her bosom on a friendly soil. On the last day they shall rise around their Blessed Father Gall to receive the reward of their labours. Meanwhile the lofty mountains which they loved keep guard around their earthly dwellings, and their dirge is murmured for ever by the swaying forest trees and the fall of the distant cascade.

J. F. HOGAN.

Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol 15 (1894), 35-54.



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