No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
Columba was the virtual founder of the Church of Scotland, and the life by his successor Adamnan has almost the authority of a contemporary document. The author naturally extols the prowess of his hero ; and it is by no means easy to discern the real man through the hagiographical haze that now surrounds him. Opinions have differed widely, but all are agreed that he was quick-tempered. ‘Primitive Irish ecclesiastics, and especially the superior class, commonly known as Saints, were very impatient of contradiction, and very resentful of injury. Excommunication, fasting against, and cursing, were in frequent employment, and inanimate as well as animate objects are represented as the subject of their maledictions. St. Columba, who seems to have inherited the high bearing of his race, was not disposed to receive injuries, or even afionts, in silence. Adamnan relates (Lib. 11, cap. 22) how he pursued a plunderer with curses, following the retiring boat into the sea until the water reached to his knees. We have an account (Lib. 11, cap. 20) also of his cursing a miser who neglected to extend hospitality to him.
1 Columba was born in 521 and died in 597 ; Adamnan probably wrote his Life between the years 692 and 697. The picture which he gives may therefore be taken to represent the monastery of Iona as it was inthe 7th century.
2 Cursing and fasting against.For the first, see Gougaud, L. Christianity in Celtic Lands,1932, 53, note4, quotingGoogle Scholar Plummer, C. V.S.H., 1, pp.CLXXIII-IV;Google Scholar Power, p. Early Christian Ireland (Dublin,1925) 100–1;Google Scholar Giraldus, Itin. Kambriae (ed. J. F.Dimock) I, 2 : 11, 7 (pp. 27, 130) ; see also Gould, Baring &Fisher, Lives ofthe Saints 1, 1907, 13ff.Google Scholar For fasting against, see Gould, Baring &Gougaud, L. op. cit. 97–8, and references given there ; and Baring Gould &Fisher, op. tit. 17ff.Google Scholar
3 Reeves, William (Editor), Life of St. Columba,written by Adamnan (1857),77.Google Scholar
4 The Historical St. Columba, 1927,p.2.Google Scholar
5 Dr Duke’s phraseology suggests that Dr Simpson hascommitted a sin or even (much worse) a breach of good manners and taste by adopting an unfavourable view of Columba’s character I (As I have said already [ANTIQUIVTIYI, 4531 I regard Dr Simpson’s main thesis as by no means proven ; but that is not the point).
6 Kenney, J.F. Sources for the Early History of Ireland,1, (1857),303;quoted by Duke,56, note I.Google Scholar
7 Lives of the British Saints, by the Rev. S. Baring Gould and-canon T. Fisher, I,1907, 10.
8 Reeves, 119, 140–2, 145–6, 148–50.
9 The Columban Church, 74.
10 Reeves, 111–3, 119, 127.
11 Ibid., 159.
12 Ibid., 153–5.
13 Reeves, 110, 114, 171, 230, 235.
14 Ibid., 126, 127, 143, 141, 139, 151.
15 Pp. 351–2.
16 Bede, I, I ; 111, 2 ; 11, 12, 13, 17.
17 See A Short History of Christianity, by Robertson, J.M.(Watts & Co., Thinkers’Library, no. 24; 1931;IS),126–31.Note also the close proximity of early monastery and royal seat at Lindisfarne (Barnborough), Glasgow (Dumbarton), and perhaps also at St. Davids, Derry and Abernethy.Google Scholar
18 Lib. 11, cap. 2.
19 Compare, however, Adamnan, I, caps. 7, 8, 12.
20 Still preserved in the National Museum, Dublin.The Cathach was the subject of a very elaborate paper by Messrs. H. C. Lawlor and E. C. R. Armstrong Proc.R.Irish Academy, vol. XXXIII, sect. c, 1916–17,241–443). The palaeographical part, which forms the most important section of this paper, leaves very little doubt about the genuineness of the tradition (which is at least as old as the 11th century) that the manuscript is as old as it has always been claimed to be. On the other hand it is impossible to state that it was either used or written by St. Columba himself. It may be said that the manuscript almost certainly belongs to St. Columba’s time.
I wish to thank the authorities concerned, and Dr Mahr himself, for facilities in obtaining these twoillustrations, and for permission to publish them.
21 Reeves, 250, quoting O’Donnel and the Four Masters, s.a.555. If carried three times right–wise round an army by a pure cleric, a safe and victorious return was ensured.
22 Lib. I, cap. I (Reeves, 13).
23 Reeves, 16.
24 Bede, I, cap. 21.
25 The following additional instances of battle magic may be cited :—The name of the tribal god of the Jews was Yahweh Sabaoth=Yahweh of the Armies or Lord God of Hosts (E. E. Kellet : A short history of religions, 1933, p. 46). St. Teilo prayed for victory in battle (Lib. Land., ed. G. Evans, 1893, p. 123). A priest blessing a war-standard is figured in Proc. SOCA. nt. Scot. ser. 2, XXIV, 1912, plate op. p. 168. Here a warrior in amour holds forth a lance for the archbishop to bless. It comes from a psalter of St. Jerome written for Ernulph, archbishop of Milan, A.D. 998–1018.
I am indebted to Professor William Rees for drawing my attention to the following passages in the Black Book of St. Davids (A.D. 1326) :
p.36 The burgesses of the town of St. Davids in time of war were bound to follow theLord Bishop withthe shrine of the Blessed David and with the relics on either side (et cum reliquiis ex utraque parte).
p. 81. (A similar service was due from the copyholders of Trevine near St.Davids, within the lordship).
p. 89. The free –holders of Maboris ‘ ought to follow the Lord and his host in time of war, and ought to follow the relics of the blessed David to Carntrevy ’(i.e. to the boundary of thelordship).
p.95 Knights also of the lordship were liable for the same service.
p.123 Tenants who hold by deed at Wolf’s Castle in the bishop’s land ofSt. Davids ‘ they ought to follow the shrine with the relics of the Blessed David in war –time and out of war-time as far as Carntrevy ’.
p. 153. The burgesses of the town of Llawhaden (in the bishop’s lordship of Llawhaden) : ‘ and if thebishop in time of war shall make a progress through his bishopric with the relics of the Blessed David, they ought to follow him to the town of Carmarthen ’.
26 Liber Hymnorurn, quoted by Reeves, p. 252 (I Ith century MS., but ‘ the prefaces [where the battles are referred to] have historical value only as evidence of traditions.There isno proof of the authenticity of the hymns attributed to Columba’ ; A. 0.Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, I, 1922, LXXII, LXXIII).
27 Reeves, 255.
28 Ibid.
29 See Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc.IV, 41 ; v, 17.
30 There is a strong suggestion that in this and the three ensuing miracles the wish was magical father of the thought, and had a causative influence onthe result.
You have
Access