Saint Columba : Apostle of Caledonia / by the Count de Montalembert.

Front matter

THE UNIVERSITY

OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY

PurchaS ed , 1918 .

II. The Conversion Of England

BY THE

COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT.

. (Forming Vols. III., IV., and V. of the ‘ Monks of the West.’)

“ It is, indeed, a volume of peculiar interest to Englishmen, as dealing with the religious history of the British Isles ; while it is not inferior to its predecessors in vividness and eloquence of picturesque delineation, or in their occasional touches of pathos. . . . On the whole, the

intellectual interest of the Count’s ‘ Monks of the West’ rests mainly on this, that it is the work of a brilliant and accomplished layman and man of the world, dealing with a class of characters who have generally been left to the arid professional handling of ecclesiastical writers. Montalembert sees their life as a whole, and a human whole ; and, with all his zeal as an amateur hagiographer, he cannot but view them with some of the independence of a mind trained to letters and politics.” — Pall Mall Gazette.

W. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London.

SAINT COLUMBA

APOSTLE OF CALEDONIA

C\\ar\e^ Va

Kevv/ d tBY THE i \e-v\e

COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT

^ II V

OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY

FIDE AC VERITATE

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXVIII

The Narrative now given to the public is taken from the Third Volume of the ‘ Monks of the West,’ the first of the three volumes of that work which are dedicated to the conversion of the British Isles by the Celtic and Romish Missionaries. It has appeared to some that the life of St Columba — one of the most heroic and the least remembered of the combatants in that great conflict — might, without inconvenience, be detached from the rest of the work, and would not on that account be found less wanting in serious and original interest. In accordance with their desire the following pages are published. It is of importance to bear in mind that everything in this narrative is borne out by the best known

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VI

Preface

records of Irish hagiography. The Author has not written one word which cannot be justified or explained by documents the value of which is proved or discussed in the notes to his larger work. These notes it has been necessary for the most part to exclude from the present reprint, to avoid unnecessarily extending its bulk. But any curious or sceptical reader will do well to consult them in the text of ‘ The Monks of the West/ before forming his judgment of the men and transactions of the sixth century in Ireland and Scotland.

I

Chapter I. The Youth Of Columba, And His Monastic Life In Ireland

The biographers of Columba. — His different names — His royal origin. — The supreme kings of Ireland : the O’Neills and O’Donnells ; Red Hugh.— Birth of Columba ; vision of his mother— His monastic education; jealousy of his comrades; Kieran; the two Finnians; the school of Clonard. — Vision of the guardian angel and the three brides. — The assassin of a virgin struck by death at the prayer of Columba. — His youthful influence in Ireland ; his monastic foundations, especially at Durrow and at Derry ; his song in honour of Derry. — His love for poetry; his connection with the travelling bards. — He was himself a poet, a great traveller, and of a quarrelsome disposition. — His passion for manuscripts. — Longarad of the hairy legs and his bag of books. — Dispute about the Psalter of Finnian; judgment of King Diarmid, founder of Clonmacnoise. — Protest of Columba; he takes to flight, chanting the Hymn of Confide7ice> and raises a civil war. — Battle of Culvia

Contents.

Dreimlme; the Cathac or Psalter of battle. — Synod of Teltown ; Columba is excommunicated. — St Brendan takes part with Columba, who consults several hermits, and among others Abban, in the Cell of Tears. — The last of his advisers, Molaise, condemns him to exile. — Twelve of his disciples follow him; devotion of the young Mochonna. — Contradictory reports concerning the first forty years of his life, . I

Chapter II. Columba An Emigrant In Caledonia — The Holy Isle Of Iona

Aspect of the Hebridean archipelago. — Columba first lands at Oronsay, but leaves it because Ireland is visible from its shores. — Description of Iona. — First buildings of the new monastery. — What remains of it. — Enthusiasm of Johnson on landing there in the eighteenth century. — Columba bitterly regrets his country. — Passionate elegies on the pains of exile. — Note upon the poem of Altus. — Proofs in his biography of the continuance of that patriotic regret. —

The stork comes from Ireland to Iona, . .31

Chapter III. The Apostolate Of Columba Among The Scots And Picts

Moral transformation of Columba. — His progress in spiritual life. — His humility. — His charity. — His preaching by tears. — The hut which formed his abbatial palace at Iona. — Plis prayers ; his work of transcription. — His crowd of visitors. — His severity

Contents .

IX in the examination of monastic vocations. A’idus the Black, the murderer of Columba’s enemy King Diarmid, rejected by the community. —Penance of Libran of the Rushes.— Columba encourages the despairing and unmasks the hypocrites.— Monastic propaganda of Iona ; Columba’s fifty-three foundations in Scotland.— His relations with the people of Caledonia : First with the colony of Dalriadians from Ireland, whose king was his relative ; he enlightens and confirms their imperfect Christianity.— Ambushes laid for his chastity.- His connection with the Piets, who occupied the north of Britain.— The dorsum Britannia.— Columba their first missionary.—The fortress gates of their king Brudus open before him.— He struggles with the Druids m their last refuge. — He preaches by an interpreter. His respect for natural virtue.— Baptism of two old Pictish chiefs. — Columba’s humanity : he redeems an Irish captive. — Frequent journeys among the Piets, whose conversion he accomplishes before he dies . — His fellow- workers, Malruve and Drostan ; the Monastery of Tears,

Chapter IV

COLUMBA CONSECRATES THE KING OF THE SCOTS.— HE GOES TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF IRE- LAND, DEFENDS THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE HIBERNIO-SCOTIC COLONY, AND SAVES THE COR- PORATION OF BARDS.

Passionate solicitude of Columba for his relatives and countrymen.— He protects King Aldan in his struggle with the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria.— The same king is crowned by Columba at Iona ; the first example of a Christian consecration of kings.— The Stone of Destiny: The descendants of Aldan.—

X

Contents.

Synod or Parliament of Drumceitt in Ireland. — Aedh, king of Ireland, and A'idan, king of the Irish colonists in Scotland. — The independence of the new Scottish kingdom is recognised through the influence of Columba. — He interposes in favour of the bards, whom the king had proposed to outlaw. — Power and excesses of that corporation. — By means of Columba, the good grain is not burned with the weeds. — The bards’ song of gratitude in honour of their saviour. — Columba, reproved by his disciple, desires that this song should not be repeated during his life. — Superstitious regard attached to it after his ! death. — Intimate union between music, poetry, and religion in Ireland. — The bards, transformed into minstrels, are the first champions of national independence and Catholic faith against the English conquest.— Fiercely assailed, they yet continue to exist up to our own day. — Moore’s Irish Melodies. — The Celtic muse at the service of the vanquished in the Highlands of Scotland as in Ireland, . . 6S

CHAPTER V. COLUMBA’s RELATIONS WITH IRELAND — CONTINUED

Cordial intercourse of Columba with the Irish princes.

— Prophecy upon the future of their sons. — Domnall, the king’s son, obtains the privilege of dying in his bed. — Columba visits the Irish monasteries. — Popular enthusiasm. — Vocation of the young idiot afterwards known as St Ernan. — Solicitude of Columba for the distant monasteries and monks. — He protects them from excessive labours and accidents. — He exercises authority over laymen. — Baithen, his cousin-german and principal assistant. — The respect shown to both in an assembly of learned men, . 87

Contents .

xi

Chapter VI

COLUMBA, THE PROTECTOR OF SAILORS AND AGRI- CULTURISTS, THE FRIEND OF LAYMEN, AND THE AVENGER OF THE OPPRESSED.

His universal solicitude and charity during all his missionary life. — The sailor-monks : seventy monks of Iona form the crew of the monastic fleet ; their boats made of osiers covered with hides. — Their boldness at sea : the whirlpool of Corryvreckan.— Columba’s prayer protects them against sea-monsters. — Their love of solitude leads them into unknown seas, where they discover St Kilda, Iceland, and the Faroe Isles. — Cormac in Orkney, and in the icy ocean.— Columba often accompanies them : his voyages among the Hebrides.— The wild boar of Skye.— He subdues tempests by his prayer : he invokes his friend St Kenneth. — He is himself invoked during life, and after his death, as the arbiter of winds. — Filial complaints of the monks when their prayers are not granted. — The benefits which he conferred on the agricultural population disentangled from the maze of fables : Columba discovers fountains, regulates irrigations and fisheries, shows how to graft fruit-trees, obtains early harvests, interferes to stop epidemics, cures diseases, and procures tools for the peasants. His special solicitude for the monkish labourers : he blesses the milk when it is brought from the cow : his breath refreshes them on their return from harvest.— The blacksmith carried to heaven by his alms —His relations with the layman whose hospitality he claims : prophecy touching the rich miser who shuts his door upon him. — The five cows of his Lochaber host.— The poacher’s spear.— He pacifies and consoles all whom he meets.— His prophetic threats against the felons and rievers. — Punishment inflicted upon the assassin of an exile. — Brigands of royal blood put

Contents.

• ••

XU

down by Columba at the risk of his life. — He enters into the sea up to his knees to arrest the pirate who had pillaged his friend. — The standard-bearer of Caesar and the old missionary, . . .96

Chapter VII. Columba’s Last Years — His Death — His Character

Columba the confidant of the joys and consoler of the sorrows of domestic life. — He blesses little Hector with the fair locks.— He prays for a woman in her delivery; he reconciles the wife of a pilot to her husband. — Vision of the saved wife who receives her husband in heaven. — He continues his missions to the end of his life. — Visions before death. — The Angels’ Hill. — Increase of austerities. — Nettle-soup his sole food. — A supernatural light surrounds him during his nightly work and prayers. — His death is retarded for four years by the prayers of the community.— When this respite has expired, he takes leave of the monks at their work ; he visits and blesses the granaries of the monastery. — He announces his death to his attendant Diarmid. — His farewell to his old white horse. — Last benediction to the isle of Iona ; last work of transcription ; last message to his community. — He dies in the church.

— Review of his life and character, . . .122

Chapter VIII. Spiritual Descendants Of St Columba

His posthumous glory : miraculous visions on the night of his death : rapid extension of his worship. — His solitary funeral and tomb at Iona. — His translation

Contents .

xui to Ireland, where he rests between St Patrick and St Bridget.— He is, like Bridget, feared by the Anglo- Norman conquerors. — John de Courcy and Richard Strongbow. — The Vengeance of Columba. Supremacy of Iona over the Celtic churches of Caledonia and the north of Ireland.— Singular privilege and primacy of the abbot of Iona in respect to bishops. The ecclesiastical organisation of Celtic countries exclusively monastic. — Moderation and respect of Columba for the episcopal rank. — He left behind him no special rule. — That which he followed differed in no respect from the usual customs of the monastic order, which proves the exact observance of all the precepts of the Church, and the chimerical nature of all speculations upon the primitive Protestantism of the Celtic Church.— But he founded an order, which lasted several centuries under the title of the Family of Columb-kill. — The clan and family spirit was the governing principle of Scottish monasticism. — Baithen and the eleven first successors of Columba at Iona were all members of the same race. — The two lines, lay and ecclesiastical, of the great founders.— The headquarters of the order transferred from Iona to Kells, one of Columba’ s foundations in Ireland. — The Coarbs. — Posthumous influence of Columba upon the Church of Ireland.— Lex Columcille. —Monastic Ireland in the seventh century the principal centre of Christian knowledge and piety.— Each monastery a school. — The transcription of manuscripts, which had been one of Columba’s favourite occupations, continued and extended by his family even upon the continent.— Historic annals. — The Festiloge of Angus the Culdee.— The Culdees. — Propagation of Irish monasticism abroad. — Irish saints and monasteries in France, Germany, and Italy.— The Irish saint Cathal venerated in Calabria under the name of San Cataldo . — Monastic university of Lismore : crowd of foreign students, especially of Anglo-Saxons, in

XIV

Contents.

Irish monasteries. — Confusion of temporal affairs in Ireland. — Civil wars and massacres. — Notes upon king-monks. — Patriotic intervention of the monks. — Adamnan, biographer and ninth successor of Columba, and his Law of the Innocents. — They are driven from their cloisters by the English. — Influence of Columba in Scotland. — Traces of the ancient Caledonian Church in the Hebrides. — Apostolical mission of Kentigern in the country between the Clyde and the Mersey. — His meeting with Columba His con-

nection with the king and queen of Strathclyde. — Legend of the queen’s ring. — Neither Columba nor Kentigern acted upon the Anglo-Saxons, who continued pagans, and maintained a threatening attitude.

— The last bishops of conquered Britain desert their churches, . . . . . .138

ST COLUMBA.

Chapter I

T COLUMBA, the apostle and monastic hero of Caledonia, has had the good fortune to have his history written by another monk, almost a contemporary of his own, whose biography of him is as delightful as it is edifying. This biographer, Adamnan, was the ninth successor of Columba as abbot of his principal establishment at Iona, and in addition was related to him. Born only a quarter of a century later, he had seen in his childhood the actual companions of Columba and those who had received his last breath. He wrote at the very fountainhead, on the spot where his glorious prede-

His various Names.

cessor had dictated his last words, surrounded by scenes and recollections which still bore the trace of his presence, or were connected with the incidents of his life. A still earlier narrative written by another abbot of Iona, and reproduced almost word for word by Adamnan, forms the basis of his work, which he has completed by a multitude of anecdotes and testimonies collected with scrupulous care, and which altogether, though unfortunately without chronological order, forms one of the most living, attractive, and authentic relics of Christian history.*

Like twenty other saints of the Irish calendar, Columba bore a symbolical name borrowed from the Latin, a name which signified the dove of the Holy Ghost, and which was soon to be rendered illustrious by his countryman Columbanus, the celebrated founder of Luxeuil, with whom many modern historians have confounded him. To distinguish the one from the other, and to indicate specially the greatest Celtic missionary of the British Isles, we shall adopt, from the different versions of his name, that of Columba. His countrymen have almost always named him Columb-kiU or cille, that is to say, the dove of the cell , thus adding to his primitive

* Adamnan, who was born in 624, must have written the biography of St Columba between 690 and 703, a period at which he gave up the liturgical traditions of the Scots and the direction of the Monastery of Iona to settle near the Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria, Aldfrid.

Race from which descended . 3.

name a special designation, intended to recall either the essentially monastic character of the saint, or the great number of communities founded and governed by him. He was a scion of one of those great Irish races, of whom it is literally true to say that they lose themselves in the night of ages, but which have retained to our own day, thanks to the tenacious attachment of the Irish people to their national recollections, through all the vicissitudes of conquest, persecution, and exile, a rank more patriotic and popular than that of mere nobility or aristocratic lineage. This was the great race of the Nialls or O’Donnells ( clan Domhnaill ), which, native to and master of all the north-western part of the island (the modern counties of Tyrconnell, Tyrone, and Donegal), held sovereign sway in Hibernia and Caledonia, over the two shores of the Scottish sea, during the sixth century. Almost without interruption, up to 1168, kings, springing from its different branches, exercised in Ireland the supreme monarchy — that is to say, a sort of primacy over the provincial kings, which has been compared to that of metropolitan over bishops, but which rather recalls the feudal sovereignty of the Salic emperors, or of the kings of the family of Capet over the great vassals of Germany and France, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Nothing could be more unsettled or stormy than the exercise of this sovereignty. It was incessantly disputed by some vassal king, who generally succeeded by force

The O' Neills and O' Donnells.

of arms in robbing the supreme monarch of his crown and his life, and replacing him upon the throne of Tara, with a tolerable certainty of being himself similarly treated by the son of the dethroned prince. Besides, the right of succession in Ireland was not regulated by the law of primogeniture. According to the custom known under the name of Tanistry , the eldest blood -relation succeeded every deceased prince or chief, and the brother in consequence preceded the son in the order of succession.

After the English conquest, the warlike and powerful race of Nialls was able to maintain, by dint of dauntless perseverance, a sort of independent sovereignty in the north-west of Ireland. The names of the O’Neills and O’Donnells, chiefs of its two principal branches, and too often at war with each other, are to be found on every page of the annals of unhappy Ireland. After the Reformation, when religious persecution had come in to aggravate all the evils of the conquest, these two houses supplied their indignant and unsubdued country with a succession of heroic soldiers who struggled to the death against the perfidious and sanguinary despotism of the Tudors and Stuarts. Ten centuries passed in such desperate struggles have not weakened the traditions which link the saint whose history we are about to tell to those champions of an ancient faith and an outraged country. Even under the reign of Elizabeth, the vassals of young

Parentage of the Saint .

Hugh O’Donnell, called Red Hugh, so renowned in the poetical records and popular traditions of Erin, and the most dangerous antagonist of English tyranny, recognised in him the hero indicated in the prophetic songs of Columb-kill, and thus placed his glory and that of his ancestors under the wing of the Dove of the cells , as under a patronage at once domestic and celestial.

The father of Columba was descended from one of the eight sons of the great king Niall, of the Nine Hostages, who was supreme monarch of all

Ireland from 379 to 4°5> at the Period when Patrick was brought to the island as a slave. Consequently he sprang from a race which had reigned in Ireland for six centuries ; and in virtue of the ordinary law of succession, might himself have been called to the throne. His mother belonged to a reigning family in Leinster, one of the four subordinate kingdoms of the island. He was born at Gartan, in one of the wildest districts of the present county of Donegal — where the slab of stone upon which his mother lay at the moment of his birth is still shown. He who passes a night upon that stone is cured for ever from the pangs of nostalgia, and will never be consumed, while absent or in exile, by a too passionate love for his country. Such at least is the belief of the poor Irish emigrants, who flock thither at the moment when they are about to abandon the confiscated and ravaged soil of their country to seek their living in America,

6 Prophetic Dream .

moved by a touching recollection of the great missionary who gave up his native land for the love of God and human souls.

Before his birth, his mother had a dream, which posterity has accepted as a graceful and poetical symbol of her son’s career. An angel appeared to her, bringing her a veil covered with flowers of wonderful beauty, and the sweetest variety of colours ; immediately after she saw the veil carried away by the wind, and rolling out as it fled over plains, woods, and mountains : then the angel said to her, “ Thou art about to become the mother of a son, who shall blossom for heaven, who shall be reckoned among the prophets of God, and who shall lead numberless souls to the heavenly country.” This spiritual power, this privilege of leading souls to heaven, was recognised by the Irish people, converted by St Patrick, as the greatest glory which its princes and great men could gain.

The Irish legends, which are always distinguished, even amidst the wildest vagaries of fancy, by a high and pure morality, linger lovingly upon the childhood and youth of the predestined saint. They tell us how, confided in the first place to the care of the priest who had baptised him, and who gave him the first rudiments of literary education, he was accustomed from his earliest years to the heavenly visions which were to occupy so large a place in his life. His guardian angel often appeared to him ; and the child asked if all the angels in heaven j.

Legends of his Youth .

were as young and shining as he. A little later Columba was invited by the same angel to choose among all the virtues those which he would like / best to possess. “ I choose,” said the youth, “ chastity and wisdom;” and immediately three young girls of wonderful beauty, but foreign air, appeared to him, and threw themselves on his neck to embrace him. The pious youth frowned, and repulsed them with indignation. “ What !” they said ; te then thou dost not know us?” “No, not the least in the world.” “ We are three sisters whom our father gives to thee to be thy brides.” “ Who, then, is your father ? ” “ Our father is God, he is

Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour of the world.”

“ Ah, you have indeed an illustrious father. But what are your names ?” “ Our names are Virginity, Wisdom, and Prophecy; and we come to leave thee no more, to love thee with an incorruptible love.”

From the house of the priest, Columba passed into the great monastic schools, which were not only a nursery for the clergy of the Irish Church, but where also young laymen of all conditions were educated. Columba, like many others, there learned to make his first steps in that monastic life to which he had been drawn by the call of God. He devoted himself not only to study and prayer, but also to the manual toil then inseparable, in Ireland and everywhere else, from a religious profession. Like all his young companions, he had to

His early Training.

grind overnight the com for the next day’s food : but when his turn came, it was so well and quickly done that his companions suspected him of having been assisted by an angel. The royal birth of Columba procured him several distinctions in the schools which were not always to the satisfaction of his comrades. One of the latter, named Kieran, who was also destined to fill a great place in Scotic legend, became indignant at the ascendancy of Columba : but while the two students disputed, a celestial messenger came to Kieran and placed before him an auger, a plane, and an axe, saying, “ Look at these tools, and recollect that these are all thou hast sacrificed for God, since thy father was only a carpenter; but Columba has sacrificed the sceptre of Ireland, which might have come to him by right of his birth and the grandeur of his race.” We learn from authentic documents that Columba completed his monastic life under the direction of two holy abbots, both bearing the name of Finnian. The first, who was also a bishop, ordained him deacon, but seems to have had him for a shorter time under his authority than the second Finnian, who, himself trained by a disciple of St Patrick, had long lived in Cambria, near St David. Columba’s first steps in life are thus connected with the two great monastic apostles of Ireland and Cambria, the patriarchs of the two Celtic races which up to this time had shown the most entire fidelity to the Christian faith, and the greatest

The Abbot Finnian.

predilection for monastic life. The Abbot Finnian, who ordained Columba priest, ruled at Clonard the monastery which he had founded, and of which we have already spoken— one of those immense conventual establishments which were to be found nowhere but among the Celts, and which recalled to recollection the monastic towns of the Theba'id. He had made of his monastery one great school, which was filled with the Irish youth, then, as always, consumed by a thirst for religious instruction ; and we again find here the favourite number, so often repeated by Celtic tradition, of three thousand pupils, all eager to receive the instructions of him who was called the Master of Saints.

While Columba studied at Clonard, being still only a deacon, an incident took place which has been proved by authentic testimony, and which fixed the general attention upon him by giving a first evidence of his supernatural and prophetic intuition. An old Christian bard (the bards were not all Christians), named Gemmain, had come to live near the Abbot Finnian, asking from him, m exchange for his poetry, the secret of fertilising the soil. Columba, who continued all his life a passionate admirer of the traditionary poetry of his nation, determined to join the school of the bard, and to share his labours and studies. The two were reading together out of doors, at a little distance from each other, when a young girl appeared in the distance pursued by a robber. At the sight of the io Death of a Murderer .

old man the young fugitive made for him with all her remaining strength, hoping, no doubt, to find safety in the authority exercised throughout Ireland by the national poets. Gemmain, in great trouble, called his pupil to his aid to defend the unfortunate child, who was trying to hide herself under their long robes, when her pursuer reached the spot. Without taking any notice of her defenders, he struck her in the neck with his lance, and was making off, leaving her dead at their feet. The horrified old man turned to Columba. “ How long,” he said, “will God leave unpunished this crime which dishonours us ? ” “ For this moment

only,” said Columba, “not longer: at this very hour, when the soul of this innocent creature ascends to heaven, the soul of the murderer shall go down to hell.” At the instant, like Ananias at the words of Peter, the assassin fell dead. The news of this sudden punishment, the story goes, went over all Ireland, and spread the fame of the young Columba far and wide.

It is easy to perceive, by the importance of the monastic establishments which he had brought into being even before he had attained the age of manhood, that his influence must have been as precocious as it was considerable. Apart from the virtues of which his after life afforded so many examples, it may be supposed that his royal birth gave him an irresistible ascendancy in a country where, since the introduction of Christianity, all the early saints, j

Monasteries founded by the Saint . 1 i

like the principal abbots, belonged to reigning families, and where the influence of blood and the worship of genealogy continue, even to this day, to a degree unknown in other lands. Springing, as has been said, from the same race as the monarch of all Ireland, and consequently himself eligible for the same high office, which was more frequently obtained by election or usurpation than inheritance — nephew or near cousin of the seven monarchs who successively wielded the supreme authority during his life — he was also related by ties of blood to almost all the provincial kings. Thus we see him, during his whole career, treated on a footing of perfect intimacy and equality by all the princes of Ireland and of Caledonia, and exercising a sort of spiritual sway equal or superior to the authority of secular sovereigns.

Before he had reached the age of twenty-five he had presided over the creation of a crowd of monasteries. As many as thirty-seven in Ireland alone recognised him as their founder. The most ancient and important of these foundations were situated, as was formerly that of St Bridget at Kildare, in vast oak-forests, from which they took their name. The first Durrow ( Dair-mack , Roboreti campus), where a cross and well bearing the name of Columba are still to be seen, was erected in the central region called the umbilical ’ or sacred middle of Ireland. The other, Derry (. Doire-chalgaich Roboretum Calgachi), is situated in the northern part