The life of St. Patrick and his place in history

by J. B. Bury

Chapter X

[P. 218.]—Latin the ecclesiastical language in the west. Since these remarks were written, I came across two short but valuable papers on the subject: P. Frédéricq, “Les conséquences de l’évangélisation par Rome et par Byzance sur le développement de la langue maternelle des peuples convertis” in the Bull. de l’Académie royale de Belgique, Classe des lettres, 1903, n. 11, 738-751; F. Cumont, “Pourquoi le latin fut la seule langue liturgique de l’occident?” in Mélanges Paul Frédéricq, 1904, 63-66.

APPENDIX C
EXCURSUS

1. The Home of St. Patrick (Bannauenta)

Confession, 357₅: qui (may refer either to Calpurnius or to Potitus) fuit [in] uico Bannauem taberniae. uillulam enim prope habuit, ubi ego capturam dedi. We are justified in inferring that the uillula or farmhouse was on the estate of Calpurnius, and that he resided permanently here or in the neighbourhood. The analysis and identification of Bannauemtaberniae (or Bannauemtaberniae[358]) have caused great difficulty. In the first place, the question arises whether it represents the name of the vicus, or is the name of the vicus (in the ablative) followed by a genitive representing the region or district. Now it has been observed (by Mr. Haverfield, Eng. Historical Review, v. 711, and Mr. Nicholson, Academy, May 11, 1895) that in the Itinerarium Antonini Bannaventa appears as the name of a station on Watling Street, probably three or four miles from Daventry. The idea that this Bannaventa is the place designated by Patrick has one considerable difficulty. For the only early evidence we have as to the situation of Bannauemtaberniae is inconsistent with it. Muirchu states that Bannauemtaberniae was haut[359] procul a mari nostro (495₉), and his next words show that in his time a distinct view was current as to its identification: quem uicum constanter indubitanterque comperimus esse uentre.[360] Muirchu’s indication that the place was near the Irish Channel is the less lightly to be neglected, since it would best accord with the circumstances of the capture of Patrick, though of course it is not impossible that the Irish invaders might have penetrated to Northamptonshire. I therefore think that probabilities are distinctly against the Daventry theory unless it can be shown to involve a satisfactory explanation of the mysterious bernie or burnie.[361] But that Bannaventa is the name there can, I think, be no doubt,[362] and there is no objection to supposing that there was another Bannaventa near the sea-coast. The recurrence of place-names needs no illustration. Of the two parts of this compound name, we have more than one Venta in Britain; and Mr. Haverfield has drawn attention to Banna (loc. cit.), “an unidentified spot in the north, probably a dozen miles east of Carlisle, near the Wall.” berniae, however, remains unexplained. It must represent the name of a district (or perhaps river), added to distinguish Bannaventa from other places of the same name.

Muirchu’s statement that the vicus was in or at Nentria (if this is the authentic reading) does not help us. But we can hardly doubt that he means by Nentria the same place which the Hymn of Fíacc means by Nemthur: l. 1, “Patrick was born in Nemthur.” This name might correspond to an old Celtic Nemetoduron (a name preserved in Nanterre near Paris).[363] This British Nemetodurum was, we may presume, in the same region as Bannaventa.

The glossator in the oldest (eleventh century) MS. of the Hymn of Fíacc identified Nemthur with Ail Clúade, the Rock of Clyde, at Dumbarton. We are ignorant of his authority for this statement, which does not appear in any earlier source. The fact, however, that it is not inconsistent with the direct statements of earlier sources has procured credence for it. But it is inconsistent with the probabilities of the case. Patrick’s father was a decurion, and he must have lived in civilised Britain. We have no evidence that there were Roman towns with municipal constitutions in Strathclyde. The truth is that north Britain was little more than a large military frontier. It is generally supposed that Theodosius in A.D. 369 restored Roman rule, which had fallen back in the north as far as the Wall of Antoninus, and that the district which he recovered (recuperata provincia, Ammianus, 28, 3, 7), and which was renamed Valentia (by Valentinian, in compliment to his brother Valens), included the country between the Walls of Hadrian and Antonine. There is, strictly speaking, no direct authority for this conclusion; Ammianus does not indicate the position of Valentia. The supposition that it was in the north, and that Theodosius restored fortresses as far as the line of the northern wall, is, however, not improbable. But there is no probability that it was colonised[364] or became in the last half century of Roman rule anything more than a military district. The Rock of Clyde, at the extreme end of the Northern Wall, is the last place we should expect to find the uillula of a Roman decurion; and the opinion that the home of Calpurnius was in that remote spot cannot be accepted without better evidence than an anonymous statement which we cannot trace to any trustworthy source.

But it is not likely that the identification offered by the glossator was his own invention; it is much more probable that it was an idea of considerably older date, and we cannot avoid asking the question how it could have arisen. It might be conjectured that the idea of connecting Patrick personally with north Britain arose there, naturally enough, as a consequence of the influence of the Irish Church on north Britain. But whether the idea first arose there or in Ireland, a delusive support for it might have been found in Corot. 375₂₃. Patrick’s expression there, civibus meis, in speaking of the soldiers of Coroticus, might have suggested that he belonged to the same place as Coroticus, and it was known that Coroticus was King of Ail (Clúade). Hence a narrow interpretation of Patrick’s expression civibus meis was sufficient to generate the theory that Patrick’s British home was there, and that Nemthur was identical with Ail Clúade.

This is the case against the vulgar view. On the other hand it might be argued that some things in the Letter of Patrick against Coroticus—especially his quotation “a prophet has no honour in his own country”—have more point if he was a native of that part of Britain which the letter concerns, namely, Strathclyde. It might be said that the existence of some small towns, fora or conciliabula, with municipal councils, in the province assumed to be Valentia, is not impossible, and that the existence of “Roman citizens” and Christian communities in Strathclyde is proved by Patrick’s Letter for the middle of the fifth century. And it might be suggested that bernie could be readily explained as a corruption of Berni<ci>e (remembering Bede’s description of Whitern in Galloway as ad provinciam Berniciam pertinens, iii. 4, which, though referring to the political geography of his own time, may correspond to the original extension of this obscure name).

Nevertheless, in the absence of any trace of a Bannaventa (or a Nemthur) in north British regions, we must, I think, give decisive weight to the general probabilities of the case and suppose that Bannaventa was south of the Wall of Hadrian, somewhere in western Britain, not very far from the coast. See further, Preface.

2. Irish Invasions of Britain

(1) Pacification and fortification of Britain by Theodosius, A.D. 368, 369. Chief source: Ammianus, 27, 8, and 28, 3, who mentions five enemies; Picti and Attacotti; Scotti; Franci and Saxones (27, 8, 5). Two passages in Claudian illustrate the campaigns of Theodosius. In the Panegyric on the Third Consulship of Honorius (A.D. 395) we read, vv. 54-6:—

Ille leues Mauros nec falso nomine Pictos

Edomuit Scottumque uago mucrone secutus

Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas,

and in the Panegyric on the Fourth Consulship (A.D. 397), vv. 28 sqq.:—

debellatorque Britanni

Litoris ac pariter Boreae uastator et Austri.

Quid rigor aeternus, caeli quid frigora prosunt

Ignotumque fretum? maduerunt Saxone fuso

Orcades; incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thyle;

Scottorum cumulos fleuit glacialis Hiuerne.

The first of these passages suggests that Theodosius pursued the Scots across the sea, or at least made a naval demonstration in the Irish Channel, and this is perhaps supported by the passage in Pacatus, Panegyric, c. 5: attritam pedestribus praeliis Britanniam referam? Saxo consumptus bellis naualibus offeretur. redactum ad paludes suas Scotum loquar?

(2) Troubles brought on Britain through the revolt of Maximus, and pacification by Stilicho. Zosimus (source: doubtless Eunapius), 4, 35: the soldiers, having crowned Maximus, παραχρῆμα τὸν Ὠκεανὸν ναυσὶ διαβάντες landed at the mouth of the Rhine. Cp. Orosius 7, 34, 9. (While Zosimus imputes the blame of the insurrection to Maximus, Orosius says that he was created Emperor inuitus propemodum.) The rebellion was brought to an end by the death of Maximus in A.D. 388 (Idatius and Prosper Tiro, ad ann.), so that it cannot have been before that year that the Britannic legions returned to Britain.

Now the only contemporary evidence as to the fortunes of Britain during the fifteen years which followed the revolt of Maximus consists of two passages of Claudian: (1) In Eutropium, i. 393 (composed A.D. 399, June to Sept.)—

fracto secura Britannia Picto,

where the context implies that this was accomplished during the reign of Honorius (te principe, 391); (2) De Consulatu Stilichonis, ii. 247 sqq. (composed end of A.D. 399):—

Inde Caledonio uelata Britannia monstro,

Ferro picta genas, cuius uestigia uerrit

Caerulus Oceanique aestum mentitur amictus:

“Me quoque uicinis pereuntem gentibus” inquit

“Muniuit Stilicho, totam cum Scottus Hiuernen

Mouit et infesto spumauit remige Tethys.

Illius effectum curis ne tela timerem

Scottica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto

Prospicerem dubiis uenturum Saxona uentis.”

The second passage evidently suits the situation in which Britain would have almost inevitably found herself on the departure of Maximus with the legions. Two questions arise. In what year did Stilicho take measures for the defence of Britain? and did he visit the island in person? Keller supposes that the date was A.D. 385 and denies that he went to Britain (Stilicho, p. 17). As to the latter point it is possible that Keller may be right. The phrase illius effectum curis suggests this conclusion; if Stilicho had visited Britain and provided for its security on the spot, Claudian would perhaps have used some more vivid and graphic phrase, leaving the reader in no doubt that his hero had appeared on the scene of danger.

Before criticising Keller’s date, A.D. 385, it will be well to define the reference in the other passage, which distinctly states that the defeat of the Picts which is mentioned, was accomplished while Honorius was Emperor. This might mean one of two things. It might mean: since Honorius succeeded his father as sole Augustus in the west (Jan. A.D. 395); or it might mean: since Honorius was created Augustus (Jan. A.D. 393). The words cannot assuredly be interpreted of the Caesarship of Honorius (he appears with the title Caesar in his first consulship, A.D. 386). In the absence of any other counter-indication, we are, I think, fully entitled to assume that te principe bears its most obvious and natural meaning, and that the defeat of the Picts occurred while Honorius (and not his father Theodosius) was solely responsible for the government of the west. We may therefore assign as limits to the date of this event, Jan. 395-June 399 A.D..

Now Keller has made the mistake of associating these two passages of Claudian closely together. While the first emphasises a defeat of the Picts and does not refer to the other foes of Britain, the second describes the serious dangers which beset the island on three sides, and states that measures of defence were taken by Stilicho, but makes no mention of an actual defeat of the Picts, or indeed of any other enemy. There is therefore no reason for supposing that both passages refer precisely to the same events; and it may be argued with some force that if Claudian was thinking of the same achievements he would not have omitted, in rehearsing the military successes in the reign of Honorius, to mention the Scot and the Saxon as well as the Pict, especially as his description in the second passage conveys the idea that the Scot and the Saxon were the most formidable.

We may therefore refer the events mentioned in the poem “On Stilicho’s Second Consulship” to a date prior to A.D. 395, and may return to consider and reject Keller’s suggestion of A.D. 385. It does not need much consideration, for it is wholly inconsistent with the political situation. After Gratian’s death in A.D. 383 Maximus was recognised as Augustus by Theodosius (A.D. 384 or 385, cp. Schiller, Gesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit, ii. 405), who was not then in a position to advance against the usurper (Zosimus, 4, 37). From that time until he marched upon Italy in A.D. 387, there were no hostile dealings between Maximus and Theodosius. Maximus ruled over Britain, Gaul, and Spain from his headquarters at Trier, and it cannot for a moment be supposed that Theodosius or any general of his interfered in the administration of those provinces. Stilicho was a general of Theodosius,[365] and he cannot possibly have had to do with Britain till after Theodosius came to the rescue of the young Valentinian in A.D. 388. Thus Keller’s date is excluded.

The true date can easily be surmised. After the execution of Maximus in summer A.D. 388 Theodosius remained in Italy, ordering the affairs of the west for the young Valentinian, and did not return to Constantinople till summer A.D. 391. No part of the Gallic Prefecture probably demanded his attention more than Britain, and we cannot be far wrong in supposing that the measures of Stilicho, recorded by Claudian, belong to these three years. As was observed, the words of Claudian rather suggest that Stilicho did not himself pass into Britain. But we may assume that Theodosius sent him into Gaul, and that from there he ordered what was necessary to be done.

It seems probable that Maximus retained in Gaul a considerable part of the Britannic army; and if so, it was doubtless one of the cares of Stilicho to restore to Britain these contingents. We may assume that from A.D. 390 two legions (IInd and VIth), if not the XXth also, were in Britain.

(3) At the end of 401 Alaric entered Italy (for the chronology see Appendix 17 to Bury’s edition of Gibbon, vol. iii.), and a legion was summoned for the defence of Italy. Claudian is again our source, De Bello Gothico, 416-8:—

Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis

Quae Scotto dat frena truci ferroque notatas

Perlegit exanimes Picto moriente figuras.

This description of a legion which might be called upon to act against both Irish and Pict certainly suggests the legion which was stationed in the northern military district, of which the headquarters was York.[366] Now in the Notitia Dignitatum, which represents the state of the civil and military service in the Empire in the first years of the fifth century, we find two legions in Britain, the VIth in the northern districts under the dux Britanniarum, the IInd in the south-eastern district under the comes litoris Saxonici per Britannias. No legion appears in the western district under the comes Britanniae. It has therefore been supposed that it was the XXth legion, stationed in the west, which was summoned to Italy; and the fact that this legion does not appear in the Notitia at all has suggested that this document was drawn up after it had left Britain, but before it had been permanently assigned to any other station. Claudian’s words need not be fatal to this theory, for the legion whose headquarters was at Chester would have to defend Britain against the Scots, and might have to defend it against Picts if they broke through the wall; and in any case the words of the poet in such a matter could not be precisely pressed. But the argument cannot be regarded as conclusive. It is perfectly possible that the XXth legion had been broken up before this time, that there were only two legions in Britain, and that it was the VIth which went to Italy. Its departure, it should be remembered, did not leave north Britain defenceless; there were large forces, cohorts, and alae, distinct from the legion. It is, moreover, possible that the British section of the Not. is of much older date.

(4) The elevation of the tyrant Constantine and his crossing into Gaul would seem to have happened in the first half of A.D. 407. This seems to follow from the account in Olympiodorus (fr. 12, ed. Müller). The second half of A.D. 406 is filled by the episodes of Constantine’s predecessors, Marcus and Gratian. Zosimus (who, in regard to the dating, misunderstood Olympiodorus, as was pointed out by Freeman[367]) says that the invasion of Gaul by the Vandals and their fellows was one of the causes of the rebellion in Britain (vi. 3, 1). This cannot be true, if the text is sound in the entry of Prosper Tiro, which states that the Vandals and Alans crossed the Rhine at the end of December A.D. 406.[368] On the other hand, two considerations might tempt us to suspect this notice, namely, the unlikelihood of a migration in the middle of winter, and the existence of two edicts for a levée of provincials contra hostiles impetus dated April 18 and 20 at Ravenna (cp. Hodgkin, i. 739). But neither of these considerations is weighty enough to justify us in assuming without further evidence anything inconsistent with the testimony of Prosper’s MSS. In any case, the crossing of Constantine into Gaul will fall in the year A.D. 407.[369] We can have no doubt that most of the soldiers in Britain accompanied Constantine when he departed to secure Gaul. But he must have left garrisons; it was important for him to retain his hold on the island if, as is probable, his corn supply depended on it. Mr. Freeman has summed up the event thus in its consequences for Britain: “Britain might be saved by a campaign in Gaul. But if this was the motive, the thought of saving Britain must soon have passed away from the minds of Constantine and his soldiers. Whether they cared for such an object or not, the course of things on the mainland soon made it hopeless for them to think of keeping up any relations with the great island. The crossing of Constantine into Gaul thus became the end of the Roman power in Britain” (p. 56).

It is possible that Constantine, before he departed, may have set up a colleague, named Carausius, to safeguard his interests in Britain. This at least is the inference drawn by Mr. A. J. Evans from a coin found at Richborough (see Numismatic Chronicle, third series, vii. 191 sqq. 1887, and App. 19 to Bury’s edition of Gibbon, vol. iii.).

(5) We may now briefly consider the account of this last period of Roman domination which is given in the Epistle of Gildas, De excidio et conquestu Britanniae. Gildas, a native of west Britain, wrote in the first half of the sixth century, and his description in cc. 13-20 represents the confused memories of that troubled time, surviving in his own day. As Mommsen[370] says: “haec ut in universum rerum statum in Britannia qui tum fuit recte repraesentare videntur, sic ut narrantur magis famam incertam reddunt quam sinceram rerum gestarum narrationem.”

In this account three great devastations are distinguished, and each is attributed to the withdrawal of the Roman garrison. The first was caused by the revolt of Maximus (cc. 13, 14); the island was devastated by Scots and Picts;[371] and it was not until the islanders sent an embassy with letters to Rome that “a legion,” praeteriti mali (the disloyalty of Britain) immemor, was sent to Britain, defeated the enemy, and built a wall across the island. The details are of course inaccurate, but the general fact that the rebellion of Maximus brought invasion upon Britain, and after his fall measures were taken (by Stilicho) for fortifying it, is correct.

But Gildas conceived that the “legion” when it had done its work did not remain in the island, but returned triumphantly to Rome; and then the old foes began their ravages anew (c. 16). Again an embassy repairs to Rome and begs aid; aid is again given, and the invaders are punished. The soldiers, having given good advice to the timid natives and erected new fortifications, valedicunt tamquam ultra non reversuri. Then follows the third devastation, and the famous futile message of the “groans of the Britons” is sent to Aetius.

Now this narrative does not correspond to the course of events as we gather it from the scanty contemporary sources, but we can see how it is based on actual occurrences. The third devastation, from A.D. 407, when the army finally departed, to A.D. 446 (the third consulship of Aetius), must represent truly enough the situation of Britain in those years. The circumstance that one legion was withdrawn in A.D. 402, and that the rest departed five years later, in A.D. 407, may have been the historical motive for distinguishing a second period of devastation, which would have to fall before A.D. 407.

But a further fact may underlie this tradition of a second devastation. There is no reason to reject the statement in the Irish Annals that King Niall was slain by the Ictian Sea (Sea of Wight), that is, the English Channel, while he was invading Britain, nor is there any reason to question the date assigned to his death, A.D. 405. And if the date is right, even within a year or so, then his last incursion into Britain may be regarded as the historical foundation of the “second devastation” of Gildas.

For the legend of the Slaying of Niall of the Nine Hostages (orcuin Néill nóigíallaig) see the version edited by Professor Kuno Meyer (in Otia Merseiana, ii. 84 sqq.).

The High Kings of Ireland who may have been concerned in the “Scotic” invasions of Britain from the middle of the fourth century to the year A.D. 427 were as follows, according to the Irish tradition:—

• Eochaidh Muighmeadhoin, A.D. 358-366.
• Crimthann, A.D. 366-379.
• Niall (son of Eochaidh), A.D. 379-405.
• Dathi (nephew of Niall), A.D. 405-428.

3. The Dates of Patrick’s Birth and Captivity

The chronological framework of Patrick’s life is determined by two certain dates: the year of his coming to Ireland, which rests upon clear and unvarying tradition, A.D. 432, and the year of his death, A.D. 461. This last date is supplied by the earliest source we have (excepting Patrick’s own writings), Tírechán (302₂₉), and it is supported by the independent evidence of the Annals. For although the false, vulgar date (A.D. 493) established itself in the Annals, the true date remained inconsistently side by side with it. I must refer the reader to my discussion of the passage of Tírechán in the English Historical Review, xvii. p. 239 sqq. (1902), where I have shown that the date there given, A.D. 461, is supported by the Annals of Ulster,[372] the Annals of Inisfallen,[373] and probably by a chronological notice in the Historia Brittonum.[374]

But though these data are decisive, the vulgar date 493 has become so generally current that it may not be amiss to point to one or two further considerations which make against it; especially as it is possible to dissociate it from the tradition that Patrick died at an age which is, to use a moderate expression, unusual—120, by supposing that he was born in the first years of the fifth century, was ordained bishop at the age of 30, and lived to the age of 90. This view would involve a forced explanation of the dates (see below) supplied by the Confession. It is to be observed (1) that the Annals and older sources do not furnish a single notice of any event in Patrick’s life between 461 and 493; these thirty-two years are a blank. (2) Negative evidence is also furnished by the oldest Life of St. Brigit (by Cogitosus), which does not mention Patrick, or make any attempt to bring Brigit into connexion with him (as the latter Lives do, on the ground of the supposed date of his death in 493). Further (3), Benignus, Patrick’s successor at Armagh, died in 467 (Ann. Ult. sub a.; Annals in the Book of Leinster, f. 12, vᵒ A, see my extract in English Historical Review, xvii. pp. 700-1, 1902); and it will be allowed to be supremely improbable that Patrick should have resigned his bishopric when he was 60 years old or thereabouts, and survived his resignation 30 years. The question of the origin of the date 493, and of the two fabulous ages of Patrick (120 and 132) are treated in .

Our other data depend upon the Confession. He had committed some fault when he was about 15 years old;[375] he had confessed it to a friend before he was ordained deacon;[376] and through the treachery of his friend[377] it was afterwards urged against him. These machinations against him occurred post annos triginta,[378] which has been generally interpreted to mean 30 years after the commission of the fault.[379] It is also generally assumed that the hostile machinations of which Patrick complains occurred in connexion with his consecration as bishop. I will show that the first of these two assumptions is not certain, and that the second is erroneous; but, as they are usually accepted, I may first explain the chronological reconstruction which could be based on them. If Patrick’s fault committed at the age of 15 was urged against him 30 years later when he was consecrated bishop in A.D. 432, we at once get his age in that year as 45, and the date of his birth as A.D. 387, and the date of his captivity (= 387 + 16/17) as A.D. 403/4. This would follow, if we took the two numbers mentioned by Patrick as strictly precise. But it is to be observed that he gives the number 15 as approximate (nescio, Deus scit, si habebam tunc annos quindecim), and that 30 may be a round number. When he says that he does not think he was more than 15 when the delinquency was committed, we may presume that he was at least 15; on the other hand, we may take it that the number 30 is more likely to be slightly an over-statement than an under-statement. We should have, therefore, to consider it quite possible that the two numbers taken together might represent a period of somewhat less than 45 years—43 or 44; and it would not be safe to draw a more precise inference than that the birth date fell between 387 and 390, and the captivity between 403/4 and 406/7.

But the basis on which this reconstruction is built is unsound. (1) So far from its being clear that the 30 years are reckoned from the date of the fault, the words suggest a different view. Occasionem post annos triginta inuenerunt[380] et aduersus uerbum quod confessus fueram antequam essem diaconus. These words seem naturally to imply 30 years, not after the fault (which has not been yet mentioned), but after the confession of the fault.[381] (2) It is quite clear that the occasion on which the fault was urged against him by aliquanti seniores was not the occasion of his consecration, but later, probably much later. The writer’s language so obviously implies this that I find it difficult to conceive how it could have been otherwise interpreted. He says:—

Et quando temptatus sum ab aliquantis senioribus meis qui uenerunt et peccata mea contra laboriosum episcopatum meum, etc. ... sed Dominus pepercit proselito et peregrino (365₂₋₇).

The significant word laboriosum shows conclusively that the intervention of the seniores did not occur till Patrick had already been working in Ireland long enough to describe his bishopric as “laborious”; and the words proselito et peregrino, describing his position in Ireland, manifestly confirm this interpretation. If the seniores had intervened at the time of his consecration, it would be quite inappropriate and pointless to describe their action as aimed contra laboriosum episcopatum meum.

Hence the chronological reconstruction falls to the ground, being based on an erroneous determination of the limits of the period of 30 years. The anterior limit most probably corresponds to the date of the confession of the fault before ordination, while the posterior limit is certainly subsequent to A.D. 432.

It follows that these data of the Confession furnish us with no precise dates, as we have no fixed year to reckon from. They may, however, give an approximate indication. The words quod confessus fueram antequam essem diaconus strongly suggest that the confession was made not long before Patrick’s ordination as deacon. In another Excursus ([9]) it is shown that he was probably ordained before A.D. 418. Hence we should infer that the intervention of the seniores occurred before the year A.D. 448. More than this we are not entitled to infer. We have no means of determining precisely Patrick’s age at the date of his consecration.

There are nevertheless two indications which suggest that 389 may have been the year of Patrick’s birth: (1) the conjecture that he was taken captive on the occasion of King Niall’s invasion in A.D. 405 is in harmony with our data; it is a value of x which satisfies our indeterminate equation, though it is not the only value. It implies A.D. 389 as the birth date. (2) I show in another Excursus ([20]) that one of the traditions as to Patrick’s age at his death can be accounted for by supposing that he died at the age of 72; but 461 - 72 = 389.

Speaking, then, with every reserve, I think we may say that 389 is the only year which is particularly indicated by any data we possess, and that if we assume it hypothetically as our starting-point we obtain a framework into which our data fit consistently, and without constraint. More than this cannot be said.

4. The Place of Patrick’s Captivity

Confession, 367₂₄, in siluis et monte; 362₃, inter-missi hominem cum quo fueram ui annis; 364₁₀₋₁₃, putabam—audire uocem ipsorum qui erant iuxta siluam Focluti quae est prope mare occidentals, et sic exclamauerunt quasi ex uno ore Rogamus te, sancte puer, ut uenias et adhuc ambulas inter nos. The last passage shows indisputably that Patrick, during his captivity, had “walked” near the wood of Fochlad; and otherwise it would be difficult to understand why he should have been so specially moved by thoughts of the people of Fochlad if he had known nothing of them personally. The obvious conclusion from the Confession, if we had no other data, would be that he spent six years of captivity with the master to whom he refers in western Connaught.

The authorities for the association of Patrick’s captivity with north Dalaradia and Mount Miss are Tírechán, 329₂₈-330₁₉, 311₁,₂, and Muirchu, 275₁₅₋₁₉, 276₆₋277₆, 300₁₀₋₁₃. I have pointed out that parts of these passages of Tírechán and Muirchu depend on a common source (see above, [p. 258]). It is to be observed that, in these our earliest sources (1), the identification of Patrick’s master with Miliucc of Mount Miss is introduced, not in connexion with the story of the captivity, but à propos of visits to that region after he had come as a missionary; and (2) the notices in both writers are characterised by legends—Miliucc’s self-immolation, the footsteps of the angel, the flames from Patrick’s mouth.

The rejection of Mount Miss as the scene of Patrick’s servitude involves the rejection of Miliucc as his master; for the passage in Tírechán makes it clear that Miliucc was really connected with that region (ascendit autem ad montem Miss Boonrigi quia nutriuit ibi filium Milcon Maccu-Buain, 329₂₈; the region was called from the name of Búan, Miliucc’s ancestor).

That the forest of Fochlad was not confined to north-western Mayo, the barony of Tirawley, but extended southward to Murrisk, is, I think, a probable conclusion from the passage in Tírechán, 310₃₋₁₂, where Crochan Aigli (Croagh Patrick) is closely connected with the Silua Fochlithi. It seems highly probable that Crochan Aigli, which has always been associated with Patrick in living tradition, is the mountain of the Confession. And in one document we have a distinct statement that this was so. It is remarkable that Probus, though he follows the narrative of Muirchu, nevertheless substitutes Crochan Aigli for Mount Miss (see above, [p. 274]). He must have had some motive for doing so; he must have had another tradition before him.

The question arises, what was the origin of the error (which evidently prevailed before the seventh century) that Patrick spent his captivity in north Dalaradia. Tírechán has a notice that a certain Gosactus (Guasacht),[382] whom Patrick ordained near Granard, was son of Miliucc (311), and his tomb was shown at Granard in later days, Vita Secunda, c. 15. This seems to bring Miliucc into touch with reality. He further states that Patrick, when a captive, had “nurtured Gosactus.” Our first idea would be that this was an inference from the Miliucc legend; but it seems just possible that it might account for the rise of the legend, in the way explained above, [p. 123 (cap. vi.)].

There are two ways in which an attempt might be made to reconcile the tradition of the captivity near Mount Miss with the passage in the Confession. (1) It might be held that Patrick changed masters, and served as a slave in both regions. But the passage in which he describes his captivity seems incompatible with such a conjecture. He says that he had been six years with the man from whom he escaped, and his narrative distinctly conveys the impression that he had been in the same place since his arrival in Ireland. (2) It might be suggested that he escaped from Antrim to a port in Mayo, near the wood of Fochlad, and thus became acquainted with that district, though he could not have been very long there (cp. White, Proc. of R.I.A. 1905, p. 224). But the words of the dream et adhuc[383] ambulas inter nos are not satisfied by this hypothesis. “We beg you to come and continue to walk amongst us”; this implies a previous sojourning far more protracted than the day or two spent at the port in waiting for the vessel to sail. It may be added that a flight from the west to an eastern port is what we should rather expect than a flight from the east coast to a western harbour.

5. Tentative Chronology from the Escape to the Consecration as Bishop

[The following discussion is founded on the working hypothesis (see [Excursus 3]) that Patrick was born c. A.D. 389, and carried captive c. A.D. 405.]

In the twenty years intervening between Patrick’s escape, c. A.D. 411-412, and his consecration as bishop, A.D. 432, we know that he visited Britain, that he was attached to the church of Auxerre and studied there, and that he sojourned for some time in the monastery of Lérins. But our data do not permit us to arrange this part of his life with certainty, and various reconstructions are possible. The two indications which we possess are:—

(1) His own statement that he was again in Britain, post paucos annos (after his escape), Confession, 364₁.

(2) His association with Bishop Amator of Auxerre, who probably ordained him deacon (the grounds of this probability will be shown in [Excursus 9]); the death of Amator probably happened in A.D. 418.

Our view will partly depend on the latitude we may feel justified in giving to the expression post paucos annos. It might be held that his ordination by Amator preceded his return to Britain; or it might be held that he was not ordained at Auxerre till after his visit to Britain, so that he would have returned to Gaul before A.D. 418. The second alternative seems the more probable,[384] and it agrees with the tradition (Muirchu) that he went to Auxerre to study after his visit to Britain. His choice of Auxerre, combined with the circumstance that it was a bishop of Auxerre who afterwards took a prominent part in helping the orthodox British against Pelagianism, suggests that relations of some intimacy were maintained between Auxerre and some of the British sees. When Patrick, in Britain, made up his mind as to the destination of his life, he would have gone to Auxerre with recommendations from his friends. It seems most likely that his connexion with Auxerre should have originated in this way.

The tradition as embodied in Muirchu represents him as remaining at Auxerre till his departure for Ireland, and though it might easily be erroneous, it is, so far as it goes, against the possible theory that Patrick’s sojourn at Lérins is to be placed after his visit to Britain. But we have another piece of evidence which seems to me decisive, namely, one of the so-called Dicta Patricii. See [Excursus 6], ad fin.

The argument for placing the sojourn at Lérins before the return to Britain may be summed up thus: (1) the reminiscence of Patrick’s wanderings almost certainly refers to his wanderings after his escape, and there can hardly be any doubt that the “islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea” mean the islands of Lérins, in view of the definite tradition (Tírechán, 302₂₄) that he stayed in the insola Aralanensis; (2) this date for the retreat to Lérins supplies the much-needed explanation of his delay in returning home.

The following chronology, then, may be a rough approximation:—

A.D. 411/2 escape from his ship-companions;

A.D. 411/2-414/5 at Lérins;

A.D. 414/5 returns to Britain;

A.D. 415/6 goes to Auxerre;

A.D. 416-8 is ordained by Amator;

A.D. 418 death of Amator, who is succeeded by Germanus;

A.D. 418-432 Patrick remains at Auxerre, as deacon;

A.D. 429 Germanus goes to Britain to suppress the Pelagian heresy;

A.D. 431 Palladius consecrated bishop for the Irish Church;

A.D. 432 Patrick consecrated bishop by Germanus.

6. The Escape to Gaul. The State of Gaul, A.D. 409-416

The Vandals, Sueves, and Alans, who entered Gaul at the end of A.D. 406, remained in the land, devastating, slaying, and burning until A.D. 409, in which year they crossed the Pyrenees, to find homes in Spain. The extent of their ravages is indicated by Jerome, in a letter of A.D. 411, in which he mentions the devastation of Aquitania, Lugdunensis, and Narbonensis, and the destruction of Mainz, Rheims, and Speyer.[385] It is also described by Salvian, writing at a much later date,[386] in the De Gubernatione Dei, who tells[387] how the Vandals, gens ignavissima, de loco ad locum pergens de urbe in urbem transiens laid all things waste. Arsit regio Belgarum deinde opes Aquitanorum luxuriantium et posthaec corpus omnium Galliarum. But more valuable as genuine pictures by eye-witnesses, men who had themselves suffered with the sufferings of Gaul, are the Commonitorium of Orientius, and an anonymous poem entitled De Providentia Divina. Both these poems can be approximately dated to A.D. 415-416, and they describe the condition of the country at the time, enabling us to realise the long misery and desolation produced by the scourge of the years A.D. 407-409 Nor had Gaul, at least southern Gaul, been allowed a respite of peace to recover from the effects of that scourge, for the provincials had hardly become conscious that the Vandals had passed into Spain when Athaulf and his Visigoths entered Gaul. Moreover, a large body of Alans had remained behind, instead of accompanying their fellows across the Pyrenees. We derive a vivid picture of the unsettled state of Aquitaine from the Eucharisticon of Paulinus of Pella.[388]

Some passages in Orientius, the De Providentia Divina, and another anonymous poem Ad Uxorem, of the same period, illustrate the condition of the Gallic provinces.[389]

(1) Orientius (ed. Ellis, in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum), ii. 165 sqq.:—

Non castella locis, non tutae moenibus urbes,

invia non pelago, tristia non heremo,

non cava, non etiam nudis[390] sub rupibus antra

ludere barbaricas praevaluere manus.

(2) De Providentia Dei, in Migne, Patr. Gr. lxi. c. 617:—

Si totus Gallos, etc.

(3) Ad Uxorem, in Migne, ib. c. 611.

Non idem status est agris, etc.

It is possible, but I can find no direct evidence to show that the devastation had extended down the Loire. It might be considered whether the words of Orientius invia non pelago, which imply that the invaders attacked islands, allude to the islands of Noirmoutier, Rhé, etc.

Thus considerable regions of Gaul were a desolate wilderness, according to contemporary, rhetorical and poetical, evidence, from A.D. 408-409 to 416; and therefore, it might be argued, Gaul suits the narrative of St. Patrick in his Confession (362₂₂₋363₃₄). He and his companions reached land three days (post triduum) after they left the coast of Ireland, so that our choice lies between Britain and Gaul. The data do not suit Britain. We cannot imagine what inland part of Britain they could have wished to reach, which would have necessitated a journey of twenty-eight days per disertum. Suppose that the crew disembarked on the south coast of Britain, and that the southern regions had been recently ravaged by the Saxons, yet a journey of a few days would have brought them to Londinium or any other place they could have desired to reach from a south-coast port. Moreover, if they had landed in Britain, Patrick, when he once escaped from their company, could have reached the home of his parents in a few days; whereas he did not return home for a few years (ib. 364). His own words exclude Britain. Having mentioned his final escape from the traders, he proceeds: Et iterum post paucos annos in Britannis eram cum parentibus meis. I believe that post paucos annos has been interpreted by some in the sense “a few years after my capture.” But this is an unnatural explanation. The words naturally refer to what immediately precedes, viz. his escape. The only thing which can be alleged in favour of Britain is the intimation in the dream that he would “quickly come to his native land” (cito iturus ad patriam tuam). This of course represents his expectation at the time of his escape. But the very fact that he fails to say that the promise was literally fulfilled, and glides over intervening years in silence, strongly suggests that his expectation was not realised.

I observe that Mr. T. Olden, in his short history of The Church of Ireland, arrived at the conclusion that Patrick’s disertum must be placed in Gaul. His subject, as a whole, lies outside my knowledge, but his chapters on Patrick would not lead one to form a favourable opinion of his work. His whole argument and narrative are vitiated by his astonishing ignorance of Imperial history. He quotes[391] a passage of Jerome to prove barbarian devastations in Gaul. He quotes it not from the original text, but at second hand from Montalembert’s Les moines d’occident, a book which should be used with extreme caution. The passage cited by Mr. Olden has no bearing on Gaul at the time at which Mr. Olden sets St. Patrick’s escape from his captivity, A.D. 395. The devastations did not begin till A.D. 407. This gross ignorance of the superficial facts of the general history of the period damages Mr. Olden’s credit.

Mr. Olden, however, has made one useful contribution to the question—the only good thing in his account of St. Patrick.[392] He has brought out the significance of the dogs, which are mentioned incidentally in Patrick’s narrative. He has pointed out that the dogs—which, it is implied, were numerous and valuable—must have been part of the merchandise which the traders shipped in Ireland. Celtic hounds were highly valued in the south,[393] and it would be probable a priori that they were exported from Ireland as well as from Britain. The route of this trade would have been overland through Gaul, from the north of the Loire or Garonne to a port on the coast of Provence, or to Italy.[394] Mr. Olden acutely suggests that Patrick, so long the servant of an Irish chieftain, had become skilled in the management of wolf-hounds, and that this consideration may have determined the traders to take him on board.

Thus the cargo of dogs seems to support the conclusion that it was to Gaul, not to Britain, that the traders sailed. They might have landed at either Nantes or Bordeaux. Now the only positive statement that we find anywhere as to the landing-place is in the Life by Probus (see above, [Appendix A, ii. 9]), where it is said to be Brotgalum. Bordeaux is obviously meant, and the form should probably be Bortgalum, as the Irish was Bordgal. See the instructive passage in Vit. Trip. p. 238, where Patrick, intending to visit Rome, is said to have waited for a ship o Bordgail Letha (from Bordeaux in Gaul). Probus did not invent the statement; the form of the name shows that he got it from a source of Irish origin. He adds, evidently from the same source, that the company then went to Trajectus, but we cannot identify the Gallic “Utrecht” which is intended. It is of course impossible to say whether there was any positive tradition at the back of this statement, or if it was only a deduction from the fact that Bordeaux was a regular port for travellers from Ireland to south Gaul.

Admitting, then, as a conclusion from which we can hardly escape that the landing-place was on the west coast of Gaul, it follows that if the traders marched for four weeks per disertum, they must have designedly avoided the beaten routes and the habitations of men. Aquitaine was at the time in an unsettled condition, on account of the barbarian invasion; but no devastations would account for a month’s wandering in a wilderness, unless such wandering was deliberate.

The corroboration of our general conclusion is supplied by Patrick himself. It was inferred above from his Confession that Britain was excluded; one of his Sayings, which we saw reason to believe genuine, points distinctly to Gaul (Dicta, i., see above, [Appendix A, i. 3]). It is clear that the “journey through Gaul and Italy” must have been one beset by particular dangers and hardships; and a little reflexion will show that we are justified in identifying it with the journey described in the Confession. It is a case where the argument from silence is valid. The motive of the Confession is to set forth the crises in his life at which the writer conceived that he was conspicuously guided by Heaven. It is clear that the “journey through Gaul and Italy,” in which he used to tell his companions that he had “the fear of God as a guide,” was one of those crises which had made a deep impression upon his mind, and which we should expect to find mentioned in the Confession. It is therefore fair to identify it with his perilous journey in the company of the traders, especially as it is not easy to imagine that at a later period, when he was at Auxerre, a journey which he might have made through Gaul would have been so memorable or exceptional. The Dictum, in conjunction with the other considerations which point to Gaul, justifies the conclusion that, having travelled with the traders through Gaul into Italy, he escaped from them in Italy.

The last words of the Dictum, “in islands in the Mediterranean,” taken in conjunction with Tírechán, 302₂₄, point to his having gone to Lérins after his escape, and a protracted stay at Lérins[395] would account for the few years which elapsed before his return to Britain.

7. Palladius

There were two readings in the MSS. of Muirchu as to the place of the death of Palladius: in Britonum finibus and in Pictorum finibus. It seems probable (see my “Tradition of Muirchu’s Text,” p. 205) that the author wrote Britonum (so Lib. Arm.), but that in one copy this was corrected to Pictorum from another source, presumably the same source which supplied W and Vit. Trip. with the details about Palladius. We may conclude, I think, that Pictorum represents the genuine tradition, and that Muirchu, taking it to refer to the Picts of north Britain—as was natural—substituted Britonum. But it seems most extraordinary that Palladius should have sailed off to the Picts of north Britain, seeing that he was ordained bishop for Ireland. I think we should interpret the land of the Picts or Cruithne (V. Trip. loc. cit., hitírib Cruithnech) to mean Dalaradia, the land of the Picts in Ireland. As I have pointed out in [cap. iv.], the assumption that there were Christian communities in this part of the island makes Patrick’s work there at the beginning of his bishopric more intelligible.[396]

Professor Zimmer’s theory that Palladius and Patrick were one and the same person (a theory which had been already maintained by Schoell and Loofs[397]) is at variance with the distinct tradition, and does not account for the change of name.[398] It is based upon a paragraph which was added, probably by the Armagh scribe Ferdomnach, to his copy of Tírechán (Rolls ed. p. 333), where it is stated that Palladius was also called Patricius. It is also stated that Palladius suffered martyrdom among the Scots, ut tradunt sancti antiqui. This is at variance with W and V. Trip. which state that he died of disease. Muirchu says simply “died.” The same notice says that Patrick was sent by Celestine. This paragraph cannot carry any weight; it is not supported by the earlier sources.

But why, we must ask, should any one have invented the assertion that Palladius was also called Patricius? The answer seems to be that the two dates for Patrick’s death, the true 461 and the false 493, led, in the eighth century, to the belief in a second Patricius. This phantom is called “the other Patrick” in one of the interpolated stanzas in the hymn Genair Patraicc; and he came to be distinguished as senex Patricius (Ann. Ult. and Chron. Scot. 457) or Sen Patraicc (Calendar of Oengus, August 24).[399] One attempt to give this fictitious personage a reality may have been to identify him with Palladius.[400] Many wild and worthless speculations have been founded on this duplication of Patrick (see, for instance, Shearman’s chapter on the “History of the Three Patricks” in Loc. Patr. pp. 395 sqq.; Olden, Church of Ireland, Appendix A, and the article on Patrick in the Dictionary of National Biography, which is vitiated by the Sen Patraicc delusion). Another attempt to place the second Patrick was to connect him with Glastonbury, and thus account for the mediaeval Glastonbury tradition that the true Patrick was an abbot of that monastery (so Ussher, followed by Petrie, Tara Hill, p. 73).[401] But there is no evidence that the Glastonbury story has any foundation or is older than the tenth century. It is to be observed that the date August 24, given in martyrologies as the day of Old Patrick, cannot be alleged as an argument for his existence. In the Mart. of Tallaght (ed. Kelly), p. xxxii, we find two Patricks under this date:

Patricii Abb. ocus Ep. Ruisdela.

Patricii hostiarii ocus Abb. Airdmacha.

It is clear that there was an obscure but historical Patrick, abbot of Rosdela (near Durrow), whose day was August 24; and that his name was the motive for placing “Old Patrick” here. Compare the glosses in the Calendar of Oengus.[402] Armagh also wanted to appropriate “Old Patrick,” and so he appears in some of the lists of its abbots.

8. Patrick’s Alleged Visit (or Interrupted Journey) to Rome in A.D. 432

Muirchu’s account of the events preceding Patrick’s ordination as bishop has certain difficulties which involve an important question. Patrick, we are told, had left his home in Britain for the purpose of visiting Rome (ad sedem apostolicam uisitandam, etc.), to receive instruction there for his life-work in Ireland. But he halted on his way at Auxerre, and remained there “at the feet” of Germanus. Then when the right time came and new visions warned him: coeptum ingreditur iter ad opus in quod ollim praeparatus fuerat utique aeuangelii (272₁₀). What is the meaning of coeptum iter? The journey which Patrick had begun was the journey to Rome, which had been interrupted at Auxerre.

Germanus sends with him a presbyter, Segitius, as a companion and “witness.” Then comes a notice of the unsuccessful mission of Palladius by Pope Celestine; but the transition to this is curious. Certe enim erat quod Palladius, etc., is the text of the Armagh MS., while it seems probable that other MSS. had certi enim errant[403] which gives sense.

Having heard of the death of Palladius, Patrick and those who were with him declinauerunt iter to be ordained by “Amatorex.” Assuming that they were on their way to Rome, it is clear that Muirchu did not suppose that they ever reached Rome; for, if he did, he could not have failed to say so. Accordingly, on this view, we have to suppose that the decisive news overtook Patrick somewhere between Auxerre and Rome, and that Patrick turned about and retraced his steps, making a divagation for the purpose of being ordained by “Amatorex.” But if we read the whole narrative carefully up to the embarkation, we can hardly fail to see that in the writer’s conception of what happened there was no reversal of direction. The only natural interpretation of Muirchu’s meaning is that, met by the news about Palladius, Patrick turned from his direct route for the sake of ordination, and then resumed it. In other words, he was on his way to Ireland.

But it can be proved definitely that this was Muirchu’s conception. In his table of contents to bk. i. we find a statement which throws light on coeptum iter. We find the items:

De inuentione sancti Germani in Galliis et ideo non exiuit ultra:

De reuersione eius de Galliis et ordinatione Palladii et mox morte eius.

Here it is (1) expressly stated that Patrick did not proceed beyond Gaul (as he had intended), and (2) implied that the journey which he undertook in the company of Segitius was a reuersio to Britain or Ireland.

In the light of these headings, we are compelled to interpret the words coeptum ingreditur iter ... aeuangelii as meaning not the interrupted journey to Rome but the missionary journey to Ireland, which had been begun, in a sense, by the coming to Auxerre and the religious preparation there. With this interpretation, the words certi enim erant (which seems the probable reading: “for they knew,” or “were informed”) are intelligible. This explains the preceding statement that Patrick, although setting forth for Ireland, had not yet received episcopal ordination. They knew at Auxerre that Palladius had been ordained bishop and sent to Ireland by Celestine, and therefore Patrick was not ordained bishop. It was therefore on his way to the mare Britannicum that he received news of the death of Palladius. “Ebmoria,” or whatever may be concealed under this form, must be sought north of Auxerre.

I have elsewhere (in [the next Excursus]) pointed out that Patrick was consecrated bishop by Germanus, and that Muirchu used inconsistent sources. This note aims only at showing what Muirchu intended to convey. [It may indeed be held that the ambiguity is due to his own misinterpretation of an older document. Coeptum iter may have occurred in his source, and there meant a journey to Rome; and he may have misunderstood the meaning. If it were possible to locate Ebmoria with certainty anywhere between Auxerre and Rome, this, I believe, would be the solution.]

It is, then, quite clear that, according to Muirchu’s information, Patrick intended to visit Rome and study there, but that instead of doing so he was induced to study at Auxerre, and consequently did not go to Rome. It is obvious that such a statement about Patrick’s purposes cannot be accepted without every reserve. Statements about a man’s unfulfilled intentions, unless they can be traced clearly to himself or to an intimate friend, are in quite a different position, as historical evidence, from statements about his acts and deeds. It is equally obvious that if Muirchu had known of any evidence, oral or written, of an actual visit to Rome in A.D. 432, he would not have suppressed it. He would have had every reason to emphasise anything like a mission from the Roman see; for in the Roman controversy of his day he was on the Roman side. The stress he lays upon the unfulfilled intention only sets his silence in a stronger light.

Tírechán records a visit to Rome in later years (see below, [Excursus 15]), but he knows nothing of a visit in A.D. 432, and evidently did not find any notice of such a visit in the Liber apud Ultanum, from which he drew information about Patrick’s early life. The earliest text which can be quoted for the alleged visit is the note of the ninth-century scribe of the Liber Armachanus (332₁₉), and even that note (a Celestino—mittitur), which, in view of the silence of the seventh-century documents, has no value, does not strictly involve the idea of a journey to Rome.

9. Patrick’s Consecration

There is a difficulty as to the circumstances of Patrick’s ordination as bishop which has a direct bearing on the determination of the chronology of his life. The oldest evidence—and we have no independent source to supplement it—is the account in Muirchu’s Life (pp. 272-3). It is there stated that Patrick, learning at Ebmoria[404] of the death of Palladius, interrupted his journey (northwards) and went to a certain bishop, who conferred upon him episcopal ordination. This bishop is designated aepiscopum Amatho rege, and is described in terms which imply that he was eminent and well known. Now we know of no Gallic bishop called Amathorex, and we know of no Gallic bishop alive in the year 432 whose name at all resembles Amatho regem. But we do know of an eminent Gallic bishop named Amator, whose episcopal seat was at Auxerre, where Patrick received part at least of his ecclesiastical training. Only Amator died in 418,[405] and therefore could not have ordained Patrick bishop in 432.

Nevertheless there can hardly be a doubt that Amator is meant, for he is the only Gallic bishop, of similar name, in Patrick’s time. He could be described as mirabilis homo summus aepiscopus; and he was bishop of Auxerre, with which, under his successor Germanus, we know that Patrick was connected. This high probability was raised into certainty when Zimmer showed that Amatho rege is perfectly intelligible as an Irish form.[406] The Latin colloquial casus communis Amatore was treated in Irish on the analogy of a name like Ainmire, Dat. Acc. Ainmirig; so that Amatorege represents Amatorig, re-Latinised (see above, [Appendix A, ii. 3]).

Amator, then, is meant. The inconsistency in the chronology can be explained as due to a perfectly intelligible confusion of two different occasions. For when we come to examine closely the narrative of Muirchu we find a statement which is inconsistent with the assertion that Patrick was ordained bishop ab Amatho rege. We are told that when he started from Auxerre for Ireland in the company of Segitius the presbyter, he had “not yet been ordained bishop by Germanus.” This clearly implies that the prelate who ordained him bishop was no other than Germanus.[407] And this is just what we should expect. If Patrick heard of the death of Palladius at some place on the road from Auxerre to the Channel, his natural course was to return to Auxerre and receive ordination from his master Germanus. How came it, then, to be stated categorically that he was ordained ab Amatho rege? This admits of a very simple explanation. We have only to suppose that Muirchu confounded his ordination as bishop with his ordination as deacon. This solution fits in perfectly with the interpretation of Amatho rege as equivalent to Amatore. Amator ordained Patrick deacon before (or in) A.D. 418.

A further criticism of Muirchu’s text supplies a remarkable confirmation of this solution of the inconsistency of his statements. He tells us that not only was Patrick consecrated bishop, but that others, including Auxilius and Iserninus, received lesser orders ab Amatho rege. It is necessarily implied that Auxilius and Iserninus were of Patrick’s company, and were on their way with him to Ireland. But we may ask in the first place why their ordination, whether as deacons or priests, should have been deferred till this occasion—should have depended (like Patrick’s ordination as bishop) on the death of Palladius? In the second place, we have the distinct record in the Irish Annals that Auxilius and Iserninus arrived in Ireland seven years after Patrick’s coming.[408] There is no reason to question that record, and the inference is that they did not accompany Patrick.

This error confirms the truth of the hypothesis that under Muirchu’s account there lies a confusion between Patrick’s ordination to the diaconate and his elevation to the episcopate. The authentic record was that Amator ordained Patrick, Auxilius, and Iserninus (Patrick as deacon, the others perhaps as deacons also). When this was taken to refer to Patrick’s episcopal ordination, the association of Auxilius and Iserninus was still retained, and they were represented as accompanying Patrick.

The result of this criticism is in accordance with the general probability that Patrick had a continued connexion with one church—namely, the church of Auxerre, a connexion begun in the time of Amator and protracted in the time of Amator’s successor Germanus. And it suits the chronological data derived from the Confession (as shown above).

10. Evidence for Christianity in Ireland before St. Patrick

The circumstances which render it antecedently probable that Christianity should have penetrated to Ireland before A.D. 430 have been set forth in the introductory chapter. The positive evidence which shows that this occurred is Prosper’s notice of the mission of Palladius. It is supported by other evidence, but is in itself fully sufficient to establish the fact.

1. Prosper, Chron. s.a., 431:—

Ad Scottos in Christum credentes ordinatus a papa Caelestino Palladius primus episcopus mittitur.

It is important to observe that, if the express words in Christum credentes were absent, this record would establish the existence of Christian communities in Ireland. For neither Rome nor any other church would have ordained a bishop for Ireland unless there had been Christian communities there to be submitted to his authority. If all parts of Ireland had been still as entirely heathen as Scandinavia, a missionary might have been sent, but he would not have been a bishop.

Nothing can shake the inference from this record of Prosper, but some have attempted to weaken it by a statement in a later work of Prosper concerning Christianity in Ireland. In the contra Collatorem, written c. A.D. 437, Prosper, praising Celestine, says, et ordinato Scottis episcopo dum Romanam insulam studet servare catholicam fecit etiam barbaram Christianam (Migne, 51, 274). The expression is obviously rhetorical, and is not inconsistent with the statement in the Chronicle. It is quite possible that it is based on information which had reached Prosper of the progress of Christianity in the years 433-436; and, in a eulogy of Celestine, it was plausible to ascribe this success to his initiative in ordaining the first bishop. To infer that Prosper did not know of the death of Palladius would be unwarranted. Prosper was evidently interested in the mission of Palladius; he probably knew him personally, as there is reason to think that he was at Rome, engaged on ecclesiastical business with the Roman see, in the year 431; and these considerations render it highly improbable that he would not have been aware of his death. But it was not Prosper’s purpose to record the details of missionary work; he was merely concerned to notice, and not to minimise, what Celestine had done. The passage, therefore, must not be used to support the theory that Palladius and Patricius were one and the same person (Zimmer, Early Celtic Church, p. 33). On the other hand, it may be added to the other evidence which shows that Patrick was not ordained by Celestine; for in that case Prosper would not have omitted to notice that the Pope had ordained two bishops.

2. It has been generally overlooked that Patrick’s expression ad plebem nuper uenientem ad credulitatem (Conf. 368₉) suggests, in its most natural interpretation, a spreading of Christianity before his arrival. Otherwise we should expect primum rather than nuper.

3. If Pelagius, as Zimmer holds, was born in Ireland, we might consider it probable, almost certain, that he belonged to a Christian community, and thus we should have a confirmation of the existence of such communities before the end of the fourth century. But the evidence rather points, as I have shown (see note in [App. B, p. 296]), to Pelagius belonging to one of the Scottic settlements in western Britain. There is, however, another piece of evidence of the same kind. An Irishman, named Fith, better known under his ecclesiastical name of Iserninus, was with Patrick at Auxerre, and was ordained by Amator (see the evidence in [App. B, p. 297]).

4. Certain linguistic facts are best explained, as Zimmer has ably pointed out, by the unofficial introduction of Christianity from Britain. A number of Irish ecclesiastical loan-words have forms which are “not such as we should expect if they had been borrowed straight from Latin,” but can only be explained by intermediate Brythonic forms.[409] Zimmer says: “It is altogether incredible that the Latin loan-words in Old Irish should have been introduced by Patrick and his Romance-speaking companions from the Continent after A.D. 432. On the other hand, their linguistic form is easily explained if Christianity was gradually spread throughout Ireland in the fourth century by Irish-speaking Britons.” The words, “gradually spread throughout Ireland,” are far too strong, and are not required for the argument; but it is clear that the linguistic facts in question harmonise with the testimony of Prosper, and enable us to draw the further inference that the introduction of Christianity was due to intercourse with Britain. We may go further and conjecture that the transformation of the Brythonic Latin loan-words into Irish equivalents was made in the Irish settlements in western Britain, which must have been the most effective channel for the transmission of the Christian faith to Ireland.

5. The attitude of king Loigaire (see below, [Appendix C, 11]) to Christianity shows that it had become a force with which he had to come to terms. If it had been first brought by Patrick, he could easily have stopped its spreading in his own kingdom, and would doubtless have done so, since personally he was not well disposed to it, and the Druids were strongly against it. His policy implies that it had already taken root.

6. The circumstance that Patrick’s missionary work was in the north and west of Ireland suggests that Christianity had made considerable progress in the south, and an apostle was not needed there in the same way. As Zimmer says (ib. 18), south-eastern Ireland in the kingdom of Laigin was “the district whence, thanks to the intercourse with the south-west of Britain, the first diffusion of Christianity in Ireland must naturally have taken place.” As for the Lives of alleged pre-Patrician saints (Ailbe, Ibar, Declan, Ciarán), they are so full of contradictions and inconsistencies, as Todd demonstrated, that they are useless for historical purposes. The only hypothesis on which any significance could be ascribed to them is that there was a confusion between earlier and later men of the same name. This hypothesis is too uncertain to build on; but we should have to entertain it if we accepted Zimmer’s remark that the contradictions in the Lives “are the natural result of attempting to varnish facts derived from genuine local tradition with the views universally accepted at the time when the Lives were compiled.”

7. Patrick’s particular interest in west Connaught is probably to be explained by his captivity there; but the appeal which this region made to him suggests that it was a specially benighted part (in a Christian’s view), in contrast with other parts of the island where Christianity was known.

8. I cannot ascribe much weight to particular passages in Tírechán which Petrie (History of Tara Hill, p. 23) and others have cited as evidence for pre-Patrician Christianity. (1) Tír. 321₂, et fuit quidam spiritu sancto plenus, etc.; (2) 329₆, et in quo loco quidam episcopus venit, etc. We do not know enough of the circumstances to draw any conclusion; we do not know (assuming the records to be correct) that Patrick’s acquaintance with these men began on these occasions. (3) The altare mirabile lapideum in monte nepotum Ailello, 313₅; supposed to be the altar of a pre-Patrician community. To these may be added (4) the signaculum crucis Christi, said to have been found by Patrick in a graveyard in Roscommon (325₃), a story told also by Muirchu (294); and (5) the implied existence of pre-Patrician Irish Christians in the expression, Hiberniae sanctis omnibus praeteritis praesentatis futuris, 323₂. There is also (6) a passage in the Additions to Tírechán, 337, cited by Petrie to prove pre-Patrician bishops (Colman, Bishop of Clonkeen). The story of the cross, common to Tírechán and Muirchu, and evidently a pretty early legend, has, I think, some significance, in so far as it implies that, at the time when it was invented, the existence of Christian crosses and Christian sepultures in Ireland before Patrick’s preaching was taken for granted.

9. If the view put forward below in [Excursus 17] as to the Paschal cycles in Ireland is correct, it is further evidence for pre-Patrician Christianity.

10. The prophecy of the Druids, which was probably not post eventum (see above, [Chap. iv.] ad fin.), suggests the existence of Christian worship in Ireland. If it stood alone, it would not be of much significance; but it fits in with the other evidence.

11. King Loigaire and King Dathi

The view which I have put forward of the significance of king Loigaire’s reign in Irish history, and his claims to the title of statesman, is based on inferences. That his policy was pacific is an inference which may be fairly drawn from the rare mentions, in the Annals, of wars and battles during his reign of thirty-six years. The Ulster Annals record only three battles with Leinster (a victory in 453; the battle of Áth Dara, in which he was captured, in 458; and the engagement in which he met his death, s.a. 462). No expeditions beyond the sea are attributed to him, though the condition of Britain might have been tempting to a monarch ambitious of conquest. The great achievement of his reign was the codification of the laws of Ireland (see [Excursus 12] on Senchus Mór), and the other feature for which his reign was remarkable was the spread of Christianity favoured by his attitude towards it. The record of Tírechán (308₃), that he did not personally adopt the new faith (non potuit credere), is obviously true, for it explains the coolness of ecclesiastical tradition in regard to him; and the conflicting statement of Muirchu (285₂₇, credidit, etc.), which is in a legendary context, must be rejected. It bears indeed a mark of internal inconsistency; for if the High King had been converted, it is hardly credible that Patrick would have dwelt only on his previous opposition, and prophesied that no kings of his seed would inherit the kingdom—a prophecy which was not verified. These words ascribed to Patrick in the legend (quia resististi doctrinae meae, etc., 285₂₉) seem to reflect the true tradition that Loigaire remained a pagan. If he had become a Christian, the Irish Church would have been as loud in his praises as the Roman Church in the praises of Constantine. The legend told by Muirchu represents him finally converted through fear (melius est me credere quam mort), as the crown and culmination of Patrick’s triumphs at Slane and Tara; but at the same time it refutes itself by the cold indifference which it manifests towards the converted king.

The statesmanlike policy of Loigaire in coming to terms with Christianity is proved by the official recognition of it in the Senchus Mór (see [Excursus 12]), and by the toleration of it in his kingdom: see the record in Tírechán, which seems trustworthy (308₂), apud illum [Loigairium] foedus pepigit [Patricius] ut non occideretur in regno illius. (We can hardly attach much credit to the story that Patrick acted along with Loigaire in adjudicating on the inheritance of Amolngaid; Tír. 309₂₈. This might have been an invention for the purpose of magnifying Patrick’s importance.) The circumstance that members of Loigaire’s family were baptized (see the conversion of Fedilmid and Fortchernn, Add. Notices, 334-5) was an element in the situation.

In connexion with the conclusion that Loigaire was influenced by the prestige of the Empire, I referred to his predecessor Dathi’s expedition to Gaul. Dathi, son of Fiachra, and nephew of king Niall, succeeded Niall as king of Ireland in 405, and was killed by lightning near the Alps, according to the Irish Annals, in 428 (see Ann. Ult. s.a. 445: through some error the entry has been inserted under a wrong year). There is a notice of his death in the Lebor na hUidre, p. 38, where he is said to have been killed in Gaul, while besieging a town of king Fermenus (rí Tracia), whose name suggests (as others have pointed out) the Faramund of the Merovingian genealogy.[410] Zimmer (Nennius Vindicatus, p. 85) dismisses the story as a reminiscence of the death of an Attacottic chief in Roman service. But this does not account for the data, and for the consistent tradition that Dathi met his death on the continent; I can see no reason to doubt the tradition, there was no motive for its invention. Accepting it, we are obliged to infer that Dathi went, with Irish troops, by the invitation of the Romans. The date of the Annals for Dathi’s death and Loigaire’s succession, A.D. 428, harmonises with the inference; for just in this year the General Aetius, on whom the defence of Gaul at this time rested, was engaged in war with the Franks. Prosper, s.a. 428, pars Galliarum propinqua Rheno quam Franci possidendam occupaverant Aetii armis recepta. The name Fermenus supplies a remarkable confirmation. As has been said, it seems to represent Faramund, the father and predecessor of Chlojo, according to Merovingian tradition. Chlojo, who appears a year or two later on the scene, is the first Merovingian monarch who has a clear place in history. Faramund has always been regarded as shadowy. The independent survival of his name in Irish tradition in connection with an event of 428, shortly before the first appearance of his son Chlojo, may be fairly brought forward as a piece of evidence for his historical reality. The transference of the scene from the lower Rhine to the regions of the Alps (due originally to vague knowledge of Gallic geography) makes the evidence more valuable, as it shows that the name Fermenus was not introduced into the story from Merovingian sources; the Alps would not have suggested to any antiquarian a connexion with a war against the Franks in north-eastern Gaul.

It is said that the corpse of Dathi was brought back by his companions to Ireland and buried in the cemetery of Rathcrochan. See the poem of Torna-Éices on the famous men and women who lay there, published by M. d’Arbois de Jubainville in Revue Celtique, 17, 280 sqq.

Under thee is the king of the men of Fail [Ireland], Dathi son of Fiachra, the good;

Croghan, you have hidden him from the Galls, from the Goidels.

Under thee is Dungalach the swift who led the king [Dathi] beyond the sea of seas.

12. The Senchus Mór

The Irish code of law, entitled the Senchus Mór, preserved only in late MSS., is a work which contains a very ancient code embedded in glosses, commentaries, and accretions. Passages are quoted from it in Cormac’s glossary, a work of the tenth century, and these quotations appear to be the earliest testimonia.

In the tenth century it was believed that the original code was drawn up in the reign of king Loigaire in the fifth century. Here is the note in Cormac’s glossary, in Dr. W. Stokes’s translation (Trip. p. 570).

Nós (customary law), the knowledge of nine [nofis], to wit three kings and three bishops and three sages, namely, a sage of poetry and a sage of literature and a sage of the language of the Féni. All these were composing the Senchus Mór. Thence it is said:—

Loiguire, Corc, dour Daire,

Patrick, Benén, just Cairnech,

Ross, Dubthach, Fergus with goodness,

Nine props, those of the Senchus Mór.

The same account is found in the Introduction which was prefixed in late times to the Senchus, and professes to record the circumstances of its compilation.

Was this tradition, which was current in the tenth century, genuine, or was it an invention made for the purpose of enhancing the prestige of Patrick? In deciding this question, there are two considerations which seem to me important. (1) If the code, which evidently held such a high place in public esteem in the tenth century, had been drawn up in the seventh or eighth centuries, it is inconceivable that an event of such interest and importance as its publication should not have been recorded in the Annals. In my opinion this argument applies also to the sixth century. But in any case, if it be admitted that the silence of the Annals forbids a date later than A.D. 600 at the latest, all the probabilities are in favour of the correctness of the tradition. The entries in the Annals for the fifth century are extremely meagre, so that the omission of a notice of the Senchus Mór would not be surprising.

It may be said, however, that as a matter of fact, the Annals do notice the composition of the Senchus Mór. Under A.D. 438 we find: Senchus mor do scribunn, “the Senchus Mór was written.” But in the first place, this entry is in Irish; if it had been a contemporary record, it would have been preserved in Latin; it is clearly an addition, and perhaps a comparatively late addition. In the second place, the date is suspicious. The year A.D. 438 is the very year in which the Theodosian Code was issued; and therefore we can hardly doubt that the motive of the insertion of the Irish entry under this year was a desire to synchronise the issue of the native with that of the great Roman Code. These considerations force us to reject the entry in the Annals as evidence of independent value.

(2) If the story of the compilation of the Senchus in the reign of Loigaire had been a deliberate invention, say of the ninth century, it could hardly have assumed its actual shape. The persons alleged to have taken part in the compilation would naturally be those who play a prominent or well-marked part in the Patrician story. Now, leaving out Patrick and Loigaire, of the other seven only three, Daire, Benignus, and Dubthach, are conspicuous in the lives and legends of Patrick. Of the other four, Ros appears indeed, but not so conspicuously as his brother Dichu, while Corc, Cairnech, and Fergus are not mentioned at all. The case of Corc, king of Munster, is particularly to be noted, because Oengus (Corc’s second successor) comes into the Patrician story, and would naturally have been selected as Patrick’s colleague if the record were a pure invention.

The record, I therefore conclude, has a genuine and ancient basis. It would be rash to be confident that the number nine, and the arrangement in three classes, may not be an improvement upon the original record; in other words, some names (e.g. Benignus and Daire) may conceivably be additions. The number nine was considered a number of virtue by the Gaels; and it is conceivable that a savant of a later age might have added to the tradition in order to make up that number. But the argument is double-edged. For it is equally likely that, for just the same reason, the number of the real commission should have been fixed at nine.

The story that the occasion of the composition of the Senchus was the slaying of Odhran, Patrick’s charioteer, in order to test Patrick’s doctrine of forgiveness, is told in the Introduction to the Senchus (pp. 4 sqq.) and in the Lehor na hUidre (text and translation, in Stokes, Tripartite, 562 sqq.). A different story of the death of Odhran at the hands of Foilge is told in Vita Quarta, c. 77, and Vita Tertia, c. 59 (where the charioteer’s name is not mentioned): according to this version the missile was aimed at Patrick. This version, but without reference to Foilge, is likewise noticed in the Introduction to the Senchus (p. 6).

The simplest explanation maybe that a driver of Patrick was slain by an enemy, and that the incident was used by Patrick for raising the question of criminal justice; mythopoeic instinct then attributed the murder to a deliberate intention of raising the question.

The story as told in the Introduction seems to preserve a tradition that an attempt was made by Patrick to change the penalty of eric fine for murder into a penalty for death. This is the motive of the poem which is fathered upon Dubthach: “I pronounce the judgment of death, of death for his crime to every one who kills” (p. 13). This is to be reconciled with the Christian doctrine of perfect forgiveness by considering that the body only is killed, the soul is forgiven: the “murderer is adjudged to heaven, and it is not to death he is adjudged” (ib.). The commentator notices the disagreement between this principle, which in the story Patrick is assumed to have established, and the custom of eric fine which actually prevailed, and explains it on the ground that Patrick’s successors had no power of bestowing heaven, hence the death penalty was discontinued, and “no one is put to death for his intentional crimes, as long as ‘eric’-fine is obtained.”

The historical fact underlying this story is, I submit, that the Church in Patrick’s day attempted, unsuccessfully, to supersede the system of composition for manslaughter and private retaliation by making the act a public offence punishable by death.

[The questions connected with the material of the laws, and the Feine, lie quite outside my competence, and do not concern the scope of this book. I may refer to Atkinson’s article “Feine,” in his glossary (Ancient Laws, vol. vi.); Rhŷs, Studies in Early Irish History, pp. 52-55 (Proc, of Brit. Acad. vol. i.). For the legal processes and customs, the chief work is M. d’Arbois de Jubainville’s Études sur le droit celtique, 2 vols. 1895; see also the Prefaces to the volumes of the Ancient Laws, and Sir H. Maine’s Early Institutions.]

13. Patrick’s Visits to Connaught

An analysis of the itinerary which Tírechán has traced for Patrick through Connaught shows that he compressed into a single journey events which must have belonged to different visits. I pointed this out in a paper on the “Itinerary of Patrick in Connaught” (Proc. of R.I.A. xxiv. c. 2, 1903). It was remembered that Patrick visited Connaught three times (Tír. 329₁₂), and we may probably suppose that on the two later occasions he would have not only worked in new fields, but revisited the scenes of his earlier work. Tírechán, who used written material as well as oral information, worked all his records into the compass of a single journey. This is betrayed by a number of inconsistencies in the narrative, and it is possible to show that certain events which he ascribes to the same journey must have happened on different occasions.

1. It is clear that the expedition to Tirawley with the sons of Amolngaid was the principal motive of one visit, and that Patrick must have proceeded direct from Tara to Tirawley. Tírechán’s naive reconstruction implies that having left Tara for this purpose he engaged in a round of missionary activity, not only in Connaught, but in Meath—performing labours which would have occupied years—before he finally reached Tirawley. I have pointed out at length the absurdities involved in the story, op. cit. 166-7.

2. The description of the visit to Elphin implies earlier work in the same district: (a) perhaps the previous foundation of Senella Cella; (b) the presence of Assicus and Betheus, who had been settled there (loc. cit. 163-4).

As to Senella Cella, however, Dr. Gwynn has made a very plausible suggestion, that Tírechán confused it with Senchua = Shancough, in Sligo. The information which he gives about Senella Cella—its location in the land of the Hy Ailella, its association with Mathona, and connexion with Tawnagh—suits Senchua much better. And this comparison would account for the introduction of the statement et exiit per montem filiorum Ailello, etc., in 314₁₈, as well as in 328₁. If this view is right, it is another illustration of Tírechán’s use of written sources. The difficulty is that we should expect Tírechán to have been sufficiently acquainted with the geography of Connaught as to know whether Senella Cella was in the land of the Hy Ailella or not. Can Senella Cella Dumiche be distinct from both Shankill at Elphin and Shancough?

3. An earlier visit to Tirerrill is implied by (a) Patrick’s knowledge of the stone altar (Tír. 313₅); and (b) the fact that Tamnach had already been founded (314₁₅). Here indeed we can extricate a piece of Tírechán’s written material, relating to Patrick’s work in Tirerrill, and showing that he entered that territory from Leitrim, crossing the Bralieve hills, 314₁₈:—

Et exiit per montem filiorum Ailello et plantavit aeclessiam liberam hi Tamnuch,

and 328, et exiit ... cell Senchuae. See Bury, loc. cit. 164-6.

4. In the passage in the Liber Armachanus, f. 9, rᵒ (301), which Dr. Gwynn has shown (see above, [p. 250]) to belong to the work of Tírechán, the baptism of Hercaith and the dedication of his son Feradach = Sachellus to the church are noticed; and it is recorded that Patrick ordained Sachellus at Rome. But immediately afterwards at Selce (319) Sachellus is already a bishop (of Baslic, Trip. 108). Thus two visits, separated by an interval of years, are here implied. If the statement is correct that Patrick took Sachellus with him to Rome, then our conjectural chronology for his visit to Rome (see [Appendix C, 15]) would give a lower limit for one of his journeys to Connaught.

5. An earlier visit to north Sligo is implied—but without inconsistency—in the account of the visit to that region (327), as well as in the presence of bishop Brón at Selce (and cp. 313₈).

6. The notice of the visit to Ardd Senlis seems to imply an earlier foundation there (317).

7. Sanctus Iarnascus in Mag-n-Airniu (320₂₆) is introduced as if Christianity had already been planted there. It may be noticed that in this passage the words uiris uiiii. aut xii. show that Tírechán was using a written source; he was doubtful about the reading.

8. Entering Tirawley, Patrick crosses the Moy. This implies that he came from the east, not from the south, as Tírechán’s itinerary would imply.

If we assume as probable the correctness of the statement that Patrick’s work in Connaught belongs to three different visits, we may draw tentatively the following conclusions:—

1. In the first visit, which was prior to A.D. 441, he worked (a) in Tirerrill, and (b) in north Sligo, where Brón was ordained bishop for his church (Killespugbrone) under Knocknaree. Perhaps he also visited (c) the neighbourhood of Elphin. He visited (d) Mag Airthic and (e) the district of the Ciarrigi, and (f) Mag-n-Airniu. In these regions he converted the father of Sachellus.

It is possible that on this occasion he extended his journey to Mount Aigli, and fulfilled the special aim of his missionary ambition by planting a church (Ached Fobuir) near the southern limits of the forest of Fochlad.

2. On another occasion he crossed the Shannon, as described by Tírechán, at Lake Bofin; worked in Mag Glais and Mag Ái; revisited the Elphin district; founded Baslic, proceeded to Lake Tecet, revisited Mag Airthic and the Ciarrigi, etc.

3. On a third occasion, he proceeded straight (from Tara) to Tirawley in the company of Endae and the sons of Amolngaid. After his plantation of his faith in Tirawley he may have revisited other parts of Connaught. The visit falls soon after Amolngaid’s death, which may have been c. 445 A.D.

It seems not at all unlikely that the second and third visits thus distinguished occurred chronologically in reverse order. It must also be borne in mind that he would have probably revisited many places in the course of the two later visits.

Conclusions very similar to mine have been reached by Dr. Gwynn, who discusses the subject in a “Supplemental Note to Chapter V.” of his Introduction to the Book of Armagh. There are in the abbreviated memoranda (which has been described above in [Appendix A, ii. 2]) vestiges of the material used by Tírechán, and Dr. Gwynn points out that the first group supplies evidence of the existence of a tradition as to Patrick’s work in Tirerrill, independent of the rest of the itinerary which Tírechán sketched. The first group is:—

Ailbe iSenchui. altare ... Machet Cetchen Rodán Mathona ...

Here, Dr. Gwynn observes, is a memorandum combining in continuous form several unconnected passages in Tírechán. “It is reasonable to infer that the tradition condensed into this memorandum was known to Tírechán; that he endeavoured to work it into his history by breaking it up into pieces and inserting them where he judged best.”

14. King Amolngaid: Date of his Reign

The death of Amolngaid, king of Connaught, is not noticed in the Ann. Ult., but is recorded s.a. 449 in the Annals of the Four Masters, and must have been derived from older Annals. Probably it was given by Tigernach (this part of his work is not preserved), who generally records the changes in the succession in Connaught. We cannot indeed infer that A.D. 449 was the precise year designated in the source of the Four Masters, because at this period their dates are not very accurate, as can be shown by a comparison with the Annals of Ulster. But we can consider it as an approximation to the date assigned by the older Annals.

The extant lists of the kings of Connaught, from Amolngaid to Aed (son of Eochaid Tirmcharna), ob. A.D. 577, are hopelessly confused. The material which I have examined consists of (1) the names and dates in the Annals (Ann. Ult. and Tigernach); (2) List in Book of Leinster, 41a; (3) List in MS. Laud, 610, f. 116 rᵒ b; (4) (a) prose list, (b) poetical catalogue by O’Duinn, in Book of Ballymote, 57a, 58a. I owe the translation of O’Duinn’s poem to the kindness of Mr. E. J. Gwynn.

These sources generally agree (with the exception of 3, which seems to be worthless) that the three kings following Amolngaid were, in order, Ailill Molt, Duach, and Eogan Bel. It is in regard to Duach that the chief difficulty occurs, for he appears again in the lists as the second (or third) king after Eogan Bel. He was son of Fergus, and is distinguished as Tenga Uma, and is said to have fallen in the battle of Segais. The Annals give the date of the Battle of Segais as A.D. 502 (Ann. Ult., Ann. Inisf.) or 500 (Tigernach); but Tigernach has a notice of Duach Tenga Uma under 550 (p. 139, ed. Stokes), and of his death under 556 (as well as under 500). The list of O’Duinn distinguishes clearly two Duachs: Duach Galach, son of Brian, who succeeded Ailill Molt, and Duach son of Fergus, seventh in the list, who fell at the battle of Segais. (The list in the Book of Leinster also distinguishes the two Duachs, designating the first as Galach and the second as Tenga Uma).[411] This would put the battle of Segais about 550. The earlier date of that battle must be accepted, as Muirchertach MacErca was the victor in it, and the notice of it in the Annals is undoubtedly independent of the lists of Connaught kings. It is also clear that there was a fixed tradition that Duach Tenga Uma fell at Segais, since O’Duinn, placing his reign at a later period, has to transfer the battle of Segais along with him. We may therefore conclude that Duach Tenga Uma preceded Eogan Bel, and fell in the battle of Segais A.D. 500/502. Now all the lists agree in giving to the first Duach, who succeeded Ailill Molt, nineteen or twenty years. This agrees with the circumstance that Ailill Molt fell in the battle of Ocha A.D. 482.

Eogan Bel, the sources consent, fell in the battle of Sligech. The date assigned to this battle in the Annals is A.D. 543 or 547 (both dates in Ann. Ult. and Tigernach). The length of his reign is given in the lists as thirty-seven (or thirty-four: the variation is obviously due to confusion of uII and IIII); which is not long enough for either of the obituary dates if he followed Duach in A.D. 500-2. Tigernach, however, s.a. 503, gives his regnal years as forty-two; which would be consistent with A.D. 543 for the battle of Sligech.

Ailill, the Womanly, Eogan Bel’s son and successor, was slain in the battle of Cuil Conaire, which is noticed in the Annals s.a. 550.

The remaining years up to A.D. 577, the year of Aed’s death, would be just accounted for by Eochaid Tirmcharna’s reign of one year and Aed’s reign of twenty-five years (twenty-two years in lists 2 and 4; a confusion here too of II and u). But at this point, after Ailill, occurs the repetition of Duach Tenga Uma: he appears in Tigernach as well as in the lists (except 4); and seven years are assigned to him. Further, the catalogue of O’Duinn inserts Eogan Srem between this second Duach and Eochaid Tirmcharna, and gives him twenty-seven years. Eogan Srem also appears in the prose list in the Book of Ballymote, but before Ailill.

If we take as fixed points the death of Ailill in 550 and that of Aed in 577, it is obvious that, even if Aed reigned only twenty-two years, there is no room for a second Duach and Eogan Srem in this period.

On the other hand, if we take the sum total of all the regnal years as given in O’Duinn’s poem up to Aed’s death, and reckon back from A.D. 577, we find that we are taken back to the neighbourhood of the death of king Dathi. It will be best to give O’Duinn’s list:—

Amolngaid	reigned	20	years
Ailill Molt	”	11	”
Duach, son of Brian	”	20	”
Eogan	”	37	”
Ailill	”	5	”
Eogan Srem	”	27	”
Duach, son of Fergus	”	7	”
Eochaid	”	1	”
Aed	”	25	”
	Total	153	”

Reckoning back 153 years from A.D. 577, we reach A.D. 424. The date of Dathi’s death was A.D. 428, but if we take into account the conditions of such a calculation, where incomplete years may be set down as full years, the divergence might be consistent with the conclusion that the list was constructed on the initial assumption that Amolngaid succeeded Dathi in 428—which implies that Dathi was king of Connaught (but see below).

We can now see how the chronology was constructed in O’Duinn’s source. It will be simplest, for the purpose of criticism, to tabulate the dates (approximately) implied by that construction:—

Amolngaid	ceased to reign	444
Ailill I.	”	455
Duach I.	”	475
Eogan I.	”	512
Ailill II.	”	517
Eogan II.	”	544
Duach II.	”	551
Eochaid	”	552
Aed	”	577

These dates are entirely at variance with the chronology of the Annals. We are entitled to criticise them on the assumption that the dates of the Annals for the battles of Segais, Sligech, and Cuil Conaire are approximately correct. O’Duinn’s figures would place Segais c. 475 instead of 502 (or 500), Sligech c. 512 instead of 543 (or 547), Cuil Conaire c. 517 instead of 550. But if we omit from his list Eogan II. and Duach II., and then reckon back from 577, we get approximately dates assigned in the Annals to the second and third of these three battles, namely, 551 for Cuil Conaire, 546 for Sligech; while the contradiction between the duration of Eogan Bel’s reign and the date of Segais is the same here as in the other sources. If Segais was fought in 502 and Sligech in 546/7, and Eogan Bel reigned thirty-seven years, then seven or eight years are left unaccounted for, and the reign of the second Duach serves to fill this interval. But there is no room for Eogan Srem between the battle of Segais and the death of Aed.

Again, if we take Duach I.’s death at Segais in 502 as a fixed point, and reckon backward with O’Duinn’s figures, we find 482 for the accession of Duach I., 471 for the accession of Ailill Molt, and 451 for the accession of Amolngaid. If Amolngaid followed Dathi in 428, this would imply an error of about twenty-four years.

We have now the clue to the construction of O’Duinn’s list. A period of c. 153 years from the accession of Amolngaid to the death of Aed had to be accounted for. The recorded regnal years were insufficient, and the defect was supplied by an impossible interpolation in the sixth century, whereas it was in the fifth century, in the period anterior to Duach, that the supplement was chiefly needed. Having established this point, we need not consider further the succession of kings subsequent to Duach Tenga Uma.

It is clear that there was a definite tradition assigning to Amolngaid twenty years, to Ailill Molt eleven years, and Duach twenty years; and that the chronologer, whom O’Duinn followed, did not venture to tamper with these numbers in order to account for the missing years. As for Ailill Molt, twenty years are assigned to him in the list in the Book of Leinster. But this may be at once rejected; for twenty years represent the duration of his reign as king of Ireland (462-482), and it is highly improbable that the throne of Connaught became vacant at the same moment as the throne of Ireland. Accepting then eleven years as the genuine tradition, he must have succeeded to Connaught c. 471, as he died in 482, and there is no reason to suppose that he resigned the kingship of Connaught before his death. The interval from 482 to 502 is exactly covered by the twenty years assigned to Duach Tenga Uma. If Amolngaid followed Dathi in 428 and reigned for twenty years, the end of his reign would fall c. 448, which would correspond to the record in the Annals of the Four Masters (449). Thus we should arrive at an interval of about twenty-four years between Amolngaid’s death and Ailill Molt’s succession (448-471), which is unaccounted for. [The confusion of Ailill Molt’s regnal years in Connaught with his twenty regnal years in Ireland served to shorten this period by nine years; and in the list of the Book of Leinster the residue of the chronological error is “corrected” by adding fourteen years to the reign of Amolngaid, to whom thirty-four years are assigned.]

The question therefore is, who reigned in Connaught between Amolngaid and Ailill Molt? Now I think it can hardly be insignificant that in the Annals as well as in the lists Duach Tenga Uma is reduplicated. This must have had some motive, and the most probable explanation seems to be that two Duachs did reign in Connaught, and that O’Duinn is right in distinguishing Duach son of Brian from Duach son of Fergus, though he confuses the order and chronology. For it is clear that he had knowledge of Duach Galach son of Brian, whom he describes as falling in battle with the Cinel Eogain. His notice of this king is as follows (I use the text and translation furnished by Mr. E. J. Gwynn):—

Duach mac Briain abus XX bliadan a flaithus, fuair a brath, ba tennel tair, ’sa cath re ceinel Eogain.	Duach son of Brian next was sovereign 20 years; he met his betrayal—he was a prince in the east—in battle with the cinel Eogain.
Ced ri cloindi Briain na mbladh Duach galach gargg dargiallsad, bladh don duine os gach dine gurgab uile in airdrige.	The first of the family of Brian the famed was Duach valiant (Galach) fierce to whom men gave obedience; fame the man had beyond all generations so that he took the entire overkingship.
secht oshein rochuala secht ndeich da bliadan buadha co Seagais in Coraind cain co har Conaill is Eogain.	77 years from thence I have heard years of victory to Segais of fair Corand to the battle of Conall and Eogan.

The last stanza presents a difficulty. The battle of Segais was not the “battle of Conall and Eogan,” so that the preposition co “to” either in v. 3 or in v. 4 must be a mistake for ó “from.” O’Curry, in his Manuscript Material, refers to this poem, and evidently assumes that ó should be read in v. 4; for he infers that the battle in which Duach son of Brian was killed was fought 79 [sic] years before the battle of Segais (which he dates A.D. 504 after the Four Masters), thus obtaining 425 for Duach’s death, and placing his reign before Amolngaid.

Now it is to be observed that the 77 years exactly correspond to the sum total of the regnal years between the death of the first Duach and that of the second Duach, according to O’Duinn’s own incorrect arrangement (37 + 5 + 27 + 7 = 76). The question therefore arises: is the statement as to the period of 77 years an inference from the arrangement, or is the arrangement determined by an independent record that 77 years elapsed between the two battles in question? The former alternative seems less probable; for it does not appear why this particular interval, if it were only an inference from the arrangement, should be selected for special mention. It seems much more probable that (as is suggested by the expression “I have heard”) the stanza embodies a tradition independent of this particular reconstruction of the regnal list. If so, O’Curry’s inference was correct, and we get (502 - 77 =) 425 as the date of the battle in which Duach MacBriain fell. There would be no difficulty in this date for Duach’s death; his father, Brian, was son of Eochaid and brother of Niall; he was himself cousin of Loigaire and Amolngaid.[412] In this case, one of the causes of the contradictions in the Connaught succession was a confusion of the Duach who reigned towards the beginning of the fifth century with the Duach who reigned at the end.

If then the first Duach died c. 425, it seems probable that he was succeeded by Amolngaid. There seems to be no clear evidence that Dathi was king of Connaught while he was king of Ireland. It is stated in the Genealogy of the Hy Fiachrach (p. 90) that he ruled Connaught and Ireland. It is quite conceivable that he was king of Connaught before 405, and that in that year he secured the succession to the throne of Ireland by agreeing to transfer the kingship of Connaught to his cousin Duach. The hypothesis that Amolngaid immediately followed Duach c. 425 is supported by two considerations.

1. Provisionally assuming, for the purpose of the argument, that Amolngaid might have succeeded Dathi, I pointed out that the sum total of regnal years in O’Duinn’s list, from Amolngaid’s accession to Aed’s death, would take us back to the close neighbourhood of Dathi’s death in 428. But there is actually a difference of four years (577 - 153 = 424). If Amolngaid succeeded Duach in 424/5, we may say that the agreement of this date with the total of years in O’Duinn’s reckoning is precise.

2. On this hypothesis we are able to solve the main problem—the interval between Amolngaid and Ailill Molt.

For if Amolngaid succeeded in 424/5, and reigned 20 years, his death would fall in 444/5. There would consequently be an interval of 26 or 27 years between his death and the accession of Ailill Molt in 471. Now if Duach mac Briain had a son, we might expect to find him elected to the throne. The prose list in the Book of Ballymote designates Eogan Srem as the son of Duach Galach (that is, Duach mac Briain); and the regnal years assigned to Eogan Srem in O’Duinn’s poem are precisely the number required to fill up the interval between Amolngaid and Ailill Molt. The inference therefore would be that Amolngaid was followed by Eogan, Duach’s son, c. 444/5.

In order to show the force of the argument, I may say, at the risk of tautology, that it consists of three converging considerations. (a) Eogan Srem is introduced, in the lists in the Book of Ballymote, among the Kings of Connaught in the sixth century in defiance of chronology. His appearance in these lists has to be explained, and is most naturally explained by supposing that he was at one time King of Connaught, though not at the time implied in the lists. If the conclusion is right that Duach mac Briain died in 425, then his son Eogan Srem must be moved back into the fifth century. (b) The 27 regnal years assigned to Eogan Srem exactly occupy the vacant interval between Amolngaid and Ailill Molt. (c) The succession of Eogan Srem, son of Amolngaid’s predecessor, is just what we might expect; it is exactly parallel to the successions in the fifth century to the throne of Ireland. Thus: Niall, Dathi, Loigaire son of Niall; Dathi, Loigaire, Ailill son of Dathi; Loigaire, Ailill, Lugaid son of Loigaire.

These considerations seem to me to outweigh the circumstance that Amolngaid’s death is assigned in the Annals of the Four Masters to A.D. 449. It would be otherwise if the date were recorded in the Annals of Ulster. But a comparison of the Four Masters with the other Annals shows that the former compilation constantly deviates by several years, and, for the early period at least, a date which is found only in it, cannot be accepted as accurate with any confidence.

---

I have presented this investigation so as to show the steps by which I reached the conclusion, as I believe that thus it will be easier to criticise it. The reconstruction which I propose seems at least to satisfy the conditions of the problem. It may be convenient to tabulate the list of the kings, in accordance with these results, as follows:—

Duach Galach, mac Briain	d. 424/5
Amolngaid	d. 444/5.
Eogan Srem, son of Duach	d. 471.
Ailill Molt	d. 482.
Duach Tenga Uma	d. 502.

15. Patrick at Rome

The evidence for a visit of Patrick to Rome A.D. 441 depends upon two records, one in the Annals, the other in Tírechán.

(1) Ann. Ult. sub a. 441: Leo ordinatus est xlii<i> Romane ecclesie episcopus et probatus est in fide catolica Patricius episcopus.

(2) Tírechán, (p. 301₆: see above, [p. 250]):

Et exiuit [sc. Sachellus] cum Patricio ad legendum xxx annis et ordinauit ilium in urbe Roma et dedit illi nomen nouum Sachellum et scripsit illi librum psalmorum quern uidi [sc. Tírechán], et portauit [sc. Sachellus] ab illo partem de reliquis Petri et Pauli Laurentii et Stefani quae sunt in Machi.

[Cp. Tírechán, 329₂₄, where Patrick is said to have given to Olcan (ordained bishop at Dunseverick) partem de reliquiis Petri et Pauli et aliorum et uclum quod custodiuit reliquias].

The ordination of Leo is wrongly placed in the Annals in 441; it belongs to 440. But its close association with the notice of St. Patrick’s probatio shows the meaning of the words probatus est;[413] and in fact there is no other conceivable meaning than formal approval by the Church, and the only form which that approval was likely to take in such a case was the approval of the Church’s chief representative, the Bishop of Rome. Such approval might have come in the shape of a formal epistle from the Roman bishop to the bishop in Ireland. But when we find in our seventh-century authority, Tírechán, a statement that Patrick was in Rome accompanied by Sachellus, and when we find that in his time there were relics of Peter and Paul and other martyrs at Armagh procured by St. Patrick; and seeing that there is nothing improbable in these records, and that, on the contrary, a visit of Patrick to Rome is antecedently probable; we may venture, I think, to combine these testimonies and conclude that Patrick did visit Rome at the beginning of Leo’s pontificate. The tradition of Sachall has all the appearance of being genuine; and Tírechán in this passage was using an older written document, as is proved by his uncertainty about a numeral (cum uiris uiii aut uiiii, 300₂₇; cp. above, [App. A, ii. 1]).

The notice in the Annals probatus est in fide Catholica is, by its brief formal character, stamped, in my judgment, as a contemporary entry, made probably in a fifth-century calendar. If it had been concocted in the sixth century, or at any later period, it could never have taken this shape; it would have been expressed more clearly. It implies and assumes contemporary knowledge—the knowledge, as I contend, of the visit to Rome.

There is another remarkable notice in the Annals, two years later, which it seems to me may bear on the subject—Ann. Ult. sub a. 443: Patricius episcopus ardore fidei et doctrina Christi florens in nostra provincia.[414]

Ann. Inisf.: Patricius in Christi doctrina floruit.

It is clear that the Ulster Annals give the entry in its original form, which is abbreviated (and translated into the past tense) by the Annalist of Inisfallen. It has never been explained why a notice of this kind should be entered under this particular year. Such a notice, attached to a certain year, must have had a motive in some particular occurrence which happened at that date. It belongs unquestionably to that small group of contemporary entries which, preserved in calendars, found their way into the later annalistic compilations (see above, [p. 282]). Now Patrick’s visit to Rome supplies an explanation which would fully account for it. His return from Rome, with the new prestige and authority with which the Roman bishop’s approbation would have invested him, furnishes a motive which would explain a formal entry recording his activity and success at this juncture.[415]

---

The passage in Tírechán quoted above calls for a remark. There is obviously an error in ad legendum xxx annis. The error probably arose from some combination of the genuine tradition that Sachellus accompanied Patrick to Rome with the false idea (which had arisen before Tírechán’s time through chronological confusions about Patrick’s life) that Patrick studied for thirty years abroad.

16. Appeal to the Roman See

The genuineness of the canon prescribing reference to the Roman see has been sufficiently indicated in the text ([chap. viii. § 4]); but some observations may be added here by way of illustration. It is clear that the attitude of the Irish Church to the see of Rome in the sixth century has a very distinct value as evidence from which inferences may be made in regard to its relation to Rome in the fifth century. And for the feelings of Irish ecclesiastics towards the Roman see in the sixth century, we can have no better evidence than the letters of St. Columbanus, who was born and educated in Ireland. For on the one hand Columbanus identifies his own opinions with those of the Irish, and speaks as if he were writing in Ireland; while, on the other, he admonishes the bishops of Rome with such boldness and plainness that he cannot be accused of “Romanising” tendencies. We are therefore justified in taking the spirit which he displays towards the Cathedra Petri as indicative of the spirit of the Irish Church.

In the three letters which are addressed to bishops of Rome (Epp. 1, 3, 5) there is the fullest recognition of the Pope’s auctoritas in the Western Church, and it is just this recognition which makes Columban lay such solemn weight on his own admonitions—an error (peruersitas, p. 175₄) committed by the Pope being one of the most serious disasters that could befall the Church. It is clear that Ireland is in no wise excluded from the general auctoritas of the “Apostolic Fathers” (cp. pp. 164₃₁, 165₂₃), for Pope Boniface is addressed as omnium totius Europae Ecclesiarum capiti (Ep. 5, p. 170₁₀). In this letter Columbanus writes: nos enim devincti sumus cathedrae sancti Petri (174₂₅), and vos (the Popes) prope caelestes estis et Roma orbis terrarum caput est ecclesiarum, salva loci dominicae resurrectionis singulari praerogativa. The reservation (showing that the writer is expressing his conviction and not merely using rhetorical phrases of politeness) renders this evidence all the more telling; and the same may be said of the reservation which he makes as to the claim of the Popes as successors of the keeper of the keys of heaven (175₈₋₁₉). The attitude of Columban is briefly expressed in the wish: Rex regum, tu Petrum, te tota sequatur ecclesia (177₁₅).[416]

The unity of the Catholic Church is an axiom with Columbanus, and there is not the smallest reason to doubt that this idea was inculcated in Ireland. Unius enim sumus corporis commembra, sive Galli sive Britanni sive Iberi sive quaeque gentes (164). It is not without significance that in the story of the baptism of the daughters of King Loigaire, preserved by Tírechán, one of the five rudiments of Christianity in which the converts are required to express their belief is the unitas aecclessiae (316₂, Rolls ed.).

The point is that its own solidarity with the rest of Christendom, and consequent respect for the Bishop of Rome as the head of Christendom, were axioms of theory, however little they were acted on in the sixth century, in the Irish Church. And such must have been the teaching of Patrick himself. Patrick, spiritually reared in the Gallic Church, must (without direct testimony to the contrary) be presumed to have shared in the attitude of Gallic churchmen to the Roman see. It was not, indeed, the attitude of unquestioning obedience and submission of later ages. What it was has been fully explained in [chap. iii.] ad fin. and in [chap. viii. § 4].

Reference must be made to another passage in Columbanus, which might be thought to prove something more (Ep. 5, p. 171).

Nos enim sanctorum Petri et Pauli et omnium discipulorum divinum canonem spiritu sancto scribentium discipuli sumus, toti Iberi, ultimi habitatores mundi, nihil extra evangelicam et apostolicam doctrinam recipientes: nullus hereticus, nullus iudaeus, nullus scismaticus fuit; sed fides catholica, sicut a vobis primum, sanctorum videlicet apostolorum successoribus, tradita est, inconcussa tenetur.

In this assertion of the orthodoxy of Ireland, the words which I have italicised might be taken to imply that Ireland received the Catholic faith directly from the Popes. This would be a misinterpretation. The words can only refer generally to the transmission and maintenance of orthodox doctrine at Rome.[417]

---

The text of the canon of appeal (Hibernensis, 20, 5, b) is as follows:—

Si quae difficiles[418] questiones in hac insula oriantur, ad sedem apostolicam referantur.

It is referred to in the Liber Angueli (356₁₁), where the claim of Armagh to decide a causa ualde difficilis is laid down; but if Armagh does not succeed in settling the question, then ad sedem apostolicam decreuimus esse mittendam [sc. causam]. It is further stated:

hii sunt qui de hoc decreuerunt id est Auxilius Patricius Secundinus Benignus.

If these names are selected from the signatories of a synod at which the canon was passed, the presence of Secundinus, who died 447-8 (see [App. B, note p. 292]), shows that the synod must have been held before that year. Benignus would have been still a presbyter.[419]

17. Patrick’s Paschal Table

[See Dr. B. MacCarthy’s Introduction to the Annals of Ulster, vol. iv.]

The Paschal table drawn up by Dionysius (based on a cycle of 19 years like the Alexandrine) superseded the Paschal canon of Victorius of Aquitaine about 525 A.D. in the Roman Church. The canon of Victorius (based on a cycle of 532 years) had been introduced in 457 A.D. and continued to be used in Gaul to the end of the eighth century. Before the reception of the Victorian system, the date of Easter was calculated in the west by a cycle of 84 years. In the time of St. Patrick, the terms between which Easter could fluctuate, according to the supputatio Romana based on this cycle, were the 16th and 22nd of the lunar month, the 22nd March and 21st April of the calendar. These terms were due to modifications (which had been introduced in 312 and 343 A.D.) of an older computation, in which the lunar limits were the 14th and 20th of the lunar month, the calendar limits the 25th March and 21st April.[420]

There were thus four stages, from the end of the third century, in the Paschal computation adopted at Rome:

• 1. 84 cycle: lunar terms, 14 × 20: cal. terms, M. 25 × A. 21
• 2. 84 cycle: lunar terms, 16 × 22: cal. terms, M. 22 × A. 21 [after 343 A.D.]
• 3. 532 cycle: lunar terms, 16 × 22: cal. terms, M. 22 × A. 24 [after 457 A.D.]
• 4. 19 cycle: lunar terms, 15 × 21: cal. terms, M. 22 × A. 25 [after 525 A.D.]

The Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland never adopted the Victorian cycle, and the great question of the seventh-century controversies was whether they should adopt the Dionysian computation, and abandon their old system which was based on a cycle of 84. There is no doubt that a cycle of 84 was used in Ireland in the 6th and 7th centuries, for we have the clear and express testimony of one of the great Irish churchmen of the sixth century, Columbanus of Bobbio and Luxeuil. In a letter addressed to a Gallic synod 603 or 604 A.D., he writes: plus credo traditioni patriae meae, iuxta doctrinam et calculum octoginta quatuor annorum.[421] The confirmation supplied by Bede, H.E., 2, 2 and 5, 21, as well as by Aldhelm (ed. Dümmler, M.G.H., Epp. Mer. et Kar. Aeui, i. 233), is superfluous.

But what surprises us is that this Paschal reckoning which prevailed in Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries was not the supputatio Romana of the fourth and fifth centuries. The Paschal limits were different. The Irish celebrated Easter from the 14th to the 20th of the moon, and not before 25th March.[422] In other words, their system represented the oldest of the four stages noted above. How is the survival of this system to be explained?

If we suppose that a table of Paschal computation was brought by Patrick to Ireland in the first half of the fifth century, it is not probable that he would have introduced any other than the supputatio Romana. This inference does not depend on the view which we adopt as to Patrick’s relations to the Church of Rome. It depends upon his connexion with the Gallic Church. There is no evidence, so far as I can discover,[423] that the Gallic Church did not agree with the Roman in the fourth and fifth centuries as to the Paschal limits. We should have to suppose that Patrick rejected both the system prevailing in western Europe, and the Alexandrine system, in favour of the older usage prevailing in his native country, Britain; and this, in view of the circumstances of his career, seems extremely unlikely.[424]

The evidence, in my opinion, suggests rather a different conclusion. It suggests that the Paschal system which prevailed in Britain in the fourth century and survived to the seventh had been introduced from Britain into Ireland, and taken root among the Christian communities there, before the arrival of Patrick. This is what we should expect. It is in accordance with the hypothesis of the British origin of pre-Patrician Christianity in Ireland. It is easy to comprehend that Patrick, though accustomed to the supputatio Romana, acquiesced in the continuance of the other system or was unable to change it. It would be not at all easy to comprehend that, if he had found Ireland a tabula rasa ready to receive any Paschal calculation that he might choose to inscribe, he should not have introduced the system generally received in the Western Church unless it were the system generally received in the Eastern Church. The Paschal evidence appears to be another proof of pre-Patrician Christianity in Ireland.

But if Patrick acquiesced in the continuance of the old system and did not make the fixing of the Paschal feast a crucial question in Ireland, it does not follow that he adopted it himself or may not have made some attempt to introduce another canon. There is no a priori objection to the possibility that, while the old method continued in the old-established communities, he may have sanctioned a different table in the new communities which he founded. This brings us to the consideration of an important piece of evidence contained in the letter of Cummian addressed to Segéne, Abbot of Hy (probably in 632 A.D.[425]), arguing for the Roman Easter. Cummian states definitely that the Pasch of Patrick differed from the Pasch of the Irish and Britons. He describes the cycle used by Patrick thus:[426]

illum [cyclum] quem sanctus Patricius, papa noster, tulit et facit (leg. fecit), in quo luna a xiv usque in xxi regulariter et aequinoctium a xii Kl. April obseruatur.

The Paschal lunar limits in this text are those ascribed to Theophilus and the Council of Caesarea, in the spurious Acta composed by an Irish computist[427] (possibly towards the beginning of the sixth century). The probability, however, seems to be that the text of Cummian has suffered corruption in the numbers, and the question is whether (1) xiv. is an error for xv.,[428] and the Alexandrine cycle is implied, or (2) xiv. and xxi. are errors for xvi. and xxii. respectively, and the supputatio Romana (with 84 cycle) is intended. Both these alternatives are possible, for, though we should expect Patrick to have accepted the Gallic usage, he might have been prepossessed in favour of the Alexandrine system at Lérins, where there was probably Eastern influence.

In any case, we can hardly feel prepared to reject the statement of Cummian[429] that Patrick “brought” and sought to introduce a different Paschal computation from that which prevailed among the Celts in Cummian’s own time. We may fairly cite in confirmation the express mention of his studies of the calendar (at Auxerre) in the Hymn of Fíacc (l. 11, as interpreted by Thurneysen, Rev. celt. vi. 233; see above, [p. 264]).

18. The Organisation of the Episcopate[430]

Todd showed in great detail that bishops without sees were common in the Irish Church in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries (St. Patrick, pp. 1 sqq.). Strictly speaking, he did not prove it for the fifth century; nor did he show that there were no bishops with sees, even in the times to which his instances and illustrations apply. Loofs has maintained that both in Patrick’s time and in later times there were “episcopi paruchiales” in Ireland. I hardly think that the positive arguments which he brings forward are very convincing; the inscription of the letter of Pope John IV. (Bede, H.E. 2, 19) proves nothing. But the passage which he cites from the letter of Columbanus (A.D. 603 or 604) to a synod of Gallic bishops and clergy may be quoted in this connexion. The Irish monk writes:

Inde sanctus Hieronymus haec sciens iussit episcopos imitari apostolos, monachos uero docuit sequi patres perfectos. Alia enim sunt et alia clericorum et monachorum documenta, ea et longe ab inuicem separata.[431]

Had the Abbot of Luxueil who writes with such approbation of the separate functions and ideals of sequestered monks, and active clergy (including bishops), whether regular or secular—had he been accustomed in his native country to a system in which there were no bishops who were not members of monasteries? This bears on the question whether the Irish Church in the sixth century was as exclusively monastic as it is generally represented.

It is quite inconceivable that Patrick and his foreign coadjutors should have organised a purely monastic Church. Such a Church might have grown into being by degrees, but it would never have been deliberately organised in the fifth century; there was no model for it. Nor is it conceivable that Patrick would have introduced an order of bishops, none of whom were bound to any defined sphere of activity, but who might go about the island promiscuously, performing episcopal duties wherever they liked. It is incredible that he was not guided by geographical considerations in his ordination of bishops; and it is not easy to see how a geographical distribution could have been dispensed with.

There is indeed a total absence of evidence to suggest that there were large episcopal dioceses, and this is perfectly consistent with the tradition that Patrick ordained an immense number of bishops, variously stated, with great exaggeration, at 450 and 350.[432] Tírechán, who gives the former number, cannot mention the names of more than about forty-five. But the fact that he can record so many shows that the number of bishops under the Patrician system was not small. It does not follow that they had no dioceses; it only follows that the dioceses were comparatively small. A priori, this is what we might expect. The number of small tribal territories in Ireland could not fail to affect and largely determine the ecclesiastical organisation. And when we find in the records of Tírechán, concerning the foundations of St. Patrick, that in some churches he placed presbyters, while for others he consecrated bishops, we may be sure that in this discrimination he was guided by considerations of secular geography, and that he did not wish to multiply bishops beyond necessity.

The evidence of the records and traditions preserved by Tírechán has the more weight because it is quite undesigned; and, so far as it goes, it seems to bear out the general view of the Patrician organisation which has been indicated above. Here are the bishops who were ordained by Patrick for certain churches in Connaught:—

• Assicus: Elphin (313 Rolls ed.)
• Sachellus: Baslick (304, 320₁₄; cp. Vit. Trip, 110)
• Bronus: Caisselire (327)
• Mucneus: Donaghmore, near Fochlad (326)
• [Muirethachus: Killala? (327)][433]
• Senachus: Aghagower (322)
• Cainnech: Cellola Tog (324)[434]
• Felartus: Saeoli (313)

To these may perhaps be added the epis̃ prespiter bonus (whose name is illegible in the MS.: fol. 13 rᵒ b, l. 12) who founded a church in Imgoe Mair Cerrigi (in the barony of Costello, Mayo).

As many foundations in Connaught are recorded by Tírechán, with which no bishop is connected, it is clear that, so far as this evidence goes, Patrick proceeded on some principle in the distribution of episcopal churches. There is one passage from which it might be hastily concluded that he set two bishops in one place. He installed Assicus and his nephew Bitteus at Elphin, and both Assicus and Bitteus are described as bishops (313). The true interpretation obviously is that, when Assicus left Elphin (as described in 313₂₉, fecit profugam ad montem lapidis), he was succeeded by Bitteus, as was natural; and that Bitteus is here (313₂₂) described as a bishop proleptically. (This accords with the part he took in the ordination of Cairell at a later time, in connexion with which Assicus is not mentioned: 314₂₆, see below.)

There is one interesting piece of evidence for the multiplication of bishops after Patrick’s death. Under his arrangement there was no bishop at Tamnach in Tirerrill; but

id cairellum

post haec autem posuerunt episcopos iuxta sanctam aeclessiam hi Tamnuch quos ordinauerunt episcopi Patricii id est Bronus et Bietheus.

The language is a little loose, but clearly means that afterwards Cairellus was ordained a bishop for Tamnach by Bronus of Caisselire and Bitteus (who had succeeded his uncle Assicus) of Elphin, and that he was succeeded by a line of bishops. Why was this innovation made? Clearly because the community of Tamnach, founded by Mathona, had grown in importance and aspired to have a bishop for itself. Here we may recognise a distinct bit of evidence for the early introduction of the system, which very soon became prevalent, of bishops without sees attached to religious houses.

There seems then to be no evidence in support of the improbable supposition that Patrick’s bishops had not episcopal districts. Such districts would naturally have been determined by the tribal divisions of the country. Nor is there any difficulty in explaining the subsequent development of this episcopal church into a church which was predominantly monastic. The double position of the bishop is the clew to the development. For the bishop was not only bishop for a certain diocese, which would contain several churches and religious foundations, but he was also head of a particular community. Thus Assicus presided over a religious community at Elphin,[435] besides being episcopally responsible for a certain district. This system was a natural consequence of the condition of the country; there were no cities; monastic establishments were the substitute. Hence Patrick’s bishops were probably in most cases monks; we have references to monachi Patricii,[436] from whom Patrick doubtless selected some of his bishops, just as Lérins supplied some notable bishops for the sees of Gaul. It is easy to conceive how in process of time other religious communities might aspire to be self-sufficient and have bishops of their own. If the bishop, whose jurisdiction included a number of communities, had not been himself the head of a similar community, such a tendency would not have been likely to arise. But when there were a number of monastic communities, A, B, C, etc., in one district, which was under the episcopal jurisdiction of a bishop who was the princeps of A, one can understand how this jurisdiction might have soon seemed to B, C, etc., an intolerable claim to superiority on the part of a neighbouring community. The bishop came to be regarded, and perhaps came to act, less as the bishop of the paruchia than as the princeps of his community. The double position of the bishop exposed him to a jealousy which would not have been aroused if he had stood outside all communities alike. The consequence was the multiplication of bishops, many communities wishing to be independent and to have bishops, each for itself. Thus the diocesan system partly broke down, and the instance of the ordination of Cairell for Tamnach seems to be an early instance.

Was there any discriminating designation to distinguish those religious settlements which were seats of bishops from those which were not? I venture on the conjecture that the name civitas was originally applied only to the former communities. In Gaul, in Italy, in Roman Britain, the bishop’s seat was in a true civitas; and we can understand that in a cityless land, civitas might have been used in the special ecclesiastical sense of the settlement in which the bishop lived.[437]

It is worth noticing that in the Memoir of Tírechán two episcopal seats in Connaught seem to be distinguished as places for the ordination of bishops: Aghagower in quo fiunt episcopi (322₇) and perhaps Donaghmore in Fochlad.[438] Did Patrick specially mark out certain episcopal residences as places where bishops might be consecrated?

The outcome of this discussion is that Patrick’s organisation was from one point of view monastic, from another episcopal. It was monastic in so far as many of the churches in the various regions were connected with religious communities of a monastic character, and the clergy were largely monks. But this did not prevent it being episcopal, in the sense that there were episcopal districts or dioceses. There was not a body of bishops without sees, who went round visiting churches promiscuously, but each bishop had his own diocese.

There is another consideration which has not been noticed, and which seems to me of great weight. It is the position which bishops hold in the few laws in the Senchus Mór which touch the Church. The bishop appears in these laws as the dignitary in the Church who corresponds to the king in the State. There is no mention of presbyter abbots as sharing the privileges of the bishop, who has the same “dire” fine as a king.[439] Clearly a state of things is contemplated in which the bishops are the important administrators in the Church. Such rights could not have been established from the sixth century forward, when the bishops were of less account. This feature of the Senchus Mór seems to me, therefore, to have a double significance, in establishing both the antiquity of the code itself and the eminence of the episcopal office in the fifth century; the two things hang together and mutually support each other.

A corroboration is perhaps also supplied by the De Abusionibus Seculi, a treatise of Irish origin, written before 700 A.D. (see [App. A, i. 4]), where the tenth Abuse is the Episcopus negligens, in which the pastoral duties of the bishop are insisted upon, and his functions as a speculator. It seems by no means improbable that the work is older than 600 A.D.

19. The Place of Patrick’s Burial

The decisive reasons for determining the vexed question of Patrick’s burial-place in favour of Saul have been given in the text; but something more may be said here in criticism of the evidence. Among the miscellaneous notices appended to Tírechán’s Memoir (p. 332) by the scribe Ferdomnach, occurs a comparison of Patrick to Moses in four points, of which the fourth is: ubi sunt ossa eius nemo nouit. The author of this similitude has simply taken advantage, for his purpose, of the fact that there were two rival claimants, Saul and Downpatrick. It does not imply that there was no distinct and universally accepted tradition placing his burial in this district; for if there had been any room for doubt about that, Armagh could not have failed to claim his bones.

Another notice follows, professing to tell how the place of sepulture was revealed:—

Colombcille spiritu sancto instigante ostendit sepulturam Patricii, ubi est confirmat., id est hi Sabul Patricii, id est in aeclessia iuxta mare proxima, ubi est conductio martirum id est ossuum Coluimbcillae de Britannia et conductio omnium sanctorum Hiberniae iudicii.

Whatever value we may attach to this passage as a record of an opinion of Columba, it is good evidence for the existence of a tradition that Patrick was buried at Saul. Todd (St. Patrick, p. 494) thinks that Downpatrick is intended, and thereby reconciles this passage (which he wrongly ascribes to Tírechán) with the statement of Muirchu that he was buried there.[440] If it were a case for reconciliation, it would be a more defensible hypothesis that Muirchu used loose language, and said that Patrick was buried at Dún, whereas he was really buried in its neighbourhood. But the two statements should have been protected against any such arbitrary attempt to reconcile them by the existence of the third statement ubi sunt ossa eius nemo nouit, for they afford us its explanation. Muirchu meant Dúnlethglasse, as he said; and the writer of the notice of Columba’s discovery meant Saul, as he said. There were two rival traditions, the Saul tradition and the Dún tradition; and it was just the existence of these two traditions which could enable a man to say, “After all, we know not where the saint was buried; in that too he was like Moses.”

The whole story, or collection of stories, related by Muirchu (and reproduced in the text) contain obvious marks of their growth, and internal inconsistency; though, as put together by Muirchu, they represent the account accepted at Dúnlethglasse. The first part, containing the interview with the angel, and the death and exequiae (295₁₈₋297₂₅), does not contemplate Dúnlethglasse at all. It only contemplates Saul: revertere ad locum unde uenis, hoc est Sabul. It reflects, as I have said, a conciliation between the claim, or rather disappointment, of Armagh, and the actual burial at Saul; it is designed to protect, if I may say so, the countenance of Armagh, and the compromise is reflected in the two petitions representing the two interests.

After this comes the passage relating the burial at Dúnlethglasse (298₁₋₂₀). It is quite evident that it has a distinct and subsequent origin; it was manufactured in a different ecclesiastical workshop. It adds, like a sort of postscript, a new piece, a new command, to the discourse of the angel, in a new interest, namely of Downpatrick. If the whole story had been of one piece, this command would have formed part of the angel’s original address; it would not be introduced as an appendix. This criticism is in itself sufficient to exhibit the falsity of Downpatrick’s claim. It is to be noted that this claim had the further purpose of establishing an early date for the origin of the church of Downpatrick. It could not claim to have been founded by the saint; it alleged that it was founded in connexion with his burial.

The two stories, which Muirchu relates of the contention between the Ulidians and the men of Orior (orientales), supply an instructive illustration of the genesis of legends. When we have two stories of this kind, one is generally subsequent to the other, and suggested by it.[441] The common argument of both is to show how hostilities were prevented. There can be no doubt which was the genuine and primitive story. The inundation of the sea, a motive (as I pointed out in the text) characteristic of the district, furnishes a presumption in favour of the priority of the first story. The second story obviously arose out of the Dúnlethglasse legend of the oxen;[442] in fact, its point depends upon that legend. Thus was myth added to myth in the workshops of Irish ecclesiastics. The ecclesiastical origin is seen not only in the incident of the burning bush, but in the invention of the cart and two unyoked kine (1 Samuel vi. 7 sqq.).

20. Legendary Date of Patrick’s Death

The true year of Patrick’s death is furnished by our oldest document, Tírechán (302₂₉, a passione Christi ... anni ccccxxxiii [MS. ccccxxxui]); Ann. of Ulster, s.a. 461 (cp. Ann. Inisf. s.a. 493); Nennius, Hist. Brit. 16 (pp. 158-9 ed. Mommsen). See the criticism of this material in Bury, Tírechán’s Memoir, pp. 239 sqq.

But side by side with the true tradition, we find in the Annals another date, A.D. 493, which has been generally received and is the vulgar era of the event. It is closely connected with the legendary age of Patrick—120 years, which is as old as Muirchu’s Life (296₁₉). The question arises, how came his age to be raised from somewhat more than 70 to 120 years, and why was A.D. 493 fixed on as the date of his death?

In the analogy which was drawn between Patrick and Moses, one of the items of resemblance is the same length of life. But the Mosaic motive cannot have been sufficient to determine originally such a marked perversion of fact. On the contrary, the age of 120 years must have been otherwise suggested and have then, in its turn, contributed to suggest the Mosaic analogy.

It is to be noted that in the Liber Armachanus two divergent subputations of Patrick’s age are found. One of these was originally appended to the exemplar of Muirchu which was used by the Armagh scribe; the other is among the notes which are appended to his transcription of Tírechán.

In the first (300₂₁) it is stated that Patrick, having been captured in his 20th year, was a slave for 15 years, studied for 40, and taught for 61. Hence it is inferred that his age was 111. There must be errors in the figures.

In the second (331₂₂) we have the following statement:—baptized in 7th year, captured in 10th, was a slave for 7 years, studied for 30 years, and taught for 72. Hence his age at his death is inferred as 120 (10 + 7 + 30 + 72 = 119), ut Moyses.

It is, I venture to think, of the greatest significance that in both these cases the fictitious age is given as a total, and preceded by a statement of the items which compose it. This fact furnishes the clue. The Mosaic age, 120, was not handed down as a legend, nor was the true age of somewhat over 70 audaciously raised to the Mosaic figure for the purpose of the Mosaic comparison. The figure 120, or something approximate, was reached by means of a computation of chronological items, and it is these chronological items that we must examine in order to discover the origin of the error.

In the two anonymous computations which I have quoted the items disagree with each other, and also disagree with the data in Patrick’s Confession. They cannot therefore form the basis of our examination, because we may safely assume that the computation, by which 120 years (exactly or approximately) was reached and was generally accepted in Ireland, did not contravene the data of the Confession—data which were rightly quoted in Tírechán (302₁₇) from the Book of Ultan. We may safely assume that the computators, who succeeded in establishing the Mosaic age, started with the incontrovertible fact supplied by the Confession that Patrick was either 22 years old, or in his 22nd year, when he escaped from captivity. It is equally clear that the period which they assigned to his teaching was 60 (rather 61 years)—for that is the period from his arrival in Ireland, A.D. 433 (rather 432) to the alleged date of his death, A.D. 493. This would leave 38 (rather 37) years to be accounted for. Now Muirchu mentions two different records, 30 and 40 years, for the sojourn with Germanus (it is to be observed that, of the two computations noticed above, one reckons with 30, the other with 40 years). If either of these, 30 years must have been the period accepted in this computation for St. Patrick’s studies, and an interval of 8 (or 7) years left, which agrees remarkably with the notice of Tírechán (from the Liber apud Ultanum, ib.): uii. aliis annis ambulauit, etc. The sum worked out thus—

22 + 7 + 30 + 61 = 120.

Of these items 22 had the best authority, and 30 and 7 were independent records or traditions (as we know from Muirchu and Tírechán). The problem is therefore reduced to discovering the origin of the 61 or 60 years during which the apostle is wrongly supposed to have taught. That it was due to a misinterpretation and not to a deliberate invention, there can, I think, be no question.

A list of the Armagh succession in the Book of Leinster (printed in Stokes, Trip. pp. 542 sqq.) supplies a hint which suggests an explanation of the error. The first entry is—

Patrick: 58 years from the coming of Patrick to Ireland till his death.

The fact that a period of 58 years is given here instead of the usual number (493-433/2) is remarkable. Now if we count back 58 years from the true date of Patrick’s death, 461, we reach the year 403-404, which was in the close vicinity of the year in which, as we saw, he was probably taken into slavery. Hence it seems probable that in an early record it was stated correctly that 58 years elapsed between the coming of Patrick to Ireland, meaning his first coming as a slave, and his death, and that this notice was misinterpreted by subsequent computators who referred it to his second coming as a teacher. They computed: 22 + 7 (ambulauit) + 30 (legit) + 58 (docuit) = 117. An age so close to 120 could hardly fail to suggest Moses; the figures clamoured for a slight manipulation, and the means adopted was to increase the last period from 58 to 61. Thus the date of the death was determined: 432 + 61 = 493.

By this computation the coming to Ireland divided the whole life into two almost equal parts (59 + 61), which would naturally come to be described in round numbers as each 60 years. This probably led to the alternative date for the obit given in the Ann. Ult. 492 (= 432 + 60).

The computation which established 120 years for the age and A.D. 493 for the year of the death, thus involving 61 years for the Irish period, was triumphant and became authoritative. But the computations quoted above from the Liber Armachanus show that other theories had been propounded based on the addition of items. In the Vita Tertia the age is given as 132. This figure seems to have been obtained by substituting 72 instead of the (round) 60 for the last item in the sum; this is suggested by the fact that in the second computation in the Liber Armachanus the last item is septuaginta duo annos docuit, though the total 120 (119) is secured by erroneous dates for the captivity. What is the origin of this number 72? It must have come down in some form, it must have represented something, when, in order to do justice to it, one computator felt compelled to raise the Mosaic 120 to 132, and another, though holding fast to 120, modified the authentic dates of the captivity.

I suggest that this number 72 represents an old and correct record of Patrick’s age at the time of his death.

21. Professor Zimmer’s Theory

The general obscurity which surrounds the early history of Ireland, the difficulties which have been found in making out the period of Patrick’s career from indefinite and contradictory data, the fact that while his death fell on any theory in the fifth century, no mention of him in literature is found before the seventh, these circumstances have led to a variety of theories which beset and embarrass the student who approaches Patrician literature. Patrick has been in turn eliminated and reduplicated; and, in revenge for undue magnification, his rôle has been reduced to something quite insignificant. We may say that his writings, like the poems of Homer, have been taken away from him to be ascribed to some one else of the same name. It is needless to notice here theories which are fantastic or baseless, and have never gained any general or wide acceptance, but the view which has been recently developed by the brilliant Celtic philologist, Professor Zimmer,[443] cannot be passed over without criticism.

In another note I have referred to Zimmer’s identification of Patrick with Palladius. This is necessitated by, but would not necessitate, his theory. If it were demonstrated to-morrow that Patrick and Palladius were one and the same person, this would be quite as compatible with the view of Patrick adopted in the foregoing pages as with the view of Zimmer. Palladius may provisionally be left out of account for the purpose of the present criticism, though I shall have a few words to say on the subject at the end of this excursus.

Zimmer fully admits, though he had once denied, the genuineness of the Confession and the missive to the subjects of Coroticus; that is, he admits that they were written by Patricius, a bishop in Ireland in the fifth century. But he holds that the activity of this bishop was entirely confined to south-eastern Ireland (Laigin), that he accomplished nothing for the evangelisation or ecclesiastical organisation of the rest of Ireland, that he died (A.D. 459: Zimmer) conscious of failure, and for nearly two centuries after his death had a merely local reputation. The rejection of the traditional Patrick is, so far as I understand, based chiefly on two arguments: (1) Zimmer’s interpretation of the Confession; and (2), if Patrick’s work had at all corresponded in scope, magnitude, and import to the descriptions of it given by Irish writers of the seventh century, it would have been noticed by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History. As for the Confession I have said enough in the text, and have shown, I think, that its note is not, as Zimmer holds, consciousness of failure. As for the argument from the silence of Bede,[444] on which he lays much stress, I may quote what I said in reviewing his book: The value of arguments from silence “depends entirely on the cases; in some cases an argument from silence is conclusive. But can it be said to weigh much here, if we reflect that a notice of Patrick and his work in Bede’s book could have been simply a defensible digression? We can place our finger on the unproven premiss in Zimmer’s argument; he speaks of ‘Bede’s evidently keen interest in the early beginnings of Christianity in the British isles’ (p. 11). Substitute ‘Britain’ for ‘the British isles’ and the cogency of the argument disappears. Ninian and Columba are immediately relevant to his subject, Patrick is not; and, assuming the common tradition of Patrick’s work (as believed in Ireland c. A.D. 700) to be roughly true, it would be no more surprising to find nothing about it in Bede than it would be to find no mention of Augustine in an ecclesiastical history of Germany written on the same lines as Bede’s.”—English Hist. Review, July 1903.[445]

Zimmer’s reason for restricting the sphere of work of his Patricius to Laigin, or part of Laigin, seems to be the circumstance that the author of the earliest biography, Muirchu, belonged to this part of Ireland, being connected with Slébte. [It is possible, though he does not allege it, that another reason may have been the tradition which associates Palladius (whom he equates with Patrick) with the territory corresponding to the county of Wicklow.] The suggestion is that in this neighbourhood, at Slébte, for instance, were preserved traditions and writings of the obscure Patricius, who was in the seventh century to be transformed into the great apostle of Ireland. It is obvious that the argument, even if it were based on a correct statement of facts, is quite insufficient to prove the thesis.

But the statement of facts is not correct. There is another document which, though also dating from the second half of the seventh century, may claim (see above, [p. 248]) to have some slight advantage in point of priority over the Life of Muirchu. This is the Memoir of Tírechán. He had nothing whatever to do with Laigin; he was connected with Connaught and Meath. His spiritual master, Ultan, was a bishop at Ardbraccan, and had in his possession a book concerning the life of Patrick. We might therefore, if we adopted Professor Zimmer’s method of argument, conclude that the sphere of the true Patrick’s activity was confined to a part of the kingdom of Meath. The mere existence of Tírechán’s work forbids us to attach to the provenance of Muirchu’s work any significance of the kind which Zimmer attributes to it.

It must also be observed in what a strange light Zimmer’s theory would place the work of Muirchu. We should have to suppose that this writer, taking upon himself to be Patrick’s biographer because he belonged to the province in which Patrick had worked, ignores entirely Patrick’s connexion with that province (merely mentioning that he landed on the coast of Laigin), and devotes all his space to legendary adventures in other parts of Ireland.[446] As a matter of fact, a critical analysis of his work shows that a large amount of material depends on ancient local traditions of the Island-Plain in Ulidia.

This brings us face to face with the great difficulty which Zimmer has to meet. How, and why, and when was the obscure Patricius of fact transmuted into the illustrious Patricius of tradition? Zimmer’s answer to the question, when? has at least the merit of precision. He finds the motive of the glorification of Patrick in the Roman controversy of the seventh century, and he dates the appearance of the legend about A.D. 625. His own words must be quoted (Celtic Church, p. 80):—

It would not require a long stretch of imagination if we assume that, about 625, Ireland’s pious wish of having an apostle of her own was realised by reviving the memory of this Patricius, who had been forgotten everywhere except in the south-east. It was in this way, I think, that the Patrick legend sprang up with its two chief premisses: first, that Ireland was entirely pagan in 432, as the lands of the Picts and of the Saxons had been in 563 and 597 respectively; and secondly, that Patrick converted Ireland within a short time and introduced a Christian Church, overcoming all obstacles and winning the favour of King Loigaire, incidents analogous to Columba’s conversion of King Brude, or Augustine’s of Ethelbert of Kent.

Pointing out that the first mention of Patricius is in connexion with a Paschal cycle, in Cummian’s letter to Segéne, Zimmer proceeds:—

Thus the Patrick legend is characterised on its first appearance as serving the endeavours of the Southern Irish to enter into the unitas Catholica by yielding to Rome on the Easter question.

It is to be observed that Zimmer does not categorically allege that the Patrick legend was invented by the Roman party in south Ireland. He leaves this open. He says: “If this legend was not expressly invented by an Irish member of the party in favour of conformity, it was, at any rate, utilised at once by that party.” Let us take in turn the two alternatives, (1) that it was invented expressly by the Roman party, (2) that it was otherwise invented, but precisely in time for them to utilise.

(1) This alternative implies that the legend was manufactured in south-eastern Ireland (the only place where, ex hypothesi, Patricius was remembered) for the purpose of bringing about the conformity of the northern Irish. But the legend itself, as developed in the seventh-century sources, as developed in Muirchu’s work, on which Zimmer lays great stress, repudiates this origin. Southern Ireland, south-eastern Ireland, do not appear in the legend at all (except the single reference to Fíacc and the mention of the landing in Wicklow); and it would require the strongest direct evidence to prove that, in spite of this radical fact, the legendary story originated there. The theory implies that the south-eastern Irish, while they resuscitated Patricius, made him over entirely, and transferred all their rights in him, to the north of the island—severed him entirely from themselves. So far as the single circumstance of the conversion of Loigaire and the incidents of the first Easter is concerned, that might pass; for in Loigaire, as High King, the south as well as the north of Ireland had part. But the point is that the whole setting connects Patrick with the north and not with the south. Zimmer’s hesitation shows, I suspect, that he was to some extent conscious of this difficulty; and so he leaves open

(2) The other possibility that the rise of the Patrick legend may have had another origin. The only motive he suggests is “Ireland’s pious wish of having an apostle of her own.” Now if the origin of the Patrick legend was independent of the Roman controversy, why need it be placed in A.D. 625? How are we to determine its date? The answer, which seems to be implied by Zimmer, is that it must have been subsequent to the times of St. Columba and St. Augustine, the object being to set up a primitive apostle, to be for Ireland what Columba and Augustine were for Pictland and for England. This is, of course, the purest speculation; but setting aside the question of date, we should have to suppose—if we are not to fall into the same difficulty as in the case of the first alternative—that the idea arose in north Ireland, and that the legend was invented there. This would imply that the northern ecclesiastical mytho-poets had recourse to south-eastern Ireland to find an obscure ecclesiastic to glorify; that they detached him ruthlessly from his home and appropriated him entirely. We need not, however, consider this improbability, as Zimmer himself does not contemplate it. His view is that Patrick was resuscitated “in the district of his special activity,” “with the help of his own writings and of documents about him.”

It would seem far more natural that if the Irish were in search of a founder, they should seize on Palladius, whose mission was recorded by Prosper. Zimmer therefore identifies Palladius with Patricius; but the Irish had no idea of such an identity.[447] For in the oldest Life, Patricius and Palladius are distinguished. If, as Zimmer thinks, the creation of an apostle was due to a “specific tendency,” namely, approximation to Rome, it would be strange if Palladius, for whose direct mission from Rome there existed the record of Prosper, were not chosen. The legend of the conversion, the story of the first Paschal celebration, could as easily have been spun round him as round the author of the Confession. Zimmer avoids the difficulty by identifying them.

For his combination of the rise of the Patrick legend with the Paschal question, Zimmer lays much stress on Muirchu. I have pointed out above ([Appendix A, ii. 3]) that a certain indirect connexion between Muirchu’s work and events connected with the Roman controversy may be fairly inferred. But this inference does not furnish any support for Zimmer’s daring theory. And it is important to notice in this connexion that Muirchu did not believe that Patrick went to Rome; he admits that he wished to do so, but denies that he passed beyond Gaul. This in itself would make us hesitate to believe that the story of Patrick, as expounded by Muirchu, was a recent fabrication in the interests of the Roman cause.

But we may waive all particular criticisms of Zimmer’s reconstruction, and state the general and decisive objection to his or any similar theory. It is this. The nature of the traditions which are preserved in the two seventh-century compilations written by Tírechán and Muirchu forbids the hypothesis of recent fabrication. In the first place a critical examination of the texts of these works enables us to conclude that they were largely based on older written material. In the second place, it is perfectly inconceivable that all the detailed traditions which Tírechán collected both from written and from oral resources concerning Patrick’s work in Connaught should have been deliberately invented, between 625 and 660, in a region where Patrick’s name was never known. In the third place, the really characteristic Patrician stories, the death of Miliucc, the events of the first Easter, the story of Daire, are not of the kind which are fabricated, generations after the life of the hero, for a deliberate purpose. They belong to the legends that spring up soon after the death of their hero, or even during his lifetime. I may refer to what I have said in the text ([p. 111]). If we had no other evidence, the tale of the first Easter at Slane and Tara would be in itself a guarantee that the “Patrick legend” could not have been deliberately invented in the seventh century.

One more observation. It would be difficult to explain how it came that, if the author of the Confession spent his life in Leinster, and his name was sufficiently well remembered to make his fortune in the seventh century, no particular church in that region claimed him. Zimmer may get out of the difficulty through his identification of Palladius with Patrick; he may say that Patrick’s church was the Palladian Cell Fine, where memorials of Palladius were preserved. But this explanation would only serve to emphasise the improbability of the theory of identity. It is impossible to understand how Cell Fine remembered its founder as Palladius and not as Patricius, seeing that (ex hypoth.) the name Patricius (as used by the author of the Confession) had so completely superseded the name Palladius, that the bishop was not only glorified as Patricius in the seventh century, but even distinguished definitely from Palladius. Again: either it was remembered in south Ireland or it was not remembered at the beginning of that century, when the Patrician legend is alleged to have taken shape, that Palladius and Patricius were the same person. If it was remembered, then how came it that Palladius-Patricius was differentiated into two, when it was assuredly more in the interests of the Roman cause to glorify an apostle sent by Celestine than to discriminate a successful missionary who was not sent by a Pope, from an unsuccessful missionary who was? If it was not remembered, then the only passage which Zimmer can quote for the identification (Lib. Arm. p. 332, see above, [p. 389, note]) can be at once eliminated from the discussion, as resting on mere conjecture.

[The argument, which Zimmer adduces for his theory, from the statement that Patrick’s burial-place was unknown, falls to the ground when the evidence in regard to his burial-place is criticised as a whole. See above, [Appendix C, 19].]