Adamnán earned well the epithet ‘High Scholar of the Western World,’ which is conferred upon him at the opening of his Vision. His most celebrated work was the Life of St. Colm Cille, written in a Latin which is generally admitted to be far superior to that commonly in use at his day. The work suffers from the form in which it is cast; it does not relate the events of the Saint’s life in chronological sequence, but is divided into three books, the first being devoted to Colm’s prophetical revelations, the second to his miracles, and the third to his angelical visions. Nevertheless, it gives much information of great interest, relating as well to the life and acts of St. Colm as to the internal life of the Irish Church, while the prefaces contain important biographical matter. The prominence given to the miracles, visions, and the like, associated with Colm’s name, is merely what we find in a large proportion of the hagiology of all periods of the Church’s history, while the narrative possesses a character of its own, and a human interest, which preserve it from the monotony and conventionality often prevailing in writings of this class, and establish a certain kinship with the Fioretti of St. Francis. Altogether, the Life is commonly accepted as the most important extant monument of the Celtic Church, and also one of the most notable pieces of biography, ecclesiastical or lay, produced by the early Middle Ages.
Another work proceeding from his pen was a treatise upon the Holy Places of Palestine. This, too, was written in Latin, and is considered by Dr. Reeves to be superior, in point of style, to the Life of Colm Cille. He was instigated to undertake this task by Arculf, a bishop of Gaul, who had travelled in Palestine, Syria, Constantinople, Alexandria, and other parts of the East, and on his return had been blown out of his course, and wrecked on some coast near to Iona. Here he was hospitably entertained by Adamnán, and in the course of a prolonged sojourn through the stormy winter months held much learned converse with his host, to their mutual edification. Arculf had studied the topography and history of the places he visited with a thoroughness almost unique at that day, and had even preserved accurate measurements and descriptions of buildings, etc. He freely imparted the results of his investigations to Adamnán, who was himself possessed of the learning which could be acquired from such books as were accessible to him.
Several ecclesiastical works—a Rule, eight Canons, etc.—are attributed to Adamnán; there have also been preserved a poem and several devout opuscula in Irish which have been ascribed to him, without foundation.
It would appear that he had some knowledge of Greek, and even possessed a certain acquaintance with, at any rate, the Hebrew vocabulary, whether at first or second hand.
It now remains to be seen what further light is cast upon Adamnán’s character by the later annals; and here we find a mixture of Dichtung und Wahrheit, and no criterion whereby we may distinguish with any certainty between the two. The additional particulars derived from this source, if we except a few legends of miracles and visions of the usual type, relate for the most part to Adamnán’s political activity during the last decade of the seventh century. One episode, however, of Adamnán’s schooldays gives the earliest recorded fact, if a fact, of his career. It is a mere anecdote, unsupported by evidence, yet it contains no inherent improbability, and is worth repeating, if only as an authentic picture of one aspect of scholastic life in ancient Ireland, and also as affording the first glimpse, probably, of the ‘beggar-student’ who figured so conspicuously in the later Middle Ages, and in Ireland survived as the ‘poor scholar’ almost to our own day. The students at the Irish centres of learning—Universities, as they have been called, not without reason—used to dwell about their teachers in huts of wattle, provision for their maintenance, education, and books being made by the chiefs and ecclesiastical foundations. So great, however, were the throngs of students, native and foreign, who flocked to these schools, that many were compelled to eke out the public allowance by having recourse to the charity of neighbours. Among these was Adamnán, who was one of a company, or mess, of five students and their tutor, the younger students taking it in turn to provide for all. One day this task procured Adamnán an adventure, which introduced him to the future monarch, Finnachta Fledach, his future relations with whom, if truly related by the annals, were destined to be fraught with momentous consequences to them both and to the whole of Ireland. Finnachta, though of royal race, had once been so poor that his whole worldly possessions consisted of a house, a wife, an ox, and a cow. At the time of which we speak, he possessed a following, and one day, as he and his retinue were travelling at full gallop, they came across a young student laden with a pitcher of milk, who, in his haste to avoid the horses, upset the pitcher and spilt the milk. This boy was Adamnán, bringing home the day’s provision for himself and his messmates. He set out to run by the side of the horsemen, and kept up with them until they reached their destination. Finnachta took notice of the boy, and, entering into conversation with him, was so well pleased, that he not only made good the loss, but provided the five youths and their tutor with a house and maintenance, receiving in return from the tutor a prophecy that he, Finnachta, should one day become monarch of Ireland, with Adamnán for his anamchara, or confessor. It does not appear that this interview was immediately productive of any further consequences to Adamnán, who, in due course, entered the monastic life, as before mentioned.
The next incident of importance, not already mentioned, which the annalists relate concerning Adamnán, is at once one of the most momentous and most obscure portions of his career—namely, his action in connection with the Boruma tribute. This was a heavy fine, in cattle and various precious articles, which Tuathal Techtmar, Árd-Rí of Ireland about the end of the first century A.D., had laid upon Leinster in perpetuity (or, according to some authorities, for forty years) to punish a grave crime committed by the king of that province. The intermittent exaction of this tribute was not the least among the many causes of discord which prevented the ideal polity of Ireland, viz. a confederation of kingdoms and principalities—an Empire we might call it—under the overlordship of the Árd-Rí, from ever becoming realised in a permanently efficient form. This grievance St. Moling, with the support of several other leading prelates, determined to remove, and, it is said, induced Finnachta (who had become Árd-Rí in 673-4, having defeated and slain in battle his predecessor Cennfaelad) to issue a decree for its abolition. This event is commonly dated in the year 693, but Canon O’Hanlon, on the authority of O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, thinks it must be earlier, and is inclined to place it in 692, the year of Adamnán’s visit to Ireland.[5] It is recorded in a treatise on the Boruma, printed and translated by Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady in his Silva Gadelica; it is there told in narrative form, with dialogues in the oratio recta, and intermingled with many fictitious circumstances so as to make up a story; however, the main incidents accord with a fragment of Irish annals given by Mr. O’Grady in the same work, and with the Irish poem formerly ascribed to Adamnán. The means by which St. Moling induced the king to grant his request show all the symptoms of a folk-tale. By the promise of eternal life immediately after death, he procured Finnachta’s promise to remit the tribute until Luan, which in Irish properly means Monday, but was also and still is a frequent term for the Day of Judgment—‘Black Monday.’ The monarch, understanding the word in its literal sense, thought the terms easy, and gave his promise; the saint, however, insisted upon putting his own interpretation on it, and Finnachta had to consent to the perpetual remission of the tribute. The measure itself was most wise and statesmanlike; nevertheless, pernicious as the tribute was, the abolition of it touched the pride of the Ui Néill, the ruling race of Ireland. The organisation of the Church was based upon the clan system which prevailed in the State; religious communities were often composed of fellow-tribesmen, ecclesiastical dignities passed from one generation to another of the same chiefly family, and the head of an order was practically a clerical chieftain, sharing with the lay princes that fatal tendency to prefer local to national interests which has been fraught with consequences to Ireland more dire than the Boruma itself. Adamnán is represented as possessing his full share of this family or racial pride, and joined with the clergy of his race in offering a bitter opposition to the new measure. The narrative of his dealings with Finnachta is more graphic than authentic. With an authority, to say the least of it, worthy of a Hildebrand or Innocent III., he sent a clerk to Finnachta to summon him to instant conference. The king was then playing at chess, and declined to budge until his game was ended. Adamnán, informed of this, sent back word that he would chant fifty psalms while waiting, the effect of which would be to deprive the king’s whole race of the kingdom for ever. This was announced to the king, but he had begun a second game, and declined to stir until it was over. Adamnán then sent word that he would chant another fifty psalms, which should bring on the king shortness of life; but Finnachta, now engaged in a third game, sent the same answer as before. Then Adamnán sent word that he would chant yet another fifty psalms, which should deprive Finnachta of the Lord’s peace. Then Finnachta hastily arose, quitted his chess, and repaired to Adamnán’s presence. On being asked why he came, after ignoring all previous messages, he explained that the exclusion of his posterity from his kingdom troubled him but little, neither did he care for a speedy death, seeing that Moling had promised him eternal life, but he could not bear to be excluded from the Lord’s peace. However, though Finnachta then made personal submission to Adamnán, the decree remained, and God would not suffer Adamnán to deprive the king of the reward which Moling had promised him.
It is obvious that this narrative, in point of form, is fiction pure and simple; as fictitious as the speeches in Thucydides, or the dialogues in Herodotus or Plutarch. For this reason, and because of the discrepancy of dates, and the uncertainty attending the whole question of the remission of the Boruma, some authorities are inclined to call in question the entire story of Adamnán’s relations with Finnachta, and to relegate it to the domain of fiction. This summary method of cutting the knot appears to be somewhat arbitrary: if a liberal admixture of fiction be sufficient absolutely to discredit the chronicles into which it enters, we may be called upon to disbelieve that there is any historic basis for Livy’s History, or the records of Charlemagne, for instance. In the present case it seems most doubtful whether any means exist for determining what, if any, basis of fact underlies the narrative, but having regard to the attention paid by the Irish writers to the record of past and contemporary events—which by no means implies the strict accuracy of the record—it seems improbable that the recorded acts, in matters of great public interest, of such notable characters as Árd-Rí Finnachta and St. Adamnán should not represent, in substance, the parts which they actually played in the public life of their time.
About this time another cause of discord is said to have put a further strain upon the relations subsisting between the Saint and the Árd-Rí. Finnachta having excluded the lands belonging to the Order of St. Colm Cille from the privileges accorded to the foundations of SS. Patrick, Finian, and Ciaran, Adamnán again provoked, and this time apparently with better reason, by this fresh infringement of the dignity of Ulad, put a curse upon the king, and foretold that his life should be short, that he should fall by a fratricidal stroke, and that the kingdom should pass from his race for ever; which triple prophecy was fulfilled when Finnachta and his son Bresal were slain by a cousin in the year 693-4.
A few years after these events, according to the annals, Adamnán acquired a more honourable distinction by means of the ecclesiastical legislation embodied in his ‘Canons,’ and by the more famous law, or code of laws, known as the Cáin Adamnáin. Each of these was promulgated at a Mórdáil—‘Great Assembly’—the Diet or States-General of Ireland. According to the more general account, both were passed at a Mórdáil held in 697 at Tara, or, according to others, at Ballyshannon, Derry, or Raphoe. Probably Tara was assumed inadvertently to have been the place of meeting by some chronicler who, bearing in mind the ancient custom, had forgotten that Tara had been abandoned since the cursing of it by St. Ruadán. According to the Four Masters and Tigernach, the last Feis of Tara was held in the year 554 A.D. Or, possibly, there is a confusion between the general Mórdáil of Éire and an ecclesiastical Synod which appears to have been held at Tara about the time in question. In this uncertainty as to which of the several Synods and Mórdála, held towards the close of the seventh century, was the scene of Adamnán’s legislation, Canon O’Hanlon suggests that the Synod of 694-5 would be the most likely occasion of the enactment of the Canons, if it were certain that Adamnán was present (op. cit. ix. 508 and 512), and that the Cáin was passed at the Mórdáil of 696-7, in the reign of Árd-Rí Loingseach mac Oengusa, according to the general account; this likewise agrees with the treatise about to be mentioned, which, however, gives Birr as the place of assembly. The most important article of the Cáin was the renewal of a law passed by St. Colm Cille at the Mórdáil of Druimceatt in 590, but since fallen into desuetude, whereby women were exempted from military service. The Cáin Adamnáin is an Old Irish treatise, probably of the tenth century, according to Professor Kuno Meyer, who has published an edition of it, with notes, in Anecdota Oxoniensia (Mediæval and Modern Series, pt. viii.). It is not the work of Adamnán himself, but merely purports to give an account of the laws which he passed, and the circumstances of his doing so. It is clearly compounded of various elements, and it is worked up into a complete story by dint of the employment of a number of fictitious details. It opens with a melancholy picture of the status of women in Ireland in Adamnán’s day, their home life being depicted as a state of abject slavery, while they were further liable to military service. These descriptions can only be accepted with very great limitations, for the laws, the Church literature, and the romances of Ireland contain abundant evidence to prove that the state of things here depicted, if it existed at all, was not generally prevalent, the picture drawn in the Cáin being greatly exaggerated for the greater honour and glory of Adamnán. At the same time there is no need to go to the opposite extreme, and assume that the position accorded to women in ancient Ireland realised in practice the theories of chivalry. It does not follow that the author of the Cáin invented the circumstances he describes; indeed, there is evidence that a similar state of things existed in Ireland so late as Tudor times at least, while parallels might be found in the great cities of a much more recent date. But it is the wont of those who treat of social and moral evils, whether as reformers or satirists, or in a less worthy capacity—from Juvenal to Zola, and from Salvian to Father Bernard Vaughan—to represent the sporadic and occasional evils of society as its habitual condition. As regards the military service of women, it appears certain that women did, and probably were required to, serve in the wars to some extent. Nevertheless, neither the annals nor the romances warrant the conclusion that great troops of women swelled the Irish armies. It seems probable that in the varied and complicated system of the Irish land tenure, female tenants may have been obliged to render military service ratione tenurae, instances of which practice occur in other parts of Europe.
Whatever the nature or extent of the evil, it was greatly taken to heart by Adamnán’s mother Ronat, and dutiful as her son was to her, she counted his service as nought until he should effect the emancipation of women. One day, as they were on a journey—Adamnán, after his usual custom, carrying his mother on his back—they came to a battlefield, where so great had been the slaughter that the women lay, the soles of one touching the neck of another; but the most piteous sight of all was a woman with her head in one place and her body in another, and her baby lying on the breast of the corpse, with a stream of milk on one cheek, and a stream of blood on the other. At his mother’s bidding, Adamnán set the woman’s head upon the trunk, made the sign of the cross with his staff, and she arose and related her experiences in the next world between her death and resuscitation. Ronat, still further confirmed in her purpose, imposed incredible austerities upon Adamnán in order to coerce him into compliance. At the end of four years an angel came to him and bade him rise, but he refused to do so until he received a promise that women should be emancipated. He then came forward with his proposals of reform, which offended several of the lay princes, so that they combined to put Adamnán to death. At length terms were agreed upon, and all parties pledged themselves that in future women should be exempted from military service, and that no women should be slain by men without full legal penalties being exacted. This compact was solemnly sworn to by the contracting parties; the formula of the oath was founded upon that whereby the kings in pagan times had been wont to bind themselves in matters of great moment, and which survived, with necessary modifications, for some centuries after the introduction of Christianity. They took to witness the sun and moon, and all the other elements of God; the Apostles, Gregory, the two Patricks, and other Irish saints. The terms of the oath explain the form of St. Patrick’s famous hymn.