[338] Const. Hloth. ad an 823. Pertz Leg. vol. 1. p. 232.
[339] Cod. Dip. Sax. No. 813. Osgar, “regiæ procurator aulæ,” is styled in 855 and 872, Osgar Stallr. The office was held previously by Osgod Clapa, a great Dane, who was outlawed in 1046 (Sax. Chron.) It may have been introduced by Canute; but the district, over which the Constable subsequently held jurisdiction, is first alluded to in the laws of Athelstan.
[340] Ad Scotos in Christum credentes, ordinatur a Papa Cælestino Palladius, et primus episcopus mittitur. Such are the words of Prosper of Aquitaine in his Chronicle, ad an. 431. Not only were there believers amongst the Irish at this time, but heretics, according to Jerome. The Pelagian heresy was sometimes called Pultis Scottorum. Vide the authorities, etc., quoted by O’Connor in Rer. Hib. Scrip. Vet., vol. i. p. lxxi.
[341] The date 432 is usually assigned to the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland. There is nothing by which the real accuracy of this date can be tested, and it wears a very suspicious appearance, as if it had been originally fixed upon to favour the usual story of Patrick’s ordination by Pope Celestine, who died in that year. One of the earliest traditions about the Irish Saint—that contained in Nennius—couples “Bishop Germanus,” with Pope Celestine, and “Victor the Angel of God,” as the originators of Patrick’s mission, adding, that Germanus sent “Bishop Severus” with Patrick. Severus was the companion of Germanus in his second expedition into Britain. In the old poem ascribed to Fiech (given by O’Connor as above, p. xc.) Patrick is said to have remained in southern Gaul and studied the Canons with Germanus. The fable of the Angel Victor is evidently founded on the following passage in the Confession of Patrick:—“Et ibi scilicet vidi in visu, nocte, virum venientem quasi de Hiberione, cui nomen Victoricius, cum epistolis innumerabilibus, et dedit mihi unam ex illis, et legi principium epistolæ continentem Vox Hiberionacum.” The saint’s dream of the arrival of the human Victoricius from Ireland with a letter, bearing the prayers of the Irish to convert them, was magnified in after times into the miraculous appearance of the angel Victor from heaven.
[342] Prosper, Chron. 431. He affirms that Pope Celestine deputed Germanus at the instance of Palladius (Chron. 429). Constantius of Lyons, in his life of Germanus, never alludes to the Pope, but attributes the mission of Germanus and Lupus to a Council of Gallican Bishops, assembled on account of the representations of the British Church. Beda, who must have had both accounts before him (for he quotes from both authorities), has literally transcribed the narrative of Constantius; and as he must have had some reason for this preference, I do not feel inclined to dissent from the venerable historian. Some clue may perhaps be afforded to the reasons for such opposite versions of the same story, by the remark of the Benedictine compiler of L’Art de verifier les Dates, etc., “Ce pape (Zozimus) l’année précédente (i.e., 417) avait accordé le Vicariat du Saint Siege dans les Gaules à Patrocle, Evêque d’Arles; c’était une nouveauté pour les Gaules, ou elle excita de grandes contestations.” Prosper may have chosen to give a colouring to the proceeding which the Gallican Bishops would have been unwilling, at that time, to admit.
[343] The scene of the labours of Palladius has been transferred to Scotland, a change of which Prosper appears to have been profoundly ignorant.
[344] “Ingenuus fui secundum carnem, Decorione patre nascor,” are the words in his epistle to Coroticus. According to the Confession, Patrick was about sixteen years old when he was carried off to Ireland, whither he returned to preach Christianity about thirty years afterwards. It is curious to contrast the numerous miracles ascribed to his early youth and childhood by Jocelyn and others with the ingenuous admission in the Confession, of the temporary errors of his youthful days, and of his carelessness and unbelief from infancy until his captivity. The Confession and Epistle to Coroticus will be found in Rer. Hib. Scrip. Vet., vol. i. p. cvii.
[345] Vit. St. Cudb., cap. 16.
[346] It is difficult to conceive how the sister of the Pannonian Martin could have been the wife of the British Calphurnius; and the story probably arose from the spiritual relationship of St. Martin to the Apostle of Ireland. Ninian, the converter of the southern Picts, is also sometimes called a nephew of Martin. The dedication of the churches of Canterbury, Whithern, and Hereford, with the Irish Abbey at Cologne, to St. Martin, together with “the Gospel of St. Martin,” long preserved at Derry, and supposed to have been brought from Tours by St. Patrick, attest the veneration in which the name of the founder of monachism in Gaul was held throughout Britain and Ireland in early times.
[347] Mabillon, Hist. Bened., l. x. c. 17. In the Rule of St. Columba, the first injunction is, “Be alone in a separate place near a chief city.”—Colton’s Visitation, I. A. S., Appendix D.