The life of St. Patrick and his place in history

by J. B. Bury

§ 1. The Denunciation of Coroticus

Christianity had been introduced among the Picts of Galloway at the beginning of the fifth century by the labours of a Briton, who is little more than a name. Ninian, educated at Rome, had probably come under the influence of St. Martin of Tours, and had then devoted himself to the task of preaching his faith in the wilds of Galloway, where, on the inner promontory which runs out towards the Isle of Man, he built a stone church. As the only stone building in this uncivilised land it became known as the White House (Candida Casa), and its place is marked by Whitern. An important monastic establishment grew around it, which enjoyed a high reputation in Ireland in the sixth century, and was known there as the “Great Monastery.” The work of Ninian was, in one way, like the work of his contemporary Victricius in Gaul, being missionary work within the Roman Empire, if Galloway and its inhabitants belonged to the Roman province of Valentia. The Roman power may the more easily have controlled these barbarous subjects since they were severed from their kinsmen, the Picts of the north beyond the Clyde, by the British population of Strathclyde.

FIFTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

After the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, and the island was cut off from the central control of the Empire, the task of maintaining order in the western part of the “province of Valentia” seems to have been undertaken by one of those rulers who sprang up in various parts of the island, and are variously styled as “kings” or “tyrants.” A word must be said as to the condition of Britain in the fifth century, because it is very generally misunderstood.

There can be no greater error than to suppose that the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain in 407, and the rescript of the Emperor Honorius, three or four years later, permitting the citizens of Britain to arm themselves and provide for their own defence, meant the instant departure of all things Roman from British shores, the death of Roman traditions, the end of Roman civilisation. The idea that the island almost immediately relapsed into something resembling its pre-Roman condition is due partly to the scanty nature of our evidence, partly to a misreading of the famous work of Gildas “on the decline and fall of Britain,” partly to a mistaken idea of the isolation of Britain from the continent, and largely to that anachronistic habit, into which it is so easy to fall, of judging men’s acts and thoughts as if they could have foreseen the future. It cannot be too strongly enforced that in those years which mark for us the Roman surrender of Britain, and for many years after, no man—emperor or imperial minister or British provincial—could have thought or realised that the events which they were witnessing meant a final dismemberment of the Empire in the west, that Britain was really cut off for ever. The Empire had weathered storms before, and emerged stable and strong; to the contemporaries of Honorius and Valentinian the Empire was part of the established order of things, and a suspension of its control in any particular portion of its dominion was something temporary and passing. The British provincials did not and could not for a moment regard themselves and their province as finally severed from Rome; they still considered themselves part of the Empire; for a hundred and fifty years some of them at least considered themselves Roman citizens. From this point of view alone it is not conceivable that the traditions and machinery of the Roman administration should have disappeared at once, the moment the central authorities ceased to control it. What could the provincials have deliberately put in its place? All the circumstances seem to enforce the conclusion that the administration, in its general lines, continued, but was gradually modified, and ultimately decayed, through three main causes—financial necessities which must have soon led to a reduction of the elaborate machinery of administration, the organisation of new methods of self-help, and the development of local interests promoted by the ambition of private persons who won power and supremacy in various districts. There was doubtless a Celtic revival, but for many years after the rescript of Honorius, Roman institutions must have continued to exist alongside of, or controlled by, the local potentates, who are described as “kings” or “tyrants.” And in the later years of the fifth century the great successes won by the British against the English invaders were achieved by generals—Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Arthur—who were not “kings” or “tyrants,” but rather, in some sense, national leaders, and whose position can be best explained by supposing that they represent the traditions of Roman rule, and are, in fact, successors of the Roman dukes and counts of Britain. If in some cases the tyrants may have combined their own irregular position with the title of a Roman official it is what we should expect.

COROTICUS

The man whom we find in the reign of Valentinian III. ruling in Strathclyde, and maintaining such law and order as might be maintained, was named Coroticus or Ceretic, and he founded a line of kings who were still reigning at the end of the following century. His seat was the Rock of Clyde.[203] As the seat of a British ruler, amid surrounding Scots and Picts, this stronghold came to be known as Dún na m-Bretan, “the fort of the Britons,” which was corrupted into the modern Dumbarton. The continuity of the rule of Coroticus with the military organisation of the Empire is strongly suggested by the circumstance that his power was maintained by “soldiers”;[204] and his position seems thus marked as distinct from that of pre-Roman chiefs of British tribes. His soldiers may well be the successors of the Roman troops who defended the north. His position—whether he assumed any Roman military title or not—may be compared to that of the general Aegidius, who maintained the name of the Empire in north Gaul when it had been cut off from the rest of the Empire. Aegidius transmitted his authority to his son Syagrius, as Coroticus transmitted his to his son Cinuit; and if Syagrius had not been overthrown by the Franks, a state would have been formed in Belgica which would have resembled in origin the state which Coroticus formed in Strathclyde. Of course the Gallo-Roman generals Aegidius and Syagrius, while their authority was practically uncontrolled, were in touch with the Empire, maintained the Imperial machinery, and had a position totally different from the irregular position of the semi-barbarous Briton on his rock by the Clyde; but we may be sure that Coroticus was careful to make the most of his claim to represent the Imperial tradition and rule over Roman citizens. And while the contrast is obvious, it is not uninstructive to observe the analogy, which is less obvious, between the position of Britain and its rulers, still attached in theory, name, and tradition to the Empire, though cut off from it, and the position of those parts of the Belgic and Lyonnese provinces, which, aloof from the rest of Imperial territory, maintained themselves under Aegidius and his son Syagrius for a few years amid the surrounding German kingdoms.

OUTRAGE ON NEOPHYTES

Coroticus, then, was the ruler of Strathclyde in the days of Patrick. We can easily understand that he may sometimes have found it difficult to pay his soldiers and retainers, and that for this purpose he may have been forced to plunder his neighbours. However this may be, he fitted out a marauding expedition; it does not appear that he led it himself, but it crossed the channel, and descended on the coast of Ireland, probably in Dalaradia or Dalriada. Perhaps it was an act of reprisal for raids which the Scots and Picts of these lands may have made upon his dominion; it may have been, for all we know, an episode in a regular war. At all events he was supported in his enterprise by the Picts of Galloway, who had relapsed into heathenism, and by some of those heathen Scots who had come over from Ireland and settled in the region north-west of the Clyde. In the course of their devastation these heathen allies of Coroticus appeared on the scene of a Christian ceremony. Neophytes, who had just been baptized and anointed with the baptismal chrism, were standing in white raiment; the sign of the cross was still “fragrant on their foreheads” when the heathen rushed upon them, put some to the sword and carried others captive. Patrick, whether he had himself performed the ceremony or not, must have been near the spot of this outrage, for he was informed of it so soon, that on the next day he despatched one of his most trusted priests—one whom he had trained from childhood—to the soldiers of Coroticus, requesting them to send back the booty and release the captives. The message, which must have reached them before they left Ireland, was received with mockery, though the soldiers of Coroticus were Christians and “Romans,” and it was not they but their heathen allies who had massacred the defenceless Christians. It is not clear whether Coroticus himself was present when the message was delivered, but it is certain that Patrick regarded him as responsible, and we must suppose that he had declined to interfere before Patrick wrote the letter which is our record of this event. The only thing which the indignant bishop could do for the release of his “sons and daughters” was to bring the public opinion of the Christians in Strathclyde to bear upon Coroticus and his soldiers. He wrote a strong letter, addressing it apparently to the general Christian community in the dominion of Coroticus, and requiring them to have no dealings with the guilty “tyrant” and his soldiers, “not to take food or drink with them, not to receive alms from them, nor show respect to them, until they should repent in tears and make satisfaction to God by releasing the Christian captives.” He asks that the letter should be read before all the people in the presence of Coroticus. The guilt of the outrage is laid, in this communication, entirely upon Coroticus; it is ascribed to his orders; he is called a betrayer of Christians into the hands of Scots and Picts. Apostrophising him the bishop writes: “It is the custom of Roman Christians in Gaul to send good men to the Franks and other heathens to redeem captives for so many thousand pieces of gold; you, on the contrary, slay Christians and sell them to a foreign nation that knows not God; you deliver members of Christ as it were into a house of ill fame.”

The sequel of this episode is unknown. We have no record whether the letter of Patrick had any effect on the obstinate hearts of Coroticus and his soldiers, or whether those to whom it was addressed applied the pressure of excommunication, which he begged them to put in force. The Irish legend that the king was turned into a fox by the prayers of the saint is based on the idea that he declined to release the captives; but it may have no other foundation than the letter which we possess.