Meanwhile Kells did not escape the ravages of the Danes. In A.D. 949, recte 951, it suffered greatly. Godfrey, King of the Danes of Dublin, marched to Kells, and having plundered all the country round about, returned home with “3,000 captives, besides gold, silver, raiment, and various wealth and goods of every description.”[280] Although Kells suffered much in various attacks, both before and after this date, it is doubtful if the good monks of Columcille were ever so completely cleaned out as on that occasion. It is called an expilatio by an old chronicler—pillage that left nothing after it. Kells was five times plundered during the tenth century; once also at the close of the ninth, and once at the opening of the eleventh century; and it was burned during the same period even oftener than it was plundered. Yet the school and monastery lived on, and after the Danish wars seem to have become once more quite flourishing.
The celebrated Cathach, to which we referred when speaking of the School of Moville, was enshrined at Kells about the close of the eleventh century. On the margin of the under silver plate of the casket, which contains the MS., the following words in Gaelic are still quite legible.
“Pray for Cathbarr O’Donnell for whom this casket was made, and for Sitric, son of Mac Aedha, who made it, and for Domnald Mac Robartaigh Comarb of Kells, at whose house it was made.” As this abbot of Kells died in A.D. 1098 the cumdach, or casket, must have been fabricated by MacHugh’s son before that date, probably at the joint expense of O’Donnell and the abbot.
The family of Mac Robartaigh seems to have produced several distinguished scholars during this century, many of whom were connected with the monastic school of Kells. The Mac Robartaigh clan appears to have belonged to Donegal. The parish of Ballymacgroarty in Tirhugh was most likely their family inheritance, as it takes its name from the clan. The celebrated Marianus Scotus was a member of the same family; for in his own hand he describes himself as Muredach Mac Robartaig, giving his original Irish name, instead of the literary patronymic, which his learning and virtue have immortalised.
II.—This Marianus Scotus,
Scribe and Commentator on Sacred Scripture, must be carefully distinguished from his countryman and namesake Marianus Scotus the Chronicler. We have fortunately an authentic Life of the former written by another Irishman, who was an inmate of the same religious house as Marianus, and who tells us that he derived his information from Father Isaac, then living, the life-long associate of Marianus himself.
This Life sets forth that Marianus was a native of the North of Ireland, but does not name the locality in which he was born. In his early youth he was handed over by his parents to the care of certain religious men in order to be trained up for the clerical state in all learning and pious discipline. There is hardly a doubt that the reference here is to the monks of Drumhome, in the barony of Tirhugh, county Donegal. The old monastic church was situated near the sea shore, where the boy must have often wandered in view of the noble mountains that rise up so grandly beyond the bay, and in the sight and hearing of the wild Atlantic waves that break upon its shore. Later on he was doubtless sent to Kells to complete his studies, for several members of his family presided over that abbey about this period.
We gather from statements made by Marianus himself, that he left Ireland in A.D. 1067; and therefore just eleven years after the departure of his namesake, Marianus the Chronicler. At this period old Father Isaac described him to the writer of his life, as a handsome fair-haired youth, strong-limbed and tall, moreover a man of goodly mien, and gracious eloquence, well trained in all human and divine knowledge.[281] His purpose was to go on pilgrimage to Rome; but calling to see Bishop Otho of Bamberg, he was induced to remain with that prelate for a whole year. Subsequently the bishop gave Marianus and his two companions a cell at the foot of the mountain, in which they lived as recluses, the bishop generously supplying their simple wants.
After the Bishop’s death they journeyed on to Ratisbon, where they were once more induced to stay at the earnest entreaty of the venerable abbess Emma and her nuns. As before they lived as recluses in their own little cells, Marianus devoting himself with great zeal to the composition and transcription of religious books for the good abbess Emma and her nuns. He also found leisure to write books for the monks around Ratisbon; “for his pen was swift, his handwriting clear and beautiful, and his labour incessant.” He worked so diligently in his cell that his two companions, John and Candidus—Irishmen also—found quite enough to do in preparing the parchments which he filled up with the words of salvation. We are expressly told that they all laboured without fee or reward—giving their books gratuitously, contenting themselves with the poorest raiment and the plainest and scantiest fare. “To tell the truth without a fog of words,” says the writer of the Life of Marianus, “amongst all the things which Divine Providence wrought by the hands of the said Marianus, nothing in my opinion is so wonderful and praiseworthy as the zeal with which the holy man, not once or twice, but frequently transcribed with his own hand the entire Old and New Testament with commentaries and explanations; while at the same time he wrote many smaller books, and psalters for poor widows, and for the needy clerics in the same city (of Ratisbon), and that, too, merely for his soul’s sake, without any hope of earthly gain. Moreover, many monastic congregations in faith and charity imitating the same blessed Marianus, having come from that same Ireland (Hibernia), and now dwelling throughout Bavaria and Franconia, are for the most part sustained by the writings of that same holy man.”
Such is the noble testimony borne to the learning, zeal, and charity of this pure-souled Irish monk in the land of the stranger. And therefore it was that, not without good reason, he and his countrymen were so warmly welcomed and so generously treated in all the great cities of mediæval Germany.