The sixth Life, by St. Evin, declares that he was "de Brittanis Alcluidensibus, natus in Nempthur."
The Breviaries repeat the same names with as little attempt to fix the actual localities.
The Breviary of Paris says: "In Britiania natus, oppido Empthoria." The Breviary of Armagh: "In illo Brittaniae oppido nomine Emptor." The old Roman Breviary says simply: "Grenere Brito." The Breviary of Rheims: "In maritimo Brittaniae territorio." The Breviary of Rouen: "In Brittania Gallicana." The Breviary of the canons of St. John of Lateran: "Ex Brittania magna insula."
It will be observed that in the principal of these authorities there is a concurrence in accepting the locality called so variously Nemthur and Empthoria, as well as the second of the localities, the Taberniae, named by St. Patrick himself; and also that there is no appearance of certainty in the minds of the writers as to the exact sites of the places of which they speak. None of them ventures to name the exact district or diocese where Empthoria or the Taberniae are to be found.
But certain scholia upon the "Hymn of St. Fiech," which were for the first time published by Colgan in the "Triadis Thaumaturgae," boldly lay down the proposition that "Nemthur est civitas in Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluida;" and the name is also translated as meaning "Holy Tower." The same writer, however, adds in another note that St. Patrick was not carried into his Irish captivity from Dumbarton, but from Boulogne, where he and his family were visiting some of their friends at the time when the Irish pirates swept down upon the coast of Gaul. The Irish annals say that about the period of St. Patrick's captivity, Nial of the Nine Hostages lost his life on the Sea of Iccius between France and England. These long piratical forays were not uncommon at the time. [Footnote 126] A little later, the last of our pagan kings, Dathy, was killed by lightning near the Rhaetian Alps.
[Footnote 126: Totum cum Scotus Iernem Movit, et infesto spumsvit remige Tethys CLAUDIAN.]
Colgan with a curious credulity accepted this improbable solution of the scholiast, of which it may in the first place be said that it is incompatible with the statement of St. Patrick himself, who declares distinctly that he was captured at a country house belonging to his father, near the town to which his family belonged.
Usher, however, who had equal opportunities of studying the original documents, also adopted this explanation. Several Irish writers, and especially Don Philip O'Sullivan, vaguely conscious of the tradition of St. Patrick's French origin, attempted to reconcile the fact of his being a Briton with the fact of his birth in France by the supposition that he was a Breton of Brittany. This theory, however, falls summarily to the ground when it is opposed to the fact that the province now known by the name of Brittany was not inhabited by any tribe which bore the name in the time of St. Patrick, "The year 458," says the Benedictine Lobineau [Footnote 127] in his learned history of Brittany, "is about the epoch of the establishment of the Bretons in that part of ancient Armorica which at present bears the name of Bretagne." There was, however, a clan called Brittani, further toward the north of France, a clan whose territory Pliny and the Greek Dionysius Periegetes had long before designated with accuracy: Pliny in these words, "Deinde Menapii, Morini, Oromansaci juncti pago, qui Gessoriacus vocatur; [{749}] Brittani, Ambiani, Bellovaci." [Footnote 128] The Brittani of the time of St. Patrick are to be found in the country that lies between Boulogne and Amiens. It is there that Lanigan came upon the first authentic traces of the origin of our apostle.
[Footnote 127: Lobineau. D. Gui Alexis, "Histoire de Bretagne. " Paris, 1707.]
[Footnote 128: Plinii Secundi, "Historia Naturalis; de Gallia," 1. iv. The editors of the Dauphin's edition have a note on the word Brittaui, which is worth quotation. "Ita libri omnes. Hi inter Gessoriacenses Ambianosqne medii, in ora similiter positi, ea loca teuuere certè, ubi nunc oppida Stapulae, Monetrolium, Hesdinium, et adjacentem agrum, Ponticum ad Somonam amnem. Cluverius hic Briannos legi mavult." See also the learned essay on the Britons of Armorica in the "Acta Sanctorum, Vitâ S. Ursulae;" Octobris, vol. ix., p. 108. A glance at the map will show the close relation of the district marked by the present towns of Etaples, Montreuil, Hesdin, and Ponthieu to the localities named a little farther on. That the Britons of Great Britain originally came from this district is declared in the Welsh Triads, thus: "The three beneficent tribes of the Isle of Britain. The first was the nation of the Cymmry, who came with Hu the mighty to the Isle of Britain, who would not possess nor country nor lands through writing and persecution, but of equity and in peace; the second was the stock of the Lioegrians, who came from the land of Gwasgwyn (Gascolgne), and were descended from the primitive stock of the Cymmry: the third were the Brython, and from the land of Llydaw they came, having their descent from the primary stock of the Cymmry." And again, Cynan is spoken of as lord of Meirlon (probably a Celtic form of the word Morini) in Llydaw. Taliessin also mentions the Morini Btython in his Prif Gyfarch, Lydaw, Latinized Letavia, is one of the early Celtic names of the country of the Morini, as Neustria, in the Life by Probus, was that given in the Merovingian period to the whole province between the Meuse and Loire, including Boulogne of course. Pliny mentions Boulogne itself as the Portus Morinorum Brittanicus. ]