Neither the Scholiast, nor those who have adopted his views as to the Saint's birth at Dumbarton, have ever answered Lanigan's challenge, who boldly states that the name Nemthur is not to be found in Nennius's "List of British Towns," which Usher himself had illustrated, nor in any of the old "Itineraries," or in Ricardus Corinensis, or in Camden, or Horsley &c. (vol. i, b. 3, p. 91).
The learned Cardinal Moran, in the March of the Dublin Review, 1880, endeavoured to take up the gauntlet and answer Lanigan's challenge by quoting one of Taliessin's poems from the "Black Book of Carmarthen," which represents a Welsh hero sailing away with an army to Scotland and recovering his lost inheritance in a battle fought and won at Nevthur in Clydesdale.
Besides the fact that no small stretch of imagination is required to believe that Nevthur and Nemthur are one and the same, nearly all the poems attributed to Taliessin are regarded as spurious by learned critics, as Chamber's "Encyclopaedia," under the heading Welsh Literature, evidently points out.
"Mr. Nash, the author of 'Taliessin and the Bards and Druids of Wales,' enables us to form an independent judgment on this point, for he translates some fifty of the poems, and we find that, instead of their exhibiting an antique Welsh character, they abound in allusions to mediaeval theology, and frequently employ mediaeval Latin terms. It is certainly unfortunate for the reputation of the 'Chief of Bards' that the specimens of his poems, which are considered genuine, possess exceedingly small merit. The life of this famous but over-rated genius is, of course, enveloped in legend." Lanigan's challenge, therefore, still remains unanswered, and a town mamed Nemthur is not to be found in any ancient history, geography, or map. The error, therefore, of the Scholiast consisted in stating that Alcluid and Nemthur were identical, but his statement that St. Patrick was captured in Armorica is historically true.
[The "Trepartite Life" falls into the Same Error]
THE following account is given in the "Trepartite Life" concerning St. Patrick's native town, and the country from which he was taken captive:—
"Patrick, then, was of the Britons of Alcluid by origin. Calphurn was his father's name. He was a noble priest. Potit was his grandfather's name, whose title was a deacon. Conceis was his mother's name. She was of the Franks, and a sister to St. Martin. In Nemthur, moreover, was the man Patrick born. . . .
"The cause of Patrick's coming to Erin was as follows: 'The seven sons of Fachmad, namely—the seven sons of the King of Britain—were on a naval expedition, and they went to plunder Armoric Letha; and a number of Britons of Strath-Cluaidh were on a visit with their kinsmen—the Britons of Armoric Letha—and Calphurn, son of Potit, Patrick's father, and her mother Conceis, daughter of Ocbas of the Gauls, that is of the Franks, were killed in the slaughter in Armorica. Patrick and his two sisters, viz. Lupait and Tigris, were taken prisoners, moreover, in that slaughter. The seven sons of Fachmad went afterwards to sea, having with them Patrick and his two sisters in captivity. The way they went was around Erin, northwards, until they landed in the north, and they sold Patrick to Miluic, son of Baun, that is, the King of Dal-Araidhe.
"They sold his two sisters in Conaille Muirthemne. And they did not know this. Four persons, truly, that purchased him. One of them was Miluic. It was from this that he received the name Cothriage, for the reasons that he served four masters. He had, indeed, four names" (W. M. Hennessey's Translation of the "Trepartite Life").
The author of the "Trepartite Life" repeats the contradictory statements of the Scholiast, namely, that St. Patrick was born at Dumbarton and captured in Armorica, and it stands refuted by St. Patrick himsel in his "Confession," who declares that his father hailed from Bonaven, where the Roman encampment stood, and that he himself was captured whilst residing at his father's villula, or country seat, close by the town. Just as we are bound to credit St. Patrick's "Confession;" the statements of the Scholiast, and of the author of the "Trepartite Life," that he was simply on a visit to his relatives in Armorica when captured, must be discredited.