Grimm Library

No. 18

AN IRISH PRECURSOR OF DANTE

An Irish Precursor of Dante

By
C. S. Boswell

London
Published by David Nutt
at the Sign of the Phœnix
Long Acre
1908

TO
H. M. H. B.

CONTENTS

AN IRISH PRECURSOR OF DANTE

PART I

1. Introductory

Few, if any, of the great masterpieces of literature, even of those which bear the most unmistakable imprint of an original mind, are ‘original’ in the vulgar sense of being invented ‘all out of the head’ of the author. Most frequently they are the development and the sublimation of forms and subjects already current; for, as Dumas père truly said, it is mankind, and not the individual man, that invents. The wagon of Thespis preceded the stage of Æschylus, while Thespis himself had predecessors who did not even adopt the wagon. The great dramatic schools of all periods took the greater and better part of their themes from the myth, history, or fiction current in their day. So it has been with most other kinds of literature, and to this rule the Commedia of Dante, though one of the most truly original creations of the human mind, forms no exception. The main subject of the poem, the visit of a living man, in person or in vision, to the world of the dead, and his report of what he had seen and heard there, belongs to a class of world-myths than which few are more widely distributed in place or time, and none have been more fortunate in the place won for them by the masters of literature. After occupying an important place in several of the antique religions it afforded subjects to the genius of Homer, Plato, and Virgil; it was then adopted into the early Christian Church, and afterwards constituted one of the favourite subjects in the popular literature of the Middle Ages, until, finally, Dante exhausted the great potentialities of the theme, and precluded all further developments.

The Commedia is like a mighty river formed by the confluence of several great tributaries, each of which is fed by innumerable springs and streamlets, which have their rise in regions remote and most diverse from each other, and are all tinged by the soil of the lands through which they flow. It is with one of these tributary streams that the following pages deal, and that not the least important among them, for to it the Vision of the Otherworld, as current in the later Middle Ages, owed much both of its popularity and its contents, not, indeed, by way of direct derivation or suggestion—a view which several circumstances forbid us to entertain—but as the result of an influence which, in an earlier stage of culture, had determined the direction which the Vision legend actually followed in its later developments.

The subject would appear to have possessed a special fascination for the Irish writers at the time when Ireland was the chief intellectual centre of Western Europe, and the constant flux and reflux of Irish teachers and foreign students necessarily tended to spread abroad so much, at any rate, of the compositions of the Irish schools as was in harmony with the tastes and beliefs of Christendom at large.

By far the most important of the Apocalyptic writings which proceeded from the Irish schools is the Vision which bears the name of St. Adamnán, of which a translation is given in the present volume. It is interesting to compare it with the later and greater work, and to mark the numerous points of resemblance which may be discerned in works so widely different. This and the like productions of a ruder, but not ignorant nor uncultured, age, deserve no less attention than that which we bestow upon the works of the primitive schools of art and letters, before Giotto and his compeers had effected the release of painting from the bonds of formalism, and had opened out the ways of Nature and imagination, and before the immediate predecessors of Dante had rendered possible his dolce stil nuovo.

At the same time it may be seen how the legend which received its apotheosis in Dante’s immortal verse came into being upon the misty heights of primitive myth, and after forming the theme of poets and philosophers in classical antiquity, entered into the literature and teaching of the early Christian Church; how the ecclesiastical legend, as it had now become, was adopted into the Irish Church at the time of its greatest activity, and there received the impress of the national genius, and became blended with the national traditions; thence it returned again to become a part of the general literature of Europe, and received yet further elements from the newly popular romances of chivalry, and still more from the revived classical tradition, until the elixir of the great magician’s genius finally transmuted the amalgam into gold to be a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί.

To recognise these facts is not to disparage or limit the originality of Dante’s genius; rather his true originality is thrown into higher relief by a comparison with all other labourers in the same field who had gone before him. Nothing but the study of these labours will enable us to give him his due place in European literature and thought, while such a study will explain and justify certain features in his treatment of the theme which may be repugnant to modern ways of thinking, but were not only justified, but necessitated, by the beliefs and traditions universally accepted in his own day. Dante himself always loved to acknowledge his indebtedness to his literary progenitors, alike among the writers of antiquity and his own contemporaries or immediate predecessors; and it seems fitting to preserve the memory of a school of writers to whom, although he knew it not himself, are largely due the actual character and scope of the work by which he achieved immortality.

2. The Seer[1]

By the close of the seventh century the Irish Church had almost reached the period of its greatest prosperity and of its greatest influence upon the culture of Western Europe. The Three Orders of Saints had done their work, and although in Ireland, as throughout the rest of Europe, Christianity had not entirely prevailed over the heathenism of the more sequestered populations—the pagani—yet, through the length and breadth of the country, the National Church was established in close conjunction with the State, of which, indeed, it had come to form an integral part; and wherever the Irish clergy prevailed, studies flourished.

The missionary zeal of the Irish clergy had made known the Gospel to the courts of barbarian princes, and to the still pagan inhabitants of North Britain and Germany, Gaul and Burgundy, Switzerland, Styria, and Lombardy, and even carried it to the Faroe Isles and Iceland. At home, what sparks of antique learning yet lurked beneath the ashes to which the fires of civilisation had smouldered down were gathered into a focus in schools where crowds of students from the surrounding nations found hospitality and instruction; while abroad, the foundations of Iona, Lindisfarne, and Malmesbury, Luxeuil, St. Gall, and Bobbio, with many more of lesser fame, stood out like citadels erected to maintain a peaceful conquest. And from the schools of Ireland were to issue the men who were destined, during the next two centuries, not merely to leave their mark upon the Church as theologians and founders of monasteries, but, further, to play an important part in moulding the new civilisation of the Frankish Empire, to lay the foundations of modern philosophy, and to promote the study of natural science and literature by lucubrations, crude, indeed, as compared with the productions of more favoured ages, but standing out conspicuous above the level of their own time.[2]

Meanwhile, though the Three Orders of the Irish Saints had come to an end about the middle of the seventh century, they were succeeded by many great Churchmen, who combined with their ecclesiastical duties a lively interest in secular politics, in which they were wont to intervene, most commonly, no doubt, with beneficial effect, though occasionally with results nothing less than disastrous.

One of the foremost, if not the very foremost, among the Irish clerics of this period was St. Adamnán, the reputed seer of the Vision which bears his name. This great prelate is a striking figure both in the ecclesiastical and secular history of his times; but the information we possess concerning him, though not altogether scanty, is not all of equal value. It consists partly of the evidences furnished by his own writings and contemporary records, partly of the further particulars which have been preserved in the annals compiled from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, though these, no doubt, are derived in great measure from earlier records.

Adamnán was of high birth, as were many of the leading Irish Churchmen, the constitution of the National Church being thoroughly aristocratic, in accordance with the civil society upon which it was moulded. His father was Ronán, son of Tinne, a man of chiefly rank in the territory of Sereth, or Tír Aedha, now the barony of Tirhugh, in south-west Donegal, and the descendant of Conall Gulbán, the founder of a famous house, various branches of which ruled Tír Conaill from the fifth century until the fall of the O’Donnells at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Adamnán’s mother, Ronat by name, was of the Cinel Enda, a sept of West Meath.[3] The date of his birth is variously stated, but he appears to have been born between the years 624 and 627 at Drumhome, in Tír Aedha.[4] The name Adamnán is a diminutive of Adam, but through the tendency of Irish phonetics to elide the d and m in certain positions, it came to be written sometimes in the confusing forms Eunan and Onan, and has even been travestied into Theunan and Dennan.

Adamnán entered the great monastery of Iona as a novice, probably about the year 650, as Segine (ob. 652) was then abbot. There he was distinguished for his devotion and learning, and in the year 679, soon after the death of Abbot Failbhe, was elected to succeed him, being ninth in descent from St. Colm Cille, the founder, to whom he was akin. Indeed, all Adamnán’s predecessors, and his successors for several generations, were members of the same great family. In the government of his house and of the ecclesiastical establishments in the neighbouring islands, he displayed the qualities of an able administrator, as well as those of saint and scholar; nor did he confine his activities to matters ecclesiastical, but, like most of the Irish saints, took an active part in public events.

About the year 684, King Ecgfrid of Northumbria made a descent upon the Irish coast, between Magh Breg, the plain north of the Liffey, and Belach Dúinn, now Castlekieran, north-west of Kells, and carried away many captives. In the following year he invaded the Picts of Scotland, and was slain at Dun Nechtan. His successor, Aldfrid (the son, according to some accounts, of an Irish mother), had been driven into exile in early youth, and taking refuge in Ireland was educated in the schools of that country, to which he paid a grateful tribute in after-life. He had sojourned for a while at Iona, and there became acquainted with Adamnán, who now took advantage of this intimacy, and came to Aldfrid’s court to plead the cause of the captives. He was successful in this, and had the happiness to redeem from slavery sixty of his countrymen, whom he brought back with him on his return. This visit produced results of great importance to the Irish Church. During his stay in Northumbria, Adamnán contracted a close intimacy with the Venerable Bede—who strongly censured Ecgfrid’s unprovoked, aggression (Hist. Eccl. iv. 26)—upon whom he made a strong and favourable impression, as being vir bonus, et sapiens, et scientia scripturarum nobilissime instructus. Their frequent colloquies during this, and, apparently, a second mission of Adamnán to Northumbria, about two years later, turned upon the two main points wherein the Irish usage differed from that of Rome: i.e. the form of the tonsure, which, in Ireland, was made crescent-wise across the head, and the time of keeping Easter. In the latter respect, Ireland retained the older computation, founded upon the Jewish method of calculating the Passover, which had been adopted by Rome during the disputes on the subject with the East and with Alexandria, and was in force at the conversion of Ireland. In 463 Pope Hilarius introduced an improved system of calculation, which ultimately was generally adopted throughout the West, though not without a struggle in those many parts of the Continent where Irish influence was powerful. As a matter of course, the reformed system was brought into England by Augustine, and contributed to widen the gulf between the English and British Churches. The south of Ireland, or part of it, appears to have accepted the change in the year 633, but it took nearly another century to win over the rest of the country. Bede urged upon Adamnán the propriety of conforming to the general rule of the Church, and his arguments wrought such conviction in his hearer that Adamnán devoted much of the latter portion of his life to the task of inducing his countrymen to accept the Roman usage.

Indeed, the remainder of Adamnán’s life appears to have been divided between his abbatial duties and long and frequent visits to Ireland, in the course of which he is said to have taken that part in secular politics to which we shall have to recur. The greater part of this time, however, he appears to have spent in travelling about Ireland, occupied with his favourite scheme for bringing the time of the Easter celebration into conformity with the general practice of the Western Church. His efforts were generally successful; Bede, in fact (Hist. Eccl. v. 15), asserts that he succeeded in winning over to the Catholic observance ‘almost all those who were not subject to the rule of Iona.’ In the year 700, or shortly after, he returned to Iona, and attempted to introduce his reform into his own monastery, but in spite of his abbatial authority and of his great personal influence, he found the conservatism of that great stronghold of the Irish Church too much for him, and his monks refused to admit any innovation upon the national practice. He died on the 23rd September 704, and was buried at Iona. His relics were brought to Ireland in 727, but are said to have been restored to his monastery in 730.

Adamnán earned well the epithet ‘High Scholar of the Western World,’ which is conferred upon him at the opening of his Vision. His most celebrated work was the Life of St. Colm Cille, written in a Latin which is generally admitted to be far superior to that commonly in use at his day. The work suffers from the form in which it is cast; it does not relate the events of the Saint’s life in chronological sequence, but is divided into three books, the first being devoted to Colm’s prophetical revelations, the second to his miracles, and the third to his angelical visions. Nevertheless, it gives much information of great interest, relating as well to the life and acts of St. Colm as to the internal life of the Irish Church, while the prefaces contain important biographical matter. The prominence given to the miracles, visions, and the like, associated with Colm’s name, is merely what we find in a large proportion of the hagiology of all periods of the Church’s history, while the narrative possesses a character of its own, and a human interest, which preserve it from the monotony and conventionality often prevailing in writings of this class, and establish a certain kinship with the Fioretti of St. Francis. Altogether, the Life is commonly accepted as the most important extant monument of the Celtic Church, and also one of the most notable pieces of biography, ecclesiastical or lay, produced by the early Middle Ages.

Another work proceeding from his pen was a treatise upon the Holy Places of Palestine. This, too, was written in Latin, and is considered by Dr. Reeves to be superior, in point of style, to the Life of Colm Cille. He was instigated to undertake this task by Arculf, a bishop of Gaul, who had travelled in Palestine, Syria, Constantinople, Alexandria, and other parts of the East, and on his return had been blown out of his course, and wrecked on some coast near to Iona. Here he was hospitably entertained by Adamnán, and in the course of a prolonged sojourn through the stormy winter months held much learned converse with his host, to their mutual edification. Arculf had studied the topography and history of the places he visited with a thoroughness almost unique at that day, and had even preserved accurate measurements and descriptions of buildings, etc. He freely imparted the results of his investigations to Adamnán, who was himself possessed of the learning which could be acquired from such books as were accessible to him.

Several ecclesiastical works—a Rule, eight Canons, etc.—are attributed to Adamnán; there have also been preserved a poem and several devout opuscula in Irish which have been ascribed to him, without foundation.

It would appear that he had some knowledge of Greek, and even possessed a certain acquaintance with, at any rate, the Hebrew vocabulary, whether at first or second hand.

It now remains to be seen what further light is cast upon Adamnán’s character by the later annals; and here we find a mixture of Dichtung und Wahrheit, and no criterion whereby we may distinguish with any certainty between the two. The additional particulars derived from this source, if we except a few legends of miracles and visions of the usual type, relate for the most part to Adamnán’s political activity during the last decade of the seventh century. One episode, however, of Adamnán’s schooldays gives the earliest recorded fact, if a fact, of his career. It is a mere anecdote, unsupported by evidence, yet it contains no inherent improbability, and is worth repeating, if only as an authentic picture of one aspect of scholastic life in ancient Ireland, and also as affording the first glimpse, probably, of the ‘beggar-student’ who figured so conspicuously in the later Middle Ages, and in Ireland survived as the ‘poor scholar’ almost to our own day. The students at the Irish centres of learning—Universities, as they have been called, not without reason—used to dwell about their teachers in huts of wattle, provision for their maintenance, education, and books being made by the chiefs and ecclesiastical foundations. So great, however, were the throngs of students, native and foreign, who flocked to these schools, that many were compelled to eke out the public allowance by having recourse to the charity of neighbours. Among these was Adamnán, who was one of a company, or mess, of five students and their tutor, the younger students taking it in turn to provide for all. One day this task procured Adamnán an adventure, which introduced him to the future monarch, Finnachta Fledach, his future relations with whom, if truly related by the annals, were destined to be fraught with momentous consequences to them both and to the whole of Ireland. Finnachta, though of royal race, had once been so poor that his whole worldly possessions consisted of a house, a wife, an ox, and a cow. At the time of which we speak, he possessed a following, and one day, as he and his retinue were travelling at full gallop, they came across a young student laden with a pitcher of milk, who, in his haste to avoid the horses, upset the pitcher and spilt the milk. This boy was Adamnán, bringing home the day’s provision for himself and his messmates. He set out to run by the side of the horsemen, and kept up with them until they reached their destination. Finnachta took notice of the boy, and, entering into conversation with him, was so well pleased, that he not only made good the loss, but provided the five youths and their tutor with a house and maintenance, receiving in return from the tutor a prophecy that he, Finnachta, should one day become monarch of Ireland, with Adamnán for his anamchara, or confessor. It does not appear that this interview was immediately productive of any further consequences to Adamnán, who, in due course, entered the monastic life, as before mentioned.

The next incident of importance, not already mentioned, which the annalists relate concerning Adamnán, is at once one of the most momentous and most obscure portions of his career—namely, his action in connection with the Boruma tribute. This was a heavy fine, in cattle and various precious articles, which Tuathal Techtmar, Árd-Rí of Ireland about the end of the first century A.D., had laid upon Leinster in perpetuity (or, according to some authorities, for forty years) to punish a grave crime committed by the king of that province. The intermittent exaction of this tribute was not the least among the many causes of discord which prevented the ideal polity of Ireland, viz. a confederation of kingdoms and principalities—an Empire we might call it—under the overlordship of the Árd-Rí, from ever becoming realised in a permanently efficient form. This grievance St. Moling, with the support of several other leading prelates, determined to remove, and, it is said, induced Finnachta (who had become Árd-Rí in 673-4, having defeated and slain in battle his predecessor Cennfaelad) to issue a decree for its abolition. This event is commonly dated in the year 693, but Canon O’Hanlon, on the authority of O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, thinks it must be earlier, and is inclined to place it in 692, the year of Adamnán’s visit to Ireland.[5] It is recorded in a treatise on the Boruma, printed and translated by Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady in his Silva Gadelica; it is there told in narrative form, with dialogues in the oratio recta, and intermingled with many fictitious circumstances so as to make up a story; however, the main incidents accord with a fragment of Irish annals given by Mr. O’Grady in the same work, and with the Irish poem formerly ascribed to Adamnán. The means by which St. Moling induced the king to grant his request show all the symptoms of a folk-tale. By the promise of eternal life immediately after death, he procured Finnachta’s promise to remit the tribute until Luan, which in Irish properly means Monday, but was also and still is a frequent term for the Day of Judgment—‘Black Monday.’ The monarch, understanding the word in its literal sense, thought the terms easy, and gave his promise; the saint, however, insisted upon putting his own interpretation on it, and Finnachta had to consent to the perpetual remission of the tribute. The measure itself was most wise and statesmanlike; nevertheless, pernicious as the tribute was, the abolition of it touched the pride of the Ui Néill, the ruling race of Ireland. The organisation of the Church was based upon the clan system which prevailed in the State; religious communities were often composed of fellow-tribesmen, ecclesiastical dignities passed from one generation to another of the same chiefly family, and the head of an order was practically a clerical chieftain, sharing with the lay princes that fatal tendency to prefer local to national interests which has been fraught with consequences to Ireland more dire than the Boruma itself. Adamnán is represented as possessing his full share of this family or racial pride, and joined with the clergy of his race in offering a bitter opposition to the new measure. The narrative of his dealings with Finnachta is more graphic than authentic. With an authority, to say the least of it, worthy of a Hildebrand or Innocent III., he sent a clerk to Finnachta to summon him to instant conference. The king was then playing at chess, and declined to budge until his game was ended. Adamnán, informed of this, sent back word that he would chant fifty psalms while waiting, the effect of which would be to deprive the king’s whole race of the kingdom for ever. This was announced to the king, but he had begun a second game, and declined to stir until it was over. Adamnán then sent word that he would chant another fifty psalms, which should bring on the king shortness of life; but Finnachta, now engaged in a third game, sent the same answer as before. Then Adamnán sent word that he would chant yet another fifty psalms, which should deprive Finnachta of the Lord’s peace. Then Finnachta hastily arose, quitted his chess, and repaired to Adamnán’s presence. On being asked why he came, after ignoring all previous messages, he explained that the exclusion of his posterity from his kingdom troubled him but little, neither did he care for a speedy death, seeing that Moling had promised him eternal life, but he could not bear to be excluded from the Lord’s peace. However, though Finnachta then made personal submission to Adamnán, the decree remained, and God would not suffer Adamnán to deprive the king of the reward which Moling had promised him.

It is obvious that this narrative, in point of form, is fiction pure and simple; as fictitious as the speeches in Thucydides, or the dialogues in Herodotus or Plutarch. For this reason, and because of the discrepancy of dates, and the uncertainty attending the whole question of the remission of the Boruma, some authorities are inclined to call in question the entire story of Adamnán’s relations with Finnachta, and to relegate it to the domain of fiction. This summary method of cutting the knot appears to be somewhat arbitrary: if a liberal admixture of fiction be sufficient absolutely to discredit the chronicles into which it enters, we may be called upon to disbelieve that there is any historic basis for Livy’s History, or the records of Charlemagne, for instance. In the present case it seems most doubtful whether any means exist for determining what, if any, basis of fact underlies the narrative, but having regard to the attention paid by the Irish writers to the record of past and contemporary events—which by no means implies the strict accuracy of the record—it seems improbable that the recorded acts, in matters of great public interest, of such notable characters as Árd-Rí Finnachta and St. Adamnán should not represent, in substance, the parts which they actually played in the public life of their time.

About this time another cause of discord is said to have put a further strain upon the relations subsisting between the Saint and the Árd-Rí. Finnachta having excluded the lands belonging to the Order of St. Colm Cille from the privileges accorded to the foundations of SS. Patrick, Finian, and Ciaran, Adamnán again provoked, and this time apparently with better reason, by this fresh infringement of the dignity of Ulad, put a curse upon the king, and foretold that his life should be short, that he should fall by a fratricidal stroke, and that the kingdom should pass from his race for ever; which triple prophecy was fulfilled when Finnachta and his son Bresal were slain by a cousin in the year 693-4.

A few years after these events, according to the annals, Adamnán acquired a more honourable distinction by means of the ecclesiastical legislation embodied in his ‘Canons,’ and by the more famous law, or code of laws, known as the Cáin Adamnáin. Each of these was promulgated at a Mórdáil—‘Great Assembly’—the Diet or States-General of Ireland. According to the more general account, both were passed at a Mórdáil held in 697 at Tara, or, according to others, at Ballyshannon, Derry, or Raphoe. Probably Tara was assumed inadvertently to have been the place of meeting by some chronicler who, bearing in mind the ancient custom, had forgotten that Tara had been abandoned since the cursing of it by St. Ruadán. According to the Four Masters and Tigernach, the last Feis of Tara was held in the year 554 A.D. Or, possibly, there is a confusion between the general Mórdáil of Éire and an ecclesiastical Synod which appears to have been held at Tara about the time in question. In this uncertainty as to which of the several Synods and Mórdála, held towards the close of the seventh century, was the scene of Adamnán’s legislation, Canon O’Hanlon suggests that the Synod of 694-5 would be the most likely occasion of the enactment of the Canons, if it were certain that Adamnán was present (op. cit. ix. 508 and 512), and that the Cáin was passed at the Mórdáil of 696-7, in the reign of Árd-Rí Loingseach mac Oengusa, according to the general account; this likewise agrees with the treatise about to be mentioned, which, however, gives Birr as the place of assembly. The most important article of the Cáin was the renewal of a law passed by St. Colm Cille at the Mórdáil of Druimceatt in 590, but since fallen into desuetude, whereby women were exempted from military service. The Cáin Adamnáin is an Old Irish treatise, probably of the tenth century, according to Professor Kuno Meyer, who has published an edition of it, with notes, in Anecdota Oxoniensia (Mediæval and Modern Series, pt. viii.). It is not the work of Adamnán himself, but merely purports to give an account of the laws which he passed, and the circumstances of his doing so. It is clearly compounded of various elements, and it is worked up into a complete story by dint of the employment of a number of fictitious details. It opens with a melancholy picture of the status of women in Ireland in Adamnán’s day, their home life being depicted as a state of abject slavery, while they were further liable to military service. These descriptions can only be accepted with very great limitations, for the laws, the Church literature, and the romances of Ireland contain abundant evidence to prove that the state of things here depicted, if it existed at all, was not generally prevalent, the picture drawn in the Cáin being greatly exaggerated for the greater honour and glory of Adamnán. At the same time there is no need to go to the opposite extreme, and assume that the position accorded to women in ancient Ireland realised in practice the theories of chivalry. It does not follow that the author of the Cáin invented the circumstances he describes; indeed, there is evidence that a similar state of things existed in Ireland so late as Tudor times at least, while parallels might be found in the great cities of a much more recent date. But it is the wont of those who treat of social and moral evils, whether as reformers or satirists, or in a less worthy capacity—from Juvenal to Zola, and from Salvian to Father Bernard Vaughan—to represent the sporadic and occasional evils of society as its habitual condition. As regards the military service of women, it appears certain that women did, and probably were required to, serve in the wars to some extent. Nevertheless, neither the annals nor the romances warrant the conclusion that great troops of women swelled the Irish armies. It seems probable that in the varied and complicated system of the Irish land tenure, female tenants may have been obliged to render military service ratione tenurae, instances of which practice occur in other parts of Europe.

Whatever the nature or extent of the evil, it was greatly taken to heart by Adamnán’s mother Ronat, and dutiful as her son was to her, she counted his service as nought until he should effect the emancipation of women. One day, as they were on a journey—Adamnán, after his usual custom, carrying his mother on his back—they came to a battlefield, where so great had been the slaughter that the women lay, the soles of one touching the neck of another; but the most piteous sight of all was a woman with her head in one place and her body in another, and her baby lying on the breast of the corpse, with a stream of milk on one cheek, and a stream of blood on the other. At his mother’s bidding, Adamnán set the woman’s head upon the trunk, made the sign of the cross with his staff, and she arose and related her experiences in the next world between her death and resuscitation. Ronat, still further confirmed in her purpose, imposed incredible austerities upon Adamnán in order to coerce him into compliance. At the end of four years an angel came to him and bade him rise, but he refused to do so until he received a promise that women should be emancipated. He then came forward with his proposals of reform, which offended several of the lay princes, so that they combined to put Adamnán to death. At length terms were agreed upon, and all parties pledged themselves that in future women should be exempted from military service, and that no women should be slain by men without full legal penalties being exacted. This compact was solemnly sworn to by the contracting parties; the formula of the oath was founded upon that whereby the kings in pagan times had been wont to bind themselves in matters of great moment, and which survived, with necessary modifications, for some centuries after the introduction of Christianity. They took to witness the sun and moon, and all the other elements of God; the Apostles, Gregory, the two Patricks, and other Irish saints. The terms of the oath explain the form of St. Patrick’s famous hymn.

The construction of the treatise is extremely loose; the form, in many places, is that of the ecclesiastical legend, and the present redaction was evidently made in the clerical interest. As a further instance of its composite character, in c. 33 it makes a fresh start with the words Incipit sententia angeli Adamnano, and relates how the angel, after two previous punishments inflicted, came to Adamnán and smote him on the side, bidding him go to Ireland and enact a law that no woman should be slain with impunity. It also states that Adamnán’s law was extended to clerical students and children, and further gives sundry amendments of the laws relating to cases of assault, rape, slander of chastity, etc. Women, in turn, were made liable for the crimes they might commit; in particular, they were rendered punishable for poison, arson, or undermining a church by the old Irish penalty of being set adrift in a boat with a single paddle, and one vessel of meal and one of water.

The accuracy of this treatise in point of detail hardly calls for discussion. It is a specimen of the form in which we have received much of our information concerning ancient Ireland; a form combining fact and fiction in a manner which often renders it impossible to distinguish between the two without extraneous evidence, which is seldom to be had. Here we have as the substratum an account of Adamnán’s actual legislation, set off with an abundance of fictitious detail, in which a redactor has attempted to combine two different accounts of the circumstances which brought about Adamnán’s action, while he has added a quantity of other legislative reforms, more or less connected with the subject, but only a part of which, if any, can be due to Adamnán himself. Here, as in the case of the Boruma, it is left for the most part to our subjective views of probability to determine what amount of reliance is to be placed upon the historical facts which form the main subject of the treatise. Despite the crudity of the work, perhaps the evidence in favour is rather stronger in this case, for not only is it natural to assume that the statements of a legal nature would be tolerably in accordance with the facts, which must have been known to many of the readers, but the ascription of the reform to Adamnán—under the alternative name of the lex innocentium—appears to have been accepted without hesitation by several independent authorities, including the Annals of Ulster and the Fis Adamnáin.

The last action of Adamnán recorded by the annals, and one that seems fairly well authenticated, is a sentence of excommunication pronounced by him at Tara upon one Irgalach for murder. One of the annalistic fragments preserves a report that Adamnán, at the close of his life, was expelled from Iona by his own monks on account of his action in the Easter controversy; this, however, appears to be without foundation, for the fact of his death and burial at Iona seems certain. Another rumour was that grief at the recalcitrance of his monks, for the same reason, had brought about his death, for which no other explanation seems needed than his seventy-seven years, mostly spent in strenuous toil, though, of course, any vexation or distress of mind might well be the immediate cause of death.

Our available information concerning Adamnán does not set a very vivid picture of him before us. His own writings are of a somewhat impersonal character, while the Irish annalists seldom bring to their portrayal of historical persons that power of characterisation and description constantly apparent in the romances. We have already seen Bede’s testimony to Adamnán’s learning and high character; the Four Masters, in their notice of Adamnán’s death (which they place in 703) refer to that passage, and add that he was ‘tearful, penitent, given to prayer, diligent, ascetic, temperate; for he never used to eat excepting on Sunday and Thursday only; he made a slave of himself to these virtues; and, moreover, he was wise and learned in the clear understanding of the Holy Scriptures of God.’ And a few scattered notices of the kind appear to comprise all that we have in the way of direct description. Nevertheless, the authentic record of his actions, combined with the more doubtful evidence of later annalists—which, at the very least, serve to show what notion of him survived, and was transmitted to posterity—may enable us to trace with tolerable accuracy the more salient outlines of his character. That his was a striking and commanding personality there is no doubt: he appears to have been fashioned after the same type as so many of the leading Churchmen of the Middle Ages, from Ambrose down; a type which combined a great proficiency in learning, and a devotion to the virtues of the cloister, with a strenuous activity which asserted itself alike in the diligent administration of their ecclesiastical office, and in the exercise of their influence upon secular affairs. In these last, their intervention commonly made for righteousness, and aimed at putting a conscience into politics, never a superfluous task. They often stood forward as the champions of the wronged and oppressed, and in this cause, and, even more, in defence of the claims and immunities of the Church, never feared to encounter the temporal power; rather otherwise, in fact. This side of Adamnán’s character appears in his mission to Northumbria on behalf of the kidnapped Irishmen, and his alleged defence against Finnachta of the privileges of his own order; above all, in his amelioration of the lot of women—possibly, too, of students and children—the records whereof, whatever the amount of historical fact which they contain, reveal the estimation in which Adamnán was held. At the same time, if the incident of the Boruma be either true in fact, or true to his character, it is evident that he was as liable as any of his great compeers, foreign or Irish—Colm Cille and Ruadán, for instance—to allow his zeal to be enlisted in the cause of party interest or personal sympathies, to the great public detriment. He enjoyed a traditional reputation for filial piety, and, at least, tribal patriotism. His recorded asceticism, however severe, does not appear, save in some of the least credible passages of the Cáin, to have been carried by him to the same lengths of self-torture, worthy of a solitary of the Thebaid, or an Indian yogi, as it was by many of the Irish saints. Indeed, his was mainly a life of action, and even the learning for which he was famous is more apparent in the quality of his work than in the quantity of it. The part of his career which left the most enduring mark upon his Church and his country was the mainly successful struggle which he carried on as the leading Irish champion of Catholicism in the long contest, begun before his time, and only finished by Malachi and Gelasius in the middle of the twelfth century, between the respective partisans of national and of general usages in the ritual of the Irish Church. That portion of his work which he left unfinished, the submission of his own order, was completed within a quarter of a century after his death, and the ties between the Churches of Ireland and other countries of the West were drawn tighter by the removal of the chief cause of separation.

The Vision which has come down to us under the name of Adamnán is not to be included among his own works. The language and style, which belong to a much later period, are conclusive as to this; while several allusions in it, as that to the donation of Constantine, also point to a later date. Dr. Whitley Stokes, indeed, considers that ‘it is not older than the eleventh century,’ but Professor Windisch, in the preface to his edition, demurs to this conclusion, and holds that it was written in the tenth century, possibly even in the ninth (Irische Texte, i. 167 sqq.). Nevertheless, it is not to be classed among the literary forgeries with which the Middle Ages teem, composed sometimes animo fraudandi, sometimes, in the loose views then prevailing as to literary property and literary fame, in order to secure the prestige of a great name. The present work, however, never professes to be Adamnán’s own composition. It invariably speaks of him in the third person, terming him the ‘High Scholar of the Western World,’ and refers to his legislation at the Mórdáil, where he is said to have first received his Vision, and to his subsequent preaching as matters of past history. It remains, then, to be considered how this Vision came to be associated with his name. We have seen that he had become the hero of a saga-cycle, into which fiction had made an entrance: whether we must class the doubtful episodes as historical romance merely, or as facts set off by the aid of fiction. This, however, brings us little further, for it is certain that this popular reputation was earned by his actual achievements: again, therefore, we are faced with the question how to distinguish fact from fiction. It may be that the true author sought for his own teaching the authority of so famous a saint; or he may have had before him an anonymous work, and inserted the name of Adamnán from a like motive, or from a belief in the fact; or, again, the work may be what it professes to be, and may have for its basis a more or less accurate tradition of Adamnán’s own teaching. A tradition, I venture to think, should be allowed a certain weight where it is in conflict neither with ascertained fact nor with probability; and here the probabilities appear to be rather favourable than otherwise, which, perhaps, in the absence of further evidence, is the nearest approach to a conclusion we can hope to make. It is not a forgery; it is not a polemical work, where the author might wish to shoot forth his darts from under the shield of some Ajax of controversy. Neither is it a mere floating legend, ready to be tacked on to any name indifferently; on the contrary, it is written with great care, and with a literary and constructive skill rare at that day. It makes no profession, and betrays no purpose, save to give the substance of the Vision which Adamnán related to the Mórdáil, and of his subsequent preaching. The fashion of the day renders it highly probable that Adamnán’s teaching or preaching may have assumed this form. Then his fame and authority, at the most active period of Irish letters, might avail to preserve a work, thus widely published, for a longer time than the 150 or 250 years which intervened between his death and the composition of the Vision, even in its present form, while if the reasons adduced in a later place (Part 11. Sec. 5, post) for supposing it to be of a composite character be correct, it follows that the latest author must have had before him—as in any case he probably had—materials of an earlier date.

Thus the Fis and the Cáin appear to institute an exact parallel. We have as the basis of the extant work, in the one case, a law enacted, in the other, a Vision recited, by the saint, which a later writer has worked up into literary form, while other details relating to the same subject-matter, but entirely irrelevant, have been added later.

Two versions of the Fis Adamnáin exist, in two mediæval MSS., now in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. Of these, the Lebor na h-Udri, or ‘Book of the Dun’ (sc. ‘Cow’), is the oldest extant Irish MS. which contains a collection of secular literature, being copied about 1103 from another MS., probably about fifty years older, which was itself compiled from various earlier writings. The other MS., the Lebor Brec, ‘Speckled Book,’ was written towards the end of the fourteenth century. Both versions have been edited and printed by Professor Windisch in Irische Texte, vol. i. I believe that no complete translation of either version has been published in a form generally accessible, though O’Donovan made and translated extracts from it, and Dr. Whitley Stokes has edited and translated it, with notes, but printed fifty copies only for private distribution (Simla, 1870). I have had the advantage of referring to this edition, thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Alfred Nutt, to whom I am indebted for several valuable suggestions and corrections.

The following translation has been made from the L.U. version. There is little difference in substance between the two versions, but the L.U. is more attractive from a literary point of view, the L.B. being somewhat overloaded in places with Latin quotations, while it wants the concluding chapter, which the L.U. possesses.

3. Translation of the Fis Adamnáin

2. Now there are multitudes of the saints and righteous ones of the Lord of Creation, and of the apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ, unto whom have been revealed the secrets and the mysteries of the Heavenly Kingdom, and the golden wages of the righteous; likewise the divers pains of Hell, with them that are set in the midst thereof. For unto the Apostle Peter was shown the four-cornered vessel, let down from Heaven,[6] with four cords to it, and they with sound as sweet as any music. Also, the Apostle Paul was caught up to Heaven,[7] and heard the ineffable words of the angels, and the speech of them that dwell in Heaven. Moreover, on the day of Mary’s death, all the apostles were brought to look upon the pains and miserable punishments of the unblest; for the Lord commanded the angels of the West[8] to open up the earth before the face of the apostles, that they might see and consider Hell with all its torments, even as Himself had told them, long time before His Passion.

3. Finally, to Adamnán ua Thinne, the High Scholar of the Western World, were revealed the things which are here recorded; for his soul departed from out his body on the feast of John Baptist, and was conveyed to the celestial realm, where the heavenly angels are, and to Hell, with its rabble rout. For no sooner had the soul issued from out the body, than there appeared to it the angel that had been its guardian while in the flesh, and bore it away with him to view, firstly, the Kingdom of Heaven.

4. Now the first land to which they come is the Land of Saints. A bright land of fair weather is that country. In it are diverse and wondrous companies, clad in cassocks of white linen, with hoods of radiant white upon their heads. The saints of the Eastern world form a company apart in the East of the Land of Saints; the saints of the Western world are to the West of the same land; the saints of the Northern world and of the South, in their great concourse, are to the South and North. For every one that is in the Land of Saints may freely listen to the music, and may contemplate the vault,[9] wherein are the nine classes of Heaven, after their rank and order.

5. For one spell, then, the saints keep singing marvellous music in praise of God; for another, they are listening to the music of the heavenly host; for the saints have no other need than to listen to the music that they hear, and to contemplate the radiance that they see, and to sate themselves with the fragrance that there is in that land. The wonderful Lord is face to face with them, in the South-east,[10] and a crystal veil between; to the South is a golden portico, and through it they discern the form and adumbration of the people of Heaven. No veil, however, nor cloud is between the Host of Heaven and the Host of the Saints, but those are ever manifest and present unto these, in a place that is over against them. A circle of fire surrounds this place, yet do they all pass in and out, and it does scathe to none.

6. Now, the Twelve Apostles and Mary the pure Virgin form a band apart, about the mighty Lord. Next to the Apostles are the Patriarchs and Prophets, and the disciples of Jesus. On the other side are holy Virgins, at Mary’s right hand, and with no great space between. Babes and striplings are about them on every side, and the bird-choirs of the heavenly folk, making their minstrelsy. And amid these companies, bands of angels, guardians of the souls, do perpetual suit and service in the Royal presence. No man is there in this present life who may describe those assemblies, or who may tell of the very manner of them. And the bands and companies which are in the land of saints abide continually in even such great glory as aforesaid, until the great Parliament[11] of Doom, when the righteous Judge, on the Day of Judgment, shall dispose them in their stations and abiding places, where they shall contemplate God’s countenance, with no veil nor shadow between, through ages everlasting.

7. But great and vast as are the splendour and the radiance in the Land of Saints, even as hath been said, more vast, a thousand times, the splendour which is in the region of the Heavenly Host, about the Lord’s own throne. This throne is fashioned like unto a canopied chair,[12] and beneath it are four columns of precious stone. Though one should have no minstrelsy at all, save the harmonious music of those four columns, yet would he have his fill of melody and delight. Three stately birds are perched upon that chair, in front of the King, their minds intent upon the Creator throughout all ages, for that is their vocation. They celebrate the eight [canonical] hours, praising and adoring the Lord, and the Archangels accompany them. For the birds and the Archangels lead the music, and then the Heavenly Host, with the Saints and Virgins, make response.