St. Paul, like Tundale, exclaimed, and asked why man should be born for such misery; but Michael replied that beneath those depths a still greater depth remained. This was a well, covered, and sealed with seven seals, whence proceeded such a stench that St. Paul started back. Here were imprisoned such as had denied the articles of the Christian faith.[213] These called upon St. Paul, St. Michael, and the ‘twelve peers,’ to pray for them, and that so loudly that their cry reached to Heaven; but God Himself replied that no pardon was possible for those that had rebelled against Him; howbeit, He was prevailed upon by the prayers of the Saints to grant them the usual Sunday respite, which was made to last from none on Saturday to prime on Monday.

The authorship of this Vision is unknown, so that there is no saying whether or not it was composed under the influence of the Irish Visions. The date and other circumstances would admit of this, and it has much in common with them; notably, the manner in which the familiar bridge episode is treated is very similar to that of the Fis Adamnáin; nevertheless, the greater part of it might quite as well have been derived from other sources, and it bears at least as strong a resemblance to the Apocalypses of St. Peter and St. Paul; like them, but to a greater extent, it aims at the recompense of specific crimes by the appropriate punishments. However, there is a considerable group of Visions, the authors of which, though foreigners, have confessedly drawn from Irish sources. This series dates back at least as far as the time of Bede, to whom, likewise, we are indebted for the earliest account of the visions of St. Fursa, and for several particulars of the life of Adamnán. For Bede has recorded a vision seen by Drihthelm, a Northumbrian monk, who related it to one Haemgils, then a hermit in Ireland, from whom Bede received it.[214] The soul of Drihthelm, on parting from the body, was taken in charge by an angel, who brought him to a great valley in the north-east, which was Purgatory. One side of the valley was covered with flames, the other with ice, with the usual accompaniments of hail and snowstorms, filth, evil spirits, etc. They afterwards came to a great pit and a fiery plain, where they saw globes of fire rising and sinking, and in them the souls of men were imprisoned.[215] Here Drihthelm was assailed by demons armed with fiery forks, but the angel rescued him. They finally reached a wall in the south-east,[216] wherein was no opening. They were conveyed to the top of it, whence they could see a wide, flowery plain, and the light on it was brighter than the sun at noon. People in shining raiment were walking there; these were the boni sed non valde, who were to dwell there until Judgment. Beyond this could be descried a yet brighter region, whence fragrant odours and the singing of the saintly choirs were borne to them. This narrative, commonplace as it is, proves the early date of several features of some of the principal visions, which were composed at a much later period.

By far the most famous of the present group of visions are those associated with St. Patrick’s Purgatory, which attained to a popularity which almost surpassed that of the Vision of Tundale or the Voyage of St. Brendan.

It would seem that the earliest known version of this legend is the vision seen in 1153 by the knight Owen, and written soon after the middle of the twelfth century by Henry of Saltrey, a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Huntingdon, who received the story from Gilbert, Abbot of Louth. Owen was an Irishman in the service of King Stephen, from whom he received knighthood. Like Tundale, he was a brave soldier, but in the course of an ungoverned life had been guilty of rapine, lust, sacrilege, and other crimes. In the course of time he repented, and returned to Ireland, where he heard of an old tradition, to the effect that once St. Patrick, when his preaching had failed to move a pagan audience, wrought their conversion by causing a chasm to open, through which the next world became visible to them. Tradition gave out an island in Loch Derg, in the County Donegal, as the scene of this miracle, and there a religious house was established. Owen presented himself to the Abbot, and prevailed on him to allow him to enter the cavern, which he did after being duly prepared by fasting and prayer. He was conducted by a party of monks along a dark passage, and then through a brightly lighted cloister. After this he was left to himself, when he was assailed by a party of demons, from whom he escaped by pronouncing the name of the Lord. Like Fursa, he was exposed to repeated attempts of the kind, but always extricated himself without need of angelic succour. He traversed various plains set apart for the purgation of different offences. Among other torments, mostly of the conventional kind, which seem to presuppose an acquaintance with the visions already related, he beheld sinners of various kinds suspended from trees by the members that had offended. Others were plunged in molten metal to a depth corresponding to the gravity of their offences,[217] while demons tore them with hooks whenever they attempted to raise themselves therefrom.[218] Others were congealed in ice,[219] buried in fiery trenches,[220] buffeted by violent winds,[221] gnawed by serpents,[222] etc. Although the Purgatory of Owen resembles the Inferno of Dante in so many respects, it differs from it, and, indeed, from most of its predecessors, in not distinguishing between the various crimes that are chastised there. One instance of an idea common to the author and to Dante is very suggestive: Owen passed several figures lying on the ground crucified, like Dante’s Caiaphas.[223] Like Dante and Tundale, Owen recognised several of his friends.

He came to the mouth of Hell, which here, again, assumes the form of a demon’s wide-opened mouth, into which, each time he draws in his breath, swarms of souls are drawn in with it, to be again puffed out as he respires—an image already occurring in the Vision of Esdras before referred to. There, too, was the usual bridge, spanning a foul flood, wherein condemned spirits wallowed. At the far end of it was a crystal wall, and in it a gate of gold and jewels, which led to the Terrestrial Paradise, the halting-place of the spirits that were cleansed of sin, and awaiting their final perfection; while, to render this anticipation of Dante yet more striking, a multitude of these passed before Owen, chanting psalms. Two archbishops met him, and conducted him to the top of a mountain, whence he obtained a Pisgah view of the gate of Paradise, ‘like gold refining in a glowing furnace.’ Then, with a flash of fire from Heaven, the vision ended.

Nothing certain is known concerning the origin of this legend, though it evidently existed long before Henry of Saltrey’s day. As we have seen, it was accounted for by a legend connecting it with the Apostle of Ireland; it is referred to by Joscelin, also a twelfth-century writer, in his Life of St. Patrick, but there is no mention of it in any of the earlier writings concerning that Saint. Indeed, some chroniclers refer it to one Patrick, a hermit of the neighbourhood, and this origin is given in the popular story of Fortunatus; and it is unlikely that popular tradition would have had recourse to some obscure and even hypothetical Saint, if the connection with the Apostle had been generally recognised. Probably, the island may have been the scene of some local pagan cult, taken over, with the necessary modifications, by the Christian community established there, in something the same manner as St. Brigid’s fire at Kildare. From the resemblance which the practices there observed bore to those connected with the Cave of Trophonius and the Eleusinian Mysteries, it seems not unlikely that if the origin of the rites could be traced, some analogies might be established between the ancient worship of Ireland, and some of the more obscure Greek cults. However this may be, the legend of St. Patrick’s Purgatory soon achieved an almost unexampled popularity, and was speedily adopted into the popular fictions of most European countries. Marie de France, in the early part of the thirteenth century, made it the subject of a long poem, and was closely followed by several Anglo-Norman writers, while it is recorded in the learned collections of Jean de Vitry, Vincent de Beauvais, and Caesar of Heisterbach, and by several of the leading chroniclers, such as Giraldus Cambrensis, Matthew Paris, and Froissart. Meanwhile, the island in Loch Derg became one of the recognised holy places to which pilgrims even from remote parts of Europe, such as Italy, Hungary, etc., resorted for the purpose of procuring the remission of past sins, by undergoing the purgatorial discipline in this life, and the English archives still contain records of certificates given by Edward III. and Richard II. to several illustrious foreigners, testifying to their due accomplishment of the pilgrimage and its attendant rites.[224] I do not know to what authority it was intended that these certificates should commend the recipients.

The institution never received the formal sanction, nor even the approbation, of the Church, and in the year 1497 the purgatorial cavern was closed by order of Pope Alexander vi. For some time to come, however, the tradition lived on in various forms: in hagiology, as in the Aurea Legenda of Jacobus de Voragine; in such specimens of popular literature as the story of Fortunatus; in Tassoni’s burlesque poem, La Secchia Rapita, and in the tragedy of Calderon, to which it furnished both title and subject. The two points in connection with it that concern us, are the facts that the legend continued the Irish school of the Fis, and that it achieved a popularity so widespread and so enduring as to render it almost certain that it must, at least, have come to Dante’s knowledge.

A few years before the Vision of Owen, a somewhat similar work had been produced in Italy—the Vision of Alberic, the son of a Campanian noble, and a monk of the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. For the most part, this vision is constructed on the conventional lines, but in several of its details it is in such close agreement with Dante’s Inferno as to call for some remark.[225] The commencement, indeed, appears to be original. At the age of ten, Alberic fell into a trance, which lasted for nine days. While in this state he was visited by a dove, which put its bill within his mouth, and carried him to St. Peter, who, in company with two angels, conveyed him to the nether world. On his way thither he passed through the Limbus infantium, which also is an unusual feature in works of this class. Among the penalties of Hell which bear a more or less close resemblance to Dante’s Inferno, are a valley where the unchaste stood in fire and ice to a greater or less depth according to the gravity of their offence; tyrants and infanticides were enclosed in masses of fire; homicides were plunged in a lake of fire, like blood; breakers of ecclesiastical vows were gnawed by serpents. One purgatorial infliction resembles the punishment of suicides in Inferno xiii.: the souls in question were hunted by a demon, mounted on a dragon, through plains full of thorns and briars, where they left scraps of their clothes and flesh upon the thorns, until, being lightened of their superfluous flesh, they escaped, and were thus purged. Several familiar features reappear, and are, in some measure, reduplicated; thus, besides the bridge, there is a red-hot ladder, which the wicked have to ascend until they drop off; Hell’s mouth again appears as the mouth of a serpent, drawing in and ejecting the souls with his breath, to which are added a dog and a lion, who, by their breath, blow the souls to their allotted stations. Alberic, like several of his predecessors, and also like Dante, is assailed by demons armed with hooks. He crossed the bridge to the Terrestrial Paradise, where the purified spirits dwell until the Beatific Vision shall be revealed to them after Judgment. This place is a flowery plain, from out of which rises the Mountain of Paradise, surrounded by a wall, over which Alberic was permitted to look, though he might neither enter, nor repeat what he saw there. Alberic, too, received St. Peter’s instructions in cosmology—of a very crude description—and as to the virtues of a monastic life, etc.; he was then bidden to return and relate his vision.

As the influence of the Irish school upon European letters waned, and gradually spent itself, a deterioration in the Vision literature became apparent; it lost what little method and symmetry that school had introduced into it, and reverted to the primitive amorphous type; we can no longer trace any indication of original thought or invention; little, even, of vividness or picturesque description is left. Not that this deterioration of quality is attended by any diminution of quantity: on the contrary, several causes combined to render the output greater than ever. The rapid revival of ecclesiastical literature led, as one of its results, to increased activity in this long-worked field, and improved communications enabled the inmates of each monastery to study and imitate the works of their fellows in other countries and provinces. Moreover, the anticipation of a speedy end of this world, which prevailed towards the close of the tenth century, directed the trend of religious thought towards the world to come, and even after the cause had ceased to be operative, the effect remained. Then came the reform of several monastic orders, and the establishment of the friars, resulting in a renewed activity in preaching and teaching, which would naturally quicken the demand for subjects so well adapted to moving exhortation and edification; while the rise of pictorial art, which found attractive subjects in visions of Judgment, and representations of the Divine Glory, at once fostered, and was fostered by, the prevalence of those same subjects in popular literature. At the same time, the rise of a literature in the vernacular tongues would naturally co-operate with the development of a genuine theology to diminish the importance of the Visions of the Otherworld as works of imagination or vehicles of instruction, and to relegate them to the domain of the homilist and fabliast.

Accordingly, the literature of the Middle Ages teems with stories dealing with the Otherworld, and the lot of departed souls therein. Some of them occur in the lives of Saints and Martyrs; others describe a visit to Heaven or Hell, made either in vision, or in propria persona, or else record some traveller’s temporary return from the bourne, charged with a message for the living. Many were composed with some particular end in view, in order to convey a warning to some notorious sinner, or to instruct by the edifying fate of some one remarkable for virtue or vice; often, again, with the practical object of exacting restitution or reparation from the sinner or his heirs.

The subject was equally popular in sacred and profane literature, appearing in homily and apologue, folk-tale and fabliau, in poems serious and comic, tending to edification and otherwise.

In all this there was little enough of originality, or intrinsic merit of any kind, save only when some aspect of the subject happened to fall into the hands of a skilled raconteur. Nevertheless, it all served to keep the subject present to the public mind, and thus to afford that degree of preparation, which always appears necessary alike for the production and reception of any great and novel work of art, and likewise to amass a considerable store of material, ready for any hand capable of dealing with it. At length, in Dante, the one poet arose whose genius was sufficient to extricate from this heap of trivialities the great dogmas of the Christian faith which lay at the bottom, and, by his matchless constructive power, to give form and substance to the theme, to illustrate it with all that his age could afford of philosophy and learning, to animate it with the spirit of devotion and sublime human passion, and to enrich it with all the resources of the poetical imagination.[226]

7. Conclusion

In the foregoing pages it has been attempted to trace, from its various sources, the progress of the legend which culminated in Dante’s Commedia. It did not form a part of this design to collect the corresponding traditions which abound in the folklore of many times and peoples, nor even to give an exhaustive account of the forms which the legend assumed in the several fields which have come within our purview; rather to confine our examination to those examples which may be regarded as its sources, or may have contributed to its transmission, or determined the form which it assumed in later stages of its development. We have seen that Dante’s poem had been led up to by a long series of predecessors, like it in theme, if in nothing else, and that it had already approved its fitness for a place in the world’s literature, by the success which it had achieved, in countless forms, among peoples of widely diverse stages of culture. We have also seen how the Irish Church, in its palmy days, developed a highly characteristic treatment of the theme, and while following, in the main, the accepted traditions of the mediæval Church, introduced certain modifications of a strongly individual and national type. Of this class the Vision of Adamnán has been selected for a specimen, as representing the highest level attained by the school to which it belonged, and as being the most important contribution made to the growth of the legend within the Christian Church prior to the advent of Dante.

I have purposely abstained from offering a conjecture as to any possible indebtedness on the part of Dante to the Visions of the Irish school, and to the Fis Adamnáin in particular, further than as these, by reviving, transmitting, and popularising the theme, placed ready to his hand the subject which was, of all others, best adapted to his genius, and, at the same time, best calculated to appeal to the public of his day. The various topics into which this examination has compelled the writer to enter—Dante literature, Celtic tradition, folklore, mythology—are all favourite subjects with that type of theorist who is wont to accompany a small modicum of the bread of fact with an intolerable deal of the sack of hypothesis, to the no small detriment of critical sobriety, so that one who approaches the subject with no preconceived theory of his own to prove—unless, like those present at a revival meeting, he be set a-prophesying by contagion—is apt to become almost as sick of these shadows as was the Lady of Shalott of those in her magic glass. I have therefore endeavoured to present the author of the Fis Adamnáin merely as a ‘precursor’ of Dante, without attempting to prove him Dante’s ‘progenitor.’ All the same, I do not think I am transgressing these limits by suggesting the almost certainty that so omnivorous a reader as Dante must have been acquainted with works so generally known at and prior to his day as the Voyages of St. Brendan, the Vision of Tundale, and the legends of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, all of which were more or less influenced by the Fis Adamnáin, and were productions of the same school. There is no ground to imagine that Dante was acquainted with the Fis Adamnáin, nor can that supposition be entertained unless it can be shown that there existed in his day a translation of it into Latin, or one of the Romance languages, to which he might have had access. Indeed, pending the results of future research, it is impossible to put forward any work, or group of works, as the model which Dante followed. Probably no such model will ever be discovered, for the simple reason that none such ever existed. It is true that Dante availed himself freely of all that the previous Vision literature could give him, just as he drew copiously from every source at his command. But for the Latin classics, and Virgil in particular; but for the Latin Fathers, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory; the Schoolmen, from Erigena to Thomas Aquinas; the Romance poets of France and Italy, it is certain that Dante’s work, as we have it, could never have come into being. So much may be claimed for the Visions of the Irish school, and, apparently, no more, but even this much is enough to entitle them to a place in the history of modern literature. Indeed, independently of any such relation of cause and effect between the two, the writings of the Irish school would still constitute an interesting study, both as the fruits obtained by previous labours in the same field under widely different conditions, and even more for the light which they cast upon what is still one of the darkest places in the intellectual life of Europe.

We have had occasion to remark before upon several particulars wherein the analogy between the Fis Adamnáin—and, to a less extent, others of the Irish Visions—and the Commedia would appear to go deeper than can be explained by their common subject, and their use in common of the same general stock of ideas. However, it does not appear that the influence exercised by the Irish school mainly consisted in the introduction of novel ideas and incidents, though even these were not entirely absent. Indeed, throughout the history of the Vision legend, we may observe a continual tendency to drop any national or personal characteristics which it may have acquired at a previous stage of its evolution. For instance, we have seen to how great an extent the popular Christian eschatology was modelled upon the classical Elysium and Tartarus, yet even the earlier Church works upon the subject contain no such references to classical personages and traditions as were employed so copiously by Dante, and, in a slight and tentative manner, by certain of his predecessors. The same may be said of the Oriental myths which formed part of the Hebrew contributions to the subject. So, in proportion as the late mediæval visions of the Otherworld recede in date from those of the Irish school, they tend to drop more and more of the structure and imagery which were peculiarly characteristic of the latter, as owing great part of their form or colour to the Irish national traditions. This process is carried still further by Dante, who rejected many of the most familiar incidents of the earlier visions: e.g. the bridge, the open mouth of the dragon as symbolising Hell, Enoch and Elijah beside the Tree of Life, and the bird-flocks about them, the special provisions for various kinds of the half-righteous, etc.

Thus, while exercising a secondary influence by further enriching the stock of material already in existence, the main function of the Irish Visions was to set a literary fashion, so to speak, whereby the Vision of the Otherworld came to be regarded as the most natural vehicle for conveying men’s thoughts and imaginations, as in other ages the epic, the drama, the dialogue, the pamphlet, the novel, and other forms of composition, have been specially affected for the like purpose.

It remains to say a few words respecting the literary merits of the Fis Adamnáin. Obviously there can be no rivalry, or even comparison, in this respect, between it and the poem which stands high among the supreme achievements of the human intellect. Noteworthy, rather, is the degree of excellence to which the earlier writer attains, when we consider what was the state of vernacular literature in the Europe of his day. His style, like the style of most Irish writers of the best period, is simple, picturesque, and forcible; the language is terse and pregnant, without being bald or meagre. There are certain writings of every age, differing much in merit, from which, as we read them, we seem to be hearing the author’s voice proceeding; where this is so, the style can hardly be other than good of its kind, however simple, and even rude, it may be, and however little it may owe to technical skill. This characteristic, I think, the work in question possesses; but this is an evanescent quality which must needs disappear in translation, especially such a translation as the present, where the aim has chiefly been at literal accuracy.

Mention has been made already of the advantages which this Vision possesses over most others of its class, by reason of its superiority in construction, which is manifested alike in the general design of the work, and in the superior grouping and visual presentment of certain portions, such as the description of Heaven, and the righteous assembled about the Throne. Our author, too, compares favourably with his fellows as regards his general cast of thought, as particularly in the stress which he lays upon the spiritual or emotional side of the sufferings of the lost, and the grave pity with which the contemplation of their fate repeatedly inspires him—a feeling wonderfully absent from the generality of his class.

Other characteristics are shared by him with the Irish romantic writers. One characteristic was common to both of them: there was life in what they wrote; the scene of their narrative became a veritable Tír na mbeo. They possessed, moreover, that sensibility to natural beauty, which is often, but most erroneously, assumed to be the peculiar property of modern times. They were keenly alive to the amenities of woods and meadows, flowers and birds, to the charm of colour, of brightness and light of every kind. Above all, they delighted in melodious sound, whether the music of strings or of the human voice, the note of birds and bees, the wind in the leaves, or the sound of falling water. Like Byron, they knew that ‘there’s music in all things, if men had ears.’ Nor did this delight in Nature consist in sensuous pleasure merely. They too were aware of ‘a something yet more deeply interfused’; it was ‘the light of setting suns’ across the ocean that wooed the Ui Corra to their quest of the Unknown; St. Brendan yearned for that retreat, ‘secret, hidden, secure, delightful, apart from men,’ which the ocean solitudes alone appeared to promise him.

This national susceptibility to beauty constantly asserts itself in our author, in manner appropriate to his theme. He also manifests the no less national capacity for vivid and picturesque description, and this without being led into redundancy, or straining after effect, the leading characteristic of his narrative being a simple earnestness which is often very effective. It is needless to dwell upon individual descriptions, most of which have been dealt with in their place. It is enough just to refer in particular to the description of Heaven, of the Throne, and the celestial choirs; the naïve but striking symbol of Omnipresence; the waste and desolate places of Hell in c. 30; the various kinds of penalties in cc. 25-29; the picture of the generous but carnally minded souls protected from the fiery sea by a rampart of the alms they had bestowed.

In two respects our author differs both from Dante and from several writers of his own school. His work contains no dissertations upon theology, morals, nor natural science; neither does he hold intercourse in the world of spirits with his own contemporaries, or with historical or mythical personages; hence we do not find in it even an anticipation of the dramatic episodes, or the endless procession of lifelike characters which render the Commedia a veritable microcosm. We are tempted to speculate upon the results which might have been obtained, had our author brought to the treatment of his subject the dramatic force, the vivid portraiture, and the narrative power, which are displayed in the great romantic cycles of Irish story.

Soon after the time when our author wrote, the development of the national literature, and, indeed, all other forms of national development, were brought, by pressure of circumstances, to a stand. Often since then the subjects and characters of Irish tradition have furnished themes for masterpieces of European literature, but these intellectual triumphs have been like the victories which Irish arms have won for others, and under banners not their own. It is only in our own day that any serious and well-directed attempt has been made to resume the interrupted work upon truly national lines. Even within the last few years the results obtained, and the promise shown, warrant a belief that success may prove more speedy and complete than could have been deemed possible a single decade ago; and with success may come—who knows?—an infusion into modern literature of a new spirit and new methods, of which it stands so grievously in need. Καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ἆθλον, καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς μεγάλη.

FOOTNOTES