The deep and perilous sea

of sacred narrative

On Peter Brown

and the role of saints in Early Christian Ireland

Reseach Paper ‘Holy men and women’Instructor: Claudia Rapp (visiting professor UCLA)

June 2002

Marian Hellemainfo@marianhellema.nl

This document is made available under the terms of Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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Table of contents1Introduction..........................................................................................................................3

2At the edge of the world: Early Christian Ireland................................................................4

Christianity in Ireland.......................................................................................................5

3Patrons, dead saints and exemplars: the models of Peter Brown........................................8

Patrons and dead saints....................................................................................................8

Exemplars and Ireland......................................................................................................9

4Brigit, Patrick and Columba: the sources...........................................................................11

Cogitosus’ Life of St. Brigit...............................................................................................11

Muirchú’s Life of St. Patrick............................................................................................14

Adamnán’s Life of Columba.............................................................................................15

5Peter Brown as exemplar: analysis of the sources..............................................................18

Conventional and Irish hagiography...............................................................................18

Irish saints as patrons, dead saints and exemplars.........................................................19

Peter Brown as exemplar................................................................................................20

6Conclusion..........................................................................................................................22

7Bibliography.......................................................................................................................24

Primary sources...............................................................................................................24

Secondary literature........................................................................................................24

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1 Introduction

The seventh century Irish hagiographer Muirchú starts his Life of St. Patrick with an

image of himself as a writer: ‘I have taken my little talent - a boy’s paddle boat, as it were -

out on this deep and perilous sea of sacred narrative, where waves boldly swell to towering

heights among rocky reefs in unknown waters’1. This paper may convey the same feeling by

trying to apply the ideas of Peter Brown to Irish saints. Brown is widely acknowledged as a

founding father of the historiography of ‘holy men’ in Late Antiquity and the early Middle

Ages. His work on the role of holy men in society is innovative and has generated much

debate and new research. His ideas have evolved over time, but can be summarized in two

images of holy men. The first image is the holy man as ‘patron’, who mediates, arbitrates

and protects. This notion was broadened to include the cult of dead saints, particularly in

the West. The second metaphor is the holy man as ‘exemplar’, who plays an important role

in christianizing the pagan world by acting as an example and as an embodiment of

Christianity.

Ireland, however, was a special case in the Early Christian world, because it was never

part of the Roman Empire. This raises the question whether Peter Brown’s models can be

applied to the saints of Ireland. In this paper three Irish Saints’ Lives will be analysed, all

dating from the late seventh century: Cogitosus’ Life of St. Brigit, Muirchú’s Life of St.

Patrick and Adamnán’s Life of St. Columba. Despite all difficulties surrounding the

interpretation of the primary sources, an attempt will be made to establish whether Peter

Brown’s models fit these Saints’ Lives. The analysis of the texts will be preceded by a short

exploration of Early Christian Irish society and of Brown’s work.

1 Muirchú, Vita S. Patricii (VP), preface (1), ed. and tr. Ludwig Bieler, The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh (Dublin 1979) 63.

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2 At the edge of the world: Early Christian Ireland

In the early seventh century the missionary Columbanus called the Irish ‘the inhabitants

of the edge of the world’1. This view of Ireland as one of the furthest regions of the world was

general. Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire and its society differed in many ways

from the Roman world. It was not exposed to the same Roman influence of trade, culture,

cities, centralized government, bureaucracy, roads and military camps as most of the known

world. Knowledge about pre-Christian Ireland is scarce and is mainly based on

archaeological research. The evidence seems to indicate an important transition in the

fourth century, leading to more economic activity, more settlements and agricultural

changes. After the crumbling of the Roman administration in Britain, Irish seamen started

to control the Irish Sea, establishing trading relations with Britain, and occasionally

conducting raiding parties. There was much exchange of goods, ideas and people between

the lands around the Irish Sea and Northern Channel, which came to form a ‘Celtic

Mediterranean’ in the phrase of Peter Brown2. In this period (fourth and fifth century) the

Irish also established settlements in Wales and Scotland3.

In the period of the fourth to eighth century Ireland was an agrarian society without

cities. Power lay with the kin-groups, who formed ‘petty kingdoms’ (túatha). The petty kings

can be seen as a military aristocracy, but they did not form a consolidated class with political

power. There was no centralized government, although there were overkings, who were

overlords over several petty kings. Each petty king maintained order within his own

kingdom and his power was based on his kinship ties and his clients. The population can be

classified in three broad categories: the aristocracy, the clients and the slaves. In the

patronage system the aristocratic lord granted livestock to his clients in return for services,

rents or hospitality. Contrary to the Frankish patronage system, the land was not owned by

the lords but by the clients and was kept within the kin-group through inheritance. Next to

the aristocrats, the clients and the slaves, there was a separate group of ‘people of skill’. They

were the learned poets and keepers of the Irish tradition (filid); the judges and lawyers; and,

after Christianization, the ecclesiastical hierarchy and scholars. Ireland was very much an

heroic society, where physical power, courage, honour, gift-giving and hospitality were

important virtues4.

1 Quoted from T.M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge 2000) 182.2 Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom. Triumph and Diversity AD 200-1000 (Malden, Oxford 1996; paperback 1997) 81.3 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland 152-158. Harold Mytum, The Origins of Early Christian Ireland (London, New York 1992) 21, 25, 34-36.4 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland 69-80, 125. Kathleen Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (Londen 1966) 3-7.

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Christianity in Ireland

According to tradition Ireland was christianized in the fifth century by St. Patrick, a

Briton from a clerical family, who was captured as a slave by Irish raiders. After several

years in Ireland he escaped, was consecrated a bishop back in Britain and returned to

Ireland as a missionary. His missionary work took place in the fifth century, but when

exactly is not clear1. In fact there were probably already some Christian communities in the

south of Ireland at the time he arrived, in areas that had contact with Britain and the Roman

world. This can be deducted from the fact that pope Celestine sent Palladius as a bishop to

the Irish Christians in 431, which implies that some Christianization had taken place before

that. It seems likely that Christianity was first introduced in the Irish society at the

beginning of the fifth century2.

Ireland developed its own specific brand of Christianity. To understand this, first some

words on the development of the institutional church in the western part of the Roman

Empire. The ecclesiastical organization mirrored the administrative organization of the

Roman Empire since Christianity had become the state religion in the fourth century. The

geographical boundaries of the dioceses were the same as those of the Roman

administration and the episcopal sees were in the Roman cities. In the fifth century the

western Roman empire collapsed, but the ecclesiastical organization remained and even

took over some of its administrative powers. Ecclesiastical power lay with the clerical

hierarchy of archbishops and bishops. A separate strand of Christianity was formed by

monasticism, which took either the form of eremiticism or of monastic communities.

This type of church, with its episcopal hierarchy and its monasticism, was brought to

Ireland when its church started to develop in the fifth and sixth century. An important

difference was that Ireland had no obvious sees for the bishops because there were no Roman

cities. It seems that the bishops of the earliest Irish church chose their sees within the

territorial areas of the petty kings. But whereas in the rest of the Christian world ecclesiastical

power was centered in the episcopal hierarchy, in Ireland the monasteries developed a strong

position. Scholars don't agree on the exact relation between the ‘episcopal church’ and the

‘monastic church’ in Ireland. According to Kathleen Hughes the bishops’ position became

inferior to that of the abbots, because the bishops were tied to the bounderies of the tribal

kingdoms, whereas the monasteries were not. Moreover, the model of the episcopal church

was connected to the urban, Roman civilization and did not fit well in the Irish society. The

monastic ideal of the East, on the other hand, was to withdraw from urban civilization and

1 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland 239. 2 Hughes, Church in Early Irish Society 31.

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could easily be transposed to the non-urban Irish society1. T.M. Charles-Edwards does not

agree with the view that the monastic church took over from the episcopal church and points

out that the episcopal organization remained strong in Ireland. Although many bishops were

indeed tied to the petty kingdoms, some had a superior position which exceeded the

boundaries of a single kingdom. In Charles-Edwards' view the monastic church and the

episcopal church existed side by side and formed parallel hierarchies of power and status2.

Despite those different views, there seems no doubt that the Irish monasteries were

strong centers of power, religion, learning and culture. By the seventh century the Christians

were no longer a minority and the monasteries had become the most important centers of the

Irish world. The biggest ones were almost like cities in a society without real cities, with as

many as several hundreds of people in a single monastic community. They were also the

centers of literary life. Christianity had brought the Latin alphabet and books to Ireland,

which led to the development of written literature, first in Latin and from the seventh century

also in Irish. The monks read and wrote Christian texts, but they also preserved pre-Christian

oral traditions by writing them down3. This was also the period when many of the Lives of the

earliest Irish saints were composed.

The monasteries came to form a kind of network, where the most powerful monasteries

had a superior position over daughter monasteries and churches (paruchia). Among the most

powerful monastic centers were Armagh, Iona, Bangor, Clonard, Clonmacnois and Kildare.

In the seventh century there seems to have been a power struggle between several of those

monasteries, each claiming 'overlordship' over other monasteries and churches, just like an

overlord who claims tribute from his petty kings. The monastic contention was connected to

the power struggle between the secular royal dynasties, because the dynasties sometimes

chose to support a monastery and vice versa. By controlling a great monastery dynasties

could enhance their status, bring about unity within their territory and give ecclesiastical

positions to kinsmen. A monastery on the other hand could profit from the power of a

dynasty by claiming links with it and receiving land or protection. The monasteries tried to

corroborate their position by composing texts that proved their claims and hagiography was

one of the tools in this game. By claiming an important saint as their founder monasteries

tried to prove their rights, often linking them with stories about the rights of their supporting

dynasties and not shrinking from historical fabrications if necessary. An important alliance

1 Ibid. 79-90.2 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland 243-277.3 Ibid. 176.

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was between the Armagh monastery and the Uí Néill dynasty, each succeeding in gaining the

upper hand in the monastic and the secular domain respectively1.

Irish Christianity did not differ greatly from Christian faith on the whole. There were

some doctrinal differences, the most important being the Irish Easter date, which differed

from everywhere else and which caused a conflict within the Irish Church itself in the seventh

century. Just as in the rest of the Christian world, asceticism and the ideal of the desert

played an important role for the Irish monks. Of course there was no real desert in Ireland,

but by living in a monastic community a monk chose to live away from his family, whilst the

family formed the most important protection in the Irish kin-group society. To live in the

‘desert’ was to cut your ties with the world (just as the desert fathers of the East wanted to do)

and was a way of doing penance for your sins. Most of the Irish monks lived in monastic

communities, but some chose the peregrinatio, a specific form of the ‘desert’ for which the

Irish monks are well known. These were monks who lived in a voluntary exile and travelled to

other countries. They played an important role as missionaries in post-Roman western

Europe, especially in Britain, France, Germany and northern Italy. Some of them founded

new monasteries abroad, like Columbanus in Bobbio, Luxeuil and St. Gall, bringing a new

monasticism of stern discipline and penitence to the continent. The Irish peregrini completed

a circle: first there had been a movement from abroad (mainly Britain) to Ireland bringing

Christianity and now the Irish moved abroad to spread Christianity2.

1 Kim McCone, ‘Brigit in the seventh Century: a Saint with three Lives?’, Peritia 1 (1982) 109-111, 136-138. Charles Doherty, ‘The Cult of St. Patrick and the Politics of Armagh in the seventh Century’, in: Jean-Michel Picard ed., Ireland and Northern France AD 600-850 (Blackrock 1991) 53-94. J.M. Picard, ‘The Purpose of Adomnán’s Vita Columbae’, Peritia 1 (1982) 170-171.2 Peter Brown, Rise of Western Christendom 154-155, 205.

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3 Patrons, dead saints and exemplars: the models of Peter Brown

Reading Peter Brown is an interesting experience. He has a remarkable gift of finding

catchy phrases for complex ideas. A good example is his designation of the holy men of Syria

as ‘ombudsmen’. In this way he evokes an image that summarizes his ideas and stimulates

further thought. He presents his reader with carefully worded notions, using thoughtfully

chosen quotations and various bits of information and putting them together like the pieces

of a jigsaw puzzle. He tries to draw a coherent image of the holy men in their religious,

economic, social and political context. All these qualities make Brown’s work exciting, but it

can also be slightly intimidating, especially to the uninitiated. Sometimes Brown’s phrases

are less than clear and he is not the kind of writer concerned with giving exact data on ‘where,

when and how many’. The remainder of this chapter will describe four of his works which are

especially interesting with regard to the Irish saints.

Patrons and dead saints

Brown started his work on holy men in 1971 with the article ‘The Rise and Function of the

Holy Man in Late Antiquity’1. He analysed the specific geographic, economic, political and

social context of Syria in the fourth and fifth century to explain the function of holy men. The

holy man had many traits of the rural patron, which was a new role in the society of that

period. The holy man fits the model of patron in his intercession for earthly people in heaven,

in his mediation in conflicts between village people, in his involvement in local or national

politics, and in his protection against injustice. Essential for this ombudsman-like role was

his position as an outsider. He lived in the desert, at the edge of the village, or on top of a

pillar and had cut his ties with family and bodily desires. To fulfill his role, the holy man

needed power, which he could prove by performing miracles. His ascetism was the daily hard

work he needed to do to gain his position of power, to make himself an outsider and to

acquire intimacy with God. In a changing society where the old traditions lost their cohesive

force, the holy man was needed to make God approachable, to make the world manageable

and to allay anxiety.

In subsequent work Brown broadened this outlook, writing about the parting of the ways

between Eastern and Western Christianity. In his book The Cult of the Saints Brown focused

on Latin Christianity in the West, where the cult of dead saints became the most important

1 Peter Brown, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971) 80-101; reprinted in: Peter Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (London 1982) 103-152.

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factor in a new religious way of thinking1. A very important difference from the holy men of

the East was that the Western saints were dead. Their shrines and relics were physical

locations (loci) where the saint was still present and where the boundaries between heaven

and earth were removed. The saint had died as a man, but was seen as an intimate friend of

God, which made him well placed to protect people and intercede for them before God. The

cult of the saints affected the landscape as well, because the basilica’s were often outside the

cities, at the tombs of the saints. The focus of religious power shifted from the cities towards

the basilica’s in the countryside.

The bishops were often impresario’s of the cult of saints and by orchestrating it they could

merge the episcopal power with the power of the shrine. Brown links the development of the

cult of the saints to the crumbling of the Roman imperial administration, the rise of new

elites and the power conflicts between them. Bishops competed with lay elites for power and

used the cult of saints to stage themselves as patrons of the Christian communities. They

moved the relics of saints to their churches and presented themselves as visible patron of the

invisible saint. The relationship between man and saint was personal and intimate and was

described in terms of well-known social relations: the saint was like a patron who protects his

clients in the patronage system of the Roman elites, but also like a teacher and spiritual

guide. Relics were an important part of the cult of saints, because they were small and

portable, and could be moved and presented as a gift. This helped the spread of Christianity

outside the religious and political centers and even beyond the borders of the Roman world.

Exemplars and Ireland

In 1983 Brown wrote another important article: ‘The Saint as Exemplar in Late

Antiquity’2. He modified his model of the holy man as rural patron and charismatic

ombudsman, substituting it for the metaphor of ‘exemplar’ with its connotations of example,

role-model and the copying of books. In this article Brown links the role of saints to the

notion of the ancient philosopher. In antiquity the education in Greek and Latin literature

was focused on the examplary lives of the classics - for example emperors wanting to become

a new Augustus. The ideal was to follow the examples of the classics and become a classic

yourself. Christianity followed this tradition of turning people into classics, but added the

Exemplar of all exemplars: Christ. Holy men were exemplars for ordinary people, and were

moulded to the earlier exemplars of the prophets and the apostles, but in the end all those

exemplars were bearers of the image of Christ.

1 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints. Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago 1981; second impression London 1983).2 Peter Brown, ‘The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity’, Representations vol. 1, nr. 2 (1983) 1-25.

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Brown connects this image of the holy man as Christ-bearer with the notions of center

and periphery, borrowed from the sociologist Edward Shils. Christianity was the ‘central

value system’, but in every society the central beliefs are fragmented by the ‘periphery’ of day

to day concerns. Yet the central beliefs can concentrate in an event, an institution or a person

and ooze into the periphery. This happened with the Christian holy men: they were the

Christ-bearers in a mainly pagan world where Christianity was not yet a solid value system.

The holy man was not a representative of a well-organized, coherent Christianity, but he was

Christianity. For the earliest monks the Christian doctrine was basically alien; they had to

discover the meaning of the Scriptures ‘on the job’, by acting as exemplars. Often lacking

resources like books and images, they only had their own body and words to spread

Christianity. The asceticism of holy men was also connected to the image of Christ because it

imitated His victory over pain and evil. Brown links the rise of asceticism to the experience of

the Great Persecution: the martyrs enacted the Passion of Christ and showed God’s hand in

their victory. By depriving themselves the ascetics passed on this image of the presence of

Christ among men.

None of Peter Brown’s work so far is specifically dedicated to Ireland, but in his book The

Rise of Western Christendom he pays some attention to the Irish saints, describing them

mostly according to his exemplar model. He likens Ireland to the peripheral areas of the

Roman Empire in the fifth century, where the ‘saints of the open frontier’ had to deal with the

disappearing Roman elites and with new pagan people coming across the borders. In a

similar way St. Patrick had to deal with a mainly pagan society in which Christianity had a

minority position1. Brown also emphasizes the ideas about penance that were typical for the

Celtic world and that were brought to the Continent by Columbanus. For every sin there was

a specific penance, just like in the Irish laws, where for every breach of honour an appropriate

satisfaction had to be paid. The Irish saints were perceived as ‘soul friends’ who could help a

sinner make amends by seeking the mercy of God. The saint was not only a kind of doctor for

the soul, but also a judge who played an important role in the retribution of sins. After the

Christianization of Ireland, the clergy and monasteries took on the status of the druids and

the filid (the seers and poets). Their literate abilities gave them prestige as ‘men of skills’2.

1 Brown, Rise of Western Christendom 76-79, 82-83.2 Brown, Rise of Western Christendom 158-159, 203-204.

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4 Brigit, Patrick and Columba: the sources

The interpretation of the Irish saints’ Lives is a hazardous undertaking. First of all there

are the usual problems of all primary sources. We don’t know how representative they are

and how many similar documents were lost. We only have copies of the original documents

and we don’t know how many errors and changes were introduced by the copyists. We don’t

know how truthful the stories are (not to mention the philosophical problem of what ‘the

truth’ is anyway). On top of this come the problems of hagiography: saints’ Lives were not

meant as historical descriptions, but they usually had educational goals and often political

aims as well. They were written in a language that has become foreign to modern readers,

and they represent a way of thinking that is unfamiliar to most. For the Irish saints’ Lives

there is the additional problem that they were written long after the life of the saints

themselves. All this means that the saints’ Lives don’t tell us directly what we would like to

know, for example what the role of the saints was in their surrounding society. But the texts

can at least tell us something about what their authors thought important. The way they

portray the saints is an indication of the role they wanted the saints to play.

The rest of this chapter will analyse three Irish saints’ Lives: Cogitosus’ Life of St. Brigit,

Muirchú’s Life of St. Patrick and Adamnán’s Life of St. Columba. All three of them were

written in the late seventh century, which makes it possible to compare them with each other

in the way they depict the role of the saints. All three of them were written in Latin, and they

will be described in what is their most likely chronological order. There is also a seventh

century Latin text by Tírechan on Patrick, but this has not been included in the analysis

because it is hardly a saint’s Life1.

Cogitosus’ Life of St. Brigit

After much debate most scholars seem to agree that Cogitosus wrote his Vita S. Brigitae

in the second half of the seventh century. The historical Brigit probably lived in the late fifth

and early sixth century. About Cogitosus we do not know anything for sure, but he was

possibly connected to the Kildare monastery2. In the prologue he addresses the brothers who

pressed him for an account of the miracles of Brigit and he states that he will try to ‘rescue

from obscurity and ambiguity some small part of that extensive tradition which has been

1 Clare Stancliffe, ‘The Miracle Stories in seventh-century Irish Saints’ Lives’, in: Jacques Fontaine and J.N. Hillgarth eds., Le septième siècle, changements et continuités. The seventh Century, Change and Continuity (London 1992) 87.2 McCone, ‘Brigit’ 108. Richard Sharpe, ‘Vitae S. Brigitae: the oldest Texts’, Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 1 (1982) 87.

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passed down’1. The tradition he mentions may have included other Lives of Brigit. There is a

anonymous Latin Life which is often designated as Vita I (Cogitosus’ Life is Vita II) and there

is a Life in Old Irish, Bethu Brigte. There are many similarities between these three lives,

indicating that they borrowed from each other, but the question of the chronological order is

still debated2. It seems likely that Cogitosus knew some continental hagiographical works,

especially Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin and Jerome’s Life of Paul and possibly Venantius

Fortunatus’ Life of Radegundis3.

Cogitosus does not seem interested in showing Brigit as an individual with many personal

characteristics, nor is he specific about time, place and names of people. This gives his Brigit

a mythological aspect and most of his work consists of a series of her miracles. Many of those

have a nature or animal theme, with Brigit taming animals to act against their wild nature.

There are also many stories of plenty, where Brigit produces wonderful supplies of butter,

pork, milk from a cow, or turns water into beer. In a large proportion of the miracles Brigit is

depicted as a helper of the people: she gives clothes and food to the needy, she takes care of

the transportation of a heavy tree that is felled, she secures a dry harvest during a storm, and

she performs healings4. She could be called a workaday saint, because many of her actions

involve household and farming work. On one occasion she helps her own tribe, when a

stronger tribe tries to force them to build the hardest part of a road for the king. Brigit’s death

is not in the narrative, but there are a couple of posthumous miracles involving a millstone.

In one of them a pagan druid surreptitiously tries to grind his corn on the millstone, but it

refuses to work for him.

Cogitosus’ Brigit is not a very ascetic saint. She does refuse to marry, but she does not fast

or pray excessively. She preaches to the people, but Cogitosus does not elaborate on her

preachings or on the conversions she makes. There are a couple of stories where she visits

kings, but Cogitosus does not describe her involved in politics. The only actions that could be

called political are when she protects people against unjust sentences. Cogitosus himself, on

the other hand, does seem to have a political aim in his writing. He wanted to advance the

greatness of Kildare, the monastery that Brigit founded. Kim McCone has pointed out that

the seemingly odd structure of the text, with its lack of chronological order and personal

1 Cogitosus, Vita S. Brigidae (VB), tr. Liam De Paor, Saint Patrick’s world: the Christian Culture of Ireland’s apostolic Age (Blackrock 1993) 207.2 Richard Sharpe argues that Cogitosus used Vita I: Sharpe, ‘Vitae’ 90-92. Kim McCone on the other hand dates Vita I later than Vita II: McCone, ‘Brigit’ 107-145.3 Stancliffe, ‘Miracle Stories’ 88. Walter Berschin, ‘Radegundis and Brigit’, in: Johan Carey, Máire Herbert, and Pádraig Ó Riain eds., Studies in Irish Hagiography. Saints and Scholars (Dublin 2001) 72-76.4 Stancliffe, ‘Miracle Stories’ 95.

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interest, can be explained by this aim1. Cogitosus states his claims right in the beginning, in

the prologue: ‘It [=the monastery] is the head of virtually all the Irish churches and occupies

the first place, excelling all the monasteries of the Irish. Its jurisdiction extends over the

whole land of Ireland from sea to sea’2. He goes on to mention Brigit as the founder of this

monastery, which she ruled together with Conláeth, the bishop whom she appointed, and

who was the ‘principal of all the bishops’3. Then a series of miracles follows, proving the

greatness of Brigit as the founder of this monastery. At the end there is a description of the

richly decorated church where many people visit the shrines of Brigit and bishop Conláeth.

So Cogitosus seems to begin and end with his primary concern: the aggrandizement of

Kildare4. This of course must be seen against the backdrop of the struggle for power with the

other great monasteries, especially Armagh. The position of Kildare was strong in the second

half of the seventh century, partly because of the support of the Uí Dúnlainge dynasty who

ruled Leinster. But in the end Armagh was stronger and there was an agreement in which

Armagh recognized Kildare’s paruchia in Leinster, but took over all its churches in the rest of

Ireland5.

Besides the conventional hagiographical themes there are many folklore motifs in Life of

St. Brigit. Pre-Christian Ireland knew a Celtic goddess with the name Brigit and the stories

about both Brigits may have become merged. It is possible that Brigit the saint is a

‘euhemerized’ version of Brigit the goddess, meaning that Christianity claimed the pagan

goddess to be human in order to make her less dangerous for Christian doctrine. However

that may be, it seems clear that the cult of Brigit is a mix of Christian culture and Irish pagan

tradition6. This can explain the large amount of nature and animal stories in Cogitosus’ Brigit

and possibly a couple of unusual miracles, like the one where Brigit hangs her cloak on a

sunbeam7. It may also explain the mythological aspect of Cogitosus’ Brigit - the way he does

not describe her as a real person. The spread of the cult of St. Brigit may have been helped by

the fact that many sites were already connected to the Celtic goddess and were now taken

over by the Christian cult8.

1 McCone, ‘Brigit’ 109-110.2 VB p. 207.3 VB p. 208.4 McCone, ‘Brigit’ 109-110. Sharpe, ‘Vitae’ 106.5 McCone, ‘Brigit’ 110, 144.6 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland 201-202. McCone, ‘Brigit’ 110. Bray, Dorothy Ann, ‘Die Heilige Brigitte, die Maria der Gälen’, in: Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich eds., Herrscher, Helden, Heilige (St. Gallen 1996) 638. Stancliffe, ‘Miracle Stories’, 94.7 Kathleen Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (London 1972) 229. Bray, ‘Heilige Brigitte’ 633.8 McCone, ‘Brigit’, 111.

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Muirchú’s Life of St. Patrick

Scholars date Muirchú’s Vita S. Patricii at the end of the seventh century, somewhat later

than Cogitosus’ Vita S. Brigitae, because Muirchú mentions Cogitosus as his ‘father’: in his

little paddle-boat he will try to navigate the dangerous sea on which so far only his father

Cogitosus has ventured, and he will try to tell the story of Patrick according to the traditions1.

Nothing is known of Muirchú, but he was probably a clergyman of the Armagh community.

In his preface he addresses Lord Áed, who was an abbot of Sletty, which belonged to the

paruchia of Armagh2. Two sources have been preserved that were written by Patrick himself,

one of them the Confessio in which he describes the story of his mission to Ireland. The

manuscript of Muirchú’s Vita S. Patricii is preserved in ‘The Book of Armagh’, together with

other texts concerning Patrick. These texts were an important weapon in the Armagh aim to

acquire pre-eminence over all the Irish churches3. It is almost sure that Muirchú used

Patrick’s Confessio as a source, because in the first part of his Life he follows Patrick’s own

narrative. Muirchú probably also knew Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St. Martin4.

Muirchú’s describes Patrick as the apostle and first bishop of Ireland. His Patrick is a hero

who fights for Christianity, by violent means if necessary. Muirchú tells how Patrick

disseminates Christianity and conquers paganism and idolatry. Many people are converted

and resisting opponents are cursed or die. Muirchú’s Life of St. Patrick has the atmosphere of

the Old Testament in its violence and wrath. His Patrick has many traits of the biblical

prophets and there are many references to the Old Testament. The climax of the narrative is

Patrick’s victory over Loíguire, the highest king of Tara, and his druids. When Patrick has to

decide where to celebrate Easter, he chooses an important pagan burial site near Tara. On

that same day the Irish celebrate their most important festival and Patrick provokes them by

lighting a fire, which was forbidden in the pagan feast. The high point of the conflict is a

miracle contest between Patrick and the druids, where each party tries to outdo the other

with ever more powerful actions. Patrick wins, of course, and the druids pay with their lives.

In the end the king converts to Christianity, but Patrick prophesies that none of his offspring

shall rule as king because of his stubbornness5.

Muirchú often connects Patrick’s victories to locations in the landscape by mentioning

landmarks where his deeds took place, for example the mountain where a footprint of the

angel who visited Patrick is still visible. In this way Muirchú shows a landscape that is

‘colonized’ by Christianity. Muirchú’s tells how Patrick introduces Christian practices, which 1 VP, first preface, p. 63.2 Bieler, Patrician Texts 1-2.3 McCone, ‘Brigit’ 137.4 Stancliffe, ‘Miracle Stories’ 88.5 VP c. I.13-I.21, p. 82-99.

14

he seems to invent ‘on the job’, in Peter Brown’s phrase1: he decides on the Easter

celebration, he introduces the sign of the cross and he makes it a habit not to travel or work

on Sundays. When pagans resist this by digging a moat on Sunday, he curses their work,

which is destroyed by a storm2.

The last part of Muirchú’s Life is dedicated to Patrick’s death, and seems permeated by

seventh century politics. Armagh wanted to claim Patrick to corroborate its position, so

Patrick is shown as the founder of Armagh, and as the apostle and first bishop of all Ireland.

A painful weakness in this strategy was the fact that Patrick’s body was not in Armagh. To

account for this, Muirchú tells how Patrick wanted to be buried in Armagh, but was

prevented by an angel. In return the angel promises that Patrick’s wish for the pre-eminence

of Armagh will be granted. Patrick’s body is put on an ox cart and buried where the oxen

stand still, which happens to be near Downpatrick and Saul3. Muirchú describes several

attempts by other tribes to dig up or steal Patrick’s body to get his relics, but they are

prevented by miracles. Charles Doherty argues that Muirchú wanted to show Patrick as the

bishop of all Ireland and therefore wanted to harmonize the different locations Patrick’s cult

in Armagh, Downpatrick and Saul4. The alliance between Armagh and the Uí Néill dynasty is

also corroborated by Muirchú’s text: by converting the Uí Néill king Loíguire, Patrick is

shown to be accepted by this dynasty5. The Uí Néill city of Tara is described as ‘the capital of

the realm of the Irish’ and Loíguire is ‘a scion of the family that held the kingship of almost

the entire island’6.

Adamnán’s Life of Columba

Adamnán was abbot of the Iona monastery at the end of the seventh century. He wrote his

Vita S. Columbae between 689 and 704 - allowing for the usual scholarly disagreement on

the exact date. Columba (or Colum Cille by his Irish name) himself lived ca. 520-597. He

came from Ireland, but became a peregrinus to Britain, where he founded the monastery on

the island of Iona. Iona is on the west coast of modern Scotland, but in those days it was part

of an Irish kingdom. According to tradition Columba was the first abbot of Iona and

converted the Picts of Scotland.

Adamnán wrote his Life of St. Columba using the literary models of Sulpicius Severus’

Life of St. Martin, Athanasius’ Life of St. Anthony and Gregory the Great’s Life of St.

1 Brown, ‘Saint as Exemplar’ 9.2 VP c. I.25, p. 106-107.3 Doherty, ‘Cult’, 84-85. In note 127 Doherty mentions other interpretations that have placed Patrick’s burial place elsewhere.4 Ibid. 88, 94.5 Hughes, Early Christian Ireland 231-232; Picard, ‘Purpose’ 171.6 VP c. I.10, p. 75.

15

Benedict (in the Dialogi)1. Adamnán divides his Life of St. Columba thematically into three

books: on Columba’s prophetic revelations, on his miraculous powers and on the visions of

angels. The first books shows Columba foretelling the future, or seeing things that happen

elsewhere, being present in spirit though absent in body. He often foresees the arrival of

visitors and the way people will die. He predicts the future reign of kings and their offspring,

or their downfall. There is a thin line between Columba merely predicting the future and

actually intervening to bring about a different outcome. There are several stories of people

not listening to Columba’s warnings and then experiencing the bad future the saint predicted.

Adamnán’s Columba is a bookish person, often mentioned to be reading or writing. A

couple of prophetic stories involve books, for example when Columba is asked to correct a

psalter and knows without looking that there is only one vowel i missing. After his death the

books he wrote have the miraculous powers of relics: they are not damaged when they fall

into the water and they bring about favourable winds for sailing and rain after a drought2.

These book stories can be interpreted as a reflection of the new written culture that

Christianity brought in its wake3. One story reveals how difficult the interpretation of the new

religion must have been and how important books were in this process: the grace of the Holy

Spirit comes upon Columba and his house is filled with heavenly light for three days. During

these days 'he saw, openly revealed, many of the secret things that have been hidden since the

world began. Also everything that in the sacred scriptures is dark and most difficult became

plain’. He regrets that his foster-son is not there to write down all the mysteries and the

interpretations of the sacred books4.

Adamnán’s Columba performs many types of miracles, covering the same range of themes

as Cogitosus’ Brigit or Muirchú’s Patrick - and more. Columba is shown in the role of healer,

protector of people, contestor of druids, missionary, tamer of wild beasts, provider of plenty

and controller of the wind. Adamnán’s Life of St. Columba is much longer than the Lives of

Brigit and Patrick, and the miracle stories are more diverse. There are wonderful stories

about Columba as a marriage counselor, chasing the monster of Loch Ness, performing a

telepathic co-miracle with another holy man, and preventing a knife to hurt people or

livestock - to name but a few. Another aspect of Adamnán’s Columba is his love and care for

the monks of Iona. He tries to save them from harsh work, he has personal conversations

with them, and before his death he makes sure there is enough food and blesses the island so

1 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland 283.2 Adamnán, Vita S. Columbae (VC), ed. and tr. A.E. Anderson and M.O. Anderson, Adomnán’s Life of Columba (London 1961), c. II.8-II.9, II.44-II.45, p. 342-345, 450-453.3 Joseph Falaky Nagy, ‘The Reproduction of Irish Saints’, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain eds., Studies in Irish hagiography. Saints and scholars (Dublin 2001) 285.4 VC c. III 18, p. 503-504.

16

that it will be freed of poisonous vipers. Adamnán also pays much attention to Columba as a

companion of angels. A large proportion of the stories are ‘vertical’, showing him in contact

with the divine1. Angels come to visit him and he has visions of angels carrying people off to

heaven, sometimes after a struggle with demons over the soul. Columba tries to conceal his

visions and angelic visits, and often other people cannot see the angels. There are also many

stories about Columba radiating heavenly light. When Columba dies, angels come to meet

him and he joins the fathers, apostles, prophets and other saints in heaven. His peregrinatio

in Britain has come to an end.

Just like Cogitosus and Muirchú, Adamnán seems to have political aims with his saint’s

life. Iona was also trying to assert its position at the end of the seventh century, so Adamnán

shows Columba as abbot of an important monastery, having friendly relations with other

powerful monasteries and paying visits to kings. Before his death, Columba blesses his

monastery to receive the honour of Irish and foreign nations, and also of the saints of other

churches. Adamnán emphasizes the fact that Columba’s cult has spread in Ireland and

Britain, but also in Gaul, Spain, Italy and even Rome2.

1 Stancliffe, ‘Miracle Stories’ 95.2 VC c. III.23, p. 525.

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5 Peter Brown as exemplar: analysis of the sources

Conventional and Irish hagiography

The most remarkable thing about those three saints’ Lives is how different they are from

each other: the workaday Brigid, the apostle Patrick, and Columba the bookish abbot and

miracle-worker. Thinking about their role in society, they seem to represent different aspects.

Cogitosus’ Brigid is the mythological helper of the poor and needy, Muirchú’s Patrick

disseminates Christianity fighting paganism and Adamnán’s Columba is the wise visionary.

Despite these differences, it is clear that the three Lives belong to the same genre. They are

written according to the conventions of hagiography, with its common structure and themes,

its similar miracles and its references to the Scriptures. The Irish Lives borrowed many of the

forms that had been developed in the hagiography of the rest of the Christian world, which

was introduced in Ireland with the arrival of Christianity.

The Irish hagiographers used the literary conventions, because that was the proper way to

do it, but they adapted the genre to their own context. In the three Lives there are many

instances where we can see typical Irish traits. In Cogitosus’ Life of Brigit the many stories

about animals fit a society where livestock is the most important resource. The wild animals

are not depicted as evil, but as wild and Brigit tames them to act against their nature. The

story about the road building tribe gives an outlook on the relations between lord and tribe.

There are two stories about people who are unjustly accused of a crime and are in danger of

becoming slaves or becoming committed to servitude to their lord. In Muirchú’s Life of St.

Patrick Irish society is very clearly visible in the kings and druids who oppose Patrick, or are

converted by him. Irish slavery is a theme when Patrick visits his former master to buy

himself free from slavery. In another story the Irish juridical system seems to pop up: a man

asks Patrick to judge him after confessing that he wanted to murder him, but Patrick says

that God should judge and that the man should board a boat without rudder or oars and see

where the wind carries him1. This is similar to the ordeals that Irish criminals had to undergo

after killing a kinsman; it makes the criminal an exile and may be connected to the idea of

peregrinatio as penance2. Adamnán’s Life of St. Columba also has a distinctly Irish flavour:

Columba visits kings, protects a fleeing girl from her lord, sends a pilgrim back home to fulfill

his duties to his master and family, and opposes druids.

Compared to the saints in other hagiography, the Irish saints are not very ascetic - at least

not in the texts. There are a few general, almost obligatory remarks about their ascetic lives,

1 VP c. I.23, p. 102-107.2 T.M. Charles-Edwards, ‘The social Background to Irish Peregrinatio’, Celtica II (1976) 48-49.

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but it does not seem an important theme for the late seventh century hagiographers.

According to Brown’s ideas this could be explained by the absence of persecutions and

martyrs in Ireland1. In a study on the miracle stories of the early Irish saints’ Lives, Clare

Stancliffe has pointed out other differences between the Irish saints’ Lives and continental

hagiography: the high proportion of magical, folklore type of miracles; the many nature

miracles; the many ‘vertical’ miracles (contact with the divine) about visions, angelic visits

and prophesies; the almost complete absence of exorcism and the low proportion of healing

miracles; and the relative absence of demons2. Besides the miracles, an important theme is

church politics and there is a striking similarity in the aims of the writers to corroborate the

position of their monastery.

Irish saints as patrons, dead saints and exemplars

The question remains to what extent Peter Brown’s models fit the Irish saints. Starting

with the model of the patronus, it is clear that the Irish saints are not patrons in the specific

sense of the Syrian holy men. They do not play the particular roles of the Eastern holy men,

like mediation between the village people and the authorities, or involvement in politics. This

is of course not surprising, because Brown developed this concept for the very specific

context of Syria in the fourth and fifth century. However, the general aspects of the patron,

like helper and protector, are very easy to recognize in the Irish saints. Especially Cogitosus’

Brigit is a helper of the people in their everyday life.

Brown developed his ideas on the cult of dead saints for the West, and they can be applied

to the Irish saints as well. In seventh century Ireland hagiography seems to have flourished,

which shows that the cults of the saints were thought important. Many aspects of Brown’s

theory can be recognized in the three saints’ Lives: the way the cult of the saints was

controlled by ecclesiastical people for political reasons, the saint as intercessor in heaven and

the spread of the relics. However, Brown links these aspects to the specific context of the late

Roman Empire in the West and its decline. The context of Ireland was quite different,

because it was not part of the Roman world. The Irish adapted the cult of the saints to their

own society: the saints were patrons of monasteries instead of churches and their sites were

not at the edge of cities. Besides the burial places and the relics, the saints’ cult also included

all the churches and the monasteries they established. Relics were important in Ireland as

elsewhere, their portability helping the dissemination of Christianity. An interesting variation

of this spreading is the way the Irish saints’ Lives describe the landscape, which gets

colonized by mentioning landmarks connected to the saints.

1 Brown, ‘Saint as Exemplar’ 16.2 Stancliffe, ‘Miracle stories’ 89.

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Brown’s model of the exemplar is partly applicable to the Irish saints. They were certainly

examples of the Christian life (or at least their hagiography was), but the specific

connotations with the ancient philosopher and the classical education are not fitting the Irish

situation. Brown’s concepts of center and periphery seem interesting in the Irish situation.

Ireland was at the frontier, and the concept of the saints bringing Christianity to the edge of

the world is especially striking in the image of St. Patrick as apostle of Ireland. Brown

describes the exemplary saint as embodying the central values of Christianity in the

periphery of pagan life. This metaphor seems also very suitable for St. Patrick, who was

inventing Christianity ‘on the job’. Another interesting idea from Brown’s exemplar article is

the lack of Christian resources that the earliest Christians suffered. Adamnán’s Columba

shows the importance of books for the interpretation and spread of Christianity.

Peter Brown as exemplar

The conclusion seems warrantable that Brown’s models are suitable to the Irish saints in

general, but not in the specific details. A complication arises from the use of sources. Brown

uses primary sources to extract his image of the saints, often using the text as unequivocal

evidence. He has been criticized for this - the problem being that we only know the holy men

from the texts, so it is impossible to seperate out the aims of the text and get to the ‘real’ holy

men1. But even if we accept Brown’s use of contemporary sources, the Irish sources do not

allow the same kind of conclusions, because they were written long after the saints lived. As

mentioned before, they may only be interpreted as indications of the role of saints in the time

they were written - the late seventh century. Another criticism of Brown might be that he

tends to take the notions of center and periphery in their literal, geographic sense for Ireland,

whereas the original concepts by Shils are about the centrality of values2. Ireland should not

just be treated as a peripheral area of the Roman world, but also as a society on its own, with

its own central value system - and its own periphery.

Still, a more fundamental question might be asked: are Brown’s models meant to be

transposed to different societies? Brown’s main theme seems to be how the role of holy men

is connected to the specific economic, social, geographical, religious and political context. He

takes much care to show a complete world, trying to find models which describe the link

between two levels: how religious sentiments can be explained by the context of society.

Brown’s models of patron, dead saint and exemplar were developed for the Roman world of

Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. If we really want to take Brown’s work as an

1 Philip Rousseau, ‘Ascetics as Mediators and as Teachers’, in: James Howard-Johnston and Paul Anthony Hayward eds., The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford 1999) 47, 50.2 Edward Shils, Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology (Chicago 1975) 3.

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exemplar, we must not mechanically try to apply those models to Ireland, because that would

be taking it the wrong way around. Instead, the Irish society should be the starting point, and

new models would have to be developed to describe how this society can explain the ideas

about the role of saints.

Does all this mean that this paper asked the wrong questions and did not lead to useful

results? Maybe, but there is another twist. On the one hand Brown’s models seem foreign to

the Irish saints, because they were not meant for Ireland with its different, non-Roman

culture. But on the other hand there is much similarity between Brown’s notions and the way

the Irish hagiographers depicted their saints. It might be argued that the early Christian Irish

tried to do the same as this paper did: applying ideas from elsewhere to Ireland. Christianity

was an import article which brought new ideas and a new culture. The first Christians had to

make sense of the new ideas and used all the available means for this task, including the

literary resources of Scriptures, liturgy and hagiography. The Christian doctrines were

imported, and they brought ideas about saints in their wake. The Irish hagiographers knew

continental saints’ Lives and adopted them as models for their own writing. Many of the

underlying ideas about what a saint should be were imported as well. However, they were not

imported undigested, but were adapted to Irish society. This may partly have been a

conscious effort of the writers, to make the saints more intelligible to their Irish audience, but

partly an unconscious effect of their own attempt to invent Christianity on the job.

Putting it in a different way: in Brown’s models the ideas are explained by society. In

Ireland, however, the ideas seem influenced from two sides - by Irish society and by imported

ideas from the Late Roman, Christian world. Because Brown’s models are about this Late

Roman, Christian world, it is not surprising that many of his ideas are applicable to the Irish

saints after all.

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6 Conclusion

Trying to apply Peter Brown’s models to the Irish saints has turned out to be navigating a

‘deep and perilous sea’ indeed. To really understand the Irish saints, two different angles

should be combined. The role of the saints must be seen against the backdrop of Irish society

ànd against the backdrop of the Christian way of thinking, which was developed in the Late

Roman world and imported into Ireland. Analysis of the texts shows that the late seventh

century Irish hagiography depicts the saints according to the conventions of the genre. Many

of the general saintly characteristics can be recognized in the description of the Irish saints.

In this sense, Peter Brown’s models of the patron, dead saint and exemplar are applicable to

the Irish saints.

In The Rise of Western Christendom Brown has given some ideas about the second angle

- models to describe the role of the Irish saints in their society. Brown can be criticized on

several accounts, but his ideas are worthwile and stimulating nonetheless. Much other

research has already been done on the Irish society and its hagiography. Analysis of the texts

has shown how the Irish hagiographers have adapted the genre to their own society and have

depicted their saints according to specific Irish models. On the one hand, Cogitosus’ Brigit,

Muirchú’s Patrick and Adamnán’s Columba seem to play very different roles in their

surroundings. Cogitosus’ Brigit may be described as the helper in the tribal, agricultural

society, and maybe as euhemerized pagan goddess. Muirchú’s Patrick is not only depicted as

apostle and as prophet from the Old Testament, but is also moulded to the models of the

Irish judges, druids and seers (filid). Both Columba and Patrick show the typical Irish model

of the peregrinus, the exile. On the other hand, there are some important similarities

between the three texts. All three saints perform many miracles, which is of course part of the

imported hagiographical genre, but also shows the saints as magician in the tradition of the

druids and the filid1. The cult of the relics can be connected to Irish traditions of local gods

with their attributes2. A striking similarity between the three saints’ Lives is the political aim

of their writers, emphasizing the saints in their role as founders of monasteries.

1 Dorothy Ann Bray, ‘The Study of Folk-Motifs in Early Irish Hagiography: Problems of Approach and Rewards at Hand’, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain eds., Studies in Irish hagiography. Saints and scholars (Dublin 2001) 273; Stancliffe, ‘Miracle Stories’, 92.2 Charles Doherty, ‘The Use of Relics in Early Ireland’, in: Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter eds., Irland und Europa. Die Kirche im Frühmittelalter. Ireland and Europe. The Eearly Church (Stuttgart 1984) 95.

22

As predicted, our paddle-boat has encountered towering waves and rocky reefs, but in the

end it will always return us to the texts themselves, which are always richer than whatever

models we design for them, and which after so many centuries are still wonderful to read.

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7 Bibliography

Primary sources

VC Adamnán, Vita S. Columbae, ed. and tr. A.E. Anderson and M.O. Anderson, Adomnán's Life of Columba (London 1961).

VB Cogitosus, Vita S. Brigidae, tr. Liam De Paor, Saint Patrick’s world: the Christian Culture of Ireland’s apostolic Age (Blackrock 1993) 207-224.

VP Muirchú, Vita S. Patricii, ed. and tr. Ludwig Bieler, The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh (Dublin 1979) 62-122.

Secondary literature

Berschin, Walter, ‘Radegundis and Brigit’, in: Johan Carey, Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain eds., Studies in Irish Hagiography. Saints and Scholars (Dublin 2001) 72-76.

Bieler, Ludwig, ‘Muirchú's life of St. Patrick as a Work of Literature’, Medium Ævum vol. 43 nr. 3 (1974) 219-233.

Bray, Dorothy Ann, ‘Die Heilige Brigitte, die Maria der Gälen’, in: Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich eds., Herrscher, Helden, Heilige (St. Gallen 1996) 629-638.

Bray, Dorothy Ann, ‘The Study of Folk-Motifs in Early Irish Hagiography: Problems of Approach and Rewards at Hand’, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain eds., Studies in Irish hagiography. Saints and scholars (Dublin 2001) 268-277.

Brown, Peter, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (London 1982).

Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints. Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago 1981; second impression London 1983).

Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom. Triumph and Diversity AD 200-1000 (Malden, Oxford 1996; paperback 1997).

Brown, Peter, ‘The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity’, Representations vol. 1, nr. 2 (1983) 1-25.

Charles-Edwards, T.M., Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge 2000).

Charles-Edwards, T.M., ‘The social Background to Irish Peregrinatio’, Celtica II (1976) 43-59.

Doherty, Charles, ‘The Cult of St. Patrick and the Politics of Armagh in the seventh Century’, in: Jean-Michel Picard ed., Ireland and Northern France AD 600-850 (Blackrock 1991) 53-94.

Doherty, Charles, ‘The Use of Relics in Early Ireland’, in: Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter eds., Irland und Europa. Die Kirche im Frühmittelalter. Ireland and Europe. The Early Church (Stuttgart 1984) 89-101.

Hughes, Kathleen, The Church in Early Irish Society (London 1966).

Hughes, Kathleen, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (London 1972).

McCone, Kim, ‘Brigit in the seventh Century: a Saint with three Lives?’, Peritia 1 (1982) 107-145.

Mytum, Harold, The Origins of early Christian Ireland (London, New York 1992).

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Nagy, Joseph Falaky, ‘The Reproduction of Irish Saints’, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain eds., Studies in Irish hagiography. Saints and scholars (Dublin 2001) 278-288.

Picard, J.M., ‘The purpose of Adomnán’s Vita Columbae’, Peritia 1 (1982) 160-177.

Philip Rousseau, ‘Ascetics as Mediators and as Teachers’, in: James Howard-Johnston and Paul Anthony Hayward eds., The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford 1999) 45-59.

Sharpe, Richard, ‘Vitae S. Brigitae: the oldest Texts’, Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 1 (1982) 81-106.

Shils, Edward, Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology (Chicago 1975).

Stancliffe, Clare, ‘The Miracle Stories in seventh-century Irish Saints’ Lives’, in: Jacques Fontaine and J.N. Hillgarth eds., Le septième siècle, changements et continuités. The seventh Century, Change and Continuity (London 1992) 87-115.

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