CAIN ADOMNAIN:

TmFAMILIA COLUMBAE AND THE POLITICS OF PIETY

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

of

The University of Guelph

BY

HEATHER JANE MACDONALD

In partial fulfilment of requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

July, 2001

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CAIN ADOMNAIN

THE FAMILIA COLUMBA€ AND THE POLITICS OF PlElY

Heather Jane MacDonald Advisor: University of Guelph, 2007 Professor E. Ewan

This thesis will argue that the late seventh-century ecclesiastical law, Cain

Adomnain, was promulgated in AD. 697 by the ninth abbot of lona to bolster

Columban interests: the flagging power and authority of the Columban church following the defeat in 664 of the Celtic Church in favour of Rome's style of administration and the timing of Easter, and concem for secular society and a desire for peace are some of the motives to be examined. In promulgating the law,

Adomnan must have anticipated certain outcomes that would ensure and preserve the Columban familia's continuing supremacy. By tracing the history of lona, the saint's cult, the law and Life of St. Columba, which was written by Adomnan about the same time as he created his law, this thesis shows that, as a result of the challenges presented to the lona community after 664, and as an act of piety for the society the familia served, the ninth abbot, in gamering the support of prominent churchmen and secular leaders, ensured the continuing authority of the familia for decades to corne through this particular law. 1 gcuimhne ar m 'afhair Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - St. Columba - A Celtic Legacy ------pgs 1 - 23

Chapter 2 - The History of the Columban Church pgs 24 - 54

Chapter 3 - The Cult of Columba ------pgs 55- 88

Chapter 4 - Cain Adomnain as an Irish Law pgs 89-121

Chapter 5 - After the Promulgation ------pgs 122-131 1 Chapter 1 - St. Columba -ACeltic Legacy

The latter part of the seventh century saw the Celtic church, with its unique insular, ascetic and monastic traditions, facing a challenge from the growing power of the Roman authority of the church. St. Augustine had arrÏved in Kent from Rome the year St. Columba died at lona in 597, and in the ensuing decades the Rome-influenced institution made great inroads in the south, building foundations and churches and establishing a distinctly different Christian tradition with its base at Canterbury.

This was a period of violence and great change: In England, Saxon kings in the north fought pagan rulers to the south and west and raids between the people of Northumbria and Dalriada were commonplace; in Ireland, wars and power struggies between great clans or famiiies were constant. And although there was Iittle peace anywhere for the inhabitants of either island, there did exist a vibrant and fiourishing monastic tradition that encompassed foundations in lreland, Dalriada and in the north of England.

The two traditions -the Celtic, or Irish church and the Rome-based church - manifested themselves differently in ideology, appearance and practice: the monks of the Roman foundations scattered thoughout the south of England believed in discipline, order and organization; they wore circlet tonsures; their nile was usually Benedictine, and they looked to dioceses and associated bishops for guidance and administrative decisions.

More importantly, they celebrated Easter at a different date from the CeRic church. a date they believed was the correct one. The monks of the Celtic foundations could not have been more different; they believed in the ascetic practices of prayer, fasting and pilgrimage and their organizations were headed by abbots. 2

The two worlds finally collided in 664 during a synod held at Whitby, in the north of

England. The Cekic church lost its argument on the dating of Easter and the growing power

of the episcopal Roman church, according to the evidence provided by the monk Bede at

Jarrow, was securely established.

It rnust have been a blow to the Celtic church, its supporters and adherents, yet the

decades after the defeat saw a flowering of activity at the lona foundation that may have

helped keep the Columban tradlion, and the Irish church, alive for several hundred years.

About 696 or 697, Adomnan, some seventeen years into his abbacy and just a scant

seven years before his death, wrote both the Life of Columba and the Law of Adornnan,

which guaranteed the protection of women, children and clerics - society's non-

combantants - from warfare. These actions would bring social and ecclesiastical focus

back to the Columban panrchia.

The Law of Adomnan was proclaimed in 697 at the Synod of Birr, on the centenary

of the death of Columba, or Colum Cille, of lona. At that time, the Columban church was

a powerful institution with a widespread paruchia that had always been headed by

members of the northern Ui Neill. Cain Adomnain, Lex lnnocentia or Law of the Innocents,

as it was known, was promulgated with the consent of many of the chief rulers of lreland and Dalriada.

This thesis will contend that the promulgation of Adomnan's law, a political move in itseff, was undertaken on the part of the ninth abbot to enhance and improve Columban interests; it was carried out with pious intention and concern for the women, children and clerics of society, but mile Adornnan may well have had serious concems regarding violence, he must have anticipated the effect the law would have on the position of the Columban church as a power in ecclesiastical circles. The support garnered in Dalriada, lreland and Brïtain for this piece of jurisprudence would have helped to offset the results of the Synod of Whitby, restoring and maintaining sorne of the foundation's power in ecclesiastical and social circles. The law undoubtedly had a range of impacts on church and society, some of which must have been expeded by Adomnan as he wrote the law.

The air of piety is evident for the text tells the reader it wasenacted with 4he prayers of al1 the men of khd, both layfolk and clergy."' That Adomnan envisioned any other benefits - the protection of women and children aside - is suggested in the paragraph following the extensive list of guarantors, who were key secular and leading churchmen from Ireland. Dalriada and Northumbria: "They al1 (the ninety-one powerful members of church and society) swore on behalf of the laity and clergy to fulfill the whole of the Cain

Adomnain until Judgment ... and to every heir who should occupy the see until Judgment."*

Judged from a distance of 1300 years, the actions of lona's ninth abbot appear to have been undertaken to bolster Columban interests: a concern for the secular world and a desire for peace; to reinforce the supremacy of the Columban familia; and to protect society's future - mothers and children. and the clerics who were needed to guide them in the Christian life.

By examining this law, or cana (the Old Irish terni for church law), within the contex?of the promulgation of ecclesiastical, and to some extent, secular law in seventh- and eighth- century Dalriada and Ireland, this thesis will attempt to answer two closely connected

Gilbert Mirkus, Adomnh's 'Law of the Innocents' - Cain Adomnain, Department of Celtic, University of Glasgow, 1997

Mibkus, Cain Adomnain, p 17 4

questions: Was the law a measure of Adomnan's piety? And was this abbot trying to

bolster the importance of the Columban familia, which was the last holdout in Western

European Christianity on the question of when Easter should be celebrated?

There is a great deal of secondary literature which speculates or hints at Adomnan's

motives in creating the Life and his law. None is conclusive, but this thesis intends to

consider the prÎmary evidence and move one small step further toward suggesting that

there rnay have been other motives behind Adomnan's work. To find answers to these

specific queries, it will be necessary to place the law within the context of the insular

society for which it was intended, and to examine Columban church tradition and

Adomnan's position as abbot of lona at the time the law was made.

The law, in a modern editi~n,~fons but a scant twenty-two pages of material and

includes the extensive guarantor list - narnes of prominent seventh-century clan leaders,

kings and churchmen - as well as a list of punishable offences against women, children

and clerics, and the fines that were to be paid.

It consists of fm-three paragraphs, or points; the first twenty-eight short paragraphs. which precede the guarantor Iist, are beiieved to have been added in the few centuries

after the law's first promulgation. This first part, or preface, includes a mythological tale of

Adomnan carrying his mother, Ronnat, on his back and coming upon the carnage of a

battlefield, which included many slain women. There is a short story of Ronnat locking

Adornnan in a stone chest and being rescued by angels, and a brief description of how

Adomnan carne to write the law.

M&kus, Cain Adornnb The sureties and bonds concerning the freedom of women are also Iisted here. and

include Yhe Sun, moon. and the elements of God be~ides,"~as well as the apostles and

prominent churchmen and secular leaders.

The guarantor list and paragraphs twenty-nine to fifty-three are believed to be the

original part of the law. In this section is the swom loyalty of laity and clergy in lreland and

Britain or wherever there is a Colurnban foundation. There is a clear statement of

intention, that the law is to protect:

. . . The freedorn of God's church with her cornrnunity and her insignia and her sanctuaries and all her property, living and inanimate, and her iaw- abiding lay-folk and their lawful wives who are under the will of Adomnan and of a lawful, wise and pious soul-friend.'

The remaining paragraphs list the various crimes against women, children and clerics and state the fines to be paid to the familia if a person is found guilty of a particular crime.

For instance:

Whoever wounds or kills a young cleric or an innocent child, his fine under the (law) is eight cumals and eight years of penance for each hand raised against the victim, up to 300 offenders, and one cumal and one year of penance for each person from three hundred up to one thousand, or an innumerable crowda6

Another paragraph, conceming the violent, unnatural death of a woman states a full fine is to be paid to Adomnan for her "slaying, and drowning, buming and poison, crushing and

Mirkus, CGnAdomnain, p 13

MaTkus, Cain Adornain, p 18

MaiICUS, Cain Adomnain, p 18 6

penshing in a quagmire, wounding by tarne beasts, and by pigs and by cattle."? If a woman

should die as a resuit of a man's property - by the actions of his animais - then the lives of

those anirnals is forfeit and the owner loses half his hand. As well, the law includes the

prices to be paid if a woman is injured, raped or debilitated in any way. While a fine was

paid to the familia, the law also states the amount that was to be paid "under native law,

to the chiefs in (the victim's) kindred."'

Adomnan was a member of the same northern Ui Neill farnily to which Columba had

belonged; he was an educaied cleric, an able leader and administrator. As inheritor of the

abbacy, he had considerable ties to royal power and the law's promulgation must be

credited largely to his administrative abilities as abbot. It will also be imperative to examine

Columba's cult, which had grown since his death, to look at its impact on society in

Ireland, Dalriada and Northumbria, where the Columban monks founded the monastery

at Lindisfarne.

One of the most evident problems in researching this rnaterial will be delving into the

mindset and reality of a seventh-century abbot and coming to understand the social and

political implications of the law's promulgation in Ireland and Dalriada. In this, assessing the strength and authority of the cult of Columba wili be crucial. Was Adomnan merely

ninth abbot and Columban heir, or had he already become, while he was alive, part of his predecessor's cult?

Clearly his cult had merged with Columba's in later years. Herbert and O'Riaian wnte

' Mkrkus, Cain Adornnain, p 20

Mhrkus, Cain Adomnain, p 19 7 that Adomnan's abbatial authority over the rnonastery of Raphoe (a mernber of the

Columban paruchia) is referred to in the law itself when it speaks of entitlements as being due to the "muintir Adomnan" or comrnunity of Adomnan. And, these two Celtic scholars point out that in the annals, in 817, Raphoe is cited as belonging to "the familia of Columbae Cille" or Columba's community. "Plainly," they write, '"the overriding factor here was Adomnan's place in the Columban scheme of things . . . the general impression must be that so far as Adomnan was concerned, his cult was, or had become, a joint cult with that of Colum Cille."g

In the broader scheme of things, this area of study encompasses ecclesiastical or religious history. However, because the study of Scottish and lrish church history and rnonasticisrn is so closely linked with the structure of lrish secular and political life in the seventh and eighth centuries, it will be necessary to take an interdisciplinary approach to the topic as it also touches on various points of eariy lrish culture and the Old lrish language.

The very nature of monastic organization had a great deal to do with the promulgation and support of Adomnan's law - the abbot held a "coercive, autocratic and far-reaching powet' - and there were substantial differences between the episcopal Roman church and its hierarchy, which saw the bishop as holding the reins of authority, and the early lrish church.1° The Roman church was organized into a series of regional dioceses with a bishop overseeing the churches within its authority. The lrish monastic tradition saw a

Maire Herbert, Padraig O'Riain, (eds), "Introduction," Betha Adamnain: The Irish Life of Adamnh, Irish Texts Society, Dublin, 1988, p.3.

'O 'O Richard Sharpe, "Some Problems," in Peritiq Vo1.3, 1984, p.233. .-

8 scattering of foundations that were part of a familia - Colurnban or Patrician - with each foundation overseen by an abbot who held as much power as a bishop. The memben of each Irish foundation, while maintaining loyalty to the founding saint, had no connection to the see in Rome or the Pope. The differences were rnainly structural and hierarchicai; while the lrish church was a more independent institution, the Roman church was linked to the administrative power of Rome. The Irish, insular rnonastic tradition, wtiich so closely resernbled the lrish structure of kinship, reached its zenith in the eighth century. Reliable evidence on monasticism becomes available about the middle of the seventh œntury, just prior to the time Adornnan became abbot of lona, and during a time of more conscious record- and annal-keeping in the church."

The role of church law cannot be fully appreciated without a closer look at the role of the monastic communrty and its structure within early insular society. The church's unique position in society played an integral part in the development and promulgation of ecclesiastical law as it sought to assume authority over secular laws in lreland and

Dalriada. Secular law was based on two primary factors, kinship ties and social status; it will be necessary, therefore, to examine the links between secular, or native law, and ecclesiastical law and to seek evidence about the extent to which church law irnpinged upon the secular.12

Kenney writes that "in secular law and popular regard the abbot's authortty was based on the fact he was heir, or comaha, of the holy man who founded the monastery, and-to

.- - .. ------

l1 Sharpe, "Some Problems," p.23 3.

'* Kathleen Hughes, Earlv Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources, 1972, p.81. 9 him belonged al1 the property, power, dues and privileges which had ben, or should have ben, accorded to the fo~nder."'~Thus, Adomnan, in overseeing several paruchia founded by Columba, held great political, as well as religious authonty in the Columban community in lreland and Dalriada (the area of southwestern Scutland which was settled from the eighth century on by the Scotti, or Irish, from the north of Ireland). It is crucial to understand that Adomnan's law was completely separate from the native, secular laws that existed in society at that time. Native law was administered by trained jurists who, through tradition, meted out punishrnent according to the Brehon or umdhas laws of surety. As we shall see,

Adomnan's law was administered in rnatters of crimes against women, children and clerÏcs in addition to the native laws; but it did not impinge on the authority of native law. Instead, as well as the fine set by native courts, a fine, as set out in the statutes of Adomnan's law, was added to the punishment decided upon by native jurists.

Adomnan's law was the first of several ecclesiastical laws or cana promulgated between 697 and 842;it was renewed some 30 years after Adomnan's death, an indication perhaps that the Columban pamchia still held a great deal of power. The annals show that

Patrick's law was enforced in 767 and that the Law of Ailbe was in force in the Munster region in 784. Hughes writes that kings proclaimed secular laws in their own province, but saints' laws wuld have power outside their own region.14

From 697 and the promulgation of Adomnan's law, to 887, the annals record promulgations or ïenewals of nine difFerent ordinances, each issued by a saint or particular

l3 James F. Kenney, as quoted in "Some Problems," p.233.

l4 Hughes, Earlv Christian Ireland, p.8 1. 10 monastic federation clairning effect over an area wider than the promoting paruchia, and usually, over the authonty of secular as well as monastic rulers. Of ail these la=, the texts of only three have sur~ived.'~

One cannot fully understand the importance of Adomnan's law without looking more ctosely at the cult of Columba as it was 100 years after his death. By Adomnan's time,

Columba had become a well-known and revered saint and the influence of his abbacy at lona was known throughout Ireland, Britain and the Continent. Sharpe also wntes of the family of lona that "the extent and importance of Adomnan's work in lreland shows the influence of its abbot was widely dispersed." l6

While the law itself is the focal point of this study, to fully understand Adomnan the scholar, writer and church leader who developed the iaw, a number of other primary sources must be considered: One was written by the abbot - Betha Cholairn Chille,

Adomnan's Life of Columba, but other crucial sources include Bede's Ecciesiasticai

History of the Enalish Peo~leand praise poetry written in support of the Columban cult.

These prirnary sources, including Bede's work, have been translated from their original

Latin or Irish; the first translation of Adomnan's law was done by Kuno Meyer and published in 1905; a second translation was undertaken by students in the Celtic

Department at Glasgow University in 1997.17 In his brief preface, Meyer wrote that his translation of the law had been edited from the only two manuscripts in which it exists, one

-- -

l5 Mairin Ni Dhonnchada, "Guarantor List," Pentiq Vol. 1, 1982, p. 178.

l6 Sharpe, "Some Problems," p.234.

l7 Miirkus, Cain Adomnhin. 11 from the 15th century, the other copied by the prolific 16th century scribe Micheal O'Cierigh from the MS The Book of Ra~hoe,which he dates to the ninth ~entury.'~Thus the law which has corne down to us is a compilatory one.

Both Meyer and Markus write that they had problems translating Cain Adornnain, or

Lex lnnocentium as it was known in Latin. Binchy, who earlier fast century undertook the study of numerous early Irish law tracts and cana, points out that some laws were often recorded and recopied by scribes who didn't fully understand the language of the text or its technicalities; for example, a Latin scholar may not have understood the intricacies of

Old Irish, and vice versa. The Old lrish language was highly technical and without the framework of grammatical structure. As well, even by the standards of ancient laws, the terrninology was often deliberately obscure; so many of the tracts were transmitted in

"mutilated and disjointednexcerpts scattered throughout various manuscripts that it is hard to piece together the puzzle c~herently.'~

Any study of the law and its promulgation has bengreatly aided by the work of Ni

Dhonnchadha, who, some years ago, wrote an article on the guarantors' list, which is contained within the law. Her work helps us establish some kind of date for the text. The guarantors' list is likely the earliest segment although there "is no agreement on the various strata that make up the text." She attempts to use criteria other than language forrn

,. *. '' Kun0 Meyer, Cain Adamnain: An OId-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamna, Oxford, 1905, pvii.

l9 D.A..Binchy, The Linaistic and Historical Value of the Irish Law Tracts, London, 1943, p.4. 12

to date the list and places each guarantor in context politically and ge~graphically.~~

The primary sources, though few, are n'ch in historical evidence and include the kind

of matenal needed to get a well-rounded look at how the cultural, econornic and political

lives of society's mernbers were intertwined with the monastic institutions of the late

seventh century. Adomnan's life of Columba is an idealized account of the saint's life and

work, written in a three-part structure, without chronology and involving wondrous acts and

miracles said to be attributed to the saint during, or after, his Iife.

But the work also includes tales that indicate the closeness of the folk, geographically

and spiritually, to the Christian message and the influence of the monks at lona. Bede's

work, finished in 731, is regarded as a key source for early English church history, and is

an invaluable mine of information regarding the kingships and wars of the English nation.

the struggles within the early Roman church in England, and the Celtic church. The Annals

of Ulster and The lrish Annals are excellent primary sources to which one can refer, cross-

check and more accurately date evidence cited in the primary sources.

There are a number of problems for the scholar conducting textual analysis and using

hagiographies such as Adomnan's as evidence: "Hagiography," wntes Hughes, "is not

history." And it is certainly not biography. It is what Hughes calls a panegyric of a saint and

stresses his holiness, his way of iife and wondrous phenornena that surrounded himS2'The

majority of lrish saints' lives have "little general information about the saint" except, she writes, for the work written by Adomnan, whom she describes as "an outstanding, able and

------Ni Dhomchadha, "The Guarantor List," p. 179.

" Hughes, Earlv Christian Ireland, p.2 19. -

13 versatile man," in regards to his scholar~hip.~Yet, despite the complexities of the structure of hagiography - and its lack of chronology - it is likely any hagiography will be filled with details that concern the period in which it was written; frorn Adomoan's work, it is possible to mine a nurnber of details conceming Columba's abbacy at lona.

The Life of Columba has been translated and closely analyzed by four different scholarç: William Reeves, canon of Armagh, in 1856; Alan and Majorie Ogilvie Anderson in 1962, and more recently by Richard Sharpe in 1991. Each has focused on different aspects of the Life as literature, history and hagiography. Reeves attempted a literal translation but did not consider the structural makeup or language problems in the work.

Nevertheless, his treatrnent of the life was called "encyclopaedic" by the Andersons They were unhappy with the fact his sources were of a later date than most historians would be content with today. The scientific study of the Irish language was in its infancy in the last century and, as a result, Reeves' translation did not include some of the early Irish sour~es.~His preface gives a narrative account of Columba's life and work and offers little insight into the deeper meaning of the Life's structure or the history of hagiography.

By the time the Andersons had translated and re-examined the Life, much work had been done in the way of Ceitic scholarship and there had been substantiaily more literature written on church history in lrelaod and Scotland. The Andersons wnte that their translation makes "no attempt to cover the same ground as Reeves." In questions of history the Andersons attempted to use a number of sources, including "nearly

22 Hughes, Early Christian Ireland, p.220.

" Alan and Marjorie Ogi!vie Anderson, Adomnan's Life of Columba, Edinburgh, 196 1, p. 14

contemporary Latin notes of events written In Easter tables, in various Irish monasteries

and by eariy annal-~ollecton."~~Their analysis and preface to the is much more

comprehensive than Reeves' earlier work.

Sharpe, on the other hand, refers consistently to a series of Irish annal collections from various dates and atternpts to consider the time period in which Columba and

Adomnan were placed in history. He also tests Adomnan's evidenœ against more pnmary sources; Reeves and the Andersons did not do this in their workm2'

These three works, while similar, consider very different aspects of the hagiography.

Reeves' work takes an older historical narrative approach, while the other two translations are the resuit of a more modem and focused methodology and deal with specific areas of insular exegesis. The analysis by each of the four scholars presents us with an increasingly comprehensive view of Adomnan's work.

The Colurnban cult was a powerful political and spiritual force that stretched frorn the

Irish shores to Swtland and northern England by the time Adomnan was abbot, and was well-known to such churchmen as the Venerable Bede. The work of Bede presents its own obstacles regarding sources and accuracy: Bede wntes in the preface to his Ecclesiastical

History that he has "endeavoured to give in writing an honourable account of what 1 have collected from common report in accordance with the tnie law of Hi~tory."~~In short. Bede's statement, Picard writes, acts as a caution: "Despite his honesty, and his aspiration to

24 A. and M. Anderson, p xx

25 Richard Sharpe, "Introduction," Adornnh's Life of Columba, London, 1991, pg 7

26 Jean-Michel Picard, "Bede, Ad0rmxi.q and the Writing of History," in Peritis Vol.3, 1984, 15 truth, the history unfortunately had to rely on traditions and sources which rnay or rnay not be totally acc~rate."*~

Clearîy, Bede is more concemed with chronology and fact than is Adornnan, who wrote the Life to promote the cuit of the saint and bolster the standing of the familia. Further problerns arise because the Life contradicts Bede in many places: As Picard points out,

Bede was "educated in the spirit of cornpetition" with the Irish mission and he works very hard, in his accounts relating to the Irish, at establishing a kind of Saxon superi~rity.~~

The methodology of Adomnan and Bede is not clearly defined and this presents problems in assessing the material presented by each: Bede's work contains some miraculous elements, similar to hagiography, and Adomnan "uses method and technique which have been attributed to the best historian~,"~~such as Sulpicius Severus of Tours, who wrote the Life of St. Martin in the late fourth ~entury.~~The works are full of methodological contradictions, yet, writes Picard, both Bede and Adomnan "were conscious of writing within a specific literary framework" and both were concerned with fonn and structure.

Adomnan wrote thematically and his work is an edification of the life of his predece~sor.~'While the hagiographies are bare of dates and chronological order. Bede

27 Picard, "Bede," p.50.

Picard, "Purpose," p. 1 65.

Picard, "Purpose," p. 1 65.

30 Sharpe, "Introduction," Life of St. Columba p.57.

31 Picard, "Structural Patterns in Hiberno-Latin Hagiography," in Pentia, Vol 4, 1985, p.7 1 . 16 uses the systern introduced by "Dionysius Exiguus of reckoning from the birth of Christ," which he feit was the most appropriate way of dealing with the Christian church. He does use regnal years of the Roman Empire or English kings where it seems appr~priate.~~

It is important to keep in mind, while analyzing all the primary works, that the oral sources used by the scribes need to be questioned. Adomnan and Bede are determined to "exploit al1 available resources," but one must take into account that in al1 cases, Bede and Adomnan rely heavily on oral sources. Bede is well-known for quoting those sources;

Adomnan writes that his accounts are based "mainly on the testimony of well-informed elderç," and in some cases, episodes were handed down in "a precise line of information named by Ad~rnnan."~~

Each also reliecl on written sources and here the record becornes more muddied for each fails time and again to record the names of those sources; Picard believes Adomnan and Bede drew heavily on existing written works which were in circulation at the time, Bede on an early Life of Wilfrid and Adomnan on the lost MS, Liber de Uirtutibus Sancti

Columbae, written in 669 by the Cummene Ailbe, abbot of ha."

The secondary literature regarding church history for the two centuries under consideration falls into two topics - the lrish Church and the Roman church - and the distinctions between the two organizations. Why the lrish church developed as it did is the focus of much discussion in the secondary literature. Separating the myth and legend of

32 Picard, "Bede," pS2.

33 Picard, "Bede," p.5 1.

34 Picard, "Bede," p.5 1. 17

Columba - the supernatural and fantastic stories that worked their way into the consciousness of the folk - from the cuit, or following of Columba, will take a great deal of scrutiny of the primary rnaterial to determine how and when the two merged.

A lot of Iiterature on the history of the early Celtic church has been written during the last few decades and a number of general and indepth studies have been done on manuscripts containing a variety of ecclesiastical laws, from canons, cana (early church iaws) and penitentials. There have been tomes written on various saints, on monastic structure, on reiigious tradition, the importance of geographic locations for monastic settlement, on pentitentials, pilgrimage, the value of the ascetic Iife, and various archeological digs. Such a wide range of rnaterial poses difficuMes in assessing the value of the information, for each, in some way, touches on the question of Adomnan's political aspirations and the Easter question.

There are other complications regarding the secondary literature, for while there is an abundance of material on the Irish Church, there are few modern studies on Scottish missions such as lona. It must be assumed - to some degree - that details pertaining to politics and authority in the newer missions in Dalriada during this specific time period are similar, due to the close links, to the church and its authority in Ireland.

Secondary sources, and translations of primary ones, are available due to the scholarship of a number of Irish and Scottish scholars who have gone on to interpret and present the evidence from their point of view on a number af subjects concerning the literature and laws of the early church and society. And from these efforts have sprung a considerable number of secondary source materials: Herbert, Hughes and John A. Duke have al1 examined a variety of topics that deal directly with church structure and law~.~~

During the past thirty years there has been a particular interest among Celtic historians

in seeking answers as to why the Columban church achieved such popularity, prevalence and strength in lreland and Scotland and on considering its links to early Irish society and the Irish king and kinship structures. Hughes, for instance, writes that by the seventh

œntury, three separate churches in lreland were laying claims to widespread jurisdiction and property; Kildare's were the eariiest and "vaguest" claims, but Brigit's paruchia claimed her dominance a man usque ad mare. Later that century, the scribe Tirechan was rnaking universal claims on behaif of Patrick's paruchiae, as Patrick founded ail of Ireland's primitive churches. 36 As we shall see, this action by Tirechan may have been a threat to the Columban foundation. and possibly had a great deal to do with the timing of the promulgation of Adomnan's faw.

A glance at other attempts to trace Columban church history are less rewarding. More than a hundred years ago, Skene sought to illuminate the "Celtic church, irrespective of ecclesiastical bias, (Protestant or Catholic)," and his work attempts to "tell (the historical) tale"37by simply outlining the external aspects of Columban church history. The result is a sketchy outline of church growth with a c!ose cornparison made between "Patrick, the

35 Kathleen Hughes is by far the most prolific writer on Celtic ecclesiastical history, with Earlv Christian Irel&:Introduction to the Sources, London, 1972, and The Church in Early Irish Society, London, 1 968.

36 Kathieen Hughes, "The Church and the World in Early Christian Ireland," Church and Society in Ireland. A.D. 400-1 200, ed. David Dumville, 1987, p. 100.

37 William F.Skene, "Preface," in Celtic Scotland: a Histoy of Ancient Alban, Vol 1 1, Church and Culture, 1971. 19

Apostle of Ireland," and "Colum bal the Apostle of S~otland."~~The Columban church in

Scotland and the efforts of the saint are presented in the light of a missionary zeal, without stress on its political links to lreland.

Even last century Duke was skeptical of sources outside traditional primary literature such as Adomnan's Life of Columba, and wrote that while many of the details concerning

Columba's life and work are culled from Adornnan's hagiography, further evidenœ is from

"other, but subordinate, sources."3g While Duke's evidence also includes sources such as the Lismore Lives of Saints. his narrative of Columban church history considers mostly its structure and growth without seeking clues from less obvious secular sources and without delving into doctrinal issues.

More recently, in examining the history and hagiography of the Columban familia.

Herbert has undertaken a more widespread and allencompassing look at the Columban church by culling secular literary sources as well as traditional primary ones. She believes the founding and growth of the Columban church is "better documented in factual records

. . . than its counterparts," and this can be seen through the critical analysis of existing monastic charters, geneologies, Irish annals and the later vernacular Li~es.~'This may illustrate advancements made in historiographical methodology during a period covering

38 Skene, Celtic Scotland, p.79.

39 John A. Duke, "Ireland,"in The Columban Church, 1932, p 57. The author writes highly of Adornnan's hagiography, calling it an autobiography of "valuable information." However, more recent studies, such as "Bede," by Jean-Michel Picard, Peritiq, VoI. 3, 1984, have shown hagiographical work of this nature to be flawed and a iess than reliable source.

40 Maire Herbert, Iona. Ke11 s and Demy: The History and Ha-phv of the Monastiç Familia of Columbe Oxford, 1988, p.2. 20 sixty short years, or it may simply mean scholars, faœd with a lack of abundant evidence, are willing to stretch their Iimits in searching for answers. Herbert, for example, pays scrupulous attention to evidence found in institutional primary sources while allowing for consideration of evidence in later texts in their "recensions and successive reda~tions."~'

She mines vemacular sources, as well, and thinks al1 evidence should be closely regarded in the wntext of its time, believing al1 sources to be "shaped by the conventions of (their) genre." 42

At face value, the miracle tales told by Adomnan of Columba do not help to separate myth from cult, but other academics have contributed greatly to the secondary Iiterature by studying specific aspects of hagiography. For example, Charles Doherty has teased economic history sources out of some hagiographie^:^^ Jean-Michel Picard has offered a number of reasons why he thinks Adornnan wrote his Life of Columba when he did."

Continuing interest in the cult of Columba is borne out in the recent publication of a collection of essays on various topics related to the Iife and work of the saint. Studies in the Cult cf Saint Columba commemorated the fourteen-hundredth anniversary of the death of the founder of lona. Academics from diverse fields of study, such as archeology, geosciences, theology, literature and linguistics departments at universities in Britain and

41 Herbert, Ion% p.3.

" Herbert, Iona, p.2.

Charles Doherty, "SomeAspects of Hagiography as a Source for Irish Economic History," in Peati& Vol. 1, 1982, pp. 300-329.

Picard, "Structural Patterns," Peritia, Vol. 4, 1985, pp.67-8 1. 21

Ireland, contributed to the book?

Recent years have seen the publication of an abundanœ of literature pertaining to the

ritual and tradition of Ceftic religion; the topics of these newer works revolve around the

cults of saints such as Columba. Patrick or Brigid. Writers like Shirley Toulson have taken

a more romantic approach to certain aspects of the early Celtic church and David Adams,

vicar of Holy Island, the Northumbrian mission founded by Columba's monks, has wrïtten

a book of prayers composed in the simple. Celtic tradition of earlier praise poetry.

One of the main problems with the available material is balancing the inter-disciplinary

nature of secondar-y sources with primary ones: What aspects, if any, of archeological

evidence will indicate the political influence of lona and the power of Cain Adamnain over

Dalriada? Certainly the evidence shows a highly structured and large community that

involved itself in agriculture and animal-h~sbandry,~but does economic and material

evidence point to power and authonty? And how does the literary analysis of hagiography

explain the historical evidence contained within the miracle tales?

Despite the problems presented by the sources, they are al1 the evidence in existence to date. It is crucial to recognize the weaknesses and appreciate the strengths of the

material: So much of what we have has been compiled at different times by different

scribes; so many different scholars disagree on the dates of those compilations and sources.

. . '' Cornac Bourke (ed.) Studies in the Cult of St, Col- Dubline, 1997.

46 Aidan MacDonald in "Adomnan's Monastery of Iona," and Finbar McCormick in "Iona: the Archaeology of the Early Monastery," make reference to this in Studi'es in the Cult of Saint Columba 22

There were a number of important ecclesiastical laws in lreland during the two

centuries under consideration. Hughes quotes a gloss on Colman's Hymn, which focuses

on: "The four chief laws of Ireland, the law of Patrick, and of Daire and of Adamnan and

of Sunday; the law of Patrick, now, not to slay clerics; the law of Daire, not to steal cattle;

of Adornnan, not to slay wornen; of Sunday, not to travel." These four were ecclesiasticai

laws, quite separate from, yet encompassing, secular laws. Yet the "function of the &na

is a vexed question," writes Hughes. Adomnan's law "has a genuine early core . . . it

seems to me more likely that originally the intention was to protect non-wmbatants and

church property from violence." 47 But was it?

Of al1 the secondary sources consulted concerning the promulgation of Adomnan'ç

law, few, Save Picard and Herbert, have hinted at motives that we may interpret today as

political in intent - that the law was purely to bolster the Columban familia . It is very likely

the law was written for a variety of reasons; its focus was to protect women, children and

clerics during this turbulent period in society. But what about the time-consuming amount

of travel and the diplomatic work that went into garnering support for the law on both sides

of the Irish Sea? The Celtic church, after all, had lost its case in 664:What better way to

remind society that the Columban church cared the most than by protecting its weakest

members?

There is much to be learned about Adomnan's law: Its pious and social implications; its concern for the weak in violent times, and the all-embracing support for it by the most important members of society point to the Columban familia and its ninth abbot as a

'' Hughes, Early Christian Ireland, p.82. --

23

powerful force in the secular and ecclesiastical worlds. But it is rny belief that, despite the

asœtic practices and Christian intent of the Columban parvchia, the rise of other powerful

monastic foundations, such as Patrick's, led the Columban foundation to seek ways and

means of reinforcing its supremacy, of reminding society of the power of the royal house

of the Ui Neill and its favourite son, Columba. We must assume that a great deal of

unrecorded thought was given to the creation and promulgation of the law. Only through careful analysis af the primary sources - the law itself, and Adomnan's Life - can we begin to glimpse the other possible reasons for the law's promulgation.

By examining Columban church tradition, ecclesiastical law and its promulgation - within the context of insular society at that time - we can begin to understand that there may have been a large measure of calculated intent to Adomnan's actions.

But first, to fully comprehend the force of the Columban familia in society in the sixth and seventh centuries, it is imperative to trace the history of the saint, the cultural milieu in which he grew, his banishment and the growth of the church tradition that would bear his name. Then we may understand how Columba's, and later, Adomnan's royal and elite links could bring about such profound changes in the way women, children and clerics were treated. Chapter 2 - The History of the Columban Church

The history of the Colurnban church in Scotland is inextricably enrneshed with the

development of the eariy Irish monastic tradition and the ecclesiastical and secular politics

of that country. Much has been written during this century and the last concerning the

Columban tradition; but more recent studies have cast a new and interesting light on

prirnary sources not mined by earlier scholars.

To fully understand why Adornnan, who assumed the abbacy of lona in 679,'created

and prornulgated his law for society in lreland and Dalriada one hundred years after the

death of St. Columba, it is necessary to trace the events of Columba's life, the founding

of lona, and the effect the foundation had on society in Dalriada and Ireland. Constructing

the history of Columba's mission to lona has presented historians with great difficuîties. But

the reservoir of evidence has grown as scholars have used a variety of monastic and

secular sources to delve into different aspects of the church's growth, its transition to the

monastic tradition, its relationship to secular society, the laws that prevailed and the growth

of key paruchia, such as the foundation at lona.

Columba's mission to the Picts was not that country's first encounter with Christianity.

Sea routes from the south led to "the final emergence of the Celtic church," writes Bowan,

and had a great influence on Britain as routes from Gaul, Spain and north Africa brought their own particular developments to Christian culture and practice. In turn, this activity

provided eventual links between "lreland and Argyll (Scotland)" and "lreland and

Alan MacQuarrie, "St. Ad0mmi.n of Iona: St. Maelrubai of Applecross," in The Saints of Scobd. Ewsin Scottish Cmtory.AD 45-1 093, Edinburgh, 1997, p. 161 25 southwest Scotland."* At the same time. there was also a great deal of movement from lreland to Wales where the influenœ.of Irish cuiture wrnbined with the infiux of Christian elements from the south: "The Celtic church drew its ideals and inspiration with singular directness from the first phase of Christian monasticism . . . It was worked out in the very different conditions of the Nile Valley . . . " and transmitted to lreland from GauL3The fact that the austerities prastised by monks in the desert could, and would, succeed in the cold climate of lreland and northern Britain gave a certain amount of credibility to the asceticisrn and evangelical zeal of monks Iike Columba.

The year 697, when Adomnan's law was promulgated, saw the Roman church on the

Continent and in southem Britain as markedly different: It owed itç allegiance and authority directly to the Pope in Rome; its organization and hierarchy, once it established the

Augustinian mission at Canterbury in 597, reflected a universal authority - a more centralized and highly structured institution. While a number of monks, such as Ninian in the fourth century, had trained in Rome and established missions in Scotland, it was not until the Augustinian mission in 597 that there was a deterrnined attempt by Rome to impose its hierarchical structure and universal authority on Britain's churches.

The Irish church, which is atso known as the Celtic church, was vastly different in its organization during the late seventh œntury. There was no universal authority; instead, a number of paruchiae whose loyalty lay with their founding saint, practised Christianity in a more independent manner, relying on a structure that resembled the kinship structure

E.G. Bowan, Saints. Settlements and Seaways, Cardiff, 1969, p. 57.

Bowan, Saints, p 57 26 in Ireland - an abbot as head, monks and Iaymen obedient to his rule. Many of these Irish institutions were famous as places of learning and scholarship, as well as bases for the dessemination of the new religion.

Bowan cites sea routes as the means by which very early Christianity was brought to

Britain, to the area north of Hadrian's wall; from southwest f rance came intense Christian activity to the western peninsula of Britain in the form of Gallo-Romano migrants who worked their way n~rth.~Christianity was developing differently in lreland due to the fact it was an insular society without the influence of Roman invasion or culture. These movernents brought with them a strong eremitical elernent, and it is thought that these migrants were not only escaping barbarian invasions on the continent, they were participating in deliberate attempts of evangelization aimed at Cornwall, Wales and southem Scotland. The evidence provided by stone mernorial slabs and their inscriptions bear witness to these migrations. The funerary inscriptions on the stones were in Roman letters, and their Christian characten "cieariy indicated by the formulae empl~yed."~Some are dated to the tirne of the Roman consul Justinus, who ruled in 540 A.D.; HIC IACET stems from the late fourth century and was in fashion in Gaul in the early fifth century.

Another, IN HOC TUMULO, found in west Britain, was Gallic in origin and used widely in the fifth century. IN PACE MEMORIA, was "rare in Gaul" but known in North Africa and found at Yarrowick in Scotland and Lewanick in C~rnwall.~None of these inscriptions were

"owan, Saine, p.52.

5' Bowan, Saints, p. 63.

Bowan, Saints, p.55. 27 found in lreland where a different and special tradition operated, as the island lay outside

Roman territorial influences and Latin was not used until much later. This fact would shape and influence the particular development of the rnonastic tradition and the eremetical practices of the rnonks in the Celtic church.

Columba's evangelical mission to Dalriada was by no means the first; if we believe the archeological and literary evidence of later mers, the Irish saint amved to find a Christian tradition that had been well-established by monks of the Roman church. The nineteenth- century language expert, Dr. Alexander McBain, who took a cynical view of Columba's fame, noted that the Irish saint "swallowed up into his own flame all the work of his preâecessors, cornpanions and wntemporaries and deprived generations of pioneerç and missionaries of their just fame."7

Yet there was a rich and varied Christian history in Scotland when Columba arrived and a number of other Irish and British monks were known to have preached to the Picts before and dunng the saint's lifetime. Frank Knight identifies eight men and women "who were actively evangelizing the country before Columba left lreland."' St. Catan, St. Moluag and St. Blane, al1 from Bangor in County Oown, were working with the Picts during the two centuries before Columba's arriva1 in Dalriada. Catan may have been linked to the foundations on Coionsay, May and Jura; Moluag worked at Lismore, on Skye and Tiree, while Blane is thought to have established a rnonastery on ButesgSt. Kessog also worked

' A-McBain, cited in J.D. Galbraith's St. Machar's Cathedra]: Celtic Antecedents, Aberdeen, 1982.

Ian Bradley, Vrnand Penitent, Glasgow, 1996, p.41.

Bradley, Columba, p.40. to convert the Picts in Scotland dunng Columba's lifetime, evangelizing the Northern Picts from his Loch Lornond base. St. Serf was active in Fife and Loch Leven and St. Teman may have Christianized the Dee Valley in Aberdeenshire. While British-born St. Kentigern is cited as the firçt bishop of the Strathclyde Brit~ns,'~Donnan of Eigg, a younger contemporary of Columba's, is thought to have evangelized the west and north-west areas of Scotland. Smyth does not like to rely on placenames, but he believes the names of church sites, such as Kildonnan on Eigg and Skye, and in other areas, such as Seipeil

Dhonnain at Kishom, are reliable sources for this saint's activities."

The founding of lona in the early 570s marked a change in the direction of the Christian mission to Scotland that would, in time, affect the north of England with the founding of

Lindisfarne and the growth of the Columban church. Such was the distinction and supremacy of the all-embracing work of the lona cornmunity, under Columba and his succeeding heirs, that the passing of Adomnan's law some one hundred years after the founding saint's death would have been no surprise to the inhabitants of Scotland or

Ireland. The foundation was powerful, well-established and taught and practised the fundarnental tenets of Christ's message of love and peace. Protecting wornen , children and clerics, perhaps perceived as weaker members of society, would have been a worthy and just move. It is also possible that the disappointment of losing some of the lona cornrnunity's established power at the Synod of Whitby drove the ninth abbot to seek ways to stop the flow of Roman influence toward the Celtic church.

l O Bradley, Columba, p.4 1.

AbdP. Smyth, Warlords and Holv Men. Scodand AD 80-1 000,Edinburgh, 1984, p 107 The ideology of the Columban organization lay not only with the kinship structure. It

was founded by a rnember of a powerful royal family - its success almost certainly

guaranteed by the support and land granted by family members. While Roman ideology

was based on the tenets of vejearly Christian practice - a Pope who was Christ's

representative on earth, monks and brothers who imitated the life and work of Christ - the

Columban church ideology differed greatly. There was no centralized figurehead, no

structural organization and no universal authority. It was distinguished by an ernphasis on

learning, teaching and a spirituality that Professor John Macquarrie described as "a

profound sense of immanence of God in the world . . . the sense of an all-pervading

presence."'* There was a sense that nature was bound up in the spiritual message of

Christianity and a feeling that Christ's message alone was of utmost importance. The evangelical message became all-important: The story of Christ's birth, death and resurrection, embodied in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were key factors in their practice of an ascetic lifestyle, prayer, fasting and pilgrimage.

But the key difference between the Columban ideology and Roman church was the nature of lrish Christian beliefs, which became adapted to its insular island culture. While

Roman ideology reflected a centralized authority and hierarchy, the lrish church, as we shalt see in the dicussion of Columba's cutt, became entwined with native Irish cultural tradition and practice. In time, lrish Christianity absorbed native beliefs and superstition and its stress on nature and their existing myths and legends. Columban ideology embraced al1 of these native traditions: In his Life, Adomnan refers to the power of nature

l2 J. Macquanie as cited in Esther de Waal's A World Made Whole. Rediscovenn~the Celtic Tradition, London, 199 1, p 10 and the saint's ability to control the winds and sea. Other imagery, wildlife - especially birds

- figure prominently in Columba's prop hecies. Prophecies were a cornmon theme in early

Irish folklore and mythology.

The Irish and Roman institutions may have been far apart in institutional structure, yet

Adomnan was very sure of the familia's place in the Christian world and its special position. He likened Columba's birth and work to Christ's life and wrote in his second preface to the Life:

In the last days of the world, a son will be bom whose name Columba will becorne famous through al1 the provinces of the ocean's islands, and he will be a bright light in the last days of the world. The fields of our monasteries, mine and his, will be separated by only a little hedge. A man very dear to God and of great ment in His sight. l3

The Christianization of the people of Scotland and Wales took an entirely different route from the development of the English church.14Bowan categorizes the Christianization of the church in Scotland and Wales in three orders of saints and holy men: bishops with a "roving commission . . . the earliest brethren;" the "holy men in charge of great monastic houses where monks were trained;" and the wandering saints - "the peregrini who roamed the lands and seas on pilgrhage to spend their lives in prayer, praise and meditation."15 It was the third group who spread the influence of the Celtic church the furthest in the centuries after Columba had established his monastic foundatians.

Saints Columba, Ninian and Keotigern - the three saints to have had the widest

l3 Adornnh's Life of St. Columba, Second Preface, p 105

" The Celtic church grew out of the tradition of the Desert fathers and its Judaic roots, via Gaul; the English church developed through its Roman links and Hellenistic traditions.

l5 Bowan, Saints, p-67. influence on Christian development in Scotland - belonged to the first and second group; they were the earfiest church men to found monastic houses, which were to shape the direction of Christianity in Scotland for several centuries.

Ninian, one of the earliest missionaries to Scotland, studied in Rome and was sent to help the southern Picts abandon idolatry and convert to Christianity, wrote Bede in the eighth century. Much later reference to Ninian was made by Aelred, his twelfth-century biographer of the Rivaulx monastery in Yorkshire, but evidence provided by him is considered less reliable than Bede's earlier accounts.16 MacQueen has disagreed with

Bede's accounts, writing that the Northumbrian scribe likely did not know enough of the geography or inhabitants of the southwest of Scotland and had only the "talk of his day" to rely on when writing of bJinian.l7

Christiantty had been established in Britain and Irefand for some 75 years when Ninian was born in Cumberland. After 10 years of study in Rome he retumed to Britain in 393 and established his primary foundation, Candida Casa, at the Isle of Whlhom, on the peninsula of Galioway. Other missions, said to be estabiished by Ninian, include sites south of

Glasgow, near Stirling, at Arbroath on the Forfarshire coast, at Dunottar and Methlic,

Aberdeenshire." But again, MacQueen comrnents largely on the "almost cornplete lack of literary evidence for Ninian's missionarynactivities among the Picts.lg

l6 Bowan, Saints, p.67.

l7 John MacQueen, St. Nynia., Edinburgh, 1990, pp. 38- 68.

l6 Diana Leatharn, Thev Built on Rock ,Glasgow, 1948, p.55.

l9 MacQueen, St. Ny-~ia,p.68. 32

Another missionary saint, Donnan, who worked in Scotfand after Ninian, is said to have "followed in (Ninian's) footsteps" and likely camed out additional work using the sea to establisn chapels in northeast Aberdeenshire, Sutherland and EiggeZOSaint Kentigern, named "Mungo" by his foster-father, St. Serf, began his work around 550 in Strathclyde, one hundred and fiyears after Ninian had estabfished his monasteries. He was founder of the see and the crty of Glasgow, but little is known about Mungo other than what appears to be a twelfth-century Life, written by the monk Jocelinus at the Cistercian Abbey of Fumess in Lancashire. It is, writes Duke, completely unreliable and a "mass of utterly incredible legends."*'

Celtic scholars such as Duke and Hughes have written that the sixth and seventh- century Irish, or Celtic, church was a period of more ascetic, religious values; a time when churchmen more rïgorously practised the message of the gospels and, in turn, interpreted them more liberally, adapting them to the insular island cu~ture.~Hughes, the rnost published scholar on the early Irish church, writes that the evidence of Adomnan and Bede depict a church in 600, just after Columba's death, that is "remarkable for its austerity, its vitality and its happiness . . . the discipline of study and prayer . . . the motive force of

(these) actions was the love of GO^."^^ Yet there were great and considerable differences between the Celtic church and the church in Britain during the sixth century.

*O MacQueen, St. N-nia, p.55.

21 John A. Duke, The Coiurnban Church, Oxford, 1932, p.29.

22 Duke, The Colurnban Church, p.68.

23 Kathleen Hughes, "The church and the World in EarIy Christian Ireland," Church and Society in Ireland. 400-1 200, London, 1987, p.99. The religion brought to treland in the fourth and fifth centuries was one of Roman tradition and practice. Remote and rural lreland had never enduted invasions, had no urban centres. organized trade routes to the continent or stone roads built to carry tr~ops.*~

In both countries, Latin civilization prevailed in church Iife, but while it had been absorbed into the structure known as the British church, this Latin administrative structure was completely at odds with the church in Ireland.25Moreover, Britain, dunng this period, was subject to hostile invasions from Gennanic barbarians, a disniption that severely hindered society and the growth and maturïty of the church there.

By the seventh century, however, church organization in lreland had become vastly different from its counterpart on the continent and in Britain. In fifth-century Ireland, it had existed as it did in the rest of the Western world; territorial dioceses were under the jurisdiction of a bishop, as was the Roman practice of church structure. By the time

Columba entered into religious life the church had adapted to a mode1 resembling the lrish kinship structure - an organization with abbots who headed, not dioceses, but monastic panrchiae, groups of houses spread over a wide area but acknowledging a particular founder. 26 This development was, as we shall see, a reflection of the structure of lrish society. It is possible that Adornnan's law was a natural outcome of this tradition of kinship, for native Irish taws, wkich will be discussed later, took great pains to protect

24 Lisa Bitel, Isle of the Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian Community in Ireland, Cornell, 1990, p. 1.

25 Kathleen Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, London, 1966, p.39.

26 Kathleen Hughes, Earl~Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources, London, 1972, p.7 1. its mernberç, especially women who had been wronged. Protection of the family and extended kin was key to maintaining order within the closed, insular society of the early

Celts; ever; within the confines of the monastic organization, Columba was known a "father and f~under."'~

Moving from the fifth to the sixth century in lreland was like "passing from the modern world to the Desert Father~."~~Ireland's demography played a tremendous role in the different organizations that sprang up: The Irish economy, which had a widely scattered pastoral population and no towns, offered no basis for Roman-style territorial sees, which composed the key administrative structure of the Roman church. Church organization and structure in lreland had by the sixth century, moved away frorn the balanced organization of the Roman church that existed in Britain and on the continent.

Chadwick believes the church in lreland was a vastly different world, in which "the spiritual atmosphere was more The rise of the rnonastic tradition during the sixth century was of the utmost importance for the Columban church for it was this organization and political structure that allowed for its strength and influence. Duke wriies that the monastic development in lreland was natural and largely a native growth, one that suited the structure of Irish society. Gathering into comrnunities for safety and "the preservation of religious life,"was natural for these Christian con vert^.^'

- -

57 Adomnh's Life of Colmba, Second Preface, p 104

28 Nom Chadwick, The Celtic Church, Oxford, 1961, p.77.

29 Chadwick, The Celtic Church, p.6 1.

Duke, The Columban Church, p.5 1. 35

Chadwick also cites two important factors arising from this period: the rise of these

great monastefies and the fact al1 existing evidence is owed to this pend and ih monastic

scribes." As well, the rnonastic period of the sixth and seventh centuries has been called

the church's 'golden age" due to the fact the Irish church distinguished itsetf in two distinct

areas; its zeal for learning and its missionary enthusiasm. "Removed from (barbarian)

distresses . . . it was enabled to devote itself peacefully to the cause of leaming and its

great monasteries . . . (sorne of which) became universities of European fame."32

From the monastic tradition arose the title of coma&-ship - a term that derives from the Old Irish word comarba, meaning abb~t.~~This type of leadership became a characteristic of the Celtic church in Scotland and Wales as well. Lands were granted by a local chief or landowner to a monk or priest from his own kindred group to found a monastery. The successive heirs to the foundation, usually from the same kin group, became known as comarbs. Each comaha was expected to carry on the work and message of the founding saint; in the case of lona, Adomnan was expected to uphold and continue the work laid out by Columba, ensuring the lona community continued its work of conversion and spreading the Christian message. After the defeat of the Celtic church at the Sy~odof Whitby, this task may have been difficult for Adornnan, another factor which may have contributed to the creation of his law to protect women, children and clerics. How much simpler would conversion of the pagans have been if the monks could

:' Chadwick, The Celtic Church, p.77.

32 Duke, The Colurnban Church, p.52.

33 Hughes, Introduction to the Sources, p 73 ensure protection from violence and injury for mothers and their children.

The list of monastic church founders is extensive. Columba was part of the new movement in Christianrty that saw the founding of these monastic paruchia. By the end of the sixth century other foundations had been established by Corngall of Bangor, Ciaran of

Clonmacnois and Columbanus, who founded Irish-style monasteries on the continent in

Luxieul, Annegrey and Bobbio."

Genealogy charts for lona show that "up to (A.D.) 724, al1 twelve abbots, except the sixth and lOth, belonged to the same kindred gr~up."~~With these rnonastic houses,

Iinked by kin and a comrnon bond, there was a change in the purpose of Christianity in lreland and Scotland; its focus shifted from its eariy purpose of preaching the "heathen law to building up individual Christians into perfe~tness."~And yet the monastic tradition did not prevail over al1 of Ireland. Despite the spread of paruchia, the previously established episcopal (or Roman tradition) and the monastic continued to exist side by side. Hughes has no explanation why the changes occurred or when monastic organization outstripped the Roman tradition, if it ever truly did. Instead, evidence shows that the rnonastic tradition developed, mirroring existing lrish society, adopting its values and structure along the lines of lrish kin and kinship ties.

The growth of the Columban church was not smooth. and, in fact, one great doctrinal difference set it apart from the Roman institution and proved to be its downfall in the late

"V-Iughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.70.

35 Hughes, Introduction to the Sources, p.73.

36 Hughes, The Church in Earl~Irish Society, p.66. seventh century. We learn rnuch of this upheaval from Bede, who has been credited with a great deal of information that exists regarding the Columban church and its history.

Without his valuable work, The Ecclesiasticat Histoty of the Enalish Nation, we would know little of the church's influence outside of lreland and lona and the effect it had on the growth of Christianity in Northumbria; and we would have no insight into the schismatic issue of the Easter question, which, Lynch believes, "called into question the cult of

Columba" after the Synod of Whitby in 664.37The synod rnarked a clear divide between the two institutions and the beginning of a period of more intense pressure on the Irish church to confom to Roman practice. The Columban foundation did, however, continue to grow and flourish in Ireland. The synod's actions may also, as mentioned, have been the impetus behind Adomnan's creation of his Life of Columba and his law, as he strove to keep the familia's reputation and supremacy intact.

The Irish society into which Columba was born was rural and primitive, its structure held together with a rich tapestry of kin or family ties3' Petty kings - perhaps as many as

150 - niled over tuaths. srnall kingdorns or regions under the overkingship of higher kings who ruled greater parts of the four great divisions of Ireland.39Although Christianity was widespread in the early sixth century, especially among the key families and landholders in Irish society, pockets of the Irish population clung to pagan practice and it would be

-

37 Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History, London, 1998, p.3 1.

38 Today's more cornmon teminology for a large kin group would be the Scottish word, 'clan,' but in sixth century Ireland, it was called cenél and it was the crucial element in Irish society.

3' 3' Nom Chadwick also gives a good description of kinship structure among the Picts and pre-Norman Welsh in The Church in Early Irish Society. centuries before Christianity stamped out most pagan belief and ritual.

Columba was bom a high-ranking mernber of the Ui Neill in northern Ulster, more particularly a royal member of the Cenél Conaill, a powerful family that dominated the area of Donegal and Tyrone. The Cenél Conaill, later to be known as the OIDonnells, were involved in a constant political struggle for power with another large family in the north, the

Cenél nEogain. These two great families comprised what was known as the Northem Ui

Neill and continuously fought with families of the Southern Ui Neill for power and s~premacy.~~Despite the clan squabbles, the fact Columba's monastic familia could achieve and sustain the power to create and promulgate Adomnan's law in two countries is an indication of the strength and prestige of the saint's kin group.

Irish society. while subject to battles and petty troubles among farnilies in different tuatha, was, basically, a secure and conservative institution. Binchy described Irish society of this period as "tribal, rural, hierarchical and familiar,"4' a phrase that "bids fair to becoming cla~sical.'"~The term "familiar" refers to the fact each member of society belonged to a fine, described by Byrne as an agnatic kindred group, where property nghts were invested by the whole and legal standing depended on membership.

Wealth was measured in the ownership of cattle and clients; members of ruling families, the aristocracy, might have a number of clients who owed them service and loyalty in times of war. "lt was," writes Hughes, "an intensely individualist society, with very

Francis John Byrne, Kines and High-Kin~s,London, 1973, p.91.

" D.A. Binchy, as cited in king:^ and Hinh-Kin~s,p.29.

42 Byrne, Kings and Hiph-Kines, p.29. 39

little executive authority vested in the king? Each individual overlord or petty king looked

after the wetfare of his dependents and,for the most part, enforced secular laws privately?

Native law dictated that there was no such thing as a crime against the state or the

group. only crimes against an individual, and compensation was made according to the

injury and status of the victim. (As we shall see, compensation for different types of injury

to an individual would be an important part of Adomnan's law for women, children and

clerics.) lreland had a well-established surety systern and each group had a guarantoP5

who undertook to ensure the performance of certain obligations and rnake sure pledges

were kept. Censure kept these small societal groups in order, for when a pledge was

broken or a guarantee unfulfilled, an individual lost his honour-price and status and was

considerably degraded in society.

Columba was born around 520 or 521 in Garten, Co. Donegal. Sharpe notes that the

tradition on which this belief is based cannot be traced earlier than a twelfth-century Middle

Irish homily on Columba's Me. The latest interpreter of Adomnan's Life, Sharpe, notes that

of al1 the monastic founders of the sixth century, Columba is the only one to have been

connected to a royal lineage of considerable power. Earlier, the Andersons, in their 1961 translation and study of Adomnan's Life of Columba, concede that the Middle Irish Life of

Columba, a homily, "supplies nothing that can be regarded as historical and ... scraps of

43 Hughes, The Church in Earl~Irish Societv, London, 1966, p.3.

Byme, Kines and Hiprh-Kin~s,p.29.

45 The system of guarantors, who helped ensure the pledges were kept, was key to the promulgation of Adomnihs' law, which will be discussed later. 40 genuine tradition cannot be distinguished from what is legendary," concerning his lineage."

Like Sharpe in his later translation and interpretation, the Andersons relied heavily on

Bede, Adomnan and the Annals of Ulster to ascertain Columba's pedigree.

Irish genealogy was important in placing a person in this early society and Columba's was prestigious. From the following passage, we see how important were ties of kinship to society and the Columban church; Columba was:

. . . son of Fedilmith, son of Fergus. . . who was a son of Conall Gulban . . . a son of Niall Noigiallach (of the Nine ho stage^.)^^

In turn, Connall was the ancestor of the Cenél Conaill, the powerful branch of the Ui Neill that ruled the north and central parts of Ireland. His mother, Eithne, notes Reeves, was of Leinster extraction, and descended from an illustrious provincial king? Thus the saint was well-placed in society to achieve whatever goals he may have chosen.

Reeves' 1856 introduction to the Life makes no mention of Columba's early destiny, but the Andersons, without citing Adomnan as the source of evidence, Say "Columba was destined by his parents for the priesthood . . . his original name being Cremthann (a fox)

. . . Columba (Latin) being adopted for monastic use." Sharpe wntes that Adomnan's work leads us to believe Columba was from before his bkth meant for the chur~h,~'for in his

%. and M. Ogilvie Anderson,"Introduction," in Adornnh's Life of Columba, London. 196 1, p.66.

ç7 Adomn&nYs Life of Columba, p 67

48 William Reeves, "Introduction,"Life of Saint Columba, (Reprint) Dyfed, Wales, 1988, p. 18.

49 Adornnh7s Life of Columba, p.9. second preface to the Life, he writes:

. . . from boyhood he (Columba) had been brought up in Christian training in the study of wisdom, and by the grace of God ... that though dwelling on earth he appeared to live like the saints in heaven."

Sharpe, however, casts doubts on the evidence, pointing out that Adomnan would

have been aware of the scriptures, Romans 8:30,which says, "Moreover whom he did

predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom

he justified, them he also glorified." '' The use of scriptures such as this was a common

tool used by hagiographers to prove the saint's predestination to power and prominence

and it cannot be determined as fact whether Columba's parents determined that the boy

would live his life as a servant of the church.

Christianity, then, was probably common practice among the nobility. At the time of

Columba's birth, the church, under the guidance of Patrick some hundred years

previously, had made great inroads in al1 parts of the Irish nation. The first evidence of

Christianity in early Britain can be found in Patristic sources, such as Tertu~lian.~~

Christianity must, in some measure, have been an influential force in many areas of Britain for a fully articulated church seemed to suddenly have appeared prior to the fourth century.

Yet while the new religion may have been accepted by many, Hughes writes that church

canons or laws show the converted still lived in a predominantly pagan society, despite

50 Adornniin's Life of Columba, p.9.

51 Holy Bible, King James Version

' 52 Duke, The Colurnban Church, p.3. In 208, Tertullian writes of "places of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subject to Christ." Origen, who wrote 30 years Iater, refened to Britons "as having been brought under the influence of Christianity." the fact church records would have us believe society was predominantly Christiad3

Certainfy the church vied wnstantly for power amid pagan survivals, which persisted for some centuries. Adomnan's law, as well as being a bid for sustained supremacy for the foundation, may, unintentionally, have been a bid to convert rernaining pagan believers, although, again, we wnnot be sure of this. And conversion of the Pictish pagans figured in one tale in the Life, which was writien around the time the law was promulgated.

Adomnan notes Columba not only converted an entire household in the Pictish province, a few days tater, when one of the man's sons became il1 and died, he raised the boy from the dead:

When the heathen wizards saw that the boy was dying, they began to make a mock of the parents and to reproach them harshly, making much of their own gods as the stronger and belittling the God of the Christians as feebler. All this was made known to St. Columba and it stirred him vigorously to take God's part. He set off with his companions to visit the layman's house and there he found that the child had recently died and his parents were performing the rituals of mourning . . . The bereaved father led St. Columba to that sad lodging, which the saint entered alone, leaving the crowd of people outside . . . St. Columba immediately knelt and, with tears streaming down his face, prayed to Christ the Lord. After these prayers on bended knee, he stood up and turned his gaze to the dead boy, saying, 'In the narne of the Lord Jesus Christ, wake up again and stand upon they feet.' . . . The boy that was dead opened his eyes and lied again . . . he gave the boy back to his parents and a great shout went up from the crowd . . . One must recognize that in this miracle of power our St. Columba is seen to share with the prophets Elijah and Elisha and with the apostles Peter and Paul and John the rare distinction of raising the dead to life."

It is clear from this tale that the conversion of pagans was an important part of the lona mission; by placing Columba among the ranks of Christianity's founding prophets,

5' 5' Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Societv, p 45

Adomnh's Life of Columba, p 180 saints and apostles, Adornnan was stressing the supremacy and piety of the familia's mission. He was proving to pagans that a conversion to Christianity not only ensured life on earth, it promised everlasting life. By supporting the Columban cornmunity and its beliefs, pagans were protected in their violent and insecure society by a realm of unseen powers whose magic could overcome the pagan wizards and druids with simple prayer.

Early Irish society was a heroic one, a society where victory in battle had been for centuries marked by making sacrifices to appropriate gods. Druids held strong spiritual sway over the people and kingship and 1 would take centuries of Christianity to banish many pagan rituals. During Columba's boyhood, it is Iikely members of his royal family still participated in pagan practices, most particularly at the royal inauguration cerernonie~:~~

Althoug h society was increasingly Christianized from the fourth century, the Irish kings continued to be anointed in pagan cerernonies? This ritual persisted for centuries; during the late twelfth century Girafdus Cambrensis recorded, with a certain amount of disgust, the details of one such ceremony, "a rite altogether outiandish and abominable," which took place in Donegal, home of the Ui Neill dynasty. The rite, banais rigi, included the killing of a mare with the appointed king bathing (in) and drinking the broth prepared from the horsefle~h.~'

It is widely believed that by the tirne Columba had died, in 597, the Ui Neill dynasties were more or less Christian in their observances as close kinsmen, such as Columba,

- -

s Life of Columba, p. 10.

56 Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition, Dublin, 1988, p. 18.

57 Byme, Irish King and High-Kini.~,p. 17. had dedicated their lives to Christ.58It was a time when the church sought greater control of society through its canon laws: Struggling against their pagan environment, the church canonists wanted Christians to bring their disputes to them and avoid the native laws and secular courts.

The rise of the Columban church is a story of determination and rnissionary zeal:

Columba gained his religious training in the monastery at Moville under the guidance of St.

Finnian, and at Gtasnevin, with St. Mobhi. Columba became a deacon first, then a presbyter. which he rernained al1 his ~ife.~'Despite his achievements as church founder and teacher, he never achieved a higher ranking in the church. Nevertheless, his kinship connections with the O'Donnells of the northem Ui Neill must have opened many doors for him as his family granted hirn lands for the founding of his monasteries: Derry, near his birthplace in the north of Ireland, was founded in 546 on land gifted to him from his family;

Durrow lies further south, in Kings and Westmeath Counties; and Kells, founded in Co.

Meath.

There has been a great deal of conjecture by various scholars as to why Columba left

Ireland: Was it penitence, pilgrimage, or the zeal to spread Christ's message? Adomnan tells us Columba was excornmunicated at a synod hefd at Tailte and that it was only the intervention of St. Brendan of Birr that rescinded the action. Adomnan also tells us that

Columba left lreland for purely religious motives to go on pilgrimage for Christ6' Sharpe

Sharpe, "Introduction," Adomnkn of Iona's Life of Columba, p. 10.

59 Duke, The Columban Church, p.60.

60 Duke, The Columban Church, p.62. 45

contends: "There is a picturesque story that St. Columba left lreland vowing never to look

on that land again . . . that he landed first on Oronsay . . . and finding lreland could still be

seen . . . continued further until he landed in lona." out of sight of his beloved country6'

We will never know for certain why Columba left Ireland; whether the banishrnent from

his birthplace was due to political motives, or resulted from his own stubborn actions.

Columba was accused of copying a small psaîter. which had been brought from Rome by

St. Finnian and was much cherished by him. He refused Columba's request to copy the

srnall codex; undeterred, Columba secretly pursued his purpose and made his own copy,

which became known as The Cathach, or Battler. He was caught, and the matter was

referred to King Diarmaid. whose famous judgment was: '70every cow her little cow; to

every book its little book? Columba's next actions may have brought about his exile from

Ireland. He had a two-fold grievance against Diarmaid; the judgment on the psalter and

Diamaid's slaying of Cuman, son of the King of Leinster, who had sought sanctuary with

Columba urged his kin, the OtDonnells. to fight Diamaid and the resulting

Battle of Culdreimne saw a tremendous slaughter.

Adomnan evades the implication of Columba in this battle and writes nothing of any

part the saint may have played in the bloodshed. But Finlay believes that due to his

princely position in his clan, 1 is iikely Columba actually bore amis in the battle." Duke, too.

61 Sharpe,t'Introd~ction,"Adornnk of Iona's Life of Columba, p.75.

62 Sharpe, Adomnh of Iona's Life of Columba, p.75. In old Irish, the judgment translates as, "Legach boin le boinin, le gach Zebhur a leabran."

63 Ian Finlay, Columba, Edinburgh, 1973, p.89.

64 Finlay, Columba, p.93. speculates that Columba rnay well have taken part in the battle, but, at the same time,

rnay well have harboured the desire to go on pi~grirnage.~~There is simply no evidence to

suggest that the banishment was voluntary or enforced and Adomnan does not venture

into this area in his account of Columba's mission in the Life. Adornnan writes that

Columba was:

. . . an Angel in demeanour, blameless in what he said, godly in what he did, brilliant in intellect and great in counsel. He spent thirty-four years as an island soldier and could not let even an hour pass without giving hirnself to praying or reading or writing or some other task . . . At the same tirne he was Ioving to al1 people, and his face showed a holy gladness because his heart was full of the joy of the Holy

We cannot count on Adornnan to give us any idea behind Columba's departure from

lreland as the Life's message is mainly a panegyric, lauding the saint's prophecies, miracles and visions.

Legends, however, Say Columba left Ireland, from Derry, in 563 with twelve companions, mirroring Christ's travels with his twelve disciples. Those same tales Say

"Columba's passionate love of lreland made him determined that his destination rnust be out of sight of her shore^.'"^ It is thought that Columba's royal cousin, Conaill, King of the

Scots in Dalriada, granted the island to Columba for his mission, yet Bede wrote that the land was a gift from the Pi~ts.~~Finlay believes the first scenario, that the land was granted

65 Duke, The Columban Church, p.69.

Adomnh7sLife of Columba, Second Preface, p 106

67 Duke, The Columban Church, p.69.

68 Finlay, Columba, p. 104. Dy Conaill, is the more acceptable one, with the Picts confinning Columba's possession of lona after their own conversion to Chri~tianity.~'

At the time of Columba's flight from Ireland, his famiiia covered the northern hatf of

Ireland, from Durrow to Derry. Legends and myths abound concerning the saint, and primary sources, such as Adomnan and Bede, do little to illuminate the real history of

Columba's work. Despite this, there is no doubt that the saint's achievements were solid and irnpressive: To set up a comparable chain of establishments today would require a civil service hierarchy and a cornplex system of boards and cornmittees, notes Finlay."

Although Bede "is wearisome in the reiteration of his condemnation of some of the religious customs of the Columban church," the Saxon monk is generous in his praise of the saintliness of Columba and his followers and never casts doubt on the correctness of their beliefsm7'Setting aside Bede's somewhat superior tone, and the fact he disapproved of their practice of celebrating Easter early, we may look upon his evidence as valid and valuable.

Two questions in particular were at the centre of the dispute between the church of

Rome and the Columban church; the fixing of the date of Easter and the correct form of the tonsure.72There were a nurnber of reasons for the dispute between the two churches:

The Pope's position then was different from today and he neither exercised the sarne

63 Finlay, Columba, p.104.

70 Finlay, Columba, p 1 04

'' Duke, The Colurnban Church, p.132.

'2 Duke, The Columban Church, p.92. authority nor received the sarne deference and obedience. As well, the Celtic churches were so far removed from Rome they were unlikely to be infiuenced by Roman dictates, thus having no compulsion to change their traditional tonsures or to calculate Easter by the

Roman methods of reckoning. 73

The Roman tonsure, a circlet of hair around a shaved head, was argued by the Roman church to be correct; the Celtic monks wore their hair long at the back and shaved at the front to a point above the ears. The Roman church had for years fixed the date of Easter by detemining the day of the vernal equinox and by using astronomical calculations based on a cycle of 64 recurring years. This later changed as astronomers used more accurate calculations to detenine the date of Easter. To avoid Easter falling on the same day as the Jewish Passover, the Roman church celebrated Easter on the twentieth day of the month when the fourteenth of Nisan fell on a Sunday.

This issue, and the Celtic church's refusa1 to relinquish its hold on their dating of

Easter would eventually lead to its defeat at Whitby. The church in lreland and North

Britain, due to its isolation from Rome and continental Christendom, continued to calculate

Easter using the original 64-year cycle. A full month often separated the Celtic Easter from the Roman celebration and these diverse methods of calculation caused considerable confusion, especially after the Columban church had established itself in N~rthurnbria.~~

King Oswy was a convert to the Celtic church, while his queen, Eanfled, of Kent, followed the Roman tradition for Easter.

73 Duke, The Colurnban Church, p. 135.

74 Duke, The Colurnban Church, p.94. Bede writes:

Hence it is said that in these days it sometimes happened that Easter was celebrated in the same year, so that the king had finished the fast and was keeping Easter Sunday, while the queen and her people were still in Lent and observing Palm S~nday.'~

The matter was solved at the abbey in Strenaeshaic (Whitby). over which Hilda was

abbess. Oswiu, who was more sympathetic to the Celts, presided over the synod; Colman,

abbot of Lindisfarne, argued the case for the Celtic church; Wilfrid of Ripon represented

the Roman church. Wilfrid was by far the more eloquent and learned of the two and

Colman kasno match," according to Bede, for his opponent. In the end. Oswiu settled

the matter in favour of the Roman church when Colman wuld not answer that God had

given to Columba "the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," as he had to St. Peter. Oswiu's judgment reads:

This is that door-keeper (St. Peter) whom I am not willing to gainsay . . . I desire to obey his statutes in al1 things. lest when I corne to the door of the Kingdom and there be none to open them, he who is proved to have the keys having turned away. 76

The Columban church lost the Easter question controversy but continued to practise

its simple evangelical mission. But Adomngn must have realized it would take more than

simple zeal to sustain the position of the Cettic church; the writing of the Life and the

promulgation of the law must surely have been designed to remind the ecclesiastical world

that the Columban foundation and Celtic church would not be easily banished. It was a

heavy blow for the Celts: Bede wrote that when Colman saw that his teachings were

75 Bede, iii, 25, Ecclesiastical History of the Endish Nation, Oxford, 1969, p.297.

' Bede, Ecclesiastical History, p.99. rejected and his principles despised, he took his folllowers and returned to Ireland.

Colman left behind very few buildings at Lindisfame, which bore witness to the fnigality and austerity of the Columban institution. Wrote Bede:

They had no money but cattle; if they received money from the nch they promptly gave it to the poor ... the sole concem of these teachers was to serve God and not the world, to satisfy the sou1 and not the be~ly.~~

By gamering support for his law, by reaching out to the powerç who wntrolled the populations in Scotland and Ireland, Adomnan kept Christians aware of the supremacy of lona in both secular and ecclesiastical circles. His work was surely successful for the greatest power of the Colurnban church extended over the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries; the fact it endured for several centuries after it lost the battle over the question of when Easter should be celebrated displayed to the abbots and organization that followed Columba's abbacy at lona and other Columban monasteries.

We have other evidence, beside Bede's, of how the monks lived within these monastic foundations - from Adomnan, "who drew on uninterrupted oral tradition"" - and from archeological evidence. While valuable - the physical evidence for the constituent houses display significant physical similarities - it cannot be relieâ upon entirely. Instead, we rnust be satisfied that archeological evidence only gives us a fair idea of routine and societal structure within the c~rnrnunity.~~

77 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, p.3 1 1.

78 Bede, Ecclesiastical Histov, p.3 1 1 .

79 A.D.S. MacDonald, "Aspectsof the Monastery and Monastic Life in Adomnan's Life of Columb&' Pentia, Vol 3, 1984, pp.271-302. Evidence of rnonastic life from Adomnan is fragmentary and he takes a great deal for

granted in giving us details about life on lona during Columba's time.80 There was likely

plenty of food to support a large comrnunity; bread, fish, fruit and milk would have been

produced on the island. Adornnan hints at a fairly extensive establishment and manual

labour, building projects and working in the fields likely took up a good part of the day?

In the Third Book of the Life, in the tale "How our patron St. Columba passed to the Lord,"

Adomnan writes:

. . . on the Sabbath at the end of that week, the venerable man and his faithful servant Diamait went to bless the nearest barn . . . the saint blessed it and two heaps of grain stored there . . .82

He further notes that Columba left the barn to return to the monastery - obviously a separate building - then later rnoved to the church to pray. Adornnan also hints at the fact sick people came to lona to be healed; we atso know that it was a well-known centre for the copying of books and that it was a place of learning and training.83These buried details

in the Life indicate that by the time the saint died, the lona comrnunity had grown considerably and was a well-estabiished and productive foundation with buildings to house

its various labours. Because of its isolation, it was probably a cenobitic monastery, enclosed and integrated with monks living a cornmon life under a cornrnon rule imposed

Aidan MacDonald, ''Adorn~'~Monastery at lon%"Studies in the Cult of St. Columba, p.24.

a' MacQuanie, "St. Columba of Iona," in The Saints of Scotlland, p 85

82 Adomnh's Life of Columba, p 226

83 MacQuarrie, "St. Columba of Iona," in The Saints of Scotland, p 85 52 by ~olumba.~The community waç likely seciuded for the sake of their spiritual goals, but

MacDonald believes Adomnan's evidence shows Columba was only conventionally an ascetic and not a solitary. We know he greeted visiting dignitaries and monks but he must, at times, have retreated to a single cell for prayer and meditation. We do not, in fact, know to what extent Columba practised personal austerities; Adomnan tells us he slept on a rock for a pillow. yet he also had a personal servant, Diannait, who may have been with him from his royal days in Ireland. Over time, the srnall collection of buildings grew and during

Adornnan's lifetime there was a magna domus, a great house and monastenum which was likely used for day-time activities such as assemblies, reading, studies, writing and teaching. Books rnay have been stored there, as well. MacDonald betieves there was likely a separate refectory and kitchen on lona, despite the archeological evidence of a heartheB6

Monasteries such as lona, Durrow and Clonrnacnoise were presumably unspecialized in that they were houses that consisted of working laity and brothers who farmed and provided for their needs, catered to travellers, guests and special vi~itors.'~They were not necessarily of the strict eremetic tradition, wntes Hughes, and while Columba practised austerity, nowhere is it suggested by Adomnan that his rule was particularty harsh; he travelled extensively and was known to be accessible to the monks, visitors and laity at

84 MacDonald, "Adomn5n7s Monastery," p.24. Unfortunately, rules from this penod have been lost and no longer exist in any record.

as MacQuarrie, "St. Columba of Iona," The Saints of Scotland, p 85

86 MacDonald, "Adomnh's Monastery," p.34.

A.D.S. MacDonald, "Aspects of the Monastery," pp.27 1 -302. - 53 lona. 88

Whatever the work done by previous missionaries and saints to Scotland, Gougaud contends that the southem Picts converted by Ninian did not maintain the faith for, "lt was the lot of Columba and his disciples and successors and the monks of lona and Lindisfame to take up the work begun by Ninian . . ."89 This statement seems fairly incredible, in view of the fact myths and legends abound regarding pre-Columban saints. While it is likely there did exist srnall pockets of Christianity throughout Scotland, it may be that the work of Columba, the power of the family behind him and his royal links in lreland and Dahiada outshone the work of earfier missionaries.

We shall see that the Columban cult did rnuch to aid the spread of Christianity and ensure the supremacy of the familia in the years following the saint's death. Certainly his successors in both countries did their utmost to perpetuate Columba's reputation and the cult's following sustained and fed the power of the Columban church for several more centuries. In the years after the saint's death there would be no reason to worry about the supremacy of the paruchia, at least until the defeat of the Celtic church in 664.

After the defeat, and almost one hundred years after the founding of the Augustinian mission in Kent, the new Roman church would extend its power north, replacing the

Colurnban tradition with bjshops and episcopal sees, seeking to rnake al1 monastic foundations and churches conform to Roman practice. thereby erasing the simple organization of the Ceitic church. Lindisfame would œase to be a powerful ecclesiastical

88 Hughes, The Church in Earl~Irish Society, p.62.

Louis Gougard, Christianitv in Celtic Lands, Dublin, 1992, p.26. 54 centre; that honour would becorne York's, where the Roman organization flourished. The

Columban familia would have to seek ways to sustain its simple Christian tradition and place in the ecclesiasticai world. Chapter 3 - The Cult of Columba

Religious cuits in Britain and lreland had been in existence for centuries when the

Christians amved to spread an entirely different and monotheistic way of worship. Pt-ior to

Christianity, which arrived with the Roman invasion of Britain, druids led the worship of a variety of nature-based gods in rituais designed to protect the health and well-being of worshippers, the crops they grew for survival and the numerous wars and battles in which they engaged to acquire and maintain land and power. Among the early warrïor and rurai- based pagans, cults were central to pagan worship in Britain, Gaul and Ireland, and included traditions that attached a reverence and importance to sacred sites like wells and rivers, groves of trees and even the human head.'

It is possible to draw a parallel between the eariier druidic leaders and the pagan rites they performed to enforce a belief in unknown forces and spirits, and the Christian monks, and their work of converting pagans to monotheistic practice. Each, in his own way, worked to convince and teach a superstitious and vulnerable people; and each was necessary in propagating a cutt that encompassed a system of beliefs. The druid or pagan leader drew around him the mysteries of unknown forces in nature and constructed rites that became part of a spiritual support system; the monk, using the gospels and the testimony of other saints, tried to persuade unbelievers that the way of Christ was the way to an ever-iasting Me, a balm to the sou1 during its earthly sojourn, and more particularly, providing a reason for death itself.

The pagan leaders were essential intermediaries between the tribesmen and the

Anne Ross, man Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconomphv and Tradition, London, 1976, p.20. gods. The veneration of nature and appeasing the go& was al1 important, and while we do not know exactfy how the pagan gods were propitiated, there is enough evidence, mostly archeological, to enable scholars to reach certain conclusions about the sacred precincts of the Celts.

As Christianity was introduced into Britain, first with the Roman invasion, monks slowly supplanted the druids in power. The sacred pagan landscape - wells, rivers and sites that had been finked to deities - became part of the Christian landscape, capable of miraculous deeds in the name of Christ. As pagan practice rnerged with Christian cult, pagan dedications were often transferred to a saint with whom the locale was as~ociated.~

Columba's followers would have been more than aware of the power of cub and would have used the saint's popularity as an important method of ideological dissemination for the new and growing Christian church during its first millennium; using the example of the early Christian martyrs, they set about to build and enhance for their own familia at foundations in Scotland, northem England and Ireland, a cult of their founder that would endure within the power of Christianity and give the saint a place in the church's hierarchy.

Following the defeat of the Celtic church at the Synod of Whitby over the Easter question in 664, the familia must have been keenly aware of their vulnerable position within ecclesiastical circles throughout Ireland and the rest of Britain. The Augustinian mission was well undenvay at Canterbury and the power of the episcopal Roman church was not only growing, lsought to envelop al1 other Christian foundations with its universal authority. But immediately following Columba's death, such was the success of the

* Shirley Toulson, The Celtic Alternative: The Christianity We Have Lost, London, 1987, p. 125- eariy church founders, and the cult, that in time, the islands of lona, Mull and the western

seacoast of Dalriada were to become, for the Columban Church, me centre of the ~orld,"~

a monastic enclave that was far from isolated, spiritually or politically. By the tirne the

Synod of Whitby was held, the foundation was secure in ib power, the Columban cult was

well established and there was little threat to its suprernacy.

The power and farne of Columba, and his cult, was undoubtedly well-established

before the saint's death. We have evidence of this fact from praise poetry written about

the time Columba died at lona in 597, for secular poet Dallan Forgaill wrote a lengthy elegy

after his death, lauding his attributes and mourning the loss of the saint as "our chief."

'messenger," and "leader? Part of that elegy reads:

Not newsless is Niall's land. No slight sight from one plain, but great woe, great outcry. Unbearable the tale this verse tells: Colum, lifeless, churchless. How wiil a fooi describe it - even Neire - the prophet has settled at God's right hand in Sion. Now he is not, nothing is left ot us, no relief for a sout, our sage.

For he has died to us, the leader of nations who guarded the living. He has died to us, who was our chief of the needy, he has died to us, who was sur messenger of the Lord; for we do not have the seer who used to keep fears from us, for he does not retum to us, he who would explain the true Word, for we do not have the teacher who would teach the tribes of the Tay.

The whole world, it was his: It is a harp without a key,

Finlay, Columba. p. 108.

Thomas Owen Clancy (ed.) The Triumph Tree. Scotland's Earliest Powetry AD 550-1 3 50, Edinburgh, 1998, p 103 it is a church without an abbot.'

This piece of poetry indicates the depth of grief feit by those who were familiar with the saint's work in Ireland and lona. Aithough there is some uncertainty regarding the date of the poern, it gives us an indication of the extent and importance of the saint's cult to secular and ecclesiastical circles - the world was suddenly without "a harp," the church was ieft without the abbot it revered-

While the abbot's role was filled from mernbers of the Ui Neill clan, we do not know how the Columban familia fared in the decades following the saint's death. or, immediately following the decision of 664. But there rnust have been considerable pressure

from the Roman ecclesiastical faction for the Colurnban church to confomi to its universal authority, and from other paruchia for Adomnan to create his law and write the Life, a move that would have reminded existing church and secular powers of the authority and popufarity of Columba's cult.

Adomnan is known to have supported the Roman timing of Easter well before he wrote the Life of Columba and Law of the Innocents. Smyth suggests that Adomnan was persuaded to agree with the Roman side on the Easter question as early as 688 following a trip to the Northumbrian royal court and to the monastery at Jarrow, which was under the

Roman episocopal see at York6 By accepting the "Roman order of things (Adomnan) created great difFiculties for himself and for his c~mrnunity."~In fact, it is çuggested that

' Dallb Forgaill, (fl.597), "Elegy for Colum Cille," inThe Triumph Treq p 102

Smyth, Warlords and Hol~Men. p 130

Smyth, Warlords and Holv Men, p 13 1 59

because he accepted the Roman timing of Easter and the lona community did not, the

ninth abbot was exiled from lona for a number of years, possibly from 692 to a year or two

before the promulgation of the law. But, "it would be wrong to interpret" the ninth abbot's

conversion to the Roman timing of Easter as "bowing to English cultural imperiali~rn."~

MacQuarrie believes that lona and Adomnan were too seif-confidant to be threatened by the Roman church in Britain. Despite that. as a man vanously described as woddly and

intelligent, It must have been difficult for him to reconcile his new views with those of the

lonan monks who refused to agree with him. This information suggests that the Life and law may have been created by Adomnan as a means of aiding the community and promoting peace. It would forge bonds between himseif and the island foundation, and in turn, between the foundation and the test of the ecciesiastical and secular world; in effect it would promote and benefrt Columban interests.

Despite the differences between the Roman and lrish institution, and those lrish monks who were for or against maintaining the Ceitic timing of Easter, the message of the

Columban church would spread and grow, not only in lreland and Dalriada but to areas of south Bntain and the continent, by means of wellestablished çea and land routes that supplied the familia with crucial links to the outside world and other monastic foundations.1°

Through these geographical links, the power of the Columban royal farnily and the evangelicai convictions of Columba's successors, the cult of Columba would grow in

-

Vmyth, Warlords and Holv Men, p 133

MacQuhe, "St Adornnkn," in The Saints of Scotiané, p 163

'O 'O Finlay, Columba, p. 108. Pictland and Northumbria, taking to the Pict and Saxon the same evangelical zeal and ascetic ideals that made lona the axis of a great foundation: "Such was the power of

Columba's cult that the periphery he chose became the centre.""

The literature on eariy saints does not cleariy define their cults. much less give us an idea of how and why a particular figure like Columba garnered such a foilowing after his death. But some scholars have suggested that Columba was greatly involved with the

Scottish kings during his lifetime at lona and did not, despite his exile from Ireland, cut himself off from the powerful political families of Ireland. Not only was he "a member of the warrior aristocracy, he continued into the holy part of his life to maintain an abiding interest in the affairs of these warlords, advising them how to behave, predicting how they would die, and even showing a warrior's own fascination with the outcome of their battles."" The only way we can truly chart the growth of his cult is by examining the evidence of annals and dues, such as this, buried in Adomnan's Life of Columba. In this taie, we gain sorne idea of the magnitude of Columba's reach and influence on members of Dalriadan society:

By the power of prayer in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ he healed those who suffered attacks of various diseases ... When countless hosts of horrible devils were making war against him, visible to his bodily eyes, and beginning to inflict deadly diseases on his rnonastic cornmunity, he, one man alone, with God's help repelled them and drove them out ... With Christ's help, he curbed the raging fury of wild beasts sometimes by killing them and sometimes by driving them away.l3

To really understand the historical figures behind cults dedicated to Columba - or

'' Cornac Bourke, (ed) "Preface," Studies in the Cult of St. Colurnbr\, Dublin, 1997, p.3.

l2 Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men, p 96

l3Adomnh's Life of Columba, London, 1995, p. 109. Ninian and Kentigern - one rnust "disentangle thern" frorn their cults. Begun in the early years of their ministries or shortly after their deaths, the cults of these saints were kept alive during the medieval periods by hagiographe= who were anxious to maintain and promote certain monastic foundations and churches of these saints. We have evidenœ that Ninian's cult was substantially strong in 780 for a hymn, wrïtten by a Whithorn cleric, celebrates the work of the early saint:

Loved one, shining in heaven's halls, one with the folk who dwell therein. Holy bishop Nynia, loved one, shining in heaven's halls.

He whose heart is full of light will blaze out brightly on al1 the lands; now above the stars he shines, he whose heart is full of tight.I4

Other Christian cults were wellestablished by the time Columba's familia rose to power, the early martyred saints of the church having garnered great followings in the medieval period.15 When Adomnan wrote His Life of Columba, including in it rnany wonders, prophecies and visions of the saint's life, including his close link to nature, he was part of a process that saw Columba as a worthy replacement for the pagan deities and their sacred rites, an important rnember in the Christian hierarchy. Through the work of Columba's successors, lona, and later, Lindisfame, would becorne part of the

Columban cuit, holy places that had a power to attract visitors and pilgrims during and after

l4 Clancy (ed.), "Hymn for Saint Nynia the Bishop," in The Triumph Tree, p 14 1

l5 Peter Harbison, Pilmirnage in ireland: The Monuments and the People, Syracuse, N.Y., 1991, p.13. Columba's lifetime.16 The cult had not only reached into England by the time Adomnan

held the reigns of power, it had spread at a rapid rate to the Continent with the travels of

Columban-inspired peregnnil who were anxious to share the simple, evangelistic message

of the lona community. Wrote Adomnan at the conclusion of the Lee:

Every mnscientious reader . . . should mark well how great and special is the merit of our reverend abbot . . . This, too, is no srnall favour conferred by God on the man of blessed memory, that one who dwelt in this little island on the edge of the oœan should have eamed a reputation that is famous not oniy in our own lreland and in Bntain, the largest of ocean's islands, but has also reached the three corners of Spain and Gaul and ltaly beyond the Alps, and even Rome itself, the chief of al1 cities. This great and special renown is known to have been bestowed on St. Columba along with other divine gifîs by God himself . . .17

Adomnan displays a great deal of piety in this passage: It is clear from these words that the ninth abbot took great pride in the work of the founding saint and the lona community.

But he is careful to point out that, while Columba was special in the sight of God, the merits of his labours were conferred by God as a gift. In doing this, Adornnan is careful to place Columba as a special and chosen churchrnen whose life was dedicated to God and the Christian message. It is a gentle exhortation to the doubfful reader that the way of

Columba and his mission is an example worth following.

Columba was of the "second generation of great (Celtic) saints " whose power and influence flourished and grew to eclipse preexisting saints' ~ults.'~Due to the strength

l6Christian pilgrimage became an intregal part of the cult of saints and holy places, a tradition that drew on older Jewish and Greek traditions. Constantine, in the third cenhiry, declared Christianity a state religion and encouraged an enthusiasm among believen for the holy places.

la Harbison, Pilmima~ein Ireland, p. 13. and structure of the foundation at lona, its administrative methods and asceticism would

shape and nurture a distinct form of rnonasticism that would distinguish itself from

continental monasticisrn by its zeal for learning and missionary enth~siasrn.'~

Why did Columba's cuit becorne an overriding ecclesiastical influence during his

lifetime and in succeeding decades and centuries? Certainly it was a force to be reckoned with by the time Adomnan was abbot, for he was able to garner a great deal of support for

his law and promulgate it at a synod attended by powerful churchmen. By the late seventh century, the CU& was fimly established in lreland and had made great inroads in Britain.

Lynch believes that to get the full story of early Scottish Christianity one must strip off layers of "camouflage" added by saints' hagiographe= - such as Adomnan - to search, often vainly, for dues in the scant bits of evidence that exist for this time period?' One item in Adomnan's first book of the Life indicates the depth to which Columba was connected to royal kin and the powers that ran Irish society:

Two years after the battie of CUdreimne, when the holy man (Columba) fint set sail from lreland to be a pilgrim, it happened one day that, at the very hour when the battle of Moin Daire Lothair was fought in Ireland, the saint gave a full account of it in Britain, in the presence of King Conall rnac Comgaill. He (Columba) described the battle and named the kings to whom the Lord gave victory, Ainmire rnac Sétna and the two sons of Mac Ercae, Dornnall and Forgus. Likewise he prophesied of a king of the Cruithin called Eochaid Laib, who was defeated but escaped in a chariot. ''

From passages such as this, we can discem from Adornnan's hagiography of Columba how strong were the links that bound church and secular power, the familial connections

- - -

l9 Duke, The Columban Church, p.52.

20 Lynch, Scotland, p 27

" Adomnh's Life of Columba, p 119 that led Columba to flee Ireland. and the fact he was weli-placed in society to establish a

number of powerful foundations that came to be supported by regional kings and wamors.

Only by plumbing bits of evidence such as this, which indicates the breadth of Columba's connections. can we begin to see the reasons behind Adomnan undertaking to write the

Life of Columba or to create a law aimed at protecting women. children and clencs. It was important for the ecclesiastical powers and Society to understand that lona's founding saint was as powerful and pious as any of the church's early saints; he could not only see the battle from afar, he could prophesize its outcome and the victors.

But Columba's was not the only Christian CU# in lreland and Dalriada in that period of time, which Sharpe calls the "Age of Saints," - a rich monastic period that began in the late fifth œntury? While St. Ninian of Whithom in Galloway had established a foundation in the late fourth century, Columba's abbacy at lona, from 563 to his death in 597, saw other Christian figures foster the religion in other regions. St. Kentigern. a contemporary of Columba's, was at work in the area of Strathclyde and St. Moluag is said to have founded churches in northern areas of Pictland, a claim that is still hotly debated among scholar~.~~Brendan of Clonfert and Cornball of Bangor were said to have founded monasteries on Tiree; Brendan is also said to have had a Scottish foundation at Ailech, near the mouth of the Firth of L~rn.~~

The Irish annal^ refer to a number of entries that list Comgall of Bangor, a

- 9 22 Adorna s Life of Columb& p. 1.

23 Finlay, Columba p. 122.

Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men, p 10 1 contemporary of Columba's, as having a foundation in Dalriada. Çharpe points out that St.

Cainnech enjoyed "some cuit in Swtlandn; St. Brendan is said to have founded a

rnonastery at Ailech in the Hebrides and Donnan, patron saint of the island of Eigg, is said to have had a considerable foll~wing.~~In Ireland, St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, who died when Columba was a young man, had a considerable following; St. Patrick's cuit, while in existence during Columba's lifetirne, was not as popular as it would become in the late seventh century with the rise of the power of Armagh." The Patrician familia was "not strictly monastic in the seventh century;" its churches were nin by secular charges, bishops who claimed a "territorially defined province." 27 Clearly, the rise of the Patrician familia in lreland must have given the Columban foundations some cause for concem, for mile the Columban church held sway in the north of lreland, the Armagh foundation's strength lay to the south and infringed upon Columba's Ui Neill family territory. Sorne authors of secondary sources, such as Herbert and Picard, have also suggested the Life and Adomnan's law were a response to this ecclesiastical challenge.

So while other church founders may have had a great deal of influence in the region in which they preached and worked, it was Columba who seerned to have had the greatest impact on the growth of Christianrty and missionary work during the sixth century. Was it the backing of his powerful and politimlly rnotivated Ui Neill famiiy, the Cenél Conaill, that

*? 25 Adomnan s L ife of Colurnb~p.2.

26 The rising power of the Patrician puruchia, which is discussed in Merdetail in the fourth chapter, would greatly affect the Columban community in the eighth century and threaten its supremacy in ecclesiastical rnatters.

27 Richard Sharpe, "Some Problems with the Organization of the Early Chwh in Irelan4" in Peritia Vol 3, 1984, p.243. 66 sped the growth of Coiumba's cuk? Some scholan believe this may have been the case.

The cuit likely had a vigorous following by the time the lonan monk, Aidan, was working at Lindisfame (Holy Island). in Northumbna, for the period after 634 marks the period of greatest expansion in the Columban ch~rch.'~The sons of niler Aethelfrith, King of

Bemicia in Northumberland, had fled north after their father was slain. Oswald and his son spent some time on lona and when he succeeded to the Bemician throne after defeating the pagans, he asked that a bishop from lona be sent to North~rnberland.~~Aidan was ordained at lona and sent south where he founded the abbey of Lindisfame, which was run exactly on the same administrative basis as lona.

Aidan was called a bishop, but this terni was used strictly in the unhierarchical Celtic sense. Instead, as we might expect, Aidan was veiy much a product of the Celtic monastic tradition and was known to be meek and pious in beha~iour.~~Lindisfame and its nearby castle, Bamburgh, would become a seat of political power under Aidan's influence, and the relationship between ecclesiastical seat and secular power would be successful with Lindisfarne acting as a point of dissemination for Irish monastic ~ulture.~'

Aidan, while thoroughly Irish in church practice, was, on his death described in the Annals

28 Finlay, Columba p. 193.

29 Finlay, Columba, p.194.

Finlay, Columba, p. 194.

31 G~arethDunleavy, Colum's Other Island: The Irish at Lindisfame, Madison, Wisc., 1960, p. 17. of Ulster as "bishop of the saxon^."^^

The relationship between Aidan and the Saxon king Oswald was a rernarkable one; as his spiritual adviser, Aidan would help Oswald become a new kind of ruler, one who welcomed the Christian message and who was keen to have it interpreted and passed on to his subjects. It was a partnership that "carried the cross to the very bordes of embattled pagandom," from as far north as the Firth of Forth to the central area of

England .33

In the days of Columba's rule at lona, church and state were alrnost one. But with

Aidan, the power of the Columban foundation shifted and the cuk and its followers experienced the first break from an insular position: Lindisfame was far from lona's control and Northumbria had become a power of its own. As a second lona, Lindisfarne sent its missionaries into the rest of England so that the borders and Lothian areas came under the influence of the Columban familia. It was a flowering that helped the cult flourish, yet brought it closer to its end; 8s borders abutted the growth of the episcopal Roman organization, and Celtic doctrinal differences came into conflict with ~anterbury."

When King Oswald, Aidan's supporter, was killed by the pagan, Penda, his brother

Oswiu succeeded the throne. Oswiu, although a devout Christian, would follow his heart and decide the fate of the Celtic church at the Synod of Whitby in 664, ruling, not for the

32 Annals of Ulster: Annala Senaic: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs, Dublin, 1887, p 109 The entry reads: "Kal. Jan. (Saturd., rn 3, alias 4.) A.D. 650 The repose of Aedan, bishop of the Saxons."

33 Finlay, Columba, p. 195.

34 Finlay, Columba. p. 196. .-

68

Celtic church. but in favour of the Roman timing of €aster? His wife. Eanfled, was a

Kentish prinœss and supporter of the Roman church based at Canterbury. Bede describeci

the confusion caused by the two different practices and timing of the Easter celebration as

"a great and active ~ntroversy."~

There is little recorded evidence of the power of the Columban CU%. prior to the abbacy

of Adornnan, the heir, or comaha of Columba. Before Adomnan undertook to write his

Life, it is believed the only existing material on the saint was a manuscript written by

Cumméne Find, or Curnméne the White, seventh abbot of lona sometime in the rnid seventh century." As a servant of Christ, and a church figurehead who led a huge. powerhil federation, Cumméne, and later Adomnan, would have been seen to encompass al1 of the saint's rnissionary attributes as well as his love of learning. Little is known of

Cumméne, and although the annals record a visit by hirn to lreland and the monasteries of the Columban community, and the Annals of Ulster record his death in the year A.D.

668, "Death of Cummene the Fair, abbot of la,"38unfortunately, the Life tells us liWe of how the constitutional links operated between the Columban churches during his abbacy.

We are confined to analyzing much about Columba's cuit through the words and evidence left by Adomnan in his Life. This creates problems: Two leading historians have

36 Bede, Ecclesiastical Histoy of the English People London, 1969, p.297.

37Adomnihof Iona's Life of Columba, p.43. It is thought that during Cummene's abbacy, the "first tangible evidence of the richness of monastic culture" was produced with the Book of Durrow, whose writing style and decoration shows links to Northumbria and Pictland. Cummene's - abbacy also saw the defeat of the Celtic church's stance on the Easter question.

38 Annals of Ulster, p 123 conflicting views of Adornnan's intentions and the historical accuracy of his Life. Picard believes that while Adomnan was likely concemed with wnting the truth, he was, at the same tirne, head of a power familia, an important figure in religious and political circles in

Ireland, Scotland and Northumbria. He was a scholar, and besides his cornpetence in

Latin, he had an interest in the fields of law, biblical studies, geography and historysg It was his duty to present the Columban famila and the founding saint in the best light possible. Yet Celtic scholar Hughes presents us with the other side to the story: she contends that hagiography such as Adomnan's work cannot be considered history, but a panegyric that is meant to glorify the patron sainPo leaving us to adopt a balance between the two opposing views.

Adomnan would have us believe he wrote the work for pious reasons, as he tells the reader that the unseen and unknown are important to the reader's understanding of the

-Life. They are urged to:

. . . put their faith in accounts which are attested, and give more thought to my subject than to rny words which I consider rough and of little worth. They should rernember that the Kingdom of God stands not on the Row of eloquence but in the flowering of faitt~.~'

Adomnan seems to be urging the reader to take the stories in the Life on faith; to believe that the work of the saint, his miracles, visions and prophecies, was a gift from God. By reading these tales and believing in them, the reader's faith would be strengthened and his

39 Jean-Michel Picard, "Bede, Adomnan and the Writing of History," in Peritia, Vol. 3,

1984, p.55. *- ? ' Picard, "Bede," p.5 1.

Adomnb7sLife of Columba, Preface, p 103 understanding of God's, and Columba's work, broadened.

We cannot properiy assess Adomnan's work as hagiographer and lawmaker and the implications the law rnight have had for church and society in the seventh century without examining the power and reason behind the Columban cult and the political and royal connections that began with the saint himseif. First. we must consider the simplicity of his missionary purpose: Columba was a pilgrim, a man self-exiled or banished from his homeland and bent on founding an isolated ministry on lona and converting the Pi~ts.~'

But he was, at the same time, a royal personage, a man Iinked to the most politically powerful men in the north of Ireland, Ulster. He was well-acquainted with those who held the reigns of power in various regions and knew the implications of their authority in Irish society. According to Adornnan, he foresaw the deaths of two prominent leaders:

Likewise, once, when the holy man was in lona, he suddenly broke off from his reading and groaned with deep sorrow and in great wonder. The man who was with him, Luigbe moccu Blai, noticed this and began to ask the reason for this sudden display of grief. 'Two men of royal lineage,' St. Columa answered sorrowfully, 'have died today in lreland of wounds each inflicted on the other. This has happened near the monastery of Cell Rois in the territory of Mugdorna. A week from today someone will shout to be brought across the Sound. coming from Ireland, and he will describe this incident I have mentioned.' A week later there was a shout across the Sound . . . Before long a man arrived and among other news had this to Say: 'Two men of noble family from Mugdorna have died from wounds they gave one another . . .943

Adornnan's Life recounts a number of the saint's prophecies regarding events that took place in Ireland and elsewhere. Columba's prophecies make up the first book of the

'' Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p.33.

" Adomnh's Life of Columba, p 145 Life and not only indicate the powers attributed to him, but show just how familiar was the

lona founder with a nurnber of secular and ecclesiastical leaders. Adomnan describes the

saint's power of prophecy as beginning eariy in his life:

. . . He began as a young man to enjoy . . . the spirit of prophecy, to predict the Mure and to tell those with him about things happening elsewhere. He could see what was done afar off, because he was there in the spirit though not in the body. For as St. Paul says, 'He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.' One tirne when a few of the brethren pressed him about this, the man of the Lord, St. Columba, did not deny that by divine grace he had several times experienced a miraculous enlarging of the grasp of the mind so that he seemed to look at the whole world caught in one ray of s~nlight.~

Columba was well-linked to key figures in lreland. When he was threatened with excommunication (for his part in the Battle of Culdreimne) at the Convention of Druim

Cett in 575 - an assembly of al1 the kings of lreland - one of the most powerful kings in attendance was Aed rnac Ainmuirech of the Northem Ui Neill, Columba's kin gr~up.~'

Byrne writes that the convention was likely for the alliance of two key Ui Neill figures.

Aedan rnac Gabrain and Aed rnac Ainmuirech against Baetan rnac Ninnedo, al1 done thrsugh "the offices of Columba, Aed's own cousin, who had ordained Aedan as king of

Dalriada."46 This not only gives us some idea of how involved Columba may have been as a member of his royal farnily, it explains the complicated power structures of kingship in the north.

Simpson believes the fact that Columba ieft ireland at al1 is evidence he had strong political interests and ties to his royal relatives; otherwise excommunication would have

4~d~mnih'sLife of Columba p 112

' Byme, Irish Kiwand Hi-, London, 1973, p. 1 10.

' Byrne, Irish Kines and Hi&-Kings, p. 11 1. -

72 been the result of his link to the Battle of Culdreirnne and its hundreds of deathse4'His missionary zeal was crucial to the propagation of the Christian faith and the growth of the famiiia, but there is evidence Columba was keenly interested and closely irnplicated in the pollical movements of his time." This likely contributecl greatly to the "temporal" legacy of the Columban familia as land used to found his monasteries was granted to him by powerful members of the Cenél Conaill (clan). Backed by strong political ties and secular forces, the growing power of lona was combined with the personai effectiveness of the saint and the territorial prestige of the famifia.49

But the greatest key to Columba's cult is Adomnan's Life, written during his abbacy at lona no earlier than 696, about the sarne time he was working on the Cain Adomrhin (Law of the Innocents). The proximity of these dates suggests that an aging Adomnan, who died in 704 at the age of 77, was eager, despite his own support of the Roman timing of

Easter, to ensure he left the familia in a position to deal with future challenges to its power and authority resulting from the decision of 664. Since the Synod of Whitby, there Iikely had been steady pressure on the Columban familia, from episwpal Roman foundations in England and Ireland, to conform to the ideology and organization of the Roman church. The power of the universal Roman church was growing and already, Lindisfarne came under the jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop.

4' Douglas Simpson, The History of St. Columba, London, 1963, p.5.

'"Simpson, The History of St. Columba, p.5.

43 Henderson, The Pic& p 78

50 Adornnan'9 J Xe of Columb%p 55 The Life, then, was a means to set the record straight conceming lona and its founder. It was both a pious exercise, meant to aid in the conversion of pagans, and a means of exalting the founder of the famiiia. Wntten at the urging of the community, it gave Adomnan a place in the Columban cult and set the saint among the ranks of the church's founding leaders. It not only highlights his prophecies, it describes various miracles and visions attributed to Columba, many of which are similar to visions and miracles perfonned by Christ. Yet in introducing the Life, AdornnAn reminds the reader that there are many things concerning the saint that have been left out of the account:

. . for the sake of brevty, and only a few things out of many are written down so as not to try the patience of those who will read them. But even in companson with the lime we now propose to write, popular report has spread alrnost nothing of the very great things that can be told about the blessed man.51

"Adornnan's Life was in itself an exercise in piety, but it was also a skilfully disguised political tract for its times," wrïtes ~ynch.'*In writing his hagiography, Adomnan was keen to propagate the cult by recording for posterity the tradition of its founding saint.

Adornnan refers to tradition passed on by his predecessors and by "trusting men who knew the facts," an oblique reference to the cult and the importance of its "folk" knowledge. He was close enough to the lifetime of his predecessor to have spoken with those who recalled the saint, such as Ernéne, a very old monk who could remernber the

--

51 Adomn&n7sLife of Columba, p 103

52 Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p 33

53 Maire Herbert, iona Kells and Dey, Oxford, 1988, p. 13. night that Columba died?

Picard maintains the Life was written at lona with the support of the entire community, for Adomnan insists throughout the text that he is writing about "their patron saint, their monastery, their common history." 55 It was, in Adomnan's own words, a work designed to mark the greatness of a patron saint whose power was undiminished even in death:

Every conscientious reader who has finished reading this three-part book should mark well how great and special is the merit of our revered abbot; how great and special is his honour in God's sight; how great and special were his experiences of angelic visits and heavenly light; how great was the grace of prophecy in hirn; how great and frequent was the brilliant light of heaven which shone on him as he dwelt in mortal flesh and which, after his most gentle sou1 had left the tabernacle of the body, does not cease even today?

Columba, then, was portrayed as a gift from God; the saint's message and foundation was meant to be perœived as a "special" institution that neither man (perhaps the Roman church) nor society could diminish. Adomnan wrote the Life, Picard believes, to give lona and the rest of the familia a prestige which it was ~osing.~?This theory could also apply to

Adomnan's law: With the support of the lona community, it is possible Adomnan also undertook the writing of the law to boost the Colurnban cult and strengthen its position in society. In Adomnan's words:

Our blessed patron's life I shall now, with Christ's help, describe in response to the entreaties of the (lonan) brethren ... There are words here in the poor

Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men, p 86

55J-MPicard, "The Purpose of Adomnan's Vita Columbae," in Peritia, Vol 1, 1982, p. 1 66.

56 Adomnh's Life of Columba, p 233

57 Picard, "The Purpose," p. 166. lrish language, strange names of men and peoples and places, narnes which I think are crude in cornparison with the different tongues of foreign races. But let no one think this a reason to despise the proclamation of profitable deeds, which were not achieved without the help of Gad?

Adomnan wrote the Life in the language of the founding saint. As a scholar. he may have preferred to use Latin, but he entreats readers not to think less of him for using the

IrÏsh language. The great deeds described in the Life were, he reminds readers, achieved by the Irish saint with God's help. In supporting the use of the lrish language, Adomnan reinforces the culture of the familia and indirectly urges pnde in the herîtage of the founder.

Adomnan was a prolific writer and produced other literary works during his abbacy at

Iona; Fis Adomnan (Adomnan's Vision) and De Locis Sanctis (Of Sacred Places). Clancy and Markus believe the ninth abbot rnay well have written some poetry as well as his prose works. One piece of verse, believed to belong to Adomnan's hand concerns the death of the Pictish king in 693, Bruide rnac Bili, who fought and defeated the NorthumbBans in

685.59If the poem is the work of the ninth abbot. it would indicate his political awareness and involvement with the Pictish community and the ramifications for society of the death of the king. The poetry was originally written in Old lrish and translates as:

Great the wonders He performs, The King who is bom of Mary: death for Bruide rnac Bile, the life of little sheaves in Mull.

Adomnh's Life of Columba, p. 103.

59 Thomas Owen CIancy and Gilbert Mhkus, Iona The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery, Edinburgh, 1995, p 166 It is strange, after ruling a kingdom: a srnall ruioed hollow of oak about the son of Dumbarton's king.60

But in writing the Life, Adomnan stepped outside any role he may have had as the

observant writer and became instead, a panegyrist, a man intent on propagating the cuit

of his founder and ensuring the continu4 praise of his accomplishments, rather than a

historical account of Columba. The hagiograp hy was meant to "buttress the daims" and

revenues of the church by placing emphasis on the church patrons, and on Columba's

influence on the lives of the ~omrnunity.~'Adomnan is merely a conduit and promoter of the cuk and his importance, in this respect, rests only on being Columba's successor and

biographer; that importance is furthered by the fact that Adomnan is overseeing an already well-established territory and power. To write the Life and the law at the same time,

garnering support for the jurisprudence from al1 corners of the Celtic kingdom and

Northumbria, hints at a number of motives on Adomnan's part, in particular, ensuring that

Coiurnban interests survived and prospered. After ail, the Iaw was "imposed on the men

of lreland and Britain as an everlasting law until Doom" - a very long time by anyone's

reckoning - and as the guarantor list attests, with the support of very powerful leaders.

The Life offers insight into why Adomnan undertook the work; it provides a certain

amount of history, offering a clear and enlightening view of rnonastic tradition and a glirnpse of the hard life the monks Iived in that unrelenting clirnate; it offers a look at the

60 Clancy and Owen, Iona The Earliest Poetrv of a Celtic Monastery, p 167

6' 6' Herbert and O'Riain, Betha Adomnân, p.2. federation in lreland and Dalriada, united under the leadership of Columba; and it gives us evidence of Columba's Iink to the Picts in that it tells us he converted two Pictish households. 62 Not only does the Life tell us the degree to which Columba was revered by the tightly knl lona cornmunity, its testimony, from those who lived in the cornmunity, rnay well be more accurate than the numerous miracle tales and narratives. Writes Adomnan:

No one should think that I woutd wnte anything false about this markable man, nor even anything doubtfi~lor uncertain. Let it be understood that I shall tell only mat I leamt from the account handed down by our eiders, men both reliable and infomed, and that I shall write without equivocation what 1 have learnt by diligent inquiry either from what I could find already in writing or from what I heard recounted without a trace of doubt by infomed and reliable old med3

Adomnan's work was part of a "surge of activity" in the seventh century at ha, where the written word had been important since the monastery's founding. Curnrnéne, abbot from 657 to 668, was likely the first to complete a hagiographical text and it is believed Adomnan used this text as a basis for his work? In writing his Life, Adomnan used a popular fom of literature used by other hagiographers on the continent and typical of material found in Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiastica or in Gregory of Tours Historia

Francor~rn.~~The recording of history and the writing of hagiography was net clearly defined, writes Picard, although Adomnan uses methods and Miting techniques attributed

--

62Adomnh'sLife of Columba, p. 136.

63 Adomnm'3 L ife- of Columba p. 105.

64 Picard, "Bede, Adomn6n and the Wnting of History," p.55.

65 Picard, "Bede," p.53. to the best hi~torians.~~Chronology was simpiy not an important factor. As a centre of

leaming and scholarship, lona would have a well-stocked library and Adomnan wouid have

exploited for his own use. al1 of the hagiographical and other available resources he had

"in order to get information about Columba.*'

In determining what is historical fact in the Life, it would seem that Adornnan had

access to a chronological narrative that deatt with Columba's conversion of the Picts,

which is scattered throughout the Life. perhaps the earlier work of Cumméne. It is more

than likely he drew widely on this, as well as the verbal history of the older monks at lona.

But it is difficult to determine what is fact or history and what is propaganda for the Life

offers some large, yet questionable accomplishments by the saint. Adornnan wrote that the

Irish in Dalriada and the Picts to the north escaped a plague thanks to St. Columba:

Although neither of these peoples is without great sin, by which the eternal Judge is rnoved to anger, none the less to this date he has been patient and spared them both . . . For he founded among both peoples the rnonasteries. where today he is stiH honoured on both sides. 68

Most scholars are skeptical that the Life offers any firm historical evidence concerning the foundation at lona. Henderson is even less sure of evidence offered by the Venerable

Bede, writing thirty yean after Adomnan, in his Ecclesiastical History of the Enalish People that "lona was the chief monastery of al1 the northern Scots and the ~icts.~~There is no record in the annals of Columban missions in the north. although two entries concerning

66 Picard, "Bede," p.52.

Picard, "Bede," p.52.

68 Adomnin7s Life of Columba p.75.

69 Henderson, The Pic& p.78. 79

Nechtain Neir in 622 and 678 may well refer to a Columban monastery in Pictland. Neither

Momnan nor Bede name a single Dalriadic or Pictish Columban foundation in their work.

The exception to this rnay be Airchartdan, now known as modern Urquhart, which was

proposed by recent editors (the Andersons) of Ad~rnnan-~ONeir could represent Deer,

which was the name of an ancient parish in Buchan, Aberdeen. If this is the case, the

medieval claim that Columba and his disciple Drostan founded a monastery there is

~trengthened,~'and we have more of an idea of the extent of Columba's cuit.

Adomnhn was not even explicit on who exactly was converted during Columba's

Iifetime or whether the Picts had been converted prior to Columba's mission. When

Columba visited Bnid's court it is fikely the Irish churchman's royal reputation had gone

before him. Finlay, for one, does not believe the Picts were Christianized at that tirne or that previous Christian attempts pior to Columba had succeeded. He maintains the

northern Picts were still pagan when Columba amved 72 and uses the evidence of sculpture and art found in the north of Scotland to argue that the northern Picts had not been converted to Chnstianity a century before the Columban mission. He argues if it had been wellestablished, they would have been more familiar with animal carvings and Celtic art forms. 73

Generally, saints' lives are bound by the same comrnon thernes, miracles and

Henderson, The Picts, p.75.

71 Henderson, The Picts, p.75.

72 Finlay, Columba, p. 12 1.

73 Finlay, Columba p.219. 80 purposes. One will tind the activities of saints repeated in various hagiographies wlh many of the miracles based on Biblical accounts of Christ's work. Native saga, legends, continental Lives and the Bible al1 contributed to the compilation of any particuiar hagiography. For instance, in Jocelinus's Life of Saint Munao, the Glasgow bishop is said to have asked a tryrant, Morken, for food because the monks of his abbey were starving.

When the tyrant refused, Mungo prayed and the ensuing rains brought Morken's barns to the grounds of the abbeyaT4Similarly, Adornnan writes of Columba being asked to baptise a child in a place where there was no water. The saint is said to have knelt before the nearest rock and prayed. When he stood up, he blessed the face of the rock and at once

'Lvater bubbled out from it in great quant~ty."~~

A Life such as Adomnan's was likely designed to convince readers of the authenticity of the tales. yet Irish saints were markedly different in accuunts of their roles; they were, by and large, missionaries and confessors, not the vulnerable martyrs that existed elsewhere in Christendom. The Irish saints were set apart by the fact they were leaders of men and organizerç of monasteries, where the Christian message was lived among equals.

They were part of a larger community that was insular and containeci; and, as we see from

Adomnan's account, their proxirnity to God and his special favours to thern were frsquently displayed:

Once,four saints who had founded monasteries in lreland came to visit St. Columba . . . The names of these famous men were Comgall moccu Ariadi, Cainnech moccu Dafann, Brendan moccu Attae and Cornac Ua Liathain.

74Jocelinusof Furness, Life of St. Mun~o,lain MacDonald (ed.), FIoris Books, Edinburgh, 1993, p 24

75 Adomnh9sLife of Columba, p 161 When the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist were to take place, with one accord they chose St. Columba to act as celebrant. . . . While the sacrament of the mass was celebrated, St. Brendan moccu Abe saw a radiant bal1 of fire shining ver-brightly from St. Columba's head as he stood in front of the altar and consecrated the sacred oblation. It shone upwards like a colurnn of light and lasted until the rnysteries were cornpleted. Afterwards St. Brendan disclosed what he had seen to St. Comgall and St. CainnecheT6

ln her work on the Columban cult, Hughes writes that Adomnan's Life reflects a monastic hanony within the Celtic church that is untouched by the spirit of cornpetition, which would later prevail among other familia and be recorded in later annals and Lives.

While Adomnan's Life was a work of edification with "elements of propaganda," written for the abbot's particular time and for a specific purpose, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the Enalish People would promote the Columban cuYs work and greatness by rnaking a definitive, although questionable, claim concerning the foundation's purpose and accomplishments. Bede wrote:

Columba came to Britain ... To turn (the Picts) to the faith of Christ by his words and example and so received the island of lona from them in order to establish a monastery there ... His successors hold it to this day and he himseif was buried there at the age of seventy-seven, about thirty-two years after he came to Britain to preach."

The flourishing of Christianity through Columban foundations in Ddlriada and lreland and the strength of the saint's cult meant lona was able to hold its power for more than a century after his death. But, "saints are not bom, they are created," '' and through

76 Adornnin's Life of Columba, p 2 19

77 Hughes, Earlv Christian Ireland, p.223.

'* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, p.223.

79 Lynch, Scotland: A New Histoy, p.27. -

82

later hagiographical undertakings by memben of his familia, Columba, and to a lesser

extent, Ninnian, Kentigem and Adomnan, became apostles of the early church in Ireland

and Britain: "More powerful in death than in Iife, they become, once acclairned, the servants of future generations of the servant of Christ," writes Lynch. As the evidence of the Life and the law shows, Columba in particular became the subject of a cult within a few decades of his death. Columba and other saints' cults would be recast through the centuries to fit the demands and politics of a changing church and the secular forces that would engulf it.

Great difficuities are encountered in detemining the extent of the power of Columba's cult. Saints filled a great space in the minds of the people and became part of popular tradition. Over time, any authentic facts pertaining to their history became layered with the changing perceptions, belief and emotion of later periods. As Lynch suggests, we must unpick fa& and strip off layers that were placed there by scribes who were devoted to the cult's cause. We can never return to that tirne when Columba's teachings and influence were widespread; and we can never imagine the mindset of a pagan people accepting

Christianity from Columba. We are left only with sketchy evidence from the annals,

AdomMn and Bede, who wrote much later, in the early eighth century. It is from these sources that we must trace the development and growth of a cult that gathered its might at lona, in Ireland, and later in Northumbria, following the saint's death.

The nature of the church. and by and large, the cult, was insular - wnfined to the islands of Britain and Ireland, although Irish monks, who were pewni, spread the cuit to the continent. Columban leadership and legacy, then, did not end with the death of the saint for the pattern of his leadership and missionary purpose was already established

while he still Ii~ed.~~His legacy to his heirs and followers were close ties that transcended

geography, a "dual legacy of spintual and temporal prerogativesn8'strong enough to ensure the continuanœ of his work, sustain cornpetition from other cults and the secular politics that threatened to engulf it. Colurnban foundations would be centres of learning, places where the Irish language and theofficial Latin of the Roman church were both used. The

Columban familia would be known for training scholars, as well as rnissionaries, kings and

cornmoners. From this vantage point, it would seem the famifia was well-equipped to withstand the desire by the Roman church for al1 Christian churches confom to its

organizational structure. From lona, Deny, and later Kells and Lindisfame, monks would travel to the south of Britain, Gaul and Europe with their message of the Columban church.

Yet even as Columba's famila grew in power and authority, subtte changes were occumng as Rome extended its power; even a well-structured and organized familia like the

Columban federation would be affected.

While lona clung to its traditional roots in the late seventh century. the Irish church

did, by the time Adomnan became abbot, look upon Rome as "the centre of the Christian

~orld."~~And there is little doubt that Roman influence and power had begun to make its way back to lona through the travels of other monks and visitors who came to lona to study

or pray.

8 G 61 f 1 a, p.2.

Herbert, Iona Kells and De-, 1988, p.35.

82 Bitel, Isle of the Saints, p.7. Regardless of the somewhat sketchy record concerning Columban missions and the spread of the cult, the missionary zeal of the eariy foundation inspired a nurnber of evangelist pilgrims to go abroad, thereby furthering Columba's cult and fame. On the continent, they became famitiar with more diverse ideas concerning Chnstianity and brought home many innovations, including those that were very much a part of the Rornan- based church institution. For exarnple, the monks who ventured to the Continent encountered Benedict's Rule. But instead of embracing the trends unquestionably, many of these missionary monks interpreted the ideas they leamed abroad in an independent way which, in tum, eamed a certain amount of distnist from the Continental foundations.

On returning to lreland and Dalriada, the most valuable contribution made by these monks was their scribal efforts: They produced extensive collections of saints' lives, secular laws, secular tales and sagas, poetry, genealogies, ecclesiastical canons, martyrologies and monastic annals during the seventh and eighth centuries.83

The links to the outside world during Adomnan's abbacy were amazingly strong and far-flung. Isidore, bishop of Seville, who died in 636, provided the tie between earlier writers and lona. Isidore used Augustine, Arnbrose and Orosius in foming his own picture of the world and wrote the works, Etvmoloaiae and De Nafura Rerurn, which were available on lona and used by Adomnhn when he was compiling his Life of Columba."

These works provided a visual link to the world and church beyond the Columban familia in the fom of sketch maps of Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as positioning for

83 Bitel, Jsle of the Saints, p.9.

84 Thomas OyLoughliny"Living in the Ocean," in Studies in the Cult of Columba, p.15. them their own world and points of interest in lreland and Britain. 85 These maps provided the lona communrty with a clear idea of the sea routes to other Christian foundations. The sea was important to the monks and from the maps in the lona library, Adomnan was able to include in his Life a great many details about the various trips and visits made by the community. There are recorded trips to lreland and Skye, voyages from Gaul to lona, from

Gaul to Britain and many shorter trips among the islands, along with descriptions of stomis and their grave danger to travellers.

Once, when St. Columba was at sea. he found himseif threatened by danger. A great storm, with gusts of wind blowing fom al1 sides, arose and his boat was tossed and buffeied by great waves. St. Columba tried to help the sailors bail out the water that came into the boat, but they said to him: 'Your doing that does Iittle to help us in this danger. You would do better to pray for us as we al1 perish.' Hearing this, (St. Columba) stopped emptying the bitter water into the sea to no effect and began instead to pour out sweet prayers to the Lord. Marvellous to tell, as soon as the saint stood up in the prow and raised his hands to heaven in prayer to the atmighty God, the stormy winds and the raging sea were still . . .

Europe, in the minds of these monks, was a great land and their island "an outlying scrap in the Ocean." To the lonan monks, everything of importance - books, new ideas, wine and disease - carne to them from ~urope.~~But from lona, with Adomnan's Life, the fame of Columba and his cult spread out to the island of Britain, then Europe, Gaul, Spain and Rome. Adomnan, despite the fact there is no evidence he ever travelled to Rome, became very much a part of a flowering of literary activity in the Irish and British church.

These literary monks would greatly affect the history of aie church for they left a great body

O'Loughlin, "Living," p. 15.

Adomniin's Life of Columba, p. 165.

s Life of Columba, p.2 1. of evidence. In fact, monks wrote more saints' lives than anything else, although today

many of these Lives corne to us frorn anonymous sources and many mnnot be fimly dated

Columba's cuit wauld come to represent more than the growth of a Christian foundation whose central focus was piety, study and missionary zeal. The scribal efforts of the

Columban familia would result in a distinct and unique style of manuscript that would produce nurnerous notable gospel pages etched and coloured in an artistic style that would become known as HibernoSaxon art, stnking in its use of swirls and scrollwork, with elements of zoomorphic decorati~n.~~The combining of Saxon and Irish influence likely came about through the work of Irish Colurnban missionaries in Northurnbria, who exchanged artistic styles with their pupils and Saxon

Although Hiberno-Saxon art developed in the two centuries after Columba's death, it began in the church Columba promoted. '' Finlay calls the scribes who composed the gospel pages of the Books of Lindisfame and Kells "garden gate keepers." The elaborately embellished messages represent their prehistoric pagan heritage and illustrate the two worlds that came to be associated with Celtic religion - a pagan closeness to nature and

88 Most lives survive in three great codices; the Salamanca Codex, containing the oldest rescension; the Kilkemy Codex, and îhe Codex Insulemis. Bite1 writes that other Lives may be found buried in late rnedieval manuscripts in Ireland on the continent but these are Iikely edited and revised versions of earlier efforts.

Francoise Henry, Irish Art in the Earlv Christian Period to 800 AD., Ithaca, N.Y.,1965, p.73 -

Henry, Irish Art, p.74.

91 Finlay, Columba, p.2 1 1. -

87 the basic message of Christ.gz The Book of Durrow dates to 680, while the Lindisfarne gospels were likely Menaround 698. The Book of Kells is thought to have kenstarted on lona and later, due to Viking raids, was completed at Kelis in Ireland.

While the gospel message was written in the language of the Roman worid, where ornamentation of any kind was "repugnant to the classical eye," the unadorned word of

Gd was a foreign concept to the Irish scribes who preferred a more eloquent s!yteg3 For the Celtic scribes, who found outdoor spiritualw acceptable, the written word was impersonal and artificial, the Roman characters, rigid. The scribes brought them to Iife using organic figures, plant tendrils and anirnals, that reflected the Celtic love and closeness to nature.

Because the Colurnban monks were part of a tradition that included the minimum of material trappings in austere surroundings, the manuscripts became "objectsof rnagical power . . . (that) the scribes reached back into the race memories of their people was never more obvious than in their use of stylized animaWgs The bird-lore of pagan lreland survives into Columba's time as more than a literary tradition - bird imagery and the power of nature figure prominently in Adomnan's Life, and in life on the içland of lona. In fact, nature and al1 its unpredictable vagaries are bound into the tales Adomnan relates to the readers of his Life; as well as the saint's power to overcome the winds at sea, his ability

92 Finlay, Columba, p.211.

93 Finlay, Columba, p.211. .. . 94 Mary Low, Celtic Chnsttanity and Nature: Earlv Irish and Hebridean Traditions, Edinburgh, 1996, p.3.

95 Finlay, Columba, p.213. to drive devils from the milk-pail and lure fish from the sea is depicted:

Another time, St. Columba spent sorne days on Lough Key. His cornpanions wanted to go fishing, but he delayed them saying: 'Today and tomorrow there will not be a single fish caught in the river, but I shall send you fishing on the third day and you will find two great salmon caught in the net' ... After two days of waiting they cast their net in the River Boyle and when they drew it to the bank they found two salmon of very unusual size. 96

That the dissemination of the cult of Columba occurred remarkably quickly in the decades after the saint's death, is without argument. The number of foundations in lreland and Northumbria are evidence enough. But with the decentralization of power, the loss of the familia's insular character and the rise of the Roman influence to the south of

Lindisfarne, the cult during Adomnan's abbacy was under threat and was in danger of losing its prestige and well-established dominance over ecclesiastical matters. Can we be blamed for suspecting Adomnan of ulterior motives when, one hundred years after the saint's death and with the church's recent doctrinal defeat, he undertook to write a law to put the Columban cult back at its pinnacle of power?

96 Adornnh's Life of Columba, p. 168. Chapter 4 - Cain Adomnain as an Irish Law

The lot of women, mothers and wives in early Irish and Dalriadan society, according

to the opening segment of the text of Adomnan's law, was a brutal one; they were spared

neither rod nor sword and offered the worst accommodation and least share of food and

provision. Even their children did not escape the torments and noise of the battlefield, the

risk of having their young lives ended in barbaric fashion: As the preamble to the law describes their Iives;

Slavey (cumalach) was the name for women until Adomnan came to free them and this was the curnalach: The woman for whom a pÎt was dug at the end of the door so that it covered her nakedness . . . there was no share in bag or basket for that woman, nor in the one house of the master of the house, but she was in a cold shed outside the enclosure . . . '

Cumalach ba hainm do mnàiph CO taineg Adamnan dia soerad acus ba si so in cumalach in ben dia claite derc hi cinn na dobla CO ticeth dar a fëili . . . NI uïth cuit don m(n)ai sin I mbulg nach a criol nach a n-oentig aithigh tighi, acht a bith i n-Üarboith fri less amuig, nà tisad airbuid de muir na tir dochum a airc(h)indich.2

This was the work that the best of wornen would do: Going into battle and battlefield, into encounter and encampment, expedition and hosting , wounding and slaughter . . . her bag of provisions hung on the one side of her, her infant on the other . . . Her man would be behind her, fence post in his hand flogging her into battle. For it was a wornan's head or her two breasts that were carried off as a trophy at that time.3

In ben ba dech de rnnaiph, ba si opair dogniid, techt ar cenn catha acus cathroi, dail acus dünaid, fechta acus slogaid, gonae acus airligh. A tiagh looin for indara tàib di, al lenban for in toib n-ailiu . . . A fer inna diaidh; cüaille airbed inna Iâim oc a sroigled ar cenn catha. Ar ba cenn mnaa no da

' Mkrkus, Cain Adomnain, p.8. ' Meyer, Cain AdomnZîin, Oxford, 1905, p.B2.

Mirkus, Cain Adornnain, p.3. 90

ciich noberthe 1 tasilbhath in tan sim4

This passage does not likely offer us a historical basis, for Markus, in discussing the

introduction to the law's latest 1997 translation,' writes that this initial descriptive passage is undoubtedly later material and likeiy added by monks who were handling copies of the law centuries after the original was pr~rnulgated.~

Despite this. Adomnan's law is the earliest surviving piece of jurisprudence that is primarily concerned with wornen's welfare in Western ~urope:?In creating his law,

Adomnan sought to affect society in a positive way by protecting those people he perceived to be its weakest links: the members most crucial to the continuance of al1 they believed in, women and children, and those who would ensure the propagation of the faith, clerics. Adomnan's law marked a change in church and society: a softening of barbaric ways, a tuming away from pagan belief and practice, and the beginning of the fusion of the eccfesiastical and secular world.

Duly recorded and witnessed, backed by supporters in two separate regions, it also, finally and irrevocably, marked Adomnan's acceptance of Roman church influence on administrative rnatters and practice in the Celtic church.

It has been argued that Adomnan's intention in writing the law was partly as "a

4 Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.2.

Markus is using the 1905 translation of Cain Adomnain by Kuno Meyer.

Mhkus, Cain Adomnain, p.3.

'Mairin Ni Dhonnchada "The Lex innocentium: AdomnAn7sLaw for Women, Clerics and Youths, 697 A.D." in Chattel. Servant or Citizen: Women7sStatus in Church. State and Society, Mary O'Dowd, Sabine Wichert (eds.), Dublin, 1993, p.58. riposte" against the growth of the Roman mission and the growing claims of supremacy by the Patrician paruchia at ~miagh.~Adomnan's motives will never be known, but it is easy to suspect that, barring the obvious pious intention to protect women and children, the law may also have been intended to 'settle matters of ecclesiastical politicsWgand boost Colurnban interests - and the familia's confidence - after the defeat at Whitby.

Undoubtedly, the text of the law stnves to curry favour among those, (in the following section he especiaily targets women), who count themselves as mernbers of the new religion, and more importantly, as followers of the Colurnban cornrnunity:

After the coming of Adomnan now, a good woman is not deprived of her testimony on earth. . .For a mother is a venerable treasure, a mother is a good treasure, the mother of saints and bishops and just men, one deserving of the kingdom of heaven . . .'O - lar tiachtain do Adomnan hifecta ni gatar a forgall ar dornun degmna, mad i ngnirnaib firaib forsither. Ar is (s)niith main mathair, maith màin mathair, rnathair n6eb acus epswp acus fiflan, tuillem flatha nime, tustigud talman."

By securing the support of key figures in lreland and Dalriada for his law, Adornnan was able to maintain the pre-eminence of the Colurnban familia despite the rise of others, such as Patrick's. The text of the law contains a Iist of ninety-one ecclesiastical and secular figures who are presented as the guarantors of the legislation.'* The guarantors' list, which

8 Jean-Michel Picard? "Bede, Adomn& and the Writing of History," Peritia Vol. 3, 1984, p.56.

Picard, "Bede," p.60.

'O Miirkus, Cain Adomnain, p.8.

" Meyer, Cain Adornnain, p.5.

" Mairin Ni Dhomchadha, "The Guarantor List of Cain Adomnain, 697," Peritia, Vol. 1, 1982, p.178. included petty kings, monks and powerful secular figures, gives us some idea of the social position of the people who supported the la^.'^ It also indicates that the secular powers in society and the ecclesiastical leaders in lreland and Dalriada sought to respect and include each other in legal rnatters. The text of the law, immediately following this fist, gives us some idea of the breadth of Adomnan's powerful reach and influence:

They al1 swore on behatf of the laity and dergy to fuffill the whole of the Cain Adomnain until Judgment. They offered the full éraic14 for the wounding of women to Adomnan and to every heir (coarb) that should occupy his see until Judgment. And Adomnan does not take away the fines from laity and church and kin to whom they are due. l5

Tocuitchetar tra huli Iæchaib acus clëirchibh 6gh cana Adomnàn do comalnad CO bràdh. Atropartatar ianéraic a mbanchro do Adomnan acus do cach cornorbuo bias ina suidiu CO bradh acus ni gata Adomnan fiachu ar flaith acus eclais acus fine dia mbi dir.16

As we can see from the last sentence in the paragraph, Adomnan was also careful not to interfere with the secular fines sought by kin groups, only to collect what was due to each coarb or abbot at foundations that were part of the Columban familia. The late seventh century was a time when ecclesiastical power was trying to work with the existing secular powers. Native law in Ireland, Brehon or unadhas taw, had developed over centuries and was closely Iinked to the system of kinship and surety. Native law and its punishment depended largely on who was offended - the higher the rank of the victim - the higher the fine. There was no such thing as a crime against the state; there was no state.

-

l3 Ni Dhonnchada, 'The Guarantor List," p. 178.

l4 Éraic is the full penalty for murder, the body price.

'' Mhrkus, Cain Adomnain, p. 17.

16 Meyer, Cain AdornnGn, p.2 1. The rural, widely spread settlements depended on each other for justice; an individual

would stand as surety for another and ensure the fine was paid.

Adomnan's cdin, a terni usually used to denote an ecclesiastical ena~tment,'~was also

the first centralized piece of legislation to widely affect the population in two countnes, a

conglomerate of petty kingdoms and clans without a central force or government. In

enacting his law, Adomnan was, in effed, attempting to impose on secular society a fom

of centralized authorrty. But he was careful to not impose his law upon existing native laws;

instead, fines to the Columban church would be paid in addition to those worked out

among kin relations.

Adornnan's work was testimony to the fact he could, and did, gather together al1 the

powers that existed at that time and persuade them to support the Columban paruchia.

We can see that, as well as the supporters who put their names to the act of promulgation,

the legislation involved local guarantors (similar to the systern of native laws) and ordinary

members of society who would oversee the enactment of the law and help to collect the fines:

Three guarantors for every chief church foi the Cain Adomnain, Le., the prior and the cook and the steward, and a guarantor of the &in from every family in lreland, and two guarantors of the cain from the high-chieftains and hostages taken for its payrnent, if there be sworn evidence of w~men.'~

Te6ra aiüm cac(h)a primegafs fi Cain Adornnain .i. secnap acus coic acus fertiges acus aitire cana deirbfine fo Eirinn uile acus da eitiri &na ardflat(h)a acus gialla gabhala dia dia dil. di mbê tüarasndal ban~gal.'~

" Daibhi O Croinin, Early Medieval Ireland. 400-1 200, New York, 1995 p.80. '' Markus, Cain Adornngin, p.22.

l9 Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.32. Some tenets of the law were less clear, and ccmplicating many manuscripts are the

glosses and cornmentanes added by scribes and later jurists. It makes deciphering certain

points of law even more challenging for the translator; Binchy points out that through the

years, changes in the practice of law have led to glossators notating in a completely

different sense from the point of law made in the original tract2' These problems, however.

were likely of more concern to secular and common law tracts, as most church Iaws, or

cana, were usually written in Latin - a Ianguage universai in ecclesiastical matters.

Adomnan's law, or cain, was written in Old Irish. Not only was the use of the Irish

language a way to protect and prornote the values of the Celtic church, it was the language

of native law and would have been used by the guarantors and supporters of the law. As we saw in the previous chapter, Adomnan also chose to write his Life in Old Irish; writing the law in Old Irish, too, well might be interpreted as a vote of confidence for the familia

and its lrish supporters.

The law, which was translated by scribes in later centuries from the lrish to Latin, has

reached us in its Old lrish form nearly intact. Its iively narrative "later additions" to the law,

(most schola~agree the first twenty-nine paragraphs were added later) give us a good

indication of the type of society Adomnan was trying to protect and change. Meyer, the firçt modem translator of the text from Old Irish, believed the law was menand promulgated for a society that was far from peaceful.

The world in Adomnh's day was ruled by aristocratic warriors from farnilies who were

2C D.A.Binchy, The Linpuistic and Historïcal Value of the Irish Law Tracts, The Sir John Rhys Mernorial Lecture to the British Academy, London, 1943, p.5. constantly engaged in power struggles." Warfare was a normal way of life and no one was

spared the conflict and blodshed involved in maintaining the mechanism of complicated tribal conflicts and territorial struggle. Prior to Adornnan's law, women, children and even

clerics were expected to take part in the fray. It is possible that as a Christian leader whose message included the peace and love of Christ, Adomnan would be compelled to protect these people out of piety and conœm. But he must have been aware of the social impact of such a move; the support of the rnost powerful chieftains, leaders and clergy of the day and a renewed interest in the Columban familia would have been a most welcome by- product of the law.

Much of the prearnble to Adomnan's &in is not original. The added material was probably written by a tenth-century scribe and tells the tale of Adomnan's mother being carried on her son's back and coming upon a battlefield where they encounter a great slaughter. It is an indication of the power of the combined cults of Columba and Adomnan; and the story illustrates how supernatural powers csnnected with saint and his coarb continued to have a place in the imaginations of the people two and three hundred years after their deaths. In this mythological tale, Ronnat, Adornnan's mother, wants to feed a child found lying by the corpse of its mother:

But it is a long time since rny breasts ran dry. . . Why do you not use your clerical skill for us on that pitiful body to see if the Lord wilf revive her for you?' she asks.

Acht is cian mor hüadh ô dac(h)ôdar mo chighi-si I ndisca- Ced nach promæ dün do c(h)lerchecht frisin corp troach ucut, düs in taithbëoighfedh in

2' Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.5.

-7 7 Markus, Cain Adomnain, p.8. Coimd hiu er~t?*~

When Adomnan does bring to Iife the dead woman, it is revealed that she is 'Smirgat, daughter of ~edFind, king of the Bréifne of Connaught, wife of the king of the Luigni of

Tara . . ."24 - a clear indication, according to the added material, that even wornen of royal blood and lineage were not exempt from the slaughter of the banlefield. Following

Adomnan's miracle. Ronnat tells her son: 'It has been given to you now to free the women of the western world .n25

Difficuit to comprehend on first reading, these composite tracts and the colourful Middle

Irish introduction act as a valuable bridge, for we have some idea of the depth of interest that was sustained in the Columban chur~h.*~Binchy verifies that there are myriad problems in translating the Old and Middle Irish language, let alone the extra technical complexities of these early tracts; mistakes in translation have caused legal historians to make inaccurate or unwarranted conclusions as to the context of these laws. Only in the past 100 years alone has enough expert knowledge emerged to thoroughly investigate the

Old lrish ~anguage.'~Not only are there a lot of questions concerning earlier translations, there is, as well, the tncky problem of changing idiom and syntax to consider. The study of the Old lrish language has, in fact, become such a viable area of scholarship that in

" Mcyer, Cain Adomnain, p.6. " Markus, Cain Adomnain, p.8.

'5 Markus, Cain Adomnain, p. 8. '' Ni Dhomchadhq "The Lex Innocentium," p.58.

" Binchy, The Linpistic and historical Value of the lrish Law Tracts, p.3. time, more accurate and concise translations of many early laws wilt become availabie to

US.

Yet despite the scribal layers of the text, the language difficulties and differences of opinion in translating certain portions of the law, both Maritus and his students, and Meyer, do admirable jobs in translating the text with few differences in translation. Both concede the original material was suseptible to the whims of various scribes who made additions or alterations; unfortunately, we do not know what these afterations or additions are, or where they lie in the texte2'

Despite certain ambiguities as to origin, there is no doubt about the originality of the guarantor's list and al1 of the scholars consulted agree on Ïts authenticrty. Other segments, too, hint at originality, such as patagraph 34 - a statement that encompasses the ideology of the law. Its mention of "soul friends," of the "communitylnand "sanctuariesn suggest the passage could have corne frorn the hand of Adornnan:

This is the enactment of the &in on lreland and Britain: The freedom of God's church with the cornrnunity and her insignia and her sanctuaries and al1 her property, living and inanimate and the law-abiding lay-folk and their lawful wives who are under the will of Adomnan and of a lawful wise and pious sou1 friend . . . The enactment stands as an everlasting &in for clergy and women and innocent chitdren until they are capable of kiliing a man, till they have a place in the tribe. . .*'

Iss ead in so forus Sina Adomnan for Hërinn acus Albain: seire ecalsi Dë cona muintir acus a fethlaib acus a termnaib acus a n-ule folud bëudu acus marbdu acus al-laichib dligthechaib cona cëtmunteraib tëchtaidib bite fo réir Adomnain acus anamcharat tëchtaide ecnaid craibthig . . . Forta forus inna &na seAdomnain bithain for clërchu acus bansdla acus maccu encu CO

l8 Mafkus, Cain Adomnain, p. 18.

'9 Markus, Cain Adomnain, p. 18. rnbat ingnima fri guin duine acus CO mbat inbuithi fri tüath acus confestar a n- imrnërgi.30

Adomnan was the firçt in Western society to see to the absolute protection of these

three categories - women, children and clerics - from violence. But he was by no means

the first to attempt to define who should and should not be included in the cry to battle. In

680, Cain Fhuithirbe, drafted by clencs during the reign of Munster King Finguine mac Con-

cen-mathair, dealt with concerns as to the limits of Iicit and iliicit warfare. It was not

unknown. during particular times of strife, for women and children to be expected to

participate in ~arfare.~'Perhaps Finguine's atternpt to protect innocents, some seventeen years prior to Adomnan's law, indicates there were changes occumng in society that placed a different value on some of its rnembers. It may also have meant an awareness in ecclesiastical and secular circles that native laws were failing to protect society's wornen and children. Nevertheless, since Cain Fhuithirbe was without the absolute backing of a ruling dynasty, such as the Ui Neill, and the encompassing strength of a paruchia, such as Columba's, which iinked al1 corners of the Irish and Dalriadan worlds, it is questionable whether that law had much effect on society for we are without evidence.

Adomnan's cain, writes Ni Dhonnchada, is "unique among the laws of early medieval lreland in that not only is the identity of the person at whose behest the law was proclaimed known, but also the exact year of its proclamation . . . (it) is also a great milestone in the written history of women in lreland as the eariiest surviving law concerned primarily with

'O Meyer, Cain Adomnaig p.24.

" 'Mars, Cain Adornain, p. 6. 99 their ~elfare."~~It was prornulgated in particular, as declared in the text. to have jurisdiction over lreland and Scotiand - the targeted areas being those over which the

Columban famika had influence. As well as al1 of lreland and those areas where there were foundations in Swtland, the !aw would have affected Northumbria and parts of northem

England: Holy Island (Lindisfame) and smaller foundations that had embraced the Celtic church would have been obliged to follow the tenets of the law."

Adomnan's cain is different from the urradhas or native and customary law that existed in the realm of secular jurisprudence: Most importantly, it came not from tradition and

"tirne-honoured custom," but took its force from the enactrnent, or promulgation. which occurred ai the Synod of Birr in 697. Ni Dhonnchada points out that the law was entirely without precedence and "introduced a jurisdiction specific to its own le net^."^^ Thus we must assume that Adornnan was aware of the impact his jurisprudence would have had on church and society at that time.

Hughes points out that the intricacies of early sixth and seventh century church laws in general are far easier to understand, for their original language of inscription was usually Latin and their content consisted of a body of matenal that was "not homogeneous" in it~elf.~~But it was the native secular laws that first shaped the consciousness and culture of early Ireland, a body of jurisprudence that was the "rnost archaic system of laws

'' Ni Dhomchada, "The Lex Innocentium," p.58.

" Ni Dhonnchada, "The Lex Innocentium," p.58.

" Ni Dhonnchada, ''nie Lex Innocentium," p.58.

" Ni Dhonnchada, "The Lex Innocentium," p.67. Hughes, perhaps more than any other scholar, has done extensive research on early church and secular law. 100

. . . in Western Europe. . . known as the Brehon Laws or Feineachus (law of the Gael~).'~

These laws, Ginnell wrote 80 years ago, could be traced to the reign of Cornac in Ireiand,

around 250 B.C., yet such was their complexity and history that he believes they may have

existed in sorne form, for a thousand years before Writing ai a time of extreme

nationalisrn in Ireiand, Ginnell, a barrister, slips close to propaganda when he daims that

the Brehon laws "were made for the benefit of those whose benefit they ought to have

been made: The Irish. Hence, they were good . . . in the sense that they were obeyed and

regarded as priceless treasures, not submitted to as sorne irksorne yoke."" Nationalisrn

aside, the Brehon laws were an especially complex and archaic system that covered al1

rnanner of life in early lreland from beekeeping to the responsibility of caring for ailing kin.

And they were such an established and respected body of rnaterial that they "prevailed

over the whole (of Ireland) until the arriva1 of the Anglo-Normans . . . and over the whole

country except for the Pale until the beginning of the seventeenth cent~ry."~~They were

iaws which were of great value to the Irish, Ginnell writes, because "they claimed cornmon

origin with us, and can be studied nearer to their source, with little effect from other

peoples."

By cornparison, the Saxons in England did not have their first collection of jurisprudence put into writing until the reign of Athelbirht, king of Kent, who undertook to

36 Laurence Ginneil, The Brehon Laws. A Legal Handbook, Dublin, 191 7. p.4.

37 GinneIl, The Brehon Laws, p.4. " Gimell, The Brehon Laws, p.5.

39 Ginnell, The Brehon Laws, p.6. 101 have that "meagre collection" recorded around 600 A.D.40By the time of Alfred the Great, al1 the Irish laws had reached "their full maturity . . . about the time Alfred was reducing to order the scraps of elementary law he found existing among his people?"

While many scholars maintain the existence of these laws demonstrates a stable and organized kin-based culture in lreland very early on, Hughes is rather skeptical of this idea, believing the numerous law tracts from tbat tirne period may suggest that records indicate only "how society claimed to f~nction.~~Society was 'hierarchical and kin-based"; there was no centralized government and crime could not be committed against the state. tnstead, crime could only be cornmitted against another person, and each class of society

(free and unfree) helped to keep the classes below itself in some fonn of ~rder.~~

Despite Ginneil's ideas about earlier records, Hughes rnaintains the tracts compiled in the seventh and eighth centuries are the first evidence of Irish secular law and it is impossible to ascertain the effect of laws that rnay have existed earlier. Al1 laws were transmitted orally in secular law schools by jurists who were the successors of the pre-

Christian leamed class. The tracts indicate customary practice among the peopIe, not laws set out or defined by kings, and cover a vast array of subjects on most institutions, such as wealth, inheritance, sanctions, status, property qualifications, fosterage and social amenities- Al1 of these areas are described in the tracts in highly technical, archaic Old

40 Ginnell, The Brehon Laws, p.6.

41 Ginneil, The Brehon Laws, p.5. '' Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Socieîy, p.58.

43 Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.58. .-

102

Irish, which is difficult to ~nderstand.~~Yet despite the complications in language, Hughes considers the iaw tracts to be one of the most potentially productive sources of Irish hi~t0r-y.~~

Compounding the problem of analyzing the effect of early law on society is the fact any jurisprudence would have only protected the privileged classes of society; the Crith

Gablach, for instance, deals with the free client whose duties were laid out in responsibilities to his overlord, the independent farrners and members of the nobility.

Rarely are the unfree discussed in the la=. What the laws indicate, Hughes wntes. is that each class of Irish society helped keep the class below it in order . . ."a society that was hierarchical and familiar.n46

The kin unit in the Iaws was defined as the deirbhfine, the three-generation group whose power was concentrated on the male Iine: The males inherited and the daughters got a share. Society was polygamous and there was often a chief wife and sub wives. For each of these members of the family, the secular laws worked out the degree of responsibility each had for the other; for instance, the liability for the mother's rnisdeeds fell partly on her sons and her own family, according to the type of wife she was - chief or sub wife. If she was a chief wife, the husband bore a greater responsibility for her crimes.47

In fact, Ireland's secular, and cain laws, were not the only jurisprudence to concern

Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Sociee, p.46.

" Hughes. The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.46.

46 Hughes, The Church in Earl~Irish Society, pp.5 1-5 8.

47 Hughes, The Church in Earl~lrish Society, p.46. themselves with the safety and rights of women during this time period. Perhaps in keeping with an unwritten Ceitic tradition, Wales had a considerable body of material that dealt with wornen and the law. McAll writes that early Welsh law was much less generous to women than lrish law. It did not afford to female children the same status, sanctity and honour price to the age of seven that Irish secular law offers. But it did give a Welsh child the opportunity to "go on oath," a fom of legal responsibility until she is married, usually between the ages of twelve and fo~rteen.~~An Irish child "enjoyed equal status with her brother until the age of twelve and was subject to fosterage until she reached mamageable age at fourteen . . . the other (a Welsh child) was entitled to half her brother's status and remained with the family until marriage negotiations were satisfactorily con~luded."~~

Welsh women were not afforded the same respect or status as lrish women, and "the juridical inferionty sprang from the fact that in most legal institutions she, like the dumb and mad, was regarded as a non-person . . . and only as an appendage to some male with whom she was connected by ties of blood or bonds of rnarriage."M

A Welsh girl, however, waç considered a unifying force between kin in marriage and recognized and valued for her ability to reproduce. The only status accorded her was a need to preserve her honour and her position was underpinned by galanas, the price of her life, and sahaed, the price of insult. Reparation for violence to a wornan would be made

Chrïstopher McAll, "The Normal Paradigms of a Wornan's Life in the Irish and Welsh Texts," in The Welsh Law of Women, D. Jenks and M.E. Owen (eds), Cardiff, 1 980, p.8.

49 McAll, 'The Normal Paradigms," p.9.

Owen Morfjdd, "Shame and Reparation: Women's Place in the Kin," in The Welsh Law of Women, p.4 1. 104

by payment of sarhaed; unintended homicide would be paid for by galanas. intent to kill her

would inciude a payment of sad~aed.~'

Irish wornen fared much better under secular law, for there was. during the time

Adomnan drew up and promulgated his Law of the Innocents, a great tradition of laws throughout lreiand and in other parts of Britain that indicated a fairly stable society that

dealt routinely with those individuals who cornmitted injustices against other individuals.

Women, as valued members of a kin society and bom to farnilies with material goods and

status. were protected to a certain degree from a number of iniquities in land transfers,

inheritance and weaith. So while society may have been primitive, it was capable of dealing with wrongs and misdeeds, rights of inheritance and the responsibility of kin to each other.

Thus while women may have been expected to join battles prior to Adornnan's law, we do know they enjoyed some measure of protection regarding material wealth and status.

Economic standing defined a person's status within that society; the ocaire was a free man whose wealth was measured by the possession of seven cowç and a bull. seven pigs and a brood sow, seven sheep and a horse, enough land to graze seven cows for year, and a fourth share in a plough, an ox a mill and a barn. As a free man he provided protection to a man of equal status and his own honour price was paid to him for injuries against him. He was obliged to give personal service to his overlord and be part of his retinue in time of batt~e.'~His obligations to others were held in place by contracts or sureties. where each party swore their fulfilment of duties. lnterceding in al1 of these

Moedd, "Shame and Reparation," p.42. '' Moedd, "Sharne and Reparation," pp.50-5 1. 1O5

commitments were various classes of lawyers up to the rank of jurist, who alone could

pronounce judgment. Only the accused's kin could put into effect the law and judgrnent

passed.53

Hughes points out that kingship in the law tracts is of limited importance for

maintaining society in working order; each man owed duties only to kin, overlord and church. There were no duties on a national level owed to the king, no royal law or administration, no central government that could enact or carry out laws on such a level.

There were three grades of kingship, and the law of status certainly affected the king's role; the king of a tuath (small region); the king of several tuatha; and a higher king of a number of regions, the high king or ard-ri. 54

By the eighth century, the Ui Neill, the great family from which Columba and most of the ionian abbots were descended, fonned a dynastic federation under the high king of

Tara, which alternated for many years between the southern branch of the family and the northern branch of the Cenél Conaill, Columba's kin. These kings, who were seen as divine beings, were counted as a social unit and were al1 subject to the same laws as those they o~ersaw.'~The promulgation of Adornnan's law was special for a number of reasons: lncluded and incorporated in the text of the law is a list of guarantors, of whom most were prominently placed in early Irish and Dalnadan society, indicating the power of the

*' Hughes, The Church in Earlv Insh Society, pp.5 1-57.

fi Hughes, wurchin Earlv Society, p.53.

55 Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Socie~,p.54. Columban cult and familia? No doubt the inclusion of the names of guarantors was rneant as a show of force, to indicate and prove the authority of the Columban foundation and to indicate that Adomnan meant the tenets of the law to be effective and obeyed.

Of the guarantors listed, forty were ecclesiastical figures headed by Flann Febla, bishop of Armagh, who was the most powerful church figure in the country (Ireland) after

~domnan? Other ecclesiastical mernbers from Scotland and the English contingent included Coeddi, bishop of lona; cieric Canamail of tona; Curetan, bishop of Rosernarkie,

Scotland; and the English cleric Uuictberct The guarantor's list gives us some indication of how uniquely placed Adomnan was in ecclesiastical circles. As a scholar and head of a powerful paruchia, he was obviously more than ever qualified to unite them in support of his law, his reputation transcending the interests of existing secular laws and smaller ecclesiastical federations. The law states ail churches must fulfill the statues of the law:

Then al1 the holy churches of Ireland, around Adomnan, begged the divine unity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and the comrnunity of heaven and the saints of earth, that eveyone who fuifills this law in claiming and levying and fulfillment and payment . . .

Roggàdhatar tra noibecaisi Hërenn ule im Adornnan oentaid inna dëachata athar acus maic acust spiïto noib acus muntire nime acus noebu in talman, cach oen comaldthar in cain si etir saigid acus timmarcain acus cornalnath acus ëraicc . . .59

The fifty-one secular guarantors, headed by Loingsech, Adomnan's Cenél Conaill

- - -.

56 Hughes; The Church in Earlv Irish Socieîy, p.58. '' Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.64.

Miirkus, Cain Adomnain, p. 1 7.

59 Meyer, Cain Adomniiin, p.22. .-

1O7 kinsman - who became a powerful overking in 696 - shows that the familia's politicai connections were not only powerful, they were, perhaps, stronger that ever. Under

Loingsech's name came representatives from every major king, overking and monastic centre in the Celtic realrns?' The geographical breadth of the support indicates a certain amount of diplornatic effort and travel on the part of those representatives from lona, who must have done a great deal of work in gathering together such support. As well as indicating the enormous influence of the Columban church, it shows that at this particular time, strife and warfare must have been at a minimum among clans and church federations in Ireland. Enacted at the Synod of Birr, the law indicates a certain rnilitary superionty of the Ui Neill clan - Adomnan's family branch - for Birr is located at the borders of Munster. Connacht, Leinster and the areas bounded by the southern Ui Neill. It indicates, Ni Dhonnchada writes, the fact the Ui Neill could impose their laws over the entire country at this point in history.

The most vital aspect of Adomnan's law was that it took precedenœ over al1 previous jurisprudence that deak with the same matters. It was enacted for perpetuity and rather than oppose or impose on the secular or unadas laws, it often meant a doubling of the fine for the perpetrator. The law specifically legisiated for crimes against "clerics, women and innocent youths . . . Although violence against church property was included in the lads tenets, it was very much a secondary concern.

Adomnan was believed to have been especially concerned with the welfare and living

Hughes, nie Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.65.

'' Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.59. conditions of women; as well as legislating against murder of women in battle, the law specifies fines for their death in daily work situations:

There is another enactment of the Cain: that full fines be paid to Adomnan for any woman who is killed . . . including (by) ditch and pit and bridge and hearth and step and pool and kiln and every hardship besides . . .62

Forta a forus na canae asn-eirrithi Ianfichaib do Adornnan na bansal romarbthar, acht ropbé cuit duine occa nocubtaigh, ar is eimthi cach ndënte hi Cain itir claid acus cuithe acus drochat acus tenlach acus cëim acus lindi acus athi acus cach ingreim olchena . . .63

There were fines for a "white biow," which leaves no mark; for the "shedding of blood," if there is 'a green or red mark or a swelling," for "seizing the hair of women" and even for the occasion when "there is a fight among women with the bringing of outrage."64The strength of the law protecting women lies in one particular Iengthy segment of the text: tt is interesting to note that this speech, said to be made by an angei to Adomnan, is not in

Irish, but in Latin. This strongly suggests the speech was added at a later date by a scribe with little knowiedge of Irish:

The speech of the angel to Adomnan begins: after fourteen years Adomnan asked for this law from God, and this is the cause. The holy angel of the Lord came to him on the vigil of Pentecost, ar?d again after a year at the next Pentecost, and he seized a staff and hit his side and said to him: Go out into lreland and rnake a Iaw in her, that women may not be killed by a man in any way, nelher by slaughter nor by any other death, nor by poison nor in water, nor in fire, nor by any beast, nor in a pit, nor by dogs, but shall die in their own lawful bed. You must pass a law in lreland and Britain for the mother of everyone because a mother has borne everyone, and because of Mary the mother of Jesus Christ through whom everyone is. Mary prayed to her son on behalf of Adomnan concerning this law. For whoever kills a woman is

62 Markus, Cain Adornain, p. 19.

63 Meyer, Çain Adom,p.28.

64 Markus, Cain Adomnain, p.20. condemneci to a double punishment, Le., his right hand and his left foot are cut off before death, and then he shall die, and his relations pay seven full ancillae and a seventh of the penance. If a fine is imposed instead of Iife and amputation, the payment is fourteen years of penance and fourteen anciiiae. If it is a host that has offended, every fifth man up to three hundred is condemned to this punishment: if they are few they are divided into three groups: The first group of them, deciding by casting lots, shall be put to death and a hand and foot cut off. The second group shall pay fourteen full ancillae. The third group is cast out on pilgrimage across the sea under the rule of a hard discipline, because it is a great sin when someone kills the mother and sister of the mother of Christ, and the mother of Christ, and her who carries the distaff and her who clothes everyone. From that day, whoever puts a woman to death and does not do penance according to the law, not only will he perish and be cursed before God and Adomnan, but ail who hear of 1 and do not curse him and do not punish hirn according to the judgment of this law will themselves be cursed." That is the speech of the angel to Ad~rnnhn.~~

White most of the law concerns the protection of women, there is clear and frequent reference to clerics and children, for the &in states:

An eighth of everything small and everything large is paid to the cornmunity of Adomnan for the slaying of clerics and of innocent children. If it is a life- wound with which sorneone has wounded a woman or a clenc of an innocent child, seven half-cumals from him, fifteen sets are due from his close kin or the distant kin for being accomplices .?

Ochtmatch caich bicc acus caich m6ir domuntir Adomnan di guin clërech acus rnac n-ennac. Math bëoguin rogonæ nech banscAl nt3 clëirch ni3 rnac n-ennac, leth secht cumal hüad, coic seuit déac for fine no anfine dia ~ornlaithriu.~'

Fines were paid in the cornmon currency of the day - the milch cow, or set, and cumals,

------

65 MaTku~,CGn Adomnain, pp. t 7-1 8.

Mkkus, Cain Adomnain, p.20.

67 Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.28. femaie slaves.68Perhaps Adomnan's attempt to protect the [ives of women was also a means of protecting society's common currency.

The perpetrator of crimes against women, children and clerics often paid with his life if he could not afford the fines set down by the law. The general pnnciple of the law was that "everyone pays for the crime of his own handPn6'and if he cannot, he forfeits his Iife and his kindred pay for the crime. Nowhere in cain law is an individual released from his fine if he can not pay. Instead:

If sorneone who is guilty of violating the Cain does not pay, his kindred pays his full fine according to the extent of his crime. and his secunty is forfeited and he is expelled after that unto the iirnit of the law. Seven half-cumals for being an accomplice in the fine on every 'true-kindred,' and on the distant kin after that. If there is aiding and abetting and a cover-up and giving of permission, it is death for that. But whatever the fine is for the crime, it is the same for being an accomplice in it.'

Mani eirre bidbaid saraigetar Min, asren fine al-lanfiachu iar mëitt a chinad acus doberr a ndilsi acus a n-indarbu iarsin CO cend rechtghi. Leth secht cumal dia comlaithriu for cach deirbfine acus anpfine iarsin. Mad lesugud acus ditiu acus chomarlëcad, is bas taria] éissi acht ani etirbi fiachu etirbi c~mlaidre.~'

As well, besides paying the victirn's honour pnce to her or his kin, (according to urradhas, secular law). the accused would have had to pay an extra superlevy under

Adomnan's law - from one-eighth of the fine to double the fine for murder - which would go

68 Daibhi O Croinin, Early Medieval Ireland 400-1 200, New York, 1995, p.99. "The common unit of currency- was the milch cow (sét = half a milch cow)." A cumal was a female slave.

69 Mirkus, Cain Adomnain, p.20.

'O Markus, Cain Adomnain, p.2 1.

" Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.3 1. 111 to the church. This extra fine, by the church law, ensured that ecclesiastical cain did not infringe on fines due 'under customary law to kin. lord, or the church of the vi~tirn."~~It is a clear indication that as church law asserted itself in the field of jurisprudence, it did not intend to trample the native laws of Ireland. Rather. it seems as though clerics were more interested in superimposing church law on to existing tradition.

Ni Dhonnchada believes the law is the culmination of Adomnan's efforts to shield certain sectors of the population from violent warfare and raids; that it was meant to

'redefine peace as a contract by which the entire population. and foreigners, were bound never to take actions that would drive these three categories (of citizens) to violence, even in self-defen~e.~~

Markus dips into Adomnan's Life of Columba to expand on this point: he states that there is a tale where Columba pronounces sentence on a man for the killing of a young girl

(Book 11, 25 "Again concerning another persecutor of innocent^").^^ A man pursuing the young woman shows no reverence to clerics. who try to Save her, but ninç the young woman through with a spear. Columba, who was nearby, pronounces that the man's sou1 will descend to hell even as the girl's ascends to heaven. When "the slaughterer of innocents fell dead on the spot . . . reports of this sudden and terrible punishment were soon heard through the many districts of lreland.?

" Ni Dhonnchada, "The Lex Innocentium," p.66.

73 Ni Dhonnchada, "The Lex Innocentium," p.64.

74 Markus, Cain Adonmain, p.2.

75 Sharpe's Adomnh of lona's Life of Columba, London, 1995, p 175 Markus believes Adomnan was simply following Columba's beliefs about non-violence

and that the law refiects the abbot's own agenda and the agenda of his rnonastery. "It

shows a kind of divine justification for the Law of Adomnan . . . (by) showing lona has a special role to play in giving women protection . . .n76 Adomnan is, and will bel rernembered

as a defender of women and as their protector against violence: "It seems (he) really was

penonally committed to . . . (their) welfare."

Markus maintains that some one hundred years after his death, Adomnan was celebrated by Gaels for his role in protecting women. In the "Martyrology of Oengus," written about 800 AD., his feast day is marked with the poern:

To Adomnan of lona, whose troop is radiant, noble Jesus has granted the lasting freedom of the women of the Gaels. 77

It is interesting to note that while Adomnan's law, promulgated throughout lreland and

Scotland, obtained the backing of such powerful guarantors, it was meant only for women in secular society, especially wives and mothers. There is no mention of protection offered for women who lived a religious life and no mention of the price of honour due a religieuse or the fine paid for her death. Perhaps Adomnan believed that women living within the confines of an ecclesiastical life were automatically protected from violence, invasion and

Those who disobeyed the law risked certain damnation; dire consequences are

Markus, Cain Adornnar.in, p.3.

77 Miirkus, Cain Adom~in,p.2.

'' M~~LIs,Cain Adomnain, p. 3 promised for those who did not adhere to any part of Adomnan's far-reaching

jurisprudence. Besides the material cost of disobeying the law, there was a spiritual and

physical risk: Was it coercion or an enforced method of tying society to the Columban

church in a rnaterial worfd? Whatever the true intention, the sentence for transgression was

far greater than any imposed on earth: Defiance of its tenets transcended etemity:

The holy churches of lreland around Adornnan then begged God and the orders of heaven and the saints of earth that anyone who shall violate the Cain Adomnan, either clergy or laity, whoever shall not enforce it and shall not fulfill it according to his strength and his ability, and shall not lie on everyone, both prince and church, that his life shall be short with suffering and dishonour, without attainment of heaven or earth for any of therna7'

Rogadatar dano noibeccailsi Hërenn im Adhomnan Dia CO ngradaiph nime acus noebhaib talman, nach oen loimis Chain nAdaman itir Iæchu acus clëirciu, nadasi acus nadacomallnatha a neort acus a cumung acus natimarr for &ch itir flaith acus eclais, arimm gant a hsægul CO n-imniuth acus digrad, cen athgabail nime na talman Üadhibh.

The concem for women, children and clerics was not meant to be a temporary issue by

the Columban paruchia: The law became associated not only with the federation, it was

Iinked to the veneration society held for Adomnan and his reputation as ninth abbot of lona.

Adomnan's relia were brought to lreland and his law was renewed in 727 in connection

with the event.'' Clearly, Adomnan had become almost as revered as his predecessor,

Columba, and was on his way to certain sainthood. More importantly, the renewal indicates the federation was struggling to maintain supremacy as the Patrician paruchia rose in

power at Armagh. Writes Herbert: An "indication . . . of renewed lona influence in lreland

79 Mhb,Cain Adomnh, p. 17.

80 Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.22.

'' Herbert, lona Kells and De-, p.6 1. Il4

is the fact the reenactment of the Law of Adomnan is followed throughout the eighth

century by a series of similar promulgations by the heads of other leading churches in

association with territorial ruler~."~~Armagh was "the first to follow the example of the

Columban federation, with the proclamation of the Law of Patrick in 834."= an event that had certain political overtones as well. Columba's family, the Cenél Conaill, of the northern

Ui Neill, lost the overkingship in the eariy eighth century to Îts çouthem branch, the Cenél nEogain, who supported the Armagh federation? It spelled the end to the absolute political power of the northern link and the Columban federation.

Cain Adomnan would, in time, be just one of rnany laws to govem those areas where there were monasteries of the Columban federation. While there has not, in fact, been a great deal of recent scholarly work on the secular and church laws around the seventh and eighth centuries, earlier studies have left a great deal of insight into the workings of secular, or Brehon laws; the urradhus laws, which related to local masters, assernblies and customs; the cana, laws promulgated by institutions or assemblies, such as the church; and the church laws themselves, the canons or pentitentials, which provided the church with means to govem itself and its rnernber~.~~

It is plain to see why the ecclesiastical laws are easier to decipher. when cornpared with the intricate workings and hierarchical nature of the secular, native laws. The church

------'' Herbert, Jona. Kells and De-, p.63. " Herbert, Iona Kells and Deny, p.63. " Herbert, Iona Kells and Demy, p.63. *' Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society, p.67. laws consist of different groups that range in importance and jurisdiction; the canons, for instance, were mostiy of church interest, promulgated at synods and offered support and guidance for such injuries as the killing of dogs and the damage done by dogs? These subjects indicate the presenœ of layrnen at the assemblies and their input from a secular point of view.

The canons offer valid. matter-of-fact evidence into the daiiy running of the church during this time period and tell of changes and developrnent in attitude and lifestyle.

Hughes values their existence for they offer a great mass of information about the church, a very different and indepth view that does not exist in any of the saints' Iives from this tirne peri~d.~~This may be sol but the canons only gke us an insular church view of the morals of society and the development of its lifestyle. While they inciude sorne secular concerns, they do not accurately reflect society outside the cloister.

The First Synod of St. Patrick, thought to have taken place sometime after the saint's death, shows a well-organized church with a temitonal diocese, bishops and various orders of clergy and monasteries under abbots; in short, the Roman custorn of church organization. Yet. despite this centralized church authonty, the society which the canons depict is stili definitely pagan, and those pagan beliefs likely predominated in society and may have been current during Adomnan's time. We do not know to what extent pagan beiief persisted, but there may have been quite a few who still follcwed the old ways and relied mostly on their own diviners and jurists. What was occurring during the seventh

- - " Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.67. Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.69. century was that ecclesiastical jurists were attempting to adjust church law to fit the

existing secular, native laws so the already converted could be encouraged to avoid the

secular courts and corne to the church for trials. It was, in effect, a subtie and persistent

activity that would, in time, undemine secular law to some extent.

By the seventh century, abbots, not bishops, held power over monastic foundations and while some synods still legislated for church govemrnent, more and more, a number of

growing pamchia -Armagh and lona - claimed to have precedence over al1 churches and

monasteries and established a hierarchy of junsdiction that could deal with cases itself or

refer them to Rome? Wiihout a doubt, at this tirne Rome was trying to secure a uniforrnity

of practice when it came to law, by trying to introduce continental practice into the Irish law

contract - having it witnessed, written down, documented and sealed?'

The outcome of this was that the best interests of church and society were met by the

combining of secular law and native learning into church canons - a move that produced

a unique institution - the Celtic church -'O and which, no doubt, eased the path to

conversion for the pagan population who sought vestiges of their own culture in their new

befief systern. The church canons were mainly concerned with church materia!, property

and its obligations to its rnernbers and clergy. But their design followed the outlines of

secular law and came to include obligations for the sick, children who were abandoned on

88 Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society, p.73. During this time period, it is thought that monastic and episcopal churches existed side by side, although in time the diocesan boundaries ceased to exist.

89 Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Societv, p.76.

* Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society.. p.78. the church, and abbots who abdured their responsibility. In tum, Irish laws began to follow the example of canon law. For example, Kelly points out that many Old Irish law-texts are based on canon iaw: More significantly, "6 Corrain concludes that far from being in cornpetition, the law-tracts, in Latin and in the vemacular, are the work of a single class of learned men who were well-versed in scripture as in the legal lore of their ancestors and founded their laws on a conscious and sophisticated compromise between the t~o."~'In effect, the lrish canonists were "trying to fit the Church into the native legal ~ystern."~~and vice-versa, by covering al! areas and transcending existing kin and class-based lines.

In the case of Adornnan's law, its promulgation held numerous advantages and perquisites for those who supported (laymen) and administered (clergymen) its tenets, thus creating an interdependency between church and society:

There is another enactrnent of the Cain: the feeding of the administrators of the (Law), however many they are, with the noble food of the people, Le., five men as guarantors, and the feeding of every one who is exacting the fines of the Cain according to each man's rank, both noble and church and tribe. A cumal is the fine for illegally withholding food from someone at the time when fines are being exacted . . .and those who offend in respect of feeding the enforcer of the Cain and if they do not feed hirn they sustain a joint contract of debts. Two cumals to them from those who offend. 93

Forta forus na dnæ: biat rechtaire Cana Adomnan Iind bis di soerbiathad a rnuintiri .o. coicfer do aitire acus biathad cach oin tobo fiachu inna canæ fo maith aich etir flaith acus eclais acus tüaith. Cumal fri toichniuth cach ae intan dombongatar fëich acus cintaigh biathtæ acus folongat comnaidm fiach

9 1 Donnchadh O Conain, cited in Fergus Kelly's, Guide to Earlv Irish Law, Dublin, 1988, p.233.

92 Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Socieîy, p.79.

9î Mkrkus, Cain Adomnain, p.21. mani biathat side. Di chumail doaib do cintachaib?

There was little way of avoiding the reach of this particular Law. Certainly, the rules of

this passage would encourage society to obey its dictates, for even failing to adequately

feed the enforcer of fines would lead to substantial payments made to the church. It also

had the double effect of binding layrnan enforcers of the law to those church offkials who

ofkiated, putting the secular officiais on an equal footing with the churchmen.

Adomnan further drew the support of secular society through veiled threats for not

obeying the law's mandates. For a society stniggling to maintain peace and stability through its own native laws and the newer church laws, who would fail to back the

Columban paruchia being aware of this particular tenet:

If you do not do good to my community on behalf of the women of this world, the children you beget will fail, or they will perish in their sins. Scarcity shali fiIl your larder and the kingdom of heaven will not be yours. You will not flee from Adomnan of lona by your meanness or falsehood.

Adomnan of / will help you, O women. Give to your lord every good thing that is yours.

Adomnan of i, loved by ail. Has read the books of the custom of the GaeLg5

Mani demaid maith frim nuintir for nmaib in chentair, methaidh in clam dogënid nb atbëlait CO cintaib. Linfaid cessacht for cuile, flaith nime ni forbia, ni thésid for cesacht no güa do

.- 94 Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.32. Adamnan Iæ. Adomnan 6 '1 doforfoirfi, a rnna Tapraid do bfor flaith œch rnaith roborbë Adomnam Iæ inmain &ch rolëgh libni Gaidel [n]-gnath. 96

So intent was the church to secure its stability and prominence in society that by the latter years of the eighth century every important rnonastery had promulgated its own cain with at least part, if not all, of the proceeds arising from fines accruing to the churcnes con~erned.~'It is iikely that ecclesiastical cana and secular law worked together most times for O Croinin writes that "cain probably originally denoted any regulation of the law, such as, for example 'cain aicillne', the law of base clientship. These cana were proclaimed by petty kings and involved the protection of various groups, including visitors to that king's jurisdiction. They were based on older, traditional penalties of rnonetary amounts, depending on the rank of the individual who was harrned. Christianity, however, brought with it the rules of "a different law-book - the Bible,"g8with ifs mandate of punishment. The church, then, made an important contribution, urging kings to throw off the milder sanctions of the older Iaw and resort instead to violent means, as outlined in the Bible.

There were a variety of other iawç in existence during this period. The penitentiais - minor church laws - are found in early sixth and seventh-century texts and assign punishment mainly to the individual for his sins against God; gluttony, drinking, fornication, avarice, anger, dejection, languor, vainglory and pride were al1 areas subject to punishment. The penitentials were a private penance systern designed to heal the soul,

% Meyer, Cain Adomnain, p.14.

97 O Croinui, hlvMedieval Ireland 400-1 200, p.80.

98 Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society, p.81. 120

and were likely supported by secular laws of the time. Hughes takes a dim view of the value of the penitentials, calling them "bonng - they don't even tell you what sins were

popular at the time."gg

Other church laws, the Rules, outline the ways rnonks at various monastefies practised and Iived their Christian lives. While the Benedictine Rule was prevalent on the continent and in some houses in Briiain and Ireiand, the Rule at Ceitic foundations wuld be fairly loose at times and often included a Rule composed by the abbot with vestiges of the

Benedictine Rule. The Rule of Columba defined work as, "Your own work in the work of your place, as regards its real wants; secondly, your share in the brethren's work; lastly, to help your neighbours by instruction or writing or sewing gaments or whatever labour they may be in want of."100

So, we are faced with a plethora of various types of laws - both church and secular - which existed around the time Adomnan penned his famous cain. Other cana were in effect at that time, besides Adomnan's particular piece of jurisprudence: Other ecclesiastical legislation included the Cain Domnaig (Old Irish text), which was cafled the

Law of Sunday; the Cain Phatraic, the Law of Patrick, to not kill clerics; and the Cain Dar

1, which deals with offences against cattle.lO'

But it was Cain Adomnain that transcended al1 layers of society and ernbraced both the sacred and profane in an attempt to protect society's weakest members. By garnering the

99 O Croinh, Early Medieval Ireland, p.84.

'00 Hughes, Introduction to the Sources, p.93.

101 Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, Vol 3, Dublin, 1988, p.28 1. 121 support and CO-operation of church and society's most powerful representatives, by recognizing the existence of traditional laws and petty kingdoms, the Columban paruchia ensured its power and existence at least for the lifetime of those guaranton, both secular and ecclesiastical. Chapter 5 - After the Promulgation

lt would appear, considering the evidence of the primary sources - Adomnan's own work and that of Bede's - that the promulgation of Adomnan's &in in 697 came at a most

opportune tirne: F rom Bede's material in particular, we ascertain that the growing Roman

influence, spreading northward from a highly organized base at Canterbury, was threatening the long-time authorîty of the Columban federation; and the Pat~cianparuchia in Ireland, which adhered to Roman doctrine and administrative practice, was gaining power at Armagh.

What was known as the Ceîtic church, with its asceticisrn, unique mode of dress, tonsure, timing of Easter and "profound sense of the immanence of God in the world ..."' was threatened. The Columban familia, despite the fact that they "diligently practised such works of religion and chastity as they were able to learn from the words of the prophets, evangelists and ap~stles,"~rnust have wanted to assert its supremacy in some way, to maintain the goodwill of those families and ecclesiastical powers who numbered themseives arnong the Columban supporters and familia.

After the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Rome-based Augustinian movement was establiçhing a secure foothold in the south of England at Canterbury: Adomnan was coming to power as ninth abbot of lona, just as 'Theodore of Canterbury had divided the bishopric of Northumbria into three," evidence of Rome's growing imperial and ecclesiastical p~wer.~

' De Waal, A World Made Whols p. 10. ' Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the Endish Peo~le,London, 1969, p.225. Finlay, Columba, p.208. And while the Columban foundations had to contend with the growing power of the

Roman church in Northumbria, in Ireland, "records assernbled . . - of Patrick's activities ... represent the contemporary efforts of Armagh to enlist the support of the (southem) Ui

Neill (part of Columba's own kin group) and to wean thern away from attachment to such centres as Clonmacnoise . . The Patrician familia was gaining ground: The first forma1

Iife of Patrick was assembled by the scribe Muirchu in the second half of the seventh century; at the same tirne, about 657,' the bishop Tirechan put together a collection of

Patrick's convenions and the history of his foundations6

Bieler contends Tirechan clearly wrote with a view to providing a basis for Armagh's bid for supremacy - that it could lay daim to every church that did not belong to a monastic par~chia.~Thus, foundations that were strictly Columban would be excluded, but smaller churches and foundations would be subject to Armagh's laws and dictates. Just as lona had reached out to influence the clans and kingç nearest its power base in lreland and

Dalriada, so Armagh would have influenced the great families and leaders within its geographical sphere and control. Adomnan rnay well have felt Iike a beleaguered man as he endeavoured to rnaintain the Colurnban rule and influence.

Herbert hints that the law may well have been motivated by reasons that include piety and politics; she contends the law not only was an influential move aimed at the

Byme, Irish Kines and Hieh-Kin~s,London, 1973, p.80.

Ludwig Bieler, St. Patrick and the Comine of Christianity, Dublin, 1967, p. 19.

Bieler, Studies on the Life and Lepend of St. Patrick, London, 1986, p.654.

' Bieler, St Patrick, p. 19. 124 bettement of Irish society, it acknowedged a mutuality of interest between the secuiar and ecclesiastical world~.~While Hughes maintains the law's promulgation indicated a certain power behind the Colurnban cuit and familia that highlighted the unique placement of the abbot Adomnan in the political hierarchytg Lynch suggests the widespread acceptance of the law indicated the church, under Adomnan's guidance, was acting successfully and "in concertnwith kings, marking "the peak of the pan-Celtic influence of the lonan pa~chia."'~

Picard goes the furthest in proclaiming a motive: "1 have argued that (Adomnan's Life)

. . . besides the spiritual message . . . (was wn'tten) to settle matters of ecclesiastical politics, namely to boost the confidence of Columba's paruchia, to answer Armagh's daims of supremacy and to defend lona's position in Northumbria.""

This thesis has specuiated that the law was undertaken for a variety of reasons, but that one of the outcomes of the promulgation was surely the strengthening of the authorrty of the familia during a difficult time after the year 6ô4. The law, too, may have been in defence of a particular brand of Christianity that was unlike any other in western

Christendom: The growth of the Columban federation, from the middle of the sixth century, had been steady and strong, backed and funded by members of the saint's own clan in an insular kin-baseci society. Christianity in lreland had not only developed and prospered

' Herbert, Iona Kells and Demy, p.55. Hughes, The Church in Earl~Irish Society, p.58.

'O Lynch, Scotland. A New History, p.35.

1 I Picard, "Bede, Adomniin and the Writing of History," in Peritia, Vol 3, 1984, p.60. 125

in this insular environment. it had taken on the characteristics and values of that society's

rural, pagan and cultural inheritance; adherents of the new religion embraced its simple

gospel message and the fundamental teachings of Christ's peace and love: the elements

of nature so important to pagan practice were simply absorbed into the new religion.

There was "no room for mediocrity" in the Celtic church, which would be synonyrnous with the Colurnban mi~sion.'~ft was "the outennost ripple of the great monastic rnovement

of the Greek and Coptic churches of the East."13 The Columban missions, lona in

particular, would be a training ground for scholars. kings and missionaries. The

administration of such monastic centres was kept simple, each answering only to its founder or coah; intellectual life in these foundations was highly valued, and lona - and

later Kells and Deny - became places where not only the Christian message, but leaming and culture. were key activities.14

The examination of both primary evidence and secondary sources indicates that in creating and prornulgating his law, Adomnan may well have been protecting Colurnban

interests - the history of the familia with its ascetic, kin-based values and ideals that were so highly valued by the foundation's members. Knowing the Synod of 664 had spelled the

beginning of the end for some of the practices cornmon to the Colurnban church,

Adomnan would surely have been aware that his law would have a certain social and

" De Waal, A World Made Whole, p 41

I3 Chadwick, as cited in De Waal's A World Made Whole, p.4 1.

l4 De Waal goes so far as to suggest that development of the monastic centre of learrilng is likely a continuation of the the well-developed pre-Christian colleges, where dniids and bards studied their crafts. political impact that might beneffi his cause - the familia - drawing to it key supporters in the secular and ecclesiastical world. If the Life was written at the request of the federation's brethren, it is entirely possible that the law, too, was created at the behest of the familia to further its standing and authority. Adomnan himself confirms that the Life was undertaken "in response to the entreaties of the brethren."15 The Life placed Columba on an equal footing with the early Christian saints; Adornntin goes so far as to ensure

Columba a spot within the heavenly hierarchy, attributing to him al1 the glories associated with the bibliml saints and apostle - a glorious challenge to riçing cumpetitors such as the

Patrician pamchia.

Due to the efficacy of his literary undertakings, the Life, and the promulgation of his cain, Adornnan would hirnself further propagate the Columban cult and be sainted within decades of his death. Although he came from a slightly different background than Columba and had not been a monk of lona before his elevation to abbot,l6 he was so closely linked wlh the familia that his cult merged with Columba's soon after his own death in 704. His work, both the Life and law, becarne as great a syrnbol of Celtic Christianity as the founding saint himself.

Lynch points out that despite the fact Adornnan was over fifty when he attained the abbacy, he was of a different line in the Cenél Conaill family than Columba and his previous successors, and was directly related to the northern ruling dynasty. He therefore exercised a great deal of power in his relations with other churchmen and rulers. As a

l5 Sharpe's,Adomnh of Iona's Life of Columba, London, 1995, p. 105.

l6 Lynch, Scotland. A New History, p.35. - 127 result, Adomnan's period as abbot (679-704) saw lona linked more closely than ever to this

Irish royal house, and he was well-connected and infonned about current political and ecclesiastical concerns.17

The ninth abbot of lona came to his job in 679, continuing the family tradition with most of northwestern Scotland under Columban church wle. The Roman church had had fïfteen years of official sanction in Bntain after the Synod of Whitby. Yet, even as Adomnan was settling into his abbacy, ideas and trends within the church were changing; sometime during the 690s he was persuaded by the Northumbrians at Lindisfame, (whose jurisdiction lay at Canterbury) to conform to the Roman practice of dating Easter. As a well-travelled scholar, churchman and administrator, Adomnan must have been aware that the future of the church lay with Rome as it spread its ideology across the continent to the western islands. And while "much of the strength of the Celtic church lay in its capacRy to win adherents by example . . . based on Iiteral interpretation of the gospels .

. ."lathe Celtic church was experiencing subtle changes; Rome had had an increasingly more powerful hold over the Christian community in Britain and lreland and new ideas and new monastic rutes were beginning to prevail.

In finally accepting the Roman ideas, conceming such things as the timing of Easter,

Adomnan earned himset a poslion of some scom within the familia. While still recognized as the lonan abbot, he lived a life of self-imposed exile in lreland from 692 on, during which

l7 Lynch, Scotland. A New Histov, p.35.

l8 Finlay, Col- p. 208. 128

time he wrote the Life and created his law.19

We will never be certain of the true motives behind Adomnan's actions in creating his

cain; perhaps it was to placate those who disapproved of his bowing to Rome and to enhance and maintain the power of the Columban church. It may have been to secure and further the familia's position in Irish society and in Dalriada; what better way coufd there have been to ensure the wntinuing power of the Columban family, to remind society of its prominence and involvement at al1 levels of life, than to secure the CO-operationand support of leading politicians and church leaders in guaranteeing the promulgation of his law?

The cain greatly benefited the Coiumban church. No records exist of the actual monies collected due to enforcement of the iaw, but the gains far exceeded material wealth.

Columba's paruchia continued to grow and flourish as centres of learning, art and spirituality, despite the rise of Armagh. The Columban tradition would leave an indelible mark on eariy Western church history, carving for itself a niche in Christianity that exists even now.

Records indicate Adornnan did his job well: By the early ninth century, the "cult of

Columba was . . . still too powerful to be cast aside bynMthe growing kingships and political divisions in Dalriada and Ireland. lona was abandoned in 807, due to the threat of Viking raids, but Columban foundations fiourished in lreland for many decades more.

The Book of Kells, so closely Iinked to the Columban familia, is believed to have been

19. Smyth, Warlords and Holv Men, London, 1984, p. 133.

'O Lynch, Scotland. A New History, p.37. started in lona and was subsequently moved to Kellç and completed there.'' Although there is still some disagreement among scholars conceming its provenance, Kells is a good indication that the Columban and Roman church co-existed side by side in some compatible manner for its illustrations reflect "continental trends," and the manuscript

"cannot be ignored by any historian attempting to assess the relations between the Roman and Columban churches." 22

The fact Adomnan's law was renewed throughout lreland in 727, writes Smyth, is a good indication that those in authonty - the abbots and political Leaders of the day - thought it was worth "revi~ing."~Subsequent renewals in lreland of a church-state "Law of Colum

Cille," in 753 and 778, suggests the familia was keen to ensure the foundation received its rightful share of revenue from the original pr~mulgation.~~In fact, the law was powerful enough to have provided the entire familia with such a valuable source of income that a monastery was founded in Derry in 929,25an indication that the Columban church continued successful~yinto the second millenniurn.

Most of the secondary literature consulied, with the exception of Herbert, have included only cursory consideraiion of Adomnan's law as part of the entire history of the Columban

2' Bernard Meehan, The Book of Kells. An Introduction to the Manuscript, London, 1996, p.14.

22 Finlay, Columba, p 221

'-' Smyth, Warlords and Holv Men, p. 13 5.

'4 Maire Herbert, "The Legacy of Columba" in Celebratin~Columba: Irish Scottish Connections 597-1 997, T.M. Devine and J.F. McMillan (eds), Edinburgh, 1999, p.4.

'* Smyth, Warlords and Holv Men, p. 135. 130

familia, without a broader ovewiew of the growth and developrnent of the federation in

lreland and Scotland. None have examined closely the possibilrty of a nurnber of motives

behind the lads promulgation; and Save Picard, no author has suggested a political reason

for the cain, as a riposte to changes occuming within the ecclesiasticaf worfd.

It is hoped that this thesis has added to the existing secondary literature on Adomnan's

&in by attempting to investigate the motives behind the law; by taking an indepth look at the growth of the church; by examining the cults of Columba and Adomnan, and by weighing the evidence of the pnrnary sources against the opinions offered by secondary

ones. The conclusion of this thesis is that we can only speculate as to the true motivation

behind the law, but that it rnay have been created out of piety and concem for several existing conditions within the Columban federation and in society. The outcorne of the law,

unexpected or expected, was beneficial not only to the familia in that it Iikely bolstered its power and authority, it offered a social safety net to society's weakest mernbers.

Adomnan was as much a product of his day as any twenty-first century church leader.

He was in a family business, and as its chief executive officer, he had the unenviable job of ensuring its success and prospenty. His law was not only a rneans of protecting certain members of society, it was a subtle means of coercion, a way to bind together church and society .

The Columban mission, furthered by Adomnan and his work during the "golden age" of the Celtic church, left early medieval Christianity with a rich inheritance - a glimpse of a world fuelled by ascetic and simple spiritual values and a piety that demanded the purest interpretation of the gospel message. On the other hand, Adomnan's law lets us see the 131 cunning means of survival used in an embattled and changing world: Not only do we perceive the inequalrty and the brutality of life for women and their children, we get some idea that the Iives of those in the ptotected milieu of the cloister were never far from uncertain violence.

Spiritually, Cain Adomnain ensured a following for the Columban federation for years to corne, sirnply on the strength of the lads missionary intentions. Yet it was also a brilliant means of binding together church and society by promising subscribers to the law that they would receive "the freedom of God's church and her communrty. . .and al1 her property, living and inanimate. . ."" Not only did Adomnan's law manage to embrace kings and commonen, women and children, clerics and layrnen, it ensured the safety and well-being of future generations.

Herberf "The Legacy of Columb&' p. 18. Bibliography

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