CONCERNING ST. BRIGID, VIRGIN, AT FIESOLE IN ETRURIA,
TOWARD THE END OF THE NINTH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Brigid, Virgin, at Fiesole in Etruria (Saint)
BY I. B.
Section I. The Feast Day of St. Brigid, Her Acts, and Origin.
[1] This is the second Brigid, whom, like the first, the island of the Scots brought forth, Italy received as a guest, and Etruria sent on to heaven, on the same Kalends of February (which is remarkable) on which the memory of the other, who died nearly four hundred years earlier, is celebrated. The occasion of her ending her life in Italy was this, St. Brigid, Virgin, a Scot, which will soon be set forth more fully. She had a brother, Andrew by name, whom his master Donatus, who was devoted to the study of virtues and letters, had led from their homeland to make a pilgrimage to places of the Saints, either consecrated by their former struggles or celebrated for miracles. The same Donatus was then, whether by the favor of heaven through a celestial sign, or by the support of the Frankish Kings, raised to the throne of the Church of Fiesole, and he had appointed Andrew as Archdeacon. the sister of St. Andrew, Archdeacon of Fiesole, This man, at the river Mensola, which waters the base of the Fiesolan hills, restored an old church once dedicated to St. Martin, which had long since been destroyed by enemy incursion, with the authority of his Bishop and funds collected from the generosity of pious people, and added dwellings for monks, with whom he spent the remainder of his life in the greatest holiness, widely renowned for the glory of his miracles. When, broken by old age and labors, he was awaiting the end of his life, moved I know not by what impulse of a secret spirit, he is reported to have wished that he might be allowed to see and speak with his sister before he departed. And without delay: his sister was suddenly present, whether admonished herself by the same spirit, having used the greatest haste possible, or transported there by some Divine power through such vast expanses of ocean and lands. having died in Italy, Andrew died not long after. Brigid withdrew into the remote dense forests, and there, with whatever remained of her life, pursued it with admirable holiness. The memory of her death remained among posterity, she is venerated on February 1 consecrated with solemn devotion, on the Kalends of February. On which day Philip Ferrari thus mentions her in his general Catalogue of Saints: "In the territory of Fiesole, St. Brigid the Virgin." He and others soon to be cited treat of her more fully in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy. David Camerarius, in book 3 on the Piety of the Scots, refers her feast day to December 31, following no authority in this matter; for Diacettus, whom he cites, not December 31 does not write a single word about Brigid's feast day. Our Henry Fitzsimon in his Catalogue of the principal Saints of Ireland does list her, but seems to have been ignorant of her feast day.
[2] Whether the life of this holy Virgin was committed to writing in the rude age in which she lived, or was transmitted to posterity only by report, is not clear. Philip Villani testifies below that certain holy men committed some things about her life and death to writing. Whether they were contemporaries, or followed report alone, he does not indicate: nor whether any of their writings survive. Thomas Dempster treats of her in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish nation, and also cites Silvanus Razzi; but in him we do not even find the name of this Brigid; Francis Cattanius Diacettus, in the Preface to his book on the Saints of Fiesole dedicated to Francesco de Medici, Duke of Etruria, whose words we shall cite below; celebrated by many writers, and our Francis Lahier in the Great Menology of Virgins. Diacettus and Silvanus Razzi make honorable mention of St. Andrew in the Life of St. Donatus, but none of Brigid. Diacettus testifies in his already-cited Preface that the admirable Acts of Andrew were historically arranged by M. Philip Villani, a man conspicuous for his virtues. We have not yet seen that history. The part of it (which pertains specifically to St. Brigid) rendered into Latin is cited for this day in the Acts of the Saints of Ireland by John Colgan, O.F.M., from whom we shall give it here. First, questions that may be raised about Brigid's homeland, age, religious order, and place of death are to be explained.
[3] The Life of St. Andrew, received from a manuscript codex of St. Martin on the river Mensola, has the following about his lineage and homeland: born of noble Scottish stock, in Ireland. "Sprung from the noble family of the Scottish nation, he was nonetheless afterwards a disciple of Christ. Scotia, which is also called Hibernia, is the island nearest to Britain, narrower in extent of land, but more fertile in its situation ..." He adds other things from St. Isidore of Seville, book 14 of Origins, chapter 6, and from the Life of St. Donatus, and then continues: "In this province, therefore, the holy man of God, Andrew, as we have said, was born not of lowly but of noble parents." And a little further on: "There was in the aforesaid province of the Scots a certain eminent philosopher and a Catholic in the faith of Christ, named Donatus, the Teacher and companion of blessed Andrew." And after a few words: "Therefore the blessed Donatus of Christ, and his disciple Andrew, set forth from the oft-mentioned province of the Scots." Similar things are found in the Life of St. Donatus, Bishop of Fiesole, which we shall give on October 21. But the Life of St. Andrew by Villani says: "The man of God Andrew was a native of the island of Ireland (which by another more common name is called Scotia), situated in the western region." The rest will be given and examined below. Brigid, therefore, Andrew's sister, was born of noble Scottish stock in the island of Ireland.
Section II. The Age of St. Brigid.
[4] Thomas Dempster, in book 2, number 166 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish nation, writes of Brigid: "She was renowned for her sanctity in the year 802: and by a miracle was conveyed to Italy: when she died I have not found." [Whether she came to Italy in 800 or 802, as Dempster reports, contradicting himself?] But in book 1, chapter 31, he writes that she arrived at Fiesole in the year 800, as Baronius, Razzi, and the history of her life itself relate. Where do Baronius and Razzi treat of her? Or what Life of hers did Dempster read? But lest he merely lightly contradict himself, he presently writes that Andrew founded a monastery and placed Benedictine monks in it in the year 802. Yet Andrew founded that monastery long before Brigid came to Fiesole, so that her arrival cannot be placed in the year 800 or 802 if the monastery was founded in 802. For the holy servant of God Andrew, as is stated in his Life cited above, after he restored the oft-mentioned church, in which he served for a long time, exhausted by prolonged old age and worn out by fevers of the body for a very long time, he summoned the Brothers and explained to them in order his approaching death: and only then did Brigid arrive, or was suddenly transported into his presence. The same Dempster, book 4, number 367, following Diacettus, says that St. Donatus was consecrated Bishop in the year 802. If that is so, how could his disciple Andrew have rebuilt that church and established monks there in the year 802, when by the same Donatus, already a Bishop, and perhaps not immediately at the very beginning of his office, he was initiated into what are called the minor Orders, with the legitimate intervals perhaps observed, according to the prescription of the sacred Canons? His Life implies this: "When the blessed Bishop Donatus saw his disciple shining and becoming renowned for his merits, he began to love him greatly, and thus to promote him in order up to the office of the Diaconate." Then, after various virtues of Andrew in that office are commemorated, the author of his Life adds: "The blessed Bishop Donatus, having heard of the fruit of his labor, gave thanks to Almighty God, and raised blessed Andrew to the office of the Archidiaconate, and established him in his palace as the first after himself." And at length the care of restoring that church was imposed on him by Donatus: which does not seem to have been done before the year 810 or 812, if he was ordained Bishop in 802. Did she die around 810 or 870? Philip Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, under February 1, says that Brigid lived in the times of Charlemagne. The same author, under August 22, writes of St. Andrew her brother: and under October 22, concerning St. Donatus, he holds that he was made Bishop in the year 802, which was the third of Charlemagne's empire and the thirty-fifth of his reign. Our Francis Lahier in his Menology of Holy Virgins reports that St. Brigid died around the year 810; Constantinus Caietanus, around 870.
[5] None of these authors present any chronological markers to confirm their dating. The Life of St. Andrew offers some; the Life and Epitaph of St. Donatus provide more certain ones. The Life of St. Andrew, perhaps copying defectively, Since St. Donatus, Bishop of Fiesole, flourished, reads as follows: "In the time, therefore, of King Theodoric and Louis the Good, who at the palace of Augusta (read rather, the palace of Aachen, or according to that ancient form of writing, at the palace of Aachen) in the year 816 of the Lord's Incarnation, established the canonical rule, there was in the aforesaid province of the Scots a certain eminent philosopher and a Catholic in the faith of Christ, named Donatus, the Teacher and companion of blessed Andrew." The Council of Aachen was held in the year 816, the third of Louis, and in it the rule of the canons and nuns was published. not under King Theodoric. But there was no King Theodoric around those times. There was indeed a Theodoric, son of Charlemagne by the concubine Adelluida, whom, together with Drogo and Hugo, sons of the same Charles by another concubine named Regina, the Emperor Louis the Pious, their brother, ordered to be tonsured in the year 818, as Theganus has it, and ordered them to be instructed in the liberal arts; and afterward established them honorably.
[6] The Life of St. Donatus expressed the names of these Kings somewhat more accurately in these words: "In the time, therefore, of the Christian Princes Lothar the Great and Louis the Good, but under Louis, who established the canonical Rule of their holy assembly at the palace of Aachen in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 816." But I fear that this Author, having blundered regarding Louis's name, wrongly made him the first of that name, or the Pious, Lothar's father, who was the second Emperor of that name. There was indeed a council of Aachen held under Louis the Pious, one year before Lothar was adopted by his father as co-ruler of the empire; but why is Lothar placed before his father? This will perhaps become clearer from the epitaph of St. Donatus, which reads as follows:
Here I, Donatus, sprung from Scottish blood, he had served the Italian King before his episcopate Alone in this tomb, by dust and worm consumed. I served the Italian Kings for many years, The great Lothar, and Louis the Good. For forty-seven years, and seven more besides, In the Fiesolan city I was Bishop. etc.
Who would not see that Louis the Good is the son of Lothar, therefore to the son of the Emperor Lothar, who was King of Italy, or of the Lombards, and became Emperor in the year 855, when his father embraced the monastic state?
[7] For why otherwise would Louis the Pious be called an Italian King, who never possessed Italy by a special title? But Lothar, sent by his father to govern Italy, retained it and Belgium in the division of the kingdom agreed upon with his brothers, and left it with the title of Emperor to Louis, the eldest of his sons. That Donatus was intimate with this Louis is established from his Life, where the following is stated: "The aforesaid Bishop therefore went to Louis the great Prince, whom the Bishop also met who, receiving him with a kindly spirit, out of devotion for the most holy man did not deny any of his requests ... Transacted at the city of Capua." Louis the Pious never visited Capua, since during the lifetime of his father Charles, Pippin governed Italy, then Bernard: at Capua, when the latter was deprived of sight and life, Lothar was sent to Italy, to whom nevertheless the Princes of Benevento, who also held Capua, were not subject, though they perhaps continued to pay the tribute that they had agreed upon with his grandfather and father. never visited by his grandfather or father, After the death of Louis the Pious, the affairs of the Lombards in Campania and the other provinces of that region were marvelously disturbed; so that Louis, grandson of the Pious, had to march there frequently with an army to settle them. And on his third expedition, undertaken in the year 866, as Leo of Ostia has it in book 1 of the Cassinese Chronicle, chapter 38, in the month of June he arrived at the monastery of Monte Cassino, where he was received with the greatest honor by St. Bertarius the Abbot. After this, departing thence, he made for Capua: which, having besieged it for three months, he took, but captured by him in the year 866. and for the most part destroyed it. At that time, therefore, it is probable that Donatus obtained from him those things related in the Life, at the city of Capua in the year 866.
[8] But since Donatus held the See of Fiesole for 47 years, it is not yet established in what year he obtained it or in what year he died, so that anything certain might be determined about Andrew and Brigid. In the year 844, when the same Louis came to Rome, Donatus was already a Bishop, and he was present both at the coronation of Louis himself and at the council of malicious Bishops who, he had also attended his coronation at Rome in 844. as Anastasius Bibliothecarius writes in his Life of Sergius II, had assembled with Drogo, Archbishop of Metz, against this universal Church, the head of all the Churches of God, without the permission or invitation of the Metropolitan. Who nevertheless, as is then narrated, by Divine grace inspiring them, were able to overcome neither the words of that gentle Pontiff nor his prudence. And so great was the heavenly power present with him that no one could constrain or confine him by argument. And, overcome by him, they departed covered with shame and confusion. Seeing this, they put aside all the anger and ferocity which they harbored in their minds in every way. It is not possible, as some authors already cited have written, if he met Emperor Louis II at Capua in the year 866, he had not been made Bishop much earlier, either in the camp outside Capua or in the city already captured, that he was consecrated in the year 802, nor indeed even in 816, since he sat for only 47 years. In that Roman council or conference, when Louis was crowned by Pope Sergius, Donatus is listed last of all the Bishops; while Fratellus, or Frantellus, or Frontellus, Bishop of Camerino, who is recorded as having sat in the fifth place before him, was not made Bishop before the year 840, in which year, on March 13, his predecessor St. Ansovinus is said to have died. Whence it follows that, if they sat in order of seniority according to the customary practice, Donatus was not made Bishop until 841 or 842, and thus died around the year 889. after having served the Emperor Lothar and Prince Louis for many years. If to these you add the 47 years during which he administered that Church, it will follow that he did not die long before the year 890 of Christ. Now if Andrew his disciple, as seems certain, was somewhat younger than he, and yet did not die until worn out by prolonged old age, Brigid lived beyond 890. it must be admitted that he lived nearly to the year 900 of Christ. Therefore, the same can be established concerning the age of his sister Brigid, who survived him.
Section III. The Monastic State of St. Brigid Discussed. Her Burial.
[9] Our Francis Lahier writes that St. Brigid lived in the world as a sanctimonial, or devoted woman, among her own people; and that in Italy, after her brother's death, she lived as a solitary in the forest devoted to piety. Constantinus Caietanus in his Annotations on the Life of St. Andrew says that not only he, It is not established that she was a nun: but Donatus too, and Brigid, were devoted to Benedictine observance: and that Brigid, even before she came to Italy or was transported there, lived a most holy life under the habit of a nun, in her parents' home or in some monastery of Ireland. This seems to Colgan hardly probable. The presumption favors Lahier, since no evidence of a monastic institute is brought forward.
[10] Even less probable is what Dempster writes: "Just as St. Andrew her brother founded a monastery for men called Scopeto, still less did she found a monastery, as Dempster writes, so she left another built for Scottish women: but the former passed to the Canons of St. Savior more than 300 years ago, whence they are called Scopetini; the latter so completely disappeared that after Fiesole was destroyed by the Florentines no memory of it survived. The writings have perished." Thus he. But how can he hope to be believed, if both the writings have perished and the memory of that monastery built by Brigid has completely vanished, when he cites no witness? Moreover, he again contradicts himself. and many things erroneously about the Scopeto cenobium, For in treating of St. Donatus he writes: "A most magnificent church was erected for him at Scopeto, as they call it, near Florence, which was afterward raised to a Priory in the year 1408, as Giovanni Battista Signius of Bologna writes, in the year, that is, in which the order of the Scopetini was instituted by Stephen of Siena, an Augustinian, and confirmed by Gregory XII." Gabriel Pennottus in his history of the Canons Regular, book 2, chapter 52, where he lists the monasteries of the Congregation of the Holy Savior of Bologna, number 2, has this: "The fourth monastery was St. Donatus of Scopeto near Florence, which they obtained from the same Martin V through his Bull dated the 5th day before the Kalends of July in the year 1420, when before it was a church dependent on the abbey of St. Savior of Settimo of the Cistercian Order. From this place they began to be called Scopetini among the common people, just as others are named from other places." Whether the Priory of Scopeto was truly instituted by the Cistercians in 1408 and transferred to the Scopetini congregation 12 years later, we are not in a position to discuss: nor have we seen the books of Giovanni Battista Signius written about that congregation. That congregation was begun in the year 1413 in the monastery of Ilicetum, or de Silva lacus, by Stephen Cionius of Siena, as Pennottus narrates in the cited book, chapter 51, and Thomas Herrera in the Augustinian Alphabet. But a church given in the year 1408 to a newly instituted congregation ought not to have passed to them long before 300 years ago, as Dempster states above, since from 1408 to the year 1627, in which he was writing, only 219 years intervene, from which number twelve more must still be subtracted.
[11] But whether Donatus was buried at Scopeto or not, we do not inquire. Andrew was buried in the church of St. Martin at Mensola, which he had built, as Diacettus and others write. Ferrari believes St. Donatus was buried in the same place. But that was not the Scopeto church, as Dempster seems to have thought when he wrote that both were entombed at Scopeto. Silvanus Razzi, in volume 1 of the Saints of Etruria, in the Life of Stephen of Siena, the founder of the Scopetini, now destroyed. writes that the church of St. Donatus at Scopeto has already been destroyed. We have learned from a weighty authority that, a thousand paces from Florence outside the Gattolina gate, there stands a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, called "of Scopeto": whether it is the same as that of St. Donatus, we cannot determine. The church of St. Martin at Mensola, although it is said to have been destroyed more than once, was nevertheless rebuilt by Florentine monks of the Benedictine order and endowed with a suitable income, and is still possessed by them, celebrated for the fame of its miracles: it appears at one time to have belonged to religious women, as one can infer from the offices and other signs.
[12] Nowhere is any mention made of a monastery founded by St. Brigid. St. Brigid at Opacus, Philip Ferrari in his general Catalogue of Saints writes that she was buried in the place called Opacus. In the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he has the following: "At length, burdened by constant vigils, fasts, and other mortifications of the body, and by her years, she departed to her Bridegroom on the Kalends of February, and became renowned for miracles. In whose honor at the same place, at Opacus, a church was built and dedicated to her." Hence Colgan calls her the Patroness of the church of Opacus near Fiesole in Italy. Concerning her and the place of her spiritual exercises and death, Diacettus, Bishop of Fiesole, writes as follows, cited earlier, in the preface to the Life of St. Romulus and other Holy Bishops of the same Church: "St. Brigid, a Scottish Virgin, the full sister of St. Andrew, brought by a certain prodigious means to his deathbed, spent the rest of her life there in a dense and rugged forest, above Fiesole, not far from St. Martin in Lubaco: or Lubacum, in which place, wild and forbidding and then inhabited only by beasts, she passed the rest of her life in the greatest austerity: until, at last worn out by extreme old age, a church built at Bacum. she was summoned by her heavenly Bridegroom to the reward of her labors. There afterward, on account of the miracles performed by her in life and in death, a church was built in her name, which is still visible to this day." Thus Diacettus. Villani writes that she was buried not far from the church of St. Martin in Baco.
[13] Moreover, Fiesole, as we have said elsewhere, was once a celebrated city of Etruria, but too close a neighbor of Florence (only three miles distant), where Fiesole is situated. by whose inhabitants, after internecine hatreds and wars of some centuries, it was at length destroyed, its citizens being transferred to Florence: yet the episcopal name and church survive.
LIFE, by Philip Villani, in the Italian Life of St. Andrew the Deacon.
Brigid, Virgin, at Fiesole in Etruria (Saint)
By Philip Villani.
[1] The man of God Andrew was a native of the island of Ireland (which by another more common name St. Brigid, a noble Scot, is called Scotia), situated in the western region on the coast of the Ocean; so neighboring to the island of Britain, which is called England, that both seem to be the same island, inasmuch as they are separated by a single narrow strait, which has the appearance of a river, extending from sea to sea. He was born of the most noble and very wealthy parents; and he had a sister, a virgin named Brigid, younger in age but of great merit before God, whom he loved above all else, more from contemplation of her chaste life and the works of justice that she practiced, than from the claim of natural kinship... After narrating Andrew's pilgrimage, miracles, his final illness, the convocation of the monks, and his desire to see his sister, the author adds the following:
[2] As the Brothers received Andrew's instructions with tears, by Divine disposition there came upon the blessed man an intense desire to see, before he departed this life, his sister Brigid: St. Andrew her brother, being on his deathbed, wishing this, toward whose presence he sighed inwardly, but did not reveal to those around him what desire was carrying him, since he judged that, because of the distance of the places, it could not be fulfilled by human powers. But the Lord God Almighty, who knows and beholds from afar the just desires of His holy servants, looked upon him, condescending to his wishes, as he drew those sighs. For to Brigid, at that same moment in Ireland, reclining at table in a solitary place she is transferred by an Angel to Italy: and eating a salad and small fish, an Angel of the Lord appeared, and miraculously transported her and the table at which she sat, in an instant, into the presence of the man of God Andrew and his Brothers. Those who were then present and occupied with the care of the holy man, seeing this most evident miracle, struck with amazement at the novelty of the thing, eagerly called together a crowd to witness so great a spectacle.
[3] Brigid, however, completely astonished and with her mind suspended, thought she was rather seeing a vision than the reality of the event, and looking about this way and that with eyes rolling in a circle, when she saw an unknown region and place, a venerable old man lying nearby in a bed, and people of an unfamiliar and foreign dress and appearance, disturbed by that miracle, she clung, as if stunned in spirit and wholly terrified, with her mind suspended. The servant of God Andrew, perceiving this in the spirit, addressing his sister with a calm speech said: Brigid, dearest sister, as I perceive that the end of my life is at hand, a great desire has come upon me to see you face to face. And the fountain of mercy and immeasurable love, God, has deigned, as you see, to grant my wishes, and to indulge me, a sinner, in what I greatly desired. Therefore fear nothing; for it has so pleased the Divine will she is reassured by her brother, that you should behold your own brother Andrew, whom you long supposed to have departed this life, now engaged in this final struggle, hoping through the merits of your presence to have the Creator of all propitious to me. In this place, far removed from our native land, I, a feeble fighter and soldier, have spent my days; and you likewise will spend yours, about to make up for the remainder of my service by the austerity of your life and the straits of privation. he commends himself to her prayers: Now indeed, leaning upon the Divine mercy, lay aside all groundless fear, and be calm in spirit, assured that you now see and experience nothing but what is most truly happening; and for me, I beg you, whose hour of dissolution is at hand, with the fear of God and fervor of the spirit, beseech our common Lord.
[4] At these words Brigid, as if waking from a deep sleep, coming to herself, now with great devotion and tenderness of mind dissolved in tears, clasps her brother's hands tightly, kisses them most tenderly, while meanwhile an excessive flood of tears mixed with sobs cut off her speech. And when she had prolonged such weeping and sighs for more than an hour, afflicted with immense grief, at last, bending her knees to the ground, she gives thanks to God: she burst forth into these words: Almighty God, who alone do wondrous things, whom the powers of heaven serve, the elements obey, and all creation is subject to, to You be praise and blessing, honor and glory, who have deigned to grant Your handmaid, by so remarkable a miracle, to see her brother present before her. Then, turning to her brother, she said: Most pious brother, faithful and best guide and guardian of my youth of old, I rejoice at your brave spirit, and with you I am glad and shall be glad during this very brief space in which it has been granted me to see you: although I deeply sympathize with your afflictions, and all the more vehemently as I see more clearly that by your departure I shall be deprived in this wretched life of your holy companionship, bereft of which I shall hereafter live afflicted and desolate. Nevertheless, the traces and monuments of praiseworthy works and holy actions imprinted by you accumulate my joy in the Lord and furnish me a festive day; she consoles her brother: in view of which, without any doubt, you will fall asleep happily in Christ. Of which matter I am in no way doubtful, but rather most secure, and I shall not fail, in these places to which Angelic power has brought me, as long as I shall be granted the enjoyment of this light, to follow in your footsteps in the practice of penance, as far as the weakness of my corrupted flesh can endure and the grace from above shall bestow; aided, however, dearest brother, by your holy prayers, who will bring manly strength to feminine frailty, that it may be strengthened. Now then be of good courage, and in the holy Cross and the victim of the Cross, Christ, be strengthened, and express the unconquered vigor of spirit and unshaken fortitude to which you have been accustomed until now, with greater proofs in this final struggle in which you are engaged.
[5] By these and similar conversations and exhortations of his holy sister, the servant of God Andrew, not a little consoled, bending his knees on the very hard pallet on which he lay, with hands raised and eyes fixed on heaven, bade a last farewell to his sister and the Brothers; then, turning to Christ, he said: Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, receive the spirit of Your servant: and having said these words, he immediately breathed his last. after his death, not without miracles, His sister and the Brothers, who were then present awaiting his passing, saw around the servant of God a most brilliant splendor, which they could not behold with unblinking eyes, suddenly poured forth, accompanied by a most sweet fragrance of an unusual perfume, which immediately filled the whole house, and which, shortly after, together with the holy man's soul, withdrew to heaven, whence it had descended... Here the author treats of the time in which Andrew lived. Then he adds the following.
[6] There was another Brigid among the Scots, of singular sanctity, illustrious life, and celebrated for the grace of many miracles, in the year of grace 505, and the twentieth of Pope John I, when Justin reigned at Constantinople, and Rome was miserably afflicted by the Arian rule of Theodoric. She, however, died in Ireland, in whose honor I believe that in the course of time several women, especially in the island in which she lies, were named Brigid: of whom one was this sister of Andrew, about whom I have spoken before, and about whom I shall speak hereafter. Therefore this younger Brigid, the sister of St. Andrew, after her brother's death, out of zeal for more rigorous penance and to flee the company of those who live according to the world, withdrew below Fiesole into the most rugged and precipitous wastes of a certain wilderness situated at the foot of the Alps, she withdraws into the wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts: and there, content with wild fruits and the roots of plants, she passed her life in great austerity to a very advanced age, meanwhile almost entirely withdrawn from the sight and knowledge of all mortals. When the tillers of the adjacent field, if ever they wandered through those same impenetrable forests for the sake of hunting and came upon her cave, and lives there in austerity: offered her something of what they had caught in the hunt, she would immediately refuse it as superfluous.
[7] As the end of her life at length approached, by God's prompting many matrons and men of holy life visited her frequently and served her, until at last, worn out by old age and greatly advanced in years, she completed the course of her happy life. In her honor, the neighbors, for whom she had been held in great reverence and veneration, a church erected to the deceased: built a church under her name in a certain precipitous place of that mountain, not far distant from the place they call Pieve of St. Martin in Baco; and there to this day her birthday is recalled with an annual festival. In those times those places were rough, forbidding, and uncultivated; but afterward they began to be cultivated by the colonists of the surrounding places, that wilderness afterward cultivated. and miraculously became beautiful and populous. Whoever wishes to know more fully the graces and miracles which God worked through this His handmaid, whether during her life or after her death, let him read what holy men have committed to writing about her life and death.
NotesSo St. Isidore, book 14 of Origins, chapter 6. "Scotia, the same as Hibernia, is the island nearest to Britain, narrower in extent of land, but more fertile in its situation: the homeland of the Scots is Ireland. this extends from the southwest to the north, and its first parts face toward Iberia and the Cantabrian Ocean. Whence it is also called Hibernia: but Scotia, because it is inhabited by the nation of the Scots, it is so called." Likewise Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, book 1, chapter 1, speaking of Ireland: "This is properly the homeland of the Scots."
The author is mistaken. The strait that lies between Britain and Ireland is broad and turbulent. If he means the region of Britain called Scotland, which now alone retains the name of Scotia and is the northern part of Britain, formerly possessed by the Picts, it is nowhere completely separated from Britain by a strait.
Our Lahier writes that before her brother's departure from Scotland, she lived in a secular manner (as one who had not yet resolved to observe perpetual virginity), but always within the bounds of modesty: but that afterward, having renounced all luxury of dress, she thenceforth adopted the modest attire of those Virgins who Was St. Brigid a devout woman? have devoted themselves to holiness in the world; and having taken a vow of chastity, she diligently devoted herself to the pursuit of piety and other virtues. Those things are indeed plausible; but on what authority are they transmitted?
It is perhaps more probable, as the same Lahier reports, that she, divinely taught that her brother would soon depart this life, immediately set out from her homeland out of eagerness to see him, and with the utmost speed arrived at Fiesole in time to be present at his death.
The chronological details given here do not agree with one another. For in the year 505 of Christ neither was Justin reigning, nor was John governing the Church: rather the latter was created Pontiff in 523 and died at Ravenna in prison in 526; so that the 20th year assigned to him is erroneous. Brigid, moreover, died under the pontificate of Hormisdas. Justin assumed the empire on July 9, 518, and held it until August 1, 527. Theodoric reigned in Italy from the year 493 to September 2, 526.