Cronan

ON ST. CRONAN, ABBOT OF BANGOR IN IRELAND,

END OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY

Cronan, abbot of Bangor. (S.)

C. D. S.

[1] St. Cronan, abbot of Bangor From the Memorial of our abbots (of Bangor), which is appended to the Antiphonary of Bangor [The Antiphonary of Bangor, ed. F. E. Warren (for the society named after Henry Bradshaw, London, 1893), Part I, fol. 36v. Compare Part II (1895), p. 82.], it is gathered that Cronan was the fifteenth abbot of this celebrated monastery, and in fact so many are found indicated in the Annals of Tigernach from the year 600 to the year 690, at which the death of Cronan is marked [Annals of Tigernach, ed. Whitley Stokes, in Revue Celtique, vol. XVII (1896), pp. 163–211.], but in not quite the same order of names. The same as in the Annals of Tigernach are reviewed at nearly the same years in the Annals of the Four Masters [Annal. 4 Mag., ed. O'Donovan, years 600, 605, 606, 612, 645, 662, 663, 665, 666, 668, 678, 688.], but in addition, between Critanus and Colman, Cronan's predecessor, at the year 671 there is read Ibid., vol. I, p. 283. Maebrubha, abbot of Bangor, who in this year 671 is said to have gone over to Alba, that is, Scotland, and to have founded there the church of Aporcrosan (Abercrossan?), and the same is read in the Annals of Ulster at the year 672 and in those of Clonmacnoise (Cluainmic-Nois) at the year 669 Ibid., p. 282, note y.; and if this Maelrubha is reckoned among the number of the abbots of Bangor, Cronan must be said to have been the sixteenth.

[2] after the middle of the seventh century, So Cronan died at the end of the seventh century, namely in the year 690 according to the Annals of Tigernach Revue Celtique, in the work cited, p. 211. and the Annals of Ulster Annal. 4 Mag., vol. I, p. 294, note c., in the year 686 according to those of Clonmacnoise Ibid., in the year 688 according to the Four Masters Ibid., p. 295.. In all these Annals he is called Maccu Caulne, that is, according to the rendering of the distinguished Whitley Stokes Revue Celtique, in the work cited, p. 211., great-grandson of Caulneus; but who that Caulneus was, or in what year of his age Cronan died, I have not been able to find.

[3] otherwise unknown, Nor has any memory been handed down of what Cronan did, except that in the last verses of the rhythm on the Memorial of the abbots it is indicated that he was still among the living when the Antiphonary of Bangor was written. For after commemorating Colman, whom the writer calls Camanus, the rhythm continues thus Ed. Warren, in the place cited.:

For Christ now sits the supreme one, Singing hymns, the fifteenth; That Cronan may gain Life, May the Lord preserve him.

[4] [is certainly different from the Cronan to whom the letter of John IV, Supreme Pontiff, was addressed.] As for what is noted in the Martyrology of Donegal by a second hand at the name of Cronan, namely: He flourished in the year 639, named then in the letter of Pope John 4, etc., it manifestly, as W. Reeves rightly judged Martyrol. Dungall., p. 298, note 3., alludes to the superscription of the letter of John IV recited by the Venerable Bede, Hist. eccl. II. 19, in which among the names of the abbots there is read also the name of a certain Cromanus or Cronanus, and of another also among the names of the bishops Migne, P. L., vol. XCV, p. 113.. But that our Cronan is not treated here is sufficiently clear from the fact that, according to all the Annals, Abbot Colman, whom Cronan succeeded, did not die before the year 675. Moreover, among the abbots who are read in this superscription there also appears the name of Segenus; and Segenus, abbot of Bangor, succeeded Maclaisreanus, who, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise, died in the year 642, but according to the other Annals, in the year 645. He was indeed by far closer to the times of John IV, who held the apostolic see for only two years (640–42), and wrote the letter cited by Bede when he had been elected, but not yet consecrated.