Dorbhene

ON ST. DORBHENE, ABBOT OF IONA,

IN THE YEAR DCCXIII.

SYLLOGE.

Dorbhene, abbot of Iona. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ Sole. The island of Hy. St. Columba. The authority and family of the abbots. The family of St. Dorbhene. Whether he was abbot of Iona and wrote the Life of St. Columba. Whether he was the father of St. Faelcu.

Along the western side of Scotland there extend two vast series of islands, [On the island of Hy, where St. Columba about the middle of the sixth century established a monastic seminary of missionaries,] to which was formerly the name Hebudes, now Hebrides: one inner or nearer the shore; the other outer, but also more crowded, to which now almost alone the name of Hebrides clings. In the former series, not far from the greater island of Mull *, lies the very celebrated island of Hy or Ioua, called by the common but corrupted name Iona, only three miles long and one or one and a half miles wide, a hundred years ago holding only 150 inhabitants, now 350 [Reeves, Life of St. Columba, p. 414; The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland, vol. II, p. 139 and following; de Montalembert, Histoire des Moines d'Occident, vol. III, p. 477]. And this very narrow land was at one time the head of the Christian religion in Ireland and Scotland. Nor did these regions alone receive incredible benefit from it, but nearly all Europe also; since from it came forth so many most holy men, who either announced the faith to unbelievers, or by word and example taught Christians piety and every virtue. The author of so great a good was St. Columba; who, born about the year 520 at Gartan, in the county of Donegal, disciple of St. Finnian, bishop at Moville, then of St. Finnian of Clonard, afterwards founder of the monasteries of Glasnevin near Dublin, and of Derry and Durrow in King's County, in the year 563 set out to the island of Ioua, which he had received as a gift from Conall, son of Comgall, king of the Scots of Alba; where he also began a new house of ascetics, or rather an incomparable seminary of missionaries Works cited; and Haverty, History of Ireland, p. 83 and following. The rest does not pertain here.

[2] [and the seat of an abbot, who had bishops under him, as regular superiors now have priests subject to them,] It was proper to this monastery that the abbot should be a presbyter and head of a monastic society; such societies were afterwards called orders and religious congregations. For over the monasteries which either he himself or his subjects had founded he set provosts, who thereafter were subject to him. Moreover, since at that time bishops were created without see or title among the Irish monks, as now priests in the Latin religious orders, those bishops were no more freed from the authority of the abbot of Iona than regular priests now from the power of their superior, although he is not established in sacred orders: which monastic servitude did not cease, even if they performed episcopal offices outside the enclosure of the monastery; although the designation of dioceses was long wanting in those parts, the Irish bishops bringing this apostolic (as some call it) arrangement into other regions (the bishops and councils resisting in vain). And since among all the Celts the rights of individuals were almost none, but those of each clan * very great, so that an office or lordship was not easily allowed to pass from the power of one clan to another, at Iona too it became established that scarcely anyone was elected abbot who did not descend from Conall Gulban, the ancestor of St. Columba.

[3] St. Dorbhene, sprung from the family of the founder, And from these things is generally known what was the condition of Dorbene Foda, son of Altan, abbot of Ia of Colum Cille, of the family of Conall Gulban, whose feast-day is announced today in these words in the Martyrology of Donegal. With distinguished diligence William Reeves has composed a genealogical scheme of the abbots of Iona Life of St. Columba, p. 542; from which I shall carry over here only a small part. Which are taken from chapter I of the genealogical Sanctilogium, where one reads Dorbene, surnamed Foda (that is, the Tall), son of Altan, son of Mac Lasre, son of Lasre, son of Ronan, son of Loarn, son of Fergus, son of Conall Gulban In Colgan, Trias Thaum., p. 480, no. 17.

[4] at a time when the series of abbots was greatly disturbed, In the Chronicle of Iona, which the praised Reeves collected from old Irish annals, especially of Ulster Life of St. Columba, p. 381, these things are read about this holy man at the year 713: Dorbene obtained the chair of Ia; and, five months being passed in the primacy, on the 5th of the kalends of November, on a Saturday, he died; which however John O'Donovan notes do not exist in the Annals of Ulster The Four Masters, at the year 713, p. 312; and Reeves himself professes that he has taken them from those of Tigernach Life of St. Columba, p. 242. Yet they are altogether good; for in fact in the year 713, dominical letter A, the 28th day of October concurred with a Saturday. But on account of this notation of time the order and succession of the abbots of Iona runs into an inextricable difficulty; to avoid which Reeves devised that St. Dorbhene was not abbot, but only prior, unless perhaps bishop Ibid., p. 379. That this matter may be more easily understood, behold some fragments of that Chronicle of Iona:

In the year 704 Adomnan, in the 77th year of his age, abbot of Ia, rests.

In the year 707 Dunchadh held the principate of Ia.

In the year 712 Coeddi, bishop of Ia, rests on the 24th of October.

In the year 713 Dorbene the chair, etc.

In the year 716 Easter is changed in the Eastern city.

Faelcu mac Dorbeni in the 74th year of his age, on the 4th of the kalends of September, on a Saturday, took up the chair of Columba.

In the year 717 Dunchadh mac Cinnafaelaidh, abbot of Ia, died.

In the year 717 the expulsion of the community of Ia across the Spine of Britain by King Nechtan.

In the year 718 the tonsure of the crown over the community of Ia.

In the year 722 Feidlimid held the principate of Ia.

In the year 724 Faelcu mac Dorbeni, abbot of Ia, fell asleep.

Cillene the Tall succeeded him in the principate of Ia.

In the year 726 Cillene the Tall, abbot of Ia, rests.

[5] he obtained the chair of St. Columba and the primacy, or was abbot; In which it should be noted that what is enclosed in brackets [] does not seem to have been found by Reeves in the Annals of Ulster, but to have been added from elsewhere, and to have been expressed for that reason in a different character; so that the difficulties arising from it seem capable of being set aside. Yet we gain little from this. For as appears from this very fragment, the principate there is the same as the office of abbot; and elsewhere too abbots are called princes by the Irish Ibid., p. 451, and they even insert the Latin word princeps in Irish sentences, for example Flaithbertach, mac Murcertaigh, PRINCEPS Duincaillden OBIIT Flaithbertach, son of Murchertach, prince of Dunkeld, died Ibid., p. 298. But St. Dorbhene is related to have obtained the chair of Ia and to have passed five months in the primacy. Which chair is that of St. Columba; for Faelcu, mac Dorbheni, is said in the year 716 to have taken up the chair of Columba; who likewise at the year 724, in which he fell asleep, is called abbot of Ia. Nor did St. Columba occupy any other than the abbatial chair. The primacy moreover seems to have been taken there in the same sense as the principate; and by the word primarius the Irish designated any superior Ibid., p. 451. Add that the Four Masters P. 312, O'Donovan edition also understood that St. Dorbhene was abbot, inasmuch as they wrote at the year 713 P. 312, O'Donovan edition: S. Dorbaine Foda, ABB Iæ, decc 28 dOctober St. Dorbaine Foda, abbot of Ia, died on the 28th of October. Just as, then, Dunchadh was made abbot while Conamhail, who did not draw his family from Conall Gulban, held the abbatial staff in the fourth year; so, while Dunchadh was presiding in the fourth year, St. Dorbhene was created abbot. He indeed died after five months; but when the fourth from his election

year was running, Faelcu was made abbot, who in the year 717 through the death of Dunchadh began to preside alone. But in the sixth year after Feidhlimid began at the same time to be prince or abbot. How then are these things to be explained? Was a schism introduced through the election of Conamhail, of a foreign family? Did the party favouring the new paschal cycle intrude Dunchadh against right into the abbatial seat? Was a three-yearly or six-yearly change of abbots introduced? Why has the death of St. Dorbhene been omitted in the Annals of Ulster? Who will settle these things? When Ussher fell upon them Britannicarum ecclesiarum antiquitates, p. 367, he broke off at Dunchadh at the year 710 the brief Chronicle of Iona which he had begun, despairing that what followed could be made to shine by treatment, and thus leaving it. Worse is my lot, who cannot cover my ignorance with silence.

[6] [who also copied with his own hand the Life of St. Columba, edited by St. Adomnan.] Moreover of the deeds of St. Dorbhene nothing is known, except that he seems himself to have copied with his own hand the Life of St. Columba, composed by St. Adomnan, abbot of Iona and his master. For at the end of that Life in codex A or the Reichenau codex *, which is now preserved at Schaffhausen and is held to have been written at the beginning of the eighth century, these words are read added: Whoever shall read these little books of the virtues of Columba, let him pray the Lord for me Dorbbene, that I may possess eternal life after death. Several similar commendations Reeves has collected Life of St. Columba, p. 242; but there is nothing singular in them, since the apostles, the first faithful, dwellers in the solitudes and other faithful of every age have never omitted any occasion to commend themselves by word, writing or sculpture to the prayers of others: nor has this custom now been abolished or grown cold. That same distinguished editor of the Life of St. Columba Ibid., p. XIV and following, however, has attempted with much acumen to show that St. Dorbhene, abbot of Iona, is designated in those lines. I pass over that the Latin letters and the inserted Greek ones seem to be written in the eighth century and that the parchment is very ancient; for these indications are too uncertain. But he notices that the name Dorbhene is very rare, and that no other man distinguished by it has been found by him except a certain layman, the father of Abbot St. Faelcu. He himself, then, could easily copy this Life, as being a monk of Iona, and no other is known who did this: what more defined do we seek in such ancient matters?

[7] He was not the father of St. Faelcu, his successor in the abbatial seat of Iona. But since St. Faelcu, who in the year 716 took up the chair of St. Columba in the 74th year of his age, is called the son of Dorbhene, someone may perhaps ask whether St. Dorbhene was his father. No. For, to pass over that Faelcu was perhaps greater in age than St. Dorbhene, we have the genealogical stem of Faelcu. For he was the son of Dorbene, son of Fennius, son of Fergus, son of Liber, son of Nathi, son of Conall Gulban In Colgan, Trias Thaum., p. 481, no. 23, and p. 499. If you compare this with the stem of St. Dorbhene proposed above at no. 3, you will easily find a great difference. Moreover the old fable that monastic chastity was not prescribed to the people of Iona has been run through by William Reeves Life of St. Columba, p. 344, in these as in many other matters a follower of truth rather than of the errors common among Protestants.

* Mull.

* Clan.

* Reichenau.