ON ST. TALARICAN, BISHOP OF SODOR IN SCOTLAND,
IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Talarican, bishop of Sodor in Scotland. (S.)
BY R. D. B.
§ Sole. Of the bishops of Sodor. The age and cult of St. Talarican.
The islands of the Æbudæ, in the French tongue Hebrides, situated near Scotland, Of St. Talarican, bishop of Sodor, to the west, are very many in number. The chief of them are Skye, Saint-Kilda, Lewis, Benbecula, Harris, Lismore, Uist, Canna, Barra, Staffa, Bute, Mull, Arran, Jura, Islay, Iona: the rest are for the most part of lesser moment and true rocks [Bruzen de la Martinière, Le grand Dictionn. géographique, tom. VI, pag. 274, edit. 1768. Cf. Thomas Garnett, Reise durch die Schottischen Hochlande und einen Theil der Hebriden.]. All together hold about a hundred thousand inhabitants. In those places the Christian religion was spread by SS. Aidan, Finan, Colman, Columba, Adamnan, and those who there were called bishops of Man and the Isles or bishops of the Æbudæ, and also bishops of Sodor Keith, Historical catalogue of the Scottish bishops, pag. 293, Russel edit.. The reason of this last appellation is not the same among all. For if credit is given to most writers disputing on the present subject, it is to be traced to the fact that, as has been said before [Acta SS., tom. VIII of Oct., pag. 888. Aikman, The history of Scotland, translated from the latin of G. Buchanan, tom. I, pag. 42. Carlisle, A topographical Dictionary of Scotland, tom. II, under Man. Montalembert, Moines d'Occident, tom. III, append., pag. 482. Jamieson, Ancient Culdees, cap. III, pag. 43 et seqq. Camden, Britannia, tom. III, pag. 697, 715, London edit. 1789.], when the Norwegians sailed from their homeland to the western shore of Scotland and England, they met to the north of England the Orkney islands, and lower down the Hebrides: which, in relation to the Orkneys, or (as others will have it) the northern Æbudæ, they called the Southern Islands, or Sudreya in the Icelandic tongue In Langebek, Scriptt. rerum Danicarum, tom. III, pag. 77 and passim., and Södereyer in the Norwegian Münter, Kirchengeschichte von Dänemark und Norwegen, tom. I, pag. 553.. But Robert Keith Histor. catal. of the Scottish bishops, pag. 294. was pleased to hold that that word was drawn from the Greek word Soter, Saviour, because, as he writes, the cathedral church of the island of Iona *, where the bishop of the Isles at one time had his seat, was dedicated to Christ the Lord. Some too have judged that the bishops of Sodor drew their name from the town of Sodor, which some have said is situated on the island of Man [Buchanan, Works, tom. I, pag. 34, Rerum Scoticarum histor., lib. I, Leiden edit. 1725.], others on the island of Iona [Christ. Irvine, Wm. Sacheverell, in Buchanan, loc. cit. Bruzen de la Martinière, Dict. géogr., tom. V, pag. 599. Cf. Baudrand, Novum Lexicon geogr., under Sodera.]. Between these Spottiswoode walked a middle course Cf. Moroni, Dizion. di erud. storico-ecclesiastica, under Sodor., being of the opinion that the town of Sodor was part of the island of Man, but that its name passed in the eighth century to the island of Iona. It is not for us to settle this dispute. The fortunes of the bishops of Sodor are so obscure that neither their beginnings, nor their series through several centuries, nor the immediate predecessors and successors of St. Talarican himself, a bishop of this name, whose Acts we illustrate at this day, can easily be determined [Cf. Keith, Histor. catal. of the Scottish bishops, pag. 293 et seq. Neve, Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, tom. III, pag. 323, Hardy edit.].
[2] and therefore subject to the abbot of Iona, This however seems clear, that the bishops of Sodor or of the Isles for a very long time lacked a stable see, and were subject to the abbots of Iona: with whom, as has several times been said in this Work Acta SS., tom. VIII of Oct., pag. 888., was the metropolitan power over the Scottish churches, even after the monastery of St. Columba at Iona was destroyed by Norman pirates. And I would believe that this obtained in the age of St. Talarican, since he, as will be shown below, probably carried out the episcopal functions in these places about the middle of the eighth century. Bede Hist. eccl. Angl., lib. III, cap. IV, in Migne, Patr. lat., tom. XCIV, col. 122. attests that this was the discipline in his time, when he says: Now the island (Iona) is accustomed always to have as ruler an abbot priest, to whose right both the whole province and even the bishops themselves, in an unusual order, must be subject. Bede, who died in the year 735, is supported by the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: In Hy, he says at the year 565 Monumenta historica Britanniæ, tom. I, pag. 303., there must be an abbot, not a bishop, and to him all the bishops of the Scots must be subject, because Columba (the first of Iona) was an abbot, not a bishop. Indeed Notker too, who flourished in the tenth century, writes in his Martyrology In Canisius, Thesaurus monument., tom. II, part. III, pag. 140, Basnage edit., praising at the 9th day of June St. Columba, abbot of Iona, that contrary to ecclesiastical custom he was held primate of all the Irish or Scottish bishops. From which statements we gather that St. Talarican, although he was bishop of the very island of Iona, was subject to the abbot of Iona Cf. Jamieson, The ancient Culdees, cap. III, pag. 45.: which however we do not find said specially of the blessed man. Nor is it against our opinion that St. Talarican, as we shall argue below, was probably not a Scot, but a Pict: for many Picts, since this people had been joined to Christ by the efforts of St. Columba, began their monastic life on the island of Iona.
[3] few documents survive, Talarican, by syncope Tarkin, is a Pictish name, which occurs in the old Scottish chronicles in manifold form, namely Talargan, Tolorgan, Talargh, Tallorcen, Thalargon, Tolarcain, Tolartach, Talore, Talor, Tolarag, Talorg, Tolorc, etc. Wherefore Alexander Forbes was of the opinion that St. Talarican was a Pict, and accordingly that in the old Aberdeen Breviary he is falsely stated to be an Irishman. To which wholly notable opinion very great strength would be added, if it rested not only on a linguistic, as they say, analogy, but also on other arguments. And if the blessed bishop, as is credible, derived his origin from Pictish parents, it could easily be believed that he was of noble or even royal stock: certainly in the fasti of the Picts the name of Talaric recurs frequently among royal names [Cf. Skene, Chronicle of the Picts, pref., pag. CII, CLXIII et seqq., pag. 172 et seqq., pag. 285 et seqq.]. For the rest, of St. Talarican no truly ancient historical documents survive: those which we have to hand were committed to print in the sixteenth and following centuries. In the first and principal place come the Calendar and Breviary of Aberdeen or Scottish Breviary, published first with great care in the year 1509 by the very bishop of this Church, William Elphinstone, and printed anew in the year 1854. But older than the year 1509 are the legends contained in that Breviary, since Elphinstone did not compose them, but only collected those which, as is said in the title of the book, had before wandered scattered in uncertainty. There we read that the blessed man, born of noble parents in Ireland, after he had been consecrated bishop by Blessed Gregory, Roman pontiff, illuminated the northern Scots with the light of the gospel, and full of merits on the 3rd before the kalends of November most piously fell asleep in the Lord. It seems undoubted that besides the Scottish Breviary and Calendar there existed certain writings, from which Adam King or Regius in the year 1588, and other martyrologists in the following century, learned that St. Talarican was bishop of Sodor, most acceptable to Salvathius or Selvach, king of Scotland, the writer of a good many books, and that he flourished about the year 889, and died at Lismore. Since the narrations of those authors agree, and (except for the notation of the times) do not conflict with other certain facts, we shall report them in setting forth the cult of St. Talarican.
[4] He was once venerated in Scotland, Although the beginnings of this veneration are not known, yet it appears to be very ancient, since St. Talarican was established as patron of the churches of Fridressor and Fordyce *, and also of a spring near Fordyce; likewise, as it seems, of a spring in the parish of Kilsyth [Forbes, Kal. of Scottish Saints, pag. 449. Collections for a History of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff, pag. 644.]. Which honor signifies that the cult in England is very old. Moreover in the year 1499 it was granted to the parish of Fordyce, by the intervention of William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen, that every year, on the feast of St. Tallerican and through its octave, a fair should be celebrated. Which fair was afterwards, as is clear from a diploma of the year 1592, transferred to the feast of All Saints, commonly All-Hallowmes, through a space of eight days [Illustrations of the topogr. of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff, tom. II, pag. 94. Cf. Registrum episcopatus Aberdonensis, tom. I, pag. 370. Carlisle, Topographical dictionary of Scotland, under Fordyce.]. We have to hand no older work in which his feast is indicated than the Breviary of Aberdeen, of which we spoke before, and the calendar prefixed to it. The Calendar was also published separately in the years 1527 and 1872 Victor De Buck, Recherches sur les Calendriers ecclésiastiques, pag. 20.. Its words Greven transferred into the Martyrology of Usuard, augmented by him in the years 1515 and 1521, saying at the 30th day of October: Of Talarican, bishop. At about the same time in the Martyrology of Aberdeen In Forbes, pag. 136. this praise of the blessed man was inscribed: In Scotland, of St. Talarican, bishop and confessor, the merits of whose life and virtues do not cease to be celebrated at the church of Fordyce, dedicated in his honor. Likewise the vernacular Calendar of Adam King, published in the year 1588, and recently brought forward again by Alexander Forbes Ibid., pag. 166., has this: In
Scotland, in the time of King Solvathius, St. Tarkin, bishop and confessor.
[5] and he is mentioned in the sacred fasti. Moreover one reads in the Scottish Menology of Thomas Dempster, a writer certainly not very highly regarded [Labbe, De scriptt. eccl., tom. II, pag. 63. Acta SS., tom. IV of August, pag. 774.], printed in the year 1622 at Bologna, and in the year 1872 at Edinburgh In Forbes, pag. 216.: At Lismore, of Tarkin, bishop of Sodor, miraculous in life; who collected the monuments of the Pictish Church and handed them down to posterity, the kingdom being now destroyed, lest the sacred memorials should perish. With which the same Dempster accords, writing in the year 1627 in the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish people: St. Tarkin, bishop, as I judge, of Sodor, was most acceptable to King Solmathius for his piety and continence of manners. He wrote Histories of some Saints, book I. Ecclesiastical Canons, book I. On St. Stephen the martyr, book I. Sacred Poems, book I. All of which would have perished, consumed by the flames of heretics, had not pious men anxiously preserved the memory of so great a man. He flourished in the year 889. He is venerated on the 30th day of October. Scottish Breviary. He rests at Limore. Catalogue of the Dunkeld library. There joins them Ferrari in the Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology: At Lismore (one [Skene, Celtic Scotland, tom. III, pag. 435. Carlisle, Topogr. dictionary of Scotland, under Lismore. Lewis, Topogr. dictionary of Scotland, under Lismore.] of the Æbudæ), of St. Tarkin, bishop of Sodor: which statement he adds in the annotations that he took from the Scottish Calendar and Martyrology. Moreover he says that he lived about 889 (this less correctly), and that he was of great holiness, and collected into one the dispersed monuments of the Scottish church; which he draws from book 18 of the Scottish Writers. Likewise David Camerarius in the Scottish Calendar, published in a first printing in the year 1631 and in a second in the year 1872 Forbes, Kal. of Scottish Saints, pag. 242.: St. Tarkin, bishop and confessor. This praise Camerarius expands in another book, in these words: St. Tarkin, bishop and confessor, is held celebrated in the diocese of Aberdeen; whence not far from Aberdeen a distinguished church dedicated to St. Tarkin is to be seen De fortitudine Scotorum, pag. 200.. Mention of the same holy bishop is made in the year 1755 by Robert Keith, in the year 1761 by Richard Challoner Memorial of British piety, pag. 151., and in the year 1838 by Henry Nicolas The Chronology of history, Alphabetical calendar, pag. 173.. All of which writers Cf. Forbes, pref., pag. XXXVI et seqq. assign the 30th day of October as sacred to St. Talarican, if however you except Camerarius, who indicates the 30th day of November, probably taking November for October. So far on the cult with which St. Talarican has been honored from remote times right up to our age.
[6] He probably flourished For determining the age of the blessed man only two indications are supplied to us, taken from King's Martyrology and the Aberdeen Breviary; namely that he was most acceptable to the king of Scotland Salvatius or Selvach, and that he was created bishop by Blessed Gregory, Roman pontiff. Now they report that Salvatius held the helm of Scotland from the year 766 to the year 787, John of Fordun In Gale, Historiæ Britannicæ Scriptt. XV, pag. 650.; from the year 767 to 787, Hector Boece Historiæ Scotorum, lib. IX, fol. CLXXXIX et seq., edit. 1526., Buchanan Hist., tom. I, lib. V, pag. 265 et seq. and others; from the year 768 to the year 788, Leslie De origine Scotorum, lib. XIV, pag. 162 et seq.; from the year 772 to the year 796, Thomas Innes The civil and eccles. history of Scotland, pag. 329 and 332, edit. 1853.. But from what source those authors drew that Salvatius was king after the middle of the eighth century they have omitted to hand down to posterity: and this is the more to be lamented, in that no one is unaware that the chronology of the kings of the Scots older than the eleventh century is a sea full of rocks, onto which not even the writers on the art of chronology have dared to sail [Art de vérifier les dates, tom. I, pag. 242, edit. 1773. Cf. Pinkerton, Enquiry into the history of Scotland, tom. II, pag. 102, edit. 1814.]. Another road, a safer one, I believe, has been taken by John Pinkerton Op. cit., tom. II, pag. 107. Cf. ibid., pag. 122 et seqq. and the distinguished William Skene Celtic Scotland, tom. I, pag. 284., who, relying on national and Irish documents, make Salvatius king already in the year 719.
[7] about the year 720. Those who in the present matter do not refuse all credit to Fordun, Boece, Buchanan, Leslie and Innes will be of the opinion that St. Talarican, as being a friend of King Salvatius, lived between the years 766 and 796. But since he was raised to the episcopate by Blessed Gregory, they must see in what age that Roman pontiff ruled the universal Church. Now in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries there sat in the chair of St. Peter a good many pontiffs named Gregory; namely Gregory II, from the year 715 to the year 731; Gregory III, from the year 731 to the year 741; Gregory IV, from the year 827 to the year 843 or 844; Gregory V, from the year 996 to the year 999. From these arises no moderate difficulty; since there was no Roman pontiff by name Gregory between the years 766 and 796. For Gregory II and Gregory III before the year 766, Gregory IV and Gregory V after the year 796, that is, the two earlier before, the two later after Salvatius, held the chair of St. Peter: whence it would follow that St. Talarican at that time was not placed over the Church of Sodor. Nor let it be said, following Ferrari, that St. Talarican died in the year 889, and accordingly that nothing prevents him from having been consecrated by Gregory IV: for, this being supposed, to omit other things, St. Talarican, at least from the year 844 to the year 889, as bishop would have set forth the gospel to the northern Scots: which almost unusual praise, if he merited it, the surviving monuments would not have passed over in silence. For these reasons we propose another explanation (having before our eyes the books of Pinkerton and the distinguished Skene); namely that St. Talarican held the bishopric of Sodor about the year 720. For at that time, it is agreed among all, Blessed Gregory II was Roman pontiff. Likewise from the monuments brought forward by the authors just cited we learn that Salvatius was then reigning in Scotland. Which two circumstances we noted before to be here the only notes of time.
[8] He followed the Roman rites. This opinion being admitted, it seems nearer to credibility that St. Talarican was advanced to the bishopric of the Isles after the monks of Iona took up the Roman ecclesiastical rites. For Bede reports [Works, tom. VI, Hist. eccles., lib. V, cap. XXII, Migne edit., Patr., tom. XCV, col. 280.]: Not long after the year 710, in which the Picts began to celebrate Easter with the other Catholics and to bear the Roman tonsure, those monks of the Scottish nation too who inhabited the island of Hii, with the monasteries subject to them, were brought, the Lord providing, to the canonical rite of Easter and of the tonsure. For in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 716… Ecgberct, an Anglo-Saxon monk … was honorably and with much joy received by them… And the monks of Hii took up, Ecgberct teaching, the Catholic rites of living, under Abbot Duunchad, about eighty years after they had sent Aidan to preach to the English people. Elsewhere Bede writes Ibid., lib. III, cap. IV, col. 122. that this change of rites was carried out in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 715. Skene indeed gathers Celtic Scotland, tom. II, pag. 278 et seqq. from the Annals both of Tigernach and of Ulster that not all the monks of Iona obeyed Ecgberct's admonitions, but rather took different paths, so that some, having their own abbot, followed the Roman rites, others under a different abbot did not suffer themselves to be torn from Scottish usages. But since St. Talarican, whom we consider to have flourished in that age, was created bishop at the thresholds of the Apostles by the Roman pontiff, it does not seem an absurd conjecture that he, renouncing the ancestral rites, passed over to the rites of the Roman Church in the year 715 or 716. But let the reader understand that these things are brought forward by us with doubt.
Annotata* Iona
* Fordyce
LIFE OF ST. TALARICAN, BISHOP OF SODOR
from the Breviary of Aberdeen of the year 1509.
Talarican, bishop of Sodor in Scotland. (S.)
BHL Number: 0000
FROM PRINTED SOURCES.
St. Talarican, created bishop by Blessed Gregory, Of St. Talarican, confessor and bishop, patron of Fridressor, lesson I. Talarican, in whose reverence and honor we keep the present day, we have learned to have been begotten of parents, notable magnates of Ireland, and by blessed Gregory a, supreme pontiff of the holy Roman Church, not without great mystery, to have been adorned with the episcopal laurel for converting unbelieving nations. His custom was to offer daily victims to God, so that hardly any day of his life passed away on which he did not immolate to almighty God a victim of propitiation. With which sacrifice his life was in accord.
[2] he lived most holily, Lesson II. For giving all that he had in alms, when he had come to the hour of offering sacrifice, as if flowing wholly away in tears, he slew himself with great contrition of heart; and he wiped away the stains of his sins with tears, and as a heavenly physician, meeting each and every vice, he applied salutary medicines.
[3] and gained almost all of northern Scotland for Christ. Lesson III. And as in the art of medicine hot things are cured by cold, and cold by hot, so blessed Talarican himself strove to oppose medicines contrary to sins; as continence to lubricity, largess to tenacity, mildness to wrath, humility to arrogance; and thus on other vices, opposed to virtue and the law of God, he placed the bridle of love, of fear and of the love of God and neighbor, so that each vice of the flesh was wholly extinguished in him. Nor did he exercise so great a zeal only that the passions of the flesh might not dominate in him, but that he might leave to others a holy way of living. He converted almost the northern region of Scotland b by his preaching and example from heathenism to the faith, he consecrated churches and temples to God. Of which at present there exist some consecrated in his honor, which anyone can find in the dioceses of Aberdeen, Moray and Ross c: by the merits of which blessed man there take place in them healings of diseases and very many miracles.
[4] At length, his disciples being called together, Lesson IV. At length blessed Talarican himself, tossed by various perils in the world, having called together his disciples and companions, celebrated Mass in the accustomed manner, and having received the Lord's body, gave peace and blessing to all in the Lord. These things being done, he returned to his bed, and lying there, when he saw his priests and ministers standing around, openly recognizing that death was approaching, as if saying a last farewell, he admonished them on preserving the bond of charity,
and with how great concord they ought to be united among themselves he preached.
[5] he died piously on the 3rd before the kalends of October. Lesson V. And soon, all standing by, these things having been said, he himself with his hands closed his eyes with a linen cloth; these things being done he gave up his spirit to God, on the third before the kalends of November d. And so, arriving at eternal joys, he merited that his holy soul should be loosed from the corruption of the flesh; which we now behold placed with the angels in heaven, interceding for us with God, to whom is honor for ages.