ON ST. LOLANUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
IN SCOTLAND
BEFORE THE MIDDLE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY, AS IS REPORTED.
A Collection on his cult and on the time in which he lived.
Lolanus, bishop and confessor, in Scotland (S.)
BY C. S.
Thomas Dempster in the Scottish Menology at the twenty-second of September briefly announces St. Lolanus with the title of bishop thus: In Scotland, of Lolanus the bishop; He is announced on this 22nd day, and he praises the Calendar of Adam King and of James Cheyne. He celebrates both of these for their learning in his Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish nation, in bk. 16 of which, at num. 1090, he makes King still surviving among the living at Edinburgh while he was himself writing these things, and among his Opuscula reckons a Calendar of the Scottish Saints, one book, which I have learned from Fr. Nicholas Wemyss, presently to be praised, was printed at Paris in the year 1589. Cheyne he writes in the same History bk. 3, num. 350, to have died at Tournai in the year 1602; but among his Opuscula he mentions no work of this kind. But whatever be the case as to the learning of these men, which I do not here examine, from what has been said it is clear that from their age no weight, or a slight one, can accrue for the ancient cult of St. Lolanus. I have at hand a manuscript booklet On the undoubted Saints of Scotland, which Fr. Nicholas Wemyss, priest of the Society of Jesus, himself a Scot as I judge, wrote at Douai at the request of our Sollier, that he might recall to the anvil the sacred Scottish Calendars of Dempster and Camerarius; in which, passing over those two writers, he illustrated and corrected with his own observations the Calendar of the praised King.
[2] In this therefore at the present day of September he recites these things from the said Calendar: and at the 24th of this month; St. Lolanus bishop and confessor, under Duncan, in the year MXXXIV. Then he himself adds: I find no monstrous thing invented concerning this Saint; nor have I seen any writers except more recent ones, agreeing well enough among themselves. Following Dempster, Philippe Ferrari inserted him in his general Catalogue of the Saints on the same day in these words: In Scotland, of St. Lolanus the bishop. On the contrary David Camerarius, bk. 3 On the piety of the Scots, reckoned him at the twenty-fourth of the same month and celebrated him with the following eulogy: St. Lolanus, bishop and confessor, in great authority and favor with Duncan king of the Scots, whom he is reported to have helped both by counsel and by holy prayers with God, when the unbelieving king of the Danes attacked Scotland with a fleet and a land army, which was routed partly at Kinghorn (where monuments of the conquered Danes still survive), partly at the town of Culross. This Saint is held famous in the province of Stirling. Concerning him see King in his Calendar and others. Of this eulogy the discourse will recur below: meanwhile I wonder why St. Lolanus is referred by Camerarius to the twenty-fourth day, since he himself praises the Calendar of King, which, as we have seen, announces him on the twenty-second day, on which likewise he is read in another manuscript Calendar of ours, which a certain Bruno sent us long ago from Louvain.
[3] but on the earlier day he has an Office in the Breviary of Aberdeen, But wherever Camerarius learned that, it is certain that St. Lolanus was at least formerly honored in Scotland with an ecclesiastical Office on the twenty-second of September. So it is clear from the Breviary of Aberdeen, published in print in the year 1509, which we have transcribed. For in this, at the said day, an Office of St. Lolanus confessor and pontiff is prescribed, of which the first six proper Lessons contain his deeds, but the last three are on the exposition of the Gospel Homo quidam; and all the rest from the Common of one confessor and pontiff; except however the Prayer, which I subjoin here. Recounting, O Lord, the yearly solemnity of thy Saint Lolanus, grant us at his entreaty, our vices being laid low, to attain to the triumph of thy glory. Through our Lord &c. The Lessons of the Office I shall not reprint, because they are so fabulous that I greatly wonder that they were ever inserted into the Breviary of Aberdeen. But the author of that book has elsewhere too many foolish and fabulous things, as Wemyss praised above acknowledges, by whom however I judge that these lessons were not seen; since he says above that he found nothing monstrous invented concerning this Saint, and at the end of the same booklet affirms that one part of the Breviary of Aberdeen is wanting to him.
[4] and he is said to have been formerly honored in many places of Scotland, Concerning his cult Dempster in bk. XI of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish nation, num. 790, says besides: He is honored in churches erected to him in various places of the kingdom, on the twenty-second of September, Scottish Breviary. He had also premised in the same place that in Catholic times, until the introduction of heresy into Scotland, he shone with miracles. The continence of whose life, he says, frequent miracles proclaimed among the Scots, until the most wicked heresy that was brought in dared to banish the pious worship of God from that kingdom. Yet Dempster, often more liberal than is fair toward his own country at the cost of truth, could easily have used exaggeration here. Stirling, or Sterling, where Camerarius reported above that the Saint's cult was famous, is a province of Southern Scotland, whose chief town, from which it took its name, is Sterlinga or Sterlinium, commonly Strivelin and Sterlin-borrough, situated on the river Forth, which not far from thence, into a
estuary of its own name, otherwise also called the Bodotria, discharges itself. In the fabulous lessons of the Breviary of Aberdeen the Saint is said to have been buried in a place which is commonly called Planum; which place is altogether unknown to me, nor is anything added in them from which it might be allowable to conjecture in what part of Scotland at least this was situated.
[5] Concerning the name of the king under whom he lived there is agreement enough among the moderns; He seems to have lived before the middle of the eleventh century for all agree that he flourished under king Duncan. The words of Adam King from Wemyss, and of Camerarius, we gave at num. 2. Dempster in bk. XI of the Ecclesiastical History num. 790 says these things: St. Lolanus, an incomparable bishop… He was intimate with king Duncan, whose counsel in seizing the kingdom he did not approve, and whose end he often foretold. In the lessons cited above no mention is made of the king, but nevertheless this title is prefixed to them: The Life of St. Lolanus confessor and pontiff under king Duncan in the year MXXXIX. But I suspect that these are the words of the transcriber rather than of the Breviary itself. Concerning the time of his death also there is a discrepancy of a few years among the aforesaid writers. For Wemyss from King's Calendar, and Bruno in his manuscript Catalogue of the Saints of Scotland, mark the year 1034; but Dempster and the author of the Breviary of Aberdeen — or, as I said, its transcriber — the year 1039. But although these men agree about the name of king Duncan, yet that the same Duncan is not designated by Dempster and by Camerarius the eulogies which they wove for the Saint plainly teach. For Camerarius, when he ascribes Duncan's victory over the Danes to the counsels and prayers of St. Lolanus, designates Duncan I, the grandson of Malcolm II by his daughter; for by him Sueno king of the Danes, bursting into Scotland, is said to have been routed with a memorable slaughter. But Dempster no less clearly indicates Duncan II, the bastard of Malcolm III, when he says that St. Lolanus disapproved of his counsel in seizing the kingdom, and foretold to him his own end, unhappy of course; both of which fit Duncan II, since he, having expelled his uncle king Donald, seized the kingdom of Scotland, and after a brief rule was butchered by Macpender. Concerning both, Hector Boece in the History of the Scots, Leslie, and others may be consulted.
[6] under king Duncan I. His other deeds lie hidden. Further, the two writers just praised fix the beginning of Duncan I's reign in the year of Christ 1040, and his death in 1046; but Papebroch in the Annotations to the Propylaeum, on the Life of St. Margaret queen of Scotland, vol. 2 of June p. 325, assigned the year 1036 or 1040 for his death. The other Duncan, or the second of that name, belongs to the end of the same eleventh century. Hence gather that Dempster's assertions cannot be reconciled with the time of St. Lolanus's death, whether that which he himself or that which others determine, even if it be taken with a latitude of several years; but that on the contrary Camerarius's narration can easily be reconciled with it, and is therefore much more likely, if St. Lolanus flourished under some king Duncan and died about that time on which the aforesaid writers agree. The seat of his bishopric no one assigns, except the compiler of the fabulous lessons in the Breviary of Aberdeen, who says that it is commonly called Planum, a place unknown to me, as I noted above. His deeds lie utterly hidden, nor have I, any more than Wemyss praised above at num. 2, been able to find anything concerning him among the more ancient writers. But the things which are related of him in the Aberdeen lessons are so insipidly fabulous that I should prefer them erased from that Breviary rather than reprinted by me.
[7] He is numbered among the writers by Dempster. Dempster in his eulogy, bk. XI of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scots, numbers him also among the writers, and reckons up his Works in these words: He wrote Commentaries on the Bible, 1 book; On the Christian commonwealth, 1 book; Sacred Hymns, 1 book; On the inestimable effect of divine love, 1 book; A type of Christ's Passion, 1 book; On the mystery of the Incarnation, 1 book; which, in the library of Scone, the fury of the heretics dragged out and consumed with fire; yet a pious man rescued at least the records of their titles. So indeed Dempster; but since he has patched together many fables for the sake of his own country, let no one wonder if, for the ascribing of those little Works to St. Lolanus, whose titles he recites on the testimony of some anonymous writer or other, I require a better surety. I have no more to say concerning him.