ON ST. ADAMNAN, PRIEST AND ABBOT,
IN IONA, AN ISLAND OF SCOTLAND
In the year DCCIII or DCCIV.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Adamnan or Adomnan, priest and abbot, in Iona, an island of Scotland (S.)
BY C. S.
§ I. The Saint's name; his confusion with another, and his announcement on various days: an ecclesiastical Office on this day and his cult: his monastic life and prelacy in the monastery of Hy.
[ ] In the name of this holy Abbot of Hy some difference occurs among writers. The venerable Bede in the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, This Saint, his name being somewhat varied, both of the Cambridge edition and of the Paris one by Chifflet, calls him Adamnan or Adamnanus. In the same manner the Saint himself names himself both in the books On the Holy Places and in the Life of S. Columba, the first abbot of his own monastery, as it is published in our Work at the IX day of June. But Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of his own Order, Century III, part 2, page 499, using another copy, observes that he writes himself Adomnanus in the Life of the aforesaid S. Columba, as indeed it is read also in that which Heinrich Canisius published in print in tome 5 of the Ancient Readings from a manuscript of Windberg in Bavaria. Canisius also notes in the same place that in the Rebdorf codex too he is always called Adomnanus or Adamnanus. He is likewise called Adomnanus by Alcuin in a certain epigram to be recited below.
[2] On the contrary Johannes Trithemius in his books On Ecclesiastical Writers and confounded with another, on various days and On Illustrious Men of the Order of S. Benedict, Sixtus of Siena in the Bibliotheca sancta, and Antonio Possevino in the Apparatus called him Adamannus, in which manner also he is named by Thomas Dempster in the Menologium Scoticum and in the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, and by David Camerarius, and by others. Further from the truth went Baronius in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology at the IX day of June, in S. Columba, where he called him Adamandus, perhaps by a printer's fault; for in the Annals he rightly has Adamnanus. Further, the memory of this name is frequent in the sacred Calendars of Scotland; but not without confusion, partly because the same Saint is sometimes doubled, partly because by some he is confounded with a holy presbyter of the same name, a monk in the monastery of Coludi or Coldingham in Scotland, whose eulogy has been given among us from Bede at the XXXI day of January, and whom our Baert also observed, in the preliminary Commentary to the more prolix Life of S. Columba, §1, must be distinguished from the abbot of Hy, against Dempster and others. Dempster in the Menologium Scoticum at the said day reviews both in these words: At Coludi, of Adamannus the abbot (rather the monk). In the island of Hy, of Adamannus the abbot. Then at the XXII of September: At Melrose, he says, of Adamnan the abbot, bishop of the Scots and apostle of Northumbria, in which office he preceded S. Aidan. At last at the XXIII day of the same month he again says: In the island of Hy, of Adamannus the abbot.
[3] David Camerarius, book 3 On the Piety of the Scots, and in various months in the Martyrologies at the XXIII day of January says of the same: S. Adamannus, tutor of Eugenius VI, king of the Scots, counselor of the treaty with Brude, king of the Picts. Then at the XXVII of the same month: On this same day S. Adamannus, abbot of Coludi. And again on the XXXI day: S. Adamannus, abbot of Hy, of whom he then weaves a eulogy. Finally on the XXV day of September: S. Adamannus the bishop, apostle of the Northumbrians. In these things Dempster rightly indeed reviewed Adamannus, or Adamnan, at the XXXI of January, but wrongly called him abbot, as Camerarius also did, announcing him at the XXVII day of the same month. Rightly too both distinguished Adamnan of Coldingham from him of Hy; but where they found the latter entered on the XXXI day of January I do not know. For although Dempster by the letter B. appended designates the Scottish Breviary, chiefly that of Aberdeen, yet in this I find nothing about him at this day; nor is any other Scottish one at hand for me which I might consult. The Adamannus reported by Camerarius on the XXIII day of January is not other than S. Adamnan of Hy, as has been said in the Prætermissi there, or if he were another, he has no cult.
[4] he is inscribed; Nor likewise is that Adamannus another whom Camerarius announces at the XXV day, and Dempster at the XXII of September, and whom they wrongly make a bishop and apostle of Northumbria. Indeed this is plain even from Dempster himself, who in the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, book 1, number 15, makes the same man also the tutor of King Eugenius VI, and adds that by others it is asserted that he was only abbot of Hy, and then cites the venerable Bede,
whose honorable words about this same holy Abbot of ours we shall recite below. Their other assertions about S. Adamnan we shall likewise briefly examine in their place. Out of one Adamnan, whom he called Adamannus, Johannes Trithemius also made two (or at least mentioned the same man twice as though a different one) in his Work On Illustrious Men of the Order of S. Benedict, making both, however, abbot of the monastery of Hy, but placing it once in Ireland. Of the former he treats in book 2, chapter 17, where without the title of Saint he is called Adamannus, presbyter and abbot of the island of Hy of the Scots, and is said to have flourished in the year of the Lord DCXC. The other, in book 3, chapter 153, is in the title called Saint, and is said to have been abbot of the monastery which B. Columbanus formerly founded in the island of Hy in Hibernia, and to have flourished in the year of the Lord DCC. Nevertheless what he narrates in both places makes manifest that in both the same holy Abbot of Hy is recorded.
[5] but he is venerated on this day, Henry Fitzsimon, a presbyter of the Society of Jesus, also did not sufficiently distinguish the two in his Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland, published in print in the years 1611 and 1615, and afterward again enlarged and reprinted. For in the alphabetical index there a single S. Adomnan the abbot is read, whom he observes to be venerated on the XXXI day of January, and, according to the English Martyrology, on the 2nd day of September. Then at the XXXI day of January is read: S. Adomnanus, but at the 2nd day of September: S. Adaman. The same things may be read in the Catalogue after both were enlarged and reprinted by him; but in this at the XXII day of September there is repeated again: Adamannus. Greven in the supplements to Usuard in our Sollier likewise announced two on one and the same day, the XXIII of September, speaking thus: Of Adamnan the bishop; and again after other things: Of Adumianus the abbot; who is no other than S. Adamnan, abbot of Hy, to whom in the first place the episcopal Order was ascribed by error. Better did Molanus in the same place review a single one on the same day in these words: In Scotland, in the monastery of Hy, of holy Adamannus, abbot and confessor of the same place, famous for sanctity and doctrine, of whom Bede, book V, chapters XVI and XXII. A single one also Filippo Ferrari in the General Catalogue of Saints, but on three days in all, namely at the XXXI of January and at the 2nd and the XXIII of September, announced in the same words everywhere, which I subjoin: In Scotland, of S. Adamannus, abbot of Hy. Gabriel Bucelin in the Menologium Benedictinum entered the same at the VIII day of April, John Wilson in the English Martyrology, in both editions, at the 2nd of September, at which days mention has been made of him in our Work among the Prætermissi. Arnold Wion set him, after book 3 of the Lignum Vitæ, in an Appendix of Saints whose birthday or day of cult he had not found, in which matter he had Hugh Ménard in the Martyrologium Benedictinum as an imitator. But the author of the German Martyrology, which is commonly called that of Canisius, celebrates his memory at the XXIII day of September. Castellan in the Universal Martyrology agrees, but calls him only venerable.
[6] Nevertheless Castellan could safely have agreed with the other martyrologists who recorded him with the title of Saint on the XXIII day of September, on which he has an Office in the Breviary of Aberdeen, if he had known the certain indications of cult which I shall presently bring forward. The Breviary of Aberdeen, published in print in the year 1509, a manuscript copy of which we have in our Museum, exhibits at this XXIII day of September an ecclesiastical Office of him of nine Lessons, of which the first three and the last three are proper to S. Adamnan, the middle three of S. Thecla, virgin and martyr; but all the rest, except the Prayer, is taken from the Common of one confessor and abbot. The month of September is set down for the celebration of the Office, but the day is omitted, perhaps by the carelessness of the copyist; that it is nevertheless the XXIII, the inserted Lessons about S. Thecla manifestly betray. The Prayer which is there prescribed is this: O God, who hast gladdened the present day by the honor of blessed Adamannus (in the Lessons it is written Adampnanus) thy confessor and abbot, grant us, we beseech thee, by his intercession and merits to rejoice in everlasting glory before the sight of thy divine Majesty. Through our Lord etc. In the aforesaid manuscript copy of the same Breviary it is read noted that he is patron at Furm in the diocese of Aberdeen, which words, whether they be the author's or our copyist's, signify a cult of the Saint, and indeed a particular one.
[7] Other places of the same cult John Colgan, an Irish Franciscan at Louvain in our Belgium, and his cult in various places: he is praised by the ancients. thus records in Appendix 4 to the Life of S. Columba: He is venerated on the XXIII day of September in the churches of Hy, of Raphoe, of Dunboe, of Drumhome in Ulster, and of Screen in Connaught, according to S. Ængus, Marianus, Gorman, the Martyrology of Tallaght, the Martyrology of Donegal and Maguire. Thus Colgan. Alcuin celebrated the same among the more distinguished Saints of Scotland in an epigram in Mabillon, Benedictine Century III, part 2, from which I transcribe the following.
Patrick, Ciaran, the glory of the Scottish race, And Columbanus, Congall, and Adomnan, Illustrious fathers, masters of manners and of life. Here may the piety of these help us all by their prayers.
But Mabillon in the same place suspects that this, like nearly the rest of Alcuin's epigrams of that kind, was the inscription of some altar, and adds that S. Adamnan is certainly venerated in the Calendars of his own Order on the IX Kalends of October. He is also much praised by various writers, among whom two contemporary with him are eminent, namely S. Ceolfrid, abbot of Wearmouth in England, and his holy disciple the venerable Bede, whose testimonies we shall give below. Meanwhile, however, it will be well to have observed that Adamnan is named by S. Ceolfrid among those whom he confidently professed to have been Saints and worthy of God.
[8] [His deeds, other fabulous things being rejected, must be taken from Bede: whether anything about him] As concerns his Acts, we have no others than those which are read in the Lessons of his Office in the above-mentioned Breviary of Aberdeen, and those which besides these may be read in the aforesaid Bede: nor did Mabillon find others than from Bede, if you except the Life of S. Columba and the books On the Holy Places written by him, in his eulogy, in the place cited above. But the compiler of the said Office, omitting those things which it is established from Bede were excellently done by him for the Catholic observance of Easter, substituted fables so manifest that it is irksome even to refute them: wherefore, passing these over, I shall record only those things which I have ascertained from more certain records, and which deservedly make me grieve that no contemporary or nearly contemporary writer composed his Life. Mabillon in his eulogy observes that he is reported in book 1 of the Life of S. Columba to have related certain things about himself foretold by that holy abbot; and so indeed some report, among whom the fable-making compiler of the Breviary of Aberdeen says that S. Columba divinely prophesied about his birth, his manners and his life long before he was born.
[9] S. Columba foretold. The Saint was a monk But I have found nothing of the kind in that Life which is to be referred to S. Adamnan, unless perhaps, because he labored much for the canonical time of celebrating Easter toward the end of his life, there pertain to him in some measure the things which are read in book 1, chapter 2, number 8, according to our division, in these words: But he (S. Columba) also prophesied many other things in those same days in which he was lodging in the monastery of Clonmacnoise (in Ireland), the holy Spirit revealing them, that is, about that discord which after many days arose among the churches of Scotland on account of the difference of the Paschal feast. Nothing more on this subject do I find in the first Life of the same Columba, likewise published among us. Colgan in Appendix 3 to the Life of S. Columba, among the prophecies which he judges can more certainly be attributed to this Saint, cites one also about S. Adamnan, but what it comprises he does not teach. That our S. Adamnan was a monk and abbot of the monastery of Hy is undoubted both from the Saint himself and from S. Bede's History of the English Nation, and about this matter all agree. This most celebrated monastery, the head [a] of many others in Ireland and Britain, situated in Iona, an island of Scotland, acknowledges as founder and first abbot S. Columbanus, to whom the Picts gave it in the VI century, as Bede witnesses, from whom also that same island is called Columb-kil, that is, Columba's-cell. The preliminary Commentary to the first Life of that Saint at the IX day of June may be consulted, where, since more has been set down about it, I refer the studious reader thither.
[10] At what time S. Adamnan first came to this monastery in the monastery of Hy, not however under S. Columba: some other is not ascertained: for what is said in the aforesaid Breviary of Aberdeen, that he was there admitted to the religious life by the holy founder Columba, is convicted of manifest error from Adamnan himself, who in the Life of S. Columba everywhere signifies that he never lived with him. This is also sufficiently established from the age of both, since S. Columba departed from life at the end of the VI century, but holy Adamnan at the beginning of the VIII, nor is so decrepit an age for the latter likely from labors undertaken even to his death, or otherwise. In the same Breviary it is subjoined about the Saint in the same place: Afterward, according to the precept of his abbot, he came to the abbey of Lismore; which, if by abbot S. Columba too be designated, is likewise false, both because of what has just been said, and because the monastery of Lismore in Munster, a province of Ireland, was not founded except about the year of Christ 630 by S. Carthach or Mochuda, as has been said in the Acts of that same holy bishop and abbot of Lismore in our Work at the XIV day of May: but at that time S. Columba had, from what has been said, long since died. And so, if S. Adamnan was sent to the aforesaid monastery, it must have happened under another abbot; but the credit of the Breviary's author is deservedly suspect to me on account of its manifest fables.
[11] No more can I affirm the things which Camerarius above at number 3, Hector Boece in the History of the Scots, book 9, John Leslie, book 3 On the Deeds of the Scots, and others write about the instruction of Eugenius VI, king of the Scots, by S. Adamnan. assertions about him are rejected. And the age of both agrees indeed; but since the same writers will have it that Adamnan, the tutor of the said king, was a bishop, they either designated another than ours, or wrongly ascribed the episcopal Order to him. Of the embassies which they will have it that the Saint undertook under the same king we shall treat more fitly below. For the same cause there cannot be admitted the things which Dempster and Camerarius say about Adamnan's episcopate and apostolate among the Northumbrians, of whom the former besides adds that S. Aidan succeeded him in this office. These things, I say, cannot be admitted; but must be relegated among fables. For no S. Adamnan is read to have lived about those times except the abbot
our abbot of Hy, and the monk-presbyter of Coldingham, neither of whom was a bishop. Nor could S. Aidan, namely the bishop of Lindisfarne, have succeeded ours in the apostolate of Northumbria, since he was consecrated bishop and sent into Northumbria from about the year 634 or 635. Consult his historical Commentary at the XXXI day of August, §2. Now let us turn ourselves to more certain matters.
[12] That S. Adamnan succeeded Failbe in the prelacy of the monastery of Hy He was abbot of Hy, succeeding Failbe is agreed among all, and the Saint himself in the Life of S. Columba, according to our division, at numbers 3 and 8, signified this clearly enough, when he called Failbe his abbot and predecessor. In the former place, speaking of a certain prophecy of S. Columba, he says thus: This narrative my predecessor, our abbot Failbe, related to me, Adamnan, without hesitation. But at number 8, of another prophecy of the same, he says: All these above-written words (Erneneus) had related to abbot Segine as prophesied about himself, my predecessor Failbe listening attentively. But that by predecessor here his immediate predecessor is designated is gathered from this, that in commemorating other abbots of his monastery here and there he does not use that word. Although all agree upon this matter, yet not all reckon S. Adamnan by the same number in the series of abbots. I do not know whether Mabillon in this Saint's eulogy wished to enumerate all his predecessors, when he says in that place: After Columba … Baithene ruled the place, Sigeneus, by others Segienus or Segenus, and Failbe, whom Adamnan succeeded… Columba called Baithene his successor in the last period of his life, which happened in the year DXCVIII (elsewhere DXCVII). Segienus was substituted for Baithene from the year DCXXII to DCLII, as Ussher proves from the Annals of Ulster in the Sylloge of Irish epistles.
[13] in the eighth or perhaps the ninth place According to these things S. Adamnan would have been the fifth of the abbots of Hy, and Failbe would have succeeded Baithene, both of which are certainly false, nor is either affirmed by Ussher. For he in his annotations on the epistle of Cummian to Segienus, which among the Irish ones is the eleventh, says indeed: That Segienus was abbot of the island of Hy of S. Columba from the year DCXXII to DCLII we have learned from the Annals of Ulster; but he does not say that the same man was substituted for Baithene. Nay rather he plainly asserts the contrary in the Antiquities of the British Churches, page 701 and the following, where from the same Annals he exhibits this series of the abbots of Hy: 1 Columba, 2 Baithene, 3 Fernanus, 4 Segenius, 5 Suibneus, 6 Cummineus Albus, 7 Failbe, 8 Adamnan. Add that S. Baithene did not reach the year 622, but at the most 601, as has been proved in his Acts at the IX day of June. John Colgan, tome 2 of the Saints of Ireland, in Appendix 5 to the Lives of S. Columba, §4, weaving a chronology of that monastery, placed S. Adamnan in the ninth place from the Four Masters; but in the tenth doubtfully, namely if S. Colman, as is read in the Life of S. Gerald, abbot and bishop of Mayo, ever presided over the monastery of Hy.
[14] after the founder S. Columba But the first part of this Life, in which this is read, has been rejected as fabulous in the historical Synopsis of that same S. Gerald, §1, at the XIII day of March. Of S. Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, we have treated among us also on the XVIII day of February, where in the historical Commentary, §1, it was denied that he ever presided as abbot over the men of Hy. Nay, Colgan himself acknowledges that it is false which S. Gerald's biographer says, that Colman succeeded S. Columba. Whether Lasrenus is to be inserted into the catalogue of those same abbots between S. Baithene and Fergnanus, as Colgan does from the Four Masters, I should not dare to affirm; but if he presided over the men of Hy, he must certainly be said to have presided for a very short time. As to the rest there is less difficulty. Of S. Baithene, the successor of S. Columba, it is established from what has been said. Fergnanus Ussher and Colgan deservedly hold to be the same as Virgnous, who by Adamnan in the Life of S. Columba among us, at number 95, is called abbot. Of the abbot Segenius our Saint also speaks in the same place, both in the passage related at number 12, and at numbers 3 and 43 of the Life; of Suibneus I have ascertained nothing further. Cummineus Albus occurs in the same Life at number 8, where he is said to have written the deeds of S. Columba. Of Failbe there is, as I have said, no doubt. In the eighth place therefore, or at least in the ninth after S. Columba the founder, S. Adamnan must be said to have ruled the monastery of Hy as abbot.
[15] in the year 677 or 679, and indeed the first Further, the death of Failbe Colgan, according to the opinion of the Four Masters, tied to the year of Christ 677, but Ussher, from the Annals of Ulster, to the year 679; which is the more correct I do not know: yet nothing stands in the way of believing that in one or the other year he himself died and S. Adamnan succeeded him. But that the reader may know of how great a burden and of how great a dignity that prelacy was, and that light may shine upon what is to be said, it is necessary that we here transcribe some things, though already said elsewhere in our Work, from the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation of the venerable Bede. In book 3, chapter 4, after narrating the foundation of the monastery of Hy by S. Columba, he thus proceeds concerning its primacy among many other monasteries: But he (S. Columba) had made, before he came to Britain, a noble monastery in Ireland, which from the abundance of oaks is called in the tongue of the Scots Dearmach, that is, the Field of oaks. From each of which monasteries (namely of Durrow and of Hy) very many monasteries were thereafter propagated by his disciples in Britain and in Ireland, in all of which that island monastery (of Hy), in which he himself rests in body, holds the principate.
[16] But that island is wont always to have as its ruler an abbot who is a presbyter, to whose jurisdiction both the whole province and even the bishops themselves, by an unusual order, ought to be subject, and the head of the Columban monasteries after the example of their first teacher (S. Columba), who was not a bishop, but a presbyter and a monk. He had also premised in the same place, chapter 3, treating of S. Aidan, taken from the same monastery to the bishopric of Lindisfarne: Aidan himself was a monk, as being sent from the island which is called Hy; whose monastery for no small time held the citadel among nearly all the monasteries of the Northern Scots and of all the Picts, and presided over the governing of their peoples. Hence we learn what the Annals of Ulster mean, when from them Ussher in the chronological Index to the Antiquities of the British Churches, at the year of Christ 692, writes that Adomnan went to Ireland in the fourteenth year after the repose of Failbe; namely, as he himself observes in the same place, that he might visit the Columban cells subject to his own monastery of Hy. Again at the year 697 from the same Annals he says that the Saint went again into Ireland seven years before his death.
[17] To that former journey he judges to pertain what is read in the Life of the above-praised S. Gerald in this manner: in Britain and Ireland, which he visited. The holy abbot Adamnan after the visitation of all Ireland went to S. Gerald, that he might contract a fraternal fellowship with him. To whom S. Gerald granted an estate with a clear spring, and commended to him his own church, that after his death he should defend it from the persecution of laymen: which S. Adamnan also promised he would fulfill, and fulfilled in deed. Our Papebroch agrees in the historical Synopsis of S. Gerald, §2, assigning as the cause of this commendation that Adamnan was head of the whole Order. To the second Irish journey Ussher likewise refers what is read again in the same Life in these words: But after his (S. Gerald's) death S. Adomnan ruled the church of Mayo indefatigably for seven years; instructing the cloistered in perfect charity, causing volumes to be written, and with his own hand writing a book of the Four Gospels, making bells also for the reverence of the church. Thence he went to the abbey of Iona, and there happily died and was buried. But these last things suffer difficulty from the age of S. Gerald wrongly assigned by some, unless you correct it with the aforesaid Papebroch in the same place, §2. But even so it is not likely enough that S. Adamnan, leaving the monastery of Hy, ruled that of Mayo for seven years. Perhaps a not very accurate biographer interpreted his singular care for this monastery after S. Gerald's death as his presence there. See also Papebroch in the same place.
§ II. The embassies undertaken by him to Aldfrid, king of Northumbria: the Roman observance of Easter received by him and preached to others; but not the tonsure, nor the Benedictine Rule: his writings, the time of his death, and a twofold translation.
[ ] After the irruption of Ecfrid, king of Northumbria, into Ireland S. Adamnan was already presiding over the monastery of Hy when he discharged an embassy with Aldfrid, king of Northumbria. The Saint himself in the Life of S. Columba, number 82, thus makes mention of his twofold journey to the said king: But we give frequent thanks to God, who both in these our islands, our venerable patron (S. Columba) praying for us, defended us from the invasions of mortal sicknesses, and, when we visited in Saxony (that is, in Northumbria) our friend king Aldfrid, the pestilence still not ceasing and devastating many villages here and there; yet so did the Lord free us from peril, both in the first visitation after the war of Ecfrid, and in the second, two years intervening, as we walked in the midst of such mortality, that not even one of our companions died, nor was any of them troubled by any disease. That we may shed light upon these things, some matters must here be observed. The venerable Bede, book 4 of the History, chapter 26, has these words about the war of Ecfrid, king of Northumbria: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCLXXXIV Ecgfrid, king of the Northumbrians, having sent into Ireland an army with the general Berct, miserably laid waste a harmless people and one always most friendly to the nation of the English, so that the hostile hand spared not even churches or monasteries.
[19] But the islanders, both so far as they were able repelled arms with arms, and, invoking the help of the divine mercy, demanded with continual imprecations for a long time that they should be avenged from heaven. and the Saint approaches Aldfrid his successor on that same occasion And although revilers cannot possess the kingdom of God, yet it was believed that those who were deservedly reviled for their impiety, the Lord being avenger, more speedily paid the penalties of their guilt. Since indeed in the year next after this the same king, when he had rashly led an army to lay waste the province of the Picts, his friends greatly forbidding it, and especially Cuthbert of blessed memory, who had lately been ordained bishop, was led (the enemy feigning flight) into the straits of inaccessible mountains, and was destroyed with the greatest part of the forces which he had brought with him, in the fortieth year of his age, but the fifteenth of his reign, on the XIII day of the Kalends of June. Further, using this occasion, as he adds in the same place, the Picts
recovered the land of their possession which the English held, and the Scots who were in Britain, and some part of the Britons, recovered the liberty which they have to this day for about forty-six years. Then of Ecfrid's successor he subjoins: But Alfrid succeeded Ecgfrid in the kingdom, a man most learned in the Scriptures, who was said to be his brother and the son of king Oswy, and he nobly recovered the ruined state of the kingdom, though within narrower bounds. Thus far Bede, who begins Alfrid's reign from this year 685, and in book 5, chapter 19, ends it in the year 705.
[20] That at the same time in which these things were being done a dire plague raged, to demand back the captives and the plunder, the Four Masters teach in their Annals in Colgan, in the Notes on the 4th Life of S. Columba, book 2, chapter 46, where at the year of Christ 684 they say thus: A monstrous pestilence lasting three years, in all regions animals of every kind die, so that scarcely one out of a thousand escaped. Florence of Worcester makes mention of the same pestilence first at the year 685, saying: A great storm of pestilence, seizing Britain, laid it waste with widespread slaughter. From these things it is manifestly plain that both journeys of S. Adamnan to king Aldfrid, which he himself sets after the war of Ecfrid, the pestilence having arisen and lasting, happened in the years 685 and 687, or at least about then. Further, the Four Masters in the aforesaid Colgan refer the Saint's embassy to the same year 684, and thus set forth the cause of the embassy: In the year of Christ DCLXXXIV, the eleventh of Finnachta king (of Ireland), S. Adamnan being sent as legate came to the Saxons, to demand back the plunder and the captives which the Northern Saxons (the Northumbrians) had carried off from the above-mentioned region of Bregia (in Ireland); and being honorably received by them, and certain signs and miracles having been wrought in their presence, he obtained all that he asked.
[21] There is no doubt that these annalists here treat of the Saint's embassy to Aldfrid, king of Northumbria; and to establish peace, which he is believed but in this they err, that they refer it to the year of Christ 684, in which Ecfrid was still reigning, who, not until the year 685 being slain in war, had Aldfrid as successor. But this error arose from another, namely that the same men in the aforesaid Colgan, in the Notes on book 2 of the 4th Life of S. Columba, wrongly, as Colgan himself acknowledges, tied Ecfrid's hostile irruption into Ireland to the year 683. Nor indeed is it likely that S. Adamnan was sent as legate to Ecfrid to demand back the plunder and the captives, and obtained what he asked; for Bede would not have kept silence about this, who, no mention being made of restitution, affirmed that it was believed that Ecfrid paid the penalties of his iniquity by the slaughter of his army and by his own death. The years being corrected in this way, it is altogether likely that S. Adamnan discharged his first embassy with Aldfrid in the year 685, both to demand back what had been taken away, and to conciliate peace, from which that he himself was not averse Bede, related at number 19, sufficiently implies; and that he should not be averse, the state of his new kingdom, greatly shaken by the recent slaughter of the army, admonished him. Nor do I think that Alfrid was expressly called a friendly king by our Saint above at number 18 for any other cause than that he, after Ecfrid's slaughter, in the very beginning of his reign turned his mind to peace.
[22] Further, although the island of Hy did not belong to Ireland, [to have happily obtained: he approaches him a second time, for a cause unknown to us.] the holy Abbot could nevertheless easily be sent as legate by king Finnachta; either because he was staying in Ireland at the time of Ecfrid's irruption, occupied in visiting his own monasteries, of which he had many there; or because, stirred by the common disaster, he had betaken himself thither, that he might himself learn in person about their state. And it is the more likely for this reason too that this embassy was both committed to him by king Finnachta and willingly undertaken by him, because he was of great authority, and because his monasteries perhaps had no small share in that disaster. And let these things suffice about the Saint's first embassy to king Aldfrid; but what was the cause of his second journey to the same, which happened two years afterward, I have not ascertained. I do not know either whether, and what, the holy Abbot did for the conciliating of a treaty between Eugenius VI, king of the Scots, and Brude, king of the Picts, as Camerarius asserted above at number 3. Hector Boece, book 9 of the History of the Scots, writes that Eugenius, at the persuasion of SS. Adamnan and Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, entered into peace with the Northumbrians, but that he could never be induced by them to enter into it with the Picts. He adds that the same Saints, after frequent embassies to and fro, when they saw that they were accomplishing nothing, had recourse to divine help by proclaiming and holding public supplications, and that it is said to have been obtained by them from God that, while that war lasted, the Scots never engaged with the Picts with their whole forces. But let these things be reported only on their own credit.
[23] The old error of the Scots The venerable Bede, book 5 of the History, chapter 16, likewise makes mention of some embassy of S. Adamnan to the same Aldfrid, in which he was happily brought to lay aside the old error of the Scots about the time of celebrating Easter, and to embrace the observance of the Roman Church, and strenuously to persuade others of it even to his death. But that the reader may understand these things more rightly, it will be well to have heard the aforesaid Bede speaking upon this matter. In book 3 of the History, chapter 4, he says these things of S. Columba's successors in Hy and in the other monasteries subject to it: He left successors distinguished for great continence and divine love, and for Regular institution; following indeed doubtful cycles in the time of the highest festival, inasmuch as no one had brought to them, placed far off, the synodal decrees of the Paschal observance, diligently observing only those works of piety and chastity which they could learn in the Prophetic, Evangelical and Apostolic writings. But this kind of Paschal observance remained among them for no short time, that is, until the year of the Lord's Incarnation seven hundred and sixteenth, for a hundred and fifty years.
[24] about the day on which Easter is to be celebrated, But then, when the most reverend and most holy father and priest Egbert came to them, … they were corrected by him, and brought over to the true and canonical day of Easter; which nevertheless even before they did not always celebrate on the fourteenth moon with the Jews (as some thought), but on a certain Sunday, yet in another week than was fitting. For they knew (as Christians) that the Lord's resurrection, which took place on the first day of the week, must always be celebrated on the first day of the week; but, as barbarians and rustics, they had by no means learned when that same first day of the week, which is now called the Lord's day, came. But, because they did not cease to be fervent in the grace of charity, they deserved also to receive the knowledge of this matter perfectly, according to the promise of the Apostle, saying: And if in anything you be otherwise minded, this also God will reveal to you. Thus far Bede, so praising the praiseworthy life of the Columban monks that he at the same time refutes the old error, and distinguishes it from the Quartodeciman heretics, and, as far as he can, excuses it. Whoever wishes more about this controversy, let him go to the historical Commentary on S. Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, §2, tome III of February at the XVIII day, and at the IX of June the preliminary Commentary to the 2nd Life of S. Columba, §2, where, since more has been said about its beginning, progress and end, I here add nothing further.
[25] The Saint, sent as legate to the same king, lays it aside, But although S. Adamnan is to be numbered among those monks of Hy who died before the coming of S. Egbert, that is, before the year of Christ 716, yet he is not to be reckoned among those who persevered to their death in the aforesaid error about Easter. For Bede expressly hands down the contrary, book 5 of the History, chapter 16, where he commemorates not only his coming over to the Catholic celebration of Easter, but also his strenuous labors for persuading others of the same, and those not without great fruit, as I intimated above. Receive his words, which make much for the commendation of the holy Abbot. At which time, he says, the greatest part of the Scots in Ireland, and some also of the Britons in Britain, by the Lord's gift received the reasonable and ecclesiastical time of the Paschal observance. Since indeed Adamnan, presbyter and abbot of the monks who were in the island of Hy, when he had come for the sake of an embassy, sent by his own nation, to Aldfrid king of the English, and, staying for some while in that province, saw the canonical rites of the Church; and moreover was skillfully admonished by several who were more learned, that he should not presume, with his very few and set in the farthest corner of the world, to live against the universal custom of the Church, either in the Paschal observance or in any other decrees, he was changed in mind, so that he most willingly preferred what he had seen and heard in the churches of the English to his own custom and that of his people.
[26] For he was a good and wise man, and most nobly instructed in the knowledge of the Scriptures; and brings back many others, his own subjects resisting, who, when he had returned home, took care to lead his own men who were in Hy, and those who were subject to that monastery, to the path of truth which he had learned and which he himself had received with his whole heart; and he could not prevail. He sailed therefore to Ireland, and, preaching to them and declaring with modest exhortation the lawful time of Easter, he brought back very many of them, and nearly all who were free from the dominion of the men of Hy, corrected from their ancestral error, to Catholic unity, and taught them thoroughly to observe the lawful time of Easter. Who, when, the canonical Easter having been celebrated in Ireland, he had returned to his own island, and was most insistently preaching to his own monastery the Catholic observance of the Paschal time, and yet could not accomplish what he was attempting, it befell that he departed from the world before the circle of the year was completed: the divine grace assuredly so disposing, that a Man most zealous for unity and peace should be carried off to eternal Life before he should be compelled, at the return of the Paschal season, to have a graver discord with those who would not follow him to the truth.
[27] Of the same embassy of the Saint to king Aldfrid and of his coming over to the canonical time of Easter S. Ceolfrid, abbot of Wearmouth, likewise makes mention with praise in the epistle to the Catholic observance of Easter: which he wrote to Naitan, king of the Picts, and which the aforesaid Bede recounted in book 5, chapter 22, of his History. Part of this epistle we shall recite below; but meanwhile I subjoin from it a few things which pertain hither. These things then, he says, I said to Adamnan (namely when, as legate to king Aldfrid, he had turned aside to the monastery of Wearmouth, as he premised), who indeed, having beheld the statutes of our churches, proved how much he had profited, when, having returned to Scotland, he afterward corrected many crowds of that same people to the Catholic observance of the Paschal time by his preaching; although he could not bring back to the way of the better statute those monks who dwelt in the island of Hy, over whom he presided by a special right as ruler.
[28] As concerns the time of these matters, we said above from Bede this embassy must be distinguished from the earlier ones. that Aldfrid reigned from the year of Christ 685 to 705, and therefore there is no doubt that they happened within these limits. We have seen also that S. Adamnan set out to the aforesaid king about the year 685 and again two years afterward; whence anyone may suspect that what we have just recited from Bede must be referred to one of these journeys. And so indeed I too should judge, did not the time of the Saint's death stand in the way, which cannot easily be reconciled with the sayings of the same Bede. For the Four Masters in Colgan fix S. Adamnan's death in the year of Christ 703, but Ussher from the Annals of Ulster in the year 704. But indeed Bede not obscurely signifies that the holy Abbot, being taught of his error at the time of his embassy, betook himself to the island of Hy, that he might take care that the Catholic observance of Easter be received in it; and when he was not listened to there by his own men, that he set out for Ireland and preached with happier outcome, and, after Easter had been celebrated there at the canonical time, having at last returned to the men of Hy, died before the Paschal season came round again; so that only a single Easter seems to have intervened between his embassy and his death. But at least sixteen years would have intervened, if these things were to be referred to the year 685 or 687. Wherefore it is altogether likely that S. Adamnan discharged yet another embassy to king Aldfrid, when he laid aside his error about the Paschal time.
[29] He wore the Scottish crown or tonsure, In the same embassy S. Adamnan had also another dispute with the aforesaid S. Ceolfrid, namely about the crown or tonsure of the head, in which the Scots differed from the Roman clerics and monks, and which, although it was of lighter moment, nevertheless more than once gave occasion for dissensions, some contending that the one which the Scots formed was Simon Magus's, but their own S. Peter's. Among these was Ceolfrid, who in the above-praised epistle to king Naitan, having first premised that the difference of tonsure does not harm those who have a pure faith toward God and charity toward their neighbor, nevertheless urges him to take care that the crown which he calls S. Peter's be adopted by all. But the Scottish one he thus describes: In appearance on the surface of the forehead indeed it seems to present the likeness of a crown; but when in considering it you come to the neck, you will find that crown, which you thought you saw, cut short. Thus Ceolfrid, which Mabillon in the Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century explained thus: Namely, from ear to ear across the forehead the hair was cut into a crown, from ear to ear across the back of the head the hair hung down unshorn. These things being premised, I subjoin from the cited epistle what controversy Ceolfrid had with S. Adamnan upon this matter.
[30] which Ceolfrid strove to persuade him to change into the Roman, But do not think that I have pursued these things as though I judged that those who have this tonsure must be condemned, if in faith and works they favor Catholic unity; (says Ceolfrid to king Naitan) nay, I confidently profess that very many of them were holy and worthy of God; among whom is Adamnan, the excellent abbot and priest of the Columbans; who, when, sent as legate of his own nation to Aldfrid king of the English, he had wished also to see our monastery, and showed a wonderful prudence, humility and religion in his manners and words, I said to him among other things in conversation: I beseech thee, holy Brother, who believest that thou art striving toward the crown of life which knows no end, why in a habit contrary to thy faith dost thou bear on thy head the image of a crown that is bounded? And, if thou seekest the fellowship of blessed Peter, why dost thou imitate the image of that tonsure which he anathematized? and dost thou not rather show that even now, so far as thou canst, thou lovest the habit of him with whom thou desirest to live blessed for ever? He answered: Know for certain, my beloved brother, that, although I have the tonsure of Simon by the custom of my country, yet I detest and spurn with my whole mind the Simoniacal perfidy; but I desire, so far as my littleness suffices, to follow the footsteps of the most blessed Prince of the Apostles.
[31] Ceolfrid, abbot of Wearmouth. But I said: I believe truly that it is so; but yet let it be a token that you embrace in the secret of the heart the things which are the apostle Peter's, if you hold also in your face what you know to be his. For I think that thy prudence can most easily judge that it is much more fitting that the habit of countenance of him whom thou abominatest with thy whole heart, and whose horrible face thou shrinkest from seeing, should be separated from thy countenance, now dedicated to God; and on the other hand that, as thou desirest to follow the deeds and admonitions of him whom thou seekest to have as patron with God, so also it should beseem thee to imitate the manner of his habit. These things then I said to Adamnan; who indeed, having beheld the statutes of our churches, proved how much he had profited, when, having returned to Scotland, he afterward corrected many crowds of that same people to the Catholic observance of the Paschal time by his preaching; although he could not bring back to the way of the better statute those monks who dwelt in the island of Hy, over whom he presided by a special right as ruler. He would have remembered to amend the tonsure also, if only he had had authority enough.
[32] Mabillon from this epistle holds that S. Adamnan, who up to that time had professed the Rule of S. Columba, Mabillon wishes in vain from this to have it believed then embraced the Benedictine. From those two passages (of Bede and of Ceolfrid), he says, we understand first that Adamnan was brought over to the Roman rites by the exhortation of Ceolfrid (as I was just saying); then that he stayed for some while in the monastery of Wearmouth, where he drew in the manners of the Benedictine Rule which was there observed, and received it together with the Roman rites. For such was the custom of those times among monks, that those who, the tonsure of the Scots being cast off, received the Roman one together with the lawful observance of Easter, conformed themselves to the Benedictine institutions. Witnesses of this matter are the monks of Lindisfarne in the island of Britain, of Landévennec in Armorica, of Luxeuil in Gaul. At what time or on what occasion those three monasteries admitted the Benedictine Rule I do not here inquire; but even if it be granted that it was so done in them, as Mabillon will have it, it does not therefore follow that S. Adamnan too did this.
[33] For first indeed, that Mabillon might prove anything from their example, that our Saint received the Roman tonsure it had first to be proved that S. Adamnan received the Roman tonsure together with the canonical Paschal observance, which neither Bede nor Ceolfrid asserted. Nay rather, from the latter's context the contrary seems rather to be drawn out. For Ceolfrid, to show that the Scottish tonsure does not harm those who have a pure faith toward God and charity toward their neighbor, mentions him in the first place among those whom, though marked with that tonsure, he confidently professes to have been holy and worthy of God. Then he relates the conversation which he had with him about it, in which nevertheless he nowhere brings him in as agreeing with him, but on the contrary as defending himself by his faith and by the custom of his country. At last he subjoins that the holy Abbot embraced the canonical observance of the Paschal time, and preached it to others; but of the tonsure he only says: He would have remembered to amend the tonsure also, if only he had had authority enough. These words, moreover, admit of a twofold sense: namely, either that the Saint would have corrected the Scottish tonsure also in himself and in others, if there had been as great authority for the Roman one as there was for Easter; or that he would have corrected the same in others also, if he himself had had authority enough.
[34] If the words be taken in the former way, they certainly are against Mabillon; and together with it the Benedictine if in the second, Ceolfrid indeed asserts that his reasons were at last approved by S. Adamnan; but he does not indicate that he changed the crown of his head. And yet it was in Ceolfrid's interest to have indicated it, if he truly could, who in the aforesaid epistle strove to persuade king Naitan that he should take care that not only the Catholic celebration of Easter, but also the Roman tonsure, be observed in his whole kingdom. It was in Ceolfrid's interest, I say, to have confirmed this as well as that from Adamnan's example. Besides, since from the same Ceolfrid it is established that Adamnan did not labor with others for the admitting of the Roman tonsure, from this too it becomes little likely that he, who was the head and primate of the whole congregation of the Columbans, wished to be marked with that which, on Ceolfrid's own testimony, he could be without offense, and which he knew to be so hateful to his monks that he did not dare even to urge it upon them. I believe therefore that S. Adamnan, if he approved Ceolfrid's counsel about the Roman tonsure, nevertheless prudently determined not to comply, lest among his own men, vehemently irritated by that novelty from which he could lawfully abstain, he should avail less for the introducing of the Catholic Paschal observance, which certainly was of the gravest moment.
[35] Rule at that time. Finally, that the Saint could embrace the Roman rite of Easter without the Roman tonsure cannot be denied; and that this was done by S. Eustasius with his monks of Luxeuil follows not obscurely from Mabillon himself. For in tome 1 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 606, number 36, he judges that S. Columbanus, when in the year — as he has it elsewhere — 612 he withdrew into Italy, renounced the Scottish custom of Easter, both on account of a certain epistle of his, and because in the synod of Mâcon, convoked at the instigation of Agrestius against the singular rites of the men of Luxeuil, no mention is made of that controversy, which nevertheless Agrestius, the calumniator of S. Columbanus's Rule and of holy Eustasius, would by no means otherwise have passed over. Of the same synod he treats at the year 623, in which he holds it was held, in which, since Agrestius, no word being made about Easter, objected the Scottish tonsure to S. Eustasius and his men of Luxeuil, and Eustasius did not deny it, it must be said, according to Mabillon's own opinion, that the men of Luxeuil had already before that synod received the Roman rites of Easter, the Scottish tonsure being retained. For the rest, I have judged that these things should be treated somewhat more fully, that it may be plain on what foundation of reasons rests the Benedictine monkhood of S. Adamnan, asserted by Mabillon and by some martyrologists of the same Order, which had to be proved the more manifestly the less likely it is that the head and primate of the whole Congregation of the Columbans, the Rule of his own holy founder being abandoned against the will of all his own men, took up a foreign one, whose very tonsure was hateful to his whole Congregation. I proceed to other matters.
[36] He wrote a little work on the holy places, Arculf dictating, The venerable Bede, who in book 5 of the History, chapter 16, in the words related at number 25 greatly praised this holy Abbot for wisdom and knowledge of the Scriptures, in the same place set forth also the book On the Holy Places written by him, and the occasion on which it was written, in these words: The same Man wrote a book about the holy places, most useful to many readers, whose author by teaching and dictating was Arculf, a bishop of the Gauls, who for the sake of the holy places had come to Jerusalem, and, all the Land of promise having been surveyed, had gone also to Damascus, Constantinople, Alexandria, and many islands of the sea, and, returning to his country by ship, was by the force of a tempest carried to the Western shores of Britain,
and, after many things, coming to the aforementioned servant of Christ Adamnan, where he was found to be learned in the Scriptures and acquainted with the holy places, he was most willingly received by him, and still more willingly heard; so much so that whatever he testified that he had seen in the holy places worthy of record, this man presently took care to commit it all to writing. And he made a Work (as I have said) useful to many, and especially to those who, being far removed from those places in which the patriarchs and Apostles were, know only those things about them which they have learned by reading.
[37] And Adamnan presented this book to king Aldfrid, which he offered to king Aldfrid; and by his bounty it was handed over to lesser persons also to read. The writer himself too, presented with many gifts by him, was sent back to his own country. Of whose writings to pluck out some things, and to insert them into this our History, I think will be convenient for readers. Thus far Bede, who then in the two following chapters narrates some things from him. The title of chapter 17 is this: What he recorded in the same book about the place of the Lord's nativity, passion and resurrection; but that of chapter 18 this: What likewise he wrote about the place of the Lord's Ascension, and about the sepulchres of the patriarchs. Toward the end of this chapter also he adds: If it delight anyone to know more of that volume, let him seek it either in that volume itself, or in the epitome which we lately made from it in brief. So he, designating his own small treatise On the Holy Places. Further, this little work of S. Adamnan, divided into three books, James Gretser, a presbyter of the Society of Jesus, took care to have published in print at Ingolstadt in the year 1619, and afterward Mabillon reprinted it from the same edition and from two manuscripts, of Corbie and of the Vatican, after the eulogy of S. Adamnan, Benedictine Century III, part 2, page 502 and following.
[38] Of what see in Gaul that Arculf was bishop he likewise wrote the Life of S. Columba, and perhaps also that of S. Patrick, is not known. The Benedictine writers of the Literary History of France, tome 3, page 650, in Arculf, suspect that he was prelate of no see, but, as it is wont to be said, only regionary, or perhaps consecrated for the ministries of some monastery. Likewise unknown is the time in which the Saint wrote those books, and in which, as Bede asserts, he offered them to Aldfrid; namely whether he did this in one of the two first journeys to the said king, or in another. He wrote also the Life of S. Columba in three books, often praised in this Commentary, and published and illustrated in our Work at the IX day of June, where also in the preliminary Commentary to it, §1, something has been said from conjectures about the time and occasion on which this seems to have been written. That some Acts of S. Patrick also were written by him Colgan hands down in various places from the Tripartite Life of that same holy apostle of the Irish, which nevertheless I do not know whether they survive anywhere.
[39] Sixtus of Siena in the Bibliotheca, book 4, mentions only the book On the Holy Places, and some other things, as is reported. and confounds its author with the presbyter of the same name of Coludi or Coldingham. Antonio Possevino in the Apparatus sacer, tome 1, likewise confounding the two, also reckoned only one book On the Places of the Holy Land, and besides the Life of S. Columba ascribed to him Epistles on Easter; which is likely enough, since from what has been said it is established that he labored much for the canonical time of Easter toward the end of his life. James Ware, book 1 On the Writers of Ireland, chapter 3, besides his epistles, doubtfully reckons one book On the Lawful Easter. He had also premised in the same place that there are extant in the Cottonian library, in an old book of Canons, Canons of Adomnan, of which the first is this: Sea animals cast up on the shores, whose deaths we do not know, are to be taken in sound faith, unless they be putrid. Dempster, book 1 of the History of the English Nation, not without great confusion and fables mentions three Adamnans, and attributes some other little works either to the one or to the other; but that writer is not of such worth to me that I should think these things ought even to be reviewed here on his credit; and therefore both these and some other assertions of his, certainly fabulous, I knowingly and willingly pass over. But from what has been said thus far the learned reader will sufficiently gather that S. Adamnan was a distinguished man, and will grieve with me that so few of his deeds have come down to us handed over in writing.
[40] He died at the beginning of the VIII century, an old man The Saint's death Colgan in Appendix 5 to the Lives of S. Columba thus noted from the Four Masters: In the year DCCIII S. Adamnan, son of Ronan, abbot of Hy, died on the XXIII day of September, in the twenty-seventh year of his rule, and the seventy-seventh of his age. So he, consistently with what precedes; for the death of Failbe, whom S. Adamnan succeeded in the abbacy, he had above fixed from the same Four Masters at the XXII day of March of the year of Christ 677. From these Ussher dissents by one year only, following, as we said above, the Annals of Ulster, from which he tied his death to the year 704. Greater, however, is the discrepancy between the two about the years in which the Saint presided: for Colgan attributes to him the twenty-seventh year of his rule, Ussher only twenty-five; but the latter had referred Failbe's death to the year of Christ 679, the former to 677. It is well to have observed this too, that Ussher in the series of the first abbots of Hy, their days of death being everywhere omitted, noted only the years of their rule, and did not add whether these were completed or not completed. Wherefore, if we take the 25 years which Ussher says the Saint presided as not completed, and if Failbe really died on the XXII day of March, as Colgan has it, S. Adamnan will have to be said to have ended his life in the year 703 even according to Ussher's reckoning, the beginning being drawn from the year 679, that of Failbe's death. For Ussher in the chronological Index holds that S. Adamnan died on the XXIII day of October; by which month of the year 703 the twenty-fifth year from Failbe's death would already, according to what has been said above, have run some months.
[41] [in the monastery of Hy: whence his relics are said to have been translated into Ireland, and again brought back hither.] Since, however, these things are not altogether certain, I have preferred to note in the margin at the beginning of the Commentary the year 703 or 704. Whether also the Saint reached the 27th year of his prelacy, or only the 25th, I cannot declare, because about Failbe's year of death I have no certainty from elsewhere. No more do I know whether the Saint's age stated above is certain. Ware, book 1 On the Writers of Ireland, chapter 3, says thus about these things: He died on the XXIII of October in the year of the Lord DCCIV, of his life the LXXIV, or, as others hand down, the LXXX. But that Adamnan died in his own island of Hy Bede expressly hands down in the words recited at number 26. That he was buried also in the same island is said in the Breviary of Aberdeen. James Ware, book 1 On the Writers of Ireland, chapter 3, citing in the margin the Annals of Ulster, writes that his sacred relics were translated into Ireland in the year 727, and thence after three years, namely in the year 730, in the month of October, brought back to the monastery of Hy.