Though the mists of time have closed down to some extent on those
early days, Adamnan wrote his Life of Columba only a hundred years
after the Saint's death. Cuimine the Fair was abbot at lona when
Adamnan was there as a monk, and Cuimine had known Columba, had
been trained under him as a lad and had himself written a short
Life, De virtutibus sancti Columbae, which Adamnan quotes almost
entire in his Third Book. Adamnan had therefore every advantage for
the writing of Columba's life: he lived soon after the Saint among
those who had known him; he had all the manuscript records of the
monastery to draw upon; he wrote at Iona amid the scenes and in the
atmosphere in which Columba had lived, probably even in the very
hut he had occupied. And Adamnan was a native of Connacht; he
belonged to the same royal race as Columba and was born only
twenty-seven years after the Saint's death. Abbot of lona from 679
till 704, Adamnan was a remarkable man for those times, a scholar
who could write Latin and was acquainted with Hebrew and Greek, a
diplomat who persuaded the Celtic Church to make several important
changes in its government and who secured the "lasting liberation
of the women of the Gaels" from taking part in battle. These points
are mentioned to show that Adamnan was not merely a monk on a
lonely island, but one of the representative men of his time. It
was at the request of his brethren that he undertook to write the
life of the founder of the Columban Church, a document which is the
earliest piece of historical literature connected with the
Highlands-" the most complete piece of such biography. Europe can
boast of, not only at so early a period, but through the whole
Middle Ages." It may be asked why, when that Life still exists,
there is any occasion for this one. The answer is that Adamnan's
so-called Life is not a biography. It is a collection of anecdotes
not arranged in chronological order and not complete. Adamnan does
not tell us all he knows; he tells us nothing he considers
derogatory to his hero, and most of his stories are chosen because
they lead up to a miracle or a vision. History is of little
importance to Adamnan, what he wants to do is to give a portrait of
Columba as he saw him. Consequently although his Life is a
priceless document of antiquity, there is a great deal which it
does not tell us as it might conceivably have done. To the student
of Celtic antiquity, of early religion, and particularly of the
pre-Christian religion of our own country, Adamnan's Life of
Columba is as full of riddles as it is of information. It gives us
a bright and fresh picture of one particular phase of Scottish life
in those early times: we see the monastic system as it was
practised in Ireland and then in Scotland in the sixth century of
our era, painted in vivid colours with a considerable amount of
detail, but as to what lay outside of monastic life we gain from it
very little information. A bright piece of real life with a great
circle of darkness round it into which we would give much to be
able to penetrate, that is what Adamnan gives us. By inference we
learn much from his pages that he does not directly tell us, but
his Life is incomplete, and must be supplemented by the old Irish
Lives: that in the Book of Lismore, edited by Dr Whitley Stokes:
that in the Leabar Breac or Speckled Book of MacEgan and that of
Manus O'Donnell, a member of the clan from which Columba sprang,
who in 1532 caused a Life of his illustrious kinsman to be compiled
from every available source both in Latin and in Irish, in
manuscript and in tradition. But these Lives, too, are collections
of stories and legends rather than biography.
General
Imprint: |
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
November 2013 |
First published: |
November 2013 |
Editors: |
Brother Hermenegild Tosf
|
Authors: |
Lucy Menzies
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 14mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
262 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4937-1584-8 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
1-4937-1584-4 |
Barcode: |
9781493715848 |
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