St. Columba, Silnán, and the 'Male Bovine' (VC 2.17)

At Vita Columbae VC 2.17, Adomnán has severely misunderstood a written source which originally described how Columba ordered one party to a dispute, an alleged maleficus ‘evil-doer’ called Silnán, to milk a sick cow in order to settle the dispute by demonstrating that its contaminated milk was the real, hidden cause of the harm which had occasioned the dispute. Adomnán misread a description of a bos maculosus ‘pock-marked bovine’ to refer to a bos masculus ‘male bovine’, and proceeded to misunderstand the story as the description of some form of contest between Columba and a maleficus ‘sorcerer’.

An Irish apostle: articulating and actualising apostolicity in the early Irish church

This thesis examines the earliest extant Latin Lives of Brigit and Patrick; Cogitosus’s Vita Brigidae and Muirchú’s Vita Patricii as evidence for a seventh-century debate on Irish apostolicity. While often dismissed as mere propaganda, this thesis shows they are highly sophisticated demonstrations of the continuing connection that Kildare and Armagh had to their patron saints and their authority. It examines the importance of this connection for concepts of ecclesiastical organisation, teaching authority and episcopal succession against the backdrop of the seventh-century Easter question in the Insular Church. This will show that apostolicity was considered to be intrinsically linked with orthodoxy and universality. A textual focus brings forth general patristic themes and ideas that Irish hagiographers evoked through specific words and phrases. The thesis contextualises hagiographical material using evidence from Hiberno-Latin and early Insular exegetical commentaries, referring to major patristic exegetes such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great as support. The introduction discusses the importance of apostolic ideology for the seventh-century Irish Church, and outlines a methodology for examining such abstract themes. The first chapter looks at how developments in apostolic ideology led to ideas of apostolic primacy seen in the Insular material. Chapters two, three, and four examine metaphors of food and feeding, the fountain and the stream, and the head and the body, as significant articulations of apostolicity. Chapter five examines how corporeal relics were understood as the visible proof of this continuity and preserved a saint’s authority for their episcopal heirs. Chapter six looks at how Muirchú engaged with Patrick’s connection to the universal Church and his self-professed lack of disciplina to reconcile his apostolicity with seventh-century norms. Chapter seven places the issues considered thus far in a thoroughly Insular context by examining how the earliest English sources present the Irish legacy in Northumbria after the synod of Whitby. Chapter eight looks at how the text of Patrick’s Confessio in the Book of Armagh relates to a wider seventh-century campaign by Armagh to rehabilitate Patrick’s apostolicity. The conclusion briefly summarizes the thesis, and suggests further avenues for researching this topic in the Insular material

Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin: an ecclesiastical microcosm of the twelfth-century Irish midlands

Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin (BCh) is a key source of information about a small ecclesiastical community of the Irish midlands in the medieval period. BCh is one of the longest medieval Irish hagiographic texts. A sole copy exists. Scholarly concern with manuscript Rennes 598, and the Life of Colmán therein, diminished following the 1911 edition of BCh. The most attention paid to BCh in the following decades focused largely on its onomastic information. The necessary detailed study of the text has not been undertaken. The present work is an initial view of significant areas of interaction between the church of Lann and its ecclesiastical, social and political milieu. While social and cultural aspects of the text may constitute the focus of this study, linguistic data is also investigated, complementary to evidence regarding its social and political testimony. In this way, light is cast on a complex ecclesiastical microcosm in the twelfth-century Irish midlands. In keeping with recent methodological work in the field a variety of tools are used to aid investigation, and to show the Life within its genre and wider context. An interdisciplinary approach will bring together strands of literary, cultural, archaeological, onomastic, historical, geographical, genealogical and hagiographical information, with reference to linguistic evidence where appropriate. This thesis seeks to suggest a template for studies undertaken on smaller church communities, and is set out in two main sections. The first section investigates the figure of the saint, his life, church, the manuscript source and the combination of prose and verse in the text. The second section examines the testimony of the Life regarding the ecclesiastical and secular concerns of the community of Lann, and how these concerns are represented. Evidence regarding the members of this community and their interaction with the church and the wider world is also discussed.

The prophecies of Ss. Columbkille, Maeltamlacht, Ultan, Seadhna, Coireall, Bearcan, Malachy, &c. : together with the prophetic collectanea, or gleanings of several writers who have preserved portions of the now lost prophecies of our saints, with literal translation and notes /

Preface dated 1855.

Lives of the English saints.

no. 13. [Dalgairns, J.B.] St. Aelred; Pattison, M. St. Ninian.--no. 14. [Pattison, M.] St. Edmund; Ornsby, R. St. Richard; Dalgairns, J.B. St. Waltheof; St. Robert.

Monsieur Vincent; a sketch of a Christian social reformer of the 17th century,

Mode of access: Internet.

Galerie des saints et des saints qui protégent la Belgique et les Pay-Bas /

Mode of access: Internet.

al- Bustān fī dhikr al-awliyāʼ wa-al-ʻulamāʼ bi-Tilimsān

taʼlīf Abī ʻAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, al-mulaqqab bi-Ibn Maryam al-Sharīf al-Malītī al-Madyūnī al-Tilimsānī ; wāfaqa ʻalá ṭabʻihi wa-iʻtaná bi-murājaʻati aṣlihi Muḥammad ibn Abī Shanab.

Ṭalʻat al-mushtarī fī al-nasab al-Jaʻfarī

taʼlīf Abī al-ʻAbbās Sayyidī Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Nāṣirī al-Jaʻfarī al-Zaynabī.

Die spanischen Vorlagen der deutschen theologischen Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts /

Abridged preprint of part of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universität Freiburg i.B., originally presented under title: "Spaniens Antheil an der deutschen Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts." -- Strassburg : 1897.

Heilagra mana sogur.

Mode of access: Internet.

De historia SS. imaginum et picturarum, pro vero earum usu contra abusus, libri quatuor /

Addenda, p. 569-76. Errata, p. 675-6.

Aḟonskiĭ paterik : ili, Zhizneopisanīe svi͡atykh na svi͡atoĭ Aḟonskoĭ gori͡e prosīi͡avshikh.

Reprint of the 7th ed., originally published 1897.

Zhitīe Start͡sa Serafima, sarovskoĭ obiteli īeromonakha, pustynnozhiteli͡a i zatvornika : s izobrazhenīem ott͡sa Serafima i snimkom ego pocherka.

Includes facsimile of "Otkrytīe moshcheĭ i proslavlenīe sv. prepodobnago Serafima, sarovskago chudotvort͡sa, v prisutstvīi Ikh Imperatorskikh Velichestv v īi͡uli͡e 1903 goda." between pages 244 and 245.

Vie de sainte Jeanne d'Arc /

Includes bibliographical references.