Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and ScholarsHealy, John
History
Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars
Healy, John
Education -- Ireland -- History
silver, whence Petrie infers that Cogitosus must have written after this
enshrining, that is, after A.D. 799, but before A.D. 835, when Kildare was
pillaged by the Danes and half the church burned. But Cogitosus speaks of
the bodies of the saints as being placed in _tombs_, not of the enshrining
of the relics of one of them, which is a very different thing. The shrine
was a metal case, highly ornamented, for containing the relics of a saint,
not a tomb for the body. Rather the language of Cogitosus clearly shows
that he must have written before this enshrining of the relics of
Conlaeth, for in his time the body of that saint was in a tomb. The truth
seems to be that about this time, and through fear of the Danes, the
relics of St. Brigid were carried to Downpatrick as being then a safer
place, and at the same time the relics of Conlaeth were also taken from
the tomb-monument, and placed in the rich shrine, which was easily
portable, and might be carried off at the approach of danger, with its
precious contents.
The language and style of Cogitosus show considerable acquaintance with
the Latin tongue, and the work furnishes us with a very creditable
specimen of the scholarship possessed by the monks of Kildare in the
eighth century.
We need make no special reference to the other four anonymous Lives
printed by Colgan. The Third is attributed, but without any proof, to St.
Ultan; the Fourth is probably the work of a monk called Animosus, of whom
nothing else is known; the Fifth was written by an Englishman, Laurence of
Durham, in the twelfth century. The Sixth, like the First Life, is a
poetic work in Latin, which Colgan got from Monte Cassino, and which the
MS. itself attributes to Chilien, or, perhaps, more properly, Coelan, a
monk of Iniscaltra, or the Holy Island, in Lough Derg, who probably
flourished in the eighth century. We know that many monks from Holy Island
went abroad in the ninth and tenth centuries to preach the Gospel, and,
doubtless, one of them carried this MS. with him either to Bobbio, or some
other Benedictine Monastery, whence it might easily find its way to Monte
Cassino. The prologue of the poem is attributed to Donatus, an Irish
prelate in Tuscany, during the ninth century. This also helps to explain
how the Irish-born prelate would get this volume from some of his
countrymen abroad, and also write a prologue to this poetic life of the
Queen of Ireland's virgin saints.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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