OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Mainchein of Louth, December 2

    December 2 is the feast of a County Louth saint described in the Martyrology of Donegal as:

    2. G. QUARTO NONAS DECEMBRIS. 2.

    MAINCHEIN, i.e., Mochta’s cook.

    This would seem to associate him with the early Patrician saint Mochta of Louth and his monastery. Mochta, like Saint Patrick, was a Briton by birth and in the list of the ‘Household of Saint Patrick’ preserved in the Tripartite Life he is listed as ‘his priest’.

    Saint Mainchein is not the only saintly cook mentioned in the Irish calendars, last year I posted on another saint with a December feastday, Temnióc of Clonfert, cook to Molua and of course we have the more famous Saint Blath, cook to Saint Brigid of Kildare.

    As I am currently rereading Father John Ryan’s classic account of Irish monasticism, I noted his observation that the Latin term ‘cellarius’ – cellarer is used to translate the Irish ceallóir or coic, and it is this latter term which the Martyrology of Donegal uses to describe Saint Mainchen. Father Ryan describes the functions of this monastic office, which carries rather weightier responsibilities than the term ‘cook’ might suggest:

    The cellarer (ceallóir or coic) had under his charge not only the kitchen, but the supplies upon which the kitchen depended. He had, therefore, to be a man in whom the fullest reliance could be placed. Over-generosity on his part might lead to unbecoming ease and laxity, whilst an all too rigorous regime might lead to murmuring, discouragement and discontent. Even Caesarius of Arles proved a failure when appointed to fill this office at Lérins, and had to be superseded by another. Hence much might be said in justification of a statement made in one of the later rules that the discipline of the community depends on the cellarer. [This statement is from the Rule of Ailbe, 32: ‘as the food is, so will the order be’.]

    John Ryan S.J., Irish Monasticism – Origins and Early Development, (2nd. edition, Dublin, 1972), 274 .

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Regulus and the Relics of Saint Andrew

    November 30 is the feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle and last week I attended a lecture by Scottish historian Michael Turnbull on Saint Andrew and the Emperor Constantine. It was a fascinating account of the links between Constantine’s vision of a cross in the sky and the adoption of the saltire as the symbol of Scotland due to the celestial visions of a ninth-century King of the Picts. There is also an Irish connection in the legends surrounding the coming of the relics of Saint Andrew to Scotland, which involve the Irish saint Riaghail of Mucinis (feast day October 16). He was caught up in the later medieval legend of a Saint Regulus or Rule, said to have brought the the relics of Saint Andrew the Apostle to Scotland.  Nineteenth-century Bishop of Brechin, Alexander Forbes, recorded the legend in his 1872 work on the Scottish Kalendars:

    The Regulus legend, as believed in Scotland, first occurs in the Colbertine MS. in the Bibliotheque Imperiale. There is also a legend, apparently of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum, and the last form is that given in the Breviary of Aberdeen. With reference to these various forms of the legend, Mr. W. F. Skene has the following remarks :

    “In comparing these three editions, it will be convenient to divide the narrative into three distinct statements.

    “The first is the removal of the relics of S. Andrew from Patras to Constantinople. The Colbertine account states that St. Andrew, after preaching to the northern nations, the Scythians and Pictones, received in charge the district of Achaia, with the city of Patras, and was there crucified; that his bones remained there till the time of Constantine the Great, and his sons Constantius and Constans, for 270 years, when they were removed to Constantinople, where they remained till the reign of the Emperor Theodosius.

    “The account in the MS. of the Priory of S. Andrews states, that in the year 345, Constantius collected a great army to invade Patras, in order to avenge the martyrdom of S. Andrew, and remove his relics; that an angel appeared to the custodiers of the relics, and ordered Regulus, the bishop, with his clergy, to proceed to the sarcophagus which contained his bones, and to take a part of them, consisting of three fingers of the right hand, a part of one of the arms, the part of one of the knees, and one of his teeth, and conceal them, and that the following day Constantius entered the city, and carried off to Rome the shrine containing the rest of his bones; that he then laid waste the Insula Tyberis and Colossia, and took thence the bones of S. Luke and S. Timothy, and carried them along with the relics of S. Andrew to Constantinople.

    “The Aberdeen Breviary says that, in the year 360, Regulus flourished at Patras in Achaia, and was custodier of the bones and relics of S. Andrew; that Constantius invaded Patras in order to avenge the martyrdom of S. Andrew; that an angel appeared to him, and desired him to conceal a part of the relics, and that after Constantius had removed the rest of the relics to Constantinople, this angel again appeared to him, and desired him to take the part of the relics he had concealed, and to transport them to the western region of the world, where he should lay the foundation of a church in honour of the apostle. Here the growth of the legend is very apparent. In the oldest edition, we are told of the removal of the relics to Constantinople, without a word of Regulus. In the second, we have the addition of Regulus concealing a part of the relics in obedience to a vision; and in the third, we have a second vision directing him to found a church in the west. This part of the legend, as we find it in the oldest edition, belongs, in fact, to the legend of S. Andrew, where it is stated that, after preaching to the Scythians, he went to Argos, where he also preached, and finally suffered martyrdom at Patras; and that, in the year 337, his body was transferred from Patras to Constantinople with those of S. Luke and S. Timothy, and deposited in the church of the apostles, which had been built some time before by Constantine the Great.

    “When I visited Greece in the year 1844, I was desirous of ascertaining whether any traces of this legend still remained at Patras. In the town of Patras I could find no church dedicated to S. Andrew, but I observed a small and very old-looking Greek monastery, about a mile to the west of it, on the shore of the Gulf of Patras, and proceeding there, I found one of the caloyeres or Greek monks, who spoke Italian, and who informed me that the monastery was attached to the adjacent church of S. Andrew built over the place where he had suffered martyrdom. He took me into the church, which was one of the small Byzantine buildings so common in Greece, and showed me the sarcophagus from which, he said, the relics had been removed, and also, at the door of the church, the spot where his cross had been raised, and a well called S. Andrew’s Well. I could find, however, no trace of S. Regulus.

    “The second part of the legend in the oldest edition represents a Pictish king termed Ungus, son of Urguist, waging war in the Merse, and being surrounded by his enemies. As the king was walking with his seven comites, a bright light shines upon them ; they fall to the earth, and a voice from heaven says, ‘Ungus, Ungus, hear me, an apostle of Christ called Andrew, who am sent to defend and guard thee.’ He directs him to attack his enemies, and desires him to offer the tenth part of his inheritance in honour of S. Andrew. Ungus obeys, and is victorious.

    “In the S. Andrews edition, Ungus’s enemy is said to have been Athelstane, king of the Saxons, and his camp at the mouth of the river Tyne. S. Andrew appears to Ungus in a dream, and promises him victory, and tells him that the relics will be brought to his kingdom, and the place to which they are brought is to become honoured and celebrated. The people of the Picts swear to venerate S. Andrew ever after, if they prove victorious. Athelstane is defeated, his head taken off, and carried to a place called Ardchinnichan, or Portus Reginae.

    ” The Breviary of Aberdeen does not contain this part of the legend.

    ” The third part of the legend in the oldest narrative represents one of the custodiers of the body of S. Andrew at Constantinople, directed by an angel in a vision to leave his house, and to go to a place whither the angel will direct him. He proceeds prosperously to ‘verticem montis regis id est rigmond.’ Then the king of the Picts comes with his army, and Regulus, a monk, a stranger from the city of Constantinople, meets him with the relics of S. Andrew at a harbour which is called ‘Matha,id est mordurus,’ and King Ungus dedicates that place and city to God and S. Andrew ‘ut sit caput et mater omnium ecclesiaram quae sunt in regno Pictorum.’ It must be remembered here that this is the first appearance of the name of Regulus in the old legend, and that it is evidently the same King Ungus who is referred to in both parts of the story. The S. Andrews edition of the legend relates this part of the story much more circumstantially. According to it, Regulus was warned by the angel to sail with the relics towards the north, and wherever his vessel was wrecked, there to erect a church in honour of S. Andrew. He voyages among the islands of the Greek sea for a year and a half, and wherever he lands he erects an oratory in honour of S. Andrew. At length he lands in ‘terra Pictorum ad locum qui Muckros fuerat nuncupatus, nunc autem Kilrymont dictus; and his vessel having been wrecked he erects a cross he had brought from Patras. After remaining there seventeen days or nights, Regulus goes with the relics to Forteviot, and finds there the three sons of King Hungus, viz. Owen, Nectan, and Finguine, who, being anxious as to the life of their father, then on an expedition ‘ in partibus Argatheliae,’ give the tenth part of Forteviot to God and S. Andrew. They then go to a place called ‘Moneclatu, qui nunc dicitur Monichi,’ and there Finchem, the queen of King Hungus, is delivered of a daughter called Mowren, who was afterwards buried at Kilrymont; and the queen gives the place to God and S. Andrew. They then cross the mountain called Moneth, and reach a place called ‘Doldancha, nunc autem dictus Chondrochedalvan,’ where they meet King Hungus returning from his expedition, who prostrates himself before the relics, and this place is also given to God and S. Andrew. They return across the Moneth to Monichi, where a church was built in honour of God and the apostle, and thence to Forteviot, where a church is also built. King Hungus then goes with the clergy to Kilrymont, when a great part of that place is given to build churches and oratories, and a large territory is given as parochia. The boundaries of this parochia can still be traced, and consisted of that part of Fife lying to the east of a line drawn from Largs to Nauchton. Within this line was the district called the Boar’s Chase, containing the modern parishes of S. Andrews, Cameron, Dairsie, Kemback, Ceres, Denino, and Kingsmuir; and besides this district, the following parishes were included in the parochia,—viz. Crail, Kiagsbams, Anstruther, Abercromby, S. Monance, Kelly, Elie, Newburgh, Largo, Leuchars, Forgan, and Logie-Murdoch.

    ” It is impossible to doubt that there is a historic basis of some kind for this part of the legend. The circumstantial character of the narrative is of a kind not likely to be invented. The place beyond the Moneth or Grampians, called Chondrochedalvan, is plainly the church of Kindrochet in Braemar, which was dedicated to St. Andrew. Monichi is probably not Monikie in Forfarshire, as that church was in the diocese of Brechin, but a church called Eglis Monichti, now in the parish of Monifieth, which was in the diocese of S. Andrews, and Forteviot was also in the diocese of S. Andrews.

    “According to the account in the Breviary, Regulus, after the relics had been removed to Constantinople, takes the portion he had concealed, and sails with them for two years till he arrives ‘ad terram Scottorum,’ where he lands and enters the ‘nemus porcorum,’ and there builds a church, and preaches to the neighbouring people far and wide. Hungus, king of the Picts, sees a company of angels hover over the relics of the apostle, and comes with his army to Regulus, who baptizes him with all his servants, and receives a grant of the land, which is set apart to be the chief seat and mother church of Scotland.”—(Skene’s Notice of the Early Ecclesiastical Settlements at S. Andrews, in Proceedings Soc. Antiq. Scot. vol. iv. pp. 301-307.)

    Alexander Penrose Forbes, D.C.L. Bishop of Brechin, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, (1872), 437-440.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Naomh Columbán san Eoraip

    We conclude the octave of posts in honour of the 1400th anniversary of the death of Saint Columbanus with a review of his life and legacy from the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, whose collection Columbanus in his Own Words introduced me to the saint. For those who don’t read Irish it provides an overview of the saint’s missionary endeavours, compares him with other great historic travellers, hails his contribution to Irish and European history and concludes with the view of Robert Schumann, also mentioned in yesterday’s post, that he may be regarded as the patron saint of those trying to build a united Europe. In these times when the Christian foundations of European civilisation are under such pressure, this is indeed the moment to rediscover him as an intercessor for this continent, 1400 years after his passing from it:

    …Leanbh de chuid Laighean, dalta de chuid mhanachas na hÉireann ina óige, d’fhág sé a thír dhúchais mar aon le dosaen deisceabal timpeall 590 agus thug aghaidh na loinge soir ó dheas. Chaith sé tamall beag sa Bhreatain Mhór ar an bhealach agus tháinig i dtír ar chósta thuaidh na Fraince. Bhunaigh sé trí mhainistir sa Bhurgainn go gasta i ndiaidh a chéile–Annegray, Luxeuil agus Fontaine.

    Níorbh fhada go raibh na sluaite ag teacht chuige go Luxeuil, daoine a tháinig faoi dhraíocht a phearsantachta láidre féin nó a d’éirigh geallmhar ar an riail bheatha a leag sé amach dóibh. Ansin d’fhill cuid acu ar a gceantair dhúchais agus thug siad in éineacht leo blúirín éigin de spiorad agus de riail bheatha Luxeuil. Ní raibh glúin amháin imithe go raibh tionchar Luxeuil le mothú i ngach cearn den Fhrainc agus i bhFlondras féin. Bhí mainistreacha nua a mbunú ag manaigh Fhrancacha a oileadh i Luxeuil, agus bhí cuid de na seanmhainistreacha ag cur athchóiriú orthu féin, ag iarraidh féiníobairt agus pionós na rialach nua a shnaidhmeadh leis an chóras eile a tháinig anuas chucu ó aimsir Mháirtín Tours.

    Ní raibh Columbán féin beo leis an fhómhar iontach seo a fheiceáil. Ruaigeadh as an Bhurgainn é i 610, agus rinneadh seachránaí ar son Chríost de feasta. Trí Besançon, Avallon, Auxerre, Nevers, Orleans, Tours, Nantes, thrasnaigh sé féin agus a chomplacht bheag Éireannach an Fhrainc go hiomlán, agus iad ar a mbealach chuig an chósta chun go gcuirfí ar bórd loinge iad a thabharfadh ar ais go hÉirinn iad. Ach tháinig an doineann i gcabhair orthu agus d’éalaigh siad. Ansin thug Columbán aghaidh ar an cheantar níos faide ó thuaidh, an Ile-de-France inniú. Chuala Páras a ghlór agus ceantar an Brie, agus má breacadh an limistéar seo le mainistreacha sa chéad ghlúin eile–Faremoutiers (627), Jouarre (630), Rebais (c. 636)–is ó Cholumbán a fuair lucht a mbunaithe an dreasú.

    Faoi dheireadh shroich sé an Réin i gcomharsanacht Mainz. Lean sé bealach na n-abhann agus na loch feasta–suas an Réin, isteach san Aar agus sa Limmat, thart timpeall ar Loch Zurich agus Loch Constance agus ar aghaidh go Bregenz sa chúinne thoir den loch. Chaith sé tamall sa cheantar sin, atá ar theorainn na hEilvéise agus na hOstaire agus na Gearmáine inniú; ansin thug a aghaidh ó dheas ag tarraingt ar an Iodáil. Ní raibh fonn ar Ghall, duine den dáréag a d’fhág Éire in éineacht leis, dul ar thuras eile agus d’iarr sé cead ar a mháistir fanacht san áit a raibh sé agus leanúint ar aghaidh ag craobhscaoileadh an tsoiscéil ar bhruach Loch Constance. Rud nach bhfuair sé, mar bhí eagla ar Cholumbán gurbh í an leisce roimh an turas a thug ar Ghall an cead a iarraidh. Ach d’fhan Gall, agus d’imigh Columbán agus a chomplacht ina éagmais. Trasna na nAlp agus síos trí mhachairí na Lombáirde leis, gur bhunaigh sé a eaglais dheireanach i mBobbio. Is ann a d’éag sé ar an 23 Samhain 615.

    Bhí turas déanta aige ab fhiú a chur ar aon chéim le haistir mhóra na staire, le anabasis Xenophon, le taisteal Marco Polo chun na Síne, le marcaíocht Tschiffely thar na hAndes, le turasanna Stanley agus Livingstone san Afraic. Ach bhí rud níos mó ná sin déanta aige. Bhí ré nua oscailte aige i stair na hÉireann agus i stair na Mór-Roinne. I stair na hÉireann, mar ba cheannródaí é i measc na nGaelnaomh a d’imigh thar sáile. I stair na Mór-Roinne, mar ba as a shaothar a shíolraigh cuid de na tréithe ba láidre i manachas na Fraince, agus ba as an mhanachas céanna a gineadh cultúr Críostaí na hEorpa.

    Go dtí sin ba bheag den obair thréadach a dhéanadh manaigh na Fraince i measc na dtuataí, agus is sna bailte móra amháin a bhí na mainistreacha le fáil. Columbán agus a chuid deisceabal a cheangail an mhisinéireacht leis an mhanachas, agus a chuir tús le bunú na mainistreacha faoin tuath, ar thalamh a bhronn an uasalaicme orthu, sa dóigh go bhféadfadh siad leas a bhaint as an talmhaíocht mar shlí bheatha. ‘Dá mhéad solas a ligtear isteach ar dhorchadas na meanaoise’, a scríobh an Pápa Pius XI i 1923, ‘is ea is soiléire a éiríonn sé go bhfuil athbhreith na heagnaíochta agus na sibhialtachta Críostaí i gcodanna éagsúla den Fhrainc, den Ghearmáin agus den Iodáil le cur i leith shaothar agus dúthracht Cholumbán’. Nasc idir náisiúin éagsúla a bhí sa naomh de bharr a shaothair agus a thaistil; is dócha gur ar an ábhar sin a dúirt Robert Schumann faoi, dornán blianta ó shin: ‘Is é Columbán naomhphatrún na ndaoine go léir atá ag iarraidh an Eoraip aontaithe a thógáil’.

    An Cairdinéal Tomás Ó Fiaich, Gaelscrínte san Eoraip, (Baile Átha Cliath, 1986.)

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