OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Saint Florentius of Strassburg, November 7

    November 7 is the commemoration of Saint Florentius (Florence), an Irishman who laboured in Strassburg, sometime in the sixth century. Below is an account of his life from Roísín Ní Mheara’s study of early Irish saints in Europe. I note among the many points of interest that his church had an altar dedicated to Saint Brigid, and that like Saint Brigid, Florentius is also said to have hung his cloak on a sunbeam!

    Strassburg, not seated directly on the Rhine, used the waterways of the Ill for river barges trading with the city. Here, outside the walls, near the Ill landing place stood the monastic school of St Thomas, another early Christian foundation with strong Irish connections. Two Irish bishops of sixth century Strassburg, associated probably with Trier, have left their mark here on the present day Protestant church of St Thomas. With an attached institute of learning, including a seminary of theology, it pays tribute to a spiritual heritage when St Thomas was called the ‘cradle of Alsatian Christianity’. Bishop Florentius, claimed to be of Irish birth and nobility by his biographers, founded the monastery, choosing the peripheral site with intent. The conversion of country folk being his main concern, he encouraged pilgrimages to the grave of his predecessor and countryman Arbogast, entombed in St Thomas. This place, associated in tradition with early Christian baptisms, had also an altar dedicated to St Brigid.

    St Thomas, with its austere medieval tower, is next to Strassburg cathedral, the town’s most significant church edifice. Its interior reveals features of many historical epochs. At the Romanesque entrance to the chapel of St Blasius is a wall painting in which we are shown St Florentius in the symbolic gesture of restoring a lamb, stolen by a wolf, to its rightful owner. This popular legend is now attached to the cult of the later St Blasius, also a professed tamer of animals. Plagiarism is something early saints have to put up with!

    Who are Arbogast and Florentius? The scarcity of sixth century documentation clouds the path of pioneer days when those missionaries entered Alsace, starting, we are told, with hermitages, to be consequently called to the see of Strassburg by Merovingian kings. The impression received points to the category of learned Irishmen who were drawn, first to the cultural centres of southern Gaul, becoming then infused into Trier for reformatory and apostolic reasons….

    The fame of Florentius, whose bishopric is not dated, but succeeded that of Arbogast, is due to his two important monastic foundations – St Thomas in the periphery of Strassburg, and that of Niederhaslach in a valley to the west of the city. There, where the Hasel streamlet descends the wooden slopes of the Vosges to meet the Bruche (Breusch) river, Florentius erected his first monastery with the help of his Irish companions. Excavations have revealed that his church, built on a Roman site, was no mean wooden structure but a stone edifice with three naves in the Byzantine style. Here his followers, it is explicitly stated, obeyed the Rule he laid down for them, adhering later to that of St Columban before adopting that of St Benedict.

    Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, caused a new church to be built over the Haslach foundation to receive the remains of the holy bishop Florentius who was first buried in St Thomas in Strassburg where he died. The translatio took place on 7November 810 and was pronounced a feastday to be celebrated by the entire diocese, and so it has remained.

    This is the Florentiusfest, held yearly on the Sunday following 7 November when the shrine and a life-size wooden statue of the patron saint are borne in procession around the village of Niederhaslach. Later in the day pilgrims visit Oberhaslach where they pray in the Chapelle Saint-Florent.

    Halsach, whether Ober (Upper)or Nieder (lower), are modest enough villages to harbour so majestic a church, but the bishops of Strassburg had once their summer residence here and the place was not divided… The west facade with its slender Gothic portal bearing the legend of St Florentius carved on its tympanum, is the work of a son of Erwin von Steinbach, the builder of Strassburg’s fabulous cathedral. He is buried inside the church, having fallen to his death from a scaffold during its erection. Near his tomb we encounter again the story of Florentius, as a worker of miracles, in one of the stained glass windows… The altar of St Brigid is gone, but Florentius’ relics are is a niche in the choir, his gilded shrine of 1716 replacing a priceless relic that was robbed in 1525, when the saint’s remains were thrown on the church floor. Taken to safety, restored to the church, then hidden again in various private houses, they were eventually brought back to rest after the French Revolution subsided.

    Beside these depredations, the worldy remains of Florentius had other ordeals to overcome, being for centuries the object of fierce controversy between Strassburg and Haslach, both proclaiming to be in possession of them. This endless ‘War of the Relics’ obliged the German emperor Karl IV to intervene in the year 1353 in person. He caused the contents of both reliquaries to be examined, after which, to the joy of Haslach’s Augustinians, the affair was settled in their favour. Gratified, they presented the monarch wih an arm of the holy patron, which he took with him to his residence in Prague. A special altar was provided for the Florentius relic in the cathedral and there it has, hopefully, remained.

    Florentius had started off with a cenobium in the wooded Haslach valley, near the present village of Oberhaslach. Several place-names in the vicinity bear out the tradition of this eremitic community, a site to the northeast of the village. References are given in Strassburg’s early diocesan files to ‘priests’ quarters, described as ‘zu den Schotten’ and ‘de Scotti’ (of the Irish). Considering that these sites were wiped out in the wars, the reference is most welcome and revealing. The pilgrims’ church of Oberhaslach does its part in keeping alive the Florentius tradition.

    There an old Roman road leading off in a north-easterly direction to Marlenheim is also indicative. Marlenheim was once the seat of Merovingian royalty, who donated land to Florentius for a missionary station. The proximity of the palace brings to mind the healing of King Dagobert’s daughter, a miracle performed by Florentius, portrayed both in stone and in painted glass in Niederhaslach’s noble church. The legend records how the saint on arrival hung up his cloak on a sunbeam.

    Roísín Ní Mheara, Early Irish Saints in Europe – Their Sites and their Stories (Seanchas Ard Mhacha, 2001),113-117.

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

  • Saint Cronan of Bangor, November 6

    November 6 is the feastday of Saint Cronan, a seventh-century abbot of Bangor, County Down. The entry in the Martyrology of Donegal reads:

    6. B. OCTAVO IDUS NOVEMBRIS. 6.

    CRONAN, Abbot, of Bennchor.

    to which the translator has added a note:

    Bennchor. 

    There is subjoined, in the later hand, Floruit anno 639, nominatus tum in epistola Joannis 4 Papae, etcetera, referring to the superscription of the epistle preserved in Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 19. (R.)

     This is not the only reference to our saintly abbot which has survived. Saint Cronan is the last of the fifteen successors to Saint Comgall to be mentioned in the hymn “Commemoration of our Abbots”, preserved in the Bangor Antiphonary. Bishop William Reeves, who translated the text of this hymn, summarizes the early history of the monastery of Bangor and its abbots:


    Beannchair.—The abbey of Bangor was founded in the year 559, by Comgall, a native of Magheramorne, in the county of Antrim. He was a contemporary of St. Columbkill, and their respective monasteries bore a great resemblance to each other, both in their discipline, being seminaries of learning as well as receptacles of piety; and in their economy, being governed by a presbyter abbot, and attended by a resident bishop. The titles borne by the superior of this house were Abb Bennchair, ‘Abbot of Bangor ‘, and Comharba Comhghaill, ‘ Successor of Comgall ‘. The succession of the abbots is very accurately registered in the Annals, and the names of fifteen are recorded previously to the year 691. At the close of the ancient service-book of this abbey, called the Antiphionarium Benchorense, is a hymn entitled “Memoria Abbatum nostrorum”, in which the names of these fifteen abbots are recited in the same order as in the Annals; and this undesigned coincidence is the more interesting, because the testimonies are perfectly independent, the one being afforded by Irish records which never left the kingdom, and the other by a Latin composition, which has been a thousand years absent from the country where it was written. [1]

    The Bishop’s translation is reproduced by Father O’Laverty in his diocesan history of Down and Connor. It begins:

    The holy valiant deeds
    Of sacred fathers.
    Based on the matchless
    Church of Bangor;
    The noble deeds of abbots,
    Their number, times, and names,
    Of never-ending lustre—
    Hear, brothers, great their desert,
    Whom the Lord hath gathered
    To the mansions of His heavenly kingdom.

    and ends with:

    That Cronan
    The fifteenth may lay hold on life,
    The Lord preserve him.
    Whom the Lord will gather
    To the mansions of His heavenly kingdom. [2]

    Father O’Laverty notes that the death of Saint Cronan is also recorded in the Irish Annals:

    A.D. 688. ” Cronan Macu Caulne, Abbot of Beannchair, died on the 6th of November.” Cronan was living when the hymn was written, from which it follows that its date is some year between 678 and 688. [3]

    [1] Rt Rev. William Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin, 1857), 153.
    [2] Rev. J. O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Vol. II (Dublin, 1880), 45-6.
    [3] Ibid., 50.

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

  • 'The Prayers of the Saints I have Loved' -The Hymn of Cuimin of Connor

    To mark the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland, here is a translation of the text of a hymn, attributed to Saint Cuimin of Connor. I first encountered this text through reading the entries for the feastdays of the saints in the Martyrology of Donegal, where individual verses from the hymn were appended to the calendar. I longed to be able to read the entire work and have finally tracked down two different translations of it. Both were made in the nineteenth century, the first by Eugene O’Curry, and the second some years later by Whitley Stokes. In the O’Curry translation below you will see that each stanza begins with a promise to tell us what an individual saint loved, and being early Irish saints what they all loved, of course, was the practice of the ascetical life. This translation was published as an appendix to The Calendar of Irish Saints, an edition of The Martyrology of Tallaght issued in 1857 by Irish priest and scholar Father Matthew Kelly. I have taken this copy though from the diocesan history of Down and Connor by Father O’Laverty. So, on this happy day (and every day) may Patrick of Ard Macha’s city, Colum Cille, the famous and Brigid of the benedictions, together with all the saints of Ireland, bless and protect this country and her people!

    Patrick of Ard Macha’s city, loved
    The son of Calphurnn, a noble rule,
    From Shrovetide to Easter to refrain from food,
    No penance of his was a greater penance.

    Colum Cille, the famous, loved,
    Son of Feidhlimidh, in his pilgrimage,
    Never to take in a week into his body.
    As much as would serve a pauper at one meal

    Bridget of the benedictions, loved
    Perpetual mortification beyond womanhood.
    Watching and early rising,
    Hospitality to saintly men.

    Mochta of Lugh-magh loved,
    By law and by rule,
    That no rich food his body should enter.
    For the space of one hundred years.

    The hospitable Feichin of Fabhar loved,
    It was not a false mortification
    To lay his fleshless ribs
    Upon the hard rocks without clothes.

    Ciaran the famous, of Cluain, loved
    Humility from which he did not rashly swerve,
    And he never spoke that which was false;
    Nor looked upon a woman from his birth.

    Beo-Aedh loved friendship
    With all the saints of Erinn;
    A strangers’ home, and presents
    He would give to every person.

    Molaise of the lake loved
    To be in a hard stone cell;
    Strangers’ home for the men of Erinn,
    Without refusal, without a sign of inhospitality.

    Brendan loved perpetual mortification
    In obedience to his synod and his flock,
    Seven years upon the great whale’s back
    It was a distressing mode of mortification.

    Mide loved much of fosterage,
    Firm humility without dejection;
    Her cheek to the floor she laid not,
    Ever, ever, for love of the Lord.

    Since she bound the girdle upon her body,
    And what I know is what I hear.
    She ate not a full or sufficient meal,
    Monuinne of Sliabh Cuilinn.

    Caoimhghin loved a narrow cell,
    It was a work of mortification and religion,
    In which perpetually to stand,
    It was a great shelter against demons.

    Scuithin of the sweet legends loved —
    Blessings on him who hath done so –
    Beautiful and pure maidens.
    And among them preserved his virtue.

    Cainnech of the mortifications loved
    To be in a bleak woody desert,
    Where there was none to attend on him
    But only the wild deer.

    Ailbhe loved hospitality;
    That was not a false devotion
    There came not into a body of clay
    One who gave more food and raiment.

    Fionnchu of Bri-Gobhann loved,
    The blessing of Jesus upon his soul,
    Seven years upon his chains,
    Without ever touching the ground.

    Dalbhach, the beautiful of Cuil, loved
    To practice firm repentance;
    He put not his hand to his side
    As long as he retained his soul.

    Barra, the torch of wisdom, loved
    Humility towards all men;
    He never saw in pressing distress
    Any person whom he would not relieve.

    Mochuda of the mortification loved,
    Admirable every chapter of his history.
    That before his time no person shed
    Half as many tears as he shed.

    Colman, the comely, of Cluain loved
    Poetry by the sweet rules of art;
    No one whom he praised as faultless
    Ever came to evil afterwards.

    Fachtna, the generous and steadfast, loved
    To instruct the crowds in concert;,
    He never spoke that which was mean
    Nor aught but what was pleasing to his Lord.

    Senan, the noble invalid, loved —
    Good was every response of his responses —
    To have thirty diseases in his body,
    A sufficient mortification to the sage.

    Enda loved glorious mortification
    In Arann, triumphant virtue!
    A narrow dungeon of flinty stone,
    To bring the people to heaven.

    Fursa, the truly pious loved,
    Nothing more admirable are we told of,
    In a well as cold as the snow.
    Accurately to sing his psalms.

    Neassan, the holy deacon, loved
    An angelical, pure mortification.
    There never came past his lips
    Anything that was false or deceitful.

    Mac Creiche, the devout, loved
    A hard and undefiled dungeon,
    From Shrovetide to Easter would he subsist
    Upon only bread and cresses.

    Lachtain, the champion, loved
    Humility, perfect and pure.
    Stand through perpetual time
    Did he in defence of the men of Munster.

    Mobeog, the gifted, loved,
    According to the Synod of the learned,
    That often in bowing his head.
    He plunged it under water.

    Jarlathe, the illustrious, loved —
    A cleric he, who practised not niggardliness —
    Three hundred genuflexions each night,
    Three hundred genuflexions eaeh evening.

    Ulltan loved his children,
    A dungeon to his lean side.
    And to bathe in the cold water,
    And the sharp wind he loved.

    Ceallach Mac Commaic loved
    Mortifications which afflicted his body,
    Blindness, deafness, lameness.
    Were assigned to him— an unhappy case.

    Ruadhan, king of Lothra, loved
    A malediction which was merited.
    No angels displeasure attended
    Any cause which he loved.

    Fiachna loved true devotion,
    To instruct the people in multitudes,
    He never spoke a despicable word.
    Nor aught but what pleased his Lord.

    Benignus, the illustrious, loved —
    The noble, perfect teacher —
    That so as he could repeat a prayer.
    He spent not without reciting Latin.

    Molua of Cluain-fearta loved
    Humility, glorious and pure.
    Submission to tutor, submission to parents,
    Submission to all men, and under distempers.

    I am Cumin of Connaire,
    Who hath practised mortification and chastity,
    The party in which I trust are the best,
    The prayers of the saints I have loved.

    Rev. James O’Laverty, An Historical Account of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern, Volume V (Dublin, 1895), 233-245.

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