OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish Ecclesiastical Record

  • The Irish Monasteries of Ratisbon

    February 9 is the day on which we commemorate an eleventh-century Irish monastic who achieved fame in Germany, Blessed Marianus of Ratisbon. Behind this Latin name lies a Donegal man, Muiredach MacRobertagh, who left his homeland in 1067 on pilgrimage to Rome but ended up settling in Ratisbon. The monasteries of Ratisbon were among the most prominent of the so-called Schottenklöster, those monasteries of Germany founded and staffed by Irishmen. It is important to remember that in the early middle ages Ireland was often described in Latin writings as Scotia and that the term was only later applied to the country we know as Scotland. Marianus Scotus, as the founder is known is thus not Marianus the Scot but Marianus the Irishman. The later exclusive use of Scotia to denote Scotland was to have consequences for the Irish which went well beyond semantics.  For in the sixteenth century they would be dispossessed of the foundations they had made in Germany in favour of Scottish churchmen. Below is an 1894 paper by Father J. F. Hogan on the Irish monasteries of Ratisbon. In it the Irish Ecclesiastical Record’s German specialist describes the history of the Irish monasteries of Ratisbon and their famous founder:

    THE IRISH MONASTERIES OF RATISBON

    THE corporation of Irish monasteries in Germany that owed its origin to the blessed Marianus Scotus of Ratisbon, is well worthy of attention, not only on account of the great influence it exercised on the religious and artistic history of Germany, but also on account of the rapidity of its development and the extensive proportions which it attained. From the great foundation of St. James at Ratisbon (1090), branches were established in 1136 at Würzburg, in 1142 at Vienna, in 1160 at Memmingen, in 1166 at Constance, in 1172 at Nüremburg, in 1194 at Eichstatt, and at some intermediate or approximate periods at Erfurt in Saxony, at Oels in Silesia, and at Kehlheim in Bavaria. Other smaller foundations were also made; so that when the Abbot of St. James’s attended the Council of Lateran, in 1213, and obtained from Pope Innocent III. The acknowledgment of his brotherhood as a religious union or congregation exempt from episcopal control and directly subject to the Holy See, he could count at least fifteen well established, and flourishing houses, all acknowledging him as their ruler and head. The founder of the original house at Ratisbon, from which all these establishments emanated and grew was Marianus Scotus, an Irish monk, who should be carefully distinguished from his illustrious namesake ” Marianus the Chronicler,” who died at Mayence in 1082. Both were, we believe, natives of Tyrconnell in Ulster. They were practically contemporaries, and had both emigrated to Germany, each on a mission of his own. The Irish name of Marianus of Ratisbon, was Muiredach MacRobertagh, a name which still flourishes in a modern disguise in the county Donegal. We are indebted to a manuscript composed by an Irish monk of Ratisbon, and happily preserved in the Carthusian monastery of Gaming, in Lower Austria, for the most detailed account of the life of Marianus. In this and other less complete biographies we find the substance of the following facts relating to the saint. Marianus Scotus, who is described by the chronicler as having been very handsome in appearance and most attractive in his manners, was carefully instructed whilst still young, in sacred and secular literature. In due course he assumed the monastic habit, and prepared for the expedition which was evidently the ambition of his life. In the year 1067 he left Ireland forever, accompanied, according to some, by two companions, Joannes and Candidus; and according to others, by seven, viz., Johannes, Candidus, Donatus, Dominus, Mordacus, Isaac, and Magnaldus.

    Their chief object on setting out was to make a pilgrimage to Rome, breaking their journey, as was the custom, at the hospitable monasteries on the way. On this errand, they reached Ratisbon, where they were first received by Otto, the Bishop, who had been formerly a Canon of Bamberg, and who received them into the Benedictine Order, and gave them the clerical habit of that great brotherhood. After a short sojourn at the monastery of St. Michelsberg, they were allowed by their superiors to proceed on their way. Arriving at Ratisbon for the second time, they met with a friendly reception from Emma, the Abbess of the Convent of Obermünster, who employed Marianus in the transcription of some books. A cell was arranged for him at the Niedermünster, in which he diligently carried on his writing, his companions preparing the parchment for his use. Before resuming his journey southwards, he resolved to pay a visit to an Irish recluse named Murchertach, who lived the life of a hermit in the immediate neighbourhood. Murchertach had left Ireland long before Marianus, and had now spent many years in the practice of the most austere penances.

    On this account, Marianus was deeply impressed when the hermit urged him to submit to the guidance of Heaven as to whether he should continue his journey to Rome, or settle at once and for ever in Germany. He passed the night in considerable anxiety in Murchertach’s cell, and in the hours of darkness it was intimated to him that where on the next day he should behold the rising sun, there he should remain and fix his abode. Starting early on the following morning, he entered the Church of St. Peter outside the walls of the city, to implore the blessing of heaven on his journey. On coming forth, he beheld the sun stealing above the distant horizon. “Here, then,” he said, “I shall rest, and here shall be my resurrection.” His resolution was hailed with joy by the people. Emma, the Abbess of Obermünster, granted him the Church of St. Peter, for the use of himself and his brethren; and a wealthy citizen of Ratisbon, named Bezelin, built for them, at his own expense, a small monastery, which the Emperor Henry IV. soon after took under his protection, at the solicitation of the Abbess Hazecha.

    The fame of Marianus and the news of his prosperity soon reached Ireland, and numbers of his countrymen hastened to join him. They were chiefly from the province of Ulster like Marianus himself. They became so numerous that it was found necessary, in 1090, to build another monastery to receive them. This was called the monastery of St. James, and it became in the course of years one of the richest establishments of the kind in Europe. Of Marianus the founder, little further is recorded except his great skill and industry as a scribe:

    “Such [says his biographer] was the grace of writing which Providence bestowed on the blessed Marianus, that he wrote many lengthy volumes both in the upper and lower monasteries. For,  to tell the truth, without any colouring of language, among all the acts which divine Providence deigned to perform through this wonderful man, I deem this most worthy of praise and admiration,  that the holy man wrote from beginning to end with his own hand the Old and New Testament with explanatory comments on the books ; and that not once or twice, but over and over again, with a view to an eternal reward, all the while clad in sorry garb and living on slender diet. Besides, he also wrote many smaller books and manual psalters for distressed widows and poor clerics of the city, towards the health of his soul, without any prospect of earthly gain. Furthermore, through the mercy of God, many congregations of the monastic order which in faith and charity and imitation of the blessed Marianus, have come from the aforesaid Ireland, and inhabit Bavaria and Franconia, are sustained by the writings of the blessed Marianus.”

    In his glosses and commentaries on the sacred text he made use of the writings of St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Cassiodorus, Arnobius, St. Gregory, Fulgentius, Cassius, Leo, and Alcuin. His death is recorded on the 9th of February 1038.

    There are several manuscripts written by Marianus still extant: but the most important is the Codex in the Imperial Library of Vienna, which, as Dr. Reeves remarks, interests us not only on account of the beauty of his execution, but also as supplying the Irish name of the writer. The existence of this manuscript was revealed to the public only in 1679, when Lambecius published his famous catalogue of the Library of Vienna. It was from this catalogue that Cave, Harris, Lanigan, Oudin, and Zeuss obtained their information.

    A more detailed account of the manuscript was given later on by the learned and laborious Father Denis, whom Dr. Reeves describes as “one of those highly cultivated and gifted men whom the dispersion of the old society of the Jesuits threw upon the world, and who in these circumstances was made chief librarian in Vienna in the latter part of the last century.” The Codex contains all the epistles of St. Paul, according to the text of the Vulgate, and in the same order in which they are found in our Bibles, except that between the Epistle to the Colossians and those addressed to the Thessalonians, the apocryphal Epistle to the Laodicacians is introduced; not, however, without the marginal observation, “Laodicensium epistola ab alio, sub nomine Pauli, putatur edita.” The last folio of the work concludes with the words which are all written in vermillion:

    IN HONORS INDIVIDUAE TRINITATIS
    MARIANUS SCOTTUS SCRIPSIT HUNG
    LIBRUM SUIS FRATRIBUS PEREGRINIS.
    ANIMA EIUS REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
    PROPTER DEUM DEVOTE DICITE. AMEN.

    and between the two first lines, over ” Marianus Scottus,” in the same hand, is written the Irish name of the scribe.

    But to return to the monastic foundations of Marianus, we have already seen that the first house established in connection with the Church of Weich St. Peter soon became too small to hold the numbers of Irishmen who flocked to join him in his pious retreat. They accordingly purchased from the Count of Frontenhausen, for the sum of thirty pounds, a piece of ground which was situated at the opposite town gate, now called the Stadt-am-Hof. The ancient chronicle, which was kept by an Irish monk of St. James’s, gives an interesting account of the progress of the new foundation. It tells us that two Irishmen of noble birth, named Isaac and Gervase, were sent, with several other companions, by Domnus, abbot of St. Peter’s, to collect funds in Ireland for the building of the new monastery. They were well received by Conchobhar O’Brien, King of Munster, and returned to Ratisbon loaded with rich presents. With the money thus brought from Ireland the site was purchased, and a good part of the new monastery erected. “Now, be it known,” writes the chronicler, ” that neither before nor since was there a monastery equal to this in the beauty of its towers, columns, and vaultings, erected and completed in so short a time, because the plenteousness of riches and of money bestowed by the king and princes of Ireland was almost unbounded.”

    Yet, notwithstanding their copiousness, the treasures sent from Ireland were soon exhausted, and Christian, abbot of St. James, a descendant of the great family of the MacCarthys, at the request of his brethren, undertook a journey to Ireland to seek the aid of Donnchadh O’Brien, the brother of Conchobhar, who was now dead. He was most successful in his mission, and was preparing to return with a large supply of gold and valuables when he fell sick and died, and was buried before St. Patrick’s altar in the Cathedral of Cashel. His successor, Abbot Gregory, was consecrated in Rome by Pope Adrian IV., and afterwards proceeded to Ireland, where he received the money that had been collected by Christianus, with considerable additions. With this he repaired the church, roofed it with lead, renewed its floor, and added cloisters around it, devoting the greater portion, however, to investments, which were necessary in order to ensure the future.

    Wattenbach reminds us how enterprising and successful the monks were in providing funds to carry out their building projects:

    ” Whilst the building of the monastery of St. James was in progress, one of the monks pursued his journey, accompanied only by a boy, till he reached Kiev, then the residence of the King of Russia. Here the King and his nobles made him rich presents, so that he loaded several waggons with valuable furs, to the amount of a hundred silver marks; and arrived at home in safety, accompanied by some merchants of Regensburg. For at that time Russia was not so isolated as she is now; and  Regensburg in particular kept up a very lively commercial intercourse with Kiev, a city whose splendour Thietmar, Bishop of Merseburg, described, in the beginning of the eleventh century, in vivid colours.”

    It was with such treasures, aided by the privileges and exemptions conferred upon the monastery by emperors and popes, that the foundations were laid of the princely estate with which the famous “Monasteriurn Scottorum” of Ratisbon was ever afterwards endowed. It soon became the parent house of many flourishing colonies, always retaining authority over them, and exercising it when the occasion required. Paritius, in a work from which both Wattenbach and Reeves have chiefly drawn their information, gives the fullest account which we possess to-day of its history and progress. We give below the list of abbots who ruled it, according to him, from 1070 to 1720.

    [Marianus Scotus, the founder, 1070-1098; Dominions, discipulus Marianus, 1008-1121; Dermitius, 1121-1133; Christian, 1133-1164; Domninus, 1164-1172; Georgius, 1172-1204; Johannes, 1205-1212; Matthaeus, 1212-1214 ; Georgius II., 1214-1223; Jacobus, 1223-1266; Paulinus, 1266-1279; Macrobius, 1279-1290 ; Matthaeus II., 1290-1293 ; Mauritius, 1293-1295; Marianus, 1295-1301; Donatus, 1301-1310; Johannes, 1310-1326 ; Nicholas, 1326-1333 ; Johannes, 1333-1341 ; Gilbert, 1341-1348; Nicholaus, 1348-1354; Eugene, 1355-1370; Matthaeus, 1370-1382; Gelatins, 1382-1383; Matthaeus, 1383-1396; Philip I, 1396-1402; Philip II., 1402-1421; Donatus, 1431-1436; Alexander Bog, 1548-1555; Balthazar Dixon, 1555-1567 ; Thomas Anderson, 1557-1576; Ninian Winzet, 1576-1592; Alexander Bailie, Maurus Dixon, Placidus Fleming, 1672-1720; Maurus Stuart, and Bernard Baillie. Abbot Placidus Fleming completely renovated the church in 1678.]

    The most important events of its history were the foundations of new monasteries, which took place from time to time. Before we proceed to deal with these seriatim, it may be as well to state briefly the vicissitudes through which St. James’s passed.

    During the course of its history it received many proofs of paternal solicitude from the Roman Pontiffs. In the year 1120 it received a letter of protection from Pope Callixtus II. Innocent II., Eugene III., and Adrian IV. issued Bulls to its abbots, commending and encouraging their work. Innocent III., on the occasion of the Fourth Council of Lateran, 1213, at the request of the abbot, George II., took the establishment, with all its branches, under the direct protection of the Holy See, and confirmed the Abbot of St. James of Ratisbon as general or president of the whole congregation or union of Irish monasteries. Nor was civil patronage less generous in its assistance to these exiled monks. Cut away from the strife and contention of political life, devoted wholly to the service of God, preaching His word and inculcating His precepts by lives of perfect sanctity, these strangers became universally popular. The fame of their simplicity and zeal reached the courts of the great, as well as the homes of the poor. For all they had the same welcome, the same remedies, the same helpful sympathy. Their charity was unbounded. Their presence was regarded as a blessing to the whole country. Hence donations and legacies came to them fast and abundantly. We get an idea of the extent to which their possessions had accumulated, from a charter of the Emperor Sigismund, granted in 1422, renewing and confirming a previous charter of Frederick II., dated 1212. This latter document mentions, as Bishop Reeves has computed them, “seventy denominations of land, seven mills, ten vineyards, three fisheries, four chapels, eight manses, besides woods, pasturages, and gardens, all belonging to St. James’s monastery. The deed is attested by one archbishop, six bishops, one king, one landgrave, two dukes, one marquis, and two earls.” The record of these various donations was carefully kept in the monastery, as we gather from the fragments that have remained to us. Thus Bertha, “the gentle and artless dove ” (simplex sine felle columba), daughter of the pious Margrave Leopold, and wife of the Burgrave Henry of Ratisbon, makes over on the monastery two vineyards and seven acres of land in Austria, in return for which she is buried in the chapter-house and never forgotten in the prayers of the monks. Another pious lady, named Linchardis, is equally generous, and is buried near Bertha “in Capitulo nostro.” Noblemen like Werner von Laaber, Berthold von Schwartzenburg, Otto von Riedenburg, are especially commemorated in the Necrologium for their, large donations. Nor should Count Albert de Mitterzil be forgotten, for he was amongst their earliest benefactors, giving them the ground alongside their church on which their monastery was almost entirely constructed. His name is recorded in the Necrologium on the 17th January. Other names equally generous abound on the register.

    And yet the vastness of that great estate did not prevent the institution that possessed it from one day falling into decay, and, what is worse, into disrepute. It even possibly helped its downfall, and made its days of decline more unfortunate than they might otherwise have been. We do not refer here to the frequent fires that consumed the material buildings, and compelled the monks to start from the foundations and begin their work anew. The final overthrow of the monastery was due to influences not less destructive than fire, but more fatal and far-reaching in their effects. Chief amongst these, as Wattenbach observes, was the subjugation of Ireland by the English. The incessant troubles that overwhelmed the mother country ever since the Anglo-Normans landed on our shores, made themselves felt in the Irish religious establishments on the Continent. The firmer and more extensive English domination became in Ireland, the more baneful were its results abroad as well as at home. Few monks went out from Ireland from the fourteenth century onwards. Those that did go were chiefly such as their superiors wanted to get rid of, or who were discontented with the strict rules and severe discipline that prevailed at home. It was not the zeal of the missionary that urged them forward. They sought rather a life of luxury and ease. Hence the duties of religious life are gradually neglected. The new monks are not able to fulfil their task. They fail to become acquainted with the language of the people around them. They cannot preach nor hear confessions. Their conduct leaves much to be desired. The good people whose forefathers lavished riches and wealth on the monks of St. James in the early times, shake their heads in sorrow and almost in shame. The property of the establishment is frittered away and squandered. The buildings fall into ruin. Manuscripts that had been laboriously written out were burnt or cast away. Books were sold or pawned or neglected. Church ornaments and vestments were allowed to become squalid and unfit for use. The monks themselves dwindled in number till they were threatened with extinction. Then it was that the monastery and what remained of the property fell an easy prey to the Scotchmen or “Scoti” of Scotland. They asserted ” that these foundations originally belonged to their nation; that the Irish had unjustly thrust themselves in, and for that very reason had brought about the decline of the colonies.”

    On the 31st of July, 1515, Pope Leo IV. did actually make over the monastery of St. James on the Scotch, and appointed John Thomson superior. Thomson had just then paid a visit to Rome, where he had been a daily guest of the Pope at his dinner-table. This abbot drove out the remnant of Irish monks who still remained, and introduced countrymen of his own from the Abbey of Dunfermline. He was warmly supported by King James of Scotland. In 1653 an Irish Benedictine monk made vigorous efforts to recover possession of the monastery for his countrymen. Several Austrian cardinals supported his claims; but Pope Innocent X. decided against him. The newcomers were, all the same, not much superior to the degenerate Irishmen whom they replaced. They squandered what remained of the property till, under Abbot Alexander Bog, from 1548 to 1556, there was not a single monk remaining at St. James’s. In his time also the old parent monastery of Weyh-St.-Peter was lost, having been burned to the ground on the evening of the 25th of May, 1552, during the progress of the Smalcaldic war. An old Ratisbon chronicler, Leonhard Wildman, thus relates the occurrence:

    ” On Wednesday, in the week of the Holy Cross, they began to destroy the church of Weyh-St. -Peter. In the evening they set it on fire, and burned it to the ground. On the 28th of July I went out, for the first time, by the gate of Weyh-St. -Peter, to see how the dear little monastery had been broken to pieces ; and the scene which this ancient house of God presented made me full sore at heart. Verily, if our forefathers had not built so many chapels, there would not now have been stones enough for the bastions of Prebrunn, and for the Ostengate.”

    St. James’s had a short return of prosperity under the pontificate of Gregory XIII., who appointed as its abbot Ninian Winzet, a zealous opponent of the movement towards Protestantism. He had been driven out of Scotland on account of his orthodoxy and firmness, and now gathered around him at Ratisbon all the Catholic fugitives from his own country. He immediately set about seizing on the other Scotic monasteries that had been subject to St. James, and was successful in the cases of Erzfürt and Würzburg. In the others he failed. He was assisted in his intrigues by a remarkable man, named John Leslie, Bishop of Boss, and formerly plenipotentiary of Queen Mary Stuart in London. This ecclesiastic was high in the favour of the Roman Court. He was the author of a work entitled, De Origine Scotorum. He was appointed Assistant Bishop and Vicar-General of Rouen, in 1579 ; and in 1593 he was nominated to the see of Constance. He was, therefore, in a favourable position to press the claims of his countrymen to the scattered monasteries of the “Scoti.” He made particularly adroit attempts in reference to the old monasteries of Nuremburg and Vienna, but failed in both. Under the Abbot Placidus Fleming (1672-1720), St. James’s again enjoyed comparative prosperity. In 1718 he established there a college for young men of the Scottish nobility. When Paritius wrote his account of it, in 1723, the Scottish monks then at the monastery were Joseph Falconer, Augustus Morrison, Marian Brochie, Boniface Leslie, Kilian Grant, Placidus Hamilton, Erhard, and Columban Grant. According, however, as religious persecution became less oppressive at home, the necessity for a foreign secular college gradually ceased. A few monks lingered on till 1862, when the old monastery was secularized, or rather when, by an understanding between the Holy See and the Bavarian Government, it was handed over to the Bishop of Ratisbon as partial endowment of the ecclesiastical seminary of the diocese.

    In that part of the city of Ratisbon now called the “Stadt-am-Hof,” on the western bank of the Danube, the old ‘Schottenkirche,” or Church of St. James, still stands. Notwithstanding the number of times it was burnt and restored, there are still many traces around it of its Irish origin. One of its doorways in particular exhibits the genuine characteristics of Celtic art, the interlaced ornamentation and serpentine shapes of crocodiles and monsters which represent the triumph of Christianity over heathenism; the mermaid that symbolizes the distant sea crossed by the missionaries, and the peculiar shape and features, as far as they can still be distinguished, of three monks, whose origin could never be mistaken by anyone acquainted with the ancient carved stonework of Ireland, and their prototypes in the illuminated manuscripts of a still earlier period.

    Such was the great monastery of St. James. We have been able to give but a brief sketch of its rise, its decline, and its extinction. Something must still be heard of it, however, as we follow the history of its numerous branches.

    J. F. HOGAN.

    Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 15 (1894), 1015-1020.

     

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2021. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Dymphna of Gheel, May 15

    May 15 is the feast of Saint Dymphna of Gheel, a saint whose cult continues to flourish. According to the traditional account she was an Irish princess who fled to continental Europe to escape the incestuous attentions of her widowed father and was there martyred by his agents. She has become associated with the patronage of the mentally ill, a role in which her popularity is undimmed today. From the point of view of modern scholarship, there are a number of problems with the Dymphna story as it has come down to us. First, she does not appear on the Irish calendars of the saints. Now it is true that the Martyrology of Donegal ( a 17th-century compilation) does record at May 15 ‘Dymphna, Virgin and Martyr’, but this entry is not based on an earlier native source. Her name is not to be found in the 8th/9th-century calendars of Oengus or Tallaght, nor does it occur in the 12th-century Martyrology of Gorman. There is a good reason for this: the cult of Saint Dymphna was only established in the 13th century when a Flemish hagiographer composed her Life. Secondly, the relationship between the saint of Gheel commemorated on May 15 and a native holy woman, Damhnat of Slieve Beagh, commemorated nearly a month later on June 13, is a complex one. It seems that the great 17th-century hagiologist, John Colgan,  thought he had found proof positive in manuscript sources for the Dymphna legend in a reference to a Damnoda or Dymna schene, ‘the fugitive’ whom he tied into the royal line of the kingdom of Oirgialla, the territory of Saint Damhnat. Later writers like our old friend Canon O’Hanlon, whose account I published at the blog here, were happy to accept Colgan’s view uncritically, even though when he came to write about Saint Damhnat in his June volume, the same Canon O’Hanlon expressed his scepticism that she and Dymphna of Gheel were one and the same individual! Below is a paper on Saint Dymphna from one of Canon O’Hanlon’s contemporaries, Father J. F. Hogan (1858-1918). Father Hogan had the chance to study on the continent and was a prolific contributor to the religious press of his day. He acted as a specialist in the study of Irish saints in Europe for the Irish Ecclesiastical Record and this 1893 article on Saint Dymphna was one of a series on such saints. In it he presents the traditional story, including the identification of the Belgian fugitive princess with the Ulster holy woman, but does seem uncomfortable at times with aspects of it. Writers of this period were convinced that the Irish were inherently a holy people so the fact of Dymphna’s father taking an unholy interest in his own daughter created a major difficulty. This is overcome by the author first suggesting that this Irish king was a pagan (despite Christianity having been established in Ireland in the fifth century) and then by somewhat more desperately trying to blame the ‘eastern’ influence of the earliest races to inhabit Ireland, especially the Milesians! Rather more likely for modern scholars is the scenario that thirteenth-century Gheel wanted to associate itself with Ireland, the insula sanctorum, and thus a legend was born.

    ST. DYMPNA OF GHEEL.

    There are certain features in the life of St. Dympna which not only distinguish her from all the other saints of her native land, but which, in some respects, have scarcely their parallel in the annals of the universal Church. The number of virgin-martyrs on the roll of the early Irish calendar is comparatively small, owing, no doubt, to the peaceful manner in which the conversion of the country was effected. The Irish virgins who secured the crown of martyrdom received it in foreign lands, and amongst them St. Dympna undoubtedly holds the most prominent place. Well worthy, indeed, she seems, to be enumerated amongst the frail but heroic witnesses to divine faith, whose firmness in the midst of persecution constitutes one of the most miraculous elements in the establishment of Christianity. The physical pain which she endured was not comparable, of course, in intensity or barbarity, to that which was inflicted on the virgin-martyrs of an earlier period. One has only to cast a glance at the history of the persecutions under Nero or Diocletian to realize the difference. The mind absolutely recoils from contemplating the tortures inflicted on such helpless victims as St. Euphemia of Chalcedon, St. Theodosia of Persepolis, St. Febronia of Nisibe, St. Philomena of Ancyra, St. Eulalia of Merida, not to speak of the great Roman virgin-martyrs — Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Anastasia, Cecilia, Agnes, whose names the Church has taken into the Canon of the Mass, and whose memory will there be honoured as long as the sacrifice of expiation is offered up in any part of the world.

    The constancy of St. Dympna was, in its special circumstances, not less admirable than that of these noble victims. Physically speaking, indeed, it was not put to so severe a test; but it was made to endure the strain of a moral ordeal which did not accompany the sufferings of these or of any other martyr with whose history we are acquainted. Saints there were, no doubt, in the early days of the Church who were sacrificed by those who should have been their natural protectors. Flavia Domitilla, the niece of Titus and Domitian, was not spared on account of her kinship with the persecutors; and, later on, the eldest son of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths of Spain, was put to death by the orders of his own father in one of the dungeons of Seville because he would not renounce the orthodox faith, and conform, like his brother Reccaredo, to the Arian creed. But in these cases the fatal deed was perpetrated by strangers and by servants, whereas the martyrdom of St. Dympna presents all the features of a domestic tragedy. The blow was struck by her own father, whose passion had blinded him to such a degree that he was in the end bereft of the commonest instincts of nature and of all human sense. The loss of life was in itself, we imagine, but a small thing to St. Dympna. The weight of her affliction came rather from the circumstances by which it was surrounded, and the flower of her martyrdom is to be found in the patience, the fortitude, the stainless purity with which she maintained her peace, and bore the heavy cross by which her fidelity was tried. No wonder, therefore, that she should be called, in the old Flemish tongue ” Een Lilie onder de Doornen ” — a lily amongst thorns — and be honoured as such in the Latin verses: —

    “O Castitatis lilium!
    Virgo decus regium!
    Dei martyr gloriosa!
    Christo regi gratiosa!”

    The oldest life of St. Dympna now in existence was written by Pierre de Cambrai, in the thirteenth century. But this work would seem to he merely a translation of an older life written in Flemish at a much earlier date. In addition to the authors of the Acta Sanctorum, Molanus, Colgan, Miraeus, Baillet, a large number of historians have dealt with the life and martyrdom of St. Dympna. Special lives of the saint were written by Ludolphusvan Craywinckel, canon of the Norbertine Abbey of Tongerloo, in 1652; by Felix Bogaerts of Antwerp, in 1840; and Peter Dominick Kuyl, curate of Antwerp Cathedral, in 1863.

    These writers all, with the exception of Henschenius, the Bollandist, admit, without reserve, the Irish nationality of St. Dympna, following in this the example of her oldest biographer. Nor is Ireland’s claim positively denied by Henschenius. He admits that his theory of her English origin is a mere conjecture, and the difficulties which he puts forward have already been satisfactorily answered by Lanigan and other historians.

    According, then, to the best authorities, St. Dympna was the daughter of one of the petty kings or princes who ruled this country about the beginning of the sixth century. Although Ireland was at that time practically converted to Christianity, a few princes seem to have still clung to pagan ideas and practices. Dympna’s father was, undoubtedly, a pagan. He is said to have ruled over that part of Ulster which was called Oirghialla, or Orgiel, and which embraced the territory of the modern counties of Louth, Armagh, and Monaghan. Her mother, who was as remarkable for her goodness as for her beauty, died at an early age, and Dympna’s education fell to the lot of some Christian attendants, who had her baptized and instructed in the true faith. The young princess entered thoroughly into the spirit of Christian life. She despised the dancing and light songs which were indulged in by the maidens of her age, and secretly vowed herself body and soul to the service of Christ.

    The King who was greatly afflicted by the death of his wife, soon commissioned his counsellors to seek a spouse for him, who should resemble in every respect the lady he had lost. They were not successful in their undertaking, but when all else failed them, they directed the attention of the King to his daughter Dympna, who became each day more and more the image of her mother. Infatuated with this idea, the King now began the importunities which his daughter so firmly and so consistently repudiated from the first, and which, after years of annoyance, were to end in her destruction.

    “Matre defuncta, filie rex concupivit speciem,
    Cerneus illius faciem, sponsae vultus effigiem.”

    This strange proposal will appear somewhat less astonishing, perhaps, when we remember that the King was an absolute pagan and that unions of the kind were not unfrequent amongst the heathen peoples of ancient times. They were condemned, no doubt, by the more civilized pagans of Greece and Rome, and we may recall with what dramatic power Sophocles has disposed of such relations. It is impossible for anyone who has read the drama of Oedipus, to forget the woe and despair of the unhappy King who, without his knowledge or his fault, had contracted an incestuous marriage. “When the mystery of his life is unravelled, his grief knows no bounds. He believes himself unworthy of the light of day, and puts out his eyes with his own hands. He foresees the cruel destiny of his sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and of his beloved daughter Antigone, and goes to his fate with an overwhelming consciousness of wrong.

    In many parts of the East, however, no such strong feeling existed. In Persia, in particular, from the earliest times, the law of consanguinity was violated. Even amongst the chosen people, the angels of heaven had not long rescued Lot and his family from the doom of the cities of the plain, when they gave to the world an example of the dissolute manners that prevailed around their former domicile; and we know that Thamar pined away in the house of Absalom her brother, not so much on account of the wrong inflicted upon her by her elder brother Amnon, as because the consent of their father, David, had not been asked to regulate the intercourse. At a later period also we learn from the Epistles of St. Paul, that in Greece itself, and particularly in the corrupt city of Corinth, instances of this same vice had to be deplored. Some of the earliest races that inhabited Ireland — the Milesians, in particular — are believed to have come more or less directly from the East, and it is no wonder that they should have brought with them customs that were prevalent in the territory of their origin.

    However this may be, the relentless monarch pursued his purpose without any respite. Entreaties, threats, promises, were all employed in turn, but with not the slightest effect, except to fill with sadness and affliction the soul of the pure virgin to whom they were addressed. When driven thus to the extreme limits of distress, Dympna was inspired, like Judith of old, to ask for a term of forty days, in order that she might consider maturely the proposals that had been made to her. This request having been readily granted, the King rejoiced when he saw his daughter occupied at the preparation of the ornaments of dress suitable to the nuptials of a person in her state. Such outward appearances were, however, only intended to cover the design which she had conceived, to fly from the peril.

    In all her troubles, Dympna found a wise and trustworthy guide in the person of the aged priest Gerebernus, who had secretly converted her mother to the Christian faith, and who had watched over her own education and spiritual interests with the most paternal care. At the crisis which had now arrived, this faithful counsellor saw that flight alone could save Dympna from the most miserable fate, and to this expedient the princess readily consented. Gerebernus himself was prevailed upon to accompany her to a place of safety, whilst her father’s court-jester and his wife, who were both Christians, and whose devotion could be relied upon, were taken into the secret, and agreed to follow her as attendants.

    The small company of fugitives made their way to the sea-side, and took shipping to some foreign coast. It is not stated whether they passed through England on their journey outward; but in due course they landed at the port of Antwerp, in Belgium. Here they remained for a short time; but, anxious for greater solitude, they resolved to seek a quiet retreat in the country, and they proceeded inland as far as Gheel. Close to this town, in a quiet and secluded spot, then surrounded by dense woods and thickets, they built themselves a house, in which, as their biographer tells us, they led an angelic life. They went regularly to the neighbouring church of St. Martin at Gheel, where Gerebernus celebrated Mass, and on their return the day was spent in prayer and other religious exercises. About the middle of July, 1892, we passed by this sacred spot, in company with the Abbe de Vel, the good “pastoor” of St. Dympna’s parish. A handsome little oratory now marks the spot in which the Irish virgin lived. Statues of the two saints are erected there on either side of the altar. At noon of the summer’s day, the country all around was peaceful and still. The peasants were all occupied in the fields, and there was scarcely a sound to be heard on any side. We could imagine what it must have been when Dympna and her companions selected it for their abode, and when the woods and thickets cut it off from the noise of the outer world.

    The anger of the father, when he heard of Dympna’s departure, was utterly uncontrollable. He ordered the country to be searched high and low, in order to discover her hiding-place; and when he had found that she had already fled from the country, he fitted out a fleet to pursue her. With a number of followers he traced her by different stages, till at last he landed at Antwerp, having evidently been informed of the course she had taken. From Antwerp he sent envoys through the surrounding country in the hope of finding some trace of her whereabouts. Some of these messengers, when paying for their food in Irish coin at the village of Westerloo, were informed that money of a similar stamp had recently been received from a young Irish lady, who, with an aged priest and two servants, was living in seclusion in the woods close by. This was the first clue which the pursuers had found, and it naturally led to almost immediate discovery.

    The anger of the king, when brought face to face with the fugitives, fell chiefly on the venerable priest Gerebernus. When the courageous old man warned Dympna, in the presence of her father, to be faithful to the spouse whom she had chosen, and to yield neither to the threats nor to the entreaties of the tyrant, he was ordered by the King to be seized at once, taken away, and beheaded. These commands were instantly obeyed, and the foul deed was aggravated by almost every expression of hatred and contumely which furious passions could excite. The aged priest received with joy his glorious crown of martyrdom, and sealed with his blood the love of chastity and truth which distinguished him during life.The infatuated monarch next employed all his powers of persuasion in endeavouring to induce his daughter to return with him to Ireland to share his kingdom, to be the pride of his people, and to have her statue placed amongst those of the goddesses that were still worshipped in his temples. But to all such inducements the answer of Dympna was prompt and firm. “With all my soul I despise thy kingly delights. I repudiate the honours thou desirest to confer upon me. It is useless to persist in thy entreaties.” Enraged at her steadfastness, the King had now recourse to threats of violence. “Do at once what I wish, or thou shalt incur thy father’s anger, like that malignant priest, Gerebernus, who has lost his head for his treachery. Spare thy own youth. Submit to thy father’s wishes. Sacrifice to our gods, or thou shalt die, and be an example to all who dare oppose our will.” Dympna replied: “O cruel tyrant! Didst thou kill the venerable priest of God, who was guilty of no crime? Know now that thou shalt not escape the judgment of the Almighty. Thy gods and goddesses I abhor and detest, and commit myself altogether to my Lord Jesus Christ, who is my spouse, my glory, my salvation, my hope, my desire. Whatever pain thou canst inflict, I shall bear with joy in fidelity to Him.”

    Whilst listening to this uncompromising declaration, the King was overcome with passion. He saw that his plans were frustrated, that his labour had been spent in vain, that he should return to Ireland baffled and defeated in his project. In his frenzy nothing short of the death of his own daughter would satisfy him. To the miscreants who had already killed the faithful Gerebernus he issued the fatal order. But even they had too much regard for the youth and beauty and purity of the princess to obey him. They feared, moreover, that in calmer moments he would repent of his harshness, and that whosoever should dare to do injury to his daughter would become the victims of his altered mood. Seeing their unwillingness to act, the unhappy father drew his own sword from its scabbard, and wielding it high in the air, delivered the inhuman blow which deprived him for ever of his daughter, and added one more to the heavenly train that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. It was thus that the blood of the Irish virgin was shed on the land of Gheel, and in presence of the crime we have only to repeat the words, in which, in after ages the inhabitants recorded their gratitude at the event:

    ” 0 felix patria quam sacrat sanguine Dympna.” We have before us a long list of the miracles by which, in the course of history, God showed His appreciation of the fidelity of His servants Dympna and Gerebernus. Through them the divine life of the Church was manifested by graces of a special kind. It poured its compassion upon a class of human creatures who are, perhaps, more to be pitied than any other afflicted mortals in the world; namely, on those who, like the father of the virgin-martyr herself, had been deprived of the guiding light of reason. Even to this day a colony of poor demented creatures find refuge at Gheel, lender the benign protection of the angelic virgin. At the foot of her altar they seem to yield to the influence of her memory, and to submit with unusual patience to the lot which Providence has designed for them. “Whoever contrasts their treatment with that to which their fellow-sufferers are subjected in other lands, must admit that the ways of Catholic charity are wonderful indeed. For although it is a pitiable sight to see them going about the streets with “the noble mind o’erthrown ” —” Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.”

    Yet it is surely consoling to think that they are not altogether cut away from the society of their fellow-creatures, and that a ray, however faint, of earthly happiness may still shine, at intervals, on their existence.But the blessings obtained through the influence of St. Dympna were not confined to any class or section of the people. She is the patron saint of the whole district, known as the Campine; and in the year 1682 the bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Hertogensbosh in Holland, in a letter in which he exhorts his spiritual subjects to have constant recourse to the powerful protection of St. Dympna, bears testimony to the innumerable favours, both spiritual and temporal, which the whole country had received through the influence of its virgin patron. And what is still more important, several Popes, including John XXII., John XXIII., and Eugene IV., testified to her miracles in Apostolic letters.

    The bodies of the two saints were religiously preserved together at Gheel for many centuries. So great was the veneration of the people for these relics, and so widespread the fame of their miracles, that when a great pilgrimage came from the distant town of Xanten, in Germany, in the Middle Ages, the men in their enthusiasm carried away the bodies of the two saints which they wished to have in their church. They were pursued, however, by the people of Gheel, and the contentions which followed resulted in a compromise by which the relics of St. Dympna were restored to their owners, whilst those of Gerebernus were transferred to Xanten or Sonsbeck. The “pious robbers of Xanten ” have since then a very bad reputation for honesty amongst the peasants of the “Campine.” These, however, have not forgotten St. Gerebernus, and on the feast of St. Dympna, his name is invariably associated with that of the Virgin.

    The remains of St. Dympna are preserved in a beautiful silver shrine designed in Gothic shape and exquisitely ornamented. There are many other memorials of the virgin-martyr at Gheel and in the surrounding country. The principal church in the town is dedicated to St. Dympna. It is a handsome Gothic structure, with a nave and two aisles. The high altar is relieved by a reredos, showing in curious figures scenes from the life of the saint. At the back of this reredos is a large Gothic shrine containing the tombs in which SS. Dympna and Gerebernus were first interred. The inscription indicates what is there: —

    “Quod jacet hic intus dum transis pronus honora.”
    “Tumbae sanctorum Dympnae sunt et Gereberni.”

    In the choir there is an interesting mausoleum of the family of the Counts de Merode-Westerloo. In it are buried John III., Baron of Merode, and his eldest daughter, Anna van Ghistelle, who founded the Chapter in St. Dympna’s church, in 1552. Over the choir there is a beautiful stained-glass window presented by the present Countess de Merode. Beneath it, under the shield of her family, the Princes of Arenberg, is inscribed the motto, “Plus d’honneur que d’honneurs.” Honours, however, have been no obstacle to honour in the family of Merode. Through many vicissitudes and revolutions they have preserved the faith of their fathers, firm and strong, under the shadow of St. Dympna. Whenever the interests of the Church required faithful, discreet, and trustworthy ser-vice, they could always be relied upon, and at the end of a long line of statesmen and soldiers the present Count holds the honourable position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Conservative and Catholic government of his country. From his castle at the little village of Westerloo, a long avenue, shaded by two splendid rows of lime trees, leads to the old historic monastery of Westerloo, where the sons of St. Norbert have always kept alive the memory of St. Dympna. Nor is there any sign of this general devotion falling off. It is rather the other way. Several memorials of the martyrdom of St. Dympna have recently been erected, and at the foot of one of these we noticed a Latin inscription the date of which speaks for itself.

    In Ireland there are several memorials of St. Dympna. In the days of Colgan she was regarded as the patroness of the whole country of Orghialla or Orgiel in Ulster and Louth. The parish of Tydavnet, in the Co. Monaghan, is said to have been originally consecrated to her; and there is a spot in the townland of Curraghwillan, in Cavan, which also seems to be associated with her name. Another church called Kill-Alga or Killdalkey, between Trim and Athboy, in the Co. Meath, was placed under the protection of St. Dympna. Dr. Petrie, in his work on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, says that he had in his possession the staff of the “Virgin and Martyr, Damhnad Ochene, or Dympna the Fugitive.” It is to this “baculus ” or staff that Colgan alludes when he speaks of the honour in which St. Dympna was held by the gentry and people of Orgiel. In later times the name of Dympna has become more popular than it had been as a Christian name in Ireland. We are happy to contribute a word to the fame of the virgin-martyr who bore it, and to join in the honour which is paid her in Belgium and Holland.

    J. F. HOGAN.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.

  • Prayer of Saint Aireran the Wise

    December 29 is the feast of Saint Aireran the Wise, a scholarly saint associated with the monastery of Clonard. Below is a paper from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record taken from a series on the legacy of Professor Eugene O’Curry, a nineteenth century scholar of the Irish Church. One of the items which O’Curry published in translation was a prayer ascribed to Saint Aireran the Wise and I reproduce the text and its introduction below. The prayer is a wonderful litany of praise in honour of the Holy Trinity. The ‘great work’ to which the writer of the introduction refers is O’Curry’s Manuscript Materials of Early Irish History, published in 1861 and available to read online.

    THE MSS. REMAINS OF PROFESSOR O’CURRY IN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

    NO. II

    Prayer of St. Aireran the Wise, ob. 664.

    [In the first number of the RECORD we published from the manuscripts of the late Professor O’Curry the Prayer of St. Colga of Clonmacnoise. We now publish another beautiful devotional piece from the same collection.

    Speaking of ancient Irish religious works now remaining, O’Curry says (at page 378 of his great work): “The fifth class of these religious remains consists of the prayers, invocations, and litanies, which have come down to us”. The Prayer of St. Colga, published in our last number, is placed by O’Curry in the second place among these documents, which he sets down in chronological order.

    “The first piece of this class (adopting the chronological order) is the prayer of St. Aireran the Wise (often called Aileron, Eleran, and Airenan), who was a classical professor in the great school of Clonard, and died of the plague in the year 664. St. Aireran’s prayer or litany is addressed, respectively, to God the Father, to God the Son, and to God the Holy Spirit, invoking them for mercy by various titles indicative of their power, glory, and attributes. The prayer consists of five invocations to the Father, eighteen invocations to the Son, and five to the Holy Spirit; and commences in Latin thus: ‘O Deus Pater, Omnipotens Deus, exerci misericordiam nobis’. This is followed by the same invocation in the Gaedhlic; and the petitions to the end are continued in the same language. The invocation of the Son begins thus: ‘ Have mercy on us, Almighty God! Jesus Christ! Son of the living God! Son, born twice! O only born of God the Father’. The petition to the Holy Spirit begins : ‘ Have mercy on us, Almighty God ! Holy Spirit! Spirit the noblest of all spirits!’ (See original in APPENDIX, No. CXX.)

    “When I first discovered this prayer in the Leabhar Buidhe Lecain (or Yellow Book of Lecain), in the library of Trinity College, many years ago, I had no means of ascertaining or fixing its date ; but in my subsequent readings in the same library, for my collection of ancient glossaries, I met the word Oirchis set down with explanation and illustration, as follows:

    “‘Oirchis. id est, Mercy ; as it is said in the prayers of Airinan the Wise’ : Have mercy on us, God the Father Almighty I” See original in APPENDIX, No. CXXI.

    “I think it is unnecessary to say more on the identity of the author of this prayer with the distinguished Aireran of Clonard. Nor is this the only specimen of his devout works that has come down to us. Fleming, in his Collecta Sacra, has published a fragment of a Latin tract discovered in the ancient monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, which is entitled ‘The Mystical Interpretation of the Ancestry of our Lord Jesus Christ’. A perfect copy of this curious tract, and one of high antiquity, has, I believe, been lately discovered on the continent.

    “There was another Airenan, also called ‘the wise’, who was abbot of Tamhlacht [Tallaght] in the latter part of the ninth century; but he has not been distinguished as an author, as far as we know”.

    It seems to us that there are three things specially worthy of our consideration in this beautiful prayer.

    In the first place, we find in it an explicit and most clear declaration of the Catholic Faith regarding the Blessed Trinity, especially the distinction of three persons, and the Divinity of each of these Divine Persons. ” God the Father Almighty, O God of Hosts, help us! Help us, Almighty God! O Jesus Christ! Help us, Almighty God, Holy Spirit!”

    We are in the next place struck by the extraordinary familiarity with the Holy Scripture which the writer evinces. There is scarcely one of the epithets which is not found in the sacred pages, almost in the precise words used by him, beginning with the first words, addressed to the Eternal Father. ” O God of Hosts”, the Deus Sabaoth of the Prophets, and going on to the last invocation of the Holy Ghost, ” Spirit of love”, which comprises in itself the two inspired phrases : ” Spiritus est Deus”, and “Deus Charitas est” We may also remark the coincidence between Saint Aireran and the liturgical prayers of the Church, especially in the invocations of the Holy Ghost found in the office of Whitsuntide and in the administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation. “Tu septiformis munere: Digitus Paternae dexterae”. ” Finger of God! Spirit of Seven Forms”.

    In fine, we find our Irish saint applying to the Son of God the vision of the Prophet Ezechiel regarding the four mysterious animals: “0 true Man! Lion! young Ox! Eagle!”

    The prophecy is commonly interpreted of the Four Evangelists. Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome are quoted as authorities for this interpretation. But it is worthy of remark, that Saint Gregory the Great, whilst giving the same interpretation, applies the mysterious vision also to God the Son [Hom. iv. in Ezech.]. And Saint Aireran, by adopting this opinion, seems to afford us another proof of the great familiarity of our Irish scholars with the writings of the great Pontiff and Father of the Church. And this familiarity is rendered still more remarkable, and serves to give another proof of the constant communication between Rome and Ireland, from the close proximity of the times of our Saint and of Saint Gregory.]

    Prayer of St. Aireran the Wise.

    O Deus Pater omnipotens Deus exerce tuam misericordiam nobis!

    O God the Father Almighty! O God of Hosts, help us.

    O illustrious God! O Lord of the world! O Creator of all creatures, help us.

    O indescribable God! O Creator of all creatures, help us.

    O invisible God! O incorporeal God! O unseen God! O unimaginable God! O patient God! O uncorrupted God! O unchangeable God! O eternal God! O perfect God! O merciful God! O admirable God! O Golden Goodness! O Heavenly Father, who art in Heaven, help us.

    Help us, O Almighty God! O Jesus Christ! O Son of the living God! O Son twice born! O only begotten of the Father! O first-born of Mary the Virgin! O Son of David! O Son of Abraham, beginning of all things! O End of the World! O Word of God! O Jewel of the Heavenly Kingdom! O Life of all (things)! O Eternal Truth! O Image, O Likeness, O Form of God the Father! O Arm of God! O Hand of God! O Strength of God! O right (hand) of God! O true Wisdom! O true Light, which enlightens all men! O Light-giver! O Sun of Righteousness! O Star of the Morning! O Lustre of the Divinity! O Sheen of the Eternal Light! O Fountain of Immortal Life! O Pacificator between God and Man! O Foretold of the Church! O Faithful Shepherd of the flock! O Hope of the Faithful! O Angel of the Great Council! O True Prophet! O True Apostle! O True Preacher! O Master! O Friend of Souls (Spiritual Director)! O Thou of the shining hair! O Immortal Food! O Tree of Life! O Righteous of Heaven! O Wand from the Stem of Moses! O King of Israel! O Saviour! O Door of Life! O Splendid Flower of the Plain! O Cornerstone! O Heavenly Zion! O Foundation of the Faith! O Spotless Lamb! O Diadem! O Gentle Sheep! O Redeemer of mankind! O true God! O True Man! O Lion! O young Ox! O Eagle! O Crucified Christ! O Judge of the Judgment Day! help us.

    Help us, O Almighty God! O Holy Spirit! O Spirit more noble than all Spirits! O Finger of God! O Guardian of the Christians! O Protector of the Distressed! O Co-partner of the True Wisdom! O Author of the Holy Scripture! O Spirit of Righteousness! O Spirit of Seven Forms! O Spirit of the Intellect! O Spirit of the Counsel! O Spirit of Fortitude! O Spirit of Knowledge! O Spirit of Love! help us.

    Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol.1 (1865), 63-4.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2016. All rights reserved.