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Tag: Irish Ecclesiastical Record

  • The Advent Fast in the Irish Church – 2

    Below is the text of a fuller response by Father Sylvester Malone to the challenge posed to him on the antiquity of the Advent Fast and on the Irish loan word for fasting. It is worth noting that even in modern Irish, the days of the week reflect the practice of fasting. Wednesday, Dé Céadaoin is literally the day of the first fast, céad aoin, Friday, Dé hAoine is literally the day of the fast, whilst Thursday, Déardaoin , is literally dia idir dhá aoin, the day between two fasts. In his paper Father Malone musters some interesting evidence, including the observation of a ‘Lent of Saint Martin’ in the wider church as well as for the existence of a ‘Summer Lent’. What was particularly noteworthy to me though was his reference to the statement of the Irish compiler of the law of fasting “that fleshmeats may be used in the great Lent;” because then “other things are scarce.” In the latter part of the paper it is confirmed again that the old habits of strict fasting died hard among the Irish. So, there is much of interest in this paper. I regret that I cannot easily reproduce the footnotes giving the various sources which the author used, but the original volume can be consulted online.
    THE ADVENT FAST IN THE IRISH CHURCH.
    [We publish with much pleasure the following interesting paper on a question started in the last number of the RECORD.]
    In my hurried note to the RECORD, I alluded to two references as indicating the lines on which an argument might be constructed in proof of Advent fasts prevailing from the beginning in the Irish Church, and I now hasten to open up these lines, and complete the argument.
    St. Adamnan, born in the year 620, in warning the Irish people of the visitations which in vision he saw impending over them because of neglect of religious duties, recommends, among other remedies, the observance of a Triduum four times a year. The first Triduum was to take place on the first Wednesday of the Winter Lent, the second on the first Wednesday of the Spring Lent. In the first place here there is question, I contend, of the Advent fast. Irish writers, when explaining the fasts of the year, state that there may be a ” relaxation on the eves of the principal festivals of the year, to wit, Christmas and the two Easters.” The second Easter was to take place in summer. Its date was thus fixed: “The 17th of the month of July takes place, and the Sunday next in succession to it is the Summer Pasch.” Now as we learn that among other reasons for Lent one was in order “to prepare for the reception of the Body of our Lord,” we may clearly infer then, as the Spring and Summer Paschs had fasts preceding them, that Christmas, classed as the third fundamental solemnity of the year, also had its Lent. Hence the relaxation of the fast on the eve of Christmas. Because if the fast had not been of unusual duration there would not be need of relaxation, and because otherwise the fast preceding it, though one of the three chief ones of the year, would not equal the fasts that preceded minor feasts.
    The relaxation at the end of the Winter Lent or Advent above referred to is only an application of a general Canon. An Irish writer, after speaking of various kinds of fasts, of the besetting temptations attendant on them, and of the other weapons to be used by Christians in the spiritual warfare, goes on to speak of a tempered fast: ” A tempered fast is one which grants release at the endings of high celebrations, or noble solemnities, or on grand festivities, or Sundays.” Surely if any solemnities had noble endings it was Advent the eve of one of these three festivals declared to be the most fundamental in the Calendar.
    Nor need we be surprised at the term Winter Lent ; for there was even the Summer Lent. The venerable Leabhar Breac, after speaking of Ascension-Thursday and Pentecost, which was preceded by fasts, says, ” the Sunday next following the 25th of June is the Sunday on which begins the Summer Lent.” Quadrages or Lent was the term applied to the fast of Advent, Easter, and Summer, indifferently, and its peculiarly distinctive meaning was determined by the adjunct specifying the season at which the Lent occurred.
    That this designation of Advent was not peculiar to the Irish Church is made abundantly evident. Almost contemporaneously with its use in the ancient Vision of St. Adamnan we find Advent referred to, as in Irish manuscripts, so also in the annals of the Continental Church. For instance, there was question of seeking a relaxation of the observance of Advent, for which a fine had to be paid. Thus a diploma, dated 735, required forty Lucii (coins) from the monks of Nomantula for the Lent of St. Martin. Martene assures us that by this was understood the Advent. And St. Peter Damian, who lived in the 11th century, speaks of “the Quadrages or Lent which was usually observed by the faithful before the birthday of our Lord.” If then in other churches Advent was understood as designated by the name of St. Martin’s Lent, surely there can be no difficulty in understanding what Irish manuscripts meant by the Winter Lent.
    Now that we are certain of the existence of the Advent fast from the earliest ages in the Irish Church, our inquiry shall be as to its duration. At present it is of uniform length through the Church, but it was not so in earlier times. It lasted for a month here, for six weeks elsewhere, and in some places extended to nearly two months, beginning on the first of November. In looking into a ninth century Missal, the Irish Corpus Missal, all we learn from it is that there was a Mass for the first Sunday of Advent, thus implying that there was at least a second Sunday. The Epistle is the same as we have now for the first Sunday of Advent, but this should not lead us to pronounce that its duration then was the same as now: for the Gospel is that of our present third or fourth Sunday. But in looking into the Festology of Aengus, Cele De, the question is at at once settled. Under the 13th of November, I read:
    ” On the Ides (of November) the death of Eutaic, a martyr was he whom you praise near Christmas, high and all prayerful festival, at the appearance of the beginning of Lent.”
    This entry puts beyond question the fact that the Advent fast had a place among the observances of the Irish Church. Its duration then was nearly commensurate with that in the Ambrosian Liturgy.
    And while the Festology written before the end of the 8th century gives a very high antiquity to the Advent fast, a still older date may be vindicated for it by the Vision of St. Adamnan already referred to. The Saint, in warning the people of Erin against impending woes, prescribes the fasts of the Tridua during the Winter and Spring Lents, and in doing so, says that he only urges on them the observance of the ” covenants left them by God and St. Patrick.” Here we have the authority of a Saint and Irishman for tracing the Advent fast to the days of St. Patrick. Those who witnessed the death of St. Patrick could have lived to see the birth of St. Adamnan. Such testimony must render quite improbable the opinion of Martene and Benedict XIV., which attributes the origin of the Advent fast in the sixth century to St. Gregory.
    The opinion then which attributes the institution of the Advent fast to St. Martin of Tours in the fifth century, derives some countenance from its introduction by his nephew, our national Apostle, and from the tenacity with which the Irish Church adhered to its observance till after the Reformation.
    Notwithstanding the mention of the Advent fast in connexion with the Ides of November, there is reason for judging that it did not begin invariably on the thirteenth of the month, but on the following Sunday: for the other Lents began on Sunday. We have seen already a rule laid down for finding the Sunday on which the Summer Lent began: the Easter Lent began also on Sunday. This we can infer from the rules for the Triduum in the Vision of Adamnan, which prescribed the second Triduum on the first Wednesday of Lent. Now, if the Lent began on Wednesday, as at present, the writer would have spoken of the first of Lent, rather than of the first Wednesday in Lent.
    Besides, we know as a matter of fact, that the present four days’ fast before Quadragesima was not usual before the middle of the ninth century. If the Summer and Easter Lents began on Sunday, it is inferrible that the Advent Lent also began on a Sunday.
    Now, if we suppose, as there is reason for doing, that each day in Advent was a fast day, it would consist, abating the six Sundays, of an average of thirty-four fasting days. In my calculation I presume that the Advent did not begin till the Sunday following the 13th of November; because the entry in the Festology states that the fast did not begin,but that its commencement appeared or approached, on the Ides of November ; and because it was on a Sunday Advent began in other churches.
    The duration of the Summer Lent could not have been more than three weeks ; because it began on the Sunday next succeeding the 25th June, and the Summer Pasch began on the next Sunday following the 17th July: now as the Spring Lent ended on Easter Sunday, so should we conclude that the Summer Lent closed on the Sunday of the Summer Pasch. Its length then, was, by this calculation, half that of the Spring Lent.
    It is quite certain that the length of the ancient Advent dwindled down to that of the Advent at present before the Reformation. For the Sarum Use and, what is more to the point, a Breviary written in the closing years of the 15th century, by a Killaloe priest, give only four Sundays to Advent.
    As in regard to the length, so too in regard to the character of the Advent fast, there was a variety of practices in different countries. In some places the Advent preparation consisted of abstinence, in others fasting formed a part of it; and some of those who fasted confined their fast to special days in the week.
    The Irish Church, which yielded to none in Christendom in the strictness of its fasts, in all probability extended the fast to the entire six weeks of Advent.
    We must bear in mind that the three Lents in the Irish Church were designated by the common name Corgais or Quadragesima. Whenever an adjunct followed the word it was in order to determine its duration, and the season in which it took place. Therefore, by an acknowledged canon in the use of language and that of common sense, it is only reasonable to attribute, without notice to the contrary, the same meaning to the common word Lent when used by the same writers and applied to the same matter. On that account we are to infer that the character of the Lent was the same in each of the three Lents.
    This view of the matter is confirmed by those writers who spoke of the fast on Christmas Eve: “thick milk and honey are mixed on the eve of the chief solemnities; to wit, at Christmas, and the two Easters.” The greatness of the solemnity led to the above indulgence, which supposed a fast like the Easter and Summer fast, but different from the mere three days’ fast of the Triduum.
    I remarked before that a distinction had been kept up between the several Lents not merely as belonging to different seasons, but as qualified by the intervening festivals. Thus during the Easter Lent, in which occurred St. Patrick’s festival, rather liberal fare was allowed on his festival, unless it fell on Friday. But with the exception caused by the accompanying festivals, all the Lents were treated as of the same character.
    There is, it must be admitted, a distinction sometimes made between the food allowable in Lent and out of it. The expounder of the law on Lent says “that fleshmeats may be used in the great Lent;” but this distinction of the great from the other Lent does not establish a difference in the ordinary character: for the writer assigns a reason for the distinction, because then “other things are scarce.”
    The writer takes care to assign the reason of the indulgence in the great Lent: because other necessaries, milk, honey, vegetables, were more scarce then than during the other Lents.
    But in general the same character was assigned to the various Lents. Hence in the very next line it is stated that “on the high festivals which fall on Thursday or Tuesday during the Lents half selanns ” are given. Here the same character and treatment are given of the several Lents.
    The Advent fast did not, as stated in a reference to Ferraris, fall into disuse in the twelfth century. It lingered on not only in Ireland but in other countries. Alexander III.,writing in the thirteenth century, says, that ” the fast is observed by us during the Advent of the Lord.”
    The Advent fast which prevailed in the Church through most of the Middle Ages fell into disuse in the fourteenth century. The custom of fasting fell into desuetude now in one country, and by-and-by in another; but it was only in the year 1370 that it may be said to have been repealed by Pope Urban V., at Avignon.
    And though not generally binding, the fast, however, was subsequently observed in some countries; but in no country was it more warmly cherished than in Ireland. That Irish Church which was among the first to receive it, was the last to give up the Advent fast. On that account we find the distinction kept between the various Lents to the end of the Middle Ages. Nothing is so common to writers of the fifteenth century in Ireland as the use of the Crucifixion Lent, or Easter Lent as contradistinguished from the Winter and Summer Lents. Hence writers in the fifteenth century lay down rules for determining the recurrence of the latter.
    The same reverence for Advent fasts made the Irish Church cling to their observance as to the observance of holidays, even when retrenched. This is so certain that Dr. French, Bishop of Elphin, writing in 1803 to Dr. Moylan, states that the feasts of the Purification, Nativity, and Conception were kept holidays of obligation, though not so in other dioceses, because the Church of Elphin, in previous years, did not avail itself of the Indult extended to the rest of the Church.
    Hence, too, when Clement VIII. issued an Indult in the year 1598, exempting the Irish from abstinence, they did not avail themselves of its privileges. The bishops of the Dublin Province met at Kilkenny in 1614 and promulgated anew the Indult. Even then the faithful did not avail themselves of it. And in sixty years subsequently, Clement X. had to issue another Rescript, and another synod had to promulgate it, in order to convince the people that the fasts thitherto binding were relaxed by the Papal Indult. Even this did not prevent the faithful from observing the fasts.
    After sending my hurried note to the RECORD, I took an opportunity of looking the O’Renehan Collections through, and failed to see in them a proof against the existence of Advent fasts in our Irish Church. On the contrary, I found an allusion, and only once, in them to Advent in connexion with fasts. The passage runs thus:
    “Besides on all Fridays of the year, as on the Vigils of the Nativity, Conception, and Annunciation, and likewise of the Purification of the B. V. M., a fast is observed by the more devout everywhere (as some fast even in the Advent season), which is set down by others to devotion rather than to a strict obligation ; but whether the custom arises from mere devotion or strict obligation, the Vigil of the Purification is transferred by a Decree of the Synod of Armagh in favor of St. Bridget.”
    Now this entry would rather prove than otherwise the existence of the Advent fast in Ireland before the year 1778. It is a statement made out in the year 1649 of a representative meeting of the priests of the Province of Armagh, which took place in the year 1614.
    The fast on the Vigil of the Purification was set down by some to mere devotion; but the provincial synod judged it unsafe to deny the existence of a strict obligation, and therefore transferred the Vigil fast.
    The parenthetic clause, asserting the Advent fast, is not spoken of either as observed by the devout merely, or as of doubtful obligation. The synod had no idea of qualifying that clause by what follows, as it did not contemplate legislating for the Advent fast as for the Vigil fast; nor did the synodal statement, on the observance of the Vigil fast by the rather devout, affect the Advent fast in the succeeding parenthesis- as some fast even in Advent time – because the agents in fasting in the latter case are different from those in the former. It is not said jejunatur a devotioribus (prout jejunatur etiam tempore Adventus); but the form given, jejunatur a devotioribus (prout a quibusdam jejunatur tempore Adventus), shows that the Advent fast spoken of as observed is implied to have been of obligation.
    For those who observed the doubtfully binding fast of the Vigil are not the same as those who observed the Advent fast, the former were the devout, the latter were different; and we all know it is only a penitential observance of obligation that is respected by the indevout. On that account we may fairly infer the fast of Advent in the seventeenth century to have been regarded as the continuation of an immemorial custom of obligation. And even granted the Advent then to have been of mere devotion, still it militates for my contention.
    But though the authority of the Synod at Drogheda is unexceptionable as vouching for the existence of the Advent fast, its conduct in regard to legislation on the holidays is more open to exception. It appears to have acted on its own responsibility in transferring Vigils, specially composed as it was of only the second order of the clergy, and thus practically to have recognised condemned principles of the famous Synod of Pistoia in 1786. However their loyalty is unquestionable.
    I may observe that though there is no general law by which the Advent fasts prevail through the Church, yet they are more general than is commonly believed.
    There is scarcely a country, to my knowledge, in which they do not obtain. The Supreme Pontiffs took an opportunity, in issuing Rescripts as to the suppression of Vigils and fasts, to restore the old discipline of the Church. Not only in Europe but even in America where no Indult was required, because there had been no suppression of feasts, a fast of one or two days in Advent prevails.
    Each theologian, imagining that the Indult in regard to the Advent fast was peculiar to his own country, and it may no doubt be subject to special conditions, did not think it well to discuss its nature on principles of universal application. But the absence of allusion to the fast in the text of theological treatises is no proof that it does not prevail in the country of their writers.
    For instance, I refer to Scavini who, though a canon of the Church of Novara, omits all allusion to Advent in his text, but in a note quotes the Indult of Pius VII., which made the same concessions under like conditions to Savoy as to Ireland.
    Notwithstanding the various incidental points touched on, the principal aim of this article has been, as well to supplement the few remarks in my last note, as to evolve the suppressed premiss of an enthymeme. On the former occasion I glanced at the existence of several Lents in the Irish Church, and on the present have shewn, at least to my own satisfaction, that these Lents were of different durations, and as such were expressed by the common word corgais, forty.
    I therefore feel entitled to repeat as an unquestionable fact now what was only an assertion a while ago, at the close of a short note, when my argument had been incomplete, that corgais supplies a remarkable instance of the conventional signification of a word becoming not only different from, but essentially contradictory to, its etymological and original meaning.
    S. M.
    Irish Ecclesiastical Record Ser 3, vol 2, 1881, 104-113.

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  • The Advent Fast in the Irish Church -1

    Below is the text of an interesting debate on the subject of the Advent Fast and the Irish Church which appeared in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in the early 1880s. The debate was sparked by a contribution of the President of Maynooth College to the Record’s regular column on theological questions. In the course of his reply, Father Walsh suggested that the Advent Fast was a relative novelty in Ireland:
    Moreover, rigid as the discipline of our Irish Church has from the beginning been in regard to fasting and abstinence, the fast of Advent was established in Ireland only about a hundred years ago. This is plain from the documents published in that most interesting, but unfortunately by no means widely circulated work, Dr. Renehan’s Collections on Irish Church History, edited by the present venerated Bishop of Kerry. The circumstance is especially noteworthy when taken in connexion with the fact, which we also learn from the documents published in the work referred to, that until a comparatively recent period, that is to say, until within the last two or three hundred years, every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the year was, according to the Irish discipline, a day of abstinence from meat and every Friday, a day of abstinence from eggs and even lacticinia as well. Yet the fast of Advent had then no place in the observances of our Church. It was not introduced until the year 1778. [emphasis mine]
    This claim proved too much for Church historian Father Sylvester Malone who fired off a letter to the Editor:
    SIR. I have just read with usual pleasure, and, I hope, profit, the latest of the many able contributions by the Very Rev. President of Maynooth College to the RECORD. I refer to that on the Advent Fast. It occurs to me, however, that in p.749, there is a misstatement, made on the strength of the O’Renehan Collections on Irish Church History &etc, that the Advent Fast has been known in Ireland only since the year 1778.
    If I read Irish MSS. correctly, that Fast had been in use in Ireland more than a thousand years previously. Thus in the Rule for the Culdees its existence is implied.
    ” Skimmed milk on Sundays of the great Lent to the people of severe penance.”
    So again in the Vision of Adamnan, born in 624, the Advent Fast is not only implied but expressly mentioned as the Winter Lent. After speaking of the manner in which the Triduum should be observed, the holy writer proceeds to define when each of the four Triduums was to take place.
    ” The first Triduum then, unless necessarily to be transferred, should usually begin on the Wednesday after entering on the Winter Lent; the second Triduum on the first Wednesday of the Spring Lent.”
    These entries leave no doubt as to the prevalence of the Advent Fast in Ireland. Of course Dr. Walsh’s solid theological grounds are not at all affected by the historical aspect of the question.
    In conclusion, I may remark that the Irish loan-word for Lent is corgais, a contraction for quadragesima, that is forty, the fast of forty (days). By and by a fast of a shorter nature was called Corgais from a familiarity with the Quadragesima ; and thus proves not only that a conventional meaning of a word may be different from, but even essentially contradictory to, the original derivative signification of the word.
    I remain, yours, &c.,
    S. MALONE.
    Dr Walsh was invited to respond:
    At the request of the Editor, I have read the foregoing interesting note contributed by my friend, Father Malone. As I should be most unwilling to have it supposed that in any statement of mine, theological or otherwise, I was misled by my reliance on the work referred to in my Paper, in the last number of the RECORD, I think it well to add a few observations in further explanation of the point to which F. Malone calls attention.
    1. In the first place, I should say that the Advent Fast which I had in view when writing or, to speak more accurately, the Advent Fast to which I wished to confine my remarks was that which is now observed in Ireland and also in other countries throughout the Church. I took it for granted that not a few readers of the RECORD might possibly be under the impression as I confess that I myself was until a few years ago, when I was set right by the learned editor of Dr. Renehan’s Collections that in Ireland the Advent fast had come down to us like the fasts of Lent, or of the Quatuor Tempora, or of the various Vigils throughout the year. Every student of theology is, of course, aware that the Advent fast is not one of the fasts imposed, as those others are, by common ecclesiastical law. But I thought it not unlikely that many were of opinion that, at least in Ireland, this fast had come down to us from the early ages of our Church as a portion of that specially rigid discipline in fasting, for which our forefathers were so remarkable from the very beginning. Hence I considered it would interest many to learn that such was not the case that, even in Ireland, the Advent fast, instead of being a remnant of ancient discipline, was of very recent institution that it had no existence among us even at that period, two hundred years ago, when the extreme rigour of the Irish discipline of fasting is attested by that most interesting collection of ecclesiastical documents, for the collection and publication of which the Irish Church is indebted to Dr. Renehan and Dr. M’Carthy and that, in fine, as set forth in one of the documents of that collection, its institution dates from a time, barely a hundred years ago, the year 1778. As to the existence of an Advent fast of a very different kind, which existed in Ireland at the interesting period of our history to which Fr. Malone refers, I had no thought of explicitly referring. In fact I thought it better not to do so, as it seemed to lie altogether outside the drift of my Paper.
    2. The footnote referring to the article in Ferraris’ Bibliotheca, in regard to the Advent fast of ecclesiastical antiquity, indicated, I thought with sufficient plainness, that I distinctly marked off that aspect of the question as altogether omitted from my discussion of the practical question regarding the present fast of Advent, which alone I had undertaken to consider. But as it is a point of no little interest, and as F. Malone has so kindly contributed the important evidence set forth in his letter, regarding the observance of this more ancient fast in Ireland, it may be well to add, that as regards the Western Church generally, this fast, as stated by Ferraris, fell into disuse about the twelfth century. So that, whether as regards the ancient observance of the fast, or the subsequent disuse and abrogation of it, the Irish Church was by no means singular.
    3. In reference to the Irish word corgais (from quadragesima) as used to designate the ancient fast of Advent, I would suggest for Father Malone’s consideration, and possibly investigation, a point which may prove to be of some interest. Is it quite certain that the word corgais, as thus applied, furnishes an instance of a word employed conventionally in a sense different from its derivative or etymological signification? The Advent fast of our present discipline is no doubt a fast of much shorter duration than the forty days fast of Lent. But is it quite clear that this was true of the earlier fast to which Father Malone refers? He has done so much for the elucidation of questions concerning our ancient ecclesiastical usages, that I venture to hope he will be able to throw some light on this point. It is one, I need not say, which lies altogether outside the range of my reading.
    4. My reason for raising the question is that, as regards ecclesiastical antiquity generally, there is no doubt that, in many countries, the ancient fast of Advent, was, like that of Lent, a fast of forty days. Ferraris quotes several authorities on this point. So also does Benedict XIV., in his erudite Instruction on the time of Advent, contained in one of the Pastoral Letters which he published for the diocese of Bologna, when he was Archbishop of that See, before his elevation to the Chair of Peter. ” Multis saeculis,” says Ferraris, ” Adventum 40 diebus . . constasse indubium est. , . Hinc Adventum vocatum fuisse Quadragesimam, in Vita B. Dominici Loricati legimus, et in Sacramentariis Ratholdi, abbatis Corbiensis.” It is, in fact, still observed as a fast of forty days in many of the Churches of the East. Even in the Western Church, this ancient usage is still to some extent preserved in more than one religious order, in the fast of forty days in preparation for the feast of Christmas. It would be interesting to ascertain if a similarity in our ancient usage may not prove to be the true explanation also of the term corgais, or quadragesima, as applied in Ireland to the fast of Advent.
    W. J. W.
    Thus the ball was left in Father Malone’s court and he responded with a paper on the subject which I shall post next. What was interesting to me from Dr Walsh’s initial contribution was his acknowledgment that a more rigorous tradition of fasting in general survived among the Irish laity until the mid-17th century:
    The discipline of the Irish Church in reference to abstinence on fasting days is now in substantial accordance with the provisions of the common law. But it may not be out of place to note, that down to so recent a period as the middle of the seventeenth century it was characterised by excessive rigour in this respect. The use of meat was prohibited on all Wednesdays throughout the year. And in addition to the abstinence from meat, prescribed by the common law on Fridays and Saturdays, every Friday during the year, and in many parts of the country every Saturday was a day of rigorous abstinence from eggs and lacticinia such as is now observed only on two or three days in the first and last weeks in Lent. Besides, in many districts, every Friday throughout the year was observed as a day not merely of abstinence, but of strict fast.
    Indeed, when the rules were relaxed by Rome, the Irish Bishops hesitated to bring in some of the changes for fear of scandalizing the faithful:
    Clement VIII., in 1598, issued a Bull, empowering the Irish bishops to dispense with many of these austerities. The bishops of the province of Dublin, assembled in Provincial Synod at Kilkenny, in 1614, under the presidency of Dr. Eugene Mathews, Archbishop of Dublin, published this Bull, and, availing themselves to a certain extent of the authority which it communicated, dispensed with the more rigorous portions of the abstinence previously observed. In several points, however, the abstinence from meat on Wednesdays throughout the year, and from eggs on Fridays and Saturdays no change was made, the bishops evidently fearing that a relaxation of the ancient discipline in these respects would shock the tender consciences of the faithful.
    Irish Ecclesiastical Record Ser 3, vol 1, 1880, 25, 149.

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  • Saint Pirminius of Reichenau – an Irish saint?

    November 3 is the feastday of the founder of the monastery of Reichenau – Saint Pirminius – whose birthplace is still the subject of debate among scholars today. One tradition is that he was an Irishman, and in the article below, reproduced from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record of 1894, Father J.F. Hogan, champions this claim. Please refer to the original volume to consult the footnotes to this text. Whatever the truth about the national origins of Saint Pirminius, the article is worth reading for the information it contains on the monastery of Reichenau and its famous sons.
    ST. PIRMINIUS OF REICHENAU
    Celtica to misit, suscepit Nordica tellus,
    Censorem genti numen utrique dedit.
    Cui licuit spectare pios in praesule mores,
    Huic pro censura tam pia vita fuit.
    Plurimus errabat qua nunc jacet Augia serpens,
    Venit ut hic Marsus, vipera terga dedit.
    Templorum celsas eduxit ad aethera moles,
    Expugnaturus Sanctior astra Gigas.
    (Bavaria Sancta, vol. i., p. 97.)
    ABOUT a hundred years after the death of St. Gall a large part of the region he evangelized had fallen away from its primitive earnestness in the practice of religion, and had become a prey once more to the ravages of superstition and to the evil instincts of nature. The incursions of barbarian hordes from the north and east had wrought havoc amongst the ecclesiastical as well as the civil institutions of the empire of Charlemagne. The rulers of the Church were seriously affected by this general disorder. The disruption of society on a large scale always opens wide the door to abuses unless they are met with a strong hand and vigorously repressed. At the period of which we write the tide had swept almost all before it. Pastors, as Bishop Hefele remarks, had begun to think more of the wool than of the sheep. Strong belief in the rewards and punishments of a future life had faded away or had been choked and smothered in the turmoil of earthly interests that swayed the minds and the hearts of the people. The beneficent influence of the monastery of St. Gall itself was thwarted and neutralized by persecution and tyranny. It was to cope with the prevailing ignorance and the calamitous results of such a state of things that the monastery of Reichenau was founded in the year 724.
    Reichenau was the parent house of fifteen or twenty monasteries everyone of which played an important part in the early history of civilization in Germany. From its cloisters came forth monks like St. Meinrad, the founder of the great Benedictine monastery of Einsiedln in Switzerland, which worthily maintains even to the present day its religious traditions of more than a thousand years ; like St. Wolfgang, the noble Bishop of Ratisbon, who preached the faith through the dark forests of Pannonia; like the blessed Etto of Aitenburg, who was taken from his cenobite cell at the call of Charles Martel, and placed over the diocese of Strasburg, which he ruled with admirable success in difficult times, and enriched with schools, monasteries and churches, which attracted the attention and admiration of Europe. Its halls were illuminated by the wisdom and learning of such illustrious teachers as Hermann Contractus, theologian, commentator, poet, musician, and immortal author of the two antiphons of the Blessed Virgin, the Salve Regina and the Alma Redemptoris Mater; as the accomplished Walafried Strabo, whose ability and acumen call forth the repeated acknowledgments and admiration of St. Thomas ; as Berno, the greatest musician of his age, the forerunner of Guy of Arezzo, and the teacher of a host of ecclesiastical youths, who acquired a knowledge of his art, and helped to propagate it far and wide amongst the people.
    The founder of this famous institution, as well as of the monasteries of Altach in Bavaria ; of Monsee and Pfeffers in Switzerland; of Gengenbach, Schnttern and Morsmunster, in the Black Forest; of Schwartzach, Weissenburg, Neuwiller, and Murbach in Alsace; and of Hornbach in Franconia, was St. Pirminius, one of the greatest of the early religious organizers and missionaries in Germany and Switzerland. Although the origin of this saint is involved a good deal in obscurity, there is an old and, in our opinion, a well-authenticated tradition that he was a native of Ireland:
    ” Celtica te misit, suscepit Nordica tellus.”
    The opinion is supported with more or less misgivings by such writers as Neugart, Hefele, and Schonhuth. The question is discussed by Dr. Friedrich in his learned History of the Church in Germany  and by Duplessy Mornay, in his History of the Diocese of Meaux. The Irish origin of the saint is maintained without any qualification by one of the most learned historians and archaeologists of this century, the late lamented Dr. Greith, Bishop of St. Gall. It was evidently regarded at one time as an undoubted fact by the late Bishop Reeves, although he hesitates somewhat about it in a note at the end of his work on St. Columba, for what reason he does not assort. In addition to the testimony of tradition there are several considerations that seem to us to weigh in favour of Ireland’s claim to this illustrious apostle.
    In the first place, if he had been a native of Switzerland or of any of the parts of Germany that now lay claim to him, it is not likely that his origin and early life would have been allowed to pass so completely unnoticed by the natives of these localities. Had he come from a distance their silence, on the other hand, is easily explained. They could know nothing about his early life, and it was not for him to lay stress on his foreign origin and education. Pirminius, moreover, was thoroughly imbued with the monastic spirit and with the principle of the Irish missionaries that the best way to propagate religion amongst the pagans and to ensure its continued success, was to establish a monastery in their midst. He had the monastic passion as strong as St. Columba himself. No other of the early missionaries established so many monasteries as he did. The English missionaries trusted more to personal action and individual prestige. They were more secular than religious, and although many of them founded monasteries, they never became so thoroughly identified with them as their Irish brethren.
    Again it is significant that whilst Pirminius had his free choice to select any residence he wished in the lands of his patron Sintlaz, he should have chosen an island in the Brigantine lake which was then overgrown with brushwood and whose only inhabitants were wild birds, toads and reptiles, in preference to any of the cultivated and inhabited parts of the mainland. Here we recognise one of the most remarkable characteristics of the old Irish Church, which, nurtured in the island of Lerins, in the Mediterranean Sea, always turned with particular predilection to the silence and calm of an island life. Arran and Inisfallen, Devenish and Iniscaltra, are but a few examples of the “Holy Islands” which were specially consecrated to religious purposes in Ireland. Iona itself has been called the Lerins of the North. In happy remembrance of these island homes many of the Irish missionaries to foreign lands sought similar retirement wherever they could find it. Nowhere was this more remarkable than in Germany itself, where several small islands in the Rhine were secured for their monasteries by Irish monks. Hohenau, Seckingen, and Rheinau, succeed one another from Strasburg to Schaffhausen ; and for our own part we can scarcely doubt that Reichenau finishes the series, and crowns the list of Irish colonies that were planted and that flourished in the fertilizing waters of the Rhine. Another characteristic of the Irish saint is the “Blessed Well;” and in the case of Pirminius it is not wanting. Neugart tells us about it in his History of the Diocese of Constance.
    The eulogium of Pirminius, written by Rabban Maur, falls in completely with this theory of the saint’s origin, and could scarcely suit any other. The language he uses is, indeed, in the exact formula which was applied to most of the Irish missionaries:
    “Deseruit patriam gentem simul atque propinquos,
    Ac peregrina petens aethera promeruit.
    Gentem hic Francorum quaesivit dogmate claro,
    Plurima construxit et loca sancta Deo.”
    This title of ” peregrinus ” was given in a special and almost in a distinctive manner to the Irish monks of the period to which we refer. In several ancient documents Pirminius himself is described as a “peregrinus.” Thus in the act of donation, made by Charles Martel to the saint, of the island of Reichenau and of some of the lands bordering on the lake, he and his monks are spoken of as pilgrims who came from the direction of Gaul. It does not matter to us whether this document was invented or falsified in the sense contended by Dr. Karl Brandt of Heidelberg. It is at least a proof of the tradition at Reichenau as to the character and condition of its founders. Again, in a brief of Widgern, Bishop of Strasburg, conferring certain privileges on his monastery of Murbach, he speaks of its inhabitants as ” Peregrini,” and tells them that if they cannot agree as to the choice of an abbot from amongst themselves they may choose one from any of the other ” congregationes peregrinorum jam dicti Pirminii episcopi.” In the letter of Theoderic authorising the foundation of this very monastery of Murbach, Pirminius is also described as a “peregrinus.” We do not maintain, of course, that the Irish were the only “peregrini ” in these days ; but when there is question of “peregrini ” in this wholesale fashion and of whole ” congregationes peregrinorum,” we believe it could only refer to Irish communities.
    In addition to all this the early years of Reichenau and of the other Pirminian monasteries are full of Irish associations. It was at Reichenau that Walafried Strabo wrote, in excellent hexameters, the only account on record of the massacre at Iona, by the Danes, of St. Blaitmaic and his companions:
    ” Strabus ego misit quem terra Alemannica natu
    Scribere disposui de vita et fine beati
    Blaitmaic, genuit quem dives Hibernia mundo
    Martvriique sequens misit. perfectio coelo.”
    It was here that the famous abbot, Ermenrich of Reichenau, wrote, in the ninth century, that eloquent tribute to the orthodoxy and zeal of the Irish Church, which according to him was wrapped in the mantle of the Old and New Testament, and was so free from any stain of heresy or schism that it was in itself a diminutive image or miniature of the universal Church.
    Again, it was at Reichenau that Father Stephen White, the learned Jesuit of the seventeenth century, discovered the oldest and most faithful manuscript of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba. He communicated the work to John Colgan, of Louvain, who published it in his Trias Thaumaturga.
    At the time of the Revolution, when the monastery was suppressed, its books and manuscripts were scattered and many of them lost. It was by the merest accident that this valuable manuscript was discovered at the bottom of a decayed book-chest in the library of Shafthausen, by Dr. Ferdinand Keller, in the year 1845.
    But it is perhaps the library of Carlsruhe that tells more eloquently than any other place of the presence of Irish monks at Reichenau from the earliest days of its existence. Dr. Mone in his collection of the Hymns of the Middle Ages gives us several specimens of their works. Amongst others there is an interesting hymn to St. Peter, which reveals to us the spirit of these writers and their attitude towards the Holy See of Rome:
    ” Sancto Petro pro merito
    Christus regni coelestium
    Claves simul cum gratia
    Tradidit in perpetuum .
    Animarum pontificem
    Apostolorum principem
    Petrum rogamus omnium
    Christi pastorem ovium.”
    We know from other sources that the monastery of Pfeffers, in Switzerland, founded by Pirminius, was also much frequented by Irish monks. It was a station for Irish pilgrims on the old Lucmanian way to Rome. St. Fintan of Rheinau was attracted there by the presence of his countrymen, and his biographer was an Irish monk who lived and died within its walls. Still more did the pilgrims of the west flock to Murbach, in Alsace, which Schopflin calls a ” vivarius peregrinorum.” Here the Irish monks kept an account of their former teachers and superiors in Ireland. In their annals we meet with such inscriptions as: ” 704, mors Canani Episcopi ; 705, dormitio Pomnani Abbatis; 700, mors Cellani Abbatis; 707, dormitio Tighermal; 708, Procus mortuus; 719, mors Eathbodi; 729, Macflathei mortuus.” : Were the early annals of the saint’s other foundations available, we have little doubt but that they would furnish similar evidence. All these considerations are further strengthened by the weakness of the arguments used against Ireland. Thus Wattenbach’s chief objection is based on the un-Irish sound of the name Pirminius, as if it were less Irish than Fridolinus, Columbanus, Virgilius, Marianus. Others, like the historian Hauck, object to Ireland because Pirminius introduced the Benedictine rule into his monasteries. As a matter of fact, the rule of St. Benedict was exactly at that time beginning to supplant the Columbanian rule everywhere, even in the monasteries founded by St. Columbanus himself. With these considerations we leave the question of the saint’s nationality. We do not by any means presume to say that it is a matter beyond all dispute ; but we believe, with Bishop Greith, that all the probability and all the positive information at hand are in favour of Ireland.
    The Life of St. Pirminius was written, in the eleventh century, by Waramann, Count of Dillingen, monk of Reichenau, and afterwards Bishop of Constance, who died in the year 1034. A second biography of the saint was composed by a nobleman named Henry De Kalb, who became Abbot of Reichenau, and died in 1237. The work of the former is published by Browers and Mabillon in their respective collections. That of the latter seems to have perished ; but it still existed in the seventeenth century, for the learned Jesuit Raderus had a copy of it before him when he wrote his sketch of Pirminius in the Bavaria Sancta.
    From these sources we gather the information that early in the eighth century things were turning badly in the districts of Rhetia and Suevia. Discipline had all but vanished ; religious duties were neglected ; churches had fallen into decay, and their furniture had become squalid and unfit for use. A kind of general licence prevailed which drew away the minds of men from spiritual things. Many had even already relapsed into the superstitions of paganism, so that the most energetic action was required in order to stem, and, if possible, to turn the tide. Fortunately a man of strong faith was found in the country itself to put his hand to the good work. This was Sintlaz, a great feudal lord, whose castle looked down on the Lake of Constance, and who realized the grave importance of a Christian life for his numerous vassals and retainers as well as for himself. Looking anxiously around him in search of an ecclesiastic with the training and spirit of sacrifice necessary to carry out his views, he could not find in his immediate neighbourhood a single one. Determined at any cost to find one, he set out, with a few companions, for Meaux, in France, where Pirminius was already at work. He represented to the saint the urgent needs of his locality, the decline of faith, the decay of the churches, the children crying for bread, and nobody to break it unto them. Pirminius was much impressed with his tale, and particularly with his sincerity and with the manifest desire which he and his companions showed to render all the assistance in their power. But Pirminius was also a cautious man. Although he was then what was called a ” chorepiscopus,” he did not count much upon his dignity. He reminded his interviewers of the canons of the Church, which forbade an outsider to preach in the diocese of another prelate without his permission. To secure himself against any hindrance of that kind, as soon as he had made up his mind to accept their invitation, he resolved to pay a visit to Rome, and seek the Pope’s authority and blessing for his mission. Sintlaz agreed to join him in the Eternal City after a short time, and to urge, if necessary, his demand before the Papal Court. Pirminius was at first received with something like caution and even distrust in Rome. It is probable that the supporters of St. Boniface, whose well-known devotion to the Holy See made him a ” persona gratissima ” at the Papal Court, fomented this suspicion. He had never got over the opposition of his Irish brethren in the great Easter controversy, and the prejudice he conceived against them onthat account led him into several other quarrels with them in Germany. But ” Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos.” Pope Gregory II., from a personal knowledge of the stranger, soon changed his opinion ; and as a mark of his special favour and confidence, he gave Sintlaz a letter to Theoderic, King of France, advising, persuading, and commanding him to recommend Pirminius to all the bishops in his realm and obtain their consent to his preaching in the countries under their jurisdiction, and doing whatever else he thought necessary for the advancement of religion. Furnished with this authority, the zealous bishop proceeded at once to Switzerland, accompanied by Sintlaz and his followers ; and having secured the necessary consent of the local authorities, according to the canons of the Church and the directions of the Pope, he at once set about his mission.
    Pirminius was endowed with many natural qualities calculated to win the hearts and to impress the minds of those to whom he addressed himself. He was eloquent and persuasive in his speech, grave, modest and gentle in his manners, but withal firm and fearless in the execution of duty. All who approached him were impressed with the kindness and suavity of his disposition; and the crowds who were drawn at first through curiosity to hear him soon recognised in him the genuine and unselfish spirit of the pastor.
    When he had by these qualities once secured the goodwill of the people his first concern was the establishment of a monastery which should be the centre of his labours and should be animated by the spirit which had brought him away from everything he loved and cared for in the world. It was then that he fixed his eye on the wild and neglected island which was covered with tangled brushwood, and was then a refuge for fowl, birds, serpents, and snakes. When he proposed to fix his dwelling there, Sintlaz remonstrated with him, and pointed out the impossibility of living in a place which had never been inhabited by man, and which was the horror of the whole locality on account of the vicious and noisome animals that were sheltered there. But Pirminius in his turn gently reproached him for the weakness of his faith. Did not Christ possess all power in heaven and in earth? Did He not grant to his elect to tread on the adder and the basilisk, and to trample on the lion and the dragon? His men were soon at work on the island, before the blessing of the saint and the axes and spades of his labourers, the poisonous tribe soon disappeared. A house was built, and an oratory suited for the divine office arose alongside it. The whole foundation was dedicated to the ” Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Holy Apostles SS. Peter and Paul.” The island that was once so sterile and rough soon became smooth and fertile. Instead of the briars and tufted brambles fruit trees and vines were planted all around. Civilization of every kind followed in the footsteps of the Benedictine monks, in these days, and soon Pirminius was able to furnish his new home. Forty monks and fifty books are said to have arrived there together. For three years Pirminius and his companions laboured in this fruitful vineyard, renewing both materially and spiritually the face of the country around them.
    Political troubles then came upon the new institution. Theodebald, the son of a German duke, rebelled against Charles Martel, who was then mayor of the palace under the weak scion of the Merovingians who occupied the throne of France He wished to make use of the monastery and its monks to propagate his rebellious ideas amongst the people. Pirminius firmly refused to lend himself to such proceedings, and was expelled from the island and the country. He appointed Etto, the son of a German nobleman, to take his place, and turned his own energies and exertions elsewhere. It was then that his activity made itself felt all over the central part of the Continent. He founded a great number of monasteries, beginning with Murbach in Alsace, whither he had been invited by Count Eberbard, brother of Etto, his successor in Reichenau, pushing his conquests as far as Altach on the banks of the Danube, and ending at Hornbach, where he had been brought by Wernher, feudal lord of the district.
    Walafried leaves no doubt as to the place of his death :
    “Primus in hac Sanctus construxit moenia Praesul
    Pirminius, ternisque gregem protexerat annis.
    Hujus quisque velit sanctam cognoscere vitam
    Ipsa sepulchra petat, satis ipse probabit in Hornbach.”
    Under the title of Dicta Abbatis Pirminii de Singulis Libris Canonicis, we possess a short work written by the saint, which is a very important historical and literary document of the eighth century. He shows in this work a wide and accurate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. He is particularly eloquent on the sufferings and passion of our Lord, and on the object for which they were borne :
    “Christ goes freely and without compulsion to suffer for our salvation. For us He bore insult, blows, stripes, thorns, and treachery. For us He was nailed to the cross. For us He bore that parching thirst which was embittered by vinegar and gall. For us His sacred side was pierced with the lance. At the ninth hour He yielded up His spirit, and blood and water flowed from His side ; the blood for the salvation, and the water for the baptism of the world.”
    The regulations which he lays down for the observance of the people are valuable from an historical point of view, as showing the sort of superstition and the evil practices that were then most prevalent, and the difficulties the missionaries had to overcome in withdrawing the people from such gross observances.
    But it is with Reichenau that the name of Pirmin has remained most closely associated. He was the founder and the father of that great school that sent forth so many archbishops and bishops in these centuries of the Middle Ages, that nurtured so many scholars, poets, philosophers, theologians. Ziegelbauer proudly tells of the large number of books large for the time that were collected there towards the end of the ninth century. It was there that Walafried wrote the famous Vision of Wettin, and described the “Hortulus” with its herbs and flowers; it was there that Berno wrote De Mensura Monochordi ; that Hermann composed the Alma Redemptoris Mater and the Salve Regina. As many as six hundred monks at one time filled its cloisters. Princes and barons sent their sons in crowds to its schools. Richly endowed by successive emperors, its wealth excited the cupidity and jealousy of the revolutionists of last century to whom it fell a victim in 1799. The island, however, remains still religious and Catholic. The buildings of the monastery are used partly for secular and partly for religious and educational purposes. Its church contains many ancient treasures. In its sanctuary is the tomb of Charles Le Gros, who died there in 888. It is but natural that the whole place should look neglected. Nothing could be more desolate than these lonely cloisters from whose walls the frescoed portraits of ancient abbots and long-departed monks look gravely down, calling back to the soul visions of the monastic virtue of bygone years, and evoking memories that are all the more vivid on account of the silence and gloom that reign through these deserted passages. What different impressions one feels when he ascends the eminence close by. Beneath it hundreds of boatmen ply their oars in the clear and placid lake. On the shore beyond lies Constance, with its historic cathedral, near which one can still discern the hall of the great council that gave peace to the Church in 1414. On the other shore is Gottleben, in the strong towers of whose rugged keep John Huss was carefully immured. If there be on all sides here indications of prosperity and religious civilization, how much of it is not due to the exertions of the great and good Pirminius? On the island, at all events, his services are not forgotten. His festival there is one of the great events of the year; and even though his name should be one day forgotten there, it can never be effaced from the honourable place it holds in the history of Christianity in Germany.
    J. F. HOGAN
    THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD Volume 15, 1894, 403-417.

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