HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

148 THOMAS J. HEFFERNANperils of an unspeakable sort. Orosius in his Historia Adversus Paganosconsidered even the large islands of Ireland and Britain of littleimportance. St. Patrick, writing in his autobiography, believed Irelandto be in the western sea, the sea of the setting sun at the end ofthe earth (Confessio 23, 34). Bede, writing from the comparative wildernessof Northumbria, noted that the island monastery of Iona was“. . . situated in a remote corner of the world”. 78 Although impossiblyremote for non-Irish contemporaries, the monastery founded byColumba (ca. 521–97) became a renowned center of spirituality andlearning. Columba, according to his biographer Adomnán, was copyinga manuscript of the psalms hours before his death.Little is known of St. Columba, and what we do know is chieflyfrom Adomnán’s (ca. 628–704) life of the saint, written a centuryafter Columba’s death (hereafter VC, ca. 688–97), the most nuancedsaint’s life written in the enormously rich Celtic hagiographic tradition.79 Columba was a high-born member of the Cenél Conaill family,which ruled much of County Donegal. The first forty years ofColumba’s life are a mystery, save that a priest/foster father namedCruithnechán raised him. His religious studies would have begun asan adolescent. He subsequently studied theology with a teacher inthe prominent school in Leinster and, after being ordained a deacon,studied with a Bishop Uinniau (Findbarr?). Adomnán writesthat Columba left Ireland with twelve disciples in 563 for Scotland,wishing to be a pilgrim for Christ/“pro Christo perigrinari uolensenauigauit”. 80 Columba’s reasons for leaving Ireland for Scotland areunclear and unimportant for our discussion, except Adomnán’s insistencethat Columba was a pilgrim. The idea of penitential pilgrimageis an early and important part of Irish spirituality and frequentlydepicted in Irish saints’ lives, e.g., St. Brendan the Navigator. Columba’sreputation as a prominent, well-connected individual preceded him.Shortly after his arrival in Scotland, he was given the island of Iona(ca. 563–65) by Conall mac Comgaill, king of the Dál Riata (Annals78Bede, A History of the English Church and People, trans. L. Sherley-Price, rev. R. E.Latham (Harmondsworth, 1986), 147.79Bieler (1962), 248. See also Adomnán of Iona, Life of St. Columba, trans.R. Sharp (London, 1991).80Adomnán, Life of Columba, ed. and trans. A. O. Anderson and M. Ogilvie(Oxford, 1991), 6.