7256
7256
com
https://ebookmass.com/product/bioinformatics-and-functional-
genomics-ebook-pdf-version/
OR CLICK HERE
DOWLOAD NOW
https://ebookmass.com/product/introduction-to-8086-assembly-language-
and-computer-architecture-ebook-pdf-version/
ebookmass.com
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-functional-unity-of-the-singing-
voice-2nd-edition-ebook-pdf-version/
ebookmass.com
https://ebookmass.com/product/functional-assessment-and-program-
development-3rd-edition-ebook-pdf/
ebookmass.com
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-textbook-of-data-structures-and-
algorithms-volume-1-g-a-vijayalakshmi-pai/
ebookmass.com
Sustainability, Emerging Technologies, and Pan-Africanism
1st ed. 2020 Edition Thierno Thiam
https://ebookmass.com/product/sustainability-emerging-technologies-
and-pan-africanism-1st-ed-2020-edition-thierno-thiam/
ebookmass.com
https://ebookmass.com/product/dan-voodoo-guardians-book-eighteen-mary-
kennedy/
ebookmass.com
https://ebookmass.com/product/digital-image-processing-3rd-edition-
rafael-c-gonzalez-and-richard-e-woods/
ebookmass.com
https://ebookmass.com/product/twelve-steps-and-twelve-traditions/
ebookmass.com
College Town (MM) Lauren Gilley
https://ebookmass.com/product/college-town-mm-lauren-gilley/
ebookmass.com
BIOINFORMATICS AND
FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS
third edition
Jonathan Pevsner
Contents in Brief
vii
Contents
Web Resources, 60
Discussion Questions, 61
Problems/Computer Lab, 61
Self-Test Quiz, 63
Suggested Reading, 64
References, 64
And we learn, from the anonymous Life of Cuthbert, that when King
Aldfrid of Northumbria had, before his accession to the throne,
resorted to the islands of the Scots for study, one of these islands
was that of Iona.[793]
Literature of the The remains of the literature of this period of
Monastic Church. the Monastic Church which have come down to
us bear ample testimony to the intellectual development which
characterised it. Of these perhaps the most complete are the works
of Columbanus. Besides his monastic rule, we possess six of his
letters connected with important questions regarding ecclesiastical
matters, seventeen instructions or sermons addressed to his monks,
and one or two poetical pieces. They are all written in Latin, and
show a mastery of that language as it was then used by
ecclesiastical writers, a thorough acquaintance with the holy
Scriptures, with the spirit and language of which they are indeed
saturated, and a perfect knowledge of the contemporary history and
literature of the church. He places the holy Scriptures as the highest
standard of authority in all matters of Christian faith. As we have
seen, he gives as the character of his church that ‘it received nothing
beyond the teaching of the Evangelists and Apostles;’ and the same
spirit is manifested in one of his instructions, when he says,
‘Excepting those statements which either the Law or the Prophets or
the Gospels or the Apostles have made to us, solemn silence ought
to be observed, as far as other authorities are concerned, with
respect to the Trinity. For it is God’s testimony alone that is to be
credited concerning God, that is, concerning himself.’[794] Cummian’s
letter regarding the Easter festival, also written in Latin, shows a
perfect mastery of his subject, and may compare with any
ecclesiastic document of the time. Then we have the Latin lives of
Columba by two of the abbots of Iona; and, besides Adamnan’s Life,
we also possess his tract on the Holy Places, works which give proof
of his classical attainments as well as his acquaintance with
ecclesiastical writings.
The Scribhnidh, The seventh century, which had seen the
or scribes in the church distracted by the Easter controversy, the
monasteries. withdrawal of the Columban monks from
Northumbria, and the conformity of the church of the northern Scots
of Ireland to Rome, likewise witnessed some other changes in its
intellectual life. One was the appearance, in the end of this century,
of a functionary in the monasteries, termed in Irish Scribhnidh, or
Scribhneoir, and in Latin ‘Scriba,’ a learned man among the monks,
who was selected for the purpose not only of transcribing and
preserving the ancient records of the monastery, but likewise of
exercising the functions of teacher and public lecturer.[795] One of the
earliest monuments of their industry is the MS. termed the Book of
Armagh. It was compiled by Ferdomnach, ‘a sage and choice
Scribhnidh of the church of Armagh,’ at the instance of Torbach,
abbot of Armagh, who had himself been a scribe and lector of the
church; and, as he was only one year in the abbacy, and died in the
year 808, this fixes the date of the compilation of the book at the
year 807.[796]
The Book of The contents of this MS. will show somewhat of
Armagh. the literature of the church at the time. The
volume commences with certain memoirs of St. Patrick, which are
the oldest we now possess, and they are followed by the Confession
of St. Patrick, an undoubtedly genuine work. After this comes St.
Jerome’s Preface to the New Testament; and then the Gospels in
their usual order. In the enumeration of the apostles in the Gospel of
St. Matthew, the name of Judas has opposite to it, on the margin,
the Irish word trogaun or wretch, and at the end of the Gospel is the
following prayer of the writer, in Latin:—‘O God, whose mercy is
unbounded, and whose holiness passeth speech, with humble voice
have I boldness to implore that, like as Thou didst call Matthew to
be a chosen Apostle, from being a receiver of customs; so, of Thy
compassion, Thou wilt vouchsafe to direct my steps during this life
into the perfect way; and place me in the angelic choir of the
heavenly Jerusalem, that, on the everlasting throne of endless joy, I
may be deemed worthy to join with the harmonious praises of
archangels in ascribing honour to Thee; through Thy only-begotten
Son, who liveth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, throughout
all ages. Amen.’ After the Gospels follow St. Paul’s Epistles, to which
are prefixed prefaces chiefly taken from the works of Pelagius.
Between the Epistle to the Colossians and the First Epistle to
Timothy is inserted the spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans, which is
found in a great variety of Latin MSS. of the New Testament; and in
the First Epistle of St. John the passage concerning the witnesses (v.
7) is omitted, as it also is in the oldest copy of the Vulgate. The
Epistles are followed by the Apocalypse, after which comes the Acts
of the Apostles, an order peculiar to this MS.; and the Book of
Armagh closes with the Life of St. Martin of Tours, written by
Sulpicius Severus, and with a short litany, or intercession, on behalf
of the writer.[797] This MS., compiled at Armagh in 807, probably
contained the only memoirs of its patron saint which were then
known to exist.
Hagiology of the The oldest lives of the Irish saints belong to
Irish Church. the seventh century, and the rise of the hagiology
of the Irish Church corresponds with that of the Easter controversy
and with the conformity of the church to that of Rome. It was
followed in the next century by the enshrining of the relics of the
saints most venerated. Prior to the conformity of part of the
Monastic Church to Rome in that century, we do not find much
appearance of the memory of the early fathers of the church having
been preserved in written memoirs. The early Monastic Church, as
we have seen, either knew or said little about St. Patrick as the great
apostle of Ireland; and Cummian, who first mentions him in this
century, belonged to the Roman party, and does so in connection
with the Easter controversy. The oldest memoir of St. Patrick in the
Book of Armagh consists of what are called Annotations by Tirechan,
a bishop, who calls himself pupil of Bishop Ultan, son of Conchubar,
that is, of the bishop of Ardbraccan, whose death is recorded in 657.
[798]
The second is a life of which part only of the first book is
preserved; but the second book appears to be entire, and the
headings of the chapters of the whole of the first book are
fortunately given, which affords us some indication of the contents
of the missing leaves. It bears to be written by Muirchu
Macumactheni, at the dictation of Aedh, bishop of Sleibhte; and the
names of both appear among the subscribers to the Synod of Tara in
697, while the death of the former is recorded in 699.[799] Muirchu,
however, prefaces his memoir by the following statement, addressed
to Bishop Aedh:—‘Forasmuch as many, my lord Aedus, have taken in
hand to set forth in order a narration, namely this, according to what
their fathers and they who from the beginning were ministers of the
Word have delivered unto them; but by reason of the very great
difficulty of the narrative, and the diverse opinions and numerous
doubts of very many persons, have never arrived at any one certain
track of history; therefore (if I be not mistaken, according to this
proverb of our countrymen, Like boys brought down into the
amphitheatre), I have brought down the boyish rowboat of my poor
capacity into this dangerous and deep ocean of sacred narrative,
with wildly-swelling mounds of billows, lying in unknown seas
between most dangerous whirlpools—an ocean never attempted or
occupied by any barks, save only that of my father Cogitosus. But,
lest I should seem to make a small matter great, with little skill, from
uncertain authors, with frail memory, with obliterated meaning and
barbarous language, but with a most pious intention, obeying the
command of thy belovedness and sanctity and authority, I will now
attempt, out of many acts of Saint Patrick, to explain them, gathered
here and there with difficulty.’[800] Now both Ultan of Ardbraccan and
Aedh of Sleibhte belonged to that part of the Church of Ireland
which had conformed to Rome; and this party seems to have fallen
back upon the traditions of the earlier church, which had preceded
the Monastic Church, and to have revived the veneration of its great
founder St. Patrick. The oldest lives of St. Bridget, the other great
saint of this earlier church, belong also to the same period, and are
attributed, one to Bishop Ultan, and another to Cogitosus the father
of Muirchu.[801] The oldest memoir of Columba is that by Cummene,
who was abbot of Iona from 657 to 669, and it too was, as we have
seen, called forth by the Easter controversy, but was written to
maintain the authority of Columba, as the father of the Columban
Church against that of Rome, and to claim for him a high position by
the sanctity of his character and the possession of miraculous power
and spiritual gifts. Adamnan too, who writes the second life, was the
first abbot of Iona who gave his adhesion to the Roman party; and it
seems to have been called forth by his connection with the
Northumbrian Church. These early lives gave rise to a great
hagiologic literature, consisting of the lives of all the leading saints
and founders of churches, in which every effort was made to
magnify their power and sanctity by a record of so-called miracles
and prophecies. It is to this literature that we are obliged in a great
measure to resort for the early history of the Celtic Church; but, for
historic purposes these lives must be used with great discrimination.
There is nothing more difficult than to extract historical evidence
from documents which confessedly contained a mixture of the
historical and the fabulous; but the fiction, in the form in which it
appears, pre-supposes a stem of truth upon which it has become
encrusted; and it is only by a critical use of authorities of this kind
that we can hope to disentangle the historical core from the fabulous
addition.
Analysis of the The Lives of St. Patrick afford a good
Lives of St. illustration of this. There is a continuous series of
Patrick. them from the seventh century to the twelfth.
Space will, of course, not admit of anything like a complete analysis
of them, but a comparison of the lives, in the order in which they
appear to have been compiled, will show the growth of the
legendary and fabulous additions to the real facts of his life, and the
process by which it passed, from the few leading features of it which
can be extracted from his own authentic writings, to the
extraordinary mixture of fact, legend and fable which now makes up
the popular conception of his life. The oldest memoirs of St. Patrick
are the Annotations of Bishop Tirechan, ‘written from the mouth or
book of Ultan the bishop, whose pupil and disciple he was.’ He tells
us that he ‘found four names given to Patricius in the book of Ultan:
Magonus, which is “clarus;” Succetus, which is Patricius; and
Cothirthiac, because he served four houses of “magi,” and one of
them, whose name was Miliuc, bought him, and he served him
seven years.’ That he was taken captive in his seventeenth year, and
obtained his liberty in his twenty-second year, which corresponds
with his own statement in his Confession; but Tirechan adds ‘that in
seven other years he walked and sailed over the waves, and over
country parts, and through valleys and over mountains, through
Gaul and all Italy, and the islands which are in the Terrene sea, as he
says in the commemoration of his labours.’ There is no foundation,
however, for this in his Confession, except his sixty days’ wanderings
through the desert before he reached the house of his parents.
Tirechan then adds, ‘He was in one of these islands, which is called
Aralanensis, for thirty years, as was testified by Bishop Ultan.’ He
then gives us the following chronological data:—‘All things which
happened you will find clearly written in his history, and these latest
wonders were fulfilled and brought to a close in the second year of
the reign of Loigaire mac Neill. From the passion of Christ to the
death of Patricius are four hundred and thirty-six years. Loigaire
reigned two or five years after the death of Patricius. The whole
period of Loigaire’s reign was thirty-three years, as we think.’ Now
we may assume as a fixed point the death of Loigaire in the year
463.[802] His reign, therefore, commenced in 430. His second year
brings us to 432 for the termination of St. Patrick’s wanderings in
foreign countries; and his death, if it occurred five years before that
of Loigaire, would fall in the year 458, or, if two years only, in 461;
but the Irish Annals agree in placing under the year 458 the death of
Sen Patraic,[803] or old Patrick, which identifies him with the Patricius
of Tirechan’s Annotations. It is unnecessary for our purpose to
advert to Tirechan’s account of his proceedings in Ireland; but he
adds at the end some further data. He says ‘the age of Patricius, as
it was delivered to us, may be thus stated:—In his seventh year he
was baptized. In the tenth year (after) he was taken captive. Four
years he served. Thirty years he studied. Seventy-two years he
taught. His whole age was one hundred and twenty. In four points
he resembled Moses: 1st, He heard an angel from a bush of fire. 2d,
He fasted forty days and forty nights. 3d, He accomplished one
hundred and twenty years in this present life. 4th, Where his bones
are no one knows. In the XIII year of Theodosius the emperor
Patricius the bishop was sent by Bishop Celestine, Pope of Rome, for
the instruction of the Irish, which Celestine was the forty-second
bishop of the apostolical see of the city of Rome after Peter. Palladius
the bishop was the first sent, who is otherwise called Patricius, and
suffered martyrdom among the Scots, as the ancient saints relate.
Then the second Patricius was sent by an angel of God, named
Victor, and by Pope Celestine, by whose means all Ireland believed,
and who baptized almost all the inhabitants.’ Now here Tirechan
betrays at once the party in the church to which he and Ultan
belonged, by asserting that St. Patrick, as well as Palladius, had
been sent by Pope Celestine; and he gives us the important fact that
Palladius was also known to the Irish by the name of Patricius. If St.
Patrick had taught for seventy-two years, and died in 458, it is plain
that his mission to the Irish must have long preceded that of
Palladius; but at the same time, as Palladius is termed by a
contemporary writer the first bishop sent to the Scots, St. Patrick
could not have been consecrated a bishop till after him. He himself
tells us that he was forty-five when he was consecrated a bishop;
and, if this took place in the year 432, it would place his birth in the
year 387; and, if he died in 458, the period of seventy-two years
would thus represent his entire life. Tirechan has thus, by
interpolating his thirty years’ study in Gaul, and by taking seventy
years as representing his teaching in Ireland, lengthened out his life
to one hundred and twenty-three years, and thus obtained his
parallelism with Moses in this respect. If Palladius and Patricius were
known to the Irish by the same name, it is hardly possible that,
when the traditions regarding them were first collected and formed
into a regular biography in the seventh century, they should not
have been confounded together. The mission from Pope Celestine
and the thirty years’ study in Gaul and Italy are entirely inconsistent
with St. Patrick’s account of himself, and no doubt truly belong to
the acts of Palladius.
The next life is that by Muirchu. The first membrane of the Book
of Armagh, containing the commencement of the life, is
unfortunately wanting; but the preface and the headings of the
chapters have been preserved in a different part of the MS. The
preface has already been given, and the headings of the missing
chapters are these:—
‘Concerning the birth of St. Patrick and his first captivity.
Concerning his journeys and sea voyage to the Gentiles, and his
sufferings among the nations ignorant of God.
Concerning his second captivity, which he suffered for sixty days
from hostile men.
Concerning his reception by his parents when they recognised
him.
Concerning his age when going to visit the apostolic see where
he wished to learn wisdom.
Concerning his discovery of holy men in Gaul, and that therefore
he went no farther.’
The fragment of the first book commences with his journey to the
apostolic see at Rome, and mentions that Germanus ‘sent an elder
with him, that is Segitius, that he might have a companion and
witness, because he was not as yet ordained by the holy lord
Germanus to the pontifical degree.’ It then mentions the mission of
Palladius, and that ‘his disciples Augustinus and Benedictus and the
rest, returning, related in Ebmoria the circumstance of his death.’
Patrick then proceeds no farther, but goes to a certain man, an
illustrious bishop Amathorex,[804] living in a neighbouring place, and
receives from him the episcopal degree, after which he returns to
Britain. This statement, taken in connection with the heading of the
chapter, implies that St. Patrick, though he intended to go to Rome,
went no farther than the town of Ebmoria, which must have been in
Gaul, and near it was consecrated bishop by Amathorex. St. Patrick
is in this life also brought into contact with Germanus; but the
connection with Rome is less directly stated than in the previous life.
The chronological summary at the end of the life is as follows:
—‘Patrick was baptized in his sixth year, taken captive in his
twentieth, served in slavery twelve years, studied forty years, taught
sixty-one. His entire age was one hundred and eleven years.’ These
dates, however, when added together, make up a period of one
hundred and thirty-three years, and the process by which his life is
thus lengthened is apparent enough. His captivity is placed in his
twentieth in place of his sixteenth year. The period of his slavery is
doubled. The period of his study with Germanus is increased from
thirty to forty years, and his mission reduced from seventy-two to
sixty-one years. But, if this latter period is deducted, his life prior to
his mission is here made to have been seventy-two years. In the life
itself, however, St. Patrick is said to have died ‘on the sixteenth day
of the Kalends of April, having attained the age of one hundred and
twenty years, as is celebrated every year over the whole of Ireland,
and kept sacred;’ and in the last paragraph it is more correctly
stated ‘that he was taken captive in the thirteenth year of his age,
and was in bondage six years.’ If these two numbers are substituted
for the twentieth year and the twelve years of the summary, the
entire years of his life will be reduced from one hundred and thirty-
three to one hundred and twenty. This life also distinctly states that
St. Patrick was buried at Dunlethglaisse, or Down, while Tirechan as
distinctly states that ‘where his bones are no one knows.’ The
tradition, therefore, which places his relics at Down must have arisen
after the time when Tirechan wrote. In some additions to Tirechan’s
Annotations, which appear to have been made about the time when
the rest was written, another tradition is given. It is there said that
‘Columbcille, instigated by the Holy Spirit, pointed out the sepulchre
of Patrick where he lies, that is to say, at Sabul Patricii,’ or ‘Saul
Patrick, in the nearest church next the sea, where the relics or bones
of Columcille were brought from Britain, and where the relics of all
the saints of Ireland will be brought in the day of judgment.’[805] The
Annals of Ulster contain the following curious entry under the year
552:—‘I have found what follows in the Book of Cuanach,’ a
chronicle the date of which is unknown, but which cannot be much
earlier than the eighth or ninth century. ‘The reliques of St. Patrick
were deposited in a shrine, sixty years after his death, by Columcille.
Three precious swearing reliques were found in his tomb, viz., the
Coach, or cup, the Gospel of the Angel, and the Bell of the
Testament. The angel thus showed to Columcille how to divide these
reliques, viz., the Coach to Down, the Bell to Armagh, and the
Gospel to Columcille himself; and it is called the Gospel of the Angel
because Columcille received it at the angel’s hands.’ The church of
Saul is on the sea-shore in the immediate neighbourhood of Down;
but that either Saul or Down could have been marked out as the
place where St. Patrick’s bones were enshrined prior to the eighth
century is quite inconsistent with the distinct statement, by his first
biographer, that no one in his day knew where they were. As we
have seen, Cellach, abbot of Iona, appears to have taken the relics
of Columba to Ireland on the slaughter of the community by the
Danes in 806; and, as the Book of Armagh was transcribed in 807,
and the name of Cellach appears on the margin of one of the leaves,
it is probable that this tradition owes its origin to him.[806]
About the same period when the Book of Armagh was transcribed,
or not long after, was written the short Life of St. Patrick, by Marcus
the Anchorite, annexed to Nennius’ History of the Britons. Marcus is
said by Heric, in his Life of St. Germanus, to have been a Briton by
birth, but educated in Ireland, where he was for a long time a
bishop, and to have at length settled in France, where he died;[807]
and his notices of St. Patrick show that he was acquainted with the
lives in the Book of Armagh. He states, correctly enough, that Patrick
had been captive in Ireland seven years; but, when he says that
‘when he had attained the age of seventeen he returned from his
captivity,’ he confuses his age when he was taken captive with that
of his liberation. He says that ‘by the divine impulse he was
afterwards instructed in sacred literature, and went to Rome, and
remained there a long time studying the sacred mysteries of God’—
here agreeing with Tirechan in bringing him to Rome; but he adopts
the statement of Muirchu in regard to the mission of Palladius,
substituting the land of the Picts for that of the Britons as the place
of his death.[808] He also follows Muirchu in Patrick’s being sent by
Germanus with Segerus to the bishop Amatheus, by whom he is
consecrated bishop; but he follows Tirechan in his statement that in
four particulars he resembled Moses, that he lived one hundred and
twenty years, and that no one knew where his sepulchre was,
adding that ‘he was buried in secret no one knowing.’[809] He
concludes his life by saying that ‘he was sixteen years in captivity,’
here confusing the duration of his captivity, with his age when made
captive, that ‘in his twenty-fifth year he was consecrated bishop by
King Matheus,’ and that he was eighty-five years ‘apostle of the
Irish,’ which would give him a life of one hundred and ten years
only; but in another passage in Nennius four hundred and five years
are said to have elapsed from the birth of Christ to the arrival of
Patrick among the Scots, and sixty years from his death to that of St.
Bridget. As the latter event, moreover, is said to have taken place
four years after the birth of Columba, which gives us a fixed date of
521, this would place the death of Patrick in 465, and his birth, if he
was taken captive in 405, in 389, dates which very nearly
correspond with those of Tirechan, and of the older Patrick termed
Sen Patraic.
The next biography of the saint introduces some new features into
the legend. It is the hymn in praise of St. Patrick, attributed to St.
Fiacc of Sleibhte, who is said to have been ordained by him. So early
a date, however, cannot be assigned to the poem, and it belongs in
reality to the ninth century.[810] This poem has formed the nucleus
around which a number of floating legends, whether founded on
genuine tradition or the fruit of supposititious narrative, have
clustered in the shape of a commentary or scholiasm, which is, of
course, of even later date;[811] and the two together have given an
entirely different aspect to the legendary life of the apostle of
Ireland. The so-called Fiacc commences his hymn by giving a new
name to the place of St. Patrick’s birth. He tells us that
Patraicc was born in Nemthur, and it is this that has been declared
in tales;[812]
This corresponds with his own statement in his Confession; but here
the scholiast adds other names to his family, and for the first time
connects them with Armorica in Gaul. His statement is as follows:
—‘This was the cause of the servitude of Patrick; his father was
Calpuirnn; Conches, daughter of Ochmuis, was his mother and of his
five sisters, namely, Lupait and Tigris and Liamain and Darerca, and
the name of the fifth was Cinnenum. His brother was Sannan. They
all went from the Britons of Alcluaid, across the Iccian sea
southwards, on a journey to the Britons who are in the sea of Icht,
namely, the Britons of Letha, because they had brethren there at
that time. Now, the mother of these children, namely, Conches, was
of the Franks, and she was sister to Martin. At that time came seven
sons of Sectmaide, king of Britain, in ships from the Britons; and
they made great plunder on the Britons, viz., the Britons of Armuric
Letha, where Patrick with his family was, and they wounded
Calpuirnn there, and carried off Patrick and Lupait with them to
Ireland. And they sold Lupait in Conaille Muirthemne, and Patrick in
the north of Dal-araidhe.’[814] Here Patrick is brought from Alcluaid,
the place of his birth, to Armorica, in order to be carried off from
thence by Britons and not by Scots; and Armorica is thus thrust
somewhat violently into his own narrative, where he distinctly
implies that he was made captive in the place of his birth.
We are then introduced to Germanus, and told of Patrick that
The second Patrick thus created, with a life which lasted one
hundred and twenty years and terminated in 493, is now regarded
as the Apostle of Ireland, and to him are appropriated the leading
features of his career, while the Patrick of the older lives retains
nothing but his designation of Sen Patrick. How much, however, the
separate existence of this older Patrick embarrassed the
martyrologists, we see from the glosses upon the Felire of Angus the
Culdee, which are comparatively of much later date, and now first
connect him with Glastonbury. The gloss on the word Srenat is ‘that
is, in Gloinestir of the Gael in Saxan, that is, in Britannia.’[821] The
gloss on the last line is ‘Tutor of Patraic of Macha;’[822] and on the
margin of the MS. is written the following note:—‘That is, old Patrick
of Ros-dela in Magh Locha; but it is more true that he is in
Glastonbury of the Gael, in the south of England, for the Scots were
dwelling there on a pilgrimage. But his reliques are in Ulster. Sen
Patraic in Armagh.’[823]
Besides the metrical life attributed to Fiacc of Sleibhte, Colgan has
collected and printed six prose lives, seven in all. Four of the prose
lives—the second, third, fourth and seventh—are anonymous, the
fifth life bears to be by a certain Probus, and the sixth by Jocelyn of
Furness, whose date is known. It is the latest of the six, and must
have been written about the year 1185. These lives fall naturally into
two groups.[824] The first, consisting of Colgan’s second and fourth
lives, must have been written after the Book of Armagh and the
metrical life attributed to Fiacc, but before the compilation of the
glosses added to the latter. They give Nemthor as the place of
Patrick’s birth, and place it in the plain of Taburna, thus identifying it
with the Bannaven Taberniæ of his Confession. They make him to be
carried into captivity from thence by an Irish fleet; but they
introduce a number of incidents, connected with his childhood,
which bear the usual miraculous character. They know nothing of the
story told by the scholiast in Fiacc’s hymn, of the transference of the
family from Alclyde to Armorica; but the fourth life opens with the
strange statement that some thought St. Patrick was sprung from
the Jews; that, when they were dispersed after the fall of Jerusalem,
a part of them took refuge in Armorica among the Britons, and from
thence his parents migrated to the regions of Strathclyde; but this
statement is peculiar to this life. Both of these lives make Patrick
thirty years old when he went to Germanus, with whom he studied
thirty years, and state that he preached to the Irish for sixty years,
thus adopting the chronology of the second Patrick.
The second group consists of the life by Probus, Colgan’s third life,
the Tripartite life, and that by Jocelyn. These were all compiled later
than the tenth century, and that by Probus appears to be the oldest.
He was acquainted with the Book of Armagh, part of the lives
contained in which are inserted verbatim; but he was also
acquainted with the glosses to the hymn of Fiacc, for he inserts the
story of the migration of Patrick’s family to Amorica. He places his
birth in the Roman province (in Britanniis), in the village of Bannauc
of the Taburnian region, which region he considers to be also the
Nentrian province, where giants are said to have formerly inhabited.
But the main addition to the incidents of Patrick’s life, which
characterises this group, is his connection with St. Martin of Tours.
The scholiast on the hymn attributed to Fiacc had already made his
mother Conches St. Martin’s sister, and St. Patrick is now made to
reside for four years with him at Tours, where he was instructed in
the rules of monastic life, and received the tonsure; but, as St.
Martin died in 397, the date is too early for St. Patrick. On the other
hand, it is probably true of St. Ninian, who is also said to have been
a nephew of St. Martin and associated with him, and with the dates
of whose life it is more consistent. Probus, however, seems to have
preserved one incident which is true of the historic Patrick, when he
states that, after he was ordained priest by a bishop, whom he calls
St. Senior, he preached to the Irish before the mission of Palladius,
and before his own consecration as a bishop. This short analysis of
the lives of St. Patrick will be sufficient to show how the real events
in the life of the historic Patrick, so far as they can be ascertained,
were gradually overlaid by spurious additions, till at length the
legendary life of a spurious Patrick, as we now have it, was
developed out of it.
Lives of Besides the great legendary apostle of the
St.Bridget. Irish, the virgin St. Bridget seems also to occupy
a prominent place in Irish hagiology. That she was a historic
character, belonging to the earliest period of the Irish Church, there
seems little reason to doubt, and it is exceedingly probable that St.
Patrick himself in his Confession alludes to her when he says, ‘There
was one blessed Scotic maiden, very fair, of noble birth and of adult
age, whom I baptized; and after a few days she came to me,
because, as she declared, she had received a response from a
messenger of God desiring her to become a virgin of Christ and to
draw near to God. Thanks be to God, on the sixth day from that, she
with praiseworthy eagerness seized on that state of life which all the
virgins of God likewise now adopt;’ but her life too was now overlaid
with spurious tales and fabulous incidents, till it assumed an aspect
far removed from its probable reality. Space will not permit us to
analyse these lives, or to enter further into the history of the origin
and development of the great hagiologic literature of Ireland; suffice
it to mention that the two oldest lives of Bridget are attributed to
Bishop Ultan, under whose auspices Tirechan compiled his
Annotations, and to Cogitosus, who can now be identified with the
father of Muirchu, who wrote the second life in the Book of Armagh.
Hagiology of the Besides the Lives of St. Columba by Cummene
Scottish Church. and Adamnan in the seventh century, the oldest
lives in the Scotch hagiology of which we can fix the dates, are the
Life of St. Ninian by Aelred, who died in the year 1166, the Life of
St. Kentigern, of which a fragment only remains, which was written
during the episcopate of Herbert, who was bishop from 1147 to
1164, and that by Jocelyn of Furness, written at the request of his
namesake, who was bishop of Glasgow from 1174 to 1199. These
lives therefore belong to the twelfth century, when the manipulation
of the old chronicles of Scotland had already commenced, which laid
the foundation of that fictitious scheme of history, both civil and
ecclesiastic, which was reduced to a system by John of Fordun; and
to some extent they bear the marks of that influence. The Life of
Servanus, however, which has been preserved in the Marsh MSS. in
Dublin, belongs probably to a somewhat earlier period. With the
exception of these lives, we are dependent almost entirely upon the
lections in the ‘Propria Sanctorum’ of the Aberdeen Breviary, and on
the works of Dempster and Camerarius, for notices of the Scottish
saints; but the former were compiled after Fordun’s great work, and
are tainted by the false chronology of his Chronicle; and the two
latter works, after the publication of Hector Boece’s work, and are
under the influence of the fictitious history elaborated by him. The
dates attached to the saints in the Scotch Calendar are in the main
fictitious, and cannot be depended on.
Bearing of the Such is a short view of the hagiologic literature
Church on the of Ireland and Scotland, which forms so
education of the remarkable a feature in the literature of the
people. The
Ferleiginn, or church. Its bearing upon the education of the
lector. people presents an equally important feature. In
the later part of the eighth and in the ninth
centuries we find a new functionary appearing in the monasteries,
and gradually superseding the Scribhnigh, or scribe. This was the
Ferleiginn, lector or man of learning, whose functions were more
closely connected with education. He appears first in Clonmacnois;
and we find in 794 the death of ‘Colgu Ua Duineachda Ferleiginn of
Cluainmicnois, he who composed the Scuaip-Chrabhaidh,’ recorded
in the Annals of the Four Masters. There is no doubt that he is the
‘Colcu lector in Scotia,’ to whom Alcuin wrote an epistle.[825] It
appears from his life that he was ‘supreme moderator and prælector
of the school of Clonmacnois, and that he arrived at such eminence
in learning and sanctity that he was called chief scribe and master of
the Scots of Ireland.’[826] In the following century the Ferleiginn
appears also at Armagh, and we are told that in the year 876
Maelrobha, son of Cuimmhach, abbot of Armagh, was taken prisoner
by the Galls of Loch-Cuan, as was also the Ferleiginn, Mochta.[827]
During the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries these lectors, or
Ferleiginn, are repeatedly mentioned in the Irish Annals in
connection with the various monasteries in Ireland.[828] They also
appear in the Columban monasteries both of Ireland and of
Scotland. In 992 we find the death of ‘Dunchadh ua h-Uchtain,
Ferleighinn of Cenannus,’ or Kells, recorded; and in 1034 ‘Macnia ua
h-Uchtain, Ferleighinn of Kells, is drowned coming from Alban with
the bed of Columcill and three of Patrick’s relics, and thirty persons
along with him.’[829] In Scotland he appears in the early part of the
reign of David I., in connection with the Columban monastery of
Turbruad, or Turriff, founded by Comgan, where ‘Domangart,
Ferleginn Turbruad, or of Turriff, witnesses a charter by Gartnait,
Mormaer of Buchan, and Eta his wife, to the church of Deer;’[830] and
we find him at Iona in 1164, when the Ferleighinn Dubside appears
among the prominent functionaries of the monastery.[831] In the
following century the name of Ferleiginn is still preserved in
connection with the church of St. Andrews and its schools. Between
the years 1211 and 1216, a controversy which arose between the
prior of St. Andrews and his convent, on the one part, and the
master of the schools and the poor scholars of the city of St.
Andrews, on the other, in regard to certain lands and dues which the
latter claimed, was amicably settled ‘with the assent and goodwill of
Master Laurence, who was both archdeacon and Ferleyn of the said
city;’ and the prior and canons became bound ‘to pay to the foresaid
Laurence the Ferleighinn (Ferlano) and his successors, at the house
of the Ferleighinn (in domo Ferlani) of the said city, for the use of
the poor scholars,’ certain dues from these lands. ‘Thus was
agreement made between the parties, and by authority confirmed,
so that neither archdeacon nor Ferleighinn (Ferlanus), nor master of
the schools, nor poor scholars, shall hereafter move controversy
against the same.’[832]
The Scolocs. These scholars seem to have been the lowest
order of the ecclesiastical community, and to
have been clerics who were undergoing a course of training and
instruction to fit them for performing the service of the church. Their
Pictish name was Scolofthes, as we learn from Reginald of Durham,
who mentions the clerics of the church (of Kirkcudbright), the
Scolofthes as they are called in the Pictish speech, and gives
‘Scholasticus, a scholar,’ as its Latin equivalent. We find them under
the name of Scolocs in three of the churches belonging to St.
Andrews. In the church of Ellon, which was of old the capital of the
earldom of Buchan, they appear in 1265 as holding certain lands
under the bishop of St. Andrews; and in 1387 the church lands of
Ellon are called the Scolog lands, and were hereditary in the families
of the Scologs who possessed them. An inquest regarding these
lands, held in that year, bears that from one quarter or fourth part of
these lands ‘there are to be found for the parish church of Ellon four
clerks with copes and surplices, able to read and sing sufficiently;’
another quarter or fourth part ‘is bound to find a house for the
scholars;’ a third ‘is bound to find twice in every year twenty-four
wax candles for the ‘park’ or ‘perk,’ that is, the bracket or corbel
before the high altar; and the fourth quarter is bound to find a
smithy. These lands are indiscriminately called the ‘Scolog lands’ and
the ‘Scholar lands,’ and are described as ‘lying in the schoolry
(Scolaria) of Ellon.’ The Scolocs are also found in the church lands of
Arbuthnot in the Mearns, which they likewise held of the see of St.
Andrews. Here, in an inquest regarding the lands of the Kirkton of
Arbuthnot, held in the year 1206, we find the ecclesiastical territory
held by certain tenants called parsons, who had subtenants under
them, having houses of their own and cattle which they pastured on
the common; and the tenants of these lands are termed by several
of the witnesses Scolocs, and are also termed the bishop’s men.
These Scolocs were finally ejected altogether from the land which
they appear to have tilled. They also appear at the neighbouring
church of Fetteresso, likewise belonging to the bishop of St.
Andrews.[833] The name of Scoloc is also found in connection with
one of the Columban monasteries in Ireland; for in one of the
charters preserved in the Book of Kells, which must have been
granted between the years 1128 and 1138, we find that among the
functionaries of the monastery, after the Coärb of Columcille, or the
abbot, the Sacart or priest, the Ferleiginn or lecturer, the Aircennech
or Erenagh of the house of guests, and the Fosaircennech or vice-
Erenach, appears the Toisech na Scoloc, or Chief of the Scologs,
Aengus O’Gamhna.[834]
Influence of the Whether there existed in Ireland a pagan
Church on literature, in the proper sense of the term, prior
literature and to the introduction of Christianity, and whether
language.
the art of writing was known in any shape to its
pagan population, is a very difficult question, and one into which it is
Art of writing not necessary for our purpose to enter. But
introduced. whether there existed among them an ante-
Christian civilisation of any kind or not, there can be no doubt that
the early Celtic Church, such as we have found it to be, must have
been a powerful agent in civilising the people, and not less in fixing
a standard of language; and the earliest lives of St. Patrick certainly
attribute to him the introduction of the written alphabet. Thus
Tirechan, having mentioned that Patrick had consecrated three
hundred and fifty bishops in Ireland, adds: ‘Of presbyters we cannot
count the number, because he used to baptize men daily, and to
read letters and abgetoriæ, or alphabets, with them; and of some he
made bishops and presbyters, because they had received baptism in
mature age.’[835] Of the two alphabets known to have existed among
the Irish, the one now called the Irish alphabet, and supposed to be
peculiar to the Irish language, is, as Dr. Todd well remarks, nothing
more than the Roman alphabet, which was used over all Europe in
the fifth and some following centuries. The other, called the Ogham,
which is mainly confined to inscriptions upon stone monuments,
though it occasionally appears in MSS.,[836] is of the same character as
the Scandinavian Runes, and has now also been clearly shown to
have a post-Christian origin.[837]
Spoken dialects Before letters were introduced, however, there
of Irish. could have been no fixed standard of language.
Each Tuath, or tribe, had probably its own variety of the common
speech; but these all, no doubt, belonged to that branch of the
Celtic language called Gaelic. There would thus be as many varieties
of the spoken Gaelic as there were independent tribes.[838] The
tendency of language at this stage is to go through a process of
corruption and decay. It is then easily modified by surrounding
circumstances and affected by external influences, which an oral
literature, consisting of the songs and legends of a rude people, is
powerless to control. This tendency would be arrested only when a
written and cultivated language was formed under the influence of
the Christian Church, and a common standard of the language, in its
most perfect shapes and preserving its older forms, was established,
which was spoken and written by the cultivated class of the
community, and to a knowledge of which a portion of the people
were raised by education. Under its influence the numerous varieties
of the spoken language became more assimilated, until at length we
find that in the main there remain only four forms of the vernacular
Irish, which were peculiar to the four great provinces of Munster,
Ulster, Leinster, and Connaught, into which the country was divided.
There was also an old division of Ireland by a line drawn across the
island from Dublin to Galway into two parts, termed respectively
Leth Cuinn and Leth Mogha. This division was known to Bede, who
distinguished between the northern provinces of the Scots and the
nations of the Scots dwelling in the northern districts of Ireland.[839]
The northern half contained the provinces of Connaught and Ulster
and the old province of Meath, which is now included in Leinster, and
the seaboard of which formed the plain of Bregia, or Magh Bregh,
mentioned more than once by Adamnan.[840] The southern half
consisted of the old provinces of Leinster and Munster; and the
difference in the spoken language between the northern and
southern Irish was somewhat more marked.
Peculiarities of The peculiarities in the spoken Gaelic of the
Irish dialects. four provinces are thus expressed in the following
sayings current in most parts of Ireland:—
The Munster man has the accent without the propriety.
The Ulster man has the propriety without the accent.
The Leinster man has neither the propriety nor the accent.
The Connaught man has both the accent and the propriety.[841]
The difference in these four dialects is mainly in words,
pronunciation, and idiom; but the grand difference between the
vernacular Irish of the northern and that of the southern part of
Ireland consists in the position of the accent, in the vowel sounds,
and in the form of the verb. In the north the primary accent is on
the root of the word, or the first syllable, and the secondary accent
on the termination; but in the south the primary accent is on the
termination, and the secondary accent on the root, if short.[842] The
vowel sounds vary very much, their most perfect pronunciation
being in Connaught. In the verb, the analytic form—or that in which
the verb has a common form for all the persons, and these are
expressed by separate pronouns, while the auxiliary verb is more
employed—is used in the spoken language of the north, and
principally in Ulster. The synthetic or inflected form, which is the
more ancient, is generally used in the south of Ireland; and in this
respect it approaches more closely the forms of the written or
cultivated language, and shows a less degree of corruption than the
vernacular of the north.
Written Irish. In the written Irish, the more ancient verbal
forms have been preserved in their entirety, and
there is a complete system of inflections, with a very copious
vocabulary, of which several glossaries have been preserved. The
most ancient is that attributed to Cormac mac Cuilennan, king and
bishop of Cashel, who was killed in the year 903; and the greater
part of it undoubtedly belongs to that period.[843] There has also
been preserved an ancient Grammar termed Uraicecht na m-Eiges,
or Precepts of the Poets, which is certainly not much later in date;
[844]
but Zeuss’ great work, the Grammatica Celtica, exhibits the
grammar of this written language in its most complete shape, as he
has constructed it from materials furnished by MSS. of the eighth and
ninth centuries.
Scotch Gaelic. Such being, in the main, the position of the
Gaelic language in Ireland and the relation
between the written and cultivated language and the spoken
dialects, we find that Scotland presents to us, in connection with the
distribution of her languages, somewhat peculiar phenomena, which
are more difficult of solution. If a line is drawn from a point on the
eastern bank of Loch Lomond, somewhat south of Ben Lomond,
following in the main the line of the Grampians, and crossing the
Forth at Aberfoil, the Teith at Callander, the Almond at Crieff, the Tay
at Dunkeld, the Ericht at Blairgowrie, and proceeding through the
hills of Brae Angus till it reaches the great range of the Mounth, then
crossing the Dee at Ballater, the Spey at lower Craigellachie, till it
reaches the Moray Firth at Nairn—this forms what was called the
Highland Line, and separated the Celtic from the Teutonic-speaking
people. Within this line, with the exception of the county of
Caithness which belongs to the Teutonic division, the Gaelic
language forms the vernacular of the inhabitants, and beyond it
prevails the broad Scotch. The one is as much a dialect of Irish, and
is substantially the same language, as the other is of the Anglic or
Anglo-Saxon. There are small and unimportant provincial varieties
observed in both; yet each forms essentially one dialect; and Scotch
Gaelic must be viewed as simply a provincial variety of the spoken
Gaelic, of the same class as the provincial varieties of the vernacular
Gaelic in Ireland. It exhibits some differences which are peculiar to
itself. In other points it corresponds with one or other of the Irish
dialects. The primary accent in Scotch Gaelic is invariably on the first
syllable of the word, and the analytic form of the verb, with the use
of the auxiliary verb, is preferred to the synthetic. In these respects
it corresponds with the spoken language of the north of Ireland, and
its vowel sounds approach most nearly to those of the Connaught
dialect. Scotch Gaelic is, in fact, so far, more closely allied to the
northern Irish than the latter is to the spoken language of the south;
but there are other peculiarities of Scotch Gaelic which seem due to
influence from another quarter. It forms the genitive plural of some
nouns by adding the syllable an, in which it resembles Welsh forms.
It does not use that phonetic change of the initial consonant, termed
by Irish grammarians ‘eclipsis.’ It drops the final vowel in some
substantives, and the future tense of its verb resembles the present
tense of the Irish verb, while for the present it uses the auxiliary
with the present participle. These peculiarities Scotch Gaelic shares
with Manx, or the Gaelic of the Isle of Man; and it indicates that this
vernacular form of Gaelic had been arrested at a somewhat later
stage in its process of disintegration than the northern dialects of
Irish.
Origin of the The whole of the mountain region of Scotland
Scotch Gaelic. with its islands within the Highland line, with the
exception of Caithness, thus possessing a dialect of spoken Gaelic
which must be ranked with the vernacular dialects of Ireland, the
natural inference is that it must at all times have been peopled by a
homogeneous race. But when we inquire into the elements which
enter into its early population, we find that, prior to the ninth
century, it consisted, in name at least, of two different races. In that
part of Argyllshire which formed the kingdom of Dalriada, with the
islands south of the promontory of Ardnamurchan, were the Scots,
who unquestionably immigrated from Ireland in the beginning of the
sixth century; while the whole of the rest of this region, with the
islands north of Ardnamurchan, was peopled by the Pictish tribes. If
these two races were not homogeneous, the question arises, How
did this Gaelic dialect spread over the whole of it? To this question
Irish writers usually return a very short and ready answer. They tell
us that the Irish colony of Scots spread gradually over the western
districts; that in the ninth century they subjugated the Picts; that the
Pictish population was superseded by the Scottish; and that the
language spoken by the Highlanders was invariably termed by them
Erse or Irish. This solution will not, however, stand the test of
investigation. The former part of the statement, when compared
with the ascertained facts regarding the relative position of the two
races, requires an assent to a philological proposition which is almost
impossible; and the latter assertion is not true. It is obvious from the
statements of both Adamnan and Bede that, as late as the eighth
century, the Scots of Dalriada were still confined within those
mountain barriers which separated them from the great Pictish race;
and, however we may view the revolution which took place in their
relative position, it is obvious that the spoken dialect which prevailed
over the rest of the Highlands prior to the ninth century, whatever it
was, could not have been derived from the Scots of Dalriada. But is
it credible that a language spoken in such a mountainous and
inaccessible region as the northern and eastern Highlands, with the
islands north of Ardnamurchan, could have so entirely disappeared
as to leave not a trace even in its topography? Though we do not
possess written evidence of the early speech of this part of the
country, we have a record in the names of its great natural features
—its mountains, its lochs, and its great rivers; and all experience
tells us that, though the population of a country may change, these
generally remain unaffected by it, and retain the stamp of its earliest
race, by whom these names were imposed. We find that the names
of farms and homesteads, houses and villages, may change and
bear the impress of each succeeding population; but those of the
grand and unchangeable features of a country bearing the physical
aspect of Scotland remain unchanged, and these names, throughout
the whole of the districts peopled by the northern Picts, are
unmistakably Gaelic. There may enter into these names some
vocables which are not intelligible in the modern vernacular Gaelic;
but it must be recollected that the names were imposed at a much
earlier stage of the language, and we usually find that they are
obsolete words of the same language, and are preserved in the old
glossaries.[845]
But, further, the phenomena exhibited in these districts of
Scotland, in the relation of the early races which peopled it to the
language which we find at a later period pervading the whole range
of country, are not very dissimilar from those which appear to have
existed at a much earlier period in the north of Ireland. There we
find the tradition that the Pictish race once extended over the whole
of the north of Ireland; and the remembrance of the Pictish kingdom
of Ulster, with its capital of Emhan Macha, or Emania, is preserved
almost to historic times. The remains of this Pictish race still existed,
within the historic period, in the smaller kingdom of Dalnaraidhe, or
Dalaradia, and in the plain of Bregia in Meath; and their close
connection with the Picts of Scotland was not dissevered till the
middle of the sixth century. Here, too, we have an extended Pictish
race, over which however the race of the Scots were more rapidly,
and at a much earlier period, superinduced, and the same
phenomena of the spoken language of the whole country forming
one dialect of that branch of Celtic termed Gaelic, while there is no
trace of any other language having prevailed. We may therefore
infer that the language spoken by the Pictish race which peopled the
Highlands and Islands likewise belonged to the Gaelic branch of the
Celtic, and that, like the Irish, before a cultivated standard of
language was formed by the introduction of letters, it was
characterised by local varieties of speech, and that there were as
many dialects, in the most limited sense of the term, as there were
districts and tribes. We do not find, however, that St. Columba, when
he commenced his mission among the Picts, had any difficulty in
conversing freely with them, or preaching the Word intelligibly to
them. There are only two instances mentioned by Adamnan where
he had to call in the aid of an interpreter, and in both cases it was
resorted to in preaching the Word of Life, and not in conversing.
These are the cases of the old chief of the Geona cohort, who came
by sea to the north end of Skye, and of a peasant in the province of
the Picts;[846] but we are not told to what part of the country these
men belonged, and the dialect of one part may have been more
removed from the Irish form of it than that of another.
A written A very powerful agency, however, was soon
language brought to bear upon the language of that part of
introduced by the country, that, namely, of the Christian
Scottish monks.
Church. Whatever may have been the case in
Ireland, it is unquestionably to the Columban Church issuing from
Ireland that the northern Picts owed the introduction of letters and
of a written language. For centuries her clergy were entirely
Scottish, and the instruction of the people and the education of the
young was in the hands of the Scottish monks of the Columban
Church. By them the standard of the written Irish was introduced. It
became the language of the church, the monastery and the school.
There was, probably for generations, not a Pictish child, who secured
any education at all, who had not learned his alphabet and been
taught to read by a Scottish monk. And with the spread of
knowledge and of cultivation there must have arisen a coalescing of
the numerous varieties of the vernacular into one spoken dialect,
and the assimilation of the whole to the cultivated language of
Ireland. Towards the close of the period during which this Celtic
Church was predominant, and just before its extinction, we have a
specimen of the written language of the Columban Church in the
Book of Deer. It is a MS. which belonged to the church of Deer, one
of the few Columban monasteries in the Pictish territory which
retained its clerical character throughout. It contains the Gospel of
St. John, portions of the other three Gospels, the fragment of an
office for the visitation of the sick, and the Apostles’ Creed, all in
Latin, and is written in a character which may be ascribed to the
ninth century. A few of the rubrics in the office for the visitation of
the sick are, however, in Irish, and, as was usual in such
monasteries, there are written on the blank pages notices in Gaelic,
written in the Irish character, giving the legend of the foundation of
the church, and memoranda of the different grants of lands and
privileges made to it. These are all in the same handwriting, and
appear to have been written in the early part of the reign of David I.
They thus furnish us with a specimen of the written language of the
period, and, though it possesses some unimportant peculiarities, it is
unquestionably identic with the written Irish of the period.[847] Not
long after, we find the vernacular Gaelic appearing under the name
of the Albanic, or language of Alban, and exhibiting some of the
peculiarities of the Scotch Gaelic. Jocelyn of Furness, who wrote in
the twelfth century, gives us in his Life of Kentigern two etymologies
of the saint’s name. One is unquestionably from Cymric, or the
Welsh language; but in the other the interpretation is derived from
the Gaelic. He says that ‘not in vain, but of set purpose, had he been
called Kentigern by Servanus, because by the will of the Lord he
sought to become the head lord of all, for Ken is “caput” in Latin,
and the Albanic Tyern is interpreted “dominus.” in Latin.’[848] Cen,
now Ceann, however, is ‘the head’ both in Irish and Scotch Gaelic,
and Tyern is the phonetic spelling of Tighearn, Lord, in Scotch
Gaelic, the Irish form of which is Tighearna, thus showing the elision
of the final vowel peculiar to Scotch Gaelic. The written language,
however, he appears to term Scotic, when he says that he had
‘found a little volume, written in the Scotic dialect, filled from end to
end with solecisms, but containing at greater length the life and acts
of the holy bishop.’[849]
Gaelic termed During the last two and a half centuries of this
Scottish, and period the intercourse between the north and
Lowland Scotch, west of Scotland and Ireland had, to a great
English.
extent, been interrupted by the Norwegian
conquest of the Western Isles, and the formation of the Norwegian
kingdom of the Isles; but the rise of the Celtic chief Somerled, and
the foundation of the dynasty of Gaelic Lords of the Isles in his
descendants, renewed the intercourse with Ireland; and we find
that, during the three centuries in which these powerful Celtic
kinglets ruled over the western Highlands and Islands, there was not
only a close political connection with Ireland, but the literary
influence was equally close and strong, and Ireland was resorted to
for instruction in the literature and written language of the country.
It was at the commencement of this period, that the name of Scotia
became finally and absolutely transferred from Ireland to Scotland,
and superseded the older name of Alban, or Albania; and, during the
whole of this period, the name applied to the Gaelic language of
Scotland was that of Scotic, or Scotch. We find abundant evidence of
this during the earlier portion of this period, when the term ‘Scotice’
is invariably applied to the Gaelic forms of the names of places.
Thus, in the ‘Descriptio Albaniæ,’ in the twelfth century, the river
Forth is said to be called ‘Scottice Froch, Brittanice Werid, Romane
vero Scottewattre,’ the term Roman being here curiously enough
applied to the Anglic. A charter by William the Lion mentions that
spring near Karel ‘quæ Scotice Tobari nuncupatur;’ and the same
designation for the Gaelic language of Scotland appears frequently in
the Chartularies, while the term Anglic is used for the Teutonic.
Thus, in a perambulation of the lands of Kingoldrum in Forfarshire,
in 1256, we have ‘Hachethunethouer quod Anglice dicitur Midefeld,‘
and ‘Marresiam quamdam quæ Scotice dicitur Moynebuche.’[850] And
in the fourteenth century Fordun gives us a very distinct account of
the distribution of the vernacular dialect in his day. He says, ‘The
manners and customs of the Scots vary with the diversity of their
speech. For two languages are spoken amongst them, the Scottish
(Scotica) and the Teutonic (Theutonica); the latter of which is the
language of those who occupy the seaboard and plains, while the
race of Scottish speech (Scoticæ linguæ) inhabits the Highlands and
outlying districts.’[851]
Α.D. 1478-1560. The dynasty of the Celtic kings of the Isles
Period of came to an end in 1478, when the last Lord of
neglected the Isles was forfeited; and there followed upon
education and no
learning. their fall a period of great confusion in the
Highlands, when the clans which had been united
under their sway were thrown loose, and struggled for the
possession of their lands. During this period of darkness education
was neglected, and all knowledge of the cultivated or written Irish
seems to have perished out of the land. It is during this period that
a solitary exception, Dean Macgregor of Lismore, endeavoured to
rescue from oblivion the oral literature of the Highlands by
transcribing, in 1512, such poems as he could collect; but he was
fain to write them down in a phonetic spelling, which has rendered
his collection valuable, as indicating the pronunciation of the
language at the time, and the degree of divergence between the
spoken dialects and the standard Irish.[852] His collection, however,
contains also several poems by Irish bards, and among others some
of a religious cast by Teague og O’Huggin, whose death is recorded
in the Annals of the Four Masters in 1448 as ‘chief preceptor of the
poets of Erin and Alban;’ and the same annals record in 1554 the
death of Teague O’Coffey, ‘chief teacher of poetry in Erin and Alban.’
A contract of fosterage, by Sir Roderick Macleod, in 1614, in Gaelic,
has been preserved, which is written in the Irish character; but it is
evident that he had to resort to Ireland for his scribe, as the writer
of it is obviously an Irishman, and he alone subscribes as a witness
in the Irish written language, the three other witnesses all bearing
Gaelic names, and two of them, respectively ministers of Duirinish
and Bracadale, in Skye, being unable to do so.[853]
After 1520 Scotch The spoken language of the Highlands now
Gaelic called begins to be called Irish in place of Scotch. John
Irish, and the Major, who wrote in 1520, not long after the
name Scotch
passes over to Dean of Lismore had made his collection, thus
Lowland Scotch. describes the languages in his day: ‘In the island
of Britain there are three different languages, as
we know, which are mutually unintelligible. The first towards the
south is the Welsh (Vallica), which the Britonised Britons use. The
second, more extended than the first, the wild Scots and Islanders
use, and this is Irish, though somewhat broken (Hibernica licet
quodammodo fracta). The third language, the principal one in the
island, is the English (Anglicana), which the English and the civilised
Scots have.’[854] Thus, what Fordun called Scotica in the fourteenth
century, John Major calls Hibernica in the sixteenth; and what
Fordun termed Teutonica, Major calls Anglicana. The expression
used by John Major, with regard to the Gaelic spoken in the
Highlands and Islands, shows that the differences between it and
the written language of Ireland were then quite apparent. While,
however, all learning had perished out of the Gaelic-speaking part of
the country, there had arisen a literature in the language of the
lowlands. Barbour, who was archdeacon of Aberdeen, leads the way
not long after Fordun’s time; but he terms the language in which he
wrote ‘Inglis,’ or English.[855] He was followed in the next century by
Wyntoun, prior of Lochleven, in his Metrical Chronicle. But Gawin
Douglas, who wrote in the same Lowland dialect in 1516, terms the
language in which he wrote ‘Scottés,’ or Scotch. We thus find in the
beginning of the sixteenth century the term Scotic, or Scotch,
passing from the written Gaelic to the Anglican dialect of the
Lowlands, and the spoken Gaelic of the Highlands coming to be
denominated Irish.
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade
Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
ebookmass.com