The Changing Theory and Practice of Irish Pilgrimage

Kathleen Hughes

doi:10.1017/S0022046900066744

The Changing Theory and Practice of Irish Pilgrimage

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

Kathleen Hughes

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Kathleen Hughes: Affiliation:
Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge

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‘I know’, says St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, ‘that if this earthly I tent of mine is taken down, I get a home from God made by no human hands, eternal in the heavens. It makes me sigh, indeed, this longing to be under cover of my heavenly habitation … to have my mortal element absorbed by life…. I know that while I reside in the body I am away from the Lord….’ St. Paul is considering the body as a flimsy tent, which may at any moment be taken down, and St. Columbanus takes up this passage in his eighth sermon on the essential instability, the transitory nature of earthly life. Here and elsewhere he speaks of life as a roadway, where Christians must travel in perpetual pilgrimage as guests of the world (hospites mundi), content with a sort of travelling allowance. The same spirit of detachment and urgency infuses much of the hagiographical literature: “Leave thy fatherland for my sake, and get thee out’, ‘This is not the place of thy resurrection’, or the wandering scholar to Brigid when she asks him to stay a while with her, ‘O nun, I have no leisure, for the gates of heaven are open now, and I fear they may be shut against me’.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1960 , pp. 143 - 151

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900066744 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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^{page 143 note 1} II Cor. v. 1–2, 4, 7. Moffatt's translation.

^{page 143 note 2} Walker, G. S. M., Sancti Columbani Opera, Dublin 1957, 94–6Google Scholar.

^{page 143 note 3} Ibid., 86.

^{page 143 note 4} Stokes, W., Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, Oxford 1890, lines 655 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 143 note 5} Ibid., lines 2601, 2064–7 and elsewhere.

^{page 143 note 6} Ibid., lines 1554–65.

^{page 143 note 7} Stokes, W., Martyrology of Oengus, London 1905, 90Google Scholar.

^{page 143 note 7} C. Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, i. 82, ii. 103–5.

^{page 144 note 1} Grosjean, P., Analecta Bollandiana, LXXV (1957), 379–93Google Scholar.

^{page 144 note 2} For the variety of monastic rules in Merovingian Gaul see O'Carroll, J., Studies, XLII (1953). 407–19Google Scholar.

^{page 144 note 8} For references see Kenney, , Sources for the Early History of Ireland, New York 1929, 499Google Scholar. The will attributed to Ansoald shows the pilgrim as the religious, leading the ascetic life in exile: ‘Maciriolas cellula super amnem Vigennam, quam desertam absque cultoribus vel officium redditum inveni, quam postea restaurare et reintegrare fecimus, in qua sanctum Dei peregrinum ex genere Scotorum, nomen Romanum (? leg. Ronanum), episcopum cum suis peregrinis constitui rectorem, et institueram ut ipsi peregrini inibidem perseverarent’. For bishop Dido, see P. Grosjean, Anal. Boll., lxxv. 391–3.

^{page 145 note 1} See Whitelock, D., “The Interpretation of the Seafarer’ in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe, ed. Sir Fox, Cyril and Dickins, Bruce, Cambridge 1950, 267Google Scholar.

^{page 145 note 2} Ibid., 264–6.

^{page 145 note 3} H.E., iv. 21; Plummer, i. 255.

^{page 145 note 4} ‘In has terras peregrinus processerim’: Walker, Opera, 16.

^{page 145 note 5} See Coens, , Anal. Boll., LXXIII (1955), 482.Google Scholar

^{page 145 note 6} This type usually assumes residence in a monastery under discipline, ‘penance in the yoke of exile under another abbot’ (seventh-century Penitential of Cummean, i. 12). The Penitential of Columbanus in certain cases requires a testimonial from the bishop or priest who has had charge of the penitent, upon his return to his own country (Walker, Opera, 172).

^{page 145 note 7} The man who commits murder after becoming a monk ‘shall die unto the world with perpetual pilgrimage’ (Pen. Cummean, iv. 6).

^{page 146 note 1} Pilgrimage gains exemption from the law of distress (Ancient Laws of Ireland, i. 266) and from paying a son's liabilities (v. 234). Starting on a pilgrimage is one of the ‘seven separations that are perpetual in the law of marriage’ (v. 296).

^{page 146 note 2} For a tenth-century Anglo-Saxon justification of pilgrimage ad limina see Stubbs, Memorials of St. Dunstan, 381.

^{page 146 note 3} W. Stokes and J. Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, ii. 294.

^{page 146 note 4} Annals of Ulster, 671, 673.

^{page 146 note 5} Life of Columba, i. 6, ii. 42.

^{page 146 note 6} A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, i. 340.

^{page 147 note 1} Ibid., 341, n. 3.

^{page 147 note 2} Ibid., 263–5.

^{page 147 note 3} Annals of Ulster, 824.

^{page 147 note 4} Ériu iii (1907), 106.

^{page 147 note 5} C. Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum Hibemiae, ii. 260. Cf. Études Celtiques, ii (1937), 294.

^{page 147 note 6} Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, XXIX C (1911), 133.Google Scholar

^{page 147 note 7} Whereas Cummean gives a penance of perpetual pilgrimage for the monk who commits murder (supra p. 145, note 7), the Old-Irish Penitential (ed. E. J. Gwynn, Ériu vii. 1914) reads: ‘A life of exile in destitution unless pious anchorites grant him remission’ (v. II).

^{page 147 note 8} Old-Irish Penitential, iii. 6.

^{page 148 note 1} Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, ii. 296.

^{page 148 note 2} Murphy, G., Early Irish Lyrics, Oxford 1956, 18.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 3} Columbanus: ‘All men of understanding should hurry like pilgrims to their true homeland’ (Walker, Opera, 86).

^{page 148 note 4} Hughes, K., ‘On an Irish Litany of Pilgrim Saints compiled c. 800’, in Anal. Boll., LXXVII (1959)) 305–31CrossRef Google Scholar. The text is edited by Plummer, C., Irish Litanies, London 1925, 60–7.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 5} Vitae Sanctorum Hibemiae ex Codice Salmanticensi, cols. 411–12.

^{page 149 note 1} Plummer, C., Misc. Hag. Hib., Brussels 1925, 17–18Google Scholar, transl. 57–8.

^{page 149 note 2} For references see Hughes, Anal. Boll., lxxvii. 319.

^{page 149 note 3} Meyer, K., The Vision of Mac Conglinne, London 1892.Google Scholar

^{page 150 note 1} Plummer, C., Bethada N´em nÉrenn, Oxford 1922, iGoogle Scholar. 310–11.

^{page 150 note 2} See Annals of the Four Masters, 951, 974, 979, 987, 1003, etc.

^{page 151 note 1} Ibid., 926 for the poem. Death reported s.a. 927. It is worth noting the circumlocution for stability in the last line quoted, and that, in pursuit of such stability, he set out on the long and arduous journey to Rome.

^{page 151 note 2} G. Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics, 93.

^{page 151 note 3} Ibid., 100.

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