> From: Maeve B. Callan [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>
> I checked the Martyrology to see what kind of tricks my memory was
> playing, and Stokes does take issue with the notion of Oengus as a Culdee
> and suggests that it may be a 17th-century invention. Kenney also notes
> that it's an attribution made by modern writers. It could be an
> artificial distinction, since he was at Tallaght for at least part of the
> time, but did that necessarily make one a Culdee? Stokes doesn't seem to
> think so, though if association with anywhere ought to make one a Culdee,
> Tallaght under Máelrúain ought to do the trick.
>
Not to demean the importance of Stokes as a scholar, especially
considering what he achieved at so early a time in the history of modern
Celtic Studies, but a lot of work has been done since he was actively
involved in the field. Anyway, many years ago, I mapped out the saints
mentioned by Oengus in the martyrology and the ones mentioned in the
marginalia. I noted a strong correlation between them and the monasteries
identified by Gwynn and Hadcock as strongly influenced by the Ce/li De/
(though G&H didn't always say why they identified them as such). Even more
to the point, perhaps, the longer and more elaborate the story found in the
marginalia, the more likely it was that the saint was one of the Ce/li De or
a founder of one of their monasteries.
> I'm not debating his *importance*--the annals and his own accomplishments
> or attributed accomplishments testify to that, but they don't testify to
> his sanctity (nor, apparently, to his being a Culdee, according to
> Stokes), and the rather stereotypical bit about chanting psalms in an icy
> bath isn't very compelling either.
>
Perhaps they don't testify to his sanctity according to modern ideas
of what constitutes sanctity, but they very much accord with the
characteristics I identified (in my M.A. thesis) as being part of the
marginalia's concept of sanctity. When I compared the marginalia's ideas of
what consistuted the characteristics of a saint, they seemed to correlate
with the Ulster cycle's concepts of heroism as seen in figures such as Cu/
Chulainn, Fergus mac Roich, Conall Cernach, and so on. For example, where as
a "secular" hero was expected to be master of many battle skills (such as
Cu/ Chullain's salmon leap), saints were expected to be adept at feats of
asceticism, such as standing for many, many hours in icy streams (in fact,
this is a favorite act of asceticism in medieval Irish hagiography--even
Adam and Eve in the Saltair na Rann are said to have done it in reparation
for their sin). So, I'm inclined not to take any of the ascetic acts
attributed to Oengus to be historic--they come from the common vocabulary.
What such attribution does appear to suggest is that he had a cult following
of some sort.
And again, I think that to monks of the pre-Norman period, the
demonstration of poetic skill did indicate that Oengus had a pipeline to the
heavens that was not granted to all--and that counted for more then than it
may be valued by other eras.
<snip>
> Also, among the Ce/li De/, all of the early reformers were
> considered saints, by definition.
>
>
> Among the Céli Dé perhaps, but apparently not enough to record their
> Lives, or at least none survive (and Sharpe argues against their existence
> in the first place). And while some earlier saints may have been heralded
> as saintly primarily for their literary achievements,
>
Aside from Colum cille, the earliest saints were usually considered
holy on the basis of their founding certain monasteries--just as today many
founders of religious orders have an edge up on being considered for
canonization. For one thing, they had an organization in place to keep their
memory and achievements alive in tradition and practice, and promote their
claims. A large number of stories in the hagiography of the Middle Irish
period seem to have been written for the express purpose of promoting one
saint's claims over another's.
> Oengus himself is quite late, which makes a possible cult all the more
> interesting.
>
Actually, Oengus died around the beginning of the era when
hagiography began to be used to argue the political claims of certain
monasteries to tithes from territories or kin-groups. The promotion of the
cult of Patrick by Armagh and its political allies is a classic example, but
I think it was Kim Mc Cone who suggested that the Leinster clergy were just
as active on the part of Brigit. And of course, Colum cille had his own,
built-in PR machine, headed up by abbots who were usually his own collateral
descendants. (See Ma/ire Herbert's writings on this).
The ideas about imbas in relation to poetic skill persist until the
late Indeed, I beleive that the existing manuscripts descruibing the
training and skills of poets were recorded long after Oengus died.
> To my knowledge, the only saint associated with the Culdee movement (with
> any degree of historical feasibility) to have a vita is Samthann (whose
> Life makes no reference to the Culdees), and she is one of (if not the)
> latest saints with a Life (d.739), until Malachy. Accompanying these
> Lives are fantastic claims about a saint's abilities, like having the
> earth swallow enemies or creating an inexhaustible source of beer out of
> next to nothing and all the things we know and love about the Irish saints
> (even Bernard made similar claims for Malachy). Why weren't such claims
> made for Máelrúain or Fer-dá-chrích (well, obviously no beer, but I mean
> claims of miraculous abilities), or 'Eriugena,' for that matter?
>
Because they lived too late for their claims to tithes from certain
areas to be politically viable? Establishing the claims to tithes by one
monastery (or one monastic paruchia like Iona-Kells-Derry) over another
seems to have been the purpose of many of the stories in the hagiography.
There's the frequently used phrase that goes soemthing like, "And ever
since, Monastery X or Territory Y has belonged to St. Z." Even in one
Leinster kingship ceremony, the claims of the abbot of a monastery to be the
one that proclaims the true king have a monetary value: each participant in
the ceremony receives a specified gift from the king on that day. In the
case I'm thinking of, the claims of one monastery to supply the abbot are
based on a certain interaction between the founder of the dynasty and the
founder-saint of the monastery.
There's also the issue of the scribes turning to written methods as
a way of passing on tradition--both Christian and the material with origins
in pre-Christian times, too. For some reason, the push seems to have become
more intense in the period following
> Chanting the psalms in an icy bath might be no mean feat, but it's not
> much compared with Darerca, who not only would chant in such a bath, but
> also guided the water up a very steep hill with her staff. So if Oengus
> was heralded as a saint, by whom, where and when, and what kind of saint
> was he?
>
Oengus was a poet and keeper of tradition, *very* important
attributes in early Irish society in general. In early Irish society, a poet
held equal status in some respects with a king. A sacred poet and keeper of
Church tradition would have equal status in an era when the Church was still
arguing that its claims should be held equal with those of secular poets and
tradition-keepers.
BTW, standing in water--icy or otherwise--was apparently one way of
summoning up poetic inspiration.
> More generally, why does hagiography seem to have passed by Irish 'saints'
> from the 8th to the 11th century (excepting Samthann, of course)?
>
My impression is that the institutions founded by early saints were
able to claim tribute from more areas and to press their claims as
pre-eminent over later ones, but legends appear in marginalia and elsewhere
for other, later saints.
> Happy St Patrick's Day from the land of the green river,
>
And to you from the land of green beer and plastic party hats!
Francine Nicholson
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