Welsh Journals

ROMANO-BRITISH AND WELSH CHRISTIANITY: CONTINUITY OR DISCONTINUITY? PART II The date when St. Columbanus sailed from Ireland and landed in Gaul is not known for certain: perhaps 580, more probably 590.1 His writings are of importance for what they tell us of his background, particularly his Latin culture, his predecessors in the British and Irish churches, and the mode of reckoning he had been taught to employ for determining the date of Easter. Referring to his literary training and tastes, Kenney says, 'he has the appearance of a product of the Gaul of Sidonius Apollinaris dropped into the Gaul of Gregory of Tours'.2 Miss Mohrmann, in her study of St. Patrick's Latin, draws attention to the great contrast between Patrick's style and that of Columbanus, whom she speaks of as following the tradition of Gildas.3 She is presumably thinking here of the author of the De Excidio, whose style is today widely regarded as finding its closest affinity in that of the early eighth- century English writer, Aldhelm of Malmesbury.4 A year after the publication of her Dublin lectures, Miss Mohrmann published a more detailed study of Columbanus's Latin. All reference to Gildas has now disappeared, and her verdict is in line with Kenney's. 'The mannerism of Columban's style', she now says, 'is essentially that of fourth- and fifth-century Gaul, such as Victricius of Rouen (about 330-409), Paulinus of Nola (353-431), and, a generation later, Sidonius Apollinaris'.5 On the question of how the Latin culture of fourth- and fifth-century Gaul reached Ireland there will be more to say later. Whatever may be thought of the influence, if any, of Gildas upon Columbanus's latinity, there can be no doubt of the high regard in which the British churchman was held in the Irish church of the sixth century. In correspondence with St. Gregory the Great, 1 He is reported to have broken his journey in Britannicis finibus, Migne. P.L., LXXXVII, 1017. Modem scholars incline to think this refers to insular Britain, not continental Brittany; see L. Gougaud in Celtic Review, V (1909). 171ff., and P. Grosjean in Analecta Bollandiana, LIV (1936). 412; see also n. 50 below. J. F. Kenney, Sources for the Early History of Ireland. I (1929). p. 181. 8 C. Mohrmann. The Latin of St. Patrick (1961). pp. 52, 53. The attribution of the De Excidio to Gildas is first recorded in Bede, Hist. Eccl.. I, 22. i.e.. in the year 731. For its linguistic affinities, see F. J. H. Jenkinson. Hisperica Famina (1908). xix flf.. and P. Grosjean in Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi. XXV (1955). 155 ff., and in Celtica, III (1956). 78. 79. 6 C. Mohrmann, 'The Earliest Continental Irish Latin' in Vigiliae Christianae, XVI (1962). 216 ff.. especially p. 226.