       |
Life
| [var. Adomnán; anglice Adamnan; also known as St. Eunan; hagiographer, not a saint, hence err. S. Adamnan]; prob. b. Co. Donegal, from same family as St. Columba [Columcille]; he was ninth Abbot of Iona in 697 a.d. when he wrote his lex innocentium [Law of Innocents]’, regarded as a centenary commemoration of St. Columba [d.597]; made a successful appeal to Aldfrith King of Northumbria, a former student at Iona, for release of Irish captives, 686; took part in synods in Ireland, notably Birr, a.d. 697, where he won acceptance for lex innocentium which protects non-combatants in war and particularly women (his draft preserved as Cáin Adamnáin); |
| Lebor na hUidhre [Book of the Dun Cow] - ed. R. I. Best and O. Bergin, 1929 - contains Fís Adamnáin [“The Vision of Adamnan”] ascribed to him and speaking of the inspiration to write about the defence of women in his lex innocentium, arguing from the dignity of Mary, mother of God; compiled De Locis Sanctis, a treatise on the Holy Land from the narration of Arculf, a French bishop who was ship-wrecked on one of the ‘Western Isles’ on his return from pilgrimage; wrote a life of St. Columcille as Vita Sancta Columbae of which there is a 12th c. manuscript copy in Schaffhausen Library, Switzerland; |
| in that work [Vita Col.], Adamnán speaks of Columba’s leaving Ireland as a peregrine (pro Christo peregrinari volens enavigavit), and argues for a pacific approach towards differences over the Paschal calendar - though he himself adopted Roman view; d. 23 Oct. 704; an Irish life of Adamnán was compiled at Kells, Co. Meath, c.960; older tributes to him include that by Bede (673-735) in Historia Ecclesiastica [V, 15-17, 21-22]; the Vita was edited by William Reeves in the Scriptores Latini Hiberniae series from 8th c. codex (1857). DIW DIB FDA OCIL |
[ top ]
Works
|
| *A copy of Fis Adomnáin is to be found in Lebor na hUidre / Book of the Dun Cow, ed. R. I. Best & Osborn Bergin [see contents under Best - infra]. |
[ top ]
Criticism
|
|
Bibliographical details
Mairin Ni Dhonnchadha (op. cit., 1982) cites [inter al.] John Ryan, ‘The Cáin Adomnain’, in Studies in Early Irish Law, ed. D. A. Binchy (RIA 1936), pp.269-77; Kathleen Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (London 1972), 269-76; James F. Kenny, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical (NY: Columbia UP 1929ç rep. NY 1966), pp.245-46; Pádraig Ó Fiannachta, ‘Cain Adamnain’, in Léachtaí Cholum Chille, 12 (Maynooth 1982).
[ top ]
Commentary
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; this edn. 1984), [q.p.]: remarks: ‘If the Adamnán who wrote a commentary on Virgil’s “Eclogues” and “Georgics” was Adamnán abbot of Iona, as many believe, we can be confident that texts of Virgil and some early commentators on his works were available in this “little Ireland”. But we can hardly go as far as Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall [&c.] (Chp. 37, n.24), who believed that Iona had “a classical library which offered some hopes of an entire Livy”’ (p.7). [Stanford implies Kenney - who cites citing a classical colophon in Adamnán - (Sources, 1929) is one of the believers.] ‘[T]he first statement about the existence of Greek writings in an Irish monastery (but not in Ireland) is in the book by Adamnán of Iona [viz.] On the Holy Places, written shortly after 680. He was able to consult “books of Greek (libri Graecitatis)”, but what they were ... we cannot now determine.’ (p.8.) Further: ‘Adamnán’s On the Holy Places (De Locis Sanctis), gives information given directly to him by a Frankish bishop Arculf, who had visited Jerusalem about 680, and shows sound historical method and good Latin. Arculf’s account is supplemented with facts drawn from Jerome and other Christian writers, in turn drawing on classical sources’; the book was widely copied in medieval times and cited as an authority as late as the 15th c. (pp.183-84).
George Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (Dublin: MH Gill 1957), p.76, notes that Adamnán’s Vita Sancti Columbae records ten kinds of Irish ships [viz.], navis longa (Ir. Ler-long, in Brehon Law tract, The Small Primer, I, p.105); barca (Ir., barc, for coasting, a ship for which 17 cows was payable to the builders, Saor luinge, acc. Brehon laws, H2, 16, TCD, and also called Serrcenn, sawhead (presum. cutter); Navis oneraria, cargo-ship; caupallus, victualling ship, or hollowed out canoe; naufagium scaphae familiae, a type of passenger ship; curuca (Ir. curragh, worth 17 cows); navicula, sail-boat (Ir. curachán); Cymba or cymbula, ferry-boat; alnus, a boat of alder wood (cf. Georgics, I, 136, ‘the first boats hollowed out of alder).
[ top ]
Quotations
Prophecy: ‘This cloud will bring destruction to men and herds. See how rapidly it spreads over the country. Before nightfall it will have engulfed all the land lying between Delvin River and Ath Cliath. From it will be voided rain and pestilence so that the bodies of men will wince and weep with ulcers and in like manner will it affect the udders of cows, so that all must die. Aided by God’s mercy let us bring them aid. Come, Sílnan, let us go together and prepare a boat that you (at least) may sail on the morrow’s tide. You living, and God willing, bring them bread which I will bless; moistened with water let them eat of it; and health will come again.’ (Life of Colum Cille, Bk. II, Chp. IV, Dublin: Duffy, 1861, pp.107-09.)
| Cáin Adamnáin: An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1905) | |
|
|
1. Five ages before the birth of Christ: from Adam to the Flood, from the Flood to Abraham; from Abraham to David; from David to the Captivity in Babylon; from the Babylonian Captivity to the birth of Christ. During that time women were in bondage and in slavery, until Adamnan, son of Ronan, son of Tinne, son of Aed, son of Colum, son of Lugaid, son of Setne, son of Fergus, son of Conall, son of Niall, came. § 2. Cumalach [“lave”] was a name for women until Adamnan come to free them. And this was the cumalach, a woman for whom a hole was dug at the end of the door so that it came over her nakedness. The end of the great spit was placed upon her till the cooking of the portion was ended. After she had come out of that earth-pit she had to dip a candle four man’s hands in length in a plate of butter or lard; that candle to be on her palm until division of food and distribution of liquor and making of beds, in the houses of kings and chieftains, had ended. That women had no share in bag or in basket, nor in the company of the house-master; but she dwelt in a hut outside the enclosure, lest bane from sea or land should come to her chief. § 3. The work which the best women had to do, was to go to battle and battlefield, encounter and camping, fighting and hosting, wounding and slaying. On one side of her she would carry her bag of provisions, on the other her baby. Her wooden pole upon her back. Thirty feet long it was, and had on one end an iron hook, which she would thrust into the tress of some woman in the opposite battalion. Her husband behind her, carrying a fence-stake in his hand, and flogging her on to battle. For at that time it was the head of a woman, or her two breasts, which were taken as trophies. § 4. Now after the coming of Adamnan no woman is deprived of her testimony, if it be bound in righteous deeds. For a mother is a venerable treasure, a mother is a goodly treasure, the mother of saints and bishops and righteous men, an increase in the Kingdom of Heaven, a propagation on earth. § 5. Adamnan endured much hardship for your sake, o women, so that ever since Adamnan’s time one half of your house is yours, and there is a place for your chair in the other half; so that your contract and your safeguard are free; and the first law made in Heaven and on earth for women is Adamnan’s Law. […] § 21. While it has made desolate strongholds, it has made kings desolate in defense of women, in bringing them to belief, so that their contract and their safeguard are free from the time of Adamnan until now, so that the Law of Adamnan is the first law made (for women) in Heaven and upon earth. |
§ 22. Adamnan did not rest satisfied until securities and bonds were given to him for the liberation of women. These were the securities: sun and moon, and all other elements of God; Peter, Paul, Andrew, and the other apostles; Gregory, the two Patricks, the two Ciarans, the two Cronans, the four Fintans, Mobiu [Abbot of Cumscraig], Mobi [called Clarenech“Flat face” Abbot of Glasnevin †545], Momædoc, Munnu [Bishop and Abbot of Cluain Eidmech in Largis, also called Fintan], Scothine, Senan, Fechine, Duilech, Cairnech, Cianan, Cartach, Victor, bishop Curitan, bishop Maeldub, Ionan son of Saman, Foilan abbot of Imlech Ibair, Cilline abbot of Lorrha, Colman son of Sechnusach, Eochaid abbot of Cluain Uama, the two Finnens, and son of Labraid Lan. § 23. Those guarantors gave three shouts of damnation on every male who would kill a woman with his right hand or left, by a kick, or by his tongue, so that his heirs are elder and nettle, and the corncrake. The same guarantors gave three shouts of blessing on every female who would do something for the community of Adamnan, however often his reliquaries would come. A horse to be given quarter to his reliquaries, (to be sent) to the coarb to the bath at Raphoe; but that this is from queens only, with whatever every other woman is able to give. § 24. Woman have said and vowed that they would give one half of their household to Adamnan for having brought them out of the bondage and out of the slavery in which they had been. Adamnan accepted but a little from them, namely, a white tunic with a black border from every penitent nun, a scruple of gold from every chieftain’s wife, a linen cloth from every gentleman’s wife, seven cakes from every unfree woman, a wether from every flock, the first lamb that was brought forth in a house, whether black or white, for God and for Adamnan. […] § 47. If the offenders who violate the Law do not pay, their kindred pay full fines according to the greatness of the crime, and after that (the offender) becomes forfeited, and is banished until the end of the law. One-half of seven cumals for complicity upon every direct and indirect kindred afterwards. If there be assistance and shelter and connivance, it is death for it; but such as the fine (of the principals) was such shall be that of accomplices. […] |
| —Available online; accessed 20.04.2024. | |
| Note: Other texts treated at this site incl. Críth Gablach (Irish), Cyfraith Hywel (Welsh), Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh (Scottish), et al. | |
[ top
Notes
William Reeves: Reeves’ edn. of Adamnán’s Life of St Columba or Colum Cille includes some poems in old Irish attributed to Adamnan. (Cited in Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde, 1974, p.126.)
Douglas Hyde cites the date of composition of “The Death of Columcille” [sic], written by Adamnán, as 713. (See Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature, Washington, Catholic University of America, 1904, Vol. 4, p.1618.)
John Eglinton remarked that Adamnán retained a monk to tell his lies for him. (See Bards and Saintsi [Tower Booklets No. 5], Maunsel, 1906, pp.53-49.)
Easter calendar: Beryl Schlossman writes, ‘A controversary over the date of Easter arose in the 7th century when Roman missionaries found that Irish method for calculating the feast was out of keeping with that in Rome; between 629 and 636 the south of Ireland gave in to Roman pressure though the north only accepted the new method at the Synod of Birr in 696, while the community at Iona remained faithful to the Irish Church throughout the whole controversy.’ (See Schlossman, op.cit., Winsconsin UP 1995, p.123.)
[ top ]