Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum Part 30

The object, however, was not lost sight of either by the Pope or the Primate. Cardinal John Paparo landed in Ireland in A.D. 1151, and went straight to Armagh to meet the Primate, with whom he remained for a week making arrangements for the coming Synod. It was held at Kells, not Drogheda or Mellifont, in the spring of next year, A.D. 1152, and was attended by twenty-two bishops and five bishops elect, with a large number--some 300 or more--of the clergy of the Second Order, both secular and regular. We cannot here enter into the many interesting questions connected with this Synod. It is enough to say that whilst formally recognising the superiority of Armagh as the Primatial See, four palls were granted by the Cardinal Legate, thus legally const.i.tuting four archbishops in Ireland for the first time. It is, however, only in this legal and technical sense that Gelasius can be described as the 'first Archbishop of Armagh.' Other regulations were also made at this Synod, two of which are especially noticed. It was ordered by the Synod to put away all concubines from _men_[291]--not from the _clergy_, as Moore falsely says; and also to pay t.i.thes according to the usage of the Church elsewhere. This is the first reference to t.i.thes we find in our Annals, and it is said that even the clergy did not care to introduce this new system of getting a maintenance.

The zealous Primate held another Synod at Mellifont in A.D. 1157, partly to have the new monastic church of the parent Cistercian House consecrated with greater solemnity, and partly to p.r.o.nounce sentence of excommunication against Donogh O'Melaghlin for his impiety and contempt of the Primate's authority. We are not acquainted with the full particulars; but this public act by which the Prince of Meath was solemnly excommunicated and deposed, and his brother appointed by the bishops and the princes in his stead, shows that the Primate was a man of vigour, who was resolved to adopt energetic measures to a.s.sert his own authority.

Next year we find Gelasius holding another Synod at a place called Brigh Mac-Taidgh, near Trim, in Meath. Twenty-five bishops were present, with Christian of Lismore, the Papal Legate in Ireland. The Connaught Bishops were unable to attend, because they were robbed and maltreated near Clonmacnoise on their way to the Synod by a party of soldiers belonging to that very Diarmaid O'Melaghlin, whom the Synod of Mellifont had named King of Meath the previous year. This incident shows the violent and lawless spirit of the times, and how necessary it was for the Primate to vindicate to the utmost of his power the authority of the Church, which alone could keep these fierce and bloodthirsty princes in check. It was at this Synod, as we have already seen, that a Bishop's Chair was set for O'Flaherty O'Brolchain, who was on that occasion formally created, with the a.s.sent of the Legate, first Bishop of Derry.

A few years later in A.D. 1162, the venerable Gelasius presided at another Synod at Clane in Magh Liffe--the north of the present County Kildare. It was at this Synod the important decree was pa.s.sed, which required all the _Fer-leighinn_, or professors throughout Ireland, to graduate in the great School of Armagh. This decree more than anything else shows the far seeing wisdom of the Primate. The School of Armagh was under his own immediate direction and control, so that he could secure a thorough and orthodox training in theology for the students. Then by requiring the professors from all the other schools to attend lectures at Armagh, he secured at once uniformity of system, and soundness of doctrine in all the other schools where the clergy of the Irish Church were being trained for the ministry. At the same time it was a recognition that as Armagh was the seat of authority, it was also the mistress of sound theology. It is quite evident that Gelasius was a man far superior to his contemporaries in wisdom and the science of government.

In the same year he had the satisfaction of consecrating the great St.

Laurence O'Toole to be Archbishop of Dublin--the first prelate of that see that was ever consecrated in Ireland. It is clear that the Primate was resolved not to tolerate any longer the claim of the Archbishops of Canterbury to metropolitan jurisdiction in any part of his primacy.

Yet another great a.s.sembly of the clergy and laity was held at Athboy in Meath, in the year A.D. 1167. Both the Primate and Rory O'Connor, King of Ireland, were present with many of the prelates and n.o.bles of the North.

Its main object seems to have been to restore peace and concord between the native princes, whose fratricidal strife had reddened every green field in their native land, and offered such strong inducements to the stranger to conquer and divide their inheritance.

The Primate saw the danger, and realized it to the full. As he had held a Synod the year before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans to remove the cause of the danger; so the year after their arrival, that is in A.D. 1170, he held the last Synod of his clergy in his own city of Armagh, to concert means to expel the foreigners, before they could secure a foothold in the country.

The venerable old man was then in the eighty-third year of his age, but he had a braver spirit and a clearer mind than any of the degenerate children of Niall the Great, whom he gathered round him in his primatial city. He warned them, and he appealed to them in vain. When the day of trial came, and Strongbow with his knights were besieged in Dublin, and by united energetic action might have been driven into the sea more completely than the Danes were at Clontarf, the men of the North were in their native mountains ign.o.bly heedless of their country's fate.

Alas! for the aged Gelasius, who had laboured so hard and so long for the Irish Church and the Irish people. He saw the princes of his country bow the knee in homage to the triumphant invader; he saw her prelates meet in Cashel at Henry's summons to endorse his laws; he saw her petty chieftains either warring with each other or allied with the Norman. Then, and only then, the old man came from his episcopal city and kissed the hand of Henry in his new capital of Dublin. He had his old white cow driven before him to give him milk, which was his only sustenance. He paid his homage to the king, and then returned home with a sad heart to Patrick's royal City.

Two years after he died at the age of eighty-five, and after his death was recognised and honoured as a saint by the entire Church of Ireland.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SCHOOL OF BANGOR.

"Our princes of old, when their warfare was over, As pilgrims forth wandered; as hermits found rest.

Shall the hand of the stranger their ashes uncover, In Bangor the holy, in Aran the blest?"

--_De Vere._

St. Comgall, who founded the famous School of Bangor, though not greatly celebrated for his own learning, was the founder of a school which of all others seems to have exercised the widest influence on the Continent by means of the great scholars whom it produced.

Bangor and Armagh were by excellence the great Northern Schools, just as Clonard was the School of Meath, Glendaloch of Leinster, Lismore of Munster, and Clonmacnoise and Clonfert of Connaught. For it must be borne in mind that Clonmacnoise was founded by St. Ciaran from Roscommon, that he was the patron saint of Connaught,[292] and that until a comparatively recent period it formed a portion of the Western Ecclesiastical Province.

The influence of the other schools, however, was mainly felt at home, or to some extent in England, Scotland and Germany; but the influence of Bangor was felt in France, Switzerland and Italy, and not only in ancient times but down to the present day. There are great names amongst the missionaries who have gone from other monastic schools in Ireland to preach the Gospel abroad, but if we except St. Columba, who was trained at many schools in Ireland, there are no other names so celebrated as St.

Columba.n.u.s, the founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio, and St. Gall, who has given his name to an equally celebrated Monastery and Canton in Switzerland. It is, then, highly interesting and instructive to trace the origin and influence of this famous Irish school.

I.--ST. COMGALL OF BANGOR.

St. Comgall, the founder of Bangor, was a native of the territory anciently called Benna Boirche,[293] or Mourne, the name of that wild but beautiful mountain district extending from Carlingford Lough to the Bay of Dundrum. There is some difference of opinion as to the exact date of his birth, and indeed as to the length of his life; although all admit that he died in the year A.D. 600 or 601. He seems to have been during his life from boyhood to old age a friend and companion of St. Columcille, and hence if we accept the length of his life given by the Bollandists[294] as eighty years, we may fix his birth at about A.D. 520--which was also the date, or near it, of Columcille's birth. Comgallus, the name by which he was baptized, has been frequently explained to signify the 'lucky pledge'--faustum pignus--because he was a child of benediction, the only son of his parents, and born, too, when they were advanced in years. As usual in the case of our Irish saints, several prodigies are said to have taken place both before and shortly after his birth. His father was Sedna, a small chief of the district then known as Dalaradia or Dalaray; his mother was a devout matron called Briga, who is said to have been warned before his birth to retire from the world, because her offspring was destined in future days to become a great saint of G.o.d. These pious parents took him to be baptized by a blind old priest, called Fehlim, who knew, however, by heart, the proper method of administering the Sacrament of Baptism. There being no water at hand a miraculous stream burst forth from the soil, and the old priest feeling the presence of the divine influence washed his face in the stream, and at once recovered his sight, after which he baptized the child and gave him the appropriate name of Comgall. This is only one of the numberless miracles recorded in the two lives of St. Comgall, given by the Bollandists, but it will not be necessary for our purpose to refer to them in detail.

The boy in his youth was sent to work in the fields, and seems to have a.s.sisted his parents with great alacrity in all their domestic concerns.

When he grew up a little more he was sent to learn the Psalms and other divine hymns from a teacher in the neighbourhood, whose precepts were much better than his example. The young child of grace, however, was not led away from the path of virtue; on the contrary, he seems in his own boyish way to have given gentle hints to his teacher that his life was not what it ought to be. On one occasion, for instance, Comgall rolled his coat in the mud and coming before his master, the latter said to him, "Is it not shame to soil your coat so?" "Is it not a greater shame," replied Comgall, "for anyone to soil his soul and body by sin?" The teacher took the hint and was silent; but the lesson was unheeded, and so the holy youth resolved to seek elsewhere a holier preceptor.

This was about the year A.D. 545. At that time a young and pre-eminently holy man, named Fintan, had established a monastery at a place called Cluain-eidnech, now Clonenagh, near Mountrath, in the Queen's County. The fame of this infant monastery had spread far and wide over the face of the land; for although in many places in those days of holiness there was strict rule, and poor fare, and rigid life, yet Fintan of Clonenagh seems to have been the strictest and poorest and most rigid of them all. He would not allow even a cow to be kept for the use of his monks--consequently they had neither milk, nor b.u.t.ter; neither had they eggs, nor cheese, nor fat, nor flesh of any kind. They had a little corn, and herbs, and plenty of water near at hand, for the bogs and marshes round their monastic cells were frequently flooded by the many tributaries of the infant Nore coming down from the slopes of the Slieve-bloom mountains. They had plenty of hard work, too, in the fields tilling the barren soil, and in the woods cutting down timber for the buildings of the monastery as well as for firewood, and then drawing it home in loads on their backs, or dragging it after them over the uneven soil. The discipline of this monastery was so severe and the food of the monks so wretched that the neighbouring saints thought it prudent to come and beg the Abbot Fintan to relax a little of the extreme severity of his discipline, which was more than human nature could endure. The abbot, though unwilling to relax his own fearful austerities in the least, consented at the earnest prayer of St. Canice to modify the severity of his discipline to some extent for the others, and they were no doubt not unwilling to get the relaxation.

It speaks well for the love of holy penance shown by these young Christians of Ireland that in spite of its severe discipline this monastery was crowded with holy inmates from all parts of the country, and amongst the rest came Comgall from his far-off Dalaradian home to become a disciple of this school of labour and penance.

He remained a considerable time under the guidance of the holy Fintan, the Benedict, of our Irish Church, who, although his "senior," or superior in religion, was probably about his own age in years. There is little doubt that it was from Fintan, Comgall learned those lessons of humility and obedience which, as we know from his Rule and from his disciples, he afterwards taught with so much effect to others. His teacher then advised him to return to his own country, and propagate amongst his kindred in Dalaray the lessons of virtue which he had learned at Clonenagh.

Hitherto it seems Comgall had received no holy orders. He was a monk and a perfect one, of mature age too, but in his great humility he had hitherto declined the responsibilities of the priesthood. Now, however, he resolved to pay a visit to Clonmacnoise, which is about twenty miles to the north-west of Clonenagh. Its holy founder, Ciaran, was scarcely alive at this time, for he died in A.D. 544; but then, and long after, the fame of the school was great, and crowds of holy men were attracted to its walls.

Here Comgall was induced to receive the priesthood from the holy Bishop Lugadius, and after a short stay he returned northward to his own country.

This was probably about A.D. 550, or perhaps a little later.

Some authorities place the foundation of Bangor at this time; but it must be understood only in a very qualified sense at this early date. Comgall was now, indeed, a famous saint himself, and likely enough, companions came to place themselves under his spiritual guidance. But we are expressly told that for some time after his return he went about preaching the Gospel to the people, especially amongst his own kith and kin, and in all probability this took place before he established his monastery at least on any permanent footing at Bangor. But the holy man longed for the solitary life, and so we are told that he retired to an island in Lough Erin, called INSULA CUSTODIARIA, or, as we should now say, Jail Island, and there he practised such austerities that seven of the brethren who accompanied him died of cold and hunger. He was then induced to relax his penances and fastings; and shortly after, it seems, at the earnest prayer of his friends, he was again persuaded to leave Jail Island and return to Dalaray. This was about the year A.D. 559, which seems to be the most probable date of the founding of Bangor, although the Four Masters fix it so early as A.D. 552.

Bangor is very beautifully situated. It is about seven miles from Belfast, on the southern sh.o.r.e of Belfast Lough, in the county Down, and may be easily reached either by rail or steamer. It commands a fine view of Carrickfergus on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the bay, with the bold cliffs of Black Head further seaward; to the right, across the narrow sea the bleak bluffs of Galloway are distinctly visible, and far away due north in the dim distance, the Mull of Cantire frowns over a wild and restless sea. We saw this fair scene on a fine day in June, when the sun lit up the steeples of Carrickfergus, and glanced brightly over the transparent waters, so deeply and purely blue, whose wavelets played amongst the bare quartzite rocks, and we felt that if the old monks who chose Bangor to be their home loved G.o.d they loved nature also. Most of all they loved the great sea; it was for them the most vivid image of G.o.d; in its anger, its beauty, its power, its immensity, they felt the presence, and they saw, though dimly, the glory of the Divine Majesty. It was on the sh.o.r.e of this beautiful bay, sheltered from the south-western winds, but open to the north-east, that Comgall built his little church and cell. Crowds of holy men, young and old, soon gathered round him; they too, without much labour, built themselves little cells of timber or wattles; the whole was then surrounded by a s.p.a.cious fosse and ditch, which was their enclosure, and thus the establishment became complete. If St. Bernard in his _Life of St. Malachy_ was rightly informed, it is clear that there were no stone buildings in ancient Bangor before the time of St. Malachy; and even he, when restoring the place, with some of his companions, only built a small oratory of wood which was finished in a few days.

Not its buildings, however, but its saints and its scholars, were the glory of Bangor. St. Columba from his home in Iona came more than once, with some of his followers, to visit Comgall and his good monks. On one of these occasions one of the brothers died during the voyage, and the corpse at first was left in the boat whilst the monks with Columba went to the monastery. Comgall received them with great delight, washed their feet, and on asking if all had come in, Columba said one brother remained in the boat. The holy man Comgall going down in haste to fetch the brother found him dead, and perhaps thinking it might have happened through his neglect, besought the Lord, and calling upon the monk to rise up and come to his brothers, the dead man obeyed. Walking to the monastery Comgall perceived that he was blind in one eye, and telling him to wash his face in the stream that still flows down to the sea from the church, he did so, and at once recovered his sight. St. Comgall brought back the brother from the grave, and, moreover, restored to him his eyesight. In this age of ours we are apt to smile at such miracles as these, because ours is not an age of faith; and the incredulity of the world around us make us incredulous also. Yet our Saviour said to his disciples (Luke xvii. v. 6), "If you had faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you." We doubt if any of our Irish Saints ever did anything apparently so foolish as this, yet even this they could do in the greatness of their faith.

St. Comgall paid a return visit to Columba, and it is said that he even founded a church in the Island of Heth, now called Tiree, one of the western isles to the north of Iona. He also accompanied Columba in the famous visit which he paid to King Brude, the Pictish King, who, at the approach of the saints, shut himself up in his fortress on the sh.o.r.e of the river Inverness. But Columba signed the sign of the cross, whereupon the barred doors flew open in the name of Christ; and the pagan King of the Picts, fearing with a great fear, allowed the saints to preach the Gospel to his subjects.

A man so famous for holiness and miracles, soon attracted great crowds to Bangor. St. Bernard in his _Life of St. Malachy_ says that "this n.o.ble inst.i.tution was inhabited by many thousands of monks." Joceline, of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century, says that "Bangor was a fruitful vine breathing the odour of salvation, and that its offshoots extended not only over all Ireland, but far beyond the seas into foreign countries, and filled many lands with its abounding fruitfulness." In the time of the Danes we are told, on the authority of St. Bernard, that nine hundred monks of Bangor were slain by these pirates--an appalling slaughter, but not at all an unusual, much less an incredible ma.s.sacre, for the North men to perpetrate. The second life given by the Bollandists says distinctly that in the various cells and monasteries under his care, Comgall had no less than three thousand monks; but this it seems is to be understood of all his disciples in other monasteries as well as in Bangor.

Amongst these disciples, besides Columba.n.u.s and his companions, of whom we shall presently speak, were Lua, called also Mo-Lua, the founder of Clonfert-Molua, now Clonfert-Mulloe, in the Queen's County, and St.

Carthach, founder of the great School of Lismore, which became almost as famous as Bangor itself. Lua.n.u.s from Bangor, who seems to be the same as Molua, is said by St. Bernard to have founded a hundred monasteries--a statement that seems somewhat exaggerated. Even kings gave up their crowns and came to Bangor to live as humble monks under the blessed Comgall.

Special mention is made of Cormac, King of Hy-Bairrche, in Northern Leinster. That prince had been freed from the fetters in which he was held by the King of Hy-Kinselagh at the earnest intercession of St. Fintan of Clonenagh. Before his death, however, he retired to Bangor, and in spite of great temptations to return to the world, he persevered to the end in the service of G.o.d, under the care of Comgall, to whom he gave large domains in Leinster for the endowment of religious houses. Comgall, according to some authorities, ruled over Bangor for fifty years, others say for thirty, which is more likely to be true, and died on the 13th of May, A.D. 600, at his own monastery of Bangor, in the midst of his children, after he had received the Viatic.u.m from the hands of St. Fiacra of Conwall, in Donegal, who was divinely inspired to visit the dying saint, and administer to him the last rites of the Church. His blessed body was afterwards enclosed by the same Fiacra, in a shrine adorned with gold and precious stones, which subsequently became the spoil of the Danish pirates.

That literature, both sacred and profane, was successfully cultivated at Bangor, will be made evident from the writings of the great scholars whom it produced, even during the lifetime of its blessed founder. Humility and obedience, however, were even more dearly prized than learning. It was a rule amongst the monks that when any person was rebuked by another at Bangor, whether justly or not, he immediately prostrated himself on the ground in token of submission. They bore in mind that word of the Gospel, "If one strike thee on the right cheek, turn also to him the other." But the career of the great Columba.n.u.s will prove that when there was question of denouncing crime against G.o.d, or adhering to the traditions of the holy founders of the Irish Church, the monks of Bangor were men of invincible firmness, who felt the full force of the Apostolic maxim--we must obey G.o.d rather than man. In the question of celebrating Easter, according to their ancient usage, this firmness bordered on pertinacity; but it was excusable, seeing that it sprang from no schismatical spirit, but from a conscientious adhesion to the ancient practice of the Church of St.

Patrick.

II.--ST. COLUMBa.n.u.s.

St. Columba.n.u.s was the great glory of the school of Bangor. He is one of the most striking figures of his age; his influence has been felt even down to our own times. The libraries which contain ma.n.u.scripts written by his monks are ransacked for these literary treasures, and the greatest scholars of France and Germany study the Celtic glosses which the monks of Columba.n.u.s jotted down on the margins or between the leaves of their ma.n.u.scripts.

We cannot dwell at length on the facts of his life, striking and interesting as his marvellous career undoubtedly is. His Life, published by Surius, was written by an Italian monk of Bobbio, called Jonas, at the request of his ecclesiastical superiors, and though full enough in details regarding his career on the Continent, it is meagre as to the facts of his youth in Ireland. It is, however, so far as it goes, authentic, for the informants of Jonas were the members of his own community of Bobbio, who were companions of the saint, and eye-witnesses of what they relate.

Columba.n.u.s, or Columba, was the Latin name given to the saint, probably on account of the sweetness of his disposition. For although in the cause of G.o.d he was impetuous, and sometimes even headstrong, we are told that to his companions and a.s.sociates he was ever gracious and quiet as the dove.

We know for certain that he was a native of West Leinster, and born about the year A.D. 543[295] if not earlier, for he was at least 72 years at his death in A.D. 615. In his boyhood he gave himself up with great zeal and success to the study of grammar, and of the other liberal arts then taught in our Irish schools, including geometry, arithmetic, logic, astronomy, rhetoric, and music. He was a handsome youth, too, well-shaped and prepossessing in appearance, fair and blue-eyed like most of the n.o.bles of the Scots. This was to him a source of great danger, for at least one young maiden strove to win the affections of the handsome scholar, and wean his heart from G.o.d. Old Jonas, the writer of the life, shudders at the thought of the danger to which Columba.n.u.s was exposed, and the devilish snares that were laid for his innocence. The youth himself was fully sensible of his danger, and sought the counsel of a holy virgin who lived in a hermitage hard by. At first he spoke with hesitation and humility, but afterwards with confidence and courage, which showed that he was a youth of high spirit, and therefore all the more in danger. "What need," replied the virgin, "to seek my counsel. I myself have fled the world, and for fifteen years have remained shut up in this cell. Remember the warning examples of David, Samson, and Solomon, who were led astray by the love of women. There is no security for you except in flight." The youth was greatly terrified by this solemn warning, and bidding farewell to his parents, resolved to leave home and retire for his soul's sake to some religious house where he would be secure. His mother, with tears, besought him to stay; she even threw herself on the threshold before him, but the boy, declaring that whoever loved his father or mother more than Christ, is unworthy of Him, stepped aside, and left his home and his parents, whom he never saw again.

He went straight to Cluaninis (now Cleenish), in Lough Erne, whose hundred islets in those days were the homes of holy men, who gave themselves up to prayer, penance, and sacred study. An old man named Sinell,[296] was at that time famous for holiness and learning, and so Columba.n.u.s placed himself under his care, and made great progress both in profane learning, and especially in the study of the sacred Scriptures.[297]

At this time the fame of Bangor was great throughout the land: so Columba.n.u.s leaving his master, Sinell of Lough Erne, came to Comgall, and prostrating himself before the abbot, begged to be admitted amongst his monks. The request was granted at once, and Columba.n.u.s, as we are expressly informed, spent many years in that great monastery by the sea, going through all the literary and religious exercises of the community with much fervour and exactness. This was the spring-time of his life, in which he sowed the seeds of that spiritual harvest, which France and Italy afterwards reaped in such abundance. His rule was the rule of Bangor. His learning was the learning of Bangor. His spirit was the spirit of Bangor.

When fully trained in knowledge and piety, Columba.n.u.s sought his abbot Comgall, and begged leave to go, like so many of his countrymen, on a pilgrimage for Christ. It was the impulse of the Celtic mind from the beginning--it is so still--the Irish are a nation of apostles. It is not a mere love of change, or of foreign travel, or tedium of home; no, the pilgrimage, or _peregrinatio_, was essentially undertaken to spread the Gospel of Christ. The holy abbot Comgall gladly a.s.sented. He gave him his leave and his blessing, and Columba.n.u.s, taking with him twelve companions, prepared to cross the sea. Money they had none: they needed none. The only treasure they took with them was their books slung over their shoulders in leathern satchels, and so with their staves in their hands, and courage in their hearts, they set out from their native country, never to return. At first they went to England, and traversing that country, where it seems, too, they were joined by some a.s.sociates, they found means to cross the channel and came to Gaul, about the year A.D. 575, when he himself was about thirty-two years of age.

The apostolic man with his companions at once set about preaching the Gospel in the half-Christian towns and villages of Gaul. Poor, half-naked, hungry, their lives were a sermon; but moreover, Columba.n.u.s was gifted with great eloquence, and a sweet persuasive manner that no one could resist. They were everywhere received as men of G.o.d, and the fame of their holiness and miracles even came to the court of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, of which Metz was the capital. He pressed them to stay in his dominions, but they would not. They went their way southward through a wild and desert country, preaching and teaching, healing and converting, until they came to the court of Gontran, grandson of Clovis, at that time king of Burgundy--one of the three kingdoms into which the great monarchy of Clovis had come to be sub-divided.

Gontran received the missionaries with a warm welcome, and at first established them at a place called Annegray, where there was an old Roman castle in the modern department of the Haute-Saone. The king offered them both food and money, but these things they declined, and such was their extreme poverty, that they were often forced to live for weeks together on the herbs of the field, on the berries, and even the bark of the trees.

Columba.n.u.s used from time to time to bury himself alone in the depths of the forest, heedless of hunger, which stared him in the face, and of the wild beasts that roamed around him, trusting altogether to the good providence of G.o.d. He became even the prince of the wild animals. The birds would pick the crumbs from his feet; the squirrels would hide themselves under his cowl; the hungry wolves harmed him not; he slept in a cave where a bear had its den. Once a week a boy would bring him a little bread or vegetables: he needed nothing else. He had no companion. The Bible, transcribed, no doubt, at Bangor with his own hand, was his only study and his highest solace. Thus for weeks, and even months, he led a life, like John the Baptist in the wilderness, wholly divine.

Meanwhile the number of disciples in the monastery at the old ruined castle of Annegray daily increased, and it became necessary to seek a more suitable site for a larger community. Here, too, the Burgundian King Gontran proved himself the generous patron of Columba.n.u.s and his monks.

There was at the foot of the Vosges mountains, where warm medicinal springs pour out a healing stream, an old Roman settlement called Luxeuil.

But it was now a desert. The broken walls of the ancient villas were covered with shrubs and weeds. The woods had extended from the slopes of the mountains down to the valleys covering all the country round. There was no population, no tillage, no arable land; it was all a savage forest, filled with wolves, bears, foxes, and wild cats. Not a promising site for a monastic settlement, but such a place exactly as Columba.n.u.s and his companions desired. They wanted solitude, they loved labour, and they would have plenty of both. In a few years a marvellous change came over the scene. The woods were cleared, the lands were tilled, fields of waving corn rewarded the labour of the monks, and smiling vineyards gave them wine for the sick and for the holy Sacrifice. The n.o.blest youths of the Franks begged to be admitted to the brotherhood, and gladly took their share in the daily round of prayer, penance, and ceaseless toil. They worked so long that they fell asleep from fatigue when walking home.[298]