THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK
[Illustration]
THE LIFE OF
ST. PATRICK
AND
HIS PLACE IN HISTORY
BY
J. B. BURY, M.A.
HON. D.LITT., OXON.; HON. LITT.D., DURHAM; HON. LL.D., EDIN.,
GLASGOW, AND ABERDEEN; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ST. PETERSBURG; FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY
COLLEGE, DUBLIN; REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY, AND FELLOW
OF KING’S COLLEGE, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1905
_All rights reserved_
PREFACE
Perhaps the scope of this book will be best understood if I explain
that the subject attracted my attention, not as an important crisis in
the history of Ireland, but, in the first place, as an appendix to the
history of the Roman Empire, illustrating the emanations of its influence
beyond its own frontiers; and, in the second place, as a notable
episode in the series of conversions which spread over northern Europe
the religion which prevails to-day. Studying the work of the Slavonic
apostles, Cyril and Methodius, I was led to compare them with other
European missionaries, Wulfilas, for instance, and Augustine, Boniface,
and Otto of Bamberg. When I came to Patrick, I found it impossible to
gain any clear conception of the man and his work. The subject was wrapt
in obscurity, and this obscurity was encircled by an atmosphere of
controversy and conjecture. Doubts of the very existence of St. Patrick
had been entertained, and other views almost amounted to the thesis
that if he did exist, he was not himself, but a namesake. It was at once
evident that the material had never been critically sifted, and that it
would be necessary to begin at the beginning, almost as if nothing had
been done, in a field where much had been written.
This may seem unfair to the work of Todd, which in learning and critical
acumen stands out pre-eminent from the mass of historical literature
which has gathered round St. Patrick. And I should like unreservedly to
acknowledge that I found it an excellent introduction to the subject.
But it left me doubtful about every fact connected with Patrick’s life.
The radical vice of the book is that the indispensable substructure is
lacking. The preliminary task of criticising the sources methodically had
never been performed. Todd showed his scholarship and historical insight
in dealing with this particular passage or that particular statement, but
such sporadic criticism was no substitute for methodical _Quellenkritik_.
Hence his results might be right or wrong, but they could not be
convincing.
It is a minor defect in Todd’s _St. Patrick_ that he is not impartial. By
this I mean that he wrote with an unmistakable ecclesiastical bias. It
is not implied that he would have ever stooped to a misrepresentation
of the evidence for the purpose of proving a particular thesis. No
reader would accuse him of that. But it is clear that he was anxious to
establish a particular thesis. He does not conceal that the conclusions
to which the evidence, as he interpreted it, conducted him were
conclusions which he wished to reach. In other words, he approached
a historical problem, with a distinct preference for one solution
rather than another; and this preference was due to an interest totally
irrelevant to mere historical truth. The business of a historian is to
ascertain facts. There is something essentially absurd in his wishing
that any alleged fact should turn out to be true or should turn out to be
false. So far as he entertains a wish of the kind, his attitude is not
critical.
The justification of the present biography is that it rests upon a
methodical examination of the sources, and that the conclusions, whether
right or wrong, were reached without any prepossession. For one whose
interest in the subject is purely intellectual, it was a matter of
unmixed indifference what answer might be found to any one of the vexed
questions. I will not anticipate my conclusions here, but I may say that
they tend to show that the Roman Catholic conception of St. Patrick’s
work is, generally, nearer to historical fact than the views of some
anti-Papal divines.
The fragmentary material, presenting endless difficulties and problems,
might have been treated with much less trouble to myself if I had been
content to weave, as Todd has done, technical discussions into the story.
It was less easy to do what I have attempted, to cast matter of this kind
into the literary shape of a biography—a choice which necessitated long
appendices supplying the justifications and groundwork. These appendices
represent the work which belongs to the science of history; the text is
an effort in the art of historiography.[1]
It should be needless to say that, in dealing with such fragmentary
material, reconstructions and hypotheses are inevitable. In ancient
and mediaeval history, as in physical science, hypotheses, founded on
a critical examination of the data, are necessary for the advancement
of knowledge. The reconstructions may fall to-morrow, but, if they are
legitimate, they will not have been useless.
The future historian of Ireland will have much to discover about the
political and social state of the island, which is still but vaguely
understood, and the religion of the Scots, about which it may be affirmed
that we know little more than nothing. These subjects await systematic
investigation, and I have only attempted a slight sketch (Chapter IV.),
confining myself to what it seemed possible to say with tolerable safety
on the chief points immediately relevant to the scope of this monograph.
But, notwithstanding the dimness of the background, I venture to hope
that some new light has been thrown on the foreground, and that this
study will supply a firmer basis for the life and work of Patrick, even
if some of the superstructures should fall.
The two maps are merely intended to help the reader to see the
whereabouts of some places which he might not easily find without
reference to the Ordnance Survey. I consulted Mr. Orpen’s valuable map
of Early Ireland (unfortunately on a small scale) in Poole’s _Historical
Atlas of Modern Europe_. But he has used material which applies to a
later period, and I have not ventured to follow him, for instance, in
marking the boundary between the northern frontiers of the kingdoms of
Connaught and Meath.
It was fortunate for me that my friend Professor Gwynn was engaged at
the same time on a “diplomatic” edition of the records contained in the
_Codex Armachanus_, which constitute the principal body of evidence. With
a generosity which has placed me under a deep obligation, he put the
results of his labour on the difficult text at my disposal, and I have
had the invaluable help and stimulus of constant communication with him
on many critical problems arising out of the text of the documents.
Since the book was in type I have received some communications from
my friend Professor Rhŷs which suggest a hope that the mysterious
Bannauenta, St. Patrick’s home, may perhaps be identified at last. I
had conjectured that it should be sought near the Severn or the Bristol
Channel. The existence of three places named Banwen (which may represent
Bannauenta) in Glamorganshire opens a prospect that the solution may
possibly lie there.
J. B. BURY.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
ON THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY BEYOND THE ROMAN EMPIRE 1
CHAPTER II
THE CAPTIVITY AND ESCAPE OF PATRICK 16
§ 1. Parentage and Capture 16
§ 2. Captivity and Escape 27
CHAPTER III
IN GAUL AND BRITAIN 37
§ 1. At Lérins 37
§ 2. At Home in Britain 41
§ 3. At Auxerre 48
§ 4. Palladius in Ireland (A.D. 431-2) 54
§ 5. Consecration of Patrick (A.D. 432) 59
CHAPTER IV
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND 67
CHAPTER V
IN THE ISLAND-PLAIN, IN DALARADIA 81
CHAPTER VI
IN MEATH 93
§ 1. King Loigaire’s Policy 93
§ 2. Legend of Patrick’s Contest with the Druids 104
§ 3. Loigaire’s Code 113
§ 4. Ecclesiastical Foundations in Meath 116
CHAPTER VII
IN CONNAUGHT 126
CHAPTER VIII
FOUNDATION OF ARMAGH AND ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISATION 150
§ 1. Visit to Rome (_circa_ A.D. 441-3) 150
§ 2. Foundation of Armagh (A.D. 444) 154
§ 3. In South Ireland 162
§ 4. Church Discipline 166
§ 5. Ecclesiastical Organisation 171
CHAPTER IX
WRITINGS OF PATRICK, AND HIS DEATH 187
§ 1. The Denunciation of Coroticus 187
§ 2. The Confession 196
§ 3. Patrick’s Death and Burial (A.D. 461) 206
CHAPTER X
PATRICK’S PLACE IN HISTORY 212
APPENDIX A—SOURCES
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 225
I. WRITINGS OF PATRICK, AND DOCUMENTS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY:—
1. The _Confession_ 225
2. The Letter against Coroticus 227
3. _Dicta Patricii_ 228
4. Ecclesiastical Canons of St. Patrick 233
Note on the _Liber de Abusionibus Saeculi_ 245
5. Irish Hymn (_Lorica_) ascribed to Patrick 246
6. Hymn of St. Sechnall 246
7. Life of Germanus, by Constantius 247
II. LIVES AND MEMOIRS OF PATRICK:—
1. Memoir of Patrick, by Tírechán 248
Additions to Tírechán in the _Liber Armachanus_ 251
2. Additional notices in the _Liber Armachanus_ 252
3. Life of Patrick, by Muirchu 255
4. Hymn _Genair Patraicc_ (Hymn of Fíacc) 263
5. Early Acts in Irish 266
6. _Vita Secunda_ and _Vita Quarta_ 268
7. _Vita Tripartita_ 269
8. _Vita Tertia_ 272
9. Life by Probus (_Vita Quinta_) 273
10. Notice of Patrick in the _Historia Brittonum_ 277
III. OTHER DOCUMENTS:—
1. The Irish Annals 279
2. The _Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae_ 285
3. The _Liber Angueli_ 287
APPENDIX B—NOTES
CHAPTER I. 288
” II. 289
” III. 294
” IV. 299
” V. 300
” VI. 302
” VII. 306
” VIII. 307
” IX. 313
” X. 321
APPENDIX C—EXCURSUS
1. The Home of St. Patrick (_Bannauenta_) 322
2. Irish Invasions of Britain 325
3. The Dates of Patrick’s Birth and Captivity 331
4. The Place of Patrick’s Captivity 334
5. Tentative Chronology from the Escape to the Consecration as
Bishop 336
6. The Escape to Gaul. The State of Gaul, A.D. 409-416 338
7. Palladius 342
8. Patrick’s Alleged Visit (or Interrupted Journey) to Rome in
A.D. 432 344
9. Patrick’s Consecration 347
10. Evidence for Christianity in Ireland before St. Patrick 349
11. King Loigaire and King Dathi 353
12. The _Senchus Mór_ 355
13. Patrick’s Visits to Connaught 358
14. King Amolngaid: Date of his Reign 360
15. Patrick at Rome 367
16. Appeal to the Roman See 369
17. Patrick’s Paschal Table 371
18. The Organisation of the Episcopate 375
19. The Place of Patrick’s Burial 380
20. Legendary Date of Patrick’s Death 382
21. Professor Zimmer’s Theory 384
INDEX 393
MAPS
PART OF KINGDOM OF ULIDIA (DALARADIA AND DALRIADA), WITH
ORIOR _to face_ 84
KINGDOMS OF MEATH AND CONNAUGHT ” 104
CHAPTER I
ON THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY BEYOND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
The series of movements and wanderings, settlements and conquests, which
may be most fitly described as the expansion of the German and Slavonic
races, began in the second century A.D., and continued for well-nigh
a thousand years, reshaping the political geography and changing the
ethnical character of Europe. The latest stage in the process was the
expansion of the northern Germans of Scandinavia and Denmark, which
led to the settlements of the Vikings and Danes in the west and to
the creation of the Russian State by Swedes in the east. The general
movement of European history is not grasped if we fail to recognise that
the invasions and conquests of the Norsemen which began towards the
close of the eighth century are the continuation of the earlier German
expansion which we are accustomed to designate as the Wandering of the
Peoples. It was not till this last stage that Ireland came within range
of this general transformation, when, in the ninth century, Teutonic
settlements were made on her coasts and a Teutonic kingdom was formed
within her borders. Till then she had escaped the stress of the political
vicissitudes of Europe. But, four centuries before, a force of another
kind had drawn her into union with the continent and made her a part
of the Roman world, so far as the Roman world represented Christendom.
Remaining still politically aloof, still impervious to the influence
of higher social organisation, the island was swept into the spiritual
federation, which, through the act of Constantine, had become closely
identified with the Roman State. This was what the Roman Empire did for
Ireland, not directly or designedly, but automatically, one might say,
through the circumstances of its geographical position. The foundation
of a church in Ireland was not accomplished till the very hour when
the Empire was beginning to fall gradually asunder in the west; and
so it happens that when Europe, in the fifth century, is acquiring a
new form and feature, the establishment of the Christian faith in the
outlying island appears as a distinct, though modest, part of the general
transformation. _Ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo_, and Ireland, too,
has its small place in the great change.
[Sidenote: PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY]
To understand the conversion of Ireland, which we are here considering
as an episode in the history of Europe, we must glance at the general
conditions of the early propagation of the Christian idea. It would not
be easy to determine how much Christianity owes to the Roman Empire,
and we can hardly imagine what the rate and the mode of its progress
through southern and western Europe would have been if these lands had
not been united and organised by the might of Rome. It is perhaps not
an exaggeration to say that the existence of the Empire was a condition
of the success of a universal religion in Europe; and it is assuredly
true that the hindrances which the Roman Government, for two centuries
and a half, opposed to its diffusion, by treating it as the one
foreign religion which could not be tolerated by the State, were more
than compensated by the facilities of steady and safe intercourse and
communication, which not only helped the new idea to travel, but enabled
its preachers and adherents to organise their work and keep in constant
touch with one another.
The manner in which this faith spread in the west, and the steps in its
progress, are entirely hidden from us; we can only mark, in a general
way, some stages in the process.[2] We know that there were organised
communities in Gaul in the second century, and organised communities
in Britain at the end of the third; but in neither of these countries,
it would seem, did the religion begin to spread widely till after its
official recognition by the Emperor Constantine. At the end of the
fourth century there were still large districts in Gaul, especially
in the Belgic provinces, which were entirely heathen. In this respect
Gaul and Britain present a notable contrast to the other great Atlantic
country of the Empire. In the Spanish peninsula Christianity made such
rapid strides, and the Spaniards adapted it so skilfully to their pagan
habits, that before the time of Constantine Spain had become, throughout
its length and breadth, a Christian land.
[Sidenote: CAPTIVES]
It could not be expected that, while there were still within the Roman
frontiers many outlying districts where the new religion had not
penetrated, the western churches could conceive the design of making any
systematic attempt to convert the folks who lived beyond the borders of
the Empire. The first duty of the bishops of Gaul and the bishops of
Britain, if they undertook any missionary work, was to extend their faith
in the still heathen parts of their own provinces. The single conspicuous
case in which it reached a northern people, independent of the Empire,
is significant, for it exhibits the kind of circumstances which helped
this religion to travel. The conversion of the West Goths in Dacia was
not inaugurated by any missionary zeal on the part of the Church, but
came to pass through the means of Christian captives whom the people had
carried off in their invasions of Asia Minor in the middle of the third
century. The “apostle” Wulfilas, whose work led to the general conversion
of the Goths, sprang from a Cappadocian family which had thus been led
into captivity, and had lived for two generations in Gothic land. Gothic
in spirit and sentiment, as he was Gothic in name, he devoted himself to
spreading the gospel of the Christians among his people. His work was
recognised and supported at Constantinople, but the fact remains that
the conversion of the Goths was due to the hostilities which had brought
Christian captives to their land, and not to missionary enterprise of
the Church. The part which captives played in diffusing a knowledge
of their religion is, in this instance, strikingly exemplified. The
conversion of the kingdom of Iberia under Mount Caucasus is another case.
The story that it became Christian in the reign of Constantine through
the bond-slave Nino, who is still revered there as the “enlightener and
apostle of Georgia,” rests upon evidence only two generations later, and
must have a foundation in fact.[3] And even if the tale is not accepted
literally, its existence illustrates the important part which Christian
captives played in the diffusion of their creed. This is expressly
observed by the author of the treatise _On the Calling of the Gentiles_.
“Sons of the Church led captive by enemies made their masters serve the
gospel of Christ, and taught the faith to those to whom the fortune of
war had enslaved them.”[4]
The same nameless writer, who composed his work in the fifth century,
notices another channel by which knowledge of his religion was conveyed
to the barbarians. Foreign soldiers, who enlisted in the army of the
Empire, sometimes came under Christian influences in their garrison
stations, and when they returned to their own homes beyond the Imperial
frontier they carried the faith with them.[5]
That the silent and constant intercourse of commerce was also a means of
propagation beyond the limits of the Empire cannot be doubted, though
commercial relations and conditions in ancient and mediaeval history are
among the hardest to realise because ancient and mediaeval writers never
thought of describing them. The foundation of the Abyssinian church,
however, exhibits the part which merchants, as well as the part which
captives, might take in propagating a religious faith; and fortunately we
possess an account which was derived directly from one of the captives
who was concerned in the matter.[6]
A party of Greek explorers who had been sailing in southern seas landed
on the coast of Abyssinia and were slaughtered by the natives, with the
exception of two youths who were spared to become slaves of the king.
One served him as cup-bearer, the other, whose name was Frumentius, as
secretary; and after the king’s death his son’s education was entrusted
to these two men. Frumentius used his influence to help the Roman
merchants who traded with Abyssinia to found a Christian church. He was
afterwards permitted to return to his own country, but he resolved to
dedicate his life to the propagation of Christianity in Abyssinia, and
having been consecrated by Athanasius at Alexandria as Bishop of Axum,
the Abyssinian capital town, he returned thither to foster the new church.
[Sidenote: TRADERS]
This course of events illustrates both the way in which captives helped
to spread Christianity abroad, and also how the intercourse of trade
could lead to the planting of Christian communities in lands outside
the Empire. It illustrates the fact that up to the sixth century the
extension of that faith to the barbarians was not due to direct efforts
or deliberate design on the part of the Church, but to chapters of
accidents which arose through the relations, hostile and pacific, of
the Empire with its neighbours. The “mission” to the Gentiles was, in
practice, limited by the Church to the Roman world, though the heads
of the Church were always ready to recognise, welcome, and affiliate
Christian communities which might be planted on barbarian ground by the
accidents of private enterprise.
[Sidenote: PRESTIGE OF ROME]
It was only after the Roman Empire had become officially Christian
through the memorable decision of Constantine, that the conversion of
neighbouring states (with the striking exception of Armenia)[7] really
began; just after that change the victorious religion began to spread
generally in Gaul and Britain. The work of Frumentius and the work of
Wulfilas were alike subsequent to the revolution of Constantine. It would
be difficult to estimate how great was the impetus which this religion
derived, for the acceleration of its progress, from its acceptance by the
head of the Roman State. But while it is evident that the Church gained
immeasurably within the Empire by her sudden exaltation, it is perhaps
generally overlooked how her changed position aided Christianity to pass
out beyond the Empire’s borders. We touch here on a fact of supreme
importance—not less important, but more likely to escape notice, because
it cannot be stated in terms of definite occurrences:—the enormous
prestige which the Roman Empire possessed in the minds of the barbarian
peoples who dwelt beyond it. The observant student who follows with
care the history of the expansion of Germany and the strange process
by which the German kingdoms were established within the Empire in
western Europe, is struck at every step by the profound respect which
the barbarians evinced for the Empire and the Roman name throughout
all their hostilities and injuries. While they were unconsciously
dismembering it, they believed in its impregnable stability; Europe
without the Empire was unimaginable; the dominion of Rome seemed to them
part of the universal order, as eternal as the great globe itself. If
we take into account this immeasurable reverence for Rome, which is one
of the governing psychical facts in the history of the “wandering of
the nations,” we can discern what prestige a religion would acquire for
neighbouring peoples when it became the religion of the Roman people
and the Roman State. We can understand with what different eyes the
barbarians must have regarded Christianity when it was a forbidden and
persecuted doctrine and when it was raised to be a State religion. It
at once acquired a claim on their attention; it was no longer merely
one among many rival doctrines current in the Empire. Considerations of
political advantage came in; and political motives could sway barbarians,
no less than Constantine himself, in determining their attitude to a
religious creed. And the fact that the Christian God was the God of
that great Empire was in itself a persuasive argument in his favour.
Could a people find any more powerful protector than the Deity who was
worshipped and feared by the greatest “nation” on earth? So it seemed to
the Burgundians, who embraced the Roman religion, we are told,[8] because
they conceived that “the God of the Romans is a strong helper to those
who fear Him.” The simple barbarians did not reason too curiously. It
did not occur to them that the Eternal City had achieved her greatness
and built her empire under the auspices of Jupiter and Mars. There can be
little doubt that, if the step taken by Constantine had been postponed
for a hundred years, we should not find the Goths and the Vandals
professing Christianity at the beginning of the fifth century.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: IRELAND NOT ISOLATED]
Among the independent neighbours of the Roman Empire, Ireland occupies
a singular place as the only part of the Celtic world which had not
been gathered under the sceptre of Rome.[9] It may be suspected that an
erroneous opinion is prevalent, just because it lay outside the Empire,
that this outlying island was in early times more separate and aloof
from Europe than its geographical position would lead us to suppose.
The truth is that we have but lately begun to realise the frequency and
prevalence of intercourse by sea before historical records begin. It has
been but recently brought home to us that hundreds and hundreds of years
before the Homeric poems were created, the lands of the Mediterranean
were bound together by maritime communication. The same thing is true of
the northern seas at a later period. It is absurd to suppose that the
Celtic conquerors of Britain and of Iverne burned their ships when they
had reached the island shores and cut themselves off from intercourse
with the mainland from which they had crossed. And we may be sure that it
was not they who first established regular communications. We may be sure
that the pre-Celtic peoples of south Britain and the Ivernians, who gave
its name to Ireland, knew the waterways to the coasts of the continent.
The intimate connexion of the Celts of Britain with their kinsfolk across
the Channel is amply attested in Caesar’s history of the conquest of
Gaul; and in the ordinary histories of Britain the political connexion,
which even took the shape of a Gallo-British kingdom, has hardly been
duly emphasised. Ireland was further, but not far. Constant relations
between this island and Britain were inevitable through mere proximity,
but there is no doubt that regular communication was also maintained with
Gaul[10] and with Spain. Whatever weight may be allowed to the Irish
semi-mythical traditions which point to ancient bonds between Ireland and
Spain—and in judging them we must remember that the Ivernians are of the
same Mediterranean race as the Iberians—it is, for the Celtic period,
highly significant to find Roman geographers regarding Ireland as
midway between Spain and Britain,[11] a conception which seems to point
unmistakably to direct intercourse between Irish and Spanish ports. But
the trade of Ireland with the Empire is noticed by Tacitus,[12] and is
illustrated by the knowledge which Romans could acquire of its geography.
Ptolemy, in the second century, gives an account of the island, which,
disfigured though it is, and in many parts undecipherable through the
corruption of the place-names, can be tested sufficiently to show that it
is based upon genuine information.
[Sidenote: IRELAND AND BRITAIN]
It does not surprise us that in our Roman records we hear no syllable of
any relations with Ireland, when we remember how meagre and sporadic are
the literary records of Roman rule in Britain from the time of Domitian
to the premature close. We know, indeed, that at the very outset the
question had been considered whether Ireland should be occupied or not. A
general of Domitian thought the conquest ought to be attempted, but the
government decided against his opinion.[13] The question has been asked
why the Romans never annexed it? The answer is simple. After the time of
Augustus no additions were made to Roman dominion except under the stress
of political necessity. Britain was annexed by the generals of Claudius
for the same reason which prompted Julius to invade it,—political
necessity, arising from the dangerously close bonds which united the
Britons with the Gauls. The inference is that in the case of Ireland
there was no such pressing political necessity. The Goidels of Ireland
were a different branch of the Celtic race, and the Britons could find in
Ireland no such support as the Gauls found in Britain. This explanation
accords with the fact that till the middle of the fourth century the
Irish or Scots are not named among the dangerous invaders of the British
province; they are not named at all.
But it would be a false inference from this silence to suppose that the
government in Britain had not to take political account of their western
neighbours. Ireland was well on the horizon of the Roman governors, and
Irish affairs must from time to time have claimed their attention. The
exile, of whom Agricola made much, was not, we might surmise, the last
Irish prince who sought in Britain a refuge from enemies at home. But
one important measure of policy has escaped oblivion, though not through
Roman records. In the third century, it would seem, an Irish tribe which
dwelled in the kingdom of Meath was driven from its land. The name of
this tribe, the Dessi, still lives in their ancient home—the district
of Deece.[14] Some of them migrated southward to the lands of the Suir
and the Blackwater, where their name likewise survives in the districts
of Decies.[15] But others sought new abodes beyond the sea, and they
settled largely in South Wales. The migration of the Dessi rests on the
records of Irish tradition, but it is confirmed by the clear evidence
of inscribed stones which attest the presence of a Goidelic population
in south-western Britain. Here we have to do with an act of policy on
the part of the Roman Government similar to the policy pursued in other
parts of the Empire. A foreign people was allowed to settle, perhaps
under certain conditions of military service,[16] on the south-western
sea-board. Nor need these Goidelic settlers have consisted only of the
Dessi, or the settlements have all been made at one time, and there seem
to have been other settlements in Somerset, Devonshire, and Cornwall.[17]
[Sidenote: IRELAND AND THE EMPIRE]
General considerations, then, supported by particular fragments of
evidence which exist, would prepare us to learn, as something not
surprising, but rather to be expected, that, by the end of the fourth
century, Christians, and some knowledge of the Christian worship, should
have found their way to the Irish shores. Beyond the regular intercourse
with Britain, Gaul, and Spain there was the special circumstances of the
Irish settlements in south-west Britain—a highroad for the new creed to
travel;[18] and the great invasion in the middle of the fourth century,
which will be mentioned in the next chapter, must have conveyed Christian
captives to Ireland. In the conversion of this island, as elsewhere,
captives played the part of missionaries. It will not then amaze us to
find, when we reach the fifth century, that men go forth from Ireland to
be trained in the Christian theology. It will not astonish us to learn
that Christian communities exist which are ripe for organisation, or to
find this religion penetrating into the house of the High Kings. We shall
see reasons for supposing that the Latin alphabet had already made its
way to Ireland,[19] and the reception of an alphabet generally means the
reception of other influences from the same source.[20] For the present
it is enough to have brought the relations of the Empire to Ireland
somewhat into line with its relations to other independent neighbours.