News Flash! Two Easters Celebrated at Kildare, Says Bethu Brigte!

from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.

An interesting little tidbit, this.

I noticed in rerereading Bethu Brigte the other day (The Irish Life of Saint Brigit--so called because it was written in Irish, not Latin) that Bishop Mel, and therefore his flock, was celebrating both Easters. 

"24 - On the following day, Monday, Mel came to Brigit to preach and say Mass for her between the two Easters."

Cool!

Bethu Brigte was written down in the Book of Leinster c.800–850 CE--nearly two hundred years after the Synod of Whitby. It was at Whitby that King Oswiu ruled Northumbria would go with the Romans on the date of Easter and on monastic tonsures, rather than the Irish monastic practices followed at Iona, etc. (Synod of Whitby, 664 CE).

According to Wikipedia The Infallible (and allegedly to Haddan and Stubbs), South Ireland adopted the Roman dates circa 626-8 and North Ireland in 692. This means that Kildare itself had likely been celebrating Easter on the Roman date since a hundred years or so after St Brigit's death, and long before the BB was written. Which gives a wonderful sense of verisimilitude to the detail, that at one time, in order to hedge (if you'll pardon the pun) their bets, monasteries such as Kildare were celebrating not one nor the other, but both.

You can find the Bethu Brigte here:

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201002/

‘Cogitosus's "Life of St Brigit" Content and Value’ Sean Connolly and J.-M. Picard

It took me an age to get this article and translation of Cogitosus's Vita Brigitae. When possible I will get a copy up on the Daughters of the Flame site along with the Liam de Paor translation that is now there. Look for the brilliant yellow button below to download the pdf. For now, I will just jot a couple of notes and give you the citation so you can track it down yourself.

By the way, in the introduction Connolly says they are preparing a longer work on the VB. Anyone know if this was ever done? A quick search has yielded nothing.

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‘Cogitosus's "Life of St Brigit" Content and Value’ Sean Connolly and J.-M. Picard The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 117 (1987), pp. 5-27

In his preface to a translation of Cogitosus’s Vita Brigitae, the author briefly discusses Cogitosus and his relationship to Brigit and to Kildare, and his presumed era of writing. Only three other works of this nature are available from the 7^th c (Tirechan, Collectanea, Muirchu, Vita Patricii, both re St Patrick; Adomnan, Vita Columbae), with Cogitosus’s likely the earliest. VB is of particular interest to historians because it shows that in the 7^th c Kildare was claiming for itself primacy over all the monasteries in Ireland, and because of what it tells about monastic life. It is of interest to archaeologists because of its references to continental trade, road-building practices, the construction of mills, and the physical layout of Brigit’s church.

Reminding us that the Irish Church was only two centuries old at the time of writing, Connolly examines the work’s “catechetical aim” of teaching religious values, particularly of faith and charity, to Irish Christians.

Repeatedly Brigit’s great faith enables her to perform miracles (all attributable to God’s power, not her own). Other recurring values are chastity and obedience, and her faith is shown in her devotion to prayer—the secret of her ability to intercede with God being her ceaseless, single-minded prayer—and to evangelism. This emphasis on preaching is supported in Vita I  (Vita prima Sanctae Brigitae) as well. (VI apparently written nearly a century later).

The second main value emphasised is charity, which expresses itself in numerous miracles, many of which are modelled on Biblical stories, which show “her concern for the poor, the oppressed or the embarrassed, or simply her guests, whether friends or strangers” (pg 9).

The language of the article is easily accessible to non-expert readers, and the ideas simple, with plenty of examples (mostly brief notations of where they can be found in the text, some with fuller explanation). He lays out with clarity his argument that Cogitosus in his Life has not simply “just strung together at random a series of miracles of folkloric interest to entertain his readers” (pg 6), but is purposefully directing his audience to a fuller understanding of and commitment to specific monastic virtues. Without familiarity with the Life itself some of the references, not being fully explained, lose some of their impact. It might be preferred to read the Life first, or to reread the introductory material once having read the Life.

Vita Sanctae Brigitae: Cogitosus's Life of Brigit

Wearying of the fact that we who are not card-carrying academics cannot easily access this invaluable document, I'm transforming the pdf I have into a multi-page JPEG and hoping I can upload it here. (For some reason I still don't apprehend Blogger doesn't let us upload PDFs.)

This version comes from St Patrick's World, Liam de Paor, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1993 - chapter 33, Cogitosus's Life of St Brigid the Virgin.

Cogitosus's is generally considered the earliest extant Life of Saint Brigit. He was a monastic at Kildare, often cited as having lived circa 650 CE. (Saint Brigit having lived in the fifth century, a good two hundred years earlier.) The author below gives reasons for thinking Cogitosus lived rather later, thus putting into question whose Life preceded whose.

Cogitosus

The Book of Dimma, an 8th-century Irish pocket Gospel Book

by Edward Alfred D'Alton

An Irishman, an author, and a monk of Kildare; the date and place of his birth and of his death are unknown; it is uncertain even in what century he lived.

In the one work which he wrote, his life of St. Brigid, he asks a prayer pro me nepote culpabili, from which both Ware and Ussher conclude that he was a nephew of St. Brigid, and, accordingly, he is put down by them among the writers of the sixth century. But the word nepos may also be applied to one who, like the prodigal, had lived riotously, and it may be, that Cogitosus, recalling some former lapses from virtue, so uses the word of himself. At all events, his editor, Vossius, is quite satisfied that Cogitosus was no nephew of St. Brigid, because in two genealogical menologies which Vossius had, in which were enumerated the names of fourteen holy men of that saint's family the name of Cogitosus is not to be found.

Nor did the latter live in the sixth century because he speaks of a long succession of bishops and abbesses at Kildare, showing that he writes of a period long after the time of St. Brigid, who died in 525, and of St. Conleth, who died a few years earlier. Besides this, the description of the church of Kildare belongs to a much later time; and the author calls St. Conleth an archbishop, a term not usual in the Western church until the opening of the ninth century. On the other hand, he describes Kildare before it was plundered by the Danes, in 835, and before St. Brigid's remains were removed to Down.

The probability therefore is that he lived and wrote the life of St. Brigid about the beginning of the ninth century.

His work is a panegyric rather than a biography. He gives so few details of the saint's life that he omits the date and place of her birth and the date of her death; nor does he make mention of any of her contemporaries if we except St. Conleth, the first Bishop of Kildare, an Macaille from whom she received the veil. He gives the names of her parents, but is careful to conceal the fact that she was illegitimate, and that her mother was a slave.

On the other hand, he dwells with evident satisfaction on her piety, her humility, her charity, her zeal for religion, the esteem in which she was held by all. And he narrates at length the many miracles she wrought, and tells of the numbers who came as pilgrims to Kildare, attracted by her fame. In his anxiety to exalt her he says she had as abbess authority over all the abbesses of Ireland, although as a matter of fact she could govern only those who followed her rule; and his statement that she appointed the Bishop of Kildare could not, of course, mean that she conferred any jurisdiction.

Cogitosus writes in fairly good Latin, much better indeed than might be expected in that age, and his description of the church of Kildare with its interior decorations is specially interesting for the history of early Irish art and architecture.

E. A. D'Alton.
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Volume 4

Here goes. There are ten pages. Feel free to turn them back into pdfs for easier use.