and scholar; nor did he confine his activities to matters ecclesiastical, but, like most of the Irish saints, took an active part in public events.

About the year 684, King Ecgfrid of Northumbria made a descent upon the Irish coast, between Magh Breg, the plain north of the Liffey, and Belach Dúinn, now Castlekieran, north-west of Kells, and carried away many captives. In the following year he invaded the Picts of Scotland, and was slain at Dun Nechtan. His successor, Aldfrid (the son, according to some accounts, of an Irish mother), had been driven into exile in early youth, and taking refuge in Ireland was educated in the schools of that country, to which he paid a grateful tribute in after-life. He had sojourned for a while at Iona, and there became acquainted with Adamnán, who now took advantage of this intimacy, and came to Aldfrid’s court to plead the cause of the captives. He was successful in this, and had the happiness to redeem from slavery sixty of his countrymen, whom he brought back with him on his return. This visit produced results of great importance to the Irish Church. During his stay in Northumbria, Adamnán contracted a close intimacy with the Venerable Bede—who strongly censured Ecgfrid’s unprovoked, aggression (Hist. Eccl. iv. 26)—upon whom he made a strong and favourable impression, as being vir bonus, et sapiens, et scientia scripturarum nobilissime instructus. Their frequent colloquies during this, and, apparently, a second mission of Adamnán to Northumbria, about two years later, turned upon the two main points wherein the Irish usage differed from that of Rome: i.e. the form of the tonsure, which, in Ireland, was made crescent-wise across the head, and the time of keeping Easter. In the latter respect, Ireland retained the older computation, founded upon the Jewish method of calculating the Passover, which had been adopted by Rome during the disputes on the subject with the East and with Alexandria, and was in force at the conversion of Ireland. In 463 Pope Hilarius introduced an improved system of calculation, which ultimately was generally adopted throughout the West, though not without a struggle in those many parts of the Continent where Irish influence was powerful. As a matter of course, the reformed system was brought into England by Augustine, and contributed to widen the gulf between the English and British Churches. The south of Ireland, or part of it, appears to have accepted the change in the year 633, but it took nearly another century to win over the rest of the country. Bede urged upon Adamnán the propriety of conforming to the general rule of the Church, and his arguments wrought such conviction in his hearer that Adamnán devoted much of the latter portion of his life to the task of inducing his countrymen to accept the Roman usage.

Indeed, the remainder of Adamnán’s life appears to have been divided between his abbatial duties and long and frequent visits to Ireland, in the course of which he is said to have taken that part in secular politics to which we shall have to recur. The greater part of this time, however, he appears to have spent in travelling about Ireland, occupied with his favourite scheme for bringing the time of the Easter celebration into conformity with the general practice of the Western Church. His efforts were generally successful; Bede, in fact (Hist. Eccl. v. 15), asserts that he succeeded in winning over to the Catholic observance ‘almost all those who were not subject to the rule of Iona.’ In the year 700, or shortly after, he returned to Iona, and attempted to introduce his reform into his own monastery, but in spite of his abbatial authority and of his great personal influence, he found the conservatism of that great stronghold of the Irish Church too much for him, and his monks refused to admit any innovation upon the national practice. He died on the 23rd September 704, and was buried at Iona. His relics were brought to Ireland in 727, but are said to have been restored to his monastery in 730.

Adamnán earned well the epithet ‘High Scholar of the Western World,’ which is conferred upon him at the opening of his Vision. His most celebrated work was the Life of St. Colm Cille, written in a Latin which is generally admitted to be far superior to that commonly in use at his day. The work suffers from the form in which it is cast; it does not relate the events of the Saint’s life in chronological sequence, but is divided into three books, the first being devoted to Colm’s prophetical revelations, the second to his miracles, and the third to his angelical visions. Nevertheless, it gives much information of great interest, relating as well to the life and acts of St. Colm as to the internal life of the Irish Church, while the prefaces contain important biographical matter. The prominence given to the miracles, visions, and the like, associated with Colm’s name, is merely what we find in a large proportion of the hagiology of all periods of the Church’s history, while the narrative possesses a character of its own, and a human interest, which preserve it from the monotony and conventionality often prevailing in writings of this class, and establish a certain kinship with the Fioretti of St. Francis. Altogether, the Life is commonly accepted as the most important extant monument of the Celtic Church, and also one of the most notable pieces of biography, ecclesiastical or lay, produced by the early Middle Ages.

Another work proceeding from his pen was a treatise upon the Holy Places of Palestine. This, too, was written in Latin, and is considered by Dr. Reeves to be superior, in point of style, to the Life of Colm Cille. He was instigated to undertake this task by Arculf, a bishop of Gaul, who had travelled in Palestine, Syria, Constantinople, Alexandria, and other parts of the East, and on his return had been blown out of his course, and wrecked on some coast near to Iona. Here he was hospitably entertained by Adamnán, and in the course of a prolonged sojourn through the stormy winter months held much learned converse with his host, to their mutual edification. Arculf had studied the topography and history of the places he visited with a thoroughness almost unique at that day, and had even preserved accurate measurements and descriptions of buildings, etc. He freely imparted the results of his investigations to Adamnán, who was himself possessed of the learning which could be acquired from such books as were accessible to him.

Several ecclesiastical works—a Rule, eight Canons, etc.—are attributed to Adamnán; there have also been preserved a poem and several devout opuscula in Irish which have been ascribed to him, without foundation.

It would appear that he had some knowledge of Greek, and even possessed a certain acquaintance with, at any rate, the Hebrew vocabulary, whether at first or second hand.

It now remains to be seen what further light is cast upon Adamnán’s character by the later annals; and here we find a mixture of Dichtung und Wahrheit, and no criterion whereby we may distinguish with any certainty between the two. The additional particulars derived from this source, if we except a few legends of miracles and visions of the usual type, relate for the most part to Adamnán’s political activity during the last decade of the seventh century. One episode, however, of Adamnán’s schooldays gives the earliest recorded fact, if a fact, of his career. It is a mere anecdote, unsupported by evidence, yet it contains no inherent improbability, and is worth repeating, if only as an authentic picture of one aspect of scholastic life in ancient Ireland, and also as affording the first glimpse, probably, of the ‘beggar-student’ who figured so conspicuously in the later Middle Ages,