The Medieval Mind. Henry Osborn Taylor
diviners, magicians, priests, and teachers, which were assumed by the clergy in the fifth and sixth centuries.[162] Doubtless many of the Druids became monks.
Christianity came to the Irish as a new ardour, effacing none of their characteristics. Irish monks and Irish saints were as irascible as Irish bards and Saga heroes. The Irish temper lived on in St. Columba of Iona and St. Columbanus of Luxeuil and Bobbio. Both of these men left Ireland to spread monastic Christianity, and also because, as Irishmen, they loved to rove, like their forefathers. Christianity furnished this Irish propensity with a definite aim in the mission-passion to convert the heathen. It likewise brought the ascetic hermit-passion, which drove these travel-loving islanders over the sea in search of solitude; and so a yearning came on Irish monks to sail forth to some distant isle and gain within the seclusion of the sea a hermitage beyond the reach of man. There are many stories of these explorers. They sailed along the Hebrides, they settled on the Shetland Islands, they reached the Faroes, and even brought back news of Iceland. But before the seventh century closed, their sea hermitages were harried by Norsemen who were sailing upon quite different ventures. From an opposite direction they too had reached the Shetlands and the Hebrides, and had pushed on farther south among the islands off the west coast of Scotland. So there come sorry tales of monks fleeing from one island to another. These harryings and flights had gone on for a century and more before the Vikings landed in Ireland, apparently for the first time, in 795.[163] There followed two centuries of fierce struggle with the invaders, during which much besides blows was exchanged. Vikings and Irish learned from each other; Norse strains passed into Irish literature, and conversely the Norse story-tellers probably obtained the Saga form of composition.
The rôle of the Irish in the diffusion of Christianity with its accompaniment of Latin culture will be noted hereafter, and a sketch of the unquestionably Irish saint Columbanus will be given in illustration. A few paragraphs on his almost namesake of Iona, whose career hardly extended beyond Celtic circles, may fitly close the present chapter on the Celtic genius. In him is seen the truculent Irishman and the clan-abbot of royal birth, violent, dominating by his impetuosity and the strident fervour of his voice; also the saint, devoted, loving, to his followers. Colum,[164] surnamed Cille, “of the church,” from his incessant devotions, and by his Latin name known as Columba, was born at Gartan, Donegal, in the extreme north-west of Ireland, about the year 520. His family was chief in that part of the country, and through both his parents he was descended from kings. He does not belong to those early Irish saints represented by Patrick and his storied coadjutors of both sexes, whose missionary activities were not constrained within any ascetic rule; but to the later generation who lived in those monastic communities which were so very typically Irish.[165]
Columba appears to have passed his youth wandering from one monastery to another, and his manhood in founding them. But so strong a nature could not hold aloof from the wars of his clan, which belonged to the northern branch of the Hy-neill race, then maintaining its independence against the southern branch. The head of the latter was that very King Dermot (usually called Diarmaid or Diarmuid) against whom St. Ruadhan[166] and the clergy fasted and rang their bells. Columba appears to have had no part in the cursing of Tara. But Dermot was the king against whom the wars of his family were waged, and all the traditions point to the saint as their instigator. The account given by Keating, the seventeenth century historian of Gaelic Ireland, is curious.[167]
“Diarmuid … King of Ireland, made the Feast of Tara, and a nobleman was killed at that feast by Curran, son of Aodh; wherefore Diarmuid killed him in revenge for that, because he committed murder at the Feast of Tara, against the law and the sanctuary of the feast; and before Curran was put to death he fled to the protection of Colum-Cille, and notwithstanding the protection of Colum-Cille he was killed by Diarmuid. And from that it arose that Colum-Cille mustered the Clanna Neill of the North, because his own protection and the protection of the sons of Earc was violated. Whereupon the battle of Cul Dreimhne was gained over Diarmuid and over the Connaughtmen, so that they were defeated through the prayer of Colum-Cille.”
Keating adds that another book relates another cause of this battle, to wit:
“… the false judgment which Diarmuid gave against Colum-Cille when he wrote the gospel out of the book of Finnian without his knowledge.[168] Finnian said that it was to himself belonged the son-book which was written from his book, and they both selected Diarmuid as judge between them. This is the decision that Diarmuid made: that to every book belongs its son-book, as to every cow belongs her calf.”
Less consistent is the tradition that Columba left Ireland because of the sentence passed upon him by certain of his fellow-saints, as penance for the bloodshed which he had occasioned. Indeed, for his motives one need hardly look beyond the desire to spread the Gospel, and the passion of the Irish monk peregrinam ducere vitam. Reaching the west of Scotland, Columba was granted that rugged little island then called Hy, but Iova afterwards, and now Iona. This was in 563, and he continued abbot of Hy until his death in 597. Not that he stayed there all these years, for he moved about ceaselessly, founding churches among the Picts and Scots. Some thirty foundations are attributed to him, besides his thirty odd in Ireland.
Adamnan’s Vita largely consists of stories of the saint’s miracles and prophecies and the interpositions of Providence in his behalf. It nevertheless gives a consistent picture of this man of powerful frame and mighty voice, restless and unrestrained, ascetically tempered, working always for the spread of his religion. We see him compelling men to set sail with him despite the tempest, or again rushing into “the green glass water up to his knees” to curse a plunderer in the name of Christ. “He was not a gentle hero,” says an old Gaelic Eulogy. Yet if somewhat quick to curse, he was still readier to bless, and if he could be masterful, his life had its own humility. “Surely it was great lowliness in Colomb Cille that he himself used to take off his monks’ sandals and wash their feet for them. He often used to carry his portion of corn on his back to the mill, and grind it and bring it home to his house. He never used to put linen or wool against his skin. His side used to come against the bare mould.”[169]
So this impetuous life passes before our eyes filled with adventure, touched with romance, its colours heightened through tradition. As it draws to its close the love in it seems to exceed the wrath; and thus it ends: as the old man was resting himself the day before his death, seated by the barn of the monastery, the white work-horse came and laid its head against his breast. Late the same night, reclining on his stone bed he spoke his last words, enjoining peace and charity among the monks. Rising before dawn, he entered the church alone, knelt beside the altar, and there he died.[170]—His memory still hangs the peace of God and man over the Island of Iona.
CHAPTER VIII
TEUTON QUALITIES: ANGLO-SAXON, GERMAN, NORSE
There were intellectual as well as emotional differences between the Celts and Teutons. A certain hard rationality and grasp of fact mark the mentality of the latter. On land or sea they view the situation, realize its opportunities, their own strength, and the opposing odds: with definite and persistent purpose they move, they fight, they labour. The quality of purposefulness becomes clearer as they emerge from the forest obscurity of their origins into the open light of history. To a definite goal of conquest and settlement Theodoric led the Ostrogoths from Moesia westward, and fought his way into Italy. With persistent purposefulness Clovis and his Merovingian successors intrigued and fought. Among Anglo-Saxon pirates the aim of plunder quickly grew to that of conquest. And in times which were to follow, there was purpose in every voyage and battle of the Vikings. The Teutons disclose more strength and persistency of desire than the Celts. Their feelings were slower, less impulsive; also less quickly diverted, more unswerving, even fiercer in their strength. The general characteristic of Teutonic emotion is its close connection with some motive grounded in rational purpose.
Caesar’s short sketch of the Germans[171] gives the impression of barbarous peoples, numerous, brave, overweening. They had not reached the agricultural stage, but were devoted to war and hunting. There were no Druids among them. Their bodies were inured to hardship. They lived in