Haddan & Stubbs (eds.), Councils II.2 (1878) — translated from the Latin.

[Editorial note: Printed by D’Achéry (Spicil. IX. 490, 491) as Theodore’s, from MS. Sangerm. 121, which expressly styles them Canons of Adamnan; by Martène in part (Thes. Nov. IV. 18, 19) from Cod. Paris. 3182 olim Bigot. 89; by Wasserschleben (Bussordn. 120 ff.) from both MSS.; and the same part as Martène’s by Robertson (Statutes of the Church of Scotland pp. 119, 120) from a Cotton MS., Otho E. XIII. fol. 155b-157b, almost the same in text with Martène’s MS. They are here printed, with corrections, from Wasserschleben. Probably they were passed by some Irish council under Adamnan’s influence.]

¹ Marine animals cast up upon the shores, whose deaths we know not, may be taken in good faith, unless they be putrid.

² Cattle falling from a rock, if their blood has been poured out, may be taken; but if their bones are broken and the blood has not come forth, they are to be reckoned as carrion.

³ Things drowned in water are carrion, whose blood lies hidden within.

⁴ Things seized by beasts and left half-alive may be given to bestial men [to eat].

⁵ An animal snatched by sudden death while half-alive, its ear or other part being cut off, is carrion.

⁶ Swine’s flesh grown fat or greasy on carrion is to be rejected as the carrion on which it grew fat; but when it has grown lean again and returned to its former leanness, it may be taken. But if it has eaten carrion once or twice, after it has passed away from their bellies it may be taken in good faith.

⁷ Swine that have tasted men’s flesh or blood are always unlawful; for in the Law an animal that pushes with its horn, if it kills a man, is unlawful — how much more those that eat a man? Yet their offspring may be kept. Leave apart those which uncleanness has not polluted.

⁸ Hens that have tasted men’s flesh or their blood are utterly unclean, and their eggs are unclean; yet their chicks may be kept.

⁹ A well in which carrion is found, whether of a man or of a dog or of any animal, must first be emptied, and its mud, because the well-water has soaked it, cast outside; and then it is clean.

¹⁰ A thing dipped [into a vessel] by a cow may be taken in good conscience; for though we may excommunicate the cow for the dipping, yet we do not refuse to taste the milk offered by a milch cow. Nevertheless, for the sake of the weak consciences of the brethren — not for uncleanness — it should be boiled, and then received by all.

¹¹ A thing dipped by swine must be boiled and given to unclean men. For swine eat things clean and unclean alike, but cows feed on nothing but herbs and the leaves of trees.

¹² A thing dipped by a raven can by no boiling be made clean, on account of our doubtful conscience; for which of us knows what unlawful flesh it had eaten before it dipped?

¹³ A thing dipped by a weasel is in no wise to be received, either without boiling or after boiling.

¹⁴ Things suffocated in water are not to be eaten, for which reason the Lord forbade flesh to be eaten with the blood; for in the flesh of an animal suffocated in water the congealed blood remains. This the Lord forbade, not because men in those times ate raw flesh, since it would not have been sweet, but because they ate suffocated flesh and carrion. And the Law, for a metrical reason in Scripture, says: You shall not eat carrion flesh.

¹⁵ Cattle taken in plunder from Christians, whether by commerce or by gift, are not to be received; for what God disapproves, why should a soldier of Christ receive? For almsgiving extinguishes the robbery it has invaded.

¹⁶ Concerning a harlot wife, the same author has thus interpreted: a woman shall be a harlot who, casting off the yoke of her own husband, enters upon that of a second or a third husband, whose husband, while she lives, shall not take another wife; for we know not whether that authority which we read in the questions of the Romans was adorned by competent or by false witnesses.

¹⁷ The same confirms that flesh eaten by beasts is unclean, yet not carrion, since the blood of that unlawful flesh has been poured out through [the beast’s teeth].

¹⁸ But a beast caught only by a mortal bite and not wholly killed may be eaten by sinners and bestial men, the part which the beast has touched with its teeth being cut off and given to the dogs; for it seems fitting to him that flesh served up by beasts should be eaten by human beasts.

¹⁹ In like manner he forbids the eating of the marrow of the bones of deer which wolves have eaten.

²⁰ In like manner he forbids the eating of deer whose blood we see to have flowed through the veins when their legs were broken in snares, affirming it to be carrion, because the upper blood, which was the keeper and seat of the life, had not flowed out but was congealed within the flesh; for although the extremity of the blood be poured out through any extremity of the members, yet the thicker and more solid blood in which the life sat remains congealed within the flesh. And therefore, unless a bruise of the wound inflicted has disturbed the seat of the life, it is not a pouring out of blood but only an injury of the extremity, so that whoever eats that flesh should know that he has eaten flesh with blood — since the Lord forbade it, not on account of the cooking of the flesh, but because of the effusion of the blood. And this is to be understood also of cattle which died in extremity of sickness after the ear was cut off or merely slit. The fat only and the hides we may keep for various uses.

Here end these judgements.

[The file continues with Haddan & Stubbs’ editorial matter, already in English: the annalistic notes on Adamnan’s death (Ann. Tigern. in an. 703: “Adamnanus, in the 77th year of his age, abbot of Iona, rests”); the entry on Bishop Ceaddi; the notes on Nectan’s expulsion of the Columban familia of Iona (Ann. Tigern. 717) and the crown tonsure (718); Bede H.E. V. 22 on Egbert’s correction of the Iona monks to the canonical Easter and tonsure in A.D. 716 — “Tunc veniente ad eos reverentissimo et sanctissimo patre et sacerdote Ecgbercto, de natione Anglorum, qui in Hibernia diutius exulaverat pro Christo” [Then when there came to them that most reverend and holy father and priest Egbert, of the English nation, who had long lived in exile in Ireland for Christ]; and the discussion of Abernethy, “the royal seat of the Picts,” and the legend of St Boniface (Curitan).]