Breviarium Aberdonense, pars aestivalis (Edinburgh: Chepman & Myllar, 1509-10). Latin office text, unedited blackletter OCR — quality is poor; extracted from the proprium sanctorum. Contains the office of St Boniface followed by the beginning of the office of St Patrick (17 March), which breaks off mid-lesson.

“O God, who did commit to the blessed Boniface the chair of the apostle Peter to rule for seven years, grant that by his merits and prayers we may be able to obtain the everlasting help of your propitiation. Through the Lord.” At Matins, nine lessons. Lesson 1.

Boniface, Italian by nation, of the stock of the Greater Forum [Forum Maius], born of the family of the apostles Peter and Andrew, in the said Bethsaida of the province of Galilee. In papal dignity he succeeded the blessed Pope Gregory, and presided seven years, three months and seven days. This is the seventh man from John the apostle of Peter, and by the grace of the same was filled with the Holy Spirit from his infancy, so much that in his adolescent years he sought to please God, and lifted the eyes of his mind to the palace of the life above, and so preserved himself in chastity of body and soul that he lived blamelessly. Lesson 2.

In the eighth year of his age he gave himself to the study of the divine scriptures, where he found abundantly the true wisdom of the Word; and he learned the Psalter by heart, and spoke rightly, so much that by John, bishop of Jerusalem and patriarch, in the thirty-third year of his age he was ordained to the priesthood, where

afterwards he followed the holy apostle Peter in life and manners. Lesson 3.

Now when he had reached the forty-third year, Mauricius reigning as emperor of the Romans, he came to Rome, where for some time he was constituted cardinal bishop; then, by election of all the cardinals and by the providence of the same high God, in the fiftieth year of his age he was divinely assumed to the papacy. Thereafter he instituted certain canonical hours and various celebrations of divine things in the church of God; and he duly and lawfully ordained constitutions and rules for the orders. Lesson 4.

One day he called the brethren into the oratory that he might reveal to them the secrets of his heart, saying thus: “My brethren in our Lord Jesus Christ, whose faith you profess: from that time when we left our paternal country for the love of the same God, we resolved to make pilgrimage to those peoples who are beyond the bounds of Europe in the northern regions, almost to the ends of the earth. To which I said, ‘There we shall send religious and prudent men’, in the place where once the divine Celestine and Gregory sent Palladius, Patrick and Augustine to the same

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bishop and confessor.

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… they sent. Lesson 5.

The said Boniface answered, saying: “Alas! Almighty God, we have asked through Saint Peter that through his merit we might deserve to undertake this pilgrimage of grace. To whom in the world the apostle Paul is an example to evangelize those in Europe; therefore unless by his grace we have offered upon this altar the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he might be believed in by them — which thing indeed has been revealed to us by an angelic vision of Saint Peter — and henceforward persevering in that doctrine I am confirmed by the same vision. May the Lord grant you a wise heart and confirm your counsel in goodness.” And when this had been done by prayer, he said to them in the spirit of Jesus, “by him who made heaven and earth.” And afterwards, having received from them the faculty of departing in God’s benediction, he prepared all things for the journey, and a little while after left Rome; and at that departure of so great a man there was between the brethren and all the people of the city of Rome a most bitter cry and no small mourning, saying with great wailing: “O most holy father, why do you leave us orphans?”

And thus weeping he went away from them. Lesson 6.

Now on the journey there followed Boniface piously and devoutly his most devoted ministers — Servanus, Pean, Benevolus, Manian, the priests; and the bishops Triduinus and Nechtan; the abbesses Crescentia and Triduana; seven priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, seven acolytes, seven exorcists, seven readers, and seven doorkeepers, and three thousand men and women, a very great multitude fearing God. And all being appointed in order by the said man of God Boniface, by a prosperous journey and a happy voyage they came with one accord to Pictavia [Pictland], when by a sign divinely sent from heaven over the Scottish sea they reached a place near Restens; which place humbly entering, singing the greater litany they glorified God. And when in the name… Lesson 8.

Nectan, king of the Picts, was meanwhile affected with no small amazement, hearing of the coming of the divine sign to his own place with such a multitude of strangers; and by the grace of the Holy Spirit suddenly inspired, in that same hour he received from the blessed Boniface and his bishops the sacrament of baptism, with all his nobles

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bishop and confessor.

Of Saint Patrick

and his ministers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thereafter the king gave and delivered the same place of baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity to the blessed Boniface and his people for ever. And in that place an almost infinite people were signed with the same Christian faith in holy chrism, and for the instruction of the same faith he gave himself up to the building of churches and other devout places, exercising himself in all holiness of life and example. Lesson 9.

Now the blessed Boniface, after very many other presages of miracles, enlightened the blind, cleansed the lepers, made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak, raised seven dead men from death to life, and redeemed various captives to liberty by his own gifts. He wrote seventy-five books of the Gospels and founded as many temples for God; and ordained as many priests, a thousand. And to the faith of Christ he converted and baptized nearly thirty thousand men and women. And in the eighty-fourth year of his age, full of grace and virtue, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of April [16 March] he passed to the Lord. Response: “How great a priest, glorious…” And the rest of the Common of one confessor and pontiff.

Of Saint Patrick bishop and confessor. Prayer:

“O God, who did adorn the blessed Patrick, apostle of Ireland, with manifold signs and did translate him to heavenly glory, grant, we beseech you, that aided by his merits and prayers we may obtain the rewards of eternal blessedness. Through the Lord.” At Matins, nine lessons. Lesson 1.

Patrick, apostle of the Irish, born of the father Calpurnius of the noble family of the Scots, and of the mother Concessa, sister of blessed Martin bishop of Tours, was conceived at the castle of Dubertane in his mother’s womb with divine presages, and was born and educated in Kilpatrick near the said castle in Scotland; in baptism he was named Sucat by his godparents; afterwards by Saint Germanus in Gaul he was called Magonius, and by the blessed Pope Celestine at Rome Patricius. Lesson 2.

When he had been newly regenerated in the wave of baptism, admonished by divine instinct, when he impressed the sign of the cross with his right hand upon the ground, a most pleasing spring welled up there. Then a certain man named Normias, blind from birth, washing his eyes and face in the stream of the same spring, received not only the exterior benefit of seeing but also

bishop and confessor.

Fol. lxi.

knew letters and reading, though illiterate from birth; and so by the exterior benefit he was made a seer from a blind man, and by interior grace a lettered man from an illiterate. And moreover the stone standing beside that spring, as often as a false witness or a perjurer laid his hand upon it, used to pour forth water. Lesson 3.

Meanwhile in a heap of ice and a like heap of fuel, collected in winter time upon a hill, he made flames break forth and kindled the fire within it. And the forehead of a certain boy lying broken upon a stone by accident he healed by placing his thumb, dipped in his own saliva, with the sign of the cross upon it. And his foster-father, dead of a sudden death, he raised from death to life; for his sick foster-mother, who desired honey, he turned water into honey, and she, filled with the sweetness of it, was restored to health. Lesson 4.

Patrick, of religious disposition, being now in his sixteenth year, was carried off by pirates and taken captive into Ireland, and was sold to a certain petty king of that province named Milcho, and was bound under him for six years in the keeping of swine; under whose keeping the herd of swine, which before had been few, was multiplied. Then, the said six years being nearly run out, when he was pouring tearful prayer to God for the cause of his liberation, by angelic indication in a certain pigs’ stye he found a lump of gold, which Patrick delivered to the aforementioned petty king for obtaining his liberty. But when he had been redeemed from servitude the said petty king, his malice increasing, pursued the fugitive from the country to reduce him to the same servitude; but the Lord helping him he escaped his wicked hands, and was carried again by a three days’ voyage to Scotland, and was received most joyfully by his parents weeping for joy. Then for a time, his companions perishing of hunger in the sea, he fed them divinely with a little honey until they reached their own land. Lesson 5.

Now on a certain night he heard in dreams the children of the Irish enclosed in their mother’s womb, crying and saying: “Come, holy boy Patrick, to deliver us.” And he, divinely inspired, though his grieving parents resisted, went to Gaul by ship, and to blessed Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, that in that [place he might be instructed…]

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