Aberdeen Breviary, summer part (Edinburgh: Chepman & Myllar, 1509-10). Latin office text, extracted from the proprium sanctorum. Contains the end of the office of St Swithun (or a preceding confessor) and the office of St Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne.

[End of the preceding office:] … and with false supplications he converted various men from the error of heathendom; and indeed he baptized the king of the Midland English [the Middle Angles] with all his companions, barons and subjects, and marked him in the holy chrism with the ornament of the faith, and firmly instructed him in the same. Now in the ninth year of his episcopate, full of grace and virtue, on the thirteenth of the Kalends of March [17/18 February] his most holy soul rendered itself to the Lord from the prison of the body. The rest of the day of the Common of one confessor and pontiff.

“Grant us, we beseech you, almighty God, with continual perseverance in your holy service, and by the pious intercession of Colman your confessor and pontiff drawing near, that they may deserve to serve you worthily in glory. Through Christ.” At Matins, nine lessons. Lesson 1.

While the race of the English still remained inconstantly in the manner and infidelity of heathendom, being infected now with the faith of Christ, now with the most evil idolatry: when the reverend father and excellent shepherd Finan the Scot, bishop of Lindisfarne, was dead, the holy man of God Colman, also a Scot, was sent by the Scots to convert and teach them; by whom also of the Scots, not long before raised to the bishopric, he taught and instructed very many and converted them to the Christian faith by evangelical preaching. And when, Lord… Lesson 2.

Now as he was setting out for the English, the fame spread abroad meanwhile that the most holy priest and excellent shepherd Finan the Scot had departed from the world; the holy man of God Colman, also a Scot, sought the succession of the same people of Northumbria, and is read to have presided over them for thirty years; but taking the envy of the English with him, having taken part of the bones of his holy father Aidan the bishop, with the reliquary he returned again to Scotland. Now of what parsimony and frugality of life and continence the prelate himself had been, he himself most devoutly bears witness in the place he governed with his most holy predecessors. Lesson 3.

Now when he returned to Scotland, many of the English, both nobles and men of middling estate who had heard the doctrine of that holy man, leaving parents, country and riches, kindled with the study of the divine law and the grace of a more continent life, withdrew with him, and voluntarily bound themselves faithfully to the monastic observance; but others, going about, gave their service to the lessons of the masters. These Saint Colman instructed gratuitously in the divine law with all chastity and diligence, and administered to them food and the other necessaries of life in a glad and benevolent manner for Christ’s name. Lesson 4.

Hereafter he withdrew himself from England with the Scots whom he had brought from there, and also with the English who followed him, men indeed of the most proved life, to the number of about thirty, who had been imbued with the precepts and doctrines of their religion and monastic discipline; with whom he betook himself to an island named Inisbofinde, not far from Ireland. Lesson 5.

In which island he built a monastery at his own expense, in which he placed together the religious men of both nations whom he had brought with him. And when they could not agree together because of the disparity of their manners — which the blessed Colman seeing, he provided in another place which is called Mayo a monastery, and there leaving the Scots, ordained that the English should dwell apart. Which things being settled, returning again to Scotland, the reverend prelate Tuda, also a Scot, succeeded him to preside, and deservedly received the government of the people. Lesson 6.

Now it happened that through the whole time of his preaching the word of God among the English, equal and common concord without the strife of contention was held; and so great was the attempt of the clergy of their own nation of the English that, the doctrine of the blessed Colman and of the other saints sprung from the race of the Scots having been multiplied and grown, the said English became ungrateful to the teachers and to the blessed Colman, and were indignant, and sought false occasions against them; which they suffered and endured with all patience and giving of thanks, rendering good for evil. Lesson 7.

Now through these most holy men — Aidan first, then Finan and Colman the bishops, sent from the kings of the Scots and the greater men of their clergy to the English — almost four kingdoms of the inhabitants, that is of the Mercians, of the Middle Angles and of the middle part of the kingdom of the East Saxons, were converted to the faith of Christ; and their kings and inhabitants were baptized in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, and faithfully instructed and formed in the works of the faith. And when… Lesson 8.

Now one king of the English, baptized by the Scots, was called Osfrid; who when he had received the inviolate faith most unworthily, like a dog to his vomit returned at last to idolatry and remained in the same. But the people of Northumbria, at the petition of the blessed Oswald, were converted to the faith by the preaching of the blessed father Aidan; and they of the Middle Angles and the Mercians received the faith from the same bishop. Now the paucity of priests compelled one prelate to be set over two peoples of diverse regions; but also the king of the East Saxons, Sigeberht, was instructed by the grace of the Holy Spirit through the blessed Cedd and grew, as the venerable history relates. Lesson 9.

For when the blessed Colman returned to Scotland with the other fathers, men most holy, he kept all things of hospitality to the poor of Christ; the errors, if any, which he found in the faith he rooted out by divine power in wondrous wise; churches, monasteries and other pious places for the love and reverence of God he honourably built and consecrated with solemn apparatus. Whereupon so great a man, full of grace and holiness…