Acta Sanctorum, March I (1643–1668 ed.) — translated from the Latin.

Aberdeen (which Camden says signifies in British “the mouth of the Don”) is a Scottish city on the sea-coast in the province of Mar, adorned formerly, while the orthodox religion flourished, with an episcopal see; whose Breviary was printed in the year 1509 at the expense of Walter Chepman, a citizen of Edinburgh. From this were taken the Lessons, or brief lives of the Scottish saints, which are kept in the Scottish seminary of the Society of Jesus, of which we obtained a copy from there. On the first day of March there is read in them the elogium of Saint Marnan, bishop and confessor: but the first part is drawn from the homily of Saint Maximus which is accustomed to be recited in the Common of a confessor-bishop. Then these things are subjoined concerning his burial and relics:

² “At last, weighed down by the infirmity of his body, in holy old age he sent forward his most holy soul to pierce the heavens, and he is buried with due honour in the church of Aberkerdour, which now stands fortified and defended by the most beautiful river Deveron; and there, God working, he rests even to this day, daily giving health to the sick. Now his glorious head is accustomed to be washed every Lord’s day throughout the year, while the people and clergy make humble supplication, with lights kindled; and it is the custom for it to be carried to the infirm and those afflicted with any sickness whatever; and when it has been drunk of by them [the water wherein it was washed], it is the greatest help to their infirmities, and very many thereby obtain health through the merits of the blessed man.”

³ “It came to pass indeed that certain most wicked men of evil thoughts, rashly inflamed with fury and wrath, stole away certain ecclesiastical goods annexed to the same church of Aberkerdour. Being thereupon warned by the diocesan bishop to make satisfaction to the blessed man and to his church whom they had injured, they came there with unshod feet, bearing candles in their hands — stricken, however, by fear and not by love of the saint; and (wondrous to tell!) those candles in their hands, by whatever art applied to the fire, were able by no means to give forth light: but when they were put down out of their hands, they were at once kindled. Moreover a certain tyrant endeavoured to carry off by force a certain tree from the territory of the church of the same place of Lochells in the diocese of Aberdeen, and it was uprooted by a certain rustic; and when that rustic had lightly laid hold of it upon his back and had carried it to the edge and bounds of the same church land, there he laid it down, a little wearied; and when he tried again to carry it further, that tyrant with all his household could not carry it for its exceeding great weight: and there it was left, and the clerk of that parish church carried the same back alone to its former place.”

Thus far the Breviary. From where it seems plainly to be gathered that Saint Marnan was first buried in that church, and that there the rest of his relics are kept, and that his head used to be washed in water, thereafter efficacious for the cure of diseases. But in what province of Scotland that place Aberkerdor, or Aberkerdour, watered by the river Deveron, stands, I have not yet been able to ascertain. David Chalmers [Camerarius], in book 9 Of the Piety of the Scots, writes that Saint Marnan, after various labours undertaken in the Scottish Church, departed this life in Annandale, a province of Scotland near England, and immediately adds: “Moray had the head of Saint Marnan, which with the utmost pomp and honour (the noble and ancient tribe of the Inneses especially accompanying, who bore a most tender affection towards Marnan) used to be carried round to ask of God serenity of the air.” But Moray, commonly Murray, is far distant from Annandale, beyond the Caledonian forest. Yet we are easily led to believe that he was buried in that province or a neighbouring one, since the name Innerness, somewhat akin to that of the river Deveron by which the church of Aberkerdour is said to have been fortified and defended, seems to have been in former times the name of a strong fort in that tract, as also of the river Findhorn; although in those same coasts is also the river Earn, which flows into the estuary of the Tay — whether perchance it be the same as the Deveron, it is not easy for strangers to divine. The same Chalmers makes mention of the church of Aberkerdour, but whether he distinguishes it from the place of burial and from that which kept the head I know not, though he confesses it famous for his relics: “There stands,” says he, “the church of Aberkerdour, watered by the river Deveron, famous under the name of Marnan for the pilgrimage of strangers to the holy relics of Marnan there.”

⁵ Of the age and deeds of Saint Marnan we have hitherto found nothing certain. For we cannot wholly approve those things which the same Chalmers writes in these words: “Saint Marnan, bishop and confessor, by whose guidance and counsel Aidan king of the Scots won a victory, not without a miracle, over Ceaulin king of the East Saxons and Ethelfrid king of Northumbria. For when King Aidan was affrighted by the unexpected multitude of the faithless Saxons, the Scots had almost despaired; when the holy Marnan exhorted the soldiers stricken with fear to repose all their hope in Christ the Lord, the God of hosts, and that, fortified on their foreheads with the saving sign of the cross and crying upon Jesus Christ, they should fearlessly charge upon the enemy. It was done as Marnan had commanded; and they rushed upon the enemy with such courage (fortified with the sign of the cross and naming Christ Jesus) that they wrought a mighty slaughter, Ceaulin and Vitellius, chief men of the Saxons, being slain, and the rest turned to flight. This victory, the one voice of all declared, was to be attributed to the standard of the cross and to the prayers of the Saints Columba (who also, though very far distant in the island of Iona, announced the same by the spirit of prophecy) and Marnan.” Here the author seems to follow the writers of Scottish affairs, Hector Boece, John Leslie, and George Buchanan, who however make no mention of Saint Marnan and err in many things, while they recount various wars of King Aidan against Ethelfrid king of Northumbria stirred up by Ethelfrid himself; whereas it seems that Bede acknowledges but one, and that set in motion by Aidan himself. For thus he writes in book 1, chapter 34 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People: “At this time Ethelfrid, a most valiant king and most eager for glory, reigned over the Northumbrians, who more than all the princes of the English ravaged the nation of the Britons… Whereupon Aedan, king of the Scots that dwell in Britain, being moved by his successes, came against him with an immense and strong army, but was beaten and fled away with few. For in that most famous place which is called Degsastan (that is, the stone of Degsa) almost all his army was slain. In which battle also Theobald, the brother of Ethelfrid, was cut off with all that part of the army which he commanded. Which war Ethelfrid finished in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 603, and the eleventh year of his reign, which he held for twenty-four years; and in the first year of Phocas, who then held the summit of the Roman empire. Nor from that time did any king of the Scots in Britain dare to come to battle against the nation of the English even to this day.” Thus far Bede. But if Ethelfrid had stirred up that war, why did he not use his victory and invade Aidan’s kingdom? And how could Saint Columba then have given forth his prayers for the Scots, who had died six years before? For as Bede testifies in book 3, chapter 4, Saint Columba came from Ireland into Britain in the year 565, and died about thirty-two years after he came into Britain to preach.

⁶ But the Scottish writers wondrously confound these things: some say that Aidan died one year before Saint Columba, others that, hearing of his passing, he was seized rather by grief than by disease, and shortly perished. So Hector. Buchanan subscribes, who nevertheless confesses that Aidan was stricken with defeat, but eleven years after that victory likewise won over Ethelfrid in Northumbria, which Columba announced to his companions in the island of Iona. It is certain by the testimony of Saint Adamnan in the Life of Saint Columba that Aidan won the victory, Saint Columba praying to God for him with his people. For thus he writes in book 1: “When the holy man was in the island of Iona, he suddenly said to his minister Diarmait: ‘Ring the bell.’ At the sound whereof the brethren, stirred up, ran quickly to the church, the holy prelate himself going before. To whom there upon bended knees he began: ‘Now let us pray earnestly to the Lord for this people and for King Aidan, for at this hour they have joined battle.’ And after a little interval, going out of the oratory and looking up to heaven, he said: ‘Now the barbarians are turned to flight, and to Aidan, though unhappy, yet the victory is granted.’” James Ussher thinks from certain annals that this battle befell in the year 590, two years after Fordun, cited by him, relates that Ceaulin, the most mighty king of the West Saxons, was stricken with a great defeat by the Britons. But of these things it will be lawful to inquire in June at the Life of Saint Columba. Let it suffice here to have shown that all these things are related confusedly by the Scots. For in that Chalmers writes that Ceaulin, king of the East Saxons, was with Ethelfrid, he errs, rashly following Buchanan: for there was no king of that name among the East Saxons. There was Ceaulin, a most mighty king of the West Saxons, whom others call Ceaulin and Ceaulin. He perished in the year 593, as the Saxon chronology of Worcester and others has it; in which same year Ethelfrid obtained the kingdom of Northumbria, and at first keenly defended his own, as Malmesbury has it. He never therefore waged war against the Scots in company with Ceaulin, who died about the same time; no, “in the eleventh year of his reign, Aedan king of the Scots,” says the same author, “envying his successes, provoked him, though unwilling, to war.” Thus much concerning that battle, in which Saint Marnan is said to have been present, without the testimony of any other writer.

⁷ More probable may seem to anyone that which the same Chalmers subjoins: “The holy Marnan,” says he, “survived King Aidan many years after his death, and was the adviser to King Eugenius the Fourth of that name, the son of Aidan, that he should receive the English strangers, although his own and most bitter enemies of the Christian name, with the utmost humanity and liberality, since great would be the power of charity and humanity in joining the unbelievers to Christ. Which King Eugenius also did, receiving most honourably the exiled sons of Ethelfrid king of the English, lately slain by the English, and carefully imbuing them with the Christian religion. Nor was it in vain: for indeed Ethelfrid’s sons Oswald and Oswiu, instructed in the faith by the Scots, being raised to the kingship, promoted the Christian cause among the English with great zeal.” Thus far Chalmers. And certainly after the defeat of Aidan by Ethelfrid, as we related above, even to the time when Bede wrote his history, the Scots dwelling in Britain did not in the least molest the nation of the English, as the same writer confirms in book 5, in the last chapter, in these words: “The Scots who inhabit Britain, content with their own borders, contrive no plots or frauds against the nation of the English.” Now he was writing, as he afterwards indicates, in the year of the Incarnation 731. The contrary however is related by Fordun, in Ussher p. 710, concerning Aidan’s son Eochaid Buide, or Buydwelf, whom the Scots commonly call Eugenius — that he gave heed rarely to peace but continually to war, ever infesting the regions of the Saxons with grievous inroads, and sometimes those of the Picts. But Bede, who lived nearest to those times, deserves the greater credit. Concerning Saint Oswald, who, his father Ethelfrid being slain in battle in the year 617, was carried with his brothers into Scotland and there instructed in the mysteries of the Christian faith, we shall treat on the 5th of August, on which he is venerated.

⁸ Furthermore, Chalmers indicates that he drew what he writes of Saint Marnan from the Aberdeen Breviary, the Scone Chronicles, and the King’s Calendar, and others. The words of the Aberdeen Breviary we have recited above. We have seen the Calendar of King Adam, in which Marnan is said to have lived under King Indulf, whom the Scottish writers relate to have reigned in the tenth century, three hundred years after Aidan and Eugenius. And as for what concerns the Scone Chronicles which Chalmers often cites — where they now exist he does not indicate, nor does he anywhere quote their words. Thomas Dempster, in his Ecclesiastical History of the Scots, book 12, chapter 832, refers him also to the times of Indulf, while he relates that he flourished in the year 952 and wrote many things, of which few remnants survive — among them, Of the Keeping of the Covenant, one book; an Admonition to his Native Churches, one book. Where are they now? That author takes it as an established custom to let no one of the ancient Scots famous for holiness pass without ascribing to him some monuments of letters. He adds there, and in the Menology, that he is venerated on the second day of March in the King’s Calendar cited, though the King’s and others put him on the first.

[Here follows in the original the account of Saint Siviard.]