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

Preliminary Commentary. #

§1. Fife is a province of the Scots said to have received its name from Duff, a valiant man, to whom King Kenneth is reported to have granted it eight hundred years ago; it stretches far eastward between the two estuaries, the Forth and the Tay. In it stands the archiepiscopal city of St Andrews, looking out over the open ocean. Here, about the very time of Fife and Kenneth — that is, in the ninth century of the Christian era — lived St Monan, popularly called St Mynnanus. He was, it is said, the companion on pilgrimage and the helper in the apostolic labours of St Adrian, bishop and martyr, of whom we shall treat on 4 March, and was the chief minister of sacred things. Both he and many companions are said, by the Aberdeen Breviary printed in the year 1509 (as we said above), to have come by ship from Hungary or Pannonia to the eastern parts of Scotland, then held by the Picts, out of zeal for the Christian religion. Yet Hector Boece records that others think they were gathered indiscriminately from Scots and English — which seems to us far more credible. For at that period the Chuni, or Avars — barbarians and capital enemies of the Christian religion — had held Hungary for some centuries; so these saints can hardly be thought to have fled from there from a savagery that was only then beginning to rage. Nor, had they been born in Noricum or the neighbouring country of the Boi, was there any reason why they should have travelled in so great a number to such distant lands for the sake of religion — either to defend it, since it flourished at home, or to spread it abroad — when the Moravians were close at hand, and the Slavs, Wends, Carantanians and other peoples stood in the greatest need of cultivation, being either wholly ignorant of the divine mysteries or but lightly touched by them; among the Picts and Scots, by contrast, the knowledge and practice of them flourished after a fashion.

§2. It seems far more probable, therefore, that Monan and those other martyrs and confessors were Scots — either already dwelling in Britain, or new arrivals from Ireland — who wished to instruct in piety and seemly discipline the Picts and other peoples whom Kenneth, king of the Scots, had brought in from elsewhere to cultivate the lands of the Picts, whose native inhabitants had been wondrously reduced; or else (a thing I could not easily believe) they were Angles, or Gauls, or Belgians — nearer peoples certainly, and better supplied at that time with teachers of religion than Pannonians or Noricans. Nor can what Boece writes of the Picts (book 10, p. 200) be established, in my judgement, by the sure testimony of any ancient author — namely that the Danes, who under their leaders Hungwar and Hubba then ravaged Scotland and England and, among innumerable other slaughters, massacred St Adrian and his companions on the Isle of May, alleged as a pretext for war upon the Scots that the wretched remnant of the Picts had transferred to them all the right they had to the kingdom of Albion (from which they had been wrongfully expelled by Scottish arms when nearly the whole people had been slaughtered). A different and more proper cause is certainly given by the ancient writers for what drew those two leaders into England, besides the general one that the Danes, or Normans, long accustomed to piracy, had already begun to vex not only the seacoasts of Belgium and Gaul but the inland regions as well — incited chiefly by the occasion of the wars wickedly stirred up by evil counsellors between the kings of the Franks, Charlemagne’s kinsmen; perhaps also summoned by certain of them. Indeed, those savage nations, issuing from the North by God’s permission chiefly to punish the crimes which Christians everywhere were committing, shook all Europe far and wide: coming, as St Abbo of Fleury — who lived near those times — writes in his Life of St Edmund, king and martyr, “hardened by the frost of their own malice, from that extremity of the earth where he fixed his seat who through pride desired to be like the Most High.” Of these nations the same author adds a little later that they are certainly so cruel by their natural ferocity that they know not how to grow gentle in the face of men’s miseries — since certain of their peoples feed on human flesh. He adds further that within Scythia near the Hyperborean mountains there abound many such nations, which, as we read, will follow Antichrist before all other peoples, so that without any pity they may feed upon the torments of men who refuse to bear the mark of the beast on their foreheads.

§3. But whatever the cause from which that immense tempest then arose from the North, disturbing nearly all the western provinces: there then lived in that part of Scotland which we have described, lying on this side of the estuary of the Tay, St Adrian the bishop, who with St Stolbrand, Glodian and very many others underwent martyrdom on the Isle of May. To these martyrs St Monan is added by John Lesley, David Chalmers and Thomas Dempster. Boece seems to waver — or certainly takes him and St Gaius to be one and the same — enumerating the martyrs thus: “Adrian the venerable prelate, Glodian, Gaius (or, as others say, Monan), the archdeacon of St Andrews, Stolbrand the bishop.” From these words either of two senses must be drawn: either that besides Gaius, Monan too (as others say) was among those martyrs; or that Gaius, as others say, was the same person as Monan; or perhaps Boece had written “Gaius — or Gaius, as others say: Monan,” etc. The former sense I prefer; George Conn seems to have preferred the second, passing over Monan and making Gaius the archdeacon. In the Breviary cited, the archdeacon is Monan — a confessor; Gaius likewise is a confessor, though he is listed on 4 March with the other martyrs.

§4. The Cologne Martyrology, printed in the year 1603, commemorates St Monan thus at the Kalends of March: “On this day, St Monanus, confessor.” Hermann Greven, in the supplement to Usuard printed in 1515 and 1521: “In Scotland, of Monanus, levite and confessor.” But the Florarium MS makes him a bishop: “In England,” it says, “of Monanus, bishop and confessor.” Adam King in his Calendar: “Mynnanus, archdeacon and confessor, in Scotland under King Constantine” — namely the second of that name. Dempster in his Scottish Menologium: “In Scotland, of Minnanus, archdeacon.” But in his Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, book 13, he makes St Monan and Minnanus two different persons — both archdeacons, both famous for published writings. Of St Monan he writes that he composed Epistles to various persons in one book, and Sacred Poems in one book, and was finally crowned with martyrdom together with St Adrian. But of the other, citing no authority beyond the Scottish Breviary (which, if it be the Aberdeen one, does not contain these things), Dempster reports: “St Minnanus the archdeacon flourished, famous for piety and learning alike, most dear to King Kenneth, with whom he travelled through the whole kingdom; and when the king died, unable to bear the abandoned luxury of King Donald V, he withdrew from the court; after that king’s unhappy end he was again held in great honour under King Constantine II. He wrote one book on the lawful union of the Pictish kingdom with the Scottish; one book, an Apology for the King. He lived in the year 878; he is venerated on 1 March; he has a church in Galloway named Kilminnan.”

§5. So writes Dempster — things not even hinted at by the writers of Scottish affairs who treat of Kenneth, Donald and Constantine at length, and indeed hardly consistent with what they narrate. For who would believe that a wise and holy man flourished in such favour with Kenneth as Dempster says, and was his perpetual companion in traversing the kingdom, yet did not hinder that monstrous cruelty of his — which those writers say he exercised upon the Picts, sparing neither age nor sex, nor even priests, until he destroyed the whole race root and branch: a thing pagans in the middle of barbarism would scarcely do? But Kenneth was not so savage (as we think) as those who praise only his wisdom in framing laws, his zeal in cultivating religion, and his magnanimity in waging wars would have it. Kenneth himself and his two sons, Constantine and Eth, are named kings of the Picts in certain ancient annals cited by Ussher, De Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Primordiis, ch. 15, p. 719 — from which Ussher infers (rightly, in our judgement too) that the Picts, though already subject to Scottish rule, still formed the greater and better part of the kingdom of Alba. Moreover Kenneth seemed to claim that kingdom by right, because Hungus — or Oengus, or Ungus — king of the Picts, who had given his sister in marriage to Achaius king of the Scots, had agreed that if he himself left no heir, his sister’s children should take the kingdom. She bore to Achaius a son, Alpin; Alpin’s son was Kenneth, from there called MacAlpin. When therefore Hungus, and shortly after his two sons, had died without issue, the Scots demanded the kingdom for Alpin. The Picts, though none remained of the royal stock, placed on the dead king’s throne a certain man of their own race, Fereds by name; and after him several others who held power for no long space of time. It was fitting, therefore, that the Scots pursue their right by arms. This had the less prosperous beginning when their king Alpin himself was slain in the third year of his reign. His son Kenneth, only in the fifth year — of Christ 840 — routed the Picts, their king Drusken being slain, and joined that kingdom to his own; though he did not (as the Scottish writers affirm) exterminate by arms every last Pict save a few small remnants, of whom part fled to the Angles and were shortly after utterly destroyed by them also, and part to the Danes. Perhaps he put to the sword a nobility that too often rebelled, and emptied of inhabitants such towns as resisted most obstinately — but did not also run riot in slaughter of a surrendered and unwarlike rabble, especially Christians, being himself a Christian and a devout one, as the Scots proclaim. Nevertheless, from that time the Pictish name gradually faded, and both peoples were from then on called Scots. Kenneth reigned from about the year 834 to 855. That St Mynnanus attended him and gave him sound and pious counsel, we do not wholly deny, though it is by no means proved by the testimony of the ancients — but we flatly deny that he was a different person from St Monan.

§6. In the Irish martyrologies written by hand, which John Colgan once communicated to us, the memory of SS Mandanus (or Montanus) and Tianus (or Tiamanus) is said to be celebrated on 23 February — as we noted under that day. Colgan himself, in volume 1 of the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, calls them Mannanus (or Monnanus) and Tianus (or Tiaanus), and hesitates whether the former be not our St Monan here treated, and the latter St Adrian, bishop and martyr, who is venerated on 4 March. But the sole foundation he lays for his conjecture is a certain likeness of names — a thing of small weight indeed — and that in some martyrology or heortology he cites, St Monnanus is called “a valiant champion,” by which he thinks a martyr is signified, and so that St Monan, who was also a martyr, is meant. Yet St Monan did not undergo martyrdom, as we have said; and one who was not a martyr can still sometimes be named a valiant champion. Moreover, what reason is there why one who is venerated among the Scots, where he lived, on 1 March, should be venerated among the Irish on 23 February at Aradhhaird or Aredh-Suird (for he writes it in both places)? Rightly, therefore, we have relegated that Mandanus (or Mannanus) and Tianus to the wish of those saints whose veneration, decreed to them by the Church or paid by the ancient piety of peoples, is not sufficiently proved to us — since Colgan himself admits that nothing at all is established about them: not their age, not their deeds, not their order — but only that, from notes written some centuries ago, some obscure place is gathered where their memory once flourished. But it is strange that Colgan, who had there timidly put forward his conjecture, though he knew that SS Monan and Adrian and their companions are said by Hector Boece to have been gathered indiscriminately from Scots and English, did not himself refer them to 1 or 4 March as natives of Ireland; and strange too that he did not divine that his Mannanus might be St Marnan, of whom we treated on this very day — since that name seems to approach nearer to it, and the acts of St Marnan are not clearly known among the Scots. And this also in Colgan’s account must be corrected: that he writes that the Isle of May lies between Ireland and Britain on this island’s western side — whereas it is on the opposite side of Britain, namely in the estuary of the Forth, which Ptolemy (book 2, ch. 3, map 1 of Europe) calls the Boderia and Tacitus, in the Life of Agricola ch. 23, the Bodotria, and which empties into the German Ocean on the eastern coast of Scotland.

The Life of St Monan. #

From the old Aberdeen Breviary. #

§1. Monan, the Confessor of Christ, was born in the Pannonian province of the region of Hungary, of that company who, with the blessed and most holy man Adrian the prelate, were martyred and crowned on the Isle of May — which stands surrounded by the waves of the sea — by the Norici or Daci, then pagans. But before that aforementioned company of martyrs was consumed by martyrdom on the aforementioned isle, the blessed Monan, sustained by an ardent love of the Christian religion, went across to the neighbouring shore to preach the word of salvation to the people of the land; and in the place called Inverny in Fife, where his holy relics now rest, he chose his dwelling by divine election — in which, pre-eminently devoted to the divine offices, he happily passed his days.

§2. For at his tomb the power that shone in him while living does not cease to make plain, around the body of the dead man, that he is honoured in the heavens: for you may see the blind receive sight, the deaf given hearing, the lame made to walk, contracted bodies stretched straight and right, demoniacs and the possessed restored whole, and all sick persons of every kind of disease brought back to health — and whatever just thing is asked obtained — through the patronage and merits of the blessed Monan. Each of these, lest it weary the reader, is but briefly told. Yet how great his merit was before God is witnessed to this day by the abundant concourse of pilgrims flocking to his tomb.

§3. For although after the blessed man’s ascension to the heavens his precious relics in this world were contained in a humble chapel, the most glorious Prince David, second king of the Scots of that name — most warlike and valiant — built a sumptuous church in reverence of the said confessor and in honour of God, on account of the recovery, through St Monan’s merits, of the king himself and others of his realm from various diseases; and he endowed it with many and notable possessions for the sustenance of religious men in that place.

§4. It happened meanwhile that in a battle fought against the English by the aforementioned king, he was mortally wounded by an iron barbed arrow, commonly called a catapult-bolt, which neither the art of physicians nor the remedy of surgeons could draw out, so that all feared the king’s death rather than hoped for his life. At last, all remedies of medicine being abandoned, he solemnly made a vow to St Monan and hastened to his shrine; which being done, that iron arrow sprang out of the king’s wound of its own accord, and he was made whole and sound without a scar.

§5. A certain honourable matron, adorned with distinguished parents, was made furious by a miserable calamity — to such a degree that, driven by madness and the fury of wrath, stirred by an evil spirit, she tried to tear to pieces the parents who begot her and the children she had borne, rending them like a biting dog against nature. At length bound and placed in the firmest chains, she was brought by her parents to St Monan; for her deliverance her parents poured out most devout prayers to God and the blessed Monan; and when the poor woman had rested a little and awoken again, through the merits of the blessed Monan the demons who occupied the woman’s body went out with great howlings, leaving her half-dead. Upon their departure she was at once restored to her former health, blessing the Lord everywhere in His deeds.

Footnotes:

a) Of what nation St Monan seems to have been born, we have said in the preliminary commentary, and shall say again on 4 March in the Life of St Adrian, bishop and martyr.

b) The Danes are found called by the name of Daci by writers of the middle age, though those nations were different and far removed from one another. Norici likewise is taken for Norwegians or Northmen, especially by certain writers of English history — although the Norici were of old neighbours to the Rhaeti, Vindelici and Boii, and on the east to the Pannonians, bounded on the north by the river Danube. As for the notion that the name should be derived from the word Nort, which in Teutonic signifies the North — so that Noricum would be Nort-riick, that is, “Northern kingdom” — I would more readily assent to it than to the fable reported by Lazius from I know not what annals concerning Norix son of Hercules, who is said to have conquered the Boii, settlers in that region come from Armenia; when the Boii themselves, sprung from Gaul, took their seats in Noricum.

c) David II succeeded his father Robert Bruce in the kingdom of Scotland about the year 1329, being almost a boy; he died in 1371, having suffered many hardships of war during the whole time of his reign, which the writers of Scottish history relate at length — one of whom, a man otherwise far from good, yet well notes that fortune, rather than industry, always seemed to fail him.

d) Boece says this happened when David was captured by the English: “hemmed in by so great a number,” he says, “having already received two wounds with the darts still sticking in him, he could not break through.” That the king was indeed wounded then, others also admit. Henry Knighton, a writer of that time, in his book on the events of England under the year 1346 (not 1348 as some have it) says: “The king of Scotland fled from the battle and was wounded by an arrow in the head, and was captured at Merrington by one of John Coupland’s men.” And Buchanan, book 9: “The king himself was captured by John Copland, whose two teeth he had knocked out with his fist when the darts were pulled from him — but already gravely wounded by two arrows.” How then could he have made his way to the Saint’s shrine, as Boece also indicates, when he was being held captive among the English?

e) Boece: “One dart fixed in the king’s shin-bone could not be drawn out at once, not until he visited St Ninian. For then the shin-bone was seen plainly to open, and the dart to spring forth.” But St Ninian, bishop of Candida Casa and apostle of the Southern Picts — four hundred years older than Mynnan — is a different person from St Mynnan or Monan; we shall give his Life on 16 September. David Chalmers records that the king was cured by the favour of St Monan, not St Ninian, writing expressly thus: “King David, placing all hope in God and recalling the miracles which He wrought through His servant Monan, was brought to Inverny, where his tomb was, accompanied by the nobles of the realm,” etc. And after narrating that miracle he adds: “In perpetual memory of this benefit King David had a most sumptuous church built there in honour of the blessed Monan, and first endowed it with revenues, assigning collegiate priests to that church for the celebration of the divine mysteries.”

[Here follows in the source the entry for St Leo, martyr.]