Messingham, Florilegium (1624), ex Giraldo Cambrensi — translated from the Latin.

¹ COLUMBA, AND BRIGID,

² Celebrating with due praises the translation of the glorious patrons of Ireland — Patrick, archbishop of Ireland, first founder of the faith and apostle of that people, and Saint Columba the abbot, and Saint Brigid the virgin — let us observe it with devout mind. For it is said that at the time of the conquest of Ireland by the English there was a certain Malachy, a man of great merit, of holy life and conduct, bishop of Down, where the bodies of the aforementioned saints were then buried.

³ This bishop, devoting himself diligently to prayer, besought God almost daily that he would deign to reveal to him where so precious a treasure of relics, namely of the said saints, was hidden, and that it might be made manifest in his own time. And when one night he was praying thus most earnestly in the church of Down, he saw, as it were, a ray of the sun passing through the church and shining as far as the place of burial of the bodies of the said saints.

⁴ The bishop, greatly rejoicing at the aforementioned vision, prayed more earnestly that the ray would not depart until he should find the hidden relics. And then, rising at dawn with the necessary attendants, he went to the ground illumined and dug until he found the necks of the three aforementioned bodies. And over what the ray shone, he placed them separately upon boards, and having thus placed them on boards, laid them again under the earth in the same place.

⁵ At that time a knight of great probity, John de Courcy, conqueror of that country, presided in Ulster, who was much devoted to God and to his service; to him the said Malachy showed and related all these things by revelation. With his consent and great assistance a devout petition was sent to Rome to the Supreme Pontiff for permission to translate the said holy relics.

⁶ The Pope, inclining his ears to the aforementioned petition, sent into Ireland John, cardinal priest with the title of St Stephen on the Caelian Hill and legate of the Apostolic See. He, in the church of St Patrick in Down, on the fifth of the Ides of June [9 June], with due reverence and services performed, translated the aforenamed relics from the place where they had been buried and replaced by Malachy to a worthy place prepared for this purpose in the same church.

⁷ Now at the time of their translation there presided in the said church, together with the said legate, fifteen bishops with abbots, provosts, deans, archdeacons, priors, and very many other orthodox men. They decreed that the day of the translation of the said saints should be celebrated every year by all the faithful of Christ established throughout Ireland, on the fourth of the Ides of June [10 June], transferring the feast of St Columba to the day after the Octave of these relics.

⁸ The Lord sent before his face to Ireland two disciples full of charity, namely Saint Patrick and Blessed Brigid, to preach — Patrick acknowledging in himself human frailty, and Brigid the frailty of women.

⁹ And thereafter, for the greater perfection of charity, he sent Blessed Columba. Now by his name the Spirit, who is the highest charity, is known to be signified [columba = dove]. These three rested in charity in one place after their death, and were translated together. May that charity which these three had and preached be ever with us all, through the most high Trinity, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

¹⁰ Concerning this translation Giraldus Cambrensis also speaks thus in the Topographia Hiberniae:

¹¹ Now Saint Columba and Saint Brigid were contemporaries of Patrick; and in Ulster, in the same city, namely Down, the bodies of the three are laid together. And in our own times, in the year in which the lord Count John [King John] first came to Ireland, they were found — as it were in a triple sepulchre, Patrick lying in the middle, the other two on either side. John de Courcy then presiding there and procuring it, three noble treasures were found by divine revelation and translated; from which the verses:

¹² In Down, in one grave, three lie buried together: Brigid, Patrick, and the pious Columba.

THE END.