The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History by John B. Bury

Author:John B. Bury [Bury, John B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9787917569103
Google: dM8LAQAAIAAJ
Publisher: Macmillan and Company, Limited
Published: 1905-01-15T01:09:21+00:00

8. Vita Tertia

An anonymous Life of Patrick, dating perhaps from the ninth century, is preserved in MSS. representing two different recensions, which I have investigated and attempted to reconstruct in “A Life of St. Patrick” (Transactions of R.I.A. xxxii. C, Part iii.) 1903. A corrupt text, with large accretions at beginning and end, was published by Colgan in the Trias Thaum. as his “ Tertia Vita,” and this designation may be conveniently retained. The Life was written in Ireland by an Irishman, but the archetype of our MSS. was written in West Britain, as is shown by Brythonic (Welsh or Cornish) interpolations. One interpolation, which has led to vain speculation, must be noticed here. The passage in c. 21, alleging a visit of Patrick to Martin, can be shown to have been intruded into the context (which otherwise depends on Muirchu) and caused confusion in the sense. The interpolator states that an angel told Martin to go to the insula Tamarensis ; modern biographers have supposed that the command was given to Patrick, though it can hardly be held that there is any ambiguity in the Latin, and have conjectured many things about the mysterious island. The island is St. Nicholas at the mouth of the Tamar in Plymouth Sound, as Mr. C. J. Bates discerned. St. Martin was popular in south-west Britain; and this interpolation enables us to connect the archetype specially with south-west Britain. From it was derived a lost Glastonbury copy which is the parent of two of our existing MSS., which contain an interpolation claiming Glastonbury as Patrick’s burial-place.

The author of the Life used the Confession, Muirchu, Tírechán ; but he also incorporated a number of stories and incidents not found in any of the documents in the Liber Armachanus. Some of these stories are also found in the Vita Tripartita or the Vita Quarta, but others are not found elsewhere (see my enumeration, op. Cit. 221-2).

[The Vita Patricii, in the Sanctilogium of John of Tinmouth (see Text in Horstman’s Nova Legenda Anglie, vol. ii.) is an abridgment of the Vita Tertia; cp. Bury, op. cit. 223-4.]

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