volumes has
appeared
under the title
32 See " The Church History of Brittany,"
130 to 133.
32 See " The Church History of Brittany,"
130 to 133.
O'Hanlon - Lives of the Irish Saints - v9
D.
: — "A great triad-of-champions that are not wretched.
Moinenn the cry of every mouth ; in Iona Laisren the happy, with Laisr£n* the great of Men.
" —" Trans- actions of the Royal Irish Academy," Irish Manuscript Series, vol.
i.
, part i.
On the Calendar of Oengus, p.
cxxxviii.
14 This happened in 1 142, and the next year he was Abbot of Rievaux.
15 See Pinkerton's " Vita? Antiquae Sanc- torum in Scotia. " Vita S. Niniani, per Ailredum Abbatem Rievall.
16 In the " Relationvm Historicarvm de Rebus Anglicis," of John Pitts, there is a list of the works written by Ealred Rieual-
7 There he is said to have been Moinend
of Cluain Conaire-Tomain, in the north of lensis, in tomus i. —all published—Aetas
Ui-Foelain. See ibid. , p. cxlvi.
8 Edited by Rev. Dr. Kelly, p. xxxiv.
9 There, too, at this date we have a feast
for monenn Cluain Confine.
duodecima, num. 227, pp. 229 230.
17 See "Vita; Antiquae Sanctorum," qui habitaverunt in ea parte Britannia? nunc vocata Scotia vel in ejus insulis. Quasdam
edidit ex MSS. , quasdam collegit J. Pinker- ton, qui et variantes lectiones et notas
10
Rev. Dr. Elrington's edition.
See his works, vol. vi. , pp. 209, and 565.
11
This was procured from Ireland, to serve the purposes of the early Bollandists.
12
See "Acta Sanctorum," tomus v. , Sep- tembris xvi. De S. Niniano Episcopo, Pic- torum Australium Apostolo. Commentarius Historico-Criticus, sect, ii. , num. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, pp, 321, 322.
13 His name has been softened from the SaxonEthelred. HeisalsoknownasAilre- dus, Alredus, ^Elredus, Elredus, Adelre- dus, Hetheldredus. Altredus, Atheldredus,
Ealredus, Hailredus, Baldredus, Aluredus, Ealfredus, and Valredus. This Holy Abbot was the son of Eilef Lawreu, who held the revenues and had charge of the church at Hexham, which he afterwards surrendered, and became a Benedictine monk at Dur- ham. See Prior Richard's " of the
pauculas adjecit. Londini. 1789.
18
Noted as Laud. F. xv. ,cent. xii. ; Laud. Misc. 668, ff. 78-89.
19 See Rev. Dr. W. M. Medcalfe's
ho lie,
"
History
Church of Hexham," p. 50. St. Ailred was Pictorum Australian! Apostolo Candida?
born, in the year 1 109, and began his life at the Court of David I. , King of Scotland, whose Life he afterwards wrote, in two Books.
Casae in Scotia, pp. 318 to 328.
24 The editor was Father Urban Sticker,
P. M.
by
cient Lives of Scottish Saints," Paisley,
1895, 8vo.
20
Classed, Laud. Misc. 668, ff. 78-89. "Classed, Tib. D. cent, xiii. , hi. , fob 186-
192 ; and Tib. E. i.
22
It seems to have been that from which
Capgrave produced his Vita S. Niniani.
See " Nova Legenda Anglie," impressa
Londonias in domo Winandi de Worde, commorantis ad Signum Solis, in vico nun- cupate (the flete strete) A. D. Mcccccxvi. , xxvii. die Februarii.
23 See "Acta Sancforum," tomus v. ,
xvi. De S. Niniano Septembris Episcopo,
St. Ailred,
An-
September 16. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 387
Although using the Life by John Capgrave, and commenting on it, the Bollandists have not reproduced it. They mention two other manuscripts of the Life, as being known to themes One of these belonged to the Monas- terium Rubeae Vallis, and the other to the Carthusian Convent*6 at Cologne.
An account of St. Ninian will be found in the works of many medieval
as in John of Fordun, 2 7 Andrew of
29 in
Also his Memoirs may be found in the Works of Archbishop Ussher, Dean
2 34
Cressy,3 Bishop Challenor,33 Bishop Tanner, Rev. Alban Butler,35 George
6 Rev. Dr. 38 Rev. Cun- Chalmers,3 John Pinkerton,37 Lanigan, Grub,39 John
1 42
ningham,4° Darras,* Le Comte de Montalembert, Les Petits Bollandistes,*'
the Encyclopaedia Britannica,44 Chambers's Encyclopaedia's Rev. S. Baring- Gould'6 William F. Skene,47 and William Nimmo. 48 Of late, a most
interesting andL learned Church History of Scotland has been written in
German49 by the Very Rev. Alphons Bellesheim, D. D. , Canon of Aix-la- Chapelle, and it contains an account of our Saint in the opening chapter^
°1
Among the Lives of the English Saints,"* there is a Life of St. Ninian,
36 See ' 'Caledonia," vol. i. , book ii. , chap, ii. , pp. 315 to 317, and vol. iii. , chap. iv. , sect, viii. , pp. 410 to 414.
37See ' into the of Enquiry History
'
Scottish and English Chroniclers ;
Wyntoun,
28 in
John Capgrave,
John Leland,3°
and in
Johi\
Pitts. 31
has been made for these, but Such of the Manuscripts of this convent,
25
they cannot be found.
Enquiry 26
as were not sent to the National
Paris, by Decree of Napoleon I. , in 1809 or 1810, had been assigned, with those belonging to the other convents, to the Ecole Central at Cologne. These are at present in the Library of the Marzellen Gymnasium there, but the Vita S. Niniani
does not appear among them.
27 See Joannis de Fordun "Chronica
Gentis Scotorum," edited by William F.
Skene, lib. iii. , cap. ix. , p. 95. Edinburgh, 1871, 8vo. And a translation into English of
the same work, by his brother, Felix J. H. Skene, lib. iii. , cap. ix. , pp. 86, 87. Edinburgh, 1872, 8vo.
2* See "The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland," by Androw of Wyntoun, edited by David Laing, vol. i. ,book v. , chap, x. , p. 385, and vol. ii. , book viii. , chap, xvi. , p. 357. Edinburgh, 1872, 8vo.
29 See Nova Legenda Anglie," fol. ccxli. , ccxliii.
30 See " Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis," chap, xxxiii. , pp. 56, 57.
31 See Joannis Pitsei Angli, S. Theologiae
Doctoris, Liverduni in Lotharingia Decani,
" Relationvm Historicarvm de Rebus pp. 2 to 6. Anglicis," tomus i. , Aetas Quinta, num. 30.
De Niniano, pp. 86, 87. Parisiis, 1619, 4to.
Library
at
48 See "History of Stirlingshire," vol. i. , chap, xxi. , pp. 375 to 377.
49 It has since been translated into English, book viii. , chap, xii. , pp. 154, 155, and with notes and additions, by D. Oswald- chap, xxi. , p. 161, also book ix. , chap, xi. , Hunter Blair, O. S. B. , Monk of Fort pp. 184, 185. Augustus. This translation in Four 8vo. 33 See "Britannia Sancta," part ii. , pp.
volumes has appeared under the title
32 See " The Church History of Brittany,"
130 to 133.
34 See " Bibliotheca
History of the Catholic Church of Scot-
nica," pp. 548, 549.
85 See " Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and
other Principal Saints," vol. ix. , September
the present Day. Edinburgh, 1877 to 1890, 8vo.
50 See ibid. , vol. i. , chap, i. , pp. 1 to 17. Published by T. Toovey, in 1845, 12m*
Britannico-Hiber-
Scotland,' vol. ii. , part vi. , chap, i. , pp. 162 et seq.
38 See " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. i. , chap, i. , n. 149, p. 45, and chap, ix. , sect, ii. , and n. 17, pp. 434, 437, 438.
39 See "Ecclesiastical History of Scot- land," vol. i. , chap. ii.
40 See "Church History of Scotland," vol. i. , chap, iii. , pp. 50 to 53.
41 See " Histoire Generate de l'Eglise,"
tome iii. , p. 165.
42 See "Les Moines d'Occident," tome
iii. , liv. x. , chap, i. , pp. 19 to 24.
43 See " Vies des Saints," tome xi. ,
xvie Tour de Septembre, pp. 127, 128, and n.
44 See vol. xvii. , p. 513. Ninth edition.
1875, et seq. Edinburgh, 4to.
45 See vol. vii. , p. 506. New edition.
Edinburgh, 1888, etseq. Imp. 8vo.
46 See "Lives of the Saints," vol. ix. ,
September xvi. , pp. , 262 to 265.
47 See "Celtic Scotland : a History of
Ancient Alban," vol. ii. , book ii. , chap. i.
"
land from the introduction of Christianity to
3 88 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [September 16. Bishop of Candida Casa, and attributed to the Rev. John Barrow, D. D. ,
Oxford. In the " of Dictionary
of St. Edmund
Hall,
Christian Biography,"5 there is an interesting account of this saint, written
formerly Principal
2
bytheRev. JamesGammack. 53 However,mostcompleteandsatisfactory of all other Memoirs to the historical student are the researches of a prelate, who has rendered inestimable services to the elucidation of Scottish ecclesias- tical history. The Lives of St. Ninian and of St. Kentigern, have been edited by the Right Rev. Alexander Penrose Forbes, D. C. L. , Bishop of Brechin. 54 Not alone has he given an English translation of St. Ailrid's Latin Life of St. Ninian but in his learned General Introduction, and in
;
the appended Notes, which illustrate the allusions contained i-n it, hardly
anything seems wanting to furnish material for additional investigation. We
acknowledge with grateful obligation our indebtedness to this scholarly
monograph, for such intelligence as we may be able to convey, regarding the difficulties and obscurities that surround a biography and a period of history
so remote, and yet so interesting, as dating back to the very primordia of Christianity in Scoiland.
The present saint, Monenn or Maoinean, supposed to have been
identical with St. Ninian, is the earliest recorded Apostle of the Picts or
Caledonians. In this connection, the honorific Irish word mo, which signifies
""
my has been prefixed to Nenn or Nean, which are forms of St. Ninian's
name. The coincidence of the festival day, both in the Irish and British
Martyrologies, serves to favour such conjecture.
The great apostle of the S uthem Picts has been variedly named. By
Venerable Bede he has been called Ninia, and again Nynias. The Welsh
call him Nynnian. ss According to Venerable Bede, Bishop Ninian was of the nation of the Britons. These are said to have been the Cumraig Britons,s6 who, with the Roman soldiers, at the time of his birth, held the Romanised province of Valentia. Various opinions have been offered as to the exact place of Ninian's birth. It has been generaWy held, that he first saw the light in the country of the Niduni, or Niduari,57 in the south-western district of Scotland. 58 Some writers would make him to have been a Pict, by birth ; but, it has been stated, there were no Picts in that district until 426, at soonest. 59 However, the districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, extending to the Solway Firth on the west, and to the Tyne on the east, were possessed by two kingdoms of the Britons. The former of these lay to the west, and extended northwards from the river Derwent in Cumberland,
5* Edited by William Smith, D. C. L. , as on the Map in William F. Skene's
LI,. I). ,and Henry Wace, D. D. , vol. iv. , pp. "Celtic Scotland: a History of Ancient
45. 46. Alban," vol. i. , hook i. , chap, v. , p. 228.
55M. &—
A. , LL. D. , Aberdeen. Leland thus writes regarding "Ninianus
54 .
"
"Ex Venetica duxisse eum
This edition forms the Fifth Volume of
Britannus"
:
the
1874. 8vo.
origininem provincia antiquitas adlirmabat, fratremque habuisse nomine Ph'benium, et trnerosin melioribus studiisannos collocssse. Hinc, virile accrescente rctate, et Rrigantes Nortabriorum gentem, et Novanles mariti- mos illos sedulus invisit : quorum sedes ibi
erant, ubi nunc Begcc promontorium, I. u°u- ballia et Gallovidia Pu/ica. "—" Commen- taiii de Scriptoribus Britannicis," cap. xxxiii. , p. 56.
59 See John Pinkerton's " Enquiry into the History of Scotland," vol. ii. , part vi. , chap. i. , p. 265.
Historians of Scotland," Edinburgh,
55 On referring to the Life of St. Ninnio
or Ninian, the Senior, or the Old. Apostle
of the Southern Picts, chap, i. , at the 25th
of July, and in the Sixth Volume of this
work, Art. i. , the many other names, by
which he had been distinguished may be found.
56 See John Pinkerton's "Enquiry into the History of Scotland," vol. ii. , part vi. , chap, i. , p. 265.
» Sometimes distinguished Niduari Picts,
September 16. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 389
to the Firth of Clyde, and its people were known as the Strathclyde Britons ; while the latter included the Angles of Bernicia, towards the east.
It is stated, that this early Christian Apostle had been the son of a Christian father, who was also a king in that part of the island of Britain, towards the north-west,6° where the ocean stretching forth its arms formed an angle on each side, which divided Scotland from England in after times.
6'
This description applies to Galloway, in its old extent.
Scotland was inhabited by a people known as the Gallo Gaidhel. 62 That
6 3 which was situated in the south part of Britannia Barbara, * or the country lying north of the Picts' Wall, so far as Graham's Dyke, including also Northumberland, Dumfries, and other parts of Scotland. This territory was wrested from the Picts and Scots, during the reign of Valentinian, and formed into a Roman Province by Theodosius. However, it remained only for a short time in
possession of the Romans.
Ninian is said to have been born about the year 360, and of noble
parentage, in the country of the Novantes, near the Leuchophibia of Ptolemy, and the Whithern of modern times. 65 According to some accounts he had a brother named Plebenius, but this seems to be on a very doubtful tradition. 66 In his very infancy, Ninian was regenerated in the water of holy baptism ; and in the rhetorical language of his biographer Ailred, he preserved immaculate the nuptial robe of white he had received, while as a conqueror of vice, he presented it in the sight of Christ, and that Holy Spirit he first received to cleanse him, by most devout ways he merited to maintain, as the instructor of his pious heart. While still a boy, he shunned
whatever was contrary to religion, adverse to chastity, opposed to good morals, or discordant with the law of Truth. He ceased not to follow what- ever was useful to man, or pleasing to God ; he meditated on the command- ments, by day and by night ; he fulfilled every duty of life with the greatest devotion. Sparing* in food, reticent in speech, agreeable in manners, full of seriousness, and assiduous in study ; in everything he subjected the flesh to the spirit. He had a great reverence for churches, and a love for religious men. EspeciallywashisminddevotedtothestudyoftheSacredScriptures, and from them he learned to aspire after perfection, in which through a profound sense of humility he deemed himself very deficient. At length, through divine inspiration, he was induced to abandon family, friends and home, and to undertake a distant pilgrimage, as a suitable preparation for an enterprise of great importance he then meditated.
Having passed over the Britannic Sea, he travelled through Gaul. At this time paganism and the old heathen ideas were fast disappearing before the advances of Christianity on the continent. The most ancient city of modern
district was also within the Roman Province of 6
Valentia,
German)', Treves,
6? on the Moselle River, had been the long
60 This was as a distinct regarded
63 See Dr. William Smith's "
capital
Dictionary
princi- pality until about the tenth or eleventh
century.
61 See Father Innes' "Civil and Ecclesi-
astical History of Scotland," book i. , sect. xxviii. , p. 33.
62
This district, con*isting of the shires of Kirkcudbright and Wigton, was known to the Welsh as Galwydel, and to the Irish as Gallgaidel, from which had been formed
the name Gallweitha, now Galloway. See William F. Skene's "Celtic Scotland: a HistoryofAncientAlban,"vol. i. , booki. , chap, v. , p. 238, 239.
of Greek and Roman Geography," vol.
14 This happened in 1 142, and the next year he was Abbot of Rievaux.
15 See Pinkerton's " Vita? Antiquae Sanc- torum in Scotia. " Vita S. Niniani, per Ailredum Abbatem Rievall.
16 In the " Relationvm Historicarvm de Rebus Anglicis," of John Pitts, there is a list of the works written by Ealred Rieual-
7 There he is said to have been Moinend
of Cluain Conaire-Tomain, in the north of lensis, in tomus i. —all published—Aetas
Ui-Foelain. See ibid. , p. cxlvi.
8 Edited by Rev. Dr. Kelly, p. xxxiv.
9 There, too, at this date we have a feast
for monenn Cluain Confine.
duodecima, num. 227, pp. 229 230.
17 See "Vita; Antiquae Sanctorum," qui habitaverunt in ea parte Britannia? nunc vocata Scotia vel in ejus insulis. Quasdam
edidit ex MSS. , quasdam collegit J. Pinker- ton, qui et variantes lectiones et notas
10
Rev. Dr. Elrington's edition.
See his works, vol. vi. , pp. 209, and 565.
11
This was procured from Ireland, to serve the purposes of the early Bollandists.
12
See "Acta Sanctorum," tomus v. , Sep- tembris xvi. De S. Niniano Episcopo, Pic- torum Australium Apostolo. Commentarius Historico-Criticus, sect, ii. , num. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, pp, 321, 322.
13 His name has been softened from the SaxonEthelred. HeisalsoknownasAilre- dus, Alredus, ^Elredus, Elredus, Adelre- dus, Hetheldredus. Altredus, Atheldredus,
Ealredus, Hailredus, Baldredus, Aluredus, Ealfredus, and Valredus. This Holy Abbot was the son of Eilef Lawreu, who held the revenues and had charge of the church at Hexham, which he afterwards surrendered, and became a Benedictine monk at Dur- ham. See Prior Richard's " of the
pauculas adjecit. Londini. 1789.
18
Noted as Laud. F. xv. ,cent. xii. ; Laud. Misc. 668, ff. 78-89.
19 See Rev. Dr. W. M. Medcalfe's
ho lie,
"
History
Church of Hexham," p. 50. St. Ailred was Pictorum Australian! Apostolo Candida?
born, in the year 1 109, and began his life at the Court of David I. , King of Scotland, whose Life he afterwards wrote, in two Books.
Casae in Scotia, pp. 318 to 328.
24 The editor was Father Urban Sticker,
P. M.
by
cient Lives of Scottish Saints," Paisley,
1895, 8vo.
20
Classed, Laud. Misc. 668, ff. 78-89. "Classed, Tib. D. cent, xiii. , hi. , fob 186-
192 ; and Tib. E. i.
22
It seems to have been that from which
Capgrave produced his Vita S. Niniani.
See " Nova Legenda Anglie," impressa
Londonias in domo Winandi de Worde, commorantis ad Signum Solis, in vico nun- cupate (the flete strete) A. D. Mcccccxvi. , xxvii. die Februarii.
23 See "Acta Sancforum," tomus v. ,
xvi. De S. Niniano Septembris Episcopo,
St. Ailred,
An-
September 16. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 387
Although using the Life by John Capgrave, and commenting on it, the Bollandists have not reproduced it. They mention two other manuscripts of the Life, as being known to themes One of these belonged to the Monas- terium Rubeae Vallis, and the other to the Carthusian Convent*6 at Cologne.
An account of St. Ninian will be found in the works of many medieval
as in John of Fordun, 2 7 Andrew of
29 in
Also his Memoirs may be found in the Works of Archbishop Ussher, Dean
2 34
Cressy,3 Bishop Challenor,33 Bishop Tanner, Rev. Alban Butler,35 George
6 Rev. Dr. 38 Rev. Cun- Chalmers,3 John Pinkerton,37 Lanigan, Grub,39 John
1 42
ningham,4° Darras,* Le Comte de Montalembert, Les Petits Bollandistes,*'
the Encyclopaedia Britannica,44 Chambers's Encyclopaedia's Rev. S. Baring- Gould'6 William F. Skene,47 and William Nimmo. 48 Of late, a most
interesting andL learned Church History of Scotland has been written in
German49 by the Very Rev. Alphons Bellesheim, D. D. , Canon of Aix-la- Chapelle, and it contains an account of our Saint in the opening chapter^
°1
Among the Lives of the English Saints,"* there is a Life of St. Ninian,
36 See ' 'Caledonia," vol. i. , book ii. , chap, ii. , pp. 315 to 317, and vol. iii. , chap. iv. , sect, viii. , pp. 410 to 414.
37See ' into the of Enquiry History
'
Scottish and English Chroniclers ;
Wyntoun,
28 in
John Capgrave,
John Leland,3°
and in
Johi\
Pitts. 31
has been made for these, but Such of the Manuscripts of this convent,
25
they cannot be found.
Enquiry 26
as were not sent to the National
Paris, by Decree of Napoleon I. , in 1809 or 1810, had been assigned, with those belonging to the other convents, to the Ecole Central at Cologne. These are at present in the Library of the Marzellen Gymnasium there, but the Vita S. Niniani
does not appear among them.
27 See Joannis de Fordun "Chronica
Gentis Scotorum," edited by William F.
Skene, lib. iii. , cap. ix. , p. 95. Edinburgh, 1871, 8vo. And a translation into English of
the same work, by his brother, Felix J. H. Skene, lib. iii. , cap. ix. , pp. 86, 87. Edinburgh, 1872, 8vo.
2* See "The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland," by Androw of Wyntoun, edited by David Laing, vol. i. ,book v. , chap, x. , p. 385, and vol. ii. , book viii. , chap, xvi. , p. 357. Edinburgh, 1872, 8vo.
29 See Nova Legenda Anglie," fol. ccxli. , ccxliii.
30 See " Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis," chap, xxxiii. , pp. 56, 57.
31 See Joannis Pitsei Angli, S. Theologiae
Doctoris, Liverduni in Lotharingia Decani,
" Relationvm Historicarvm de Rebus pp. 2 to 6. Anglicis," tomus i. , Aetas Quinta, num. 30.
De Niniano, pp. 86, 87. Parisiis, 1619, 4to.
Library
at
48 See "History of Stirlingshire," vol. i. , chap, xxi. , pp. 375 to 377.
49 It has since been translated into English, book viii. , chap, xii. , pp. 154, 155, and with notes and additions, by D. Oswald- chap, xxi. , p. 161, also book ix. , chap, xi. , Hunter Blair, O. S. B. , Monk of Fort pp. 184, 185. Augustus. This translation in Four 8vo. 33 See "Britannia Sancta," part ii. , pp.
volumes has appeared under the title
32 See " The Church History of Brittany,"
130 to 133.
34 See " Bibliotheca
History of the Catholic Church of Scot-
nica," pp. 548, 549.
85 See " Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and
other Principal Saints," vol. ix. , September
the present Day. Edinburgh, 1877 to 1890, 8vo.
50 See ibid. , vol. i. , chap, i. , pp. 1 to 17. Published by T. Toovey, in 1845, 12m*
Britannico-Hiber-
Scotland,' vol. ii. , part vi. , chap, i. , pp. 162 et seq.
38 See " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. i. , chap, i. , n. 149, p. 45, and chap, ix. , sect, ii. , and n. 17, pp. 434, 437, 438.
39 See "Ecclesiastical History of Scot- land," vol. i. , chap. ii.
40 See "Church History of Scotland," vol. i. , chap, iii. , pp. 50 to 53.
41 See " Histoire Generate de l'Eglise,"
tome iii. , p. 165.
42 See "Les Moines d'Occident," tome
iii. , liv. x. , chap, i. , pp. 19 to 24.
43 See " Vies des Saints," tome xi. ,
xvie Tour de Septembre, pp. 127, 128, and n.
44 See vol. xvii. , p. 513. Ninth edition.
1875, et seq. Edinburgh, 4to.
45 See vol. vii. , p. 506. New edition.
Edinburgh, 1888, etseq. Imp. 8vo.
46 See "Lives of the Saints," vol. ix. ,
September xvi. , pp. , 262 to 265.
47 See "Celtic Scotland : a History of
Ancient Alban," vol. ii. , book ii. , chap. i.
"
land from the introduction of Christianity to
3 88 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [September 16. Bishop of Candida Casa, and attributed to the Rev. John Barrow, D. D. ,
Oxford. In the " of Dictionary
of St. Edmund
Hall,
Christian Biography,"5 there is an interesting account of this saint, written
formerly Principal
2
bytheRev. JamesGammack. 53 However,mostcompleteandsatisfactory of all other Memoirs to the historical student are the researches of a prelate, who has rendered inestimable services to the elucidation of Scottish ecclesias- tical history. The Lives of St. Ninian and of St. Kentigern, have been edited by the Right Rev. Alexander Penrose Forbes, D. C. L. , Bishop of Brechin. 54 Not alone has he given an English translation of St. Ailrid's Latin Life of St. Ninian but in his learned General Introduction, and in
;
the appended Notes, which illustrate the allusions contained i-n it, hardly
anything seems wanting to furnish material for additional investigation. We
acknowledge with grateful obligation our indebtedness to this scholarly
monograph, for such intelligence as we may be able to convey, regarding the difficulties and obscurities that surround a biography and a period of history
so remote, and yet so interesting, as dating back to the very primordia of Christianity in Scoiland.
The present saint, Monenn or Maoinean, supposed to have been
identical with St. Ninian, is the earliest recorded Apostle of the Picts or
Caledonians. In this connection, the honorific Irish word mo, which signifies
""
my has been prefixed to Nenn or Nean, which are forms of St. Ninian's
name. The coincidence of the festival day, both in the Irish and British
Martyrologies, serves to favour such conjecture.
The great apostle of the S uthem Picts has been variedly named. By
Venerable Bede he has been called Ninia, and again Nynias. The Welsh
call him Nynnian. ss According to Venerable Bede, Bishop Ninian was of the nation of the Britons. These are said to have been the Cumraig Britons,s6 who, with the Roman soldiers, at the time of his birth, held the Romanised province of Valentia. Various opinions have been offered as to the exact place of Ninian's birth. It has been generaWy held, that he first saw the light in the country of the Niduni, or Niduari,57 in the south-western district of Scotland. 58 Some writers would make him to have been a Pict, by birth ; but, it has been stated, there were no Picts in that district until 426, at soonest. 59 However, the districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, extending to the Solway Firth on the west, and to the Tyne on the east, were possessed by two kingdoms of the Britons. The former of these lay to the west, and extended northwards from the river Derwent in Cumberland,
5* Edited by William Smith, D. C. L. , as on the Map in William F. Skene's
LI,. I). ,and Henry Wace, D. D. , vol. iv. , pp. "Celtic Scotland: a History of Ancient
45. 46. Alban," vol. i. , hook i. , chap, v. , p. 228.
55M. &—
A. , LL. D. , Aberdeen. Leland thus writes regarding "Ninianus
54 .
"
"Ex Venetica duxisse eum
This edition forms the Fifth Volume of
Britannus"
:
the
1874. 8vo.
origininem provincia antiquitas adlirmabat, fratremque habuisse nomine Ph'benium, et trnerosin melioribus studiisannos collocssse. Hinc, virile accrescente rctate, et Rrigantes Nortabriorum gentem, et Novanles mariti- mos illos sedulus invisit : quorum sedes ibi
erant, ubi nunc Begcc promontorium, I. u°u- ballia et Gallovidia Pu/ica. "—" Commen- taiii de Scriptoribus Britannicis," cap. xxxiii. , p. 56.
59 See John Pinkerton's " Enquiry into the History of Scotland," vol. ii. , part vi. , chap. i. , p. 265.
Historians of Scotland," Edinburgh,
55 On referring to the Life of St. Ninnio
or Ninian, the Senior, or the Old. Apostle
of the Southern Picts, chap, i. , at the 25th
of July, and in the Sixth Volume of this
work, Art. i. , the many other names, by
which he had been distinguished may be found.
56 See John Pinkerton's "Enquiry into the History of Scotland," vol. ii. , part vi. , chap, i. , p. 265.
» Sometimes distinguished Niduari Picts,
September 16. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 389
to the Firth of Clyde, and its people were known as the Strathclyde Britons ; while the latter included the Angles of Bernicia, towards the east.
It is stated, that this early Christian Apostle had been the son of a Christian father, who was also a king in that part of the island of Britain, towards the north-west,6° where the ocean stretching forth its arms formed an angle on each side, which divided Scotland from England in after times.
6'
This description applies to Galloway, in its old extent.
Scotland was inhabited by a people known as the Gallo Gaidhel. 62 That
6 3 which was situated in the south part of Britannia Barbara, * or the country lying north of the Picts' Wall, so far as Graham's Dyke, including also Northumberland, Dumfries, and other parts of Scotland. This territory was wrested from the Picts and Scots, during the reign of Valentinian, and formed into a Roman Province by Theodosius. However, it remained only for a short time in
possession of the Romans.
Ninian is said to have been born about the year 360, and of noble
parentage, in the country of the Novantes, near the Leuchophibia of Ptolemy, and the Whithern of modern times. 65 According to some accounts he had a brother named Plebenius, but this seems to be on a very doubtful tradition. 66 In his very infancy, Ninian was regenerated in the water of holy baptism ; and in the rhetorical language of his biographer Ailred, he preserved immaculate the nuptial robe of white he had received, while as a conqueror of vice, he presented it in the sight of Christ, and that Holy Spirit he first received to cleanse him, by most devout ways he merited to maintain, as the instructor of his pious heart. While still a boy, he shunned
whatever was contrary to religion, adverse to chastity, opposed to good morals, or discordant with the law of Truth. He ceased not to follow what- ever was useful to man, or pleasing to God ; he meditated on the command- ments, by day and by night ; he fulfilled every duty of life with the greatest devotion. Sparing* in food, reticent in speech, agreeable in manners, full of seriousness, and assiduous in study ; in everything he subjected the flesh to the spirit. He had a great reverence for churches, and a love for religious men. EspeciallywashisminddevotedtothestudyoftheSacredScriptures, and from them he learned to aspire after perfection, in which through a profound sense of humility he deemed himself very deficient. At length, through divine inspiration, he was induced to abandon family, friends and home, and to undertake a distant pilgrimage, as a suitable preparation for an enterprise of great importance he then meditated.
Having passed over the Britannic Sea, he travelled through Gaul. At this time paganism and the old heathen ideas were fast disappearing before the advances of Christianity on the continent. The most ancient city of modern
district was also within the Roman Province of 6
Valentia,
German)', Treves,
6? on the Moselle River, had been the long
60 This was as a distinct regarded
63 See Dr. William Smith's "
capital
Dictionary
princi- pality until about the tenth or eleventh
century.
61 See Father Innes' "Civil and Ecclesi-
astical History of Scotland," book i. , sect. xxviii. , p. 33.
62
This district, con*isting of the shires of Kirkcudbright and Wigton, was known to the Welsh as Galwydel, and to the Irish as Gallgaidel, from which had been formed
the name Gallweitha, now Galloway. See William F. Skene's "Celtic Scotland: a HistoryofAncientAlban,"vol. i. , booki. , chap, v. , p. 238, 239.
of Greek and Roman Geography," vol.
