[In the following essay, Anderson discusses the monastic observance described in the Navigatio Brendani, a medieval narrative of a seven-year voyage.]

INTRODUCTION

One of the most intriguing theological texts of the early Middle Ages, the Navigatio Brendani (Voyage of Brendan) explores the wonders of God's actions throughout creation. A seven-year sea voyage reveals a panorama of marvels drawn from natural phenomena, monastic communities, historical personages, and angels. Brought along on Brendan's journey, the reader experiences the magnalia Dei (wonderful acts of God) with him and his crew through the immediacy of narrative. The instructional power of experience is effectively harnessed in this early text as the reader confronts the strange and wondrous places Brendan encounters. The Navigatio Brendani shares some of the stylistic simplicity of parable and exemplum. It is fictive narrative, albeit non-representational, a feature which will be discussed later.

The style of the Navigatio is very different from that of reasoned theological discourse with its inherent complexities, although the investigative genres of the Summa or the series of Quaestiones were being used at a time contemporaneous with the earliest manuscripts of the Brendan voyage. The exposition of theological truth through definitions, distinctions, and counter-distinctions had a separate development. It was still in its infancy in the twelfth century at the hands of Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard. Subsequently, their dialectical explorations, experimentations, and achievements blossomed in the thirteenth century. On the other hand, the methodology of experience in the service of theological instruction, as exemplified by the Navigatio, developed along parallel lines to achieve a period of glory in the neoplatonic writings of the twelfth-century School of Chartres. For it is especially here that medieval narrative served catechesis.

The popular story of the Atlantic sea voyage of Brendan is extant in over 120 manuscripts covering a 600 year period, from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries.¹ These manuscripts range in provenance from Ireland to Russia and from northern Europe to the Iberian peninsula. Written sometimes in prose and sometimes in poetry, the story was told and retold in languages as varied as Latin, Anglo-French, German, Italian, and Irish. Germany produced the oldest copy of the story in a Latin manuscript from the tenth century.² Nevertheless, it is very probable that the legends of Brendan's voyage were already well-developed by the early ninth century, for there is a reference to egressio familiae Brendani (departure of the community of Brendan) in the Martyrology of Tallaght dating circa 800.³

The story of the voyage is based on the exploits of the historical Brendan, a sixth-century monk born in Ireland. Renowned as an abbot and monastic founder,⁴ he had a further reputation as a seafarer who had made at least two voyages into the Atlantic. This last aspect of his fame forms the core of the Liber Brendani, (Book of Brendan) or Navigatio Brendani, as it came to be known.

A misunderstood text, the Navigatio has been called a Christian Aeneid, an interpretation few embrace today.⁵ More incredibly, the Navigatio has been held up as proof of a pre-Columbian discovery of America.⁶ In 1976, in fact, the National Geographic Society cosponsored a reenactment of the Brendan voyage. Timothy Severin, an Englishman, with a crew of four, set sail from Brendan Creek on the rocky Dingle Peninsula of southern Ireland for Boston Harbor to prove that an early Irish trans-Atlantic crossing was possible. Their primitive boat, christened the “Brendan,” was handcrafted in County Cork from the hides of 49 oxen, tanned in oak bark and dressed in wool grease, cod oil, and tallow according to ancient specifications. On the evening of June 26, 1977, a year and six weeks after leaving Ireland, the experimental voyage of 3,500 miles was completed and the Brendan landed, not at Boston, but at Hamilton Sound, Newfoundland. Details of the voyage form the cover story of the December, 1977, issue of National Geographic and Severin's book, The Brendan Voyage (New York 1978).

Credulity for the monk Brendan's naval prowess is nothing new.⁷ Columbus mentioned Brendan's Island, the Earthly Paradise, in his diary. It remained on navigational charts into the eighteenth century. Daniel J. Boorstin, in his book, The Discoverers, calls the Island part of the “geography of the imagination” during a thousand-year period when the Christian faith suppressed the image of the world that had been slowly developed by ancient geographers.⁸

Irish sea-voyage stories called imrama flourished during the seventh and eighth centuries. The imram is a sea-voyage tale in which a hero, with a few companions, often monks, wanders from island to island, encounters supernatural wonders, and finally returns home. The story of Brendan's voyage, developed during this time, shares some characteristics with imrama. Like an imram, the Navigatio tells the story of Brendan, who with some companion monks, sets out to find the terra repromissionis sanctorum, the Promised Land of the Saints or the Earthly Paradise. He spends seven years on this voyage, encountering a number of obstacles and marvels. Brendan and his monks finally reach the Promised Land, spend 40 days there, and then return home.

Actually, the Navigatio Brendani is not a AAA triptik, or itinerary, to the New World. Neither is it baptized pagan literature like the Terentian plays of Hroswitha of Gandersheim. The Navigatio is hagiography, the purpose of which is to model virtue and promote the worship of God. Its author did not try to relate a factual story, but to expound moral doctrine.⁹ The Navigatio is a fictive literary analysis of spiritual conflict; it is a theological study. Fiction, especially depicting a journey or pilgrimage which involves a spiritual or psychological struggle, was a popular medieval literary form and was to become the hallmark of the neoplatonic School of Chartres during the twelfth-century Renaissance. The Navigatio stands solidly within this tradition.

Brendan's battlefield is within himself. Heroic struggle in the Middle Ages, while cosmic in its conventional trappings, is essentially a personal quest for knowledge or enlightenment, a psychological conflict, a psychomachia. For seven years Brendan wanders over the sea, going from island to island, but time and place are symbolic; progress is internal. To this extent, the Navigatio Brendani is consistent with the concept of hero nurtured and developed throughout the literature of the Middle Ages, both Latin and vernacular. The Navigatio in this way has less in common with the Homeric or Vergilian poems than with the Latin epics of the twelfth century, or the Roman de la Rose, Dante's Divina Commedia, Everyman, or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

In the Middle Ages the mythology of Mount Olympus was superseded by the mythology of Calvary. Hercules' labors were overshadowed by the struggles of Anthony, Pachomius, and Benedict. Men of war, Achilles, Odysseus, Aeneas, were replaced by warriors of Christ—the saints. Sometimes they were monks, sometimes the aberration of Christian triumphalism—the Crusader. Truly the classical concept of the noble soldier-hero, the man of fortitudo (fortitude or physical prowess) and sapientia (wisdom), suffered a sea change.

PLOT OF THE NAVIGATIO BRENDANI

The plot of the Navigatio Brendani is most engaging. Brendan and a few of his monks set sail to reach the terra repromissionis sanctorum, the Earthly Paradise. Early in the text Brendan asks a fellow monk who has been to the Earthly Paradise, “Tell us the work of God and refresh our souls with the various miracles which you have seen in the ocean.”¹⁰

Later, when Brendan and his crew witness a fight between two monsters, he assures them that the fight will not harm them, “but will redound to the glory of God.”¹¹ Over and over, the purpose of the voyage for Brendan and his monks is made clear: to examine the wonders of the Creator.¹² Indeed, God is revealing so many wonderful miracles.¹³

The Navigatio has a plot that winds and twists through one fascinating episode after another. Brendan and his crew experience adventures ranging from an encounter with talking birds to attacks by sea monsters. Reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, a mighty tree is covered with birds. “There was a tree of great size, in girth no less than in height, covered with birds of the whitest color. They covered it so much that its leaves and branches were scarcely visible.”¹⁴

However, these birds were friendly. “Behold, one of those birds flew down from the tree and its wings sounded like bells. It settled near the boat where the man of God was sitting.”¹⁵ It told Brendan that he and his crew had to wander over the sea for six more years before they would reach their destination, “You and your brethren have completed one year in your journey. Six still remain.”¹⁶

A more terrifying episode is the attack of the sea monster. “One day a beast of immense size appeared at a far distance behind them; it emitted froth from its nose and it ploughed through the waves at a great speed as if seeking to devour them.”¹⁷ The crew cried for help. Brendan tried to calm them and prayed for assistance. “The venerable old man also extended his hands to heaven and said, ‘Lord, free your servants as you freed David from the hand of the giant Goliath. Lord, free us, as you freed Jonah from the belly of a great whale.’”¹⁸

Immediately this monster is torpedoed by another monster sent to help the monks. “Behold, a huge beast crossed from the west toward them and intercepted the other beast. And at once it rushed into battle with the other beast as it shot fire from its mouth.”¹⁹ Brendan is quick to say, “My sons, behold the wonders of our Redeemer. See the obedience of the beasts to their Creator. Now, welcome the conclusion of this incident.”²⁰ Almost instantly the evil monster is slaughtered and the battle is over. “And when Brendan had spoken, the miserable beast which was pursuing the relatives of Christ was butchered into three parts before their eyes.”²¹

Some days later another attack occurs. This time it is a giant bird. “And when they had sailed, a bird which is called a gryphon, appeared to them. It was flying at a distance to intercept them. When the brethren saw this bird, they said to the holy father, ‘That monster is coming to devour us.’ To this the man of God said, ‘Don't be afraid. God is our helper, and he is defending us this time also.’ The bird extended its claws to seize the servants of God.”²²

Again, a friendly creature intervenes, plucks out the eyes of the gryphon, kills it, and drops its body into the sea next to the monks' boat. “And its body fell into the sea near the boat before the eyes of the brethren.”²³

Another time the terrified crew realizes that the island on which they have made their campfire is really the back of a whale; and even a devil pops out of the chest of one of Brendan's crew, much like that frightening dinner scene in the movie, Alien. On a rock in the midst of the sea, Brendan encounters Judas Iscariot, Christ's betrayer, who like Tantalus and Sisyphus, is condemned to an eternal cycle of frustration and punishment. There is fantasy, adventure, suspense, the exotic, the satanic—enough to hold any reader's interest.

Talking birds; satanic creatures slinging blazing slag; a gigantic iceberg so huge it takes four days to sail around it; the shrouded, mysterious entrance to Paradise; the fiery, ominous gateway to Hell: these are what put the Navigatio Brendani on the medieval best-seller list.

CONVENTIONS OF MEANING AND STYLE IN THE NAVIGATIO

Despite the fairly straightforward action of the plot, the Navigatio is a complex, even difficult, text because of the assumptions upon which it is based. As stated earlier, it is hagiography. While the story of Brendan's voyage fulfills the Horatian dictum that literature be utile et dulce (useful and pleasing), its purpose is controlled by Augustine's requirement that literature should edify and lead the reader to God.²⁴

An especially interesting feature of the structure of the Navigatio story is that the primary function of the text as a piece of literature is also the purpose of the journey of Brendan and his monks. With the Navigatio the quest of the traveler and of the reader is identical. Reflection on the presence of the Creator in the phenomena of creation is the goal of both. Time and again Brendan declares that the purpose of his voyage is to examine the wonders of the Creator.²⁵

A similar sentiment is expressed a few centuries later by Bernard of Clairvaux when he encourages in his Third Sermon on the Song of the Songs the “study of the book of our own experience.” Bernard goes on to say men must “turn their eyes to the earth rather than up to heaven. Eyes that are accustomed only to darkness will be dazzled by the brightness of the spiritual world.”

Christianity is a religion of the Book and this gives profound weight to the allegory of creation as book. Creation is set on a par with Scripture as a source of revelation. Indeed this is a common topos during the Middle Ages.²⁶ In fact, another writer of the twelfth century, Alan of Lille, says:²⁷

Omnis mundi creature
Quasi liber et pictura
Nobis est et speculum.
All worldly creation
is like a picture book
and mirror for us.

In this way the Navigatio Brendani is really a Navigatio omnium hominum (Voyage of all mankind). We all observe, or read, creation along with Brendan and his crew.

Stylistically the Navigatio is a sophisticated text. In support of the Augustinian objective of moral and spiritual edification are the non-representational style and the conventions of meaning within the text. Indeed, an understanding of its style is fundamental to reading this sophisticated Latin text.

Non-representational style is typical of much medieval literature. In works of this kind, time and space are not as we know them in the world around us. Still, they do not represent or constitute an unreal world, but rather the externalization of a psychological world. Difficulty in fathoming this stylistic approach is aggravated by today's long tradition of the realistic novel. One critic says of this early style: it is “based on exotic setting, formal portraiture, undramatic discourse, and semiotic gesture.”²⁸

Such a style does not produce the rounded character common to modern fiction. Freed from the exigencies of time and place, the medieval protagonist can focus solely on his quest.²⁹ It is in this stylistic context that Brendan emerges as one-dimensional, single-minded, and without flaws. He is, without ambiguity, the vir Dei (man of God). The goal of his voyage remains constant: to see the magnalia Dei (wonders of God), to witness the sacramentum rei (mystery of creation). Brendan is resolute; he exhibits no ambivalence or fear. This is as it should be. The genre asks nothing of its protagonists but cooperation and persistence. Where there is spiritual movement in the character of Brendan, it is externalized and imaged in geographical terms. Brendan's voyage is his quest for unity with God in this world.

The Navigatio is a success story. A monk succeeds by achieving unity with God through liturgical prayer and contemplation. Brendan's bogeyman and his challenges in this monastic endeavor become his voyage across the cloudy deep. He is heroic in his choice of struggle and his completion of it with all its horrors and pitfalls.

Throughout the text there is little variation of the epithets used for Brendan. He is sanctus Brendanus (Saint Brendan), vir Dei (man of God), sanctus pater (holy father). His followers are his fratres (brothers), filioli (little sons), pueri (boys), milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). Brendan is described as in suo certamine (engaged in a battle), his colleagues are his conbellatores (fellow warriors) and commilitones (fellow soldiers).³⁰ But this does not bespeak a Christian Aeneid; it flows from the Pauline metaphor of Christian life as militans Deo (being a soldier for God).³¹

Brendan travels and Brendan struggles, but he has nothing to do with the warriors of classical times. On the contrary, Brendan's struggle is compatible with the sentiment expressed in the Old Irish Life of Saint Columba, that voluntary exile is laudable and imitative of Christ, who himself willingly came down from heaven.³²

The attitude of Brendan toward his quest is parallel to that of the three travelers from Ireland who arrived at the court of King Alfred in 891 in a boat without oars. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle they were on a pilgrimage to wherever God wanted to take them. Similarly, several times in the Navigatio either Brendan or someone else counsels the monks to stop rowing and let God direct their boat.³³ Brendan truly adheres to God's admonition through the psalmist: Vacate et videte quoniam ego sum Deus (Sit still and see that I am God).³⁴

In addition to these conventions of characterization whereby Brendan is presented as a static, single-focus protagonist, the conventional meaning of time and space within the text of the Navigatio Brendani needs comment. As noted already, characterization is subordinated to the meaning of the text. That is, the rounded character is sacrificed to the manifestation of God's wonderful acts throughout creation. Likewise, setting is secondary. Description is often chosen not for direct use in the dramatic action, but for an ulterior significance, which can range from the generally atmospheric to the minutely allegorical.³⁵ Almost every episode in the Navigatio Brendani revolves around a unit of time pregnant with religious meaning, resonant with symbolic import, rich with biblical reminiscence.

The entire voyage takes seven years (a perfect number); Brendan and his monks set out with supplies for 40 days (the Israelites wandered for 40 years; Christ was in the desert for 40 days); they stay for three days (a Trinitarian number) on various islands; they pray and fast for three days; the wind ceases after three days.³⁶ Such numerical designations are repeated over and over throughout the Navigatio Brendani. Time is subordinated to the meaning of the text: God has put his stamp on creation, even on the dimension of time.

Also subject to conventional meaning in the Navigatio is space, or a sense of space, which is beyond the experience of everyday life. The National Geographic voyage of Timothy Severin is irrelevant here. The voyage of Brendan and his monks takes seven years; however, it progresses not in a linear but a circular fashion. An angel in the form of a bird reveals to Brendan that each year he and his crew will spend particular feastdays at the same designated locations. “God has assigned you four locations for the four seasons until the seven years of your journey are finished.”³⁷

Measured by inches and feet, the journey brings the travelers no closer to a geographical destination as the years go by. Their voyage is the internal, spiritual growth of monks moving forward by contemplation and liturgical prayer. In reality the travelers' progress is not geographical, but liturgical: their voyage is a processio cum stationibus (procession with stations), comprising a cyclic, annual celebration of the mysteries of the faith scattered over the islands like feasts in the liturgical year. Thus, this voyage signals the redemption of the rota fortunae (wheel of fortune) of medieval thought exemplified by these words from the Carmina Burana:

O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis …
Sors immanis,
et inanis
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
O Fortune,
as changeable
as the moon …
Fate,
savage, false,
and unstable
as a turning wheel,
you offer
empty deliverance

Brendan's course is a circle. It is repetitive, inevitable, preordained, but nevertheless salvific. The ineluctable rise and fall of human existence is rendered salutary when Brendan finally achieves his goal and arrives at the Promised Land of the Saints.

MONASTIC OBSERVANCE IN THE TEXT

Throughout this fantastic and fascinating tale there are glimpses of an insular monasticism different from the continental Benedictine tradition. Continually this monasticism is portrayed as yet another example of the magnalia Dei (wonderful works of God).

Benedict's Rule dates from the sixth century; nevertheless as late as the twelfth century the sweep of Benedictine monasticism still did not include Ireland. Louis the Pious summoned the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817 to impose the Benedictine way of life on all the monasteries of his empire. Despite the continental enthusiasm for Benedict's vision of monastic life, all the surviving monasteries in Ireland up to the early twelfth century were of the early Celtic type.³⁸

Information on the monastic foundations in Ireland during the early Middle Ages comes from two kinds of sources: the lives of Irish saints and native Irish annals.³⁹ Our view of early Celtic monasticism lacks the uniformity of continental monasticism, especially after its standardization along Benedictine lines. The Navigatio Brendani, while not technically a vita, is a typical source for monastic practices in Ireland.

Interestingly, the earliest extant manuscript of the Navigatio originates in a Benedictine milieu in Trier, Germany, in the early tenth century. Despite the fact that this is a hundred years after Louis the Pious imposed Benedictinism on the monasteries in the region, there appears to be no attempt by the scribe or others to modify the text and adapt it to conform to their local monastic practice. This speaks of a tolerance for diversity uncommon in those regions within the reach of Rome, with her propensity for uniformity.

Even though Brendan's travels take him and his companions to eleven different islands, he is never critical of the monastic practices he encounters among them. They are all compatible with his own concept of a monk. With this in mind, this article makes no attempt to differentiate between the observances of one island community and another. The Navigatio itself is here taken as a witness to general monastic practice in Ireland during the early Middle Ages. While non-Benedictine, it is certainly worthy of exposition, if not comparison and evaluation.

In the opening chapter of the Navigatio, Brendan is told of a monastic community by Barinthus, a monk who had recently visited it on a distant island, the Island of Delights. He goes to the island to visit Mernoc, his filiolus (little son), who has gone there because he wishes to be alone, but who soon has plures monachos (several monks) with him. Barinthus describes his own arrival on the insula deliciosa (Island of Delights). “As we were sailing to this island, Brothers came from their various cells like bees to meet us. Their dwelling places were scattered but still they lived together in faith, hope and love, with one refectory, and they always gathered as one for the Divine Office. They were served no food other than fruit, nuts, roots, and other kinds of vegetables. And after Compline each remained in his own cell until cockcrow or the ringing of a bell.”⁴⁰ Under the direction of Mernoc, their abbas (abbot), these monks live, in their own words, as oves (sheep) with Mernoc their pastor (shepherd).

The second community which Brendan and his colleagues encounter is on another island, insula familie Ailbei (the Island of the Community of St. Ailbe). Here a group of 23 monks dwells with their abbot in a monasterium (monastery). The community had been founded 80 years before by St. Ailbe, patron of Munster. Brendan is in awe of one feature of this community, their adherence to a rule of silence. From his first encounter with an elder of the community Brendan discovers the silence of the monks:

A very dignified old man met them. His hair was snow white and he had a bright face. He prostrated to the ground three times before he kissed the man of God. But Saint Brendan and those who were with him raised him from the ground. After they all greeted each other with a kiss, the old man held the hand of the holy father and went with him to the monastery a few hundred yards away. Then Saint Brendan stood with his Brothers before the gate of the monastery and said to the old man, “Whose monastery is this? Who is in charge of it? Where do those who live here come from?” The holy father thus asked the old man several questions but was never able to get a single answer. The old man only indicated silence with a very gentle movement of his hand.⁴¹

The abbot himself speaks to his guests only after a formal greeting with a procession with cross and relics, a community exchange of the kiss of peace, prayer, the ceremony of the Mandatum with abbot and monks washing the feet of the guests, and a meal in total silence. Then the abbot speaks cum magna hilaritate (with great cheerfulness) and tells the visitors something about his community. He then leads them to the church in complete silence. Brendan and the abbot converse briefly, with Brendan asking about the community.⁴²

The Navigatio Brendani portrays the St. Ailbe community as living in peace for eighty years, but Brendan seems in awe of the almost absolute silence he encounters at the monastery. The text goes on to describe usage in excess of Trappist observance before Vatican II. “No one in the monastery presumed to speak or make any noise. If anyone needed something he went to the abbot and knelt before him asking in his heart for what he needed. At once the holy father took a stylus and tablet and through a revelation of God wrote and gave it to the brother who was making a request of him.”⁴³ Brendan was so amazed by the extent of the silence that he finally asked the abbot about its feasibility. “Saint Brendan asked the holy father about their silent way of life, how it was possible for human beings. Then the abbot with great reverence and humility answered, ‘Father, I swear before my Christ, we came to this island eighty years ago. We have heard no human voice except when we sing praises to God. Among the twenty-four of us no communication is made except by a sign with one's finger or eyes and then only with the approval of the elders.’”⁴⁴

Remember, the purpose of Brendan's voyage is to observe magnalia Dei (wonders of God). These are not limited to sea monsters, giant icebergs, or the entrance to Hell. The wonders of God include marvels of nature, but also the marvelous effects of God's interaction with men. The community of St. Ailbe provides several examples of this. It has been shown how the monks live in virtual silence devoid of almost all human contact. They suffer no discomforts from illness or aging or the environment. “But age or fatigue never increase among our members … neither cold nor heat affect us.”⁴⁵

The physical needs of the community are miraculously taken care of. Food is provided. “Everyday we have twelve loaves of bread for our nourishment, with a loaf for every two people.”⁴⁶ This bread and the water from a pond nourish the monks. They have no need for cooked food. “On this island we need nothing to eat which is cooked.”⁴⁷

A hot spring allows the monks to bathe. “The Brothers wash their feet each day in the other murky spring which you saw, because the water is always warm.”⁴⁸

Perhaps most wonderful of all is the church in which the monks worship. The altar and all the sacred vessels are made of crystal. “The altars were made from squares of crystal and likewise their vessels were crystal, that is, the patens, chalices, cruets, and other vessels used for the worship of God.”⁴⁹

When it is time for services the lamps in the church are lighted by a flaming arrow shot through an open window. The lamps burn for the length of the service; they never diminish, burn up, and their wicks leave no ash. “And when time for mass or vigils came, the lamps in our church are lighted. We brought them from our country with us by divine command; they burn until day and their light never diminishes.”⁵⁰

By the time Brendan left the island of St. Ailbe, he had indeed witnessed the magnalia dei, the wonderful things which God was doing for this community of monks.

The third community Brendan encountered was tripartite. It was on the Insula virorum fortium (Island of Strong Men). “There are three groups of people on this island: one of boys, another of young men, and the third of old men.”⁵¹ These three groups are variously referred to as turmae (crowds) and scolae (schools) by the narrator. Nothing is revealed about them except that they move about in three separate groups as if in a heavenly ballet and chant the office continually. “And they were always moving about and one group stood still in on place singing, ‘The saints will go from strength to strength and will see the God of gods in Sion.’ While one group finished this verse, another group stood still and began to sing it, and they did this without ceasing.”⁵²

Another marvel on the island is a large fruit which abounds there: cooperta scaltis albis et purpeis (covered by white and purple fruit).⁵³ Brendan and his crew live on this fruit after they leave the island. Each day a single fruit feeds twelve men, one more example of mirabilia Dei.

In addition to the three monastic communities Brendan finds, he also visits Paul the Hermit on an island where he lives in a cave. Here again Brendan witnesses the marvelous workings of God. The holy man greets him and his crew by name. This marvel is only matched by the fact that he is nude, but modestly covered with only his own hair. The hermit reveals his age as 140 years old and tells his visitors about his life. He has lived on the island alone for ninety years.

For the first thirty years his nourishment was only a fish brought to him every three days by an otter, which also brought firewood to cook it. The hermit describes this charming scene. “Around three o'clock the otter brought me a meal from the sea, that is, a fish in his mouth. Walking on his back feet, he had a bundle of sticks between his front feet for making a fire.”⁵⁴

For the next sixty years the hermit subsisted on only spring water. When Brendan and his crew leave the island they take water from this spring. They pass the entirety of Lent nourished only by this water.

Whether in community or alone, when man lives in unity with God, he also lives in harmony with his environment. The animals, the earth, time itself, are redeemed from the alienating effects of the Fall. Clearly the text offers examples of the attainment of the monastic goal of discovering or establishing heaven on earth.

Another element of monastic observance which features in the text is the use of food and clothing as symbols of sanctity. Food is a recurring theme in the text of the Navigatio. There are over forty references to what the monks eat, the source of their food, the variety of their food. For the most part, with the exception of wine, the diet is consistent with the Roman proverb, Panis, radix, vinum: cena pauperum (Bread, roots, wine: the dinner of the poor). The monks drink water. Meat is mentioned twice; fish a half dozen times. The basic diet encompasses apples, nuts, roots, vegetables, bread, grapes, and scaltae.

There are two references to daily rations. The first includes a single fish, one root, and a cup of water. The other, that of Paul the Hermit, encompasses part of a fish and water each day. Brendan's diet is strictly vegetarian. “Saint Brendan ordered his Brothers to load the boat and fill the skins and other containers, and to gather vegetables and roots for his use, because since he had become a priest, he ate nothing which had the spirit of life in it.”⁵⁵

On a couple of other occasions the text uses diet as a barometer of sanctity. In the opening chapter some monks on the Island of Delights, the jumping off point for the terra repromissionis sanctorum (Promised Land of the Saints), are said to have gone a full year without eating or drinking. Almost immediately after hearing this, Brendan has his own monks prepare a meal, clearly signaling that he and his brothers were very much of this world and had not yet gone on their seven-year journey of exploration and purification.

Later in the text it is revealed that the ideal community of St. Ailbe eat only roots, bread and water. Brendan's own pilgrim monks eat a more varied diet, often including fish, sometimes even meat. The monks of St. Ailbe do not cook their simple fare; Brendan's monks cook fish and meat. Paul the Hermit graduated from thirty years of fish and water to sixty years of only water.

Whatever the diet, throughout the text God provides the food. The monks never engage in farming, gardening, hunting, or fishing. Bread is mysteriously provided to the monks of St. Ailbe; an otter brings fish to Paul the Hermit; a procurator, provided by God, takes care of the needs of Brendan and his crew; the islands bear fruit, vegetables, roots, and provide water. To those who seek the kingdom of God, all is provided.

Clothes, to a lesser degree, provide a gauge of holiness in the Navigatio. Early in the text it is stated that the monks on the Island of Delights have no needs in the area of food, drink, or clothes. Likewise, during their long voyage Brendan and his monks have their clothing provided by God. Paul the Hermit reminds Brendan, “God fed you with your Brothers for seven years from his hidden sources, and clothed you.”⁵⁶ Better yet, Paul does not even need clothes. He is naked as a jaybird, but covered by his own hair. “I sit on this rock like a bird, naked except for my hair.”⁵⁷

CONCLUSION

Brendan and his crew sail from island to island for seven years until they finally realize their goal. Then, anticlimactically and somewhat abruptly, they leave the Promised Land of the Saints and return home. The narrative, in all of its episodes, repeatedly offers examples of God's marvelous presence in creation. Throughout the voyage Brendan bears witness to the harmony and integrity of life synchronized with the will of God. Indeed the text of the Navigatio reveals itself ultimately as a biblical commentary on Paul, Romans 8:28, “Scimus autem diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum.” Indeed, all things work together unto good for those who love God.

Notes

1. Apart from the Purgatorium Sancti Patricii, the Navigatio Brendani generated the most important literary tradition associated with Ireland. See John Henning, “A Note on Ireland's Place in the Literary Tradition of St. Brendan,” Traditio 8 (1952) 397. The best known version of the “Voyage of Brendan” is the Anglo-Norman poem from the first quarter of the twelfth century. This is not a translation, but a complete retelling of the voyage story. See R. N. Illingworth, “The Structure of the Anglo-Norman ‘Voyage of St. Brendan’ by Benedeit,” Medium Aevum 55, No. 2 (1986) 217.

2. This manuscript from Trier, now in the British Museum, is apparently a copy of an earlier, no longer extant, manuscript from Regensburg. See Hennig, p. 397. The Latin Navigatio has been critically edited by Carl Selmer in Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (South Bend, IN: 1959). References in this article to Selmer's critical text will be by page and line. There are English translations available: J. F. Webb, Lives of the Saints (New York 1965); John O'Meara, The Voyage of Saint Brendan (Dublin 1976).

3. Kathleen Hughes, “On an Irish Litany of Pilgrim Saints Compiled c. 800,” Analecta Bollandiana 77 (1959) 315. Note also, in the Navigatio Brendani the monks with Brendan are referred to as his family or familia (Selmer 73.47) as are the monks of St. Ailbe (Selmer 43.60).

4. See Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, 47 (Turnholt: 1977) for texts relating to Brendan, including the Vita.

5. For evidence that the Aeneid is not behind the imrama see W. Thrall, “Virgil's Aeneid and the Irish Imrama. Zimmer's Theory,” Modern Philology 15 (1917) 449-74.

6. George A. Little, Brendan the Navigator (Dublin: 1946) depicts Brendan among the Everglades (149) and at the Mississippi River (150). He even sees Brendan as the mythological Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs (176). Compare Geoffrey Ashe, The Land to the West (London 1962) where Brendan supposedly traveled to the Caribbean. For a recent fictional interpretation of Brendan's putative trip to America, see Frederick Buechner, Brendan (New York 1987).

7. In 1580 when John Dee entered in his map a defense of England's title to North America, he mentioned St. Brendan's voyage as a main part of the evidence. See O'Meara xi-xii.

8. Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York 1983) p. 100.

9. Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New York 1961) p. 159.

10. Indica nobis verbum Dei atque refice animas nostras de diversis miraculis quae vidisti in oceano (Selmer 4.13-14).

11. sed pro gloria Dei reputabitur (Selmer 46.20).

12. ut videamus diligenter magnalia creatoris (Selmer 59.15).

13. quanta et qualia mirabilia ostendit Deus tibi (Selmer 73.42-43).

14. Erat … arbor mire latitudinis in girum, non minus altitudinis, cooperta avibus candidissimus. In tantum cooperuerunt illam ut folia et rami eius vix viderentur (Selmer 22.16-18).

15. Ecce una de illis avibus volabat de arbore, et sonabant ale eius sicut tintinnabula, contra navim ubi vir Dei sedebat (Selmer 23.28-30).

16. “Tu autem cum tuis fratribus habes unum annum in tuo itinere. Adhuc restant sex” (Selmer 24.44-45).

17. Quadam vero die apparuit illis bestia immense magnitudinis post illos a longe, que iactabat de naribus spumas et sulcabat undas velocissimo cursu quasi ad illos devorandos (Selmer 45.2-5).

18. Venerabilis quoque senex extensis manibus in celum, dixit, “Domine, libera servos tuos sicut liberasti David de manu Golie gigantis. Domine, libera nos, sicut liberasti Ionam de ventre ceti magni” (Selmer 45.12-14).

19. Ecce ingens belua ab occidente iuxta illos transibat obviam alterius bestie. Que statim irruit bellum contra illam, ita ut ignem emissiset ex ore suo (Selmer 46.15-17).

20. At vero senex fratribus suis ait, “Videte, filioli, magnalia Redemptoris nostri. Videte obedienciam bestiarum creatori suo. Modo expectate finem rei” (Selmer 46.17-19).

21. His dictis, misera belua quae persequebatur famulos Christi interfecta est in tres partes coram illis (Selmer 46.21-22).

22. Et cum navigassent, apparuit illis avis que vocatur griffa, a longe volans obviam illis. Cum hanc vidissent fratres, dicebant ad sanctum patrem, “Ad devorandum nos venit illa bestia.” Quibus ait vir Dei, “Nolite timere. Deus adiutor noster est, qui nos defendit etiam hac vice.” Illa extendebat ungulas ad servos Dei capiendos (Selmer 55.2-7).

23. Nam cadaver eius coram fratribus iuxta navim cecidit in mare (Selmer 56.12-13).

24. Bernard Huppe and D. W. Robertson, Fruyt and Chaf (Princeton 1963) pp. 8-9. See page 10 for the general application of this theory through the twelfth century. Likewise, see Leclercq, p. 78, where the purpose of monastic reading is defined as meditatio (meditation) and oratio (prayer). Its object is to instill wisdom and appreciation which is to terminate in desire for heaven. The Navigatio is after all a monastic text.

25. ut videamus diligenter magnalia creatoris (Selmer 59.15).

26. Ernst Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York 1953) pp. 319-26.

27. Ibid., p. 319.

28. Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (Berkeley 1957) p. 40.

29. Ibid., p. 15.

30. The concept of the monk as miles Christi (soldier of Christ) is a common concept in monastic literature. In the seventh century, Adamnan in his Vita Sancti Columbae uses commilitones for the followers of Colmcille. See John Ryan, Irish Monasticism, Origins and Early Development (Dublin 1931) p. 197.

31. 2 Tm 2:4; cf. Eph 6:16.

32. J. F. Webb, trans., Lives of the Saints (New York 1981) pp. 19-20.

33. Selmer 12.7-9; 39.35-36; 40.7-9.

34. Psalm 45:11.

35. Muscatine, p. 17.

36. See Curtius, pp. 501-09 for the rich number-mysticism and number-symbolism of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

37. Deus proposuit vobis quattuor loca per quattuor tempora usque dum finiantur septem anni peregrinacionis vestrae (Selmer 43.60-2).

38. Aubrey Gwynn and R. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (London: 1970) p. 2; also see pp. 109 ff. for a discussion of some putative Benedictine foundations in Ireland before the twelfth century.

39. Ibid., p. 20.

40. Navigantibus nobis in predictam insulam occurrerunt obviam sicut examen apium ex diversis cellulis fratres. Erat enim habitacio eorum sparsa, sed tamen unanimiter illorum conversacio in fide, spe et caritate, una refectio, et ad opus Dei semper fuit coadunata. Nihil alium cibi ministratur nisi poma et nuces atque radices et cetera genera herbarum. At post completorium singuli in suis singulis cellulis usque ad gallorum cantus seu pulsum campanae permanserunt (Selmer 4.23-5.30).

41. Occurrit eis senex nimie gravitatis, capillis niveo colore et facie clarus, qui tribus vicibus se ad terram prostravit antequam oscularetur virum Dei. At vero sanctus Brendanus et qui cum eo elevaverunt eum de terra. Osculantibus autem se invicem, tenuit manum sancti patris idem senex et ibat cum eo per spacium quasi unius stadii ad monasterium. Tunc sanctus Brendanus cum fratribus suis stetit ante portam monasterii et dixit seni, “Cuius est istud monasterium aut quis preest illi, vel unde sunt qui commorantur hic?” Itaque sanctus pater diversis sermonibus interrogabat senem et numquam ab illo poterat unum responsum accipere, sed tantum incredibili mansuetudine manu silencium insinuabat (Selmer 29.18-30.28).

42. Compare Rule of St. Benedict chapter 53, where Benedict legislates a slightly different protocol for the reception of guests. Another variation on the procedure for greeting guests at a monastery can be found in the Rufinus translation of the anonymous Historia monachorum in Aegypto (History of the Monks in Egypt), chapter 7 (PL 21.417-18). In this last text the abbot, St. Apollonius, and his monks greet the visiting monks with psalms, prostrations, the kiss of peace, and prayer. The description of the ceremony of greeting is more elaborate than that described by Benedict or by the Brendan author.

43. Non in monasterio ullam vocem aut ullum strepitum aliquis presumebat. Si aliquid necesse erat alicui fratri, ibat ante abbatem et genuflectebat coram illo, postulans in corde suo quae necessitas poscebat. Statim sanctus pater accepta tabula et graphio, per revelacionem Dei scribebat et dabat fratri qui ab illo consilium postulabat (Selmer 34.92-97).

44. Interrogavit vero sanctus Brendanus sanctum patrem de illorum silencio et conversacione, quomodo ita possent esse in humana carne. Tunc predictus pater cum immensa reverencia et humilitate respondit, “Abba coram Christo meo fateor: Octoginta anni sunt postquam venimus in hanc insulam. Nullam vocem humanam audivimus excepto quando cantamus Deo laudes. Inter nos viginti quattuor vox non excitatur nisi per signum digiti aut oculorum, tantum a majoribus natu (Selmer 35.112-36.120).

45. Attamen senectus aut languor in membris nostris minime amplificatur … neque frigus aut estus superat (Selmer 32.63-66).

46. Omni die habemus duodecim panes ad nostram refectionem, inter duos singulos panes (Selmer 32.57-59).

47. In hac insula nihil ad comedendum indigemus quod igni paratur (Selmer 32.64-65).

48. Ex alio fonte turbido quem vidistis lavantur pedes fratrum omni die, quia omni tempore calidus est (Selmer 31.52-54).

49. Erant enim altaria de cristallo quadrato facta et eorum vascula similiter de cristallo, id est patene, calices, et urceoli, et cetera vasa que pertinebant ad cultum divinum (Selmer 33.86-89).

50. Et cum tempus missarum venit aut vigiliarum, incenduntur luminaria in nostra ecclesia, que duximus nobiscum de terra nostra divina predestinacione, et ardent usque ad diem, et non minuitur ullum ex illis luminaribus (Selmer 32.66-69).

51. Tres populi sunt in illa insula, unus puerorum, et alius iuvenum tercius seniorum (Selmer 49.3-4).

52. Et semper ibant huc atque illuc, et una turma cantabat stando in uno loco, dicens, “Ibunt sancti de virtute in virtutem et videbunt Deum deorum in Sion.” Dum una turma perfiniebat illum versiculum, alia turma stabat et incipiebat cantare carmen predictum, et ita faciebant sine intermission (Selmer 50.17-21).

53. Selmer 50.14-15. The scaltae are as yet unidentified.

54. Circa horam nonam luter portavit mihi prandium de mare, id est piscem unum in ore suo, et fasciculum de sarmentis ad focum faciendum inter suos anteriores pedes, ambulans super duobus posterioribus (Selmer 75.70-73).

55. Precepit sanctus Brendanus suis fratribus onerare navim et utres implere atque alia vascula, herbas ac radices ad suum opus colligere, quia predictus pater postquam fuit sacerdos, nihil gustavit in que spiritus vite esset de carne (Selmer 48.58-61).

56. Deus autem de suis secretis per septem annos pascit te cum tua familia et induit (Selmer 73.46-47).

57. Sedeo sicut avis in ista petra, nudus exceptis meis pilis (Selmer 73.48).