[In the following essay, Slover argues that William brought elements of Irish literature, which are the basis of Arthurian romance, into several of his works.]

In the imaginative literature of mediaeval England, especially in the material dealing with King Arthur and his knights, there are numerous stories and motifs which find close parallels in the Celtic literature of Wales and Ireland. How far we are justified in accepting such parallels as evidence of Celtic origin, however, is a matter of controversy. As the controversy proceeds, it becomes increasingly apparent that the attempt to make a just estimate of the influence of Celtic literature on the literature of mediaeval England is seriously hampered by lack of information about the channels available for the transmission of Celtic culture to English literary consciousness. Celtic ideas, to be sure, could have been communicated by the Welsh to their Norman conquerors, but, unfortunately, the scantiness of early Welsh imaginative literature makes it difficult to find out just what literary ideas the Welsh had to communicate. As we turn hopefully to the generous supply of Celtic literary material represented by the literature of early Ireland, we are confronted by the question, what channels were available for the transmission of Irish literature and literary ideas from Ireland to England before and during the period in which the literature of romance in England took its rise?

The purpose of this study, therefore, is to consider the part played in this transmission by William of Malmesbury, the distinguished twelfth-century historian, during his period of service as a writer of advertising propaganda for the great publicity campaign at Glastonbury Abbey.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the power and influence of Glastonbury were seriously impaired by the growing reputation of Canterbury and Wells. The Glastonbury monks, in order to enlist public support for their abbey, embarked upon a comprehensive scheme of advertising. Their procedure consisted largely of gathering up various ecclesiastical and secular traditions—British, Saxon, and Irish—and reshaping them in such a way as to reflect honor and glory upon Glastonbury.

The significance of this process for the history of mediaeval English literature lies principally in the fact that one set of traditions thus utilized were those dealing with King Arthur. According to Glastonbury propaganda, Arthur granted lands and immunities to the abbey out of gratitude to St Gildas, who rescued Guinevere from an abductor;¹ he endowed a choir of twenty-four monks to pray for the soul of his nephew Ider, who died there from his wounds after fighting against three giants;² and finally both he and Guinevere were buried at Glastonbury.³ The most interesting achievement, perhaps, was the Arthurian romance, Perlesvaus, which consists of a combination of Arthurian and Glastonbury traditions.⁴

William's intimate connection with a movement which was so largely concerned with the collection and dissemination of romantic material gives special importance to his interest in Irish culture and his use of Irish documents. It should prove profitable, therefore, to make rather careful inquiry into the following details of his career: (1) his contact with Irish tradition before he came to Glastonbury; (2) his contact with Irish tradition at Glastonbury; (3) his use of Irish material at Glastonbury; and (4) his position as an intermediary between Ireland and the English literary world of the twelfth century.

William was educated at Malmesbury Abbey, a place which preserved for many years a strong tradition of Irish influence. The Abbey was said to have been founded by an Irish cleric, Maidulphus (Maelduibh).⁵ Aldhelm, the famous Bishop of Sherborne, received part of his education there under an Irishman,⁶ possibly Maelduibh himself. In subsequent years he corresponded with friends in Ireland⁷ and with Irish on the Continent.⁸ If we may trust the tradition mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis,⁹ he engaged in an exaggerated form of asceticism very similar to that ascribed to certain Irish monks.¹⁰

It is also worthy of note that during the twelfth century Malmesbury Abbey seems to have had rather close relations with Abingdon, another monastery which fostered a tradition of foundation by the Irish.¹¹ The chief connecting link between the two monasteries was Faricius († 1117), the biographer of Aldhelm, who was at first cellarer of Malmesbury and later abbot of Abingdon. His interest in Malmesbury must certainly have been preserved and intensified by his labors in compiling the Vita Sancti Aldhelmi.¹²

When William went to Glastonbury, therefore, he must have been well acquainted with Irish tradition. At Glastonbury, moreover, he found himself in contact with even stronger Irish associations than those he had encountered at Malmesbury. Not only was the abbey situated in Celtic territory which had long been populated by people in close touch with Irish culture,¹³ but it was apparently a gathering-point for direct Irish influence.

The first¹⁴ reliable mention of Irish at Glastonbury occurs in a tenth-century anonymous Life of St Dunstan. The passage is as follows:

Porro Hiberniensium peregrini locum, quem dixi, Glastoniae sicut et ceterae fidelium turbae, magno colebant affectu, et maxime ob B. Patricii junioris honorem qui faustus ibidem in Domino quievisse narratur. Horum etiam libros rectae fidei tramitem philosophantes, diligenter [Dunstanus] excoluit.¹⁵

Perhaps the most striking detail of this statement is the reference to Glastonbury as the burial place of St Patrick junior. Although we may not be accustomed to the conception of a St Patrick the younger (which, of course, presupposes a St Patrick the elder), the idea of two Patricks was quite familiar to both Irish and English ecclesiastical writers of the Middle Ages. Patrick the younger was the great apostle of Ireland. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the writer of the Life of St Dunstan was attempting to meet an assertion that it was not the younger but the elder St Patrick who was buried at Glastonbury. The tradition which assigns to Glastonbury the elder Patrick, or Sen-Patrick, was well known in Ireland. The commentaries on the eighth-century Félire of Oengus contain the following statement of the tradition:

Sen-Patrick.i. ic.Rosdela i Maig lacha ata Senpatraicc. Nó hí nGlostimbir na nGoedel atá Senpatraic.i. cathair sin fil a ndescert Saxan et Scoti (ibi) habitabant.

Another commentary reads:

Senphatraicc o Ross dela im-maig locha, sed uerius est commad hi nGlastingibercc na nGóidel i ndescuirt Sachsan atá Senphatraicc. Scotti enim prius in peregrinatione ibi habitabant.¹⁶

A similar statement appears in the commentaries on a Hymn to St Patrick ascribed to Fiacc of Sletty, a sixth-century disciple of Patrick. This statement explains that Patrick mac Calpuirn (the apostle of Ireland) promised Sen-Patrick that they should go to heaven together, and that he waited for Sen-Patrick from the sixteenth of March until the first month of Autumn.¹⁷ The statements of the Glastonbury writer and the Irish commentators, therefore, are contradictory. If we knew something of when this difference of opinion arose, we might be able to fix at least an approximate date for the beginning of the Patrick tradition at Glastonbury.

The Glastonbury statement that Patrick the younger was buried at Glastonbury is certainly not the beginning; for it bears clear indications of being a denial of a previous statement that it was some other Patrick that was buried there. The Irish statement, of which the Glastonbury statement seems to be a denial, occurs in the commentaries on the Félire, a body of material that is still undated. We may infer, however, that some of it is of very early date; for there is a passage in these commentaries which refers to the “commentary on the martyrology which from the time of the saints is in Armagh.”¹⁸ We may therefore conclude that although the commentaries in their present form can hardly be dated earlier than the eleventh century, certain parts of them must depend on a body of material at least as old as the ninth century, the end of the so-called “age of the saints.” It seems fairly certain, moreover, that the statement made by the commentators on the Félire, that it was Sen-Patrick who was buried at Glastonbury, is the one which the Glastonbury writer was attempting to controvert. The controversy, then, if such we may call it, must have been started before the compilation of the tenth century Life of St Dunstan, and may go back to the beginning of the ninth century. Let us observe, furthermore, that Sen-Patrick, who seems clearly to be an invention, is always associated with Glastonbury. This fact, taken in connection with the disagreement as to the identity of the Patrick who was buried at Glastonbury, affords a strong presumption that Sen-Patrick owes his existence to an attempt on the part of Irish clerics to account for two contradictory traditions regarding the burial place of Patrick. This again leads us to the ninth century; for a passage in a treatise on the Cáin Adamnáin (Law of Adamnan), composed during that period, includes in a list of saints ‘the two Patricks.’¹⁹

On the basis of the foregoing facts we may assume, tentatively at least, that Glastonbury's claim to be the burial place of St Patrick was in existence as early as the ninth century.

In the later biographies of Dunstan, composed by Osbern of Canterbury and William of Malmesbury, there is evidence of the continuance of Irish sentiment at Glastonbury. Osbern emphasized the importance of Irish clerics at Glastonbury²⁰ more than did his anonymous predecessor, and William takes special pains to compliment the skill and erudition of Irish teachers.²¹

One is inclined, morever, to see special significance in the close relations between Glastonbury and Abingdon, the Irish connections of which have already been noticed.²² Aethelwald, abbot of Abingdon (955-984), had been a pupil of Dunstan at Glastonbury.²³ When he went to Abingdon, he took with him three other Glastonbury monks, Osgar, Foldbricht, and Frithgar.²⁴ Osgar succeeded Aethelwald as abbot in 984, but died in the same year.²⁵ From 1034 to 1044 Abingdon was ruled by another Glastonbury monk, Siward.²⁶ In view of these close relations we are inclined to suspect that the Irish foundation-legend which gained currency at Abingdon may have been due to Glastonbury influence.

As we turn again to the work of William of Malmesbury, we are not surprised to find that a writer, brought into contact with Irish influence as it prevailed at Malmesbury and Glastonbury, should give Irish material a prominent place in his work.

William composed Lives of the Irish saints, Benignus, Indract, and Patrick.²⁷ All of these Lives were unquestionably based on Hiberno-Latin materials. He included a considerable amount of Irish material also in his advertising tract, De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae (DA). This material includes a short sketch of the life of St Patrick, a spurious charter which claims St Patrick as the founder of monastic life at Glastonbury, accounts of the martyrdom of St Indract, of the ministry and abbacy of St Benignus, successor to St Patrick, of the visit of St Columba, whom William calls by his Irish name, Columkille, and of the visit of St Brigit.²⁸ This material, like the Lives, must have been based ultimately on documents from Ireland. In addition to this purely ecclesiastical material, there is, in the description of the secular beginnings of Glastonbury, a tale in which some are inclined to see a reflection of the Irish story of Glass mac Caiss, the swineherd.²⁹

Before we may ascribe this material directly to William, however, there are certain questions to be settled. It is fairly well established that DA underwent rather extensive interpolations after William had finished it. W. W. Newell, the last writer to discuss the text of DA,³⁰ includes among the interpolations the very passages to which we have just referred. It is necessary, therefore, to examine his argument.

Newell's chief weapon in his attack against the authenticity of the extant text is a series of excerpts in one of William's later works, De Gestis Regum Anglorum (GR).³¹ These excerpts, according to the testimony of the author himself, are taken from his tract, De Antiquitate. Newell regards this material as the only trustworthy reproduction of the original tract and looks with great suspicion on any passage in the extant text of DA which does not agree with it. In arguing against the authenticity of the Irish material under consideration he invokes the authority of the GR extracts still further. Although most of the DA material appears in abbreviated form in GR, he will not allow its genuineness because it does not appear in the same place in the narrative. It is difficult to follow this argument. As a matter of fact, when we come upon material in GR avowedly taken from DA and then find in the extant text of DA the same material in somewhat fuller form, we should have every right to accept this particular portion of the DA text as authentic. William, moreover, when he was composing GR, was engaged in a serious and fairly conscientious piece of writing. He was covering a wide field and using many sources. It is therefore not at all strange that when he found it expedient to include certain material relating to Glastonbury he turned to the tract that he had already composed. But it would have been strange indeed if he had felt under obligation to reproduce the original text in the same words and in the same order. The very nature and purpose of DA would make its material and arrangement unfit for direct transference to GR. Newell, therefore, is hardly justified in branding as an interpolation every passage in the extant text of DA which does not occur in GR, or which occurs in GR in different order.

Another objection to the authenticity of the material under consideration seems to be that its position in the text violates William's promise of chronological arrangement as given in his prologue. Here again the objection is hardly sustained. The promise of chronological arrangement was not by any means sacred or inviolable, and the violation was only trifling, consisting merely of the inclusion of the mention of Gildas before that of Patrick.

On the whole, the arguments against the authenticity of the Irish material in DA are not particularly strong. On the other hand, there is ample reason for believing that it was originally included by the author himself. William had long been in contact with Irish tradition and must have formed rather a close acquaintance with Irish hagiographical lore in writing his Lives of Patrick, Benignus, and Indracht.³² In view of the strong Irish influence at Glastonbury, nothing is more natural than that William should have included some of this material in his tract.

Let us now turn to the passage describing the secular beginnings of Glastonbury.³³ According to this passage the founder, Glasteing, was one of twelve brothers, descendants of Cuneda, and had founded Glastonbury as a result of finding there under an apple tree a sow and pigs that he had been chasing. In commemoration of his good fortune he called the place Insula Avalloniae, or Isle of Apples.³⁴ This equation of Glastonbury with Avalon, the place to which Arthur was carried to be healed of his wounds, and the similarity between Glasteing and Glais, a character in the Perlesvaus,³⁵ has aroused the interest of a number of students of mediaeval literature.

Baist, in his investigation of this passage,³⁶ discovered that the source of the names of Glasteing's brothers was a genealogy in a Harleian manuscript of the Historia Britonum attributed to Nennius.³⁷ Baist suggested that the passage, before it came to the notice of William, passed through the hands of an intermediary who altered the successive descendants to brothers. This explanation was satisfactory as far as it went, but it did not explain the origin of the swineherd himself. This deficiency was supplied by Thurneysen,³⁸ who recalled that Muirchu, an early commentator on the life of St Patrick, tells a story of a certain Cass mac Glaiss, a swineherd who was resurrected and baptized by St Patrick. Here, as may be observed, the name is not Glass, but Cass. A short recapitulation which appears in the ninth-century Glossary of Cormac, however, reverses the names, giving Glass mac Caiss, and, still more interesting, localizes the story at Glastonbury.³⁹

This was a most interesting discovery, but it did not solve the problem completely. There still remained the difficulty of bridging the gap between Cormac's Glossary and DA. It was not safe to assume that William had seen Cormac's Glossary or that he could have read it if he had seen it; and there seemed to be no other document in which the story could have been accessible. It seemed necessary, therefore, to frame some sort of hypothesis to fit the situation. The hypothesis devised by Thurneysen and his successors may best be expressed in the words of F. Lot:

… le conte du porcher, localisé à Glastonbury dès la fin du IXe siècle ou le début du Xe siècle, parvint à la connaissance d'un moine de l'abbaye dans le courant du XIe. Il y rattacha, par des légends étymologiques de sa fabrication, la typonomie des environs du couvent. C'est un manuscript de la famille harleyenne ainsi interpolé que Guillaume de Malmesbury a eu sous les yeux vers 1135 et auquel il se réfère.

Nous sommes donc fixés sur la première partie du chapitre. C'est l'œuvre d'un moine de Glastonbury qui a mis à profit un légend ou fabrication indirectement irlandaise et directement galloise ou plutôt due à un clerc gallois.⁴⁰

This hypothesis of an intermediary, though brilliantly conceived, is unsatisfactory because it leaves William himself entirely out of account. Furthermore, a closer examination of the material connected with this question shows that the hypothesis is unnecessary. As we have already seen, William asserted that he had composed a Life of St Patrick. Although this Life is no longer extant, a rather full summary of it was made in the sixteenth century by John Leland, antiquary to Henry VIII. A detailed comparison of this summary with the biographical material relating to St Patrick shows that William used, as a basis for his work, two Hiberno-Latin Lives, one analogous to the Vita Secunda and Vita Quarta printed by John Colgan⁴¹ and the other corresponding closely to Colgan's Vita Tertia.⁴² Finally, it has been shown that there was at one time in the possession of the monks of Glastonbury a Life of Patrick closely resembling the Vita Tertia and containing an interpolation which made Glastonbury the place of Patrick's burial.⁴³ This Life, and all the Lives belonging to the same recension, contain the incident of Glass the swineherd. The text is as follows:

Quadam autem die cum ambularet Patricius, in uia inuenit magnum sepulcrum longitudine.xx. pedum, et uidentes hoc fratres cum magno stupore dicebant: Non credimus quod esset homo huius longitudinis. Dixit eis Patricius: Si volueritis uidebitis eum. Tunc signauit Patricius baculo sepulcrum, et ecce vir magnus surrexit et dixit, Bene sit tibi, uir sancte, quia et in una hora a penis liberasti me. Et fleuit amarissime et dixit ei: Si licet, ambulabo uobiscum. Et respondit Patricius: Non possumus ut ambules nobiscum, quia non possunt homines uidere faciem tuam pro timore tuo. Sed crede Deo celi, et baptismum accipe, et non reuerteris in locum penarum in quo fuisti; et indica nobis quis es. Et respondens dixit: Ego sum Glas, filius Cais, qui fuit porcarius Lugir regis Hirote; et iugulauit me filian maic eom⁴⁴ in regno Coipre Niethfer post annos centum.⁴⁵

In view of the fact that William had undoubtedly read this story, the hypothesis of an intermediary becomes unnecessary.

The basis of the story of Glast coming to Glastonbury and founding a town where he discovered his pigs is a tale relating the selection of an ecclesiastical or secular building site by following a sow or boar. This story was readily accessible to William in such Irish and British hagiographical material as he must have used in composing Lives of saints and other Glastonbury propaganda.⁴⁶ It is interesting to observe, moreover, that Irish secular literature contains a story of a certain Glass, son of Donn Desa, who engaged in a long and arduous chase for a pig.⁴⁷ There is another story which combines the essential elements of the Glastonbury legend, namely, the swineherd, his pigs, and a sheltering tree.⁴⁸ Although it remains to be demonstrated that William had seen the particular documents in which these tales are preserved, we may easily see from the evidence already presented that he could have heard them from Irish monks at Glastonbury, or could have found them in Irish saints' Lives. It is not necessary, therefore, to assume that the story of Glast or any other material from Irish lore made its way into DA through the efforts of anyone but the author.

Let us now turn to the argument for interpolation.

Newell, in his observations on the Glast passage, says: “This passage, referring asit does to the ungenuine initial chapter, evidently proceeds either from the same reviser or more probably from a third hand.”⁴⁹ The passage mentioned is the introductory phrase, “Descriptis fundacione, dedicacione, ac post ea invencione huius oratorii. …” The ‘ungenuine’ initial chapter consists (1) of an account of the foundation of the church of St Mary at Glastonbury by the disciples of Philip the Apostle, and (2) of the restoration of St Mary's by Phaganus and Deruvianus. The reasons for considering it ungenuine as presented by Newell are as follows: (1) the authentic extract in GR states that the missionaries were nameless, whereas DA asserts that the church was erected by disciples of Philip and restored by Phaganus and Deruvianus; (2) the extract in GR gives as an alternative account the apostolic origin, and adds, as the author's own conjecture, that the apostle may have been Philip, whereas DA gives a detailed account of the foundation by Philip's disciples.⁵⁰

It must be admitted that these accounts do not agree; but they are hardly, as Newell asserts, contradictory. The difference is only that difference which we should naturally expect to find between work done hastily and perhaps unscrupulously for advertising and work done carefully and conservatively for purposes of genuine history. In other words, here Newell's argument again leans too heavily upon the supposition that the extract in GR is intended to be a faithful reproduction of the original. Certainly the ungenuineness of the initial chapter under discussion is not sufficiently clear to allow of our assuming that a reference to it is proof of interpolation.

For the present, therefore, there seems no valid reason for withholding from William the credit or the blame for the Glast passage.

As we glance back over the foregoing material, we observe the following significant facts concerning William's contact with Irish culture: (1) he was educated at Malmesbury, a place where Irish traditions were fostered; (2) he went from there to Glastonbury, where connections with the Irish were still stronger; (3) he wrote Lives of three Irish saints of Glastonbury and included material dealing with them in his Glastonbury advertising tract; (4) he combined Irish and British traditions to form the tale of the secular foundation of Glastonbury. All these things help to establish William as a channel through which Irish literary ideas could have reached the English literary world.

As we look further into William's career, we find even more interesting facts. When he composed his De Gestis Pontificum (ca. 1125) he apparently had no special enthusiasm for Glastonbury. He mentions it among the well-known monasteries of the country, but bestows no unusual attention upon it. But by 1129 he had written a tract which had no other purpose than the glorifying of Glastonbury; he had composed the Lives of three Irish Glastonbury saints, one of which had for its object the vindication of Patrick's sojourn and death at Glastonbury; and he had compiled at least a part of his Life of Dunstan, which was undertaken for the avowed purpose of correcting certain misapprehensions about Glastonbury, arising out of statements made by previous biographers, particularly Osbern of Canterbury.

All this inclines us to the suspicion that William was called to Glastonbury for the special purpose of assisting with the advertising of the great abbey. This suspicion grows stronger as we read William's statement that the monks furnished him with material for the writing of the Vita Dunstani,⁵¹ and that he submitted DA to them for approval or revision.⁵² And when we see the evidences of haste, carelessness, and lack of critical judgment in DA and the almost slavish adherence to the structure of his sources in the Life of Patrick,⁵³ the suspicion becomes almost a certainty.

We are inclined to ask ourselves, furthermore, why William should have consented to undertake such work. The answer to this question lies near at hand. Glastonbury in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had other rivals than Canterbury and Wells. As one of the outposts of Norman monasticism it came into conflict with the old Celtic foundations of Wales and the border. Under Norman control Welsh lands were appropriated to the use of Norman monasteries, and Welsh churches were transferred to the jurisdiction of Norman bishops. As may well be supposed, the Welsh did not submit tamely to this imposition. They had never been thoroughly conquered and they had unusual talents for making life disagreeable for the border lords. It was highly desirable, therefore, that the Celtic population should be properly impressed not only with the sanctity and antiquity of Norman foundations, but also with the extent of favors shown to them in days of old by Celtic saints and heroes.

Not only was Glastonbury a strategic point for putting into practice tactics intended to propitiate the Celtic population, but it was fortunate in enjoying the favor of the highest Norman powers. One of the abbots was Henry of Blois, brother to King Stephen, and the lord of the territory in which it stood was Robert of Gloucester, son of Henry I. There was every reason, therefore, why it should command the best services available. When we observe, further, that Robert of Gloucester was a direct patron of William,⁵⁴ it is not hard to understand why that reputable historian should have undertaken the work of writing advertising material for Glastonbury Abbey. Robert, moreover, must certainly have been interested in both Irish and Welsh history; for his mother was Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Teudwr, king of South Wales,⁵⁵ and his wife, Mabel, was a daughter of Robert Fitzhamon, who ruled in Glamorgan.

Now let us see what all this means for the transmission of Irish material to the English literary world. We have observed that William was engaged in the writing of propaganda, that part of his work consisted in the gathering up and publishing of Irish traditions, and that his work was carried on at Glastonbury, where Irish traditions were prevalent and where, be it especially noted, certain legends about King Arthur took shape. It remains now but to notice William's place in the literary world of his day.

William's work was only part of a general movement to write British history in such a way as to show Norman institutions to the Celtic population in a favorable light. The Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes) ascribed to Caradoc of Llancarvan is another example. The outstanding work in this movement is, of course, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which presents Arthur, legendary hero of the Welsh, in the complete guise of a twelfth-century Norman monarch. Geoffrey brings the narrative of British history down to the time of Cadwaladr. He then assigns to Caradoc of Llancarvan the task of continuing it down to the present, and allots to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon the history of the Anglo-Saxon kings.⁵⁶ Each of these assignments was fulfilled. If anything further is needed to show that William was a member of Geoffrey's literary circle, we may find it in the fact that Geoffrey dedicated his history to Robert of Gloucester, William's patron. It would be strange indeed, then, if William was not fully aware of Geoffrey's intention to write about Arthur, especially since he knew the Welsh traditions about Arthur and had expressed the hope that someone would put them into respectable historical form.⁵⁷

On the basis of the foregoing evidence we may regard the following points as established:

(1) William was interested in Irish material; he had access to Irish documents; and he was actively engaged in the adaptation of Irish material to the needs of Glastonbury Abbey. The Glastonbury advertisers, moreover, used Arthurian material. The work of William, therefore, added to the Irish influence already established at Glastonbury and provided a means of contact between Arthurian romance and Irish tradition.

(2) Contact between Irish tradition and English literature in general was further effected through William's connection with the Norman court and with Arthurian literature in particular through his association with Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Notes

1. See the Vita Gildae ascribed to Caradoc of Llancarvan, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Ant., Chronica Minora, iii, 109, 110.

2. De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, by William of Malmesbury, in Migne, Pat. Lat., CLXXIX, col. 1701.

3. Giraldis Cambrensis Speculum Ecclesiae, ii, 8-10, in Opera, IV, ed. J. S. Brewer, London, 1873 (Rolls Ser., No. 21).

4. The Glastonbury connections of this romance have been treated in a series of articles by W. A. Nitze, Modern Philology, I (1903-04), 1 ff., 255 ff.; Studies in Philology (University of North Carolina), XV (1918), 7 ff.; Mod. Phil., XVII (1919-20), 151 ff., 605 ff.

5. Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Regum Anglorum, edited by W. Stubbs, London, 1887-89 (Rolls Ser., No. 90), p. 30. The statement here presented is based on a letter ascribed to Pope Sergius I (Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Ant., XV, 513), in which the name of the founder is given as Meldum. On the form of the name, see the note by Charles Plummer in his Venerabilis Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Oxford, 1896), II, 310.

6. See the letter written to him by an Irish cleric who wished to become his pupil in Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Ant., XV, 494.

7. Ibid., pp. 486-494.

8. Ibid., p. 494, note 1. It is through the correspondence of Aldhelm that we learn of the increasing popularity of Irish learning among the Saxons. In spite of his Irish training, Aldhelm seemed deeply concerned over the numbers of English who left home to take scholastic training in Ireland (Ibid., pp. 492, 493).

9. Gemma Ecclesiastica, in Opera, II, edited by J. S. Brewer, London, 1862 (Rolls Ser.), pp. 236, 237.

10. Félire Óengusso Céli Dé. The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, ed. W. Stokes (Henry Bradshaw Soc., London, 1905), pp. 40, 41.

11. See the story of the foundation as preserved in MS. Cott. Claud. C. ix, an early thirteenth-century document probably based on an earlier report (Historia Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. J. Stevenson, London, 1858 (Rolls Ser., No. 2), I, 23. The story goes that Abban, an Irish monk who came to preach in Britain, was granted land in Berkshire for the erection of a monastery. This monastery was called Abbendun, which, according to the account, was a name based either upon the Irish word dun plus the name of the founder, or upon the Saxon name for mons Abenni. Here Abban placed three hundred monks, ruled over them for some time, and then returned to Ireland. This resembles the account given by the Hiberno-Latin Vita Sancti Abbani, which tells of the foundation of “Abbaindun vel Dun Abbain” in Britain by the well-known Munster saint. (See the text as edited by Charles Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, Oxford, 1910, I, 11, 12.) The similarity of the two accounts and the reference to the Irish name in the English story would lead us to conclude that the Vita Sancti Abbani was known in England.

12. See the edition, Pat. Lat., LXXXIX, coll. 63 ff.

13. See my discussion of the secular contact between the Irish and the Celtic Britons during the early Middle Ages, Studies in English (University of Texas), No. 6 (1926), pp. 5 ff.; a study of the ecclesiastical relations will appear shortly.

14. This is offered as the first reliable evidence for the presence of Irish at Glastonbury even in the face of the statement, so often quoted from the Irish Glossary of Cormac († 908), in which Glastonbury is referred to as Glastonbury of the Irish. The passage in the Glossary which contains this reference is as follows:

    “Inde dicitur Dind Tra-dui.i. dun tredui.i. tredue Crimthain
    Mair maic fidaig ríg Héirenn 7 Alban co Muir nIcht.
    7 inde est Glassdimbir (na nGaoidel).i. cell for brû Mara hIcht.”

    (The foregoing text is that of R. Thurneysen, “Zu Cormac's Glossar,” in Festschrift für Ernst Windisch, Leipzig, 1914, pp. 23 ff.)

    “Hence is said Dind Tradui, i.e. Dun Tredui, i.e. triple-fossed fort of Crimthann the Great, son of Fidach king of Ireland and Alba to the Ictian Sea [English Channel].

    “And hence is [said] Glassdimbir (of the Irish), i.e. a cell on the shores of the Ictian Sea.”

    Waiving for the present the doubts aroused by the equation of Glassdimbir with Glastonbury and by the situation of the cell referred to on the English Channel, let us observe that Thurneysen's study of the text shows that all the existing texts of the Glossary go back to three main recensions. Next we may notice that the phrase “na-nGaoidel” does not appear in the texts which, according to Thurneysen, most faithfully reproduce the original. In fact it appears only in certain manuscripts of one recension, represented by the Yellow Book of Lecan text and two other texts descended from a cognate of YBL. We may observe, furthermore, that Thurneysen finds the YBL text valuable for word-forms, but unreliable as regards content, because of the unusual number of additions. It hardly seems safe, therefore, to accept this passage as evidence that Glastonbury in the late ninth or early tenth century bore the name “Glastonbury of the Irish.”

15. AASS (Boll.), May, IV, 347.

16. Ed. W. Stokes, p. 188. Stokes' translation is as follows: “Patrick Senior, i.e., at Ross dela in Mag locha is Patrick Senior. Or Patrick Senior is in Glastonbury of the Gaels, that is a monastery in the south of England, and the Scott [Irish] used to dwell there.” The second passage differs little from the first except in that the Latin clause mentions the fact that the Irish who dwelt in Glastonbury were pilgrims. This statement, of course, recalls the pilgrims mentioned in the passage quoted from the Life of St Dunstan.

17. The Tripartite Life of St Patrick, ed. W. Stokes, London, 1887 (Rolls Ser.), p. 247. Sen-Patrick's day is August 24.

18. Félire Óengusso, p. 152: “… ar is ed fil issin trachtad ind Felire atá o remus no nóem a n-Ardmacha.”

19. Cáin Adamnáin. An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan, ed. K. Meyer, Oxford, 1905 (Anecdota Oxoniensia), p. 12.

20. In Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, London, 1874 (Rolls Ser., No. 63), p. 3.

21. Ibid., pp. 256, 257.

22. See above, … note [11].

23. See his Life by Aelfric († 1006) in Hist. Mon. de Ab., II, 257.

24. Ibid., I, 124; II, 258.

25. Ibid., II, 261.

26. Ibid., I, 443, 444.

27. De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, in Adam of Domerham's Historia de Rebus Gestis Glastoniensibus (ed. T. Hearne, Oxford, 1727), I, 3. I offer the reader my humble apologies for referring to two different editions of the De Antiquitate. When I began this study I had access to the comparatively good edition of Hearne; later I found it necessary to fill in certain references from Migne's reprint of Gale's edition.

28. Pat. Lat., CLXXIX, coll. 1688-1691; on the abbacy of Benignus, col. 1701, and on the translation of his relies, col. 1729.

29. Ibid., col. 1687.

30. Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn, XVIII (1903), 459 ff.

31. Ed. W. Stubbs, London, 1887-89 (Rolls Ser., No. 90), pp. 24 ff.

32. In addition to the material relating to these three saints, he had read a life of Brigit. See his reference to the “celeberrimus sermo,” Pat. Lat., CLXXIX, col. 1690.

33. See above, pp. 271 ff.

34. For the text of this passage see Hearne's edition of DA, 1727, pp. 16, 17.

35. See the discussion by W. A. Nitze, Mod. Phil., I (1903-04), 3, 4.

36. Zs. f. Roman. Philol., XIX (1895), 326-347.

37. One of the Welsh genealogies attached to the ninth-century Annales Cambriae. See the edition by E. Phillimore, Y Cymmrodor, IX (1888), 180.

38. Zs. f. Roman. Philol., XX (1896), 316-321.

39. For the text see Thurneysen's “Zu Cormac's Glossar,” in Festschrift fûr Ernst Windisch, pp. 23 ff.

40. “Glastonbury et Avalon,” Romania, XXVII (1898), 534.

41. Triadis Thaumaturgae seu Diversorum Patricii Columbae et Brigidae, trium veteris et maioris Scotiae seu Hiberniae sanctorum insulae, communium patronorum, acta, etc., Louvain, 1647, pp. 11 ff., 35 ff.

42. Ibid., pp. 21 ff. See my study of these Lives as compared with Leland's summary, Mod. Phil., XXIV (1926), 5 ff.

43. J. B. Bury, “A Life of St. Patrick (Colgan's Tertia Vita),” Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, XXXII (1903), Sect. C, pp. 199-262.

44. The reading in Cormac's Glossary is “do fianib Maic Con (by the soldiers of Maccon).”

45. Text according to Bury, op. cit., pp. 247, 248.

46. See the Vita Cadoci, MS. Cott. Vesp. A., xiv, fol. 21v; Vita Dubricii in The Text of the Book of Llan Dâv, ed. J. G. Evans and J. Rhys, Oxford, 1893, pp. 80, 81; Vita Finniani in Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae ex Codice Salmanticensis, ed. C. De Smedt and J. De Backer, Edinburgh and London, 1888, col. 199; Vita Mochoemog in Vitae Sanct. Hib., ed. Plummer, II, 170; Vita Ruadani, ibid., II, 241; Vita Mocteo in AASS Hib., col. 909; Vita Bernaci in Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, ed. W. J. Rees, Llandovery, 1853, pp. 8, 9.

47. See the Dindsenchas (place-name stories) in the Book of Ballymote (facs.), p. 369a; Book of Leinster (facs.), p. 195b16.

48. “The Dindsenchas of Srutar Mata,” Book of Leinster (facs.), p. 169a51, and Introduction, p. 45.

49. Op. cit., p. 475.

50. Ibid., p. 471.

51. Memorials, ed. Stubbs, p. 252.

52. De Ant., ed. Hearne, p. 3.

53. See my study of this Life, cited above, … note [42].

54. See Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, pp. 355, 518-520, 525.

55. Rhys ap Teudwr spent a good part of his life in Ireland, and was probably educated there.

56. Hist. Reg. Brit., xii, 20 (ed. San Marte, p. 176.)

57. Gesta Regum, ed. cit., p. 342.