Columban

Columban, or COLUMBANUS, St, one of the most learned, eloquent, and devoted of the many missionaries whom Ireland sent forth to the Continent during the Dark Ages, was born in Leinster in the year 543. Having studied under St Comgall, in the great monastery of Bangor, on the coast of Down, he passed over to France, in his fortieth year, accompanied by twelve companions, and founded successively the monasteries of Anegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaine, in the Vosges country. His adherence to the Irish rule for calculating Easter involved him in controversy with the French bishops in 602; and a few years later, the courage with which he rebuked the vices of the Burgundian court, led to his expulsion, largely at the instigation of the notorious Brunhilda, the king's grandmother. After various travels and adventures, and having for a year or two settled at Bregenz, near the Lake of Constance, he passed into Lombardy, and in 612 founded the famous monastery of Bobbio, in the Apennines, where he died on the 21st November 615. His life, written within a century after his death, by Jonas, one of his successors in the abbacy of Bobbio, has been repeatedly printed. The writings of St Columban, which are wholly in Latin, consist of a rule for the government of his monastery, six poems on the vanity of life, several letters on ecclesiastical affairs, seventeen short sermons, and a commentary on the Psalms (first published at Rome in 1878). The most complete edition of his works is in Patrick Fleming's Collectanea Sacra (Augsburg, 1621; Louvain, 1667), followed by the Bibliotheca Patrum, and Migne's Patrologiae Cursus (1844). The town of San Colombano, in the province of Milan, takes its name from the Irish monk, as St Gall (q.v.), in Switzerland, perpetuates the name of the most favoured of his disciples. See the Vita by his successor Jonas of Bobbio (tr. by D. C. Munro, 1896), Montalembert's Monks of the West, and Wright's Biographia Literaria.