In this short chapter, the position of Iona at the edge of the mental map of the world that rpevailed int he 7th century is explored.
This chapter discusses aspects of the cult of St Odrán (Odhran, Oran) as found on Iona and in the surrounding region.
This chapter explores the usually accepted idea that disputes evident over the governance of Iona during the late 12th and early 13th centuries were about the imposition of the Benedictine rule on the island. It proposes instead that the dispute was largely factional, suggesting that the Benedictine rule may long have been in place in Iona.
Unlike many hagiographers who proclaim the healing miracles performed by their saint at his or her tomb in order to attract pilgrims, Adomnán in his Life of Columba very deliberately declines to do so. His saint does heal lay people, but never on Iona. By rejecting the hagiographical tradition which draws the sick to the saint’s grave, Adomnán seeks to defend the clausura—the enclosed monastic space—of his community, and to exclude people and practices which would disrupt the spiritual bond between the monks and their abbot.
This chapter investigates the putative connection between Iona and National Library of Scotland MS 10000, a prayer book made around 1200. It suggests that there maybe reasons to look elsewhere for the original patron of the manuscript.
This chapter explores the place in the medieval ritual landscape of Iona of the site of An Eala, close to the shore near Port nam Mairtir.
This chapter discusses the mix of Latin and Gaelic in the rendering of names in Adomnán's Life of Columba.
In this chapter, an argument is set out concerning the gradual transformation of the island's name, from Early Gaelic Í into a Latin version Ioua, followed in the later middle ages by a new Latin version Iona. The chapter attempts to pinpoint the moment at which the misreading of Ioua as Iona happened, and what might lie behind it.
This chapter explores further the place of Sìthean Mòr, earlier Cnoc Angel, discussing its likely place in the ritual landscape of early medieval Iona.
In this chapter, an argument is set out concerning the gradual transformation of the island's name, from Early Gaelic Í into a Latin version Ioua, followed in the later middle ages by a new Latin version Iona. The chapter attempts to pinpoint the moment at which the misreading of Ioua as Iona happened, and what might lie behind it.
THis chapter explores the 'space syntax' of Iona, considering the way in which the Early Medieval monastery was set up, as against the alter Benedictine monastery. Analysis sugegst that at fundamental levels there was more similarity than surface level impressions would suggest.
Two events on Iona in the early thirteenth century - a papal bull in 1203 and a raid by Irish churchmen in 1204 - have conventionally been interpreted as signalling that a formerly ' Celtic ' monastery became Benedictine in 1203. The raid has been seen as an attempt to reverse this change because of the supposed opposition between the two traditions. This article challenges these views, arguing that (1) no inherent conflict existed between Celtic and Benedictine monasticism, (2) the 1203 papal bull did not establish a new Benedictine foundation, (3) Iona may already have been Benedictine in some sense for a century, and (4) the raiding Irish churchmen were Augustinians, not defenders of ' Celtic ' monasticism. Instead, the raid was driven by ecclesiastical and political rivalries between Derry and Iona, reflecting the competing interests of the Mac Lochlainn kings in Ireland and Ragnall son of Somerled, king of the Hebrides.
A saint called Odrán appears as part of several other saints’ Lives, often in a role closely connected to his death, and sometimes in a way which made him an alter ego of the principal saint of the Life. Such a death – whether of Odrán or another saint – could establish the sanctity of a site and could also express hierarchies of ecclesiastical authority. The cult of St Odrán on Iona, first attested in the twelfth century, fits this pattern. It is related to the claim that Derry made at the time to authority over the Columban familia. The cult of Odrán is also related to the layout of Iona's holy places – chapels and burial grounds – and to the ritual movement between them involving both the living and the dead.
Adomnán of Iona wrote a Life of Saint Columba, the founder of that monastery, but did not tell the story of Iona's foundation. Instead, the holiness of the monastery and its surrounding landscape, and their connection to the founder, were established by a narrative in the final chapter of Adomnán's work. In it we watch the final days of Columba's life and his movement across the island, blessing it and its inhabitants. The description is simple, but it is rich in references to scriptural, liturgical and sacramental themes, and it structures those themes spatially, revealing Adomnán's mental map of the island. Iona's various spaces and boundaries shape and express the lives of Columba's (and Adomnán's) monks, and so invite the reader to see how salvation is revealed in time and space, in movement, and in dwelling within the spatial order established by Columba's blessings.
We have long understood from Bede's testimony that Adomnán, the ninth abbot of Iona, urged his monks to adopt the relatively new 19-year paschal cycle, but they – or many of them – remained faithful to the 84-year cycle which they had inherited. There are passages in Vita sancti Columbae which show Adomnán using stories about St Columba in an attempt to deal with this situation, first of all to reduce the harm done to the community by the disagreement, urging fraternal charity; and secondly, as argued here for the first time, by using contrasting stories about two other saints, Ernéne and Fintan, to persuade his monks that Columba had prophetically foreseen the dispute over the Easter date, and that he had ‘cast his vote’, so to speak, with the saint associated with the 19-year cycle.
