Irish Scribes, Inishmurray and Viking Raids
Contribution by Seán Golden
In a land-locked library in Switzerland there is a ninth-century Irish manuscript of a Latin grammar containing a poem in Old Irish that captures the dread of Viking raids that haunted the monastic settlements on coastal islands at the time.
The earliest date given for a Viking raid on Inishmurray appears in Old Irish in the Annals of Inishfallen for the year 795: Orcain Iae Coluim Chille & Inse Muirethaig & Inse Bó Finne, ‘The plundering of Í Coluim Chille, and of Inis Muiredaig, and of Inis Bó Finne’. The Vikings are not named specifically.
The Annals of Ulster (Annála Uladh) mention a raid in 807 in Latin written in Irish script: Gentiles combuserunt insolam Muiredaiġ, et invaderunt ross Comain, ‘The heathens burned Inis Muiredaig and invaded Ros Comáin’. The Latin term used for the Vikings is gentiles. In the early history of christendom, whose origins were Jewish, the Gentiles were the non-Jewish peoples. Hence the idea that they were ‘heathens’, as opposed to the Chosen People of the monasteries.
The Annals of Ulster, folio 19 v.
The Annals of Ulster, folio 19 v. detail.
The original Annals of Ulster text dates the raid to 806 but this has been corrected to 807 by scholars because of changes to calendar chronology since the Middle Ages, when the new year began on the first of March rather than the first of January.
Annals of the Four Masters, folio 314r
The Chronicum Scotorum, ‘Chronicle of Irish Affairs’, also dates the raid to 807: Losccadh Innsi Muirgdhaigh o gentibh et inradh Roiss Caim, ‘The heathens burned Inis Muiredaig and invaded Ros Cam’. The term used for the Vikings is gentibh, ‘Gentiles’, once again, but the text refers to Ros Cam, an island off Galway, rather than Roscommon, an inland site less likely to have been reached by the Vikings at that time.
Scholars have also corrected to 807 earlier dates given in other chronicles of the period. The Annals of the Four Masters (Annála na gCeithre Máistrí) dates the raid in Old Irish to 802: Inis Muirędhaigh do losccadh la h-allmhurachaibh, ⁊ a n-dol istegh for Ros Cam, ‘Inis-Muireadhaigh was burned by foreigners, and they attacked Ros Cam’. In this case the term used for the Vikings is allúrach, ‘foreigner’. This text also refers to Ros Cam rather than Roscommon.
Annals of the Four Masters, folio 314r detail
The Annals of Clonmacnoise date the raid to 804: ‘The Danes burnt Inismoriey & invaded Roscomman’. The original Irish version of these Annals has been lost. They are also known as Mageoghegan’s Book, after Conall Mageoghegan, who translated them into English in the seventeenth century. There is also a reference to Viking raids on Inishmurray in Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, ‘The War of the Irish with the Foreigners’, an encomium for Brian Boru, without a specific date but some time in the early 840’s by context: Ra hindred leo Inis Muridaig, ‘There were plundered by them Inis-Muridhaigh’.
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, detail.
Tanig dna loṅger ba liu andasaide co Ȧthcliath béor. Ra hindred leosaide urmor Erend uili. Ra hindred leo dna Hi Coluimcilli. Ra hindred leo Inis Muridaig, ocus Daminis, ocus Glenn da locha, ocus Lagin uili co Ȧchadur, ocus co Liaṫth Mochaemoc, ocus co Daire Mor, ocus do Cluain [Ferta] Molua, ocus co Ross cre, ocus co Lothra, co ro brissist serin Ruadam, ocus co Cluain mic nois, ocus co Saigin, ocus co Dirmag.
There came also a fleet still more numerous than those to Ath Cliath. The greater part of all Erinn was plundered by them. Moreover, Hi of Columcille was plundered by them. There were plundered by them Inis-Muridhaigh, and Daimhinis, and Glenn da loch, and all Laghin to Achadhur, and to Aghamhbo, and to Liath Mochaemog, and to Daire Mor, and to Clonfert Molua, and to Rosscre, and to Lothra, where they broke the shrine of Ruadan, and to Cluain mic nois, and to Saighir, and to Dirmhagh.
These chronicles were compiled by scribes at different times, the Annals of Inisfallen around 1092, Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh the early 1100s, the Annals of Ulster around 1480. The original date of the Annals of Clonmacnoise cannot now be determined; it was translated around 1627. The Annals of the Four Masters have been dated to 1632 and the Chronicum Scotorum to 1640. They all drew upon an earlier ‘Chronicle of Ireland’, now lost, that scholars have reconstructed by cross-referencing the extant Annals.
The Irish manuscript of a Latin grammar now held in the library St Gall in Switzerland, known as the St Gall Priscian (Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904), has been dated to 850-851. It is a copy in Irish script of the Latin Institutiones Grammaticae by the sixth century grammarian Priscian. The manuscript contains more than 9000 marginal or interlineal glosses or notes, of which 3478 are written in Old Irish, making it one of the most important sources of Old Irish texts. In addition, there are three Old Irish poems written in the margins, one of which refers to the Viking raids. The manuscript was probably compiled in an Irish scriptorium in the north of Ireland, possibly Bangor or Nendrum.
St. Gall (ca. 550 – ca. 645), was one of twelve monks who accompanied St. Columbanus on his mission to restore Christianity to Europe in the ‘Dark Ages’. The Abbey of Sant Gall was built on the site of Gall’s original hermitage. The crucial historical role of Irish scribes has been detailed by Thomas Cahill in How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. By examining the handwriting, scholars have identified two principle scribes, A and B, who compiled the manuscript. They have also identified two additional authors of the glosses. The poem that refers to the Viking raids was written across the top margin of page 112:
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatica p. 112
Is acher in gaith innocht fu fúasna fairggae findfolt ni ágor réimm mora minn: dond láechraid lainn úa Lothlind
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatica p. 112 detail
‘Is acher in gaith innocht’ states there is a sharp wind tonight. The highly alliterative ‘fu fúasna fairggae findfol’ describes it tossing the white hair of the ocean. ‘Ni ágor réimm mora minn’ says I need not fear a calm route over the sea, ‘dond laochra fiáin na Lochlainne’, for the wild warriors from ‘Lochlann’. Many commentators link Lothlind to Norway or to Vikings of Norwegian origin, but the Irish historian Donnchadh Ó Corráin argues that the terms Lothlend, Laithlinn, and Lochlainn refered to Viking Scotland, comprising the Northern and Western Isles and parts of the mainland, especially Caithness, Sutherland and Inverness that were settled by Norwegian Vikings in the early ninth century.
The poem is anonymous. It appears on a folio written by scribe A, but the handwriting of the poem has been identified with scribe B. A gloss in the upper margin of page 157, written by scribe B, may reveal the identity of scribe A: hucusque calvus patricii depinxit, ‘bald Patricc has written until here’. Whether ‘bald’ is a reference to tonsure or his loss of hair is unclear.
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatica p. 157
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatica p. 157 detail
There is another very intriguing gloss written on page 194 that may identify scribe B, who wrote or copied out the poem about the Vikings: do inis maddoc dún .i. meisse 7 choirbbre, ‘we are from Inis Maddoc, myself and Coirbbre’.
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatica p. 194
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatica p. 194 detail
What is tantalising about the references to Inis Maddoc and Choirrbre is how close they come to Inis Muireadheach, located in the barony of Cairbre. Inis Maddoc has not been identified and some scholars have taken Choirbbre to be the name of scribe B, though there is some disagreement among scholars on the correct translation of the phrase.
Be that as it may, a mid-ninth century Irish manuscript held in a Swiss library contains an Old Irish poem that captures the dread of Viking raids that haunted the monastic settlement on Inishmurray at the time:
The wind it’d cut you tonight
it’s whipping the wild sea white:
No fear of their cruising the waters
those war hordes out of Norway.
Sources:
CELT, Corpus of Electronic Texts, https://celt.ucc.ie/
CELT, Annals of Inisfallen, https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100004/index.html
CELT, Annals of the Four Masters, https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100005A/index.html
CELT, Annals of Ulster, https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100001A.html
CELT, Chronicum Scotorum, https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100016.html
Cahill, Thomas, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1995.
Charles-Edwards, T. M., The Chronicle of Ireland. Translated with an introduction, Volume One, Introduction, Text, Liverpool University Press, 2006.
MacFirbis, Duald; Hennessy, W.M., Chronicum Scotorum: a chronicle of Irish affairs from the earliest times to A.D. 1135 ; with a supplement, containing the events from 1141 to 1150, London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866.
Mageoghagan, Conell; Murphy, Denis ,The Annals of Clonmacnoise; being annals of Ireland, from the earliest period to A. D. 1408. Translated into English A. D. 1627, Dublin : Printed at the University Press for the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1896.
McCarthy, D.P., The Irish annals : their genesis, evolution, and history, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008, https://celt.ucc.ie/Vikings%20in%20Scotland%20and%20Ireland.pdf.
Nigra, Costantino, Reliquie Celtiche, I. Il Manoscritto Irlandese Di S. Gallo, Firenze, Torino, Roma: Ermanno Loescher, 1872.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, ‘The Vikings & Ireland’, CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts, https://celt.ucc.ie/General%20Vikings%20in%20Ireland.pdf
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, ‘Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the Ninth Century’, Peritia 12 (1998) 296–339.
Stokes, Whitley; Strachan, John, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old-Irish glosses, Scholia prose and verse, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1903, p. 290.
Todd, James Henthorn, Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh. The war of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, or, The invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen. The original Irish text, edited, with translation and introduction, London : Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1867.
For the facsimile images:
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904 : Prisciani grammatica p. 112, https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0904/112
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904 : Prisciani grammatica p. 157, https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0904/157; used by permission CC BY-NC 4.0.
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904 : Prisciani grammatica p. 194, https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0904/194; used by permission CC BY-NC 4.0.
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904, https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0904/bindingA; used by permission CC BY-NC 4.0.
Hofman Rijcklof, The Sankt Gall Priscian Commentary. Part 1. Volume 1: Introduction; Book 1-5, Münster, 1996, S. 12-31, https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/description/csg/0904/; used by permission CC BY 80×15.
Annals of Ulster folio 19 v, Bodleian-Library-MS-Rawl-B-489, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/a5918f5a-2149-47bb-857e-0792bab8085a/surfaces/3ef723b8-d4c7-4087-8714-518f96777d35/; used by permission CC BY-NC 4.0.
Annals of the Four Masters folio 314 r, LS A 13 (Annála Ríoghdhachta Éireann), https://www.isos.dias.ie/ga/UCD/UCD_MS_A_13.html#659; used by permission CC BY-NC 4.0.