Humanity in Columba’s Day
The monastic movement came into a world of warlords, with continuous fighting as they jockeyed for position. In this violent and unstable world, how did Columba, by birth a member of this warrior elite, see himself and his role as a churchman? Columba’s journey to Iona is now seen as an element of his family’s extension of power from Ireland, but his church foundation presents a very different version of power from that of the violent warrior.
Adomnán, ninth abbot of Iona, author of the Life of St. Columba, says that Columba took sail from Ireland, wishing to abandon the hereditary right to power which he had as a member of this warrior aristocracy, to become a pilgrim, detached from structures of secular power. The Latin term peregrinus (pilgrim) means someone who does not have the rights of a citizen, the rights which you had by belonging to a particular political/legal structure. In identifying himself thus, he was making an explicit choice between the aristocracy of violence, and the detachment of the peregrinus, a figure who is nevertheless not entirely separate from the world because he still lives in it – in the world but not of it.
The Tara Brooch - possibly a status symbol for an Irish High King (late 7th/early 8th century CE)
Photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
We have a long poem written within two or three years of Columba’s death, the Amra Choluim Chille. A central theme of the poem is asceticism, and the rejection of power and wealth. We must remember that at that period taxes were paid in food - in cattle, bread, cheese and so on. Food is wealth. So to reject excessive food is also to take a strong stance vis-à-vis power and wealth.
Detail from the Book of Kells (Courtesy of The Board of Trinity College Dublin)
An important motif in Adomnan’s Life of Columba is Columba’s defence of the innocent. There are many stories; for example, Columba pressuring the Pictish king to protect a young woman slave, and ensuring the punishment of a person who has violated the protection of sanctuary. In the case of a girl who seeks protection under Columba’s cloak and is then killed as her pursuer spears her through the garment, Columba denounces this as a crime against the girl and ‘our honour’ which shall be punished - and immediately the man dies and goes to hell. As well as avenging the girl, he demands that the violation of his own honour must be punished. Adomnán records that story, as in 697 he wrote The Law of the Innocents, with political support from all Ireland and Scotland north of the Clyde, offering protection from violence to women, children, and clergy – all the non-weapon bearing members of society. The law establishes that crimes against such innocents must be paid for as one would normally pay compensation to family, and that such a transgressor would also be hounded in retribution by Iona, because such action is a sin against Iona, just as the girl’s killer sinned against Columba. This is an early form of Geneva convention, giving immunity to noAn-combatants and quite extraordinary for the 7th century (and one of few moments in Life of Columba where women have any significant role to play!).
Detail from the Book of Kells (Courtesy of The Board of Trinity College Dublin)
Exploring Further
Adomnán of Iona, Life of St. Columba, trs. R. Sharpe (Penguin Classics 1995)
B. Lacey, Saint Columba: his life and legacy (The Columba Press 2013)
G. Márkus, Conceiving a nation: Scotland to AD900 (Edinburgh University Press 2017)
G.Márkus, Adomnan’s Law of the Innocents: Cain Adomnain (Kilmartin Trust 2008).
G. Márkus, A saint and his uses: Columba, politics and power in the first millennium, St. Mungo lecture 2022, Video Link