Neither should one pass over in silence the miracle wrought in the repairing of the church in which the glorious bodies of both - namely Archbishop Conleth and our most flourishing virgin Brigit - are laid on the right and left of the ornate altar and rest in tombs adorned with a refined profusion of gold, silver, gems and precious stones with gold and silver chandaliers hanging from above and different images presenting a variety of carvings and colours. Thus, on account of the growing number of the faithful of both sexes, a new reality is born in an age-old setting, that is a church with its spacious [site] and its awesome height towering upwards. It is adorned with painted pictures and inside there are three chapels which are spacious and divided by board walls under the single roof of the cathedral church. The first of these walls, which is painted with pictures and covered with wall hangings, stretches width-wise in the east part of the church from one wall to the other. In it there are two doors, one at either end, and through the door situated on the right, one enters the sanctuary to the altar where the Archbishop offers the Lord's sacrifice together with his monastic chapter and those appointed to the sacred mysteries. Through the other door, situated on the left side of the aforesaid cross-wall, only the abbess and her nuns and faithful widows enter to partake of the banquet of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The second of these walls divides the floor of the building into two equal parts and stretches from the west wall to the wall running across the church. This church contains many windows and one finely wrought portal on the right side through which the priests and the faithful of the male sex enter the church, and a second portal on the left side through which the nuns and congregation of women faithful are accustomed to enter. And so, in one vast basilica, a congregation of people of varying status, rank, sex and local origin, with partitions placed between them, prays to the omnipotent Master, differing in status, but one in spirit.
S. Connolly and J-M Picard, 'Cogitosus's Life of Saint Brigit - content and value' in JRSAI, 117, (1987), 25-6.
This post was first published here.
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14 comments:
Really interesting. I never read this before. Thanks for putting it up here.
The tombs of the holy patrons of Kildare were destroyed by a viking raid not long after this account was written. They sailed up the Liffey near to where Newbridge is now.
To save the precious relics from the raiders, the body of St. Brigid went to Downpatrick but I don't know where the body of St. Conleth was brought.
Good job!
According to Canon O'Hanlon's Lives of the Irish Saints there is a possibility that some of St. Conleth's relics were preserved at Old Connell. He mentions a local tradition that St. Conleth's remains were deposited within the cemetery there.
Bridit,
You may be aware of the custom in many country Churches that men and women entered the Church through seperate doors. It was strictly observed in some places. I think the builder may just have built a main door and two side doors to balance the front (like in the Curragh) but in many smaller Churches it had to be for a special reason because the Churches were too small to justify three doors. Have you a view?
Another splendid contribution from Brigit. What I am not clear about is how far we can trust the hagiographical sources. Could someone give an historiographical assessment, please. Perhaps Canon O'Hanlon himself does so himself. Lanigan takes a great deal of trouble to cross-reference and assess the historicity of the sources.
JSB
This post is the first in a series of three and number two may answer some of the questions posed. I have heard about that country custom, it is also the custom in Orthodox churches for men to stand on the right-hand side and women on the left. On the trustworthiness of the sources, it is a given in hagiography now that the Life of any saint will always tell you more about the time of the writer than it does about the time of the saint. Cogitosus is writing roughly a century after the death of Saint Brigid but I would see no reason to doubt his description of the richly-arrayed tombs of the foundress and the bishop. This was precisely what attracted the Vikings. His account of the church architecture and the rubrics are certainly open to debate, but as you will see in the next post, modern scholarship is coming up with some interesting interpretations. Whilst I have an enormous regard for both Canon O'Hanlon and Father Lanigan, their scholarship is well over a century old now even if it was of the highest calibre in its day. The next post, however, will give you a flavour of more recent thinking on the context in which Cogitosus was writing.
Hi Brigit! I'm enjoying your posts. I've had a sneek preview of the next ones too! We're in for a treat! Welcome to the team and may God bless you!
Thank you very much indeed!
I don't have anything interesting or clever to add to discussion here but I wanted to say that I really appreciate the efforts of the people posting here. It's a wonderfully rich blog that I enjoy following. Thank you!
Sorry I didn't read this before I travelled to Kildare this morning. Also a pity that the Priest in Kildare didn't read it before they reordered that church.
Thank God for St. Brigid and St. Conleth. Simon.
We know that St. Brigid is reputed to be buried at Downpatrick but do we know the resting place of St. Conleth?
As I said in my comment of 13 February above, Canon O'Hanlon mentions a tradition that Saint Conleth's remains were deposited within the cemetery at Old Connell.
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