O'Hara (Alexander) - The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

The Vita Columbani in
Merovingian Gaul
Alexander OHara
This paper considers the evidence for the dissemination of the Vita Columbani. Using a number of seventh-century texts as well as the Vita itself, it
proposes that the Vita Columbani had a wider dissemination in Merovingian Gaul than has hitherto been acknowledged. It suggests that the Vita was
not merely confined to monastic and ecclesiastical circles, but was also
intended for a royal and aristocratic audience closely linked to the Columbanian communities.
Early dissemination
Although to our knowledge no manuscript of Jonas of Bobbios Vita
Columbani abbatis et discipulorumque eius survives from the seventh and
eighth centuries we can, nevertheless, to some degree trace its influence
and dissemination from a number of other works which were written in
Merovingian Gaul during this period.1 These are: the Chronicle of Fredegar compiled around 660;2 the Vita Germani abbatis Grandivallensis from
*
1
I am very grateful to Professor Paul Fourace, Dr Sarah Tatum and Dr Susan Vincent for their
valuable editorial work, and to Dr Roy Flechner and Dr Albrecht Diem for their time in reading
and commenting on an earlier version of the article.
The work was written between 639 and 643. The best edition of the Vita Columbani (hereafter
cited as VC) remains that by Bruno Krusch, Ionae Vitae Sanctorum Columbani, Vedastis,
Iohannis, MGH SRG (Hanover and Leipzig, 1905), pp. 144294. The earliest manuscripts (both
from the ninth century) are: St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 553 and Metz, Bibliothque du Grand
Sminaire, 1. On the Vita, see now A. Diem, Monks, Kings, and the Transformation of
Sanctity: Jonas of Bobbio and the End of the Holy Man, Speculum 82 (2007), pp. 52159 with
further references.
The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, trans. J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (London, 1960).
On the complex issues relating to its authorship and the area(s) in which the author may
have been active, see R. Collins, Fredegar, in Historical and Religious Writers of the
Latin West, vol. 4, no. 13 (Aldershot, 1996); W. Goffart, The Fredegar Problem Reconsidered, Speculum 38 (1963), pp. 20641. Ian Wood considers the possible audience
the work was intended for and its main themes in: Fredegars Fables, in A. Scharer and
G. Scheibelreiter (eds), Historiographie im frhen Mittelalter (Vienna and Munich, 1994),
pp. 35966.
Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2) 126153

2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350
Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul
127
c.675;3 the Passio Praeiecti episcopi et martyris Arverni from c.676;4 the Vita
Sadalbergae abbatissae Laudunensis from c.680;5 and the Vita Wandregiseli
abbatis Fontanellensis from c.700.6 In all but one case Bobolenuss Vita
Germani the authors are unknown, although we can be certain that
they were contemporaries of the individuals they wrote about and
many of them knew their subjects personally. The places or areas in
which the texts were written can, for the most part, be established,
although this is considerably more problematic when it comes to the
Chronicle.
These texts are important witnesses to the early dissemination of the
Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul. Although one commentator, Ian
Wood, has interpreted this evidence as indicating that the Vita Columbani was not widely disseminated, the opposite could also be argued.7
The use of the Vita Columbani in five texts that were written in different
parts of Merovingian Gaul within sixty years of Jonas writing, and at a
time when the production of historical and hagiographical works was not
very great, seems to me to show a more rapid and wider dissemination of
the text than has previously been acknowledged. Given the Columbanian
network of monasteries that were scattered throughout the kingdom
and the close royal, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical affinities enjoyed
by the Columbanian familia, a wide dissemination should not be
surprising.
It has also been proposed that the Vita Columbani would have been
mainly circulated within monastic circles.8 This view can also be qualified
as it fails to take into consideration the nature of the monastic milieu of
which the Vita is a product. The network of affinities with secular and
ecclesiastical people of power characteristic of Columbanian monasticism must be taken into account when considering the dissemination
3
4
6
7
Bobolenus, Vita Germani abbatis Grandivallensis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover and
Leipzig, 1910), pp. 2540.
Passio Praeiecti episcopi et martyris Arverni, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover and Leipzig,
1910), pp. 21248. There is an English translation and commentary on the work in P. Fouracre
and R.A. Gerberding, Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640720 (Manchester,
1996), pp. 254300.
Vita Sadalbergae abbatissae Laudunensis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover and Leipzig,
1910), pp. 4066 and an English translation is provided in J.-A. McNamara, J.E. Halborg and
E.G. Whately (eds), Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham and London, 1992), pp. 17694.
On the dating of the Vita Sadalbergae, see now H. Hummer, Die Merowingische Herkunft der
Vita Sadalbergae, Deutsches Archiv fr Erforschung des Mittelalters 59 (2003), pp. 45993.
Vita Wandregiseli abbatis Fontanellensis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover and Leipzig,
1910), pp. 124.
Ian Wood (The Vita Columbani and Merovingian Hagiography, Peritia 1 (1982), pp. 6380, at
p. 70) notes that the Vita Columbani seems to have been read by a group of people confined
mainly to Burgundy; see also idem, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450751 (London, 1994),
pp. 2478.
Wood, The Vita Columbani and Merovingian Hagiography, pp. 6870; idem, The Merovingian Kingdoms, pp. 2478.
Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
128
Alexander OHara
of the work. It is misleading to think that only monks and nuns would
have been interested in reading the Vita. For example, the first extant text
to use the Vita (and the one that borrows from it the most) is not a
hagiographical text, but a work of history.
The compiler of the Chronicle of Fredegar was interested in the Vita
for what it told him about the dramatic circumstances that led to
Columbanuss expulsion from the Burgundian kingdom in 610; thus, its
historical content. Ever on the lookout for a good story, Fredegar
appreciated the dramatic qualities of Jonass account of the saints rift
with Queen Brunhild and her grandson, King Theuderic II (both d. 613),
over issues relating to the kings sexual conduct and lay access to the inner
confines of the monastic space. He inserted verbatim almost three chapters from Book I (Chapters 18, 19, and 20) with the exception of a number
of miracle accounts.9 Fredegar was not interested in Columbanuss
miraculous powers, only with the saints strained relationships with his
royal benefactors. Although he himself was very possibly an ecclesiastic
who was a member of a Columbanian community or who had close
connections to the Columbanians,10 the subject of his Chronicle was
resolutely secular: the deeds of kings and the wars of peoples.11 What we
can tell about the compilers political sympathies and what we can deduce
about the reasons for the Chronicles composition, suggests that it may
have been produced for the aristocratic audience of the Pippinids.12 The
substantial use of the Vita in the Chronicle should therefore alert us to the
danger of perceiving the Vita as a work that was only confined to a
monastic audience. Indeed, the use of the work in what has been referred
to as the supreme political tract of the 660s13 can be taken as an
illustration of the strong political connections that were initiated by
Columbanus and continued by his disciples. Kings, queens, bishops, and
nobles are all prominent in the Vita Columbani and we should consider
the possibility that they too might have been part of the early audience of
the work.
The aristocratic and ecclesiastical affinities of Columbanian monasticism can be further seen from the remaining hagiographical texts that
display textual influence from the Vita Columbani. The Vita Germani,
written by the priest Bobolenus for the community of Grandval, concerns Germanus, a Luxeuil monk who was given charge of the community by the abbot of Luxeuil, Waldebert, and was martyred when the local
duke and his Alemannic mercenaries invaded the area. The Vita was
9
10
11
12
13
Chronicle of Fredegar I.36, pp. 239.

See Wood, Fredegars Fables, p. 360.
Chronicle of Fredegar, prologue, pp. 23: acta regum et bella gentium quae gesserunt.
Wood, Fredegars Fables, pp. 35966.
Wood, Fredegars Fables, p. 366.

129
dedicated to Deiculus, Leodemundus, and Ingofridus, the abbots of

Lure, Grandval, and Luxeuil respectively.14 It has been suggested that
Bobolenus wrote at Luxeuil rather than Grandval (in modern-day
Switzerland) and that we cannot identify him with the fourth abbot of
Bobbio of the same name.15 The author shows familiarity with both books
of the Vita Columbani borrowing a number of words and phrases from
Book I and from the beginning of Book II. The short opening prologue
is taken almost verbatim from Jonass dedicatory letter to the abbots of
Luxeuil and Bobbio, even Jonass grandiloquent salutation to the fathers,
distinguished lords graced with the power of holy leadership and
abounding in the authority of religion.16
Another work written around the same time but in the Auvergne
deals with Praejectus, bishop of Clermont, who was martyred in 676.17
The Passio Praeiecti was written by an unknown author shortly after the
bishops death, possibly in the monastery of Volvic or the convent of
Chamalires.18 The hagiographer displays knowledge of both books of
the Vita Columbani, while in the prologue he or she explicitly praises
Jonass work: In living memory too the eloquent Jonas produced his
very splendid life of St Columbanus and his disciples Athala, Eustasius, and Bertulf.19 This is interesting evidence that already by c.680 the
Vita was being circulated in both its parts, Books I and II, but that it
was being selectively copied.20 The sections dealing with Athala, Eustasius, and Bertulf are found in Book II, but the author makes no
mention of the considerable section of twelve chapters also in Book II
that concern the female community of Faremoutiers. As Jonas mentions elsewhere in the Vita that he will discuss this community and its
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Bobolenus, Vita Germani, prologue, p. 33. All three dedicatees are referred to as fathers (patres).
Deiculus would appear to be Irish given his name, and according to his later tenth-century Vita
he was considered to have been one of Columbanuss Irish monks: Vita S. Deicoli, in Acta
Sanctorum, ed. G. Henschenius (Brussels, 1863), Januarius II, pp. 56374.
See Kruschs comments in his edition of the Vita Germani, pp. 289 and H. Keller, Mnchtum
und Adel in den Vitae patum Jurensium und in der Vita Germani abbatis Grandivallensis:
Beobachtungen zum frhmittelalterlichen Kulturwandel im alemannisch-burgundischen Grenzraum, in K. Elm et al. (eds), Landesgeschichte und Geistesgeschichte: Festschrift fr Otto Herding
zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 123, at p. 8.
Vita Germani, prologue, p. 33: Dominis eximiis et sacris culminibus decoratis relegionisque
copia fultis.
On this politicized work of hagiography, see P. Fouracre, Merovingian History and Merovingian Hagiography, Past and Present 127 (1990), pp. 338, at pp. 216; and Fouracre and
Gerberding, Late Merovingian France, pp. 25470.
See Fouracre and Gerberding, Late Merovingian France, pp. 25760.
Passio Praeiecti, prologue, p. 225: Ionas etiam nostre memorie tempus vir eloquens vitam beati
Columbani et discipulorum eius Athale, Eustasi et Bertulfi luculentissime edidit.
Some scholars have queried the structure of the Vita as reconstructed by Krusch in his edition.
See, for example, C. Rohr, Hagiographie als historische Quelle: Ereignisgeschichte und
Wunderberichte in der Vita Columbani des Ionas von Bobbio, Mitteilungen des Instituts fr
sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 103 (1995), pp. 22964, at pp. 2434; and W. Berschin,
Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter 2 (Stuttgart, 1988), pp. 378.

130
Alexander OHara
abbess, Burgundofara, we know that this was an integral part of the

original text.21 From the evidence of the Passio Praeiecti, however, and
the manuscript transmission of the text, it would appear that the Faremoutiers section was often left out. The Passio mentions Praejectuss
activities as a monastic founder in and around Clermont, including his
foundation of the convent of Chamalires which followed the mixed
Rule of Benedict and Columbanus.22 It also recounts how the bishop
travelled through the great wilderness called the Vosges23 where he
stayed at the monastery founded by the holy man, Amarinus, en route
to the court of King Childeric II. Amarinus later followed Praejectus
back to Clermont where the aristocratic opponents of the bishop had
them both martyred.24 Praejectuss and Amarinuss links with the
Vosges, the area of the principal Columbanian monasteries, might be
suggestive of the ways in which a copy of the Vita Columbani could
have reached Clermont.
Both the Vita Columbani and the Passio Praeiecti influenced another
saints Life composed c.680 by an anonymous author in the north of the
kingdom, at Laon. The Vita Sadalbergae, concerning the pious Frankish
aristocrat Sadalberga and monastic founder of two communities for
women at Langres and Laon, shows considerable textual influence from
the Vita Columbani.25 This is perhaps not surprising as Jonas mentions
Sadalberga and her family, the Gundoinids, in the Vita Columbani.26
Jonas relates how Eustasius, Columbanuss successor at Luxeuil, healed
Sadalberga of her blindness when he was visiting the country estate of her
father, Gundoin, which was situated close to the River Meuse.27 The Vita
Sadalbergae, written shortly after the saints death and probably by a nun
of St-Jean in Laon, was dedicated to Anstrude, Sadalbergas daughter and
abbess of the community in Laon, and to Bishop Omotarius of Throuanne.28 The work seems to have been intended for both a monastic and
a wider secular audience.29 As the author borrows a number of phrases
from the Passio Praeiecti,30 composed only a few years previously in the
Auvergne, the Vita shows the relative rapidity by which texts could be
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
VC I.26, p. 209; II.7, p. 243.

Passio Praeiecti, c. 15, p. 235.
Passio Praeiecti, c. 20, p. 237: vastam heremum Vosacum. The description is taken from VC I.6,
p. 163.
Passio Praeiecti, c. 30, p. 243.
On this Vita, see now Hummer, Die Merowingische Herkunft der Vita Sadalbergae, and S.D.
Tatum, Hagiography, Family and Columbanian Monasticism in Seventh-Century Francia,
Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester (2007), at pp. 73109. I am very grateful to Professor
Paul Fouracre for sending me a copy of this thesis.
VC II.8, pp. 2445.
VC II.8, pp. 2445.
Vita Sadalbergae, prologue, p. 49.
See Tatum, Hagiography, Family and Columbanan Monasticism, p. 75.
Vita Sadalbergae, prologue, pp. 4950.

131
circulated within Merovingian Gaul. This work, again, shows evidence

that both books of the Vita Columbani were disseminated together as the
author has copied out verbatim whole passages from Books I and II. The
author had a good knowledge of the narrative outline of the Vita Columbani and, like the author of the Passio Praeiecti, specifically mentions
Jonas:
But, though we have made mention of that great man Columbanus, it
is unnecessary to weave his deeds into our work. For the most eloquent
man Jonas, as he was burning the midnight oil, already showed how,
amidst the tumults of the world in King Theuderics reign, he suffered
the sly treachery of nefarious enemies instigated by Queen Brunhild;
how he was driven from his brethren by that reckless tyranny and went
into Italy and built the monastery of Bobbio by permission and
authority of Agilulf, king of the Lombards and gave a rule to the
monks. Jonas published all that in the book of the life and miracles
which proceeded from his pen.31
Clearly, not only was the Vita Columbani well known, but also its
author who is lauded, as in the Passio Praeiecti, eloquentissimus. Even
more noteworthy, however, is the authors knowledge of Columbanuss
letters, hitherto unnoticed by Columbanian scholars.32 This is important
evidence not only for the circulation of Columbanuss writings, but also
as indicative of a shared veneration for Columbanus that linked such
distant monasteries as Luxeuil, Laon, and Bobbio. The Vita Sadalbergae
furthermore provides valuable information on an important interpolation to the Vita Columbani, namely the insertion of Childebert for that
of Sigibert as the name of the king who provided Columbanus with the
site of Annegray, the saints first monastic foundation.33 Columbanuss
initial royal patron in Merovingian Gaul was more than likely King
Childebert II (57596), the son of Sigibert I and Brunhild,34 yet Jonas
appears to have deliberately obscured this fact. Jonas names Sigibert,
Childeberts father, as the king who first provided protection and
31
32
33
34
Vita Sadalbergae, c. 2, p. 51 (trans. McNamara, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, p. 180): Sed
quoniam tanti viri Columbani fecimus mentionem, eius non est necessarium nostro operi
texere gesta, cum sint ab eloquentissimo viro Iona elucubrate edita, quales etiam inter turbines
saeculi et Theoderici Regis principatum, regina Brunechilde instigante, versutas nefandi hostis
pertulerit insidias; quomodo etiam tyrannica temeritate a fratribus sit eiectus et Italiae fines
ingressus, monasterium Bobiense ex permissu et auctoritate Agilulfi Langobardorum regis miro
opere construxit regulamque condiderit monachorum, isdem praefatus Ionas in libro, quem de
vita et miraculis eius edidit, suo stilo prosequitur.
Vita Sadalbergae, c. 2, pp. 512. Extant eiusdem patris Columbani scripta ad beatum et facundissimum virum Gregorium pontificem Romanum, quae de pervigili pastorum cura elicuit.
VC I.6, pp. 1623.
See Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, p. 195.

132
Alexander OHara
patronage to Columbanus, and in so doing has caused some confusion in

the dating of Columbanuss peregrinatio to the Continent.35 Yet, independent of Jonas, we can date Columbanuss arrival in the Vosges to
around 591 from one of the saints own letters.36 The suppression of
Childeberts role in the founding of the early Columbanian communities
appears to be linked to the damnatio memoriae of Brunhild and her
progeny which took place following 613 when a rival branch of the
Merovingian family assumed the sole rulership of the Merovingian kingdoms.37 The reason for Jonass significant omission therefore lies in the
political climate of the 640s in Merovingian Gaul. I wish to return to the
significance of this towards the end of the article as it has important
implications for determining the early audience of the Vita Columbani. It
is merely sufficient here to note that an early reader of the Vita obviously
knew better and has corrected Jonass error. The author of the Vita
Sadalbergae ascribes the foundation of Luxeuil to the joint efforts of
Childebert and Columbanus: the monastery of Luxeuil in the wilderness
of the Vosges which had been built through King Childeberts munificence with the greatest care and labour by a man of laudable fame and
mighty sanctity, Columbanus, a pilgrim come out of Ireland.38 The
interpolation of Childebert for Sigibert also occurs in the A3 group of
manuscripts of the Vita Columbani including one of the oldest extant
manuscripts, Metz, Grand Sminaire 1, a manuscript produced in the
scriptorium of Saint-Mihiel near Rheims in the second half of the ninth
century.39 This was a manuscript that was unknown to Krusch, yet it is an
important witness as it was produced in the area adjacent to the Vosges
and one with strong Columbanian roots.40
The Vita Wandregiseli, written in the monastery of Fontanella/St Wandrille around the turn of the eighth century,41 is the last of the early works
to show textual influence from the Vita Columbani. It was written by a
monk of Fontanella, a monastery situated in the extreme north of the
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
See, for example, J. OCarroll, The Chronology of Saint Columbanus, Irish Theological
Quarterly 24 (1957), pp. 7695.
Columbanus, Epistula II.6, in Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. G.S.M. Walker, Scriptores Latini
Hiberniae 2 (repr. Dublin, 1970), p. 17.
Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, p. 196.
Vita Sadalbergae, c. 1, p. 51 (trans. McNamara, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, p. 180): ex
Luxovio monasterio in Vosago saltu sito, quem vir fama laudabilis et sanctitate pollens Columbanus peregrinus ex Hibernia adveniens, ex munificentia Childeberti regis summo studio et
labore construxit.
Jean Leclercq, Un recueil dhagiographie Colombanienne, Acta Bollandiana 73 (1955),
pp. 1936. For the A3 group of manuscripts, see Kruschs list of manuscripts in Ionae Vitae,
pp. ixxi.
The text of the Vita Columbani in the Metz manuscript has been edited with facing Italian
translation: Jonas, Vita Columbani et dicipulorumque eius, ed. M. Tosi (Piacenza, 1965).
On the authorship and dating of this work, see Kruschs comments to his edition: Vita
Wandregiseli, p. 3.

133
kingdom near the English Channel, and concerns the monasterys

founder, Wandregiselus, a Frankish aristocrat who had served at the court
of King Dagobert I and, like many aristocrats during the period, had
been attracted to the austerities of Columbanian monasticism. The
author, who knew his subject personally and who wrote for the monastic
community at Fontanella, describes the aristocrats conversion to the
ascetic way of life and, with the support of Bishop Dado of Rouen, his
foundation of a monastic community at Fontanella on royal land. He
moreover tells an unusual episode in which an angel brought Wandregisels spirit on a nocturnal tour of Bobbio in regione Langobardorum qui dicitur Italia.42 This vision of the famous Lombard monastery
inspired in Wandregisel a desire for a more complete renunciation of
country, social status, and kindred. It prompted him to set off into the
unknown leaving everything behind, except three small boys and an ass.43
Having been shown the way by an angel, Wandregisel arrived at Bobbio
and immediately recognized the place he had seen in his vision. After
spending some time in the community, he wanted to go somewhere more
remote and so decided to continue his pereginatio to Ireland.44 Wandregisel never fulfilled his wish, however, as, after spending some time in
a monastery in the Jura mountains,45 he finally settled not far from Rouen
beside a spring in heremo qui dicitur Gemeticus, the site of his monastery of Fontanella.46
There are two things of note about the hagiographers account of
Wandregisels spiritual and physical visit to Bobbio. First, it reveals a
personal connection between the founder of Fontanella and the Lombard
community. Second, and more importantly, is its portrayal of Bobbio as
an idealized monastic community. Wandregisels peregrinatio is not
inspired, for instance, by a vision of heaven or of the holy city of
Jerusalem but of a monastic institution, an institution that is held up as
an ideal. While the account shows the high esteem in which a community
as distant as Fontanella held Bobbio, it may also indicate a change in
perception towards concepts of the holy. Albrecht Diem has recently
argued that the Vita Columbani marks an important development in the
transformation of sanctity in the early Middle Ages in so far as the text
42
43
44
45
46
Vita Wandregiseli, c. 9, p. 17.

Indicative that Wandregisel was indeed an aristocrat: surgens et reliquid omnia, accipiens
secum tres puerolus com asello, aliis nescientibus, exibit de terra sua et di cognatione sua et de
domu patris sui et ambulabat, nesciens qua viaticum ducerit. Vita Wandregiseli, c. 9, p. 17.
Vita Wandregisel, c. 9, p. 18. This continental peregrinatio to Ireland is an interesting outcome
of the influence of the Irish peregrini on the Continent. Jonas mentions the case of the Frankish
monk Autiernus, a disciple of Columbanus who similarly wished to go to Ireland on peregrinatio, but does not state whether he actually went: VC I.11, p. 170.
Vita Wandregisel, c. 10, p. 18.
Vita Wandregisel, c. 14, p. 19: Adsedit iuxta fontem uberimam, qui vocatur Fontanella, in
heremo qui dicitur Gemeticus, ex fisco quem adsumpsit regale munere.

134
Alexander OHara
outlines a transfer of sanctity from the holy man (Columbanus) to that of

his monastic communities (the institution).47 This Weberian theory of
routinization of charisma or the institutionalization of sanctity may
also be applicable to this episode in the Vita Wandregiseli, a text influenced by the Vita Columbani and, like it, one that was similarly concerned to put across a monastic ideal, rather than simply to describe the
saints career.48 The hagiographer does not say the angel showed Wandregisel a particular holy man at Bobbio; rather it is the monastery itself
that is singled out as the object for Wandregisels spiritual edification.49
Although the Vita Wandregiseli displays less textual influence from Jonass
Vita than in the other works mentioned, it is nevertheless an important
witness to the dissemination of the Vita Columbani in the north of the
kingdom.
All of the early works influenced in some way by the Vita Columbani
display a number of important features that are characteristic of the
Columbanian monastic movement. The Chronicle of Fredegar, which
may have been produced in a centre of Columbanian influence, shows
the use of the Vita Columbani in a resolutely secular text and betrays the
political connections of the Columbanians. The Vita Germani, the Vita
Sadalbergae, and the Vita Wandregiseli reveal the deep-seated aristocratic
nature of Columbanian monasticism, while the Passio Praeiecti shows the
important role bishops had in the founding of new monasteries in their
dioceses. The Vita Germani and the Vita Wandregiseli are both about
pious aristocrats who were drawn to Columbanian monasticism and who
became abbots of new monastic foundations closely associated with
Luxeuil. As such, Germanus and Wandregisel are representative of the
new breed of aristocrats who renounced their secular careers to become
Columbanian monks and who were important patrons of the new
Columbanian communities. This aristocratic element is a prominent
feature of Columbanian monasticism. Sadalberga also conforms to this
pattern but can moreover be seen as illustrative of the important role
played by women within Columbanian monasticism and its expansion, a
feature already present in Jonass lengthy section on the Faremoutiers
nuns. Another fundamental feature was the support of ecclesiastical
authorities, namely the bishops of Merovingian Gaul, and as such the
Passio Praeiecti is a good example of this. The works moreover show the
extensive geographical connections of Columbanian monasticism, as
they were produced in different parts of the Merovingian kingdom. But
these features the extensive geographical connections of the Columbanians and their affinities with royal, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical
47
48
49
Diem, Monks, Kings, and the Transformation of Sanctity, pp. 52159.

Wood, The Vita Columbani and Merovingian Hagiography, p. 68.
Vita Wandregiseli, c. 9, p. 17.

135
individuals are also found in the Vita Columbani itself. Accordingly, a

closer study of the work may potentially reveal something more about its
audience.
The text in context
The Vita Columbani, commissioned by Bertulf, the third abbot of
Bobbio, and his community of monks around 639, is, amongst other
things, an important historical source for Merovingian Gaul in the late
sixth and early seventh centuries. Although written by the Lombard/
north Italian/BurgundianFrank Jonas50 and for the Lombard monastery
of which he was a sometime member,51 the scope of the work can be
described as cross-regional and indeed international. The first half of the
work deals with the Irish saint and monastic founder Columbanus. A
number of chapters treat the saints birth and early monastic training in
Ireland, while the bulk of parchment is taken up with the period he spent
in Merovingian Gaul. It is only in the final chapter of Book I that we get
to the saints arrival in Italy, the founding of his monastery at Bobbio,
and his death. Thus while the Vita Columbani was conceived in a monastery in the Apennine countryside it has, on the whole, a Gallic focus.
The broad geographical sweep of the Vita, which takes us from Leinster and Ulster in Ireland to Brittany, Burgundy, Neustria, Austrasia,
Alemannia, and finally Lombard Italy, reflects the cosmopolitanism of
Columbanian monasticism itself. The monastic movement termed
Hiberno-Frankish or Columbanian52 grew from an initial small group of
elite Irish monks under the leadership of Columbanus into a multi-ethnic
matrix that included Irish, Briton, Burgundian, Frankish and Lombard
monks, that enjoyed the patronage of kings, nobles, and bishops. There
was, Jonas tells us, considerable freedom of movement between the main
cluster of monasteries in the Vosges forests of Burgundy (Annegray,
50
51
52
The town in which Jonas was born and brought up, Susa (now in Piemonte, northern Italy),
was, in the late sixth century, an important frontier town whose possession was contested by the
Lombards, the Byzantines, and the Franks. In around 575 the Byzantines surrendered Susa to
the Frankish king, Guntram (d. 593), so the town was technically in Frankish territory around
the time that Jonas was born. See D. Bullough, The Career of Columbanus, in M. Lapidge
(ed.), Columbanus: Studies on the Latin Writings (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 128, at p. 1 n. 1.
On Bobbio, see M. Richter, Bobbio in the Early Middle Ages: The Abiding Legacy of Columbanus
(Dublin, 2008), and A. Zironi, Il monastero longobardo di Bobbio. Crocevia di uomini, manoscritti e culture (Spoleto, 2004).
The term Hiberno-Frankish was first coined by Friedrich Prinz in what still remains the best
overview of the Columbanian movement: Frhes Mnchtum im Frankenreich: Kultur und
Gesellschaft in Gallien, den Rheinlanden und Bayern am Beispiel der monastischen Entwicklung (4.
bis. 8 Jahrhundert) (Munich, 1965), pp. 12151. See also P. Rich, Columbanus, his Followers
and the Merovingian Church, and F. Prinz, Columbanus, the Frankish Nobility and the
Territories East of the Rhine, in H.B. Clarke and M. Brennan (eds), Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, BAR International ser. 113 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 5972 and 7387.

136
Alexander OHara
Luxeuil, and Fontaine) and Bobbio across the Alps.53 Monks and abbots
travelled back and forth between Luxeuil and Bobbio and this close
contact is reflected in the letter Jonas prefixed to the Vita which is
addressed not only to Bobolenus, Bertulfs successor as abbot of Bobbio,
but also to Waldebert, the long-serving abbot of Luxeuil from 629 to
670.54 As becomes apparent from reading the Vita, Jonas was not just
writing the Life of a saint; he was, in addition, sketching the hagiographical history of a monastic network that venerated Columbanus as the
founding father.55 This is particularly the case with Book II which deals
with the communities of Bobbio, Luxeuil, and Faremoutiers in the
twenty-five years or so following Columbanuss death (615 642), and
where Jonas is careful to note those monasteries that were founded
through love of Columbanus and his Rule.56
The extent of this network can be gathered from some of the eyewitnesses who provided Jonas with his information, such as Eustasius,
the abbot of Luxeuil in Burgundy,57 Gall, the Irish hermit in the Steinach valley in Switzerland,58 Chagnoald, bishop of Laon,59 and his sister,
Burgundofara, abbess of Faremoutiers,60 in Neustria. But perhaps Jonas
himself is the best example of the intraregional and intercultural nature
of Columbanian monasticism. The little we know of him incidentally, a lot for an early medieval hagiographer comes from what he
himself reveals in the Vita Columbani and the Vita Iohannis abbatis
Reomaensis which he wrote in 659 at the request of the community and
abbot of Rom, Chunna, who had received his monastic training at
Luxeuil.61
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
This is evident in the case of Bertulf who was a monk at Luxeuil before becoming a monk at
Bobbio following a visit by Abbot Athala to Luxeuil. Jonas notes that this was not unusual
because both abbots, Eustasius and Athala, were accustomed to exchanging monks from their
respective monasteries: VC II.23, p. 281.
VC, Epistula ad Waldebertum et Bobolenum, p. 144.
See Albrecht Diem, Was bedeutet Regula Columbani?, in W. Pohl and M. Diesenberger (eds),
Integration und Herrschaft: Ethnische Identitten und Soziale Organisation im Frhmittelalter,
Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 3 (Vienna, 2002), pp. 6389, at pp. 715.
VC II.10, p. 255: multi iam in amore Columbani et eius regula monasteria construunt.
VC, Epistula ad Waldebertum et Bobolenum, p. 145: praesertim cum hii qui eo fuerunt in
tempore et poenes ipsum patrata viderunt quam plurimi poenes vos suprestis sint, qui nobis
non audita sed visa narrent, vel quae etiam nos per venerabiles viros Athalam et Eustasium
didicimus.
VC I.11, p. 172.
VC I.17, pp. 1856.
VC II.12, pp. 25964.
The Vita is likewise edited by Bruno Krusch in his Ionae Vitae, pp. 32644. On the background
to the works composition, see Jonass preface, p. 326. Albrecht Diem, to whom I am grateful
for his kindness in sending me a copy, has just published an article on the work entitled, The
Rule of an Iro-Egyptian Monk in Gaul: Jonas Vita Iohannis and the Construction of a
Monastic Identity, in the Revue Mabillon 19 (2008), pp. 550. Chunna, magnae virum ex
genere Burgundionum, is mentioned as entering Luxeuil with Germanus, the aristocratic first
abbot of Grandval who was later martyred: Bobolenus, Vita Germani abbatis Grandivallensis 6,
ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1910), p. 35.

137
From the latter text we learn that by this time Jonas had become an
abbot and was travelling south to Chalon-sur-Sane where he was to
meet Queen Balthild and her son, the infant king, Chlothar III (d. 673).
He mentions neither which monastery he was abbot of nor the reason he
was sent for not that one would expect this but, as it was November,
we may assume it was a matter of some urgency for the queen to summon
the abbot in mid-winter. It was, Jonas complained, due to the hardship
of the journey62 that he had stopped for a few days at the old Gallic
monastery before pressing on, which gave the monks of Rom the
chance of asking the hagiographer of the Vita Columbani to write the Life
of their founder.
From the Vita Columbani we learn that Jonas came from the old Roman
town (urbs nobilis) of Sigusium (modern-day Susa) at the foot of the
Cottian Alps, about 210 kilometres (140 Roman miles) from Bobbio.63 He
entered Bobbio only a few months after Columbanuss death sometime in
the spring of 616,64 where he became the personal assistant to Abbot
Athala. He was more than likely the monasterys archivist65 and accompanied Abbot Bertulf on a diplomatic mission to Rome in which the
monastery obtained a privilege of immunity from Pope Honorius I in
628.66 We also know that he was at the female religious community of
Faremoutiers to the south-east of Paris at the time of the nun Gibitrudiss
death, perhaps sometime in 633 or 634.67 By the end of the 630s he was back
62
63
64
65
66
67
Vita Iohannis, prologue, p. 326: paucis diebus inibi pro labore itineris quievit.
He mentions this in the context of a miracle account of which he himself is the subject. After
repeated requests by his family, Jonas was permitted by Abbot Athala to return to visit them
after nine years in the monastery. But on reaching home he was seized by a fever during the
night which, sensing that it was because of his absence, forced him to return to the monastery
the next day. When he got back to Bobbio he understood that he had suffered the fever so that
he might return just in time for Athalas death: VC II.5, pp. 2378.
This can be reckoned from the above information. Jonas returned to Susa in February 625 just
before Athalas death. As Athala died in March 625 and, as Jonas mentions that it had been nine
years since he had entered the monastery, this must have been in 616. For a new dating of Jonass
entry into Bobbio, see A. OHara, Jonas of Bobbio and the Vita Columbani: Sanctity and
Community in the Seventh Century, Ph.D. thesis, University of St Andrews (forthcoming in
2009). Previous scholars have proposed a date of 618 or 617 as the year of Jonass entry. See, for
example, the comments by Dom Adalbert de Vog in the introduction to his French translation of the work: Jonas de Bobbio, Vie de Saint Colomban et de ses disciples, Vie Monastique
19 (Bellefontaine, 1988), p. 19.
VC II.2, p. 232: beati viri ministerio deputatus tenebar. When Athala received a letter from the
troublesome monk Agrestius he gave it to Jonas for safekeeping, which may imply Jonas was
responsible for the monasterys documents. If so, he was not very good at it, as he confesses that
he later lost the letter: VC II.9, pp. 2478.
VC II.23, pp. 2813. On the significance of this privilege, see I. Wood, Jonas, the Merovingians,
and Pope Honorius: Diplomata and the Vita Columbani, in A.C. Murray (ed.), After Romes
Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto,
199), pp. 99120.
Jonas celebrated a memorial Mass for Gibitrudis a month after her death and had also been
present when she died: VC II.2, pp. 2612. On the possible dating of the death, see de Vogs
comments, Vie de Saint Colomban, p. 207, n. 8.

138
Alexander OHara
in Bobbio, although he gives the impression that he was not there to stay.68
It was around this time that he spent three years as a missionary helping
Bishop Amandus in his work of evangelization in the far north-east corner
of Gaul, the area around the Rivers Scarpe and Scheldt.69 We next meet
him, as we have seen, at Rom twenty years later, by which time he had
become an abbot who was keeping company with kings and queens. As he
was travelling south to Chalon it may have been that he was again based in
northern Gaul. In 1677 Jean Mabillon suggested that Jonas might be
identified with a certain Jonatus who became abbot of Marchiennes in 643,
a community founded by Jonass old companion, Amandus, although this
identification has been queried.70 Whether or not we can identity Jonas as
the abbot of Marchiennes is a moot point; either way it would seem that his
abbatial career lay in the Merovingian kingdom. Thus this Italian monk,
like his compatriot Venantius Fortunatus in the previous century, was a
foreigner who had made it in Merovingian Gaul.
What emerges from these glimpses of a life is a portrait of an active
man whose ability was recognized early on by the abbots of Bobbio and
who travelled considerably through Merovingian Gaul and the Italian
peninsula, despite Columbanuss injunction that no monk should go
anywhere with complete freedom.71 His close contacts with many of the
people who knew Columbanus personally and his literary talents made
him the obvious candidate to write the Vita Columbani. Furthermore, his
later contacts with the wife and son of King Clovis II (d. 657) are
characteristic of the close connections enjoyed by the Columbanians with
powerful royal and aristocratic families. Jonas was part of a monastic
familia that, from its very beginnings, was closely tied to royal and
aristocratic power. As Friedrich Prinz observed, Columbanuss decision
to go to the Burgundian court on his arrival in Merovingian Gaul had
significant repercussions for the future development of his monastic
movement while constituting a new epoch in the history of continental
monasticism.72 Columbanuss Burgundian monasteries, situated as they
were in the royal forest of the Vosges,73 became closely tied to the
68
69
70
71
72
73
See VC, Epistula ad Waldebertum et Bobolenum, p. 144.

VC, Epistula ad Waldebertum et Bobolenum, p. 144.
I. Pagani, Ionas-Ionatus: a proposito della biografia di Giona di Bobbio, Studi Medievali, 3rd
ser. 29 (1988), pp. 4585. Mabillons theory is found in his Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti
Benedicti, saec. IV/1 (Paris, 1677), p. LXXIX, the relevant passages of which are printed and
discussed in Paganis article, pp. 701.
Columbanus, Regula monachorum IX, in Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. G.S.M. Walker, Scriptores
Latini Hiberniae 2 (Dublin, 1970), p. 140.
Prinz, Frhes Mnchtum, p. 122: Erst die Verbindung mit dem frnkischen Hofe machte aus
dem zuflligen Erscheinen von dreizehn irischen Mnchen im Frankenreich eine neue Epoche
der abendlndischen Klostergeschichte.
King Guntram sentenced his chamberlain, Chundo, to undergo trial by combat and, when his
champion had been killed, had Chundo stoned to death because he had hunted in the royal

139
Merovingian monarchy and Frankish aristocracy. The same process was

initiated by Columbanus when, having been expelled from Burgundy in
610 after finally having lost favour with the Burgundian dynasty, he made
a beeline for the Lombard court of King Agilulf upon his arrival in Italy
some two years later. The site of Bobbio was consequently granted to the
elderly saint and the Lombard kings and queens thereafter maintained
close links with the monastery.74
A corollary of this royal patronage was aristocratic involvement. If you
were an aristocrat in seventh-century Merovingian Gaul, submitting
yourself to the hardships of Columbanian monasticism or founding a
monastery was very much de rigueur. All of the early abbots of Luxeuil
and Bobbio, with the exception of Bobolenus whose father was a priest,
were aristocrats. Jonas relates how, when Columbanus and his monks had
settled at Luxeuil, the children of the nobles everywhere advanced in
large numbers so that, scorning the deceits of the world and fearing the
present pomp of wealth, they might seize eternal rewards.75 Many of
these later became bishops who, with their connections at the royal court,
did more than anyone else in promoting Columbanian monasticism.
Donatus, who later became the bishop of Besanon (the diocese in
which Luxeuil was situated), was one such man. He was the son of
Waldelenus, duke of the people who live between the barrier of the Alps
and the wooded regions of the Jura,76 and the very patrician-sounding
Flavia, who, Jonas tells us, was both noble in family and prudence.77 He
was the result of a miracle for he was conceived after his barren parents
had sought the help of Columbanus but only after they had agreed to the
conditions of the hard-bargaining holy man. He would only pray on their
behalf if they agreed that their first-born would be consecrated to the
religious life. If they would do this he would pray that they would have
as many children as they then wished. A son was duly born and appropriately named Donatus, one who has been given. When his mother had
raised him he entered the monastery where he remained until he became
a bishop. He then founded a monastery in love of blessed Columbanus
74
75
76
77
forest of the Vosges without his permission. This happened in 590, thus around the time that
Columbanus was making his way to Burgundy. Gregory of Tours, Libri historiarum decem X.10,
ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, MGH SRM 1/1 (Hanover, 193751), p. 494.
VC I.30, pp. 2201. For Lombard royal support of Bobbio, see the charters conferred on the
community by successive kings and queens in Codice Diplomatico del Monastero di S. Colombano di Bobbio fino allanno. MCCVIII., ed. C. Cipolla, Fonti per la Storia dItalia 52, 2 vols
(Rome, 1918), I, and, for more recent discussion, Zironi, Il monastero Longobardo di Bobbio, pp.
1115.
VC I.10, pp. 16970: Ibi nobilium liberi undique concurrere nitebantur, ut, exspreta faleramenta saeculi et praesentium pompam facultatum temnentes, aeterna praemia caperent.
VC I.14, p. 174: gentes qui intra Alpium septa et Iurani saltus arva incolent (the Transjuran
region).
VC I.14, p. 174: genere et prudentia nobilem.

140
Alexander OHara
under his Rule, which they called Palatium on account of the monuments of old walls.78 Columbanuss promise about the other children
held true as Waldelenus and Flavia had another son and two daughters.
Chramelenus, the heir, also built a monastery under the Columbanian
Rule in the woods of the Jura near the small river Nozon, while Flavia,
after her husbands death, built a convent in Besanon.79 Such examples
show the importance of such personal encounters for the expansion of
Columbanian monasticism. It was more often than not that new monasteries, organized on the model of Luxeuil and often with Luxeuil monks
as the first abbots, were founded by such indirect channels rather than
from Luxeuil itself. Aristocratic families, such as that of Waldelenus and
Flavia, were instrumental in this process.
Columbanus himself was the one who laid the foundations for these
contacts. He realized, as a complete outsider in a foreign land, that he had
to go to places of secular power the courts of kings and the country
estates of the aristocracy if he were to obtain hospitality, patronage, and
protection. In return, he would confer his spiritual power on his benefactors. The support of the Burgundian royal family undoubtedly contributed to an influx of Frankish nobles into the saints community but
when this ceased, allegedly over Columbanuss refusing to bless King
Theuderic IIs illegitimate children and his unwillingness to allow the
laity access to the inner monastic enclosures,80 other kings and nobles
were just as eager to give the holy man their hospitality. As Patrick Geary
has aptly remarked, the Vita Columbani reads like a Whos Who of the
Frankish aristocracy81 and indeed, in one way, Book I could be read as an
itinerary from one royal court and aristocratic villa to the next.
After his expulsion from the Burgundian kingdom and his miraculous escape from being deported back to Ireland,82 Columbanus made
his way inland from the Atlantic coast north and eastwards via two
royal courts and two aristocratic households. Jonass accounts of the
saints meetings with the kings, Chlothar II of Neustria (d. 629) and
Theudebert II of Austrasia (d. 612), and the aristocrats, Chagneric at
78
79
80
81
82
VC I.14, pp. 1756: in amore beati Columbani ex ipsius regula monasterium virorum construxit, quem Palatium nuncupant ob veterum monimenta murorum.
VC I.14, p. 176.
See VC I.19, pp. 18793.
P.J. Geary, Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian
World (Oxford, 1988), p. 172.
VC I.20, 23, pp. 1938, 2056. Jonas sets Columbanuss escape in the context of a miracle story
in which the ship that is to deport the saint is grounded owing to massive waves. The skipper,
realizing this has happened because of Columbanus, allows the saint to go. Columbanus
himself, however, in the remarkable letter he wrote from Nantes to his remaining monks in
Burgundy, hints at a more mundane explanation: Now as I write a messenger has reached me,
saying that the ship is ready for me, in which I shall be borne unwilling to my country; but if
I escape, there is no guard to prevent it; for they seem to desire this, that I should escape.
Epistula IV.8, in Sancti Columbani Opera, p. 35.

141
the town of Meaux and Authari at his country estate by the River
Marne, are illustrative of the royal and aristocratic connections that
were initiated by Columbanus and which would later prove key factors
in the expansion of Hiberno-Frankish/Columbanian monasticism. In
these encounters, we see the personal relationships that lay behind later
developments.
The first thing that Jonas emphasizes in these encounters is the enthusiasm and joy with which the kings and nobles welcomed the holy man.
When Chlothar saw Columbanus he received him just as a heavenly
gift;83 Chagneric received the man of God with a wonderful joy;84
Autharis wife, Aiga, eagerly sought the saints blessing for her two infant
sons;85 while Theudebert rejoicing, received him in his residence.86 Jonas
adds that many of the monks from Luxeuil had now come to join their
master at Theudeberts court and the king welcomed them just as if they
were enemy booty (quos velut ex hostium preda recipiebat).87 Such a
comparison nicely captures the prestige that such holy men had in the
eyes of warrior kings who relied on plunder for the maintenance of their
status.
Although Columbanus did not linger at Chlothars court, he so
impressed the Neustrian king that some years later, when Columbanus
was finally settled in Italy, he sent a delegation headed by Eustasius, now
abbot of Luxeuil, to try and get the saint to return to him. Columbanus
refused, but instead wrote the king a hortatory letter (Litteras castigationum effamine plenas) and instructed Eustasius to tell Chlothar that
his wish was for the king to support and protect his monks at Luxeuil.88
The result was special royal treatment. Chlothar enriched the monastery
with yearly revenues, increased its boundaries on all sides . . . and
because of his love for the man of God, stretched out his help as far as
he could to all those who were living in that place.89 This royal patronage stemmed from Columbanuss brief sojourn at the Neustrian court
when, at the outset of hostilities between the two brothers Theuderic
and Theudebert, the saint advised Chlothar not to do anything as he
prophesised that within three years Chlothar would get both of their
kingdoms.90 With the annihilation of the Burgundian and Austrasian
kings and their families, Chlothar became the sole ruler of the
Merovingian kingdoms in 613. By portraying Columbanus in the guise
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
VC I.24, p. 207: velut caelestem munus recepit.

VC I.26, p. 209: virum Dei miro gaudio recepit.
VC I.26, p. 209.
VC I.27, p. 211: ovans suis sedibus recepit.
VC I.27, p. 211.
VC I.30, p. 223.
VC I.30, p. 223: annuis censibus ditat, terminos undique . . . auget omnique conatu ad
auxilium inibi habitantium ob viri Dei amorem intendit.
VC I.24, pp. 2078.

142
Alexander OHara
of an Old Testament prophet, Jonas shows the saint as playing

an important role in the lead-up to the turbulent political events of 612.
It was when this prophecy had been fulfilled that Chlothar sought out
the holy man and was all too willing to bestow his royal patronage
on the Columbanian community. From then on the court at Paris,
the centre of the Neustrian kingdom, became a key centre in the
expansion of Columbanian monasticism.91 This royal largesse can thus
be traced back to the personal relationship between Chlothar and
Columbanus.
We similarly see Columbanuss influence on the aristocracy and its
long-term effects from his meeting with Chagneric and Authari.
Columbanus blessed Chagnerics house and his young daughter Burgundofara at Meaux, while he similarly blessed the two young sons of
Authari when he arrived at Autharis country estate.92 The fate of these
children was, in a sense, sealed by this benediction, as they all went on
to lead religious lives. In contrast, the illegitimate children of Theuderics, whom Columbanus had refused to bless, were all eventually killed.93
Those children that received the saints benediction later established
new Columbanian foundations. The double-monastery of Faremoutiers,
for example, in which Jonas would spend some time and to whose
female community he would dedicate a large portion of Book II, arose
out of Burgundofaras determination to lead a religious life. Her father
Chagneric donated the land for the new foundation, and two monks of
Luxeuil, Chagnoald, Burgundofaras brother and later bishop of Laon,
and Waldebert, later abbot of Luxeuil and co-dedicatee of the Vita
Columbani, gave instruction in Columbanian monastic life.94 Likewise,
the two sons of Authari mentioned by Jonas, Ado and Dado, both
founded monastic communities that lived according to Columbanuss
Rule: Jouarre and Rebais.95
As seems to have been the norm for Frankish aristocrats in the seventh
century who were drawn to Columbanian monasticism, both Ado and
Dado had spent some time at the courts of Chlothar II and Dagobert I.
Ado, the eldest, became a monk in Jouarre while Dado, one of the leading
figures at the court of Dagobert I, became bishop of Rouen in 641. In 635,
during a visit to Dagoberts court at Clichy, the pious Breton king,
Judicael, snubbed the hospitality of the kings table (Dagobert was obviously not religious enough) in order to eat instead with Dado, whom he
91
92
93
94
95
See Prinz, Frhes Mnchtum, pp. 12441.

VC I.26, p. 209.
Jonas (VC I.29, p. 219) mentions that they were all killed on Chlothars orders, although
Fredegar (Chronicle of Fredegar IV.42, pp. 345) notes that one of Theuderics sons escaped,
while another, Merovech, was spared because he was Chlothars godson.
VC II.7, p. 243.
VC I.26, p. 210.

143
knew to lead a religious life.96 This was the same year that Judicaels pious
host founded Rebais with Dagoberts backing. Later when he was a
bishop, Dado (or Audoin as he is also known), was perhaps the most
important representative of a group of bishops who, with close connections to the Neustrian court, were patrons of new monastic foundations
that were closely modelled on the monastic life at Luxeuil. In contrast to
Columbanuss day when the Gallo-Frankish bishops seem to have been
the Irish saints staunchest opponents,97 the new breed of bishops that
emerged in the mid-seventh century many of whom had been educated
at Luxeuil and had been in royal service before becoming bishops
became the most avid supporters of Columbanian monasticism. It was
largely they, and the royal connections on which they could rely, that led
to the burgeoning of new monastic foundations that were mostly concentrated in the northern and eastern parts of the Merovingian kingdom.
The audience
Although the Bobbio community commissioned the Vita Columbani, it
was clearly meant to be read by the wider Columbanian familia. It is,
therefore, important to emphasize the extent of the monastic and political milieus in which Jonas and his abbatial/episcopal/monastic contemporaries operated and, accordingly, what this reveals about the potential
audience of the Vita. The concerns of the work are naturally monastic,
but this does not therefore imply that the audience was exclusively
monastic. The Columbanian monastic network was extensive and closely
bound up with aristocratic and royal circles: the patrons of the new
monasticism included the Merovingian royal family, the leading bishops,
and the Frankish nobility. As we have seen, the world in which Jonas of
Bobbio operated was one that extended from the English Channel to the
Apennines. We should similarly consider the dissemination of the Vita
Columbani within this context and not see it as a work that was to be
confined within cloistered walls. If we ask ourselves the question, Who
might have been interested in reading the Vita?, then those individuals
who were the powerful patrons of Columbanian monasticism become
potential readers. These patrons were part of the aristocratic world of
the abbots of Luxeuil and Bobbio, which, like any elite system, was a
small world. We see, for example, the close personal connections that
96
97
Chronicle of Fredegar, IV.78, p. 66.

These strained relations are evident from the letter that Columbanus wrote to a synod of Gallic
bishops that was convened at Chalon-sur-Sane in 602/3 to which he was summoned but
refused to attend: Epistula II, in Sancti Columbani Opera, pp. 1222. See further C. Stancliffe,
Columbanus and the Gallic Bishops, in G. Constable and M. Rouche (eds), Auctoritas:
Mlanges offerts au Professeur Olivier Guillot (Paris, 2006), pp. 20515.

144
Alexander OHara
aristocratic families such as Chagnerics at Meaux had with Columbanuss disciples. Burgundofaras brother Chagnoald, who along with
Waldebert was entrusted to organize the religious life at Faremoutiers,
was a monk at Luxeuil and personal assistant to Columbanus, and later
became bishop of Laon and one of Jonass principal informants.98
Another of Chagnerics sons was probably Burgundofaro, who by 629
had become bishop of Meaux. Like Dado/Audoin he had been a member
of the court circle in Paris as a referendary of Dagobert Is and, as bishop,
conferred on Dados foundation of Rebais a privilege exempting it from
episcopal control. He may also have been instrumental at court in the
election of his brother to the bishopric of Laon.99
As bishops such as Burgundofaro, Chagnoald, and Dado were powerful benefactors with close personal connections to Columbanian communities, it is probable that they were part of the coterie of those who
first read the Vita Columbani. Although Jonas was anxious not to praise
people who were still living lest he might appear a sycophant, he was not
reticent about name-dropping. He was particularly assiduous in noting
important individuals who had been Columbanian monks before becoming bishops and/or as bishops had founded new monastic foundations.
Donatus of Besanon, an aristocratic monk, bishop and monastic
founder, was one such example. Jonas further mentions the bishops
Chagnoald of Laon, Acharius of Vermandois, Noyon and Tournai, Ragnachar of Augst and Basel, and Audomar of Boulogne and Throuanne,
as having been trained under Abbot Eustasius of Luxeuil (d. 629)100
although without mentioning that they were monastic founders.
Others who were not quondam Luxeuil monks, but who supported or
founded Columbanian communities, are also mentioned. Bishop Eligius
of Noyon, a close friend of Dados from the royal court, is singled out as
the founder of Solignac in Aquitaine and of many other monasteries in
the Limoges area (et alia multa hisdem locis coenubia) as well as a
convent in Paris which, like Solignac, received royal support.101 Eligius
was a talented goldsmith from Limoges who had risen to become a
diplomat and adviser at the courts of Chlothar II and Dagobert I. His
founding of Solignac in 631/2 when he was still in royal service is an
excellent example of the close interrelationship between the Merovingian
court and the Columbanians. The monastery, on the site of a GalloRoman villa that had been donated by Dagobert to Eligius for his
foundation, was subject only to the king, while its first abbot, Remaclus,
98
99
100
101
VC I.17, pp. 1856; I.25, p. 216; I.28, p. 218; II.7, p. 241.

See Prinz, Frhes Mnchtum, pp. 1256. Jonas also mentions Burgundofaro as one of the
witnesses to a miracle that occurred at Faremoutiers: VC II.21, p. 277.
VC II.8, p. 245.
VC II.10, p. 255.

145
was a monk from Luxeuil.102 The new spirit of lay piety also affected
Berthoara, a Frankish noblewoman, who built a convent (ex beati
Columbani regulam) in the town of Bourges,103 and Theudulfus, nicknamed Babelenus, who built four communities, two of which were
convents, in the same diocese.104 Such examples demonstrate that Jonas
was concerned with recording the expansion of Columbanian communities and with their benefactors, all of whom he is careful to name. One
aim of the Vita Columbani might thus have been to give far-flung
communities such as Fontanella/St Wandrille, Solignac, and those
around Bourges, a sense of identity in common with the principal
Columbanian foundations.
It would be inaccurate to assume that the Vita was merely aimed at a
monastic audience; the pious aristocrats who often founded these new
communities should equally be seen as potential readers. Linguistically,
the Latin of Jonas would have been comprehensible to a wider lay
audience and not only to the educated clerical elite. Although this was a
period in which the vernacular Romance languages were taking shape,
Latin was still very much the lingua franca. It is clear that for Jonas Latin
was a living language, so in terms of reception it is perfectly feasible to
imagine a lay audience.105 We are, however, essentially envisaging an
audience from the same social group. During this period, saints Lives,
such as the Vita Columbani, circulated not only in monastic and ecclesiastical circles but also among the lay aristocracy.106 This was the group
from which the vast majority of the subjects of these saints Lives had
come, and so it was natural that such texts would serve to heighten the
religious and social prestige of these aristocratic families. The tendency of
the Gallo-Roman and Frankish aristocracy to celebrate members of their
own families who had become saints has been aptly characterized by
102
103
104
105
106
See Prinz, Frhes Mnchtum, p. 133.

VC II.10, pp. 2556.
VC II.10, p. 256.
Christine Mohrmann, The Earliest Continental Irish Latin, Vigiliae Christianae 16 (1962),
pp. 21633, at p. 230, has characterized Jonass Latin as a queer mixture of the florid Irish style
of Columban and elements of the vulgar Latin of northern Italy. In the morphological and
syntactical system of his Latin the traditional rules are more or less neglected. Thus far it is clear
that for Jonas Latin still was the living vernacular. On the question of reception, in particular
the linguistic comprehensibility of the Franks in Merovingian Gaul, see M. Banniard, Latin et
communication orale en Gaule franque: Le tmoignage de la Vita Eligii, in J. Fontaine and J.N.
Hillgarth (eds), The Seventh Century: Change and Continuity (London, 1992), pp. 5886; and
idem, Viva voce: Communication crite et communication orale du IVe au IXe sicle en Occident
(Paris, 1992), esp. pp. 253303.
See M. van Uytfanghe, Lhagiographie et son publique a lpoque mrovingienne, Studia
Patristica 16 (1985), pp. 5462, at p. 57. The increasingly aristocratic nature of hagiographical
writing is especially highlighted by M. Heinzelmann, Neue Aspekte der Biographischen und
Hagiographischen Literatur in der Lateinischen Welt (1.6. Jahrhundert), Francia 1 (1973),
pp. 2744.

146
Alexander OHara
Friedrich Prinz as a self-sanctification (Selbstheiligung) of the nobility.107

With the close connections that the Columbanian communities had to
aristocratic families it is, therefore, likely that the Vita Columbani also
circulated within this lay group. We see, for example, from the Vita
Iohannis that Jonas was interested in reaching a larger audience. He was
not just writing for those dedicated to the religious life but also for the
simple minds of the laity (tam mentis hominum caelesti desiderio
innexas, quam etiam simplicium animos hominibus profanis ad vitam
provocemus aeternam).108
This laity, of course, could also include non-aristocrats. Saints Lives
were an important medium through which the church sought to instruct
and evangelize all levels of secular society.109 They were especially useful as
sources of exempla for preachers instructing the lay community at Mass,
or for missionaries in their efforts at Christianization. As is apparent from
the prefaces to many Merovingian saints Lives, these texts were meant
not only for the clerical elite but also to be heard by the common
people.110 This public function has been seen as an important aspect of
Merovingian hagiography, while it has been argued that for the Carolingian period the audience became decidedly more monastic and ecclesiastical as Latin became less and less understood by the common people
and increasingly the preserve of the educated elite.111 Indicators that
Merovingian hagiography was more geared towards a wider audience
include internal references to the plebs Christiana and the Latin itself,
which is peppered with vulgar Latin terminology. These features are
generally not found in Carolingian saints Lives, which had come to be
written in a proper Latin less accommodating to a plebeian audience.
While it is thus possible that the audience of the Vita Columbani in
Merovingian Gaul could have included the lower levels of society, it is
more probable that the work was circulated predominantly in the upper
echelons. This supposition is based on a number of factors. Firstly, there
is no indication within the text (as in the Vita Iohannis) that it was in part
intended for a more general public. Secondly, from the aristocratic affinities and patronage Jonas routinely draws our attention to affinities that
are reflected in the makeup of the Columbanian communities themselves
the Vita Columbani can be described as a text that was orientated
towards an elite. It was a text written for the Columbanian communities
107
108
109
110
111
F. Prinz, Gesellschaftliche Aspekte frhmittelalterlicher Hagiographie, Zeitschrift fr Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 11 (1973), pp. 1736.
Jonas, Vita Iohannis, in Ionae Vitae, p. 326.
This public function of Merovingian hagiography is emphasized by van Uytfanghe,
Lhagiographie et son publique, pp. 5462.
Van Uytfanghe, Lhagiographie et son publique, pp. 5462.
See K. Heene, Merovingian and Carolingian Hagiography: Continuity or Change in Public
and Aims?, Analecta Bollandiana 107 (1989), pp. 41527.

147
and the extended elite social group linked to these communities through
family and patronage. Finally, the opportunities for such a text reaching
a wider public were more limited because of the restrictions that prevented access to these communities: Columbanian monasteries were, at
least initially, largely off limits to the laity.112 Bobbio, for example, does
not seem to have been interested in developing a public cult to Columbanus which, among other things, would have attracted the laity to the
monastery on the saints feast day.113 It was on such occasions that a
reading from the Vita Columbani to the public would have been most
opportune, but the abbots seem to have been more interested in maintaining the sacred space of the monastery intact from lay intrusion.
However, as these monasteries grew in wealth and land from royal and
aristocratic endowments during the course of the seventh century,
perhaps the peasants who now lived and worked on monastic property
and who were more closely tied to the communities may have heard some
tales from the Vita Columbani. The likelihood of this happening was
perhaps greater because of the oratories that were built on the monastic
estates as part of the communitys efforts to evangelize the surrounding
areas. The exempla of obedience, hard agricultural work, and making do
with little food all found in abundance in the first part of the Vita
Columbani would have provided ample material for a preacher eager to
press home to a peasant community the necessary hardships of their
existence.
But it is in the aristocratic monastery, household, cathedral, and royal
court that we can more reasonably envisage the early audience of Jonass
magnum opus. As we have seen, these were the places that were the most
closely interconnected with each other through a dense network of aristocratic affinities. The main hubs of this network were Luxeuil and the
Neustrian court at Paris. The royal court in particular was important in
its patronage of new Columbanian communities and as a centre in which
those sympathetic to the ideals of Columbanianism had influence. It was
around this court that the monopoly of power in Merovingian Gaul
focused from 613 when Chlothar II of Neustria had managed to annihilate his rivals and unite the kingdoms of Burgundy and Austrasia with his
own. The turbulent but politically decisive time leading up to 613 is the
period in which Columbanus was, as it were, on the road again, visiting
the noble households and royal courts of Neustria and Austrasia
after his expulsion from Burgundy by Theuderic and Brunhild. Jonas,
112
113
As seen, for example, in Columbanuss reaction to Theuderics proposals that the inner areas of
the monastery should be open access to all laity: VC I.19, pp. 1901. See further B.H.
Rosenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval
Europe (Ithaca, 1999), pp. 6173.
Wood, The Vita Columbani and Merovingian Hagiography, pp. 678.

148
Alexander OHara
unsurprisingly, saw Chlothars victory as the result of the divine punishment meted out to the Burgundian royal family because of their treatment of Columbanus.114 He also highlights Columbanuss support of
Chlothars rule through the saints prophecy that Chlothar would
become king of his enemies kingdoms.115 This political background is
important when considering whether the Vita Columbani may have had
an audience at the Neustrian court of the 640s.
There is no doubt that the events of the early seventh century by
which the Merovingian kingdoms became united under a sole ruler
would have interested Chlothars successors. They were also of interest
to Jonas because of Columbanuss intimate entanglements with the key
figures in these events: Brunhild, Theuderic, Theudebert, and Chlothar.
The most dramatic parts of Book I are those that show Columbanus in
action with these powerful rulers. The descriptions of the saints falling
out with Brunhild over refusing to bless the illegitimate children of
Theuderic, and of his head-to-head with the king at Luxeuil over lay
access to sacred space are, for example, the epitome of Jonass skill as a
writer, and are justly the most famous passages of the entire work.116 It
is these passages that constitute the first textual evidence of the Vita in
Merovingian Gaul, when they were copied verbatim by the compiler of
the Chronicle of Fredegar within twenty years of the completion of the
Vita Columbani.
The Vita may have interested a courtly audience because the text can
be read as legitimizing the Neustrian line of kings. In defaming Brunhild
and Theuderic,117 by showing Theudebert as inept for refusing Columbanuss advice to retire to a monastery (he was afterwards forcefully
tonsured and later killed on Brunhilds orders),118 it essentially portrayed
Chlothar as the just king whose right to rule over all the kingdoms was
divinely approved by Columbanuss prophecy. The outcome of events
was thus shown to have been prophesied all along:
Therefore, having utterly and completely annihilated the lineage of
Theuderic, Chlothar acquired the sole absolute rule of three kingdoms. With this deed, the prophecy of blessed Columba was fulfilled
in everything; within three years one had been utterly destroyed with
114
115
116
117
118
VC I.29, p. 220.
VC I.24, pp. 2078.
VC I.19, pp. 18793.
VC I.18, p. 187 (on Brunhild); I.22, p. 202 (on Theuderic: Canis me Theudericus meis a
fratribus abegit). On the defamation of Brunhild, see J.L. Nelson, Queens as Jezebels:
Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History, in D. Baker (ed.), Medieval Women: Essays
Dedicated and Presented to Professor Rosalind M.T. Hill, Studies in Church History: Subsidia 1
(Oxford, 1978), pp. 3177; repr. in J.L. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe
(London, 1986), pp. 148.
VC I.28, p. 217 and p. 219.

149
all his lineage, another had been violently made a cleric, a third
enlarged his possession and mastery over the three kingdoms.119
Jonas thus showed that the king who had been sensible enough to heed
Columbanus had been victorious (on the saints advice Chlothar had not
entered into military action against either Theuderic or Theudebert).120
Those who had not regarded the advice of the saint Theuderic in
persisting with his loose living among his concubines and Theudebert for
not retiring to a monastery had all perished.
We also cannot exclude the interest that Jonass account may have had
for a courtly audience for which the memory of the events of 612/13 would
still have been fresh. The audience may, for example, have taken a macabre
delight in some of the events mentioned by Jonas such as Theudeberts
defeat at the hands of his brother Theuderic,121 or the treachery of his
death on the orders of his grandmother, Brunhild.122 The most macabre
incident that Jonas relates, however, is arguably the humiliating and
savage way in which Brunhild herself is killed. Jonas very matter-of-factly
reports how, when Chlothar defeated Theuderics son Sigibert, whom
Brunhild had made king after the death of his father, Chlothar killed all
of Theuderics sons before displaying Brunhild to his army on the back of
a camel and then tying her to wild horses whereon she was wretchedly
deprived of life.123 There is little sense of empathy here for the plight of
either Theuderics sons or Brunhild, and one has the impression that the
Neustrian court was similarly unsympathetic towards a woman who was
allegedly complicit in the murder of ten Frankish kings.124
As Ian Wood has commented, Jonass defamation of those who had
initially supported Columbanus Brunhild and the Burgundian royal
family can be seen in the political context as part of the new regimes
propaganda demonizing its previous opponents.125 This is most apparent
in what seems to be Jonass deliberate obfuscation of the role played by
the sons and grandsons of Brunhild in their patronage of the early
Columbanian community. Independently from Jonas, we can date the
arrival of Columbanus in Burgundy to 590/1, thus during the reign of
Childebert II (d. 596), the son of Brunhild and Sigibert I. The area in
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
VC I.29, p. 220: Funditus ergo radicitusque deletam Theuderici stirpem, Chlotharius potitus
est trium regnorum solus monarchiam. Quo facto, beati Columbae prophetia in omnibus
impleta est, unum intra triennium cum omni stirpe funditus deletum, alium violenter clericum
factum, tertium trium regnorum possessione ac dominatione dilatatum.
VC I.24, pp. 2078.
VC I.28, pp. 21819.
VC I.28, pp. 21819.
VC I.29, p. 220: miserabiliter vitae privavit.
Chronicle of Fredegar IV.42, p. 35.
Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, pp. 1956.

150
Alexander OHara
which Columbanus settled was a royal forest, so it would seem that it was
Childebert who granted the site of the old fort at Annegray to the saint.
But Jonas mentions nothing about Childeberts involvement or about the
fact that the Vosges was a royal forest. Instead, he names Childeberts
father, Sigibert, who ruled from 561 to 575, as the king who conferred the
site on Columbanus.126 The only reasonable explanation for this was that
Jonas wished to erase the memory of Childeberts and Theuderics role in
supporting Columbanus as part of the political policy that defamed
the bloodline of Brunhild and Sigibert.127 By moving the foundation
of Annegray back in time to the reign of Sigibert I, Jonas neatly
achieved this.
There is little reason to doubt that Jonas would have been aware that
it was Childebert, and not Sigibert, who had been Columbanuss actual
patron. It was not so far in the past that Jonas would not have known
about such chronological matters and, besides, there were still members
of the original community alive when Jonas first entered Bobbio who
would no doubt have remembered such things. Even a monk copying the
Vita Columbani in Lotharingia in the ninth century knew that it was
Childebert and not Sigibert who must have been the king who supported
the original foundation.128 Elsewhere, Jonas shows that he had a good
grasp of Merovingian royal politics, as when he reports how Sigibert
was murdered at the royal villa at Vitry by the treachery of his
brother, Chilperic.129 Unlike Childebert and his sons, Sigibert (who was
Chlothars uncle) appears to have been acceptable to the Neustrian
regime. This is most evident in the Edict of Paris, promulgated by
Chlothar in 614, in which the legislation of Sigibert was recognized but
not that of Childebert.130
This damnatio memoriae directed towards Sigiberts descendants seems
to reflect a genuine hatred of Brunhild and her progeny. This rewriting of
history by Jonas also gives us an important clue as to the audience of the
work. I would argue that Jonass substitution of Sigibert for Childebert
can be taken as evidence for the circulation of the Vita in court circles. It
follows that if the work had only been intended for a monastic audience,
it would not have been necessary for Jonas to repress the facts. Rather,
126
127
128
129
130
VC I.6, pp. 1623.

Commented upon by Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, p. 196.
The Metz manuscript (Grand Sminaire, 1), from the second half of the ninth century, has
Hyldeberti (Childebert) instead of Sigisberti which occurs in the majority of the other
manuscripts, including the oldest (St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 553). See the above-mentioned
edition by Michele Tosi of the Metz manuscript, p. 132, n. 40.
VC I.18, p. 186. Jonass reliance on Gregory of Tours is also evident in his two other saints
Lives, the Vita Vedastis and the Vita Iohannis, and with regard to the Vita Columbani,
has recently been discussed by Diem, Monks, Kings and the Transformation of Sanctity,
pp. 53842.
See Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, p. 196.

151
Childeberts role had to be changed in order for the work to comply with
the official court view as reflected in the Edict of Paris.
We should also be mindful that the Vita was composed shortly after
the death of Dagobert I (d. 639), during an interregnum in the Merovingian kingdom when Aega, the Neustrian mayor of the palace, governed
the kingdom on behalf of Dagoberts infant son, Clovis II.131 What kind
of an effect, if any, did this have on Jonass writing? The period of the
interregnum may have been an uncertain one for the Columbanians who
had enjoyed considerable support under Chlothar II and Dagobert I.
Now, they were faced with an infant king who was in the power of an
aristocrat who, by all accounts, did not feel the same sympathy towards
the Columbanians as had the previous kings. Perhaps it is merely a
coincidence that when Aegas power dramatically increased after
Dagoberts death, both Dado and Eligius left the royal court in order to
pursue religious careers. They may have been competing for power at
court with Aega, and when the latter was given the charge of Clovis and
the kingdom on Dagoberts death, his rivals may well have thought it
safer to become clerics. When Aega died a few years later, Jonas noted
that his death had been divine punishment for his acts of aggression
towards the Faremoutiers community. Jonas states that Aega had been
hostile towards Faremoutiers, had violated its boundaries, and had
oppressed the people living on its lands. Jonas attributes these acts of
aggression to a need for vengeance on Aegas part.132 As Dom Adalbert de
Vog suggests, Aegas hostility may well have stemmed from a feud
between him and Burgundofaras family.133
Fredegar is more sympathetic in his account, although he mentions
that Aega had one bad quality:
He stood out among the other Neustrian magnates and excelled
them all through his ability to act with decision and his instinct to
consider before he acted. He was of noble birth and very wealthy.
Moreover, he was careful to be just, was an able talker and was
always ready with an answer; but generally he was blamed for a
tendency to avarice.134
131
132
133
134
See the Chronicle of Fredegar IV.79, p. 67.

VC I.17, p. 269: Erat enim adversarius monasterii Ega nomine, vir in saeculo sublimis, cui
Dagobertus moriens filium Chlodoveum cum regno commendaverat. His ergo adversabatur
supradicto coenubio terminosque violabat omnemque familiam eius circummanentem
quacumque potuerat occasione persequebatur. Sed non diu coeptae pertinaciae potitus est vota,
nam mox post promissa ultione percussus interiit.
Vie de Saint Colomban, p. 217, n. 5.
Chronicle of Fredegar IV.80, p. 68: Aega uero inter citiris primatebus Neustreci preudencius
agens et plenitudenem pacienciae inbutus cumtis erat precellentior. Eratque genere nobele, opes
habundans, iusticiam sectans, aeruditus in uerbis, paratus in rispunsis; tantummodo a plurimis
blasphemabatur, eo quod esset auariciae deditus.

152
Alexander OHara
A greedy magnate with considerable power was rather a worrying prospect for a land-based monastic community who had been generously
endowed by previous rulers. Perhaps Jonass emphasis in the Vita on the
inviolability of sacred space (seen for example in Columbanuss encounter with Theuderic at Luxeuil) and what happened to rulers who were
enemies of Columbanus and his disciples, might have been intended to
remind the current regime that they should be wary of infringing on the
rights of the Columbanian communities. The Columbanian familia may
also have been eager, by means of the Vita, to influence the young king,
Clovis II, and to ensure that he would be as gracious to the community
as his father and grandfather had been.135 If Aega had been hostile
towards the communities or sought to confiscate some of their lands,
then the Columbanians might have understandably felt threatened and
concerned as to the negative influence such a man might have on his
young charge. By emphasizing the saints role in Chlothar IIs coming to
power and, conversely, what had happened to those in power who had
opposed Columbanus or who had not listened to his counsel, the Vita
may have been written partly to influence the contemporary rulers of
Merovingian Gaul.
Jonass magnum opus was thus a text written and intended for an elite.
It was produced for a monastic familia and its extended aristocratic,
ecclesiastical and royal patrons. The Vita Columbani was a clever and
sophisticated blend of polemic, hagiography, and history that attempted
to forge an identity in communities geographically distant yet connected
by common spiritual bonds, while at the same time trying to ensure the
continued support of powerful patrons. Jonas was writing during a period
unprecedented in the expansion of monasticism in Merovingian Gaul
and at a time when secular and ecclesiastical rulers were more than eager
to harness the spiritual energy of these new foundations. In the Vita
Columbani we can trace the beginnings of a monastic movement while
being attentive to how a monastic author such as Jonas responded to such
developments. We see the author skilfully fashion a cautionary tale of
how rulers should respect holy men and holy places, and how Columbanuss disciples ought to live exemplary monastic lives. Jonass workings
as a hagiographer can also, to some extent, be revealed. We can detect the
way in which he manipulated his historical information to fit a contemporary framework. In his substitution of Childebert for Sigibert as the
king who was instrumental in the foundation of the first Columbanian
monastery, we can see through this framework to the political background. Even his early medieval readers knew he was wrong, yet this
135
If this was indeed the case, it proved successful as the king later granted Luxeuil a privilege. See
Wood, The Vita Columbani and Merovingian Hagiography, p. 79.

153
historical tweaking gives us a valuable clue as to the early audience of the

work. I have argued that this may indicate that one of Jonass intended
audiences was the Merovingian royal court. Taking into account the
career of Jonas himself and the wider aristocratic and ecclesiastical connections enjoyed by the Columbanian monastic network, we can consider that the Vita also circulated among ecclesiastical and aristocratic
households. In this region and at this time this would still have been
linguistically feasible, while Jonass habit of repeating certain words and
phrases may have been a technique consciously adopted for an aural
audience.136 We are, however, essentially envisaging the same coterie
audience. In the Columbanian sphere of influence abbots, monks,
bishops and noble families were all interconnected, and found their focus
at the royal court in Paris.
It is inaccurate, therefore, to think of the Vita Columbani as a text that
was restricted to a monastic audience. Its use in five works written within
sixty years of its completion and in different areas of Merovingian Gaul
indicates a fairly extensive dissemination, though one within Columbanian circles. This provides valuable evidence of reception and, in some
cases, reveals that both parts of the Vita, Books I and II, were being
disseminated together although they were already being selectively
copied. This indicates that Jonas conceived of both parts as a single work
and that doubts as to the structure of the Vita as edited by Bruno Krusch
are unfounded.
A consideration of the context in which the Vita was written and the
audience for which it was intended also reminds us that in the early
Middle Ages such saints Lives could be written with multiple aims in
mind. These texts were polyfunctional. They were produced to commemorate the deeds of the founder and early community, which in turn
could serve to edify the present community (-ies) while cementing or
creating an institutional identity. Saints Lives also attempted to reinforce
in the minds of the powerful the necessity to support and respect the
saints foundations. In the Vita Columbani, Jonas achieved both of these
things.
University of St Andrews
136
Columbanus is lauded as a vir dei more times than any other saint in the early medieval period
(noted by Diem, Monks, Kings, and the Transfromation of Sanctity, p. 550, n. 166). The
phrase occurs, for example, five times in one short chapter: I.25, p. 208.


O'Hara (Alexander) - The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

O'Hara (Alexander) - The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Vita Columbani in

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2) 126153

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

Chronicle of Fredegar I.36, pp. 239.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

dedicated to Deiculus, Leodemundus, and Ingofridus, the abbots of

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

abbess, Burgundofara, we know that this was an integral part of the

VC I.26, p. 209; II.7, p. 243.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

circulated within Merovingian Gaul. This work, again, shows evidence

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

patronage to Columbanus, and in so doing has caused some confusion in

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

kingdom near the English Channel, and concerns the monasterys

Vita Wandregiseli, c. 9, p. 17.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

outlines a transfer of sanctity from the holy man (Columbanus) to that of

Diem, Monks, Kings, and the Transformation of Sanctity, pp. 52159.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

individuals are also found in the Vita Columbani itself. Accordingly, a

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

See VC, Epistula ad Waldebertum et Bobolenum, p. 144.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Merovingian monarchy and Frankish aristocracy. The same process was

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

VC I.24, p. 207: velut caelestem munus recepit.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

of an Old Testament prophet, Jonas shows the saint as playing

See Prinz, Frhes Mnchtum, pp. 12441.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Chronicle of Fredegar, IV.78, p. 66.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

VC I.17, pp. 1856; I.25, p. 216; I.28, p. 218; II.7, p. 241.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

See Prinz, Frhes Mnchtum, p. 133.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

Friedrich Prinz as a self-sanctification (Selbstheiligung) of the nobility.107

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

VC I.6, pp. 1623.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul

See the Chronicle of Fredegar IV.79, p. 67.

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2009 17 (2)