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Blockchain in
the Global South
Opportunities and
Challenges for
Businesses and Societies
Nir Kshetri
Blockchain in the Global South
Nir Kshetri
Blockchain
in the Global South
Opportunities and Challenges for Businesses
and Societies
Nir Kshetri
University of North Carolina
Greensboro, NC, USA
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
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Contents
v
vi CONTENTS
Index 167
List of Figures
ix
List of Tables
xi
CHAPTER 1
1.1 Introduction
Blockchain is considered to have the potential to cause significant
economic, political, and social transformations in economies in the Global
South (GS). Blockchain affects economic, social, and political outcomes
in the developing world through many direct and indirect pathways. The
first of blockchain’s direct benefits is the potential reduction of corrup-
tion and fraud. For instance, blockchain can empower donors. It can
ensure that donations reach their intended recipients. To take an example,
donors can buy electricity for a South African school using bitcoin. A
blockchain-enabled smart meter makes it possible to send money directly
to the meter. There are no organizations involved in distributing funds.
Donors can also track the electricity being consumed by the school to
calculate the power of their donations (Higgins, 2016c). This program
was launched by the South African bitcoin startup Bankymoon via the
crowdfunding platform Usizo, to allow public schools to use blockchain
to crowdsource utility credits (Mulligan, 2015).
Increased efficiency and reduced transaction costs constitute a second
benefit: there is no third party or central body involved. That is,
blockchain transactions are conducted by the concerned parties them-
selves. There are already some signs of blockchain-led disintermediation
in international remittances and international trade.
In many ways, blockchain has a much higher value proposition for
economies in the GS than for the Global North. This technology has the
potential to make up for the lack of effective formal institutions—rules,
laws, regulations, and enforcement—in developing economies. These
economies are also in desperate need of improving administrative aspects,
such as maintaining standards, monitoring, and enforcing compliance.
Blockchain technology is perfectly suited to address these issues.
There are different mechanisms that lead to such benefits, which can be
better understood by looking at a blockchain-led reduction in the costs
of verification and networking (Catalini & Gans, 2019). Regarding the
cost of verification, blockchain makes it possible to verify information
about past transactions and the current ownership of a digital asset. As to
blockchain’s effect on reducing the cost of networking, various parties can
start a self-sustaining process and operate a marketplace. It is not neces-
sary to assign control to a centralized body because blockchain can verify
the state at a low cost. Economic incentives can be targeted to reward
valuable activities from a network perspective, including the contribution
1 BLOCKCHAIN IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: KEY ISSUES … 3
blockchain. Workers can access their contracts, which allows them a basis
for claiming the rights and benefits they were offered at the time of
recruitment (Business Fights Poverty, 2020).
The eMin pilot started in February 2019 with Verifik8, a data intelli-
gence and analytics provider for agribusiness suppliers, at a shrimp farm
in Phuket, Thailand (Business Fights Poverty, 2020). In October 2019,
Diginex signed an agreement with Verifik8 to integrate eMin into the
latter’s existing monitoring tools. As of October 2019, Verifik8’s farming
monitoring tools called Blue 8/Green 8 were used by 5,000 workers in
Thailand (Dao, 2019). Diginex plans to expand into different sectors in
other Southeast Asian nations, as well as in Bangladesh and Bahrain. The
following sections focus on how blockchain can address some of the key
challenges facing the GS. This chapter also offers an overview of enablers
and barriers to implementing blockchain in economies in the GS.
Term Explanation
Characteristics of Blockchain
Three key characteristics of blockchain have been identified—decentral-
ization, immutability and cryptography-based authentication (Kshetri,
2018).
Decentralization
Blockchain’s value proposition is arguably embedded in the decentraliza-
tion feature. By supporting decentralized models, blockchain can make
sustainability-related activities more transparent and hence help produce
trust. Blockchain eliminates the need for a trusted third party in the
transfer of value and thus enables faster, less expensive transactions. Even
those who are skeptical of the potential of blockchain in many other
fields and applications are optimistic about its trust-producing capabilities
(Hackett, 2017).
Immutability
The term immutable comes from object-oriented programming, in which
data structure and operations or functions that can be applied are
defined by programmers. Immutable means that once an object has
been created and is recorded in a software code, it cannot be modi-
fied (Tschantz & Ernst, 2005). Blockchain-based transactions are thus
indelible and cannot be forged. The immutability feature makes transac-
tions on blockchain auditable, which can improve transparency. A party
can be given controlled access to relevant data. For instance, blockchain’s
distributed ledger model would allow regulators and authorities to access
key data and information related to sustainability (Till et al., 2017).
1 BLOCKCHAIN IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: KEY ISSUES … 7
Cryptography-Based Authentication
To ensure that only authorized users can access the information,
blockchain systems use cryptography-based digital signatures in order to
verify the identities of participants. Users sign transactions with a private
key. Such a key is generated when a user creates an account. The private
key is typically a very long and random alphanumeric code. Using compli-
cated algorithms, blockchain systems also create public keys from private
keys. Public keys make it possible to share information. This feature
makes it possible to measure and track sustainability-related outcomes.
For instance, if a coffee retailer claims that living wages are being paid
to coffee farmers, the accuracy and truthfulness of such claims can be
assessed by checking the payments to digital wallets that are assigned to
the farmers.
Fig. 1.1 An illustration of the use of blockchain to trace a diamond in a supply chain
1 BLOCKCHAIN IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: KEY ISSUES … 9
Barriers
Poor-quality institutions lead to transaction cost barriers. Making this
statement meaningful requires a more detailed discussion of transaction
costs. In the context of business transactions involving two or more
parties, for Douglas North, “transaction costs are... two things: (1) the
costs of measuring the dimensions of whatever it is that is being produced
or exchanged and (2) the costs of enforcement.” (North, 1999). He goes
on to say that “a lot of what we need to do is to try to measure the dimen-
sions of what we are talking about in such a way that we can define them
precisely” (North, 1999).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
the Gauls in Magh Salach; and the Gauls in Achudh Ginain; the
Saxons in Rigar; and the Saxons in Cluan Muicceda; fifty men of the
Britons with Monan, in Lann Leire.’ And, in another tract by Angus
the Culdee on the Mothers of the Saints, he has, ‘Dina, daughter of
the king of the Saxons, was the mother of the ten sons of Bracan,
king of Britain, son of Bracha Meoc: viz. St. Mogoroc of Struthuir; St.
Mochonoc, the pilgrim of Kil Mucraisse and of Gelinnia in the region
of Delbhna Eathra; Dirad of Eadardr uim; Duban of Rinndubhain
alithir; Carenn of Killchairinne; Carpre, the pilgrim of Killchairpre; Isiol
Farannain; Iust in Slemna of Alban; Elloc of Kill Moelloc, near
Lochgarman; Pian of Killphiain in Ossory; Coeman, the pilgrim of Kill
Choeman, in the region of Gesille and elsewhere. She was also
mother of Mobeoc of Gleanngeirg, for he was a son of Brachan, son
of Bracha Meoc.’[48]
The first order, too, ‘rejected not the services and society of
women,’ or, according to another MS., ‘they excluded from their
churches neither laymen nor women,’ which indicates their character
as secular clergy, in contradistinction to those under a monastic rule.
‘They celebrated Easter on the fourteenth moon after the vernal
equinox,’ that is, as we have seen elsewhere, from the fourteenth to
the twenty-first day of the moon; and there appears to have been no
difference in this respect between them and the Church of Rome
prior to the year 457. Their clergy were tonsured; but at this time
there were in the Church various forms of tonsure, and the first form,
‘from ear to ear,’ that is, having the hair removed from the fore part of
the head and leaving it to grow behind the ears, was also practised
in Gaul, from whence it was probably derived.[49]
Although Patrick alludes to the great numbers he converted, there
does not seem to have been anything like a national adoption of
Christianity. It is remarkable enough that the Ardri or chief king of
Ireland appears to have remained pagan during the entire period of
his mission, and it was not till the year 513 that a Christian monarch
ruled in Tara. Neither did the arrangement by which isolated bishops
were placed in each sept or tribe whose chief or petty king had been
converted prove well calculated to disseminate Christianity through
the whole tribe, and to leaven the entire people with its influence.
Collegiate This appears to have led, towards the end of
Churches of his life, to the adoption of a very peculiar sort of
Seven Bishops. Collegiate Church. It consisted in a group of
seven bishops placed together in one church; and they were brought
closer to the tribal system based on the family which prevailed in
Ireland, by these bishops being usually seven brothers selected from
one family in the tribe. We see the germs of something of the kind in
Tirechan’s Annotations, where it is said that towards the end of his
career ‘Patrick passed the Shannon three times, and completed
seven years in the western quarter, and came from the plain of
Tochuir to Dulo Ocheni, and founded seven churches there.’ And
again, ‘The seven sons of Doath—that is Cluain, Findglais and
Imsruth, Culcais, Deruthmar, Culcais and Cennlocho—faithfully
made offerings to God and Saint Patrick.’[50] But Angus the Culdee in
his Litany gives us a list of no fewer than one hundred and fifty-three
groups of seven bishops in the same church, all of whom he invokes.
A few of these we can identify sufficiently to show that they usually
consisted of seven brothers living together in one church, and that
they belong to this period. For instance, he invokes ‘the seven
bishops of Tulach na’n Epscop,’ or Tulach of the Bishops; and we
find in the old Irish Life of St. Bridget, who died in 525, that on one
occasion at Tealagh, in the west of Leinster, ‘pious nobles, i.e. seven
bishops, were her guests.’[51] Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops of
Drom Arbelaig;’ and in the Irish Calendar on 15th January we have
‘seven bishops, sons of Finn, alias Fincrettan of Druimairbealagh.’
Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops in Tamhnach;’ and in the
Calendars on 21st July we have this notice: ‘The seven bishops of
Tamhnach Buadha, and we find seven bishops, the sons of one
father, and their names and history among the race of Fiacha
Suighdhe, son of Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal
Teachtmhar.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops of Cluan Emain;’
and we are told in the Life of Saint Forannan that, after the Council
of Drumceatt Columba was met by a large concourse of
ecclesiastics, among whom the descendants of Cennaine, the aunt
of St. Bridget, are alone enumerated, and among these are ‘the
seven bishops of Cluain-Hemain,’ now Clonown, near Athlone, and
they are represented in the Genealogy of the Saints in the Book of
Lecan as seven brethren, the sons of the same mother.[52] Such
appear to be in the main the characteristics of the early Irish Church
in this the first period of its history; and we must now turn to Scotland
to see to what extent they are reflected there.
Church of the The dark interval of a century between the
southern Picts. death of Ninian and the coming of Columba when
we find ourselves treading on firm ground, is thus filled up by
Fordun:—
‘In A.D. 430 Pope Celestinus sent Saint Palladius into Scotia, as
the first bishop therein. It is therefore fitting that the Scots should
diligently keep his festival and church commemorations, for by his
word and example he with anxious care taught their nation—that of
the Scots to wit—the orthodox faith, although they had for a long
time previously believed in Christ. Before his arrival, the Scots had,
as teachers of the faith and administrators of the Sacraments, priests
only or monks, following the rite of the primitive church. So he
arrived in Scotland with a great company of clergy in the eleventh
year of the reign of King Eugenius, and the king freely gave him a
place of abode where he wanted one. Moreover, Palladius had as
his fellow-worker in preaching and administering the Sacraments a
most holy man, Servanus; who was ordained bishop and created by
Palladius his coadjutor—one worthy of him in all respects—in order
to teach the people the orthodox faith, and with anxious care perfect
the work of the Gospel; for Palladius was not equal to discharging
alone the pastoral duties over so great a nation.’ And again: ‘The
holy bishop Terrananus likewise was a disciple of the blessed
Palladius, who was his godfather and his fostering teacher and
furtherer in all the rudiments of letters and of the faith.’[53] This
statement has been substantially accepted as history by all
historians of the Church in Scotland; but when we examine the
grounds on which it rests, we shall see reason to doubt whether
Palladius ever was in Scotland, and to place Servanus at a much
later period. Terrananus alone appears to have any real claim to
belong to this period.
The only real information we possess as to the acts of Palladius, in
addition to the short notice of his mission given us by the
contemporary chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine, is derived from the
Lives of St. Patrick; and we shall see how this statement of
Palladius’ missionary labours in Scotland grew out of these lives,
combined with the fictitious character of the early history of Scotland
as it is represented by Fordun. The oldest Lives of Patrick are those
in the Book of Armagh; and Tirechan, whose annotations contain our
first notices of his life, states that Palladius ‘suffered martyrdom
among the Scots’—that is, the Irish—‘as the ancient saints relate.’[54]
Muirchu, whose Life was compiled soon after, says, after narrating
his mission to Ireland, ‘Neither did those rude and savage people
readily receive his doctrine, nor did he wish to pass his time in a land
not his own; but returning hence to him who sent him, having begun
his passage the first tide, little of his journey being accomplished, he
died in the territory of the Britons.’[55] The next notice we have of him
is in the Life attributed to Mark the Anchorite which belongs to the
beginning of the ninth century, and is added to the Historia Britonum
of Nennius. Here Palladius is not allowed to land in Ireland at all, ‘but
tempests and signs from God prevented his landing, for no one can
receive anything on earth except it be given him from above.
Returning, therefore, from Ireland to Britain, Palladius died in the
land of the Picts.’[56] Probus, who had the Book of Armagh before
him, and embodies many passages of Muirchu’s Life in his own
narrative, repeats his account of Palladius, but substitutes for the
expression ‘in the territory of the Britons’ that of ‘in the territory of the
Picts.’[57] The Life termed by Colgan the third follows that of Muirchu,
and states that ‘he returned to go to Rome, and died in the region of
the Britons.’[58] Another Life makes Palladius land in Ireland and
found three churches there; but ‘seeing that he could not do much
good there, wishing to return to Rome, he migrated to the Lord in the
region of the Picts. Others, however, say that he was crowned with
martyrdom in Ireland,’[59] alluding in the latter part to the statement of
Tirechan. The Tripartite Life says that, ‘on turning back afterwards,
sickness seized him in the country of the Cruithne, and he died of
it.’[60]
Thus far we find that the oldest view was that he suffered
martyrdom in Ireland. This is followed by the statement that he died
in the territory of the Britons on his way back to Rome. The territory
of the Picts is then substituted for that of the Britons; but this
evidently points to Galloway as the place where he landed and died,
if he had not been martyred in Ireland. Finally the storm, which Mark
the Anchorite tells us hindered his landing, is now made to execute a
more remarkable feat. One of the earliest lives of Saint Patrick is the
hymn attributed to Fiech of Sletty, and in the Scholia attached to it
we are told that Palladius founded three churches in Ireland;
‘nevertheless he was not well received by the people, but was forced
to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until, driven by a
great tempest, he reached the extreme part of the Modhaid towards
the south, where he founded the church of Fordun and Pledi in his
name there.’[61] Another biographer, not satisfied with this, removes
his martyrdom from Ireland, and, after narrating the founding of the
three churches, tells us that ‘after a short time Palladius died in the
plain of Girgin, in a place which is called Forddun. But others say
that he was crowned with martyrdom there.’[62] The place meant is
undoubtedly Fordun in the Mearns, the Irish form of which name was
Maghgherginn, and the storm here drives him from Ireland to the
north, through the Pentland Firth, and along the east coast
southwards till he reaches the coast of Kincardineshire, and dies at
Fordun.
This form of the legend, which takes him round Scotland to the
territory of the Picts on the east coast, evidently owes its origin to the
fact that the church of Fordun in the Mearns was dedicated to
Palladius under the local name of Paldy, and was believed to
possess his relics. How then came his dedication and his relics there
if he had no mission himself in Scotland? The notices of Terrananus
may throw some light upon this. He is said in the Breviary of
Aberdeen to have been a native of the province of the Mearns, to
have been baptized and instructed in the Christian faith by Palladius,
and to have died and been buried at Banchory on the river Dee,
called from him Banchory-Ternan. His day in the Calendar is the 12th
of June, and on that day Angus the Culdee has in his metrical
Calendar,—
Such are the few scattered notices of this church which we are
able to substitute for the fabulous missions of Palladius and
Servanus in Scotland at this time. It was confined to the southern
Picts, the Dalriads, and the population south of the Firths of Forth
and Clyde, the tribes forming the nation of the northern Picts, and
occupying the districts north of the great mountain range called the
Mounth, being still pagan; and we find indications that the church, as
then constituted, proved ineffectual to win over the people to any
great extent to a thorough adoption of Christianity, and that a very
general relapse to paganism had taken place.
Apostasy of early Jocelin is probably reporting a genuine tradition
churches. when, in his Life of Kentigern, he says that the
Picts, who had received the faith from Ninian, had lapsed into
apostasy; and so also the author of the older Life of Kentigern, when
he terms a king of the Picts of Lothian ‘semi-pagan.’[77] St. Patrick, in
his epistle to Coroticus, written probably towards the end of his life,
terms Coroticus, in whom we have already recognised that Ceretic
Guledig from whom the kings of Alcluith or Alclyde were descended,
[78]
‘a tyrant who fears neither God nor his priests,’ and his followers
‘wicked rebels against Christ, and betrayers of Christians into the
hands of the Scots and Picts.’ The latter, too, he repeatedly terms
the apostate Picts, and says that the people ruled by Coroticus were
no longer ‘his fellow-citizens, or the fellow-citizens of pious Romans,
but were the fellow-citizens of demons,’ and the ‘associates of Scots
and apostate Picts.’[79] It is apparent that the churches founded by
Ninian and Patrick had in the main failed to effect a permanent
conversion of the native tribes to Christianity, and that the latter was
doomed to witness, even in his own life, a great declension from the
Christian Church and relapse into paganism.
It required a different organisation to establish the Christian
Church on a firm and permanent basis among them, and to leaven
the whole people with its doctrines and rules of life. The introduction
of the monastic element, and its application to the entire organisation
of the Church, not only effected what a church with its secular clergy
had failed to do, but led to that remarkable outburst of missionary
zeal which sent from the shores of Ireland a stream of Christian
missionaries invading the Continent in every direction, converting the
people and founding monasteries among them, of whom
Columbanus was the forerunner.
1. There is a very able paper in the recently published volume of
the remains of the late A. W. Haddan, which originally appeared in
the Christian Remembrancer, on ‘The Churches of British
Confession.’ It contains an admirable résumé of this question, and
the deductions of the writer are unquestionably sound. With the
views in this paper the author entirely concurs.
2. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. iv.
3. An extract from this Life is given by Usher, Brit. Ecc. Ant., and
an abstract of it in Bollandus, Acta Sanct., Sept. 16. In the Felire of
Angus the Culdee we have, at 16 Sept., Moinend nuall cech genai,
‘Monenn the shout of every mouth;’ and the gloss is Moinend Cluana
Conaire Tomain hi tuaiscert h. Faelan, ‘Monenn of Cluan Conaire
Toman in north Hy-Faelan,’ in Leinster. The Martyrology of Tamlacht
has ‘Monenn, i.e. Ninianus episcopus Candide Case.’ Monenn is
merely Nenn or Ninian with the Irish mo or ‘my’ prefixed, as is usual
in naming these saints.
4. ‘Florentio et Dionysio Coss. (A.D. 429) ... Agricola Pelagianus,
Severiani Pelagiani Episcopi filius, Ecclesias Britanniæ dogmatis sui
insinuatione corrupit.’—Prosper, Chron. Opp. i. 400, 401.
5. ‘Florentio et Dionysio Coss. (A.D. 429) ... ad actionem Paladii
diaconi Papa Cœlestinus Germanum Antisiodorensem Episcopum
vice sua mittit, et deturbatis hæreticis Britannos ad Catholicam fidem
dirigit.’—Prosper, Chron. 401. Prosper wrote two chronicles about
the year 455. The share taken in the mission by the Gallican bishops
is reported by Constantius in his Life of Germanus written some
thirty years after. The two accounts are not inconsistent. See
Haddan and Stubbs’ Councils, vol. i. p. 17, note.
6. ‘Basso et Antiocho Coss. (A.D. 431) ad Scotos in Christum
credentes ordinatus a papa Cœlestino Palladius primus episcopus
mittitur.’—Prosper, Chron.
‘Et ordinato Scotis Episcopo, dum Romanam insulam studet
servare Catholicam, fecit etiam barbaram Christianam.’—Prosper,
Cont. Collat. xxi. (A.D. 432).
There can be now no question that the Scots to whom he was sent
were those of Ireland.
7. See Dr. Todd’s Life of Saint Patrick, p. 189, for a critical
examination of the facts which seem to imply an earlier Christianity
in Ireland.
8. Protestant church historians are unreasonably jealous of
admitting any connection between the early British or Irish Church
and Rome; but the Rome of the fourth and fifth centuries was not the
Rome of the middle ages. It was the church of St. Jerome and St.
Augustine. There was no question then about supremacy, and the
bishop of Rome was simply regarded with deference and respect as
the acknowledged head of the Christian Church within the western
provinces of the empire of which Rome was the capital. Questions of
ecclesiastical supremacy did not emerge till the empire was broken
up.
9. See ‘The Irish Monasteries in Germany,’ Ulster Journal of Arch.,
vol. vii. p. 233, and authorities there quoted.
10. Columbanus in Epist. to Pope Boniface IV., says—‘Nos enim
SS. Petri et Pauli et omnium discipulorum, divinum canonem Spiritu
Sancto scribentium, discipuli sumus, toti Heberi, ultimi habitatores
mundi, nihil extra evangelicam et apostolicam doctrinam recipientes.’
He calls himself ‘perigrinus Scotus,’ and adds,—‘Sed talia suadenti,
utpote torpenti actu ac dicenti potius, quam facienti mihi, Jonæ
Hebraice, Peristeræ, Græce, Columbæ Latine.’—Migne, Patrologia,
vol. 37, coll. 275, 282.
11. Hefele, Concilien Geschichte, vol. i. p. 317; vol. ii. p. 758.
12. There is no clearer account of the difference in the reckoning
of the days of the moon than that in the letter of Abbot Ceolfrid to
Nectan, king of the Picts, given to us by Bede, and probably his own
composition (Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 21). The ordinary idea that the British
and Irish Churches derived their mode of keeping Easter from the
Eastern Church, or from the disciples of St. John, is based upon a
mistake, and arises from their being occasionally but erroneously
termed quarto-decimans from their celebrating Easter on the
fourteenth day of the moon when it fell upon a Sunday; but the
Eastern Christians, to whom this name was properly given, differed
essentially from them by invariably celebrating Easter on the
fourteenth day, whether it fell on a Sunday or not.
13. ‘Dominis Sanctis et in Christo patribus vel fratribus, episcopis,
presbyteris, cæterisque sanctæ Ecclesiæ ordinibus.’—Migne,
Patrologia, vol. 37, col. 264.
14. ‘Domino Sancto et in Christo apostolico patri Papæ.’—Ib. col.
226.
15. Hefele, Concilien Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 16.
16. This Catalogue was first published by Usher from two mss.,
and is believed to be the work of Tirechan, the author of the
annotations on the Life of Saint Patrick in the Book of Armagh. His
period is the eighth century.
17. The Litany of Angus is contained in the Leabhar Breac, and
also in the Book of Leinster.
18. This was certainly the Roman or Western Form.
19. The names of the kings are given, but it is unnecessary to add
them. They reigned till the year 534.
20. Some retained the Roman Form, others adopted the Gallican
introduced by David, Gillas, and Docus.
21. The kings mentioned reigned to the year 572.
22. This is followed by the names of twenty-five saints of this
order.
23. The names of seven bishops and eight presbyters are given.
24. The Book of Armagh has been very inaccurately printed by Sir
William Betham in his Irish Antiquarian Researches. An edition of
this most valuable MS. has long been promised by the then Dean of
Armagh, now Bishop of Down, and it is hoped that he will still
accomplish it. It would be an invaluable boon to all students of
Church history. See Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii.
pp. 316, 356, for an account of this MS. and of the authors of the
lives.
25. The author adopts the theory that the summary of Aidus
appended to the annotations of Tirechan contains the headings of
the chapters of the first part of Muirchu’s life.
26. Betham, Ant. Res., App. pp. i, ii, and xliii.
27. Ibid. App. xxxv. xxxvi. In this passage xiii. is probably written
for viii. either in Sir W. Betham’s manuscript or in the original MS.
Theodosius became sole emperor in 423. His eighth year was
therefore 431, and his ninth 432.
28. Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. Script., vol. v. p. 533.
29. Usher, Sylloge, Ep. xi.
30. Adamnan, Vit. S. Col., ed. 1874, p. 107.
31. A careful edition of the Confession and Epistle, with a
translation, is annexed to Miss Cusack’s Life of Saint Patrick, to
which the references are made.
32. Qui fuit vico Bannavem Taberniæ.—Conf. The natural
inference certainly is that Tabernia was the name of the district in
which Bannavem was situated.
33. Ingenuus fui secundum carnem; Decurione patre nascor.—Ep.
Cor.
34. Et iterum post paucos annos in Britanniis eram cum parentibus
meis.—Conf. The expression Britanniis or Britannicis in the plural,
clearly designates the Roman province in Britain. He calls it here his
‘patria.’ ‘Parentes’ may be either parents or relations.
35. He alludes to words spoken when he was fifteen years old.
‘Quod confessus fueram ante quod essem diaconus.’—Conf.
36. ‘Vos scitis et Deus qualiter apud vos conversatus sum a
juventute mea et fide veritatis et sinceritate cordis; etiam ad gentes
illas inter quas habito, ego fidem illis præstiti et præstabo.’—Conf.
The same thing is implied in his epistle to Coroticus, where he says
that he had sent a letter by a holy priest, ‘quem ego ex infantia
docui.’ If he had taught this priest from his infancy, he must himself
have been long in Ireland.
37. In his Confession he says that, when about to be given the
rank of a bishop (‘gradus episcopatus’) a fault was brought up
against him which he had committed thirty years before, when he
was fifteen; and his epistle to Coroticus commences ‘Patricius
peccator indoctus, scilicet Hiberione constitutis episcopum me esse
futeor certissime reor, a Deo accepi id quod sum.’
38. In his Confession he says he had been desirous to go ‘in
Britanniis ... quasi ad patriam et parentes; non id solum, sed etiam
usque Gallias.’ This excludes the idea that he could have been a
native of any part of Gaul. Britanniæ is the well-known expression for
Roman Britain. In his epistle to Coroticus he says, ‘Non dico civibus
meis, neque civibus sanctorum Romanorum.’
39. Et hæc est confessio mea antequam moriar.—Conf.
40. Et ut clerici ubique illis ordinarentur ad plebem nuper
venientem ad credulitatem.... Unde autem Hiberione, qui numquam
notitiam habuerunt, nisi idula et himunda usque nunc semper
coluerunt, quomodo nuper effecta est plebs Domini et filii Dei
nuncupabantur. Filii Scotorum et filiæ Regulorum monachi et virgines
Christi esse videntur.—Conf.
41. O speciossissime, atque amantissimi fratres et filii, quos in
Christo genui, enumerare nequeo.—Ep. Cor.
42. The word is Sruith episcop. Sruth is the Irish equivalent of
cleric.
43. The word is Crumthir. In the Sanas Cormaic we have
Cruimther, i.e. Gaedelg indi as presbyter, ‘that is the Gaelic of
presbyter.’—Stokes, Three Irish Glossaries, p. 9. In Nennius the
number of presbyters is increased from 300 to 3000, and in the
Tripartite Life to 5000.
44. By the council of Sardica in 347 a canon was passed
prohibiting bishops being placed in small cities or villages where a
single presbyter was sufficient.
45. Bingham’s Ant., Book ii. c. 12.
46. Copt. Coll., Book i. Can. i. 11. Bunsen’s Hippolytus, ii. p. 27.
47. Bingham’s Ant., Book ii. c. 11; Book ix. c. 3.
48. Colgan, A.SS., p. 312. St. Mochonoc’s church was called
Gailinne nam Breatan, or Gallen of the Britons, in King’s County.
49. St. Paulinus of Nola says (Ep. 7) of some of the monks of his
time in Gaul, that they were ‘casta informitate capillum ad cutem
cæsi, et inæqualiter semitonsi et destituta fronte prærasi.’
50. Betham, Ant. Res., App., pp. xxxiii. xxxix.
51. O’Hanlan, Lives of the Irish Saints, vol. ii. p. 84.
52. Dr. Todd’s Life of St. Patrick, p. 34. The notices from the Irish
Calendars are taken from those of Tamlacht and Donegal.
53. Fordun, Chron., B. iii. cc. 8, 9.
54. Qui martyrium passus est apud Scotos, ut tradunt sancti
antiqui.—Betham, Ant. Res., App. xxxvi.
55. Sed reversus ad eum qui missit illum revertere vero eo hinc, et
in primo mari transito cœpto qui erat parum itinere in Britonum
finibus vita factus.—Ib., App. i.
56. Sed per quasdam tempestates et signa illum Deus prohibuit,
quia nemo potest quicquam accipere in terra nisi fuerit datum
desuper, et illa Palladius rediens de Hibernia ad Britanniam ibi
defunctus est in terra Pictorum.—Nenn., Hist. Brit. Ed. Gunn.
57. Ad fines Pictorum pervenisset ibidem vita decessit.—Colg. Tr.
Th. p. 48.
58. Tertia Vita, ib. p. 23.
59. Quarta Vita, ib. p. 38.
60. Hennessy’s translation in Miss Cusack’s Life of S. Patrick, p.
378.
61. Colgan, Tr. Th., p. 5.
62. Secunda Vita, ib. p. 13.
63. These and the other notices of St. Ternan will be found
conveniently collected together in the Preface by the late Bishop of
Brechin to the Missal of Arbuthnot.
64. It is printed in the Chartulary of Glasgow, and also in the
volume of Lives of Saint Ninian and Saint Kentigern, edited by the
late Bishop of Brechin for the series of Scottish Historians, vol. v. p.
123.
65. This life is printed in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p.
412.
66. The chronicle in the Scala Cronica has under this Brude, ‘En
quel temps veint Saint Servanus en Fiffe.’—Chron. of Picts and
Scots, p. 201.
67. Chron. Picts and Scots, p, 410. The church was probably
Carbuddo, or Castrum Boethii, near Dunnichen, the old name of
which was Duin Nechtain.
68. Lanigan, Ec. Hist., vol. i. p. 432. In Ireland the custom existed
of prefixing the word mo or ‘my,’ and adding the word oc, or ‘little,’ to
the name of a saint, as an expression of endearment. When the
name ended with the syllable an, the word oc was substituted for it.
Thus Colman becomes Mocholmoc.
69. June 20, Faolan amlobair i Raith-Erann in Albain.—Mart. Don.
70. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 17.
71. The old chronicles have ‘Yona insula, ubi tres filii Erc, seu
Fergus, Loarn, et Angus sepulti fuerunt.’—Ib. pp. 151, 174, 288.
Fordun says of Gabran, ‘cujus ad sepeliendum corpus ad ecclesiam
Sancti Orani delatum est, ubi patris et avi funera quiescunt in Hy
insula.’—B. iii. c. 24.
72. Angus has Secht n-epscoip na Hii, and also Secht n-epscoip
Cille Hiæ—‘The seven bishops of Hii,’ and ‘The seven bishops of the
church of Ia.’
73. Colgan, A.SS. p. 112. Mula certainly is Mull, and the old parish
of Kilnoening in Mull probably takes its name from him.
74. An. IV. Mag., vol. i. p. 187. In the Martyrology of Tamlacht this
Odhran appears on 2d October as Odran Lathracha; and again on
27th October as Odrani sac. Lettracha vel o Hi, that is, ‘Odran, priest
of Latteragh, or of Iona.’ Angus the Culdee has on 27th October
Odran Abb. Saer Snamach, ‘Odran, Abbot, noble swimmer’; and in
the gloss it is said he was either ‘Odran the priest of Tech Aireran in
Meath, or Odrain of Lethracha-Odhrain in Muskerry, and of Hi
Columcille—that is, of Relic Odrain in Hii.’—(Forbes, Calendars, p.
426.) This identification of the Oran of Relic Oran in Iona with Oran
of Latteragh places his death in 548, fifteen years before Columba,
with whom he is connected in popular tradition, came to Scotland.
The first appearance of this story is in the old Irish Life of Columba. It
is as follows:—‘Columcille said thus to his people, It would be well
for us that our roots should pass into the earth here. And he said to
them, It is permitted to you that some one of you go under the earth
of this island to consecrate it. Odhran arose quickly and thus spake,
If you accept me, said he, I am ready for that. O Odhran, said
Columcille, you shall receive the reward of this; no request shall be
granted to any one at my tomb unless he first ask of thee. Odhran
then went to heaven. He founded the church of Hy there.’ This story,
however, was unknown to Adamnan, who records the natural death
of one of the brethren whose name was either Brito or who was a
Briton, and adds that he was the first of the brethren who died in the
island (B. iii. c. 7). Neither does the name of Odran appear in the
oldest lists of the twelve companions of Columba; and Angus the
Culdee expressly says the Odran celebrated on 27th October was
an abbot, which the Oran of the tradition could not have been. The
epithet of swimmer, too, alludes to an incident in the life of S. Odran
of Latteragh.—See Colgan, A.SS., p. 372.
75. See Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, pp. 272, 602, for an
account of Brychan and his family. He had an impossible number of
children, varying in different legends from ten to twenty-four sons
and twenty-six daughters. It has already been remarked (see vol. i.
p. 160, note, and the Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 82) that
some of these sons and daughters are connected with Brycheiniog
or Brecknock in Wales, and others with Manau Guotodin in the north,
and with the men of the north. It is obvious that there must have
been two Brychans, and that two different families have been mixed
together. The name Brychan comes from Brych, ‘speckled,’ the
Gaelic equivalent of which is Breacc, and seems to refer to a
characteristic of the Picts. It enters into the name Brycheiniog or
Brecknock in Wales, and we also find it in two different localities in
Scotland. In Manau Guotodin, the chief church, that of Falkirk, was
called Ecglis Breacc, or ‘the Speckled Church,’ the Saxon equivalent
of which was Fahkirk, from the word Fah, signifying speckled. There
is also the river Briech, and on the Firth of Forth Briechness, now
Bridgeness. In Forfarshire we have also Brechin. The northern family
seem to have been the same as that of the ten sons of Braccan, son
of Bracha Meoc, king of the Britons, who found churches in Ireland,
as one of the sons, Iust, is said to have been of Sleamna in Alban or
Scotland; and another, Maconoc, we find in the patron saint of
Inverkeilor in Forfarshire. There is there also a church called Neveth,
and in the Cognatio the sepulchre of Brachan or Brychan is said to
be ‘in insula que vocata Enysbrachan, que est juxta Manniam.’
Mannia stands here for Manau in the north, and it is possible that
Inchbrayoch in Forfarshire, which was dedicated to Saint Braoch,
may be the island meant.
76. Pervenerat etiam in Albaniam, id est Scotiam, in qua
ædificaverat ecclesias in Christi nomine, quarum hæc sunt nomina.
Una est Chilnecase in Galweia.
Altera vero in cacumine montis, qui appellatur Dundeuel, quia sic
semper solebat, sicut prædiximus, ut supra nudam petram nudis
membris in noctibus oraret Deum, qui semper orandus sit, sicut
scriptura ait; ‘Orate sine intermissione,’ et reliqua.
Tertia autem in alto montis Dunbreten.
Quarta in castello, quod dicitur Strivelin.
Quinta vero Dunedene, quæ Anglica lingua dicta Edenburg.
Sexta enim Mons Dunpeleder, et illinc transfretavit mare in
Albaniam ad Sanctum Andream.
Post hæc vero exiit ad Alecthae, ubi modo est optima ecclesia,
quam Lanfortin aedificavit cum quodam fonte sanctissimo, et mansit
illic aliquanto tempore et multum dilexit illum locum, in quo in fine
vitæ suæ, ut affirmaret, Domino volente, emisit spiritum.—Vita S.
Mon. a Conchubrano, cap. vii. 66; A.SS. Boll. ad 5 July.
Another Life of Saint Monenna, printed by Capgrave, has
Multis itaque signis in Hibernia declaratis, ad regem Scotiæ
nomine Conagal cognatum suum profecta multas ecclesias et
monasteria construxit, inter quæ
Apud Strivelin unam et
Apud Edenburgh in montis cacumine in honore Sancti Michaelis
alteram edificavit ecclesiam.
Et in Galwedia tres nominatas a fundamentis fecit ecclesias.
Monenna appears in the Calendars on 5th and 6th July; and on
the former day the Irish Calendars have Saint Edania, Edœna, or
Edana.
In the Scotch Calendars she appears only in that of David
Camerarius on 5th July as ‘Sancta Moduenna, virgo in Laudonia et
Galovida, Scotiæ provinciis celebris;’ but the Breviary of Aberdeen
has on 19th November ‘Medana virgo Dei castissima ex Ybernia
oriunda.’ The account given of her in the ‘Lectiones’ is shortly this:—
Flying from the attempts of a ‘miles quidam illius provincie nobilis,’
she takes refuge in Scotland, having crossed in a vessel with two
handmaidens, ‘et ad partes Galuidie superiores que Ryndis dicitur
arripuit ubi pauperculam laborando egit vitam.’ The soldier still
pursuing her, she and her maidens embarked upon a stone, which
floated thirty miles ‘ad terram que Farnes dicitur ubi nunc Sancte
reliquie virginis acquiescunt.’ The Breviary places her in the time of
Ninian. ‘Tandem vitam in sanctitate et paupertate transigens sub
sanctissimo et beatissimo patre Niniano antistite pridie kalendarum
Novembrium animam a corpore Domino jubente seperari permisit.’—
Brev. Ab. xiii. Id. Dec.
The churches of Kirkmaiden in the parish of that name and the
Rinns of Galloway, and in the parish of Glasserton and district called
Farnes, were dedicated to this Medana. She is, however, probably
the same person as Monenna, also called Moduenna and Edana,
and these may have been two of the three churches said to have
been founded by her in Galloway, the third being the church called
Chilnacase, which may have been at Whithern or Candida Casa,