Boulogne-Sur-Mer Part 1

Bolougne-Sur-Mer.

by Reverend William Canon Fleming.

PREFACE.

THE numerous bewildering and contradictory theories to be met with in books, pamphlets, and reviews concerning St. Patrick's native country are calculated to provoke a spirit of weary incredulity and impatience.

However, when presenting this book to the public, we may quote the late Canon O'Hanlon's plea for adventurous writers who still endeavour to solve the problem: "The question of St. Patrick's country," writes the distinguished author of the "Lives of the Irish Saints," "has an interest for all candid investigators far beyond the claim of rival nations for the honour it should confer. It has been debated, indeed, with considerable learning and earnestness both by Irish and foreign writers; yet, as Ireland does not prefer any serious claim to the distinction, of which she might well feel proud, so can Irishmen afford to be impartial in prosecuting such an enquiry" (St. Patrick, March 17th).

From a patriotic point of view it might be urged that, although innumerable books and pamphlets have been written on our subject, not one too many has seen the light, inasmuch as each of them has served in a greater or lesser degree to keep the memory of our great Apostle ever fresh in our minds.

We are deeply indebted to the Rev. Professor Leilleux, who is at present engaged in writing a "History of the Diocese of Boulogne-sur-Mer," and to the Abbe Ma.s.sot, chaplain to the Little Sisters of the Poor in that town, for having clearly proved to us that ancient Bononia was called "Bonauen," and Caligula's tower--Turris Ordinis--was called "Nemtor" by the Gaulish Celts. These discoveries go far to show that the Apostle of Ireland was a native of ancient Bononia, now called Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Colgan, who published his "Trias Thaumaturga" in 1647, a.s.sures us in his fifth Appendix, chapter i., that there was an old tradition in Armorica that St. Patrick was a native of that province; and the same author adds that several Irish writers adhered to that opinion. This book, therefore, does not seek to formulate a new theory; its only object is to gather together many of the records which tend to prove that St. Patrick was born in Armorican Britain.

Our most grateful thanks are also due to the Very Rev. Canon Gildea, D.D., M.R., who has kindly read through this book for the "Nil obstat"; and to the courteous Curator of the Library and Museum at Boulogne for permitting us to make a sketch of Caligula's famous tower and lighthouse, which was called Turris Ordinis or Turris Ardens by the Romans, and Nemtor or Nemthur by the Armorican Britons.

WILLIAM CANON FLEMING.

ST. MARY'S, MOORFIELDS, LONDON, E.C.

ST. PATRICK'S PARENTAGE

ABOUT the middle of the fourth century a n.o.ble decurion named Calphurnius espoused Conchessa, the niece of St. Martin of Tours.

Heaven blessed their union with several children, the youngest of whom was a boy, who received at his baptism the name of Succath, which in the Gaelic tongue signifies "valiant."

Jocelin is responsible for the statement that the parents of the future Apostle of Ireland took, by mutual consent, the vow of celibacy after St. Patrick's birth, and that Calphurnius, like St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Hilary, and St. Germa.n.u.s, who were all married men, "closed his days in the priesthood" (chap, ii., p. 2). "There were thousands of priests and Bishops," as Dr. Dollinger observes, "who had sons before their ordination" ("History of the Church," vol. ii., p. 23, note).

There are others, however, like Father Bullen Morris, who are of opinion that St. Patrick's declaration in the "Confession" that his father was "a deacon" is a mistake on the part of the copyist for "decurion," and, as a proof of this contention, they point to the words made use of by the Saint in his Epistle to Coroticus, which is admittedly genuine: "I am of n.o.ble blood, for my father was a decurion.

I have bartered my n.o.bility--for which I feel neither shame nor sorrow--for the sake of others." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with the a.s.surance given in the "Confession" that his father was a humble deacon. "It is inconceivable," as Father Bullen Morris argues, "that the Saint, sprung from a n.o.ble family, should base his claim to n.o.bility on the fact that his father, Calphurnius, was a deacon. On the other hand, the theory that Calphurnius was a Roman officer fits in with both statements of the Saint" ("St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland," p. 285, Appendix).

The same author gives another reason for calling in question this part of the text of the "Confession" in the "Book of Armagh." A scribe made an addition to the genealogy of St. Patrick as recorded in the Book, writing on the margin "Son of Odisseus"; and these words are actually introduced into the text by Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his edition of the "Confession," without either note or comment. It is easy to imagine, therefore, that ancient Celtic writers, with their pa.s.sion for genealogies, should tamper with the ancestors of St. Patrick.

Nicholson, a distinguished Irish scholar, was, of opinion that the addition "a deacon" was mere guesswork on the part of the copyist, and wrote "incertus liber hic"--"the book is here unreliable" ("St.

Patrick, Apostle of Ireland," Appendix, pp. 286--288).

Moreover, if the word "a deacon" in the "Book of Armagh" is the true reading, it must surely be a matter for surprise that St. Patrick, who sternly enforced the law of celibacy in Ireland as part of the discipline of the Catholic Church, should describe himself as the son of a deacon without either comment or explanation, and more especially when we remember that the Council of Elvira, A.D. 305, and the Council of Aries, A.D. 314, had enforced the laws of celibacy--"The severe discipline of the Councils of Elvira and Aries," writes Alzog, "obtained the force of law and became general throughout the Western Church" ("Universal Church History," vol. i., chap, iv., pp. 280, 281).

The practice of clerical celibacy, therefore, existed in the Western Church probably before Calphurnius was born, and certainly before he was old enough to get married.

Calphurnius was admittedly a decurion, or Roman officer. Now Pope Innocent I., in his Letter to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, in the year 405, in answer to a number of questions submitted to him by the Bishop, stated that there was an impediment to the ordination of men who had served in the army on account of the loose morality prevalent in the camp. As the Pope was simply laying down the rules of discipline already existing in the Church, Calphurnius, being a Roman officer, could not have been ordained without the removal of the impediment. All this tends at least to prove that we should read "decurion" for "deacon" in the "Confession."

According to the "Book of Sligo," St. Patrick was born on Wednesday (373), baptized on Wednesday, and died on Wednesday, March 17th, A.D.

493.

THE DIFFERENT BIRTHPLACES a.s.sIGNED TO ST. PATRICK

BARONIUS and Matthew of Westminster declare that St. Patrick was born in Ireland, but scarcely any writer of the present day ventures to express that view. O'Sullivan, Keating, Lanigan, and many French writers contend that he was a native of Armoric Gaul, or Britain in France. Welshmen are strongly of opinion that Ross Vale, Pembrokes.h.i.+re, was the honoured place; whilst Canon Sylvester Malone attributed the glory to Burrium, Monmouths.h.i.+re, a town situated, as Camden narrates, near the spot where the River Brydhin empties itself into the Usk. The Scholiast, Colgan, and Archbishop Healy seem to have no doubt as to the Saint's birth at Dumbarton. Ware believes that a town that once stood almost under the shadow of the crag possessed a stronger claim; Usher and the Aberdeen Breviary are equally positive that Kilpatrick was the town. Cardinal Moran, on the other hand, has convinced himself that St.

Patrick first saw the light of day at a place that once stood near the present town of Hamilton, just where the river Avon discharges itself into the Clyde. Some English writers have strongly advocated the claims of a Roman town named Bannaventa that once stood near the present site of Davantry, Northamptons.h.i.+re. Professor Bury, in his "Life of St.

Patrick," had the doubtful honour of inventing a new birthplace for the Saint; he tells us that St. Patrick was born at a Bannaventa, "which was probably situated in the regions of the Lower Severn."

ST. PATRICK WAS NOT BORN IN WALES.

The belief that St. Patrick was born in Ross Vale, Pembrokes.h.i.+re, is founded princ.i.p.ally on the supposed acceptance of that view by Camden, and on an old tradition to the effect that St. Patrick, having completed his missionary labours in Ireland, founded a monastery at Menevia and died there.

As the authority of the learned Camden carries with it great weight, it will here be not out of place to quote his own declaration, which is as follows: "Beyond Ross Vale is a s.p.a.cious promontory called by Ptolemy Octopitarum, by the Britons Pebidiog and Kantev-Dewi, and by the English St. David's land. . . . It was the retiring place and nursery of several Saints, for Calphurnius, a British priest--_as some have written, I know not hew truly_--begot there St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland" ("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 32). The same author, in another place, gives expression to his own views on the subject, to which, indeed, he does not seem to have devoted very serious study. "St.

Patrick," he writes, "was a Briton born in Clydesdale, and related to St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, and he was a disciple of St. Germa.n.u.s"

("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 326).

The Ross Vale theory has, in truth, as little in its favour as the old, but groundless, tradition that St. Patrick founded a monastery and ended his days at Menevia. This is plainly contradicted by the Saint's a.s.sertion that after he had landed as a missionary in Ireland he never once left, and ended his days in the land of his adoption. "Though I could have wished to leave them" (the Irish), writes the Saint in his "Confession," "and had been desirous of going to Britain, as if to my own country and parents, and not that alone, but even to Gaul to visit my brethren, and see the face of the Lord's Saints. But I am bound in the spirit, and He who witnesseth all will account me guilty if I do it, and I fear to lose the labour which I have begun; and not I, but the Lord Christ, who commanded me to come and remain with them for the rest of my life, if the Lord prolongs it, and keeps me from all sin before Him." This statement, which was made by St. Patrick just before his death, when he wrote the "Confession," could never have been volunteered if he had once left the country where the Lord had commanded him to remain for the rest of his life.

THE SCOTCH THEORIES ON THIS SUBJECT.

The Scholiast and Colgan, who identify the Crag of Dumbarton with the Nemthur of the Saint's nativity, are faced by the unanswerable difficulty that though Nemthur may be the name of a tower, or may be the name of the district in which the tower stood, it cannot be the name of a town. The Saint in his "Confession" states that his father hailed from the suburban district of a town called Bonaven Tabernise, where he possessed a country seat, from which he (the Saint) was carried off into captivity. Bonaven, therefore, is rightly regarded as St. Patrick's native town. St. Fiacc simply states that St. Patrick was born at Nemthur, but he does not a.s.sart that Nemthur was a town, otherwise he would be at variance with his Patron, who plainly gives us to understand that he was born at Bonaven Tabernise, The only way of reconciling this apparent conflict of evidence is to a.s.sume that St.

Fiacc is giving the name either of the tower or the district in which St. Patrick was born, while the Saint is giving the name of the town of which he was a native, but not the name of the district which was honoured by his birth.

Dr. Lanigan, however, objects "that no sensible writer, wis.h.i.+ng to inform his readers where the Saint was born, would say that he came into the world in a tower" ("Eccl. Hist.," vol. i., p. 101).

Nemthur may indeed be a corruption of Neustria, as Dr. Lanigan suggests; but it must not be forgotten that districts not unfrequently derive their names from famous monuments that either stand or have stood in their midst. We have an ill.u.s.tration of this in the very locality where many believe that St. Patrick was born. The high level on the north-eastern cliff's of Boulogne is called even at the present time "Tour d'Ordre," deriving its name from Caligula's tower, which the Romans called Turris Ordinis, and the Gaulish Celts called Nemtor, which once stood on the lofty plateau, but is no longer in existence.

Ware's theory, in his own words, is this: "I must dissent from the Scholiast that Nemthur and Alcuid were the same place; though it must be granted that they stood near each other, as appears from a pa.s.sage of Jocelin: 'there was a promontory hanging over the town of Empthor, a certain fortification, the ruins of which are yet visible,' and a little later: 'this celebrated place, seated in the valley of the Clyde, is, in the language of the country, called "Dunbreaton," that is, the Fort of the Britons'" (Ware, vol. i., p. 6).

Relying also on Jocelin's statement that Tabernise signified a "Field of Tents"--"Tabernaculorum Campus"--and on his unwarranted a.s.sertion that the habitation of Calphurnius was "not far from the Irish Sea,"

Usher pointed out Kilpatrick, a town situated between Dumbarton and the city of Glasgow, as St. Patrick's native town.

Jocelin's "Life of St. Patrick," as Canon O'Hanlon has said, is "incomparably the worst" of the Latin lives of the Saint, and yet it is on this untrustworthy foundation, and on the contradictions of the Scholiast, that Usher and Ware rest their respective theories. Usher discovered a Roman camp at Kilpatrick, and found that the town was "not far from the Irish Sea," and it is upon this weak hypothesis that the Kilpatrick theory rests.

The Aberdeen Breviary coincides with Usher, and the lesson referring to St. Patrick is as follows: "St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, was born of Calphurnius, a man of ill.u.s.trious Celtic descent, and of Conchessa, a native of Gaul and a sister of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours. He was conceived with many miraculous signs at Dumbarton Castle, but was born and reared at Kilpatrick in Scotland, near the Castle."

But if the Aberdeen Breviary a.s.serts that St. Patrick was born at Kilpatrick, the Continental Breviaries, as Colgan freely admits, are equally positive that he was a native of Armoric Gaul.

Cardinal Moran, in an article contributed to the _Dublin Review_ in the spring of 1880, insisted rightly that the solution of the difficulty is to be found in the word Bonaven. Bon, or Ban, he tells us, is a Celtic word which signifies the mouth of a river, and Avon is the river itself. From this, he argues that the Saint was born at a town which once stood on the present site of Hamilton, which is situated at the mouth of the Avon, just where that river discharges itself into the Clyde. The same argument would apply with equal force to a town situated at the mouth of the River Aven on the French coast, which flows into the harbour of Concarneu in Brittany.

Anyone who accepts the authority of Probus, who a.s.serts that Bonaven Tabernise "was not far from the Western sea," or of the Scholiast, who is the author of the Dumbarton theory, will see a grave objection to accepting the Cardinal's solution of the problem: Hamilton is about fifty miles distant from Dumbarton, and far away from the Atlantic Ocean.

None of the authors mentioned make any attempt to reconcile the two contradictory statements of the Scholiast: (1) that St. Patrick was born at Dumbarton, and (2) that he was captured in Armorica. They have failed to notice that, if the Saint was captured in Armorica, he could not have been born at Dumbarton, because he a.s.sures us in his "Confession" that he was captured at his father's home. Even according to the admissions of the Scholiast, therefore, Bonaven Tabernise, St.

Patrick's home, was situated in Armorica. Usher, Ware, and Cardinal Moran, while contending that the Apostle of Ireland was born in North Britain, refuse to accept the Scholiast's statement that he was a native of Dumbarton.

ST. PATRICK WAS NOT BORN IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Ignoring altogether both the Scotch and Welsh theories as to the birthplace of St. Patrick, Professor Bury, in his Life of the Saint, holds that Ireland's Apostle was born in a village named Bannaventa; not, however, Bannaventa now known as Daventry in Northamptons.h.i.+re, seeing that that town would be too far "from the Western sea," but another Bannaventa somewhere on the sea coast, and "perhaps in the region of the Severn" (chap, ii., p. 17, and Appendix, 323).

The whole of Professor Bury's new theory rests on a very faint similarity between Bonaven or Bannaven--the name which the Saint gives to the town of his birth--and Bannaventa; and on an entirely gratuitous a.s.sumption that there must have been a town named Bannaventa "in the regions of the lower Severn."

Professor Bury is recognised as a very able historian by the literary world; his Appendix alone to the "Life of St. Patrick" affords ample proof of his learning and genius. Nevertheless, he occasionally indulges in some obiter dicta without historical proof, and at times lays himself open to the charge of want of historical accuracy. For instance, he ascribes the origin of the Papal power to a decree of the Emperor Valintinian III., issued in A.D. 445 at the instance of Pope Leo, which is supposed to have conferred "on the Bishop of Rome sovran authority in the Western provinces which were under the imperial sway."

Before that period, he tells us, "the Roman See was recognised by imperial decrees of Valintinian I. and Gratian as a Court to which the clergy might appeal from the decisions of Provincial Councils in any part of the Western portion of the Empire"; that "the answers to such were called Decretals"; that there were no Decretals before those of Damasus (366, 384); "that those who consulted the Roman Pontiff were not bound in any way to accept his ruling"; and that when Pope Zosimus endeavoured to enforce his Decretals "he was smitten on one cheek by the Synods of Africa; he was smitten on the other by the Gallic Bishops at the Council of Turin." "By tact and adroitness," Pope Leo induced the Emperor Valintinian III. to issue an edict which established the Papal power over the Western provinces of the Roman Empire. The Professor explains how Ireland, on account of its geographical position, was drawn into the Roman Confederation; and it is on that account that he admits the genuineness of the decree of a Synod held by St. Patrick, to the effect that in cases of ecclesiastical difficulties, which the Irish Bishops could not solve themselves, the Sovereign Pontiff should be asked to give a decision ("Life of St.

Patrick," pp. 59--66).