Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/82

 74 THE SOURCES OF GONCHUBRANUS' January a common source. This is shown by comparison of certain passages common to both, thus : Bntx. 13. Precepit ut in vicinum flumen,noimne Lyfi, proiceretur. Vas itaque proiectum in flumen, quod in mare versus orien- tem influit, contra consuetum cursum nature, divina operante potentia, in ora stagni quod Hybernici vocant Caput Litoris, a quodam viro sancto Herbe ^ pontifice, Darerce fratre, tradi- tur fuisse repertum. Conch. ii. 7. * In flumen, quod nobis est con- tiguum, mittendum est, et Dominus, ut voluerit, et sancte Monenne meritum, faciat quod sibi placet.' Itaque ut cer- tissime adflrmarent, qui sic antiquitus habent sibi traditum, ita factum est* Vasculum in flumen missum est, nomine Life, quod in mare Hibernicum fluit orientale, et Domino conseruante et por- tante, quocumque modo inuentum est a Ronan episcJbpo, fratre Monenne, ut habet opinio, in Capite Litoris, sicut Scoti locum nominant Stanniribae. Now Brux. is a little less than half the length of Conchubran. It presents a simple and perfectly straightforward account of St. Darerca, confining her field of action exclusively to Ireland,* and making no mention of her three pilgrimages to Rome and her doings in England and Scotland, related by Conchubran with such wealth of confusion and chronological absurdity. Nor is there a word about the supposed visit of Alfred, son of the king of England, to Ireland, and his connexion with the saint (Conch, i. 14). On the other hand, Brux. is of no great antiquity, as is shown by its style, and by the fact that we find throughout Hybemia, Hyhernicus, where Conchubran has preserved the Scotia^ Scotus, Scotticus of the original source. The conclusion I have come to is that the Brussels Vita is a conscientiously made abridgement and revision of a very much older Vita which I shall call X, and that it was made not earlier than c. 1100. The same X had previously (c. 1000-1050) been drawn upon by Conchubran.^ The original text of X can even he approximately reconstructed by a careful comparison of Brux. and Conch. Its date may be determined from data supplied at the close : ' At 29 he is again called Herbe. Conchubran calls him Ronan throughout (cf. iii. 9 and the interpolation at i. 6). Other changes of names are Brux. 25 Brignat = Lassar (Conch, iii. 7), but at iii. 5 and 6 Conchubran leaves Brignatn, and Brux. 29 Eugenius = Conagal (Conch, iii. 9). The change of Indiu (Brux. 33) to Dognidiu (Conch, iii. 12) is possibly due to scribal corruption. ' The only mention of Britain is in cap, 25, where Darerca sends one of her virgins named Brignat over to Rosnat (Candida Casa,' Magnum Monasterium ', or Whithem), who afterwards returns to Ireland. Conchubran has a reminiscence of this in iii. 7. He calls the virgin Lassar and stuffs out the story with false details. ' This view is confirmed by comparing what is said of Monenna's relics in Brux. 19 with Conch, iii. 1.