The Innes Review vol. 51 no. 1 (Spring 2000) 68-71

Cormac Bourke

Fergna EpscopThis island [Iona] always has an abbot for its ruler whois a priest, to whose authority the whole kingdom,including even bishops, have to be subject.1

Despite the authority of Bede's statement that the abbots of Iona werepriests, I have suggested in an earlier note, on the strength of his epithetdroichtech, that the fourteenth abbot, Cilline mac Dicholla (obit AU752.12), might have been in episcopal orders.3 Explicit evidence to thesame effect exists in relation to the fourth abbot in succession toColumba, Fergna (obit AU 623.1),4 in references well known to bothReeves5 and Anderson6 but overlooked, or passed over, by subsequentscholarship.

Fergna, Adomnän's Virgnous, is commemorated at 2 March inthe twelfth-century Martyrology of Ua Gormäin. His name, Fergna la,is glossed Brit, abb Iae Choluimchille, 7 epscop beos, 'a Briton, abbotof Iona, and a bishop also'.8 He is accorded the same status at 622.1 inthe Annals of the Four Masters: S. Fergna Brit, abb Iae 7 epscop, degan dara la do Marfa, 'St Fergna Brit, abbot of Iona and a bishop, diedon the second day of March'.9 Similarly the Martyrology ofDonegalrecords: Fergna Britt, mac Failbe, epscop, acus abb la Cholaim Cille e

Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica iii.4: Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the EnglishPeople, edd. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford 1969) 222-5.2 AU = The Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131), edd. and trans. S. Mac Airt and G. MacNiocaill (Dublin 1983).3 C. Bourke, 'Cilline Pontifex', IR 49 (1998) 77-80. The substance of the latter notewas anticipated by A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to1286, 2 vols (Edinburgh/London 1922) vol. i, 240-41, n.5, and by G. Henderson, FromDurrow to Kells, The Insular Gospel-books 650-800 (London 1987) 183-4.Obitus Fergnai abbatis Iae.

5 The Life of St. Columba, Founder ofHy, ed. W. Reeves (Dublin/Edinburgh 1857)372-3, see also 224 n. d. and 340 n. e.6 Anderson, Early Sources, vol. i, 147, n. 2.j Vita Columbae [henceforth VC] iii.19: Adomnän's Life ofColumba, edd. and trans.A. O. Anderson and M. O. Anderson (rev. edn, Oxford 1991) 210-11.8 Feiire Hui Gormäin, The Martyrology ofGorman [henceforth Gorman], ed. and trans.W. Stokes (London 1895) 46-7. I depart slightly from the published translation inquoting this text and those cited in nn. 9 and 10.Annala Rioghachta Eireann. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters,from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616 [henceforth AFM], ed. and trans. J.O'Donovan, 7 vols (2nd edn, Dublin 1856).

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fös, 'Fergna Britt, son of Failbhe, bishop, and he was abbot of Ionaalso'.10

Reeves makes this observation:

The title of Bishop, which is applied to [Fergna] by thegloss in [the Martyrology of Ua Gormdin], andrepeated by the Four Masters ..., and the Calendar ofDonegal, is very questionable ... An exception to theprecedent so recently established in Hy by the founderwould hardly have been sanctioned in the case of thefourth abbot..."

But the evidence in the case, despite its lateness, is not to be lightlydismissed, and I would query Reeves' implication that the Columbanprecedent was ever considered a rule. The Martyrology of Ua Gormdinsurvives in a single manuscript copied c 1630 by Micheäl Ö Cleirigh12and is likely to be the source of the information in both the Annals ofthe Four Masters and the Martyrology ofDonegal, the former producedunder Ö Cleirigh's direction, the latter compiled by him.13 The debt ofthe annalistic text to the martyrologies is clear in that the term 'saint' isused in obits and that precise dates of death are recorded. The record ofFergna's death conforms to type, but a more specific connection isevident in the unexpected construction abb Iae 7 epscop, 'abbot of Ionaand a bishop', which reproduces that of the Ua Gormdin gloss. Note thecontrasting word-order in, for example, the obit of Aedhgen, epscop 7

abb Fobhair, 'bishop and abbot of Fore' (AFM 766.5); and that ofFinghin, angcoire 7 epscop la, 'anchorite and bishop of Iona' (AFM964.3) (see also AFM 808, 809, 811, 813, 817, 819, 820, 823 etc). TheDonegal text is merely a variation and, like Ua Gormdin and the annals,avoids stating that Fergna was bishop of Iona.

The glosses in Ua Gormdin are said by Stokes to have beenadded 'a considerable time after the text was composed',14 but giventhat the example in hand makes three statements, of which the firsttwo—that Fergna was called a Briton15 and was abbot of Iona16—are

The Martyrology of Donegal, A Calendar of the Saints of Ireland [henceforthDonegal], edd. J. H. Todd and W. Reeves, trans. J. O'Donovan (Dublin 1864) 60-61.11 The Life ofSt. Columba, ed Reeves, 372-3.12 Gorman, vii.13 Gorman, xxxix; J. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland:Ecclesiastical (New York 1929; repr. Shannon 1968) 42-3; AFM vol. i, lv-lxi.14 Gorman, 1.5 The notes to the Martyrology ofÖengus have Fergna J. Fergna Brit ab Iae Coluimcille: Feiire Oengusso Celi De. The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, ed. and trans.W. Stokes (London 1905) 86. Fergna (the name is Irish) did not belong to the CenelConaill, the stock which dominated the Iona abbacy (although such a pedigree was latersupplied), and is thought to have had British ancestry on his mother's side on the basis

70 Cormac Bourke

independently supported, there is no objective reason to disbelieve thethird. Indeed Fergna is unlikely to have been dubbed a bishop in error,17so strong was the tradition that the abbots of Iona were priests,18 and wecan discount the possibility that he was the subject of posthumousaggrandizement. The gloss in Ua Gormäin, echoed in AFM, has someclaim to authority and was in all probability copied by Ö Cleirighexactly as it stood in his exemplar.1 The word-order of the gloss20 hasbut one parallel in Ua Gormäin (see below) and contrasts with thestandard word-order of a gloss relative to Curitan at 16 March: epscop 7abb Ruiss Meinn, 'bishop and abbot of Ross Meinn',21 a formula whichrecurs seven times (1 May, 24 May, 14 August,22 25 August, 12September, 21 October, 18 December).23 It contrasts, too, with a glossrelative to Sinell at 1 October: saccart MaighiBili 7 espoc Maighe Bileiarumh, 'priest of Moville, and bishop of Moville afterwards'24 inwhich the sense demands a sequential format but in which the name ofthe church is repeated. A variant relative to Iarloga at 16 January—Lismdir .1 epscop 7 abb, 'of Lismore, a bishop and abbot'25 (see also 13March, 24 July)—again associates both offices with one church. The

of a reference in the life of Baithine; see The Life ofSt. Columba, ed. Reeves, 463; M.Herbert, Iona, Kells, and Derry: The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familiaof Columba (Oxford 1988) 39-40; Adomndn of Iona, Life of St Columba, trans. R.Sharpe (Harmondsworth 1995) 370, n. 389. Reeves, The Life ofSt. Columba, 372, alsorefers to Colgan's belief that Fergna acquired the nick-name Britt from having lived inBritain, a Britanniae incolatu: B. Jennings ed. The 'Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae' ofJohnColgan (Dublin 1948) 448. Dedications to Fergna are considered in S. Taylor,'Seventh-century Iona abbots in Scottish place-names', in D. Broun and T. O. Clancy(eds) Spes Scotorum, Hope ofScots: Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland (Edinburgh1999)35-70, at 52-4.16See n. 4, and cf. The Martyrology ofTallaght, edd. and trans. R. I. Best and H. J.Lawlor (London 1931) 20 (Fergna abb Iae).17I acknowledge that Odrän (27 October) was wrongly identified in Ua Gormäin as

abbot of Iona, as first pointed out by Reeves (in Donegal, 286-7, n. 1; see also Gorman,205). But Odrän's association with Iona probably warranted the glossator; Fergna'sabbacy was a matter of record and there was no need to add further dignities.18 K. Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (London 1966) 62-3, 80-81. See alsoR. Sharpe, 'Some problems concerning the organization of the Church in earlymedieval Ireland', Peritia 3 (1984) 230-70, at 244-6; C. Etchingham, 'Bishops in theearly Irish Church: a reassessment', Studia Hibernica 28 (1994) 35-62, at 35-6, 61.19Stokes appears by the tenor of his comments to rule out any possibility that ÖCleirigh was himself the glossator: Gorman, 1.2 It is not impossible that what is now one gloss consists of two glosses (or even three)added successively.21 Gorman, 56-7.22 At 14 August (ibid., 156-7) Stokes prints epscop, ocus abb Dairinsi, but there is nocomma in the other instances. See also 11 December.23 The matter of all eight glosses is incorporated in the Martyrology ofDonegal.24Gorman, 188-9.25 Ibid., 16-17.

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gloss on Fergna's name contrasts, further, with a gloss at 14 May whichis set out sequentially but which identifies two different churches. ThusMochuta is said to have been ina abb ir-Raithin, ocus ina espoc il-Liosmdr, 'an abbot in Rahan and a bishop in Lismore.26 But the place ofFergna's episcopate, apparently unknown, is left unspecified,2 and thegloss appears consciously framed to convey the information that he hadbeen a bishop elsewhere before becoming abbot and that his episcopalrole was discharged outside Iona. The gloss on Cormac ua Liathäin at21 June is the only parallel case: abb Durmaighi 7 epscop, 7 bahanchore beos an Corbmac sin, 'abbot of Durrow and bishop, and thatCormac was also an anchorite'. A similar interpretation applies. ThusCormac's episcopate is not associated with Durrow by the glossator,and his life as an anchorite presumably relates not to Durrow (unlikeFinän in VC i.49) but to his three voyages in search of a 'desert in theocean', herimum in ociano I desertum inpilago (VC i.6; ii.42).28

The evidence is not conclusive, but there are grounds forbelieving that Fergna, fourth in succession to Columba, was not aloneabbot but a bishop as well, contrary to Bede's understanding.29

CORMAC BOURKE IS CURATOR OF MEDIEVAL ANTIQUITIES ATTHE ULSTER MUSEUM, BELFAST.

Ibid., 96-7.27 It may have been Strathclyde, where Columba had contacts (as attested in VC i.15).'Sedulius', episcopus Britanniae de genere Scottorum, 'a bishop of Britain of the raceof the Scots', who attended a Roman council in 721, has been associated with thatregion: A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs edd. Councils and Ecclesiastical Documentsrelating to Great Britain and Ireland (Oxford 1873) vol. ii, pt i, 7.28 Cf Life ofSt Columba, trans. Sharpe, 341-2, n. 323.29 For a recent review of the evidence for bishops in Scottish Dal Riata, including Iona,see G. Markus, Tona: monks, pastors and missionaries', in Broun and Clancy, SpesScotorum: Hope ofScots, 115-38, at 128-31. Reference is made therein to Conamail,described as a bishop in the guarantor list of Cain Adomndin, perhaps the same whodied as abbot of Iona in AU 710.1. The status of Dorbene, who died in AU 713.5, hasbeen considered by several writers, most recently by Herbert in Iona, Kells, and Derry,58, n. 6: 'The evidence of [the] Salzburg list and of [the] Lecan genealogies supportsthe view that he was abbot of Iona, though the wording of the annal, particularly the useof primatus, has led to suggestions that Dorbene was a bishop'. Perhaps Dorbene heldboth offices. The earliest bishop of Iona who can be identified with certainty is Cöeti,another guarantor of the Cain Adomndin, who died in AU 712.1 (Coeddi episcopus laepausat); for discussion, see Markus, Tona: monks, pastors and missionaries', 123, 128,136, and on his cult in Scotland see Taylor, 'Seventh-century Iona abbots', 58-60.