Brendan the Traveler

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Brendan ( Irish Breandán , Latin Brendanus ; * about 484 possibly in Annagh or in Fenit on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry not far from Tralee ; † 577 in Annaghdown Monastery, County Galway) was an Irish saint . He is assigned to the Twelve Apostles of Ireland .

Brendan at Sea (around 1460)

Life

Brendan became a priest probably in 512 and founded numerous monasteries. The various accounts of his life are almost all legendary . The only certain date is the founding of the Clonfert monastery (in the county of Galway ) around 560. He is said to have been baptized by the Bishop of Ardfert "Erth of Cornwall" (also called Erc ) in the Ram spring (Tobar na Molt) .

He is known through the Navigatio Sancti Brendani , a very popular and widespread report in the Middle Ages about a sea voyage that he is said to have undertaken between 565 and 573 with twelve companions. The destination of this trip, which was undertaken with a curragh , was the "Terra Repromissionis sanctorum", a promised island in the west. On the way to this Brendan's island , which is marked on several medieval maps, he experienced all kinds of adventures, the most famous of which is the mistake of the fish Jasconius for an island.

The description of his trip prompted expeditions to search for Brendan's island well into the 18th century. Since the 19th century, attempts have also been made to adapt the descriptions of the various islands to real islands in the Atlantic. The assumptions range from the Canary Islands to Iceland to America , but in none of the cases can be conclusively proven, which in view of the mythical-religious character of the travel description will probably never be possible: The Navigatio Sancti Brendani is a Christianized Immram , a fixed one Island Celtic narrative type that describes the journey into the otherworld .

In 1976 Timothy Severin was actually able to sail to America in a curragh, which suggests that a discovery of America would at least have been possible at this time.

Brendan is the patron saint of boatmen .

Modern statue of St. Brendan on Samphire Island

The St Brandan's Stanes in Scotland are named after him.

literature

  • Josef Semmler : Navigatio Brendani. In: Peter Wunderli (Hrsg.): Journeys in real and mythical distance. Travel literature in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Düsseldorf 1993. ( Studia Humaniora Volume 22). Pp. 103-123.
  • Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken : The world view of the Irish sailor-saint Brendan in the view of the 12th century. In: Cartographica Helvetica Heft 21 (2000) pp. 17–21 full text
  • Brigitte English : Ordo Orbis Terrae. The worldview in the Mappae mundi of the early and high Middle Ages . Habilitation thesis University of Hamburg. Munich: Oldenbourg-Verlag, 655 pages, ISBN 978-3-05-003635-9 (Orbis mediaevalis. Imaginary worlds of the Middle Ages, Vol. 3).
  • Lutz Mohr : New considerations and additions to the early history of the Faroe Islands. Part 1: Greeks, Romans and the Irish monk Brendan (around 488 – around 578) as the first known explorer of the archipelago . In: Tjaldur ("Austernfischer"), association magazine of the German-Faroese Circle of Friends (DFF) e. V., Düsseldorf / Kiel, vol. 6, issue 10/1993, pp. 46-55.

Web links

Commons : Brendan the Traveler  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints Entry on “Brendan 'the traveler'”. Accessed February 4, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Brendan the Traveler
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brendanus; Saint Brendan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish saint
DATE OF BIRTH at 484
DATE OF DEATH 577