Vita Columbae of Adamnanus

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The Vita Columbae of Adamnanus in the Schaffhausen City Library (signature Gen. 1) is a codex that contains the oldest and best tradition of the Vita of the Irish Saint Columban . This work is one of the most important for the history of Irish-influenced Christianity. It is the oldest codex that contains a single biography in Latin. The codex was written between 688 and 713 in the Scottish island monastery Iona by the abbot Dorbbene ; Adamnanus tells the story of the monastery founder and Saint Columban.

Description of the codex

The codex is written on 71 sheets of parchment in the format 290 × 225 mm. The pages are uniformly divided into two columns of 28 lines each. The codex was written by Dorbbene, an abbot of Iona Monastery, who used Irish semi-uncial and dark brown ink. The font is very clean throughout. Only an insert from an older vita is written in slightly darker ink and less carefully. At the beginning of a sentence you can sometimes find red and yellow letter fills and the headings are in red ink. On a sheet in the rear mirror there is a note that the book cover was renewed in 1941.

content

The manuscript Gen. 1 contains the story of St. Columban, the founder of Iona Monastery, told by the ninth abbot, Adamnan. The story is not structured chronologically and less a life story, but rather a listing of the prophecies and miracles of Columban in the service of God. The Vita (fol. 1-136) is followed by an Lord's Prayer in Greek (fol. 137). The scribe is Dorbbene, who also calls himself at the end of the codex with the request: Quicumque hos virtutum libellos Columbae legerit pro me Dorbbeneo deum deprecetur, ut vitam post mortem eternam possedeam ( Whoever reads these books about the miraculous powers of Columba, pray to God for me, Dorbbene, that after death I may have eternal life ). Since the name Dorbbene was not so common, it is assumed that the writer is the head of the Church of Iona , who became abbot of the monastery in 713 and died that same year.

History of the Codex

The earliest time of origin for the Vita Columbae is Adamnan's second journey to Northumbria in 688, the latest time is Adamnan's death in 704. Thus, the time of origin can be narrowed down to 688 and 713, the year of the writer's death. There are two possibilities for the history of ownership of the Iona Monastery; Either the codex was brought to mainland Europe by fleeing monks after the Vikings destroyed the monastery in Iona in the 9th century, or the codex was already on the mainland before the monastery was destroyed, more precisely in northern France. It is believed that the codex was located in the St. Gallen monastery in the second half of the 9th century . The first secure ownership notice dates from the 13th century from the Reichenau monastery ( Liber Augie maioris , on the first page of the Codex). In 1621 the Jesuit Stephen White loaned the codex to Dillingen. The entry Liber Augiae from the 17th century is probably related to this loan, but it is not clear whether White returned the codex to Reichenau. It is also unclear how the codex got into the Schaffhausen City Library, where it was rediscovered in 1772.

  • In the left column the older vita of Cummeneus, in the right that of Adamnan. Fol. 108

  • The scribe's Dorbbene in red ink. Fol. 136

literature

  • Rudolf Gamper, Susan Marti: Catalog of the medieval manuscripts of the Schaffhausen City Library. Urs Graf Verlag, Dietikon-Zurich 1998, pp. 67–68 ( PDF ).
  • Rudolf Gamper, Marlis Stähli: Catalog of the dated manuscripts in Switzerland in Latin script from the beginning of the Middle Ages to 1550. Vol. 3: The manuscripts of the St. Gallen-Zurich libraries. Urs Graf Verlag, Dietikon-Zurich 1991, p. 112 No. 313 Fig. 1.
  • René Specht: How did Dorbene's copy of Adamnau's Vita Sancti Columbae get into the Schaffhausen City Library? In: Schaffhauser Contributions to History. Vol. 65, 1988, pp. 103-109.
  • Mark Stansbury: The Composition of Adomnán's Vita Columbae . In: Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland. Vol. 17-18, 2003-2004, pp. 154-182.
  • Theodor Klüppel: Adamnan: The life of St. Columba from Iona. Vita S. Columbae. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2010.

Web links