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A Note on Ireland's Place in the Literary Tradition of St. Brendan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

John Hennig
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Extract

Apart from the Purqaiorium S. Patrieii, the Naoiqaiio Brendani (NB) produced the most important literary tradition associated with Ireland. The accounts given by the English monk of Saltrey and the later Continental pilgrims of their experiences in Lough Derg show only indirect traces of the Irish vision literature, and the literary tradition of these accounts has been almost entirely non- Irish. In its Irish type, vision literature is more directly represented by the Visio Furseai and the Visio Tundali The tradition of the former, however, is also entirely non- Irish; that of the latter was Irish only in its beginning, while its ramifications down to the nineteenth century are entirely Continental.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 8 , 1952 , pp. 397 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Kenney, J., The Sources for the Early History of Ireland I (N. Y. 1929) 231, 502, 742, and the literature listed in note 33 of my paper on St. Albert in Mediaeval Studies 7 (1945) 27. Neither Seymour nor anyone else seems to have noticed the curious contributions to ‘Irish’ vision literature in the Vita S. Livini (Kenney n° 310).Google Scholar

2 Not ‘Maxim’ as in Kenney, , op. cit. 414.Google Scholar

3 See my papers, ‘Irish Saints in Early German Literature,’ Speculum 22 (1947) 364 ff.; ‘Irish Monastic Activities in Eastern Europe,’ Irish Eccles. Record 65 (1945) 394–400; and ‘A Bibliographical Note on the Schottenkloster of St. James, Ratisbon,’ The Irish Booklover 31 (1950) 79 ff.Google Scholar

4 Op. cit. 412.Google Scholar

5 See my paper on St. Cataldo in Mediaeval Studies 8 (1946) 243.Google Scholar

6 Op. cit. n° 205 f.Google Scholar

7 Les saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (Louvain 1939).Google Scholar

8 Kenney, , op. cit. 414.Google Scholar

9 See Speculum 22. 367 n. 59. In Eachta William the 17th-century Irish version of William of Palermo, the 14th-century English epic (first published Dublin 1951), the son of the king of Spain is called Pronndane(un)si (from the original Braundinis). See moreover Selmer's important papers in Traditio 4 (1946) 408–13 and 7 (1951) 416–33.Google Scholar

10 Kenney, , op. cit. 412 f.Google Scholar

11 Op. cit. 502.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. 503 and my paper ‘The Irish Background of St. Fursey,’ Irish Eccles. Rec. 77 (1952) 18–28.Google Scholar

13 Lives of the Irish Saints (Dublin about 1880).Google Scholar

14 Brendan the Navigator (Dublin 1946).Google Scholar

15 See my paper on ‘Fortunatus in Ireland,’ Ulster Journal of Archaeology 13 (1950) 93–104.Google Scholar

16 The present note is based on Dr. M. Draak's edition of De Reis van Sinte Brandaan (Amsterdam 1948; pp. 45 [introdution], 150 [text and translation], 44 [notes and bibliography], and 24 [explanation of words]), a new publication of the middle-Netherlandish poem with a beautiful translation into modern Dutch by Bertus Aafjes. The illustrations are reproductions of 19 wood-cuts from the Augsburg 1476 print. Layout, paper, printing, and binding are magnificent; and the work is an outstanding example of that combination of sound scholarship and pleasing presentation which is characteristic of linguistic and historical writings in the Netherlands. In respect of production, it is a credit to Dutch scholars, artists, printers, publishers, and readers. See also my paper ‘Early Representations of Irishmen in German Books,’ Journal of the R. Soc. of Antiquarians of Ireland 80 (1950) 158 ff.Google Scholar

17 Ierse letterkunde als toetsteen (Amsterdam 1947), reviewed by me in Irish Booklover 31 (1950) 88 ff.Google Scholar

18 See my paper in Speculum 22 (1947) 359, also ‘Ireland's Place in the Chivalresque Literature of Mediaeval Germany,’ Proc. Royal Irish Academy 53 C, 279 ff.Google Scholar

19 See Bieler, L., in Studies 35 (1946) 540; not ‘tachtig’ as Dr. Draak writes, p. 16. Also Selmer's ‘Study of the Latin MSS of NB,’ Scriptorium 3 (1949) 177–82.Google Scholar

20 Oxford 1920, not listed by Kenney.Google Scholar

21 De Reis 16.Google Scholar

22 See Mediaeval Studies 7 (1945) 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 See above, note 5.Google Scholar

24 See my survey of this subject in German Life and Letters, N. S. 3 (1950) 102 ff.Google Scholar

25 De Reis, 205 f. I was informed by the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitäts-bibliothek at Göttingen that neither its records nor those of the various university institutes show any trace of these remaining parts of Meyer's thesis.Google Scholar

26 For printings see Ehrismann, G., Geschichte der deutschen Literatur II 1 (Munich 1922) 166 note 2.Google Scholar

27 See Proc. R. Ir. Acad. 53 C, 280.Google Scholar

28 I refer to Dr. R. I. Best's Bibliography of Irish literature 1913–1941 (Dublin 1942) 1256; to section 5 of Dr. Bieler's paper on ‘Recent Research on Irish Hagiography,’ Studies 35 (1946) 540 f.; and to note 56 of my paper in Speculum 22 (1947) 366. With regard to Jasconius (p. 21), Dr. Draak no doubt has meanwhile seen Dr. Bieler's important note in Éigse 5.139 f.Google Scholar