Life of Saint Columba
A Life of Columba in three books, on his prophecies, his miracles and his visions, by the ninth abbot of Iona. Written about a century after the saint’s death from the traditions and records of his own monastery, it is the main source for Columba and for early Iona.
Read the text at sourcebooks.fordham.edu ↗The same translation at CELT, University College Cork ↗
Adomnán was abbot of Iona; the Annals of Ulster record his death in 704. He wrote in the monastery where Columba had lived and died, and he often names his informants: older monks who had the stories from men who knew the saint, and a book on Columba’s miracles by an earlier abbot, Cumméne. He is about a hundred years from the events.
The work is arranged by theme and not by date. Book 1 collects prophecies, book 2 miracles of power, book 3 visions of angels, and it ends with a long and detailed account of Columba’s last days. In passing it shows the working life of the island: monks copying books, sailing to other islands, farming, receiving guests and penitents. It gives almost no dates. The only anchors it offers are that Columba left Ireland about two years after the battle of Cúl Dreimne and that he died after thirty-four years in Britain, on the night between a Saturday and a Sunday.
Cited in
- AD 563, estimated date