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In his Life of Columbanus, Jonas of Bobbio presents a picture of Luxeuil set deep in a forest landscape, with only intermittent contact with the outside world. Recent archaeological work at Luxeuil has cast doubt on the idea that the monastery was founded in a deserted place, while a close study of the hagiographical and diplomatic evidence suggests a community very much more fully integrated into the political world of Merovingian Burgundy, even in the earliest phases of its history. It was subsequently a place of importance in the combined kingdom of Neustro-Burgundy, only drifting into the background as the power of the Merovingians gave way to the new Carolingian dynasty.

After Columbanus was expelled from Luxeuil, he journeyed to Paris and Metz. Theudebert, ruler of Austrasia, proposed that Columbanus found a monastery on the eastern edges of his kingdom. Columbanus consented and led his monks to the Lake Constance area, where they engaged in a failed missionary attempt. They angered the local populace with their forceful proselytization and were soon driven out of the region. Columbanus resumed his initial plan to relocate to Italy, but one of his monks, Gallus, was left behind and later set up a small hermitage near the Steinach stream. Jonas of Bobbio described the entire episode in terms of mission, but Columbanus was not literally a missionary. His Alamannian activities are best understood when compared to his other attempts at monastic foundation. This chapter explores the political undertones of the Alamannian mission, the reasons for its ultimate failure, and the later achievements of Gallus.

Columbanus is one of the most important figures in Christianization on the Continent in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. His foundations have been well studied, but one of his disciples, Gallus, is rarely discussed in this context. Though well known as the founder of the hermitage at the Steinach, Gallus is never considered an important part of the Columbanian monasteries. This chapter focuses on Gallus’s role in Columbanian monasticism and investigates the relationship between him and the Columbanian community. Why did the the Vita Vetustissima link Gallus with Columbanus? How did Gallus manage to settle in the Lake Constance region and to found a long-lasting community at the river Steinach? What role did Gallus’s foundation and its cooperation with the policymakers play in the implementation of Frankish or Alemannic power and influence in the Lake Constance region?

The monastery of Bobbio was characterized by a strong connection with the Lombard court of Pavia, beginning with the arrival of Columbanus in Italy in 612 or 613. The relations between the monastery and the Lombard court are proved by many royal diplomas. There was in particular a very strong relationship between Bobbio and the Lombard monarchy. The popes also favored Bobbio and issued two bulls placing the monastery under their jurisdiction. Bobbio’s role in the history of the Lombard kingdom has traditionally been linked to the Three Chapters heresy and the schism associated with it. Columbanus is part of this context because he sent one letter to Pope Boniface IV, urging him to assemble a council to resolve the schism. Bobbio was the first example of a royal monastery, a model reprised, with great success, with San Salvatore of Brescia in the following century.

This chapter examines the Regula cuiusdam patris, a Columbanian monastic Rule from the seventh century, in the context of the disputes sourrounding Columbanus’s legacy that arose following his death. It provides an analysis of the—unique—theological program of the Regula cuiusdam patris, which dismisses the idea of a salvific effect of paenitentia and the notion of the monastery as a sacred space. A comparison with Columbanus’s own rules and Jonas of Bobbio’s Vita Columbani forms the basis for ascribing the Regula cuiusdam patris either to the monks rebelling against Athala of Bobbio or to Agrestius and his followers.The chapter provides an English translation of the Rule as an appendix.

In the early Middle Ages Europe’s political landscape was significantly shaped by the emergence of new fundamental modes of identification, both ethnic and religious. These processes created new forms of social cohesion and conflict. The world into which the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder Columbanus entered when he left Ireland toward the end of the sixth century was a world of gentes, new constellations of peoples. The pluralistic political landscape of the gentes had replaced a world of empire. This chapter introduces the themes and approach of this volume, which explores Columbanus’s influence on Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the modern European Union; the emerging idea of Europe in the early Middle Ages, which Columbanus gave voice to; and how reciprocity and cultural hybridity can be useful lenses through which to study this period of transformation from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

The ancient language of concord expressed the desire for unity within a culturally and ethnically diverse Roman empire. Stoic cosmopolitanism, its philosophical underpinning, saw diversity as part of the natural order of the harmonious cosmos. The diversity of the empire, therefore, reflected the variety of the natural world, and the Pax romana was an earthly manifestation of the Pax deorum. These ideals were appropriated, and transformed, by the earliest Christian writers for whom unity was a doctrinal imperative. The language and images of Christian concord were fundamental to Columbanus’s expression of his Irish identity and understanding of the Church as the home of all peoples. In his calls for unity following the divisions caused by the Easter controversy and poor leadership, Columbanus used the rhetoric of concord to promote an ideal of diversity that is no threat to harmony and a form of unity that is not mere uniformity.

Jonas of Bobbio states that Columbanus’s place of birth was in the region of Leinster, and that he moved to Ulster only when he was a young adult. This chapter explores the political developments in Leinster in the generation before Columbanus’s move to Bangor and suggests that his departure from Leinster may have had more than a spiritual motivation. Columbanus brought with him to the Continent not just a burning zeal for conversion and the spreading of the gospel, but also a deep-rooted understanding of how the worlds of politics and religion were inseparable, not just in his native Ireland but also in the new world in which he arrived in 590–591.

This chapter considers Columbanus’s cultural background and how this influenced his dealings with women, both in early medieval Ireland and on the Continent. In particular, women as inspiration, patrons, and antagonists are portrayed as having had a formative influence on Columbanus, primarily in the Vita Columbani, written by Jonas of Bobbio. To what extent are these relationships true of Columbanus’s own experience? In order to tease this out more fully special attention will be given to women such as Columbanus’s unnamed mother as well as to the powerful queens, Brunhild and Theodelinda.

This chapter looks at the context for Columbanus’s time at Bangor and in particular the possible influence on him of the British bishop Uinniau and his own abbot, Comgall. Uinniau’s network linked him with both the British Church of Gildas and the emerging Uí Néill dynasties, while Comgall was a member of the Cruithnian people of Antrim. By the time Columbanus came within their orbit, both men were located in the core territory of the kingdom of the Ulaid, in modern County Down. The chapter argues that the specifics of the location and personalities involved proved to be defining influences on Coumbanus’s development.

Columbanus landed in Brittany and made his way into the heartland of Merovingian Gaul, where he established his monastic communities in the Vosges region of eastern France. There he encountered an established monastic community, Salicis, which may have included some British monks. This chapter examines the extent to which Columbanus’s work in Gaul followed on from the work of British and Breton ascetics in both Neustria and Austrasia. It suggests that Columbanus originally landed not on the north coast of Brittany, but in the region of the Golfe de Morbihan, and that although Gregory of Tours makes no direct reference to the Irish saint, his narrative provides a context for Columbanus’s arrival, and for his move from Brittany to Burgundy.

Although it is easy to read our patchy evidence about Columbanus as depicting a lone Irish figure with his deviant Easter tradition battling against a continental ecclesiastical hierarchy comprising bishops and the pope, this paper’s close reading and contextualization of the evidence provides a more nuanced picture. It reveals extensive common ground between the high Christian standards of both Columbanus and Gregory the Great, over against the laxity of the Gallic episcopate, and then focuses on the issue of “shunning,” or withholding oneself from relations with Christians one perceives as sinful, although they have not been excommunicated. A second section examines the Insular background to this, focusing on Gildas’s writings. Finally the third section turns to Columbanus’s dealings with the Merovingians, using the Insular tradition of shunning as a way of re-reading Jonas’s account of how relations between Columbanus and the royal court soured, ending in his exile. Encounters between Columbanus and those with whom he came into contact on the continent have been characterized as confrontation and controversy, reflecting one important aspect of his relations with leading figures. This perception of Columbanus arises from the patchy nature of historical sources. This chapter interrogates the few available sources and tries to place them in context and understand the issues surrounding them. First it investigates his relationship with Gregory the Great, raising the issue of “shunning,” or withholding oneself from relations with Christians one perceives as sinful, although they have not been excommunicated. Then it turns to Columbanus’s dealings with the Merovingians leading up to his exile, using the awareness of shunning as a way of re-reading Jonas’s account of how relations between Columbanus and the royal court soured, ending in his exile.

The fight against religious deviance and heresy was among the missionary activities of Columbanus’s followers, but the struggle for orthodoxy was also a problem the community had to face, most notably during the Agrestius affair after his death. In 626 Eustasius of Luxeuil had to answer charges of religious deviance at a council in Mâcon. In the end, the abbot of Luxeuil and his counterpart were forced to reconcile, but the conflict still smoldered. This chapter sheds light on the tensions between the missions among the gentes and the role of allegations of heresy in the internal conflicts of the Columbanian community in the 620s against the backdrop of the wider worries about orthodoxy in the seventh century. It also addresses the textual dimension of the issue and tries to illuminate the reasons for how Jonas of Bobbio presents Eustasius and the Agrestius affair in the Vita Columbani.

This chapter introduces this book’s main issues and questions. How were hagiographic texts used in the discourse of creating or recreating monastic identities? Was there a change in the social function of monasteries, and how did this come about? What was innovative about Jonas’s Vita Columbani, and how did he seek to establish new concepts of sanctity based on the community rather than on the individual holy man? It broaches these questions while framing the principal characters and subjects of the book—the life and works of Jonas of Bobbio, Columbanus, and the Columbanian monastic network—within the wider context of the religious and cultural developments of Late Antiquity. It also provides a historiographical introduction to previous scholarship on Jonas and an overview of Jonas’s three saints’ Lives.

This chapter approaches Columbanus’s writings and monastic philosophy as a source for Jonas. Jonas remained silent on some issues that were important to Columbanus—calculating the date of Easter, tensions in the early community, the Three Chapters Schism—which reveal key aspects of Jonas’s work. Columbanus’s writings illustrate his monastic philosophy and how it was shaped by his experience of ascetic exile (peregrinatio). It explores whether the Regula Columbani, mentioned by Jonas, referred to the rules written by Columbanus or to a more general process linked to the founding of monasteries by Frankish aristocrats. Could the unsystematic Rules of Columbanus have been programmatic texts for the monastic network developing in Merovingian Gaul during the seventh century? Or did the Vita Columbani function as the normative text for this network? The chapter argues that Columbanus’s rules had a normative function and that the VC was not written to regulate the monastic life.