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Les mobilités monastiques en Orient et en Occident de l’Antiquité tardive au Moyen Âge (IVe-XVe siècle)

 | 
Olivier Delouis
, 
Maria Mossakovska-Gaubert
, 
Annick Peters-Custot

Mobilités et dévotions

Monachi peregrini

The mobile monks of the Irish Benedictine houses in medieval Germany and Austria

Diarmuid Ó Riain

Note de l’auteur

The research for this article was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): F42 Visions of Community.

Texte intégral

  • 1 BHL 218; Levison 1913, p. 22-23.

ceperunt peregrinari corporaliter et conversari spiritualiter, non tam de regione in regionem pedum passibus progredientes, quam de regione in regionem gradibus virtutum proficientes1

  • 2 On the general history of the Irish Benedictine monasteries in Germany, see Hammermayer 1976; Flac (...)

1This line from the Vita Albarti archiepiscopi Casellensis, a 12th-century hagiographical work written at an Irish Benedictine monastery in the Bavarian town of Regensburg, offers an idealized picture of the physical and spiritual journey undertaken by those amatores perfectionis who voluntarily left Ireland in the medieval period out of religious devotion. The promotion of the peregrinatio ideal was central to the communal identity of the so-called Schottenklöster in Germany and Austria, despite its potential incompatibility with the monastic precept of stabilitas loci. Moreover, the restriction of entry to Irishmen only and the fact that each of the Schottenklöster belonged to a distinct union of Irish monasteries within the Benedictine order, which at its peak in the early 13th century stretched from Ireland to the Ukraine, led to a high degree of travel and personnel transfer being generated at an institutional level2. This article will offer some perspectives on the issue of mobility as it pertained to the medieval Schottenklöster. It will look at how the practicalities involved in sustaining the network of Irish monasteries on the Continent demanded mobility and also at the importance of the monastic journey itself to the identity of the Schottenklöster.

  • 3 Gladiss Gawlik 1941-1978, no. 403.
  • 4 In addition to the two houses in Regensburg there were Schottenklöster located at Würzburg, Nuremb (...)
  • 5 1185 privilege: Ried 1816, no. 285; Brackmann 1910-1911, p. 293. This 1215 privilege does not surv (...)

2The beginnings of the Schottenkloster movement lie in 1070s Regensburg, where a group of Irishmen was granted the use of the extramural church of Weih Sankt Peter in order to pursue a vita monachica, as described in the community’s earliest surviving charter from 10893. Around 1100 a second, larger monasterium scotorum was founded at Regensburg and dedicated to SS James and Gertrude. It was this latter monastery that would go on to serve as motherhouse to the various other Schottenklöster that began to be founded at towns across southern Germany and Austria from the 1130s onwards. In addition to the eight abbeys and two priories which belonged to the Regensburg-led union by the first half of the 13th century came at least two subject priories in Ireland as well as a relatively short-lived and poorly documented outpost in Kiev4. Papal privileges granted in 1185 and 1215 recognised the status of the Schottenklöster as a separate group within the Benedictine order, which were linked by structures such as an annual general chapter and by the rights of visitation and correction vested in the Regensburg motherhouse5. This union of monasteries survived into the early 16th century, despite frequent conflict between the constituent monasteries and the loss of a number of houses due to shortages in personnel or outside reform initiatives.

  • 6 BHL 5527; Weber 2010.
  • 7 On the dating of the Vita Mariani, see Flachenecker 1995, p. 95-96; Weber 2010, p. 164, 673-678; Ó (...)
  • 8 Marianus first appears in chapter 5 of the Life and his active role in the narrative ends in chapt (...)
  • 9 The author did, at least, know that Marianus was from the northern part of Ireland:  de… gente bo (...)
  • 10 Berschin describes the Vita Mariani as an «Apologie und Geschichte der irischen Peregrinatio des h (...)

3As monastic communities open exclusively to Irishmen, the very existence of the Schottenklöster was predicated on each of the monks having undertaken the long journey from Ireland to Central Europe. It was not necessarily the case, however, that the individual monks had originally left Ireland with the specific purpose of entering one of the Schottenklöster. This is particularly true of the group of monks that belonged to the Irish community at Regensburg in its early decades. The primary narrative source for this early period is the Vita Mariani Scotti, the Life of the Irish monk, Muiredach Macc Robartaig, whom the text portrays as the founding father of the Schottenklöster6. It was written at some point between 1177 and 1185, around 100 years after the death of Marianus, but much of its detail can be corroborated by contemporary sources7. The actual account of Marianus’ life occupies an unusually short section of the text, quickly giving way to a historia fundationis, which details the emergence and fortunes of the Schottenklöster up to the time of writing8. The section of the text that reports on the life of the saint is also untypical of a work of hagiography, insofar as it tells us nothing of Marianus’ birth, upbringing or religious formation in Ireland, and instead describes only his peregrinatio, beginning suddenly with his arrival at Bamberg in Franconia with two companions. Whether the anonymous author was deliberately placing the peregrinatio centre stage within the biography or simply lacked information concerning Marianus’ early life in Ireland cannot be determined9. The former explanation seems more likely, considering that the primary causa scribendi cited by the author in the opening chapter was to explain and justify the Irish peregrinatio tradition10. Indeed, the fact that the text offers no account of Marianus’ death, the saint instead departing the scene once he had decided to end his travels and remain at Regensburg, again suggests that the restriction of focus to his peregrinatio was deliberate.

  • 11 Weber 2010, p. 108-111. This quasi-novitiate would suggest that Marianus and his companions had no (...)
  • 12 Ibid., p. 112-119.
  • 13 Weber 2010, p. 120-123.
  • 14 The peregrinatio was a multi-facted phenomenon, composed of a fluctuating combination of pilgrimag (...)
  • 15 Weber 2010, p. 94.
  • 16 Reeves 1857-1861, p. 293-294; Hoffmann 2003, p. 101-104; Flachenecker 1995, p. 126-128; Weber 2010 (...)
  • 17 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1247; Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Fo (...)

4According to the description of Marianus’ journey, he and two Irish companions, Candidus and Iohannes, stopped first at Bamberg, where they are said to have spent a year living a monastic life under the wing of the local bishop, before being encouraged to take the Benedictine habit and enter the monastery of St. Michael11. After an unspecified amount of time they left Bamberg to continue their pilgrimage to Rome, stopping next at Regensburg, where they appear to have lived as incluses at the female canonries of Ober- and Niedermünster, with Marianus said to have copied numerous religious texts for the canonesses, his fratres and the town’s poor clerics and widows12. The three Irishmen again began to contemplate resuming their pilgrimage to Rome, but divine guidance led them to settle at the church of St. Peter (Weih Sankt Peter) outside the walls of Regensburg, where a claustrum et claustri ędificia were soon erected for the Irish monks13. It is clear from this and other sources that Marianus and his early companions can be categorized as monachi peregrini, that is monks who exiled themselves permanently from their homeland out of religious devotion, if not for less idealistic reasons14. These were monks to whom the journey – nudum Christum nudi sequentes, as the author of the Vita Mariani puts it – was central to the pursuit of their monastic vocation15. In a colophon to a now-lost psalter copied by Marianus for the canonesses at Niedermünster, he himself describes the year 1074 as the 7th of his peregrinatio16. In two surviving manuscripts, a set of Pauline epistles dating to 1079 and a compilation of monastic/ascetic texts dating to 1080, Marianus states that he copied the works for his fratres peregrini17. The earliest charter documenting the existence of the Irish monastic community at Weih Sankt Peter, an imperial privilege granted by Henry IV in 1089, uses extraordinary language to describe the monks, referring to them namely as

  • 18 … quidam Scottigenae pro cruciando corpore salvandaque anima patria sua exulerant ac diu orationum (...)

 certain Irishmen, who had exiled themselves from their homeland for the torment of the body and the salvation of the soul, and who, after spending a long time visiting places of prayer, had come finally to Regensburg18.

  • 19 Erdmann Fickermann 1950, p. 392-393.
  • 20 A fragment of a martyrology used by the Irish community, which dates, according to its editor, to (...)

5This is a group of monks defined by their mobility, by the "monastic journey" they had undertaken. The same charter refers to the monks as monachi peregrini, while the head of the community describes himself as Benedictus Christi peregrinorum servus in a 1087 letter sent to King Vratislav II of Bohemia19. The 1089 charter makes no reference to the particular monastic observance of the community at Weih Sankt Peter, but the limited evidence allows the conclusion that the Rule of St. Benedict was being followed from the beginning20.

  • 21 Angenendt 1972, p. 124-175; Angenendt 1982, p. 69-72.
  • 22 Weber 2010, p. 94. The Vita account of the three companions’ stay at the Abbey of St. Michael is i (...)
  • 23 Strong support for the veracity of this account is provided by the mid-12th-century Life of Bishop (...)
  • 24 Weber 2010, p. 126.

6The question then arises, as to whether the journeying of these monachi peregrini ended with their entry into a Benedictine convent. That the status of monachus peregrinus and the precept of stabilitas loci need not be incompatible, as long as the monastery in question was located outside the monk’s homeland, was pointed out by Arnold Angenendt in his seminal studies on the phenomenon21. In the case of at least some of the earliest Irish monks at Regensburg, nonetheless, becoming a member of a monastic community in a faraway town did not mark the end of their mobility. We have already seen that Marianus and his companions reportedly left a Benedictine monastery at Bamberg to continue their peregrinatio, albeit with the permission of the abbot of St. Michael’s. This clarification would have been important to the author of the Vita Mariani, he having asserted in the first chapter that he wished "to defend the monks of the Schottenklöster from those who would wish to ascribe them the stain of inconstancy" (nota inconstantię)22. Yet the Vita also informs us that one of Marianus’ initial companions, Iohannes, actually went on to also leave the newly founded Irish monastery at Weih Sankt Peter and ended up as an incluse at the Augustinian canonry of Göttweig in Lower Austria23. Another of the earliest Irish monks at Weih Sankt Peter, Clemens, described as ardentissimus Christi ac peregrinationis amator, also left the monastery, travelling to Jerusalem, where he died24. It seems that in the formative period of the Irish monastic community at Regensburg the monks’ pursuit of the peregrinatio pro Christo ideal was not necessarily compatible with the type of stabilitas envisaged by the Rule of St. Benedict. It may even have been that this tension gave rise to disagreement within the community at Weih Sankt Peter, as might be inferred from the use of the phrase cunctis renitentibus ("in the face of general resistance") in relation to the departure of Clemens.

  • 25 On the issue of the loss of Irish medieval manuscripts, see Ó Corráin 2011-2012.
  • 26 Regarding the Irish priories, see Coombes 1968; Ó Riain-Raedel 1992, p. 21-7; Flachenecker 1995, p (...)
  • 27 Sheehy, 1965, no. 307.
  • 28 Cum sicut lecta coram nobis tua petitio continebat novitii prioratuum in Ibernia tuo monasterio su (...)
  • 29 Sheehy, 1965, no. 308: quod nonnulli prepositi et monachi monasteriorum seu prioratuum ordinis s (...)

7I will return shortly to the Irish monks’ understanding of the concept of peregrinatio, but first look more closely at the issue of mobility in the context of the practicalities involved in sustaining up to ten Irish monasteries in Central Europe. With the foundation of the Abbey of SS James and Gertrude at Regensburg early in the 12th century and especially with the establishment of multiple daughter-houses from the 1130s onwards, new mechanisms needed to be put in place to source the recruits required to occupy the individual houses. This was achieved primarily through the foundation of subject priories in Ireland, which functioned as recruitment centres for the monasteries on the Continent. In keeping with the very poor survival rate of sources relating to medieval Irish monasteries, the Schottenkloster priories in Ireland are only sparsely documented25. There were at least two such houses, one certainly at Rosscarbery on Ireland’s south coast, another most probably at Cashel, which also lay in the southern kingdom of Munster26. Both of the priories appear to have been founded by the middle of the 12th century. Although little can be garnered from the extant sources regarding the day-to-day operation of these priories, a papal privilege dating to 1248 does give some indication as to the manner in which the transfer of novices from Ireland to the Continent occurred27. In it Pope Innocent IV grants the Regensburg abbot the right to delegate his responsibility to receive the professions of novices to the priors of the Irish houses, as the "distance and dangers of the roads" prevented the novices from travelling between Ireland and Regensburg for this purpose28. This change to the previous practice of the novices making their vows at the Regensburg motherhouse may have been designed to bolster the commitment of the new recruits before they left for the Continent, in the hope that they would be less likely to stray from the path on the long journey. A second privilege granted by Innocent IV to the Regensburg abbot in 1248 supports this theory. It complains of numerous superiors and monks of the Irish priories roaming about in the manner of gyrovagi and fleeing disciplinary proceedings, much to the detriment of their own souls and the reputation of their order29. It therefore grants the abbot the right to visit, correct and reform the houses, and to recall the fugitivi to their proper location.

  • 30 For an overview of the different journeys to Ireland see Breatnach 1977, p. 58-65; Flachenecker 19 (...)
  • 31 On the necrology: Ó Riain-Raedel 1984; Ó Riain-Raedel 1992. Concerning the Regensburg hagiographic (...)
  • 32 Breatnach 1977, p. 240-243.
  • 33 Regarding Charlemagne’s founding of Irish monasteries at Burtscheid and Cologne: Breatnach 1977, p (...)
  • 34 Breatnach 1977, p. 261.
  • 35 Weber 2010, p. 132-133.
  • 36 Erdmann Fickermann 1950, p. 393-395.
  • 37 See Flachenecker 1995, p. 108-109, 275-276, 337; Weber 2010, p. 460-461.
  • 38 On the Schottenkloster in Kiev, see Flachencker 1995, p. 271-277; Osterrieder 2000, p. 75-77; Kozu (...)
  • 39 Luard 1882, p. 78-80.

8The Irish connections of the Schottenkloster movement occasioned frequent travel between the Continent and Ireland not only as part of the recruitment process but also for fund-raising purposes, as is demonstrated by accounts in 12th-13th century sources of delegations travelling from Regensburg to royal centres in Ireland30. The large number of high-ranking royal and ecclesiastical patrons from Ireland listed in the communal necrology of the Schottenklöster testifies to the high level of contact with their homeland, as does the mass of Irish hagiographical material collected at the Regensburg Schottenkloster31. There is little information in the sources regarding the route followed by the Irish monks on their journeys to and from Ireland. One episode in a thirteenth-century foundation history written at the Regensburg monastery, the Libellus de fundacione ecclesie Consecrati Petri, does recount the return journey of one fund-raising party, which took them through Wales, England, Flanders, Laon, Aachen, Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt and Würzburg32. If one excludes the stops at Aachen and Cologne, which are likely attributable to the overriding, fantastical narrative of the Libellus, which sought to credit Charlemagne with the foundation of Irish monasteries at Burtscheid outside Aachen and at Cologne in addition to that at Weih Sankt Peter, the route may reflect that which was customarily taken at the time of the Libellus’ writing33. The return journey of the twelfth-century Regensburg abbot Gregorius described in the same work again takes him through Wales, England and Flanders34. The fund-raising journeys of Irish monks lead not only to Ireland ; the Vita Mariani includes an account of a journey undertaken by a monk named Mauritius to Kiev, where he received 100 Marks' worth of pelts from the rex Ruscie and the principes of the town35. According to the internal chronology of the Vita, this trip was undertaken around the time of the foundation of the Abbey of SS James and Gertrude in Regensburg, an event datable to circa 1100. This is the not the first record we have of an Irish monk on his travels in Eastern Europe. A second letter sent by the Irish community in Regensburg to King Vratislav II of Bohemia in 1090/1091 sought safe passage to Poland and back for an unnamed envoy36. It is possible that the nuntius in question was actually Mauritius37. The eastern connections of the Schottenklöster would culminate in the foundation of an Irish monastery at Kiev, the geographical spread of the Schottenkloster network stretching for a time to over 2700 km from west to east38. According to a 1242 charter preserved in Matthew of Paris’ Chronica Majora, the recent Mongol invasion, which seems to have marked the demise of the Schottenkloster at Kiev, had resulted in at least two Irish monks returning the full distance to their homeland via the Irish monastery in Vienna, where they appear to have been members of the community before being sent to Kiev39.

  • 40 The mid-13th-century Libellus de fundacione ecclesie Consecrati Petri gives the specific number of (...)
  • 41 Regarding the personnel difficulties experienced by the Schottenklöster, see Hammermayer 1976, p.  (...)

9The fact that each of the Schottenklöster belonged to this widespread network of monasteries that was united under the regimen of the Regensburg motherhouse, had, as has already been seen, considerable impact on the stabilitas loci of the Irish monks. The transfer of personnel within the union began with the establishment of daughter-houses in the 12th and 13th centuries, which led to groups of monks being sent from the Regensburg motherhouse to people the new foundations40. Although poorly documented, it can also be assumed that there was a good degree of movement between the different houses in subsequent centuries, particularly as the overall number of monks declined and the smaller monasteries had to be bolstered or closed41. A visitation protocol from 1319 offers a rare glimpse of the high level of mobility within the Regensburg-led union. In it Johannes, the then abbot of the Regensburg motherhouse, states that there were only four monks in his convent at the time, but that six others were absent for various reasons:

  • 42 Requisitus, quot monachi monasterio sint emissi, respondit, quod sex, duo missi sint in Yberniam p (...)

I asked him how many monks were missing from the monastery. He replied that six (were), two had been sent to Ireland for boys (pro pueris), two had been sent to Vienna on account of misdemeanours, which they had committed at night outside the monastery, one in Eichstätt administering the monastery there, a sixth, indeed, gone wandering about (vagabundus)42.

  • 43 Ó Riain 2016, p. 391-392; Vanderputten 2016, p. 454-455.
  • 44 Ó Riain-Raedel 1992.
  • 45 Wollasch 1998, p. 14-19; Wollasch 1999; Israel 2006, p. 159-162.
  • 46 Regula Benedicti, chap. 4.
  • 47 See Wollasch 1999.
  • 48 The evidence from papal privileges issued in the 12th and 13th centuries indicates that Schottenkl (...)
  • 49 Weber 2010, p. 164. Interestingly, the communal necrology of the Schottenklöster refers to decease (...)

10It seems clear from the historical record that there were different levels of community within the Schottenkloster movement. There were the individual convents, but there was also a "super-community" encompassing the brethren of all of the Schottenklöster43. This community would have been engendered and sustained by the travel of monks between the different houses as well as by the structures of general chapters and visitations that formed the framework of the Regensburg-led union. Conducive to this sense of community would also have been the shared commemoration of deceased brethren, as is documented in a necrology compiled at Regensburg from the mid-12th-century onwards, where the names of monks from all of the different Schottenklöster are recorded together44. As the Schottenkloster movement expanded, it is this sense of a super-community that is likely to have informed the monasteries’ approach to the issue of stabilitas, as laid out in the Rule of St. Benedict. As has long been noted, the Rule does not expressly prescribe stabiltas loci45. As set out in chapter 58, the vow taken by every new monk included instead the promise of simple stabilitas, while chapter 4 demands stabilitas in congregatione, so stability of community rather than of place46. Although the sources relating to the Schottenklöster contain no express guidelines or reflections upon the issue of stabilitas, it seems likely that they interpreted the stabilitas in congregatione rule in similar manner to the Cluniacs, where the relevant congregatio or community encompassed the brethren of all communities affiliated to the motherhouse rather than that contained within a single physical monastery47. Those novices making their profession, whether at a Schottenkloster priory in Ireland, at the Regensburg motherhouse or at one of the daughter-houses would, in effect, have been committing themselves to this larger community, rather than to any individual house48. The requisite conceptual distinction between community and place is already in evidence in the Vita Mariani, where the author describes how the two Irish monasteries at Regensburg constituted unus conventus utriusque loci in unitate pacis et obedientie, although the limited level of de iure and de facto independence from the motherhouse enjoyed by Weih Sankt Peter priory would not be comparable with that experienced by the abbeys within the Schottenkloster union49.

  • 50 See Ó Riain 2017.

11Finally, I will return briefly to the issue of the monachi peregrini. Outside of the early period at Regensburg there are no records of Irish monks leaving a Schottenkloster to continue their peregrinatio. It would appear that the stabilitas in congregatione precept of the Rule was respected, and those who fell foul of it were now to be classed as gyrovagi or, as expressed in the 1319 visitation report, vagabundi. Yet the idea of the monachus peregrinus remained central to the self-image of the Irish Benedictine monks50. The principal 12th- and 13th-century narrative texts written at Regensburg extoll the virtue of the peregrinatio and portray the monks of the Schottenklöster as the successors of the illustrious Irish sancti peregrini of the early medieval period, for example, Columbanus, Fursa, Gallus and Kilian. The author of the Vita Mariani prefaces the Life, which begins with an account of the activities of Irish saints and missionaries in Britain and on the Continent, with the line:

  • 51 Quapropter antecessores nostri nos quoque Christi pauperes pro remedio animarum de finibus occiden (...)

I will commend to you… why our predecessors and we also, the poor of Christ, following from a western land naked the naked Christ for the salvation of our souls, leaving behind our homeland and our dear relatives out of love and desire for a heavenly life51.

  • 52 «And they introduced the custom from that day forward for all Irishmen to visit sacred places and (...)
  • 53 Levison 1913. On this Life, see Weber 2009; Ó Riain 2017, p. 142-153.

12He thus firmly locates the twelfth century monks of the Schottenklöster within the long-standing peregrinatio tradition. The Vita Mariani and, even more, the mid-13th-century Libellus de fundacione ecclesie Consecrati Petri argued that Irishmen and the concept of the peregrinatio pro Christo were inextricably linked. The author of the latter, for example, asserted with regard to the early Irish peregrini: Et duxerunt in consuetudinem omnes Scoti ab illo die invisere loca sancta Christi et peregrinari52. A further text, the above-mentioned Vita Albarti archiepiscopi Casellensis, written at the Regensburg Schottenkloster at some point in the 12th-century, constitutes a veritable ode to the peregrinatio and invents the figure of Albartus, an ancient Archbishop of Cashel, who is said to have left his see to visit loca sancta before arriving at Regensburg, where he would end his days53. The Life thus provided a convenient saintly predecessor for the 12th century monks of the Schottenkloster.

  • 54 peregrini Scoti, videlicet compatriotae patronj nostrj, pretiosj martÿris Kiliani; Würzburg, Sta (...)

13By exploiting the legacy of real or imagined Irish saints, the monks of the Schottenklöster cultivated an image of themselves as monachi peregrini. Lacking a missionary purpose or a new form of monastic observance, this approach can be seen as a means of justifying the very existence of their Irish monastic colonies and carving out a niche for themselves within the crowded monastic landscape. Indeed, the potential of this strategy to yield dividends is evident in relation to the establishment of the daughter-house at Würzburg c. 1138, where in the earliest surviving charter the founder, Bishop Embricho, refers to the monks as "peregrini scoti, compatriots namely of our patron, the precious martyr Kilian"54. The promotion of the peregrinatio ideal, together with Irish exclusivity, the wide geographical spread of the monasteries and the generous interpretation of the stabilitas in congregatione precept meant journeying and the concept of the journey were fundamental to the functioning and identity of the medieval Schottenklöster.

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Notes

1 BHL 218; Levison 1913, p. 22-23.

2 On the general history of the Irish Benedictine monasteries in Germany, see Hammermayer 1976; Flachenecker 1995; Ó Riain-Raedel 2005; Weber 2010.

3 Gladiss Gawlik 1941-1978, no. 403.

4 In addition to the two houses in Regensburg there were Schottenklöster located at Würzburg, Nuremberg, Constance, Erfurt, Vienna, Eichstätt, Memmingen and Kelheim. The priories in Ireland will be discussed below.

5 1185 privilege: Ried 1816, no. 285; Brackmann 1910-1911, p. 293. This 1215 privilege does not survive, but its content is known from its citation in 13th- and 14th-century charters relating to the Regensburg, Erfurt and Vienna monasteries; Hammermayer 1976, p. 272; Flachenecker 1995, p. 293-394.

6 BHL 5527; Weber 2010.

7 On the dating of the Vita Mariani, see Flachenecker 1995, p. 95-96; Weber 2010, p. 164, 673-678; Ó Riain 2015, p. 136, n. 153.

8 Marianus first appears in chapter 5 of the Life and his active role in the narrative ends in chapter 10. He receives mentions in passing in chapters 11 and 12 and a final reference in the concluding chapter 24 (chapter numbers after the edition in Weber 2010).

9 The author did, at least, know that Marianus was from the northern part of Ireland:  de… gente borialis Hibernię finibus… (Weber 2010, p. 126).

10 Berschin describes the Vita Mariani as an «Apologie und Geschichte der irischen Peregrinatio des hohen Mittelalters»; Berschin 2001, p. 519.

11 Weber 2010, p. 108-111. This quasi-novitiate would suggest that Marianus and his companions had not been members of a Benedictine monastery prior to leaving Ireland. This would be highly probable in any case, as there is no evidence to suggest the existence of Benedictine convents in Ireland before the 12th century, with the possible exception of the Benedictine chapter that has been mooted for the cathedral in Dublin in the later 11th century; Gwynn Hadcock 1970, p. 70-71, 102-109; Flanagan 2010, p. 7-10.

12 Ibid., p. 112-119.

13 Weber 2010, p. 120-123.

14 The peregrinatio was a multi-facted phenomenon, composed of a fluctuating combination of pilgrimage, mission, adventure and asceticism, with the exiled or foreign status of the individual the key criterion. The relevant literature on the subject is extensive, but is concerned almost exclusively with sources dating from the 5th to 9th centuries; Hughes 1960; Charles-Edwards 1976; Angenendt 1972, p. 124-175; Angenendt 1982; Hayes-Healy 2005; Hayes-Healy 2013; Johnston 2016.

15 Weber 2010, p. 94.

16 Reeves 1857-1861, p. 293-294; Hoffmann 2003, p. 101-104; Flachenecker 1995, p. 126-128; Weber 2010, p. 762-764.

17 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1247; Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Fort Augustus Collection, Acc. 11218/1. See Reeves 1857-1861, p. 294-301; Dilworth 1965; Hoffman 2003, p. 105, 109-110; Flachenecker 1995, p. 128-134; Weber 2010, p. 753-761.

18 … quidam Scottigenae pro cruciando corpore salvandaque anima patria sua exulerant ac diu orationum loca visitantes Ratisponam tandem venerant; Gladiss Gawlik 1941-1978, no. 403.

19 Erdmann Fickermann 1950, p. 392-393.

20 A fragment of a martyrology used by the Irish community, which dates, according to its editor, to the second third or the third quarter of the 11th century, prescribed 12 lectiones on 18 April, where the events commemorated include the anniversary of the dedication of the church of Weih Sankt Peter; Hochholzer 2005, p. 46, 63, 65. The 12 readings accord with the stipulations of Chapters 11 and 14 of the Regula Benedicti, which govern the order of vigils on days of special celebration. Furthermore, in addition to the Benedictine training at Bamberg ascribed to him in the Vita Mariani, Marianus himself noted the feastday of the Translatio sancti Benedicti in a marginalium he added on 11 July, 1080 to one of the aforementioned manuscripts in his hand; Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Fort Augustus Collection, Acc. 11218/1 (see above, n. 17). Finally, the fact that the above-mentioned head of the Weih Sankt Peter monks in 1087 was named Benedictus also suggests the Benedictine Rule was being followed there at his point.

21 Angenendt 1972, p. 124-175; Angenendt 1982, p. 69-72.

22 Weber 2010, p. 94. The Vita account of the three companions’ stay at the Abbey of St. Michael is interesting for the fact that the author implies dissonances between the Irishmen and the remainder of the convent due to issues concerning language and discipline. It could be that such tensions led the Irishmen to leave St. Michael’s abruptly, perhaps having already formed the intention of founding an exclusively Irish monastery. It should, however, be noted that there is no independent source to confirm that Marianus and his companions did indeed spend time at St. Michael’s. I argue elsewhere that the Bamberg episode, which ultimately involved the three Irishmen leading an allegedly superior monastic existence in isolation from the remainder of the convent, can be read as a justification for the ethnic exclusivity of the Schottenklöster; Ó Riain 2016, p. 395.

23 Strong support for the veracity of this account is provided by the mid-12th-century Life of Bishop Altmann of Passau (BHL 313), founder of the canonry at Göttweig c. 1080, which records the arrival of Iohannes during Altmann’s episcopacy (1065-1091): Tempore venerandi praesulis Altmanni venit in montem Gotewich quidam presbyter religiosus, natione Scottus, professione monachus, nomine Iohannes; quem episcopus ob religionem vitae valde dilexit, et eum iuxta ecclesiam sanctae Mariae inclusum fecit; Wattenbach 1856, p. 240-241. On the Life and its dating, see Coué 1997, p. 127-145. That this Iohannes is the same as that mentioned in the Vita Mariani is confirmed by the commemoration of his death at 16 January in two Göttweig necrologies and in the communal necrology of the Schottenklöster, which was compiled at the Regensburg motherhouse; Dungel Fuchs 1901, p. 15-16, n. 8; Fuchs 1913, p. 451; Ó Riain-Raedel 1992, p. 57.

24 Weber 2010, p. 126.

25 On the issue of the loss of Irish medieval manuscripts, see Ó Corráin 2011-2012.

26 Regarding the Irish priories, see Coombes 1968; Ó Riain-Raedel 1992, p. 21-7; Flachenecker 1995, p. 282-7; Ó Riain-Raedel 2005, p. 58-63; Ó Riain 2008; Weber 2010, p. 485-492.

27 Sheehy, 1965, no. 307.

28 Cum sicut lecta coram nobis tua petitio continebat novitii prioratuum in Ibernia tuo monasterio subiectorum regulares observantias professuri ac recepturi a te benedictionis munus propter locorum distantiam et viarum discrimina predictum adire monasterium nequeant…

29 Sheehy, 1965, no. 308: quod nonnulli prepositi et monachi monasteriorum seu prioratuum ordinis sancti Benedicti in Ibernia tuo monasterio subiectorum per licentie campum discurrere velud girovagi ac eorum aliqui pro suis excessibus puniendi ad loca se remota transferre presumunt ut sic regularem effugiant disciplinam, alia plura committentes enormia in animarum suarum dispendium, ordinis eiusdem opprobium et scandalum plurimorum que limam apostolice correctionis exposcunt.

30 For an overview of the different journeys to Ireland see Breatnach 1977, p. 58-65; Flachenecker 1995, p. 277-82; Ó Riain-Raedel 2006, p. 204-12; Weber 2010, p. 477-89.

31 On the necrology: Ó Riain-Raedel 1984; Ó Riain-Raedel 1992. Concerning the Regensburg hagiographical collection: Bieler 1971, p. 233-234; Weber 2010, p. 735-740; Ó Riain-Raedel 2011, p. 147-149; Ó Riain 2015, p. 131-132.

32 Breatnach 1977, p. 240-243.

33 Regarding Charlemagne’s founding of Irish monasteries at Burtscheid and Cologne: Breatnach 1977, p. 191.

34 Breatnach 1977, p. 261.

35 Weber 2010, p. 132-133.

36 Erdmann Fickermann 1950, p. 393-395.

37 See Flachenecker 1995, p. 108-109, 275-276, 337; Weber 2010, p. 460-461.

38 On the Schottenkloster in Kiev, see Flachencker 1995, p. 271-277; Osterrieder 2000, p. 75-77; Kozubska-Andrusiv 2003, p. 204, 220; Weber 2010, p. 453-461. Whether the reported journey of Mauritius to Kiev was directly connected to the foundation of an Irish monastery there is not determinable. The earliest clear evidence for the existence of the Schottenkloster dates to the 13th century.

39 Luard 1882, p. 78-80.

40 The mid-13th-century Libellus de fundacione ecclesie Consecrati Petri gives the specific number of monks dispatched from Regensburg in some cases. These details are unlikely to be reliable, however, considering the distance in time from the events portrayed and the fact that the number is invariably twelve, in keeping with the medieval monastic topos; Breatnach 1977, p. 251-252, 266, 299. On the apostolic twelve topos in the context of new monastic foundations, see Hellerström 1977; Sonntag 2008, p. 81-82.

41 Regarding the personnel difficulties experienced by the Schottenklöster, see Hammermayer 1976, p. 307-310.

42 Requisitus, quot monachi monasterio sint emissi, respondit, quod sex, duo missi sint in Yberniam pro pueris, duo missi sint in Wiennam propter eorum insolencias, quas extra claustrum de nocte exercuerunt, unus in Astaviam ad procurandum ibi monasterium, sextus vero vadit vagabundus; Popp 1972, p. 100.

43 Ó Riain 2016, p. 391-392; Vanderputten 2016, p. 454-455.

44 Ó Riain-Raedel 1992.

45 Wollasch 1998, p. 14-19; Wollasch 1999; Israel 2006, p. 159-162.

46 Regula Benedicti, chap. 4.

47 See Wollasch 1999.

48 The evidence from papal privileges issued in the 12th and 13th centuries indicates that Schottenkloster daughter-houses had the right to receive the professions of new entrants; see Flachenecker 1995, p. 259, 299. The interplay between this entitlement and the practice of profession in Ireland or Regensburg laid out in the 1248 charter is difficult to gauge. It raises questions as to the extent to which there may have been a decentralized recruitment system in place and the issue of whether monks moving between different Schottenklöster made multiple professions, a not uncommon practice within the medieval Benedictine order. On the latter phenomenon, see Wollasch 1984; idem 1998, p. 14-19. It may be that the practice of the Schottenklöster in this regard was marked by the type of inconsistencies that appear to have pervaded the contemporary Cluniac system; Constable 1989.

49 Weber 2010, p. 164. Interestingly, the communal necrology of the Schottenklöster refers to deceased monks from the two Regensburg monasteries as monachus nostrae congregationis, whereas the name of the Schottenkloster is given in respect of other Irish monks; Ó Riain-Raedel 1992. This distinction reflects the special relationship between the motherhouse and Weih Sankt Peter and the different levels of community within the wider union.

50 See Ó Riain 2017.

51 Quapropter antecessores nostri nos quoque Christi pauperes pro remedio animarum de finibus occidentis nudum Christum nudi sequentes, patriam carosque propinquos amore ac desiderio uitę cęlestis derelinquentes… commendabo; Weber 2010, p. 92-94.

52 «And they introduced the custom from that day forward for all Irishmen to visit sacred places and peregrinate»; Breatnach 1977, p. 183. This sentiment echoes the words of Walahfrid Strabo in his 9th-century Vita sancti Galli (BHL 3247-3248): Nuper quoque de natione Scottorum, quibus consuetudo peregrinandi iam paene in naturam conversa est…; Krusch 1902, p. 336.

53 Levison 1913. On this Life, see Weber 2009; Ó Riain 2017, p. 142-153.

54 peregrini Scoti, videlicet compatriotae patronj nostrj, pretiosj martÿris Kiliani; Würzburg, Staatsarchiv, Standbuch 545, fol. 1v; Wieland, «Schottenkloster», reg. no. 1.

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Univestität Wien, diarmuid.oriain@univie.ac.at

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