In the early middle ages (roughly AD 500-1000), European civilization was in serious decline. The climate had gotten colder and wetter, resulting in a shorter growing season and declining population. People moved out of the cities into the countryside to survive, and as a result cities shrank, relocated, or disappeared altogether. With de-urbanization, education went into steep decline as well.

Roman imperial authority had collapsed in the Latin speaking half of the Empire, leaving local administration in the hands of the church as the last institution standing. The barbarian tribes that had migrated into the Empire during its decline brought their own ideas of government with them, which mixed with Roman and ecclesiastical administrative approaches to produce an uneasy blend that would eventually result in a new political system known as feudalism. Except during Charlemagne’s time (c.742-814), governing power was decentralized, pushed to local lords instead of kings by the press of political expediency and local circumstances.

Ireland was an exception to these trends in many respects. Since its conversion to Christianity under St. Patrick (387-461), Ireland developed a unique culture, with its clan-based social structure integrated with the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the monasteries. Because the ancient pagan Druids had been extremely well educated, the Irish believed all religious leaders should be educated in all areas of learning, and so the Irish monasteries became great centers of education.

Early Life

Into this world, Columbanus was born in 540. As a young man, he was quite good looking and attracted the attention of a number of young women. But he was also serious about his faith, so he consulted an older woman about what to do. She replied (slightly paraphrased), “Do you remember Samson? David? Solomon? Women are trouble. Get thee to a monastery!”

So Columbanus withdrew to the monastic life over the objections of his family. He literally had to step over his mother’s prostrate body at the threshold to his house when he left for the monastery of Lough Erne. He continued his education there, then moved on to the monastery at Bangor.

At about the age of 40, Columbanus began hearing a call to leave the monastery and go on a peregrinatio to preach the Gospel on the continent. His abbot initially refused to release him: Columbanus was the head of the monastic school and was needed there. When Columbanus renewed his request a few years later, however, the abbot reluctantly agreed.

Peregrinatio

Columbanus set sail to Britain, then across the English Channel to Carnac in Britanny, where he and his twelve companions began their mission (c.585). He preached his way across the Frankish kingdom until he came to Burgundy, where he was welcomed by King Gontram and invited to stay. Columbanus agreed, and selected Annegray, a half-ruined Roman fortress in the Vosges Mountains, to start his first monastery.

Columbanus’s fame was such that he was quickly inundated with people from all walks of life who wished to join his community. He had so many people coming to him that he started a second monastery at Luxeuil in 590, then another at Fontaines, all of them governed by a strict rule he produced based on the practice of the monastery at Bangor.

Conflict

Columbanus’s popularity began raising the ire of the local bishops. They resented his influence, the strict rules in his monasteries, his using the Celtic approach for setting the date of Easter rather than the Roman method, and the fact that he refused to submit to their authority. (In Ireland, bishops were subordinate to abbots, but on the continent, it was the other way around.) Columbanus defended his views strongly both locally and in letters to the papacy.

When Gontram died, he was succeeded by his son Childebert, who also died and passed the kingdom to his son Thierry. Thierry liked Columbanus, but when Columbanus began criticizing the immorality of the royal court, Thierry turned on him and demanded that he follow local church practices. When he refused, he was arrested.

The guards did not keep a close watch on him, perhaps because they were nervous about arresting a holy man. He soon escaped custody and returned to his monastery. Thierry then arrived with troops determined to send Columbanus and his companions back to Ireland. They were taken down the Loire River to the coast and put on a ship. A storm drove it back to shore, however, and the ship’s captain refused to have anything more to do with the brothers, so they once again began traveling through the Frankish territories.

In Switzerland

They made their way to Lake Zurich, where persecution by the pagan population prevented them from settling. They then passed on to Lake Constance, where the local chapel with the relics of St. Aurelius had been converted into a pagan temple complete with idols. Gall, one of Columbanus’s companions, knew the local language, and so Columbanus called the locals together, threw the idols into the lake, and had Gall preach to them. The population was converted to Christianity, and Gall stayed there to lead the church.

In 612, local opposition once again caused Columbanus to move, this time into Italy. Gall remained behind, leading to conflict with Columbanus. About a century later, a monastery was founded there and named St. Gall in his honor. The monastery would be the nucleus of the town of St. Gall, which then became the capital of the Canton of St. Gall.

His Last Monastery

Northern Italy was ruled by the Lombards, an Arian tribe, though their king Agiluf had converted to orthodox Christianity due to the influence of his wife Theodelinda. Agiluf welcomed Columbanus and invited him to settle in Lombardy. Columbanus accordingly founded a monastery at Bobbio in 614, where he would live out the last year of his life.

Columbanus’s Impact

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Columbanus’s work on the continent. He became the prototype for many other Irish missionaries who preached the Gospel throughout Europe. His own monastery at Luxeuil sent out at least 63 known missionaries credited with starting over 100 other monasteries.

Along with evangelism, however, Columbanus’s impact was felt most strongly in the field of education. Like all Irish saints, Columbanus believed very strongly that spiritual leadership and education were inseparable. His monasteries educated many of the bishops and important administrators in the Frankish court. These men were invariably reformers, shaped by the rigor and seriousness of Irish monasticism.

Scriptoria and Libraries

His monasteries were also famous for their scriptoria and became major centers of literacy and learning. Many or the surviving manuscripts from continental Europe produced over the next century came from scribes trained at the scriptoria at Luxeuil, Corbie (a daughter monastery of Luxeuil founded in 559 or 561), or Bobbio. Without his work, literacy would have all but disappeared in Gaul, and we would have even fewer manuscripts from that era than we do today.

Along with copying manuscripts, Columbanus’s monasteries also developed some of the most celebrated libraries in medieval Europe. Bobbio was particularly famous for its library, so much so that it was a major inspiration for the library in Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose. It was also a stronghold for orthodoxy in Arian Lombardy. And although it was founded after Columbanus’s day, the monastery at St. Gall had one of the largest libraries in Europe, again started by Irish and British monks. Almost unique among medieval libraries, it remains intact today. It is also being digitized to make it available to scholars around the world.

Spreading the Irish Penitential System

Columbanus also wrote an extremely influential Penitential. This manual introduced the Irish method of private confession and penance to the laity, and not just for monks. Columbanus’s Penitential was the earliest document of its kind to be used on the continent and had a considerable impact on the development of the Sacrament of Penance in the region.

Columbanus was the most important Irish missionary monk on the continent. Despite the controversy surrounding him, he introduced many of the best features of Celtic Christianity to western Europe, leaving a lasting legacy on both the Catholic church and the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms.