Making St Brigit real in the early middle ages

Abstract

Brigit of Kildare is the first Irish saint to be celebrated in detail by Irish writers. Her cult enjoyed great depth and popularity. Nevertheless, Brigit's very existence has been doubted; she has been recast as a pre-Christian goddess despite an overwhelming disparity in evidence. This paper reframes our approaches to the origins of her cult through examining how the earliest writers understood her and made her real for their audiences, real through shaping her sanctity, her historicity and her family relationships. They placed Brigit along a gender continuum where sanctity intersected biology. Yet, Brigit has been treated differently to Irish male saints, becoming a secondary character in her own biographies, reductively overshadowed by a barely attested goddess. It is time for a revitalised appreciation of Brigit as an actual woman, depicted by her first hagiographers as pushing against the grain of an elitist and patriarchal society.

Introduction

Now Saint Brigit, whom God foreknew and predestined according to his own image, was born in Ireland of Christian and noble parents (Christianis nobilibusque parentibus)…²

When morning came and the sun had risen, the druid's bondmaid (ancilla magi) came to the house carrying a vessel full of milk which had just been milked, and when she had put one foot across the threshold of the house and the other foot outside, she fell astride the threshold and gave birth to a daughter.³

These short extracts are from among the earliest extant documents commemorating Brigit (d. 524/26), a keystone saint of the early medieval Irish Church and the object of ongoing veneration for almost as long as Irish history has been recorded.⁴ Moreover, the texts from which they are taken, the HibernoLatin Vita S. Brigitae by Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare, and the anonymous Vita Prima S. Brigitae lie at the beginnings of Irish hagiography, the former dating to the seventh century and the latter containing materials from that era.⁵ It is noteworthy that at this early stage the portrayals of Brigit displayed an astonishing complexity, suggesting a well-developed and vibrant cult. Cogitosus emphasises a Christian identity while Vita Prima evokes a world where pagans and Christians live side-by-side. Brigit's encounters with non-Christians form an important thread of this biography. It is even arguable that Brigit is the very first Irish person about whom Irish writers wrote in detail.⁶ This is significant because apart from the voluminous sources dedicated to Brigit, written in Latin and the vernacular, less than a handful of Irish female saints received an individual life.⁷ More frequently they appear in the lives of male saints, sometimes through extended anecdotes, or in other related documents such as martyrologies.⁸ This extraordinary achievement by an Irish woman has been obscured by debates about her identity, indeed her very existence, that will be explored later in the paper. What does it say about the status of Brigit that she was so celebrated in a society that, like its neighbours, was essentially patriarchal?

Part of the answer lies in the strength and malleability of her many-faceted cult; it had the flexibility to reinvent itself through the centuries while simultaneously retaining a central focus upon the saint. Medieval Irish writers imagined Brigit as one of the earliest Christians in Ireland, as the founder of the great ecclesiastical institution of Kildare, as the sole woman in the Irish Church with the status of a bishop and as a patron of the powerless.⁹ More recently, she has been interpreted as the echo of a goddess inundated by a tsunami of Christian patriarchy, perhaps the avatar of a universal divine feminine.¹⁰ Scholars have delved diligently and deeply in search of Indo-European associations; even the extensive and dynamic modern folklore surrounding Brigit has been interpreted as being essentially pagan.¹¹ Others have stressed Christian elements, especially her virginity and her access to divine power.¹² How is it possible to make sense of this riot of reinvention? The first step is to recognise the dangers inherent in trying to encompass a composite Brigit who embodies all of these aspects. Arguably, her characteristics, culled from texts written in different centuries, in different languages and for different reasons, have propelled the study of the saint into territories distant from the historicity emphasised by the earliest texts written about her. Most damagingly, the composite Brigit obscures what Thomas Charles-Edwards has identified as key to her early cult: its variety, its particularity and its appeal to distinct audiences, elements that can be carefully differentiated and analysed.¹³

This paper will centre on the perceptions of early medieval Irish authors, particularly those of the seventh century. These writers provide the first sustained insights into who Brigit was believed to be as they situated her within rich ecclesiastical worlds interconnecting with complex social and political landscapes. By necessity, the fascinating evolution of the cult in later centuries will not be considered in detail, nor will its dissemination beyond Ireland: these are subjects deserving of their own space and analysis.¹⁴ Instead, the paper will examine how Brigit was thoroughly grounded and historicised during the crucial early phase of cult development. She acquired characteristics that celebrated her as a woman, while also asserting her uniqueness. In effect, Brigit was made real. Finally, this reality, itself, will be explored. Brigit was a real saint for the multitudes who prayed to her. Why then has her actuality been so questioned within both scholarship and popular culture?

Sources and approaches

These questions necessitate a consideration of sources and approaches, ones that open to a deeper contextualisation of the early medieval cult. It is accepted that the life by Cogitosus dates to early in the third quarter of the seventh century and was composed for the great monastery of Kildare, which claimed Brigit as its patron.¹⁵ Cogitosus was admired as the founder of Irish hagiography by Muirchú moccu Machthéni, author of an influential life of Patrick, who flourished some years later and recorded his debt to him.¹⁶ The date of Vita Prima is less secure. The Bollandists believed that it was the earliest of the lives, hence its name in modern scholarship.¹⁷ It has been linked to the clerical authors Ultán of Ardbraccan (d. 657) and Ailerán of Clonard (d. 665), both of whom were believed to have written about the saint.¹⁸ The lives share roughly thirty episodes, although not in the same order nor with identical wording and details, complicating their relationship.¹⁹ This replication is one of the main reasons that scholars have argued that the life by Cogitosus was incorporated alongside other traditions as part of the creation of Vita Prima by a compiler, perhaps working in the eighth century.²⁰ However, the reverse argument has also been made with a mid-seventh century Vita Prima providing basic raw materials for the more polished and literary text by Cogitosus.²¹ The consensus is that while Vita Prima may not be earlier than Cogitosus, it contains a preponderance of seventh-century matter and affords insights into the cult of Brigit during that era. On balance, it is clear that one of the lives is a source for the other but this did not stop either from developing its own approach. Given this overlap, the following discussion will indicate when this occurs while focusing on what is most relevant to the overall themes of each life. Thus, Cogitosus provides a full account of how Brigit's status powered Kildare's extensive ecclesiastical ambitions in material that is unique to him.²² The physical reality of Kildare frames his narrative and opens a remarkable window into religious life in the seventh century. His skilful presentation of Brigit is just as significant as political interests. She is far from a political cipher, being a fully imagined saint whose Christian virtues are constantly glorified. In contrast, Vita Prima de-emphasises her primary ecclesiastical foundation, organising the text around a series of journeys undertaken by Brigit.²³ Despite the disparate material, the author shaped his text to ensure that Brigit emerges with a coherent biography, embedded in her relationships with people living in a partly Christian Ireland.²⁴ Together, these early lives ground Brigit, one institutionally, the other temporally.

The vitae share methodological biases as well as drawing on the same fund of miracle stories. Both were composed by male ecclesiastics, not surprising in a society where high-status men were favoured over other groups regardless of gender.²⁵ Although there is no agreement on the authorship of Vita Prima all the candidates are men; Cogitosus himself indicates that he is a monk of Kildare.²⁶ Early medieval Irish writers constructed many representations of women, often justifying female subordination in society and through time.²⁷ This does not imply that texts articulate uniform attitudes or that it is not possible through carefully examining relevant sources to capture the importance of those marginalised in standard histories, including women, children and the unfree.²⁸ Moreover, texts linked with the veneration of saints are among the most valuable for this examination because of their efforts to depict the lived world in which the saint operated. Patrick, to take one example, is portrayed by his hagiographer Muirchú as interacting with various social classes while on his mission. The vita emphasises elites but not exclusively; both men and women feature, men being more prominent but female characters are also important.²⁹

This picture is complexified by the role of gender as an organising principle within early medieval Irish society.³⁰ However, gender is neither monolithic nor identical with biological sexual difference, an insight highlighted in recent scholarship that emphasises the gender continuum in preference to a binary.³¹ A useful illustration is the rare case of an Irish woman inheriting her father's estate. In this instance, the law allowed her to be counted as a man in some circumstances, with concomitant expanded rights, creating an intersectionality between property ownership and gender.³² Furthermore, some early Church Fathers believed that ascetic virgins could transcend the female state and be spiritually transformed into men, ridding themselves of an inherent susceptibility to sin.³³ For example, Samthann (d. 739), abbess of Clonbroney, is described in the Tallaght Memoir as living with such outstanding austerity that when she pierces her face to the bone with the pin of a brooch, no blood flows from the wound.³⁴ Upon squeezing the wound, the saint is able to wring one drop of water from it. This references an established medical and theological tradition that associated excess of blood with impurity.³⁵ A female virgin was potentially masculine, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. This is expressed clearly in an early life of Monenna (d. 517), abbess and founder of Killeavy: she is celebrated as having a manly soul in a female body.³⁶ As Samthann and Monenna demonstrate, gender is a spectrum. These nuances are important when considering how Brigit was depicted by early medieval writers.

Making Brigit real as a saint

Cogitosus and Vita Prima situate Brigit carefully, creating a saint in well-delineated lived environments. The former establishes his life within a pre-existing tradition of knowledge. From the beginning Cogitosus claims that his is an authoritative account, written for Brigit's Church and drawing on an institutional tradition of well-informed elders who are experts in the saint's biography.³⁷ His is an official vita, meant to serve Kildare theologically, institutionally and politically. He underpins Kildare's episcopal status through portraying the positive relationship between Brigit and Bishop Conlaíd, Kildare's other patron.³⁸ Cogitosus focuses on a small number of main themes, especially the importance of virginity and Brigit's role within secular and ecclesiastical society. As his political alignments have been discussed in detail elsewhere, the emphasis here will be on how he makes Brigit real for an ecclesiastic audience, the monks (fratres) of Kildare whom he addresses in his prologue and epilogue.³⁹ It is telling of the author's mindset that he does not explicitly include the female religious community at Kildare, despite his direct references to them in the life.⁴⁰ Vita Prima has a different hinterland. It lacks the intense monastic focus of Cogitosus and appears to address as wide a readership as possible. Telling arguments have been made about its political positioning, one that projects a harmonious relationship between the cults of Brigit and Patrick.⁴¹ The fact that it is written in Latin may seem to limit its reach, given that this was the language of a very small number of people, mainly members of a literate elite. However, Latin texts could be translated for vernacular delivery; the very fact that so much of Vita Prima foreshadows the written tradition about Brigit that became dominant in Irishlanguage sources makes this an attractive possibility.⁴²

The Brigit of Cogitosus is consistently portrayed as an ideal virgin who incarnates Kildare's importance through her virtues, transcending any negative connotations of her gender. He creates a Brigit who is relevant to a monastic audience. Throughout, she acts as a saintly model worthy of Christ and of the ascetic traditions of Christianity. As Seán Connolly points out, Cogitosus aims to inculcate profound theological lessons through his vita.⁴³ In these terms, his achievement is impressive. The hagiographer's meaningful focus on virginity contributes to an image of the saint that is rooted in her power and in her empathy for those who lack it. Cogitosus' Brigit lives the Christian virtues. Most Irish lives, Latin and vernacular, do refer to their subjects' virginity, but stereotypically: a saint is a virgin and a virgin is a saint. Moreover, virginity was particularly stressed for female sanctity because women were believed to be more prone to sexual sin than men.⁴⁴ Cogitosus was not simply citing a Christian commonplace, however, and is far more interested in the moral power of virginity than almost any other Irish hagiographer. The saint's virginity is foundational to all that she achieves: he begins and ends his life by emphasising it, just as be begins and ends his life with Kildare.⁴⁵ Furthermore, Cogitosus explores the concrete implications of Brigit's virginity for her and for others. It is her love of it that leads her to reject her parents desire that she marry; it is this love that persuades Bishop Mac Caille to ignore parental wishes and place the veil upon Brigit's head.⁴⁶ It is even the reason behind the oft-quoted miracle where Brigit 'heals' a lapsed virgin of pregnancy, causing it to disappear.⁴⁷ Virginity makes the saint the most blessed chief abbess on the island.⁴⁸

Cogitosus interiorises Brigit's commitment, a commitment that does not preclude positions of authority: it leads to them. Thus, Brigit is frequently at prayer. Unlike Patrick, whose prayers in Muirchú's vita are tightly linked to his role as a vessel for destructive public displays of divine wrath,⁴⁹ Brigit's are contemplative. For example, in one miracle Brigit is described at prayer while journeying in her chariot.⁵⁰ One of the two horses breaks free of the yoke but the saint is so deep in contemplation that she does not notice. God intervenes so that the yoke remains suspended and Brigit continues to travel onwards, engrossed in the divine. At journey's end she addresses an assembly, presumably drawing on the well of her prayers, a powerful example of inner virtue underpinning public authority. The same miracle in Vita Prima is less pointed: Brigit is accompanied by nun and charioteer, while a king acts as bystander, making the entire scene cluttered.⁵¹ Similarly, at an earlier point in the life by Cogitosus, Brigit throws her wet clothes over a sunbeam to dry, believing the beam to be a solid tree. Cogitosus states that her eyes are dazzled but the implication is that she is dazzled by God and moves through the exterior world as if it was transparent.⁵² Brigit has witnesses for these miracles but, unlike Muirchú's Patrick, there is no overt public display of dominance; there is no enemy. Brigit's luminous power is the natural outgrowth of her inner purity. It allows her to negotiate a movement from an interior world, which could be coded as female, into a public male world. Brigit is at home on the gender continuum; her depiction by Cogitosus rejects an essentialist gender binary.

Vita Prima's Brigit is also empowered by virginity, but less centrally due to the life's greater length and different focus. Vita Prima is explicitly engaged with hagiographical traditions connected with Patrick and is keen to place Brigit in relationship to them, another example of its overarching historicisation. An example of the impact of this dynamic on the construction of Brigit's sanctity is an extended passage found in Vita Prima but not in Cogitosus. This describes her friendship with an unnamed angel.⁵³ Brigit tells her nuns how he enables her to hear the music of heaven as well as listen to the masses of holy men in distant lands. This is clearly an allusion to Patrick's angel, Victor, a hagiographical mainstay of the saint by the seventh century.⁵⁴ Unlike Victor, however, Brigit's angel does not stamp footprints on the landscape, being more quietly effective. Brigit tells her nuns that in childhood she made a stone altar as a game and the angel provided the altar legs to complete it. The Vita Prima saint is a visionary whose sanctity flows from her virginity but also from those associations that place her within a consciously evoked fifth- and sixth-century context. The angel, echoing Patrick's, is one element as is the prophecy of her future greatness, proclaimed by a druid, and her subsequent birth on a threshold, hinting at spiritual and historical liminalities.⁵⁵ In addition, Brigit is herself the subject of a vision within Vita Prima that results in her being glorified as a type of the Virgin Mary, a scene with no parallel in Cogitosus.⁵⁶ Brigit is not simply an extraordinary contemplative whose virtues can inspire a monastic audience. She is a participant in a complex conversion process, a portrayal that will be discussed shortly in detail. Ultimately, for the compiler of Vita Prima, virginity is only one, albeit important, aspect of Brigit's sanctity.

However, Cogitosus is certainly not one-note. His Brigit appeals on a number of levels, not least because of her profound circumvention of the deeply unequal social hierarchy that suffused early medieval Irish life. Seán Connolly notes that 23 of the 32 chapters of Cogitosus are concerned with the poor, the socially outcast and with the duties of hospitality towards all, regardless of station.⁵⁷ As Cogitosus remarks at the opening of his prologue, God has 'power to make great things out of the smallest' (sed potens est Deus de minimis magna facere), while alluding to the Old Testament story of Elijah and the poor widow, a deft foreshadowing of Brigit's care for the impoverished.⁵⁸ The usual easy assumption of elite dominance in Irish hagiography is upended: Brigit is the child of nobles but not their champion. This social aspect can be traced in Vita Prima as well, especially in its insistence that Brigit's mother, Broicsech, was a slave.⁵⁹ However, the prophecies and miracles surrounding Brigit pre- and post-partum align her with narratives of Irish heroes, where unusual parentage and marvellous births functioned as a sign of special status.⁶⁰ The emphasis on care for the non-elite is clearer in Cogitosus and forms a key ingredient in his life of Brigit, partly because the streamlined brevity of the vita allows each of the major themes more weight. For example, it underpins the story of the uneducated man, also found in Vita Prima, who kills the tame fox of a king and is sentenced to death as a result.⁶¹ This fox was prized because it played tricks for the king and his followers. In order to save the man's life from an unjust sentence Brigit produces a wild fox, who performs the same tricks as the dead one, leading the king to release his prisoner. Upon his release, the wild fox escapes, showing that the king's actions had been wrong in the first place. Usually, Cogitosus does not engage in direct criticism of rulers. His strategy is to highlight Brigit's active help for those who need it, often those engaged in agricultural labour and husbandry. She is a provider of deceptively simple miracles that locate her firmly within the lives of ordinary people, reminding the monastic audience of Christ's care for the poor, leavened with an Irish twist. These include miracles involving harvesting, livestock (pigs, cattle and sheep), and weaving.⁶² Brigit engages in basic manual tasks such as churning, described as women's work, milking a cow, and cooking bacon in a cauldron.⁶³ This is the world of everyday life and everyday concerns, concerns illuminated by Brigit's sanctity. Her work is clearly gendered, in accord with Irish norms and expectations. However, her miraculous power acts for both women and men.

In comparison, Vita Prima's saint is a highly critical participant in an aristocratic political world. The brutality of this milieu is contrasted unfavourably with the life of ordinary people, particularly in a memorable passage where Brigit declares that the sons of kings are the sons of serpents and of blood except for a few elected by God (exceptis paucis electis a Deo). This radical and startling denunciation resonates through several connected chapters in the vita where violence across various social groups is criticised.⁶⁴ These have been analysed in detail by Richard Sharpe who demonstrates that they relate to the practice of díberg, a type of lawlessness in which bands of armed men committed murder and devastation.⁶⁵ These passages are a witness to destructive and unpredictable mayhem, also powerfully described by Adomnán in his Vita Columbae, written towards the end of the seventh century. He tells of how a young woman is murdered in front of Columba and his master Gemmán by 'an oppressor of the innocent' (innocuorum inmitis persequutor).⁶⁶ Indeed, Adomnán's sponsorship of the Lex Innocentium, designed to protect non-combatants from warfare, and promulgated in 697, is revealing of the extent to which violence was regarded as deeply problematic within some circles.⁶⁷ Furthermore, in these chapters of Vita Prima Brigit is not only a critic of violence, she also prevents it. In consecutive episodes, she uses miraculous subterfuge to save Conall and Cairpre, feuding royal brothers and ancestors of competing Uí Néill branches, from each other, causes Conall to repent, as does a king in the midland region of Brega who unjustly tries to kill a prisoner.⁶⁸ Moreover, when Brigit saves a visiting king from being murdered she is able to make peace between him and his enemies.⁶⁹ The image of Brigit as peacemaker is a powerful and profound critique of aristocratic Irish society and a core aspect of her sanctity in Vita Prima.

Therefore, although the lives share miracles and themes, their different strategies create distinct ways of making Brigit real as a saint. Cogitosus, keyed to his monastic audience, shapes a saint who embodies Christian virtues above all else. She is distinguished by a commitment to virginity and to the poor. She is depicted living a simple existence and engaged in the manual labour expected of a woman. Brigit's mission to illuminate the ordinary with the divine ties her to the rhythms of Irish agriculture, of harvest and of husbandry. The saint's concomitant interior spirituality empowers her and her followers at Kildare, moving her beyond a gender binary. The Brigit of Vita Prima shares these virtues but they are framed in different contexts. Vita Prima's saint is far more critical of the secular modus vivendi that dominated early medieval Irish life, one that depended on a constant level of conflict and rivalry. This is partly because Vita Prima's Brigit experiences more of the island through her travels bringing her into contact with its elites. The saint's position in negating and negotiating violence is an important part of how her sanctity is realised in a carefully constructed historical setting.

Making Brigit's fifth century real

From the outset the compiler of Vita Prima presents Brigit in a chronologically consistent manner. The life consciously places Brigit within the conversion era making it crucial to the structure and themes of the narrative. The non-Christian world is at the centre of the extended section devoted to Brigit's youth, from the womb through birth, childhood and early adulthood.⁷⁰ In contrast, Cogitosus explains that he has organised Brigit's miracles inversely rather than chronologically.⁷¹ The Kildare writer is not entirely timeless in approach, but his saint is made real through sanctity, not chronology. It would be difficult for a reader unaware of when Brigit was believed to have lived to deduce it from Cogitosus. Throughout the vita, it is hard to tell that Brigit was imagined as coming into adulthood in the midst of great social and religious change. It is only there by the shadow of implication. His declaration that Brigit's parents are Christian may imply that this is worth noting because it was not normative in the fifth century. It can be speculated that Brigit's role as a preacher is envisioned within a conversion context.⁷² However, it is more likely meant to underscore that she is a teacher of the laity. The lengthy miracle of the millstone that refuses to grind a druid's grain is more clearcut, although the most marked aspect of the episode is its localisation in Kildare, establishing the millstone as a secondary relic for the faithful.⁷³ It functions as a source of post-mortem miracles that collapse the temporal gulf dividing Brigit from the era of Cogitosus. The saint transcends time and Cogitosus is more interested in this than in her fifth-century origins.

Vita Prima provides striking contrast. Brigit's future greatness is prophesied by a druid while she is still in the womb, a foretelling that is later echoed by bishops Mel and Melchu as well as by an unnamed holy man. This series of pre-partum prophecies is rounded out when another druid predicts the imminent birth of a special child, the future Brigit.⁷⁴ Furthermore, religious affiliations seem purposefully fuzzy, particularly in the childhood sections of the life. It is unclear whether Brigit's parents are Christian or not. Although Dubthach, for example, invokes God, so does the second druid who is explicitly pagan until converted by Brigit.⁷⁵ It is reminiscent of the formula found in several Ulster cycle tales, tongu do día toinges mo thúath 'I swear by the God that my people swear by', leaving the identity of the god in question ambiguous.⁷⁶ The life foregrounds that the saint's mother, Broicsech, is a slave who endures a series of deeply unequal relationships until Brigit manages to buy her freedom, creating a moving parallel between freedom and Christianisation.⁷⁷ The saint is raised in the household of a poet and then of the second druid. The latter experiences visions and insights, while still a pagan, including a dream of Brigit's miraculous baptism by two white-clothed otherworldly clerics.⁷⁸ The first overtly Christian individual that Brigit meets, apart from the baptising clerics as an infant, is her foster-mother, a virgin who milks a cow to feed the saint.⁷⁹ It is the druid who facilitates the arrangement as he recognises his own impurity is the reason that the young Brigit cannot eat his food without vomiting. This portrayal is in almost complete contrast with the depiction of druids in the seventh-century lives of Patrick, particularly in Muirchú's vita.⁸⁰ The latter offers a model of confrontational conversion in which belief systems collide with only one winner. It is also rapid, taking place within the span of Patrick's triumphal mission. Vita Prima suggests a very different model in which change is gradual and non-confrontational. It takes the druid several years before he converts but the process is a plausible one based on his foster-familial relationship with Brigit. Intriguingly, the closest to this in Patrician hagiography is Tírechán's account of the conversion of the daughters of Lóegaire.⁸¹ Their baptism by Patrick catalyses that of the druid fosterfather of one of them and of his brother, also a druid, although the effect is instant rather than gradual.

Comparisons with the Patrician texts can be explored in even further depth because Vita Prima includes an extensive section devoted to Brigit's activities alongside Patrick. Through a series of episodes, it is made clear that Patrick is the senior figure, but it is equally clear that Brigit is not overshadowed.⁸² The differences between this account and that of Muirchú, in particular, are arresting. One of the major events involving both saints in Vita Prima takes place at an assembly at Tailtiu where Brigit miraculously clears Bishop Brón of a false accusation of paternity.⁸³ Following his exoneration, Bishop Brón converts a non-Christian man and his family who had been resistant to Patrick and his followers up to this point. In turn, Patrick recognises Brigit's efficacy and provides her with the priest Nad Froích to be her charioteer and, by implication, her ally in Christianisation.⁸⁴ Significantly, changes in belief are viewed in one of Brigit's visions, as the work of a plough-team rather than of an individual, work that can also be undone, a far cry from the single generation conversion event suggested by Muirchú.⁸⁵ Moreover, as Charles-Edwards argues, Brigit is most easily interpreted as a saint inspired by New Testament models, contrasting with the Old Testament archetypes that are so central to the cult of Patrick.⁸⁶ In Vita Prima this extends to creating a fellowship of saints, mirroring that of the apostles. The saints of Vita Prima co-operate, cajole, have visions, and impress the laity through their outstanding Christianity. This teamwork brings Brigit and Patrick together, not simply as pre-eminent saints or to suggest a paradigmatic relationship between their cults; their contact gives historical and thematic depth to the text. The appearance of Bishop Íbar, a particularly shadowy figure associated with the earliest Christianity in Ireland is a case in point.⁸⁷ Íbar's sole impact in the early Patrician texts is in a list of bishops included in Tírechán's Collectanea.⁸⁸ Brigit and members of her community visit Íbar in Mag Géisille during the Lenten season in a Vita Prima episode that combines themes of hospitality, prayer and the efficacy of the Eucharist.⁸⁹ As this episode shows true Christian belief is sustained by ongoing practice. Brigit actively seeks to adopt the liturgy of Rome, by twice sending experts there to be taught it and subsequently return with that knowledge to Ireland.⁹⁰ When one adds to this the large number of miracles associated with Church holidays, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Vita Prima is placing Christian belief within the context of correct liturgical practice, an area of ongoing debate in the early medieval Irish Church, especially in relationship to the celebration of Easter.⁹¹

The life's historical framing involves more than the creation of a fellowship of saints. It is bolstered by clever uses of chronology and travel. Daniel Mc Carthy has perceptively noted that Cogitosus mentions just five individual placenames and seven personal names in his life, while Vita Prima includes 21 different placenames and 24 personal names, of which eleven are also found in the medieval Irish chronicles.⁹² Individuals appear in the right generations, relative to a fifth- and sixth-century Brigit, and this goes a long way towards creating historically plausible locales and connections between people. This is nowhere more evident than in the circuits that structure the life from the beginning. The obvious point of comparison is with Tírechán who uses this model for Patrick's travels.⁹³ Indeed, Tírechán's thematic approach is similar to Vita Prima, as the story of the druid brothers and the daughters of Lóegaire suggests, perhaps reflecting the influence of Ultán, a source for Tírechán and one of the putative authors of Vita Prima.⁹⁴ From womb through childhood, Brigit is brought on a circuit of the entire country, connecting her to different regions, before arriving as a young adult in Mag Life, where Kildare was located.⁹⁵ This initial circuit, is mirrored by the longer more extensive one of her adulthood. Elizabeth Dawson has noted that in the first she is accompanied by a druid and in the second by Patrick and other clerics, having been veiled as a nun.⁹⁶ In addition, other sections of the life centre her in Leinster, strengthening her connections to that region and providing her with a secure base.⁹⁷ These contrast with the local journeys depicted by Cogitosus. The function of the circuits has been much discussed, largely in political terms related to the cult's spheres of influence.⁹⁸ However, it is arguable that there is another purpose: the circuits allow the author-compiler of Vita Prima to integrate Brigit's cult into a larger historicising narrative. Secondly, similarly to Tírechán, they underpin a story of religious change encompassing many regions.

However, religious change is not necessarily inevitable, even after a saint displays great power. Nor does failure to convert inescapably result in disaster and even death, as suggested by Muirchú.⁹⁹ The range of possibilities is explored in an extended episode of Vita Prima which, at first glance, appears to undercut Brigit's authority as a Christian model. The section begins with Brigit visiting an unnamed king of Leinster, clearly an ancestor of the Uí Dúnlainge rulers who monopolised the Leinster kingship for several centuries.¹⁰⁰ She offers the king eternal life and kingship for his descendants in return for her father's sword, which is in his possession, and the freedom of one of his servants. In other words, Brigit suggests that he convert. At the very most he is only a nominal Christian. The king refuses and asks to be long-lived 'in the present life which I love' (in praesenti uita quam diligo) and for victory against the Uí Néill, with whom the Leinstermen are in constant conflict. This request is historically resonant as the Uí Néill carved out their own power, especially in the midlands, at the expense of Leinster.¹⁰¹ At this point, judging by the previous pattern of the life, it might be expected that Brigit would engineer a miraculous peace. On the contrary, she accedes to the king's request and the life goes into some detail to depict her upholding the bargain. For example, the king has his followers call on the saint when they look to be outnumbered in battle. Brigit is memorably described leading the king 'with her staff in her right hand and a column of fire was blazing heavenwards from her head' (cum baculo suo in manu dextra et columna ignis ardebat de capite eius usque in coelum). It may well be significant that at battle's end the king gives thanks to God and to the saint, the first time that he is shown engaged in any type of religious behaviour, although it seems stereotypical. In a coda to the episode the king's dead body retains Brigit's blessing so that the Leinstermen rout the Uí Néill by fighting around his corpse.¹⁰² The Uí Néill are portrayed as aggressors: they come to destroy the Leinstermen (uenerunt nepotes Neil ut delerent Laginenses). It is almost as if the king's body is a secondary relic, despite his earlier recalcitrance. The best parallel to this sequence of events is offered by Tírechán's suggestion that Lóegaire mac Néill, king of Tara, did not convert, because he wished to be buried in the pagan manner, facing his Leinster enemies, a mirror image of the politics of Vita Prima.¹⁰³

Brigit displays an interest in conversion throughout the vita but it is rarely considered as a narrative of religious change alongside the Patrician lives. Partly, this is because Muirchú, for example, foregrounded the transformational importance of Christianity. Vita Prima treats conversion as a largely peaceful process mediated by Brigit and other saints. It is not a simple replacement of one set of beliefs by another. Moreover, Vita Prima is not about conversion in the same way as Muirchú's Vita S. Patricii. Conversion is used to show Brigit's sanctity but also to root the life in an era in which changes in beliefs are contingent and ongoing. The very lack of clarity around the religious affiliations of several characters is emblematic of this outlook. Finally, it is noteworthy that gender plays an important role, especially through the depiction of Broicsech who is passed from male owner to male owner until freed by Brigit. Yet, gender as a social determinant is subverted by the experiences of Brigit. The initial prophecy of greatness, given by a druid, uses the male language of kingship as he declares that the chariot carrying Brigit's parents resounds under a king (sub rege sonat).¹⁰⁴ Similarly, the prophecy of Brigit's birth is presented as possibly applying to the future son of a queen but, in the end, is revealed to foretell Brigit.¹⁰⁵ This is subtly different from Cogitosus who presents Brigit as a woman who, working alongside Bishop Conlaíd, provides a model of purified and empowered gender. Vita Prima presents Brigit as the equivalent of a man, even appearing before a king going into battle. Brigit's sanctity is intersectional with gender. It is this that enables her to travel freely and to engage powerfully in the carefully envisioned conversion era of Vita Prima.

Making Brigit a member of the family

For both lives Brigit's world is further refined through relatedness, physical and, especially for Cogitosus, spiritual. These interests are reflective of one of the dominant social dynamics in early medieval Ireland, family membership and its significance. It was among the primary approaches through which people created a sense of common identity, overcoming political fragmentation through kinship. Genealogies developed as an important genre and it has been argued that they were being written from at least the seventh century, while continuing to be updated over time.¹⁰⁶ They were impressively detailed, revealing a concern with the descent of major and minor peoples, using kinship as a connective tissue joining small and great. Moreover, having a saint as a member of the family brought prestige and the genealogies of saints developed into a vibrant sub-genre in its own right. As Paul Grosjean perceptively remarked, genealogy was a hagiographical co-ordinate among the early medieval Irish.¹⁰⁷ Even Patrick, a Romano-Briton, was given an extended native family, mediated through fosterage and invented sisters who gave birth to a swarm of nieces and nephews.¹⁰⁸ It is to be expected, then, that Brigit would be made real through her family relationships, connecting her with potential followers through a many-stranded familial web.

Cogitosus emphasises biological kinship less than Vita Prima but it still carries weight within the wider themes of the vita. He identifies Brigit's parents by name and mentions her affiliation to Uí Echtech, a minor people known as the Fothairt who claimed descent from the eponymous Eochaid Find Fuath nAirt.¹⁰⁹ The Fothairt were mainly located in Leinster with outlying branches elsewhere. Most notably, they were embedded in Kildare and this is reflected in the life and in the prominent presence of Brigit in their genealogies.¹¹⁰ It is very likely that there were Fothairt among the monks and nuns at Kildare during the hagiographer's lifetime. Later they provided abbesses of Kildare, an achievement that puts them on a par with more powerful groups such as Uí Dúnlainge.¹¹¹ Apart from this, Cogitosus also includes an extended episode that showcases Brigit's care for her kindred according to the flesh (secundum carnem cognati).¹¹² The life narrates how a great king orders that a major road be constructed, including a rough stretch through marshland, a fascinating insight into the practical organisation of co-operative public building projects. A stronger people are assigned a difficult section of the proposed route, along a river. They force the weaker Fothairt to work on it, while they relocate to a different and easier part. Brigit intervenes on behalf of her kindred. The river changes course so that it runs through the section of the more powerful people. Within the life this functions as a thematically consistent example of the saint helping those who seem powerless, in this case her own people. In addition, the hagiographer remarks that there remains a dry gorge as testament to Brigit's power, probably reflecting local lore among the Kildare Fothairt.

Natal and foster families are more prominent in Vita Prima which, as already discussed, treats Brigit's childhood relationships in detail, using them to showcase Brigit's sanctity and her connectedness with all regions on the island. This stronger emphasis is also true of its attention to the Fothairt as the saint's people. For example, one miracle describes the healing of two virgins of Brigit's kindred (de genere Sanctae Brigitae).¹¹³ In another episode she travels into the territory of Leinster to help the poor of her bloodline (pauperes seminis) and the Fothairt of Kildare are arguably the people of her native place (patria sua) who welcome her return there with great joy.¹¹⁴ This latter interpretation is considerably strengthened by a pattern identified by Charles-Edwards. He argues that several of Brigit's journeys join her to scattered branches of the Fothairt, including in the midlands and near Armagh, a trend that is amplified in later lives.¹¹⁵ This structural importance deepens the saint's circuits and ensures that these are journeys of genealogy as much as geography. They also suggest that shared kinship with Brigit overcame the disjointed nature of Fothairt distribution, including outside Leinster.

This identification of a deep genealogical bedrock to Vita Prima relies upon a close reading of the Fothairt genealogies. These, in their turn, shed light on the two early lives. It is likely that the first extant attestation of a direct family connection to Brigit is found in an archaic prophetic text, possibly dating to the early seventh century, in the genealogical tract on the Fothairt.¹¹⁶ The text takes the form of a roscad, a type of non-rhyming alliterative verse form lying between poetry and prose.¹¹⁷ It exemplifies the use of Brigit as a symbol of communal identity through the prediction of her birth and future greatness to Eochaid, ancestor of the Fothairt, asserting that great honour will come to his descendants through Brigit.¹¹⁸ Moreover, this honour is explicitly connected with Kildare, called the City of Cairpre (cathair Caipri) after a legendary ancestor of the kings of Leinster.¹¹⁹ Brigit, herself is described as 'another Mary, mother of the great Lord' (ala Maire már Choimded mathair), deploying similar Marian imagery to that in Vita Prima.¹²⁰ The roscad celebrates a Brigit who has several recognisable characteristics that can be paralleled in one or the other of the early lives. Moreover, it also indicates that these characteristics were not confined to Hiberno-Latin vitae but were familiar enough to appear in a different genre composed in the vernacular. It underscores that Brigit's affiliation as Fothairt was arguably a feature from the beginning. Her earliest followers were likely from among her own people and their scattered distribution probably gave her cult a geographical boost from which it gained momentum. It meant that there were always ready-made constituencies for Brigit beyond her Leinster core. The Fothairt, too, benefitted enormously, particularly through the influence they gained at Kildare. For them, Brigit's reality was of paramount importance and a focus of identity.

What is real? The saint and the goddess

The Brigit of the seventh century had a well-developed cult that was mature enough to address several audiences and to be articulated in Latin and vernacular sources. It had a complementary physical focus in Kildare, partly mediated through the alliance between the church and Fothairt, the saint's people. Cogitosus emphasises this physical actuality at the opening of his vita and in the final series of miracles, culminating in a description of Kildare. The sequence begins with Brigit helping the Fothairt, as already outlined, and concludes with the post-mortem miracle of the church door at Kildare.¹²¹ This miracle is consciously centred around the glorious tomb of Brigit (monumentum Brigitae gloriosum). Earlier in the episode, Cogitosus remarks that the bodies of Brigit and Conlaíd are buried on either side of the altar in tombs adorned with precious metals and gems.¹²² As Niamh Wycherley has shown, he provides the most detailed early evidence for the enshrinement of saints and an associated tomb cult, a contrast with Armagh which acknowledged that it did not possess Patrick's body.¹²³ Eventually, Kildare lost these relics. They were supposedly discovered in 1185 by John de Courcy who had them transported to Downpatrick along with those of Patrick and Columba.¹²⁴ However, for a seventh-century audience Brigit's historicity was unassailable. If anything, she is better documented than any other Irish saint, with the exception of Patrick whose own writings survived.¹²⁵ Nevertheless, her very existence has been doubted and Brigit the goddess has come to overshadow the saint. What are the reasons for this and what do they reveal about the cult of Brigit?

From the outset, it needs to be emphasised that the evidence for a goddess is thin compared to that for the saint, thin to the point where they are not reasonably comparable. The argument that St Brigit is the goddess in Christianised guise depends upon the interpretation of two short textual comments, allied with a radical reinterpretation of the lives of Brigit. Moreover, direct written evidence is significantly later than the earliest materials focusing on the saint. The first is a short entry in the Old Irish glossary known as Sanas Cormaic, a document usually attributed, at least in part, to the Munster king and bishop Cormac mac Cuilennáin (d. 908). The glossary notes that there were three divine sisters named Brigit, daughters of the Dagda, associated with smithcraft, poetry and healing. They were so important that 'Brigit' became synonymous with goddess.¹²⁶ This is a fascinating entry and can be placed alongside others that demonstrate an interest in native traditions and pre-Christian beliefs, including those concerning Lugnasad and Beltaine.¹²⁷ The name Brigit might well echo one from a pre-Christian past, as do other common names such as Óengus and Dáire. Nonetheless, Sanas Cormaic is generally interpreted as a creative etymological text rather than being historically accurate. For example, its story of Mug Éme, the first lapdog in Ireland, whose ownership causes conflict and jealousy among kings, is not treated as being literally true.¹²⁸ And yet, these few lines about divine Brigits are given more credence than the very substantial and earlier literature on the saint. As Katja Ritari has pointed out the image of Brigit as a saint should take precedence over the goddess because that is where the evidence leads.¹²⁹ The second source is the Topographia Hibernica of Gerald of Wales, which dates to 1188. Gerald describes a perpetual fire at Kildare, a detail which has proved popular, even though the Topographia is a late work and frequently fantastical.¹³⁰ In any event, practices in twelfth-century Kildare are very unlikely to unchangingly channel fifth-century realities.

Apart from these sources, the argument for the priority of the goddess over the saint depends on three interrelated points: firstly, that Brigit is not real, secondly that her lives betray that they are an attempt to euhemerise a pagan deity and finally an underlying assumption that a goddess cult is more empowering for the women of ancient and, by analogy, contemporary Ireland. To take them in order: Brigit's reality has been doubted on the basis that the earliest Irish writers were not sure when she flourished. However, this is far from the case and Vita Prima, in particular, presents a coherent narrative in which Brigit, as a younger contemporary of Patrick, contributes to a team effort to Christianise Ireland. Her death notices in the medieval Irish chronicles are very likely artificial as the Chronicles are not contemporary until the second half of the sixth century.¹³¹ There are two dates in the Annals of Ulster, 524 and 526. A third date of 528 was interpolated in the fifteenth century. To put this in perspective, Patrick's annalistic entries are clearly invented, sometimes confusing, and helped catalyse an alarming proliferation of Patricks.¹³² Ultimately, Irish writers were attempting to put a consistency on an era in which Christianity grew but also, undoubtedly, suffered setbacks. There was a broad agreement that the fifth and sixth centuries were foundational for the Irish Church and the chroniclers establish a basic relative chronology for it, filled out with educated guesswork.

The lack of abundant direct evidence for the goddess is one of the reasons that the vitae have been mined for hints of paganism. This is reminiscent of Charles Plummer whose two volume Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, published in the early years of the twentieth century, remains an invaluable source for scholars. In his introduction, however, he devoted a long section to 'heathen folklore and mythology', in the lives of the saints, often interpreted through solar imagery. This methodology was very much of its era, comparable to the contemporary The Golden Bough by James Frazer.¹³³ As an approach it has been almost entirely replaced by analyses stressing the religious, social and historical context of the lives. The one exception is Brigit where it still has currency. In an important contribution, Dorothy Ann Bray points out that the fire imagery, frequently interpreted as a sign of paganism, is more likely to have resonated with contemporary Christian readers and listeners as the fire of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecostal flame.¹³⁴ Of course, it would be surprising if the cult of Brigit did not incorporate native belief patterns and imagery as Christianisation involved acculturation and compromise, something that Vita Prima demonstrates in its depiction of druids and its treatment of the saint's childhood. It may well be that the feast of Brigit on February 1, is an example of this process. The feast coincides with the quarter-day festival of Imbolc, which clearly had pre-Christian origins.¹³⁵ On the other hand, each day of the year sees the deaths of individuals and usually a feastday's main significance lies in that fact.

Overall, Brigit's cult is treated in a strikingly different manner to those of other saints, even when types of evidence are the same; it is an outlying survivor of Plummer's world of solar deities masquerading as saints. As a thought experiment, it is worth applying the same standards to Patrick's historicity, one that is not in doubt because of the survival of his writings. If these had not endured, the evidence would rely on the chronicles, his early lives and the status of Armagh as his foundation. The chronicle witness, as already mentioned, is clearly artificial. His early lives, like those of Brigit, establish the geography of his cult and create narratives for the saint but these, again like for Brigit, could be interpreted as a Christian cloak over a pagan reality. The fact that Armagh takes its name from Macha, a pre-Christian supernatural figure, would be a source of suspicion.¹³⁶ Finally, Patrick's name might be doubted as being that of a real person. Might not 'patricius' be symbolic, perhaps hinting at the 'patrician' Christian religion of Rome? This exercise can be repeated for any number of Irish saints. So, why is it only commonly applied to Brigit? One reason is her gender and how it is perceived. The saint's acts of power are interpreted as extraordinary because Brigit is acting in a public world, frequently assumed to be male. And this has had the unintended consequence that of Ireland's three great saints, Brigit, the sole woman, is the one whose existence is doubted. Both Patrick and Columba are rightfully regarded as real. None of this doubt originated in the medieval cult. Brigit the goddess was initially popularised during the Cultural Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Catherine McKenna has persuasively suggested, being particularly championed by Maud Gonne.¹³⁷ The allure of the goddess, free from sectarian polemic, was powerful and, ultimately, continues to thrive. It has also fed into assumptions that goddess-worship was empowering for women in the past and in the present. Yet, as history shows, this is not necessarily the case. Athena did not elevate Athenian women nor Juno the women of Rome. Indeed, it is arguable that an actual Brigit, founder of a successful ecclesiastical centre and the inspiration for a popular cult, offers more in this regard.

Ultimately, however, the debate around Brigit's reality is reductive. She was real for her followers, generation upon generation. By the seventh century, the cult had a level of complexity, expressed across a number of sources, that points to great historical depth. Kildare was her major foundation, but veneration to Brigit did not depend upon it. Carried, perhaps initially by her Fothairt kindred, the cult expanded well beyond its Leinster heartland to become truly island-wide. Her remarkable lives show Brigit's biographers shaping and reshaping this legacy, fashioning a saint who stood up for ordinary people against injustice, against power wrongfully wielded. The rich cult of St Brigit has hardly received the scholarly attention that it deserves. The uncertainty surrounding the dating of Vita Prima creates challenges, although not to the extent of preventing meaningful analysis and contextualisation. Far more problematically, the assumption that Brigit is a construct, a hybrid goddess-saint, has chilled an appreciation that the first Irish saint to be celebrated in the island's literature was a woman.