Note 268 — Chapter IX · The Gothic Art of Burgundy[267]

From Luxeuil derived Jumièges, St. Wandrille, Fécamp, St. Malo, St. Valéry, St. Bertin, Corbie, St. Riquier, Péronne, Lure, Rebais, Jouarre, Faremoutier, Remiremont, Dissentir, St. Gall, and Bobbio. St. Columbanus was born in Leinster in 543, the year that St. Benedict died at Monte Cassino. It is said that there was something supernatural in his appearance. Because of his comeliness he embraced the monastic life to flee temptation, entering the abbey of Bangor, a center of letters in what is now Ulster. All his life Columbanus was a lover of the classics; from his library at Bobbio was recovered Cicero’s De Republica. At thirty came the call to missionize in Gaul. Ireland, on the outer verge of Europe, had escaped the Barbarian’s wrecking so that her culture was intact. With twelve monks, among them his nephew, St. Gall (future founder of the noted Swiss abbey), Columbanus crossed to France. The king of Burgundy, a grandson of Clovis, gave him the region of Luxeuil, which the late invasions had turned into a desert. In twenty years Columbanus made it the center of spiritual life in Gaul. He was exiled in 610 because of his strictures on the evil living of Burgundy’s rulers. After many wanderings he founded Bobbio, between Genoa and Milan, which abbey became another seat of learning. There he died in 615. Martin, St. Columban (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre, 1909); Healy, Ireland’s Ancient Schools and Scholars (Dublin, 1890); Ch. de Montalembert, Monks of the West (translated, London, 1896); Dalgairns, Apostles of Europe (London, 1876), vol. 1; Besse, Les moines de l’ancienne France (Paris, 1906).