ABSTRACT
Hagiography (sacred writing, Lives of saints) is divided into two categories, one literary, the other liturgical. The former is mainly represented by the Lives of the saints, the latter by the records of their feasts in calendars and martyrologies. The chronology of the production of both categories in Ireland is erratic in character. Two martyrologies date to the early ninth century; four or five, to the late twelfth; numerous copies, to the early fifteenth; and one final record of the feasts of the Irish saints, to the 1620s. Similarly, the four Latin Lives of the period 650 to 700—two of Patrick, one each of Brigit and Colum Cille—were followed during the period up to the beginning of the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169 by scarcely more than six such compositions— including Brigit’s Vita Prima (First Life), and three vernacular biographies of Brigit, Patrick, and Adomnán. During the fifty or so years that followed, the bulk of the surviving record of the Irish saints, liturgical and literary, was composed. Then, during the fourteenth century, collections began to be made of Latin and vernacular Lives. A final phase, mostly devoted to copying, collecting, and publishing earlier works, began about 1580 and continued until about 1650.
