Some Penitential Aspects of the Old Irish “Voyages” (Immrama)

About the author:

Abstract:

This article identifies some of the penitential semantic elements from two fragments of “The Voyage of Mail-Duin” and “Voyage of Wa Korr”, which are part of the group of Old Irish stories about voyages (OE Immrama). The first plot is connected with a hermit thief who was forced by God’s providence to give up his riches and retire to the island (episode 10^th); the second is connected with the crime of the Wa Korra brothers, who ravaged the churches of Connaught and killed the clerics.

As a source base, the early medieval Irish penitentiaries in Latin of the 5^th-8^th centuries, preserved in the manuscripts of the 9^th-12^th centuries, are involved: “The First Synod of Patrick”, the penitentiaries of Saints Gilda, Finnian, Columban, Kummene. The penitential aspects of Immrama have been in the orbit of scientific interests of scientists since the beginning of the 20^th century and in recent decades, work in this direction is still ongoing.

In the course of a comparative analysis, it was found that penitentiaries and these fragments of Immrama have certain connotations in the relationship between offense and sanction. The legal categories of exile, fasting, compensation for material damage find their application in relation to serious crimes or “sins”: murder and theft of church property. However, there are a number of important differences in small details: in the understanding of the category of “expulsion” or “excommunication” in the penitentiaries and in the “Voyages”; in the duration of fasting and repentance. Unfortunately, the hermeneutics of the penitential meaning of “Voyages” in those plots where not clergymen (hermits) but laymen appear, is also difficult.

References:

1. Smirnov A. A. (ed.). 1933. Irish Sagas. Leningrad; Moscow: Academy. 369 p. [In Russian]

2. Mikhailov T. A., Rudichev A. M. (ed.). 2016. “Swimming Wa Korra”. Atlantic: Notes on Historical Poetics. About the Wonderful Islands in Medieval Irish Tradition. Moscow: Max Press. Vol. 13. Pp. 129-148. [In Russian]

3. Boswell C. S. 1908. An Irish Precursor of Dante. London: D. Nutt.

4. Bray D. A. 1995. “Allegory in the Navigatio sancti Brendani”. Viator, vol. 26, pp. 1-10.

5. Byrne M. E. 1932. “On the punishment of sending adrift”. Ériu, vol. 11, pp. 97-102.

6. Charles-Edwards T. M. 2000. “The social background to Irish peregrinatio”. The Otherworld Voyage in Early Irish Literature: An Anthology of Criticism. Dublin: Four Courts. Pp. 94-108.

7. Dods M. 1903. Forerunners of Dante: An Account of Some of the More Important Visions of the Unseen World, from the Earliest Times. T. and T. Clark.

8. Eldevik R. A 1984. “Vergilian model for the ‘Immrama?’”. Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, vol. 4, pp. 1-8.

9. Van Hamel A. G. (ed.). 2004. Immramа. Dublin: School of Celtic Studies. Reprinted in Dundalgan Press, Co. Louth. Dublin: School of Celtic Studies. 155 p.

10. Ireland C. A. 2000. “Some analogues of the ‘Seafarer’ from Hiberno-Latin sources”. The Otherworld Voyage in Early Irish Literature: An Anthology of Criticism. Dublin: Four Courts. Pp. 143-156.

11. Kelly F. A 1988. Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. 382 p.

12. Kenney J. F. 1966. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: An Introduction and Guide. New York: Octagon Books, Inc.

13. Meyer K. 1905. Cáin Adamnáin: An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

14. Nutt A. 1895-1897. “The happy otherworld in the mythico-romantic literature of the Irish. The Celtic doctrine of re-birth”. The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal to the Land of the Living. London. In 2 Volumes.

15. Seymour J. 1930. Irish Visions of the Otherworld: A Contribution to the Study of Medieval Visions.

16. Bieler L., Binchy D. (ed.). 1963. The Irish Penitentials. Dublin: the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

17. Wooding J. M. 2003. “Fasting, flesh and the body in the St. Brendan dossier”. Celtic Hagiography and the Saints’ Cult. Pp. 161-176.

18. Wooding J. M. 2000. “Monastic voyaging and the navigatio”. The Otherworld Voyage in Early Irish Literature: An Anthology of Criticism. Dublin: Four Courts. Pp. 226-245.