The Writing of Saints’ Lives in Medieval Ireland

Abstract Medieval Ireland produced a great quantity of hagiographical documents. Today, more than one hundred Latin Lives of about sixty Irish saints are known. Some of these survive only in Continental manuscripts, but the majority are known from three great compilations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This book investigates the sources available to the compilers of the three collections and the use they made of them. The Latin Lives were written in Ireland, as attested in some early manuscripts, mostly Continental, and in these three collections, range in date from the seventh century to the fourteenth. The latest item in any of the three collections is probably a text translated from Irish for the compilers of the Salmanticensis, the Life of St Cuanna. Saints' Lives form a very large part of the Latin literature of Ireland, and a significant part of Irish literature. They are also important as historical evidence. These biographies and other acta of saints make up one of the most extensive classes of material relating, ex prima facie, to the early history of Ireland.