In a deep valley above Lake Geneva in modern day Switzerland the train climbs towards a small town with towering mountain peaks behind. Nestled under sheer cliffs is an ancient abbey dedicated to Saint Maurice d’Agaune. Protected by a steel shelter from avalanches successive churches were built one over the other to commemorate the Roman soldier who refused to martyr Christians. Here pilgrims prepared for their arduous journey through the Alps to the Valle d’Aosta in Italy and onwards to Rome. In among the abbey's amazing collection of relics is a small vellum label dating to around 700 AD written in the script common to Ireland and Britain known as ‘Insular’. It contains three names; Brigid, Der Lugdach and Conláed.
First published by the scholar Julia Smith these are perhaps the earliest surviving mention of the name of the Irish national saint, her successor abbess and her bishop at Kildare who are both saints in the Irish tradition. This shows that Irish monasteries were sending relics of saints to the Frankish world from a very early stage. While the relics they travelled with do not survive, the label is a precious reminder of a remarkable voyage.
The cult of Brigid survived further along the route in Piacenza, Italy where a Hospice dedicated to her was founded by Bishop Donatus in 850. Many Irish pilgrims passing to Rome through these mountains made their way back to the Abbey of St Gall, founded by a companion of Columbanus in the seventh century. Here, in what is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Irish teachers and an extremely important collection of Irish related manuscripts in the Abbey Library were part of a renaissance in learning in the eighth and ninth centuries. Thanks to the Abbey of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune the fragment with Brigid’s name will join a unique collection of manuscripts from the Abbey Library of St Gall in travelling to Ireland for a very special exhibition in the National Museum of Ireland at Kildare, Street, Dublin from May to October 2025.
Further Reading;
Johnston, E. 2024 Making St Brigit real in the early Middle Ages, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature, Volume 124C. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/423/article/941740
Ortenberg, V. 1990 Archbishop Sigeric's journey to Rome, in Anglo-Saxon England, Vol. 19, Cambridge University Press, pp 197-246
Smith, J. M. H. 2015 Les reliques et leurs étiquettes in Mariaux, Pierre Alain l’abbaye de Saint-Maurice d’Agaune 515-2015, Volume 2 – le trésor, Infolio editions, Gollion.
Smith, J. M. H. 2017 Relics and the Insular World c.600-c.800, Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lectures 15, University of Cambridge. https://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/publications/Hughes/KH%20Vol%2015%202017%20Smith.pdf
Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe | Archaeology | National Museum of Ireland
Online Pop Up Talk: St. Brigid's Shoe Shrine | Archaeology | National Museum of Ireland
