The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 114

[Footnote 129: Malbrancq, Jacobus, "_De Morinis et Morinrum rebus_."

Tornaci Nerviorum,1639--1654.]

The critical question is, whether the four names given by St. Patrick himself, and by St. Fiech, can be identified with any localities now known either in the district of Boulogne or any other district in which toward the close of the fourth century it is possible to find the conditions of Roman government and British blood combined? Before Lanigan there was, it seems to me, no serious attempt made to solve this question. The scholiast whose authority was so unhesitatingly adopted by Colgan and Usher simply says, "Nempthur est civitas in Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluid." There is not a word more. He does not attempt to show how Nempthur and Alcluid are to be considered as convertible terms. Nor does he attempt to interpret the names of the three localities stated by St. Patrick himself. The same may be said, in the most sweeping way, of the biographies and the breviaries.

I will now read the reasons which Lanigan gives for identifying Bonaven with Boulogne, and Taberniae with a city very famous in the wars of the middle ages, long before Arras had been fortified by Vauban or defended by General Owen Roe O'Neill. It will be observed that Lanigan does not attempt to identify the two other localities Enon and Nempthur. The former he regarded as too insignificant, the latter he did not believe had any existence. I will not say that his proof with regard to the ident.i.ty of Boulogne with Bonaven is conclusive; but if the whole of his proof rested on as strong presumptive grounds, little would remain to be said on the subject.

The second part of it is, however, in my humble opinion, wholly erroneous. He says:

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"Colgan acknowledges that there is an ancient tradition among the inhabitants of Armoric Britain that St. Patrick was born in their country, and that some Irishmen were of the same opinion. He quotes some pa.s.sages from Probus and others whence they argued in proof of their position, but omits, through want of attention to that most valuable doc.u.ment, the following pa.s.sage of 'St. Patrick's Confession:' My father was Calpurnius, a deacon, son of Pot.i.tus, a priest of the town Bonavem Taberniae. He had near the town a small villa, Enon, where I became a captive.' Here we have neither a town Nemthor nor Alcluit. Nor will any British antiquary be able to find out a place in Great Britain to which the names Bonavem Taberniae can be applied. Usher, although he had quoted these words, has not attempted to give any explanation of them, or to reconcile them with Nemthur.

"The word Taberniae has puzzled not only Colgan, but some of the authors of the Lives which he chose to follow; for while they left out _Bonavem_ as not agreeing with _Nemthur_, they retained Taberniae, or, as they were pleased to write it, _Taburniae_, which they endeavored to account for by making it a district that got its name from having been the site of a Roman camp in which there were tents or tabernacles. Colgan, who swallowed all this stuff, quotes Jocelin as his authority for Taburnia being situated near the Clyde, at the South Bank. Great authority, indeed! It is, however, odd that such a place should be unnoticed by all those who have undertaken to elucidate the ancient topography of Great Britain. The places of Roman camps in that country were usually designated by the adjunct _castra_, whence _chester_, or _cester_, in which the names of so many cities and towns in England terminate.

"Bonavem, or Bonaven, was in Armoric Gaul, being the same town as Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardy. That town was well known to the Romans under the name of Gressoriac.u.m; but about the reign of Constantine the Great the Celtic name Bonaven or Bonaun, alias Bonon, which was Latinized into Bononia, became more general. According to Bullet, who informs us that Am, Aven, On, signify river in the Celtic language, the town was so called from its being at the mouth of a river; _Bon_, mouth, _on_ or _avon_, river. Baxter also observes that Bononia is no other than _Bonavon_ or _Bonaun_, for _aven, avem, avon, aun_, are p.r.o.nounced in the same manner. The addition of _Taberniae_ marks its having been in the district of Tarvanna or Tarvenna, alias Tarabanna, a celebrated city not far from Boulogne, the ruins of which still remain under the modern name of Terouanne. The name of this city was extended to a considerable district around it, thence called _pagus Tarbannensis_, or _Tarvanensis regio_. Gregory of Tours calls the inhabitants Tarabannenses. It is often mentioned under the name of _Civitas Morinorum_, having been the princ.i.p.al city of the Morini, in which Boulogne was also situated. Boulogne was so connected with Tarvanna that both places anciently formed but one episcopal see. Thus Jonas, in his 'Life of the Abbot Eustatius,' written near twelve hundred years ago, calls Audomarus Bishop of Boulogne and Tarvanna. It is probable that St. Patrick's reason for designating Bonaven by the adjunct _Taberniae_ was lest it might be confounded with the Bononia of Italy, now Bologna, or with a Bononia in Aquitain, in the same manner that, to avoid a similar confusion, the French call it at present Boulogne-sur-Mer. Perhaps it will be objected that _Tabernia_ is a different name from _Tarvenna_. In the first place, it may be observed that, owing to the usual commutation of _b_ for _v_, and _vice versa_, we might read _Tavernia_. Thus we have seen that Tarvenna was called by some _Tarabanna_. To account for the further difference of the names, nothing more is required than to admit the {751} transposition of a syllable or a letter, which has frequently occurred in old words, and particularly names of places. Nogesia, the name of a town, becomes Genosia. Dunbritton has been modified into Dunbertane, Dunbarton, Dumbarton. Probus agrees with the 'Confession,'

except that, according to Colgan's edition, for Bonavem Taberniae he has 'Bannave Tyburniae regionis,' and adds that it was not far from the Western sea or Atlantic ocean. Although we may easily suppose that some errors of transcription have crept into the text of Probus, yet as to Bannave there is no material difference between it and Bonavem.

_Ban_ might be used for _Bon_; and the final _m_, which was a sort of nasal termination, as it is still with the Portuguese, could be omitted so as to write for Bonavem, or Bonaum (_v_ and _u_ being the same letter), Bonaue. Probus' addition of _regionis_ is worth noticing, as it corresponds with what has been said concerning the _Tarvanensis regio_."

I think the proof in this pa.s.sage with regard to the word Bonaven is very strong. The pa.s.sage which Lanigan cites from Bexter distinctly says, "Gallorum Bononia eodem pene est etymo; quasi dicas Bon-avon sive Bonaun." The derivation of the word is clear enough. Avon even in England retains its Celtic signification of a river. But the pa.s.sage identifying the _Tabernia_ of Boulogne with Therouanne is in my opinion altogether incorrect. Where he accounts for the change in the structure of the word by the usual trans.m.u.tation of _b_ and _v_, he overlooks the letter _r_--a letter which does not melt into the music of patois by any means so easily. Again, he hardly lays sufficient stress on the fact that the word _Taberniae_ is invariably understood in all the scholia, and in all the lives, to mean the _Campus tabernaculorum_--the barracks and district occupied by a Roman army.

In fine, he confuses Therouanne, which is at a distance of thirty miles from Boulogne, and certainly did not stand in the relation he supposes to it, with another city some twenty miles still further away. But Malbrancq, who was his chief authority, does not omit to mention that Tervanna and Taruanna are two absolutely distinct places: Tervanna was the old Roman name of the town now known as Saint Pol [Footnote 130]--Taruanna that of Therouenne.

[Footnote 130: "_Comitum Tervanensium Annales Historici_,"

Collectore Th. Turpin Paulinati. Ord. Predicat. 1731.]

It is very possible--I may add to the proof concerning the word Bonaven--that it may have been written originally Bononen, for Bononenses Taberniae. Any one familiar with the form of the letters of the early Irish alphabet, indeed of almost all early ma.n.u.script, will readily comprehend how easily an _o_ might be written for an _a_, an _n_ for a _v_, and _vice versa_, by a scribe ignorant of the exact locality, and copying from a half-defaced doc.u.ment. Any one who looks at the form of the letters in the alphabet of the "Book of Kells,"

given in Dr. O'Donovan's Grammar, will conceive at a glance how this might have happened.

a.s.suming, however, that Lanigan is correct in his conjecture as to Boulogne, I have endeavored to discover whether the other localities named in the "Confession" and "Hymn" can be identified with localities now existing within the proper circ.u.mscription of the Roman military occupation around that city, and of a certain and unquestionable antiquity. I need not inform the academy of the great military importance of Boulogne at the time of which we treat. It was the point from which England had been invaded. It was the princ.i.p.al military settlement of the Romans in Northern Gaul. Julian the Apostate had held his headquarters there shortly before St. Patrick's birth. The country all around is marked by roads and mounds, which exhibit the rigid lines and stern solidity of Roman construction. I learn from a recent essay by {752} M. Quenson, an accomplished scholar of Saint Omer, that eighty-eight different works have been written to settle the site of the Portus Itius, whence Caesar embarked to invade Britain, and nineteen different localities a.s.signed. Since M. Quenson wrote, M. de Saulcy has again opened, and this time I think finally determined, that controversy. Perhaps I am so far fortunate that the absorbing zeal with which this difficult problem has been pursued, in a country of such zealous scholars, still leaves to a stranger somewhat to glean, in places far inland from the famous port which they have so long labored to identify.

The localities to which St. Patrick refers have, I find, all been preserved with the least alteration of their etymology that it is possible to conceive in the s.p.a.ce of so many centuries; and this, I may add, is peculiarly wonderful in a country where so many Roman names have, by the friction of the much mixed dialects of northern France, been almost frayed out of recognition. Who would suppose, for example, taking some of the familiar names of the department, that Fampoux was the _Fanum Pollucis_, Dainville _Dianae villa_, Lens _Elena_, Etaples _Stapulae_, Hermaville _Hermetis villa_, Hesdin _Helenum_, Souchez _Sabucetum_, Surques _Surcae_, Ervillers _Herivilla_, Tingry _Tingriac.u.m_? [Footnote 131] And yet regarding these names there is no doubt that the modern French is a corruption of the old Latin form. Of the localities, which I proceed to designate, I submit that each has kept its original name with far less violation of the ancient word. The _Enon_, the _Nemthur_, the _Taberniae_ of St. Patrick are, to my mind, manifest in comparison with the majority of a hundred other localities in the Boulonnais which undoubtedly derive their t.i.tles from a Roman source.

[Footnote 131: The name of the neighboring village of Ardres has run through the following traceable variations since the Roman period: Horda, Ardra, Ards, Ardrea, Ardes, Ardres.]

In the first place, let us take the word Enon. The river Liane, which runs into the sea at Boulogne, was known to the Romans as the Fluvius Enna. It is so marked on the most ancient maps of northern Gaul. It is so written in Latin by Malbrancq. Near Desvres--once called Desurennes, or Desvres-sur-Ennes--there is marked a little village of the same name, called also Enna. I will not be said to strain language, which has survived so many centuries, very severely when I venture to identify St. Patrick's Enon with this undoubtedly Roman Enon.

Lanigan totally disbelieved in the existence of the town called Nempthor. I could not do so; nor underrate the importance of identifying it, if possible, in such an inquiry as this. But the difficulty of discovering this place was. .h.i.therto greatly increased by a mistranslation of its meaning, for which I believe Colgan is responsible. The word was always supposed to mean "Holy Tower"--_Neim_, holy, and _Tur_, tower--until Professor Eugene O'Curry, when compiling, some years ago, his valuable catalogue of the Irish MSS. of the British Museum, after a minute examination of the ma.n.u.script, which is the oldest copy of the "Hymn" in existence, came to the conclusion that the word should really be written "Emtur," as it is indeed, though by accident I take it, in some of the breviaries.

"The place of St. Patrick's birth," he says, "is generally written Nemtur; but there is clear evidence that the N is but a prefix introduced to fill the hiatus in the text, and that Emtur is the proper form of the word." The word, then, means not holy tower, but the tower of some place or person indicated by the word Em. Some eight miles distant from Desvres, toward the north, still within the military circ.u.mscription of which it is the centre, there is such a place. The river Em, or Hem, flows past a village of so great an antiquity, that even in the ordinary geographical dictionaries the record is preserved that Julius Caesar slept {753} there on his way to embark for the invasion of Britain. [Footnote 132] The town contains a Roman arch and the ruins of a Roman tower, from which the village derives its name. The name is Tournehem, or, as it was written in Malbrancq's time, Tur-n-hem. The tower and the river show the derivation of the word at a glance. The exigencies of Irish verse simply caused their transposition. I have only to add to Mr. O'Curry's ingenious note on the subject the remark that the _n_ was not, as he supposes, merely inserted to fill up a hiatus in the line, but was obviously a part of it. It is a copulative as common in Celtic words as _de_ in modern French, and has precisely the same meaning.

Ballynamuck, for example, means the town of, or on, the river Muck.

Tulloch na Daly (whose swelling dimensions the French afterward curbed into the famous name of Tollendall) is a more apposite instance.

[Footnote 132: "Ce lieu existait lorsque les l'egions romaines penetrerent dans la Morinie, l'an de Rome 697, ou 57 ans avant l'ere valgaire, et consistait alors en un chateau fort garni de tours, d'ou eat venu, selon Malbrancq, la denomination de _Tournehem_ du Latin _a Turribus_. Cesar s'empara de ce chateau et y fit quelque sejour pour l'avantage de ea cavalerie. Environ deux siecles et demi apres, c'est a dire en 218, Septime-Severe, autre empereur romain, fit camper dans le voisinage de Tournehem (sur la montagne de Saint Louis) une partie de son armee destinee pour une expedition contre le Grand Bretagne, qu'll effectua glorieus.e.m.e.nt la meme annee."--P.

Collet, "_Notice Historique de Saint Omer suivi de celles de Therouanne el de Tournehem_." Saint Omer, 1830. Both M. Collet and Pere Malbrancq, however, overlook the obvious derivation of the word--though both note the name of the river which flows through the town, and which M. Collet calls "la riviere de _Hem_ ou de _Saint Louis_." Again, M. H. Piers, in the "_Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaries de la Morinie_" (Saint Omer. 1834) says, '"Cesar apres s'etre empare des forteresses de la contree s'y rendit de Ther ouanne, Sithieu et Tournehem, l'an 55 on 56 avant l'ere vulgaire, pour subjuguer la Grande Bretagne." In the same volume there is an interesting paper by M. Pigauit de Beaupre on the castle of Tournehem, which, he says, was partially rebuilt by Baldwin II., Count of Guines, in 1174, and continued to be a princ.i.p.al residence of the Dukes of Burgundy at so late a date as 1485. But the vastness and solidity of the works which he describes, some of them subterranean roads evidently used for communication with other fortified works, clearly indicate their Roman character. Baldwin, indeed, a prince far in advance of his age, seems to have attempted to revive Roman ideas, and rebuild Roman works wherever he found them within his dominions. The castle of Hames, near Calais, which he likewise rebuilt, and which he ceded to the English as part of the ransom of King John of France, was also, as M. Pigault de Beaupre shows, of Roman construction.]

I have yet to identify the _Taberniae_. To the eye, and on the old maps, they almost identify themselves. Desvres has all the characters of a great Roman military position--a vast place of arms, the tracings of fortified walls, the fosse, lines of circ.u.mvallation, and hard by on the forest edge the _Sept Voies_ or _Septemvium_, the meeting of the seven great military roads leading from and to the other princ.i.p.al strongholds of the imperial power in northern and western Europe. Any one who examines in particular the "Carte des Voies Romaines du Departement du Pas de Calais," published by the Commission of Departmental Antiquities, [Footnote 133] cannot fail to perceive that this now obscure village, which certainly never was raised to the rank of a Roman city, was nevertheless once a great nucleus of Roman power.

The fragment of an ancient bridge is still known as the _Pont de Caesar_. The _Septemvium_, with its remarkable concentration of roads, is alone sufficient to indicate the importance of the place. There is one road leading straight to Amiens; one that reaches the sea by the mouth of the Canche; another that runs to the harbor of Boulogne; another that joins the roads from Saint Omer and from Tournehem, and carries them on to Wissante and Sangate, the supposed Portus Itius and Portus Inferior; the fifth road was to Tervanna and Arras; the sixth to Taruanna; the seventh to Saint Omer. Would so many roads, communicating with places of such military importance, have been concentrated by a race of such a centralizing talent as the Romans anywhere except at the cite of a great city or a great camp? On the ancient maps, indeed, the country which lies between Desvres and Boulogne, along the Liane, is simply marked _Castrum_.

[Footnote 133: "_Statistique Monurnentale du Departement du Pas de Calais. Publiee par la Commission des Antiquites Departementales_."

Arras: chez Topino, Libraire, 1840.]

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I now approach, not unconscious of its difficulties, the etymology of the word. In the lax Latin of the middle ages, we find Desvres spoken of as _Divernia Bononiensis_. There is the epitaph of a churchman, born in the place, which says on his behalf:

"Me Molinet peperit Divernia Bononiensis."

The local historian, Baron d'Ordre, speaks of the place as "Desurene, Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres." [Footnote 134] The name Desvres itself evidently has undergone strange, yet traceable, variations and modifications. [Footnote 135] Its first appearance as a French word is "Desurennes," and this is derived from Desvres sur Enna, or Desvres upon the Enna or Liane, which, as I have said, flows past the place, giving its name to a little village near the forest. By this derivation, however, only the first two letters of the original word Desvres are left. How do they disappear, why do they reappear in the modern form of the word, and what is its original derivation?

[Footnote 134: "Notice historique sur la ville de Desurene Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres." Par M. d'Ordre. Boulogne, 1811.]

[Footnote 135: "II n'y pas 50 ans que le nom de Desvres a prevalu sur celul de Desurenne que cette ville avait tonjours porte auparavant."--M. L. Cousin "_Memoires de la Societe des Antiquarires de la Morinie_," vol. iv., p. 239. M. Cousin's papers on Monthulin and Tingry, in the Transactions of this society, are in general accord with what I have said of the ancient military importance of the whole district of Desvres.]

It is a very curious fact, that in England the Roman camps seem to have been always known as "Castra," while in Gaul the Tabernae is the name which generally adhered to them. Lanigan says, and correctly, so far as I have been able to discover, that there is no trace of a Roman station called _Tabernae_ in England, while the affix _chester_ is the most common in its topography. In England, it may be said the Romans encamped; in France, the _Tabernae_ meant a more settled and familiar residence, as familiar as the Caserne of the empire. It would be interesting to inquire whether as many cities in France do not derive their origin from these military stations as England has of Chesters.

But the student who attempts this task will be sure to find the Latin word almost defaced beyond power of recognition by the etymological maltreatment which it has sustained in that conflict of consonants which has resulted in the present high polish of Academic French. I may mention one or two instances to show how little violence I do to French philology in identifying the _Divernia Bononiensis_ of the middle ages with the Tabenae of Boulogne. Saveme in Lorraine is well known to be the _Tabenae Triborocrum_. It was known in a semi-Germanic form as _Elsas Tabern_. Gradually the sibilant _ss_ of the first word invaded the second; and it has long settled down into one word in the form of Saveme. The _Tabernae Rhenanae_, on the other hand, retained the hard _b_ instead of converting it into _v_, as inevitably happened in the south, and instead changed the T into Z Rhein-Zabren. In ages which had no hesitation in changing the pure dental T into the sibilant dentals S or Z, it will not be considered surprising that it was sometimes changed into D--the only other pure dental sound.

Indeed, of all the trans.m.u.tations of letters, those of _d_ and _t_ and those of _v_ and _b_, are notoriously the most common. "The Irish _d_," says O'Donovan, "never has such a hard sound as the English _d_." Again, "In ancient writings, _t_ is frequently subst.i.tuted for _d_." Again, "It should be remarked that in ancient Irish MSS.

consonants of the same organ are very frequently subst.i.tuted for each other, and that where the ancients usually wrote _p, c, t,_ the moderns write _b, q, d._" [Footnote 136] Decline the Irish word _Tad_, father. It becomes _Ei dad_, his father; _Ei thad_, her father; _by nhad_ my father. We carry the tendency into English. The mistake is one from which certain parts of Ireland as well as certain parts of France are not exempt even to the present day; and in Munster one may still {755} hear, as in the times when the ballad of "Lillibullero"

was written, the letter _d_ occasionally used where the tongue intended _t_ or _th_. Nor is this vagary of speech confined to the Irish. Why do the Welsh say Tafyd for David? It is the most frequently recurring of that systematic permutation of consonants which is one of the chief difficulties of the Cymbric tongue. The Welsh _d_ and _t_ turn about and wheel about in their mysterious alphabet without the slightest scruple. In Germany the convertibility of the same letters is also very marked. The German says _das_ for that, _Dank_ for thanks, _Durst_ for thirst; and again _Teufel_ for devil, _Tanz_ for dance, _Theil_ for dial. As to the same abuse in France, the dictionary of the Academy and that of Bescherelle [Footnote 137] lay down the principle very plainly: "Le _t_ est une lettre a la fois linguale et dentale, comme le _d_ son correlatif, plus faible, plus doux, avec lequel il est frequemment confondu, nonseulement dans les langues germaniques, mais dans la plupart des langues. En latin, cette lettre so permute frequemment avec le _d: attulit_ pour _adtulit_. On ecrivit primitivement set, aput, quot, haut, au lieu de sed, apud, quod, hand."

[Footnote 136: O'Donovan, John, LL.D., "A Grammar of the Irish Language." Dublin, 1845.]

[Footnote 137: "_Dictionnaire de l'Academie_ Francaise,"

Bescherelle, "_Dictionnaire National_." Paris, 1857.]

So far as to the permutation of T and D. I will not waste the time of the reader in order to show that the conversion of _v_ into _b_ is even more common. We find a familiar ill.u.s.tration of it in the old Latin name of Ireland, which, as every one knows, is variously written Ibernia, Ivernia, Hibernia, Juvernia, and Iernia. But the English word tavern, which is exactly derived from the Latin Taberniae, is a still more apposite ill.u.s.tration in the present case. In this word, finally, the intermediate vowel swayed in sound with the consonants which inclosed it. As the primary Latin T changed into the softer and feebler D, and the _b_ into _v_, the intermediate _a_ lost its full force. The mediaeval Latin melts into _i_ in Divernia. The modern French form, Desvres, brings it half-way back toward its place at the head of the alphabet. It does not run the whole gamut of the vowels, as from Ibernia to Juvernia.

This _Divernia Bononiensis_, then, I claim to identify with the _Taberniae Bononienses_, Tournehem with Nemtur or Emtor, Enna with Enon. If it were necessary even to push the proof a step further, there is the district called _Le Wicquet_, which M. Jean Scoti, who was _lieutenant particulier de la Sennechaussee de Boulogne_, tells us is undoubtedly derived from the Latin Vicus, and which might naturally be the _vico Bonaven Taberniae_ of which the "Confession" speaks; but the historian of Desvres, Baron d'Ordre, whom I have already cited, disputes this derivation, and says the word is Celtic, and comes from _Wic_, Celtic for wood, like our word wicket. Both may be right, for Vicus may be a Latin form of the same word. [Footnote 138] But the point is not material.

[Footnote 138: Among the names of villages in this district of whose history I could find no trace, is one called Erin, the place where Blessed Benedict Joseph Labre was born.]

Let me now add to the etymological evidence a few historical ill.u.s.trations.

St. Patrick is stated in almost all his biographies to have been a nephew of St. Martin of Tours. St. Martin, though said to be a Celt of Pannonia, was during his military and early ecclesiastical career stationed in this identical district. The well known legend of his division of his cloak with the beggar, who proved to be our Lord himself, is alleged to have taken place at Amiens. It is recorded that he was baptized at Therouanne. The first church raised to his honor was built there. The princ.i.p.al missionaries of the district are said to have been his disciples, and evidently entertained a deep devotion to him, of {756} which there are still abundant evidences. [Footnote 139]

[Footnote 139: Of the 420 churches comprised in the ancient diocese of Boulogne, 82 had St. Martin for patron. I also find several dedicated to the Irish St. Maclou and St. Kilian: but, strange to say, not one to St. Victricius.--V. "_Histoire des Eveques de Boulogne_," par M. l'Abbe E. Van Drival. Boulogne, 1852. ]

St. Patrick, while in captivity at Slemish in Ireland, lived within sight of Scotland. A few miles only separate the coasts at Antrim. But when he escaped, he did not attempt to pa.s.s into Scotland. He made his way south, and pa.s.sed through England to France. He says he was received among the Britons as if (_quasi_) among his own clan and kin.

Doubtless there was close relations.h.i.+p of race and language between the Britons of the island and of the continent. There were Britons and there were Atrebates on both sides of the sea. [Footnote 140] But Britain was not the saint's native place nor his resting-place. He went on, and abode with those whom he calls his brethren of Gaul, "seeing again the familiar faces of the saints of the Lord," until he was summoned to undertake his mission to Ireland.

[Footnote 140: M. Piers, in the paper already cited, quotes H.

Amedee Thierry as saying; "Les _Brittani_ furent les premiers qui a'y fixerent; il habitalent une partie de la Morinie; peut-etre par un pieux souvenir ont-ils appele leur nouvelle patrie la Grande Bretagne. Les _Atrebates_ anglais, originaires de Belgium, residaient a _Caleva_ ou _Galena Atrebatum_, a 22 milles de _Venta Belgarum_ dans le canton ou est aujourd'hui Windsor." H. Piers adds that there is a tradition that a colony of the Morini had given their name to a distant country of islands which they discovered; but that he has found it impossible to discover the name in any ancient atlas. Perhaps the district of Mourne, on the north-east coast of Ireland, is that indicated. The Irish derivation of the name is at all events identical with the French ]

In his own account of the vision which induced him to undertake the apostolate of Ireland, he says he was called to do so by a man, whose name is variously written Victor, Victoricius, and Victricius. The real name is in all probability Victricius; but if it were Victor or Victoricius, it would be equally easy (were it not for the fear of failing by essaying to prove too much) to identify the source of the saint's inspiration with the same district. Saint Victricius was the great missionary of the Morini at the end of the fourth century; but he had been preceded in that capacity by St. Victoricius, who suffered martyrdom with Sts. Fuscien and Firmin, at Amiens, in A.D. 286. Again, the name Victor is that of a favorite disciple of St. Martin, whom Sulpicius Severns sent to St. Paulinus of Nola, [Footnote 141] and of whom they both write in terms of extraordinary encomium. But the person referred to in the "Confession" is far more probably St.

Victricius, [Footnote 142] who was an exact contemporary of St.

Patrick, who was engaged on the mission of Boulogne at the time of his escape, and who is said to have been a French Briton himself.

Malbrancq's "Annals of the See of Boulogne" aver that in the year 390 the "Morini a Domino Victricio exculti sunt," and that in the year 400 he dedicated their princ.i.p.al church to St Martin. [Footnote 143]

[Footnote 141: S. Paulini Nolani "_Opera_." _Epistola_ xxiii. in the "_Patrologiae Cursus Compietus_" of J. P. Migne, vol. lxi.

Paris, 1847. See also the two epistles to St. Victricius, who with St. Martin persuaded Paulinus to withdraw from the world. I hare a suspicion that the disciple of St. Victricius, named in these epistles now as Paschasius, now as Tytichus or Tytius (the name being evidently misprinted, but there being no doubt, as the Bollandists say, that the two names refer to one and the same person), may have been in reality St. Patrick. In his 17th Epistle, St. Paulinus refers to the accounts he had heard from this young priest of the anxiety of St. Victricius for the evangelization of the most remote parts of the globe, and speaks of him as a disciple in every way worthy of his master; "In cujus gratia el humauitate, quasi quasdam virtutam gratiarumque tuarum lineas velut speculo reddente collegimus."]

[Footnote 142: Franciscus Pommeraeus, O. S. B.. In his "History of the Bishops of Rouen." says St. Victricius was also sometimes called Victoricus and Victoricius.]