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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
2. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS AND LATIN POEMS
If Columcille was the author of both the Book of Kells
and the Book of Durrow as was long believed the title
of consummate artist must be added to the other charac-
terizations that have been lavished upon
him. 1
famous copy of the Psalter known as the Cathach, 2
The
long
the most valuable heirloom in that branch of Colum-
cille's clan that issued in the Ua Domnaill family, Princes
of Tyrconnail, is accepted as being his handiwork and
indeed as the very transcription from Finnian's set of the
warriors fell at Culdreimhne.
Vulgate over which 3,000
Of the Latin poems attributed to Columcille and believed
to be genuine wholly or in part three have come down
to us. 3
They are the Altus,
In te Christe and Noli
Pater. The Altus is the most celebrated and was quoted
in the ninth century by Rhabanus Maurus. It describes
the Trinity, the angels, the creation of the world and the
fall of man, the deluge, and the last judgment. The poem,
which is a sort of early Paradise Lost, consists of twenty-
two stanzas, each beginning in order with a letter of the
alphabet. The first two lines run as follows :
Altus prosator, vetustus dierum et ingenitus,
Erat absque origine primordii et crepidine.
1 Both these miracles of beauty are at Trinity College, Dublin. The colophon
on the Book of Durrow bears the name "Columba."
2 The Cathach or Battler, contained in a shrine made for it in the eleventh
century by the order of Cathbar Ua Domnaill, was carried to the Continent
in the seventeenth century by the exiled Domnaill Ua Domnaill. It was
recovered in 1802 by Sir Niall Ua Domnaill and was opened by Sir William
Betham soon after. Within was found a mass of vellum hardened into a
single lump, which, when the leaves were separated, was found to contain
part of a Psalter written in Latin in a "neat, but hurried hand." Fifty
leaves remained, containing: from the 31st to the 106th Psalm, and an examination
of the text showed it to be part of the second revision of the Psalter
by St. Jerome.
3 They are contained in an eleventh century manuscript, the Liber Hymnorum.
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