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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
them is a Dane. Yet John became the commonest of all
names under later usage in England as elsewhere. The
bishop's name was probably Domhnaill, or Donnell, as
it is written in its Anglicized form, a name which in
modern times is also usually corrupted, in Ireland, when
a Christian name, into Daniel.
Daniel was one of the persons with whom Boniface had
entered into a contract for mutual intercessory prayer. In
the records his name appears as Danihel, which resembles
the Irish spelling. He was an intimate friend not only
of Boniface, but of Aldhelm at Sherborne and Bede at
Jarrow. Daniel like Aldhelm had been educated under
the Irish scholar Maeldubh or Mailduf at Malmesbury
and it was to Malmesbury that he retired in his old age
(he died in 745) when loss of sight compelled him to
resign the bishopric. He supplied Bede with the information
regarding the church history of the south and west
of Britain. 1
But he is best remembered for his intimate
connection with Boniface. It was from Daniel that
Boniface received commendatory letters when he started
for Rome and to Daniel he continually turned for counsel
during his work in Germany. Two letters of the bishop
to Boniface are preserved and give an admirable im-
pression of his piety and good sense.2
In the second of
these epistles, which was written after his loss of sight,
Daniel takes a touching farewell of his correspondent:
"Farewell, farewell, thou hundred-fold dearest one!"
Daniel made pilgrimages to Rome in 721 and 731 and
assisted at the consecration of Archbishop Tatwine. A
vision recorded in the "Monumenta Moguntina" No. 112
perhaps implies that he was considered lacking in energy;
nevertheless it would follow from William of Malmes-
1 See Bede, Hist. Eccl. Praef.
2 See Haddan and Stubbe, "Councils," III, 304, 343.
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