Skip to main content

IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 217: Irish Voyages of Body and Soul, I: Voyages and Visions in the Holy Land and of Columba and Adomnán

Monday 12 July 2010, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Brill Academic Publishers
Organisers:Jude Mackley, School of Arts, University of Northampton
Jonathan Wooding, Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Wales, Lampeter
Moderator/Chair:Jonathan Wooding, Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Wales, Lampeter
Paper 217-aVoyaging to the Holy Land in the Time of Joshua: How an Insular Scholar Produced the 8th-Century Map Found in BNF Lat. 11561
(Language: English)
Thomas O'Loughlin, Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Nottingham
Index terms: Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Latin, Monasticism
Paper 217-bThe Various Versions of the Voyaging of St Columba's Clerics
(Language: English)
Kevin Murray, Department of Early & Medieval Irish, University College Cork
Index terms: Hagiography, Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Comparative
Paper 217-cThe Significance of the Body in the Voyage and Pilgrimage Narratives of Adomnán
(Language: English)
Nathan Millin, University College Dublin
Index terms: Hagiography, Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Latin
Abstract

This session encompasses Classical, Biblical, and Pagan aspects of Irish voyage literature: O'Loughlin discusses a commentary on the Book of Joshua by an insular scholar demonstrating a greater awareness of travel than was unusual for any scholars' community in the early Middle Ages, suggesting a wider body of experience. Murray re-examines the inter-relationships, continuities, and discontinuities between existing accounts of Columba's clerics' voyages, showing how the storyline was re-used over time. Millin questions why Adomnán downplays the significance of Columba's tomb and relics and, through a study of voyage narratives including the Vita Columbae and De Locis Sanctis, considers Adomnán's theology of resurrection and the importance of the material body.