Columbanus Fresco in the abbey of Brugnato.The foundation of Brugnato dates back to the 7th or 8th centuries and is linked to the erection of a monastery which, like other monastic sites in Liguria and northern Italy, was dependent on the abbey of St Columbanus at Bobbio. In 1133, Brugnato became the see of a bishopric and the Cathedral was built.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire there was a widespread incursion of barbarian tribes such as the Goths, Vandals and Franks into the western and southern parts of Europe and the curtain of the Dark Ages descended upon them. It was the glory of the Bangor Church that during the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries the Light of the Gospel as well as the great learning of Ireland was carried to Gaul, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy, and so Bangor became indeed the Light of the Roman World. The piety and learning of the Bangor monks were unrivalled in Christendom and it was mainly due to them that Ireland became known as the island of saints and scholars.
Pope Pius XI has said, “The more light that is shed by scholars in the period known as the Middle Ages the clearer it becomes that it was thanks to the initiative and labours of Columbanus that the rebirth of Christian virtue and civilisation over a great part of Gaul, Germany and Italy took place.” The French poet Leon Cathlin concurs in saying, “He is, with Charlemagne, the greatest figure of our Early Middle Ages,” and Daniel-Rops of the French Academy has also said that he was “a sort of prophet of Israel, brought back to life in the sixth century, as blunt in his speech as Isaias or Jeremias… For almost fifty years souls were stirred by the influence of St Columbanus. His passing through the country started a real contagion of holiness.”
At this time the Eastern Roman Empire was ruled and kept intact by Flavius Anicius Justinianus , known to us now as Justinian the Great. Justinian’s reign was indeed filled with the greatest of events, both in peace and in war. He was a brilliant soldier and statesman. He codified the law and established the monastic school of St Catherine at Mount Sinai in Egypt. Here resided the celebrated Codex Sinaiticus of the Greek Bible until it was removed by Tischendorf, and is an important centre of the Greek Orthodox Church until this day. Its library still possesses the oldest of the Wisdom of the Desert Fathers which was learned in the original Greek by Comgall and Columbanus at Bangor.
Bangor missionaries were now spreading throughout Pictland and Ireland and in 589 AD the greatest mission of all was trusted to Columbanus – the mission to Europe. In that year he set out with 12 companions and from reference in Jonas’s and in Columbanus’s own letters we have the names of most of them. First, there was Gall, who became almost as well known as his master; Dogmal, who acted as Columbanus’s minister; Cummina, Eunocus, Columbanus the younger, Equonanus, Hugh and Libranus. The original group probably also included Deicola, Lua, Caldwald and Leobard. The latter two monks have Anglo-Saxon names and it is probably that the group included representatives of all the peoples of the British Isles, since the monastery at Bangor was a truly international one. After spending a short time in Britain, possibly in the Thames Valley, where Irish monks had settled previously, the group of brothers arrived in the Merovingian kingdom of Burgundy in Gaul in 590 AD.
The Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings was descended from Clovis, who died on November 27th in the year 511. He was their first Christian ancestor; from his name comes the modern Louis. Gaul had by now been divided into three kingdoms: Neustria, which comprised that territory lying roughly between the Loire and Meuse rivers; Austrasia, which comprised that territory east of this as far as the Rhine and some way beyond it, continuing up the valley of the Rhine into Switzerland: and Burgundy, which comprised the territory to the south as far as the Rhone valley. For the generation following the death of Clovis the three kingdoms were convulsed by civil disorder and internecine feuds, so that of the grandsons of Clovis only one – Gunthram, king of Burgundy and Austrasia – was still alive when Columbanus entered Gaul.
Gunthram warmly received the missionaries and established them at a place called Annegray which was the site of a ruined Roman castle, situated in the modern department of the Haute-Saône. Here the monks repaired the ruined temple of Diana and made it into their first church, rededicating it to St Martin of Tours. The king offered them every appreciation in terms of food and money but they declined, preferring to keep to the monastic ideals to which their lives were committed. Columbanus himself was wont to walk deep into the Burgundian forest, heedless of either starvation or danger, trusting always in the Providence of God. He took with him only the Bible he had transcribed in his beloved Bangor. Thus for weeks, and perhaps months, he led a life identical to that of John the Baptist in the Wilderness. But his spirit was the Spirit of Bangor, his learning was the Learning of Bangor and his Rule was the Rule of Bangor.