In 590 the small group of missionaries arrived in the Merovingian kingdom of Burgundy, where Gunthram, king of Burgundy and Austrasia, received them warmly and established them at a place called Annegray which was the site of a derelict Roman castle. 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, taking with him only the Bible he had transcribed in his beloved Bangor.

The king’s ready support need not surprise us. Although the initial barbarian population movements had destroyed the existing Roman system, the barbarian chiefs still held the empire in awe. Christianity not only carried with it the great prestige of Roman civilisation, but consisted of a more coherent body of doctrine than the vast assortment of pagan gods, and therefore offered more advantages, both personal and political, to the newly emerging ruling elites. This soon encouraged a gradual revival of the dormant church.

As the number of monks in the monastery at Annegray increased daily, it became necessary for the community to seek a more suitable site. King Gunthram had died in 593 and young Childebert II now ruled over Burgundy and Austrasia. His permission was given to build a second monastery eight miles west of Annegray, beside the River Breuchin, among the ruins of the former Roman fort at Luxovium, which had been completely destroyed by Attila and his Huns in 451.

Here at the foot of the Vosges mountains, close by a healing stream, there arose the great Community of Luxeuil. Although Jonas claimed that the site had been completely deserted and overgrown, there was already a Christian site there, which exactly suited Columbanus, for he loved manual labour as much as he loved solitude. So great did the community here become that the noble youths of the Franks asked to be admitted to its brotherhood, and eventually it was necessary to establish a third foundation at Fontaine, three miles north of Luxeuil. (In fact, Luxeuil was to influence directly or indirectly nearly one hundred other religious foundations before the year 700.)

The community of Columbanus was now growing so large it became necessary to draw up written rules for the guidance of the monks. These rules were no doubt modelled on the Good Rule of Bangor written by Comgall. These rules covered everything from timetables for the recitation of psalms to instructions for obedience, fasting, and daily chanting. Some of the régime must seem harsh and authoritarian to us today, particularly the punishments to be meted out for infringements of the rules, these punishments usually being inflicted with a leather strap on the palm of the hand:

“The monk who does not prostrate himself to ask a prayer when leaving the house, and after receiving a blessing does not bless himself, and go to the cross — it is prescribed to correct him with twelve blows.
The monk who will eat without a blessing — with twelve blows.
The monk who through coughing goes wrong in the chant at the beginning of a psalm — it is laid down to correct him with six blows.
The one who smiles at the synaxis, that is, at the office of prayers — with six blows; if he bursts out laughing aloud — with a grave penance unless it happens excusably.
The one who receives the blessed bread with unclean hands — with twelve blows.”

Some of the rules showed a more insightful approach: “The talkative is to be punished with silence, the restless with the practice of gentleness, the gluttonous with fasting, the sleepy with watching, the proud with imprisonment, the deserter with expulsion.”

While such rules of discipline show that Columbanus was strict in his approach to organising the daily life of his monasteries — and he was just as strict with himself — he was also well known for his warmth and understanding. His thoughtfulness about human relationships is shown in this letter he wrote to a young disciple:

“Be helpful when you are at the bottom of the ladder and be the lowest when you are in authority. Be simple in faith but well trained in manners; demanding in your own affairs but unconcerned in those of others. Be guileless in friendship, astute in the face of deceit, tough in time of ease, tender in hard times. Disagree where necessary, but be in agreement about truth. Be slow to anger, quick to learn, also slow to speak, as St James says, equally quick to listen. Be up and doing to make progress, slack to take revenge, careful in word, eager in work. Be friendly with men of honour, stiff with rascals, gentle to the weak, firm to the stubborn, steadfast to the proud, humble to the lowly. Be ever sober, ever chaste, ever modest. Be patient as far as compatible with zeal, never greedy, always generous, if not in money, then in spirit.”

Luxeuil quickly became the most celebrated monastery in Christendom after Bangor itself. Both sacred and classical studies were of the utmost importance. The art of music was prominent as in Bangor and was taught at a level at that time unknown in Europe. H. Zimmer has written: “They were the instructors in every branch of science and learning of the time, possessors and bearers of a higher culture than was at that time to be found anywhere on the Continent, and can surely claim to have been the pioneers — to have laid the cornerstone of western culture on the Continent.”

To be continued