Although tens of thousands of individuals probably devoted their lives to missionary work in the Middle Ages, the constraints of space permit the treatment of only a handful. We will first meet St. Columba, a standout among the Irish seafaring saints; then the three dominant figures who worked under the patronage of the bishop of Rome and the protection of the Frankish kingdom: St. Augustine of Canterbury (the Apostle to the English), St. Willibrord (the Apostle to the Frisians), and St. Boniface (the Apostle to the Germans); and, finally, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Greek brothers who missionized the Slavic peoples in the East.
Together, a study of these figures shows us not only how Christians won thousands of souls for the kingdom of heaven, but how the Christian Church built and shaped Western civilization in the process.
St. Columba (521–597)
It is not without reason that the Scots carried the relics of St. Columba ahead of their armies in the Scottish Wars for Independence. This was a saint, after all, whose missionary career was launched when he was exiled from his Irish homeland for instigating too many brawls. He had first gotten into trouble when he picked a fight with his teacher, St. Finnian, over whether he deserved to keep a copy of the psalter he had been assigned to copy: several men died in the ensuing scuffle. Shortly afterward, he ended up in the middle of a blood feud which broke out at a sporting event, and which resulted in the death of an Irish prince. It should surprise no one that Columba used a stone as a pillow.
Columba’s early life actually fits neatly into the Irish tradition of the peregrini, or exiles. Irish Christianity was known for its harsh standards for penance: it was not unusual for those who engaged in mortal sin in the Middle Ages to be publicly flogged as penance. And those who had carried out particularly egregious sins often volunteered to undergo what, for the Irishman, is the greatest punishment of all—self-banishment from Ireland. Thus at the age of forty-four Columba, presumably in penance for his violent past, set sail with twelve companions in a wicker boat covered with animal skins.
Landing in nearby Scotland, Columba returned to the boat and cast off again, complaining that he could still see his homeland from the first landing spot. When finally out of sight of his beloved Ireland, Columba began preaching the Gospel to the native barbarians (the Picts), whose king responded by donating the island of Iona to the monks. The monastery they built there became the center of Scottish Christianity, spawning numerous other monasteries across the country and eventually transforming itself into a school for missionaries.
We know precious little about Columba’s life except for the vast number of miracles that are attributed to him by his biographers, so many that one would think he did little else with his time. Many of these miracle stories are rather incredible, though without at least some historical basis such traditions would certainly never have sprung up. Many of the stories reflect the agrarian culture of Scotland (blessing crops to increase their fertility) and the scholarly work of the monks (detecting grammatical errors in books without opening them).
Columba and his Irish monks, the heirs of a brilliant Latin education—it is said that, at any time, three thousand scholars could be found studying under St. Finnian, Columba’s teacher—brought this literary culture to Scotland. Columba’s biographer claims that he wrote more than three hundred books by hand and died while transcribing a book.
Some remark ought to be made about the “style” of Christianity brought to Great Britain. While St. Augustine of Canterbury had brought Christianity to England directly from Rome, Irish—or Celtic—Christianity had developed in almost complete isolation from Rome, cut off from any communication with the rest of worldwide Christianity. Thus the Christianity Columba brought to Scotland had several distinctive features: most importantly, abbots, rather than bishops, oversaw religious matters in geographic regions of the country, and Easter was celebrated on a different date from its calculations in Rome.
Although often described as non-papal, the Irish had a great esteem for the bishop of Rome—they simply hadn’t heard from him in centuries! But as a consequence, much of the literature on English Christianity during this period describes the rather unedifying feuding between so-called Roman and Celtic missionaries.
Columba Comes to Scotland
The English monastic scholar St. Bede makes only brief mention of St. Columba, in connection with the founding of the monastery at Iona. But Bede draws attention to certain distinctive, Celtic features of Columba’s communities which were different from the English customs he learned from St. Augustine of Canterbury’s Roman tradition—namely, the different way of calculating Easter and the tendency of priest-abbots, rather than bishops, to govern churches. (From Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
In the year of our Lord 565 … there came into Britain from Ireland a famous priest and abbot, marked as a monk by habit and manner of life, whose name was Columba, to preach the word of God to the provinces of the northern Picts…. Columba came into Britain in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, who was the son of Meilochon, and the powerful king of the Pictish nation, and he converted that nation to the faith of Christ by his preaching and example.
In this way he also received from them the gift of an island [Iona] on which to found a monastery. It is not a large island, but contains about five families, according to the English computation; his successors hold it to this day. He was also buried there when he died at the age of seventy-seven, about thirty-two years after he came into Britain to preach. Before he crossed over into Britain, he had built a famous monastery in Ireland, which, from the great number of oaks, is in the Scottish tongue called Derry—The Field of Oaks.
From both these monasteries, many others had their beginning through his disciples, both in Britain and Ireland; but the island monastery where his body lies has the pre-eminence among them all.
That island has for its ruler an abbot, who is a priest, to whose jurisdiction all the province is subjected, and even the bishops, contrary to the usual method. This is according to the example of their first teacher Columba, who was not a bishop, but a priest and monk, of whose life and discourses some records are said to be preserved by his disciples.
But whatever he was himself, this we know for certain concerning him, that he left successors renowned for their chastity, their love of God, and observance of monastic rules. It is true they employed doubtful cycles in fixing the time of Easter, since no one brought them the relevant decrees of councils, because of their being so far away from the rest of the world; but they earnestly practiced such works of piety and chastity as they could learn from the prophets, the Gospels, and the apostolic writings.
The Mighty Miracles of St. Columba in Scotland
Columba’s primary rivals were the pagan Druids, who fought hard to keep Christianity out of Scotland. Of the hundreds of miracle stories that circulated about Columba, many emphasize his demonstration of the superior power of the Christian God, over and against that of the pagan gods of the Druids. One seventh-century story has Columba driving a monster out of Loch Ness, and is often credited as the first sighting of “Nessie”! (From Adamnan’s Life of Columba, Founder of Hy)
While the blessed man was stopping for some days in the province of the Picts, he heard that there was a fountain famous amongst this pagan people, which foolish men, having their senses blinded by the devil, worshiped as a god. For those who drank of this fountain, or purposely washed their hands or feet in it, were struck by demonic power, and went home either leprous or blinded, or at least suffering from some kind of weakness. By all these things the pagans were seduced, and paid