07 — Sources and Transmission
The textual history of Brendan: the Latin Vita Brendani — the Life proper, carrying the foundation-narrative — set beside the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, the voyage-text, two distinct traditions that the later record conflates; the vast diffusion of the Navigatio across medieval Europe in more than a hundred manuscripts and a dozen vernacular translations; and the Irish Betha Brénainn and the vernacular retellings that carried the legend in the native tongue.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic)
To read Brendan critically is to know which text one is reading. The two principal Latin traditions — the Vita, a saint’s Life of the ordinary type, and the Navigatio, the unique voyage-narrative — are not one work but two, with different origins, different purposes, and a complicated mutual influence; the Irish Betha conflates both. This section sets out that textual landscape. The first file distinguishes the Vita from the Navigatio and describes the extraordinary manuscript success of the latter, one of the most widely copied secular-narrative texts of the Middle Ages, and the springboard for the Anglo-Norman Voyage of St Brendan and the vernacular versions across Europe. The second file treats the Irish-language tradition, the Betha Brénainn Clúana Ferta and its relatives, and the vernacular retellings down to the modern poetry the legend still generates.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Vitae and the Navigatio Manuscripts | The Latin Vita Brendani versus the Navigatio: two distinct traditions and their relationship; the disputed date and origin of the Navigatio; its extraordinary manuscript diffusion (100+ manuscripts) across medieval Europe and the vernacular translations it spawned. |
| The Irish and Vernacular Versions | The Irish Betha Brénainn Clúana Ferta and the native-language tradition; the conflation of Vita and voyage in the vernacular; the Anglo-Norman, German, Dutch, Norse, and other European retellings; the legend’s afterlife in modern literature. |
See Also
- The Navigatio Sancti Brendani — the text whose transmission this section traces
- The Historical Core — the Vita and annals as historical evidence
- Clonfert and the Cult — the cult the texts served and spread
- Orthodoxy: The Pre-Schism Church — the medieval Western Church through which the text spread
References
- Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. Ed. Carl Selmer. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959. (With Selmer’s catalogue and discussion of the manuscripts.)
- Plummer, Charles, ed. Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. (The Latin Vita Brendani.)
- Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans. Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890. (The Irish Betha Brénainn.)
- Barron, W. R. J., and Glyn S. Burgess, eds. The Voyage of Saint Brendan: Representative Versions of the Legend in English Translation. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002.