subsequently conferred on Charlemagne at his coronation, and borne, as we gather from medieval documents, indiscriminately, not only by subsequent emperors, but also by a long line of Burgundian rulers and minor princes of the middle ages generally.[1] On the fall of the Carolingian house the title passed to Alberic II. Subsequently it was held by John Crescentius, and many leading men who received it from Otto III. (e.g. Boleslaw Chabri of Poland). In 1046 it returned to the German Henry III. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa was the last to wear the insignia (in 1167).
Bibliography.—(1) The Ancient Patricians: Th. Mommsen, Staatsrecht III. passim (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1887); Römische Forschungen I. (Berlin, 1864); P. Willems, Le Droit public romain, pt. i (Louvain, 1888). (2) The Medieval Patricians: J. B. Bury’s Later Roman Empire (1889); Bryce, Holy Roman Empire (1904), pp. 40 seq.; Du Cange, Glossarium med. et infim. latinitatis, s.v. “Patricius”; and histories of Charlemagne (q.v.) and his successors. For the German Patriziertum see Roth von Schreckenstein, Das Patriziat in den deutschen Städten, besonders Reichstädten (2nd ed. Freiburg, 1886); Foltz, Beiträge zur Gesch. des Patriziats in den deutschen Städten (Marburg, 1899). (J. M. M.)
PATRICK, ST, the patron saint of Ireland,[2] was probably born
about the year 389. He was the son of a deacon, Calpurnius, and
the grandson of a presbyter named Potitus. His father was a
middle-class landed proprietor and a decurion, who is represented
as living at a place called Bannauenta. The only place of this
name we know is Daventry, but it seems more probable that
Patrick’s home is to be sought near the Severn, and Rhys conjectures
that one of the three places called Banwen in Glamorganshire
may be intended. The British name of the future apostle
was Sucat, to which Mod. Welsh hygad, “warlike,” corresponds.
His Roman name has also survived in a hibernicized form,
Cothrige, with the common substitution of Irish c for Brythonic
p (cf. Irish casc, Lat. pascha). Patrick was doubtless educated
as a Christian and was imbued with reverence for the Roman
Empire. When about sixteen years of age he was carried off by a
band of Irish marauders. The latter were possibly taking part
in the raid of the Irish king Niall Noigiallach, who met with his
end in Britain in 405. Irish tradition represents the future
apostle as tending the herds of a chieftain of the name of Miliucc
(Milchu), near the mountain called Slemish in county Antrim,
but Bury tries to show that the scene of his captivity was
Connaught, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Croagh Patrick.
His bondage lasted for six years. During this time he became
subject to religious emotion and beheld visions which encouraged
him to effect his escape. He fled, in all probability to the coast
of Wicklow, and encountered a vessel which was engaged in the
export of Irish wolf-dogs. After three days at sea the traders
landed, possibly on the west coast of Gaul, and journeyed for
twenty-eight days through a desert. At the end of two months
Patrick parted from his companions and betook himself to the
monastery of Lérins, where he probably spent a few years. On
leaving the Mediterranean he seems to have returned home. It
was doubtless during this stay in Britain that the idea of missionary
enterprise in Ireland came to him. In a dream he saw a
man named Victorious bearing innumerable epistles, one of
which he received and read; the beginning of it contained the
words “The Voice of the Irish”; whilst repeating these words
he says, “I imagined that I heard in my mind the voice of those
who were near the wood of Foclut (Fochlad), which is near the
western sea, and thus they cried: ‘We pray thee, holy youth,
to come and walk again amongst us as before.’ ” The forest
of Fochlad was in the neighbourhood of Killala Bay, but it is
possible that it extended considerably to the south. Despite
his natural diffidence, and opposition on the part of his relatives,
Patrick resolved to return to Gaul in order to prepare himself
for his mission. He proceeded to Auxerre—a place which seems
to have had a close connexion with Britain and Ireland—and
was ordained deacon by Bishop Amator, along with two others
who were afterwards associated with him in spreading the faith
in Ireland. The one was an Irishman called Fith, better known
as Iserninus, the other Auxilius. Patrick must have spent at
least fourteen years at Auxerre.
It seems not unlikely that Pelagianism had taken root among the Christian communities of Ireland, and it was found necessary to send a bishop to combat the heresy. Pope Celestine’s choice fell on the deacon Palladius, who had taken a prominent part in stamping out the doctrine in Britain. The mission of Palladius (431–432), whom Zimmer has endeavoured to identify with Patrick, is obscure. Tradition associates his name with the mountains of Wicklow, and we are told that he retired to the land of the Picts in North Britain, where he died. Patrick probably felt great disappointment when Palladius was sent as the chosen envoy of Rome, but now Germanus seems to have decided that Patrick was the man for the task, and he was consecrated in 432. For the peculiar social conditions with which the Christian missionary would be confronted in Ireland see Brehon Laws and Ireland: Early History. Suffice it to say here that the land belonged to the tribes, and that the success of Patrick’s undertaking depended entirely on his ability to gain the goodwill of the tribal kings and chiefs of clans. We are totally ignorant as to the extent and number of the pre-Patrician Christian communities in Ireland. It seems probable that they were, largely, if not wholly confined to the south-east of the island. Patrick landed at Inverdea, the mouth of the river Vartry in Wicklow, but we are not informed as to any of his doings in Leinster at this period. According to the story, he immediately proceeded northward to the kingdom of Ulidia (east Ulster), though a certain tradition represents him as going to Meath. Landing on the shores of Strangford Lough, he commenced his labours in the plain on the south-west side of that inlet. A convert chief named Dichu granted him a site for an establishment, and a wooden barn is stated to have been utilized for the purpose of worship, whence the modern Saul (Ir. saball, “barn”). Patrick’s activity was bound to bring him sooner or later into conflict with the High-king Loigaire (reigned 428–467), son of Niall Noigiallach. Fedilmid, a brother of the monarch, is represented as having made over his estate at Trim to the saint to found a church, and thus the faith was established within Loigaire’s territory. The story in picturesque fashion makes Patrick challenge the royal authority by lighting the Paschal fire on the hill of Slane on the night of Easter Eve. It chanced to be the occasion of a pagan festival at Tara, during which no fire might be kindled until the royal fire had been lit. A number of trials of skill between the Christian missionary and Loigaire's Druids ensue, and the final result seems to have been that the monarch, though unwilling to embrace the foreign creed, undertook to protect the Christian bishop. At a later date the saint was probably invited by Loigaire to take part in the codification of the Senchus Mór in order to represent the interests of the Christian communities. On another occasion Patrick is reported to have overthrown a famous idol known as Cenn Cruaich or Cromm Cruaich in the plain of Mag Slecht (county Cavan). Several churches seem to have been founded in the kingdom of Meath by the saint, but they cannot now be identified. Patrick is stated to have visited Connaught on three different occasions and to have founded churches, one of the most important being that at Elphin. As regards Ulster our information is very scanty, though we find him establishing churches in the three kingdoms of the province (Ailech, Oriel and Ulidia). Patrick’s work is more closely identified with the north of Ireland than with the south. Traces of his mission, however, are to be found in Ossory and Muskerry. But his task in the south was doubtless rather that of an organizer, and a kind of circular letter has come down to us which was addressed by Patrick, Auxilius and Iserninus, to all the clergy of the island. There is some
- ↑ We even find a feminine form, patricissa, for the wife of a patricius. The golden circlet worn on the head by the patricius as a symbol of his dignity was called a patricialis circulus.
- ↑ His career is involved in considerable obscurity. Widely varying views have been held by modern scholars with regard to his activity, some going so far as to treat all the accounts of his labours as the fictitious creation of a later age. In the present article Bury's reconstruction of the saint’s life has been chiefly followed. Apart from its importance in other respects, Bury’s treatment of the subject has at any rate the merit of defending the traditional view of St Patrick’s career.
