Ailbe of Emly

Saint Ailbe (Irish pronunciation: [ˈalʲvʲə]; also spelled Ailbhe, Elfeis, Ailfyw, Ailvyw, Elveis,^[2] Latinized as Albeus, sometimes anglicized as Elvis^[3]) was a sixth-century Irish bishop.^[4]

Life

He is sometimes claimed as one of the pre-Patrician Saints, with Ciaran, Declan, and Ibar, but the annals note his death in 528 (i.e. after the death of Saint Patrick in 460). A tradition held that he went to Rome and was ordained bishop by the Pope. He founded the monastery and Diocese of Emly (in Irish: Imlech), which became very important in Munster. The full name of Emly in the Irish language is Imleach Iubhair which means "The Border of the Lake of the Yew Trees". The reference to the yew tree is a reminder of the pre-Christian history of Emly.^[5] A ninth-century Rule, written in Old Irish, bears his name.

Ailbe baptised St David,^[6][7] patron saint of Wales. There was a church dedicated to Saint Ailbe in the hamlet of Saint Elvis near Solva,^[8] Pembroke, Wales, UK,^[9] near St David's; it is long in ruins.^[10] There is still a shrine to St. Elvis^[11] which bears an inscription making the connection between the two variants of the name, and confirming that St. Elvis baptised St. David.^[12]

Legends

Ailbe was the child of a clandestine union. The father, fearing King Cronan, fled before the child was born. The King ordered that the baby be killed but his servants left him near a rock where, it is said, a wolf nursed him.^[13] Long afterwards, when Ailbe was bishop, an old she-wolf, pursued by a hunting party, fled to the Bishop and laid her head upon his breast. Ailbe protected his old foster-mother, and every day thereafter she and her little ones came to take their food in his hall.^[4]

Britons living in Ireland found and fostered him. When they wished to return to Britain, they refused to let Ailbe come with them. However, they were unable to make the crossing without him and he sailed with them the next day. He then crossed to Gaul, with difficulty, because he wished to go to Rome. He was educated and ordained in Rome by a Saint Hilary [male], then sent to the pope to be made a bishop. The hagiographer claims that he fed the populace of Rome for three days after his consecration and then went home to Ireland. There he became involved with local royal politics and founded the See of Emly. At the end of his life, a supernatural ship came and he boarded to learn the secret of his death. After returning from the other world, he went back to Emly (Imlech) to die and be buried.^[14]

One account tells how Ailbe petitioned King Aengus of Munster on behalf of St Enda, asking him for a site for monastery. Aengus was unaware of the islands in his domain until he dreamt of them and acceded to grant them to Enda.^[15]

Manuscripts and dating

The vita, or "life," of Ailbe is included in the Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (VSH), a collection of medieval Irish saints’ lives in Latin compiled in the fourteenth century. There are three major manuscript versions of the Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (VSH): Dublin, Oxford, and Salamanca (Codex Salmanticensis), all compiled in the 14th century. Charles Plummer compiled an edition of the VSH based on the two surviving Dublin manuscripts in 1910. William Heist compiled an edition of the single Salamanca manuscript (Codex Salamanticensis) in 1965. Oxford professor Richard Sharpe suggests that the Salamanca manuscript is the closest to the original text from which all three versions derive. Sharpe analyzes the Irish-name forms in the Codex Salamanticensis and, based on the similarities between it and the Life of Saint Brigid (a verifiably seventh-century text), posits that nine, possibly ten, of the lives in the Salamanca Codex were written much earlier, circa 750 - 850.^[16]

Veneration

St. Ailbe is venerated as one of the four great patron of Ireland.^[17] His feast day is 12 September.

Patronage

St. Ailbe is patron saint of the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly^[5]

Notes

References

• Webb, Alfred (1878). " Ailbe, Saint". A Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & son. Wikisource
• de Paor, Liam (trans.) (1993). Saint Patrick’s World: The Christian Culture of Ireland’s Apostolic Age. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 
• Gougaud, Louis (1932). Christianity in Celtic Lands. 
• Heist, W.W. (ed.) (1965). Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, ex codice olim Salmanticensi nunc Bruxellensi. Lives of the Saints of Ireland, from the Salamanca manuscript now of Brussels. Subsidia Hagiographica 28. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes. 
• Plummer, Charles (1968, 1910). Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae. Lives of the Saints of Ireland. II (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. pp. xxviii–xxxi, 46–64.  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Sharpe, Richard (1991). Medieval Irish saints' lives: an introduction to Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

v t e Saints of Ireland A–C Abbán Abel of Reims Abran Adalgis Adomnán Adomnán of Coldingham Aidan of Lindisfarne Ailbe of Emly Ailerán Alto of Altomünster Andrew the Scot Assicus Athracht Autbod Baithéne Balin Balther Barrfoin Bean Bécán Bega Benignus of Armagh Beoadh Beoc Berach Blaithmaic Boadin Boethian Brandan Breage Brendan Brendan of Birr Briarch Brigit of Kildare Brogan Bron Brónach Budoc Buriana Óengus of Tallaght Máedóc of Ferns Scuithin Gobhan Saints Portal Ireland Portal