Episode 117d Saint Patrick: Converting Pagans or Banishing Snakes?Description: In today’s episode Dr. Carly McNamara of the University of Glasgow takes us through the incredible life of that most famous of Irish saints, Patrick. We will talk about where he came from, what he wrote about and some interesting facts about his life. We will also discuss trade, slavery, travel and other aspects of life in a distant corner of Europe in the era of a Roman Empire that was falling apart and it wasn’t quite clear what would replace it.About Today’s Guest:Dr. Carolyn McNamaraOn Twitter: @MedievalCarlyEducation Evolved: @EducationEvolvd www.educationevolvedltd.com/Slavery After Rome by Alice Riohttps://www.amazon.com/Slavery-500-1100-Studies-Medieval-European/dp/0198865813Book of Kells Onlinehttps://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS58_003vYou can learn more about the History of Papacy and subscribe at all these great places:http://atozhistorypage.com/https://www.historyofthepapacypodcast.comemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyparthenonpodcast.comhttps://www.gettr.com/user/atozhistoryBeyond the Big Screen:Beyondthebigscreen.comThe History of the Papacy on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6DO2leym3kizBHW0ZWl-nAGet Your History of the Papacy Podcast Products Here: https://www.atozhistorypage.com/productsHelp out the show by ordering these books from Amazon!https://amzn.com/w/1MUPNYEU65NTFMusic Provided by:"Danse Macabre" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Virtutes Instrumenti" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Crusades" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Funeral March for Brass" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"String Impromptu Number 1" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Intended Force" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Agnus Dei X - Bitter Suite Kevin MacLeaod (incomptech.com)"Folk Round" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Celtic Impulse" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By Ariely - Own work, CC BY 3.0, ttps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4533576By Pam Brophy, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9124089By ACBahn - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33810833Begin Transcript:Thank you for listening to the History of the Papacy. I am your host Steve and we are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network, including Scott Rank’s History Unplugged, James Early’s Key Battles of American History, Richard Lim’s This American President. Go to parthenon podcast dot com to learn more.•Patreon Plug patreon.com/history of the papacy•4 Tiers – Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome•Inclusion on the History of the Papacy Diptychs, bonus audio and video content, Pope coin coming soon, monthly book drawings, early content, and add free, early content. Sign up early so that you have your name at the top of the lists!•Now, let us commemorate the Patreon Patrons on the History of the Papacy Diptychs. We have oRoberto, Goran, William, Brian, Jeffrey, Christina, John, and Sarah at the Alexandria level oDapo, Paul, Justin and Lana all of who are the Magnificent at the Constantinople Level. oReaching the ultimate power and prestige, that of the See of Rome: we have Peter the Great!•In today’s episode Dr. Carly McNamara of the University of Glasgow takes us through the incredible life of that most famous of Irish saints, Patrick. We will talk about where he came from, what he wrote about and some interesting facts about his life. We will also discuss trade, slavery, travel and other aspects of life in a distant corner of Europe in the era of a Roman Empire that was falling apart and it wasn’t quite clear what would replace it.•With that, here is the next piece of the mosaic of the history of the Popes of Rome and Christian Church.[00:00:00] Let's get it. There's I have a couple of more questions about that diffusion, but I think it'll, we'll have a better picture if we talk about kind of the, the big player that everybody's probably been waiting for and that's Patrick or St. Patrick, as he's also called, who was Patrick and how did he make his impact on how Christianity spread throughout Ireland?Yeah. So one thing that's really fantastic about Patrick is that we have two works that are his own writings, and this is almost unheard of. We have so little personal writings from. The Atlantic islands in this period. I mentioned Gilda's previously, but he's after Patrick, even. So it it's amazing that we've got this from Patrick, although it was very purposefully preserved at our ma and we'll probably get into that a little bit.So we've got his confession and his letter to Corona. [00:01:00] K. No, the earliest version of the confession survives in the ninth century book of our ma uh, it appears to be a document written by Patrick in his old age, as he reflects upon his life and his actions, and seems to be a response to some unnamed detractors who appear to level accusations against him for poor behavior.Now, this is. We really think of when we're thinking of the great Patrick these days? No, not at all. So you can see this level of defensiveness that runs through the entire piece. He even tells us specifically the quote that he long thought to write. But up to now, he has hesitated because he feared what people would say.And quote, and if you're reading interested in reading the full confession for yourself, it's available in translation online at confess CEO dot I E, [00:02:00] and the letter to Kuroda kisses there as well. But I don't think we'll have time to get into the letter today. Would they have been written in Latin? Yes.So you can see the original, if you want to try yourself at some Latin it's there in, in the original Latin, but they've also got it translated into a few different languages, which is so fantastic. Sure. We'll dive into this in later times, but how much were, what somebody of like, um, Patrick or, and that meantime have written in Irish, would that have been done at all or was everything pretty well, Latin eyes?A lot of it is going to be Latin. We get written Irish after exposure to Latin. So it, I like to think of it as someone's like, this is really great that we can write this down. So let's do that with our own language too. And it's really thanks to the Irish in large part that. We have so much [00:03:00] about what it was like to learn Latin, because we have all of these Latin primers and study books basically about how to learn Latin that were written by the Irish.And it's really cool, I think. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we'll probably wind up getting into that a lot more because that's going to affect things later on. Yeah. I mean, it seems obvious that Patrick probably would've learned Irish. You know, he spent six years as a slave. He tells us, and it would be really hard to communicate with anyone if you didn't have any shared language and.As many years as he has meant to have spent as an adult in Ireland, he, he must have taken up language ability during that time. But I want to back up a little bit and get to the beginning of Patrick. So he gives us a little bit of information about himself in his confession. He tells us his father's name was Calpurnia [00:04:00] and that his father was a deacon.His grandfather's name. and he was a priest. He tells us that his family lived near a village called , which was where he was taken from when he was 16. And while this is fantastic information that we frequently yearned for in early sources, the sad news is that we have. No idea where ban of him to Bernie, I was meant to be.And that has engendered lots of discussion on the possible locations that run the gamut from Wales to England and even into Southern Scotland. We also don't have anything concrete by which to reckon his year of birth. And there has been much additional discussion on that. Uh, and just to round out this early picture of Patrick, he tells us that he wasn't particularly religious as a youth.I think that's fascinating [00:05:00] that, um, and it's gotta be so frustrating when you read a document and it's probably when they wrote it, everybody knew whereOr was, and now, you know, why would they ever write down? Oh yeah, well, it's next to this or that. And now it's completely gone. The same thing happens to us with Gilda's. He tells us that he was born very specific number of years after the battle of Mount Baden. But, uh, we don't know when that was so.Thanks. Gilda's yeah, yeah. Again, everybody knew when the battle was, well, why bother writing it down 1500 years later? Not so much. Yeah, exactly. So then getting into, now we know a little bit about Patrick's background. What was that next phase of his life? Yeah. So, uh, I think it's worth mentioning that just kind of can dealing Patrick together that he probably lived in the fifth century, a D he was the son of a [00:06:00] Romanized Britain and nominally, a third generation Christian.He was also sufficiently educated. To be able to write in Latin, which as we've already mentioned is the language that he, his two texts are in. So he worked as a shepherd in Ireland for six years as a slave, once he was captured. And he only tells us that it was in a wooded area near the Western sea. And for that reason it's location also.Elusive.