The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History

by John Bagnell Bury

Book Overview

J.B. Bury was a celebrated historian who wrote around the turn of the 19th century. His classics on the Roman Empire and Greece still stand among the best texts on the classical civilizations. Saint... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8027306523
• ISBN13: 9788027306527
• Release Date: December 2020
• Publisher: E-Artnow
• Length: 90 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Fine, Objective Study of Patrick

As he does with most of his work, Bury deserves more accolades for this critical study into St. Patrick and the varied evidence that exists to explain his life and times. Shrouded in mystery and legend, much of this "evidence" can only be trusted to a certain degree or must be considered within the broader context of the evidence's own origins, and it is this realization that Bury uses to craft the first modern and critical assessment of Patrick. Each unique source is discussed as to what its individual reliability and relevance is, then all of the specifics on this study are masterfully organized in a thorough appendix of which Bury could have been proud.With this critical evaluation method forming the basis for Bury's study, the end result is a very readable and engaging overview into the life of St. Patrich and the christianization of Ireland, a process that has been largely simplified and therefore obscured by a wealth of legends and myths. As interesting and valuable as these myths are for their own purposes, they cannot meet the needs of the true objective historian, and for this person Bury presents the original alternative from obscurity to scholarship.Though more recent literature on the subject exists, the general study by Bury still stands as a valuable and respectable Patrick source and I feel comfortable advising anyone with an interest in Irish or also Christianity's early history to give it a look.Like always, Bury's book is a winner indeed.

Rediscovering the Real Man Behind the Day of Revelry

Out of the millions of people who lived and died in the fifth century A.D., the names of only two are widely recognized throughout the English-speaking world today: Attila the Hun and St. Patrick. And Attila isn't commemorated by an annual day of remembrance that is observed from Temple Bar to the Golden Gate. This book, authored nearly a century ago by a distinguished British historian of Late Antiquity, seeks to recover the real Patrick from the legends and haze (perhaps induced from drinking too much green beer?) that have come to surround him.Bury's expertise in the late Roman Empire (he is better known today for a series of the lectures, "The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians" and a two-volume history of the later Roman Empire from 395-565 A.D.) serves him well in this exploration of the world of St. Patrick. Patrick was born in western Britain in the late 4th century, probably around 388-390 A.D. At this time, Britain was still a distant province of the Roman Empire, but it was being rapidly being stripped of its defensive troops in order to meet the more central threat to the Empire presented by barbarian invaders like Alaric and the Visigoths. These grand historical currents impacted Patrick's life very directly at the time of his sixteenth birthday, around the years 404-05 A.D. Niall, High King of Ireland, took advantage of Britain's weakened defenses to launch a piratical raid up the Severn estuary. Patrick was captured and carried off into slavery as a prize of war.For some six or seven years, Patrick was assigned to watch over the livestock of his new master in the wilds of sparsely populated western Connaught -- very likely, Bury thinks, on the prominent mountain and pilgrimage site that to this day is known as Croagh Patrick. His servitude lasted for six or seven years, during which time he developed the passionate Christian faith that determined the course of the rest of his life. Then he managed to escape and made his way to one of the ports along the country's southeastern coast, where he was taken aboard a ship bound for Gaul.Curiously, after reaching Gaul, Patrick made no immediate effort to return home. He became a monk for a number of years at the monastery of Lerins, on an island off the southern coast of France. Later, he continued his religious training and was ordained as a deacon at Auxerre, also in Gaul. By the time he finally returned home for a visit, his parents were dead, and he seems to have found nothing in west England to hold him there. He returned to Auxerre, where he was selected for the mission that made his name immortal in 432 A.D.Bury establishes that the traditional idea that Patrick brought Christianity to a land that previously knew nothing but idol-worship and the sorcery of Druid priests is very much wide of the mark. There already seem to have been extensive Christian communities in Ireland at the time, particularly in the southeastern part of the country. Christianity had enormous prestige throug

History!

Bury's presentation and analysis of the facts are history at its best. This is the way history should be done. Although I have not seen Evidence One of rebuttal to Bury, most modern historians all follow lock step the axiom that Patrick started an autonomous Celtic church separate from the universal church. The extensive notes are worth the price of the book!

Readable and interesting, full of stories and humor.

One of the finest scholars of the late Roman world, John Bury died in 1927 leaving a distinguished record of research and writing. Bury's LIFE OF ST. PATRICK was one of the earliest scholarly attempts to separate fact from fiction in Patrick studies. Very quickly following the death of the saint a great body of stories and traditions arose around him. Some of these stories were plainly fabricated; others contained more than a grain of truth. As a scholar of the late Roman world Bury knew the territory very well and tells a compelling and plausible story of the earliest days of the Irish church. While scholarly, the book is readable and interesting, full of wonderful stories and wry humor. In his introduction to the reprint of Bury's classic, one of the greatest contemporary Patrick scholars, Liam de Paor, calls the book "a monument of enlightened scholarship and . . . of permanent value."