Ekphrasis at Kildare: The imaginative architecture of a seventh-century hagiographer

In about 650, when the Irish monk Cogitosus wrote the first Vita of St. Brigit, the saint's entire body lay honorably enshrined and crowned inside the basilica maxima at Kildare, her major monastery in the southeast of Ireland. Sometime before 1185, Ulster clerics hijacked the body northward fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSpeculum Vol. 79; no. 3; p. 605
Main Author Bitel, Lisa M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Medieval Academy of America 01.07.2004
Subjects
Bridget, Saint (1303-73)
Cults
Middle Ages
Saints
Shrines
Kildare Ireland
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Summary:In about 650, when the Irish monk Cogitosus wrote the first Vita of St. Brigit, the saint's entire body lay honorably enshrined and crowned inside the basilica maxima at Kildare, her major monastery in the southeast of Ireland. Sometime before 1185, Ulster clerics hijacked the body northward for reburial with Sts. Patrick and Columba, the two other patrons of Ireland, but their collective tomb was destroyed during the 16th century Dissolution. Brigit's remains were strewn abroad. Meanwhile, Cogitosus's great basilica burned several times and was eventually replaced with a series of stone churches. The disappearance of Brigit's church and the dispersal of her remains are ironic given the importance of her physical body and its enshrining architecture to her earliest cult and first written Vita.
ISSN:0038-7134
2040-8072
DOI:10.1017/S0038713400089843