MUIRCHU MOCCU MACTHENI'S 'VITA SANCTI PATRICII' LIFE OF SAINT PATRICK

"David Howlett presents a radically new text, translation, and analysis of Muirchu moccu Mactheni's Life of Saint Patrick, with newly discovered internal confirmations of the text, a definitive solution to the problem of the ordering of chapters, evidence of Muirchu's learning, deeper than previously supposed, and of his architectonic genius. Howlett suggests a date, a more ambitious theological purpose, and a more aggressive political purpose than earlier scholars have recognized. Muirchu exerted a profound, if previously unrecognized, influence upon later hagiographical writers, not only in Ireland, but also in Brittany and in Wales, to be considered in two further books dealing with the Breton Latin Life of Saint Samson of Dol and Rhygyfarch ap Sulien's Welsh Latin Life of Saint David."--BOOK JACKET.