SOME PENITENTIAL ASPECTS OF THE OLD IRISH “VOYAGES” (IMMRAMA)

Abstract

This article identifies some of the penitential semantic elements from two fragments of “The Voyage of Mail-Duin” and “Voyage of Wa Korr”, which are part of the group of Old Irish stories about voyages (OE Immrama). The first plot is connected with a hermit thief who was forced by God’s providence to give up his riches and retire to the island (episode 10th); the second is connected with the crime of the Wa Korra brothers, who ravaged the churches of Connaught and killed the clerics. As a source base, the early medieval Irish penitentiaries in Latin of the 5th-8th centuries, preserved in the manuscripts of the 9th-12th centuries, are involved: “The First Synod of Patrick”, the penitentiaries of Saints Gilda, Finnian, Columban, Kummene. The penitential aspects of Immrama have been in the orbit of scientific interests of scientists since the beginning of the 20th century and in recent decades, work in this direction is still ongoing. In the course of a comparative analysis, it was found that penitentiaries and these fragments of Immrama have certain connotations in the relationship between offense and sanction. The legal categories of exile, fasting, compensation for material damage find their application in relation to serious crimes or “sins”: murder and theft of church property. However, there are a number of important differences in small details: in the understanding of the category of “expulsion” or “excommunication” in the penitentiaries and in the “Voyages”; in the duration of fasting and repentance. Unfortunately, the hermeneutics of the penitential meaning of “Voyages” in those plots where not clergymen (hermits) but laymen appear, is also difficult.