The Vita Sancti Brendani in the Russian National Library: A Latin Manuscript of the Twelfth Century

Abstract

This paper addresses questions concerning the place that Vita Sancti Brendani of the Russian National Library (Codex Lat.0.v.I № 199) takes in the manuscript tradition. A Latin manuscript of the twelfth сentury, probably of German origin, contains a version of the Navigatio Sancti Brendani — the prose work, which had greater popularity throughout the Middle Ages than the actual Vitae Brendani. Listing the Navigatio as the Vita, a mediaeval complier followed a widespread fallacy as the latter was unfamiliar to him.