Saint Columbanus At the Tomb of Saint Martin Of Tours

The life story of Saint Columbanus was written by Jonas of Bobbio, who became a monk at the monastery in Bobbio three years after the death of the legendary abbot, in his work Vita Sancti Columbani. Jonas gives a detailed account of the conflicts that forced Columbanus to leave the monastery he had founded in Luxeuil, and how he set out on his journey back to his native Ireland. During their journey along the Loire, Columbanus and his exiled monks arrived in the city of Tours, where special and miraculous events took place that had an impact on Columbanus’s entire future destiny. The study focuses on the question of where Columbanus’s veneration of St. Martin originated: whether it was influenced by his time on the continent, where he held the confessor bishop in high esteem, or whether we should rather think that he brought the most essential elements of the cult with him from Ireland. Considering other Irish hagiographies and the folk customs and rituals associated with the feast of St. Martin in Ireland, Columbanus’s tradition from his homeland laid the foundation for his unparalleled veneration of the saint.