Cymmrodorion Record Series Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX C. GlLDAE LORICA. THE LORICA OF GlLDAS. The name Lorica is applied to this Hymn and to a number of others of like character, as implying a prayer of invocation for supernatural protection against the evils of life, but more particularly against pestilence and other dangers of death. The idea underlying the name is probably derived from Ephes. vi, 14, where the Apostle bids his readers stand, "having put on the breast-plate of righteousness," which words in the Latin version read induti lorica iustitiae. With these words in mind, the writer of the Hymn makes use of lorica twice in the course of his prayer; so that, as the idea grew that the recitation of the prayer, or similar ones, did provide protection against the dangers of pestilence or sickness, the Hymn itself acquired this appellation. It is called a Lorica; it is called the " Lorica of Gillas " in the Preface which precedes it in the Irish MS. called the Leabhar Breac (in Welsh, Y Llyfr Brych, or Speckled Book), now in the library of the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin. Now Gillas, or Gillus, is a common form for Gildas, especially in Irish documents, as, for instance, "The ite of Cluain Credail Gillasque," in the Annals of Tigernach, or "Gillas obiit," in the Annals of Ulster; the Bern MS. of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, xii, 6, reads, " cum Gillas histoi icus testatur." We may, therefore, take the evidence of the writer of this Preface, so far as it goes, that there was an early tradition in Ireland which connected the Lorica printed in this volume with Gildas, the author of the De Excidio. The colophon in the MS. from which Mone first of all printed the Hymn attributes it to "Lathacan the Irishman" (Explicit hymnus quem Lathacan Scotigena fecit), and the...