By RAY CAVANAUGH
St. Adamnan of Iona was an abbot and scholar who wrote enduring works of history and hagiography. But his most noble contribution was his AD 697 introduction of the Cain Adomnain, a code of laws that sought to ensure the safety of noncombatants (women, children, elderly, infirm, clerics, and others) in warfare. Remarkably ahead of their time, these laws predate the similarly intentioned Geneva Convention by more than twelve centuries.
Adamnan’s feast day is September 23. He is also venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Very little is known of Adamnan’s early years other than that he was a native of Ireland’s County Donegal (the town of Raphoe is frequently mentioned) and that he probably was born in 624 or 625. Around 640, he entered a Columban monastery in Ireland, according to undiscoveredscotland.co.
uk.
He reportedly had to receive protection from a regional chieftain, according to Patrick Francis Moran’s book Irish Saints in Great Britain. When this chieftain became a monarch, Adamnan, described as by then having acquired notoriety for his erudition and piety, was given an important position at the monarch’s court.
There he remained until he was summoned to the monastery at Iona, a small island off the western coast of Scotland. The year of his arrival in Iona is uncertain, but multiple sources relate that in 679 he became the ninth abbot of the community.
From Iona, Adamnan made three visits to Ireland. The last visit had the greatest impact, as he went to the 697 Synod of Birr, held in central Ireland. With 91 chieftains and clerics in attendance, Adamnan presented his laws, which, because of their concern for noncombatants, are also known as Lex Innocentium (or Law of the Innocents).
Along with seeking to preserve life, Adamnan’s laws prohibited the sexual violence which so often has been a consequence of warfare. In addition to holding perpetrators to account, he sought to hold liable witnesses who made no effort to prevent a crime.
Aside from establishing that men alone should be subject to military combat, Adamnan insisted that women must not be held captive. Regarding assaults on women, he identifies different gradations, such as blows which leave no mark, blows which leave a mark, and attacks that required medical attention. In addition to addressing the crime of rape, he also includes a provision for other acts of sexual misconduct, such as reaching beneath a woman’s clothing or otherwise lewdly touching her outside her clothing.
Such laws “evidence a far-reaching agenda for the betterment of society, with fair treatment of women at the heart of his concern,” in the view of Mairin Ni Dhonnchadha, who wrote for Adamnan at Birr, AD 697: Essays in Commemoration of the Law of the Innocents, a book resulting from the 1997 conference at Birr to mark the 1,300th anniversary of the presentation of Adamnan’s laws.
Adamnan also showed concern for combatants: He interceded on behalf of prisoners of war and had success in securing their release. Around the time of his liberating endeavors, he was also respected for his penitential regimen, which Moran views as comparing “only with those of the great fathers and hermits of the Egyptian deserts.”
Despite his amazingly precocious humanitarian contribution, Adamnan has generally received more attention for his authorship of the Vita Columbae (Life of St. Columba, the founder and first abbot of the monastery at Iona). His Vita Columbae ranks among the more prominent hagiographies and is viewed as important not just for its material on St. Columba but also for its information on notable events of the period. The hagiography has also garnered interest for a section in which Adamnan expounds on the concept of Purgatory.
Adamnan’s other notable scholarly work was De Locis Sanctis (On Holy Places), a treatise on sacred locations from biblical texts (Adamnan never visited these places himself, but he interviewed a French bishop, Arculfus, who had spent nine months in the Holy Land, before being washed ashore on Iona).
Adamnan’s Vita Columbae would ultimately become more famous. But, during his lifetime, he was best known for De Locis Sanctis, which was copied and circulated across Europe. Many were hungry for such material, as it was the first work since the time of St. Jerome to enlighten the Western world about the actual locations from Scripture.
Moran’s account says that Adamnan spent his last years in Ireland. However, other accounts place him in Iona when he died around the age of 80 on September 23, 704. Wherever he in fact spent his final days, he left behind a legacy as an apt scholar and author, an effective negotiator, and a visionary in the protection of vulnerable persons.
Though some examples exist of the application of Adamnan’s laws, it is difficult to gauge their direct impact. Either way, his laws were on the right side of history and many centuries ahead of their time.
In the heart of an epoch later known as the “Dark Ages,” Adamnan laid a groundwork for human rights.
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