All that the Second and Third “Lives” testify
As the Second and Third “Lives of St. Patrick” are practically and almost verbally identical up to the end of Section XI., the same translation up to that point will suffice for both.
“Patrick was born at Nemthur. He had a sister named Lupita, whose relics are preserved at Armagh. Patrick was born in the Field of Tents. It was called Campus Tabernaculorum because the Roman army, at some time or other, pitched their tents there during the cold winter season.
“IV.—The boy, however, was reared at Nemthur. …
“XI.—This was the cause of his exile and arrival in Ireland: An army of Irish Scots embarked, as usual, in their ships, and forming a large fleet sailed over to Britain, and brought back from thence many captives and carried them to Ireland, the captives numbering altogether one hundred of both sexes. Patrick was, as he himself testifies, in his sixteenth year at that time.”
The following addition is given in the Third “Life”:
“Patrick, who was also called Suchet, was sprung from the British nation, and his country and the place where he was born was situated not far from the sea. His father’s name was ‘Calburnius,’ the son of a venerable man named Potitus; but his mother, Conches by name, was the daughter of Dechusius. Both parents of this holy man were devoted to religion.”
Controversially speaking, neither of these two “Lives” are of any value.
Nemthur is not identified with Dumbarton, and it is not clearly stated whether the Irish fleet raided the island of Britain or Armorican Britain, or whether St. Patrick was descended from the Island or Armorican Britons.
A recent writer lays much stress on the fact that the British word Tabern is used to denote a tent field in the Second, Third, and Fourth “Lives,” but the argument does not carry with it much weight, for according to Camden the British and Gaulish Celts spoke the same language, so that it is just as favourable to Armorica as to the island of Britain (“Britannia,” vol. i., p. 11).
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