Marianus Scotus of Regensburg

Marianus Scotus (Gaelic: Muiredach; † ca 1081 in Regensburg ) was an Irish monk and writer who founded the monastery of Saint Peter Christmas in Regensburg.

He was born probably in Donegal or Derry ( Ireland) and belonged to the MacRobartaigh family, which was related to the family O'Donnell, who guarded the Cathach ( Battle Book of Colmcille ). He even wrote his nickname proven with two t ( " Scotus ", see Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod 1247 ). In 1067 he broke as a pilgrim with two companions named John and Candidus on a pilgrimage to Rome. On the way there he was won over to join as a Benedictine in the monastery Michel mountain near Bamberg. It is anachronistic reported, Bishop Otto of Bamberg had him and his companions moved to the entrance. Marianus moved but no later than 1074 to Regensburg, where he first in the convent Niedermünster (maybe before that in the convent Obermünster ) found a property and produced manuscripts for a living. 1075/1076 he received from the abbess of Upper Minster church Christmas St. Peter's, where he finally settled and a monastic community founded, which quickly grew by more Irish pilgrims and which he led in the way of an abbot ( officially he had held the office an abbot not stop ). The monastery of Saint Peter's Christmas and the Irish monastery of St. Jacob soon (but after the death of Marianus ) also founded in Regensburg were the nucleus of the Scots monasteries. Marianus is considered the founding father of this exclusive Irish Scottish monasteries. Beginning of the 1080s years, probably 1081, died Marianus, which was soon revered as a saint and was honored some one hundred years after his death by a Vita ( Vita Mariani Scotti ). His relics are now in the altar of St. Jacob. Of the many written by him or at least glossed manuscripts, some have been preserved. The main autographs of Marianus are Paul's letters with commentary from the year 1079, now preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (code 1247; olim Theol 287. ), As well as a manuscript collection with various texts, which he made in 1081 and to 1083 was completed by another writer (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Fort Augustus Collectio Acc. 11218/1 ). His original Irish -influenced writing he adapted quickly to the continental Carolingian minuscule, only for glosses (partly in Gaelic ), he used to continue the Irish minuscule script. As a calligrapher ( fine writer ) he had never worked, he exercised ordinary writing activity from. However, he worked quickly and sometimes up into the night, as his comments show in the extant manuscripts. With his work as a writer and his most famous miracle is related, because when he was missing at night by candlelight for writing, the fingers of his left hand had started to glow, to give him the necessary light ( cf. Vita Mariani Scotti, chap. 8).