Formation in Ireland
Columbanus received his early monastic education under Abbot Sinell at Cluaninis, a monastery on an island in the River Erne in what is now County Fermanagh, where tradition holds that he composed a commentary on the Psalms. He afterward entered Bangor Abbey in the north of Ireland, where Abbot Comgall instructed him; sources record him as conspicuous for fervour, regularity, and learning, and credit his teachers with grounding him in both Latin and Greek.
He remained at Bangor for many years until about 590, when Comgall granted him permission to leave for continental Europe. The discipline he carried with him reflected the Celtic monastic tradition in which he had been raised, including its distinctive customs of tonsure, its reckoning of the date of Easter, and a penitential practice modeled on that of the desert fathers.
Mission and Foundations in Gaul
Around 590 Columbanus sailed for the Frankish kingdoms with twelve companions. Welcomed into Burgundy, he was granted land at Annegray in the Vosges, where he established a community in a converted Roman fortress. As disciples gathered, he founded the nearby monasteries of Luxeuil and Fontaines, which became schools of the monastic life under his authority.
His communities grew rapidly, drawing both nobles and the sick who sought healing through prayer. He codified the life of his monks in his own monastic Rule, a demanding discipline whose chapters treated obedience, silence, food, poverty, humility, chastity, the choir offices, discretion, mortification, and perfection. He also taught a penitential practice centered on private confession to a priest followed by penances assigned in reparation for sins.
The Easter Controversy and Exile
For nearly twenty years Columbanus kept the Celtic calculation of Easter, which differed from the reckoning used by the Frankish bishops. The dispute, together with his insistence on his own monastic customs, brought him into conflict with the local hierarchy. He defended his tradition in letters, appealing to Pope Gregory I and later to Pope Boniface IV, and in 602 wrote to the Frankish prelates asking to be left to live in silence in his forests.
He also incurred the hostility of the Frankish court. Having rebuked King Theuderic II over his manner of life, he drew the enmity of the king and of his grandmother, Queen Brunhilda. He was imprisoned at Besançon and then forcibly exiled toward Ireland around 610, but the ship that was to carry him away was driven back by a storm, and he was freed to continue his work on the continent.
Journey to Italy and Bobbio
Making his way through the Frankish lands, Columbanus reached the court of King Theudebert II and traveled up the Rhine toward the Alps. Around 611 to 612 he founded a monastery at Bregenz on Lake Constance, where his disciple Saint Gall remained and gave his name to a later foundation in the region.
Crossing into Italy, he came to Milan, where King Agilulf and Queen Theodelinda of the Lombards received him. There he opposed Arian teaching and addressed a letter to Pope Boniface concerning the controversy known as the Three Chapters. In 614 Agilulf granted him land at Bobbio, near the River Trebbia between Milan and Genoa, where he repaired a half-ruined church and established the abbey that long remained a center of Orthodox faith and learning in northern Italy.
Repose and Relics
Columbanus reposed on November 21, 615, at Bobbio, at about the age of seventy-two. His relics are preserved in the crypt of Bobbio Abbey, where in 1482 they were placed in a new shrine beneath the altar.
His monastic Rule was approved by the Fourth Council of Macon in 627, and though it was later supplanted in the West by the Rule of Saint Benedict, his disciples are credited with founding a great number of monasteries across Gaul, the German lands, Switzerland, and Italy.
Writings
Among the works attributed to Columbanus are a Penitential, a series of short sermons, several epistles, Latin poems, and his monastic Rule. His writings show familiarity with both Latin and Greek learning. Much of what is known of his life derives from these surviving works together with the Vita Columbani, the Life of Columbanus written by the monk Jonas of Susa (Jonas of Bobbio) some decades after the saint's death.
