3 - Restoring the Text: Jocelin's Approach to the Vita S. Kentegerni

Summary

Of the four different vitae of Kentigern that seem to have been in circulation during the twelfth century, Jocelin's version is the only one to survive intact today. The two vitae that constituted Jocelin's main source material have vanished, while a third text composed in the mid-twelfth century survives only in fragmentary form. The loss of these earlier texts has led many scholars to use Jocelin's Vita as an important but flawed source for the historical Kentigern and early Scottish religious history. However, few studies have analysed the Vita on its own terms as a literary and historical document of the late twelfth century. This chapter will examine the construction of the Vita as part of the wider investigation into Jocelin's approach to his source material found in the first half of this study. Since the underlying sources of Jocelin's work are the subject of significant historical debate, our analysis will begin with an overview of the main arguments concerning Jocelin's source material, before turning to a detailed examination of the compositional framework of the text.

Previous scholarship

The main division in Kentigern scholarship revolves around the identification of the two sources cited by Jocelin in the prologue to the Vita Kentegerni. Jocelin describes the first of these works as a vita in use at Glasgow Cathedral which was not only ‘discoloured by uncultivated language and darkened by slovenly style’ but which also contained ‘something contrary to sound doctrine and to the Catholic faith’. His other source is said to be a ‘codiculum’ that was written in ‘stilo Scottico’ (henceforth referred to as the Scottic Life) and ‘filled from end to end with solecisms’. The phrase ‘stilo Scottico’ seems best translated as ‘in the Gaelic style’ and since Jocelin notes that the text is full of grammatical errors, we can assume this to mean in the ‘Gaelic style of Latin’ rather than referring to a vernacular work. Scholarship is united in dating the composition of this source to the context of strong Gaelic influence over the kingdom of Strathclyde from the tenth to the early twelfth centuries.

With no other early extended Kentigern narrative remaining today, it has been traditionally assumed that the first of Jocelin's two sources survives as the anonymous and fragmentary vita written at the request of Bishop Herbert of Glasgow between 1147 and 1164.