Customer Reviews

Saint Patrick, AD 493-1993

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This book suffers from three major problems, two of which depend directly on the author's basic personality and approach, and one on a rather incomprehensible decision to accept someone else's clearly flawed conclusions. The latter is Dumville's unfortunate acceptance of James Carney's late dating (493) for Patrick's death, which in turn depends on a mistaken view of the value as evidence of Irish monastic records. The other two major flaws are the bitty presentation of the evidence, with no attempt to present anything like an overall view; and the excessive concentration on the transmission of texts. Always and everywhere, Dumville speaks as though the first WRITTEN appearance of any item represents its origin; an idea that two minutes' thought ought to disprove. And his assumption that the first scholarly problem is to shed light on the origin and history of individual documents means that he never even tries to develop a clear vision of historical developments. To the best of my knowledge, Dumville has never written a book; all books published under his byline are collections of articles, and this, in spite of being conceived and designed from the beginning as a unit, is no exception. The result is that it is hugely difficult to find out what Dumville thinks of any one major problem - except the one on which he is thoroughly, unmistakably wrong, namely the date.
Worst of all is his relentlessly negative and destructive attitude. He finds it more important to shed negative light, disproving others' views. While this is understandable in view of the apparently irresistible appeal of the period he studies - the Insular dark ages - to cranks of every kind, it is in my view an unconstructive attitude. Nevertheless, this book is full of useful items and observations; indeed, Dumville seems to have gone out of his way to incorporate even items he regards as valueless and remote. It can be used with profit even by people who are very far intellectually from its pessimistic, if learned, author.

Saint Patrick by Dumville et alumni is a great find for all who think seriosuly about history - history students and scholars. It requires some knowledge about the Saint as it discusses all the controversial matters referring to His life. The books is very detailed, scrupulous and multidisciplinary. It contains the most important sources, which is essencial in this kind of literature. It presents the most recent state of research on Saint Patrick - his life and background, so anyone who seeks for something really serious about the Saint should definitely have this book.