The focus of the article is on the historical stimuli which might have
prompted the compilation of the Irish Life of St Berach, Betha Beraigh,
and on the textual structure and motifs employed by the hagiographer to
achieve his goals, i.e. to extol his patron saint and to claim territories for
his church. Although the twelfth century was characterized by Church
reform, Betha Beraigh seems to show little interest in contemporary
religious discourse. Instead, the main purpose of the text seems to be
concern with property, as well as desire to forge or revive connections with
secular dynasties. The Life, therefore, represents a property record and
accordingly, should be read against a political background as a document
similar in its intent to continental charters.
Clare Monagle, Orthodoxy and Controversy in Twelfth-Century Religious Discourse. Peter Lombard’s ‘Sentences’ and the Development of Theology