10 
likely of Gaulish extraction ; and is said to have been a niece of 
St. Martin of Tours. During his boyhood a descent was made 
upon the coast where he lived by pagan pirates from Ireland, by 
whom his parents were slain, and he himself was carried away 
captive. The date of his birth must be about A.D. 387; that of 
his captivity, about 400. It is particularly to be noticed that he 
had been living at this time in the mdst of a large Christian 
population. From his native country he was carried to some part 
of the north-east of Ireland. ‘Trustworthy tradition points to the 
mountain slopes of Antrim as the spot where the future apostle 
fed the flocks of his pagan master. Escaping from captivity after 
some years, he describes himself as “journeying” southwards for 
many days, then crossing the sea until he came to what he calls 
his “fatherland” (patria) ; and this seems from subsequent passages 
to have been Gaul. 
The problem before us is to identify this “ Banaven Taberniz,” 
and to explain the various allusions made by the Saint. At the 
outset we are met by two rival theories supporting respectively the 
claims of Gaul and of North Britain to be the birthplace of the 
Saint. I think it can be shown that both these claims rest upon 
mistaken interpretations of the passages in question; and that 
without denying the facts upon which they rely, we can more justly 
fit them in with quite a different opinion. 
. The principal grounds for the first theory that St. Panel was 
Be in Gaul—somesaynear Boulogne, somesay near Tours—are the 
tradition of his relationship with St. Martin, alluded to in the later 
lives, and the fact that he seems to speak of Gaul as his fatherland. 
But there is no necessary inference from these statements that he was 
himself born in Gaul. It is a matter of history that legions which had 
long been stationed and recruited in Gaul were, about this very 
time, sent to Britain under Theodosius to defend the northern 
frontier against the Picts. Calphurnius, St. Patrick’s father, may 
well have been a Gaul, or perhaps a Frank, who had enlisted in 
one of the legions, and married St, Martin’s niece whilst still in 
Gaul; but whose child had been born during his parents’ residence 
in Britain. Under such circumstances the boy would naturally 
