322 rrocccdhitjii. of the Roijal Irish Academfi. 



Prof. Bury lias conjectured with great probability that this novel movement 

 in hagiography was the writing of the lives of Irish saints in Latin. He 

 thinks that previous to their time such documents had been exclusively 

 compiled in Irish. ^ 



There can be no doubt that the Cogitosus alluded to by Muirchu as his 

 father is none other than the author of the Vita S. Brigidae.^ Graves^ was 

 tlie first to demonstrate this by a brilliant emendation of a corrupt phrase in 

 the Book of Armagh, and his correction has been accepted by Hogan,* 

 Whitley Stokes/ and Bury.° On folio 20 r°, col. 1, line 18, the i[S. reads, 

 " excepto tantum uno patris mei eognito si expertum atque occupatum ingenioli 

 nrei puerilem remi cymbam deduxi."' CTra\'es altered the meaningless cognifo 

 si into cof/iiitosi. Coguitosus is, of course, the same as Cogitosus, the insertion 

 of the letter u between g and a vowel being -^'ery common iir Latin Jiss- 

 transcrilied by Irishmen. In the Book of Armagh we find (levanguclinm, 

 nnr/neliis, finguere, hiigtiinquo. Graves' has further pointed out that the word 

 cogitosus, meaning " thoughtful," " pensive," is a Latin translation of 

 Hl/icht/u'iii (as connected with the verb tnachtnaigim, " I ponder over," "I 

 wonder at"), the prefix Mnccu being equivalent to the Latin filiorum. This 

 view is accepted by Whitley Stokes!' I may, however, remark that the word 

 eogitosus, which is unknown in classical Latinity, appears to occur very rarely 

 in medifeval writings. It is not recorded in any Latin dictionary,!" and I only 

 remember to have come across it once, namely in the short Latin tract 

 published in 1910 by H. Suchier" from the Paris xi.s., lat. No. 8701, written in 

 1370. 



A personage named Cogitosus, a " right " or a " wise man," is noticed at 

 the date April the ISth in the Martyrology compiled about 1170 by Marianus 



' Life of St. Patrick, 1905, pp. 256, 266. It is also possible that previous to the time of 

 Cogitosus and Muirchu hagiogvaphical writings in Ireland partook more of the nature of acta and 

 memorabilia than of regular biographies. The unsatisfactory nature of Irish hagiography has been 

 frequently remarked. 



-Muirchu's preface (ap. Stokes, loc. eit., ii, p. 269) shows a remarkable similarity to the 

 prologue atid concludiug paragraph of Cogitosus' Vita S. Brigidae, and F. Duine (Les Saints de 

 Domnonee, Kennes, [1912], p. 6) has very recently pointed out a not less remarkable relation 

 between the preface of Cogitosus and that of the Vita S. Samsocis. 



3Proc. R. I. Acad., 1863, vol. viii, pp. 269-271. 



'Analecta BoUandiana, t. i, 1882, p. 545. 



^JjOC. cit., ii, p. 269n. 



"Loc. eit., p. 265. 



'Ed. Stokes, loc. cit., ii, p. 269; ed. Gwynn, p. 39, 1. IS. 



sproc. K. I. Acad., 1863, 8, pp. 269-271. 



5 Tripartite Life, etc., ii, p. 269n. 2 ; cf. also Bury, Life of St. Patrick, p. 255. 



'" Those I have consulted include Forcellini, Du Cange-Hensehel, and the great Thesaurus Linguae 

 Latinae, now in course of publication in Germany, 



"Romania, 39, 1910, p. 76. 



