Gerald of Mayo

Saint Gerald of Mayo the venerable was an Anglo-⁠Saxon monk and abbot of Northumbria, first abbot of the monastery "Mayo of the Saxons" in Ireland, who died on 13 March of the year 732 (according to other sources 726 or 731). He is venerated as a saint in both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church. He is commemorated on 13 March.

From Northumbria to Ireland

He was born in Northumbria; little reliable information is known of his early life, and his date of birth is unknown. He is said to have been the son of an Anglo-⁠Saxon king, Cusperius, and the queen Benitia. According to the stories of his Life, the king sent Gerald and his brothers Balanus, Berikertus and Hubritanus to be educated by the Irish bishop Colmán of Lindisfarne. Later Gerald was one of the English monks at Lindisfarne who accompanied Colmán to Iona and then to Ireland. This happened after the Synod of Whitby in 664, in which King Oswy of Northumbria decided in favour of the date of Easter used by the rest of the Church and against the Irish method of reckoning. Though Colmán was an ardent supporter of the Irish traditions, he decided after the synod to leave with those who would not accept the Alexandrian computus, rather than accept it himself. Gerald was among the thirty Northumbrian monks who left Lindisfarne with Colmán and settled in the end, in 668, on Inishbofin ("island of the white cow") in Galway, 8 km off the coast of Connemara.

The upset at Inishbofin

Almost at once dissensions arose between the Irish and the Northumbrian monks. The Northumbrians were disgruntled that the others left the island in summer to preach on the mainland, while they were left to tend the island. It has been suggested that the split arose from a difference between Northumbrian and Irish agricultural traditions, the latter including transhumance; Vera Orschel indicates that the community might have had a mainland base for cattle, from which transhumance could have enticed the Irish monks away in the summer. Yet transhumance was not foreign to the Northumbrians. It seems the break between the two groups occurred as early as the first year. Perhaps a clue to the split is that the Irish of the Middle Ages had a reputation for simply "wandering"; it was not uncommon for monks to leave their houses in search of scholarship or missionary fields, and a seventh-⁠century Irish canon begs clergy to teach, as a priority, people of their own country. Arrived at Inishbofin, the Irish brethren were closer to home and able to return for worthwhile intervals. In contrast, the Northumbrians had to content themselves with abiding by the rule of Basil the Great, that agriculture is the best work for monks, since it keeps them from wandering.

Mayo of the Saxons

After this early upset, Colmán decided to found a separate monastery for the thirty Northumbrian brethren, setting up Gerald as first abbot. Colmán died soon after. So arose, in 670, "Mayo of the Saxons" (Magh Eo, the yew plain), 74 km from Inishbofin. Gerald was fairly young for such a prominent position, but led wisely. The monastery flourished and became a popular destination. To judge merely from the size of its enclosure (traces at Mayo Abbey with a diameter of 400 metres), at some time in its early history the monastery must have been comparable in influence with sites like Armagh, Kildare, Glendalough and Clonmacnoise. It seems to have been counted among the larger monasteries in the Irish annals. Under its young abbot the School of Mayo gained greatly in fame for sanctity and learning; Alcuin, at York and Aachen, corresponded with its abbot and monks and spoke of a "great light of knowledge" that went out from Mayo as far as England and France. The economic base seems to have permitted a good scriptorium and library.

Gerald remained abbot at Mayo until 697, when, some say, he resigned in favour of Saint Adomnán. Adomnán, some authors hold, celebrated Easter at Mayo in 703, but afterwards left for Skreen, 78 km away. Without their abbot, the monks prevailed on Gerald to resume the abbacy. Gerald governed the abbey and diocese of Mayo until his death at an advanced age. It is sometimes said that he was ordained bishop, but this is not certain.

Other works and his death

Gerald is reputed to have founded the abbeys of Tempul-⁠Gerald (or Ely-⁠Theria) in Connaught and Teagh-⁠na-⁠Saxon, and a convent, which he placed under the protection of his sister Segretia. The Life of Saint Gerald tells how Gerald and others were involved in the course of events during a large plague in the 660s that killed half of Ireland's population. Saints Gerald and Fechin were invited to a meeting by the joint kings in Tara to decide what to do about the plague and a concurrent famine. Fechin believed the plague was sent by God to stop people from continuing to starve, while Gerald advocated praying for an end to the plague and the starvation. Gerald's sister and many from her convent reportedly died in the plague.

In one fairly uncommon miracle, Gerald is credited with a resurrection that transformed the subject's gender. A king's only child, a daughter, died, and the king, distraught and desperate to have a male heir, asked Gerald to save his child, but told the saint that his son had died. Gerald suspected the real story, but the king persisted in lying, and Gerald said the child could be brought back as a boy, no matter his original gender. Gerald brought the boy to life, and the king, overjoyed, named his son Catholus. This is a more complex version of a similar miracle attributed to Saint Abbán. The historical reliability of the accounts of his sister and brother (supposedly Balin, also a disciple of Colmán, in Connaught), as of Beretchert and Huildbriti, who are Irish saints, has been questioned; scholars think they are "siblings in spirit" rather than by family. Colgan thought Gerald did not live after 697; but the Annals of the Four Masters give the date of his death as 13 March 726, while the Annals of Ulster date it as late as 731. He died in Galway and was buried at Mayo, where a church dedicated to him survives to this day. Saint Gerald's College, Castlebar, bears his name, and several churches and schools in North America honour him.