Brigit and the Bishop Conundrum: Gender and Authority in Early Medieval Ireland

The first portion of the ninth century Bethu Brigte,(The Book of Brigit) climaxes in St. Brigit being ordained as a bishop. There has been little discussion of this topic in the scholarship. The editor and translator of the critical edition of Bethu Brigte, simply states, “This is obviously a scribal error,” pointing out that later portions of the text show St. Brigit refraining from performing the sacrament of baptism. However, the concept had meaning for several communities within early medieval Ireland; Brigit’s episcopal ordination also appears in the 9th century Martyrology of Oengus and is retained, with additional explanations, in the later Middle Irish Life of Brigit. How are we to understand this repeated assertion? This paper investigates contextual factors that might have served to make Brigit the Bishop culturally intelligible to certain populations in early medieval Ireland, particularly the factor of religious status and gender exceptionalism in Early Irish law texts