Colman[1] (floruit c. 800),[2] called nepos Cracavist ("grandson of Cracavist"),[3] was a Hiberno-Latin author associated with the Carolingian Renaissance. His poetry is full of classical allusions and quotations of Virgil.[4] He may have been a cleric at Rome, as the manuscript which nicknames him states; there were several such Colmans at Rome in the ninth century. He may be one of those responsible for spreading the cult of Saint Brigid in Italy.[2] One manuscript suggests he was a bishop.[5]
- ^ The Irish Gaelic name Colm or Colmán gave rise to the Latinisations Colmanus and Columba and the diminutive Columban(us). All these names are largely interchangeable, cf. Michael W. Herren (2000), "Some Quantitative Poems Attributed to Columbanus of Bobbio," Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke (Leiden: E. J. Brill, ISBN 90-04-11964-7), 111 n54.
- ^ a b M. Esposito (1932), "The Poems of Colmanus 'Nepos Cracavist'; and Dungalus 'Praecipus Scottorum'," Journal of Theological Studies, 33, 118, assigns him the early ninth century.
- ^ The more probable derivation of his name is from episcopus craxavit ("the bishop wrote"), cf. Herren, 111.
- ^ His poems are translated by Peter Godman (1985), Latin Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), 278–81.
- ^ MS BN lat. 18095, where his poem is titled "Versus Colmani episcopi de sancta Brigida" (Verses of bishop Colman of saint Brigid).