(Walafrid, i. 8; Lanigan, ii. 291), and in the same year as the battle of Tolbiac arrived at Milan, having spent about a year at Bregenz (Walafrid says three years, but this, as Lanigan shows, is probably incorrect). He was received with great kindness by the Lombard king, Agilulf, and appears to have remained at Milan for a year. During this time he disputed with the Arians,and wrote a treatise against their doctrine, which has not been preserved (Vita, 29). At the request of Agilulf and Queen Theodelinda he wrote a letter to Boniface IV on the subject of the Nestorian heresy, which prevailed widely in northern Italy. In this letter he appears to defend the Nestorian doctrine, and urges the popetosubm.it the matter to a general council. In 613 Agilulf gave him a grant of land in the Apennines, and there he founded his monastery of Bobbio, rebuilding an old church which he found there, and building another. While he was thus engaged a messenger came to him from Hlothair telling him that his prophecy had been fulfilled. Theodebert had been defeated and slain in 612, and his conqueror, Theodorik, had died the next year. Hlothair slew the sons of Theodorik, and was now king over all the three Frankish kingdoms. He wished Columban to come to him. This, however, the abbot refused, and only begged the king to show kindness to his monastery at Luxeuil. He died at Bobbio on 21 Nov. 615, and was there buried. His memory is held in honour in northern Italy, and is preserved in the name of the town San Columbano. His name is really only another form of Columba (Vita, i.) The example of missionary zeal set by St. Columban found many imitators both in England and Ireland. About fifty years after his death his rule was superseded by the rule of St. Benedict. Nevertheless his work did not perish, for in Gaul no monastery for many years became so famous as his house at Luxeuil, while in Italy the congregation he founded in his last days was full and flourishing a century and a half after his death (Paulus Diaconus, iv. 41), and long continued a seat of learning and a stronghold of orthodoxy (Dict. of Christian Biog. art. 'Columban').
Columban's extant works, collected and published by Patrick Fleming, are: 1. 'Regula Monastica,' his Rule, in ten chapters. 2. 'Regula coenobialis . . . sive Liber de quotidianis pcenitentiis monachorum,' his book of punishments for the offences of monks, in fifteen chapters. 3. 'Instructiones variæ,' including seventeen discourses. 4. 'Liber de modo . . . pœnitentiarum,' a penitential. 5. 'Instructio de octo vitiis principalibus.' 5. 'Epistolæ aliquot,' letters to the synod of 602, his parting charge to the monks in his Burgnndian houses, to Boniface III and IV, and to Gregory the Great. 6. His six poems on the vanity and vexations of life, including an epigram 'De Muliere;' the authorship of one of these 'Rythmus de Vanitate . . . vitæ mortalis,' is doubtful (Wright). Besides these : 7. A commentary on the Psalms is not in Fleming's collection. The collected editions of his works are: 'Patricii Flemingi Hiberni Collectanea sacra, seu S. Columbani . . . acta et opuscula,' 8vo, Augsburg, 1621, fol. Louvain, 1667, which includes the life by Jonas and the Miracles, and reprinted from this the 'Opera omnia' in the 'Bibliothecæ Patrum,' and in Migne's 'Patrologiæ Cursus completus,' tom. lxxxvi., 1844. The rules are also in Goldast's 'Parseneticorum Vet.' pars i., Messingham's 'Florilegium Insulæ Sanctorum,' fol. Paris, 1624, and Lucas Holstenius's 'Codex Regularum,' ii.; the poems with the 'Rythmus' are in Goldast's collection, and in 'Dionysii Catonis Disticha de Moribus,' 8vo, Zwickau, 1672. Fuller information will be found in Wright's 'Biographia Literaria,' which also contains some account of the works. The commentary on the Psalms is in 'II codice irlandese,' Rome, 1878.
[Vita S. Columbani, by Jonas of Bobbio, in Fleming's Collectanea and Mabillon's Acta SS. Ord. S. Ben. Sæc. ii.; Walafrid Strabo, Vita S. Galli (Mabillon's Acta SS. ii., Goldast's Alemann. rerum Script, i.); Fredegarii Schol. Chron. (Recueil des Hist. ii. 413); Aimonis Flor. de Gestis Francorum, iii. c. 94 (Recueil des Hist. iii. 113); Paulus Diac. iv. c. 41 (Pertz); Bædæ Hist. Eccl. ii. c. 4 (Eng. Hist. Soc.); Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, ii. chap. 13; Montalembert's Monks of the West, ii. 447; Neander's Ecclesiastical History (Stebbing), v. 37–44 (Clark's Theol. Lib. xv.); Wright's Biog. Lit. i. 142–63; Dict. of Christian Biog. i. 605–7.]
COLVILE or COLDEWEL, GEORGE (fl. 1556), translator, a student of Oxford (Wood; his name does not appear in Boase, Register of the University), translated 'Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ' with the title 'Boetius de Consolationse [sic] Philosophiæ. The boke of Boecius, called the comforte of philosophye or wysedome ... in maner of a dialoge betwene two persones, the one is Boecius, and the other is Philosophy, whose disputations ... do playnly declare the lyfe actiue . . . and the lyfe contemplatyne . . . Translated out of latin into the Englyshe tounge by George Coluile alias Coldewel . . . And to the mergentis is added the Latin . . . accordynge to the boke of the Translatour, whiche was a very olde prynte. Anno mdlvi.', printed by John Cawood, 4to.
