Arculf
Arculf
A Frankish Bishop of the latter part of the seventh century. According to some, e.g. Alexis de Gourgues (Le saint Suaire, Périgueux, 1868), he was Bishop of Perigueux; but it is generally believed that he was attached to some monastery. St. Bede relates (Hist. Eccles. Angl., V, 15) that Arculf, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about the year 670 or 690, was cast by a tempest on the shore of Scotland. He was hospitably received by Adamnan, the abbot of the island monastery of Iona, to whom he gave a detailed narrative of his travels in the Holy Land, with specifications and designs of the sanctuaries so precise that Adamnan, with aid from some extraneous sources, was able to produce a descriptive work in three books, dealing with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the principal towns of Palestine, and Constantinople. Adamnan presented a copy of this work to Aldfrith (q.v.), King of Northumbria in 698. It aims at giving a faithful account of what Arculf actually saw during his journey. As the latter “joined the zeal of an antiquarian to the devotion of a pilgrim during his nine months’ stay in the Holy City, the work contains many curious details that might otherwise have never been chronicled.” Bede makes some excerpts from it (op.cit., V, c. xv-xvii), and bases upon it his treatise “De locis sanctis.” It was first edited by Father Gretser, S.J. (Ingolstadt, 1619). Mabillon gives an improved text in “Acta SS. Ord S. Bened.,” IV, 502-522, (reprinted in P.L., LXXXlII, 779) and by Delpit, “Essai sur les anciens pelerinages a Jerusalem” (Paris, 1870).
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TOBLER, Arculfi relatio de locis sanctis in Itinera terrae sanctae (Geneva 1877); LEVESQUE, art. Arculfe in VIG., Dict. de la Bible. There is an English translation (truncated) in WRIGHT, Early Travels in Palestine (London, 1848), 1-13.
THOMAS WALSH Transcribed by John Fobian In memory of John Crowley, S.J.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Arculf
a French bishop, lived in the last half of the 7th century. He is known by his journey into Palestine, which he undertook with Peter the Hermit, a native of Burgundy. He spent nine months -in exploring the holy places, especially of Jerusalem and its surroundings. He then visited Damascus and Tyre, going afterwards to Alexandria, to the Isle of Crete, and to Constantinople. He returned to Rome by sea, visiting Sicily on his way. It is said that, desiring to revisit his native country, he again embarked on the sea, and was thrown by a tempest upon the coast of Great Britain, and came to the Isle of Hy, in Ireland. Adamnan, priest of the Monastery of the Isle of Hy, treated him very kindly, and to him he related his adventures. Adamnan wrote out this recital, and in 698 presented it to Alfred, king of Northumberland. It consists of three books, of which the first contains Arculf’s description of Jerusalem, the second gives his travels in the Holy Land, and the third presents the wonders of Constantinople. Bede gives an extract of it in his Hist. Eccles., and the Jesuit Gretser published it at Ingolstadt in 1619. Mabillon published it in vol. iv of his collection of the Acta Sanct. Ord. S. Bened. – A translation in English is printed in Bohn’s Early Travels in Palestine, p. 1 sq. See Hist. Lit. de la France, iii, 650652; Cave, Hist. Lit. i, 599, ed. Oxon.; Smith, Dict. of Christ. Biog. s.v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.