Bede There, Done That

Episode 4: St. Patrick - Show Notes Brief Chronology (most dates are approximate): • 390s - Birth of Patrick • 397-398 - Augustine writes his Confessions • 400-410s - Patrick is kidnapped, sold into slavery in Ireland, and escapes after 6 years • 406 - Rhine River freezes and barbarians invade Gaul • 410 - Goths sack Rome • 431 - Mission of Palladius to Ireland (possibly followed by or related to Patrick's mission) • 449 - Vortigern invites Angles and Saxons to Britain as mercenaries (according to Bede) • 461 - Death of Patrick (traditionally March 17) (See the "Time Line" included as an appendix in St. Patrick of Ireland by Philip Freeman, which gives a more extensive chronology of the fall of Rome and events in Patrick's lifetime.) Summary: When Patrick was born in the late 4th century, his native land of southern Britain was still a Roman province, but the western Roman Empire was crumbling fast. No one actually knows where Patrick’s family estate or the nearby village Bennavem Taburniae that he mention