This manuscript from the island monastery of Iona (Hy) in Scotland
contains the oldest and best surviving version of the biography of
the Irish saint Columba, composed between 608 and 704. In this
work, Adamnan, the ninth abbot of Iona, tells the life story of
monastery founder Columba (Columcille in Old Irish), who lived from
519/522 to 597. This manuscript can be dated to the time between
the writing of the original text and the death of Iona's Abbot (or
Bishop) Dorbbene in the year 713. It is the oldest codex containing
a single biography in Latin, and is among the few datable
manuscripts written in the Insular script during the 7th and 8th
centuries.
