nted them as to die idly in their beds." "No wonder," says Sammes,
"that they conquered many nations; distressed the Romans themselves,
and were a constant thorn in the side of the Gauls" ("Antiquities of
Ancient Britain," cap. 2).

Dr. Smith, in his "History of France," narrates that the Cymri
"acquired permanent possession of an extensive territory north of the
Loire, including the peninsula of Armorica" (p. 13). Bononia, or
Boulogne, St. Patrick's native town, was, therefore, situated in Belgic
Gaul during the days of Julius Caesar; but, later on, when the
descendants of the Cymri, the Belgic Gauls, were almost annihilated in
their fierce contests with the Romans, the same province came to be
called Armorica. Sulpicius Severus, as we shall see presently, named
the same country Britannia at the time of the Council of Ariminium in
the year 359--just fourteen years before St. Patrick was born.

In the year 597 Armorica, or Britannia, became absorbed in the province
of Neustria, when the kingdom of the Franks was sub-divided into three
separate kingdoms, as Dr. Smith relates: "Sigebert became King of
Austrasia (in the Prankish tongue, Oster-rike), or the kingdom of the
Eastern Franks; Chilperic was recognised as King Neustria (Ne-oster-
rike), the land of the Western Franks. The limits of the two kingdoms
are somewhat uncertain; but the river Meuse and the Forest of Ardennes
may be taken generally as the line of demarcation. Austrasia extended
from the Meuse to the Rhine; Neustria extended from the Meuse to the
ocean. Gouthran ruled over the division of Gaul which now acquired the
name of Burgundy" ("History of France," p. 42).

Neustria, extending from the Meuse to the ocean, necessarily embraced
the whole province of Britannia, or Armorica. That province still
retained the name of Neustria when Probus, in the tenth century, wrote
the "History of St. Patrick."

The change of the name Armorica to Britannia, and from Britannia to
Neustria, together with the fact that the name Britannia, or Brittany,
as applied to that particular province in Gaul was forgotten for
centuries before any of the old Latin "Lives" of St. Patrick, except
the first, were written, must have induced some old biographers of the
Saint to interpret the name Britain, mentioned in the "Lives" and in
the "Confession," as referring only to the Island of Britain,

With the exception of Probus, who had travelled abroad, the old
biographers of St. Patri