In or, Columban us, then a monk at the monastery of Bangoron the south side of Belfast Lough, received the permission of his abbot, Comgall, to leave Ireland as a peregrinus, one who has to live as an exile. He was already an alien of a kind, in that he was a Leinsterman by birthand had left his native province, first to further his education by seeking out a renowned teacher named Sinell, and secondly by entering the monastery of Bangor in the province of Ulster. Now he sought Comgall's support for his intention to find a place of more intense exile. His journey took him via Brittany to Burgundy, the Merovingiankingdom probably still ruled by Guntram. By this journey, Columban usprecipitated a fundamental change in Frankish Christianity. He is bestunderstood, however, as instigating change rather than causing it singlehandedly; he achieved so much because he and his disciples secured thesupport of Frankish kings and aristocrats. In addition, moreover, to hisinuence in Francia, his achievements, and the controversies theyaroused, were to have important consequences both for the country of his birth and for Anglo-Saxon England.

Columbanus is a major figure for two reasons. First, he is the greatest of the peregrini who left Ireland for continental Europe. In Britain there were other major figures, in particular Columba of Iona and Aidan, the bishop of the Northumbrians; but amongst those Irishmen who went to the continent, such as Fursa, none had so great an influence as Columbanus.