Laidcenn mac Buith Bannaig or Laidcend mac Baíth Bandaig (died 661) was a monastic scholar at Cluain Ferta Mo-Lua (Clonfert-Mulloe, Co. Laois) in northern

Osraige Osraige (Old Irish) or Osraighe (Classical Irish), Osraí (Modern Irish), anglicized as Ossory, was a medieval Irish kingdom comprising what is now County Kilkenny and western County Laois, corresponding to the Diocese of Ossory. The home o ...

. The name is also sometimes spelled "Lathcen." He is the ascribed author of the earliest surviving example of a '' lorica'' or breastplate, a term applied to a genre of charm-prayers, derived from the Pauline conception of life as an armed struggle. In this work, protection is asked for all 70-odd body parts by invoking the heavenly powers. The best known ''lorica'' is St. Patrick's Breastplate, which, however, has no connection to the saint. Laidcend is also known for having produced the ''Ecloga de Moralibus'', an epitome of

Gregory the Great Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregoria ...

's '' Moralia in Job''. Ten medieval manuscripts of the work are known.Castaldi, pp. 374-75.

Sources

*Welsh, Robert. ''Oxford Concise Companion to Irish Literature''. 1996. *Castaldi, Lucia. "Lathcen." In P. Chiesa and L. Castaldi (eds.), ''La Trasmissione dei testi latini del medioevo. Medieval Latin Texts and their Transmission. Te.Tra. 4'' (Florence: SISMEL 2012), 374–387.

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