SENATUS, called Bravonius (d. 1207), prior of Worcester, rose to that dignity after filling the offices of precentor and librarian. He taught in the monastery and did much to develop the school. As librarian he made a concordance of the gospels, addressed to Master Alured, by whose order it was written. He quotes many authorities, and refers to the copy of Offa's Bible sent from Rome, and then preserved at Worcester. The dedicatory letter has been printed from a manuscript at Conches addressed to Master S. (Martene and Durand, Thes. Anecd. i. 484). In the Corpus MS. (Cambridge) No. 48 the whole work is extant in Senatus's autograph. He also wrote a life of St. Oswald [q. v.], bishop of Worcester, and afterwards archbishop of York, which has been printed by Raine (Church Historians of York, ii. 60). It is extant in the Durham MS. B. iv. 39, where it is followed by the manuscript life of St. Wulstan [q. v.], bishop of Worcester, which is probably also by Senatus. It may be a Latin translation of the English life by Colman, monk of Worcester (Hardy, Descr. Cat. ii. 72). Another Latin translation of this biography in Cott. Claud. A. v. is by William of Malmesbury (Wharton, vol. ii. p. xv).
In the Bodleian MS. N.E. B. 2. 1. are six letters written by Senatus as prior: to Roger, bishop of Worcester; to Master Alured (as above); to John Comyn, archbishop of Dublin, ‘de horis canonicis’ (two copies); to Clement, prior of Osney, praising the schools of Oxford; to Master Alured, ‘de officio et orationibus missæ;’ and to William de Tunbridge, ‘de attributis divinis.’ In the Lambeth MS. 238, fo. 207, is his ‘expositio in canonem missæ,’ dedicated to Master Alured (Wharton, i. 548). Leland saw a collection of his letters at Worcester (Coll. iii. 160). Senatus resigned the priorate on 20 Nov. 1196, and died in 1207.
[Wharton's Anglia Sacra; Ann. Wigorn. and Tewkesb. (Rolls Ser.); Bernard's Catalogue of Manuscripts; Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum; Tanner's Bibliotheca.]
SENCHAN (fl. 649), Irish bard, is generally mentioned with the epithet Torpeist in Irish literature to distinguish him from Senchan, son of Coemlog, and nephew of Coemgin of Glendalough (Felire, pp. 51, 98, 168); from Senchan, son of Colman Mor, slain in 590; from the three Senchans, successively abbots of Emly, who died in 769, 776, and 780; and from Senchan, abbot of Killeigh in Offaly, who died in 791. Like the famous Torna, foster-father of Niall (d. 405) [q. v.], he sometimes bears the epithet Eigeas, learned. He was a native of Connaught, and became chief bard of that region when Guaire was its king (649–62). In the story called ‘Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe’ (‘The Departure of the Poets' College’), which is one of the later appendages of the ‘Tain Bo Cuailgne’ (‘the Cattle Raid of Cuailgne’), it is stated that on the death of Dallan Forgaill [see Dallan, Saint] four learned women were consulted by the ollavs of Ireland as to who his successor as chief bard of Ireland should be. Muireann, Dallan's wife, one of the four, said that Dallan had expressed a wish for Senchan to succeed him. Senchan then composed a funeral oration in verse for Dallan, beginning ‘Inmhain corp a dtorchair sunn’ (‘Dear the body that here lies dead’), and was unanimously elected ardollamh, or chief professor of Ireland. He and his college, to the number of three hundred, with nearly four hundred attendants and a hundred and fifty dogs, went to Durlus, the court of Guaire, where the events took place which led to the recovery of the then lost story called ‘Tain Bo Cuailgne.’ As Dallan was famous in the reign of Aedh mac Ainmire, who died in 594, and as he survived Columba [q. v.], Senchan's asserted succession to his bardic supremacy about the commencement of the reign of Guaire in 649 presents no chronological inconsistency. The oldest copy of ‘Imtheachtna Tromdhaimhe’ at present extant is in the book of MacCarthy Riach, a manuscript of about 1480. The tale is not mentioned in ‘Leabhar na Huidri,’ a manuscript of about 1100, which contains a copy of the ‘Tain Bo Cuailgne.’ In the ‘Book of Leinster,’ a manuscript of 1150, in which there is another copy of the ‘Tain Bo Cuailgne,’ there is a chapter headed ‘Do fallsignd tana bo cualnge,’ fol. 245 (‘Of the Discovery of the Tain Bo Cuailgne’), in which it is stated that Senchan assembled the bards of Ireland in order to recover at length the whole story. Only fragments were then known, and he sent forth scholars to seek far and wide for the complete text. The ‘Book of Leinster’ (fol. 23, col. l, line 10) also contains the only extant work of Senchan. It is a poem beginning ‘Rofich fergus fichit catha co cumnigi’ (‘Fergus stoutly fought twenty battles’); but after one other line referring to Fergus, it goes on to celebrate the battles of Rudraigi, king of Ireland. It is a catalogue of names, with epithets to fill up the gaps in the metre. In the glossary of Cormac, under the word ‘prúll,’ great increase, is a story of a voyage made by Senchan to the Isle of
