Discover how a boy became devoted to the people who enslaved him, returned to their shores, and changed Ireland forever... Legends surround the life of Saint Patrick. He competed with Druids and negotiated with tribal leaders. He traveled all over the Emerald Isle bringing both Christianity and the Roman Empire to its shores. J. B. Bury, the first modern biographer of the great saint, sought to find the man beneath the layers of myth and legend. This updated and expanded edition of Bury’s classic biography explores Patrick’s place in history, the influence of earlier Christians on Patrick’s work, the political and social conditions in the Roman Empire at that time, and the reasons why the story of his adventures lies at the heart of the origins of Western Christianity. Praise for Jon M. Sweeney’s biography of St. Francis of Assisi: