But the severity of Hincmar defeated his purpose. He was so severely attacked by several French theologians that he found it necessary to ask his friend, Scotus, to come to his assistance, and the “Master” promptly responded to the call. In A.D. 851 he published his Liber de Prædestinatione, a short treatise in nineteen chapters, on a very burning question. This book at once raised a tremendous storm on all sides. He adopted a new system of discussion, arguing rather from reason than authority, and dealing his blows indiscriminately on friend and foe. He ranges through all metaphysics, discusses the nature of sin, the origin of evil, the eternal punishment of the wicked, and the qualities of the bodies that will be hereafter united to the glorified and condemned souls. He somewhat contemptuously speaks of his opponents, and acts on those independent principles which he elsewhere so eloquently proclaims in a sentence that has something of the sonorous ring of a Ciceronian period.[431] Wenilo, Archbishop of Sens, at once sent this treatise of Scotus to Prudentius, and he was not very long in pronouncing what he thought of it. The next year he published his great treatise De Prædestinatione contra Joannem Scotum, with an introduction addressed to Archbishop Wenilo. We have no hesitation in saying that this introduction is written in language rather vulgar, and by no means charitable. He heaps all manner of abusive epithets on the head of the redoubtable Scotus, and although he declares that he is animated only by zeal for the Catholic faith, and the affection of true charity, we think he would have given better proof of both by greater moderation in his language. He declares that he found in the book of Scotus the poison of Pelagianism, the madness of Origen, and the wild fury (furiositatem) of the Collyrian heretics. He speaks of the impudence of Scotus in barking at (oblatrantem) the orthodox faith and the Catholic Fathers, and he hints pretty clearly that it was the devil himself who vomited so many blasphemies by the mouth of John and Julian, and so on to the end of the chapter. In the same spirit, but in more moderate language, Florus attacked the book of Scotus, whom he calls a “vaniloquus et garrulus homo,” and speaks of his writings as “plena mendacii et erroris.” For the present we shall not discuss in what or how far Scotus erred in his book, but he was certainly on the right side in supporting Hincmar, and although neither Florus nor Prudentius held all the opinions of Gotteschalk, it would not be difficult to extract from their writings many propositions, which would need to be interpreted in a very charitable spirit, indeed, before they could be reconciled with the commonly received doctrines of our Catholic theologians.

But Hincmar was not the man to yield to the noisy declamation of the theologians of the South. In A.D. 853 he convened another Synod at Quiercy, in which he formulated with great accuracy his own doctrine on grace and predestination. They are well known as the Capitula Carisiaca.[432]

It is said that Prudentius signed them, but he certainly in a short time afterwards formulated four counter-propositions, which it is not easy to reconcile with Catholic doctrine, and in this proceeding he was countenanced by Remigius of Lyons. Later on, in the Council of Valence in A.D. 855, and in that of Langres in A.D. 859, the southern theologians and bishops attacked the capitula of Hincmar, at least by implication, and denounced the book written by Scotus as a devil’s commentary rather than an argument of faith, and said it contained nothing but old women’s stories, and Irish porridge nauseous to the purity of faith. They did not expressly mention his name, but there can be no doubt about the reference in the words—“Scotorumque pultes puritati fidei nauseam inferentes.” But in the end Hincmar prevailed, and his doctrine was sanctioned in the Synod of Tousi, in the year A.D. 860, where a great many prelates of both parties were assembled from fourteen provinces, with twelve metropolitans, and the three kings at their head—Charles the Bald, Lothaire of Lorraine, and Charles of Provence. So the censures of Florus and Prudentius, and the condemnation of Valence and Langres cannot have much weight in blackening the theological character of Scotus Erigena.

The next discussion in which Scotus is said to have taken part occurred shortly afterwards. It has been stated by many writers that he was the first who denied the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Western Church. Certainly, Berengarius, in the eleventh century, claimed Scotus as his teacher on the new doctrine which he introduced; and the Sacramentarians regarded him as a great apostle of what they called the truth. A book on the Eucharist, attributed to Scotus by Berengarius, was condemned in three synods, and committed to the flames as impious and heretical.

But there is no contemporary evidence to show that Scotus wrote a treatise on the Eucharist, and, on the other hand, there is positive evidence which goes to show the identity of the work attributed to Scotus with the treatise that has certainly been written by Ratramnus. The very words, on account of which Berengarius says the book was ordered to be burnt at the Council of Rome in A.D. 1059, namely—“ea quae in altare consecrantur esse figuram, pignus, et signum Corporis et Sanguinis Christi,” and which were used in a heretical sense by Berengarius but not by their author, are found in the Book of Ratramnus, the MS. of which still bears his name in uncial letters of the tenth century. Another expression attributed by Ascelinus to the unfortunate Irishman—“specie geruntur ista, non veritate”—are nowhere to be found in the existing writings of Scotus, but are found exactly in the same MS. of Ratramnus. There can be no doubt that Scotus, in his commentary on St. John, did use inaccurate language, but certainly not in a heretical sense.[433] Yet, his language displeased some of his best friends, so that Hincmar in his second book on Predestination seems to attribute to Scotus—for he does not mention his name—the error of teaching that the Sacrament of the Altar was not the real body and blood, but only a memorial of them, whereas Scotus taught in reality, or certainly meant to teach, that it was both—namely, a memorial, and at the same time a reality. Adrevaldus, too, wrote a treatise—“De Corpore et Sanguine Domini contra ineptias J. Scoti.” This is the only contemporary evidence we have concerning the alleged errors of Scotus on the Eucharist. Just 200 years later, however, in consequence of the fame of Scotus, and the similarity of their style, the Book of Ratramnus was attributed to Scotus both by Berengarius and most of his contemporaries. So it shared the fate of Berengarius himself, it was condemned by the Council of Paris in A.D. 1050, and in the same year it was anathematised by the Councils of Rome and Vercelli. Nine years later Pope Nicholas II. made Berengarius himself throw the book into the fire in presence of an immense crowd of people at Rome. And so it came to pass that Scotus was censured for opinions which he never held, and for a book which he never wrote.

Almost from his first arrival in France, Scotus had been engaged in translating from the Greek into Latin the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. In the year A.D. 828 the Greek Emperor, Michael Balbus—the stammerer—had sent, as a present to Louis le Debonaire, a copy in Greek of the writings attributed to Dionysius, the Areopagite. Dionysius, mentioned in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, was said to have been at first bishop of Athens, and to have been afterwards sent into France by St. Clement, where he preached the Gospel for many years, and died a martyr’s death. The works attributed to St. Dionysius, although really written by some forger of the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, were at this time regarded as genuine. Hence, the Greek Emperor’s gift was very highly prized in France, and preserved with the greatest care and veneration as the undoubted work of the apostle of the French people, and especially of Paris, where the great Abbey of St. Denis, for many ages the cemetery of the kings of France, was built in his honour. But these writings in Greek were a sealed fountain to most of the French scholars at the time. Hilduin, a monk of St. Denis, was charged with their custody, and commissioned to translate them, but failed in the attempt. When, however, the exiled Irish scholar came to Paris, the king, to his great joy, soon discovered that he was a perfect master of the Greek tongue, and asked him to undertake the translation of the writings of the Areopagite. Scotus gladly undertook the task imposed upon him by his royal patron, and executed it in such a way as to please the man of all others best qualified to pronounce a critical opinion—Anastasius, the Roman Librarian. In a letter written to the king, in A.D. 875, he declares it to be a wonderful thing that a man like Scotus, a barbarian, living at the end of the world—vir ille barbarus in finibus mundi positus—could understand and translate into another tongue the writings of the Areopagite. But the Holy Spirit, he says, was the chief agent who filled him at once with fire and eloquence—qui hunc ardentem et loquentem fecit—and charity was the mistress who taught him for the instruction and edification of many. He adds that his only fault was to translate too literally, and the cause of that was his great humility, which did not permit him to change the exact order and meaning of the words of so great a writer.

We cannot ascertain for certain the year of its appearance; it was probably about A.D. 855, but in this case, too, Scotus was unfortunate. Whether it was that the French theologians had given him a bad character in Rome on account of the book on Predestination, or, as others think, that the Greek scholar was considered to be a supporter of Greek influences in the Court of Charles during the Photian intrigues, it is certain that at this time he was no favourite at Rome. Accordingly, when his work appeared, Pope Nicholas wrote a letter to Charles the Bald, in which he complains of the publication of this translation without the usual apostolic sanction—quod juxta morem ecclesiae nobis mitti debet—especially as John the Scot, who translated it, although said to be a man of much learning, was by many persons regarded as not altogether sound in his doctrine—non sapere in quibusdam frequenti rumore dicitur. Therefore the Pope orders Charles either to send the aforesaid John to Rome to give an account of himself, or at least not to permit him to remain any longer at Paris as the head of the University—aut certo Parisiis in studio, cujus capital jam olim fuisse perhibetur, morari non sinatis. This letter was written in the third year of Nicholas’s pontificate, either A.D. 861 or 862. We do not know what effect the letter produced, whether the king dismissed Scotus from his high position or not. It is very improbable that he did dismiss him, seeing the way in which Anastasius, himself a Roman, spoke of Scotus twelve years later as a holy, learned, and humble man. Most probably by that time they had got better information concerning Scotus in Rome, and found out that he was neither so unsound in doctrine, nor so Photian in his tendencies as his enemies made him out to be. At this time, however, when the Pope wrote to Charles, Scotus took very good care not to go to Rome, where he might have met the fate of Gotteschalk; nor does it appear that Charles dismissed his favourite from the palace, although requested to do so by the Pope himself.

Scotus not only translated and wrote extensive commentaries on the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius, but about the same period composed a profound, original, and eloquent work in five books, which he entitles Περὶ Φυσέως Μερισμοῦ, seu De Divisione Naturae. This work has been greatly praised, and greatly and justly censured. We shall, however, for the present reserve our judgment on its undoubted merits, as well as on its demerits, and confine ourselves to sketching its eventful history. It is a dialogue between a master and his pupil after the Platonic fashion, not indeed with Plato’s unrivalled beauty of form, but with much of the eloquence and subtlety of the Greek mind. No other scholar of the Western Church in any age was so filled with the spirit of the philosophy and theology of the Greeks, and whose mind was so closely akin to the mind of Greece. The Irish, like the Greek mind, has a natural love for speculation, is quick, subtle, and far-seeing, has greater power of abstraction and generalisation—that is to say, greater metaphysical power than the phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon. Scotus was a typical Celt, strongly developing all the intellectual peculiarities of the race. Moreover, he was familiar with Plato, and Aristotle, and the Greek Fathers, far more than with the Latin Fathers. He had, by close study, imbibed the spirit of Neo-Platonic philosophy from the writings of Dionysius, whom he not unnaturally regarded with the reverence due to an apostle, and so his whole soul was made by nature, study, and duty, intensely Greek. No doubt this was in itself one great source of his errors, both real and imaginary, because his critics seeing how he erred in some things where they could fathom his philosophy, imagined he erred in many more where they could scarcely guess at the meaning of his words. Hence William of Malmesbury very justly says of this work of Scotus, “De Divisione Naturae,” that it was very useful for the solution of some difficult questions, “Si tamen ignoscatur ei in quibusdum, quibus a Latinorum tramite deviavit dum in Græcos acriter oculos intendit.” His eyes were on the Greeks, and his spirit was with the Greeks, and so his teaching and his language in many respects seemed strange and erroneous to the Latins. It has been said that this book of Scotus was corrupted by his enemies the more easily to refute him, and by heretics the more easily to defend their own errors. But the supposition is quite gratuitous, unsupported by evidence, and unnecessary as an explanation of facts. His doctrine in many points was attacked in his own time, his errors were palliated by friends and amplified by enemies. In later ages erratic sectaries, who vexed the Church of France in the beginning of the thirteenth century, appealed to the writings of Scotus in defence of their errors, and thus he was made a third time a scape-goat to carry the sins of others. We learn from the Chronicon of the monk Alberic, but from no other source, that in the year A.D. 1225, Honorius III. sent a Brief to the archbishops and bishops of France, in which he passed a severe judgment on the book of Scotus, entitled “Periphysis,” for so the monk writes it. The Bishop of Paris had informed the Pope that this work was full of heretical depravity, and had been condemned by the Archbishop of Sens and his suffragans, that it was hid in many monasteries, where cloistered and scholastic men, thinking it a great thing to propound new opinions, spent much time in the study of the book. So the Pope ordered it to be carefully sought after, whenever it was found to be solemnly burned, and inflicted excommunication, ipso facto, on those who should knowingly presume to keep it in their possession. This severe prohibition was effective. The MS. copies were everywhere sought out, and nearly all destroyed, and no Catholic dared to publish it. But in the year A.D. 1681, Thomas Gale, of Oxford, printed it at that city. A few years later, in A.D. 1685, the old prohibition was renewed, and the work placed on the Index, where it still remains, although reprinted in Migne’s Patrology.

Scotus also wrote several Greek and Latin poems on various subjects, thirteen of which, mostly Latin, are printed in Migne’s edition of his works. Like most poems in foreign, and especially in dead languages, they are merely artificial flowers of poesy—stiff, scentless, and lifeless; but they serve to show the familiarity of the writer even in that rude age with the languages of Greece and Rome.

How Scotus ended his life we know not. William of Malmesbury, whom many other authorities blindly follow, states that it was a common report—ut fertur—that he was invited to England by King Alfred, that he lectured at Oxford, and afterwards retired to Malmesbury, where he was stabbed to death by his pupils with their pens, or perhaps penknives (graphiis). His body was at first secretly buried in the Church of St. Laurence, where the crime was committed, but a bright light shining nightly on the spot warned the monks to transfer the holy remains of the martyred scholar to the left corner of the high altar in the great Church of Malmesbury, where they reposed in peace and honour until another abbot, Warinus de Lira, exhumed the bodies of Scotus and other saints, and buried them without honour or ceremony in an obscure corner of the Church of St. Michael. But his memory was long venerated as a holy martyr, and his feast celebrated on the 10th of November, on which day his name was inserted in the Antwerp edition of the Roman Martyrology, until Cardinal Baronius had it expunged. The story of William of Malmesbury is altogether improbable, and we have no contemporary evidence in its support. It arose in the beginning from confounding Scotus Erigena, or, as he was sometimes called, Joannes, with another John, abbot of Etheling, who was invited to England by Alfred, about the year A.D. 880. In the letter written by Anastasius in A.D. 875, he not obscurely speaks of John Scotus as already dead, at least he uses the past tense throughout. It is not improbable, therefore, that shortly after the Pope’s letter in A.D. 862, Scotus may have deemed it prudent to retire from Paris, and, with an Irishman’s love of home, returned to his native country, where he is said to have died in peace and holiness in the year A.D. 874.

It has been said, too, that he travelled to Athens, and visited various parts of the East, and that he was skilled in most of the Oriental languages. But these statements appear unfounded; they are certainly destitute of any reliable authority. What we know for certain is that Scotus was an Irishman, that he was the first scholar of his time, that he acquired his knowledge even of the Greek language, in the schools of his native country. He was loved and honoured by friends who knew him, and misjudged both during his life and after his death by many who knew neither the man himself nor his writings. His career was short and brilliant; comet-like he blazed for a while in the sunshine of royal favour; he appeared and disappeared in a strangely eccentric orbit. For ages he was lost to view, but in our own time is seen again shining in the literary heavens with even more than his ancient splendour. We are not inclined to extol him unduly, neither does it become us to judge him harshly; but whatever may be said of his errors, all must admit that John Scotus Erigena was a man of saintly life, a prodigy of learning, and an honour to the country which gave him his name and his knowledge.

IV.—Foreign Scholars in Ireland.

We have already spoken of several foreign scholars, who came to our Irish Schools; but there are a few others to whom it is necessary to make more explicit reference.

The hill of Slane, on the banks of the Boyne, near Drogheda, is one of the historic sites of Ireland. It commands a noble prospect of all the swelling plains of Meath and Louth, bounded on the north by the distant Mourne Mountains rising from the sea, and on the south beyond the smoky pall of Dublin, by the many topped summits of the Wicklow Hills. There, close at hand on this same left bank of the river towards Drogheda are Brugh and Dowth and New Grange, the cemeteries of pre-historic kings; while just in front beyond the river is Rosnaree, where the great King Cormac sleeps with his face to the rising sun, the daily herald of his immortal hopes. Further off in the distance to the south and west, may be seen Royal Tara, and Skreen of Columcille, and Kells of the Crosses, and the towers of Trim and all the other storied ruins that once guarded the passes of the Boyne from Newtown of the Normans, by Bective, Navan, and Donore, whence fled the chicken-hearted James, down to the obelisk by yonder bridge that marks the spot where the gallant Schomberg fell.

It was on this hill of Slane that St. Patrick lit his Paschal fire for the first time in Erin, within view of King Laeghaire and his Druids from Tara. And it was here too that Erc, “the sweet spoken judge of Patrick,” built his oratory and little cell, which in after ages grew to be a great monastery and a great college. There is now no trace of the oratory of St. Erc at Slane. The ivy-clad ruins that still remain on the hill seem to be of Norman origin, dating probably from the twelfth century. The history of the ancient monastery has likewise disappeared, almost as completely as its buildings. One interesting fact, however, is still preserved by local tradition,[434] and that tradition has been amply confirmed by the researches of scholars in our times. It is said that a king of France was educated long ago at the great College of Slane, but his name and date are forgotten. We are, however, enabled to supply these particulars. St. Sigebert III. was king of the Austrasian Franks from A.D. 632 to 656. This pious king was more given to prayer than to warlike enterprise; and so Grimoald, Mayor of the Palace, became virtually ruler of Austrasia. When Sigebert died in A.D. 656, Grimoald, wishing to have the name as well as the power of a king, caused the late king’s son, Dagobert, to be tonsured, and then sent Dido, Bishop of Poitiers, to carry off the boy secretly to Ireland, to be educated there as a monk in one of its famous monastic schools. Tradition tells us that the school was Slane, and that Dagobert spent eighteen or twenty years in its halls, and acquired during that long period all the learning of the Scots. Meanwhile Grimoald received the fitting reward of his treason. He was captured by Clovis of Neustria, and put to death with torture, not long after he had sent the young prince to Ireland. When Dagobert was grown to man’s estate he returned home to Austrasia, and mounted his father’s throne as Dagobert II., by which name the student of Slane College is known in French history.[435] It is obvious that Slane was selected, not because it was the most celebrated school at the time, but because it was in Meath, where the High-kings mostly dwelt; and it was only natural to bring the royal boy to some college near the royal court. It was through the agency of Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, that Dagobert was restored to his friends and his kingdom about the year A.D. 674, after the deposition and death of King Childeric II.

Another eminent saint and scholar of foreign origin, contemporary with Dagobert in Ireland, was Egbert of Northumbria. Bede gives a very interesting account of this eminent man.[436] He was sprung from the nobility of Northumbria, and appears to have been born in A.D. 639.

With another young noble named Ethelun, Egbert went over to Ireland, like the crowds of his countrymen, ‘to pursue divine studies, and lead a continent life.’ They sojourned in the monastery, called in Irish Rathmelsigi, which Bede’s editor and translator[437] foolishly calls ‘Melfont.’ He meant Mellifont, near Drogheda; but there was no monastery at Mellifont for nearly five hundred years afterwards. As the same learned editor makes Columba’s noble monastery of Dair-magh to be Derry, instead of Durrow, we need not attach much importance to his notes on Bede concerning Irish matters. Colgan says that this monastery of Rathmelsigi was in Connaught; but he does not specify, and probably did not know, the exact locality. In the Martyrology of Donegal, we find reference to “Colman[438] Rath-Maoilsidhe” (at Dec. 14th), which is in all probability the monastery referred to by Colgan. This Colman is different from Colman of Innisboffin, whose festival day is the 8th of August. It is not improbable that his monastery was situated at the place called Rath-maoil, or Rath-Maoilcath, both of which were situated near Ballina, on the right bank of the Moy. Everything points to the fact that most of the young Northumbrian nobles and ceorls, who came to the West of Ireland in crowds at this period, landed in the estuary of the Moy, and then going southward, took up their abode, or founded their religious houses wherever they could obtain suitable accommodation. St. Gerald’s Abbey of Mayo was not then established (in A.D. 664); and so Egbert and his companions put themselves under the guidance of St. Colman, or some of his successors, in this monastery of Rath-Maoilsidhe.

Just then the terrible Yellow Plague made its appearance in Ireland, and carried off one-half of its population. All the companions of Egbert and Ethelun were cut off by the plague; and now they themselves were attacked, and became grievously ill. Then Egbert, whilst he had yet a little strength remaining, rose up in the morning, and going out of the chamber of the sick, he sat down alone, and began to think of his past sins; and he asked God’s pardon for them with many tears. He prayed, too, earnestly that God would not yet take him out of the world, but would give him time to atone by his good works for the sins of his youth. And if God deigned to hear his prayer, he vowed never to return again to his native Britain, but to live as a pilgrim in some strange land; and, moreover, to recite the Psalter daily, and to fast continuously for twenty-four hours once a week. When he returned to the sick chamber, Ethelun, his companion, was asleep; but presently awaking, he told Egbert that his prayer was heard by God; then he gently rebuked him, for he had hoped that together they would go into life everlasting. Next day Ethelun died; but Egbert recovered from his sore sickness, and lived to be ninety years of age, when he departed from this life.

He was ordained a priest; “and his life,” says Bede, “adorned the priesthood, for he lived in the practice of humility, meekness, continence, justice, and all other virtues.” He loved the Irish greatly, and lived amongst them for fifty years (A.D. 664-715), preaching the Gospel, teaching in his monastery, reproving the bad, and encouraging the good by the bright example of his blameless life. He not only kept his vow, but he added to it, says Bede; for during the whole Lent he took but one meal in the day, and that was nothing but bread in limited quantity, and thin milk from which the cream had been skimmed off. Whatever he got from others—and he got much—he gave to the poor.

For many years he had been resolving in his mind to sail round Britain, and go to Germany to preach the Gospel to the pagan tribes who dwelt there, and who were kindred to his own nation of the Angles. But God had willed otherwise. There was in Egbert’s monastery an old monk who had many years before been minister to Boisil, Abbot of Melrose, an Irish foundation in Scotland. Now one morning after matins, Boisil appeared to this aged monk, who at once recognised his old master, and commanded him to tell Egbert that it was God’s will that he should give up his proposed journey to Germany, and go rather to instruct the Columbian monasteries in the right method of keeping Easter, and of tonsuring the head.

Egbert fearing that this vision might be a delusion, still continued his preparations for Germany, and did not obey the direction given by Boisil. Then that saint appeared a second time to his minister, and commanded him to make known to Egbert, in a more imperative way, what it was God willed him to do. “Let him go at once,” he said, “to Columba’s monastery of Hy, because their ploughs do not go straight, and he will bring them into the right way.” Moreover, the ship in which he was preparing to set out for Germany was wrecked in a storm, and thrown upon the shore, leaving, however, his effects intact. Egbert, taking this as a further manifestation of the Divine will, gave up his project of going to Germany, and set sail for Iona. Wictbert, however, one of his associates in religion in Ireland, went in his stead, and for two years preached the Gospel in Friesland, but reaped no harvest of success amongst the pagans. So he returned once again to Ireland, and gave himself up to serve God during the rest of his life, as he was wont to do before his departure, in great purity and austerity; “so that if he could not be profitable to others by teaching them the faith, he took care to be useful to his own beloved (Irish) people by the example of his virtues.”

Now when this holy father and priest, Egbert, beloved of God, and worthy to be named with all honour, came to the monastery of Iona, he was honourably and joyfully received by the community. He was also a diligent teacher, and carried out his precepts by his example, so that he was willingly listened to by all the members of the community. The effect of his frequent instructions and pious exhortations, was that at length the community of Hy consented to give up the inveterate tradition of their ancestors in religion, and adopt the new discipline, which by this time had been received everywhere else throughout the Irish Church. Now surely, this was, as Bede observes, a wonderful dispensation of Providence, that these very monks of Iona, who were the first to preach the Gospel in Northumbria, should afterwards be persuaded by this Northumbrian priest to accept the correct discipline and true rule of spiritual life. And stranger still, it was on Easter Day, the 24th of April, A.D. 729, that this man of God went to his eternal rest; whereas, but for his exertions, that Easter festival would not have been duly celebrated on that day, but, in accordance with the unreformed system, would have been celebrated in that year towards the end of March, whilst the rest of the Church was observing the fast of Lent.

With Egbert also dwelt in the same monastery the celebrated St. Chad, or Cedd, Bishop of Lichfield. Chad is justly regarded, on account of his learning and holiness, as one of the Fathers of the Anglo-Saxon Church. He was one of four brothers, like Egbert himself, of Northumbrian origin, two of whom became bishops, and two were holy priests. Chad was one of that crowd of Northumbrian nobles, who, in the days of Bishops Finan and Colman, flocked to Ireland for instruction in theology and religious discipline. Bede says expressly that he with the most reverend Father Egbert, when both were youths, led for a long time a monastic life together in Ireland—praying, observing continency, and meditating on the Holy Scriptures. Chad, however, returned after a time to his own country; but Egbert continued in Ireland until he set sail for Iona.

Chad was, as we have already seen, present at the Conference of Whitby in A.D. 664, and having been educated in Ireland, he naturally sympathised with Bishop Colman and the Irish party. He was subsequently appointed to the see of York, but still sympathising with the Irish party, he was deposed through the influence of Wilfrid. Yet he was sometime after appointed to the See of Lichfield. He was a man of great holiness of life; but his episcopacy at Lichfield only continued for two years and a half. He died probably in A.D. 671 or 672, and was buried in St. Mary’s Church; but his bones were afterwards translated to the present Cathedral of Lichfield.

A little later in the same seventh century, the celebrated St. Willibrord, afterwards Archbishop of Utrecht, was a student in our Irish schools, and most probably, we should say, at Mayo of the Saxons. His father Wilgils, was also of the English nobility, but after the birth of his son he retired from the world, and built himself a cell at the mouth of the Humber, where he led a life of the most austere virtue. Willibrord in his youth was trained in the great school of St. Wilfrid at York; but about the age of twenty, in order to finish his education, like most of his countrymen at the time, he passed over to Ireland. This much we know from Bede, who also adds that whilst yet only a priest in Ireland, he led therein the life of a pilgrim—forsaking his earthly country through love of his heavenly country. Willibrord also testified to Bishop Acca and Bishop Wilfrid, that once on a time, when he was in Ireland, the plague overtook a certain student of the Scottish, that is the Irish, race. This young man, though well skilled in literature, had been rather heedless about the welfare of his soul. When he fell sick he at once sent for Willibrord, and telling him how much he feared to die on account of his sins, he besought him, if he had any relics of the good King Oswald, to apply them for his benefit.

Then Willibrord said that he had a portion of the stake on which the pagans fixed the head of the martyred king; and “blessing some water he put into it a chip of the aforesaid oaken stake, and gave it to the sick man to drink. He presently found ease, and recovering from his sickness he lived a long time after; and being entirely converted to God in heart and actions, wherever he came, he spoke of the goodness of his merciful Creator, and the honour of his faithful servant.”[439]

It was the holy Egbert, who sent Willibrord with twelve companions to preach the gospel to the Frisians. And shortly after two other priests of the English nation, who had long lived as pilgrims in Ireland, following their example, went to preach in Saxony, where they gained the crown of martyrdom within a few years. This is not the place to narrate at length the apostolic labours of Willibrord and his associates—how he was consecrated by Pope Sergius in Rome, and was commissioned to preach to the Frisians; how completely he succeeded where others had failed; how he laboured there for fifty years in all—during thirty-six of which he was Archbishop of Utrecht. These things are told at length by Alcuin in his beautiful Life of St. Willibrord, which also describes the saintly end of the long and laborious career of this venerable servant of God.

It is surely a credit to our Irish schools to have trained up so many learned and apostolic men, like Egbert and Willibrord. It was in Ireland they were trained in divine studies, as Bede testifies; it was in Ireland they learned the continent and self-denying life of all true apostles; and it was from Ireland they went forth to preach the Gospel to the fierce pagan tribes of Germany, where so many of them were privileged to meet a martyr’s death.

Another Irish student at this period was Agilbert, afterwards Bishop of Paris. He was, says Bede, a Frank by birth, who came from that country to Ireland, “and lived a long time there for the purpose of studying the Scriptures.” Bede seems to imply that he was a bishop before he came to Ireland,[440] for he describes him as a ‘Pontifex natione Gallus.’ This shows in what high esteem our Irish schools must have been held at this period, when even bishops came from France to study divinity in their halls. Agilbert afterwards passed over to England, and for a time held the See of Dorchester or Winchester. He was present at the Conference of Whitby, and took the side of Wilfrid, but finally returning to his native country he was made Bishop of Paris. The year of his death is not known. It was probably about A.D. 680.

CHAPTER XXIV.

At the same time, we are not to suppose that during this period there were no Gaedhlic schools in the sense in which we now speak of English as opposed to Classical schools—that is, academies in which the Gaedhlic language, and literature, and history were the subjects chiefly, if not exclusively, taught. On the contrary, we have abundant evidence that there were several schools of this character, in which the vernacular language was cultivated with great success, and not merely the language, but also the history, the antiquities, the laws, and the literature of the nation.

We are even inclined to think that in Celtic Ireland the vernacular language was more carefully cultivated during this period, and that laymen generally had better opportunities of obtaining what would now be called a university education, than they had in any other country of western Europe. This statement is, in our opinion, capable of clear proof from existing monuments; but for the present we need not go beyond the admitted facts that both clerics and laymen from the Continent came to the schools of Erin in large numbers, to acquire the culture of our Celtic schools; whilst on the other hand, when our Irish scholars went abroad during the ninth and tenth centuries, they were at once entrusted with the highest offices in the Continental schools, and proved themselves to be, not only amongst the ablest theologians of the time, but also the first men of that age in Greek and Latin Literature. The history of men like Virgilius, and Dungal, and John Scotus Erigena, proves the truth of this statement beyond denial or controversy.

The Lives of the Saints furnish materials for the history of our monastic schools; but our lay scholars, having no such records of their lives and learning, are forgotten, except in so far as some treatise, or fragment of a treatise, of their composition may have survived the wreck of time.

We find, however, from references in the Brehon Laws, that lay Schools and lay Professors occupied a recognised and honourable position in the social polity of the time.

I.—Organization of the Gaedhlic Professional Schools.

In the Sequel, or Second Part, of the Crith Gabhlach the legal rights and social position of the Professors of the Liberal Arts are set down with a considerable degree of fulness and accuracy. We are aware that it has been said[441] that these, and some other portions of the Crith Gabhlach “are the fantastic production of an antiquarian lawyer of a strong ecclesiastical bias.” It is hardly necessary to question the competency of this writer to pronounce such an opinion. He appears to have been wholly unacquainted with the Irish language, and obviously has only a lawyer’s knowledge of our ancient Annals. For those very things, regarding the orders, rights, and privileges of the Church, which he so coolly describes as the fantastic production of a lawyer with an ecclesiastical bias, are shown in every page of our Annals to be amongst the recognised institutions of the Celtic tribes in Erin. It is, in fact, quite clear that he admits only as authentic laws those which seem to harmonise with his own pre-conceived notions of ecclesiastical polity; but those which do not fit in with these pre-conceived views, he rejects as fantastic! Such is the critical faculty of some of those to whom the publication of the Brehon Laws has been entrusted.

In this Sequel to the Crith Gabhlach,[442] ‘profession’ is set down as one of the things which give social status in Erin. And, as in the Church, and amongst the land-owning classes, there were several grades, so there were also amongst the professional classes. These grades are set down as seven; but it is not easy for us to realise the degrees of gradation between them, since that state of society has totally passed away; as surely it would be difficult in similar circumstances to discriminate between the various grades in the learned professions that exist amongst ourselves to-day. It would not be easy for us to explain for the Maoris how those entitled to write after their names A.B., or M.A., or LL.D. differ amongst themselves; or in what the Q.C. is superior to the Stuff Gown; and the same difficulty will be found to exist in all the degrees, whether academical or professional, on which men set so much value at present.

In like manner, in ancient Erin, the ‘seven grades of wisdom’ are carefully distinguished by law, although it is not easy for us in every case to perceive the point of the distinction.

There was a High-professor (rosai), and a simple Professor (sai); there was an anruth and a sruth, that is, a ‘noble stream’ and a ‘stream,’ which, in our opinion, have not been at all explained; there was an ‘illustrator,’ and an ‘interrogator,’ and a ‘pupil’—or, as we should now call them, a grinder, and a tutor, and an undergraduate. The High-professor was also called an ollamh and a sai litre, that is in modern parlance a LL.D. (speaking of laymen), and a Doctor of Literature. The most important point is that the Ollave was entitled to sit at the king’s table as an honoured guest. In point of knowledge he was qualified to answer all questions in the four great departments of learning—that is, in poetry, literature, history, and, like a LL.D., in canon and civil law.

He was entitled to bring four-and-twenty persons in his retinue, or peripatetic school; and neither he nor they could be denied food without incurring a severe penalty—one-seventh of his death-eric. One of his functions and rights was to be ‘in the bosom of his disciples,’ always imparting knowledge to them on all suitable occasions.

The anruth, or ‘noble stream,’ was only entitled to half this company, but in other respects he was supposed to be a junior Ollave or Fellow—in the number of his intellectual gifts, in the eloquence of his language, the greatness of his knowledge, and the nobility of his teaching—but he had not yet reached the ‘pinnacle’ of knowledge, like the full-blown Ollave.

We cannot now discuss at greater length the various other sub-divisions, both amongst masters and pupils, which were almost as numerous as in the Intermediate Schools and Royal University—all put together, including the Senators, Fellows, Teaching-Examiners, and Graduates.

The learned professions were, in like manner, carefully discriminated and sub-divided. Leaving out the Church, it seems that there were at this period three great lay professions—Poetry, Law, and History. Poetry (filidecht), generally gets precedence; and the Ollave-poet seems to have been at the very top of the learned professions. The ‘bard’ at this period is distinguished from the ‘poet.’ The former is described as a man “without lawful learning but his own intellect;”[443] that is a man who had from nature the gift of music and of song, but who was never regularly trained, and never graduated in the School of Poetry. Not so the file or poet. He was trained in all the mysteries of the various kinds of Gaedhlic verse; he could compose extempore or in writing; he knew the legal number of recognised poems and tales, and was pronounced qualified to recite them before kings and chieftains, whether in the banquet hall, or on the battle-march. He could eulogise, too, and satirise; and he and all his company were entitled both to fees and refection.

The course in poetry extended over ‘twelve years of hard work;’[444] and besides the knowledge of the seven kinds of verse, in each of which the Ollave-poet was supposed to be able to compose extemporaneously, he was also required to know seven times fifty tales by heart for public recitation. These tales were of a wild and romantic character, but for that very reason were highly popular with all classes in ancient Erin. They included tales of Battles, Voyages, Cattle-spoils, Sieges, Sorrows, Slaughters, and so on, through the lost list of the legendary poems of Erin. Fortunately many of them still survive in manuscript, and a few have been published; which even in faulty translations are found to be exceedingly interesting and amusing. It was, doubtless, the popular and entertaining character of these romantic stories that placed the Ollave-poet at the head of the learned professions, even on an equality with kings and bishops in point of social dignity. There were seven grades or degrees in this great fraternity, from the fochloc, or scholar-poet, up to the great Ollave himself, who was the head of the school, or band of twenty-four that formed his train.

In like manner with the Brehons, there was an Ollave-Brehon who corresponded with a judge of the High Court in our own times; and then there were seven grades of inferior brehonship, descending from this high official to the raw law student, who was just beginning to take out his lectures and eat his dinners—for, in ancient, as in modern Erin, the lawyers made eating an essential part of their professional career. The fees of the Brehon were fixed by law, and to withhold them was a grave offence, for which a distress might be levied after an interval of three days.[445]

Whoever looks over, even in a cursory way, the four large volumes of the ancient Brehon code already published, will readily admit that to be an accomplished lawyer in ancient Erin required long and careful study under competent masters. At length the system grew so intricate and complicated that the Brehonship was confined to a few families, who transmitted from generation to generation the key to the interpretation both of the written and customary law. Every righ was entitled to have his own Brehon, who sat on stated days, generally in the open air, for the adjudication of all the causes arising in the tribe. The litigants might, of course, have their own advocates, but they were generally young Brehons of inferior degree belonging to the school of the chief Brehon. Amongst these legal families the MacEgans of Duniry in Galway, and Ormond in Tipperary, became the most celebrated, so that members of that family were employed as judges by most of the kinglets beyond the Shannon.

The Historical Poets or Chroniclers seem to have constituted a separate professional class in Ireland during this period. O’Donnell, in a passage from the Irish Life of St. Columba, clearly defines their duties, and he must have known them well, for the O’Clerys, his own hereditary Chroniclers, were the most illustrious members of that profession that ever appeared in Erin. It was their duty to record—(a) the achievements, wars, and triumphs of the kings, princes, and chiefs; (b) to preserve the genealogies and define the rights of noble families; (c) to ascertain and set forth the limits and extent of the sub-kingdoms and territories ruled over by the princes and chiefs. There is no statement in the Brehon Code as to the duties of the Chronicler so definite as this, because the code supposes that these things were perfectly well known to all the Feni, from their own daily experience.

In the earlier periods of our history these important duties were discharged by the Bards; but by degrees it was found more convenient to confine them to a separate class, which afterwards, like the Brehons, came to be hereditary. As the righ was entitled to have his Bard and Brehon, so also he was entitled to have his Chronicler to discharge those duties to which we have referred above. Up to the eleventh century the Chronicles were written in verse, but after that period they began to be written in prose; and in many cases they are written both in prose and verse—the verse being nearly always the older form of the Chronicle.

Many of these Rhyming Chroniclers record merely the local history of their own chieftains; but in other cases the poet-historian took a wider scope, and gave a narrative not only of Irish history, but of universal history, in a brief way, down to the time of St. Patrick. Most of these Chroniclers were laymen, although several of the most distinguished amongst them were monks or priests in some of the great monastic schools.

It is quite clear from various references both in our Annals, and in the Brehon Code, that these three professions were kept quite distinct from the sixth to the twelfth century, that they were taught by different professors, and in different schools—these professors being generally but not always laymen.

Perhaps the earliest school of this character to which we find any definite reference is the School of Tuaim Drecain. It is doubtless only one of many similar institutions that flourished in ancient Ireland, but as we have more accurate information, although incidental, concerning this establishment, we propose to give an account of this typical seminary in a separate section.

II.—The School of Tuaim Drecain.

St. Bricin’s School of Tuaim Drecain is one of those mentioned in O’Curry’s catalogue of celebrated schools in ancient Ireland. Moreover, although its founder and rector was a saint, whose festival is found marked in our martyrologies, it seems to have been a lay school of general literature, or, as we should say, a school of arts rather than of scripture or theology. It has besides produced one very distinguished Irish poet, some scraps of whose writings have come down to us, and therefore deserves a special notice at our hands.

Its founder is described in the Martyrology of Donegal (5th Sept.) as “Bricin of Tuaim Drecain, in Breifne of Connaught; but it is in Breifne Ui Raghallaigh it is, and he was of the race of Tadhg, son of Cian, son of Ollioll Olum.” We find off-shoots of that race of Tadhg, son of Cian, in Bregia, and in Leyney, county Sligo, and elsewhere also, but to which branch of the race he belonged we are not informed.

Tuaim Drecain is now called Tomregan, which very nearly represents the pronunciation of the Irish word. It is a parish situated partly in three baronies and in the two counties of Cavan and Fermanagh, where the Woodford river, after draining several of the Leitrim lakes, flows on to join the river Erne, near Belturbet. The name signifies the tomb or grave of Drecan, some ancient warrior of whom nothing is known. It would, however, be interesting to know if there is any tumulus, or stone circle, in the parish which might help to explain the origin of the name. We know from the Annals of the Four Masters that Eochaidh Faebhar-glas, King of Ireland, from A.M. 3707 to 3727, fought a battle at Tuaim Drecon; and it was probably from the tumulus raised over Drecon on this occasion that the place got its name.

St. Bricin flourished during the early years of the seventh century, and, besides his other scholarly acquirements, it seems he had also some knowledge of medicine. Amongst his pupils the most celebrated was Cennfaeladh the ‘learned,’ who in his youth had been a distinguished soldier, and took part in the great battle of Magh Rath (now Moira, co. Down), which was fought in the year A.D. 634. On that fatal field he received a very dangerous wound in the head, which was very near bringing his learned career to a premature close. He was, however, carried off from the battle field, and taken to Armagh, whence Senach the Primate, sent him to Tomregan, that he might have the benefit of the surgical skill of Bricin. The saint succeeded in healing the wound in the poet’s head, although he had actually lost through the wound a small portion of the brain. This, however, in his case only added to his powers of memory and general intelligence, which goes to show that in some cases the skull is really too thick, and is the better of being trepanned.

At this time St. Bricin was the head of a great lay college at Tuaim Drecain, which consisted of three distinct schools carried on in different buildings, each having its own professor—one a School of the Brehon Law (Feinechas), another a School of Poetry and History, and the third a School of Classical Learning. These schools were, it appears for convenience sake, located at the junction of three streets, so that the pupils could, when necessary, easily pass from one to another.

Now, as soon as Cennfaeladh’s wound began to heal, he employed his leisure in attending the lectures delivered in these various schools; and his head having been specially opened, he acquired, and what is more, he retained all the lectures delivered in the different schools, so that he afterwards opened a similar academy himself, and was able to instruct his pupils in all these various branches of knowledge. Poetry, it seems, he made the vehicle of communicating his information, which was quite the usual practice in those early days; and it had this one great advantage when books were so scarce—it greatly helped the memory, thus rendering it much easier for the master to teach, and for the pupil to learn.

Some of the treatises thus composed by Cennfaeladh for the use of his schools have fortunately survived the ravages of time. O’Curry thinks it probable that he was the author of an entire Grammatical Tract which has been preserved in the Book of Leacan and the Book of Ballymote.

This Tract, O’Curry tells us, is divided into four books. The authorship of the First Book is ascribed to Fenius Farsaidh, or Fenius the Antiquarian, an ancestor of Milesius, who may be regarded as a mythical personage, his name being introduced to lend an air of antiquity to the work. The Second Book is, for a similar reason, ascribed to Amergin, a son of Milesius. The Third Book is attributed to Ferceirtne the Poet, who flourished in the time of Conor Mac Nessa; but the Fourth Book is clearly the work of Cennfaeladh himself, who, if he did not compose, certainly revised the entire treatise. Cennfaeladh died about A.D. 678; and O’Curry thinks the work was retouched after his death by later scholars—most likely by Cormac Mac Cullinan, or some of his pupils, towards the close of the ninth century.

This most interesting work is unfortunately hitherto unpublished, for few scholars are qualified to undertake the task of its publication. It not only deals with the principles of the Irish grammatical construction, but compares the Gaedhlic forms with the Latin of Priscian, Donatus, and other authors then familiar to Irish scholars; and even to some extent it compares the Irish inflections with those of the Greek and Hebrew languages.

Cennfaeladh also compiled a Law Tract which has been published by the Brehon Law Commissioners; and moreover, he was the author of several historical poems, fragments of which are still extant. His poem on the Migrations of Milesius from Scythia to Spain is complete; but we possess only a fragment of another equally interesting one on the Death of the Ultonian Heroes of the Red Branch. To him also O’Reilly attributes the authorship of the poem on the Teach Midhchuarta, which describes all the furniture and arrangements of the great Mead-Circling House of Tara. So that it may be truly said that few schools in Ireland produced a more distinguished scholar than Bricin’s Academy at Tomregan in Breifne.[446]

III.—Cormac Mac Cullinan.

This is, perhaps, the most fitting place to give an account of the life and writings of the celebrated Cormac Mac Cullinan, the Bishop-king of Cashel. It is as a Gaedhlic scholar he is best known to posterity, although his high position, his valour, his piety, as well as his tragical end, have all combined to render his career singularly interesting to his fellow countrymen.

Cormac was born so early as the year A.D. 835, at the very time when almost all Ireland was writhing under the oppression of the Danes. He was sprung from the chief royal family of Desmond, that is, the Eoghanachts of Cashel. It is well known that the entire province of Munster was divided between two sons of Ollioll Olum—Eoghan, the elder taking Desmond, and Cormac Cas the younger getting Thomond for his principality, with alternate right for both brothers to the sovereignty of the entire province. The Eugenian line, however, contrived to keep the sovereignty of the province for the most part in their family; and, as these kings lived generally at Cashel, the royal family of South Munster came to be called the Eoghanachts of Cashel.

No mention of Cormac is made in our Annals until he was called to the throne of Cashel by his fellow tribesmen, A.D. 900, when he had attained the mature age of sixty-five. The Four Masters, however, tell us that Sneidgius, the wise man of Disert-Diarmada, was his tutor; the latter died A.D. 885 (recte 888), as we find it in the more accurate Chronicon Scotorum. Disert-Diarmada, now called Castle-Dermott, is a place of ancient fame in the south of the County Kildare. It took its old name from a hermitage founded there by St. Diarmaid, otherwise called Ainle, because he was a ‘fresh-complexioned youngling,’ as the Gloss on Ængus tells us, when he retired to the hermitage that has borne his name ever since. The ancient round tower still standing, as well as the old stone cross, and the broken shaft of a second cross, show that the old abbey, on whose site the Protestant Church now stands, was a place of great ecclesiastical importance. The Crouched Friars were established there by Walter de Riddlesford, and Thomas, Lord of Offaley, founded a convent for Franciscans in the same place. It was called Castle-Dermott from the castle erected by de Riddlesford in the reign of King John. It was a place of much strength, surrounded by walls, and defended by this strong castle; and hence we find that two Parliaments of the Pale were held here—one in the reign of Edward IV., and the other in A.D. 1499. Its chief glory, however, will always be that it was there Cormac Mac Cullinan was educated, and there he was buried. It gave him knowledge, and when his brief and stormy reign was over, it gave him the rest of the grave.

It seems that during the ninth century at least, the abbots of Disert-Diarmada enjoyed quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. Some of them were certainly bishops; and, no doubt, had a territory which owned their spiritual sway. In A.D. 842, we are told that “Cumsudh, son of Derero and Maenach, son of Sadchadach, who were both bishops and anchorites, died in one night at Disert-Diarmada.” A.D. 895 died Muirghaes, Bishop and Abbot of Disert-Diarmada; and again in A.D. 1038, we hear of the death of a ‘distinguished bishop’ of Disert-Diarmada.

The learning of Cormac Mac Cullinan was, no doubt, acquired within the walls of this ancient monastic school. Sneidgius, the sage (egnai) of Disert-Diarmada, was his tutor, and from the acquirements of the pupil, it is not difficult to infer the learning of the master. We have now no means, however, of knowing how long Cormac remained at Disert-Diarmada.

He was certainly a bishop before he became King of Cashel, but it is difficult to say what See he was placed over, or whether he ever had charge of any See at all. We do not read in any of our Annalists that he was Bishop of Cashel before he became King of Munster; indeed it is very doubtful if he were ever Bishop of Cashel at all. There is no reference made to a Bishop of Cashel before this period, so far as we know, in any of our ancient authorities. It was the seat of the temporal royalty, but it had not yet become the seat of spiritual authority. The Four Masters say that Cormac was King and Bishop, but they do not say he was Bishop of Cashel. The Annals of Ulster call him King of Cashel, but do not call him ‘bishop’ at all. The Chronicon Scotorum describes him as “King of Cashel, a most excellent scribe, a bishop, and an anchorite;” but makes no reference to his See. Keating is, so far as we know, the first who calls Cormac, not Bishop, but Archbishop of Cashel. In fact down to the year A.D. 1101, Cashel was simply a royal dun, which gave its name to the kingdom of South Munster. There was up to that time no church or monastery at Cashel, of which we have any information. But in that year a remarkable event took place, thus recorded by the Four Masters: “A meeting of Leath Mogha was held at Caiseal by Muircheartach O’Briain with the chiefs of the laity, and O’Dunan, noble bishop and chief senior with the chiefs of the clergy; and on this occasion Muircheartach O’Briain made a grant, such as no king had ever made before, namely, he granted Caiseal of the kings to the religious, without any claim of laymen or clergymen upon it, but the religious of Ireland in general.” Here we find at the beginning of the twelfth century, that for the first time in its history, Cashel was given up for religious purposes, and ceased to be the royal residence of the southern kings. We find down to that time frequent mention in our Annals of the kings and royal heirs of Cashel, but of no Bishop of Cashel. Thenceforward, however, we hear of the Archbishops, but not of the kings or tanists of Cashel. The thing appears to have been brought about in the following way.

In consequence of the temporal sovereignty of Cashel, the prelates of Emly, in whose diocese it was situated, began to claim metropolitan jurisdiction over all Munster, especially when the O’Brian family began to claim the sovereignty of Ireland during the eleventh century. Hence we find that Domhnall Ua Heni is called in the Chronicon Scotorum ‘Archbishop of the men of Munster’ (Anno 1094). Celsus, the Primate, was anxious to oblige the King of Munster, and, moreover, O’Dunan, successor of O’Heni (from A.D. 1094-1118), was the personal friend and admirer of Celsus. Hence St. Bernard tells us that Celsus consented to establish de novo a second metropolitan See in Ireland, subject, however, to the primatial See of Armagh. O’Dunan was the first who de jure, if it can be so called, enjoyed the metropolitan dignity in the South of Ireland; and we know that St. Malachy was anxious to obtain the pall for the new See of Cashel, as well as for his own primatial See of Armagh. And it was doubtless to provide a sufficient endowment and a becoming See for the new metropolitan that the king made over his own royal fortress, and a part of his mensal estates for that purpose.

King Murtogh O’Brian was succeeded in the year A.D. 1119 by Cormac Mac Carthy, a pious and munificent prince. He did not reside at Cashel, for it was now church property; and it is highly probable the ‘noble senior and chief bishop of Munster’ had already established his episcopal palace on the famous Rock. He was not yet, however, formally recognised as archbishop, for he was present at the Synod of Fiadh Mic Ænghusa, which, according to the Four Masters, was held in A.D. 1111, and he is there simply described as ‘noble senior of Erin,’ and as Bishop of Munster, or as others have it, Bishop of Cashel. He was the first prelate who bore that title de jure, and he was a man who in every respect seems to have been worthy of the eminent dignity to which he was now elevated. He died at Clonard in the year A.D. 1117, according to the Four Masters, who describe him as “the head of the clergy in Ireland (in merit) and lord of the alms deeds of the West of Europe.”

If, as the Four Masters say, his death took place in A.D. 1117, it was just two years before the death of his friend Murtogh O’Brian, “King of Munster and of Ireland,” the munificent prince who gave over Cashel for religious purposes. Cormac, his successor, was not to be outdone in generosity, so we find that in A.D. 1127 he began to build the beautiful church on the Rock of Cashel, which has ever since been known as Cormac’s Chapel. It is sometimes ascribed to Cormac Mac Cullinan, but Petrie conclusively shows that it was begun about A.D. 1127 by Cormac Mac Carthy, and consecrated seven years later in A.D. 1134, as all our annalists declare.

It is a singular fact, too, that Cormac Mac Carthy, shortly after the chapel on the Rock was begun, was driven from his throne by Turlough O’Conor, and was compelled to take refuge at Lismore, and there also “took the staff-bachall”—or crozier[447]—and was honoured with the counsels and friendship of St. Malachy. Hence he is called a bishop-king by a contemporary writer, Maelbrighte, in his copy of the Gospel now preserved in the British Museum. The Four Masters also referring to his murder in A.D. 1138, describe him as Lord of Desmond, and Bishop-king of Ireland; and add, that he was treacherously slain by Turlough, son of Diarmaid O’Brian, a grandson of the previous king. Our own opinion therefore is, that O’Dunan, the noble senior, was the first Bishop of Cashel, that it was Murtough O’Brian gave him his See-lands, and that it was Cormac Mac Carthy, himself a King-bishop, who built the beautiful chapel on the Rock, rather, however, as an episcopal oratory, than as a cathedral properly so called.

Now to return to Cormac Mac Cullinan. He became King of Munster in the year A.D. 900, when, as the Annals of Ulster tell us, there was a ‘change of kings’ at Cashel, viz.: Cormac Mac Cullinan in the place of Cenngegain, that is Finnguine—the former term was, it seems, a nick-name of the previous king, who became unpopular and was deposed by the tribesmen. Next year he was murdered, but it was by his own kinsmen.

There is no doubt that Cormac was, as we have said, a bishop at this period. He was not Bishop of Emly, for the See was then filled. Neither was he Bishop of Lismore, as some writers have asserted, for his namesake, the Bishop of Lismore, lived until A.D. 1119. It is not necessary, indeed, to assume that he had any See. Hitherto he seems to have been a man of studious habits, as he certainly was a man of great learning. Being a member of the royal family of Munster, it would, so to speak, be the right thing to make him a bishop; but, in all probability, he spent most of his time in retirement at Disert-Diarmada, and was no doubt reluctantly called to the throne, as next in blood, by the revolution which deposed his predecessor.

All our annalists agree in representing Cormac as both a pious and learned prince; but we cannot call him either a great king or a great saint. That he was a just man according to the ordinary standard, he gave proof soon after his accession to the throne of Munster. The old rule of alternate succession between the Eugenian and Dalcassian lines had, as the learned Cormac was well aware, been scandalously violated. He resolved, so far as he could, that justice should be done when his reign would come to an end. Calling around him the chiefs both of Desmond and Thomond, he reminded them of the ancient rule of alternate succession, and confessing that the Eugenian line hitherto had enjoyed more than they were entitled to of the sovereign power, he besought the princes of his own house to consent to the succession of a Dalcassian prince to the throne of Munster. The princes of Desmond listened in respectful silence, and pretended to assent to the proposed arrangement, but afterwards declined to carry it out.

The seven years’ reign of Cormac was full of stirring events. The first or second year of his reign was marked by “the expulsion of the Gentiles from Ireland, i.e., from the fortress of Ath-Cliath,” as the Annals of Ulster express it. They had, for some years, been losing ground on the eastern coasts, but at this period met with such a crushing disaster from Cearbhall, King of Leinster, that all the foreigners fled from Dublin, half-dead with terror, having left most of their ships behind them. It was the beginning of the ‘forty years’ rest,’ which poor Ireland then enjoyed from their perpetual incursions. No doubt colonies of Danes still remained in the great sea-port towns, which they had built; but they were too much broken down by defeat to risk any new enterprises, and gladly confined themselves within their walls, spending their time rather in trade and commerce than, as hitherto, in war and rapine.

No sooner, however, did the native princes once more breath freely, than they turned their arms against each other. Flann Sionna, son of Maelsechnaill, was then King of Ireland. He had already reigned more than twenty years as Ard-righ; and what is more wonderful still, he was destined to reign sixteen years more, and, strangest of all, to die in his bed. He was a restless and ambitious prince, and seems to have inherited all the ancestral jealousy of the South of Ireland. In A.D. 904 he made a wanton raid into Ossory. Next year he led a hosting against Munster, and in conjunction with Cearbhall, King of Leinster, he plundered all the Golden Vale, from Gowran to Limerick. The men of Munster were now fairly roused, and even the Bishop-king was put upon his mettle. He levied a great army, and marched northwards to meet the troops of Flann and his allies in a fair fight. The rival hosts met on the same field of Magh Lena, which had witnessed the great battle between Conn the Hundred Fighter, and Eoghan Mor. Once more it was North and South arrayed against each other in fratricidal strife, whilst Danish colonies still held all the ports of the kingdom. Of old the North was victorious at Magh Lena; but now fortune favoured the men of Munster. Flann and his allies were completely defeated, and driven off the field. Not content with this victory, the King-bishop crossed the Shannon, and marching into the very heart of Connaught defeated and plundered the Connacians, who were allies of Flann. The hostages of the western provinces were carried off in triumph, and the fleets of Munster sailing up from Killaloe plundered the islands of Lough Ree.