The Third Order was of this kind:—They were holy priests and a few bishops, one hundred in number, who dwelt in desert places. They lived on herbs and the alms of the faithful; they despised all things earthly, and entirely avoided all whispering and detraction. They had different rules (of life), and different rites for celebrating; they had also a different tonsure, for some had the crown (shaven), but others kept their hair (on the crown). They had also a different pashcal solemnity; for some celebrated it on the fourteenth, but others on the thirteenth moon. This Order flourished during four reigns, that is, from the time of Aedh Slaine, who reigned only three years, and during the reign of Domhnall, who reigned thirty years, and during the time of the sons of Maelcobha, and during the time (of the sons of) Aedh Slaine. And this Order continued down to the time of the great plague (in A.D. 664). Then follows a list of their names.

Whereupon the writer says:—“Note that the First Order was most holy, the Second holier, and the Third holy. The First glowed like the sun in the fervour of their charity; the Second cast a pale radiance like the moon; the Third shone like the aurora. These Three Orders the blessed Patrick foreknew, enlightened by heavenly wisdom, when in prophetic vision he saw at first all Ireland ablaze, and afterwards only the mountains on fire; and at last saw lamps lit in the valleys. These things have been extracted from an old Life of Patrick.”[121]

Such is the account given in our ancient books of the Three Orders of the Irish Saints.

We have here followed the copy of this ancient document, taken from the Salamanca MS., lately published at the expense of the Marquis of Bute. It is beyond doubt a very ancient and most interesting document; but for the present we can only refer to those points that concern our immediate purpose.

It clearly marks a transition as having taken place in the early part of the sixth century from the missionary church of St. Patrick, who was engaged in founding churches and preaching the Gospel, to the monastic church of the sixth century. It emphasises the rejection of female ministration by the monks, and the exclusion of females from the monasteries, a thing that could not be done and never has been done in the case of the secular clergy living in the world, and engaged in missionary labour. The observation that “what was excommunicated by one church was excommunicated by all,” seems to point to a more perfect unity in the Patrician Church than existed during the second half of the sixth century. The central authority both in Church and State during the latter period was notably weakened. It is clear, too, that different rules of life were followed in different monasteries, and also that different rites were used in the celebration of Mass, and this document asserts that the rite used by the saints of the Second Order was derived from Wales—from David, Gildas, and Docus. This is a most important statement, if it is well founded; for it shows that these saints of the Second Order derived both their liturgy and discipline, not from St. Patrick and his immediate disciples, but rather from the great Welsh Schools that grew up during the sixty years when St. Patrick was engaged in preaching the Gospel in Ireland. Indeed, although Ware says that St. Patrick himself wrote a monastic Rule, we can find no good authority for the statement. His hands were full, and he was too busy to attend to the organization of monastic life, beyond laying down these general principles that are common to all monastic houses. It is a much stranger thing that the saints of the Second Order should introduce into Ireland, so soon after St. Patrick’s death, those later modifications in the liturgy which they saw in use in the Welsh monasteries. It is insinuated, too, that St. Patrick and his disciples followed the correct Easter, but that the saints of the Second Order introduced the British Easter, which was celebrated on the fourteenth day of the moon, as well as the frontal tonsure from ear to ear. As we shall hereafter see, this statement about the time of celebrating Easter is quite inaccurate, but may have crept into the text through the fault of copyists.

The important point to bear in mind is that these saints of the Second Order are represented as deriving their liturgy and discipline from British sources; and it is also expressly stated that this liturgy and discipline differed in some respects from the liturgy and discipline introduced into Ireland by St. Patrick, and practised by his immediate disciples. This is a question of great interest, but by no means easily solved. As a matter of fact, it seems highly probable that the saints of the Second Order did, to a great extent, derive their monastic discipline from two great British sources, as will again be more fully explained in treating of St. Enda of Aran and St. Finnian of Clonard.

CHAPTER VI.

The place had long been famous in the legendary history of Ireland. It was the classic ground of poetry and romance. Navan fort, just one mile to the west of the present city of Armagh, was the site of the ancient and famous palace of Emania, founded three hundred years before the Christian era by Macha of the golden hair, who traced the site of the rath with the brooch of gold from her neck, and hence it was called Eamhuin, in Latin Emania, but pronounced in Irish avan, so that with the article prefixed it becomes Navan, or “the fort of the neck-brooch,” the name which it retains to the present day. Macha of the golden hair was buried on the height called from her Ard-Macha, although the spot cannot be exactly identified. To the westward of Navan fort is a townland now called Creeveroe, which takes its name from the famous Red Branch Knights (Craebhruadh), who dwelt on that western slope of Emania where they had a school of Chivalry, in which they were trained to all martial feats of valour, and were always at hand to defend their sovereign and follow him to the battle-field. When St. Patrick came to Ard-Macha, that home of chivalry was silent and deserted, for Emania had been totally destroyed by the Three Collas about the year A.D. 322, after it had flourished for more than 600 years. The old order changed, yielding place to the new, and the foundress of Emania gave her name to the royal seat of a more enduring kingdom.

When Patrick, with his train of clerics, came to Armagh, he went straight to the local dynast, whose name was Daire—a grandson, it seems, of Eoghan, son of Niallan, who gave his name to the barony of Oneilland. Daire was a rough and bold, but not a cruel prince; he had heard, too, of Patrick and of the God of Christians; so when the Saint asked him for a site of a church on the Ridge of the Willows (Druim-Saileach), although he refused him that proud site on the hill, he granted him leave to build a church in the neighbouring plain to the west, which was called Na Fearta, or the Church of the Graves. But Daire, greedy even for what he had given to God, sent down two of his fleet coursers to graze on the green and fertile meadow which Patrick had enclosed for his church. It was very necessary to teach the rude warriors of the time that God’s acre may not lawfully be profaned by man or beast, so it came to pass that when the horses tasted of the grass, they both fell dead, and the king’s servants brought word to their master that the Christian priest had killed them. Daire’s brow grew dark, and mentally he swore that he would slay Patrick and all his people, when suddenly he sickened with a sickness nigh to death. Then in great haste the queen, “whose lustrous violet eyes were lost in tears,” sent a messenger to the Saint and besought him to heal her husband, for she knew his malady was a chastisement from God. Patrick yielded to the woman’s gracious prayer, and blessing water from the font, he gave it to the messengers, and bade them sprinkle therewith the horses and the king. This was done, and lo! the horses came to life again, and the king’s sore sickness left him.

Then Daire sent to Patrick as a gift a huge bronze cauldron, in those days a gift not unworthy of a king. The Saint, raising his eyes from his breviary, said “Deo gratias,” but no more. “How did the priest receive my gift?” said the king. “‘Gratzicam’ was all he said,” replied the messengers. Then the king in wrath bade them go again, and bear away the gift from the ungrateful priest; and again Patrick merely said, “Deo gratias.” “What said he now?” asked the king. “Only ‘Gratzicam,’” answered the messengers. “It is strange,” said Daire. “‘Gratzicam,’ when it is given; and ‘Gratzicam’ when it is taken away. The word must be good. I will restore him the cauldron, and give him the Ridge of the Willows that he may build a church unto his God.”

So Patrick, and Daire with his queen, and the clerics and the warriors of Daire ascended the slope, and on the crown of that sacred hill, Patrick, book in hand, marked out the site of the church, and all the buildings connected therewith, and consecrated it to God for ever. Now it came to pass that as the concourse was advancing, a doe with her fawn was lying under a tree. The startled doe flew swiftly away to the north, and the king’s attendants were going to kill the little fawn, but Patrick said, “No”; and stretching forth his hand he took the fawn, and put it on his own shoulders, and the doe taking courage followed him home, and remained with the nuns of Na Fearta ever after, giving them milk, too, beside feeding her fawns. This lesson of love and tenderness even to the brute creation produced a great effect on the warriors of Daire. They saw how Patrick pitied the poor doe, and would not hurt its offspring; they saw in him the image of that Good Shepherd of whom he spoke to them so often; and thus they were made to learn that the Gospel of Patrick was a message of love—of love for God, their great Father in heaven, and for all their fellow-men on earth.

According to the Book of Armagh, written about the year A.D. 807, the doe with her fawn was lying on the very “spot where the altar of the northern church in Ard-Macha now stands;” and Patrick carried the fawn on his shoulders until he laid it “on another eminence at the north side of Armagh where, according to the statement of those who know the place, miraculous attestations are to be witnessed to this day.” (Fol 6: b. 2.) The northern church to which the reference is made—built on the very spot where the doe was lying—is generally thought to have been the Sabhall, or Barn, called also the “Ecclesia Sinistralis,” because it was to the left of the great church, for persons entering the latter from the west. The great church itself known as the Damhliac (Duleek), or the great Stone Church, occupied the site of the present Protestant cathedral; and it is an extraordinary coincidence that the new Catholic Cathedral, the crowning glory of modern Armagh, stands on the opposite hill to the north dwarfing by its majestic proportions the Protestant church—and stands, it is said, on that very “eminence to the north” whither the great apostle carried the fawn on his shoulders! The hunted doe there found rest; and there, too, that other “milk white hind,” during the stormy centuries of the past, so often doomed to death, yet fated not to die, was destined to find a refuge and a home. “Great shall be the glory of this last House, more than of the first, and in this place I will give thee peace, said the Lord of Hosts.” (Agg. 2, 10.)

There were many other ecclesiastical buildings at Armagh, of which we can only mention the names. There was the Damhliac Toga, or the “Stone Church of the Elections,” on the south side of the Cathedral, but close at hand; there was a Cloictech, or Round Tower, at its north-west angle; there was a Teach Screaptra, or House of Writings, also within the original rath; and besides the Abbot’s House, we hear of the Cuicin or Kitchen, the prison for refractory monks or students, and the Reilig or Cemetery, which was more to the south, but afterwards extended all round the church. It was there that Brian Boru and his gallant son, Murchadh, were interred after the battle of Clontarf in 1014. Maelmuire, the Primate, proceeded with his clergy and relics to Swords, and waked the royal dead with all honour and reverence. Then they carried the bodies to Armagh, and they were both interred in the same new tomb.

All these buildings, including the houses for the monks and students, crowned the summit of the holy hill, and were surrounded with a large rath or earthen mound, as well as by a Fith-nemhedh, or Sacred Grove, where learning and religion sat side by side enthroned for many centuries in spite of much turbulence and bloodshed.

The Churches and Schools of Armagh are said to have been founded between the years A.D. 450 and 457—we can scarcely assign an earlier date. At that time St. Patrick had done much for the conversion of Ireland, but much still remained to be accomplished, so he chose and consecrated as his coadjutor Benignus, his young and faithful disciple, to preside over the Church of Armagh and over all its monasteries and schools. Thus in truth we may regard Benignus as the first president, and one of the chief professors of the young seminary which St. Patrick had just founded. Benignus from his boyhood had been trained by St. Patrick himself; he had accompanied him hitherto on all his missionary journeys; he was “psalm-singer” to the Saint, by whom he was tenderly loved, and not without good cause. The brief story of the life of Benignus is very touching—beautiful with a beauty that is all divine.

As we have seen, when St. Patrick first came to preach the Gospel in Ireland, he coasted northward, seeking a suitable spot to land, and amongst other places he put in for a little at the stream now called the Nanny Water in the County Meath, a little to the south of Drogheda. There he visited the house of a certain man of noble birth, by name Sescnen, whom, after due instruction, he baptized, together with his wife and family. Amongst the children there was one, a fair and gentle boy, to whom the saint, on account of the sweetness and meekness of his disposition, gave in baptism the appropriate name of Benignus. Shortly after the baptism Patrick, wearied out with his labours by sea and land, fell asleep where he sat, as it would seem, on the green sward before the house of Sescnen. Then the loving child, robed in his baptismal whiteness, gathered together bunches of fragrant flowers and sweet smelling herbs and strewed them gently over the head and face of the weary Saint; the child then sat at his feet, and pressed Patrick’s tired limbs close to his own pure heart and kissed them tenderly. The Saint’s companions were in the act of chiding the boy, lest he might disturb Patrick, who thereupon awaking and perceiving what took place, thanked the tender-hearted child for his kindness, and said to those standing by: “Leave him so; he shall be the heir of my kingdom,” by which he meant, says the author of the Tripartite Life, to signify that God had destined Benignus to succeed Patrick in the primatial chair as ruler of the Irish Church. After this nothing could separate the boy from his spiritual father; he hung on the words of wisdom that fell from Patrick’s lips; he accompanied him everywhere, and thus from his boyhood was trained by the apostle himself in all divine and human knowledge. We cannot stay to discuss the question whether Secundinus preceded Benignus as coadjutor to St. Patrick in the See of Armagh. It seems he did; it is certain at any rate that for ten years, about the time we speak of, that is, from A.D. 455 to 465, Benignus ruled under the guidance of Patrick the Church and School of Armagh.

His voice was sweet and pleasing, and his knowledge of the chants of the church was very considerable, acquired doubtless from Patrick himself, who had been trained in Gaul and Britain. Hence he was “psalmist” to Patrick, he led the choir of priests and monks at all the solemn ceremonies, and he trained the “wild eyed” Celtic youth to sing the praises of God like another Orpheus, softening them into Christian meekness by the charms of sweet melody—the melody of his voice and the still sweeter melody of his gentle heart.

Yet though a child of grace he had need of caution. His own sweet winning ways,[122] the music of his voice, his face so modest and so fair, deeply, though to himself unconsciously, won the affections of Ercnat, the beautiful and yet unbaptized daughter of King Daire. Most of all she was smitten by his sweet voice in the choir of the church. But she told no one; only going home she pined away in silence, and “through grief of love the maiden lay as dead.” Then at length Benignus hearing the cause, went and told his father Patrick, and Patrick gave him holy water, and bade him go and sprinkle it over the dying maiden. At once she awoke to a new life, with her heart emancipated from every trace of earthly love.

“Thenceforth she loved the spouse of souls.
It was as though some child that dreaming wept,
Its childish playthings lost, by bells awaked—
Bride-bells, had found herself a Queen new wed
Unto her Country’s Lord.”
—Aubrey de Vere.

St. Benignus died, it is generally stated, on the 9th of November, A.D. 468. A short time before his death he is said to have resigned his primatial coadjutorship, for St. Patrick was still alive, at least according to the much more general and more probable opinion, which places his death in A.D. 493, at the great age of 120 years. The death of Benignus is thus noticed in the Martyrology of Donegal:

The celebrated Irish work called the Leabhar Na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights, has been generally attributed to St. Benignus, although there seems to be good reason for doubting if he was really its author, at least in its present form. The title or inscription of the book certainly attributes it to Benignus. It is to this effect: “The beginning of the Book of Rights, which relates to the revenues and subsidies of Ireland as ordered by Benen, son of Sescnen, Psalmist of Patrick, as is related in the Book of Glendaloch.”

The Book of Glendaloch is no longer extant; but it seems clear from this very title that the work in its present form is derived from the ancient compilation known as the Book of Glendaloch, and which the Four Masters tell us was in their hands when composing their own immortal work. The copy in the Book of Glendaloch may have been itself made from the original treatise on the subject by St. Benignus, who was in every way well qualified for the task, both by his literary training as well as by his knowledge of his native language, and his familiarity with the laws and customs of the various provinces.

The title of the book very fairly describes its contents. It gives an exceedingly minute and interesting account of the revenues and rights of the supreme king; of the services and duties rendered to him by the provincial kings and inferior chiefs, as well as of the gifts and subsidies which he owed them in return. It gives also a full account of the revenues and rights of each of the provincial monarchs, and the services to be rendered to them by the sub-chiefs of the various districts, and the hereditary offices and honours held by the heads of the great families in the provincial assemblies. The work is partly in poetry and partly in prose; and although in its present form it cannot have dated from the time of St. Benignus, it is still an exceedingly valuable work as illustrating the internal organization of the entire kingdom, and its minor principalities, and may have been originally drawn up by that learned and holy man, with a view of preventing internecine feuds, by definitely and authoritatively fixing the rights and duties of the various princes and chiefs of the kingdom. This work has been translated and annotated for the Dublin Archæological Society by the late John O’Donovan. St. Benignus is said by Jocelin to have written also a life of St. Patrick, but no copy of it is now known to exist; and he has been always regarded as one of the compilers of the great collection of Brehon Laws known as the Senchus Mor.

The School of Armagh seems to have been primarily a great theological seminary. This is only natural; for the seat of authority should be also the fountain of sound doctrine. Of course in those far distant days theological learning had not assumed the strictly scientific form which was given to it by the great scholastic doctors, and which has been retained and gradually perfected ever since. It was the Positive Theology of the Fathers that was taught in our ancient Irish schools. But the difference regards the form rather than the matter; in both cases the matter is derived from divine revelation. The Fathers, however, explained and enforced the great principles of Christian doctrine and morality with rhetorical fulness and vigour, exhibiting much fecundity of thought and richness of imagery, but not attending so closely as the great scholastics to scientific arrangement, or to the accurate development of their principles and the logical cogency of their proofs. Each of these systems has its own merits and defects; the former is better suited for the instruction and exhortation of the faithful, the latter for the refutation of error; the Positive Theology was of spontaneous growth; the Scholastic System has been elaborately constructed; the one is a stately tree, that with the years of its life, has gradually grown in size and beauty to be the pride of the forest; the other is the Gothic Cathedral that from its broad and deep foundations has been laboriously built up, stone by stone, unto the glory of its majestic proportions and the strength of its perfect unity.

One of the most famous books in the schools of Ireland, and especially of Armagh, was the Morals of St. Gregory the Great. It is a very large treatise in thirty-five books, and though nominally a commentary on the Book of Job, it is in reality one of the most beautiful works on moral theology in its widest sense that have been ever penned. Every verse of Job is made the text for a homily, not a homily of a formal character, but a series of moral reflections conveyed in sweet and touching language—language in which argument and exhortation are very happily blended.

On Sacred Scripture St. Jerome seems to have been their great authority. We know both from the fragments of Aileran the Wise, published by Migne, and from the Irish manuscripts of St. Columban’s great monastery at Bobbio, that our Irish scholars were familiar with nearly all his works. In Dogmatic Theology we do not think that during the first two centuries of their history the Celtic scholars were familiar with the writings of St. Augustine on Grace; they seem to have derived their dogma from St. Hilary, and other writers of the French Church, rather than from the great Father of the African Church.

One of the earliest and most distinguished teachers of the School of Armagh, after the time of St. Patrick and Benignus, was Gildas the Wise. Many writers think there were at least two great saints of this name—the Albanian Gildas, and his namesake, Gildas of Badon (Badonicus), to whom the appellation of the Wise more properly belongs. We are inclined to think there was only one great saint of the name, and that the distinction is due to that confusion and uncertainty in our early chronology, which has been the fruitful parent of many errors. However, we are more concerned with facts than with dates, and it is an undoubted fact, stated by his biographer, Caradoc of Llancarvan, that Gildas was Regent or Rector of the great School of Armagh for several years, after which he returned to Wales from Ireland about A.D. 508, when he heard that his brother Huel had been slain by King Arthur, who, by the way, in sober history is by no means the “blameless King” he is represented to be in the romantic idyls of Lord Tennyson. Here are the exact words of Caradoc, the biographer of Gildas. After stating that Gildas, a most “holy preacher of the Gospel,” passed over to Ireland from Wales, and there converted very many to the Catholic faith, he adds:—“Gildas, the historian of the Britons, who was at that time (when his brother was killed), living in Ireland, being rector of the school, and a preacher in the city of Armagh, hearing of the death of his brother,” returned to Wales and was reconciled to Arthur. Thus we learn that Gildas, the historian of the Britons, was the same Gildas who had been head of the School of Armagh, the preacher renowned throughout all the Britains, and the first historian of that nation. His work called The Destruction of Britain,[123] is still extant, and shows that he was a man of large culture and of great holiness, in every way qualified to rule the Schools of Armagh. He gives a fearful picture of the Britons of his time, reduced as they were, to the greatest extremities by domestic tyrants and foreign foes. The first part of his work gives a sketch of British history, both civil and ecclesiastical, during the Roman domination in Britain, of the devastations by the Picts and Scots, and of the advent of the Saxons and Angles. The second part, called the “Epistle of Gildas,” is addressed to the five petty princes, or tyrants, of Britain—to Constantine, whom he charges with perjury, robbery, adultery, and murder; to Aurelius, whom he calls a “lion’s cub;” to the “panther,” Vortiporius; to the “butcher,” Cuneglass; and to Magnoclunus, the “insular dragon.” On the whole, it is a very spicy piece of writing, and clearly proves that the Welshmen of the time more than merited by their crimes the bitter chastisements which they received at the hands of the Saxons. The third part of the work is addressed to the clergy, and he rebukes them with no less severity of language. He is a new Jeremias, denouncing woe against the faithless pastors who sold the priesthood, who are the blind leaders of a blind flock, which they bring with themselves into perdition. There is certainly no want of vigour, although there sometimes may be of eloquence, in the style of this work. It shows a wonderful familiarity with the text and the application of Sacred Scripture; and shows, too, that Gildas the Wise, the regent of the School of Armagh, was in truth a deep divine, and must have been, beyond all doubt, a powerful preacher.

We know little or nothing of the writings of the subsequent teachers in the School of Armagh, but we have a record of the names of several, with eulogies of their wisdom and scholarship. The number of English students attracted to these schools by the fame of their professors was so great that in later times we find that the city was divided into three wards, or thirds, as they were called—the Trian Mor, the Trian-Masain, and the Trian-Saxon—the last being the English quarter, in which the crowds of students from Saxon-land took up their abode, and where, as we know on the express testimony of a contemporary writer, the Venerable Bede, they were received with true Irish hospitality, and were all, rich and poor, supplied gratuitously with food, books, and education. No more honourable testimony has been ever borne to any nation’s hospitality and love of learning than this. Alas, that England, in the centuries that followed, could make no better return to the Irish people, who, says Bede, had been always most friendly to the English, than to make it penal for an Irish Catholic to teach a school in his native land.

In the opinion of the learned Bishop Reeves, the Trian-Saxon was the district now occupied by Upper English Street and Abbey Street, and gave its name to the former.

Any one glancing at the Annals of the Four Masters will find frequent reference made from the sixth to the twelfth century to the deaths of the “learned scribes,” the “professors of divinity,” the “wise doctors,” and the “moderators,” or rectors of the School of Armagh. In A.D. 720, 727, and 749, we find recorded the death of three of these learned scribes within a very short period. Their duty was to devote themselves to the transcription of manuscript-books in the Teachscreaptra, or House of Writings, corresponding to the modern library. The Book of Armagh, transcribed there in A.D. 807, shows how patiently and lovingly they laboured at the wearying work; “as if,” says Miss Stokes, “they had concentrated all their brains in the point of the pen.” In A.D. 829 died Cernech, a priest and scribe who was known as the Wise by excellence; in A.D. 925 died Maelbrighde, successor of Patrick, “a vessel full of all the wisdom and knowledge of his time,” and eulogies of this fashion are of very frequent occurrence in recording the deaths of the great scholars of Armagh.

And yet, during these very centuries the schools, the churches, and the town itself suffered terribly from the lawless men of those days, especially from the Danes. Armagh was burned no less than sixteen times between the years A.D. 670 and 1179, and it was plundered nine times, mostly by Danes, during the ninth and tenth centuries. How it survived during these centuries of fire and blood is truly marvellous. In A.D. 1020, for instance, we are told by the Four Masters that “Ard-Macha was burned with all the fort, without the saving of any house in it except the House of Writings only, and many houses were burned in the Trians (or streets), and the Great Church was burned, and the belfry with its bells; and the other stone churches were also burned, and the old preaching chair, and the chariot of the abbots and their books in the houses of the students, with much gold, silver, and other precious things.” It is evident that on this occasion the efforts of the community were directed to secure their invaluable manuscripts, the loss of which could never be repaired. Yet the city and schools of St. Patrick rose again Phœnix-like from their ashes. In A.D. 1100, Imar O’Hagan, the master of the great St. Malachy, was made abbot just two years before the death of St. Malachy’s father, the blessed Mugron O’More, who had been “chief lector of divinity of this school, and of all the west of Europe.”

It was this same Imar O’Hagan, who, when made archbishop in A.D. 1126, rebuilt the great church of St. Peter and St. Paul in more than its ancient splendour, and introduced into the Abbey the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. These Canons by their learning and zeal effected a complete restoration of piety, discipline and learning, which had been much neglected during the ravages of the Danes. Twelve years later we have a record of the death of O’Drugan, chief professor of Ard-Macha, “paragon of the wisdom of the Irish, and head of the council of the west of Europe in piety and in devotion.” Just at this time, in A.D. 1137, the great Gelasius, who well deserved his name—the Giolla Iosa, or servant of Jesus—succeeded St. Malachy in the See of Armagh, and in spite of the disturbed state of the times raised the school to the zenith of its splendour. In A.D. 1162 he presided over a synod of twenty-six bishops, held at Clane in the County Kildare, in which it was enacted that no person should be allowed to teach divinity in any school in Ireland who had not, as we should now say, graduated in the School of Armagh. To make Armagh worthy of this pre-eminence, we find that in A.D. 1169, the very year in which the Norman adventurers first landed in Ireland, King Rory O’Connor “granted ten cows every year from himself, and from every king that should succeed him for ever, to the professor of Ard-Macha in honour of St. Patrick, to instruct the youths of Ireland and Alba in learning.” And the professor at the time was in every way worthy of this special endowment; for he was Florence O’Gorman, “head moderator of this school and of all the schools in Ireland, a man well skilled in divinity and deeply learned in all the sciences.” He had travelled twenty-one years in France and England, and at his death in A.D. 1174 had ruled the Schools of Armagh for twenty years. It was well for the venerable sage that he died in peace. Had he lived four years more, he would have seen the sun of Armagh’s ancient glory set in darkness and in blood, when DeCourcy and DeBurgo and DeLacy year after year swooped down on the ancient city, and plundered its shrines, and slaughtered or drove far away its students, its priests, and its professors. Once again Emania was made desolate by ruthless hands, and that desolation was more complete and more enduring than the first. We may hope, however, that the proud cathedral just built on Macha’s Height gives promise of a glorious future yet in store for the ancient city of St. Patrick.

In connection with the School of Armagh we may appropriately speak of the Book of Armagh. It is one of the oldest, and, beyond any doubt, the most valuable of the ancient books of Ireland.[124] Its contents are singularly varied and interesting, and its history, too, has a melancholy interest for Irish scholars. To Dr. Ch. Graves, Protestant Bishop of Limerick, is due the merit of fixing the date of its transcription. In one place there is an entry asking a prayer for Ferdomnach—pro Ferdomnacho ores—and in another place there is an entry which Dr. Graves deciphered with the use of acids, to this effect—“Ferdomnach wrote this book from the dictation of Torbach, the heir of St. Patrick.”[125] Torbach was primate only for a single year (A.D. 807); and we find from the Annals of the Four Masters that Ferdomnach “a sage and choice scribe of the Church of Armagh,” died in A.D. 844. We are justified, therefore, in concluding that Torbach, the primate in A.D. 807 (he died on the 16th of July in that year) had this great work transcribed under his own direction by the choice scribe, Ferdomnach. Moreover, before his elevation to the primacy, Torbach had been himself a scribe of the Church of Armagh, and thus very naturally took an interest in the transcription and preservation of this great treasure of his church.

The Danes, too, at this time, hungry for pillage and slaughter, were hovering around the coasts of Ireland. They had as yet made no descent on Armagh, but they had at several points round the coast, especially on the islands, as at Rathlin in A.D. 794, and Innismurray, off the coast of Sligo, in A.D. 804, and at Iona where sixty of the clergy and laity were slain by the foreigners. It was of the highest importance, therefore, just at this time, to secure a copy of this ancient book. We know, too, from several marginal entries, that it had in some places become so illegible from age and use that the “choice scribe” had great difficulty in ascertaining the genuine text, so that we are justified in inferring that even in A.D. 807 it was a very old book, highly prized in the Church of Armagh. The sketch of the life of St. Patrick given in this book purports to be taken down by Bishop Tirechan from St. Ultan, who so early as A.D. 650 was Bishop of Ardbraccan, in Meath, and partly also from the dictation of Muirchu Maccu Mactheni, at the request of his preceptor, Aedh, Bishop of Sletty. It is not too much then to say that the Life of St. Patrick in the Book of Armagh, is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most authentic document of its kind in existence in Ireland. The handwriting of the book, too, is uniform throughout, and very beautiful, showing that Ferdomnach was, indeed, as he is called in the Annals, a “choice scribe.”

Some leaves are wanting in the beginning, but they do not seem to be of great importance. We have, first of all, the short life of St. Patrick, and annotations thereon in Latin and Irish—the Irish is now, perhaps, the very oldest form of the language to be found anywhere. We have next a treatise on the rights and privileges of the Church of Armagh; then the Confession of St. Patrick, followed by the words—and they are very important—“Hucusque volumen quod Patritius scripsit manu sua”—this is the part of the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand. The reference seems to be principally to the Confession, and clearly implies that the original copy was made from the autograph of the apostle himself.

After this come several other tracts, amongst them an entire copy of the New Testament,[126] Gospels and Epistles, including the spurious epistle to the Laodiceans. The Gospels, in Dr. Todd’s opinion, are of the recension of St. Jerome, but not so the Epistles. They bear no traces of his correction, a thing, however, not without example in ancient manuscripts. There is next a copy of the beautiful life of St. Martin of Tours, written by the “Christian Sallust,” Sulpicius Severus, which is the last complete treatise in the book, although there are, here and there, extracts from that work so famous in the early Irish Church, the Moralia of St. Gregory the Great.

One of the most remarkable features in the Book of Armagh is that many of the Gospel headings are written in Greek characters, and the last entry of all is a colophon of four Latin lines, but written in Greek letters, showing clearly that even at this early date a knowledge of Greek was general in our Irish schools.

This book was, not unnaturally, looked upon, on account of its sacred character and great antiquity, as the priceless treasure[127] of the Church of St. Patrick. It was incased in a shrine so early as A.D. 937 by Donogh, son of Flann, King of Ireland, and a special custodian was appointed to guard it. He was called the maor, or steward, who had the custody of the book, and as the office became hereditary in one family, they were allowed lands for their support, and came to be called MacMoyres—the descendants of the Keeper. Alas, for human nature! when Oliver Plunket, the martyr Primate of Armagh, was tried in A.D. 1681 for treason, in London, and sentenced to be executed on the testimony of those whom the sainted prelate described as “merciless perjurers,” two of the MacMoyres, Florence and his brother John, were amongst the perjured witnesses that swore away his life. And what is saddest of all, the wretch, Florence MacMoyre, was at the time the custodian, or keeper, of the Book of Armagh, and pawned it for £5 to a Protestant gentleman, Arthur Brownlow of Lurgan, that he might, it seems, find means to go over to London and earn his blood-money by betraying the noblest Heir of Patrick that ever sat in his primatial chair.

The folios of the Book of Armagh were arranged, numbered, and incased by Mr. Brownlow, in whose family the work continued down to the year A.D. 1853, when it was purchased for £300 by the late venerable and learned Dr. Reeves, who had been for many years preparing to print it, and there was none more capable than he to execute that task. From Dr. Reeves the book passed on the same terms to Primate Beresford, by whom it was presented to the library of Trinity College, where it is open to the inspection of all scholars through the great courtesy of the librarian, Dr. Ingram, F.T.C.D.

CHAPTER VI—(continued).

SCHOOLS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY.

II.—The School of Kildare.

From Armagh we not unnaturally turn to Kildare. If St. Patrick is the father, St. Brigid is the mother of all the saints of Erin, both monks and nuns. She may be regarded not only as the foundress of the monasteries and School of Kildare, but also, in one sense at least, of the diocese of Kildare itself. She has always been deemed one of the three great patron saints of Ireland. Her festival was honoured next after that of St. Patrick himself. The name has always been a favourite one with the daughters of Ireland. She was a woman not only of great virtues but of great talents; and exercised a powerful influence on the Church in her own day. She was the hope of the poor, the counsellor of bishops, the guide of kings; and to some extent that influence is felt even at the present hour. Her history, too, is exceedingly interesting, and throws much light on the manners and morals of those early days. We can, however, only give the reader a brief sketch of the leading incidents in her very remarkable career.

Although Brigid was the greatest, she certainly was not the first of the daughters of Erin who dedicated their virginity and their lives to the service of Jesus Christ, and received the veil from St. Patrick himself.

The sisters twain who died after their baptism at Clebach’s Well, on the slopes of Rath Cruachan—Fedelm the ruddy, and Ethne of the golden hair—were probably the first daughters of Erin[128] who put on the veil for Christ.

“Patrick put a white veil upon their heads,” as we are told in the Tripartite, and having received Communion—Christ’s Body and His Blood—they fell asleep in death, and Patrick laid them side by side under one mantle in the same bed. And their friends bewailed them greatly; but God’s angels rejoiced, for they were the first fruits that the Spouse took to himself from all the land of Erin.

About the same time Mathona, the sister of the young and gentle Benignus, received the veil from Patrick in the first bloom of her youth and beauty. It seems she accompanied her brother, who attended the Apostle all the way from the banks of the Boyne; and that she, too, had the privilege of ministering to Patrick and his companions. She had heard, if she had not seen, how, when Patrick abode at her father’s house near Inver Boinde, the earth opened wide its jaws and swallowed up the wizard or Druid, who had mocked at Mary’s virginity;[129] and she resolved to become a virgin like unto Mary. So when Patrick had crossed the Shannon, and was come to Elphin in Roscommon, we are told that he went thence to Dumacha of the Hy Ailella, and founded there at Senchell, near Elphin, a church in which he placed Maichet, and Cetchen, and Rodan, the arch-priest, and Mathona, Benen’s sister, who took the veil from Patrick and from Rodan, and became a religious. She afterwards crossed the mountain to the north-east and founded a church and convent of her own at Tawnagh, near Lough Arrow, in the county Sligo. This is the second express reference to the profession of a nun in Ireland. Bishop Cairell was also placed by St. Patrick in Tawnagh to watch over that infant establishment.

It is not unlikely that the ‘sisters twain of Fochlut’s wood,’ whose infant voices had summoned Patrick over the sea, calling him to come and walk once more amongst them, were also clothed with the religious veil by the Saint, when he went to Tyrawley. He certainly baptized them there, and we are told that they are the patronesses of the church called “Cell Forgland,” which was situated a little to the north of Killala over the present road to Palmerston.

“On a cliff
Where Fochlut’s Wood blackened the northern sea,
Their convent rose. Therein these sisters twain,
Whose cry had summoned Patrick o’er the deep,
Abode, no longer weepers. Pallid still
In radiance now their faces shone; and sweet
Their psalms amid the clangour of rough brine.”[130]

We are told in the same Tripartite that once when Patrick was at Armagh, nine daughters of the King of the Lombards came over the sea, and a daughter of the King of Britain came also on a pilgrimage to Patrick, and they tarried at the place near Armagh, called Coll-nan-Ingen—the Hazel of the Daughters. Some of the virgins died and were buried there, but the others went to Drum-Fendeda, and there abode. The virgin Cruimtheris, however, went and set up at Cengoba, and Benen used to carry food to her until Patrick planted an apple tree for the holy virgin; and then she lived on the fruit of that tree and on the milk of a doe, that grazed in her little orchard.

There is no doubt therefore that Patrick received the vows of many holy virgins in Erin before St. Brigid was professed. As Benen himself was the earliest and apparently the best beloved of Patrick’s disciples, so his sister was amongst the first of the daughters of Erin that he clothed with the veil of virginity, and there is every reason to believe that her holy relics sleep in the old church of Tawnagh, in Tirerrill, co. Sligo.

It is not improbable, too, that Patrick received the vows of St. Fanchea, the sister of the celebrated St. Enda of Aran, whose convent was established at Rossory, on the shore of Lough Erne. Hereafter we shall see how Enda owed his own conversion to his sister, St. Fanchea, and as this event must have taken place about the year A.D. 480, she herself may have seen St. Patrick, if she did not receive the veil from his hands.

We shall see hereafter also, when treating of St. Brendan, that the convent of St. Ita was founded about the same time.

She was the Brigid of Munster and the nursing mother of many other saints besides St. Brendan. Her memory is fondly cherished to this day in the co. Limerick, and immense crowds of people still assemble on her feast day at Killeedy, where the ruins of her ancient church are still to be seen. So the virgins of Christ were established everywhere in Ireland during the life-time of St. Patrick himself, and many must have made their profession before St. Brigid. But that holy virgin in other respects has eclipsed them all, and has come to be regarded as the queen and the mother of all the holy virgins, whose names are known in Erin, or as Ængus calls her—‘the head of the nuns of Erin.’

A great controversy rages round the parentage of St. Brigid. Cogitosus, the author of the Second Life, as given by Colgan, was a monk of Kildare, who flourished not later than the end of the eighth century, and must therefore be recognised as a competent authority. He declares that she was born of Christian parents of a noble race, and this statement is confirmed by the author of the Sixth Life, who was a monk of the island of Iniscaltra, in Lough Derg. All the authorities, indeed, admit that she was noble on the father’s side, for Dubhtach, her father, was a chieftain, the tenth in descent from the celebrated Feidhlimidh Rechtmar, the Lawgiver, a King of Ireland, who flourished in the second century of the Christian era. But the authors of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Lives of the Saint declare that Brigid’s mother was a female slave or captive in the house of Dubhtach, that her own birth was illegitimate, and that shortly before that event took place, the captive maiden, her mother, whose name was Brocessa, was driven from her home through the bitter jealousy of her master’s wife, and sold to a certain Druid or magus, who carried her to Faughart, where the future saint was born. It is difficult to assign any reason why the admirers of St. Brigid should invent this story; on the other hand it is easy to see why Cogitosus, jealous for glory of the foundress of his own Kildare, might be induced to pass it over in silence. It is certainly consistent with the manners of the time, for the Brehon Code clearly shows that then and long after slavery and its attendant evils existed in Ireland. The very fact that Brigid was not born in the house of her father, who seems to have dwelt in Leinster, appears to be a further confirmation of the story. St. Patrick was at one time a slave, and so it appears, too, that Brigid, to whom Ireland owes so much, was born of a slave-mother, and during the years of her youth had herself to endure, even after she came to her father’s house, the bitter taunts of her father’s wife, and the ceaseless drudgery of a captive maid. So it was that Providence prepared her, as it prepared Patrick, for the accomplishment of her lofty mission.

There are still many interesting memorials of St. Brigid at Faughart. The village is not quite two miles to the north-east of Dundalk. It is situated amid fertile fields, overlooking the sparkling waters of the Bay, and nestling under the shelter of the Carlingford mountains. It was once ruled over by Cuchullin, the Hound of the North, who kept the ford of Ardee against the hosts and the heroes of Queen Meave; and in its old church-yard was buried the headless trunk of the gallant Edward Bruce, who was slain close at hand—the spot is still shown—in the year A.D. 1318. St. Brigid’s Well is there, roofed over with masonry, but its waters are gone. The flag on which she was placed after her birth is also pointed out, and there also are Brigid’s Pillar, and Brigid’s Stone, of a horse-shoe shape, and the remains of an old church, but certainly not dating from Brigid’s time. The old church-yard surrounding it is crowded with ancient graves, and enclosed by a tall hedge of fragrant hawthorns. There are several ‘forts’ and ancient ‘mounds’ in the neighbourhood, which show that it had been a populous and important place, probably from the pre-historic ages of Cuchullin. One of them is sixty feet in height, and its level summit is still crowned with the foundations of a strong octagonal building, the purpose of which cannot now be ascertained.[131]

St. Brigid was born about the year A.D. 450, and was baptized shortly after her birth, with the consent of the magus or Druid in whose service her mother was engaged. She grew up, according to all her biographers, to be a young girl of singular grace and beauty, greatly favoured by nature, but still more richly endowed by grace. The daughter of the captive was watched over by guardian angels; her food was the milk of a white cow, that typefied the purity of her own young heart; and the butter from her master’s dairy, that she too generously gave to the poor, was miraculously replaced that she and her mother might not be blamed on account of waste or extravagance.

We cannot trace all the events of her marvellous history—how she was carried to Connaught and to Munster; how many suitors vainly sought her hand; how she returned to her father’s house and provoked the jealousy of her step-mother; how for peace sake her father offered to sell his beautiful daughter to the king of North Leinster, as he had sold her mother to the magus. But Providence watched over her in all her ways, and at length brought about the consummation of her most ardent wishes. With seven other young virgins she received the religious veil from the hands of Bishop Macaille, whose church was on the eastern slope of Cruachan Bri Eile in the modern King’s County, not far from the historic field of Tyrrells Pass. It is still called Croghan Hill, and an old church-yard yet marks the site of St. Macaille’s church. It is uncertain, however, whether Brigid was veiled there or at Uisnech Hill in Westmeath, where, according to other accounts, the holy bishop was at the time. The exact spot would be worth knowing, for during the course of the ceremony when Brigid’s hand touched the wood of the altar, that dry wood felt the virtue of the virgin’s touch, and became in the sight of all as fresh and green as it was on the day when it felt the wood-man’s axe in the forest. It is not unlikely that Brigid and her seven virgin companions lived for some time at Croghan Hill under the care of St. Macaille; afterwards, however she returned to her father’s territory and founded, nigh to an old oak tree, the church, which ever since bears the name of Kildare—the Church of the Oak. It was founded in Magh Liffe, the Plain of the Liffey, and it is remarkable that even when her most ancient lives were written, the holy virgin is represented as driving in her chariot over the Curragh of Kildare, which even then was used as a race-course.

Some authorities say that Brigid made her religious vows in the hands of St. Mel of Ardagh, whose name is frequently mentioned in some of her lives. It is strange that so little reference is made to St. Patrick, if he were indeed alive, as is commonly supposed, for many years after Brigid’s profession, which took place about the year A.D. 467. There is no mention made of Brigid in the Lives of St. Patrick except once. The Saint had founded the Church of Clogher for St. Mac Cairthinn, and afterwards went to preach in the neighbourhood at a place called Lemain, a plain watered by the river Laune, which takes its name from the plain. For three days and three nights he was preaching, and Brigid fell asleep during his preaching; but the saint would not allow Brigid to be disturbed, for he knew that she was sleeping a mystic sleep. As she slept she dreamt, and thought she saw at first white oxen in white cornfields; then she saw darker oxen, and lastly oxen that were black. After these she saw sheep, and swine, and dogs, and wolves quarrelling with each other—all of which, Patrick explained, were symbols of the present and future state of the Irish Church—a prediction that has been wonderfully verified by the event. It was on the same occasion that King Echu allowed his daughter to be united to Christ, and Patrick made her his own disciple, and she was taught by a certain virgin at Druim Dubain, in which place both virgins have their rest. It is stated in Tirechan’s collections in the Book of Armagh that Bishop Mac Cairthinn was the uncle of the holy Brigid—‘Brigtae’—the abbreviated form of the name. This fact would explain her presence at Clogher on this interesting occasion.

We are told that Kildare was first called Drumcree—Druim Criaidh—before it took the name of Cell-Dara from the beautiful oak tree which Brigid loved much, and under whose shade she built her first little oratory. That tree remained down to the end of the tenth century, when Animosus wrote her life; and it was held in such veneration that no profane hand dare venture to touch it with a weapon. In a very short time after its foundation Kildare grew to be a great religious establishment, having two monasteries separate, yet side by side, one for women and one for men—and both, to a certain extent, under her own supervision. “Seeing,” says her biographer, “that this state of things could not exist without a pontiff to consecrate her churches, and ordain the sacred ministers, she chose an illustrious anchorite, celebrated for his virtues and miracles, that as Bishop he might aid her in the government of the Church, and that nothing should be wanting for the proper discharge of all ecclesiastical functions.” It is obvious from these words that Brigid herself selected St. Conlaeth, or Conlaedh, to rule her churches and monasteries, but in accordance with her suggestions and advice. She, of course, conferred no jurisdiction on St. Conlaeth, but she selected the person to whom the church gave this jurisdiction. Her biographer does not say that Conlaeth was subject to Brigid, but that Brigid chose him to govern the Church along with herself—ut ecclesiam in episcopali dignitate cum ea gubernaret. These few simple words dispose of a vast amount of foolish talk about Brigid’s jurisdiction over St. Conlaeth. She, herself, never claimed nor possessed any such thing.

It is, however, abundantly evident that Brigid was a woman of strong mind and of great talents, that she was admirably fitted to rule and to organize, that her influence was widely felt, and her wisdom and prudence held in the highest estimation by the greatest ecclesiastics of her time. Moreover, her great virtues were confirmed by many miracles, so that crowds of men and women came from all parts of the country either to make a pilgrimage, or place themselves permanently under her guidance. But Brigid did more than this. One of her greatest virtues was her hospitality to all the ecclesiastics who came to visit her, and especially to the bishops. She seems, too, to have accepted their invitations, and to have made many journeys, especially through the South and West of Ireland, where she made so deep an impression by her preaching, her miracles, and her example, that her memory is still fondly cherished in all parts of the country. She became the “Mary of Ireland”—what Patrick was for the men, she was for the women—their national saint and patroness. They called their daughters by her sweet name. The wells at which she drank and prayed became for ever blessed wells. The parishes which she visited were in many instances placed under her special protection, and called by her name.[132] And so we have Tubber-bride and Kil-bride in all parts of the country, exactly as we have Kil-patrick and Tubber-patrick.

It is very manifest that St. Brigid felt from the beginning that a monastery of men at Kildare, presided over by a bishop, would be a great means of protecting her own nunnery of tender virgins and widows. It was a lawless age, as the history of St. Enda shows, and hence Brigid wished for security, as well as for instruction and religious guidance, to have the bishop and his clergy near her. She was anxious to have a complete and self-sufficing religious city at Kildare, and such, in fact, it very soon became. Besides St. Conlaeth to rule and to ordain, she had another bishop, St. Nadfraoich, to instruct herself and her nuns, for Bishop Mel had told her that she should never take food without having first heard the Word of God preached to her. She had secured another holy prelate, St. Ninnidhius, to administer the viaticum to her when dying, and that saint hearing this covered his right hand with a case or shell of metal, so that the hand which was to give the Communion to Brigid might never be defiled. Hence he was called Ninnidh of the Clean Hand.

It is said—but the tradition is rather uncertain—that Brigid had the consoling privilege of weaving with her own hands the winding sheet in which the body of St. Patrick was laid. At the time of his death, if, as is generally believed, he died in A.D. 493, Brigid must have been a nun for several years, and have already founded her own great convent at Kildare. She lived, however, until A.D. 523, or more probably until A.D. 525, and then dying in her own holy city, was buried at the right of the High Altar—Bishop Conlaeth, having been already laid on the left hand of the same altar, and both within the sanctuary.

Brigid is called by Ængus the chaste head of the nuns of Erin; and St. Cuimin of Connor describes her “as Brigid of the blessings, fond beyond all women of mortification, of vigils, of early rising to pray, and of hospitality to saintly men.” Her very name was prophetic, for it signifies either a ‘fiery dart’ or the ‘strength’ of her virtue—brigi being the Celtic for strength or might.

Kildare, as might be expected, became, during the life and after the death of Brigid, a great city and a great school—Cogitosus, with pardonable exaggeration, describes it as the head city of all the bishops, and calls Conlaeth and his successors Arch-bishops of the Bishops of Ireland, and Brigid (and her successors) the Abbess, whom all the Abbesses of Ireland hold in veneration. He says that no one could count the crowds of people coming to Kildare from all the provinces of Erin; that some come for the feasting or food—ad epulas—that the sick come to be healed; the rich come with gifts for the shrine of St. Brigid, especially on the 1st of February; and that sight-seers come to enjoy the wonderful spectacle.

He also gives a most interesting description of the great Church of Kildare in his own time. It was very lofty and very large, richly adorned with pictures, hangings, and ornamental door-ways. A partition ran across the breadth of the church near the chancel, or sanctuary; at one of its extremities there was a door which admitted the bishop and his clergy to the sanctuary and to the altar; at the other extremity, on the opposite side, there was a similar door by which Brigid and her virgins and widows used to enter to enjoy the banquet of the Body and Blood of Christ. Then a central partition ran down the nave, dividing the men from the women—the men being on the right and the women on the left, each division having its own lateral entrance. These partitions did not rise to the roof of the church, but only so high as to serve their purpose. The partition at the sanctuary, or chancel, was formed of boards of wood, decorated with pictures and covered with linen hangings, which might, it seems, be drawn aside at the consecration to give the people in the nave a better view of the Holy Mysteries. Such was the great Church of Kildare in the seventh and eighth centuries, before the advent of the Danes to Ireland.

In connection with St. Brigid and the School of Kildare, we may here make brief reference to the celebrated scholars who have compiled her biography.

The first of the six Lives printed by the learned Father John Colgan is the metrical Hymn of the Saint commonly attributed to St. Brogan Cloen of Rostuire in the Diocese of Ossory. The original Hymn is written in the Irish language; Colgan also gives a Latin translation. But the Irish original has been printed by Dr. Whitley Stokes, and also in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record for February, 1868. This Irish original has been preserved in the Liber Hymnorum, and also in a MS. in Trinity College of very recent date. The following Irish preface is prefixed to the Hymn in the MS. of St. Isidore’s, now in Merchants’ Quay, Dublin.