IV. THE WRITINGS OF ST. PATRICK AND OF HIS DISCIPLES…

IV. THE WRITINGS OF ST. PATRICK AND OF HIS DISCIPLES

"And this is my confession before I die." --Confession of St. Patrick.

The writings of St. Patrick and his disciples are highly interesting, both in themselves, and in the effects which they produced on the Irish Church. Fortunately several of these monuments of our early ecclesiastical history have come down to our own times, and no rational doubt can be raised about their authenticity by well-informed scholars.

The principal documents attributed to St. Patrick himself are his 'Confession,' the 'Epistles to Coroticus,' and a poem called the 'Lorica,' and sometimes the 'Deer's Cry.' Then we have in praise of Patrick a Hymn by his nephew, St. Sechnall or Secundinus, a metrical Life or Eulogy by St. Fiacc of Sletty, and certain sayings attributed to our national apostle in the Book of Armagh. We shall have also something to say of the Tripartite Life of the Saint, which is one of the earliest and most important documents connected with the history of the Patrician Church in Ireland.

I.--ST. PATRICK'S CONFESSION.

The Confession of St. Patrick, as he himself calls it, or the Book of St. Patrick the Bishop, as it is called in the MSS., is the most important and interesting document connected with the primitive Church of Ireland. The text itself is found in the Book of Armagh, and in several ancient manuscripts, some of which belong to the tenth century.[87] It is referred to also in Tirechan's Collections in the Book of Armagh as the 'Scriptio,' or Writing of St. Patrick himself. At the end of the copy in the Book of Armagh it is described as the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand--"Huc usque volumen quod Patricius manu conscripsit sua." This would seem to imply that the scribe of the Book of Armagh took his copy from the autograph by St. Patrick himself.

The evidence, both intrinsic and extrinsic, in favour of its authenticity is so strong that no competent Irish scholar has ventured to question the genuineness of this venerable document.

Indeed, if not genuine, it is impossible to assign any motive for such a forgery. The tone and spirit of the entire are such as could only come from one who was filled with the apostolic spirit. Many incidental references to Decurions, to the 'Brittaniae,' or Britains, to slave-traffic--all point to the fifth century as the date of its composition. The rude and barbarous Latinity, which some writers use as an argument against its authenticity, is in reality a strong proof in its favour, for it is exactly what we should expect from one who, like St. Patrick, spent the six years which are generally given to the acquisition of a liberal education, herding sheep and swine on the hills of Antrim. As Patrick himself remarks in apologizing for the rudeness of his style, of which he was fully sensible, he had to forego the use of his vernacular Latin during the years of his captivity, and his speech and his language were changed into the tongue of the stranger, "as any one may perceive from the flavour of my style."[88] Of course we should make allowance for the faults of copyists--especially where the original MS. itself seems to have been illegible or obscure, still it must be confessed that the Latin is very rude, sometimes even ungrammatical, and not always intelligible. But the spirit of deep humility and fervent devotion, which breathes in every line, is of itself sufficient to stamp this work as genuine. A falsifier, or impostor, might possibly write such Latin, but he never could forge the spirit that breathes in the language, which is the manifest outpouring of a heart like unto the heart of St. Paul.

The Book of Armagh contains the earliest copy of the Confession that we possess, and it appears not a little strange that several important passages are omitted from this copy, which are found in the copies preserved in the Cottonian and Bodleian Collections. Some writers have suggested that these passages of the later copies are interpolations. It is far more likely, however, that the Armagh scribe left out some passages from his own copy, that he could not decipher in the original, which as the marginal notes show, was in some parts obscure or illegible. These omitted passages too are manifestly written in the same style, and in the same spirit as the body of the Confession, and may certainly be regarded as genuine. It may be, also, that the scribe of Armagh left out certain passages from a groundless fear that it would not be to the honour of the great Apostle to speak so strongly of his own unworthiness. That passage, for instance, has been omitted in which the Saint refers to certain elders, who opposed his elevation to the episcopacy on the ground that thirty years previously, before he became a deacon, he had committed some sin, which he then confessed to a dear friend, and which it was now sought to make an obstacle to his promotion.

The Saint's motive in writing this Confession in his old age, as he tells us, was to defend himself against some vague charges of presumption in undertaking the Irish mission, and incompetence in discharging that onerous task, whilst acknowledging in all humility the sins and ignorance of his youth, and the difficulties under which he laboured by reason of his imperfect education.

Patrick points out that in all things he sought to listen to the voice of God, and to be guided by the inspirations of His Holy Spirit. Like St. Paul in similar circumstances, he refers to the perils by which he was encompassed, and the many toilsome duties of his episcopacy. He then vindicates his own disinterestedness, and challenges his accusers to show that he ever received a single farthing for preaching the Gospel and administering baptism to so many thousand persons, even in the remotest parts of the country, where the Word of God was never heard before. Not that the people were not generous, for they offered him many gifts, and cast their ornaments upon the altar; but he returned them all lest even in the smallest point the unbelievers might have cause to defame his ministry, or question the purity of his motives.

Finally, he appeals to the success of his ministry in the conversion of Ireland, as the best proof of God's approval of his work, and bears noble testimony to the sanctity and zeal of his new converts. "The sons of the Scots, and the daughters of their princes, became monks and virgins of Christ ... not by compulsion, but even against the wishes of their parents, and the number of the holy widows and continent maidens was countless." Even the slave-girls, despising their masters' threats, continued to persevere in the profession and practice of holy chastity. Still in his old age he was surrounded by dangers, but it mattered not; at any moment he was ready to die for Christ, and he solemnly calls God and His Angels to witness that, in returning to preach the Gospel in the land of his captivity, he came solely for the Gospel's sake, and his only motive was to preach the glory of Christ and share in the recompense of the Gospel. "And this"--said the Saint in beautiful and touching words--"this is my confession before I die."

This Confession contains many interesting references to the personal history and apostolic labours of St. Patrick, which are not always remembered; and which ought to be separated from the more uncertain and controverted facts of his history.

His father was Calpornus, or Calpornius, a deacon, who was the son of Potitus, and Potitus was the son of Odissus, a priest. The text, however, leaves it doubtful whether the word priest belongs to Potitus or to Odissus.[89] His father dwelt in the township (vico) of Bannavem Taberniae. He had also a small villa not far off, "where I was made captive at the age of about sixteen years." He was in ignorance of the knowledge of the true God,[90] which is to be understood of his defective training as a Christian during the years of his boyhood; for he adds that he did not keep God's Commandments, and was not obedient to the priests--our priests--as he calls them, when they admonished him to attend to his salvation. Therefore it was God punished him by this captivity in a strange land, at the end of the world. But that God pitied his youth and ignorance, and showed him mercy, consoling the captive as a father consoles his son. For which he earnestly thanks God, and takes occasion to profess his faith in the Holy Trinity, as Arianism was then rampant in the Church. After much hesitation he resolved to write this Confession in order to show the true motives of his own heart to his friends and relations.

The reason of his delay and hesitation was the rudeness of his style and language in consequence of his captivity when he had to make use of a strange tongue. But he should be forgiven, for the conversion of the Irish was the epistle of salvation, which he had written by deeds, not by words, not in ink, but in the Spirit of God. Though he was a stone sunk in the mire, a man of no account in the eyes of the world, yet God in His mercy exalted him; for which he will always give earnest thanks to God. Hence he wishes to make known God's goodness in his regard, and to leave it as a legacy of God's mercy to his brethren, and to the thousands of spiritual children whom he baptized.

When he came to Ireland (Hiberione), his daily employment was to feed cattle (pecora); but then it was the love of God began to grow within him, and he used to pray even up to a hundred times a day and as many in the night; he used to rise before the dawn to pray in the woods and mountains in the midst of rain, and hail, and snow.

One night he heard a voice saying to him in sleep--"your ship is ready"--and he travelled 200 miles to the port, where he had never been before, and where he knew no one. Thus after six years' captivity he succeeded in reaching this port. The master of the vessel at first would not take him on board, but afterwards he relented, when Patrick was returning to the cottage where he had got lodging. He was called back, and invited to go on board as one of themselves; but he declined familiar intimacy[91] through fear of God, because they were Gentiles.

In three days they disembarked in a desert land, through which they travelled for twenty-eight days, and were well nigh starving, until relieved at the prayer of Patrick. Reference is then made to the great stone that seemed to fall upon him in a dream, from the weight of which he was relieved by invoking Elias. It seems, too, that he fell into a second captivity, which continued for two months; but the text here is uncertain, and can scarcely be relied on.

He succeeded, however, in reaching the home of his parents in Britain--in Britannis--and they most earnestly besought him to remain with them, now that he had escaped from so many dangers.

But the Angel Victor, in the guise of a man from Ireland, gave him a letter in which the "voice of the Irish" called him away; the voices of those who dwelt near the wood of Focluth, from which he seems to have escaped, also called upon him to come once more and walk amongst them. The Spirit of God, too, spoke within his soul and urged him to return to Ireland. The same Holy Spirit encouraged him to persevere when objection was made by certain elders to his elevation to the episcopacy. Therefore, he was encouraged to undertake the great task, and his conscience never blamed him for what he had done.

It would be tedious, he adds, to recount all his missionary labours, or even a part of them. Twelve times his life (anima) was in danger, from which God rescued him, and from many other plots and ambuscades also, and therein God rewarded him for giving up his parents and his country, and all their gifts, and heeding not their prayers and tears, that he might preach the Gospel in Ireland, where he had to endure insult and persecution even unto bonds. But he strove to do the work faithfully, and God blessed his efforts, and those wonderful things were accomplished by the apostle, to which we have already referred.

Hence, though anxious to visit his parents and his native country in Britain, and even to revisit the brethren in Gaul--here referred to for the first time--and to see the face of God's Saints there, he was bowed in spirit, and would not leave his beloved converts, but resolved to spend the rest of his life amongst them.

Yet he was not free from temptations against faith and chastity, but in Christ Jesus he hoped to be faithful to God unto the end of his life, so that he might be able to say with the apostle, "Fidem servavi." God, too, deigned to work great signs and wonders by his hands, for which he will always thank the Lord.

He confidently appeals also to his converts, who knew how he lived amongst them, how he refused all gifts, and spent himself in their service. Nay, he it was who gave the gifts to the kings and to their sons--and sometimes they plundered him and his clerics of everything; and once bound him in iron fetters for fourteen days, until the Lord delivered him from their hands. When writing his Confession he was still living in poverty and misery, expecting death, or slavery, or stratagems of evil; but he feared not, because he left himself into the hands of God, who will protect him. One thing only he earnestly prays for, that he may persevere in his work, and never lose the people whom he gained for God at the very extremity of the world.

This Confession clearly shows that St. Patrick was a native of some part of Britain, and that he met more opposition in preaching the Gospel in Ireland than is commonly supposed. He was put in bonds of iron on one occasion for fourteen days, and even in his old age was living in poverty and in daily fear of death. It shows, too, that although the Saint was an indifferent Latinist, he was intimately acquainted both with the letter and spirit of the Old and New Testament, which he quotes constantly, and always from the version called the Vetus Itala--a strong proof of the authenticity of the Confession. It is singular that no reference is made to the Roman Mission, or to his ever having been at all in the City of Rome. But neither does the Saint refer to St. Germanus, although all the Lives agree in saying that he spent many years in Gaul with that holy and eminent prelate, nor does he even tell us where or by whom he was consecrated bishop. Nothing, therefore, can be deduced from his silence regarding St. Celestine and the Roman Mission, especially in face of the ancient and authentic testimonies which assert it.

II.--THE EPISTLE TO COROTICUS.

The Epistle to Coroticus, or more properly to "the Christian subjects of King (Tyrannus) Coroticus," is also without doubt the genuine composition of St. Patrick. It bears a striking resemblance to the Confession in its style and language, sometimes even entire phrases are re-produced from the Confession with scarcely any change of language. It is not found in the Book of Armagh, but it is found in several ancient MSS. dating back to the tenth century. From a reference made to the pagan Franks, it must have been written before their conversion to Christianity, which took place A.D. 496. It is evident, however, that it was written towards the close of the Saint's missionary career--probably some time between A.D. 480-490.

This Coroticus or Cereticus, was most probably a semi-Christian King of Dumbarton[92] or Ail-Cluade, and seems to be the same referred to in the Book of Armagh as Coirthech, King of Aloo. He is called in the Welsh genealogies Ceretic the Guletic, which term corresponds exactly with Tyrannus in St. Patrick's letter. Other Welsh authorities, however, have made Coroticus a petty King of Glamorganshire and identified him with Caredig or Ceredig, of the Welsh genealogies;[93] but the former is the much more probable opinion, especially as we find that Coroticus was the ally of the "apostate Picts and Scots," in their bloody raids on the shores of Ireland. After the death of St. Ninian, who converted some of the Scots and southern Picts to Christianity, these latter fell away from the faith, and aided by the King of Dumbarton harried the coasts both of England and Ireland.

It was probably towards the end of St. Patrick's laborious life that the incursion took place, which called forth this indignant letter of the Saint. The raiders had landed somewhere on the eastern coast of Ireland, and carried off into slavery a number of men and women, on whose foreheads the holy oil of confirmation, which then usually followed baptism, was still glistening. The white garments which the neophytes wore were stained with their own blood, or the blood of their slaughtered companions. Thereupon the Saint wrote these letters, which he sent by one of his own priests, whom he had taught from his infancy, to be handed to the soldiers of the tyrant, and read for them, as it seems, in his presence. In the first letter he asked to have the Christian captives and some of the spoils restored; but they laughed at the demand in scorn, wherefore the Saint wrote this second letter in which he excommunicates Coroticus and his abettors, calling upon all Christian men not to receive their alms, nor associate with them, nor take food or drink in their company, until they do penance and make restitution for their crimes.

Incidental references are made by the Saint to his own personal history. He himself for God's sake preached the Gospel to the Irish nation, which had once made himself a captive and destroyed the men-servants, and maid-servants of his father's house.[94] He was born a freeman, and a noble, being the son of a decurio,[95] but he sold his nobility for the benefit of others, and he did not regret it. It was the custom of the Gaulish and Roman Christians to pay large sums of money to the Franks for the ransom of Christian captives; but "you--you often slay them, or sell them to infidels, sending the members of Christ as it were into a brothel." "Have you," adds the Saint, "any hope in God--what Christian can help you or abet you?"

Then Patrick in passionate grief bewails the fate of the captives. "Oh! my most beautiful and most loving brothers and children, whom in countless numbers I have begotten for Christ, what shall I do for you? Am I so unworthy before God and man that I cannot help you? Is it a crime to have been born in Ireland? And have not we the same God as they have? I sorrow for you--yet I rejoice--for if you are taken from the world, you were believers through me, and are gone to Paradise."

And then in the last paragraph he expresses a hope that God will inspire those wicked men with penance, and that they will restore their captives, and save themselves for this world and for the world to come. Like the Confession, this letter abounds in quotations from the old version of the Bible before it was corrected by St. Jerome.

In the Brussels MS. of the Book of Armagh there is a chapter which purports to give an account of "Patrick's conflict against the King of Aloo," whom it calls Coirthech, and a little lower down the name is given as Corictic. When Patrick failed to convert him by his letters and admonitions, which the tyrant despised, he besought the Lord to drive this reprobate "from this world and from the next." A very short time afterwards, as Coroticus was sitting on his throne, he heard a certain magic song chanted, and hearing it he came down from his seat in the hall of justice. Thereupon all his nobles took up the same chant; whereupon suddenly in the midst of the market place, Coroticus was changed into what seemed a fox in the presence of them all, and running away like a stream of water disappeared from their eyes, and was never afterwards heard of.

III.--THE LORICA, OR THE DEER'S CRY.

The Lorica, or Shield of St. Patrick, is a rhythmical prayer said to have been composed by the Saint to implore the divine protection, when he and his companions were approaching Tara for the first time to proclaim the unknown God in the very stronghold of druidism, sustained as it was by all the power of the Ard-righ of Erin. It was a bold and perilous thing to do--thus to face the pagan king and his idol priests on the very threshold of their citadel; and it shows how strongly armed in faith St. Patrick was on that day, when he so dared to bid defiance to the powers of darkness.

The Saint was by no means insensible of the danger to which he exposed himself, nor of the strength of the wily foe whom he challenged so boldly to the combat. But he put his confidence not in man but in God, and this poem is simply the poetic expression of the sentiments which filled and strengthened his soul on that momentous occasion. This is the key to the meaning of the poem--"It was to be a corslet of faith for the protection of body and soul against devils, and human beings, and vices; and whoever shall sing it every day with pious meditation on God, devils shall not stay before him."[96]

It is then easy to understand why it was called the Lorica, or Corslet of Patrick; because it was his defence against the ambushes set for him by Laeghaire and his Druids when he was approaching Tara. But it was also called the Faed Fiada, or Deer's Cry; because it was said that the apostle and his companions escaped the ambush by seeming to their enemies to be a Deer and her fawns in flight to the shelter of the woods.

Patrick knew that the Druids of Laeghaire possessed magical powers; they even claimed dominion over the elements, and therefore strong in the faith of the Holy Trinity he appeals to the Triune God of all the elements to shield him against evil. God sometimes permits the powers of evil to use His creatures as instruments to injure the wicked and try the good; and therefore the Saint calls upon God to use His creatures on this occasion for His own glory and the protection of His servant. It is in this sense that Patrick calls to his aid not only the Holy Trinity, but all the elements created by God, but sometimes perversely used by the Druids for evil purposes.

"I bind unto myself to-day The strong name of the Trinity, By invocation of the same Three in One and One in Three....

"I bind unto myself to-day The virtues of the star-lit heaven, The glorious sun's life giving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea, Around the old eternal rocks.

"I bind unto myself to-day The power of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to slay, His ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward; The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard."

This is merely a specimen of the beautiful Gaedhlic hymn as translated--and well translated--by Mrs. Alexander. Even to this day the original is chanted by the peasantry of the South and West in the ancestral tongue, and it is regarded as a strong shield against all evils natural and supernatural.

We know from the Book of Armagh that it has been thus recited at least from the eighth century, so that even then its use was universal, and in a certain sense obligatory. St. Patrick is there declared entitled to four 'honours' in all the churches and monasteries of Erin. First, his festival was to be celebrated for three days and three nights with every kind of good cheer except flesh--that being forbidden in Lent; secondly, a special offertory was to be immolated in his honour, which seems to imply that there was a special offertory, and perhaps preface for the Mass on these days; thirdly, his Hymn--that is, the hymn in praise of Patrick written by his nephew, St. Sechnall--was to be sung during these days; and fourthly, "his Irish Canticle was to be always sung" in the liturgy, as it would seem, and apparently also throughout the entire year. So it appears that from the earliest ages this Canticle was regarded in the Irish Church as the genuine composition of St. Patrick, and the greatest efficacy was attributed to its pious recitation.

IV.--SECHNALL'S HYMN OF ST. PATRICK.

'The Hymn of St. Patrick'--that is, the Hymn composed in his honour by St. Sechnall, to which reference is made in this extract from the Book of Armagh--is another very singular and interesting literary monument of our early Celtic Church. It has been published with valuable notes and scholia by the late Dr. Todd in the first volume of the Liber Hymnorum.[97] This curious Latin hymn, which is justly regarded both on internal and external evidence, as the genuine composition of St. Sechnall, or Secundinus, owed its origin to a singular circumstance. The following is Colgan's account taken from the Preface to the Hymn, as given by a very old but unknown authority:--

Secundinus (in Irish Sechnall), the son of Restitutus, a Lombard of Italy by his wife Darerca, a sister of St. Patrick, was the author of this Hymn. It was composed at Dunshaughlin, county Meath, which in Irish is called Domnach-Sechnaill, from the name of its founder. It was written in the time of Laeghaire Mac Neil, then king of Ireland; and it must have been written before the year A.D. 447, when, according to the Four Masters, "Secundinus, the son of Patrick's sister, yielded his spirit on the 27th of November, in the seventy-fifth year of his age." The object of the writer was to give due praise to Patrick, also to offer it as a kind of apology for having offended the Saint. For, on one occasion, Sechnall was reported to have said that Patrick would be perfect if he had insisted more strongly in his preaching on the duty of alms-giving for works of charity; for then more property and more land would have been devoted to pious uses for the good of the Church. This remark was carried to the ears of Patrick, and moreover was probably misrepresented. St. Patrick was much displeased with his nephew, and said it was "for sake of charity he forbore to preach charity;" that is, in order that the holy men who were to arise after him might benefit by the oblations of the faithful, which he left untouched for that purpose. Then Sechnall sorrowed much for the rash judgment of which he had been guilty, and humbly asked pardon of the Saint, who readily granted it. But in order fully to atone for his sin, Sechnall composed this hymn in honour of Patrick.

It consists of twenty-three stanzas, the stanzas beginning with a letter of the alphabet in regular order from the first to the last. Each stanza consists of four strophes or lines, each line of fifteen syllables. So that it was written in what the grammarians call trochaic tetrameter catalectic. In Irish prosody, however, regard is had in measuring the feet rather to the accent or beat of the verse than to the length of the syllables.

When the hymn was composed Sechnall asked permission to read for Patrick a hymn, which he had composed in praise of a certain holy man, who was still alive. Patrick readily granted this request, for he said he would gladly wish to hear the praises of any of God's household.

Then Sechnall read the poem, suppressing the first line only, which contains Patrick's own name as the subject of the eulogy. Patrick listened attentively until Sechnall came to the line in which the subject of the poem is described as 'greatest in the kingdom of heaven'--maximus in regno cælorum. "How can that be said of any man?" said Patrick. "The superlative is there put for the positive," replied Sechnall; "it only means very great." Patrick appeared to be pleased with the poem, whereupon Sechnall insinuated that Patrick himself was the subject of the poem; and, according to the Bardic custom he asked for a reward for his poem. When Patrick, however, learned that the poem was about himself he was not well pleased, but knowing Sechnall meant well in writing it, he did not wish to grieve him by a refusal. So he answered that Sechnall might expect that our Saviour in His mercy would give the glory of heaven to all who recited the hymn piously every day both morning and evening. "I am content," said Sechnall, "with that reward; but as the hymn is long and difficult to be remembered, I wish you would obtain the same reward for whomsoever recites even a part of it." Then Patrick said that whoever faithfully recites the last three verses of the hymn morning and evening shall obtain the same reward, and Sechnall said, "Deo gratias," and was content.

It was only natural that this hymn, having such a promise of salvation, though written in Latin, should become very popular, and be recited in the monasteries and churches of Ireland as one of the four "Honours of St. Patrick." It bears intrinsic evidence both in style and language that it was written during the lifetime of St. Patrick. He is represented in the hymn as still keeping all God's commandments, and as one who will possess the joys of heaven, and will reign with the apostles as saint and judge over Israel.[98]

Of Sechnall himself little is known. All the authorities agree in saying that he was the son of Patrick's sister Darerca, whom others call Lupait, and sometimes Liemania. It is said that she was taken captive at the same time as St. Patrick himself, and was carried with him by the captors to Ireland, and there sold as a slave in the district called Conailli Muirtheimne, which is better known as the patrimony of the greatest of Erin's ancient warriors, the heroic Cuchullin. It included the territory around Dundalk, and stretched northward to the modern barony of Mourne, with its unrivalled mountain scenery.

All the authorities say that Sechnall's father was Restitutus, 'a Longobard of Leatha;' or, as some writers add, 'Armoric Leatha.' Now the Lombards known to history did not conquer the territory, which bears their name, until the middle of the sixth century. This difficulty is met by assuming that 'Leatha' means Brittany in France, and although we have no historical evidence that a colony of the Longobardi ever dwelt there, still a Roman soldier of the Longobardic race might have been living there, and might have been married to one of the sisters of St. Patrick.

The word Armorica, as it is in Latin, and Airmoric in Celtic, really signifies any western land bordering on the sea; and it is quite possible that in this sense the word should have been applied to Ayrshire or Wigtown in Scotland. Others have suggested that the word Lungbaird, as it is in our earliest native authorities, means nothing more than a 'long-bearded' man of Leatha, or Amorica, which is by no means improbable. This would also help to explain why Eochaidh O'Flanagan, an old poet of the eleventh century, calls St. Sechnall by the surname Ua Baird, or O'Ward, as if the tribe name was really that of Bardi, whom some authorities describe as an ancient race of Gaul or Saxony, from whom the Longobardi derived their origin.[99] Later authorities, knowing nothing of any Longobardi except those of Northern Italy, would readily enough fall into the anachronism of placing them there in the time of St. Patrick.

Sechnall with Auxilius and Iserninus were disciples of St. Patrick from the beginning, and seem to have accompanied him on his arrival in Ireland. The Annals of Ulster, however, mark their arrival in Ireland as 'Bishops' to aid Patrick in the year A.D. 439. This seems to be the date of their episcopal consecration, which they received either in France or in Britain, for St. Patrick alone would be unwilling to consecrate them contrary to the canons. Sechnall seems to have been placed temporarily over the Church of Armagh, founded A.D. 445, and hence he is sometimes called Archbishop of that See.

V.--THE HYMN "SANCTI VENITE."

It was in St. Sechnall's Church of Dunshaughlin that a beautiful Eucharistic Hymn, 'Sancti Venite,' was first sung, and most probably composed by that saint himself. In the Preface of the Leabhar Breac, it is said that this hymn was first chanted by angels in St. Sechnall's Church, on the occasion of his reconciliation with St. Patrick, to which we have already referred. The choir of angels was heard singing the hymn during the Holy Communion, and "hence arose the custom ever afterwards observed in Erin," says the writer, "of singing this hymn at the Communion;" and hence, too, the title which it bears in the Antiphonary of Bangor--the only ancient work in which it is found--"Hymn during the Communion of the Priests."[100] We could wish this beautiful hymn were still used in our national liturgy. Denis Florence M'Carthy has left us an excellent translation of this remarkable hymn, of which we give the first and last stanzas:

"Draw nigh, ye holy ones, draw nigh, And take the body of the Lord, And drink the Sacred Blood outpoured, By which redeemed ye shall not die.

* * * * *

"The Source, the Stream, the First, the Last, Even Christ the Lord, who died for men, Now comes--but he will come again To judge the world, when time hath passed."

The original stanzas are as follows:--

"Sancti Venite, Christi Corpus Sumite; Sanctum bibentes Quo redempti sanguinem.

"Alpha et Omega, Ipse Christus Dominus, Venit venturus Judicare homines."

St. Sechnall was the first Christian poet in Erin; may his name and memory linger long amongst the children of St. Patrick.

VI.--ST. FIACC OF SLETTY.

St. Fiacc, Bishop of Sletty, and author of what is perhaps the earliest biography of our national Apostle, belongs also to the Patrician era, that is the fifth century of the Irish Church. A brief account of his life and labours will be found interesting. He was sixth or seventh in descent from the celebrated Cathair Mor, King of Leinster towards the close of the second century. His father is called Mac Dara, a prince of the Hy Bairrche. His mother, the second wife of Mac Dara, was a sister of Dubhtach Mac Ua Lugair, the Chief Poet and Brehon of Erin when St. Patrick arrived in Ireland. Fiacc was not only a nephew of Dubhtach, but also his pupil and foster son; and he is described as a 'young poet' in the retinue of Dubhtach on that famous Easter Sunday morning, when St. Patrick first stood in the royal presence on the Hill of Tara. King Laeghaire had forbidden any of his courtiers to rise up in token of respect to St. Patrick, and accordingly, when Patrick came before the King, all remained seated except "Dubhtach the Royal Poet, and a tender youth of his people, named Fiacc, the same who is commemorated in Sletty to-day."[101] Dubhtach was the first who believed at Tara on that day, and doubtless his youthful disciple soon after embraced the same faith as his master; although probably he was not baptized until some years later. At this period the boy poet was not, it seems, more than sixteen or eighteen years of age, and must, therefore, have been born about the year A.D. 415.

Dubhtach, the arch-poet of Laeghaire, was a Leinster man, and received from Crimthan, King of the Hy Kinnselach, a grant of a considerable territory in North Wexford, eastward of Gorey, in the territory then called Formael--"a wave-bound land beside the fishful sea." St. Patrick had converted and baptized this king, Crimthan, at Rathvilly in the County Carlow, about the year A.D. 450, during his progress through Leinster. On this occasion he very naturally came to see his old friend Dubhtach, the first of the believers at Tara, and found him at a place called Domnach Mor Magh Criathar, that is Donoughmore of "the marshy plain." This marshy plain extends along the sea shore to the north of Cahore Point, Co. Wexford. At the northern extremity of the plain are the ruins of the old Church of Donoughmore, half covered by the sand; and close by is a holy well where a 'patron' was formerly held on the last Sunday of July. The late Rev. Father Shearman has, we think, shown conclusively that this is the Donoughmore, where St. Patrick met Dubhtach, the High Bard of Erin.

On the occasion of this meeting Patrick, anxious to provide for the government of the young Church in Leinster, requested Dubhtach to find him a man of good family, and good morals, the husband of one wife,[102] and with one child only, that he might ordain him Bishop of the men of Leinster. "Fiacc is the very man you require," said Dubhtach; "but at present he is in Connaught"--to which province he went, it seems, at his master's request, to make the usual bardic visitation, and bring home the gifts which the sub-kings were wont to offer to the Chief Poet of Erin. Just then it so happened that Fiacc came in sight of the fort of Dubhtach on his return from his visitation in Connaught. "There is the man himself," said the Arch-poet, "of whom we have been speaking." "But he may not wish to receive orders," said Patrick. "Proceed as if to tonsure me," replied the poet, "and we shall see." Thereupon St. Patrick made preparations as if to tonsure the aged poet--it was the first step to orders--whereupon Fiacc said, "it would be a great loss to the Bardic order to lose so great a poet;" and he offered himself for the service of the Church instead of Dubhtach. The offer was gladly accepted, and so Fiacc came to receive grade, or orders, and finally became Ard-espog, or Chief Bishop, of the Leinster-men. This was a mere title of honour given to him on account of his seniority and pre-eminent merits. In the canonical sense the office of Archbishop did not then exist in Leinster, nor for many centuries afterwards.

On this occasion we are told that Patrick wrote an 'Alphabet' for Fiacc--that is, a brief exposition of the Christian doctrine; and he is said to have learned in one night, or as others say, in fifteen days, the 'ecclesiastical ordo,' that is, the method of administering the sacraments and celebrating the Holy Sacrifice. It must be borne in mind that previously Fiacc was an accomplished poet, a man therefore of learning, with a highly trained memory, well skilled in his native tongue, and perhaps not altogether unacquainted with the rudiments of the Latin language; at least he must have frequently heard it at Tara and elsewhere, when the clergy were performing their functions.

Fiacc founded two Churches with which his name is intimately connected. The first is called in old writers, Domnach Mor Fiacc, and is described as being situated mid-way between Clonmore and Aghold; and therefore about six miles due east of Tullow on the borders of Carlow and Wicklow. It was also called Minbeg, that is, the Little Wood or Brake, which was probably near the old church. It is identical with Kylebeg, the name of a townland in the same locality. The old church itself has disappeared.

Here he led a life of great austerity until he was commanded by an angel to remove thence to the west of the River Barrow, for there he was to find the "place of his resurrection." He was directed to build his refectory where he should meet with a boar, and his Church where he should see a hind. Fiacc, however, was unwilling to go there without the sanction of St. Patrick. So Patrick himself came and fixed the site of his Church at Sletty (Sleibhte), and there Fiacc and his son Fiachra were afterwards interred, the two saints in the same grave.

Sletty is about one mile and a-half north-west of Carlow, on the right bank of the River Barrow. It takes its name "the Highlands," from the hills of Slievemargy, in Queen's County, which have also given their name to the entire barony. Daring the devastations of the Danes, Sletty being so near a large river, was almost totally destroyed by the frequent incursions of those marauders. A portion of the old church still remains, but the See of Sletty was long ago transferred to Leighlin, which is still the name of the diocese.

In his monastery of Sletty, Fiacc presided over many monks, his disciples, and continued to lead the same austere life, as at Donoughmore. He was at once abbot of the monastery at Sletty, and besides performed his episcopal functions through all the surrounding country. Moreover, he was wont every year, at the beginning of Lent, to retire to a lonely cave at Drum Coblai, taking with him a few barley loaves, which were the only food he used, with water from the spring, during all the days of Lent, until he returned to his monastery to celebrate with his brethren the great festival of Easter. This cave of Drum Coblai has been identified with a remarkable cave at the base of the north-east escarpment of the hill called the Doon of Clopook, about seven miles north-west of Sletty, and a little to the east of the old and famous monastery of Timahoe. Near at hand there is an ancient church and graveyard, and it is said that a dim tradition still lingers in the neighbourhood, of a saint, who used to retire to this cave to fast and pray alone with God. As no person could see him leave the cave, he was supposed to return to his own church further south by a subterranean passage, which is believed to be still in existence, although no one can ascertain its whereabouts.

During a great portion of his episcopal life Fiacc suffered much from a fistula, or running sore, near his hip-joint, so that he was unable to walk except with much pain and difficulty. St. Patrick commiserating Bishop Fiacc's infirmity, sent him all the way from Armagh a present of a chariot and horses. But Fiacc in his great humility was unwilling to accept the gift, until an angel appeared to him, and assured him that Patrick sent him the chariot and horses because he was acquainted with the sore infirmity, from which Fiacc suffered, and wished to relieve him. Then Fiacc reluctantly consented to ride in the chariot.

Thus it was that Fiacc spent a long life in labour, and prayer, and silence, enduring also much physical suffering, until the poet-saint had seen 'three twenties of his own disciples' precede him to the grave. His youth was given to poetry, when he was taught by his uncle to chant the war-songs of Ossian, and the bold deeds of the Fenian heroes; but his manhood and old age were given to God's service when he was wont to chant the diviner songs of the Royal Bard of Israel. He died about the year A.D. 510. He must have been at that time over ninety years of age, and we are told he was buried in his own Church of Sletty.

There is hardly any document of higher importance in connection with the early history of our Irish Church than the Metrical Life of St. Patrick, written in his old age by the poet-saint of Sletty. The author having been a Bard by profession very naturally wrote in metre, and in the ancient language of the Bards of Erin. The cultivation of poetry was then as now one of the fine arts most highly esteemed by an imaginative and impulsive race. The authenticity of the poem has been questioned by some critics, who think that there are certain expressions in the work itself, which show that if not written, it certainly must have been retouched at a later age.[103] We have carefully considered these arguments, and we feel bound to say that we consider them very flimsy. Fiacc, it is said, speaks of 'history,' as telling us that St. Patrick was born at Nemptur, and studied under Germanus--language, they say, which a friend and contemporary would hardly use. But these are facts which he could not have known of his own knowledge, and the statements of St. Patrick himself, and also of his associates and companions, whether oral or written might very well be described by the Irish words which the poet used probably because they suited his metre.[104] Another objection is derived from two references to Tara, where the poet says he wished not that Tara should be a 'desert;' and, again, where he says that the Tuatha of Erin at the advent of St. Patrick, foretold that the land of Tara would be 'waste and silent,' from which these critics infer that the poem must have been written after the cursing and desolation of Tara, about the middle of the sixth century. But is this a just inference? Can anything be more natural than that the Druids should declare the new faith would be fatal to the pagan royalty of Tara, and that the poet immediately after when proudly referring to Patrick's new spiritual sovereignty at Armagh, and the glory of his grave at Downpatrick should add, to prevent misconception, that he himself did not wish the destruction of the temporal sovereignty then flourishing at Tara--'I wish not that Tara should be a desert.' As to the argument derived from the fact that Fiacc is named Ard-espog of Leinster, we have already stated, that this is merely, like arch-poet, an honorary title to express pre-eminence and superiority in the spiritual office. The ablest of our critics regard the poem as the genuine composition of Fiacc of Sletty, the friend and contemporary of Patrick, written shortly after his death in A.D. 493; and hence the earliest and most authentic biography of the saint that has come down to us. It is, moreover, a document of supreme importance, for competent judges, like O'Curry, have pronounced it to be written in pure and perfect Gaedhlic. "It bears internal evidence," says O'Curry, "of a high degree of perfection in the language, at the time it was composed; it is unquestionably in all respects a genuine native production, quite untinctured with the Latin or with any other contemporary style or idiom." This is a most important fact, because in our opinion it settles the question as to the use of letters and writing in Ireland before St. Patrick. No language could by any possibility in one or two generations be developed from being the rude unwritten jargon of an unlettered people into a perfect written language of artistic structure with definite grammatical form and arrangement. That the poem of Fiacc is an elaborate composition of this character, indicating not only the existence of settled grammatical forms, but also a great richness and flexibility in the language, even the merest tyro in the Gaedhlic tongue can perceive. Indeed in every respect it is much superior to the debased Gaedhlic of the last three centuries.

This important poem was first printed by John Colgan, the father of Irish hagiology. It has been reprinted much more accurately from the copy in the Liber Hymnorum, T.C.D., and also in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record for March, 1868, where the philological student will find not only the text and glosses, but also an accurate translation from the pen of one of our most eminent Celtic scholars, Eugene O'Curry of the Catholic University of Dublin. More recently the poem has been printed in Stokes' Tripartite (Rolls Series), and in Haddan and Stubbs' Councils, etc.

VII.--THE SAYINGS OF ST. PATRICK.

In the Book of Armagh there is a paragraph headed--Dicta Patritii--or Sayings of St. Patrick. They appear to have been certain sayings which were frequently on the lips of the apostle, and which came to be handed down to posterity as expressive of his apostolic spirit. Brief and few as they are, these spiritual maxims have been well chosen, and may be said to govern in their application the whole life of the individual Christian, as well as of the Irish Church.

First maxim--"I had the fear of God as the guide of my way through Gaul and Italy, and also in the islands, which are in the Tyrhene Sea."[105] The second maxim--"From the world ye have gone to Paradise." This saying is taken from the Epistle to Coroticus, in which the Saint after bewailing his slaughtered neophytes, yet rejoices that it happened after they believed, and were baptized; for then they merely left this world to go to Paradise. In course of time this appears to have been adopted in Ireland as a consoling thought for the survivors that their deceased friends had gone from this world to Paradise--"De seculo recessistis ad Paradisum." Third maxim--"Deo Gratias"--thanks be to God. It was always on the lips of St. Patrick--whether the news was good or bad, pleasing or displeasing, the same word was there--"Deo Gratias." The fourth maxim--"O Church of the Scots--nay of the Romans--as ye are Christians, be ye also Romans." That is, as ye are Christians, and bound to obey Christ, so be ye also Romans, obedient to the See of Rome. Maxim the fifth--"At every hour of prayer it is fitting to sing that word of praise--'Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us.' Let every Church which follows me sing--'Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Deo Gratias.'" It would seem that the 'Kyrie Eleison' at the beginning of Mass, and the 'Deo Gratias' at the end of Mass were not at that early period universally chanted in the public liturgy. Hence the Saint, who seems to have a special love for these two brief and fervent expressions of pardon and thanksgiving, made it a rule that they should be sung in the liturgy of all the Churches which he founded in Ireland. The practice has since become obligatory throughout the universal Church.

VIII.--THE TRIPARTITE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK.

The earliest memoir of St. Patrick was perhaps the Metrical Life by St. Fiacc of Sletty, to which we have already referred. Of the Life of St. Patrick in the Book of Armagh we shall speak in the next chapter. But what is called the "Tripartite Life" of the Saint is, as far as we can judge, if not the earliest, certainly the fullest and most authentic account of our national Apostle now extant.

It took its name of the Tripartite, or Three-Divisioned Life from the fact that the whole history of St. Patrick is divided into three homilies, one of which was probably preached by its author on each of the three festival days celebrated in honour of the Saint--the Vigil, or day before--the Feast itself--and perhaps the day after, or the Octave day. The preacher, taking for his text the verses of Isaias--Populus qui sedebat in tenebris vidit lucem magnam, etc., etc., declares that Patrick was of that light a ray, and a flame, and precious stone, and a brilliant lamp, which lighted the western world; and that he was Bishop of the west of the earth, and the father of the baptism and belief of the men of Ireland. Then the writer, or speaker, undertakes to narrate "something of the carnal genealogy, of the miracles and marvels of this holy Patrick, as set forth in the Churches of Christians, on the sixteenth of the Calends of April (17th of March), as regards the day of the solar month." The Life, or homily, next states explicitly that Patrick was by origin of the Britons of Ail-Cluade--the Rock of the Clyde--now Dumbarton, a statement in which we entirely concur. Calphurn was his father's name, and a noble priest was he, and his grandfather was the deacon Potitus (Fotid in the Irish MS.). In those early days, especially in the outlying provinces of the empire, it was not unusual to seek for the fittest candidates for Holy Orders amongst men, who had been married, or who were even at the time of their selection married men. They were in fact the best candidates for the sacred ministry that could be had at the time; for most of the young men were not only without special training, but unreliable and licentious. It was, however, the general rule in the western but not in the eastern Church, that the married man after his ordination, and especially after his elevation to the Episcopate, should abstain from all conjugal intercourse with his wife. Such, for instance, was the case with St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, the teacher and friend of St. Patrick. The Irish Canons, too, even of the fifth century, are particularly imperative on this point, and show clearly that although the celibacy of the clergy was not, strictly speaking, obligatory even in the west during the centuries of the persecutions, no sooner was the Church free to carry out her own purposes than she strove to make this legislation compulsory throughout all Christendom.

The second part of the Tripartite begins with St. Patrick's arrival at Tara to preach to King Laeghaire and his Druids, and is by far the most momentous portion of the work. The third part begins with the statement that Patrick left presbyter Conaed in Domnach Airther Maige, in the province of the Northern Hui Briuin, and ends with an account of Patrick's holy death and illustrious burial--"after founding churches in plenty, after consecrating monasteries, after baptizing the men of Ireland, after great patience and after great labour, after destroying idols and images, and after rebuking many kings who did not do his will, and after raising up those who did his will, after ordaining three hundred and three score and ten[106] bishops, and after ordaining three thousand priests and clerics of every grade in the Church besides, after fasting and prayer, after mercy and clemency, after gentleness and mildness to the sons of life, after the love of God and of his neighbours, he received Christ's Body from the Bishop--from Tassach--and then he sent his spirit to heaven"--in the hundredth and twentieth year of his age.

The most interesting question connected with this Tripartite life is its date and probable authorship. Unfortunately we have intrinsic evidence for neither; the manuscript itself is silent both as to its date and authorship. Hence there is much difference of opinion even amongst learned and honest scholars. Colgan thought that St. Evin of Monasterevan, who flourished about the middle of the sixth century, was its original author, and O'Curry adopted the same opinion. Petrie thought it a "compilation of the ninth or tenth century;" and Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his excellent edition of the Tripartite, undertakes to show that "it could not have been written before the middle of the tenth century, and that it was probably compiled in the eleventh."

His arguments are two-fold--linguistic and historical. So far as the former are concerned, we may fairly say that he is not a better authority than O'Curry, and that if O'Curry thought this Life might have been of the sixth century, no philological arguments of Dr. Whitley Stokes will override his authority in that respect. But Stokes goes farther, and quotes entries from the Tripartite, which he alleges must have been made in the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. This, we readily admit, is a weightier argument. He cites nine or ten instances of this kind, which, as he alleges, were neither additions nor interpolations. Such, for instance, is the reference to Connacan, son of Colman, and grandson of Niall Frossach, who was killed in Ulster, A.D. 873.

It is obvious that to prove anything it must be shown conclusively that the event was referred to in the original Tripartite, and is that same event which is recorded in our Annals in the ninth or tenth century. Yet it is exceedingly difficult to prove this essential point. Take, for instance, one of the clearest cases mentioned by Stokes, this death of Connacan, grandson of Niall Frossach. Whoever examines this passage, which is at page 174 (not 173) will notice that it is just such a statement as might be added or interpolated by a copyist. The original writer quotes a prophecy of St. Patrick that "the land of thy place (i.e., of Conaed) shall not be reddened." The copyist then adds--apparently as of himself--"Quod probavimus, when Connacan, son of Colman, son of Niall Frossach (the Showery) came into the land with an army." Is this statement that of the copyist or of the original writer? Until it is clearly shown that it is a sentence written by the original author, no argument as to the age of the Tripartite can be based on it, or on similar passages.

This Tripartite Life is on the whole the most valuable document concerning St. Patrick that has come down to our times. It was written chiefly in Gaedhlic of the purest type of the language, interspersed here and there with passages in Latin. And it was because Jocelin has said that St. Evin wrote a work of this kind,[107] partly in Irish and partly in Latin, that Colgan not unnaturally infers that the Tripartite must be the work to which Jocelin refers. We certainly know of no other work of a similar character to which Jocelin's observation can apply, and if there were any other similar work we certainly should have heard of it either as a lost or an extant work. Hence, although, ratione formæ, Colgan's logic may be weak, ratione materiae, it is unimpeachable, no matter what Dr. Stokes may say to the contrary.[108]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

V. IRISH MONASTIC SCHOOLS IN GENERAL

"Fenced early in this cloistral round Of reverie, of shade, of prayer, How can we grow in other ground? How can we flower in foreign air?"

I.--GENERAL VIEW OF AN IRISH MONASTERY.

Before we can understand the nature of a monastic school, it is necessary to get a clear idea of the general character of our Irish monasteries, such as they were before the advent of the Danish hordes to this country. This is all the more necessary, because a Celtic monastery of the olden time was a very different thing from those great mediæval establishments, whose ruins are still to be seen both in England and Ireland.

In ancient Erin they had no such structures as were built in later ages by the Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans--noble piles of buildings with the stately church in the centre, surrounded by beautiful cloisters, dormitories, kitchen, and all other necessary offices. These notions must be entirely removed from the mind, if we wish to get an idea of the primitive Celtic monastery, as it existed in the earliest and best days of our Irish Church.

Of course monasteries in the spiritual sense--as moral entities--have always been much the same in every country and in every age of the Church's history. The plan of the spiritual edifice is found in the Gospel, and has been drawn for all time by Christ Himself.

The true monk is a man, as his name implies, who whether in the city or in the desert, should always strive to be alone with God. In this sense the prophets Elias and Eliseus under the Old Law, like John the Baptist at the threshold of the New Law, were monks in the most perfect sense of the word. Then, again, the monk whether living alone in the desert, or in community with others, must follow those counsels of perfection, which have been set forth by the teaching and example of the Son of God Himself. That is to say, he must renounce all worldly goods and live in poverty, in chastity, and obedience, when he has a superior. If he has no immediate superior, then he is a hermit, and God Himself, whom he seeks to please in all things, becomes his Superior. These means of perfection have been always deemed essential to the monastic character in the Church of God. One cannot conceive a married monk, nor one in the full enjoyment of his worldly fortune, nor one without a superior, except where he lives altogether alone with God, following His inspirations; and even then the bishop of the locality is always recognised by the Church as the Superior, whom he is bound to obey.

With these essential means of perfection were also combined silence, prayer and labour, whether manual or mental. Idleness is unknown to the monastic state; the monk should be always doing something pleasing to God. It may be to pray, or to read, or to work in the fields, or to take his necessary rest, but he must be always doing the work of God.

Monasticism in one sense or another always existed, and always will exist in the Church. It flourished amongst the first Christian communities at Jerusalem, who had only one heart and one soul, who sold their lands and houses, and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles to feed the poor. It existed in the catacombs during the persecutions, and took more definite shape in the deserts of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia.

At first the monk was, as his names implies, a hermit--eremites--one who lived alone in the desert in the practice of evangelical perfection. Such were St. Paul, St. Anthony, Serapion, and thousands of others who imitated their example and lived in solitary cells or rocky caves in Syria, Armenia, and Nitria on the western shores of the Nile some thirty miles from Cairo. Pachomius seems to have been the first who formed these solitaries into a community following one rule and recognising a common superior. He founded his monastery at Tabenna, on the Nile, in Lower Egypt. His sister is said to have been the first who founded a convent of nuns not far from her brother's monastery, in order that she might have the benefit of his advice and direction. The exact date cannot be ascertained; but as he died rather young, about the year A.D. 349, it cannot have been much earlier than A.D. 340. St. Anthony had indeed already undertaken the guidance of certain solitaries, who had placed themselves under his direction. But it was Pachomius who really changed the monasteries, or rather the laura, into a 'convent,' in which all the members of the community dwelt within the same building,[109] were subject to the same rule, and obedient to the same Superior. This change, however, as might be expected, was not accomplished at once; it was rather very gradual, and grew out of the necessities of the time. The laura, which was a group or village of monastic cells, surrounding the oratory and cell of the abbot, under whose direction the monks assembled for their common devotions in the church and sometimes for their common meals in the refectory, was the intermediate stage of monastic development, and it continued to be, both in Egypt and in Ireland, for many centuries the prevalent form of monastic life.

From Egypt and Syria monasticism was brought to Rome about the middle of the fourth century by Athanasius, the great champion of the Divinity of Christ, by Honoratus, who founded the island monastery of Lerins, and by John Cassian, whose Institutes were a kind of manual in all the earlier monasteries of the West.

The great St. Martin of Tours, the father of monasticism in Gaul, was inspired by the writings of Athanasius, and under the influence of that inspiration founded his own monastery at Ligugé, and subsequently at Marmoutier, on the banks of the Loire, which became the cradles of monastic life in Gaul. We have already seen that St. Patrick had full opportunity of learning the discipline of Marmoutier; and of course what he learned there and elsewhere, he carried home with him to Ireland. But his life was too full of missionary labours to be given to the government or foundation of monasteries. That work was left to the rising generation; by them it was undertaken and nobly accomplished. Enda of Aran, Finnian of Clonard, Brendan of Clonfert, and their associates of the Second Order of the Irish Saints, were the men who first founded regular monasteries and monastic schools in Erin.

In trying to give a view of the general character of the monastic institutions founded by those holy and learned men, it is well to consider the subject in its various aspects; that is to say, the Buildings, the Discipline and Government, and the Work of an Irish Monastery. We have abundant materials to help us in this inquiry in the Monastic Rules, in the lives of the founders of these houses, and in the remnants of the ancient buildings themselves, which are still to be seen on our remotest shores and islands. But there is one work especially valuable in this enquiry--that is, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, edited by the learned Dr. Reeves, late Bishop of Down and Connor. No other work that we know of is so valuable and so indispensable to the Irish ecclesiastical historian, and none has been edited with greater learning and impartiality.

II.--THE BUILDINGS.

The various buildings connected with an Irish monastery were generally but not always surrounded by a circular or oval rampart, which was at once a protection against enemies, or wild beasts, and also a limit beyond which the brethren were not allowed to wander without permission, and within which strangers, as a rule, were not allowed to intrude. Women were in all cases excluded from the sanctuary within this boundary. The wall or rampart was composed sometimes of earth dug up from a fosse at its base, when it was called a rath or lis; sometimes of stone, when it was called a caiseal, and sometimes of earth faced with stone, and then it was known rather as a caithir than a caiseal. The name dun, according to Dr. Petrie, was indifferently applied to any of these structures. But O'Curry quotes an ancient legal tract, which proves that the dun, strictly speaking, was "an enclosure made by two walls or mounds, with water between them." (Manners and Customs, vol. ii., p. 4.) This mur or mound was sometimes very strong and very high, fenced, too, with stakes on the top, and when necessary was double or threefold, with a deep dyke between each rampart. There was generally only one entrance, and when danger was apprehended from lawless foes, this entrance was strictly guarded night and day. It was considered sufficiently effective against the passing attacks of the native spoilers; but when the Danes began their bloody and relentless raids, the round tower was found to afford a much stronger and safer asylum.

The monks in surrounding the ecclesiastical village with a rath or caiseal, adopted no new contrivance. It was the custom of the country to surround the home of every chieftain's family with a similar defence, which the unsettled state of the country at the time rendered very necessary.

The principal building within the monastic enclosure was of course the church. If it were a cathedral church, or one of the greater abbey churches, it was usually built of stone, and termed in Gaedhlic a daimhliag, that is, the stone-house by excellence; because very many of the churches of an inferior kind were built of more perishable materials, composed of clay and wood, or wattles. Hence Colgan used the Latin word 'Basilica,' as equivalent to the Irish term, daimhliag. Churches of this kind varied of course in dimensions, but were relatively large; generally speaking, they were about 60 feet in length and 30 broad.[110] If the church were merely an oratory for the abbot and his monks, along with such casual strangers as might happen to be present at the time, it was called a duirtheach, and in the southern and western parts of the country, where stone abounded, and wood was scarce, it was frequently built of stone as in Kerry and Galway. But far more frequently, especially in the east and north-east, it was built of wood, which explains the frequent reference in our annals to the burning of buildings of this character.[111] The term itself was derived from daire, an oak wood.

Adjoining the church, or oratory, there was frequently another building called an erdamh or urdumh, which Petrie thinks was a building adjacent to the side wall of the church, whence its name--ear-dom, a side-house--serving the purpose of a sacristy and store-house for the sacred utensils. During the Danish period especially, the round tower is found near the west entrance of the principal church, but as we think this was a later feature introduced into the Irish monastic buildings, we decline to discuss that question further for the present. The abbot's house was generally very near his oratory, with which it was sometimes connected by a passage underground, or roofed with flags; and sometimes it was under the same roof with the oratory as in Columcille's house at Kells, and probably also at St. Kevin's Cro or 'Kitchen,' at Glendalough. The cells of the monks were distributed in convenient spots over the sacred enclosure, sometimes in the form of irregular streets or squares, according to the nature of the ground. We are inclined to think from the small size of the existing stone cells that every monk had a separate cell for his own use; although it would, no doubt, sometimes happen in Ireland, as it certainly often happened in Egypt, that three or four monks had to live in the same cell. They had no beds, in the modern sense of the word; they either slept on the naked earth, or on a skin, which sometimes covered a heap of straw or rushes. There was only a single entrance, and generally speaking no windows of any kind to the cells. In form they were nearly always circular, about ten feet in diameter by seven in height. When built of stone they were cone-shaped and brought to a point at the summit by a gradual inclination of each course of flags above the other, yet the builders seemed to be ignorant of the principle of the arch. More generally, however, the cells were constructed of wood, or wicker work, and these, although by no means so durable, were probably much more comfortable than the cells of stone.

One of the most necessary buildings for a laura or monastery was the kitchen--the cuicin in Irish, or culina in Latin. St. Patrick's 'kitchen' at Armagh was seventeen feet long, and is spoken of as one of the principal buildings within the lis, or monastic enclosure. The Tripartite Life of the Saint in the same place tells us that the Great House was twenty-seven feet in length, and consequently much longer than the 'kitchen' with which it seems to have been connected. The Great House--if not the church--was in all probability the refectory or dining-room, which is more generally and appropriately called in Irish, the proinn-teach, or dinner-house. It is doubtful if we have any specimens of the Refectories or Kitchens of our earliest monasteries still surviving, because as a rule they were composed of perishable materials. Another important building annexed to the monastery, but generally outside the enclosure was the Hospice, or Guest-House, where strangers were entertained with the utmost hospitality, whether they came as mere visitors (peregrim), or penitents to atone for their sins, and receive spiritual consolation. There was, however, another class of guests (hospites), distinguished ecclesiastics or princes, the friends of the abbot or community, who were treated with the greatest consideration. They were admitted within the sacred enclosure, and if bishops or priests they were usually invited to officiate for the community. There is no more beautiful trait of monastic hospitality than the consideration with which the monks treated distinguished strangers, and the care they bestowed on the poor.

There were two other indispensable buildings connected with the monastery--the store-house for provisions, and, wherever a stream of water could be had, a kiln for drying, and a mill for grinding their corn. Bread was always the main sustenance of the monks, and hence the site of the monastery was generally so chosen that a rivulet could be artificially dammed up, and thus supply sufficient power to turn a small water-wheel to grind their corn. We find traces of these dams even in the most unlikely places, where in our day no one would dream of erecting a mill. The manifest reason is that it was a great saving of manual labour, for if the monks did not grind their corn with water, they should grind it with the hand-quern. For obvious reasons, too, one, or more wells were also near the monastery; sometimes, too, they were covered over to preserve the water from the pollution of cattle or rubbish. These wells, used and blessed by so many generations of holy men, are very naturally now deemed "blessed wells." Such then was the general character of the monastic enclosure and the monastic buildings--not one imposing edifice, as in more modern times, but rather a village of huts surrounding the church and house of the abbot, and enclosed by a large circular rampart of earth or stones. Within the enclosure in the larger monasteries a workshop for the smith and carpenter was generally provided, and the lay brothers were frequently expert in the use of their tools. When the monastery was surrounded by marshy land, a tochar or stone causeway was built to the nearest highway, in order to facilitate communications with the outer world.

III.--DISCIPLINE.

In monasteries we must not confound the essential discipline of every true religious house with the accidental differences, which may be found in different monasteries, and still more in different Orders, or under different Rules. The essential monastic discipline is always the same, but there are, so to speak, several varieties of the species, and these varieties are best exhibited to us in the various Rules which the founders of Religious Orders have left for the guidance of their spiritual posterity. The learned Dr. Reeves[112] seems to doubt if the founders of our Irish Religious Houses ever promulgated any systematic Rule like that of St. Benedict. We certainly have no Irish Rule, not even that of Columbanus, so definite or so systematic as that of St. Benedict; the legal organizing mind of the Italian herein displays its superiority to the untutored mind of the Celt. Moreover, Benedict is, so to speak, more human; he is not so terribly austere in his discipline as are our Irish Saints; and no doubt this was one great reason why it was that when his Rule and that of St. Columbanus were brought into rivalry in France and Northern Italy, the Rule of Benedict conquered.

We cannot, however, admit that our Irish Saints did not frame distinctive and definite Rules, although not at all, in our opinion, so distinctive or so definite as the great Rule of St. Benedict. Eugene O'Curry tells us that he examined in the original Irish, eight different Monastic Rules, of which "six are in verse, and two in prose, seven in vellum MSS., and one on paper." These are the Rule of St. Ailby of Emly, addressed to Eugene, son of Saran; the Rule of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise; the Rule of St. Comghall of Bangor; the Rule of St. Columcille; the Rule of St. Carthach of Lismore; St. Maelruain's Rules for the Culdees; a Rule of later date for the Grey Monks; and lastly, the Rule written by the famous Cormac Mac Cullinan, the King-Bishop of Cashel. The three most important of these Rules have been published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, that is the first, the Rule of St. Ailby, for the son of Saran; the Rule of St. Carthach of Lismore; and the Rule of St. Maelruain of Tallaght.

By comparing the general ordinances laid down by the founders of our early monasteries, and still more by carefully noting the references made to the domestic and religious discipline in the Lives of the founders themselves, we can obtain a very distinct idea of the true character of monastic life in Ireland.

The "Abbot" was the superior of the monastic family, and frequently had several houses under his supreme control. He generally lived at the mother-house, where he had a separate cell larger than that of the other brethren, and usually very near to the church or oratory. The branch houses were then governed by local superiors frequently called 'priors,' but they were subject to removal by the Abbot, who had the right at any time of visiting the establishments subordinate to the mother-house; and this right was repeatedly exercised, as we know, from the Lives of Enda, Brendan, and Columcille. Sometimes the Abbot was a bishop, but more frequently during the sixth century he was not, as in the case of Enda and Columcille, and very probably of St. Brendan also. Nearly always, however, in that case a bishop was a member of the religious community, who performed all the episcopal functions and received all the honour due to his office; but, as a member of the community, he was inferior in jurisdiction, and otherwise obedient to the Abbot. During this period diocesan jurisdiction was not well defined, because there was a great number of bishops in the country, and dioceses properly so called were only in process of formation. At this early age the diocese, or 'parrochia,' of a bishop in many cases extended only to the church or churches which he or his predecessor had founded, and to their adjacent territory. It was a fixed maxim, however, that if one saint had established himself in a district another was not to intrude on his territory without his permission. St. Brendan is said to have at first established himself near the Shannon, at a place called Tulach Brendain; but when he found that he was within hearing of the bell of St. Ruadhan of Lorrha, he removed further to the north and established himself at Clonfert, whereupon St. Ruadhan prophesied that Brendan's 'parrochia' would be blessed by God, and in after years become greater than his own. And so it came to pass.

The monastic "Family" included priests, deacons, minor clerics, and lay brethren, who all yielded implicit obedience to the Abbot as to the representative of God in their regard. The life of the community was a 'warfare;' they were soldiers of Christ, and hence were to be trained and armed for this spiritual combat. Therefore they stripped themselves of the encumbrance of worldly goods, and entered the 'arena' quite 'naked.' They were obedient to the voice of the general, and always ready to sacrifice their lives for Christ. Their obedience was like that of Christ--an obedience unto death. St. Brendan once told one of his monks to go to save another who was sinking, and die in his stead. The monk did so without a murmur--the brother was saved but the rescuer perished.[113]

The Rule of St. Columba prescribes absolute nakedness from worldly goods in imitation of Christ. No brother could possess anything of his own--everything was in common. The community itself was poor; the inmates were to be content with the bare necessaries of life--anything beyond that was for the poor and the stranger. Of course chastity was deemed essential, so much so that no woman was permitted to enter the monastic enclosure; in certain cases they were even excluded from the island on which the monastery was built. The members of the community were to be "virgins in mind and in body;" it was not mere celibacy, but perfect chastity--in thought, and word, and work--that was required from all true monks. In all this, however, there is nothing peculiar to Irish monasteries--these virtues have been always considered essential to the monastic state, although not always professed by solemn vow.

"Silence, which is the practice of justice," says the Rule of St. Columbanus,[114] "must, at every task and in every place, be carefully observed." The tongue is the source of many sins, and hence the monks are strictly forbidden to speak except when there is need, and even then with caution. Of course when abroad it would be difficult to observe silence, but still the spirit of the Rule was to be followed. Even the Abbot, in his necessary communication with his subordinates, was to be brief and to the point. The monks frequently communicated their more usual wants by silent signals, especially in the refectory, lest speaking would interfere with the reading, which always took place at meal time.

"Humility" in spirit and the external practice of that virtue were specially inculcated, because spiritual pride is one of the sins most dangerous to religious men, and most difficult to guard against. The Rule of St. Carthach of Lismore requires the monk to live in humility and self-abasement towards all persons, high and low, showing to every one "devotion, humbleness, and enslavement." The brethren in Columcille's monasteries spoke to the Abbot on their knees. If rebuked by his superiors for any fault the monk remained prostrate on the ground until the words of blessing admonished him to rise up--it mattered not whether the brother was really culpable or not, he was to demean himself as a culprit.

One of the characteristic virtues of our Celtic monasteries was their spirit of hospitality. Every monastery had its guest-house for the reception of strangers. They were to be saluted both when coming and going by bowing down the head, and in case of persons of greater consideration by prostration. St. Comgall of Bangor, himself, washed the feet of Columba and his companions, when they came to visit him at Bangor. Upon their arrival the guests were generally received either by the Abbot in person, who gave them the kiss of peace, or by the brother in charge of the hospice, who attended to their immediate wants. One of the first things done was to wash their feet; they were then led to the church to join in a short prayer for their safe arrival. Afterwards they partook of refreshment, and had an opportunity of conferring with the Abbot. When a distinguished guest arrived, the best cheer the monastery afforded was produced. It became a feast day for the entire community; even if it were an ordinary fasting day, by St. Benedict's Rule the fast was to be relaxed in honour of the guest. No sinner, who came in a spirit of penance was excluded; but if not penitent, notorious sinners were very properly excluded from the monastic enclosure.

The discipline of the Irish monasteries as to fasting was very rigid. This rigour began in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, and was afterwards imitated in the West. But in the cold and stormy climate of Ireland such observances must have been exceedingly trying to human nature. Yet, perhaps, nowhere in the Church were these penitential exercises carried out with such unsparing rigour. The penances, even apart from fasting, practised by some of our Irish Saints were simply appalling. In our days we should consider them almost suicidal. To spend half the night up to the neck in a stream of cold water, to sleep on the rock in a cell or cave without coverlet or pillow, to wear the same coarse garment until it fell to pieces in rags, to spend the whole of Lent in the woods or mountains with only a few loaves of bread and a little water, were not unusual exercises of mortification in those days of primitive fervour. This was, however, mostly the case with hermits or recluses. The discipline of the regular monastic life was severe, but not quite so rigorous as this.

The ordinary meal for the 'family' was barley or oaten bread, with milk when it could be had, and a little fish, perhaps sometimes eggs. Flesh meat was rarely allowed except on high festival days or when distinguished strangers came to the monastery. The brethren were then allowed a share of the good cheer provided for the strangers. There was, however, except for those labouring in the fields, only one meal in the day--the Columban Rule borrowed from Bangor expressly says that the fare was to be plain and taken only in the evening, that is, after noon.[115] Vegetables, porridge, and baked bread are the principal items mentioned as allowable, and barely as much as would support life. Excessive abstinence from food, however, was to be deemed a vice, not a virtue; but to some extent a monk was to fast every day. The 'order of refection, and of the refectory,' is one of the most interesting portions of the Rule of St. Carthach of Lismore.[116] He allows an ample meal for the workman and special delicacies for the sick. On Sundays and other festivals of the year, especially on the greater festivals, meals were 'increased.' From Easter to Pentecost was also a season of full meals--"without fasting, heavy labour, or great vigils." The Summer and Winter Lent are more bitter to laics than to monks, for to the latter all seasons should be as Lent. The meal was to be at vesper time only, except from Easter to St. John's Day, when a refection was also allowed at noon. The bell was to be the signal for the meal, but first there was a Pater with three genuflections in the church; then the meal was blessed. Alleluia was sung, and a benediction pronounced by the Senior, who said, "God bless you." The meal was followed by thanksgiving, after which all retired to their cell for private prayer preparatory to vespers. Wednesday and Friday were generally fast days.

The ordinary dress consisted of a cuculla or habit of coarse undyed wool with a hood, and a tunic or short underneath garment. Sandals were sometimes worn when travelling, but rarely at home. There is no mention made of any covering for the head but the cowl or hood, which was sometimes thrown over it. No doubt a leathern or hempen girdle was worn round the loins. The monk slept in his clothes on a pallet of straw in his cell. He had a straw pillow under his head, and probably some kind of a rug for a coverlet in severe weather. St. Columba himself slept on the bare stone, which was covered only with a skin, and this practice seems not to have been unusual.

IV.--THE DAILY LABOUR OF THE MONASTERY.

St. Columbanus tersely describes the daily work of every monastery when he says--"Ergo quotidie jejunandum est, sicut quotidie orandum est, quotidie laborandum, quotidieque est legendum."[117] Fasting and prayer, labour and study, are the daily task of the monks in every monastery. How patiently and unselfishly that toil was performed the history of Europe tells. The monks made roads, cleared the forests, and fertilized the desert. Their monasteries in Ireland were the sites of our cities. To this day the land about a monastery is well known to be the greenest and best in the district; and it was made fertile by the labour of the monks. They preserved for us the literary treasures of antiquity; they multiplied copies of all the best and newest works; they illuminated them with the most loving care. They taught the children of the rich and the poor alike; they built the church and the palace; they were the greatest authors, painters, architects, since the decline of the Roman Empire. They were the physicians of the poor when there were no dispensary doctors; they served the sick in their hospitals and at their homes. And when the day's work was done in the fields or in the study, they praised God, and prayed for men who were unable or unwilling to pray for themselves. Ignorant and prejudiced men have spoken of them as an idle and useless race. They were in reality the greatest toilers, and the greatest benefactors of humanity that the world has ever seen.

Religious exercises were the first duty of the monk--'Orare.' This was called the Work of God, and consisted of Mass, the Divine office, with private prayer and meditation. The Holy Sacrifice was celebrated every day, at which all the community was to attend; it was generally at an early hour in the morning, before the labour of the day began. The ordinary canonical hours were chanted in choir--Matins and Lauds generally at midnight. Mistakes, even from inadvertence in chanting, were punished by Columbanus with a small penance-genuflection. The brethren labouring in the field were not required to attend in choir during the day. The entire psaltery seems to have been recited during the daily office at least at certain times of the year. If a brother had any leisure he might, at any time, retire to the oratory to pray. At all their incomings and outgoings they made the sign of the cross, sometimes turning themselves to the east. It seems, too, that making the same holy sign was a frequent method of salutation.

A novitiate of varying length was observed before a candidate was admitted to the brotherhood. After suitable probation, he took the monastic vow[118] before the Abbot and the brethren on his knees in the church. It was a very solemn vow taken "in the Name of the High God." The tonsure (up to A.D. 640) from ear to ear was generally received by the brethren, even when they did not intend to proceed to higher orders. It was considered to be a sign of the total renunciation of the world, and a dedication of oneself to the service of God. Yet, the monk did not, properly speaking, belong to the clergy.

Study.--The study of the Sacred Scriptures was daily practised by the learned members of the community--the younger got by rote a portion of the Psalter until they could recite the whole from memory, for books were then very scarce. They had also the study of the Greek and Latin languages, and of the Fathers in the Irish Monasteries, as we shall more fully explain hereafter. The Lives of the Saints were read for the community and conferences--collationes--like those of Cassian on spiritual and theological questions were frequently held under the presidency of the abbot or prior.

Writing formed a principal part of the literary work in every monastery. There was a special building set apart for that purpose called the Scriptorium where all necessary appliances, waxen tablets, parchments, inks, styles, pens, were to be had, and a library was also kept for the use of the students and the custody of the books. Too often both buildings were burned, and their precious treasures lost for ever. The work of transcription was executed with great care and beauty. To be 'a choice scribe' was an accomplishment highly prized by the individual and by the community. That our Celtic monks were indeed the choicest of the choice is abundantly proved by the marvellous beauty of many of our existing manuscripts.

Manual Labour.--It was a maxim in all our primitive Irish monasteries that the monks were to support themselves by the labour of their hands. The mendicant orders, who lived to a great extent on the alms of the faithful, were a later institution, first introduced into Ireland about the year A.D. 1225. Hence, in every monastery a number of the stronger brethren devoted themselves mainly to manual labour, and indeed all, even the scribes as well as the literary and artistic workmen, were required to give some time to manual labour also. In their case it would serve as healthy recreation, while, at the same time it would remind them that all the members of the community were on terms of strict equality, and that no privileged classes were recognised amongst them. Everything that the community needed was produced or procured by themselves. They raised their own corn; they themselves dried and ground and baked it into bread. They had their own dairy; they milked their own cows; they made excellent cheese and butter; for no female was allowed to live amongst them, or even permitted to enter the monastery. They had their own sheep, and their habits were produced from the wool, combed, spun, and woven by themselves. They built their own churches and cells, whether of stone or of timber; they made their own simple furniture and kitchen utensils: they cut and dried their own fuel, both turf and wood; they washed their own habits, about the cleanliness of which, however, they were not always over particular. When a monk died there was no need of an undertaker--his brethren made the grave, and he was simply buried in his habit, with the cowl over his head. No man could say they were idlers, or that they were a burden to the community. They owed nothing to the general community, but the community owed much to them. Everything needed for food, clothing, and shelter they produced themselves--even the very soil of their fields they reclaimed from the woods and the wilderness.

Both church and monastery were furnished in the simplest style--they devoted more attention to holiness of life and purity of heart than to the magnificence of their buildings. As we have already seen, the church was not large, only what was needed for the accommodation of the brethren, and where the community was large we find several churches close together, to which the various sub-divisions of the community repaired. The altar was generally of stone, sometimes merely a rectangle of plain masonry--not even cemented--and covered with a flag or slate. Such is the altar in the oratory of St. Molaise on Innismurray Island, which is still to be seen in that highly interesting spot, within the little stone-roofed duirteach of St. Molaise. The chalices were of simple workmanship--of metal, wood, or even sometimes of stone, if the vessel No. 34, second cross case, in the Royal Irish Academy, be indeed an ancient chalice. The paten was generally composed of the same material as the chalice itself. St. Patrick is said to have discovered chalices of glass or crystal in a cavern in the mountains of Breifney, after crossing the Shannon for the first time into Connaught. We have no specimen of very ancient vestments; they were, probably, of a simple character, but certainly not destitute of embroidery.[119]

In some of the churches mention is made of an urdumh, or sacristy, properly a 'side-house,' opening on the chancel of the church, and having also an exterior door for the clergy as at present. In several of the churches, however, we find no trace of any sacristy. Bells were used to summon the community to the church and to the refectory; they were generally square hand-bells, made of sheet iron or bronze, of which some very ancient specimens are still extant.

In the refectory we find reference made to the table, also to the use of knives, drinking-cups, probably made of wood, and ladles; in the kitchen we hear of frying-pans, grid-irons, pots and water jars, doubtless similar to those used in the houses of hospitality throughout the country generally, specimens of which may still be seen in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. They were able to fuse metals in Hy, for on one occasion we are told that St. Columba blessed inadvertently a butcher's knife, but his attention being called to the nature of the article, he said it would never hurt man or beast again. As the butcher tried in vain to kill a heifer with the knife--it could not on account of the saint's blessing, even pierce the skin--the knife was smelted down, and all the instruments were dipped in the liquid metal, so that they never again cut or wounded any flesh on account of the might of the saint's blessing. It would seem, therefore, that, at least in the larger establishments, besides the carpenter, there were also brothers of the community, who worked in metals, such for instance as smiths and braziers. Existing remains prove beyond doubt that in metallurgy the Irish monks were pre-eminently skilful, both in originality of design and delicacy of execution. In this special department they seemed to have distanced all rivalry during the Middle Ages.

We see, then, that in the monastery there were not merely artisans, such as are needed for the purposes of every-day life, but artists of the greatest skill and ingenuity.

We shall take occasion hereafter to point out how instruction was communicated in the schools, and to explain what educational appliances were at their disposal, the subjects that were taught, and the proficiency attained.

In connection, however, with this chapter, it is necessary to say something of the Three Orders of Irish Saints, to which reference will frequently be made in the following pages.

V.--THE THREE ORDERS OF IRISH SAINTS.

We shall find, at least, to some extent, a new departure in the great monasteries and monastic schools, founded during the sixth century by the saints of the Second Order. Every one who knows anything of the history of this period will have heard of these Three Orders of Saints in the Celtic Church, but by whom they were first thus arranged and characterised is altogether unknown. Tighernach, the celebrated annalist of Clonmacnoise, is the earliest who refers to them as thus classified, and he died A.D. 1088.

The ancient document in which they are thus formally classified purports to be a "Catalogue of the Saints in Ireland, according to the different times in which they flourished."

The First Order was in the time of St. Patrick. They were all then great and holy bishops filled with the Holy Ghost, 350 in number, the founders of churches, worshipping one head, namely, Christ, following one leader, Patrick, and having one tonsure, and one celebration of Mass, and one Easter, which they celebrated after the vernal equinox; and what was excommunicated by one Church all excommunicated. They did not reject the service and society of females, because founded on Christ the Rock, they feared not the wind of temptation. This Order flourished during four reigns, that is, during the time of Laeghaire, son of Niall (A.D. 432), who reigned thirty-seven years, and of Ailill Molt, who reigned thirty years, and of Lugaid, who reigned seven years. And this Order continued to the last years of Tuathal Maelgarbh (A.D. 543). They all continued holy bishops, and they were chiefly Franks and Romans,[120] and Britons, and Scots by birth.

The Second Order of Saints was as follows:--In the Second Order there were few bishops, but many priests--in number 300. Whilst worshipping God as their one head, they had different rites for celebrating, and different rules of living: they celebrated one Easter on the 14th noon; they had a uniform tonsure, videlicet, from ear to ear. They shunned the society and services of women, and excluded them from their monasteries. This Order also flourished during four reigns, i.e., during the last years of Tuathal Maelgarbh, and during the thirty years of the reign of Diarmaid, the son of Cearbhall, and during the time of the two grandsons of Muiredach, who reigned seven years, and during the time of Aedh, son of Ainmire, who reigned thirty years (A.D. 597). These received their rite for celebrating Masses from the holy men of Britain, from St. David, and St. Gildas, and St. Docus. And the names of these are--Finnian, Enda, Colman, Comgall, Aidus, Ciaran, Columba, Brandan, Birchin, Cainnech, Coemghan, Lasrian, Lugeus, Barrind, and many others who were of this Second Order of Saints.

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.

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VI. SCHOOLS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY

Our Kings sat of old in Emania and Tara; These new Kings whence are they? Their names are unknown! Our saints lie entomb'd in Ardmagh and Kildara; Their relics are healing, their graves are grass-grown.

I.--THE SCHOOL OF ARMAGH.

The School of Armagh seems to have been the oldest, and always continued to be one of the most celebrated, of the ancient schools of Ireland. It dates in all probability from the very foundation of the See of Armagh, for it has always been regarded in the Church as one of the primary duties of a bishop to make provision for the training and education of his ecclesiastics, and as far as possible under his own immediate supervision. We may be sure that our great Apostle did not neglect his duty; and, indeed, the most ancient writers inform us that the School of Armagh dates from the foundation of the See--the history of one is in fact told in the history of the other.

St. Patrick had purposed to build his Church and found his primatial See in the sweet and flowery fields of Louth, where the deep seclusion of a sheltered meadow wooed his weary heart to build a house for God, and a home for his own declining years. But God had willed otherwise. "Get thee northward," said the angel visitor, "to the height of Macha (Ard-Macha); it is there that Providence wills that you should build your church and fix your chair for ever." Promptly, though regretfully, the Apostle obeyed; and crossing the slopes of Slieve Gullion soon came in sight of the swelling hills of Macha of which God's angel spoke--

"So long as Sea Girdeth this isle, so long thy name shall hang In splendour o'er it like the stars of God."

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:

"November 8th, Benignus, i.e. Benen, son of Sescnen, disciple of St. Patrick, and his successor, that is Primate of Ard-Macha.... The holy Benen was benign, was devout; he was a virgin without ever defiling his virginity, for when he was psalm-singer at Ard-Macha along with his master, St. Patrick, Ercnat, daughter of Daire, loved him and she was seized with a disease so that she died (appeared to die) suddenly; and Benen brought holy water to her from St. Patrick, and he shook it upon her, and she arose alive and well; and she loved him spiritually afterwards, and she subsequently went to Patrick and confessed all her sins to him, and offered her virginity to God, so that she went to heaven; and the name of God, of Patrick, and of Benen was magnified through it."

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.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VI. (continued)

SCHOOLS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY.

"Brigid is the Mary of the Gaedhil." --Book of Hymns.

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.

The place where this hymn was composed was Sliabh Bladhma (Slieve Bloom), or Cluain Mor Moedhog. The author was Brogan Cloen. The time (to which it refers) was when Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire, was King of Ireland, and Ailill, son of Dunlang, King of Leinster. The cause of writing it, viz., "Ultan of Ardbraccan, the tutor of Brogan, requested him to narrate the miracles of Brigid in suitable poetical language, for Ultan had collected all the miracles of Brigid for him."

We gather from this interesting statement that St. Ultan of Ardbraccan, who was an uncle on the mother's side of St. Brigid, collected the materials for this poem. It is true St. Ultan did not die until the year A.D. 656 or 657, but if he were then, as is stated in the Martyrology of Donegal, 189 years of age, he might well have been the uncle and contemporary of the Virgin Saint. He was a very celebrated man, and was especially remarkable for his love of poor orphans, for he often had no less than 200 of them together, whom he used to feed with his own hands. He was also very mortified in his life, sleeping on the bare board in his narrow stone cell, and bathing his body in cold water in the sharpest blasts of the wintry wind. "It was he," says the same authority, "that collected the miracles of Brigid in one book, and gave them to his disciple Brogan Cloen to render them in verse."

St. Brogan Cloen himself lived, it seems, for some time in the monastery near Slieve Bloom, founded by St. Molua, and afterwards in that of Clonmore, in the barony of Bantry, county Wexford, which was founded by St. Aidan about the year A.D. 620. The scholiast doubts whether he composed this hymn while at Slieve Bloom or Clonmore; so we may fairly suppose that it was composed sometime between A.D. 620 and 657, when St. Ultan died. The statement of the scholiast as to the time of the hymn seems to refer not to the time of its composition, but to the time of the events which it narrates; and which, he says, took place during the reign of Lughaidh, King of Tara, and Ailill, King of Leinster. The former reigned 25 years and died in A.D. 503; the latter died in A.D. 523, so that their joint reigns would exactly mark the period during which St. Brigid flourished in Kildare. The hymn consists of 212 lines or 53 stanzas of four lines each. It describes at great length the virtues and miracles of St. Brigid, but is unhappily too meagre in historical facts. The writer assumes that because her history was well known in his own time, it would continue to be equally well known to future generations. It is, however, a most interesting monument of our early Irish Church, and competent judges pronounce it to be an admirable specimen of early Celtic versification.

There is also in the Book of Hymns published by Dr. Todd, what seems to be a fragment of an ancient Latin hymn in praise of St. Brigid. The preface to this Hymn attributes it either to St. Ninnidh of the Clean Hand, Brigid's chaplain, or to St. Fiacc of Sleibte, or to St. Ultan of Ardbraccan. This last conjecture, however, seems to arise from the statement that Ultan collected the miracles of St. Brigid into one book. It was an abecedarian hymn originally, and is undoubtedly a very ancient composition. At present it consists of four stanzas of four lines each, having a rhyme or assonance in the middle and at the end of each line, which properly should consist of sixteen syllables. The first line at present is:--

"Christus in nostra insula quae vocatur Hibernia,"

and notwithstanding the statement of the scholiast that the hymn was abecedarian, these words--Christus in nostra insula--appear to have been always regarded as the beginning of the hymn. In the eighth line Brigid is declared to be "Mariae sanctae similem," an expression which may have given origin to the saying that Brigid was the "Mary of the Irish." The following passage from the Leabhar Breac gives a glowing eulogy of St. Brigid, and formally calls her the "Mary of the Gaedhil."

"There was not in the world one of more bashfulness and modesty than this holy virgin. She never washed (as was then not unfrequent,) her hands, or her feet, or head before men. She never looked a man in the face. She never spoke without blushing. She was abstinent, unblemished, fond of prayer, patient, rejoicing in God's commands, benevolent, humble, forgiving, charitable. She was a consecrated shrine for the preservation of the Body of Christ. She was a temple of God. Her heart and mind were the throne of the Holy Spirit; she was meek before God. She was distressed with the miserable. She was bright in miracles. And hence in things created her type is the Dove among birds, the Vine amongst trees, and the Sun above the stars."

This beautiful eulogy concludes by declaring that Brigid is "The Queen of the South. She is the Mary of the Gaedhil."

The Second Life, printed by Colgan, is the celebrated work of Cogitosus, to which we have already referred. He tells us himself that he was a monk of Kildare, and that he wrote in obedience to the wishes of the community, not of his own presumptuous motion. In the last chapter he asks a prayer, "Pro me Cogitoso culpabili," but it is evident when he calls himself a 'nepos,' that he does not mean that he was the 'nepos' of St. Brigid, as some have fancied. In his humility he uses the word in its secondary classical sense, and calls himself a sinful spendthrift of God's time and of God's graces. The use of the word 'nepos,' therefore, furnishes no argument that this Life was written shortly after the death of St. Brigid. On the other hand, there is nothing in this Life that, as Basnage insinuates, 'smells of a later age' than the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century. As we have already observed, the description which Cogitosus gives of the great Church of Kildare, of its wealth, of the tomb of its founders, and the inviolable character of the city, clearly proves that it must have been written earlier than the ravages of the Danes. There are, however, some expressions that show it was written a considerable time after the decease of St. Brigid and St. Conlaeth. The writer speaks of 'the prosperous succession' of prelates and abbesses who ruled in the sacred city, ritu perpetuo, a strong expression, which points to a long series of successors in Kildare. The very use of the Latin word 'archiepiscopus,' which Cogitosus uses when speaking of the prelates of Kildare, shows that the work cannot have been written before the eighth century. Petrie in his observations on this subject makes one remark which we venture to think is founded on a false assumption.[133] Cogitosus tells us that in his own time the bodies of St. Brigid and of St. Conlaeth were placed in tombs richly adorned, one on the right and the other on the left of the high altar. Now the Annals of Ulster state that A.D. 799, the relics of Conlaeth were placed in a shrine of gold and silver, whence Petrie infers that Cogitosus must have written after this enshrining, that is, after A.D. 799, but before A.D. 835, when Kildare was pillaged by the Danes and half the church burned. But Cogitosus speaks of the bodies of the saints as being placed in tombs, not of the enshrining of the relics of one of them, which is a very different thing. The shrine was a metal case, highly ornamented, for containing the relics of a saint, not a tomb for the body. Rather the language of Cogitosus clearly shows that he must have written before this enshrining of the relics of Conlaeth, for in his time the body of that saint was in a tomb. The truth seems to be that about this time, and through fear of the Danes, the relics of St. Brigid were carried to Downpatrick as being then a safer place, and at the same time the relics of Conlaeth were also taken from the tomb-monument, and placed in the rich shrine, which was easily portable, and might be carried off at the approach of danger, with its precious contents.

The language and style of Cogitosus show considerable acquaintance with the Latin tongue, and the work furnishes us with a very creditable specimen of the scholarship possessed by the monks of Kildare in the eighth century.

We need make no special reference to the other four anonymous Lives printed by Colgan. The Third is attributed, but without any proof, to St. Ultan; the Fourth is probably the work of a monk called Animosus, of whom nothing else is known; the Fifth was written by an Englishman, Laurence of Durham, in the twelfth century. The Sixth, like the First Life, is a poetic work in Latin, which Colgan got from Monte Cassino, and which the MS. itself attributes to Chilien, or, perhaps, more properly, Coelan, a monk of Iniscaltra, or the Holy Island, in Lough Derg, who probably flourished in the eighth century. We know that many monks from Holy Island went abroad in the ninth and tenth centuries to preach the Gospel, and, doubtless, one of them carried this MS. with him either to Bobbio, or some other Benedictine Monastery, whence it might easily find its way to Monte Cassino. The prologue of the poem is attributed to Donatus, an Irish prelate in Tuscany, during the ninth century. This also helps to explain how the Irish-born prelate would get this volume from some of his countrymen abroad, and also write a prologue to this poetic life of the Queen of Ireland's virgin saints.

Kildare is the only religious establishment in Ireland which preserved down to a comparatively recent period the double line of succession, of abbot-bishops and of abbesses, and what is more, the annalists take care to record the names of the abbesses as well as of the abbots. This, no doubt, arose from the fact that at least in public estimation the lady-abbesses of Kildare enjoyed a kind of primacy over all the nuns in Ireland, and, moreover, were in some sense independent of episcopal jurisdiction, if, indeed, the Bishops of Kildare were not rather to some extent dependent on them.

St. Conlaeth was not only a scholar and a bishop, but also a most cunning artificer in metal work, and made all kinds of chalices, patens, bells, and shrines for the use of his churches and monasteries. It appears to be quite evident, too, that he founded a school of metal work and decorative art at Kildare, which was conducted with much success under his successors in that see. In our own times sacred art is left to take its chance; little or no official patronage is extended to the workmen, and no special care is given to their training. Not so in ancient Erin. The greatest attention was paid to these subjects, and, as we know, the arts of metallurgy, of the illumination of MSS., of sculpture, and of architectural ornamentation were carried to the greatest perfection under the patronage of distinguished ecclesiastics.

The ancient buildings of Kildare have, with the exception of the Round Tower, completely disappeared. This is all the more to be regretted, when we see the beautiful ornamental door-way of the Round Tower, a class of buildings in which ornamentation of any kind is rarely met with. Even in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis it was a venerable building, and he tells a story of a falcon that used to nestle in its summit all alone, admitting no mate, and was on quite familiar terms with the monks and citizens, for it was called St. Brigid's bird. This beautiful tower, the tallest in Ireland, is 136 feet 7 inches in height, and still pointing heavenward, as of old, marks out for every stranger who travels by the Great Southern Line, the sacred city of St. Brigid, in the great plain of the Liffey.

Notwithstanding the ravages of the Danes, we find the obits of many of the Professors of the School of Kildare recorded in the Annals. We find also reference made to the Chief Professor of Kildare, Cosgrach, who died A.D. 1041; and Cobthac, another professor of Kildare, who died in A.D. 1069, was celebrated for "his universal knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline." In A.D. 1110, died Ferdomhach, the Blind Professor of Kildare, who was eminently skilled in the Holy Scriptures. In A.D. 1135 Diarmaid Mac Murrogh, who had even then begun his career of violence and crime, "forcibly carried away the Abbess of Kildare from her cloister, and compelled her to marry one of his own people." Next year Diarmaid O'Brian and his brothers plundered and burned the town. Yet the holy line of Brigid's successors was still carried on--there was a Comorbana of Brigid who died in A.D. 1171. But in A.D. 1220 Henry de Loundres put out the fire of St. Brigid, called the inextinguishable, which had been preserved burning by the nuns of St. Brigid, in all probability from the time of the foundress herself. It was lit again by order of the Bishop of Kildare, and continued to burn in spite of all the troubles of the times down to the total suppression of the monasteries by Queen Elizabeth.

We find no satisfactory account of the origin and purpose of this perpetual fire of Kildare. De Loundres thought, perhaps, there was something savouring of paganism or superstition about it, or he would hardly undertake the risk and odium of having it extinguished. His conduct would be still more inexplicable if this fire were kept always burning in the guest house, as some think, for the comfort of benighted travellers. But English prelates have never been discerning judges of Irish usages, and we are not bound to set much store on the soundness of the Norman bishop's judgment in this instance. They came over to reform, as well as to conquer; and if abuses did not exist, it was necessary for appearance sake to assume their existence. Can it be that the Kildare nuns anticipated the general and now obligatory rule of keeping a perpetual lamp before the Blessed Sacrament? Or was it a sacred fire that was kept always burning before the tomb of their holy foundress? "The early Christians, as well as the Jews and pagans, were accustomed to place lamps in the company of the dead,"[134] great numbers of which have been found in the catacombs and elsewhere. Many of them, too, are beautifully wrought in various material, and bear characteristic Christian symbols. In all probability the perpetual fire of Kildare was for the purpose of keeping the lamps lit before the shrines of its holy founders. Many accidents might lead to the lamp itself being extinguished, but the sacred fire, night and day, under the sedulous care of St. Brigid's daughters, might be cherished 'through long ages of darkness and storm,' if not extinguished by the Danes or reformers like Henry de Loundres.

Gerald Barry also tells us another fact which shows to what a degree of perfection the art of illumination was carried in the monastic schools of Kildare. Nothing, he says, that he saw at Kildare appeared to him more admirable than the wondrous book, which as report goes, was written from the dictation of an angel in the time of the holy virgin herself. It was a manuscript of the Four Evangelists, according to St. Jerome's version, but every page was illuminated with various figures, delineated with the utmost distinctness in every variety of colouring. The symbolical figures of the Evangelists themselves were wrought with extraordinary subtilty and grace, and all the other drawings and figures likewise were so delicate, and subtile, so close and so narrow, so knotted and intertwined together, yet every most intricate line and point and knot so vivid, as if with quite recent colours, that one would think it all was the work of angelic, and not of mere human skill. The more carefully he looked at it, the more he was astonished, and the more things he saw worthy of admiration.

Gerald Barry's description of this famous Evangelistarium, which unfortunately appears to have perished, will not appear exaggerated to any person who has ever seen the Book of Kells. They were both written about the same period, and illuminated by equally skilled hands; still it is greatly to be regretted that this wondrous Book of Kildare,[135] which won such a eulogy from the fastidious Welshman, is no longer amongst the extant literary treasures of Ireland.

It is not unlikely that the great manuscript known as the Book of Leinster, was originally compiled and preserved in Kildare; or perhaps, more accurately speaking, it was copied from originals that were compiled and preserved at Kildare. The work of copying in great part was certainly executed by Finn Mac Gorman, who was Bishop of Kildare from A.D. 1148 to 1160, when his death is recorded. He was evidently a man of much learning, and an entry in his own hand testifies that he wrote the work for Hugh Mac Crimthann, tutor of Diarmaid Mac Murrogh, King of Leinster. The work was no doubt written by O'Gorman before A.D. 1148, when he became Bishop of Kildare. The manuscript at present consists of 177 loose leaves of vellum, which are preserved in Trinity College, and seven additional leaves of the same original, which belong to the Franciscans of the Irish Province. No doubt the entire work belonged to them originally, but was taken from them by force or fraud, and thus found its way to Trinity College. Its contents are of an exceedingly various and interesting character--heroic tales and poems, genealogies, calendars of saints, and various tracts used in the Irish monastic schools, dealing with both sacred and profane learning.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VII. MINOR MONASTIC SCHOOLS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY

"The chapel where no organ's peal Invests the stern and naked prayer!-- With penitential cries they kneel And wrestle; rising then with bare And white uplifted faces stand, Passing the Host from hand to hand." --Arnold.

I.--THE SCHOOL OF NOENDRUM.

There were a few other early monastic schools founded during the lifetime of St. Patrick to which reference must be made here, before we pass to the more celebrated schools of the sixth century. Although St. Patrick could not attend in person to the government and organization of these seminaries, he gave every encouragement to his disciples in carrying on that necessary and excellent work. It was specially for this purpose, as we have already seen, that he placed St. Benignus over his own school at Armagh. With the same purpose in view, he chose the youthful Mochae, or Mochay, of Noendrum first to be his own disciple, and afterwards to be the guide and teacher of others in their preparation for the sacred ministry.

Mochae was one of St. Patrick's earliest converts in Ireland. Like St. Benignus, he seems to have been a mere boy, when he first believed and was baptized, before St. Patrick had yet met King Laeghaire on the royal Hill of Tara.

It is thus narrated in the Tripartite:--"Now whilst Patrick was going on his journey from Saul (near Downpatrick) he saw a tender youth herding swine. Mochae was his name. Patrick preached to him and baptized him and tonsured him, and gave him a Gospel and Mass-chalice. And he gave him also later on a crozier, that had been bestowed on them by God, to wit, it fell from heaven with its head in Patrick's bosom, and its foot in Mochae's bosom, and this is the Etech of Mochae of Noendrum. And Mochae promised a shaven pig every year to Patrick (that is, to his Church), and this is still offered."[136]

This is a very interesting passage, and points to Patrick's mode of procedure, when he found a youth suitable for the ecclesiastical state. This boy was, we are told,[137] the son of Bronach, daughter of Milchu, with whom Patrick himself had spent the years of his own captivity at the same occupation--herding swine. Patrick had been probably acquainted with the mother of this youth; he remembered his own boyhood, which he spent in the midst of many sorrows and much labour on the barren slopes of Slemish; so his heart was touched, and he preached the new Gospel of peace and love to this grandson of the master who had held him so long in bondage. The boy's heart, too, was touched by grace--he believed, was baptized, and tonsured. The tonsuring, if it took place then, could only mean that Patrick destined the youth for the sacred ministry. We are also told that he gave him a copy of the Gospels, doubtless when he had learned to read a little Latin, and a menister, which Stokes strangely translates 'credence-table,' but which is manifestly a loan-word from the Latin ministerium,[138] and signifies the chalice and paten necessary for offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Later on this youth became a bishop, he was consecrated by Patrick himself, and Patrick gave him this crozier--a heavenly gift--which came to be known from that circumstance as the Etech, or flying crozier of Mochae of Noendrum.

This name is simply Oendrum with the article prefixed, and the island in which Mochae founded his monastery and school was so called because it was formed as it were of a single hill or rising ground--oen-druim--the one-ridged island. It is now corrupted into Mahee Island from the name of its holy founder, which still survives in the mouth of the 'stranger' though its origin is quite forgotten. The island contains about 170 acres of land, and is situated not more than a quarter of a mile from the western shore of Strangford Lough, anciently known as Lough Cuan. The saint built his monastery and church on the very summit of the ridge, which rises to about the height of sixty feet, and commands a fine view of the far-reaching inland sea, whose western marge especially is studded with pleasant islets and bordered by many a grassy down and fertile field, rich, when we saw them, with the promise of abundant harvests. The original edifice was, as we gather from a story in the saint's life, constructed of wood, which he helped to hew down himself and carry on his own shoulders. The later buildings, however, were of stone, and the church--for many centuries a cathedral church--was 58 feet long by 22 wide. Only its foundations can now be traced; but the castle on the summit of the hill, and the outer concentric earthworks that were thrown up to protect it, can still be seen. During the Danish incursions it suffered much, and a small round tower was built as usual near the church's western door to afford an asylum to the monks. A small portion of it still remains.

Mochae was about the same age as Benignus, and it is not improbable that he founded his island monastery quite as early as St. Patrick founded the See of Armagh. Patronised as it doubtless was by St. Patrick, and presided over by one of his earliest disciples, Noendrum soon became a celebrated centre of sanctity and learning. Two very remarkable men received their education there--St. Colman of Dromore and St. Finnian of Moville. Of the latter we shall speak later on when we come to give an account of his own celebrated school at the head of Lough Cuan. The life of Colman, however, furnishes us with some interesting particulars concerning Noendrum and its monastic school.

Colman, like Mochae, was a native of the territory of Dalaradia, and in his youth was sent, we are told, by his parents to the blessed Caylan, otherwise called Mochae, the Abbot of Noendrum, that he might be trained in learning and virtue. The young man made great progress in his studies, and still more in the practice of all virtue, so that once when he had got his lesson by heart, and asked the holy abbot what he was to do next, the abbot replied: "Break up that rock which is in the way of the brethren when going to matins." Matins were recited before day dawned, and no doubt the rock was an obstacle in the darkness to the brethren when going from their cells to the church. Obedience is the first virtue of a monk, so Colman made the sign of the cross over the rock, and forthwith it split up in pieces. "Now, cast them into the sea," said the abbot, and Colman did so with the help of God's angels; and lo! the fragments were again united together into the great stone on the sea-shore before the monastery, which is still called Colman's Rock.

From Noendrum Colman went to St. Ailbe of Emly, to study the Sacred Scriptures. St. Ailbe, as we shall see presently, had even at this early period founded a great school at Emly, and having himself been trained abroad, when he came home, he gave his newly converted countrymen the benefit of his learning. Colman, after his return from the South, again paid a visit to his old preceptor, St. Caylan, or Mochae of Noendrum, which shows that the latter must have been alive at the close of the fifth century.

Very friendly relations existed between Noendrum and Candida Casa in Galloway, which was founded by St. Ninian about the year A.D. 398. Ninian himself is said to have visited St. Caylan at Noendrum; and as it is highly probable that Ninian lived until the middle of the fifth century,[139] this is by no means impossible. Other writers have sought to identify St. Ninian of Candida Casa with Nennio, or Monennio, who is said to have founded a church at Cluain-Conaire in Hy Faclain--now Cloncurry, in the co. Kildare. There are, however, grave chronological difficulties against this hypothesis, to which we shall refer hereafter.

St. Mochae was, like his successors down to the close of the tenth century, both bishop and abbot. They appear to have exercised episcopal jurisdiction in their own neighbourhood. The saint is said to have died A.D. 496--that is only three years after the death of St. Patrick himself. There was another saint who died A.D. 644, and was called Mocua, a similarity which probably gave rise to the strange story told both by Ængus and O'Clery, that Mochae of Noendrum was enchanted for 150 years by the song of a black-bird, so that he felt not the flight of time nor the withering influence of the passing years.

He went with seven score young men to cut wattles to build his church. He himself was engaged cutting timber like the rest. He had got his load ready before the others, and sat down beside it. Just then he heard a beautiful bird singing on the boughs of a blackthorn bush close at hand. It was the most beautiful bird he had ever seen, and speaking with a human voice the Bird said:--"This is diligent work of thine, O cleric." "It is required," replied Mochae, "for building a church in honour of God;" and then he added, "Who, may I ask, is addressing me?" "A man of the people of my Lord is here," replied the Bird, "that is, an Angel of God from heaven." "All hail to thee," said Mochae, "and why hast thou come hither?" "To speak to thee from thy Lord, and amuse thee for a while." "I like it," said Mochae. Then Mochae remained for three hundred years listening to that Bird, having his load of wood by his side, and the wood was not withered, and his flesh decayed not, and the time did not seem longer than one single hour of the day. At length God's Angel bade him farewell, and Mochae returned home with his load, and he found his church built, and he saw only strange faces, for all his friends and acquaintances had long been dead. But when he told them his strange story, they believed it, and knelt before him to do him honour, and built a shrine on the spot where he had seen God's Angel, and heard the heavenly song. Ængus says the Bird sang three songs only, but each lasted fifty years, so that the three hundred given in the Martyrology of Donegal was probably by a mistake in the figures put for one hundred and fifty. If one Angel's song can be so sweet and so beguiling, what a joy to listen to the chorus of all the heavenly choirs!

We have seen that St. Colman of Dromore went from the School of Noendrum to be instructed by St. Ailbe of Emly in the Sacred Scriptures. It is stated also in the Life of St. Ibar of Beg Erin, that his first instructor in the Sacred Sciences was Saint Motta, who if he be not St. Mochta of Louth, must have been St. Mochae of Noendrum. This is all the more likely, as we know that St. Ibar was himself a native of Dalaradia, and doubtless received his early training from the oldest Christian teachers of his native territory. This brings us to give a sketch of the history and of the schools of these three distinguished saints--Mochta of Louth, Ailbe of Emly, and Ibar of Beg Erin--all of whom certainly founded their monastic schools during the second half of the fifth century. We shall begin with Mochta, or Mochteus, whose history is in some respects very interesting.

II.--THE SCHOOL OF LOUTH--ST. MOCHTA.

St. Mochta, or Mochteus, the founder of the School of Louth, was a disciple of St. Patrick and a Briton by birth. Adamnan describes him as a British immigrant, a disciple of St. Patrick, and a very holy man.[140] He was accompanied to Ireland by twelve disciples, and preached the Gospel chiefly in the county Louth. The Annals of Ulster, A.D. 534, give the beginning of one of his letters in which he describes himself in his humility as "Mochta the sinful priest, a disciple of St. Patrick." His Life is given in the recently published Salamanca MS., from which Colgan extracted it to publish under date of the 24th of March.

From this Life we learn that Mochta was born in Britain, and that whilst still a child he was brought with his parents to Ireland by a certain magus, or Druid, called Hoam. The Druid took up his abode in the territory of Hy Conail, that is in the County Louth, and there the young Mochta was brought up in the Druid's house as a member of his family. One day an Angel brought waxen tablets to the boy, from which he learned his letters, and then commanded him to go to Rome to study Sacred Scripture. The boy obeyed, and went his way to Peter's City, where he made so much progress in learning and holiness that he was consecrated a bishop by the Pope, and many disciples placed themselves under his guidance.

By command of the Pope he then returned home accompanied by twelve disciples, one of whom, Edanus, in Irish Aedhan, seems to have been his favourite disciple, and succeeded the Saint in the first church which he founded in Ireland. This church is called in the Latin life Cella magna, or Kill-mor, and is said to have been built in nemoribus Metheorum--in the woods of Hy Meith. This was the territory called in Irish Hy Meith, and Hy Meith Macha, and the Church itself is identified by Colgan as Cill-Mor-Aedhan in Hy Meith Macha. It is referred to in the Martyrology of Donegal as the Church of Aedhan, son of Aenghus, who was doubtless the disciple of the Saint.

The graveyard of Kilmore is still made use of; it is about four miles south of the town of Monaghan, in the barony of Monaghan, which corresponds with the ancient territory of Hy Meith Macha.[141]

It seems the people of this district compelled the Saint to depart from amongst them; and so leaving his monastery of Kilmore to his disciple, he betook himself to Louth, which was still in the possession of the Druids, or magi, according to this Latin life. Here he built his cell and his oratory, which was surrounded by a cemetery, to be the last resting place of the brethren and the place of their resurrection.

We are told in the Life of St. Patrick that when he contemplated founding his own great Church in that "sweet and flowery sward" of Louth--a beauteous meadow land, blooming with all the fairest promise of the year--an angel told him to go northward to Ard-Macha; that Louth was destined by God for a pilgrim from the Britons, who should one day build therein a monastery which would afterwards pass under the dominion of Patrick's successors; and so in truth it came to pass.

Here then in the flowery meads of Louth beside a limpid stream, which was said to have followed the saint from Kilmore,[142] he built his cell. In a very short time the odour of his virtues was diffused over all the land; and monks gathered round in swarms like bees in summer to place themselves under the direction of one so eminent for his learning and virtues, so that he reckoned amongst his disciples before his death no less than 100 bishops and 300 priests. In this way from the parent hive at Louth new swarms went forth yearly to people other schools and monasteries, and preach the Gospel all over the land.

St. Patrick himself in his old age came and spent some time with his beloved disciple Mochta; for it seems he greatly loved the place, and loved the man who, like himself, was of British blood, and like him had come to preach and dwell amongst the kindly Scottic race.

Mochta wished to leave the place entirely to Patrick, because he knew Patrick loved it much--even more than Macha's Height; but Patrick told him the word of God sent by the angel could not be changed. But both promised that whoever pre-deceased the other, when dying should commit his religious family to the charge of the survivor. Patrick died first, and we are told that for a few days Mochta took charge of Armagh, but then committed the burden to another, that is, to Benignus, second of that name.

The Druid Hoam had a virgin daughter, who wished to preserve her virginity for Christ. Her father, however, gave her in marriage; but on the same day she was called away by her Heavenly Spouse, whilst the lily of her chastity was still inviolate. Her parents then consented to resign all claim over her to Mochta, if he could raise her again to life. Mochta full of confidence in God besought the Lord, and the virgin was restored to life at the prayer of the saint. For thirty years afterwards she lived, serving God in perfect chastity as a professed nun, and her time was wholly given to making vestments for the priests and altar-cloths for the altars at which 'they offered the sacrifice.' It is said that the virgin, like St. Brigid, was of wondrous beauty, but it was heavenly and awe-inspiring:--

"From her eyes A light went forth like morning o'er the sea, Sweeter her voice than wind on harp; her smile Could stay men's breath."

And so the maiden lived above the world clothed in the light of holiness, the first of that bright choir from the fair Hy-Conail land, that gave themselves to Christ led on by love divine.

Now this same Hoam, the Druid, was betrothed to another Christian maiden named Brigid. But he fell sick, and the maiden ministered to him; and we are told that by her prayers and the bright example of her virtues, the Druid became a Christian, and a fervent penitent. He renounced all claim to his bride, that he and she might serve God in holiness, and sickening shortly afterwards, he died a holy death, as Mochta had foretold.

It is highly probable that the Brigid here referred to was the great St. Brigid of Kildare. We know that she was sought in marriage by many suitors, and that her own master was a Druid, who lived near Dundalk, and in this way she might easily have been noticed by the Druid Hoam, who lived in the neighbourhood. But his earthly passion was elevated and purified by its object into a diviner flame, that brought him from paganism to Christianity, and from sin to life eternal.

Many striking miracles are recorded of St. Mochta of Louth, which we cannot now recount. The extraordinary length of life attributed to him is probably due to an error of the copyists, who wrote trecenti (three hundred), for triginta (thirty). The statement in the Life is that such was the self-denial of the man of God, that for 'thirty' years he never tasted flesh, nor spoke an idle word; but the copyist seems to have made it 'three hundred' years. The Annals of Ulster give his death in the year A.D. 534, others at A.D. 536, when he was doubtless a very old man. He is said to have been the last survivor of St. Patrick's disciples.

We may infer from the fragment referred to in the Annals of Ulster that the saint was an accomplished scholar and writer. He was the author of a Rule for his monks, of which, however, no trace remains. He seems to have been especially skilled in Sacred Scripture, the knowledge of which was the foundation of all the theology known at that time.

Besides the Rule for his monks, and the Letters already referred to, it seems that Mochta was also the original author of a work called the Book of the Monks, or the Book of Cuana. It is cited by the author of the Annals of Ulster under date of the year A.D. 471. In the same Annals of Ulster, A.D. 527, the same work seems to be referred to; it is there called the Book of Mochod. It was probably a series of annals begun in the monastery of Louth by St. Mochta, or Maucteus, and afterwards continued under the direction of the abbots, his successors. O'Curry thinks that the Book of Cuana, quoted in the Annals of Ulster, was written at Treoit (now Trevit), in Meath, by a scribe of that place called Cuana, whose death is recorded in the same Annals, A.D. 738, after which the book is quoted no more. We are rather inclined to think that Cuana, or Cuanu, from whom this book gets its name, was the person whose death is noticed by the Four Masters in A.D. 823, and who is described in the Annals of Ulster, A.D. 824, as Cuana of Lughmadh, or Louth, "a wise man and a bishop," as the Four Masters also describe him. It seems highly probable therefore, that this work was begun by Maucteus in Louth, that it afterwards was called the Book of the Monks, and finally the Book of Cuana, the wise man and bishop, who was probably its compiler in the shape in which it is quoted in the Annals of Ulster, first under the year A.D. 468, and for the last time under date A.D. 610.

The death of this distinguished bishop and scholar, "who was a man of uncommon erudition, and as a doctor was universally esteemed," marks the period at which the School of Louth reached the zenith of its fame. It were bootless to tell how it was again and again burned and pillaged by the Danes, who during the tenth century seem to have taken permanent possession of the monastery, although a round tower had been built to protect it, which was blown down in A.D. 981. The Celtic princes during the eleventh century frequently imitated the bad example of the Danes, for we are told that in A.D. 1043 one of the O'Rorkes organized a plundering expedition, or a hosting, as they loved to call it, against the monasteries of Louth and Dromiskin.

Yet the torch of learning still flickered on in Louth during the disastrous eleventh century, for the death of Molassius, lector of Louth, is recorded in A.D. 1047. It was totally destroyed in A.D. 1148, and although subsequently rebuilt, its fame as a school was eclipsed by other institutions during the twelfth century. But the monastery itself lived on down to the general suppression, and was largely endowed by successive generations of benefactors.

III.--THE SCHOOL OF EMLY--ST. AILBE.

When St. Colman left Noendrum, he went to study Scripture under St. Ailbe of Emly, and after his return he paid a visit to St. Caylan, or Mochta, who was therefore still alive. His death is given as occurring in the last years of the fifth century; and hence the School of St. Ailbe must have been founded some years previously.

This, however, raises another very interesting question as to the existence of pre-Patrician bishops in Ireland, that is, prelates who, although themselves contemporaries of St. Patrick, derived their orders and jurisdiction from another source. We cannot enter into a lengthened discussion of this question; but, on the other hand, we must not pass it over when treating of the monastic schools of the fifth century.

It is now generally admitted that there were many Christians in Ireland when St. Patrick first landed on our shores. He was neither the first nor the only Christian captive carried to Erin; and as we have already seen, frequent intercourse, whether friendly or hostile, did exist before St. Patrick's time between the Britons and the Celts of Ireland. The existence of Christians in Erin is in any case conclusively proved from the statement in St. Prosper's Chronicle, that Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to preach to the Scots, who believed in Christ.[143] To explain this definite statement as if it merely meant that he was sent to convert them to Christ, is to do violence to the language. The words clearly imply that the primary object of this mission was to gather into regular Christian communities the believers scattered throughout the island, to organize the Irish Church, and of course to labour also for the conversion of unbelievers. His mission was only very partially successful. He met with so much opposition in Leinster, that although he founded a few churches, his labours did not extend beyond that province, and after a short time he abandoned his Irish mission in despair.

We are told, too, in the ancient Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, that after crossing the Shannon near Battle Bridge, at a place then called Dumha Graidh--now Doogary--Patrick ordained his disciple St. Ailbe, to minister for the sons of Ailioll in that district, since called Shancoe, in the Barony of Tirerrill; and he showed him "a cave in the mountain and within it a wonderful stone altar, and on it were four chalices of glass." Such chalices were undoubtedly sometimes used in the early Church. Mention is also made of this wonderful stone altar in the Book of Armagh, so that the story is beyond doubt authentic, and shows that before St. Patrick's advent into Connaught there were Christians already there, and in a remote district, too, who had worshipped God in secret, like the early Christians of the Catacombs. Indeed, it would be a very extraordinary thing if there were no Christians to be found in Ireland before St. Patrick, seeing the frequent intercourse, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, that existed between the eastern coasts of Ireland and the western coasts of England.

But the question then arises, were there any prelates in Ireland exercising jurisdiction before the arrival of St. Patrick, who were not his disciples in the ordinary sense, and did not receive episcopal consecration at his hands? Such eminent authorities as Usher and Colgan, relying on the statements made in several ancient Lives of Saints, incline to the opinion that there were at least four bishops in Ireland before Patrick or Palladius, namely, Ailbe of Emly, Ciaran of Saigher, Declan of Ardmore, and Ibar of Beg-Eri. On the other hand, many recent authorities, led by Dr. Lanigan and Dr. Todd, hold that there is no foundation in our earliest documents for these pre-Patrician bishops; that the Lives containing an account of these prelates are forgeries of the eleventh or twelfth century, invented in the south of Ireland for the purpose of contesting the claim of Armagh to the primacy of all Ireland, and of establishing the new-fangled claims of the Bishop of Cashel to a primacy over the Southern Province. It is quite impossible with the evidence attainable at present to settle this question; so we shall only refer to it briefly.

There is a Life of St. Ailbe of Emly in the Salamanca MS. recently published. It certainly abounds in marvellous anachronisms as well as in marvellous miracles; and by itself cannot be deemed worthy of credit. From this Life we learn that Ailbe was a native of eastern Ara Cliach (not Eliach as Dr. Todd has it); that he was the son of Olcu (in the MS. Olcnais) by a female slave named Sant, and that King Cronan in whose household he was born, ordered him to be exposed under a steep cliff, where he was afterwards found alive[144] by a man named Lochan, who gave him to a family of the Britons to be nurtured. It is a striking fact that we find Britons in eastern Ara Cliach at this period, and it is conjectured that from them the Barony of Ballybrit takes its name. This fact would also go to explain how the child was reared a Christian at this early period by those Christian Britons. There Palladius, when he came to Munster, found the boy and baptized him. But when it is said by this writer not only that Palladius came to Ireland many years before St. Patrick, but conversed with King Conor Mac Nessa, who flourished in the first century of the Christian era, we see how little credence can be given to his statements.

Afterwards Ailbe went to Rome, and studied sacred Scripture there under the Bishop Hilary, who sent him to Pope Clement, in whose presence he was consecrated bishop by the 'ministry of angels.' There was a Pope Hilary who flourished from A.D. 461-467, but there is no record of any Pope Clement during the fourth or fifth century in Rome.

We are told that many of his countrymen followed Ailbe to Rome--twelve Colmans, twelve Kevins, and twelve Fintans--and lived with him in community in the holy city. Then Ailbe went to preach the Gospel in the cities of the Gentiles, where he wrought many miracles, and finally returned to his native country, landing first in the north of Ireland, in which he founded the Church of Cell Roid in Dalaradia. Then we find him in Magh Liffe with St. Brigid, and afterwards, according to the narrative, he met St. Patrick at the court of Ængus Mac Nadfraich at Cashel. We find him in the plain of Magh Femhin going to salute St. Patrick in company with Ibar; and an angel declared, when Ailbe was giving precedence to Ibar as the elder, that Ailbe, and not Ibar, should go first. This certainly looks like a suspicious attempt to procure a recognition of the primacy for Ailbe's See, which during the twelfth century was united to that of Cashel.

Ailbe also preached the Gospel in Connaught, and wrought numerous miracles there; but he must be distinguished from another Ailbe, the disciple of St. Patrick, who was ordained by that saint in Tirerrill, and "who is in Shancoe," as the Tripartite informs us. Afterwards an angel brought Ailbe to the place of his resurrection in Imleach Jubhair, or Emly of the Yew Tree. So this Life of Ailbe represents that saint as consecrated at Rome, getting an independent mission from the Pope to preach to the Gentiles, and while deferring to St. Patrick's higher authority, still duly constituted with the sanction of that saint as Metropolitan of Munster.

The Life of St. Declan contains some further particulars to the same effect not explicitly stated in the Life of Ailbe.

Declan was of the Nandesi race, who then dwelt in the Barony of Decies in Waterford--his father Erc being a chieftain of that tribe. The boy was baptized by a certain Colman and educated by Dimma, who was a learned and holy man that came to Waterford from foreign parts. By his advice it seems Declan also went to Rome, where he met St. Ailbe and became a member of his community. In Italy he also met St. Patrick, and Usher says this meeting took place so early as A.D. 402--thirty years before St. Patrick came to Ireland. Having been consecrated bishop in Rome, Declan returned to his native country to preach the Gospel amongst his own kindred, and there founded the see of Ardmore on an eminence overlooking the sea. He also tried to convert Ængus of Cashel, but failing in this attempt, he paid a visit to St. David in Wales. Here is a singular statement, which makes David Bishop of Menevia before Ængus was converted by St. Patrick--an event which took place nearly a hundred years before St. David's episcopacy. This Life of Declan then describes how the four prelates ordained abroad met St. Patrick, and how they entered into a friendly arrangement with him, not however without some difficulty. First of all Ciaran, the first-born of the saints of Erin, "yielded all subjection, and concord, and supremacy to Patrick both when present and absent." Ailbe also came to Cashel and accepted Patrick as his master and superior, in presence of Ængus the king. And this was all the more admirable, because the three Bishops, Declan, Ciaran and Ibar, had previously constituted Ailbe as their master and metropolitan; and hence he came to make his own submission to Patrick lest any of them might resist him. Ibar was the most reluctant to accept this arrangement, for being a decided home ruler "he was unwilling to receive a patron of Ireland from any foreign nation," and Patrick, though nurtured in Ireland, was by birth a Briton. At first, says the Life, there were conflicts between them--that is Patrick and Ibar--but afterwards at the persuasion of an angel, they made peace, and concord, and fraternity together.

If St. Peter and St. Paul had their own little disputes, it is not to be wondered that Celtic saints should sometimes differ amongst themselves. In the same spirit Declan, who at first was unwilling to submit to Patrick, as he himself also had the apostolic dignity, yet when admonished by an angel, crossed Slieve Gua, and came to Patrick to profess his obedience and submission.

"Thereupon Patrick and King Ængus, with all the people, ordained that the Archbishopric of Munster should be in the city and see of Saint Ailbe, who was then by them ordained archbishop for ever;" and Declan was formally authorized to take spiritual charge of the Desii, and became also their patron for ever. It is singular that no mention is made of Ciaran and Ibar as assenting to this arrangement, although it was previously stated that they also "came to an arrangement with Patrick."

It cannot be denied that this entire narrative, which is mainly taken from the Life of St. Declan, is exceedingly suspicious, and hence it is worthwhile to point out the arguments in favour of the possibility of its truth, and also the great difficulties against it.

There is one very significant reference to Ibar and Ailbe in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, which, notwithstanding the arguments of Dr. W. Stokes, we believe to have been written originally by St. Evin in the seventh century. It is this: when Patrick came to Cullen in the present barony of Coonagh, Co. Limerick, the Tripartite tells us that he ordered a Culdee of his household to resuscitate a child that had been half-devoured by a pig. "His faith failed him, however, and he said he would not tempt the Lord. Then Patrick ordered Bishops Ibar and Ailbe to bring the boy to life, and he besought the Lord along with them, and the boy was brought to life through Patrick's prayer."

"The Apostle turned To Ibar, and to Ailbe, bishops twain, And bade them raise the child. They heard and knelt; And Patrick knelt between them: and these three Upheaved a mighty strength of prayer; and lo! All pale, yet shining, rose the child, and sat, Lifting small hands, and to the people preached, And straightway they believed, and were baptized."

This passage represents St. Patrick as meeting these two Bishops in Munster, of whom there was previously heard nothing, and so far seems to confirm the statement in the Lives of these Saints that they were consecrated abroad, and not by St. Patrick.

Again, why should there not be bishops in Ireland before St. Patrick as well as priests and laymen? In his Confession, which has been always regarded as an authentic document, St. Patrick himself says:--"For your sake I faced many dangers, going even to the limits of the land where no one was before me, and whither no one had yet come to baptize, or ordain clerics, or confirm the faithful." This certainly seems to imply that in the less remote parts of the country there may have been priests, or even bishops, who did perform these functions before him.

The chief difficulty against the authenticity of the Lives of St. Ciaran, St. Declan, and St. Ailbe, is a chronological one. If they were bishops before St. Patrick, how could they have lived down to the first quarter or even to the middle of the sixth century, as some of them are said to have done? St. Ibar died, it seems, the earliest, about A.D. 500; but Ailbe's death is given in the Annals of Ulster under date of A.D. 526, and again at A.D. 533 and 541, which shows that at least he must have lived through the first quarter of the sixth century. Ciaran of Saigher was at the School of Clonard, and is spoken of as the friend of his namesake of Clonmacnoise, and of the two Brendans, who were students in the same great seminary; and according to many authorities, Declan lived late into this same century, if not into the next. The authors of the Lives were not unconscious of this difficulty, and boldly meet it by giving to these saints lives of extraordinary duration, extending from 200 to 300, and even to 400 years. Statements of this kind cannot of course be accepted, and of themselves throw suspicion on the authenticity of those Lives. As a matter of fact, however, it is not at all necessary to assume that those saints lived so long in order to be contemporaries of St. Patrick, and even consecrated before him. St. Patrick, according to the common chronology, was about sixty years of age when he came to Ireland, so that Ibar or Ailbe might have been consecrated before him and still have outlived him some twenty or thirty years, if we only assume that they reached the same great age as St. Patrick himself. Our own opinion is that Ibar and Ailbe, if not also Ciaran and Declan, were not consecrated in Erin but abroad; that probably they had returned to their native country before St. Patrick, and were engaged in preaching the Gospel to their countrymen when he arrived in Ireland; but the great fame and success of St. Patrick eclipsed their labours; and then they also consented to become his disciples and recognise his superior authority and greater success.

IV.--ST. IBAR.

There is, however, in the Scholia on Ængus a curious story which would seem to imply that Ibar, at least, was at first somewhat reluctant to yield to St. Patrick's authority. It is said that he had a great conflict with Patrick, and that "he left the roads full and the kitchens empty in Armagh." Patrick was thereupon angry with him, and this is what he said: "Thou shalt not be in Ireland," quoth Patrick. "Ireland (Eri) shall be the name of the place wherein I am," quoth Bishop Ibar. Whence, Beg-Eri (or Little Ireland) was so called, that is, the island which is in "Ui-Cenn-selaig and out on the sea it is."[145] It is stated in the same place that Bishop Ibar was 353 years when he died.

It seems to us highly probable that Ibar was a pre-Patrician bishop; although he afterwards yielded to St. Patrick, and in a certain sense became his disciple. He was of the race of the Hy-Eathach of Ulster, who have given their name to the barony of Iveagh in the Co. Down, not in Armagh as Todd seems to assert. Of his life only few notices are preserved besides those already referred to. Mella, his sister, was mother of St. Abban, and it is in the Life of this nephew of Ibar that we find the most important notices with reference to Ibar himself. We cannot say with certainty where Ibar received his early training; an abbot, St. Motta, is mentioned as his first instructor in sacred learning, but, if he be not St. Mochtae of Louth, nothing further is known concerning him. In Tirechan's Collections in the Book of Armagh, an ancient and venerable authority, we find the name of Iborus in the list of bishops consecrated by St. Patrick, and the name seems identical with Ibar.[146] At one time it is said the saint was placed by St. Patrick in charge of St. Brigid's community at Kildare, in which office he was succeeded by St. Conlaeth. He afterwards preached the Gospel in Leix and Hy-Kinselagh, converting many to the faith. At length he came to Wexford and resolved to retire from the active missionary life, and devote the remainder of his years to prayer and sacred study. For this purpose he took possession of the small island of Beg-Eri, or Begery, in the north-west of Wexford Harbour. Here he built his oratory and cell about the year A.D. 485, some fifteen years before his death. Like many other of our Irish Saints, he loved to rest within the hearing of the great Sea, and we are told that he had previously spent some time in one of the islands off the wild west coast of Ireland--perhaps in Aran.

A man so famed for sanctity and learning could not thus escape from his disciples. They soon discovered his retreat, and crowded round him in his island home. It was easy enough to build their cells of stone or wattles; fish abounded in the channels around the island, and countless flocks of wild fowl covered the pools, so that it would not be difficult to find food for the scholars, even in this small island of twenty-one acres. Amongst the rest was his own nephew, St. Abban the Elder, who became one of his most distinguished scholars, and was the spiritual father and first teacher of the great St. Finnian of Clonard.

We are told in the Life of St. Abban that "at this time innumerable holy monks and nuns in various parts of Ireland lived under the direction of Ibar, so that in the Litany of Ængus are invoked three thousand father confessors, who gathered together under Bishop Ibar to consider certain questions. He lived, however, chiefly in his celebrated monastery of Beg-Eri, because he loved that place more than any other. It is situated in a small island off the southern part of Hy-Kinselagh, ramparted by the sea; and in that same island the remains of the holy prelate rest, and the place itself is greatly honoured by all the Irish on account of their veneration for St. Ibar, and the wondrous miracles performed there through his intercession."

We are also told that Abban was only twelve years old when he came to the School of Beg-Eri, and that he made great progress there under the direction of Ibar in the study of the Sacred Scriptures and of all the liberal arts, so that his companions wondered much at his great learning and eloquence. Ibar wishing to go to Rome on a pilgrimage, resolved to leave the charge of his monastic school to Abban during his absence. Abban, however, ardently desiring to see the Holy City of the Apostles, earnestly besought his uncle to allow him to go in the same ship; but all in vain, until with the aid of an angel he was borne over the waves, and thus reaching the vessel, he was allowed to come on board. Thus both the pilgrims visited Rome, passing through Britain on their way, and after many wonderful incidents returned in safety to Lough Garman. Then Abban himself went through Erin preaching the Gospel, and founding monasteries in various parts of the country. So it came to pass that the learning and discipline of the School of Beg-Eri were carried to other parts of Ireland, and that seed was scattered, which in the next century produced such marvellous fruit throughout all the land. St. Ibar died on the 23rd of April, A.D. 500, in his beloved island retreat; and there he was buried, where the prayers of his children and the voices of the sea would murmur round his grave for ages.

Not for ever--for Beg-Eri was one of the first of our religious schools to feel the destroying presence of the Danes around our coasts. So early as A.D. 819 it was plundered by the Danes. In A.D. 884 is recorded the death of its abbot, Diarmaid, and of Cruinmeal in A.D. 964. The citizens of Wexford kept it as a place of refuge and security for their Norman prisoners, when the town was besieged by Strongbow in A.D. 1172. The veracious Gerald Barry tells us that St. Ibar had expelled the rats from his island, so that not one of them could live there, or even be born in it afterwards.

For ages, however, it continued to be regarded as a very holy shrine, and the men of Wexford made frequent pilgrimages to the grave of its holy founder.

Colonel Solomon Richards, a Cromwellian adventurer, who settled in Wexford, published, in A.D. 1682, an interesting, but bigoted account of the Barony of Forth.[147] He tells us that in "the little chapel (of Beg-Eri) there was a wooden image of the Saint (whom he calls Iberian), and people go there to worship him, and settle any cases of controversy that may arise amongst them by oath before the image of the Saint. Moreover, if any false charge were made against a man, the parties take boat to the island, the suspected man swears that the charge is false, and this oath before the Saint is at once readily accepted as satisfactory proof of innocence. Once or twice, 'idle fellows who love not wooden gods,' stole away St. Iberian, and burned him, but the image was miraculously restored, as the silly people believe, once more to its place." It is well known that similar wooden images of the patron saints have been preserved in the islands of Innismurray and Inisgloria down to our own time.

Beg-Eri is no longer an island. The slob-lands of the harbour have been reclaimed, and this most interesting spot has become part and parcel of the main-land. It was discovered during the process of the reclamation works that Beg-Eri was in ancient times connected by a causeway or togher with the adjoining 'Great Island.' The remains of the togher, consisting of two rows of oak piles, were still found in situ; an ancient wharf also stood at the northern extremity of the island, close to the Bunatroe Channel, which ran between the island and the shore, but it has now disappeared. The old church of Ard Colum and a holy well are on the main-land due west of Beg-Eri; to the south was another old church and well dedicated to St. Coemhan, brother of the saint of Glendalough, and popularly called Ard-Cavan. The ancient oratory of Ibar on Beg-Eri has entirely disappeared, but the remains of a much more modern church are still to be seen surrounded by a grave-yard, with numerous ancient head-stones. Two of these flags--one red and the other green--are inscribed with ancient crosses, but no names are to be found. Taking into account its antiquity and history, we must regard Beg-Eri as one of the most interesting spots in Ireland, and we cannot but regret that its insular character has been effaced by modern improvements.

V.--EARLY SCHOOLS IN THE WEST OF IRELAND.

Neither was the West of Ireland without its own schools even so early as the latter part of the fifth century. The first school in the West seems to have been established by St. Benignus at his own monastery of Kilbannon, about three miles to the north of Tuam. His sister Mathona was, as we have seen, one of the first nuns veiled in Erin, and settled down at Tawnagh, in the county Sligo, where she founded a church and convent under the guidance of Bishop Cairell, a disciple of St. Patrick.

Benignus belonged to the race of Cian of Cashel, son of Oilioll Olum.[148] Two offshoots of this family established themselves, one in the barony of Keenaght, in the County Derry, to which they gave their name, and the other in Bregia, to which the family of St. Benignus belonged. It is stated indeed in the Leabhar Breac, and in the Book of Rights, that he belonged to the Cianachta of Gleann Geimhin (Glengiven), but that is clearly a mistake, except the name be taken to include both the families of Meath and of Derry, which is not unlikely.

A third branch of the same family had settled down in the barony of Leyney (Luighne), county Sligo; and that Luigh, from whom they took their name, was according to the genealogies, a first cousin of the father of Benignus. This would, no doubt, help to explain why the virgin Mathona founded her convent at Tawnagh, near her cousins, in the county Sligo, and would also help to explain the special preference which Benignus himself manifested in favour of the western province.

He had been commissioned, it is said, by St. Patrick to preach especially in those districts, which he himself had not visited. Accordingly we are told that Benen preached in Kerry, in Clare, and in South Connaught, the very localities which St. Patrick did not find time to visit. He blessed Connaught, too, with a special blessing from Bundrowes, near Bundoran, to Limerick, and the grateful natives paid to him and his successors a yearly tribute of milk and butter, calves and lambs, as well as first fruits of the rest of their produce.

Now Kilbannon,[149] in South Connaught, was Benen's principal church, and continued to be for many centuries a very important religious foundation, as its ruined round tower still proves. But Benen was above all things a scholar and a psalm-singer, so he founded a school for young ecclesiastics in his monastery, of the history of which unfortunately we know little or nothing.

He had at least one illustrious disciple, and that was St. Jarlath, afterwards Bishop of Tuam. It has been said that Jarlath could not have been a disciple of Benignus before A.D. 455, when the latter was transferred to Armagh. We answer that Jarlath was an old man in A.D. 512, when St. Brendan of Clonfert became his disciple at Cluainfois, near Tuam, and hence there is nothing to prevent Jarlath being a disciple of Benignus, if he were about the same age that Benignus himself was, when he became a disciple of St. Patrick.

St. Jarlath founded his own college at Cluainfois towards the end of the fifth century. Colgan fixes the date at A.D. 510; but there are passages in the Life of St. Brendan, which go to show that it must have been founded at an earlier date, probably about the year A.D. 500. Of this college at Cluainfois, and of St. Jarlath's School at Tuam, we shall have something more to say hereafter.

Lanigan, quoting the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, says that there was an episcopal seminary at Elphin, in the County Roscommon, governed by St. Asicus, even at this early period. In truth all that we know of St. Asicus is derived from the Tripartite. The beautiful site on which the monastery was built got its name, Ailfind, from the white stone that was raised out of the well, which was made by Patrick in the green, and "that stone stands on the brink of the well," says the author of the Tripartite, "and it is called from the water"--that is, Elphin means the stone of the clear stream. That clear and bountiful spring still flows through the street of Elphin before the site of the monastery of Asicus, literally in the green, and it is only a short time since the stone itself was carried off by some profane hands. It is now, we believe, somewhere at or near the Protestant Church in the town of Elphin.

Patrick blessed Ono the converted Druid, who gave him that beautiful site overlooking to the south, the fertile and far-reaching plain of Magh Aei, and added, moreover:--"Thy seed shall be blessed, and there shall be victory of laymen and clerics from thee for ever, and they shall have the inheritance of this place."

Then Patrick placed over the infant Church of Elphin Asicus, and Bite or Biteus, the son of Asicus, and Cipia, mother of Bite the Bishop. The family was, doubtless, of the race of Ono the Druid, and it seems they were held in high repute in the neighbourhood. Asicus himself must have been advanced in years, but he was an expert artificer in metal-work; and we are told that he made altars, patens or altar-stones (miassa), and square book-covers for Patrick, and these patens were so highly prized that one was taken to Armagh, another was kept in Elphin, and a third was taken far westward to the Church of Domnach Mor Maige Seolai, and placed on the altar of Bishop Felart. It is very probable that these square miassa were stone or metal altar-flags, and were used to place over the rude altars of the churches during the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, a practice still common in the country where duly consecrated altars are not to be had.

No doubt St. Asicus attended to these duties, whilst his son, Bishop Biteus, took care of his infant monastery and school. It was the very infancy of the Church in Ireland, for Elphin was one of St. Patrick's earliest foundations, dating from the year A.D. 434 or 435. It has always continued to hold a distinguished position amongst the episcopal sees of the West; and although the Bishop dwells there no longer, it still gives title to the most ancient of the Western Sees.

Asicus himself--in shame because of a lie told either by him, or as others say of him--fled into Donegal, and for seven years abode in the island of Rathlin O'Birne. Then his monks sought him out, and after much labour found him in the mountain glens, and tried to bring him home to his own monastery at Elphin. But he fell sick by the way, and died with them in the wilderness. So they buried the venerable old man in the churchyard of Rath Cunga--now Racoon, in the barony of Tirhugh, County Donegal. The old churchyard is there still, though now disused, on the summit of a round hillock close to the left of the road from Ballyshannon to Donegal, about a mile to the south of the village of Ballintra. We sought in vain for any trace of an inscribed stone in the old churchyard. He fled from men during life, and, like Moses, his grave is hidden from them in death.

The artistic spirit, however, remained in Elphin; and, as we shall see hereafter, some of the most beautiful works of the twelfth century were designed and executed by the spiritual sons of St. Asicus.

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