XV. THE LATER COLUMBIAN SCHOOLS IN IRELAND…

XV. THE LATER COLUMBIAN SCHOOLS IN IRELAND

"A voice from the ocean waves, And a voice from the forest glooms, And a voice from old temples and kingly graves, And a voice from the catacombs." --Aubrey de Vere.

I.--KELLS HEAD OF THE COLUMBIAN HOUSES.

During the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries Kells became the Head of the Columbian Monasteries, and produced several distinguished men. Its professors are frequently referred to during this period in our Annals, especially during the eleventh century. Two of them bore the name of Ua h Uchtain, of whom one was unhappily "drowned coming from Alba, with the bed of Columcille--it was a stone--and three of Patrick's relics, and thirty persons along with him." In A.D. 1050 died Maelan of Ceanannus, a distinguished sage; and eleven years later the death of Ciaran is noticed, another distinguished sage of the same school.

Meanwhile Kells did not escape the ravages of the Danes. In A.D. 949, recte 951, it suffered greatly. Godfrey, King of the Danes of Dublin, marched to Kells, and having plundered all the country round about, returned home with "3,000 captives, besides gold, silver, raiment, and various wealth and goods of every description."[280] Although Kells suffered much in various attacks, both before and after this date, it is doubtful if the good monks of Columcille were ever so completely cleaned out as on that occasion. It is called an expilatio by an old chronicler--pillage that left nothing after it. Kells was five times plundered during the tenth century; once also at the close of the ninth, and once at the opening of the eleventh century; and it was burned during the same period even oftener than it was plundered. Yet the school and monastery lived on, and after the Danish wars seem to have become once more quite flourishing.

The celebrated Cathach, to which we referred when speaking of the School of Moville, was enshrined at Kells about the close of the eleventh century. On the margin of the under silver plate of the casket, which contains the MS., the following words in Gaelic are still quite legible.

"Pray for Cathbarr O'Donnell for whom this casket was made, and for Sitric, son of Mac Aedha, who made it, and for Domnald Mac Robartaigh Comarb of Kells, at whose house it was made." As this abbot of Kells died in A.D. 1098 the cumdach, or casket, must have been fabricated by MacHugh's son before that date, probably at the joint expense of O'Donnell and the abbot.

The family of Mac Robartaigh seems to have produced several distinguished scholars during this century, many of whom were connected with the monastic school of Kells. The Mac Robartaigh clan appears to have belonged to Donegal. The parish of Ballymacgroarty in Tirhugh was most likely their family inheritance, as it takes its name from the clan. The celebrated Marianus Scotus was a member of the same family; for in his own hand he describes himself as Muredach Mac Robartaig, giving his original Irish name, instead of the literary patronymic, which his learning and virtue have immortalised.

II.--THIS MARIANUS SCOTUS,

Scribe and Commentator on Sacred Scripture, must be carefully distinguished from his countryman and namesake Marianus Scotus the Chronicler. We have fortunately an authentic Life of the former written by another Irishman, who was an inmate of the same religious house as Marianus, and who tells us that he derived his information from Father Isaac, then living, the life-long associate of Marianus himself.

This Life sets forth that Marianus was a native of the North of Ireland, but does not name the locality in which he was born. In his early youth he was handed over by his parents to the care of certain religious men in order to be trained up for the clerical state in all learning and pious discipline. There is hardly a doubt that the reference here is to the monks of Drumhome, in the barony of Tirhugh, county Donegal. The old monastic church was situated near the sea shore, where the boy must have often wandered in view of the noble mountains that rise up so grandly beyond the bay, and in the sight and hearing of the wild Atlantic waves that break upon its shore. Later on he was doubtless sent to Kells to complete his studies, for several members of his family presided over that abbey about this period.

We gather from statements made by Marianus himself, that he left Ireland in A.D. 1067; and therefore just eleven years after the departure of his namesake, Marianus the Chronicler. At this period old Father Isaac described him to the writer of his life, as a handsome fair-haired youth, strong-limbed and tall, moreover a man of goodly mien, and gracious eloquence, well trained in all human and divine knowledge.[281] His purpose was to go on pilgrimage to Rome; but calling to see Bishop Otho of Bamberg, he was induced to remain with that prelate for a whole year. Subsequently the bishop gave Marianus and his two companions a cell at the foot of the mountain, in which they lived as recluses, the bishop generously supplying their simple wants.

After the Bishop's death they journeyed on to Ratisbon, where they were once more induced to stay at the earnest entreaty of the venerable abbess Emma and her nuns. As before they lived as recluses in their own little cells, Marianus devoting himself with great zeal to the composition and transcription of religious books for the good abbess Emma and her nuns. He also found leisure to write books for the monks around Ratisbon; "for his pen was swift, his handwriting clear and beautiful, and his labour incessant." He worked so diligently in his cell that his two companions, John and Candidus--Irishmen also--found quite enough to do in preparing the parchments which he filled up with the words of salvation. We are expressly told that they all laboured without fee or reward--giving their books gratuitously, contenting themselves with the poorest raiment and the plainest and scantiest fare. "To tell the truth without a fog of words," says the writer of the Life of Marianus, "amongst all the things which Divine Providence wrought by the hands of the said Marianus, nothing in my opinion is so wonderful and praiseworthy as the zeal with which the holy man, not once or twice, but frequently transcribed with his own hand the entire Old and New Testament with commentaries and explanations; while at the same time he wrote many smaller books, and psalters for poor widows, and for the needy clerics in the same city (of Ratisbon), and that, too, merely for his soul's sake, without any hope of earthly gain. Moreover, many monastic congregations in faith and charity imitating the same blessed Marianus, having come from that same Ireland (Hibernia), and now dwelling throughout Bavaria and Franconia, are for the most part sustained by the writings of that same holy man."

Such is the noble testimony borne to the learning, zeal, and charity of this pure-souled Irish monk in the land of the stranger. And therefore it was that, not without good reason, he and his countrymen were so warmly welcomed and so generously treated in all the great cities of mediæval Germany.

But Marianus was quite as remarkable for the holiness of his life as for his learning and literary labours. "He was," says the writer of his Life, "like Moses, the meekest of men; and God bestowed upon him in a wonderful way the gift of healing many diseases, but especially fevers, and not only during his life, as I have heard from trustworthy witnesses, but at his tomb after his death, as I have seen with my own eyes."

We cannot now, however, give an account of the celebrated monastery of St. James of Ratisbon, which was founded by Marianus for his countrymen, who came to that city in great numbers towards the close of the eleventh century, nor of the great scholars which it produced.

Marianus is described by Aventinus in the Annals of Bavaria as a distinguished poet and theologian--poeta et theologus insignis--second to no man of his time. His poems are unfortunately lost, but his Commentaries still remain to us at least in manuscript. His Commentary on the Psalms was so highly valued, as Aventinus tells us, that it was not allowed outside of the walls of the monastic library without a valuable deposit being left to secure its safe return. There is in the Cotton collection a codex not yet published entitled Liber Mariani genere Scoti excerptus de Evangelistarum voluminibus sive Doctoribus.

His most famous work, however, is the codex containing the Epistles of St. Paul, with a marginal and interlinear commentary. This precious MS. is now in the Imperial Library at Vienna,[282] and is especially valuable because it contains several entries in the old and pure Gaedhlic of the eleventh century.[283] It is quite astonishing what a number of writers is quoted by Marianus in the marginal gloss--Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus, Arnobius, St. Gregory, Origen, St. Leo the Great, Alcuin, Cassian, Peter the Deacon, Pelagius, and the Ambrosiaster are all laid under tribute. We wonder how many Irish scholars of the present day are acquainted with them.

This great work was completed on Friday, the 16th day before the kalends of June, A.D. 1079--he marks the date himself, and asks the reader to say 'Amen' to the brief prayer for his soul's salvation. "Amen, God rest him" (Amen Got der Erleich), wrote a pious old German of the fifteenth century on the face of the page in response to this pious request. Amen say we too--may God give him rest--that God whom he served so well during all the years of his pilgrimage in the land of the stranger.

"And now, my brothers," says the eloquent old Irish monk, who wrote the Life of Marianus, thinking no doubt of his own far-off home in Ireland by the swelling Boyne or winding Erne; "and now my brothers, if you should ask me what will be the reward of Marianus and pilgrims like him, who left the sweet soil of their native land which is free from every noxious beast and worm, with its mountains and hills, its valleys and its groves so well suited for the chase, the picturesque expanses of its rivers, its green fields and its streams welling up from purest fountains, and like the children of Abraham the Patriarch, came without hesitation unto the land which God had pointed out to them, this is my answer: They will dwell in the house of the Lord with the Angels and Archangels of God for ever; they will behold in Sion the God of Gods, to whom be honour and glory for endless ages."

The exact date of the death of Marianus is not marked, but it seems to have occurred in A.D. 1088, just six years after the death of his namesake the Chronicler. After Adamnan he was the most distinguished writer produced by the Columbian Schools.[284]

III.--THE LATER SCHOOL OF DERRY.

As the great Columbian order of monks and scholars began in the Black Cell of Derry, so also from Derry flashed out the latest bright gleams of that sacred lamp which Columba had kindled, and which at one time irradiated both Scotland and Ireland. Kells held the principatus during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, as we have already stated; but during the twelfth century Derry came again to the front, and produced a large number of very distinguished men, most of whom belonged to a famous literary family named Ua Brolchain, or O'Brollaghan. This family derived its descent from Suibhne Meann, who was King of Ireland from A.D. 615 to 628. He was of the Cenel-Eoghain, but belonged to a sub-division known as the Cenel-Feradhaich, whose tribe-land seems to have been in the barony of Clogher, County Tyrone. The first of the Ua Brolchain family noticed in our Annals is Maelbrighde, whose death is recorded in A.D. 1029. He is described as chief builder of his time in Erin.[285]

The next of the name whom we meet with is St. Maelisa O'Brolchain, a very celebrated man, who died A.D. 1086. He was probably an alumnus of the monastery of Derry, but afterwards retired to Both-chonais, an ancient monastic church in Inishowen, which is best known from its connection with this holy and learned man. It was delightfully situated[286] on the margin of a semicircular bay in the north-western extremity of Inishowen, where the fierce Atlantic billows spend their force in broken wavelets on its sandy shore. It is well sheltered on the east and south by a range of steep and rugged hills. The entire parish of Clonmany, in which it was situated, abounds in natural curiosities as well as in objects of antiquarian interest, such as cromlechs, raths, and castles perched on lofty crags.

No traces of the old monastery now remain, but its site is probably marked by an old church-yard in the townland of Binnion, situated close to a narrow inlet of the bay, and in a spot which a sea-king of old might fitly choose as the site of his stronghold. The place got its name of Both-chonais--the House of Conas--from its founder, who was the husband of St. Patrick's sister, Darerca, and by her the father of two holy bishops, Mael and Maelchu. It is referred to at intervals as a place of some celebrity during the ninth and tenth centuries, and the death of its Airchinneach is recorded in A.D. 1049.

Maelisa O'Brolchain shunned church dignities, if he were not indeed a lay professor; but all the same he certainly acquired great fame even in this remotest corner of Erin both as a teacher and a scholar. The Four Masters describe him as "the learned senior (or sage) of Ireland, a paragon of wisdom and piety, in poetry as well as in both languages--(Irish and Latin)." The term 'chief senior' is never given except to the most eminent men, who were recognised as such by their contemporary annalists. Colgan speaks of him, too, in the highest terms as an humble man shunning all worldly honours, and devoted to a pious and studious life. He was the author of many books "replete with genius and intellect," which were preserved in the neighbourhood of Both-chonais in Colgan's time, but have since unfortunately perished. "I have in my own possession," adds Colgan, "some few fragments which he wrote," and which also appear to have completely disappeared since Colgan's time. Even the site of his monastery is uncertain. O'Donovan seems to think it was in the townland of Binnion; but Reeves places it in the townland of Carrowmore, parish of Culdaff, on the left-hand side of the road from Moville to Carn, and about three miles from the latter village.[287] It is said that he founded an oratory at Lismore, which was burned in A.D. 1116, and is called the Oratory of Maelisa. He may have spent some time either as a student or as a teacher in that celebrated seminary. He died in A.D. 1086 at a very advanced age, for he had no sickness, but simply gave back his soul to God. This holy and eminent scholar seems to have belonged to that class of learned lay professors, of whom Conn-na-m-Bocht at Clonmacnoise was the most remarkable example. They were equally renowned for holiness and learning, but abstained from taking Holy Orders either from humility, or in order to have more leisure and more freedom in the pursuit of knowledge.

The death of Aedh, son of Maelisa O'Brolchain, who is described as "an eminent professor" (praecipuus lector), is recorded in A.D. 1095. He was, doubtless, the son of Maelisa of Both-chonais, and probably lectured either there or in the monastery of Derry. Two years afterwards, in A.D. 1097, the Four Masters record the death of Maelbrighde Mac-an-tsaer O'Brolchain, Bishop of Kildare, who is described as a 'learned doctor.' There can hardly be a doubt that he was the son of that chief builder--prim saer--whose fame as a mason or architect was known throughout all Erin, and who died in A.D. 1029. Then we find two members of the family raised to the primatial Chair; one was Maelcolaim--disciple of Columba--O'Brolchain, who died in A.D. 1122; and another, named also Maelbrighde O'Brolchain, who died in A.D. 1137. It is not unlikely he belonged to the class of laymen who claimed jurisdiction over, and called themselves "Bishops of Armagh" during a portion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; for "Flaithbhertach, 'son of Bishop O'Brolchain,'"[288] was Comarb of Columcille in Derry from A.D. 1150 to 1175. The history of this remarkable man is especially noteworthy.

When he was elected as Comarb of Columcille to the abbacy of Derry, in A.D. 1150, that ancient monastic seat of learning was, it appears, very much dilapidated. Like other places near the sea, it was greatly exposed to the ravages of the Danes, and had been several times plundered and burned. Most of the buildings were of wood, for the great stone church--Temple-more--was not yet built. A new era of ecclesiastical architecture was, however, inaugurated in Ireland towards the middle of the twelfth century by the workmen whom the Cistercians brought over from France and England to build their own magnificent churches and monasteries. Nothing like them had yet been seen in the land. There were Irish workmen, however, who, if opportunity offered, would be worthy rivals of the masons that built the Norman abbeys in France and England; and they gave proof of their capacity in the building of Cormac's Chapel at Cashel, which is a gem in its own way that cannot be surpassed. The Abbot of Derry came of a family that had won renown as builders, and he was anxious to show his own taste and skill in the renovation of the ancient monastery over which he had just been placed. Money, of course, was wanting, but it could not be long wanting to the Comarb of Columcille, if he were resolved to procure it. He made an official visitation of the Cenel-Eoghain, to whose kith and kin he himself belonged, and 'received his tribute,' in A.D. 1150--the year of his appointment to Derry. Next year he made a visitation of the Siol-Cathusaigh in the County Antrim, "and he obtained a horse from every chieftain, and a sheep from every hearth, and his horse and battle dress, and a ring of gold, in which were two ounces, from O'Lynn, their lord." In A.D. 1153 he made a visitation of the Dal Cairbre, and the Ui Eathach Uladh, and got a horse from every chieftain, and a sheep from every house, and a screaball, a horse, and five cows from O'Donlevy himself, and an ounce of gold from his wife. Coined money was scarce; but cattle and horses were plenty, and would do as well. Later on he even visited Ossory, and raised his tribute, and procured immunity for the Columbian churches in Meath from all assessments except, we presume, his own. Being at this time Head of the Columbian Order, he was, doubtless, present at the great Synod of Kells, which was held in that city by Cardinal Paparo in A.D. 1152; and during that year we find he made no official visitation elsewhere. No doubt he had enough on his hands; and we may be sure he voted for that Canon of the Council which ordered tithes to be regularly assessed for Church purposes on all the lands of Erin. It was what he had himself twice done already, and what he could now do, not only with custom, but with law also in his favour.

O'Brolchain made an excellent use of the funds which he thus procured. He removed all the houses that surrounded and disfigured the church of Derry, and then built on the site of the old church that new Temple Mor which gives its name to the parish, and appears to have been a large and imposing structure. The Four Masters say it was eighty feet long, and that it was built by O'Brolchain and his clergy, with the help of the king of Ireland, in forty days. If so, the materials must have been all prepared, and a large number of tradesmen must have been employed, which is not unlikely, seeing that he had already built a limekiln[289] measuring seventy feet every way, which took him twenty days to construct. The limekiln was built in A.D. 1163; but the church was not erected until A.D. 1165, and it is highly probable that the walls were being built in the meantime, and that the Four Masters mean that the church was covered in during the space of 60 days, which might easily be done. Doubtless, O'Brolchain constructed many other buildings also at Derry, for otherwise he would scarcely have occasion for building that enormous limekiln.

The merits of O'Brolchain were fully appreciated by the clergy and people of the north, and led to his formal elevation to the episcopal order in the year A.D. 1158. He had previously enjoyed large jurisdiction as Comarb of Columcille not only in Derry, but over the Columbian Churches generally. It was felt, however, especially after the Synod of Kells, that this state of things was now becoming anomalous and unsatisfactory, and might lead to a conflict of jurisdiction between the Comarb of Columcille and the regular diocesan authority. Hence it was resolved at a meeting of the Irish Clergy, held in Meath in that year, to raise O'Brolchain to the episcopal dignity, and circumscribe his jurisdiction by assigning him a definite territory. The Four Masters record it in this manner:--

A.D. 1158. "A Synod of the Clergy of Ireland was convened at Bri Mac Taidgh in Laeghaire (near Trim), when there were present twenty-five bishops, with the legate of the Successor of Peter to ordain rules and good morals. It was on this occasion the clergy of Ireland, with the successor of Patrick, ordered a Chair, like every other bishop, for the successor of Columcille--Flaithbheartach Ua Brolchain--and the Arch-abbacy of the churches of Ireland in general." Very little is known of the history of this Synod; but we may note the following important facts:--The legate of the Comarb of Peter was Christian, Bishop of Lismore; his presence at the Synod was sufficient to authorize the bishops to proceed to the erection of a new See. The 'Chair' spoken of means not merely a chair in that assembly, but a new diocese, with all the rights and privileges canonically appertaining thereto. The new bishop was, however, still allowed to retain, and perhaps for the first time canonically to acquire, the Headship of all the Columbian monasteries. It may be that Kells was still a rival, and that its abbot also claimed to be Comarb of Columba; if so, this decree settled the question; and the new bishop of Derry was formally recognised as the Head of all the Columbian houses in Erin--for at that time there could be no question of any other.

Thus it was that the See of Derry was established. Mention is made of a Bishop of Derry previously, and of a Bishop-abbot of Derry; but it was, so to speak, by accident that this took place. There was no See of Derry, and no Diocese of Derry until A.D. 1158, when O'Brolchain was formally elevated to that dignity. It is not unlikely that he too was in Episcopal Orders previously--but now for the first time he got a chair or diocese. This eminent ecclesiastic, the founder of the Diocese of Derry, died in A.D. 1175, and the Four Masters record his death with the following honourable testimony:--

"Flaithbhertach O'Brolchain, Comarb of Columcille, a tower of wisdom and hospitality, a man on whom on account of his goodness and wisdom the clergy of Ireland had bestowed a bishop's chair, to whom the abbacy of Hy had been offered (in A.D. 1164), died in righteousness, after exemplary sickness, in the Duibhregles of Columcille; and Gilla Mac Taidgh Ua Brenain was appointed to his place in the abbacy." It is a curious fact that in A.D. 1173, we find recorded the death of Muiredhach Ua Cobthaich, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe; but it only implies that before the year A.D. 1158 he was the bishop territorially of Derry; for after that date he could have no legal claim to the See.

During the half-century between A.D. 1100 and 1150, Iona was under the influence of the Kings of Norway, especially of Magnus the Great, who subjected the island to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Man; but in A.D. 1156 royal Somerlid recovered Hy and others of the 'Southern' islands. Being himself a Celt of Irish blood, he was anxious to restore the Celtic influence in the island; and hence we find that in A.D. 1164, at his instance the abbacy of Hy was offered to O'Brolchain, Abbot and Bishop of Derry. But O'Brolchain being now Bishop of Derry, and the recognised head of the Columbian Order, declined to accept the abbacy of Hy, preferring to remain in Derry. Domhnall O'Brolchain, however, was appointed to the insular abbacy, and being, like all his family, a building man, he determined to signalize his reign by the erection of a great church in Hy. It was the cathedral whose ruins are still to be seen, and they furnish a striking monument of the taste and munificence of the Irish Abbot. On the capital of the tower column are inscribed the still legible words--DONALDUS O'BROLCHAN FECIT HOC OPUS. We cannot have absolute certainty; but there can be no reasonable doubt of the identity of this name with the Domhnall O'Brolchain, the prior and exalted senior, whose death the Annals of Ulster record in A.D. 1203, and the Four Masters in A.D. 1202. After his death a certain Cellach,[290] "without any legal right, and in despite of the family of Hy, erected a monastery there in the middle of Cro-Hy." But the clergy of the North of Erin, bishops and abbots, passed over into Hy and pulled down this new monastery; and Awley O'Ferrall was elected Abbot of Hy by the suffrages both of the Foreigners and Gaedhil. This points to an attempt made by the foreign influence to eject the Irish monks from Hy; but for once it signally failed. The last entry in our Annals records the death of Flann O'Brolchain, the last Irish Abbot of Hy, in the year A.D. 1219. Thenceforward it ceased to be Irish, and became a purely Scottish monastery and remained so until the Reformation.

IV.--GELASIUS.

We cannot pass away from the School of Derry without some reference to one of the most distinguished men it ever produced--the celebrated Gelasius, who succeeded St. Malachy in the See of Armagh. He was one of that noble band of prelates who, with Celsus, and St. Malachy at their head, did so much for the true reformation of the Irish Church in discipline and morals during the half-century that immediately preceded the advent of the Anglo-Normans to our shores.

Gelasius in his native tongue was called Gilla Mac Liag, and also Gilla Mac Liag Mic Ruaidhre. The term Mac Liag is commonly taken to mean the 'son of the scholar;' and Harris assures us that he was so called because his father was esteemed a man of learning, and the most considerable poet of his age. He is sometimes called Diarmaid, which explains why his son is called Gilla Mac Liag Mic Ruaidhri, that is the youngster, the son of the scholar, who was the son of Ruaidhri. We know nothing further of his family or birth-place; but Colgan, who had excellent means of obtaining information, states that he was born in A.D. 1088. It is obvious that he was a native of some territory near Derry, and received his early education in that monastic school, for we find him while still very young holding the important position of airchinneach--or erenach, as it is frequently spelled--of that monastery. It is not improbable that his father, the poet, was connected with the same monastery, if he did not hold the same office. It was one which at this period might be held by a layman, or even by a woman, if we may credit the statement of the Four Masters, that Bebhinn, who died in A.D. 1134, whilst Gelasius was Abbot of Derry, was the female erenach of that monastery. Gelasius became Abbot of Derry in A.D. 1120 or 1121; and held that important office for sixteen years. He must have given general satisfaction in his government of Derry, for he was called by the voice of the clergy and nobles, and with the assent of St. Malachy himself, to succeed that great prelate, when he resigned the primacy of Armagh in A.D. 1137. The reign of Gelasius is remarkable for two things--first, the success with which he asserted his jurisdiction as Primate during his visitations in all parts of Ireland, and secondly for his zeal in holding Synods to correct abuses and reform the morals both of the clergy and of the people.

During the centuries preceding the twelfth century, which was a period of reform, the jurisdiction of the Primate was practically in abeyance. If it was recognised at all in the South of Ireland, it was certainly merely nominal. This arose from many causes--the troubles of the times, the rivalry of the native princes, the ravages of the Danes, and the intrusion of laymen into the See of Armagh, who claimed to inherit the jurisdiction of St. Patrick to the great disgust of all well disposed persons, both clergy and laity, throughout Ireland.

The great Brian Boru did much to cause the primatial authority to be recognised and respected once more in the South as well as in the North of Ireland. When the great 'Imperator of the Scots,' himself from the South of Ireland, came and laid his gifts on the altar of Armagh, and afterwards ordered his body to be buried there, it was a recognition of the primatial rights of Patrick's See which none could affect to ignore or to despise.

Then during the next century Providence raised up a line of great and holy prelates in Armagh--Celsus, Malachy, and Gelasius--men of courage, learning, energy, and filled with the apostolic spirit, who expelled the intruders, vindicated the rights, and, by their conduct and character even more than by words, asserted the dignity of the primatial see.

Gelasius had certainly his own share in this noble work. The very year after his accession to the see of Armagh he made a formal visitation throughout the Province of Munster, and was everywhere received with honour and loaded with gifts.

The next year he went to Connaught, where he was also received with all honour and obedience. Torlough O'Conor was then King of Connaught; and claimed to be High King of Ireland. He successfully asserted his claim by over-running Munster, Meath, and Leinster in succession; he even penetrated into Oriel and threatened Ailech itself. But he received the Primate Gelasius with the most profound respect; he gave him efficient protection in his journeys through the province, and seems to have also assisted him in carrying out his schemes of reform. In fact, whether it was because he wanted to correct abuses, or liked his treatment beyond the Shannon, the Primate visited that province no less than four different times before his death.

Gelasius was no less zealous in convening and presiding over Synods for the maintenance of discipline and the extirpation of abuses.

The earliest of these was held at Holmpatrick by the Primate and St. Malachy in A.D. 1148. It is called by the Four Masters Inis-Padraig, but the place is the same--the small island near Skerries, now called Holm-Patrick, or Patrick's Island. Its object was to make formal application to the Pope in the name of the Irish Church for a pallium or pall for each of the archbishops both of the old and new creation. St. Malachy set out for France to meet the Pope, as we have already seen, but died on his way at Clairvaux on the 2nd of November in the same year.

The object, however, was not lost sight of either by the Pope or the Primate. Cardinal John Paparo landed in Ireland in A.D. 1151, and went straight to Armagh to meet the Primate, with whom he remained for a week making arrangements for the coming Synod. It was held at Kells, not Drogheda or Mellifont, in the spring of next year, A.D. 1152, and was attended by twenty-two bishops and five bishops elect, with a large number--some 300 or more--of the clergy of the Second Order, both secular and regular. We cannot here enter into the many interesting questions connected with this Synod. It is enough to say that whilst formally recognising the superiority of Armagh as the Primatial See, four palls were granted by the Cardinal Legate, thus legally constituting four archbishops in Ireland for the first time. It is, however, only in this legal and technical sense that Gelasius can be described as the 'first Archbishop of Armagh.' Other regulations were also made at this Synod, two of which are especially noticed. It was ordered by the Synod to put away all concubines from men[291]--not from the clergy, as Moore falsely says; and also to pay tithes according to the usage of the Church elsewhere. This is the first reference to tithes we find in our Annals, and it is said that even the clergy did not care to introduce this new system of getting a maintenance.

The zealous Primate held another Synod at Mellifont in A.D. 1157, partly to have the new monastic church of the parent Cistercian House consecrated with greater solemnity, and partly to pronounce sentence of excommunication against Donogh O'Melaghlin for his impiety and contempt of the Primate's authority. We are not acquainted with the full particulars; but this public act by which the Prince of Meath was solemnly excommunicated and deposed, and his brother appointed by the bishops and the princes in his stead, shows that the Primate was a man of vigour, who was resolved to adopt energetic measures to assert his own authority.

Next year we find Gelasius holding another Synod at a place called Brigh Mac-Taidgh, near Trim, in Meath. Twenty-five bishops were present, with Christian of Lismore, the Papal Legate in Ireland. The Connaught Bishops were unable to attend, because they were robbed and maltreated near Clonmacnoise on their way to the Synod by a party of soldiers belonging to that very Diarmaid O'Melaghlin, whom the Synod of Mellifont had named King of Meath the previous year. This incident shows the violent and lawless spirit of the times, and how necessary it was for the Primate to vindicate to the utmost of his power the authority of the Church, which alone could keep these fierce and bloodthirsty princes in check. It was at this Synod, as we have already seen, that a Bishop's Chair was set for O'Flaherty O'Brolchain, who was on that occasion formally created, with the assent of the Legate, first Bishop of Derry.

A few years later in A.D. 1162, the venerable Gelasius presided at another Synod at Clane in Magh Liffe--the north of the present County Kildare. It was at this Synod the important decree was passed, which required all the Fer-leighinn, or professors throughout Ireland, to graduate in the great School of Armagh. This decree more than anything else shows the far seeing wisdom of the Primate. The School of Armagh was under his own immediate direction and control, so that he could secure a thorough and orthodox training in theology for the students. Then by requiring the professors from all the other schools to attend lectures at Armagh, he secured at once uniformity of system, and soundness of doctrine in all the other schools where the clergy of the Irish Church were being trained for the ministry. At the same time it was a recognition that as Armagh was the seat of authority, it was also the mistress of sound theology. It is quite evident that Gelasius was a man far superior to his contemporaries in wisdom and the science of government.

In the same year he had the satisfaction of consecrating the great St. Laurence O'Toole to be Archbishop of Dublin--the first prelate of that see that was ever consecrated in Ireland. It is clear that the Primate was resolved not to tolerate any longer the claim of the Archbishops of Canterbury to metropolitan jurisdiction in any part of his primacy.

Yet another great assembly of the clergy and laity was held at Athboy in Meath, in the year A.D. 1167. Both the Primate and Rory O'Connor, King of Ireland, were present with many of the prelates and nobles of the North. Its main object seems to have been to restore peace and concord between the native princes, whose fratricidal strife had reddened every green field in their native land, and offered such strong inducements to the stranger to conquer and divide their inheritance.

The Primate saw the danger, and realized it to the full. As he had held a Synod the year before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans to remove the cause of the danger; so the year after their arrival, that is in A.D. 1170, he held the last Synod of his clergy in his own city of Armagh, to concert means to expel the foreigners, before they could secure a foothold in the country.

The venerable old man was then in the eighty-third year of his age, but he had a braver spirit and a clearer mind than any of the degenerate children of Niall the Great, whom he gathered round him in his primatial city. He warned them, and he appealed to them in vain. When the day of trial came, and Strongbow with his knights were besieged in Dublin, and by united energetic action might have been driven into the sea more completely than the Danes were at Clontarf, the men of the North were in their native mountains ignobly heedless of their country's fate.

Alas! for the aged Gelasius, who had laboured so hard and so long for the Irish Church and the Irish people. He saw the princes of his country bow the knee in homage to the triumphant invader; he saw her prelates meet in Cashel at Henry's summons to endorse his laws; he saw her petty chieftains either warring with each other or allied with the Norman. Then, and only then, the old man came from his episcopal city and kissed the hand of Henry in his new capital of Dublin. He had his old white cow driven before him to give him milk, which was his only sustenance. He paid his homage to the king, and then returned home with a sad heart to Patrick's royal City. Two years after he died at the age of eighty-five, and after his death was recognised and honoured as a saint by the entire Church of Ireland.

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XVI. THE SCHOOL OF BANGOR

"Our princes of old, when their warfare was over, As pilgrims forth wandered; as hermits found rest. Shall the hand of the stranger their ashes uncover, In Bangor the holy, in Aran the blest?" --De Vere.

St. Comgall, who founded the famous School of Bangor, though not greatly celebrated for his own learning, was the founder of a school which of all others seems to have exercised the widest influence on the Continent by means of the great scholars whom it produced.

Bangor and Armagh were by excellence the great Northern Schools, just as Clonard was the School of Meath, Glendaloch of Leinster, Lismore of Munster, and Clonmacnoise and Clonfert of Connaught. For it must be borne in mind that Clonmacnoise was founded by St. Ciaran from Roscommon, that he was the patron saint of Connaught,[292] and that until a comparatively recent period it formed a portion of the Western Ecclesiastical Province. The influence of the other schools, however, was mainly felt at home, or to some extent in England, Scotland and Germany; but the influence of Bangor was felt in France, Switzerland and Italy, and not only in ancient times but down to the present day. There are great names amongst the missionaries who have gone from other monastic schools in Ireland to preach the Gospel abroad, but if we except St. Columba, who was trained at many schools in Ireland, there are no other names so celebrated as St. Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio, and St. Gall, who has given his name to an equally celebrated Monastery and Canton in Switzerland. It is, then, highly interesting and instructive to trace the origin and influence of this famous Irish school.

I.--ST. COMGALL OF BANGOR.

St. Comgall, the founder of Bangor, was a native of the territory anciently called Benna Boirche,[293] or Mourne, the name of that wild but beautiful mountain district extending from Carlingford Lough to the Bay of Dundrum. There is some difference of opinion as to the exact date of his birth, and indeed as to the length of his life; although all admit that he died in the year A.D. 600 or 601. He seems to have been during his life from boyhood to old age a friend and companion of St. Columcille, and hence if we accept the length of his life given by the Bollandists[294] as eighty years, we may fix his birth at about A.D. 520--which was also the date, or near it, of Columcille's birth. Comgallus, the name by which he was baptized, has been frequently explained to signify the 'lucky pledge'--faustum pignus--because he was a child of benediction, the only son of his parents, and born, too, when they were advanced in years. As usual in the case of our Irish saints, several prodigies are said to have taken place both before and shortly after his birth. His father was Sedna, a small chief of the district then known as Dalaradia or Dalaray; his mother was a devout matron called Briga, who is said to have been warned before his birth to retire from the world, because her offspring was destined in future days to become a great saint of God. These pious parents took him to be baptized by a blind old priest, called Fehlim, who knew, however, by heart, the proper method of administering the Sacrament of Baptism. There being no water at hand a miraculous stream burst forth from the soil, and the old priest feeling the presence of the divine influence washed his face in the stream, and at once recovered his sight, after which he baptized the child and gave him the appropriate name of Comgall. This is only one of the numberless miracles recorded in the two lives of St. Comgall, given by the Bollandists, but it will not be necessary for our purpose to refer to them in detail.

The boy in his youth was sent to work in the fields, and seems to have assisted his parents with great alacrity in all their domestic concerns. When he grew up a little more he was sent to learn the Psalms and other divine hymns from a teacher in the neighbourhood, whose precepts were much better than his example. The young child of grace, however, was not led away from the path of virtue; on the contrary, he seems in his own boyish way to have given gentle hints to his teacher that his life was not what it ought to be. On one occasion, for instance, Comgall rolled his coat in the mud and coming before his master, the latter said to him, "Is it not shame to soil your coat so?" "Is it not a greater shame," replied Comgall, "for anyone to soil his soul and body by sin?" The teacher took the hint and was silent; but the lesson was unheeded, and so the holy youth resolved to seek elsewhere a holier preceptor.

This was about the year A.D. 545. At that time a young and pre-eminently holy man, named Fintan, had established a monastery at a place called Cluain-eidnech, now Clonenagh, near Mountrath, in the Queen's County. The fame of this infant monastery had spread far and wide over the face of the land; for although in many places in those days of holiness there was strict rule, and poor fare, and rigid life, yet Fintan of Clonenagh seems to have been the strictest and poorest and most rigid of them all. He would not allow even a cow to be kept for the use of his monks--consequently they had neither milk, nor butter; neither had they eggs, nor cheese, nor fat, nor flesh of any kind. They had a little corn, and herbs, and plenty of water near at hand, for the bogs and marshes round their monastic cells were frequently flooded by the many tributaries of the infant Nore coming down from the slopes of the Slieve-bloom mountains. They had plenty of hard work, too, in the fields tilling the barren soil, and in the woods cutting down timber for the buildings of the monastery as well as for firewood, and then drawing it home in loads on their backs, or dragging it after them over the uneven soil. The discipline of this monastery was so severe and the food of the monks so wretched that the neighbouring saints thought it prudent to come and beg the Abbot Fintan to relax a little of the extreme severity of his discipline, which was more than human nature could endure. The abbot, though unwilling to relax his own fearful austerities in the least, consented at the earnest prayer of St. Canice to modify the severity of his discipline to some extent for the others, and they were no doubt not unwilling to get the relaxation.

It speaks well for the love of holy penance shown by these young Christians of Ireland that in spite of its severe discipline this monastery was crowded with holy inmates from all parts of the country, and amongst the rest came Comgall from his far-off Dalaradian home to become a disciple of this school of labour and penance.

He remained a considerable time under the guidance of the holy Fintan, the Benedict, of our Irish Church, who, although his "senior," or superior in religion, was probably about his own age in years. There is little doubt that it was from Fintan, Comgall learned those lessons of humility and obedience which, as we know from his Rule and from his disciples, he afterwards taught with so much effect to others. His teacher then advised him to return to his own country, and propagate amongst his kindred in Dalaray the lessons of virtue which he had learned at Clonenagh.

Hitherto it seems Comgall had received no holy orders. He was a monk and a perfect one, of mature age too, but in his great humility he had hitherto declined the responsibilities of the priesthood. Now, however, he resolved to pay a visit to Clonmacnoise, which is about twenty miles to the north-west of Clonenagh. Its holy founder, Ciaran, was scarcely alive at this time, for he died in A.D. 544; but then, and long after, the fame of the school was great, and crowds of holy men were attracted to its walls. Here Comgall was induced to receive the priesthood from the holy Bishop Lugadius, and after a short stay he returned northward to his own country. This was probably about A.D. 550, or perhaps a little later.

Some authorities place the foundation of Bangor at this time; but it must be understood only in a very qualified sense at this early date. Comgall was now, indeed, a famous saint himself, and likely enough, companions came to place themselves under his spiritual guidance. But we are expressly told that for some time after his return he went about preaching the Gospel to the people, especially amongst his own kith and kin, and in all probability this took place before he established his monastery at least on any permanent footing at Bangor. But the holy man longed for the solitary life, and so we are told that he retired to an island in Lough Erin, called INSULA CUSTODIARIA, or, as we should now say, Jail Island, and there he practised such austerities that seven of the brethren who accompanied him died of cold and hunger. He was then induced to relax his penances and fastings; and shortly after, it seems, at the earnest prayer of his friends, he was again persuaded to leave Jail Island and return to Dalaray. This was about the year A.D. 559, which seems to be the most probable date of the founding of Bangor, although the Four Masters fix it so early as A.D. 552.

Bangor is very beautifully situated. It is about seven miles from Belfast, on the southern shore of Belfast Lough, in the county Down, and may be easily reached either by rail or steamer. It commands a fine view of Carrickfergus on the opposite shore of the bay, with the bold cliffs of Black Head further seaward; to the right, across the narrow sea the bleak bluffs of Galloway are distinctly visible, and far away due north in the dim distance, the Mull of Cantire frowns over a wild and restless sea. We saw this fair scene on a fine day in June, when the sun lit up the steeples of Carrickfergus, and glanced brightly over the transparent waters, so deeply and purely blue, whose wavelets played amongst the bare quartzite rocks, and we felt that if the old monks who chose Bangor to be their home loved God they loved nature also. Most of all they loved the great sea; it was for them the most vivid image of God; in its anger, its beauty, its power, its immensity, they felt the presence, and they saw, though dimly, the glory of the Divine Majesty. It was on the shore of this beautiful bay, sheltered from the south-western winds, but open to the north-east, that Comgall built his little church and cell. Crowds of holy men, young and old, soon gathered round him; they too, without much labour, built themselves little cells of timber or wattles; the whole was then surrounded by a spacious fosse and ditch, which was their enclosure, and thus the establishment became complete. If St. Bernard in his Life of St. Malachy was rightly informed, it is clear that there were no stone buildings in ancient Bangor before the time of St. Malachy; and even he, when restoring the place, with some of his companions, only built a small oratory of wood which was finished in a few days.

Not its buildings, however, but its saints and its scholars, were the glory of Bangor. St. Columba from his home in Iona came more than once, with some of his followers, to visit Comgall and his good monks. On one of these occasions one of the brothers died during the voyage, and the corpse at first was left in the boat whilst the monks with Columba went to the monastery. Comgall received them with great delight, washed their feet, and on asking if all had come in, Columba said one brother remained in the boat. The holy man Comgall going down in haste to fetch the brother found him dead, and perhaps thinking it might have happened through his neglect, besought the Lord, and calling upon the monk to rise up and come to his brothers, the dead man obeyed. Walking to the monastery Comgall perceived that he was blind in one eye, and telling him to wash his face in the stream that still flows down to the sea from the church, he did so, and at once recovered his sight. St. Comgall brought back the brother from the grave, and, moreover, restored to him his eyesight. In this age of ours we are apt to smile at such miracles as these, because ours is not an age of faith; and the incredulity of the world around us make us incredulous also. Yet our Saviour said to his disciples (Luke xvii. v. 6), "If you had faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you." We doubt if any of our Irish Saints ever did anything apparently so foolish as this, yet even this they could do in the greatness of their faith.

St. Comgall paid a return visit to Columba, and it is said that he even founded a church in the Island of Heth, now called Tiree, one of the western isles to the north of Iona. He also accompanied Columba in the famous visit which he paid to King Brude, the Pictish King, who, at the approach of the saints, shut himself up in his fortress on the shore of the river Inverness. But Columba signed the sign of the cross, whereupon the barred doors flew open in the name of Christ; and the pagan King of the Picts, fearing with a great fear, allowed the saints to preach the Gospel to his subjects.

A man so famous for holiness and miracles, soon attracted great crowds to Bangor. St. Bernard in his Life of St. Malachy says that "this noble institution was inhabited by many thousands of monks." Joceline, of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century, says that "Bangor was a fruitful vine breathing the odour of salvation, and that its offshoots extended not only over all Ireland, but far beyond the seas into foreign countries, and filled many lands with its abounding fruitfulness." In the time of the Danes we are told, on the authority of St. Bernard, that nine hundred monks of Bangor were slain by these pirates--an appalling slaughter, but not at all an unusual, much less an incredible massacre, for the North men to perpetrate. The second life given by the Bollandists says distinctly that in the various cells and monasteries under his care, Comgall had no less than three thousand monks; but this it seems is to be understood of all his disciples in other monasteries as well as in Bangor.

Amongst these disciples, besides Columbanus and his companions, of whom we shall presently speak, were Lua, called also Mo-Lua, the founder of Clonfert-Molua, now Clonfert-Mulloe, in the Queen's County, and St. Carthach, founder of the great School of Lismore, which became almost as famous as Bangor itself. Luanus from Bangor, who seems to be the same as Molua, is said by St. Bernard to have founded a hundred monasteries--a statement that seems somewhat exaggerated. Even kings gave up their crowns and came to Bangor to live as humble monks under the blessed Comgall.

Special mention is made of Cormac, King of Hy-Bairrche, in Northern Leinster. That prince had been freed from the fetters in which he was held by the King of Hy-Kinselagh at the earnest intercession of St. Fintan of Clonenagh. Before his death, however, he retired to Bangor, and in spite of great temptations to return to the world, he persevered to the end in the service of God, under the care of Comgall, to whom he gave large domains in Leinster for the endowment of religious houses. Comgall, according to some authorities, ruled over Bangor for fifty years, others say for thirty, which is more likely to be true, and died on the 13th of May, A.D. 600, at his own monastery of Bangor, in the midst of his children, after he had received the Viaticum from the hands of St. Fiacra of Conwall, in Donegal, who was divinely inspired to visit the dying saint, and administer to him the last rites of the Church. His blessed body was afterwards enclosed by the same Fiacra, in a shrine adorned with gold and precious stones, which subsequently became the spoil of the Danish pirates.

That literature, both sacred and profane, was successfully cultivated at Bangor, will be made evident from the writings of the great scholars whom it produced, even during the lifetime of its blessed founder. Humility and obedience, however, were even more dearly prized than learning. It was a rule amongst the monks that when any person was rebuked by another at Bangor, whether justly or not, he immediately prostrated himself on the ground in token of submission. They bore in mind that word of the Gospel, "If one strike thee on the right cheek, turn also to him the other." But the career of the great Columbanus will prove that when there was question of denouncing crime against God, or adhering to the traditions of the holy founders of the Irish Church, the monks of Bangor were men of invincible firmness, who felt the full force of the Apostolic maxim--we must obey God rather than man. In the question of celebrating Easter, according to their ancient usage, this firmness bordered on pertinacity; but it was excusable, seeing that it sprang from no schismatical spirit, but from a conscientious adhesion to the ancient practice of the Church of St. Patrick.

II.--ST. COLUMBANUS.

St. Columbanus was the great glory of the school of Bangor. He is one of the most striking figures of his age; his influence has been felt even down to our own times. The libraries which contain manuscripts written by his monks are ransacked for these literary treasures, and the greatest scholars of France and Germany study the Celtic glosses which the monks of Columbanus jotted down on the margins or between the leaves of their manuscripts.

We cannot dwell at length on the facts of his life, striking and interesting as his marvellous career undoubtedly is. His Life, published by Surius, was written by an Italian monk of Bobbio, called Jonas, at the request of his ecclesiastical superiors, and though full enough in details regarding his career on the Continent, it is meagre as to the facts of his youth in Ireland. It is, however, so far as it goes, authentic, for the informants of Jonas were the members of his own community of Bobbio, who were companions of the saint, and eye-witnesses of what they relate.

Columbanus, or Columba, was the Latin name given to the saint, probably on account of the sweetness of his disposition. For although in the cause of God he was impetuous, and sometimes even headstrong, we are told that to his companions and associates he was ever gracious and quiet as the dove. We know for certain that he was a native of West Leinster, and born about the year A.D. 543[295] if not earlier, for he was at least 72 years at his death in A.D. 615. In his boyhood he gave himself up with great zeal and success to the study of grammar, and of the other liberal arts then taught in our Irish schools, including geometry, arithmetic, logic, astronomy, rhetoric, and music. He was a handsome youth, too, well-shaped and prepossessing in appearance, fair and blue-eyed like most of the nobles of the Scots. This was to him a source of great danger, for at least one young maiden strove to win the affections of the handsome scholar, and wean his heart from God. Old Jonas, the writer of the life, shudders at the thought of the danger to which Columbanus was exposed, and the devilish snares that were laid for his innocence. The youth himself was fully sensible of his danger, and sought the counsel of a holy virgin who lived in a hermitage hard by. At first he spoke with hesitation and humility, but afterwards with confidence and courage, which showed that he was a youth of high spirit, and therefore all the more in danger. "What need," replied the virgin, "to seek my counsel. I myself have fled the world, and for fifteen years have remained shut up in this cell. Remember the warning examples of David, Samson, and Solomon, who were led astray by the love of women. There is no security for you except in flight." The youth was greatly terrified by this solemn warning, and bidding farewell to his parents, resolved to leave home and retire for his soul's sake to some religious house where he would be secure. His mother, with tears, besought him to stay; she even threw herself on the threshold before him, but the boy, declaring that whoever loved his father or mother more than Christ, is unworthy of Him, stepped aside, and left his home and his parents, whom he never saw again.

He went straight to Cluaninis (now Cleenish), in Lough Erne, whose hundred islets in those days were the homes of holy men, who gave themselves up to prayer, penance, and sacred study. An old man named Sinell,[296] was at that time famous for holiness and learning, and so Columbanus placed himself under his care, and made great progress both in profane learning, and especially in the study of the sacred Scriptures.[297]

At this time the fame of Bangor was great throughout the land: so Columbanus leaving his master, Sinell of Lough Erne, came to Comgall, and prostrating himself before the abbot, begged to be admitted amongst his monks. The request was granted at once, and Columbanus, as we are expressly informed, spent many years in that great monastery by the sea, going through all the literary and religious exercises of the community with much fervour and exactness. This was the spring-time of his life, in which he sowed the seeds of that spiritual harvest, which France and Italy afterwards reaped in such abundance. His rule was the rule of Bangor. His learning was the learning of Bangor. His spirit was the spirit of Bangor.

When fully trained in knowledge and piety, Columbanus sought his abbot Comgall, and begged leave to go, like so many of his countrymen, on a pilgrimage for Christ. It was the impulse of the Celtic mind from the beginning--it is so still--the Irish are a nation of apostles. It is not a mere love of change, or of foreign travel, or tedium of home; no, the pilgrimage, or peregrinatio, was essentially undertaken to spread the Gospel of Christ. The holy abbot Comgall gladly assented. He gave him his leave and his blessing, and Columbanus, taking with him twelve companions, prepared to cross the sea. Money they had none: they needed none. The only treasure they took with them was their books slung over their shoulders in leathern satchels, and so with their staves in their hands, and courage in their hearts, they set out from their native country, never to return. At first they went to England, and traversing that country, where it seems, too, they were joined by some associates, they found means to cross the channel and came to Gaul, about the year A.D. 575, when he himself was about thirty-two years of age.

The apostolic man with his companions at once set about preaching the Gospel in the half-Christian towns and villages of Gaul. Poor, half-naked, hungry, their lives were a sermon; but moreover, Columbanus was gifted with great eloquence, and a sweet persuasive manner that no one could resist. They were everywhere received as men of God, and the fame of their holiness and miracles even came to the court of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, of which Metz was the capital. He pressed them to stay in his dominions, but they would not. They went their way southward through a wild and desert country, preaching and teaching, healing and converting, until they came to the court of Gontran, grandson of Clovis, at that time king of Burgundy--one of the three kingdoms into which the great monarchy of Clovis had come to be sub-divided.

Gontran received the missionaries with a warm welcome, and at first established them at a place called Annegray, where there was an old Roman castle in the modern department of the Haute-Saone. The king offered them both food and money, but these things they declined, and such was their extreme poverty, that they were often forced to live for weeks together on the herbs of the field, on the berries, and even the bark of the trees. Columbanus used from time to time to bury himself alone in the depths of the forest, heedless of hunger, which stared him in the face, and of the wild beasts that roamed around him, trusting altogether to the good providence of God. He became even the prince of the wild animals. The birds would pick the crumbs from his feet; the squirrels would hide themselves under his cowl; the hungry wolves harmed him not; he slept in a cave where a bear had its den. Once a week a boy would bring him a little bread or vegetables: he needed nothing else. He had no companion. The Bible, transcribed, no doubt, at Bangor with his own hand, was his only study and his highest solace. Thus for weeks, and even months, he led a life, like John the Baptist in the wilderness, wholly divine.

Meanwhile the number of disciples in the monastery at the old ruined castle of Annegray daily increased, and it became necessary to seek a more suitable site for a larger community. Here, too, the Burgundian King Gontran proved himself the generous patron of Columbanus and his monks. There was at the foot of the Vosges mountains, where warm medicinal springs pour out a healing stream, an old Roman settlement called Luxeuil. But it was now a desert. The broken walls of the ancient villas were covered with shrubs and weeds. The woods had extended from the slopes of the mountains down to the valleys covering all the country round. There was no population, no tillage, no arable land; it was all a savage forest, filled with wolves, bears, foxes, and wild cats. Not a promising site for a monastic settlement, but such a place exactly as Columbanus and his companions desired. They wanted solitude, they loved labour, and they would have plenty of both. In a few years a marvellous change came over the scene. The woods were cleared, the lands were tilled, fields of waving corn rewarded the labour of the monks, and smiling vineyards gave them wine for the sick and for the holy Sacrifice. The noblest youths of the Franks begged to be admitted to the brotherhood, and gladly took their share in the daily round of prayer, penance, and ceaseless toil. They worked so long that they fell asleep from fatigue when walking home.[298] They slept so little that it was a new penance to tear themselves from the mats on which they lay. But the blessing of God was upon them; they grew in numbers, and in holiness, and in happiness, not the happiness of men who love this world, but the happiness of those who truly serve God.

But now a sore trial was nigh. God wished to purify his servants by suffering, and to extend to other lands the sphere of their usefulness. The first trial came from the secular clergy. Those Irish monks were men of virtue and austerity, but they were also in many respects very peculiar. They had a liturgy of their own somewhat different from that in use around them; they had a queer tonsure, like Simon Magus, it was said, in front from ear to ear, instead of the orthodox and customary crown. Worst of all, it sometimes happened that they celebrated Easter on Palm Sunday, so that they were singing their alleluias when all the churches of the Franks were in the mourning of Passion time. Remonstrance was useless; they adhered tenaciously to their country's usages. Nothing could convince them that what St. Patrick and the saints of Ireland had handed down to them could by any possibility be wrong. They only wanted to be let alone. They did not desire to impose their usages on others. Why should others impose their usages on them? They had a right to be allowed to live in peace in their wilderness, for they injured no man, and they prayed for all. Thus it was that Columbanus reasoned, or rather remonstrated, with a synod of French bishops that objected to his practices. His letters to them and to Pope Gregory the Great on the subject of this Paschal question are still extant, but he cannot be justified in some of the expressions which he uses. He tells the bishops in effect in one place that they would be better employed in enforcing canonical discipline amongst their own clergy, than in discussing the Paschal question with him and his monks. Yet here and there he speaks not only with force and freedom, but also with true humility and genuine eloquence. He implores the prelates in the most solemn language to let him and his brethren live in peace and charity in the heart of their silent woods, beside the bones of their seventeen brothers who were dead, "Surely it is better for you," he says, "to comfort than to disturb us, poor old men, strangers, too, in your midst. Let us rather love one another in the charity of Christ, striving to fulfil his precepts, and thereby secure a place in the assembly of the just made perfect in heaven."

Language of this character, used, too, in justification of practices harmless in themselves, but not in accordance with the prevalent discipline of the Church at the time, was by no means well calculated to beget affection towards the strangers in the minds of the Frankish clergy. Other troubles, too, soon arose. The young king of Austrasia, Thierry, encouraged by Brunehaut, his infamous grand-mother, repudiated his lawful wife and gave himself up to the most scandalous debauchery. Columbanus admonished, remonstrated, rebuked in vain. Finding his efforts fruitless, he denied the guilty pair admission to his monastery, and thereupon they resolved to expel him and his monks from the kingdom.

For the time, however, he was only made a prisoner, and conducted to Besançon, where he was kept under surveillance, until one day, looking with longing to his beloved Luxeuil, and seeing no one at hand to prevent him, he descended the steep cliff which overhangs the river Doubs, and returned to his monastery. When the king heard of his return, he sent imperative orders to have him and all his companions from Ireland and Britain forcibly removed from the monastery, and conveyed home to their own country. The soldiers presented themselves at Luxeuil when the holy man was in the choir with his monks. They told him their orders, and begged him to come voluntarily with them--they were unwilling to resort to force. At first he refused; but lest the soldiers might be punished for not resorting to that violence which they were unwilling to make use of, he finally yielded. He called his Irish brethren around them: "Let us go," he said, "my brothers, in the name of God." It was hard to leave the scene of their labours, their sorrows, and their joys; hard to leave behind them the graves of the seventeen brethren with whom they had hoped to rest in peace. But go they must; the soldiers would not for a moment leave them. It was a brief and sad leave-taking. Wails of sorrow were heard everywhere for the loss of their beloved father; brother was torn from brother, friend from friend, never to meet again in this world. Thus it was that Columbanus and his Irish companions left that dear monastery of Luxeuil, and were conducted by the soldiers to Nevers. There, still guarded by the soldiers, they embarked in a boat that conveyed them down the Loire to its mouth, where they would find a ship to convey them back again to Ireland.

But it was not the will of Providence that Columbanus and his companions, when driven from Luxeuil, should return to Ireland: other work was before them to do. Accordingly, when they came to the mouth of the Loire, their baggage, such as it was, was put on board, and most of the monks embarked. But the sea rose mountains high, and the ship[299] which Columbanus intended to rejoin when under weigh, was forced to return to port. A three days' calm succeeded, and the captain, apprehensive of a new storm, caused the monks and their baggage to be put on shore, for he feared to take them with him. Thus left to themselves, Columbanus and his companions went to Soissons to Clotaire, King of Neustria, by whom they were received with every kindness and hospitality. The king cordially hated Brunehaut and her grandson--his mother, Fredegonda, had murdered Brunehaut's sister--and he was anxious to keep Columbanus in his own kingdom, but the latter would not stay. He pushed on, with his companions, to Metz, the capital of Austrasia, where Theodebert, the brother of Thierry, then reigned. Here he was joined by several of his old monks from Luxeuil, who preferred to follow their father in his wanderings, to remaining behind in the kingdom of his persecutor.

Columbanus now resolved to preach the Gospel to the pagan populations on the right bank of the Rhine and its tributary streams. So embarking at Mayence, after many toils and dangers, they came as far as Lake Zurich in Switzerland, and finally established themselves at Bregenz, on the Lake of Constance, where they fixed their headquarters. The tribes inhabiting these wild and beautiful regions--the Suevi and Alemanni--were idolaters, though nominal subjects of the Austrasian kingdom. Woden was their God, and they worshipped him with dark mysterious rites, under the shadow of sacred oaks, far in the depths of the forest. Discretion was not a gift of Columbanus, so he not only preached the Gospel amongst them, but axe in hand, he had the courage to cut down their sacred trees; he burned their rude temples, and cast their fantastic idols into the lake. It was not wise; the people became enraged, and the missionaries were forced to fly. After struggling for three years to convert this savage people, Columbanus, perceiving that the work was not destined to be accomplished by him, crossed the snow-covered Alps by the pass of St. Gothard, though now more than seventy years of age,[300] and after incredible toil, succeeded, with a few of his old companions, in making his way to the Court of the Lombard King, Agilulph, whose Queen was Theodelinda, famous for beauty, for genius, and for virtue.

At this time the Lombards were Arians, and Agilulph himself was an Arian, although Queen Theodelinda was a devout Catholic. Mainly, we may assume, through her influence the Arian monarch received the broken down old man and his companions with the utmost kindness, and Columbanus had an ample field for the exercise of his missionary zeal amongst the rude half-Christian population. But first of all it was necessary to have a permanent home--and nowhere could he find rest except in solitude. Just at this time[301] a certain Jucundus reminded the King that there was at a place called Bobbio a ruined church once dedicated to St. Peter; that the place round about was fertile and well watered with streams, abounding in every kind of fish. It was near the Trebbia, almost at the very spot where Hannibal first felt the rigours of that fierce winter in the snows of the Appenines, so graphically described by Livy. The king gladly gave the place to Columbanus, and the energetic old man set about repairing the ruined church and building his monastery with all that unquenchable ardour that cleared the forests of Luxeuil, and crossed the snows of the Alps. His labours were regarded by his followers as miraculous. The fir trees, cut down in the valleys of the Appenines, which his monks were unable to carry down the steep and rugged ways, when the old man himself came and took a share of the burden, were found to be no weight. So, speedily and joyfully, with the visible aid of heaven, they completed the task, and built in the valley of the Appenines a monastery, whose name will never be forgotten by saints or scholars.

The holy old man lived but one year after he had founded Bobbio. His merits were full; the work of his life was complete; he had given his Rule to the new house; he left behind him some of his old companions to complete his work, and now he was ready to die. To the great grief of the brotherhood, Columbanus passed away to his reward on the eleventh day before the Kalends of December, in the year A.D. 615, probably in the seventy-third year of his age. He was buried beneath the high altar, and long afterwards the holy remains were enclosed in a stone coffin, and are still preserved in the crypt of the old monastic Church of Bobbio.

It is not too much to say that Ireland never sent a greater son than Columbanus to do the work of God in foreign lands. He brought forth much fruit and his fruit has remained. For centuries his influence was dominant in France and in Northern Italy, and even in our own days, his spirit speaketh from his urn. His deeds have been described by many eloquent tongues and pens, and his writings have been carefully studied to ascertain the secret of his extraordinary influence over his own and subsequent ages. His character was not indeed faultless, but he was consumed with a restless untiring zeal in the service of his Master, which was at once the secret of his power and the source of his mistakes. He was too ardent in character, and almost too zealous in the cause of God. In this respect he is not unlike St. Jerome, but we forget their faults in our admiration for their virtues and their labours. A man more holy, more chaste, more self-denying, a man with loftier aims and purer heart than Columbanus, was never born in the Island of Saints.

The writings of Columbanus still extant are--a Monastic Rule, a Penitential Treatise, sixteen short Sermons or Instructions, six Letters, and a few Latin Poems.[302]

The Regula Coenobialis or Monastic Rule is divided into ten short chapters which treat of the fundamental virtues of the monastic life. It is especially valuable in so far as it affords points of comparison and contact with the more complete and systematic Rule of St. Benedict. In some things it is exceedingly rigorous and very minute in the penances which it imposes, even on the most venial and semi-deliberate faults. The first six chapters are devoted to the essential virtues of the monastic state--obedience, silence, self-denial in the use of meat and drink, poverty and chastity. The maxim--cibus monachorum sit vilis et vespertinus--seems to allow the poor monks only one plain meal in the day, and that after vespers. He inculcates also a daily fast, daily prayer, daily labour, and daily reading[303]--thus including in one sentence the whole routine of monastic life. The Liber de Paenitentiarum Mensura Taxanda is equally rigorous and minute in prescribing penances proportionate to the guilt of the sinner. In those days when there were no elaborate scientific treatises on moral theology, it was very useful to have a work of this kind which apportioned its own penance to almost every class of sin. The confessor, or soul's friend, was thus enabled to form an estimate sufficient for most practical purposes of the magnitude of the crimes from the amount of the penance. To fast for a number of days, weeks, or even years, on bread and water was the stern penance imposed on the sinner, according to the measure of his guilt, by the rigid directors of the early Irish Church. Drunkenness was punished with a comparatively light penance--only a week on bread and water. That same would be even now of great service if it were rigorously enforced.

The Sermons have nothing specially characteristic to recommend them. They are, however, brief and to the point, which is more than can be said of many volumes of more modern discourses.

The Six Letters are perhaps the most valuable of the literary remains of Columbanus, because they reflect most clearly the character of the man and the genius of the Celt. We have already spoken of his letters to Pope Gregory the Great, and to Pope Boniface. Whilst full of respect for the Holy See they exhibit an uncompromising spirit of resolute independence and conscious integrity. The letter on the Paschal question to a certain synod of French Bishops is written in the same spirit, and reminds the Gallican prelates of some unpleasant truths, which they must have regarded as a very great impertinence coming from a mere Irish monk, who had uninvited taken up his quarters in the hospitable land of France.

The Latin poems show considerable acquaintance with the language, and are especially valuable as exhibiting the classical culture of our Irish schools in the sixth century. Most of them are in hexameter verse, but contain few classical allusions. The prosody is sometimes faulty; but on the whole it is perhaps better than the pupils or even the professors of our colleges would produce at present if called upon at short notice.

The shorter Adonic verses are simply marvels of ingenuity, and it shows great familiarity with the Latin language to be able to write an entire letter of about 150 lines in this metre.

The two most celebrated literary monuments of St. Columbanus and the School of Bangor that have come down to our time are the Bobbio Missal, and the Antiphonary of Bangor, both of which are at present preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan.

The Missal which was brought from Bobbio to Milan by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo is undoubtedly of Irish origin, and was probably brought from Bangor by St. Columbanus himself, or by some one of the Irish monks who accompanied him. We shall not here repeat the critical arguments used by scholars to prove that it was brought from Ireland in the sixth or seventh century. The fact, indeed, is no longer questioned. This Missal is particularly interesting, because it gives us so early a specimen of the liturgy in use in our Irish Church. The Missa Cotidiana of this Bangor Missal has practically the same Canon as that now found in the Roman Missal, and used throughout the entire world. There is greater variety in the prayers, and our Celtic forefathers were fond of inserting a greater number of them in the Mass after the Gloria in Excelsis. They were inclined too to canonize their own local saints, and even sometimes inserted their names in the Litanies and in the Canon of Mass without any authority but their own devotion. This led not only to variety in the public liturgy but sometimes to other grave abuses, which were not eradicated until the time of St. Malachy and other great reformers of Church discipline in the twelfth century.

Now that we have the Stowe Missal accessible to scholars in the Royal Irish Academy, we may hope for a minute and careful comparison of these two ancient books, in order to trace the beginnings of these discrepancies in the liturgy which were first introduced into Ireland by the Second Order of Saints, and afterwards led to so much inconvenience.

The Stowe Missal, which is so called, we presume, because it was kept so long locked up in the Duke of Buckingham's Stowe Library, is considered to have belonged to the ancient Monastery of Lorrha, in Lower Ormond, Tipperary. Dr McCarthy, a very competent judge, thinks it represents the ancient Patrician liturgy used by the First Order of the Saints of Erin, whilst Bangor may be supposed to have the Mass in its Missal derived from Wales, or more likely from Candida Casa.[304] The question is a very intricate one, and full of interest, but cannot be discussed at length in these pages.

The Antiphonarium Benchorense, or Bangor Hymnal, is a collection of ancient hymns in the Latin language, which were in common use in the ancient Church of Ireland. Many of them are contained in the Book of Hymns edited by Todd, to which we have already referred so often. Some of them were in general use throughout the Latin Church, or at least in the early Gallican Church, like the Hymn of St. Hilary. But others seem to have been peculiar to Bangor, and hence have a special interest for us at present. Such was the Hymnus Sancti Comgilli Abbatis Nostri; also the Hymnus Sancti Camelaci, and another entitled Memoria Abbatum Nostrorum, which has considerable historical interest, inasmuch as it gives a metrical list of the abbots of Bangor down to the time of the writer. These poems, and also the Missa Cotidiana of the Bobbio Missal may be seen in the second volume of Father O'Laverty's excellent History of the Diocese of Down and Connor.

There is nothing specially interesting in subsequent history of the School of Bangor down to the time of St. Malachy. It was totally destroyed by the Danes, although a nominal succession of abbots was still kept up, whose names are sometimes mentioned in our annals.

III.--DUNGAL.

Dungal, however, after Columbanus was, perhaps the greatest glory of the School of Bangor. This distinguished theologian, astronomer, and poet, was one of the Irish exiles of the ninth century who were so highly honoured in the Court of France. His name is not widely known to fame; yet few men of his time held so high a place in the estimation of his contemporaries, or rendered more signal service to the Church. The controversy concerning image worship was carried on with great warmth in the Frankish Empire during the first quarter of the ninth century, and in this contest Dungal was the foremost champion of orthodoxy. He gave the coup de grace to the Western Iconoclasts; after his vigorous refutation of Claudius of Turin, they troubled the Church no more. It is well, therefore, to know something of his history.

That Dungal was an Irishman is now universally admitted. The name itself is conclusive evidence of his nationality. It was quite a common name in Ireland, and seems to have been peculiarly Irish. We know of no foreigner who was called "Dungal;" but we find from the index volume of the Four Masters, that between the years A.D. 744 and 1015 twenty-two distinguished Irishmen bore that name.

In a poem which he composed in honour of his friend and patron, Charlemagne, Dungal calls himself an Irish exile--Hibernicus exul. There can hardly be a doubt that he was the author of this beautiful poem to which we shall refer further on. At the close of his life he retired to the Irish monastery of Bobbio, in the north of Italy, founded by Columbanus, to which he left all his books, as we know from Muratori's published list. One of them, according to the opinion of Muratori, was the famous Antiphonary of Bangor, which Dungal brought from that great school at home, and fittingly restored to Irish hands at his death.

Yet unfortunately we cannot fix the place or date of his birth in Ireland, although the possession of the Bangor Antiphonary leaves little room to doubt that he was educated in the monastic school of St. Comgall. Not a cross, nor even a stone, now remains to mark the site of the famous monastery whose crowded cloisters for a thousand years overlooked the pleasant islets and broad waters of Inver Becne;[305] but the fame of the great school which nurtured Columbanus and Gall, and Dungal and Malachy can never die.

In all probability Dungal left his native country in the opening years of the ninth century. Two causes most likely induced him to leave Ireland, the fame of Charlemagne, as a patron of learned men, and the threatened incursion of the Danes, who were just then beginning their long career of pillage and slaughter in Ireland.

However, in A.D. 811, we find Dungal in France. In that year he addressed a remarkable letter to Charlemagne on the two solar eclipses which were said to have taken place in the previous year, A.D. 810. He is described at this time as a recluse, that is, one who led a monastic life in solitude; he seems, however, to have had some connection with the community of St. Denis, for he evidently recognised the Abbot Waldo as his superior. From the tone of this letter we can also infer that the Great Charles honoured the Irish monk with his intimacy and confidence, and the monarch seems to have the highest opinion of Dungal's learning. He accordingly requested the Abbot Waldo to ask the Irish monk to write an explanation of the two solar eclipses, which are said to have happened in A.D. 810. It is well known that Charles took a great interest in the advancement of knowledge, and was himself a diligent student. Hence he was anxious to understand that portion of divine philosophy, of which Virgil sang--

"Defectus solis varios lunaeque labores."

Moreover, although there certainly was a solar eclipse on the 30th of November, A.D. 810, visible in Europe, it was alleged by many persons that there had been another eclipse in the same year on the 7th of June, if not visible in Europe, yet certainly visible in other parts of the world. This last point especially seems to have staggered the scientific faith of the royal scholar, and hence he appealed to his friend Dungal for an explanation.

The letter of Dungal in reply is exceedingly interesting. It is addressed to Charles, and is entitled, "Dungali Reclusi Epistola de duplici solis eclipsi, anno 810 ad Carolum Magnum." We have read it over carefully. It is written in excellent Latin, and shows that the writer was intimately acquainted with many of the classical authors, especially with Virgil and Cicero. But we cannot guarantee its scientific accuracy in all points. He starts with an explanation of the celestial sphere according to the Ptolemaic system, and hence some of his statements seem very strange to those acquainted with the Copernican theory only of the heavenly bodies. In the main, however, his explanation of the eclipses of the sun and moon is accurate enough.[306] "The Zodiac," he says, "or space through which the planets revolve, is bounded by two lines," which he takes care to explain are imaginary. "A third line drawn between them is called the ecliptic, because when the sun and moon during their revolution happen to be in the same straight line in the plane of this ecliptic, an eclipse of one or the other must of necessity take place; of the sun, if the moon overtake it in its course--ei succedat; of the moon, if at the time it should be opposite to the sun. Wherefore," he adds, "the sun is never eclipsed except the moon is in its thirtieth day; and in like manner the moon is never eclipsed except near its fifteenth day. For only then it comes to pass that the moon, when it is full, being in a straight line with the earth opposite to the sun receives the shadow of the earth; while in the other case, when the moon overtakes the sun (is in conjunction), by its interposition it deprives the earth of the sun's light. Therefore when the sun is eclipsed, the sun itself suffers nothing, only we are robbed of its light; but the moon suffers a real loss by not receiving the sun's light through which it is enabled to dispel our darkness." We think it would require an intermediate exhibitioner to give as lucid an exposition of the cause of the eclipse as was given by this Irish monk of the ninth century, and we are quite certain he would not write it in as good Latin.

As for determining the exact dates of the eclipses of the sun, and, therefore, the possibility of having two in the year A.D. 810, Dungal cannot undertake to compute them, not having near him Pliny the Younger, and some other necessary works. However, the thing is quite feasible, and many ancient philosophers knew and foreknew--scierunt et praescierunt--all about these eclipses. He concludes his letter with an elegantly written eulogy of Charles the Great, imploring all Christians to join with him in beseeching God to multiply the triumphs of Charles, to extend his empire, preserve his family, and prolong his life for many circling years. The language in the original is exceedingly well chosen and harmonious.

After this time we lose sight of Dungal for several years. Charlemagne died in A.D. 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious, and on the 31st of July, A.D. 817, Louis associated with himself his son Lothaire in the Imperial Government. Lothaire, young and energetic, was crowned King of Lombardy in A.D. 821, and next year proceeded to put his kingdom in order. The warlike Lombards, though conquered by Charlemagne, and kept in restraint by his strong arm, were a restless and turbulent people. Lothaire, believing that education and religion would be the most efficacious means to keep them in order, and consolidate his own power, induced Dungal and Claudius of Turin, as well as several other scholars of the Imperial Court, or the famous Palace School, to accompany him to Italy. Claudius, a Spaniard, of whom we shall have more to say again, was made Bishop of Turin; and Dungal opened a school at Pavia. In a short time it became famous; for the master was the first scholar in the Court of the Emperor. Students flocked from every quarter--from Milan, Brescia, Lodi, Bergamo, Novara, Vercelli, Tortona, Acqui, Genoa, Asti, and Como.[307] This was about A.D. 822, the very year, or as others say, the year after Claudius became Bishop of Turin. About the same time Lothaire himself went on to Rome, where he was crowned emperor by the Pope, Pascal I., with great solemnity in A.D. 823.

Dungal and Claudius were thus immediate neighbours. Both were ripe scholars, both held high and responsible positions; but Claudius, who had long held erroneous doctrines, now thought it safe to throw off the disguise. The wolf showed himself, and at once the Irish wolf dog sprang upon his foe. In order to understand this struggle, which was the last effort of Western Iconoclasm, we must go back a little and trace the chain of events which led up to the crisis.

The Seventh Æcumenical Council, and Second of Nice, was concluded at that city in A.D. 787. This Council, accepting the teaching propounded by Pope Hadrian I. in his letter to the Empress Irene, and her son Constantine, explained and defined the Catholic doctrine concerning the worship of images. It was distinctly declared that supreme worship was due to God alone; but that an inferior worship should be rendered to the Blessed Virgin and the saints; and, finally, that a relative worship was due not only to the sign of the Cross, but also to the pictures and images of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and of the saints of God. This relative worship was not, however, paid to the images on account of their own supernatural excellence; it was only a token of the love and honour which Christians have for the originals represented by the images.

The acts of this famous Synod were, of course, in Greek, so Pope Hadrian had them translated into Latin, and sent a copy to Charlemagne, apparently in A.D. 789 or 790.

Unfortunately the Latin version was very faulty in many respects. Anastasius, the Roman Librarian, a most learned scholar and competent authority, declares that the translator knew very little of the genius either of the Greek or Latin language; that he made a word-for-word translation, from which it was frequently impossible to ascertain the real meaning; and hence, in his time, about sixty years later, few persons were found to read or transcribe this faulty copy. So Anastasius himself found it necessary to make a new and correct translation. The French theologians, therefore, at whose head was the keen-eyed Alcuin, found in this translation many things to censure, in which they were right, and many other things they censured in which they were clearly wrong. The result of their labours is known to history as the famous Caroline Books--Libri Carolini. They were published under the name of Charles himself, but Alcuin is generally regarded as the real author.[308]

The emperor was so pleased with his work that he resolved to send this treatise to the Pope himself. Meantime, however, he convened the Synod of Frankfort in A.D. 794, at which some three hundred Bishops of the Frankish Empire are said to have assembled.[309] Here, again, the great monarch, following the example, but scarcely imitating the modesty of Constantine at Nice in A.D. 325, presided in person, and resolved to prove himself a theologian. The Synod met in the great hall of the Imperial Palace. The emperor was on his throne; the bishops were seated round in a circle; an immense throng of priests, deacons, and clerics filled the hall. Rising up from his seat Charles advanced, and standing on the step of the throne pronounced an elaborate harangue, mainly on the heresy of the Adoptionists, but referring also to the errors of the last Greek Synod regarding image worship, and he called upon the prelates present to judge and decide what was the true faith.

The Council did so, at least in their own opinion, after ten days' discussion. They very properly condemned the heresy of the Adoptionists, and the condemnation was approved in Rome; but in the Second Canon they very improperly censured the Second Council of Nice, as if it declared that the same worship and adoration were due to the images of the saints, as are paid to the Holy Trinity. Of course the Council of Nice in their authentic acts had declared exactly the reverse. Moreover, the prelates of Frankfort added that they would give neither servitus nor adoratio to the images of the saints; and, no doubt, they were right in the sense in which they used these terms.

It seems probable that the Caroline Books, written about A.D. 790 or 791, were approved of in this assembly before they were sent to the Pope. But when Hadrian received them he very promptly and effectively refuted them. To each censure of the Council of Nice he gave an elaborate answer, in which the Pope convicts the authors of the Caroline Books, from the extracts sent to him, of grave errors in doctrine, as well as of misquotations and misrepresentations of the Fathers. He shows that they did not understand the true meaning of the Sacred Scriptures in those passages which they cited, that they attributed to the Nicene Fathers errors which they never taught, and that it was the Pope, not the French bishops, who had received authority to teach the Universal Church.

The authors of the Caroline Books richly deserved this castigation. They went so far as to declare that the Synod of A.D. 754, which ordered images to be broken, as well as the Synod of A.D. 787, which commanded them to be worshipped, were infamae and ineptissimae. God alone is, according to them, to be adored and worshipped, and the saints may be venerated; but no kind of adoration or veneration may be paid to the images of the saints, because they are lifeless, and made by the hands of men. It is evident the Frankish theologians did not understand what is meant by relative worship. They admit, however, that the images of the saints may be retained for adorning churches, and also as memorials of the past; but it is not lawful to worship them even by such veneration as is paid to men, salutationis causâ. Such is the substance of the doctrine put forward by the authors of the Caroline Books.[310] Pope Hadrian died on Christmas Day A.D. 795, and the controversy concerning image worship seems to have been lulled for some years in the West. It broke out again, however, with greater warmth in A.D. 824. In the month of November of that year an Embassy arrived at Rouen, where Lothaire was then holding his court, bearing letters and presents from the Greek emperor, Michael the Stammerer, to his western brother.

Michael was an Iconoclast, but not an extreme one; and wrote a very plausible letter, in which he complains of the superstitious excesses of the image-worshippers at Constantinople. He represents himself as the friend of peace and harmony, anxious to repress the excesses of both the extreme parties; and he beseeches his brother Lothaire to lend him his aid, especially by his influence with the Pontiff of the old Rome, to whom he sends several presents with a view to gain his good will and co-operation for the same laudable purpose. Lothaire, ignorant of the real facts of the case, and misled by this most deceptive document, promised his assistance to the Greek ambassadors in Rome, and resolved to aid in the good work of reconciling the extreme parties in the East. He wrote to Pope Eugenius II. to that effect, and asked his permission to appoint a conference of the prelates of his empire, with a view to sift the question thoroughly. The Pope seems to have consented to this course; and the conference met at Paris on the 1st of November, A.D. 825.

These gentlemen issued a most elaborate production addressed to the emperor, by him to be forwarded to the Pope. They begin by attacking the letter of Hadrian to Constantine and Irene, in which letter, as they allege, he ordered images to be superstitiously adored--quod superstitiose eas adorari jussit. In support of his doctrine he cited the Fathers, but according to them it was valde absona what he cited, and ad rem non pertinentia.

Then they attack the Second Council of Nice which gravely erred by ordering images to be worshipped, as the Great Charles had clearly proved in the books sent to Rome by the Abbot Angilbert. And Hadrian, too, in his answer to this treatise, when defending the Synod, wrote what he liked, not what he ought--quae voluit, non tamen quae debuit.

This was not enough for this Paris Conference; they had the assurance to dictate to the Pope what he was to write in reply to the Greek emperor; and to Lothaire himself they recommended what he ought to write to the Pope. On the point of doctrine they declare that nothing made by the hands of man is to be adored or worshipped; and to prove their position they quote St. Augustine, who, according to them, says that image worship had its origin with Simon Magus, and a meretricula called Helen!

When the Emperor Lothaire received these precious documents from the two prelates, Halitgar and Amalarius, deputed to present them, and ascertained their contents, he told them, as might be expected from a sensible man, that the letter to the Pope especially contained some things that were superfluous and more that were impertinent. He therefore commissioned Jeremias of Sens, and Jonas of Orleans, to make extracts from the report which would be more to the point and less likely to give offence in Rome; telling them, at the same time, to show every respect to the Pope, as they were bound to do; that although much might be gained by deference, nothing could be effected by exasperating the Pontiff. If, he adds, the pertinacia Romana will make no concessions, but the Pope is prepared to send an embassy to Constantinople, then let them try at least to induce him to allow the emperor also to send an embassy in conjunction with that of the Pope.

The emperor himself wrote a respectful and plausible letter to the Pope, urging upon him to send ambassadors to the Greek court, adding that he might send with them the two bishops who bore the report of the Paris Conference to His Holiness; and that thus he might be instrumental in restoring peace to the distracted Churches of the East.

Things were at this pass when Dungal appears upon the scene. The prelates of France were, many of them at least, not quite sound on the question of image worship; but Claudius of Turin, just about this time, brought things to a crisis.

This Claudius was a Spaniard, educated in his youth by Felix, Bishop of Urgel, in Spain, one of the leaders of the Adoptionist heretics. The mind of Claudius was infected with this as well as several other errors; but especially with the most extreme form of Iconoclasm.

Like Dungal, he seems to have been in high favour at court; but he kept his errors at that time to himself, at least in their extreme form. When appointed to the See of Turin he threw off the mask. On his first or second visitation he removed the crosses from his cathedral, he broke the images of the saints, and the holy pictures on the walls; he declaimed from the pulpit even against the worship of the saints themselves, or their relics in any shape or form; and finally, heartily denounced the pilgrimage to Rome, which even then was customary with the faithful, as unnecessary and superstitious.

These rash and violent proceedings gave great scandal to the faithful of the diocese. They were divided into two factions; for the bishop had numerous partisans of his own, but they were in a minority; and on one occasion the prelate very narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the mob. The wily Claudius, however, by his representations to the emperor, in which he threw all the blame on the turbulence of the superstitious Lombards, succeeded in maintaining his ground.

About A.D. 824 a friend of his, the pious Abbot Theodemir, wrote a remonstrance to Claudius on his proceedings, in which he adjured him, by the memory of their former friendship, to discontinue these odious proceedings, reminding him how unworthy it was of a Christian bishop to dishonour the Saints of God, to insult the Cross of Christ, and break the images of His saints and martyrs.

This gentle remonstrance only made the Iconoclast more furious. He wrote a reply to the holy abbot, a considerable portion of which has come down to us, and shows Claudius in his true colours.

It is entitled--"Apologeticum atque Rescriptum Claudii Episcopi adversus Theutmirum Abbatem."

It was this work brought out Dungal. He had hitherto been much pained at the proceedings of Claudius; for being then in Pavia he could scarcely be ignorant of what took place in Turin. Most of the French prelates, however, themselves more or less infected with unsound doctrine, held aloof; and even Agobard of Lyons wrote in favour of Claudius, so Dungal, although probably only a deacon, if, indeed, at all in holy orders, felt it his duty to come forward as the champion of the truth. He got his teaching not in France or Germany, but in Ireland; so he was not tainted with the errors of the Frankish theologians.

Dungal's treatise against Claudius is entitled: "Dungali Responsa contra Perversas Claudii Taurinensis Episcopi Sententias."

In the prologue of the book Dungal declares that for God's honour, and with the sanction of Louis and his son Lothaire, he undertakes to defend, on the authority of the Holy Fathers, the Catholic doctrine against the frantic and blasphemous trifling of Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Many times since his arrival in Italy he had just cause to complain, whilst he saw the field of the Lord oversown with tares, yet he held his peace in grief and pain. He can, however, do so no longer, when he sees the Church distracted, and the people seduced by deceivers. He first sets forth very clearly the points at issue between the rival parties, and then proceeds to refute Claudius, and prove the Catholic doctrine, observing at the outset that it was astonishing insolence for any man to presume to "censure and blaspheme that doctrine and practice which for 820 years or more was followed by the blessed Fathers, by most religious princes, and by all Christian households up to the present time."

After proving that these practices were not only not forbidden, but sanctioned by God Himself in the Pentateuch, he goes on to establish this tradition of the Catholic Church, quoting most of the Greek and Latin fathers, the poems of Paulinus, Prudentius, and Fortunatus, the Acts of the Martyrs and the Liturgy of the Church. He quotes, moreover, the Apocalypse, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, at great length, to prove the same doctrine, and alleges that it was the universal belief and practice in the East and in the West from the days of the Apostles down to his own time. The Greeks lately erred; but their errors were retracted and condemned.

It is impossible not to admire the great knowledge of Sacred Scripture and Patristic literature displayed by the author. He reasons, too, clearly and cogently; and writes in a limpid and flowing style. Indeed, we know no writer of that age who excels Dungal in Latin composition, whether in poetry or prose; and this is generally admitted by those acquainted with the Latin literature of the period. Muratori observes that this work shows that Dungal was a man of wide culture.[311] This is high testimony from such an authority. Papirius Massonus, in his address to the prelates and clergy of Gaul prefixed to the treatise of Dungal, calls him an excellent theologian--Theologus excellens--and Alzog declares that the sophistical reasoning of Claudius, Bishop of Turin, was refuted by Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, but much more ably by Dungal, an Irish monk of St. Denys, and subsequently by Strabo and Hincmar of Rheims.

Dungal's was not only the ablest, but also the first work that was written on the subject; for in it he alludes to the Synod or Conference of Paris in A.D. 825, as held two years before. So it must have appeared in A.D. 827, long before the refutations published by Jonas, Eginhard, Strabo, or Hincmar. Henceforward Iconoclasm began to lose ground in the West; and soon entirely disappeared, until revived in the sixteenth century.

As was observed before, towards the close of his life, Dungal retired to the monastery of Bobbio, to which he bequeathed his books. From Bobbio they were transferred to Milan, in A.D. 1606, by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo, and are now in the Ambrosian Library of that city. Among them were three Antiphonaries, one of which seems to have been the famous Bangor Antiphonary. Dungal, no doubt, procured these ancient rituals in order to quote them against Claudius in support of the Catholic doctrine. He appropriately dedicated the work to his countryman St. Columbanus.[312]

Columba, as Lanigan observes, was the real name of Columbanus, the founder of Bobbio, and in all probability, when Dungal calls himself an incola of the saint, he rather means fellow-countryman, than inmate of his monastery.[313]

We cannot stay to criticise the poetry of Dungal. His best poem is an elaborate eulogy on Charlemagne, written in hexameter. Some critics have questioned if Dungal were the author; the style, however, even of the opening lines of the poem, compared with the first lines of the epitaph which he wrote on himself leaves no doubt that the "Irish Exile" was Dungal. The smaller poems that survive, are written in elegiac metre, and display considerable taste, although not much imagination.

There is every reason to think that Dungal, who died about the year A.D. 834, was buried in the crypts of Bobbio. He sleeps well with the friendly saints of Erin; and we earnestly join in his own humble prayer, that he may live for ever with those saints in heaven, even as their dust has long commingled in their far-off graves under the shadows of the Appenines.[314]

IV.--ST. MALACHY.

We cannot close the history of the School of Bangor without giving a sketch of the life of its greatest abbot, St. Malachy, who may, indeed, be regarded as its second founder. We refer to him here, not because he was a great scholar or a distinguished writer, but rather because the Abbot of Bangor was the great reformer of the Irish Church in the twelfth century--a man pre-eminent for the zeal, energy, and holiness of his apostolic career in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers. He was, says the Chronicon Scotorum, the man who restored the Monastic and Canonical rules of the Church of Erin; and that sentence is really a summary of his whole life.

St. Malachy--in Irish Maelmeadhog--was born probably in the neighbourhood of Bangor or Armagh in the year A.D. 1095. The family name was O'Morgair, or O'Mongair, which it is said was afterwards changed into O'Dogherty. His father was a lay professor or lecturer in the School of Armagh; but his mother seems to have come from the neighbourhood of Bangor, of which her brother, the uncle of Malachy, was afterwards titular abbot or perhaps airchinnech. The boy was thus fortunate not only in having the advantages of a famous school and a learned father; but also in attaching himself as a personal friend and disciple to the great and holy Imar O'Hagan, who then lived as a recluse in Armagh. It was doubtless under his holy guidance that Malachy acquired that fund of solid virtue which he afterwards exhibited throughout his life.

In consequence of his eminent virtues whilst still very young, Malachy was promoted by Celsus of Armagh to deacon's orders; and shortly afterwards, before he had attained the then canonical age of thirty, he was ordained a priest by the same great prelate.

Wishing to perfect himself in sacred learning, and especially in the laws and discipline of the Church, St. Malachy next went to the great College of Lismore, which was at this period under the presidency of the venerable Malchus, Bishop of Waterford, and apparently also of Lismore. St. Bernard describes him as then an old man full of days and virtues, and richly endowed with divine wisdom. He was an Irishman by birth, but had been trained in the monastery of Winchester to a more accurate knowledge and observance of ecclesiastical discipline than were to be found at that time in Ireland. Under the influence and direction of this prelate the School of Lismore became, perhaps, the first in Ireland,[315] and St. Malachy fully availed himself of its great advantages.

On his return from Lismore in A.D. 1125, he was at once appointed to the Abbacy of Bangor. His uncle, the lay or titular abbot, gave up to Malachy peaceable possession of the ruined monastery and its wide domains, and became himself an humble monk of the new community--yes, a new community--the abbey lands were there, and a nominal abbot who enjoyed the revenues, but no church, no school, no community.[316] The ancient home of the saints had become a wilderness, the stones of the sanctuary were scattered, no sacrifice was offered on its altars.

It was the work of the Danes, who made a more complete ruin of Bangor than of any monastery elsewhere; because it was on the sea-shore of that narrow channel between Down and Galloway, which was the highway of the pirates. St. Bernard says that it was reported that in one day they slew nine hundred monks at Bangor.

Malachy now took twelve brethren with him and began to build an oratory once more at Bangor. It was finished in a few days, for it was an humble building in the Irish style--opus Scoticum--constructed of planed boards, but closely and firmly put together. Cells for the monks were built around it, and thus Bangor again began to flourish.

Then Malachy most unwillingly was taken from his infant monastery and made Bishop of Connor, that is of the entire County Antrim. At this time things were in a dreadful state in Antrim. There is no reason to question the testimony of St. Bernard. He is an independent and impartial witness, who got his information from St. Malachy and the disciples, whom he had left at Clairvaux. No doubt St. Bernard is rhetorical in style, but he is definite in statement. The natives were indocile and immoral. They neglected to go to confession, contracted illegitimate marriages, paid no tithes or first fruits. There were few priests, and no preaching in the churches. Malachy girt up his loins for the work before him. He went amongst the people on foot, accompanied with a few disciples. He admonished, he instructed, he ordained priests, he preached the Gospel everywhere. He had to endure much, but in the end he succeeded. The face of the country was soon changed, the desert bloomed as a garden, and the people that were not the Lord's became once again the chosen people of God.

It was during these years that Malachy went to the south of Ireland on a visit to his friend Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Cashel, and there founded the monastery which St. Bernard calls monasterium Ibracense, on land given him by King Cormac for that purpose. St. Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, had been driven by usurpers out of his See and was now in the south of Ireland, at Ardpatrick, in the co. Limerick, over which, as heir of St. Patrick, he claimed certain rights. Feeling his end approaching, and knowing that St. Malachy was, of all others, best fitted to succeed him in the Chair of St. Patrick, he sent him his crozier as a token of his wish to have Malachy as his successor.

But Malachy was unwilling to be transferred to the primatial See, and not without good reason. First of all he wished the translation to be made in a canonical way by the bishops of the province with the sanction of Gilbert the Papal Legate. This, however, was soon accomplished, the temporal princes also giving their cordial adhesion to the proposal. Then Malachy consented on one condition, that when things were put in order in Armagh, he might be free once more to return to his own diocese and his beloved monastery of Bangor.

Malachy now found that he had even a more difficult and dangerous task to accomplish in Armagh than had awaited him in the County Antrim.

For more than two hundred years a family of usurpers had established themselves at Armagh, and held the land and See of Armagh, transmitting it from father to son, or grandson, in regular hereditary succession. Most of them were laymen and married men; but they paid regularly ordained prelates to perform all necessary episcopal functions, keeping for themselves the lands, the nomination to the churches, and even the titles of Bishops and Abbots of Armagh.

It has been said that some of these married men were regularly consecrated prelates duly recognised by the Irish Church. There is not a shadow of evidence for the statement, except the name of bishop which is given to some of them. On the other hand, we have unexceptionable testimony that these men were laymen, and that the title of bishop was given to them, although they were laymen. St. Bernard settles the question. He says that this wicked and adulterous generation were so obstinate in asserting this right of hereditary succession, that although clerics of their blood were wanting, bishops were never wanting--that is bishops who were not even clerics. Of these, he says, before Celsus there were eight married men, learned enough but without orders.[317] "Denique jam octo extiterant ante Celsum viri uxorati, et absque ordinibus, litterati tamen." Gerald Barry tells exactly the same story--that various churches in Ireland and Wales had lay abbots.[318] He explains too, how it came to pass. Certain powerful men in the parish, who were at first the stewards of the church lands, and defenders of the clergy, afterwards usurped the ownership of the lands, and in order to secure them for themselves, their children, or their relations, they called themselves abbots and owners of the lands, leaving only to the clergy such chance offerings as they might happen to receive.

Such a system was of course the fruitful root of many evils. St. Malachy resolved to expel these usurpers from the See of Armagh. It was a long and difficult task; and frequently his life was in deadly peril. But God visibly protected him; he was patient, too, and prudent, as well as zealous; and in the end was completely successful. After three years of patient toil, he was universally recognised as Primate; and having thus banished the usurpers, he resigned the See to the care of the learned and saintly Gelasius, and retired once more to his beloved Bangor, keeping only the charge of the episcopal Church of Down.

We cannot follow St. Malachy through his subsequent glorious career. He went to Rome and was specially honoured by Pope Innocent II., who put his own mitre on his head, and his own stole around his neck in presence of his court, and appointed him his Legate for all Ireland. On his way to Rome he stopped at Clairvaux, where he had the good fortune of meeting St. Bernard, who became his dearest and most intimate friend. In him too, St. Malachy, more fortunate even than St. Columba, found a biographer who made the virtues and merits of the Irish saint known to posterity, and to the entire Church of God.

The saint also left at Clairvaux four of his disciples to be trained there under the eyes of St. Bernard himself in the discipline of the great Cistercian Order. It is to them we owe the introduction of that order into Ireland in A.D. 1142, and all the great religious houses which the Cistercians founded throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.

After his return home, armed with the plenary powers of Papal Legate, Malachy devoted himself with even more zeal and success than before to the reformation of his own diocese, and the general restoration of ecclesiastical discipline throughout the kingdom. He was ably supported by the Irish prelates both in the North and in the South; and he would have changed the face of the Church before many years, but it pleased God to call him to Himself all too soon for Ireland. In A.D. 1148 he went to France to meet Pope Eugene III., who was then at Clairvaux. Before Malachy, however, arrived, the Pope had departed, but he was consoled by the warm welcome which he received from St. Bernard and his monks. Shortly after the Irish saint fell sick to the great sorrow of the community, but Malachy consoled them, and told them that there was no chance of his recovery for it was God's will that he should die at Clairvaux. Feeling his strength failing he caused all the brethren to be summoned to his bedside. At once they came--St. Bernard at their head. "With longing I have longed," said the dying man, "to eat this pasch with you"--that is the holy Viaticum--"before I die, and I thank my God that my longing has been gratified." Blessing them one by one he said, "Remember me, and please God I will not forget you." So saying he rested a little; but towards midnight the community was summoned again, and while they wept and prayed around his bed, he fell asleep in the Lord, and "the Angels carried his soul to Heaven." It was at midnight between the 1st and 2nd of November, but the latter being All Souls' Day, his Feast is kept on the 3rd of November. He was canonized by Pope Clement III., about the year A.D. 1190.

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XVII. THE SCHOOL OF CLONENAGH

"Pleasant to sit here thus Beside the cold pure Nore." --Leabhar Breac.

I.--ST. FINTAN.

Several famous religious houses were in ancient days founded around the base of the Slieve Bloom mountains, and the great saints who founded them were mostly contemporaries and intimate friends. Saigher, now called Serkieran, from the name of its founder, Ciaran the Elder, was situated in the old territory of Ely, at the north-western base of the mountain, about four miles east of Birr. Exactly at the southern corner of the mountain slope St. Molua built his oratory, which was called from him Cluain-ferta-Molua, but is now known by the name of Kyle. St. Cronan's Church of Roscrea, his first oratory, close to Corville House, and the beautiful little abbey of Monahincha--Giraldus' Island of the Living--called by the Four Masters, Inis-locha-Cre--are all still to be seen in the north-western extremity of Tipperary, not more than three miles from Kyle. There on the great plain that stretches along the south-eastern base of the mountain, we find, a little to the right of the railway to Maryborough, first St. Canice's old abbey of Aghaboe, then farther on to the left, near Mountrath, is St. Fintan's Church of Clonenagh. Not far from Clonenagh is the townland of Disartbeagh, where St. Ængus used to sit by the side of the 'cold pure Nore,' and like Abraham, received visits from the angels. Still further on, not far from Maryborough to the right, are Dysartenos, to which the same Ængus gave his name, and Coolbanagher beyond the Heath of Maryborough, where he saw the angels around the grave of the old soldier who loved to invoke the saints of God. Not inviting from a scenic point of view are the marshy meadows and sluggish streams of that broad plain; but it is relieved by the great bold mountain on the left, and more than all it is crowded with memorials of the saints of God.

Clonenagh, in Irish, Cluain Eidnech, the Ivy Meadow, is situated about four miles south-west of Maryborough, in the Queen's County. At one time, it is said, there were no less than seven churches there, and the fact that there are at least four distinct old grave-yards, quite convenient to each other, shows that there were at least several distinct churches around Clonenagh in ancient times. From the sixth to the twelfth century, it was not only a great school and monastery, but also the seat of a bishop, who appears to have exercised jurisdiction over the western portion of the ancient Leix (Laeghis), the territory of O'Moore.

It was indeed a secluded spot, almost surrounded by bogs, but the rounded slopes of its verdant knolls gave picturesque variety to what would otherwise be a very dreary scene. Its founder, St. Fintan, was a very remarkable man--in fact an extreme type of the asceticism of the age; yet he was greatly beloved in his own time, and his influence was felt for many centuries after his death. Clonenagh, too, derives a special interest from the fact that it was the Alma Mater of Ængus the Culdee, the most ancient and reliable authority we have on the history of the early saints of Ireland.

Fintan was the son of Gabhren, of the race of Eochaidh Finnfuathairt, and is said to have been born in the territory of Leinster. Leinster at that time was, roughly speaking, bounded on the west by the River Barrow, and did not include Leix. This Eochaidh was a brother of Conn the Hundred-Fighter, who came to help the Leinster King to expel the men of Munster from Leix and Ossory. For this service he received the Seven Forthartha in Leinster, in which he and his descendants settled. The Barony of Forth in Wexford was one of these districts, and still retains the name. There is a local tradition that Fintan was born near Clonenagh,[319] but this can hardly be reconciled with the express statement of his Leinster origin. His mother was Findath, probably of the same race. She was warned by an angel to retire to a secret place until after the birth of her son, who would be holy to the Lord. On the eighth day the child was baptized by a certain holy man, who dwelt in Cluain Mac Trein; and hence it would appear that it was near this place the child was born. It is supposed that the place takes its name from Trein, or Trian, son of the celebrated Dubthach Mac Ua Lugair, who rose up to do honour to St. Patrick at Tara. The Hy-Trian, his descendants by this Trian, seem to have been located at Limbrick, in the Barony of Gorey, county Wicklow, and it is not unlikely that Fintan was born there about the year A.D. 525. We know that he was a little younger than Columcille, and as the latter was born about A.D. 521, Fintan must have been born a few years later.

During his youth Fintan studied under the care of the holy man who baptized him; but the place is not indicated in his life. It must have been some place not very far from Clonard, for we are told that on one occasion as Columcille was passing not far off, he stopped and invited his companions to visit the master and his pupil. Fintan already filled with the spirit of prophecy, had told his master to prepare for guests, as Columcille was coming to visit him. The master doubting the boy, and probably a little jealous of the favour shown him, sharply rebuked Fintan for his presumption; but when Columcille arrived, he rebuked the master, and told him that both himself and his place of abode would belong to Fintan for ever. This would seem to imply that this incident took place somewhere in the neighbourhood of Clonenagh.

Shortly afterwards Fintan was placed under the care of Columba Mac Crimthann, better known as Columba of Terryglass; but he had yet not founded that celebrated establishment on the shores of Lough Derg. With Fintan there were two others, St. Caemhen of Annatrim, not far from Clonenagh, and St. Mocumin, or Mochocma, who succeeded Columba at Terryglass. These were both half-brothers of the great St. Kevin of Glendalough; and very naturally were placed under the care of St. Columba, son of Crimthann, who was their first cousin. Fintan was probably also connected with these saints by family ties, as they all came originally from the same district of Leinster. At first it seems Columba wished to settle with his disciples at some place in their native territory--in finibus Lageniensium--and actually had chosen a beautiful spot for their monastery, where they hoped to live together in holiness and peace; for, says the Life, they had only one heart, and in the gladness of their united souls they cried out to their master, "Oh! it is good for us to be here." "Not so," said Columba; "God reserves this place not for us, but for one not yet born, Mobhi Mac Calde,"[320] or, as it is elsewhere, Mobhi Mac Cumalde. The true reading is probably Mobhi Mac Colmaidh, who was the son of Caeltigerna, a sister of St. Kevin, and a nephew (yet unborn) of the two brothers, Mocumin and Caemhen; but the place of his Church has not been ascertained. Thereupon they left the territory of Leinster and came to the place now called Clonenagh, where they remained for an entire year without, however, founding there as yet any permanent establishment. It was surrounded by bogs, but sheltered by great oak woods festooned with clustering ivy. Great crowds of people, however, and amongst them numbers of their own friends, continued to crowd in upon the saints, and disturbed their repose, so that Columba resolved to seek some more retired place in which to serve God. They saw the wild solitudes of Slieve Bloom rising over them to the north-west, and thither Columba now directed his steps, followed by his faithful disciples. On the mountain side they met several boys who were herding cattle, one of whom, Setne, was voiceless from his mother's womb. Columba made the sign of the cross upon his mouth, and bade him tell them the place of their resurrection. Then the dumb boy spoke plainly, and told each of them where he was to die, and arise from the dead. Hereupon Columba looking down the mountain saw Clonenagh, which they had left, filled with God's angels, and he was much saddened at the sight. Upon inquiry he told them the reason--how he saw the place they had deserted filled with ministering angels, and how anxious he was that some of them should return to the holy spot. So Fintan promptly volunteered to return, and thus became the real founder of that great monastic establishment, which ever since bears his name.

Numbers of disciples now gathered round him, for the fame of his sanctity was very great. He wrote a Rule for his community which unfortunately has been lost; but we are told that it was very strict, even beyond the monastic rules of that time. His monks worked with hands and feet, digging the soil with spade and hoe, as hermits usually do. They had no cattle--not even a single heifer--and therefore no milk; they even refused to take the milk which their neighbours, pitying their poverty, used to bring them. Fintan would not allow it.

Cainnech, however, of Aghaboe, and other saints in the neighbourhood came to Fintan, and begged him to remit a little of the extreme rigour of their lives. Fintan, divinely admonished, yielded to their suggestions--remitting the severity of his rule in favour of others--but still himself adhering to his own practices of mortification.

It is no wonder that such a man was filled with the spirit of prophecy, and performed many wonderful miracles, that were much noised abroad. One miracle is recorded, which illustrates the spirit of filial affection that prevailed in the midst of all this rigour of discipline. The saint went out to see his monks, who were working in the field. When they saw their father, like children, the half-starved monks ran up to him, and catching hold of him, they besought him to give them something better than usual for their refection, as great folk do, who visit the workmen. Fintan smiled on his children, and told them he had nothing to give them; but that God was good, and might give in his stead. Next day certain men came from Leinster, bringing to the monastery waggon loads of provisions, as much as eighty men could carry, so that the poor famished brethren, living almost entirely on herbs, got more than one good meal from these supplies.

One of the most distinguished pupils that issued from this great school was St. Comgall of Bangor. So great was the fame of Clonenagh at this period that Comgall came all the way from Dalaradia to place himself under the guidance of its holy abbot. As Clonenagh was founded about the year A.D. 548, when Fintan was not more than twenty-five years of age, Comgall can hardly have arrived there earlier than A.D. 550, and in that case the master was probably eight or ten years younger than the disciple--a not unusual occurrence in those days. Comgall at first felt all the severity of the discipline at Clonenagh, and was greatly tempted to abandon his purpose; but by God's grace, and the advice of Fintan, he persevered, and then found his soul filled with great spiritual joy. He remained some years at Clonenagh, where he formally received the monastic habit, though he was not yet admitted to Holy Orders. By Fintan's advice he then returned home to found the celebrated monastery on the southern shores of Belfast Lough, which will be for ever connected with his name.

On another occasion, a certain cruel and heartless king, Colman, son of Cairbre, the ruler of North Leinster, kept in bonds a noble youth, Cormac, the son of Diarmaid, king of Hy-Kinsellagh, with the intention, it appears, of putting him to death. Fintan, who was himself connected with the royal race of the Hy-Kinsellagh, set out with twelve companions for Rathmore, where Colman then lived and kept his prisoner. This is more likely to be Rathmore, about four miles east of Naas, where the great rath still exists, than Rathmore, east of Tullow, in the county Wicklow. In the Salamanca MS., the place is called Rathmoin, and there is a Rathmoon close to Baltinglass, which possibly may have been the scene of the miracle. When Colman heard of Fintan's approach, he locked his gates, and doubled the guards over the prisoner; but it was all in vain. The gates opened of themselves to admit Fintan, and the terrified guards ran off to tell their still more affrighted master, who quickly consented to release young Cormac. One of Colman's sons wished to slay the late captive before he could get away; but Fintan threatened him with Divine vengeance, a threat that was speedily fulfilled, for he was slain before the end of a month, whilst Cormac, the captive, became a monk, and ended his days in peace and holiness in the monastery of Bangor. It may be that he was a fellow-student of Comgall at Clonenagh, and was thus induced to go to the monastery of his old fellow-student. We find, indeed, that an intimate friendship and intercommunication existed between these two monasteries; and very frequently the monks of Clonenagh paid a visit to St. Comgall at Bangor, by whom they were always most kindly received.

On another occasion Fintan was sojourning at the monastery of Achad-Finglass, most likely founded by himself at Idrone, in the County Carlow. The old church of Agha, about four miles east of Old Leighlin, probably marks the site of this monastery. A holy bishop, called Brandubh, of the Hy-Kinsellagh, came to ask permission of the saint to be allowed to end his days at Clonenagh. The saint readily consented, but advised the bishop rather to remain where they then were, and where the rule was not so strict, and would not be so severe as at Clonenagh. The bishop followed Fintan's counsel, but induced him to promise that in case Fintan died first, he would soon come to meet him, and bring his soul to heaven. Fintan promised, and kept his word; for three weeks after his own death, he came with seven spirits, clothed in white, to bring to heaven the holy soul of the venerable bishop. May not this Agha monastery be that religious house founded by Columba and his three disciples in the territory of the men of Leinster before they came to Clonenagh?

"No one," says the writer of his Life, "can describe the charity, meekness, humility, patience, abstinence, watchings, and other virtues of this blessed man." He constantly watched over his community with the most tender and devoted care. He was always ready to succour the afflicted, and to protect the oppressed; his was a name which good men loved, and bad men feared throughout all the territory of Leinster. Towards the close of his life he chose one of his own monks, named Fintan Maeldubh, as his successor, and 'placed him in his chair.' Then calling all the members of the community around him, he raised his hands to heaven, and solemnly gave them his blessing. After which he received the "Sacrifice," and went to sleep in the Lord. He died on the 17th February, about the year A.D. 592, some time before the death of St. Columba in A.D. 597.

A young man from Leix went to Iona, and when there asked St. Columba's advice as to the choice of a spiritual director, when he should return home. Columba recommended Fintan as the best and holiest director he knew. We are told, however, that shortly after this young man's return to Ireland, Fintan was called to his reward; which shows that he must have died at Clonenagh before St. Columba died at Iona. He was buried at Clonenagh; but there is now no trace of his tomb.

St. Fintan has been called by many old writers the Father of the Irish Monks, and he has been likened in his manner of life to St. Benedict, the great founder of western monasticism--at least on the Continent of Europe. He was not, indeed, the oldest, nor even the most celebrated of the Second Order of Irish Saints, who devoted themselves to the monastic life. But he founded his monastery when very young; his own life was extremely ascetic; and he had amongst his novices and disciples several of the most celebrated founders of religious houses in Ireland. In this way it came to pass that as Finnian of Clonard was the tutor of the Saints of Ireland, so Fintan came to be described as the Father of the Irish Monks. And as Clonard was looked upon as a great school, so Clonenagh, like Aran, came to be regarded during the life of its holy founder as a kind of noviciate for the training of monks, many of whom went to Bangor, and elsewhere; and thus diffused through Erin his discipline and his spirit.

The most remarkable scholar of Clonenagh was St. Ængus, the Culdee.

II.--ST. ÆNGUS.

Ængus was a student at Clonenagh during the prelacy of the Abbot Melaithgen or Melaithgenius.

The materials for a Life of St. Ængus are very scanty. We have no original Life, and only two documents that tell us anything about him--the Scholiast's Introduction to his writings, and a poem in praise of the saint, written by a namesake, apparently not very long after his death. From these two sources we gather the following facts:--

Through his father, Oengoba, son of Oblen, he derived his descent from Coelbach, King of Ireland, who belonged to the royal race of the Dalaradians of Ulster. He was probably born in the neighbourhood of Clonenagh, about the middle of the eighth century. From his earliest youth he seems to have been trained to sanctity and learning in the monastic school of Clonenagh, which, as we have seen, was then ruled by the learned and pious Melaithgen. Under this holy master the young Ængus made very great progress. He not only became, as his writings prove, an accomplished scholar, but also a model of every virtue. He seems to have been devoted to ascetical practices even from his earliest youth; and he loved to spend most of his time in prayer and solitude. Hence he came to be called by excellence the Culdee, that is, the Ceile De, or servant of God. He was probably the first to whom this appellation was given, as a kind of surname in recognition of his great sanctity and self-denial. Afterwards the name was given to other ascetic solitaries, who, though not a religious order in the proper sense of the word, still formed communities of anchorites living apart, but yet frequently meeting in the same church for devotional purposes, and recognising a common superior to whom they were duly obedient. Later on numbers of the secular clergy formed themselves into somewhat similar communities, and came to be known by the same name. They were in reality, however, what is known as Canons secular, that is a body of secular clergy, living apart, but subject to a common rule, which was generally the rule of St. Augustine.

The Ceile De of the earlier period divided his time between prayer, manual labour, and literary employment, if he were a man of learning and ability. He was never a burden to others, for he and his brethren contrived to procure from their little farms not only their own scant and meagre fare, but also the means of hospitable entertainment for the poor and the stranger.

Ængus seems to have spent, many years in this kind of solitary life, living alone in his little cell, and finding sustenance in the roots of the earth, or the produce of his garden. His first cell was probably at Disert-beagh, which is not more than a mile from Clonenagh, and likely got its name from having been the desertum, or solitary abode of the saint. He had not yet forsaken his beloved community of Clonenagh on the banks of the infant Nore; and he loved them dearly to the end, if we may believe his poetical namesake in the Leabhar Breac--

"Pleasant to sit here thus Beside the cold pure Nore."

And then follow the stanzas which, Mr. Matthew Arnold declared, show as fine a perception of what constitutes propriety and felicity of style as anything to be found in a Greek epitaph--

"Ængus out of the assembly of Heaven, Here are his tomb and his bed, It is hence he went to death, On Friday to the holy Heaven; It is in Cluain Eidnech he was reared, It is in Cluain Eidnech he was buried, It is in Cluain Eidnech of many crosses He first read his psalms."

But Disert-beagh was not lonely enough for Ængus--it was too near the great monastic school, and doubtless his solitude was often disturbed by truant youth, or inquisitive strangers. So he put his books in his satchel, took his staff in his hand, and made his way as best he could through the bogs and morasses, where the railway now runs, until he came to the place called after him, Dysert Enos or the Desert of Ængus. It is about eight miles from Clonenagh, and two to the south-east of Maryborough on the slope of a broken ridge of bluish gray limestone, that relieves to some extent that dreary and featureless plain. The present grave-yard, surrounding the roofless Protestant Church, probably marks the site of the primitive oratory founded by Ængus; and shows that though dead to the world, like most of his countrymen the self-denying ascetic had an eye for the natural beauty of a picturesque landscape. It afforded him too what he no doubt prized much, a distant prospect of his beloved Clonenagh, beyond the swampy moorland, under the shadow of Slieve Bloom.

In this lonely retreat Ængus practiced the severest penitential observance. He made three hundred genuflections every day; and moreover recited the entire psaltery. But not in ordinary fashion; he divided his self-imposed office into three parts. Fifty psalms he said in his cell; fifty more he recited in the open air under the shade of a spreading tree that embowered his little oratory; the last fifty, if we can credit his biographer, he repeated with his neck chained to a post, and his body half plunged in a huge tub of cold water.

Penance like this showed that Ængus was a saint; so in spite of his efforts to conceal himself the world soon found him out, and strangers began to disturb him once more. Before all things he loved to be alone, and so once again he resolved to make his escape from men, and hide himself for ever from their foolish admiration and applause. This time he resolved to adopt another plan, and strove to escape from the crowd not so much by shunning their presence, as by concealing his identity.

It is doubtful if Ængus when setting out knew what was to be his final destination. He left his cell at Dysart Enos, trusting solely to the guidance of Providence; and Providence never deserts those who put their trust in God.

Shortly after setting out on his journey, as we should now say towards Dublin, Ængus entered a way-side church to pray to God, and ask His guidance and protection. This was probably the first church which he met on his way; it is now called Coolbanagher, about four miles from Dysart Enos, beyond the Heath of Maryborough, and not far from Portarlington. There he saw a vision of angels hovering around a newly-made grave. He asked the priest, who served the little church, whose was that new grave. The priest told him it was the grave of a soldier who had served God faithfully for many years. Then Ængus asked him was he in the habit of practising any special mortification, or any peculiar devotion. The priest knew of nothing special, or unusual, in his case, except that he made it a constant practice every day to invoke the intercession of all God's saints, whom he could call to mind. This incident made a very deep impression on Ængus. He saw how meritorious it was to invoke the saints; and so he resolved thereafter, if he could find time and place, to compose a metrical catalogue of the saints, which devout souls might more easily remember and recite for their own spiritual welfare.

Afterwards Ængus went his way, and at length came to St. Maelruain's monastery at Tallaght, near Dublin, then, and almost ever since, a favourite home of religious men. He was quite unknown to the inmates of the monastery, so, concealing his name and learning, he sought admission into the community as an humble lay-brother. His pious request was readily granted; but, of course, the novice was put to the meanest and hardest work in the monastery. He reaped the corn in the field; carried it to the barn on his back; threshed it; winnowed, dried, and ground it in the mill for the use of the brotherhood. He wore the poorest rags he could find during his rounds of daily toil; his hair was so unkempt that it was as if the ears of corn grew in it; his hands were horny with the flail, and his face black with sweat and dust. So he lived unknown to all, labouring with his hands, but praying to God in his heart.

At length it pleased Providence to uncover this shining light, so that it might be seen by men. A truant scholar of the monastery, who was either unable or neglected to learn his lesson, fearing to present himself before the abbot in class, took refuge in the barn where Ængus was working. He sympathised with the poor boy, bade him lie down in the straw, and rest himself, and that all would be well. The boy did so, and soon fell fast asleep in the barn. When he awoke refreshed, Ængus asked him to repeat the lesson; he obeyed, and partly, no doubt, by the instructions, and partly by the kind encouragement of the good monk, he completely succeeded in mastering his lesson. Ængus then told him go to the school, but to say nothing of what happened in the barn. The boy went to his class, and astonished his master by having his lesson perfectly--which seems to have been in his case quite an unusual occurrence. The abbot, suspecting something, made inquiries, and insisted on learning the whole truth. Then the boy confessed what took place in the barn, and how the lay-brother had gone over his lesson with him. The truth at once flashed upon the mind of Maelruain; he had probably heard of the disappearance of Ængus from Dysart Enos, and now felt certain that the hard-working lay-brother was no other than the great scholar of Clonenagh. So he went at once to the barn, and embracing Ængus most tenderly, reproached him for so long concealing himself from the community. Ængus humbly asked pardon of the abbot, which, of course, had been already granted, and was at once received into his most intimate friendship--a friendship that endured until Maelruain's death.

The abbot now resolved to utilize, for God's glory, the great learning and talents of the distinguished scholar, whom Providence had bestowed on the community of Tallaght. Ængus, on his part, was most anxious to co-operate with Maelruain; and so these two holy men set about the composition of those works which have contributed so much to the glory of God, and of the ancient Church of Ireland.

The Martyrology of Tallaght was probably their first work: and is supposed to have been the joint production of Ængus and Maelruain. If so, it must have been written before the year A.D. 792, when Maelruain died. It is described by O'Curry as a catalogue in prose of the saints of Erin, and their festival days, with brief notices in some instances of their fathers and of the churches which they founded. It is considered to be the oldest of our Irish Martyrologies; and according to Michael O'Clery--no mean authority--it furnished the materials for the great poem called the Felire, or Festology of the Saints, which Ængus subsequently composed. Nor is it difficult to explain O'Curry's objection to this hypothesis--namely, that it contains the names of several saints who lived longer than Ængus himself--as, for instance, of Blathmac, who was martyred in Hy by the Danes in A.D. 823, and Felimy MacCriffan (Crimhthainn) King of Munster, who died in A.D. 825--for these names may have been added by a later hand, or by the first copyist. The oldest copy of this Martyrology is found in the Book of Leinster, but Brother Michael O'Clery made a more complete copy, which is now in the Burgundian Library at Brussels. It was borrowed from the Belgian Government in 1849, and copied for Dr. Todd by the late lamented Eugene O'Curry. The same text was translated and published, with notes, by Dr. Mathew Kelly, of Maynooth, in 1847.

The most celebrated, however, and by far the most valuable of the writings of Ængus is his Felire, or Festology of the Saints. He conceived the idea of this work from the vision of Angels which he saw in the old Church of Coolbanagher, over the grave of the poor soldier, who used to invoke the saints of God. Doubtless, as an aid to the memory, it is written in verse, and in what O'Curry pronounces to be the best and purest style of our language--the Gaedhlic of the eighth century. The same authority declares that it is the oldest and the most important of all our Martyrologies. One of the best copies is that contained in the famous compilation called the Leabhar Breac, or Great Book of Duniry, in the county Galway. In the preface or introduction to the work there is a short notice of the writer, and of the time, place, and purport of his composition.

The time of its composition was during the reign of the monarch Aedh Oirnidhe, who reigned from A.D. 793 to 817, so that though planned during the abbacy of Maelruain, it was not written until after his death. It appeared probably about the year A.D. 800, with the approbation of one of the greatest scholars of the time, "Fothadh of the Canon."

O'Curry conjectures that at this period Ængus had left Tallaght and returned to his first cell at Disert-beagh, near Clonenagh. Aedh, the King, just at this time made an incursion into Leinster, and pitched his camp not far from Monasterevan, in the Queen's County. It seems that up to this period the clergy were compelled to follow the native princes in battle, and even sometimes took an active part in the conflict. This, however, was altogether against the Canon Law; and on the present occasion Conmach, the Primate-Archbishop of Armagh, and his clergy protested against the practice, and appealed to the king to allow them to return home and confine themselves to the discharge of their spiritual functions. The king took this remonstrance in good part, and as they were encamped in Leix, offered to refer their complaint to the decision of Fothadh, his own poet, tutor, and adviser. Fothadh thus appealed to, gave his decision in favour of the clerics and against the king, and being a poet gave it in rhyme. His decision thus given, exempting the clergy from military service, was known as the Canon, and he himself came to be called Fothadh-na-Canoine.

Fothadh showed the stanzas in which he expressed his decision to Ængus, who entirely approved of it both as to matter and form. Ængus on the same occasion showed his own poem on the Saints of Erin to Fothadh, for he was fully sensible of the great importance of securing for his own work the approbation of the royal Bard. That approval was warmly and generously given, accompanied with a strong recommendation to the faithful generally to use the poem in their public and private devotions.

The Felire is divided into three parts: the first part is introductory to the body of the work, and consists of five quatrains, invoking in very beautiful language the gift of heavenly wisdom from the King of the White Sun, that the poet may, with a pure heart, fitly celebrate the praises of the royal hosts of the great and good all-righteous King. He then alludes to the consolation which he himself found in celebrating the praises of the saints. He describes the various torments which the soldiers of Jesus suffered, and which they endured with joyful heroism. Now they enjoy their reward for ever with Mary's Son; while their bodies here below are enshrined in bright gold. Herod and Pilate are then contrasted with Christ, Nero with Peter and Paul, Pilate's queen with the Virgin Mary. Earthly power and glory are fleeting in comparison with the love of 'Mary's Son,' and earthly princes are less than the lowly soldiers of Jesus. Tara has perished, but Armagh is still crowded with the sons of wisdom. King Laeghaire's glory is gone, but Patrick's name still lives and will live for ever.

The body of the work contains 365 quatrains, in which the writer celebrates on every day the praises not only of our principal Irish saints, but also commemorates several saints of the Universal Church. The text is interlined with a very ancient gloss and commentary, as well as with notes fixing the sites of the churches of several of the saints referred to. This gloss and the accompanying notes, whilst adding much to the difficulty of editing the work itself, render it an invaluable aquisition to the historian and archæologist.

In the third part the author recapitulates his poem, explains its construction and arrangement, directs the faithful how to use it, and apologises for the fact that of necessity he could only introduce the chiefs and princes of the saints into his poem. Yet he spared no pains to make it as complete as possible, consulting for the foreign saints, Ambrose, Jerome, and Eusebius; and for the Irish saints, he not only consulted "the countless hosts of the illuminated books of Erin," but he himself travelled throughout the entire country visiting their churches and collecting the local traditions regarding them. Lest, however, any might be jealous for being omitted, he invokes them in this third part under certain general heads--patriarchs, prophets, virgins, martyrs, etc., etc.--so that not a single one of the heavenly host at home or abroad can complain of the want of some reference to his or her memory. It is not too much to say that the Felire of Ængus is on the whole the most valuable of the Irish ecclesiastical treatises that have happily been preserved down to our own times.

Another valuable work which we owe to the indefatigable industry of Ængus is the collection of Pedigrees of the Irish Saints--the oldest, and therefore the most authentic collection that we possess, and enriched moreover with valuable topographical notes and references to many of our ancient churches. The fifth part of this work is the Book of Litanies, which has been published in the third volume of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. It affords conclusive proof of one fact, that the invocation of the saints was not only a well recognised, but quite a common form of devotion in the early Church of Ireland. Indeed there is scarcely a single folio of any portion of the writings of Ængus that does not afford conclusive evidence of the same fact.

The last work of Ængus is the Saltair-na-Rann, which Eugene O'Curry describes as "consisting of 150 poems on the history of the Old Testament, written in the finest style of the Gaedhlic language of the middle of the eighth century." Probably it got its name from its resemblance, at least in number, to the Psalms of David. It is, according to the same authority, altogether a different work from the comparatively modern poem of the same name in the British Museum.

In the year 1880 the Felire, or Metrical Calendar of Ængus, edited and translated by Dr. Whitley Stokes, was published by the Royal Irish Academy. In a paper read before the Academy so early as 1871, and prefixed to this work, Dr. Stokes asserts that Ængus cannot have been the author of the Felire; that similar linguistic reasons prove that he cannot have been the author of the Saltair-na-Rann, and that there is not a particle of trustworthy evidence to show that Ængus ever wrote either the Pedigrees of the Irish Saints, or his celebrated Litany of the Irish Saints. Dr. Stokes is a conscientious and painstaking writer, but with a love of originality in his views. We carefully examined the reasons which he gives in favour of these very original views, and we must say we thought them exceedingly hollow. As to his linguistic reasons for asserting that the Felire and the Saltair could not have been written before the close of the tenth century, we may confidently set the opinion of an Irish scholar like Eugene O'Curry against that of Dr. Whitley Stokes, whose knowledge of Irish is purely book knowledge. There is not a single linguistic form in the MSS., which he alleges to be later than the eighth century, that cannot be explained by the well-known custom of the copyists modernizing the language of the MSS., so as to make their copies more intelligible to those for whom they wrote.[321] We have already explained how in a similar way the names of a few saints, and of the author himself, might have been added to the Felire by a copyist who wished to pay honour to a favourite saint of his own church. Flimsy reasons of this kind manifestly cannot outweigh the explicit testimony of the Scholiast's Introduction--written before the twelfth century in very ancient Irish--that these were the works of Ængus, and giving us the time, the place, and the circumstances of their composition, with the few facts that are known to us concerning the life of the writer.

It is very likely that Ængus died in his beloved retreat at Disert-beagh; but, according to the metrical Life, he was buried at Clonenagh. He had laboured long and travelled far to illustrate the history of the saints of his native land; and now that long day's work was done, and he lay down to sleep in the bosom of the dear and holy scenes of his childhood. He knew that the pious brotherhood of Clonenagh would not forget to chant for many a year the requiem for his soul's repose; and that the 'pure cold Nore' of his youthful love would breathe its gentle murmurs near his grave for ever. But his voice has not been stilled by the flight of centuries--even now he speaks to us on earth in his writings, and he prays for us amongst the choirs of angels and saints in heaven.

Clonenagh suffered so much during the Danish wars that it gradually fell away from its ancient importance, and in the twelfth century sank to the rank of a parochial church. At present it is only a green mound associated with a historic name.

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XVIII. THE SCHOOL OF GLENDALOUGH

"By that lake, whose gloomy shore Skylark never warbles o'er, Where the cliff hangs high and steep, Young St. Kevin stole to sleep." --Moore.

I.--ST. KEVIN.

Glendalough--the Valley of the Two Lakes--is, for a religious and cultivated mind, one of the most interesting spots in Ireland. Nature has made it wild and beautiful; religion has hallowed its scenery with the holiest associations; the genius of song has lit up its dark lakes and mountains with all the radiance of romance. It is one of those places the very sight of which raises the mind from mean and sordid thoughts to the contemplation of what is beautiful and good.

This will be felt all the more by those who are acquainted with the holy and self-denying life of the founder of Glendalough. His career is peculiarly interesting and attractive; for he was a man of the most amiable disposition, and yet of the most austere virtue; a lover of nature and a teacher of men, with the emotional soul of a poet, and a conscience of angelic purity. We are told that the wild birds loved to alight on his shoulders, and that the savage beasts fawned at his feet. He felt himself most at home in the midst of the wild majestic scenery of his mountain valley, where he loved to commune with Nature and with Nature's God. We are told in his Life that his eyes and ears were always open to the sights and sounds around him--that the birds made sweet music in his ears--that the toil of his austere life was lightened by listening to the gentle murmurs of the wind through the leaves of the trees around his cell.

Kevin--in Irish Coemghen, or the Fair-begotten--came of the royal stock of Leinster both on his father's and mother's side. His father, Coemlug, was seventh in descent from Messincorb, the common ancestor of the Dal Messincorb, who himself was son of Cucorb, a king of Leinster in the beginning of the second century. Coemell, his mother, was the daughter of Cennandan, a chief of the Dal Cormac, so called from Cormac Caech, who was a brother of that Messincorb already alluded to.

Coemghen was born A.D. 498, for we are told that he was one hundred and twenty years old when he died A.D. 618. The place of his birth is not given in his Life; but it was somewhere in the county Wicklow, the south-eastern corner of which, around Rathdrum, seems to have been the patrimony of his family. It was a family of saints; for Kevin had two brothers and two sisters, whose names are in the Calendar. One of the brothers was Caemhan of Ard-Chaemhain, near Wexford; the other was Mocuemin, or Nathchaemh, the cousin and successor of St. Columba of Terryglass, in Lower Ormond. The sisters were St. Coeltigerna, mother of St. Dagan of Inver Daoile, in Wicklow, and Melda, the mother of the younger St. Abban, who was born about the year A.D. 520. Then, again, Coemghen's paternal uncle was St. Eugenius, Bishop of Ardstraw, the principal patron saint of the diocese of Derry.

The family, too, seems to have been remarkable for personal beauty as well as for sanctity of life--all its members, male and female, being described in their very names as 'beautiful' or 'fair-begotten.' Young Coemghen of Glendalough grew up to be a youth of remarkable beauty, so that his good looks became a source of great danger and temptation to the boy, as we shall presently see.

The child was baptized by a priest called Cronan, not by an Angel, as has been sometimes foolishly said. It is stated, however, in the saint's Life in the Salamanca MS., that an Angel under the appearance of a beautiful boy, met the child when it was being carried to the font, and blessed the infant--a fact which is not at all improbable.

At the early age of seven the child was placed under the care of St. Petroc, a learned and holy man who came from Cornwall, and hence is called a Briton in the Life of St. Kevin. Petroc came to Ireland in A.D. 492 and devoted himself to the study of Sacred Scripture, as well as to the instruction and edification of his neighbours in Wicklow, both by word and example. He afterwards returned to his own country, where he continued the same course of saintly life. His monastic school in Cornwall became a great centre of learning and holiness, and was known as Petroc-Stowe, which afterwards came to be corrupted into Padstow--its present name.

Under the care of this venerable master young Coemghen remained for twelve years, until A.D. 512, when he was transferred to the guidance of his uncle, St. Eugenius, afterwards founder and bishop of Ardstraw. He had studied some years in Britain in the great monastery of Rosnat which by some writers is placed in Wales, but by others, with much more probability, is identified with Whithern in Galloway. Eugenius, after his return to his own country, in conjunction with St. Lochan and St. Enna, founded a monastic school at a place called Kilnamanagh, in his native territory of Cualann. There is a townland called Kilnamanagh in the parish of Glenealy, north-east of Rathdrum, in Wicklow; and it was here, doubtless, that Coemghen lived under the care of these three saints, making, we are told, daily progress in virtue and learning.

St. Eugenius, though he had studied in the schools of Britain, was probably not much older than his nephew. He was now, it seems, desirous to preach the Gospel in the native territory of his mother, who came from the North of Ireland, and he was anxious to appoint young Coemghen to succeed him at Kilnamanagh. Thereupon Coemghen, fearing to be raised to this post of honour and responsibility, fled from his uncle's monastery to the desert of Glendalough, and hid himself in the remotest recesses of that wild mountain valley.

There was it seems another reason, too, which has been much distorted by poetic licence, that induced him to fly from his native district. The genuine story is told in his Life, and is very different from the popular and poetic account. Coemghen was a very handsome youth, and his good looks won the affection of a beautiful girl of his own age, whose sorrow was great to find her love not only unrequited, but unnoticed. On one occasion she even followed the gracious boy, when he went with his brothers to the woods, and finding him alone exerted all her blandishments to win his heart. The young saint, tormented instead of softened by her proffered caresses, which he had tried in vain to repel, resolved to give her a lesson for the future. He had flung himself half-naked into a brake full of nettles, and now gathering a handful, he scourged the girl with the burning nettles on her face and arms. "The fire without," says the author of the saint's Life, "extinguished the fire within." Her heart was touched with the grace of penance. She humbly asked Coemghen's pardon for all she had done to tempt him, and besought him to pray to God in her behalf. Such prayers could not but be heard; and so we are told that she became a sincere convert, consecrating her virginity to God, and faithfully following all the years of her life the counsels and spiritual guidance of St. Coemghen. To scourge the fair Kathleen with nettles for the good of her soul is a very different thing from flinging her into the lake.

Before Kevin retired to the recesses of Glendalough, he was ordained priest by Bishop Lugaidh, or Lugidus. Some persons think it was by his advice that Coemghen sought that lonely retreat.

In order to understand the subsequent events in the life of St. Coemghen, or, as we may now call him, St. Kevin, it is necessary to have some idea of the topography of Glendalough.

The valley is something more than two miles long, and about three quarters in average breadth. It runs from east to west, slightly trending towards the north at its western extremity. Towards the east it gradually opens into the valley of the Avonmore; but on the other three sides it is completely enclosed by lofty and precipitous mountains. To the south, or left hand, looking westward, are the mountains of Derrybawn and Lugduff, the latter especially rising in steep and gloomy grandeur, like a great wall, from the floor of the valley. On the north or right hand are the two mountains of Brockagh and Comaderry--neither so bold nor so steep as Lugduff; Comaderry, however, rises to the height of 2,296 feet, while Lugduff is only 2,140 above the level of the sea.

There are two lakes in this dark valley, one called the Upper, or western lake, which is the larger and gloomier sheet of water lying under the gigantic shadow of Lugduff, whose cliffs rise sheer from the water to the height of 1,000 feet. The Lower, or eastern lakelet, is smaller and brighter in its aspect, and leaves a foot passage on either side between its shores and the mountains to the north and south. At the extreme western end of the valley a mountain torrent dashes down a steep ravine into the lake, forming a fine cascade, which may be seen from the eastern shore of the lake. There is another mountain stream that rushes down between Lugduff and Derrybawn on the south, forming a grand waterfall called Pollanass, escaping from which its waters enter the Upper Lake at its south-eastern extremity. Fed by these two streams and numerous rivulets, the Upper Lake sends out its surplus waters down the valley in a considerable stream called here the Glenealo River, which rushes eastward over the broken ground until it takes rest for a while in the Lower Lake. Emerging thence, and still flowing eastward for half a mile, it unites with another stream called the Glendasan River, which flows down the back of Comaderry mountain. For about a quarter of a mile before uniting, these two streams flow almost parallel through the valley, and then suddenly bending towards each other, send their united waters still eastward to join the Avonmore at Larah, towards the eastern extremity of the Valley of Glendalough. The delta, formed in the valley by the Glenealo and Glendasan rivers, was the site of the 'City' of Glendalough, and there still the principal ruins are to be found.

When Kevin fled from Kilnamanagh and its dangers, he penetrated to the very heart of this wilderness, and took up his abode in its most inaccessible retreats. The writer of his Life gives a most accurate description of the spot which he chose for his place of abode. "It was a valley closed in with lofty and precipitous mountains, and in the western part of this valley towards the south he found a lake enclosed between two mountains."[322] On the shores of this lake he lived for seven years the life of a solitary, without fire, without a roof, and almost without human food. "On the northern shore his dwelling was in a hollow tree; but on the southern shore of the lake he dwelt in a very narrow cave, to which there was no access except by a boat, for a perpendicular rock of immense height overhangs it from above." This is St. Kevin's Bed on the face of Lugduff, overhanging the southern shore of the Upper Lake, whose deep waters wash the base of the rock 30 feet beneath. Even from the lake the path is steep and difficult, but not dangerous. Very few, however, have the steadiness and courage to descend to the cave from the overhanging cliffs above.

The cave itself is only about four feet square, and not high enough to stand upright in. But there is a smaller hollow within where the saint might lay his head and snatch his few hours of brief repose. It was a dizzy height, and a hard bed; but we cannot judge of the saints of God by our own worldly and selfish standard. And for one who loved God and His glorious works, as St. Kevin did, there were never wanting, by day or night, sights and sounds to fill his mind with manifold ideas of the wondrous attributes of the great Author of all. The majesty of these dark mountains, the changing glories of these lakes and streams, the voices of the falling waters, the roaring of the storms through the wintry hills, Arturus and the Bear rising over the lofty crest of Comaderry and for ever silently sweeping round the changeless pole, the morning sun flooding the dark valley with light--a pale reflection of the splendour around the Great White Throne--these were the sights that met his eyes, and the voices that spoke in his ears during the days and nights that he spent on the rocky floor of his narrow cell. He spoke to no man, but he communed with God and Nature--his body was on the naked rock, but his soul was in heaven. It was during these years that the birds and beasts came to know and to love the gentle saint, who lived as Adam did in Paradise. He had made for himself a hut of boughs on the northern shore of the lake, where he spent much of his time, and we are told that the birds used to come and alight on his hands and shoulders, and sing for him their sweetest songs; and that the trees were like Æolian harps whose melody lightened the toilsome routine of his life. As for his food, "no man knows on what he lived during these years, for he himself never revealed it to anyone."

But now it pleased God to make known the virtues of his servant to his fellow men. A shepherd discovered the saint's retreat, and told far and wide of the holy man who had led for so long the life of an angel in the desert. Crowds of persons made their way to the heart of the mountains, and St. Kevin could no longer be alone. It was revealed to him that he was destined to be the father of many monks, and he submitted to the will of Providence.

Still he was at first unwilling to go far from his beloved cave in Lugduff. So they built him a cell--a circular bee-hive hut of stones--close to the southern shore of the lake; and near at hand his disciples also built him an oratory on a rock projecting from the base of Lugduff into the lake, hence called Tempull-na-Skellig. This was the "clara cella quae Desertum Coemghini appellatur."[323] But that beautiful and celebrated oratory is now, like the saint's cell, almost a heap of ruins--the sight-seers are even worse than the Danes, and fifty years of tourists in the mountain valley have caused more ruin to these venerable monuments than centuries of civil strife. Not far from Tempull-na-Skellig, and on the same southern shore of the Upper Lake, there is another ruined church and church-yard, known in the guide books as Rifearta Church; that is, the 'royal cemetery' (righ-fearta) of the O'Toole kings. They were not the original rulers of this district; but after the Norman Conquest they retired from the plains of Kildare before the invaders, and held these valleys and mountains as a stronghold of freedom against the 'strangers.'

But this place became too small for the multitude of the saint's disciples, who now dwelt around his little church--it was inconveniently situated, too, and very difficult of access. So God's Angel appeared to Kevin, and commanded him to go and build his monastery at the eastern shore of the smaller lake, about half a mile further down the valley.

"If it was God's will," said Kevin, "I should prefer to remain until my death near this place, where I have laboured in His service." "Nay," said the Angel, "if you dwell where I say, many thousands of happy souls will have their resurrection there, and go with you to the heavenly kingdom." Then the Angel led the saint, after he had spent four years at Lugduff, to the eastward of the smaller lake, and marked out the site of his church and monastery; and "there he built that celebrated monastery of the Valley of the Two Lakes, which was the mother house of many others."

And there, too, he lived as of old in the practice of the most rigid austerity. "He was clothed in the coarsest garments; his bed was the bare ground; he broke his fast at evening on a meal of herbs and water; he kept constant and prayerful vigils often in the open air; and so he lived a long time in the monastery, as he used to live in the desert, until at the earnest entreaty of many holy men he consented at last to live like his monks in the ordinary monastic way." It is evident that the saint was most reluctant to give up those habits of extreme asceticism which he had adopted in the desert; and he only yielded in deference to the entreaties of other venerable men who feared to lose so precious a life.

It is not to be wondered at that large crowds of disciples came to the monastery of this great servant of God, and were anxious to place themselves under his guidance, so that Glendalough became a seminary of saints and scholars, who went forth from its halls to found other monasteries, and rule other churches. In fact, it became quite a 'city' in the desert, whose citizens were "cives sanctorum et domestici Dei," clothed with human nature, but living like the household of God in heaven.

At this period Kevin must have been still a comparatively young man, certainly not exceeding forty years of age. For all these events are narrated in his life as if happening before he left Glendalough to pay a visit to the holy abbots, Columba, Comgall, and Canice, who met the saint of Glendalough at the celebrated hill of Uisnech (now Usney) in Westmeath. This visit is represented as having taken place only a few days after the death of St. Ciaran at Clonmacnois, which happened in A.D. 544, so that the large monastery of Glendalough was probably founded about A.D. 540, when the saint was 42 years of age. The hill of Uisnech was from time immemorial a celebrated place of meeting, being situated in the centre of Ireland, and, though belonging to Meath, it was considered neutral ground, with the privilege of sanctuary during these meetings. It is probable these holy abbots, Columba of Kells and Durrow, Comgall of Bangor, Canice of Aghaboe, were met together for the transaction of some weighty matters arising from the accession of the new king of Tara, Diarmaid Mac Cearbhaill, and they invited to their meeting the already famous abbot of the great Leinster monastery. In the Life of Kevin it is said that he went to establish, or confirm, a league of brotherly friendship with these saints; and so much was he respected that Columba stood up at his approach, and remained standing until he arrived. And when the ruder multitude (plebs) censured the great Columba for acting thus in deference to an unknown stranger, Columba warmly replied:--"Foolish men! why should not I stand at the approach of that servant of God, in whose honour God's Angels in heaven will yet rise from their thrones?"

After his return to Glendalough he presided over that great monastery and school for 60 years more, leading still the same heavenly life, training others by word and example to walk in the paths of holiness, and confirming his teaching by the performance of many miracles. But as was well said by one of his disciples, his own life was the greatest miracle of all. Special mention is made of two of his favourite disciples--St. Berach, who himself afterwards founded a great monastery at Cluaincairpthe, since called Tarmonbarry, on the banks of the Shannon, and Mochoroy, a Briton, who was for many years a loving disciple of the saint and founder of the Church of Delgany. He enjoyed the great privilege of giving the Viaticum to Kevin, when the holy old man was about to be called away to his reward. St. Kevin died on the 3rd of June, A.D. 618, at the great age of 120 years, and was buried by his sorrowing children in his own church at Glendalough.

The memory of St. Kevin is greatly revered, not only in Wicklow but in all parts of Ireland; and he seems to hold a place in popular affection next after the great patron saints of Ireland, Patrick, Bridget, and Columcille.

Some writings have been attributed to the saint, amongst others a Life of St. Patrick, but without sufficient evidence. He was certainly the author of a very celebrated monastic Rule, which unhappily is no longer extant. It would be invaluable as exhibiting the special bent of his mind in the formation of the religious character. It was in this that his great influence made itself felt during the long years of his life. It was by this means he stamped his own character on the minds of his disciples, and made Glendalough famous during subsequent centuries as a nursery of holy and learned men. His monastery was for the East of Ireland for many ages what Aran of St. Enda was for the West--a great school of asceticism, a novitiate for the training of the young saints and clergy of Erin in virtue even more than in knowledge. It was also his noble ambition to elevate the standard of ecclesiastical knowledge, and make the cloister not only the home of all virtue, but an asylum of the liberal arts. This was all the more necessary in a turbulent and semi-barbarous age, when the strong hand made its own laws. In this respect the seclusion of Glendalough, as well as the sanctity of its founder and of its holy places, rendered it a most secure asylum down to the advent of the Danes, and even after their departure down to the time of the Anglo-Normans.

II.--RUINS AT GLENDALOUGH.

The existing ruins in the ancient city of Glendalough may, as we have observed, be divided into two groups--those at the shore of the Upper Lake, to which we have already referred, and those at the junction of the two rivers and east of the Lower Lake, which constitute the city proper. This group of buildings was enclosed by a caiseal, or strong stone wall, which not only served the purposes of defence, but also marked the limits of the clausura, or enclosed space, which females were not allowed to enter, nor the monks to leave without permission. Within this enclosure are the ruins of the following buildings:--(1) the cathedral; (2) the round tower; (3) Cro Coemghin, or St. Kevin's kitchen; (4) the Church of the Blessed Virgin.

The wall of the cashel has now almost entirely disappeared; but the magnificent gateway by which it was entered, after crossing the bridge of the Glendasan river, still remains. "This gateway was very nearly a square, being sixteen feet between the side walls and sixteen feet six between the perforated or arched walls."[324] It was built of mica slate--the stone of the district--except the arches and pilasters, which are built of large chiselled blocks of granite. The two arches are of equal height--five feet to the chord and ten to the soffit. A tower arose originally over this double arch, but it has now quite disappeared. There can be no doubt that the gateway tower and cashel were coeval with the completed monastery, and date from the beginning of the seventh century.

The nave of the great church or cathedral, and the round tower are, in Petrie's opinion, coeval, and also belong to the early part of the seventh century. He bases his opinion mainly on the character of the masonry, which in the tower is perfectly similar to that of the round tower of Kilmacduagh. There is historical evidence that the great Church of Kilmacduagh was built by Guaire Aidhne, about the year A.D. 610. The masonry of this church is so similar to that of the tower at Kilmacduagh that they must be regarded as of contemporaneous construction. The magnificent tower of Glendalough is still 110 feet high; with its conical cap it would have been originally 132 feet high. The door-way is at present ten feet from the ground, and is perfectly similar in construction to the door-ways of the ancient churches in the valley--in this, that they are all constructed of chiselled blocks of granite, while the walls are built of the rubble masonry with the stones of the district. The door-way is five feet seven inches high, two feet wide at the sill, and one foot ten inches at the arch, which is cut out of the stone--a feature characteristic of our earliest churches. The nave of the great church which is of the same date (the chancel is in the later ornamented style), and of perfectly similar masonry, was 55 feet in length by 37 in breadth; the chancel seem to have been a later addition.

The building called St. Kevin's Kitchen, with its belfry tower and high pitched stone roof, is perhaps the most interesting building at Glendalough, and was, there is no longer reason to doubt, like Columcille's House at Kells, the oratory and dormitory of the saint. It is evident, upon close examination, that the chancel and sacristy annexed to it, as well as the belfry, were later additions. It was originally a simple oblong 30 feet long and a little more than 22 feet wide; the side walls are 11 feet in height, whilst its height to the ridge of the roof is 31 feet. The lower apartment was an oratory arched with stone, the high pitch of the stone roof leaving space for the croft, or upper chamber, which was at once the cell and sleeping apartment of the saint himself--the oratory beneath was what would now be called a private oratory. The belfry is a small round tower, with conical cap, at the western end of the building.

"Our Lady's Church" is situated a little to the west of these buildings already described, which are in close proximity to each other. It is said to have been the first church built by the saint, eastward of the smaller lake; and its architecture confirms this tradition. The door-way is of singular beauty, and of the most primitive type. It is figured in Petrie's great work, and exhibits all the characteristic features of the earliest doorways. The architrave, however, is ornamented with a plain double moulding; and a cross, saltier-wise, is carved on the soffit of the lintel. St. Kevin himself was buried within this ancient church, which he had dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.[325] His grave was shown in the last century, but it seems that it is now covered over with rubbish from the falling walls. This is also called the Ivy Church, for its walls are festooned with that charitable creeper which flings so much beauty around decay.

This group of buildings was all erected during the lifetime of the saint, or shortly after his death. There were, however, two other edifices further down the valley to the east, of a more ornamental character and of later date.

'Trinity Church' is about a furlong eastward of the 'City' proper, standing alone close to the road on the left from Larah to those buildings which we have just described. It has, or rather had, a chancel with a very beautiful semicircular chancel arch, and also a round tower, which Petrie thinks was built so late as the thirteenth century when the valley of the saints had become "a nest of robbers and murderers." Still further to the east near Larah bridge, and about a mile from the 'City,' was the Priory of St. Saviour, or as it is sometimes called, the Monastery. It is now almost a heap of ruins; portions, however, of the pilasters supporting the chancel arch still remain. The nave of this church was 42 feet long by 26 in breadth; the monastic buildings seem to have been annexed to the north side of the church, but cannot now be traced. Its most interesting feature, however, was the elaborate carving in low-relief on the bases and capitals of the piers (at one side only) that supported the chancel arch. The character of the ornamentation would seem to point to the end of the eleventh, or the beginning of the twelfth century, as the probable date of this once beautiful building. The little oratory within the cathedral cemetery, called the "Priest's House," which has now completely disappeared, but of which drawings are preserved, also belonged to the Romanesque period. It was called the 'Priests' House,' according to Petrie, because it was reserved for the burial place of the Roman Catholic clergy of the surrounding districts.

Within the cemetery, which surrounds the cathedral and is much overcrowded with graves, was the famous yew tree, said to have been planted by St. Kevin himself; but it has now entirely disappeared. It is said that some of its branches were lopped off to make furniture, and that the ancient tree then gradually withered and decayed.

In close proximity to St. Kevin's Kitchen there were anciently several other buildings, all traces of which have now quite disappeared. Mention is made of Cro-Chiarain or St. Ciaran's House, and also of the church of the "Two Sinchells"--Regles an da Sinchell--the patron saints of Killeigh in the King's County. These saints were friends and contemporaries of St. Kevin, and probably resided for a while in the 'Houses' which they or their disciples had constructed in the holy valley. The remains of numerous ancient crosses and tombstones have been discovered during the recent restorations, and are now better cared for than they were heretofore.

III.--ST. MOLING.

Many celebrated scholars were trained in Glendalough from the time of St. Kevin to St. Laurence O'Toole. The See of Glendalough, too, occupied a highly honourable position amongst the bishoprics of Leinster, sometimes claiming the place of honour next to Kildare itself. Yet there is no evidence that St. Kevin himself was raised to the episcopal dignity; and we may fairly assume that if he were a bishop the fact would not have been passed over in silence by the writers of his Life. But the fame of the monastery and schools became so great during the life of the holy founder, that his successor and nephew, St. Molibba, was consecrated bishop, and probably during the lifetime of St. Kevin himself. The subsequent prelates are styled sometimes 'bishops,' and sometimes 'abbots' of Glendalough; and in one instance, at least, that of the abbot Cormac, who died in A.D. 925, the same person is styled bishop and abbot.

It was during the abbacy of Molibba that the school of Glendalough produced a distinguished pupil, whose name is well known in Leinster, that is, St. Moling, the patron and founder of St. Mullins.

St. Moling was one of the most celebrated of the holy and learned men who were trained in Glendalough during the lifetime, or shortly after the death of the founder. His name is still preserved in the parish and barony of St. Mullins, on the left bank of the Barrow, in the extreme south-west of the county Carlow. Moling's first name was Daircell or Taircell. He came of the royal race of Cathaoir Mor, a celebrated king of Leinster in the third century of the Christian era. His father's name was Faolain, whence he is sometimes called Mac Faolain, and his mother Eamhnat, is said to have been a Kerry woman. Though sprung from the Ui Deagha, on the left bank of the Barrow, he was probably born in his mother's country; and hence he is sometimes called Moling Luachra, from the mountain district in Kerry, where he was either born or fostered amongst the friends of his mother. The date of his birth is not known; but as he died in A.D. 697, it was probably some time in the early part of the same century.

Few particulars of his early life are preserved, except certain miraculous stories, which we need not refer to here. It is expressly stated, however, that he spent some time in the monastery of Glendalough, which was not very far from Hy-Kinsellagh, and was then the most celebrated establishment in Leinster. As St. Kevin died about A.D. 618, young Moling cannot have seen much of that great saint, if indeed he ever had an opportunity of meeting him at all. But the spirit of Kevin was there--his Rule and his discipline flourished in Glendalough; and hence in any case we may regard St. Moling as his disciple. It was most probably at Glendalough that the young saint acquired that great knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures which he afterwards manifested, as well as those exalted virtues which bore such lasting fruit on the banks of the Barrow.

The place where he founded his cell and monastery was then called Achadh Cainidh; but the name was soon changed into Teach Moling--the House of Moling--since corrupted into St. Mullins. He chose for his home a beautiful spot on a gentle eminence overlooking the noble river, which at this point mingles its waters with the rising tide between the green meadows and rich groves that crown its swelling banks. A small stream here joins the Barrow, and Moling built his monastery on the high ground, between the junction of the river and the stream. His own cell he built lower down, close to the river, for he loved to be alone with God as much as possible, although he frequently visited his monastery, and allowed his monks to confer with himself whenever it was necessary.

He had, too, that love of useful labour which pre-eminently marked the great Benedictine Order. Laborare est orare. To labour is to pray--when the labour is sanctified by its motive and its object. Moling wished to grind the corn for his monks, and for this purpose, with his own hands, he dug a mill-race from the stream already referred to, in such a way as to convey the water more than a hundred yards from the river, even through high ground, in order to get a fall for the water to turn the mill-wheel near his monastery. He kept a curragh, too, on the river, near his own cell, and was always ready to ferry strangers across the broad river, who came to pray and do penance at the monastery. During all this time his food was herbs and water; and according to some accounts--probably in imitation of St. Kevin--he lived a long time within a hollow tree.

His austerities and his virtues soon attracted around Moling a great number of disciples, so that a large community was formed under his guidance and direction. The ruins of four ancient churches are still to be seen on the slope of the hill overlooking the Barrow and the streamlet, some of which were certainly built in his time. It is said, too, that a portion of the mill-stone of Moling's mill was found in the stream, and that the mill-race which he dug out can still be clearly traced.

St. Aidan, called also Mo-Eadan, which has been shortened into Moedog and Moque, the celebrated Bishop of Ferns, died A.D. 632. It is said that he wished St. Moling to be his successor, and that the princes and clergy of Leinster invited Moling to become the Bishop of Ferns. Reluctantly the saint complied with their wishes--for he loved Teach Moling much--and preferred to spend his life there in solitude, attending only to himself and the direction of the chosen souls, who placed themselves under his direction. But God willed it otherwise; and Moling became, at least for some years, Bishop, or High-bishop of Ferns--for at this period a certain kind of precedence was claimed for Ferns over the other bishoprics of Leinster. It is by no means certain, however, that Moling became Bishop of Ferns in immediate succession to Aidan in A.D. 632. If so he must have afterwards resigned his See, which is highly probable, and thus made room for other bishops of Ferns, whose names are mentioned in connection with that See during the seventh century, and during the lifetime of Moling himself. It cannot, therefore, be determined whether he became Bishop of Ferns in A.D. 632 or 691--the former is, however, the more probable date.

Moling procured for his tribesmen one signal temporal advantage--the remission of the celebrated cow-tribute, called the Borumha, which was levied by the King of Tara in Leinster every three years. It was an oppressive tax, originally inflicted for a great crime committed by the King of Leinster in A.D. 106, and was productive of much bloodshed, and mutual hatred between the men of Leinster and the Hy-Niall. Now King Finnachta the Festive had already twice exacted the tribute, and was coming to levy it a third time. The Lagenians resolved to fight rather than to pay; but first of all it was deemed expedient to get St. Moling to use his great influence in their behalf to have the tribute remitted. The saint succeeded beyond their expectations, although, it is said, he made use of an equivocation to effect his purpose. Failing to get a promise of the absolute remission of the tribute, he asked the king to grant him a stay of execution until luan. The king promised to grant this stay. Now luan means Monday; and so the king understood it, but it also means the Judgment Day, in which sense Moling understood[326] it, and insisted on the fulfilment of the promise in that sense. The king feared the saint, and moreover was unwilling to be deemed a pledge-breaker, so he was constrained to remit the tribute for ever. The remission, however, was a most unpopular act with his own northern subjects; and it is not unlikely that the story of the equivocation was invented by the king's friends, who wished to please the saint, and yet to throw the odium of this unpopular measure on one who was much better able to bear it than Finnachta. Even the wise Adamnan is represented as counselling his royal master to assert the legal claims of the great Hy-Niall race to which he himself belonged; and he is said to have blamed the king for yielding so weakly to the Leinster saint. The remission was made about the year A.D. 693; and the cow-tax was never levied in Leinster afterwards.

St. Moling is said to have been a great scholar, and a great writer. More ancient Irish poems, several of which are still extant, have been ascribed to St. Moling than to any other of our Irish saints,[327] with the exception, perhaps, of Columcille. Some of these have reference to that Borromean Tribute of which we have already spoken; others purporting to be prophetical, give a list of the kings of Erin, their battles, victories, and death. In consequence of these and several other prophetical poems, St. Moling has been set down as one of the four great prophets of Erin. The others are St. Patrick, St. Columcille, and St. Berchan of Clonsast. One of Moling's prophecies foretells the coming of the Anglo-Normans to Ireland, and the 'conquest' of the country by Henry II. Some of these poems are manifest forgeries written after the event. They were ascribed to St. Moling, because he was pre-eminently a holy man, who enjoyed in his own time the reputation of a prophet amongst all the people.

Keating had in his possession a work which he calls the Yellow Book of St. Moling, but which has since been unfortunately lost. Hence we know nothing of it beyond the name. It was probably begun by St. Moling and afterwards continued by his monastic successors as an authentic record of local and national events, like the Annals of Tighernach, or the Chronicon Scotorum at Clonmacnoise. Colgan observes that St. Moling had a great devotion for St. Kevin, and constantly invokes that saint in his poems and prophecies. He was probably privileged to see during his boyhood the venerable Kevin at Glendalough, and must have been greatly impressed by that saintly master. St. Moling died towards the close of the seventh century.

Notwithstanding its remoteness, the Danes frequently ravaged Glendalough during the ninth century; and again repeated their ravages during the tenth and following century. There could be no peace for the monks of St. Kevin whilst the fleets of foreigners were on the Boyne, the Liffey, and even at the mouth of the Bray River--if it be the Inner-na-mbarc referred to by the Four Masters in A.D. 836, as O'Donovan conjectures. Still the sanctuary retained at least to some extent its ancient fame even during these troubled times, for Cormac Mac Cullinnan before his death in A.D. 907, bequeathed to Glendalough an ounce of gold and an ounce of silver, as an offering to secure the prayers of the community. It contained 'learned men' and 'anchorites,' as we know, during this century, for the death of one of them is recorded by the Four Masters in A.D. 953 (recte 954); and the death of several other anchorites is noticed by the Masters in this same century. They were probably the same as the inclusi of whom we read later on--each of them living in his own little cell, or 'kitchen,' which was at once his house and his oratory. One of them was also what was called 'Head of the Rule' at Glendalough, and died in A.D. 965. The death of a lector or reader in theology is also noticed the previous year; both bore the surname of O'Manchan, and were probably members of the same family.

But it was not the Danes alone who wasted the abbey-lands and destroyed the sacred edifices. Native Irishmen now followed their bad example both at Glendalough and elsewhere. In A.D. 983, "the three sons of Cearbhall, son of Lorcan, plundered the termon, or abbey-lands of Coemghen; but the three were killed before night through the miracles of God and Coemghen." No one can regret their fate; it was an example and a warning greatly needed in those rude and lawless days. Five times during the next thirty years St. Kevin's sacred city was plundered and destroyed by the Danes;[328] yet it was still a venerated and much frequented shrine during the whole of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In A.D. 1095 died the Brehon O'Manchan, Comarb of St. Kevin, and a most celebrated judge. He was doubtless a member of the same distinguished family, which had already given many abbots and anchorites to Glendalough.

Noble ladies, too, we find, used to go on the pilgrimage to Glendalough; for in A.D. 1098, Dearbhforgaill, daughter of Tadhg Mac Gillaphadraig, and mother of Murtogh and Tadgh O'Brian, died in pilgrimage at Glendalough. The same year Mac Maras Cairbreach, a noble priest and learned senior, died in the sacred vale; but whether on his pilgrimage or in his own monastery is not stated. In A.D. 1127, the abbot Gilla Comghall O'Toole was slain by the men of Fertuathal; he was doubtless a member of the same family as the illustrious Laurence O'Toole, the greatest glory of Glendalough after its founder, of whom we must give a more particular account, for he was the last canonized of the countless saints of ancient Erin.

The Four Masters in A.D. 1085 record the death of "Gilla na-Naomh Laighen (the Leinster-man), noble bishop of Gleann-da-locha, and afterwards head of the monks of Würzburg." The celebrated monastery of Würzburg in Germany, called in Latin Herbipolis, was founded by St. Killian. There is still preserved in the library of its university a famous MS. called the Codex Paulinus, or Codex of the Epistles of St. Paul in Latin, with copious glosses, both marginal and interlinear, in the Irish language, which were largely made use of by Zeuss, in the composition of his Grammatica Celtica. This MS. is hardly of the time of St. Killian himself. Zeuss thinks it was written either by Marianus Scotus, or more probably brought from Ireland by one of the learned pilgrims, who crowded the Scoto-German monasteries at that time. He makes special reference to Gilla na-Naomh, Bishop of Glendaloch; and it may be that he was the writer of this Codex, which still proves to the learned world how carefully the Scriptures were studied in our Irish schools, and how the Irish language was cultivated by our native scholars during the 'darkest' of the Middle Ages.

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