St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh Part 3

[11] Lanigan, vol. iii. p. 446; vol. iv. pp. 2-8; Reeves, _On Maria.n.u.s Scotus_, extracted from the _Natural History Review and Quarterly Journal of Science_, July, 1860. B. MacCarthy, _The Codex Palatino-Vatica.n.u.s, No. 830_, 1892, pp. 4 ff.

[12] Below, p. 18, note 6.

[13] See below, p. 47, note 3.

[14] p. 73.

[15] _Chronicle of John of Worcester_, ed. J. R. H. Weaver, 1908, p.

16.

[16] p. 18, note 6.

[17] p. 47, note 3, p. 73, note 1. I can name only three bishops of Danish sees who were apparently of Danish extraction; and they all lived at a time when the Reformation was far advanced. They are Erolbh (Erulf?), bishop of Limerick, who died in 1151, and Tostius of Waterford and Turgesius of Limerick, who were in office in 1152.

_A.F.M._ 1151, and _Annals of Clonenagh_ quoted in Keating, iii. 317.

[18] Ussher, 491.

[19] Ware, _Bishops_, ed. Harris, p. 309; Eadmer, p. 73.

[20] Ussher, 518; and below, _Life_, - 8.

[21] See p. 47, note 3.

[22] 1115. Eadmer, p. 236. Gougaud (p. 358) infers from this pa.s.sage that Limerick was at that time a suffragan see of Canterbury. But this seems impossible in view of Gilbert's share in the proceedings of the Synod of Rathbreasail five years earlier. Eadmer is not a very good witness in such matters, and his language is hardly decisive for two reasons. (1) It is not clear that he includes Gilbert among the suffragans who co-operated in the consecration: "Huic consecrationi interfuerunt et cooperatores ext.i.terunt suffraganei ecclesiae Cantuariensis, episcopi videlicet hi, Willelmus Wintoniensis, Robertus Lincoliensis, Rogerus Serberiensis, Johannes Bathoniensis, Urba.n.u.s Glamorgatensis, Gislebertus Lumniensis de Hibernia." (2) The word "suffragan" is often used as meaning merely an a.s.sistant bishop. Thus in the fifteenth century several bishops of Dromore were "suffragans"

of the archbishop of York; but Dromore was certainly not regarded as one of his suffragan sees.

[23] Ussher, 532.

[24] See p. x.x.xvi.

[25] Ussher, 567; _Beati Lanfranci Opera_, ed. J. A. Giles, Oxon., 1844, vol. i. p. 24.

[26] See Ussher, 490-497; _P.L._ cl. 532, 535, 536. This Donnell was probably Donnell O'Heney (Ua hEnna), a Munster bishop who died in 1098 (_A. U._).

[27] Ussher, 515-519. The letter to Donnell is also in _P.L._ clix.

262.

[28] Ussher, 520-527; _P.L._ clix. 173, 178, 243.

[29] _Miscellany of Irish Archaelogical Society_, vol. i. (1846), p.

136.

[30] Wilkins, _Concilia_, i. 547. In the form in which Rochfort quotes it the ordinance applies to the whole of Ireland. But we have no evidence of the transformation of dioceses into deaneries outside Meath; and it is quite probable that a synod held in Meath would have in view, in such a decree, only the conditions which prevailed in that district.

[31] The deanery of Dunshaughlin is now named Ratoath. The deanery of Kells has been divided into Upper and Lower Kells.

[32] The cogency of this argument is enhanced when we observe that there is strong independent evidence for the existence in the twelfth century of one of the six dioceses--the diocese of Kells. (_a_) Up to the latter part of the sixteenth century (1583) there was an archdeacon of Kells, as well as an archdeacon of Meath; the jurisdiction of an archdeacon (at any rate in Ireland) seems to have been always originally co-extensive with a diocese. The first known archdeacon of Kells was Adam Pet.i.t who was in office in 1230 (_R.T.A._ 279; _C.M.A._ i. 101); but it is unlikely that he had no predecessors.

(_b_) Among the prelates who greeted Henry II. at Dublin in 1171 was Thaddaeus, bishop of Kells (Benedict of Peterborough (R. S.), i. 26).

(_c_) In the time of Innocent III. (1198-1216) the question was raised in the papal curia whether the bishop of Kells was subject to the archbishop of Armagh or the archbishop of Tuam (Theiner, p. 2). (_d_) The bishop of Kells is mentioned in a doc.u.ment of the year 1202 (_Cal.

of Docts. Ireland_, i. 168). (_e_) A contemporary note records the suppression of the bishopric: "When a Cistercian monk ... had been elected and consecrated bishop of Kells by the common consent of the clergy and people, and had been confirmed by the Pope, the impudent bishop of Meath cast him out with violence and dared to [add] his bishopric to his own" (_C.M.A._ ii. 22). This statement implies that the dispossessed bishop ruled over a diocese. Moreover, when we remember that the see was certainly suppressed before Rochfort's Synod of 1216, that Rochfort was the first person who a.s.sumed the t.i.tle "bishop of Meath" in the modern sense, and that a bishop of Kells died in 1211 (_A.L.C._), we need not hesitate to conclude that the "impudent bishop" was Rochfort himself, and that the suppression was accomplished about 1213.

[33] _I.e._ dioceses. This synod is mentioned in _A.T._, _A.I._ and the _Annals of Boyle_. Particulars of its Acts and of the persons present at it are given in _C.S._ and _D.A.I._ _C.S._ has "parish" in the singular. But this does not seem to yield good sense; for the whole extent of the kingdom of Meath could scarcely have been called a "parish" in the twelfth century. I therefore read "parishes." The singular may have been subst.i.tuted for the plural at a later time, when the kingdom (or the greater part of it) included only the dioceses of Meath and Clonmacnoise, and their earlier history was forgotten. Cp. the unhistorical statement of St. Bernard about Down and Connor in _Life_, - 31. _D.A.I._ have an anomalous form (_faircheadh_), which may have come from either the singular (_fairche_) or the plural (_faircheadha_) in the exemplar, but more probably from the latter.

[34] p. xxiv. f.

[35] See p. 47, note 3.

[36] Ussher, 513.

[37] A small portion of the present diocese of Limerick lies north of the Shannon.

[38] Ussher, 501 ff.; _P.L._ clix. 995.

[39] See p. 65, note 1.

[40] See Additional Note B, pp. 164, 166. The events of Cellach's life are gathered from _A. U._

[41] _Life_, - 19.

[42] See MacCarthy's Note in _A. U._ 1101.

[43] _A.F.M._, Keating, iii. 297. Keating seems to confuse the events of 1101 with those of 1106.

[44] _Life_, - 33.

[45] See p. 18, note 6.

[46] See next page.

[47] Keating, iii. 299 ff. The date is there misprinted 1100.

[48] I formerly disputed this identification, on the ground that the archbishop of Cashel who was present at Fiadh meic Oengusa was O'Dunan (G. T. Stokes, _Ireland and the Celtic Church_, ed. 6, 1907, p. 372).

I am now convinced that he was archbishop of Cashel. I was not then aware that all MSS. of Keating date the Synod of Rathbreasail in 1110.

[49] On p. 298 read _no_ (_or_) for _is_ (_and_) before _Dun da Leathghlas_; and on p. 306 _chathar_ for _chuigear ar fhichid_ (i.e.

_twenty-four_ for _twenty-five_). On p. 306 a portion of the note on the Leinster diocese has evidently dropped out, which should be restored to bring it into conformity with the corresponding pa.s.sage on p. 302.

[50] _H.E._ i. 29.

[51] _I.e._ diocese.

[52] The parish (using the word in its modern sense) in which is Newtown Stewart, co. Derry.

[53] Ramsay, _Paul the Traveller_ (1907), p. 173.

[54] Some changes of phraseology might have been made here and elsewhere if Professor MacNeill's _Phases of Irish History_ (1919) had come into my hands before this volume went to press. But they would not have affected the argument.

[55] See _Irish Church Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 234.