IN MEATH
§ 1. _King Loigaire’s Policy_
It has been already pointed out that the Roman terminus did not mark the
limit of Roman influence. That influence extended beyond the bounds of
the Empire. The existence of the majestic Empire was a fact of which its
free neighbours had to take cognisance, and which impressed itself on
their minds as one of the great facts of the universe. They were forced
into intercourse, whether hostile or peaceful, with the Roman republic.
We have seen that it must have affected the folks of Ireland who were
the neighbours of the British and Gallic provinces, though severed by
narrow seas. The soil of that island had indeed never been trodden by
Roman legions, but its ports were not sealed to the outer world, and from
the first century the outer world practically meant the Roman world. The
men of Ireland in the fourth century must have conceived their island
as lying just outside the threshold of a complex of land and sea, over
which the power of Rome stretched to bounds almost inaccessible to their
imagination. When the grasp of Rome relaxed or her power grew weak in the
neighbouring provinces of Britain, the Irish speedily became aware, and,
like the Germans, failed not to seize opportunities for winning spoil and
plunder; but, though they appear in Roman records as wasters and enemies,
this does not imply that they had no respect and veneration for Rome and
her civilisation. The compatibility of veneration with hostile behaviour
on the part of barbarians is shown by the attitude of the Germans in all
their dealings with the Empire which they dismembered. We may be sure
that the Iberians and Celts of Ireland, who were certainly not inferior
in intelligence to the Germans or less open to new ideas, were qualified
to admire the majesty of the Roman name and to feel curiosity about the
immense empire which dominated their horizon. Some of their own folk, as
we saw, had found new habitations in Roman territory,[83] and thus formed
a special channel for Roman influence to trickle into the free island.
The chief influence was the infiltration of the Christian religion.
The adoption of this religion by the Imperial government in the fourth
century must have had, as we have seen, a sensible effect in conferring
prestige on Christianity beyond the boundaries of the Empire. It
became inevitable that the favoured creed should henceforth be closely
associated with the Empire in the idea of barbarians and regarded as the
Roman religion. Hence that religion acquired, on political grounds, a
higher claim on their attention.
[Sidenote: KING LOIGAIRE]
We must realise the force of these general considerations in order to
understand the policy of the High King who sat on the throne of Ireland
throughout the whole period of Patrick’s work in the island. Loigaire had
succeeded about five years before Patrick’s arrival (A.D. 428). He was
son of King Niall, who had been slain in Britain, perhaps in the very
year in which Patrick had been carried into captivity. Niall’s immediate
successor was his nephew, Dathi, who reigned for twenty-three years, and
likewise found death beyond the sea.[84] But Dathi, it would seem, went
forth as a friend, not as a foe, of Rome. He led a host to help the Roman
general Aetius to drive back the Franks from the frontiers of eastern
Gaul, and he was struck by lightning. The expedition of Dathi has an
interest not only from the Irish, but also from the Roman point of view.
It illustrates the wide view of Aetius. It shows us how he looked to
all quarters for mercenary help; if he relied on the Huns, whom he was
hereafter to smite so hard, he also invited auxiliaries from Scottia.
From the Irish side, it illustrates the fact that Ireland was within the
Roman horizon.
[Sidenote: REIGN OF KING LOIGAIRE]
The reign of Loigaire lasted thirty-six years, and it marks a new epoch
in Irish history. The part which Loigaire himself played in bringing
about this change has been underrated. His statesmanship has been
obscured by tradition, but is revealed by interrogation of the scanty
evidence.
The first difficulty is one which meets us at all stages of early Irish
history. It is impossible to determine the compass of the power and
authority of the High Kings in the under-kingdoms. It seems probable
that Loigaire was able to exercise as much influence, at least in
northern Ireland, as was permitted to any king by the political and
social organisation of the country. We have seen that the efforts of
his grandfather, Eochaid, and his father, Niall, had extended the power
of the family throughout a great part of north Ireland. His cousin,
Amolngaid, was king of Connaught. His brothers and half-brothers were
petty kings.[85]
Whatever the authority of Loigaire was, he seems to have used it in the
interests of peace. So far as we can judge from the evidence of the
Annals, his reign was a period of peace. He was indeed the perpetual
enemy of the king of Leinster, and on three occasions at least there
was war between them. On the first, Loigaire was victorious; on the
second, he was taken prisoner; on the third, he was slain. But apart
from this fatal feud we do not hear of wars, and we do not hear that he
ventured upon expeditions over sea or took advantage of the difficulties
of Britain, engaged then in her struggle with the invaders who were to
conquer her.
A pacific policy harmonises with the record—though a warlike policy
would not contradict it—that in his reign and under his auspices a code
of native laws was constructed. This code, entitled the _Senchus Mór_,
still exists, changed and enlarged, and something will be said of it in
another place. It seems probable that the idea of this national work
was due to the example and influence of the Roman Empire. There is no
direct evidence that this was so, but it is a remarkable coincidence
that the reign of the king to whom the Irish code is ascribed concurs
with the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, whose lawyers gathered the
imperial edicts into the code called by his name. It cannot be thought
improbable that this coincidence is significant, and that the influence
of Rome is responsible for the earlier code of the Scot no less than for
the later codes of Goth, Burgundian, and Frank. The synchronism struck
the native annalists, and they expressed it in a clumsy way by placing
the composition of the Irish law-book in the very year in which the
Code of Theodosius was issued (A.D. 438). That may be taken as a naive
unhistorical expression of a true discernment that the idea of the Code
of Loigaire and his colleagues came directly or indirectly from the
Empire.
[Sidenote: ROMAN INFLUENCE]
The way in which the Roman world made its influence felt in Ireland
should be compared with the ways in which it exerted influence over other
adjacent countries. Let us take, for instance, Russia. Neither Russia nor
Ireland ever passed for a moment under the rule of Caesar. Both states
were neighbours of the Empire, and for the kings of Tara as for the
princes of Kiev the Empire was the eminent fact in the political worlds
with which they were acquainted. In both cases the intercourse of trade,
varied by warfare, prepared the way for the ultimate reception of some
of the ideas of the higher culture of Rome. But there was one essential
difference, due to political geography. Ireland was of little consequence
or account in the eyes of the Caesars of Old Rome, and it was only now
and then, as in the days of Valentinian I., that they were called upon to
give it a thought; whereas for the Caesars of the New Rome the existence
of the Russian state, from its creation in the ninth century, was an
important fact which entered permanently into the calculations of their
foreign policy. The contrast between the presence of political relations
in one case and their almost complete absence in the other is reflected
in the contrast between the circumstances of the victory of Christianity
in Russia and in Ireland. In Russia the faith of the Empire made, as it
were, a solemn entry through the public portals of the State; in Ireland
it entered privately through postern gates, and conquered from within.
In Russia it was imposed upon his subjects by their prince Vladimir,
who at the same time married a sister of the Roman Augusti; in Ireland
it was only tolerated, when its success had begun, by the chief king,
whose very name most probably never fell upon the ears of the Augustus at
Ravenna. But in both cases the introduction of the religion was only a
part, though the most important and effective part, of a wider influence
diffused from the Empire.
The great question with which Loigaire had to deal was the spread of
Christianity in his dominion, a question which confronted barbarian
kings just as it confronted Roman Emperors, and might be as embarrassing
and critical for Loigaire in his small sphere as it had proved for the
ecumenical statesmen Diocletian and Constantine. It is clear that in the
days of Theodosius II. the moment had come when the High King of Ireland
was constrained to adopt a definite attitude. If, as seems possible,
it was in the south of Ireland, in the realms of Leinster and Munster,
that this religion had hitherto made most progress, then, so long as it
was tolerated by the sovereigns of those kingdoms, the High King might
ignore it. But once it began to spread sensibly in his own immediate
kingdom of Meath, as king of Meath he could not ignore what in other
parts of Ireland the lord of all Ireland might pass over; the time had
come when he had to decide whether he would oppose or recognise Christian
communities and Christian priests.
[Sidenote: LOIGAIRE’S TOLERATION]
For most barbarian kings this question would be equivalent to another,
Shall I myself adopt the foreign faith? It argues in Loigaire exceptional
ability and objectivity of vision that he was capable of separating
his own personal view from his kingly policy. He was not drawn himself
to the creed of Christ; he held fast to the pagan faith and customs of
his fathers; but this did not hinder him from recognising the great and
growing strength of the religion which had overflowed from the Empire
into his island. He saw that it had already taken root, and we may be
certain that its close identification with the great Empire, the union of
Christ with Caesar, was an imposing argument.[86] But if King Loigaire
resolved on a policy of toleration, and was ultimately prepared to
“regularise” the position of the Christian clerics, it is not unlikely
that at first he may have been inclined to adopt a different attitude.
It must have been difficult for him to withstand the influence of the
Druids, who naturally put forth all their efforts to check the advance
of the dangerous doctrine which had come from over seas to destroy their
profession, their religion, and their gods. Tradition recorded their
prophecies that the new faith, if it were admitted, would subvert kings
and kingdoms. In legend, as we shall see, Loigaire appears as following
the counsels of his Druids, resolving to slay Patrick, and yielding only
when the sorcery of the Christian proved stronger than the sorcery of the
heathen magicians. It is possible that this tale may reflect facts in so
far as Loigaire may have been inclined to persecute before he adopted his
policy of even-handed toleration. We must not leave out of our account
the circumstance that, as in the case of Frankish Chlodwig and English
Ethelbert, there were probably friends of the Christian religion in the
king’s own household.
Ethelbert indeed was not like Loigaire. He, too, began with the resolve
to remain true to his own gods, while he granted licence to the priests
of his wife’s creed to do their will in his realm. Before two years had
passed, however, the English king forsook the old way himself and was
initiated in the Christian rites, while the Irish king never abandoned
the faith of his fathers. But Ethelbert’s wife, like Chlodwig’s, was a
Christian, while of Loigaire’s we cannot say what gods she worshipped; we
have only the record that she was a native of Britain, and, for all we
know, she may have been dead when Patrick arrived on the scene. Yet the
fact that he had a British wife may supply a point of contact between the
Irish king and the Empire and help to explain his tolerant attitude to
the Roman religion. But he had also a British daughter-in-law, and here,
if the main facts of the following story are true, we may fairly seek a
co-operating influence.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FOUNDATION OF TRIM]
In mid Meath, on the banks of the river Boyne, where it winds in one of
its loveliest curves through the plain to the west of the royal hill of
Tara, a small Christian settlement arose, perhaps soon after Patrick’s
arrival in Ireland. The place was called the “ford of the alder,” and the
name of the tree, Trim, still clings to it. In this spot Fedilmid, son
of King Loigaire, had his dwelling, and his wife was a lady of Britain,
who, if not already a Christian, must have had some knowledge of the
established religion of the Empire of which Britain was still in name a
province. Trim, according to its own tradition, was the scene of one of
Patrick’s most important successes.
The naive story relates that Lomman, one of Patrick’s British
fellow-workers, sailed up the Boyne and landed at the Ford of the Alder.
In the morning Fedilmid’s young son, Fortchernn,[87] sallied forth and
found Lomman reading the Gospel. Immediately the boy believed and was
baptized, and remained with Lomman till his mother came out to seek him.
She was delighted to meet a fellow-countryman, and she, too, believed and
returned to her house and told Fedilmid all that had befallen their son.
Then Fedilmid conversed with Lomman in the British tongue, and believed
with all his household. He consigned Fortchernn to the care of Lomman,
to be his pupil and spiritual foster-child, and made a donation of his
estate at Trim to Patrick and Lomman and Fortchernn.
Though the details of this story cannot be taken literally, it may
probably preserve correctly some of the main facts—that Fortchernn became
a pupil of Lomman and embraced the spiritual life; that Fedilmid made the
donation, and that the British princess played a part in the episode.
But tales of this kind are prone to represent circumstances, which were
really due to design, as the effect of chance. It is possible that the
British princess was already a Christian, and that, just as Augustine
travelled to Kent by the invitation of its Gallic queen, so Lomman rowed
to Trim at the call of its British mistress. In any case we may be sure
that Lomman’s coming to the Ford of the Alder was not fortuitous, but
was arranged by him and Patrick with forethought and purpose. The result
was of high importance. It gave Patrick a strong position and prestige
in Meath by establishing a Christian community with which the son and
grandson of the High King were so closely associated.
§ 2. _Legend of Patrick’s Contest with the Druids_
[Sidenote: THE EASTER LEGEND]
The bitter hostility of the Druids and the relations of Loigaire to
Patrick were worked up by Irish imagination into a legend which ushers
in the saint upon the scene of his work with great spectacular effect.
The story represents him as resolving to celebrate the first Easter after
his landing in Ireland on the hill of Slane, which rises high above the
left bank of the Boyne at about twelve miles from its mouth. On the
night of Easter eve he and his companions lit the Paschal fire, and on
that self-same night it so chanced that the King of Ireland held a high
and solemn festival in his palace at Tara where the kings and nobles of
the land gathered together. It was the custom that on that night of the
year no fire should be lit until a fire had been kindled with solemn
ritual in the royal house. Suddenly the company assembled at Tara saw
a light shining across the plain of Breg from the hill of Slane.[88]
King Loigaire, in surprise and alarm, consulted his magicians, and they
said, “O king, unless this fire which you see be quenched this same
night, it will never be quenched; and the kindler of it will overcome
us all and seduce all the folk of your realm.” And the king replied,
“It shall not be, but we will go to see the issue of the matter, and we
will put to death those who do such sin against our kingdom.” So he had
nine chariots yoked, and, with the queen and his two chief sorcerers
and others, he drove through the night over the plain of Breg. And in
order to win magic power over them who had kindled the fire, they wheeled
lefthandwise, or contrariwise to the sun’s course. And the magicians
arranged with the king that he should not go up to the place where the
fire was kindled, lest he should afterwards worship the kindler thereof,
but that the offender should be summoned to the king’s presence at some
distance from the fire, and the magicians should converse with him.
So the company dismounted out of range of the fire, and Patrick was
summoned. And the sorcerers said, “Let none arise at his coming, for
whoever rises will afterwards worship him.” When Patrick came and saw
the chariots and horses, he quoted the words of the Psalmist, “Some in
chariots and some on horses, but we in the name of the Lord.” One of the
company, and one only—his name was Erc—rose up when Patrick appeared, and
he was converted and Patrick blessed him (and he was afterwards buried
at Slane). Then the sorcerers and Patrick began to converse and dispute;
and Lochru, one of the enchanters, uttered strong words against the
Christian faith. And Patrick, looking grimly at him, prayed to God that
the blasphemer should be flung into the air and dashed to the ground.
And so it befell. Lochru was lifted upwards and fell upon a stone, so
that his head was dashed in pieces. Then the king was wroth and said,
“Lay hands upon the fellow.” And Patrick, seeing the heathen about to
attack him, cried in a loud voice, “Let God arise, and let his enemies
be scattered.” Then a great darkness fell and the earth quaked, and in
the tumult the heathen fell upon each other, and the horses fled over the
plain, and of all that company only the king and queen, and Lucetmael,
the other sorcerer, and a few others survived. Then the queen went to
Patrick and besought him, saying, “O mighty and just man, do not destroy
the king! He will come and kneel and worship your god.” And the king,
constrained by fear, bent his knee to Patrick and pretended to worship
God. But afterwards he bade Patrick to him, purposing to slay him; but
Patrick knew his thoughts, and he went before the king with his eight
companions, one of whom was a boy. But as the king counted them, lo! they
were no longer there, but he saw in the distance eight deer and a fawn
making for the wilds. And the king returned in the morning twilight to
Tara, disheartened and ashamed.
[Illustration: Map of the Kingdoms of
MEATH AND CONNAUGHT.
_R. & R. Clark Ltd Edinburgh_]
[Sidenote: MOTIF OF EASTER LEGEND]
The framers of this legend had an instinct for scenic effect. The bold
and brilliant idea of the first Easter fire flashing defiance across
the plain of Meath to the heathen powers of Tara, and the vision of the
king with his queen and sorcerers setting forth from their palace in the
depth of night with chariots and horses, and careering over the plain, as
Ailill and Maeve of pagan story might have suddenly driven in headlong
course against the Hound of Ulaid, is a picture not unworthy of the best
of those nameless story-makers who in all lands, working one cannot
tell where or how, transfigure the facts of history. The calendar is
disregarded. The idea is that Easter is to replace Beltane, the Christian
to overcome the heathen fire; and it is a matter of no import that the
day of Beltane was the first day of summer, which could never fall on
Easter Eve.[89] But incongruous though the circumstances are, the scene
is well conceived to express the triumph of the new faith, and certain
general historical facts are embodied, namely, the hostility of the
Druids and the personal distaste of the king for the foreign creed.
And the imaginary coincidence of the pagan with the Christian festival
has a historical interest of its own. Down to modern times we find
the ancient heathen customs of Europe observed in different countries
on different days. In some regions they were transferred to Christian
feasts like Easter and Pentecost, elsewhere the old heathen days were
preserved. When the old practice was adapted to the frame of the new
faith, the change was silent and unrecorded, but this Irish legend, by
its impossible junction of the two festivals, may be said to embody
unconsciously a record of such a change. We can detect here, in the very
act as it were, the process by which pagan superstitions which insisted
on surviving were sometimes adopted into the Christian calendar.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CONTEST WITH THE DRUID]
The story has a sequel which tells how Patrick strove with the other
enchanter. On the morrow, that is, Easter day, Loigaire, with kings and
princes and nobles, was feasting in his palace, when Patrick with five
companions suddenly appeared among them, though the door was shut.[90]
He came to preach the Word, and the king invited him to sit at meat.
Lucetmael, the Druid, in order to prove him, poured a noxious drop into
the cup of Patrick, and the saint blessed the cup, and the liquor was
frozen to ice, except the drop of poison, which remained liquid, and fell
out when the cup was turned upside down. Then he blessed the cup again,
and the drink returned into its natural state.
Then the magician said, “Let us work miracles on the plain; let us bring
down snow upon the land.” Patrick said, “I will not bring down aught
against the will of God.” And the magician by his incantations brought
snow waist-high upon the plain. “Now remove it,” said the saint. “I
cannot,” said the Druid, “till this hour upon the morrow.” “You can do
evil,” answered the saint, “but not good,” and he blessed the plain, and
the snow vanished without rain, or mist, or wind. And all applauded and
marvelled. Then in the same way the Druid brought darkness down over the
plain, but he could not dissipate it, and Patrick dissipated it.
Then said the king, “Dip your books in the water, and we will worship
him whose books come out unspoiled.” Patrick was willing to accept this
test, but the sorcerer refused on the ground that Patrick worshipped
water as a god, meaning its use in baptism. Then the king proposed the
same test with fire instead of water; but the Druid said, “No, this man
worships fire and water alternately.” But all these parleyings were only
preliminary, leading up to the main issue, which is closely connected
with the events of the previous night. Patrick proposed an ordeal, which
was accepted. His pupil Benignus and the magician were placed in a hut
built half of green and half of dry wood. Benignus, clothed in the
magician’s garment, was placed in the dry part, and Lucetmael, wearing
the garment of Patrick, in the green part. And the hut was set on fire
in the presence of all. Then Patrick prayed, and the fire consumed the
magician, leaving Patrick’s robe unburnt, but it did not hurt Benignus,
though it burnt the magician’s robe from about him. Then Loigaire was
fain to kill Patrick, but he was afraid.
[Sidenote: BELTANE CUSTOMS]
Having discerned that one of the motives of the whole legend is the
adoption in the Christian Church, in connexion with the Easter festival,
of those fire-customs and sun-charms which were associated throughout
Celtic, as throughout Teutonic, Europe with certain days in spring or
early summer, we can hardly avoid recognising in this ordeal a memory of
the custom of burning a victim on those days. This victim was thought to
represent the spirit of vegetation, and its ashes were carried forth and
scattered in the fields to make them fruitful. Originally the victim was
human, but as time went on, either a mock victim, such as a straw man,
was substituted, or he who was chosen to die and decked out for sacrifice
was rescued at the brink of the fire. In the Eiffel country, by the
Rhine, for instance, the custom was long maintained of heaping brushwood
round a tall beech-tree, and forming a framework known as the “burg” or
the “hut,” and a straw man was sometimes burned in it.[91] We can hardly
doubt that the chief ceremonial of the Beltane celebration, the burning
of the spirit of growth—whether represented by a man or by a mock man,
whether in a dress of leaves or in a framework of green or dry wood—was
the motive which suggested the story of this ordeal. In the story the
motive has lost its particular significance, and but for its connexion
with the opposition between Easter and Beltane might escape detection.
The envelopment of a motive of somewhat the same kind in a setting
which purposes to be historical, and in which the motive entirely loses
its meaning, has an instructive parallel in the famous story of the
funeral pyre of king Croesus. The fundamental motive of that story is the
burning of the god Sandan,[92] but the incident has been wrought into a
historical context so as to disguise its origin, and the tale was largely
accepted as literal fact. But Cyrus was as innocent of dooming his
defeated foe to a cruel death as Patrick was of burning his Druid rival.
In both cases the true victims of the legendary flames were spirits of
popular imagination.
The story bears the stamp of an early origin. It is a common fallacy
that legends attach themselves to a figure only after a long lapse of
time, and that the antiquity of biographies may always be measured by
the presence or absence of miracles. The truth is that those men who are
destined to become the subjects of myth evoke the mythopoeic instinct
in their fellows while they are still alive, or before they are cold in
their graves. When once the tale is set rolling it may gather up as time
goes on many conventional and insignificant accretions of fiction, and
the presence or absence of these may indeed be a guide in determining the
age of a document. But the myths which are significant and characteristic
are nearly contemporary; they arise within the radius of the personality
to which they relate. The tale of Patrick’s first Easter in Ireland and
his dealings with the king is eminently a creation of this kind.
In this legend of Patrick’s dealings with the High King there is one
implication which harmonises with other records,[93] and which, we cannot
doubt, reflects, while it distorts, a fact. Patrick visited Loigaire in
his palace at Tara, but he went as a guest in peace, not as a hostile
magician and a destroyer of life. The position which the Christian
creed had won rendered a conference no less desirable for the High King
than for the bishop who represented the Church of the Empire. Loigaire
agreed to protect Patrick in his own kingdom, though he resisted any
attempts that were made to convert him. No cross should be raised over
his sepulchre; he should be buried, like his forefathers, standing and
accoutred in his arms.
But the place of the Christian communities in the society of Ireland,
their rights and obligations, and the modifications of existing customs
and laws which the principles and doctrines of their religion demanded,
raised questions which could not well be settled except in a general
conclave of the kings and chief men of the island. Now it was a custom of
the High Kings to hold occasionally a great celebration, called the Feast
of Tara, to which the under-kings were invited. It was an opportunity for
discussing the common affairs of the realm. Such an occasion is evidently
contemplated in the legend, and the Annals record that a Feast of Tara
was held towards the close of Loigaire’s reign. It is therefore possible
that at such an assembly the religious question was marked as a subject
of deliberation, and the bishop was invited to be present. If so, the
general issue of the debate must have been that Christian communities
were recognised as social units on the same footing as families, but that
Christian principles could not alter the general principles of Irish law.
This brings us to the chief monument of Loigaire’s reign, the legal code,
the construction of which may well have been discussed and resolved on at
one of the general assemblages at Tara.
§ 3. _Loigaire’s Code_
[Sidenote: IRISH LEGISLATION]
Loigaire did for Ireland what Euric did for the Visigoths, Gundobad for
the Burgundians, Chlodwig for the Salian Franks; and we have already
observed that to him probably, as to them, the idea of compiling a
written legal code came from the Roman Empire. The _Senchus Mór_, as
the code was called, has not come down in its primitive form; it has
been remodelled, worked over, and overlaid with additions by subsequent
lawyers; but a critical examination of the evidence leaves little room
for doubt that in its original shape it was, as tradition held, composed
under the auspices of Loigaire. As it was to be valid for Ireland,
and not merely for Meath, it was necessary for the High King to act
in consort with the provincial kings, and tradition mentions as his
coadjutors Corc, king of Munster, and Daire of Orior.[94]
If the view is right that the initiation of such a code was due to the
influence of Roman ideas, it would be not unnatural or surprising that
the Christian bishop and Roman citizen, who represented more than any
other man in Ireland the ideas of Roman civilisation, should have been
consulted, though the construction of the law-book was a matter for
native experts. But there was another reason why Patrick would naturally
have been taken into the counsels of the kings and lawyers. The spread
of Christianity and the foundation of Christian communities throughout
the land rendered it imperative for the secular authorities to define
the status of the clergy and fix the law which should be binding on all.
A new society had been established, recognising laws of its own, which
differed from the laws of the country; and this threatened to create a
double system, which would have been fatal to order. Either the spirit of
the Mosaic law must be allowed to transform the ancient customs of the
land, or the Christians must resign themselves to living under principles
opposed to ecclesiastical teaching.
[Sidenote: THE IRISH LAW CODE]
It is possible that Patrick made an attempt to revolutionise the Irish
system of dealing with cases of manslaughter, to abolish the customs
of composition by fine and private retaliation, and make it an offence
punishable by death. But if he made such an attempt it was unsuccessful,
and it would probably have received little support from his native
converts. The principle of primitive societies that bloodshedding was a
private offence which could be atoned for by payment of a composition—a
principle which Greek societies were discarding in the seventh century
B.C.—prevailed in Ireland so long as Ireland was independent, and the
Irish Church was perfectly content.
Among the experts who are said to have taken part in compiling the code
was the poet Dubthach, of Leinster, who is said to have been one of the
most eminent poets in the reign of Loigaire. Tradition says that he
became a Christian, and his pupil Fíacc, whom he had trained in the art
of poetry, was consecrated a bishop by Patrick. Of the poets of Ireland
at this early age we know nothing. One wonders what manner of poems
were sung by that bard whose sepulchral stone, old but of unknown age,
has preserved his bare name and calling, written in the character which
the Irish of those days used to inscribe upon their tombstones: VELITAS
LUGUTTI, “(This is the tomb) of the poet Lugut.”[95] The poets were men
of dignity and consequence in the society of their tribes and country.
They were not only poets but judges, for they possessed the legal
lore which was perhaps preserved in poetical form. The administration
of justice depended on their knowledge; their arbitrations were the
substitute for a court of justice. Such was the position of Dubthach,
lawyer at once and poet, like Charondas of Catana, whose laws, cast in
poetical form, were sung, we are told, at banquets. He was a native of
Leinster, and if he was one of the commission which drew up the _Senchus
Mór_, we may take it that he represented that kingdom, for the name of
the King of Leinster, Loigaire’s enemy, does not appear.
The legend of Patrick’s visit to Tara, when he entered through closed
doors, relates that when he appeared in the hall Dubthach alone of the
company rose from his seat to salute the stranger. This seems to be a
genuine fragment of tradition.[96] That there had been a friendship
between Patrick and Dubthach was believed in later times at Sletty, in
Leinster, of which Fíacc, pupil of Dubthach, was the first bishop.
§ 4. _Ecclesiastical Foundations in Meath_
The early traditions of Patrick’s work in founding new communities claim
our notice, for though we cannot control them in any particular case, the
probability is that many of them have a basis in fact, and collectively
they illustrate this side of his activity.
[Sidenote: HYMN OF SECUNDINUS]
Within Loigaire’s own immediate kingdom not a few churches claimed to
have been founded by Patrick, one or two of them in the neighbourhood of
the royal hill. But though the names of the places where these churches
were built are recorded, they are in most cases for us mere names; the
sites cannot be identified, or can only be guessed at. In a few places
in the land of Meath we can localise the literary traditions. We may
begin with a church which was founded not by the bishop himself, but by
a disciple and, it was believed, a relative. Not far south from Tara
lies Dunshaughlin, and the name, which represents[97] Domnach Sechnaill,
“the church of Sechnall,” is supposed to preserve the name of Sechnall
or Secundinus, said to have been Patrick’s nephew. Here Secundinus is
related to have composed the first Latin hymn that was composed in
Ireland, and the theme of the hymn was the apostolic work of his master.
This hymn is undoubtedly contemporary, and there is no reason either to
deny or to assert the authenticity of the tradition which ascribes it to
Secundinus, but there are considerations which make it very difficult
to accept his alleged relationship to Patrick.[98] It is composed
in trochaic rhythm, but with almost complete disregard of metrical
quantity,[99] and its twenty-three quatrains begin with the successive
letters of the alphabet. Literary merit it has none, and the historian
deplores that, instead of singing the general praises of Patrick’s
virtues and weaving round him a mesh of religious phrases describing his
work as pastor, messenger, and preacher, the author had thought well to
mention some of his particular actions. But the hymn has its value. It is
among the earliest memorials that we possess of his work; and if it was
composed by Secundinus, it was written before Patrick had been fourteen
years in Ireland, and is thus older than the greater memorial which
he wrote himself before he died. And the writer may have derived his
inspiration from Patrick’s own impressions about his work. We may suspect
that some of the verses echo words which had fallen from Patrick’s
lips in the hearing of his disciple, as when the master is compared
to Paul,[100] or described as a fisherman setting his nets for the
heathen, or called the light of the world, or a witness of God _in lege
catholica_. But Secundinus, if he was the hymnographer, did not live to
see the fuller realisation of Patrick’s claims to the fulsome laudations
of his hymn. The disciple died long before the master had finished his
“perfect life.”[101]
[Sidenote: WORK IN MEATH]
In another district of Meath, Donagh-Patrick, near the banks of the
Blackwater, seems to mark a spot associated with an important success of
the apostle. Here Conall, son of Niall, and brother of king Loigaire, had
his dwelling, still marked by the foundations of an ancient fort, and he
was less deaf than his greater brother to the persuasions of Patrick’s
teaching. He submitted to the rite of baptism, and he granted a place,
close to his own house, for the building of a church. Patrick measured
out the ground, and a church of unusual size arose, twenty yards from end
to end, and it was known as the Great Church of Patrick. Such was the
scale of the early houses of Christian worship in Ireland.
The conversion of Conall was an important achievement, but it is related
that there were other sons of Niall, who were so bitterly adverse to the
new doctrine, that they were fain to take the life of its teacher. Not
far from the place where he won the friendship of Conall, Patrick had
been in danger of his life at the hands of Coirpre, Conall’s brother. At
a little distance above the confluence of the Blackwater with the Boyne,
the village of Telltown recalls the memory of Taillte,[102] a place of
great note and fame in ancient Meath. Here a fair was held and a feast
celebrated at the beginning of autumn, and people gathered together to
witness the games which were held there, perhaps under the presidency of
the High King. The record of the visit of Patrick to Taillte mentions
the games as the “royal agon,” and the Greek word sends our thoughts to
those more illustrious contests which were held at the same season of
the year on the banks of the Alpheus in honour of Zeus. It is not clear
whether Patrick is supposed to have timed his visit to see and denounce
the heathen usages of the festival. Perhaps he would have avoided such
an occasion with the same discretion which Otto, the apostle of the
Pomeranians, exercised when he waited outside the town of Pyritz till the
pagan folk had finished the celebration of a religious feast.[103] The
story is that Coirpre, son of King Niall, wished to put Patrick to death
at Taillte, and scourged his servants because they would not betray their
master into his hands.
But if the bishop was in danger from a son of Niall at Taillte, he
is said to have fared worse at the hands of a grandson of Niall[104]
at another place of high repute in the kingdom of Meath. The hill of
Uisnech, in south-western Meath, was believed to mark the centre of the
island, and was a scene of pagan worship. Patrick visited the hill town,
and a stone known as the “stone of Coithrige”—perhaps a sacred stone
on which he inscribed a cross—commemorated his name and his visit. The
stone has disappeared, but the traveller is reminded of it by the stone
enclosure which is known as “St. Patrick’s bed.” While he was there, a
grandson of Niall slew some of his foreign companions. Patrick cursed
both this man and Coirpre, and foretold that no king should ever spring
from their seed, but that their posterity would serve the posterity of
their brethren. Tradition consistently represents Patrick as finding in
malediction an instrument not to be disdained.
It is recorded that, proceeding from Donagh-Patrick up the Blackwater, he
came to the Ford of the Quern,[105] and planted there another Christian
settlement. This place was probably near the old town of Kells, then
called Cenondae. Unlike Trim, Kells has some traces of the early age of
Christian Ireland, though nothing that can claim association with the
age of Patrick. The ancient stone house which is preserved there, is
connected by tradition with the name of the great saint who a hundred
years after Patrick’s death went forth from Ireland to convert north
Britain.[106]
* * * * *
Some churches are said to have been established by Patrick in the
north-western region of Meath, which was known by a name, now obsolete,
as the kingdom of the two Tethbias.[107] The river Ethne, which is now
pronounced Inny, flows through this region to contribute its waters to a
swelling of the Shannon, and divides it into two parts, the northern and
the southern Tethbia. Perhaps the only place here that we have any ground
for associating with Patrick is Granard. We are told that from the hill
of Granard he pointed out to one of his followers the spot where a church
should be founded. This church, Cell Raithin, may have been the origin
of the settlement which grew into the town of Granard. Among the inmates
of the monastery established here is said to have been one who had a
specially interesting connexion with Patrick’s life. Gosact, described as
the son of his old master, was, according to the tradition, here ordained
a priest by the captive stranger who had once kept his father’s droves.
There cannot be any reasonable doubt that the tomb of Gosact was in later
times to be seen at Granard,[108] and that the tradition of the place
represented him as the son of Miliucc. Nor should we have any good reason
to question that Gosact, who was buried there, was a son of Miliucc. But
we have seen grounds for believing that the story of Patrick’s servitude
under Miliucc of Dalaradia was an error; and it would follow that Gosact,
son of Miliucc, was not the son of Patrick’s master. Nevertheless, Gosact
may have been connected with the years of bondage, and may perhaps supply
us with the clue which we desire for explaining how it came about that
it ever occurred to any one to place the scene of the captivity in the
land of Miliucc. In the earliest notice of Gosact that is preserved, he
is said to have been fostered by Patrick during the servitude of seven
years. This suggests the conjecture that, in conformity with a custom
which prevailed in Ireland, Miliucc had sent his son from home to be
brought up by Patrick’s master in Connaught, and that through this
accident, happening at the time of the captivity, Patrick had associated
with Gosact. The record of this bond between Patrick and Miliucc’s son
might have originated the error that Miliucc was Patrick’s master.
[Sidenote: IDOL OF MAG SLECHT]
It is said that, having done what he could do towards planting his
religion here and there in Tethbia, Patrick bent his steps northward
to one of the chief strongholds and sanctuaries of pagan worship in
Ireland.[109] In the plain of Slecht, in a region which belonged then to
the kingdom of Connaught, but falls now within the province of Ulster,
there was a famous idol. It was apparently a stone, covered with silver
and gold, standing in a sacred circuit, surrounded by twelve pillar
stones. This idol was known as Cenn Cruaich or Crom Cruaich, and it has
been suggested that a fossilised memory of the same worship is found
in a name among the British Celts beyond the sea, Pennicrucium. We may
suspect that either later generations exalted unduly the importance of
the precinct in Mag Slecht as a national centre of religion, or that
its importance had dwindled before the days of Patrick. It was told in
later times that the firstlings, even of human offspring, used to be
offered to this idol, in order to secure a plenteous yield of corn and
milk, and that the High Kings of Ireland themselves used to come at
the beginning of winter to do worship in the plain of Slecht. If the
cult in that plain possessed such national significance as was in later
times believed, it would have been one of Patrick’s greatest feats if
he assaulted and conquered the power of heathendom in one of its chief
fastnesses. The story tells, with a simplicity which defeats itself, that
he came and struck down the idol with his staff. If this was done, if the
golden pillar of the older god was thus cast down by the servant of the
new divinity, it must have been done with the consent of secular powers.
It would thus have marked, perhaps more than any other single event,
the formal success of Christian aggression against the pagan spirit of
Ireland, and it would inevitably have stood out in the earliest records
as one of the decisive victories, if not the supreme triumph. The blow
struck by Patrick at the stone of Mag Slecht would be as the stroke of
Boniface at the oak of Geismar. The fall of Cenn Cruaich should be as
illustrious in the story of the spreading of Christianity in the island
of the Scots as was the fall of the Irmin pillar on a Westphalian hill
in the advance of Christendom from the Rhine to the Elbe, under the
banner of Charles the Great. The apostle of the Irish might as justly and
proudly have sent some fragment of the fallen image to the Roman pontiff,
a trophy of the victory of their faith, as in a later age the apostle of
the Baltic Slavs sent to Rome the three-headed god which he took from the
temple of Stettin to show the head of the Church how a new land was being
won for Christ. But the truth is that the episode of Cenn Cruaich, though
the incident rests on an ancient tradition, held no prominent place in
the oldest records. Perhaps we shall be near the mark if we infer that
the story is based on a genuine fact, but that the later accounts impute
to it a significance which it did not possess.[110] We may suppose that
the worship of the idol was of interest only to the surrounding regions,
and had no national import for the whole island. If Patrick went to the
place and with the help of secular authority suppressed the worship and
cast down the god, it was simply one of his local successes, one of many
victories in his struggle with heathenism, not a crowning or typical
triumph.