IRELAND SEPARATED FROM EUROPE.-A TRIPLE EPISODE.
While the struggle described in the last chapter was raging,
Ireland could have little or no intercourse with the rest of
Europe. Heaven alone was witness of the heroism displayed by the
free clans wrestling with feudal England. It was only during the
internecine wars of the Roses that Erin enjoyed a respite, and
then we read that Margaret of Offaly summoned to peaceful
contest the bards of the island, while the shrines of Rome and
Compostella were thronged with pilgrims, chiefs, and princes,
"paying their vows of faith from the Western Isle."
In the mean time Christendom had been witness of mighty events
in which Ireland could take no part. The enthusiastic impulse
which gave birth to the Crusades, the uprising of the communes
against feudal thraldom, the mental activity of numerous
universities, starting each day into life, form, among other
things, the three great progressive waves in the moving ocean of
the time:
I. When Europe in phalanx of steel hurled itself upon Asia and
saved Christendom from the yoke of Islam, when the Japhetic race
by a mighty effort asserted its right not merely to existence,
but to a preponderance in the affairs of the world, Ireland, the
nation Christian of Christians, had not a name among men. It was
supposed to be a dependency of England, and the envoys sent
abroad to all parts by the Holy See to preach the Crusades,
never touched her shores to deliver the cross to her warriors.
The most chivalrous nation of Christendom was altogether
forgotten, and in its ecclesiastical annals no mention is made
of the Crusades even by name.
The holy wars, moreover, were set on foot and carried on by the
feudal chivalry of Europe, and in fact, wherever the Europeans
established their power in the East, that power took the shape
of feudalism. But Ireland had rejected this system, and
consequently her sons could find no place in the ranks of the
knights of Flaners, Normandy, Aquitaine, and England. Their
chivalry was of another stamp, and was employed at the time in
wresting their social state and territory from the grasp of
ruthless invaders.
Hence, not even St. Bernard, the ardent friend of St. Malachi,
remembered them, when journeying through Europe to distribute
the Cross to whole armies of warriors. Not only did he fail to
cross the Channel for the purpose of rousing the Christian
enthusiasm of a people ever ready to hearken to a call to arms
when a noble cause was at stake; he did not think even of
writing a single letter to any bishop or abbot in Ireland,
asking them to preach the holy war in his name.
Thus Ireland failed to participate in any of the benefits which
accrued to the European nations from the Crusades, as she failed
likewise to participate in results less beneficial which also
accrued from that powerful agitation.
Among such results is one which has not met with all the
attention it deserves. Historians speak at length of the many
and wide-spread heresies which infected Europe during the middle
ages; but their Eastern origin has not been thoroughly
investigated, and we have no doubt that, if it had been, many of
them would be found to have come with a returning wave of the
Crusades.
All these errors bear at the outset a very Oriental appearance.
Paulicians, Petrobrusians, Albigensians, and kindred sects,
all started from the principle of dualism, and even at the
time were openly accused of Manicheistic ideas. They all
involved more or less immoral principles, and rejected, or at
least strove to weaken, the commonly-received ideas upon which
society, civil and religious, is founded. Had they succeeded in
spreading their errors through Europe, it is possible that the
invasion would have been more fatal in its consequences than
that of Islamism itself. And, even in their failure, they left
among European societies the germ of secret associations which
have existed from that time down, and which in our days have
burst forth undisguised to terrify nations, and cause them to
dread the coming of the last days.
To an attentive observer it is clear that the heresies of the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries resemble more the
errors of our days than the Protestantism which intervened.
Luther's first principles, if carried to their legitimate
conclusion, would have inaugurated the socialism and communism
of modern times; but he shrank from the consequences of his own
doctrines, and the necessity of his standing well with the
German princes caused him, during the War of the Peasants,
almost to retract his first utterances and take his stand
midway between Catholic principles and the thorough nihilism of
later times. It is known that in the after-part of his life he
endeavored to repair the ruins of every dogma, social and
religious, which he at first had tried to subvert and destroy.
The Manicheism of the middle ages was certainly not of so
scientific and elaborate a nature as modern socialism; but it
would have been productive of like evil results to society had
it not been crushed down by the united power of the Church and
the state. If it had been successful, it is impossible to
imagine what would have become of Europe.
Of its Eastern origin historians say little. We know, however,
that, after a residence in the East, the most pious Christians
grew lukewarm and less firm in their opposition to the dangerous
errors then prevalent in Asia. Tournefort remarked this in his
own time, during the reign of Louis XIV.
It is known also that the posterity of the first crusaders in
Palestine formed a hybrid race, which, weakened by the influence
of the luxurious habits of Eastern countries, became corrupt,
and under the name of Pulani practised a feeble Christianity,
unfit to cope with the vigorous fanaticism of the Mussulman.
Many Europeans came back from those wars wavering in faith, and
no one knows how many with faith entirely lost.
It is not, therefore, too much to suppose that the Oriental
errors which suddenly burst forth at this time in Western Europe
followed in the wake of the returning pilgrims, and it is highly
probable, if not absolutely certain, that, had there been no
Crusades, Manicheism and the secret societies born of it would
never have been known in Italy and France. Hence, one of the
first and greatest champions of the Church in controversy with
the Albigenses - Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny - at the
very beginning of the heresy, found no better means of opposing
the new errors than attacking every thing coming from the East.
Thus, he wrote his long treatises against the Talmud and the
Koran, so much had the Crusades already contributed to
introducing into Western Europe the seeds of Asiatic errors. All
historians agree in giving an Eastern origin to the Paulicians,
Bulgarians, Albigenses, and others of those times.
Manicheism indeed had infested Europe long before. Some Roman
emperors had published severe edicts against it. In the fifth
century, the heresy still flourished in Italy and Africa, St.
Augustine himself being an adept for several years, and by his
writings he has made us acquainted with its strongest supporters
in his day. He was followed, in his attacks on it, by a great
number of Fathers, both Greek and Latin.
But after the barbarian invasions we hear no more of the
Manichees for upward of five hundred years. The West had
entirely forgotten them. Arianism and Manicheism had apparently
perished together. The tenth century is called a period of
darkness and ignorance; it at least possessed the advantage of
being free from heresy; the dogmas of the Church were
unhesitatingly and universally accepted. Western Europe, though
cut up by the new-born feudalism into a thousand fragments, was
at least one in faith, until that great and powerful union
having, in an outburst of enthusiasm, produced the Crusades, we
suddenly find Eastern theories and immoralities invading the
countries most faithful to the Church.
Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, the great champion of the
Albigenses, was the near descendant of that great Raymond, one
of the chiefs of the first Crusade, who might have aspired to
the throne of Jerusalem, had not Godfrey de Bouillon won the
suffrages of the soldiers of the Cross by his ardent and pure
piety. Raymond VI. dwelt in Languedoc, in all the luxurious
splendor of an Eastern emir; and he doubtless found the
doctrines of dualistic Manicheism more congenial to his taste
for pleasure than the stern tenets of the Christian religion.
Ambition, it is true, was one of the chief motives which
prompted him to place himself at the head of the heretics; he
hoped to enrich himself through them by the spoils of the Church;
and thus the same power which later on moved the German princes
to embrace Lutheranism was already acting on the aspiring Count
of Toulouse at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Thus we
find him at the head of his troops, plundering churches,
ravaging monasteries, outraging and profaning holy things, for
the purpose of filling his coffers.
Yet it is also certain that he, the chief of the sectarians, and
a great number of the nobility of Southern France, were led to
embrace the Albigensian error by the degrading habits which they
had previously contracted.
We do not purpose entering into a lengthened discussion on the
subject; we merely wish to contrast, with the wide spread of
heresy in Western Europe, the great fact of a total absence of
it in Ireland; or rather, we should say, and by so saying we
confirm our reflection, that errors of a similar nature did
invade the Pale in Erin at this time, without touching in any
wise the children of the soil.
For, it is a remarkable fact that, at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, the name of heresy is mentioned for the
first and last time in Catholic Ireland; the new doctrines
bearing a close resemblance to some of the errors of the
Albigenses, and their chief propagators being all lords of the
Pale.
In November of 1235, Pope Benedict XII. wrote a letter on this
subject to Edward III. of England, which may be read in F.
Brenan's Ecclesiastical History.
It is clear from many things related by Ware in his
"Antiquities" that the Vicar of Christ, unable to follow freely
his inclinations with respect to the filling of the sees of Erin,
and obliged to appoint to bishoprics, at least in many parts of
the island, only men of English birth, selected for that purpose
members of the various religious orders then existing. Instead
of granting episcopal jurisdiction to the feudal nominees of the
court, when unworthy, Rome appointed a Franciscan, or a
Dominican, a member of some religious community, who was born in
England, but at least more independent of the court, of greater
sympathy with the people, less swayed by worldly and selfish
motives, and consequently readier to obey the mandates of Rome,
which were always on the side of justice and morality. Thus we
find that in the whole history of Ireland, as a general rule,
the bishops chosen from religious orders were acceptable to the
people, and true to their duty.
Such a man certainly was Richard Ledred, a Minorite, born in
London, whom the Pope made Bishop of Ossory. But on that very
account he incurred the hatred of many English officials, and
even of worldly prelates, among whom Alexander Bicknor,
Archbishop of Dublin, was the most conspicuous. Bieknor was not
only archbishop, but had been appointed Lord Justice of Ireland
by the king, and later on Lord Deputy; later still he was
dispatched by the English Parliament as ambassador to France.
"It had been well," says F. Brenan, "for the archbishop himself,
and for those immediately under his jurisdiction, had he
abstained from mixing himself up with the state affairs of those
times. Ambition formed no inferior trait in the character of
Alexander, even long before he had been exalted to a high
dignity in the Church. He advanced rapidly into power, stepping
from one office into another, until at length he found himself
in the midst of the labyrinth, without being able to make his
way, unless by means of guides as inexperienced as they were
treacherous. It was by causes such as these that he brought
himself into serious difficulties, not only with the Archbishop
of Armagh, on account of the primacy, but also with his own
suffragans, and particularly with the Bishop of Ossory."
Under these circumstances it was that the prelate last mentioned,
on visiting his diocese, found unmistakable signs of the spread
of heresy among his flock. His diocese at that time formed a
part of the English Pale, and Kilkenny, where he had his
cathedral, was often the seat of Parliament.
Among those most active for the propagation of the new doctrines
were found, the Seneschal of Kilkenny, the Treasurer of Ireland,
and the Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas--all English of the
Pale. The zealous bishop, fearless of the consequences, openly
denounced them, and publicly excommunicated the Treasurer. At
once a terrible storm was raised among their English abettors,
and, in order to screen the guilty parties, they recriminated
against the prelate, and accused him of being a sharer in the
crime of Thomas Fitzgilbert, who had burned the castle of Moy
Cahir, and killed its owner, Hugh Le Poer. The temporalities of
Ledred having been already sequestrated for his boldness in
denouncing heretics, he was compelled finally to leave his
diocese and fly to Avignon, where he remained in exile for nine
years.
The Archbishop of Dublin had been one of his bitterest enemies,
and, although not actually accused of heresy himself, he was
certainly the abettor of heretics, and had done all in his power
to have Ledred arrested for his supposed crimes.
Ware, in his lives of Bicknor and Ledred, is evidently a
partisan of the first and an enemy of the second. He pretends
that Ledred tacitly acknowledged his guilt in the affair of Le
Poer, since he sued for pardon to the king, as though readers of
English history did not constantly meet with instances of
innocent men compelled to sue for pardon of crimes which they
had never committed.
We have fortunately better judges of the characters of both
prelates in the two popes, Benedict XII. and Clement VI.: the
first believing in the existence of the heresy denounced by
Ledred; the second exempting the Bishop of Ossory from the
superior jurisdiction of Bicknor, on account of the unjust
animosity displayed toward him by this worldly prelate.
The absence of all historical documents in reference to the case
leaves us at a loss to know the effect produced on Edward III.
by the letter of the Pontiff. It is highly probable that the
king preferred to believe Bicknor rather than the Pope, and
disregarded the advice of the latter.
In such an event, how was the heresy put down? Simply by the
good sense and spirit of faith of the people, or rather by the
deep Christian feeling of the native Irish, who were always
opposed to innovation, and who remained firm in the traditional
belief inherent in the nation by the grace of God. Schism and
heresy seem impossible among the children of Erin. If at any
time certain novelties have appeared among them, they have
speedily vanished like empty vapor. They heard that, in other
parts of the Church, in the East chiefly, heresiarchs had arisen
and led away into error large numbers of people forming
sometimes formidable sects, which threatened the very existence
of the religion of Christ; but the face of a heretic they had
never beheld. Soon, indeed, they were to be at the mercy of a
whole swarm of them, to see a pretended church leagued with the
state to bring about their perversion; but as yet they had had
no experience of the kind.
Only a few heretics were pointed out to them by the finger of
one of their bishops, and his denunciations were confirmed by
the judgment of the Holy See. Hence, according to F. Brenan,
"the sensation which pervaded all classes became vehement and
frightful. The bishop and his clergy came forward, and by solid
argument, by the strength and power of truth, opposed and
discomfited the enemies of religion."
The feeling here expressed is a natural one for a true Christian
at the very mention of heresy. Yet how few nations have
experienced a sensation "vehement and frightful" at the
appearance of positive error among them! But, at all periods of
their history, such has been the feeling of the Irish people.
Fortunately for them, the number of sectarians was so small as
to become insignificant; the English of the Pale were always few
in comparison with the natives, and heresy had been, adopted by
only a small body.
Error, therefore, could not cause in the island the social and
political convulsions which it had produced in France about the
same time. There was no need of a second Albigensian war to put
it down. There was no need even of the Inquisition, as an
ecclesiastical tribunal. The sentence of the bishop, the decree
of excommunication pronounced from the foot of the altar, was
all that was required.
When we compare this single fact of Irish ecclesiastical history
with what was then transpiring in Europe--the most insidious
errors spreading throughout; the faith of many becoming
unsettled, a general preparation for the social deluge which was
impending and so soon to fall--we cannot but conclude that
Ireland, in the midst of her misfortunes, was happy in being
separated from the rest of the world. The breath of novelty
could breathe no contagion on her shores. Happy even was she in
not seeing her sons enlist in the army of the Cross, if the
result of their victories was, to bring back from the Holy Land
the Eastern corruption and the many heresies nestling there and
settled, even around the sepulchre of our Lord, during so many
ages of separation from the West and open communication with all
the wild vagaries of Arabian, Persian, and Indian philosophies.
Even in the midst of such a trial we believe that Ireland would
have held steadfast to her faith, as she did later on when
heresy came to her with compulsion or death; and this firmness
of purpose, which the Irish have always manifested when the
question was a change of religion, is worthy our consideration.
For the facility with which some nations have, in the course of
ages, yielded to the spirit of novelty, and the sturdy
resistance opposed to it by others, is a subject that would
repay investigation, but which we can only slightly touch upon.
In ancient times the Greek mind, accustomed from the beginning
to subtlety of argument, and easily carried away by a
rationalism which was innate, offers a striking contrast to the
steady traditional spirit of the Latin races in general. Except
Pelagiaism and its cognate errors, all the great heresies which
afflicted the Church during the first ten centuries, originated
in the East; and the various sects catalogued by several of the
Greek Fathers, as early as the second and third centuries,
astonish the modern reader by the slender web on which their
often ridiculous systems are spun, of texture strong enough,
however, at the time to form the groundwork for making a
disastrous impression on a large number of adherents. The
infinity almost of philosophical systems in pagan Greece had
prepared the way for the subsequent vagaries of heresy, and we
must look to our own times, so prolific of absurd theories, in
order to find a parallel to the incredible variety of dogmatic
assertions among the Greek heresiarchs of early times.
But, at the outbreak of Protestantism, in the sixteenth century,
the world witnessed a still more striking example of diversity
in the various branches of the Japhetic family - the nations
belonging to the Teutonic and Scandinavian stocks chiefly
embracing the error at once with a wonderful spontaneity. The
various remnants of the Celtic race and the totality of the
Latin nations remained, on the whole, obedient to the guiding
voice of the Church of Christ. It is customary with modern
writers, when imbued with what are called liberal ideas, to
ascribe this difference to the steady, systematic mind of
northern nations, and to their innate love of liberty, which
could not brook the yoke of spiritual despotism imposed by the
Church of Rome. But all this is mere supposition, inadequate to
accounting for the fact. The Teutonic and Scandinavian mind is
certainly more systematic and apparently more steady than the
Celtic; but it is far less so than the Latin. No nation in the
whole history of mankind has ever displayed more steadiness and
system than the Romans, and the Latin family has inherited those
characteristics from Rome. The Spanish race has no equal in
steadiness (in the sense here intended of steadfastness), and
the French certainly none in system, which it often carried to
the verge of absurdity.
As for love of liberty, as distinct from love of license, it had
absolutely nothing to do with the great revolution which has
been called the Reformation. No nation can relish despotism, and
the whole history of Ireland is a living example that her sons
are steadily opposed to it to the death. And it is now too late
to pretend that the cause of true liberty has been served by the
spread of Protestantism over a large portion of Europe. Balmez
and others have proved the falsehood of such pretensions. If any
modern writers, such as Mr. Bancroft, for instance, men
otherwise of sound mind and great ability, continue to assert
this, the assertion must proceed from prejudice deeply ingrained,
which reflection has not yet succeeded in eradicating, and
their opinions on the subject are necessarily confined to bold
assertions, of a character which in others they themselves would
stigmatize as empty and unfounded.
The reason of the difference lies deeper in the constitution of
the human mind, in the Celtic and Latin races on the one side,
in the Teutonic and Scandinavian families on the other. Any one
who has studied the Irish character in our days--a character
which was the same in former ages--will easily see something of
that great and happy cause.
The difference lies first in the good sense which enables them
to perceive instinctively that the eternal should be preferred
to the temporal. If all men kept that distinct perception ever
present to their minds, they would not only accept at all times
the truths of faith, since faith, according to St. Paul, is "the
substance of the things hoped for," but they would remain ever
faithful to the moral code given us by God. The Celt indeed will
at times lose sight of the eternal in the presence of a temporal
temptation; but he is never blind to the knowledge that faith is
the groundwork of salvation, and that hope remains as long as
that is not surrendered. Therefore he will never surrender it.
The need of reviving his faith is rarely called for, when, after
a life of sin, the shadow of death reminds him of the duty he
owes his own soul. The great truth that, after all, the ETERNAL
is every thing, remains always deeply impressed on his mind; and
half his labor is spared to the minister of God, when bringing
such a man back to a life of virtue. There is scarcely any need
of asking an Irishman, "Do you believe?" For, every word that
passes his lips, every look and gesture, every expression of
feeling, is in fact an act of faith. How easy after this is the
work of regeneration!
0 happy race, to whom this life is in truth a shadow that
passeth away! to whom the unseen is ever present, or comes back
so vividly and so readily!
This supposes, as we have said, a sound, good sense, which is
characteristic of the race. We may say that this nation
possesses the wisdom of Sir Thomas More, who esteemed it folly
to lose eternity for a life of twenty years of ease and honors.
Is not this, at bottom, the thought which has sustained the
nation in that dread martyrdom of three centuries, whose
terrible story we have still to tell? Have they not, as a nation,
one after another, generation upon generation, lived and passed
their lives in contempt, in want, in frightful misery, to die in
torments or hidden sufferings, without a gleam of hope from this
world for their race, their families, their children, their very
name, because they would not surrender their religion, that is
to say, truth, which alone could secure the eternal welfare of
their souls?
Speak to us, after this, of a steady and systematic mind! Prate
to us of the love of liberty, of self-dignity! Where are such
things to be found in their reality, on their trial, if not in
the scenes and the nation we have just pictured?
A second reason, no less effective, perhaps, than the first, and
certainly as remarkable, is the very composition of the Celtic
mind, which naturally tends to firm belief, because it is given
exclusively to traditions, past events, narratives of poets,
historians, and genealogists. Had the Irish at any time turned
themselves to criticise, to doubt, to argue, their very
existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on
believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed
for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is
true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us save by
hearsay? Hence, their simple and artless acquiescence in any
thing they hear from trustworthy lips - acquiescence ever
refused to a known enemy, never to a well-tried friend, even
when the facts ascertained are strange, mysterious, unaccounted
for, and incredible to minds differently constituted.
Thus, when we read their "Acta Sanctorum," we at once find
ourselves in a world so different from our every-day world - a
region of wonders, mysteries, of heavenly and supernatural deeds,
unequalled in any story of marvellous travel or fable of
imaginative romance. Yet, who will say that the writers doubted
a single phrase of what they wrote? Is it not clear, from the
very words they use, that they would have held it sacrilege to
utter a falsehood, when speaking of the blessed saints? And, can
the lives of the saints be like those of common mortals? What is
there strange in considering that the earth was mysterious and
heavenly, when heavenly beings walked upon it? Read the Litany
and Festology of Aengus, and doubt if the holy man did not
believe all therein contained. Say, if it can be possible, that
it is not all true, though apparently incredible. Who can doubt
what is asserted with such vehemence of belief? How can that
fail to be true which holy men and women have themselves
believed, and given to the world to be believed?
This thoroughly explains the simplicity of faith which still
distinguishes the Irish people. It explains why no heretic could
be found among them, and their intense horror of heresy as soon
as known. Nor is it their mind alone which bears the impress of
faith: their very exterior is a witness to it. Go into any large
city where dwell a number of Irish inhabitants; walk through the
public streets, where they walk among the children of other
races, and you will easily distinguish them, not only by the
modesty of their women and the simple bearing of their men, but
by the look of confidence and contentedness stamped on their
features. Whoever has a settled faith, is no longer an inquirer,
no longer troubled with the anxiety and restlessness of a man
plunged in doubt and uncertainty; all the lineaments of the face,
all the gestures and attitudes of the body, speak of quietude
and repose.
We might render this discussion more effective by the study of
the contrary phenomena, by showing how easily races, differently
gifted, endowed with the spirit of criticism and argument, sever
from the faith and follow the lead of deceptive teachers. Our
object here was to describe the Irish, and not to enter into a
study of the physiology of other minds; but a word on Germanic
and Scandinavian tribes and peoples may not be amiss.
There is no doubt that these races place their "good sense" in a
very different line from the Irish; that they are, also, much
more given to criticism, what they call "grumbling," and absence
of repose.
With regard to the first point - their "good sense" - it is easy
to remark their tendency to prefer the temporal to the eternal.
For their "good sense" consists in enjoying the things of this
life without troubling themselves over-much about another. And,
in this observation, there is nothing which can possibly offend
them, for such is their open profession and estimate of true
wisdom. Hence result their love of comfort, their thrift, their
shrewdness in all material and worldly affairs; hence, their
constant boasting about their civilization, understanding,
thereby, what is pleasing to the senses; hence, also, their
success in a life wherein they set their whole happiness. How
could they be expected to remain steadfast to a faith which
declares war to pleasure, and speaks only of contempt for this
world? It is not matter of surprise, then, that their great
argument, to prove that theirs is the better and the right
religion, is to compare their physical well-being with the
inferiority in that regard of Catholic nations.
With regard to the spirit of criticism and argumentation,
nothing is so opposed to the spirit of faith; and it is as clear
as day that the northern races possess this in an eminent degree.
What question, religious or philosophical, can rest intact when
brought under the microscopic vision of a German philosopher or
an English rationalist? A few years more of criticism, as now
understood and practised by them, would leave absolutely nothing
which the mind of man could respect and believe.
An attentive observer will surely conclude, after a serious
examination of the subject, that it is from petty causes of this
character that these races have so easily surrendered their
faith, rather than from their systematic minds and love of
liberty.
II. The rising of the communes, one of the greatest features of
mediaeval Europe, did not extend to Ireland, separated as it
then was from the Continent. But, by reason of this very
separation, the island remained forever free from the future
political commotions of what is known as "the third estate." A
few remarks on this subject are requisite, because of the
objection brought against the Irish, that they have never known
municipal government, and also on account of the false
assertions of some philosophical historians, who allege that the
Danes and Anglo-Normans, in turn, wrought a great good to
Ireland by bringing with them the boon of citizen rights.
What were the causes of the rising of the communes in the
eleventh and following centuries? The universality of the fact
argues identity of motives, since, without common understanding
among various nations, the risings showed themselves at about
the same time in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and England.
In ancient cities, which existed prior to the Germanic invasions,
the population, after the scourge had passed, was composed
principally of three elements: 1. Free men of the conquering
races, who were poor, and had embraced some mechanical pursuit;
2. The remnants of the Roman population, who followed some
trade; 3. Freedmen from the rural districts, who, unable to gain
a livelihood in the country, had come to reside in the cities,
where they could more easily subsist.
Thus, besides the feudal lords and the class of villeins, there
was formed everywhere a third class, that of arts and trades.
The juridical power being restricted to the lords, whose rights
extended only to the land and the men attached to it, the class
of artisans found themselves destitute of legal rights, without
a recognition or place even in the jurisprudence, as then
existing, consequently in a practically anarchical state. Hence,
they formed among themselves their own associations, elected
their own magistrates, enacted their own by-laws.
In the cities we have mentioned, the bishop alone held social
relations with the lords, whether the feudal chieftain of the
vicinity, or the Count of the city. Thus, the bishop often acted
as the mediator between the citizens and the privileged class
which surrounded them. The great object of the citizens was to
obtain a charter of rights from the suzerain, who alone could
act with justice and impartiality toward those disfranchised
burghers. To this was owed the immense number of charters
granted at that time, many of which, lately published, tend
better than any thing else to give us an insight into the origin
of municipal life in mediaeval Europe.
New cities, either founded by the invaders or springing up of
themselves around feudal castles and monasteries, soon
experienced the necessity of similar favors, which, as soon as
obtained, invested them with a social status unenjoyed before.
The number of freemen, reduced to poverty, or of recent freedmen
- freed by the emancipation everywhere set on foot and
encouraged by the Church - extended the spread of communes even
to the rural districts. Thus, many villages or small towns grew
into corporations, and a social state arose, hitherto totally
unknown in Europe.
The question has been much discussed, whether those new
municipal corporations owed their origin to the municipal system
of the Romans, or were altogether disconnected with it. The
opinion commonly now accepted is, that the two systems were
utterly distinct. In some few instances, a particular Roman
municipal city may have passed into a mediaeval corporate town
under a new charter and with extended rights; but this was
certainly the exception. In the great majority of cases, the
newly-chartered cities had never before enjoyed municipal rights.
These few words suffice to show that the communes, wherever they
arose, presupposed the existence of feudalism, and the slavery
once so widely extended, passing gradually into serfdom.
But neither feudalism nor slavery, in the old pagan sense of the
word, nor even serfdom, properly so called, as the doom of the
ascripti glebae, ever existed in Ireland. There was, therefore,
no need among the Irish for the rising of communes.
Nevertheless, we do find communes existing in Ireland and
charters granted to Irish cities by English kings. But they were
merely English institutions for the special benefit of the
English of the Pale, which were always refused to "the Irish
enemy," and which the "Irish enemy," with the exception of a few
individual cases, never demanded. Consequently the fact stands
almost universally true that the rising of the communes never
extended to Ireland, and that, if the Irish never enjoyed the
benefit of them, as little did they share in the evil
consequences resulting from them.
All those evil consequences had their root in a feeling of
bitter hostility between the higher or noble classes, and not
only the villeins, whom they ground between them, but also the
middle classes, who were dwelling in the cities, emancipating
themselves by slow degrees, and forming in course of time the
"third estate."
The workings of that hostility form a great part of the history
of Europe from the twelfth century down to the present day, and
many social convulsions, recorded in the annals of the six ages
preceding our own, may be traced to it. The frightful French
Revolution was certainly a result of it, although it must be
granted that several secondary causes contributed to render the
catastrophe more destructive, the chief among which was the
spread of infidel doctrines among the higher and middle classes.
But our days witness a still more awful spectacle, the
persistent array of the poor against the rich in all countries
once Christian, and this may be traced directly to their
mediaeval origin now under our consideration; and, the evils
preparing for mankind therefrom, future history alone will be
able to tell.
In Ireland, this has never been the danger. In the earlier
constitution of the nation, there could be no rivalry, no
hostility of class with class, as there never existed any social
distinction between them; and if, in our days, the poor there as
elsewhere seem arrayed against the rich, it is not as class
against class, but as the spoiled against the spoiler, the
victim against the robber, against the holders of the soil by
right of confiscation--a soil upon which the old owners still
live, with all the traditions of their history, which have never
been completely effaced, and which in our days are springing
into new life under the studies of patriotic antiquarians. This
fact cannot be denied.
The case of Ireland is so different in this respect from that of
other nations, that in no other country have the people been
reduced to such a degrading state of pauperism, yet in no other
country is the same submission to the existing order of society
found among the lower classes. No communism, no socialism has
ever been preached there, and, were it preached, it would only
be to deaf ears. Until the last two or three centuries, no seed
of animosity between high and low, rich and poor, had been sowed
in Ireland. The reason of this we have seen in a previous
chapter. And if, since the wholesale confiscations of the
seventeenth century, the country has been divided into two
hostile camps, the fault has never laid with the poor, the
despoiled; they have always been the victims, and never uttered
open threats of destruction against their oppressors. If in the
future men look to great calamities, Ireland is the only quarter
from which nothing of the kind is to be feared, and the
impending revolution by which she may profit will look to her
for no assistance in the subversion of society.
We now leave the reader to appreciate to its full extent the
real value of the opinion of modern writers who would justify
the successive invasions of the Danes and Anglo-Normans, and
also, we suppose, of the Puritans, as praiseworthy attempts to
introduce into Ireland the municipal system, so productive of
good elsewhere throughout Europe.
There is no doubt that municipal rights have been of immense
advantage to European society, as constituted at the time of
their introduction. They formed the germ of a new class,
destined to be the ruling class of the world, by whom human
rights were first to be understood and proclaimed, and the
necessary amount of freedom granted to all and secured by just
laws justly administered. Christianity is the true source of all
those rights, as Christian morality ought to be their standard.
But what an amount of human misery was first required, in order
that such blessed results might follow, merely because religion,
which was and ever had been steadily working to the same end,
was altogether set aside, and its assistance even despised in
the mighty change! And after all--we might say in consequence--
how limited has the boon practically become! How few are the
nations, even in our days, which understand impartiality,
moderation, justice! How soon will mankind become sufficiently
enlightened to settle down peacefully in the enjoyment of those
blessings of civil liberty proclaimed and trumpeted to the four
winds of heaven, yet in no place rightly understood and
equitably shared?
Ireland never knew those municipal rights from which have flowed
so many evils, side by side with so few blessings, because their
essential elements were never found there. What the future may
develop, no man can say. It is time, however, for all to see
that the nation is equal to any rights to which men are said to
be entitled.
III. The great intellectual movement set on foot in Europe
during the middle ages, by the numerous universities which
sprang up everywhere, under the fostering care of Popes or
Christian monarchs, failed to reach the island, in consequence
of its exclusion from the European family; yet even this was not
for her an unmitigated evil, though certainly the greatest loss
she sustained. While Europe, during the eighth and ninth
centuries, was in total darkness, Ireland alone basked in the
light of science, whose lustre, shining in her numerous schools,
attracted thither by its brightness the youth of all nations,
whom she received with a generosity unbounded. Not content with
this, she sent forth her learned and holy men to spread the
light abroad and dispel the thick darkness, to establish seats
of learning as focuses whence should radiate the light of truth
on a world buried in barbarism.
And when the warm sunshine, created or kept alive by her, sheds
its rays on Italy, on France, on Germany, and England itself,
all her own schools are closed, her once great universities
destroyed. Clonard, Clonfert, Armagh, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, are
desolate, and the wealthy Anglo-Norman prelates find their
purses empty when the question arises of restoring or forming a
single centre of intellectual development. The natural
consequences should have been darkness, barbarism, gross
ignorance. Ireland never fell to that depth of spiritual
desolation. Her sons, though deprived of all exterior help,
would still feed for centuries on their own literary treasures.
All the way down to the Stuart dynasty, the nation preserved,
not only her clans, her princes, and her brehon laws, but also
her shanachies, her books, her ancient literature and traditions.
These the feudal barons could not rob her of; and if they would
not repay her, in some measure, for what they took away, by
flooding her with the new methods of thought, of knowledge, of
scientific investigation, at least they could not destroy her
old manuscripts, wipe out from her memory the old songs, snatch
the immortal harp from the hands of her bards, nor silence the
lips of her priests from giving vent to those bursts of
impassioned eloquence which are natural to them and must out.
Hence there was no tenth century of darkness for her--let us
bear this in mind--light never deserted her, but continued to
shine on her from within, despite the refusal of her masters to
unlock for her the floodgates of knowledge.
For this reason was it not to her an unmitigated loss; but there
is another and, perhaps, a stronger still.
We should be careful not to attribute to what is good the abuse
made of it by men; yet the good is sometimes the occasion of
evil; and so it was with those great, admirable, and much-to-be-
regretted universities.
They imparted to the mind of man an impulse which the pride and
ambition of man turned to his intellectual ruin. What was
intended for the spread of true knowledge and faith became in
the end the source of spiritual pride, the natural fosterer of
doubt and negation. Modern science, so called, that incarnation
of vanity, sophistry, error, and delusion, comes indirectly from
those universities of the middle ages; and it was chiefly at the
time of what is called the revival of learning, that the great
revolution in science came about, which changed the intellectual
gold into dross, the once divine ambrosia of knowledge, served
to happy mortals in mediaeval times, into poison.
That pretended "revival of learning" can never be mentioned in
connection with Ireland; and the "idolatry of art," and
corruption of morals, never crossed the channel which God set
between Great Britain and the Island of Saints.
Another revival, though of a very different character, was,
however, actually taking place in Erin at that very period, when
the Wars of the Roses gave her breathing-time, which we relate
in the words of a modern Irish writer, as a conclusion to the
reflections we have indulged in:
"Within this period lived Margaret of Offaly, the beautiful and
accomplished queen of O'Carrol, King of Ely. She and her husband
were munificent patrons of literature, art, and, science. On
Queen Margaret's special invitation, the literati of Ireland and
Scotland, to the number of nearly three thousand, held a
"session" for the furtherance of literary and scientific
interests at her palace near Killeagh, in Offaly, the entire
assemblage being the guests of the king and queen during their
stay.
"The nave of the great church of Da Sinchell was converted for
the occasion into a banqueting-hall, where Margaret herself
inaugurated the proceedings by placing two massive chalices of
gold, as offerings, on the high altar, and committing two orphan
children to the custody of nurses to be fostered at her charge.
Robed in cloth of gold, this illustrious lady, who was as
distinguished for her beauty as for her generosity, sat in
queenly state m one of the galleries of the church, surrounded
by the clergy, the brehons, and her private friends, shedding a
lustre on the scene which was passing below, while her husband,
who had often encountered England's greatest generals in battle,
remained mounted on a charger outside the church, to bid the
guests welcome and see that order was preserved. The invitations
were issued, and the guests arranged according to a list
prepared by 0'Carrol's chief brehon; and the second
entertainment, which took place at Rathangan, was a supplemental
one, to embrace such men of learning as had not been brought
together at the former feast."--(A.M. 0'Sullivan.)
Such was the true "revival of learning" in Ireland--a return to
her old traditional teaching. If this peaceful time had been of
longer duration, there is no doubt that her old schools would
have flourished anew, and men in subsequent ages might have
compared the results of the two systems: the one producing with
true enlightenment, peace, concord, faith, and piety, though
confined to the insignificant compass of one small island; the
other resulting in the mental anarchy so rife to-day, and
spreading all over the rest of Europe.