THE SCHOOL OF GLENDALOUGH.
I.--ST. KEVIN 414
Sketch of his Life 414
Kevin is placed under the care of St. Petroc 415
He goes to Glendalough 416
Description of Glendalough 417
St. Kevin's Bed 418
Tempull-na-Skellig 419
Glendalough, a Seminary of Saints and Scholars 420
Kevin meets Columba, Comgall and Canice at the hill of Uisnech 421
Death of Kevin 421
Writings attributed to Kevin 422
II.--RUINS AT GLENDALOUGH 422
The Cathedral 423
St. Kevin's Kitchen 423
Our Lady's Church 424
Trinity Church 424
Kevin's Yew Tree 425
III.--ST. MOLING 425
St. Moling 426
Teach Moling 426
Moling becomes Bishop of Ferns 427
Remission of the Cow-Tax 428
Writings attributed to St. Moling 429
Glendalough ravaged by the Danes 429
"Gilla-na-naomh Laighen" 430
CHAPTER XVIII.--(_continued_).
THE SCHOOL OF GLENDALOUGH.
ST. LAURENCE O'TOOLE 432
His Parentage 433
He goes to Glendalough 434
Lorcan as a Student 435
He is placed at the head of St. Kevin's Great Establishment 436
Consecrated Archbishop of Dublin 437
Synod of the Irish Prelates at Clane 437
He reforms the Clergy 437
His Spirit of Mortification and Prayer 438
Dermott McMurrough and Maurice Fitzgerald attack Dublin 440
He stimulates the slothful king, Rory O'Connor, to action 441
Laurence O'Toole attends a General Council in Rome, and secures
many privileges for the Church in Ireland 443
He travels to England in the interests of Rory O'Connor the
discrowned king 444
Detained a prisoner in the monastery of Abingdon 444
His death 445
Canonization 446
CHAPTER XIX.
SCHOOLS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
I.--THE SCHOOL OF LISMORE, ST. CARTHACH 447
He visits the School of Bangor 448
He founds a monastery at Rahan 449
"Effugatio" of Carthach from Rahan 450
He founds Lismore 453
Retires from community life to prepare for death 454
Miracles 454
_Rule of Carthach_ 455
II.--ST. CATHALDUS OF TARENTUM 457
_The Life of St. Cathaldus_ 457
His Birth-place 458
A Student at Lismore 460
He becomes a bishop 461
See of Rachau 462
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem 462
Taranto 463
Cathaldus endeavours to reform the licentious inhabitants of
Taranto 463
His death at Taranto 464
Invention of the Saint's Relics 464
III.--OTHER SCHOLARS OF LISMORE 465
St. Cuanna 465
St. Colman O'Leathain 467
Aldfrid, King of Northumbria 468
IV.--SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF LISMORE 466
Lismore ravaged by the Danes 469
Scenery at Lismore 471
Inscribed stones 472
The Crozier of Lismore 472
_The Book of Lismore_ 473
CHAPTER XX.
THE SCHOOLS OF DESMOND.
I.--THE SCHOOL OF CORK 475
St. Finbarr 476
Gougane Barra 478
Cork in A.D. 1600 480
Death of St. Finbarr 482
His character 483
Assassination of Mahoun 484
Giolla Aedha O'Muidhin 486
II.--ST. COLMAN MAC UA CLUASAIGH 487
Pestilence in Ireland 487
St. Colman's Hymn 488
III.--THE SCHOOL OF ROSS 490
St. Fachtna 490
_Geographical Poem_ of Mac Cosse 494
IV.--THE SCHOOL OF INNISFALLEN 495
St. Finan the Leper 496
St. Finan Cam 497
V.--THE ANNALS OF INNISFALLEN 500
Maelsuthain O'Cearbhail 500
Curious anecdote of Maelsuthain 502
_Annals of Innisfallen_ 503
Description of Innisfallen 505
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SCHOOLS OF THOMOND.
I.--THE SCHOOL OF MUNGRET 506
St. Nessan 507
St. Munchin 508
Mungret plundered by the Danes 510
"The Learning of the Women of Mungret" 511
II.--THE SCHOOL OF INISCALTRA 513
Island of Iniscaltra 513
St. Columba of Terryglass 513
Death of St. Columba 515
St. Caimin 517
Round Tower of Iniscaltra 519
St. Caimin's Church 519
Sculptured stones 520
Iniscaltra ravaged by the Danes 521
III.--OTHER MONASTIC SCHOOLS OF THOMOND 522
St. Brendan of Birr 522
St. Cronan of Roscrea 523
_Book of Dimma_ 524
CHAPTER XXII.
LATER SCHOOLS OF THE WEST.
I.--ST. COLMAN'S SCHOOL OF MAYO 527
The Easter Controversy 527
Inisboffin 531
Death of Colman 533
II.--ST. GERALD OF MAYO 534
Life of St. Gerald 534
Adamnan promulgates the celebrated "Lex Innocentiae" 537
Date of St. Gerald's Death 537
III.--SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL OF MAYO 538
Cele O'Duffy 539
IV.--THE SCHOOL OF TUAM 540
St. Jarlath 541
"Meadow of Retreat" 542
St. Brendan visits St. Jarlath's School at Cluainfois 543
St. Jarlath founds Tuam 544
CHAPTER XXII.--(_continued_).
CELTIC ART IN THE WESTERN MONASTERIES DURING THE REIGN OF
TURLOUGH O'CONNOR.
I.--THE O'DUFFYS 547
II.--CELTIC ART AT CLONMACNOISE 550
The Ollamh-builder 551
Gobban Saer 551
_Religh-na-Cailleach_ 552
Crosses and Architectural Ornaments in Sculpture at Tuam and
Cong 554
Turlough rebuilds the Cathedral of Tuam 557
The Abbey of Cong 558
The Cross of Cong 560
The Chalice of Ardagh 562
The Shrine of St. Manchan 564
CHAPTER XXIII.
IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD
I.--ST. VIRGILIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF SALZBURG 566
Country of St. Virgilius 566
Accusations against Virgilius 569
Doctrine of the Antipodes 570
Virgilius, the Apostle of Carinthia 572
Discovery of the Tomb of Virgilius 573
II.--SEDULIUS, COMMENTATOR ON SCRIPTURE 574
Writings of Sedulius 574
III.--JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA 576
Born in Ireland 576
Patronised by Charles the Bald 579
His _Liber de Prædestinatione_ 581
Alleged Errors about the Real Presence 583
His Translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius 584
His Treatise _De Divisione Naturae_ 586
This Book condemned A.D. 1225 587
His Death 588
IV.--FOREIGN SCHOLARS IN IRELAND 589
College of Slane 590
Dagobert, a Pupil of Slane 590
Egbert in Ireland 591
Studies in Connaught 592
St. Chad in Connaught 593
St. Willibrord in Ireland 594
Agilbert, Bishop of Paris, in Ireland 595
CHAPTER XXIV.
GAEDHLIC SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS OF ANCIENT ERIN.
I.--ORGANIZATION OF THE GAEDHLIC PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS 597
The Learned Professions in Erin 598
Degrees in Poetry, in Law, in History 600
II.--SCHOOL OF TUAIM DRECAIN 602
Three Schools at Tuaim Drecain 602
Cennfaeladh, Professor in all the Faculties 604
III.--CORMAC MAC CULLINAN 605
Disert-Diarmada 605
Cormac, King of Cashel 607
Not Bishop of Cashel 609
Cashel then a Royal Dun 610
Battle of Ballaghmoon 611
IV.--WRITINGS OF CORMAC MAC CULLINAN 612
_Psalter of Caiseal_ 613
Cormac's _Glossary_ 612
CHAPTER XXIV.--(_continued_).
I.--GAEDHLIC SCHOLARS OF THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES 614
Amergin Mac Awley 615
Dallan Forgaill 616
II.--GAEDHLIC SCHOLARS OF THE NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES 617
Maelmura of Fathan 617
Flann Mac Lonan 618
Eochaid O'Flinn 619
III.--GAEDHLIC SCHOLARS OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY 620
Mac Liag 620
His writings 623
Cuan O'Lochain 624
The Monastery of Buite 625
IV.--DISCIPLINE OF THE LAY COLLEGES 628
Relations between pupils and Teachers laid down in the _Senchus
Mor_ 629
Corporal punishment sometimes inflicted 630
CHAPTER I.
STATE OF LEARNING IN IRELAND BEFORE ST. PATRICK.
"The wrath of Crom spoke in the storm,
The blighted harvests felt his eye;
The cooling shower, the sunshine warm,
Answered the Druid's plaintive cry."
--_T. D. McGee._
It is not our purpose to discuss at length the state of learning and
civilization in Ireland before the coming of St. Patrick. It is a question
about which much difference of opinion exists even amongst learned men. A
few remarks, however, on this subject will enable the reader to understand
more clearly the literature and history of the Christian Schools of
Ancient Ireland.
It is admitted by all that whatever learning existed in Erin during the
pagan period of her history, was the exclusive possession of certain
privileged classes amongst the Celtic tribes. They may be included in the
three great orders, so familiar to the students of our ancient
history--the Druids, Bards, and Brehons. We shall offer a few brief
observations about each of these highly privileged classes.[1]
I.--THE DRUIDS.
In Ireland, as in all the Celtic nations, the Druids were priests and
seers, and frequently poets and judges also, especially in the earliest
periods of our history. We know from Cæsar that their learning, at least
in Gaul, consisted for the most part in rather fanciful theories about the
heavenly bodies, the laws of nature, and the attributes of their pagan
deities. These doctrines, like their religious tenets, were not committed
to writing, but were handed down by oral tradition; for they wished above
all things to keep their knowledge to themselves, and to impress the
common people with a mysterious awe for their own power and wisdom. It has
been said[2] by some writers that druidism was a philosophy rather than a
religion; but this statement cannot be admitted against the express
testimony of Cæsar,[3] who must have often seen the Druids both in Gaul
and Britain. He asserts[4] most distinctly that they attended to religious
worship, offered sacrifice both in public and in private, and also
expounded omens and oracles. Cæsar's statement in this single sentence
offers a text for our observations. We must bear in mind what he says of
the Druids of Gaul, as well as of the British Druids; because it is quite
evident that the Druids of the three great Celtic nations about this
period had practically the same religion. He says that they had exclusive
charge of public worship, sometimes even offered human sacrifice; and we
shall show, notwithstanding O'Curry,[5] that they did the same in Ireland
also. A similar long course of instruction, generally extending to twenty
years, was required for their disciples in Ireland as in Gaul. As judges,
too, the Druids enforced their decisions by a kind of social
excommunication, which few people dared to despise. It is curious how the
Celtic races, even to this day, have recourse to similar excommunications,
both in things social and political. The Druids of Gaul were subject to an
Arch-Druid, who was, like the Jewish High Priest, elected for life. But
above all, the Druids of Gaul taught the immortality of the soul, as also
its transmigration, and appeared most anxious to inculcate these doctrines
on all their disciples. This is the one saving doctrine of druidism, which
thus prepared the way for Christianity.
There were Druids amongst all the Celtic tribes of France, Britain, and
Ireland. The British Druids in the time of Cæsar were very famous both as
priests and scholars; so that it was customary for the young Druids of
Gaul to be sent over to Britain to finish their education in the colleges
of the British Druids. Their chief establishment was in the Island of
Anglesey, anciently called Mona; so at least it is called by Tacitus,
although Cæsar seems to give that name to the Isle of Man. During the
period immediately preceding the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland, it
seems highly probable that Mona was occupied by a colony of the Irish
Celts. It is certain, at least, that very frequent and friendly
intercourse took place between Ireland and Anglesey, from which it may be
safely inferred that if the druidism of Anglesey was not of Irish origin,
Irish as well as Gaulish Druids were certainly educated in that island.
The Druids worshipped not in temples made with hands. As in Palestine, and
many Eastern countries, these pagan priests conducted their religious
services in 'groves' and 'high places' under the shade of the spreading
oaks, from which some writers derive their name--_derw_ being the Celtic,
not the Greek name for oak. Hence this tree was sacred in their eyes;
their dwellings were surrounded with oak groves, whose dark foliage threw
a sombre and solemn shade over the rude altars of unhewn stone on which
they offered their sacrifices. The yew, blackthorn, and quicken were also
regarded as sacred trees, at least by the Irish Druids, who made their
divining rods in some cases from the yew, but oftener from oaken boughs.
The mystic ogham characters were also cut by the Druids on staves made
from the yew, at least so we are informed in some of our oldest Irish
tales.[6]
Our knowledge of Irish druidism is derived chiefly from incidental
references in the old romantic tales, and also in the _Lives of the
Saints_, and especially in the _Lives of St. Patrick_, who came into
direct antagonism with their entire system. It is certain that in other
countries the Druids sometimes offered human victims in sacrifice; and
there is some evidence that the same custom, although, perhaps, more
rarely, prevailed in Ireland. There is a passage in the _Book of
Leinster_,[7] which expressly states that the Irish used to sacrifice
their children to Crom Cruach, or more correctly, Cenn Cruaich, the great
gold-covered idol of Magh Slecht, on the borders of Cavan and Leitrim.
Hence it was called the Plain of Slaughter, and the sight of the foul idol
so excited the righteous zeal of St. Patrick that he smote it deep into
the earth with a blow of his crozier. We also know from the Saint's
"Confession" that the Irish to whom he preached the Gospel, had previously
worshipped idols and unclean things,[8] which goes to prove that
idol-worship was a part of the druidical ritual in Ireland.
There is no doubt also that the worship of the elements was a part of the
druidical religion. Their most terrible oaths were sworn on the Sun and
the Wind; and it was confidently believed that the perjurer could never
escape the vengeance of these mighty elements. The account given in the
_Tripartite_ of St. Patrick's interview with the daughters of King
Laeghaire by Cliabach Well, on the slopes of Cruachan, shows that the
worship of fairy gods, or elves, was a part of the druidical religion; and
the same is expressly stated in the very ancient metrical Life of the
Apostle, by St. Fiacc of Sletty.[9]
It is evident also not only from Cæsar's statement, but also from several
passages in our earliest extant writings, that one of the principal
functions of the Druids was to act as haurispices, that is, to foretell
the future, to unveil the hidden, to pronounce incantations, and ascertain
by omens lucky and unlucky days. Hence we always find some of them living
with the king in his royal rath; they are not only his priests, but still
more his guides and counsellors on all occasions of danger or emergency.
King Laeghaire had at Tara Druids and enchanters, who used to foretell the
future by their druidism and heathenism;[10] and they announced the coming
of the _tailcend_, or shaven-crown, that is St. Patrick, long before his
arrival. They were powerful in charms and spells. They could bring snow on
the plain, but could not, like Patrick, take it away; they could cover the
land with sudden darkness, but could not, like him, dispel it. They were
powerful for evil, but not for good; they could with the charm called the
'Fluttering Wisp,' strike their unhappy victim with lunacy, or afflict him
by the elements; they would even promise to make the earth swallow him up,
as they said it would swallow St. Patrick when he was preaching on the
banks of the Moy in Tyrawley. Their incantations, too, were in some
instances not only wicked, but filthy and unclean,[11] and as such were of
course strictly prohibited by St. Patrick.
The Druids of Gaul, although unwilling to commit their doctrines to
writing, were acquainted with the use of the Greek letters. The British
Druids of Anglesey were even more learned; and we must infer that the
Irish Druids possessed a similar culture. They had 'books,'[12] when St.
Patrick met them at Tara; and two of them were entrusted with the
education of the king's daughters at Cruachan. They were also skilled in
medicine, and possessed a knowledge of healing herbs; they discoursed to
their disciples on the nature of things,[13] and had some knowledge of
astronomy. Thus vested with mysterious and supernatural powers, and
possessed of an esoteric learning, that was exclusively their own, the
Druids were held in great reverence and fear. "Tara was the chief seat of
the idolatry and druidism of Erin,"[14] but we also find them at Cruachan
in Connaught, and at Killala beyond the Moy[15]--both royal seats of the
kings of that province. They accompanied the kings in their journeys and
were present sometimes on the field of battle.[16] They were generally
dressed in white, but wore an inner tunic to which reference is sometimes
made. It is probable that one or more of them abode in the Raths of all
the great nobles, who claimed to be _righs_, or kinglets, in their own
territories. They were sworn enemies of Christianity, and frequently
attempted to take St. Patrick's life by violence or poison. In the remote
districts of the country some of them remained for several centuries after
the island generally became Christian; and to this day we can find traces
of ancient druidism in the superstitions of the people.
Their New Year's Day was about the 10th of March, and was deemed holy as
the great day on which they cut the mistletoe from the sacred oak. The
first of May was kept as a festival in honour of the Sun-God; and probably
gave origin to that custom of lighting fires in honour of the god, which
was afterwards transferred to the eve of the 24th of June, in order to do
honour to St. John.
St. Patrick in his _Confession_ clearly refers to this sun-worship as an
idolatrous practice prevalent amongst our pagan forefathers. "That sun,"
he says, "which at His bidding we see rising daily for our sake will never
reign, and its splendour will not last for ever; but those who adore it
will perish miserably for all eternity." The great November festival
called Samuin, seems to have been held especially in honour of the _side_,
or fairy-gods, who dwelt in the bosom of the beautiful green hills of
Erin, and were supposed to hold high revel throughout all the land on
November Eve. But the Druids had influence even with these gods of the
hills; and we are told that when Edain, the lovely queen of royal Tara,
was stolen away from her husband, and hidden in the Land of Youth under
Bri Leith, near Ardagh, in Longford, she was restored to her home and her
husband by the mighty magic of Dallan the Druid.
We find reference made to the Druids as present with every colony that
came to Erin, which shows at least that the old bards and chroniclers
regarded them as an essential element of the nation. They were endowed
with lands for their maintenance, and enjoyed special privileges and
immunities, like the Bards and Brehons. But, as they were the priests of a
false and idolatrous religion, it was sought as far as possible to remove
every trace of their existence from the minds of the people; and hence
after the revision of the Brehon Laws in the time of St. Patrick, we find
all reference to the Druids, their rights, and their privileges, entirely
expunged from that ancient code. Accordingly we know nothing about the
Irish Druids, except what may be gathered from such accidental references
as those to which we have already referred.
II.--THE BARDS.
Under this term we include both poets and chroniclers that is, the
_Fileadh_ and the _Fer-comgne_.[17] Sometimes history and poetry are
represented as distinct branches of learning in ancient Erin; it is
certain, however, that in pre-Christian times, and long after the
introduction of Christianity, the chronicler made poetry the medium of
preserving and communicating to posterity both the genealogical and
historical records of his tribe or clan. It is true, indeed, that the
Introduction to the _Senchus Mor_ makes a careful distinction between the
chronicler and the poet. "Until Patrick came, only three classes of
persons were permitted to speak in public in Erin: a Chronicler to relate
events and to tell stories; a Poet to eulogise and to satirize; a Brehon
to pass sentence from precedents and commentaries." It is added that since
Patrick's arrival, each of these professions is subject to his censorship;
and it is noteworthy that no reference at all is made to the Druids after
Patrick came to Erin, and this Brehon Code came to be purified. The
commentator on the _Senchus_ also notes that for a long time the
judicature had belonged to the poets alone, that is, from the time of
Amergin, the first poet-judge, down to the time of the Contention at
Emhain Macha between the two Sages, Ferceirtne and Neidhe. The language
which the poets spoke on that occasion was so obscure, that the chieftains
could not understand what had passed between the rival Sages. It was
therefore ordained by Conchobhar (Connor) and his chieftains, that
thenceforward the poets should be deprived of that exclusive privilege
which they had hitherto enjoyed, and made too exclusive; and that the men
of Erin in general should be entitled to have their proper share in the
judicature. This dim tradition clearly represents a protest against the
technical language of an exclusive and privileged class, who, for their
own purposes, sought to keep secret their traditionary lore. Thus it came
to pass that thenceforward the profession of the judge and poet became
quite distinct, and the judge assumed the post of official chronicler and
keeper of the records of his tribe.
The function of the Bard, or poet, afterwards was 'to eulogize and to
satirize;' and in this more restricted sense of the word the term poet or
Bard is frequently employed in Christian times. We know, however, that as
a matter of fact all our historical documents down to the tenth century
are written in poetry, that is, in a certain metre and rhythm, which would
help to preserve these compositions even without the aid of writing for
the benefit of posterity; that is to say, the Chronicler was also a poet.
The _File_, or poet in the more restricted sense of the word, soon became
a pest and a nuisance. He was willing enough to eulogize when he expected
liberal rewards; but if he were disappointed in his hopes, or if from any
other cause he wished to inflict the lash of his satire on any person, he
never spared the poisoned shafts of his flashing wit. Hence Cormac Mac
Cullinan, who knew the tribe well, derives _File_, the old Irish word for
poet, from _fi_, poison, and _li_, brightness; because in eulogy the poet
is bright, but in satire he is venomous. The poets were extortionate, too,
in exacting rewards for their eulogistic verses, so that the order came to
be more feared than loved, and at length incurred the danger of
extinction, as we shall see further on. Hence, too, it is expressly
ordained in the _Senchus Mor_ that the poet who demands an excessive
reward, or claims an amount to which he is not entitled, or composes
unlawful satire, is to be deprived of half his 'honour price' for the
first and second offence, and of his full honour price, or social status,
for the third. Among the four dignitaries of a territory who might be
degraded, besides the false-judging king, the stumbling bishop, and the
unworthy chief, was the fraudulent poet, who demanded an exorbitant reward
for his compositions.
No man was qualified to become Chief-poet, or Doctor in
Poetry--'Ollamh-poet'--who was not able to compose an extempore stanza on
any subject proposed to him. And the way in which it is done is this:
"When the poet sees the person or thing before him he makes a verse at
once with the ends of his fingers, or in his mind without studying, and he
composes and repeats at the same time."[18] This, however, was after the
reception of the New Testament in the time of St. Patrick. "Before
Patrick's time the poet placed his (divining) staff upon the person's
body, or upon his head, and found out his name, and the name of his father
and mother, and discovered every unknown thing that was proposed to him in
a minute or two or three." But St. Patrick abolished these profane rites
amongst the poets when they believed, for they could not be performed
without offering to idol gods, and thenceforward he made the profession
pure.[19]
The chief duty of the Historic Poet, or Chronicler, was to register the
genealogies of the men of Erin, and to recite lays of battle, and rhymed
stories or tales of Courtships, Voyages, Cattle-spoils, Sieges,
Slaughters, and other moving incidents by field and flood. The
Ollamh-poet, or Doctor of Poetry, was required by law to spend at least
twelve years in careful preparation for his final degree, and to have
prepared for public recitation seven times fifty tales or stories of the
character already indicated. He was also required to be perfectly familiar
with the pedigrees of the principal families, their topographical
distribution, the synchronisms of remarkable events both at home and
abroad, and the etymologies of names in Erin. He was besides required to
know the artistic rules of poetry, and to have a knowledge of the seven
kinds of verse and their various metres. It is evident that these manifold
accomplishments required long and careful study; and the necessity of this
training explains, what many persons think incredible, the wonderful
accuracy of our ancient historical and genealogical records, which the
evidence of facts now proves to be on the whole undoubtedly authentic and
trustworthy documents.
In the _Book of Ballymote_ there is a long list of great historians and
poets, who flourished in ancient Ireland; many of them, however, are now
known only by name. All our ancient records point to the fact that the
Tuatha de Danaan, who colonized this country before the Milesians, were a
people of considerable civilization. Their royal family seems to have
possessed great culture. Daghda, the king, and his wife the Great
Queen--Mor Rigan--are both represented as distinguished poets, who
flourished more than 1,000 years before Christ. Diancecht, the royal
physician, was also a distinguished judge and poet; his daughter, the
princess Etan, was a poetess; and her son was no less remarkable for
poetic talent. About the same period flourished the poet Ogma, the
traditional inventor of the Ogham alphabet.
The Milesians cultivated poetry with equal zeal. We have already referred
to the poet-judge, Amergin, and we are told that a poet called Cir, and a
harper named Ona, were amongst the first Milesian colonists. After the
conquest of the country by the brothers Heber and Heremon, it was resolved
to cast lots for the possession of these distinguished bards. The poet
fell to Heremon and the harper to Heber, whence it came to pass that the
Northerns were, in after times, distinguished for poetry; but the gift of
music remained with their Southern brothers.
There is still extant[20] a curious genealogical poem attributed to Conor
of the Red-Brows (about B.C. 6) which O'Curry seems to have regarded as
genuine. But the most remarkable remnant of pre-Christian literature, if,
indeed, it can be regarded as such, is the Dialogue of the two Sages,
which is attributed to the reign of Conor Mac Nessa, king of Ulster, about
the period of the birth of Christ. These two sages were Ferceirtne, the
royal poet of Emania, and Neidhe, son of Adhna, the predecessor of
Ferceirtne in the Chair of Poetry. The young Neidhe, after completing his
education at home, went to Scotland, where he still further pursued his
studies. Upon learning the death of his father he returned home, and
happening to find the chief poet's chair just then empty by the temporary
absence of the Professor Ferceirtne, who had succeeded his father, he put
on the poet's Gown which he found lying on the chair, and sat down himself
in state in the vacant seat. Thereupon Ferceirtne returned, and finding
his place occupied, asked in poetic phrase who was the distinguished
stranger upon whom rested the splendour of the poet's Gown. Neidhe
answered him in language as poetic as his own, and thereupon began the
famous Dialogue, in which the rival poets displayed all their various
accomplishments in literature, history, and druidism. The victory was
finally gained by the youthful Neidhe, who proved himself fully worthy of
his father's Chair; but with modest condescension he yielded the place to
the elder Ferceirtne, and consented to become his pupil and destined
successor. The language of the Dialogue shows its great antiquity; but the
frequent allusions, although only by way of prophecy to Christian usages,
throw grave doubt, on its authenticity.
Learning is said to have greatly flourished in Erin during the reign of
Conor Mac Nessa. He was certainly a bountiful benefactor to the poets;
and, when their numbers and avarice raised loud complaints against them in
other parts of the country, he invited the whole tribe to his own kingdom
of Ulster, where he entertained them hospitably for seven years.
Ollioll Olum, that is Ollioll the Sage, was, as his name implies, a
learned poet, who flourished from A.D. 186 to 234. He is said to have
written several poems of great merit, three of which, according to
O'Curry, are still preserved in the _Book of Leinster_. It is said also
that Finn Mac Cumhaill was a poet as well as a warrior; and several poems
are attributed to him in our ancient books.
He was at least the father of Erin's greatest poet--from him and "Graine
of the golden hair the primal poet sprung." Finn flourished during the
later heroic period, which corresponds to the third century of the
Christian era. Ossian, or more properly Oisin, his son, is the Homer of
Gaedhlic song, whose name and fame have floated down to us on the stream
of time from those far distant and misty ages. Many poems still extant are
attributed, and perhaps justly, to the grand old warrior Bard of Erin. The
publications of the Ossianic Society have done much to make the history of
the heroic period familiar to modern readers. More than one of our Irish
poets,[21] too, have, with the quick ear of genius, caught up the faint
echo of Ossian's song, and once more attuned the harp of Erin to the
thrilling melodies of her heroic youth. Once more the Fenian heroes begin
to tread the hills of fame, and the spirit of Ossian's vanished muse, like
the quickening breath of spring, is felt over all the land.
Ossian! two thousand years of mist and change
Surround thy name--
Thy Fenian heroes now no longer range
The hills of fame.
The very name of Finn and Goll sound strange--
Yet thine the same,
By miscalled lake and desecrated grange,
Remains, and shall remain.
The Druid's altar and the Druid's creed
We scarce can trace;
There is not left one undisputed deed
Of all your race,
Save your majestic song, which hath their speed
And strength and grace,
In that sole song they live and love and bleed,
It bears them on through space.
--_T. D. M'Gee._
III.--THE BREHONS.
They formed the third of the learned and specially privileged Orders in
ancient Erin. During the pre-Christian period the customary laws, by which
the Celtic tribes were governed, were formulated in brief sententious
rhymes. These rhythmical maxims of law were at first transmitted orally,
but afterwards in writing from each generation of Poets to their
successors. For up to the first century of the Christian era the Files or
Poets had not only the custody of the laws, but also the exclusive right
of expounding them to the people, and pronouncing judgments both civil and
criminal. Even when the King himself undertook to adjudicate, the File was
his official assessor, and the royal judge was guided by his advice in the
administration of justice. The Poets were exceedingly jealous of this
great privilege, and in order to exclude outsiders from any share in the
administration of the law they preserved the archaic legal formula with
the greatest secrecy and tenacity.
But as we have already seen, this jealous spirit over-reached itself, and
in the reign of Conor Mac Nessa the men of Erin resolved to deprive the
Poets of this exclusive privilege, and throw open the office of Brehon to
all who duly qualified themselves by acquiring the learning necessary to
enable them to discharge its duties.
It was after the office was thus thrown open to men of talent and industry
that some of those ancient judges flourished in Erin, whose names and
decisions are spoken of with the greatest reverence in the _Senchus Mor_.
"It was," we are there told, "Sen, son of Aighe, who passed the first
judgment respecting Distress at a territorial meeting held by the three
noble tribes who divided this island." This points to legislation on the
subject of Distress formulated at a tribe-assembly by a great jurist, and
then solemnly ratified by popular consent. The gloss on this text adds
that Sen was of the men of Connaught, and that the meeting was held at
Uisnech in Westmeath. Another distinguished judge was Sencha, son of
Ailell, on whose face three permanent blotches appeared whenever he
pronounced a false judgment. Connla Cainbrethach (of the Fair Judgments)
was the chief legal doctor of Connaught; he excelled the men of Erin in
wisdom, for he was "filled with the grace of the Holy Ghost."[22] He it
was who said that it was God, and not the Druids, who made the heavens,
and the earth, the sun and the moon and the sea. This seems to imply that
Connla was wise and courageous enough to reject the philosophy, and
probably also the worship of the Druids. The Light had already arisen in
the east, and the first faint dawnings of Christianity were beginning to
illumine the horizon of Erin. Morann, another great judge, who flourished
during the first century of our era, wore a chain around his neck, and if
ever he pronounced a false judgment the chain tightened around his neck;
but it began to expand again, when he came to speak what was just and
true. These and other great judges of the same period appear to be
undoubted historical characters, whose wisdom and learning, hallowed by
the reverence of ages, appeared to their successors to be in some way
divinely inspired. They were, it is true, at the time without the light of
Revelation to guide them, but as the gloss says, the grace of the Holy
Ghost would not be wanting to help men, who were striving according to
their conscience to be just and good.
Cormac Mac Art, of whose writings we shall presently speak, did much to
encourage the systematic study of law amongst the Brehons. He appears to
have been the first who reduced to writing the traditional legal maxims of
the Brehon's court, and thus may be regarded as the author of the earliest
Code of Laws in pagan Ireland. This great work was afterwards purified and
perfected in the time of St. Patrick, when the _Senchus Mor_, as it is now
known, was first compiled.
These three Orders of Druids, Bards, and Brehons were, as we have seen,
close corporations, invested with many privileges, and communicating a
professional knowledge for the most part by oral instruction to their
disciples. This course of instruction was very long and elaborate,
sometimes extending to a period of twenty years. It included, as in more
modern times, various steps or degrees of learning, the highest of which
always was that of Ollamh or Doctor, whether in law, poetry, or divinity.
The ordinary course was twelve years, and each year's work seems to have
been as carefully fixed as in a modern college or university. A great
portion of the work, after the purely elementary studies, consisted in
getting off by rote either the bardic tales, or legal maxims with their
leading cases, or historical poems and genealogies. This included a very
perfect knowledge of topography, chronology, and family history.
Versification of a very artificial and complicated character was also a
portion of the programme. Besides the students had undoubtedly, at least
in pre-Christian times, some kind of 'secret' language known only to the
initiated. It would seem as if each profession or school had its own
peculiar Oghamic alphabet, the key of which was known only to themselves;
but in this matter we have no certain knowledge, and are left almost
entirely to pure conjecture. Hereafter we shall see that the legal
relations between the professor and his pupils were definitely
ascertained, and are laid down in that portion of the Brehon Code which
deals with the Law of Social Connections.
IV.--THE OGHAM ALPHABET.
We shall see presently, when treating of the literary history of Cormac
Mac Art, that the use of letters, and most probably of Roman letters, was
quite common in Erin before the coming of St. Patrick. Besides the Roman
alphabet there was, however, an earlier and ruder alphabet, which seems to
have been used in Erin even in the pre-historic times. This is called the
Ogham alphabet which has had a very strange and curious history. It is a
singular fact that all knowledge of the Ogham alphabet, as well as of the
existence of any inscriptions written in its peculiar characters, had for
a considerable period completely disappeared from the minds of Irish
scholars. Yet the Ogham score was all the time contained in the _Book of
Ballymote_,[23] and the key to its interpretation also. Inscribed stones
too were thrown about unnoticed in various parts of the country down to
the year 1820, when Mr. John Windele discovered the first inscription in
the co. Cork.
Since that time no less than 200 inscribed stones have been discovered in
various parts of the country, but especially in the South and West; and
Irish scholars have directed their attention to decipher and explain these
mysterious and time-worn lines. Twenty-two stones inscribed with similar
characters have been found in Wales and Devonshire, that is in the South
and West of England, and ten in Scotland. Almost all these inscriptions
have been examined by the late Mr. Brash of Cork, a most painstaking and
accurate investigator, who has published the result of his labours in a
very interesting work on the subject.[24] His conclusions may be briefly
summed up as follows[25]:--
The inscriptions have been invariably found on pillar stones and flags,
and are nearly all of a sepulchral character. The lettering is in a style
peculiar to the Gaedhlic race, and represents a very ancient dialect of
the Gaedhlic language. The inscribed stones are found only in those
districts, where the Gaedhils are known to have established themselves;
and the mode of forming the characters and formulating the inscriptions is
the same in Ireland, in Wales, and in Scotland. He asserts, moreover, that
no Ogham monument hitherto discovered bears any trace of any Christian
formula, or any symbol of Christian hope;[26] that any such symbols when
found upon an Ogham stones, are manifestly of later date than the original
inscription; and that the allusions in our ancient MSS. to the Ogham mode
of writing have reference only to pre-Christian times. He thinks too that
the Ogham mode of writing was not invented in Ireland, but carried to this
country by a colony that landed on our south-western shores, and moved
gradually from West to East, and thence across the Channel to Wales. He
adds that in all probability this colony came originally from the East,
then settled for some time in Egypt, and migrated thence to
Spain--conclusions that are all in conformity with the common traditional
account of the advent of the Milesian race to this country, as contained
in our own ancient Books.
The invention of the Ogham is attributed in bardic history to Ogma, son of
Elathan, a prince of the Tuatha de Danaans, that people whom all our
national traditions represent as a more cultured race than any of the
other colonies that took possession of this island in primitive times. The
most singular fact connected with the Ogham inscriptions is their
geographical distribution. They are in Ireland almost all confined to the
South and West, and to those parts of Wales and England that could be most
easily reached from the South of Ireland. The few inscriptions found
elsewhere in Ireland are only found in those places, to which we have
reason to know that families from the South-West migrated in early times.
This certainly would seem to indicate that an immigrant colony landed
somewhere in Kerry; and gradually diffusing themselves through the country
carried this archaic form of writing along with them; but either they
never succeeded in occupying the whole country, or before the occupation
of the remoter parts they gradually gave up the Ogham, and adopted a form
of writing more suitable for general use, but not so well adapted for
brief permanent inscriptions in stone. Mr. Brash has declared that no
Oghams of a Christian character have yet been discovered, nor is there any
coeval reference to any Christian symbols on the Ogham pillar-stones, a
fact which, if true, clearly proves that all the Oghams date from Pagan
times. In most cases they are sepulchral inscriptions of the briefest
character, merely giving the name of the deceased and the name of his
father with, in a few instances, one or two short laudatory epithets.
The letters of the Ogham alphabet are divided into four groups of five
letters each, twenty in all. Taking the angular edge of the upright pillar
to be represented by a straight line the following is the score:--
[Illustration]
Besides these we find a few dipthongal symbols, but apparently of later
date:--
[Illustration]
The line on which the letters are written is nearly always the rectangular
line on the left hand side of the upright flag, facing the spectator. The
inscription begins below at the left hand corner, and is read upwards, but
sometimes it is continued downwards on the right hand angular line of the
pillar on the same face. The vowels are generally not much larger than
points on the very angle of the stone, or very short lines cutting the
angular line; the consonants are much longer scores drawn to the left or
to the right of the angular line as the word requires; the last five
scores are longer lines across the angular line and oblique to it.[27]
From various references in our ancient MSS. it appears that the Oghams
were written not merely on stones, but also on rods and tablets of wood,
which could be easily tied up in bundles and carried from place to place.
A letter written to a friend might thus consist of a bundle of rods, duly
marked and numbered. The bark of trees, being easily notched, was probably
used for the same purpose, and thus even before the introduction of
parchment and Roman letters, there would be no want of writing materials.
There is no evidence that before the introduction of Roman letters there
was any other kind of alphabet in use except the Ogham. But as the Druids
of Gaul, in the time of Cæsar, were acquainted with the use of the Greek
letters, why should not the 'more learned' Druids of Britain and Ireland
be familiar with the Greek or Roman alphabet? It will be seen in the next
chapter that there is every reason to conclude that at least after the
Roman occupation of Britain, they were quite familiar with Roman letters
and Roman writing.
CHAPTER II.
IRISH SCHOLARS BEFORE ST. PATRICK.
"Crom Cruach and his sub-gods twelve,"
Said Cormac, "are but carven treene;
The axe that made them, haft and helve,
Had worthier of our worship been."
--_Ferguson._
We are frequently told that before the time of St. Patrick the Irish were
an utterly barbarous people like the North American Indians. They had of
course an unwritten language, but neither scholars, learning, nor even
letters. Vague statements of certain Roman writers are cited in proof of
these assertions--we shall appeal to the evidence of facts. The Roman
writers of that period knew far less of ancient Ireland than even we do at
present. It was beyond the sphere of their knowledge, as well as of their
empire. But as a matter of fact the statements of Roman historians, so far
as they go, tend to prove that a considerable amount of civilization
existed in Erin during the time of the Roman occupation of Britain; and in
proof of this statement it is quite enough to examine the history of
Cormac Mac Art.
I.--CORMAC MAC ART.
The reign of Cormac Mac Art furnishes, perhaps, the most interesting
chapter in the history of pre-Christian Ireland. He may be regarded with
justice as the greatest king that ever reigned in ancient Erin. He was, as
our poets tell us, a sage, a judge, and a scholar, as well as a great
prince and a skilful warrior. His reign furnished, indeed, many rich
themes for the romantic poets and story-tellers of subsequent ages, in
which they greatly indulged their perfervid Celtic imagination. But the
leading facts of his reign are all within the limits of authentic history,
and are provable by most satisfactory evidence.
Cormac was the son of Art the Solitary, or the Melancholy, as he is
sometimes called, and was grandson of the celebrated Conn the
Hundred-Fighter. Hence he is sometimes called Cormac O'Cuinn, as well as
Cormac Mac Art. His father was slain about the year A.D. 195, in the great
battle of Magh Mucruimhe where, as at the battle of Aughrim in the same
county, a kingdom was lost and won. Magh Mucruimhe was the ancient name of
the great limestone plain extending from Athenry towards Oranmore; and the
spot where King Art was killed has been called Tulach Art even down to our
own times. It was between Oranmore and Kilcornan, and close to the
townland of Moyvaela.[28] The victor in this great battle was Lughaidh,
surnamed Mac Con, who had been for many years a refugee in Britain, and
now returned with the king of that country and a host of foreigners to
wrest the kingdom from Art, who was his maternal uncle. The flower of the
chivalry of Munster perished also on that fatal field; for the seven sons
of Ollioll Olum who had come to assist King Art, their mother's brother,
were slain to a man on the field or in the rout that followed.
Fortunately for young Cormac, the king's son, he was just then at
fosterage in Connaught, probably with Nia Mor, who was his cousin, and one
of the sub-kings of the province at that time. So Mac Con, the usurper,
found no obstacle to prevent him assuming the sovereignty of Tara; and we
are told that he reigned some 30 years, from A.D. 196 to 226.
Meantime young Cormac was carefully trained in all martial exercises, as
well as in all the learning befitting a king, until he came to man's
estate. Then he came to Tara in disguise, and according to one account,
was employed in herding the sheep of a poor widow, who lived close to
Tara, when some of the sheep were seized for trespassing on the queen's
private green or lawn. When this case of trespass was brought before the
king in his court on the western slope of the Hill of Tara, he adjudged
that the sheep should be forfeited for the trespass. "No," said Cormac,
who was present, "the sheep have only eaten of the fleece of the land, and
in justice only their own fleece should be forfeited for that trespass."
The bystanders murmured their approval, and even Mac Con himself cried
out--"It is the judgment of a king"--for kings were supposed to possess a
kind of inspiration in giving their decisions. Then immediately
recognising Cormac, whom he knew to be in the country, he tried to seize
him on the spot. But Cormac leaped the mound of the _Claenfert_, and not
only succeeded in effecting his escape, but also in raising such a body of
his own and his father's friends, that he was able to drive the usurper
from Tara. Mac Con fled to his own relatives in the South of Ireland,
where he was shortly afterwards killed, at a place called Gort-an-Oir,
near Cahir, in the Co. Tipperary.
So Cormac, disciplined in adversity, came to the throne in the year A.D.
227, according to the Four Masters.[29] During the earlier years of his
reign he was engaged in continual wars with the provincial kings, who had
yet to learn that Cormac was their master in fact as well as of right. We
are told that he fought no less than fifty battles against these turbulent
kings to vindicate his own position as High King of Erin. The accurate
Tighernach furnishes us with brief notices of those various battles
against the refractory sub-kings. In one year he fought three battles
against the Ultonians. In another he fought four times against the
Momonians. The Leinster King, Dunlaing, taking advantage of Cormac's
absence from Tara, attacked the royal rath itself, and wantonly
slaughtered thirty noble maidens with their attendants--thirty for
each--who lived in a separate building on the north-western slope of Tara.
Cormac promptly avenged this awful massacre by invading Leinster, and
putting to death twelve sub-kings of that province; and besides he
increased and enforced the payment of the ancient Borumean or cow-tribute
imposed by his predecessors on the same province. The Ultonians, however,
were his most inveterate foes; and twice, it seems, they succeeded in
"deposing" him, that is, in driving him for some months from Tara. At
length, however, the king gained a complete victory over his northern
rivals, with the aid of Tadhg, a grandson of Ollioll Olum, and his Munster
auxiliaries. Cormac rewarded the Munster hero by giving him, as he had
promised, as much of the territory of Meath as Tadhg could drive round in
his chariot from the close of the battle till sunset. The veteran hero,
spent with loss of blood and battle-toil, still contrived to drive his
chariot round a district extending from Duleek to the Liffey, which was
afterwards called Cianachta--the land of Cian's descendants. Tadhg's
father was Cian, son of Ollioll Olum, hence the name.
Cormac, now undisputed master of his kingdom, took measures to preserve
the public peace and secure the prosperity of his dominions. He was the
first, and we may say also, the last king of Erin, who maintained a
standing army to check the arrogance of his turbulent sub-kings. This
Fenian militia was, it is said, modelled after the Roman legions, which
Cormac might have seen, or heard of at that time in Britain. They were
quartered on the people in winter; but in summer they lived on the
produce of the chase, and gave all their leisure to martial exercises. By
this means they became most accomplished in all feats of arms, so that the
fame of these Fenian heroes has come down to our own time in the living
traditions of the people. The celebrated Finn Mac Cumhail was their
general--a poet too, it was said, he was, and a scholar, as well as a
renowned warrior. Ossian, the hero-poet, was his son; and the brave and
gentle Oscar, who fell in the fatal field of Gabhra, was his grandson.
We are also told that Cormac kept a fleet on the sea for three years, and
doubtless swept away the pirate ships of Britain and the islands, that
used to make descents from time to time on the eastern coasts of Ireland.
But it is with the literary history of King Cormac's reign we are most
concerned, and to this we invite the special attention of the reader. His
first work was to re-establish the ancient Feis of Tara.
Tara even then had been the residence of the High Kings of Erin from
immemorial ages. Slainge, the first king of the Firbolgs, was its reputed
founder; and all the kings of that colony, as well as of the Tuatha De
Danaan and Milesian race, had usually dwelt on the same royal hill. Ollamh
Fodhla, one of the most renowned kings in the bardic history, "reigned
forty years and died in his own house at Tara." It is said that this king
was the first who convened the great Feis of Tara to legislate in solemn
assembly for all the tribes of Erin. O'Flaherty adds that the same ancient
monarch founded a "Mur Ollamhan," or college of learned doctors at Tara;
but Petrie could find no authority for this statement except the term "Mur
Ollamhan," which might, however, simply mean the _mur_, or fortified house
of Ollamh Fodhla himself.
During the shadowy period that follows down to the Christian era, we hear
little of Tara even in bardic history. An undoubtedly historical king,
Tuathal Teachtmar, about the year 85 of the Christian era, took a portion
of each of the four provinces to make a mensal demesne for the High King
of Tara. He convened the states of the kingdom, too, on the royal hill in
solemn assembly, and induced the assembled kings and chiefs to swear by
all the elements that they would always yield obedience to the princes of
his own race.
The Feis of Tara, then, was in existence before the time of Cormac; but it
was seldom convened, and had almost fallen into disuse. Cormac it was,
who made arrangements for the regular meetings of that great parliament of
the nation, and provided adequate accommodation for the assembled
notables. Here we are on firm historic ground and can enter into more
minute details with security.
The object of this Feis of Tara was mainly three-fold.[30] First, to enact
and promulgate what was afterwards called the _cain_-law, which was
obligatory in all the territories and tribes of the kingdom, as
distinguished from the _urradhus_, or local law. Secondly, to test and
sanction the Annals of Erin. For this purpose each of the local Seanachies
or historians brought in a record of the notable events that took place in
his own territory. These were publicly read for the assembly, and when
duly authenticated were entered on the great record of the King of Tara,
called afterwards the "Saltair of Tara." Thirdly, to register in the same
great national record the genealogies of the ruling families, to assess
the taxes, and settle all cases of disputed succession among the tribes of
the kingdom. Too often this was done by the strong hand; but it was
Cormac's idea to fix the succession, as far as possible, according to
definite principles amongst the ruling families. The absence of a strong
central government to enforce this most wise provision was one main cause
of the subsequent distracted state of the kingdom.
This great national assembly, convened for these purposes, met once every
three years. The session continued for a week, beginning the third day
before, and ending the third day after November day. When so many
turbulent chieftains, oftentimes at feud amongst themselves, met together,
it was necessary to keep the peace of Tara by very stringent regulations,
enforced under the most rigorous penalties. It is to Cormac's prudent
forethought we owe these regulations, which were afterwards inviolably
observed as the law of Tara. Every provincial king and every sub-king had
his own fixed place allotted to him near the High King by the marshals of
Tara; and every chief was bound to take his seat under the place where his
shield was hung upon the wall. Brawling was strictly forbidden, and to
wound another was a capital crime.
In order to provide suitable accommodation for this great assembly, Cormac
erected the _Teach Miodhchuarta_, which was capable of accommodating
1,000 persons, and was at once a parliament house, banquet hall, and
hotel. We have two accounts of this great building, as well as of the
other monuments at Tara, written about nine hundred years ago--one in
poetry, the other in prose. The statements made by these ancient writers
have been verified in every essential point by the measurements of the
officers of the Ordnance Survey, who were enabled from these documents to
fix the position and identity of all those ancient monuments at Tara.
"The _Teach Miodhchuarta_," says the old prose writer in the
_Dinnseanchus_, "is to the north-west of the eastern mound. The ruins of
this house--it was even then in ruins--are situate thus: the lower part to
the north, and the higher part to the south; and walls are raised about it
to the east and to the west. The northern side of it is enclosed and
small; the lie of it is north and south. It is in the form of a long
house, with twelve doors upon it, or fourteen, seven to the west and seven
to the east. This was the great house of a thousand soldiers."[31] We
ourselves have lunched on the grass-green floor of this once famous hall;
and we can of our own knowledge testify to the accuracy of this ancient
writer. The openings for the doors can still be traced in the enclosing
mound; and curiously enough, one is so nearly obliterated that it is
difficult still to say whether there were six or seven openings on each
side. The building was seven hundred and sixty feet long, and originally
nearly ninety feet wide, according to Petrie's measurements. There was a
double row of benches on each side, running the entire length of the hall.
In the centre there was a number of fires in a line between the benches,
and over the fires was fixed a row of spits depending from the roof, at
which a very large number of joints might be roasted. There is in the
_Book of Leinster_ a ground-plan of the building, and the rude figure of a
cook in the centre turning the spit with his mouth open, and a ladle in
his hand to baste the joint. The king of Erin took his place at the head
of the hall on the south surrounded by the provincial kings. The nobles
and officers were arranged on either side according to their dignity down
to the lowest, or northern end of the hall, which was crowded with
butlers, scullions, and retainers. They slept at night on the couches, but
not unfrequently under them.
The appearance of Cormac at the head of this great hall is thus described
in an extract copied into the _Book of Ballymote_ from the older and now
lost _Book of Navan_[32]:--
"Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly. Flowing and
slightly curling was his golden hair. A red buckler with stars and
animals of gold, and fastenings of silver upon him. A crimson cloak in
wide descending folds around him, fastened at his neck with precious
stones. A neck torque of gold around his neck. A white shirt with a
full collar, and intertwined with red gold thread, upon him. A girdle
of gold inlaid with precious stones was around him. Two wonderful
shoes of gold, with golden loops, upon his feet. Two spears with
golden sockets in his hands, with many rivets of red bronze. And he
was himself besides symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish
or reproach."
This might be deemed a purely imaginary description, if the collection of
antiquities in the Royal Irish Academy did not prove beyond doubt that
golden ornaments similar to those referred to in this passage were of
frequent use in Ireland. In the year 1810 two neck torques of purest gold,
the same as those described above, were found on the Hill of Tara itself,
and are now to be seen in the Academy's collection.
"Alas," says an old writer, "Tara to-day is desolate; it is a green grassy
land; but it was once a noble hill to view, the mansion of warlike heroes,
in the days of Cormac O'Cuinn--when Cormac was in his glory."
Everything at Tara, even its present desolation, is full of interest, and
reminds us of the days "when Cormac was in his glory." His house is there
within the circle of the great _Rath na Riogh_. The mound where he kept
his hostages may still be seen beside his Rath. The stream issuing from
the well _Neamhnach_, on which he built the first mill in Ireland for his
handmaiden, Ciarnaid, to spare her the labour of grinding with the quern,
still flows down the eastern slope of Tara Hill, and still, says Petrie,
turns a mill. Even the well on the western slope, beside which Cormac's
_cuchtair_, or kitchen, was built, has been discovered. The north-western
_claenfert_, or declivity, where he corrected the false judgment of King
Mac Con about the trespass of the widow's sheep may still be traced. The
Rath of his step-mother, Maeve, can be seen not far from Tara; and to the
west of the _Teach Miodhchuarta_ may be noticed _Rath Graine_, the sunny
palace of his daughter, the faithless spouse of Finn Mac Cumhail.
O'Flaherty tells us on the authority of an old poem found in the _Book of
Shane Mor O'Dugan_, who flourished about A.D. 1390, that Cormac founded
three schools at Tara--one for teaching the art of war, the second for the
study of history, and the third was a school of jurisprudence. It was,
doubtless, the first regular college founded in ancient Erin, and like the
school of Charlemagne, was within the royal palace. The fact is extremely
probable, especially as Cormac himself was an accomplished scholar in all
these sciences. This brings us to the literary works attributed to Cormac
Mac Art by all our ancient Irish scholars.
The first of these is a treatise still extant in manuscript entitled
_Teagusc na Riogh_, or _Institutio Principum_. It is ascribed to King
Cormac in the _Book of Leinster_ written before the Anglo-Norman Invasion
of Ireland. It takes the form of a dialogue between Cormac and his son and
successor, Cairbre Lifeachair; "and," says the quaint old Mac Geoghegan,
"this book contains as goodly precepts and moral documents as Cato or
Aristotle did ever write." The language is of the most archaic type; some
extracts have been translated and published in the _Dublin Penny Journal_.
A still more celebrated work, now unfortunately lost, the _Saltair of
Tara_, has been universally attributed to Cormac by Irish scholars.
Perhaps we should rather say it was compiled under his direction. "It
contained," says an ancient writer in the _Book of Ballymote_, "the
synchronisms and genealogies, as well as the succession of the [Irish]
kings and monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their antiquities
from the world's beginning down to the time it was written. And this is
the _Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and fountain of the histories of
Erin_ from that period down to the present time." "This," adds the writer
in the _Book of Ballymote_, "is taken from the _Book of Ua
Chongbhail_"--that is the _Book of Navan_--a still more ancient but now
lost work. Not only do the writer in the ancient _Book of Navan_, and the
copyist in the _Book of Ballymote_, expressly attribute this work to
Cormac, but a still more ancient authority, the poet Cuan O'Lochain, who
died in A.D. 1024, has this stanza in his poem on Tara:--
"He [Cormac] compiled the _Saltair of Tara_,
In that _Saltair_ is contained
The best summary of history;
It is the _Saltair_ which assigns
Seven chief kings to Erin of harbours," &c., &c.
And it is, indeed, self-evident to the careful student of our annals that
there must have been some one ancient "origin and fountain" from which
the subsequent historians of Erin have derived their information--which
existing monuments prove to be quite accurate--concerning the reign of
Cormac and his more immediate predecessors in Ireland. The man who
restored the Feis of Tara, and who, as we shall presently see, was also a
celebrated judge and lawyer, was exactly such a person of forethought and
culture as would gather together the poets and historians of his kingdom
to execute under his own immediate direction this great work for the
benefit of posterity. Keating tells us that it was called the _Saltair of
Tara_ because the chief Ollave of Tara had it in his official custody; and
as Cormac Mac Cullinan's Chronicle was called the _Saltair of Cashel_, and
the Biblical Poem of Aengus the Culdee was called the _Saltair na Rann_,
so this great compilation was named the _Saltair of Tara_. This, as
O'Curry remarks, disposes of Petrie's objection that its name would rather
indicate the Christian origin of the book. The answer is simple--Cormac
never called the book by this name, as surely the compilers of the great
works known as the _Book of Ballymote_ or the _Book of Leinster_ never
called those famous compilations by their present names.
Cormac was also a distinguished jurist--of that we have conclusive
evidence in the _Book of Aicill_, which has been published in the third
volume of the Brehon Law publications. The book itself is most explicit as
to its authorship, and everything in the text goes to confirm the
statements in the introduction, part of which is worth reproducing here.
"The place of this book is Aicill close to Temhair [Tara], and its
time is the time of Coirpri Lifechair, son of Cormac, and its author
is Cormac, and the cause of its having been composed was the blinding
of the eye of Cormac by Ængus Gabhuaidech, after the abduction of the
daughter of Sorar, son of Art Corb, by Cellach, son of Cormac."
The author then tells us how the spear of Aengus grazed the eye of Cormac
and blinded him.
"Then Cormac was sent out to be cured at Aicill [the Hill of Skreen]
... and the sovereignty of Erin was given to Coirpri Lifechair, son of
Cormac, for it was prohibited that anyone with a blemish should be
king at Tara, and in every difficult case of judgment that came to him
he [Coirpri] used to go to ask his father about it, and his father
used to say to him, 'my son that thou mayest know' [the law], and 'the
exemptions;' and these words are at the beginning of all his
explanations. And it was there, at Aicill, that this book was thus
composed, and wherever the words 'exemptions,' and 'my son that thou
mayest know,' occur was Cormac's part of the book, and Cennfaeladh's
part is the rest."
This proves beyond doubt that the greatest portion of this _Book of
Aicill_ was written by Cormac at Skreen, near Tara, when disqualified for
holding the sovereignty on account of his wound. It was a treatise written
for the benefit of his son unexpectedly called to fill the monarch's place
at Tara. The text, too, bears out this account. Cormac, apparently
furnished the groundwork of the present volume by writing for his son's
use a series of maxims or principles on the criminal law of Erin, which
were afterwards developed by Cormac himself, and by subsequent
commentators. That the archaic legal maxims so enunciated in the _Book of
Aicill_ were once written by Cormac himself there can be no reasonable
doubt; although it is now quite impossible to ascertain how far the
development of the text was the work of Cormac or of subsequent legal
authorities, who doubtless added to and modified the commentary, whilst
they left Cormac's text itself unchanged.
This _Book of Aicill_, the authenticity of which cannot, we think, be
reasonably questioned, proves to a certainty that in the third century of
the Christian era there was a considerable amount of literary culture in
Celtic Ireland. These works are still extant in the most archaic form of
the Irish language; they have been universally attributed to Cormac Mac
Art for the last ten centuries by all our Irish scholars; the intrinsic
evidence of their authorship and antiquity is equally striking--why then
should we reject this mass of evidence, and accept the crude theories of
certain modern pretenders in the antiquities of Ireland, who without even
knowing the language undertake to tell us that there was no knowledge of
the use of writing in Ireland before St. Patrick?
And is not such an assertion _a priori_ highly improbable? The Romans had
conquered Britain in the time of Agricola--the first century of the
Christian era. The Britons themselves had very generally become Christians
during the second and third centuries, and had, to some extent at least,
been imbued with Roman civilization. Frequent intercourse, sometimes
friendly and sometimes hostile, existed between the Irish and Welsh tribes
especially. A British king was killed at the battle of Magh Mucruimhe in
Galway, where Cormac's own father was slain. The allies of Mac Con on that
occasion were British. He himself had spent the years of his exile in
Wales. Captives from Ireland were carried to Britain, and captives from
Britain were carried to Ireland. Is it likely then that when the use of
letters was quite common in Britain for three centuries no knowledge of
their use would have come to Ireland until the advent of St. Patrick in
the fifth century of the Christian era?
There is an ancient and well founded tradition that Cormac Mac Art died a
Christian, or as the Four Masters say, "turned from the religion of the
Druids to the worship of the true God." It is in itself highly probable.
Some knowledge of Christianity must have penetrated into Ireland even so
early as the reign of Cormac Mac Art. It is quite a popular error to
suppose that there were no Christians in Ireland before the time of St.
Patrick. Palladius had been sent from Rome before Patrick "to the Scots,"
that is the Irish, "who believed in Christ." Besides that intimate
connection between Ireland and Britain, of which we have spoken, must have
carried some knowledge of Christianity, as well as of letters, from one
country to the other. King Lucius, the first Christian King of the
British, flourished quite half a century before the time of King Cormac.
Tertullian speaks of the Isles of the Britains as subject to Christ about
the time that Cormac's father, Art, was slain at Magh Mucruimhe. There was
a regularly organised hierarchy in England during the third century; and
three of its bishops were present at the Council of Arles in A.D. 314.
Nothing is more likely, then, than that the message of the Gospel was
brought from England to the ears of King Cormac; and that a prince, so
learned and so wise, gave up the old religion of the Druids, and embraced
the new religion of peace and love.
But it was a dangerous thing to do even for a king. The Druids were very
popular and very influential, and moreover possessed, it was said,
dreadful magical powers. They showed it afterwards in the time of St.
Patrick, and now they showed it when they heard Cormac had given up the
old religion of Erin, and become a convert to the new worship from the
East. The king's death was caused by the bone of a salmon sticking in his
throat, and it was universally believed that this painful death was
brought about by the magical power of Maelgenn, the chief of the Druids.
"They loosed their curse against the king,
They cursed him in his flesh and bones;
And daily in their mystic ring
They turned the maledictive stones.
"Till where at meat the monarch sate,
Amid the revel and the wine,
He choked upon the food he ate
At Sletty, southward of the Boyne."[33]
So perished A.D. 267, the wisest and best of the ancient kings of Erin.
Cormac, when dying, told his people not to bury him in the pagan cemetery
of Brugh on the Boyne, but at Rossnaree, where he first believed, and with
his face to the rising sun. But when the king was dead, his captains
declared they would bury their king with his royal sires in Brugh:--
"Dead Cormac on his bier they laid;
He reigned a king for forty years,
And shame it were, his captains said,
He lay not with his royal peers.
"What though a dying man should rave
Of changes o'er the eastern sea;
In Brugh of Boyne shall be his grave
And not in noteless Rossnaree."
So they prepared to cross the fords of Boyne and bury the king at Brugh.
But royal Boyne was loyal to its dead king; "the deep full-hearted river
rose" to bar the way; and when the bearers attempted to cross the ford,
the swelling flood swept them from their feet, caught up the bier, and
"proudly bore away the king" on its own heaving bosom. Next morning the
corpse was found on the bank of the river at Rossnaree, and was duly
interred within the hearing of its murmuring waters. There great Cormac
was left to his rest with his face to the rising sun, awaiting the dawning
of that Glory which was soon to lighten over the hills and valleys of his
native land.
Cormac Mac Art was not only himself a lover of letters, but seems to have
transmitted his own talents to his family. There is a very ancient poem in
the _Book of Leinster_, which has been published by O'Curry, and has been
attributed to Ailbhe, daughter of Cormac Mac Art. The language is of the
most archaic character, and the sentiments expressed are not inconsistent
with the origin ascribed to the poem in the _Book of Leinster_. Still
critics will be naturally sceptical as to the authenticity of the poem.
Meave (Meadhbh), step-mother of Cormac, who has given her name to Rath
Meave at Tara, is credited with being the author of a poem in praise of
Cuchorb, in which his martial prowess and numerous battles are duly
celebrated. This lady seems to have been decidedly 'blue' in her tastes,
for she built a choice house within her Rath, where the chief master of
every art used to assemble. She was amorous too, and "would not permit any
king to reign in Tara who did not first take herself as wife." Perhaps
there is some truth in the ancient and romantic story recorded in the same
_Book of Leinster_, that when Cuchorb was killed, she was sorrowful in
heart, and after they set up the grave stone of the fallen hero, she
chanted his death song in presence of the assembled warriors, who stood
around his grave.
Another pre-Patrician, if not pre-Christian poet, to whom some extant
poems have been attributed, was Torna Eigas, the bard of Niall of the Nine
Hostages. Niall died in A.D. 405, twenty-seven years before St. Patrick
came to preach in Erin; so that even if Torna Eigas, as Colgan thinks,
became a Christian, his training and inspiration must belong to the
pre-Christian times. If the works attributed to him are even substantially
genuine, they must have been interpolated by later copyists with Christian
references and Christian sentiments. O'Reilly mentions four poems as
passing under his name. The first is addressed to King Niall his patron,
and foster son. The second was designed to effect a reconciliation between
Niall and the foster child of the poet, King Corc of Munster, who, as we
shall see hereafter, certainly lived to become a Christian. In the third
the poet describes the pleasant life which he spent with these two kings,
his foster children, who lavished upon him alternately during his visits
their friendship and their favours. But the fourth is by far the most
interesting, for it describes the famous burying place of the Pagan kings
of Erin, Relig na Riogh, at Rath Cruachan in Connaught. It consists of
twenty-eight stanzas, and enumerates the great kings and warriors who
sleep on the hill of Royal Cruachan, ending with the valiant Dathi, whose
grave is marked by a red pillar stone, which stands there to-day, even as
it stood before St. Patrick crossed the Shannon to preach the Gospel to
Laeghaire's daughters on that famous hill. This poem has been published by
Petrie in his Essay on the _Antiquities of Tara Hill_.
The history of the valiant King Dathi is full of charm for our Celtic
poets, and several of them have sought, not unsuccessfully, to reproduce
the spirit of the original poem by Torna Eigas. Better than all others
poor Clarence Mangan tells in quite Homeric style:--
"How Dathi sailed away--away--
Over the deep resounding sea;
Sailed with his hosts in armour gray,
Over the deep resounding sea,
Many a night and many a day;
And many an islet conquered he,
Till one bright morn, at the base
Of the Alps in rich Ausonian regions,
His men stood marshalled face to face
With the mighty Roman legions....
But:-- Thunder crashes,
Lightning flashes,
And in an instant Dathi lies
On the earth a mass of blackened ashes.
Then mournfully and dolefully
The Irish warriors sailed away
Over the deep resounding sea."
Reference is made in our ancient extant manuscripts to several 'Books' now
lost, which are said to have been written before the arrival of St.
Patrick in Ireland. It is unnecessary, however, to refer to those in
detail; because any statements about their character and origin can be
little better than mere conjecture. O'Curry names several of them, and
tells all that can possibly be known about them. The "Cuilmen" appears to
have been one of the oldest and most celebrated, because it contained the
great epic of ancient Erin known as the "Tain Bo Chuailnge." Another
famous ancient 'Book,' now lost, was the "Cin Droma Snechta," or the
Vellum Stave Book of Drom Snechta, as O'Curry translates it. It is quoted
in the _Book of Ballymote_, and in the _Book of Lecan_.
Another lost work, to which we have already referred, was the _Book of Ua
Chongbhail_. It was extant in the time of Keating, who quotes it as one of
his authorities, but it has since been unfortunately lost, and nothing is
now known of its contents.
II.--SEDULIUS.
It is said, however, that there were not only pagan writers and scholars,
like Cormac Mac Art, in Ireland before the time of St. Patrick, but that
several celebrated Christian writers, who flourished before the advent of
our national Apostle, were of Irish birth or parentage. And this is the
opinion, not merely of superficial writers, but of grave and learned men
like Colgan, Usher, and Lanigan; and what is more, it has been admitted by
foreigners as well as by our native authorities. These authorities have
claimed for Ireland the great glory of having given birth to the
celebrated Sedulius, the Christian Virgil, as he has been most
appropriately called. The more doubtful honour of producing Caelestius,
the associate of the heresiarch Pelagius, has been also claimed for
Ireland; and according to others Pelagius himself was at least of Irish
extraction. We propose to examine at some length the history of these
writers, and especially to examine the evidence in favour of their alleged
Irish origin. In the first place we shall give a full account, so far as
it is now possible to ascertain his history, of the celebrated poet
Sedulius.
In the best MSS. the name given is always "Caelius Sedulius," and although
the praenomen savours of Latin origin, and the nomen itself was not quite
unknown in Rome,[34] still the name Sedulius gives decided indications of
his Irish birth. At least two other distinguished Irishmen bore the same
name. The first is that Sedulius of Irish origin, the Bishop of Britain,
as he describes himself,[35] who subscribed the Acts of the Council of
Rome held under Gregory II., in A.D. 721. The other, known as Sedulius the
Younger, flourished in the first quarter of the ninth century, wrote a
Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, and, as we shall see, has been
frequently confounded with his more celebrated namesake, the poet. The old
form of the name in Irish was Siadhal, or Siadhel, now pronounced Shiel.
But in these older forms of the language the letters were not mortified in
pronunciation; and thus Sedulius is naturally the latinized form of the
Irish name. From the dawn of our history it was a name celebrated in Irish
literature, especially in the department of medicine. Colgan refers to
eight distinguished Irishmen who bore the family name of Siadhal, amongst
others to Siadhal, son of Luath, Bishop of Dubhlinn, whose death on the
12th of February, 785, is recorded in the Martyrology of Donegal. The
Danes, indeed, had not arrived in Dublin so early as A.D. 785, nor is
there any satisfactory evidence of a diocese of Dublin at that time. He
may, however, have been an abbot in the place, with episcopal orders.
The oldest writer[36] who distinctly asserts that the poet Sedulius was an
Irishman is John of Tritenheim, or Trithemius, as he is more generally
called.[37] This Trithemius, Benedictine abbot of Spanheim, flourished
towards the end of the fifteenth century, and was certainly a very learned
man. In some of the statements, however, made in this paragraph, he is not
supported by any ancient authority that we know of. It is, moreover,
evident from the list of the writings of Sedulius which he gives, that he
confounds the poet with the commentator on St. Paul and St. Matthew, who,
as all admit, was an Irishman, but flourished nearly four centuries later
than the poet. Colgan, Usher, Ware, and a host of other writers at home
and abroad, have followed Trithemius, and made the poet an Irishman.
It is, however, certain that, although there is some evidence that he was
of Irish birth, there is absolutely no evidence that he was a native of
any other country. It was, indeed, said that the poet was a Spaniard, and
Bishop of the Oretani, but Faustinus Arevalus, himself a Spaniard, and
author of a very able dissertation on Sedulius, prefixed to his splendid
edition of the _Christian Poets of the Fourth Century_, published at Rome
in A.D. 1794, declares that love of truth compels him to admit that the
story of his preaching at Toledo, and of his Spanish episcopacy, is
fabulous.[38]
Let us now try to ascertain what is known with certainty of this great
Christian poet, whether Irishman or not.
In the "Palatine" Codex of the Vatican Library, No. 242, there is a
paragraph which states that "Sedulius was a Gentile, but learned
philosophy in Italy, was afterwards converted to the Lord, and baptized by
the priest Macedonius, then came to Arcadia, or according to other MSS.,
Achaia, where he composed this book," that is his _Carmen Paschale_.
In the Vatican Codex, No. 333, probably of the eleventh century, it is
added that "St. Jerome, in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, says
that Sedulius was at first a layman, learned philosophy in Italy, and
afterwards, by the advice of Macedonius, taught heroic and other kinds of
metre in Achaia; he wrote his books in the time of Valentinian and
Theodosius," etc. Substantially the same statement is found in nearly all
the twelve MSS. in the Vatican.
The scribe attributes to St. Jerome, who died in A.D. 420, that
continuation of Jerome's great Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, which
was really the work of Gennadius of Marseilles, who flourished in A.D.
495--the very time, as we shall see, that the writings of Sedulius were
published. We find no statement of this kind about Sedulius in Gennadius'
Catalogue, as actually published, but Sirmond declares that he himself saw
in some copies of Gennadius, that Sedulius died during the reign of
Valentinian and Theodosius the Younger, to the latter of whom, as he
alleges, he had dedicated his work.
We may then take it as certain that Sedulius flourished during their joint
reigns, that is, at some period from A.D. 423 to 450, when Theodosius
died; and in all probability Sedulius himself had died some years
previously--that is, between A.D. 445 and 449. He is described as at first
a layman and a Gentile, which is not at all unnatural, especially if he
were a native of Ireland. There were indeed some Christians in Ireland
before the time of St. Patrick, for Palladius was sent in A.D. 431, the
year before the mission of St. Patrick "to the Scots who believed in
Christ;"[39] but these Christians were not numerous. At the beginning of
the fifth century, however, considerable intercourse, sometimes friendly,
and sometimes hostile, existed between the Scots of Ireland and the
natives of Roman Britain as well as of Roman Gaul. It would be very easy,
therefore, for a young Irishman to join a band of his roving countrymen,
and after learning Latin in the provincial schools of France or England,
he would naturally in his search after philosophy, migrate to Italy, and
there find the double treasure of faith and wisdom.
Sedulius is said to have penetrated from Italy to Achaia, where he became
the pupil and intimate friend of the priest Macedonius. This much is
manifest from his own writings, for in the dedication of his _Carmen
Paschale_,[40] he touchingly alludes to the progress in Christian wisdom
which he had made under the guidance "of his most holy father." He adds
that previously he had devoted to secular studies the energies of that
restless mind--vim impatientis ingenii--which Providence had given him;
and had made his literary training subservient, not to the profit of his
soul and the glory of his Maker, but to the fruitless tasks of this
fleeting life. Arevalus justly observes that if Sedulius had been baptized
by Macedonius, he would not have omitted all reference to it in this
dedication, whence we may fairly conclude that although he received most
of his religious training from the venerable Macedonius, he must have been
already a Christian when he came to Greece.
The same dedication leads us to infer that at this time he was a member of
some kind of religious institute, which was under the guidance of
Macedonius, and in which he himself taught rhetoric and poetry by the
advice of his spiritual father. He gives, too, a very pleasing picture of
the members of that religious association--of the Venerable Ursinus--a
prelate full of priestly dignity--who had been once a soldier of Cæsar,
and was then a soldier of Christ; of Laurence, the incomparable priest,
who gave up his patrimony to the Church and the poor; of Gallicanus,
likewise a priest, well read in secular books, yet meekest of the meek,
teaching the rule of Catholic discipline by word, but still more by
example; of Ursicinus, also a priest, and a man "of hoary patience and
youthful old age;" of Felix, the truly happy; and of many others equally
worthy of the dedication of his book. He makes special reference to the
virgin Syncletice, who seems to have been a deaconess of the Church, noble
by blood, but still more illustrious by her virtues, chastened by fasts,
nourished by prayer, and spotless in purity.[41] Moreover, he adds, she
drank so deeply of Scriptural lore, that had not her sex forbidden it, she
was in every way qualified to become the teacher of others. Her sister,
too, the young Perpetua, though her junior in years, was her rival in
virtue, the chaste spouse of an honourable marriage. Such was the society
of which Sedulius was a member during his sojourn at Achaia--holy,
learned, and loving.
It seems very probable that it was during these happy years that Sedulius
composed his great poem in some sweet valley under the shadow of the steep
Arcadian Mountains, whose bold spurs are washed by the glancing waters of
the Corinthian Gulf. Although the work was formally dedicated to
Macedonius, and copies were doubtless multiplied for the benefit of his
familiar associates, it does not appear that it was published for the
literary world in general during the lifetime of the author. That
publication seems to have taken place some years later, as we shall
presently see, and under the direction of one who was eminently well
qualified for the task.
How or where Sedulius ended his life, we have no means of ascertaining.
Some say he returned to Rome, where he died about A.D. 449; others make
him a bishop, but the see which he ruled cannot be ascertained; while many
think he ended his life in Greece, amongst those dear associates of whom
he speaks so tenderly in the dedication.
But although the poet himself seems to have been during his lifetime
somewhat indifferent to worldly fame, his friends did not forget him.[42]
There is a considerable variety of readings, but in substance all the MSS.
agree that Sedulius left his poems scattered amongst his papers, and that
the scattered portions of the _Carmen Paschale_ especially were collected,
arranged, and elegantly published by the ex-consul, Turcius Ruffus
Asterius. We find two consuls of this name in the Fasti of the fifth
century, one in A.D. 449, whose colleague was Protogenes, and the other in
A.D. 494, whose colleague was Praesidius. Very many writers think that the
publisher of Sedulius was that Asterius, whose consulate is fixed for A.D.
449. But as his praenomen was Flavius, it is much more probable that the
consul of A.D. 494, who was also the editor of the splendid Medicean Codex
of Virgil, must get the credit of collecting and preserving the poems of
the great Christian poet who was perhaps Virgil's closest imitator.
Asterius prefixed to his edition an epigram,[43] which, according to some
authorities, is addressed to Macedonius, the spiritual father of Sedulius;
but as Macedonius was at this time, in all probability, some forty or
fifty years dead, it is much more natural to suppose that the dedication
of Asterius is addressed to the Pontiff Gelasius (A.D. 492-496),
especially as the Pope, about that very time, had passed a signal eulogy
on Sedulius, to which we shall immediately refer. In the year A.D. 494, or
as others think in A.D. 495, that Pontiff held a council of seventy
bishops, most learned men, in which he published his famous decree, "De
recipiendis et abjiciendis Libris," which may be regarded as the first
formal publication of an Index Expurgatorius. In this decree the Pontiff,
after reciting the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, gives a
list of the Fathers of the Church whose writings he particularly
recommends to the perusal of the faithful. In this document emanating from
the supreme teaching authority in the Church, we find the following
honourable mention of Sedulius:--
"ITEM VENERANDI VIRI SEDULII PASCHALE OPUS, QUOD HEROICIS DESCRIPSIT
VERSIBUS, INSIGNI LAUDE PRAEFERIMUS."
After this formal and emphatic approbation of the writings of Sedulius by
the Pope, his works speedily became popular in all the monastic schools.
Cassiodorus (A.D. 470-562), the senator, statesman, and monk, closely
studied the Christian poet in his far-famed retreat on the Calabrian
shore, and proclaims him by excellence the "Poet of Truth."[44]
Fortunatus, the laureate of the royal and saintly Radegonde, himself the
author of the _Vexilla Regis_ and the _Pange lingua_, ranks the "sweet
Sedulius" with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.[45] The cruel Chilperic, an
unworthy grandson of the great Clovis, instead of trying to govern his
people like a king, spent his time in vain attempts to imitate the stately
muse of Sedulius, and of course failed miserably in the attempt. Gregory
of Tours tells us that his verses had no feet to stand on, and were
composed in defiance of all the laws of metre.
The Irish monks of Bobbio carefully copied the poems of their great
countryman, and the oldest existing MS. of the poet, which is still to be
seen in the Library of the Royal Academy of Turin, is inscribed with the
words--Liber Sancti Columbani de Bobbio.
Isidore of Seville, the greatest scholar of his age, compares Sedulius
with his own great countryman, Juvencus, and recommends the study of their
works in preference to those of the Gentile poets.[46]
Ildelfonsus describes him as the 'excellent' Sedulius, the poet of the
Gospel, an eloquent orator, and truly Catholic writer; and another author
declares that Sedulius left nothing unlearnt necessary to make him a
perfect theologian, as well as a brilliant poet.[47] And in a somewhat
similar strain Sedulius has been eulogised by all subsequent critics, from
Bede to the present time.
Our remarks on the writings of Sedulius must necessarily be very brief,
and for convenience sake we shall follow the order of the excellent
edition by Arevalus as given in Migne's Patrology.[48]
His great work was the _Carmen Paschale_, as he himself calls it, which is
preceded by that dedicatory epistle to which we have already referred. It
is accompanied with a prose version which he furnished at the special
request of Macedonius, and which he calls the _Opus Paschale_. The prose
only serves to make the poetry more intelligible for half-educated
scholars, like the similar prose translations in the Delphin editions of
the Latin poets. The style, too, of the explanation is wordy and laboured,
quite unlike the limpid elegance of the poetry. The _Carmen Paschale_ in
the MSS. is divided into five books. The first treats of the creation and
fall of man as well as of the principal miracles recorded in the Old
Testament; the second gives a beautiful account of the incarnation and
birth of our Lord and the wonders of the Holy Childhood; the third and
fourth deal with the miracles and noteworthy events of our Saviour's
public mission; whilst the fifth details the passion, death, and
resurrection of Christ. It is thus a poetic history of the wonders of the
divine revelation as contained in the Old and New Testament. Each of the
books contains from three to four hundred lines of heroic metre, in which
the style and language of Virgil are as closely imitated as the nature of
the subject will permit. The language is chaste, elegant, and harmonious;
the verse is sweet and flowing, with scarcely a single rugged line,
although sometimes one meets with a harsh or limping foot. The prosody,
however, is on the whole wonderfully accurate, and the sentences are
constructed with true Virgilian simplicity. The author had to deal with
very many delicate topics, and he was of course greatly restricted in his
choice of language by the necessities of the metre; yet in no single
instance that we are aware of, has any fault been found with the poet on
the score of any want of theological accuracy. The tone is generally
elevated, imparting dignity by choice language even to commonplace topics,
as Virgil does in the Georgics; but we cannot say that he often reaches
the sublime. His muse takes few bold and daring flights, but, on the other
hand, she never descends to what is mean or trivial. We would take the
liberty of strongly recommending the careful perusal of this beautiful
poem to priests who are anxious to read the great events of sacred
history, clothed in elegant language and adorned with becoming imagery.
We have next the "Elegia," containing 110 lines in elegiac metre, which
form a collection of moral maxims and examples borrowed from the
personages and facts of sacred history.[49] Every second line is made to
begin and end with the same clause, but used in different senses. The
reader will probably agree with us in thinking that this style of
composition is more likely to develop ingenuity than inspiration.
After the "Elegia" is the truly beautiful hymn beginning with the words,
"A solis ortus cardine," some portions of which are familiar to most of
our readers. It is an abecedarian poem, the first stanza commencing with
the first letter of the alphabet, A, the second with B, and so on through
the letters. It contains 92 lines, or 23 stanzas, and details the leading
facts of the life of Christ in language that is very terse and striking.
The first seven stanzas are read by the Church in the Lauds of her
greatest festival on Christmas Day; and the next four at first Vespers of
the Epiphany, but in the first line for the latter feast the words--
Hostis Herodes impie
Christum,
are changed into--
Crudelis Herodes Deum
Regem.
It is noteworthy, too, that the Introit of the Mass of the Blessed
Virgin--"Salve Sancta Parens enixa puerpera Regem," as well as several
other expressions in the Divine Office, are borrowed from the _Carmen
Paschale_ of Sedulius.[50] At the end of his poems the author adds a short
epigrammatic prayer, in which he asks that the doctrines of the life of
Christ, which he has written, may remain engraven in his heart, and so by
doing the divine will he may secure a share in the joys of heaven.[51]
We have two double acrostic poems, eloquent with the praises of the great
Sedulius, one attributed to a certain Liberius, of whom nothing further is
known, and the other to Belisarius, if that be the true reading, who in
some MSS. is described as a scholastic--that is, master or professor of a
school of rhetoric. According to other critics this Belisarius, who so
highly eulogises our Sedulius, was no other than the great general, the
saviour of the Roman Empire, who was driven by the ungrateful master whom
he had served to beg his bread.
What is most remarkable in these two poems, is that in both the acrostic
represents our author as SEDULIUS ANTISTES. The latter term is usually
applied, at least by Christian writers, only to bishops, and certainly
goes to show that the poet was elevated to the episcopal dignity. Alcuin
also attributes the hymn, "_A solis ortus cardine_" to the "Blessed Bishop
Sedulius," and Sigebert of Gembloux (died A.D. 1112), seems to have been
of the same opinion. Yet, in several MSS. he is spoken of simply as a
priest, and even of those authors who describe him as a bishop none has
determined his see.
It is very doubtful, too, whether our poet has any claim to be venerated
as a saint. Our latest Irish hagiologist,[52] following Colgan, gives a
very full account of the venerable Sedulius, under date of the 12th of
February. But the name does not occur in any Martyrology at home or
abroad, for the "Siatal bishop" on the 12th February, of the Martyrology
of Tallaght, is evidently the same as Siadhal, son of Luath, Bishop of
Dublin, who, according to the Donegal Martyrology, died in A.D. 785. That
the poet was, however, a holy and venerable man, is abundantly evident
from his writings as well as from the high estimation in which he was held
both by contemporary and subsequent writers. Asterius, his editor, calls
him the "Just;" Alcuin calls him the "Blessed;" another ancient writer
describes him as "Sanctus;" and our own Colgan justly designates him "the
Venerable Sedulius." That his fame as a Christian poet has been wide and
enduring is sufficiently evident from the fact that no less than forty-one
different editions of his works have been published at various times and
places for the last four hundred years; and we cannot help endorsing the
indignant exclamation of a German critic--"It is a shame that the
Christian poets should be so much neglected, that the youth of our
schools should know nothing even of the name of a writer like Sedulius,
who with equal piety and learning transferred from profane to sacred
subjects the style and sweetness of the Mantuan bard."[53]
III.--CAELESTIUS AND PELAGIUS.
Ireland has also been credited with the doubtful honour of having given
birth to Caelestius, the friend and associate of the celebrated heresiarch
Pelagius. We believe that notwithstanding the authority of many eminent
Irish scholars, we can show that Caelestius was not an Irishman, and that
the idea of his being a 'Scot' arose from misunderstanding a passage in
the writings of St. Jerome, which passage was the only authority ever
alleged in favour of his Irish origin. This celebrated passage is
contained in the _Preface to the Saint's Commentaries on Jeremias_. Here
it is--"He (Grunnius), though silent now himself, barks by the mouth of
the Alban dog, a corpulent and unwieldy brute, better able to kick than to
bite, who derives his origin from the Scottish nation in the neighbourhood
of Britain."[54] Now so far as we know, this solitary sentence is the only
original authority for the Irish birth of Caelestius; yet as a matter of
fact it does not appear to refer to Caelestius at all, but to Pelagius
himself. Grunnius, to whom the context clearly shows that St. Jerome
refers, was a nickname often given by the saint to Rufinus of Aquileia.
Rufinus was then (_mutus_) silent, most probably in death, but still barks
through his disciple Pelagius--not Caelestius--who in the vigorous
controversial language of the saint is described as an Alban or Scottish
dog, filled with the porridge of his native country in the neighbourhood
of Britain. As a matter of fact, however, Jerome does not say that the
person of whom he is speaking was a Scot (whether of Erin or Alba), but
that he was of Scottish origin, which is a very different thing. His Words
are--"Habet progeniem Scotticæ gentis." He is of Scottish extraction,
which might be very well said of Pelagius, even though he were a Briton by
birth.
The great difficulty in the way of this explanation is that Pelagius is
always described as a Briton, not as an Irishman or Scotchman. As a fact,
however, at that time Scotland was included under the name of Britain; but
whether it was or not, St. Jerome does not say that Pelagius was a Scot,
but that he was of Scottish race, which is altogether different, and which
is perfectly compatible with his British birth. The authorities indeed in
favour of his being in some sense a Briton, are quite conclusive. St.
Augustine, his greatest opponent, frequently speaks of Pelagius as a
Briton.[55] St. Prosper of Aquitaine, who continued to assail him after
the death of Augustine, describes him as a 'British snake;'[56] and in
another passage he speaks of him as nurtured amongst the 'sea-girt
Britons.' Elsewhere he describes Britain as the native land (_patria_) of
the Pelagian heresy, which can be true only in so far as it produced
Pelagius himself. Marius Mercator says,[57] like St. Jerome, that the
first author of the heresy was the Syrian Rufinus, but being too cunning
to expose himself to danger, he propagated his doctrines through the
agency of the 'British monk' Pelagius. Everything, therefore, points to
the fact that Pelagius was of British birth, but of Scottish origin. St.
Jerome's expression--_per Albinum canem_--seems to point to a Scot of Alba
rather than of Erin; but in any case the Scots of both countries,
especially at this early period (A.D. 420), were of the same race. If
Britain be taken to include Scotland, as it certainly did at that period,
then 'de vicinia Brittanorum' must refer to Ireland; but it should be
borne in mind that St. Jerome speaks not of Britain, but of the
Britons--quite another thing.
But whether of Irish or Scotch descent, Pelagius was an able man. He
appeared in Rome about the year A.D. 400. St. Augustine says he lived
there for a long time and taught a school in that city. About the year
A.D. 405 St. Chrysostom complained of the defection from his own
supporters of the monk Pelagius, which would seem to imply that at that
time he was known and esteemed at Constantinople, where he probably went
to learn the Greek language, with which we know for certain that he was
familiar. Before his departure from Rome, at the approach of Alaric in
A.D. 410, he had published commentaries on the Pauline Epistles in which
for the first time in expounding Rom. chap. v. verse 12, he gave
expression to his heretical views. He had already acquired great
influence in the imperial city, for Augustine says that he was learned and
acute, and that his letters were read by many persons for the sake of
their eloquence and pungency.[58] We have a very favourable specimen of
his composition still extant in his Epistle to the noble lady Demetrias,
who was quite as remarkable for her virtues as for her wealth and
learning. Augustine found it necessary to caution her against the snares
of Pelagius, and whoever reads this letter will readily admit that the
caution was by no means unnecessary, for in graceful and elegant language
he conveys excellent rules for the guidance of devout souls, just barely
flavoured with the poison of his dangerous and subtle heresy, so
flattering to the instincts of noble and generous natures.
On the other hand there is nothing known in connection with the history of
Caelestius that could lead us to suppose that he was either a Briton or a
Scot. He was, it is said, of noble birth--most likely a Gaul or
Italian--but being from infancy a eunuch he spent his youth in a monastery
which at that time (before A.D. 400) he certainly could not find in
Ireland. From this monastery he wrote three letters to his relations,
which as Gennadius tells us were of great utility for the guidance of all
persons really anxious to serve God.[59] He afterwards became an advocate
(auditorialis scholasticus) and was doubtless practising in the Roman
Courts when, about the year A.D. 400, he first met Pelagius in the
imperial city. The latter was very anxious to secure such an ally for his
own purposes, for Caelestius was a man of great eloquence and courage, as
well as of much keeness in disputation--_acerrimi ingenii_--just the very
thing the ruder British Provincial wanted in his associate. Thus it came
to pass that Pelagius succeeded in alluring to his own views the young and
brilliant advocate, through whom he hoped to disseminate his own doctrines
throughout the chief cities of the empire. But to suppose that such a man
as Caelestius, born of noble Christian parents, whose youth was spent in a
monastery, and who was able to write a spiritual treatise in Latin before
he left it, and afterwards became an advocate in Rome--to suppose that he
was born in Ireland some fifty years before the advent of St. Patrick is
altogether out of the question. As a matter of fact there is not a shadow
of ancient authority for any such assumption.
CHAPTER III
LEARNING IN IRELAND IN THE TIME OF ST. PATRICK.
"'Tis morn on the hills of Innisfail."
--_M'Gee._
We now come to discuss the state of learning in Ireland during the sixty
years commonly assigned to St. Patrick's preaching, that is from A.D. 432
to 492. We have seen that when the Saint landed on our shores, he did not,
as is sometimes ignorantly asserted, find the Irish tribes utterly savage
and barbarous. He found an organized pagan priesthood, which had a
learning and philosophy of its own, similar to that of Gaul and Britain,
when those countries were conquered by the Romans. He found the customary
laws of the tribes reduced to a definite legal system, and administered by
a body of Brehons, or judges, who had been specially trained for that
office; and he also found that the annals of the nation were carefully
preserved, and that the territories, rights, and privileges of the
sub-kings were definitely ascertained and faithfully recorded in a great
national register. The leading men of the tribes were certainly acquainted
not only with the primitive Ogham Alphabet, but also with the letters, if
not with the language, used in Britain and in Gaul by the Romans.
If St. Patrick himself could learn the Irish language during his captivity
in Antrim, there was nothing to prevent Irish captives learning something
of the Roman customs and Roman letters in Britain, and bringing that
knowledge back with them to Ireland. Our ports were more frequented[60] by
foreign merchants than the ports of Britain; our chieftains frequently
harried their coasts and carried off both Gaulish and British Christians
as captives; Irish princes were sometimes refugees in Britain, and British
princes were sometimes allies and sometimes refugees in Ireland. It was,
therefore, quite impossible that some knowledge of the language, and of
the arts of the British provincials should not, during a period of three
centuries, cross the British seas into Ireland. All our annals testify to
the fact of this intercourse. Ireland was not surrounded by a wall of
brass, or by a trackless sea, cutting off all communication with other
lands. The wonder is not that something of Roman letters and civilization
should penetrate to Erin--but the great wonder would be if the thing were
otherwise.
The great defect in the Irish social system, as we have already observed,
was the want of a strong central government. It is true that the Gaedhlic
tribes in Erin recognised the supremacy of the High King of Tara; but that
recognition was merely nominal. There was no really effective central
government, strong enough to cause its authority to be enforced and
respected throughout all the land. Able princes, like Cormac Mac Art,
arose from time to time, who sought to correct this great evil. In
proportion as they were successful in reducing the sub-kings to obedience,
they were also able to extend the blessings of a yet imperfect
civilization, which, however, could never come to perfection without an
organized and settled government.
I.--ST. PATRICK'S EDUCATION.
But now a great change came over all the land. St. Patrick not only
introduced the Christian religion into Ireland, but profoundly modified
the laws, customs, and literature of the nation. To his influence in these
respects we wish to call attention at present; but first of all, it is
necessary to understand the sources of his own intellectual training, and
the literary as well as the religious influences that moulded his own
mind. We do not propose to enter at all into any of the manifold
controversies that surround the facts and dates of the life of our great
Apostle, but merely to reflect on those acts which his biographers
generally admit.
It is agreed upon all hands that the Saint derived his literary
aquirements, such as they were, from Gaul.[61] Reference is made to three
distinct sources whence he derived his education--to St. Martin, to St.
Germanus, and to Saints of some islands in the Mediterranean. His
biographers are not agreed either as to the order in which our Saint
visited those masters of a spiritual life, or the number of years he spent
under each, but all unite in pointing to these three sources whence St.
Patrick derived his learning and his holiness.
It must be borne in mind that Patrick was made a captive at the age of
sixteen, and that he spent six years in captivity on the slopes of Slieve
Mish, in the county Antrim. His education in his youth seems to have been
much neglected, for he tells us himself that although born of noble
parents according to the flesh--his father, Calphurnius, was a decurio,
that is the head of a local municipium, most probably on the banks of the
Clyde, in North Britain--still he had little or no knowledge of God, and
could scarcely discern between good and evil. The years of his captivity
served to open his mind to a higher spiritual life, but could afford him
no opportunity of adding to his purely literary knowledge.[62] So when he
succeeded under divine guidance in making his escape at the age of
twenty-two, he was indeed a holy but certainly not a learned young man.
Escaping to France according to the generally received opinion, he first
seems to have made his way to Tours, towards the closing years of the
fourth century, for the date cannot be accurately fixed. At that time St.
Martin, the soldier Saint, was Bishop of Tours, and led a life of
extraordinary holiness and mortification at the monastery of Marmoutier,
on the banks of the Loire, in the neighbourhood of that city. Many writers
say that Patrick's mother, Conchessa, was a niece of St. Martin, and this
fact would easily explain why St. Patrick fled for refuge and guidance to
his venerable relative, whose fame at that time was spread over all
France. The story of the relationship is strange enough, seeing that St.
Martin was a native of Sabaria, in Pannonia, where he was born about A.D.
316. But though strange, it is not incredible, and goes far to explain the
great veneration in which St. Martin of Tours has always been held in
Ireland. The authors of the _Third_ and _Fifth Lives of St. Patrick_, as
printed by Colgan, tells us that the young Patrick spent four years under
the guidance of St. Martin, who gave him, according to Probus, the tonsure
and religious habit in his monastery of Marmoutier. It is not easy to fix
the exact period. According to the common opinion, Martin died in A.D.
397, so that Patrick must have made his escape to Gaul in A.D. 393.
Others, however, fix the date of St. Martin's death in A.D. 400 or 402, so
that we shall not be far wrong if we suppose these years which Patrick
spent under the guidance of St. Martin to have been the closing years of
the fourth century.
They were certainly fruitful years for the young Apostle. In some respects
the career of the soldier Saint was not unlike that of Patrick himself
hitherto. His parents were gentiles, but Martin, in his youth, fled to the
Church to become a catechumen and prepare himself for a life of holiness
in the desert. Being, however, the son of a veteran--his father was a
tribune in the imperial armies--they forced him at the age of fifteen to
join the cavalry, and serve some twenty campaigns under Constantius and
Julian the Apostate, before he recovered his freedom. He could, therefore,
understand the dangers and difficulties that beset the path of his young
relative, who was carried off a captive at the same age at which he
himself had been forced to become a soldier. No one, too, was better
qualified to guide the steps of Patrick up the steep ascent of virtue, and
prepare him for his future apostolate than the aged soldier Saint.
The life of Martin and his monks at Marmoutier was the marvel of all the
West. We have the picture drawn by one who witnessed it--by the eloquent,
nobly-born, high-souled Sulpicius Severus, whose life of St. Martin is one
of the most charming biographies ever penned.
He was indeed, the greatest example of saintly mortification hitherto seen
in the West. When the people of Tours clamoured for Martin to become their
Bishop, several prelates objected to his elevation, because his person was
contemptible, his looks lowly, his clothes filthy, and his hair unkempt.
The young soldier, it seems, had long before put off the mien and garb of
a warrior, and put on that true nobility of soul, which so rarely
accompanies gaudy apparel and lofty deportment. But in A.D. 371 they made
him bishop all the same in spite of his mean appearance; yet Martin in no
way changed his manner of life in consequence. He built himself a little
cell close by his church, and there he spent his days, when he was not
preaching to the people or traversing his diocese on foot.