Then during the next century Providence raised up a line of great and holy

prelates in Armagh--Celsus, Malachy, and Gelasius--men of courage,

learning, energy, and filled with the apostolic spirit, who expelled the

intruders, vindicated the rights, and, by their conduct and character even

more than by words, asserted the dignity of the primatial see.

Gelasius had certainly his own share in this noble work. The very year

after his accession to the see of Armagh he made a formal visitation

throughout the Province of Munster, and was everywhere received with

honour and loaded with gifts.

The next year he went to Connaught, where he was also received with all

honour and obedience. Torlough O'Conor was then King of Connaught; and

claimed to be High King of Ireland. He successfully asserted his claim by

over-running Munster, Meath, and Leinster in succession; he even

penetrated into Oriel and threatened Ailech itself. But he received the

Primate Gelasius with the most profound respect; he gave him efficient

protection in his journeys through the province, and seems to have also

assisted him in carrying out his schemes of reform. In fact, whether it

was because he wanted to correct abuses, or liked his treatment beyond the

Shannon, the Primate visited that province no less than four different

times before his death.

Gelasius was no less zealous in convening and presiding over Synods for

the maintenance of discipline and the extirpation of abuses.

The earliest of these was held at Holmpatrick by the Primate and St.

Malachy in A.D. 1148. It is called by the Four Masters Inis-Padraig, but

the place is the same--the small island near Skerries, now called

Holm-Patrick, or Patrick's Island. Its object was to make formal

application to the Pope in the name of the Irish Church for a pallium or

pall for each of the archbishops both of the old and new creation. St.

Malachy set out for France to meet the Pope, as we have already seen, but

died on his way at Clairvaux on the 2nd of November in the same year.

The object, however, was not lost sight of either by the Pope or the

Primate. Cardinal John Paparo landed in Ireland in A.D. 1151, and went

straight to Armagh to meet the Primate, with whom he remained for a week

making arrangements for the coming Synod. It was held at Kells, not

Drogheda or Mellifont, in the spring of next year, A.D. 1152, and was

attended by twenty-two bishops and five bishops elect, with a large

number--some 300 or more--of the clergy of the Second Order, both secular

and regular. We cannot here enter into the many interesting questions

connected with this Synod. It is enough to say that whilst formally

recognising the superiority of Armagh as the Primatial See, four palls

were granted by the Cardinal Legate, thus legally constituting four

archbishops in Ireland for the first time. It is, however, only in this

legal and technical sense that Gelasius can be described as the 'first

Archbishop of Armagh.' Other regulations were also made at this Synod, two

of which are especially noticed. It was ordered by the Synod to put away

all concubines from _men_[291]--not from the _clergy_, as Moore falsely

says; and also to pay tithes according to the usage of the Church

elsewhere. This is the first reference to tithes we find in our Annals,

and it is said that even the clergy did not care to introduce this new

system of getting a maintenance.

The zealous Primate held another Synod at Mellifont in A.D. 1157, partly

to have the new monastic church of the parent Cistercian House consecrated

with greater solemnity, and partly to pronounce sentence of

excommunication against Donogh O'Melaghlin for his impiety and contempt of

the Primate's authority. We are not acquainted with the full particulars;

but this public act by which the Prince of Meath was solemnly

excommunicated and deposed, and his brother appointed by the bishops and

the princes in his stead, shows that the Primate was a man of vigour, who

was resolved to adopt energetic measures to assert his own authority.

Next year we find Gelasius holding another Synod at a place called Brigh

Mac-Taidgh, near Trim, in Meath. Twenty-five bishops were present, with

Christian of Lismore, the Papal Legate in Ireland. The Connaught Bishops

were unable to attend, because they were robbed and maltreated near

Clonmacnoise on their way to the Synod by a party of soldiers belonging to

that very Diarmaid O'Melaghlin, whom the Synod of Mellifont had named King

of Meath the previous year. This incident shows the violent and lawless

spirit of the times, and how necessary it was for the Primate to vindicate

to the utmost of his power the authority of the Church, which alone could

keep these fierce and bloodthirsty princes in check. It was at this

Synod, as we have already seen, that a Bishop's Chair was set for

O'Flaherty O'Brolchain, who was on that occasion formally created, with

the assent of the Legate, first Bishop of Derry.

A few years later in A.D. 1162, the venerable Gelasius presided at another

Synod at Clane in Magh Liffe--the north of the present County Kildare. It

was at this Synod the important decree was passed, which required all the

_Fer-leighinn_, or professors throughout Ireland, to graduate in the great

School of Armagh. This decree more than anything else shows the far seeing

wisdom of the Primate. The School of Armagh was under his own immediate

direction and control, so that he could secure a thorough and orthodox

training in theology for the students. Then by requiring the professors

from all the other schools to attend lectures at Armagh, he secured at

once uniformity of system, and soundness of doctrine in all the other

schools where the clergy of the Irish Church were being trained for the

ministry. At the same time it was a recognition that as Armagh was the

seat of authority, it was also the mistress of sound theology. It is quite

evident that Gelasius was a man far superior to his contemporaries in

wisdom and the science of government.

In the same year he had the satisfaction of consecrating the great St.

Laurence O'Toole to be Archbishop of Dublin--the first prelate of that see

that was ever consecrated in Ireland. It is clear that the Primate was

resolved not to tolerate any longer the claim of the Archbishops of

Canterbury to metropolitan jurisdiction in any part of his primacy.

Yet another great assembly of the clergy and laity was held at Athboy in

Meath, in the year A.D. 1167. Both the Primate and Rory O'Connor, King of

Ireland, were present with many of the prelates and nobles of the North.

Its main object seems to have been to restore peace and concord between

the native princes, whose fratricidal strife had reddened every green

field in their native land, and offered such strong inducements to the

stranger to conquer and divide their inheritance.

The Primate saw the danger, and realized it to the full. As he had held a

Synod the year before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans to remove the cause

of the danger; so the year after their arrival, that is in A.D. 1170, he

held the last Synod of his clergy in his own city of Armagh, to concert

means to expel the foreigners, before they could secure a foothold in the

country.

The venerable old man was then in the eighty-third year of his age, but he

had a braver spirit and a clearer mind than any of the degenerate children

of Niall the Great, whom he gathered round him in his primatial city. He

warned them, and he appealed to them in vain. When the day of trial came,

and Strongbow with his knights were besieged in Dublin, and by united

energetic action might have been driven into the sea more completely than

the Danes were at Clontarf, the men of the North were in their native

mountains ignobly heedless of their country's fate.

Alas! for the aged Gelasius, who had laboured so hard and so long for the

Irish Church and the Irish people. He saw the princes of his country bow

the knee in homage to the triumphant invader; he saw her prelates meet in

Cashel at Henry's summons to endorse his laws; he saw her petty chieftains

either warring with each other or allied with the Norman. Then, and only

then, the old man came from his episcopal city and kissed the hand of

Henry in his new capital of Dublin. He had his old white cow driven before

him to give him milk, which was his only sustenance. He paid his homage to

the king, and then returned home with a sad heart to Patrick's royal City.

Two years after he died at the age of eighty-five, and after his death was

recognised and honoured as a saint by the entire Church of Ireland.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SCHOOL OF BANGOR.

"Our princes of old, when their warfare was over,

As pilgrims forth wandered; as hermits found rest.

Shall the hand of the stranger their ashes uncover,

In Bangor the holy, in Aran the blest?"

--_De Vere._

St. Comgall, who founded the famous School of Bangor, though not greatly

celebrated for his own learning, was the founder of a school which of all

others seems to have exercised the widest influence on the Continent by

means of the great scholars whom it produced.

Bangor and Armagh were by excellence the great Northern Schools, just as

Clonard was the School of Meath, Glendaloch of Leinster, Lismore of

Munster, and Clonmacnoise and Clonfert of Connaught. For it must be borne

in mind that Clonmacnoise was founded by St. Ciaran from Roscommon, that

he was the patron saint of Connaught,[292] and that until a comparatively

recent period it formed a portion of the Western Ecclesiastical Province.

The influence of the other schools, however, was mainly felt at home, or

to some extent in England, Scotland and Germany; but the influence of

Bangor was felt in France, Switzerland and Italy, and not only in ancient

times but down to the present day. There are great names amongst the

missionaries who have gone from other monastic schools in Ireland to

preach the Gospel abroad, but if we except St. Columba, who was trained at

many schools in Ireland, there are no other names so celebrated as St.

Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio, and St. Gall, who has given

his name to an equally celebrated Monastery and Canton in Switzerland. It

is, then, highly interesting and instructive to trace the origin and

influence of this famous Irish school.

I.--ST. COMGALL OF BANGOR.

St. Comgall, the founder of Bangor, was a native of the territory

anciently called Benna Boirche,[293] or Mourne, the name of that wild but

beautiful mountain district extending from Carlingford Lough to the Bay

of Dundrum. There is some difference of opinion as to the exact date of

his birth, and indeed as to the length of his life; although all admit

that he died in the year A.D. 600 or 601. He seems to have been during his

life from boyhood to old age a friend and companion of St. Columcille, and

hence if we accept the length of his life given by the Bollandists[294] as

eighty years, we may fix his birth at about A.D. 520--which was also the

date, or near it, of Columcille's birth. Comgallus, the name by which he

was baptized, has been frequently explained to signify the 'lucky

pledge'--faustum pignus--because he was a child of benediction, the only

son of his parents, and born, too, when they were advanced in years. As

usual in the case of our Irish saints, several prodigies are said to have

taken place both before and shortly after his birth. His father was Sedna,

a small chief of the district then known as Dalaradia or Dalaray; his

mother was a devout matron called Briga, who is said to have been warned

before his birth to retire from the world, because her offspring was

destined in future days to become a great saint of God. These pious

parents took him to be baptized by a blind old priest, called Fehlim, who

knew, however, by heart, the proper method of administering the Sacrament

of Baptism. There being no water at hand a miraculous stream burst forth

from the soil, and the old priest feeling the presence of the divine

influence washed his face in the stream, and at once recovered his sight,

after which he baptized the child and gave him the appropriate name of

Comgall. This is only one of the numberless miracles recorded in the two

lives of St. Comgall, given by the Bollandists, but it will not be

necessary for our purpose to refer to them in detail.

The boy in his youth was sent to work in the fields, and seems to have

assisted his parents with great alacrity in all their domestic concerns.

When he grew up a little more he was sent to learn the Psalms and other

divine hymns from a teacher in the neighbourhood, whose precepts were much

better than his example. The young child of grace, however, was not led

away from the path of virtue; on the contrary, he seems in his own boyish

way to have given gentle hints to his teacher that his life was not what

it ought to be. On one occasion, for instance, Comgall rolled his coat in

the mud and coming before his master, the latter said to him, "Is it not

shame to soil your coat so?" "Is it not a greater shame," replied

Comgall, "for anyone to soil his soul and body by sin?" The teacher took

the hint and was silent; but the lesson was unheeded, and so the holy

youth resolved to seek elsewhere a holier preceptor.

This was about the year A.D. 545. At that time a young and pre-eminently

holy man, named Fintan, had established a monastery at a place called

Cluain-eidnech, now Clonenagh, near Mountrath, in the Queen's County. The

fame of this infant monastery had spread far and wide over the face of the

land; for although in many places in those days of holiness there was

strict rule, and poor fare, and rigid life, yet Fintan of Clonenagh seems

to have been the strictest and poorest and most rigid of them all. He

would not allow even a cow to be kept for the use of his

monks--consequently they had neither milk, nor butter; neither had they

eggs, nor cheese, nor fat, nor flesh of any kind. They had a little corn,

and herbs, and plenty of water near at hand, for the bogs and marshes

round their monastic cells were frequently flooded by the many tributaries

of the infant Nore coming down from the slopes of the Slieve-bloom

mountains. They had plenty of hard work, too, in the fields tilling the

barren soil, and in the woods cutting down timber for the buildings of the

monastery as well as for firewood, and then drawing it home in loads on

their backs, or dragging it after them over the uneven soil. The

discipline of this monastery was so severe and the food of the monks so

wretched that the neighbouring saints thought it prudent to come and beg

the Abbot Fintan to relax a little of the extreme severity of his

discipline, which was more than human nature could endure. The abbot,

though unwilling to relax his own fearful austerities in the least,

consented at the earnest prayer of St. Canice to modify the severity of

his discipline to some extent for the others, and they were no doubt not

unwilling to get the relaxation.

It speaks well for the love of holy penance shown by these young

Christians of Ireland that in spite of its severe discipline this

monastery was crowded with holy inmates from all parts of the country, and

amongst the rest came Comgall from his far-off Dalaradian home to become a

disciple of this school of labour and penance.

He remained a considerable time under the guidance of the holy Fintan, the

Benedict, of our Irish Church, who, although his "senior," or superior in

religion, was probably about his own age in years. There is little doubt

that it was from Fintan, Comgall learned those lessons of humility and

obedience which, as we know from his Rule and from his disciples, he

afterwards taught with so much effect to others. His teacher then advised

him to return to his own country, and propagate amongst his kindred in

Dalaray the lessons of virtue which he had learned at Clonenagh.

Hitherto it seems Comgall had received no holy orders. He was a monk and a

perfect one, of mature age too, but in his great humility he had hitherto

declined the responsibilities of the priesthood. Now, however, he resolved

to pay a visit to Clonmacnoise, which is about twenty miles to the

north-west of Clonenagh. Its holy founder, Ciaran, was scarcely alive at

this time, for he died in A.D. 544; but then, and long after, the fame of

the school was great, and crowds of holy men were attracted to its walls.

Here Comgall was induced to receive the priesthood from the holy Bishop

Lugadius, and after a short stay he returned northward to his own country.

This was probably about A.D. 550, or perhaps a little later.

Some authorities place the foundation of Bangor at this time; but it must

be understood only in a very qualified sense at this early date. Comgall

was now, indeed, a famous saint himself, and likely enough, companions

came to place themselves under his spiritual guidance. But we are

expressly told that for some time after his return he went about preaching

the Gospel to the people, especially amongst his own kith and kin, and in

all probability this took place before he established his monastery at

least on any permanent footing at Bangor. But the holy man longed for the

solitary life, and so we are told that he retired to an island in Lough

Erin, called INSULA CUSTODIARIA, or, as we should now say, Jail Island,

and there he practised such austerities that seven of the brethren who

accompanied him died of cold and hunger. He was then induced to relax his

penances and fastings; and shortly after, it seems, at the earnest prayer

of his friends, he was again persuaded to leave Jail Island and return to

Dalaray. This was about the year A.D. 559, which seems to be the most

probable date of the founding of Bangor, although the Four Masters fix it

so early as A.D. 552.

Bangor is very beautifully situated. It is about seven miles from Belfast,

on the southern shore of Belfast Lough, in the county Down, and may be

easily reached either by rail or steamer. It commands a fine view of

Carrickfergus on the opposite shore of the bay, with the bold cliffs of

Black Head further seaward; to the right, across the narrow sea the bleak

bluffs of Galloway are distinctly visible, and far away due north in the

dim distance, the Mull of Cantire frowns over a wild and restless sea. We

saw this fair scene on a fine day in June, when the sun lit up the

steeples of Carrickfergus, and glanced brightly over the transparent

waters, so deeply and purely blue, whose wavelets played amongst the bare

quartzite rocks, and we felt that if the old monks who chose Bangor to be

their home loved God they loved nature also. Most of all they loved the

great sea; it was for them the most vivid image of God; in its anger, its

beauty, its power, its immensity, they felt the presence, and they saw,

though dimly, the glory of the Divine Majesty. It was on the shore of this

beautiful bay, sheltered from the south-western winds, but open to the

north-east, that Comgall built his little church and cell. Crowds of holy

men, young and old, soon gathered round him; they too, without much

labour, built themselves little cells of timber or wattles; the whole was

then surrounded by a spacious fosse and ditch, which was their enclosure,

and thus the establishment became complete. If St. Bernard in his _Life of

St. Malachy_ was rightly informed, it is clear that there were no stone

buildings in ancient Bangor before the time of St. Malachy; and even he,

when restoring the place, with some of his companions, only built a small

oratory of wood which was finished in a few days.

Not its buildings, however, but its saints and its scholars, were the

glory of Bangor. St. Columba from his home in Iona came more than once,

with some of his followers, to visit Comgall and his good monks. On one of

these occasions one of the brothers died during the voyage, and the corpse

at first was left in the boat whilst the monks with Columba went to the

monastery. Comgall received them with great delight, washed their feet,

and on asking if all had come in, Columba said one brother remained in the

boat. The holy man Comgall going down in haste to fetch the brother found

him dead, and perhaps thinking it might have happened through his neglect,

besought the Lord, and calling upon the monk to rise up and come to his

brothers, the dead man obeyed. Walking to the monastery Comgall perceived

that he was blind in one eye, and telling him to wash his face in the

stream that still flows down to the sea from the church, he did so, and at

once recovered his sight. St. Comgall brought back the brother from the

grave, and, moreover, restored to him his eyesight. In this age of ours we

are apt to smile at such miracles as these, because ours is not an age of

faith; and the incredulity of the world around us make us incredulous

also. Yet our Saviour said to his disciples (Luke xvii. v. 6), "If you had

faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry

tree, be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it

would obey you." We doubt if any of our Irish Saints ever did anything

apparently so foolish as this, yet even this they could do in the

greatness of their faith.

St. Comgall paid a return visit to Columba, and it is said that he even

founded a church in the Island of Heth, now called Tiree, one of the

western isles to the north of Iona. He also accompanied Columba in the

famous visit which he paid to King Brude, the Pictish King, who, at the

approach of the saints, shut himself up in his fortress on the shore of

the river Inverness. But Columba signed the sign of the cross, whereupon

the barred doors flew open in the name of Christ; and the pagan King of

the Picts, fearing with a great fear, allowed the saints to preach the

Gospel to his subjects.

A man so famous for holiness and miracles, soon attracted great crowds to

Bangor. St. Bernard in his _Life of St. Malachy_ says that "this noble

institution was inhabited by many thousands of monks." Joceline, of

Furness, a writer of the twelfth century, says that "Bangor was a fruitful

vine breathing the odour of salvation, and that its offshoots extended not

only over all Ireland, but far beyond the seas into foreign countries, and

filled many lands with its abounding fruitfulness." In the time of the

Danes we are told, on the authority of St. Bernard, that nine hundred

monks of Bangor were slain by these pirates--an appalling slaughter, but

not at all an unusual, much less an incredible massacre, for the North men

to perpetrate. The second life given by the Bollandists says distinctly

that in the various cells and monasteries under his care, Comgall had no

less than three thousand monks; but this it seems is to be understood of

all his disciples in other monasteries as well as in Bangor.

Amongst these disciples, besides Columbanus and his companions, of whom we

shall presently speak, were Lua, called also Mo-Lua, the founder of

Clonfert-Molua, now Clonfert-Mulloe, in the Queen's County, and St.

Carthach, founder of the great School of Lismore, which became almost as

famous as Bangor itself. Luanus from Bangor, who seems to be the same as

Molua, is said by St. Bernard to have founded a hundred monasteries--a

statement that seems somewhat exaggerated. Even kings gave up their crowns

and came to Bangor to live as humble monks under the blessed Comgall.

Special mention is made of Cormac, King of Hy-Bairrche, in Northern

Leinster. That prince had been freed from the fetters in which he was

held by the King of Hy-Kinselagh at the earnest intercession of St. Fintan

of Clonenagh. Before his death, however, he retired to Bangor, and in

spite of great temptations to return to the world, he persevered to the

end in the service of God, under the care of Comgall, to whom he gave

large domains in Leinster for the endowment of religious houses. Comgall,

according to some authorities, ruled over Bangor for fifty years, others

say for thirty, which is more likely to be true, and died on the 13th of

May, A.D. 600, at his own monastery of Bangor, in the midst of his

children, after he had received the Viaticum from the hands of St. Fiacra

of Conwall, in Donegal, who was divinely inspired to visit the dying

saint, and administer to him the last rites of the Church. His blessed

body was afterwards enclosed by the same Fiacra, in a shrine adorned with

gold and precious stones, which subsequently became the spoil of the

Danish pirates.

That literature, both sacred and profane, was successfully cultivated at

Bangor, will be made evident from the writings of the great scholars whom

it produced, even during the lifetime of its blessed founder. Humility and

obedience, however, were even more dearly prized than learning. It was a

rule amongst the monks that when any person was rebuked by another at

Bangor, whether justly or not, he immediately prostrated himself on the

ground in token of submission. They bore in mind that word of the Gospel,

"If one strike thee on the right cheek, turn also to him the other." But

the career of the great Columbanus will prove that when there was question

of denouncing crime against God, or adhering to the traditions of the holy

founders of the Irish Church, the monks of Bangor were men of invincible

firmness, who felt the full force of the Apostolic maxim--we must obey God

rather than man. In the question of celebrating Easter, according to their

ancient usage, this firmness bordered on pertinacity; but it was

excusable, seeing that it sprang from no schismatical spirit, but from a

conscientious adhesion to the ancient practice of the Church of St.

Patrick.

II.--ST. COLUMBANUS.

St. Columbanus was the great glory of the school of Bangor. He is one of

the most striking figures of his age; his influence has been felt even

down to our own times. The libraries which contain manuscripts written by

his monks are ransacked for these literary treasures, and the greatest

scholars of France and Germany study the Celtic glosses which the monks of

Columbanus jotted down on the margins or between the leaves of their

manuscripts.

We cannot dwell at length on the facts of his life, striking and

interesting as his marvellous career undoubtedly is. His Life, published

by Surius, was written by an Italian monk of Bobbio, called Jonas, at the

request of his ecclesiastical superiors, and though full enough in details

regarding his career on the Continent, it is meagre as to the facts of his

youth in Ireland. It is, however, so far as it goes, authentic, for the

informants of Jonas were the members of his own community of Bobbio, who

were companions of the saint, and eye-witnesses of what they relate.

Columbanus, or Columba, was the Latin name given to the saint, probably on

account of the sweetness of his disposition. For although in the cause of

God he was impetuous, and sometimes even headstrong, we are told that to

his companions and associates he was ever gracious and quiet as the dove.

We know for certain that he was a native of West Leinster, and born about

the year A.D. 543[295] if not earlier, for he was at least 72 years at his

death in A.D. 615. In his boyhood he gave himself up with great zeal and

success to the study of grammar, and of the other liberal arts then taught

in our Irish schools, including geometry, arithmetic, logic, astronomy,

rhetoric, and music. He was a handsome youth, too, well-shaped and

prepossessing in appearance, fair and blue-eyed like most of the nobles of

the Scots. This was to him a source of great danger, for at least one

young maiden strove to win the affections of the handsome scholar, and

wean his heart from God. Old Jonas, the writer of the life, shudders at

the thought of the danger to which Columbanus was exposed, and the

devilish snares that were laid for his innocence. The youth himself was

fully sensible of his danger, and sought the counsel of a holy virgin who

lived in a hermitage hard by. At first he spoke with hesitation and

humility, but afterwards with confidence and courage, which showed that he

was a youth of high spirit, and therefore all the more in danger. "What

need," replied the virgin, "to seek my counsel. I myself have fled the

world, and for fifteen years have remained shut up in this cell. Remember

the warning examples of David, Samson, and Solomon, who were led astray by

the love of women. There is no security for you except in flight." The

youth was greatly terrified by this solemn warning, and bidding farewell

to his parents, resolved to leave home and retire for his soul's sake to

some religious house where he would be secure. His mother, with tears,

besought him to stay; she even threw herself on the threshold before him,

but the boy, declaring that whoever loved his father or mother more than

Christ, is unworthy of Him, stepped aside, and left his home and his

parents, whom he never saw again.

He went straight to Cluaninis (now Cleenish), in Lough Erne, whose hundred

islets in those days were the homes of holy men, who gave themselves up to

prayer, penance, and sacred study. An old man named Sinell,[296] was at

that time famous for holiness and learning, and so Columbanus placed

himself under his care, and made great progress both in profane learning,

and especially in the study of the sacred Scriptures.[297]

At this time the fame of Bangor was great throughout the land: so

Columbanus leaving his master, Sinell of Lough Erne, came to Comgall, and

prostrating himself before the abbot, begged to be admitted amongst his

monks. The request was granted at once, and Columbanus, as we are

expressly informed, spent many years in that great monastery by the sea,

going through all the literary and religious exercises of the community

with much fervour and exactness. This was the spring-time of his life, in

which he sowed the seeds of that spiritual harvest, which France and Italy

afterwards reaped in such abundance. His rule was the rule of Bangor. His

learning was the learning of Bangor. His spirit was the spirit of Bangor.

When fully trained in knowledge and piety, Columbanus sought his abbot

Comgall, and begged leave to go, like so many of his countrymen, on a

pilgrimage for Christ. It was the impulse of the Celtic mind from the

beginning--it is so still--the Irish are a nation of apostles. It is not a

mere love of change, or of foreign travel, or tedium of home; no, the

pilgrimage, or _peregrinatio_, was essentially undertaken to spread the

Gospel of Christ. The holy abbot Comgall gladly assented. He gave him his

leave and his blessing, and Columbanus, taking with him twelve companions,

prepared to cross the sea. Money they had none: they needed none. The only

treasure they took with them was their books slung over their shoulders in

leathern satchels, and so with their staves in their hands, and courage in

their hearts, they set out from their native country, never to return. At

first they went to England, and traversing that country, where it seems,

too, they were joined by some associates, they found means to cross the

channel and came to Gaul, about the year A.D. 575, when he himself was

about thirty-two years of age.

The apostolic man with his companions at once set about preaching the

Gospel in the half-Christian towns and villages of Gaul. Poor, half-naked,

hungry, their lives were a sermon; but moreover, Columbanus was gifted

with great eloquence, and a sweet persuasive manner that no one could

resist. They were everywhere received as men of God, and the fame of their

holiness and miracles even came to the court of Sigebert, king of

Austrasia, of which Metz was the capital. He pressed them to stay in his

dominions, but they would not. They went their way southward through a

wild and desert country, preaching and teaching, healing and converting,

until they came to the court of Gontran, grandson of Clovis, at that time

king of Burgundy--one of the three kingdoms into which the great monarchy

of Clovis had come to be sub-divided.

Gontran received the missionaries with a warm welcome, and at first

established them at a place called Annegray, where there was an old Roman

castle in the modern department of the Haute-Saone. The king offered them

both food and money, but these things they declined, and such was their

extreme poverty, that they were often forced to live for weeks together on

the herbs of the field, on the berries, and even the bark of the trees.

Columbanus used from time to time to bury himself alone in the depths of

the forest, heedless of hunger, which stared him in the face, and of the

wild beasts that roamed around him, trusting altogether to the good

providence of God. He became even the prince of the wild animals. The

birds would pick the crumbs from his feet; the squirrels would hide

themselves under his cowl; the hungry wolves harmed him not; he slept in a

cave where a bear had its den. Once a week a boy would bring him a little

bread or vegetables: he needed nothing else. He had no companion. The

Bible, transcribed, no doubt, at Bangor with his own hand, was his only

study and his highest solace. Thus for weeks, and even months, he led a

life, like John the Baptist in the wilderness, wholly divine.

Meanwhile the number of disciples in the monastery at the old ruined

castle of Annegray daily increased, and it became necessary to seek a more

suitable site for a larger community. Here, too, the Burgundian King

Gontran proved himself the generous patron of Columbanus and his monks.

There was at the foot of the Vosges mountains, where warm medicinal

springs pour out a healing stream, an old Roman settlement called Luxeuil.

But it was now a desert. The broken walls of the ancient villas were

covered with shrubs and weeds. The woods had extended from the slopes of

the mountains down to the valleys covering all the country round. There

was no population, no tillage, no arable land; it was all a savage forest,

filled with wolves, bears, foxes, and wild cats. Not a promising site for

a monastic settlement, but such a place exactly as Columbanus and his

companions desired. They wanted solitude, they loved labour, and they

would have plenty of both. In a few years a marvellous change came over

the scene. The woods were cleared, the lands were tilled, fields of waving

corn rewarded the labour of the monks, and smiling vineyards gave them

wine for the sick and for the holy Sacrifice. The noblest youths of the

Franks begged to be admitted to the brotherhood, and gladly took their

share in the daily round of prayer, penance, and ceaseless toil. They

worked so long that they fell asleep from fatigue when walking home.[298]

They slept so little that it was a new penance to tear themselves from the

mats on which they lay. But the blessing of God was upon them; they grew

in numbers, and in holiness, and in happiness, not the happiness of men

who love this world, but the happiness of those who truly serve God.

But now a sore trial was nigh. God wished to purify his servants by

suffering, and to extend to other lands the sphere of their usefulness.

The first trial came from the secular clergy. Those Irish monks were men

of virtue and austerity, but they were also in many respects very

peculiar. They had a liturgy of their own somewhat different from that in

use around them; they had a queer tonsure, like Simon Magus, it was said,

in front from ear to ear, instead of the orthodox and customary crown.

Worst of all, it sometimes happened that they celebrated Easter on Palm

Sunday, so that they were singing their alleluias when all the churches of

the Franks were in the mourning of Passion time. Remonstrance was useless;

they adhered tenaciously to their country's usages. Nothing could convince

them that what St. Patrick and the saints of Ireland had handed down to

them could by any possibility be wrong. They only wanted to be let alone.

They did not desire to impose their usages on others. Why should others

impose their usages on them? They had a right to be allowed to live in

peace in their wilderness, for they injured no man, and they prayed for

all. Thus it was that Columbanus reasoned, or rather remonstrated, with a

synod of French bishops that objected to his practices. His letters to

them and to Pope Gregory the Great on the subject of this Paschal question

are still extant, but he cannot be justified in some of the expressions

which he uses. He tells the bishops in effect in one place that they would

be better employed in enforcing canonical discipline amongst their own

clergy, than in discussing the Paschal question with him and his monks.

Yet here and there he speaks not only with force and freedom, but also

with true humility and genuine eloquence. He implores the prelates in the

most solemn language to let him and his brethren live in peace and charity

in the heart of their silent woods, beside the bones of their seventeen

brothers who were dead, "Surely it is better for you," he says, "to

comfort than to disturb us, poor old men, strangers, too, in your midst.

Let us rather love one another in the charity of Christ, striving to

fulfil his precepts, and thereby secure a place in the assembly of the

just made perfect in heaven."

Language of this character, used, too, in justification of practices

harmless in themselves, but not in accordance with the prevalent

discipline of the Church at the time, was by no means well calculated to

beget affection towards the strangers in the minds of the Frankish clergy.

Other troubles, too, soon arose. The young king of Austrasia, Thierry,

encouraged by Brunehaut, his infamous grand-mother, repudiated his lawful

wife and gave himself up to the most scandalous debauchery. Columbanus

admonished, remonstrated, rebuked in vain. Finding his efforts fruitless,

he denied the guilty pair admission to his monastery, and thereupon they

resolved to expel him and his monks from the kingdom.

For the time, however, he was only made a prisoner, and conducted to

Besançon, where he was kept under surveillance, until one day, looking

with longing to his beloved Luxeuil, and seeing no one at hand to prevent

him, he descended the steep cliff which overhangs the river Doubs, and

returned to his monastery. When the king heard of his return, he sent

imperative orders to have him and all his companions from Ireland and

Britain forcibly removed from the monastery, and conveyed home to their

own country. The soldiers presented themselves at Luxeuil when the holy

man was in the choir with his monks. They told him their orders, and

begged him to come voluntarily with them--they were unwilling to resort to

force. At first he refused; but lest the soldiers might be punished for

not resorting to that violence which they were unwilling to make use of,

he finally yielded. He called his Irish brethren around them: "Let us

go," he said, "my brothers, in the name of God." It was hard to leave the

scene of their labours, their sorrows, and their joys; hard to leave

behind them the graves of the seventeen brethren with whom they had hoped

to rest in peace. But go they must; the soldiers would not for a moment

leave them. It was a brief and sad leave-taking. Wails of sorrow were

heard everywhere for the loss of their beloved father; brother was torn

from brother, friend from friend, never to meet again in this world. Thus

it was that Columbanus and his Irish companions left that dear monastery

of Luxeuil, and were conducted by the soldiers to Nevers. There, still

guarded by the soldiers, they embarked in a boat that conveyed them down

the Loire to its mouth, where they would find a ship to convey them back

again to Ireland.

But it was not the will of Providence that Columbanus and his companions,

when driven from Luxeuil, should return to Ireland: other work was before

them to do. Accordingly, when they came to the mouth of the Loire, their

baggage, such as it was, was put on board, and most of the monks embarked.

But the sea rose mountains high, and the ship[299] which Columbanus

intended to rejoin when under weigh, was forced to return to port. A three

days' calm succeeded, and the captain, apprehensive of a new storm, caused

the monks and their baggage to be put on shore, for he feared to take them

with him. Thus left to themselves, Columbanus and his companions went to

Soissons to Clotaire, King of Neustria, by whom they were received with

every kindness and hospitality. The king cordially hated Brunehaut and her

grandson--his mother, Fredegonda, had murdered Brunehaut's sister--and he

was anxious to keep Columbanus in his own kingdom, but the latter would

not stay. He pushed on, with his companions, to Metz, the capital of

Austrasia, where Theodebert, the brother of Thierry, then reigned. Here he

was joined by several of his old monks from Luxeuil, who preferred to

follow their father in his wanderings, to remaining behind in the kingdom

of his persecutor.

Columbanus now resolved to preach the Gospel to the pagan populations on

the right bank of the Rhine and its tributary streams. So embarking at

Mayence, after many toils and dangers, they came as far as Lake Zurich in

Switzerland, and finally established themselves at Bregenz, on the Lake of

Constance, where they fixed their headquarters. The tribes inhabiting

these wild and beautiful regions--the Suevi and Alemanni--were idolaters,

though nominal subjects of the Austrasian kingdom. Woden was their God,

and they worshipped him with dark mysterious rites, under the shadow of

sacred oaks, far in the depths of the forest. Discretion was not a gift of

Columbanus, so he not only preached the Gospel amongst them, but axe in

hand, he had the courage to cut down their sacred trees; he burned their

rude temples, and cast their fantastic idols into the lake. It was not

wise; the people became enraged, and the missionaries were forced to fly.

After struggling for three years to convert this savage people,

Columbanus, perceiving that the work was not destined to be accomplished

by him, crossed the snow-covered Alps by the pass of St. Gothard, though

now more than seventy years of age,[300] and after incredible toil,

succeeded, with a few of his old companions, in making his way to the

Court of the Lombard King, Agilulph, whose Queen was Theodelinda, famous

for beauty, for genius, and for virtue.

At this time the Lombards were Arians, and Agilulph himself was an Arian,

although Queen Theodelinda was a devout Catholic. Mainly, we may assume,

through her influence the Arian monarch received the broken down old man

and his companions with the utmost kindness, and Columbanus had an ample

field for the exercise of his missionary zeal amongst the rude

half-Christian population. But first of all it was necessary to have a

permanent home--and nowhere could he find rest except in solitude. Just at

this time[301] a certain Jucundus reminded the King that there was at a

place called Bobbio a ruined church once dedicated to St. Peter; that the

place round about was fertile and well watered with streams, abounding in

every kind of fish. It was near the Trebbia, almost at the very spot where

Hannibal first felt the rigours of that fierce winter in the snows of the

Appenines, so graphically described by Livy. The king gladly gave the

place to Columbanus, and the energetic old man set about repairing the

ruined church and building his monastery with all that unquenchable ardour

that cleared the forests of Luxeuil, and crossed the snows of the Alps.

His labours were regarded by his followers as miraculous. The fir trees,

cut down in the valleys of the Appenines, which his monks were unable to

carry down the steep and rugged ways, when the old man himself came and

took a share of the burden, were found to be no weight. So, speedily and

joyfully, with the visible aid of heaven, they completed the task, and

built in the valley of the Appenines a monastery, whose name will never be

forgotten by saints or scholars.

The holy old man lived but one year after he had founded Bobbio. His

merits were full; the work of his life was complete; he had given his Rule

to the new house; he left behind him some of his old companions to

complete his work, and now he was ready to die. To the great grief of the

brotherhood, Columbanus passed away to his reward on the eleventh day

before the Kalends of December, in the year A.D. 615, probably in the

seventy-third year of his age. He was buried beneath the high altar, and

long afterwards the holy remains were enclosed in a stone coffin, and are

still preserved in the crypt of the old monastic Church of Bobbio.

It is not too much to say that Ireland never sent a greater son than

Columbanus to do the work of God in foreign lands. He brought forth much

fruit and his fruit has remained. For centuries his influence was dominant

in France and in Northern Italy, and even in our own days, his spirit

speaketh from his urn. His deeds have been described by many eloquent

tongues and pens, and his writings have been carefully studied to

ascertain the secret of his extraordinary influence over his own and

subsequent ages. His character was not indeed faultless, but he was

consumed with a restless untiring zeal in the service of his Master, which

was at once the secret of his power and the source of his mistakes. He was

too ardent in character, and almost too zealous in the cause of God. In

this respect he is not unlike St. Jerome, but we forget their faults in

our admiration for their virtues and their labours. A man more holy, more

chaste, more self-denying, a man with loftier aims and purer heart than

Columbanus, was never born in the Island of Saints.

The writings of Columbanus still extant are--a Monastic Rule, a

Penitential Treatise, sixteen short Sermons or Instructions, six Letters,

and a few Latin Poems.[302]

The _Regula Coenobialis_ or Monastic Rule is divided into ten short

chapters which treat of the fundamental virtues of the monastic life. It

is especially valuable in so far as it affords points of comparison and

contact with the more complete and systematic Rule of St. Benedict. In

some things it is exceedingly rigorous and very minute in the penances

which it imposes, even on the most venial and semi-deliberate faults. The

first six chapters are devoted to the essential virtues of the monastic

state--obedience, silence, self-denial in the use of meat and drink,

poverty and chastity. The maxim--_cibus monachorum sit vilis et

vespertinus_--seems to allow the poor monks only one plain meal in the

day, and that after vespers. He inculcates also a daily fast, daily

prayer, daily labour, and daily reading[303]--thus including in one

sentence the whole routine of monastic life. The _Liber de Paenitentiarum

Mensura Taxanda_ is equally rigorous and minute in prescribing penances

proportionate to the guilt of the sinner. In those days when there were no

elaborate scientific treatises on moral theology, it was very useful to

have a work of this kind which apportioned its own penance to almost every

class of sin. The confessor, or soul's friend, was thus enabled to form an

estimate sufficient for most practical purposes of the magnitude of the

crimes from the amount of the penance. To fast for a number of days,

weeks, or even years, on bread and water was the stern penance imposed on

the sinner, according to the measure of his guilt, by the rigid directors

of the early Irish Church. Drunkenness was punished with a comparatively

light penance--only a week on bread and water. That same would be even now

of great service if it were rigorously enforced.

The _Sermons_ have nothing specially characteristic to recommend them.

They are, however, brief and to the point, which is more than can be said

of many volumes of more modern discourses.

The _Six Letters_ are perhaps the most valuable of the literary remains of

Columbanus, because they reflect most clearly the character of the man and

the genius of the Celt. We have already spoken of his letters to Pope

Gregory the Great, and to Pope Boniface. Whilst full of respect for the

Holy See they exhibit an uncompromising spirit of resolute independence

and conscious integrity. The letter on the Paschal question to a certain

synod of French Bishops is written in the same spirit, and reminds the

Gallican prelates of some unpleasant truths, which they must have regarded

as a very great impertinence coming from a mere Irish monk, who had

uninvited taken up his quarters in the hospitable land of France.

The Latin poems show considerable acquaintance with the language, and are

especially valuable as exhibiting the classical culture of our Irish

schools in the sixth century. Most of them are in hexameter verse, but

contain few classical allusions. The prosody is sometimes faulty; but on

the whole it is perhaps better than the pupils or even the professors of

our colleges would produce at present if called upon at short notice.

The shorter Adonic verses are simply marvels of ingenuity, and it shows

great familiarity with the Latin language to be able to write an entire

letter of about 150 lines in this metre.

The two most celebrated literary monuments of St. Columbanus and the

School of Bangor that have come down to our time are the _Bobbio Missal_,

and the _Antiphonary of Bangor_, both of which are at present preserved in

the Ambrosian Library at Milan.

The Missal which was brought from Bobbio to Milan by Cardinal Frederic

Borromeo is undoubtedly of Irish origin, and was probably brought from

Bangor by St. Columbanus himself, or by some one of the Irish monks who

accompanied him. We shall not here repeat the critical arguments used by

scholars to prove that it was brought from Ireland in the sixth or seventh

century. The fact, indeed, is no longer questioned. This Missal is

particularly interesting, because it gives us so early a specimen of the

liturgy in use in our Irish Church. The _Missa Cotidiana_ of this Bangor

Missal has practically the same Canon as that now found in the Roman

Missal, and used throughout the entire world. There is greater variety in

the prayers, and our Celtic forefathers were fond of inserting a greater

number of them in the Mass after the _Gloria in Excelsis_. They were

inclined too to canonize their own local saints, and even sometimes

inserted their names in the Litanies and in the Canon of Mass without any

authority but their own devotion. This led not only to variety in the

public liturgy but sometimes to other grave abuses, which were not

eradicated until the time of St. Malachy and other great reformers of

Church discipline in the twelfth century.

Now that we have the Stowe Missal accessible to scholars in the Royal

Irish Academy, we may hope for a minute and careful comparison of these

two ancient books, in order to trace the beginnings of these discrepancies

in the liturgy which were first introduced into Ireland by the Second

Order of Saints, and afterwards led to so much inconvenience.

The Stowe Missal, which is so called, we presume, because it was kept so

long locked up in the Duke of Buckingham's Stowe Library, is considered

to have belonged to the ancient Monastery of Lorrha, in Lower Ormond,

Tipperary. Dr McCarthy, a very competent judge, thinks it represents the

ancient Patrician liturgy used by the First Order of the Saints of Erin,

whilst Bangor may be supposed to have the Mass in its Missal derived from

Wales, or more likely from Candida Casa.[304] The question is a very

intricate one, and full of interest, but cannot be discussed at length in

these pages.

The _Antiphonarium Benchorense_, or Bangor Hymnal, is a collection of

ancient hymns in the Latin language, which were in common use in the

ancient Church of Ireland. Many of them are contained in the _Book of

Hymns_ edited by Todd, to which we have already referred so often. Some of

them were in general use throughout the Latin Church, or at least in the

early Gallican Church, like the Hymn of St. Hilary. But others seem to

have been peculiar to Bangor, and hence have a special interest for us at

present. Such was the _Hymnus Sancti Comgilli Abbatis Nostri_; also the

_Hymnus Sancti Camelaci_, and another entitled _Memoria Abbatum

Nostrorum_, which has considerable historical interest, inasmuch as it

gives a metrical list of the abbots of Bangor down to the time of the

writer. These poems, and also the _Missa Cotidiana_ of the Bobbio Missal

may be seen in the second volume of Father O'Laverty's excellent _History

of the Diocese of Down and Connor_.

There is nothing specially interesting in subsequent history of the School

of Bangor down to the time of St. Malachy. It was totally destroyed by the

Danes, although a nominal succession of abbots was still kept up, whose

names are sometimes mentioned in our annals.

III.--DUNGAL.

Dungal, however, after Columbanus was, perhaps the greatest glory of the

School of Bangor. This distinguished theologian, astronomer, and poet, was

one of the Irish exiles of the ninth century who were so highly honoured

in the Court of France. His name is not widely known to fame; yet few men

of his time held so high a place in the estimation of his contemporaries,

or rendered more signal service to the Church. The controversy concerning

image worship was carried on with great warmth in the Frankish Empire

during the first quarter of the ninth century, and in this contest Dungal

was the foremost champion of orthodoxy. He gave the _coup de grace_ to the

Western Iconoclasts; after his vigorous refutation of Claudius of Turin,

they troubled the Church no more. It is well, therefore, to know

something of his history.

That Dungal was an Irishman is now universally admitted. The name itself

is conclusive evidence of his nationality. It was quite a common name in

Ireland, and seems to have been peculiarly Irish. We know of no foreigner

who was called "Dungal;" but we find from the index volume of the _Four

Masters_, that between the years A.D. 744 and 1015 twenty-two

distinguished Irishmen bore that name.

In a poem which he composed in honour of his friend and patron,

Charlemagne, Dungal calls himself an Irish exile--_Hibernicus exul_. There

can hardly be a doubt that he was the author of this beautiful poem to

which we shall refer further on. At the close of his life he retired to

the Irish monastery of Bobbio, in the north of Italy, founded by

Columbanus, to which he left all his books, as we know from Muratori's

published list. One of them, according to the opinion of Muratori, was the

famous _Antiphonary of Bangor_, which Dungal brought from that great

school at home, and fittingly restored to Irish hands at his death.

Yet unfortunately we cannot fix the place or date of his birth in Ireland,

although the possession of the _Bangor Antiphonary_ leaves little room to

doubt that he was educated in the monastic school of St. Comgall. Not a

cross, nor even a stone, now remains to mark the site of the famous

monastery whose crowded cloisters for a thousand years overlooked the

pleasant islets and broad waters of Inver Becne;[305] but the fame of the

great school which nurtured Columbanus and Gall, and Dungal and Malachy

can never die.

In all probability Dungal left his native country in the opening years of

the ninth century. Two causes most likely induced him to leave Ireland,

the fame of Charlemagne, as a patron of learned men, and the threatened

incursion of the Danes, who were just then beginning their long career of

pillage and slaughter in Ireland.

However, in A.D. 811, we find Dungal in France. In that year he addressed

a remarkable letter to Charlemagne on the two solar eclipses which were

said to have taken place in the previous year, A.D. 810. He is described

at this time as a _recluse_, that is, one who led a monastic life in

solitude; he seems, however, to have had some connection with the

community of St. Denis, for he evidently recognised the Abbot Waldo as his

superior. From the tone of this letter we can also infer that the Great

Charles honoured the Irish monk with his intimacy and confidence, and the

monarch seems to have the highest opinion of Dungal's learning. He

accordingly requested the Abbot Waldo to ask the Irish monk to write an

explanation of the two solar eclipses, which are said to have happened in

A.D. 810. It is well known that Charles took a great interest in the

advancement of knowledge, and was himself a diligent student. Hence he was

anxious to understand that portion of divine philosophy, of which Virgil

sang--

"Defectus solis varios lunaeque labores."

Moreover, although there certainly was a solar eclipse on the 30th of

November, A.D. 810, visible in Europe, it was alleged by many persons that

there had been another eclipse in the same year on the 7th of June, if not

visible in Europe, yet certainly visible in other parts of the world. This

last point especially seems to have staggered the scientific faith of the

royal scholar, and hence he appealed to his friend Dungal for an

explanation.

The letter of Dungal in reply is exceedingly interesting. It is addressed

to Charles, and is entitled, "Dungali Reclusi Epistola de duplici solis

eclipsi, anno 810 ad Carolum Magnum." We have read it over carefully. It

is written in excellent Latin, and shows that the writer was intimately

acquainted with many of the classical authors, especially with Virgil and

Cicero. But we cannot guarantee its scientific accuracy in all points. He

starts with an explanation of the celestial sphere according to the

Ptolemaic system, and hence some of his statements seem very strange to

those acquainted with the Copernican theory only of the heavenly bodies.

In the main, however, his explanation of the eclipses of the sun and moon

is accurate enough.[306] "The Zodiac," he says, "or space through which

the planets revolve, is bounded by two lines," which he takes care to

explain are imaginary. "A third line drawn between them is called the

ecliptic, because when the sun and moon during their revolution happen to

be in the same straight line in the plane of this ecliptic, an eclipse of

one or the other must of necessity take place; of the sun, if the moon

overtake it in its course--_ei succedat_; of the moon, if at the time it

should be opposite to the sun. Wherefore," he adds, "the sun is never

eclipsed except the moon is in its thirtieth day; and in like manner the

moon is never eclipsed except near its fifteenth day. For only then it

comes to pass that the moon, when it is full, being in a straight line

with the earth opposite to the sun receives the shadow of the earth; while

in the other case, when the moon overtakes the sun (is in conjunction), by

its interposition it deprives the earth of the sun's light. Therefore when

the sun is eclipsed, the sun itself suffers nothing, only we are robbed of

its light; but the moon suffers a real loss by not receiving the sun's

light through which it is enabled to dispel our darkness." We think it

would require an intermediate exhibitioner to give as lucid an exposition

of the cause of the eclipse as was given by this Irish monk of the ninth

century, and we are quite certain he would not write it in as good Latin.

As for determining the exact dates of the eclipses of the sun, and,

therefore, the possibility of having two in the year A.D. 810, Dungal

cannot undertake to compute them, not having near him Pliny the Younger,

and some other necessary works. However, the thing is quite feasible, and

many ancient philosophers knew and foreknew--_scierunt et

praescierunt_--all about these eclipses. He concludes his letter with an

elegantly written eulogy of Charles the Great, imploring all Christians to

join with him in beseeching God to multiply the triumphs of Charles, to

extend his empire, preserve his family, and prolong his life for many

circling years. The language in the original is exceedingly well chosen

and harmonious.

After this time we lose sight of Dungal for several years. Charlemagne

died in A.D. 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious, and on the

31st of July, A.D. 817, Louis associated with himself his son Lothaire in

the Imperial Government. Lothaire, young and energetic, was crowned King

of Lombardy in A.D. 821, and next year proceeded to put his kingdom in

order. The warlike Lombards, though conquered by Charlemagne, and kept in

restraint by his strong arm, were a restless and turbulent people.

Lothaire, believing that education and religion would be the most

efficacious means to keep them in order, and consolidate his own power,

induced Dungal and Claudius of Turin, as well as several other scholars of

the Imperial Court, or the famous Palace School, to accompany him to

Italy. Claudius, a Spaniard, of whom we shall have more to say again, was

made Bishop of Turin; and Dungal opened a school at Pavia. In a short time

it became famous; for the master was the first scholar in the Court of the

Emperor. Students flocked from every quarter--from Milan, Brescia, Lodi,

Bergamo, Novara, Vercelli, Tortona, Acqui, Genoa, Asti, and Como.[307]

This was about A.D. 822, the very year, or as others say, the year after

Claudius became Bishop of Turin. About the same time Lothaire himself went

on to Rome, where he was crowned emperor by the Pope, Pascal I., with

great solemnity in A.D. 823.

Dungal and Claudius were thus immediate neighbours. Both were ripe

scholars, both held high and responsible positions; but Claudius, who had

long held erroneous doctrines, now thought it safe to throw off the

disguise. The wolf showed himself, and at once the Irish wolf dog sprang

upon his foe. In order to understand this struggle, which was the last

effort of Western Iconoclasm, we must go back a little and trace the chain

of events which led up to the crisis.

The Seventh Æcumenical Council, and Second of Nice, was concluded at that

city in A.D. 787. This Council, accepting the teaching propounded by Pope

Hadrian I. in his letter to the Empress Irene, and her son Constantine,

explained and defined the Catholic doctrine concerning the worship of

images. It was distinctly declared that supreme worship was due to God

alone; but that an inferior worship should be rendered to the Blessed

Virgin and the saints; and, finally, that a relative worship was due not

only to the sign of the Cross, but also to the pictures and images of the

Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and of the saints of God. This relative

worship was not, however, paid to the images on account of _their own_

supernatural excellence; it was only a token of the love and honour which

Christians have for the originals represented by the images.

The acts of this famous Synod were, of course, in Greek, so Pope Hadrian

had them translated into Latin, and sent a copy to Charlemagne, apparently

in A.D. 789 or 790.

Unfortunately the Latin version was very faulty in many respects.

Anastasius, the Roman Librarian, a most learned scholar and competent

authority, declares that the translator knew very little of the genius

either of the Greek or Latin language; that he made a word-for-word

translation, from which it was frequently impossible to ascertain the real

meaning; and hence, in his time, about sixty years later, few persons were

found to read or transcribe this faulty copy. So Anastasius himself found

it necessary to make a new and correct translation. The French

theologians, therefore, at whose head was the keen-eyed Alcuin, found in

this translation many things to censure, in which they were right, and

many other things they censured in which they were clearly wrong. The

result of their labours is known to history as the famous Caroline

Books--_Libri Carolini_. They were published under the name of Charles

himself, but Alcuin is generally regarded as the real author.[308]

The emperor was so pleased with his work that he resolved to send this

treatise to the Pope himself. Meantime, however, he convened the Synod of

Frankfort in A.D. 794, at which some three hundred Bishops of the Frankish

Empire are said to have assembled.[309] Here, again, the great monarch,

following the example, but scarcely imitating the modesty of Constantine

at Nice in A.D. 325, presided in person, and resolved to prove himself a

theologian. The Synod met in the great hall of the Imperial Palace. The

emperor was on his throne; the bishops were seated round in a circle; an

immense throng of priests, deacons, and clerics filled the hall. Rising up

from his seat Charles advanced, and standing on the step of the throne

pronounced an elaborate harangue, mainly on the heresy of the

Adoptionists, but referring also to the errors of the last Greek Synod

regarding image worship, and he called upon the prelates present to judge

and decide what was the true faith.

The Council did so, at least in their own opinion, after ten days'

discussion. They very properly condemned the heresy of the Adoptionists,

and the condemnation was approved in Rome; but in the Second Canon they

very improperly censured the Second Council of Nice, as if it declared

that the same worship and adoration were due to the images of the saints,

as are paid to the Holy Trinity. Of course the Council of Nice in their

authentic acts had declared exactly the reverse. Moreover, the prelates of

Frankfort added that they would give neither _servitus_ nor _adoratio_ to

the images of the saints; and, no doubt, they were right in the sense in

which they used these terms.

It seems probable that the Caroline Books, written about A.D. 790 or 791,

were approved of in this assembly before they were sent to the Pope. But

when Hadrian received them he very promptly and effectively refuted them.

To each censure of the Council of Nice he gave an elaborate answer, in

which the Pope convicts the authors of the Caroline Books, from the

extracts sent to him, of grave errors in doctrine, as well as of

misquotations and misrepresentations of the Fathers. He shows that they

did not understand the true meaning of the Sacred Scriptures in those

passages which they cited, that they attributed to the Nicene Fathers

errors which they never taught, and that it was the Pope, not the French

bishops, who had received authority to teach the Universal Church.

The authors of the Caroline Books richly deserved this castigation. They

went so far as to declare that the Synod of A.D. 754, which ordered images

to be broken, as well as the Synod of A.D. 787, which commanded them to be

worshipped, were _infamae_ and _ineptissimae_. God alone is, according to

them, to be _adored_ and _worshipped_, and the saints may be _venerated_;

but no kind of adoration or veneration may be paid to the images of the

saints, because they are lifeless, and made by the hands of men. It is

evident the Frankish theologians did not understand what is meant by

relative worship. They admit, however, that the images of the saints may

be retained for adorning churches, and also as memorials of the past; but

it is not lawful to worship them even by such veneration as is paid to

men, _salutationis causâ_. Such is the substance of the doctrine put

forward by the authors of the Caroline Books.[310] Pope Hadrian died on

Christmas Day A.D. 795, and the controversy concerning image worship seems

to have been lulled for some years in the West. It broke out again,

however, with greater warmth in A.D. 824. In the month of November of that

year an Embassy arrived at Rouen, where Lothaire was then holding his

court, bearing letters and presents from the Greek emperor, Michael the

Stammerer, to his western brother.

Michael was an Iconoclast, but not an extreme one; and wrote a very

plausible letter, in which he complains of the superstitious excesses of

the image-worshippers at Constantinople. He represents himself as the

friend of peace and harmony, anxious to repress the excesses of both the

extreme parties; and he beseeches his brother Lothaire to lend him his

aid, especially by his influence with the Pontiff of the old Rome, to whom

he sends several presents with a view to gain his good will and

co-operation for the same laudable purpose. Lothaire, ignorant of the real

facts of the case, and misled by this most deceptive document, promised

his assistance to the Greek ambassadors in Rome, and resolved to aid in

the good work of reconciling the extreme parties in the East. He wrote to

Pope Eugenius II. to that effect, and asked his permission to appoint a

conference of the prelates of his empire, with a view to sift the question

thoroughly. The Pope seems to have consented to this course; and the

conference met at Paris on the 1st of November, A.D. 825.

These gentlemen issued a most elaborate production addressed to the

emperor, by him to be forwarded to the Pope. They begin by attacking the

letter of Hadrian to Constantine and Irene, in which letter, as they

allege, he ordered images to be superstitiously adored--_quod

superstitiose eas adorari jussit_. In support of his doctrine he cited the

Fathers, but according to them it was _valde absona_ what he cited, and

_ad rem non pertinentia_.

Then they attack the Second Council of Nice which gravely erred by

ordering images to be worshipped, as the Great Charles had clearly proved

in the books sent to Rome by the Abbot Angilbert. And Hadrian, too, in his

answer to this treatise, when defending the Synod, wrote what he liked,

not what he ought--quae _voluit_, non tamen quae _debuit_.

This was not enough for this Paris Conference; they had the assurance to

dictate to the Pope what he was to write in reply to the Greek emperor;

and to Lothaire himself they recommended what he ought to write to the

Pope. On the point of doctrine they declare that nothing made by the hands

of man is to be adored or worshipped; and to prove their position they

quote St. Augustine, who, according to them, says that image worship had

its origin with Simon Magus, and a _meretricula_ called Helen!

When the Emperor Lothaire received these precious documents from the two

prelates, Halitgar and Amalarius, deputed to present them, and ascertained

their contents, he told them, as might be expected from a sensible man,

that the letter to the Pope especially contained some things that were

superfluous and more that were impertinent. He therefore commissioned

Jeremias of Sens, and Jonas of Orleans, to make extracts from the report

which would be more to the point and less likely to give offence in Rome;

telling them, at the same time, to show every respect to the Pope, as they

were bound to do; that although much might be gained by deference, nothing

could be effected by exasperating the Pontiff. If, he adds, the

_pertinacia Romana_ will make no concessions, but the Pope is prepared to

send an embassy to Constantinople, then let them try at least to induce

him to allow the emperor also to send an embassy in conjunction with that

of the Pope.

The emperor himself wrote a respectful and plausible letter to the Pope,

urging upon him to send ambassadors to the Greek court, adding that he

might send with them the two bishops who bore the report of the Paris

Conference to His Holiness; and that thus he might be instrumental in

restoring peace to the distracted Churches of the East.

Things were at this pass when Dungal appears upon the scene. The prelates

of France were, many of them at least, not quite sound on the question of

image worship; but Claudius of Turin, just about this time, brought things

to a crisis.

This Claudius was a Spaniard, educated in his youth by Felix, Bishop of

Urgel, in Spain, one of the leaders of the Adoptionist heretics. The mind

of Claudius was infected with this as well as several other errors; but

especially with the most extreme form of Iconoclasm.

Like Dungal, he seems to have been in high favour at court; but he kept

his errors at that time to himself, at least in their extreme form. When

appointed to the See of Turin he threw off the mask. On his first or

second visitation he removed the crosses from his cathedral, he broke the

images of the saints, and the holy pictures on the walls; he declaimed

from the pulpit even against the worship of the saints themselves, or

their relics in any shape or form; and finally, heartily denounced the

pilgrimage to Rome, which even then was customary with the faithful, as

unnecessary and superstitious.

These rash and violent proceedings gave great scandal to the faithful of

the diocese. They were divided into two factions; for the bishop had

numerous partisans of his own, but they were in a minority; and on one

occasion the prelate very narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the

mob. The wily Claudius, however, by his representations to the emperor, in

which he threw all the blame on the turbulence of the superstitious

Lombards, succeeded in maintaining his ground.

About A.D. 824 a friend of his, the pious Abbot Theodemir, wrote a

remonstrance to Claudius on his proceedings, in which he adjured him, by

the memory of their former friendship, to discontinue these odious

proceedings, reminding him how unworthy it was of a Christian bishop to

dishonour the Saints of God, to insult the Cross of Christ, and break the

images of His saints and martyrs.

This gentle remonstrance only made the Iconoclast more furious. He wrote a

reply to the holy abbot, a considerable portion of which has come down to

us, and shows Claudius in his true colours.

It is entitled--"Apologeticum atque Rescriptum Claudii Episcopi adversus

Theutmirum Abbatem."

It was this work brought out Dungal. He had hitherto been much pained at

the proceedings of Claudius; for being then in Pavia he could scarcely be

ignorant of what took place in Turin. Most of the French prelates,

however, themselves more or less infected with unsound doctrine, held

aloof; and even Agobard of Lyons wrote in favour of Claudius, so Dungal,

although probably only a deacon, if, indeed, at all in holy orders, felt

it his duty to come forward as the champion of the truth. He got his

teaching not in France or Germany, but in Ireland; so he was not tainted

with the errors of the Frankish theologians.

Dungal's treatise against Claudius is entitled: "Dungali Responsa contra

Perversas Claudii Taurinensis Episcopi Sententias."

In the prologue of the book Dungal declares that for God's honour, and

with the sanction of Louis and his son Lothaire, he undertakes to defend,

on the authority of the Holy Fathers, the Catholic doctrine against the

frantic and blasphemous trifling of Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Many times

since his arrival in Italy he had just cause to complain, whilst he saw

the field of the Lord oversown with tares, yet he held his peace in grief

and pain. He can, however, do so no longer, when he sees the Church

distracted, and the people seduced by deceivers. He first sets forth very

clearly the points at issue between the rival parties, and then proceeds

to refute Claudius, and prove the Catholic doctrine, observing at the

outset that it was astonishing insolence for any man to presume to

"censure and blaspheme that doctrine and practice which for 820 years or

more was followed by the blessed Fathers, by most religious princes, and

by all Christian households up to the present time."

After proving that these practices were not only not forbidden, but

sanctioned by God Himself in the Pentateuch, he goes on to establish this

tradition of the Catholic Church, quoting most of the Greek and Latin

fathers, the poems of Paulinus, Prudentius, and Fortunatus, the Acts of

the Martyrs and the Liturgy of the Church. He quotes, moreover, the

Apocalypse, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, at great length, to

prove the same doctrine, and alleges that it was the universal belief and

practice in the East and in the West from the days of the Apostles down to

his own time. The Greeks lately erred; but their errors were retracted and

condemned.

It is impossible not to admire the great knowledge of Sacred Scripture and

Patristic literature displayed by the author. He reasons, too, clearly and

cogently; and writes in a limpid and flowing style. Indeed, we know no

writer of that age who excels Dungal in Latin composition, whether in

poetry or prose; and this is generally admitted by those acquainted with

the Latin literature of the period. Muratori observes that this work shows

that Dungal was a man of wide culture.[311] This is high testimony from

such an authority. Papirius Massonus, in his address to the prelates and

clergy of Gaul prefixed to the treatise of Dungal, calls him an excellent

theologian--_Theologus excellens_--and Alzog declares that the sophistical

reasoning of Claudius, Bishop of Turin, was refuted by Jonas, Bishop of

Orleans, but much _more ably_ by Dungal, an Irish monk of St. Denys, and

subsequently by Strabo and Hincmar of Rheims.

Dungal's was not only the ablest, but also the first work that was written

on the subject; for in it he alludes to the Synod or Conference of Paris

in A.D. 825, as held two years before. So it must have appeared in A.D.

827, long before the refutations published by Jonas, Eginhard, Strabo, or

Hincmar. Henceforward Iconoclasm began to lose ground in the West; and

soon entirely disappeared, until revived in the sixteenth century.

As was observed before, towards the close of his life, Dungal retired to

the monastery of Bobbio, to which he bequeathed his books. From Bobbio

they were transferred to Milan, in A.D. 1606, by Cardinal Frederic

Borromeo, and are now in the Ambrosian Library of that city. Among them

were three Antiphonaries, one of which seems to have been the famous

Bangor Antiphonary. Dungal, no doubt, procured these ancient rituals in

order to quote them against Claudius in support of the Catholic doctrine.

He appropriately dedicated the work to his countryman St. Columbanus.[312]

Columba, as Lanigan observes, was the real name of Columbanus, the founder

of Bobbio, and in all probability, when Dungal calls himself an _incola_

of the saint, he rather means fellow-countryman, than inmate of his

monastery.[313]

We cannot stay to criticise the poetry of Dungal. His best poem is an

elaborate eulogy on Charlemagne, written in hexameter. Some critics have

questioned if Dungal were the author; the style, however, even of the

opening lines of the poem, compared with the first lines of the epitaph

which he wrote on himself leaves no doubt that the "Irish Exile" was

Dungal. The smaller poems that survive, are written in elegiac metre, and

display considerable taste, although not much imagination.

There is every reason to think that Dungal, who died about the year A.D.

834, was buried in the crypts of Bobbio. He sleeps well with the friendly

saints of Erin; and we earnestly join in his own humble prayer, that he

may live for ever with those saints in heaven, even as their dust has long

commingled in their far-off graves under the shadows of the

Appenines.[314]

IV.--ST. MALACHY.

We cannot close the history of the School of Bangor without giving a

sketch of the life of its greatest abbot, St. Malachy, who may, indeed, be

regarded as its second founder. We refer to him here, not because he was a

great scholar or a distinguished writer, but rather because the Abbot of

Bangor was the great reformer of the Irish Church in the twelfth

century--a man pre-eminent for the zeal, energy, and holiness of his

apostolic career in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers. He

was, says the _Chronicon Scotorum_, the man who restored the Monastic and

Canonical rules of the Church of Erin; and that sentence is really a

summary of his whole life.

St. Malachy--in Irish Maelmeadhog--was born probably in the neighbourhood

of Bangor or Armagh in the year A.D. 1095. The family name was O'Morgair,

or O'Mongair, which it is said was afterwards changed into O'Dogherty. His

father was a lay professor or lecturer in the School of Armagh; but his

mother seems to have come from the neighbourhood of Bangor, of which her

brother, the uncle of Malachy, was afterwards titular abbot or perhaps

airchinnech. The boy was thus fortunate not only in having the advantages

of a famous school and a learned father; but also in attaching himself as

a personal friend and disciple to the great and holy Imar O'Hagan, who

then lived as a recluse in Armagh. It was doubtless under his holy

guidance that Malachy acquired that fund of solid virtue which he

afterwards exhibited throughout his life.

In consequence of his eminent virtues whilst still very young, Malachy was

promoted by Celsus of Armagh to deacon's orders; and shortly afterwards,

before he had attained the then canonical age of thirty, he was ordained a

priest by the same great prelate.

Wishing to perfect himself in sacred learning, and especially in the laws

and discipline of the Church, St. Malachy next went to the great College

of Lismore, which was at this period under the presidency of the venerable

Malchus, Bishop of Waterford, and apparently also of Lismore. St. Bernard

describes him as then an old man full of days and virtues, and richly

endowed with divine wisdom. He was an Irishman by birth, but had been

trained in the monastery of Winchester to a more accurate knowledge and

observance of ecclesiastical discipline than were to be found at that time

in Ireland. Under the influence and direction of this prelate the School

of Lismore became, perhaps, the first in Ireland,[315] and St. Malachy

fully availed himself of its great advantages.

On his return from Lismore in A.D. 1125, he was at once appointed to the

Abbacy of Bangor. His uncle, the lay or titular abbot, gave up to Malachy

peaceable possession of the ruined monastery and its wide domains, and

became himself an humble monk of the new community--yes, a new

community--the abbey lands were there, and a nominal abbot who enjoyed the

revenues, but no church, no school, no community.[316] The ancient home of

the saints had become a wilderness, the stones of the sanctuary were

scattered, no sacrifice was offered on its altars.

It was the work of the Danes, who made a more complete ruin of Bangor than

of any monastery elsewhere; because it was on the sea-shore of that narrow

channel between Down and Galloway, which was the highway of the pirates.

St. Bernard says that it was reported that in one day they slew nine

hundred monks at Bangor.

Malachy now took twelve brethren with him and began to build an oratory

once more at Bangor. It was finished in a few days, for it was an humble

building in the Irish style--opus Scoticum--constructed of planed boards,

but closely and firmly put together. Cells for the monks were built around

it, and thus Bangor again began to flourish.

Then Malachy most unwillingly was taken from his infant monastery and made

Bishop of Connor, that is of the entire County Antrim. At this time things

were in a dreadful state in Antrim. There is no reason to question the

testimony of St. Bernard. He is an independent and impartial witness, who

got his information from St. Malachy and the disciples, whom he had left

at Clairvaux. No doubt St. Bernard is rhetorical in style, but he is

definite in statement. The natives were indocile and immoral. They

neglected to go to confession, contracted illegitimate marriages, paid no

tithes or first fruits. There were few priests, and no preaching in the

churches. Malachy girt up his loins for the work before him. He went

amongst the people on foot, accompanied with a few disciples. He

admonished, he instructed, he ordained priests, he preached the Gospel

everywhere. He had to endure much, but in the end he succeeded. The face

of the country was soon changed, the desert bloomed as a garden, and the

people that were not the Lord's became once again the chosen people of

God.

It was during these years that Malachy went to the south of Ireland on a

visit to his friend Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Cashel, and there founded

the monastery which St. Bernard calls monasterium Ibracense, on land given

him by King Cormac for that purpose. St. Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, had

been driven by usurpers out of his See and was now in the south of

Ireland, at Ardpatrick, in the co. Limerick, over which, as heir of St.

Patrick, he claimed certain rights. Feeling his end approaching, and

knowing that St. Malachy was, of all others, best fitted to succeed him in

the Chair of St. Patrick, he sent him his crozier as a token of his wish

to have Malachy as his successor.

But Malachy was unwilling to be transferred to the primatial See, and not

without good reason. First of all he wished the translation to be made in

a canonical way by the bishops of the province with the sanction of

Gilbert the Papal Legate. This, however, was soon accomplished, the

temporal princes also giving their cordial adhesion to the proposal. Then

Malachy consented on one condition, that when things were put in order in

Armagh, he might be free once more to return to his own diocese and his

beloved monastery of Bangor.

Malachy now found that he had even a more difficult and dangerous task to

accomplish in Armagh than had awaited him in the County Antrim.

For more than two hundred years a family of usurpers had established

themselves at Armagh, and held the land and See of Armagh, transmitting it

from father to son, or grandson, in regular hereditary succession. Most of

them were laymen and married men; but they paid regularly ordained

prelates to perform all necessary episcopal functions, keeping for

themselves the lands, the nomination to the churches, and even the titles

of Bishops and Abbots of Armagh.

It has been said that some of these married men were regularly consecrated

prelates duly recognised by the Irish Church. There is not a shadow of

evidence for the statement, except _the name of bishop_ which is given to

some of them. On the other hand, we have unexceptionable testimony that

these men were laymen, and that the title of bishop was given to them,

although they were laymen. St. Bernard settles the question. He says that

this wicked and adulterous generation were so obstinate in asserting this

right of hereditary succession, that although clerics of their blood were

wanting, bishops were never wanting--that is bishops who were not even

clerics. Of these, he says, before Celsus there were eight married men,

learned enough but without orders.[317] "Denique jam octo extiterant ante

Celsum viri uxorati, et absque ordinibus, litterati tamen." Gerald Barry

tells exactly the same story--that various churches in Ireland and Wales

had lay abbots.[318] He explains too, how it came to pass. Certain

powerful men in the parish, who were at first the stewards of the church

lands, and defenders of the clergy, afterwards usurped the ownership of

the lands, and in order to secure them for themselves, their children, or

their relations, they called themselves abbots and owners of the lands,

leaving only to the clergy such chance offerings as they might happen to

receive.

Such a system was of course the fruitful root of many evils. St. Malachy

resolved to expel these usurpers from the See of Armagh. It was a long and

difficult task; and frequently his life was in deadly peril. But God

visibly protected him; he was patient, too, and prudent, as well as

zealous; and in the end was completely successful. After three years of

patient toil, he was universally recognised as Primate; and having thus

banished the usurpers, he resigned the See to the care of the learned and

saintly Gelasius, and retired once more to his beloved Bangor, keeping

only the charge of the episcopal Church of Down.

We cannot follow St. Malachy through his subsequent glorious career. He

went to Rome and was specially honoured by Pope Innocent II., who put his

own mitre on his head, and his own stole around his neck in presence of

his court, and appointed him his Legate for all Ireland. On his way to

Rome he stopped at Clairvaux, where he had the good fortune of meeting St.

Bernard, who became his dearest and most intimate friend. In him too, St.

Malachy, more fortunate even than St. Columba, found a biographer who made

the virtues and merits of the Irish saint known to posterity, and to the

entire Church of God.

The saint also left at Clairvaux four of his disciples to be trained there

under the eyes of St. Bernard himself in the discipline of the great

Cistercian Order. It is to them we owe the introduction of that order into

Ireland in A.D. 1142, and all the great religious houses which the

Cistercians founded throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.

After his return home, armed with the plenary powers of Papal Legate,

Malachy devoted himself with even more zeal and success than before to

the reformation of his own diocese, and the general restoration of

ecclesiastical discipline throughout the kingdom. He was ably supported by

the Irish prelates both in the North and in the South; and he would have

changed the face of the Church before many years, but it pleased God to

call him to Himself all too soon for Ireland. In A.D. 1148 he went to

France to meet Pope Eugene III., who was then at Clairvaux. Before

Malachy, however, arrived, the Pope had departed, but he was consoled by

the warm welcome which he received from St. Bernard and his monks. Shortly

after the Irish saint fell sick to the great sorrow of the community, but

Malachy consoled them, and told them that there was no chance of his

recovery for it was God's will that he should die at Clairvaux. Feeling

his strength failing he caused all the brethren to be summoned to his

bedside. At once they came--St. Bernard at their head. "With longing I

have longed," said the dying man, "to eat this pasch with you"--that is

the holy Viaticum--"before I die, and I thank my God that my longing has

been gratified." Blessing them one by one he said, "Remember me, and

please God I will not forget you." So saying he rested a little; but

towards midnight the community was summoned again, and while they wept and

prayed around his bed, he fell asleep in the Lord, and "the Angels carried

his soul to Heaven." It was at midnight between the 1st and 2nd of

November, but the latter being All Souls' Day, his Feast is kept on the

3rd of November. He was canonized by Pope Clement III., about the year

A.D. 1190.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SCHOOL OF CLONENAGH.

"Pleasant to sit here thus

Beside the cold pure Nore."

--_Leabhar Breac._

I.--ST. FINTAN.

Several famous religious houses were in ancient days founded around the

base of the Slieve Bloom mountains, and the great saints who founded them

were mostly contemporaries and intimate friends. Saigher, now called

Serkieran, from the name of its founder, Ciaran the Elder, was situated in

the old territory of Ely, at the north-western base of the mountain, about

four miles east of Birr. Exactly at the southern corner of the mountain

slope St. Molua built his oratory, which was called from him

Cluain-ferta-Molua, but is now known by the name of Kyle. St. Cronan's

Church of Roscrea, his first oratory, close to Corville House, and the

beautiful little abbey of Monahincha--Giraldus' Island of the

Living--called by the Four Masters, Inis-locha-Cre--are all still to be

seen in the north-western extremity of Tipperary, not more than three

miles from Kyle. There on the great plain that stretches along the

south-eastern base of the mountain, we find, a little to the right of the

railway to Maryborough, first St. Canice's old abbey of Aghaboe, then

farther on to the left, near Mountrath, is St. Fintan's Church of

Clonenagh. Not far from Clonenagh is the townland of Disartbeagh, where

St. Ængus used to sit by the side of the 'cold pure Nore,' and like

Abraham, received visits from the angels. Still further on, not far from

Maryborough to the right, are Dysartenos, to which the same Ængus gave his

name, and Coolbanagher beyond the Heath of Maryborough, where he saw the

angels around the grave of the old soldier who loved to invoke the saints

of God. Not inviting from a scenic point of view are the marshy meadows

and sluggish streams of that broad plain; but it is relieved by the great

bold mountain on the left, and more than all it is crowded with memorials

of the saints of God.

Clonenagh, in Irish, _Cluain Eidnech_, the Ivy Meadow, is situated about

four miles south-west of Maryborough, in the Queen's County. At one time,

it is said, there were no less than seven churches there, and the fact

that there are at least four distinct old grave-yards, quite convenient to

each other, shows that there were at least several distinct churches

around Clonenagh in ancient times. From the sixth to the twelfth century,

it was not only a great school and monastery, but also the seat of a

bishop, who appears to have exercised jurisdiction over the western

portion of the ancient Leix (Laeghis), the territory of O'Moore.

It was indeed a secluded spot, almost surrounded by bogs, but the rounded

slopes of its verdant knolls gave picturesque variety to what would

otherwise be a very dreary scene. Its founder, St. Fintan, was a very

remarkable man--in fact an extreme type of the asceticism of the age; yet

he was greatly beloved in his own time, and his influence was felt for

many centuries after his death. Clonenagh, too, derives a special interest

from the fact that it was the _Alma Mater_ of Ængus the Culdee, the most

ancient and reliable authority we have on the history of the early saints

of Ireland.

Fintan was the son of Gabhren, of the race of Eochaidh Finnfuathairt, and

is said to have been born in the territory of Leinster. Leinster at that

time was, roughly speaking, bounded on the west by the River Barrow, and

did not include Leix. This Eochaidh was a brother of Conn the

Hundred-Fighter, who came to help the Leinster King to expel the men of

Munster from Leix and Ossory. For this service he received the Seven

Forthartha in Leinster, in which he and his descendants settled. The

Barony of Forth in Wexford was one of these districts, and still retains

the name. There is a local tradition that Fintan was born near

Clonenagh,[319] but this can hardly be reconciled with the express

statement of his Leinster origin. His mother was Findath, probably of the

same race. She was warned by an angel to retire to a secret place until

after the birth of her son, who would be holy to the Lord. On the eighth

day the child was baptized by a certain holy man, who dwelt in Cluain Mac

Trein; and hence it would appear that it was near this place the child was

born. It is supposed that the place takes its name from Trein, or Trian,

son of the celebrated Dubthach Mac Ua Lugair, who rose up to do honour to

St. Patrick at Tara. The Hy-Trian, his descendants by this Trian, seem to

have been located at Limbrick, in the Barony of Gorey, county Wicklow, and

it is not unlikely that Fintan was born there about the year A.D. 525. We

know that he was a little younger than Columcille, and as the latter was

born about A.D. 521, Fintan must have been born a few years later.

During his youth Fintan studied under the care of the holy man who

baptized him; but the place is not indicated in his life. It must have

been some place not very far from Clonard, for we are told that on one

occasion as Columcille was passing not far off, he stopped and invited his

companions to visit the master and his pupil. Fintan already filled with

the spirit of prophecy, had told his master to prepare for guests, as

Columcille was coming to visit him. The master doubting the boy, and

probably a little jealous of the favour shown him, sharply rebuked Fintan

for his presumption; but when Columcille arrived, he rebuked the master,

and told him that both himself and his place of abode would belong to

Fintan for ever. This would seem to imply that this incident took place

somewhere in the neighbourhood of Clonenagh.

Shortly afterwards Fintan was placed under the care of Columba Mac

Crimthann, better known as Columba of Terryglass; but he had yet not

founded that celebrated establishment on the shores of Lough Derg. With

Fintan there were two others, St. Caemhen of Annatrim, not far from

Clonenagh, and St. Mocumin, or Mochocma, who succeeded Columba at

Terryglass. These were both half-brothers of the great St. Kevin of

Glendalough; and very naturally were placed under the care of St. Columba,

son of Crimthann, who was their first cousin. Fintan was probably also

connected with these saints by family ties, as they all came originally

from the same district of Leinster. At first it seems Columba wished to

settle with his disciples at some place in their native territory--in

finibus Lageniensium--and actually had chosen a beautiful spot for their

monastery, where they hoped to live together in holiness and peace; for,

says the Life, they had only one heart, and in the gladness of their

united souls they cried out to their master, "Oh! it is good for us to be

here." "Not so," said Columba; "God reserves this place not for us, but

for one not yet born, Mobhi Mac Calde,"[320] or, as it is elsewhere, Mobhi

Mac Cumalde. The true reading is probably Mobhi Mac Colmaidh, who was the

son of Caeltigerna, a sister of St. Kevin, and a nephew (yet unborn) of

the two brothers, Mocumin and Caemhen; but the place of his Church has

not been ascertained. Thereupon they left the territory of Leinster and

came to the place now called Clonenagh, where they remained for an entire

year without, however, founding there as yet any permanent establishment.

It was surrounded by bogs, but sheltered by great oak woods festooned with

clustering ivy. Great crowds of people, however, and amongst them numbers

of their own friends, continued to crowd in upon the saints, and disturbed

their repose, so that Columba resolved to seek some more retired place in

which to serve God. They saw the wild solitudes of Slieve Bloom rising

over them to the north-west, and thither Columba now directed his steps,

followed by his faithful disciples. On the mountain side they met several

boys who were herding cattle, one of whom, Setne, was voiceless from his

mother's womb. Columba made the sign of the cross upon his mouth, and bade

him tell them the place of their resurrection. Then the dumb boy spoke

plainly, and told each of them where he was to die, and arise from the

dead. Hereupon Columba looking down the mountain saw Clonenagh, which they

had left, filled with God's angels, and he was much saddened at the sight.

Upon inquiry he told them the reason--how he saw the place they had

deserted filled with ministering angels, and how anxious he was that some

of them should return to the holy spot. So Fintan promptly volunteered to

return, and thus became the real founder of that great monastic

establishment, which ever since bears his name.

Numbers of disciples now gathered round him, for the fame of his sanctity

was very great. He wrote a Rule for his community which unfortunately has

been lost; but we are told that it was very strict, even beyond the

monastic rules of that time. His monks worked with hands and feet, digging

the soil with spade and hoe, as hermits usually do. They had no

cattle--not even a single heifer--and therefore no milk; they even refused

to take the milk which their neighbours, pitying their poverty, used to

bring them. Fintan would not allow it.

Cainnech, however, of Aghaboe, and other saints in the neighbourhood came

to Fintan, and begged him to remit a little of the extreme rigour of their

lives. Fintan, divinely admonished, yielded to their

suggestions--remitting the severity of his rule in favour of others--but

still himself adhering to his own practices of mortification.

It is no wonder that such a man was filled with the spirit of prophecy,

and performed many wonderful miracles, that were much noised abroad. One

miracle is recorded, which illustrates the spirit of filial affection that

prevailed in the midst of all this rigour of discipline. The saint went

out to see his monks, who were working in the field. When they saw their

father, like children, the half-starved monks ran up to him, and catching

hold of him, they besought him to give them something better than usual

for their refection, as great folk do, who visit the workmen. Fintan

smiled on his children, and told them he had nothing to give them; but

that God was good, and might give in his stead. Next day certain men came

from Leinster, bringing to the monastery waggon loads of provisions, as

much as eighty men could carry, so that the poor famished brethren, living

almost entirely on herbs, got more than one good meal from these supplies.

One of the most distinguished pupils that issued from this great school

was St. Comgall of Bangor. So great was the fame of Clonenagh at this

period that Comgall came all the way from Dalaradia to place himself under

the guidance of its holy abbot. As Clonenagh was founded about the year

A.D. 548, when Fintan was not more than twenty-five years of age, Comgall

can hardly have arrived there earlier than A.D. 550, and in that case the

master was probably eight or ten years younger than the disciple--a not

unusual occurrence in those days. Comgall at first felt all the severity

of the discipline at Clonenagh, and was greatly tempted to abandon his

purpose; but by God's grace, and the advice of Fintan, he persevered, and

then found his soul filled with great spiritual joy. He remained some

years at Clonenagh, where he formally received the monastic habit, though

he was not yet admitted to Holy Orders. By Fintan's advice he then

returned home to found the celebrated monastery on the southern shores of

Belfast Lough, which will be for ever connected with his name.

On another occasion, a certain cruel and heartless king, Colman, son of

Cairbre, the ruler of North Leinster, kept in bonds a noble youth, Cormac,

the son of Diarmaid, king of Hy-Kinsellagh, with the intention, it

appears, of putting him to death. Fintan, who was himself connected with

the royal race of the Hy-Kinsellagh, set out with twelve companions for

Rathmore, where Colman then lived and kept his prisoner. This is more

likely to be Rathmore, about four miles east of Naas, where the great rath

still exists, than Rathmore, east of Tullow, in the county Wicklow. In the

_Salamanca MS._, the place is called _Rathmoin_, and there is a Rathmoon

close to Baltinglass, which possibly may have been the scene of the

miracle. When Colman heard of Fintan's approach, he locked his gates, and

doubled the guards over the prisoner; but it was all in vain. The gates

opened of themselves to admit Fintan, and the terrified guards ran off to

tell their still more affrighted master, who quickly consented to release

young Cormac. One of Colman's sons wished to slay the late captive before

he could get away; but Fintan threatened him with Divine vengeance, a

threat that was speedily fulfilled, for he was slain before the end of a

month, whilst Cormac, the captive, became a monk, and ended his days in

peace and holiness in the monastery of Bangor. It may be that he was a

fellow-student of Comgall at Clonenagh, and was thus induced to go to the

monastery of his old fellow-student. We find, indeed, that an intimate

friendship and intercommunication existed between these two monasteries;

and very frequently the monks of Clonenagh paid a visit to St. Comgall at

Bangor, by whom they were always most kindly received.

On another occasion Fintan was sojourning at the monastery of

Achad-Finglass, most likely founded by himself at Idrone, in the County

Carlow. The old church of Agha, about four miles east of Old Leighlin,

probably marks the site of this monastery. A holy bishop, called Brandubh,

of the Hy-Kinsellagh, came to ask permission of the saint to be allowed to

end his days at Clonenagh. The saint readily consented, but advised the

bishop rather to remain where they then were, and where the rule was not

so strict, and would not be so severe as at Clonenagh. The bishop followed

Fintan's counsel, but induced him to promise that in case Fintan died

first, he would soon come to meet him, and bring his soul to heaven.

Fintan promised, and kept his word; for three weeks after his own death,

he came with seven spirits, clothed in white, to bring to heaven the holy

soul of the venerable bishop. May not this Agha monastery be that

religious house founded by Columba and his three disciples in the

territory of the men of Leinster before they came to Clonenagh?

"No one," says the writer of his Life, "can describe the charity,

meekness, humility, patience, abstinence, watchings, and other virtues of

this blessed man." He constantly watched over his community with the most

tender and devoted care. He was always ready to succour the afflicted, and

to protect the oppressed; his was a name which good men loved, and bad men

feared throughout all the territory of Leinster. Towards the close of his

life he chose one of his own monks, named Fintan Maeldubh, as his

successor, and 'placed him in his chair.' Then calling all the members of

the community around him, he raised his hands to heaven, and solemnly gave

them his blessing. After which he received the "Sacrifice," and went to

sleep in the Lord. He died on the 17th February, about the year A.D. 592,

some time before the death of St. Columba in A.D. 597.

A young man from Leix went to Iona, and when there asked St. Columba's

advice as to the choice of a spiritual director, when he should return

home. Columba recommended Fintan as the best and holiest director he knew.

We are told, however, that _shortly after_ this young man's return to

Ireland, Fintan was called to his reward; which shows that he must have

died at Clonenagh before St. Columba died at Iona. He was buried at

Clonenagh; but there is now no trace of his tomb.

St. Fintan has been called by many old writers the Father of the Irish

Monks, and he has been likened in his manner of life to St. Benedict, the

great founder of western monasticism--at least on the Continent of Europe.

He was not, indeed, the oldest, nor even the most celebrated of the Second

Order of Irish Saints, who devoted themselves to the monastic life. But he

founded his monastery when very young; his own life was extremely ascetic;

and he had amongst his novices and disciples several of the most

celebrated founders of religious houses in Ireland. In this way it came to

pass that as Finnian of Clonard was the tutor of the Saints of Ireland, so

Fintan came to be described as the Father of the Irish Monks. And as

Clonard was looked upon as a great school, so Clonenagh, like Aran, came

to be regarded during the life of its holy founder as a kind of noviciate

for the training of monks, many of whom went to Bangor, and elsewhere; and

thus diffused through Erin his discipline and his spirit.

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

II.--ST. ÆNGUS.

Ængus was a student at Clonenagh during the prelacy of the Abbot

Melaithgen or Melaithgenius.

The materials for a Life of St. Ængus are very scanty. We have no original

Life, and only two documents that tell us anything about him--the

Scholiast's Introduction to his writings, and a poem in praise of the

saint, written by a namesake, apparently not very long after his death.

From these two sources we gather the following facts:--

Through his father, Oengoba, son of Oblen, he derived his descent from

Coelbach, King of Ireland, who belonged to the royal race of the

Dalaradians of Ulster. He was probably born in the neighbourhood of

Clonenagh, about the middle of the eighth century. From his earliest youth

he seems to have been trained to sanctity and learning in the monastic

school of Clonenagh, which, as we have seen, was then ruled by the learned

and pious Melaithgen. Under this holy master the young Ængus made very

great progress. He not only became, as his writings prove, an accomplished

scholar, but also a model of every virtue. He seems to have been devoted

to ascetical practices even from his earliest youth; and he loved to spend

most of his time in prayer and solitude. Hence he came to be called by

excellence the Culdee, that is, the _Ceile De_, or servant of God. He was

probably the first to whom this appellation was given, as a kind of

surname in recognition of his great sanctity and self-denial. Afterwards

the name was given to other ascetic solitaries, who, though not a

religious order in the proper sense of the word, still formed communities

of anchorites living apart, but yet frequently meeting in the same church

for devotional purposes, and recognising a common superior to whom they

were duly obedient. Later on numbers of the secular clergy formed

themselves into somewhat similar communities, and came to be known by the

same name. They were in reality, however, what is known as Canons secular,

that is a body of secular clergy, living apart, but subject to a common

rule, which was generally the rule of St. Augustine.

The _Ceile De_ of the earlier period divided his time between prayer,

manual labour, and literary employment, if he were a man of learning and

ability. He was never a burden to others, for he and his brethren

contrived to procure from their little farms not only their own scant and

meagre fare, but also the means of hospitable entertainment for the poor

and the stranger.

Ængus seems to have spent, many years in this kind of solitary life,

living alone in his little cell, and finding sustenance in the roots of

the earth, or the produce of his garden. His first cell was probably at

Disert-beagh, which is not more than a mile from Clonenagh, and likely got

its name from having been the desertum, or solitary abode of the saint. He

had not yet forsaken his beloved community of Clonenagh on the banks of

the infant Nore; and he loved them dearly to the end, if we may believe

his poetical namesake in the _Leabhar Breac_--

"Pleasant to sit here thus

Beside the cold pure Nore."

And then follow the stanzas which, Mr. Matthew Arnold declared, show as

fine a perception of what constitutes propriety and felicity of style as

anything to be found in a Greek epitaph--

"Ængus out of the assembly of Heaven,

Here are his tomb and his bed,

It is hence he went to death,

On Friday to the holy Heaven;

It is in Cluain Eidnech he was reared,

It is in Cluain Eidnech he was buried,

It is in Cluain Eidnech of many crosses

He first read his psalms."

But Disert-beagh was not lonely enough for Ængus--it was too near the

great monastic school, and doubtless his solitude was often disturbed by

truant youth, or inquisitive strangers. So he put his books in his

satchel, took his staff in his hand, and made his way as best he could

through the bogs and morasses, where the railway now runs, until he came

to the place called after him, Dysert Enos or the Desert of Ængus. It is

about eight miles from Clonenagh, and two to the south-east of Maryborough

on the slope of a broken ridge of bluish gray limestone, that relieves to

some extent that dreary and featureless plain. The present grave-yard,

surrounding the roofless Protestant Church, probably marks the site of the

primitive oratory founded by Ængus; and shows that though dead to the

world, like most of his countrymen the self-denying ascetic had an eye for

the natural beauty of a picturesque landscape. It afforded him too what he

no doubt prized much, a distant prospect of his beloved Clonenagh, beyond

the swampy moorland, under the shadow of Slieve Bloom.

In this lonely retreat Ængus practiced the severest penitential

observance. He made three hundred genuflections every day; and moreover

recited the entire psaltery. But not in ordinary fashion; he divided his

self-imposed office into three parts. Fifty psalms he said in his cell;

fifty more he recited in the open air under the shade of a spreading tree

that embowered his little oratory; the last fifty, if we can credit his

biographer, he repeated with his neck chained to a post, and his body

half plunged in a huge tub of cold water.

Penance like this showed that Ængus was a saint; so in spite of his

efforts to conceal himself the world soon found him out, and strangers

began to disturb him once more. Before all things he loved to be alone,

and so once again he resolved to make his escape from men, and hide

himself for ever from their foolish admiration and applause. This time he

resolved to adopt another plan, and strove to escape from the crowd not so

much by shunning their presence, as by concealing his identity.

It is doubtful if Ængus when setting out knew what was to be his final

destination. He left his cell at Dysart Enos, trusting solely to the

guidance of Providence; and Providence never deserts those who put their

trust in God.

Shortly after setting out on his journey, as we should now say towards

Dublin, Ængus entered a way-side church to pray to God, and ask His

guidance and protection. This was probably the first church which he met

on his way; it is now called Coolbanagher, about four miles from Dysart

Enos, beyond the Heath of Maryborough, and not far from Portarlington.

There he saw a vision of angels hovering around a newly-made grave. He

asked the priest, who served the little church, whose was that new grave.

The priest told him it was the grave of a soldier who had served God

faithfully for many years. Then Ængus asked him was he in the habit of

practising any special mortification, or any peculiar devotion. The priest

knew of nothing special, or unusual, in his case, except that he made it a

constant practice every day to invoke the intercession of all God's

saints, whom he could call to mind. This incident made a very deep

impression on Ængus. He _saw_ how meritorious it was to invoke the saints;

and so he resolved thereafter, if he could find time and place, to compose

a metrical catalogue of the saints, which devout souls might more easily

remember and recite for their own spiritual welfare.

Afterwards Ængus went his way, and at length came to St. Maelruain's

monastery at Tallaght, near Dublin, then, and almost ever since, a

favourite home of religious men. He was quite unknown to the inmates of

the monastery, so, concealing his name and learning, he sought admission

into the community as an humble lay-brother. His pious request was readily

granted; but, of course, the novice was put to the meanest and hardest

work in the monastery. He reaped the corn in the field; carried it to the

barn on his back; threshed it; winnowed, dried, and ground it in the mill

for the use of the brotherhood. He wore the poorest rags he could find

during his rounds of daily toil; his hair was so unkempt that it was as if

the ears of corn grew in it; his hands were horny with the flail, and his

face black with sweat and dust. So he lived unknown to all, labouring with

his hands, but praying to God in his heart.

At length it pleased Providence to uncover this shining light, so that it

might be seen by men. A truant scholar of the monastery, who was either

unable or neglected to learn his lesson, fearing to present himself before

the abbot in class, took refuge in the barn where Ængus was working. He

sympathised with the poor boy, bade him lie down in the straw, and rest

himself, and that all would be well. The boy did so, and soon fell fast

asleep in the barn. When he awoke refreshed, Ængus asked him to repeat the

lesson; he obeyed, and partly, no doubt, by the instructions, and partly

by the kind encouragement of the good monk, he completely succeeded in

mastering his lesson. Ængus then told him go to the school, but to say

nothing of what happened in the barn. The boy went to his class, and

astonished his master by having his lesson perfectly--which seems to have

been in his case quite an unusual occurrence. The abbot, suspecting

something, made inquiries, and insisted on learning the whole truth. Then

the boy confessed what took place in the barn, and how the lay-brother had

gone over his lesson with him. The truth at once flashed upon the mind of

Maelruain; he had probably heard of the disappearance of Ængus from Dysart

Enos, and now felt certain that the hard-working lay-brother was no other

than the great scholar of Clonenagh. So he went at once to the barn, and

embracing Ængus most tenderly, reproached him for so long concealing

himself from the community. Ængus humbly asked pardon of the abbot, which,

of course, had been already granted, and was at once received into his

most intimate friendship--a friendship that endured until Maelruain's

death.

The abbot now resolved to utilize, for God's glory, the great learning and

talents of the distinguished scholar, whom Providence had bestowed on the

community of Tallaght. Ængus, on his part, was most anxious to co-operate

with Maelruain; and so these two holy men set about the composition of

those works which have contributed so much to the glory of God, and of the

ancient Church of Ireland.

The _Martyrology of Tallaght_ was probably their first work: and is

supposed to have been the joint production of Ængus and Maelruain. If so,

it must have been written before the year A.D. 792, when Maelruain died.

It is described by O'Curry as a catalogue in prose of the saints of Erin,

and their festival days, with brief notices in some instances of their

fathers and of the churches which they founded. It is considered to be the

oldest of our Irish Martyrologies; and according to Michael O'Clery--no

mean authority--it furnished the materials for the great poem called the

_Felire_, or Festology of the Saints, which Ængus subsequently composed.

Nor is it difficult to explain O'Curry's objection to this

hypothesis--namely, that it contains the names of several saints who lived

longer than Ængus himself--as, for instance, of Blathmac, who was martyred

in Hy by the Danes in A.D. 823, and Felimy MacCriffan (Crimhthainn) King

of Munster, who died in A.D. 825--for these names may have been added by a

later hand, or by the first copyist. The oldest copy of this Martyrology

is found in the _Book of Leinster_, but Brother Michael O'Clery made a

more complete copy, which is now in the Burgundian Library at Brussels. It

was borrowed from the Belgian Government in 1849, and copied for Dr. Todd

by the late lamented Eugene O'Curry. The same text was translated and

published, with notes, by Dr. Mathew Kelly, of Maynooth, in 1847.

The most celebrated, however, and by far the most valuable of the writings

of Ængus is his _Felire_, or Festology of the Saints. He conceived the

idea of this work from the vision of Angels which he saw in the old Church

of Coolbanagher, over the grave of the poor soldier, who used to invoke

the saints of God. Doubtless, as an aid to the memory, it is written in

verse, and in what O'Curry pronounces to be the best and purest style of

our language--the Gaedhlic of the eighth century. The same authority

declares that it is the oldest and the most important of all our

Martyrologies. One of the best copies is that contained in the famous

compilation called the _Leabhar Breac_, or Great Book of Duniry, in the

county Galway. In the preface or introduction to the work there is a short

notice of the writer, and of the time, place, and purport of his

composition.

The time of its composition was during the reign of the monarch Aedh

Oirnidhe, who reigned from A.D. 793 to 817, so that though planned during

the abbacy of Maelruain, it was not written until after his death. It

appeared probably about the year A.D. 800, with the approbation of one of

the greatest scholars of the time, "Fothadh of the Canon."

O'Curry conjectures that at this period Ængus had left Tallaght and

returned to his first cell at Disert-beagh, near Clonenagh. Aedh, the

King, just at this time made an incursion into Leinster, and pitched his

camp not far from Monasterevan, in the Queen's County. It seems that up to

this period the clergy were compelled to follow the native princes in

battle, and even sometimes took an active part in the conflict. This,

however, was altogether against the Canon Law; and on the present occasion

Conmach, the Primate-Archbishop of Armagh, and his clergy protested

against the practice, and appealed to the king to allow them to return

home and confine themselves to the discharge of their spiritual functions.

The king took this remonstrance in good part, and as they were encamped in

Leix, offered to refer their complaint to the decision of Fothadh, his own

poet, tutor, and adviser. Fothadh thus appealed to, gave his decision in

favour of the clerics and against the king, and being a poet gave it in

rhyme. His decision thus given, exempting the clergy from military

service, was known as the Canon, and he himself came to be called

Fothadh-na-Canoine.

Fothadh showed the stanzas in which he expressed his decision to Ængus,

who entirely approved of it both as to matter and form. Ængus on the same

occasion showed his own poem on the Saints of Erin to Fothadh, for he was

fully sensible of the great importance of securing for his own work the

approbation of the royal Bard. That approval was warmly and generously

given, accompanied with a strong recommendation to the faithful generally

to use the poem in their public and private devotions.

The _Felire_ is divided into three parts: the first part is introductory

to the body of the work, and consists of five quatrains, invoking in very

beautiful language the gift of heavenly wisdom from the King of the White

Sun, that the poet may, with a pure heart, fitly celebrate the praises of

the royal hosts of the great and good all-righteous King. He then alludes

to the consolation which he himself found in celebrating the praises of

the saints. He describes the various torments which the soldiers of Jesus

suffered, and which they endured with joyful heroism. Now they enjoy their

reward for ever with Mary's Son; while their bodies here below are

enshrined in bright gold. Herod and Pilate are then contrasted with

Christ, Nero with Peter and Paul, Pilate's queen with the Virgin Mary.

Earthly power and glory are fleeting in comparison with the love of

'Mary's Son,' and earthly princes are less than the lowly soldiers of

Jesus. Tara has perished, but Armagh is still crowded with the sons of

wisdom. King Laeghaire's glory is gone, but Patrick's name still lives and

will live for ever.

The body of the work contains 365 quatrains, in which the writer

celebrates on every day the praises not only of our principal Irish

saints, but also commemorates several saints of the Universal Church. The

text is interlined with a very ancient gloss and commentary, as well as

with notes fixing the sites of the churches of several of the saints

referred to. This gloss and the accompanying notes, whilst adding much to

the difficulty of editing the work itself, render it an invaluable

aquisition to the historian and archæologist.

In the third part the author recapitulates his poem, explains its

construction and arrangement, directs the faithful how to use it, and

apologises for the fact that of necessity he could only introduce the

chiefs and princes of the saints into his poem. Yet he spared no pains to

make it as complete as possible, consulting for the foreign saints,

Ambrose, Jerome, and Eusebius; and for the Irish saints, he not only

consulted "the countless hosts of the illuminated books of Erin," but he

himself travelled throughout the entire country visiting their churches

and collecting the local traditions regarding them. Lest, however, any

might be jealous for being omitted, he invokes them in this third part

under certain general heads--patriarchs, prophets, virgins, martyrs, etc.,

etc.--so that not a single one of the heavenly host at home or abroad can

complain of the want of some reference to his or her memory. It is not too

much to say that the _Felire_ of Ængus is on the whole the most valuable

of the Irish ecclesiastical treatises that have happily been preserved

down to our own times.

Another valuable work which we owe to the indefatigable industry of Ængus

is the collection of _Pedigrees of the Irish Saints_--the oldest, and

therefore the most authentic collection that we possess, and enriched

moreover with valuable topographical notes and references to many of our

ancient churches. The fifth part of this work is the _Book of Litanies_,

which has been published in the third volume of the _Irish Ecclesiastical

Record_. It affords conclusive proof of one fact, that the invocation of

the saints was not only a well recognised, but quite a common form of

devotion in the early Church of Ireland. Indeed there is scarcely a single

folio of any portion of the writings of Ængus that does not afford

conclusive evidence of the same fact.

The last work of Ængus is the _Saltair-na-Rann_, which Eugene O'Curry

describes as "consisting of 150 poems on the history of the Old Testament,

written in the finest style of the Gaedhlic language of the middle of the

eighth century." Probably it got its name from its resemblance, at least

in number, to the Psalms of David. It is, according to the same authority,

altogether a different work from the comparatively modern poem of the same

name in the British Museum.

In the year 1880 the _Felire, or Metrical Calendar of Ængus_, edited and

translated by Dr. Whitley Stokes, was published by the Royal Irish

Academy. In a paper read before the Academy so early as 1871, and prefixed

to this work, Dr. Stokes asserts that Ængus cannot have been the author of

the _Felire_; that similar linguistic reasons prove that he cannot have

been the author of the _Saltair-na-Rann_, and that there is not a particle

of trustworthy evidence to show that Ængus ever wrote either the

_Pedigrees of the Irish Saints_, or his celebrated _Litany of the Irish

Saints_. Dr. Stokes is a conscientious and painstaking writer, but with a

love of originality in his views. We carefully examined the reasons which

he gives in favour of these very original views, and we must say we

thought them exceedingly hollow. As to his linguistic reasons for

asserting that the _Felire_ and the _Saltair_ could not have been written

before the close of the tenth century, we may confidently set the opinion

of an Irish scholar like Eugene O'Curry against that of Dr. Whitley

Stokes, whose knowledge of Irish is purely book knowledge. There is not a

single linguistic form in the MSS., which he alleges to be later than the

eighth century, that cannot be explained by the well-known custom of the

copyists modernizing the language of the MSS., so as to make their copies

more intelligible to those for whom they wrote.[321] We have already

explained how in a similar way the names of a few saints, and of the

author himself, might have been added to the _Felire_ by a copyist who

wished to pay honour to a favourite saint of his own church. Flimsy

reasons of this kind manifestly cannot outweigh the explicit testimony of

the Scholiast's Introduction--written before the twelfth century in very

ancient Irish--that these were the works of Ængus, and giving us the time,

the place, and the circumstances of their composition, with the few facts

that are known to us concerning the life of the writer.