Newcomers ceased to fill their thinning ranks. Their force was finally
shattered at the battle of Clontarf, which the Annalist thus records:
"1013: The Foreigners of the west of Europe assembled against Brian and
Maelseaclain, and they took with them a thousand men with coats of mail.
A spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful and furious battle was fought
between them, the likeness of which was not to be found in that time, at
Cluain-tarb, the Lawn of the Bulls. In this battle was slain Brian son
of Ceinneidig, monarch of Ireland, who was the Augustus of all the west
of Europe, in the eighty-eighth year of his age."
The scene of this famous conflict is on the coast, between Dublin and
the Hill of Howth. A wide strand of boulders is laid bare by the
receding tide, with green sea-grass carpeting the stones. At the very
verge of the farthest tide are two huge sand-banks, where the waves roar
and rumble with a sound like the bellowing of bulls, and this tumultuous
roaring is preserved in the name of the place unto this day.
XI.
THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN.
A.D. 1013-1250.
There was, as we have seen, no "Danish Conquest" of Ireland, nor
anything approaching a conquest. What really happened during the ninth
and tenth centuries was this: Raiders from the shores of the Northern
seas, from the Scandinavian peninsula and the Western Isles of Scotland,
sailed in their long ships among the islands of the Irish coast, looking
for opportunities to plunder the treasuries of the religious schools,
and carrying off the gold and silver reliquaries and manuscript cases,
far more valuable to these heathen seamen than the Latin or Gaelic
manuscripts they contained.
These raids had little connection with each other; they were the outcome
of individual daring, mere boat's-crews from one or another of the
Northern fiords. A few of the more persistent gradually grew reluctant
to retreat with their booty to the frozen north, and tried to gain a
footing on the shores of the fertile and wealthy island they had
discovered. They made temporary camps on the beach, always beside the
best harbors, and threw up earthworks round them, or perhaps more
lasting forts of stone. Thus they established a secondary base for raids
inland, and a place of refuge whither they might carry the cattle, corn
and captives which these raids brought them from the territories of the
native clans. These camps on the shore were the germ of a chain of
sea-ports at Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick.
From these points raiding went on, and battles were fought in which the
raiders were as often vanquished as victorious. There was little union
between the various Norse forts, and indeed we sometimes find them
fighting valiantly among themselves. Meanwhile, the old tribal contest
went on everywhere throughout the island. The south invaded the north
and was presently invaded in return. The east and the west sent
expeditions against each other. Clan went forth against clan, chief
against chief, and cattle and captives many times changed hands. These
captives, it would seem, became the agricultural class in each clan,
being made to work as the penalty for unsuccessful fighting. The old
tribal life went on unbroken during the whole of this period; nor did
it subsequently yield to pressure from without, but rather passed
away, during succeeding centuries, as the result of inward growth.
Meanwhile the religious schools continued their work, studying Latin and
Greek as well as the old Gaelic, and copying manuscripts as before; and
one fruit of their work we see in the gradual conversion of the heathen
Norsemen, who were baptized and admitted to the native church. The old
bardic schools likewise continued, so that we have a wealth of native
manuscripts belonging to this time, embodying the finest tradition and
literature of the earlier pagan ages.
[Illustration: Giant Head and Dunluce Castle, Co. Antrim.]
If the Danes and Northern raiders never conquered Ireland, on the other
hand they never were expelled. Through the cessation of the original
impulse of unrest which brought them, they gradually ceased to receive
accessions from the North, and at the same time the forces of
amalgamation were slowly merging them into the national and tribal life
of their new home. Their separate influence grew less and less, but
their race continued, and continues to this day in the sea-ports we
have named.
We shall presently have to record another series of Norse inroads, this
time not directly from the North, but mediately, through France and
Britain, and we shall find that much of our subsequent history was
influenced by the new elements and principles then added. We shall do
well, therefore, to linger for a moment before this new transition, to
gain a clear view of the tendencies of the epoch then closed, the wider
significance of that chapter of our nation's life.
The culture of Ireland, during the period before the Northern raids,
bridged over the abyss between the classical and the mediaeval world.
During the whole of that period the rest of Europe was hidden under the
clouds of the Dark Ages. Ireland stood alone as the one cultured nation.
Receiving the classical learning from Roman Gaul and Britain and Italy,
while the old world was still alive, Ireland carried that culture onward
when Rome and the Roman Empire fell, crushed under the hordes of
Northern barbarians: the Franks in Gaul; the Lombards, Goths and Vandals
in Spain and Italy; the Angles, Saxons and Danes in Britain; and the
Picts and Northmen in the Scottish lowlands. Austria was meanwhile
overrun by Asian nomads, the Huns and Magyars; Russia and Germany, with
the Scandinavian lands, were still pagan.
Thus all Europe was submerged under a deluge of heathenism, and the old
Latin culture was swept away. The tradition of ancient Greece still
lingered at Constantinople behind the wall of the Balkans, but it had no
influence at all on the northern nations beyond the wall. Ireland was
thus the one exception, the ark of safety for the old wisdom and beauty
of classical days. And from Ireland, when the tide of heathen invasion
slackened, the light of classical times and the spirit of the New Way
went forth to all the nascent nations, the great pagan tribes that were
to form the modern world. Thus Ireland was the bridge over the Dark
Ages, the first of modern nations, keeping the old and blending it
with the new.
Yet another view of Ireland's significance must not be forgotten. Of the
original life of the great pagan world which swept over the Roman Empire
we know almost nothing. How much do we realize of the thought and genius
of Aleman, Frank and Vandal, of Angle and Lombard and Burgundian?
Nothing at all. The darkness that shrouds them is complete. But what a
contrast when we come to Ireland! If we leave out the basin of the
Mediterranean, with its Asian and African traditions, Ireland is the one
European nation which has clear records of its pagan history. And how
excellent that history was, how full of humanity and the rich wine of
life, the stories of Fergus and Concobar and Cuculain, of Find and Ossin
and Gael, of Meave and Deirdré and Credé bear sufficient witness. The
tide of Irish life to which they belong, and which brought them forth,
flowed on without break to a time so recent that their whole tradition
has come down to us, practically at first hand, from the heralds and
bards themselves. Ireland is, therefore, our one doorway to the history
of northern Europe through the long era of pagan times.
That history was everywhere a fierce tale of tribal warfare. Its heroes
are valiant fighters, keen leaders of forays, champion swordsmen and
defenders of forts. The air throbs to the battle-drum, rings to the call
of the war-trumpet. Every tribe, every clan, is in turn victor and
vanquished, raider and victim of raids. Everywhere are struggle and
unrest, tales of captivity and slaughter.
We fall into vain lamenting over this red rapine and wrath, until we
divine the genius and secret purpose of that wonderful epoch, so wholly
different in inspiration from our own. The life of races, like the life
of men, has its ordered stages, and none can ripen out of season. That
was the epoch of dawning individual consciousness, when men were coming
to a keen and vivid realization of themselves and their powers. Keen
consciousness and strong personal will could be developed only through
struggle--through long ages of individual and independent fighting,
where the best man led, and often fought for his right to lead with the
best of his followers. Innumerable centers of initiative and force were
needed, and these the old tribal life abundantly gave. The territory of
a chief hardly stretched farther than he could ride in a day, so that
every part of it had a real place in his heart. Nor was he the owner of
that territory. He was simply the chosen leader of the men who lived
there, perhaps the strongest among many brothers who shared it equally
between them. If another thought himself the better man, the matter was
forthwith decided by fighting.
The purpose of all this was not the "survival of the fittest" in the
material sense, but a harvest purely spiritual: the ripening of keen
personal consciousness and will in all the combatants, to the full
measure of their powers. The chiefs were the strongest men who set the
standard and served as models for the rest, but that standard held the
minds of all, the model of perfect valor was in the hearts of all. Thus
was personal consciousness gained and perfected.
If we keep this in mind as the keynote of the whole pagan epoch, we
shall be better able to comprehend the new forces which were added to
that epoch, and which gradually transformed it. The greatest was the
Message of the New Way. Deeds are stronger than words, and in the deeds
of the first Messengers we can see the new spirit bearing fruit. The
slave of Slemish mountain returned breathing not vengeance for his
captivity but pity and generous kindness towards his captors. Colum the
exile did not seek to enlist the Picts against his native land, but
sought rather to give the message of that land to the wild Pictish
warriors, and to spread humane and generous feeling among them. Thus was
laid the foundation of a wide and universal consciousness; a bridge was
built between soul and soul.
From the waning of the Norsemen to the first coming of the Normans is a
period of about a hundred and fifty years. We shall best gain an insight
into the national and religious life of that time by gleaning from the
Annals the vivid and living pictures they never fail to give,--pictures
which are the records of eye-witnesses. The strictly contemporary
character of the records is vouched for by the correct entry of
eclipses: for instance, "on the day before the calends of September, in
the year 1030, there was a darkening of the sun."
We see the genius of the Norsemen suffering a like eclipse the year
before: "1029: Olaf son of Sitric, lord of the Foreigners, was taken
prisoner by Matgamain Ua Riagain lord of Breag, who exacted twelve
hundred cows as his ransom, together with seven score British horses,
three score ounces of gold, the sword of Carlus, the Irish hostages,
sixty ounces of white silver as the ransom of his fetters, eighty cows
for word and supplication, and four hostages to Ua Riagain as a security
of peace."
Two generations later we read: "1088: Tigearnac Ua Briain, chief
successor of Ciaran and Coman, died. He was a paragon of learning and
history." The work of the paragon Tigearnac, a history of Ireland, is
extant and writ in choice Latin, a monument at once of the classical
learning of our schools and of the historical spirit carried down from
the days of the pagan heralds and bards. Tigearnac quotes abundantly
from Greek and Latin authors, fortifying his conclusions with passages
from Eusebius, Orosius, Julius Africanus, Josephus, Jerome and Bede.
A half-century later we get a quaint and vivid glimpse into the
religious life of the time: "1145: A lime-kiln which was sixty feet
every way was erected opposite Emain Maca by Gilla Mac Liag, the
successor of Patrick, and Patrick's clergy in general." Here is the glow
of that devotion through work which gave us the great mediaeval
cathedrals, the fervor and artistic power, which in former times adorned
the Gospels of the Book of Kells, now working out its way in lasting
stone. The date of this lime-kiln lies indeed just half-way between the
consecration of Cormac's Chapel at Cashel in 1134 and the foundation of
the beautiful cathedral beside it by the lord of Tuaid-Muma or Thomond
in 1152. Cormac's Chapel is a very pure example of native style,
untouched by foreign or continental influence.
[Illustration: Rock of Cashel, Ruins of Old Cathedral, King Cormac's
Chapel and Round Tower,]
We can divine the figure of one of the great men of the religious world
in the records for the year 1148: "A synod was convened at Saint
Patrick's Isle by Maelmaedog, called also Malachias, successor of
Patrick, at which were present fifteen bishops and two hundred priests,
to establish rules and morals for all. Maelmaedog by the advice of the
synod went a second time to Rome, to confer with the successor of
Peter." A few months later we read this record of his death: "Malachias,
that is, Maelmaedog Ua Morgair, Archbishop of the chair of Patrick,
chief head of the piety of the West of Europe, legate of the successor
of Peter, the only head whom the Irish and the Foreigners obeyed, chief
paragon of wisdom and piety, a brilliant lamp which illumined
territories and churches by preaching and good works, faithful shepherd
of the church in general,--after having ordained bishops and priests and
persons of every degree; after having consecrated many churches and
cemeteries; after having performed every ecclesiastical work throughout
Ireland; after having bestowed jewels and food upon the mighty and the
needy; after having founded churches and monasteries, for by him was
repaired in Ireland every church which had been consigned to decay and
neglect, and they had been neglected from times remote;--after leaving
every rule and every good moral in the churches of Ireland in general;
after having been the second time in the legateship; after having been
fourteen years in the primacy; and after the fifty-fourth year of his
age, resigned his spirit to heaven on the second day of November, and
was buried in the monastery of Saint Bernard at Claravallis in France."
This is the same worthy under whose influence was built the great
lime-kiln over against the fort of Emain, where Concobar once ruled.
Even from the scant notices which we have quoted he stands forth clear
and strong, full of spiritual and moral vigor, a great man in every
sense, and one in whom we divine a lovable and admirable spirit. At that
time there were four archbishoprics in Ireland, at Armagh, Cashel,
Dublin and Tuam; the primacy belonging to the first, as the seat of the
Damliag Mor or Great Stone Church, built by Saint Patrick himself. A
sentence in the Annals shows how the revenues were raised: "A horse from
every chieftain, a sheep from every hearth." A few passages like these
are enough to light up whole epochs of that mediaeval time, and to show
us how sympathetic, strong and pure that life was, in so many ways.
We find, meanwhile, that the tribal struggle continued as of old: "1154:
Toirdealbac Ua Concobar brought a fleet round Ireland northwards, and
plundered Tir-Conaill and Inis Eogain. The Cinel Eogain sent to hire the
fleets of the Hebrides, Arran, Cantyre and Man, and the borders of Alba
in general, and they fell in with the other fleet and a naval battle
was fiercely and spiritedly fought between them. They continued the
conflict from, the beginning of the day till evening, but the foreign
fleet was defeated." This records perhaps the only lesson learned from
the Norsemen, the art of naval warfare. We may regret that the new
knowledge was not turned to a more national end.
Four years later, "a wicker bridge was made by Ruaidri Ua Concobar at
Athlone, for the purpose of making incursions into Meath. There was a
pacific meeting between Ruaidri Ua Concobar and Tigearnan, and they made
peace, and took mutual oaths before sureties and relics." This is our
first meeting with a king as remarkable in his way as the great
archbishop his contemporary. Ruaidri descendant of Concobar was king of
Connacht, holding the land from the western ocean up to the great
frontier of the river Shannon. Eager to plunder his neighbors and bring
back "a countless number of cows," he undertook this wonderful work, a
pile bridge across the river, seemingly the first of its kind to be
built there, and in structure very like the famous bridge which Caesar
built across the Rhine,--or like many of the wooden bridges across the
upper streams of the Danube at the present day. We shall record a few
more of this enterprising and large-minded prince's undertakings,
following the course of the years.
In parenthesis, we find a clue to the standard of value of the time in
this record: "1161: The visitation of Osraige was made by Flaitbeartac,
successor of Colum Kill; the tribute due to him was seven score oxen,
but he selected, as a substitute for these, four hundred and twenty
ounces of pure silver." The price of an ox was, therefore, three ounces
of silver. The old-time barter, an echo of which still lingers in the
word "pecuniary" from the Latin name for "cattle," was evidently
yielding to the more convenient form of exchange through the medium of
the metals, which are easily carried and divided, and suffer no
detriment from the passage of time. With the wicker bridge and the
lime-kiln, this change from a tribute in cattle to a payment in silver
may remind us that we are on the threshold of the modern world.
In 1162 we find the king of Connacht in a new adventure: "An army was
led by Muirceartac Ua Lochlain, accompanied by the people of the north
of Ireland, the men of Meath, and a battalion of the Connacht men, to
At-Cliat, to lay siege to the Foreigners and the Irish; but Ua Lochlain
retired without battle or hostages after having plundered the Fair
Strangers. A peace was afterwards concluded between the Foreigners and
the Gaels; and six score ounces of gold were given by the Foreigners to
Ua Lochlain, and five score ounces of gold were paid by Diarmaid Ua
Maelseaclain to Ruaidri Ua Concobar for West Meath." Here again we see
the "countless cows" giving place to counted gold in the levying of
tribute. We note also, in the following year, that "a lime-kiln
measuring seventy feet every way was made by the successor of Colum Kill
and the clergy of Colum Kill in twenty days," in evident emulation of
the work of the Armagh see.
The synod already recorded as having been held in the little island of
Saint Patrick off the Dublin coast, gives us a general view of the
church at that time, the number of sees and parishes, and the spirit
animating them. We gain a like view of the civil state in the record of
a great assembly convened in 1167 by the energetic and enterprising
Connacht king: "A great meeting was called together by Ruaidri Ua
Concobar and the chiefs of Leat Cuin, both lay and ecclesiastic, and the
chiefs of At-boy,--the Yellow Ford across one of the streams of the
Boyne in Meath. To it came the successor of Patrick, the archbishop of
Connacht, the archbishop of Leinster, the lord of Breifne, the lord of
Oirgialla, the king of Ulster, the king of Tara, and Ragnall son of
Ragnall, lord of the Foreigners. The whole of their gathering and
assemblage was 19,000 horsemen, of which 6000 were Connachtmen, 4000
with the lord of Breifne, 2000 with the king of Tara, 4000 with the lord
of Oirgialla and the king of Ulster, 2000 with the chief of Ui-Failge,
and 1000 with the Foreigners of At-Cliat. They passed many good
resolutions at this meeting, respecting veneration for churches and
clerics, and control of tribes and territories, so that women used to
traverse Ireland alone; and a restoration of his prey was made by the
chief of the Ui-Failge at the hands of the kings aforesaid. They
afterwards separated in peace and amity, without battle or controversy,
or without anyone complaining of another at that meeting, in consequence
of the prosperousness of the king, who had assembled these chiefs with
their forces at one place."
Here is a foreshadowing of the representative assemblies of our modern
times, and the same wise spirit is shown in another event of the same
year, thus recorded: "A hosting and a mustering of the men of Ireland,
with their chieftains, by Ruaidri Ua Concobar; thither came the lord of
Deas-muma, the lord of Tuaid-muma, the king of Meath, the lord of
Oirgialla and all the chieftains of Leinster. They arrived in
Tir-Eogain, and allotted the part of it north of Slieve Gullion,--now
the eastern part of Derry,--to Nial Ua Lochlain for two hostages, and
allotted the part of the country of the clan to the south of the
mountain to Aed Ua Neill for two other hostages. Then the men of Ireland
returned back southwards over Slieve Fuaid, through Tir-Eogain and
Tir-Connaill, and over Assaroe--the Cataract of the Erne--and Ruaidri Ua
Concobar escorted the lord of Deas-muma with his forces southwards
through Tuaid-muma as far as Cnoc-Ainé--in Limerick--and the lord of
Deas-muma departed with gifts of many jewels and riches."
While the Norse foreigners were a power at Dublin, Waterford, Cork and
Limerick, there were not wanting occasions when one of the native tribes
called on them for aid against another tribe, sharing with them the joys
of victory or the sorrow of defeat, and, where fortune favored, dividing
with them the "countless cows" taken in a raid. In like manner the
Cinel Eogain, as we saw, hired the fleet of the Norsemen of the Western
Isles of Scotland to help them to resist a raid of the Connachtmen. The
example thus set was followed repeatedly in the coming years, and we
find mention of Flemings, Welshmen and Saxons brought over to take one
side or other in the tribal wars.
In the same year that saw the two assemblings of the chieftains under
Ruaidri Ua Concobar, another chieftain, Diarmaid son of Murcad brought
in from "the land of the Saxons," as it was called, one of these bands
of foreign mercenaries, for the most part Welsh descendants of the old
Gaelic Britons, to aid him in his contest for "the kingdom of the sons
of Ceinnsealaig." Two years later, Ruaidri Ua Concobar "granted ten cows
every year from himself and from every king that should follow him for
ever, to the Lector of Ard Maca, in honor of Patrick, to instruct the
youths of Ireland and Alba in Literature."
For the next year, 1170, we find this record: "Robert Mac Stepni and
Ricard Mac Gillebert--Iarl Strangbow--came from Saxonland into Erin with
a numerous force, and many knights and archers, in the army of the son
of Murcad, to contest Leinster for him, and to disturb the Gaels of
Erin in general; and the son of Murcad gave his daughter to Iarl
Strangbow for coming into his army. They took Loch Garman--Wexford--and
Port Lairge--Waterford--by force; and they took Gillemaire the officer
of the fortress and Ua Faelain lord of the Deisi and his son, and they
killed seven hundred persons there. Domnall Breagac with numbers of the
men of Breag fell by the Leinstermen on that occasion. An army was led
by Ruaidri Ua Concobar with the lord of Breifne and the lord of
Oirgialla against Leinster and the Foreigners aforesaid, and there was a
challenge of battle between them for the space of three days." This
contest was indecisive. The most noteworthy event of the battle was the
plundering and slaughter of the Danes of At-Cliat by the newcomers under
Iarl Strangbow. The Danes had long before this given up their old pagan
faith, converted by their captives and their Gaelic neighbors. Christ
Church Cathedral in At-Cliat or Dublin was founded early in the
preceding century by Sitric son of Olaf, king of the Danes of Dublin,
and Donatus the first Danish bishop; but the oldest part of the present
structure belongs to the time we are now speaking of: the close of the
twelfth century. The transepts with their chevron mouldings and the
principal doorway are of that period, and we may regard them as an
offering in expiation of the early heathen raids on Lambay, Saint
Patrick's Isle, and the early schools of the church.