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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
The writings of Columbanus, Adomnán’s Life of Columcille and Bede’s account of the Irish mission to Northumbria together show us a church c. 600 remarkable for its austerity, its vitality and its happiness. Constant journeys and displacements, mean dwellings, common food, the discipline of study and prayer left the leaders not saddened but content, and commended them to the people’s veneration. The motive force of their actions was the love of God, followed with a rare degree of perfection; and, as the sources constantly say or imply, such love is no trouble. Vive in Christo ut Christus in te urges Columbanus, and Bede, in his sober summing-up on the Irish mission to Northumbria, while he disclaims any intimate knowledge of Columcille, testifies: ‘We know for certain that he left successors distinguished for their purity of life, their love of God and their loyalty to the monastic rule.’
The indifference to worldly interests which sustained these early pilgrims, and their concentration on purely religious values contrast sharply with the early ninth-century church, a great institution fully alive to the civilizing influence which power and wealth could exert. We need to know how this change came about, and in precisely what ways the church c. 800 differed from its predecessor.
1 E.g. Bede, Hist, ecc., iii. 19.
2 E.g. Adomnán, , Life of Columba, iii. 23 (quoted throughout in edition by Reeves, W., Dubhn, 1857)Google Scholar; Bede, Hist, ecc., iii. 26.
3 Sometimes even involuntary starvation diet (Jonas, Life of Columbanus, cc. 12-3).
4 Bede, Hist, ecc., iii. 17 (of Aidan), 19 (of Fursey); Adomnán, Columba, iii. 23.
5 Columcille ceased to transcribe his last MS at the phrase: Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono. See Adomnán’s comments, iii. 23.
6 Bede, Hist, ecc., iii. 25, 26.
7 Non est labor dilectio, Columbanus, , Opera, ed. Walker, G.S.M., p. 110 (Dublin, 1957)Google Scholar, Instructio xi; cf. p. 114 Instructio xii.
8 Bede, Hist, ecc., iii. 4.
9 Caput pene omnium Hibernensium ecclesiarum et culmen praecellens omnia monasteria Scottorum (Acta SS, Feb. 1, p. 135).
10 Book of Armagh, written c. 807, puts into the mouth of Patrick: O mea Brigita, paruchia tua in provincia tua apud reputabitur monarchiam tuam: in parte autem orientali et occidentali dominatus in mea erit ( Trip, life, ed. Stokes, (London, 1887), ii. 356Google Scholar).
11 Ibid., p. 312. Cf. quia ipsius sunt omnia primitivae aeclesiae Hiberniae.
12 Ibid., pp. 311-2,
13 Ibid., p. 347. See MacNeill, E., in R.S.A.I. Jn., lviii. 3 (1928)Google Scholar.
14 Ibid., pp. 338-40. The order here is (1) cenél Fétho Fio, (2) di muintir Drommo Lias no diamanchib, (3) dimuintir Pátricc. Cf. Anc. laws Ire., iii. 72-4, where a gloss lists the second, third and fourth inorder of succession to an abbacy as fine na griain, fine manuch, fine annoit: this would correspond to the order at Druim Lias. Professor Foster has kindly drawn my attention to E. Gwynn’s correction of décrad dimuintir Pátricc (where the first syllable of the first word is very rubbed in the MS) to deórad (Hermathena, xxxvii. 384-5 (1911)). In the Laws the pilgrim is the last in order of all the eligible candidates, as he is here.
15 See his constant travels, his conversion to the Roman Easter, his scholarly account of holy places in the eastern Mediterranean (ed. D. Meehan, Dublin, 1958), his ransoming of prisoners in 686.
16 Ed. K. Meyer (Oxford, 1905).
17 See J. Ryan in St. Ir. law, pp. 269-76.
18 See Críth Gablach, ed. Binchy, D., lines 514-24 (Dublin, 1941)Google Scholar, for the laws which a king binds by pledges on his people, including ‘recht erettme adannai, amail rongab recht Adamnáin‘.
19 Dal itir Aedh n-Alddan - Cathal oc Tir da glas. Lex Patricii tenuit Hiberniam. A.U., 737.
20 Counting the ‘law of Coman and Aedan’ as one.
21 Here understood to include Connacht.
22 See above, p. 100.
23 Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, ed. Stokes, W. and Strachan, J., ii. 306 (Cambridge, 1903)Google Scholar. For a slightly different version, see Fél. Oeng., p. 210. The Law of Dáire (bó-shlechta) was promulgated in Munster in 810, in Connacht in 812 and 826, by the Uí Neill in 813. Its aim was to prevent cattle-raiding, or, in the Félire version, cattle killing—possibly the wanton killing of cattle which could not be driven away in raids.
24 The Law of Sunday, or Cáin Domnaig, seems to belong to the ninth century, and concerns provisions made for the enforcement of Sunday observance (Kenney, Sources, p. 477). Perhaps it should beconsidered as part of the reform associated with the culdees. See the entry in Chron. Scot. sub anno 811.
25 Trip. life, ed. Stokes, ii. 352-6.
26 Anc. laws Ire., vi. 778.
27 Cf. F. O Briain, in Féil-sgríbhinn Eóin Mhic Néill, pp. 457-8; Kenney, Sources, p. 237.
28 Was there such a case in 793: lex Ailbhi for Mumain, et ordinatio Artríogh mic Cathail in regnum Muman? The king of Munster whom Artrí replaced died as abbot of Inis Cathaig in 797. Was Artrí installed with the support of the coarb of Ailbe of Emly, whose law he then enforced?
29 An earlier’ reference to a battle at Birr is very ambiguous: Ann. Inisf. 664, ‘Bellum fecerunt i mBirraib.’ The victor in the battle recorded in A.U. 760 is not named. But Ciarán’s Life in the Book of Lismore, lines 4254-6 (ed. W. Stokes, Oxford, 1890, or transl. R.A.S. Macalister, Latin and Irish lives of S. Ciarán, p. 84, cf., p. 134) implies the superiority of Clonmacnoise.
30 A.U., 764.
31 A.U., 807.
32 A.U., 807.
33 Bede, Hist, ecc., ii. 2.
34 The fullest account of the battle is given in the third of Mac Firbis’s Three fragments of Irish Annals, ed. J. O’Donovan, pp. 200-20. This same abbot, Flaithbertach son of Inmainén, ‘took the kingship of Cashel’ in 914 (Ann. Inisf.).
35 Three fragments, p. 206.
36 Cf. J. Ryan: ‘In the monastic literature monks or abbots are asked to assist their kindred or their friends by prayers or by the moral support of their presence near the place of encounter, but there is never any question of their active participation in the conflict’ (my italics). St. Ir. law, p. 275.
37 Itinerary through Wales, ii. 4.
38 See Appendix.
39 Faendelach: ‘it is he who fell by Dub-dá-leithe … Dub-dá-leithe, son of Sinach, is at hand with kings from the North’. Note and poem in the ‘Ancient list of Coarbs‘, ed. Lawlor, and Best, , R.I.A. Proc., xxxv, C, 322 (1919)Google Scholar.
40 A.U., 793.
41 A.F.M., 825.
42 Suibne son of Crundmael, s. of Ronan of Uí Niallain; Fer-dáchrích, s. of Suibne s. of Ronan s. of Crundmael (‘Ancient list’, p. 321). It seems likely that the order of descent has become confused.
43 A.F.M., 807, 834, 1056. Gf. Ryan in Féil-sghríbhinn Eóin Mhic Néill, p. 502.
44 A.F.M., 898.
45 Emending to ‘tres ordines adherent, virgines et poenitentes et in matrimonio legitimo aeclessiae servientes‘ (Trip, life, ed. Stokes, ii. 354).
46 Appended to the Rule of Tallaght, ed. Gwynn, E., Hermathena, 2nd suppl. vol., p. 84 (1927)Google Scholar.
47 Anc. laws Ire., iii. 32-42. E. Gwynn, op. cit.
48 A.U., 747. This delightful translation, by Kelleher, J.V. Professor of Harvard, is in Teangadoir, ii. 39 (1954-5)Google Scholar.
49 In 811 the community of Tallaght prevented the celebration of the fair of Tailltiu and obtained compensation, because their termon had been violated by the Uí Néill. But cf. 833, 836 when termon was violated, apparently without compensation. In 809 Aed, king of the Uí Néill, conducted reprisals in Ulster for the killing of an abbot and the profanation of Patrick’s shrine. But in 817 the ‘family of Columcille‘ went to Tara to curse him for the killing of the abbot of Rath-both. Presumably they had failed to get compensation.
50 Murphy, G., Early Irish lyrics, pp. 10, 20 (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar.
51 Fél. Oeng., p. 26.