Early Christian Ireland (Notes)

[1] At the Second Council of Tours, in 567, the inhabitants were spoken of as the Britons and Romans of Armorica; and see J. Loth, L’Émigration bretonne en Armorique (1883).

[2] Rawl. B. 512, at the foot of fol. 21a.

[3] MS. H. 3. 18, p. 520, l. 20; see Tripartite Life of St Patrick, ed. W. Stokes. pp. xv, xlvii.

[4] Letter to Coroticus, ch. x, p. 56. Newport White’s translation (1920) is used in these quotations. There are also translations of the Saint’s writings by Archbishop Healy and others.

[5] The date of St Patrick’s birth was probably 389 (this is the date accepted by Prof. Bury in his St Patrick); that of his return to Ireland as bishop, 432; and of his death, 461.

[6] Confession, ch. i, p. 31.

[7] Ibid. ch. xxvii, p. 40.

[8] Probably between a.d. 807 and a.d. 846.

[9] Letter to Coroticus, ch. x, p. 56.

[10] See S. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (1899), pp. 250-253, and Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (1923), ch. i, p. 59. The curiæ, or corporations of the cities, were formed of the richest landowners, who bore the burdens of the municipality on their shoulders.

[11] Confession, ch. xvi, p. 36.

[12] Muirchu, Life of St Patrick, ch. xii, p. 81.

[13] Confession, ch. xxiii, p. 38.

[14] Ibid. ch. xxiii, pp. 38-39.

[15] Confession, ch. 1, p. 48; ch. xli, p. 45.

[16] Ibid., ch. xxxii, p. 41. St Germanus was born about 378 and died in 448. He visited Britain twice, in 429 and 447.

[17] Adv. Jud., vii.

[18] “Church of the Scots,” he exclaims, “nay, of the Romans! In order that ye be Christians as well as Romans ye must chant in your churches at every hour of prayer that glorious word, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison” (Dicta Patricii, from the Book of Armagh). Even if these words are later than St Patrick’s day they seem to convey the spirit of his teaching.

[19] H. J. Lawlor, in P.R.I.A., vol. xxxv, Sect. C, No. 9 (1919).

[20] Trias Thaumaturga (Louvain), p. 524. This must have been the earliest life of any Irish saint.

[21] Ériu, ii, 63 seq.

[22] Ériu, 1, 191 seq.

[23] Revue Celtique, xv, 485 seq.

[24] The erennach (airchinneach) seems to have combined the offices of archdeacon and steward; he farmed the Church lands. See O’Laverty Down and Connor (1887), iv. 61-62.

[25] Ériu, iii, 97 seq.

[26] P.R.I.A., vol. xxix, Sect. C, No. 5 (1911).

[27] Edited by Charles Plummer (Henry Bradshaw Society), vol. lxii (1925), pp. 54 seq.

[28] Petrie, Christian Inscriptions, ii, Pl. XIV.

[29] Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. W. Stokes (1890) p. 209, l. 2069.

[30] Bede, Eccl. Hist., Bk. III, ch. xxvi-xxvii, and Bk. IV, ch. iv; Calendar of Aengus, ed. W. Stokes (1880), August 8, and note on p. cxxx.

[31] P. 57; and see “Life of St Gerald,” Vitæ Sanc. Hib., ii, 106 seq.

[32] Bede, Eccl. Hist., Bk. III, ch. xxvii; Bk. IV, ch. iii; Bk. V, ch. ix, xxii.

[33] Calendar of Aengus, note on December 8, pp. clxxx-clxxxi; and see also p. cxxxv, where the district of the Little Saxons is mentioned, near Scattery Island, in the Shannon.

[34] Keating, History, ii, 69, 70-72, quoting Hanmer’s Chronicle for the latter statement.

[35] See Sir W. Ridgeway’s paper on Niall of the Nine Hostages (Journal of Roman Studies, 1924).

[36] Battle of Magh Rath, ed. J. O’Donovan (Irish Archæological Society, 1842).

[37] Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, iii, 423.

[38] Confession, ch. xix, p. 37.

[39] Keating, History, ii, 167, 168.

[40] Windisch, Táin bó Cúalnge, p. 51; Hull, Cuchullin Saga, pp. 125-126.

[41] Dobbs, “Chariot-burial in Ireland,” in Zeit. für Celtische Philologie (1912), viii, 278.

[42] Todd Lectures, R. I. A. (1911), p. 63, and note on p. 116.

[43] Learning in Ireland in the Fifth Century (1913).

[44] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under 891, speaks of three Irish pilgrims who arrived in England in a boat without any oars, and who were cared for by King Alfred the Great. Their names were Dubhslane, Macbeth, and Mealinmun.

[45] W. J. Rees, Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, pp. 313-317, 326, 352.

[46] Stokes, Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, pp. 222-223.

[47] Plummer, Vitæ Sanctorum Hiberniæ, Introduction, pp. cxxiv-cxxvi; Baring-Gould and Fisher, British Saints, Introduction.

[48] Vita Sancti Dunstani, ed. William Stubbs (1874), pp. 10, 74, 256, etc.; cf. William of Malmesbury, De Antiquitate Glastoniensis.

[49] Bede, Eccl. Hist., Bk. iii, ch. xix.

[50] The story is related by a monk of St Gall of the ninth century, and is accepted by Muritori, Ussher, Lanigan, and Hadden.

[51] Charles was crowned Emperor in the year 800; he died in 814. Lothaire succeeded Louis le Débonnaire in 817 and died in 855.

[52] Martène and Durand, Vet. Scrip. Coll. (1729), vol. vi, p. 811. Quoted by M. Stokes, Six Months in the Apennines, pp. 213-214.

[53] Yet another Dungal presented his valuable library to Bobbio at a later date. Traube, in his O Roma nobilis, distinguishes five Dungals, all of Irish birth, but this seems uncalled for; see also L. Gougaud, Les Chrétientés Celtiques, pp. 287-288.

[54] Originals and translations in Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Palæo-hibernicus, ii, 290, 293; and cf. Hull, Poem-book of the Gael, pp. 132, 139.

[55] H. J. White, Old Latin Biblical Texts, Nos. II, III.

[56] An alternative form is Ierugena; in later manuscripts the incorrect form Erigena appears. Ériu is the oldest form of the name of Ireland in the native tongue, with dative Érinn or Ére, from which the forms Érin and Ierne seem to be taken.

[57] For an admirable essay on John Scotus see R. Lane Poole, Mediæval Thought and Learning, ii, 46-68, from which the above quotations are taken. The question of the identity of John Scotus with the teacher of Malmesbury is fully discussed in Appendices I and II of the above-mentioned work.

[58] Landnámabóc, Prologue.

[59] P. A. Munch, Chronica Regum Manniæ et Insularum (1860), p. viii. Dicuil also wrote a remarkable treatise on astronomy which has been printed by M. Esposito in P.R.I.A., vol. xxvi, Sect. C, p. 378 seq. (1906–7).

[60] King Dermot MacMaelnamo (Mael-na-mbó) of Leinster, who died in 1072.

[61] Silva Gadelica, ii, 70-74, 82. A speech of great dignity is put into Dermot’s mouth. To “fast upon” a man from whom a debt was due was the legal form of enforcing a demand upon a man of higher rank under the Brehon law. It has recently been revived as the ‘hunger-strike.’ See Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, i, 83, 113.

[62] Annals of Ulster, at above dates.

[63] Ibid., 806, 816. Notices of students “with shields and spears in their hands” at the monastery of St Aedh of Ferns will be found in the Life of St Aedan. Cf. W. J. Rees, Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, p. 566.