The Statute of Kilkenny (Notes)

Eleanor Hull
1926-1931
The Statute of Kilkenny (Notes) | start of chapter

[1] Now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It contains parts of the Psalter of Cashel, The Book of Cong, The Yellow Book of Ferns, etc.

[2] Campian’s History, in Ware’s Ancient Irish Histories (1809), Bk. II. pp. 141-142. Campian wrote in 1571.

[3] Register of the Abbey of St Thomas, Dublin, ed. J. Gilbert, pp. 315-316, 348-349.

[4] Sweetman, i, No. 1001.

[5] Ibid., i, Nos. 1033, 1081.

[6] “Prædictus Gulielmus O’Kelly est Hibernicus et non de sanguine aut progenie eorum qui gaudeant lege Anglicana, quoad brevia portanda. Qui sunt O’Neale de Ultonia, O’Connochur de Connacia, O’Brien de Thotmonia, O’Malachlin de Midia, et MacMorrogh de Lagenia.” (Archives of Bermingham Tower, 3 Edw. II).

[7] Sweetman, ii, Nos. 1400, 1408, 1681.

[8] Sweetman, ii, No. 2362.

[9] Ibid., ii, No. 1602; and see Davies, Discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (Morley, 1890), pp. 262 seq.

[10] Ibid., ii, Nos. 919, 2298.

[11] Davies, op. cit., p. 281; Grace, Annales Hiberniæ, pp. 84-85, note.

[12] This phrase is constantly, but erroneously, taken to apply to the native Irish.

[13] Grace, Annales Hiberniæ, 1355; Book of Howth, in Carew, Miscellany, p. 166.

[14] Grace, Annales Hiberniæ, 1340-41.

[15] Rymer, Fœdera (1708), vi, 442.

[16] For the Statute of Kilkenny see Berry, Statutes and Ordinances, i, 430-469.

[17] Grace, Annales Hiberniæ 1361.

[18] ‘Idlemen’ were gentlemen or persons of good birth, not common vagrants. The word comes from ædel, ‘noble.’ But they speedily degenerated into outlaws. A viceregal dispatch says: “These English rebels style themselves men of noble blood and idlemen, whereas, in truth, they are strong marauders” (Gilbert, Viceroys of Ireland, p. 288).

[19] In the sixteenth century blind Tadhg O’Higgin received as a reward for a single poem in praise of the house of MacSweeney “a dappled horse, one of the very best in Ireland, a wolf-dog that might be matched against any, a book that was a well brimful of the very stream of knowledge, and a harp of special fame” from the bard of MacWilliam Burke, who was present on the occasion. The rentals of a chief bard sometimes amounted to £4000–£5000 a year, exclusive of rewards.

[20] R. Cox, Hibernia Anglicana, p. 100; Rymer, Fœdera (1707), iv, 55.

[21] E. B. Fitzmaurice, Material for the History of the Franciscan Province of Ireland, 1230–450 (1920), Introduction, pp. xxiv-xxv.

[22] 4 Ric. II (1380), in Berry, Statutes and Ordinances, i, 481.

[23] See the Papal rebukes made in 1220 and 1224 in this sense, in Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, No. 36, p. 16, and No. 55, pp. 142-144.

[24] Ware, Bishops (ed. Harris), p. 476.

[25] See the lists given in Ware, Bishops (ed. Harris).

[26] Parl. of Trim, 5 Edw. IV, 1465, ch. iii, in Berry, Statutes and Ordinances (1914), iii, 345.

[27] Poynings’ Parl., Drogheda, 10 Hen. VII, 1495, ch. viii, in Irish Statutes (1885), vol. i.

[28] Ibid., ch. xv.

[29] Lists of Irish students in Oxford and Cambridge are given by Hooker in Holinshed, Chronicles (1586), “Description of Ireland,” ch. vii, pp. 39-44, and by Mrs. A. S. Green in her Making of Ireland and its Undoing (1908).

[30] See Appendix III for this letter, and Gilbert, Facsimiles, III, No. XXII. The original is in French, still the language of the Court.

[31] See Appendix IV for this information sent to Henry IV in 1399 in a note by Alex. Balscot, Guardian of Ireland and the Council.

[32] Cotton MS., Dom., xviii. British Museum.

[33] Calendar of State Papers, Hen. VIII, ii, Pt. III, p. 338.

[34] These indentures have recently been printed in E. Curtis’ History of Mediæval Ireland, pp. 308-311, from the instruments in the Public Record Office, London. They are of exceptional interest.