Part 17 (1/2)
It is contained in a work ent.i.tled ”MUSEUM ITALIc.u.m, seu collectio Veterum Scriptorum ex Bibliothesis Italicis,” eruta a D.J. Mabillon et D.M. Germain, presbyteris et monachis, Benedictinae, Cong. S. Maure. This work was published at Paris in 1687. The original Missal was discovered by Mabillon two hundred years ago, and is at present preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It dates from the seventh century, and is no doubt the identical Missal or Ma.s.s-book used by the saint. As my friend has allowed me to retain the treasure for a time, I intend to give full details on the subject in my Ecclesiastical History. For further information at present, I refer the reader to the Rev. J.P. Gaffney's _Religion of the Ancient Irish Church_ p. 43, and to Dr. Moran's learned _Essays_, p. 287. I especially request the superiors of religious orders to afford me any information in their possession concerning the history of their respective orders in Ireland, and also of their several houses.
Details of re-erections of religious houses on old sites are particularly desired. All books or doc.u.ments which may be forwarded to me shall be carefully returned.
[185] _Solivagus_.--Four Masters, p. 391.
[186] _Ireland_.--The elder Sedulius, whose hymns are even now used by the Church, lived in the fifth century. The hymn, _A solis ortis cardine_, and many others, are attributed to him.
[187] _Culdee_.--There was much dispute at one time as to the origin and true character of the Culdees. The question, however, has been quite set at rest by the researches of recent Irish scholars. Professor O'Curry traces them up to the time of St. Patrick. He thinks they were originally mendicant monks, and that they had no communities until the end of the eighth century, when St. Maelruain of Tallaght drew up a rule for them. This rule is still extant. Mr. Haverty (_Irish History_, p.
110) has well observed, they probably resembled the Tertiaries, or Third Orders, which belong to the Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis at the present day. See also Dr. Reeves' _Life of St. Columba,_ for some clear and valuable remarks on this subject.
[188] _Measure_.--The subject of Irish poetical composition would demand a considerable s.p.a.ce if thoroughly entertained. Zeuss has done admirable justice to the subject in his _Grammatica Celtica_, where he shows that the word rhyme [_rimum_] is of Irish origin. The Very Rev. U. Burke has also devoted some pages to this interesting investigation, in his _College Irish Grammar_. He observes that the phonetic framework in which the poetry of a people is usually fas.h.i.+oned, differs in each of the great national families, even as their language and genius differ.
He also shows that the earliest Latin ecclesiastical poets were Irish, and formed their hymns upon the rules of Irish versification; thus quite controverting the theory that rhyme was introduced by the Saracens in the ninth century.
[189] _Order_.--This refers to the vision in which St. Patrick is said to have seen three orders of saints, who should succeed each other in Ireland.
[190] _Discipline_.--Bede, lib. iii. cap. 3. We have used Bohn's translation, as above all suspicion.
[191] _England_.--Camden says: ”At that age the Anglo-Saxons repaired on all sides to Ireland as to a general mart of learning, whence we read, in our writers, of holy men, that they went to study in Ireland”--_Amandatus est ad disciplinam in Hiberniam_.
CHAPTER XII.
Christianity improves the Social State of Ireland--A Saxon Invasion of Ireland--Domestic Wars--The English come to Ireland for Instruction--A Famine and Tempests--The First Danish Invasion--Cruelty of the Danes--The Black and White Gentiles--King Cormac Mac Cullinan--Cashel--Amlaff the Dane--Plunder of the Towns--Arrival of Sitric--Death of Nial Glundubh--The Circuit of Ireland--Malachy the Second--Entries in the Annals.
[A.D. 693-926.]
Very few events of any special interest occur between the commencement of the seventh century and the Danish invasion. The obituaries of ecclesiastics and details of foreign missions, which we have already recorded, are its salient points. The wars of the Saxon Heptarchy and the Celtic Pentarchy almost synchronize, though we find several Irish kings influenced by the examples of sanct.i.ty with which they were surrounded, and distinguished for piety, while Charlemagne p.r.o.nounces their neighbours a perfidious and perverse race, worse than pagans.
There can be no doubt that Charlemagne's high opinion of the Irish was caused by the fact, that so many of the heads of his schools were of that nation, which was then in the vanguard of civilization and progress. The cloister, always the nursery of art, the religious, always the promoters of learning, were pre-eminent in this age for their devotion to literary pursuits. In the present work it is impossible to give details of their MSS. still preserved, of their wonderful skill in caligraphy, still the admiration of the most gifted, and of the perfection to which they brought the science of music; but I turn from this attractive subject with less regret, from the hope of being soon able to produce an Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, in which such details will find their proper place, and will be amply expanded.[192]
The revolution of social feeling which was effected in Ireland by the introduction of Christianity, is strongly marked. Before the advent of St. Patrick, few Irish monarchs died a natural death--ambition or treachery proved a sufficient motive for murder and a.s.sa.s.sination; while of six kings who reigned during the eighth and ninth centuries, only one died a violent death, and that death was an exception, which evidently proved the rule, for Nial was drowned in a generous effort to save the life of one of his own servants.
The fatal pestilence, already recorded, did not appear again after its severe visitation, which terminated in 667. In 693 Finnachta Fleadhach (the Hospitable) commenced his reign. He remitted the Boromean Tribute at the request of St. Moling, and eventually abdicated, and embraced a religious life. In the year 684, Egfrid, the Saxon King of Northumberland, sent an army to Ireland, which spared neither churches nor monasteries, and carried off a great number of the inhabitants as slaves. Bede denounces and laments this barbarous invasion, attributing the defeat and death of King Egfrid, which took place in the following year, to the vengeance of heaven.[193] St. Ad.a.m.nan was sent to Northumbria, after the death of this prince, to obtain the release of the captives. His mission was successful, and he was honoured there as the worker of many miracles.
The generosity of Finnachta failed in settling the vexed question of tribute. Comgal, who died in 708, ravaged Leinster as fiercely as his predecessors, and Fearghal, his successor, invaded it ”five times in one year.” Three wonderful showers are said to have fallen in the eighth year of his reign (A.D. 716 according to the Four Masters)--a shower of silver, a shower of honey, and a shower of blood. These were, of course, considered portents of the awful Danish invasions. Fearghal was killed at the battle of Almhain (Allen, near Kildare), in 718. In this engagement, the Leinster men only numbered nine thousand, while their opponents numbered twenty-one thousand. The Leinster men, however, made up for numbers by their valour; and it is said that the intervention of a hermit, who reproached Fearghal with breaking the pacific promise of his predecessor, contributed to the defeat of the northern forces.
Another battle took place in 733, when Hugh Allan, King of Ireland, and Hugh, son of Colgan, King of Leinster, engaged in single combat. The latter was slain, and the Leinster men ”were killed, slaughtered, cut off, and dreadfully exterminated.” In fact, the Leinster men endured so many ”dreadful exterminations,” that one almost marvels how any of their brave fellows were left for future feats of arms. The ”northerns were joyous after this victory, for they had wreaked their vengeance and their animosity upon the Leinster men,” nine thousand of whom were slain. St. Samhthann, a holy nun, who died in the following year, is said to have predicted the fate of Aedh, Comgal's son, if the two Aedhs (Hughs) met. Aedh Allan commemorated her virtues in verse, and concludes thus:--
”In the bosom of the Lord, with a pure death, Samhthann pa.s.sed from her sufferings.”
Indeed, the Irish kings of this period manifested their admiration of peaceful living, and their desire for holy deaths, in a more practical way than by poetic encomiums on others. In 704 Beg Boirche ”took a pilgrim's staff, and died on his pilgrimage.” In 729 Flahertach renounced his regal honours, and retired to Armagh, where he died. In 758 Donal died on a pilgrimage at Iona, after a reign of twenty years; and in 765 his successor, Nial Fra.s.sagh, abdicated the throne, and became a monk at Iona. Here he died in 778, and was buried in the tomb of the Irish kings in that island.
An Irish poet, who died in 742, is said to have played a clever trick on the ”foreigners” of Dublin. He composed a poem for them, and then requested payment for his literary labours. The _Galls,_[194] who were probably Saxons, refused to meet his demand, but Rumrann said he would be content with two _pinguins_ (pennies) from every good man, and one from each bad one. The result may be antic.i.p.ated. Rumrann is described as ”an adept in wisdom, chronology, and poetry;” we might perhaps add, and in knowledge of human nature. In the Book of Ballymote he is called the Virgil of Ireland. A considerable number of Saxons were now in the country; and it is said that a British king, named Constantine, who had become a monk, was at that time Abbot of Rahen, in the King's county, and that at Cell-Belaigh there were seven streets[195] of those foreigners. Gallen, in the King's county, was called Galin of the Britons, and Mayo was called Mayo of the Saxons, from the number of monasteries therein, founded by members of these nations.
The entries during the long reign of Domhnall contain little save obituaries of abbots and saints. The first year of the reign of Nial Fra.s.sagh is distinguished by a shower of silver, a shower of wheat, and a shower of honey. The Annals of Clonmacnois say that there was a most severe famine throughout the whole kingdom during the early part of his reign, so much that the king himself had very little to live upon. Then the king prayed very fervently to G.o.d, being in company with seven holy bishops; and he asked that he might die rather than see so many of his faithful subjects peris.h.i.+ng, while he was helpless to relieve them. At the conclusion of his prayer, the ”three showers” fell from heaven; and then the king and the seven bishops gave great thanks to the Lord.
But a more terrible calamity than famine was even then impending, and, if we may believe the old chroniclers, not without marvellous prognostications of its approach. In the year 767 there occurred a most fearful storm of thunder and lightning, with ”terrific and horrible signs.” It would appear that the storm took place while a fair was going on, which obtained the name of the ”Fair of the clapping of hands.” Fear and horror seized the men of Ireland, so that their religious seniors ordered them to make two fasts, together with fervent prayer, and one meal between them, to protect and save them from a pestilence, precisely at Michaelmas.[196]
The first raid of the Danish pirates is recorded thus: ”The age of Christ 790 [_recte_ 795]. The twenty-fifth year of Donnchadh. The burning of Reachrainn[197] by plunderers; and its shrines were broken and plundered.” They had already attacked the English coasts, ”whilst the pious King Bertric was reigning over its western division.” Their arrival was sudden and so unexpected, that the king's officer took them for merchants, paying with his life for the mistake.[198] A Welsh chronicle, known by the name of _Brut y Tywysogion_, or the Chronicle of the Chieftains, has a corresponding record under the year 790: ”Ten years with fourscore and seven hundred was the age of Christ when the pagans went to Ireland.” Three MSS. add, ”and destroyed Rechren.”
Another chronicle mentions, that the black pagans, who were the first of their nation to land in Ireland, had previously been defeated in Glamorgans.h.i.+re, and after their defeat they had invaded Ireland, and devastated Rechru.
If by bravery we understand utter recklessness of life, and utter recklessness in inflicting cruelties on others, then the Vikings may be termed brave. The heroism of patient endurance was a bravery but little understood at that period. If the heathen Viking was brave when he plundered and burned monastic shrines--when he ma.s.sacred the defenceless with wanton cruelty--when he flung little children on the points of spears, and gloated over their dying agonies; perhaps we may also admit those who endured such torments, either in their own persons, or in the persons of those who were dear to them, and yet returned again and again to restore the shrine so rudely destroyed, have also their claim to be termed brave, and may demand some commendation for that virtue from posterity.