OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Essays

  • Grigoir Belóir – The Irish Church and Pope Gregory the Great

    Below is a reprint of a short essay on the admiration of the Irish Church for Pope Saint Gregory the Great. I first published this piece on my former blog, Under the Oak and also at the Saint Conleth’s Catholic Heritage Association site.  March 12 is the date of Pope Gregory’s death and as such was his traditional feast day.  In the modern Church he is commemorated on September 3, the day of his episcopal consecration.

    March 12 is the feastday of one of the most revered figures of the early Irish Church, Pope Saint Gregory the Great. In the Leabhar Breac copy of the Martyrology of Oengus the entry for this day reads:

    Before arriving in his country,
    For Christ he mortified his body,
    The slaughter [er] of an hundred victories
    Gregory of Rome, the intrepid.

    This notice is but one example of the esteem in which Pope Gregory was held by the Irish, and so I will try to draw together some of the other strands to illustrate what an important figure he was for our native Church. Let’s begin with a brief summary of the Pope’s life by Luned Mair Davies:

    Gregory the Great… was pope from 590 to 604. Since the eighth century he has been regarded as one of the four Fathers of the western Church. Gregory has been referred to as the master of spiritual exegesis. According to Beryl Smalley, for him ‘exegesis was teaching and preaching’, and it was the didactic element in his works which made Gregory’s strongest impact on medieval biblical study. Gregory was born c.540 in Rome to a senatorial family, and in 573 he was prefect of Rome for a year. He founded seven monasteries in all and in 585 he became abbot of the monastery of St Andreas in Rome, one of his foundations. Pope Benedict I named him as one of the seven regional deacons of the city of Rome and in 579 Pope Pelagius II sent him as apocrisarius to the emperor’s palace in Constantinople, where he remained for six years. In 590 he himself became pope. Before his death in 604 his achievements included organising the Patrimonium Petri, attempting to convert the Lombards and sending a mission to the Anglo-Saxons. [1]

    The details of Gregory’s election to the Papacy were recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters:

    The Age of Christ, 590. St Gregory of the Golden Mouth was appointed to the chair and successorship of Peter the Apostle, against his will.

    to which John O’Donovan, in his edition of the Annals, added:

    The memory of this Pope was anciently much revered in Ireland, and he was honoured with the title of Belóir i.e. of the Golden Mouth.

    The Irish held the memory of this Pope in such veneration that their genealogists, finding that there were some doubts as to his genealogy, had no scruple to engraft him on the royal stem of Conaire II, the ancestor of the O’Falvys, O’Connells, and other families. His pedigree is given as follows by the O’Clerys in their Genealogies of the Irish Saints:

    “Gregory of Rome, son of Gormalta, son of Connla, son of Arda, son of Daithi, son of Core, son of Conn, son of Cormac, son of Corc Duibhne [the ancestor of the Corca Duibhne, in Kerry], son of Cairbre Musc, son of Conaire”.

    The Four Masters have given the accession of this Pope under the true year. Gregory was made Pope on the 13th of September, which was Sunday, in the year 590, and died on the 12th of March, 604, having sat thirteen years, six months and ten days. [2]

    Not content with turning a Roman aristocrat into a Kerryman, the Irish also applied an epithet more usually associated with the great Eastern saint John Chrysostom to Pope Gregory. That this happened early on is shown by the reference to the golden-mouth in the Paschal Epistle of Cummian, who, writing in the 630s, cited Pope Gregory to help make his case for the Roman computation of the date of Easter:

    I turned to the words of Pope Gregory, bishop of the city of Rome, accepted by all of us and given the name ‘Golden Mouth’, for although he wrote after everyone, nevertheless he is deservedly to be preferred to all. [3]

    It seems that this Irish tradition of referring to Pope Gregory as the golden-mouth was something that was passed on to Northumbria. Patrick Sims-Williams sees evidence of it in an anonymous Vita of Gregory the Great produced at the Monastery of Saint Hilda at Whitby:

    In ch. 24 the Whitby writer asserts that the Romans called Gregory ‘golden mouth’ (os aureum) because of the eloquence that flowed from his mouth

    ‘Ut a gente Romana que per ceteris mundo intonat sublimius proprie (sic) de aurea oris eius gratia, os aureum appellatur’ (Life of Gregory, ed. Colgrave, pp.116-18). Colgrave translates ‘therefore he was called the “golden mouthed” by the Romans because of the golden eloquence which issued from his mouth in a very special way, far more sublimely and beyond all others in the world’.

    In fact, of course, the Romans called Gregory no such thing – ‘golden mouth’ was rather the epithet of St John Chrysostom – and the writer is probably drawing, directly or indirectly, on an Irish source. In Ireland, as early as c. 632, Gregory was commonly styled os aureum; in vernacular texts this is bel óir or gin óir which suggests that the epithet had its origin in an etymological interpreation of Grigoir, the Irish form of Gregorius, which might be associated with Latin os, oris ‘mouth’ and with Irish óir ‘of gold, golden’. In Anglo-Saxon England, however, the epithet only reappears in the Old English version of Gregory’s Dialogi by Alfred’s assistant, Werferth, bishop of Worcester c. 873 – c. 915, who similarly speaks of a stream of eloquence issuing from Gregory’s ‘golden mouth’ (gyldenmup) and says that the Romans call him Os Aureum, the Greeks Crysosthomas. [4]

    Irish interest in the writings of Pope Gregory started during the Pope’s own lifetime, as Luned Mair Davies explains:

    Gregory’s writings are copious and diverse, although less abundant than those of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine; some of them reached insular circles at an early date. The 848 letters which he left us in his Registrum Epistolarum are the primary historical source for this period….Gregory also left a collection of homilies, 40 on the Gospels and 22 on the Book of Ezekiel… Gregory enjoyed enormous popularity and prestige among seventh-century Irish ecclesiastics. Columbanus requested the Homilies on Ezekiel in his first letter to Gregory:

    Wherefore in my thirst I beg you for Christ’s sake to bestow on me your tracts, which, as I have heard, you have compiled with wonderful skill upon Ezekiel.

    In the same letter Columbanus refers to Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis. This work Gregory had written in 591, in response to a communication from Archbishop John of Ravenna, as a directory for bishops and priests. Columbanus also asked Gregory for more of his writings. His letter to Gregory shows how rapid was the dissemination of Gregory’s works in monastic circles.

    The Regula Pastoralis was one of the books by Gregory which were especially influential in the Middle Ages. Another was the Dialogi, a collection of popular edifying stories about Italian saints written by Gregory in the years 593-4. In his Vita Columbae, Adomnan, although he makes no explicit mention of the Gregorian Dialogi, in at least three places clearly borrows phrases from the Dialogi to weave into his own narrative.

    The evidence of manuscript transmissions shows that of Gregory’s works the Moralia in Job had geographically the widest circulation: this work also was known early, and used early, in Ireland. The earliest known abridgement of Gregory’s commentary on the Book of Job (the Egloga) was Irish, composed about 650 by Lathcen or Laidcend, the son of Baeth, who is most probably to be identified with the Laighden whose obit is given in the Annals of Ulster under the year 661. [5]

    Davies has made a particular study of the use of Pope Gregory’s work in the Irish Collectio Canonum hibernensis (CCH). The CCH is a collection of excerpts from biblical and medieval sources, divided into over sixty books which cover the behaviour appropriate for a Christian under various subject headings. It survives in a number of manuscripts and a Breton version attributes it to Ruben of Darinis and Cú-Chuimne of Iona. Both of these reputed authors are known to history, the Annals of Ulster record the death of Ruben in 725 and Cú-Chuimne, called sapiens died in 747. Davies continues:

    Five of Gregory’s works are quoted in the CCH. They are: the Pastoral Care (Regula Pastoralis), the Homilies on Ezekiel (Homiliae in Hiezechihelem), the Homilies on the Gospels (Homiliae in Evangelia), the Registrum Epistolarum and the Dialogues (Dialogi)… Of the extracts in the CCH from the Dialogi, five are introduced as in vita patrum, four as Gregorius, one as in vita monachorum and three as De dialogo Gregorii et Petri. Of the eleven other extracts from Gregory the Great in the CCH, four are introduced as by Gregorius Romanus and seven as by Gregorius. The epithet Romanus used for Gregory the Great may reflect the fact that the Romani party in the early Irish Church, who followed Rome’s directives in the dating of Easter, looked to Gregory the Great for guidance. [6]

    The Pope’s homilies were also influential as Davies explains:

    Gregory’s Homiliae were a collection of homilies on selected passages from the Gospels written down in the last decade of the sixth century. They were addressed to Roman audiences on various feast-days of the Roman Church. The texts of Homiliae 32 and 37 were quoted in another sermon, the bilingual Old-Irish-Latin Cambrai Homily, which was copied into one of the manuscripts of the CCH. The Latin parts of the homily contain the scriptural quotations and the patristic authority; they are paraphrased in the Old-Irish part to clarify them for an Irish audience who perhaps did not understand Latin. The Cambrai Homily has been dated to the seventh century. How soon after their composition Gregory’s Homiliae reached Ireland is uncertain. In the first decade of the seventh century Columbanus used them on the continent. [7]

    In addition, the Pope’s works are cited in the collection of sermons known as the Catechesis Celtica. The Irish Liber Hymnorum contains a collection of extracts of the Psalms of David which are attributed to Gregory. His work is also referred to in The Book of Armagh and the Codex Maelbrighde.

    Finally, the Irish regard for Pope Gregory is also reflected in the hagiographical record as the lives of a number of saints seek to associate their subjects with the great Pope. Saint Findbarr’s tutor, Mac Cuirb, was described as a pupil of Gregory in the Vita Sancti Barri. The formidable seventh-century Irish theologian, Cummian Fota, was likened to Gregory in the list of parallel saints. The entry in the Annals of the Four Masters recording Cummian’s death in 661 includes a poem which says:

    ” If any one went across the sea,
    To sit in the chair of Gregory the Great.
    If from Ireland no one was fit for it,
    If we except Cummian Fota.”

    Cardinal Moran has written of another Irish saint, Dagan, a disciple of Molua, who also claimed a link to the Pope:

    St. Dagan is designated in our martyrologies by the various epithets of the warlike, the pilgrim, the meek, and the noble. He was one of the most ardent defenders of the old Scotic computation of Easter, and as such is commemorated by Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History. About the year 600 he visited Rome, and sought the approbation of the great pontiff St. Gregory, for the rule of his own master, St. Molua, in whose life we thus read –

    ” The abbot, Dagan, going to Rome, brought with him the rule which St. Molua had drawn up and delivered to his disciples; and pope Gregory having read this rule, said in the presence of all: ‘the saint who composed this rule has truly guarded his disciples even to the very thresholds of heaven.’ Wherefore St. Gregory sent his approbation and benediction to Molua.”

    St.Dagan, however, was not the only one of our sainted forefathers that sought the sanction of the Holy See for the religious rule which they adopted. In the Leabhar-nah-Uidhre, it is incidentally mentioned that “St. Comgall, of Bangor, sent Beoan, son of Innli, of Teach-Dabeog, to Rome, on a message to pope Gregory (the Great), to receive from him order and rule.” [8]

    Even if one is sceptical about the historical value of hagiographical accounts, one Irish saint we can be sure had a demonstrable link to Pope Gregory is Saint Columbanus. John Martyn has published a most interesting paper on Pope Gregory the Great and the Irish in which he examines the correspondence between the two. Columbanus, like Dagan, was a committed supporter of the Irish Easter and didn’t hesitate to let his illustrious correspondent know it. In the nineteenth century, some Protestant scholars tried to argue that the robust style of Columbanus was proof that the Irish did not hold the Papacy in high esteem. Martyn, however, feels they rather missed the point:

    Pope Gregory the Great’s apparently close links with Columban and the Irish clergy between 592 and 601 are revealed through five of his letters: 2.43 (July 592), an encyclical sent to the Irish clergy, almost certainly including Columban; 4.18 (March 594) about an Irish priest valuable to the Pope in Rome; 5.17 (November 594) about Columban’s reception of Gregory’s ‘Pastoral Care’; 9.11 (October 600) praising Columban; and 11.52 (July 601) about an Irish Bishop Quiritus. My version of Columban’s letter to the Pope follows, with brief analysis of his irony, word-play and literary style. It shows how the Irishman’s erudite and very rhetorical letter would have tickled the Pope’s fancy rather than offend him. [9]

    Thus there can be no doubt of the very high esteem in which Grigoir Belóir, Gregory of the golden-mouth, was held by the early Irish Church.

    References

    [1] Luned Mair Davies The ‘mouth of gold’: Gregorian texts in the Collectio Canonum hibernensis in Próinséas Ní Chatháin & Michael Richter, eds., Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: texts and transmissions (Dublin, 2001), 250-251.

    [2] John O’Donovan, ed. and trans. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, Vol. 1 (2nd edition, Dublin, 1856), 214-215.

    [3] Maura Walsh and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, eds., Cummianus Hibernus, De controversia Paschali, 83. Online version at http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201070/index.html

    [4] Patrick Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800 (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 186-187.

    [5] Davies, op.cit., 251-252.

    [6] Ibid.

    [7] Ibid.

    [8] Rev. P.F. Moran, Essays on the Origin, Doctrines and Discipline of the Early Irish Church (Dublin, 1864), 148.

    [9] John R.C. Martyn, ‘Pope Gregory the Great and the Irish’ in Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association, Volume 1 (2005), 65-83. Online version at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~medieval/jaema1/martyn.html

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  • Mermaids in the Medieval Irish Church

    Next month will see the commemoration on the Irish calendars of Muirgen, the mermaid saint and so I republish what was one of the most popular posts at my former blog, a paper by an American researcher on the topic of mermaids in the medieval Irish church. It’s a most interesting read. There are some photographs of a tapestry of Muirgen found in Bangor Abbey church here and some further illustrations at the original source of the paper here.

    Below is a paper by an American scholar whose interest was caught by the carving of this image of a mermaid at Clonfert Cathedral. In her essay, the late Patricia Radford examines the symbolism of the mermaid and what her image may signify within the context of the church.
    Patricia Radford (d. 2003) Curator/Lecturer Oklahoma State University
    For several years I have been engaged in research involving imagery sculpted on the medieval churches of Ireland. During one trip there, while I was visiting St. Brendan’s Church at Clonfert, County Galway, my companion called my attention to a lovely image of a mermaid located on a pier of the chancel arch. Initially, I was surprised to see the mermaid image here at all, bare as the piers were of much else in the way of decoration. This also seemed a peculiar placement in light of the symbolic importance of the chancel arch as a liminal marker and sparked a new line of inquiry for me. The usual interpretation of mermaids is that they are images of lust and sexuality intended to caution the faithful against related sins. But perhaps there is a deeper meaning or an alternate meaning – or even a dual meaning for these images. That is what this paper will explore, along with the history of the mermaid in art.
    The earliest known depiction of a mermaid dates back to the 18th century BC on a Babylonian sealstone. Classical references to creatures that are half-human and half-sea creature include the mythology of the gods Nereus and Triton. Nereus is often shown with a trident and was reported to appear to humans in many forms. Depictions of Triton sometimes show him with a single tail while in others he has two. These, however, are male images.
    From the Classical period, female creatures associated with the sea or water include Scylla, the half-human, half sea-monster who consumed six of Odysseus’ sailors in Homer’s Odyssey, and the Sirens, again from the Odyssey, against whose seductive songs Odysseus caused himself to be lashed to the mast and his sailors’ ears plugged with wax lest they be tempted to guide the ship and his comrades into their diabolical clutches. Greek mythology and lore are filled with tales of nereids, water nymphs, naiiads, and all manner of female water creatures. Although the Sirens were not possessed of fish tails, they were intimately associated with the sea. Despite their basic physiological differences from mermaids, Beryl Rowland asserts that ” . . . in the Middle Ages, the features of mermaids and sirens become confused.” [1] When beliefs about the physiology of mermaids and sirens become muddled, their symbolism becomes intricately entwined. Sirens, earlier thought of as having the bodies of birds, had come to be seen as anatomically identical with our conception of mermaids by the medieval period. As a result, we can safely say that these early Classical legends had a great deal of influence upon notions of mermaids throughout Western Europe and within the Church. It is equally likely that they have some bearing upon early Irish tales of mermaids too.
    However, Irish tales tend to be more romantic than mermaid legends elsewhere. Known as merrows or muiroighe from ‘muir’ meaning sea and ‘oigh’ meaning maiden or youthful woman, these creatures were believed to have the ability to assume human form. The most common mermaid motif in early Irish literature involves the marriage between a mermaid or merrow and a mortal. [2] Typically, the legends describe a mortal who happens upon a group of these creatures who have shed their sea-skins or enchanted red caps to play along the beach. The mortal confiscates one of the skins or caps and hides it. Upon his return to the beach, he finds a lovely young woman who is searching desperately for the lost item so that she may transform back into a mermaid and join her companions in the sea. Instantly enamored of the maiden, the mortal comforts her and offers her the protection of his home as his wife. Seeing no other course, the mermaid-now-human consents. Many years pass and, after bearing the man several children, the wife happens across her enchanted cap or sea-skin one day, hidden by her husband many years prior. She returns to the beach, dons it, and returns to the sea, leaving her mortal husband and children to mourn her loss. Interestingly, several old Irish families trace their lineage to mermaids or muiroighe and include images of them on their family crests and arms.
    From various of the annals of Ireland, including the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of the Four Masters, come reports of the capture of mermaids in the years 558, 571, 887, and 1118. Of these, the most famous tale is that of Liban, daughter of Eochaidh, who was spared when the flooding of Lough Neagh drowned her family around 90 A.D. She lived as a human for many years in a cave below the sea prior to her transformation into a mermaid. Once transformed, her singing so enchanted the denizens of Ulster that she was captured and placed on display. In one version, a certain young cleric named Beoc was so charmed by her singing that he asked her to be buried in the same coffin with him upon her demise. She was supposedly baptized “Muirgen” by St. Comgall of Bangor (Muirgen means ‘born of the sea’ or ‘daughter of the sea.’) As a result of several miracles associated with her, she became known as St. Murgen.
    Thus the literature of early Ireland tells many tales of these half-fish, half-human creatures. From these stories, we glean that mermaids were invariably beautiful, sexual creatures described as having olive skin and webbed fingers, and whose lovely singing irresistibly lured mortal men [3] – even holy men such as Beoc!
    This is in keeping with the Greek tradition of the sirens in the Odyssey whose beauty and glorious songs lulled hapless sailors to sleep and brought their ships crashing upon the rocks. The traditions diverge, however, regarding their relationships with humans.
    While the sirens were malevolent beings and Greek mermaids were sometimes helpful but always elusive, Irish muiroighe were reported to have long-term relationships with mortal men through marriage and the bearing of their children or even, as in Liban’s case, becoming saints. Contrasted with this early Irish notion of the mermaid as being relatively benign is the tradition of the mediaeval Christian Church. The Church saw the mermaid as a symbol of vanity and lust, of sexual display, and seduction and temptation leading to damnation. [4]To enhance this meaning, she is usually depicted, as at Clonfert Cathedral, with a comb and mirror. [5] Lust is, of course, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
    Mermaids are often shown swimming among fish or sometimes holding one. At St. Mary’s Priory, Clontuskert, she holds a starfish, a symbol of Christ or Christians. Where images of mermaids swimming with fish occur, it is clear that the intended meaning relates to the notion of temptation and is a warning lest the pious, represented by the fish, be lured by the Deadly Sin of lust. Where a mermaid is shown holding a fish or starfish, it is meant as an image of a Christian soul captured by lust. The inevitable conclusion is that the unfortunate soul yielded to temptation and is now damned. The message is cautionary – a warning so that the faithful will not be similarly seduced. Certainly this is the intended meaning of the 15th century mermaid carved on the chancel arch at St. Brendan’s Cathedral at Clonfert. Located at approximately eye level, her placement is such that she is very visible from the nave. At about ten inches high, she can be seen from as far back as the middle of the small church. Although she appears on the right pier as viewed from the nave, she is on the soffit, facing the passageway rather than the nave itself. Her placement situates her at the priest’s left as he stood facing the congregation. Evil was associated with the off- or left-hand side from ancient times.
    Directly above the mermaid at Clonfert, and at many other locations including Clontuskert, is a beautifully carved, symmetrical knot. Knotwork in Irish and Celtic art has protective associations, so it seems the purpose of this motif is to protect the viewer from the mermaid’s dangerous pull since merely gazing upon the creature might incite lust. At Clonfert, on the pier opposite the mermaid, at the priest’s right, are three carved angels. It is typical of Irish churches that images associated with good are placed so that they can be seen to balance the potential evil of images of warning, such as mermaids. It is the nature of medieval art that an image may have multiple layers of meaning.
    Recognition of this raises the possibility that images of mermaids may have meanings beyond the obvious sexual associations. It is my position that this is the case, especially when the mermaid is pictured with a comb and mirror, as seen in a relief on the steps of the Country Club in Galway (not it’s original location, and the date records when the mermaid was moved to this location, not when she was carved). According to Barbara Walter, the mermaid’s act of combing her hair was believed to be a form of spell-casting or magic-making. [6] Through the act of combing her hair, she was drawing strength and power to herself. So, images of mermaids with combs seem to be a clear reference to the weaving of a spell upon hapless mortals, the usual interpretation. Certainly a woman’s hair was seen as potent source of feminine power. One need go no further than tales of Medusa and Rapunzel to see this. But, also, the widespread custom in early Europe of combing the bride’s hair on the night before or the day of her wedding, suggests this. Hair, because of its ability to re-grow relates to re-birth. Meanwhile, the taming of a bride’s hair through combing, coupled with the custom of married women wearing their hair “tamed” by putting it up rather than wearing it down and loose, suggests the power associated with it. Hair that was put up or covered with a cap could, metaphorically, be seen as lost – along with any power it was believed to possess. Hair, then, is associated with vital female forces, best harnessed once a woman comes of age.
    Yet within the Church, priests practiced a ritual of purification of body and soul that involved combing the hair. [7] Special liturgical combs were used for this rite. They were rectangular with teeth arranged along both sides, many bearing Christian motifs, their overall form very much like the comb held by the Clonfert mermaid and others. Believed to have begun as early as the 4th century, this priestly ritual is documented as late as the 16th century in Western Europe and continues today within the Greek Orthodox Church. The placing of such a liturgical comb in St. Cuthbert’s tomb in the 11th century indicates that the ritual was known and practiced in the Irish church as a form of cleansing prior to the celebration of Mass.
    Therefore, as with so much of medieval art, the Irish mermaid with her comb and mirror, along with her obvious associations with water, can be interpreted as bearing various levels or nuances of meaning. Mermaids can be interpreted as temptresses who seduce the weak into the deadly sin of lust and, at the same time, a reminder of salvation through the sacrament of baptism.
    Images of mermaids are placed at significant boundaries of Irish churches, separating secular from holy space at entrances or, as at Clonfert, dividing the nave from the chancel through placement on the chancel arch. A graphic reminder of the weakness of man, they also point to his need for salvation through the Church and the sacrament of baptism. [8]
    Patricia Radford, M.A., lectured art history at Oklahoma State University where she was also Curator of Visual Resources. INSIGHT is grateful to her sister, Louisa, and her father, Robert, for permission to publish this paper.
    1. Beryl Rowland. Animals with Human Faces: A Guide to Animal Symbolism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973, p. 140.
    2. Sean O’Suilleabhan. Folktales of Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966, pp. 272-273.
    3.Jim Higgins. Irish Mermaids: Siren, Temptresses and their Symbolism in Art, Architecture and Folklore. Galway: Crow’s Rock Press, p. 28.
    4. Higgins, p. 13.
    5. Gertrude Grace Sill. A Handbook of Symbols in Christian Art. NY: MacMillan, 1975, pp. 22-23.
    6. Barbara Walter, The Women’s Dictionary of Smbols and Sacred Objects, 1st edition. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1998), p. 129.
    7. Sheila K. Redmon, “From the Bearer of the Rising Goddess to the Bearer of the Rising Soul: They Symbolism of Scallop Shells in Early Medieval Art,” found in Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Oklahoma Conference of Art Historians, edited by Gay Clarkson & Patricia Radford (Stillwater, OK: Oklahoma State University Department of Art, 2000), p. 71.
    8. Arnould Locard, Recherces historiques sur la coquille de pèlerins. (Lyon: 1888), pp. 75-76.

  • Church Reform

    To close this series of essays, below is an introduction to the subject of Church Reform by scholar Dorothy Africa.

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    Church Reform

    The medieval church had to adapt its institutional
    organization and administrative system to a new cultural environment in
    Ireland. The dwindling in size of population centers and the weakening civic
    powers of the state were already evident as Christianity was carried into the
    frontier regions of Gaul and Britain, but in Ireland even the vestiges of Roman
    culture and imperial administration in sub-Roman Britain were absent.
    Consequently, ecclesiastical organization in Ireland was as decentralized as
    its native systems of secular governance, and its centers of ecclesiastical
    prominence were monastic rather than metropolitan. During the sixth century,
    monastic communities were founded throughout Ireland. These centers followed
    customs of life established by their founders, but only a few monastic Rules
    survive from the early monastic period in Ireland between the sixth and twelfth
    centuries. This dearth of information makes references to reform movements
    somewhat misleading because there appears to have been no standard practice to
    reform. The term is useful, however, as a description of periodic efforts made
    within the Irish church to gain or recapture a larger Christian unity of
    practice.

    THE EASTER CONTROVERSY


    The
    earliest movements noted in the annals and other written records were both
    internal dissensions within Ireland, though with larger ramifications
    extending to England and the continent. The first dispute, which erupted in
    the early seventh century and was not resolved until the early eighth
    century, concerned the proper calculation of Easter. The problems over the
    calculation of Easter had their origins in continental practice. The
    mathematical calculations were difficult, and so the church issued standard
    tables, or cycles, listing when the date would fall over a period of years.
    These tables were subject to change or refinement, however, creating a
    potential rift in practice. This potential was realized in Ireland, where the
    most influential communities at Counties Armagh, Bangor, and Iona employed an
    eighty-four-year cycle established in the fifth century, but Irish
    communities in the south appear to have adopted a sixth-century version
    attributed to Victorious of Aquitaine and also favored on the Continent.
    Leading ecclesiastics from both north and south attempted to resolve the
    matter by appealing to Rome, but the papal response failed to settle the
    question. The conflict between the two systems was a major factor in two major
    political confrontations outside Ireland. One took place on the Continent
    between the churches of the insular mission led by Columbanus of Bangor and
    Frankish ecclesiastics in 610, the other in England at the Synod of Whitby in
    664 between supporters of Iona and those backing Wilfrid of York. Eventually,
    the adherents of the older cycle were persuaded to abandon it in favor of the
    majority view in the early eighth     century.
    CÉLI-DÉ

    A
    second issue of potential discord arose within Ireland’s monastic culture in
    the mid-eighth century when some influential figures and communities became
    advocates for the adoption of a stern ascetic regimen. By the early ninth
    century, adherents of these practices had become known as Céli-Dé (Culdees),
    or the companions of God. The term was itself probably older than this
    ascetic movement but became closely identified with it. The ascetic model for
    the movement was the communal life of the early Christian monastic
    communities in Egypt and the desert hermits as described by John Cassian, and
    other hagiographical texts such as The Life of Anthony by Athanasius.
    The attempts to emulate these holy men prompted some to seek out sites of
    extreme isolation. The large number of medieval Irish place-names with the
    element dysert or disert (desert) in them shows that the ideal
    of the desert hermit was popular across Ireland.

    There
    were also groups of Céli-Dé attached to larger monastic communities or
    forming separate monasteries. The monastic community of Tallaght under its
    abbot Maél Rúain (d. 792) was an early proponent and center for the
    asceticism favored by the Céli-Dé. There are some texts attributed to the
    community, the most famous of which is the Martyrology of Tallaght. It
    is clear from their books that communal life was as important as that of the
    hermit to the Céli-Dé, but the focus was clearly on the spiritual
    purification of those committed to the religious life rather than to
    missionary work or pastoral care. In the eleventh century there were a few
    reports of groups of Céli-Dé at some large monasteries, but asceticism no
    longer figured as a flourishing ideal within the church.
    DIOCESAN ORGANIZATION

    Even as
    the ideals of the Céli-Dé ossified as a monastic ideal within the Irish
    church, a new reform movement was on the horizon. During the eleventh
    century, Ireland had come into closer and more frequent communication with
    England and the Continent through a variety of channels. By the late eleventh
    century some of the Viking port communities established in Ireland, such as
    Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, had subordinated themselves to English
    ecclesiastical centers, notably Canterbury and Winchester. There was also a
    series of papal legates to Ireland in the twelfth century, with both
    connections serving to assist indigenous Irish reformers in their efforts to
    renovate and reform Christian social and religious life in Ireland and to
    establish a diocesan system of governance. Reports of the divergence in Ireland
    followed in ecclesiastical customs and law from the rest of the church
    brought intense criticism and rebuke from the outside, heightening the
    concerns of native Irish churchmen. Beginning in the later eleventh century
    and extending into the twelfth, another reform movement arose in Ireland,
    this time centering its attention on ecclesiastical organization and
    institutional structure rather than the inner religious life.

    As
    noted earlier, prominent abbots and other officials of monastic communities
    dominated the affairs of the Irish church in the early medieval period. These
    clerics often came from ecclesiastical families closely related to local
    secular dynasties. In addition, annal records name abbots and other
    ecclesiastical officials who inherited their positions from their fathers or
    were succeeded by their sons, indicating either that they remained laymen, or
    that the Irish church did not require them to be celibate. The Irish church
    was also castigated for its neglect of pastoral care and instruction to the
    laity, in part, perhaps, as a consequence of the ideal of the reclusive
    ascetic cultivated by the Irish religious. Some of the Irish reformers came
    from the same prominent families historically associated with powerful
    monasteries. This insider status gave these men the social and political
    access essential to effecting changes, and the discernment necessary to gauge
    the pace of change acceptable to contemporary society.
    In 1101
    there was enough internal sympathy toward the cause of reform for a synod to
    be convened at Cashel. The most prominent ecclesiastic at the synod was
    Bishop Maél Muire Ua Dunáin. Little is known of his early life and career,
    but he was clearly of high office and greatly revered. Ua Dunáin may have
    begun his ecclesiastical career at the community of Clonard, an old and
    prominent foundation in Meath, where he died in 1117. He was also probably
    acting at the synod as the papal legate of Pope Pascal II. The brief reports
    on the resolutions of the synod indicate that it took cautious steps toward
    reform. The synod moved on several fronts to limit lay control and influence
    over ecclesiastical property and offices. It also issued a decree against
    marriage among close family members.
    Perhaps
    encouraged by the gains of the Cashel synod, another meeting convened ten
    years later at Rath Breasail. Ua Dunáin was in attendance, but the presiding
    ecclesiastic was Gille Easpuig (Gilbert), the bishop of Limerick and
    successor to Ua Dunáin as papal legate. The details of Gilbert’s origins and
    career are also largely unknown. He was probably of Norse-Irish origin and is
    known principally for his surviving work, De statu ecclesiastico, on
    the organization of the church. Also present was Cellach, the prominent
    reform-minded abbot of Armagh. The gathering at Rath Breasail adopted for
    Ireland a full-scale reorganization of the administrative structure of the
    church under two metropolitans, each with a dozen suffragan (diocesan)
    bishops. The two metropolitan seats were assigned to Counties Armagh and Cashel,
    and the dioceses assigned to each were generally named according to the old
    monastic and tribal centers. This allocation was immediately challenged by
    entrenched contemporary powers, secular and lay, resulting in substantial
    changes to the original plan in the immediate aftermath of the conference.
    Continuing the work begun earlier at Cashel, the synod also formally removed
    all churches in Ireland from lay control.
    The
    period between the meeting at Rath Breasail and the Synod of Kells in 1152
    was politically very turbulent, but the reform movement continued to advance
    under the guidance of the successor to Abbot Cellach of Armagh, Maél Maédóc
    Ua Morgair (Malachy). Malachy had ties to native ecclesiastical families
    through both his parents, but he allied himself firmly with the cause of
    reform. He became abbot of Armagh upon the death of Cellach in 1129, and,
    despite initial hostility toward him, he instituted there the observance of
    the canonical hours, the practice of regular confession, and other customs of
    the church. Malachy left the abbacy of Armagh to become first abbot of
    Bangor, and then a regional bishop, but he continued to work for the national
    cause of reform. He was instrumental in the introduction into Ireland of the
    Cistercian order and the spread of the order of Augustine canons. He also
    presided over meetings to amend the diocesan system drawn up at Rath
    Breasail. In 1140 Malachy made a trip to Rome, where he requested palls
    (church vestmants, or cloaks, worn by archbishops) for the two metropolitans
    from Pope Innocent II. The pope directed Malachy to convene another meeting
    to confirm the choice before he would grant the request. Malachy returned to
    his work in Ireland, but did not abandon his hopes for formal recognition of
    the Irish ecclesiastic centers. He presided over a synod at Inis Pádraig near
    Dublin in 1148, which provided the needed confirmation, but he died at
    Clairvaux in 1149 on his way back to Rome. The palls that Malachy had sought
    arrived in Ireland in 1152 and were conferred upon the metropolitan sees
    established by the Synod of Kells held in that year. That synod added two
    additional metropolitan seats at Tuam and Dublin to the original ones at
    Armagh and Cashel, as well as additional dioceses, but otherwise the earlier
    scheme was left largely intact.
    The
    arrival of the Normans in Ireland in force after 1170 brought new leadership
    to the Irish church, but the organizational structure created by the
    reformers remained. The Normans assisted the introduction of continental
    orders and practices into Ireland, but they were not any more successful in
    curbing the Irish social practices so disturbing to the church than the
    earlier reformers had been. Throughout the late medieval period complaints
    about the marital failings of the native Irish and the crassness of the Irish
    clergy continued, though these reports are often suspect in light of the
    political and religious divisions of the period.
    Bibliography
    Bernard
    of Clairvaux. The Life and Death of Saint Malachy the Irishman.
    Translated and annotated by Robert T. Meyer. 1978.
    Bethell,
    Denis. “English Monks and Irish Reform in the Eleventh and Twelfth
    Centuries.” Historical Studies 8 (1971): 111–135.
    Carey,
    John. King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings. 1998.
    Charles-Edwards,
    Thomas M. Early Christian Ireland. 2000.
    Gwynn,
    Aubrey. The Irish Church in the 11th and 12th centuries. Edited by
    Gerard O’Brien. 1992.
    Hughes,
    Kathleen. The Church in Early Irish Society. 1966.
    Dorothy
    Africa