OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Essays

  • The Norman Conquest of Ireland

    Below is a short introductory essay by a modern scholar on the coming of the Normans to Ireland.

    Norman Conquest and Colonization

    Seán Duffy

    The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland began with a trickle of mercenaries from South Wales landing in County Wexford in the summer of 1167, in aid of the exiled king of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada; substantial reinforcements arrived two years later, who were intent on staying and winning Irish lands. The most famous of the invaders was Richard “Strongbow” de Clare, lord of Pembroke and Chepstow (Strigoil), who did not arrive until August 1170, when he married Mac Murchada’s daughter, claimed the right to succeed him as king of Leinster, and conquered Dublin from its Hiberno-Norse rulers. These latter events caused the reigning king of England, Henry II, to reassess the benign but “hands-off” stance that had hitherto characterized his response to the invasion. Since his youth, he had been interested in conquering Ireland himself and adding it to the many territories that were his Angevin “empire.” He had accepted Mac Murchada’s declaration of fealty, made in Aquitaine in 1166 to 1167, carrying the reciprocal duty to protect Diarmait from his enemies, and had authorized him to seek support from among Henry’s vassals.

    The problem was that Strongbow was an errant vassal, out of royal favor after having taken the wrong side in the civil war that preceded Henry’s accession. The latter had denied him the title of earl for his Welsh estates, and was hardly likely to allow him become king of Leinster, which Strongbow was intending to do following Mac Murchada’s death in May 1171. Attempts having failed to forbid Strongbow’s departure for Ireland, to call home his associates, and to blockade their supplies, Henry decided to come to Ireland, to regularize the position of Strongbow and the other adventurers who were making rapid strides there, and to oversee the conquest in person. And so, when he landed near Waterford on 17 October 1171, with five hundred knights and four thousand archers, Henry II became the first English king to enter Ireland.

    It was no glittering prize, although its Viking-founded towns were certainly an asset, and Henry was quick to take possession of them from Strongbow and his followers. Without its wealthy ports, especially Dublin, Leinster was a far less attractive acquisition, and hence Henry allowed Strongbow to hold it in return for supplying the military service of 100 knights. The kings of Thomond and Desmond, Ó Briain and Mac Carthaig, voluntarily came to Henry at Waterford and submitted to him, and most other important kings and prelates did likewise, the kings hoping that Henry might restrain the more acquisitive of the invaders (he did so, to a degree, for several years), while the clergy believed that the Irish church could be more successfully modernized if subjected to English influence, an arrangement formalized at the Synod of Cashel during Henry’s brief visit.

    However, Henry did not meet the high king, Ruaidrí Ó Conchobair (Rory O’Connor), and the Anglo-Norman settlement did not proceed easily when faced with his opposition, although his armies proved ineffective against the sophistication of the Norman military machine and the invulnerability to Irish assault of the castles with which they were busy dotting the landscape. A compromise was required, and in 1175 the “treaty” of Windsor was negotiated whereby Ruaidrí accepted the Anglo-Norman colony, which was confined within its existing boundaries (Leinster, Munster from Waterford to Dungarvan, and Meath, which Henry had given to Hugh de Lacy in 1172), while Henry acknowledged Ruaidrí as the paramount power elsewhere. However, this had little appeal for the land-hungry colonists and was soon abandoned in favor of a policy of all-out conquest, with speculative grants of Desmond and Thomond being made to favorites of the king, while John de Courcy won east Ulster for himself in 1177. In that year, a royal council was held at Oxford at which the youngest of Henry’s four sons, John, was made lord of Ireland. He was not expected to succeed to the throne, and so Henry envisaged a loose constitutional arrangement whereby Ireland would be ruled by a junior branch of the English royal family.

    It was 1185 before John visited Ireland, but his youthful folly in his dealings with the Irish kings alienated them from their new lord, who was busy building castles on Leinster’s frontier and granting lands in Munster to the ancestors of the Butlers and Burkes, while what is now County Louth was also taken from the Irish. In terms of fostering relations with the Irish, John’s expedition proved disastrous, but it did advance the conquest and saw the establishment in Ireland of a form of government modeled on that of England, a pattern that has prevailed. John’s later expedition in 1210 was hardly more productive since he was again inept in his treatment of the native rulers, although he reasserted his faltering authority over the colonists and further expanded the apparatus and reach of royal government. In the meantime, in 1199, John had ascended the throne, and hence the lordship of Ireland and kingship of England were, by an accident of history, reunited in the same person, as remained the case long thereafter.

    By the time of John’s second visit the country had been immeasurably transformed. The power of the Irish kings, except in the northwestern quadrant of the island, had been minimized, and their best ancestral lands taken from them by Anglo-Norman barons intent on expanding even further. They were able to do so by virtue of their advanced military equipment and tactics and their policy of encastellation. Beginning with rapidly erected timber structures atop earthen mounds (the motte-and-bailey), they were soon constructing massive stone fortresses like Trim and Carrickfergus, a sign for all to see that they were there to stay. But these would have meant nothing to the Irish if conquest were not followed by large-scale colonization. Only then, by the banishment of the native population from the fertile plains or their reduction to servile status, and the introduction of a new, loyal English population, could the colony feel secure and, just as important, provide a profit for those adventurers who had risked all on crossing the Irish Sea to start a new life.

    In the aftermath of the invasion, therefore, Ireland witnessed nothing short of an economic and agricultural revolution. The great lords parceled up their conquests among members of the lesser gentry from their homelands who were prepared to join them on this new frontier. The latter in turn persuaded others to follow suit (probably not too difficult at a time of population growth), and as each took ownership of their new estates, they enticed over their English and Welsh tenants, offering more attractive terms of tenure. They built new towns and boroughs and persuaded burgesses to inhabit them by less rigorous taxes and regulation. Just as towns needed merchants, traders, and craftsmen, so too manors needed laborers and parishes needed priests. Everything required to turn this new colony into a facsimile of England was found and shipped over from the neighboring isle, and within a generation or two the transformation was immense. But it was never complete. In the north and west, and in the uplands and bogs, the native Irish remained intact. Denied access to the law and treated as enemies in their own land, they remained a potential threat, and although the colony continued to expand until about the year 1300, its unfinished nature meant that an Irish resurgence was inevitable.

    Bibliography

    Cosgrove, Art, ed. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 2, Medieval Ireland, 1169–1534. 1987. Reprint, 1993.
    Duffy, Seán. Ireland in the Middle Ages. 1997.
    Flanagan, Marie Therese. Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers, Angevin Kingship. 1989.
    Orpen, Goddard Henry, ed. The Song of Dermot and the Earl. 1892.
    Orpen, Goddard Henry. Ireland under the Normans. 4 vols. 1911–1920.
    Scott, Alexander Brian, and Francis Xavier Martin, eds. Expugnatio Hibernica: The Conquest of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis. 1978.

  • Early Medieval Ireland and Christianity

     

    Below is a useful introduction to the history of Christianity in Early Medieval Ireland, even if I don’t agree that Saint Brigid may never have existed!

    Early Medieval Ireland and Christianity

    Colin A. Ireland

    The history of early medieval Ireland can be understood only against the background of the conversion to Christianity that introduced ideas that changed the culture and society of pagan Ireland forever. Christian doctrine and theology shaped social behavior and altered cultural practice, yet much was kept that did not contravene Christian conscience as affirmed by some early Irish law tracts. Christianity, as the “religion of the book,” required literacy so that believers could read the Bible and perform the Latin liturgy. With literacy in Latin came literacy in the vernacular, that is, in Irish (Gaelic). The early Irish took readily to these intellectual pursuits, and Ireland produced the earliest, and arguably the richest, vernacular literature in medieval Western Europe.

    The richness and variety of literary texts in the early Irish language has encouraged many to see this literature as a repository of pre-Christian lore and belief. But most Celticists accept that it is impossible to recreate accurately the pagan beliefs and practices of pre-Christian Ireland based on archaeology and the surviving literature. Most medieval texts that purport to represent pre-Christian Irish characters and events were compiled several centuries after the introduction of Christianity, and vast cultural and societal changes separate them from the times they pretend to portray. Many texts reveal direct influence from identifiable Christian authors and their writings. Critics now accept that a tenth-century Irish saga from the Ulster Cycle, for example, tells us as much about Ireland in the time of its tenth-century redactor as it does about the pre-Christian Irish characters depicted in the saga.

    THE EARLY SAINTS

    The first firm date in Irish history does not come from Irish sources but rather from the south of France in a chronicle written by Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390–463). Prosper’s Chronicle states that in 431 a certain Palladius was ordained bishop by Pope Celestine and sent “to the Irish believing in Christ.” Prosper made it clear that Saint Patrick was not the first Christian missionary to Ireland. In addition to Palladius, there are traditions of Christian saints and their communities in Ireland, particularly in the south and east, before Patrick’s arrival. These pre-Patrician Christians may have developed the earliest Irish writing system, known as ogham.

    Saint Patrick may have flourished any time during the period around 432, when Irish chronicles say that he arrived in Ireland, to around 492, when they claim that he died. These dates represent a period that critics accept as being too long to accurately reflect Patrick’s career in Ireland. Most scholars state simply that Patrick flourished sometime in the mid to late fifth century. Although we do not have firm dates for Saint Patrick, we are fortunate that writings by him do survive—his Confession and the Letter to (the soldiers of) Coroticus. Both reveal much about the character and personality of the man even if they tell us little about Ireland in his time.

    By the late seventh century the richness of early Irish literature becomes evident in several saints’ lives written in Latin. Irish hagiography (from the Greek words meaning “writings about holy persons”) includes early texts about the saints Patrick, Brigit, and Columba. Besides their emphasis on religious topics, we see their propaganda value as they attempt to promote certain regions and dynastic families who supported an individual saint’s cult.

    Two surviving seventh-century lives of Saint Patrick reveal much about how Irish clerics of that period viewed Patrick, but they do not add much reliable information about Patrick himself or about Ireland in his lifetime. Tírechán of Armagh compiled around 670 a collection of anecdotes about Saint Patrick (Collectanea de Sancto Patricio). A near contemporary of Tírechán, Muirchú maccu Machthéni, wrote a life of Saint Patrick around 690 (Vita Sancti Patricii) that is a more finished work of hagiography than Tírechán’s. Muirchú’s work relates, among other episodes, the conversion of King Lóeguire at Tara and Patrick’s contests with Lóeguire’s druids. Both of these seventh-century hagiographical works reveal a northern bias in their acceptance of the primacy of the see of Armagh and Patrick as patron saint of all Ireland, and both stress the role of the Uí Néill (O’Neill) dynastic family.

    While the hagiography about Patrick tended to emphasize sites and families in central and northern Ireland, Leinster in the east also had its special saint. Cogitosus wrote around 680 a life of the female saint Brigit (Vita Sanctae Brigitae). Brigit’s cult is centered in Kildare, a monastic city that became famous for its scriptorium and a center from which many Irish scholars departed for the continental schools in the Carolingian age. There is no firm historical evidence for Brigit, and she may be the one case of an early pagan Celtic goddess being transformed into an Irish saint. The struggle between the Uí Néill dynasts of the north and the ruling families of Leinster are reflected in the competition between Armagh and Kildare, with Armagh eventually gaining supremacy throughout Ireland but allowing Kildare and its saint Brigit to maintain their importance within Leinster.

    The first firmly historical Irish saint was Saint Columba (Columba the Elder, c. 521–597; Colum Cille in Irish). Adomnán (+704), abbot of Iona, wrote a life of Columba (Vita Sancti Columbae) sometime in the last decade of the seventh century. The life of Columba follows typical hagiographical motifs rather than offering historical details and describes prophetic revelations and miracles. Columba, like Patrick, was a missionary. As the first Irish pilgrim (peregrinus) saint, Columba left Ireland sometime around 563 and founded the monastery of Iona on a small island off the coast of Scotland. Tradition relates that Columba went into exile as a penance for his part in the dynastic wars of his Uí Néill relatives.

    Columba’s self-imposed exile from Ireland reveals much about the monastic ideals of his period. It was considered a penance to leave one’s homeland to reside among foreign people. But to do so for the love of God, or for Christ’s sake, was a powerful act of piety. We see this ideal in Patrick’s writings and actions. Patrick, who was originally from Britain, was captured by Irish raiders and taken in his teens as a slave to live in Ireland. When he escaped after years of servitude, his religious faith drove him to return to Ireland to convert to Christianity those who had enslaved him rather than return to his home in Britain. Deorad Dé (“exile of God”) was the Irish term for a person willing to undergo self-imposed pilgrimage (peregrinatio) or exile as an act of piety.

    Many examples of Irish pilgrim exiles exist. One of the most famous is Columbanus (Columba the Younger, c. 543–615)—not to be confused with Columba the Elder—who spent roughly twenty-five years on the continent as a pilgrim and founded several monasteries in France and one in Italy. Columbanus was educated at the monastery of Bangor, Co. Down, in Northern Ireland. He composed Latin texts that include sermons, a penitential, a monastic rule, and letters, some of which were addressed to popes. His writings reveal the depth of the education that he received at the monastic school in Ireland. He left Bangor sometime around 590, at about the age of fifty, and traveled with twelve companions on the continent, particularly in what is now France, where he founded monasteries at Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines. But Columbanus was eager to move on and visit Rome. Although he never fulfilled his wish, he succeeded in founding the most important of his monasteries at Bobbio in Italy. Columbanus died around 615.

    This pattern of pilgrim saints founding monasteries on the continent was repeated frequently in subsequent centuries. One of Columbanus’s Irish disciples, a monk named Gall, was too ill to travel to Italy with Columbanus and stayed back, eventually founding a monastery at Saint Gallen in Switzerland. Gall died around 630. Another Irish missionary, Kilian, departed Ireland more than a century later with a group of companions and founded a monastery at Würzburg in Germany. Kilian is one of the few Irish pilgrim saints to have been martyred. He was assassinated, along with two companions, as a result of political intrigue after a trip to Rome around 687/9.

    MONASTERIES

    The ideals of Irish monastic life can be seen in the missionary work and training activities of Irish monasteries. During the early decades of the seventh century many Anglo-Saxon nobles were educated at Irish monasteries in northern Britain, specifically at Iona. When these Irish-educated English nobles returned to England, they invited Irish missionaries into their pagan kingdoms to evangelize. The Anglo-Saxon king Oswald invited the Irish bishop Aidan from Iona into his kingdom, and Aidan founded the monastery at Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumberland around 635. The English historian Bede (+735) shows that Irish missionary activity in northern England was more successful at converting the pagan English than that started by Rome in 597 from Canterbury in the south of England.

    Monastic schools in Ireland became centers of excellence for peoples from all over Europe, as can be seen by tracing the English who came to study and train as missionaries in them. The historian Bede and an earlier English contemporary Aldhelm (+709) report that sizeable contingents of English students trained as missionaries in Ireland, specifically at Rath Melsigi, Co. Carlow, in Leinster. These English monks trained in Ireland in order to convert their pagan Germanic relatives on the continent. Several of them had successful ecclesiastical careers after their Irish training.

    Bede and Aldhelm, as clerics, emphasized religious training, but both confirm that secular subjects were also taught at Irish monastic schools. Study of the scriptures was paramount, but they both make it clear that students often traveled from site to site seeking out teachers who had specialized knowledge in secular subjects as well. Bede said that the Irish willingly welcomed the English students, gave them food, and provided them with books and instruction, without seeking any payment (Book iii, chapter 27).

    Much early Irish literature is associated with monasteries, which shows that many of the learned persons of Ireland, whether secular or religious, received their educations at monastic schools. This means as well that the literature associated with these monasteries is preserved in both Latin and Irish.

    The monastery of Iona, founded by Columba, encouraged literary production in both languages. For example, one of its more famous abbots, Adomnán (679–704), mentioned already as the author of the Latin “Life of Columba,” wrote a description in Latin of the significant sites in the Holy Land called “On the Holy Places” (De Locis Sanctis). Abbot Adomnán also wrote and promulgated a law (Cáin Adomnáin, 697), written in Irish, which was intended to protect women, children, and clerics from the ravages of warfare.

    Columba himself, the founder of Iona, has a Latin hymn, “Exalted Creator” (Altus Prosator), attributed to him, although not all critics accept the attribution. Three poems in praise of Columba rank among the oldest complete poems in the Irish language. One of them, the “Eulogy for Columba” (Amra Choluim Chille), has been dated on linguistic grounds to around 600, which coincides well with Columba’s death date of 597. According to tradition, Dallán Forgaill, a professional poet, composed it in order to eulogize Columba on his death. This poem is important for several reasons besides its great age. It reflects an ancient tradition of praising secular rulers, but it is unusual for praising instead a religious leader. It demonstrates how the learning of the monasteries blended native customs with Christian teachings. For example, it complies with the norms of secular eulogy by noting Columba’s aristocratic background and by providing genealogical information that can be corroborated in other sources. Columba is called a great champion, but rather than battling against his enemies and sharing largesse among his subjects, Columba excels in self-denial and Christian learning. His praiseworthy qualities are not those of a secular ruler, but of an ascetic, scholarly cleric.

    The monastery at Bangor also produced learned religious texts in Latin beside a vibrant vernacular literature of Irish tales. We have already noted that Columbanus, the Bangor-educated missionary to the continent, corresponded with popes and wrote sermons, a penitential, and a monastic rule in Latin. In the late seventh century a collection of beautiful religious poems and hymns in Latin, the “Antiphonary of Bangor,” was compiled there.

    Important vernacular literature also came from Bangor. “The Voyage of Bran” (Immram Brain), perhaps the earliest example of the Irish “otherworld voyage,” was written at Bangor. It tells of Bran’s voyage across the Western Ocean and recounts the wonders that he encountered in a sinless otherworld. It employs a motif whereby characters in a pre-Patrician context prophesy the coming of Christianity and the salvation of the Irish. Tales in Irish about the early cultural hero Mongán mac Fiachnai also originated at Bangor. The tales about Mongán portray the Irish Sea as a highway between Ireland and Britain and relate episodes that involve battles against English kingdoms.

    The mixture of Latin and Irish writings, like the texts produced at monasteries, is well illustrated by early Irish law tracts. Most, but not all, law texts produced for the church tend to be written in Latin. The “Irish Collection of Canons” (Collectio canonum hibernensis) of about 725, the primary example of Irish church law, is based on biblical and patristic sources. Penitentials and monastic rules represent the Irish tendency, evident in the vernacular law tracts, to codify and schematize social organization and behavior. A group of ecclesiastical laws in the vernacular is represented by cána (sg. cáin), of which Cáin Adomnáin (Adomnán’s Law, 697) has already been cited. Other examples include Cáin Phátraic (Patrick’s Law, 737) and Cáin Domnaig (Law of Sunday).

    The majority of secular law tracts, written in Irish, were redacted between around 650 and around 750. A collection of vernacular law tracts called the Senchas Már (the “Great Tradition”) appears to have been compiled in the northern midlands. A separate group of “poetico-legal” texts called the “Nemed school” probably originated in Munster. These law tracts reveal a great deal about the hierarchical nature of early Irish society and social custom. They discuss social rank and status, kinship structure, distribution of inheritance, rights to property, making and enforcing of contracts, the grading of professions, and so on. It is significant that the law tracts tended to be compiled during the same period that saw the spread of ecclesiastical literature.

    KINGSHIP

    The study of early Irish politics is made difficult by the proliferation of names of petty kings, none of whom ever clearly rose to prominence. The genealogies and regional king-lists preserved from early Irish sources are particularly rich when compared to other parts of medieval Western Europe. Part of the problem can be understood by recognizing that the Irish word translated as “king” (rí) does not designate a centralized, powerful monarch, as we might encounter on the continent, for example. Instead, it is used to describe the leader of any small local group based on blood kinship (tuath). These groups existed in varying hierarchical relationships to one another so that a local “king” might be a vassal to a stronger “king” in the next valley, and that neighboring “king” would in turn be subject to a regional “king” who might control, at least nominally, an entire province.

    The politico-geographical divisions of Ireland have a long history, whether the divide is between north (Leth Cuinn) and south (Leth Moga) or into the provinces that exist to this day: Ulster, Connacht, Munster, and Leinster. The notion that one king could rule all of Ireland—usually called the “High King of Tara”—had developed by our period, although it remained an ideal rather than a reality. Nevertheless, this ideal implies the incipient concept of an Irish nation encompassing the entire island.

    The idealized concept of kingship was circumscribed by certain inherited proscriptions. For example, a king must not be physically blemished, as this implied an imperfection in his reign. The sacral character of kingship is shown by the idea that a just, righteous king would have a peaceful, prosperous reign; his “king’s truth” (fír flathemon) guaranteed the land’s fertility. Sovereignty, as an abstract concept, was portrayed as a female so that a king, when he assumed the kingship, symbolically married his kingdom.

    Kingship was not based on a strict father to son (or closest male relative) succession, but rather eligibility for kingship was based on blood kinship extending over several generations. This meant that grandsons and great-grandsons might be eligible to contend for the kingship if they could muster support from relatives and political allies. This system appears on the surface to provide a democratic method of selecting the most qualified and popular candidate, but it often led to social strife and political division.

    In the northern half of Ireland the Uí Néill dynasts dominated the political scene, but the Uí Néill must be understood as interrelated families who exerted the greatest political control. The Uí Néill themselves divided into northern and southern divisions, and each of these subdivided again into various branches. Each branch of the Uí Néill claimed descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages (Niall Noígiallach), a quasi-historical fifth-century character. The various branches of the Uí Néill, north and south, alternated as they supplied the high king of Tara, without any branch ever clearly predominating. Other dynastic families from other parts of Ireland frequently occupied the high kingship during this time as well.

    The hierarchical nature of early Irish society is well illustrated in this concept of descent through prominent families. It can be seen functioning in Irish monasteries as well. For example, nearly all of the abbots at Iona from Columba (+597) to Adomnán (+709) were descended from Columba’s own family, the Cenél Conaill branch of the northern Uí Néill.

    In Munster a high kingship was centered on the ecclesiastical site at Cashel, Co. Tipperary. The ruling dynastic families in Munster were known as the Éoganachta, descended from Corc of Cashel, a contemporary of Niall of the Nine Hostages. The Éoganachta of Munster, like the Uí Néill, divided into two major divisions, this time between east and west, and these two major branches had their own subdivisions. Connacht takes its name from the Connachta, a tribal group descended from Conn the Hundred-Battler (Conn Cétchathach), who is also an ancestor of Niall of the Nine Hostages. The Uí Briúin produced the major dynastic families of Connacht. In Leinster by the early historical period the Uí Cheinnselaig and Uí Dúnlainge were the families that dominated the region, but the major Leinster dynastic families had already passed their peak of influence.

    THE VIKING PERIODS

    In 795 the first recorded Norse raid took place on Ireland’s north coast. This Irish raid came soon after the first attacks in England. Iona was also attacked in 795 and again in 802. In 806 sixty-eight persons were killed at Iona by raiders. In 807 a new monastic community was begun at Kells, Co. Meath, and was completed by 814, by which time much of the administration had been moved from Iona to Kells. It was during this period or immediately before it that the magnificent illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, was completed.

    There are two great periods of Norse activity in Ireland. The first centers on the first four decades of the ninth century. During this period the incursion consisted primarily of hit-and-run raids conducted by fast-moving, seagoing Vikings. In the second half of the ninth century the Norse began establishing permanent settlements that eventually became important commercial and trade centers. These include modern port cities such as Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick. Permanent Norse settlements were more prominent in the southern half of Ireland, in part because of the success of the northern Uí Néill at resisting their incursions.

    These Norse cities came to represent small kingdoms within Ireland that traded with, fought against, and in turn allied themselves with Irish kingdoms. By the early decades of the tenth century Irish kingdoms were often as not successful in their struggles against the Norse kingdoms. The Norse kingdoms tended to remain independent of each other and never presented a unified force against the Irish. The Norse in Ireland never controlled large areas the way they did in England, where vast territories came under the Danelaw. In France the entire province of Normandy memorializes the Norse kingdom that was established there and which eventually came to exert power over much of western Europe, including Ireland.

    The Battle of Clontarf (1014) has often been presented as the defeat of the Viking invaders by the Irish king Brian Boru. But, in fact, the battle represents the successful dynastic wars of the Uí Briain/O’Brien descendants of Brian Boru of Munster in their rise to supremacy and reveals Norse and Irish kingdoms allied with and against each other. The Uí Briain were allied with the Norse of Limerick against the Norse of Dublin and their Irish allies from Leinster. While Brian Boru’s victory (he was killed in the battle) may have marked the gradual demise of the Norse kingdom in Dublin, its real significance was the rise of the Uí Briain dynasts of Munster. With the decline of the Norse kingdoms we can recognize the outlines of modern Ireland emerging as the trading cities founded by the Norse continued to thrive.

    Bibliography

    Anderson, Alan Orr, and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, eds. and trans. Adomnán’s Life of Columba. 1961. Revised, 1991.
    Bieler, Ludwig, ed. The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh. 1979.
    Byrne, Francis John. Irish Kings and High-Kings. 1973. Revised, 2001.
    Charles-Edwards, T. M. Early Christian Ireland. 2000.
    Clancy, Thomas Owen, and Gilbert Márkus, OP. Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. 1995.
    Colgrave, Bertram, and R. A. B. Mynors, eds. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 1969.
    De Paor, Liam. Saint Patrick’s World: The Christian Culture of Ireland’s Apostolic Age. 1993. Reprint, 1996.
    Edwards, Nancy. Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland. 1990.
    Flower, Robin. The Irish Tradition. 1947. Reprint, 1994.
    Hughes, Kathleen. The Church in Early Irish Society. 1966.
    Hughes, Kathleen. Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources. 1972.
    Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law. 1988.
    Kenney, James F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical, An Introduction and Guide. 1929. Reprinted, 1993.
    Lapidge, Michael, and Richard Sharpe. A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature, 400–1200. 1985.
    Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. Early Medieval Ireland, 400–1200. 1995.
    O’Loughlin, Thomas. Celtic Theology: Humanity, World, and God in Early Irish Writing. 2000.
    Richter, Michael. Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition. 1988.
    Ryan, John. Irish Monasticism: Origins and Early Development. 1931. 2d edition, 1972. Reprint, 1992.
    Sharpe, Richard, trans. Life of St. Columba. 1995.
    Sherley-Price, Leo, trans. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 1955. Revised, 1990.
    Smyth, Alfred P. Scandinavian York and Dublin: The History and Archaeology of Two Related Viking Kingdoms. 1975–1979.
    Walker, G. S. M., ed. Sancti Columbani Opera. 1957. Reprinted, 1970.
    Williams, J. E. Caerwyn, and Patrick K. Ford. The Irish Literary Tradition. 1992.

  • Manuscript Writing and Illumination

    Below is a very useful introduction to the writing and illumination of manuscripts within the Irish Church, which I originally found online here.
    Manuscript Writing and Illumination

    Michael Ryan
    The promotion of Latin literacy was a high priority for the young Irish church, and later tradition frequently describes Saint Patrick leaving the necessary books in churches that he had founded. Saint Columba (Colmcille; died at Iona in 597 C.E.) was said to have been involved in a dispute in his youth about copying a new version of the psalter, and to have been copying a manuscript on his last day on earth. In later times some books were regarded as precious relics and enshrined in metal reliquaries—a practice that may have originated in an Irish reflex of the Roman tradition of keeping the book for papal masses in a sealed casket.
    Scholars have disputed the locations where important Irish manuscripts of the early medieval period were written. In some cases it is impossible to establish the provenance of a manuscript, so the term insular is often used in preference to more precise geographical ascriptions. The earliest extended text to survive from Ireland is the bundle of wax tablets from Springmount Bog, Co. Antrim, on which a student practiced the psalms in a script that owes much to late Roman cursive writing but is already distinctively Irish. The first almost complete manuscript that has come down to us is the Cathach of Saint Columba, a psalter, or book of the psalms, written on vellum in an Irish half-uncial script around the year 600 C.E. It was preserved until modern times by the O’Donnells (the saint’s kin). The Cathach already shows the principal stylistic traits of later Irish manuscripts. Psalms begin with an enlarged capital, often embellished, followed by letters of smaller size that diminish in height until they merge with the body of the text—the effect is called diminuendo. The ornament is very simple: Letters are enriched by spiral scrolls and simple trumpet devices in the La Tène tradition, and Christian symbols (a dolphin or fish and the cross) appear. (The La Tène style is an abstract art form based on stylized vegetal motifs, spirals, and curvilinear scrolls associated with the Iron Age Celtic peoples of mainland Europe, Ireland, and Britain.) A fragmentary gospel book of about the same date in Trinity College Library, Codex Usserianus Primus, has a singe leaf devoted entirely to a painted cross of eastern style with an abbreviated Chi-Rho (monogram of Christ) and alpha and omega. Nothing further is known of Irish manuscript production until the later seventh century, by which time Irish missions in north Britain and on the continent had created an entirely new climate. Influences from Anglo-Saxon England, Gaul, and probably Italy gave rise to a new eclectic ornamental style in monastic scriptoria.
    The first manifestation of the mature insular style is the Book of Durrow, a luxury codex of the New Testament with prefatory matter and canon tables, which was preserved at Durrow, Co. Offaly, until it was given to Trinity College in the seventeenth century. With its remarkable carpet pages devoted entirely to ornament and to the cross and its highly original depiction of the symbols of the evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors of the Gospels), it is a splendid hybrid. The spiral and trumpet scrolls of the La Tène tradition dominate its decoration—one carpet page is a remarkable evocation of the spirit of the bronzesmith and enameller. The initial letters and diminuendo of the Cathach have been recreated here with great virtuosity and magnificence. Interlace, varied in rhythm and color, makes its appearance for the first time in insular art. A page devoted to animal art of Germanic inspiration has led some to attribute the manuscript to Northumbria or Iona. The careful observer will see even on pages that are ostensibly wholly “Celtic” stylized animal heads, but expressed in the idiom of spirals and trumpets. Gospels are prefaced by whole-page representations of the evangelists’ symbols,and the genealogy of Christ in Matthew’s gospel is introduced by a finely decorated Chi-Rho.
    The Anglo-Saxon –style beasts have been compared to metalwork from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, suggesting an early seventh-century date for Durrow, but a late seventh-century date is more plausible. The arthistorical arguments can tell us nothing about provenance, for the style could well have been present in the Irish midlands in the seventh century. The Book of Durrow is associated with Columba, and it is clearly related to the tradition of the later Book of Kells. The style could conceivably have been practiced in Durrow, itself a Columban monastery. Probably, though, it was produced in Iona and belonged to a tradition that was intimately connected, as the evangelists’ symbols show, with the emergence of very similar beast symbols on Pictish carved stones, and in contact with both the Irish and Anglo-Saxon worlds.
    Two manuscripts now in Durham and probably originally in the monastery of Lindisfarne (founded by Aidan of Iona in the 630s) belong to the mixed traditions of Northumbrian Christianity, which owed much to Irish ecclesiastics. One of these shows the development of a more fluid animal style that would be greatly elaborated in the eighth century; the other has the imprint of a now lost crucifixion scene in which Christ’s body is enveloped in a tightly wound garment. This is the earliest evidence that painted scenes were part of the insular repertoire.
    The Lindisfarne Gospels, associated with the cult of Saint Cuthbert, are remarkable. The book may have been created for the translation of Cuthbert’s relics in 698 C.E. to Lindisfarne. It is the greatest and most elaborate of the earliest insular gospel books. Arthistorically, a date of about 700 C.E. for the manuscript is plausible. Its animal ornament with tightly wound, fabulous, but entirely believable interlaced beasts, its elegantly caricatured birds, a remarkable cross-carpet page, stunning zoomorphized spiral scrollwork, and beautiful script make the book a tour de force. Symbolism of beasts and birds is prominent, but its evangelist portraits, bearing the unmistakable impress of the Mediterranean culture of the monasteries of Monkwear-mouth and Jarrow, place this manuscript at the heart of the Northumbrian Renaissance. Nevertheless, the style of ornament is uncannily close to that of the Tara Brooch and Donore Hoard—both from eastern Ireland—and of the Hunterston Brooch from Ayrshire in Scotland (almost certainly of Irish manufacture). These seem to locate the origin of its decoration partly in the art of the metalworkers patronized by Irish potentates. The legacy of Lindisfarne is apparent in the greatly inferior Lichfield Gospels and in the persistence of elements of the La Tène style in later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.
    Irish and Anglo-Saxon manuscript styles diverged during the eighth century. The sample of Irish survivors is very small, and only a few “pocket” gospel books are known. These have a smaller, often cursive script, simplified decoration of capitals, and charming if rather naïve evangelist portraits and symbols. Good examples are the Book of Mulling and the Book of Dimma in Trinity College and part of the Stowe Missal in the Royal Irish Academy—the latter almost certainly dates from after 800 C.E.
    Opinion is sharply divided on the date and origin of the famous Book of Kells. The current consensus is that it was created on the island of Iona toward the end of the eighth century. The book was probably brought to Kells, Co. Meath, a refuge of Columban monks from the Viking onslaught, in the tenth century C.E. It was at Kells in 1007 C.E. when it was stolen from the church and later found with the ornaments torn off the cover. The Annals of Ulster, recording both the theft and the recovery in that year, call it “the chief relic of the western world.” It was given to Trinity College in the seventeenth century. Though 340 folios survive, the book is incomplete. Kells has highly decorated canon tables, carpet pages, evangelist portraits and symbols, and figured scenes (the Temptation, the Virgin and Child, the Arrest of Christ)—all the work of a number of artists who employed with élan interlace, animal interlace, and beast ornament, especially of felines (lions?), birds, and serpents. There are vignettes in minor initials and interlinear paintings—an eagle seizing a fish, a warrior, chickens, and butterflies—some of which reflect on the adjacent text.
    Christological symbolism is everywhere. A particularly important page is devoted to the Chi-Rho that introduces the genealogy of Christ. This is a remarkable composition based on La Tène spirals and trumpets, combined with tiny illustrations of cats, mice, and butterflies, and other extraordinary displays of fine, almost microscopic decoration. A fragmentary manuscript in Turin may have approached Kells in ambition, and another in the Library of Sankt Gallen shared the Kells scriptorium’s interest in figured scenes, but neither approaches Kells in virtuosity and ornamental skill.
    In the ninth century a gospel book decorated with animal ornament, evangelist portraits, and fine geometric ornament was written by MacRegol, abbot of Birr (d. 822). It is preserved in the Bodleian Library. A much more elegant product is the Book of Armagh, created by the scribe Ferdomnach for the Abbot Torbach early in the ninth century. It contains the four gospels, documents relating to Saint Patrick, and a life of Saint Martin of Tours. Its elegant script and evangelist symbols are in black ink.
    The high style of manuscript production was dealt a fatal blow by the Viking wars of the ninth and tenth centuries, and later books do not approach in quality and ambition the work of the early period.
    Bibliography
    Alexander, J. J. G. Insular Illuminated Manuscripts, 6th to 9th Century. 1978.
    Fox, P., ed. The Book of Kells Ms 58 Trinity College Library Dublin. 1990.
    Henry, F. Irish Art in the Early Christian Period to AD 800. 1965.
    Henry, F. Irish Art during the Viking Invasions, 800–1020 AD. 1967.
    Meehan, B. The Book of Kells. 1994.
    Meehan, B. The Book of Durrow, a Medieval Masterpiece at Trinity College, Dublin. 1996.
    O’Mahoney, F., ed. The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College, Dublin, 6–9 September, 1992. 1994.