Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum Part 10

One of the most famous books in the schools of Ireland, and especially of Armagh, was the _Morals of St. Gregory the Great_. It is a very large treatise in thirty-five books, and though nominally a commentary on the _Book of Job_, it is in reality one of the most beautiful works on moral theology in its widest sense that have been ever penned. Every verse of Job is made the text for a homily, not a homily of a formal character, but a series of moral reflections conveyed in sweet and touching language--language in which argument and exhortation are very happily blended.

On Sacred Scripture St. Jerome seems to have been their great authority.

We know both from the fragments of Aileran the Wise, published by Migne, and from the Irish ma.n.u.scripts of St. Columban's great monastery at Bobbio, that our Irish scholars were familiar with nearly all his works.

In Dogmatic Theology we do not think that during the first two centuries of their history the Celtic scholars were familiar with the writings of St. Augustine on Grace; they seem to have derived their dogma from St.

Hilary, and other writers of the French Church, rather than from the great Father of the African Church.

One of the earliest and most distinguished teachers of the School of Armagh, after the time of St. Patrick and Benignus, was Gildas the Wise.

Many writers think there were at least two great saints of this name--the Albanian Gildas, and his namesake, Gildas of Badon (Badonicus), to whom the appellation of the Wise more properly belongs. We are inclined to think there was only one great saint of the name, and that the distinction is due to that confusion and uncertainty in our early chronology, which has been the fruitful parent of many errors. However, we are more concerned with facts than with dates, and it is an undoubted fact, stated by his biographer, Caradoc of Llancarvan, that Gildas was Regent or Rector of the great School of Armagh for several years, after which he returned to Wales from Ireland about A.D. 508, when he heard that his brother Huel had been slain by King Arthur, who, by the way, in sober history is by no means the "blameless King" he is represented to be in the romantic idyls of Lord Tennyson. Here are the exact words of Caradoc, the biographer of Gildas. After stating that Gildas, a most "holy preacher of the Gospel,"

pa.s.sed over to Ireland from Wales, and there converted very many to the Catholic faith, he adds:--"Gildas, the historian of the Britons, who was at that time (when his brother was killed), living in Ireland, being rector of the school, and a preacher in the city of Armagh, hearing of the death of his brother," returned to Wales and was reconciled to Arthur.

Thus we learn that Gildas, the historian of the Britons, was the same Gildas who had been head of the School of Armagh, the preacher renowned throughout all the Britains, and the first historian of that nation. His work called _The Destruction of Britain_,[123] is still extant, and shows that he was a man of large culture and of great holiness, in every way qualified to rule the Schools of Armagh. He gives a fearful picture of the Britons of his time, reduced as they were, to the greatest extremities by domestic tyrants and foreign foes. The first part of his work gives a sketch of British history, both civil and ecclesiastical, during the Roman domination in Britain, of the devastations by the Picts and Scots, and of the advent of the Saxons and Angles. The second part, called the "Epistle of Gildas," is addressed to the five petty princes, or tyrants, of Britain--to Constantine, whom he charges with perjury, robbery, adultery, and murder; to Aurelius, whom he calls a "lion's cub;" to the "panther,"

Vortiporius; to the "butcher," Cunegla.s.s; and to Magnoclunus, the "insular dragon." On the whole, it is a very spicy piece of writing, and clearly proves that the Welshmen of the time more than merited by their crimes the bitter chastis.e.m.e.nts which they received at the hands of the Saxons. The third part of the work is addressed to the clergy, and he rebukes them with no less severity of language. He is a new Jeremias, denouncing woe against the faithless pastors who sold the priesthood, who are the blind leaders of a blind flock, which they bring with themselves into perdition.

There is certainly no want of vigour, although there sometimes may be of eloquence, in the style of this work. It shows a wonderful familiarity with the text and the application of Sacred Scripture; and shows, too, that Gildas the Wise, the regent of the School of Armagh, was in truth a deep divine, and must have been, beyond all doubt, a powerful preacher.

We know little or nothing of the writings of the subsequent teachers in the School of Armagh, but we have a record of the names of several, with eulogies of their wisdom and scholars.h.i.+p. The number of English students attracted to these schools by the fame of their professors was so great that in later times we find that the city was divided into three wards, or thirds, as they were called--the Trian Mor, the Trian-Masain, and the Trian-Saxon--the last being the English quarter, in which the crowds of students from Saxon-land took up their abode, and where, as we know on the express testimony of a contemporary writer, the Venerable Bede, they were received with true Irish hospitality, and were all, rich and poor, supplied gratuitously with food, books, and education. No more honourable testimony has been ever borne to any nation's hospitality and love of learning than this. Alas, that England, in the centuries that followed, could make no better return to the Irish people, who, says Bede, had been always most friendly to the English, than to make it penal for an Irish Catholic to teach a school in his native land.

In the opinion of the learned Bishop Reeves, the Trian-Saxon was the district now occupied by Upper English Street and Abbey Street, and gave its name to the former.

Any one glancing at the Annals of the Four Masters will find frequent reference made from the sixth to the twelfth century to the deaths of the "learned scribes," the "professors of divinity," the "wise doctors," and the "moderators," or rectors of the School of Armagh. In A.D. 720, 727, and 749, we find recorded the death of three of these learned scribes within a very short period. Their duty was to devote themselves to the transcription of ma.n.u.script-books in the _Teachscreaptra_, or House of Writings, corresponding to the modern library. The _Book of Armagh_, transcribed there in A.D. 807, shows how patiently and lovingly they laboured at the wearying work; "as if," says Miss Stokes, "they had concentrated all their brains in the point of the pen." In A.D. 829 died Cernech, a priest and scribe who was known as the Wise by excellence; in A.D. 925 died Maelbrighde, successor of Patrick, "a vessel full of all the wisdom and knowledge of his time," and eulogies of this fas.h.i.+on are of very frequent occurrence in recording the deaths of the great scholars of Armagh.

And yet, during these very centuries the schools, the churches, and the town itself suffered terribly from the lawless men of those days, especially from the Danes. Armagh was burned no less than sixteen times between the years A.D. 670 and 1179, and it was plundered nine times, mostly by Danes, during the ninth and tenth centuries. How it survived during these centuries of fire and blood is truly marvellous. In A.D.

1020, for instance, we are told by the Four Masters that "Ard-Macha was burned with all the fort, without the saving of any house in it except the House of Writings only, and many houses were burned in the Trians (or streets), and the Great Church was burned, and the belfry with its bells; and the other stone churches were also burned, and the old preaching chair, and the chariot of the abbots and their books in the houses of the students, with much gold, silver, and other precious things." It is evident that on this occasion the efforts of the community were directed to secure their invaluable ma.n.u.scripts, the loss of which could never be repaired. Yet the city and schools of St. Patrick rose again Phnix-like from their ashes. In A.D. 1100, Imar O'Hagan, the master of the great St. Malachy, was made abbot just two years before the death of St. Malachy's father, the blessed Mugron O'More, who had been "chief lector of divinity of this school, and of all the west of Europe."

It was this same Imar O'Hagan, who, when made archbishop in A.D. 1126, rebuilt the great church of St. Peter and St. Paul in more than its ancient splendour, and introduced into the Abbey the Canons Regular of St.

Augustine. These Canons by their learning and zeal effected a complete restoration of piety, discipline and learning, which had been much neglected during the ravages of the Danes. Twelve years later we have a record of the death of O'Drugan, chief professor of Ard-Macha, "paragon of the wisdom of the Irish, and head of the council of the west of Europe in piety and in devotion." Just at this time, in A.D. 1137, the great Gelasius, who well deserved his name--the Giolla Iosa, or servant of Jesus--succeeded St. Malachy in the See of Armagh, and in spite of the disturbed state of the times raised the school to the zenith of its splendour. In A.D. 1162 he presided over a synod of twenty-six bishops, held at Clane in the County Kildare, in which it was enacted that no person should be allowed to teach divinity in any school in Ireland who had not, as we should now say, graduated in the School of Armagh. To make Armagh worthy of this pre-eminence, we find that in A.D. 1169, _the very year in which the Norman adventurers first landed in Ireland_, King Rory O'Connor "granted ten cows every year from himself, and from every king that should succeed him for ever, to the professor of Ard-Macha in honour of St. Patrick, to instruct the youths of Ireland and Alba in learning."

And the professor at the time was in every way worthy of this special endowment; for he was Florence O'Gorman, "head moderator of this school and of all the schools in Ireland, a man well skilled in divinity and deeply learned in all the sciences." He had travelled twenty-one years in France and England, and at his death in A.D. 1174 had ruled the Schools of Armagh for twenty years. It was well for the venerable sage that he died in peace. Had he lived four years more, he would have seen the sun of Armagh's ancient glory set in darkness and in blood, when DeCourcy and DeBurgo and DeLacy year after year swooped down on the ancient city, and plundered its shrines, and slaughtered or drove far away its students, its priests, and its professors. Once again Emania was made desolate by ruthless hands, and that desolation was more complete and more enduring than the first. We may hope, however, that the proud cathedral just built on Macha's Height gives promise of a glorious future yet in store for the ancient city of St. Patrick.

In connection with the School of Armagh we may appropriately speak of the _Book of Armagh_. It is one of the oldest, and, beyond any doubt, the most valuable of the ancient books of Ireland.[124] Its contents are singularly varied and interesting, and its history, too, has a melancholy interest for Irish scholars. To Dr. Ch. Graves, Protestant Bishop of Limerick, is due the merit of fixing the date of its transcription. In one place there is an entry asking a prayer for Ferdomnach--pro Ferdomnacho ores--and in another place there is an entry which Dr. Graves deciphered with the use of acids, to this effect--"Ferdomnach wrote this book from the dictation of Torbach, the heir of St. Patrick."[125] Torbach was primate only for a single year (A.D. 807); and we find from the _Annals of the Four Masters_ that Ferdomnach "a sage and choice scribe of the Church of Armagh," died in A.D. 844. We are justified, therefore, in concluding that Torbach, the primate in A.D. 807 (he died on the 16th of July in that year) had this great work transcribed under his own direction by the choice scribe, Ferdomnach. Moreover, before his elevation to the primacy, Torbach had been himself a scribe of the Church of Armagh, and thus very naturally took an interest in the transcription and preservation of this great treasure of his church.

The Danes, too, at this time, hungry for pillage and slaughter, were hovering around the coasts of Ireland. They had as yet made no descent on Armagh, but they had at several points round the coast, especially on the islands, as at Rathlin in A.D. 794, and Innismurray, off the coast of Sligo, in A.D. 804, and at Iona where sixty of the clergy and laity were slain by the foreigners. It was of the highest importance, therefore, just at this time, to secure a copy of this ancient book. We know, too, from several marginal entries, that it had in some places become so illegible from age and use that the "choice scribe" had great difficulty in ascertaining the genuine text, so that we are justified in inferring that even in A.D. 807 it was a very old book, highly prized in the Church of Armagh. The sketch of the life of St. Patrick given in this book purports to be taken down by Bishop Tirechan from St. Ultan, who so early as A.D. 650 was Bishop of Ardbraccan, in Meath, and partly also from the dictation of Muirchu Maccu Mactheni, at the request of his preceptor, Aedh, Bishop of Sletty. It is not too much then to say that the Life of St. Patrick in the _Book of Armagh_, is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most authentic doc.u.ment of its kind in existence in Ireland. The handwriting of the book, too, is uniform throughout, and very beautiful, showing that Ferdomnach was, indeed, as he is called in the Annals, a "choice scribe."

Some leaves are wanting in the beginning, but they do not seem to be of great importance. We have, first of all, the short life of St. Patrick, and annotations thereon in Latin and Irish--the Irish is now, perhaps, the very oldest form of the language to be found anywhere. We have next a treatise on the rights and privileges of the Church of Armagh; then the Confession of St. Patrick, followed by the words--and they are very important--"Hucusque volumen quod Patritius scripsit manu sua"--_this is the part of the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand_. The reference seems to be princ.i.p.ally to the _Confession_, and clearly implies that the original copy was made from the autograph of the apostle himself.

After this come several other tracts, amongst them an entire copy of the New Testament,[126] Gospels and Epistles, including the spurious epistle to the Laodiceans. The Gospels, in Dr. Todd's opinion, are of the recension of St. Jerome, but not so the Epistles. They bear no traces of his correction, a thing, however, not without example in ancient ma.n.u.scripts. There is next a copy of the beautiful life of St. Martin of Tours, written by the "Christian Sall.u.s.t," Sulpicius Severus, which is the last complete treatise in the book, although there are, here and there, extracts from that work so famous in the early Irish Church, the _Moralia_ of St. Gregory the Great.

One of the most remarkable features in the _Book of Armagh_ is that many of the Gospel headings are written in Greek characters, and the last entry of all is a colophon of four Latin lines, but written in Greek letters, showing clearly that even at this early date a knowledge of Greek was general in our Irish schools.

This book was, not unnaturally, looked upon, on account of its sacred character and great antiquity, as the priceless treasure[127] of the Church of St. Patrick. It was incased in a shrine so early as A.D. 937 by Donogh, son of Flann, King of Ireland, and a special custodian was appointed to guard it. He was called the _maor_, or steward, who had the custody of the book, and as the office became hereditary in one family, they were allowed lands for their support, and came to be called MacMoyres--the descendants of the Keeper. Alas, for human nature! when Oliver Plunket, the martyr Primate of Armagh, was tried in A.D. 1681 for treason, in London, and sentenced to be executed on the testimony of those whom the sainted prelate described as "merciless perjurers," two of the MacMoyres, Florence and his brother John, were amongst the perjured witnesses that swore away his life. And what is saddest of all, the wretch, Florence MacMoyre, was at the time the custodian, or keeper, of the _Book of Armagh_, and p.a.w.ned it for 5 to a Protestant gentleman, Arthur Brownlow of Lurgan, that he might, it seems, find means to go over to London and earn his blood-money by betraying the n.o.blest Heir of Patrick that ever sat in his primatial chair.

The folios of the _Book of Armagh_ were arranged, numbered, and incased by Mr. Brownlow, in whose family the work continued down to the year A.D.

1853, when it was purchased for 300 by the late venerable and learned Dr.

Reeves, who had been for many years preparing to print it, and there was none more capable than he to execute that task. From Dr. Reeves the book pa.s.sed on the same terms to Primate Beresford, by whom it was presented to the library of Trinity College, where it is open to the inspection of all scholars through the great courtesy of the librarian, Dr. Ingram, F.T.C.D.

CHAPTER VI--(_continued_).

SCHOOLS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY.

"Brigid is the Mary of the Gaedhil."

--_Book of Hymns._

II.--THE SCHOOL OF KILDARE.

From Armagh we not unnaturally turn to Kildare. If St. Patrick is the father, St. Brigid is the mother of all the saints of Erin, both monks and nuns. She may be regarded not only as the foundress of the monasteries and School of Kildare, but also, in one sense at least, of the diocese of Kildare itself. She has always been deemed one of the three great patron saints of Ireland. Her festival was honoured next after that of St.

Patrick himself. The name has always been a favourite one with the daughters of Ireland. She was a woman not only of great virtues but of great talents; and exercised a powerful influence on the Church in her own day. She was the hope of the poor, the counsellor of bishops, the guide of kings; and to some extent that influence is felt even at the present hour.

Her history, too, is exceedingly interesting, and throws much light on the manners and morals of those early days. We can, however, only give the reader a brief sketch of the leading incidents in her very remarkable career.

Although Brigid was the greatest, she certainly was not the first of the daughters of Erin who dedicated their virginity and their lives to the service of Jesus Christ, and received the veil from St. Patrick himself.

The sisters twain who died after their baptism at Clebach's Well, on the slopes of Rath Cruachan--Fedelm the ruddy, and Ethne of the golden hair--were probably the first daughters of Erin[128] who put on the veil for Christ.

"Patrick put a white veil upon their heads," as we are told in the _Tripart.i.te_, and having received Communion--Christ's Body and His Blood--they fell asleep in death, and Patrick laid them side by side under one mantle in the same bed. And their friends bewailed them greatly; but G.o.d's angels rejoiced, for they were the first fruits that the Spouse took to himself from all the land of Erin.

About the same time Mathona, the sister of the young and gentle Benignus, received the veil from Patrick in the first bloom of her youth and beauty.

It seems she accompanied her brother, who attended the Apostle all the way from the banks of the Boyne; and that she, too, had the privilege of ministering to Patrick and his companions. She had heard, if she had not seen, how, when Patrick abode at her father's house near Inver Boinde, the earth opened wide its jaws and swallowed up the wizard or Druid, who had mocked at Mary's virginity;[129] and she resolved to become a virgin like unto Mary. So when Patrick had crossed the Shannon, and was come to Elphin in Roscommon, we are told that he went thence to Dumacha of the Hy Ailella, and founded there at Sench.e.l.l, near Elphin, a church in which he placed Maichet, and Cetchen, and Rodan, the arch-priest, and Mathona, Benen's sister, who took the veil from Patrick and from Rodan, and became a religious. She afterwards crossed the mountain to the north-east and founded a church and convent of her own at Tawnagh, near Lough Arrow, in the county Sligo. This is the second express reference to the profession of a nun in Ireland. Bishop Cairell was also placed by St. Patrick in Tawnagh to watch over that infant establishment.

It is not unlikely that the 'sisters twain of Fochlut's wood,' whose infant voices had summoned Patrick over the sea, calling him to come and walk once more amongst them, were also clothed with the religious veil by the Saint, when he went to Tyrawley. He certainly baptized them there, and we are told that they are the patronesses of the church called "Cell Forgland," which was situated a little to the north of Killala over the present road to Palmerston.

"On a cliff Where Fochlut's Wood blackened the northern sea, Their convent rose. Therein these sisters twain, Whose cry had summoned Patrick o'er the deep, Abode, no longer weepers. Pallid still In radiance now their faces shone; and sweet Their psalms amid the clangour of rough brine."[130]

We are told in the same _Tripart.i.te_ that once when Patrick was at Armagh, nine daughters of the King of the Lombards came over the sea, and a daughter of the King of Britain came also on a pilgrimage to Patrick, and they tarried at the place near Armagh, called Coll-nan-Ingen--the Hazel of the Daughters. Some of the virgins died and were buried there, but the others went to Drum-Fendeda, and there abode. The virgin Cruimtheris, however, went and set up at Cengoba, and Benen used to carry food to her until Patrick planted an apple tree for the holy virgin; and then she lived on the fruit of that tree and on the milk of a doe, that grazed in her little orchard.

There is no doubt therefore that Patrick received the vows of many holy virgins in Erin before St. Brigid was professed. As Benen himself was the earliest and apparently the best beloved of Patrick's disciples, so his sister was amongst the first of the daughters of Erin that he clothed with the veil of virginity, and there is every reason to believe that her holy relics sleep in the old church of Tawnagh, in Tirerrill, co. Sligo.

It is not improbable, too, that Patrick received the vows of St. Fanchea, the sister of the celebrated St. Enda of Aran, whose convent was established at Rossory, on the sh.o.r.e of Lough Erne. Hereafter we shall see how Enda owed his own conversion to his sister, St. Fanchea, and as this event must have taken place about the year A.D. 480, she herself may have seen St. Patrick, if she did not receive the veil from his hands.

We shall see hereafter also, when treating of St. Brendan, that the convent of St. Ita was founded about the same time.

She was the Brigid of Munster and the nursing mother of many other saints besides St. Brendan. Her memory is fondly cherished to this day in the co.

Limerick, and immense crowds of people still a.s.semble on her feast day at Killeedy, where the ruins of her ancient church are still to be seen. So the virgins of Christ were established everywhere in Ireland during the life-time of St. Patrick himself, and many must have made their profession before St. Brigid. But that holy virgin in other respects has eclipsed them all, and has come to be regarded as the queen and the mother of all the holy virgins, whose names are known in Erin, or as aengus calls her--'the head of the nuns of Erin.'

A great controversy rages round the parentage of St. Brigid. Cogitosus, the author of the _Second Life_, as given by Colgan, was a monk of Kildare, who flourished not later than the end of the eighth century, and must therefore be recognised as a competent authority. He declares that she was born of Christian parents of a n.o.ble race, and this statement is confirmed by the author of the SIXTH LIFE, who was a monk of the island of Iniscaltra, in Lough Derg. All the authorities, indeed, admit that she was n.o.ble on the father's side, for Dubhtach, her father, was a chieftain, the tenth in descent from the celebrated Feidhlimidh Rechtmar, the Lawgiver, a King of Ireland, who flourished in the second century of the Christian era. But the authors of the _Third_, _Fourth_, and _Fifth Lives_ of the Saint declare that Brigid's mother was a female slave or captive in the house of Dubhtach, that her own birth was illegitimate, and that shortly before that event took place, the captive maiden, her mother, whose name was Brocessa, was driven from her home through the bitter jealousy of her master's wife, and sold to a certain Druid or magus, who carried her to Faughart, where the future saint was born. It is difficult to a.s.sign any reason why the admirers of St. Brigid should invent this story; on the other hand it is easy to see why Cogitosus, jealous for glory of the foundress of his own Kildare, might be induced to pa.s.s it over in silence.

It is certainly consistent with the manners of the time, for the Brehon Code clearly shows that then and long after slavery and its attendant evils existed in Ireland. The very fact that Brigid was not born in the house of her father, who seems to have dwelt in Leinster, appears to be a further confirmation of the story. St. Patrick was at one time a slave, and so it appears, too, that Brigid, to whom Ireland owes so much, was born of a slave-mother, and during the years of her youth had herself to endure, even after she came to her father's house, the bitter taunts of her father's wife, and the ceaseless drudgery of a captive maid. So it was that Providence prepared her, as it prepared Patrick, for the accomplishment of her lofty mission.

There are still many interesting memorials of St. Brigid at Faughart. The village is not quite two miles to the north-east of Dundalk. It is situated amid fertile fields, overlooking the sparkling waters of the Bay, and nestling under the shelter of the Carlingford mountains. It was once ruled over by Cuchullin, the Hound of the North, who kept the ford of Ardee against the hosts and the heroes of Queen Meave; and in its old church-yard was buried the headless trunk of the gallant Edward Bruce, who was slain close at hand--the spot is still shown--in the year A.D. 1318.

St. Brigid's Well is there, roofed over with masonry, but its waters are gone. The flag on which she was placed after her birth is also pointed out, and there also are Brigid's Pillar, and Brigid's Stone, of a horse-shoe shape, and the remains of an old church, but certainly not dating from Brigid's time. The old church-yard surrounding it is crowded with ancient graves, and enclosed by a tall hedge of fragrant hawthorns.

There are several 'forts' and ancient 'mounds' in the neighbourhood, which show that it had been a populous and important place, probably from the pre-historic ages of Cuchullin. One of them is sixty feet in height, and its level summit is still crowned with the foundations of a strong octagonal building, the purpose of which cannot now be ascertained.[131]

St. Brigid was born about the year A.D. 450, and was baptized shortly after her birth, with the consent of the magus or Druid in whose service her mother was engaged. She grew up, according to all her biographers, to be a young girl of singular grace and beauty, greatly favoured by nature, but still more richly endowed by grace. The daughter of the captive was watched over by guardian angels; her food was the milk of a white cow, that typefied the purity of her own young heart; and the b.u.t.ter from her master's dairy, that she too generously gave to the poor, was miraculously replaced that she and her mother might not be blamed on account of waste or extravagance.

We cannot trace all the events of her marvellous history--how she was carried to Connaught and to Munster; how many suitors vainly sought her hand; how she returned to her father's house and provoked the jealousy of her step-mother; how for peace sake her father offered to sell his beautiful daughter to the king of North Leinster, as he had sold her mother to the magus. But Providence watched over her in all her ways, and at length brought about the consummation of her most ardent wishes. With seven other young virgins she received the religious veil from the hands of Bishop Macaille, whose church was on the eastern slope of Cruachan Bri Eile in the modern King's County, not far from the historic field of Tyrrells Pa.s.s. It is still called Croghan Hill, and an old church-yard yet marks the site of St. Macaille's church. It is uncertain, however, whether Brigid was veiled there or at Uisnech Hill in Westmeath, where, according to other accounts, the holy bishop was at the time. The exact spot would be worth knowing, for during the course of the ceremony when Brigid's hand touched the wood of the altar, that dry wood felt the virtue of the virgin's touch, and became in the sight of all as fresh and green as it was on the day when it felt the wood-man's axe in the forest. It is not unlikely that Brigid and her seven virgin companions lived for some time at Croghan Hill under the care of St. Macaille; afterwards, however she returned to her father's territory and founded, nigh to an old oak tree, the church, which ever since bears the name of Kildare--the Church of the Oak. It was founded in Magh Liffe, the Plain of the Liffey, and it is remarkable that even when her most ancient lives were written, the holy virgin is represented as driving in her chariot over the Curragh of Kildare, which even then was used as a race-course.

Some authorities say that Brigid made her religious vows in the hands of St. Mel of Ardagh, whose name is frequently mentioned in some of her lives. It is strange that so little reference is made to St. Patrick, if he were indeed alive, as is commonly supposed, for many years after Brigid's profession, which took place about the year A.D. 467. There is no mention made of Brigid in the _Lives of St. Patrick_ except once. The Saint had founded the Church of Clogher for St. Mac Cairthinn, and afterwards went to preach in the neighbourhood at a place called Lemain, a plain watered by the river Laune, which takes its name from the plain. For three days and three nights he was preaching, and Brigid fell asleep during his preaching; but the saint would not allow Brigid to be disturbed, for he knew that she was sleeping a mystic sleep. As she slept she dreamt, and thought she saw at first white oxen in white cornfields; then she saw darker oxen, and lastly oxen that were black. After these she saw sheep, and swine, and dogs, and wolves quarrelling with each other--all of which, Patrick explained, were symbols of the present and future state of the Irish Church--a prediction that has been wonderfully verified by the event. It was on the same occasion that King Echu allowed his daughter to be united to Christ, and Patrick made her his own disciple, and she was taught by a certain virgin at Druim Dubain, in which place both virgins have their rest. It is stated in Tirechan's collections in the _Book of Armagh_ that Bishop Mac Cairthinn was the uncle of the holy Brigid--'Brigtae'--the abbreviated form of the name. This fact would explain her presence at Clogher on this interesting occasion.

We are told that Kildare was first called Drumcree--Druim Criaidh--before it took the name of Cell-Dara from the beautiful oak tree which Brigid loved much, and under whose shade she built her first little oratory. That tree remained down to the end of the tenth century, when Animosus wrote her life; and it was held in such veneration that no profane hand dare venture to touch it with a weapon. In a very short time after its foundation Kildare grew to be a great religious establishment, having two monasteries separate, yet side by side, one for women and one for men--and both, to a certain extent, under her own supervision. "Seeing," says her biographer, "that this state of things could not exist without a pontiff to consecrate her churches, and ordain the sacred ministers, she chose an ill.u.s.trious anchorite, celebrated for his virtues and miracles, that as Bishop he might aid her in the government of the Church, and that nothing should be wanting for the proper discharge of all ecclesiastical functions." It is obvious from these words that Brigid herself selected St. Conlaeth, or Conlaedh, to rule her churches and monasteries, but in accordance with her suggestions and advice. She, of course, conferred no jurisdiction on St. Conlaeth, but she selected the person to whom the church gave this jurisdiction. Her biographer does not say that Conlaeth was subject to Brigid, but that Brigid chose him to govern the Church along with herself--ut ecclesiam in episcopali dignitate _c.u.m ea_ gubernaret. These few simple words dispose of a vast amount of foolish talk about Brigid's jurisdiction over St. Conlaeth. She, herself, never claimed nor possessed any such thing.

It is, however, abundantly evident that Brigid was a woman of strong mind and of great talents, that she was admirably fitted to rule and to organize, that her influence was widely felt, and her wisdom and prudence held in the highest estimation by the greatest ecclesiastics of her time.