An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Part 16

Aengus wrote about the year 798. He was descended from the ill.u.s.trious chieftains of Dalriada, and completed his education in the Monastery of Cluain Eidhneach, in the present Queen's county. The remains of a church he founded at Disert Aengusa, near Ballingarry, in the county of Limerick, may still be seen.

The Monastery of Tamhlacht (Tallaght), near Dublin, was founded in the year 769, by St. Maelruain, on a site offered "to G.o.d, to Michael the Archangel, and to Maelruain," by Donnach, the pious and ill.u.s.trious King of Leinster. St. Aengus presented himself at this monastery as a poor man seeking for service, and was employed for some time in charge of the mill or kiln, the ruins of which have but lately yielded to "the improving hand of modern progress." Here he remained hidden for many years, until, by some happy accident, his humility and his learning were at once discovered.

Aengus composed his "Festology" in the reign of Hugh Oirdnidhe (the Legislator), who was Monarch of Ireland from the year 793 to the year 817. Hugh commenced his reign by attaching the province of Leinster, and then marched to the confines of Meath. The Archbishop of Armagh and all his clergy were commanded to attend this expedition, for such had hitherto been the custom. The ecclesiastics, however, protested against the summons, and complained to the king of the injustice and inconsistency of demanding their presence on such occasions. Hugh referred the matter to Fothadh, his poet and adviser. The learning and piety of the bard were well known; and a decision favourable to the clergy was the result. This decision was given in a short poem of four quatrains which is preserved in the preface to the "Martyrology" of Aengus. The following is a literal translation:--

"The Church of the living G.o.d, Touch her not, nor waste; Let her rights be reserved, As best ever they were.

"Every true monk who is Possessed of a pious conscience, To the church to which it is due Let him act as any servant.

"Every faithful servant from that out, Who is not bound by vows of obedience, Has liberty to join in the battles Of Aedh (Hugh) the Great, son of Nial.

"This is the proper rule, Certain it is not more, not less: Let every one serve his lot, Without defect, and without refusal."

This decision obtained the name of a canon, and henceforth its author was distinguished as _Fothadh na Canoine_, or Fothadh of the Canons.

At the time of the promulgation of this canon, Aengus was residing at his church of Disert Bethech, near the present town of Monasterevan, not far from where the Irish monarch had pitched his camp.

The poet visited Aengus, and showed him the canon before presenting it to the king. An intimacy was thus commenced, which must have proved one of singular pleasure to both parties. Aengus had just finished his "Festology," and showed it for the first time to his brother poet, who expressed the warmest approbation of the work.

This composition consists of three parts. The first part is a poem of five quatrains, invoking the grace and sanctification of Christ for the poet and his undertaking:--

"Sanctify, O Christ! my words: O Lord of the seven heavens!

Grant me the gift of wisdom, O Sovereign of the bright sun!

"O bright Sun, who dost illuminate The heavens with all Thy holiness!

O King, who governest the angels!

O Lord of all the people!

"O Lord of the people!

O King, all righteous and good!

May I receive the full benefit Of praising Thy royal hosts.

"Thy royal hosts I praise, Because Thou art my sovereign; I have disposed my mind To be constantly beseeching Thee.

"I beseech a favour from Thee, That I be purified from my sins, Through the peaceful bright-s.h.i.+ning flock, The royal host whom I celebrate."

Then follows a metrical preface, consisting of eighty stanzas. These verses are in the same measure[188] as the invocation, Englished by modern Gaedhilic scholars as "chain-verse;" that is, an arrangement of metre by which the first words of every succeeding quatrain are identical with the last words of the preceding one.

After the invocation follows a preface, the second part of this remarkable poem. In this there is a glowing account of the tortures and sufferings of the early Christian martyrs; it tells "how the names of the persecutors are forgotten, while the names of their victims are remembered with honour, veneration, and affection; how Pilate's wife is forgotten, while the Blessed Virgin Mary is remembered and honoured from the uttermost bounds of the earth to its centre." The martyrology proper, or festology, comes next, and consists of 365 quatrains, or a stanza for each day in the year.

It commences with the feast of the Circ.u.mcision:--

"At the head of the congregated saints Let the King take the front place; Unto the n.o.ble dispensation did submit Christ--on the kalends of January."

St. Patrick is commemorated thus, on the 17th of March:--

"The blaze of a splendid sun, The apostle of stainless Erinn, Patrick, with his countless thousands, May he shelter our wretchedness."

On the 13th of April, Bishop Tussach, one of the favourite companions of the great saint, is also mentioned as--

"The kingly bishop Tussach, Who administered, on his arrival, The Body of Christ, the truly powerful King, And the Communion to Patrick."

It will be remembered it was from this saint that the great apostle received the holy viatic.u.m. In the third division of his great work, Aengus explains its use, and directs the people how to read it.

It will be manifest from these poems that the religious principles of the Culdees and of the Irish ecclesiastics generally, were those of the Universal Church at this period. We find the rights of the Church respected and advocated; the monarchs submitting to the decision of the clergy; invocation of the saints; the practice of administering the holy viatic.u.m; and the commemoration of the saints on the days devoted to their honour.

Usher observes, that the saints of this period might be grouped into a fourth order.[189] Bede says: "That many of the Scots [Irish] came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word and administered baptism.... The English, great and small, were by their Scottish [Irish]

masters instructed in the rules and observances of regular discipline."[190] Eric of Auxerre writes thus to Charles the Bald: "What shall I say of Ireland, which, despising the dangers of the deep, is migrating with her whole train of philosophers to our coast?" Rency, after describing the poetry and literature of ancient Erinn as perhaps the most cultivated of all Western Europe, adds, that Ireland "counted a host of saints and learned men, venerated in England[191] and Gaul; for no country had furnished more Christian missionaries." It is said that three thousand students, collected from all parts of Europe, attended the schools of Armagh; and, indeed, the regulations which were made for preserving scholastic discipline, are almost sufficient evidence on this subject.

The discussions of the Irish and English ecclesiastics on the time of keeping of Easter, with their subsequent decision, and all details concerning domestic regulations as to succession to office and church lands, are more properly matters for elucidation in a Church History, for which we reserve their consideration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANCIENT ADZE, FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CROSS AT FINGLAS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[169] _Blefed_.--The name _Crom Chonaill_ indicates a sickness which produced a yellow colour in the skin.

[170] _Sanctuary_.--This may appear a severe punishment, but the right of sanctuary was in these ages the great means of protection against lawless force, and its violation was regarded as one of the worst of sacrileges.

[171] _Oak_.--Dr. Petrie mentions that there were stones still at Tara which probably formed a portion of one of the original buildings. It was probably of the Pelasgian or Cyclopean kind.

[172] _Hour_.--Petrie's _Tara_, p. 31.

[173] _Tuathal_.--Very ancient authorities are found for this in the _Leabhar Gabhala_, or Book of Conquests.

[174] _Mill_.--"Cormac, the grandson of Con, brought a millwright over the great sea." It is clear from the Brehon laws that mills were common in Ireland at an early period. It is probable that Cormac brought the "miller and his men" from Scotland. Whittaker shows that a water-mill was erected by the Romans at every stationary city in Roman Britain. The origin of mills is attributed to Mithridates, King of Cappadocia, about seventy years B.C. The present miller claims to be a descendant of the original miller.

[175] _Identical_.--First, "because the _Lia Fail_ is spoken of by all ancient Irish writers in such a manner as to leave no doubt that it remained in its original situation at the time they wrote." Second, "because no Irish account of its removal to Scotland is found earlier than Keating, and he quotes Boetius, who obviously wished to sustain the claims of the Stuarts." The pillar-stone is composed of granular limestone, but no stone of this description is found in the vicinity. As may be supposed, there are all kinds of curious traditions about this stone. One of these a.s.serts that it was the pillar on which Jacob reposed when he saw the vision of angels. Josephus states that the descendants of Seth invented astronomy, and that they _engraved their discoveries on a pillar of brick and a pillar of stone_. These pillars remained, in the historian's time, in the land of Siris.--_Ant. Jud_. l.

2, -- 3.

[176] _At once_.--See Petrie's _Tara_, p. 213.

[177] _Roads_.--See Napoleon's _Julius Caesar_, vol. ii. p. 22, for mention of the Celtic roads in Gaul.

[178] _Chariots_.--St. Patrick visited most parts of Ireland in a chariot, according to the Tripart.i.te Life. _Carbad_ or chariots are mentioned in the oldest Celtic tales and romances, and it is distinctly stated in the life of St. Patrick preserved in the Book of Armagh, that the pagan Irish had chariots. Different kinds of roads are expressly mentioned, and also the duty of road-mending, and those upon whom this duty devolved. See Introduction to the Book of Rights, p. 56.

[179] _Probable_.--The legend of St. Brendan was widely diffused in the Middle Ages. In the _Bibliotheque Imperiale_, at Paris, there are no less than eleven MSS. of the original Latin legend, the dates of which vary from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. In the old French and Romance dialects there are abundant copies in most public libraries in France; while versions in Irish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, abound in all parts of the Continent. Traces of ante-Columbian voyages to America are continually cropping up. But the appearance, in 1837, of the _Antiquitates Americanae sive ita Scriptores Septentrionales rerum ante-Columbiarum_, in America, edited by Professor Rafu, at Copenhagen, has given final and conclusive evidence on this interesting subject. America owes its name to an accidental landing. Nor is it at all improbable that the Phoenicians, in their voyage across the stormy Bay of Biscay, or the wild Gulf of Guinea, may have been driven far out of their course to western lands. Even in 1833 a j.a.panese junk was wrecked upon the coast of Oregon. Humboldt believes that the Canary Isles were known, not only to the Phoenicians, but "perhaps even to the Etruscans." There is a map in the Library of St. Mark, at Venice, made in the year 1436, where an island is delineated and named Antillia. See Trans. R.I.A. vol. xiv. A distinguished modern poet of Ireland has made the voyage of St. Brendan the subject of one of the most beautiful of his poems.

[180] _Magh-Rath_.--Now Moira, in the county Down. The Chronic.u.m Scotorum gives the date 636, and the Annals of Tighernach at 637, which Dr. O'Donovan considers to be the true date.

[181] _Gratis_.--Ven. Bede, cap. xxviii.

[182] _Rule_.--"The light which St. Columba.n.u.s disseminated, by his knowledge and doctrine, wherever he presented himself, caused a contemporary writer to compare him to the sun in his course from east to west; and he continued after his death to s.h.i.+ne forth in numerous disciples whom he had trained in learning and piety."--_Benedictine Hist. Litt. de la France_.

[183] _World_.--See Herring's _Collectanea_ and the _Bibliotheca Patrum_, tom. xii.

[184] _Bobbio_.--My learned friend, the Rev. J.P. Gaffney, of Clontarf, has in his possession a printed copy of the celebrated _Bobbio Missal_.