III
1. The Irish Annals
The extant chronicles which supply material for the history in the fifth century are: (1) Annales Ultonienses, or Annals of Ulster, compiled by Cathal MacManus of the island of Shanad (Bellisle) in Lough Erne, who died 1498. The chronicle begins at A.D. 431, and comes down to the compiler’s own time (continued to 1504). For the early Middle Age, at least, it is the most valuable of the extant Irish Annals. Its greatest merit consists in the fact that the compiler did not attempt to solve chronological difficulties, but copied the data which he found. In his introduction to the Rolls series ed. of the work (vol. iv. p. ix.) Dr. MacCarthy says: “The sustained similarity between these and the other native Annals proves that the work of MacManus consisted in selection, mainly with reference to Ulster events, from the chronicles he had collected.... Unlike O’Clery and his associates [the ‘Four Masters’], he neither tampered with the text, vitiated the dating, nor omitted the solar and lunar notation, but, side by side with the chronological errors he was unable to correct, preserved the criteria whereby they can with certainty be rectified.”
The years are distinguished by the ferial incidence, and the lunar epact, of January 1, as well as by the A.D. and the Annus Mundi. Up to the year 486 the A.D. corresponds correctly to the other criteria, but from this point on up to A.D. 1014, it lags one year behind. Dr. MacCarthy was the first to fix the precise point at which the error arises and to explain its cause. It was due to the accidental omission of a blank year, corresponding to A.D. 486, before the A.D. numeration was inserted. The Kal. which represented 486 having fallen out, 486 was annexed to the Kal. which really represented 487, (Introduction, pp. xcvi.-ix.). Thus it is only the A.D. data that are wrong; the ferial, lunar, and mundane data are right.
(2) Annals of Inisfallen (in Kerry). The entries in this chronicle are much fewer than in the Ann. Ult., and the ferial and lunar data have been very imperfectly preserved in the only extant copy. Dr. MacCarthy, who has shown how the fifth-century portion can be reconstructed (Cod. Pal.-Vat. 830, pp. 352-3), regards it as “the most ancient body of chronicles we possess” (p. 369). He has shown that the early part was based on the Victorian cycle.
(3) Tigernach (ob. 1088) composed a chronicle at Clonmacnois, beginning in the remotest ages, of which only portions are preserved. They have been published by Dr. W. Stokes in the Revue celtique (vols. v. and vi.). The second fragment ends at A.D. 361, and the third begins at A.D. 489, so that his record of the Patrician period is lost. His incompetence in chronology has been shown by Dr. MacCarthy.[332] He drew mainly from the same sources as the compiler of Ann. Ult., but as he was not influenced in his selection by the same Ultonian interest, his work contains many additional records.
(a) The Chronicon Scotorum is an abridgment of Tigernach. This was disputed by its editor (Hennessy, Rolls series), but has been established by Dr. MacCarthy,[333] who has at the same time shown the incompetence of the abbreviator (MacFirbis). For the fifth century its value consists in showing what entries were to be found in Tigernach.
(4) The Annals of the Four Masters, a chronicle in Irish from the earliest times, compiled in Donegal by O’Clery and three others in the seventeenth century, has some value for the early Middle Ages, because it preserves notices derived from older chronicles that are not extant. But its dates are untrustworthy because the compilers had no skill in chronological computation. This has been shown by Dr. MacCarthy (op. cit. p. 370 sqq.). One of their sources was the Annals of Ulster, which supplies a means of correcting their mistakes. Among their other authorities were the Book of Clonmacnois (Tigernach?) and the Book of the Island of Saints (in Lake Ree).
From these compilations it might be possible to reconstruct the common annalistic structure on which they are based; with the help of the chronological tracts and poems which are contained in the Book of Leinster, the Book of Ballymote, etc. It is clear that for such a reconstruction the Annals of Ulster would supply the clearest traces of the plan.
The Irish seem to have had a special taste and faculty for chronological computations,[334] and in the early part of the seventh century, if not sooner, they were laying the foundations for national Annals on the model of the Roman Annals. In the Annals of Ulster a number of entries, ranging from A.D. 467 to A.D. 628, are justified by references to the Liber Cuanach. Zimmer, with great probability, identifies Cuana, the author of this lost work, with Cuana mac Ailcene, a king of Fermoy, whose death is noted in Chron. Scot. and in Annals of F. M. under A.D. 640.[335] The references under the year 482 show that the Book of Cuana dealt with (the chronology at least of) the pre-Christian period. The authorship of a south Irish prince is consistent with the circumstance that many of the entries in question relate to the affairs of South Ireland.[336] For chronological studies I may refer also to the evidence of Tírechán, on which I have dwelt in Eng. Hist. Rev. April 1902, 244-5.
The Annals of Ulster (and Tigernach) have some entries in Latin and others in Irish. Of the Latin entries, some relate to Roman history, others to native history. So far as the fifth and sixth centuries are concerned, it is reasonable to conjecture that the Latin entries represent an early and generally accepted synchronistic reconstruction, which had been made with the help of Roman annals, and especially the Chronicle of Marcellinus. It has been proved by Dr. MacCarthy, from the synchronistic treatises which he has studied in connexion with Tigernach, that the chronology of pre-Patrician history was based on Jerome’s edition of the Chronicle of Eusebius. For the fifth and sixth centuries Isidore and Bede are referred to, as well as Marcellinus; but most of the foreign entries are taken verbally from Marcellinus. The difficulties and uncertainties of the synchronisers seem to be reflected in the alternative dates of the Annals of Ulster, where an event given under one year often appears in another place, with the addition hic alii dicunt, or something of the kind.
In regard to the few and brief entries relating to Patrick, the internal evidence testifies to the antiquity of the tradition, and excludes any suspicion of fabrication on the part of the annalistic compilers. While the legendary date of Patrick’s death, which had become vulgar in the seventh century, was admitted and emphasised, the true date, notwithstanding the inconsistency, was allowed to remain; and in the second place, not a single notice based on the assumption that Patrick was still alive appears in the interval between the true date and the false date. A fabricator who was concerned to invent notices about Patrick would not have been likely to leave thirty years a complete blank. Thus if the few Patrician entries prior to A.D. 461 were fabrications, it would seem that they must have been invented before the legendary date of his death in A.D. 493 had become current. This consideration establishes a strong presumption of their antiquity; if they are not genuine, they must have been very early inventions. But intrinsically they offer nothing to arouse suspicion; on the contrary, it is incredible that a fabricator, producing annalistic records in the interest of a “Patrician legend,” would have confined himself to the interpolation of just these slender notices. These entries will be found under the years 432, 439, 441, 443, 444, 461; the notices of the deaths of Secundinus, 447 (Ann. Inisf. 448), and Auxilius, 459, may perhaps be added.
Dr. MacCarthy has made it highly probable that the Paschal Table formed the nucleus or framework of the early (from A.D. 432) portion of the original Annals (loc. cit. p. c. sqq.). On this hypothesis he is able to give so satisfactory an explanation of the notice of Patrick’s advent, that the truth of the hypothesis may almost be said to be demonstrated. The mission of Palladius is recorded, in the words of Prosper, under A.D. 431, with which the Inisfallen and Ulster Annals begin. But it is assigned to the wrong consuls in Ann. Ult.; A.D. 431 was the year of Bassus and Antiochus; but it is here described as the year of Aetius and Valerius, who were consuls in A.D. 432. Obviously, therefore, the words Aetio et Valerio consulibus have been erroneously transferred from the notice s.a. 432 to the preceding year; as is borne out by a passage in a chronological tract in the Book of Ballymote, where we read: “The year after that [the sending of Palladius], Patrick went to preach the gospel to Ireland. Etius and Valerianus were the two consuls of that year” (loc. cit. p. cix. note). Now, seeing that the advent of Patrick is not recorded in any Roman chronicle, and that Irish events are not dated in the Irish Annals by consular years, the question arises how the advent of Patrick came to be associated with the consuls of the year. Dr. MacCarthy solves the problem, simply and I think convincingly, by pointing out that Patrick drew up (before he left Gaul) and took with him to Ireland a prospective Paschal Table, which, like other western Paschal tables, would have had its initial year distinguished by the consuls. Even if we had no definite testimony that Patrick took with him a Paschal Table, we could have no doubt that he must have done so;[337] it was an inevitable precaution. But we have the definite testimony of Cummian, who mentions the 84 Paschal cycle, “quem sanctus Patricius, papa noster, tulit et fecit.”[338] The initial year in this table would naturally be the year in which Patrick started for Ireland, A.D. 432; and thus the year of his advent was recorded with a consular date.
As for the other Patrician notices in the Annals enumerated above, the most probable origin seems to be that they were derived from brief entries made in the margin of this or another Paschal Table dating from the fifth century.[339] This view best accords with the paucity and the nature of the notices, which were certainly not composed by any one wishing to work the incidents of St. Patrick’s life into existing Annals.
The old Welsh Annals (Annales Cambriae: the edition in the Rolls series has been superseded by that of Mr. E. Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor, ix. p. 141 sqq. 1888) contain a few notices of Irish ecclesiastical history. This chronicle extends from A.D. 444 to 977, but the first entry is under 453 and the last under 954, the preceding and the following years being respectively blank. Mr. Phillimore gives reasons for supposing that the Annals in their present form were finished in 954 or 955 (p. 144).
Now it is to be observed that before the year 516 (to which the battle of Badon is falsely assigned) there is no entry bearing on British history. Before this year there are only five entries, of which four relate to Ireland, and the fifth to the celebration of Easter. They are as follows:—
an’ [A.D. 453] Pasca commutatur super diem dominicum cum[340] papa leone episcopo rome.
an’ [A.D. 454] Brigida sancta nascitur.
an’ [A.D. 457] Sanctus Patricius ad dominum migratur.
an’ [A.D. 468] quies benigni episcopi.
an’ [A.D. 501] Episcopus ebur pausat in christo anno. cccl. etatis suae.
The Irish dates do not coincide exactly with those of the Irish Annals. In Ann. Ult. 452 and 456 are given as alternative dates for the birth of Brigit; 467 for the death of Benignus; and the death of Ibar appears under three years, 500, 501, and 504. Tigernach gives 502, and adds the legendary age (cuius etas ccciii. annorum erat). The date of Patrick’s death corresponds to the entry in Ann. Ult. A.D. 457. Quies senis Patricii ut alii libri dicunt.
In these (and one or two other Irish dates in the sixth century) there is nothing to suggest a British chronological tradition independent of the Irish Annals. The dates were clearly taken from Irish books, just like the Irish dates in the Historia Brittonum; and throw no additional light on the chronology.[341]
Leaving out the Irish dates, which were certainly inserted at a late period in the growth of the chronicle,[342] we have a long and empty enumeration of years, unrelieved except by the notice of Pope Leo’s decision as to the celebration of Easter in 455. This notice, which appears under 453, properly belongs either to 454 or 455. (It might appear under 454, because in that year Leo notified his decision to the bishops of the west).[343] This blank table of years, with one Paschal notice, seems a confirmation of Dr. MacCarthy’s theory, and suggests that the original basis of the Cambrian Annals was a Paschal Table.
If this be so, the circumstance that the initial year is A.D. 444 should have some significance. I hazard the guess that it may have some connexion with the second visit of Germanus to Britain. In A.D. 444 Germanus was at Arles, where he took part in the deposition of Bishop Celidonius.[344] The investigation of Levison shows that the second visit probably occurred between this year and the death of Germanus, which happened before A.D. 450.[345] If, as is possible, 445 is the date, a Paschal Table with 444 as initial year might have been brought to Britain by Germanus.
2. The Catalogus Sanctorum
The Catalogus sanctorum Hiberniae secundum diversa tempora is a very brief sketch of the ecclesiastical history of Ireland from the time of St. Patrick to the year 665 A.D. Its composition may belong to the first half of the eighth century, but is generally admitted not to be later. The text has been printed by Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Ant., 913 sqq. ed. 1639 = Works, vi. 477 sqq. (from two MSS.), and by Fleming, Collectanea, 430-1 (from a MS. which is supposed to be a Codex Salmanticensis at Brussels). From these two texts it has been printed by Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, ii. 292-4. There is a translation in Todd’s St. Patrick, 88-9.
The framework of this sketch is patently artificial. Three definite periods are distinguished, and to each is assigned a different category of saints. The chronology is marked by the reigns of the kings of Ireland, and the three periods are as follows:—(1) 432-544 A.D. ordo sanctissimus; (2) 544-598 A.D. ordo sanctior or sanctus sanctorum; (3) 598-665 A.D. ordo sanctus. There is thus a decline in saintliness in the second order of saints, and a further decline in the third.
The distinctive features of the first period, which includes the time of St. Patrick, are noted as follows:—(1) All the saints were bishops; (2) There was unity in the Church, one liturgy, one tonsure (the Celtic), one mode of observing Easter, and all obeyed the guidance of Patrick; (3) The saints did not disdain the ministration and society of women.
The second period differed in all three respects from the first: (1) This order of saints consisted chiefly of presbyters, there were few bishops; (2) The unity of the Church was not wholly maintained; it was maintained in regard to the tonsure and the Paschal cycle, but different liturgies were introduced, and different monastic rules; it could no longer be said that unum ducem Patricium habebant; (3) Women were separated from the monasteries.
The third order consisted of presbyters and only few bishops. The conversion of the south of Ireland to Roman usages falls into this period, so that it is marked by still more diversity than the second, since two different modes of tonsure and of the determination of Easter prevailed in Ireland. There was, moreover, a tendency among the saints to betake themselves to the solitary life of hermits.
The artificiality of this arrangement is emphasised by the circumstance that the author conceives each period to be coincident with exactly four reigns. This is contrary to fact in the case of periods 1 and 3. In period 1 the reign of Muirchertach, which lasted twenty years, is omitted; in period 3, three reigns are omitted.
Thus historical accuracy has been sacrificed to symmetry. But there is also a fundamental chronological error. The author’s date for the beginning of his second period is too late, for the activity of some of the leading saints whom he places in it, such as Ciarán of Clonmacnois and Finian of Clonard, began earlier than A.D. 544.[346]
These examples of looseness do not predispose us to accept the author’s particular statements without further evidence. But the most important point in his conception of the development, namely, the decline from uniformity and the rise of individualism after the Patrician period (though he puts the beginning of this movement too late), is in consonance with probability and with other evidence.
3. Liber Angueli
This document, contained in the Liber Armachanus (printed in Rolls ed., 352 sqq.), is a clumsy invention, fabricated at Armagh, probably early in the eighth century, in the interests of the Armagh jurisdiction. It has importance for the ecclesiastical history of Ireland, but none for the acts of Patrick. Its motive, however, illustrates the confessed motive of Tírechán’s Memoir, the interest of the Paruchia Patricii. It has been, for the first time, critically treated by Dr. Gwynn, who makes it highly probable that it consists of two different compositions: (1) the Colloquy with the angel, and (2) Decrees concerning the rights of Armagh. These parts are separated by a space in the MS. at the top of fol. 21 rᵒ a (Part ii. begins de speciali reuerantia), and Dr. Gwynn shows by a careful comparison that they are probably of distinct origin, the Decrees being the older, and the Colloquy being composed as a sort of introduction to them with the view of supporting their validity by divine authority (see Gwynn, Introduction to the Book of Armagh, chap. vi.).
For the mention of the appeal to the Roman see in last instance, see [App. C, 16].