[348] The Bishops of the Gaelic Church were ordained in the usual manner. Thus Finan, when he ordained Cedd, called in two other bishops to assist in performing the ceremony—Beda, Hist. Eccl., l. iii., c. 22. But many probably were chorepiscopi, at whose ordination it was only requisite for one bishop to officiate. It was this order, long suppressed and forgotten in the Roman Church, that scandalized Lanfranc, Anselm, and others, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. That the leading bishops of the Gaelic Church at this time were regularly ordained, may be inferred from the fact that there is no allusion to any re-ordination of bishops at the time when the Churches of Scotland and Ireland were remodelled. Perhaps “the dignity of Noble Bishop” (Uasal Escop., Vide A. F. M., 1106), may allude to the superior or episcopal order, as opposed to the inferior or chorepiscopal. The want of a fixed diocese must have contributed to impress the Irish bishops with that character for wandering which was so much complained of in the ninth century. Bishops without a diocese, however, were not confined to the Irish Church, as at a much later period, Olaf the Saint had his “Hird-Bishop,” whose peculiar duties must have attached him to the royal household. The necessity of episcopal ordination for the priesthood is implied in the story related of Columba by Adamnan, in his life of that saint. Upon hearing that Findchan, a priest, had “laid his hands” on the head of Aodh Dubh, to complete the ordination which the bishop had refused to proceed with, Columba exclaimed, “Illa manus dextra quam Findchanus, contra fas et jus ecclesiasticum, super caput filii perdicionis imposuit, mox computrescit.” Much information about the early Irish Church is contained in Dr. Reeves’ Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, etc., Appendix A. The custom of Iona, in the seventh century, as described by Beda, seems to have resembled the ancient custom of the Church of Alexandria, by which, “not the bishops, but twelve presbyters were the electors, nominators, and (according to Eutychius) consecrators.—(Stanley’s East. Church, p. 266, note 2.) These twelve presbyters are very like the twelve Culdees who formed, as it were, the Staff of every Gaelic monastery.
[349] As tithes were unknown, as a fixed payment, in Gaul for some time after the mission of St. Patrick, it is not surprising that the Scots and Irish were ignorant of them in the twelfth century. It was the custom of Aidan and his followers to build churches “per loca” (Bed. Ecc. Hist., l. 3, c. 3), which appear to have been dependant on the monastery of the district. Thus, on the foundation of the regular diocese of Aberdeen, the monastery of Mortlach, with five churches and their lands, was made over to the new see. Reg. Aberd., vol. 1, p. 5, 6. From the same Registry, p. lxxvii., it appears that the Cuairt was eventually compounded for by the payment of Procurationes.
[350] Mr. Petrie (Tara, p. 172) enumerates four Cains—1. Cain Patraic, not to kill the clergy. 2. Cain Daire Chailleach (the nun), not to kill cows. 3. Cain Adomnan, not to kill women. 4. Cain Domnaig, or Sunday law. The Riar Patraic (Patrick’s demand) is explained by Tighernach (ad an. 986), to mean Cuairt eitir Cill ⁊ Tuaith, “the Right of Visitation over Church and State” (or over Clergy and Laity). Dr. Reeves’ preface to “Primate Colston’s Visitation,” IAS., contains very full information on the subject of the early Irish Visitations. Inmesach is said to have introduced the custom in 721 (Tigh.), a few years after the Northern Irish, Pictish, and Scottish Churches had relinquished their early Cycle and Tonsure. The Cuairt was probably unknown to Patrick or Columba.
[351] Thus Lorcan O’Tuathal preferred the abbacy to the bishopric of Glendalough, though it may be questioned whether the choice of the Saint was as purely disinterested as is sometimes asserted. “In hac autem ecclesiâ et Episcopatus erat et Abbatia; sed Abbatia quoad temporales divitias longé erat Episcopatu opulentior.”—Ware Antiq., vol. 1, p. 312, 372.
[352] The first allusion to a Herenach occurs in Tigh. 605, An. Ult. 604, A.F.M. 601, but the office is not again met with before the close of the eighth century. Vide Mr. O’Donovan’s Note O to A.F.M., 1179; though the description of the Herenach there quoted from Sir John Davies—paying a yearly rent to the Bishop, a fine upon the marriage of his daughter, and a subsidy to every Bishop on his first entry into the diocese; in other words, holding in fee-farm, with merchet, and relief, or payment for a renewal of his lease—applies rather to his character after the English settlement had reduced Cowarbs and Herenachs to a very different footing from their position in early times. The name of Aircinneach, meaning Princeps, “Head of the Kin,” or Overlord (Reeves, Adamn. N. p. 364, note M), points to a high position. In a charter of the time of Otho I., dated in 952, a Count Hohold founds a convent, of which his sister is to be the first abbess, that dignity being always to be filled by a member of his race as long as it exists. He appoints himself Advocatus Monasterii, stipulating that the office should also be hereditary in his family (Ducange in voc. Advocatus). In Gaelic phraseology, then, the family of Hohold were hereditary Cowarbs and Herenachs of the monastery founded by their ancestor. The Advocatus first made his appearance in the church about the beginning of the fifth century—“post consulatum Stilliconis” (Lind. Gloss. in Advocatus), and the “tertia pars bannorum et tertius denarius” were amongst his privileges. From “Colton’s Visitation” it is evident that the old Termon, or Church lands, were divided into three portions, two belonging to the rector and his vicar, and the remaining third to the Herenach under the Bishop, to whom also belonged the “blood-fines,” or Eric, the overlord’s prerogative. From a charter quoted by Harris, c. 35, p. 233, it would appear that in the Anglo-Irish period, the Rector was often identical with the Cowarb, so that the two-thirds belonging to the Rector and Vicar represented the Abbot’s portion of the Termon lands; and as in the Gaelic period the Bishop had no claim on the temporalities of the Church, it seems probable that the Herenach was originally the lay-lord of the Termon lands, holding them of the Abbot by the usual tenure of retaining a third of the fines and profits—tertia pars bannorum, et tertius denarius. After the Cowarbs became very generally laymen, they retained their portion of the Termon lands in their own hands, under the superintendence of their own stewards and deputies, and the office of Herenach, declining in importance, probably fell into the hands of less exalted members of the family. When the Gaelic Church system was superseded, the Herenach lands—Church lands held by a layman—appear to have been confiscated to supply an income for the Bishop, the former holders losing all their former claims upon “the thirds,” and retaining only that small portion of the land which was their actual duchas, or freehold; whilst as the families of the greater Cowarbs were generally very powerful, they were often, probably, allowed to retain the patronage to the Rectory in their family, provided it was presented to an ecclesiastic.
[353] Vide the Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniæ (attributed to Tirechan), in O’Connor’s Annotationes ad Sæculum VI. Rer. Hib. Script. Vet., vol. 2, p. 162. In the British monasteries the monks devoted themselves to manual labour, as at Bangor (Bed. Hist. Eccl., l. 2, c. 2); but the Irish monks were generally of the contemplative order, as at Louth, the monastery of Mochta, the disciple of Patrick (Tigh. 534).In this they strictly followed the rule of St. Martin, in whose monastery at Tours contemplation was the business of the senior monks, whilst the younger brethren were employed in writing. Vide Sulp. Sev. Vit. St. Martin, c. 7. The contemplative life long continued to be the characteristic of the Gaelic monks. The Gallican Liturgy (Cursus Gallicanus) appears to have been in general use both in the British and Gaelic Churches; and according to an old MS. quoted by Usher, Prim. p. 185, it was introduced by Germanus and Lupus. The diversity of Rules remained to astonish the Papal Legate in the twelfth century, who mentions a singular fact that shows how deeply wedded the Irish monks must have been to their peculiar Rule. “Quid enim magis indecens aut schismaticum dici poterit, quam doctissimum unius ordinis in alterius Ecclesia idiotam et laicum fieri” (Usher’s Sylloge, p. 77); by which the Bishop of Limerick seems to imply that the ordination of one order of monks was not acknowledged by another. This tendency to cling to a particular Rule was probably amongst the causes which led to the predominance over the Bishop of the Abbot, whose special duty was to preserve strictly the Rule of the Founder. There is no trace of any such narrow prejudice in favour of “the Rule,” as that to which Bishop Gillebert alludes, to be found in the early Gaelic Church.
[354] The arguments of Laisren, Abbot of Lethglin, at the Synod held at that place, are said to have induced the Southern Churches to abandon the Cycle and Tonsure of their predecessors about 629–30. Usher Primord. p. 936. This Laisren has been erroneously confounded with Laistranus, one of the abbots addressed by Pope John about 640. Bed. Eccl. Hist., l. 2, c. 19. Compare Bed. Hist. Eccl., l. 3, c. 26, l. 5, c. 15, 23. Saint Fintan was the opponent of Laisren, and tradition has ascribed to him a singular method of upholding his opinions. He offered three alternatives to Laisren—1. To throw two copies of the old and the new systems into a fire, to test which would remain unburnt. 2. To shut up two monks in a burning house, and submit them to the same ordeal! 3. Or to raise a monk from the dead and abide by his decision. Laisren declined the trial through fear of Fintan’s superior sanctity; and, at any rate, the two monks must have felt relieved by his humility. Cummian, however, appears to have been totally ignorant that any such alternatives were offered to Laisren during the Synod of Lethglin; for he represents the arguments of the principal opponent of the new system (whom he hesitates not to stigmatise as a whited wall) to have been based upon an appeal to the traditions and practice of their forefathers. Usher Brit. Eccl. Antiq., c. 17, p. 485; and Sylloge, p. 33.
[355] In his epistle to Bishop Egbert of York.
[356] The Cowarb was supposed to be the successor of the earliest abbot, or ecclesiastical founder of the monastery; but in process of time he appears rather to have been the representative of the lay founder, or, in other words, of the prince or chieftain who granted the Termon lands to the monastery. Thus most of the Cowarbs of St. Patrick (or Abbots of Armagh) can be traced to one of the various families of Oirgialla, of which race was Daire, who originally granted to St. Patrick the land for founding the monastery (A.F.M., 457); though in the ninth century the Hy Nial made several attempts to obtain the appointment for their own nominees. The whole monastery gradually became filled with “Founder’s kin,” and each leading family appears to have possessed the patronage of the monastery of the district. Nor was this custom confined to the Gaelic Church, for it existed in Wales, Bretagne, Auvergne (vide Goodall’s Preface to Keith), and in many parts of England, where the sons of priests were accustomed to inherit their father’s churches. Vide Ead. Hist. Nov., l. 3, p. 67. Instances still exist of the union of ecclesiastical and temporal power; for the Vladika of Montenegro is invariably the bishop, as well as the prince, of his wild country.
[357] The word Culdee signifies nothing more than clergyman, and it was the general name for the clergy amongst the Gael. The Culdees can be traced in Ireland, just the same as in Scotland, and they were replaced by regular canons in the same manner. The Oratories and Culdees of Armagh are mentioned A.F.M. 919, An. Ult. 920. The Oratories were probably the seven churches, or chapels, which appear to have belonged to all the larger Gaelic monasteries, and the Culdees were the officiating ministers. The Prior and Culdees of Armagh retained many of their privileges down to the Reformation. Culdees were the ministers of York Cathedral, from the date of Oswald’s foundation until after the Conquest; and they probably inherited their privileges from the time of Bishop Aiden. Vide Ware’s Antiquities (Harris), vol. 1, p. 236. The old canons of Durham were exactly in the same position as the Irish or Scottish Culdees. They were the descendants of the bearers of St. Cuthbert’s body during the early Danish wars, inheriting their canonries by right of blood, and claiming to elect the bishop from their own body. In short, the see was in the hands of certain privileged families until the Anglo-Saxon Church beyond the Humber was remodelled after the Conquest. Vide Hist. Dun. (Twysden), l. 2, c. 6; l. 3, c. 6, 18. It is worthy of notice that a Hospital is generally to be found where Culdees can be traced to have existed, and this hospital is generally dedicated to St. Leonard.