The Annals record that in the year 937 a cover was made for the Canon of Patrick by Donnchadh, son of Flann. This was doubtless a metal case. The satchel was clearly not made for it.
We have seen that the ancient cases of the Books of Kells and Durrow were lost long since. Two such shrines (“cumdachs”) are in our Library—one enclosing the Book of Dimma, the other the Book of Mulling or Moling. These books are named from their scribes, who, according to the Annals, lived in the seventh century. Both these are copies of the Gospels; both, however, contain also a Missa Infirmorum of later date.[128] The case of the Book of Dimma is of silver, beautifully wrought with Celtic tracery. It bears an inscription which runs as follows:—“Tatheus O’Kearbuill beideev meipsum deauravit, dominus domnaldus O Cuanain converbius ultimo meipsum restauravit, Tomas Ceard dachorig in mindsa.” Thady O’Carroll Boy was Prince of Ely in the middle of the twelfth century; Donald O’Cuanain was Bishop of Killaloe from 1230 to 1260.
The ends of the case are obviously more ancient, apparently much more ancient, than the sides. It will be observed that the inscription says nothing about the original maker of the case.
This book, long kept in the monastery at Roscrea, disappeared at the dissolution of the monasteries, and is said to have been found again in 1789 by boys hunting rabbits in Devil’s Bit Mountains in Tipperary. The boys tore off part of the silver plate, and picked out some of the lapis lazuli.[129] The MS. was purchased from Sir W. Betham by the College for £200.
The case or shrine of the Book of Mulling appears to have been originally plain, except for some small pieces of crystal and lapis lazuli inserted on one side. In 1402, however, a very large crystal set in fine niello work was inserted in the same side. In 1891, thinking I saw trace of a letter under this crystal, I raised it, and thereby revealed a brass plate hitherto concealed by dust, and bearing the inscription: “Artturus | ver domin | us & lageniae | rinsdabe | tilia & baroni | anno & dni | millio | quadrin | gentesi | mo sedo |.” This Arthur was Arthur or Art MacMurrough Kavanagh, who opposed Richard II. This inscription, no doubt, has reference to the insertion of the crystal and the niello work, not to the original construction of the case. This MS. also contains a Missa Infirmorum (published by Bishop Forbes with that in the Book of Dimma).
Another beautiful Latin MS. of Irish origin is the Psalter of Ricemarch, so called because it was formerly in the possession of that prelate (Bishop of St. David’s, d. 1099), who has written in it some Latin verses. It is perhaps not much older than his time. The book was the property of Bishop Bedell, whose autograph it bears, and was lent by him to Archbishop Ussher, and to this circumstance it owes its preservation, Bedell’s library having been destroyed in the troubles of the time.
The last of these Latin Biblical MSS. which I shall mention is not Irish, but is somewhat of a curiosity. It is a single leaf of the Codex Palatinus, a fifth-century MS. of the old Latin version of the Gospels written in silver letters on purple vellum. The rest of the MS. (so far as it has been preserved) is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which acquired it at some unknown period between 1800 and 1829. Our leaf was purchased by Dr. Todd in 1843. It is not improbable that the MS. was abstracted from some monastic library during the Napoleonic wars, and that this leaf, becoming separated from the rest, came into the hands of an Irish soldier. This dispersion of a MS. is less unusual than might be supposed. The Book of Leinster, to be presently mentioned, furnishes a notable example.[130] I recently received from a correspondent two leaves of a Syriac MS., which, by the help of Wright’s catalogue, Dr. Gwynn identified as two of the missing leaves of a MS. in the British Museum, the MS. having been imperfect when purchased for that Library.
The Book of Hymns (11th century) deserves mention both for the beauty of its initial letters and for the interest of its contents. Some of the hymns are Latin, some Gælic; the greater part of both has been published by the Irish Archæological Society, with learned notes by Dr. Todd, and with reproductions of the initial letters. The remainder of the Gælic hymns has been published by Dr. Whitley Stokes in his Goidilica.
I may appropriately mention here a remarkable Pontifical formerly belonging to the Church of Canterbury, and, as Bishop Reeves remarked to me, probably “contrectatus manibus S. Thomae de Becket.” In this the sentence of ordination of priests is in the old form, and in the margin is added, in a much later hand, the new form as adopted by the Church of Rome before the Reformation, and retained in our Ordinal.[131]