[138] De laude sanctorum (Migne, Patr. Lat. xx.).
[139] Jerome, Adversus Vigilantium, c. 5.
[140] A.D. 440.
[141] See above, [chap. iii. p. 64].
[142] For the evidence see [Appendix C, 15].
[143] It may be Ptolemy’s Regia (Ῥηγία). Cp. Rhŷs, “Studies in Early Irish History,” p. 49 (Proc. of British Acad. vol. i.).
[144] See note, [Appendix B].
[145] The dimensions of these houses are given, Vit. Trip. p. 226:—“27 feet in the Great House, 17 feet in the kitchen, 7 feet in the oratory [aregal, supposed to be derived from oraculum]; and it was thus that he used always to found the congbala” [i.e. the sacred enclosures, or cloisters]. If these houses were circular, the numbers represent the diameters. For the topography of Armagh see the paper of Reeves, The Ancient Churches of Armagh (Lusk, 1860), with a plan. The locality of the first settlement, ubi nunc est Fertae martyrum, “the grave of the relics” (Muirchu, 290), he fixes, by means of the monastery of Temple-fertagh, which existed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to the land south of Scotch St., near Scotch St. river (p. 10).
[146] The two stages, first below, and then on the hill, are doubtless historical. We may conjecture that the second and final foundation is that which is recorded in the Annals, and that the first settlement had been made before the visit to Rome.
[147] This is expressed by quantum habeo, “so far as it is mine,” in Muirchu, 292₃₁.