[245] See Tírechán, p. 302.
[246] The assumption that all these details are taken from the book is confirmed by the one explicit exception. The sojourn in the insula Aralanensis is given on the oral authority of Bishop Ultan (302₂₄). This was evidently Ultan’s explanatory comment on the text in insolis, etc.
[247] In a paper on Muirchu in the Guardian, Nov. 27, 1901.
[248] It may be pointed out that the small number of the dicta—three, or more probably two—is in favour of their genuineness.
[249] Since writing this, I observe that the same thing struck Loofs (De ant. Brit. Scot.que eccl. p. 50). He held the Dicta to be genuine, admitting the possibility of later additions. So too B. Robert, Étude crit. sur la vie et l’œuvre de St-Patrick (1883), p. 74.
[250] This is also shown by the addition of Christe eleison, as Mr. Brightman has pointed out to me. Cp. Gregory the Great, Ep. ix. 12. Milan is also excluded; the Milanese only use Kyrie. I have had the advantage of communicating with Mr. Brightman on the subject; otherwise I should hardly have ventured to deal with it, as I have no liturgical knowledge.
[251] So the missionary Boniface insists on the necessity of synods and canonica iura in a letter to Pope Zacharias (Ep. 50, p. 299, ed. Duemmler in M.G.H. Epp. iii.).
[252] Bradshaw has clearly distinguished two recensions of the collection, which he designates as the A-text and the B-text. Theodore’s Penitential is the latest work quoted in the A-text, Adamnan’s Canons the latest in the B-text. See Bradshaw’s letter to Wasserschleben in Wasserschleben’s edition of the Canons, p. lxx.
[253] Spelman i. 59 sq., Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 333 sqq.
[254] The canons which are cited in the Valicellane only are marked by square brackets. The list of correspondences in Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 333, a, is incomplete.