It is unnecessary to deal here with the notices of Patrick in the Chronicles of Marianus Scotus (ob. A.D. 1083: text in Pertz, M.G.H., V., and Migne, P. L. 107, but these are superseded by MacCarthy’s Codex Palatino-Vaticanus, No. 830, 1892 [Todd Lecture Series III.], to which I may refer for a discussion of the dates). Nor need I speak of Jocelin’s biography (twelfth cent.) since it is founded on sources which we possess, and the only value which it may have for Patrician researches is that a minute examination might conceivably show that Jocelin used different recensions of some of our documents. For the purpose of the present biography, such pieces as the Homily on St. Patrick in the Lebar Brecc (printed by Stokes in Vit. Trip. vol. ii.), or the prefaces to the Hymns of Sechnall and Fíacc, do not demand particular notice.
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).