The framework of this sketch is patently artificial. Three definite periods are distinguished, and to each is assigned a different category of saints. The chronology is marked by the reigns of the kings of Ireland, and the three periods are as follows:—(1) 432-544 A.D. ordo sanctissimus; (2) 544-598 A.D. ordo sanctior or sanctus sanctorum; (3) 598-665 A.D. ordo sanctus. There is thus a decline in saintliness in the second order of saints, and a further decline in the third.
The distinctive features of the first period, which includes the time of St. Patrick, are noted as follows:—(1) All the saints were bishops; (2) There was unity in the Church, one liturgy, one tonsure (the Celtic), one mode of observing Easter, and all obeyed the guidance of Patrick; (3) The saints did not disdain the ministration and society of women.
The second period differed in all three respects from the first: (1) This order of saints consisted chiefly of presbyters, there were few bishops; (2) The unity of the Church was not wholly maintained; it was maintained in regard to the tonsure and the Paschal cycle, but different liturgies were introduced, and different monastic rules; it could no longer be said that unum ducem Patricium habebant; (3) Women were separated from the monasteries.
The third order consisted of presbyters and only few bishops. The conversion of the south of Ireland to Roman usages falls into this period, so that it is marked by still more diversity than the second, since two different modes of tonsure and of the determination of Easter prevailed in Ireland. There was, moreover, a tendency among the saints to betake themselves to the solitary life of hermits.
The artificiality of this arrangement is emphasised by the circumstance that the author conceives each period to be coincident with exactly four reigns. This is contrary to fact in the case of periods 1 and 3. In period 1 the reign of Muirchertach, which lasted twenty years, is omitted; in period 3, three reigns are omitted.
Thus historical accuracy has been sacrificed to symmetry. But there is also a fundamental chronological error. The author’s date for the beginning of his second period is too late, for the activity of some of the leading saints whom he places in it, such as Ciarán of Clonmacnois and Finian of Clonard, began earlier than A.D. 544.[346]
These examples of looseness do not predispose us to accept the author’s particular statements without further evidence. But the most important point in his conception of the development, namely, the decline from uniformity and the rise of individualism after the Patrician period (though he puts the beginning of this movement too late), is in consonance with probability and with other evidence.
3. Liber Angueli
This document, contained in the Liber Armachanus (printed in Rolls ed., 352 sqq.), is a clumsy invention, fabricated at Armagh, probably early in the eighth century, in the interests of the Armagh jurisdiction. It has importance for the ecclesiastical history of Ireland, but none for the acts of Patrick. Its motive, however, illustrates the confessed motive of Tírechán’s Memoir, the interest of the Paruchia Patricii. It has been, for the first time, critically treated by Dr. Gwynn, who makes it highly probable that it consists of two different compositions: (1) the Colloquy with the angel, and (2) Decrees concerning the rights of Armagh. These parts are separated by a space in the MS. at the top of fol. 21 rᵒ a (Part ii. begins de speciali reuerantia), and Dr. Gwynn shows by a careful comparison that they are probably of distinct origin, the Decrees being the older, and the Colloquy being composed as a sort of introduction to them with the view of supporting their validity by divine authority (see Gwynn, Introduction to the Book of Armagh, chap. vi.).
For the mention of the appeal to the Roman see in last instance, see [App. C, 16].