Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars

by John Healy

The monks in surrounding the ecclesiastical village with a rath or caiseal, adopted no new contrivance. It was the custom of the country to surround the home of every chieftain’s family with a similar defence, which the unsettled state of the country at the time rendered very necessary.

The principal building within the monastic enclosure was of course the church. If it were a cathedral church, or one of the greater abbey churches, it was usually built of stone, and termed in Gaedhlic a daimhliag, that is, the stone-house by excellence; because very many of the churches of an inferior kind were built of more perishable materials, composed of clay and wood, or wattles. Hence Colgan used the Latin word ‘Basilica,’ as equivalent to the Irish term, daimhliag. Churches of this kind varied of course in dimensions, but were relatively large; generally speaking, they were about 60 feet in length and 30 broad.[110] If the church were merely an oratory for the abbot and his monks, along with such casual strangers as might happen to be present at the time, it was called a duirtheach, and in the southern and western parts of the country, where stone abounded, and wood was scarce, it was frequently built of stone as in Kerry and Galway. But far more frequently, especially in the east and north-east, it was built of wood, which explains the frequent reference in our annals to the burning of buildings of this character.[111] The term itself was derived from daire, an oak wood.

Adjoining the church, or oratory, there was frequently another building called an erdamh or urdumh, which Petrie thinks was a building adjacent to the side wall of the church, whence its name—ear-dom, a side-house—serving the purpose of a sacristy and store-house for the sacred utensils. During the Danish period especially, the round tower is found near the west entrance of the principal church, but as we think this was a later feature introduced into the Irish monastic buildings, we decline to discuss that question further for the present. The abbot’s house was generally very near his oratory, with which it was sometimes connected by a passage underground, or roofed with flags; and sometimes it was under the same roof with the oratory as in Columcille’s house at Kells, and probably also at St. Kevin’s Cro or ‘Kitchen,’ at Glendalough. The cells of the monks were distributed in convenient spots over the sacred enclosure, sometimes in the form of irregular streets or squares, according to the nature of the ground. We are inclined to think from the small size of the existing stone cells that every monk had a separate cell for his own use; although it would, no doubt, sometimes happen in Ireland, as it certainly often happened in Egypt, that three or four monks had to live in the same cell. They had no beds, in the modern sense of the word; they either slept on the naked earth, or on a skin, which sometimes covered a heap of straw or rushes. There was only a single entrance, and generally speaking no windows of any kind to the cells. In form they were nearly always circular, about ten feet in diameter by seven in height. When built of stone they were cone-shaped and brought to a point at the summit by a gradual inclination of each course of flags above the other, yet the builders seemed to be ignorant of the principle of the arch. More generally, however, the cells were constructed of wood, or wicker work, and these, although by no means so durable, were probably much more comfortable than the cells of stone.

One of the most necessary buildings for a laura or monastery was the kitchen—the cuicin in Irish, or culina in Latin. St. Patrick’s ‘kitchen’ at Armagh was seventeen feet long, and is spoken of as one of the principal buildings within the lis, or monastic enclosure. The Tripartite Life of the Saint in the same place tells us that the Great House was twenty-seven feet in length, and consequently much longer than the ‘kitchen’ with which it seems to have been connected. The Great House—if not the church—was in all probability the refectory or dining-room, which is more generally and appropriately called in Irish, the proinn-teach, or dinner-house. It is doubtful if we have any specimens of the Refectories or Kitchens of our earliest monasteries still surviving, because as a rule they were composed of perishable materials. Another important building annexed to the monastery, but generally outside the enclosure was the Hospice, or Guest-House, where strangers were entertained with the utmost hospitality, whether they came as mere visitors (peregrim), or penitents to atone for their sins, and receive spiritual consolation. There was, however, another class of guests (hospites), distinguished ecclesiastics or princes, the friends of the abbot or community, who were treated with the greatest consideration. They were admitted within the sacred enclosure, and if bishops or priests they were usually invited to officiate for the community. There is no more beautiful trait of monastic hospitality than the consideration with which the monks treated distinguished strangers, and the care they bestowed on the poor.

There were two other indispensable buildings connected with the monastery—the store-house for provisions, and, wherever a stream of water could be had, a kiln for drying, and a mill for grinding their corn. Bread was always the main sustenance of the monks, and hence the site of the monastery was generally so chosen that a rivulet could be artificially dammed up, and thus supply sufficient power to turn a small water-wheel to grind their corn. We find traces of these dams even in the most unlikely places, where in our day no one would dream of erecting a mill. The manifest reason is that it was a great saving of manual labour, for if the monks did not grind their corn with water, they should grind it with the hand-quern. For obvious reasons, too, one, or more wells were also near the monastery; sometimes, too, they were covered over to preserve the water from the pollution of cattle or rubbish. These wells, used and blessed by so many generations of holy men, are very naturally now deemed “blessed wells.” Such then was the general character of the monastic enclosure and the monastic buildings—not one imposing edifice, as in more modern times, but rather a village of huts surrounding the church and house of the abbot, and enclosed by a large circular rampart of earth or stones. Within the enclosure in the larger monasteries a workshop for the smith and carpenter was generally provided, and the lay brothers were frequently expert in the use of their tools. When the monastery was surrounded by marshy land, a tochar or stone causeway was built to the nearest highway, in order to facilitate communications with the outer world.

III.—Discipline.

In monasteries we must not confound the essential discipline of every true religious house with the accidental differences, which may be found in different monasteries, and still more in different Orders, or under different Rules. The essential monastic discipline is always the same, but there are, so to speak, several varieties of the species, and these varieties are best exhibited to us in the various Rules which the founders of Religious Orders have left for the guidance of their spiritual posterity. The learned Dr. Reeves[112] seems to doubt if the founders of our Irish Religious Houses ever promulgated any systematic Rule like that of St. Benedict. We certainly have no Irish Rule, not even that of Columbanus, so definite or so systematic as that of St. Benedict; the legal organizing mind of the Italian herein displays its superiority to the untutored mind of the Celt. Moreover, Benedict is, so to speak, more human; he is not so terribly austere in his discipline as are our Irish Saints; and no doubt this was one great reason why it was that when his Rule and that of St. Columbanus were brought into rivalry in France and Northern Italy, the Rule of Benedict conquered.

We cannot, however, admit that our Irish Saints did not frame distinctive and definite Rules, although not at all, in our opinion, so distinctive or so definite as the great Rule of St. Benedict. Eugene O’Curry tells us that he examined in the original Irish, eight different Monastic Rules, of which “six are in verse, and two in prose, seven in vellum MSS., and one on paper.” These are the Rule of St. Ailby of Emly, addressed to Eugene, son of Saran; the Rule of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise; the Rule of St. Comghall of Bangor; the Rule of St. Columcille; the Rule of St. Carthach of Lismore; St. Maelruain’s Rules for the Culdees; a Rule of later date for the Grey Monks; and lastly, the Rule written by the famous Cormac Mac Cullinan, the King-Bishop of Cashel. The three most important of these Rules have been published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, that is the first, the Rule of St. Ailby, for the son of Saran; the Rule of St. Carthach of Lismore; and the Rule of St. Maelruain of Tallaght.

By comparing the general ordinances laid down by the founders of our early monasteries, and still more by carefully noting the references made to the domestic and religious discipline in the Lives of the founders themselves, we can obtain a very distinct idea of the true character of monastic life in Ireland.

The “Abbot” was the superior of the monastic family, and frequently had several houses under his supreme control. He generally lived at the mother-house, where he had a separate cell larger than that of the other brethren, and usually very near to the church or oratory. The branch houses were then governed by local superiors frequently called ‘priors,’ but they were subject to removal by the Abbot, who had the right at any time of visiting the establishments subordinate to the mother-house; and this right was repeatedly exercised, as we know, from the Lives of Enda, Brendan, and Columcille. Sometimes the Abbot was a bishop, but more frequently during the sixth century he was not, as in the case of Enda and Columcille, and very probably of St. Brendan also. Nearly always, however, in that case a bishop was a member of the religious community, who performed all the episcopal functions and received all the honour due to his office; but, as a member of the community, he was inferior in jurisdiction, and otherwise obedient to the Abbot. During this period diocesan jurisdiction was not well defined, because there was a great number of bishops in the country, and dioceses properly so called were only in process of formation. At this early age the diocese, or ‘parrochia,’ of a bishop in many cases extended only to the church or churches which he or his predecessor had founded, and to their adjacent territory. It was a fixed maxim, however, that if one saint had established himself in a district another was not to intrude on his territory without his permission. St. Brendan is said to have at first established himself near the Shannon, at a place called Tulach Brendain; but when he found that he was within hearing of the bell of St. Ruadhan of Lorrha, he removed further to the north and established himself at Clonfert, whereupon St. Ruadhan prophesied that Brendan’s ‘parrochia’ would be blessed by God, and in after years become greater than his own. And so it came to pass.