In another passage she admits, I understand, that it does not appear to have been published by Henry until 1175 at the earliest.[385] Now it is true that this date is so generally accepted that Father Gasquet in assailing, and Father Malone in defending, the authenticity of the Bull, are both agreed upon this point. The former, indeed, boldly writes: “It is a matter beyond dispute that no mention whatever was made by Henry of this ‘grant’ of Ireland by the Pope till at earliest A.D. 1175.”[386] Father Morris similarly adopts “1175” as the date when “Henry is said to have exhibited it at a synod held at Waterford.”[387] Yet, when we turn to the passage referred to by Miss Norgate, we find that no year is named by Giraldus himself. Mr. Dimock appended the marginal date “1174 or 1175,” and this was also the date he adopted in his Introduction. It was doubtless from him that Professor Tout adopted this date in his life of William Fitz Audelin:
Fitzaldhelm[388] was also sent in 1174 or 1175 ... to produce the bull of Pope Adrian.... He soon left Ireland, for (sic) he appears as a witness to the treaty of Falaise in October, 1174.[389]
If William was sent to Ireland, as alleged, in 1175, it is obvious that he cannot have returned thence by October, 1174. It is clear, in any case, that, on examination, the date accepted “on all hands,” as a fixed point, is a guess. Let us then see if, from other sources, light can be thrown on William’s mission. There is an entry on the Pipe Roll of 1173, which reads thus:
In Passagio Willelmi filii Aldelini et sociorum suorum et Hernesiorum suorum in Hyberniam xxvii sol. et vi den. per breve Ricardi de Luci (p. 145).
Professor Tout oddly assigns it to an alleged despatch of William to Ireland in 1171; for in that case it would duly have been entered on the Pipe Roll of that year.[390] It must, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be held to refer to a mission of William between Michaelmas, 1172, and Michaelmas, 1173. Is it then possible that this was the date of the mission of which we are in search, and not 1175, or even 1174? The answer, we shall find, involves more than a mere question of chronology.
“Gerald,” Miss Norgate writes, “is certainly no chronologist.”[391] Mr. Dimock was even more emphatic: “There can be no worse authority than Giraldus wherever a date is concerned.”[392] In this case, however, as I have said, Giraldus does not even commit himself to a date: he merely uses the vague “interea.” We must therefore deduce the date from the sequence as he gives it himself. And that sequence is perfectly clear. He takes us straight back to the Council of Cashel,[393] and tells us that the document despatched by William and his colleague to Ireland had been sent by the Pope in reply to the report of the proceedings at that Council. Here are his own words:
(Council of Cashel.)
Ubi, requisitis et auditis publice terræ illius et gentis tam enormitatibus quam spurcitiis, et in scriptum etiam sub sigillo legati Lismoriensis, qui ceteris ibidem dignitate tunc præerat, ex industria redactis, etc. (v. 280).
(Alexander’s ‘Privilegium.’)
Cum, prænotatis spurcitiarum literis in synodo Cassiliensi per industriam quæsitis, directis ad curiam Romanam nunciis, ab Alexandro tertio tunc præsidente privilegium impetravit, etc. (v. 315).