How conspicuous, then, was the wisdom of the church in encouraging the performance of these pious dramas—not only as affording an innocent pleasure to the spectators, but as a preparation for the better understanding of the sacred mysteries that were commemorated in each succeeding feast; for on the popular mind how far more powerful than the most eloquent sermon is the effect of any ceremony that appeals directly to the senses!
At the termination of the Mass the officiating priest, turning towards the shepherds, intones the following anthem: “Quam vidistis, pastores? dicite, annunciate nobis in terris quid apparuit”—“Tell us, O shepherds, whom you have seen? Announce to us who has appeared on earth.” To which they reply: “Natum vidimus et [pg 506] choros angelorum collandantes Dominum. Alleluia, alleluia”—“We have seen the Lord, who is born on earth, and the choirs of angels praising him.”
The office of Lauds, which terminates the night-office, then commences. The shepherds, still occupying the places of honor, but divided in two choirs, sing the poetic paraphrase which on all solemn feasts in those days took the place of the Benedicamus and Deo Gratias. After which they all unite in chanting the following antiphon, which forms a fitting termination to the ceremonies of the night: “Ecce completa sunt omnia quæ dicta sunt per angelum de Virgine Maria”—“Behold, all things are accomplished that were announced by the angel concerning the Virgin Mary.”
Such were the pious festivities that six hundred years ago filled with joy and devotion many a vast congregation in cathedral and church throughout France on Christmas night. We have described them as far as they can be gathered from the Office-books of the period; but how many beautiful details, handed down by tradition and introduced from time to time, must necessarily have escaped us at this distant period! We venture to hope, however, that we have succeeded in giving our readers at least a slight idea of the deep religious feeling, and at the same time poetic beauty, that characterized these sacred dramas of the middle ages.
The Civilization Of Ancient Ireland.[113]
The greatest difficulty experienced by students of Irish history, whether foreigners or to the manner born, arises out of the crudeness of the mass of fables and myths, contradictions and harsh criticisms, which confuse and disfigure many histories of the country. Unfortunately, native Irish historians and annalists have been wont to indulge much too freely in exaggeration and romance, substituting the airy creations of the poets for authenticated facts, and dogmatically putting forward the most minute details of remote, and therefore necessarily indistinct, actions in a manner to overtax our credulity and weaken our faith even in well-established authorities. English writers, on the contrary, from Giraldus Cambrensis downward, have erred on the other side. Always ignorant of the Gaelic tongue, and generally of the customs, laws, and religion of the people whose history they assumed to chronicle, they invariably attempted to conceal their defective knowledge by ignoring the claims of the Irish to a distinctive and high order of civilization, not only before the advent of the Anglo-Normans, but anterior to the introduction of Christianity. The [pg 507] want of adaptability of the English mind to historical composition, even in relation to domestic matters, may account for much of this unfair method of treating those of a subjugated nation. National and, of late centuries, sectarian animosity has been, however, the leading motive of the British historiographers, with one exception, for falsifying the records of the past, no matter to what country they belong. To have acknowledged that S. Patrick preached the Gospel to a race possessing considerable social refinement and mental culture; that, under Providence, an entire people were converted to Christianity without any material change in their civil polity or disruption of their general domestic relations; and that, even in his lifetime, he had the happiness to see his work completed, and to feel that he would leave behind him a native priesthood, whose piety and learning were for ages afterwards to edify and astonish Europe, was to concede the glory and the wisdom of the church in introducing and perpetuating the faith of her divine Founder at that early period of her existence.
With the Irish historians, who fully admitted this great central fact in the annals of their country, it was different. They knew the language, laws, and habits of their countrymen, but the circumstances by which they were surrounded rendered it impossible for them to consult freely the original records then existing, or to compare and collate them with that scrutiny and care with which documents of such antiquity ought to be regarded. Thus, Dr. Keating wrote his work in the recesses of the Galtee Mountains, while hiding from the “Priest-hunters” of James I.; and the Abbé McGeoghegan composed his while in Paris, a fugitive from William of Orange's penal laws, where at best he could only consult second-hand authorities. As for Moore, though illustrious as a poet, his knowledge of his native country was of the most meagre and inaccurate description, and his ignorance of its language and antiquities, as he subsequently confessed, is apparent in every page of his book.
At the time of the Norman invasion, and for two or three centuries afterwards, the number of Irish MSS. in Ireland, including histories, annals, genealogies, poems, topographical and otherwise, historical tales, and legends, was immense. Many of them, fortunately, are still extant, bearing date from the Xth, XIth, and XIIth centuries; but the greater portion are either destroyed or hidden in inaccessible places. As the civil wars progressed, and the ancient nobility were slaughtered or driven into exile, the cultivation of native literature gradually ceased, and consequently many of the most valuable national records were ruined or lost, so that their titles only remain to us; while others, escaping the general spoliation, became scattered among the libraries of the Continent, or found their way into careless or hostile hands. At the present day several are in the British Museum; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; in Paris and Brussels; St. Gall, in Switzerland; and St. Isidore's, in Rome. One hundred and forty are yet preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; while many of the most valuable are the property of the Royal Irish Academy and of private collectors.
The decline of learning in Ireland, like so many of her other calamities, can be dated from the [pg 508] period of the “Reformation,” as its revival may be said to have been contemporary with the uprising of the people, which led to the partial emancipation of the Catholics, less than half a century ago. Then it was that the Irish, breathing something like the air of freedom, began in earnest to gather up the broken threads of their ancient history, and to demonstrate to the world that, though long enslaved and silenced, the spirit of true nationality was as indestructible in their hearts as was the faith for which they had so long and heroically suffered. In 1826 appeared O'Conor's translation of the first part of the Annals of the Four Masters; some years after Dr. Petrie published his masterly work on the Round Towers, and in 1851 Dr. O'Donovan issued the entire Annals, the great vertebræ of Irish chronology, in seven large volumes, containing more than four thousand pages; the text in Irish characters, the translation and copious, critical notes in English. Late in the next year a commission of Irish scholars was appointed by the government to collect, transcribe, translate, and publish the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, which, after a great deal of labor and expense, has now been accomplished. The first volume of this most valuable work appeared under the title of Senchus Mor, in 1865, the second four years later, and the third, we learn, has recently been issued from the press in Dublin. Meanwhile, the Celtic and the Archæological Societies, separately and combined, for many years past have been publishing several valuable detached works on Ireland, which have attracted much attention in literary circles in Europe, and quickened at home the popular desire for productions of a similar character. In 1867 Dr. Todd's Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, a translation of all the original documents extant bearing on the wars of the Danes and other Norsemen in Ireland during the two centuries preceding the battle of Clontarf, a.d. 1014, was added to the collection of historical records.