Qualis fuerit apud Britones et Hibernos sacrificandi ritus non plane compertum est. Modum tamen illum a Romano divisum exstitisse intelligitur ex Bernardo in libro de vita Malachiae cc. iii, viii, ubi Malachias barbaras consuetudines Romanis mutasse, et canonicum divinae laudis officium in illas ecclesias invexisse memoratur. Mabillon, De Lit. Gall. lib. i. cap. ii. § 14. Hactenus lyturgia Scottica typis vulgata non habetur; et Britanniae virorum doctorum esset, fragmenta ritus Scottici, circumquaque dispersa, colligere et illustrare. C. Purton Cooper's (intended) Report on Foedera, Appendix A, p. 94. PREFACE. THE following pages contain an account of the Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church in these islands, so far as their character can be ascertained from the limited sources of information open to us. They relate to a subject about which, until recently, very little was known. The great continental Liturgiologists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were either silent about it, or dismissed it as offering no data for information and no materials for investigation. Mabillon wrote: Qualis fuerit apud Britonos et Hibernos sacrificandi ritus, non plane compertum est. Modum tamen illum a Romano diversum exstitisse intelligitur ex Bernardo in libro de vita Malachiae, capitibus iii et viii, ubi Malachias barbaras consuetudines Romanis mutasse, et canonicum divinae laudis officium in illas ecclesias invexisse memoratur.'-De Liturgia Gallicana, lib. i. c. ii. § 14. Gerbert wrote: In dubio est qui et qualis antiquitus ea in orbis plaga fuerit ordo operis Dei.'-Lit. Aleman. i. 76. In more recent times Dr. Lingard has disclaimed all possibility of any knowledge of the subject: Whether the sacrificial service of the Scottish missionaries varied from that of the Romans we have no means of judging.'-AngloSaxon Church, edit. 1858, vol. i. p. 271. Sir W. Palmer in his Origines Liturgicae (i. 176–189) devoted one short chapter to the Liturgy of the Celtic Church, which consisted largely of guesses and of the repetition at secondhand of statements which he was unable to verify, but which, were he to write now, he would either abandon or modify. Within the last few years extensive additions have been made to the scanty materials available to Sir W. Palmer in 1839, in some instances by the discovery, in other instances by the publication for the first time, of various ancient Irish and Scottish liturgical fragments; by the printing of certain important Celtic manuscripts; by the collection in palæographical and archæological volumes of the representations in Celtic illuminated MSS.; by the examination of architectural remains, and of stonework inscriptions and designs. The sources from which the information contained in the present volume has been drawn are chiefly the following: (a) Scattered notices in the works of contemporary writers; viz. fifth century, Fastidius, Patricius, Secundinus; sixth century, Columba, Fiacc, Gildas; seventh century, Cuminius Albus, Adamnanus, Columbanus. Bachiarius and Sedulius are omitted from this list, in consequence of the uncertainty attaching to their date and nationality. Non-Celtic authors, e. g. Alcuin, Bede, Bernard of Clairvaux, Jonas, Walafrid Strabo, &c., have been frequently referred to. (6) Scattered notices in Celtic MSS., viz. Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae, Leabhar Breac, Sinodus Hibernensis, Senchus Mor, &c. (c) Fragments of the ancient Celtic Liturgy surviving in the Stowe (ninth century), Drummond (eleventh century), and Corpus (twelfth century) Irish Missals; in the Books of Mulling (seventh century), Dimma (seventh century), Deer (ninth century), Armagh (ninth century); in Irish MSS. on the Continent, Nos. 1394 and 1395 (ninth century) at St. Gall, and the Antiphonarium Benchorense (eighth century) at Milan, and in a few other MSS. enumerated in Chapter iii. (d) Illuminations in Celtic manuscripts, which have lately become accessible to the untravelled student in the magnifi |