صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

believed, that it should be united with Dublin on the next vacancy. In 1192 Earl John', by a charter dated at Nottingham on the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, granted to John Comyn the privilege of nominating the Bishop of Glendalough, who was to be chaplain and vicar to the archbishop. He had previously, when in Dublin2, granted the see itself to Archbishop John, "pro raritate populi et paupertate Ecclesie Dublin;" but perhaps the insolence of the Irish, to use Archbishop Felix O'Ruadan's words, may have deferred the execution of this plan, although it was confirmed by Matthewa, Archbishop of Cashel, the Pope's Legate; it is, however, probable that William Piro, the last recognized Bishop of Glendalough, was appointed under this charter, in 1192, by Archbishop Comyn.

Pope Innocent III., to whom John had sent the Archbishops of Bourdeaux, York, and Dublin, as ambassadors for the purpose, confirmed the union of the sees in 1216, on condition that, with part of the revenues of the see of Glendalough, a religious house or hospital should be erected; and accordingly Archbishop Henry de Loundres founded near the Priory of All-Hallows, on the sea-shore, which was called the Steyn, an hospital where pilgrims on their way to St. James of Compostella, who might be detained by stress of weather, should find bed and board; and he endowed there ten chaplains, who were to wear black cloaks with a white cross on the breast.

While the old Irish City of Glendalough in the mountains, secured only by its situation, and hallowed by ancient custom, was gradually giving way before its modern and Danish rival, the seat of

[blocks in formation]

trade and foreign intercourse, and while its bishops of the succession of St. Patrick were supplanted by the Dublin archbishops of the succession of St. Augustine, the fate of its abbeys was not dissimilar. At the time of the foundation of the Priory of All-Hallows, Coemgin or Kevin was Abbot of Glendalough, and his name appears amongst the witnesses of Dermod's charter. Having become vacant, probably by Coemgin's death, Strongbow conferred the abbey and parsonage, "Abbatia et Parsonatus" of Glendalough, with all its great possessions and immunities, as they were specified to him in verbo veritatis by King Dermod, on his dear clerk Thomas', in a charter witnessed by the Countess Eva and confirmed by Henry II.

This grant was not long observed. Earl John, by a charter dated at Tewkesbury", granted to the Archbishop of Dublin half a cantred belonging

iter agens devenisset trans flumen Finglas nomine ad quendam collem qui a pago Athcliath, qui modo dicitur Dublinia, uno ferme milliari distat; considerans locum et circumjacentia ejus, et benedicens, in hanc fertur prophetando prorupisse vocem: Pagus iste nunc exiguus, eximius erit, divitiis et dignitate dilatabitur, nec crescere cessabit donec in regni solium sublimetur."-Jocelin Vit. S. Patr., cap.

69.

e Abbatia. "In hac autem Ecclesia (Glindalacensi) et Episcopatus erat et Abbatia. Sed Abbatia quod ad temporales divitias attinet raro exemplo longe erat Episcopatu opulentior; quippe ubi nobiles imprimis viros in totius regionis præsidium ab antiquo populus eligebat." -Vita S. Laur. cap. 6.

Abbot Laurence spent the great riches

of the abbey, and a treasure deposited
with him by his father, "pauperibus
nutriendis et ecclesiis ædificandis.”— Vita
S. Laur. cap. 9.
Are there now any re-
mains of the churches built by him at
Glendalough?

f Thomas.-Al. Reg. p. 135. Abbot Thomas is said to have been nephew to Archbishop Laurence, and to have been elected "clero et populo." Vita S. Laur. cap. 16.

& Henry II.-Al. Reg. p. 125. Lanigan (Eccl. Hist. vol. iv. p. 181) has questioned this appointment of Abbot Thomas by Strongbow, and has attributed the grant to Richard de Burgo in 1227. But the deed is by Strongbow, stating what King Dermod had told him, and it is confirmed, not by Henry III. but by Henry II. Tewkesbury.-Al. Reg. p. 128.

h

belonging to the Abbey of Glendalough, which lay nearest to the Archbishop's castle of Balymore. And Matthew', Archbishop of Cashel and Papal Legate, confirmed to the Archbishop of Dublin Earl John's grant of the whole Abbey of Glendalough, together with his grant of the bishopric.

It must have been shortly after the union of the sees of Dublin and Glendalough, that Archbishop Loundres, by his charter', subjected the Island of St. Saviour of Glendalough, with all its possessions, to the Priory of All-Hallows, enjoining on the Prior and Convent of St. Saviour, whom he by implication charges with disorderly and irregular conduct, that they should be obedient to the wholesome admonitions of the priors of All-Hallows; and the Island Sancti Salvatoris of Glendalough was confirmed to our priory by the Bulls of Gregory IX. and Innocent V.

Before 1186 the priory had no lands granted to it, except those given by King Dermod, but between that year and 1234 it had received grants of the Church of St. George' in the suburbs with

i Matthew.—Al. Reg. p. 121.
j Charter.-Appendix, No. XV.

k Island. In the Bull of Lucius III. the Bishop of Glendalough is styled Bishop of the Islands, Episcopus Insularum. Harris' Ware's Bishops, p. 371.

1St. George.-Stanyhurst, who knew little of Dublin before his own time, thus describes St. George's-lane, now South Great George's-street, and St. George's Chapel which stood in it: "St. George his lane, where in old time were builded diverse old and ancient monuments. And as an insearcher of antiquities may (by the view there to be taken)

ten

conjecture the better part of the suburbs of Dublin should seeme to have stretched that waie. But the inhabitants being dailie & hourelie molested & preided by their prolling mounteine neighbors, were forced to suffer their buildings fall in decaie & embaied themselves within the citie wals. Among other monuments, there is a place in that lane called now Collet's-innes, which in old time was the Escaxar or Exchecker. Which should implie that the princes court would not have beene kept there unlesse the place had beene taken to be cocksure. But in fine it fell out contrarie." "There hath

ten acres belonging to it, of a messuage near the Church of St Stephen, of the Island Sancti Salvatoris de Glendelacha and of forty acres of land in the territory of Dovenachbroc", towards the north, for which acres the canons were to pay yearly one pound" of pepper for pottage.

About the year 1240 the priory was enriched by grants of the parish of Taghadoe, in the diocese of Dublin, conferred upon it by Maurice Fitzgerald, Lord of Offaly, saving to the Church of Laraghbryn and to the Chapel of Maynooth, their tithes, lands, and offerings; of the Church of Rathmackne" in the diocese of Ferns, the gift of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke; and from the gift of Maurice Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, of the parish of Rath in Imokelly, all of which were confirmed to them by the respective bishops "in proprios usus;" and of the Church of Arnegeth, in the diocese of Meath,

beene also in that lane a chappell dedicated to Saint George, likelie to have beene founded by some worthie knight of the garter. The maior, with his brethren, was accustomed, with greate triumphs & pageants yeerlie, on Saint George his feast, to repaire to that chappel and there to offer. This chappell hath beene of late razed, and the stones therof, by consent of the assemblie, turned to a common oven: converting the ancient monument of a doutie adventurous and holie knight to the colerake sweeping of a pufloafe baker."

[blocks in formation]

Junior, to Sir Robert Bagod. Appendix,
No. I.

• Taghadoe.-No. IX. and Appendix No. XVI.

In Pope Innocent's confirmation (p. 6), Taghadoe is written Stahto, according to the custom of Anglicising Irish words beginning with a 7 by prefixing S, a custom which seems to have prevailed especially in Meath, thus Teagh Allan becomes Stackallan.-J. O'D.

P Rathmackne.-No. IX. This full Inspexio et Confirmacio of Edward III. was granted by writ under the Privy seal for a fine of twenty shillings paid into the Hanaper, and is to be found in the Charter Rolls, 22 Edward III. in Turr. London.

Proprios. Although Rathmackne was

Meath, of which we find no further mention. It was also about this time that Theobald Fitzwalter', second butler of Ireland, granted to the priory two acres and a half of his land of Steyn near to their house, with all the tithes and offerings of the whole Steyn; and that John, son of John, son of Dermic', confirmed his father's grant of a boat for catching salmon and other fish on the Liffey, for which he was to receive a rose on every St. John Baptist's day, in the Church of All-Hallows; and it was probably about the same time that Claricia', daughter of Gilbert, son of Griffin, granted half a carucate of arable land in Balyofryn next to the land of Sir John Harold of Kylgabane (Kilgobbin), with pasture on the mountains for as many cattle as the canons chose, with liberty to pasture, dig, cut, and with all other privileges, which the grantor possessed or could give.

Such were the grants of parishes and of lands which the priory thought worthy of Papal confirmation in the year 1276. In these and the other grants of the same period, there is proof-in the mention of homage, wardships, suits of court, and marriage that the Norman settlers brought with them into Ireland all the complexities of the feudal system; a system eminently fitted, by the strictness and frequency of its legal relations, by the minute divisions of its ever present authority, by the nearness of its administrators, and by the variety and succession of its dependencies, to discipline a rude people by the introduction of notions of right and of law, and by familiarizing them with legal forms and ceremonies. Nor, when we are considering a great ecclesiastical lordship, should we forget that the severities

assigned to the priory in proprios usus by Bishop Adam in 1333 (p. 15), there was reserved to the bishop the "ordinatio" of the vicarage, and from the inquisition, printed, p. 81, it appears that the vicar

was entitled to a moiety of all the profits of the parish.

r

Fitzwalter.-Nos. IX. XV.

$ Son of Dermic.-Nos. XVI. XVII. Claricia.-No. LXXIX.

« السابقةمتابعة »