an entire province or district, was of less ordinary occurrence, though some examples of it are on record. Thus, early in the thirteenth century, in revenge for certain injuries inflicted on him by Hamo de Valoniis, lord justice of Ireland, John Comyn, archbishop of Dublin, not only pronounced a sen- By an Archtence of excommunication against the offender and his associates, but, by an interdict on the unoffending city and diocese, suspended therein the celebration of all religious rites". bishop of Dublin; In or about 1220, his successor, Henry de By another ArchLoundres, in vindication of some exorbitant de- bishop of Dublin; mands of his clergy, which were resisted by the magistrates and citizens, together with particular denunciations of the offenders, combined a general interdict upon the whole city". bishop of Dublin; And in 1267, the Archbishop of Dublin, Fulk de By another ArchSaunford, highly resented certain encroachments made by the mayor and citizens on the ecclesiastical immunities, and having ineffectually admonished them to forbearance, by his ordinary authority, promulgated against them the sentence of excommunication, and put the city under an interdict; in confirmation of which the Pope's legate sent orders to the Bishops of Lismore and Waterford, to denounce by bell, book, and candle, the excommunicated mayor and citizens in all publick places within the city of Dublin 37. bishop of Cashel. About 1222, Donat, archbishop of Cashel, inter- By an Archdicted the king's tenants and lands within his diocese; which interdict, being without any reasonable cause, he was enjoined by the Pope to relax in fifteen days**. The use of "bell, book, and candle," specified in Bell, book, and Manner of cursing by them. some of the foregoing references, was an awful and alarming accompaniment, sometimes annexed to the sentence of excommunication for the purpose of giving additional terror to a denunciation, terrible as it was in itself. A circumstantial account of this ceremony, as practised in Ireland, does not occur to my recollection; but it probably did not differ in any material particulars from that which was used at the same period in England; and of which the following narrative is supplied by STAVELEY'S History of Churches in England, on the authority of one of the early Reformers. He observes, that "an extraordinary and dreadful use was made of bells, and that was the cursing by bell, book, and candle." And he proceeds to "relate the manner thereof, out of an ancient festival, and the articles of the General Great Curse, found at Canterbury, in the year of our Lord 1562, as it is set down by Thomas Becon, in the Reliques of Rome.' This was solemnly thundered out once in every quarter. . . . At which action the prelate stands in the pulpit, in his aulbe, the cross being lifted up before him, and the candles lighted on both sides of it, and begins thus: By authority of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the glorious mother and maiden, our Lady St. Mary, and the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and all apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and the hallows of God, all those be accursed,' whereon the book records the offenders against whom the curse is denounced; and then concludes all with the curse itself, thus: "And now by authority aforesaid, we denounce all those accursed that are so founden guilty, and all those that maintain them in their sins, or give them hereto either help or counsel, so they be departed from God and all holy Church; and that they have no part of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, nor of no sacraments, nor no part of the prayers among Christian folk. But that they be accursed of God, and of the Church, from the sole of their foot to the crown of their head, sleeping and waking, sitting and standing; and in all their words, and in all their works; but if they have no grace of God to amend them here in this life, for to dwell in the pain of hell for ever without end. Fiat, fiat. Do to the book; quench the candles; ring the bell; amen, amen.' And then the book is clapped together, the candles blown out, and the bells rung, with a most dreadful noise made by the congregation present, bewailing the accursed persons concerned in that black doom denounced against them"." ticks. During this period the fire of persecution against Burning of hereheresy was lighted in Ireland, and the first victim was one Adam Niger, or Adam Duff, of the family of the Adam Duff. O'Tools, in Leinster; who, in the year 1326 or 1327, being possessed, as was said, with a diabolical spirit, denying the incarnation of Christ, the Trinity of Persons, and the resurrection of the flesh, professing also that the Scriptures were fabulous, and that the See of Rome did affirm these errors, was by the Church adjudged to death, and was burned and hanged in the fire in Hoggin-green, near Dublin". Kettle. About the same time a charge was brought by The Lady Alice the Bishop of Ossory against the Lady Alice Kettle, with two accomplices, of "enchanting and witchcraft." One of the latter, Petronilla, a female servant, was convicted and burned at Kilkenny. What 29 History of Churches in Eng- 40 Loftus MS., Marsh's Library, land. By THOMAS STAVELEY, Esq. Dublin. 1712; pp. 235, 238. Two Irishmen of the Clankellans burnt. became of the lady herself, and of the other accomplice, does not clearly appear. It has been stated, both that she escaped, and that she suffered death; and together with the charge of sorcery, has been blended that of heresy, which was alleged also against Arnold le Power, lord of Donnoil, and then seneschal of Kilkenny, and eventually against the Lord Justice of Ireland. On a solemn investigation of the charge, the lord justice was pronounced “a zealous and faithful child of the Catholick church;" but before the acquittal of the unfortunate Le Power, he died in confinement; and because he died unassoiled, his corpse was left for a long time without burial". Somewhat later in the same century, about 1353, two Irishmen of the Clankellans were convicted of heresy, or according to another account, of contumely, offered to the Virgin Mary, before the Bishop of Waterford, and burned by his order". These were the earliest severe visitations of heresy in the Irish Church. Meanwhile, as to that particular form of heresy, so called, which in the ensuing centuries excited the jealous vengeance of the Papal power, that did not show itself in Ireland till long after its first appearance in England, nor even till the era of the Reformation. SECTION III. Moral character of the Clergy in general. Abuse of Ecclesiastical Privileges. Celibacy. Concubinage. Intellectual character. Defective means of Education. Clerical charac- THE characters of the clergy in general seem not to ter not high in the scale of morals. have stood high in the scale of moral improvement, 41 MASON'S St. Patrick's Cathedral, pp. 120, 121. being depressed both by an exemption which they claimed as belonging to their profession, and by the restraints which it imposed upon them. privileges sacrilege, Their ecclesiastical privileges appear to have been Ecclesiastical abused by them, and used as a shelter for dishonesty abused, and outrage in the ordinary transactions of life. Thus a clerk, being indicted in 1310 for secreting himself in the church of the Holy Trinity in Dublin in defence of by night, and breaking open a chest wherein were deposited the alms given for the relief of the Holy Land, and carrying away the greater part of the money; and also for breaking open a coffer, and taking books thereout; and at the same time, despoiling the image of St. Catherine of part of its ornaments, appeared, and pleaded that he was a clerk, and could not answer1. The same plea was alleged in 1307 by the prior and of murder, of the canons regular of Newtown, who was accused of inhumanly murdering a canon of his house, by stabbing him with a knife, and of assisting his brother to kill another friar. The prior pleaded that as a clerk he was not obliged to answer'. and outrage. Letters patent having been issued by the king in and of violence 1390, for inquiry into divers extortions and offences committed in the Cistertian Abbey of Dunbrody, the royal commissioner on his arrival was assaulted with force and violence by the abbot and six of his monks, aided by their associates, who seized and destroyed the king's letters, and secured the commissioner in the abbot's prison for sixteen days, and compelled him to swear that he would never prosecute any of the persons concerned in the transaction". After the same manner the clergy deemed their ' ARCHDALL'S Monasticon, p. 163. 2 lb., 3 Ib., p. 738. |