far as it promoted scientific inquiry, and afforded a stimulant to the wits of the disputants, on both sides, could not be otherwise than highly favourable to the advancement of the public mind. The reference to the usages of other countries to which it accustomed the Irish scholars, tended, in itself, to enlarge the sphere of their observation and proportionally liberalize their views; nor was it possible to engage in the discussion of a question so closely connected both with astronomy and arithmetic, without some proficiency in those branches of knowledge by which alone it could be properly sifted or judged. Accordingly, while, on one side of the dispute, St. Columbanus supported eloquently the cause of his countrymen, abroad, adducing, in defence of their practice, no less learned authority than that of Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea; at home, another ingenious Irishman, St. Cummian, still more versed in the studies connected with this subject, produced, on the Roman side of the question, such an array of learning and proofs as would, in any age, have entitled his performance to respect, if not admiration. Enforcing the great argument derived from the unity of the church,* which he supports by the authority of all the most ancient fathers, Greek as well as Latin, he passes in review the various cyclical systems that had previously been in use, pointing out their construction and defects, and showing himself acquainted with the chronological characters, both natural and artificial. The various learning, indeed, which this curious tract displays, implies such a facility and range of access to books as proves the libraries of the Irish students, at that period, to have been, for the times in which they lived, extraordinarily well furnished. This eminent man, St. Cummian, who had been one of those most active and instrumental in procuring the adoption of the Roman system by the Irish of the south, and thereby incurred the serious displeasure of the Abbot and Monks of Hy, under whose jurisdiction, as a monk of their order, he was placed, and who continued longer than any other of their monastic brethren to adhere to the old Irish method, in consequence of its having been observed by their venerable founder, St. Columba. In defence of himself and those who agreed with him in opinion, St. Cummian wrote the famous treatise just alluded to, in the form of an Epistle addressed to Segienus, Abbot of Hy; and the learning, ability, and industry with which he has executed his task, must, even by those most inclined to sneer at the literature of that period, be regarded as highly remarkable. Though the southern half of Ireland had now received the new Roman method, the question continued to be still agitated in the northern division, where a great portion of the clergy persisted in the old Irish rule; and to the influence exercised over that part of the kingdom by the successors of St. Columba this perseverance is, in a great measure, to be attributed. It is worthy of remark, however, that notwithstanding the intense eagerness of the contest, not merely in Ireland, but wherever, in Britain, the Irish clergy preached, a spirit of fairness and tolerance was mutually exercised by both parties; nor was the schism of any of those venerable persons who continued to oppose themselves to the Roman system allowed to interfere with or at all diminish the reverence which their general character for sanctity inspired. Among other instances of this tolerant spirit may be mentioned the tribute of respect paid publicly to St. Fiutin Munnu, by his zealous adversary, Laserian, in the course of their contest respecting the new Paschal rule. A yet more historical instance is presented in the case of Aidan, the great apostle of the Northumbrians, who, though a strenuous opponent of the Roman Paschal system, continued to be honoured no less in life and after death, by even those persons who had the most vehemently differed with him. The connexion of this venerable Irishman, St. Aidan, with the Anglo-Saxon King Oswald, illustrates too aptly the mutual relations of their respective countries, at this period, to be passed over without some particular notice. During the reign of his uncle Edwin, the young Oswald had lived, an exile, in Ireland, and having been instructed, while there, in the doctrines of Christianity, resolved, on his accession to the throne, to disseminate the same blessing among his subjects. With this view he applied to the Elders of the Scots, among whom he had himself been taught, desiring that they would furnish him with a bishop, through whose instruction and ministry the nation of the English he had been called to govern might receive the Christian faith. In compliance with the royal desire, a monk of Hy, named Aidan, was sent; to whom, on his arrival, the king gave, as the seat of his see, the small Island of Lindisfarne, or, as it has been since called, Holy Isle. In the spiritual labours of the Saint's mission the pious Oswald took constantly a share; and it was often, says Bede, a delightful spectacle to witness, * Quid autem pravius sentiri potest de Ecclesia matre quam si dicamus, Roma errat, Hierosolyma errat, Alexandria errat, Antiocha errat, totus mundus errat: soli tantum Scoti et Britones rectum sapiunt.-Epist. Cummian. that when the bishop, who knew but imperfectly the English tongue, preached the truths of the Gospel, the king himself, who had become master of the Scotic language during his long banishment in Ireland, acted as interpreter of the word of God to his commanders and ministers. From that time, continues the same authority, numbers of Scotish, or Irish, poured daily into Britain, preaching the faith, and administering bap. tism through all the provinces over which King Oswald reigned. In every direction churches were erected, to which the people flocked with joy to hear the word. Possessions were granted, by royal bounty, for the endowment of monasteries and schools, and the English, old and young, were instructed by their Irish masters in all religious observances.t Having now allowed so long a period of Irish history to elapse, without any reference whatever to the civil transactions of the country, it may naturally be expected that I should for a while digress from ecclesiastical topics, and, leaving the lives of ascetic students and the dull controversies of the cloister, seek relief from the tame and monotonous level of such details in the stirring achievements of the camp, the feuds of rival chieftains, or even in the pops and follies of a barbaric court. But the truth is, there exist in the Irish annals no materials for such digression,-the Church forming, throughout these records, not merely, as in the history of most other countries, a branch or episode of the narrative, but its sole object and theme. In so far, indeed, as a quick succession of kings may be thought to enliven history, there occurs no want of such variety in the annals of Ireland; the lists of her kings, throughout the whole course of the Milesian monarchy, exhibiting but too strongly that unerring mark of a low state of civilization. The time of duration allowed by Newton, in his Chronology, to the reigns of monarchs in settled and civilized kingdoms is, at a medium, as much as eighteen years for each reign. In small, uncivilized kingdoms, however, the medium allowed is not more than ten or eleven years; and at this average were the reigns of the Kings of Northumbria under the Saxon heptarchy. What then must be our estimate of the political state of Ireland at this period, when we find that, from the beginning of the reign of Tuathal, A. D. 533, to the time of the great plague, 664, no less than fifteen monarchs had successively filled the Irish throne, making the average of their reigns, during that period, little more than eight years each. With the names of such of these princes as wielded the sceptre since my last notice of the succession, which brought its series down to A. D. 599, it is altogether unnecessary to encumber these pages; not one of them having left more than a mere name behind, and, in general, the record of their violent deaths being the only memorial that tells of their ever having lived. In order to convey to the reader any adequate notion of the apostolical labours of that crowd of learned missionaries whom Ireland sent forth, in the course of this century, to all parts of Europe, it would be necessary to transport him to the scenes of their respective missions; to point out the difficulties they had to encounter, and the admirable patience and courage with which they surmounted them; to show how inestimable was the service they rendered, during that dark period, by keeping the dying embers of learning awake, and how gratefully their names are enshrined in the records of foreign lands, though but faintly, if at all, remembered in their own. It was, indeed, then, as it has been ever since, the peculiar fate of Ireland, that both in talent, and the fame that honourably rewards it, her sons prospered far more triumphantly abroad than at home; for while, of the many who confined their labours to their native land, but few have left those remembrances behind which constitute fame, those who carried the light of their talent and zeal to other lands, not only founded a lasting name for themselves, but made their country also a partaker of their renown, winning for her that noble title of the * Ubi pulcherrimo sæpe spectaculo contigit, ut evangelizante antistite, qui Anglorum linguam pefectè non noverat, ipse Rex suis ducibus ac ministris interpres verbi existeret cœlestis, quia nimirum tam longo exilii sui tempore linguam Scotorum jam plene didicerat.-Lib. iii. cap. 3. Exin' cœpere plures per dies de Scotorum regione venire Britanniam atque illis Anglorum provinciis, quibus regnavit rex Osvald, magna devotione verbum Dei prædicare.-Bede, lib. iii. cap. 3. "As these preachers (says Dr. Lanigan) came over from the land of the Scots to Britain, it is plain that they came from Ireland; for the land of British Scots was itself in Britain; and accordingly Lloyd states (chap. v. §. 5.,) that these auxiliaries of Aidan came out of Ireland.' Thus also Fleury (lib. xxxviii. § 19.) calls them Missionaires Irlandois.'"-Elccesiast. Hist. chap. xv. note 103. It was hardly worthy of Doctor Lingard's known character for fairness, to follow the example so far of Dempster, and other such writers, as to call our eminent Irish missionaries, at this period, by the ambiguous name of Scotish monks, without at the same time informing his readers that these distinguished men were Scots of Ireland. The care with which the ecclesiastical historians of France and Italy have in generat marked this distinction, is creditable alike to their fairness and their accuracy. To judge from the following picture, however, their state was little better than that of the Irish:"During the last century (the eighth,) Northumbria had exhibited successive instances of treachery and murder to which no other country perhaps can furnish a parallel. Within the lapse of a hundred years, fourteen kings had assumed the sceptre, and yet of all these one only, if one, died in the peaceable possession of royalty; seven had been slain, six had been driven from the throne by their rebellious subjects." Island of the Holy and the Learned, which, throughout the night that overhung all the rest of Europe, she so long and proudly wore. Thus, the labours of the great missionary, St. Columbanus, were, after his death, still vigorously carried on, both in France and Italy, by those disciples who had accompanied or joined him from Ireland; and his favourite Gallus, to whom, in dying, he bequeathed his pastoral staff, became the founder of an abbey in Switzerland, which was in the thirteenth century erected into a princedom, while the territory belonging to it has, through all changes, borne the name of St. Gall. From his great assiduity in promulgating the Gospel, and training up disciples capable of succeeding him in the task, this pious Irishman has been called, by a foreign martyrologist, the Apostle of the Allemanian nation. Another disciple and countryman of St. Columbanus, named Deicola, or in Irish Dichuill, enjoyed, like his master, the patronage and friendship of the monarch Clotaire II., who endowed the monastic establishment formed by him at Luthra, with considerable grants of land. A. D. 650. In various other parts of France, similar memorials of Irish sanctity may be traced.t At the celebrated inonastery of Centula, in Ponthied, was seen a tomb, engraved with golden letters, telling that there lay the remains of the venerable priest, Caidoc, "to whom Ireland gave birth, and the Gallic land a grave." The site of the hermitage of St. Fiacre, another Irish Saint, was deemed so consecrated a spot, that to go on a pilgrimage thither was, to a late period, a frequent practice among the devout; and we are told of the pious Anne of Austria, that when, in 1641, she visited the shrine of this saint, so great was the humility of her devotion, that she went the whole of the way, from Monceau to the town of Fiacre, on foot. Among the number of holy and eminent Irishmen who thus extended their labours to France, must not be forgotten St. Fursa,|| who after preaching among the East Angles, and converting many from Paganism, passed over into France; and, building a monastery at Lagny, near the river Marne, remained there, spreading around him the blessings of religious instruction, till his death. In like manner, through most of the other countries of Europe, we hear of the progress of some of these adventurous spirits, and track the course of their fertilizing footsteps through the wide waste of ignorance and paganism which then prevailed.** In Brabant, the brothers of St. Furso, Ultan and Foillan, founded an establishment which was long * In speaking of the learning displayed by St. Cummian in his famous Letter on the Paschal question, I took occasion to remark on the proof which it affords of the existence of libraries, at that period, in Ireland, and by no means ill or scantily furnished. From a circumstance mentioned by the ecclesiastical historians of an Irish bishop, named Mark, who visited the monastery of St. Gall, about the middle of the ninth century, it would appear that the Irish were, at that time, even able to contribute to the libraries of their fellow countrymen on the Continent. The fact is thus stated by the Benedictines:-"Il s'y vient alors habituer un évêque Hibernois nommé Marc, dont la rétraite fut avantageuse aux études, tant par les livres dont il aug. menta la bibliothèque que par les personnes qu'il avoit à sa suite. Entre ceux-ci étoit un neveu, à qui le nom barbare de Moengal fut changé en celui de Marcel, et un Eusebe, autre homme de lettres, et Hibernois, commes les précédens." The learned writers then add the following interesting remark respecting the Irish of that period in general:-"On a déja remarqué ailleurs que les gens de ce pays, presqu'à l'extrémité du monde, avoient mieux conservé la littérature, parcequ'ils étoient moins exposés aux revolutions que les autres parties de l'Europe." † Ce commerce de littérature entres les Gaules et les Iles Britanniques, en genre de s'entrecommuniquer leurs connoisances sur les lettres et la doctrine, et de se prêter de grands hommes pour les répandre, devint mutuel depuis que S. Gildas, S. Columban, et plusieurs autres Hibernois, presque tous gens de lettres, se retirèrent dans nos provinces -Hist. Littér. de la France, tom. iv. Mole sub hac tegitur Caidocus jure sacerdos, Scotia quem genuit, Gallica terra tegit. The burial-place of this saint, who died at Centula, towards the middle of the seventh century, was repaired by Angilbert, abbot of that monastery, in the reign of Charlemange, when the epitaph from which the above couplet is cited was inscribed upon the tomb. § L'ermitage de Saint Fiacre est devenu un bourg de la Brie, fameux par les pélerinages que l'on y faisoit; l'église ou chapelle étoit desservie par les Bénédictins; les femmes n'entroient point dans le sanctuaire, et l'on remarque que la Reine Anne d'Autriche, y venant en pélérinage en 1641, se conforma à cet usage, et qu'elle fit même à pied le chemin depuis Monceau jusqu'à Saint-Fiacre."-Hist. de Meaux. It is said in another work, relating to this saint. On a prétendu que le nom de Fiacres avoit été donné aux carosses de place, parcequ'ils furent d'abord destinés à voiturer jusqu'à St. Fiacre (en Brie) les Parisiens qui y allerent en pélerinage." This saint was of royal descent:-" Erat autem vir ille de nobilissimo genere Scotorum "-Bede, I. iii. c. 19. In the same chapter will be found an account of those curious visions or revelations of St. Fursa, which are supposed by the Benedictines to have been intended to shadow forth the political and moral corruption of the higher orders in Ireland:-" On s'appercoit sans peine qu'elles tendent à réprimer les désordres qui régnoient alors parmi les Princes, les Evêques, et les autres ecclésiastiques d'Hibernie, où le saint les avout eues. Elles taxent principalement leur avarice, leur oisiveté, le peu de soin qu'ils prenoient de s'instruire et d'instruire les autres." **In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries (says Macpherson,) religion and learning flourished in Ireland to such a degree, that it was commonly styled the mother country of saints, and reputed the kingdom of arts and sciences. The Saxons and Angles sent thither many of their princes and princesses to have the benefit of a pious and learned education. It ought, likewise, to be acknowledged, that some of the most eminent teachers of North Britain received their instruction at the Irish seminaries of literature and religion." called the Monastery of the Irish; and the elegant scholar, St. Livin,* whom, by his own verses, we trace to the tomb of St. Bavo,† in Ghent, proceeded from thence, on a spiritual mission, through Flanders and Brabant, prepared at every step for that crown of martyrdom, which at length, from the hands of Pagans, he suffered. With the same enterprising spirit we find St. Fridolin, surnamed the Traveller, a native, it is supposed, of Connaught,-exploring the Rhine for some uninhabited island, and at length fixing himself upon Seckingen, where he founded a church, and a religious house for females, which he lived to see prosper under his own eyes. Next to the generous self-devotion of these holy adventurers, thus traversing alone the land of the infidel and the stranger, the feeling of gratitude with which after-ages have clung to their names, forms one of the most pleasing topics of reflection which history affords; and few, if any, of our Irish missionaries left behind them more grateful_recollections than, for centuries, consecrated every step of the course of Fridolin the Traveller, through Lorraine, Alsace, Germany, and Switzerland. In the month of May, 664, that solar eclipse took place, the accurate record of which by the Irish chroniclers, I have already had occasion to notice. This phenomenon, together with the singular aspect of the sky, which, during the whole summer, as we are told, seemed to be on fire, was regarded generally, at the time, as foretokening some fatal calamity, and the frightful pestilence which immediately after broke out, both in England and Ireland, seemed but too fully to justify the superstitious fear. This Yellow Plague, as the dreadful malady was called, having made its appearance first on the Southern coasts of Britain, spread from thence to Northumbria, and, about the beginning of August, reached Ireland, where, in the course of the three years during which its ravages lasted, it is computed to have swept off two-thirds of the inhabitants. Among its earliest A. D. victims were the two royal brothers, Diermit and Blathmac, who held jointly at 664. this period the Irish throne; and Bede mentions also, in the number of sufferers, some natives of England, both noble and of lower rank, who had retired to Ireland, as he expresses it, "to pursue a course of sacred studies, and lead a stricter life." It is in mentioning this interesting fact, that the historian adds, so honourably to the Irish, that they most cheerfully received all these strangers, and supplied them gratuitously with food, with books, and instruction.j While thus from England such numbers crowded to these shores, and either attached themselves to a monastic life, or visited the cells of the different monasteries in pursuit of general knowledge, Irish scholars were, with a similar view, invited into Britain. The Island of Hy, which was inhabited by Irish monks, furnished teachers to all the * "Voici encore un écrivain," say the Benedictines, "que la France est en droit de partager avec l'Hiber. nie, qui lui donna naissance." The epitaph which this saint wrote upon St. Bavo, and the epistle addressed by him to his friend Florbert, in sending him the epitaph, may both be found in Usher's Vet. Epist. Hiberniarum Sylloge. Of these two poems Dr. Lanigan remarks, that they are very neat compositions, and do great honour to the classical taste of the Irish schools of that period, while barbarism prevailed in the greatest part of Western Europe."Chap. vi. § 12. In his epistle to Florbert, the Saint thus anticipates the doom of martyrdom that awaited him: Impia Barbarico gens exagitata tumultu The following verses from this epistle, in reference to the task which his friend Florbert had imposed upon him, may not, perhaps, be thought unworthy of citation: Et pius ille pater cum donis mollia verba Et qui Castalio dicebar fonte madentem Dictio versu posse movere Lyram, Carmine nunc lacero dictant mihi verba Camœnæ; Non sum qui fueram festivo carmine lætus: § On this, Ledwich remarks:-"So zealous and disinterested a love of learning is unparalleled in the annals of the world." 66 more northern regions; and the appointment of three natives of Ireland, in succession, to the new see of Lindisfarne, proves how grateful a sense of the services of that nation the Northumbrian princes of this period entertained. At the time we are speaking of, the bishop of this see was Colman, a monk of the Columbian order, who had been sent from Ireland for the purpose of filling that high dignity. Like all the rest of the clergy of his order, he adhered to the Irish mode of celebrating Easter, and the dispute respecting that point received a new recruitment of force from his accession, as well as from the scruples of the intelligent Alchfrid, son of King Oswin, who, while his father, a convert and pupil of the Irish, saw nothing better," says Bede, "than what they taught," was inclined to prefer to their traditions the canonical practice now introduced from Rome.* In consequence of the discussions to which this difference gave rise, a memorable conference was held on the subject, at Whitby; where, in the presence of the two kings, Oswin and Alchfrid, the arguments of each party were temperately and learnedly brought forward; the Bishop Colman, with his Irish clergy, speaking in defence of the old observances of their country, while Wilfrid, a learned priest, who had been recently to Rome, undertook to prove the truth and universality of the Roman method. The scene of the controversy was in a monastery, or nunnery, over which Hilda, a distinguished abbess, presided, herself and all her community being favourers, we are told, of the Irish system. The debate was carried on in Irish and Anglo-Saxon, the venerable Cead, an English bishop, acting as interpreter between the parties; and the whole proceeding but wanted a worthier or more important subject of discussion to render it, in no ordinary degree, striking and interesting.t After speeches and replies on both sides, of which Bede has preserved the substance, the king and the assembly at large agreed to give their decision in favour of Wilfrid; and Colman, silenced but not convinced, resolving still to adhere to the tradition of his fathers, resigned the see of Lindisfarne, and returned to his home in Ireland, taking along with him all the Irish monks, and about thirty of the English, belonging to that establishment.‡ The great mistake which pervaded the arguments of the Roman party, upon this question, lay in their assumption-whether wilfully or from ignorance-that the method of computation which they had introduced was the same that Rome had practised from the very commencement of her church; whereas, it was not till the middle of the fifth cen. tury that the Romans themselves were induced, for the sake of peace and unity, to exchange their old cycle of eighty-four years for a new Paschal system. By another gross error of the same party, which seems also liable to the suspicion of having been wilful, the Easter of the Irish was confounded with the Quartodeciman Pasch, though between the two observances, as we have already seen, there was an essential difference. But the fundamental error of both parties in the contest was, the importance attached unduly by each of them to a point of mere astronomical calculation, unconnected with either faith or morals; and while the Irish were, no doubt, censurable for persisting with so much obstinacy in a practice which, besides being indifferent in itself, was at variance with the general usage of Christendom, their opponents were no less to be blamed for their want of charity and good sense in raising, on so slight a point of difference and discipline, the cry of heresy and schism. A dispute of a still more trifling nature, and bordering closely, it must be owned, on the ridiculous, was, by the English followers of the Roman missionaries, mixed up, throughout, with the Paschal question, and, in a subordinate degree, made to share its fortunes. This dispute related to the tonsure, or mode of shaving the head, practised respectively by the Roman and Irish clergy: the former of whom shaved or clipped the An edifying instance of the tolerance of that period is afforded in the following fact, mentioned by Bede:-The Queen of Eanfled, who had lived in Kent, and who had with her a Kentish priest, named Romanus, followed the Roman Easter, while the King Oswin celebrated the Irish Easter; and it sometimes happened, says Bede, that while the king, bishop, &c. were enjoying the Paschal festivity, the queen and her followers were still fasting the Lent. † Among other persons present at the discussion, was Agilbert, a native of France, who, for the purpose of studying the Scriptures, as Bede tells us, had passed a considerable time in Ireland. "Venit in provinciam de Hibernia pontifex quidam, nomine Agilberctus, natione quidem Gallus, sed tunc legendarum gratia Scripturarum in Hibernia non parvo tempore demoratus."-Lib. iii. c. 7. To the monastery built by Colman for his English followers, at Mayo, (Bede, 1. iv. c. 4,) a number of other monks of that nation attached themselves; and, in the time of Adamnan, towards the close of the seventh century, there were about one hundred Saxon or English saints at that place, which, from thence, was called by the name of Maigh-cona-Sasson, or Mayo of the English. For this fact, Usher refers to the book of Ballimote:-"Quo in loco, uti Bedæ late grande Anglorum fuisse monasterium audivimus, ita etiam S. Cormaci, et Adamnani tempore centum Saxonicorum Sanctorum fuisse habitaculum, libri Ballimotensis collector confirmat."-Eccles. Primord. § Inheriting fully the same perverse feeling against the Irish, Dr. Ledwich has, in the same manner, misrepresented them on this subject; endeavouring to make out that St. Columba and his successors were all Quartodecimans. See an able refutation of his views on this point by Dr. Lanigan, chap. xii. note 236. |