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clergy of Christ Church and the Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick's; the septs of Wicklow refused to acquiesce in the extinction of the See; and it was subsequently revived. Bishops are found there until nearly the beginning of the sixteenth century.1

During the period to which our attention is at present directed, the Pope reached the climax of his arrogance and tyranny. The Emperor of Germany now condescended to hold the stirrup of the mitred sovereign; the greatest princes of the age quailed before his interdicts; and Henry II. himself submitted to penance-very humiliating to a proud spirit —that he might appease his wrath. Many of the prelates of higher rank now displayed a most overbearing disposition; and when Archbishop Cumin excommunicated the Irish chief governor, and deprived a whole diocese of the ordinances of religion, because the State ventured to interfere with property to which he had but a dubious claim, he only walked in the footsteps of his Pontifical master. The introduction of diocesan episcopacy had produced a complete change on the face of the Irish Church: the recognition of the supremacy of the Pope had given the bishops quite a new position in relation to the people and the establishment of the English power in the country, under the auspices of Rome, had contributed vastly to the augmentation of hierarchical arrogance. The Irish bishops were now a very different class of men from those who had before been known by the same designation. The old pastors were the teachers of the Church, and the moral guides of the community; but they held a comparatively humble rank; they were generally without wealth; and each looked up for protection to the chieftain of his district. The new prelates were important political personages: some of them possessed much power and affluence: they

1 In A.D. 1497 it was finally extinguished on the death of Dennis White. See Ledwich, pp. 185-6, and Lanigan, iv. 320.

2 We read, in the Chronicle of Benedict of Peterborough, how, in A. D. 1177, the Emperor met the Pope at Venice; and, after mass, conducted him to the church door, and held his stirrup as he mounted his palfrey.

3 O'Toole himself evidently felt that there was a defect in his title when he deemed it necessary to apply to the Pope for confirmation of it.

were ready to measure their strength with any of the petty princes around them: and the viceroy himself—as in the case of Cumin-found it almost impossible to curb their pretensions. They could withstand the Crown by appealing to the Pope; and, supported by their chief in Italy, they not unfrequently contrived to prevail against the reigning Sovereign.

This exaltation of the hierarchy did not tend to promote the improvement of the Church. Many of the bishops and archbishops are henceforth known as mere politicians, immersed in the management of affairs of state. In A.D. 1213 Henry De Loundres, the successor of Cumin in the diocese of Dublin, was appointed Justiciary, or Viceroy of Ireland-an office of vast responsibility, sufficient to occupy all his time and to tax all his energies to the uttermost. It was impossible for any man invested with such a trust to discharge his clerical duties with efficiency; and yet the precedent thus established was often followed. The successors of De Loundres in the archbishopric, as well as the Bishops of other Sees, are frequently found employed in the administration of the government of the country. Not a few of the prelates set over the Irish Church were English adventurers, who had secured their places by the influence of family connections; and, when in office, they exhibited a far greater anxiety to add to their emoluments than to advance the interests of religion. About this time a contest between the Bishop of Waterford and the Bishop of Lismore, for the possession of some property claimed by both, long kept the whole district around them in a state of disturbance. David, Bishop of Waterford, lost his life in a riot which took place during the progress of the controversy. But his successor Robert continued the struggle. One of his partisans, at the head of a body of his retainers, seized the Bishop of Lismore in his cathedral; hurried him to Dungarvan; threw him into prison; and loaded him with irons.2 The Bishop of Waterford was excommunicated; but he seemed to care little for the sentence. Through the mediation of the King the censure was removed. Robert

1 Lismore was united to Waterford by the Synod of Rathbreasail ; but they were separated again before the Synod of Kells.

2 Brenan's Ecc. Hist., p. 291.

escaped with comparative impunity, and remained till his death in the enjoyment of his episcopal dignity.

Pope Adrian professed to be animated by a concern for the religious improvement of the Irish people when he handed them over to Henry II. If he really meant to elevate their condition he was signally unfortunate. The English invasion is the commencement of the most dismal period in their history. The Hibernian Church is no longer the Star of the West, the brightest spot in the ecclesiastical firmament. It has parted with its primitive simplicity and its ecclesiastical freedom. Ireland did not receive from its Anglo-Norman rulers any benefit equivalent to the loss of its independence. The transference of its inhabitants to the dominion of South Britain promoted their spiritual as well as their civil degradation. Too many of the clergy, sent across the Channel to occupy lucrative ecclesiastical positions, were the very offscourings of the Church of England; and they contributed neither by their instruction nor example to the enlightenment of the country. The native clergy felt that they were discountenanced and dishonoured; and the whole Church was disturbed by heartburnings, alienations, and divisions. But the power of the Pope advanced apace. The dissatisfied appealed to his tribunal for redress of grievances. He knew how to decide so as to make both parties more dependent on himself; and thus, whilst the country was sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss of ignorance, his claims, as the alleged keeper of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, were maintained with increasing confidence and success.

CHAPTER III.

FROM THE DEATH OF KING JOHN TO THE DEATH OF KING EDWARD I. A.D. 1216 TO A.D. 1307.1

A BEAUTIFUL temple is not always an evidence of the existence of a pious congregation. Superstition may erect a structure which enlightened zeal may find it difficult to emulate; and the hands which build or decorate the walls may be very seldom clasped in devotion. Were we to judge of the state of religion in Ireland by the multiplication of its ecclesiastical edifices, we might infer that the thirteenth century was one of the brightest periods in the history of its Church; and yet we have melancholy proof that the nation was then in much the same spiritual condition as were the degenerate Jews when they built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous. No small number of the abbeys of that date, exhibiting fine specimens of workmanship, owed their existence to men who were steeped in crime. They were avowedly erected "for the health of the souls" of the benefactors and their ancestors 2 —an announcement which too frequently indicates that they were designed, not for the glory of God, but as an atonement for lives of iniquity. Within a century and a half after the Synod of Cashel, one hundred and sixty so-called religious houses were founded and endowed by the English

1 Henry III. A.D. 1216 to A.D. 1272: Edward I. A. D. 1272 to A.D. 1307.

2 Mant's History of the Church of Ireland, i. 48. Lanigan himself says expressly that this was then the "fashionable mode of purchasing off sins and obtaining forgiveness from Heaven," iv. 253.

settlers; whilst a considerable number besides were provided by the natives themselves. Most of these buildings made their appearance during the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. The Dominicans arrived in Ireland in A.D. 1224;2 and immediately afterwards several establishments belonging to the order were erected. They soon had convents in Dublin, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Mullingar, Cashel, Tralee, Coleraine, Sligo, Roscommon, and Derry, as well as in places of less importance. The first Irish Franciscan convent was founded at Youghal by Maurice Fitzgerald in A.D. 1230. Others soon followed in Carrickfergus,5 Kilkenny, Dublin, Athlone, Wexford, Limerick, Dundalk, Kildare, Armagh, and elsewhere. The Augustinians, the Carmelites, the Knights Templars, and kindred fraternities, likewise founded houses in connection with their respective orders.

The introduction of these new brotherhoods, and their settlement in so many districts, tended greatly to promote the papal influence throughout Ireland. Unlike the old Irish monks, they were all bound securely to the pontifical throne. They were under the immediate inspection of the great Italian Bishop: they kept up constant intercourse with

1 King's Primer, ii. 565; Phelan's Policy of the Church of Rome. Remains, ii. p. 100.

2 Hibernia Dominicana, p. 38.

3 Ibid. In 1762 there had been no less than eighty-three Irish prelates connected with the Dominicans, of whom eighteen were archbishops and sixty-five were bishops. See Hib. Dom., p. 453.

A Hibernia Dominicana, p. 42.

Carrickfergus, which signifies the Rock of Fergus, was so named, according to tradition, because Fergus, a king of the Albanian Scots, was drowned there— probably at the rock on which the castle now stands. Stanihurst De Rebus in Hib. Gestis, lib. i. p. 26.

6 Brenan pp. 309-313. William de Burgh, in 1296, is said to have founded the Franciscan monastery of Galway. "The endowments which De Burgh gave to this monastery were very numerous, and consisted of water-mills upon the river, and the tithes of some acres of arable land near the city; and, that our friars should never lack fish, he ordained that on every Wednesday they should be supplied with one salmon out of the great weir, on every Saturday with three out of the high weir, and on the same day with one out of the haul-net; and with all the eels that might be taken one day in each week out of the many eel weirs on the river."MEEHAN'S Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, p. 74. Dublin, 1869.

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