596 to A.D. 1537. Moral and literary character of the Clergy [Book V. A.D. 1172 marrying, a remedy which, though contrary to their professed vows, many of the clergy of those times were wont to have recourse to, in consequence of being probibited from the use of open and honourable wedlock. In the sixteenth century the profligate immorality of the clergy had increased to a shameful extent, and the descendants of unchaste and unmarried abbots, priors, deans, and other prelates, often obtained by corrupt means, the possession of the benefices and dignities of the Church, to the destruction of religion, and the scandalizing of all honest and orderly Christians.* Their general ignorance, and God. Of the state of learning among the clergy in the period under consideration, something must especially in now be said. They were no longer conspicuous, as regard to the Word of the clergy of Ireland in earlier times had been, for superior intelligence and information in religious or secular knowledge; their native schools of learning were no longer famous throughout Europe; they were no more distinguished as a people eminent for their acquaintance with God's Word; but on the contrary, they had become, after three or four centuries' training and superintendence of the Church of Rome and her adherents, so grossly ignorant and uninformed, that at the period immediately before the British Reformation, the Irish priests themselves were * Mant, i. 34, 36. CH. II.] in the ages next preceding the Reformation. to 597 "not able to say mass, or pronounce the words, A.D. 1172 they not knowing what they themselves say A.D. 1537. in the Roman tongue." ""* Sixty years earlier an Irish parliament, in ratifying the grant of certain tithes to one James Maddock, who was studying at the University of Oxford, in order to support him there until he should be fitted to undertake the work of the ministry in Ireland, alleged as the reason for their confirmation of the grant, that "there are [A.D. 1475] but few in this land who are able to teach or preach the Word of God;" a statement which is confirmed and enlarged upon in a curious passage of an old writer who lived at that period, and whose words in the passage alluded to are these:"Amongst the many causes of the mysseorder of the land, there is no archebysshop, ne bysshop, abbot ne pryor, parson ne vycar, ne any other person of the Churche, high or low, that useth to preache the Worde of Godde, saveing the poor fryers beggers."† Such being the character of the clergy, and such the neglect of the Word of God in those * Mant, i. 36, where the authority given is Robert Ware's Reformation of the Church of Ireland. + Statute of Kilkenny, in vol. ii. of Tracts relating to Ireland, printed for the Irish Archæological Society, p. 47, not.; and Appendix, No. i. p. 129, note, ib. : also Leland's Hist. of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 97, note; where will be found (under A.D. 1493) a description of the Tract on the affairs of Ireland, by "Master Pandarus," from which the passage here quoted is taken. VOL. II. P 598 to A.D. 1172 evil days, we need not wonder if the people did A.D. 1537. greatly err, and adopt many false views of religious truth. It "was inaccessible to them at its source in the Holy Scripture; and in its transmission through the channels of ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies, and ministerial instruction, it had for the most part, lost its primitive and essential character; so that the spiritual worship of God, and belief in the Gospel of his blessed Son, and corresponding holiness and purity of life, were well nigh superseded and obliterated by fabulous legends and superstitions, and unedifying observances."* So fared the Church of Ireland in the days when Romanism in its full extent was embraced and cherished by her lawful pastors. Even then however, the authority of the pope was not by any means allowed to have uncontrolled sway in Ireland. Even then there was a powerful resistance offered to the meddling interference of the see of Rome in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Church of this country; and that by persons who did not at all object to any of the general doctrines of the Church of Rome. This was a state of things which might easily have been anticipated from observing the manner in which the influence of Rome was first established in Ireland. For as that had been through the * Mant, i. 102. CH. II.] under Anglo-Romish influence. to 599 A.D. 1537. instrumentality of England, it was naturally to A.D. 1172 be expected that the people of that country would be desirous to introduce here just the same general views on matters connected with religion, as prevailed in their own land. And as the undue interference of the pope was often met there by a strenuous and determined opposition, even in the ages before the Reformation, it was but natural that when the system of the Roman Church as received in England was admitted into Ireland also, the same counteracting influence should be transplanted with it into this country, so as to generate among some at least of the Irish adherents of the Roman communion, a spirit of liberty and independence similar to that which in the neighbouring isle often successfully resisted the more extravagant claims of Romish cupidity and ambition. The general observations contained in this and the preceding chapter will, it is hoped, enable the reader to understand better the part of our history which follows, and which may now be resumed in historical order at the place where it was interrupted by this partial digression. CHAP. III. PROCEEDINGS OF CARDINAL VIVIAN, PAPAL LEGATE, IN IRELAND.- A. D. 1177. KING Henry II. on hearing of the death of Earl Down inva- Strongbow, sent over into Ireland as his deputy ded by John or lieutenant, William Fitz-Aldelm, and together de Courcy. with him, John de Courcy, Robert Fitz-Stephen, Proceedings of Cardinal and Milo de Cogan, who were to act under him.* John de Courcy, a man of very great courage and ability, was the conqueror of the eastern part of Ulster, who invaded that part of Ireland in 1177, and took possession of its capital, DownCardinal Vivian, the pope's legate, patrick. happening to be then at Downpatrick, endeavoured to mediate a peace between De Courcy gate, on the and Mac-Dunlevy, the prince of the district, on condition that the former should quit the country, and the latter agree at the same time topay a tribute to King Henry II. De Courcy however refusing to consent to these terms, the Cardinal Vivian, the pope's le occasion. * Ware, Annals of Ireland, ad an. 1176; and Lord Lyttleton's History of King Henry II., Book v. quoted in Lanigan iv. 231. |