cent volumes of Professor Westwood, Mr. Gilbert, and the late Dr. Todd.

(e) Architectural remains of churches, sepulchral inscriptions, sculptured crosses, carved or engraved book-covers, caskets, pastoral staves, bells, chalices, spoons, and other ecclesiastical relics.

In drawing information from such various quarters the author can hardly hope to have escaped all errors of detail, and not to have hazarded some conjectures which will be criticised, and to have drawn some conclusions which will be disputed.

A certain element of incompleteness is still inevitable in the treatment of this subject from the state of a part of the material from which our knowledge is derived. Some important Irish manuscripts, as the Stowe Missal, &c., have never been published; others, as the Leabhar Breac, &c., have been published in facsimile, without note or comment, and need the editorial explanations of some one who is at once an antiquarian, an ecclesiastical historian, and a palæographer, in order to assign their date and value to the historical, ecclesiastical, and liturgical tracts of which they are composed1. There is a vast amount of unsifted and undated, or erroneously dated, material preserved in various collections, especially in the Bollandists' edition of the Acta Sanctorum. Much of it might be useful for illustration in matters of detail, even where it could in no sense be relied upon as historical. But until some discriminating hagiologist shall have undertaken the laborious task of visiting the various European libraries, and critically examining the original MSS. from which such Lives are drawn, and publishing the

1 Since this sentence was written one of the most important of these documents, the Félire of Oengus, has been edited by Mr. Whitley Stokes, with a translation and complete apparatus criticus. Transactions of R. I. A., June,

1880.

result of such investigations, they must be regarded as more likely to mislead than to inform. Occasional reference has been made to a very few of these biographies, viz. those of Cogitosus, Ultan, St. Evin, &c., which have been passed and repassed through the crucible of modern criticism, and the evidential value of which it has therefore been possible approximately to ascertain. The general importance of this hagiologic literature has been discussed by the late Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, in his Preface to the Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi Scriptores (pp. 18-20), a work which includes a dated catalogue of all the MS. material accessible in Great Britain; and, so far as Ireland and Scotland are concerned, by Mr. Skene (Celtic Scotland, ii. cap. x, and Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, Preface). Its value for liturgical illustration is diminished by the fact that it all belongs to a period subsequent to the conformity of the Celtic Church to the Church of Rome. This appears plainly on the face of such unhistorical passages as the following in Ultan's Life of St. Bridget. The author thus describes her dream and consequent action: In urbe Romana juxta corpora Petri et Pauli audivi missas; et nimis desidero ut ad me istius ordo et universa regula feratur a Roma. Tunc misit Brigida viros sapientes et detulerunt inde missas et regulam.'-Cap. 91. The introduction of the Roman Liturgy into the Irish Church is antedated in this passage by many centuries. Its historical value is equal to that of the next chapter, which describes St. Bridget hanging her clothes to dry on a sunbeam.

A part of Chapter ii has previously appeared in the form of an article in the Church Quarterly Review (vol. x. p. 50), and a part of Chapter iii in letters to the Editor of the Academy.

Latin authorities have been frequently quoted in extenso.

Gaelic authorities have merely been referred to. Long passages in the ancient dialects of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales would have added considerably to the bulk of the volume, and would have been unintelligible to the majority of readers. The retention of an original orthography will explain the occasional occurrence of such forms as sinodus,' 'imnus,' cremen,' &c., for synodus,' 'hymnus,' 'crimen,' &c. The retention of a popular nomenclature will account for such forms as Charlemagne, Iona, &c., instead of Karl the Great, Hi, &c.

It would not be possible to compile such a volume as the present one without being largely beholden to the labours of other writers. The source of information has been generally indicated in foot-notes, but in case of accidental omission the author begs once for all to express his indebtedness to such recently deceased writers as Dr. Todd, Mr. Haddan, and Bishop Forbes, and to such living writers as Professor Stubbs, Mr. Skene, and Dr. Reeves, from whose edition of Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, as from a rich quarry, a knowledge of many facts recorded in this volume has been obtained. It is doubtful whether in the annals of literature so much important information has ever before been so lavishly accumulated and so skilfully arranged within a few hundred pages, or whether any other editorial task has ever been more thoroughly executed.

The author also begs to express his thanks to the Earl of Ashburnham for his kind permission to inspect and copy out the liturgical portion of the MS. volume known as the Stowe Missal, and to Professor Rhŷs, Mr. Whitley Stokes, Professor Westwood, and Mr. Henry Bradshaw for their kindly-afforded assistance in linguistic and palæographical questions respectively.

AUTHORITIES CITED.

[This list is not exhaustive. It only includes certain well-known works, to which frequent reference has been made, in the case of which it seemed desirable to specify once for all the edition made use of; and certain less-known works, to which occasional reference has been made, and to which it seemed desirable to append the date of their composition, and of the earliest MS. authority.]

Adamnani Canones: see Canonos.

Adamnani Vita S. Columbae. The Latin text, taken from an early eighthcentury MS. at Schaffhausen, was published with copious notes by Dr. Reeves at Dublin, 1857. Adamnan was the ninth presbyter-abbot of Iona, A.D. 679–704. Rolls Series, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. i. pt. i. p. 167. Antiphonarium Benchorense. A seventh-century MS. originally belonging to the monastery of Bangor, county Down. It is proved from internal evidence to have been written A.D. 680-691, during the life-time of Abbot Cronan. It is now preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It has been printed in Muratori's Anecdota Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, vol. iv. pp. 121– 159; Migne, Patrol. Curs. Lat. lxxii. 582; Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 1853, pp. 168-179.

Archaeologia: London, from 1770.

Archaeologia Cambrensis: London, from 1846.
Archaeologia Scotica: Edinburgh, from 1793.

B British Martyrology: London, 1761.

Bedae Historia Ecclesiastica: edited by G. H. Moberly, Oxford, 1869. Rolls Series, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. i. pt. i. p. 433.

Bernardi de Vita Malachiae Liber: fol. Paris, 1586. Rolls Series, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 236.

Betham, Sir W., Irish Antiquarian Researches: Dublin, 1827.

Black Book of Caermarthen: a twelfth-century Welsh MS. (A.D.1154–1189), pub

lished in Skene's (W. F.) Four Ancient Books of Wales, Edinburgh, 1868. Blight, J. T., Ancient Crosses and other Antiquities in the East of Cornwall: London, 1858.

Book of Armagh: in Trinity College, Dublin, written by Ferdomnach A.D. 807. The evidence for this date, together with a description of the contents of this MS., is given in the Nat. MSS. of Ireland, part i. p. xiv. Book of Deer: see p. 163.

Book of Dimma: see p. 167.

Book of Hymns: see Liber Hymnorum.

Book of Mulling: see p. 171.

Book of Obits: a fifteenth-century MS. in Trinity College, Dublin, published

by Irish Arch. Soc. Dublin, 1844.