From Life of St. Laurence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin (1128-1180), by M. L’Abbé Legris, English Translation, Dublin: Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, 1914; pp. 1-14.
Life of . . . .
St. Laurence O’Toole
Archbishop of Dublin (1128-1180)
by
M. L’Abbé Legris
English Translation
CHAPTER I
IRELAND IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY — RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL SITUATION
Confined within the limits of their island and having little intercourse of any kind with the outside world, the Irish of the twelfth century resembled but little the other nations of Europe. It might be said that they were separated by a gulf of several centuries from the age in which they lived; in fact they still retained the manners and customs of the ancient Celts.
The country was divided into five provinces or kingdoms, governed by as many kings, one of whom was acknowledged as chief or head, his authority extending over the whole island. But the unity and harmony which this system would seem to imply were more apparent than real. Succession to the royal power, the supreme sovereignty not excepted, was decided by election. This principle of election prevailed universally in Ireland, as well amongst the clans into which the people were divided, as in the system of government prevailing throughout the country.
The consequences resulting from such a procedure are quite intelligible. All that constituted the security and prosperity of the nation, the transmission of authority in the lesser kingdoms, the union of the latter amongst themselves, the undisputed authority of 2 the supreme monarch: none of these things were assured or had any stability. Each successive election excited competition, quickened rivalry, and engendered strife.
“The clan, consisting as it did of those allied by the ties of kindred, even to the ninth degree, their dependants and serfs, represented social and political unity.”1
In the clan was centred all life, all activity. Very rarely was there any intercourse between the members of one sept and those of another. Men married the women of their own clan, their own family, often setting the laws of the Church at defiance rather than seek their wives in another tribe.
All property belonged to the chief of the clan and, conjointly with him, to the nobles. The cultivation of the soil was left to men of inferior condition, farmers who were freemen, those who possessed flocks and herds, household goods and chattels; and, finally, husbandmen who were still serfs. But all property was vested in the clan. On the death of the chieftain a re-division of the lands and goods took place amongst the members of the community.
All those motives which induce attachment to the soil and stimulate men’s energies were lacking to the members of a clan.
“What interest had the Irish powerful enough to induce them to spend themselves in labour the profit of which would be reaped by the community? Hence, during the whole of the Middle Ages, Ireland was one immense pasture-land, the cities along the coast occupied by the Danes excepted, these being engaged in commerce. But, generally speaking, the inland dwellers, the natives, led sedentary lives, a prey to indolence and idleness. Work of any kind, no matter how little labour it involved, was repugnant to them.”2
3As was said before, the position of head of the clan was elective. The people’s choice did not always fall upon the eldest son of the late chieftain. It sometimes happened that another member of the clan was preferred to him, and often the oldest of the freemen was chosen, whence resulted ill-will and strife, which, when occasion offered, flared into fratricidal contests.
If dissensions arose so easily amongst those who were united by the closest ties of blood, what deadly malice and hatred must have been enkindled amongst the various clans of which a tribe was composed, or amongst the tribes constituting a province. It was amongst these in particular that reprisals took place and that feuds became hereditary. “The members of a clan were bound to render one another assistance, whether to avenge the murder of one of their number or to obtain compensation for a wrong done to any man of their clan. Hence so many disputes and so many wars.”3
The lives of the princes and nobles were wholly filled with these rivalries, these enmities, and these armed struggles. From early youth their training and education was such as fitted them for their life of ceaseless warfare. As children they knew nothing of the special care and ministration usually bestowed upon childhood. Beyond seeing that they were provided with food wholesome in qualty, but restricted in quantity, their parents manifested little solicitude in their regard. In all these matters they left them pretty much to Nature, and as far as concerned their children’s physical well-being, the results were such as fully justified their confidence. Accustomed from their earliest years to a rough life, they grew up strong and tall in stature, lithe and supple in limb, vigorous, and capable of enduring every hardship. According to the verdict of 4 their conquerors they were the very type of manly beauty4 and martial prowess. Early trained to ride and to handle arms, in conflict they displayed, with well-nigh fatal rashness, their skill and valour. They never made use of any of the armour in which the Anglo-Norman warrior completely encased his body. They wore no helmet, no coat of mail, no greaves; they dispensed with saddle and spurs. In battle their only arms were a small steel axe, which they wielded with one hand, a long javelin, and some short but very sharp-pointed arrows. Their lives were passed in perpetual warfare, and many of them died with arms in their hands. It may be said that the majority of the Irish kings and princes were assassinated or were killed in battle.
The constant use of arms, their love of fighting, and the continual quarrels and reprisals in which they were engaged, gave to these men an unbridled fierceness and violence of manner. They submitted to no retraint save that of a power superior to their own. But, at the same time, woe to him who, being vanquished, could no longer defend himself. Despoiled of everything, he had no other resource save to become a highway robber, or the leader of bandits like himself.
The lower orders in the tribes were not immune from the evils of war. They suffered from the depredations and the pillaging of the conqueror. In like manner the strong hand of these powerful chiefs pressed heavily on the Church, and they thwarted the clergy in their labours within the clan. They coveted alike the Church’s high offices and her property.
The method of proceeding observed in the election of a Bishop or an Abbot was only too well calculated to foster their greed. From a desire to respect 5 their unity, St. Patrick had granted to each tribe a bishopric or an abbacy, selecting for this office a member of the ruling family. Thus the great families became accustomed to regard these episcopal or abbatial offices, with their revenues, as their inalienable patrimony, and to exploit them as private property. Provided a priest could be found amongst the members of the family he was invariably chosen as Bishop or Abbot. But the fact of there being no clerics among their kinsfolk by no means always prevented them from filling the vacant benefice. In such circumstances laymen were appointed to the benefices, the sacred functions of which were discharged by priests who received a stipend for their services. But the titulars, who were genuine usurpers, received the revenues.5
In this description one finds it difficult to recognise the Island of Saints, that Ireland once so renowned for learning and sanctity, in whose monasteries science and the arts were cultivated, and who, at the period when continental nations were only slowly emerging from barbarism sent colonies of monks to evangelise them. Christianity, spreading rapidly among the Irish people, had in time softened their manners and improved their natural good qualities. No other people gave to the Christian religion such spontaneous and complete adhesion. No doubt, their disinterestedness, their lively imagination, their tendency to enthusiasm, their innate love of poetry fitted them better to understand the supernatural beauty of the doctrine of Christianity, and to carry them into effect in their monasteries.
And now we shall see the happy results of Ireland’s conversion to Christianity destroyed by the ruin of the monasteries during the Danish invasion. No longer under the influence of religion, the Irish princes lapsed into the barbarism of former times.
6This terrible hurricane which in the ninth century swept over the Christian nations of Northern Europe wrought greater havoc in Ireland than elsewhere. The Irish Chieftains were bold and fearless in battle, but they were never united and were badly equipped. Hence they were incapable of prolonged resistance against the Scandinavian invaders. These pirates, once masters of the sea-board, established colonies along the coast, and afterwards ascending the rivers, penetrated inland, everywhere carrying fire and sword. “Not one of the great Irish monasteries, which in the eighth century were still so flourishing, escaped their rapacity. Anchoring their flotillas in the inland lakes, they watched their opportunity to swoop down upon the churches and monasteries. They massacred the monks or put them to flight, pillaged the monasteries, rifled the libraries, and then retired, carrying off everything of value. The relics contained in the reliquaries they flung away as worthless.”6
With the disappearance of the monasteries there vanished also the good effects of the salutary influence of the Christian religion. A great decline in faith and morals then became apparent. “Christian civilisation almost disappeared.”7
When the storm had passed the other nations revived. They set to work to increase their strength, to become more united, to train themselves in self-discipline under monarchical government. Not so in Ireland. From the time of the Danish invasion we hear of bands of native plunderers roaming the country, and rivalling the Northmen in treachery and vandalism. The invaders finding the coast facing England better suited for the foundation of their colonies withdrew their hordes from the interior, and as soon as they had departed the Irish princes resumed their domestic quarrels.
7In the twelfth century the Irish had not learned the necessity for organisation and for union amongst themselves. The coming of another invader, the Anglo-Norman, found them still divided, still exhausting their strength in fratricidal strife, wholly incapable of combined resistance to the common enemy. Thus it was that in the first encounter with the invading forces they were vanquished, dispersed for want of a leader whose authority all would acknowledge.
This singular conditon of affairs in Ireland occasioned amongst strangers more contempt than surprise. From St. Bernard down to the biographer of St. Laurence O’Toole, all alike describe country and people as barbarous, “more bestial than human. Christian in name, but in reality purely pagan.”8 In general, the Irish clergy were vastly different. On this point we have the testimony of the Anglo-Normans after the Conquest. They describe them as of irreproachable morals, and leading most regular lives as befitted Churchmen, pious, but of a sad, gloomy piety which led them to shut themselves up within the walls of the cloister. “Nearly all the Irish prelates,” wrote Giraldus Cambrensis, “are taken from the monasteries. They discharge their duties as monks faithfully (with anxious care), but wholly omit those of the priest or Bishop.” To find the Irish clergy thus utterly ignored, and of no account amongst the people, did indeed cause much surprise to the Anglo-Norman priests, accustomed as they were to see their Bishops frequenting the Court, called upon to take part in the government of the kingdom, seated at the King’s council-board, and when necessary boldly defending in his presence the rights of the Church. From what has been said regarding the dependence of the Irish 8 clergy on the clan or tribe we can better understand, and to a certain extent excuse their attitude.
According as barbarous or half-pagan customs began to prevail amongst the nobles, the influence of the clergy over the people of the tribe diminished. They were permitted to worship God within their churches, but they had not authority to recall the people to the observance of His Law and the discipline of the Church. A time had come when the people were learning to do without them.
In the letters of St. Anselm and of Lanfranc we find fully revealed the evils which afflicted the Church in Ireland. The marriage-tie was no longer respected. To avoid having to choose wives outside their own families, men often married within the forbidden degrees of kindred. But, worse still, they were accustomed to exchange their wives, to sell them or repudiate them according to caprice.
Children received no Christian training. St. Laurence O’Toole, at twelve years of age, had not yet learned the Creed. “People no longer approached the Sacraments, or, when they did, not unfrequently profaned them. In some remote districts the Sacraments of Penance, Confirmation, and even Baptism were no longer administered, nor did the dead receive Christian burial.”9
To the isolation in which the clergy lived must be attributed the decline of their influence. Here again we recognise the unfortunate results of the principle which gave to every tribe their own Bishop and monastery. No doubt, with much difficulty, the Bishop might receive permission to recall to the observance of the Church’s discipline those of his own kindred in whose family he lived and to whom he 9 owed his election. But on the other hand, he had no superior to remind him of his own obligations.
The bond which united the dioceses of Ireland was hardly perceptible. True, the Archbishop of Armagh, the successor of St. Patrick, was nominally permitted to hold a kind of supremacy over the whole kingdom. But he scarcely ever exercised his authority, save at such times as the tax, known as St. Patrick’s dues, which he levied on all districts, were collected. Synods were seldom, if ever, held. How could the Bishops dream of acting in concert when the tribes were perpetually at variance with one another? “Thus it was that in all matters affecting general discipline each Bishop followed his own particular inclinations. There were as many different liturgies as there were districts.”10 On this point also the letters of the Archbishop of Canterbury enlighten us as to the extent of the evil.
As a result, no doubt, of rivalry and the contention between those having influence, the number of Bishops increased beyond all reason, quite irrespective of vacant Sees; it would often happen that several Bishops were elected at the one time to the same See.
The ceremony of episcopal consecration was performed mostly by one Bishop. Some Bishops were accustomed to confer Holy Orders for considerations of money. Holy chrism was not used in the administration of Baptism. For all these evils there was but one sole remedy: that the clergy should come forth from their retirement, once more enter into union with the Catholic world, above all resume their relations with Rome, which, since the Danish invasion, had been almost entirely discontinued.
Those who deplored the state of the Church in Ireland at the beginning of the twelfth century, its 10 want of cohesion, its state of utter dependence on the lay rulers, could find no remedy save in the restoration of relations with the Church and her Head, the Pope. The Pope alone possessed sufficient authority to restore somewhat of the life of religion to Ireland, to check abuses, to revive discipline, and to unite the members of the Hierarchy.
The Bishops whose Sees were situated on the coast, having more direct intercourse with the English episcopacy, were the first to grasp the situation and to adopt this course of action.
The Danes after having ravaged Ireland for a long time established themselves on the east coast, and thence advanced towards the South. They divided this territory into three kingdoms, having as their respective capitals Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. Soon, owing to their energy and their aptitude for commerce, to the intercourse and traffic which they carried on with England, these places attained such prosperity as they had never known before. In the twelfth century Dublin as a port rivalled London in wealth.
Once rooted in the soil, the Danes soon abandoned their gods and embraced the religon of the nation which they had vanquished. After the lapse of a century the Christians were numerous enough to justify their wish to be ruled by their own Bishops. Dublin was the first of these cities to be raised to the dignity of a See (1036), Limerick being the next to have the privilege. In 1096 the inhabitants of Waterford petitioned St. Anselm to consecrate as their Bishop a monk of Winchester, named Malchus.
Owing to their intercourse with England, and perhaps, also, because of a feeling of contempt for those indolent Irish who had not known how to retrieve their defeats, these newly Christianised colonies at once 11 placed themselves under the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Therefore, nothing was more natural than the care taken henceforth by St. Aselm and Lanfranc of these new dioceses. Lanfranc presented the church in Dublin with books, vestments, and a complete set of church furniture.
Anselm maintained a constant correspondence with these Bishops. It would seem that the Archbishops of Canterbury wanted, even though it were but by slow degrees, to extend their jurisdiction over the whole of Ireland. They availed themselves of every opportunity to write to the Ard Righ urging him to remedy the evils which afflicted the Church. St. Anselm notified his accession to the See of Canterbury to all the Bishops (ac coeteris in Hiberniae insula pontificali eminentibus dignitate), and invited them to submit their difficulties to that See. “And in this manner they would be able to extend the Roman customs which prevailed in the metropolis of England to the shores of Ireland, whilst they awaited the time when these would penetrate further into the provinces.”11
One of the most ardent in this propaganda was Gilbert, the Bishop of Limerick. Previous to his elevation to the episcopate he had met St. Anselm at Rouen, and became bound to him by the ties of friendship. It was to be expected that he, more than all others, should follow the suggestions of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Scarcely had he been raised to the See of Limerick when Anselm wrote to him urging him to exhort the King and the Bishops to check abuses and to labour for the spread of good morals.
Gilbert replied to this appeal by publishing a short treatise, De usu ecclesiastico, which he dedicated to the clergy of Ireland. In it he insisted on two points: concord in all that concerned the liturgy, and unity 12 amongst the members of the Hierarchy. He qualified as unseemly and schismatical the liturgical differences to be found in every Irish diocese. “They must give place,” he wrote, “to the Roman Office, which alone is Catholic. Whoseover calls himself a member of the Catholic Church is united to the other members by one and the same faith, one and the same hope, one and the same charity. Let him be united with them likewise in the observance of the rules imposed by the Hierarchy.” He then explained the constitution of the Church, described the order and subordination of the ecclesiastical degrees, and specified distinctly the rights and duties of the Pope and of the Bishops.
The little book attracted attention abroad. It obtained for its author the title and the office of Papal Legate in Ireland. It would seem to have been equally well received by the Bishops to whom it was dedicated. But the counsels and the directions it contained were only to come into practice by degrees.
Jealousies and political intrigues had their part in thwarting this effort to restore unity. To withdraw his kingdom from the influence of the North, the King of Munster tried to weaken the authority of the Primate, the Archbishop of Armagh, by creating in the very centre of his dominions a large independent See. A Synod held in 1118, under the presidency of Gilbert the Legate, and composed almost entirely of the southern Bishops, ratified the erection of Cashel to an archdiocese. They wanted also to limit the number of episcopal Sees by placing twelve under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Armagh, and an equal number under the Archbishop of Cashel. This decision, however, was not carried out. We find afterwards the number of bishoprics still increasing. At the Synod of 1152, when many of the small Sees were abolished, thirty-eight were retained. Meanwhile 13 the seed sown by Gilbert was bearing fruit. When the Bishop of Limerick, having grown old, found the burthen of his office as Papal Legate pressing too heavily upon him, the Church in Ireland looked to another prelate who was to take his place and to continue his work.
Malachi had received his early training from a saintly recluse of Armagh, who was an ardent advocate of ecclesiastical reform. He was also one of those who recognised that there was no hope save in Rome. Malachi’s labours, throughout his whole life, were devoted to the task of inducing the clergy to conform to the Roman liturgy and practices. Whilst yet young, the Archbishop of Armagh had appointed him his assistant in the administration of the affairs of his diocese. A few years later Malachi himself was elected to the See of Armagh. Acting on Gilbert’s advice, in 1139 he set out for Rome with the object of defending the supremacy of his See, and of maintaining the unity of the Church of Ireland. On his way to the Eternal City he halted at Clairvaux, attracted thither by the fame of St. Bernard. Nowhere could he have found a better ally or one better fitted to assist him in his task. Bernard sent to Ireland a number of his monks to introduce monastic reform. It is to be presumed that it was St. Bernard who, after St. Malachi’s death, suggested to Pope Eugenius III., his disciple, the permanent establishment of the office of Legate in Ireland, that thus the question of the dioceses might be settled definitely.
Malachi returned from Rome charged with the duties and the title of Papal Legate. His mission was to take counsel with the Bishops concerning the investiture of the two Archbishops with the pallium. It may well be that he regarded the time as unfavourable for the discharge of his trust. For we find that the Synod 14 was not convoked until 1148. The Bishops then confirmed the decision of the Synod held in 1118, and again requested that the pallium should be given to the two Archbishops, praying the Legate to present their petition to the Pope. Once more Malachi took the road to Rome. But he was not to reach his destination. He died at Clairvaux in the arms of St. Bernard.
The Irish Legates, notwithstanding their zeal, did not succeed in setting definitely the number and the extent of the dioceses. No permanent results could be secured without more direct intervention on the part of the Pope. A few years after Malachi’s death, Cardinal Paparo arrived in Ireland as Legate a latere to settle the ecclesiastical questions still pending. At a Synod held in 1152 the number of dioceses was reduced to thirty-eight, and Ireland was divided into four provinces. Dublin, hitherto subject to Canterbury, was raised to an archdiocese with five suffragans; Tuam made the fourth.
We are now about to trace the career of St. Laurence O’Toole as Archbishop of Dublin. We shall see with what zeal and authority in his twofold office of Archbishop and Papal Legate he continued the work which both Gilbert and Malachi had so much at heart.
1 D. Gougaud, Les chrétientés celtiques, p. 8.
2 Vacandard, “St. Malachi O’Morgair” in Revue des questions historiques, July, 1892, p. 11.
3 D. Gougaud, p. 8.
4 “In robur perfectum, pulcherrimis et proceris corporibus, congruis et coloratissimis vultibus, ad plenum naturae dotibus, excolantur.” — Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernica, dist. iii., c. x., edit. James Dimock, London, 1867.
5 See Vacandard, p. 14.
6 D. Gougaud, p. 352.
7 Vacandard, p. 15.
8 St. Bernard, Life of St. Malachi, p. xvi.
9 D. Gougaud, p. 355.
10 Vacandard, p. 13.
11 Vacandard, p. 19.