Clavis Litterarum Hibernensium: Medieval Irish Books and Texts (C.400-C.1600)

399 Pages·2017·44.562 MB·English, Latin

by  Donnchadh Ó Corráin

CORPVS CHRISTIANORVM CLAVIS
LITTERARVM
CLAVES
HIBERNENSIVM
Medieval Irish Books & Texts
(c. 400 —c¢. 1600)
I
cura et studio
Donnchadh O CorRAIN

TURNHOUT TURNHOUT
BREP& POUBLLISSHER S BREPOLS &PUBLISHERS
2017 2017
CORPVS CHRISTIANORVM VXORI CARISSIMAE
FIDELMAE
Claues
in ABBATIA SANCTI PETRI STEENBRVGENSI
a reuerendissimo Domino Eligio DEKKERS
fundatae SCRIBA
nunc sub auspiciis Vniuersitatum
Is scith mo chrob 6n scribainn—
UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN
ni digainn mo gles geroll
VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL UNIVERSITEIT GENT
scéid mo phenn gulban cdelda
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
dig ndäelda do dub glégorm.
UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN
editae Bruinnid sruaim n-ecna ndedairn
as mo läim degduinn desmais
doirtid a dig for duilinn
editionibus curandis praesunt
Rita BEYERS Alexander ANDREE Emanuela COLOMBI do dub in chuilinn chnesglais.
Georges DECLERCQ Jeroen DEPLOIGE Paul-Augustin DEPROOST
Sinim mo phenn mbec mbräenach
Anthony Dupont Jacques ELFASSI Guy GULDENTOPS
tar denach lebar ligoll
Hugh HouGHTON Mathijs LAMBERIGTS Johan LEEMANS
gan scor fri selba segann—
PaulMATTEI Gert PARTOENS Marco PETOLETTI
dian scith mo chrob ön scribainn.
Dominique PorREL KeesSCHEPERS Paul TOMBEUR
Marc VAN UYTFANGHE Wim VERBAAL s. xi/xii

uoluminibus parandis operam dant
LucJOCQUE Bart JANSSENS THE SCRIBE
Paolo SARTORI Christine VANDE VEIRE
My hand is tired from scribing—
The great quill’s pointed tip is thin,
My fine-beaked pen pours out
a dark gush of glistening ink.
A strong stream of learning flows
D/2017/0095/108 From my hand, tanned and tidy;
ISBN 978-2-503-54857-9 (3 vols.) It pours its sap upon the leaf—
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper ink of green-barked holly.
© 2017, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium Isend my little dripping pen
over lustrous tomes, untiring,
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
To increase the store of sages
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
—and oh! my hand is tired from scribing.
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
Preface
Liber est memoria praeteritorum, receptaculum praesentium, custodia
futurorum
—Hiberniensis Anonymus, s. viii, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, clm 6233
This work is an attempt at a broad if necessarily incomplete and
austere survey of writing in Ireland and by the Irish elsewhere in
Europe, principally in Latin and Irish (Gaelic), from Late Anti-
quity to the end of the middle ages. The purpose is to provide, as
far as possible, a panorama of the written work of the Irish in that
long period and to form an opinion of the extent and quality of
Irish literary achievements. This is a difficule undertaking.
The linguistic history of Ireland in Late Antiquity and in the
early middle ages is complex and not well understood. At least
four languages were spoken—Irish, Latin, Brittonie (i.e. British
Celtic), and one or more indigenous non-Indo-European lan-
guages.' Of these languages, only two appear to have been writ-
ten: Irish and Latin. Primitive Irish was written epigraphically in
ogam characters (1) in the fifth and sixth centuries AD.’ Latin

Peter Schrijver, ‘Non-Indo-European surviving in Ireland in the first millennium’,
Erin, 51 (2000), 195-9; 55 (2005), 137-443 idem, ‘Pruners and trainers of the Celtic fam-
ily tree: the rise and development of Celtic in the light of language contact’, in Liam
Breatnach, Ruairi O hUiginn, Damian McManus & Katharine Simms (eds.), Proceedings
of the XIV International Congress of Celtic Studies, Maynooth 2011 (Dublin, 2015), 191-
219; cf. John T. Koch, ‘The conversion and the transition from Primitive to Old Irish,
€.367—c.637’, Emania, 13 (1995), 39-503 idem, “Gallo-Brittonic” vs “Insular Celtic”: the
interrelationships of the Celtic languages reconsidered’, in G. Le Menn (ed.), Bretagne et
pays celtique—langues, histoire, civilisation: melanges offerts a la mémoire de Léon Fleuriot
(Rennes, 1992), 471-95.
> Numbers in bold refer to sections of the main work.
3 Damian McManuA sgu,ide to ogam (Maynooth, 1991), 40, 78-100; Catherine Swift,
Ogam stones and the earliest Irish christians, Maynooth Monographs Series Minor, 2
(Maynooth, 1997). However, Orosius (Historiarum adversum paganos libri VI, 1.2; Carl
Zangemeister (ed.), Pauli Orosii, CSEL 5 (Vienna, 1882), 30), writing c. AD 416-7, bas-
ing himself on information acquired in Ireland c. AD 400 or before, states that the Irish
were in occupation of the Isle of Man. That occupation is evidenced by an ogam stone
BIVAIDONAS MAQI MUCOI CUNAVA(LD (Macalister, i 482 $504 (II). That may
place the Manx ogam in the late fourth century or early fifth.
VIEH PREFACE PREFACE IX
and Irish half-uncial epigraphy appears a little later (2). The writ- Co. Carlow, turns up at Echternach (372, 374; cf. 13).7 Does any
ing of vernacular Irish law begins in the middle of the sixch cen- of the work of the others survive? Have scholars looked?
tury (332, 668) and Early Old Irish literary texts, in polished prose The Latin and Irish literatures of medieval Ireland are the work
and verse, are extant from the end of the sixth century and the ofa single broad learned class of erudite outward-looking church-
early years of the seventh (843-6). There is evidence that the orig- men who maintained schools and scriptoria in rich church foun-
inal texts of the genealogies (760) may be earlier than any other. + dations and, in the later middle ages, of lay professional learned
Brittonic dynasties in Ireland are well evidenced in Ptolemy and lineages (poets, lawyers, historians), closely connected with the
the Brittonic language has left a heavy impress on Irish. Besides churches and heirs to their texts and their skills. In the sixth cen-
there were important and very early, probably missionary, British tury, perhaps earlier, the church elites absorbed what indigenous
church foundations in Ireland: Louth, Gailinne na mBretan (Gal- oral learning that had survived and, in law, poetry, grammar, and
len), Tuilén (Dulane), Dermag Britonum (in Brega), Tech Bretan narrative literature, created and developed a unique synthesis
(in Co. Dublin), Lann Léri (Dunleer, Co. Dublin), Tech na between it and Christian Latin culture. These learned and well-
mBretan at Kells (Co. Meath), and many others.’ (The Irish endowed cadres persisted for over a millennium, with striking
church of Columbanus and his predecessors is properly an Iro- continuity of role and purpose, though they transformed and
British church, closely connected with Gaul.) It is hard to see how adapted themselves to historical circumstances that changed radi-
such highly literate and early foundations should not have left cally, especially in the twelfth century when a re-organisation of
written documents in Latin and perhaps in their vernacular. There the church and the English Invasion (these were linked) made
are also important and widely distributed Anglo-Saxon houses in fundamental changes. The literatures in Latin and in Irish, early
Ireland: Tech Saxan (parish of Tisaxon, barony of Kinsale, Co. and late, the product of a single if latitudinarian class of scholars,
Cork, on a magnificent site on the estuary of the Bandon river); are so closely intertwined, and so influence one another that one
Tech Saxan (townland of Tisaxon, parish of Monivea, Co. Gal- cannot properly understand the one without the other. Hence,
way); Tulach Léis (parish of Tullylease, Co. Cork); Mag nEo na they are treated together in this work.
Saxan (parish of Mayo, Co. Mayo).* O Cröinin argues that some The Scandinavian raiding and settlement in the eighth century
of the work done at the Anglo-Saxon house of Raith Mäelsige, and later brought another language to Ireland, Old Norse. The
scanty runic epigraphy of Ireland is the subject of a recent out-
standing study, and there is no need to list this material again.® I
have argued elsewhere that behind Njals saga? and Porsteins saga
Sidu-Hallsonar’? lies Brjans saga, written in Dublin, at the behest
* Note the form Uolotorum in the first citation infra; the vocalism and unsyncopated
of the Dubliners," about 1100, as a reply to Cogad Gaedel re Gal-
form of Maugain in the second (syncope is generally dated to the middle of the sixth
laib (1236), and transmitted to Iceland in Insular script. Since
century or thereabouts); and the non-ecclesiastical hypocoristic form of Brin, and the
form Anblomath (cf. ogam ANAVLAMATTIAS, Macalister, i 122 §124) in the third
citation: (i) In quorum regionibus habitauit Nia rex .i. Nia Noi Grainze. Ipse est qui
recepit Lugna Fer Tri de excilio suo in tempore Uolotorum, Book of Ballymote, facs. p. 7 Däibhi O Créinin, ‘Rath Melsigi, Willibrord, and the earliest Echternach manu-
196b20; (ii) Maugain ingen Chonchrith de hUib Duach Arggetruis ben Diarmata meic scripts’, Peritia 3 (1984) 17-49; K. W. Nicholls, ‘The charter of John, lord of Ireland, in
Fergusa Cerbeoil. Is de Carnn Maugana i nArggetrus & Beltine Concrith. Fall ingen favour of the Cistercian abbey Baltinglas’, Peritia 4 (1985) 187-206: 197-8.
Diarmata & ingen Maugena ben Duach Iarlaithe, Dublin, TCL, 1298 olim H. 2. 7, 159, * Michael P. Barnes, Jan Ragnar Hagland & R. I. Page, The runic inscriptions of Viking
24; (iii) Céic meic Eogain: Do-Brio, Anblomath, Echuidh Munf£h)ota, Fergus, Age Dublin, Medieval Dublin Excavations 1962-81, ser. B, 5 (Dublin, 1997).
Fochaille, ibid. 84, 17. Comparable linguistic and historical archaisms are found else- > E. O. Sveinsson (ed.), Brennu-Njals saga, Islenzk Fornrit, 12 (Reykjavik, 1954).
where in the genealogies. Their historical content points in the same direction. *© J. Johannesson (ed.), Austfirdinfga spgur, Islenzk Fornrit, 11 (Reykjavik, 1950), 299-
> T.M. Charles-Edwards, ‘Britons in Ireland, c.550-800’, in John Carey, John T. Koch 320
& Pierre-Yves Lambert (eds.), Ildänach ildirech: a Festschrift for Proinsias Mac Cana " Donnchadh O Corräin, ‘Viking Ireland—afterthoughts’, in H. B. Clarke, M. Ni
(Andover MA & Aberystwyth, 1999), 15-26. Mhaonaigh & R. O Floinn (eds.), Ireland and Scandinavia in the early Viking Age (Dub-
© Vera Orschel, ‘Mag nE6 na Sacsan: an English colony in Ireland in the seventh and lin, 1998), 421-52: 447-52; cf. Sophus Bugge, Norsk sagafortellng og sagaskrivning i
eighth centuries’ Peritia, 15 (2001), 81-107. Irland (Kristiana, 1908), 55.
PREFACE XI
x PREFACE
there is no scholarly consensus about this, and especially the early incomplete, may help to throw some light on their fortuna: where
date proposed for Old-Norse prose, I have not listed it in this and when they were copied and read, what centres thought them
work. The details of the manuscript transmission of the text worth preserving, who read them, what flag they sailed under.
within Iceland can be found in the work of Sveinsson cited above. The term ‘book’ is here used of individual manuscripts—litur-
The long-held notion that the Scandinavian raids shattered the gical, literary, and scholarly—and of the texts, some quite short,
Irish church and destroyed its high culture is without foundation. that circulated as books or wandering quires in the middle ages.
Certain types of official documents are not dealt with here: As liturgical practices, school curricula, and usages changed, some
administrative documents of the later medieval government in books and texts dropped out of fashion and were neglected. Pre-
Dublin, viz. charters, chancery documents, English administra- cious parchment was recycled. As a result, many texts copied by
tive and parliamentary records, legislation, and government cor- the Irish and treasured by modern scholars, such as the Bobbio
respondence; and to these we can add the few surviving ecclesias- Orosius (346) or the St Gall Isidore (389), survive only as frag-
tical registers. Records of this kind urgently require to be listed in ments or binding strips.
a separate work, and their listings must be large projects, the work Medieval Irish vernacular literature is very large, the most
of many hands and many years. Irish charters or documents in the extensive and the earliest in medieval Europe. It is the least
nature of charters, apart from a few written into early medieval known. It is not yet fully mapped: many texts await an editio prin-
manuscripts (20, 22), are not considered. These documents, ceps, most are not satisfactorily edited, many are untranslated, and
issued by Irish kings, mostly in the twelfth century, are the subject nearly all are too little studied.
of Marie Therese Flanagan’s outstanding edition, translation, and Irish classical poetry (chapter 26), for example, is a vast subject.
Some 2000 classical poems are extant mostly from the later mid-
study and need not be listed here.
With a few notable exceptions (and these will be quite evident dle ages, one of the largest literary genres in any medieval Euro-
to the reader), this book is limited to manuscripts written and pean language. For reasons of space, I have been able only to
works composed, certainly or probably, by Irish authors or scribes, describe the grammatical works of the poets, list collections and
whether in Ireland or abroad. In the case of some, given the uncer- some select poems, offer an outline bibliography, and note the
tainties that attach to their origin and transmission, there is still house books (duanaire) of the noble families. An edition of the
lively scholarly debate and only future research will determine corpus and a commentary on individual works and poets will
whether or not they are Irish. That Irish manuscripts and texts require many volumes.
Vernacular narrative literature (chapter 27), which flourished
were written in the Carolingian empire and in other centres of
scholarship in continental Europe is, in many cases, a necessary between the seventh and the twelfth centuries, is conventionally
and misleadingly divided into four cycles: the mythological cycle,
condition of their creation. One cannot imagine the achieve-
ments of Sedulius Scottus and Eriugena elsewhere or indeed the the Ulster heroic cycle, the cycle of the kings, and the Finn cycle.”
contribution of the Irish to the transmission of classical texts. One This has no basis in history or genre. Regardless of ‘cycle’, cast of
warms to the evident excitement of the Irish scholars who left characters or date, the tales have their own diverse and wide-rang-
their names on the Codex Bernensis (459) which contains, ing themes. Some are subtle literary and social critiques (956,
amongst others, Horace’s Carmina, Epodi, Ars poetica, Satirae and
Carmen seculare and parts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. For these
® Kuno Meyer, ‘Die irisch-gälische Literatur’, in Heinrich Zimmer, Kuno Meyer, Lud-
learned men, scholarship is international, but rivalry over patron- wig Christian Stern, Heinrich Morf, & Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke, Die romanischen Litera-
age and preferment is as keen as in any academy. Modern nation- turen und Sprachen mit Einschluss des Keltischen, Die Kultur der Gegenwart, ed. Paul
alism has no place in its history. The detailed listings of the man- Hinneberg, Teil I, Abteil. xi, 1 (Berlin & Leipzig, 1909), 78-97; Myles Dillon, The cycles
of the kings (London & New York, 1946; repr. Dublin & Portland OR, 1994);idem, Early
uscripts that contain texts written by the Irish, though necessarily Trish literature (Chicago, 19 48; repr. Dublin & Portland OR, 1994); Gerard Murphy,
Saga and myth in ancient Ireland (Dublin, 1955); idem, The Ossianic lore and romantic
2 Trish royal charters: texts and contexts (Oxford, 2005). tales of medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1955).
XI PREFACE PREFACE XII
1096); others treat of the enigmatic origins of kingship, its cha- with chapter 19 (731-59), is an attempt to list the surviving writ-
risma, its duties (1049, 1120); the mystery and mystique that ings and the texts of the English colony in Ireland and of those it
attaches to the poet and poetic inspiration (989-91); the relation- governed, from c. 1170 to the end of the middle ages, in Latin,
ships between church and kings (968); paganism and Christian- French and English. It is a modest inheritance. Whether its near-
ity (988, 1042); and narrative solutions to knotty legal problems ness to the seat of government caused its books to be more effec-
(1044, 1057, 1071). The prologue to Tain bé Cualnge, recension tively destroyed when the Tudors and their successors vandalised
U (1103) is a subtle literary, social, and cultural commentary that monasteries and churches or whether its cultural possessions were
quite escapes its most recent editor, and most of her predecessors. ever modest are questions that await an answer.
Who wrote these texts and why, who read them, how were they The term ‘medieval’ is used in an extended sense, different from
received, who were the arbiters of taste, what were their purposes the conventional, but one that reflects the Irish experience. Here
and their status within the lives of the cultural and political elite— it includes many aspects of the sixteenth century and even the very
these are questions that may lead the next generation of scholars early years of the seventeenth: only then were the social and cul-
to a better understanding. Meanwhile, I have simply and practi- tural systems of medieval Ireland finally overthrown. The Tudor
cally arranged the texts alphabetically. period, especially the Elizabethan assault on Ireland, on its
A word of caution: Dumézil’s vast and creaking ‘Indo-Euro- church, on its poets, on its cultural heritage, did great damage;
pean’ mythology and the undisciplined speculations of the broth- and the crisis of the mid and late seventeenth century finally broke
ers Rees'+ bring little to an understanding of Irish narrative; what remained of the Irish aristocracy and the system of patron-
and the Chadwicks’ notions about heroic literature, whatever age on which Irish culture depended. The scholarly hereditary
that may be—found equally in Antiquity, in medieval Europe, clerical families largely disappeared with the medieval church
and elsewhere, without reckoning of time or distance or they served; and the related learned lineages of poets, jurists, and
language’s—addled pates in Irish studies that were ready to historians faded away when their lordly patrons fell victim to con-
be addled. quest and expropriation. So ended the Irish middle ages.
Historicist literature, in prose and verse (chapter 28) forms a
large part of vernacular literature. By historicist writing I mean It is difficult to put together a work of this kind because the neces-
texts that manipulate, with art and skill, the history of past events sary research has not been done, and essential reference works
in the interest of the contemporary holders of power. They range have not been compiled. There have been many brilliant individ-
from subtle modification of the record that changes its signifi- ual studies by outstanding scholars in the past century and more
cance to large-scale creative re-writing of history. I list together but the large-scale surveys, lexicons, and collaborative works that
well over a hundred examples, some by distinguished poets (chap- delimit a discipline, survey its terrain, and make its materials avail-
ter 28) and many other examples are noted elsewhere in the book. able to workers in the field, and to students of comparative litera-
This kind of writing occurs very widely, and historians need to ture and non-specialist readers, are almost uniformly lacking,
read it with a great deal of critical alertness. mainly for want of institutional and financial support. What fol-
The twelfth-century English invasion of Ireland brought three lows is, in effect, a programme for Irish medieval studies. There is
new languages, French, English, and Flemish, of which the first no scholarly history of medieval Hiberno-Latin nor of medieval
two have some literature. The final chapter, which is to be read Irish literature in Latin or in Irish—nothing remotely like Martin
Schanz’s Geschichte der rémischen Literatur bis zum Gesetzgebungs-
werk des Kaisers Justinian or Max Manitius’s Geschichte der latei-
"4 Alwyn Rees & Brinley Rees, Celtic heritage: ancient tradition in Ireland and Wales
(London, 1961). nischen Literatur des Mittelalters, no echo of Histoire litteraire de
's Hector Munro Chadwick & N. K. Chadwick, The growth of literature, 3 vols (Cam-
bridge, 1932-40; repr. Cambridge, 1986). For a more positive view of Chadwick's work,
see Michael Lapidge, (ed.), H. M. Chadwick and the study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and *6 Donnchadh O Corräin, “What happened Ireland’s medieval manuscripts?’, Peritia,
Celtic in Cambridge = Camb Mediev Celt Stud 69/70 (2015), 76-8. 22-23 (2011-2), 191-223.
XIV PREFACE PREFACE XV
la France, or even the Cambridge history of English literature, not No team of scholars or institution has yet attempted a scholarly
to mention extended literary-critical analyses. A great deal of solid bibliography of medieval Irish history or archaeology worth the
work has been done, at least in some areas—one must mention name. There is no Codices gadelici medii aevi on the model of
here Rudolf Thurneysen’s exceptional and still unsurpassed (and Lowe’s great work, not even a student handbook of Irish palaeo-
untranslated) studies of many aspects of the early literature.'7 graphy (which is a pressing need). There is no handbook of Irish
Much work lies in older specialist journals that make no conces- chronology. The ‘succession lists’ in Moody, Martin & Byrne, A
sions to the modern reader. Many important literary works in new history of Ireland,"* while valuable, are too restricted to be of
medieval Irish—perhaps most—remain unknown to colleagues use for serious historical purposes. There is no prosopography of
working in other medieval European vernacular literatures. That medieval churchmen, scholars, poets, or scribes, no major atlas of
is the fault of a few generations of inward-looking Irish scholars Irish history, culture, or ethnography. That Edward O’Reilly’s
who, unlike their medieval predecessors, seem to have had little pioneering Chronological account of nearly four hundred Irish writ-
missionary zeal. ers with a descriptive catalogue of their works, published in Dublin
There is no scholarly dictionary on historical principles of in 1820, should be reprinted in 1970 tells its own sad story. The
Classical or Early Modern Irish, the literary language of the later recent Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'°and Dictionary of
middle ages. The Dictionary of the Irish language, which deals Trish biography*° are shining exceptions.
with Old and Middle Irish, a first attempt, is seriously flawed. Over a generation ago Professor Gearöid Mac Niocaill
However Professor Gregory Toner’s collaborative on-line edition observed that ‘it is not possible to obtain in Ireland a training in
(eDil) is quickly putting it right. Otherwise, recent dictionaries of the historical study of the liturgy’. He might have added that the
Irish (of whatever period) quite fail to meet elementary scholarly same is true of all the ecclesiastical sciences. Though university
criteria. The outstandingly successful Dictionary of medieval faculties for these have existed, for Protestants since 1591 and for
Latin from Celtic sources, directed by Anthony Harvey at the Roman Catholics since 1795, achievements have been modest and
Royal Irish Academy and published by Brepols, is a rich and fertile religious discourse in modern Ireland has remained uniformly
oasis in the badlands of Irish lexicography. shallow, or sectarian. Apart from the Irish achievement of the
Nor is bibliography well served. There is no Irish national bib- seventeenth century (much of it abroad, it is true, and under the
liography: the National Library of Ireland lacks the resources to influence of contemporary continental scholarship), the remark-
compile one. There is no print bibliography of publications on able work of James Ussher (1581-1656), and the flowering of the
medieval literature in Irish after 1971, but good work is in pro- Trinity College School of Divinity in the nineteenth and early
gress. MsOmit 2010: manuscript sources for Old and Middle twentieth centuries, even mediocrity (with a few notable excep-
Irish tales, compiled by Professor Johan Corthals, University of tions) has remained beyond the reach of the rest. Hence, among
Hamburg, online at celt.ucc.ie, is invaluable. §. Kosik’s online bib- other absentees, there is no modern Monasticon hibernicum. The
liography of Irish literature at mujweb.cz is wide-ranging and work of Gwynn & Hadcock appears born out of due season."
instructive. CODECS: Online Database and eResources for Neither author knew Irish (though Irish had been an academic
Celtic Studies of the Utrecht Stichting A.G. van Hamel voor discipline for over a century and a half), neither could reproduce
Keltische Studies is an essential academic research resource. The
School of Celtic Studies, DIAS, has three outstanding on-line
projects: ISOS: Irish Script on Screen; Bibliography of Irish Lin- *®'T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin & FE. J. Byrne, (eds.) A new history of Ireland, ix (Oxford,
1984), 187-332.
guistics and Literature; and Ogham in 3D. ® John T. Koch (ed.), Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia, 5 vols. (Santa Barbara CA
& Oxford, 2006)
*° James McGuire & James Quinn (eds.), Dictionary of Irish biography, 9 vols (Cam-
bridge, 2009).
*” Rudolf Thurneysen, Die irische Helden- und Königsage bis zum siebzehnten Jahrhun- * Aubrey Gwynn & Neville Hadcock, Medieval religious houses: Ireland (London,
dert (Halle, 1921). 1970; repr. Dublin, 1988).
XVI PREFACE PREFACE XVII
Irish names correctly, neither could mend the annalistic chrono- Kirchenschrifisteller, Verzeichnis und Sigel: Repertorium scripto-
logy. Their treatment of early medieval Irish monasticism is rum, ecclesiasticorum latinorum saeculo nono antiquiorum—ok-
lamentable. In some respects their work is inferior to Mervyn fered essential guidance in hagiography, patristics, biblica, and
Archdall, Monasticon hibernicum (Dublin, 1786), from which other areas. In Irish-language studies the indispensable starting-
documents, now lost, are cited without reference. Though lone points are R. I. Best’s exemplary Bibliography of Irish philology and
enlightened scholars, such as Bartholomew Mac Carthy (1843- of printed Irish literature (1913-42); Rolf Baumgarten’s copious
1904), Eoin MacNeill (1867-1945), James F. Kenney (1884- Bibliography of Irish linguistics and literature, 1942-71 (now also
1946), and Paul Walsh (1885-1941), called out repeatedly for such available in digital form); and the catalogues of the great manu-
essential works, they got no institutional response. The churches script collections in the Royal Irish Academy (uneven and unsat-
remained silent. isfactory in part), Trinity College Library (quite inadequate in
Another major hindrance is the poverty of Irish research librar- both forms, 1900 and 1921), the British Library (invaluable) and
ies qui nec multos libros habent, nec diuersorum auctorum codices, the Bodleian Library Oxford (outstanding).
as Hrabanus Maurus put it long ago. The result of nearly a century Despite all the help I have had from these works of reference
of inadequate funding is that no Irish research library (and these and despite my own long-term attempts to keep abreast of the
are few) has the resources to support the proper study of the Irish field in as many areas as possible, I am painfully aware that my sins
medieval religious and intellectual flowering and its European of omission and commission are many. I am sure that in many spe-
diaspora, its history, and its literary works; and most lack the cialist areas— biblica, apocrypha, grammar, computistica, and lit-
means to support serious research even in the narrower field of urgy—there are serious omissions and lapses that I have not been
medieval Irish language, literature and history. This must be put able to remedy. I hope others will put them right and that a future
right. version will benefit from these additions and corrections.
This book, then, is meant to be a contribution to an essential It is very difficult to find a suitable plan to describe Irish manu-
part of Irish medieval studies, part of an agenda for Irish studies scripts and texts of quite different kinds, linked intertextually, in
as a whole. And there is much to do. several languages, and ranging over a period of more than eleven
centuries. The present arrangement is unsatisfactory but I can
* find nothing better. A detailed table of contents, an index of manu-
* * scripts, an index of texts, authors, scribes, poets and patrons, ini-
tia, and concordances are meant to help readers find their way. A
Ic will be evident to all that I have drawn heavily on my predeces- nota precedes the account of works, especially in Old- and Mid-
sors: without them this work would be impossible—James F. Ken- dle Irish, that may be less familiar to readers. Much of the book is
ney’s remarkable Sources for the early history of Ireland: ecclesiasti- taken up with the listing of individual important manuscripts—
cal; E. A. Lowe’s majestic Codices latini antiquiores; Richard J. gospel books, psalters, the great late-medieval miscellanies, for
Hayes’s magisterial Manuscript sources for the history of Irish civili- instance. Sometimes, whole fields—biblica, liturgica, grammat-
sation (whose only fault is that it has had no successors for want of ica, for example—are treated separately. Important individual
funds); Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe’s invaluable Biblio- texts and the opera of major writers form separate sections. In the
graphy of Celtic-Latin literature; and Richard Sharpe’s exceptional case of nearly all, I have attempted to outline the manuscript
and comprehensive Handlist of the Latin writers of Great Britain transmission, list facsimiles and editions, and indicate the second-
and Ireland before 1521. Edmundo Coccia’s ‘La cultura irlandese ary literature as far as I can. Bibliographies are arranged chrono-
precarolingia: miracolo o mito?’ has been an astringent stimulant. logically for ease of reference and to indicate the growth—or
The major works of reference—for example, the Bollandists’ Bib- absence—of scholarship in the field.
liotheca hagiographica latina, Eligius Dekkers and Aemilius Gaar’s The standardisation of vernacular names in Old, Middle, and
invaluable Clavis patrum latinorum, and Hermann Josef Frede’s Modern Irish has proved very difficult. In general, Old- and Mid-
XVIII PREFACE PREFACE XIX
dle-Irish forms are used down to the twelfth century, and Clas- work in typescript, offered many corrections and additions, and
sical Modern-Irish forms thereafter. However, consistency is greatly helped with the bibliography of Eriugena. I owe a special
impossible, and I must beg the reader’s indulgence. I have not debt of gratitude to Marina Smyth (Medieval Institute, Notre
tried to standardise the forms in the index of initia. Dame IN) who read an early draft, is responsible for innumerable
I am grateful to the following scholars and friends who gener- improvements, and who saved me from many errors. | am grateful
ously answered my many and importunate queries and if I failed to the many scholars and learned colleagues, unlisted here, from
to take their advice (or misprised it) that is my fault, not theirs: the whose published work, lectures, and conversations I have drawn
late Rolf Baumgarten (DIAS), Liam Breatnach (DIAS), the late inspiration, excitement, and sustenance over many decades, and
Aidan Breen (NUI Galway), Ronald Black (Edinburgh), the late whose researches are well represented in the various bibliogra-
Michael Cahill (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh PA), John phies in this book.
Carey (University College Cork), David N. Dumville (Aberdeen I have had the pleasure of working in many research libraries,
University), Franz Fischer (formerly of the Royal Irish Academy), and I owe a special debt of gratitude to the following: the Library
Joseph Flahive (formerly of University College Cork), Eric Graff of Trinity College Dublin; the British Library; the Bodleian
(formerly of University College Cork), Anthony Harvey (Royal Library; Balliol College Library, Oxford; the Bibliothéque natio-
Irish Academy), Eva Horvath (Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, nale de France, Paris; the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; the
Hamburg), David Howlett (Oxford), Pierre-Yves Lambert Library of the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame; the
(Paris), Patricia Kelly (formerly of University College Dublin; Library of the Royal Irish Academy; and the Library of the School
and who also generously read proofs), Gerry Lyne (formerly of the of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. I am
National Library of Ireland), Dan Mc Carthy (Trinity College grateful to the staff of my home university library, the Boole
Dublin), Uditéar Mac Gearailt (DCU, Dublin), Bernard Meehan Library, University College Cork. And I am particularly indebted
(Trinity College Library), Ruairi O hUiginn (DIAS), Thomas to the late Helen Davis and the staff of Special Collections in the
O'Loughlin (Nottingham), Seoirse Ö Luasa (Dun Caoin), Nol- Boole Library (Peadar Cranitch, Ann Cronin, Teresina Flynn,
laig Ö Muraile (formerly of NUI Galway), Pädraig P. O Néill Catherine Horgan, and Mary Lombard) who, in difficult circum-
(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Padraig O Riain stances, created an efficient, calm, and pleasurable oasis of schol-
(formerly of University College Cork), Jean-Michel Picard (Uni- arship. Without them, scholarly work in the humanities would
versity College Dublin), Richard Sharpe (Wadham College not be possible in Cork
Oxford), Alf Siewers (Bucknell), Paolo Taviani (L’Aquila), and I am deeply grateful to Dr Bart Janssens for his thoughtful
Paolo Zanna (Milan). I am deeply indebted to K. W. Nicholls encouragement and for his long patience, and I owe a debt of grat-
(formerly of University College Cork) who generously shared itude to Brepols Publishers for undertaking this publication, and
with me his profound knowledge of the Irish annals and genealo- giving it such a stylish production.
gies; to Däibhi O Cröinin (NUI Galway) who read various sec- This book is dedicated to my wife, Fidelma Maguire. Her gen-
tions of the work and gave me valuable advice and corrections on €rous support, constant encouragement, acute criticism, and good
chronology and computistica; to Jacopo Bisagni (NUI Galway counsel alone made it possible. Without the expert computer sup-
and Pisa) who shared with me his unpublished work on Amra port of Tiarnän and Saorla Ö Corräin, and Tiarnan O Corräin’s
Coluim Chille (843); to Immo Warntjes (Trinity College, Dub- sharp-eyed proofing, I could not have done the indexes, concord-
lin) who led me expertly through the thickets of computistics; to ances and bibliography (xxi-cliii). Besides, their work revealed
Roy Flechner (University College Dublin) who gave me the bene- many errors and inconsistencies that I hope I have put right.
fit of his unpublished researches into the Hibernensis and its
recensions (585); to Eoghan Mac Aogäin whose critique of the
section on Eriugena (438-58) saved me from errors; and to Bre- Pridie Idus Septembres, a.d. mmxvi. In Festo S. Molaisse Daminsi
andan Ö Ciobhäin (Ceann Tra) who read an early draft of the
Bibliography
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of maps in the same library (Dublin, 1900; repr. Hildesheim, 1980)
Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, Catalogue of fifteenth-century books in the
Library of Trinity College, Dublin and in Marsh’s Library, Dublin,
with a few from other collections (Dublin, 1905; repr. New York, 1970)
Thomas Kingsmill Abbott & E. J. Gwynn, Catalogue of the Irish manu-
scripts in the Library of Trinity College Dublin (Dublin, 1921)
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ou lon voit toutes les abbayes, prieurez, convens, & autres communautez
regulieres qu'il y a eu dans ce royaume... les villes, bourgs, comtez ... leur
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