Arch of Lavabo (Octagon.)See p.26.From Photo by W. Lawrence, Dublin.
Such was the ordinary routine of life led at Mellifont, but then certain officials filled important offices which necessarily brought them in constant contact with the outer world. Such, for instance, was the Cellarer, who had charge under the Abbot of the temporalities of the monastery, and catered for all the wants of the community. Some were deputed to wait on the guests and strangers, while others cared the sick poor in the hospice with all charity and tenderness. For the maintenance of the sick poor large tracts of land or revenues arising from house-property were very often bequeathed by pious people, and the monks were then their almoners; but, with or without such a provision from outside, the monks did maintain these establishments from their own resources.
The Abbot entertained the guests of the monastery at his own table, dispensing to them such frugal fare as was in keeping with the Rule; for meat was not allowed to be served, except to the sick. He had his kitchen and dining-hall apart, but in every other respect, he shared in all the exercises with his brethren. Though he occupied the place of honour and of pre-eminence in themonastery, yet he was constantly reminded in the Rule, that he must not lord it over his monks, but must cherish them as a tender parent. His object in all his ordinances should be to promote the welfare of the flock entrusted to him, for which he should render an account on the last day.
From this relation of the manner of life at Mellifont, we see that it was in strict conformity with St. Bernard’s definition of the Cistercian Institute, when he writes: “Our Order is humility, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Our Order is silence, fasting, prayer, and labour, and above all, to hold the more excellent way, which is charity.”
MELLIFONT TAKES ROOT AND FOUNDS NEW HOUSES OF THE ORDER.
The history of Mellifont may be justly said to reflect the concurrent history of Ireland. It is so intimately connected and interwoven with that of our country, that they touch at many points, and we can collect matter for both as we travel back along the stream of time and observe the footprints on the sands, where saint, and king, chieftain, bishop, and holy monk, have left their impress and disappeared, to be succeeded later on by the baron and his armed retainers. How different the Ireland of to-day from the Ireland that Christian, the first Abbot of Mellifont, beheld when he and his companions settled down in the little valley, in the land of the O’Carroll! How many changes have passed over it since, leaving it the poorest country in Europe, though one of the richest in naturalresources! But these considerations appertain to the politician; they do not lie within the scope of the present writer. Next to building their church and monastery, the first care of the monks on their immediate arrival at Mellifont, was to prepare the soil for tillage; for, judging from the nature of the surroundings, it must have been overrun with dense brushwood, unbroken, save at distant intervals, by patches of green sward. Most houses of the Order in Ireland had to contend with similar conditions at their foundation; of Dunbrody, Co. Wexford, we are expressly told, that the monk sent by the Abbot of Buildewas to examine the site of the future monastery, found on it onlya solitary oak surrounded by a swamp. But these old monks were adepts in the reclamation of waste lands, and soon the hills rang with the instruments of husbandry. Pleasant gardens and fertile meadows rewarded their toil, and their example gave a stimulus to agriculture, which, till then, was neglected by a pastoral people. At the same time, they manufactured bricks in the locality, and employed them in their buildings. Then rumour on her many wings flew far and near, and spread the fame of the new-comers to that remote valley, and soon the monastery was crowded with visitors intent on seeing the strangers and observing closely their manner of life. The sight pleased them. The ways of these monks accorded with the traditions handed down of the inhabitants of the ancient monasteries, before the depredations of the Danes, and the hearts of a highly imaginative race, with quick spiritual instincts, were attracted towards St. Bernard’s children. Immediately began an influx of postulants for the Cistercian habit, and every day brought more, till the stalls in the Choir were filled, and Abbot Christian’s heart overflowed with gladness. In consultation with St. Malachy, Abbot Christiandecided on founding another monastery, as his own could no longer contain the now greatly-increased community. A new colony was sent forth from it, and thus in two years from the foundation of Mellifont, was established “Bective on the Boyne.” Some say that Newry, which was endowed by Maurice M’Loughlin, King of Ireland, at St. Malachy’s earnest entreaty, was the first filiation of Mellifont. The charter of its (Newry) foundation happily has come down to us, but it bears no date. However, O’Donovan, who translated it into English from the Latin original in MS. in the British Museum, says it was written in 1160. As it is the only extant charter granted to a monastery by a native king before the Invasion, a copy of the translation is given in the Appendix.
Under the patronage, then, of St. Malachy and the native princes, and by the skill, industry, and piety of its inmates, Mellifont rose and prospered, and merited an exalted place in popular esteem. The monastery was in course of construction, and their new church nearing completion, when a heavy trial befell the monks in the death of their unfailing friend, wise counsellor, and loved father, St. Malachy, which took place at Clairvaux, in the arms of St. Bernard,A.D.1148. St. Bernard delivered a most pathetic discourse over the remains of his friend, and wrote a consoling letter to the Irish Cistercians, condoling with them on the loss they and the whole Irish Church had sustained on the death of St. Malachy. He, later on, wrote his life, and willed, that as they tenderly loved each other in life, so in death they should not be separated. Their tombs were side by side in the church of Clairvaux, till their relics, enshrined in magnificent altars, with many costly lamps burning before them, were scattered at the French Revolution, and the rich shrines were smashed and plundered. Portions oftheir bodies were, however, preserved by the good, pious people of the locality, and their heads are now preserved with honour in the cathedral of Troyes, France. The writers of the Cistercian Order claim St. Malachy as having belonged to them; for, they say that being previously a Benedictine, he received the Cistercian habit from St. Bernard during one of his visits to Clairvaux. They add that St. Bernard exchanged cowls with him, and that he wore St. Malachy’s ever after on solemn festivals. The Saint’s life is so well known that it needs no further notice here. Before his death, he saw three houses founded from Mellifont, namely, Bective, Newry, and Boyle.
Two years after St. Malachy’s death, that is, in 1150, the monks of Mellifont experienced another serious loss when their venerated Abbot, Christian, was appointed Bishop of Lismore, and Legate of the Holy See in Ireland, by Pope Eugenius III., who had been his fellow-novice in Clairvaux. Christian’s brother, Malchus, was elected to the abbatial office in his stead. Malchus proved himself a very worthy superior, and Mellifont continued on her prosperous course, so much so, that in 1151, or nine years from its own establishment, it could reckon as many as six important filiations, namely, Bective, Newry, Boyle, Athlone, Baltinglas, and Manister, or Manisternenay, Co. Limerick.
In 1152, St. Bernard passed to his reward, after having founded 160 houses of his Order, having edified Christendom by the splendour of his virtues, and astonished it by his rare natural gifts, which elevated him far above all his contemporaries. From the moment that he accepted the pastoral staff as Abbot of Clairvaux, till his death, that is, during the space of forty years, he was the figurehead of his Order in whom its whole history was mergedduring that long period. In fact, he became so identified with the Order to which he belonged, that it was often called from him, Bernardine; or, of Claraval, from his famous monastery; and it was in a great measure owing to his influence, and in grateful acknowledgment of the splendid services which he rendered the Church in critical times, that Sovereign Pontiffs heaped so many favours on it. He was the fearless and successful champion of the oppressed in all grades of society, and all looked up to him as their guide and instructor. And yet this paragon of wisdom, this stern judge of the evil-doer, was remarkable for his naturalness and affectionate disposition. On the occasion of his brother Gerard’s death, he attempted to preach a continuation of his discourses on the Canticle of Canticles, but his affection for his brother overcame him, and after giving vent to his grief, he delivered a most touching panegyric on his beloved Gerard. To the last moment of his life he entertained a most vivid recollection of his mother, and cherished the tenderest affection towards her memory. It may be doubted, that any child of the Church ever defended her cause with such loyalty and success. One stands amazed on reading what the Rev. Mr. King writes in hisChurch History of Ireland, where he taxes St. Bernard with superstition, because the Saint relates in his Life of St. Malachy, how that holy man wrought certain miracles. So evident were St. Bernard’s own miracles, that Luden, a German Protestant historian, calls them “incontestable.” ’Twere supreme folly to accuse a man of St. Bernard’s endowments and culture, of the weakness that admits or harbours superstition, which generally flows from ignorance, or incapacity to sift matters, and to test them in their general or particular bearings. On the whole, Protestant writers speak and write approvingly of him.
In that year (1152), a Synod was held at Mell, which, according to Ussher, is identical with Mellifont, though now a suburb of Drogheda is known by that name. Other Irish writers say that this Synod was held at Kells. At it Christian, then Bishop of Lismore and Legate of the Holy See, presided. In theAnnals of the Four Mastersit is related, that a “Synod was convened at Drogheda, by the bishops of Ireland, with the successor of Patrick, and the Cardinal, John Paparo,” etc. O’Donovan, quoting Colgan, tells us that Mellifont was known as the “Monastery at Drogheda.”
In this same year occurred the elopement of Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan O’Rourke, Prince of Brefny, with Dermod M’Murchad, King of Leinster. She is styled the Helen of Erin, as it is commonly supposed that her flight with Dermod occasioned the English Invasion. When O’Rourke heard of her departure, he was “marvellously troubled and in great choler, but more grieved for the shame of the fact than for sorrow or hurt, and, therefore, was fully determined to be avenged.” It is mentioned in theAnnals of Clonmacnoisthat O’Rourke had treated her harshly some time previous, and that her brother M’Laughlin connived at her conduct. Dervorgilla (which means in Irish, The True Pledge), was forty-four years of age at the time, whilst O’Rourke (who was blind of one eye) and M’Murchad, were each of them sixty-two years old. O’Rourke was the most strenuous opponent of the English at the Invasion, and was treacherously slain by a nephew of Maurice Fitzgerald at the Hill of Ward, near Athboy, in 1172. He was decapitated, and his head hung over the gates of Dublin for some time. It was afterwards sent to King Henry, in England.
From 1152 to 1157 the monks attracted no attention worth chronicling; for during these five years theypassed by unnoticed in our Annals. It is, however, certain that they were busily engaged in the completion of their church and in making preparations for its solemn consecration. And what a day of rejoicing that memorable day of the consecration was, when Mellifont beheld the highest and holiest in Church and State assembled to do her honour! This ceremony far eclipsed any that had been witnessed before that in Ireland. What commotion and bustle filled the abbey, the valley, and the surrounding hills! A constantly increasing crowd came thronging to behold a sight which gladdened their hearts and aroused their piety and admiration. For, there stood the Ard Righ (High King) of Erin, surrounded by his princes and nobles in all the pride and pageantry of state, the Primate Gelasius, and Christian, the Papal Legate, with seventeen other bishops, and almost all the abbots and priests in Ireland. Then the solemn rite was performed, and many precious offerings were made to the monks and to their church—gold and lands, cattle, and sacred vessels, and ornaments for the altars, were bestowed with a generosity worthy of the princely donors. O’Melaghlin gave seven-score cows and three-score ounces of gold to God and the clergy, for the good of his soul. He granted them, also, a townland, called Finnabhair-na-ninghean, a piece of land, according to O’Donovan, which lies on the south side of the Boyne, opposite the mouth of the Mattock, in the parish of Donore, Co. Meath. O’Carroll gave sixty ounces of gold, and the faithless but now repentant Dervorgilla presented a gold chalice for the High Altar, and cloths for the other nine altars of the church.
Mellifont looked charming on that propitious occasion, and presented a truly delightful picture, with its beautiful church and abbey buildings glistening in the sun in all thepurity and freshness of the white, or nearly white, sandstone of which they were composed. Yet, beautiful as were the material buildings, far more so were those stones of the spiritual edifice, the meek and prayerful cenobites, who were gathered there to adore and serve their God in spirit and in truth. From that valley there arose a pleasing incense to the Lord—the prayers, and hymns, and canticles, which unceasingly resounded in that church from hearts truly devoted to God’s worship, and dead to the world and themselves.
MELLIFONT CONTINUES TO FLOURISH UNDER SUCCESSIVE EMINENT SUPERIORS.
After the consecration of their church the monks settled down to their ordinary quiet way. The erection of the monastic buildings had hitherto kept them occupied; now that these were completed, they devoted their attention to the improvement of their farms, which they tilled with their own hands, and to the embellishment of their immediate surroundings. Even at this early period of her history, Mellifont was a hive of industry where all the trades flourished and many important arts were encouraged. At that time hired labour was sparingly employed by the monks; for they themselves bore a share in the work of the artisans as well as in the ordinary drudgery of tillage. Labour placed all on a footing of equality whilst it gave vigour to the body by healthy exercise in the open air. Perhaps, this healthy exercise was one of the secrets of the longevity for which the monks were remarkable.Regularity of life continued for years contributes to a state of health which dispenses with physicians. Wherever monks settled down they immediately erected mills for grinding corn, for preparing and finishing the fabrics of which their garments were made, etc. St. Benedict enjoined on his monks the necessity of practising all the trades and arts within the walls of the monastery, so that they need never leave their enclosure for the purpose, or under the pretext, of having their work done by externs.
Eleven years passed without Mellifont receiving any notice from our native chroniclers, and then at the year 1168, it is recorded, that Prince Donogh O’Carroll, the Founder, died and was buried in the church there. Ware tells us that his tomb and those of other remarkable personages had been in the church. As it was an almost general custom in Ireland, that the Founders of religious houses were interred on the north, or Gospel side of the High Altar, so it may be justly inferred that he was buried within the chancel, and that the recess on the north side is where his monument was erected. Thus, King Charles O’Connor’s tomb occupies the same place in Knockmoy Abbey, Co. Galway, of which he was Founder. So, too, in Corcomroe Abbey, Co. Clare, the tomb of Conor O’Brien, King of Thomond, grandson of the Founder of that abbey, is still to be seen in a niche in the wall on the north side of the High Altar. No doubt they were buried under the pavement. The ancient Statutes of the Order permitted kings and bishops to be buried in the churches, but assigned no particular part as proper to them.
In 1170, a monk named Auliv, who had been expelled[7]from Mellifont, instigated Manus, the King of Ulster, to commit an “unknown and attrocious crime,” as theAnnals of the Four Masterscall it; that is, to banish the monks whom St. Malachy brought to Saul, Co. Down, and to deprive them of everything they were possessed of. Instances of wicked men deceitfully entering monasteries, at that time and at other periods of monastic history, are given, but invariably the guilty party is severely censured, and it is related that his fellow-monks rid themselves of him. St. Bernard himself was deceived by his secretary, Nicholas, who afterwards left the Order. “He went out from us,” said the Saint, “but he did not belong to us.”
The Order was spreading rapidly in Ireland, and the filiations from Mellifont in their turn sent out new filiations, till most of the picturesque valleys in this country sheltered and nurtured thriving establishments; so much so, that O’Daly tells us “there were twenty-five grand Cistercian abbeys in Ireland at the Invasion.” But then a new era dawned on this unhappy nation, and might usurped the place of right, cruel unending strife and fierce jealousies were imported into the country, and it became one vast battle-field. Ireland would have assimilated the two contending races, but their amalgamation would have been detrimental to English interests in this kingdom, and hence by statute, by bribe, by all means available, the representatives of that Crown onlytoo successfully kept the feuds alive. Fain would they have made the Church an instrument for the furtherance of these ulterior purposes, but, whilst she stood firm as an integral part of Peter’s Rock, neither English bribes nor English wiles could subjugate her. True, Englishmen were appointed to the richest benefices within the Pale to which the English kings had the right of presentation, and these strove, with as much zeal as the knight or baron, to extend the boundaries of the shire-lands. But the Irish prelates, by their disinterestedness, and their personal and episcopal virtues, saved the Church from the degradation that imperilled her. We shall see the result of this policy as we proceed.
Judging, by analogy, from the progress of society in other countries, and from the relative number of monasteries founded in them and in Ireland before the Invasion, it may be conjectured that the monastic system in all its branches would have produced in this country the same fruits in agriculture, in learning, and in the arts, as are attributed to it in the history of other nations; and, in a special manner, it would have helped, by the unity of government enforced in Religious Orders, to bind together the discordant elements of society. Quite different, however, was it in Ireland; for the sphere of action of each monastery was cramped, and confined within a certain radius, beyond which its influences were not felt, nor regarded otherwise than in a hostile spirit, or at best as an object of suspicion.
In 1172, the Abbot of Mellifont was sent to Rome on an embassy by King Roderic O’Connor. We are not told its nature.
In 1177, Charles O’Buacalla, then Abbot of this monastery, was elected Bishop of Emly, where he died within a month after his consecration. In 1182, KingHenry II. granted to the Abbot and community of Mellifont a confirmation of their possessions, and three years later, King John, at that time styled Lord of Ireland, renewed the confirmation while he was residing at Castleknock, during his brief visit to this country, in 1185, the thirty-second year of his father’s reign. A copy of the Charter may be seen in the Miscellany of the Archæological Society, Vol. I., page 158. The original, which is one of the earliest of the Anglo-Irish documents that have come down to us, is preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. By this Charter King John confirmed to the monks of Mellifont the “donation and concession” which his father made to them. By it he confirmed to the monks “the site and ambit of the abbey, with all its appurtenances, namely, the grange of Kulibudi (not on the Ordnance map), and Munigatinn (Monkenewtown), with its appurtenances, the granges of Mell and Drogheda (in Irish Droichet-atha, that is, bridge of the ford) and their appurtenances, and Rathmolan (Rathmullen) and Finnaur (Femor), with their appurtenances, the grange of Teachlenni (Stalleen), and the grange of Rossnarrigh (Rossnaree), with their appurtenances, the townland of Culen (Cullen) and its appurtenances, the grange of Cnogva (Knowth), the grange of Kelkalma (not known now), with their appurtenances, Tuelacnacornari (not known), and Callan (Collon), with their appurtenances, and the grange of Finna () with its appurtenances.” He also confirms the grants of two carucates of land made to the monks by Hugh de Lacy, viz., of Croghan and Ballybregan (?), and also one carucate of land given by Robert of Flanders, called Crevoda, now Creewood, two miles west of Mellifont.
South Wall of Lectorium.From Photo by W. Lawrence, Dublin.
In 1186, St. Christian O’Connarchy, or Connery, who had been the first Abbot of Mellifont and afterwards Bishop of Lismore and Legate of the Holy See, died, and was buried at O’Dorney, Co. Kerry, a monastery of his Order, which was founded in 1154, from Manister-Nenay. He had resigned all his dignities six years before, in order the better to prepare himself for a happy death. He was enrolled in the Calendar of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, and his festival was kept in England in pre-Reformation times, on the 18th March. In the eulogy of him in the Cistercian Menology it is said, “that he was remarkable for his sanctity and wonderful miracles, and that next to St. Malachy, he was regarded by the Irish nation as one of its principal patrons,” even down to the time that that was written,A.D.1630. An Irish gentleman who visited Italy in 1858, wrote from Venice to a friend, that he had seen amongst the fresco paintings which covered the wall of the beautiful church of Chiaravalla, the first Cistercian monastery founded in Italy, a painting of St. Malachy; also one entitled, “S. Christianus Archieps. in Hibernia Cisterciensis”—“St. Christian, a Cistercian monk, and Archbishop in Ireland.” The error in ranking him as Archbishop probably arose from his having succeeded St. Malachy as Legate. It was in his Legatine capacity that he presided at several Synods, chiefly the memorable one convened by King Henry at Cashel, in 1172.
About the same time, there died at Mellifont, a holy monk named Malchus, who is said to have been St. Christian’s brother and successor in the abbatial office, as has been related above. Ussher, quoting St. Bernard, positively asserts that he was St. Christian’s brother. And Sequin, who, in 1580, compiled a Catalogue of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, mentions Malchus in that honoured roll, and styles him “a true contemner of the world, a great lover of God, and a pattern and model ofall virtues to the whole Order.” He says, “he was one of St. Malachy’s disciples in whose footsteps he faithfully followed, and that he was renowned for his sanctity and learning, as well as for the many miracles he wrought.” His feast was kept on the 28th of June.
In 1189, Rudolph, or Ralph Feltham, Abbot of Furness, died and was buried here. And in the same year, died Murrogh O’Carroll, cousin of the Founder, near whom he was interred.
In 1190, Pope Clement III. issued a Bull addressed to the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order, dated July 6th of that year, enrolling St. Malachy in the Calendar of Saints, and appointing the 3rd of November for his festival.
At that same General Chapter, it was decreed that the Irish Abbots be dispensed from attending the General Chapter annually, and it was decided that they should be present every third year; and a few years later, the Abbot of Mellifont was charged to select three of their number who should repair thither every year.
In 1193, Dervorgilla died at the monastery of Mellifont. TheAnnals of the Four Mastersand other Annals simply relate the fact of her having died there in the 85th year of her age, without alluding to the place of her sepulture.
In that year, also, portions of the Relics of St. Malachy were brought to Mellifont and were distributed to the other houses of the Order in Ireland. Several of our Annals say that the Saint’s body was brought over from Clairvaux, but that is obviously a mistake; for until the French Revolution, the bodies of St. Malachy and St. Bernard occupied two magnificent altar-tombs of red marble within the chancel, at Clairvaux. A charter, dated 1273, is still extant, whereby Robert Bruce, therival of John Baliol for the Scottish Crown, conveys his land of Osticroft to the Abbot of Clairvaux for the maintenance of a lamp before St. Malachy’s tomb in that church. And the General Chapter of the Order held in 1323, when raising the Saint’s festival to a higher rank, expressly mentioned that his body “rested” at Clairvaux. Meglinger, a German Cistercian monk, who visited Clairvaux in 1667, and wrote a description of that famous abbey as he beheld it, says that he was shown the heads of Saints Malachy and Bernard, which were preserved in silver cases. He also mentions the superb altar-tombs of the two Saints. Later on, the two celebrated Benedictine monks, Dom Martène and Dom Durand, when in quest of MSS., called at Clairvaux, and were shown the tombs and heads of the Saints. It is scarcely necessary to remark that this respect and veneration were entertained for the tombs only because they contained the bodies of the holy men.
In 1194, Abbot Moelisa, who then governed Mellifont, was made Bishop of Clogher.
MELLIFONT IN TROUBLOUS TIMES.
Sixty years of uninterrupted prosperity have passed over Mellifont, during which period it has been honoured by princes and people alike, and even the English Kings have marked their esteem for it by heaping fresh favours on it. It was still flourishing in 1201, when Thomas O’Connor, Archbishop of Armagh, whom the Annals of St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, style “a noble and worthy man,” chose it as his burial-place, and was buried there with great honour. He was brother to Roderick O’Connor, King of Connaught. It was at his instance that Joceline wrote his Life of St. Patrick.
In 1203, King John “of his own fee” granted a new charter confirming that given by his father some years before, and also giving the monks free customs, together with the fishery on both sides of the Boyne.
In 1206, Benedict and Gerald, monks of Mellifont, were deputed by Eugene, Archbishop of Armagh, to wait on the King and to tender him, on the Archbishop’s behalf, three hundred marks of silver and three of gold forrestitution of the lands and liberties belonging to that See. It was the King’s custom to appropriate the revenues of the vacant bishoprics, and on the confirmation by the Pope of the bishop-elect, he issued a writ of restitution of the temporalities, or episcopal possessions and rights. The King, in order to keep the temporalities the longer, often refused his “congé d’elire,” without which an election was invalid by the civil law. Soon after the Invasion, King Henry II. held in his possession, pending the appointment of new prelates, one archbishopric, five bishoprics, and three abbeys, here in Ireland.
In 1211, Thomas was Abbot, and seven years later, Carus, or Cormac O’Tarpa, Abbot, and presumably immediate successor to Thomas, was made Bishop of Achonry, which See he resigned in 1226, and returned to Mellifont, where he died that same year, and was buried there. Some two-and-one-half miles north of Mellifont, and one-half mile east of Collon, between that village and Tinure, there is a crossing of the roads still popularly known as “Tarpa’s Cross.” Local tradition has it that this Cormac O’Tarpa, when Abbot, was wont to walk daily from the monastery to this spot.
About that time, or in 1221, Mellifont, from some unrecorded cause, fell from its first fervour, but only for a very brief period; for the remedy applied effected a thorough reform. In the Statutes of the Order for that year, the General Chapter authorised the Abbot of Clairvaux to set things right by bringing in monks from other monasteries, and so, as it were, infuse new and healthier blood into the monastic life there. As no further mention is made of the matter, the trouble, whatever its nature was, must have been permanently removed.
In 1227, Luke Netterville, Archbishop of Armagh, wasburied here. It was he who, three years previous, founded the Dominican monastery in Drogheda, of which, now, only the Magdalen Tower remains. And in that year (1227), Gerald, a monk of Mellifont, was elected Bishop of Dromore.
In 1229, the King granted to the Abbot and Community of Mellifont a Tuesday market in their town of Collon.
In 1233, the General Chapter authorised all the Abbots of the Order to have the Word of God preached on Sundays and festivals, to their servants and retainers, in some suitable place. And in 1238, the King gave a new confirmation to the monks of Mellifont.
In 1248, the General Chapter granted permission to the English and Irish Abbots of the Order, to hold deliberations on important local matters in their respective countries. The Abbots of Mellifont, of St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, and of Duiske, Co. Kilkenny, were empowered to convoke all the other Irish Abbots of the Order for consultation; the assembly thus somewhat partaking of the nature of a Provincial Chapter.
In 1250, no Englishman would be admitted to profession at Mellifont. In 1269, David O’Brogan, who had been a monk of this house, and afterwards Bishop of Clogher, was buried here. In 1272, Hore Abbey, near Cashel, was founded from Mellifont. In 1275, the General Chapter decreed that in the admission of novices into the Order there should be no question of nationality.
Hitherto, the Cistercians confined themselves, in discharging the offices of their sacred ministry, to their guests, servants, and the sick poor in the hospitals at their gates; but now, the altered circumstances of the times demand a change in their usages and impose fresh burdens on them, for which they get no credit.The new Orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic had settled down in this country, and were attracting a large percentage of the young men, who, till then, entered the ranks of the Lay Brethren, and managed the granges, or outlying farms, under the Cellarer. In consequence, therefore, of the insufficiency of their numbers to work the farms profitably, it was found necessary to lease these granges to tenants, and hence the origin of many villages and towns that, in several instances, arose on the site of the granges. The chapel attached to the grange (for every grange had its chapel for the use of the Brothers in charge) was converted into a parish church for the new population that clustered around it. Of this church the monks became the pastors, except when it lay at too great distance to be served from the monastery; in which case, the monks employed secular priests. They built schools also, where the children of the tenants and dependants receivedgratuitouslyfrom the monks themselves, an education similar to that at present imparted in our primary schools.
Though the study of Sacred Scripture, Theology, and Canon Law was encouraged in the Order from its foundation; yet it was not until 1245 that studies were fully organised by drawing up a curriculum that should be obligatory. In that year it was ordained by the General Chapter that in every Province there should be a central monastery to which the monks should repair to read the prescribed course of studies under members of the Order, who had graduated at some university. We are not told which of the Irish monasteries was selected as the House of Studies; but, in 1281, the General Chapter decided and decreed that in all the larger abbeys such Houses of Studies should be established.
There is an entry in the Annals of St. Mary’s Abbey, atthe year 1281, giving the price of cattle at that time. As it is interesting it is given here: viz., twenty shillings each for a horse, a cow, or a bullock.
In 1306, Mellifont first experienced the baleful effects of racial jealousies and bickerings; for the monks could not, or would not, agree to elect an Abbot; and during their dissensions, the King seized the possessions of the monastery. We are not informed how matters terminated on that occasion.
In 1316, the General Chapter ordered that the English, Welsh, and Irish Abbots should send some of their monks, in proportion to the number in their respective monasteries, to the University of Oxford, to be educated there. A few years previous, the Earl of Cornwall endowed at Oxford the College of St. Bernard (now St. John’s), for the Cistercians. How far the Irish monks availed of this college cannot be known; probably those within the Pale did largely benefit by it. One who obtained an unenviable notoriety by his intemperate invectives against the Mendicant Orders, was educated there—Henry Crump, an Englishman, and monk of the Abbey of Baltinglas. But it is very dubious that the “mereIrish” ventured to cross its threshold. They would abstain from doing so from prudential motives.
The fourteenth century was ushered in by the repetition of feuds between the Anglo-Irish and the Irish; and, as it grew older, the former fought amongst themselves, with Irish auxiliaries on both sides. It may be here remarked, as a curious historical fact, that it was the Irish who fought the battles for the English Crown in Ireland; it was they, too, who retained their country subject to that dominion, according to Sir John Davis (Discoverie, p. 639); for no army ever came out of England from the time of King John, except theexpeditionary army of Richard II. The few forces subsequently sent over, until the twenty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth, were to quell the rebellions of the English settlers.
The most disastrous calamity in Ireland in this century, next to the great plague of 1348, or the “Black Death,” as it was called, was Bruce’s invasion in 1315. Friar Clyn tells us in his Annals, that Bruce and his followers “went through all the country, burning, slaying, depredating, spoiling towns and castles, and even churches, as they went and as they returned.” As a result the country was visited by a dreadful famine, and, moreover, the Pope, writing to the Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel in 1317, alludes to scandals, murders, conflagrations, sacrileges, and rapine, as following from that invasion. Though Bruce failed in his object to overthrow the English power in Ireland, yet he so far succeeded, that he weakened it considerably.
In the year 1316 (according to Ussher), O’Neill addressed his famous Remonstrance to Pope John XXII., in which, amongst other complaints, he remarked, that the religious communities were prohibited by the law from admitting anyone not an Englishman into monasteries within the Pale. In response to this, the Pope sent two Cardinals to investigate the matter, and also wrote a letter to King Edward II., exhorting him to adopt merciful measures towards the Irish. The letter had not much effect, and the cruelties and injustice continued; but, about twenty years later, there was exhibited an unprecedented tendency on the part of the Anglo-Irish and the Irish towards incorporation. The Irish people clung to the great Geraldine family with a romantic affection which that chivalrous race fully reciprocated. So, too, did they lean towards the rivals of the Geraldines, the Ormondes, and to other Anglo-Irish barons, who, likewise,had adopted Irish customs and sirnames. English power in this country had grown to be regarded as merely nominal, and the administration of the law and the office of Lord Deputy could no longer be committed to one or other of the two principal families (the Geraldine or Ormonde), to whom the Deputyship had been usually entrusted. To preclude the danger of these haughty noblemen attempting to arrogate the state of the independent native chieftains, and to firmly establish the English power, a Parliament, which assembled at Nottingham, in the seventeenth of Edward III. (1343), enacted laws for the reformation of the Irish Government. A few months previous to the sitting of this Parliament, Sir Ralph Ufford had been sent over as Lord Deputy, to stamp out this incipient spirit of independence, and to impede the fusion of the two races. This nobleman, by rigid and cruel measures, executed the nefarious intentions of the English Parliament. He appropriated the goods of others, plundered, without discrimination, the clergy, the laity, the rich and the poor; assigning the public welfare as a pretext. He broke down the pride of the Earl of Desmond, and for a while seized his estates; but, on Ufford’s recall to England and the appointment of Sir Walter Bermingham as his successor, Desmond was restored to royal favour. Gradually the old animus was revived, and old dormant jealousies between the two races were awakened, until, in the year 1376, the “Statute of Kilkenny” threw the whole nation into a state of commotion and chaos, and aroused a fierce hatred between the Anglo-Irish and the later arrivals from England, who were styled by that Act, “the English born in England.” The latter despised the former and called them “Irish Dogg;” the Anglo-Irish retorted, giving them the name of “English Hobbe,” or churl. These bickerings werereprobated by the said Statute, which, at the same time, banned the whole race of the native Irish. Sir John Davis writes of it: “It was manifest from these laws that those who had the government of Ireland under the Crown of England intended to make a perpetual separation between the English settled in Ireland and the native Irish, in the expectation that the English should in the end root out the Irish.” And another Englishman writes of this Statute: “Imagination can scarcely devise an extremity of antipathy, hatred, and revenge, to which this code of aggravation was not calculated to provoke both nations” (Plowden,Historical Review of the State of Ireland.) The foregoing summary of the condition of affairs in Ireland in the fourteenth century has been given, in order to illustrate and explain the bald historical facts handed down to us having reference to Mellifont during the same period.
It will be remembered that in the year 1316, O’Neil complained to the Pope that Irishmen were by law excluded from entering monasteries within the Pale; accordingly, we read that in 1322, the monks of Mellifont, amongst whom the English element then prevailed, would admit no man to profession there who had not previously sworn that he was not an Irishman. Cox, who derives his information from some old document in the Tower of London, tells us that in 1323, the General Chapter of the Order strongly denounced this pernicious practice, but there is no such decree, nor is there any allusion to it in Martène at that date. That spirit seems to have been gratifying to King Edward II.; for, in 1324, he complained to the Pope of the violation of the law of exclusion, and Nicholas of Lusk, who was then Abbot, was superseded; very likely, was summarily deposed, for the infraction of it.
At that very time, some of the other Cistercian monasteries under the protection of the native chieftains, and totally composed of Irishmen, were in a most prosperous condition, and merited the genuine esteem of princes and people. Thus, the Abbey of Assaroe, or Ballyshannon, under the fostering care of the Princes of Tyrconel, attained celebrity by the regularity of its monks and the learning and sanctity of its Abbots, three of whom were made Bishops at no distant intervals. Of Boyle Abbey, Co. Roscommon, the same can also be said; for it throve and flourished without royal favour or charter. On the other hand, Mellifont had a plethora of charters, for which the monks there must have paid dearly. But, surrounded as it was by covetous and not over-scrupulous neighbours in lawless times, such safeguards were decidedly necessary. So, in 1329, Edward III. granted them a confirmation of all former privileges, together with the right of free warren in all their manors; and again in 1348, he gave them a fresh confirmation, with the right to erect a prison in any of their lands in the Co. Meath, and also the power to erect a pillory and gallows in their town of Collon. The Abbot then, as a temporal lord over his own manors, had power of life and death over his vassals therein; but he never exercised the authority so vested in him by condemning anyone to death, nay, even, he refrained from adjudicating on civil matters, as is seen by dispensations granted by Popes to Irish Cistercian Abbots freeing them from the obligation of acting as Justices.
It is recorded that in 1329, in the battle in which the Louth men killed their new Earl, John Birmingham, “there fell Caech O’Carroll, that famous tympanist and harper, so pre-eminent that he was a phœnix in his art, and with him fell about twenty tympanists who were hisscholars. He was called Caech O’Carroll because his eyes were not straight, but squinted; and if he was not the first inventor of chord music, yet of all his predecessors and contemporaries, he was the corrector, the teacher, and director.”
How it fared with Mellifont during the fearful pestilence that ravaged all Europe in 1348, is not related. Friar Clyn, the Franciscan Annalist, wrote of it:—“That pestilence deprived of human inhabitants, villages and cities, and castles and towns, so that there was scarcely found a man to dwell therein.” The mortality in the religious houses was very great, and in some instances, only a few monks were left out of large and numerous communities. It is said that in these countries the religious Orders never recovered from the loss of the best and most learned of their members who were then swept away.
In 1351, Abbot Reginald was charged, as if it were a crime, and found guilty, of having within two years collected of his own money, and from the Abbots of Boyle, Knockmoy, Bective, and Cashel, and of having remitted the sum of 664 florins to the Abbot of Clairvaux, while war was being waged between England and France. But there was no treason or treasonable intent in that; for the money was to defray the current expenses of the Order, and was levied off every monastery in proportion to the resources of each. Richard, Cœur de Lion, Alexander II. of Scotland, and Bela IV. of Hungary had, in their day, contributed largely to this fund.
In 1358, the Abbot of Mellifont made good his claim to three weirs upon the Boyne, at Rosnaree, Knowth, and Staleen; but, in 1366, he was indicted at Trim, for erecting an unlawful weir at Oldbridge, when the Jury found against him, and he was ordered to reduce the weirto a certain breadth and space, and he, himself, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment; but, on his paying a fine of £10 to Roland de Shalesford, the sheriff of the Co. Meath, this sentence was commuted. Ten years later, John Terrour, successor to this Abbot, was sued for obstructing the King’s passage of the Boyne.
In the years 1373 and 1377, the Abbot was summoned to attend Parliaments held at Dublin and Castledermot respectively. In the former Parliament, one hundred shillings were ordered to be levied from him, as his portion of the subsidy granted to the Lord Justice, William de Windesore, by the same Parliament. In 1380, the King gave a special mandate that nomereIrishman should be admitted to profession in this abbey. In 1381 and 1382, the Abbot attended Parliaments held in Dublin, and in 1400, the King granted a royal confirmation of all the land, manors, and liberties, bestowed on the abbey by former charters; and in 1402, he pardoned the Abbot and monks for their having admitted Irishmen to profession. However, they were mulcted in the sum of £50. In 1415, Leynagh Bermingham, William Davison, and John D’Alton were committed to the custody of the Abbot to be kept by him as hostages for the allegiance of their respective fathers. In 1424, the Abbot, with the Archbishop of Armagh and Nicholas Taaffe, was appointed Justice and Conservator of the Peace for the Co. Louth.
The allusions to Mellifont during the remainder of this century are very few and uninteresting. Whether, or not, it shared the fate of many other Irish monasteries at that time and had no regular Abbot, but one who was called Abbotin commendam, is not known; but the presumption is that it had not a regular Abbot. These Abbotsin commendamwere not monks, or members ofany Religious Order; but secular clerics, not necessarily in Holy Orders. Sometimes, especially when the abuse had reached its greatest height in the fifteenth century, they were even laymen; nevertheless, they enjoyed the revenues of the abbeys committed to them, with the style and title of Abbots, but exercised no spiritual jurisdiction in their abbeys. This latter was confided to regular Priors who were selected by their own Religious superiors. When laymen held the abbeysin commendamthey commonly resided in them with their wives, families, retinues, servants, etc., to the distraction and interference with the monks in their regular observances, and finally, to the complete subversion of discipline. At that very time this pernicious practice had brought the whole Order to the brink of ruin; for we find the General Chapter on several occasions deploring the injuries inflicted on religion, and lamenting the havoc wrought by it, and they decided to send three of their number to Rome to implore the Pope’s protection against the growing evil. Still, it survived, more or less, in these countries till the Reformation. Scotland suffered more from it, apparently, than Ireland did, as can be seen from the lists furnished by Brady in hisEpiscopal Succession.
In 1476, the Abbot of Mellifont complained, that “owing to oppressions and extortions within the County of Louth and Uriell, his monastery was greatly indebted and impoverished.” Certain it is, that for some time previous, it had fallen from its former regularity and fervour; but, through the zeal and tact of Abbot Roger who then governed it, it regained its wonted prominence amongst the most observant monasteries. In 1479, this same Roger having set forth to the King that he had “Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical of all persons within his lands, as well secular as ecclesiastical, the King, out of his loveto the Cistercian Order, granted to the Abbot and his successors, theJus de excommunicatis capiendis, and episcopal jurisdiction,” (Stat. Roll. 19 Ed. IV., c. 5.) The former privilege refers to the concession made to the Church by the first clause of the Statute of Kilkenny, and which had been confirmed by subsequent Parliaments for centuries after its first enactment. Under the heading—“The Church to be free—WritDe Excommunicato capiendo,” the clause proceeds to ordain, “that Holy Church shall have all her franchises without injury, ... and if any (which God forbid) do to the contrary, and be excommunicated by the Ordinary of the place for that cause, so that satisfaction be not made to God and Holy Church by the party so excommunicated within a month after such excommunication, that then, after certificate thereupon being made by the said Ordinary into the Chancery, a writ shall be directed to the Sheriff, Mayor, Seneschal of the franchise, or other officers of the King, to take his body, and to keep him in prison without bail, until due satisfaction be made to God and Holy Church, etc.” By episcopal jurisdiction is here meant the civil rights and privileges appertaining to the episcopal office, and enjoyed at that time by bishops over their subjects, lay and clerical. And as to the spiritual, quasi-episcopal jurisdiction—the Abbots of the Order had that as well as exemption in relation to their own monks from the very foundation of the Order; but by a Decree dated 28th September 1487, Pope Innocent VIII. granted to all Cistercian Abbots quasi-episcopal jurisdiction over their tenants, vassals, subjects, and servants. By this Decree, the Pope “took all the Abbots, Abbesses, Monks and Nuns of the Order under his special protection, together with all their goods, vassals, subjects, and servants, and exempted and freed the same fromall jurisdiction,superiority, correction, visitation, subjection and power of Archbishops, Bishops and their Vicars, etc., ... and subjected them immediately to himself and the Holy See.” This Decree is given in full in thePrivilegia Ordinis Cisterciensis, p. 179.
That the Abbots of the Order exercised that privilege in this country cannot be doubted. We read an instance of it in theTriumphalia, so ably edited by the late Father Denis Murphy, S.J., where, even after the Council of Trent and so recently as 1621, a certain secular priest, who had been appointed by the Abbot of Holy Cross to the pastoral charge of the parish attached to that abbey and of one or more outlying parishes subject to the same Abbot, denied after some time, that he had his faculties from the said Abbot, but rather from the Archbishop, or his Vicar. The controversy lasted long, but finally, it was decided in the Abbot’s favour, and Dr. Kearney, then Archbishop of Cashel, acknowledged the Abbot’s title. And again, in theSpicelegium Ossoriensethere is a letter from Dr. O’Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh, written to the Propaganda in 1633, in which he complained that the Cistercians claimed the privilege of “Visitation, Correction, Summoning to Synods, Approbation to hear confessions, together with entire and absolute episcopal jurisdiction.” And a further proof in favour of the practice is found in the fact that laymen who acquired the suppressed monasteries of the Order claimed and exercised that same privilege. Thus, in 1622, Archbishop Ussher in a Report of Bective parish said it belonged to Bartholomew Dillon, Esq. of Riverstown, his Majesty’s farmer of the impropriate property. “This church belongeth to the Abbey of Bectiffe, in the possession of the said Mr. Dillon, who pretendeth to have an exemption from the Lord Bishop’s jurisdiction, and doth prove willsand grant administrations.” And in 1744, Harris writes of Newry, where once was a Cistercian Abbey also: “A mitred Abbot formerly possessed the lordships of Newry and Mourne, and exercised therein Episcopal Jurisdiction, which after the dissolution of the Abbey was done by the temporal proprietor, and at the present Robert Needham, Esq., to whom the town and manor belong, enjoys an exempt Jurisdiction within the said manors, and the seal of his court is a Mitred Abbot in his Albe sitting in a chair, and supported by two yew trees with this inscription: ‘Sigillum exemptæ Jurisdictionis de Viride Ligno alias Newry et Mourne.’” Which in English means, the seal of the Exempt Jurisdiction of Newry and Mourne. Verily! this savours of Popery; for, it was from the Pope the monks received their exemption. A modern example of this Papal concession, exercised in the Anglican Church, is to be found in the case of the Dean of Westminster who is immediately under the jurisdiction of her Gracious Majesty the Queen, and consequently exempt from that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is as successor to the Abbot of Westminster that he claims and is allowed that privilege of exemption; for the Abbot was immediately subject to the Pope in pre-Reformation times.
The Abbot of Mellifont was implicated in the rebellion of Lambert Simnel; for in 1488, he received pardon from the King for his offences in that connection. The close of the fifteenth century found Mellifont recovering and maintaining its old prestige amongst the Religious Orders of this country, and with the dawning of a new century, it had regained its former level, from which a host of circumstances had conspired to drag it down and to degrade it. These circumstances have been already detailed and need not be here repeated.
In civil matters, Ireland in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, presented the same, or nearly the same, condition as she did more than three centuries before, when the English first landed on her shores. The Pale was literally bounded by the Liffey and the Boyne, and the old feuds, the long-protracted wars between the Anglo-Irish and the natives still subsisted. The regular administration of the law was limited to the four counties adjoining the capital, called the “Four Obedient Counties.” It seems incontestable that religion was in a flourishing condition in this country during the period; for an unwonted activity and fervour animated both clergy and people, as can be inferred from the number of religious houses established; the frequency of Synods held denoting zeal and regularity on the part of the prelates convening them; and the common practice, so much then in vogue, of visiting, through a spirit of penance and devotion, the Holy Places at home and in far-off countries. Our Annals prove this to demonstration. But, it must be borne in mind that the spirit of exclusion was still in full force amongst the Anglo-Irish clergy, and no Irishman was eligible for benefices within the Pale. Learning, which is ever the handmaid of true piety, found its home as in ancient times amongst the two classes of the clergy, the secular and regular. The number of learned works published at that time clearly proves it. Amongst the many eminent men who then adorned the Church in Ireland, Maurice O’Fihely, Archbishop of Tuam, ranks foremost. His biographers, for he had many, inform us, that he “was eminent for his extraordinary knowledge in Divinity, Logic, Philosophy, and Metaphysics,” that he published a Dictionary of the Holy Scriptures, and was styled by his contemporaries at home and abroad, “The Flower of the World.” He had been a Franciscan Friarbefore his promotion to the See of Tuam, but did not long survive his appointment.
Now, capital has been made by some writers out of a description of the Church in Ireland taken from the State Papers, Part III., Vol. II., pp. 15, 16. If it reflected a true picture, a Reformation would indeed have been needed, but not the kind introduced by Henry VIII., nurtured by Edward VI., and propagated with fire and sword by Elizabeth. The Report states: “Some sayeth, that the prelates of the Church and the clergy is much the cause of all the mysse order of the land, for there is no archbyshop, ne bysshop, abbot, ne prior, parson ne vicar, ne any other person of the church, high or lowe, greate or smalle, Englysh or Irishe, that usythe to preach the worde of Godde, saveing the poor fryers beggars.”... “Some sayeth”—Who were these “Some,” or what was their assertion worth? Were they parties who benefited by the disturbance of the old order of things at the Suppression, and so suspected of having been partial, and eager to seek any and every palliation for the State Church as by law established. Now every student of Irish history, as contained in our Annals, knows that that anonymous statement is unwarranted by fact. It will suffice to take two instances, as we find them recorded in Dowling’sAnnalsabout this time, to show the fallacy of the accusation of wholesale neglect of preaching the Word of God. Of Nicholas Maguire, Bishop of Leighlin, 1490-1512, Dowling (Protestant Chancellor of Leighlin) writes: “When he was Prebendary of Ullard, he preached and delivered great learning with no less reverence, being in favour with the King and nobility of Leinster, who, together with the Dean and Chapter, elected him Bishop of Leighlin.” And of Maurice Deoran, or Doran, who a few years later succeeded him in Leighlin, Dowling againwrites: “He was a most eloquent preacher.” It cannot be denied that at that time some Church dignitaries affected the airs and magnificence of worldly magnates, nor that they gave scandal to their flocks by their absenteeism. Other abuses, no doubt, existed, but the watchful providence of God had made provision for their removal through His authorised ministers. But, alas! a new condition of affairs shall soon arise. The most powerful political engine ever fabricated for the extension of the English power in Ireland shall be introduced, one which shall eventually break up the tribe lands, annihilate the sway of the ancient chieftains, and reduce their impoverished descendants to the condition of serfs and menials. And this shall be called reforming the Church! Even in this revolution, Mellifont shall play her part, and become revolutionized and misappropriated.
THE SUPPRESSION OF MELLIFONT.
The Religious Orders, which succeed each other in the Catholic Church, are subject to laws similar to those that govern the productions of nature. They grow from feeble and imperceptible seeds, increase, flourish, and bear fruit; then decrease, fade, and fall to the ground. But they have produced a fruit, which contains within it the germs of a new seed-time, and which bursts forth vigorously from the decaying sheath to reproduce its never-failing kind. This work of reproduction and subsequent expansion is aided, directed, and encouraged by him, to whom is divinely committed the government of the Church; and when pseudo, self-styled reformers essay the difficult task, their true character is unmasked in the inevitable ruin and desolation which follow, instead of the order and rehabilitation which were promised. Bluff King Hal, or the Merrie Monarch, as Henry VIII. was familiarly and affectionately called by his loving subjects in the beginning of his reign, was in need of money to squander on his passions and pleasures. In his newly assumed character, therefore, of Head of the Church in his dominions (which, by Act ofParliament, he made it high treason to deny), he suppressed the lesser monasteries whose annual income did not exceed £200. This was done, forsooth, in the interests of religion!!! The proceeds of the confiscation were soon dissipated, and the wily Cromwell, whom the King had appointed hisVicar General, suggested the suppression and appropriation to the King’s uses, of all the monasteries within the realm. Again it is his zeal for the promotion of God’s glory that is pleaded as his motive for the nefarious deed. Three years before, when addressing the Houses of Parliament in behalf of the measure for the suppression of the lesser monasteries, he publicly gave thanks to God, that in the large communities “religion is right well kept and observed.” And yet, what a metamorphosis in such a short space! All had now fallen away, and had inexplicably sunk into all manner of iniquity! Spelman, in hisHistory of Sacrilege, tells the mode adopted by this model Reformer to carry his motion for investing in the Crown the property of all the Religious Orders. “The King sent for the Commons,” he tells us, “and informed them he would have the Bill pass, or take off some of their heads.” This they knew to be no empty threat; and pass the Bill they did on that memorable day of May 13, 1539. The Lords, as a body, voted for it; partly through a feeling of jealousy towards the Churchmen, who enjoyed no inconsiderable share of the monarch’s confidence and favour, and so they rejoiced at whatever promised to destroy this good understanding between them; and partly through cupidity, for they hoped for a share in the booty. The Bishops at that juncture are blamed for their weakness in complying with so unjust a proceeding; but they were divided in their councils; some considering it the less of two evils to sacrifice the Religious houses, in the hope that themisunderstanding between the King and the Pope would be soon adjusted and the monks restored, yielded to the King; others, unworthy of their office, as it must be admitted, worldly men, courtly prelates, who dreaded the King’s displeasure, obsequiously obeyed his mandate.
Besides his greed for gold, the King had another potent motive for suppressing the monasteries, one that gave a zest to this disgraceful act: he wanted the further to spite the Pope by inflicting such an unheard-of injury on religion. Other motives, too, were not wanting, such as state policy, so the King alleged, and the want of constant affection towards his person on the part of the Religious, particularly in his new capacity. This, Lord Herbert (who was no friend of the monks) admits in his Life of the King. His Lordship writes: “The monks were looked upon as a body of reserve for the Pope, and always ready to appear in his quarrels.” Perhaps, their opposition to the King’s assumption of spiritual power precipitated matters. At all events, one of them, zealous for God’s law, had the courage to reproach him to his face in a sermon preached at Greenwich before the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn. This fearless champion of justice, this intrepid son of St. Francis, thus addressed the dissolute monarch:—“I am that Micheas, O King, whom you will hate because I must tell you truly that this marriage is unlawful; and I know that I shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the water of sorrow; yet, because our Lord has put it in my mouth, I must speak it.” And when he and another faithful brother friar were brought before the King’s council, who rebuked them, and declared them deserving of being shut up in a sack, and thrown into the Thames, for the boldness of their language in the matter of the King’s marriage, his companion smiling said: “Threaten these things to the rich anddainty persons, who are clothed in purple, and fare deliciously, and have their chiefest hope in this world; for we esteem them not, but are joyful, that, for the discharge of our duty we are driven hence; and, with thanks to God, we know the way to heaven to be as ready by water as by land.” (Stowe,Church Chronicle.)
It was not, then, for dissoluteness of morals, nor for illiteracy, nor for backwardness in preaching the Word of God, nor yet for being drones in society, that the monks were turned from their peaceful homes. The true cause was, that the King knew, and his criminal advisers also knew, that the monasteries were as impregnable fortresses, which in defence of truth and justice, would hold out firm against seductive bribes, and the most appalling threats; hence they must be swept away under plea of general corruption of morals, etc., and their properties held up as a bait to draw over proselytes to the new order of things. The historian, Lingard, writing of the attitude of the monks towards the King’s supremacy in spiritual matters, says: “Secluded from the world, the Religious felt fewer temptations to sacrifice their consciences to the commands of their Sovereign, and seemed more eager to court the crown than to flee the pains of martyrdom.”
Here, in Ireland, one of the King’s advisers counselled him to suppress some of the monasteries, and to convert them into residences for young noblemen, who would promote and defend the King’s interests. Patrick Finglas, created by Henry VIII. Chief Baron of the King’s Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Chief Justice, wrote a book entitled: “A Breviate of the getting of Ireland and of the decay of the same,” in which he recommends the suppression of the monasteries bordering on the Pale, “because they were giving more aid and supportacion to the Irish than to the King.” “Let the Abbeys,” he goeson to say, “be given to young lords, knights, and gentlemen out of England, which shall dwell upon the same.” This advice seemed good to the King, and it was literally carried out, but to far greater extent than this astute lawyer had anticipated.
Mellifont, in common with the other Religious establishments in Ireland within grasp of the King (for in Ulster, they were free from molestation under O’Neil and O’Donnell), must have heard with dismay the rumours afloat about a general suppression, and grief and consternation must have filled the hearts of the monks. Was it possible, they asked, that the King, whose person they respected, whose laws they obeyed, would drive them forth, wanderers over the world, which many of them had renounced in early youth; and now, without adequate provision, were they, in their declining years, to perish by the roadside? Were their beautiful church, their loved cloister, their shady groves, no more to shelter them, and were they to sever connection with a spot endeared to them by so many holy associations? Yes, it is true, alas! for the Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, being nearer authentic sources of information, has heard it and has sent word, that sentence is passed on all, and their doom has sounded; for the following Royal Commission was forwarded to the Deputy, with peremptory orders to have it executed forthwith:—
Royal Commission directed to John Allen, Chancellor; George, Archbishop of Dublin; William Brabazon, Vice-Treasurer; Robert Cowley, Master of the Rolls; and Thomas Cusacke, Esq.; reciting, “That from the information of trustworthy persons, it being manifestly apparent that the monasteries, abbeys, priories, and other places of Religious or Regulars, in Ireland, are at present in such a state, that in them, the praise of God and the welfare ofman are next to nothing regarded; the Regulars and nuns dwelling there being so addicted, partly to their own superstitious ceremonies, partly to the pernicious worship of idols, and to the pestiferous doctrines of the Roman Pontiff, that unless an effectual remedy be promptly provided, not only the weak, low order, but the whole Irish people, may be speedily infected to their total destruction. To prevent, therefore, the longer continuance of such Religious men and nuns in so damnable a state, the King (having resolved to resume into his hands all the monasteries and Religious houses, for their better reformation, to remove from them the Religious men and women, and to cause them to return to some honest mode of living and to true religion,) directs the Commissioners to signify this his intention to the heads of Religious houses; to receive their resignations and surrenders willingly tendered; to grant to those tendering it liberty of exchanging their habit and of accepting benefices under the King’s authority; to apprehend and punish such as adhere to the Roman Pontiff and contumaciously refuse to surrender their houses; to take charge for the King’s use of the possession of those houses, and assign competent pensions to those who willingly surrender.” (Patent and Close Rolls, Chancery, Ireland, Morrin, 1539-40, April 30, Henry VIII., 30o, p. 55.)
Most marvellous, indeed, and sudden, and quite unprecedented in history, was this utter decadence from godliness to “idolatry and the pestiferous doctrine of the Roman Pontiff” on the part of 100,000 persons within the space of three short years! But, behold! the godly monarch will reform them (supposing they needed reform) in the fashion recorded in the old English proverb: “The devil amended his dame’s leg; when he should have set it right, he brake it quite in pieces.”That the Deputy, Lord Gray, did not consider the monks and nuns an effete body, addicted to evil practices, will appear evident from the letter he addressed to Cromwell, and which was signed by his Council. It bears date 21st May 1539:—
“May it please your honourable Lordship to be advertised, that by the report of Thomas Cusacke and others repaired lately out of the realm of England into this land, it hath been openly bruited the King’s grace’s pleasure to be, that all the monasteries within this land should be suppressed, none to stand. Amongst which, for the common weal of this land, if it might stand with King’s most gracious pleasure by your good Lordship’s advertisement, in our opinion it were right expedient that six houses should stand and continue, changing their habit and rule into such sort as the King’s grace shall will them: which are namely, St. Mary’s Abbey, adjoining Dublin, a house of white monks (Cistercians); Christ Church, a house of canons situated in the middle of the City of Dublin; Grace Dieu Nunnery, in the County Dublin; Connell, in the County Kildare; Kenlys or Kells, and Jerpoint (this latter Cistercian also), in the County Kilkenny.For in these commonly, and in others such like, in default of common inns, which are not in this island the King’s Deputy and all others his Grace’s Council and Officers, also Irishmen and others resorting to the King’s Deputy in these quarters is and hath been most commonly lodged at the cost of the said houses.Also, in them, young men and children, both gentlemen’s children and others, both of man kind and woman kind be brought up in virtue and in the Englishe tongue and behaviour to the great charge of the said houses; that is to say, the woman kind of the whole Englishie of this land, for the most part, in the said nunnery, and the man kind in the other houses.”