• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

m W-:s •fNT7- ^nj-' > !>-ft I; I \->, fol I : mistec. QlarttcU Mniuerattg Slibrarg jittjata, ^tm lark BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 189: Cornell University Library BV775 .C84 1909 Annatis Hiberni : a calendar of the fir 3 1924 029 335 464 olin Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029335464 ^'^ ^^^^^:^^ Very Rev. Michael A. Costello, O.P., S.T.M. 2)c Hnnatis Dibernia^ A CALENDAR OF THE FIRST FRUITS' FEES LEVIED ON PAPAL APPOINTMENTS TO BENEFICES IN IRELAND A.D. 1400 TO 1535 EXTRACTED FROM THE VATICAN AND OTHER ROMAN ARCHIVES WITH COPIOUS TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES TOGETHEB WITH Summaries of' Papal Rescripts relating to BENEFICES IN IRELAND and Biographical Notes of THE BISHOPS OF Irish Sees during the same period ®i2 the late IRev). fD. U. Costello, Q.p., Q.zm. WITH AN INTRODUCTION By Rev. AMBROSE COLEMAN, O.P., S.T.L. And Supplementary Notes By W. H. GRATTAN FLOOD, Mus. D., R.U.I. Volxtme X : tti^ter DUNDALK PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY W. TEMPEST igog Preface. After numerous delays and difficulties, the first part of the late Father Costello's long expected work on the Annates now sees the light. Opinions may differ as to the value, from the historical point of view, of the records now placed before us, but it will be generally agreed that this compilation, the work of half a lifetime, is a monu- ment of scholarship, rare in modern times. As it was truly a labour of love to the compiler, and kept him alive for several years, though weighed down with infirmities, it is deeply to be regretted that he did not live to publish the present volume, which forms the first part of the work, though he had seen almost the whole of it through the Press before his death. The manuscripts from which Father Costello compiled the text are kept in the Archivio di Stato Romano, which, since the occupation of Rome by the Piedmontese troops in 1870, has come into the hands of the Italian Government. They are in the curial hand- writing of the various periods to which they belong, and are fairly legible to experts, though written in a very contracted form. These records are official summaries of the Annates issued by the Curia, and are entered in chronological order in books, known as the Begistri chile Annate. As the entries embrace all the countries of Europe which acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Holy See, it was, indeed, a lengthy task to discover those relating to Ireland, copy them faithfully, and expand the contracted words. It was principally in the archives of the Vatican and those of St. John Lateran's that Father Costello found the Bulls relating to benefices in Ireland, which form the appendices to the various dioceses iv. Preface. in the present volume. For several years the difficulties of research in this department were much enhanced by the restrictions placed upon scholars, which lasted until Pope Leo XIII, with far seeing wisdom, abolished them and threw open the Papal archives to the world. It is difficult to fully appreciate the labour spent by Father Costello in this department of his work. It was no mere copying; the thousands of Bulls which he took in hands, many of them filling twenty pages of vellum and transcribed in contracted Latin, were reduced by him to the short summaries in plain English we have before us. The present volume, of course, contains those only relating to the Ulster dioceses. In the identification of names and places, and the origin and meaning of place-names, Father Costello was placed at a disadvantage by his long residence in Rome and his imperfect acquaintance with the Irish language. However, he received valuable assistance in this department from the late Right Rev. Dr. Reeves, the accomplished antiquary, Anglican Bishop of Down and Connor and Dromore, and President of the Royal Irish Academy. While the sheets were going through the Press, numerous additions were made to the topographical notes by Mr. John Ribton Garstin and the Rev. Dr. Bartholomew MacCarthy. The work of the former was confined principally to the diocese of Armagh, while Dr. MacCarthy's hand may be discerned in thenotes on the dioceses of Clogher and Meath, in which appear some of the results of his great erudition. In seeing the great bulk of the work through the Press, Father Costello worked alone. It was the privilege of the present writer to afford some help at the beginning, and again, after Father Costello's death, to bring out the two last dioceses, and write the historical Introduction. The writer considered it better not to burden this Introduction with notes. In the description of Ecclesiastical Ireland in the Fifteenth Century, he has endeavoured to prove his conclusions mainly from the text of the present volume, which, it must be admitted by all, throws an entirely new light on that century. He has also utilised the Statutes of the Provincial Synod of Cashel issued in the middle of that century, together with much information, published and unpublished, of the Religious Orders in Ireland, with the history of which he claims a fair acquaintance. For the Nature, History and Preface. v. Management of the Annates, he has relied almost entirely on Thomassinus, whose treatise in his Vetus et Nova Ecclesim Disciplina, (Tom. III. Liber 2, c. 58), may be considered the standard work on the subject. Brady's Episcopal Succession has afforded valuable data for the episcopal Annates in Ireland ; Theiner's Vetera Monumenta has given the only information available about the Collectors of the Papal taxes ; while Maitland's Canon Laiv in the Church of England has been of great service in the explanation of medieval proceedure in cases of ecclesiastical litigation. The Editor's best thanks are due to Mr. John Ribton Garstin, Vice-President R.I. A., and Past President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland ; to Dr. Grattan Flood, for reading the proofs of the Introduction, and making very important corrections and suggestions ; to Dr. Grattan Flood also for his valuable Corrigenda et Addenda, for which he was peculiarly fitted by his scholarly work on the Calendars of Papal Registers ; and to Rev. J. B. Leslie, M.A., for the careful compilation of the Index of Names and Places. The gratitude of the' public is due to Mr. William Tempest, of Dundalk, the publisher, who without hope of pecuniary reward, but animated by nobler motives, undertook much of the risk of publication of the work, and pursued it under most difficult and disheartening circum- stances. It is to be hoped that the issue of this volume will be followed before long by the publication of the Annates and Bulls of the other three ecclesiastical provinces of Ireland. All further publi- cation will depend naturally on the reception accorded to the present volume. AMBROSE COLEMAN, O.P., S.T.L. St. Saviour's Pbiorx, Dublin, 218T July, 1909. Nihil Obstat. Fr. Reginaldus Walsh, O.P., S.T.M. Censor Deputatus. Jmprimatur 4" Michael Cardinalis Logue. Archiep. Armacanus. Totius HibernicE Primas, Fr. Michael M. O'Kane, O.P. Prior Provincialis Hibernia Contents. Page HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION ANNA Introduction. By the Rev. AMBROSE COLEMAN, O.P. Part I. Ecclesiastical Ireland in the Fifteenth Century. AN examination of the text of this volume will prove a revelation to all those whose ideas about the Ireland of the fifteenth century and early portion of the sixteenth have been derived either from Irish annalists or from English historians. It must be acknowledged that this particular period of Irish history is beset with perplexing difficulties to the earnest and fair-minded inquirer. He is conscious, even after a casual acquaintance with the documentary evidence hitherto available, that there is much which does not appear on the surface—invisible, underlying forces preserving learning and piety in the midst of what looks like universal anarchy. Yet confusing and misleading impressions are made on him at every turn. If he consults the Irish annals, that period, like the preceding centuries, presents to him little else than a long record of petty tribal wars and reprisals, robberies and murders among the Irish themselves, interspersed with similar conflicts with the English colonists. When he turns for light to the Anglo-Irish and English historians and the State Papers he will find that the rivalries and dissensions of the Butlers and Desmonds, the succession of unfit and powerless governors, the futile laws passed in petty Parliaments against the Irish, and the comedy of the crowning of Lambert Simnel in Christ Church as Edward VI, fill all the space on the canvas, baffling his endeavours to get at the real condition of the Irish people. It would be a loss of time for him to turn over the pages of such deeply prejudiced Irish Church historians as Mant and King, for they labour to depict the Irish of that and the preceding centuries as sunk in barbarism, ilhteracy and irreligion. The fifteenth century in Ireland is not, indeed, an interesting period. It contains nothing striking enough to forcibly arrest the attention. It is without great landmarks, such as a memorable and decisive battle, a famous siege or a remarkable king or ruler able to leave the impress of his personality on the pages of history. Moreover, there seems to be no progress, no well-ordered advancing and chaotic picture is left on the civilization ; nothing but a confused mind even after a prolonged and honest inquiry.

Load more

  368

Copy Link