UNDER THE NORMANS 1169-1216 BY GODDARD HENRY ORPEN LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN VOL. I OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1911 456699 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE PREFACE MUCH of the story of Ireland has never been adequately told. Her early traditions, indeed, regarded by the annalists and by Geoffrey Keating and others as sober history, have in recent times been more scientifically treated from varying points of view, as legend with a dim substratum of fact, as mythology with a still dimmer basis, as folklore growing out of deeprooted primitive custom. The footprints of St. Patrick and of the early saints have been followed over the length and breadth of the island. The traces of her missionaries have been sought for and found throughout western Europe. Her wonderful handiwork, executed under the patronage of her Church, on vellum, in metal, on stone, has been praised with justifiable pride, and has taken its place-no mean onein the history of the evolution of art. Her primitive literature is gradually being given to the world by competent scholars. But when we come to the more fully attested history of later times, the raids of the Wikings in the ninth and tenth centuries have indeed been described and duly deplored, but only scant recognition has been accorded to the contribution made |