Metropolitica sedi deerat adhuc, et defuerat ab initio Pallii usus; meaning Ardmagh, where he plainly grants a Metropolitan See from the first erection thereof, as well as the want of a Pall; and tho' most zealous in reproving the vices of Church persons otherwhere, he never check'd that defect of a Pall, but rather in the same life extolls the dignity of that See thus: In tantâ ab initio a cunctis veneratione habetur, ut non modo Episcopi et Sacerdotes, et qui de clero sunt, sed etiam Regum et Principum universitas subjecta sit Metropolitano in omni obedientia, et unus ipse omnibus præsit. But the Pall being a holy and most ancient ornament to the Metropolitan dignity, and badge of Apostolical obedience; it was out of their own proper motion that the Clergy of Ireland, sensible of the want of it, employed the same S. Malachy their Primat of Ardmagh, to suplicat for supplying thereof at Rome; who in his journey was prevented by death, in S. Bernard's abbey of Clarevall, A° 1148. "This errour of no Archbishop in Ireland before 1152, with many more, was first broached by Giraldus Cambrensis (Girald. Cambr. Topograph. Hib distinct. 3. cap. 17). And where he, in the same place, admitts Irish Bishops consecrating one another. Doctor Meredith Hanmer, Treasurer of Dublin Cathedral church, to rectify that as uncongruous, must invent that they were consecrated by the Archbishops of Canterbury, and accordingly was followed by others, that cared not to examin further. More modest was S' Rich. Baker, and more sincere in his Chronicle of the K K. of England, saying (in K. Will. the ii' reign p. 35). In this King's reign, altho he had no command in Ireland, yet their Bishop of Dublin was sent over to Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, to be consecrated by him, and the citizens of Waterford also desiring to have a Bishop, procured Muredach K. of Ireland to write to Anselm to give his consent. This is very true, and by letters of the same time extant, authentick, yet notwithstanding it is strange how prone people are led to humour their own fancy in so much, that the compiler of the Index of the same book in the letter C. word Canterbury thus misrepresents them words; viz. He (meaning the Archbishop of Canterbury whoever) consecrated all the Bishops of Ireland. "I doe not deny that in the reign of the two first Norman KK. of England, and K. Stephen, and in the time of S. Lanfranc, S. Anselm, Rodulph, and Theobald Archbishops of Canterbury, the Ostmans of Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, the Reliques of the pagan Danes or Normans infesting Ireland, becoming Christians, being aliens to the Irish, and originally countrymen to the new Norman conquerours of England, among whom their clergymen were commonly bred, and religiously professed, made it their Interest, by application likely to Rome, upon those motives, and upon consideration of their late conversion, and the Pope's subsequent authority interposing. I therefore conceive this was the reason, that the Irish took no distaste (that we can IRISH ARCH. SOC. 15. learn) 3 L learn) of opposing, or grudging at their introducing foreign Jurisdiction, insomuch, that contrariwise we reade, that Irish Princes and Prelats promoted their foreign advancement, by their influence on the Prelats of Canterbury, and commendation of the persons elected in order to their consecration; as may appear by the letters extant (in Usserii Sylloge veterum Epistolar. Hibear) of Tordelvac O'Brian K. of the Southern moyty of Ireland, and of his son and successour Murchertach, both styled Kings of Ireland, and of Ferdomnach Bishop of Kildare and Metropolitan of Leinster (before Dublin was so erected A° 1152). But never a Bishop of any other See in Ireland, nor even of those Ostman Sees, except five of Dublin, the first Bishop of Waterford, and one of Limerick in Archbishop Theobald's time, that ever owned consecration, and canonical obedience to the See of Canterbury. "York was the Metropolitan see of Scotland till the year of Grace 1471, by which title if Canterbury was the Metropolitan of Scotland is beyond my sphere to dispute, but was no more Metropolitan of Ireland than as Edgar K. of England was conquerour of Ireland Ao 964, by letters patent dictated by his secretary; conscious to none els of his time or as all the learning and sanctity of Ireland abolished by the descent of Egfrid K. of Northumberland's fleet in Ireland A° 684, as Cambden thought, de quibus videsis Ogygiam pag: 39 & pag: 230. Nay Wales nearer home than Ireland was not under the Jurisdiction of Canterbury before the year 1187, in K. Hen. ii* reign, Baldwin being then Archbishop of Canterbury. "Lastly, I cannot but arraign Doctor Hanmer's partial judgement and forgetfull memory, who saw in his own dayes (A° 1604 deceas'd) Matthew Parker Dean of Lincoln installed Archbishop of Canterbury, by William Barlow Prior of Bisham, John Scory, and Miles Coverdale; and Parker without a stich of a Pall's cross investing 22 Bishopps of as many cathedralls: of which number Barlow was made Bishop of Chichester and Scory of Hereford (Bakers Chronicle in Q. Elizabeth, A° 1559), and yet could not digest, that Irish Bishops in the primitive times of their sanctity, could confer Episcopal orders without one of 'em shouldering a Pall on brest and back. "In Dr. Chamberlain's 8 chap: Notitia Angle by the vast number of Scotish KK. and wast time of their 2000 years continuance, I attribut his mistake to his adhering unaware to the modern Scotish stories. In the same chapter I observe his omission of K. James's long line of extraction from the KK. of Ireland, of whom in a direct masculin line, not controverted, he sprung. Videsis Ogygiam passim, the Genealogy of K. Alex. iii. William Slatyr's Palæ-Albion, etc. "Prid. Cal. May, 1709. h: in Albis." |