The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534: From Reform to Reformation 1851825487, 9781851825486

Citation preview

Colman N. O Clabaigh, OSB

The

Franciscans

in Ireland, 1400- 1534 | FROM REFORM —

TO REFORMATION

=

Also from Four Courts Press

An Irish prisoner of conscience in the

Tudor era: Richard Creagh, archbishop

of Armagh Colm Lennon

A catalogue of the maps of the estates of the

archbishops of Dublin, 1654-1850 Raymond Refaussé & Mary Clark The puritan millennium: literature and theology, 1550-1682 Crawford Gribben

Christ Church cathedral, Dublin: a history Kenneth Milne, editor Gaelic Ireland c.1250-c.1650: land, lordship and settlement Patrick Duffy, David Edwards & Elizabeth FitzPatrick, editors

The diocese of Meath in the eighteenth century Patrick Fagan Priests and people in pre-famine Ireland, 1780-1845 S.J. Connolly

The Irish in Europe, 1580-1815 Thomas O'Connor, editor

NUN

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https ://archive.org/details/franciscansinireOOOOocla

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

MAYNOOTH

HISTORICAL

STUDIES

Catholic synods in Ireland, 1600-1690, Alison Forrestal

Colonial discipline: the making of the lrish convict system, Patrick Carroll-Burke Church and society in county Kildare, c.1470—1547, Mary Ann Lyons

Perceptions of St Patrick in eighteenth-century Ireland, Bridget McCormack Surviving the Tudors: the ‘wizard’ earl of Kildare and English rule in Ireland, 1537-1586, Vincent P. Carey The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400—1534: from reform to Reformation, Colman N. O Clabaigh, oss

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

From Reform to Reformation COLMAN

N. O CLABAIGH,

yay now’

OSB

HS/esy

oe

LI

FOUR

COURTS

PRESS

Set in 10.5 on 13 pt Times by Carrigboy Typesetting Services for FOUR COURTS PRESS LTD Fumbally Lane, Dublin 8, Ireland e-mail: info @four-courts-press.ie and in North America for FOUR COURTS PRESS c/o ISBS, 5824 N.E. Hassalo Street, Portland, OR 97213.

© Colman N. O Clabaigh 2002

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 1-85182-548—7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanicai, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books, Bodmin, Cornwall

Contents

Maynooth Historical Studies

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION 1

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400

2

Developments in Ireland, 1400-60

3

The Observants, 1460-1534

4

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

5

The lifestyle of the friars

6

The pastoral role of the friars

APPENDICES 1

The Youghal Library catalogue

158

2

Formulary documents from TCD, MS. 250

181

BIBLIOGRAPHY

187

INDEX

199

For Mossey Clabby and Gearoid Mac Niocaill and in memory of Anne M. Clabby

Maynooth Historical Studies

GENERAL

EDITOR:

RAYMOND

GILLESPIE

Over the last three generations the study of Irish history has been transformed almost out of recognition. The work of scholars such as J.C. Beckett, R. Dudley Edwards, R.B. McDowell, T.W. Moody and D.B. Quinn established scholarly standards within which the study of Irish history could proceed and, with their students, demonstrated in their writing how those standards could be applied. In the main these writings concentrated on the traditional historical themes, dealing with the political and constitutional problems which Ireland encountered in the past. More recently a new generation of scholars has built on these insights but has also looked again at the traditional canon of Irish history. Some have re-examined older problems in the light of fresh evidence or new conceptual models. Others have broadened the range of the debate on the Irish past by insisting on the importance of economic, social, local or cultural factors in shaping the Irish historical experience. The result of this expansion in historical research has been a dramatic growth in publications dealing with the whole range of Irish history and hence a series of lively debates on the nature of the study of the Irish past. Maynooth Historical Studies is part of that new phenomenon. The series contributes to the debate on the interpretation of the Irish past by presenting the results of new research which either looks again at old problems or casts light into hitherto dark corners of the historical landscape. Both the individual volumes, and the series as a whole, reflect the complexity of understanding the evolution of Irish society and in so doing presents the study of Irish history as the vibrant and challenging discipline that it is.

a cy

4

ine

te Viren,

+4

vr

7

@S

pha

iyi

(ce

OCW

01

Ci!

sey

gve.s

006 ae

Swim

ates | On

ie

ise

i

ges ae

>

lo

ier tus

of ti

Hien

cg)

a

;

-tiha-ene

we

3. cares, Mnde@ a

tie

WO ima

agen

dete palo

ra)

_

ours pel ak

Irth ih AS inoA

(hae

a

TU

ae

i ag

7

ee

ecaer-i q

soba iaibe Begins

List of Abbreviations

AFH AFM

ALC

Archiyium Franciscanum Historicum. J. O'Donovan (ed.), Anndla rioghachta Eireann: Annals of the kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the earliest period to the year 1616 (7 vols, Dublin, 1851). W.M. Hennessy (ed.), The Annals of Loch Cé: a chronicle of

Irish affairs, 1014-1590 (2 vols, London, 1871). AM AS

Annales Ordinis Minorum (32 vols, Quarrachi, 1931-64).

M. Bihl (ed.), ‘Abbreviatio statutorum tam papalium quam generalium edita apud Barchinonam in conventu Beatae Mariae de lesu Familiae Cismontanae de Observantia [1451] in AFH,

£4KViI (1942) pp 106-97. Also R. Howlett (ed.) in Monumenta Franciscana, (2 vols, London, 1882)

AU

Anal. Hib.

ii.

W.M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy (ed.), Anndla Uladh, Annals of Ulster; otherwise Anndla Senait: a chronicle of Irish affairs, 431-1131, 1155-154] (4 vols, Dublin, 1887-1901). Analecta Hibernica including the reports of the Irish manuscripts COMMISSION.

Ann. Conn.

BF

BFNS

A.M. Freeman (ed.), Anndla Connacht (A.D. 1224-1544) (Dublin, 1951). J.H. Sbaralea et al. (eds), Bullarium Franciscanum Romanorum Pontificum constitutiones, epistolae, ac diplomata continens tribus ordinibus minorum clarissarum et poenitentium a seraphica sancto Francisco institutis concessa ab illorum exordio ad nostra usque tempora (7 vols, Rome 1759-1904). U. Hiintemann and C. Schmitt (ed.), Bullarium Franciscanum

continens constitutiones epistolas diplomata Romanorum pontificum, nova series (4 vols, Quarrachi, 1929-).

BL BL, Add. MSS. BL, Harl. MSS. Bod].

British Library, London.

British Library, Additional MSS. British Library, Harleian MSS. Bodleian Library, Oxford.

9

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

10 ‘Brevis synopsis’

BRUO ‘Brussels MS. 3410’

B. Jennings (ed.), ‘F. O’Mahony, Brevis synopsis provinciae Hiberniae fratrum minorum’ in Anal. Hib. vi (1934), pp 139-91. A.B. Emden (ed.), A biographical register of the University of Oxford to 1500 (3 vols, Oxford, 1957-9).

J. Moloney (ed.), ‘Micheal O Cléirigh, A chronological list of the foundations of the Irish Franciscan province’ in Anal. Hib. vi (1934), pp 192-202.

‘Brussels MS. 3947’

CPL

Clyn, Annals

Colker, Lat. MSS.

Cotter, Friars Cork Hist. Soc. Jn.

PL

B. Jennings (ed.), ‘Donatus Moneyus, De Provincia

Hiberniae S. Francisci’ in Anal. Hib. vi (1934), pp 12-138. Translated in The Franciscan tertiary, iv (Feb. 1894)— vi (Dec. 1896). Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: papal letters (London and Dublin, 1893-). R. Butler (ed.), The annals of Ireland of Friar John Clyn and Thady Dowling, together with the annals of Ross (Dublin, 1849). M.L. Colker, Trinity College library Dublin: descriptive

catalogue of the medieval and renaissance Latin manuscripts (2 vols, Dublin, 1991). FJ. Cotter, The Friars Minor in Ireland from their arrival to 1400 (NewYork, 1994). Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. E.B. Fitzmaurice and A.G. Little (ed.), Materials for

the history of the Franciscan province of Ireland (Manchester, 1920). Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society. Glassberger, Chronicle Chronica Fratris Nicolai Glassberger (Analecta Franciscana, ii, Quarrachi, 1887). Huber, History R.M. Huber, A documented history of the Franciscan Order (Washington, 1944), McKenna, O hUiginn L. McKenna (ed.), Philip bocht O hUiginn (Dublin,

Galway Arch. Soc. Jn.

LOSI): Lib. ex.

A.G. Little (ed.), Liber exemplorum ad usum praedicantium saeculo xiii compositus a quondam fratre minore Anglico de provincia Hiberniae (Aberdeen, 1918).

List of abbreviations

1]

Lynch, ‘Franciscan docs.’ A. Lynch (ed.), ‘Documents of Franciscan interest

from the episcopal archives of Armagh, 1265-1508, in Collectanea Hibernica, Moorman, History

MRH

xxxi and xxxii (1989-—

90), pp 9-102. J.R.H. Moorman, A history of the Franciscan Order from its origins to the year 1517 (Oxford, 1968 [repr. Chicago, 1988]). A. Gwynn

and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval religious houses: Ireland (Dublin, 1970 [repr. Dublin, 1988]). National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

NLI N. Munster Antiq. Jn.

North Munster Antiquarian Journal.

Ormond deeds

E. Curtis (ed.), Calendar of Ormond deeds (6 Vols,

TED

Dublin, 1932-43). Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Journal of the.Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society. Trinity College, Dublin.

Terminus

C. Mooney, ‘The Franciscans in Ireland’ in Terminus,

VLC

viii (1954), 66-9, 84-7,105-8, 126-8, 150-3, 180-2; ix (1954) 193-5; x (1954), 226-8, 245-50; xi (1955), 5-9, 39-41, 85-9, 128-32; xii (1956), 14-17, 40-44; xiii (1956), 58-62, 88-92, 105-9, 139-44; xiv (1957), 13-17, 24, 38-40, 62-6, 87-9, 112-14. Youghal Library Catalogue (Appendix I).

RIAProc.

RSAIJn. Sean. Ardmh.

;

wh

7 ne

¥

e
No one series covers the entire

period, which is why reference is made to different authorities at different stages. In general the text reproduced in the Bullarium Franciscanum has been used, as this generally gives the fullest edition of the text. The Franciscan material in the registers of the archbishops of Armagh has been published by Anthony Lynch and all references in this work are to his edition.® For the study of the Observant friars the Abbreviatio statutorum is of primary importance. This was the normative legislation of the ultramontane Observants, compiled in Barcelona in 1451 and observed by them throughout this period. A critical edition of this text was produced in 1945 by Fr Michael Bihl, OFM, and this has been used throughout.’ Reference is also made to the

edition printed by R. Howlett in 1882 as this is edited from the copy of the text written for the community

at Adare, Co. Limerick, in 1482 which is now

Rawlinson MS. C 320 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.’ This codex preserves 2 Chronica Fratris Nicolai Glassberger (Analecta Franciscana, 1, Quarrachi, 1887). 3 Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: papal letters (London and Dublin, 1893-). 4 Luke Wadding et al., Annales Ordinis Minorum (32 vols, Quarrachi, 1931-64). 5 Sbaralea et al. (eds), Bullarium Franciscanum Romanorum Pontificum constitutiones, epistolae,

ac diplomata continens tribus ordinibus minorum clarissarum et poenitentium a seraphica sancto Francisco institutis concessa ab illorum exordio ad nostra usque tempora (7 vols, Rome, 1759-1904) and U. Hiintemann and C. Schmitt (eds), Bullarium Franciscanum continens constitutiones epistolas diplomata Romanorum pontificum, nova series (4 vols, Quarrachi,

1929-).

6 A. Lynch (ed.),

‘Documents of Franciscan interest from the episcopal archives of Armagh, 1265-1508, in Collectanea Hibernica, xxxi and xxxii (1989-90), pp 9-102.

7 M. Bihl (ed.), ‘Abbreviatio statutorum tam

papalium quam generalium edita apud Barchinonam in conventu Beatae Mariae de Jesu Familiae Cismontanae de Observantia [1451]’ in AFH, xxxvii (1942) pp 106-97. R. Howlett (ed.), in Monumenta

Franciscana,

(2 vols, London,

1882)

ii.

8 R. Howlett

(ed.), in Monumenta

18

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

a number of other Franciscan texts as well as palimpsest material and marginalia presented here for the first time. The two important seventeenth-century sources from within the Irish Franciscan province are the Brussels MS. 3947 De Provincia Hiberniae S. Francisci of Friar Donatus Mooney? and the Brevis synopsis provinciae

Hiberniae FF. Minorum of Friar Francis O’ Mahony (alias Matthews).!° The former was compiled in Louvain in 1617—18. The compiler, Donatus Mooney, was minister provincial of the Irish friars from 1615 to 1618, and gathered what historical information he could while conducting his visitation of the province. The Brevis synopsis is also the work of another minister provincial and was completed by 1629. Though considerably later than the period covered in this work, both these writers had access to late medieval material which has since been lost. These two texts also form the basis for the Irish entries in Friar Luke Wadding’s Annales Ordinis Minorum which in turn informs Francis Bordoni’s

1658 history of the Third Order.'! An Irish translation of the Brevis synopsis was made between 1632 and 1635 by Friar Maurice Ultach MacShane and this was used by Friar Michael O’Clery as the source for many of the Franciscan entries in the Annals of the Four Masters.!? O’Clery also produced a chronological list of the houses of the Irish province which is of great importance for charting the

progress of the Observant reform movement.!> The works of the seventeenth-century antiquarian Sir James Ware are also particularly valuable as he too had access to a number of sources which have now been lost. The text most frequently referred to in this work is British Library, Additional MS. 4821, in which he frequently quotes from the Codex statutorum Ordinis Minorum in Hibernia. From the surviving references it is clear that this was an Observant production. One of the most important sources is E.B. Fitzmaurice and A.G. Little’s Materials for the history of the Franciscan province of Ireland.'* This is a compilation of Franciscan material drawn from a wide range of medieval records. It is particularly important because many of the original documents were destroyed in the Four Courts fire of 1922. Little continued to annotate his personal copy of the work and this has been consulted in the library of Greyfriars, Oxford. Franciscana, (2 vols, Rolls series, London, 1882) ii. 9 B. Jennings Provincia Hiberniae S. Francisci’ in Anal. Hib. vi (1934), pp 12-138. tertiary, iv (Feb. 1894)-vi (Dec. 1896). 10 B. Jennings (ed.), F provinciae Hiberniae fratrum minorum’ in Anal. Hib. vi (1934),

(ed.), ‘Donatus Moneyus, De Translated in The Franciscan O'Mahony, ‘Brevis synopsis pp 139-91. 11 EF. Bordoni,

Cronologium fratrum et sororum Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci (Parma, 1658).

12 J. O’Donovan (ed.),

Anndla rioghachta Eireann: Annals of the Four Masters from the earliest period to the year 1616 (7 vols, Dublin,

1851).

13 J. Moloney

(ed.), Michedl O Cléirigh, A chronological list of the

foundations of the Irish Franciscan province in Anal. Hib. vi (1934), pp 192-202. 14 E.B. Fitzmaurice and A.G. Little (ed.), Materials for the history of the Franciscan province of Ireland (Manchester, 1920).

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400

The second flowering of the Franciscan movement in Ireland in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is one of the most significant features of the late medieval Irish church. To appreciate it fully it is necessary to see how the legacy of earlier developments, both within the Franciscan Order in general and in the Irish province in particular, influenced the later development of the Irish friars. Two issues are central to any understanding of this: the manner in which disputes over the observance of the vow of poverty within the Franciscan Order found expression in fifteenth-century Ireland and the survival of racial tension between Anglo-Irish and Gaelic members of the Irish Franciscan province.

THE

FRIARS

MINOR,

1223-1517

The inspiration and message of Francis of Assisi can be summed up in the first line of the rule that he drew up for his followers,

The rule and life of the Friars Minor is this: to observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without property and in chastity. It was this practical application of the ideal, particularly in respect of the vow of poverty, that caused the most tension within the Order, provided the ground from which the various reform movements sprang and led, ultimately, to its division.

THE

DEVELOPMENT

OF

THE

DOCTRINE

OF

POVERTY~

It is evident from his lifestyle that St Francis conceived the life of the friars as a perfect imitation of the life of Christ, and he found it difficult to appreciate 1 C. Esser (ed.), Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis (Grottaferrata, 1978), pp 226-7. R.A. Armstrong and I.C. Brady (ed. and trans.), Francis and Clare: the complete works (New York, 1982), p. 137. 2 This section is largely based on M.D. Lambert, Franciscan poverty

19

20

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

that a rapidly expanding group of men would need more than the evangelical counsels for guidance. [t was reluctantly, and under pressure from the friars and Cardinal Ugolino of Segni, the Order’s protector, that he attempted to draw up a rule for the fraternity. This took its final form in the text approved in the Bull Solet annuere? issued by Honorius tt on 29 November, 1223. The other document in which he outlined his vision for the Order was the Testament? he composed shortly before his death in 1226. The 1223 rule formed the basis for Franciscan living. A short document of twelve chapters, it gave few concrete directions to the friars as to how they were to conduct their daily lives. Much emphasis was placed on how the friars should observe the vow of poverty; they were to wear rough clothes which they were to mend with sackcloth. They were never to receive money, either personally or through an intermediary, though allowances were made for a ‘spiritual friend,’ a lay benefactor to procure clothing and look after the material needs of the sick. St Francis expected that the friars would work manually and be paid in kind for their labour; if this payment was not sufficient, they were to beg alms, provided that they did not accept money. They were allowed to have breviaries with which they could recite the office according to the Roman rite. No provision was made for studies, and illiterate friars were told that they should not be eager to learn. It was evident that the life outlined in the rule would cause difficulties for many of the men now entering the Order. Even in the founder’s lifetime the fraternity was being slowly transformed from a predominantly lay organization into a clerical order concerned with preaching, studies, and pastoral work. As long as numbers had remained small the example of St Francis had compensated for the lack of precise regulations, but as it expanded it was clear that this was not enough. It also became clear that the Rule of 1223 was not adequate either. The Testament composed by St Francis shortly before his death in October 1226 soon became a bone of contention as disputes arose over its legal status. In it Francis gave a brief account of his conversion and reiterated points already found in the Rule and his other writings. The points emphasised were: insistence on the importance of manual labour, dependence on casual alms and strict observance of the vow of poverty. Despite his insistence on the nonjuridical nature of the work, he instructed the ministers and custodes to keep the Rule and the Testament together and to read both documents aloud to the friars at the chapters of the Order. Most important however were the two new elements concerning the interpretation of the Rule which he introduced in the Testament. The friars were commanded, under obedience, to obey the Rule (London, 1961). 3 BF, i, pp 15-19; Esser, Opuscula, pp 225-38; Armstrong and Brady, Francis and Clare, pp 136-45. 4 Esser, Opuscula, pp 305-17; Armstrong and Brady, Francis and Clare, pp 153-6.

Reforms and divisions, 1223-1400

|

literally and not attempt to gloss or interpret it.” They were also forbidden to appeal to the pope or the Roman Curia for any mitigation of the Rule.® The problems that had become apparent during St Francis’s life intensified after his death and an attempt was made to address them at the general chapter of Assisi in 1230 when a commission was set up to present the issues to Pope Gregory Ix for clarification. In September 1230 he responded with the Bull Quo elongati' in which he ruled that the Testament did not bind the friars either in conscience or in law; the friars were therefore free to appeal to the Church for an interpretation of the Rule. He also held that the friars were obliged by their vow only to observe those evangelical counsels explicitly mentioned in the text of the Rule and not all those mentioned in the Gospel. The Bull provided for a nuntius, an agent of the benefactors, who would hold all money given as alms to the friars and use it to provide for their needs. The Pope further held that though they were to possess nothing, they were permitted to have the simple use (simplex usus) of any object necessary for their support. The title of buildings and real estate was to remain with the donors, the friars having the right of

occupancy at their sufferance. The Franciscans in Strade, County Mayo, were to learn that this was not a mere legal fiction. Granted a house by Jordan of Exeter, they were expelled in 1252 at the behest of his wife, Basilia de Bermingham,

and the friary given to the Dominicans.® Quo elongati was the first formal attempt to clarify some of the issues troubling the friars. Its decisions were to have far-reaching effects, and the distinction between simple use and dominion which it introduced provided the foundation for the theological and philosophical defence of Franciscan poverty. Its greatest significance however lay not in the issues it dealt with but in the precedent it established; from now on the Order would look to the Holy See and not to the mind of St Francis to interpret the Rule. The next important papal declaration came in 1245 with the Bull Ordinem vestrum? of Innocent Iv. The fifteen years since the issue of Quo elongati had wrought many changes in the Order as the drift from being a simple, lay movement to a more stable, educated and clerical one continued. This growing

clericalization was reflected in Ordinem vestrum by the instruction that ministers provincial or their delegates were only to receive literate candidates as novices. This period also saw the emergence of small groups of Franciscan rigorists in remote parts of Italy such as the Marches of Ancona. These groups, 5 Ibid., Opuscula, pp 315-6; Armstrong and Brady, Francis and Clare, p.156. 6 Ibid., Opuscula, pp 312-3; Armstrong and Brady, Francis and Clare, p. 155. 7 BF, 1, pp 68-70. 8 A. Coleman (ed.), ‘Regestum monasterii Fratrum Praedicatorum de Athenry’ in Archivium Hibernicum, i (1912), pp 204-5. Also C. Mooney, “The Franciscans in County Mayo’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn. xxviii (1958-9), pp 42-3. 9 BF, i, pp 400-2.

HS (SSF

Dp,

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

later known as the zelanti or Spirituals, were to play an important part in the developing poverty controversy. They tended to look back to the example of St Francis and his early followers for their inspiration and viewed with dismay the direction being taken by the Order’s authorities. In terms of the doctrine of poverty this Bull is significant, because the property rights of the goods used by the friars were now vested in the Holy See and not with the donor of the goods as had been the case in Quo elongati. The office of nuntius in Quo elongati was replaced by that of the procurator and the friars, through him, were allowed the use of money for their convenience. Two years later another

Bull, Quanto studiosus,'° gave permission to the friars to appoint and dismiss their procurators at will. This provision, and those of Ordinem vestrum, represented considerable relaxations of the Rule and Quo elongati and alarmed many of the friars. At the general chapter of Genoa in 1251 the ministers of Ireland'! and England sought to abolish the office of procurator. The proposal was rejected but in 1254 the friars decided to suspend both Bulls in the areas where they were more lenient than Quo elongati.

ST

BONAVENTURE

St Bonaventure became minister general at the Chapter of Rome in 1257. Though only thirty-six years old, he had already established a reputation for himself in Paris where, from 1253, he had been master of the Franciscan studium at the university. The secular masters of the university were amongst the friars’ most vocal critics and it is probable that it was Bonaventure’s conduct as an apologist for the Order that drew him to the attention of his predecessor, John of Parma, who nominated him as his successor.

Bonaventure’s first action as minister general was to send a circular letter to all the ministers provincial outlining ten areas where reform was needed.!? These included the ways in which the friars obtained money, their insistent begging, the grandeur of their buildings, their cultivation of the rich and powerful, their squabbles over burials and wills and the general luxury of their lifestyle. His next step was to compile the principal statutes enacted by the Order which he issued at the general chapter in 1260. The new statutes were known as the Narbonne Constitutions!* and consisted of a prologue and two hundred and fifty-five decrees. These were divided into twelve sections taking the form of a commentary on each of the twelve chapters of the Rule, a 10 BF, i, p. 487.

11 Friar John of Kethene.

12 S. Bonaventura,

Opera omnia, (10 vols.,

Quarrachi, 1882-1902) viii, pp 471-2. 13 M. Bihl (ed.), in AFH, xxxiv (1941), pp 37-94, pp 284-337. Bonaventure’s influence is recognised by their inclusion in his Opera omnia, viii, pp

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400

Pk

practice which was generally followed in subsequent legislation. These constitutions superseded all previous ones and provided the norms for subsequent legislation in the Order. The chapter of Narbonne also commissioned Bonaventure to write a new life of St Francis which he presented to the general chapter of Pisa in 1263. This work, known as the Legenda maior, became the standard text for the Order and

all earlier works were suppressed by order of the chapter of Paris in 1266. Bonaventure resigned as minister general at the chapter of Lyons in 1274 and died shortly afterwards. His generalate had transformed the friars and henceforth the typical friar was to be no longer the wandering evangelist who worked in the fields, tended the sick, slept in barns and churches, ... but a member of a religious house, well educated and well trained, a preacher and director

of souls, a man whom the community could respect and whose services would be valued ... It is therefore not without reason that he has been called the ‘second founder of the Order, !* Bonaventure’s other major contribution to the poverty controversy was to provide a solid theological justification for the friars’ mendicancy. Francis and the early friars had expressed their devotion to poverty in terms that were more devotional than academic. This had to change with the start of the disputes with the secular masters of the University of Paris in 1253. The dispute had initially centred on the rights enjoyed by the friars at the university but quickly developed into an attack on the whole mendicant way of life. The chief target for the masters was the friars’ assertion that they were imitating the poverty of Christ and the disciples. Faced with this barrage of scholarly criticism the friars, with Bonaventure as their champion, rapidly developed an intellectual justification for their lifestyle. This apologetic tone colours all of Bonaventure’s writing on poverty, whether written for the instruction of the friars or the defence of the Order, but his classic

exposition was given in the 1269 treatise Apologia pauperum.'> This had been written in response to the Tractatus contra adversarium perfectionis christianae by the secular master Gerard of Abbeville which, in turn, was a reply to the Manus quae contra omnipotentem ascribed to the English Franciscan, Thomas of York. With the Apologia pauperum Bonaventure refuted the critics of the Order and the text continued to be invoked by later friars in their defence. The friars in Youghal acquired a copy of it sometime between 1482 and 1491 and it is possible that this was connected to a dispute with the secular clergy in the ecclesiastical 449-64. 14J. Moorman, A history of the Franciscan Order from its origins to the year 1517 (Oxford, 1968), p. 154. 15 Bonaventura, Opera omnia, viii, pp 233-330.

24

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

province of Cashel over burial offerings.'!© The Apologia also significantly developed the doctrine of poverty first outlined in Quo elongati and it provided the basis for the next major papal interpretation of the Rule, the Bull Exiit qui

seminat'’ issued by Nicholas 1 in 1279. The main difference between Exiit and earlier works lay in it being directed to the church in general and not just to the friars alone. It was intended as a defence of the friars rather than a piece of new legislation and almost everything contained in it had been conceded by previous legislation. With it the friars were given definitive papal approbation, their doctrine of poverty was canonically established and their critics were silenced. The minister general sent a copy of the decretal to all the provinces of the Order with a covering letter urging the friars to observe it faithfully. Those sent to the Irish friars have not survived but it can be assumed that it became normative text for Franciscan life in Ireland from its inclusion, along with a copy of the Rule and Quo elongati, in a manuscript written for the Victorine Canons of St Thomas Court in Dublin at the end of the thirteenth century.!* It would have been the final solution to the friars’ problems except for the growing strength of the Spiritual groupings within the Order and subsequent uncertainty over the precise canonical status of the Bull itself.

THE

GROWTH

OF PARTIES

IN THE

ORDER!??

Four years after Francis’ death, two parties existed, in embryonic form, in the Order. These were those friars (the vast majority) who looked to the papacy to interpret and, if necessary, to mitigate the Rule, and a small group of Francis’ first companions and their disciples, who looked to the Rule, the Testament and the example of Francis for their inspiration. Within the larger group, which came to be known as the Community, there was a further division between those who abided by the Rule and the papal declarations and those who effectively ignored them. These parties, which may be called strict, moderate and lax, grew in strength throughout the thirteenth century. The strict position was exemplified 16 CPL, xvi, p. 79. The Bull is dated 1493 but the dispute appears to be a longstanding one involving friaries throughout the province. 17 BF, iii, pp 404-16. Friar John, minister provincial of Ireland, was a member of the commission which drafted the Bull. 18 TCD, MS. 97; Colker, Latin MSS., Vol. i, pp 183-95. This manuscript does not contain a copy of the Testament of St Francis, unlike TCD, MS. 347 discussed below. 19 This section is based on D. Nimmo:

Reform and Division in the Franciscan

Order (1225-1228)

(Rome,

1987) and D.

Nimmo, ‘The Franciscan Regular Observance: the culmination of medieval Franciscan Reform’ in K. Elm (ed.), Reformbemiihungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spdtmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen (Berlin, 1989), pp 189-206. See also the summary given by K.D. Brown in ‘The

Reforms and divisions,

1223-1400

25

by small groups of Franciscan rigorists in Umbria, the Marches of Ancona and Provence who, by the 1240s, had come to be known as the Spirituals. The

moderate position was the one developed by St Bonaventure in the Apologia pauperum which outlined the intellectual basis of Franciscan mendicancy and refuted the friars’ critics. The third group, the lax, can be traced in the various

attempts at rooting out abuses which characterize the legislation of this period as well as in the increasing standard of living that the friars enjoyed. Thus by the end of the thirteenth century the lines of battle had been drawn. The aims of the reformers were either a return to the standards of the Rule and the papal interpretations (the moderate position) or, less frequently, a return to the prescriptions of the Rule and the Testament (the strict position). The demon against which both groups fought was the laxity of discipline known as Conventualism.

CONVENTUALISM

AND

REFORM

The phenomenon of Conventualism was characteristic of the religious orders

in the fourteenth century.”” In Nimmo’s words it involved a pervasive loss of religious conviction and efficacy by the friars, leading to widespread breaches of discipline, which in turn went so far as to threaten the common life of the Order.*! The friars of the fourteenth century, both as individuals and as a body, had drifted far from the lifestyle envisaged by Bonaventure and even further from the ideals of Francis. Corporate poverty was violated almost as a matter of course; the Order accepted regular incomes from rents, vineyards and legacies. In Ireland and England the friars received annual alms from the king. In the Irish cases the royal alms took the form of grants of money which were frequently paid directly to the guardians of the houses thereby bypassing the office of procurator whose function

was to see that the friars never handled money.”” More serious for the life of the fraternity were the violations of poverty on an individual basis. By the end of the

Franciscan Observants in England 1482-1559’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1986), pp 1-19. Erickson,

‘The fourteenth-century Franciscans and their critics’ in Franciscan

(1975), pp 107-35; xiv (1976), pp 108-47; Moorman, History, pp 339-68.

20°C.

Studies, xiii

21D. Nimmo, ‘The

Franciscan Regular Observance’, p. 190. 22 The Irish payment rolls in the Public Record Office, London, between 1327 and 1376 give the names of 15 guardians of Dublin, 2 of Wicklow and | each of Clonmel and Kildare. Annotation in A.G. Little’s copy of FL (Greyfriars library, Oxford), p. 228.

26

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

thirteenth and throughout the fourteenth century the friars took for granted private ownership of goods which they acquired from legacies, family or friends or in return for services rendered: in 1285 and 1286 Friar Stephen Dexter, a member of the Irish Province, was paid 40 shillings for his expenses in coming

to England on the king’s business.** The effect of this on the Order was the disintegration of the common life and, in some provinces, it led to the emergence

of a class of friars, the fratres indigentes, who were genuinely poor because they lacked the contacts or resources of their better connected confréres. Side by side with this general decadence was a renewed interest in the life of Francis and the early friars. The significance of this was that the vitae and legendae in circulation were not the official ones written by Bonaventure in 1260 but ones emanating from the circle of Francis’ first companions.”4 These companions had been dismayed by the direction the Order took so soon after Francis’ death and their example was a factor in the growth of the Spirituals in Italy. Their writings were profoundly reformist in tone and circulated widely in the Franciscan world. There is some evidence that this reformist literature circulated in the Irish province: TCD, MS. 347, a late thirteenth-century compilation associated with Friar Stephen Dexter, contains, inter alia, the letter of

Francis to the whole Order, the praises to be said before the Divine Office and

before the Office of the Virgin Mary, and the Testament. It also contains prophecies by Joachim of Fiore, the Calabrian abbot whose works had a profound effect on the Spiritual Franciscans.” It is also interesting that the one Franciscan text in British Library, Harley MS. 913, compiled c.1330 in the south-east of Ireland, is an account of the assurance given by God to St Francis

that some of the friars at least would remain loyal to their vocation.?°

PEERS

EVRA TEAS

In the course of the thirteenth century the Spirituals changed from being groups of simple friars, notable chiefly for their rigour and eccentricity, to being a significant pressure group within the Order. This transformation was effected by a number of very intellectually competent leaders, most notably Hugh of Digne, Peter of John Olivi, Angelo Clareno and Ubertino of Casale. 23 FL, pp 53-4. In 1299 Friars Richard and John of Ireland between them brought one hundred and thirty shillings of forged money into England. The king restored it to them ‘out of reverence for God and St Francis’. Annotation in A.G. Little’s copy of FL (Greyfriars library, Oxford), p. 71. 24 Their survival is significant as the 1266 Paris General Chapter had ordered all previous writings about Francis to be destroyed. Bonaventure’s official version, with its somewhat sanitised treatment of the poverty issues, became the official vita. 25 Colker, Latin MSS., i, pp 737-8. 26 The text is from Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, BL, Harley. MS. 913, f. 43b.

Reforms and divisions, 1223-1400

P|

In 1294 an ill-fated effort was made to accommodate them by Celestine v, who gave them permission to live the Franciscan life according to the Rule and Testament under the title ‘Poor Hermits of Pope Celestine.’ After his abdication his successor, Boniface vill, presided at the general chapter of Anagni in 1296 at which the friars elected John of Murrovalle, a man of strict life but with no

sympathy for the dissidents, as minister general. The Poor Hermits/Spirituals exacerbated the situation by maintaining that Celestine v was still the true pope and Boniface a usurper. The charge of usurpation was taken up by some of the more extreme followers of Peter of John Olivi in Provence and to it was added the charge of heretic against those popes who upheld the various interpretations of the Rule. In 1310 Pope Clement appointed a commission to investigate the charges made by the Spirituals against the Community. This found in favour of the Community but Ubertino of Casale began attacking the Order anew and urged the erection of reformed houses and reform provinces. The friars of the Community opposed this and the matter was resolved by the

Bull Exivi de paradiso.”' The decree failed to reconcile the two factions and the Spirituals became more vocal and obdurate in their views. In 1318 four of them were burned to death at Marseilles for heretical views on papal authority. Further incidents led to the repudiation by John xxi in 1322 of the papacy’s

role as proprietor of Franciscan goods.** This had the effect of turning the friars into holders of considerable assets. A further development occurred in

1323 when the doctrine of the poverty of Christ was condemned.”? These actions annulled the whole canonical and rested and alienated both the Spirituals evidence of Spiritual activity in Ireland Spiritual leader Peter of John Olivi in the

doctrinal basis on which the and the moderates. There but a strong denunciation Annals of Inisfallen in 1311

Order is no of the shows

an awareness of the broader issues affecting the Order.*”

THE

FRIARS

AND

THEIR

CRITICS

The criticism of the friars which emerged in Paris in the mid-thirteenth century became much more trenchant in the fourteenth and many of the most vocal and influential critics were Anglo-Irish clerics whose views were based on their experience of the friars in Ireland, Oxford and at the papal court in Avignon. The most influential of these was the archbishop of Armagh, Richard Fitzralph, whose campaign against the friars between 1350 and 1360 was the 27 BE v, pp 80-6. 28 With the Bull Ad conditorem canonum, BF, v, pp 233-46. 29 In the Bull Cum inter nonnullos, ibid., pp 256-9. 30 Sean Mac Airt (ed.), The annals of Inisfallen

(Dublin, 1951), p. 411.

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

28

last sustained attempt to seriously question their right to exist. Though it was unsuccessful Fitzralph came to be regarded as the patron of subsequent antimendicant activists and his writing continued to circulate widely in the fifteenth

and sixteenth centuries.°! A copy of his most important anti-mendicant works is preserved in Lambeth Palace, MS. 357, written for the Augustinian canons of Duleek in Meath in the mid-fifteenth century.

THE

EMERGENCE

OF

THE

REGULAR

OBSERVANCE

The laxity of observance which characterised the friars in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in turn caused a reaction and small groups of friars tried to find ways of living the Franciscan life in its pure form. In 1368 an Italian friar, Pauluccio of Trinci, was granted permission to live the unadulterated Franciscan life in the hermitage of Brugliano near Foligno in Umbria. This was the first attempt at Strict Observance not to be suppressed either by the Order or the papacy. In the course of the fifteenth century it was transformed by the presence of Bernardine of Siena and John Capistran and adopted the standpoint of the Moderate Observance: attempting to live the Franciscan Rule as interpreted by

the papal declarations.** Reform groups sprang up elsewhere in the Order as spontaneous local reactions to Conventualism. In France two such groups arose: one at Mirebeau in Touraine before 1390 and the other at Corbie in 1407. In Spain the movement appeared independently in each of the Order’s three provinces: 1392 in Santiago, 1394 in Castile, and 1402 in Aragon. In Ireland the reform appears, again as a spontaneous movement, before 1417. The first house was founded in 1433 when the friary of Quin was founded by MacCon

MacNamara for the Friars Minor of the Regular (Moderate) Observance.*? Hitherto such reform groups had been crushed or forced out of the Order. Their emergence within its ranks caused a constitutional problem; how were they to be administered so as to protect their lifestyle while remaining under the jurisdiction of their unreformed superiors? The Italian Observants had to depend on the goodwill of their Conventual superiors for their survival. As

31 K. Walsh, A fourteenth-century scholar and primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), pp 349-451, gives the most comprehensive and accessible account. The literature on the conflicts between the friars and their critics is vast, but both C. Erickson,

‘The fourteenth-century friars and their critics’ in Franciscans Studies Xxxv (1975), pp 107-35,

and xxxvi (1976), pp 108-47, and H. Lippens, ‘Le droit nouveau des mendiants en conflit avec le droit coutumier du clergé séculier du concile de Vienne a celui de Trente’ in AFH xlvii (1954),

pp 241-92, provide important general surveys. 32 The chief significance of the Italian Observance is that its pedigree can be traced, through the Spirituals, back to the circle of Francis’

first disciples. It provides the best example of the resilience of their ideals.

33 BFNS, i, p. 560;

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400

29

they were chiefly an eremitical group and ‘out of the way’ of the unreformed majority, this did not initially cause a problem. The problem arose with the

Observant friars of Mirebeau in France.*4 As long as the movement remained in one house it received the support of the Conventual provincial and friars of the province. After 1404 however it began to expand by founding new friaries and taking over old ones. The unreformed friars responded with such hostility that the reformers were compelled to appeal for protection to Pope Benedict xm. In Bulls issued in 1407 and 1408*> he released the reformers from obedience to their unreformed brethren and gave them a hierarchy of their own; provincial vicars and a vicar general to act as a representative of the minister general amongst them. The council of Constance confirmed this position for the Observant friars in 1418. There was strong opposition to this decision from the Conventuals but also from some of the Observants. The other French reform group, that centred

on Corbie around the figures of St Colette and Henry of Baume, refused to accept this new arrangement, believing that it violated another important principle of Franciscan life: the vow of obedience. Thus from 1418 onwards a further division amongst the Observants emerged: those who believed that some form of independence from the Conventuals was necessary to promote reform and those who believed that it was wrong to attempt such reform except from within an undivided Order. In their attempts to get the concessions to the former group rescinded, the Conventual friars held up the latter group as examples of how the strict Franciscan life could be lived under Conventual auspices. Even those reformers who accepted the independence that the new system of vicars gave them hoped that the whole Order would one day be reformed. Their hopes seemed to be realised at the general chapter at Assisi in 1430 when all the delegates took an oath to observe the reform statutes that had been drawn up by the Observant leader, John Capistran. These reform decrees, called the Martinianae after Pope Martin v who had summoned the chapter, would have satisfied the reformers while preserving the unity of the Order. Within a few weeks many of the chapter delegates, including William of Casale, the minister general, had been absolved from their vow. Various attempts were made by the Conventuals to have the decision of the Council of Constance quashed but on each occasion they were defeated.*° The Conventuals showed themselves unwilling to adopt a standard of living acceptable to the reformed friars and the Observants were unwilling to give up the independence which they felt was necessary for the success of their AM, x, p. 526; CPL, viii, p. 487 omits the phrase ‘Regular Observance’. 34 Nimmo, ‘The Franciscan Regular Observance’, pp 198-200. 35 BF, vii, pp 329-30, 343-4, 349-51, 359-60. 36 It was also raised at the Council of Basel. See C. Schmitt, ‘La Réforme de |’ Observance

discutée au Concile de Bale’ in AFH, Ixxxiii (1990), pp 369-404, and Ixxxiv (1991), pp 3-50.

30

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

movement. As the century progressed and the Observants increased in numbers the prospect of any sort of re-union became more and more remote. After the failure of the 1430 reform attempt of John Capistran and Martin v there was little enthusiasm on the part of the papacy for any more efforts. An attempt by Eugene IV in 1443 to have the popular Observant, Albert of Sarteano, elected minister general of the united Order failed and the pope set about preparing the Order for division by establishing a network of Observant vicariates. This arrangement was made permanent with the 1446 Bull Ut sacra.*’ The Observants were to hold triennial general chapters of their own for their cismontane and ultramontane members, at which each was to elect a vicar general to govern them. Though these were subject to confirmation by the minister general, provision was made for automatic confirmation by the Holy See: the minister general had no real authority over the reformers. The Observants lost no time in establishing their own administrative and legislative structure. The ultramontane friars adopted their own general statutes, the Abbreviatio statutorum, at the general chapter held in Barcelona in 1451. As the title suggests, these were an abbreviation of the previous legislation and provided the reformers with a clear set of norms for the conduct of their lives.

The collection of texts written in 1482 for the Observant house of Adare*® contains an annotated copy of these constitutions as well as the Bulls Quo elongati, Exiit qui seminat and Exivi de Paradiso. The Adare compilation is a particularly valuable one, giving details of the daily life of the friars and showing that they were in contact with the developments in the Order as a whole.*? Individual vicariates adopted their own statutes to legislate for more local matters but only fragments of this legislation have survived from Ireland. Ut sacra was not to be the definitive solution to the problem, as the Conventuals refused to accept the division of the Order and sporadic attempts were made to reunite the factions. In 1456 Calixtus III, with some help from the Observant leader James of the Marches, made a short-lived attempt with Illius cuius*® (optimistically called the Bulla concordiae) to increase the power of the minister over the Observants. Sixtus Iv, himself a Franciscan, tried to reunite the Order on the basis of his 1471 Statuta Sixtina but this initiative gave way under pressure from the kings and princes of Europe who opposed any attempt to undermine the Observants’ position.

37 BFNS, i, pp 497-500. 38 Bodl., MS. Rawl. C. 320. R. Howlett, (ed.), Monumenta Franciscana, Rolls Series (2 vols., London, 1858-82), ii, pp 81-119. 39 References to the office of vicar provincial of the Observants in their copy of the Abbreviatio statutorum have been corrected to read ‘minister provincial’. This correction could only have been made after 1517

when control of the Order was transferred to the Observants.

40 BFNS, ii, pp 68-71.

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400

3]

The last serious attempt to reunite the Order was made in the early years of the sixteenth century at the behest of two men: Giles Delfini (minister general,

1500-1506) and the Coletan friar, Boniface of Ceva. In 1500 they published a set of reforming statutes called the Alexandrina after Pope Alexander vi. These were intended to form the basis of a moderate reform of the Order and its reunification but in fact had very little success, managing to alienate further both the Observants and the Conventuals. Pope Julius 11 was left with the task of dealing with the hostility that the efforts of Delfini and Boniface had generated. As a former Cardinal Protector of the Order he was sympathetic to the needs of the Friars and responded by issuing a confirmation of the Observants’ privileges and by summoning, in 1506, a capitulum generalissimum in Rome to try and effect a reconciliation. Delfini had hoped that reunion along the lines of his reform programme would be accepted and that he would be re-elected minister general of a reunited Order. Instead he witnessed the repudiation of his efforts and calls for his resignation, the most vocal of which came from the Irish Conventual provincial and Scotist, Maurice O’ Fihely.*! Though the chapter failed to reunite the friars, it did have two significant consequences. The Pope, seeing that the friars were incapable of setting their house in order, began preparations for the division of the Order. In June 1506 he issued two Bulls: Religio sancta minorum and Cum multa et graves,” to deal

with the situation. The second significant consequence was that the Conventuals decided to set up another commission to reform the statutes under Boniface of Ceva. These statutes, known as the Statuta Juliana, were promulgated in 1508 but

had little effect and were revoked and replaced by the Alexandrina in 1510. The final solution to the friars’ problems was found during the reign of Pope Leo x. The immediate stimulus for it was the large number of representations which the pope received from various rulers and bishops concerning the strife between the two parties. These were set before a commission of friars and cardinals in 1516 who recommended that a permanent division of the Order be made. The pope still hoped that the unity of the Order could be restored and, to that end, summoned another capitulum generalissimum to meet in Rome at Pentecost 1517. This hope was dashed almost as soon as the chapter opened. The Observants and the other reform congregations meeting at Ara Coeli, the Franciscan headquarters in the city, successfully petitioned that they not be compelled to openly associate with the Conventuals on account of their violation of the rule. When it was pointed out to them that the rule expected 41 For Nicholas Glassberger’s account and the events leading up to Delfini’s deposition, see Glassberger, Chronicle, pp 538-44. It is possible that Glassberger was present at this chapter. 42 AM, xv, p. 313.

Be

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

them to live under one head they replied that they were willing to do this, provided that the minister general and all the Order accepted reform. The Conventuals were unwilling to be coerced into a position that would involve the loss of the privileges they had been granted by the Holy See. The election of the new minister general was committed to the Observants and the representatives of the other reform congregations and Christopher Forli, the vicar general of the cisalpine Observants, was elected. The following day the Bull /te vos in vineam meam* was read to the chapter delegates. It embodied the recommendations of the commission of cardinals and,

though described as the Bulla unionis, effected the formal division of the Order. The Observants were to absorb all the other groups of reformati and were to be known as the Order of Friars Minor and officially recognised as the legitimate successors of St Francis. The ministers general and provincial and all other officers of the Order were to be elected from their ranks and the vow of obedience was to be made to them. The Conventuals refused to accept the jurisdiction of the Observants, withdrew from the chapter and elected their own minister general. The Pope initially refused to recognize this election but

on 12 June, with the Bull Omnipotens Deus,“ reconstituted the Conventuals as a separate order. Their superiors were to be called masters general and were obliged to seek confirmation of their election from their Observant counterparts. The decision of Leo x gave formal recognition to the reality which, to varying degrees, had divided the Franciscan Order since the thirteenth century. The power of the Conventual ministers general over the Observants had been a mere token since the early fifteenth century but the appearance of unity was an important one for them. Among the Observants there were those who had hoped that their presence would lead to a reform of the entire Order but the Conventual positions proved too entrenched. The decision represented a victory for the Observants and a vindication of their position. The Church recognised as the true heirs of St Francis those of his followers who followed the Rule as interpreted by the three fundamental papal interpretations. The unreformed friars were allowed to continue but with considerable loss of prestige. The rigorists, for whom even the Observant standpoint was too lax, had continued to press for the right to live according to the Rule and Testament of the founder throughout the period. In 1528 their persistence bore fruit and the Capuchin reform was recognised as a distinct entity.4 Thus in the space of a decade the three standpoints on Franciscan living resulted in the threefold division of the Order, a division that has continued to the present day. 43 AM, xvi, pp 42-8. 44 AM, xvi, pp 51-4. the Capuchin reform (New York, 1986).

45 T. MacVicar, The Franciscan spirituals and

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400 THE

The chronology and obscure. The province with the appointment mission to England in

FRIARS

IN

33 IRELAND,

1230-1400

development of the early Franciscans in Ireland is was established in 1230 by the general chapter of Assisi of Richard of Ingworth, a pioneer of the Franciscan 1224, as its first provincial minister. It seems likely that

the friars were active in Ireland before this, and various arrival dates between

1214 and 1230 have been put forward.*° The most persistent tradition among the Irish friars is that the friars arrived in Youghal in 1224 and that the province expanded from there.*’ This tradition was strongest amongst the Observant reformers of the late fifteenth century, as all the sources quoted by Sir James Ware in support of it emanate from them.*® The Youghal friary was the residence of the Observant provincial vicar in 1490 and the tradition may in fact have originated with the reform as a way of enhancing their prestige. Another tradition, first recorded in 1587 and accepted and developed by the Irish Franciscan historians of the seventeenth century, is that the province owed its origin to a companion of St Francis who crossed over from Compostella in

northern Spain and founded a number of houses during the saint’s lifetime.4” The tradition of an early establishment by a companion of Francis (and perhaps at his instigation) would have been a source of pride to the Irish friars, particularly the Observants, who prided themselves on their fidelity to Francis and his rule. It is interesting to note that a similar attitude prevailed amongst the seventeenthcentury Irish Dominicans whose desire to trace their origins to St Dominic led to the legend that a letter from him to an O’ Donnell chieftain was preserved in their priory in Derry until its suppression.~° In the changed political situation of the seventeenth century it may have been more attractive to belong to a province that owed its origins to Spanish intervention than to one that had been founded from England. 46 For an analysis of the sources see Cotter, Friars, pp

11-16.

47 D. O’Sullivan, ‘Youghal, the

first house of the Friars Minor in Ireland’ in J. O’Callaghan (ed.), Franciscan Cork (Cork, 1953),

pp 28-33.

48 ‘Youghi!l fundatorem habuit Maur. Geraldin’, An. 1224. Vid Stat. ord. minorum

in Hibernia et lib. de Kilconnill. Is obiit 1257. Vid. lib. conv. de Athdare.’ BL, Add. MS. 4821,

f. 101. AFM, iii, p. 217, gives the same information, but without the sources. 49 ‘This province of Ireland, though it does not lack antiquity, produced no other province in the Order, but had as its founder one of the companions of the seraphic father Francis, who, crossing thither from Compostella, built some monasteries in the island and at length died there with the greatest reputation for holiness’. F. Gonzaga, De origine Seraphicae Religionis Franciscanae, iii (Rome, 1587), p. 845. Trans. in FL xi. ‘Brevis synopsis’, pp 181-2, gives 1214 as the date of his arrival and adds that he was buried in Youghal. See also ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 15, and AM, 1, p. 203. 50 J. O’Heyne, Epilogus chronologicus, A. Coleman (ed.), (Dundalk, 1902), p. 2; quoted in J. G. Flanagan, ‘The arrival and formative development of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in Ireland with particular reference to the Observant reform’ (MA thesis, UCC, 1947), pp 55-6.

34

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400—1534

Williams, in her study of the Anglo-Irish Franciscan annals, supports an early date for the friars’ arrival.>! She points out that considerable number of Irish delegates at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 would have been aware of Dominican and Franciscan movements whose emergence had been discussed by the Council fathers. It is impossible to know whether there was any contact between the Irish delegates and the friars, but the awareness gained at the Council may have facilitated the rapid expansion of the friars in Ireland. She suggests that the friars first arrived c.1224 and that they were sufficiently well established to warrant the erection of a province in 1230. This provides a useful hypothesis as to how knowledge of the friars may have reached Ireland and may partly explain the readiness of thirteenth-century Gaelic cathedral

chapters to elect friars to bishoprics.** Cotter regards the Spanish connection and the proto-friary in Youghal as probable inventions of the fifteenth-century Observants. The ready acceptance of this tradition by seventeenth-century writers was, he holds, because they themselves belonged to the Observant wing of the Order. He argues in favour of Dublin being the first house to be founded because this would be more in keeping with the pattern of settlement and expansion that characterised contemporary Franciscan activity in England, as well as being in line with the policy adopted by the other mendicant orders. The Dominicans established their first Irish house in Dublin in 1224, the Augustinians c.1280. Expansion from Dublin rather than Youghal would also explain some of the peculiarities of the development in Ireland, particularly the foundation of Athlone in the midlands c.1239 and the late date of the house in Cashel, seat of the metropolitan in Munster, in 1265—70.°? Though plausible in a number of respects, this theory lacks contemporary support and dismisses all subsequent traditions. The fact that Dublin is the first house for which a contemporary record survives (a grant of alms for repairs by Henry i in 12334) and its preeminence on the earliest list of the friaries in Ireland to have survived are by no means conclusive, and the question must still be regarded as open. Notwithstanding the confusion over the exact date of their arrival, it is clear that the early friars shared in the experience of rapid expansion common to the Order throughout thirteenth-century Europe. There is contemporary evidence for foundations in Athlone, Carrickfergus, Castledermot, Cork, Downpatrick, Drogheda, Dublin, Dundalk and Waterford by 1250, and it is likely that a number of other important houses, such as Nenagh and possibly Ennis, were 51 B.A. Williams, ‘The Latin Franciscan Anglo-—Irish annals of medieval Ireland’ (Ph.D. thesis,

University of Dublin, 1991), pp 25-77.

52 Cotter, Friars, pp 132-42; but especially W.R.

Thomson, Friars in the cathedral: the first Franciscan bishops, 1226-1271

pp 137-48.

53 Cotter, Friars, pp 12-17.

54 FL, pp 2-3.

(Toronto,

1975),

Reforms and divisions, 1223-1400

b's)

also founded by that date. By 1263-70 the province had twenty-two houses, by 1282 there were twenty-seven and in 1325 the first wave of expansion peaked with the province numbering thirty-two houses. These were named for

the first time in a list compiled for the general chapter at Perpignan in 1331>° and the next list to survive, compiled in Ragusa in 1385, gives the number of

friaries as thirty-five.>° The expansion of the province shows the signs of a mission staffed by Englishmen and it is not surprising that the friars went first to the towns of the Anglo-Irish colony. Their urban apostolate and shared social and linguistic affinities with the colonists made this the logical course of action. Their arrival also coincided with a period of economic prosperity and geographical expansion for the colony. This made the friars particularly attractive to patrons who were often anxious to found a house of mendicants in their newly established boroughs in order to attract settlers and to cater for the spiritual needs of the burgesses. The presence of a house of friars was thought to enhance the status of a settlement and this had a number of important consequences for the friars; as well as supplementing the ministrations of the local secular clergy, they were expected to uphold the authority of the local lord and the king in their sermons and so to preserve the integrity of the colony in the areas they covered in their preaching tours. The founding and the patronage of friaries by Anglo-Irish nobles and the granting of annual royal alms thus had a pragmatic political significance as well as a spiritual one. This symbiotic relationship between the friars and secular rulers was a common one

in border areas in Europe in the thirteenth century.>’ The fall-off in the number of new foundations between 1325 and 1400 occurs at the same time as the decline of the colony in the face of bad harvests, warfare, plague and the Gaelic resurgence of the fourteenth century. Gaelic Ireland was a rural society and was less attractive to the mendicants who were chiefly dependent on the alms of town-dwellers for their support. Cotter observes that of the sixty-nine houses of the combined mendicant orders founded in Ireland before 1300 all but eight were located in the main

towns or manors of the colony.>* Unlike some of the other mendicants>? the Franciscans did not confine their apostolate or recruitment to the colonists but

55 FL, pp 133-4.

56 FL, pp 163-4.

57 J.B. Freed, “The friars and the delineation of state

boundaries in the thirteenth century’ in W.C. Jordan et al. (eds.), Order and innovation in the

middle ages: Essays in honour of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton, 58 Cotter, Friars, p. 186.

1976), pp 31-40, 425-8.

59 The Augustinians did not establish houses among or recruit from

Gaelic Ireland until the emergence of their Observant movement in the early fifteenth century. See F.X. Martin, ‘The Augustinian friaries in pre-Reformation Ireland (1280—1500)’ in Augustiniana vi (1956), pp 346-84, and particularly pp 356-7.

36

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

penetrated into Gaelic Ireland on preaching and questing tours and gradually won support from Gaelic patrons as well; the O’ Briens of Thomond founded the friary in Ennis sometime between 1240 and 1282 and the MacCarthys were generous benefactors of the friaries in Cork and Timoleague. It was not until the fifteenth century however and the emergence of the Observant movement that any widespread expansion occurred in Gaelic Ireland.

THE

EMERGENCE

OF

RACIAL

TENSION

IN

THE

IRISH

PROVINCE®%

For a period of roughly fifty years the Irish Franciscans enjoyed a period of peace and stability. There is no evidence for any tension within the Order during this period; on the contrary, every indication is of harmonious relations between the two races. The anonymous English member of the Irish province who compiled his Liber exemplorum sometime between 1275 and 1279 confirms this impression. Writing about Thomas O’ Quinn, the Franciscan bishop of Clonmacnois (1252-78), he describes him as ‘a good man, faithful and learned’®! and proceeds to give an account of the efficacy of his preaching. O’ Quinn had been the custos or regional superior of the Drogheda custody in 1252 and the presence of a Gaelic friar as custos in a stronghold of the AngloIrish colony suggests that racial tension and questions of loyalty were not yet

problems.°* However

as the friars became

more

integrated into their

environment the awareness of difference between native and colonist became more pronounced and the friars began to align themselves with their respective ethnic groups. The first indication of tension in the Irish province occurs in a letter of Nicholas Cusack, Franciscan bishop of Kildare (1279-99), to King Edward I written sometime between 1283 and 1299. The text is mutilated, but he reports hearing from magnates and other trustworthy men assembled for the assizes in Dublin that The peace of the land is frequently disturbed by the secret counsels and poisonous colloquies which certain religious of the Irish tongue, belonging to diverse orders, hold with the Irish and their rulers.®

60 Cotter, Friars, pp 31-50. See also J.A. Watt, The Church and the two nations in medieval Ireland (Cambridge,

1970); The Church in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1998): and ‘The Church

and the two nations in late medieval Armagh’ in W.J. Shiels and D. Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History, xxv (Oxford, 1989), pp 37-54. Also C. O Maonaigh, ‘Cinfochas agus ndisitinachas’san eaglais in Kirinn, 1169-1534’ in Galvia, x (1964-5), pp 4-17. 61 Lib. ex., pp 85-6. 62 FL, pp xx, 18. 63 FL, Dae

Reforms and divisions, 1223-1400

37

He adds that these meetings result in unrest in the land as these religious tell the kings and their subjects to fight and attack the English conquerors, taking and keeping their possessions without fear of any ecclesiastical sanctions as this was in keeping with divine and human law. The next evidence of concern about the Franciscans comes in a report on the organisation of the exchequer in Dublin in 1285.4 One of the complaints was that the Dominicans and Franciscans were granted money at the audit of accounts without any writ or warrant and that they ‘made much of the Irish language’. The sympathies of one Anglo-Irish friar are evident from a writ of 1286 addressed to the treasurer of the Exchequer in Dublin ordering payment of forty shillings to Friar Stephen Dexter to cover his expenses in coming to England to expound affairs to the king. This friar is almost certainly the compiler of the Annals of Multyfarnham whose work shows him to have had an excellent knowledge of contemporary political affairs. The alleged deaths of sixteen friars at the hands of their confréres at a provincial chapter in 1291 is one of the most frequently cited and infamous examples of racial tension within the Irish province and the medieval Irish church.® Cotter’s study is the first to subject the sources for this incident to critical scrutiny. The two sources for this incident are both from English Benedictine chronicles. The annals of Worcester Abbey record that on 10 June, 1291,

there was held a general chapter of the Friars Minor at Cork in Ireland, to which the Irish brothers came armed with a certain Bull. Contention arose over this Bull and they fought with the English and many were killed and wounded to the scandal of the Order until finally the English

with the help of the town prevailed.°° Bartholomew of Cotton in his Historia Anglicana also records the incident and gives the number of deaths: The minister general of the Order of St Francis, making visitation throughout the whole world came to Ireland to visit there and in his general chapter, sixteen brothers with their brethren were slain, several were wounded and

some more were imprisoned by action of the king of England.°’ There are a number of problems with these texts: the Bull which the Worcester chronicle refers to has never come to light,°8 and both sources come from English Benedictine monasteries and reflect the contemporary anti-mendicant 64 FL, p. 53. Friars, p. 34.

65 For references see Cotter, Friars, p. 191, note 19. 66 FL, p. 64. Trans. Cotter, 67 Ibid. 68 TCD, MS. 250 contains, inter alia, fifteenth-century transcripts of

38

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

bias of the black monks. They have been shown to be unreliable in their accounts of foreign events and the Historia Anglicana account of the incident occurs as an insertion in a much later hand in only one of the four surviving manuscripts of the text. Most puzzling of all is the complete silence of the Irish sources about it. Both the author of the Kilkenny chronicle,” writing within a few years of

the alleged incident, and Friar John Clyn”’ give a two-word reference to the ‘capitulum Cork’. Whereas it is possible that both writers prefer to pass over a painful event in the province’s history in silence, this seems unlikely in the case of Clyn who records later instances of racial tension in the province. The general chapter of the friars in Paris in 1292 makes no mention of the incident in its legislation; a significant omission as the minister general, Raymond Gaufredi, conducted a visitation of the Irish province in September 1291 and, according to the Historia Anglicana report, was actually present at the

gathering.’! What is clearly mistaken is the frequently expressed view that the provision in the Bull Exivi de paradiso reserving the appointment of the minister provincial of the Irish Franciscans to the minister general was a direct result of this incident. From its foundation the Irish province was one of three provinces which, for reasons of their distance from the central administration of the Order and the difficulty of conducting visitations, had their provincial minister appointed by the minister general. The provincials however were always English or Anglo-Irish friars, which may indicate sensitivity on the part of the ministers general to the issue of race relations.’? The province did not gain the right to choose their own provincial until the mid-fifteenth century and the election of the Gaelic friar, William O’ Reilly. The most significant event in polarising the Irish friars along racial lines was the invasion in May 1315 of Edward Bruce, brother of Robert I, king of Scotland. The friars did not escape the hardship that followed Bruce’s army: in June 1315 the Scots destroyed the friary at Dundalk and killed the guardian

and twenty-two other friars.’* The following September Edward II wrote to Edmund Butler, the justiciar, instructing him to inquire into the activities of Gaelic clergy and friars whose presence among the English in Ireland was

perceived as a threat to security.’4 The friars were still a cause for concern in 1316 when Edward wrote to the minister general, Michael of Cesena, urging

forty-seven thirteenth-century papal Bulls relating to the Franciscans. It is the unique source for a number of Bulls relating to the Irish friars, but contains no contentious material. See Colker, Latin MSS, i, pp 442-8. 69 R. Flower (ed.), ‘The Kilkenny chronicle’ in Archivium Hibernicum ii (1931), pp 330-40. Reference is on p. 333. 70 Clyn, Annals, p. 10. 71 Cotter, Friars, pp 33-8. In this important reassessment of the Cork chapter, Cotter believes it unlikely that the incident occurred at all, but a greater analysis of the sources for the Worcester chronicle and the Historia Anglicana needs to be done before any definitive conclusion can be drawn. 72 Ibid..

38-4.

73 FL, p. 220.

74 Ibid., pp 94-5.

Reforms and divisions, 1223—1400

39

him to correct those friars who had been actively supporting the Scots. The king indicated that one of his informants on the activities of the Gaelic friars was Thomas Godman, the minister provincial, which indicates the degree to

which the province had been divided.’> Similar representations were made to the Holy See and in April 1317 the newly elected Pope John xxii wrote to the archbishops of Dublin and Cashel condemning those members of mendicant

orders who incited the Gaelic population to rebellion.’ The views of the Gaelic Irish found expression in the strongly worded Remonstrance of Donal O’ Neill presented to John xxii in late 1317.’’ This was an apologia for supporting Bruce and rejecting English rule and it also detailed the offences suffered by the Gaelic population at the hands of the Anglo-Irish. In dealing with the offences of Anglo-Irish churchmen he singles out a member of the Drogheda Franciscan community, Simon le Mercer, who had asserted that it was no more a sin to kill an Irishman than to kill a dog and that

he himself would not even hesitate to celebrate mass after so doing.’* Though the immediate crisis caused by the Bruce invasion came to an end with the defeat and death of Edward Bruce at the battle of Faughart in October 1318, the aggravated racial animosity remained. In 1324, in response to charges made against the friars by Edward 11, John XXII established a commission to investigate the Irish province. The pope appointed the dean of St Patrick’s cathedral, William de Rodierd, as the judge delegate and his findings were announced to the provincial chapter held in Dublin in April that year.’? The commission found that the loyalty of eight communities®? was suspect and instructed that the Gaelic members of these communities were to be distributed throughout the other houses of the province. No Gaelic friar was to be appointed guardian or lector in any of these houses except Claregalway and Galway, and Gaelic friars were forbidden from ever holding the office of minister or vicar provincial. A month later de Rodierd had to clarify his decision. Four other houses were allowed to have Gaelic guardians and, along with Claregalway and Galway, these were to form the nucleus of the Gaelic custody of Nenagh. A final prescription instructed that the communities should be mixed racially and the bishops of Ossory, Waterford and Connor confirmed this.8! The impact of these decisions is borne out by Clyn who, writing in 1325, records that

75 Ibid., pp 98-9.

76 Ibid., p. 100.

77 E. Curtis and R.B. MacDowell (eds) /rish historical

documents: 1172-1350 (London, 1943), pp 38-46. 78 Ibid., p. 43. 79 NLI, D. 679; Ormond deeds, i, pp 240-2; trans. pp 238-9. 80 Ardfert, Athlone, Buttevant, Claregalway, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Nenagh. 81 The bishop of Ossory was Richard Ledrede, who ruled the diocese from 1317 to 1361. See A. Neary,‘Richard Ledrede: English Franciscan bishop of Ossory’ in Butler Society Journal, 11 (1984), pp 273-82.

The Franciscans in Ireland,

40

1400-1534

There was discord, as it were universally, among all the poor religious of Ireland, some of them upholding, promoting, cherishing the part of their own nation, and blood and tongue; others of them canvassing for the offices of prelates and superiors. He also adds that at the general chapter held at Lyons that year the friaries of Ardfert, Buttevant, Cork and Limerick were transferred from the control of the

Irish friars to that of the English with the erection of the custody of Cork.* Further evidence for unease over the activities of the Gaelic section of the province came in 1327 when the annual royal alms to the Athlone friary were transferred to the friars at Cashel because the former house had no English friars. This indicates that the racial integration ordered by de Rodierd had not

been strictly followed.*° The Black Death (1348-9) marks a watershed in all aspects of the history of the Irish Franciscan province. Those hardest hit by the plague were the friars in the towns of the Anglo-Irish colony. According to Friar John Clyn, the communities in Dublin and Drogheda lost twenty-three and twenty-five friars respectively before Christmas 1348, which probably constituted the majority of each community. The Gaelic friars, dwelling chiefly in rural areas, were less affected, though it should be noted that the chief source for this period, the Franciscan Annals of Nenagh, records only the deaths of office holders during the plague and it is likely that the deaths of many other friars went unrecorded.*4 The colony had experienced an economic recession in the first part of the fourteenth century and the devastation wrought by famine and pestilence

further accelerated its decline.®> Incidents of racial tension between the friars decline noticeably for the rest of the century as the Anglo-Irish friars shared in the loss of confidence and insecurity of their secular counterparts. The number of new foundations fell drastically during the period with only three new houses being established; two of them within the territory of the Gaelic custody of Nenagh, the third on the Isle of Man. The Nenagh custody had been established as a way of curtailing the influence of the Gaelic friars within the province. In the aftermath of the plague however it was the first section of the province to recover and best placed to expand as its boundaries included all the Gaelic territories of Ulster and Connacht, areas not previously colonised by the friars. As the Anglo-Irish colony declined so Gaelic Ireland enjoyed a period

82 Clyn, Annals, p. 17; trans., p. xxii. 83 The loyalty of the Athlone friars remained suspect for many years; deprived of alms in 1327, they were restored to favour in 1334, but were again deprived in 1354 in favour of the Wicklow friars. FL, pp 129, 136, 145. 84 D.F. Gleeson (ed.), ‘The Annals

of Nenagh’

pp 160-61.

85M. Kelly, A history of the Black Death in Ireland (Stroud, 2001), pp 91-149.

in Archivium

Hibernicum,

xii (1943), pp 155-64.

Reference

on

Reforms and divisions, 1223-1400

4]

of expansion and economic prosperity in the second half of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century. Significantly it was this territory that saw the emergence of the Observant reforms of all the mendicant friars, the growth of the Third Order Regular and even an expansion of the Conventual Franciscans from the beginning of the fifteenth century.

as Developments in Ireland, 1400—60

Previous studies of the Irish Franciscans have concentrated almost exclusively on the emergence and development of the Observant friars. Though these were the most prominent group in the sixteenth century and the most influential in the post-Reformation period, this emphasis has eclipsed the achievements of the Conventual or unreformed friars who also underwent a significant expansion in the fifteenth century. This situation has arisen for a number of reasons, of which the most important is that very few records have survived from the Conventual section of the province. Writing in 1618, Friar Donatus Mooney recorded that the official documents of the Conventuals had been lost and that he was therefore only able to give the names of a few of their superiors and houses.!' Despite their expansion in Gaelic areas in the fifteenth century, the centre of gravity of the Conventuals remained in the areas under Anglo-Irish control and these friaries were the first to be dissolved, with the consequent dispersal or destruction of archives and records. Another significant factor in the eclipse of the Conventuals is that nearly all subsequent writers of Franciscan history either belonged to the Observant tradition or wrote from an Observant perspective, as Fr Canice Mooney, OFM, the most influential modern writer on this period, demonstrated in 1955: Without bias or partisanship it has to be stated that in this country the palm went to the Observants. Never was there such a successful and fruitful reform movement as this. It inaugurated a new and glorious epoch in the history of the Franciscans in Ireland ... The Friars Minor of today with their headquarters at Merchants Quay, Dublin, are the legitimate and juridical successors of those men and have maintained unbroken continuity with them from generation to generation. The present minister provincial is in direct line of succession from the first vicar provincial of the Observants elected in 1460, and a complete list of all the holders of the office to this day is available to us.” 1 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 19.

2 Terminus, xi (Jan—Feb. 1955), pp 5-6.

42

Developments in Ireland, 1400-60

43

Despite Fr Canice’s initial disclaimer, it is clear that the rivalry between the two Franciscan traditions, which in modified form persists to the present day, has affected subsequent historiography. Unlike other European countries where both branches of the Order continued to exist, the extinction of the Irish

Conventuals in the seventeenth century left no one to redress the balance. The absence of scholarly interest in them meant that their activities in the late medieval period were effectively sidelined. This rivalry between the various branches of the Franciscans has tended to establish artificially clear distinctions between different groups of the Order in Ireland in the late middle ages. This projection of such relatively modern concerns onto the activities of the friars in late medieval Ireland does not square with the surviving evidence, as it appears that there was little actual difference between the lifestyles of the Conventuals and the reformed friars. Confirmation of this comes from Donatus Mooney’s statement that he had found nothing about the practices of the Irish Conventuals which was repugnant to the ideals of the Observants, with the exceptions of a small number of houses which

owned lands and enjoyed fixed incomes. The simplicity of their lives and their fidelity to the vow of poverty made it easy, in his opinion, for them to adopt the

Observant reform.?

CONVENTUAL

EXPANSION,

1400-85

In 1414 Pope John xxii instructed the bishop of Clonfert, Thomas O’Kelly, to license the foundation of three Franciscan friaries.* Two of these, at Meelick and probably Kilconnell, were in his own diocese; the third, at St Mullins in

Ferns diocese, does not appear to have been established. These were the first houses to be established by the Irish friars since the foundation of Bymacan on the Isle of Man in 1373° and the first to be established in Ireland since they had taken over the abandoned Carthusian monastery at Kinalehin (also in Clonfert

diocese) in 1371.° The presence of three Franciscan friaries in Clonfert, one of the smallest of the Irish dioceses, was to have far-reaching consequences. All but one of the 4 FL, p. 177; BF, vii, p. 482; CPL, vi, p. 467. 5 J.K. 3 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 18-19. Barratt, ‘The Franciscan friary of Bymacan’ in Journal of the Manx Museum, vi (1964), pp 203-13. The initial community numbered twelve friars and the patron was William Montague, earl of Salisbury. The church was consecrated in 1373. There are no references to further 6 There is disagreement over the relations between the Manx friars and their Irish confréres. date of foundation of Askeaton, Co. Limerick. FL, p. 170, identifies it as the ‘Inisgrebyny’ mentioned in a 1400 papal indult of Boniface 1x on grounds of the similarity between it and Inis Geibhtine, the Irish form of Askeaton. ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 157 gives c.1420 as the date of

44

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

bishops of the diocese between 1405 and 1534 were mendicant friars and while not all of them were resident, the bishop of Clonfert was one of the ecclesiastics most frequently cited to execute Bulls in favour of the friars during this period. Nor were the Franciscans the only reformed mendicants operating in the diocese in this period. In 1414 a house for Observant Dominicans was established at Portumna, the Franciscan Regular Tertiaries were established at Clonkeenkerrill c.1435 and the only Irish house of Dominican Tertiaries was founded at

Kilcorban in 1446.’ The founder of Meelick was Breasal O’ Madden® and the O’ Maddens appear to have been the principal patrons of the house. In 1445 war and disturbance had so impoverished the friary that it was threatened with ruin and the friars lacked even the basic texts and vessels for celebrating the liturgy. In response to a petition by the guardian and community, Pope Eugene Iv granted an indulgence to all who contributed to the restoration of the house. The community is referred to as being sub regulari observantia, indicating that the friars followed a reformed lifestyle while remaining under the jurisdiction of the Conventual authorities.” The Observant reform proper was introduced in 1479 at the instance of the

O’ Madden chieftain. !° Kilconnell was almost certainly founded in 1414 by the lord of Ui Maine, William O’Kelly, whose death in 1420 was recorded in the obituary book of

the community.'! Earlier foundation dates are possible but not likely, and the date 1353 given by the Four Masters is certainly too early as the house does not figure on any of the surviving fourteenth-century lists.!? Different dates in the 1460s are given for the introduction of the Observant reform, which seems to have been done at the behest of the local lord.!? In 1442 Eugene Iv granted an indulgence to those who contributed to the repair of the friary at Gahannyh in Cork diocese and who helped furnish it

with other requirements.'+ This has been identified as Goleen near Mizen Head in west Cork but apart from this one reference nothing further is known of this foundation and James Ware concurs in TCD, MS. 579, p. 467, giving James Fitzgerald, earl of Desmond, as founder.

7C.N. O Clabaigh, ‘The mendicant friars in the medieval diocese of

Clonfert’ in C. Cunniffe and J. Higgins (eds), Aspects of Clonfert and its vicinity (forthcoming). 8 BL, Add. MS. 4814, f. 7v. 9 FL, p. 197; CPL, ix, p. 470; BFNS, i, p. 890. The BFNS text is the only one that refers to the house being sub regulari observantia, though the editor confuses Meelick with Multyfarnham. 10 For the later history of the friary see PE. MacFhinn, Milic (Dublin, 1943), pp 4, 8-14. 11 ‘Fundatus circa anno 1400 per D. O’Kelly cuius obitus his verbis describitur in libro eiusdem conventus: 3 cal. nov. 1420 obitus Wm Magnus Ykelly, omnium Hibernicorum suo tempore nominatissimi ac principalis istius conventus fundatoris,’ BL, Add. MS. 4821, f. 105v. The date 1400 seems to be a conjecture of the compiler, as Ware in BL, Add. MS. 4814, f. 6v gives the same founder but the date 1414. 12 AFM, iii, p. 603. 13 For an architectural description see F.J. Bigger, ‘The Franciscan friary of Kilconnell’ in Galway Arch Soc. Jn., i (1900-1), pp 145-67.

14 FL, p. 196; CPL, ix, p. 249.

Developments in Ireland, 1400-60

45

foundation, and nothing remains on the site. An unusual feature is that the founder appears to have beena friar, Donal O’ Scully, and not some local lord, though it is possible that, given its location, it was patronised by the O’ Driscolls, O’Sullivans and MacCarthys, all of whom established other houses for the Franciscans in their territories in the fifteenth century. Details about the foundation and early years of the friary at Stradbally are also very scarce and it has frequently been confused with other friaries and religious houses.!> O’ Mahony in the early seventeenth century gives c.1447 as the date of foundation and an O’More as the founder.'® There is no record of it becoming Observant and it is likely that it remained Conventual until its dissolution c.1568. In 1453 Nicholas v, at the request of the Irish provincial William O’ Reilly, instructed the Franciscan bishop of Clonfert, Cornelius O’Cuinnlis, to license

the foundation of three or four new friaries in the ecclesiastical province of

Tuam."” The letter indicates that the friars had already been offered the parish church of St Patrick in Elphin by the Franciscan bishop of the diocese, Cornelius O’ Mullally, with the consent of the canons of the chapter, the clergy and the people of the parish among whom Tomaltach MacDermott was specifically mentioned. The new foundation was also granted lands and was freed from pastoral responsibilities and from all taxes. Nothing further is known of the activities of the friars in Elphin, but it is clear from obituary references in the Annals of Connacht and other sources that they enjoyed the patronage of the chief families in the locality. Perhaps the most significant of these were the O Maoilchonaire (Conrys), a hereditary learned family of historians and poets, who were to have a long association with the friars.!* In 1464 Lochlainn O Maoilchonaire was buried in the Elphin friary and in 1468 Torna O Maoilchonaire, ollamh of poetry and history, was also buried there.!° The friary did not accept the Observant reform and remained Conventual until its suppression in 1563, and the Observants were only introduced when a community was re-established there in 1632.7° In the same year as the foundation of Elphin, David O’ Mulkerrill received papal permission for the transfer of the house of the Franciscan tertiaries at Clonkeenkerrill to the Friars Minor.’! It is possible that this was connected to the permission to accept or found other friaries addressed to the bishop of

15 MRH, p. 259. 16 ‘Brevis synopsis’, pp 157-8. 17 CPL, x, pp 641-2; BFNS, i, p. 848, gives fuller account with details of the exemptions granted to the friars. See also C. Giblin, ‘The Franciscans in Elphin’ in Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society Journal, ii (1988), pp 23-9. 18 Friar Flaithri O Maoilchonaire (71561-1629), translator of Desiderius or Sgdthdn an Chrdbhaidh (Louvain, 1616) was a member of this family. 19 Ann. Conn., pp 519, 541. 20 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 202. 21 CPL, x, pp 649; BFNS, i, pp 844-5.

46

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

Clonfert mentioned above, as Clonkeenkerill is also in Clonfert diocese. This

transfer seems to have been the cause of great tension between the friars and the regular tertiaries and will be treated more fully in the chapter on the Third Order.

DECLINE

OF

THE

ANGLO-IRISH

CONVENTUALS

By 1460 the Observant vicariate was fully established in Ireland and a large number of houses either transferred to or were founded for the reformers. The period between

1460 and 1471, as will be shown in the next chapter, was

marked by heightened tension between the Conventuals and Observants. Disagreement focused on the transfer of houses from one jurisdiction to the other rather than on divisions over the observance of poverty. In 1469 two remarkable papal Bulls show the extent to which the Conventuals had declined in the Anglo-Irish custody of Dublin; in April Paul 1 gave permission to the Observant friars to occupy certain Conventual houses without incurring ecclesiastical censure and to continue to follow the Observant lifestyle there on condition that they transferred from the authority of the Observant vicar

provincial to that of the Conventual minister.” In August the custos and friars of the custody of Dublin were granted permission to receive friars from other custodies to make up numbers.” Perhaps linked with this crisis is a letter of Sixtus Iv issued in October 1471 to Tadhg O’ Donoghue, the Conventual minister provincial, instructing him to reform certain houses under his Jurisdiction. The letter indicates that the practice of the minister general appointing the Irish provincial has been observed, and the tone in which O’ Donoghue is instructed to reform the houses as well as the injunction that the friars are to obey him under pain of excommunication suggests that serious issues had arisen among the Irish friars. Unfortunately there is no definite

indication what this crisis was.**

CONVENTUAL

EXPANSION

IN

GAELIC

AREAS

This decline of the Anglo-Irish section of the Conventual province and the spread of the Observance has overshadowed the fact that the Conventuals continued to flourish and expand in Gaelic Ireland. The Annals of Ulster record the foundation of the friary at Monaghan by Felim MacMahon, king of 22 CPL, xii, pp 332-3; BFNS, ii, pp 763-4.

23 CPL, xii, p. 709; BFNS, ii, p. 787. The 24 BFNS,

significance of both these developments will be discussed fully in the next chapter. Iv, pp 19-20.

Developments in Ireland,

1400-60

47

Oriel in 1462.7° Along with the thirteenth-century foundation in Armagh, it is the second house Donatus Mooney specifically identifies as an important Conventual foundation.”° By 1466 a friary had been established at Bantry in the diocese of Cork. It is possible that this was founded on the strength of a licence granted in 1449 to Donatus Omabba (O’Mahony), though this proposal, as will be shown below, presents certain problems. In the early seventeenth century Sir James Ware gave 1460 as the date of foundation and Dermot O’Sullivan of Beare as founder.*’ According to O’Mahony the Observant reform was introduced during the provincialate of Friar David Hiarlaighy (O’ Herlihy) who was provincial from 1521-24 and again from 1530 —33. This suggests that it was initially a Conventual foundation. His date

of 1320 for the foundation is certainly too early.?8 In 1471 a house for Conventual friars was founded at Galbally in the Glen of Aherlow by Aunfrun

O’Brien.”? Despite being sacked the following year,” the friars remained until their dispersal in 1540 and there is no record of them adopting the Observant

reform.*! The presence of the friars in Roscrea by 1477 is indicated by a colophon in Lambeth Palace Library, MS 46. This is a copy of the edition of canon law texts known as the Clementinae copied by Rodericus Olachtain, prior of the Augustinian monastery of Lorrha, in 1477, the year in which the friars went on a drunken spree in Roscrea, destroying their own new friary, the church of St Cronan and the castle of John O’Carroll. The phrase ‘fratres minores congregaverunt apud Roscreg’ suggests a large gathering: perhaps a provincial chapter. As well as its entertainment value, the reference to the participation of William and Eugene O’Carroll (almost certainly related to the O’Carroll whose castle was destroyed) perhaps hints at the active involvement of the Franciscans in secular politics.** Donatus Mooney gives the founder as Mulrony O’Carroll and quotes as his source an inscription in the cloister of the

friary.°? O’ Mahony gives the same founder and 1490 as the date*4 and Ware credits Bibiana O’ Carroll, wife of Mulrony, as the founder.*> O’Clery says that the house was founded c.1490 for Observants** but Donatus Mooney is clear 25 AU, Ill, p. 207. 26 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 19. 27 BL, Add. MS. 4814, f.4v. 28 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 156. O’Herlihy became provincial in 1521, ibid., p. 168. 29 BL, Add. MS. 4814, f. 5v. See MRH, p. 250, for other sources. 30 AFM, iv, p. 1070. 31D. O Riain, The Moor Abbey, Galbally: the Franciscans in the parish of Galbally and Aherlow (1992). 32 Lambeth Palace Library, MS. 46, f. 127a. in Montague Rhode James & Claude Jenkins (eds), A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Lambeth palace (Cambridge, 1937), p. 63. 33 The text is given in BL, Add. MS. 4821, f. 106r, “Claustrum ea extructus [sic] 1523 Orate pro anima Molrony: f: Joh: Carroll qui fuit D. Eliae et princeps Hiberniae tunc anno 1523 qui me fieri fecit.’ This may indicate that Mulrony built a section of the cloister and not the whole friary, but see MRH, p. 258. 34 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 160. 35 BL, Add. MS. 4814, f. Sv. 36 “Brussels

MS. 3410’, p. 200.

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

48

that the community remained Conventual until its dissolution, and records an encounter he had with a former inmate which confirms this.*’ The last foundation to be made for the Conventuals was near Killeany on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran islands. O’ Mahony dates its foundation to 1485 but gives no information about the founder.*® It was still Conventual in 1506 when Julius 1 gave the friars permission to keep forty cows to supply

them with milkmeats.°?

THE

EMERGENCE

OF

A

REFORM

MOVEMENT,

1417-60

The emergence of various reforming currents in the Irish province between 1417 and 1460 is indicated by occasional references to foundations which, though formally under Conventual auspices, were described as houses of ‘regular observance.’ The earliest evidence for such a reform movement comes from a late source, Francis O’ Mahony, the seventeenth-century provincial and chronicler. In a passage that has hitherto gone unremarked, he points to the existence of a reform-minded group from before 1417: I gather that this province of the Order of Minors in Ireland was governed, according to the system of the Seraphic institute, by ministers provincial from the year 1239 from this historical account in an ancient codex: In the year of the Lord 1239, Br Simon was made minister of Ireland, and from that time on others took his place in continuous succession, according to custom. There were never wanting those eager for their manner of life and rule and [who] even encouraged others in regular discipline, although in other parts of the world, the Order underwent some distress. Timidly nevertheless, on account of the power of others, until the year 1417, in which time, greater in heart and numbers, they withdrew from the more relaxed discipline and exhorted and attracted many others to the pure observance of the rule, though still under the government of the ministers provincial. In 1458 Fr Nehemias O’ Donoghue, a man of austere and holy life, led by zeal for religion, went to the Roman general chapter and explained to the general prelates the case of those friars in the province who were eager for the purity of the rule, and was appointed vicar provincial of Ireland over the said brothers (who from the complete and pure observance of the rule are called the friars of the family of the 37 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 75-6. Also A. Gwynn and D. Gleeson, A history of the diocese of Killaloe (Dublin, 1962), pp 493-8. 38 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 161. 39 MRH, p. 242.

Developments in Ireland,

1400-60

49

Observance). Being delayed somewhat in France, he did not reach the

province until the year 1460 ... 4° The source quoted has not survived and no clue to its provenance is given in the passage used by O’Mahony. It was clearly the work of an Observant author, but contained material compiled before the establishment of the Irish Observant vicariate in 1460 and with access to sources relating to the early years of the province. The Friar Simon mentioned as minister provincial in 1239 does not occur in any other account, and Friar John of Kethene is known to have ruled the province from 1239 to 1254. These limitations notwithstanding, this passage is highly significant as it shows the existence of a reform movement before 1417. From the evidence presented in the first chapter for the circulation of reformist literature amongst the friars at the end of the thirteenth century and the differing opinions over the Spiritual movement in the fourteenth, it is possible that this reform grouping drew on a tradition of dissent or dissatisfaction with the observance of poverty within the Irish province. Two other points are significant: firstly, the Irish reform movement was contemporary with similar indigenous reform movements that had sprung up in France and Spain and secondly, the movement was, until 1458 or 1460, a sub ministris one, that is one which, though

following a reformed lifestyle, remained under the jurisdiction of the unreformed Conventual authorities. This latter point is very important in understanding the development of the reform in Ireland. The Observant reform as an independent entity first appeared in 1458-60 with the appointment of the first vicar provincial, and its establishment marked a period of rapid expansion for the reformers in Ireland. As has been demonstrated earlier, a number of Conventual houses were founded during the same period and the reform sub ministris did not die out with the establishment of the Observant vicariate. The Franciscans were not the only group to undergo reform in fifteenthcentury Ireland. The Augustinian Observants established their first foundation at Banada, Co. Sligo, in 1423 and the reform numbered eight houses in 1517.4! The Dominican Regular Observance may have been established in Drogheda by 1390 but Portumna (1414) and Longford (1420) were expressly founded for the reformers. Later developments are obscure but a distinct Observant

congregation had emerged by 1503 which was confirmed in 1518 and 1529.

40 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 165. 41 F.X. Martin, ‘The Irish Augustinian reform movement in the fifteenth century’ in J. Watt, J. B. Morall and F.X. Martin (eds), Medieval studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S.J. (Dublin, 1961), pp 230-64. 42 T.S. Flynn, The Irish Dominicans, 1536-164] (Dublin, 1993), pp 1-11. Also useful but somewhat dated is J.G. Flanagan, ‘The formative development of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Ireland, with special reference to the Observant reform’ (MA thesis, UCC, 1947).

50

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

There is also some slight evidence for a reform movement

amongst the

Carmelites in the middle of the fifteenth century.** The emergence from 1425 of groups of Franciscan tertiaries living in a community will be discussed in chapter four. The earliest contemporary mention of a house for reformed Franciscans, Quin in the diocese of Killaloe, occurs in 1433 in a Bull of Eugene Iv granting permission to MacCon MacNamara to found a house for the Friars Minor sub

regulari Observantia. It is possible that this refers to a re-foundation for the reform group, as there are a number of earlier dates given for the foundation. In the seventeenth century Friar Luke Wadding believed that it was established

before 1350* and O’Mahony and O’Clery both give 1402 as the year of foundation and Sioda Cam MacNamara as the founder.*© The Four Masters also give 1402 for the foundation, Sioda Cam as founder and state that it was founded as a burial place for him and his people.*” Ware also gives Sioda Cam as founder and says that his tomb was still extant in the friary.4° The 1433 Bull itself, as reproduced by Wadding in the Bullarium Franciscanum, seems to support this view as it refers to MacCon’s commission as being de novo fundare. The application of the term ‘Regular Observance’ to the house is more a recognition of the lifestyle of the friars there than an indication of any particular constitutional position. Quin remained under the jurisdiction of the Conventuals until it was officially dissolved in 1541 and did not become Observant until a community

was reconstituted there in 1612.4” The foundation of Quin is the first concrete expression of the indigenous reform movement outlined above. Nothing is known of the lifestyle of the friars in the community or how it differed from that of the rest of the province. Given the date it is possible that the community may have followed the reform statutes known as the Martinianae promulgated by John Capistran at the 1430

Assisi chapter.°° Either possibility explains how a community of reformed friars could remain under the jurisdiction of the unreformed authorities in Ireland. In any case Quin, unlike the friary at Muckross, does not seem to have played any major part in promoting reform, of whatever hue, in the Irish province.

43 P. O’Dwyer, The Irish Carmelites (Dublin, 1988), pp 67-9. 44 BFNS, i, p. 58; AM, x, p. 526; CPL, viii, p. 427 omits any mention of Regular Observance. 45 AM, viii, p.48. 46 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 157, and “Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 196. O’Mahony indicates that it may have been founded a little before 1402.

47 AFM, iy, p. 775. Sioda Cam’s death is recorded in 1406, ibid.,

p. 791. 48 BL, Add. MS. 5521, f. 110v. 49 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 202. O’Clery however admits that the reform may have been introduced there at an earlier period. 50 On this see A. G. Little in FL, p. xxxii.

Developments in Ireland,

1400-60

Sl

As with Quin, the early chronology of the friary at Muckross (or Irrelagh)

is somewhat obscure.?! The Four Masters, along with O’Mahony>2 and O’Clery,>* give 1340 as the foundation date. Ware gives the founder as Donal, son

of Tadhg MacCarthy in 1440*4 and later states that he restored it in 1468, the year of his death.>> The earliest contemporary reference occurs in a 1468 Bull of Paul 1 which granted an indulgence for buildings that had been begun twenty years earlier.°° This ties in closely with Ware’s information and gives the period 1440 to 1448 as the most likely date and the one accepted by modern scholars. Katherine Walsh suggests that the confusion arose through O’ Mahony, the source for O’Clery and Wadding, misreading 1340 for 1440,

as all three give the same founder as Ware.>’ The 1468 Bull describes the community at Muckross as having lived a life of penance and strict observance under their guardian, Richard Chilvart, the

first of the reformers to be known to us by name from a contemporary source. This, as we shall see, causes some difficulties, but again it appears that the reference to strict observance means that the friars led a reformed lifestyle, either following statutes enacted by themselves or those adopted by the 1430 Assisi chapter, as they did not join the Observant vicariate and remained, like Quin, subject to Conventual governance until they were dispersed in 1587. O’Clery gives 1609 as the year when the house became Observant and from O’ Mahony we learn that this was due to the policy of repossessing abandoned houses followed by Friar Maurice Dunleavy during his provincialate (1609-12). The non-participation of Muckross in the Observant reform under the vicars is particularly noteworthy as the community seems to have produced, in the person of Nehemias O’ Donoghue, the Irish province’s first Observant vicar provincial and a strenuous advocate of that reform. O’ Donoghue’s association with Muckross is based, somewhat tenuously perhaps, on the strength of his surname and the association of a Friar Nehemias with Friar Richard of Ireland in the 1460 Bull, who may have been the Richard Chilvart mentioned above. The O’ Donoghues were the pre-eminent family in the area around Muckross and we may assume that they were patrons of the community, as both

O’ Mahony’ and O’Clery™ say that it was their family burial place. Muckross 51 B. Jennings, ‘The Abbey of Muckross’ in Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Journal, 45 (1940),

pp 79-84;

K. Walsh,

‘Franciscan

friaries in pre-Reformation

Kerry’ in Kerry

Archaeological and Historical Society Journal (1976), pp 16-31; I. Fennessy, “Guardians of the east road at the west end of the world’ in Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society Journal

(1996), pp 16-31.

52 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 156.

53 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 196.

54 BL,

Add. MS. 4821, f. 106. Also TCD, MS. 579, p. 447. Ware’s source was the ‘liber Do. Fihely’.

Donal O’Fihely was a late fifteenth-century scribe. 55 FL, pp 191-2. 56 BFNS, ii, pp 733-4; AM, xiii, p. 645 (see also p. 498). 57 Walsh, ‘Franciscan friaries’, pp 27-9. 58 ‘Brevis

synopsis’, p. 156.

59 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 196. O’Clery records the burial there of the

52

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

would have been an obvious choice for a member of the family entering the religious life. It should be noted that the 1460 Bull refers to ‘Friars Richard and Nehemias of Ireland’ and does not give their surnames. It is a combination of the information given in the papal letters with that of the seventeenthcentury chroniclers that allows us to advance this hypothesis. The most obvious difficulty is to explain how Richard Chilvart, if it was he, appears to advocate the Observance under the vicars in 1460 and appears as guardian of a reformed house under Conventual jurisdiction in 1468. Evidence from surnames also provides a difficulty in that the same community may also have produced one of the Irish Observants’ greatest opponents, Tadhg O’ Donoghue, who was the Conventual minister provincial in 1471. The first contemporary mention of Nehemias occurs in 1460 when, along with a Friar Richard, he was granted permission by Pius 1 to reform four

houses for the use of the Observants. He was at that stage a relatively young man, possibly not much older than twenty-five, the minimum age set for chapter delegates. O’ Mahony, writing in 1629, states that he attended the general chapter of the Observants in Rome in 1458 and, en route home, spent two years with the French Observants learning their customs. From his subsequent activity as vicar provincial in Ireland it is clear that the Observants with whom he came in contact in France were the Mirebeau group and not the Coletans of Corbie living under the Conventual authorities. It seems that Nehemias went to the 1458 Chapter as a product of an indigenous reform movement and returned a zealous promoter of

the Observant reform under the vicars. He is described as the first vicar of the Observants by O’ Mahony, O’Clery and the Four Masters and ruled the vicariate for a year and a half. According to O’ Mahony, he was noted for the austerity and sanctity of his life and enjoyed a considerable reputation as a preacher. Friar Donatus Mooney gives the same information and adds that he died on 14 May 1500, and quotes to this effect a lost chronicle or necrology of the friary at Adare.®! Though nothing further is heard of O’ Donoghue after his term of office expired, it is probable that in the forty years before his death he exerted considerable influence on the development of the new vicariate. In 1449 Nicholas v, at the request of Fineen O’ Driscoll, mandated Jordan Purcell, bishop of Cork, his dean, and a canon of Ross to license and to found

a friary in his territory in honour of God, St John the Baptist and St Francis.°? O’Sullivan Mor and the two O’Donoghues: a possible reference to two branches of the family who patronised the friars. AFM, iii, p. 567 gives the same information but under the year 1340. 60 “Brevis synopsis’, p. 166. 61 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 107. 62 BFNS, i, no. 1331. CPL, x, p. 202, while giving a reference to another mandate to the same officers for the foundation of a friary at the request of Donatus Omabba (O’ Mahony?), makes no reference to the Observance or the vicar general.

Developments in Ireland,

1400-60

a3

This is probably a reference to the friary at Sherkin Island, though it is possible that this was not put into effect for some time as the next reference to the friary occurs in 1460-2 and the founder is given as Florence O’ Driscoll. The significance of the 1449 licence is that it explicitly states that the friars are to be under the jurisdiction of the Observant ultramontane vicar general. This is the earliest reference to the Observant movement proper in Ireland but it appears that nothing came of this concession until 1460 and the emergence of Nehemias O’ Donoghue as first vicar provincial. Notwithstanding difficulties of place and chronology, it is obvious that his career marked a watershed in the development of the Observants. The seventeenth-century chroniclers hail 1460, the date of his return, as ‘the year of the Observance,’ in the words of O’ Mahony: 1460,which in the old manuscripts is called the first year of the reformation, not because before that there were not many reformed friars, but because

from then entire convents were frequently reformed and new convents distinct from the others were built for the Observance. From that year therefore the Conventual fathers, called ‘of the common life’, were ruled

by their superiors and the true friars of the Observant family were ruled

by their vicars provincial. The figures bear out the truth of this assertion; between 1460 and 1536 ten new houses were founded for the Observants and twenty-eight out of a total of forty-eight Conventual houses adopted the reform.

THE

REFORM

IN

THE

WEST

OF

IRELAND

The emergence of a reform group in the western dioceses of Killala, Achonry and Elphin in the 1450s provides a complicating factor in tracing the Observant movement’s development. As shown earlier, the diocese of Clonfert

was at the forefront of increased Franciscan activity in the first half of the fifteenth century and this may have influenced developments in the neighbouring bishoprics. These dioceses were strongholds of the Augustinian Observants and the evident support for reformed religious amongst the clergy and laity there seems to have proved attractive to reformed Franciscans as well.™ The fact that the bishop of Elphin was the Franciscan Cornelius O’ Mullally (1449-68), and the bishop of Killala was Donatus O’Connor (1461-7), a Dominican of Rathfran, may also be significant. A house for Observants was founded at 63 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 165. 64 C. Mooney, “The Franciscans in County Mayo’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn. xxviii (1958-9), pp 42-69.

54

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

Moyne in Killala some time during the reign of Nicholas v (1447-55) and probably in response to a Bull licensing such a foundation, or foundations, in one or all of the three dioceses issued in April 1450.© It is probable that the friars intended to follow the lifestyle of the Observants while remaining under the jurisdiction of the Conventuals, like Quin and Muckross, and it is possible that Moyne is the house to which Richard and Nehemias referred when they said that in only one place was the Observance lived in its purity. Sometime before August 1460, and independently of the actions of Nehemias O’Donoghue on the continent, the friars in Ireland became aware of the privileges that had been granted to the Observants. Hitherto they had been under the immediate rule of the Conventual minister provincial but on learning that they were entitled to place themselves under the jurisdiction of the ultramontane vicar general they had assembled at Moyne and had elected Malachy O’Cluban (O Clumhdin) as their first vicar provincial. The friars then became aware of a provision of Calixtus 1 forbidding the transfer of houses from one branch of the Order to another and petitioned the pope for clarification. The incident was excused on grounds of the ignorance of those so far removed from the papal court and the election of O’Cluban and the attendant privileges of the Observants were confirmed: The Pope confirms the said election and all the consequences thereof, and declares that they, the friars of the said convent and province, present and future, shall remain under the Vicar General ultramontane and live according to the papal provisions and common rite of the Observants, notwithstanding the pope’s said letters and those of any of his predecessors or the

statutes or customs of the said Order, and any other things to the contrary. The election of O’Cluban meant that, for a short period, the Irish Observants

had two vicars provincial and there is no indication of how this problem was solved. O’Cluban, as the candidate elected by the friars and confirmed by the pope, would appear to have had the stronger case, yet apart from this one reference in the papal letters, nothing further is heard of him. Nehemias O’Donoghue appears to have been accepted as the legitimate officer and the list of Observant vicars begins with him.

WILLIAM

O’ REILLY

The period of expansion that the Irish Conventual or unreformed friars underwent corresponded with the provincialate of the first Gaelic provincial,

65 BENS, ii, p. 431. 66 CPL, xi, pp 583-4.

Developments in Ireland,

1400-60

BH

William O’ Reilly. We are unusually well informed about him, partly because of his activities in founding new houses and protecting the rights of the friars, but principally because of the controversy which surrounded his appointment as provincial.°” Nothing is known of his early years: his surname suggests a Breifne (Cavan/Leitrim) origin, though there is no surviving reference to him in any of the O’Reilly genealogies. It is possible that he may have begun his religious life in the friary at Cavan which had been founded by the O’Reillys in the early fourteenth century and which was the only Franciscan house in O’Reilly territory. He is described as both an inceptor and professor in theology, which suggests that he had studied in Oxford.

On 26 June, 1445, he was granted a letter of denization by King Henry v1.°° Since the enactment of the statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 this had been necessary for any Gaelic cleric wishing to minister in any area of the Anglo-Irish colony. The letter also gave permission for him to be advanced to any office in the Order, including that of provincial and it seems likely that it was issued in retrospective confirmation. O’ Reilly soon encountered stiff opposition from the Anglo-Irish section of the province; on 10 September, 1446 Eugene Iv issued a letter to the archbishop of Tuam and the bishops of Clonmacnois and Clonfert to investigate O’Reilly’s petition for confirmation in office.°? From the letter it is clear that O’Reilly had been appointed by the minister general, Anthony Rusconi (1443-9), rather than elected by the provincial chapter which suggests that the practice of the minister general appointing the Irish provincial was still the norm in the mid-fifteenth century. It is also clear that those who opposed O’ Reilly had access to earlier legislation forbidding the appointment of Gaelic friars to the position of minister provincial and the survival of such legislation from the fourteenth century has already been noted in chapter one. The letter also refers to how the Gaelic friars were more numerous and vigorous than the Anglo-Irish, a point confirmed by the extent of the friars’ expansion into contemporary Gaelic territory. The choice of judges is also interesting; the archbishop of Tuam was John de Burgo, an Augustinian, the bishop of Clonmacnois was John O’ Daly, a Franciscan, and John White, a former Franciscan provincial, was bishop of Clonfert. On grounds

of either race or their mendicant backgrounds, all of these are likely to have been favourable to O’Reilly’s case and he seems to have been confirmed in office until 1448. This did not stop the opposition and, according to Wadding, many guardians rebelled against his authority and brought the case to the attention of the king who appealed to Pope Nicholas v. The pope appointed Robert Power, 67 For an account of the earlier part of his career see G. Mac Niocaill, ‘Uilliam O Raghallaigh, O.F.M. in Irisleabhar Maighe Nuadhat (1961), pp 47-9. 68 FL, pp 198-9. 69 BFNS, 1, p. 507; FL, pp 199-200. It is not included in the CPL.

56

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

bishop of Lismore and John Cantwell, dean of Cashel, to examine the case (again the choice of judges is significant, both were Anglo Irish) and in the interim the province was governed by David Carrewe and Nicholas Walsh.’° The 1454 papal letter restoring O’ Reilly to power indicates that he did not attend the trial and was deposed from office with Gilbert Walsh, a relative of

Nicholas, being appointed provincial.’! O’Reilly appears to have gone to Rome to appeal his case and may have remained there until his restoration. Opposition continued on the secular front also; in 1450 and again in 1451 Henry vI wrote to Richard, duke of York and lieutenant of Ireland on the matter. The 1450 letter, which only survives in a draft version,’ is the more detailed and alleges that O’Reilly, described as ‘oure enemy borne and of Irrysche blode name and nacion’, secured his confirmation as minister by deceiving the pope and the king’s procurator in Rome. He ordered that O’Reilly or any of his supporters were to be arrested if they ever came into the Jurisdiction and instructed him to write to regional magnates such as the earl of Desmond and Patrick Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald of Kerry, known patrons of the friars, to see that they would also follow his instructions. David Carrewe and Gilbert Walsh were also to be urged to see that the friars observed the injunctions against appointing Gaelic friars to positions of authority. In July, 1451, the king wrote a second time to the duke of York ordering that O'Reilly be summoned to answer charges that he had caused the legislation forbidding the appointment of Gaelic friars as provincial to be overturned, and to be punished if it were found to be true. He further ordered that no Gaelic friar was to be admitted to any house of the Order within the colony without first swearing an oath of allegiance before the chancellor of Ireland.’* O'Reilly does not appear to have heeded the opposition and continued to act as minister provincial throughout. He was active in founding new houses in 145374 and seems to have been re-elected (the first reference to the election

of an Irish provincial) at the provincial chapter in Waterford in 1469.7> He was still minister provincial in 1470 when he witnessed an oath of fidelity taken

before Archbishop John Bole of Armagh by the bishop of Down and Connor,’° and may have continued in office until 1471 when the first reference to Tadhg

O’ Donoghue as minister provincial occurs.”7 The period between 1414 and 1460 marks the beginnings of the second phase of Franciscan expansion in medieval Ireland. Whereas previously the 70 AM, x, pp 10-11. Wadding appears to have access to a Bull of Nicholas v confirming the actions of Carrewe and Walsh and confirming Gilbert Walsh as provincial, but this has not survived. 71 BFNS,i, pp 857-8. 72 Bodl., MS. Rawl. B 484, f. 18: FL, pp 20344. 73 FL, pp 205-6. 74 BFNS, i, pp 848-9; CPL, x, pp 641-2. 75 FL, p.207. 76 Lynch, ‘Franciscan documents’, p. 40. 77 BFNS, iv, pp 19-20.

Developments in Ireland,

1400-60

aif

friars had been concentrated in the towns and boroughs of the Anglo-Irish colony, they now expanded into Gaelic Ireland and the balance of power in the province tipped in favour of the Gaelic friars. The emergence of William O’Reilly as first Gaelic provincial, his survival in face of racial antagonism and the succession of another Gaelic provincial, Tadhg O’ Donoghue, provides proof of this. The expansion of the Conventual friars into Gaelic Ireland provided the background for the emergence of a reform movement which gradually divided into two streams, the reformed friars who remained under the authority of the Conventual superiors, and the Observants, who after 1460 had their own hierarchy and whose expansion and constitutional arrangements will be examined in the next chapter.

3 The Observants, 1460-1534

The fifteenth century was a period of rapid expansion for the Franciscans in Ireland, particularly in Gaelic territories. With the erection of the Observant vicariate in 1460 the majority of these new foundations were for the reformed branch of the Order, though, as has been shown, the Conventuals also continued to expand. We are unusually well informed about the foundation and early years of the first specifically Observant community in Adare in the diocese of Limerick. This is due to the survival of a substantial

amount

of material, either in

seventeenth-century transcript or in the original, relating to the community. Friar Donatus Mooney gives a list of the principal benefactors of the foundation which he obtained from James Hickey, sometime syndic or lay financial administrator of the community,

and which, in accordance

with both the

provincial and general statutes of the Observants, was read in chapter each Friday so that the friars might pray for their benefactors.! He also refers to the existence of the Adare register with other registers of the province in 1618 and it is possible that this was the liber de Athdare known to Sir James Ware.” Ware, quoting the lost statutes of the Irish Observants, states that the Adare house was the first to be founded for the reformers* and this seems plausible,

even though O’Clery* and O’ Mahony? record the foundation of Enniscorthy and Sherkin Island in 1460. The principal patrons of Adare were the earl of Kildare, Thomas Fitzgerald, and his wite Johanna, daughter of the earl of Desmond,

who offered the

foundation to the Observants at the chapter in Moyne in 1464 on the feast of Sts Peter and Paul. The friars took possession of the building on the feast of All Saints in the same year. Mooney refers to the dedication of the church to St Michael the Archangel on the feast of Sts Pontian and Elizabeth, but this 1 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 63-4; James Ware in BL, Add. MS. 4821 f. 107v.

2 BL, Add. MS.

4821, f. 101r. The reference records the death of Maurice Fitzgerald, founder of the Youghal

friary in 1257. 3 BL, Add. MS. 4821 f. 107v, ‘Conventus de Athdara primus nobis impetratus et fundatus per D. Tho. Comitem Kildariae” 4 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 197. 5 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 158.

58

The Observants, 1460-1534

59

appears to have been a preliminary blessing as the solemn consecration occurred on the feast of St Michael the Archangel in 1466. The sacristies and cloister must have been completed at this stage as they were also consecrated for burials along with the cemetery. An interesting detail is the non-consecration of a portion of the graveyard which was reserved for those who died without the right to Christian burial. The earl and his wife, as principal patrons, were responsible for building the church and a fourth part of the cloister, as well as glazing the church windows, providing a bell and two silver chalices. Their deaths were recorded on 25 March 1478, and 13 June 1486, respectively. The knight of Glin, Edmund Fitzthomas and his wife Honora, erected the infirmary. The belltower was built by Conor O’Sullivan, described as a pious and devout stranger who came to live among the friars; he also presented the community with a silver gilt chalice and died on 16 January 1492. Donncha O’Brien (died 3 October 1502) sponsored the dormitory and Marianus O’ Hickey, a tertiary who later entered the community and died with a reputation for sanctity, built the refectory and provided the choir stalls on the northern side of the church. Another tertiary, Rory O’ Dea, built one range of the cloister and presented a silver chalice to the community. Margaret Fitzgibbon, wife of the poet Cunlaid O’Daly, erected a ‘great chapel’, presumably the transept, and it is possible that the two chapels on its east side were built by John Fitzgerald, son of the earl of Desmond, and Margaret, wife of Thomas

Fitzmaurice, as these were recorded as the sponsors of two small chapels. Another quarter of the cloister was built by Rory O’ Daly. The sanctuary of the church was extended by ten feet by Johanna O’ Faoilain (Phelan?) who had a tomb built for herself in the extension and it is also possible that she sponsored the sedilia for the ministers at high mass. A chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin was provided by Margaret Fitzgibbon (died 23 January 1483). In 1618 Donatus

Mooney

recorded

that a ciborium,

six or seven

chalices

and a

processional cross, still survived from the friary, and expressed surprise at the number of vestments that had once belonged to the friars. He also remarks that the house was remarkable for its regular observance and religious discipline.® The survival of this passage gives a unique insight into the process of founding a friary, as well as providing important incidental information on the life of the friars and their impact on contemporary society. It is clear that they enjoyed the support of both Anglo-Irish and Gaelic patrons and that the friary was completed in a relatively short time. It also shows that a number of patrons were involved in the foundation and that the principal patron did not shoulder the entire cost of the enterprise. This is important, because a similar process

6 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 63-4.

60

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

was probably repeated at other foundations where only the name of the principal patron survives. The involvement of the secular tertiaries or Third Order members is significant as it provides important incidental evidence for their existence in late medieval Ireland and shows the Observants as promoters of this way of life. They were obviously established by the friars soon after their arrival and, apart from their spiritual purpose, were also an important source of material support to the community. After the initial flurry of patronage at the time of foundation the friars continued to attract the support of prominent benefactors; the Ormond deeds contain an acknowledgement by the guardian and friars of Adare of a bequest by Renalda O’Brien paid to them by Piers Butler, earl of Ormond in 1515.’ The next new Observant foundation was the friary at Kilcrea in the diocese of Cork and the MacCarthy territory of Muskerry.* Various dates are given for its foundation but the most reliable is 1465, which is that given by O’Clery, O’ Mahony and, in one place, Ware.’ The suggestion by Fitzmaurice and Little that it was founded on the strength of a papal licence of 1449 to Donatus Omabba (O’ Mahony’) is unlikely, and it seems that this permission was either

not availed of or refers to the friary at Bantry.'° One source gives 1478 as the date of foundation but this is too late, as a manuscript written in the friary in

1472 survives. As with Adare there is no surviving papal document licensing the foundation of Kilcrea. The founder was Cormac Laidir MacCarthy who, according to the Four

Masters and the Annals of Ulster,'! was killed in 1495 by his brother Eoghan and his nephews in a dispute over the chieftaincy. O'Mahony, quoting the inscription on his tomb in the choir of the friary church, gives the date as 1494.!? He was buried in the Franciscan habit and was the first of a line of MacCarthy chiefs to be buried in Kilcrea; his son Cormac Og was buried there after the ‘victory of unction and penance’ in 1536. The last to be buried there was Sir Cormac Mac Diarmaid MacCarthy who died in 1618. The Four Masters describe the founder as ‘an exalter and reverer of the church who ordered the strict observance of the Sabbath in his territory’. It is possible that the latter injunction may have owed something to the influence of the friars. One source gives Sarah O’Carroll, Cormac’s wife, and the daughter of Mulrony Barbatus O’Carroll as co-founder of the friary. Her father was the chief patron of the Conventual friary in Roscrea, founded sometime before

7 NLI, D.2014; calendared in Ormond Deeds, iv, p. 27. For an account of her career(s) see B. O Dalaigh, ‘Mistress, mother and abbess: Renalda Ni Bhriain (c.1447-1510)’ in North Munster Antiquarian Journal, xxxii (1990), pp 50-63. 8 A. O Gibealldin, ‘The Franciscan friary of Kilcrea’ inM. O Murcht (ed), Kilcrea friary: 1465-1965 (Kilcrea, 1965), pp 9-26; D. Maher, Kilcrea friary: Franciscan heritage in County Cork (Ballincollig, 1999). 9 MRH, p. 251. 10 FL, p. 203. 11 AU, iii, p. 385.

The Observants, 1460-1534

61

1477. The MacCarthys had been among the principal patrons of the Franciscan house at Cork since the thirteenth century, so it is not surprising that they should have been the Order chosen for the new foundation. What is interesting is that it was the Observant branch that should have been chosen for patronage by a devout chief and that his other religious foundation should have been for the friars of the Third Order Regular at Ballymacadane. The founder also built three tower houses in his territory, at Blarney, Carrignamuck and Kilcrea. The Kilcrea castle is within sight of the friary and it became the chief residence of the MacCarthys. This provides an example of the desire of chiefs or rulers to establish houses of reformed religious near their courts; in England the Observants were adjacent to the royal palaces at Greenwich and Richmond and elsewhere in Ireland the houses of Lislaughtin and Donegal were also established close to the residence of chiefs and patrons. Donatus Mooney gives no information about the foundation or early years of the house, but in his account of a raid on the friary in 1584 he describes the rood in the church which was noted for its beauty and for the gold and silver medallions of the four evangelists on the arms of the cross. He also records the story of Friar Felim MacCarthy who, as a member of the Third Order, had been noted for his hospitality, charity and care of the sick and wounded. He left secular life after he had killed his stepbrother and, after dispensation from the irregularity was secured, entered the community, became a priest and came

to have a reputation for sanctity.!* The incident provides evidence for the promotion of the Third Order by the Observants of Kilcrea. The early years of the friary at Rosserrilly in the archdiocese of Tuam are

also obscure.!* The Four Masters'> and Wadding,'® following O’ Mahony!’ and Michael O’Clery,'® give 1351 as the foundation date but this is impossible, as the identities of all the fourteenth-century friaries are known and Rosserrilly is not among them. The French writer Alemand gives 1431 as the foundation date but it is clear that this is based on a misreading of Wadding’s Annales

Minorum.'? Ware gives 1498 as the year of foundation and gives a member of the Gannard family as the principal founder? but as there are a number of bequests to the community before 1498, the earliest of which is 18 March 1469,”! this date must also be wrong. Fr Canice Mooney, OFM, has discussed 12 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 159. 13 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 69-70. 14 This section is a summary of C. Mooney, “The friary of Ross: foundation and early years’ in Galway Arch. Soc. JIn., Xxxix (1960-1), pp 7-14. 15 AFM. iii, p. 598. 16 AM, xiii, p.528. 17 “Brevis synopsis’, p. 156. He adds that it became Observant in 1470 and that chapters were held there in 1474 and 1618. 18 ‘Brussels MS 3410’, p. 196. Also gives 1470 for the introduction of the Observance, ibid., p. 199.

19 L.A. Alemand, Histoire Monastique d’Irlande (Paris, 1690), pp 269-70.

20 J. Ware, De Hibernia et antiquitatibus eius (London, 1658) p. 253. BL, Add. MS. 4814, f. 6y, gives the same date and identifies Lord William Gannard as the founder. 21 A bequest of forty

62

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

the date of the foundation at length and favours a date c.1460 as the most likely one. He suggests that it was an Observant foundation from the start and that references to it transferring from the Conventuals to the reform in 1470

are mistaken.* The earliest contemporary reference to Lislaughtin in Ardfert diocese occurs in May 1477 when Sixtus lv commissioned the prior of Ballinskelligs, the archdeacon of Aghadoe and the dean of Ardfert to licence the Observant

foundation that John O’ Connor had begun to build in his territory.?? O’ Mahony gives 1470 as the date of foundation and it is probable that this is when the project had first been mooted. O’Connor also undertook to furnish the church with the necessary vessels and furnishings, and a fine gilt processional cross donated to the community in 1479 by his son Cornelius survives. Little is known of the community in the pre-Reformation period, but as the burial place of the O’Connors and the only religious foundation in their territory, it is likely

that the friars had a significant pastoral role.” The Observant house at Donegal, in the diocese of Raphoe and the territory of Tir Chonaill, was one of the most famous and influential of the friars’ houses in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was founded in 1474 by Aodh Rua O’ Donnell at the urging of his mother, Nuala O’ Conor. Donatus Mooney gives an interesting account of her role in the foundation, though he confuses her with her son’s first wife.*° He records that she travelled to the provincial chapter of the Observants at Rosserrilly and appealed to the delegates to come to Donegal. When they declined because of commitments elsewhere she so harangued them that the newly elected vicar provincial and a number of other delegates resigned their offices to accompany her and implement her request. The community grew rapidly as the founding group were joined by local recruits: in 1497 sixteen friars from Donegal introduced the Observant reform

at Carrickfergus’ and in 1508 Donegal friars formed the nucleus of the new community at Dromahaire. The O’ Donnell chieftains proved generous benefactors: O’Clery records that they provided them with chalices and vestments?8

and in 1530 defrayed the expenses of a provincial chapter held there.2? Aodh Rua died and was buried there in 1505, his wife Nuala O’Brien died in 1528 having spent over twenty years of her life in retirement near the friary as a

pence to the friars of Ross by John Blake of Galway. See Mooney, ‘Friary of Ross’, p. 10, for a discussion of the date of the will. 22 Mooney, ‘Friary of Ross’, p. 13. 23 CPL, xiii, pp 572-3; BFNS, iii, p. 474. 24 ‘Brevis synopsis’ p. 159. He gives the founder as The O’Connor Kerry and adds that a chapter was held there in 1507.

25 See also Walsh, ‘Franciscan friaries’, p. 29.

26 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 38-48, especially pp 38-9. See also C. Mooney, ‘The Founding of the Friary of Donegal’ in Donegal Annaal, iii (1954-5), pp 15-23. 27 AU, iii, p. 417.

28 Brussels MS. 3410, p. 198.

29 Ann. Conn., p. 675.

The Observants, 1460-1534

63

secular tertiary.*° The friary became the burial place of the O’Donnells and many of the most prominent Ulster families, and the friars were highly influential in the locality. Donatus Mooney gives a long account of the activities of Friar Brian MacGrath who died in 1549 and whose reputation for sanctity brought him to the attention of both the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish communities.*! The friary at Kilcullen at the bridge over the Liffey on the boundaries of the archdiocese of Dublin was founded in 1486°? by Roland Fitzeustace, Baron Portlester. It is the only Observant house to have been founded in the Pale, but little else is known of its early years. Fitzeustace was buried there in 1496 and his daughter Alison, wife of Gerald Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare, in 1517.°? The

friars were involved in a dispute with the secular clergy in March 1494 and were declared contumacious for three times refusing to answer summonses to provincial councils.*4 A 1554 petition from the guardian and friars of Kilcullen to Queen Mary appealing for the return of their property and that of other

named friaries has survived.*> The

last new

Observant

foundation

to be made

in this period was

Dromahaire (Creevelea) in Ardagh diocese** which was founded by Margaret O’Brien, wife of Eoghan

O’ Rourke, in 1508.37 She was a sister of Nuala

O’Brien who had been a keen patron of the Donegal friars and, according to Mooney, it was from Donegal that the first friars came.** This is the only instance in which a woman is recorded as the principal patron of a friary. Thomas MacBrady, bishop of Kilmore, died there in 1511, possibly while visiting to consecrate the friary church,” and in 1512 the Annals of Ulster record the burial of Margaret O’Brien in the wooden church she had built for the friars.4° Her husband, Eoghan O’ Rourke, was buried there in 1526.4! Two friars, Eremon

O’ Donnell and Mael Sechlainn MacGovern, died in the fire

which destroyed the friary in 1536;*7 on the evidence of his surname it would

appear that the former was one of the original group of pioneers from Donegal. The house was restored by Brian Ballach O’ Rourke, and it is possible that it was at this stage that the stone church which still stands was constructed. Fr Canice Mooney, OFM, argues that the friary was never fully completed.* 30 Ann. Conn., p. 667. 31 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 41-47. O’ Mahony records his death in 1547, ‘Brevis synopsis’, p.183. 32 BL, Add. MS. 4814, f. 3r; ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 85. 33 BL, Add. MS. 4821, f. 106v.

34 N. White (ed.), Registrum Diocesis Dublinensis: a sixteenth century

precedent book (Dublin, 1959), p. 30. 35 BL, Harl. MS. 416, f.73. 36 J.J. MacNamee, History of the Diocese of Ardagh (Dublin, 1954), pp 226-30. 37 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 198. 38 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 48-9. He notes that it was in this convent that he was ordained and celebrated his first mass.

39 AFM, v, p. 1309. The sense of the entry is not clear. He died at

Dromahaire, having gone to Breffni to consecrate a church which may have been that of the friary. He was buried in the friary at Cavan. His son, Aedh (d. 1490), a friar, was probably a member of the Cavan community. 40 AU, iii, p.501. 41 AFM, v, p. 1393. 42 AU, iii, p.607. 43 C. Mooney,

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

64 CONVENTUAL

TRANSFERS

The chief source detailing transfers from the Conventuals to the Observant vicariate is the list compiled by the seventeenth century Friar and historian, Michael O’Clery.** Though the compiler had access to earlier sources, this list needs to be treated with caution, as in a number of cases the chronology given differs from that in contemporary fifteenth-century sources as well as from that found in other seventeenth-century transcripts. The annalistic nature of O’Clery’s text, giving just the name of the communities and the year they adopted the reform, gives no hint of the process involved in transferring from one branch of the order to another and only once indicates that the reformers met with resistance and, in at least one case, failed to implement their programme.* An indication of the complex nature of the transfer process is given in two

papal Bulls of Calixtus mr issued in 1460*¢ and 14617 respectively. In the first, addressed to the bishop of Killala and issued at the request of Friars Nehemias and Richard of Ireland, permission was given for four houses, already occupied by Observants but under Conventual superiors, to transfer to the Observant vicariate, provided that the friars in each house agreed. The Bull issued the following year also contains the same condition and it seems that a majority of the friars was needed before the transfer could take place. These texts also provide evidence for the existence of reformed and unreformed friars within the same communities. Further evidence for this coexistence occurs in 1516 when the Annals of Ulster record the deaths by drowning in Lough Erne of a large party of friars from Cavan. The only two identified by name were John MacGrath and Nicholas O Cathdin, described as ‘friars of stricter observance’ .*8

After the division of the order at the capitulum generalissimum in Rome in 1517, Leo x issued a number of Bulls to ease the tension between the Conventuals and

Observants.

One

of these,

Omnipotens

Deus,

instructed

that

the

Observants were not to take possession of any house unless two-thirds of the friars wished to adopt the reform*? and this provision is mentioned in the account of the chapter given in the Annals of Ulster.>° ‘Franciscan architecture in pre-Reformation Ireland’ in RSAJJn. \xxxv (1955), p. 168. 44 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’pp 192-202. 45 ‘Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 201. The community in question is Armagh. 46 BFNS, ii, pp 399-400. 47 Ibid., pp 521-22. 48 AU, iii p. 527. 49 AM, xvi, p. 51. A two-thirds majority was required in houses of less than twenty friars, threequarters in houses of more than twenty, and the Observants were forbidden to take possession of any Conventual house numbering less than ten members. 50 AU, iii, p. 527.‘A General Chapter was held in Rome this year by the friars minor in their entirety, through the grace of the Holy Spirit and through favour of Pope Leo x and amongst the things that were determined therein, it was decided that the Minister of the friars of strict observance should be over the friars in their entirety and that only a vicar or master should be over the friars of common life. And every

The Observants,

1460-1534

65

The realisation that a majority vote of the community could change the party in the order to which it belonged explains the variety of dates given for the adoption of the reform by a number of communities. If a majority vote could effect a transfer from the Conventuals to the Observants it seems plausible that the reverse was also true and that the allegiances of individual houses could change as the balance of opinion within the community shifted. An attempt was made to introduce the reform in Armagh in 1517 or 1518 but was not accepted by

the community, which remained Conventual.*! The community at Askeaton is described as Observant in 1497 but other sources give 1513 as the year when the reform was adopted. This may mean that the initial attempt was unsuccessful and that the reform had to be re-introduced. Three dates, 1492, 1499 and 1502, are

given for the introduction of the reform in Cavan and, as has been shown above,

this was a community which had both Conventual and Observant members in 1517. The first attempt to introduce the reform in Drogheda occurred in 1506 but it had to be re-introduced in 1518 and again in 1521. Ennis is described as Observant in 1460 but only definitively passed to the reformers in 1540. Attempts were made to introduce the Observance in Galway in 1460, 1520 and 1533 and divisions between both parties in this community seem to have been particularly pronounced. One source gives 1460 as the date of the reform in Kilconnell and the process was certainly complete by 1467. External pressures were sometimes brought to bear on communities to adopt the Observance. In most cases this consisted of the descendants of the principal founders insisting that the friary should be reformed. This was a standard and well-documented tactic on the continent and it is most likely that the Irish Observants followed the example of their continental confréres in drumming up secular support for their cause.” According to Ware the reform was introduced at Kilconnell at the request of Malachy O’Kelly, son of the

founder, in 1460.°? On the vigil of the Assumption,

1497, the friary at

Carrickfergus was taken over by the Observants at the behest of Niall O’ Neill. A community of sixteen friars from Donegal formed the nucleus of the

monastery of common life which should have two-thirds of the community unanimous to have it of strict observance, it should be obliged on the Minister of strict observance to take it to him and that it should be under their obedience from that out.’ 51 “Brussels MS. 3410’, p. 201. O’Clery gives 1517 for this incident, other sources give the following year. 52 Nicholas Glassberger provides contemporary evidence of the ability of the Observants to garner support for themselves. See for example his list of supporters for the Observants at the general chapter in Rome in 1506, Glassberger, Chronicle, pp 542-3. For an example of secular involvement in Observant affairs see

L. Ceyssens,

‘Les

ducs

de Bourgogne

(1447-1469) in AFH. xxx, pp 391-419.

et V’introduction

de

l’observance

a Malines

53 BL Add. MS. 4821, f. 105v. Ware’s source, which

may have been the liber de Kilconnil which he quotes frequently, is clear that this transfer took place in 1460, the first year of the reformation. Other sources give 1467 but this seems unlikely

66

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

reformed community but it is not clear if any of the existing community opted to live under the new regime. The entry in the Annals of Ulster indicates that the transfer came about as a result of an appeal by O’ Neill to the pope but this has not survived in any of the papal registers.>4 In 1502 the same source refers to the transfer of the Cavan friary to the Observants at the request of John

O’Reilly.>° This also occurred as the result of an appeal to Rome but, as has been shown above, does not seem to have been successful and the papal Bull permitting the transfer has not survived. In 1540 the community at Ennis adopted the reform at the instigation of Murrough O’Brien and the chief men of Thomond. In this case both the Conventual and the Observant authorities

approved the transfer.°° Only one example survives of pressure for reform being brought to bear by a corporate body. In 1534 the reform was adopted by the friars at Limerick at the request of the mayor and corporation of the city,

who had petitioned the provincial chapter for its introduction.>/ Notwithstanding difficulties in chronology in relation to individual houses, it is clear that after the establishment of the Observant vicariate in 1460 there was a Steady transfer of Conventual houses thereto. A list of the ultramontane vicariates drawn up in 1506 names seventeen reformed houses in Ireland.>°8 Another list, drawn up the same year, gives the number of houses as fifteen and the number of friars as four hundred,>? but it is clear that both these sets of

statistics underestimate the correct number of houses. By 1534 it appears that as well as the ten houses which had been founded specifically for Observants, approximately twenty-three more had adopted the reform, and twenty-four remained under the jurisdiction of the Conventuals. An oblique indication of the progress of the reform is provided by the German Observant chronicler, Nicholas Glassberger, who gives the number of

deaths reported by the Irish delegates to the triennial general chapters of the

ultramontane friars between 1484 and 1508.° These provide evidence for substantial numbers accepting the reform. Glassberger occasionally provides information not found in any of the Irish sources, as in 1496 when he records the death of an unidentified friar who was one of the first to establish the reform in Ireland. He also records the deaths of the former vicars provincial,

Nicholas MacNarry and Donal Thomas in 1499 and 1505.9!

as Malachy O’Kelly died in 1464. 54 AU, iii, p. 423. 55 Ibid., p. 461. 56:Ann. Conn., p. 713; AFM, vy, p. 1455. In both these sources the account of the Ennis transfer is followed by a reference to the destruction of the monasteries by the English and the beheading of the guardian and some of the friars of Monaghan. 57 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 148. The chapter that year took place in Kilconnell.

58 AM, xv, p. 348.

59 Given by C. Mooney in Terminus, x (Nov., 1954),

p. 250. [have been unable to trace the original source. 60 Glassberger, Chronicle, pp 490, 503, 506, 511, 514, 521, 530, 536, 548. The numbers are respectively: 1484, 30; 1487, 15; 1490, 18; 1493, 24; 1496, 28; 1499, 28; 1502, 18; 1505, 22; 1508, 26. 61 Glassberger, Chronicle, pp 514,

The Observants, 1460-1534 PISPUTES

67 OVER

HOUSES

The Conventual friars, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, enjoyed a period of modest expansion in Gaelic Ireland throughout the fifteenth century. The number of these new houses which are described as being of ‘regular observance’ indicates that a movement towards a more austere form of Franciscan life was present among them and it is from this grouping that the Observant movement proper emerged. As long as the reformers remained within the framework of the province the provincial authorities were prepared to tolerate and even to promote their ideals. When the reformers threatened the unity of the province, as occurred with the establishment of an Observant vicariate in 1460, they encountered fierce opposition from the Conventual friars. In this the Irish friars were no different to their English and continental confréres and it is unfortunate that more Irish material has not survived to trace the development of the conflict. The material which does survive shows that tension between the various groups was particularly pronounced between 1460 and 1471, the decade following the establishment of the vicariate. This is hardly surprising as it was in this period that the Observants were at their most active, making five (or six) new foundations and with approximately six older houses accepting the reform. The earliest indication of tension emerges in connection with the transfer of

Conventual houses to the reform which had been licensed by Pius 11 in 1460.° The original commission had allowed for the transfer of four houses which were stated to be occupied by friars living according to Observant norms but under the jurisdiction of Conventual superiors. The bishop of Killala, to whom the mandate was addressed, had succeeded in introducing the reform in three houses but the process had been impeded by the actions of a number of Conventual friars who had appealed to Rome against it. The text of this appeal or any papal response to it has yet to come to light but in 1462 the pope issued a Bull in favour of the Observants, condemning the Conventuals for lodging frivolous appeals and molesting the reformers. He also imposed perpetual silence on them and forbade them to further impede the progress of the reform.™ The description of the Observant vicar provincial of the time, Dermot O’Cannon, as ‘a man of marvellous patience’, and the fact that he only ruled for one year from 1462 to 1463, may indicate that the papal injunction was not heeded and that tension

between the two groups continued.® 521 and 536. 62 BFNS, ii, pp 431-2. 63 Brian (Bernardus) O Coinedil, 1432-1461. 64 BFNS, ii, pp 521-2. 65 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 166. The surnames of the vicar provincials and provincials given by O’Mahony and Donatus Mooney (in “Brussels MS. 3947’) are sometimes difficult to decipher. I have used the versions given by C. Mooney in ‘Irish Franciscan

68

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

On 20 June, 1465, William O’ Reilly, the Conventual minister provincial, petitioned Archbishop John Bole of Armagh for a transcript of the Bull Jn

quibusdam locis.®° This had been originally granted in 1265 to the friars in Perugia by Clement !v in order to protect them from those who unlawfully sought to occupy their churches. It seems however to have had a more general application as a copy of it also survives in TCD, MS. 250.° As there is no known instance of interference by the secular clergy or lay lords with any of the Irish friaries during this period it is possible that O’Reilly sought it in order to prevent Observants taking over Conventual houses. The events of 1469 are particularly difficult to interpret: one set of sources seems to indicate a high degree of co-operation between the reformed and unreformed friars of the Dublin custody. However, another reference suggests that tension was particularly pronounced. As well as friaries transferring to the reform, significant numbers of individual friars also adopted it. By April 1469 this trend had become so pronounced that numerous Conventual houses were almost deserted while the Observant houses could not accommodate those anxious to adopt their way of life. At the petition of Cornelius, the Franciscan

bishop of Clonfert,°* Paul 11 gave permission to those friars who had left Conventual friaries to join the Observants to reoccupy their former houses. These friars were willing to submit to the authority of the Conventual minister provincial on condition that they could live as Observants and they were to continue to enjoy those privileges granted to their continental confréres.©? The Bull was addressed to three prelates, two of whom (the archbishop of Dublin and the chancellor of Ossory) were prominent figures in the Anglo-Irish colony, and it seems that it was the Conventual friaries in this area which were most affected by the fall in numbers. Further proof of this came in September 1469 when papal confirmation was given to a licence granted to the friars of the Dublin custody by the minister general, Zanetus of Udine, to receive friars from other custodies because of the dearth of friars in their houses.’? The two documents seem to deal with the same issue: how to staff the houses of the Dublin custody in a way that would be acceptable to both parties in the order. The modus vivendi arrived at indicates a high degree of negotiation and willingness to compromise among the friars. It also shows that, though the building of new houses and the transfer of older foundations to the Observance was primarily a Gaelic phenomenon, the movement proved so attractive to Provincials’, AFH, lvi (1963), pp 3-11. 66 Lynch, ‘Franciscan docs.’, p. 17. Text of the Bull given in BF, iti, pp 15-16. 67 TCD MS. 250, f. 156; Colker, Latin MSS, i, p. 445. 68 Cornelius O Cuinnlis, 1448-1463. 69 BENS, ii, pp 763-4. A 1492 petition of Friar Bernard O’Clery asking to transfer from the Conventuals to the Observants survives, indicating that such transfers by individual friars continued to be a feature. BFNS, iv, p 909. 70 BFNS, iv, p. 787.

The Observants, 1460-1534

69

individual friars as to seriously deplete many of the older foundations. In spite of this the houses of the Dublin custody remained under Conventual jurisdiction until well into the sixteenth century; Monasteroris became Observant in 1507, Kildare in 1520, Dublin and Wicklow in 1521 whilst Castledermot

and Clane remained Conventual. Despite the evidence for negotiation that this incident provides, tension between the two groups continued; in 1469 Dermot O’ Fogarty, described as a peaceable, devout man of simple life, resigned after a year as Observant vicar provincial as he was unable to bear the ‘contentions of the Fathers of the

common life.’”! The experience of changing allegiance from one party to another (and sometimes back again) must have given rise to considerable tension within communities, particularly when reformed and unreformed friars continued to

live together. It is hard to imagine that the unsuccessful attempts to introduce the reform outlined above did not give rise to tension but unfortunately little evidence survives to prove this. The brief accounts of the transfers of the friaries at Carrickfergus and Cavan in the Annals of Ulster suggest that the Conventuals may have resisted the reform. At Carrickfergus the Observance was introduced after an appeal by Niall O’ Neill to Rome and the phrase ‘the decision having gone in their [the Observants] favour’ suggests that they encountered opposition. At Cavan the transfer is clearly presented as a victory’? for the Observants over the Conventuals. The account of the introduction of the Observance in Ennis occurring with the consent of both parties in the Order may well have merited mention because such agreement was not the norm. The best documented disputes concern attempts to introduce the Observance in Armagh and Galway. As shown above, the earliest attempt to reform Galway occurred in 1460, but this failed, as the community is described as Conventual in

a papal document of 1494. It seems to have succeeded by April 1520 as a deed refers to them as Observant. The failure of the reform in Armagh in 1518 had not lessened the efforts of Observants to gain control and in June 1528 Clement vil appointed delegates to adjudicate on, among other things, which group should rule the two houses. The delegates found in favour of the Conventuals but the Observants launched a series of appeals and, while awaiting a definitive papal judgement, secured an interim ruling from Archbishop George Cromer of Armagh in 1533 allowing them to return to both houses from which it appears

they had been excluded.” 71 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 166. 72 AU, iii, p. 461, ‘1502 The monastery of Cavan was negotiated from Rome this year by O Raighillaigh, namely by John, son of Cathal O Raighillaigh, to the friars of the [stricter] observance against the friars of the common life. 73 A. Gwynn, The

70

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

CONSTITUTIONAL

ARRANGEMENTS

With the establishment of the Irish Observant vicariate in 1460, the Irish friars formally became part of the wider European Observant movement and availed of the various privileges that had been granted to them. For administrative purposes the continental Observants had in 1415 been divided into two groups or families: the ultramontane and cismontane. The ultramontane group, to which Ireland belonged, consisted of all the Observant friars north of the Alps

and in Spain.’4 At their general chapter in Barcelona in 1451 the ultramontane friars had enacted legislation, the Abbreviatio statutorum tam papalium quam generalium, which provided their constitutional and legislative norms. As the name suggests, and the statutes themselves state, there was little innovative about these texts

which consisted of a summary of the principal declarations and rulings governing the friars enacted by various popes or general chapters since the foundation of the Order. They were, as shown in the first chapter, designed to facilitate a moderately austere lifestyle to support the friars’ ministry of preaching and confession. After an introductory preface the statutes were divided into nine chapters treating of the reception and instruction of novices; the divine office, silence and prayer; the

observance of poverty; the living out of their vocations; behaviour outside the friary; the correction of delinquents, the election of officials; the chapters of the friars and the suffrages for the dead. A copy of the Abbreviatio statutorum, compiled for the friars at Adare in 1482 survives in Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C 320. This codex also

contains a copy of the Franciscan Rule, the Testament of St Francis, the papal declarations Exiit qui seminat, Exivi de paradiso and Quo elongati and the Speculum disciplinae attributed to St Bonaventure. A previously unremarked reference in the Youghal library catalogue lists the contents of a volume described as the Scripta Ordinis, which correspond exactly to the Adare manuscript, and another volume of the same title in the Youghal library was

reserved for the use of Friar Maurice Hanlan.’> It may be reasonably assumed that this collection of documents formed the basis of Irish Observant legislation and that all Observant houses had a copy of it. The Abbreviatio statutorum also allowed the friars to enact legislation to allow for local circumstance, albeit with the caveat that these local statutes

should be limited in number. Only one minor example of this adaptation has medieval province of Armagh (Dundalk, 1946), pp 67, 110. 74 Following modern usage, ‘ultramontane’ is the term used here to describe the group to which the Irish Observants belonged. Contemporary Irish friars described themselves as ‘cismontane’ (cf. opening paragraph of the YLC, appendix I). 75 YLC, nos 10 and 97.

The Observants,

1460-1534

7\

survived from Ireland, but a text called the Codex statutorum ordinis minorum in Hibernia continued to circulate until the seventeenth century and a number of excerpts from it survive in the writings of Sir James Ware. Though its title suggests that it was a collection of statutes, none of the surviving excerpts deal with the lifestyle of the friars but treat of the dates of the foundation and patronage of friaries or their adoption of the Observant reform. Further information on the constitutional arrangements of the Irish Observants is given by a set of administrative and formulary documents preserved in TCD, MS. 250. These have hitherto escaped attention and are given below as appendix Il of this work.

VICARS

AND

MINISTERS

PROVINCIAL

From 1460 until 1517 the Irish Observant vicariate was governed by a vicar provincial elected for a triennial’ term by the delegates to the provincial

chapter.’’ This election had to be confirmed by the Conventual minister provincial, though in the event of his declining to do so, confirmation automatically

occurred after three days.’* A formulary letter seeking such confirmation is found in TCD, MS. 250.” This practice ceased after the division of the Order in 1517 when the Observant superiors assumed the roles of ministers provincial and ministers general. The effect of this change is clearly seen in the Adare copy of the Abbreviatio statutorum where each reference to vicarius has been carefully crossed out. From the lists of [Irish Observant vicars and provincials compiled by

Donatus Mooney®? and Francis O’ Mahony*! it appears that it was not unusual for a friar to hold the office two or three times.*? The vicar provincial was assisted by a group of advisers known as discreti whose consent was necessary for certain decisions. These included admitting novices to a profession if doubts about their suitability had been expressed,*?

incurring debts for major projects,*+ dispensation from certain fasts®> and imposing appropriate punishments on those who revealed the internal affairs of the Order.®* In the event of illness or during his absence from the province the vicar provincial could appoint a delegate to act in his place and a formulary document to this effect is found in the TCD dossier. The vicar provincial was ultimately responsible for maintaining the discipline of his friars and had a wide range of discretionary powers, though it is likely that many of these were

76 AS, viii, no. 17.

77 AS, vii, no. 12.

78 AS, vii, no. 13.

79 Appendix I, document 5.

80 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 107-11. 81 ‘Brevis synopsis’, pp 165-73. 82 For example, Donal Thomas, 1469-72, 1475-8, 1489-92; Philip O Maighredin, 1494-7, 1500-4. 83 AS, i, no. 1. 84 AS, iii,no. 16. 85 AS, iv, no.3. 86AS, vi, no. 20.

HD

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

delegated to the guardians of the friaries who could adapt them to local circumstances. He could also promulgate statutes to deal with particular issues but was expressly warned against excessive legislation.*’ Matters specifically reserved to the vicar provincial included absolution from lapses of the flesh, theft, the holding of private property, contumacious disobedience, assaults and false testimony. He could delegate his powers in these matters but those who presumed to usurp them were deprived of the right to hear confession and could be imprisoned.** He could also order that his subjects be imprisoned or otherwise punished for their offences, and he was to ensure that apostates were apprehended and imprisoned.*?

GUARDIANS

All houses with twelve friars or over were called convents and were governed by a guardian; smaller houses were known as /oca and were governed by a

superior.” The guardian was elected by those members of the community in sacred orders of twenty-five years and over”! but had to be confirmed in office by either the Observant

vicar general

or, as was

more

likely, the vicar

provincial.?? Among the documents in TCD, MS. 250, is a formulary letter seeking confirmation of the election of a guardian and addressed to the vicar

provincial of the Irish province and his advisers.” At each provincial chapter the guardian had to present a letter of resignation’+ and, as with the other superiors, was answerable to the chapter, with channels existing through which his community could denounce any abuses of power.” As local superior the guardian was responsible for the material and spiritual well-being of his community, for ensuring that an acceptable level of discipline and observance was maintained and for representing the friars in their dealings with the local bishop and clergy, lay people and the authorities of the order. His own life was expected to be exemplary and he was not absolved from the duties of the common life or granted any privileges respecting food or clothing.°® He was not allowed to incur any substantial debt without the permission of the vicar provincial and the provincial chapter?’ and was to ensure that books were not lent without his permission.’® He was particularly charged with the care of the sick”? and was to ensure the equitable distribution of alms to all members of the community, only making allowance for his own

needs when all others had been satisfied. !° 87 AS, vi, no. 36. 88 AS, vi, nos 2-10. 89 AS, vi, nos 38-40. 90 AS, vii, no. 8. 91 AS, vii, no. 2. 92 AS, vii,no.4. 93 Appendix II, document 4. 94 AS, viii,no. 12. 95 AS, viii, nos 8-10. 96 AS, iv,no.6. 97 AS, iii,no. 16. 98 AS, iti, no. 22. 99 AS, iv, no. 11. 100 AS, iv, no.13.

The Observants, 1460-1534

73

His responsibility in spiritual matters included ensuring that the friars

confessed and communicated regularly, that silence was observed at specified times and in certain places’ and in what manner the divine office was celebrated™ He also determined the hour at which the friars rose™ It was normally the guardian, with the permission of the vicar provincial,

who admitted novices to profession,"™ having ascertained that they were suffiGently \iterate to recite the divine office.” Along with the novice master he was warned not to impede any novice who wished to leave,’ but he had the power to excommunicate and imprison apostates,’” whom he was to denounce to the community on the first Friday of each month.” He was also warned against receiving friars from elsewhere without the permission of the vices provincial and when this permission was granted for a specified time he was

to ensure that the friar moved on.’*°He was also responsible for the observance of poverty in the community by ensuring that the friars wore habits of uniform

style and quality,’’’ that they did not keep money, books or other private possessions,’"* and punishing those who did.’!? So that all might be clear on their obligations, he was to see that the statutes and the papal declarations on

poverty were regularly read to the community.’ '* The guardian was responsible for presenting young friars for ordination to, and securing licences to hear confession from, the local bishop. An exemplar

of such 2 petition survives in TCD, MS. 250.'*° Numerous examples ofguardians being charged to execute cclesiastical sentences survive in the registers of the

archbishops ofArmagh’ and they were frequently commissioned to execute _

papal sentences, as in 1497, when the guardian of Donegal was ordered to

_. oversee the destruction of the cave of St Patrick’s purgatory on Lough Derg.’?” Not all encounters with the secular clergy were positive, and the guardian had occasionally to defend his community in ecclesiastical suits such as the charge of contumacy levelled against the friars of Kilcullen during the reign of Aschbishop Walter Fitzsimons of Dublin in 1494.''?

GENERAL

AND

PROVINCIAL

CHAPTERS

The supreme governing body for the Irish Observants was the triennial chapter of the ultrammontane Observants. Occasionally, as in 1506 and 1518, a capitulum 191 AS.iv.00.16. I2AS,,00584,7. 103AS.ti. no 3 104AS,ii.no.% 105 AS,i, nos 6,7. 106 AS.i.n09 197AS.i.90.13. 196AS,vi,20.43. DAS. vi,no.4i. 110AS, vi, no. 17. 111 AS. j.n0.4. 112ASii,n013. 113AS.iti.n0.7 114AS,vi,no.34. 115 AppendixIL documents 3 aad 4. 116 As when in April 1466 Archbishop John Bole ordered the guardian and | fiers ofAsmnags (and other dergy) © execute sentence of excommunication against those who had | $token two of bis horses. Lynch, “Franciscan docs’. pp 32-5. 117 AU, iti,p.497. 118 White,

74

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

generalissimum of the entire Order, Conventuals and Observants, was held, but no record of an Irish Observant involvement in such a gathering has survived. The procedures for the conduct of Observant chapters were laid down in the eighth chapter of the Abbreviatio statutorum. Each vicariate (province after

1517) was represented by its vicar provincial, a delegate elected by the provincial chapter and a representative of the custodes (in vicariates where such an office existed).!!? In accordance with the order’s long-standing custom the chapter assembled at Pentecost, and masses in honour of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary were prescribed before deliberations began.!?° On arrival at the chapter all delegates, apart from the vicars provincial, presented their letters of accreditation to the vicar general. Those legitimately impeded from attending were replaced by other friars nominated by the vicar provincial and, if all delegates from a province were absent, substitutes were provided by the

general chapter.!*! Each vicar provincial resigned his position into the hands of the vicar general who, after a number of liturgical preliminaries, gave an account of his achievements to the assembly. He then retired from the assembly to allow discussion of his account and on his return the chapter

proceeded to the election of his successor.!** The election began on the fifth day before Pentecost and the electors were to be enclosed and deprived of food until they came to a decision. The main business of the chapter began with a votive mass of the Holy Spirit and a sermon on the second day after Pentecost. The number of friars who had died in each province since the previous chapter was announced and suffrages offered for them. These were repeated at the

provincial chapters held on the return of the general chapter delegates.!75 A report on the state of each province was given before the delegates proceeded to a discussion of matters which had been forwarded to the general chapter for resolution. No matter could be raised at the general chapter which had not previously been discussed by the provincial assembly; similarly, no case could be brought against an individual friar which had not been referred from his provincial chapter. The decisions of the chapter were conveyed to each province under the seal of the vicar general and delegates were ordered to

promulgate them on their return. !7+ There is no record of an active Irish involvement in these assemblies; no Irish friar was elected vicar general or general definitor. Incidental evidence shows however that they were diligent attendees. As noted above; Nicholas Glassberger lists the numbers of deaths in the Irish provinces recorded at the general chapters of Bruges (1484), Toulouse (1487), La Rochelle (1490), Florenzac (1493), Toulouse (1496), Malines (1499), Albi (1502), Laval (1505) Registrum, p. 30.

119 AS, viii, no. 29. 120 AS, viii, nos 34-5. 121 AS, viii, nos 29, 30, 36. 122 AS, VIII, nos 32, 35-8. 123 AS, VIII, nos 39-40. 124 AS, VIII, nos 42, 43, 46-8.

The Observants, 1460-1534

75

and Barcelona (1508). The Irish delegates presumably supplied these. Further evidence for the Irish presence at the chapter at La Rochelle in 1490 comes from a marginal reference to a statute passed there in the Adare copy of the

Abbreviatio statutorum.'* As mentioned previously the presence of significant numbers of French and German works in the Youghal library indicates extensive contacts with the continent in the late fifteenth century. The fact that it was the residence of Donal Thomas (vicar provincial 1490-2) provides one possible contact through whom they could have been acquired. Though provision was made in the general statutes for the holding of an annual chapter in each province, the vicar provincial and his advisers could modify this, but there is insufficient evidence to show if this was the practice in Ireland.’ The lists of vicars provincial given by Mooney and O’ Mahony show that a three-year term of office was the norm, so it is quite possible that provincial chapters were held only when a vicar’s term of office expired. The delegates to the chapter were the guardians of the houses and an unspecified number of delegates elected by those members of each community of good

standing and over twenty years of age.'*7 The provincial chapters were conducted in much the same way as the general assemblies of the order. After similar liturgical preliminaries, the guardians resigned their positions and one day was devoted to hearing

complaints brought against them by their communities.'** The chapter then debated the issues referred for resolution and, where necessary, enacted new

statutes and corrected errant friars.'*? Decisions specifically reserved to the provincial chapter included the appointment of novice masters in each friary, the designation of certain houses as studia for the liberal arts and theology and, in conjunction with the vicar provincial, the appointment of competent friars

as preachers and confessors.'*” It also ensured that communities did not contract unduly large debts for building or for copying books, and decided to

which friary the books of deceased friars were assigned.'*! As shown above in the cases of Adare and Donegal, it was the provincial chapter that decided on the acceptance of new foundations or agreed to requests to introduce the Observant reform, as in Limerick in 1534. The appointments and decisions made at the chapter were recorded in a tabula for future record. Though none have survived from the Irish Observants, a Breton example from the provincial chapter of L’ Ile Césambre in 1521 gives some idea of the format and content of such texts. The Breton text first confirmed the 125 Bodl., MS. Raw. C. 320, f. 41v. The amendment concerns the appointment of a commissary in the absence of the vicar provincial.

nos 9,10,12.

2,16.

129AS, vili,no. 11.

126 AS, viii,no.2.

127 AS, viii, nos2,6. 128 AS, viii, 130 AS, i, no. 10; iv, no. 19; v,no.9. 131 AS, ili, nos

The Franciscans in Ireland,

76

1400-1534

minister provincial in office and either confirmed each of the province’s ten guardians in office or replaced them with another. Another friar was nominated to look after the needs of the novices and the junior friars in each friary. A list of those for whom suffrages were to be offered was given and this was followed by the names of the delegates who had attended the chapter. A date and venue was set for the next chapter and a delegate nominated to represent the province at the next general chapter of the order. As no new statutes had been framed, the document concludes by exhorting the friars to greater fidelity

in prayer and diligent observance of the rule.!? In each the friars committed relating to

friary a community chapter was held three times a week at which accused themselves and their confréres of the faults they had and received penances. It was also the occasion on which decisions the life of the house were taken and at which the guardian made

announcements. !*?

COMMISSARIES

AND

VISITATIONS

The Irish Observants, like their continental confréres, were subject to a system of regular visitation by specially appointed commissaries. Their role was to ensure that a uniformly high standard of religious observance was maintained in each province and the visitator’s report presumably formed a major part of the account of each province given to the general chapter. The Abbreviatio statutorum gives very little information about the powers and function of the commissaries. They were to ensure that the sick in each province were properly cared for and that the friars were profitably occupied.

They were also the last resort for the correction of delinquents.!*4 It is clear however that these visitators were important figures in the administration of the order. They were appointed by the vicar or minister general and the general chapter and were responsible to them. Any major decisions they took had to be ratified by the vicar (or minister) general and his advisers. They held supreme power in a province during their visitation and no decision of theirs could be

overturned by the vicar provincial.!*> One of their chief functions was to maintain contacts between the various provinces of the ultramontane Observants. The list of commissaries given by Donatus Mooney shows that the first fourteen visitators appointed for the Irish province, covering the period c.1460 to c.1534, were all foreigners. Of these, 132 M. Courtecuisse, Tables capitulaires des fréres mineurs de l’Observance et des récollets de Bretagne, 1476-1780. (Paris, 1930), pp 5-7. 133 AS, viii,no.2. 134 AS, iv, nos 11, 12 and 17; vi, no. 25.

135 AS, vii, nos 14-16; vi, no. 31.

The Observants, 1460-1534

77

twelve were French, one Scottish and another Breton.!3° The upheaval caused

by the Reformation seems the most likely reason for the practice of appointing foreign friars as commissaries ceasing in the mid-1530s. Glassberger and other continental sources shed sufficient light on the careers of some of these figures to indicate their importance in the development of the Observant reform in Ireland. In 1484 he records the death of Friar Bernard Lochen, the first commissary appointed for the English Observants who also appears to have been the first commissary of the Irish Observants as he is the first listed by Donatus Mooney. Glassberger also records the death in 1484 of Friar Michael of Lyra, ‘three times vicar provincial of the Cologne province and the first vicar and planter of the Observance in the three provinces of Scotland, Denmark and Ireland’, who Mooney lists as the third commissary appointed to

the Irish province.!*’ The necrology of the friary at Bruges records the death in 1524 of Friar William Blondeel, the tenth commissary to be listed by Mooney.!*® The sixth commissary listed by Mooney ruled the Irish province for two years as vicar provincial between 1492 and 1494. This was a highly unusual arrangement and suggests that some serious matter must have arisen in the province. Unfortunately neither Mooney, O’Mahony nor any other source

provide further information.!*? The commissary whose visitation was to have the most profound influence on the Irish Observants was Francis Faber, a member of the Paris province and minister provincial of England. The English Observants had been closely associated with the royal family and court circles since the foundation of their

first house at Greenwich in 1482.'4° They received considerable support from Queen Katherine of Aragon, whose own family had been keen promoters of the Observance in Spain, and took her part in the divorce proceedings initiated by Henry vii in 1527, remaining loyal to her after it was granted in 1533. They also strongly opposed the recognition of the King as the supreme head of the church in England in 1531. These attitudes, coming from one of the most well-

respected religious groups in the realm, caused great concern to King Henry and it appears that Faber was initially dispatched as commissary to England in 1533 to placate him. By April 1533 he had been elected minister provincial and attempted to defuse the situation by moving some of the more obdurate friar-critics to other houses. He was eventually won round to their views

136 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 105-6. 137 Glassberger, Chronicle, p. 490. It is not clear what the reference to him as first vicar in these three provinces means. There is no reference to him holding such a position in any Irish source. For a notice of Bernard Lochen’s career see K.D. Brown,

‘The Franciscan Observants in England,

1482-1559’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford,

1986),

p. 270. 138 Necrologium, (Analecta Franciscana, viii, Quarrachi, 1946), p. 28. 139 “Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 107; ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 167. 140 Brown, ‘Franciscan Observants’, pp 24-32.

78

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

however as he saw the direction events were taking.'*! His visitation of the Irish houses in 1534 had a major political as well as religious significance, as is evident from the report of Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, to his master Charles v. Before departing Faber had informed the ambassador that he would brew up there all he could for the preservation of the authority of the Holy See, ...

Chapuys was obviously aware of the reputation of the Irish Observants for the report continues in which he may do wonderful service, especially among the wild Irish, by whom these Cordeliers (Observants) are feared, obeyed and almost adored not only by the peasants but by the lords who hold them in such reverence as to endure from them biows from a stick.!*7

From Mooney we learn that he made two visitations of the Irish province, but it

is impossible to determine if the 1534 visit was the first or second of these.!4? Faber’s visitation(s) and his apprisal to the Irish Observants of the religious situation in England, demonstrates a clear link between the opposition of the English Observants to the Reformation and that which was to become the

hallmark of the Irish friars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.'“ The fact that English rule was effective only in the Pale and other isolated crown territories and in attenuated form in the territories of great magnates such as the earls of Ormond, Desmond and Thomond meant that the process

of dissolving the Irish religious houses was a much more drawn-out and complex one than in England. At the end of the first wave of suppressions in 1540 sixty per cent of Irish friaries and monasteries had escaped suppression and the regular life of their members continued unmolested, in some cases until the early decades of the seventeenth century. This breathing space offered the friars a chance to regroup and resist. The Observants also had a number of advantages over other religious orders when it came to survival. The reverence in which they were held by all sections of the population has already been noted and, in many cases, the protecting hand of a local magnate ensured that they remained unmolested. Their commitment to evangelical poverty meant that their properties were 141 Ibid., pp 166-7, 174-82, 257. 142 Calendar of letters, despatches and state papers relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives at Simancas and elsewhere, V,no. 70. 143 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 105. 144 P. Rogers, ‘The Irish Franciscan Observants and the royal supremacy,’ in The Capuchin Annual (1934), pp 203-14.

The Observants,

1460-1534

719

quite small and consequently less attractive to those intent on acquiring monastic land. Their attendance at triennial chapters of the ultramontane Observants kept them in touch with developments on the Continent, while their contacts with

members of the English Observant movement of the most vocal opponents of the Henrician delay in implementing the dissolution policy the most vocal opponents of the Reformation which accompanied it.

brought them into touch with some reformation. These factors and the combined to make the Observants and of the process of Anglicisation

The foundation of colleges at Louvain (1606), Rome (1625) and Prague

(1630), provided secure bases in which young friars could be trained to the standards required by the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. The Louvain house became a particularly important centre for the preservation and dissemination of Irish culture: in 1611 a font was cut there which enabled the friars to print devotional and polemical works in Irish. The historical and hagiographical researches of the Louvain friars and of Luke Wadding in Rome led to the preservation of material which otherwise would have been lost while their contacts with contemporary philosophical, theological and political developments on the continent was reflected in their intellectual activities. In his study of the English Observants K.D. Brown’s remarks that an ‘indicator of the Observants’ spiritual vitality lies in the way in which, in apparent contrast to the Conventuals, they made the systems of chapters and

offices work’.'4> This could equally be applied to the Irish situation. There was little in the constitutional arrangements of the Observants that was not found in earlier Franciscan legislation. What distinguished the Observants was the zeal with which they used the structures of chapters, visitations and superiors to maintain a consistently high standard of religious life. These structures also provided the channels for new ideas and information to spread from one province to another and restored to the reformed friars something of the cosmopolitan, international esprit de corps that had been such a feature of the Franciscan movement in its initial phases.

145 Brown, ‘Franciscan Observants’ p. 63.

4 The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

The Franciscan Third Order, which appeared in Ireland in the second decade of the fifteenth century, was probably the most widespread and influential formal religious movement in late medieval Gaelic Ireland. Paradoxically it is the one which has left least trace and about which least has been written. Like the Conventual Friars Minor, the Third Order had died out in Ireland by the third decade of the seventeenth century and, apart from a number of references to it in the fifteenth-century papal registers, we depend for most of our information on the seventeenth-century Observant friar, Donatus Mooney.! Valuable as his work is, his primary focus is the history of the Observants and he has relatively little to say about the Third Order. This chapter deals with the emergence and development of the two forms of the Third Order (or Franciscan tertiaries) which were found in late medieval Ireland. These were the secular tertiaries, groups of devout lay people who followed the rule of the Third Order, but who were free to marry and pursue

secular occupations, and the regular tertiaries, or Third Order Regular, who, for much of this period, followed the same rule but who made formal profession of the religious vows and lived in religious communities. Modern writings on the Third Order have drawn almost entirely on the analysis of the surviving primary sources done by A.G. Little’ and Fr Canice Mooney, OFM,° and the conclusions arrived at by both these writers have, by

and large, been repeated without qualification. This is particularly true of the section on the Third Order in A. Gwynn and N. Hadcock’s Medieval Religious Houses, which relies heavily on the writings and advice of Fr Canice.* As the pre-eminent modern historian of the medieval Irish Franciscans, Fr Canice was in the tradition of those friar-historians whose emphasis on the Observant friars has caused the achievements of the other Franciscans to be somewhat 1 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 102-4.

2 FL, pp xxx-xxxii.

3 Mooney, Terminus, xii (1956), pp

14-17, 40-44; xiii (1956), 58-62, 88-92, 105-110. See also his ‘The Franciscan Third Order

Friary in Dungannon’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, i (1954), pp 12-23, 64.

80

4 MRH, pp 263-81.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

81

overshadowed. In the case of the Third Order, this led to a lack of emphasis on the distinctiveness of their tradition and an over-emphasis on the degree to which they were dependent on the Friars Minor. Various members of the modern Third Order Regular have attempted to redress this balance and their researches provide an interesting alternative perspective, though unfortunately little of it has been published. The work of Br Bernard MacUaid,

though chiefly concerned

with the activities of the

modern Third Order brothers, gives a useful summary of the activities of the medieval tertiaries in the archdiocese of Tuam.° Similarly the unpublished work of Br Vincent Jordan is particularly valuable for identifying the sites of medieval tertiary foundations and for its description of the material remains of the friaries.° The belief, occasionally expressed by these writers, of a direct and unbroken descent of the modern tertiaries from the medieval Third Order Regular is, however, most unlikely.’ Other modern writers, such as Fr Patrick Conlan, OFM, have provided good and useful introductions to the subject, though geared to popular demand and the needs of modern Franciscan tertiaries.* The most useful recent work however is a 1993 article by Patrick Quinn, which gives a summary of the emergence and spread of the tertiaries in Connacht but which does not address other major areas of their growth and development such as the reason for their emergence, their relations with the Friars Minor and secular clergy and the full extent of

their expansion.” In this chapter a brief account of the development of the Franciscan Third Order from the penitents of thirteenth-century Italy as well as the emergence of groups of tertiaries living in community will be given. The earliest evidence for the existence of the Third Order in Ireland will be presented. The secular tertiaries will then be examined and their distribution in Ireland analysed. An account of their lifestyle and spirituality based on an analysis of their rule and other references to them will be given. Evidence for their relations with the Friars Minor and secular clergy will also be presented. The conditions which facilitated the emergence and expansion of the Third Order Regular in late medieval Ireland will then be presented. Their 1521 rule will be examined in order to gain some idea of their manner of life as will developments within the movement in the course of the fifteenth century. The

5 B. MacUaid, ‘Treas Ord Rialta Shain Froinsias i nDeoise Thuama’ in Galvia, v (1958), pp 14-32 and vi (1959), pp 26-49. An English version of this article appears in Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis, xvi (1983), pp 335-409. 6 V. Jordan, Monasteries of the Franciscan Third Order Regular in Ireland (Mountbellew, n.d.). 7 Ibid., p.3. 8 P. Conlan, Secular Franciscans down the ages (Athlone, 1979), especially pp 20-3. See also his Franciscan Ireland (Mullingar, 1988), p.94.

9 P. Quinn, ‘The Third Order Regular of St Francis in Ireland’ in Analecta Tertii

82

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400—1534

chapter will conclude with an analysis of their relations with the Franciscans and the diocesan clergy and an assessment of their pastoral activities and their educational work.

THE

THIRD

ORDER

The origins and development of the Franciscan Third Order in the thirteenth century are among the more confused and contentious aspects of Franciscan historiography. As this is largely incidental to the development of the tertiaries in fifteenth-century Ireland, this short section will give only a broad outline of its development, though with reference to the most recent and significant works on the topic. The Franciscan Third Order had emerged from a pre-existing religious group, the order of penitents, by the second decade of the thirteenth century. These ‘penitents’ were individuals who voluntarily adopted the lifestyle normally imposed by the church on reconciled public sinners. Their existence

is well attested in the twelfth and thirteenth century!® and it was this lifestyle that St Francis adopted at the beginning of his conversion in 1205. It is more correct to speak of Francis and the first friars emerging from this ill-defined penitential background which they in turn influenced, than to speak of Francis as the founder of a new institution, called the “Third Order’. This topos of Francis as the founder of three orders however was the one preferred by his earliest biographers and it is certainly the one which persisted throughout the middle ages. As the friars spread through Italy and the rest of Europe, their preaching activities encouraged a revitalisation of the order of penitents.'!! These then became markedly ‘Franciscan’ in character, acknowledging Francis as their founder and patron and looking to the friars for spiritual guidance and

protection.!? In 1289 a rule was issued for them.'* At first the penitents or tertiaries consisted of married men and women but individuals grouped together and began a communal religious life, using the Third Order rule as their guide; from such groups as these the Third Order regular emerged. Ordinis Regularis xxvi (1993), pp 247-63. 10 See the influential work of G. G. Meerssemann, Dossier de l’Ordre de la Pénitence au xi siécle (Fribourg, 1961), though some of his conclusions have been challenged by M. D’Alatri in Aetas Poenitentialis: l’Antico Ordine francescano della Penitenza (Rome, 1995).

11 G. de Sandre Gasparini, ‘Movimento dei disciplinati, confraternite

e ordini mendicanti’ in S. Da Campagnola (ed.), / Frati Minori e il Terzo Ordine (Todi, 1985), pp 79-114. 12 R. Pazzelli, St Francis and the Third Order (Chicago 1991). 13 With the Bull Supra montem, BF, iv, pp 94-7.

| The Fronciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

83

=

EARLIEST

IRISH

REFERENCES

One of the most striking features of the Third Order in late medieval Ireland is _ the absence of precise references to them before the fifteenth century. In this segasd the Irish Franciscans resembled their English confréres who showed a disinclination to promote this form of Franciscan living among their lay _ iikowers.”” Vasious efforts tofind evidence of tertiary activity before the fifteenth comusry have been made. AG. Little has suggested that the confraternity founded in 1347 in Kilkenny for the purpose of building a belfry was a Third Order group

but this sems most unlikely.” A list of provinces of the Franciscan order compiled in Ragusa by Friar Peter of Trau in 1385 gives the number of tertiary congsregzions in Ireland as four but an examination of the Bodleian Library Manuscript cited as the authority for this statement suggests that it represents a

guess on the past of the author.” A seventeenth-century manuscript in the British Libsary seconds the foundation of the tertiary friary at Kilshane (or Ballingarry) in the Giocese of Limerick by a John Fitzgerald of Pobbesnesheagh in 1399, but this is thougis to be too early by Canice Mooney.’7 The easliest definite contemporary reference to the Third Order occurs in 1425 when Martin v granted 2 copy of the Bull Supra montem, containing their rule, the Irish tertiaries. A transcript of this document is preserved among the

heeds ofChrist Church Cathedral, Dublin.’* This was probably intended for a community of regular testiaries as the preamble of the Bull is addressed directly to the “Brothess and Sisters of penance’ and makes no mention of provincials, guardians, os other officers of the Friars Minor. The secular tertiaries were —sosndlly atached to a First Order friary and were more dependent on the friars

| for leadexship; it was common for copies of the rule intended for their use to acknowledge this.’ The presence of this document among the deeds of Christ Church is puzzling 2s there is no record of any Third Order groupings, whether secular os regular, in Dublin at this or any other period.

_

14D. W. Winidld, “The Third Order of StFrancis in medieval England’ in Franciscan Studies, *ii (1953), pp SOD. He argues that lay desire for associcztion with the Franciscan movement was Lagdly mnct by issuing eness A contsetemity, which allowed a share in the spiritual merits of the fiias wcities, rates than through adopting the rigorous lifestyle of the Third Order. 15 FL, Pp *4%-42441. The selasence to the confraernity occurs in Clyn, Annals, p. 34, where it isclear tha us primary purpose was the erection of 2 belitowes and the maintenance of the church. 16 Bod, US. Cononici Miscell. 535, £ 13; FL, p. 163. The four provinces referred to sequentially on this list axe described as having the same numbers of Poor Clare monasteries and Tatisy congregtiom wiached 3 cach. 17 BL, Add. MS. 4214, £ 5. No source is given for this tttemen. For 2 Gecusion A the location of the friary and later references w it see FL, p. 169. 18 Represemaive Coch Body Library, C6.162. (Registrum Novum, Ii, pp652-8. 19 In 1399 2 copy A Supra montem wes grated to 2 community A secular testiasies in Belgium. Even though theis supcion was 2 secular priest, they were subyect to supervision by the guardian of the

84

The Franciscans in Ireland, THE

The

THIRD

secular tertiaries, who

ORDER

followed

1400-1534

SECULAR

the rule of the Third

Order

while

remaining in secular occupations and raising families, are yet more difficult to trace than their regular confréres, though they were probably far more numerous. Their predominantly lay status meant that they were less likely to be involved in litigation over rights and benefices or to be called on to act in an ecclesiastical capacity. Consequently they generally escape mention in papal registers or other ecclesiastical legislation. Friar Donatus Mooney, who is the source of much of our information on the regular tertiaries, almost completely ignores (or takes for granted) their existence and his two references to them occur, not in his section on the Third Order, but in relation to the activities of

the Observant friars. It is frequently not possible to ascertain from the surviving entries in the papal registers if the individual tertiaries mentioned were secular or belonged to a regular community. Thus the 1433 grant of indulgences to Manus Macultucko and Thomas MacDuorchan” (tertiaries of Tuam diocese) could refer to members of either category, as could the 1442 grant to Donal Connolly,*! a priest of Annaghdown. The 1464 indulgence granted to Margaret de Burgo probably refers to a female secular tertiary but it is possible that she was a member of a regular community.” In other cases it is clear that secular tertiaries are intended: in 1466 an indulgence was granted to John Barrett, a tertiary in Killala diocese, and to his wife, and this is the earliest definite reference to a secular tertiary.*> In 1469 a similar indulgence was granted to

Manus O’ Moran, a Raphoe tertiary, and his wife.*4 Donal O’ Moran, a Raphoe priest-tertiary whose 1492 petition survives, may well have been related to Manus and his wife. He sought appointment to a benefice despite having fathered children on several of his parishioners, and it seems more likely that he was a secular rather than a regular tertiary living in community.”° There are two references to secular tertiaries in secular sources. In 1486, the

chief of Ui Maine, Tadhg Caoch O’ Kelly, died in the habit of the Third Order.”° The territory of Uf Maine was coextensive with the diocese of Clonfert which was the area in which the Third Order first emerged by the third decade of the fifteenth century. It is likely that O’ Kelly was a member of

local Franciscan friary. See H. Goyens, ‘Documenta quaedam ad historiam Tertii Ordinis regularis in Belgio 1349-1350’ in AFH, iv (1911), pp 537-43. 20 BFNS,i, p.56. 21 BFNS, i, p. 567; CPL, ix, p. 233. 22 CPL, xii, p.422. 23 CPL, xii, p.521. 24 CPL, xii, p. 703. 25 BFNS, iv, p. 926. It is possible that they were all members of the same clerical family who had

adopted the Third Order Rule, rather like the O’ Mulkerrills at Clonkeenkerrill discussed below. 26 Mooney, Terminus, xii (1956), p. 40.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

85

a secular Third Order fraternity attached to one of the three Franciscan friaries in the diocese, most probably the one at Kilconnell which the family had founded in 1414 and where they had right of sepulture. The Kilconnell friars had adopted the Observant reform at the behest of Malachy O’ Kelly, lord of Ui Maine, before 1464 and the Observants were keen promoters of the secular tertiaries. In 1528 the annals record the death of Nuala O’Brien, widow of Aodh Rua O’Donnell, who had spent the last twenty-one (or twenty-two) years of her life as a tertiary attached to the Observant friary in Donegal.”’ The impression of Observant associations with the secular tertiaries is borne out by both of Donatus Mooney’s references to them. He records the involvement of two secular tertiaries in the construction of the Observant friary at Adare in 1484: Rory O’ Dea built one side of the cloister and presented a silver chalice, while Marianus O’Hickey built the refectory and provided the stalls on the north side of the choir. The latter later entered the Adare community and died with a reputation for holiness.”* This bears comparison with Mooney’s account of the career of Felim MacCarthy, a friar of Kilcrea who died in 1588

but who had spent many years as a secular tertiary, doing penance for the murder of his brother, before becoming an Observant Friar. He also came to

have a reputation for sanctity.7? It is significant that all references to secular tertiaries found outside the papal registers were associated with houses of Observant Franciscans. This indicates that promotion of the Third Order among the laity was associated with the reformed friars. The geographical distribution of the surviving references, from Raphoe, Clonfert, Limerick and Cork dioceses, indicates that

these secular tertiaries were a widespread phenomenon and not confined to one particular area. It is quite likely that secular tertiary groups were established as a matter of course wherever there was an Observant friary and that they provided an important way of associating lay-people with the reformed Franciscan movement. Such fostering of the Third Order by the Observants was common elsewhere in Europe; the great Observant preacher St John Capistran was a great promoter and protector of the tertiaries in Italy*? and the Scottish tertiaries received much support from the Breton Observant, Olivier

Maillard.!

27 AFM, v, p. 1393. Ann. Conn., p. 667, ALC, ii, p. 265. This last source refers to her spending her wealth in promoting hospitality and humanity and performing devotion, clemency and good works on behalf of God and the world, activities entirely consonant with the spirit of the Third Order. 28 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 63-4. 29 Ibid., pp 70-71. 30 Moorman, History, pp 565-6. See also A. Andreozzi, ‘San Giovanni da Capestrano e la sua difesa del Terz’Ordine Francescano’ in Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis, vi, (1973) pp 806-14. 31 F. Delorme, ‘Olivier Maillard et le Tiers-Ordre Régulier en Ecosse’ in AFH, viii (1915), pp 353-8.

86

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534 “SUPRA

MONTEM’

AND

THE

LIFESTYLE

OF

THE

TERTIARIES

The 1289 Bull, Supra montem,** of Nicholas tv provided the norm of life for the secular tertiaries until 1883. As shown above, the granting of a copy of this rule to the Irish tertiaries by Martin v in 1425 is the earliest contemporary reference to the Third Order in Ireland. The various influences on the rule and the process of redaction which it underwent before receiving its final form in 1289 have been the subject of much scholarly debate which is outside the

scope of this study.*3 The rule is divided into a prologue and twenty chapters and outlines an austere form of life which demanded a great degree of commitment and which would have noticeably distinguished the tertiaries from their contemporaries.

The first two chapters deal with the reception and formation of new members.*4 Candidates were first examined to see that they were firm in the Catholic faith and heretics and people of ill repute were forbidden membership. The ministers of the fraternity were responsible for explaining what the life entailed and the conditions for acceptance included the restitution of stolen property and reconciliation with one’s neighbour. The candidate was then clothed in the habit of the order and began a year of probation after which, if they gained the approval of the ‘discreet brothers’ of the fraternity, they could be admitted to profession. This was a lifelong public commitment, recorded by a notary, and the tertiary agreed to submit to the ministers and visitators of the order. Members were not permitted to leave the Third Order unless it was to transfer to another approved religious order. As shown above, the careers of Friar Marianus O’ Hickey in Adare and Friar Felim MacCarthy in Kilcrea, who transferred from the tertiaries to the Observant Friars Minor, indicate that this occasionally occurred in Ireland. In the case of Felim MacCarthy the penitential lifestyle of the secular tertiaries provided the framework for expiating the scandal attached to the murder of his brother and he was admitted to the Friars Minor only after

making due satisfaction.*° Married women could only be admitted to the Third Order with the permission of their husbands. In this context it is significant that Nuala O’Brien became a tertiary only after her husband’s death and that in the

grants of plenary indulgences to John Barrett*® and Manus O’ Moran*’ and their wives, only the men seem to have been tertiaries. This prescription may be due 32 BF, iv, pp 94-7. faciunt penitentiam:

33 The most useful recent works on the topic are R. M. Stewart, De Illis qui the Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order: origins, development,

interpretation (Rome 1991), and M. D’ Alatri, Aetas Poenitentialis: L’antico Ordine Francescano

della Penitenza (Rome, 1995), especially pp 47-60, where a summary and trenchant criticism of earlier theories is given. 34 BF, iv, p.94.. 35 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 70-1. 36 CPL, xii, p. CRES xian a03s OS

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

87

to a reluctance to allow women to make a commitment which might have interfered with conjugal relations. A similar fear seems to be the motivation for the clause in the Abbreviatio statutorum forbidding Observant friars from

accepting vows of chastity from women.*8 The habit of the secular tertiaries was described in the third chapter.°? It was grey in colour and to be of the cheapest material, they were allowed a cloak but forbidden expensive furs, silks or ribbons, and were not to wear any ornaments. This distinctive habit was worn at all times by the secular tertiaries and would have noticeably distinguished them from other lay people. In this regard the adoption of the Third Order habit by high-ranking figures like Nuala O’Brien and Tadhg Caoch O’ Kelly would have been a very clear ascetic sign to their contemporaries. The habit was modified slightly by Julius 11 in 1508 so that the tertiaries could more easily be distinguished from the Friars Minor, but

there is no record of what effect, if any, this had in Ireland.*° They were also forbidden to attend plays, festivals or banquets or to support actors, and were

instructed to see that none of their families did so.*! Membership of the Third and fasting. Tertiaries were Clerical members did so by of the locality, though with lay members recited twelve

Order entailed a significant commitment to prayer expected to observe the seven canonical hours. reciting the divine office according to the custom slight variations for the office of Prime. Illiterate Pater Nosters and Glorias for Matins and seven

for the other hours with the Apostles’ creed and Psalm 50 (Miserere mei, Deus)

added to Prime and Compline by those who knew them. From the feast of St Martin until Christmas and during Lent, they were expected to attend the morning hours in their parish churches. Given the nature of the parish structure in late medieval Ireland, it is likely that many secular tertiaries fulfilled this obligation by attending services in a Franciscan church. Where possible they were expected to attend daily mass and to confess and receive communion three times a year. There was a monthly mass and meeting for all members at which they were encouraged to have another religious preach to them. All members of the fraternity were expected to attend the obsequies of their confréres and to offer appropriate suffrages for their souls. Priest tertiaries were obliged to offer a mass, those who could read recited fifty psalms, and the illiterate said fifty Pater Nosters. As well as observing the Friday and Lenten fast common to all Christians, the tertiaries fasted from the feast of St Martin (11 November) until Christmas. Their Lenten fast was also longer than usual, beginning on Quinquagesima Sunday, and they were obliged to fast on Wednesdays from November Ist until

38 AS, v, 13.

39 BF, iv, pp 94-5.

40 Stewart, De illis (Rome, 1991), p. 225.

41 BF, iv, p. 95,

88

the following

The Franciscans in Ireland,

Easter. Abstinence

from

meat. was

observed

1400-1534

on Mondays,

Wednesdays and Saturdays and they were to be content with two meals a day. There were a number of exceptions to this regime: pregnant tertiaries were exempt until after their purification, as were travellers. Those engaged in physical work could take three meals a day and no one was to fast for three days after being bled. The local ministers and the visitators could dispense from these requirements as circumstances demanded. The regime, as outlined above, gives some glimpse of what the experience of tertiaries like Nuala O’ Brien must have been like and fleshes out the bald annalistic reference to her twenty-one years spent in prayer and fasting. It also sheds light on her decision to live near the Observant friary at Donegal, as this would have enabled her to attend the liturgical offices at the times required by the rule. As well as governing the spiritual lives of the tertiaries Supra montem established norms for their daily conduct. Within three months of admission each tertiary had to make a will.4* This was a concrete expression of the intention to make restitution of stolen property and of a desire to make peace

with their neighbours, and had a major impact on late medieval society. Though there is no evidence that any of the wills surviving from Ireland in this period belonged to tertiaries, it is possible that some do, and that the emphasis placed by the tertiaries on making them may have influenced their contem-

poraries to do likewise.* Male tertiaries were forbidden to carry arms without the permission of their ministers unless for the defence of the church or their country.** It is impossible to assess the effect that this may have had in late medieval Ireland, but in 1541 the Four Masters record the death of Tuathal Balbh O’ Gallagher and note that in all his military expeditions he had never killed anyone. As a young man he had been influenced by a friar in Donegal who preached that it was absolutely unlawful to kill or injure people. It is conceivable that, with this attitude, he could also have been a member of the Third Order, but even if he was not, it

does demonstrate that the Donegal Observants effectively promoted a pacifist

position which was consonant with the spirit of the Third Order rule.4” The tertiaries were expected to promote cordial relations among themselves and with their neighbours, and in the event of a dispute were to refer the matter to the minister of the fraternity or to the local bishop.** As far as possible they

chap. 4. 42 BF, iv, pp 94-7, chaps. 5, 6, 8, 13 and 14. 43 BF, iv, p.96, chap.9. 44 Stewart, De illis, p. 231. 45 None of the testators included in H.F. Berry (ed.), Register of wills and inventories of the diocese of Dublin

1457-1483 (Dublin, 1898), seem to have been tertiaries. It is possible that

some of the Galway wills found in M.J. Blake, Blake family records (London, 1902), may belong to tertiaries, particularly as the Friars Minor are among the most frequent beneficiaries, but this cannot be proved. 46 BF, iv, p.95,chap.7. 47 AFM, v, p. 1463. 48 BF, iv, p. 96, chap. 10.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

89

were instructed to avoid lawsuits, but were permitted as a last resort to bring the case to court.*” In the event of persecution by secular authorities they were

to refer to the local bishop and proceed according to his advice.*? This emphasis on recourse to episcopal protection is somewhat ironic, as the only recorded instance of persecution in Ireland, as will be shown, occurred at the

hands of the secular clergy. Unless absolutely necessary, they were forbidden

to take solemn oaths and were expected to avoid casual swearing.”! Each tertiary congregation was governed by a local minister assisted by advisers (discreti). Mention is also made of a treasurer.°? It is not clear how the

minister was chosen, whether by election or appointment, but the office was held

for a fixed period and not for life.** The monthly meeting was the occasion for common spiritual practices as well as for conducting the other business of the congregation. This included collecting money for poor and sick members and to cover the cost of their funerals. After the needs of these were met, the rest

of the money was distributed to the poor and an offering made to the church

where the tertiaries gathered.>+ A visitation of each fraternity was conducted annually, at which major issues of discipline and correction were addressed and instruction given. The visitator was appointed by the local superiors of the Friars Minor and was preferably to be a friar himself, though a priest of another approved order could be appointed.

Visitation by a layman was forbidden.*> At this meeting the minister was to denounce the faults of individuals for punishment by the visitator. Malefactors were to be forewarned of this, but if after three warnings they proved incorrigible,

the visitator was empowered to expel them from the fraternity.*© For want of surviving sources it is almost impossible to trace relations between the secular tertiaries and the diocesan clergy. In Gaelic areas, where diocesan and parochial organization was looser than in the Pale, it seems unlikely that they encountered much opposition from parish priests concerned about the effect they would have on their rights and revenues. It is quite possible, as shown above, that some diocesan priests may themselves have been secular tertiaries. In the AngloIrish areas, where church structures were better organized, clerical prerogatives were more jealously guarded, but as no records of secular tertiaries have survived, further speculation would be ill- advised. It is clear from the various aspects described above that the secular tertiaries were closely associated with the Observant Friars Minor. Though the amount of evidence is slight, it demonstrates that the close association between the two groups envisaged in Supra montem and in the activities of the continental 49 BF, iv, p. 97, chap. 17. 50 BF, iv, p. 96, chap. 11. 51 BF, iv, p. 96, chap. 12. 52 BF, iv, p. 96, chap. 13. 53 BF, iv, p.97, chap. 15. 54 BF, iv, p. 96, chap. 13. 55 BF, iv, p. 97, chap. 16. 56 BF, iv. p. 97, chap. 19.

The Franciscans in Ireland,

90

1400-1534

Observant reformers was also a feature of the Irish situation. The emergence of the tertiaries at the time and in the places where the Irish Friars Minor were expanding provides strong circumstantial evidence that both movements were part of the same process. In the next section arguments will be advanced for the emergence of the Third Order Regular, those groups of tertiaries living in community, from the ranks of the secular tertiaries who emerged in association with the new houses of Friars Minor in the west of Ireland in the late

fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The Franciscan Third Order provided an important vehicle for lay devotion in late medieval Ireland. The scarcity of records and the clerical bias of those that survive means that this important aspect of lay religious life remains tantalizingly obscure, but sufficient remains to suggest that the movement was both widespread and influential.

THE

EMERGENCE

OF

THE

THIRD

ORDER

REGULAR

The first contemporary reference to a tertiary friary occurs in February 1426 with the granting of a Bull permitting the foundation of a house in the diocese of Clonfert. The identity of the house is not given but it was being built on one of the sites in Clonfert and other western dioceses that had been offered to the tertiaries by William de Burgo, chief of his clan. This is also the first indication of one of the most striking features of the movement: its concentration in the

rural dioceses of Gaelic Ireland.°’ This Bull, though published in the Calendar of Papal Letters, was not noted by Fitzmaurice and Little in 1920 and this omission has not been corrected by subsequent writers on the subject.>® This has had significant consequences for the presentation of the development of the regular life among the tertiaries. In June 1426 the Irish regular tertiaries were granted the right to have mass and the other divine offices celebrated in their own chapels during times of interdict and to choose their own chaplains.>? Such an exemption indicates a high degree of organization and privilege and

it is likely that they were already well established by this date. In March 1428 an indulgence was granted to those who visited and gave alms to the church of the Third Order friary at Killeenbrenan in Tuam diocese.®! This suggests that the friary had been in existence for some time or that the tertiaries had taken over an old chapel in need of repair, and it is likely that this 57 CPL, vii, p. 452. 58 The only writer to refer to it is P. Conlan, Franciscan Ireland (Mullingar, 1988), p.94. 59 BF, vii, p. 655. CPL, vii, p.427. 60A copy of the 1232 Bull of Gregory IX granting similar privileges to the Friars Minor is found in the fifteenth-century Observant

text TCD

MS.

250, f. 150; Colker, Latin MSS., p. 443.

61 CPL, viii, p. 25.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

9]

was one of the communities for whom the privileges in the June 1426 Bull were intended. It may also have been founded on one of the other sites granted by William de Burgo mentioned in the February 1426 Bull as there is a

suggestion that a de Burgo was the founder.” In 1457 it was described as the principal house of the order in Ireland and it is possible that it was also the first community of regular tertiaries to be established. The next foundation for the tertiaries was Clonkeenkerrill, also in Clonfert

diocese, where a parish church was given into the care of the tertiaries during the reign of the Dominican bishop, Thomas O’Kelly. Though he ruled the diocese from 1405 until his translation to Tuam in 1438, it seems most probable, given the primacy of Killeenbrenan, that this transfer took place sometime between

1428 and 1438. Clonkeenkerrill, as will be shown, was

unusual among the Third Order houses and the activities of its inmates were to have far-reaching consequences for the tertiaries as a whole.

DEVELOPMENTS

IN

CLONFERT,

1371-1414

Whereas a majority of commentators have noted the emergence of the Third Order regular in the west of Ireland in the 1420s, none have ventured opinion as to why this should be the case. This new form of Franciscan living appears to burst unheralded on the Irish church in 1425 and to expand rapidly. Its emergence is all the more striking as there is little evidence for its existence in the preceding two centuries. How did people get to hear about the Third Order? Why and when did it emerge? What were its initial characteristics? Developments in the diocese of Clonfert in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries suggest some answers to these questions. Clonfert was one of the smallest dioceses in the medieval Irish church and,

with the exception of a Carmelite friary founded in Loughrea in c.1300, had not been affected by the first wave of mendicant expansion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The second wave of expansion more than compensated for this. In 1371 the Friars Minor made their first new foundation since 1325 when they took over the abandoned Carthusian monastery at Kinalehin in the south of

the diocese.“ In 1414 Pope John xxii mandated the bishop of Clonfert to licence the foundation of three houses by the Friars Minor. Two of these, at Meelick and Kilconnell, were in Clonfert.

62 MRH, pp 271-2. 63 CPL, xi, p. 140; BFNS, 11, pp 143-4. 64 On its Carthusian period see A. Gray, ‘Kinaleghin: A forgotten Irish charterhouse’ in RSAJJn., 1xxxix (1959), pp 35-58. 65 FL, p. 177; BF vii, p. 482; CPL, vi, p. 467.

92

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

The concentration of the first wave of Friars Minor in the towns and boroughs of the Anglo-Norman colony, and their apparent lack of interest in developing the Third Order among the laity has already been noted. The friars of this second period of expansion were of a different cast; their mission was primarily to Gaelic Ireland, they were driven by a desire for reform and their pastoral activities had a profound effect on shaping patterns of lay piety. As shown in the previous section, one of the features of this reform was an interest in promoting the Third Order Secular and it is highly probable that the first regular tertiaries emerged from the groups of secular tertiaries attached to the three new friaries established in Clonfert between 1371 and 1414. As noted in chapter three the Franciscans were not the only group of reformed religious operating in early fifteenth-century Clonfert. In 1414 a community of Observant Dominicans was established at Portumna and in 1446, presumably as a result of their activity, the only community of Irish Dominican Tertiaries was established at Kilcorban, about six miles from

Portumna.© Although no Franciscan or Dominican foundation had been made in Clonfert during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the diocese had been influenced by the mendicants in other ways. One of the most vivid accounts of the Franciscans as preachers concerns the activities of Friar Thomas O’Quinn in Clonfert

sometime before 1252°’ and Franciscans and other mendicants were frequently appointed as bishops of the diocese. Between 1405 and 1534 all but one of the bishops were friars, and the bishop of Clonfert was one of the clerics most frequently called on to execute Bulls in favour of the friars. The presence of these friar-bishops must have played a crucial role in promoting the various forms of mendicant activity. The support of the Dominican bishop Thomas O’ Kelly, during whose reign (1405-38) most of the principal foundations were made, must have been particularly important.

LAY

CHARACTER

OF

THE

EARLY

REGULAR:

TERTIARIES

Another argument for the emergence of the Third Order Regular from the secular tertiaries is the predominantly lay character of the movement in its initial phases. The first Bull mentioning the regular tertiaries in February 1426 refers to the ‘recent petition of Patrick Yclinnan and the other friars of the Third Order of St Francis called the order of penitence’ but makes no mention 66 C. Stanley, Kilcorban Priory (Ballinasloe, 1987). 67 Lib. ex. p. 98. See also A.J. Fletcher, ‘Preaching in late-medieval Ireland: the English and the Latin tradition’ in A.J. Fletcher and R. Gillespie (eds), /rish preaching, 700-1700 (Dublin, 2001), pp 56-8, 60.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

93

of any of them being in clerical orders.°* The wording of the June 1426 Bull giving the tertiaries exemption at times of interdict is more significant; they were permitted to ‘cause’ mass and the divine offices to be celebrated and were allowed to appoint their own chaplain. This suggests that initially there were no priests among them, which is what one would expect from a group whose spiritual needs had hitherto been looked after by the Friars Minor. The Bull licensing the foundation of three Third Order houses in February 1442 indicates that the lay influence remained prominent, as it appears that none of the three friars involved in the foundation (who appear to have been related) were priests.’ However, as will be shown, other papal letters demonstrate increasing Clericalisation in the course of the fifteenth century.

MIXED

COMMUNITIES

AND

COMMUNITIES

OF

WOMEN

A number of the papal Bulls addressed to the Irish regular tertiaries were addressed to the ‘brothers and sisters of the order of penance’ and this has led previous writers to speculate on whether some of the regular houses, at least in their initial phases, were joint establishments with male and female members.’° The first Bull mentioning the regular tertiaries in February 1426 refers to the recent petition of Patrick Yclinnan and the other friars of the Third Order but makes no mention of any female members.’! As noted already, this Bull has been overlooked by previous writers who consequently may have placed undue emphasis on later references to female members of the order. Nevertheless the issue is worthy of attention. The June 1426 exemption from interdict is addressed to both the brothers and sisters of the Third Order though it is possible that this is just a standard formula employed in the papal chancery.’* The strongest evidence for a joint community occurs in the 1454

Bull licensing the foundation of the friary at Court in the diocese of Achonry.”* Here the references to ‘brothers and sisters’ do not appear to be just notarial formulae but suggest that this was a community in which men and women actually lived together. The 1457 Bull appointing a friar of Killeenbrennan as visitator of the tertiaries states that the order was for men and women dwelling in the religious habit and that the visitator’s brief includes all the houses of the

order and the people of both sexes dwelling therein.’* This is the last reference 68 CPL, vii, p. 452. When the petitioner was a priest it was normal to refer to this. 69 BFNS, i, pp 270-71. CPL, ix, pp 155-6. One of these however was a cleric, as his entry into the Tertiary house at Rosserk caused a vacancy in the cathedral chapter of Achonry. BF'NS, i, p. 264, CPL ix, p. 170. 70 Quinn, ‘Third Order Regular’, pp 254-5. 71 CPL, vii, p.452. 72 BF, vii, p. 655; CPL, vii, p. 427. 73 BFNS, i, pp 882-3; CPL, x, p.713. 74 BFNS, ii, pp 143-4; CPL, xi p. 149.

94

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

to joint communities though, as will be shown, it was not the last time that

men and women were found living together in Third Order friaries. Donatus Mooney, writing in 1618, stated that he had never heard of any female members of the Second or Third Orders’° and it seems most likely that these joint communities, which at all times seem to have been in a minority among the Irish tertiaries, had died out long before this. A related issue, which has not been satisfactorily addressed, is whether or

not there were any communities of female tertiaries. Such communities were common on the continent in the fifteenth century, with perhaps the best known of them being the Grey Sisters who ran hospitals in Flanders and Burgundy. These followed the Third Order rule but adopted constitutions appropriate to community living and their apostolate.”° Four communities of these sisters

were established in Scotland under the influence of the Observant Friars.’’ There is a Single reference to a community of ‘Poor nuns of St Francis’ in Galway in 1511 when Walter Lynch, twice mayor of the city, granted a house near the church of St Nicholas to his daughter who was a member of the community. Though nothing further is heard of them, it is thought that it was a community of regular tertiaries.’* It has been suggested that a fifteenth-century English translation of the Third Order rule may have been made for a community of sisters in Ireland. If this is the case, the Galway house seems to be the obvious location, as some of the male members of the other houses would have been literate in Latin and, in any case, these communities would have spoken Irish.’?

CLERICALIZATION

The picture of the clergy in Ireland in the fifteenth century is traditionally one in which concubinage, simony, ignorance and litigation are the significant motifs. This view can be amply supported by even the briefest examination of the contemporary sources but is not the full story. The achievements of the reform movements among the various branches of the friars tend to emphasise the shadows on the secular clergy in a way which is not entirely fair and there is the danger of projecting the values of later (often clerical) historians onto the events of the late middle ages. Henry Jefferies’ recent work on the registers of

75 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 102. 76 H. Lemaitre, ‘Statuts des religieuses du Tiers Ordre Franciscain dites soeurs grises hospitaliers’ in AFH, iv (1911), pp 713-31. 77M. Delorme, ‘Olivier Maillard et le Tiers Ordre Régulier en Ecosse (1458-1496)’ in AFH 8, (1915), pp 353-7.

78 C. Mooney in MRH, p. 317. 79 W. Seton (ed.), Two fifteenth-century Franciscan rules (Early English Texts Society, Old series, 148 London, 1914), pp 25-57. Whitfield, ‘Third Order of St Francis,’ p.52, suggests it might have been used by a community of English-speaking

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

95

the archbishops of Armagh demonstrates that standards of pastoral care and clerical discipline were adequate in both the English and Gaelic sections of the diocese.®° In Gaelic areas, as Katharine Simms has shown, there was a decrease

in tolerance of clerical concubinage,*! something which the circulation of the reformist tract Riaghail na Sacart also demonstrates.** In the Pale desire for reform was one of the chief reasons behind the foundation of the large number of colleges of secular clergy in the fifteenth century.*? In Gaelic Ireland, the Third Order Regular fulfilled this need and a significant number of its members came to be drawn from the ranks of the secular clergy. This development was instrumental in transforming the movement from a predominantly lay organization into a largely clerical body. Possibly the earliest evidence for this occurs in 1433 when two tertiaries, one of them a priest, were granted a plenary indulgence.** Its impact on diocesan organization can be

seen in 1441 when separate papal letters were addressed to officials in Elphin® and Tuam*® dioceses ordering them to assign ecclesiastical benefices in Achonry and Tuam which were vacant because the incumbents had entered Third Order communities. In 1448 Nicholas v instructed three canons of Achonry to assign a benefice which had been illegally detained by Philip Oclunan after he had entered Rosserk.®’ In 1466 a similar situation arose when Cornelius Ycassy (O’ Casey?) vacated his benefice in Clonfert to become a tertiary.** Other papal documents such as the granting of a plenary indulgence to a tertiary priest in

1441®° and the appointment of a friar-priest of Killeenbrenan as visitator of the tertiaries in 1457 also indicate the growing presence of priests in the Order. Canice Mooney draws attention to the use of the place-name Ballynasaggart to designate three tertiary houses and suggests that this is evidence of the predominantly clerical nature of the institute.!

tertiaries in Ireland.

80H. Jefferies, Priests and prelates ofArmagh in the age of reformations,

1518-1558 (Dublin, 1997), pp 55-6, 81-2.

81K. Simms, ‘The Norman invasion and Gaelic

recovery’ in R.F. Foster (ed.), The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (Oxford, 1989), pp 99-100. 82 For an edition of this see, /risleabhar Muighe Nuadhad (1919), pp 73-9. Lam grateful to Dr Katharine Simms for drawing my attention to this text. 83 For general notices of

these foundations see MRH, pp 358-62. 84 BFNS, i, 56. It is not clear from the text that they were members of a tertiary community. It is possible that they were secular tertiaries. 85 BFNS, i, p. 264; CPL, ix, p. 141: assigning a canonry and prebend of Achonry, void because the holder, Philip Ocluayn, had entered the tertiary community at Rosserk. 86 CPL, ix, p. 141: instructing the abbot of Abbeyknockmoy to assign the vicarage of Killoscoba, vacant because David Omulcori (O’Mulkerrill) had become a friar at Clonkeenkerrill. 87 CPL, x, p. 395. 88 CPL, xii, pp 512-3. 89 BFNS, i, p. 269. CPL, ix, p. 233. 90 BFNS, ii, pp 143-4. CPL, xi, p. 140. 91 Terminus, xiii (1956), p. 108.

96

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534 EXPANSION

Between 1426 and 1539 approximately forty-nine houses of regular tertiaries

were established in Ireland.°” In many cases little is known of the identity of the founders, the dates of foundation or dissolution and it is difficult to draw a detailed picture of the process of expansion though enough material remains to sketch broad outlines of the expansion in the province of Tuam and the dioceses of Raphoe and Connor. Most of the houses were concentrated in the west and north of the country with a cluster of smaller houses in the southwestern dioceses of Limerick and Emly. The houses at Slane in Meath and Ballymacadane in Cork lie considerably outside the line of expansion but both, as will be demonstrated, were unusual foundations. Mention has already been made of the first tertiary foundations in Clonfert and Tuam dioceses. Of these the house at Clonkeenkerrill in Clonfert is the best documented and the activities of its members were to have major repercussions for the order as a whole. It is first mentioned in 1441 when Donatus Okealy (O’ Kelly?) was granted the vicarage of Killoscoba in Tuam diocese which was vacant because David Omulcori

(O’Mulkerrill)

had made

his

profession as a tertiary friar there.?* It appears that the community had been in existence for some time before this because later that year another petition mentions that the church of Clonkeenkerrill had been given into the care of the

tertiaries by Bishop Thomas O’Kelly who ruled the diocese from 1405 to 1438.%4 This petition was granted at the request of David and John O’ Mulkerrill, priests and tertiary friars. The similarity of their surname and the placename itself suggests this was a case of members of a hereditary clerical family adopting the Third Order rule. In 1453 David O’ Mulkerrill found himself unable in conscience to hold Clonkeenkerrill as a Third Order friary and was granted permission to convert it to “a better and more useful work’ by offering it to the Friars Minor.”> No reason was given for the change which David claimed had the unanimous support of his chapter. It did not however have the support of the other tertiary houses and, as will be shown, the transfer of Clonkeenkerrill was one of the main reasons for the regular tertiaries gaining independence from the Friars Minor in 1457. The later history of the house is also complex. Despite the transfer to the Friars Minor in 1453, it was still described as a Third Order house in 4 1483 Bull granting an indulgence to all who contributed to its repair.°° This had been 92 For identifications and general notes on these houses see MRH, pp 267-81. Further identifications and descriptions of surviving structures are found in V. Jordan, Monasteries of the Franciscan Third Order Regular in Ireland. Neither list is complete, and it is impossible to make a definite statement about the number of houses on the strength of the surviving evidence. 93 CPL, iv, p. 199. 94 BFNS, i, p. 265. CPL, ix, pp 211-12. 95 BFNS, i, pp 844-5. CPL, x, p. 649. 96 CPL, xiii,

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

97

granted at the request of the master of the house, Cornelius O’ Mulkerrill, who had travelled to Rome to obtain it. In January 1499 three canons of Tuam were ordered to induct Charles O’ Mulkerrill to a vicarage in the diocese. The Bull also stated that Charles had been dispensed from a defect of birth as the son of a Third Order priest and of a married woman.”’ Katharine Simms uses Clonkeenkerrill as a clear example of hereditary clerical succession in the late medieval Irish church but seems unaware of its complicated Franciscan associations.?8 Though the best documented of the Irish tertiary houses, it is not easy to determine what exactly was going on in Clonkeenkerrill. The various influences at work there are intriguing: regular tertiaries, Friars Minor and an established clerical family seem to have found it possible to co-exist throughout the fifteenth century. If nothing else it demonstrates how eminently adaptable the Third Order Regular was to the peculiar needs of the church in Gaelic Ireland. In 1442 papal confirmation was granted for tertiary foundations at Rosserk, Ballymote and Tisaxon at the request of three tertiary friars who appear to

have been members of the same family.?? The distribution of the sites and the fact that permission for them had been secured from the local bishops indicates that the order was well established and widespread in Connacht. The houses at Rosserk and Ballymote developed into important friaries and it is probable that they established other foundations in their vicinities. Unfortunately no evidence of links between these new houses and the earlier houses in Clonfert and Tuam has survived, though it is very likely that they are connected. In 1445, three years after the formal confirmation of their own community, the friars in Rosserk spearheaded the expansion of the regular tertiaries into the northeast of Ulster when a licence was granted to them to found a friary in the diocese

of Connor.! This indicates a widespread network of contacts and influence and suggests that the order was well known throughout Gaelic Ireland. The location of this foundation has not been satisfactorily identified and has given rise to much speculation. Its first patrons were two MacDonnells and a Semiquinus Machon whom Canice Mooney tentatively identifies as Sinchin MacQuillan, the lord of

the Route!®! but whom M.A. Costello identifies as a Bisset.!°? An attempt has been made to identify this first foundation with the important tertiary house at

Glenarm.!™ p. 836.

97 CPL, xviii:1, pp 72-3.

98 K. Simms, ‘Frontiers in the Irish church — regional and

cultural’ in T. Barry, R. Frame, K. Simms (eds), Colony and frontier in medieval Treland: essays

presented to J.F: Lydon (London and Rio Grande, 1995), p. 181. 99 BFNS, i, pp 270-1. CPL, ix, pp 155-6. These were in the dioceses of Killala, Achonry and Tuam and the petition was granted to Patrick, Philip and Andrew Yclumain. 100 CPL, ix, p.493. 101 C. Mooney, Terminus, xiii (1956), pp 90-1.

102 M.A. Costello (ed), De Annatis Hiberniae, 1400-1535, (Dundalk, 1909) 1,

p. 139. He also identifies this foundation with the tertiary friary at Glenarm. I am grateful to Dr Simon Kingston for this reference. 103 H. MacDonnell, ‘Glenarm friary and the Bissets’ in The

98

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

Previous accounts of Glenarm have relied on a 1465 papal document cited by Luke Wadding in which the founder of the friary was named as Robert Bisset, a Scot, who was related to the minister provincial of the Third Order in

Ireland.!°* This document has since come to light and confirms some of Wadding’s details. The founder was indeed related to a tertiary friar, also called Robert Bisset, who is described as the minister of the friars, but it is not

clear that he was minister provincial of all the Irish friars or just superior of Glenarm. The term minister was the normal term for a local superior of a tertiary house and Wadding may have been misled by the usage of his own order, the Friars Minor, in which minister normally designates the leader of a

province.!9 If however Robert Bisset was the minister provincial of all the Irish tertiaries it would be proof of how well established the Third Order was in Ulster and how influential the Ulster friars had become in the order. Wadding’s assertion that the other Robert Bisset, the lay patron of the friary, was a Scot raises the possibility of Bisset’s involvement in tertiary houses in both Ireland and Scotland. In 1488 Johanna Bisset, a member of the tertiary community at Aberdour in Scotland, was among those who signed a petition

to the Observant ultramontane vicar general, Olivier Maillard.!°° It is difficult to give anything other than approximate dates for the foundation of the other Ulster houses, though it appears that Dungannon was founded by the

O’Neills c. 1489! and that the house at Inver was established in 1500.!° The north-western diocese of Raphoe was the scene of much mendicant activity in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries with the foundation of nine friaries. As noted in chapter three, an important Observant Franciscan house was established at Donegal in 1474 and a Carmelite foundation at

Rathmuilan in 1516. The remaining seven houses were of regular tertiaries.! There were two centres of activity: three houses in the south of the diocese on the shore of Donegal bay and four more in the north near Lough Swilly and Fanad. A 1471 papal Bull survives instructing the dean of Raphoe to licence the foundation of a house at Killydonnell by two tertiary friars, Dermot Megillasbuig (MacGillespie) and Dermot Idurnyn (O’ Durnin?), and granting the community the privileges and rights enjoyed by the friars elsewhere.!!° Glynns, xv (1987), pp 34-49. 104 MRH, p. 271. 105 BFNS ii, p. 659. The text reads ‘quorum minister erat Robertus de Bissed, donatoris consanguineus’. 106 Delorme, ‘Olivier Maillard’, pp 355—6. Contacts between reformed Franciscans in Ireland and Scotland were not uncommon: on a number of occasions the same visitaturs were appointed for both the Irish and Scottish Observants, and in 1505 the death of Patrick O’Feidhil, Observant friar and noted preacher in Ireland and Scotland, is recorded in the Annals of Ulster. 107 C. Mooney, ‘The Franciscan Third Order Friary at Dungannon’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, i (1954-5), pp 12-23. 108 MRH, p. 271. 109S.0 Domhnaill, “Some notes on the houses of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Tirconaill’ in T. O’Donnell (ed.), Franciscan Donegal (Ros Nuala, 1952), pp 97-103. 110 BFNS ii, 845-6. CPL,

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

99

Unfortunately it does not record the identities of any lay patrons and even the descriptions of the buildings are the standard formulaic expressions for a new foundation. An indulgence granted to a secular tertiary and his wife in 1468 indicates a secular Third Order presence in the diocese before the foundation of the Franciscan friary at Donegal in 1474. It is possible that the regular tertiaries emerged from their ranks but it is more likely that the initial foundations were established from existing tertiary houses elsewhere. The houses in the south of the diocese may owe their foundation to colonisation from Third Order communities in Killala and Achonry, and it is almost certain that the Maherabeg friary predates

the First Order foundation at Donegal.!!! The three friaries in the dioceses of Limerick and Emly are also difficult to date with certainty. There is a reference to regular tertiaries in the decrees of the provincial synod of Cashel held in Limerick in 1453 warning them to observe the customs of the province of Cashel and not to invoke their papal privileges, regarding distribution of the burial offerings of lay people buried in

their cemeteries.!'* This indicates that they were sufficiently well established to pose a threat to the incomes of the parochial clergy, though it is not clear with which of the three communities the problem had arisen. In 1488 the friars at Kilshane/Ballingarry were involved in a dispute over tithes with the Limerick Cathedral chapter!!? but there is no further contemporary reference to Kilshane or either of the other houses. The houses at Slane and Ballymacadane are unusual both for their isolated positions away from other centres of tertiary activity and for their late foundation. The Slane friary was founded sometime before 1512, as a charter

of August that year states that the baron of Slane, Christopher Fleming, and his wife, Elizabeth Stuckly, had granted the hermitage of St Erc along with an annual pension of forty shillings to Fr Malachy O’Bryen and his companion, Friar Donatus, of the Third Order of St Francis.!!* Located in the diocese of Meath, it was the only community within the Pale, though both its named inmates were of Gaelic stock. It is not entirely clear when the tertiary friars occupied Ballymacadane in the diocese of Cork. Various sources state that it was initially founded in the mid-

fifteenth century by Cormac MacCarthy for a community of Augustinian nuns!!>

but Donatus Mooney lists it as a house of Franciscan tertiaries.''® It is possible that the friars took over the foundation sometime after the nuns had died out.

xii, p.643. 111 O Domhnaill, ‘Some notes’, p. 102. MRH, p. 273. 112 J. Begley, The diocese of Limerick, ancient and medieval (Dublin 1906), pp 431-41. Reference on p. 435. 113 FL,

p. 169.

114 BL, Add. MS. 4784, f.35.

115 MRH, p. 268.

116 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 104.

100

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534 “INTER

COETERA’

AND

THE

LIFESTYLE

OF

THE

REGULAR

TERTIARTES

For most of the period under consideration the Irish regular tertiaries observed the same rule as their secular confréres, as outlined in the Bull Supra montem. It is possible that, like other groups of regular tertiaries, the Irish members adopted particular local statutes to regulate the conduct of conventual life but, if they did, none have survived. The increase in the numbers of religious following the Third Order rule in community in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries led to demands for their specific needs to be addressed and in 1521 Leo x, promulgated a revised version of the rule specifically adapted to meet

the needs of such communities. This rule, issued in the Bull Jnter coetera,!"7 became the normative text for the regular tertiaries, and though no copy of it survives from a contemporary Irish source, it can be demonstrated that it also

became the norm in Ireland.!'8 Though the new rule preserved much of the earlier legislation and there are numerous textual borrowings from Supra montem, it was a much shorter document consisting of a prologue and ten chapters. The ascetic and spiritual programme remained largely unchanged in /nter coetera, as did the disciplinary provisions and those dealing with the suffrages for the dead. One notable innovation was the instruction that the divine office was to be celebrated

according to the Roman rite,'!? though this had been specified for the Irish regular tertiaries as early as 1426.'*° Provisions in the earlier rule proper to secular tertiaries, such as the making of wills and dispensations for pregnant sisters and manual labourers were not included in /nter coetera, but otherwise the main innovations were institutional and dealt with the administrative structures of the order. All regular tertiaries were now required to make formal

profession of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.!?! The superior or minister of each house was elected by the convent or appointed by the provincial minister or general visitator but, as with the secular tertiaries, his

appointment was not to be for life.!?? The office of visitator was always to be

entrusted to a Friar Minor and the tertiaries were to obey his instructions and

those of the Franciscan minister provincial in everything.!?> A visitation of each house was to be conducted each year during which the minister was to 117 AM, xvi, pp 127-30. 118 It is clear from Donatus Mooney’s account that the provisions in Inter coetera for visitation of the tertiaries by the Friars Minor were observed in Ireland. As this represents a departure from what was known to be the practice in Ireland from 1457 onwards, it is safe to assume that the Irish tertiaries adopted the new rule sometime in the sixteenth century. 119 AM, xvi, 128, chap. 4. 120 CPL, vii, p. 452. 121 AM, xvi, 129, chap. 10. 122 AM, xvi, 128, chap. 5. The superior of a female community was called Mater. 123 Ibid.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

101

report on the conduct of his. subjects. Incorrigible members could, with the consent of the visitator and the community, be expelled.!”4

ENC TEI WAAC UES

The traditional activities of the tertiary friars were succinctly summarised in the early seventeenth century by Friar Donatus Mooney: There were a great number of men belonging to the Third Order in Ireland who lived in community and devoted themselves to the religious life. They were principally engaged in assisting the local clergy in their pastoral duties, and in conducting schools for the education of the boys of the district. A portion of their monasteries was invariably set apart for the latter

purpose, which continues to the present day to be called the schoolhouse.!”° As the number of priests among the tertiaries increased they were inevitably drawn into the pastoral care of the people in their localities. A number of the foundation Bulls speak of the tertiaries’ role in augmenting divine service and the earliest reference to the regular tertiaries indicates that the liturgy should

be celebrated according to the norm of the papal court.!*° The attraction of the tertiaries for priests wishing to live a regular life has already been noted and as the number of priests among the tertiaries increased they were inevitably drawn into the pastoral care of the laity. The fact that a number of these priests came from the secular clergy further consolidated this pastoral outlook. It is instructive to contrast the pastoral activities of the tertiaries with those of the Friars Minor. The tertiaries worked chiefly as adjuncts to the local secular clergy while the Franciscans developed their own style of ministry based on the preaching tour and the hearing of confessions: activities which frequently brought them into conflict with the secular clergy. Whereas there are a number of annalistic references to noted Franciscan preachers, none of the tertiary friars left a similar reputation. Apart from the single reference in Mooney, nothing else is known about their educational activities but it is likely that they gave a basic education in

Latin to boys destined for the church.'?’ There is even less information about their own educational organization. In 1457 Thomas Oruayn (O’ Ruane?) was described as learned in law but there is no indication given of where he

124 AM, xvi, 129, chap. 8. vii (1896), p. 35.

125 ‘Brussels MS 3947’, p. 102. Trans. in The Franciscan Tertiary,

126 CPL,

vii, p. 452.

127 Jefferies, Priests and prelates, pp 75-6.

102

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

received this training.'*® It is possible that some may have received a basic theological training in the schools attached to the First Order houses but there is no evidence that any of them pursued higher studies at a general studium or a university. The fact that no tertiary is known to have been promoted to a bishopric is probably a further indication that their theological education was

rather basic.!?? Only one text survives from an Irish Third Order house: a biblical concordance now preserved in Trinity College, Dublin.!°° Originally compiled for a community of English Augustinian canons in Dorchester in the thirteenth century, it appears to have been pawned by the Slane friars, raising the question of how much use they actually made of it. It carries a flyleaf inscription referring to their copy of the Summa Angelica, the influential confessor’s manual of the fifteenth-century Italian Observant friar, Angelo Carletti of Chiavasso, which gives an incidental sidelight on the pastoral activities of the Slane tertiaries. Canice Mooney has tentatively suggested that the tertiary friars at Rosserk may have provided the original Latin text of the Meditationes Vitae Christi which was translated into Irish in 1443 by Thomas O Bruachain (O’Brohan?),

a canon of Killala. His argument rests solely on the proximity of Rosserk

friary to Killala but is not implausible.'*! Andrew Breeze accepts this point and suggests that the tertiaries, along with the Observant Franciscans, were the channels through which many of the devotional texts and ideas common on the

continent came to be known in Ireland. !?

RELATIONS

WITH

THE

FRIARS

MINOR

In contrast to the secular tertiaries who depended heavily on the friars of the First Order for direction and supervision, the regular tertiaries, as religious in their own right, chafed somewhat under their supervision. Depending on their strength, they enjoyed varying degrees of independence at different times. Donatus Mooney, writing from the standpoint of a former provincial of the First Order, had no doubt about the relationship between the two groups:

They were subject, from their first institution, to the jurisdiction of the superiors of the First Order, and, on many occasions, in my own days, I 128 CPL, xi, 140; BFNS, ii, pp 143-4. 129 P. Quinn, ‘Third Order Regular’, pp 256-7 suggests that Cornelius Ryan, bishop of Killaloe (1576-1616), was a regular tertiary, but this seems most unlikely, and he is otherwise listed as an Observant Franciscan.

Faun MSS?i, p11 1944), p. 363.

131

130 TCD, MS. 65; Colker,

0 Maonaigh [C. Mooney], Smaointe Beatha Chriost (Dublin,

132A. Breeze, ‘The Virgin’s tears of blood’ in Celtica, xx (1989), pp 121-2.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

103

have known members to have been transferred from one convent to another in the interest of the society, by the prelates of our Order. Our provincial made a visitation of their monasteries each year and in his absence they requested the guardian of the convent in whose limits they

lived to appoint a visitator, who might examine and correct abuses.!*? Mooney’s account needs to be weighed against that of the tertiary historian, Francis Bordoni, who, writing in 1658, noted the degree of independence the

Irish regular tertiaries had enjoyed.'*4 Neither position accurately reflects the way in which the relationship ebbed and flowed between the two groups and later writers have fallen prey to the same partisan bias that afflicted their seventeenth-century confréres. It appears that the tertiaries were initially subject to the Friars Minor for visitation and correction but that they gained a considerable degree of independence in 1457 when Thomas Ornayn (O’Ruane?), a priest-friar of Killeenbrennan, was appointed visitator and they were given the right to elect

his successors.!*> The tertiaries confirmed that they had hitherto been subject to mendicant friars for visitation but that because of distance it was more convenient to entrust this task to one of their own friars. This would be plausible coming from one of the Ulster houses which lay at great distances from First Order friaries, but is not convincing in a Connacht context. The real reason for

this move for independence seems rather to lie in disquiet among the regular tertiaries over the transfer of their house at Clonkeenkerrill to the Friars Minor four years previously. This interpretation is confirmed by the final clause in the 1457 Bull in which such transfers were forbidden without the permission of the tertiaries. There is no evidence that this privilege was rescinded and it is likely that it was in force until at least 1521 when Leo x promulgated the new rule for the regular tertiaries, Inter coetera,

in which

the visitation of the order was

entrusted to the Friars Minor. No copy of this Bull or any reference to it survives in any contemporary Irish source and it is possible that it took some time for it to take effect. Bordoni notes that exceptions were granted in areas where the Third Order was very strong and, as the second largest tertiary province, Ireland may have been one of these. Donatus Mooney’s description is undoubtedly correct in describing the position in the early seventeenth century and indicates that the provisions of Inter coetera did eventually come into force. Unlike some of their continental confréres, the Irish tertiaries 133 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 102. Trans. in The Franciscan Tertiary, vii (1896), pp 35-6. 134 F. Bordoni, Cronologium Fratrum et Sororum Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci (Parma, 1658),

pp 522-4 and 583-4. His work is almost entirely based on Wadding’s Annales Minorum.

104

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

managed to maintain their own provincial superiors throughout this period; in 1600 their minister provincial, Donatus Cossaeus, was present at a meeting in

Donegal friary.!*°

RELATIONS

WITH

THE

SECULAR

CLERGY

Despite their work as adjuncts to the local clergy and the presence of several former secular priests among them, the regular tertiaries did encounter some opposition from the secular clergy. The first Bull issued for a regular community in 1426 makes reference to this when the dean of Clonfert was instructed to ensure that parish priests did not attempt to force the tertiaries to

attend services other than in their friary churches.'*’ The presence of a group of religious in a parish, claiming exemption from dues, tithes and services would have been a source of tension with the local clergy and it is this scenario that the 1426 Bull is trying to avoid. Such tension was even more pronounced in the better organised dioceses of the ecclesia inter anglos and it is significant that the only two references to the Third Order from Limerick concern disputes with secular clergy over tithes and burial dues. The entry of a number of secular priests into tertiary houses and the need to re-assign their benefices occurs occasionally and was the subject of litigation in 1492 when a tertiary

friar was accused of illegally detaining a rectory in Tuam diocese. !*8 Tension would appear to have been the exception rather than the norm however, and it is clear that the tertiaries, in their initial stages at least, would not have been able to expand in Gaelic areas without the support of the diocesan bishops though, as has been noted, many of these were themselves mendicants. The secular clergy were sometimes willing to alienate diocesan properties to the tertiaries as happened in Clonfert in 1441 when they were

given the parish church of Clonkeenkerrill.'*° In this case it is stated that the bishop (a Dominican) had acted with the consent of the dean, archdeacon, chapter and the local vicar. In 1448 John O’Brogan was appointed to a vicarage in Clonfert and was specially dispensed from his profession as a

regular tertiary in order to hold it.!*° Dispensations were also obtained for more mundane reasons. In 1454 the prior of the Augustinian canons at Dungiven in Derry diocese was instructed to install a tertiary friar, John O’Killeen, as abbot of the Augustinian house at Bangor in Down if charges against the abbot there proved true. O’ Killeen was 135 BFNS, ii, pp 143-4; CPL, xi, p. 140. 136 J. Hagan (ed.), ‘Papers relating to the Nine Years War’ in Archivium Hibernicum ii (1913), p. 293. 137 CPL, vii, p.452. 138 CPL, xy, p. 483. 139 BFNS, i, p. 265; CPL, ix, pp 211-2. 140 BFNS, i, p. 627; CPL, x, p. 414.

The Franciscan Third Order in medieval Ireland

105

dispensed from his profession-as a tertiary in order to take up the appointment. !*! It appears that he in turn may have fallen foul of the delator, for in 1470 the abbot of Armagh and two canons of Derry were ordered to investigate the charges of another tertiary friar, Nicholas Ohegeartaych (O’ Hegarty), against

Senequinius Okeyllin (O’Killeen), abbot of Bangor.'*? Given the similarity of the surname, it is possible that this is the same person who instituted proceedings in 1454 and whose own rule was found wanting. An alternative possibility is that Bangor was ruled in quick succession by two abbots of the same surname. In this case the possibility of a hereditary O’ Killeen interest in Bangor arises and it is possible that John O’Killeen left the tertiaries in order to maintain a family stake in the older Augustinian foundation and that he was succeeded by a relative, possibly a son. If this were the case it would, along with Clonkeenkerrill, provide another example of regular tertiaries succumbing to the system of clerical dynasties. The Franciscan Third Order, both Regular and Secular, represents one of the most important developments in the Church in late medieval Ireland. Springing from the contemporary desire for reform among the Friars Minor they developed in their own fashion and, in the case of the regular tertiaries, developed a distinct identity and apostolate. The secular tertiaries gave expression in Gaelic Ireland to that burgeoning lay piety which is such a feature of the period throughout Europe. In a predominantly rural society they provided a spiritual and devotional focus which in more urbanised areas gave rise to guilds and devotional fraternities. The standard of behaviour demanded of each member was high but unfortunately, as with so much else regarding the medieval Irish faity, little remains to illustrate this and we remain largely ignorant of their impact. The regular tertiaries made the largest numbers of new foundations of any of the religious orders in late medieval Ireland. The accidents of history however make them the group about whom we are least well informed. Their pastoral and educational activities in large areas of Gaelic Ireland must have been hugely influential but little or no trace of it remains.

141 BENS, i, p. 884; CPL, x, p. 701.

142 BFNS, ii, pp 801, 627; CPL, xii, p. 770.

5 The lifestyle of the friars

PUPURGY

“ANID

SPT RIGEUA it ¥%

Attempting to ascertain the nature or quality of the prayer life of any group is problematic. By its nature spirituality is not something which can be recorded or assessed but which is central to any expression of the Christian or religious life and consequently to any attempt at its reform. This section will deal with the evidence for the spiritual life of the friars as expressed in their legislation, their liturgical practices and their spiritual reading. It will also examine their contacts with contemporary European spirituality and the emergence of Franciscan cults and devotions in Ireland. The part played by the friars in preserving specifically Irish cults will also be demonstrated.

THE

LITURGY

.OPSDHE

HOURS

The Franciscan manner of celebrating the liturgy was established by the English friar, Haymo of Faversham (minister general 1240-4). The instructions for celebrating the mass were outlined in the ordinal /ndutus planeta, presented at the general chapter at Bologna in 1243, and his re-arrangement of the missal, breviary and prayers at meals was also adopted by the order.! In reordering the liturgy Haymo drew heavily on the practice of the contemporary papal court. His reason for doing so was essentially pragmatic: the abbreviated liturgy of a frequently itinerant papal curia was more suitable for friars engaged in preaching than the more elaborate monastic and secular offices. Haymo’s alterations in turn influenced the development of the Roman liturgy, and with the rapid spread of the Franciscans throughout Europe, Roman liturgical norms were introduced into areas which hitherto had their own distinctive customs. The continued influence of Haymo’s reforms on the

1S.J.P. Van Dijk & J. Hazelden Walker, The origins of the modern Roman liturgy (London, 1960), especially pp 292-320. I am grateful to Dr Placid Murray, oss, for this reference.

106

The lifestyle of the friars

107

ultramontane Observants is demonstrated by the decision of the 1476 custodial chapter of Pontivy in Brittany that the instructions of Indutus planeta be followed in each friary.* The Irish Observants also followed the same norms as will be shown below. The common recitation of the eight liturgical hours of the office constituted a major element of the friars’ religious life and the Abbreviatio statutorum stresses the importance of worthy celebration. The friars were expected to gather in choir before office and mass and recollect themselves and the services were to be conducted without any unseemly behaviour or laughter.* The psalms were to be chanted slowly and in unison and anyone who disrupted the singing was punished.* The vicar provincial and the guardian had a certain amount of discretion in adapting the recitation of the office to local conditions® and they were forbidden to admit any cleric to profession unless he could recite all of the divine office by himself.® The lay brothers were bound to recite a fixed number of pater nosters, aves and glorias at each liturgical hour, a practice dating to the time of St Francis and which had the sanction of the rule.

EE

IMvA'S'S

As for all medieval Christians, the mass was central to the spiritual life of the

friars;’ the section dealing with eucharistic practice in the Abbreviatio statutorum describes it as that ‘work of highest grace, in which man is joined to God in unity of person’.® Friar-priests celebrated a daily private mass and there was also a daily conventual mass in each friary. The numerous side chapels and transepts added to many of the Irish friaries in the fifteenth century allowed for the erection of side-altars for these private masses, with the high altar being reserved for the conventual mass. Donatus Mooney, in recording an instance of clairvoyance by Friar Brian MacGrath of Donegal, gives incidental confirmation of this practice. He relates that MacGrath once went into a trance as he was about to celebrate the conventual mass. When he emerged from it he announced that the funeral cortege of a benefactor of the friary was approaching. As the other priests had already celebrated mass he was now the only one capable of doing so. The mass was offered as a requiem for the benefactor and the trance interpreted as a divine intervention.”

2 M. Courtecuisse, Tables capitularies des fréres mineurs de l’Observance et des recollects de

Bretagne, 1476-1780 (Paris, 1930), p.2.

3AS,ii,no.1.

4AS,ii,no.2.

5 AS, ii, no.3. They

could decide what sections of the service were to be chanted on a monotone. 6 AS, i, no. 9. 7 On which see M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: the eucharist in late medieval culture (Cambridge, 1991). 8AS,iv,no.15. 9 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 45-6.

108

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

Lay brothers and clerics were expected to receive communion at the conventual mass every fifteen days.'° In keeping with contemporary practice they did not receive communion without first confessing. The guardian was responsible for seeing that each friar had a suitable confessor and they were expected to go to confession twice weekly.!! The Abbreviatio statutorum specified certain phrases at which the friars were to genuflect during mass.!* The presence of an Easter sepulchre in Ennis friary and the numerous eucharistic exempla in their preaching material further illustrate their familiarity with other expressions of eucharistic devotion.

LITURGICAL

TEXTS

The two liturgical texts which survive from Irish Observant friaries as well as those listed in the Youghal library catalogue, give a clear indication of the liturgical practices of the Irish friars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first of these, a late fifteenth-century antiphonary, now MS. 109 in Trinity College, Dublin,!> gives the music, texts and hymns for a number of feasts and indicates that at least some of the offices were chanted. The importance of music in the liturgy is also indicated by the presence of a book described as a caternus

pro arte musica aptus in the Youghal library!* as well as by the spiritual interpretation of the tonic scale given in TCD, MS. 667.'> In his account of the friary in Donegal in 1600 Donatus Mooney states that the day and night hours were chanted with great solemnity and he also notes the survival of a large

gradual from the friary in Youghal.'® The second codex, MS theol. lat fol. 703 in the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Berlin, is particularly important, as it is the only volume to survive from the Youghal library.!’ It has attracted some attention because it contains the Youghal library catalogue on its final folios, but the contents of the rest of the volume have passed unremarked. These consist entirely of liturgical texts and give a comprehensive impression of the resources available to the late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century friars. The codex was originally produced in England or France in the late fifteenth century and brought to Youghal, where its decoration and rubrication

10 AS, iv,no. 16. I1 Ibid. 12AS,iv,no. 15. 13TCD, MS. 109. Described in Colker, Latin MSS., 1, pp 234-5. Its Observant provenance is indicated by the extensive service for St Bernardine of Siena (ff. 103v-109) while the inclusion of antiphons and responsories for St Bonaventure (ff. 109-1 14v) indicates that it was produced sometime after his canonisation in 1482. 14 YLC, No. 76. 15 TCD, MS. 667, p. 149. Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1150. 16 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 40, 73. 17 This section is based on the description given by P. J. Becker and T. Brandis, Die

The lifestyle of the friars

109

were completed. France seems the most likely provenance, given the contacts between the Irish and the French reformers. A number of entries show that it continued in use throughout the sixteenth century!® and it is possible that it was one of the Youghal manuscripts seen by Donatus Mooney sometime before 1617.'? The bulk of the codex consists of the martyrology of Usuard

adapted for Franciscan use in the south of Ireland.”° This is followed by a number of texts by Haymo of Faversham including the Ordo missalis (the revised Franciscan missal), the Ordo breviarii (his revision of the breviary) and

the Ordo ad benedicendum mensam (prayers at mealtimes).*! It also contains a number of shorter texts, including a note on celebrating the office of the dead, prayers to be said while preparing for mass and a copy of the Tabula Parisiensis, a late thirteenth-century work governing the recitation of anti-

phons in Advent.” The 1491 section of the Youghal library catalogue shows that the friars then had eight missals, five large choir psalters, five graduals, two collectoria,”> a

pulpitarium,” four antiphonaries,”> two martyrologies and two books containing the instructions or rubrics for the proper celebration of ceremonies. These texts were for the use of the friars in church, as the catalogue also records breviaries and small missals which would have been used by the individual friars when

travelling or celebrating mass privately.”°

SUBEBRAGES

PORT

LAE VDE AD

Suffrages for the dead and intercession for the living were another important element in the prayer life of the friars and were legislated for in the final chapter of the Abbreviatio statutorum. Each week all priests were obliged to celebrate a mass for the deceased friars of the order, each cleric offered a vigil of nine lessons and lay brothers said one hundred paters and aves. Similar arrangements were made for the commemoration of those deceased friars and benefactors recorded by the general chapter, for the cardinal protector or

theologischen lateinischen Handschriften infolio der Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Berlin (2 vols, Wiesbaden,

1985), 11, pp 237-40.

of a friar in Waterford in 1583. 106r—123r; 126v—149v;

150r.

18 Entries on ff. 3v and 30v record the death

19 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 73. 22 Ff. 123r; 124r-125r; 126rv.

recitation at the conclusion of the office. the lectern in the centre of the choir.

20 Ff. 2r-105v.

21 Ff.

23A collection of prayers for

24A book containing the texts that were chanted from 25 One of which was a large format, two-volume work

probably similar to the surviving volume of TCD, MS. 109. 26 The books reserved for the use of Friar Maurice Hanlan included a breviary, missal and diurnale (YLC no. 86) and, apart from the choir books discussed here, the 1491 section of the catalogue refers to another breviary in the possession of Friar William Bretonicus (no. 30). The 1523 section notes the addition of seven

110

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

ministers general of the order who died in office, and for guardians, vicars and other office holders who died during their tenure. The office for the dead was solemnly celebrated three times annually for deceased friars, benefactors and those buried in the friary cemetery and once a year for the fathers and mothers of the friars. When possible, the whole community was to assist at the deathbed of

a friar’ and to offer suffrages for him after death. A necrology of the friars and their notable benefactors was kept in each house and each year was read in chapter and prayers offered for their souls.*° A number of these were extant in [reland until the seventeenth century and extensive transcripts of the Adare and Galway necrologies survive.?? Each week a friar was appointed to say mass on

alternate days for the living and dead benefactors of the community*? and intercession was also made for those who entertained the friars on journeys.”!

MEDITATION

AND

PERSONAL

PRAYER

The second chapter of the Abbreviatio statutorum deals at length with questions concerning prayer and conduct during the liturgy. Most of it is concerned with the necessity for silence at certain hours and in certain places in order to foster a spirit of recollection, but one concrete innovation is that the friars spend one

hour each day engaged in mental prayer.* Ignatius Brady, OFM, has noted that this does not indicate that mental prayer or meditation was not carried out by the friars hitherto, but that this is the first time it had been thought desirable to

legislate for it? It may be assumed that this practice was observed in the Irish houses, though there are no contemporary references before 1601 when, in the account of the raid on Multyfarnham by Sir Francis Shane, Donatus Mooney remarks that the attack occurred as the friars were returning to their cells after

the evening meditation.*4 An entry in the register of Archbishop Octavian of Armagh gives a unique and unusual insight into an aspect of one friar’s spirituality. In 1508 he granted an indulgence to Friar Myler Breathnach, an Observant who, though old and blind, wished to live as a hermit on the rock of Cashel. There are no other references to

Franciscans living as hermits in Ireland at this or in any earlier period.

breviaries (nos 106, 109, 120, 126, 133, 142) and seven missals (nos 107911251124, 128) 135: 137, 150), three of which were printed. 27 AS, ix, no. 7. 28 AS, ix, nos 1-5; 7-10.

29 Material from the Adare necrology is given by D. Mooney, ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 63-4. For Galway text see M.J. Blake, ‘The obituary book of the Franciscan monastery at Galway,

1485-1625’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., vi (1909-10), pp 222-35; vii (1911-12), pp 1-28.

30AS,

ix,no.5. 31 AS,ix,no.4. 32 AS, ii,no.3. 331. Brady, ‘The history of mental prayer in the Order of Friars Minor’ in Franciscan Studies, xi (1951) pp 317-45, especially pp 317-19. 34 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p.92. 35 Lynch, ‘Franciscan Documents’, pp 100-1.

The lifestyle of the friars

111

The type of meditation intended was most probably the intense reflection on incidents in the life of Christ and the saints which, from the twelfth century, had increasingly dominated late medieval spirituality.°° The presence of the pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi, the Vita Christi of the fourteenth-century Carthusian, Ludolph of Saxony, and two copies of Lothar of Segni’s De miseria humanae conditionis in the Youghal library catalogue confirm this.*’ Each of these works was hugely influential in late medieval Europe and encouraged use of the imagination, the emotions and the affections in meditating on the incarnation, passion and crucifixion as well as on the human condition. The Meditationes vitae Christi was translated into Irish before 1462 by Tomas O Bruachdin (O’Brohan?), a canon of Killala, and is found in a number of

late fifteenth-century manuscripts.** The Vita Christi was an encyclopedic life of Christ, concentrating on the events outlined in the four Gospels. Throughout the work Ludolph urges his readers to place the events of Christ’s life before them as if they were present at them. The one hundred and eighty-one chapters in the work conclude with a prayer or collect in which the material of the meditation is summarised.*? By meditating on these aspects of the Christian mysteries they were to imagine participating in them and so be led to imitate Christ in all their

actions.*° The De miseria of Lothar of Segni owed much of its popularity to the fact that its author later became Pope Innocent Im. It presents a very negative and bleak view of the human condition, stressing man’s sinfulness and need of redemption. It was translated into Irish in 1443 and a copy of this translation is found in the Rennes MS, written in Kilcrea friary in 1475.4! Such emphasis on the use of the imagination and the consequent imitation of Christ was one of the dominant themes of late medieval spirituality and led to a proliferation of spiritual writings marked by this affective and devotional quality. At the end of the fourteenth century a particularly influential movement known as the Devotio moderna emerged from the circle of the Dutch reforming preacher Geert Groote (1340-84). His lay followers were known as the Brethren of the

Common Life and other disciples formed a congregation of Augustinian canons. The movement spread into France, Germany and northern Italy but their spirituality found its classic and most influential expression in the Imitatio Christi of the Augustinian canon, Thomas a Kempis (c.1380—1471), which circulated from 1418. This work is divided into four books; the first two 36 G. Constable, ‘The ideal of the imitation of Christ’ in his Three studies in medieval religious and social thought (Cambridge, 1995), pp 144-248. 37 YLC, nos 108[a], 22, 78[d] and 141[a]. 38C.0 Maonaigh (ed.), Smaointe beatha Chriost (Dublin, 1944). 39 Texts and translations given in M.I. Bodenstedt, Praying the life of Christ (Analecta Cartusiana, 15, Salzburg, 1973).

40 See particularly C.A. Conway, The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony and late medieval devotion centred on the incarnation (Analecta Cartusiana, 34, Salzburg, 1976). 41 J.A. Geary (ed.), An Irish version ofInnocent III’s De Contemptu Mundi (Washington, 1931).

iy

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

giving instruction for the conduct of the spiritual life, the third dealing with the qualities of the soul, while the fourth, dealing with the reception of communion, profoundly influenced the eucharistic practice of the church. By 1523 the Youghal

friars had two copies of the /mitatio.*? It is probable that the various works described as liber devotus, pectorale passionis and libellus de passione in the

Youghal catalogue refer to works of a similar nature.4° The friars were also familiar with more classic treatises on the spiritual life. By 1523 the Youghal community had acquired copies of St Bonaventure’s Soliloquium, and De perfectu religionis.4+ Both of these were influential introductions to prayer, dealing with the various stages through which the soul arrives at the contemplation of God. The reference to Ricardus eremita may be to one of the works of the fourteenth-century English mystic Richard Rolle, whose writings circulated elsewhere in fifteenth-century Ireland, and whose style is similar to the other works described here.*> These works were most probably designed for private reading and meditation but other works such as the sermons of St Bonaventure, the Legenda aurea and several of the other collections of sermons in the Youghal library would also have furnished material for devotional reading and meditation, even if their primary purpose was to provide material for preaching or teaching. The sermons of St Bernard, the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great, and the Diadema monachorum of Smaragdus of St Mihiel would also have provided material for spiritual reading, even if they were more markedly monastic in character.*°

FRANCISCAN

CULTS

The upsurge of interest in St Francis and other Franciscan saints in late medieval Ireland is one of the most remarkable features of the fifteenth-century revival. There are only two extant literary references to him in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and no representation or carving of him survives which is earlier than the fifteenth. As shown in chapter two, the cult of the founder had great ideological significance for the reformers and, not surprisingly, the upsurge of interest in Francis and other Franciscan saints corresponds with the emergence of the Observant movement in the Irish province. In 1491 the Youghal library contained two copies of the Flores Francisci*” and the Actus beati Francisci had been acquired by 1523.48 It is also possible 42 YLC, nos 94 and 121. 43 YLC, nos 41, 100[b] & [c]. 44 YLC, nos 102[a] and 147[b]. 45 YLC, no. 41. A number of Rolle’s works are also found in Lambeth Palace MS. 357, written

for the Augustinian canons at Duleek in the late fifteenth century.

47 YLC, no. 36.

48 YLC, no. 132.

46 YLC, nos 60, 69, 14.

The lifestyle of the friars

113

that the Legenda maior, or official life of St Francis by Bonaventure, may have

een one of the unidentified works of the saint in the catalogue. The Observant friar-poet Philip Bocht O’ Higgins (d. 1487) invokes St Francis at the beginning or end of all his surviving works and Francis forms the subject of three of his poems which show great familiarity with the standard vitae.*? All but one of the surviving representations of the saint show him wearing the Observant habit and displaying the stigmata. His portrayal in Observant guise in non-Franciscan contexts such as Dean Odo’s door at Clonmacnois cathedral or All Hallows,

Dublin, is another witness

to the impact of the reform.

The

emphasis on the saint’s stigmata was one of the most notable aspects of his cult in the middle ages. The friars saw it as the ‘divine seal’ of approval for his way of life and by extension, for their own. This frequently aroused opposition from the order’s critics, and among the collection of papal bulls in TCD, MS. 250 is one condemning those who deny or otherwise question the stigmata.~° As well as the sculptural representations, it is frequently referred to in O’ Higgins’ poetry. This devotion may also be seen as paralleling the devotion to the passion of Christ which, as shown above, was another marked feature of the

friars’ spirituality. On the strength of surviving evidence it seems that St Louis of Toulouse (d. 1297) was the next most popular Franciscan saint in late medieval Ireland. The earliest evidence for his cult occurs in 1322 when the Anglo-Irish friars,

Simon Fitzsimon and Hugh the Illuminator, made a detour to visit his shrine en

route to the Holy Land.*! The friar-poet, Tadhg Camchosach O’Daly, composed a poem in his honour at the end of the fourteenth century,>? while a fifteenthcentury copy of his vita and account of his miracles by John of Orta is found in TCD,

MS.

175.°% (The same

material is found in another codex, Marsh’s

Library, MS Z3.1.5., a sister manuscript of the Trinity text, which belonged to

the friary in Clane in the sixteenth century.>*) His effigy, along with that of St Francis and other saints, is found on a late fifteenth-century tomb in Kilconnell friary, Co. Galway. Evidence for devotion to St Anthony of Padua comes from the presence of his vita in TCD, MS 175° as well as from his depiction on a 49 McKenna, O hUiginn, pp 1-5 (trans., pp 129-31) and pp 32-5 (trans., pp 149-51). The third was published, edited and translated by McKenna, The Irish Monthly (1930), pp 150-3. 50 TCD, MS. 250, f. 163v; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p.447. 51M. Esposito, /tinerarium Symonis Semeonis ab Hybernia ad Terram Sanctam (Dublin, 1960), pp 32-33. 52 See R. Flower, The Trish tradition (Dublin, 1947), pp 117-18 for an account of O’ Daly and a prose translation of the poem.

53 TCD, MS. 175, ff. 48-56. Colker, Latin MSS., ti, p. 334.

54 Both of these were

copied from the same exemplar. A detailed account of the history of the two codices and of the relationship between them is given in R. Sharpe, Medieval Irish saints’ lives (Oxford, 1991), pp 94-119. 55 TCD, MS. 175, ff. 58-66v. Colker, Latin MSS., i, p. 334. It is also found in Marsh’s Library, MS Z3.1.5.

114

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

tomb in Galway, while references to St Clare in the poetry of O’ Higgins°° and her representation on the Galway tomb indicates awareness of her cult. The reference to the dedication of the church at Adare on the feast of the tertiary Franciscan, St Elizabeth of Hungary in 1464, indicates a similar awareness.>’ The surviving liturgical material also provides evidence for specifically Franciscan cults. The late fifteenth-century Observant antiphonary TCD, MS 109 contains the texts of services for the feasts of the Roman calendar as well as a number of Franciscan celebrations. Extensive antiphons are given for the feasts of Sts Anthony of Padua, Clare of Assisi, Louis of Toulouse, Francis, Bernardine of Siena and Bonaventure.** The calendar in the Youghal/Berlin codex, MS theol. lat fol. 703, mentions all of these feasts but also records a

number of others. These include the translation of St Francis, the dedication of the mother-church of the order, St Mary of the Angels in Assisi (the Portiuncula), the feast of the Stigmata, the translation of St Clare, the translation of St Louis,

the dedication of the friary church at Youghal and the feast of Friars Daniel,

Samuel and Agnellus and companions, martyrs.*” Further evidence for the influence of the friars on Irish liturgical practice comes from the inclusion of an extensive service for the feast of St Francis in the breviary from St Mary’s Arroasian abbey, Trim. It is possible that the canons copied the text of the office, which included nine lessons taken from the Legenda maior of St Bonaventure, from the friars in the town.

IRISH

CULTS

AND

CONTINENTAL

DEVOTIONS

Apart their Franciscan content, TCD, MS. 175 and Marsh’s library MS Z3.1.5 also contain the vitae of seventeen Irish saints and are among the most important texts for study of medieval Irish hagiography. Dr Katharine Simms has traced observant influences in the life of Colmcille compiled for Manus O’Donnell c.1532, while material relating to the pilgrimage to St Patrick’s purgatory is found in TCD MS. 667.°! The Trinity antiphonary gives special 56 McKenna, O AUiginn, p. 2 (trans., p. 129). 57 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 63. 58 Ff. 30-4v; 60-Syv; 68-72v; 82-7v; 103v—9; 109-14v. Colker, Latin MSS., i, p. 234. 59 Berlin, Theol. lat. fol. 703, ff. 2r—7v. Becker and Brandis, Handschriften, p. 238. A sixteenth-century addition to the codex gives the office for Daniel, Samuel, Agnellus and companions, the first Franciscan

martyrs (f. Ir). 60TCD MS. p. 84; Colker, Latin MSS., i, pp 150-52. breviary from St Mary’s Abbey, Trim’, in Riocht na Midhe, iii (1966), attributes the presence of four Dominican feasts in the breviary to the Preachers in Trim. 61 TCD, MS. 667, pp 214-16. Calendared in Colker, Slightly ironic when the role of the guardian of Donegal in closing considered.

See also A. Gwynn, ‘A pp 290-8 in which he influence of the Friars Latin MSS., ii, p. 1160. the shrine in 1497 is

The lifestyle of the friars

li 5)

texts for the feast of St Patrick,’ while additions to the Berlin Theol. lat. fol.

703 codex includes references to Sts Colman of Cloyne, Columba and Laurence O’ Toole. The most significant sixteenth-century addition however is the list of indulgences granted by the bishops of Cashel, Cloyne, Cork, Limerick, Lismore and Ross to be gained on the anniversary of the death of Maurice Fitzgerald (d. 1257), founder of the Youghal friary.® The tradition among the friars was that Fitzgerald had entered the Youghal community and died with

a reputation for sanctity.°4 These indulgences are the earliest indications of his cult and show that it was quite widespread in Munster. These texts indicate a level of appreciation and awareness of the earlier Irish spiritual tradition among the fifteenth-century friars as well as the existence of at least one specifically Irish Franciscan cult. Paradoxically, the corpus of the bardic friar-poet Philip Bocht O’ Higgins

contains only one poem on an Irish subject: Saint Patrick. His work provides a number of striking examples of how ideas and motifs which were widespread in Europe could be presented in a distinctly Irish setting. His subjects include Sts Catherine of Alexandria (also represented on the Kilconnell tomb), St Michael the

Archangel (to whom the friary church in Adare was dedicated), Sts George, John the Evangelist, Dominic and the twelve Apostles®’ and several about the

Virgin Mary.® His poem on the Cross draws heavily on the account of the finding of the Holy Cross described in the Legenda aurea of James of Voragine,® while his poem on the Virgin Mary taking the place of an unchaste nun as portress of a convent until the latter repents is a bardic rendering of a well-known exemplum

which is also found in TCD, MS 667.’° These show a remarkable openness to wider cultural and devotional influences, as well as a confidence in and mastery of the conventions of the native bardic tradition. It is likely that these compositions were used during sermons, as accounts of the preaching of Friars Eoghan

O’ Duffy (d. 1590) and Philip O’Daly (d. 1565) suggest.”

MISCELLANEOUS

EVIDENCE

Further evidence for the devotional and cultural influences on the late medieval Irish friars comes from the small amount of sculpture and images which

62 TCD

MS.

109,

Handschriften, p. 238.

10.

ff. 95-9.

66 Ibid., nos 14, 18.

69 Ibid., no. 5.

Colker,

Latin

MSS.,

i, p. 234.

64 O’Mahony, Brevis synopsis, p. 182.

67 Ibid., nos 11, 13, 20, 23.

70 Ibid., no. 1la; TCD

63 Becker

and

Brandis,

65 McKenna, O AUiginn, no.

68 Ibid., nos 2, 4, 9, lla, 13, 21.

MS. 667, p. 200; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1155.

71 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, 49-50; O’ Mahony, Brevis synopsis p. 183. O’ Duffy provided a verse summary at the end of each sermon, while O’ Daly recited verses in honour of the Virgin Mary.

116

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

survive from their houses. Mention has already been made of representations of Franciscan saints but other pieces demonstrate that they were fully aware of other themes and devotions. A very fine image of Christ as the ‘man of sorrows’ (or Ecce homo) is found in Ennis friary. He is depicted in agony, surrounded by the instruments of the Passion, and the piece bears comparison with contemporary representations in England and on the Continent and may

have been inspired by imported woodcuts or manuscript illustrations.’* The influence of contemporary English alabaster carvings on a number of the other Ennis sculptures has been discussed by John Hunt and provides concrete evidence for a widespread circulation of devotional themes.’? Evidence for the types of Marian devotion they promoted is provided by the fragment of the

pieta from Ennis” and by the statue of the nursing Madonna from Askeaton.’> The most striking figures however are those on the late fifteenth-century tomb near the west door of the nave of Kilconnell friary. The saints represented provide a snapshot of late medieval Gaelic devotion. Alongside St Louis of Toulouse one finds St James (whose shrine at Compostella was the goal of

many Irish pilgrims’°), St Catherine of Alexandria, St John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary and St Denis of Paris, while the flamboyant canopy is surmounted by a stigmatised St Francis and an unidentified bishop. Though the subjects are continental they are given a distinctly local treatment. The overall impression is of a rich synthesis of foreign and indigenous elements emblematic of the wide-ranging contribution of the friars to contemporary Irish society.

THE

OBSERVANCE

OF

POVERTY

In their observance of poverty the Observants strove for an austere but moderate standard based on the rule of St Francis and the three papal declarations Quo elongati, Exiit qui seminat and Exivi de paradiso. This allowed the friars to be reasonably true to the spirit of their founder while leaving them sufficient resources for the pursuit of their ministry. This emphasis on the rule and the papal declarations as the normative texts is perhaps the reason for the unexceptional nature of the legislation on poverty in the third chapter of the Abbreviatio statutorum. 72 F. O'Farrell, ‘““Our Lord’s Pity” in Ennis friary’ in North Munster Antiquarian Journal, xxii (1979), pp 33-7. 73 J. Hunt, ‘The influence of alabaster carvings on medieval sculpture in Ennis friary’ in North Munster Antiquarian Journal, xvii (1975), pp 35-41. 74 For context see A. Breeze, “The Virgin’s tears of blood’ in Celtica, xx (1989), pp 110-22, especially pp 118-22. 75 C. MacLeod, ‘A carved oak nursing madonna from Askeaton, County Limerick’, in E. Rynne (ed), Figures from the past (Dublin, 1987), pp 249-57. 76R. Stalley, ‘Sailing to Santiago: medieval pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and its artistic influence in Ireland’, in J. Bradley

The lifestyle of the friars

7

The first section deals with the clothing of the friars and stresses the need for simplicity, poverty and uniformity in dress. The form of the habit was strictly specified and seems to have been adhered to as surviving representations of St Francis in Observant dress demonstrate. It was to be the colour of ashes and the girdle was to be made of common cord with no ornaments attached to it. Friars were forbidden to wear scarves or undergarments of finer material and those who did so without permission were to be punished. They were forbidden to wear shoes, apart from the ceremonial buskins worn by the celebrant at mass,’ but it is likely that the discretion allowed to the guardians in this regard was widely availed of.’* The friars were expected to sleep wearing their habits, underwear and cords and those who failed to do so had to lie on the ground without habits the following morning.’? Responsibility for ensuring uniformity of dress and adequate clothing for all the friars lay with the guardian, who was forbidden better quality clothing and who was to provide for his own needs only after everyone else in the community had been properly clothed. The habit was the external sign of their vocation and the friars were warned not to assume secular clothes, even in jest, or to lend habits to lay people for use in plays.®° It also featured in disciplinary matters; lesser offences were punished by the imposition of the novices’ habit for a period, while major offences resulted in deprivation of the habit.*! A further external sign of the vocation was the tonsure which was renewed every fifteen days. Both lay brothers and clerics had a shaved band three fingers wide above the ears while clerics, as is evident from

representations of St Francis, also shaved the crown of the head.’* They were

forbidden the use of mattresses, linen or feather pillows in the dormitory.*? The holding of private property by individual friars was strictly forbidden and infringements were severely punished. Any friar found in possession (propietarius) of money or other private possessions, or who disposed of the books or property of the house without the permission of the guardian, was deprived of his books and voice in the community, if a cleric, or made to wear

the novice’s habit, if a laybrother.

A second offence warranted imprisonment

and if the offence was discovered after death, the transgressor was denied

Christian burial.*4 (ed.), Settlement and society in medieval Ireland (Kilkenny, 1988), pp 397-420. 77 AS, i, 1-7, 78 The representations of St Francis at Askeaton, Dromahaire, Ennis, and Kilconnell are

9-10.

barefoot but this may be with the intention of better displaying the marks of the stigmata on his feet. The effigy of the Franciscan bishop of Ossory, Richard Ledred (d. c.1361), in St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, shows him wearing open sandals with no stockings. 79 AS, iii, no. 6. 80 AS, iv, nos 10, 13. They were particularly warned against wearing secular clothes during the festivities associated with the feasts of St Nicholas and the Holy Innocents. 81 AS, vi, nos 16, 22.

$82AS,i1,no.11.

83AS, iii,no. 8.

84 AS, 111, nos 13, 14; VI, 24. Donatus Mooney notes

that a portion of the cemetery in Adare was left unconsecrated for those who, like the

118

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

Special permission from the vicar provincial and his council was needed before local communities could incur large debts. Projects such as building or expanding friaries or producing manuscripts were included in this category and a report on such projects had to be given to the provincial chapter. In all their building work the friars were warned to avoid superfluity and excess and transgressors were threatened with expulsion from the friary. Similar caution was to be observed in furnishing their churches. They were not to have or borrow gold, silver or jewelled vessels, though another statute lays down that there should be sufficient vessels for the fitting celebration of the eucharist.* This emphasis on simplicity seems to jar with the material remains of the friaries which, along with the tower houses of the chieftains who patronised them, were among the finest buildings in late medieval Ireland. Surviving liturgical items like the Ballymacasey processional cross,®° the Rosserrilly chalice or the Multyfarnham crucifix, indicate a very high quality of craftsmanship, and these represent only a fraction of what each house must have possessed. In his account of the friary in Donegal Donatus Mooney records that, when he was sacristan there in 1600, there were forty suits of vestments,

some of cloth of gold or silver, the rest of silk, fourteen silver gilt chalices, two

silver chalices and two ciboria.*’ In his account of Adare written c.1618 he notes the survival of a silver processional cross, gilded ciborium and five or six chalices belonging to the friary and that the house had once possessed a large number of vestments.** The English Observants, who were the recipients of much royal patronage, grew uneasy about the magnificence of their benefactions and secured papal assurance that such gifts as churches, vestments and church ornaments could be enjoyed by them, as they were given for the glory of God and not for the comfort of the friars.8? No such document has survived from an Irish context, but it is quite possible that similar doubts occasionally troubled the Irish Observants as well. A register was kept of the books in the friary library and this list was read to the friars annually. Books could only be lent with the permission of the vicar provincial and the consent of the guardian and the community and a receipt was to be had for each loan.?? Despite these precautions a number of Irish proprietarius, had forfeited the right to Christian burial. ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 63. 85 AS, iii, 16, 18, 19. 86 A gilt processional cross presented to the friars at Lislaughtin ‘by Cornelius O’Connor and his wife Juliana, on 4 June, 1479, and now in the National Museum of Ireland. The donor was the son of John O’Connor, the founder of the friary. Though damaged (one of the medallions portraying an evangelist is missing), it is a magnificent and costly item. 87 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 40. 88 Ibid., p. 64. 89 In the Bull Merentur vestrae, AM, xv, 663-4. This was a reiteration by Leo x of an earlier dispensation granted by Julius II to the friars at the instigation of Katherine of Aragon. On the English Observants and poverty see K.D. Brown, ‘The Franciscan Observants in England, 1482-1559’ (D. Phil., Oxford 1986), pp 49-60. 90 AS, iii, 22.

The lifestyle of the friars

119

friars’ manuscripts found their. way into the hands of the secular clergy in the late middle ages and never returned to their owners.?! The Youghal library catalogue was probably compiled in obedience to this statute and the various additions to it show that the instruction that it be kept up to date was followed. The sections on poverty in the Abbreviatio statutorum and in the various papal declarations on the rule were read to the friars three times a year. In the Adare copy of these texts in the Bodleian Library attention is drawn to these

sections by notes in the margin of the codex.” The paucity of records permits only glimpses of how this commitment to poverty was actually practised. Donatus Mooney asserts that one of the first things the Observants did on taking over a Conventual house was to divest themselves of any land or rents which guaranteed them a fixed income. In recording the large amount of food captured during the raid on Multyfarnham in 1601 he stressed that it did not belong to the friars but had been forwarded

by lay guests for their own consumption on the feast of St Francis.?? The attitude of taking ‘no provision for the morrow’ is also evident in the refusal of the Donegal friars c.1600 to allow Hugh O’ Donnell to support the community

at a time when it was difficult for them to beg alms.” It also provides incidental evidence for the quest: the begging of alms for the daily support of the friars from the local community. Further evidence for this characteristic mendicant practice comes from the instruction in the 1453 statutes of the synod of Cashel that the friars stay within the limits of the area in which they were licensed to beg and forbidding them to quest on days when it was traditional to make offerings to the parish clergy.”° Tension over questing territories could also lead to disputes between different friaries. In 1491 the Askeaton friars secured a judgement from the minister general, Francis ‘Samson’ Nanni, against the Ennis community. The limits of their respective questing areas had traditionally been agreed to lie half-way between the two houses, but the Askeaton friars had

been hindered in their questing by the Ennis friars. The minister general confirmed the rights of the Askeaton community and threatened the Ennis friars with excommunication if they did not accept the judgement. He also threatened the minister provincial and the other officials of the province with deprivation of office and excommunication if they did not uphold the decision.” The fact that the dispute had to be resolved at the highest level of 91 Fletcher, English and Latin tradition, pp 61-71.

92 Bodl., MS Rawl. C 320, f. 8v, Seguntur

articuli de paupertate et de non recipienda pecunia (gloss on Exiit qui seminat); f. 21y, Incipiat

hic de articulo paupertatis et de non recipienda pecunia (gloss on Exivi de paradiso). 93 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 54, 94. 94 Ibid., pp 39-40. The friars felt that such dependance on a fixed source of support was not in keeping with their profession. 95 J. Begley, The diocese of Limerick:

ancient and medieval (Dublin,

1906), p. 433, nos

12 and 13.

96 G. Parisciani,

120

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

the Order suggests that it may have been a long-running one. It also provides proof for the practice of questing among the Irish Conventuals as, in 1491, neither friary had accepted the Observant reform. The ideal of mendicancy was particularly important to the self-definition and identity of the Observants. Philip Bocht O’ Higgins, whose very name provides proof of this, frequently refers to it in his poetry and his three poems on St Francis have long passages extolling poverty and criticising those friars

who did not follow the rule in this regard.?’ Given that he wrote when tension between the Irish Observants and Conventuals was most pronounced, it is likely that his criticisms were directed at the latter. An interesting aspect of his thought is the view that the friars were a victim of their own success: the better they observed poverty the more generously people gave them alms and the greater the temptation to fall away from observing the Rule: St Francis is now almost bereft of honour; breach of Rule is common in his wood;

a lengthy indictment lies against his children, were this the time to make it. As for the rule he made for his flock, some of them, differing from the rest,

will have to prove that their regard for it has not changed. The wood, rich in all fruits —at first no calamity to it threatened;

his folk disobeyed their Father’s teaching and vigour departed from every tree of his wood. Its blind nuts and its fruitful ones side by side — though the wood is divided, remember they are all nuts of one tree (?).

Chastity and Obedience were the inheritance his folk got; but the harm it incurred in being helped (by alms)

resulted in its Poverty not flourishing.°® Another possible (and unremarked) source for the friars’ views on poverty is a sermon found in a manuscript compiled in Kilcrea in 1473 and now in the Regesta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Conventualium 1484-1494 (Padua, 1989), p. 197, no. 1529. 97 Two are published in McKenna, O AUiginn, pp 1-S (trans., pp 129-31) and pp 32-5 (trans., pp 149-51). The third was published, with facing translation, by L. McKenna, The Irish Monthly (1930), pp 150-153. 98 McKenna, O hUiginn, p. 129. Original Irish text given on pp 1-5.

The lifestyle of the friars

121

public library in Rennes, France. It is difficult to state with certainty that it was an Observant compilation, as some of the materials contained in it occur in other non-Franciscan contexts in fifteenth-century Ireland, but some of the material, particularly the ‘sermon’ on poverty, would have been of interest primarily to friars. It is less a sermon than a collection of quotations from scripture, patristic sources and later monastic writers on the subject. Authorities cited include Augustine, Ambrose, Bede, Bernard, Cassiodorus, Gregory, Jerome and Thomas as well as the gospel of Matthew, St Paul to the Corinthians and

Seneca. Its tone is hortative and there is no attempt at developing a theology of poverty. Notable omissions from the authorities cited are Bonaventure, Francis

or any of the Franciscan writers on the topic.” Despite the scarcity of surviving evidence, it is clear that the Irish Observants adopted the same attitude of moderate austerity that was the hallmark of their ultramontane confréres and that this standard was much admired by their contemporaries and lay patrons. Even less evidence survives for the late medieval Conventuals, but Donatus Mooney’s statement that he found nothing in their practices which conflicted with Observant ideals, apart from the small

number of houses which drew revenue from lands and rents,! indicates that they also maintained a high standard in this area.

THE

FRIARS

AND

LEARNING

The intellectual formation and education of the late medieval Irish friars is a difficult topic to describe with any degree of precision as evidence is scarce and heavily weighted in favour of those friars whose careers in higher education can be traced, with little remaining to illustrate the education of the

vast majority. This situation is exacerbated by the tendency of modern writers to extrapolate the educational organisation of the English province in the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to provide a model for Ireland.!°! Though there were many similarities between the two provinces, other factors (particularly the absence of a reputable Irish university or studium generale) should urge caution on too quick a comparison between them. Recent work on the English friars has also shown that the process of establishing their

educational structures was much more drawn out than previously thought. '° 99 J.A. Geary (ed), ‘An Irish homily on poverty’, in Catholic University Bulletin, xviii,

101 FL, p. xxviii. Cotter, (Washington), pp 266-79. 100 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 18-19. 102 J. Cannon, ‘Panorama geografico, cronologico e statistico sulla Friars, pp 114-22. distribuzione degli Studia degli ordini mendicanti (Inghilterra)’ in Le scuole degli mendicanti - (Todi, 1978), pp 93-126, especially pp 99-100.

122

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534 CIRCULATION

OF

TEXTS

AND

IDEAS

The formal educational structures established by the friars to train aspirants to the priesthood were not the only ways in which the friars were exposed to texts and ideas. As they became increasingly settled in the course of the thirteenth century, they adopted many of the practices characteristic of the older monastic orders. Thus the common celebration of the canonical hours would have exposed them to a rich annual! cycle of scriptural, patristic and hagiographic material. The daily conventual mass, with its readings, collects and chants, provided a similar opportunity. The practice of reading in the refectory was another occasion for exposure to a different sort of literature. The Abbreviatio statutorum and the order’s legislation on poverty, as has been shown, were regularly read in the refectory by the Observants,!9? and the refectory pulpits in Rosserrilly and Dromahaire friaries provides physical evidence for the practice. Devotional works such as those found in the Youghal library or the lives of the saints found in TCD, MS. 175 and Marsh’s Library MS. Z3.1.5,

would have provided suitable refectory reading material, and the careful, clear script of TCD, MS. 175 may indicate that it was intended for this purpose. Refectory reading was not confined to devotional material, however, and the

Irish friars seem to have been as interested in tales of foreign parts as their

continental confréres.!°4 The late thirteenth-century Irish Franciscan codex TCD, MS. 347 contains a copy of the Descriptiones Terrarum, a work on the

Tartars,'°> and an account of the pilgrimage of of two Irish friars, Simon Fitzsimon and Hugh the illuminator, to the Holy Land between 1322 and 1324

survives.!°© The account by Friar Oderic of Pordenone (d. 1331) of his travels to China and the Far East was also known to the Irish friars, as a copy of his

work written in an Irish friary from 1422 is extant.!°’ The 1475 Rennes/ Kilcrea manuscript contains a copy of the Irish translation of the voyage of Sir

John Mandeville made by Finghin O’ Mahony in 1472.!°8 This very popular work purported to be an account of the travels of a fourteenth-century English knight to the Holy Land and beyond, and described the fantastic creatures he 103 AS, vi, 34. 104 For this general Franciscan pre-occupation with travel writing see B. Roest, 105 TCD, MS. 347 ff. 3—4y. Reading the book of history, (Groningen, 1996), pp 101-23. Colker, Latin MSS.,1, p. 711. 106 Esposito, /tinerarium. The sole surviving copy of the text is found in a manuscript which once belonged to Norwich cathedral priory and is now Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 407. The codex also contains a copy of Oderic of Pordenone’s Itinerarium. 107 FL, p. 133. His companion for some of his travels was a Friar James of Ireland but as this is not mentioned in the text, it is unlikely that later Irish friars were aware of the connection. 108 G. Dottin, “Le manuscrit irlandais de la bibliothéque de Rennes’ in Revue Celtique xv (1894), pp 87-8. See also W. Stokes, ‘The Gaelic Maundeville’ in Zeitschrift fiir celtische Philologie, ii (1898-9), pp 1-63, 226-312 for an edition and translation of the text.

The lifestyle of the friars

123

encountered. Other texts of a similar nature are found in TCD MS. 667, a midfifteenth-century

Franciscan

manuscript

from Clare, and include

the De

Inventione Sanctae Crucis'®? and the Wars of Charlemagne.!!° It is impossible to gauge the impact that this exposure to liturgical, devotional and literary texts had on the friars, but it may be fairly assumed that it provided an ongoing intellectual stimulus for communities which complemented the more formal studies programme.

THE

GROWTH

OF THE

FRANCISCAN

STUDIA

SYSTEM!!!

The friars experienced their period of greatest expansion at a time of great intellectual ferment. The interest in scripture, the emergence of theology as a distinct discipline, the discovery and circulation of new texts by Aristotle which had been such features of the schools of the twelfth century burgeoned in the thirteenth as the young universities grew in confidence and prominence. The pastoral renewal called for by the fourth Lateran council in 1215 emphasised the need for competent preachers and confessors and the mendicants were swiftly co-opted to this role. For the Dominicans this posed no difficulties as, from their foundation, study was an integral part of their vocation. This had not been the role that Francis

had envisaged

for his friars, however,

and he was

suspicious of the impact that studies might have on his followers. This was not because of an anti-intellectual tendency but because of the cost that such studies entailed and his fear of the pride to which the learned are frequently susceptible. This attitude was not to prevail however, and the friars rapidly established themselves in the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna and Paris, where large numbers of students and masters entered the Order. The

presence of these highly educated, idealistic men had a transforming effect on the friars, who became increasingly clerical and learned. Many of the most influential thinkers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were Friars Minor, and the work of such men as Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), Roger Bacon (d. 1292), Bonaventure (d. 1274), Duns Scotus (d. 1308) and Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349) gave rise to distinctively Franciscan approaches to theology, philosophy, the natural sciences and scripture. The centralized organisation of the Order also provided a framework for this knowledge and information to

percolate across territorial frontiers and to all levels within the Order. By the time of the chapter of Narbonne in 1260 the basic three-tiered structure of the 109 TCD, MS. 667, pp 68-71. Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1134. 110 TCD, MS. 667, pp 107-30. Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1141. 111 The definitive study on this complex topic is B. Roest, A history of Franciscan education (c.1210-1517), (Leiden, 2000).

124

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

friars’ educational system, similar to that of the Dominicans,'!” had developed. In its ideal form each large convent was to have a lector who was to give the young friars a basic grounding in philosophy and the liberal arts. Theological training was based primarily on exposition of the Bible and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, but authorities such as Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure also featured in the curriculum. It seems that these small, local centres were where

the majority of friars received their education which, though rudimentary, was much better than that of the average secular priest. The more promising friars were sent for further theological training to each custody’s studium generale. This is probably where the majority of lectors received their training, returning to teach at local friaries. The best students however might be sent by the provincial chapter to the Order’s studia generalia for a period of more intense training. These latter institutes were the apex of the friars’ educational system and included centres at Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Cologne, Strasbourg and Bologna. Friars studying at Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna and Paris could also avail of the opportunity to take university degrees, though the majority of friars at these centres did not, and received their theological training in the Franciscan studium, not at the university.

THE

IRISH

STUDIA!}3

The first provincial of the friars in Ireland, Richard of Ingworth, was one of the founding members of the friary in Oxford and had been the first custos of the Cambridge custody. His successor as provincial, John of Kethene, procured a bible with the Paris glosses for the Irish province, but apart from this evidence of an interest in studies on the part of some of the Franciscan pioneers, we are unaware of the educational activities of the friars for the first sixty years of the

province’s existence.'!4 The first indication of a studium in Ireland comes from the anonymous compiler of the Liber exemplorum who held the post of lector in Cork c.1267;'!> however it seems probable that some studia must have been established before this. The first reference to the Armagh studium occurs in 1303 when the lector, Michael MacLoughlin, was dispensed from illegitimacy, !!® and there are a number of references to lectors at Armagh in the fourteenth century. In 1310 William Prendergast, a Dublin lector, gave evidence at the trial of the Irish Templars but it is again most probable that the studium had 112 M. O’Connell, ‘The educational organisation of the Dominicans in England and Wales, 1221-1348: a multidisciplinary approach’ in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, | (1980), pp 23-62. 113 For a summary of the situation before 1400 see Cotter, Friars, pp 117-22.

114 FL, pp 1,6.

115 Little, Lib. ex., p.38.

116 FL, p. 80.

The lifestyle of the friars

125

been established before this. The Dublin studium must have been of some

importance as Henry Cogery, one of its lectors, was one of the three masters

appointed to the shortlived University of Dublin in 1320.'!’ The commission appointed to investigate the racial tension in the province in 1324 ordered the transfer of the Gaelic lectors at Ardfert, Athlone, Buttevant, Claregalway,

Cork, Galway, Limerick and Nenagh, indicating the presence of studia at these

houses.!'8 The Annals of Nenagh record the deaths of the lectors at Armagh, Limerick and Nenagh during the plague in 1348-9, while in 1361 they record the death of Friar Thomas O’ Holohan, lector juvenis et valens, at Ardfert. The description of a former vicar provincial, Tadhg O Breasaill, who died at Clonmel in 1369, as a lector solemnis in different places may mean that he received a higher theological training at a foreign studium, and may also indicate the existence of a studium in Clonmel by this date. It also suggests that lectors

were transferred from house to house.!!? A reference to two Ennis friars at Strasbourg in 1375 probably means that they received their initial training at a

studium established in Ennis by this date.!?9 The numerous references to lectors and the general interest in learning evident in the Annals of Nenagh is particularly noteworthy and may indicate that Nenagh, the motherhouse of the Gaelic custody, was also a centre for more advanced studies, though this cannot be proven and the first definite references to such higher studia come in the mid-fifteenth century. There are fewer references to studia in the Irish province in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but this is largely due to the fact that the Annals of Nenagh,

the source for much of the earlier period, stops at 1371.!?! Such references as survive indicate that the studia established in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries continued to flourish and that the educational structures and achievements of the friars developed apace. In 1438 John White, the Irish minister provincial, received permission to establish advanced studia at Galway and Drogheda. These were to prepare those friars who had shown an aptitude for theology to pursue advanced studies in the Order’s studia generalia or who were to take bachelor’s, master’s or doctor’s degrees from a university. !?*These two houses were at the centre of a long-running dispute between the Conventuals and the Observants at the beginning of the sixteenth century and it is possible that Conventual reluctance to allow Observants to either study at or take over these studia was the root of the problem.'?? In 1441 117 FL, pp 91-2; 107-8.

118 NLI, D.679; Curtis, Ormond deeds, i, pp 240-2.

Gleeson (ed.), ‘The Annals of Nenagh’ in Anal. Hib. xii (1943), pp 160-2.

119 D.F.

120 FL, p. 157.

121 There are five entries for between 1496 and 1528 but these are in a later hand and contain no reference to studies. Gleeson, ‘Annals of Nenagh’, p. 163. 122 AM xi, pp 49-50. FL, p. 190.

123 Such disputes were common on the Continent, see Roest, Franciscan education, pp 166-8.

126

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

Thaddeus MacGillacundain was appointed lector at Ennis and granted all the privileges that this entailed, while in the same year Matthew MacEgan was

appointed lector in Askeaton on his return from Bologna.!*4

STUDIES

AT

FOREIGN

STUDIA

The 1260 constitutions of Narbonne allowed each province to send, free of charge, two young friars each year to the general studium at Paris. These were chosen by the minister provincial with the consent of the provincial chapter and were to have spent two or three years after their novitiate in a studium in their own province. These friars came to be known as studentes de debito and the system was gradually extended to the other studia generalia including those at Oxford, Cologne, Bologna, and Strasbourg. Other students could be

sent for studies to these places but their expenses had to be paid by the Province and these were known as studentes de gracia. The minister general also had the right to appoint suitable students to these houses and exercised it in favour of a number of Irish friars in the fifteenth century. One of the earliest members of the Irish province to benefit from this decision may have been the compiler of the Liber exemplorum who studied in Paris c.1264. He seems to have known Roger Bacon and attributes an

exemplum to him.!?> Though this is the only reference to his time in Paris, the breadth of references and sources on which he draws in the Liber exemplorum provide a highly illustrative example of the importance of Paris as a centre for

dissemination of ideas and preaching resources.!7° The Liber exemplorum also gives aii exemplum heard by another member of the Irish province during his

time at Cambridge.!?’ Friar Nicholas Cusack, later bishop of Kildare and one of the earliest witnesses to the emergence of racial tension in the Irish province, seems to have been at Oxford in 1267,!28 and Friar Malachy, the author of a

treatise on the seven deadly sins, completed his studies there in 1310.!29 In 1303 three Irish friars were among the eighty-four friars of the Grand Couvent

at Paris who witnessed an appeal of Philip the Fair against Boniface VIII. !3° Cotter suggests that one of these, Odo de Ybernia, may be identified with the

124 AM, xi, p. 144; FL, p. 192. This is the first reference to a studium at Askeaton.

125 Lib. ex,

p.22. 126 D.d’Avray, The preaching of the friars: sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985). 127 Lib. ex., p. 41. The exemplum is directed to lawyers and bailiffs.

128 BRUO, i, p. 530. 129 BRUO, i, p. 1004. 130 FL, p. 79. A. G. Little gives the names of Odo and Dionysius in the printed text but later added a marginal note to his personal copy of FL (now in Greyfriars, Oxford) in which he lists a Ricardus Yberniensis as well. His source for this

addition is not specified.

The lifestyle of the friars

27

Odo O’ Neill who became lector at Armagh and custos of the Nenagh custody,

dying during the plague in 1348.!3! The permission granted to two Ennis friars, Marianus Curydany amd Laurence Omorth, to traverse England en route to Strasbourg in 1375 is the earliest reference to Irish friars at this important studium. They had been sent there by the provincial chapter, which probably means that they were the studentes de debito of the Irish province for that year.'*? This arrangement was confirmed by the general chapter of Rome in 1411, at which Ireland was listed as one of the eight provinces allowed to send

two students annually to Strasbourg.!*3 The right of the minister general to send Irish students to English and continental studia is confirmed by a number of sources. The earliest of these is a letter of Angelus Serpetri (minister general 1450-3) appointing an Irish friar, Richard Gilis, to a place in Oxford c.1450. It indicates that he was

exercising a right granted to the Irish province by a general chapter held in Assisi (the year is not specified) of sending a student de debito to the Oxford

house.!*4 The Conventual minister general Francis ‘Samson’ Nanni approved the appointment of Friar William of Ireland by the general chapter of Cremona to study theology in Milan in 1488. He also appointed two friars, Richard MacBryen

and Roger Okreny, to study theology for three years in Oxford in 1491.!*°

THE

TRISH

PRIARS

AND

THE

UNIVERSITIES

One of the greatest obstacles to the development of the friars’ educational system was the absence of a recognised university or studium generale in

Ireland.'*° They were involved in a number of initiatives to establish one in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, none of which succeeded. In 1312 Archbishop John Lech of Dublin secured permission from Clement v for the establishment of a university at St Patrick’s Cathedral. This was inaugurated in 1320 by his successor, Alexander de Bicknor, and the first three staff members, William de

Hardits, Henry Cogery and Edmund

de Kermerdyn,

were lectors at the

Dominican and Franciscan studia in the city. The venture was not a success,

but may have struggled on in some attenuated form until 1464, when there is a record of a grant of land to the house and scholars of the dean and chapter at

131 Cotter, Friars, p.225. 132 FL, p.157. 133 Glassberger, Chronicle, p. 242. 134A.G. Little (ed.), ‘A letter of Fr Angelus Christophori, minister general, appointing an Irish friar to a studentship at Oxford c.A.D. 1450’ in AFH xxiii (1930), pp 267-8. 135 Parisciani, Regesta, p. 107 (no. 919), p. 197 (no. 1530).

136 For what follows see A. Gwynn,

“The medieval

university of St Patrick’s, Dublin’ in Studies, xxvii (1938), pp 199-212, 437-54; F. McGrath, Education in ancient and medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1979), pp 219-23.

128

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

Dublin. Just over a century later in 1465, the mayor and corporation of Drogheda petitioned the parliament meeting in the town for the establishment of a university there. Though the parliament agreed to the proposal nothing further came of it. In 1475 Sixtus Iv granted the petition of the major superiors of the four mendicant orders to establish a university for the study of the

liberal arts and theology in Dublin.!*’ The proposed foundation was to be modelled on Oxford, and it was hoped that its establishment would obviate the need for Irish scholars to undertake the perilous journey to England or the continent to pursue studies. The petition contains the interesting detail that there were many friars in each order with the necessary qualifications to staff such a venture, but notwithstanding such resources, little seems to have come

of the project. In 1496 the provincial synod of Dublin granted pensions for seven years to the lecturers of the University and this is the last reference to it. Thus Irishmen wishing to take degrees had to travel abroad to do so. From surviving evidence it seems that the most popular destination for Irish students was Oxford, though the universities at Cambridge and Paris numbered Irishmen

among their graduates.'** The number of Irish friars taking degrees seems to have increased throughout the fifteenth century. The chief sources of information for this are the papal letters of the period appointing friars to Irish dioceses!*? or settling disputes in the province. These frequently refer to the candidate’s educational qualifications, but rarely indicate where they were gained. Among the bachelors in theology appointed to Irish sees were Friars Thomas Fleming (Leighlin,

1432), John White (Clonfert,

1444), John O’Daly

(Clonmacnois,

1441), Cornelius O’Cunnlis

1444), Cornelius

O’Mullally

(Emly,

(Clonfert,

1447),'4° while in 1484 John Edmund Coursey, a master of theology, was appointed bishop of Clogher.'*! Different academic qualifications are attributed to William O'Reilly, the beleaguered Conventual minister provincial, at various stages in his struggle to assert his authority in the province between 1445 and 1469. In 1445 he was described as an inceptor in theology indicating that he had

at one stage begun a formal course of theological studies at Oxford.!'4? Papal documents of 1446 and 1453 describe him as a professor of theology, while in

1454 he was referred to as a master of theology.'*? He is also described as a master in 1469.!44

137 BFNS, iti, pp 319-20. 138 M.H. Somers, ‘Irish scholars at the universities of Paris and Oxford before 1500’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, City University of New York, 1979). The Oxford material is based on BRUO. 139 Absentees have not been included. See M. Robson, ‘Franciscan bishops of Irish dioceses active in medieval England’ in Collectanea Hibernica xxxviil (1997), pp 7-39. 140 BFNS, i, pp 38, 262, 383, 384, 534. 141 BFNS, iv, p. 71. 142 FL, pp 198-9. 143 BFNS, i, pp 547, 848, 857. 144 FL, p. 207.

The lifestyle of the friars

129

It is significant that nearly all the references to university studies and degrees in the Irish province come from the Conventual quarter. The Observants were wary of formal academic studies because of the cost that they entailed and also because of the disruption they caused to the religious life of young friars. !4° The laxity of the order’s studium generale in Paris was condemned for this reason by Olivier Maillard, the Breton Observant preacher, in 1494 and 1498.'*° There is only one reference to an Irish Observant graduate: Flann O’ Daly, who was vicar provincial from 1510 to 1513 and who is described as a doctor of the-

ology.!4” The fact that the Observant movement was not widespread in England and that Oxford and Cambridge remained under Conventual control probably reduced their attraction for Irish Observants and may partly explain the scarcity of graduates in their ranks. This antipathy of the reformers towards formal studies may be the reason behind the 1490 petition of an unidentified Irish Observant to

transfer to the Conventuals.'*® They were however prepared to send friars to other Observant provinces for further instruction in the ways and customs of the reform, as a formulary document to this effect is found in TCD, MS. 250.!4°

The Observants maintained their own networks of studia!°® and, as the reform movement expanded in Ireland, gained control of some older ones. The library holdings of the Youghal friary indicate that the community had sufficient resources to give a solid grounding in the liberal arts, philosophy and theology to its young friars. The reservation of books for the use of Friar

Maurice Hanlan,'! a privilege normally granted to lectors, may indicate the existence of a studium at Youghal but there is nothing to support this in contemporary or later sources. The differing attitudes to the pursuit of academic qualifications is the most striking illustration of the contrast between the Irish Conventuals and Observants of this period. Despite the scarcity of evidence it is clear that both groups took the intellectual formation and training of their members very seriously, a commitment which must have contributed greatly to the efficacy of their pastoral ministry.

145 On the development of the Observant attitude to education see Roest, Franciscan education,

pp 153-71. 146 Moorman, History, p. 535. 147 ‘Brevis synopsis’, p. 168. p. 742. 149 Appendix II, no. 6. 150 AS, iv, no. 18. 151 YLC, nos 85-100.

148 BFNS, iv,

6 The pastoral role of the friars

The purpose of the educational structures described in the previous chapter was to prepare the friars for their role as preachers and confessors. In this section the earlier background to this activity will be briefly outlined. The reputation of the friars’ preaching during the period and the careers of some noted preachers will be examined. This will be followed by an examination of some of their surviving preaching resources. Other methods of evangelization will then be examined and the section will conclude with a brief analysis of the content of their sermons and their preaching style. The second section will examine their activities as confessors and spiritual directors. In the wake of the fourth Lateran council (1215) the mendicants were

swiftly co-opted by the papacy to implement its pastoral programme. In the role of preachers and confessors they more than rose to the challenge and revolutionized pastoral practice both by their actions and, more importantly, through the writings they produced. This material, which came to be known as ‘Lateran literature’, provided useful resources for ‘labourers in the harvest’ and has been the subject of much recent work.! For preachers these resources consisted primarily of treatises on the ars predicandi, editions of model sermons and collections of exempla or moral tales which could be incorporated into sermons to illustrate points and maintain interest. Other resources included biblical concordances and commentaries, excerpts from classical writers,* and encyclopaedias which provided interesting and entertaining references and gave an air of erudition to the preacher.* The most representative of all these preaching aids however was the vademecum, containing material drawn from all the above sources and compiled by individual preachers for their personal

1 D.L. d’ Avray, The preaching of the friars: sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985) is the most complete recent summary and provides a comprehensive bibliography. See also J. Longére, La prédication médiévale (Paris, 1983). 2 On the exemplum see J.T. Welter, L’Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du moyen dge (Paris, 1927) and

C. Bremond, J. Le Goff and J.C. Schmitt, L’Exemplum (Turnhout, 1982). 3 On this classicizing interest among the English friars see B. Smalley, English friars and antiquity in the early fourteenth century (Oxford, 1960). 4 d’Avray, The preaching of the friars, pp 64-89.

130

The lifestyle of the friars

131

use. These were small format works, easily carried and designed for use by an itinerant preacher. As well as containing preaching material they often included canon law notes and advice for confessors, and were frequently tabulated for easy reference.° A number of Irish examples dating from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries survive and though initially compiled for individuals, some remained in circulation for centuries.° In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the friars’ tiered educational system, with Paris at its apex, provided a channel for this material to percolate to the grassroots of the Order and the initial itinerant character of the friars also meant that ideas and motifs circulated widely. The Liber exemplorum, compiled by an English member of the Irish province c.1275, contains material from the compiler’s time as a student in Paris as well as anecdotes heard from a Danish friar and from preachers in many parts of Ireland and England. The Irish friars minor were aware of the resources available in continental Europe from a very early stage and themselves made a major contribution to the format of the exempla collections.’ Their role as preachers and the resources they had to hand in the period before 1400 has been fully treated by Francis Cotter, OFM,

and Alan J. Fletcher in their recent studies.® With the emergence of the Observant reform the Irish friars, particularly those in Gaelic areas, came

into much closer contact with their continental

confréres. As shown already, the Irish friars were diligent attenders of the triennial chapter of the ultramontane Observants, which provided an opportunity to acquire new texts and encounter new ideas. They were also subject to triennial visitation by a succession of continental commissaries in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This increased contact and the greater availability of texts due to the development of printing accounts for the preponderance of late fifteenth-century continental works in the Youghal collection. Contact with the Observants of the Cologne province may also be significant as a number of the preaching and other texts found in Youghal were first printed in Cologne in the 1470s. It may also explain the presence of works by the German-speaking Dominicans John Herolt (Discipulus) and John Nider in the Youghal collection. The clearest evidence however is the presence of a work called Summa vocabulorum cum expositione in lingua tuetonica in the 1523 section

of the catalogue.” 5 d’ Avray, ‘Portable vademecum books containing Franciscan and Dominican texts’ in A.C. de la Mare and B.C. Barker-Benfield, Manuscripts at Oxford (Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1980), pp 60-4. 6 Fletcher, ‘The English and Latin tradition’ pp 57-71. 7 They were the first to arrange the exempla alphabetically by subject. See C. Schmitt, ‘Recueils franciscains d’exempla et perfectionnement des techniques intellectuels du xine au xve siécle’ in Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Chartes, cxxxv (1977), pp 5-21, especially pp 12-13. 8 Cotter, Friars, pp 75-122; Fletcher, ‘The English and Latin tradition’. 9 YLC no. 145. This was possibly a German scriptural

132

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

Though the Observant Franciscans produced famous preachers on the continent it is interesting that none of their works appear in the Youghal library. There are for example no works by John Capistran or the Breton Observant Olivier Maillard, both of whose sermons circulated widely elsewhere. The Irish friars seem not to have been influenced by party allegiance in their acquisition of preaching material and, as we shall see, the best represented preacher was the Conventual friar, Robert of Lecce.

REPUTATION

OF

LATE

MEDIEVAL

FRANCISCAN

PREACHERS

The most noticeable feature of the preaching of the friars in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ireland is its continuity with the methods employed by their thirteenth- and fourteenth-century predecessors. This second wave of expansion brought with it the energy of a new beginning, and the zeal which the friars, particularly the Observants, brought to their preaching made a favourable impact on their lay contemporaries which contrasted sharply with the perceived inadequacies of other clergy.'° This was most clearly expressed in an anonymous report on the condition of Ireland of c.1515 in which the author cited lack of preaching and clerical negligence as one reason for the disordered state of the country: Some sayeth, that the prelates of the churche, and clergye, is much cause of all the mysse

order of the land; for ther is no archebysshop,

ne

bysshop, abbot, ne pryor, parson, ne vycar, ne any other person of the Churche, highe or lowe, greate or smalle, Englyshe or Iryshe, that useyth to preach the worde of Godde, saveing the poore fryers beggars; and ther wodde of Godde do cesse, ther can be no grace and wythoute the

specyall grace of Godde, this lande maye never be reformyd ...!! This honourable exemption of the mendicant friars from the general condemnation is confirmed by a number of other contemporary references. Of the twenty-six Observant superiors listed by Francis O’ Mahony before 1534, five were described as notable preachers.'!2 These included Nehemias O’Donoghue, the first vicar provincial. Surprisingly the list makes no mention of Donal O’Fallon who was vicar provincial from 1472 to 1475 and bishop of concordance or dictionary. 10 C. O Clabaigh, ‘Preaching in late-medieval Ireland: the Franciscan contribution’ in A.J. Fletcher and R. Gillespie (eds) Irish preaching, 700-1700 (Dublin, 2001), pp 81-93. 11 ‘State of Ireland and plan for its Reformation’ in State papers for the reign ofHenry VIII, (11 vols, London, 1830-52), iii, p. 15. 12 ‘Brevis synopsis’, pp 166-9.

The pastoral role of the friars

133

Derry from 1485 to 1500. In recording his presence at a synod in Drogheda in 1486, the Annals of Ulster describe him as ‘the preacher who did most service to Irishmen since Patrick was in Ireland’,!* while his obituary refers to his ‘laborious and successful preaching’ throughout the country during the previous thirty years.!4 The same annals also record the deaths of two other Observant preachers: Angus MacNulty in 1492 and Patrick O’Feidhil who died in

Timoleague in 1505.'> A reference to a much-discussed sermon preached at Clogher by a Tadhg O’ Donoghue on the feast of St Lawrence, 1454, may refer

to the friar who was Conventual minister provincial in 1471!° but otherwise there is no record of noted Conventual preachers during this period. Licence to preach was carefully regulated by the friars themselves and by the secular clergy. Among the Observants, permission could only be granted by the provincial superior with the consent of the provincial chapter and only

if trustworthy friars recommended the candidate.'? No episcopal licences allowing the friars to preach survive from this period and furthermore the most comprehensive collection of formulary documents which survives in TCD,

MS. 250 does not contain any pro forma request for such faculties.!®

RESOURCES

AND

METHODS

In this section the different types of preaching material available to the late medieval Irish friars will be examined. The survival of a significant amount of this material gives an invaluable glimpse of the resources the friars had to pursue their ministry. Though some reference has been made to these sources, this is the first time a detailed analysis has been presented.!?

PREACHING

MATERIAL

IN

“HE

Y OUGHAL

LIBRARY

“CATALOGUE

The catalogue of the friars’ library at Youghal is particularly valuable as it records the preaching material a community had at its disposal and how that collection developed in the course of three centuries. Of the one hundred and fifty works in the library in 1523, twenty-three were collections of sermons by 13 AU, iii, p. 305.

14 AU, i, p. 451.

preacher throughout Ireland and Scotland.

15 AU, iii, pp 305 and 477. The latter was a noted 16 AU, iii, p. 183.

17 AS, v, p.9.

18 It does

however contain a pro forma request for the friars to be allowed to hear confessions and it is possible that this faculty extended to permission to preach. 19 See for example B. Bradshaw, The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1974), pp 11-16; J. Watt, The church in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1998), pp 201-2; M. Mac Conmara, An /éann eaglasta in Eirinn 1200-1900 (Dublin, 1988), pp 102-4 and 133-6.

134

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

various authors, while numerous

other works could have been used by

preachers in the preparation of their homilies.”° The collection of sermons, though extensive, contains few surprises and

consists chiefly of works by the best-known medieval preachers. The sermons of St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) head the list in the preaching category of the 1491 section of the catalogue.*! It is not specified which of St Bernard’s sermons are referred to, but the collection may have contained some or all of his most popular works, the Sermones super cantica canticorum or his liturgical work, the Sermones per annum. Bernard, as will be shown, was one of the authorities most frequently cited by the Irish friars in their sermons. Surprisingly, there are no references to any sermons by St Augustine, St Ambrose or the early Church Fathers in the collection. As already noted, the only patristic works apart from Bernard, are by Gregory the Great (c.540-604). Of these the Dialogi,’” with their emphasis on the miracles of Italian saints, would have provided useful preaching material. Sermons by mendicant preachers, particularly Dominicans, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries are the most numerous. Thirteenth-century works

include the sermons”? of the Italian Dominican, James of Voragine (c.1230-98),

as well as a copy of the Legenda aurea,” his highly influential work on the lives of the saints. The Sermones dominicales per totum annum* could be by a number of candidates, but one of the most likely is the French Dominican, William Peraldus (c.1200—71), whose collection of Sunday sermons circulated widely. The presence of the Sermones dominicales of the Franciscan Luke of Bitonto (fl. 1233) is unusual, as this work did not circulate widely outside

Italy.2° Fourteenth-century

works

include

the widely

read

Sermones

dominicales of the Dominican, James of Lausanne (d. 1322),7” which generally

circulated with his series of Lenten sermons.”® The last work listed in the catalogue, and almost certainly a printed book, is the sermons of Graeculus, a

fourteenth-century Austrian Franciscan.”? The library had two copies of the Quatuor novissima,*° a popular collection of thirty-eight sermons on the four last things. Though generally attributed to Bonaventure, it was the work of Gerard of Vliederhoven, a late fourteenth-century Dutch Teutonic knight.*! 20 For convenience the sermons are listed chronologically, which does not imply that the friars acquired them as soon as they were published. The process of compiling the Youghal catalogue is discussed in the introductory section of appendix I. 21 YLC, no. 60. 22 YLC, no. 69. 23 YLC, no. 87. 24YLC,no. 13. 25 YLC,no.62. 26YLC,no.89. 27 YLC, no. 66. He is erroneously described as a Franciscan by the cataloguer. 28 J.B. Schneyer, Reportorium der

lateinischen sermons des Mittelalters fiir die Zeit von 1150-1350 (9 vols, Miinster), iii, p. 54. 29 YLC, no. 150. Schneyer, Report. ii, pp 206-40. 30 YLC, nos 100[a] & 109. 31 REM. Bryn, ‘The Cordiale-Auszug: A study of Gerard van Vliederhoven’s Cordiale de IV novissimis’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1976), pp ii and 23-38. I am grateful to Dr Bryn for this reference.

The pastoral role of the friars

135

The majority of the texts however date from the fifteenth century and include a number of works by continental authors who were still living when the first version of the catalogue was compiled in 1491. The two references to works by Jean Gerson (1363-1429) may refer to some of his sermons but this is not certain.** The sermones quondam Ricardi Flemeng de pergameno could be a rare reference to the sermons preached by Richard Fleming (1360-1431), bishop of Lincoln, at the Council of Siena, or could also be a reference to a

collection of sermons belonging to an otherwise unknown Anglo-Irish friar.°? The presence of four works by Robert of Lecce (1425-95) is significant, as it indicates an awareness of continental developments among the Youghal friars as well as the impact printing made on their collection. Robert of Lecce was the most famous and influential Italian preacher of his day. He initially joined the Observants but left them in 1452 and joined the Conventuals, becoming one of the harshest critics of his former confréres. In 1455 he was appointed preacher of the crusade and became successively papal nuncio to Lombardy, bishop of Aquino and bishop of Lecce. The Observants regarded him as an apostate, which makes the presence of four of his works in an Irish Observant house all the more curious. His sermons circulated widely and a number of editions were printed in his eta The Youghal friars had two copies of his Sermones de laudibus sanctorum* which was first published in Venice in 1489 and ran to ten editions before 1495. The reference to the Sermones Roberti de licio in uno volumine*> in the 1491 section of the catalogue may be a copy of one of the earlier editions of his opera varia, a collection of his sermons for Lent

and Advent. This was first published in Venice in 1479 and ran to three editions before 1490. The library also had a copy of his collected sermons De tempore.*© The library also contained a copy of the Thesaurus novus,*’ an anonymous fifteenth-century work formerly attributed to the thirteenth-century Dominican, Peter of Palude. It consisted of three sermon series: for the Sundays of the year, the feasts of the saints and the days of Lent, and gave a number of model sermons for each occasion.*® By 1491 the Youghal friars had acquired two volumes

of the sermons

of the Dominican

preacher,

Leonard

of Udine

(d. 1469),°° though which of his works these were is not clear. It seems likely that these were two printed volumes as his work survives in very few manuscripts. In view of the date of acquisition it could possibly be an edition of his Sermones aurei de sanctis, printed in Cologne in 1473 or his Lenten

sermons, printed in Venice in 1471.*° 32 YLC, nos 28 and 103.

33 YLC,no.

149.

34 YLC, nos 88 and 119. The identification of the

second copy is not certain as this section of the manuscript is badly stained. 35 YLC, no. 65. 36 YLC, no. 138. 37 YLC, no. 114. 38 Schneyer, Report. v, pp 525-56. 39 YLC, no. 61. 40 Kaeppelli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi (4 vols, Rome, 1980), iti, pp 80-5.

136

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

By 1523 the friars possessed an edition of the sermons of the prolific German Dominican, John Herolt or Discipulus (d. 1468). These circulated widely in

both manuscript and printed editions and the Youghal copy had been transcribed by David Ronain, presumably a member of the community.*! It would be interesting to know if the exemplar of this copy was a printed book or another manuscript. Herolt produced four series of sermons but it is impossible from the reference to ascertain which one the Youghal friars possessed. He also produced a number of other preaching aids, including a collection of exempla and a work on the miracles of the Virgin Mary.‘ Other series of sermons include the De tempore and De sanctis sermons of

Master Paul Van,*? twenty-three sermons for feastdays by Michael Lochmayr4 and a number of unidentifiable collections.* The Antiquus liber predicationis reserved for the use of Patrick Hel was probably a vademecum compilation such as the ones described above. Its description as antiquus confirms that these works remained in circulation for long periods and continued to be used by other friars. Apart from these sermon collections the Youghal library held other material which would have been useful for preparing sermons. Exempla or entertaining moral anecdotes would have been drawn from the Gesta Romanorum which the friars had acquired by 1523.*° This was not, as its name suggests, a classical text, but was compiled by an anonymous English Franciscan in the late 1330s. It rivalled the Legenda aurea of James of Voragine in popularity and circulated widely throughout Europe. Latin versions were printed in Utrecht and Cologne between 1472 and 1475 and the Youghal copy may have been one of these

editions.*’ Another work frequently quarried for exempla by preachers was the Vitas Patrum,*’ with its accounts of the lives and miracles of the first monks in the Egyptian desert. In his study of the preaching of the thirteenth-century friars, d’ Avray stresses the importance of biblical concordances, lives of the saints and encyclopaedias as resources in the preparation of sermons.” The Youghal catalogue, though compiled two centuries later, provides strong confirmation of this. By 1523 the friars possessed three biblical concordances,

one in two volumes,

and two encyclopedias; the Proprietatibus rerum*® of the thirteenth-century

Franciscan, Bartholomeus Anglicus, and the Catholicon of Januensis.>! Mention has already been made of their copy of the Legenda aurea of James of Voragine.>? 41 YLC, no. 104. 44 YLC, no. 112.

42 Kaeppelli, Scriptores, ii, pp 450-60. 45 YLC, nos 63, 115, 121 and 129.

43 YLC, nos 111 and 113.

46 YLC, no. 146.

47R. Aubert,

‘Gesta Romanorum’ in Dictionnaire d'histoire et géographie ecclésiastique, xx, cols.

48 YLC, no. 11. SOME non sse

1111-13.

49d’ Avray, The preaching of the friars, pp 64-89, but see particularly p. 279. oY ES noms ese Cano mse

The pastoral role of the friars THE

RENNES

17 MANUSCRIPT

SERMONS

An examination of the preaching material in the Irish Franciscan manuscript now in the public library at Rennes gives some idea of how material like that in the Youghal library was used by Franciscan preachers. The manuscript, which a colophon indicates was written in the Observant friary at Kilcrea in 1475, contains the texts of seventeen sermons or sermon notes as well as a

number of other works.°* A number of these sermons have been published but seem to have attracted very little attention.*t On grounds of style, language and sources cited they appear to have been written by the same person and their content suggests that the author was himself a friar with a wide experience of preaching and pastoral ministry. The presence of a series of sermon notes on poverty probably indicates a Franciscan author. They are written in Irish, which brings them one step closer to what the friar is likely to have preached than the Latin texts of model sermons or exempla. There is a great overlap between the material found in the Rennes manuscript and that found in other fifteenth-century Irish texts. A Franciscan provenance cannot be demonstrated for these others, with the exception of TCD, MS. 667, written in a Franciscan house in Clare in the mid-fifteenth

century.°> The relationship between the various manuscripts is highly complex and would shed much light on how such texts circulated in fifteenth-century Ireland. It would also show how much the friars contributed to contemporary developments and how much they were influenced by them.*° Such an analysis however is outside the scope of this study and discussion will be confined to texts from an established Franciscan background, as we can at least be sure

that these reflect the interests of the friars.>” The Rennes sermon on the resurrection draws almost entirely on the writings of St Bonaventure and in particular on his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.°* The sermon on the eucharist draws on 53 G. Dottin, ‘Notice du manuscrit irlandais de la bibliothéque de Rennes’ in Revue Celtique xv (1894), pp 79-91. 54 G. Hoey, ‘An Irish homily on the passion: text and translation’ in Catholic University Bulletin xvii, pp 459-71, 558-67; J. A. Geary, ‘An Irish homily on the resurrection’ in Catholic University Bulletin xvi, pp 175-86. 55 The closest relationship is between the Rennes MS and Paris Celt. 1 described by H. Omont, ‘Catalogue des MSS. celtiques et basques de la Bibliothéque Nationale’ in Revue Celtique, xi (1890), pp 389-433. 56 A number of these manuscripts, including the Rennes codex, contain an Irish translation of Innocent III, De Contemptu Mundi. For the relationship between these manuscripts see J.A. Geary, An Irish version of Innocent III’s De Contemptu Mundi (Washington D.C., 1931), pp 15-23. 57 For the general literary background to these works and the involvement of the Mac an Legha scribal family in transcribing them see J.E. Caerwyn Williams & P. Ford, The Irish literary tradition (Cardiff, 1992), pp 119-26. For an emphasis on the theological content of the texts see M. Mac Conmara, An léann eaglasta in Eirinn, 1200-1900, pp 102-38. 58 J.A. Geary, ‘An Irish homily

138

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

Ambrose, Augustine and Peter Lombard.°? In the homily on the passion of Christ the chief authorities are Ambrose, Augustine, Bede, Bernard, Cassiodorus,

Gregory the Great and the Lombard™ while the sermon on the Blessed Virgin ends with a quotation from Januensis.°! The two texts on confession, which will be examined more closely in the next section, are very different in content. The first, and more theologically developed of the two, consists of a list of sixteen conditions for proper confession attributed to Thomas Aquinas, while the second gives a list of sins and is designed as an aid to penitents preparing

for confession. The sermon notes on poverty consist entirely of quotations on the topic from scripture and patristic and later writers, including Ambrose, Aristotle, Augustine, Bede, Boethius, Cassiodorus, Gregory and Jerome. As mentioned previously, the absence of any Franciscan authorities on a topic of interest

chiefly to the friars themselves is curious.°* Similar collections of notes on the virtues of patience and charity cite Augustine, Bernard and Origen, as well as passages from scripture while another treatise on patience begins with a quotation from the Soliloquium of St Bonaventure. The sermon notes dealing with the pains of hell draw from the work of Augustine, Bernard, Jerome, John Chrysostom and Hugh of St Victor as well as various scriptural texts.°4 Though some of the authors quoted such as Aquinas, Bede, Bonaventure, Gregory the Great and Peter Lombard are found in the Youghal library, the author of the Rennes sermons had access to a wider range of patristic sources than his Youghal confréres. He is less aware of more recent texts however and this may indicate that the sermons were composed in the early fifteenth century before the continental authors represented in the Youghal collection became widely available in printed works.

PREACHING

MATERIAL

IN

TCD,

MS.

667

Robin Flower’s view that TCD, MS. 667 was compiled in a Franciscan house in Clare in 1455 has influenced all subsequent writers. This view is based, somewhat tenuously perhaps, on the predominance of O’Brien entries in a on the resurrection’ in Catholic University Bulletin xviii; pp 175-86, but particularly pp 175-7. 59 J.A. Geary, ‘An Irish homily on the holy eucharist’ in Catholic University Bulletin xviii, pp 460-75, especially pp 460-1. 60 Hoey, ‘Homily on the passion’. The introductory section

(pp 459-61) needs to be treated with caution. 61 Dottin, ‘Notice du manuscrit’, p. 82. 62 J.A. Geary, ‘An Irish homily on confession’ in Catholic University Bulletin xviii, pp 344-66, especially pp 344-9. 63 Ibid., pp 266-79. . 64 Dottin, ‘Notice du manuscrit’, pp 85-7. 65R. Flower, ‘Ireland and medieval Europe’ in Proceedings of the British Academy, xiii (1927), pp 271-303 but particularly pp 282-97.

The pastoral role of the friars

139

short chronology contained in the manuscript.® Of the two Franciscan houses in Clare at this period, Ennis and Quin, the former is the more likely locus. Ennis was a thirteenth-century O’ Brien foundation and the burial place of the family, while the foundation of Quin by the MacNamaras in 1433 may be linked to the family’s desire to assert a degree of independence from the O’Briens.*’ It should be noted however that the O’ Briens were patrons of the friars at Nenagh and Limerick and that both these houses, with their long established studia, would have had the resources to produce a text such as this. Less questionable is Flower’s assertion that TCD, MS. 667 is one of the

most important of its period.® The text contains a number of Irish translations of continental works which have as their exemplars Latin editions in the same volume. Copies of these Irish translations can be found in other fifteenthcentury manuscripts, thus demonstrating the central role of the manuscript and the friars as channels of classical and continental literature in late medieval Ireland. The manuscript is too large to be classed as a vademecum book and much of its content would have been more useful in the classroom than in the

pulpit.©? It does however contain a large amount of preaching material. This, for the most part, is very loosely arranged into categories and consists of lists of quotations on particular topics drawn from patristic sources, collections of exempla and miscellaneous canon law and theological notes. Though exempla are found scattered throughout the work, one section is devoted entirely to them and contains fifty-four examples, chiefly dealing with the Virgin Mary.’ The preaching material shows the friars’ concern with preaching key Christian doctrines in a straightforward and accessible fashion. There is a large section on purgatory, the afterlife and the importance of prayers and masses for the dead. Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Peter of Cluny and Peter Damian are among the authorities cited and the section also includes a number

of exempla illustrating the topic.’! The importance of worthy reception of communion is the subject of numerous eucharistic exempla and other texts’* and logically linked to this are the texts which stress the importance of frequent confession.’? Great emphasis is laid on the efficacy of the intercession 66 TCD, MS. 667, 66; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp in Romania, \xii (1936), p. 539.

1132-3. This text was printed by M. Esposito

67 A. Nic Ghiollamhaith, ‘Kings and vassals in later medieval

Ireland: the Ui Bhriain and the MicConmara in the fourteenth century,’ in T. Barry, R. Frame and K. Simms (eds) Colony and frontier in medieval Ireland (Dublin and Rio Grande, 1995), pp 201-16. 68 Flower, ‘Ireland and medieval Europe’, p. 282. 69 This section is based on the description given in Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp 1123-64. 70 TCD, MS. 667, pp 199-214; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp

1155-61. Colker identifies sixty-nine exempla in the codex.

71 TCD,

MS. 667, pp 32-6; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp 1123-4. 72 TCD, MS. 667, pp 184-8; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1153. 73 TCD, MS. 667, pp 38-9; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1125.

140

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

of the Virgin Mary.’* An insight on how the friars viewed themselves as preachers is provided by a comparison of a preacher with a cock; just as the cock wakes himself before waking others, so should the good preacher castigate and correct

himself before anyone else.’° A subtle bias is evident in the way some of the exempla are presented: a mother may liberate her son from purgatory through masses celebrated by a Franciscan’”® but struggles of the flesh and temptations to apostasy are the prerogative of Cistercians and Dominicans.’7

OTHER

METHODS

Formal preached sermons were not the only methods of evangelization used by the friars and there was a long tradition in the Order of composing songs and carols on religious or moral themes for the instruction of the laity. The friars in England were particularly noted for this and the English presence in the Irish province in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries led to its intro-

duction here.’* The most important example of this practice is the poems associated with Friar Michael of Kildare in British Library manuscript Harley 913. These consist of twenty-seven poems in Hiberno-English and Latin,

chiefly on various devotional and moral themes.’? They form one part of the preaching material in a vademecum or commonplace book and would probably have been used by a friar during a sermon as a way of recapitulating its content or for dramatic effect. The collection includes poems on the Ten Commandments,

the seven deadly sins, the need for repentance, the fall of

man and the passion. Not all of the works are devotional, however, and other

texts such as the ‘Abbot of Gloucester’s feast’ and the ‘Land of Cokayne’®® are highly entertaining, if scurrilous, satires on Cistercian and Benedictine monks. The Franciscans were the pre-eminent composers of popular hymnody and wrote religious songs to be sung to popular secular tunes. In Ireland this tactic was adopted by the English friar-bishop of Ossory, Richard Ledred (1317-61), to counteract the lewd songs being sung by the clergy and people of Kilkenny. Some sixty hymns were attributed to him and are preserved in the Red Book of Ossory. These were sung to the popular tunes of the day and include works on

the Virgin Mary and the name of Jesus.®! 74 TCD, MS. Colker, Latin 77 TCD, MS. English lyric

667, pp 199-214; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp 1155-62. 75 TCD, MS. 667, p. 82; MSS., ii, p. 1138. 76 TCD, MS. 667, p. 35; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1124. 667, pp 204 & 206; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp 1157-8. 78D. L. Jeffrey, The early and Franciscan spirituality (Lincoln, 1975). 79 See A.M. Lucas, Anglo-Irish

poems of the middle ages (Dublin,

material in BL, Harley MS. 913.

1995), for the most recent edition of the Hiberno-English

80 Ibid., pp 46-55.

81 T. Stemmler (ed.), The Latin hymns

The pastoral role of the friars

14]

The recruitment of Gaelic friars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attracted members of the hereditary bardic families to the Order. These men, trained in the complex and stylised art of bardic composition, included the late fourteenth century Tadhg Camchosach O’Daly and the Observant Philip Bocht O'Higgins. The latter is described as ‘the best versifier of devotion in the latter

time’ by his obituary writer in the Annals of Ulster.’? In both their works, as demonstrated in the last chapter, a synthesis of two traditions is evident: the conventions are of bardic poetry and the influence of continental preaching and devotional material.

THE

WHERE

AND

WHEN

OF

PREACHING

From their earliest days in Ireland the Irish friars followed the practice of their English and continental confréres and travelled in pairs on preaching tours. The Liber exemplorum contains a number of incidental references to this practice, including a very vivid account of a tour conducted in Clonfert by the

Gaelic friar Thomas O’ Quinn before 1252.83 The account also demonstrates the direct simple style of vernacular preaching that was favoured by the friars, a style that was popular and effective. Other references indicate that, even when the majority of their houses were concentrated in the Anglo-Irish colony, they frequently undertook missions to Gaelic areas.*4 The expansion of the friars into these Gaelic areas in the fifteenth century increased the number of bases from which they could launch such missions,

and though references are few, it is clear that they continued to conduct extensive preaching tours. The 1486 description of the Franciscan bishop of Derry, Donal O’Fallon, as the most effective preacher in Ireland since the time of

St Patrick may indicate a widespread ministry*®» The obituary of Friar Patrick C’Feidhil in 1505 leaves no room for doubt, however, as he is described as a noted preacher throughout Ireland and Scotland. The fact that his death is recorded in the Annals of Ulster but that he was buried in Timoleague in Cork also provides indications both of his reputation and his travels.°° The long account given by Donatus Mooney of the activities of Friar Brian MacGrath of Donegal include references to how he once travelled one hundred and fifty miles to preach before the earl of Kildare and also alludes to a prophecy made by him during a sermon preached in Clogher.8’ The complaints of the people of Kilkenny in of Richard Ledrede (Mannheim, 1975). 82 AU, ili, p. 317. 83 Lib. ex., pp 85-6. 84 Lib. ex., p. 51, has an account of a preaching tour conducted by Friar Adam Habe in Ulster. 85 AU, iii, p. 305. 86 AU, iii, p.477. 87 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 46-7. Mooney gives his death in 1549, while O’ Mahoney gives it in 1547 in “Brevis synopsis’, p. 183.

142

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

1537 against the tolls charged by the constables of Athy, Leighlin and Carlow on those travelling to hear the friars preach provide evidence both for extensive preaching tours throughout Leinster and for their popularity.** Certain representations of St Francis are also of interest in this respect: those in Ennis and Dromahaire show him carrying a preacher’s staff, the long staff

surmounted by a cross borne by the friar while on a mission.*? Apart from the preaching tours, the regular cycle of sermons in friary churches constituted the other main occasion for the friars’ work as preachers. Both Francis Cotter and Canice Mooney have drawn attention to how the very architecture of the Irish Franciscan churches reflected their emphasis on preaching.” Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Irish friary churches, such as the one surviving at Nenagh, were long halls designed so that the maximum number of people could both see and hear the preacher. In the fifteenth century large transepts were added to many of the earlier houses, as at Ennis, or built as a matter of course in new foundations, as at Adare. This greatly increased the space available for congregations as well as providing room for additional altars and chapels. Fifteenth-century Irish friaries were characterised by the construction of a slender square church tower. As well as providing a clear division between the choir and the nave and transept, the crossing of these towers provided a space for a wooden preacher’s platform, and a number of friaries preserve the stone corbels used to support them. In Rosserrilly this pu/pitum is a stone feature incorporated into the fabric of the tower. The cycle of readings for the seasons and feastdays of the liturgical calendar would have provided a natural starting point for a preacher by providing a text around which to build his sermon. TCD, MS. 347, a late thirteenth-century Irish Franciscan text, contains inter alia, an extensive series of notes for sermons based on the lectionary readings.?! It is quite possible that this work, and others like it, continued to circulate in the later middle ages. The presence of several sets of Sunday sermons and sermons for feastdays, many by contemporary authors, in the Youghal library catalogue further indicates that liturgical homilies formed a large part of the friars’ preaching repertoire in the

late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” The season of Lent was generally the friars’ most active time for preaching as the emphasis on repentance in the liturgy and the universal requirement that 88 S.P. Henry VIII, ii, I. Quoted in Bradshaw, The dissolution of the religious orders, p. 12. 89 In Creevelea friary, Dromahaire, he is depicted preaching to birds from a pulpit formed from the calyx of a flower, the preacher’s staff behind his right shoulder. 90 Cotter, Friars, p79; Mooney, ‘Franciscan architecture’, pp 147-8. 91 Colker, Latin MSS., i, pp 710-41, particularly

pp 714-27 and pp 731-3.

92 YLC, nos 61, 62, 64, 66, 89, 111, 114 and 138.

The pastoral role of the friars

143

all confess and receive communion at Easter provided ideal subjects for the preacher. On the Continent such Lenten missions were highly developed affairs with towns vying to secure the services of noted preachers for a course of daily sermons.’ While there is no reference to such Lenten missions in Ireland before the early modern period, Cotter believes that the early friars would not have let such an important pastoral opportunity pass.?4 The Youghal friars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were certainly aware of the practice as the library contains several Lenten collections of noted contemporary continental preachers. The earliest definite reference however occurs in Donatus Mooney, who reconciled an apostate Conventual friar during a Lenten mission he conducted at Monahincha near Roscrea in 1611. It is possible that this represents the survival of the medieval tradition.

STYLE

AND,

IMPACT

The preaching concerns of the Irish friars are those which were central to late medieval spirituality. The eucharist, the life, death and resurrection of Christ,

repentance, right living, hope of salvation, dread of damnation, intercession for the dead, the cult of the saints and particularly that of the Virgin Mary all find their place in the surviving sermon material. The Irish Observants, like their continental confréres, were charged with

preaching and promoting the crusades.”° This continued the tradition of preaching the cross by the Irish friars which is first recorded in 1234.°’ The over-enthusiastic promotion of the Crusade indulgence by the Irish Observants, including the vicar provincial Donal O’Fallon, brought them into conflict with Archbishop

Octavian of Armagh, in 1482.78 The surviving sermon material is sufficient to indicate that the Irish friars in this period practised the same style of popular preaching for which their predecessors and contemporary confréres elsewhere were noted. Though a preacher might quote numerous theologians in support of his argument, the sermons were not sophisticated theological expositions but exhortations to shun vice, seek virtue and to reconciliation with God and neighbour. Despite their reputation as excellent preachers, no full description of a late medieval

93 L. Taylor, Soldiers of Christ (Oxford, 1992), deals with the activities of preachers in latemedieval and early Reformation France and the Netherlands. 94 Cotter, Friars, p. 78. 95 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 76. 96 John Capistran, Bernardine of Siena and Olivier Maillard were among the many Observants who preached the crusades against the Turks in the fifteenth century. For their involvement see Moorman, History, pp 471-2, 518-19. 97 Cotter, Friars, pp 78-9. 98 Lynch, ‘Franciscan docs.’, pp 47-50.

144

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

friar’s sermon survives. Donatus Mooney’s brief description of denunciations of vices by the Donegal friar, Brian MacGrath

(d. 1547 or 1549), during a

sermon in Clogher conveys something of the impact that a powerful preacher could have on his congregation.”” His account of the preaching of Eoghan O’ Duffy (minister provincial 1580-3), bears quotation as an example of what a late medieval sermon must have been like: [Eoghan O’Duffy] was a most renowned preacher, and not less distinguished for his austere and saintly life. His fame extended to the most remote parts of the kingdom, and is yet on the tongues of all ... He always travelled barefooted, rejecting even the slight protection which sandals would have afforded him. He preached with such wonderful force and unction that he never seemed tedious to his hearers, although he spoke at great length, sometimes for three hours together. While delivering his discourses he never looked in the faces of his audience, not even opened his eyes. He rebuked the evildoer with great severity, and his words were seldom without effect. Yet in his sermons he was mild and gentle, rarely giving offence to individuals. When he met seculars in society (which, indeed, was very seldom) he conversed in an agreeable and pleasant manner. He had such an intimate knowledge of the writings of St Augustine, especially of his smaller works on devout subjects, that his whole doctrine seemed sometimes founded upon the doctrine and made up of the sayings of that great saint, as if he had consulted no other author. At the conclusion of each sermon, even of the longest, he was in the habit of reciting elegant verses in the Irish language, which contained the pith of what he had said. These verses were so fruitful of good that they appear to have been inspired less by the spirit of poetry than by the

unction of the Holy Ghost. ! There is also only one example of the impact that their preaching had on a known individual. In 1541 the Four Masters record the death of the Donegal chieftain, Tuathal Balbh O’ Gallagher, who in his military career never killed anyone, preferring to take prisoners instead. As a young man he had been profoundly influenced by a sermon on the sanctity of human life which he had

heard preached by a friar in Donegal.!°!

99 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 46-7. During the sermon he had been contradicted by an abbot whose imminent death he then predicted. 100 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 49-50. Trans., in The Franciscan tertiary, v (1894), pp 196-7. 101 AFM, v, p. 1463. It is possible that he may have been a secular tertiary.

The pastoral role of the friars

THE FRIARS

145

AS CONFESSORS

AND

SPIRITUAL

DIRECTORS!”

The decree Omnis utriusque sexus of the fourth Lateran council in 1215 was

to have a lasting effect on the penitential practices of the church.!° Its insistence that every member of the faithful above the age of reason was to confess and receive communion annually brought with it the need for priests who were, in the words of the decree, ‘discerning and prudent, so that like a skilled doctor

he may pour wine and oil over the wounds of the injured one.’!* As with the council’s emphasis on preaching, the demand for skilled confessors implicit in this decree was responded to by the mendicants whose activities in this area, particularly through the literature they produced, profoundly influenced the administration of the sacrament until the Reformation. The decree’s instruction that this annual confession should normally be made to one’s ‘own priest’ sowed the seeds of a long-running dispute between the secular clergy and the mendicants, This opposition was not universal however and in some cases the clergy deferred to the friars as the more competent at dealing with difficult cases: the Liber exemplorum recounts how a secular priest in the south-east of Ireland, when confronted by an instance of

an sacrilegious use of the host, referred a penitent to a friar for ‘consilium securius et salubrius, !°5

THE

PRUARS

AS

CONFESS

ORS

The friars’ role as confessors and moral advisers in late medieval Ireland will

be examined under three headings.'°° The first will examine the internal legislation governing how they conducted confession and the resources they had to guide them. The second will show how they promoted the sacrament by their preaching and what resources they provided to help people prepare for it. The concluding section will examine the surviving evidence to assess the friars’ effectiveness as confessors and moral authorities. The friars’ activities as confessors were governed by both internal and external legislation. Despite the numerous privileges granted to them by the 102 For the broader background to this subject see T. Tentler, Sin and confession on the eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977).

103 N. Berriou, “Autour de Latran IV (1215): la naissance

de la confession moderne et sa diffusion’ in Groupe de la Bussiére (ed.), Pratiques de la confession: des péres du désert a Vatican II (Paris, 1983), pp 73-93 gives a useful introduction to the effect of the decree.

104 N. Tanner (ed.), Decrees of the ecumenical councils (2 vols,

London, 1990), i, p. 245. 105 Lib. ex., pp 55-6. A woman had stolen the host to use as a charm to increase the price of her wine. Her confession was heard by a Friar Duncan. 106 For the period before 1400 see Cotter, Friars, pp 106-14.

146

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

papacy they still had to be licensed by the local bishop before they could operate in his diocese. TCD, MS. 250 contains a formulary letter in the name

of the vicar provincial of the Observants requesting such permission and also asking that the friars be given permission to absolve cases normally reserved

to the bishop.!°” The internal legislation of the Observant friars governing confessors is contained in chapter five of the Abbreviatio statutorum enacted at Barcelona in 1451. Friars could not be appointed confessors without the permission of the provincial chapter which would act on the advice of discreet members of the candidate’s community. They were to be instructed in how to hear confession and how to deal with reserved cases. Other stipulations reflected the concerns of the wider church for the proper celebration of the sacrament. They were not normally to impose a pecuniary penance on any of their penitents and, if they did, it was to be for a manifestly good purpose and neither they or other friars were to benefit from it. This was to avoid a common abuse whereby the confessor imposed the celebration of masses as penance, with himself as celebrant and recipient of the stipend. This clause may also have precluded the friars from accepting the customary alms

offered by the penitent to the confessor.'°° The instruction that women’s confessions were to be heard in an open part of the church and in view of one of their confréres also reflects a wider concern for propriety.!% As mentioned above, the introduction of mandatory annual confession by the Lateran council led to a demand for literature to assist priests to promote and celebrate the sacraments. The popularity of this genre with the Irish friars is indicated by the presence of several of these works in the Youghal library catalogue and the inclusion of some of this literature in surviving manuscripts. !!° The friars at Youghal had an impressive range of confessional material at their disposal. Some of the works occur in more than one copy and, with the preaching material, formed the next largest section in the library. It comprised texts dating from the twelfth to the late fifteenth century but, as Tentler is at pains to demonstrate, this was an essentially conservative literature in which innovation was viewed with suspicion. Being ‘up to date’ was not a valued consideration, authority and reputation were, and thus the most influential

works were those most frequently reproduced or printed, even if they had been compiled several centuries beforehand. In treating the Youghal’ material chronologically, therefore, it is not implied that the friars necessarily acquired 107 Appendix II, no. 3. 108 Tentler, Sin and confession, p. 87. 109 Ibid., pp 82-4. 110 For a discussion of this literature see Tentler, Sin and confession, pp 28-53. The principal works are identified by P. Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique et manuels de confession au moyen dge (XII-XV siécles) (Louvain, Lille

& Montreal), 1962.

The pastoral role of the friars

147

the texts soon after their publication or that they were rendered obsolete by

later works.

.

Notwithstanding this, the presence of the Penitentiale of the English canonist,

Bartholomew of Exeter (c. 1 110-84) is somewhat anachronistic.!!! The emphasis on the penitent’s examination of conscience and the confessor’s discretion to impose suitable penances which characterises the post-Lateran I'V literature is absent and the work consists largely of a tariff of penances, drawn from other authorities, to be imposed on sinners. The work is divided into one hundred and thirty-five chapters loosely grouped by topic (for example, chapters forty-one to

ninety list the penances to be imposed for various types of homicide).!!? The oldfashioned outlook of this work may indicate that it dates from the very early years of the Youghal community and that it is possible that it was displaced as the more pastorally oriented, post-Lateran Iv manuals became available. Of these thirteenth-century post-conciliar works, the Summa de casibus conscientiae compiled between 1222 and 1229 by the Catalan Dominican,

Raymond of Penaforte (1180-75), was particularly important.!!? As the work of a distinguished canon lawyer and master general of the Dominicans, the Summa had a high reputation and exercised a great influence on later confessor’s manuals. It was divided into four books: the first two dealing with sins against God

and one’s neighbour,

the third dealing with the sacraments,

which

included a comprehensive section on penance and the practice of confession. The fourth book, added later, dealt with matrimonial issues. Each book was divided into chapters, sections and subsections, an arrangement continued by Raymond’s revisers and by compilers of later Summae. It also became customary to include an alphabetical index of the material to facilitate reference, a practice also adopted by later writers. The developments in canon law and moral theology that followed the Lateran council meant that the Summa had to be revised and updated. Raymond himself revised it in 1234 and another Dominican, William of Rennes, further revised the text between

1240 and 1245. The most comprehensive revision, the Summa

confessorum,

was carried out by another Dominican,

John of Freiburg, in

1297-8.!!4 This was undertaken when he was prior and lector at the Dominican house in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and in revising Raymond’s work he integrated the

111 YLC, no. 55. The work was compiled between 1150 and 1170. See A. Morey, Bartholomew of Exeter:

bishop and canonist

(Cambridge,

1937). The text of the Penitentiale,

with an

introduction, is found between pages 163-300. 112 Ibid., pp 210-25. 113 Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique, pp 34-43. 114 Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique, pp 43-53. L. Boyle, ‘The summa ¢onfessorum of John of Freiburg and the popularization of the moral teaching of St Thomas and some of his contemporaries’ in A.A. Maurer (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas 1274-1974: commemorative studies, (2 vols, Toronto, 1974), ii, pp 245-68.

148

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

teachings of other Dominican theologians such as Ulrich Englebert, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Peter of Tarantaise, as well incorporating relevant developments in canon law. It significantly expanded the earlier work and enjoyed a much greater circulation, both in manuscript and in early printed editions. The similarities of content and format between the Swmma confessorum and the Summa de casibus meant that it was frequently attributed to Raymond and, for this reason, it is possible that the two copies of the Summa Remundi in the Youghal library may actually have been copies of John of Freiburg’s work.!!> The fact that the Youghal catalogue lists two copies of the Summa Remundi and none of the far more popular Summa confessorum may, paradoxically, indicate that they actually possessed two misattributed copies of John of Freiburg’s work. One of these volumes belonged to Friar Stephen Barry who was minister provincial of Ireland in 1336, and indicates circulation of one or other of the works in the fourteenth century. That the Irish friars were aware of John of Freiburg’s confessional works is shown by TCD, MS. 250, a fifteenth-century Observant text, which contains

an abbreviated copy of the Summa confessorum!''® along with his shorter work, the Confessionale.''’ Despite its popularity the Summa confessorum presented a number of problems. It presupposed a grasp of the elements of theology and canon law that was frequently beyond the capacity of the average priest and its sheer size made it unwieldy. It also treated at length problems that the average priest was unlikely to encounter in the course of his ministry. To supply this need John compiled the Confessionale which, as its incipit states, was intended for ‘simpler and less competent confessors.’ It aimed to teach these how to hear confessions, and in the case of difficulties they were urged to consult the relevant section of the Summa confessorum or their more experienced confréres. The Confessionale is particularly interesting as it gives a clear picture of the basic techniques for the confessor, such as how to put penitents at their ease, what position they should adopt at various stages in the proceedings, to when the priest should grant or refuse absolution. The main body of the work however consisted of two sections designed to help the priest in his examination of the penitent. The first of these was an examination of conscience based on the seven deadly sins. The second consisted of a series of fourteen ad statum interrogations, questions addressed to specific social groups such as prelates, religious, married people, artisans and farmers.!!8 This format was quite common in contemporary confessors’ manuals and enabled even poorly educated priests to competently administer the sacrament. 115 YLC nos 50 and 68. 116 TCD, MS. 250, ff. 1-134. Colker, Latin MSS.. i, pp 441-2. 117 TCD, MS. 250, ff. 134-148y. Colker, Latin MSS., i, p. 442. 118 Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique, pp 49-50.

The pastoral role of the friars

149

The Youghal friars also had a copy of the enormous Summa Aestesana

compiled by the Franciscan Aestasanus of Asti c.1317.!!9 This was by far the most voluminous and comprehensive of the swmmae and, as the author stated in its preface, drew almost entirely from scriptural and patristic sources, contemporary theologians (generally Franciscans) and canon law. The consequent bulk of the work meant that it was not as popular as some of the more compact Dominican summae. It nonetheless enjoyed a wide circulation, particularly among the Franciscans, and is well represented in surviving manuscripts and early printed editions. It was divided into eight sections or books. The first two dealt with the moral life through an analysis of the decalogue and the virtues and the vices. Issues connected with contracts and wills were dealt with in book three. The remaining five books used the framework of the seven sacraments as guide. Baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist formed the subject of book four. Penance was extensively covered in book five. Books six and seven were concerned with holy orders and the conditions.governing ecclesiastical censures and

excommunications. The final section dealt with matrimonial and sexual issues.'7° One of the most influential authorities on confession was the French theologian and chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson (1363—1429).!?! His contributions took the form of treatises on moral issues, instructions on how to hear confessions and general advice for confessors, and earned him the sobriquet of ‘the consoling doctor. The Youghal friars possessed two of his works: a collection of eighty-seven treatises and another entitled Gerson in parvo

volumine.!2 Whereas neither of these can be identified, it is highly likely that they included at least some of his confessional works. The title of the latter work suggests it might be a copy of his most influential work, the Opusculum tripartitum. This small work'*? was a compilation of three earlier vernacular works that Gerson translated into Latin in 1404. The first of the three sections was a guide to Christian living and exposition of the decalogue, the second part a treatise on confession and the third dealt with the art of dying well. The

confessional

works

of St Antoninus

(1389-1459),

the Observant

Dominican archbishop of Florence, seem, on surviving evidence, to have been among the most popular of this genre in late medieval Ireland. The Youghal friars had a copy of his most influential work, the Confessionale-Defecerunt,

and the 1526 library catalogue of the earl of Kildare lists two of his works.!*4

119 YLC, no. 21. 120 Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique, pp 57-9. 121 Tentler describes him as the ‘greatest voice in the cure of souls’, Sin and confession, p. 46. See particularly D.C. Brown, Pastor and laity in the theology of John Gerson (Cambridge, 1987), pp 56-72, 116-70. 122 YLC nos 28 and 103. 123 Bodl. Auct. 1Q5.34.4. contains a copy of the Opus tripartitum printed in Cologne in 1469. The text is printed on sixteen leaves of quarto size, divided into two quires. 124 YLC, no. 92. The catalogue of the earl of Kildare’s library is found in G. Mac

150

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

As will be shown in the next section, there are strong similarities between a section of the Confessionale and an Irish text listing the sixteen conditions necessary for a good confession which is found in a number of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century manuscripts. The Confessionale was one of the most popular confessor’s manuals of the period and the standing of its compiler as a judge, pastor, reformer and ascetic contributed much to its reputation. It provided a succinct summary of ali that a priest needed to know to hear confessions properly. Its size, layout and the inclusion of a table of contents meant that it could easily be used by a priest while hearing confessions.'*> It was divided into forty-seven chapters and included an examination of conscience based on the decalogue and the seven deadly sins. Sixteen chapters were devoted to ad statum examinations of penitents and these display a remarkable degree of psychological insight and knowledge of everyday life. The questions to be put to a tavern keeper for instance included whether he watered the wine, passed one wine off as another, allowed prostitutes to frequent his tavern, or sold wine to someone he saw to be drunk. The confessor was instructed not to give absolution until the penitent promised to amend.!*° The most comprehensive ad statum sections were the six chapters relating to clergy and religious.!*’ These included questions on the exercise of their ministry, their treatment of parishioners and subjects, observance of vows, devotion to the divine office and their conduct towards other members of the community. This emphasis no doubt reflects the practice of frequent confession by religious: the Observant friars, as already

demonstrated, were expected to confess twice weekly.!28 Another work which would have been of use to the friars as confessors was the Preceptorium divinae legis of the German Observant Dominican, John Nider (d. 1438). This was a very detailed commentary on the decalogue in which the author drew widely on his own experience as a confessor as well as on scriptural and patristic sources, later medieval theologians, particularly Aquinas, and canon law. Its bulk meant that it would have been consulted as a reference book and not used for ready reference, and the Youghal library had

two copies of it by 1523.!7° By 1523 the Youghal friars had two copies of one of the most popular confessor’s summae, the Summa de casibus conscientiae of Angelo Carletti of

Chiavasso (1411-95), better known as the Summa Angelica.'*° The work is thought to have been compiled c.1480 and was first printed in 1486. It enjoyed Niocaill (ed.), Crown surveys oflands 1540-41 with the Kildare rental begun in 1578 (Dublin

1992), pp 312-14, 355-6. 125 Bodl. Auct. 1Q. mf. 1.17, a copy of the Confessionale printed in Cologne in 1469, is in quarto format and could easily have been held in the hand or carried in a pocket. 126 Confessionale, chap. 40. 127 Ibid., chaps. 41-7. 128 AS, iv, pelo.) LYYVEG. nos 90 and 144. 130 YLC, nos 86 and 128.

The pastoral role of the friars

15]

tremendous success and was printed thirty-three times before 1520. Angelo held doctorates in law and theology from Bologna and this is reflected in the work which is strongly legalistic in tone. After completing his studies in Bologna he became an Observant Franciscan and was four times vicar general of the Cismontane Observants. It is possible that this high profile among the friars may have recommended his text to the Observants at Youghal. The Third Order

Friars at Slane also had a copy of the Summa Angelica.'>! The extent of its influence and the degree to which it had come to symbolise the late medieval system of penance was dramatically demonstrated in December 1520 when it was one of three works publicly burned by Martin Luther in Wittenberg. !*

PREACHING

PENANCE

As Alan Fletcher and other writers have noted, there was an intimate connection between the preaching of the friars and their activities as confessors.!*4 Vademecum books, such as the thirteenth-century TCD, MS. 347, normally contained canon law notes and texts from confessors manuals as well as preaching material. On their preaching tours the preacher and his companions capitalised on the mood of repentance he had aroused and heard the confessions of the congregation. Donatus Mooney’s account of his mission in Monahincha near Roscrea in 1611 provides late evidence for this in an Irish context. After preaching and urging the congregation to repentance he

reconciled an apostate to the order.!*4 The importance of confession formed the subject of a great many exempla

including a number in the Liber exemplorum'*> and TCD, MS. 667. A common motif is of the devil being confounded by a sinner’s confession just before death. Frequently the image is that of the record of the penitent’s sins

being wiped clean.'*° In others he is unable to identify his victim after confession!’ or he admits the losses that he incurs through people’s recourse to the sacrament.!*® These stories vividly conveyed the necessity and power of confession to the late medieval mind but the friars also provided practical advice on how to approach the sacrament. The two Irish texts on confession in the Kilcrea/Rennes manuscript also occur in the Irish language section of TCD, MS. 667, and in at least four other 131 There is a reference to it on the flyleaf of TCD MS. 65. Colker, Latin MSS., i, pp 116-18. 132 Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique, pp 99-101. Tentler, Sin and confession, pp 34-7. 133 Bériou, ‘Autour du Latran IV’, pp 84-9. Cotter, Friars, 106. d’ Avray, The preaching of the friars, pp 50-1. 134 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 76. 135 Lib. ex., pp 51-57, has six exempla under the heading De confessione. 136 TCD, MS 667, nos 9, 11, 301, 302. Colker, Latin MSS., ii, pp 1125 and 1157. 137 TCD, MS. 667, no. 304. Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1157. 138 TCD,

152

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century codices. In the opinion of Robin Flower these texts derive from a Latin original, an incomplete fragment of which is also

found in TCD, MS 667.!°° This view has influenced all subsequent writers,'4 and is confirmed by Colker’s recent catalogue.'*! The presence of these confession texts in two manuscripts of Franciscan provenance provides a valuable insight

into how the friars instructed their penitents.'4* Their inclusion in other manuscripts may indicate that they were used for private reading by devout, literate laypeople. Their presence in the Leabhar Chlainne Suibhne is particularly interesting. This work was compiled in 1513 or 1514 for the devout noblewoman and patron of the Donegal friars, Maire O’ Malley, wife of MacSweeney Fanad. It is possible that her contact with the Donegal Observants may have led to the

inclusion of these and other devotional texts in the work.!¥7 The first, and more theologically developed, of the two texts, lists the sixteen conditions necessary for a good confession.'* This is in the form of a commentary on a short verse attributed to to Thomas Aquinas: Let the confession be simple, humble, pure and faithful, And frequent, unadorned, discreet, willing, ashamed, Whole, secret, most tearful and prompt,

Strong, and reproachful and showing readiness to obey.!*5 This verse was included and commented on by the authors of several confessors’ summae. The Irish commentary seems to be based on that of St Antoninus in the Confessionale-Defecerunt, though the Irish author goes on to develop the points made by Antoninus, and his commentary is considerably longer than the original.'*° This indicates both an awareness of contemporary developments in confessional literature and a sufficient competence in theology to expand on them. In the Irish commentary the penitent was urged to be simple and humble in his confession, concealing nothing from the priest and not attempting to lessen MS. 667, no. 303. Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1157. 139 S.H. O’Grady and R. Flower, Catalogue of the Irish manuscripts in the British Museum (3 vols, London 1926-53), ii. p. 532. He refers to the Latin text on p. 106 of TCD MS. F.5.3. This is now catalogued as MS. 667 though the Irish language material is known as MS. 1699 in T.K. Abbott and E.J. Gwynn, Catalogue of the Irish manuscripts in Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin 1921), pp 323-5. 140 S.A. Meigs, The Reformations in Ireland (London, 1997), pp 21 and 166. 141 TCD, MS. 667, p. 106; Colker, Latin MSS., 11, 1140, 142 J. Geary, ‘An Irish homily on confession’ pp 344-66. 143 See S.A. Meigs, Reformations in Ireland, pp 19-21. 144 Geary, ‘Irish homily on confession’, pp 350-9. 145 Sit simplex humilis confessio, pura, fidelis, Atque frequens, nuda, discreta, libens, verecunda. Integra, secreta, lachrimabilis, accelerata, Fortis, et accusans, et sit parerere parata. Also quoted in Tentler, Sin and confession, pp 106-7. 146 St Antoninus, Confessionale—Defecerunt, chap.

The pastoral role of the friars

153

the seriousness of sins by reciting his good deeds along with them. He was urged to have confidence in the mercy of God and trust that his sins will be forgiven. To set his mind at ease, he was assured that once confessed, neither God nor the priest remembered a sin. By confessing he would shorten his stay in purgatory but what he concealed from the priest in this life would be laid before him in the next. Confession was to be approached freely and with heartfelt contrition. It was to be as frequent as the guilt and the penitent was to go as soon as he was contrite and a confessor was available for ‘the devil is wearied by frequent confession.’ The instruction that confession should be made three times yearly suggests an anxiety to promote more frequent attendance in fifteenth-century Ireland, as the text clearly implies that annual confession was not sufficient. This thrice-yearly obligation was presented as the teaching of the church. Two of the four occasions when it was necessary to repeat one’s confession may have contributed to the tension between the friars and the secular clergy on the issue. The first was when the priest had no jurisdiction over the penitent because he was excommunicated or living in concubinage. Given the extent of concubinage in the Gaelic church, the promotion of this idea by the friars among the laity might wel] have proved contentious. The second likewise may have proved controversial: confession was to be repeated if the first confessor were incompetent, unable to distinguish sins and impose suitable penances. The superior education of the friars made them the obvious candidates to whom eamest penitents would turn. Confession was also to be repeated if a mortal sin had been omitted or if the penance imposed had not been fulfilled. The second text is very different to that described above. It consists of a model confession which provided the penitent with formulae for initiating

proceedings and for suitably expressing remorse.'4” The body of the text is taken up by an examination of conscience in the form of a series of prescribed accusations made by the penitent against himself. It is systematically arranged

following the order of the seven capital sins,’** offences with the bodily senses (speech, hearing. sight and touch), against the articles of faith, the ten commandments and neglect of the works of mercy. The following extracts convey something of the tenor of the whole: Dear Father confessor, | declare my faults to God and to you for my own sins in general, and especially for the sins I have committed since my jast confession; and in the first place, that I did not make my confession

% (Cologne, 1469), gives the verse and commentary. 147 Geary, ‘Irish homily on confession’, pp 259-64. 148 Geary’s translation omits the comprehensive section on lust.

154

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

as completely as I ought, and that I did not fulfil faithfully the penance imposed on me and that I did not guard myself against the same sins as I might have done and ought to do; and for these reasons I declare my

fault to God and to you, dear father ... 1” In the first place I declare my fault in regard to pride; for I am very proud, exalting myself above other men, coveting honour and praise for myself from my own people and from others, taking pride in my strength and my youth and my health and in virtues which are not in me, that is publishing myself as humble, chaste, pious, though I am not; and I have contempt for other men and do not like to be despised by anyone; and I see everyone’s sin, and judge them more than my own sin; and I am not humble before God nor before man as I ought to be; and it is for those

reasons that I declare my fault to God and to you in that sin.!>° As to the works of mercy I declare my fault for I do not help the poor nor him who needs clothing, as I ought, and I do not instruct the ignorant as far as I might have knowledge to give them, and I do not visit the sick and do not help their minds according to my ability as I ought, and I do not strengthen the weak, and I do not bury the dead, and I do not help them with almsgiving nor with prayers nor with masses; and for those reasons and for every degree of guilt that God sees in my sin, I declare

my fault to God and to you.!?! This comprehensive list could be adapted to all sections of society. Though written from a male perspective, particularly evident in its treatment of lust, its presence in the Leabhar Chlainne Suibhne shows that it could be adapted to the spiritual needs of an Irish noblewoman. The only group singled out for

special attention were clerics in a section on neglect of the divine office. !>? Such lists of sins and model confessions were common ways of educating the laity about the nature and practice of the sacrament. By 1523 the Youghal

friars had at their disposal the Antidotarius animae of Nicholas of Saliceto!> which included the short tract Modus confitendi of the Spanish bishop and penitentiary, Andreas Escobar (d. 1427).'5+ This was one of the most influential

works on confession in the late middle ages.!>° It was printed eighty-six times in twenty-three cities before the end of the fifteenth century and secured an

149 Geary, ‘Irish homily on confession’, pp 356 (text), 359 (trans.). 150 Geary, ‘Irish homily on confession’, pp 358 (text), 361 (trans). 151 Geary, ‘Irish homily on confession’, pp 362, 364 (text), 365 (trans).

152 Geary,

‘Irish homily on confession’, pp 362 (text), 363 (trans.).

153 YLC, no. 132. 154 Bodl. Auct. 5Q6.70b, a copy of the Modus confitendi printed in Germany in 1474, fits on a single fascicule of six leaves in octavo format. 155 Michaud—Quantin, Sommes de casuistique, pp 70-1. Tentler, Sin and confession., pp 39-40.

The pastoral role of the friars

155

even wider circulation through its inclusion in the Antidotarius. It began with a simple instruction to the penitent on how to begin confession and proceeded to an examination of conscience which detailed the various categories against which one could sin. These were sins in thought and word, the seven capital sins, sins against the ten commandments, those committed through the bodily senses, omission of the seven works of mercy, and those against the twelve articles of the faith, the seven sacraments of the church, the nine theological virtues, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the eight evangelical beatitudes. The treatise concludes with various mnemonic devices to remember the principal points and with the formula for absolution which indicates that it was also used by the priest while hearing confession as well as by the penitent in preparing for it.

EFFECTIVENESS

AS

CONFESSORS,

AND

MORAL

AUTHORITIES

The strict penalties automatically incurred by a confessor who violated the seal of confession means that no direct evidence of the Irish friars’ activities in this area has survived. However sufficient material remains to form some impression of their reputation as confessors and moral directors. Donatus Mooney records the involvement of an Ennis friar, identified in another source as Friar Fergal O’Trean,!>° in reconciling the O’ Brien chieftain, Conor na sr6on, who died in 1496. After an eventful and bloody life, O’ Brien

had despaired of forgiveness for his sins. Friar Fergal, a noted preacher with a reputation for zeal and sanctity, offered to bear the burden of O’ Brien’s sins and placed at his disposal all the merit that he had gained in the course of his life as a friar on condition that O’Brien confessed. This unusual pastoral strategy worked, O’Brien confessed and received viaticum and unction and, as frequently occurs in such stories, his soul was seen entering heaven supported by

the prayers of the holy friar.!°’ Something of what may have been troubling O’Brien’s conscience has been uncovered by Michael Haren in his examination of the Irish entries in the papal penitentary dispensations for illegitimacy. The only case of incest in the list concerns the dispensations of two Killaloe clerics, Cornelius and Tathheus O’Brien in 1482 and 1485 respectively. They had been born of an incestuous relationship between their mother and her father who was most probably Conor na sr6n O’Brien. Her position as abbess of the Augustinian house at Killone near Ennis provided an additional complicating factor as it seems that the relationship continued for some time after she had been

156 AM, iii, 574.

157 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, pp 61-2.

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

156

appointed abbess. In 1502 another one of her sons, also a cleric, was dispensed

from illegitimacy. His father was the bishop of the diocese.!°* As well as hearing sacramental confession, the advice of the friars was frequently sought in cases of conscience. In the 1530s the wife of Sir Walter Delahaide of Moyclare near Dublin was, along with her two sisters, cut out of

her mother’s will in favour of the issue of a later marriage. The sisters, with the initial support of their husbands, managed to destroy the will but Sir Walter later regretted the deed and turned to a friar for advice. Not surprisingly, the

friar advised them to expose the situation and the matter was brought to law.'*? An incident in Donegal shows the friars as upholders of orthodox teaching on marriage and sexual mores. In defending his quarrel with his father to the Irish council, Manus

O’Donnell,

later chieftain

of Tir Chonaill,

excused

himself on the grounds that his father kept a woman against God’s laws and right, and by the instigation and crafty mean of that wicked woman daily procured my said father to have me out of his favour ... because I would she would avoid his company, for the discharge of his conscience ... and the church and the friars

counselled me to do the same.!©° Donatus Mooney also records how Manus O’Donnell was later greatly consoled and counselled by Fr Brian MacGrath of Donegal on the death of his

wife.!! As the most organized, zealous and pastorally minded group in the late medieval Irish church, the friars were able to exercise a most effective pastoral ministry. Their commitment to this is seen in the surviving evidence of the wide range of material which they collected for preaching and hearing confessions. Their care to instruct people in the proper practice of confession through their preaching and the circulation of Irish translations of contemporary continental works is particularly noteworthy. The reputation of the friars, particularly the Observants, for austerity and holiness doubtless enhanced their reputation as confessors and moral guides. The reverence of the Gaelic Irish for the friars and the influence the friars had over them was commented on by contemporaries. The 1534 remark ao Eustace Chapuys, already noted in another context, that

158 M.J. Haren, ‘Social structures of the Irish church: a new source in the papal penitentary dispensations for illegitimacy’ in L. Schmugge (ed.), /legitiméit in Spdtmittelalter (Oldenburg), pp 220-1. I am grateful to Dr Simon Kingston for this reference. 159 Quoted in Bradshaw, Dissolution of the monasteries in Ireland,p. 12. 160 Ibid., p. 13. 161 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 47. Mooney does not give the name of the O’Donnell, but Manus is the only candidate.

The pastoral role of the friars among

LOH

the wild Irish the Cordeliers are feared, obeyed, and almost

adored, not only by the peasants but by the lords, who held them in such

reverence as to endure from them blows with a stick,!®? perhaps suggests that, when all else failed, the friars were not beyond making their point more forcefully.

162 Calendar of letters, despatches, and state papers relating to negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives of Simancas and elsewhere, (13 vols, London, 1862-1954), ii, p. 570.

Appendix |: The Youghal Library catalogue

The only surviving codex from the friary library in Youghal, Theol. Lat. Fol. 703 of the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz in Berlin, contains the catalogue of the friary library compiled at different stages between 1490 and 1523 on folios 150 verso to 152 recto. It is one of only three such documents known to survive from the period in Ireland! and gives an important insight on the intellectual interests of the friars and the late medieval Irish church.

PROVENANCE

AND

EDITIONS

The codex remained in use in Youghal throughout the sixteenth century and was very probably one of those examined by Donatus Mooney during his visitation of the community before 1617.2 At one stage in the eighteenth century it came into the possession of an otherwise unknown John Smith. In 1848 Sir Thomas Phillips purchased the codex from a bookseller called Rodd. Phillips believed that the manuscript had come from the collection of the Ulster king at arms, Sir William Betham (1779-1853), but the

current cataloguers believe he was mistaken in this assumption. It was acquired for the Berlin collection at an auction in Sothebys in 1908.4 The catalogue was first published in 1864 by William Maziere-Brady as an appendix to his Clerical and parochial records relating to Cork, Cloyne and Ross.4 Despite its many inaccuracies, this version has been accepted as standard, largely due to its republication by James Coleman in 1925.° Coleman’s version, which gives a translation of the works listed but makes no attempt at identification, has been widely

1 For the two versions of the catalogue of the earl of Kildare’s library see G. Mac Niocaill (ed.),

Crown surveys of lands 1540-41 with the Kildare rental begun in 1518 (Dublin, 1992), pp 312-14, 355-6. A catalogue of forty-five manuscripts preserved in the Cathedral library in Limerick in 1631 has been published by M. Esposito in Revue des bibliothéques,xxx (1921), pp 147-9. These consist entirely of medieval theological works (including two by John Wyclif). The 1624 catalogue of the printed books in this library is preserved in Bodl., MS. Rawlinson. B 480, ff. 69-78 and includes a number of late medieval works.

3 PJ. Becker and T. Brandis, Die theologischen Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz, 4 (Dublin, 1864), pp 319-23.

2 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, jos WS

lateinischen Handschriften

Berlin, (2 vols, Wiesbaden,

in folio der

1985), I, pp 237-8.

5J. Coleman, ‘A medieval Irish monastic library catalogue’ in

Bibliographical society of Ireland publications, ii (1925), pp 111-20.

158

Appendix 1: The Youghal Library catalogue

159

consulted by recent scholars such as Brendan Bradshaw,®°Steven Ellis,’ Colm Lennon,® Canice Mooney,’ and John Watt.!° Samantha Meigs again reproduced the list in her 1997 work.!! This reliance on a defective transcript is puzzling, as a microfilm of the original has been in the National Library of Ireland since at least 1957, where it was consulted by Fr Canice Mooney.!? The Coleman edition gives an inaccurate impression of the size of the collection and the process by which it was assembled. The edition presented here is the first to be edited from the manuscript since 1864 and is also the first to attempt a comprehensive identification of the texts.

SCRIBES

AND

SCRIPTS

The Youghal catalogue lists one hundred and fifty volumes and was compiled by three scribes at various stages between 1491 and 1523. Friar William O’ Hurrily compiled the largest and most elaborate section of the catalogue, listing items one to seventyeight, in 1491. It is written in a clear Bastard Anglicana (Anglicana formata hybrida) hand; which script lent itself to speedy writing and was frequently employed for lower and middle-grade books in the fifteenth century.'* The second section, listing items seventy-nine to one hundred, is written in an English cursive book script, a clear legible script which allowed for rapidity of writing with a modicum of style. It is possible that the same scribe wrote this section in two different stages, as there are slight differences between the section listing items seventy-nine to eighty-four and that listing items eighty-five to one hundred. The latter section lists the books reserved for the use of Friar Maurice Hanlan and it is possible that he was the scribe for this portion. The final section of the catalogue, listing the additions to the library in 1523, is separated from the main body of the catalogue by three formulary documents. It is written in an English cursive script and lists items one hundred and one to one hundred and fifty.

EDITION

The codex is badly stained throughout and a number of folios have been damaged by damp. Where the text has proved illegible this is indicated by .... Other editorial

6 B. Bradshaw, The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland under Henry vu (Cambridge, 1974) pp 14-15. He mistakenly gives 1494 as the date for the compilation of the first part of the catalogue. 7 S. Ellis, Ireland in the age of the Tudors, 1447-1603 (Harlow, 1998), p. 201. 8 C. Lennon,

Sixteenth-century

Ireland:

the incomplete

conquest

(Dublin,

1994), p. 131.

9 ‘Irish Franciscan libraries of the past’ in /rish ecclesiastical record, \x (1942), pp 215-28. See also his The church in Gaelic Ireland (Dublin, 1969), p. 32.

10J. Watt, The church in medieval

Ireland, (Dublin, 1998), pp 201-2. He comments on how the friars were in touch with the work

of contemporary continental writers and identifies the presence of works by Leonard of Udine and Robert of Lecce. 11 S.A. Meigs, The reformations in Ireland (London, 1997), pp 145-8. 12 C. Mooney, ‘Franciscan architecture in pre-Reformation Ireland’ in RSA/Jn Ixxxvii (1957),

p. 27, note 306.

13 The identifications of scripts are based on the examples given in M. Brown,

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

160

interventions are indicated by square brackets. The text of the manuscript is given in italics with translations in plain type. Identifications of the texts and other comments are given in round brackets. In Dei Nomine. Amen. Pateat universis presentibus et futuris, quod anno ab Incarnatione Domini mcccclxxxx primo, Innocentio papa 8vo apostolicam sedem gubernante, ac venerabile patre Johanne Crohyn familiam nostram scismontanum regente, necnon Donaldo Thome vicario provinciali Hybernie secundum sacra dogmata patrum. Ad mandatum venerabilis patris fratris Philippi Ymaycan, tunc conventus de Jochull bene merito gardiani et patrum predicti conventus, me fratrem Willelmum Ohurrily subpriorem infimum minorumque nostrorum parasse nomina librorum predicti conventus neforte ex aliquia incuria adveniente atque negligentia necnon quod majus est inopia conscientiae contra voluntatem beati patris in testamento pia mente valenter precium sanguinis animarum de quorum tot et tantos codices recepimus in nihilum rediregentur, atque memoriale anteadictarum non superesset, quorum nomina sunt haec: 1.

2.

3.

4.

In primis quinque missalia pulchra pergameni, atque tria alia missalia minus valentia pergameni. Five decorated parchment missals and three of lesser value. Legenda bipartita. Legenda, in two parts. (Collection of texts for reading in the church or refectory). Quinque psalteria chori. Five choir psalters. (Large format works containing the psalms for the canonical hours). [a] Duo gradualia nova, atque [b| pulpidarium novum necnon [c] tria alia gradualia antiqua. [a & c] Five graduals; two new, three older. (Containing musical texts for the proper and ordinary of the mass. One of these, described as large and beautiful, survived until c. 1616 when Friar Donatus

Mooney examined it.)!* ({b] A large format liturgical book containing texts sung by the cantors from the 5.

6.

lectern in the centre of the choir). Collectorium novum pergameni, atque alium papiri. Two collectoria, one new and written on parchment, the other on paper. (A book containing the prayers (collects) recited at the conclusion of each liturgical hour). ILstud martirologium cum generalibus rubricis sicut patet. This martyrology with general rubrics.

(Text containing a list of feasts of the liturgical calendar, brief account of the lives of the saints commemorated and instructions for the celebration of the liturgy. As

A guide to western historical scripts from antiquity to 1600 (London, 1993). I am indebted to

Dom Daniel Dempski, oss, for his assistance with this section.

14 ‘Brussels MS. 3947’, p. 73.

Appendix 1: The Youghal Library catalogue

161

mentioned above, this is the only surviving manuscript that can be positively identified from the Youghal library and is now MS. Theol Lat. Fol. 703 in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. The martyrology is a fifteenthcentury copy of a text originally compiled by the French priest-monk Usuard c.875 and the model for all subsequent martyrologies. It was adapted for Franciscan use in the south of Ireland.!° The codex also contains other texts which are significant for what they reveal about the liturgical life of the Observants. These are fully discussed in chapter five. The omission of any reference to these texts by the cataloguer is significant, as it may indicate that the contents of the other manuscripts listed may not have been given in full. The library therefore may have been much more extensive than the catalogue indicates. The text of the library catalogue is on ff. 150r to 152r). Necnon antiquum martilogium et rubricarum liber antiquus. Also an old martyrology and book of rubrics. (Probably similar to the previous entry). Unum grande antifonarium in duobus voluminibus constitutum atque unum antifonarium novum, necnon duo alia antiqua antifonaria. Four antiphonaries; one large, in two volumes, one new and two older ones. (Large format liturgical books containing the text and music of the antiphons which accompanied the singing of the psalms during the divine office. Also contained hymns and texts for special feastdays. TCD, MS. 109 is an example of an Irish Observant Franciscan antiphonary). Una biblia tripartita, atque alia parve quantitatis. Two bibles; one in three parts, the other of smaller size. Liber in quo continentur scripta ordinis videlicet [a] regula {b] declaraciones {c] statuta, {d| speculum disciplinae ad novicios atque sin ... generales ordinis.

A book containing the writings of the order that is the rule, the declarations, the statutes, the mirror of discipline for novices as well as the general [ ... ] of the order. (A compilation containing the basic legislative texts of the Irish Observants. The order in which the texts are listed shows that it was identical to Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. C. 320, compiled for the Observants at Adare in 1482. [a] The 1224 rule of the Friars Minor.

[b] The papal declarations on the Rule: Quo elongati (1230) Exiit qui seminat (1279), Exivi de paradiso (1312)

[c] The Abbreviatio statutorum compiled at the ultramontane chapter, Barcelona 1451. [d] The Speculum disciplinae ad novitios: an introduction to the religious life attributed to St Bonaventure but most probably the work of his companion, Bernard of Bessa (d. 1300-04). In the Adare text the brief testament of St Francis (1226) occurs after the rule and

it is likely that this order was followed in the Youghal codex but that the

15 Becker and Brandis, Handschriften, pp 237-40.

162

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

cataloguer overlooked it. A second copy of this codex occurs among the books reserved for Maurice Hanlan, no. 97).

ll.

12.

13.

Vitas patrum. The Lives of the Fathers. (Probably a copy of the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto of Rufinus of Aquileia (d. 410) containing accounts of the first monks in the Egyptian desert. A very popular source book for medieval preachers and for devotional reading). Opusculum Bonaventure. A little work of Bonaventure (An unidentified short work of Bonaventure. Possibly one of three works attributed to him: the opusculum de ecclesiastica hierarchia, the opusculum de quatuor virtutibus or the opusculum pulchrum et utile ad cognoscendum Deum et ipsum imitandum.'© This volume was probably acquired before Bonaventure’s canonisation in 1482 as he is not given the title ‘Saint’). Legenda aurea. The Golden Legends. (Compiled c.1260 by an Italian Dominican, James of Voragine (c. 1230-98),

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

consists of lives of the saints, accounts of the principal feasts of the church and the liturgical seasons arranged in the order of the liturgical year. After the bible it was the most widely read book in medieval Europe and greatly influenced preaching, art and literature.) Diadema monachorum. The Crown of monks. (A devotional work by Smaragdus of St Mihiel, a ninth-century French Benedictine abbot, in which he enumerates the virtues which ‘crown’ a true monk.) [f. 150 v] Item liber qui dicitur Mamotractus: unum volumen. Mamotractus 1n one volume. (Exegetical work written c.1300 by the Italian Franciscan John Marchesinus of Reggio. Gave instruction on the correct pronunciation, etymology and meaning of all the difficult words in scripture). Item liber qui dicitur Papias: unum volumen. A book called Papias in one volume. The Elementarium doctrinae rudimentum. A grammatical dictionary compiled by Papias in Italy c.1050. It was designed for the instruction of more advanced students and enjoyed great popularity both in manuscript and early printed form: four editions were printed in Italy before the end of the fifteenth century.) Item liber concordantium: Unum volumen. Concordance. Unidentified biblical or theological concordance. Item Catholicon: unum volumen. The Catholicon in one volume.

16 B. Distelbrink, Bonaventurae scripta authentica, dubia vel Spuria, critice recensita (Rome,

1975), p. 163.

Appendix 1; The Youghal Library catalogue

163

(Popular encyclopaedia compiled in 1286 by the Dominican John Balbus, Bishop of Genoa (Januensis). A very popular and influential work, it was first printed in Mainz in 1460).!7 Item Nicholaus de Lira super Vetus et Novum Testamentum in quinque voluminibus. Nicholas of Lyra on the Old and New Testaments in five volumes. (Copy of the Postillae perpetuae sive brevia commentaria in universa biblia compiled between 1322 and 1333 by the French Franciscan exegete, Nicholas of Lyra (c.1270—1349). A very influential work which drew heavily on the writings of the Church Fathers and early Scholastics as well as the Jewish commentator Rashi (1030-1105). Friar Nicholas emphasised the literal sense of scripture and

20;

2

28:

he was long regarded as one of the foremost commentators on scripture, with over one hundred editions of his work being produced between 1471 and 1600). Item moralia ejusdem super sacram scripturam: unum volumen. The moralia on sacred scripture of the same author in one volume. (A copy of the Postillae morales of Nicholas of Lyra, published in 1339. It complemented no. 19 by providing a moral interpretation of the scriptures and was frequently used by preachers). Item summa Astaxani unum volumen. The Summa ofAstesanus in one volume. (Confessors’ manual compiled c.1317 by the Italian Franciscan, Astesanus of Asti. Not as popular as similar Dominican compilations because of its unwieldy format, it circulated chiefly among the Friars Minor). Item Liber qui dicitur vita Christi secundum Ledulfum in duobus voluminibus. The book called the Life of Christ according to Ludolph in two volumes. (The Vita Domini nostri Jesu Christi ex quatuor Evangeliis of the German Carthusian, Ludolph of Saxony (c.1295—1377).This influential work consisted of one hundred and eighty-eight meditations on aspects of Christ’s life presented in the four Gospels and commented on by later writers. Each chapter ends with a collect summarising the meditation). Item epistolare Ieronimi in duobus magnis voluminibus. The letter collection of Jerome in two large volumes. Letters of St Jerome (c.345—419/20)

24.

Item Magister Istoriarum bina vice. The Master of Histories, two copies.

(The Historia scholastica of the French theologian and exegete, Peter Comestor (c.1100—c.1178/9).

29.

It was

the standard

medieval

work

on biblical

history,

spanning the period from the Creation to the Ascension. It synthesised material from the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and used patristic and non-Christian writers to flesh out the biblical narrative. It was first printed in Strasbourg in 1473). Item racionale divinorum in uno volumine. Explication of the Divine [offices]. (Possibly the Racionale divinorum officiorum of William Durandus (c.1230—

17 T. Kaeppelli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi (4 vols, Rome, 1980), 11, no. 2199.

The Franciscans in Ireland,

164

1400-1534

1296). A compendium of liturgical information and theology with allegorical interpretations of liturgical actions and objects). Item Bonaventura super sententias in quartuor voluminibus. Bonaventure on the Sentences in four volumes. (A copy of St Bonaventure’s commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.

This was the most important and comprehensive of his theological works and was compiled at Paris between 1250 and 1252. It consists of four books, one for each book of the sentences, and follows the division into distinctions introduced by Alexander of Hales (c.1146—1244). These distinctions were further divided into

Uc

28.

2S).

articles by Bonaventure, each article containing three parts; pro, contra and solution.'® This work was probably acquired by the Youghal friars before Bonaventure’s canonisation in 1482, as he is not given the title “Saint’). Item epistolare beati Gregorii papae. The letter book of blessed Pope Gregory. (The letters of Gregory the Great (d. 604) compiled into fourteen books in 854). Item tractatuus Ioahannis de Gersono numero Ixxxiij uno volumine. Eighty-three tractates of Jean Gerson in one volume. (Unidentified treatises by Jean Gerson (1363-1429), theologian, reformer and chancellor of the University of Paris). Item istoria ecclesiastica in uno volumine. The Ecclesiastical History in one volume. (Probably the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum of the Venerable Bede (c.673—735)

30.

Sy

but possibly the Historia Ecclesiatica

of Eusebius

of Caesarea

(c.260—c.339), excerpts from which occur in the thirteenth-century Irish Franciscan codex TCD, MS. 347).!9 Item breviarium de tempore necnon psalterium in uno volumine, quod scripsit Fr Willelmus bretonicus, quondam hujus conventus suppositus. Breviary de tempore and a psalter in one volume written by Friar William Walsh (the Breton?), formerly a member of the community. Item Speculum Istoriale secundum Vincentium ordinis predicatorum in duobus magnis voluminibus. The Mirror of History of Vincent of the Order of Preachers in two large volumes. (The third part of the Speculum maius of the French Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais (c.1194—1264). An encyclopaedia drawing on over 450 authors, it was completed by 1259 and circulated widely). Item [a] una pars psalterii, quae incipit a Beatus vir usque ad psalmum Dixit iniustus cum glosa ordinaria: [b] ac quandam postille super librum Job in uno volumine. One portion of a psalter beginning at Beatus vir to psalm Dixit iniustus with the glossa ordinaria and a postill on the book of Job in one volume. ({a] A portion of the psalter containing psalms one to thirty-five with the commentary from the Glossa ordinaria. The Glossa ordinaria was the standard

18 Distelbrink, Bonaventurae scripta, pp 4-8. MSS., 1, p. 738.

19 TCD, MS. 347, ff 349v—392; Colker, Latin

Appendix 1; The Youghal Library catalogue

165

medieval commentary on the bible. It consisted chiefly of extracts from the Fathers and emerged from the school of Anselm of Laon (d. 1117). It took the

form of marginal and interlinear commentaries on the scriptural text and had achieved its final form by the middle of the twelfth-century. [b] an unidentified commentary on the book of Job. The term postille was used to designate the work of later biblical commentators, particularly that of Nicholas of Lyra, whose commentaries appeared at the foot of the page of the scriptural Text):

333).

Item apologia pauperum sancti Bonaventurae in uno volumine.

The defence of the mendicants of Saint Bonaventure. (Compiled c.1269 by Bonaventure to counter the attacks of Gerard of Abbeville. It drew extensively on scripture, the Fathers and canon law, presented a strong defence of the mendicant way of life and provided the intellectual basis for subsequent interpretations of the Franciscan rule.” It was probably acquired by the friars between St Bonaventure’s canonisation in 1482 and the compilation of the first section of the catalogue in 1491 and may be connected to contemporary

disputes with the secular clergy in Youghal.)?! 34.

33:

36.

Item liber recomendacionum secundum scripta ordinis. Book of recommendations according to the writings of the order. (Possibly a collection of formulary documents similar to that found in TCD, MS. 250 and given in appendix II). Item liber qui dicitur Petrus de Aurora artis versificatiorae more exauratum non tantum literatim sed eciam alegorice, anagoie, tropologice. The book called Peter of Aurora the golden practice of the art of versifying, not alone literally, but also allegorically, anagogically and tropologically. (The Aurora of Peter of Riga (c.1 140-1209), a metrical paraphrase of many of the books of the bible with allegorical and moral interpretations. It circulated widely and was frequently used as a textbook and for devotional reading). Item flores Francisci in duobus locis. The Flowers of Francis in two places. (Possibly a version of the Actus Beati Francisci et sociorum eius which was compiled between 1322 and 1328 using material circulating among the Spiritual Franciscans of the Marches of Ancona in Italy).

ae

Item quatuor Evangelistae glossate in quatuor voluminibus. The four gospels, glossed in four volumes. (The text of the gospels with the commentary of the glossa ordinaria)

20 Distelbrink, Bonaventurae scripta, pp 31-2. 21 CPL, xvi, p. 116, is a 1493 commission to the Cistercian abbot of Abbeydorney ordering him to investigate the complaints of the Archbishop of Cashel and his suffragans against the guardian and friars of Youghal and other named Franciscan houses in Munster over the friars’ refusal to pay customary funeral offerings. The dispute appears to have been ongoing as Francis O’ Mahoney gives the text of a 1514

judgement of Bishop John Fitz Edmund FitzGerrald of Cork in favour of the friars and against the warden of the secular college in Youghal. The friars also secured confirmation of this judgement from the archbishop of Cashe! and the earl of Desmond. See B. Jennings (ed.), Wadding papers ( Dublin, 1953), pp 108-15.

The Franciscans in Ireland,

166

38.

39.

1400-1534

Item Bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum in uno volumine. Bartholomew on the properties of things in one volume. (The encyclopaedia of the Franciscan friar, Bartholomew Glanville or Bartholomeus Anglicus (late 12th-mid 13th century). Devoted to astronomy, chemistry, geography, physics and natural history and was intended to explain all the references to natural objects found in scripture or in the gloss. Divided into nineteen books, it was completed in Paris between 1240-50 and circulated widely during the middle ages). Item Petrus de tharaanc’ super 20 secundarum. Peter of Tarantaise on the Secunda Secundarum. (The commentary of the Dominican friar (later Pope Innocent V) Peter of Tarantaise (c.1224—76) on the second part of the Summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas, or alternatively, his work on the second book of the Lombard’s Sentences).?*

40.

41.

42.

Item Ezechiel glossatus in uno volumine. Ezechiel, glossed, in one volume. (The book of the prophet Ezechiel with the glossa ordinaria). Item liber devotus, in quo continentur [a] multa suffragia sanctorum, [b] necnon Ricardus Heremita in uno volumine. A book of devotion containing many litanies of the saints and Richard the hermit in one volume. ([b] is probably one of the works of the English mystic, Richard Rolle (c.1290—

1349)). Item Expositiones regularum theologicarum secundam Alexandrum Nequam in uno volumine. The exposition of the rules of theology according to Alexander Neckham. (Possibly a copy of the Quaestiones de rebus theologicis of the English Augustinian canon and theologian, Alexander Neckham (1157—1217)).

43.

Item Unum volumen in quo continentur [a] parabolae Salamonis, Libri sapientiae, Cantica canticorum, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, |b] necnon quidam grammaticus tractatus artis versificatorie more exaurautus. A single volume containing the Proverbs of Solomon, the books of Wisdom,

Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus and a certain grammatical tract on the art of versifying. ([a] A coliection

of the wisdom

literature

of the Old Testament.

Possibly

produced in the thirteenth century as these works were particularly in vogue then.

[b] Possibly another copy of the Aurora of Peter of Riga).”* 44.

Item secunda secunde sti. Thome de Aquino: unum volumen. The Secunda secundae of St Thomas Aquinas in one volume. (The second section of the second part of the Summa theologica of St Thomas Aquinas (c.1225—74). The Summa theologica was the most important and influential of Thomas’s works. It was begun while he was teaching Dominican

22 F. Stegmuller, Reportorium commentariorum in Sententias Petri Lombardi (Wurzburg, 1947), nos 690-94. 23 See no. 35.

Appendix 1: The Youghal Library catalogue

45.

46.

167

students in Rome between 1265-7. The second part, written in Paris between 1269 and 1272, was divided into two sections, the latter of which is catalogued here).24 Item Thomas in prima parte summe unum volumen. Thomas in the first part of the Summa in one volume. (The first part of the Summa theologica, begun in Rome in 1266 and completed in Viterbo in 1268).7° Item Thomas in tertia parte summe unum volumen. Thomas in the third part of the Summa in one volume. (The third section of the Summa theologica written in Naples between 1272 and 1273 ),78

47.

Item compendium theologiae in uno volumine. A compendium of theology in one volume. (Probably a copy of the Compendium theologiae ad fratrum Reginaldum socium suum of Thomas Aquinas compiled in Naples or Paris between 1269 and 1273. Originally planned in three sections dealing with the virtues of faith, hope and charity, it was never completed and ends in chapter ten of the second part. The first section, on faith, was frequently copied as it contained a summary of the

48.

Item P.... ordinis minorum super moralia super totam sacram scripturam. P ... of the Order of Minors on the moral interpretation of all of holy scripture.

49.

Postille super Marcum et epistola Pauli ad Romanos et b...i imuati in uno volumine. Postillae on Mark and the letter of Paul to the Romans and b__i imuati(?) in one volume. (Commentaries on the Gospel of Mark, the epistle to the Romans and possibly Psalm 118 which begins Beati immaculati in via. The phrase postille suggests they may be by Nicholas of Lyra). Item aparatus quondam Summa Remundi fratris Stephani de Barry ministri Hybernie in uno volumine. The Summa and commentary of Raymond which once belonged to Friar Stephen Barry, Minister of Ireland, in one volume. The Summa de casibus conscientiae, compiled between 1222 and 1229 by the Catalan Dominican, Raymond of Pefiaforte (1175/80—1275). The reference to commentary suggests that it may be the Summa Confessorum of John of Freiburg (d. 1314), a revision of Raymond’s work completed by his Dominican confrére in 1297-8 which frequently circulated under Raymond’s name. TCD, MS. 250 contains a copy of the Summa Confessorum as well as a copy of John of Freiburg’s Confessionale. Stephen Barry was minister provincial in 1336).

whole of Catholic doctrine with the exception of the sacraments).?7

(Despite the initial P the title suggests a work by Nicholas of Lyra).78

50.

24 J.A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino (Washington, 1973), pp 360-2.

27 Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, p. 387.

28 See no. 20.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

168 51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534 Item philosophus in multis tractatibus et specialiter in quinque libris thopicorum in uno volumine. The philosopher in many tracts but especially on the five books of the topics in one volume. (The Topica and other unidentified works of Aristotle. The Topica were often used as an introduction to the study of logic). Item summa de virtutibus in uno volumine. The summa of virtues in one volume. (Possibly the influential moral treatise of the French Dominican, William Peraldus (c.1200—71) which was frequently consulted by preachers). Item postilla super Danielem secundum Nicholaum de lira in uno volumine. Postilla on Daniel by Nicholas of Lyra in one volume. (Commentary on the prophet Daniel by Nicholas of Lyra (c.1270-1349)). Item postilla super Ysayam prophetam et Ezechielem prophetam in uno volumine. Postilla on the prophets Isaiah and Ezechiel in one volume. (Commentaries on the prophets Isaiah and Ezechiel, possibly by Nicholas of Lyra). Item penetentiarium magistri Bartholomei Exoniensis episcopi de canonibus. The penitentiary of Master Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter. (A copy of the Penitentiale of Bartholomew

56.

57.

58.

of Exeter (c.1110—84), a canon

lawyer and administrator noted for his spirituality and zeal. The Penitentiale is one of a number of works reflecting his pastoral concerns written towards the end of his life). Item summa magistri Godfridi, Domini papae subdiaconi in uno volumine. The Summa of Master Godfrey, subdeacon of the Lord Pope, in one volume. (The Summa super rubricis decretalium of the Italian lawyer, Cardinal Godfrey of Trani (d. 1245). It was compiled between 1241 and 1243 and consists of a brief summary of the canon law of the period). Item [a] liber quartus sententiarum et |b] quidam sermones in uno volumine. Book four of the Sentences and some sermons in one volume. ({a] Book four of the Lombard’s Sentences and [b] some unidentified sermons). Item quidam libellus in quo continentur multa vocabula compendiose, viz., juris materiarum, super sententias, super Danielis, super psalmos, super decretales, super proverbia Salomonis.

A booklet containing a large compendium of material namely legal material, on the Sentences, on Daniel, on the Decretals, on the proverbs of Solomon. (The description suggests that this was a friar’s commonplace book containing material on different topics gathered from various sources. The lack of any reference to preaching material and the emphasis on scriptural, theological and canon law works suggests that it was not a preacher’s vademecum and it may have been a student’s classbook.)

ise 59.

Item [a] summa

de virtutibus in uno volumine cum [b] tabula auctoritatum sentenciarum biblie compilata a domino Johanne Ela doctore decretorum. Summa of the virtues in one volume with a table of authorities of the sentences of the bible compiled by Lord John Ela, doctor of canon law.

Appendix 1; The Youghal Library catalogue

169

({a] is possibly another copy of William Peraldus.?? [b] is almost certainly the Tabula auctoritatum et sententiarum bibliae of John

60.

Calderinus (1300-65)).*° Incipiunt Sermones apti ad predicationem faciendum. Suitable sermons for preaching. In primis sermones beati Bernardi abbatis, in uno volumine. Firstly, the sermons of the blessed Abbot Bernard in one volume. (The sermons

61.

of St Bernard

of Clairvaux

(1090-1153).

Leonard of Udine (d. 1469). Four sets of his sermons

62.

63.

One

of the most

frequently cited authors in the surviving Irish Franciscan sermon material. Though not specified, this collection probably contained some of his best known works such as the Sermones super cantica canticorum or the more liturgically based Sermones per annum). Item sermones Leonardi de Utino in duobus voluminibus. Sermons of Leonard of Udine in two volumes. (Unidentified sermons by the fifteenth-century Italian Dominican preacher, survive; the Sermones

floridi de dominicis et quibusdam festis, the Quadregesimale de legibus, the Sermones aurei de sanctis and the Quadragesimale aureum. These enjoyed great popularity and were printed several times from 1471 onwards.*! Very few manuscript copies survive and it is possible that the Youghal volumes were one of these early printed editions). Item sermones dominicales per totum annum, in uno volumine. Sunday sermons for the entire year in one volume. (Unspecified. Possibly those of William Peraldus). Item diversi sermones in uno derelicto libello intabulato. Different sermons in an old unindexed booklet. (Unspecified. Possibly a commonplace book containing material from a variety of sources).

64.

65:

Item sermones Januensis super evangelia dominicalia in uno volumine. Sermons of Januensis on the Sunday gospels in one volume. (The Sunday sermons of James of Voragine). Item sermones Roberti de licio in uno volumine. Sermons of Robert of Lecce in one volume. (Sermons

66.

of the

colourful

Italian

preacher,

Robert

Carraciolo

of Lecce

(c.1425—??). Originally an Observant, he transferred to the Conventual friars in 1452 and thereafter waged a campaign against his former confréres. A powerful preacher, he was charged with promoting the crusade after 1455. The activities of the Irish Observants in promoting the crusade may account for the presence of four of his works in the Youghal collection). Item sermones dominicales magistri Jacobi de Losanna, ordinis minorum. Sunday sermons of Master James of Lausanne of the Order of Minors [sic]. (Probably a copy of the popular Sermones de tempore of the early fourteenth-

century Dominican preacher, James of Lausanne).*? 29 See no. 52. 30 Stegmuller, Reportorium commentariorum, Scriptores, nos 2872-5. 32 Kaeppelli, Scriptores. no. 2088.

no. 4280.

31 Kaeppelli,

170 67.

68. 69.

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534 Item Gregorius in moralibus in duobus voluminibus. The Moralia of Gregory in two volumes. (The most extensive literary work of Pope St Gregory the Great (d. 604), it consisted of an exposition of the literal, mystical, allegorical and moral interpretations of the book of Job. The text originated as a series of conferences to his monastic companions in Constantinople between 579-586 and was later developed into thirty-five books. It became an influential Summa of dogmatic, moral, ascetical and mystical theology and circulated widely in the middle ages). Item summa fratris Remundi in uno volumine. (The Summa of Friar Raymond in one volume).*% Item Gregorius in dialogo in uno volumine. Gregory in Dialogue in one volume. (The four books of the dialogues on the life and miracles of the Italian fathers and

70.

on the immortality of souls of Gregory the Great (c.540—604). This work, written between 593-4, takes the form of a dialogue between Gregory and Peter the deacon. The first three books deal with Italian saints, laying great emphasis on their miraculous powers; the fourth treats of death and the afterlife and was very important in the development of the doctrine of Purgatory and the beatific vision.) Item summa qui dicitur centiloquium quondam erat fratris Johannis Wabergen ministri Hybernie in uno volumine. Summa called the Centiloguium which once belonged to Friar John Wabergen, minister of Ireland. (A theological work frequently attributed to Bonaventure but now thought to be by John Marchesinus. It divided into four parts and one hundred sections, hence

71

John Wabergen was possibly minister provincial in 1405.) Item quidam juridicus liber super decretales colectus. A legal book on the decretals.

the name.*4

72.

73.

74.

:

(Unidentified Canon law book.) Item quidam libellus qui dicitur [a] secundum Albertum speculum, et [b] textus liber Job in uno volumine. A certain booklet called according to the mirror of Albert and the text of the book of Job in one volume. ([a] is possibly Speculum astronomiae, a disputed work of the Dominican Albert the Great (1200-80) which was frequently used in the study of the natural sciences.) Item liber decretalium in uno pulchro volumine. A book of the decretals in one beautiful volume. (A collection of canon law texts, possibly illuminated or otherwise ornamented. ) Item quidam liber qui procedit super omnia vocabula obscura sacrae scr. iptura a Genesi usque ad Librum Sapientiae. A book which explains all the difficult words in sacred scripture from Genesis to the book of Wisdom.

33 See no. 50.

34 Distelbrink, Bonaventurae scripta, p. 98.

Appendix 1: The Youghal Library catalogue

7

(An unidentified biblical commentary or wordlist. Possibly an incomplete copy of the Mamotractus or some similar work).°> Item apparatus magistri Johannes de Anthon’ super constitutiones Octoboni in uno volumine. Commentary of Master John of Anthon on the constitutions of Octoboni. (The commentary of the English canonist John Acton (d. 1350) on the ecclesiastical constitutions of the thirteenth-century papal legates to England, Otto and Ottoboni. Their constitutions formed the basis of medieval English canon law and Acton’s commentary was the standard interpretation.)

76.

We

Item quidam caternus pro arte musica aptus.

A booklet suitable for the art of music. (Unidentified textbook for music instruction.) Item liber [a] philosophici declarata per magistrum Walterum Burley necnon [b] termini philosophiae cum [c] octo libris phisicorum in uno volumine. A book of the philosopher commented on by Master Walter Burley with the limits of philosophy and the eight books of the physics in one volume. ([a] is commentary on Aristotle by the English priest and philosopher Walter Burley (1275-1344). He is credited with one hundred and thirty commentaries on Aristotle alone. His principal works were the commentaries on the Ethics and Politics; the former continued to be used as a text book in Oxford until the Reformation. [b] The Limits of Philosophy. Probably another Aristotelian work. [c] The Physics of Aristotle, which were translated into Latin several times in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries and greatly influenced the study of logic.)

78.

Item [a] summa disciplinalis et [b] xii abusiones claustri atque [c] discipulus ad magistrum necnon [d] tractatus de miseria conditionis humanae editus ab

Innocentio papa tertio, cum [e] quibusdam istoriis provinciae Hybernie in uno parvo volumine contentus. The Summa of discipline and the Twelve abuses of the cloister and also the Disciple to the master with the tract On the misery of the human condition by Pope Innocent III with some Histories of the Irish province contained in one volume. ({a] is an unidentified work whose title suggests that it was concerned with the correct behaviour and conduct of religious. [b] is the De claustro animae of the French Augustinian canon, Hugh of Fouilly (1100-10 to 1272/3). An influential spiritual treatise dealing with the religious life and the need for detachment and recollection. [c] is a copy of the Elucidarium of Honorius of Autun (1080-90 to c.1156), a Benedictine monk who was active in reform circles in Canterbury and Regensburg in the twelfth century. A very orthodox, introductory theology manual which circulated widely in Latin and vernacular translations. Another copy of the Elucidarium is found in the Franciscan TCD, MS. 667.°°

35 See no. 15.

36 pp 1-32; Colker, Latin MSS., ii, p. 1123.

72

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

[d] is the De miseria (or De contemptu mundi) of Lothar of Segni (1160/1—1216),

later Pope Innocent III. A very popular and widely read work, it was translated into Irish in 1443 and a copy of this translation, written in Kilcrea in 1475, is found in the Rennes MS. [e] consists of unidentified historical material relating to the Irish friars.)

A:

80.

{Canon law section in a different hand] Sequuntur libri juris canonici: The following books of canon law: In primis decretum Gratiani cum suo apparatu. The decrees of Gratian with his commentary. (The Concordia discordantium canonum of the Italian canonist Gratian (d. c.1160). A collection of legislation, compiled after 1139, relating to all areas of church discipline, it became the basic text for canon law lectures in Bologna, Paris and Oxford and formed the first part of the Corpus iuris canonici. The commentary referred to is probably the gloss compiled before 1217 by Johannes Teutonicus (d. 1245/6)). Decretales cum suis addicionibus. The Decretals with their additions. (The canon law collection known as the Liber extra compiled by Raymond of

Pefiaforte*’ at the behest of Gregory 1x (c.1 170-1241) to include all legislation enacted since Gratian. It contained almost two thousand additional canons and was promulgated in 1234. The reference to the additions, drawn from later commentators and often printed with the text, indicates that this may be a printed work.) 81.

82.

Panormitanus in quinque voluminibus. Panormitanus 1n five volumes. (Commentary on the Corpus iuris canonici by the Italian canonist Nicholas Tudeschis (1386-1445). This is probably an early printed edition of his works). [a] Sextus liber decretalium cum [b] clementinis.

The sixth book of the decretals with the Clementines. ({a] The Liber sextus promulgated in 1298 by Boniface vit (c.1235—1303) in

83.

84.

which he included most of the canons of his predecessors since Gregory Ix and his own decretals). Dominicus super sextum. Dominicus on the [Liber] Sext. (Commentary of the Italian canonist, Dominicus de Sancto Gemiano, on the Liber Sextus.) Item Sanctus Bonaventura super quatuor libros sententiarum simul cum textu, in duobus voluminibus impressa in papiro. Bonaventure on the Sentences of Peter Lombard along with the text, printed work in two volumes. (Another copy of Bonaventure’s commentary on the Lombard’s Sentences, this is

the first reference to a printed book in Ireland.** Acquired sometime after his canonisation in 1482.) 37 See no. 50.

38 See no. 26.

Appendix I: The Youghal Library catalogue

173

Sequ[u]ntur libri quondam pro usu Mauricii Hanlan: The following books were formerly for the use of Maurice Hanlan. (This privilege was normally reserved to lectors in the friars’ studia. It is possible that Hanlan was the lector in Youghal, though there is no other evidence for the

existence of a studium in that friary. The books indicate an interest in preaching and pastoral ministry while nos 93 and 96 suggest that he may have been the novice master).

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

90.

Ol:

In primis unum breviarium, missale, et diurnale. Firstly, a breviary, missal and diurnale. Item summa angelica The Summa Angelica. (The influential confessors’ manual of the Italian Observant Franciscan, Angelo Carletti of Chiavasso (1411-95). Its popularity may in part be due to his high profile among the Observants; he was four times vicar general of the Cismontane friars. This is one of two copies in the Youghal library. The Third Order friars at Slane also had a copy). Sermones Jacobi de Voragine. The sermons of James of Voragine. (Unidentified set of sermons by the author of the Legenda aurea.*? Possibly one of his collections of sermons on the saints, the Sunday gospels or his cycle of Lenten homilies.) Sermones Roberti de licio de laude sanctorum. Sermons of Robert of Lecce in praise of the saints. (Sermons of Robert Carraciolo of Lecce on the saints.)*? Item sermones Bitunii dominicales. The Sunday sermons of Bituntus. (Probably the Sunday sermons of the thirteenth-century Italian Franciscan, Luke

of Bitonto).*! Item preceptorium Nider. The Preceptorium of Nider. (The Preceptorium divinae legis of the German Observant Dominican preacher, John Nider (c.1380—1438). It was a popular handbook of moral exhortation and a guideline for Christian living written at the request of the people of Strasbourg. It takes the format of a detailed commentary on the Decalogue and the author draws extensively on his experience as a confessor).*” Item Boecius. Boethius. (Most probably either the De consolationae philosophiae or the Opuscula sacra of the Roman philosopher, Boethius (c.480—c.524). The Consolation was written

while he was under sentence of death, the Opuscula sacra between 517 and 522 and both were widely read in the Middle Ages. He also translated a number of Greek philosophical texts into Latin. The Opuscula sacra were short, orthodox treatises on fundamental Christian doctrines and were frequently used as introductions to theology.) 39 See no. 13.

40 See no. 65.

41 Schneyer, Reportorium., iv, pp 49-71.

42 Kaeppelli,

174

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

92.

Item confessionales Antonini. The Confessionale of Antoninus. The Confessionale of St Antoninus (1389-1459), Observant Dominican and archbishop of Florence. The Confessionale consists of three works with two distinct thrusts: the Curam ille habe (1472) and the Defecerunt (1473) were confessors’ handbooks designed to be used by priests, the Omnium mortalium cura (1475) was originally written in Italian for lay use in preparing for the sacrament. This lay focus may explain the probable presence of the Confessionale

93.

Sanctus Thomas de Compendio. The compendium of St Thomas. (Another copy of the Compendium theologiae ad Reginaldum socium suum of

in the library of the earl of Kildare in 1526.**

Thomas Aquinas.) 94.

95.

96.

97.

98.

99.

Item libellus qui dicitur qui sequitur me. A booklet called He who follows me. (The Imitatio Christi of Thomas a Kempis (c.1380-1471). First put into circulation anonymously in 1418, it was one of the most popular and influential of all late medieval devotional treatises. Its theme was the cultivation of Christian perfection through the imitation of Christ. Divided into four books, the first two contain general spiritual advice, the third treats of the human soul and the fourth encourages devotion to and reception of the eucharist). Item. Breviloquium sancti Bonaventurae. Breviloquium of St Bonaventure. (A short work compiled before 1257 in which the theological doctrine outlined in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard is summarised.)* Scripta ordinis. The writings of the order. (Another copy of the legislative documents of the Ultramontane Observants.)*° Unum parvum orarium. One small book of hours. (Devotional work with psalms, texts and prayers for recitation at the various canonical hours.) Item Dorpeli super sententias. Dorpellus on the sentences. (The commentary of the Scotist theologian, Friar Nicholas of Orbellus (d. 1472-5), on the Sentences of the Lombard which was completed in four books by 1465 and printed in Paris in 1488. A very popular work, it was printed ten times between 1488 and 1520. Alternatively, this could be a copy of his shorter work, the Super sententias compendium singulare printed in Lyon in 1503 and in Paris

mal 517) Item bibliotheca. A Bible.

Scriptores, no. 2540. p.4. 46Seeno. 10.

43 See note 1. 44 See no. 47. 45 Distelbrink, Bonaventurae scripta, 47 Stegmuller, Reportorium commentariorum, nos 591, 592.

Appendix 1; The Youghal Library catalogue 100.

17S

[a] Quatuor novissima [b] pectorale passionis vel alius {c] libellus de passione. Hi omnes de impressione in papiro. On the four last things, a breastplate of the passion and a small book on the passion. All these printed on paper. ([a] is a collection of thirty-eight sermons by the late fourteenth-century Dutch Teutonic knight, Gerard of Vliederhoven, but frequently attributed to St Bonaventure in the middle ages. It was divided into five sections in which the reader was urged to consider his spiritual negligence, the hope of eternal life, death and judgement, hell and heaven. [b] and [c] are unidentified devotional works)

Seguntur nomina aliorum librorum, 1523. The following are the names of the other books, 1523.

101.

Speculum minorum in duobus voluminibus. The Mirror of [friars] minors in two volumes. (Possibly a copy of the Speculum perfectionis of St Francis’s closest companion,

Br Leo, containing reminiscences relating to the life of the saint and the early days of the order divided into 124 chapters. The size of the work suggests that it may form part of a compilation of Franciscan material similar to those that circulated in Observant and reforming circles on the continent. It could also be a copy of the Speculum imperfectionis fratrum minorum of the French Observant John Brugman (d. 1473) in which he castigates his fellow Observants for the laxity of their lives.)

102. Item [a] liber meditationum sancti Bonaventurae cum [b] aliis meditationibus et [c] cronicis Geralldinorum.

The Book of meditations of St Bonaventure with other Meditations and Chronicles of the FitzGeralds. ({a] is a copy of Bonaventure’s influential devotional work, the Soliloquium, which was compiled c.1257. It is addressed to a person considering the religious life and outlines, in the form of a dialogue, the four mental exercises by which the soul, through considering the created order, may arrive at contemplation of

God.*8 [b] Other unidentified meditations. {c] Chronicles of the FitzGeralds. Unidentified. Maurice FitzGerald (d.1224) was the founder of the Youghal friary

and was believed to have entered the community before his death. His cult was promoted by the Youghal friars throughout southern Munster and this text indicates continuing contact between them and his descendants.)

103. Item Gerson in parvo volumine et hii duo sunt in manu patris Symonii Junair. Gerson in a small volume and these two are in the possession of Father Simon Junair. (An unidentified work by the French theologian Jean Gerson (1363-1429) and, like the previous entry, held by Simon Junair).

48 Distelbrink, Bonaventurae scripta, pp 28-9.

176

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

104. Item sermones discipuli in manu David Ronain. The sermons of Discipulus in the possession of David Ronain. (Sermons by the German Dominican friar, John Herolt (d. 1468). and, in view of the date, possibly a printed work.) 5. Item breviarium Edmundi Mangner in manu David ejusdem. The Breviary of Edmund Mangner in the hand of the same David. (A Breviary of Edmund Mangner in the possession of David Ronain.) 106. Item Missale in manu Mauricii Poer. Missal in the hands of Maurice Power. 107. Item biblia de impressione in rotunda forma, in manu Johannis Cornelii. Printed bible in round type in the possession of John Cornelius. (A printed bible reserved for the use of John Cornelius or possibly with some notes by him.) 108. Item [a] vita christi secundum Bonaventuram, in manu Willelmi nicholai, et [b] brevarium romanum. The Life of Christ according to Bonaventure for the use of William Nicholas and a Roman breviary. A copy of the the Meditationes Vitae Christi, frequently attributed to Bonaventure but almost certainly by the thirteenth-century Tuscan Franciscan John of Caulibus of San Gimignano. This was a collection of meditations on the life of Christ which enjoyed great popularity in late medieval Europe. There were several vernacular versions including an Irish translation of c.1443 by Thomas Gruama O Bruachain, a canon of Killala, which exists in a number of contemporary manuscripts.) 109; Item .4. novissima in manu Mauricii Poer. Sermons on the four last things in the possession of Maurice Poer (Power?).*? 110. Item [a] missale et [b] quidam liber devotionis et declarationis, in manu Dominici Gullelmii. A missal and a certain book of devotion and declarations in the possession of Dominic Williams. ([b] is an unidentified devotional work, possibly containing some commonplace or legislative material. . Item sermones Pauli Wan de tempore. The de tempore sermons of Paul Wan. (Probably a printed collection of sermons for the ordinary Sundays of the year by Paul Wan, a late fifteenth-century Dutch preacher.) es Item sermones Michaelis Lochmayr defestis viginti .3. Twenty-three sermons of Michael Lochmayr for feastdays. (A popular late fifteenth-century collection of printed sermons.) LIS: Quibus magistri Pauli Van. With those of Master Paul Wan. (This may refer to feastday sermons by Paul Wan.) 114. Item sermones thesauri novi de tempore etfestis.

49 See no. 100 [a].

Appendix I: The Youghal Library catalogue

Wits

ETE.

Sermons for ordinary time and feastdays of the new treasury. (A popular late fifteenth-century collection of model sermons for feastdays, Lent and the feasts of the year.) Item sermones per alium de tempore et sanctis. Sermons for ordinary time and feastdays by another. (Unidentified collection of sermons.)

116.

Item [disciplinae? beati?] Edmundi Magner et in manu Johanis Cornelii. Unidentified text by or for the use of Edmund Magner in the possession of John Cornelius. [151v] L 17: Item concordantie ... articul p.e. de pergameno. Concordance ... on parchment. (An unidentified (biblical?) concordance in manuscript.)

118.

Item breviarium ysmart. An ysmart (?) breviary. (Unidentified breviary).

ey

Item de Litio de laude feo

[Sanctorum?

Lecce in praise of the Saints?

]

.

(Probably De Sanctis sermons of Robert Carracciolo of Lecce.) 50 Item psalterium parvum cum oro[?| A small psalter with prayers[?] A psalter with additional devotional material or with psalm collects. 123i. Item [a] disceptatio animae [?]|b] concordantium {c] liber qui sequitur me et [d] de festis in uno volumine. Disceptatio of the soul, concordance, a book called He who follows me and De festis sermons in one volumes. ({a] is unidentifiable. [b] was probably a biblical concordance. [c] is the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.>! [d] are unidentified sermons for the feastdays of the liturgical year.) 122. Item misale sine tabula. A missal without an index. 23. Item manuale confessorum. Confessors’ manual. (Author not identified.) 124. Item breviarium romanum. A Roman breviary. [352] 125. Item antiquus liber prediacacionis quondam ... fuerunt pro Patricio Hel. An old preaching book which once belonged to Patrick Hel[y?]. (Commonplace book or preaching material which was compiled or used by Patrick Hel[y].) 126. Misale pro. all... Missal for ?

120.

50 See no. 65.

51 See no. 94.

178

The Franciscans in Ireland,

12%; 128.

Item parvus Unidentified Item summa The Summa

1400-1534

liber monial’ in codice. manuscript text. angelica que fuit pro Edmund Magner. Angelica which was for Edmund Magner.

(The library’s second copy of the Summa of Angelo Carletti of Chiavasso.)°? 129; Item sermones vall ... de pe... Unidentified collection of sermons. 130. Item actus beati Francisci de pergameno. The acts of Blessed Francis in parchment. (Probably a copy of the Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius compiled between 1322-8 by the Spiritual Franciscans in the Marches of Ancona in Italy. It was a very important text for spreading knowledge of Francis and the early Franciscan movement).

eile Item breviarium rotundum nigrum Breviary in round black [print]. 132. Item antedotarius anime qui fuit pro Johanne Pauli. The Antidote of the soul which was for John Paul. (The Antidotarius anime of Nicholas of Saliceto.

A devotional work which

incorporated the Modus confitendi of Andreas Escobar, one of the most frequently printed works of the fifteenth century. It consisted of an examination of conscience with some thoughts on confession and forgiveness. The list of sins which it gives is very similar to the one given in the second sermon on confession in the Rennes MS., which may even be a loose translation of it). . Item misale de impressione.

A printed missal. . Item diurnale de pergameno. A parchment Diurnale. (Manuscript text containing the day hours of the office). . Item misale parvum de impressione. A small printed missal. LEPOCL Ree: Unidentified work. . Item ...acta decre’ et decretalium. Unidentified canon law work.

. Item sermones de Licio de tempore. De Licio’s temporale sermons.

(The sermons of Robert Carracciolo of Lecce for the ordinary Sundays of the

year.)>?

139; Item concordantie maiores in magno volumine. A great concordance in a large volume. ; (Unidentified concordance, probably of the bible.) 140. Item breviarium vocatum breviarium carrdarium. A breviary called a carrdarium (?) breviary.

52 See no. 86.

53 See no. 65.

Appendix 1: The Youghal Library catalogue 141.

179

Item [a] liber miserie condicionis humane cum {b] aliis tractatibus.

The book Of the misery of:the human condition and other tractates ({a] is the second copy of the De miseria of Lothar of Segni (later Innocent III).*4 [b] an unidentified collection of devotional material).

142. Item [a] quodlibeta Thome de Aquino de impressione cum [b] questionibus de pergameno super 3 sententiarum. The Quodlibeta of Thomas Aquinas, printed, with the questions on the Third book of the Sentences in parchment. ([a] are the Quaestiones de quodlibet 1-x11 of Thomas Aquinas (c.1225—74). Composed in two stages; 1256 to 1259 and 1269 to 1272 when Thomas was regent of the Dominican studium at Paris. The Quodlibet sessions were held twice yearly and allowed the students to question the master on any issue. The replies were recorded and frequently circulated. [b] is an unidentified manuscript commentary on the third book of the Lombard’s sentences.)

143.

Item Boecius qui erat pro fratre Gullelmo Canton Boethius which was for the use of Friar William Canton. (Probably the De Consolatione philosophiae or the Opuscula

sacra

of

Boethius.)*> 144.

145.

146.

147.

Item preceptorium Nider. The Preceptorium of Nider. (Another copy of the Preceptorium Divinae legis of John Nider).*° Summa vocabulorum cum expositione in lingua teutonica. A summa of vocabulary with explanations in German. (Possibly a German scriptural or theological concordance or dictionary.) Gesta romanorum. The deeds of the Romans. (A collection of exempla for the use of preachers compiled in England by the end of the thirteenth century. It contains oriental and classical tales as well as material from the lives of the saints. It was frequently translated into vernacular languages and a Latin edition was first printed in Utrecht in 1472.) Tres tractatus Bonaventure scilicet [a] de novictis, {b] de profectu religionis et {c] de hominum informatione de pergameno. Three tracts by Bonaventure, namely Of Novices, Of progress in devotion and

Of the training of men. ({a] Probably the Speculum disciplinae ad novitios of Bernard of Bessa.°

df

[b] Probably a copy of one of the best known of Bonaventure’s devotional works; the De triplici via also known as the De profectu vitae religiosae. Composed between 1259 and 1269, it outlines the three stages through which the soul

progresses on its journey to God.*® [c] Probably a copy of De informatione iuvenum et novitiorum, the only genuine work on novices by Bonaventure).

148. Item misale de impresione in parvo volumine. 54 See no. 78 [d].

55 See no. 91.

Bonaventurae scripta, 22-3.

56 See no. 90.

57 See no. 10 [d].

58 Distelbrink,

180

149.

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

A printed missal in a small volume. Item sermones quondam Ricardi Flemeng de pergameno.

Sermons formerly of Richard Fleming in parchment. (Either a manuscript collection of sermons belonging to a Friar Richard Fleming 150.

or sermons composed by Richard Fleming (c.1360—1431), bishop of Lincoln). Gracili.

Of Graculus. (Possibly a volume of sermons by Graeculus, a fourteenth-century Austrian Franciscan. )>?

59 Schneyer, Reportorium, 206-40.

Appendix 2: Formulary documents from TCD, MS. 250

Copies of the Summa confessorum and Confessionale of John of Freiburg occupy the bulk of the late fifteenth-century codex TCD MS. 250.' However the final section of the manuscript consists of papal bulls, administrative documents and other material relating to the friars and their privileges. These texts include nine formulary documents concerning the Irish Observant vicariate and are published here for the first time, The absence of any specific reference to Ireland may indicate that these are copies of formulary documents in widespread circulation among the ultramontane Observants, but nonetheless they shed important light on the routine administration of the vicariate as well as illustrating the Observants’ relations with the Conventuals and diocesan bishops. The documents flesh out the provisions made for elections, delegation of power and visitation found in the Abbreviatio statutorum, and a number of them are discussed in chapter three of this work. Documents 2 and 3 deal with the friars’ relations with their local diocesan bishop. Document 2 petitions for the advancement of friars from the subdiaconate to the diaconate and for admission of clerics to the orders of acolyte and subdeacon. Document 3 provides the formula requesting permission to hear confessions and to absolve from reserved cases. The remaining documents pertain to the internal arrangements of the Observants themselves. Document | informs the Observant vicar provincial of the election of a discretus or delegate by the solemnly professed friars of a convent to represent them at the provincial chapter. Document 4 provides the formula for informing the minister provincial, the vicar provincial and all delegates to the provincial chapter of the election of a guardian by members of a community. Document 5, addressed to the Conventual minister provincial by the members of the

Observant provincial chapter, informs him of their choice of a new vicar provincial and requests confirmation of the election. The sixth document provides an interesting example of the practice of sending Observant friars from one province to another for

1 TCD, MS. 250, ff. 1-134 and 134-48; Colker, Latin MSS.,i, pp 441-2. 2 TCD, MS. 250, ff. 149-168; Colker, Latin MSS., ti, pp 442-51. All the papal bulls date from the middle of the thirteenth century. Other documents include a model appeal for use in disputes over the burial of corpses and the text of a 1315 appeal upholding the friars’ privilege of exemption against the Abbot of St Thomas’, Dublin who had cited them to appear before his court.

181

182

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

instruction in the lifestyle and customs of the reformers. Document 7 is a letter delegating the authority of the Observant vicar provincial to the addressee for visitation and correction of communities which the vicar provincial is unable to undertake because of other duties or because of their distance from him. The eighth document is a similar delegation by the ultramontane (here called cismontane) Observant vicar general to the vicar provincial, giving him full powers over all aspects of the external and internal life and administration of the friars. The final text provides the formula by which the members of a community could bring the shortcomings of their guardian to the attention of the provincial chapter.

1 LITTERA

DISCRETI

MITTENDI

AD

CAPITULUM

PROVINCHIALE

Reverendo in Christo patri fratri .N. reverendi patris ministri provinchie .N. super omnes fratres de observantia uulgariter nuncupatos vicario in eadem ceterisque venerabilibus patribus discretis in proxima provinchiali congregacione anno Domini etc. tali die in nostro conventu .N. ordinis minorum capitulariter congregandis universi fratres conventus de .N. reverentiam tam debitam quam devotam vestris devotis paternitatibus serie subscriptorum notificare optamus nos rite ac canonice secundam formam generalis constitucionis elegisse venerabilem patrem nostrum .N. in discretum nostrum ad prefatam congregacionem destinandum eidem vices nostras plenarie committentes in omnibus ordinandis statuendis consulendis efficendis disponendis que ad observancie roboracionem et stabilitatem ac sacre nostre religionis nutrimentum agenda et expedienda videbuntur. In cuius rei testimonium sigillum nostri conventus presentibus duximus imprimendum. Datum in nostro conventu prenominato Anno Domini Mo quo supra mensis et dies hic exprimantur.

2 LITTERA

PROMOVENDORUM

Reverendo in christo patri ac domino domino .N. Dei gratia episcopo de .N. humilis vestre reverende dominacionis orator frater .N. conventus fratrum minorum .N. humilis gardianus omnimodam reverenciam obsequiique promptitudinem pro viribus indefessam ut dei honor pro congrua ecclesiasticorum officiorum ministeria continuum sicuti dignum est in nostro ordine suscipiat incrementum hinc est quod vestre reverende paternitati fratres inscriptos in nostro ordine professos moribus scientia et etate probatos duxi humiliter presentandos vestre reverende dominacioni obnixius supplicans quatenus eosdem fratres videlicet fratrem .N. et .N. subdiaconum ad diaconatus et fratrem .N. et fratrem .N. clericos ad acolicatus et subdiaconatus ordines admittere dignaremini et promoveri facere ad iam instantes ordines .N. celebrandos Quod utique facientes Deo ut confido gratum obsequium mihi beneplacitum vestra exhibebit reverenda dominacio si facultas affuerit devote promerendi. Quam quidem vestram sepedictam reverendam paternitatem dignetur altissimus magister conservare. Scriptum in nostro conventu .N. die et mense etc. et mei officii sub sigillo.

Appendix 2: Formulary documents from TCD, MS. 250 3 LITTERA

183

PRESENTANDORUM

Reverendo etc. ut supra .io. reverendi patris ministri N. provincie super omnes conventus de observantia vulgariter nuncupatos in eadem vicarius omnimodam ut supra. Ut iuxta nostre nostre vocacionis et status exigentiam animarum saluti valeamus commodius Deo auxiliante insistere vestreque paterne sollicitudini in caritatis obsequio utilius deservire Hinc est quod vestre reverende paternitati fratres infrascriptos sacerdotes moribus et scientia probatos videlicet .N. gardianum .N. ac etiam fratrem .N. et fratrem .N. eiusdem conventus conventuales duxi humiliter presentandos obnixius eidem vestre reverende paternitati supplicans quatinus eisdem dignetur ipsa vestra reverenda paternitas super confessionibus subditorum vestrorum vestrorum audiendis et poenis salutaribus iniungendis auctoritatem et licentiam benigne impertiri insuper et de vestre benignitatis licentia et speciali gratia dignetur vestra reverenda sepedicta dominacio prefatis fratribus in casibus vestre reverende paternitati in generali seu speciali reservatis sicut et in quantum vestrorum subditorum spiritualibus commodis commode expedire videbitur absolvendi concedere facultatem. Quod utique faciendo vestra nos reverenda paternitas obligabit ad Deum pro vestri status prosperitate devocius exorandum. Qui quidem ipse Deus et Dominus sepedictam vestram reverendam paternitatem dignetur altissimus in gratia conservare. Scriptum in nostro conventu.

4 LITTERA

ELECTIONIS

GUARDIANI

Reverendo patri patris ministri etc. ac venerabilibus patribus discretis et diffinitoribus in nostra provinciali ut supra. Vestris piis paternitatibus serie subscriptorum notificare cupimus et optamus quod nos fratres vestri et humiles conventus minorum .N. elegimus in guardianum venerabilem patrem fratrem .N. quem quidem a nobis secundum formam iuris et ordinis statuta legitime electum humilius quo possumus petimus in officio confirmari. In hiis agendo sicut fideliter in vobis confidimus. Datum in prenominato conventu nostro sub sigillo.

5 LITTERA

CONFIRMACIONIS

ELECTI

VICARII

Reverendo in Christo patri fratri .N. ordinis minorum in provincia .N. provinciali ministro humiles sue paternitatis filii fratres .S. qui de observantia sunt vulgariter nuncupati salutem et reverentiam tam debitam quam devotam. Quoniam apostolica admonemur auctoritate vel summa ut cui honorem impendere aut ratio exigit vel suadet iustitie rectitudo suo pro nos ullatenus debito non fraudetur. Cum itaque secundum litterarum apostolicarum tenorem nos predicti fratres de observancia quociens ad electionem novi vicarii acesserimus tociens ipsum electum per vestre paternitatis officium graciose confirmari eidem vices vestras committendo per litteras vel per nuncium exigere dumtaxat debeamus. nos igitur venerabilem patrem .N. fratrem

184

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

videlicet .N. in nostra congregatione provinciali die etc. nono etc et onno [=anno] apud etc. celebrata per viam scrutinii iuxta religionis observancie formam concorditer electum per vestram paternitatem confirmari prout supra instantius quo possumus petimus et obsecramus ex congregacione etc.

In christo sibi karissimis fratri .N. et fratri .N. frater .N. reverendi patris provincie .N. ordinis nostri minorum super certos conventos de observancia vulgariter nuncupatos in eadem vicarius salutem et pacem in domino sempiternam. Cum ex laudabili ac utili consuetudine nostre familie fratres de provincia ad provinciam ad mores scientias et cerimonias regulares addiscendas hucusque transmitti consuevarant. Hinc est quod vobis de quorum vita laudabili honesta conversatione morum gravitate et humilitate ingenii plenam confidentiam gero in virtute sancte obedientie cumulum meritorum ac remissionem peccaminum mando pariter et iniungo quatenus post horum receptionem impedimento cessante vos ad presenciam reverendi patris vicarii generalis cismontani vel eius commissarii tanquam ad singulare refugium et patrocinium (?) suum transferatis eidem ex parte Dei et mea humiliter supplicantes quatenus de sua gratia et beneplacito ad divini cultus ampliacionem et maiorem uniformitatem inter nos renovandum ac nostre novelle plantacionis in provincia .N. recente exorte augmentum vos in aliquo loco collocare dignetur in quo scientia bonisque moribus et regularibus cerimoniis secundum gratiam vobis a Domino datam informari possitis sicut sua paternalis discretio melius noverit expediere. Hec autem littera sit vobis in testimonium sufficiens .p’.

7 LITTERA

COMMISSARIATUS

In christo sibi karissimo patri fratri .N. frater .N. reverendi patris ministri in provincia .N. super omnes fratres de observantia vulgariter nuncupatos in eadem vicarius salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam. Cum propter distanciam locorum varietatem occurencium (?) negociorum meamque infirmitatem ac multitudinem sollicitudinum meis imbellibus humeris impositarum non valeam singulis conventibus mihi commissis prout cupio personaliter ..ce mee ut necessitas exigit sufficientier providere. hinc est quod tibi de cuius virtutum venustate scientie perspicuitate religionis zelo ac ... suffic’ plenam in domino habeo fiduciam super conventus .N. et .N. mihi subditos omnem auctoritatem meam et vices in utroque foro in capitibus et membris ad visitandum et corrigendum ligandum et absolvendum plenarie committo teque meum commissarium seu procuratorem instituto ac sic institutum omnibus quorum interest seu interesse poterit per presentes denuncio volens ut omnia et singula augmentum nostri status regularis observantie concernentia tractare possis et valeas que ego ipse ex officio facere possim et deberem si personaliter interessem etiam si talia essent que maiori forsitan expressione verborum indigerent que omnia et singula haberi volo presencium serie pro sufficenter expressis mandans atque precipiens omnibus et singulis dictorum

Appendix 2: Formulary documents from TCD, MS. 250

185

conventuum fratribus mihi subditis presentibus et futuris in virtute Spiritus Sancti quatinus tibi per omnia sicut mee persone humiliter obediant et pareant cum effectu. Et ut labor et sollicitudo peramplius tibi cedat ad meritum per obedientiam tibi mando pariter et iniungo quatenus dictum commissariatus officium dum oportunum fuerit secundum gratiam a domino collatam diligenter strenue ac fideliter exequaris eterna premia pro tuis laboribus precepturus presentibus tibi quousque de .N. tibi constiterit duraturis.

In Christi sibi karissimo patri fratri .N. provinchie .N. vicario frater . N. reverendissimi patris patris ministri generalis ordinis nostre minorum super fratres omnes cismontarum partium de observancia nuncupatos generalis vicarius salutem etc. Cum ex iniuncti mihi cura officii que immeritus occupo sic me oporteat gerere negotia omnium que tamen non desini necessitatibus singulorum pluraque pro tempore circa provinciam tibi commissam per fratres possunt occurrere meum officium concernentia pro quibus efficaciter providere mea foret presentia requirenda Hinc est quod tibi de culus etc. plenus in Domino confido quo ad dictam provinciam super omnes videlicet conventus et loca et fratres mihi subditos committo plenarie vices meas volens et presentium tenore decernens quod omnia et singula conservacionem et augmentum regularis observancie concernentia intra et extra ordinem promovere necnon et coram quibuscumque iudicibus competentibus quacumque auctoritate fungentibus vel functuris suscipere agere gerere proponere respondere opponere appellare appellacionem prosequi et in causa concludere ac insuper in utroque foro ligare et solvere et ad actus legitimos et officia ordinis resti-tuere omniaque alia et singula facere et perficere possis et debeas que ego ipse ex officio posso et deberem si personaliter interessem etiam si talia forent que maiori expressione forsitan indigerent que omnia et singula haberi volo presentium serie pro sufficienter expressa. Nam et ego ut in cunctis efficacius procedere valeas te ad omnia et singula supradicta rite peragenda meum cum plenaria potestate ac etiam subcommittendi quotiens necessarie fuerit facultate commissarium et procuratorem instituo ac sic institutum omnibus quorum interest seu quomodolibet interesse poterit denuncio per presentes. Mandans atque precipiens omnibus et singulis dicte provincie patribus et fratribus mihi subditis presentibus et futuris in virtute Spiritus Sancti quatinus tibi per omnia sicut mee persone humiliter pareant et obediant cum effectu omnes commissiones et gratias a meis predecessoribus aliocumque et qualitercumque verbo seu scripto datas seu factas penitus revoco Et ut labor etc. precepturus presentibus tibi et successoribus tuis quousque de confirmacione mei successoris vicarii generalis vobis constiterit duraturis. vale in christo Iesu et ora pro me datum in nostro conventu .N. mei officii sub sigillo anno domini etc.

Omnimode subieccionis et obedientie reverentiam. Vestris venerabilis paternitatibus notum fieri cupimus litteras per presentes qualiter capitulariter congregati secundum

186

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

tenorem nostrorum statutorum in scrutinio super statu venerandi patris guardiani ipsum commendabilem in multis habentes tamen in hiis vero qui secuntur per vos cum effectu emendatum vel correctum et emendacionem promittentem in bonum nostri conventus et profectum status nostri in suo officio petimus continuari vel amoveri nobis pariter et committi. Inde est quod in primis desideramus ...

Bibliography

PRIMARY

SOURCES

MANUSCRIPTS

Berlin Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz Theol. lat. fol. 703 Dublin Marsh’s Library MS Z3.1.5 National Library of Ireland Dro79 D. 2014 Representative Church Body Library Coo Trinity College, Dublin MS. 65 MS. 84 MS. 97 MS. 109 MS. 175 MS. 250 MS. 347

PRINTED

MS. 579 MS. 667 London British Library Add. MS. 4784 Add. MS. 4814 Add. MS. 4821 Harleian MS. 416 Harleian MS. 913 Lambeth Palace Library MS 46 MS 357 Oxford Balliol College Library MS. 228 Bodleian Library MS. Canonici Miscell. 525 Rawlinson MS. C. 320 Rawlinson MS. B. 484

SOURCES

Anoymous, ‘State of Ireland, and plan for its Reformation’ in State papers for the reign of Henry vir (11 vols, London, 1830-52) ii. Antoninus of Florence, St, Confessionale-defecerunt (Cologne, 1469). Andreas of Escobar, Modus confitendi (Germany, 1474). Armstrong, R.A. and Brady, I.C. (eds and trans.), Francis and Clare: The complete works (New York, 1982).

187

188

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

Blake, M.J. (ed.), ‘The obituary book of the Franciscan

monastery

at Galway,

1485-1625’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., vi (1909-10); vii (1911-12).

Berry, H.F. (ed.), Register of wills and inventories of the diocese of Dublin, 1457-1453 (Dublin, 1898). Bonaventura, St Opera omnia, (10 vols, Quarrachi 1882-1902). Coleman, A. (ed.), ‘Regestum monasterii Fratrum Praedicatorum

de Athenry’

in

Archivium Hibernicum, 1 (1912).

Coleman, J. (ed.), ‘A medieval Irish monastic library catalogue’ in Bibliographical Society of Ireland, 11 (1925). ‘Connla’ (ed.), ‘Riaghail na sacart’ in /risleabhar Muighe Nuadhad, (1919). Costello, M.A. (ed.), De Annatis Hiberniae, 1400-1535 (Dundalk, 1909)

Courtecuisse, M. (ed.), Tables capitulaires des fréres mineurs de |’ Observance et des récollets de Bretagne, 1476-1780 (Paris, 1930).

Esposito, M. (ed.), /tinerarium Symonis Semeonis ab Hybernia ad Terram Sanctam (Dublin, 1960). —‘Un catalogue des manuscrits de la Cathédrale de Limerick, en 1631’ in Revue des bibliothéques, xxx (1921). Esser, C. (ed.), Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis (Grottaferrata, 1978). Flower, R. (ed.), ‘Kilkenny chronicle’ in Analecta Hibernica, ii (1931).

Geary, J.A. (ed.), An Irish version ofInnocent III’s De Contemptu Mundi (Washington, 1931): —

‘Homilies on the resurrection, poverty, confession and the eucharist’ in Catholic

University Bulletin, xviii. Gleeson, D.F. (ed.), “The annals of Nenagh’ in Anal. Hib. xii (1943).

Greene, R.L. (ed.), The lyrics of the Red Book of Ossory (Oxford, 1974). Hoey, G. (ed.), ‘An Irish homily on the passion: text and translation’ in Catholic University Bulletin, xvii. Horrox, R. (ed.), The Black Death (Manchester, 1994) Jennings, B. (ed.), Wadding papers (Dublin, 1953).

Lemaitre, H. (ed.), ‘Statuts des religieuses du Tiers Ordre Franciscain dites soeurs grises hospitaliers’ in AFH, iv (1911).

Little, A.G. (ed.), “A letter of Fr Angelus Christophori, minister general, appointing an Irish friar to a studentship at Oxford c. A.D. 1450’ in AFH, xxiii (1930). Luard, H.R. (ed.), Bartholomaei de Cotton, monachi Norwicensis Historia Anglicana

(London, 1859). — Annales de prioratus de Wigornia (London, 1896). Lucas, A.M. (ed.), Anglo-Irish poems of the middle ages (Maynooth, 1995). Mac Airt, S (ed.), The Annals of Inisfallen (Dublin, 1951). Mac Niocaill, G., Crown Surveys of Lands 1540-41 with the Kildare rental begun in 1518 (Dublin, 1992). O Maoilchonaire, F., Desiderius (Louvain, 1616). O Maonaigh, C. (ed. ), Smaointe Beatha Chriost .i. innsint Ghaeilge a chuir Tomds Gruamdha O Bruachdin (fl.c. 1450) ar an Meditationes vitae Christi (Dublin, 1944). Parisciani, G. (ed.), Regesta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Conventualium, 1488-1494 (Padua, 1989).

Bibliography

189

‘Provincial synod of Cashel held in Limerick,

1453’ in J. Begley, The diocese of

Limerick: ancient and medieval (Dublin, 1906). Seton, W. (ed.), Twofifteenth-century Franciscan rules (London, 1914).

Stokes, W. (ed.), ‘The Gaelic Maundeville’ in Zeitschrift fiir celtische Philologie, 2 (1898-9). Tanner, N. (ed.), Decrees of the ecumenical councils (2 vols, London, 1990). Thomson, E.M. (ed.), Chronicon Angliae (London, 1874).

White, N. (ed.), Registrum dioceses Dublinensis: a sixteenth century precedent book (Dublin, 1959).

SECONDARY

SOURCES

Abbott, T.K., Catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin, 1900). — and Gwynn, E.J., Catalogue of the Irish manuscripts in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin, 1921). Alemand, L., Histoire monastique d’Irlande (Paris, 1690). Andreozzi, A., “San Giovanni da Capestrano e la sua difesa Francescano’ in Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis, vi (1973).

del Terz’Ordine

Asztalos, M., “The faculty of theology’ in H. de Ridder-Symoens (ed.), A history of the university in Europe, vols 1, Universities in the middle ages (Cambridge, 1992). Aubert, R., “Gesta Romanorum’ in Dictionnaire d’histoire et géographie ecclésiastique, xx (Paris, 1984).

Barratt, J.K., ‘The Franciscan friary of Bymacan’ in Journal of the Manx Museum, vi (1964). Barry, T., Frame, R. and Simms, K. (eds), Colony and Frontier in medieval Ireland:

essays presented to J.F: Lydon (London and Rio Grande, 1995). Becker, P.J. and Brandis, T., Die theologischen lateinischen Handschriften in folio der Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Berlin (Wiesbaden,

1985).

Begley, J., The diocese of Limerick: ancient and medieval (Dublin, 1906). Bériou, N., ‘Autour de Latran rv (1215): La naissance de la confession moderne et sa diffusion’ in Groupe de la Bussiére (eds), Pratiques de la confession: des Péres du Désert a Vatican 1 (Paris, 1983).

Bigger, F.J., ‘The Franciscan friary of Kilconnell’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., 1 (1900-1). Blake, M.J., ‘The Franciscan convents in Connacht with notes thereon’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., xiv (1928-29). — Blake Family records (London, 1902).

Bloomfield, M.W., Incipits of Latin works on the virtues and vices, 1100-1500 A.D., including a section of incipits on the Pater Noster (Cambridge, Mass., 1979). Bodenstedt, M.I., Praying the Life of Christ (Analecta Cartusiana, 15, Salzburg, 1973). Bolster, E., A history of the diocese of Cork from the earliest times to the reformation (Shannon, 1972). Bordoni, F., Cronologium fratrum et sororum Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci (Parma, 1658). Boyle, L.E., ‘The Summa Confessorum of John of Freiburg and the popularisation of the moral teaching of St Thomas and some of his contemporaries’ in

190

The Franciscans in Ireland,

A.A. Maurer (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas 1274-1974:

1400-1534

commemorative

studies

(Toronto, 1974).

— ‘Summae confessorum’ in Les genres littéraires dans les sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales: définition, critique et exploitation: Actes du colloque international de Louvain-la-Neuve (Louvain-la-Neuve,

1982).

Bradshaw, B., The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (Cambridge 1974). Brady, I., “The history of mental prayer in the Order of Friars Minor’ in Franciscan studies, xi (1951). Breeze, A., “The charter of Christ in medieval English, Welsh and Irish’ in Celtica, xix

(1988). — ‘The Virgin’s tears of blood’ in Celtica, xx (1989). Brémond, C.J., L’Exemplum (Turnhout, 1982).

Brooke,

R., ‘La prima espansione

Francescana

in Europa’

in Espansione

del

Francescanesimo tra occidente et oriente nel secolo xiii (Assisi, 1979).

— Early Franciscan government: Elias to Bonaventure (Cambridge, 1959). Brown, D.C., Pastor and laity in the theology of Jean Gerson (Cambridge, 1987). Brown, K.D., “The Franciscan Observants in England, 1482-1559’ (D.Phil, Oxford,

1986). Brown, R., A guide to western historical scripts from antiquity to 1600 (London, 1.993). Brundage, J.A., Medieval canon law (London and New York, 1995). Bryce, William Moir, The Scottish Grey Friars (Edinburgh, 1909). Bryn, R.F.M., ‘The Cordiale-Auszug: a study of Gerard van Vliederhoven’s Cordiale de Iv novissimis’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1976). Burr, David., Olivi and Franciscan poverty: The origins of the usus pauper controversy (Philadelphia, 1989).

Burrows, M.A.J., ‘Fifteenth-century Irish provincial legislation and pastoral care’ in Studies in Church History, xxv (Oxford, 1989). Caerwyn-Williams, J.E. and Ford, P., The Irish literary tradition (Cardiff, 1992).

Cannon, J., ‘Panorama geografico, cronologicoe statistico sulla distribuzione degli Studia degli ordini mendicanti (Inghilterra)’ in Le scuole degli mendicanti (Todi, 1978). Ceyssens, L. ‘Les ducs de Bourgogne et l’introduction de l’Observance a Malines (1447-1469) in AFH, xxx (1937). Carrigan, W., The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory (Dublin, 1905). Conlan, P., Franciscan Ireland (Mullingar, 1988). — Secular Franciscans down the ages (Athlone, 1979).

Constable, G., “The ideal of the imitation of Christ’ in Three studies in medieval religious and social thought (Cambridge, 1995), Conway, C.A., The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony and late medieval devotion centred on the incarnation: a descriptive analysis (Analecta Cartusiana, 34, Salzburg, 1976). Cosgrove, A., ‘The medieval period’ in R. O Muiri (ed.), Irish church history today (Monaghan 1990). Cotter, F, The Friars Minor in Ireland from their arrival to 1400 (New York, 1994).

Bibliography

191

Courtenay, W.J., Schools and scholars in fourteenth-century England (Princeton, 1987). Curtis, E. and McDowell, R.B.,./rish historical documents:

1172-1922 (London, 1943).

Da Campagnola, S., J Frati Minori e il Terzo Ordine (Todi, 1985). D’Alatri, M. (ed.), J Frati Penitenti de san Francesco nella societa del Due e Trecento (Rome, 1977). Aetas Poenetentialis: l’antico Ordine Francescano della Penitenza (Rome, 1995).

D’ Angelo, B. “English Franciscan poetry before Chaucer’ in Franciscan Studies, xliii (1983). d’ Avray, D.L., ‘Portable vademecum books containing Franciscan and Dominican Texts’ in A.C. de la Mare and B.C. Barker-Benfield (eds), Manuscripts at Oxford. An exhibition in memory of Richard William Hunt (Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1980).

—

The preaching of the friars: sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985).

Delorme, F., “Olivier Maillard et le Tiers-Ordre Régulier en Ecosse (1488-96) in AFH,

vii (1915), De Ridder-Symoens, H., A history of the university in Europe, vols | Universities in

the middle ages (Cambridge, 1992). de Sandre Gasparini, G., ‘Movimento dei disciplinati, confraternite e ordini mendicanti’ in S. Da Campagnola (ed.), J Frati Minori e il Terzo Ordine (Todi, 1985). Distelbrink, B., Bonaventurae scripta authentica, dubia vel spuria, critice recensita (Rome, 1975). Dottin, G., ‘Notice du manuscrit irlandais de la bibliothéque de Rennes’ in Revue Celtique, xv (1894).

Durkan, J., ‘The Observant Franciscan province in Scotland’ in The Innes Review, Xxxv (1984). Ellis, S., Ireland in the age of the Tudors (Harlow, 1998). Elm, K. (ed.), Reformbemiihungen und Observanzbestrebungen in spdtmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen (Berlin, 1989). Erickson, Carolly M., “The fourteenth-century

Franciscans

and their critics’ in

Franciscan Studies xiii (1975); xiv (1976).

Flanagan, J.G., ‘The formative development of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in Ireland with special reference to the Observant reform’ (MA thesis, UCC, 1947). Fleming, John V., An introduction to the Franciscan literature of the middle ages (Chicago, 1977). Fletcher, A.J. ‘Preaching in late-medieval Ireland: the English and Latin tradition’ in A.J. Fletcher and R. Gillespie (eds), [rish preaching, 700-1700 (Dublin, 2001). Flower, R., The Irish tradition (Oxford, 1947).

— ‘Ireland and medieval Europe’ in Proceedings of the British Academy, xiii (1927). —

‘Manuscripts of Irish interest in the British Museum’

in Analecta Hibernica, ii

(1931). Flynn, T., The Irish Dominicans, 1536-1641 (Dublin, 1994). Freed, J.B., ‘The friars and the delineation of state boundaries in the thirteenth century’ in William C. Jordan (ed.), Order and innovation in the middle ages: essays in

honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton, New Jersey, 1976).

192

The Franciscans in Ireland,

1400-1534

Giblin, C., ‘The Franciscans in Elphin’ in Roscommon Historical and Archaelogical Society Journal, 11 (1988).

Gasparini,

G. de Sandre,

‘Movimento

dei disciplinati,

confraternite

e ordini

mendicanti’ in S. Da Campagnola (ed.), J Frati Minori e il Terzo Ordine (Todi,

1975). Gillespie, R., Devoted people (Manchester, 1997). Gleeson, D.F., ‘The Franciscan convent at Nenagh’ in Molua (1938). Gonzaga, F., De origine seraphicae religionis Franciscanae (Rome, 1587). Goyens, H., ‘Documenta quaedam ad historiam Tertii Ordinis regularis in Belgio 1349-1350’ in AFH, iv (1911). Gray, A., ‘Kinaleghin: a forgotten Irish charterhouse of the thirteenth century’ in RSAIJn., |xxxix (1959).

Gwynn, A., ‘A breviary from St Mary’s Abbey, Trim’ in Riocht na Midhe, iii (1966). —

‘The medieval University of St Patrick’s, Dublin’ in Studies, xxvii (1938).

— The medieval province of Armagh, 1470-1545 (Dundalk, 1946). — and Gleeson, D.F., A history of the diocese of Killaloe (2 vols, Dublin, 1962). — ‘A Franciscan bishop of Clonfert’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., xxviii (1958-9). Hand, Geoffrey, J., The Church in the English Lordship: 1216-1307 (Dublin, 1968). Haren, M.J., ‘Friars as confessors’ in Peritia, iii (1984). — ‘Social structures of the Irish church: a new source in the papal penitentiary dispensations for illegitimacy’ in L. Schmugge (ed.), Illegitimdt in Spéitmittelalter (Oldenburg).

—

‘The religious outlook of a Gaelic lord. A new light on Thomas Og Maguire’ in Trish Historical Studies, xxv (1986). Holland, P., “The Anglo-Normans in Co. Galway: the process of colonization’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., xli (1987-88).

Humphreys,

K.W.,

(Amsterdam,

The

book

provisions

of the

medieval

friars,

1215—1400

1964).

Hunt, J., “The influence of alabaster carvings on medieval sculpture in Ennis friary’ in N. Munster Antig. Jn., xvii (1975). Jansen, T., ‘Conventuali, Osservanti, Cappucini: tre correnti da un’unica fonte’ in Collectanea Franciscana, \xi (1991).

Jeffrey, D.L., The early English lyric and Franciscan spirituality (Lincoln, 1975). Jefferies, H., Priests and prelates of Armagh in the age of reformations (Dublin, 1997). Jennings, B., ‘The abbey of St Francis, Galway’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., xxii (1947). — ‘The abbey of Muckross’ in Cork Archaeological Society Journal, xlv (1940). Jordan, V., Monasteries of the Third Order Regular in Ireland (Galway, n.d). Kaeppelli, T., Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi (4 vols, Rome, 1980). Kelly, M., A history of the Black Death in Ireland (Stroud, 2001) Kerchove, G., Commentarii in statuta generalia Ordinis S. Francisci (Ravenna, 1743). Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R.N., Medieval religious houses: England and Wales (London, 1953). Lambert, M.D., Franciscan poverty, The doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the apostles in the Franciscan Order 1210-1323 (London, 1961). — ‘The Franciscan crisis under John xxii’ in Franciscan Studies, Xxxii (1972" — Medieval heresy: popular movements from Bogomils to Huss (2nd ed., Oxford, 1992).

Bibliography

193

Lambertini, R., Apologia e crescita dell’identita Francescana (1255-1279) (Rome,

1990). Landini, L.C., The causes of clericalization of the Order ofFriars Minor, 1209-1260 (Chicago, 1968).

Lanigan, K., ‘Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory’ in Old Kilkenny Review, xv (1963). Lawlor, H.J., “Calendar of the Liber Ruber of the diocese of Ossory’ in RIAProc. 27, sect. C, no. 5 (1908-1909). Leff, G., Heresy in the later middle ages (2 vols, Manchester,

1967).

— ‘The trivium and the three philosophies’ in H. de Ridder-Symoens (ed.), A history of the university in Europe. Lennon, C., Sixteenth-century Ireland: the incomplete conquest (Dublin, 1994). Le scuole degli Ordini Mendicanti (secoli xiii—xiv). Convegni del centro di studi sulla spiritualita medievale 17 |1976] (Todi, 1978).

Lippens, H., ‘De litteris confraternitatis apud Fratres Minores ab Ordinis initio ad annum 1517’ in AFH, xxxii (1939).

— ‘Le droit nouveau des mendiants et conflit avec le droit coutumier du clergé séculier du concile de Vienne a celui de Trente’ in AFH, xvii (1954).

Little, A.G.,

‘Educational

organization

of the mendicant

friars in England’

in

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, viii (1895).

— (ed.), Franciscan history and legend in English medieval art (Manchester, 1937). — ‘Franciscan letters of fraternity’ in The Bodleian Library Record, v (1954-56). Longére, J., La prédication médiévale (Paris, 1983).

Lynch, A. ‘Religion in late medieval Ireland’ in Archiv. Hib., xxxvi (1981). Mac Conmara, M. (ed.), An léann eaglasta in Eirinn 1200-1900 (Dublin, 1988). — ‘Scoileanna agus ctrsai léinn 1200-1500’ in M. Mac Conmara (ed.), An /éann

eaglasta in Eirinn 1200-1900. — —

‘An léann eaglasta ag baile in Eirinn 1200-1500’ in M. Mac Conmara (ed.), An léann eaglasta in Eirinn 1200-1900. ‘Scoldirf Eireannacha thar lear 1200-1500’ in M. Mac Conmara (ed.), An léann

eaglasta in Eirinn 1200-1900. — ‘Leabhair liottirgeacha 1150-1500’ in M. Mac Conmara (ed.), An /éann eaglasta

in Eirinn 1200-1900. MacDonnell, H., ‘Glenarm friary and the Bissetts’ in The Glynns (1983).

Mac Phinn, P.E., Milic (Dublin, 1943). McGrath, F., Education in ancient and medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1979).

Mac Leod, C., ‘Medieval figure sculpture in Ireland: statues in the Holy Ghost Hospital, Waterford’ in RSA/Jn, Ixxvi (1946).

—

‘A carved oak nursing madonna from Askeaton, County Limerick’ in E. Rynne (ed.), Figures from the past (Dublin, 1987) MacNamee, J.J., A history of the diocese of Ardagh (Dublin, 1954). Mac Niocaill, G., ‘Uilliam O Raghallaigh, O.RM.’ in Jrisleabhar Muighe Nuadhat (1961). Mac Uaid, B., ‘Treas Ord Rialta Shain Froinsias i ndeoise Thuama’

in Galvia, v

(1958); vi (1959). — ‘The Brothers of the Third Order Regular in the diocese of Tuam’ in Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis, xvi (1983).

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

194

MacVicar, T., The Franciscan spirituals and the Capuchin reform (New York, 1986). Maggiani, V., ‘De relatione scriptorum quorumdam S. Bonaventurae ad bullam Exiit Nicholai HI (1279)’ in AFH, v (1912). Maher, D., Kilcrea friary (Cork, 2000).

Martin, F.X., ‘The Augustinian friaries in pre-reformation Ireland’ in Augustiniana, vi (1956). — and de Meijer, A., ‘Irish material in the Augustinian archives, Rome, 1354—c.1620” in Archivium Hibernicum, xix (1956).

— ‘The Irish Augustinian reform movement in the fifteenth century’ in J.A. Watt, J.B. Morall, F.X. Martin (eds), Medieval studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S.J. (Dublin, 1961). — ‘The Irish friars and the Observant movement’ in Proceedings of the Irish Catholic Historical Committee (1960).

Maziere-Brady, W., Clerical and parochial records of Cork, Cloyne and Ross (Dublin, 1864). Meerssemann, G.G., Dossier de |’Ordre de la pénitence au xi siécle (Fribourg, 1961). Meigs, S.A., The reformations in Ireland (London 1997). Michaud-Quantin, P., Sommes de casuistique et manuels de confession au moyen age (Louvain, Lille, and Montreal, 1962). Mooney, C., The Church in Gaelic Ireland: fourteenth to fifteenth centuries (Dublin, 1969). — ‘Irish Franciscan devotional literature’ in Franciscan Educational Conference, xxix (1949). — Devotional writings of the Irish Franciscans, 1224-1950 (Killiney, 1952). — ‘The friars and friary of Donegal, 1474-1840’ in T. O’ Donnell (ed.), Franciscan Donegal (Rossnowlagh, 1952). — — —

‘The mirror of all Ireland’ in J. O’ Callaghan (ed.), Franciscan Cork (Cork, 1953). ‘The Franciscan Third Order friary at Dungannon’ in Sean. Ardmh., i (1954). ‘Franciscan architecture in pre-Reformation Ireland’ in RSA/Jn. Ixxxv (1955),

133-73; Ixxxvi, pp 125-169 (1956); Ixxxvii (1957), pp 1-38, 103-24. — ‘The founding of the friary of Donegal’ in Donegal Annual, iii (1955-6). —

‘The Franciscans in Co. Mayo’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., xxviii (1958-9).

—

‘The friary of Ross; foundation and early years’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., Xxix (1960-61. — ‘Some Cavan Franciscans of the past’ in Breifne, i (1958). — ‘Some Leitrim Franciscans of the past’ in Breifne, i (1961). —

‘Irish Franciscan provincials’ in AFH, lvi (1963).

— [O Maonaigh, C.]., ‘Cinfochas agus ndisitinachas san eaglais in Eirinn, 1169-1534’ — —

in Galvia, x (1964-5). ‘Trish Franciscan libraries of the past’ in Jrish Ecclesiastical Record, |x (1963). [O Maonaigh, C.] ‘Scribhneoirf Gaeilge Oird San Froinsias’ in Catholic Survey, 1

(1951-53).

;

Morey, A., Bartholomew of Exeter: bishop and canonist (Cambridge, 1937).

Murphy, M., ‘The high cost of dying: an analysis of the pro anima bequests in medieval Dublin’ in Studies in Church history, xxiv (1987).

Bibliography

195

Neary, A., ‘Richard Ledred: English Franciscan Bishop of Ossory’ in Butler Society Journal, ti (1984).

Nic Ghiollamhaith, A., ‘Kings and vassals in later medieval Ireland; the Uf Bhriain and

the MicConmara in the fourteenth century’ in T. Barry, R. Frame and K. Simms (eds) Colony andfrontier in medieval Ireland (Dublin and Rio Grande, 1995). Nimmo, D.B., Reform and division in the medieval Franciscan Order (Rome, 1987).

—

‘Reform at the council of Constance: the Franciscan case’ in Studies in Church history xiv (Oxford, 1977).

— ‘Poverty and politics: the motivation of the fourteenth-century Franciscan reform in Italy’ in Studies in Church history xv (Oxford, 1978). — ‘The genesis of the Observance’ in // rinnovamento del Francescanesimo: L’ Osservanza (Assisi, 1985).

—

‘The Franciscan Regular Observance: The culmination of medieval Franciscan reform’ in K. Elm (ed.), Reformbemiihungen und Observanz-bestrebungen in spdtmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen (Berlin, 1989).

O’Callaghan, J. (ed.), Franciscan Cork (Dublin, 1953).

O’Carroll, M. “The educational organisation of the Dominicans in England and Wales 1221-1348: a multidisciplinary approach’ in Archivium Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1 (1980). — ‘The Lectionary for the proper of the year in the Dominican and Franciscan rites of the thirteenth century’ in Archivium Fratrum Praedicatorum, xlix (1979). O Clabaigh, C., ‘Preaching in late-medieval Ireland: the Franciscan contribution’ in A.J. Fletcher and R. Gillespie (eds), /rish preaching, 700-1700 (Dublin 2001).

—

‘The mendicant friars in the medieval diocese of Clonfert’ in C. Cunniffe and J. Higgins (eds), Aspects of Clonfert and its vicinity (forthcoming). O Cuiv, B., ‘A seventeenth-century manuscript in Brussels’ in Eigse, ix (1959-60). O Dalaigh, B., ‘Mistress, mother, abbess: Renalda Ni Bhriain (c.1447— 1510)’ in N. Munster Antiq. Jn. xxxii (1990). O Domhnaill, S., ‘Some notes on the houses of the Third Order of St Francis in Tir Conaill’ in T. O’ Donnell (ed.), Franciscan Donegal (Rossnowlagh, 1952). O’ Donnell, T., Franciscan Abbey of Multyfarnham (Multyfarnham, 1951). — (ed.), Franciscan Donegal (Rossnowlagh, 1952). O’ Dwyer, P., The Irish Carmelites (Dublin, 1988).

O'Farrell, F., “Our Lord’s Pity” in Ennis friary’ in N. Munster Antiq. Jn. xxii (1980). O Gibealldin, A., ‘The Franciscan friary of Kilcrea’ in M. O Murchi (ed.), Kilcrea

friary: 1465-1965 (Kilcrea, 1965). O’Heyne, J., Epilogus chronologicus, A. Coleman (ed.), (Dundalk, 1902). Oliger, L., ‘De relatione inter observantionem querimoniae constatienses (1415) et Ubertini Casalensis quoddam scriptum’ in AFH, ix (1916). O Muiri, R. (ed.), Irish church history today (Dundalk, 1991). O’Neill, T., Merchants and mariners in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1987).

O Riain, D., The Moor Abbey, Galbally (Belfast, 1992) O’Sullivan,

D., ‘Youghal, The first house of the Friars Minor in Ireland’ in J.

O’ Callaghan (ed.), Franciscan Cork (Dublin, 1953).

— ‘The Franciscan Friary of medieval Cork’ in Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., xlv (1940).

196

The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400-1534

O’Sullivan, H., ‘The Franciscans in Dundalk’ in Sean. Ardmh., iv (1960-1).

Omont, H., ‘Catalogue des MSS. celtiques et basques de la Bibliothéque Nationale’ in Revue Celtique, xi (1890).

Pastor, B., ‘The state of penance and the beginnings of the order of the Brothers and Sisters of penance’ in Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis, xiii (1974). Pazzelli, R., St Francis and the Third Order (Chicago, 1989).

Quinn, P., ‘The Third Order Regular of St Francis in Ireland’ in Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis, xxvi (1993). Richards, M., ‘The conflict between Observant and Conventual reformed Franciscans in fifteenth-century France and Flanders’ in Franciscan Studies, | (1990). Robson, M., “Franciscan bishops of Irish dioceses active in medieval England’ in Collectanea Hibernica, xxxviii (1996).

Roest, B., Reading the book of history: intellectual contexts and educational functions of Franciscan historiography (Groningen, 1996). — A history ofFranciscan education (c.1210-1517) (Leiden, 2000).

Rubin, M., Corpus Christi: the eucharist in late medieval culture (Cambridge, 1991). Schmitt, C., ‘La pauvreté évangelique discutée au chapitre général de Bruges (1484)’ in AFH, lvi (1963). — ‘La réforme de l’Observance discutée au concile de Bale’ in AFH, Ixxxiii (1990); Ixxxiv (1991). Schmitt. J.C., “Recueils franciscains d’exempla et perfectionnement des techniques intellectuelles du xiiie au xv siécle’ in Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Chartes, Cxxxv (1977). Schneyer, J.B., Repertorium der lateinischen sermones des Mittelalters fiir die Zeit von 1150-1350 (9 vols, Miinster, 1968-80). Seton, W. ‘On an old English codex containing the rule of the Third Order’ in AFH, vii. Sheehan, M.W. ‘The Religious Orders 1220-1370” in J.I. Catto (ed.), The history of the University of Oxford, |, The early Oxford schools (Oxford, 1968). Simms,

K., “The Norman

invasion and Gaelic recovery’ in R.F. Foster (ed.), The

Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (Oxford, 1989). — ‘Frontiers in the Irish Church: regional and cultural’ in Colony and frontier. Smalley, B., English friars and antiquity in the early fourteenth century (Oxford, 1960). — ‘The Bible in the medieval schools’ in G.W.H. Lampe (ed.), The Cambridge history of the Bible, 2, The West from the Fathers to the Reformation (Cambridge, 1969). — The study of the Bible in the middle ages (3rd ed Oxford, 1983). Somers, M.H. ‘Irish scholars at the universities of Paris and Oxford before 1500,’ Ph.D. thesis, City University of New York, 1979. Stalley, R., “Sailing to Santiago: medieval pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and its artistic influence in Ireland’ in J. Bradley (ed.), Settlement and Society in medieval Ireland (Kilkenny, 1988). . Stanley, C. (ed.), Kilcorban priory (Ballinasloe, 1987).

Stegmuller, F., Reportorium commentarium in sententias Petri Lombardi (1947). Stewart, R.M., De illis qui faciunt penitentiam: The rule of the secular Franciscan Order: origins, development, interpretation (Rome, 1991).

Bibliography

197

Tabarroni, A., Paupertas Christi et apostolorum: L’ideale Francescano in discussione

(1322-1324) (Rome, 1990). Taylor, L., Soldiers of Christ: preaching in late medieval and reformation France (Oxford, 1992). Thomson, W.R., Friars in the cathedral: the first Franciscan bishops, 1226-1261 (Toronto, 1975). Tentler, T.N., Sin and confession on the eve of the reformation (Princeton, 1977). Van Asseldonk, O., ‘Reform and division in the Franciscan order: A critical-historical

note’ in Greyfriars Review, iii (1989). Van Dijk, S.P.J. and Walker, J. Hazelden, The origins of the Roman Liturgy (London, 1960). Walsh, K, A fourteenth-century scholar and primate, Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981).

— ‘Franciscan friaries in pre-reformation Kerry’ in Kerry Hist. Soc. Jn., ix (1976). — ‘One church and two nations: A uniquely Irish phenomenon?’ in Studies in Church history (Subsidia 6, Oxford 1990). —

‘The clerical estate in later medieval Ireland’ in J. Bradley (ed.), Settlement and society in medieval Ireland (Kilkenny, 1988).

—

‘Papsttum und Ordenswesen in Spatmittelalter und Renaissance: Zur Wechselwirkung von Zentralgewalt und lokaler Initiative’ in K. Elm (ed.), Reformbemiihungen und Observanzbestrebungen in spdtmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen (Berlin, 1989).

Walsh, T.J., ‘The friary of Kilcrea’ in J. O’Callaghan (ed.), Franciscan Cork (Dublin,

1953). Ware, J., De Hibernia et antiquitatibus eius (London, 1658).

Watt, J.A., The Church and the two nations in medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970). — The Church in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1998).

— ‘Ecclesia inter Anglicos et inter Hibernicos: confrontation and coexistence in the medieval diocese and province of Armagh’ in J. Lydon (ed.), The English in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1984).

—

‘The Church and the two nations in late medieval Armagh’ in Studies in Church history, xxv. (Oxford, 1989).

Weisheipl, J.A. Friar Thomas D’Aquino (Washington, 1973). Welter, J.T., L’Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du moyen age (Paris, 1927). Whitfield, D.W., ‘The Third Order of St Francis in medieval England’ in Franciscan

Studies xiii (1953). Williams, B.A., ‘The Latin Franciscan Anglo-Irish annals of medieval Ireland’. Ph.D

thesis, University of Dublin, 1991.

.

uli

ion

i

i?

bee iy ei lee

papeteceaearee

eA

geval a

;

F

te

Wiis.

ey haere?

y

wr

‘

ait

_-

‘

es

|

eit

=

7.

—