CHAPTER 4
The Emergence of
Irish Culture
... to extend the bounds
of the Church, to proclaim to a rude and untaught people the truth ... to root
out nurseries of vice ... we are pleased and willing ... that you shall enter
that island and do therein what tends to the honour of God and the salvation of
the people.
- Pope Adrian IV from the
Bull Laudibiliter, 1166 A.D.
THE VIKINGS AND EARLY
IRISH HISTORY
In the beginning of the 9th century A.D., Viking
raiders began to plunder the coastal communities of Ireland. At first, they seemed to the Irish like a
scourge sent by a malevolent god, invincible marauders who murdered anyone who
stood between them and the gold they sought.
As time passed, however, the Vikings settled in Ireland and formed
communities of their own. Through
marriage and commerce, they eventually forged friendlier relationships with the
Celtic Irish.
The first
Viking landing was in 795 at a town on the east coast of Ireland called Howth, and was recorded in the Annals of Inisfallen. Like
other Europeans, the Irish referred to the marauders as Vikings, a name derived
from the Scandinavian word for bay, vik. Vikings originally meant "men of the
bays". However, after suffering
Viking depredations, the term Viking became synonymous with "pirate"
for the Irish. During the next few
decades, dragon-prowed longships
were a frequent sight in the coves and inlets of Ireland. The tall and fierce Vikings seemed
invincible, a nightmare terror that feared no mortal force. Because their ships allowed them to move
rapidly along the coast, they could strike and retreat before any band of
Celtic warriors could gather to challenge them.
By 814, the Vikings had complete mastery of the coastline. They raided freely wherever they wished, and
established coastal settlements with no opposition. To be able to continue their peaceful and
solitary way of life, Irish monks from the island of Iona and monasteries near
the sea enlarged the inland monastery at Kells. The monks of Iona were attracted to Kells not only because of its safer location, but also
because, like Iona, the original abbey of Kells was
founded by Columcille. The monks at Kells
created the illuminated manuscript named The Book of Kells,
and in the late Middle Ages the monastery became a centre of Irish scholarship.
According
to the Book of Armagh, Viking raiders spent their first winter in
Ireland in 840. They build
fortifications around their encampments, which eventually grew into towns and
cities. In 841, the Vikings made a camp
which grew into the city of Dublin; and within a few years other camps appeared
at locations which would become the cities of Wexford, Waterford, Limerick and
Cork. Because they now had permanent
bases of operations, the numbers of Norsemen in Ireland swelled. They were able to mount inland raiding
expeditions which posed a greater threat to the native Celts than the coastal
attacks.
For more
than a hundred years after the Vikings first arrived in Ireland, political
quarrelling prevented the Celtic clans from unifying to expel them. The Norse enemies of the Celts originated
from different Scandinavian lands and were similarly disunited. Norse and Celt engaged in sporadic conflicts
until 976 when a Celt named Brian Boru arose to
become chieftain of the clan Dál Cais,
won the High Kingship and unified all of Ireland under his banner. Brian was an ambitious and ruthless warlord
who promised eventual Celtic victory over the Vikings if the chieftains
submitted to his leadership; but any chieftain who refused to acknowledge Brian's
authority was attacked by his forces.
Within three years of becoming king of the Dál
Caisian clan, Brian became the overlord of the clans
of southern Ireland, and used his army to end the Viking menace in the
territory that he controlled. Over the
next few decades he proved so adept on the battlefield against both Vikings and
rival Celtic clans that he was able to force Maélsechlainn,
the High King of Ireland, to relinquish his crown. Afterwards, the clan chieftains immediately
elected Brian to be the new High King of Ireland.
Brian's
success as a battle-leader and his ability to control the clan chieftains
through a mixture of fear and charisma made him the most politically and
militarily effective High King that Ireland had seen for centuries. Under his leadership, the Celts gradually
overcame the Viking strongholds in the rest of Ireland. In 1004, Brian led his forces into the
Brian Boru's success in politics and battle stimulated new
interest in the position of High King of Ireland. He was the only High King of Ireland during
the Middle Ages to exact feudal fealty similar tot he fealty commanded by
monarchs in other parts of Europe. After
Brian's death, however, no claimant to the crown of High King was powerful
enough or charismatic enough to continue ruling all of the Celtic clans. Clan chieftains resumed struggling among
themselves to become the monarchs of entire provinces, and every chieftain
hoped to gain the throne of the High King.
It took
almost two centuries of constant Viking menace to prompt the Celtic clans to
overcome their tradition of factionalism and rivalry, uniting under Brian Boru's leadership.
Once the Viking threat was eliminated, the clans returned to their
customary feuds and skirmishes.
The Viking
presence set in motion many changes in Celtic-Irish culture beyond the areas of
politics and warfare. In the early 9th
century, the threat of Viking raiders fuelled the Carolingian Renaissance by
causing a sudden upsurge in emigration to Europe by the monks who lived in the
particularly vulnerable coastal monasteries.
These monks were motivated not by White Martyr fervour, but by the urge
to survive. The Viking raids, however,
were not a temporary phenomenon like a brief and violent storm passing in the
night. Skirmishes and pitched battles
with Vikings became a continual aspect of Celtic-Irish life for most of the 9th
and 10th centuries. After a few decades,
the Celtic monks reacted to the Viking menace not be fleeing from it, but by
building fortress-like monasteries inland, hoping to find security behind stone
walls. These monks also trained with
sword and spear to defend themselves against the Viking marauders. This combination of the religious and
military ways of life was a forerunner to the Knights Templar and the Knights
of St. John who battled the Saracens during the Crusades.
Although
the Viking depredations in Ireland terrified the Celts and kept them always on
their guard, the Vikings were not bent solely on pillage and rapine and then
returning to their homeland laden with captives and booty. They often settled in coastal areas building
fortifications and following the Norse way of life. They also introduced minted coins as the
primary medium of commercial exchange, and these coins gradually replaced the
Celtic system of barter. Because the
Vikings were a seafaring people, they maintained a continuous link between
Ireland and other parts of Europe. When
Celtic-Irish monks or adventurers set sail for mainland Europe after the defeat
of the Vikings by Brian Boru, it was usually in a
Viking longship.
The cities
built by the Vikings gradually transformed Irish society by becoming trade
centres for Irish and European goods. By
the beginning of the 10th century, the Vikings permitted merchants from many
nations, including Irish Celts from clans not at war with the Vikings, to live
in the cities of Wexford, Galway, Cork and Dublin. These merchants reaped profits by using
Viking ships to transport Irish linen, wool and butter to markets in continental
Europe. They carried back to Ireland
spices, perfumes and exotic foods that could grow only in warmer climates. During the later Middle
Ages, the Irish came to depend heavily on the export of their products to
When
After the
Viking menace ended in the 11th century, fewer monks travelled to
The Viking
invasion and settlement of
THE ANGLO-NORMAN
INVASION
When the
Anglo-Norman nobles of England led an army of invasion into Ireland in 1169,
they were a far more formidable foe for the Celts than the Vikings. The Anglo-Normans were well-organized and
battle-hardened warriors with a mandate from their king to conquer the entire
island. The origin of the invasion was
in 1156 when an English king who was himself a descendant of the Norsemen
desired to add Ireland to his domains.
His name was Henry II, and he commanded some of the finest knights that
the medieval world had seen. His
warriors were Norman, descendants of the Norsemen from the French peninsula of
Normandy who had conquered England in 1066.
They combined all the physical hardiness of their Viking ancestors with
a newly developed discipline necessary for battlefield victories. Their tactics and their martial skills had
been honed in desert battles against Moslem armies during the Crusades.
To help
legitimize his territorial ambitions, Henry secured approval for an invasion of
Ireland from Pope Adrian IV, who had been an Englishman with the name Nicholas Breakspeare before his election to the Papacy. In the Papal Bull Laudibiliter,
Adrian gave Henry Church permission to invade Ireland and use his secular power
to curb the practices of the Irish Christians which did not conform to Roman
Christian doctrine. In return, Henry was
to pay Rome one penny for each Irish household, a tax which became known as
"Peter's Pence" because the money went to St. Peter's successor, the
Pope. Although the Vatican claims to
have no copy of the Bull in its archives, the contents were confirmed in a
letter by Adrian's successor, Pope Alexander III. In 1175, six years after the Anglo-Norman
invasion, the letter was read publicly at the synod of Waterford in
Ireland. The Anglo-Norman chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis heard the
reading of the letter and recorded it in his writings. The public disclosure of the Bull stirred
anger and apprehension in most of the Irish.
But for the "Romani", who strictly
adhered to Roman Christian doctrine and ritual, whether they were ruled by
Irish chieftains or English kings mattered little as long as everyone was
brought into the Roman Christian fold.
Although
with the Papal Bull, Henry II now had ostensible grounds for invading Ireland,
he chose not to do so right away. Far
from putting off his aim, he was instead craftily looking for the appropriate
circumstances in Ireland which would make his intended conquest easier by
lowering Irish resistance. Henry II's opportunity arose in 1166 when the loser in a quarrel
between two Irish rulers came to England seeking his aid. The quarrelling rulers were Dermot MacMurrough, the King of Leinster,
and Tiernan ó Rourke, the
Prince of Breífne. The basis for
the conflict which broke out between them was Dermot's romance with Devorgilla, the wise of Tiernan. One night - so the story goes - Dermot
carried Devorgilla off from Tiernan's
castle. Although Devorgilla
was a willing participant in this abduction, the two lovers spread the story
that Dermot had taken Devorgilla by force in order to
try to protect Devorgilla's reputation. Before long, Devorgilla
tired of Dermot and returned to her husband, Tiernan. Tiernan never
forgot this insult to his honour, and he never forgave Dermot. Fourteen years later Tiernan
began a war with Dermot. Dermot was
defeated and fled to England, where he approached Henry II for aid in returning
to Ireland to defeat Tiernan and recover his lost
lands and position as king. In exchange
for Dermot's pledge of fealty to him, Henry II would allow Dermot to enlist the
aid of any Anglo-Norman nobles who wanted to help his cause. With Dermot promising estates in Ireland for
any noble who would offer him military aid, the English King knew that Dermot
would have no trouble enlisting Anglo-Norman allies. Henry II would begin his long-intended
conquest of Ireland by landing a large, well-equipped English army in Ireland
in support of an Irish ruler trying to reclaim what he had lost.
Maurice
Regan was a companion of Dermot's who went with him to England. In his poem, Song of Dermot, Regan
depicts Dermot's appeal to Henry II for aid in regaining his land and power in
Ireland:
"May
God who dwells on high
Ward
you and save you, King Henry
And
likewise give you
Heart
and courage and determination
To
avenge my shame and my misfortune
That
my own people brought upon me.
To
you I come to make plaint, Good Sire,
In
the presence of the Barons of your Empire
Your
liegeman I shall become
On
condition that you be my helper
So
that I may not lose everything.
You
I shall acknowledge as Sire and Lord
In
the presence of your barons and earls."
While
Dermot was preparing to return to Ireland with his Anglo-Norman allies, he
learned about the new techniques of warfare developed by the Anglo-Normans in
the Crusades. Unlike the Irish, who
favoured wild and individual combat between champions of opposing sides, the
Anglo-Normans fought in formations. The
troops Dermot saw on manoeuvres moved as one body under the direction of their
general. After a victory, the
Anglo-Normans remained in the territory they had seized by force of arms,
quickly building fortified camps and stone castles. Using these fortresses as bases of
operations, the Anglo-Normans would range out and defeat any remnants of the
hostile forces. Then the Anglo-Norman
nobles would seek a charter from the English king to possess the land that they
had conquered on behalf of the king by pledging fealty and submission to the
crown. The king would "own"
the newly conquered land and grant it back to the conqueror, who would become
its protector in the name of the crown.
If the noble subsequently offended the king, the charter could be
revoked, often leading to bloody conflict between the king and a dispossessed
noble.
To find
Anglo-Norman nobles eager to acquire lands in Ireland, Dermot dispatched
Maurice Regan to Wales with copies of Henry's "Letter of Patent",
which pledged royal support for an invasion.
Among the first to answer the call were Richard de Clare, called Strongbow, Robert Fitzstephen and
Maurice Fitzgerald, all descendants of "the most beautiful woman in
Wales", Princess Nesta. Many of the other nobles who accompanied
these adventurers were the younger sons of noble families who had scant
prospects of living a life of ease and luxury in England. Under the Anglo-Norman rule of primogeniture,
the entire family estate would pass to the eldest male offspring of the lord,
leaving the younger brothers without means of support. In Ireland, they hoped to create their own
estates.
Strongbow was by far the most influential of the
Anglo-Norman nobles who decided to cross the Irish Sea in aid of Dermot. His grandfather had fought beside William the
Conqueror at Hastings in 1066 and the de Clare family had high standing among
the Anglo-Norman nobility. Like his
father before him, he was called Strongbow because of
his skill in archery. He was a veteran
of many battles and a skilled tactician.
As an additional incentive to Strongbow to
lend his support to the Irish expedition, Dermot promised him the hand of his
daughter, Aiofe.
In 1169 a
small group of Anglo-Normans under the command of Robert Fitzstephen
landed unopposed at Bannow, on the south-eastern
coast of Ireland. According to The
Song of Dermot, they were soon joined by Dermot, who mustered five hundred
Irish warriors supporting his cause from the local countryside. The joint force marched on Wexford, quickly
capturing the city, which was still inhabited mostly by Norse traders.
Fearing he
would lose out on the conquests, Strongbow sent his
own advance guard under the command of Raymond Fitzgerald, called Lo Gros. His orders
were to secure a beachhead for the main landing. In early May of 1170, Fitzgerald came ashore
at Baginbun Head, about five miles from
Waterford. He hastily began construction
of a stockade fort and captured cattle to feed his troops. Before his defences were complete, Fitzgerald
was attacked by a coalition of local Irish clans. According to The Song of Dermot:
But
many a wound was taken and dealt
And many a life foredone
And
stark lay knight and gallowglass
Archers
and kerne in motly mass
Before the post was won.
A less poetical account was written by the contemporary
historian Giraldus Cambrensis,
who paints a less grim picture of the battle:
"Being
besieged, by a general consent it was advised rather to rally and die manfully
than to endure a lingering siege.
Raymond then commands the gates to be opened, the cattle was driven
forth and followed with shouts and cryes, to offryght them, who braking on the Irish and put them into suche confusion as that the English obtained an easy
victory."
The breachhead held until August 23rd when Strongbow
landed with two hundred knights and one thousand foot soldiers. The reinforcements enabled the Anglo-Normans
to break out of their position and surround Waterford. Two attacks on the city were repulsed. Then Fitzgerald discovered a weak point in
the defences and breached the walls. The
Anglo-Normans swarmed into the city, indiscriminately slaughtering the
citizens.
Strongbow chose Dublin as the next target, and advanced
north with his knights and foot soldiers.
The High King of Ireland, Ruaidri Ua Conchobair, mustered a large
army and marched south to intercept the invaders. But the Anglo-Normans bypassed the Irish
forces when Dermot - who had joined Strongbow in
Ireland - led his allies through the Wicklow Mountains by a shepherd's
track. When the Anglo-Normans approached
the walls of Dublin, the Norse and Irish inhabitants sent Archbishop Laurence
O'Toole to parley with the enemy. Since
the clergyman was Dermot's brother-in-law, the Dubliners thought that he could
arrange a peaceful settlement. As the
two sides negotiated, Raymond Fitzgerald and Milo de Cogan assaulted the city
without orders, breaching the defences.
Asculf MacTorkil, king of the
city, rallied his warriors to repel the intruders. But the wild battle tactics of the Norsemen
and Celts were no match for the disciplined Anglo-Norman troops. After a brief skirmish, the Norsemen fled to
their longships and sailed for the Orkney
Islands. Quite suddenly, Strongbow became master of the largest urban centre in
Ireland.
The Irish
lacked the military and political unity of the Anglo-Normans. No leader like Brian Boru
stepped forward to effectively guide them, no warlord roused the countryside
against the invaders. The Irish who did
not live close to the invasion points did not immediately view the Anglo-Normans
as a threat to their way of life.
Invaders like the Vikings had come to Ireland before and eventually had
been defeated and assimilated. Only
after the Anglo-Normans established themselves by quickly expanding their
territory and resisting all attempts to expel them did the Irish learn that
they intended to reshape Irish society by destroying Celtic culture in the
areas they conquered.
The Irish
who fought against the invaders were usually defeated by the superior tactics
and arms oft he Anglo-Normans. The
military disadvantage of the Celtic Irish was particularly apparent in combat
against a formation of Anglo-Norman knights who were steel armour from head to
toe. The Celtic Irish wore only
"soft" armour of leather, scant protection from a thrust from a
broadsword or a blow from a mace. To
reduce their casualties, the Celtic Irish resorted to the traditional Celtic
tactic of ambush and manoeuvre by attacking small groups of Anglo-Norman
knights who had strayed away from the main force. But this tactic was not effective in
preventing the conquest of large parts of Ireland by the Anglo-Normans.
The
Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169 signalled the beginning of the end of the purely
Celtic culture in Ireland. During the
next two centuries the invaders introduced their laws, language and methods of
warfare, which along with increasingly oppressive English rule gradually
transformed the Celtic way of life throughout Ireland. By the 16th century, the conqueror's policies
towards the native Irish had grown so tyrannical that they stimulated new waves
of Irish emigration to Europe.
ANGLO-NORMAN IRELAND
The first
Anglo-Norman invaders conducted themselves as if they were members of an elite
warrior band under the leadership of Strongbow. Most of the leading knights were related by
blood and were closely bound by personal loyalty to each other and to their
leader. In battle, their armament and
tactics made them invincible. After
vanquishing Celtic armed opposition, they carved out fiefdoms for
themselves. The advisors of Henry II
noticed the cohesiveness of the Anglo-Norman knights, and warned the King that
an independent Welsh-Norman kingdom in Ireland was a possibility.
King Henry
was kept abreast of possible conspiracies by battlefield reports and spies who
reported on the activities of the Anglo-Norman knights. His own political instincts, as well as the
warnings from his advisors, led him to summon Strongbow
to his court in 1171. Henry wanted to be
sure that the conquered lands would indeed by subject to his rule. Strongbow delayed
responding to the royal summons for almost a year. When he returned to England, however, he
submitted fully to Henry by ceding his Irish territory to the crown without
reservation. Satisfied with Strongbow's pledge of loyalty, Henry granted the lands back
to him. Then Henry went to Ireland to
affirm his sovereignty not only over the territory conquered by the
Anglo-Normans, but over all of Ireland.
To ensure
the loyalty of Strongbow's men, Henry accepted their
individual submissions and granted them fiefdoms in the territories they had
conquered. At the same time, he sent
Hugh de Lacy to persuade many of the Irish clan chieftains who lived outside of
the territory controlled by the Anglo-Normans to pledge fealty to him. The Celts did not understand the feudal
concept of surrendering land to the king, who could potentially grant the land
to someone else. They believed that de
Lacy was a peace envoy from a monarch similar to their own High King. De Lacy encouraged the Irish chieftains to
perform a ritual of submission to Henry; which the Celts believed ended
hostilities, but which Henry believed gave him absolute control over Celtic
lands. The first conflict from this
misunderstanding occurred when Henry rewarded de Lacy by granting him 800,000
acres of ó Rourke land after Tiernan
ó Rourke submitted to the crown. Believing that his trust had been betrayed, Tiernan mustered his clan to battle the Anglo-Normans for
possession of his lands, but de Lacy assassinated him while the two men
parleyed under a flag of truce. The
murder of Tiernan ó Rourke
inspired many other clan chieftains to recant their submission to Henry.
Although
Henry II and his successors, Richard I and John, continued to claim sovereignty
over all of Ireland, they did not enforce their claim outside of the territory
settled by the original Anglo-Norman invaders.
The Anglo-Normans were most powerful in the areas where the first
landings had taken place, in the eastern regions which became the counties of
Meath, Louth, Dublin and Kildare. By the
year 1200, they gained control of Galway on the west coast. This territory was connected to the eastern
Anglo-Norman areas by a route secured by military patrols through the
Celtic-dominated lands in the interior of Ireland.
The
relationship between the Celtic Irish and the Anglo-Normans began to stabilize
when the Anglo-Norman lords grew content with their current land holdings, and
stopped using their military campaigns to acquire new territory. They turned their attention to developing
prosperous manors to support their lavish way of life. In London, the Crusades and domestic problems
occupied the attention of the English kings.
They also stopped compelling the Anglo-Normans to force the Celtic
chieftains to submit to the crown outside of the areas they presently
dominated.
During the
13th century, the Anglo-Normans gradually introduced their way of life into
Ireland. They administered their
territory with a governmental system far more formal and structured than the
loose political organization of the Celts.
Many areas were divided into counties, which became the basis for many
of the modern Irish county demarcations.
Each county was administered by an earl with various barons appointed as
lords over local estates within the county.
The Anglo-Normans also used a governmental unit called the Liberty. This was a vast tract of land under the
direct control of a single Anglo-Norman lord.
Above the earls and lords of the Liberties was the king of England, who
ostensibly controlled the land in a pyramidal chain of command. By the mid-13th century, this system proved
inefficient when two lords of Liberties, de Lacy and Marshall, died without
male issue. The Liberties were divided
among the lords' brothers and sisters according to English custom. This created many smaller Liberties directly
under the king, who had no deputy or viceroy in Ireland to act on his
behalf. Since London was far away and
communications were slow, the lords of the Liberties could often act as if they
were independent monarchs.
Because the
earls, barons and lords of the Liberties initially had little trust in the
Celtic Irish, they imported large numbers of Welsh and English peasants to work
the land. These immigrants lived by
foreign customs and spoke their native tongues of English and French. But the newcomers were not so alien that they
did not share some cultural common ground with the Celtic Irish. Celts and Anglo-Normans gradually began
trading their goods in marketplaces, their ideas in alehouses and their
affections in bed chambers. The Celtic
Irish grew accustomed to the foreigners living in their midst, no longer
viewing them as an immediate threat to their society. At the same time, the newcomers adopted
aspects of Celtic culture, forming the basis for a merger of Celtic and
Anglo-Norman culture.
THE ECLIPSE OF CELTIC
CHRISTIANITY
Before the
coming of the Anglo-Normans, many Irish Christians practised the Roman version
of the religion. All Irish Christians
recognized the authority of the Pope.
Yet not all followed the Pope's decrees regarding ritual and
doctrine. During the 11th and 12th
centuries, the Roman Christians became increasingly intolerant of all other
beliefs, whether pagan or alternative versions of Christianity. When the militarily powerful Anglo-Normans
arrived ostensibly on a mission from the Pope, the "Romani"
- who were Roman Christians - seized the opportunity to attack Celtic Christian
practice and beliefs.
Because the
Anglo-Normans had initially cloaked their territorial ambitions with religious
justification, the Roman Christians of Ireland used the pretence that they had
a clear mandate to act swiftly and vigorously to eliminate Celtic Christian
practices in the territories under Anglo-Norman control. To accomplish this, the Irish Roman Christian
clergy - whether Irish or Anglo-Norman - initially supported the Anglo-Norman
government, recognizing that Roman ecclesiastical superiority was linked to
English political domination. But during
the 13th century, an ethnic rift occurred between the Irish and the
Anglo-Norman Roman Christians. The
Anglo-Normans viewed all Christian religious practices of the native Irish as
potentially deviant, even the ritual and beliefs of those who claimed to be
Roman Christian. In the eyes of the
Anglo-Roman clergy, it mattered little which sect a priest or monk adhered to
if the blood flowing through his veins was Celtic Irish. This attitude led the bishops of Anglo-Norman
ancestry to oppose leadership positions for the native-born clergy even if the
Irish clergy completely conformed to Roman Christian doctrine and
practice. They went so far as to propose
to the Fourth Lateran Council held in Rome in 1215 that anyone of Celtic Irish
heritage be excluded from the office of bishop, a measure that was rejected by
the assembly. The Council was attended
by many European monks with links to the Celtic Irish, either because they had
been born in
Undaunted
by their defeat at the Lateran Council, the Anglo-Norman clergy devised other
methods to further their ambitions of total religious supremacy over
Because in
theory the Church was above politics, the Anglo-Norman clergy maintained that
their claims of exclusive ecclesiastical leadership in
The
position of the Irish-born Roman Christians was undermined in 1213, when King
John of England took the unprecedented step of making feudal submission to Pope
Innocent III. On the surface, this meant
that the Pope became the suzerain of England and King John was merely his
vassal. In practice, it gave official
Roman Christian sanction for the political aspirations of England. Deeds both base and noble could be justified
as acts for the greater glory of the Church, and often Anglo-Norman priests
openly supporting English domination were named Archbishops.
The
Anglo-Norman clergy bound to Roman Christianity maintained its strong
determination to eradicate Celtic Christianity, and they continued to press
towards their goal by any means that they could. The vulnerable, subjugated position of the
Celtic Christians took an ominous turn for the worse in 1321 when the
Anglo-Norman Bishop Richard de Ledrede of the Ossory Diocese located near Kildare obtained the authority
to take the initiative in rooting out any heresy in his diocese. For de Ledrede,
Celtic Christianity was a heresy. De Ledrede was granted such broad and exceptional authority by
a synod which he convened in Ossory - specifically to
grant him such authority. The means de Ledrede intended to use to reach his goal of rooting out
Celtic Christianity once and for all were associated with the practices of the
Inquisition. De Ledrede
intended especially to use Pope John XXII's Bull
which equated heresy with the diabolic art of witchcraft to reach his goal.
De Ledrede was an English-born Franciscan monk who had been
appointed Bishop of Ossory by Pope John XXII. This same Pope issued his edict against
heresy in 1315 because he was troubled by recurring dreams of seductive women
that he believed were caused by spells cast by heretics. Equating heresy with witchcraft made sense in
terms of medieval beliefs, which held that the world was inhabited not only by
human beings, but also by invisible demons that tried to lure humans into
evil. Since the Roman Christians
maintained that any religious belief contrary to their doctrine was evil, it
did not require much of a stretch of medieval logic to see opposing beliefs as
a sign that the religion they were part of was inspired by demons.
Since de Ledrede's benefactor, Pope John XXII, had equated heresy
with witchcraft and witch hysteria was sweeping across Europe at the time, de Ledrede was led to accuse Celtic Christians of being
witches. Adopting the Inquisitorial
tactics stemming from the Pope's edict was a way for de Ledrede
to vigorously pursue his goal of eradicating Celtic Christianity as well as
curry favour with the Pope, thereby strengthening his ecclesiastical and
political position.
The first
person de Ledrede targeted as a witch was Alice Kyteller, the daughter of a prominent Anglo-Norman
knight. Alice was accused of being the
leader of a group of heretics. The
accusation against her rested partly on the fact that three men she had been
married to had died, and her current husband, Richard Le Poer,
believed that she was slowly poisoning him.
Alice was also accused of consorting with a demon incubus named Robin mac Art, who was in fact probably her Celtic-Irish lover by
that name. Whatever the formal charges,
Alice Kyteller was targeted mainly because of her
open practice of Celtic customs and her Celtic beliefs.
Alice was
not such an easy target, however.
Besides being the daughter of a prominent Anglo-Norman knight, she was
also related by marriage to the Viceroy of Ireland, appointed by King Edward II
of England. Alice fled to Dublin, where
she would be under the protection of the Viceroy. Frustrated, de Ledrede
tried to prosecute Alice's son in her place.
But this landed de Ledrede in jail for
violating due process required by civil law.
The matter petered out when de Ledrede was
released from jail and Alice fled from Ireland.
Not to be entirely deterred, de Ledrede
prosecuted Alice's Celtic maid, Petronilla of
Meath. The hapless maid was the first
person burned at the stake for witchcraft in Ireland.
De Ledrede did not have much success in prosecuting alleged
witches or initiating a campaign against reputed heretics throughout Ireland,
however. The Anglo-Norman civil
authorities were not willing to give up their own powers and prerogatives to
the Anglo-Norman clergy, or even to share such powers and prerogatives equally
with them. Moreover, with the tradition of tolerance for different religious beliefs
and ideas among the native inhabitants of Ireland, the Irish accepting Roman
Christianity were not willing to take part in de Ledrede's
persecution. De Ledrede
and the like-minded clergy met with resistance from all sides. Even so, there were occasional burnings of
reputed heretics in Ireland during the 14th century. One other infamous instance besides Petronilla of Meath was Adam Dubh,
a Dubliner who was sent to the stake in 1327 for denying the doctrine of the
Trinity and the authority of the Pope.
Although de
Ledrede's extreme plans were never put into effect
systematically, the few instances of public burnings and the presence of some
Anglo-Norman clergy allied with de Ledrede in
different areas of Ireland did discourage the practice of Celtic
Christianity. With both the large
majority of Celtic Christians becoming guarded and even secretive about their
practice, Celtic Christianity went virtually underground. For the most part, Celtic Christianity became
a religion observed by individual families in private, and was passed on from
generation to generation in an oral tradition.
Despite the strong, continuing appeal of Celtic
Christianity among the Irish - which lasted well into the modern era - the
Roman Christianity favoured by the Anglo-Norman rulers gradually, ineluctably,
gained the ascendancy throughout
ANGLO-CELTIC CULTURAL
FUSION
As the Anglo-Norman newcomers settled into life in the
Irish countryside during the 13th century, a process began that the nobles of
England had not expected. Many of the
Anglo-Norman began to adopt the customs of the Celts. Men whose grandfathers once attended the
royal court in London grew their hair to shoulder length and shaved their faces
except for long, drooping moustaches.
Women whose grandmothers were bound by the feudal tradition that viewed
women as property now rode horses bareback across Irish fields and through
forests. In many households, the Celtic
tongue could be heard on the lips of the Anglo-Normans as often as French or
Middle English.
Intermarriage
between Irish Celt and Anglo-Norman was common in all levels of society. Many of the leaders of the Anglo-Norman
invasion immediately took Celtic wives after they staked out their fiefdoms,
sometimes for love, sometimes to cement their claim to Irish lands. As he was promised before the Irish invasion,
Strongbow wed Aiofe, the
daughter of Dermot MacMurrough. Under English law, this gave him and his
children a legitimate right to the kingdom of Leinster
once ruled by Dermot. William de Burgh
married the daughter of Donal Mór
ó Brien; one of their descendants was Richard, Duke
of York, whose claim to the English throne led to the War of the Roses in
England during the 15th century. Hugh de
Lacy married Rós O'Connor, daughter of the King of
the province of Connaught. John de Courcey
also took an Irish princess for his wife.
Eventually, the Irish families of the Barrys,
the Costellos, the Burkes (de Burghs), and the Fitzgeralds were formed from Irish-Norman unions.
The
Anglo-Normans also embraced the Celtic child-rearing custom of fosterage. This form of adoption was an exchange of
youngsters between Irish and Anglo-Norman families. It forged bonds of personal loyalty that
transcended the gulf between cultures.
Since the Anglo-Normans grew accustomed to treating all children
equally, the issue of bastardy grew less important in
Ireland than it was in England. Although
paternity of the first-born male had to be certain to ensure inheritance under
the practice of primogeniture, it was not an important issue for the other
children living in an Anglo-Norman household.
The
Anglo-Normans even began to adopt the military tactics of their Celtic
neighbours for warfare. On a
battlefield, heavily armoured knights were the tanks of their day, relying on
their impregnable mass to sweep the enemy from their path. When a line of knights charged, they were
impervious to arrows and pikes. But when
travelling alone or in small groups through the fens and forests of Ireland,
they were highly vulnerable to ambush from the side or the rear. To defend themselves from Celtic insurgents,
brigands, and rival Anglo-Norman nobles, knights began to use the Irish tactics
of rapid manoeuvre, travelling without their armour so they could increase
their speed and mobility.
For the
Anglo-Normans, the Celtic way of life was alluring. By the early 14th century, they had adopted
so many practices and customs of the Celts that they could no longer be called
Anglo-Norman. They formed a new culture
that was neither Celtic nor English, but a blend of both ways of life. At first they were called the Anglo-Irish,
but the name was quickly shortened to simply the Irish from the Celtic name for
Ireland, Eire.
Much of the
attraction of the Celtic way of life for the descendants of the English
conquerors lay in its less stringent rules of personal conduct. Feudal England was a maze of rules and
regulations governing everything from which day of the week a knight could
settle a private quarrel to how long a prostitute should stay with her client
to receive payment. While Celtic society
had laws and regulations to maintain social order, they were far less pervasive
and intrusive than those in Anglo-Norman society. After a generation or two in Ireland, the
descendants of the original invaders could see no sense in living by rules and
customs that seemed rigid when compared to the Celtic way of life and relevant
only to life in England. Despite their
adoption of aspects of the Celtic way of life, however, most of the
Anglo-Normans remained partially tied to English culture. They held to English customs and beliefs in
major social and political matters.
Although
Celtic culture did have a certain appeal for many Anglo-Normans and the large
Irish majority of the population continued to follow the Celtic way of life,
Anglo-Norman practices and perspectives dominated the fields of government, law
and religion. These areas were
controlled by the English kings who often attempted to suppress the tendency of
the Anglo-Normans to adopt Irish ways.
This made Ireland a divided society, with some Anglo-Normans adhering to
English customs while other Anglo-Normans adopted the customs of the native
Celts. The Anglo-Normans who remained
most tied to the English Crown and way of life lived near Dublin, while
Anglo-Normans open to aspects of the Celtic way of life lived in the rest of
Ireland. The divisions and different
cultural tendencies in Ireland were exacerbated by the succession of the
indecisive Edward II to the English throne in 1307. The Anglo-Irish - the Celts and Anglo-Normans
who had melded cultures - saw their opportunity to break free of English rule
during Edward's weak reign.
In 1315, a
group of Anglo-Irish nobles urged Edward the Bruce of Scotland to come to
Ireland with a Scottish army to join with Irish rebel forces. When Edward landed in
Although
the Irish did not succeed in gaining independence from English rule, their
nearly successful rebellion led by Edward the Bruce exposed the vulnerability
of the English position in
In
In the
hinterlands of Connaught and Ulster, the threat of
arrest for riding a horse with no saddle and land confiscation based on a
noble's hair length seemed more foolish than menacing. For the Celts and the Anglo-Normans who had
adopted Celtic ways, words not backed by a sword were meaningless, and onerous
laws could be ignored. They continued to
live their lives as they chose, firmly establishing the new culture that was
neither Celtic nor Anglo-Norman, but Irish.
More than a
century later, in 1474, the English tried another stratagem to suppress the
development of emerging Irish culture.
They established a region around Dublin where English Common Law and the
authority of the king were vigorously enforced.
This area became known as "The Pale". Visitors from London or Bristol who set foot
in Ireland were warned to beware of the curious customs existing "beyond
the Pale" - customs which were a blend of the Celtic and Anglo-Norman ways
of life.
IRISH CULTURE AND THE
CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The people
of Ireland entered the 12th century as Celts and emerged from the 15th century
as the Irish. This was the result of the
gradual cultural merger of Celtic society with Anglo-Norman society. Initially, each group adopted customs and
beliefs from the other. Irish culture
came about after a majority of the people embraced the melded worldview during
the 14th and 15th centuries, at which time it began to evolve as a distinct
culture. Use of the Celtic tongue,
respect for education, and loyalty to the extended family and clan remained
important aspects of Irish society during the late medieval period and during
the Renaissance. As writers and
storytellers used ancient Celtic mythic themes in their works, Celtic myth
enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in Ireland, thereby firmly implanting
traditional Celtic views about the meaning of birth, death and the events in
between into the new culture. Thus many
Celtic customs and beliefs that originated a millennium before the Christian
era were carried into the modern age relatively unchanged over time.
The
traditional Celtic urge to travel remained a part of the new Irish
culture. When domestic strife engulfed
Ireland in the later Middle Ages, emigration slowed as the Celts instinctively
attempted to deal with the problems created by political and cultural
change. Yet they could not completely
stifle their urge to travel even during these troubled times. As the new Irish culture
evolved after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, the people of
During the
Renaissance, when