READINGS IN IRISH HISTORY

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 9

READINGS IN IRISH HISTORY

By “Shanachie.”

ADRTAN’S BULL. 4. As regards the Synod of Waterford in 1175, and the statement that the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander were published there for the first time, all these matters rest on the very doubtful authority of Giraldus Cambrensis. We have no record in the Irish Annals that any great meeting of the Irish bishops was held at Waterford in 1175. The circumstances of the country rendered such a synod impossible, for wars and dissensions raged throughout the island. It was in that year, however, that the first bishop was appointed by King Henry to the See of Waterford, as Ware informs us, and, perhaps, it would not be wrong to suppose that the synod so pompously set forth by Giraldus was a convention of the Anglo Norman clergy and the newly appointed bishop. All of these would, no doubt, joyfully accept the official documents presented in the name of the King by Nicholas of Wallingford. Leland supposes that this synod was not held till 1177. The disturbed state of the country rendered a synod equally impossible in that year, and all ancient Irish authorities utterly ignore such a synod. 5. In the famous remonstrance addressed by the Irish princes and people to John XXII., about the year 1315, repeated mention is made of the Bull of Adrian. The reply is that the Irish used the Bull of Adrian as an argumentum ad hominem against the English traducers of the Irish nation ; “Lest the bitter and venomous calumnies of the English and their unjust and unfounded attacks upon us and all who support our rights may in any degree influence the mind of your Holiness.’’ The Bull of Adrian was published by the English and set forth by them as the charter-deed of their rule in Ireland, vet thev isolated in a most serious manner the conditions of that papal grant. The Irish princes and people in self-defence

had made over the sovereignty of Ireland to Edward Bruce, brother, of the Scottish King. ■ They styled him their adopted ■ monarch, and prayed the Pope to give a formal sanction to their proceedings. Thus throughout the whole remonstrance the Bull of Adrian is used as a telling argument against the injustice of the invaders, and as a precedent which John XXII. might justly follow in sanctioning the transfer of the Irish crown to Edward Bruce. • If it was lawful for Adrian to grant the country to Henry 11., under certain conditions, the King of England should not complain if another Pontiff were to transfer the same grant to the prince of Ireland’s choice, especially as the conditions of the former pretended grant had not been fulfilled. Thus the Irish put forward Adrian’s Bull as an argument against the English ; but, the fact that they did so, does not imply that they regarded the document as genuine. As a matter of fact at this very time the Irish people generally looked upon the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander as spurious and'mere inventions of the Anglo-Norman adventurers. 6. The sixth argument put forward in favor of Adrian’s Bulls is: Baronius, who found this document in a Vatican MSS., inserts it in his ecclesiastical annals. This argument is easily met. Recent research has brought to light the source whence Baronius derived his information regarding Adrian’s Bull, namely a MSS. copy of the History written by Matthew Paris, which is preserved in the Vatican library. Thus it is the testimony of Matthew Paris alone that confronts us in the pages of Baronius, and no new argument can be derived from the words of the eminent annalist. Nowhere in the private archives, or among the private papers of the Vatican, or in the register which L’Abbe’s researches have made so famous, or in the various indices of the pontifical letters can a single trace be found of the supposed Bulls of Adrian IV. and Alexander 111. 7. The last argument advanced in support of the Bull, namely, that it. is found in the Bullarium Horn a uum, is of very little weight. The insertion or omission of such ancient documents in the Bullarium is a matter that depends wholly on the critical skill of the editor. Curiously enough in one edition of the Bullarium Adrian’s Bull is inserted, whilst no mention is made of that of Alexander. In another edition, however, the Bull of Alexander is given in full, whilst the Bull of Adrian is omitted. Hence there is a decided disagreement among the editors. L’Abbe in his edition of the Councils published Adrian’s Bull, but he expressly tells us that he copied it from the work of Matthew Paris. It remains for the reader to decide for himself whether those who deny the genuineness of Adrian’s Bull have effectively disposed of their opponent’s arguments. In any case, apart from individual opinions, the Irish nation at all times, as if instinctively, shrank from accepting it as genuine and unhesitatingly named it an Anglo-Norman forgery. We have already seen that Giraldus refers to the doubts which had arisen in his day concerning the Bull of Alexander 111. We have at hand, however, still more conclusive evidence that Adrian’s Bull was rejected by the Irish people. There is preserved in the Barberini archives in Rome a MSS. of the 14th century containing a series of official papers connected with the pontificate of John XXII. Amongst them is a letter from the Lord Justiciary and the Royal Council of Ireland forwarded to Rome under the royal seal and presented to the Pope by William of Nottingham, canon and precentor , of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, about 1325. In this document the Irish are accused of many crimes, among which is mentioned the rejection of the Bulls. It says; “Moreover they assert that the King of England under false pretences and by false Bulls obtained the dominion of Ireland, and this opinion is commonly held by them.’’ This national tradition was preserved unbroken throughout the turmoil of the 15th and 16th centuries, and on the revival of Ireland’s historical literature in. the beginning of the 17th century was registered in the pages of Lynch, the author of Cam-

brensis Eversus, a refutation of Giraldus, White, and other writers. A It is well also, when forming an opinion regarding the Bull of Adrian, to bear in mind the, disturbed state of society, especially in Italy, at the time to which it refers. At the present day it would be impossible to foist such a forgery on the public. It was far otherwise towards the close of the 12th century. Owing to the constant revolutions and disturbances that then prevailed in Italy the Pope was sometimes obliged to flee from city to city. Frequently his papers were seized and burned, and he himself detained as a hostage or a prisoner by his enemies. Hence it is that several forged Bulls, examples of which are given by Lynch in Cambrensis Eversus, date from this period. More than one of the grants made to the Norman families are now believed to rest on such forgeries. That the AngloNorman adventurers in Ireland were not strangers to such deeds of darkness appears from the fact that a matrix for forging the papal seals of such Bulls, now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, was found some years ago in the ruins of one of the earliest AngloNorman monasteries founded by He Courcy. The genuineness of the Bull has been denied by the following writers: John Lynch (1662') Stephen White, Cardinal Moran, Dom. Gasquet, W. B. Morris, the writer in Analecta Juris Pontificii (1882), Bellesheim, Pflugk-Hartung, Ginncll, Hergcnrbthcr, Dambcrgcr, Scheffcr-Boichorst , Liebermann, and Thatcher.