Ireland

Boyle Abbey

| historicalragbag

Boyle Abbey is in the town of Boyle, in County Roscommon in Ireland. I have written about it before as part of my Advent Calendar of Medieval Religious Institutions in 2017, you can see that post here. This post is going to go into more detail though.

Boyle Abbey is one of the many Cistercian abbeys in Ireland. I have written about the foundation of the Cistercian order, Bernard of Clairvaux and the spread of the Cistercian order in Ireland in this previous post about Mellifont Abbey, the first Cistercian abbey in Ireland. https://historicalragbag.com/2017/05/22/mellifont-abbey/

Suffice to say that the Cistercian order was founded on the concept of a life devoted to prayer, study and manual labour. It was a reaction against the more worldly and lavish monasticism that had risen out of the Benedictine monasteries, and the idea was a return to the original ideals of the Order of St Benedict. The Cistercian abbeys all followed a relatively similar layout and you can see how Boyle would have looked originally in the photo below.

Cistercian abbeys were intended to be self-sufficient, relying on fishing and farming to support their communities. Boyle Abbey, like most Cistercian foundations, relied on water and it lies on the banks of Boyle River. The water would have been used for drinking, running the mill and flushing drains. In Boyle, not all the monastic buildings remain even in ruin, as it was converted to a military barracks in the 16th century. You can see the walls and the gatehouse in photo below

There are treasures that survive at Boyle though, especially in the exquisite carvings in the church, but I’ll return to them a little later. To begin at the beginning.

The first monks arrived at Boyle Abbey in 1161. It was a daughter house of Mellifont Abbey which you can see in the photo below.

Abbeys were often founded by a specific person or family. For example Tintern Parva, also in Ireland, was founded by William Marshal in thanks for surviving a particularly rough crossing of the Irish Sea. You can see Tintern in the photo below.

In the case of Boyle though, we don’t know who the founder was, if any, but the MacDermot Family who were Lords of Moylurg were patrons from early on in Boyle’s existence.

Once Boyle was founded in 1161 it maintained its self sufficiency, for the most part continuing as it always had through the years. There are a handful of times where it did step onto the centre stage. The first was in 1202 when the Anglo-Norman lord William de Burgh, who was in alliance with the King of Connacht, ransacked Boyle Abbey for three days. The Annals of Loch Ce described it as

They reached the monastery of Ath-da-larag on the Buill [Boyle Abbey], in which they fixed their residence; and they were three days in it, so that they polluted and defiled the entire monastery; and such was the extent of the defilement that the mercenaries of the army had the women in the hospital of the monks, and in every place in the entire monastery besides. No structure in the monastery was left without breaking and burning except the roofs of the houses alone; and even of these a great portion was broken and burned. No part of the buildings of the entire monastery was allowed to the monks and the brothers, excepting only the dormitory of the monks, and the house of the novices.

This was part of broader fighting both between the Anglo-Norman lords, who had arrived in Ireland in 1169 and began to claim large swathes of Ireland, John King of England and the Irish chieftains and kings. These depredations would have slowed down the construction of Boyle’s buildings as well, the church was still being built at this point. In fact Boyle was almost a perpetual construction site.

Boyle’s next moment in the limelight was when the Abbot was involved with the Conspiracy of Mellifont. This was part of a broader conflict between the Cistercian General Chapter in Clairveaux in France and the Cistercian abbeys in Ireland. The General Chapter believed that the Irish abbeys were answering only to Mellifont and were behaving not in accordance with the rule of the General Chapter. It’s perfectly possible that this didn’t mean that their conduct with problematic, more that they just weren’t directly under the control of the General Chapter as much as the General Chapter wanted. It was a conflict years in the making, but resulted in the General Chapter deposing five of the abbots of Irish Cistercian monasteries, including Boyle, and ensuring that they were answerable directly to the General Chapter in Clairveaux, taking Mellifont out of the chain of command. This conflict was also part of the even broader conflict between the native Irish and the Anglo-Norman world.

Unfortunately for Boyle this secondary conflict continued and it was caught in the middle more than once. In 1235 it was attacked by the English who, according to the Annals of Loch Ce

broke open the sacristy; and all its valuable things, and its mass-chalices and altar cloths, were taken of it.

Eventually reparations were paid.

Apart from being the site of a few prominent burials Boyle stayed out of centre stage until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. While Henry VIII’s Act of Suppression of the Monasteries was passed in 1534, it took some time for all the monasteries to be suppressed, especially remote sites like Boyle. So Boyle hung on until 1584 when it was finally dissolved and its abbot Abbot Glaisne O’Culleanain was executed in Dublin when he refused to renounce Rome. Boyle was leased to William Usher from 1589 until 1599 and then until the 18th century it was under military occupation, and was known as Boyle Castle. It came into the hands of the Commissioners of Public Works as a National Monument in 1892 and is today in the hands of the OPW.

Before it was restored in 20th century, Boyle was allowed to return somewhat to nature. You can see some etchings of it in the 1800s below.

So despite being a military fortification for over 300 years, a surprisingly large part of the Cistercian structure of Boyle remains. You can see some of the surviving structures in the photos below

The jewel in the crown at Boyle though is the church.

It is a truly remarkable survival and actually my reason for wanting to write about Boyle, because it has some incredible carvings. The church was built over a number of years, with sections begun with the foundation of the abbey in 1161 including the presbytery and the transepts, where the tower also began.

The church was not built quickly. Its construction was interrupted by things like raids from Anglo-Norman lords, but a building of its grandeur simply takes time to build. The church wasn’t consecrated until 1218, and even then it was most likely not entirely complete, you can see elements of both Romanesque and gothic, and an early adoption of more English styles, such as the tower. The earliest part dates to the late 12th century and the latest part, mainly the north piers, to the start of the 13th. It was added to as time went on as well, with much of the current tower dating to the 1300s. The really interesting thing about Boyle’s church is its grandeur. Cistercian churches were meant to be plain and austere, towers were frowned upon because they were considered extravagant and elaborate carvings and ornamentations were also not approved. Boyle’s church, however, adheres to none of these rules. Illustrating how the Irish Cistercian churches were separating themselves from the General Chapter of the Cistercian order which led to the Mellifont Conspiracy.

To return though, to the carvings I keep mentioning. When the church was complete, there were nearly 40 new capitals (the top part of a column) that needed to be decorated, and it is these decorations that survive today. Again, this was against Cistercian tradition. Most were adorned with floral motifs, which were fairly common at the time.

Others were decorated with animals and similar figures.

The most remarkable though is one that depicts little men

This carving, and some of the animals, was completely out of keeping with anything you’d find in any Cistercian church. This indicates the Irishness of these churches, and their separation from the rest of the Cistercian order. They also indicate the wealth and influence of Boyle Abbey, and apart from anything else they are just lovely.

These aren’t the only carvings to survive at Boyle, you can see some of the others that have become dislodged over the years in the small museum on site. These include a sundial- which you can see on the left.

Boyle Abbey represents much of Irish history, with its incursion from Anglo-Norman lords and the English, along with conflict with the broader Cistercian order. Boyle is part of a large network of Cistercian churches throughout Ireland, but it stands out for its size and grandeur and especially its carvings.

References:

Site visit 2015

Boyle Abbey OPW booklet

The Antiquities of Ireland Volume I Grosse

The Daily Telegraph Castles and Ancient Monuments of Ireland by Damien Noonan

https://archive.org/details/annalsoflochcc01hennuoft/page/n11/mode/2up

https://www.dhi.ac.uk/cistercians/abbeys/boyle.php

Smith, Brendan. “The Armagh-Clogher Dispute and the ‘Mellifont Conspiracy’: Diocesan Politics and Monastic Reform in Early Thirteenth Century Ireland.” Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, vol. 14, no. 2, 1991, pp. 26–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29742491. Accessed 5 Oct. 2020.

https://historicalragbag.com/2017/05/22/mellifont-abbey/

https://historicalragbag.com/2017/12/18/advent-calendar-of-medieval-religious-institutions-december-18th-boyle-abbey/

The photos are all mine.

Glendalough

| historicalragbag

Glendalough, is a name to conjure with. Standing in County Wicklow, it is an amazingly intact example of a scholastic form of Christianity that grew in Ireland, centred around remote communities, where a simple life was lived and learning was at its core. It is by no means the only such site remaining. The bigger, showier Clonmacnoise sometimes gets more of the attention, but in its remote and quiet beauty, Glendalough has to be my favourite.

I have written about Glendalough before, as part of an advent calendar of medieval religious institutions in 2017, but this post will go into more detail about the history of the site itself and the buildings that can be found on it.

The first place to start with Glendalough is its name. It comes from the Irish; Gleann de Loch which translates as a valley of two lakes. The name really exemplifies the quiet, isolated beauty of the place.

St Kevin founded Glendalough in the second half of the 6th century CE, it wouldn’t have been on the site where the main monastic settlement now stands. When he originally came into the area it wasn’t to begin a monastic settlement, he wanted to live as a hermit. St Kevin was probably born in the first half of the 6th century CE and would have grown up with the development of Celtic christianity, which was rooted in holy men seeking isolated places to live an ascetic lifestyle and be closer to God. So this is probably what Kevin was intending when he first moved into the Glendalough region. It was said that he lived alone for seven years, possibly in the site now known as St Kevin’s cell.

You can see the remains of what would have probably been a beehive cell, like those you see on Skellig Michael- you can see them in the photo below. You can learn more about Skelling Michael here

The spot has a spectacular view over the nearby lough, which is one of the loughs of Glendalough’s name

When students began to arrive to learn from St Kevin, he moved the settlement possibly across the lake, but also possibly to the site it now stands on. Essentially, either way, he needed more space.

The site you see today is a combination of a number of eras and was occupied as a monastic settlement from roughly 600 CE to 1500 CE. Glendalough, might have begun with one man but it became a monastic school, a place of scholarly learning. Monastic schools, like Glendalough, trained young men as scholars, often fostering the children of the Irish kings. They also produced manuscripts, sometimes copying them, sometimes creating a completely new manuscripts and shared them with other scholastic institutions. In the case of Glendalough, there were close ties with Clonmacnoise in County Offaly, you can see it in the photos below.

Life at Glendalough was not always a peaceful one though. There were viking raids in 790 CE, 894 CE, 889 CE and 938 CE. These would have been swift raids and would have resulted in the theft of precious objects and possibly monks, as well as destruction of property, but they would not have stopped the overall growth of Glendalough itself. By the early 1100s the diocese of Glendalough covered over 50 000 acres. This was now far beyond what St Kevin began, and the community of monks and scholars would have been supported by a broader community of farmers, craftsmen, and labourers. It was effectively a town. Pilgrims would also have come to Glendalough, seeking absolution from a variety of sins, up to and including murder. This was a thriving self sufficient community. The future of Glendalough, indeed the future of Ireland, changed when the Anglo-Normans invaded in 1169 CE. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail here regarding the Anglo-Norman invasion, but a basic run down is that King Dermot MacMurrough invited some of them to help him reclaim his Kingdom of Leinster. Essentially they never left. It allowed Henry II to establish an Anglo-Norman toe hold in Ireland that expanded as the years and centuries passed. This influence was seen in Glendalough in some of the later buildings, which reflect more Norman style architecture. It was also under Norman influence that Glendalough was incorporated into the Dublin diocese in 1214 CE. Glendalough survived through wars between the local Irish tribes and English forces from Dublin. It was actually ransacked by the English in 1398 and it was partly ruined. Over the succeeding centuries Glendalough slowly declined and gradually fell into disuse by the start of the 16th century. When the last of the Irish chieftains fled in 1601 CE- an event known as the Flight of the Earls- any hope of re-establishing the community (which had been a Gaelic symbol) vanished. The buildings were left to become ruins, you can see what it looked like in the late 18th century in the engraving below.

Glendalough remained unprotected until the 1870s CE when it was taken over by the Board of Works. Thankfully, quite a lot still survives and you can really immerse yourself in the world of Glendalough.

I’m now going to go through some of the buildings you can see in Glendalough, I’m not going to cover all of them, but hopefully I’ll give you a good overview. As I said earlier it is made up of a number of structures from different eras.

I wanted to begin with the gates.

Glendalough would have originally had a wall surrounding the main settlement, and a gated main entrance with a watchtower. The gates you see today would have originally had a second story, but nothing remains of it today, the stones you can see in the ground are actually part of the original road into the settlement. These gates are the last remaining gateway to a monastic site in Ireland.

There are a number of buildings surviving in the Glendalough settlement itself. The two that stand out the most are St Kevin’s Church and the round tower. I’m going to start with St Kevin’s Church. It is a truly remarkable building, and is both largely intact and original.

St. Kevin’s Church is dedicated to St Kevin and most likely replaced a wooden church that stood on the site. The belfry looks a bit like a chimney, so it is also known as Kevin’s Kitchen. The church most likely dates from the 1100s CE, though the tower was probably added later. There would have been a second story within the church, which would have acted as living quarters. You aren’t allowed into the church, but if you are wondering how I have included a photo of the interior, you can see my method in the image below.

The other building which features most in all depictions of Glendalough is the round tower.

The purpose of round towers is very much up for debate, and I’ve written about the round towers of Ireland before. So you can discover more about them here. This particular round tower dates most likely from the early 1100s CE. The round tower at Glendalough is just over 100ft tall (30.5m), the cone on the top is not original, as it collapsed in a storm and was replaced in 1876. The tower tapers as it climbs, at its base the diameter is 4.9 m and 4.2m by the time you reach the top. It also extends about .9 m below the surface to rest on a gravel subsoil. I love round towers, for their idiosyncrasies and the Glendalough Round Tower is one of the best examples I’ve seen.

The other key building in the settlement is the cathedral. The oldest parts of the cathedral date to 900-1000 CE, with some additions from 1100-1200 CE

It was only designated as a cathedral until 1214 CE when the Glendalough Diocese was combined into the Dublin Diocese. The exterior stonework is rough, but would most likely have been plastered originally. The building is a bit of an amalgam, with the chancel definitely being added later and being of rougher construction than the rest of the building. There is still some lovely carving that you can see in the images above. The other interesting feature of the cathedral is an embrasure in one wall. It would have had a door for storing precious objects and the small basin in it is the piscina, and would have been using for pouring away holy water so it couldn’t be used for unauthorised purposes.

The final building I’m going to discuss is actually a short walk from the main settlement of Glendalough. St Saviour’s Priory was probably the last of the major buildings at Glendalough. It stands alone in a landscape that can’t have changed much since it was built in the mid 12th century CE. It is also the most elaborate of the Glendalough buildings, with a clear Norman Romanesque construction. It was restored in 1875. It is an unusually wide building, but what is most memorable for me, and most interesting, is the amount of carvings that have survived. You can see them and the church itself in the photos below.

So that brings me to the end of my journey through Glendalough. I haven’t covered every building surviving in the settlement, but I hope I’ve given you a good idea of its history, importance and beauty. If you take nothing else from this post, I hope you’ve had the chance to appreciate how striking Glendalough truly is. I’ll leave you with one more picture of the round tower.

References:

Site visit 2015

Glendalough: A guide ISBN: 9181905487462

The Antiquities of Ireland, Volume II Grosse

Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200 Daibhi O Croinin

The Daily Telegraph: Castles and Ancient Monuments of Ireland

The photos are all mine, apart from the first photo of St Kevin’s, the photo of me leaning into St Kevin’s and the photo of the exterior of the Cathedral. These were taken by Penny Woodward.

Easy to Evil Medieval History Quiz.

| historicalragbag

This month’s post is going to be a quiz, I haven’t done one for a while so I thought it’d be a nice change. The rules are straight forward: Read the question, look at the picture (it will be some type of extra information) and scroll down below the picture for the answer. Keep track of your score-including bonus points- and find out how you did at the end. There are four sections: Easy, Medium, Hard, Evil. Five questions to a section. All of the answers can be found somewhere on this blog, or in posts that will be written soon.

Enjoy.

Easy

Question 1: Which King of England was known as the Coeur de Lion?

Answer: Richard I: The photo is of his effigy in Fontevraud Abbey

Question 2: What was sealed in Runnymede in June 1215?

Answer: The Magna Carta. The photo is Runnymede

Question 3: What city is home to the medieval cathedral in the photo below? (sadly it doesn’t look like this now)

Answer: Paris: The Cathedral is Notre Dame (taken in 2012 so well before the fire)

Question 4: What is the name of the medieval illuminated manuscript written by monks in a small town in Ireland in the 9th century and now housed in Trinity College Dublin?

Answer: The Book of Kells.

Question 5: What abbey are a significant number of the Kings and Queens of England buried in?

Answer: Westminster Abbey.

Medium

Question 1: Where was Richard III buried? (the name of the town but you get a bonus point for being more specfic)

Answer: Leicester. Bonus point if you said either under a car park, Leicester Cathedral or Greyfriars)

Question 2: Which English queen (arguably) was known as an Empress and bonus point for why?

Answer: Matilda or Maud and because she had been married to Henry the Holy Roman Emperor. The photo is her burial plaque in Rouen Cathedral.

Question 3: Which Irish saint baptised the grandsons of the King at the Rock of Cashel?

Answer: Saint Patrick

Question 4: What embroidery depicts the events leading up the Battle of Hastings in 1066 as well as the battle itself?

Answer: The Bayeux Tapestry.

Question 5: Which Granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine ruled France as the regent for her son Louis IX

Blanche of Castile. The picture is Angers castle which she was instrumental in building.

Hard

Question 1: Which Irish King was responsible for bringing the English to Ireland in the 1170s?

King Diarmuid MacMurrough of Leinster. The photo is his grave in Ferns Ireland.

Question 2: Which welshman wrote The Topography of Ireland and The Conquest of Ireland in the 1180s?

Answer: Gerald of Wales (also acceptable Giraldus Cambrensis). The photo is his birthplace Manorbier Castle.

Question 3: Which Icelandic Lawman and writer from the 13th century is responsible for much of what we know about Norse Mythology- as he was one of the first to write down the sagas?

Answer: Snorri Sturlson. The photo is of his hot spring at his home in Reykholt in Iceland.

Question 4: What former capital of Norway is home to the castle known as Haakon’s Hall?

Answer: Bergen.

Question 5: Where was Iceland’s Alpingi (a sort of early parliament) held?

 Answer: Þingvellir

Evil

Question 1: What is the name of the oldest stave church in Norway? Bonus point for the decade it was built in.

Answer: Urnes. It was built in 1150. The photo is of some of the remarkable carvings.

Question 2: Which French king built Sainte Chapel and for what purpose? You need both to get the point.

Answer: Louis IX and to house his holy relics- including the crown of thorns.

Question 3: What date did William the Conqueror die? And where is he buried?

Answer: 1087 and Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen.

Question 4: Where is the lighthouse built under William Marshal’s direction?

Answer: Hook Head in Ireland.

Question 5: What castle Henry I imprison his cousin Robert Curthoes in?

Answer: Cardiff Castle

So that’s it. How did you do?

1-5: Ok you know some medieval stuff

6-10: Impressive ish, nearly half way there

11-15: Excellent well done, you might actually have read a lot of this blog.

16-20: Stupendous, well done. Long time follower of Historical Ragbag- or a really impressive knowledge of random medieval history.

21-22 (remember those bonus point): Inconceivable!

23: Sure you didn’t write the quiz?

Kells, County Meath

| historicalragbag

IMG_4212For a town with a population of not much over 6000 Kells has made an inordinately strong mark on Irish History.

It is best known as the original home of what is , arguably,  the most famous illuminated manuscript in the world.

But while the Book of Kells is truly incredible, and I’ll talk more about it later, Kells itself (especially the abbey) has its own fascinating history. I am also slightly biased as some of my family comes from Kells and the surrounding area. A plaque to one of my ancestors can still be seen in the church at the abbey.

This post isn’t going to cover the entire history of Kells, there’s simply too much of it. It will, however, look at the early history of the town, the Book of Kells, and some of the key buildings in town.

So to begin at the beginning.

There were possibly people in the area before, but the history of Kells as a settlement dates back to the 6th century, when it was a fortification of the High King Diarmait mac Cerbaill.  The site was gifted to Saint Colmcille who founded the abbey which remains today, though none of the exisiting building are contemporary.

IMG_4249IMG_2318 copy

The second image is an etching from the late 1700s.

Saint Colmcille (known in latin as Columba) was born to the ruling family of present day Donegal. Still standing in Kells today is Colmcille’s cell which dates around the 10th century. It is too late to actually have been used by Colmcille and was in fact probably an oratory that may have housed his relics, with some sleeping accommodation for some monks. IMG_4260

In roughly 561 Colmcille travelled to Scotland as a ‘pilgrim for Christ’ and to convert the Picts. In 563 he settled on Iona and founded the abbey there. It went on to be one of the most influential in the area inspiring the foundation of other houses, including Lindisfarne. In the 9th century Iona was subject to fearsome Viking raids and they relocated most of the community to Kells in 804. It is agreed by most scholars that the Book of Kells originated in around 800 making it possible that it was originally made in either Kells or Iona. It was definitely at Kells by 1007 when the Annals of Ulster record it as being stolen from the stone church in Kells.

This is not the church we see today. From 808 to 814 a new church was built, though it was rebuilt after the Viking raid of 920 and most likely again after other raids over the years. By 1655 it was well and truly in ruins and it was used as a horse barracks by Cromwell. The current church dates to 1788.

IMG_4225IMG_3746IMG_4246

IMG_4252

It is in St Columba’s Church that you can also see the plaque dedicated to my ancestor.

IMG_3743

However there are parts of the site that do date to earlier. Firstly the round tower. Round towers are honestly one of my favourite structures ever and I’ve visited quite a number. You can find out more about their history in this previous post.

IMG_4218IMG_4222img_4220.jpg

The Kells round tower dates to the 10th century and it is 90 feet tall without its roof, which would have been conical. Is has six floors and would probably have been accessed by ladders. There is still a lot of debate as to the purpose of round towers. It is possible that they were simply bell towers, part of the system of the call to prayer with the height made necessary by the size of the ecclesiastical sites. They may have also been symbols reaching towards the glory of God and illustrating the importance of the ecclesiastical site, conveying messages of spiritual and temporal power. There is also an argument, though currently thought of as a little less likely, that they were watch towers and were part of defence systems. They may have been built partly as a response to Viking and other attacks. The monks would have been able to climb in, store their treasures, burn the stairs to the door, keep the raiders out and possibly ring bells from the top of the tower to call for assistance. Essentially no one is absolutely certain as to their purpose. It is also plausible that there were multiple purposes, combinations of the possibilities listed above.

Kells Abbey also boasts three partly complete high crosses. There are between 60 and 70 high crosses remaining in Ireland (in varying states of repair), they are usually richly decorated often with biblical scenes and probably served as sermons in stone, telling the stories of the bible to the mostly illiterate population.

IMG_4242IMG_4243

The 9th century south cross depicts: the crucifixion, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the sacrifice of Isaac, Daniel in the lions den, the fall of man, the death of Able, Saints Paul and Anthony and the Evangelists.

IMG_4247

IMG_4248

The 10th century west cross depicts: the entry into Jerusalem, the presentation in the temples, the miracle at Canna, the baptism of  Christ, Noah’s Arc and the fall of Able. There would have been more on the arms of the cross.

IMG_4253IMG_4254The 12th century east cross shows the crucifixion

There is also a north cross, of which only the stub remains and I don’t have a photo. In the town of Kells itself is the market cross, which unfortunately I didn’t see on my visit, so I don’t have a photo of it either.

The high crosses in the church yard were constructed in a time of great prosperity for the abbey and the town. By the tenth century it was the most important Columban abbey in Ireland. The downside was that as it was wealthy Kells became one of the most attacked towns in Ireland. In 951 a Viking raid was said to have carried off 3000 people and goods. By the 12th century Kells had been burned twenty one times and plundered seven times. These were not all Viking raids, several Irish kingdoms were also responsible. It was also not all raids. In 1152 the Synod of Kells was held and many laws were codified. It was in this period that the other treasure of Kells (apart from the Book of Kells) was probably made. the Crozier of Kells dates to the 9th 11th and 12th centuries and is housed in the British Museum.

By the time the Normans arrived in 1172 Kells (along with the rest of Meath) passed into the hands of Hugh de Lacey one of  Henry II’s barons and one of the key Normans in Ireland. A castle was constructed in Kells in around 1176, though pretty much nothing remains today. The town’s walls were constructed by de Lacey in the early 1170s. The Normans also founded the abbey of St Mary and the priory of St John again pretty much nothing remains of the buildings.

Over the following centuries Kells suffered and profited with the fortunes of both England and Ireland. It was burned a number of times and rebuilt, it was caught in raids and rebuilt. Today it is a small Irish town steeped in history and its greatest legacy and claim to fame is the Book of Kells.

I’ll be using two of my favourite books to discuss the Book of Kells.

Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher De Hamel

IMG_2316

It is a fascinating dialogue with some of history’s most interesting illuminated manuscripts. De Hamel not only tells the stories of the manuscripts, he traces his own journey in accessing the manuscripts. It is a truly remarkable read.

The Book of Kells by Bernard Meehan

IMG_2315

This book is an in depth examination of the Book of Kells and contains truly incredible facsimiles of much of the Book of Kells. The photos you’ll see below are my pictures of images in Meehan’s book, I apologise for the glare in a handful of them.

So, as I explained earlier the first definite mention of the Book of Kells was when it was stolen in 1007. The Annals of Ulster describes it thus:

“The Great Gospel of Colum Cille was sacrilegiously stolen in the night from the Western Sacristy of the church of Cennas. It was the most precious object of the Western Would, on account of its covers with human forms. The Gospel was recovered after two months and twenty nights, its gold [probably a shrine it was housed in] having been taken off it and with a sod over it.”

The Book of Kells remains a ‘treasure of the Western World.’ It is a national monument of Ireland, it’s included on the Memory of World list put together by UNESCO, it’s been on Irish coins, Irish stamps and its designs and scripts are synonymous with Ireland. Today it is housed in Trinity College library in Dublin and attracts 520 000 people to view it each year, of which I was one in 2012. You can see the viewing queue below

IMG_6389The Book of Kells was absolutely worth the wait, it is truly remarkable.

IMG_2307

But how did it come to end up in Dublin at Trinity College?

The Book remained in Kells until 1641 when Irish rebellion against Protestant settlers caused serious harm to Kells. The church would remain ruined for another forty years. It was decided the Book wasn’t safe there anymore so it was removed in Dublin probably in 1653 by the Governor of Kells Charles Lambert, 1st Earl of Cavan. Henry Jones the Bishop of Meath presented it along with the Book of Durrow to Trinity College. The Book entered popular consciousness in the early 19th century and at this time it was assumed that it dated to the 6th century and had been created by Columba. Queen Victoria was shown it as the book of Columba. In 1874 it was described as the oldest book in the world, which is definitely not true. The Queen’s visit and the Exhibition in Ireland generated even more interest and the Book became cemented in the consciousness of Ireland.

The Book of Kells is a manuscript of the four Gospels:

Matthew

IMG_2322

The opening page of this gospel is portrait of Matthew

Mark

IMG_2323 copy

The opening page of this gospel is the four symbols of the Evangelists.

Luke

IMG_2310

The opening of this Gopspel is the word QOU N IAM

John

IMG_2312 copy

The opening of this Gospel is a portrait of John.

The evangelists aren’t the only portraits in the Book of Kells. Other key biblical figures feature as well. Such as:

Jesus

IMG_2313 copy

and Mary

IMG_2314 copy

Along with others. It is reasonable to assume that originally portraits of Mark and Luke were probably also intended. They may have been lost over the years. The Book of Kells has been rebound at least five times. One of the most disastrous was the rebinding in 1826 by George Mullen. He trimmed the pages so he could gild them (losing decoration in the process), he painted some of the margins with purple wash and filled in all the natural holes in the vellum with new vellum.

The current binding was undertaken in 1953 by Roger Powel, many of Mullen’s additions were removed and Book of Kells was split into four volumes, one for each Gospel. The Book of Kells has had a hard life and it is remarkable that any of it has survived.

It is a symbol of a time of learning and culture. The detail is extraordinary as is the depth of colour, even in the pages that are predominately writing.

IMG_2308

The work is very Celtic, very much of its time. We have no hope of understanding what all the symbols and imagery would have meant to the people of the time. We can, though, appreciate it for its beauty and have the enjoyment of trying to understand the people who could have made something this exquisite.

IMG_2309

 

IMG_2311

The Book of Kells will always be inextricably be linked with the town of Kells, as it should be. But as I hope I’ve shown, the Book is not the only worthwhile part of the history of Kells. This small Irish town has been at the heart of Irish history for centuries, it is well worthwhile being celebrated in its own right.

References:

Iona Past and Present with Maps by Ritchie 1934

Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher De Hamel 2016

ISBN: 9780241003046

The Book of Kells by Bernard Meehan 2012

ISBN: 9780500238943

The Antiquities of Ireland Volumes I and II facsimile copy 1982

ISBN: 0946198020

The Story of Kells by  Leo Judge

ISBN: 18724901070

http://www.heritagetowns.com/kells.shtml

The photos are all mine apart from the photo of the plaque and one photo of the church which are by Penny Woodward (used with permission)

 

 

Advent Calendar of Medieval Religious Institutions: December 22nd: Skellig Michael

| historicalragbag

IMG_2546IMG_2543

img_2532img_25291IMG_2596IMG_2557

There is debate over when the Skellig monastery was first founded, but it was part of the early Christian monks’ attempts to find sanctuary, refuge, seclusion and closeness with God in distant and remote places. As a rock in the Atlantic 11.6 km off the coast of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, Skellig is about as remote as it gets.

The monastery was probably founded in around the sixth century, no one is entirely sure and I have been unable to find any real agreement on this date. It consists of a collection of drystone beehive huts that are as weathertight today as they would have been when they were built. The integrity of the construction is truly remarkable.

They would have been inhabited by a community of 12 monks and an Abbot. The conditions would have been harsh to say the least. We know they had fresh water because a rainwater collection system still exists, and works as well when it’s been cleaned out, but beyond that we don’t know much about their day to day existence. They would have lived and eaten very simply.

If the community of 12 on Skellig Michael was not remote enough then there was also a hermitage built high on another point of the rock, it’s almost a sheer cliff so currently inaccessible. It is possible that this was also a refuge during viking attacks of which there were several.

The first was in c. 795 CE. They were attacked again in 812 CE and again in 823 CE. Some records of this third attack remain beyond the fact that it occurred. It is recorded in the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Inishfallen that this time the Vikings took Etgal, the Abbott of Skellig Michael, and they starved him to death. There were also further attacks in 833 CE and 839 CE.

Somehow despite all this the Skellig community survived. It isn’t known exactly when monks ceased to live on the rock, but Gerald of Wales reported that they returned to the mainland to become part of the Augustinian priory in Ballinskelligs at the end of the 12th century, however other sources report that there was still repair work going on into the 1300s.

For more information and References see my extended post on Skellig.

https://historicalragbag.com/2015/06/14/skellig-michael/

The photos are all mine

 

Advent Calendar of Medieval Religious Institutions: December 21st: Clonmacnoise

| historicalragbag

Clonmacnoise1clonmacnoise2Clonmacnoise3Clonmacnoise  in County Offaly was founded on the banks of the Shannon River by St. Ciaran in 544.

St. Ciaran didn’t have the chance to lead the monastery he founded for long. Clonmacnoise was founded on the 23rd of January 544 and St. Ciaran died of the plague on the 9th of September 544, he was only 33.

Clomanoise has buildings from a variety of ages:  round towers, temples and high crosses from the 10th and 11th century, a cathedral,  temples and churches from the 12th century, an Anglo-Norman castle from the the 13th century and 17th century temples. Clonmacnoise has also been an important burial site since its inception, with everyone from kings to saints buried there.

Clonmacnoise was much more than a simple monastery however, it was a renowned school that was a seminary for all of Ireland not just the local area. Masters were chosen for their learning and their zeal and abbots were changed on a rotation from all around Ireland. Students flocked to the monastery from all over Europe. From the eighth to the tenth centuries if boasted a legendary Scriptorium.

In the Scriptorium monks copied and illustrated bibles and other classical works. This was the golden age of monastic arts and craft and exquisite Celtic motifs. In the community at the same time stonemasons were carving the spectacular high crosses you can see today.

Sadly Clonmacnoise wasn’t allowed to remain a peaceful site of learning. It was the object of many raids by vikings, local lords and once the Anglo-Normans arrived they enacted almost yearly raids. The monastery was burnt and rebuilt many times, either partly or wholly. The ultimate demise of Clonmacnoise was down to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was reduced to ruins by the English garrison of Athlone in 1552. They carried away absolutely everything of value leaving the monastery devastated.

References:

Site visit 2015.

The Story of Clonmacnoise and St. Ciaran: History, stories and legends of Clonmacnoise ISBN: 9781782800217

The photos are all mine

 

Advent Calendar of Medieval Religious Institutions: December 19th: Drumlane Monastery

| historicalragbag

Drumlane 1Drumlane 3Drumlne 2The first monastery at Drumlane in County Cavan, Ireland was founded in the 6th century either by St Colmcille or St Maodhog.  The main building remaining from the original monastery is the round tower the lower part of which dates to the 10th or 11th centuries. The upper levels, which are much less well built, date probably to the 15th century.

The monastery was re-founded in the mid 12th century as a priory of Augustinian canons. They replaced the original wooden buildings and began building in stone. The buildings suffered extensive fire damage in 1246, they were burnt by the O’Rourkes, and most of what survives from the church now is from the 15th and 17th centuries.

Drumlane was for many years the site of a shrine that was said to contain relics of Saints Lawrence, Mark and Stephen. They were gifted  to Drumlane by Saint Mogue. It was believed that a false oath taken on the shrine would result in visible divine punishment. The shrine remained at the monastery until the beginnings of the 18th century when it was moved to parish priest of Drumlane. Then in 1846 it was borrowed and not returned, it eventually made its way to the national Museum in Dublin.

The abbey was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but the church continued to be used as the parish church for another 200 odd years. The English crown granted some of the lands to the O’Reilly family.

 

References:

Site visit 2015

http://www.drumlane.ie/index.php?page=monestry

http://homepage.eircom.net/~milltownns1/hist.htm

 

Advent Calendar of Medieval Religious Institutions: December 18th: Boyle Abbey

| historicalragbag

Boyle2Boyle1Boyle3Boyle Abbey  in County Roscommon, Ireland was founded in 1161 with monks arriving from Mellifont Abbey another Cistercian abbey. It is unknown who actually founded the abbey, but the MacDermot family were early patrons.

The complex follows the standard Cistercian lay out, but carving work that has survived especially in the church is truly remarkable. The church was consecrated in 1218 but there was a pause in construction and you can see the difference in the style of architecture. The nave was probably completed between 1215 and 1220 but the overall building time for the church was roughly 60 years.  The carvings on the capitals in the church are largely of School of the West style. They’re unusual both because of their quality and because Cistercian monasteries of the time tended to be simple and austere. You can see some of the carvings in the photo above.

In 1202 Anglo-Norman baron William de Burgh in alliance with the King of Connacht sacked the abbey for three days. They broke and burnt everything and this  is probably what delayed the completion of the construction of the abbey church.

The abbey was raided again in 1235 by English forces, but this time at least compensation was paid.

Along with Jerpoint Abbey Boyle was part of the Conspiracy of Mellifont in 1227, a power struggle between the Irish and Anglo-Norman Cistercian abbeys. Along with all the other Irish abbeys the abbot of Boyle was deposed. In Boyle’s case it was put directly under the control of Clairvaux in France, one of the original Cistercian monasteries.

Boyle was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1584. This is significantly later than most of the monasteries and is largely due to Boyle’s remoteness and Abbot Glaisne O’Culleanain’s refusal to renounce Rome. He was eventually executed in Dublin for his lack of renunciation. Boyle was leased to William Usher from 1589 until 1599 and then until the 18th century it was under military occupation.

References:

Site visit 2015

OPW Boyle Abbey booklet

The photos are all mine.