The Eleventh Century
Summary. The
eleventh century saw great changes on the Continent which were to appear in
Ireland in the
following century. But already some beginning of the changes were
appearing in Ireland. Otherwise, the
eternal internecine struggles continued,
and these may be skipped. The traditional scene in Ireland was upset
when a
Munster chief Brian Boru seized the chieftainship of Tara and ended the hegemony
of the northern clans.
Henceforth the strongest chief in any of the Four
Provinces became over-chief, but none managed to establish
a dynasty. As usual,
the details of the struggles can be skipped, but the rise of powerful provincial
chiefs in
Munster and Connaught should be noted.
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General Character of the Romanesque
Period 1000 to 1200AD
The Eleventh Century in Europe
Political Affairs in Britain
Ireland
Over-chiefs
(of Tara)
The Provinces
The Church
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General Character of the Romanesque
Period 1000 to 1200AD
The
year 1000 passed with no indication that Christ was coming after the supposedly
predicted thousand years in the Bible, and so men ceased to bother about the
devil coming out of the bottomless pit and got on with their lives. Great
changes were coming across Europe.
The storms and invasions from the north, the east and the south had been
weathered at leas as far as western Europe was
concerned. The invasions from the steppes were to afflict eastern
Europe for a long time to come.
This period was totally different
from the preceding one. There was growth and development in every sphere. Men
still looked back to Roman days as they were to do up until the twentieth
century, but in fact they branched out in all kinds of developments. In the
coming centuries architecture was to be transformed by the use of first the
round arch and then the pointed arch, warfare was transformed first by the use
of the stirrup. From now onwards improvements and technological developments
increased in number. This was especially true after the armies of the crusaders
went to the East. But the Crusades themselves would probably never have been
possible without the development of trade and shipping in the Mediterranean
There were many different
developments that marked off, not merely this period from the preceding but
this millennium from the preceding. The Christian rulers had not succeeded in
re-establishing the Roman Empire,
but they did succeed in establishing local centres of powers, the European
'kingdoms', and in doing so drove back the invaders. Strong kingdoms were
established in England,
Germany,
Scandinavia, and Spain. The
king in France
was initially weak but gradually his power grew. Kingdoms did not develop in Italy, but
instead powerful city trading states with strong armies and fleets grew up. To
the north the Scandinavian kingdoms embraced Christianity and were admitted to
'Christendom'. So too was the kingdom of
Hungary. The
Christian petty kingdoms in Spain began
the re-conquest. By the year 1200 all of Europe
was nominally at least Christian except for the peoples along the eastern shore
of the Baltic Sea.
Under the Macedonian dynasty there
was a revival of Byzantine power, and the eastern emperors controlled more
territory than they had for centuries. The balance of power in the Middle
East was upset when the Seljuq Turks conquered most of
the region, first the Arab caliphates and then the Christian provinces. The
Seljuqs defeated the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071 in what was to prove
one of the decisive battles in world history. Byzantium itself
was not captured until 1453 but its decline as a great power commenced from
this battle. There was another effect of the battle, the capture of the
Christian holy places in Palestine
from the Fatimid caliphs by the Turks in 1076 which led to counter invasions by
the Christian knights of the West in what were called the Crusades, beginning
in 1098. The sultanate proved unstable and broke into various emirates which
greatly assisted the Crusaders in their attempt to regain the Holy Places. The
Crusades themselves had enormous repercussions on the development of the West.
The first of the crusades was
preached by Pope Urban II 1088-99, the successor of Gregory VII, apart from the
short-lived Victor III 1086-7. He began preaching the campaign at
Clermont-Ferrand in France in
November 1095, and the bishops who attended the council there returned home and
preached the crusade at home. None of the Christian kings went on the crusade.
Individual lords gathered bands of followers, and in
the summer of 1096 made their way to Constantinople.
In the summer of 1097 they set out from Constantinople.
They captured Edessa
and Antioch
in 1098 and Jerusalem
in 1099. In 1098 entirely coincidentally was founded the monastery of Citeaux
in Burgundy.
The story of the crusades, like that of the Cistercians, the military Orders,
and the revival of learning, belongs to the twelfth century.
This left the patriarchs of
Rome and
Byzantium as
heads of important Christian regions.
While Byzantium
was one of the great cities of the world, and filled with churches,
monasteries, and learned theologians, Rome had
virtually ceased to exist, and its bishop was the pawn of local robber barons.
Its theology consisted of little more than reading the works of
St Augustine in
Latin. The schism, when it came in 1054 under Pope Leo IX and the patriarch
Michael Kellularios, signified that the two branches of the Church felt that
they had little in common. When the revival of learning occurred in the West in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it probably owed more to the Muslim
cities along the shores of the Western
Mediterranean, themselves heirs of the old
Roman ways. Palermo
in Italy
and Cordoba
in Spain
played a central role in transmitting Arab learning to the Christian West.
Many states tried to organise their
societies on what became called a feudal basis. Feudalism properly so-called
can be said to date from about 1000AD. It was not adopted in the same way or to
the same degree everywhere in Europe. Other similar institutions or customs served
the same purpose which was to provide the king or chief with a large body of
armed horsemen far beyond what his own lands and revenues could support. The
kings or chiefs had to provide farms or lands cultivated by serfs or tenants to
these armed horsemen. The king could give the farms individually, or he could
assign a portion of his territory (or conquests) to a nobleman and transfer to
him the duty of providing a specified number of horsemen. The basis of the
theory of feudalism was that the king owned or controlled all the land within
his domain. Allodial ownership, the ownership of the soil by the cultivators,
if it already existed, was extinguished. So too was ownership of the land by a
particular chiefly family as was the custom in Ireland.
Everyone in the feudal state 'held' land from the king. Tenant is the French
for holder. There were various kinds of holdings or tenancies, but a
'freeholder' whose holding had no duties attached was
still a holder. The grant of the holding to the warrior was called a fief, and
from 1000 AD onwards was hereditary, and the warrior was called a vassal. When
the vassal died his heir succeeded to the fiefdom, but had to pay a sum to the
king for recognition, and swear an additional oath of feudal loyalty. If the
vassal was a principal one he could assign the various lands to his
subordinates, and they held their fiefs from him and swore loyalty to him and
not to the king. This was called subinfeudation, and a pyramid of vassals could
be built up. Feudalism was imposed on England by the
Normans
in 1066, and spread to Ireland
at the end of the 12th century.
More and more groups were adopting
the system of either primogeniture or ultimogeniture. In the first the whole
inheritance passes to the eldest son; in the second it passes to the youngest
son. Either land or power could be subject to these rules. In fact it was often
the idea to keep both the property and the power together. The drawback of this
system was that the eldest son might be less capable than a younger son or a
nephew. However, as societies became more developed and differentiated, it was
less essential to choose a chief solely by his prowess on the battlefield. The
attempt to choose a successor, or tanist, while a chief was still alive proved
a failure. The temptation to solve a disputed succession on the battlefield was
just too great. But in the feudal system, it was essential that the land held
from the king should not be divided, and that the heir be certain. So primogeniture
was adopted by the noble classes.
One result of the feudal and similar
systems was that societies became very rigidly controlled. Anything that was
not expressly permitted was forbidden. Nothing was left to the initiative of
the individual. Merchants could no longer form towns, hold markets, collect
tolls, or engage in trade or manufacture without these permissions being set
out in a charter. On the other hand, the person who granted the charter bound
himself to protect the town or monastery or other enterprise. These customs are
clearly derived from the older clientship that became more formalised and
defined. On manorial farms no field could be ploughed or crop sown without the
express command of the lord or his steward. Every man had to have a lord or a
master. The 'masterless man' was almost synonymous with an outlaw. No man could
engage in a trade on his own unless he was a master approved by the appropriate
guild of masters. Within towns, a tradesman, if not a master had to be a
journeyman, i.e. a man paid by the day, of a master. That was the theory at
least.
But there is little doubt that
outside the towns and outside the immediate vicinity of manors individuals did
cultivate fields that they reclaimed from the waste, and made shoes, wove
clothes, and travelled about as itinerant smiths. There would also have been
irregular settlements outside the walls of the towns where such goods were
bought and sold. Such trade was necessarily merely local, and such vendors
could never trade within the walls, or engage in long-distance trade. The habit
of clearing parts of the forest or scrub for crops was called assarting, and it
was a process that could not be stopped. At first a tiny clearing would be
made, and if it were not noticed, it would be gradually enlarged. In course of
time adjacent clearings would approach to within about ten yards from each
other. The woodland was then left as a broad hedge. Assarting was probably
tolerated by the lords because by opening up the forest it improved the chase
which dense forests would impede. In Middlesex to this day some hedges survive
which started as boundaries between assarts in the
forest of
Middlesex.
Reclamation of land either from marshes or from the sea commenced all over Europe.
There was no over-all plan. Each village or group of villages decided how much
land they could reclaim. Clearly with a rising population the great effort put
into reclamation was essential.
In Ireland the
Gaelic chiefs developed a similar system of sub-chiefs who owed military and
other services. A common service was called coshering whereby a chief and his
retinue descended on a tenant and demanded to be fed. In England the
corresponding custom was called free quartering. The sub-chiefs were called
urraghs. It is ironic that the chief dispute of the last of the great Gaelic
chiefs, Hugh O Neill, with the crown was because the latter refused to
recognise his feudal rights over his urraghs. The feudal pyramid was matched by
that of the local chiefs, the mesne chiefs, and the provincial chiefs. Great
efforts were made to crown the pyramid by a king, but these were never
successful for long.
The population of Western
Europe started to grow. There were constant agricultural
surpluses that stimulated trade and provided cash for the building of churches,
monasteries, castles and city walls, provided the sustenance to the horsed
knights, and financed the crusades. Trade promoted shipbuilding and also
exploration leading to the development of maps and of an international
financial system with systems of accountancy. A reform movement swept through
the Church leading to a new relationship with the secular powers, and to the
spread of reformed monastic houses linked together in what came to be called
'orders'. Schools and learning began to thrive. Waterwheels became common, and
in the 12th century windmills. The climate seems to have improved or reached an
optimum. Iceland
and Greenland had
flourishing Christian communities. Agriculture began to spread up the
hillsides.
Trade brought about the growth of
towns. Towns had not completely disappeared from northern Europe.
The Merovingian kings ignored Paris,
but the Capetians made it their capital. Great fairs began to be held in towns
like Troyes.
Venice
was the only large town in the Christian part of Europe
at the beginning of the period, though Palermo,
Seville, and
Cordoba were
in the Muslim part. At the end of the period, about 1200 there were in
addition, Genoa,
Milan,
Florence,
Rome,
and Naples
in the south, and Paris,
Cologne,
and Novgorod
in the north. There were many other smaller trading towns like Dublin, London,
York, Hamburg, Bremen, Bruges, Ypres, etc, which were later to become very
important.
A common architectural style
developed in the middle of the eleventh century from Roman styles, and was
called Romanesque. It was characterised by construction of stone or masonry,
round arches, barrel vaults, and carved stonework. This reached its full
development by 1050. The success of the barrel vault stimulated developments
such as intersecting arches, rib vaults, and the pointed arch, and the
buttress. By the end of the century the barrel vault was giving way to rib
vaulting. The adoption of a pointed arch made the intersection of arches of
unequal width more practicable, and permitted also lighter vaulting which in
turn permitted lighter walls and the greater use of glass. Romanesque changed
into Gothic. The re-building of the abbey of Saint Denis outside
Paris about
1140 is held to mark the transition. Though Romanesque has been traditionally
distinguished from Gothic the process of developing the stone arch from
comparatively small blocks of stone was a continuous process, which only ended
when the Renaissance brought in a change of taste. An art formed also called Romanesque
appeared at the same time.
There was a revival of the study of Greek
philosophy among the Muslims in North
Africa that was to lead to a revival among Latin
scholars. Guido d'Arrezzo about 1030 devised the first practical notation of
music. He claimed that his system reduced the time needed to be a fully-fledged
cantor from ten years to one year. The organ was adopted in churches and
cathedrals. Stained glass too began to be used in church windows. A reasonably accurate form of clock driven by weights for use in
bell towers in churches and monasteries. A hammer struck the bell
periodically. The clock was heard not seen (audito
horologio). It was used for telling the time for the offices in the church
especially at night. A minor but important piece of new technology was an
improved form of loom, for textiles were to form the basis of industrialisation
as it was understood at the time. (The spinning wheel did not appear until the
thirteenth century.) The vertical overshot or undershot watermill became the
common form. The windmill too appeared in the west, the idea probably brought
back by the crusaders. Mills were not used solely for grinding corn but also
for crushing ore, fulling cloth and tanning leather. Another development was
the adoption of the use of Arabic or Indian numerals in the West. They came in
Latin Europe from translations from Arabic. Muslim scholars in North
Africa and the Middle
East carefully studied Greek learning, and through the
caliphate of Baghdad
came into contact with Indian speculations. An Arab invention, alcohol
(distilled wine) appeared in Italy.
Before 1200 the mariner's compass appeared in the West. So too did the
sternpost rudder for ships, and siege engines like the trebuchet that threw
huge stones. The new defensive technique of the motte-and-bailey castle
appeared in the region around Calais
in the middle of the eleventh century in northern France. The
motte was an artificial circular mound with a defensive fortification on the
top composed of large hewn logs. Part of this was made stronger and was called
the keep. At the foot of the mound there might be a moat and there was also the
bailey, a larger fenced enclosure into which the cattle could be driven. Only
if the defences of the bailey were breached did the defenders retreat to the
motte, and finally to the keep. Many of these inventions arrived in Western
Europe through the Arab world that in turn often
received them from the Chinese or Indians. Surprising as it seems nowadays, the
Byzantine and Arab cultures of the Middle
East were the more advanced.
This astonishing series of
inventions, discoveries and importations, which was to continue throughout the
Middle Ages and into modern times, marked out the ancient world from modern
times. Irish society, like every other society in Europe
adopted all the new inventions, and fashions and trends as they came along.
Some of the inventions did not reach Ireland until
the very end of the twelfth century. When in the year 1000 Brian Boru ended the
old political order in Ireland
that had lasted several hundred years, Irish society was already beginning to
change through the influences brought in by the Vikings. The processes of
change were to accelerate.
It would seem too that Europe,
in the period 1000 to 1200 was reaching a climatic optimum. Agriculture in
Brecknockshire for example reached further up the hills than it was to do for
several centuries afterwards. Conditions for sea travel in the seas around
north west
Europe
remained favourable. Later, when the climate had deteriorated, ships were much
improved and this offset the poorer conditions. This was largely achieved by
raising the sides, thus increasing the freeboard of the ships.
It was also the great era of
pilgrimages. Christians and Muslims made pilgrimages, in the latter case exclusively
to Mecca.
The Christians went to various holy places, to Jerusalem,
Rome, or
Compostela in north western Spain.
Pilgrimages were to have a powerful influence on architecture. It has been
noted that the architectural style of Cluny spread
out along the routes to Compostela. In this connection it should be remembered
that just as the seas could not be passed in winter, or only with difficulty,
travel to Rome
could only be made in the summer because the alpine passes were blocked by snow
in winter. The revival of pilgrimages shows too that Europe
was becoming more settled and travel less dangerous. Also trade and pilgrimages
flourished side by side, for aids to travellers like inns benefited both, and
travel directions were easier to obtain
[Top]
The Eleventh Century in Europe
Cluny
The
eleventh century was in many ways in the Church the century of Cluny.
Though Cluny
had almost no direct influence on Ireland, it
indirect influence was enormous. The reason for this is that a great number of
the clergy who brought about the Hildebrandine reform of the Church were
influenced by Cluny
The
lands around Cluny
had been a hunting forest of the Dukes of Aquitaine, and one of these had
granted the lands to Abbot Berno. Berno and his monks had come from the
Burgundian abbey of Baume. The regime at Cluny was
not austere, but the rule was observed, and the monks devoted themselves to
chanting the canonical hours in the church. They added more and more masses and
services until most of the monk's time was spent
chanting in the church. This rather unbalanced programme required that the
monks be provided with warm clothing and be given plenty of food as the church
windows were not glazed. This was no doubt necessary but it led to criticism in
the following century. The second abbot was called Odo and he was one of the
great churchmen of the century. He was frequently called on to reform
monasteries. When he took them over he did not allow the monks to elect an
abbot as the Benedictine Rule prescribed, but appointed priors over them. There
was thus only one Cluniac abbot at a time. The monastery itself grew in
numbers. Instead of the typical number of between 12 and 20 monks,
Cluny had a
hundred. The third abbot Odilo decided that the great church must be vaulted in
stone. Stone vaulting had not been attempted in Europe
for five hundred years. The work was commenced in the year 1000. The vaulting
was plain tunnel vaulting that admirably suited the plain chant. Soon vaulted
churches were appearing all over Europe,
and the style was called Romanesque, or as we might nowadays call it,
sub-Roman. In 1088 the fifth abbot, Hugh, began to construct the third church
which was to be the largest church in Christendom for centuries. Between 910
and 1157 there was a succession of seven famous abbots in Cluny,
Berno, Odo, Aymard, Majolus, Odilo, Hugh, and Peter the Venerable.
The
Papacy
The
papacy was in a very poor state. The city of Rome was
almost deserted, and the local nobility squabbled over the papal possessions,
and over which family should be represented on the papal throne. The Crescentii
family usually got their nominee chosen, but the Tusculani family managed to
oust them. The election of the Pope was in the hands of the clergy and people
of Rome.
The Pope was allowed to do little more than conduct the liturgical services
The German emperors then tried to
get their own nominees chosen, and this caused bloody battles. The Saxon
emperors had used the bishops extensively to govern their dominions. But they
believed, both in feudal and Byzantine practice, that
the bishops should be subject to the emperor. The sign of this was the bestowal
of the insignia of office by the emperor. The Saxon dynasty was replaced by the
Salian dynasty in 1024 when Conrad II was elected emperor. His son Henry III
had leanings towards the reform party in the Church, but he was even more
concerned that the principal of the subordination of the Church to the state be
maintained.
The great period of ecclesiastical
reform was marked by the election of one of the German Emperor Henry III's
nominees, St Leo IX 1049-54. He was Bruno of Egisheim (also called Bruno of
Toul) and he came from Alsace,
and was related to the imperial family.
He summoned to Rome
reforming clerics from his own part of the Empire, Humbert of Moyenmoutier (or
Silva Candida, the church of which he was cardinal), Frederick of Lorraine
(later Pope Stephen IX), and Hugh of Remiremont, all of whom became cardinals.
Though an appointee of the emperor he insisted on the customary election by the
clergy and people of Rome.
He relied greatly on the advice of the ordinary parish priests of
Rome that
in itself speaks well for their reforming zeal. These parish priests and the
six bishops of the local towns became known as cardinals. The cardinals were to
play an ever-increasing role in the administration of the church. He supported
the celibacy of the clergy, and opposed concubinage, and the sale of church
offices (simony). He kept in close contact with ecclesiastical reformers like
St Peter Damian and Abbot Hugh of Cluny.
He was especially associated with a young cleric called Hildebrand. His successor, Victor II, another
imperial appointee continued the reforms of his predecessor. The short-lived
Stephen IX continued the reforms. The Tusculani tried to impose the next Pope
but he was not recognised. Nicholas II, who was at the time bishop of
Florence, was
chosen at a meeting held in Siena
in 1058 and soon after issued a bull on papal elections.
In 1059 Nicholas II decreed that
only the parish priests of Rome
should elect the bishop of Rome,
and this ruling has remained to this day. The laity of the city of
Rome were excluded from the election of their bishop. Nicholas also accepted the Normans as the
lawful rulers of southern Italy when
they agreed to become his vassals. He needed them as a balance to the power of
the Empire as well as for protection against the Roman mobs.
Under Pope St. Gregory VII
(1073-1085) there was a violent conflict between the Pope and the Emperor Henry
IV (1056-1106) over investiture. Gregory's name was Hildebrand before he became
Pope. He was born in Tuscany
and was the strongest and most effective of the Church reformers in the
eleventh century, and the reform movement is often called the Gregorian or
Hildebrandine reform. The Pope forbade the investiture or bestowal of spiritual
authority on clerics by laymen, and the emperor refused to give up the practice
of investing his vassals even if they were clerics. Henry deposed the Pope and
Gregory excommunicated the emperor. Though the two were reconciled temporarily
at Canossa in
1075 the dispute broke out again. Henry led an army into Italy and
the Romans sided with him. Gregory fled to Salerno and
the protection of the Normans
and died there. Henry returned to Germany and
was involved in civil wars until his death. The investiture controversy was
finally brought to an end in 1122 when the Concordat of Worms was signed
between Henry V and Callistus II. By it there was to be a double investiture, with
ring and staff by the Church and with the sceptre by the emperor. The issue was
never really solved as the murder of the archbishop of Canterbury St Thomas a
Becket in 1170 proved.
The main point in the reforms initiated by Leo
IX and his advisors was to get the clergy to lead a recognisable clerical life
and to show an example to the laity. This, it was felt, could not be achieved
if ecclesiastical offices were bought and sold, or if rulers conferred the
offices for purely political reasons. It was obvious too that the German
bishops especially were becoming civil administrators. There was no objection
to this so long as it was made clear that a bishop had a far more important
role than a mere temporal administrator. The great object of the reformers was
to reduce the influence of laymen over the appointment of clerics, for it was
obvious that many of the leading laymen had not the interests of religion, but
rather their families' interests at heart. One of the decrees at the time was
that all cathedrals should establish schools where Latin and other subjects
suitable for a cleric could be taught. These cathedral schools were to have a
tremendous influence in reviving learning in Europe.
It
is not clear why it was felt necessary to insist on celibacy or non-marriage of
priests. By the year 300, the local Council of Elvira in Spain
imposed celibacy on bishops, priests, and deacons, and Pope Siricius (386 AD)
also insisted on it. It is clear however that it was not insisted on for rural
parish priests, namely those not connected with the bishops' cathedrals, and
that in the eleventh century there were numerous married priests in rural
areas. One immediate object of reform was to exclude from conducting divine
services those priests in the bishops' households who had taken wives, the
so-called concubines. About the celibacy of bishops at this time there was no
doubt. The issue of the enforced celibacy of parish clergy was not definitely
settled until 1215. Later the code of conduct defining a lifestyle appropriate
to a cleric became more detailed. The shedding of blood, hunting with hounds,
menial or plebeian trades, the art of surgery, and so on were prohibited. The
study of medicine was allowed and it became a university degree, but not
surgery that involved shedding blood.
In
the eleventh century various synods exhorted canons of cathedrals to adopt a
more religious form of life, and in the course of the twelfth century many
groups of canons did so, often adopting the Rule of St Augustine but brought up
to date by systems of controls in the same manner as the Benedictines and
Cistercians. The Council of Lateran (1059), and another council held at Rome
four years later, approved for the members of the clergy the strict community
life of the Apostolic Age, such as the Bishop of Hippo had caused to be
practised in his episcopal house. The first communities of canons adopted these
sermons as their basis of organisation (Encyc.Brit).
A reformer, clerical or lay, could assist the process by transferring
endowments from older institutions to their preferred reformed canons (DNB
Richard de Belmeis d.1128, who introduced Augustinian canons to England). A
monastery that was to have a profound influence in Ireland was
that of Arrouaise in Artois,
founded by the Blessed Hildemar (d.1097), who had been a chaplain to William
the Conqueror. He adopted the Rule of St Augustine. His followers had eremitic
tendencies but also adopted pastoral duties.
The
great aim of the reformers seems to have been directed against worldly churchmen,
not necessarily immoral churchmen. The worldly churchmen were priests or
bishops only in name. They procured their offices through bribery for the
worldly advantages especially financial advantages that would flow from them to
their families. They would spend the minimum amount of time at their religious
duties, and devoted their efforts to politics, warfare, enriching their
families, attending lavish banquets, wearing rich and warm clothing, hunting,
hawking and attending jousts, and other like entertainments.
Reform of monasteries was not part
of the agenda, nor an attempt to force parish clergy
to adapt a semi-monastic form of life. But the reforming monks naturally wanted
to see proper discipline in monasteries. About half of the leading reformers
were monks and the other half-secular clerics. It is not clear what the level
of observance was in the typical monastery of the time. Certainly the level of
observance in Cluniac monasteries was high, not to say heroic. The foundation
of stricter or more eremitic orders, like those of the Camoldolese, the
Carthusians, and the Cistercians cannot be adduced as evidence that ordinary
monastic observance was poor. It simply meant that there were many who wished
for a stricter observance, more poverty, more solitude, more
time for prayer. In the following century, St Malachy of Armagh,
considered that the reforms could best be implemented by introducing Regular
Canons, in particular, the Arrouaisian Canons, but at the end of his life he
fell under the spell of St Bernard, and the strict Cistercian life. The
Cistercians (1098) were the most famous of the reformed Orders of monks who
were formed about this time.
Political
Affairs on the Continent
Civil
affairs were marked by the concentration of power in the older Christian
states, and also by the ever rapid increase in the size of Christendom as more
and more states embraced Christianity, and more territory was re-conquered from
the Muslim powers.
The Saxon emperors in the course of
the 10th century had produced stability and prosperity in Germany and
northern Italy.
In Germany
the Emperor Otto had broken up the various duchies and given much of their
lands to bishops and abbots appointed by himself.
Everywhere in Europe
in the Middle Ages, the clergy as the literate and
educated class, were to a large extent in charge of administration of the
various kingdoms, but because of Otto's action and the piety of his immediate
successors this was more true of Germany than
anywhere else. The Elbe
rather than the Roman frontier on the Rhine
was now the boundary of the Holy
Roman Empire and of Christendom. The Danube
below Vienna
formed its frontier with Hungary. But
beyond that were the Christian states of Hungary, Poland and Russia.
From 1024 to 1125 the emperors came from
the Salian or Franconian branch of the Saxon ruling dynasty. In 1046 Henry III
(1039 to 1056) went to Rome
and deposed the three claimants to the papal throne and appointed a German
bishop who took the name Clement II. He also directly appointed the next three
Popes, all German subjects. In Germany he was
a supporter of the Cluniacs and of the reform of the lives of the clergy. He
prohibited the sale of church offices (simony), or what amounted to the same,
the payment of a gift or fine when a cleric took an office in the Church. He
did however insist on investiture, namely the conferring of Church lands by the
emperor on the bishop.
In Scandinavia,
the Danish kings had gained control over Norway and Sweden, and
gained the crown of England
as well, though on the death of Canute in 1035 his empire fell apart. The Norse
followers of Rollo the Dane now ruled the virtually independent dukedom of
Normandy, and
in 1041 some of them decided to gain their fortunes in Italy. It
was the beginning of the great Norman expansion, and led to their conquest of
the southern tip of Italy
and part of Sicily
in 1060. In 1066, William of Normandy acquired the
kingdom of
England.
(Conquest means acquisition.) In Spain the
reconquista continued and the important town and emirate of Toledo in
central Spain
was captured in 1085. At the very end of the century the experienced and
confident Christian knights, as the mounted horsemen came to be called, were
confident enough to march to Jerusalem
and capture it, establishing there a Christian kingdom.
The Turkish conquest
of the Holy places on the other hand were to have repercussions on the
whole of Europe.
Events in western Europe always affected what happened
in Ireland
for the relative isolation of Ireland from
the rest of Europe
had come to an end.
In France, the
great provincial lords were still too powerful for the Capetian kings, though
the latter were steadily increasing their strength. The Capetian monarchs in France were
slowly re-building the powers of the French crown, but they were in no position
yet to challenge powerful vassals like the Duke of Normandy. In 1036 was begun
the construction in the Romanesque style of the monastery of Jumieges in
Normandy. This
was to have a powerful influence in England where
Romanesque was often called the Norman style.
[Top]
Political Affairs in Britain
Conditions
in England had
changed swiftly during the century as the throne was occupied at one point by a
Danish king and another by the Duke of Normandy. England was a
very valuable prize, for the unitary state that Alfred had begun to organise
and which developed under his successors provided a basis for considerable
taxation and a large army to whomever controlled it. There were great
opportunities too for the ruler to reward his relatives and favourites with
Church benefices and livings. Economically, England was
not well developed, but it had internal peace and reasonable agricultural
surpluses. Right up until the eighteenth century England was
always economically behind her neighbours on the Continent. Commercial
development did not come until the demand for wool from Flanders
grew to such an extent that it required the import of vast quantities of
English wool. The export of a raw
material, though it improved living standards, did not promote manufactures.
That being said England
was agriculturally prosperous at a local level, and this was described in the
Domesday Book that William the Conqueror had recorded for taxation purposes,
specifically to find what revenues were due to himself.
Politically or administratively the
big change was from the pyramid system of ruling families, each controlling its
own area, to a system of shires carved out more or less logically and as
occasion arose, each controlled by an appointed royal official. This change had
been brought about by Alfred's successors. It did not cut down the power of the
great noble families, but it ensured that the king had powerful forces under
his direct command, and also offered the nobles a share in his profits. As was
usual in the case of shiring, the royal official was appointed from among the
members of the local ruling family, and he got his proportion of local revenues
as hitherto. When Clare was shired by Queen Elizabeth Sir Donnel O’Brien was
made sheriff. Shortly afterwards a tax was imposed on the county, the first
tribute ever paid by the Dal Cais.
The organisation of shires was to be the way forward for local government in
place of the rule of local lords. It was to be applied progressively to Ireland.
Every shire had a shiremoot to which
all free males were summoned twice a year. There were also local moots in
smaller divisions called hundreds which met one a month and dealt with ordinary
judicial business. The king himself had a great council called the witenagemot
which assisted him when he issued dooms or judgements, and which played a vital
role in the selection of a new king. Later the alderman or earl was replaced as
the chief administrative officer by the sheriff, or shire reeve. In Danish
regions the jarl or earl was the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon alderman, and
after the Conquest both were regarded as being equivalent in rank to the count.
A new aristocracy with two ranks emerged from the ranks of these royal
officials who were themselves drawn from the old chiefly families, namely earls
and knights. (All these had their titles of nobility or knighthood from the
king.) Knights who were originally nothing more than armed and armoured
horsemen were later distinguished into more important knights called barons,
and ordinary knights. The rank of baron as a title of nobility conferred by
royal patent did not ante-date the reign of Richard II. Later, as armed
horsemen became more numerous, the title was restricted to those who were created
knights by the king or his representative. The baron corresponded more or less
to the ri tuaithe or chief of the tuath, and the earl to the ruiri or mesne chief, or chief of a
county, and it was this rank that was always conferred on the Irish chiefs.
(The conferring of the overlordship of Meath on Hugh de Lacy was the nearest
any English king came to appointing a provincial governor, but even in this
case, it would seem that the area envisaged was only that claimed by Clan Colmain. The title of duke, or
chief of a province, or ruirech, was
never conferred on an Irish chief. Neither was the dubious title of ard ri or high
king of Ireland.)
In terms of land-holding the knight would have corresponded with the boaire, but the latter was not an office
of military rank. So perhaps the degree of nobility immediately above the boaire namely the aire desa would be a more exact equivalent. Despite the different
names, the structure of society was not very different between England and Ireland, and
the English organisation that evolved in this period was gradually applied to
the rest of the British Isles.
There were other aspects of the
shire organisation, which were progressively applied to Ireland. One
was the assessed tax and the other was the militia. Almost since societies
began, chiefs had two great objectives. One was to ensure that wherever there
was any gain of profit the chief got a cut from it. The other was to secure an
adequate supply of reliable warriors to fight for him. The two were usually
closely related. In cashless societies, and even in
those where cash was common, a chief could support his troops by means of 'free
quarters'. This meant he billeted them
on the non-fighting population and told them to support them. Irish chiefs
relied very much on 'coshering' and 'bonnacht' for this purpose. Another method
was to tax any traded good. If a merchant wanted to trade in a chief's
territory or to carry goods across that territory, the chief claimed part of it
as a 'gift'. Indeed, if anyone wanted to
do anything in a chief's territory, like preaching the gospel, he had to
present an appropriate 'gift'. Assessed taxes were sums specified that each
piece of territory, or rather the cultivated part of it, was commanded to pay.
In Ireland,
the unit of assessment until well into the nineteenth century was the townland,
which seems to have been the original farming unit. Other assessed taxes were
house taxes and poll taxes. Poll taxes were unpopular because the rich man and
the poor man had to pay the same amount.
In the shire or county system the king wished no longer to depend on the
local chiefs to provide soldiers, so he decreed that each shire should provide
sufficient men for its own defence. This came to be called the militia.
By the year 1010 English resistance to the
Viking raids was largely overcome. The throne was taken by Canute, king of Denmark, who
became king of England
in 1016 and king of Norway
in 1028. In 1030 he became king of Sweden. After
his death in 1035 separate kings were again appointed in the three kingdoms. He
had already become a Christian, and ruled wisely. With his reign the Viking
raids ended forever. In 1026 he made a pilgrimage to Rome. On
his death there was a struggle for the throne of England, and
Edward the Confessor, the eldest son of Ethelred the Unready secured the
throne, with the help of Norman troops in 1042. He had spent the years of
Canute's reign in Normandy,
and many Normans
accompanied him to England.
He built an abbey dedicated to St Peter at Westminster in the
new Romanesque style. This inaugurated an extraordinary growth in the building
of stone churches and monasteries at Canterbury,
Lincoln, Old
Sarum, etc. (Westminster
was later re-built in the Gothic style.)
The
Arrival of the Normans in England
In
1066, on the death of Edward the throne was claimed by Harold, son of Godwine,
earl of Wessex,
and by William of Falaise, Duke of Normandy, known as William the
Conqueror. Though William was
victorious, the strong English resistance to him meant that many more English
earls and landowners lost their lands than would have been the case if they had
accepted William more readily. Had the English nobility submitted immediately
after the battle of Hastings,
William would have had only the royal estates to share out among his followers,
and consequently, far fewer Normans
would have settled in England.
As it was, a vast amount of English lands passed into the hands of William's
followers, and French became the language of the court and the nobility for two
hundred years. He declared that all the land in England was
forfeit, but allowed the various landowners to apply to get them back as a
feudal fief. Thus the feudal system was applied throughout England. He
also built many castles to maintain the royal power against any insurrection.
His chief adviser in ecclesiastical matters
was Lanfranc of Pavia, a learned scholar who had come to Normandy and
had entered the monastery of Bec. There he opened a school that became famous.
Among his scholars was Anselm of Bec who succeeded him as archbishop of
Canterbury.
William made Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury in
1070. The question of investiture was not yet raised, and it is difficult to
distinguish between the royal policy and the archbishop's in religious affairs.
The Norse of Dublin, who had also connections with York, were inclined to look to Lanfranc as their metropolitan and
he was willing to accept them as a suffragan diocese. Queen Margaret of Scotland too
sought his assistance. He wrote to two Irish chiefs urging them to carry on the
work of reform. He began a policy of summoning the clergy to synods, usually
when they were being summoned to attend the king's council. This led to a
separation of the royal and ecclesiastical courts. William systematically
appointed foreigners to English bishoprics, and Lanfranc concurred with him in
this policy. Their policy was no different from that of the German emperors.
Pope Gregory VII was not pleased with his apparent subservience to William. The
reason seems to have been political rather than religious, for the monasteries
were not in any particular need of reform. Rather the king wanted the lands of
the monasteries in safe hands. The new bishops were mostly men of learning, but
abbots seem to have been appointed purely for political reasons. However, the
state of learning in the English church does not seem to have been high, and considerably behind the Continent where schools
had revived. Lanfranc travelled to Rome in
1071 to get the pallium of an archbishop for his see. This was the symbol of
the papal confirmation of his election to an archdiocese. The sees of bishops
were removed from the villages or decayed towns, where they had been
traditionally, to the new towns and cities which were growing up. A synod was
held at Winchester
in 1076 that in accordance with the continental reform movement enforced
clerical celibacy. (Hildebrand, Gregory VII was Pope from 1073 to 1085.) Parish
priests who had wives were allowed to keep them. No canons were allowed to have
wives. No married man for the future was to be ordained priest or deacon.
Marriages were to be celebrated before a priest. The archbishop rebuilt
Canterbury
cathedral in the Romanesque style, and introduced the monastic life to the
chapter.
He was succeeded as archbishop in 1093 by his
former pupil St Anselm of Bec, another Italian. The king, William Rufus,
delayed appointing an archbishop for some years so that he could enjoy the
revenues of the see. Anselm became involved in a prolonged struggle with the
king with regard to ecclesiastical revenues and appointments to Church offices.
Anselm wished to go to Rome
to receive the pallium from the Pope. There were however two claimants to the
papal Throne and William reserved to himself the right to decide which was the true pope, claiming that this was also his father's
custom and right. Anselm got little support from the other bishops who
were royal appointees. After William was killed Anselm reached a practical
accommodation with his successor Henry I (1100 –1135) which stood until the
quarrel of Henry II with Thomas a Becket.
In Wales
the struggle of the leading chiefs to unite the whole of Wales under one ruler continued as in Ireland. By
1055 Gruffudd ap Llywelyn had united the north and
finally conquered the south. He was a warlike man, constantly attacking the
Vikings and the English. He pushed back English along the border, and in 1052
defeated a mixed body of English and Normans. The latter were serving Edward
the Confessor. Earl Harold, the future claimant to the throne gathered an army
against him. In 1063 Earl Harold attacked Wales, and
bribed a Welshman to murder Gruffedd, the man who had come closest to uniting Wales. In
1081 William the Conqueror received the submission of the Welsh princes. Having
received their submission, it meant that if ever afterwards they rebelled
against them he had the right to seize their lands. As the Normans well
knew, if they did not rebel of their own accord it would be easy to provoke
them into so doing. The Welsh did not
need any provocation.
After 1066 the Normans were
to spend the next two hundred years trying to conquer Wales.
William, to begin with, placed powerful feudal earls along the Welsh borders,
the earls of Hereford,
Shrewesbury, and Chester.
Shrewsbury
and Chester
were made palatine counties, and the earls had far more authority in their
counties than ordinary sheriffs. (In Germany
palatine counts had charge of the imperial palaces.) Many royal privileges were
granted to the palatine counts. Among other things palatine counts could
appoint their own judges, so that the king's writ did not run in the palatine
county. Palatine jurisdiction was so common in Ireland that
at the end of the Middle Ages, the king's writ extended only to the counties
within the Pale. It did not mean of course that the king had no authority in
the palatine county. The purpose was to allow the local feudal subject of the
king adequate powers to deal instantly with matters like invasions. Each had
its own army, court of justice, treasury, and chancery, not as a local
princedom but solely with powers granted by the crown. The pattern was
important because it was to be used extensively in Ireland over a
century later. Also many of the great Norman lords in Ireland came
from the West Country or Wales. Whenever
the earls palatine conquered a piece of Wales it
belonged to them, and not directly to the king, and they were able to reward
their followers with grants of land. These then secured the lands by building
castles on them. For the rest of the century the earls
palatine nibbled away at the petty chiefdoms. One of these Bernard Newmarch
(from the New Market) captured and occupied Brecknockshire, built a castle at
Brecon, began a town there and endowed a priory. He then married a
granddaughter of Gruffudd. Bernard was a typical Norman adventurer and was not
an earl palatine. In the revolt of the lords against William Rufus he was
associated with Robert of Lacy. The de Lacys had come with William from Lassy
in Normandy.
The held much land in the west of England. By
the end of the century they had conquered most of Wales, but
were not able to hold the north of Wales.
It must always be remembered that in
the Middle Ages all the nobles, and landowners, and
landless gentlemen, behaved like gamblers with regard to land. They backed one
side or another for personal gain. If a great noble rebelled against the king
he did so because he considered he had more to gain than if he remained loyal.
If the king was very strong and could crush the rebellion immediately, there
was no point in rebelling. If the king
could be overthrown, or if the king could only with difficulty put down the
rebellion, the chances of gain were much higher. Again, the king might put down
the rebellion, declare the estates forfeit, and then grant them to another
member of the same family who had not taken up arms. Similarly, the landless
knights backed the side that was likely to grant them land. Land was just a
source of income and it mattered little to a lord if he lost his estates in
Herefordshire if he gained others in Worcestershire. The ordinary people just
ploughed their land and paid their taxes to whoever owned the land. When
William of Normandy was gathering an army to invade England he had
to promise lands and other rewards to the knights who joined him as well as pay
to the mercenaries. Those on the losing side had to fall back on the plan of
last resort and give their daughters as wives to the conqueror's men to retain
any position of influence in their counties. The latter were more than willing
to marry into the older families to gain further position and recognition for
themselves. All these factors could be seen plainly when the Norman-Welsh came
to Ireland
over a century later.
The kingdom of Scotland was relatively strong and united
at this time, and its kings were trying to gain territory at the expense of
Ethelred who was hard pressed by the Danes. Ethelred entrusted the defence of
the north to Uchtred, son of the Earl of Northumbria, who repulsed the Scots
under Malcolm II, and as a reward was given two earldoms. Malcolm then turned
his attention northwards towards the Norse settlements and gave his daughter to
Sigurd, the jarl (earl) of Orkney. Sigurd was killed at Clontarf in 1014, but
his infant son; the grandson of Malcolm was created earl of Caithness
and Sutherland. In 1018 Malcolm allied himself with Owen the chief of
Strathclyde and led a successful invasion of Northumbria.
Lothian, part of Northumbria
then passed definitively to Scotland.
Though it passed to Scotland
it retained its own language, English, and laws, and these were gradually
adopted in the whole of Scotland.
On the death of Owen the part of Strathclyde north of the Solway
Firth passed by marriage to Duncan
grandson of Malcolm, and when Duncan
became king was absorbed into the Scottish kingdom. The part of Strathclyde
south of the Solway Firth
(Cumbria)
though in theory it had been ceded to Malcolm I (c954) passed to the English
crown. It was in fact largely occupied by the Norse. The British and Norse
languages were replaced by English, leaving only the name Cumberland. (Cumbria and Cambria,
the lands of the Cymri, were originally pronounced the same.) The language survived only in Wales
(Cymru) though the earliest Welsh poets were from Strathclyde. In the Highland
region the Gaelic language triumphed, driving out Norse, so that the
kingdom of
Scotland ended
with two languages, Gaelic north of the Highland Line,
and English everywhere else. By 1034, Scotland as we
know it today was substantially in existence.
Malcolm III Canmore
(1053-93) came to the throne in 1057, but stayed aloof during the events south
of the Border in 1066. After 1066, Edgar, grandson of Edmund Ironside, the son
of Ethelred the Unready fled to Scotland with
his family. He brought with him his sister Margaret, who married Malcolm
Much more
important for the course of Scottish history was his English wife Margaret.
For the Anglicisation of Scotland commenced with her. She wrote to Lanfranc
asking for instruction in religious matters and he sent three monks to instruct
her. They advised Malcolm to call a reforming synod, and he presided over it.
The then Roman use of commencing the Lenten fast on Ash Wednesday instead of
the first Sunday of Lent was introduced. The first four Sundays were not fast
days, so the additional days had to be added to make up the full forty. The
obligation to receive communion at Easter was insisted on, and the latest Roman
version for the order of the mass introduced. Working on Sundays was
prohibited, and a man was forbidden to marry either his stepmother or his
brother’s widow. This was not however a typical Hildebrandine reforming synod,
for simony, investiture, and marriage or concubinage of the clergy were not
prominent. She had a great reputation for personal holiness of life, but
medieval biographers normally supplied the conventional details. She was
credited however with introducing needlework and embroidery to the ladies of
the court and to have introduced the use of linen to the court as well. These
should been seen as attempts to bring some refinements to a rather uncouth
court
He was succeeded by
his son Duncan II, who was then killed by his uncle Donald Bane, second son of
Duncan and brother
of Malcolm. Donald Bane was supported by those who objected to the increased
English influence and he became briefly king as Donald III. He was succeeded by
Edgar eldest son of Malcolm Canmore in 1097 who reigned from 1097 to
1107.Succession to the crown was still by means of election from membership of
the derb fine, and by way of tanistry (rex designatus. This
succession of kings supported the new influences brought in by Margaret (St
Margaret of Scotland) and were at time
only able to sustain themselves with English help. There was a strong Gaelic
reaction against them. As usual, we can suspect that the enmity was not
directed at the new customs themselves, but against those foreigners brought in
to give them effect. These newcomers and the religious character of the queen
were a powerful influence in bringing in the Hildebrandine reforms in Scotland.
Art and
Architecture
Nothing demonstrates the changes
coming over Europe
in the eleventh century than its architecture. Every book on the history of
architecture is filled with Norman buildings. Five hundred years had elapsed
since the buildings in Ravenna,
the last in western Europe to deserve the name of
architecture. That had been in the age of Justinian. The decision of Abbot
Odilo of Cluny
(around 1000 AD) to rebuild the monastery church and have it vaulted in stone
marked a turning point. No longer would churches and monasteries in Western
Europe be built of wood and thatched with reeds or
straw. (This type of wooden church survived a long time in Eastern
Europe, especially in Russia, and
can be quite impressive.) The architects had visited Rome and
had seen what could be done, but they had to work out the techniques for
themselves. The model was imitated everywhere the local bishop, lord, or abbot
could afford it. Shaping stone is a comparatively simple process and easily
learned, so that when the Cistercians commenced building a hundred years later,
they regarded stone work as cheap enough.
By 1050 the Romanesque style, with
its architectural shapes, its vaulting and its ornamentation had reached full
maturity. The greatest influence on it was Roman remains. The various elements
were not taken from any particular place, and indeed Romanesque architects in
various places put them together in different ways, but all in a recognisable
style. The greatest works in the style date from 1075 to 1125 after which date
the emerging Gothic style based on the pointed arch was preferred. Several
churches along the pilgrimage route to Compostella were built in central France. One
monastery to adopt the new style at an early date was Saint Benoit-sur-Loire at
Fleury. Several other churches in
eastern France
were copied directly from Cluny.
Another great centre in France
where Romanesque architecture was swiftly adopted was Normandy, and
from there it spread into England. When people in the British
Isles think
of Romanesque architecture, the thing of the style of Normandy. One of the greatest
masterpieces of Romanesque building is Durham
cathedral commenced in 1093.
A point to be remembered about
architecture in stone and brick is that it reflects more than almost any other
form of art the economic development of the community. This was particularly
the case in the fully developed Romanesque and Gothic styles. A writer on the
study of Romanesque churches said that the observer should consider five
principal points: 'the relative proportions of the three stages, main arcade,
tribune and clerestory; the shape of the piers; the employment or not of
engaged shafts and of string courses to provide vertical and horizontal
articulation of the successive bays and stages; the method of dealing with the
arch of the tribune, and the solution adopted for the ceiling' (Clifton-Taylor
32-3). Taking this as a standard there were probably only two churches in
Ireland by the twelfth century, both in Dublin, which could be counted as
full-blown Romanesque or Gothic. This reflects on the economic development of
that city at that time. Other churches in Ireland at
that time, and again in the nineteenth century took particular artistic motifs
like rounded or pointed arches to give them a modern style, despite the poverty
and economic backwards of the community that was doing the building. If a
wooden truss roof was used the various devices mentioned above used by the
Romanesque architects could be dispensed with. Apart from the curious little
attempt at Romanesque design in Cormac's chapel at Cashel c. 1130, full
Romanesque architecture cannot be said to have arrived in Ireland before the
building of Mellifont abbey church c.1150. With the French Cistercian monks
came a wholly new way of life, economic as well as religious.
[Top]
Ireland
Changes
in Names
Increasingly from this time onwards
there is an alternative English spelling for personal and local names. This has
been adopted in this book for two reasons. The first is that it normally gives
a better approximation to the actual pronunciation at the time than does the
dialect spelling of modern Gaelic that also has a certain forced harmonisation.
The second is that it is more comprehensible and pronounceable to
non-Gaelic-speakers. Something is lost however for those who know Gaelic.
Clann
Aed Buidhe (clan ay bwee) the family of Flaxen Aed, becomes Clandeboy, or
the Clandeboy O’Neills. The family name Osraige
became a placename Ossory without changing pronunciation. This was inevitable
when the territory remained the same, but the chieftainship became restricted
to a particular branch of the original ruling family. Cenel Eogain (the family of Eogan) became Tir Eogain, the land
of Eogan,
nowadays county
Tyrone.
The Laigin received a Norse
termination and became Leinster.
The Ulaid became Ulster. Ulster in the
Middle Ages was the territory of the Ulaid, excluding Tyrone with Derry,
Tyrconnell, and Oriel (Oirgialla),
and the Earl of Ulster was the feudal ruler of that territory. The Umall of Mayo became The Owells of Mayo.
The name of Turlough O’Connor illustrates a problem of determining when various
consonants became aspirated or silent. It is commonly pronounced Turlough as
the aspirated form of Toirrdelbach, but Lanfranc writing in Latin calls him
Terdelvacus. Removing the termination -us we get Terdelvac which would seem to
indicate that the d and the c were not aspirated but the b was.
English pronunciation has of course
shifted also, for example, the strong guttural gh in Armagh
has disappeared. So also in Drogheda.
Dublin,
without the aspiration of the b triumphed over Duvlin or Dubhlin. Names too
were often Latinised, and Anglicised. Maelmaedhoig
became Malachy, but so did Mael Sechlainn. Aed became the Norman Hugh. Not all
transformations are obvious or intelligible. Mide became Meath, though still locally pronounced Meed. The Lugaid became Louth, though locally
pronounced Loud. Here the g became aspirated until it became silent and the
three vowels became a triphthong.
Only one Norman family was referred
to in the traditional Gaelic fashion; the Fitzgeralds were called The
Geraldines. Gaelic families like the Ui
Neill became The O'Neills but with the same meaning or references. The
O'Neills were merely a branch of the Ui
Neill, though it was purely coincidental that the original family and the
main branch both originated with a man called Niall. The local pronunciation of
O'Neill is O’Nale that is closer to the Gaelic pronunciation, but the
Anglicised pronunciation has been the common one for centuries.)
From this period onwards I will use
the words Gael and Gaelic to refer to those with the Gaelic language and
culture. Irish will refer to the country in general and to the culture which
was to become the dominant one and which from the later Middle Ages used the
English language. Norman and Norse are used until it is clear that most of the
members of those cultures were born in Ireland and
regarded themselves as Irish. In the heyday of Gaelic nationalism extremists
reserved the name Irish only to those of supposedly purely 'Celtic' origin, and
implied that all Protestants were alien invaders with no rights in the country
even after residence of several hundred years. This was pure nonsense in more
than one respect.
[Top]
Over-chiefs (of Tara)
Brian Boru
1002-1014 of Dal Cais
Mael Sechlainn II
1014-1022 of Clan Colmain, grandson
of Donnchadh mac Flainn
Donough O'Brien
1025-1063 of the O'Briens, grandson of Brian Boru
Diarmait mac Mael na mBo
1064-1072 of the Ui Chennselaig
Turlough O'Brien
1072-1086, nephew of Donough
Murtagh (or Muircheartach)
O’Brien 1086-1119, son of Turlough
Donal MacLoughlin
1083-1121, MacLoughlin branch of Cenel
Eogain
(Donough
O’Brien and Diarmait mac Mael na mbo were styled
by the chroniclers as high kings with opposition. The distinction is fairly
arbitrary for all the overchiefs from 1022 until 1171 were opposed, though many
of them managed to extract universal tribute for brief periods in their reigns.
The chief purpose of the lists in this book is not to imply sovereignty but to
provide a chronological framework)
In the century and a half from the
death of Brian Boru in 1014 until the arrival of Henry II in 1171 Ireland was distinguished
by totally inconsequential fighting. After Brian Boru upset the established order, the chiefs in the various
provinces strove for the kingship of Ireland, and
various contenders had more or less plausible claims for some years each.
Within the provinces similar struggles were carried on for the
overchieftainship of each province, and mostly one family emerged as the
dominant one. There was not much to be said either for the progress of
religion, art, or trade so noticeable on the Continent and in Britain.
The eleventh century in Ireland may be
regarded as the century of the Dal Cais
or the O'Briens as they were now called. Between 1000 and 1100 AD there were
four outstanding chiefs of the Dal Cais
who claimed to be the true over-chiefs of Tara or 'high kings of Ireland,'
Brian Boru (1002-1014), Donough O'Brien (1025-64), Turlough O'Brien (1072-86),
and Muircheartach (Murtagh) O'Brien (1086-1114). Mael Sechlainn II resumed the
overlordship after the death of Brian in 1014. The only real opposing claim
came from an unexpected source, from Dermot mac Mael na mBo of south Leinster. The Ui
Neill of course ignored them and continued appointing their own chiefs as
over-chiefs of Tara.
The Cenel Eogain kept up their claim
but could not enforce it. Some annalists regarded Flaibeartach O’Neill, chief
of Aileach from 1004 to 1036, and Donal mac Lochlainn (Donal MacLoughlin)
1083-1121 as the true chiefs of Tara. The century was really that of the O'Briens.
The Gaelic word ri
must still be translated as chief, for Ireland was
not, and never became, what could be recognised as a kingdom, namely one in
which power and authority was derived from a single source. The term ard ri or high
king must be translated as paramount chief or over chief as it was in similar
societies in other parts of the world.
In the year 1001 Brian Boru
felt himself strong enough to challenge Mael Sechlainn II. He defeated Sihtric Silkbeard, son of Olaf Cuaran, the Norse ruler of
Dublin, took
a Danish wife, and gave a Gaelic one to Sihtric. He then advanced into Meath to
take symbolic possession of the deserted site of Tara.
Mael Sechlainn was unable to resist him, and so he became the undisputed chief
of Ireland. He still had to enforce the payment of
tribute, and this he did in Connaught
and Ulster
in the following years. The Cenel Eogain
were at war with the Ulaid, and both their chiefs were killed in battle, which made
Brian's collection of the tribute in the north easier. He went to Armagh,
placed an offering of gold on the high altar of the old cathedral, and
recognised the jurisdiction of the church of
Armagh in
Munster. All
the chiefs of the north surrendered hostages to him except the Cenel Conaill. Brian never managed to establish peace in Ireland under
his rule. The new chief of the Cenel
Eogain was called Flaibeartach an trostain (Flahertach of the pilgrim's staff), son of Muircheartach Midheach son of Donal Ardmacha. He constantly defied Brian who
had again in 1007 and 1008 to invade Ulster and
seize the tribute. In 1011 Brian attacked Cenel
Conaill by land and sea and exacted a great tribute. Brian recognised the
value of the Norse towns and ships. An interesting point too about these
campaigns is the mention of a body of cavalry composed of Norsemen and
Leinstermen. Mael Sechlainn had to pay
a tribute of twelve
score steeds to Brian. This does nor
imply that cavalry took part in battles, for the horsemen were likely to
dismount for this. But they could be used for raiding, for spying out the land,
and for pursuit.
The events that led to the death of
Brian at Clontarf in 1014 were complex. Firstly, Flaibeartach an trostain of
the Cenel Eogain set about subduing
his neighbours, the Ulaid and the Cenel Conaill. This led to a conflict
with the deposed over-chief of Tara, Maelsechlainn II who was also quarrelling
at the same time with the Norse of Dublin. Then, Brian's protege in Leinster,
Mael Morda mac Murchada of the Ui Faelain
(O'Phelan, a branch of the Ui Dunlainge,)
in the north of Leinster,
quarrelled with Brian's son Murchad. Mael Morda seems to have been supported by
the Osraige, and the Norse of Dublin
who were also fighting the Southern
Ui Neill,
for Brian in 1113 attacked the latter while his son Murchad attacked the Ui Faelain. Murchad's campaign of
pillaging and looting brought him as far as the walls of Dublin. The
Norse ruler of Dublin,
Sihtric was a son of Olaf Cuaran and
Gormlaith, the sister of Mael Morda. Sihtric was married to Brian's daughter
and his sister was married to Maelsechlainn. Gormlaith typically in an age of
matrimonial alliances had been married off successively to Mael Sechlainn and
Brian and repudiated by both. Sihtric sent to the Norse chiefs in Scotland for
reinforcements to assist Mael Morda. Among those who came were Sigurd, the Earl
of Orkney, and another jarl called Brodor from the Isle of Man. Sihtric's
troops did not fight at Clontarf, nor did those of Mael Sechlainn. Brian had
drawn considerable forces from the south of Ireland,
including from among the Norse, to defeat the Ui Faelain, who were not supported by the other chiefs of Leinster,
and their Norse allies (Hayes-McCoy, O'Corrain). The ensuing war seems to have
been as much a domestic dispute as a political one, but that fact would not
have been untypical.
Warfare was largely a game of chance
played for gain by those who were closely related to each other by marriage,
and there were numerous factors to be taken into consideration in deciding when
to submit and when to fight. Hayes-McCoy thinks that each side may have had up
to 2,500 warriors each. Brian may have had that number, for he had to be
prepared to fight Mael Sechlainn and Flaibeartach an trostain even in combination, but it is more likely that the Ui Faelain army and the Norse
booty-seekers together numbered fewer than a thousand. The battle should have been a minor one, nor is it entirely obvious why
it was fought at all. There is little doubt that all the parties were in close
correspondence with each other, probably by means of churchmen, right up until
the battle was commenced. Mael Sechlainn and Brian were both seeking to control
the town of Dublin,
and by consequence to deny it to the other. The Norse could only survive by
allying themselves with one or other of them. The logic of the situation was
that Mael Morda and Sihtric should submit to Brian. This would allow the Norse
to try to reclaim their lost lands in Meath.
Logic is not always followed and there may be something in the
traditions that Gormlaith, one of Brian's repudiated wives, and sister of Mael
Morda was behind the quarrel. The battle
seems to have been one of those rare events in Irish history, a full-scale,
hard-fought battle between two fairly equally matched forces that lasted a
considerable part of the day, the kind of battle chroniclers used to mark time .
The most significant thing about the battle
was that both Brian and his son were killed (along with Mael Morda, Sigurd and
Brodar) so the advantage passed to Mael Sechlainn who resumed the
over-chieftainship of Tara.
Sihtric, who like Mael Sechlainn had stood aside at Clontarf, carried on his
wars against his neighbours until 1035, after which he seems to have made a
pilgrimage to Rome.
He died in 1042. Brian Boru was a
great warrior, the most powerful yet to come from Munster. He was also very lucky that internal disputes
in the other provinces and in Munster
itself facilitated his rise. The power of the Dal Cais increased but never to the extent that they could
eliminate the Eoganacht of Cashel,
and as the MacCarthy family, they were the equals of the O’Briens until the end
of the Middle Ages.
The battle of Clontarf was built up by later writers into the most
famous battle in Irish history, and Brian became Ireland's most
famous king, the only one non-Irish people ever heard of.
Mael
Sechlainn resumed the overchieftainship and continued his wars until he
died in 1022. Flaibeartach an trostain
acquiesced and made no move against him. The death of Mael Sechlainn in 1022
was an important turning point, for the pattern of Irish politics that then developed
survived until the Elizabethan conquest at the end of the sixteenth century.
Though he was not the last of the over-chiefs of Tara belonging to the Ui Neill, from then onwards the Ui Neill had to contend with equal
powers from the other provinces. The southern Ui Neill disintegrated, though the O'Mellaghlins survived as minor
rulers until the end of the Middle Ages. The power of
the northern branch, whose chiefs were now exclusively from two families of the
Cenel Eogain, grew and grew until the
end of the Middle Ages. The power of the ruling families in the other provinces
grew to an even greater extent, so that the O'Neills of the Middle Ages, though
locally dominant, were rarely influential outside their own province. It also
proved unfortunate for the Cenel Eogain
that just at the time when they should have been able to seize and hold
exclusively the chieftainship of Tara
they split into two rival families, the O'Neills and the MacLoughlins. The
family that was most successful in overcoming their rivals within their own
province was the Sil Muiredach branch
of the Ui Briuin Ai who became the
powerful O'Connor family. In the Middle Ages the
dominant family in Leinster
was that of the Fitzgeralds, rivalled by the MacMurroughs (Ui Chennselaig, Kinsella. The year 1022 proved to be a significant
turning point in Irish history chiefly because of the failure of the northern Ui Neill to maintain their advantage. It
would appear too that with Mael Sechlainn’s death Tara
was completely abandoned as a symbolic royal site.
Brian's younger son, Donough O'Brien, returned with the
victorious army, but had to contest for the leadership with his half-brother.
(He is usually called Donough O'Brien rather than the more correct Donough mac
Brian for with him the line of the O'Brien's began. (His mother was of the Sil Muiredaig of Connaught,
who was another of Brian's many wives.) With the chieftainship in dispute the
supply of supporters dried up, and the Dal
Cais were scarcely able to fend off the attacks of the Eoganacht Raithlind and
an invasion from Connaught.
In 1023 he instigated the murder of his brother Tade, a fact that Tade's son
Turlough never forgot. By 1025 Donough had established his power within the Dal Cais, and was able to attack other
provinces. In 1025 he took hostages in Connaught.
In 1026 he took hostages from Meath, Leinster,
Ossory, and the Danes. His attempt to
take hostages in Meath was frustrated by Flaibeartach an Trostain who also took hostages in Meath. The latter however,
though preventing the incursion into his territory was either unable or
unwilling to do more. Donough was able however to take hostages from Connacht.
A greater problem for him was the rising chiefdom of Ossory that had now
reached the peak of its power under a chief called Mac Gilla Patraic. (The
MacGillapatricks, later Fitzpatricks, ruled Ossory in the Middle
Ages.) Mac Gilla Patraic was trying to conquer Leinster,
and to this end allied himself with the Eoganacht
of Cashel. In the event, the chieftainship of Leinster went to a member of the Ui Chennselaig of south Leinster whose
name was Dermot mac Mael na mBo.
Donough O'Brien tried to limit Dermot's power and made him a bitter enemy. In
1048 Donough led an army into Meath, Leinster
and to Dublin
and took hostages from the Norse, from Ossory, and from Dermot. In 1052 Dermot
captured Dublin
and made himself ruler there. He then tried to recapture the lost Norse
territories in Meath. Donough allied himself with Conchobar Ua Mael Sechlainn
the Ui Neill chief, but Dermot, with the
help of the Osraige was a match for
them. In 1051 Donough O’Brien was challenged at home by his nephew Turlough
O'Brien son of the murdered Tade. Aed O'Connor (O Conchobar) of Connaught
attacked Munster,
while Dermot and Ossory, attacked Donough. They renewed their attacks in
subsequent years and by 1055 Donough's power was waning. About 1058 Dermot mac
Mael na mBo decisively defeated Donough at
Slieve Crot in Tipperary.
Donough was then compelled to submit to Aed O'Connor in 1059. In 1061 Aed
destroyed Brian Boru's fortress at Kincora and burned the monastery at
Killaloe. In 1063 Dermot and Aed burned Limerick.
Donough resigned and went on a pilgrimage to Rome where
he died. His nephew Turlough was making a name for himself in the manner usual
with aspirants to the chieftainship of his family. In 1031 he was banished for
murder, and seems to have sought refuge in Connaught.
In 1054 he ravaged parts of his native Clare with a body of Connaughtmen, and
the following years defeated a rival aspirant, Donough's son Murchad, with
heavy loss of life.
Dermot
mac Mael na mBo between 1058 and 1072 was
undoubtedly the most powerful ruler in Ireland. He
recognised Turlough O'Brien rather than Murchad, the chief of Dal Cais, as the overlord of Cashel, in
return for Turlough's recognition of his claim to be overlord of Ireland. The Cenel Eogain after the death of Ardgar
Mac Lochlainn in 1064 became involved in domestic disputes for the next twenty
years, between the descendants of Niall Glundubh
and his brother Donal. Curiously the genealogists are not clear from which of
these Ardgar claimed descent. Aed O'Connor struggled to get recognition in Connaught.
He was killed in 1067. In Meath Concobar ua Mael Sechlainn (Conor O’Mellaghlin
(1030 to 1073) failed to impress. In 1072 Dermot invaded Meath but was defeated
and killed by Conor's forces.
Turlough
O'Brien had been recognised by Dermot mac Mael na mBo as Donough's successor to the over-chieftainship of Cashel in
spite of the claims of Murchad, son of Donough who was recognised as the chief
of the Dal Cais. The latter
challenged him but was again defeated by Turlough. However, on the death of
Murchad in 1068 Turlough became chief of the Dal Cais O'Briens as well. He recognised Dermot as the true ard ri and
supported by him up until 1072. Turlough O'Brien was then, and for the next
twelve years, the most powerful chief left in Ireland, and
fought and won battles in the other provinces. After the death of Ardgar
MacLoughlin in 1064 Cenel Eogain was
weak and Turlough, though he attacked the Oirgialla
and the Ulaid left them alone. He was
more concerned with weakening Connaught
by promoting internal divisions. The O’Rourke's of Breifne (Ui Briuin Breifne) were contending now
for the mastery of Connaught,
and also extending their territory into Meath by swallowing the Gailenga.
Norsemen apart, in this period came the first approaches of Continental influence into Ireland since
the time of Saint Patrick, which influences were to become a flood in the
following century. Lanfranc wrote to Turlough O'Brien urging him to take a lead
in reforming the Irish
Church.
Pope Gregory VII also wrote in the same sense. As is usual in such cases it can
be assumed that these interventions were requested by a native reforming party.
The relationship between the see of Rome and
local bishops at this period was essentially an appellate one, namely that
Rome
replied to appeals for guidance or instruction from a local church, or for
confirmation of an archbishop.
Turlough died after a long illness in
1086 and was succeeded by his son Murtagh O'Brien who spent the first ten years
of his rule asserting his authority in Munster. In
Ulster Donal MacLoughlin succeeded to the headship of the northern Ui Neill in 1083. Again the scribes were
divided as to which was the real king of Ireland Both
were long-lived and contemporary. Donal ruled for thirty-one years and Murtagh
for twenty-six years. Donal's claim was from 1090, four years after the death
of Turlough, and Murtagh's from 1093 though he had become chief of the Dal Cais on the death of his father.
Donal had been chief of Aileach from 1083 when he finally and successfully
defeated the claimants descended from Donal, the brother of Niall Glundubh (d. 915). (The O'Neill entry in
Burke’s Peerage only claims the
kingship of Ireland
for Donal MacLoughlin from 1119 to 1121, thus recognising the better claim of
Murtagh O’Brien.)
Murtagh
(Muirchertach) O'Brien was first mentioned in 1075 when he and his father
made an unsuccessful attack on the Ulaid
and Oirgialla. He became engaged in a
struggle with his brother for the chieftainship, so Leinster
and Connaught broke
free, and Mellaghlin O'Mellaghlin of Meath tried to recover Dublin and North
Leinster. An interesting facet of this
struggle was the use made of fleets, and not only the Norse fleets. Connaught
was able to repel Murtagh's fleets on the Shannon
and along the coast. The new chief in Connaught,
Rory O'Connor son of Aed O'Connor, allied himself with Donal MacLoughlin and
they ravaged Munster
while Murtagh O'Brien was trying to subdue Leinster
and Meath. In 1089, having subdued Leinster,
imposed his own chief over them, and held Dublin, he was able again to attack
O’Connor of Connaught who was now assisted by O'Mellaghlin of Meath. Though he
was initially successful they trapped his fleet at Athlone, so Murtagh had to
agree to terms in 1090. Murtagh and O'Mellaghlin gave hostages to Donal MacLoughlin to keep him out of
the war, and the Ui Neill naturally
saw this as submission, and hence the claim that Donal was the true high king
from 1090 onwards. With Donal MacLoughlin (1083-1121), son of Ardgar, the
internal struggles of the Cenel Eogain
were settled for the time being, and they again became a power in the land.
In 1092 there came a
change in his fortunes when the O'Connors and the O'Flahertys (Ui Briuin
Seola) in Connaught
quarrelled, Rory O'Connor being blinded by O'Flaherty. At this particular point
the long dominance of the Sil Muiredaig
(O'Connor) was being challenged by the revived Ui Briuin Seola
(O'Flaherty) and Ui Briuin Breifne
(O'Rourke). Internal quarrelling produces external weakness. Murtagh expelled
the O'Connors from Connaught,
gave their lands to another family, and appointed one of the latter chief of Connaught.
This family had no claim to the chieftainship and was ignored by the scribes.
Donal O’Mellaghlin, nephew of Conor, then submitted, but Donal MacLoughlin
prepared to assert his rights. In 1093 he gathered his own forces, those of the
Cenel Conaill and the Ulaid, and those of Donal O’Mellaghlin,
and, as chief of Tara,
invaded Munster
where he defeated Murtagh. The alliance then fell apart and MacLoughlin
retreated. Donal O'Mellaghlin was killed in a minor skirmish in 1094, so
Murtagh partitioned Meath and installed two cousins, Donnchad and Conor
O'Mellaghlin as half chiefs. With this the O'Mellaghlins fell into internecine
struggles from which the family never recovered, and was quickly brushed aside
by the Normans
eighty years later. He took over much of south Connaught,
the lands of the Ui Fiachrach and Ui Maine, and installed an O'Rourke of
the Ui Briuin Breifne as vassal chief
in the remainder. By 1096 O'Brien was totally dominant in Munster, Leinster,
Connaught, and
Meath. He was to spend the next twenty years trying to conquer Donal
MacLoughlin. Finally in 1101, with his Leinster
allies attacking up the east coast, he invaded Ulster from
the west with his Norse fleet following along the coast. He destroyed the
fortress of Aileach that was probably deserted at this time.
[Top]
The Provinces
This century in Ulster was
one of very mixed fortunes for the Cenel
Eogain. The problem was the ancient one, which was never to be solved, and
that was that the leadership of the warband went to the person who was most
successful in battle or was likely to be. There was a constant struggle for the
chieftainship between two branches of the Ui
Neill, the O’Neills and MacLoughlins. But the genealogists are very
confused regarding the origin of the MacLoughlins. Burke's Peerage makes Lochlann the son of Muiredach the son of Donal Ardmacha though an alternative version
derives his ancestry from Donal the elder brother of Niall Glundubh. In the first version Lochlann was a first cousin of
Flaibeartach an Trostain who opposed Brian Boru. The struggles between the two
branches weakened the Cenel Eogain
and by the time Brian O’Neill eliminated the MacLoughlins in 1241 the chances
of either branch controlling the whole of Ireland had
disappeared. On the other hand, within Ulster the
great expansion of the O’Neills and their sub-clans was now in full flow, and
by the end of the Middle Ages they controlled about
two thirds of Ulster.
About this time the O’Neills, under
Flaibeartach an Trostain moved their main seat from
Aileach to Tullaghogue which is just west of Lough Neagh. The descendants of
Conaing, a younger son of Niall Glundubh
were local chiefs of Tullaghogue until 1068 after which the chieftainship
passed to the descendants of Muirchertach the older son of Niall Glundubh. We can presume that
Flaibeartach's family had physical possession of the lands long before the
other side surrendered their claim. A fort was also built at Dungannon. The
original homeland of the Cenel Eogain,
Inis Owen was conquered by a branch of the Cenel
Conaill, the O’Dohertys. Though unable to resist Brian Boru Flaibeartach strove to assert
authority over Cenel Conaill and the Ulaid. Mael Sechlainn of Clan Colmain tried ineffectively to
prevent this domination, which however was not achieved. Flaibeartach took no
part at Clontarf but supported the restoration of Mael Sechlainn afterwards. In
1030 he resigned the throne to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and
was succeeded as chief by his son Aed 1030-33. Aed died before his father who
then resumed the chieftainship till his death in 1036.
He was followed in succession by
Aed's son Donal an tOgdamh (the young
ox) slain by Ardgar MacLoughlin, Donal's son Flaibeartach, slain likewise by
the MacLoughlins, then his son Concobar na
Fiodhbhuidhi (of the woods) killed likewise, his son Tadgh Glinne slain likewise. His son
Muirchertach was 'undeservedly slain' in 1160 by Lochlann MacLoughlin after
beating him in battle (Burke). The fortunes of the O’Neill branch did not
revive until 1176. In the meantime they were local chiefs at Tullaghogue after
1068, the MacLoughlins being chiefs of the now deserted Aileach.
In 1036 after the death of
Flaibeartach an Trostain the chieftainship of Cenel Eogain passed to a collateral
branch of the Ui Neill descended from
Donal, the elder brother of Niall Glundub.
(Some genealogists attach the MacLoughlins to this branch.) This family held
the chieftainship of the Ui Neill
until 1241 (or at least 1196 Burke’s Peerage,). With the revival of the fortunes of the
descendants of Niall Glundub under
Aed Meth O'Neill in 1176, the dispute
was continued until 1241 when the MacLoughlin claimants were all eliminated in
a single battle.) If we accept that Ardgal MacLoughlin was of this branch These
chiefs were Niall son of Mael Sechnaill 1036-61, and three grandsons of Mael
Sechnaill, Donal 1067-8, Aed 1068-83, Donnchadh 1083, and possibly Ardgar
MacLoughlin 1061-64. (This particular Mael Sechnaill of the Northern
Ui
Neill is known only to the
genealogists. This minor branch was not called O’Neill, that name being
reserved to the descendants of Niall Glundubh;
Moody, Martin, Byrne p 128). These four nominal chiefs were constantly at war
with the descendants of Flaibeartach an Trostain and
the Cenel Eogain was seriously
weakened until 1083. Donal MacLoughlin, the son of Ardgar then became chief,
and the family held the chieftainship until at least 1176. Donal, as we have
seen, allied himself with the Ulaid
and Donal O’Mellaghlin and defeated Murtagh O’Brien in 1094 but the alliance
did not last. MacLoughlin then concentrated on conquering Ulster.
The great expansion of the O’Neills
(of the Cenel Mhic Earca branch of
the Cenel Eogain, Chap. 5 above) was
marked in 1076 when Aed Ua Mael Sechlainn (1068-83) in conjunction with Clan Conor of Magh Ithe crushed the Cianacht of Glengiven at Belat east of
the River Foyle (Mullin and Mullan). Clan
Conor was expanding aggressively and they seem to have been the principal
beneficiaries of the victory, because the region around Dungiven was to become
the centre of the O’Cahans as Clan Connor
became. No doubt however the overchiefs took their share. The trouble with
entries in the Annals is that they do not indicate precisely the time when the
land of a tuath was expropriated and
divided among the victors. Much of the expansion of Clan Connor was at the expense of another family derived from Niall
Naoigiallach, Clan Binny. Clan Binny
themselves were pressing on the O’Neills at Tullaghogue. The Ui Tuirtre were
being pushed across the Bann into Antrim, from which they were later to be
dislodged by the O’Neills of Clandeboy. Cenel
Moen was expanding southwards towards Lough Erne, and became known as the
O’Gormleys. Over the next few centuries
the area between the Bann/Lough Neagh/Blackwater to the east, and the
Foyle/Shrule valleys to the west became occupied by the descendants of the sons
of Eogan. All lands west of the Foyle/Shrule gradually came under the
descendants of Conall, and this included lands like Magh Ithe and Inishowen
which originally belonged to the Cenel Eogain.
This latter corresponds roughly to the present counties of Tyrone and Londonderry.
By the end of the Middle Ages the O’Neills had
extended their land as far as southern parts of Armagh,
Orior becoming compressed. The original
tuatha were not abolished, their chiefs simply becoming ur-ri (subordinate chief or urragh)
sub-chiefs of the O’Neills or other war lords. Many probably exist to this day
as baronies or even civil parishes. The lands of the Cenel Conaill correspond roughly to present day Donegal. Probably
about nine tenths of the land was mountain, bog, forest, or waste. Many of the
original inhabitants of the region before its conquest by the Cenel Eogain would have been still there
as artisans or cultivators of the soil
Further expansion out of this area
proved difficult though it continued until the end of the Middle
Ages. The Ulaid remained strong,
while to the south the Oirgialla came
under the domination of one powerful family of O’Carrolls (later McMahons) who
formed the chiefdom of Oriel, and the Maguires formed another powerful chiefdom
on Lough Erne. It is interesting to note that the diocesan boundaries drawn in
the next century still award Magh Ithe and Inishowen to Derry,
while not including the lands in east Tyrone around Tullaghogue and Dungannon
which were clearly occupied at the time by the O’Neills and Cenel Eogain. Nowadays Clogher, the
centre of Clogher diocese is now in Tyrone indicating that that part of Ulster was
conquered by the O’Neills after the 12th century. It was captured by the Cenel Ferady (McCawells), but in the
sixteenth century the O’Neills had lands there. Nevertheless according to the Annals of Ulster it was Donal
MacLoughlin accompanied by Clan Conor
of Magh Ithe who defeated the Fir Monach
in the neighbourhood of Clogher in 1080. By the next century Clogher cathedral
was in O’Carroll hands.
It would seem too that throughout
the Middle Ages that the O’Neills of the Cenel
Mhic Earca after they lost their ancestral lands west of the Foyle never gained a compact territory of their own.
Rather the leading sub-families of the O’Neills seized patches of fertile land,
which would be called manors elsewhere to support themselves. So the O’Neills
of Tullaghogue were in the middle of the lands of the Cenel Fergus, (O’Mellans, O’Hagans, and O’Quinns.)
The troubles among the O’Neills were
good news for the other military ruling families in Ulster. Cenel Conaill (O’Donnells after 1200)
established themselves powerfully in Donegal. The Ulaid too under the O’Donlevys became similarly established in
Antrim and Down. Nonetheless, by the end of the
century, Donal MacLoughlin had conquered them both and had forced them to give
tribute and hostages various times. But it was a precarious domination, for as
usual, they were able to get assistance from other parts of Ireland. The Oirgialla too were now being
consolidated into a powerful force in the south of the province. In 1075
Turlough O'Brien marched north to attack the Oirgialla and the Ulaid.
This gradual concentration of power, meant that there
were four chiefdoms in Ulster
who controlled the entire province, Cenel
Conaill, Cenel Eogain, Ulaid, and Oirgialla. The small local
tuatha had ceased to count.
In Meath Clan Colmain was in
decline, and this decline proved permanent. They were still strong, but
increasingly had to rely on allies for assistance. There was no apparent reason
why they should not have pulled themselves out of the decline. They could have
revived at any time up to 1175. Conor O’Mellaghlin (1030 to 1073) heavily defeated
Dermot mac Mael na mBo in 1072. (He was a grandson of Mael
Sechlainn, his father Donal being abbot of Clonard. All future chiefs of Clan Colmain came from the O'Mellaghlin
family. The Ui Briuin Breifne
(O’Rourkes of Breifne) were beginning their drive into Meath and attacked
conquered the Gailenga. Aed O’Rourke
imposed Cennetig O’Brien on the tuath as its chief (O’Corrain 139). The chiefs
of Brega and Lagore, the descendants of Sil
nAedo Slaine, had ceased to
count, and their lands were partitioned by outsiders, until granted by Henry II
to Hugh de Lacy, who subinfeuded them to his supporters. There were still some
unsubdued tuatha of the Luigne, Galenga, and Conmaicne,
who were to attract the attention of the Ui
Briuin Breifne who were stepping into the void
left by the collapse of Clan Colmain.
The Norse town of Dublin
under the half-Danish half-Irish Sihtric Silkbeard
(d.1042) had reached the peak of its power, and thereafter declined. Under him
it had become Christian. Nevertheless, it grew in importance. It claimed to be
a bishopric and the first Christ
Church
cathedral was built by Sihtric. He apparently also made a pilgrimage to
Rome, as such pilgrimages were
coming into fashion even in Ireland. The
first bishop was Dunan, apparently an Irishman, or Donatus who died in 1074
having apparently become bishop around 1028, and was consecrated in England while
Canute was king. (A note on the diocese of Dublin in Moody, Martin, Byrne p.
311) considers it the first of the modern dioceses in the
Irish Church.) A
church dedicated to the Holy Trinity, by later called
Christ Church was
built in the centre of the little Norse town His three successors were
apparently Benedictine monks. It was conquered by the Ui Chennselaig rulers of Leinster
who treated it as their fief. The town was captured by Dermot mac Mael na mBo in 1052 and his family claimed to
be over-chiefs of Dublin
until the arrival of the Normans,
though the O’Briens tried on occasion to snatch the chieftaincy. The O’Connors
of Connaught also tried once. The Hiberno-Norse chiefs never gave up their own
claims. A Norse chief was in place in 1162 when Dermot MacMurrough seized it
back, and became the last chief of Dublin.
Dublin had
become an important prize but more perhaps for its fleet than its trade. It
began to mint coins, the first in Ireland
The twelfth-century Books of Rights considered that there
were then only seven independent rulers (ruiri)
in Leinster. Of
these, only the Ui Dunlainge and the Ui Chennselaig were in a position to
contend for the status of ri ruirech or provincial chief. The
century for Leinster
began badly for Brian Boru finally
smashed through its defences and reduced it to the status of a tributary. Their
respite on the death of Brian was short-lived, for the chief of Ossory
immediately tried to establish his overlordship. Donough O’Brien successfully
renewed his claim for tribute in 1026, but because of troubles at home was
unable to exact it often. In 1037, Donnchad Mac Gilla Patraic, the chief of
Ossory with the assistance of the Eoganacht
of Cashel assumed the chieftaincy of Leinster,
and carried on the ancient war against Brega in Meath. He died in 1039 and the
chieftainship reverted to the Ui
Dunlainge in the person of Murchad mac Dunlainge. Donnchad's son Gilla Patraic who at first shared the chieftaincy with his uncle
Muirchertach mac Gilla Patraic, supported the obscure chief of the Ui Chennselaig whose family had not
held the chieftaincy since 605. The Eoganacht again supported him. The obscure
chief was called Dermot (Diarmait) mac Mael na mBo, son of Donnchad Mael na
mBo. The chieftaincy remained in the family and Dermot's most famous
successor was Dermot MacMurrough a century later. Donough O’Brien, in order to
oppose the Eoganacht influence, tried
unsuccessfully to support the Ui
Dunlainge and earned Dermot's undying hostility. O’Brien then became
immersed in his troubles at home, and Dermot proved to be one of the most
successful warriors of his time. He assumed the chieftaincy of Leinster,
and also of Dublin.
From 1058 until his death in 1072 he was the most powerful chief in the south
of Ireland.
Not only did he rule Leinster
but also Dublinshire, and its dependency the Isle of Man. In 1051, Harold
Godwinson, later killed at Hastings
took refuge with Dermot. When he was killed unexpectedly in 1072 the now
successful Turlough O’Brien quickly moved in to take booty and hostages, taking
advantage of a family dispute among the Ui
Chennselaig. The fortunes of Leinster
did not revive until the following century. Ossory reached the pinnacle of its
power in this century. Up to this date it had occupied a defensible region
among the woods, mountains and bogs between Munster and Leinster.
Now, when conditions were favourable to them they tried to conquer Leinster,
but with only fleeting success. They retired to their fastnesses and remained
secure until the end of the Middle Ages.
In Munster
the O’Briens were dominant but never secured over-all control for long. Though
they had routed their old adversaries the Eoganacht
of Cashel, the latter were not easily dislodged and were always ready to
make trouble. They were now re-building their power around Killarney that had
been formerly under the Eoganacht of Loca Lein. They were no match for the
O’Briens in this century when the O’Briens were able to bring their full power
against them, but by the next century they were again their equals. Though
several mesne chiefs remained only the O’Briens and MacCarthys were in a
position to contend for the position of provincial chief. As in the other
provinces the position of overchief was elective, and the office was separate
from that of the chief who held it. So if an overchief of Cashel, a MacCarthy, was not elected provincial chief he still
remained overchief of his own family. Similarly with the
O’Briens. Provincial chiefs from the other provinces backed one side or
the other as it suited them. It was the dispute between the two families that
finally admitted the Normans.
Munster
was the permanent underachiever, though Brian Boru had forced his family up into the front rank. The Norse of
Limerick were firmly under O’Brien control and it
became their capital, but the Norse of Cork still remained independent, though
subject to whoever was overlord of Munster. The Ui Fidgente of Limerick
had broken up into rival factions and were no longer a
power. In Kerry the Ciaraige remained
independent, subject to the overlord of Cashel. The O’Driscolls in the diocese
of Ross were in a similar position.
In Connaught
the O’Connor family was coming to the fore. Cathal O’Connor of the Sil Muiredaig
branch of the Ui Briuin Ai who died
in 1010 became overchief of Connaught
in 980. He was the son of Conchobar (Connor) from whom the medieval family took
its name. He is chiefly famous for building a bridge or ford over the Shannon.
But this was in itself symbolic of the growing development of Ireland.
Though at war with Brian Boru on more
than one occasion he was no match for him and gave hostages, and was also
forced to march with Munster.
Connaught then
descended into internecine combat between the three branches of the Ui Briuin, the O’Flahertys (Ui Briuin Seola), the O’Rourkes (Ui Briuin Breifne), and the O’Connors (Ui Briuin Ai). These were the only
families in contention for the provincial chiefship. The Ui Fiachrach were no longer contenders.
The struggle was mainly between the O’Connors and O’Rourkes. The chieftainship
passed from one family to the other on various occasions.
Aed O’Connor blinded an O’Flaherty chief in
1051 to eliminate him from the struggle. Aed was able to attack the O’Briens
and sack their rath at Kincora when they were in difficulties with Dermot mac
Mael na mBo in 1061. In 1063 Ardgar mac
Lochlainn of the Cenel Eogain invaded
Connaught and
exacted the submission of Aed. The Ui Briuin
were not all-powerful. The Ui Maine (O’Kelly) were still strong and also the Conmaicne. Connaught
had been more than any other province a patchwork of tiny tuatha tucked away on fertile patches among the mountains and bogs.
Though the region was able to support an immense population after the
introduction of the potato from the high wet Andes,
there was no such support at this time. Oats would have been the only grain
crop, and the sheep and cattle would have to survive on the heathery moors and
bogs. The tribute exacted from them would have been largely services in battle.
Aed was slain by Art O’Rourke who became overchief in 1067. By this time the
power of the O’Briens had revived and Turlough O’Brien restored their
domination in Connaught.
His son, Murtagh O’Brien, had also to enforce his authority in Connaught,
and his opportunity came in 1092 when Flaibeartach O’Flaherty blinded Rory
O’Connor. Murtagh expelled the Sil
Muiredaig who took refuge among the Cenel
Eogain and installed a puppet chief, granting to him the Sil Muiredaig lands. This, it should be
noted was almost a century before the Angevin king, Henry II, was to do the
same with conquered lands.
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The Church
This century saw the adoption of
Christianity by the Norse settlers. This was in line with what was happening
all over northern Europe.
The Norse of Dublin did not feel that they were part of the
Irish Church and
were more inclined to submit to Canterbury.
Another phenomenon was the
development of pilgrimages that were to be one of the great factors in medieval
Europe.
Rome, where
the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul were supposed to be found, and
Compostella in Spain
where the tomb of the apostle Saint James was supposed to lie, were the great centres. It is difficult to estimate how many
actually made these pilgrimages for nobody kept records. Only when a very
important person went on pilgrimage was it noted in the annals. Among these
were Flaibeartach an Trostain (of the pilgrim's staff) of
the O’Neill family and Sihtric Silkbeard
the Norse chief of Dublin.
The first stirrings of the wave of
reform that was spreading over western Europe reached Ireland and
Pope Gregory VII wrote to Turlough O’Brien asking him to take up the matter.
Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury
also urged reform. Among the abuses cited was that bishops were consecrated who
had no proper diocese, simony or the paying with money for ecclesiastical
offices, and abuses in marriage (Corish 31). The rooting out of simony and the
establishment of clerical celibacy were the two great targets of the reformers.
But there is no need to suppose that Ireland was
worse than the rest of Europe
in these respects.
An important ecclesiastical figure
in the century was Conn
na mBocht Conn of the
poor (d.1059), who seems to have been a lay abbot of Clonmacnoise and also a
Culdee. It seems that care of the sick was undertaken by the Culdees before
this on an individual basis. It would appear that he established a refuge for
poor people and a hospital for the sick at Clonmacnoise, this latter being the
first in Ireland.
The endowment of land for the poorhouse and hospital apparently consisted of a
grant of land from the chief of Clan
Colmain. The chiefs of Clann Colmain
retain the right to be fed when they, with their followers, visited the
hospital, It was however considered a breach of the
gift when in 1072, Murchad O’Mellaghlin, son of Conor O’Mellaghlin, came with
his followers to the poorhouse and forcibly took food. (Murchad became chief
the following year but was soon deposed. Clann
Colmain later sold the land to the monastery, an interesting example of how
ideas on the ownership of land was changing.
Conn had
five sons some of whom succeeded him as abbot. Clonmacnoise itself seems to
have been reasonably flourishing, and the cathedral was restored towards the
end of the century.
Another important figure was Flann Mainistreach of Monasterboice (d.1056)
who was noted as an historian and man of learning. Though connected with the
monastery it is not clear in what sense he was a monk. He had two sons one of
who became the erenagh of the monastery. He wrote chiefly on the activities of
the Ui Neill. It would appear that
this monastery too was reasonably flourishing, though that does not mean that
there were any strict monks in it.
Donat
O’Haingli was recommended to Turlough O’Brien by Lanfranc as bishop of
Dublin, was
consecrated in Canterbury
and promised obedience to Lanfranc. The first Irish bishop to seek consecration
by the archbishop of Canterbury
was Donat's predecessor Patrick in 1073. The object of this seems to have been
to place Dublin
under Canterbury
and benefit from the reforms Lanfranc was introducing. The people of
Dublin no
doubt felt more akin to the Vikings on the opposite British shore. A more
obvious place to seek consecration would have been from the Viking archdiocese
of York
with which the rulers of Dublin
had such close connections, but Lanfranc at this stage had enforced the
subjection of York
to Canterbury.
The initiative may have come from Turlough O’Brien who would have no particular
reason to support the claims of Armagh,
still less of Cashel. Donat O’Haingli died in 1095 during a great plague that
was said by the Four Masters to have killed a quarter of the people of Ireland
The
most significant bishop was however Samuel O’Haingli He was a nephew of Dunan
or Donat O’Haingli, He was from Roscommon, but became a Benedictine monk in Saint
Albans outside London.
Anselm seems to have recommended him to Murtagh O’Brien who had him elected
bishop of Dublin
in 1096. He was one of the first reforming bishops in Ireland, but
most of his work belongs to the next century. Another Benedictine bishop
consecrated by an archbishop of Canterbury
was Malchus (Mael Isu O’hAinmire), bishop of Waterford, also
consecrated by Anselm in 1096. He had been a monk of Winchester.
Murtagh O’Brien also chose a reforming cleric of Meath to be bishop of
Killaloe, O’Brien’s own diocese.
On the whole churchmen were not very
prominent in this century.
Art
Metalwork, though not much of it
survived was still of a high quality. There was a strong Viking influence that
doubtless came through Dublin.
The chief masterpieces of this style belong to the next century. The shrine
enclosing St Patrick's Bell
may be as early as 1095.
Though the Dark Ages may be said to
have ended elsewhere in Europe
around the year 1000 it is almost another century before we see signs of
revival in Ireland.
The eleventh century was not distinguished by achievements in any of the arts.
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