being depressed both by an exemption which they claimed as belonging to their profession, and by the restraints which it imposed upon them. privileges sacrilege, Their ecclesiastical privileges appear to have been Ecclesiastical abused by them, and used as a shelter for dishonesty abused, and outrage in the ordinary transactions of life. Thus a clerk, being indicted in 1310 for secreting himself in the church of the Holy Trinity in Dublin in defence of by night, and breaking open a chest wherein were deposited the alms given for the relief of the Holy Land, and carrying away the greater part of the money; and also for breaking open a coffer, and taking books thereout; and at the same time despoiling the image of St. Catherine of part of its ornaments, appeared, and pleaded that he was a clerk, and could not answer'. The same plea was alleged in 1307 by the prior and of murder, of the canons regular of Newtown, who was accused of inhumanly murdering a canon of his house, by stabbing him with a knife, and of assisting his brother to kill another friar. The prior pleaded that as a clerk he was not obliged to answer. and outrage. Letters patent having been issued by the king in and of violence 1390, for inquiry into divers extortions and offences committed in the Cistertian Abbey of Dunbrody, the royal commissioner on his arrival was assaulted with force and violence by the abbot and six of his monks, aided by their associates, who seized and destroyed the king's letters, and secured the commissioner in the abbot's prison for sixteen days, and compelled him to swear that he would never prosecute any of the persons concerned in the transaction3. After the same manner the clergy deemed their 1 ARCHDALL'S Monasticon, p. 163. Clerical resist ance to a canon tical debtors. privileges infringed and violated, and were roused to expressions of deep indignation by a canon enacted in a provincial synod at Limerick in 1529; whereby against ecclesias- authority was given to the mayor of that city for imprisoning ecclesiastical debtors until they should make due satisfaction to their creditors, without danger to the magistrates of incurring the censure of excommunication. The inference from this professional tenacity of exemption from a civil penalty in such a case is not favourable to a character for integrity in those who maintained it'. Celibacy. Its introduction and effects. Meanwhile the consequences which have been commonly found to result from a forcible restraint imposed upon the innate and lawful appetites of human nature, did not fail to contaminate the purity of the Irish clergy. So late as the twelfth century, the celibacy of the ministers of religion was not required nor generally practised in the Church of Ireland. About that period it was encouraged, and matrimony earnestly discountenanced, by the same legate of the Roman See, who was the prime promoter of Papal authority in that kingdom. And it is not a little remarkable, that about fifty years afterwards, in 1185, Albin O'Mallory, abbot of Baltinglass, and subsequently bishop of Ferns, preaching on the subject of the continency of clergymen at the synod in Dublin, lamented how the probity and innocence of the Irish clergy had been of late vitiated. The cause of this indeed he referred to the evil examples of the clergy of England and Wales, against whom he bitterly inveighed, and showed how great had been the chastity of the Irish clergy before they had contracted con• WARE's Bishops, p. 482, dus Cambrensis. tagion from corrupt strangers. Giraldus Cambrensis, Report of Giralthe celebrated historian, archdeacon of St. David's, who was present at the sermon, took upon him to rebuke the preacher for his censure of the English clergy, confessing that the Irish clergy were commendable enough for their religion, and among other virtues, for their chastity; but he hinted that their long fasts were concluded with drunkenness, and that their virtue was something rather in appearance than in reality'. bishop Comyn. Thus, according to the testimony of Giraldus, Canon of Archthe character of the Irish clergy was open to other charges of irregularity: whilst, as to that of incontinence, to whatever cause it be attributed, the fact of its prevalence, and of the recent deterioration of their characters in that respect, is too sufficiently attested by the complaint of the preacher; corroborated as it is by a canon of John Comyn, archbishop of Dublin, made at this same synod, which "under the penalty of losing both benefice and office, forbids that any priest, deacon, or subdeacon, should keep any woman in his house either under the pretence of necessary service, or any other colour whatsoever; unless a mother, own sister, or such a person whose age shall remove all suspicion of any unlawful commerce"." An occurrence, which had taken place not long before, may serve still further to corroborate the allegation in the sermon, and to justify the prohibition of the archbishop; for of his immediate predecessor in the archiepiscopal sce it is related that so high was his esteem for chastity, and so determined was his opposition to the contrary vice in his clergy that on one occasion he sent to Rome for the purpose of procuring their absolution • Ib., г. 317. 5 WARE'S Bishops, p. 439. D forty clerks sent One hundred and from the Pope, one hundred and forty clerks, who had been convicted of incontinency'. to Rome for incontinency. Extensive pre valence of incontinency. Not deemed discreditable. It were needless, as it is revolting, to dwell on individual examples of this profligacy. Its extensive prevalence appears from such attestations as these. And it is a proof of the prevalence and the notoriety of the vice, that among the municipal regulations, enacted for the good order of the town of Galway, by the corporation, in the year 1520, such a law should be found on the books of records, as the following:-"That no priest, monk, nor canon, nor friar, shall have no we nor leman, in any man's house within the town, and that man which keepeth or hosteth the said w-e or leman, to forfeit twenty shillings." And again, in the year 1530, "enacted that any priest or vicar of the college, found with any fault or crime, to lose one hundred shillings, and his benefice and also if he or they keep any w—e, being with child, or bearing him children, to pay the above penalty"." The author, from whose work those extracts are cited, observes, that this is the only imputation which occurs, affecting the moral character of the town of Galway. Perhaps it should be regarded less as a local imputation than as an indication of the besetting sin of that class of men against whom the regulations are directed. The sin, indeed, appears to have been so lightly esteemed of, that of those who were taught to believe marriage unprofessional and dishonourable, and who had recourse instead to illegitimate concubinage, there were some who made, and seduced others to make, a glory of their shame. Such is the purport of an anecdote, related by Bishop Bale, who, a In further exemplification of which it may be noticed, that Ralph Kelley, who died archbishop of Cashel, in 1361, is recorded as the illegitimate son of a Carmelite friar, by the wife of a merchant named Kelley, of Drogheda. The authority is that of John de Bloxham, Vicar-General of that order in Ireland about the year 1325. And that, in 1444, Bishop M'Coughlan and James, the bishop's son, archdeacon of Clonmacnois, were slain in battle with another sept of their name". And in confirmation of the 9 Vocacyon of John Bale to the 10 WARE'S Bishops, p. 478, and Bishoprick of Ossory. Repub- his Writers of Ireland, pp. 85, lished in the Harleian Miscellany, 320. Bishops, p. 173. vol. vi. p. 412. |