THE CHURCH OF IRELAND. CHAPTER I. SUMMARY VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF IRELAND, FROM THE PAPAL USURPATION, IN THE TWELFTH CEN- SECTION I. Introduction. Polity and Independence of the Church. Occasion of the AN acquaintance with the history of the Reformed Introduction. Church of Ireland is necessary for completing an present work. acquaintance with the history of the British empire in general, as well as with that of Ireland in particular. It is also necessary for completing an acquaintance with the history of that National Church, of which the Irish Church forms an integral member, the United Church of England and Ireland. But an acquaintance with the history of the Reformed Church of Ireland is not readily attainable: for, whilst England and Scotland each possess its ecclesiastical histories, Ireland is destitute of similar channels of intelligence. Those, indeed, who are solicitous on the subject, and have the various sources of information at hand, may search it out, where it lies overwhelmed, as a secondary topick, among the records of the general history of the country; or B And the design of it. Primitive polity imperfectly blended with the biographies of eminent political or ecclesiastical characters: or mixed up with heaps of miscellaneous documents. But it is not easy thus to procure a copious, detailed, entire, and continuous view: and in all likelihood the consequence is, that the history of the Reformed Irish Church is known, with any considerable degree of accuracy and fulness, by a few only; and by the many is hardly known at all. The design of the present undertaking is to give a regular narrative of events in the Church of Ireland, and thus to supply a defect in the ecclesiastical history of the British empire, during the important period that intervened between the commencement of the Reformation, in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, and its final establishment by the abdication of King James the Second. Information on this subject may be found, as already intimated, dispersed over several quarters, but it requires to be collected, combined, and arranged: and although, after all, it be incomplete, from the failure of many valuable documents, still, perhaps, sufficient may be brought forward to engage and reward attention. The circumstances of my professional life naturally made me desirous of becoming possessed of this information; and that, which I in the first place endeavoured to procure and digest for my own satisfaction, I thought might be so increased and constructed as to be not unacceptable to others. But before we enter on the proposed narrative, it will be useful to take a brief survey of the condition of the Irish Church at the beginning of the proposed period, or rather during the three or four centuries that preceded it. The polity of the Church of Ireland, like that of Ireland. all national members of the Church Catholick, was of the Church of from the first episcopal, comprising the three orders of ministers: bishops, priests, and deacons. At the era of the Reformation, its episcopate consisted of four archbishops and twenty-six suffragan bishops. Each of the archbishops had metropolitan authority and jurisdiction in his own province; and the Archbishop of Armagh, being the Primate of all Ireland, possessed a visitatorial power over the other three provinces. The suffragan bishops had been in former times much more numerous. In the earliest ages, indeed, of the existence of the Irish Church, they are said to have exceeded three hundred: but many of these were situated in small villages or districts, and their number was soon reduced. In the year 1152, or about four centuries before the Reformation, in a national synod, they amounted to thirtyfour of whom ten were in the province of Armagh, five in that of Dublin, twelve of Cashel, and seven of Tuam. Of some of these the names were retained at the time of the Reformation, and indeed are still preserved; but of the greater number the names had at that period been changed into others of a simpler form and more easy pronunciation, or had been merged in the names of other contiguous bishopricks, with which the smaller and less important had been united'. the Irish Church. Until about the middle of the twelfth century Independence of the Church of Ireland maintained its character, as an independent national church, without acknowledging any pre-eminence, authority, or jurisdiction, of the See of Rome. The Archbishops of Armagh exercised a spiritual power throughout the country; History and Antiquities of Knight; edited by Walter Harris, Ireland, by Sir JAMES WARE, Esq. Dublin, 1764. Vol. ii. p. 285. bishops. and erected archbishopricks and bishopricks without consultation or communication with the Roman Appointment of Pontiff. For the supply of vacant bishopricks persons were elected by the clergy, or by the clergy and laity, of the diocese, recommending them to the king; or by the king's nomination or influence, concurring with the good will of the clergy and people: whereupon the bishop-elect was sent to the archbishop for consecration: to the Archbishops of Armagh for the most part, except in the case of those colonies of Ostmen from the north of Europe, who inhabited the cities of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick; and who, esteeming themselves countrymen of the Normans, now in possession of England and of its highest ecclesiastical dignities, sent their bishops to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But in every case these appointments and consecrations were altogether independent of the Papal See'. First interference of the Pope. Archiepiscopal palls solicited by lachy. The earliest interference of the Pope on such occasions in Ireland was in the twelfth century. The pallium, or pall, is an ensign of dignity, Archbishop Ma- which the Pope had taken upon himself to confer upon archbishops. But this ensign was never worn by an Irish archbishop until the year 1152'. Malachy O'Morgair had occupied the archiepiscopal see of Armagh by the joint suffrages of the clergy and people, and resigned it afterwards by his own volunYear of our Lord tary act in 1137, retiring to the suffragan bishoprick of Down. What was his motive to the step, which he took two years later, has not been distinctly 1137 2 Discourse on the Religion of the Ancient Irish. By Dr. JAMES USSHER, Archbishop of Armagh; edit. Dublin, 1815, chap. viii. 3 WARE'S History of the Irish Bishops, being vol. i. of his History and Antiquities, p. 55. stated; but it is most probably to be found in a desire to assimilate the usages and discipline of the Irish Church more nearly to those of Rome; especially by introducing among the clergy an obligation to celibacy, which was not required of them at the time in question, but was, at an early period after, most earnestly imposed upon them by Malachy in his new capacity, in which he soon made his appearance among them. However this be, the step, which he now took, was that of a journey to Rome, for the purpose of soliciting from the Pope two palls: one for the metropolitan see of Armagh, which, though possessed from the beginning of archiepiscopal dignity and authority, had never borne the archiepiscopal pall; the other, for the newly-constituted metropolitical church of Cashel, which was indebted for its creation to his almost immediate predecessor Celsus. Innocent the Second, who at that time filled the The Pope's courPapal chair, received Malachy very courteously, of Malachy. informed himself accurately by his means of the condition of the Irish Church, confirmed the establishment of the archbishoprick, invested him with the office of his legate in Ireland, an office recently instituted, and previously filled by only one occupant*, and dismissed him with tokens of singular respect and benevolence: but with regard to the palls, he acquainted him, that a matter of that consequence ought to be transacted with great solemnity, and by the common suffrages of a National Council, which the Pope advised him to call on his return into Ireland, with a promise that, upon their request, the palls should be granted. The Papal policy appears to have been to encourage the zeal of the voluntary agent, so as eventually to produce the desired teous reception |