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Some notes on the history of the Book of Kells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Aubrey Gwynn
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Extract

The current number of the Friends of the Library of Trinity College contains matter that is of interest to all who have seen or who hope to see the Book of Kells. Mr R. O. Dougan, who has recently been appointed deputy librarian, gives an account of the methods used by the English experts who have recently rebound the book in four parts. The decision to break so famous a book into four separate parts, corresponding with the four Gospels, was undoubtedly drastic, and has come as a shock to many lovers of ancient manuscripts. But Mr Dougan explains here at length the reasons which have compelled the College authorities to take this step; and his account of the methods used by Mr Roger Powell in the process of restoration and rebinding is impressive as a witness to the care which has been taken to safeguard this national treasure for future generations. Tourists who visit the library will perhaps be disappointed : for the old custom of constantly exhibiting some of the finer pages will be discontinued. Each page of each volume will now be exhibited in turn, and the great illuminated pages will be less frequently exposed to the tourist's gaze. On the other hand, this means that no more than a fourth part of the book will be in the exhibition case at any one time; and serious students will always have an opportunity of examining all four parts at their leisure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 34 , September 1954 , pp. 131 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1954

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References

1 Friends of the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, Annual Bulletin, 1953.

2 The Bulletin gives a facsimile of part of the Latin verses on f. 229V; and of the entry made by Richard White.

3 This word is not included in the Medieval Latin word-list, edited by Baxter, J. H. and Johnson, C. (Oxford, 1934).Google Scholar According to the O.E.D., the English word ‘harbinger’ was used in the late middle ages for a purveyor of lodgings for troops.

4 These charters have been printed by O'Donovan, John in the Miscellany Irish Arch. Soc. (Dublin, 1846), pp. 127–58 Google Scholar; see also Kenney, , Sources, i. 753–6.Google Scholar Facsimiles of some of the charters were published by Gilbert, , Facs. nat. MSS Ire., ii, plates LIX, LX and LXI.Google Scholar

5 SirWare, James, De Hibernia et antiquitatibus ejus (London, 1658), p. 194.Google Scholar See also the tabulated list by Harris, Walter, based on Ware's lists, in Works of Sir James Ware, ii (1745), 271–2.Google Scholar

6 Alemand, Louis, Histoire monastique d'Irlande (Paris, 1690), pp. 127, 140.Google Scholar See also the English translation of this work by Stevens, John, Monasticon Hibernicum (London, 1722), pp. 131–2, 146.Google Scholar

7 Archdall, Mervyn, Monasticon Hibernicum (Dublin, 1786), pp. 548, 551-4.Google Scholar

8 McNeill, C., Registrum de Kilmainham (Ir. MSS Comm., 1932), p. 166.Google Scholar

9 Cogan, A., Diocese of Meath, i (1874). 203–5.Google Scholar

10 Printed by McNeill, C. in Anal. Hib., viii (1938).Google Scholar

11 Charter IV (fol. 7); Gilbert, plate LX. These charters are not copied in chronological order.

12 Charter II (fol. 6v); Gilbert, plate LIX.

13 Printed by O'Curry, , Irish MS materials (Dublin, 1861), p. 599 Google Scholar; see also Lawlor, H. J., ‘The Cathach of St Columba', in R.I.A Proc, xxxiii (1916).Google Scholar

14 Charter VII (fol. 27); Gilbert, plate LXI. The name of the comarba is partially illegible.

15 Charter V (fol. 7); Gilbert, plate LX.

16 Reeves, , The Life of St Columba by Adamnan (Edinburgh, 1857), p. 404.Google Scholar

17 Annals of Ulster, a. 1174.

18 Charter I (fol. 27); Gilbert, p. xliv. note.

19 Annals of Tigernach, a. 1140; Annals of the Four Masters, a. 1140.

20 This list was first noted by E. J. Gwynn, who made a transcript for the use of H. J. Lawlor, who published it in his paper : ‘A fresh authority for the Synod of Kells', in R.I.A. Proc, xxvi (1922). 18. Lawlor thought that this Montpellier MS came from Clairvaux, but M. Vernet of the Ecole des Chartes has kindly informed me in a recent letter that he has identified this MS as one of a small group of books which came to Montpellier from the former abbey of Pontigny at the time of the French revolution.

21 See my paper on ‘ The centenary of the synod of Kells', in I.E.R., Mar.-Apr. 1952, pp. 166-7.

22 Gesta Henrici II, ed. Stubbs, (Rolls Series, 1867), i. 26.Google Scholar

23 Annals of Loch Cé, a. 1211.

24 See the acts of a synod held at Trim by Bishop Rochfort in 1216 : printed by Wilkins, , Concilia, i. 547.Google Scholar

25 Charter VI (fol. 27); Gilbert, plate LXI.

26 Flaithbertach is not named as comarba Coluimcille before 1150; and the Four Masters give the obit of Maol Iosa Ua Branain as airchinnech Doiri in that year. It seems that the translation of Gilla Mac Liag from Derry to Armagh in 1137 was followed by some twelve years of more or less secularised government by an airchinnech, who was not given full recognition as comarba Coluimcille.

27 Annals of Ulster, a. 1158; A.F.M., a. 1158.

28 These two charters have been preserved in an inspeximus of 14 Richard II, and have been wrongly printed by Dugdale (Monastkon Anglicanum, ed. 1830), vi, pt 2, p. 1143, as belonging to the priory of Kells, co. Kilkenny.

29 Dunning, P. J., ‘The Arroasian order in medieval Ireland', in I.H.S., iv (1945). 297–315.Google Scholar

30 Brady, J., ‘The archdeacons of Meath', in I.E.R., Feb. 1945, p. 90.Google Scholar

31 Cal. pat. rolls, 1343-5, P. 537. Brady, Father has also published a paper on ‘The archdeacons of Kells', in I.E.R., Apr. 1947, pp. 314–24.Google Scholar

32 Statute rolls of the parliament of Ireland, Edward IV, pt I, ecL H. F. Berry (1914), PP. 645-9.

33 Ibid., pp. 743-7.

34 Ibid., pt II, ed. J. F. Morrissey (1939), PP. 819-21.

35 The Ui Loeghaire had claimed the right of one night's coinnmed (billeting) every quarter of a year from the church of Ardbraccan. A similar claim may have been made by the king's ‘harbinger’ at Kells in the fifteenth century.

36 Brady, J. in I.E.R., Feb. 1945, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

37 Cal. papal letters, x. 379.

38 Ibid., xii. 465-66.

39 Cat. papal letters, xii. 465-66.

40 Octavian's Register (Public Library, Armagh), fol. 165.

41 Cal. papal letters, ix. 435.

42 Ibid., p. 458.

43 Ibid., xii. 430.

44 Costello, , De annatis Hiberniae (Dundalk, 1912), p. 257.Google Scholar

45 Ronan, M. V., The reformation in Dublin, 1536-58. (London, 1926), pp. 112–9.Google Scholar It may be noted that there is no mention of the Book of Kells in the official ‘Extent’ made on 3 October 1540, which includes at the end of the report ‘ the superfluous buildings and two bells ‘ ( Extents of Irish monastic possessions, 1540-41, ed. White, N. B., Dublin, Ir. MSS Comm., 1943, pp. 262–4 Google Scholar).

46 Ussher, , Britannicarum ecclesiarum antiquitates (Dublin, 1639), ch. xvi Google Scholar; also in Elrington's edition of The works of Archbishop Ussher, vi (1864). 232.

47 Gordon, Alexander in D.N.B., 1viii (1899). 68.Google Scholar

48 Gordon, , loc. cit.; but he did not notice this entry as proof that Ussher was consecrated after 24 August 1621.Google Scholar

49 The full text of this ‘ Certificate ‘ has been printed by Elrington, op. cit., i (1847), appendix v.

50 The transcript of these charters is now in T.C.D. MS E. 3. 8, ff. 91-93 (according to an imperfect pagination).

51 Alton, E. H., in his introduction to the recent facsimile edition, vol. iii (1951), p. 17.Google Scholar

52 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1574-85, p. 502. I note here that Professor Arnould has been led astray by a blunder of Walter Harris, who lists ‘ Sir Gerald Plunket’ as grantee of the lands of St Mary's Abbey, Kells, , in Works of Sir James Ware, ii (1745), p. 264.Google Scholar Professor Arnould (p. 9) cites this inaccurately as follows : ‘He (Gerald) must have been the ‘ Sir Richard Plunket’ mentioned by Ware as, in his time, the last grantee of Kells ‘. Ware does not name any grantee of St Mary's Abbey, Kells, in his ‘ Monasteriologia Hibernica ‘ : De Hibernia et antiquitatibus ejus (1654), p. 166. The list printed by Harris gives’ Sir Gerald Plunket’ as the (first) grantee of Kells; but this is an obvious blunder. The con-temporary records make it plain that Sir Gerald Fleming (not Plunket) was grantee of Kells, : Archdall, , op. cit., pp. 546–7.Google Scholar Gerald Plunket, grantee of Kells, never existed.

53 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598-9, p. 13.

54 Printed by SirSullivan, Edward, The Book of Kells (ed. 3, 1927), p. 6.Google Scholar There are other short entries by G.P.

55 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1603-6, pp. 172-5.

56 Ussher's ‘Certificate', apud Elrington, loc. cit., p. xci.

57 Loc. cit., p. xcii.

58 Dr Alton's Introduction, p. 17.

59 I am much obliged to Mr William O'Sullivan, who is now assistant in charge of the manuscripts in the College Library, for help in distin guishing between these various early catalogues.

60 There is a photostat of this manuscript in Trinity College Library Another manuscript catalogue of the ‘Bibliotheca Usseriana’ is now in the British Museum as Harl. MS 694.

61 Some years before his death the late Dr J. G. Smyly compiled a complete list of the manuscripts in the College Library which show this type of shelf-mark.

62 See the account in D.N.B., loc. cit.; and also Lawlor, H. J., ’ Primate Ussher's library before 1641 ‘, in R.I.A. Proc, series 3, vol. vi (1900). 262–3.Google Scholar

63 Register I, p. 120: see also Mahaffy, J. P., An epoch in Irish history (1901), p. 238.Google Scholar

64 For the history of the Jesuit College in Back Lane, see a paper by DrLittle, George, ‘ The Jesuit university of Dublin ‘, in Dublin Hist. Rec, xiii (1952). 34–47.Google Scholar

65 Cotton, , Fasti ecclesiae Hihernicae, iii (1849). 128.Google Scholar There is some very useful information about the diocese of Meath in these years in DrSimington's, Robert C. introduction to his edition of The Civil Survey: Meath (Ir. MSS Comm., 1940), pp. xii–xxxi.Google Scholar

66 Cotton, loc. cit. There is no record known to me of Arthur Ware's death or translation to another benefice; but the benefice was held to be vacant in December 1654: see below, note 69.

67 A contemporary history of affairs in Ireland, ed. Gilbert, J. T., i, pt 2 (1879), pp. 477, 534-5, 720, 726-7.Google Scholar

68 Harris, Walter, Works of Sir James Ware, i (1739). 158.Google Scholar

69 Cotton, , Fasti, iii. 129 Google Scholar; Harris, , op. cit., i. 394.Google Scholar But Ambrose Jones had already been presented to ‘ the living or benefice commonly called the parsonage of Kells in Meath ‘ by Oliver Cromwell in December 1654 : St.Seymour, John D., The puritans in Ireland, 1647-1661 (Oxford, 1921), p. 43.Google Scholar

70 Printed by DrMcNeill, Charles in Anal. Hib., viii (1938). 426 Google Scholar; I have modernised the spelling and punctuation. The original maps of the Down Survey for East Meath, with the descriptive texts cited by Dr McNeill, are now in the National Library (MS 723). I am very much indebted to Professor R. Dudley Edwards for calling my attention to this document, which had been overlooked by all recent students of this problem.

71 It will be noticed that the book is here described as ‘a large parchment manuscript in Irish ‘; but the identification is made certain by the statement that it was ‘ written as they say by Columbkill's own hand ‘. The confusion between Latin and Irish is not surprising in an account written by a man (Samuel O Neale) who admits that he is unable to read the script.

72 Dunlop, R., Ireland under the commonwealth (Manchester, 1913) i. 263–8 Google Scholar; Firth, C. H. in D.N.B., xix (1889), p. 262.Google Scholar

73 The commission for the survey of 1655 was issued in January, and it is known that work began at once on the two important counties of Dublin and Meath : see W. H., Hardinge, ‘ On manuscript mapped and other townland surveys in Ireland ‘, in R.I.A. Trans., xxiv (1873). 56–57 Google Scholar; and SirPetty, William, History of the Down Survey, ed. Larcom, T. (1852), p. 43.Google Scholar Mr T. P. O'Neill of the staff of the National Library has given me valuable help in fixing these dates accurately.

74 The best account is by Ramsey, R. W., Henry Cromwell (1933).Google Scholar

75 Thurloe, , State Papers, ii. 162.Google Scholar

76 Mahaffy, , op. cit., p. 301, note 2Google Scholar; but Mahaffy wrongly interprets this entry as meaning 16 March 1653, and doubts its accuracy for no good reason.

77 Mahaffy, , op. cit., pp. 314–6 Google Scholar; Ramsey, , op. cit., pp. 184–7.Google Scholar

78 Harris, , op. cit., i. 160 Google Scholar; Mahaffy, , op. cit., p. 297, note 1.Google Scholar