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The interpretation of medieval Irish history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Michael Richter
Michael Richter*
Affiliation:
University College, Dublin
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Extract

Of course the past is dead. But it is kept alive by thinking and talking about it, and, above all, bv making it relevant to the present. The past is invoked variously, be it on a popular or on the academic level. In many areas, the popular view of the past is far removed from, and apparently uninfluenced by. the academic view, and, within limits, there is nothing wrong with that. Not every layman is expected to share the academic's understanding of the past. The matter becomes rather more serious when the reverse holds: that the view of the professional concurs with that of the lay people. If this is so, then indeed can it be said that those aspects of the past to which this applies are dead.

It is an axiom that each generation has to write history anew, partly, it seems, because understanding of the problems of the past becomes more refined, and partly because important aspects of the past may well appear in a different light to a new generation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 95 , May 1985 , pp. 289 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1985

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References

1 Lebendige Vergangenheit (Wien, 1974)Google Scholar.

2 Man könnte, in Anlehnung an Ranke, formulieren, daß uns nicht nur interessieren muß, wie die einzelnen Ereignisse geschehen sind, sondern auch wie sie jeweils gesehen wurden (ibid., p. viii).

3 Defined in ibid., pp 6 ff.

4 THE ENGLISH IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND: PROCH DINGS OF THE FIRST JOINT MEETING OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY AND THI BRITISH ACADEMY DUBLIN 1982. Edited by James Lydon. Pp viii, 168. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. 1984. IR£12.50.

5 Lydon, James, ‘The middle nation’ in ibid., pp 1–26 Google Scholar.

6 Phillips, J. R. S., ‘The Anglo-Norman nobility’ in ibid., pp 87–104 Google Scholar.

7 Frame, Robin, ‘War and peace in the medieval lordship of Ireland’ in ibid., pp 118–41Google Scholar

8 Dnvies, R. R., ‘Lordship or colony?’ in ibid., pp 142–60Google Scholar.

9 Watt, John, Ecclesia inter Anglicos et inter Hibernicos: confrontation and coexistence in the medieval diocese and province of Armagh in ibid., pp 46–64 Google Scholar.

l0 Mac Niocaill, G., ‘The interaction of laws’ in ibid., pp 105–17Google Scholar

12 Bliss, Alan, ‘Language and literature’ in ibid., pp 27–45 Google Scholar.

l2 Stalley, Roger, ‘Irish Gothic and English fashion’ in ibid., pp 65–86 Google Scholar.

13 This does not mean that there are not occasional new insights. Thus Stalley argues for a substantial uprise in building activity in the west of Ireland in the later fifteenth centurv — a period and an area where the English influence was no longer prevalent.

l4 Rees Da vies (English in med. Ire., p. 142).

15 Chiefly the Gill History of Ireland, ed. James Lydon and Margaret MacCurtain (1972–4); 4 New History of Ireland, ed. T W Moody, F X. Martin and F J. Byrne (Oxford. 1976–); Helicon History of Ireland, ed. Art Cosgrove and Elma Collins (1981–). The second of these, with its wide potential readership, will presumably remain seminal for the next generation. The importance of the Anglo-Norman invasion is also implied in the periodisation of Irish history into the early Christian period and the medieval period (which is the period from 1169 to the sixteenth century). I have attempted recently to place the emphasis somewhat differently and to regard the whole of the twelfth century as a period of transition in Ireland from what I call (following French and Italian usage) ‘the first middle ages’ to ‘the second middle ages’ See Richter, Michael, Irland im Mittelalter: Kultur und Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1983)Google Scholar.

16 Whether the series of Thomas Davis lectures given in 1969 to commemorate 1169 challenged this view cannot be determined because it remains unpublished.

17 This may be a more useful case for comparison than the Norman expansion into Italy in the eleventh century, which is referred to by Phillips (English in med. Ire., p. 96).

18 See for example Dvornik, Francis, ‘The first wave of the Drang nach Oster’ in Cambridge Historical Journal, vii (1941–3), pp 129–45Google Scholar, writing, as a Czech patriot during the Second World War, about the tenth century.

19 An example in the Federal Republic of Germany is Wendland, i.e. land of the Slavs (or Veneti, as they were known in the west as early as the time of Columbanus, Jonas of Bobbio, cf., Vitae Columbani libri ii, ed. Krusch, Bruno (Hannoveri & Lipsiae, 1905), Lib. I, 27, p. 217 Google Scholar), situated in the north-east corner of Lower Saxony.

20 See two recent studies, Zientara, Benedykt, ‘Walloons in Silesia in the 12th and 13th centuries’ in Quaestiones Medii Aevi, ii (Varsovie, 1981), pp 127–50Google Scholar, and Schulze, H. K., ‘Der Anteil der Slawen an der mittelalterlichen Siedlung nach deutschem Recht in Ostmitteldeutschland’ in Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, xxxi (1982), pp 321–36Google Scholar.

21 The debate between German and Slav scholars was in fact positively encouraged by the German government that took office in 1969 under the leadership of Chancellor Willy Brandt who made reconciliation with the eastern neighbours a priority.

22 See Die deutsche Ostsiedlung des Mittelalters als Problem der europäischen Geschichte, ed. Schlesinger, Walter(Sigmaringen, 1974)Google Scholar. Fora wider perspective, see Lewis, A. R., ‘The closing of the mediaeval frontier’ in Speculum, xxxiii (1958), pp 475–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Richter, Michael, ‘Die inselkeltischen Völker im europäischen Rahmen des Mittelalters’ in Saeculum, xxxii (1981), pp 273–86Google Scholar.

23 Wolfram, Herwig, ‘Mittelalterliche Politik und adelige Staatssprache’ in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, lxxvi (1968), pp 1 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 It is well brought out by Rees Davies (though it is not new) that absenteeism of the lords was largely instrumental in the decline ‘and the greatest defaulter of all was the lord of Ireland himself’ (English in med. Ire., p. 146). See also Richter, , Irland im Mittelalter, pp 121–32Google Scholar.

25 For an exception, see English in med. Ire., p. 37, n. 2. The lack of cross-references is to some extent alleviated by the index.

26 See especially the contributions by Frame and Bliss.

27 Referred to several times in English in med. Ire. by the unfortunate epithet ‘racial’, a term particularly inappropriate to the Normans (see ibid., p. 83) who, as their name implies, were of Norse or Scandinavian origin though by the tenth century they had adopted Romance speech (Ademari de Chabannes Historiarum Lib. III, in J. P Migne, Patrologia Latina (221 vols, Paris, 1840–80), cxli, col. 41).

28 See Regino of Prüm, Libriduo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, ed. F. G. A. Wasserschleben (Lipsiae, 1840), praefatio, p. 2: diversae nationes populorum inter se discrepant genere, moribus, lingua, legibus; Nationes, i, ed. Beumann, Helmut and Schröder, Werner (Sigmaringen, 1978), pp 351, 467Google Scholar. Cf. Lydon, English in med. Ire., passirn.

29 Bliss and Phillips (English in med Ire., pp 27, 88).

30 This view is put forward in several places in the book, e.g. by Bliss (pp 39,45), but cf. his somewhat confusing assertions (pp 30–31). I suggested the same first in my Sprache und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter (Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, xviii, Stuttgart, 1979), p. 102; and have elaborated further in ‘Towards a methodology of historical sociolinguistics’ in Folia Linguistica Historica, vi (1985), forthcomingGoogle Scholar. See also Rothwell, William, ‘Glimpses into our ignorance of the Anglo-Norman lexis’ in Short, Ian (ed.), Medieval French studies in memory of T B. W Reid (Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications no. 1, London, 1984), pp 167–79, espGoogle Scholar. p. 178: ‘it is evident that the upward thrust of English into the ranks of the literate must have been very strong not much more than a century after the Conqueror landed and gallicised the upper strata of the society of this island. By this time England must have been well on the way to reverting to its Germanic language, but with the happy enrichment of the all-important Romance element that has determined its character in modern times.’

31 For an insight into the situation in the early fourteenth century in the Hereford area and in parts of Wales, see Richter, Sprache und Gesellschaft, pt IV.

32 Lydon (English in med. Ire., p. 5) questions whether there was any sense of nationality evident in the middle ages at all; such doubt would put into jeopardy much of the discussion in the book itself. For the topic see, however, Nationes, i (as above, n. 28).

33 It has been clearly brought out in the book under review that some of the nobles who came to Ireland, especially in the fourteenth century, came directly from France (Phillips in English in med. Ire., p. 94) and their lingua materna would have been a variety of French.

34 References are widely given in English in med. Ire., e.g. pp 1, 11, 13, 47, 48, 118, 121, 133. The foreigners are consistently called ‘English’ in The Song of Dermot and the Earl, ed. G. H. Orpen (Oxford, 1892). The term used in the Irish sources shifts from ‘Saxon’ (on which see Michael Richter, ‘Bede's Angli: Angles or English?’ in Peritia, iii (1984), pp 99–114, as well as ‘Towards a methodology of historical sociolinguistics’) to “Gall', on which see below, p. 295.

35 Bliss (English in med. Ire., p. 31). This surely implies that English was the lingua materna of the settlers.

36 There is more on this in Michael Richter, ‘The Norman invasion’ in the Thomas Davis lectures given in 1983 (‘Milestones in Irish history’), publication of which is expected.

37 The term is used here as first elaborated by Auerbach, Erich, Literatursprache und Publikum in der lateinischen Spätantike undim Mittelalter (Bern, 1958)Google Scholar, and widened by Richter, Michael, ‘A quelle époque a-t-on cessé de parler latin en Gaule?: à propos d'une question mal posée’ in Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, xxxviii (1983), pp 339–48Google Scholar.

38 See Hugh Shields, ‘The walling of New Ross: a thirteenth-century poem in French’ in Long Room, nos 12–13 (1975–6), pp 24–33.

39 Listed in Macintosh, Angus and Samuels, M. L., ‘Prolegomena to a study of mediaeval Anglo-Irish’ in Medium Aevum, xxxvii (1968), pp 1–11 Google Scholar.

40 I have shown in Sprache und Gesellschaft, pt IV, that French as the second language was not uncommon among the non-aristocratic population in early fourteenth-century England though it was more frequent in the urban milieu than in rural areas.

41 Bliss, Alan, ‘The inscribed slates at Smarmore’ in R.I.A. Proc., lxiv, sect. C (1965), pp 33–60 Google Scholar.

42 See especially Nationes, i (as above, n. 28), and Schwinges, R. C., ‘“Primäre” und “sekundäre” Nationen: Nationalbewußtsein und sozialer Wandel im mittelalterlichen Böhmen’ in Grothusen, K. D. and Zernack, Klaus (eds), Europa Slavica: Europa Orientalis (= Festschrift Herbert Ludat) (Berlin, 1980), pp 490–532 Google Scholar.

43 E.g. Annals of Loch Cé from 1233; see also Richter, , Irland im Mittelaltcr, p. 138 Google Scholar. Lydon first mentions it explicitly with reference to 1468 (English in med. Ire., p. 17); but it is implied already earlier (ibid., p. 8).

44 Lydon (English in med. Ire., pp 13–15).

45 Such co-operation is treated of by Watt (ibid., pp 50–55), who points to unexpected tolerance for the rule by English or Anglo-Irish prelates (ibid., p. 53); it is taken for granted by Mac Niocaill (ibid., pp 108 ff); a different view is put over by Rees Davies (ibid., p. 153).

46 See Richter, ‘Inselkelten’, for further references. A feeling of fellowship between Irish and Welsh in the late thirteenth century (which I doubt) is alluded to by Rees Davies (English in med. Ire., p. 158). It should be noted that subsequent to the publication of my article the enigmatic letter of Donal O'Neill to Fineen MacCarthy has been shown to be, most likely, a post-medieval forgery ( Diarmuid, Ö Murchadha, , ‘Is the O'Neill-MacCarthy letter of 1317 a forgery?’ in I.H.S., xxiii, no. 89 (May 1982), pp 61–7Google Scholar). This is not noted by Lydon when he refers to that document (English in med. Ire., p. 6, n. 1).

47 English in med. Ire., pp 154 ff.

48 Its importance seems to be overestimated by Rees Davies (ibid.).

49 This I have recently argued in the Gwynn lecture for 1983, ‘The European dimension of Irish history in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, publication of which is expected.

50 This has been most fully developed by Dr Alfred P Smyth, e.g. in his Scandinavian kings in the British Isles, 850–880 (Oxford, 1977).

51 One should take into account the fact that from the twelfth century source-material becomes much more plentiful all over Europe, but it has also to be taken into consideration that the Scandinavians on their arrival in Ireland were as yet an oral society producing little administrative documentation.

52 See now Flanagan, M. T., ‘Strongbow. Henry II and the Anglo-Norman intervention in Ireland’ in Gillingham, John and Holt, J. C. (eds), War and government in the middle ages (London, 1984), pp 62–77 Google Scholar.

53 One difference is, of course, that the Hiberno-Norse rulers allied much more easily with Irish dynasties than the lordship was to do. I have pointed this out briefly in the Thomas Davis lecture on the Norman invasion (as above, n. 36).

54 See especially the contribution by Mac Niocaill (English in med. Ire., pp 105–17) and less clearly, but implicitly, Frame (ibid., pp 118–41).

55 Perhaps ‘Gaelic renaissance’ is a better term. See Richter, , Irland im Mittelalter, p. 151 Google Scholar.

56 Dunne, T. J., ‘The Gaelic response to conquest and colonisation: the evidence of the poetry’ in Studia Hibernica, xx (1980), pp 7–30 Google Scholar.