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saints of Ireland into three orders, each of which orders is stated to have lasted during the reigns of four kings, the three orders covering, between them, a period of about 225 years, from the coming of St. Patrick in -440, in the reign of Laoghaire MacNeil, to the reign of Blathmac and Diarmait, sons of Aodh Slaine, in 665. Symmetry is attained by 'omitting about six intervening reigns, but the outside dates >>t each period are clear enough, and the litiirgiological value of the document consists in the statements, very probably true in the main, respecting the cus- toms of the saints of these orders as to Masses and celebrationes, i. e. the Divine Office, and the Easter and tonsure questions. (Celebratio — " Divine Office " : Irish, Celebrad. Dr. MacCarthy in his edition of the Stowe Missal gives several instances of this use of the word.) The first order was in the time of St. Patrick. They were all bishops, 3.50 in number, founders of churches. They had one Head, Christ; one leader, Patrick; one Mass, and one tonsure from ear to ear, and they celebrated one Easter "quarta decima luna post oequinoctium vernale". All these bishops were sprung from the Romans, the French (i. e. the Gauls), the Britons, and the Scots. Their period is given. from the reign of Laoghaire to that of Tuathal Moel- garbh (e. 440-544). The second order were a few bishops and many priests, 300 in number. They had one head, Christ, they celebrated different Masses and "diversas regulas", they luul one Easter, the four- teenth of the moon after the equinox, and one tonsure from ear to ear. They received a Mass from the Britons, David, Gilla (Gildas), and Docus (Cadoc). It may be noted that the "Vita Gildse" tells how King Ainmerech sent for Gildas to restore ecclesiastical order in his kingdom, "quia pane catholicam fidem in ipsa insula omnes reliquerant ". The second order lasted from the end of the reign of Tuathal to that of Aodh MaeAinmerech (e. 544-99). The third order were priests and a few bishops, 100 in number, "qui in locis desertis habitabant et oleribus et aqua et elee- mosynis vivebant, propria devitabant", evidently hermits and monks. They had different Masses, dif- ferent rules, and different tonsures, "alii enim habe- bant coronam. alii csesariem", and celebrated differ- ent Fasters, some on the fourteenth, some on the six- teenth, of the moon, "cum duris intentionibus " — which perhaps means "obstinately". These lasted from the reign of .Eda Alia in (Aodh Slaine) to that of his two sons (Blathmac and Diarmait. e. 599-665). The meaning seems to be that tin' first order cele- brated a form of Mass introduced by St. Patrick, the second and third orders used partly that Mass and partly one of British origin, and in the ease of the third order Roman modifications wire also intro- duced. Though we have no direct evidence one way or the other, it would seem probable that St. Patrick, who was the pupil of St. Germanus of Auxerre and

St. llonoratus of Lerins, brought with him a Mass of thi' ( iallican type, and it is clear that the British Mass introduced by Sts. David, Gildas, and Cadoc differed

from it. though to what extent we have no mean oi knowing. The "unam celebrationem" of tin' first order and the "diversas regulas" of the second and third probably both refer to the Divine Office, and we may take the authority oi tin- eighth-century trait in Cott. MS. Xito A. II for what it is worth in its not improbable statement that St. Germanus taught the "Cursus Scottorum" to St. Patrick, who certainly was under his instruction lor some time, Tin- wording of the "(ii:il"L r 'is " seems to imply that tin- first and second orders were Quartodecimans, but this is dearly not the meaning, or on tin' Bame argument the third order must have been partly Sextodecimans — if therr wire such things — and more over we have the already mentioned -tatement of St. Wilfrid, the opponent of the Celtic Easter, at the Synod of Whitby, that such was not the case. Tire-

chan can only mean what we know from other sources: that the fourteenth day of the moon was the earliest day on which Easter could fall, not that it was kept on that day, Sunday or weekday. It was the same ambiguity of expression which misled ( Sol- man in 664 and St. Aldhelm in 704. The first and second orders used the Celtic tonsure, and it seems that the Roman coronal tonsure came partly into use during the period of the third order. After that we have an obscure period, during which the Roman Easter, which had been accepted in South Ireland in 626-28, became universal, being accepted by North Ireland in 692, and it seems probable that a Mass mi the model of the Carlsruhe and Piacenza fragments and the Stowe and Bobbio Missals, that is to say a Roman Canon with some features of a non-Roman type, came into general use. But it was not until the twelfth century that the separate Irish Rite, which, according to Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick (1106-39), was in use in nearly all Ireland, was abolished. St. Malachy, Bishop of Armagh (1134-48), began the campaign against it, and at the Synod of Cashel, in 1 172, a Roman Rite "juxta quod Anglicana observat Ecclesia" was finally substituted.

In Scotland there is very little information. The intercourse with Ireland was considerable, and the few details that, can be gathered from such sources as Adamnan's Life of St. Columba and the various relics of the Scoto-Northumbrian Church point to a general similarity with Ireland in the earlier period. Of the rite of the monastic order of the Culdees i(',li 1)< or Giollidhc-Dc, servants of God, or possibly Cultores Dei) very little is known, but they certainly had a rite of their own, which may have been similar to the Irish. The Roman Easter and tonsure were adopted by the Picts in 710, and at Iona in 716-1S, and much later, in about KIM). St. Margaret of Scotland, wife of King Malcolm III, wishing to reform the Scottish Church in a Roman direct ion. discovered and abolished certain peculiar customs of which Theodoric, her chaplain and biographer, tells us less than we could wish. It seems that the Scots did not begin Lent on Ash Wednesday, but on the Monday following. This is still the Ambrosian practice. They refused to communicate on Easter Day, and the arguments on the subject make it seem as if the laity never com- municated at all. In some places they celebrated Mass "contra totius Ecclesise consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu barbaro". The last statement may be read in connexion with that in the Register of St. Andrew's (drawn up 1144 53), " Keledei in angulo quodam ecclesiie, qua' modica nimis est, suum officium more suo celebrabant". How much difference there may have been cannot be judged from these expressions. Scotland may have retained a primitive Celtic Rite, or it may have used the greatly Romanized Stowe or Bobbio Mass. The one fragment of a Scottish Rite, the Office of tin' Cou ii nun loii of the Sick, in the

Book "i Deer, probably eleventh century, is certainly non-Roman in type, and agrees with those in the extant Irish books.

In 590 St. Oolumhanus and his companions invaded the Continent and established monasteries

throughout France. South Germany. Switzerland,

and North Italy, of which the best known wire

I.uxeuil, Bobbio, si. Gallen, and Ratisbon. Ii i-

from the Rule of St. Columbanus that we know something of a Critic Divine Office. These Irish missionaries, with their very strict rule, were not altogether popular among the lax Gallican clergy, who tried to get tlirm discouraged. At a council at

'I in 623, certain charge* brought by one

Agrestius were considered. Among them Is the following: "In summa quod a ea'tcrorum ritu ao norma desciscerent et sacra mysteria sollemnia orationum et collectarum multiphci varietate cele- brarent". There has been more than one interpre-