Note 352 — Chapter X · THE CHURCH.

The first allusion to a Herenach occurs in Tigh. 605, An. Ult. 604, A.F.M. 601, but the office is not again met with before the close of the eighth century. Vide Mr. O’Donovan’s Note O to A.F.M., 1179; though the description of the Herenach there quoted from Sir John Davies—paying a yearly rent to the Bishop, a fine upon the marriage of his daughter, and a subsidy to every Bishop on his first entry into the diocese; in other words, holding in fee-farm, with merchet, and relief, or payment for a renewal of his lease—applies rather to his character after the English settlement had reduced Cowarbs and Herenachs to a very different footing from their position in early times. The name of Aircinneach, meaning Princeps, “Head of the Kin,” or Overlord (Reeves, Adamn. N. p. 364, note M), points to a high position. In a charter of the time of Otho I., dated in 952, a Count Hohold founds a convent, of which his sister is to be the first abbess, that dignity being always to be filled by a member of his race as long as it exists. He appoints himself Advocatus Monasterii, stipulating that the office should also be hereditary in his family (Ducange in voc. Advocatus). In Gaelic phraseology, then, the family of Hohold were hereditary Cowarbs and Herenachs of the monastery founded by their ancestor. The Advocatus first made his appearance in the church about the beginning of the fifth century—“post consulatum Stilliconis” (Lind. Gloss. in Advocatus), and the “tertia pars bannorum et tertius denarius” were amongst his privileges. From “Colton’s Visitation” it is evident that the old Termon, or Church lands, were divided into three portions, two belonging to the rector and his vicar, and the remaining third to the Herenach under the Bishop, to whom also belonged the “blood-fines,” or Eric, the overlord’s prerogative. From a charter quoted by Harris, c. 35, p. 233, it would appear that in the Anglo-Irish period, the Rector was often identical with the Cowarb, so that the two-thirds belonging to the Rector and Vicar represented the Abbot’s portion of the Termon lands; and as in the Gaelic period the Bishop had no claim on the temporalities of the Church, it seems probable that the Herenach was originally the lay-lord of the Termon lands, holding them of the Abbot by the usual tenure of retaining a third of the fines and profits—tertia pars bannorum, et tertius denarius. After the Cowarbs became very generally laymen, they retained their portion of the Termon lands in their own hands, under the superintendence of their own stewards and deputies, and the office of Herenach, declining in importance, probably fell into the hands of less exalted members of the family. When the Gaelic Church system was superseded, the Herenach lands—Church lands held by a layman—appear to have been confiscated to supply an income for the Bishop, the former holders losing all their former claims upon “the thirds,” and retaining only that small portion of the land which was their actual duchas, or freehold; whilst as the families of the greater Cowarbs were generally very powerful, they were often, probably, allowed to retain the patronage to the Rectory in their family, provided it was presented to an ecclesiastic.