Note 353 — Chapter X · THE CHURCH.

Vide the Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniæ (attributed to Tirechan), in O’Connor’s Annotationes ad Sæculum VI. Rer. Hib. Script. Vet., vol. 2, p. 162. In the British monasteries the monks devoted themselves to manual labour, as at Bangor (Bed. Hist. Eccl., l. 2, c. 2); but the Irish monks were generally of the contemplative order, as at Louth, the monastery of Mochta, the disciple of Patrick (Tigh. 534).In this they strictly followed the rule of St. Martin, in whose monastery at Tours contemplation was the business of the senior monks, whilst the younger brethren were employed in writing. Vide Sulp. Sev. Vit. St. Martin, c. 7. The contemplative life long continued to be the characteristic of the Gaelic monks. The Gallican Liturgy (Cursus Gallicanus) appears to have been in general use both in the British and Gaelic Churches; and according to an old MS. quoted by Usher, Prim. p. 185, it was introduced by Germanus and Lupus. The diversity of Rules remained to astonish the Papal Legate in the twelfth century, who mentions a singular fact that shows how deeply wedded the Irish monks must have been to their peculiar Rule. “Quid enim magis indecens aut schismaticum dici poterit, quam doctissimum unius ordinis in alterius Ecclesia idiotam et laicum fieri” (Usher’s Sylloge, p. 77); by which the Bishop of Limerick seems to imply that the ordination of one order of monks was not acknowledged by another. This tendency to cling to a particular Rule was probably amongst the causes which led to the predominance over the Bishop of the Abbot, whose special duty was to preserve strictly the Rule of the Founder. There is no trace of any such narrow prejudice in favour of “the Rule,” as that to which Bishop Gillebert alludes, to be found in the early Gaelic Church.