Note 436 — Chapter IV

The staff of Jesus was a wooden crozier (Giraldus, Top. iii. 34), richly adorned. The story of its presentation by Christ to St. Patrick is found in the tenth-century Trip. (p. 30), no doubt taken from an earlier source. The staff was much older than the Book of Armagh; for we find that it was "profaned" in 789, and it was then apparently regarded as the principal relic of St. Patrick (A.U. 788). It seems that there was a still more ancient tradition, that St. Patrick gave it to St. Mac Cairthinn (R.I.A. xxxiv. 114), from which it may be inferred that it once belonged to the church of Clogher. It was removed from Armagh to Dublin in 1180, and deposited in Christ Church. It was burnt in 1538 (A.L.C.). Apparently St. Bernard is the only authority for the statement that it was "fashioned" by Christ. It appears that the staff of Jesus, in the twelfth century, was regarded as a much more important relic than the Book of Armagh, and was more closely associated with the person and office of the coarb of Patrick. It is frequently mentioned in such a way as to suggest that it was one of the insignia of his authority (A.U. 1015, 1073, 1101, 1113, 1157, 1166, 1167; A.F.M. 1135, 1139, 1143, 1148, 1152). Similar references to the Book of Armagh do not occur till near the close of the twelfth century, immediately after the removal of the staff from Armagh (A.U. 1179, 1196; Gwynn, p. civ.). A very full account of the later history of the staff may be read in O.C.C. pp. viii-xx.