CLOISTER
60
CLOISTER
dioceses, but this was not carried out, though under
Bishop Dav-id O'Brogan large portions of Tyrone
were cut off from Clogher and given to Ardstraw (now
united with Derry), while the greater part of the
present County Lo'uth, including Dundalk, Drogheda,
and Ardee, was taken over by Armagh. In 1535
Bishop Odo, or Hugh O'Cervallan, was appointed to
the See of Clogher by Paul III, and on the submission
of his patron Con O'Neill to Henry VIII, tins prelate
seems to have accepted the new teacliing, and was
superseded by Raymond MacMahon, 1546. From
his time there are two lines of bishops in Clogher, the
Catholic and the Protestant. The apostate Miler
Magrath was appointed Protestant bishop by Queen
Elizabeth in 1570, but on liis promotion to Cashel,
resigned Clogher in the same year. Heber or Emer
MacMahon (1643-50) took a prominent part in the
war of the Irish Confederates, and on the death of
Owen Roe O'Neill, was chosen general of the Con-
federate forces. He was defeated at ScariffhoUis near
Letterkenny, taken prisoner by Coote, and beheaded
at Enniskillcn. Owing to the persecutions of the
Irish Catholics, Clogher was governed by vicars dur-
ing the periods 1612-13, 1650-71, 1687-1707, 1713-27.
The chapter of Clogher was allowed to lapse, but
towards the end of the eighteenth century it was
re-established by papal Brief.
A very important provincial synod was held at Clones in 1670 by Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh (see Moran, Life of Plunkett). The most remarkable shrines of the diocese are at St. Patrick's, Lough Derg, near Pettigo, still frequented by thou- sands of pilgrims from all parts of the world (see St. Patrick's Purgatory); Devenish Island in Lough Erne (see McKenna, Devenish, its History and Antiquities, Dublin, 1897); Innismacsaint, also in Lough Erne, where the "Annals of Ulster" were com- posed; Lisgoole, Clones, and Clogher. The most celebrated works of ancient ecclesiastical art con- nected with the diocese are the Domnach Airigid, a shrine enclosing a copy of the Gospels, said to have been given by St. Patrick to St. Macarten, and the Cross of Clogher, both of them now in the National Museum in Dublin. The Catholic population of the diocese is 101,162, distributed in forty parishes and ministered to by about 100 priests.
Ware-Harris, Bishops of Ireland (Dublin. 1746); Maziere Brady, Episropal Successinn in Enqland, Ireland, etc. (Rome, 1876), I; O'Connor. St. Patrick's Purgatory (Dublin).
James MacCaffrey.
Cloister, the EngUsh equivalent of the Latin word clmimira (from claudcre, "to shut up"). This word occurs in Roman law in the sense of rampart, barrier [cf. Code of Justinian, 1. 2 .sec. 4; De oiRciis Pra>f. Pra>t. Africa; (1, 27); 1. 4 De officiis mag. ofiiciorum (1,31)]. In the" Concordia Regularum" ofSt. Bene- dict of Aniane, c. xli, sec. 11, we find it in the sense of "case", or "cupboard" (Migne, P. L., CIII, 1057). In modern ecclesiastical usage, clausura signifies, ma- terially, an enclosed space for religious retirement; formally, it stands for the legal restrictions opposed to the free egress of those who are cloistered or enclosed, and to the free entry, or free introduction, of outsiders within the limits of the material clausura.
I. Synopsis of Existing Legislation. — The actual legi.slation distinguishes between religious orders and institutes with simple vows; institutes of men and those of women.
( 1 ) licliijlous Or(/,Ts.— (a) ^/a/e.— Material Clausura. —According to the present common law, every convent or monastery of regulars must, on its comple- tion, be encloistered. A convent is defined as a build- ing which serves as a fixed dwelling-place where relig- ious live according to their rule, .'\ccording to the common opinion of jurists (Piat, " Pra-lectioues juris Regulans", I. 344, n. 4; Wernz, "Jus Deeretalium ', 65.S, n. 479) the houses where only two or three relig-
ious dwell permanently, and observe their rule as they
can, are subject to this law; it is not necessary that
the rehgious be in a number which secures them the
privilege of exemption from the bishop's jurisdiction.
The Congregation of Propaganda seems to have made
this opinion its own, in decreeing that, in missionarj'
countries, the law of cloister applies to the religious
houses which belong to the mission, and which serve
as a fixed dwelling for even two or three regular mis-
sionaries of the Latin Rite (Collectanea Propaganda
Fidei, Replies of 26 Aug.. 1780, and of 5 March, 1787,
n. 410 and 412, 1st edit., n. 545 and 587, 2d ed.). On
the other hand, the law of cloister does not apply to
houses which are simply hired by religious, and which
cannot therefore be looked upon as fixed and defini-
Cloister, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
five homes, nor to the villa-houses to which the re- ligious go for recreation on fixed days or for a few weeks every year.
Strictly speaking, the whole enclosed space — house and garden — ought to be encloistered. Custom, how- ever, allows the erection, at the entrance to the con- vent, of reception rooms to which women may be admitted. These reception rooms should be isolated from the interior of the convent, and the rehgious should not have free access to them. The church, choir, and even the sacristy, when it is strictly con- tiguous to the church, are neutral territory; here \\omen may enter, and the rehgious are free to go thither without special permission. It may be asked whether a strictly continuous material barrier is a necessary part of the clausura. Lehmkuhl (in Kir- chenlex., s. v. Clausura) is of the opinion that a door which can be locked should separate the cloistered from the other parts of a house of religious. Pas- serini, however, thinks (De hominum statibus, III, 461, n. 376) that any intelligible sign suffices, provided it sufficiently indicates the beginning of the cloistered part. And e^'en in the Roman law, the clausurae were sometimes fictitious. Finally, it may be added that it is for the provincial superior to fix the limits of the cloister and the point at which it begins, in con- formity with the usages of his order and with the local needs; of course his power is limited by the disposi- tions of the law.
Formal Clausura. — Obstacle to the Free Egress of the Religious. — The cloistered religious may not go out- side their material cloister without permission; still, the religious man who transgresses this prohibition does not incur any ecclesiastical censure. In two cases, however, he would commit a grave sin: if his absence were prolonged (i. e. exceeding two or three days); and if he should go out by night, (loingout at night without permission is usually a reserved case. But what constitutes going out by night'? The pres-
