Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/214

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in his charity. In 11G7 he attended a great conven- tion held at Athboy at the request of King Roderie O 'Conor, and helped there to enact several decrees affecting ecclesiastical discipline. In the following year the ill-.starred Dermot MacMurrough set out for Eng- land to negotiate the betrayal of his country. In 1169 the first expedition of the Anglo-Normans landed in Ireland, and \\'exford and Waterford soon fell before them. They then marched on Dublin, and in this expedition Strongbow was jomed by the army of Dermot. Hasculf, the Danish king, made a sturdy defence, but eventually the city was captured and Hasculf and his followers escaped to their ships. In 1171 they returned with a number of Norwegians col- lected at Orkney and the Isles, and attacked the east- ern gate of the city. St. Laurence implored King Roderie to come to their aid ; the latter did assemble an army, but their operations were ineffective, and the grip of the Norman fastened on Dublin, never again to be relaxed. King Henry II of England


St. P.\trick's C.\thedral, Do


landed this same year, and received at Dublin the fealty of most of the native princes. Thenceforward Ireland became an appanage of the English Crown.

Early in the following year a sjTiod was held in Cashel by order of Henry, at which Laurence assisted and where among other disciplinary regulations, the system of tithes was introduced, as is commonly be- lieved. With the aid of Strongbow and other Norman chiefs he was enabled to enlarge and beautify Christ Church, i.e. Holy Trinity Cathedral, and the transepts and one bay of the choir remain to this day evidences of his work. In 1177 Cardinal Vivian arrived in Ire- land as papal legate, summoned a meeting of bishops and abbots, antl inculcated obedience to the conquer- ors. In 1179 .\rclil)ishop Laurence went to Rome to attend the Third ( iencral Council of the Lateran under Alexander III. The pope received him with marked kindness, took his see untler his protection, confirmed its possessions, and extended its boundaries on the south as far as Bray. He also appointed him his legate in Ireland. Some time in IISO the archbishop again crossed to England for the purpose of interview- ing King Henry in the interests of his people, but Henry had no wish to see him and fled into Normandy. Laurence, nothing daunted, quickly pursued him, but had scarcely landed on the Norman coast when he fell seriously ill. He asked to be brought to the commun- ity of Canons Regular established at Eu, and there died peacefully 14 November, 1180. He was canon- ized liy Honorius III in 1226, and his relics, being transferred, were placed over the high altar in a costly shrine where they are still devoutly venerated. His feast is celebrated in Dublin each recurring 14 Novem- ber with great pomp and solemnity, and a parish church in that city is .specially dedicated to him.


Norman-English Archbishops. — With the pass- ing of St. Laurence, the Irish character of the newly constructed hierarchy, as far as Dublin was concerned, was brought to a premature close. The conquerors brought with them a colony of Bristol men and settled them in Dublin, and also brought all their feudal pri\'ileges and customs, prominent among which was the right of the English monarch to nominate to va- cant sees within his dominion, this with the concur- rence of the Holy See. In the exercise of this prerog- ative, Henry II named John Comj-n, an Englishman, as successor to Laurence O'Toole. Henceforward, for full four centuries, the see was occupied by an un- broken line of twenty-five archbishops, all English- men, born, bred, and beneficed in England. ComjTi proceeded to Rome where he was first ordained priest, and then consecrated bishop, by Lucius III at Velletri. He did not take up his residence in Dublin until 1184. The king conferred additional lands upon him to be held in barony tenure, by virtue of which he became a Lord of Parliament. In 1 185 he received Prince John on his landing in Ireland, and in the same year the Dio- cese of Glendalough was imited to Dublin ; this union, however, was not to take effect until after the death of the governing bishop, William Piro. In 1186 he assembled a provincial sjTiod in Christ Church cathe- dral at which several important canons were enacted. In 1190 he undertook the work of building a new- church just outside the city wall. He erected it on the site of an old Celtic church dedicated to St. Pat- rick, but preserved the original dedication and opened it with great solemnity on Patrick's Day, 1191. In connexion with this church he founded and endowed a collegiate chapter of thirteen canons and erected an episcopal residence close by, w-hich became known as St. Sepulchre's.

Arclibishop Comjm died in 1212 and was succeeded liy Henry de Loundres, Archdeacon of Stafford. Two years later William Piro, Bishop of Glendalough, died, whereupon the union of the sees promised by King John took place. De Loundres's principal work was the conversion of the collegiate chapter established by his predecessor in connexion with St. Patrick's, into a cathedral chapter, with four dignities and an in- creased number of prebendaries. This change pre- sented the singular spectacle of a city having two cathedrals, with two chapters, one monastic, the other secular, an arrangement which led to a good deal of friction and gave much trouble to succeeding arch- bishops. In 1228 de Loundres was succeeded by Archbishop Luke, brought over from London. Flour- ishing as he did in the period of cathedral building, we need not be surprised to learn that he caught the infection, and practically re-erected St. Patrick's as we have it to-day, and put the nave to Christ Church as we see it in its restored condition. It is scarcely necessary to go through nominatim the series of Eng- lish bishops who filled the see during the medieval period. Suffice it to mention, that as most of them held some government post, such as lord chancellor, or lord treasurer, in conjunction with the arch- bishopric, their spiritual influence was thereby ren- dered obnoxious to the native clans of the O'Bymes and O'Tooles. when they shook off the English yoke during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Holy See, not to leave the natives without episcopal ' care, was compelled to provide a bishop for them, titularly of Glendalough, and the rubricelle in the Vatican Library furnish a list of six such bishops who presided over the mountainous region of the diocese well into the reign of Henry VIII.

The Anglican Schism. — This monarch, unhappily as is well known, dislocated everything in Church and State. The foul murder of Archbishop Alan, author of the valuable "Liber Niger" and "Repertorium Viride", by the followers of Silken Thomas in 15.S4, afiorded the king the much desired opportunity of introducing