was strong enough to maintain itself by the side of the Scandinavian garrison. Once, with the help of a force from Carbery, they defeated a confederacy of Danes belonging to Cork, Waterford, and Wexford. The Ostmen were in quiet possession of Cork for a period long preceding the Anglo-Norman invasion, but they were probably content to take their Christianity from their neighbours, for we do not find that any bishop of this see sought consecration at Canterbury.28
FOOTNOTES:
16. The account which Giraldus gives of Turgesius is funny, but worthless.
17. Reeves’s Adamnan, p. 332 n.
18. Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, chap. xxxvi.
19. Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, chap. xl.
20. The quotations are from Burnt Njal, chap. cliii.
21. Burnt Njal, chap. cliv.
22. Ibid., chap. clvi. Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, chaps. xcviii. and xcix. Annals of Lough Cé, pp. 7-13.
23. Burnt Njal, chap. clvi.
24. Many details about the Hiberno-Norse coins are to be found in Worsaae.
25. Book of Rights, pp. 225 sqq., and O’Donovan’s preface.
26. See Hook’s Lives of Lanfranc, Anselm, and Ralph d’Eures. Translations of the letters mentioned in the text may be found in King’s Primer of the Irish Church; most of the originals are printed in Ussher’s Sylloge.
27. The Irish always called Dublin Ath-cliath, or the Ford of Hurdles.
28. The great mine of knowledge about the Irish Scandinavians is Todd’s Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, in the Record series. I have also used Dasent’s Story of Burnt Njal, and Anderson’s Orkneyinga Saga. Haliday’s Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin, edited by Mr. J. P. Prendergast, is a good modern book. Worsaae’s Danes and Norwegians is said to be somewhat fanciful, but it contains information not readily accessible elsewhere.
CHAPTER III.
THE REIGN OF HENRY II.
England lays claim to Ireland, 1155.
The claims of the Kings of England to Ireland were very vague. They sometimes acted as patrons of the Irish Ostmen, who were not unwilling to follow the example of their Northumbrian kinsmen, but they performed no real function of sovereignty. William the Conqueror and his sons had not time to attend to Ireland, and this applies in an even greater degree to Stephen. Henry II. ascended an undisputed throne, and in the first year of his reign turned his thoughts to the fertile island of the West. Being badly in want of a title, he sent John of Salisbury to Rome for leave to conquer Ireland, to root up the saplings of vice there, and to bring the wild Irish into the way of the true faith. The Pope was Nicholas Breakspeare, known in history as Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever filled the papal chair. The popes were usually ready to grant boons to kings, if by so doing they could extend their own power, and an English pope must have felt a double pride in conferring favours on a king of England. The mission of John of Salisbury was successful. He brought back the Bull Laudabiliter and a gold ring containing a very fine emerald, intended to be used in Henry’s investiture. Empress Maude objected to an Irish expedition, and nothing was done until long after Adrian’s death. Henry took the precaution of having the grant confirmed by Alexander III., and there is ample evidence that he annexed Ireland with the entire approbation of that Pope.29
Adrian IV grants Ireland to Henry II.
Irish scholars, torn asunder by their love of Rome and their love of Ireland, formerly attempted to prove that Adrian’s bull was not genuine; but its authenticity is no longer disputed. The momentous document runs as follows:—
Adrian’s bull.
‘Hadrian the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his very dear son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, health and apostolic benediction:
‘Your magnificence praiseworthily and profitably takes thought how to increase a glorious name on earth and how to lay up a reward of everlasting happiness in heaven, while you are intent, like a Catholic prince, on enlarging the bounds of the Church, on declaring the truth to unlearned and rude peoples, and on uprooting the seedlings of vice from the Lord’s field. The better to attain that end you have asked counsel and favour of the apostolic see. In which action we are sure that, with God’s help, you will make happy progress in proportion to the high design and great discretion of your proceedings, inasmuch as undertakings which grow out of ardour for the faith and love of religion are accustomed always to have a good end and upshot. There is no doubt and your nobility acknowledges that Ireland, and all islands upon which Christ the sun of justice has shone, and which have received the teachings of the Christian faith, rightfully belong to the blessed Peter and the most holy Roman Church. We have, therefore, the more willingly made a faithful plantation among them, and inserted a bud pleasing to God, in that we foresee that it will require a careful internal watch at our hands. However, you have signified to us, my dear son in Christ, that you wish to enter the island of Ireland, in order to reduce that people to law, and to uproot the seedlings of vice there, and to make a yearly payment of a denarius to the blessed Peter out of each house, and to preserve the rights of the churches of that land whole and undiminished.
‘We, therefore, seconding your pious and laudable desire with suitable favour, and giving a kindly assent to your petition, do hold it for a thing good and acceptable that you should enter that island for the extension of the Church’s borders, for the correction of manners, for the propagation of virtue, and for increase of the Christian religion; and that you should perform that which you intend for the honour of God and for the salvation of that land; and let the people of that land receive you honourably and venerate you as their lord; the ecclesiastical law remaining whole and untouched, and an annual payment of one denarius being reserved to the blessed Peter and to the most holy Roman Church. But if you shall complete the work which you have conceived in your mind, study to mould that race to good morals, and exert yourself personally and by such of your agents as you shall find fit in faith, word, and living, to honour the Church there, and to plant and increase the Christian faith, and strive to ordain what is for the honour of God and the safety of souls in such a manner
