Peritia

This article investigates the frequent alternation of Latin and Old Irish in several collections of Early Medieval Irish glosses (especially focussing on the glosses to the Epistles of St Paul in Würzburg, Universitatsbibliothek, MS M.p.th.f.12), in the attempt to ascertain how modern language contact and code-switching theories (Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame - or MLF - model in primis) may help us understand this phenomenon, as well as the exact nature of the linguistic relationship between Hiberno-Latin and the vernacular among the medieval Irish literati. Criteria for identifying what can be legitimately defined as ‘written code-switching’ are discussed, and a methodology for the study of code-switching in medieval glosses is proposed.

Hisperica famina texts have a coherent literary style firmly rooted in contemporary literary culture. They are not mere eccentricities. It has been convincingly argued, on the basis of form and content, that Hisperica famina may be linked to the tradition of Insular enigmata. A further level of enigma is present in the way sources are handled. Their dense complexity is at times subtended by obscure allusions to sources familiar to authors and their readers. The identification of sources gives the modern reader an encryption key that allows the arcane text to be decoded. This paper shows that parts of Pliny’s Naturalis historia are the key to allusive lines about sea creatures in Hisperica famina A and D. The paper presents new evidence for the presence of excerpts (at the least) of Pliny’s text in mid seventh-century Ireland.

The ‘Caldron of Poesy’, a seemingly cryptic early Irish text dating probably from the eighth century, discusses three cauldrons in varying positions that represent different degrees of knowledge and art. It will be argued that this construct may have been a local representation of long-standing and basic assumptions about the structure of the human mind and the role of education, which ultimately reach back to the beginnings of Greek learning.

The extant recensions of the Life of St Molua are examined to determine the date of composition. The main focus is on the historical content of the Life. The result shows, with a high degree of assurance, that the original is a seventh-century composition, and thus one of the earliest works of Irish hagiography. Its author may have been Laidcend mac Baíth Bandaig, sapiens († 661).

This note announces the discovery of a tract on eclipse prediction in Paris, BnF, lat. 6400b, composed by an Irish scholar in ad 754. It is the earliest such text in the early middle ages and it is here placed in its scientific context.

The author argues that a section of the newly-discovered eighth-century Irish computistica in Paris, BnF, lat. 6400b may contain a citation from a (lost?) work of Columbanus.

A historical survey of the Viking longphort at Linn Duachaill (Annagassan), a preliminary report on a trial excavation of the site, and a brief description of the finds.

Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib ‘The war of the Irish and the Foreigners’, one of the best known medieval Irish historical sagas, celebrates the deeds of the Irish king Brian Boru, culminating in his victory and death at the battle of Clontarf in ad 1014. The text did much to establish Brian’s reputation and the fame of the battle of Clontarf in Irish historiography. While most of the saga records Brian’s achievements, the early parts treat of events prior to his reign. This paper is an analysis of the function and chronology of these early sections. The conclusion is that the term ‘annalistic section’, often applied to them, is misleading. Such a term conceals the artistry and purpose of the author and conveys a mistaken view of their historicity.

The recent arguments that the writings of Proclus of Constantinople (434-46) were well known and influential in Ireland in the seventh century and later are here refuted.

The editio princeps (with English translation and commentary) of the work of an anonymous Sicilian Greek poet, written in 4,043 Byzantine twelve syllable verses and based on a hitherto unpublished codex unicus in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid was published in Malta in 2010. This work has received insufficient critical attention to date. Yet, in terms of its subject matter and cultural and historical context, it contains much valuable material that should be of interest to both eastern and western medievalists.

The medieval Cormac’s adventure in the Land of Promise contains a list of ‘The twelve truths of the kingdom’, twelve ordeals that include the cauldron and Morann’s three collars. The paper discusses the ‘cauldron of truth’ in early Irish law and then proposes that Morann’s third collar can be regarded as an ordeal by fire.

The most prominent Irish legal family of their time, Meic Aodhagáin maintained a celebrated law school in Lower Ormond in northern Co Tipperary. Through the analysis of manuscripts produced by two fifteenth-century scribes who worked among Meic Aodhagáin, this study identifies some of the texts likely to have been kept at the family’s Lower Ormond school. From the resulting list it is evident that Meic Aodhagáin possessed a considerable collection of vernacular religious material, especially homilies and passions, quite apart from law books.

St Molaise al. Laisrén (†564 au) was founder/abbot of Daimhinis (Devenish). In the late-medieval poem, Cindus fuair Mlaise in Bealach? he is represented as delivering, from the grave, control over his foundation to the Ó Taithligh clerical dynasty and assigning to another clerical lineage the guardianship of his lesser site at Bealach Uí Mhithighéin at Ros Inbir (Co Leitrim). The poem is an excellent illustration of the way lay authorities and hereditary clerical lineages held ecclesiastical foundations and their estates in direct contravention of papal proscription.

A study of the churches and lands of the diocese of Achonry in the pre-Invasion period and a reconstruction of its land-holding as far as possible. This is the fourth in a series of papers on medieval diocesan ecclesiastical lands. The methodology involves the reconstruction of the temporal possessions by using sources from (or as near as possible to) the Anglo-Norman period. The earliest extant such source for Achonry dates to the later sixteenth century. The church estates are then surveyed historically. In most cases, the churches and their estates are shown to be Early Christian in origin.

The first detailed archaeological study of ecclesiastical estates in early medieval Ireland. Using the fine-grained territorial framework of Fir Maige, the settlement archaeology of its three main ecclesiastical estates is analysed: those of Findchú, Molaga and Cránaid. Significant variations are noted. These may reflect varying emphases in clientship versus direct labour. Landscape archaeology can therefore make a significant contribution to understanding the socio-economic strategies of important ecclesiastical sites. Churches on the boundaries of both the estate of Molaga and the kingdom in which it lies are here seen as conscious expressions of christianisation and sovereignty when the latter was under threat. This illustrates how christianisation was often a political process as well as a religious one.

The introduction of heraldic shield-devices to Ireland was a consequence of the Norman invasion. Evidence of their use and development is found on tombs and seals, perhaps the greatest repository of the latter being the Ormond collection, formerly in Kilkenny Castle, now in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin. Many, but by no means all, of the coats of arms and shields found in these sources are recorded in the English rolls of arms.