418 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



SUBSECTION IV. 

 HOUSES. 



AMONGST the minor edifices which were required in the ancient religious 

 establishments of the Irish, the houses or cells of the abbot and brotherhood 

 require a short notice. To those whose eyes have been familiar with the great 

 monasteries of the Continent and the British islands, erected in the twelfth 

 century, and which usually exhibit, in one great structure, the various accom- 

 modations necessary for a wealthy religious community, it always excites feelings 

 of surprise when they find nothing of the kind at any of the places celebrated 

 in Irish ecclesiastical history, as the abodes of large numbers of religious persons ; 

 and it has necessarily led to much scepticism as to the authenticity of those 

 authorities relied on for the facts. At Glendalough, for example, where, from its 

 secluded situation and desertion, such buildings, or vestiges of them, might 

 naturally be expected to remain, if they had ever existed, there is not even a 

 trace of such buildings to be found within the ancient city. The fact, indeed, 

 seems to be, that prior to the close of the twelfth century, there were no great 

 architectural structures designed to give accommodation to the brotherhood, as 

 found in those erected subsequently to that period. It is clear, however, that in 

 the earliest monastic establishments in Ireland, the abbot, clergy, and monks, had 

 each their separate cells, which served them as habitations, and that such other 

 houses, as the house for the accommodation of strangers, the kitchen, &c., were 

 all separate edifices, surrounded by a cashel, or circular wall, and forming a 

 kind of monastery, or ecclesiastical town, like those of the early Christians in the 

 East, and known among the Egyptians by the name of Laura. Such monastic 

 establishments are noticed by our own Adamnan, in his celebrated work, " De 

 Situ Terrce Sanctce," as in the following passage : 



"De Monte T/iabor. 



" * * * * in cuius amoena summitate ampla planities, sylva prsegrandi circumcincta, habetur. 

 Cuius in medio campo Monachorum inest grande Monasterium, et plurimse eorundem cellulse. * * * 



" In eadem quoq ; superior! platea, non parui aedificij ternse fundatse sunt Ecclesise celebres ; 

 * * * Itaq; supra memorati monastery, et trium Ecclesiarum sedificia, cum cellulis Monachorum, 

 lapideo omnia circumueniuntur muro :" Lib. 2, cap. xxiv. pp. 85, 87. 



Thus also in Venerable Bede's abstract of Adamnan's work, a similar 





