274 



tion. *' Usher has written a most learned treatise on the Erenach, 

 Termon, and Corban lands, which were the ancient demesnes or 

 mensals of the Irish Church."* After endowing any church with 

 such possessions, the donor could no longer exercise any power of dis- 

 posing of them, but the entire ordering thereof appertained to the 

 abbot free from all temporal impositions and exactions, (which 

 exemptions were still further enforced by the fourth constitution of the 

 council held at Cashel in 1172.) The occupants and cultivators of 

 the lands so assigned, passed by the grant, and thenceforth their 

 services belonged in the way of villeinage to the church, to which 

 their farms were transferred. At first the abbots of these several 

 houses were exclusively ecclesiastical, and exercised powers within 

 their districts, with which even the bishops could not interfere ;■!• and 

 hence in Zona's Life of Eustacius, they are called Praesules. After 

 the Danish invasion, however, when religion was despised, and its 

 establishments profaned by those unbelievers, a custom began to pre- 

 vail, as it were " ex necessitate," of appointing the most powerful 

 persons of the country patrons of the church, who, in process of time, 

 from a desire of gain, usurped the whole right, appropriating to their 

 own use the possessions of all the lands, and leaving to the clergy 

 only the altars with their tenths and oblations, and the dues for 

 strictly ecclesiastical purposes. These lay usurpers assumed to them- 

 selves the names of abbots, and became very frequent throughout Ire- 

 land,:]: as they were also in Wales. § Besides these landed revenues, the 

 clergy had also oblations, mortuaries, and the like offerings from the 

 liberality of the people, while the proceeds of all were devoted to the 



* See Nicholson's Irish Historical Lib. p. 21, and post, Period 4. sect. 3. 



t See Bede, Eccl. Hist. lib. 3. c. 4. J See Vita Malachiae, cs. 7, S, 9. 



§ Girald. Itin. Cambr. lib. 2. c. 4. 



