occupations, laboured at least sufficiently for their own support ;* 

 whence it is said in the Life of Saint Brandan, " a monk should be 

 fed and clothed by the labour of his own hands."-f 



Twenty was the earliest age at Avhich monastic vows could be 

 taken.:}: The garments of the professed were of the simplest materials, 

 while over all a plain white surplice was worn, according to a fashion 

 which Saint Patrick himself introduced. § So Adamnan speaksH of 

 the " Candida tunica" of Saint Columba, and in Cumian's life of that 

 saint, (c. 6,) it is stated that he instructed in Hy " candidos mona- 

 chorum greges." Cogitosus also mentions the " pallium album et 

 vestem candidam " of Saint Brigid.** 



The author of this Essay, however wholly reluctant to enter into 

 controversy, feels it necessary here to state, that an important diffe- 

 rence from the present discipline of the Church of Rome, appears to 

 have then existed, in the marriage of the Irish clergy being rather 

 disapproved of than forbidden : thus Saint Bernard says, " octo 

 extiterunt ante Celsum viri uxorati, et absque ordinibus, literati ta- 

 men."-f"-f' And a few lines before, "mos pessimus inoleverat * * * 

 sedem sanctam obtentam iri hereditaria successione, &c."-|'-f- It is 



• " Ad exemplum venerabUium Patrum, sub regula et abbate canonico in magna continen- 

 tia et sinceritate, proprio labore manuum vivunt." — Bede, Eccl. Hist. lib. 4. c. 4. 



f "Monachum oportet labore manuum suarum vesci et vestiri." — C. 10. sect. 7. 



+ « A viginti annis debet unusquisque constringi, non adtestando sed voto perficiendo, 

 ut est ilhid, unusquisque sicut proposuit corde suo faciat, et ut vota mea reddam in conspectu 

 Domini etreliqua, &c." — Synod of Saint Patrick, c. 17, in Spelman's Concilia, vol. 1. p. 58. 



§ " Super caetera indumenta cuculla Candida amiciebatur, ****** unde et 

 monachi in Hibernia S. Patricii sequendi vestigia, per multa temporum volumina habitu sim- 

 plici contenti erant, quem ovium ministrabat lana, qualibet extrinseca tinctura remota."— 

 Jocelin, c. 185. 



II Vita Columb. lib. 2, c. 44. ** See post, in this section, 



•f-f Vita Malachiae, c. 7. 



