271 . 



A. D. 1002, whom they state to have been the chief Brehon of the 

 northern moiety of Ireland ; and various similar allusions to the ex- 

 istence of the Brehon jurisdiction and code abound in the domestic 

 histories.* 



SECTION III. 



Morals and Religion. 



It is obviously deducible from the history of this interval, that 

 the march of religion and morality must have been cruelly checked by 

 the progress of the Danish tyrannies. Christianity had hitherto, as 

 Cambrensis admits, remained untainted and unshaken, (illibata et 

 inconcussa,) but henceforward the Christian clergy could only pre- 

 serve their lives in the intricacy of woods, and bogs, and caverns; 

 and Jocelin goes the length of affirming, that deviations both in 

 discipline and doctrine were the result of this breaking up of 

 the ecclesiastical comm unities, -f- By great efforts of endurance, 

 however, some of the principal schools were maintained, and no- 

 tices can still be found of many a youth, who " in Hiberniam erudi- 

 tionis caus'^ missus, Ardmachae humanis literis imbutus est.":{: 



The atonement of external persecution did not satisfy the morti- 

 fying spirit of the more zealous ; penances and pilgrimages were still 

 enforced. The Irish Annals speak of regular penitential houses, such 



* See O'Reilly on the Brehon Laws. 



■|- " In illis enim diebus sancti in cavernis et speluncis, quasi carbones cineribus cooperti, 

 latitabant a facie impiorum, qui eos tota die quam oves occisionis mortificabant. Ex qua re 

 accidit, ut varii ritus contra ecclesiastica instituta in Hibemid adducerentur, et a prelatis sanctae 

 ecclesiae divinae legis ignaris, contra formam ejusdem nova sacramenta conficerentur." 



X Mabillon, Annal. Bened. ad. ann. 944. 



