323 



first apostolic legate of Ireland, paved the way for this assumption, 

 in a short but very curious tract, (yet extant in Usher's Sylloge, 

 p. 55.) It was composed for the use of the Irish, to give them some 

 knowledge of and taste for the Roman hierarchy. An allegorical 

 drawing accompanied it, formed of three arches, the highest was cover- 

 ed with birds representing the angels in heaven, the middle or this 

 world was filled with men, and the lowest or the infernal region was 

 crowded with animals and reptiles, types of its inhabitants. He like- 

 wise describes the Church under the form of a pyramid. The laity 

 is the base, then succeed monks and the lowest clerical orders, their 

 head is the priest; above them are bishops, archbishops, and primates; 

 the Pope is seated on the apex."* 



Gillebert, having effected much by this little work towards the 

 introduction of Roman authority, in 1139 voluntarily divested himself 

 of the legatine authority, which the Pope thereupon conferred upon the 

 aforesaid Malachy. The appointment could not be more judiciously 

 made. The new legate was well disposed to discover the abuses and 

 immoralities which pervaded the country, many of which possibly ex- 

 isted, but which the magnifying medium of his biographer (S. Bernard) 

 has so distorted to posterity. The interposition of the Pope presented 

 to him the only salvation for the island. Immediately previous to his 

 appointment, he had taken a journey to Rome, to solicit two palls 

 from Innocent the Second, one for the See of Armagh, which, 

 from the beginning, as Saint Bernard writes, never had the use of the 

 pall, and the other for the new Metropolitical Church constituted b}- 

 Celsus, and supposed to be Cashel.-f- In the exercise of his legatine 

 function, he held many synods,^ and considerably disposed the public 



* liedwich's Antiquities, p. 363. t Ware's Bishops, p. 55. 



X Ware's Bishops, p. 66. 



T T 2 



