328 



were not of the Irish Church estabhshment, it might be sufficiently 

 inferred from the humiUty, self-denial, and abstinence, in which the 

 clergy of that country appear to have lived. Cambrensis himself says, 

 that when Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, came down to visit King 

 Henry, a white cow was driven before him, from whose milk he de- 

 rived his only sustenance.* And in the ancient " History of the Arch- 

 bishops of Bremen," (p. 64,) a very singular instance indeed is given 

 of the limited revenues of an Irish divine. It is introduced in the 

 account of the council of Lateran, where an Irish bishop stated that 

 his whole maintenance was three milch cows, which on failure of milk 

 were replaced by his parishioners.-l- The revenues, however, necessary 

 for the service of religion and support of hospitality, continued to be 

 derived from those Corban, Erenach, and Termon lands, on which 

 Spelman furnishes an elaborate discourse in his Glossary, :J: as does 

 Doctor Lanigan in his Ecclesiastical History. § Sitric, the Danish 

 prince of Dublin, in 1038 bestowed part of that tract of land which 

 extends along the shore from Dublin to Howth, on his religious foun- 

 dations. || The monasteries were also supported by frequent donations 

 of cattle.** 



The Irish annalists are most diffuse in describing the splendid do- 

 nations given by the before-mentioned Turlough O'Conor, " in pios 



* " Vaccam caudidam, cujus solum lacte vescebatur, secum quocunque venerat circumdu- 

 cens." — Hibem. Expugn. lib. 1. c. 34. 



+ " Erat ibi etiam Hybernicus, (Episcopus,) qui retulit se non habere alias reditus prseter 

 tres vaccas lactantes, quas in defectu lactis parochiani sui per alias innovabant." 



I Title, " Corban." § Vol. iv. p. 80, &c. 



II See Grose's Antiquities, p. 19. 



** In 1 106 " S. Celsus archiepiscopus Ardmachanus circuit et visitat Ultoniam, et juxta po- 

 puli taxationem ad numerum quemque senarium personarum accipit unum bovem, vel ad uu- 

 merum ternarium unam juvencam, cum multis aliis donariis et oblutionibus." And in the same 

 year he took a circuit of Munster, " Et in singulis cantharedis accepit septem boves, septem 

 oves, et mediam unciam argenti, cum multis aliis gratuitis donariis." — Trias Thaum. p. 299. 



