348 



vation of the politer arts. The rareness of such edifices, in this inter- 

 val, may be also referred to the strong national prejudice, avowed in 

 the instance of Malachy's oratory, against such unwieldy structures, 

 as inconsistent with the simplicity of the times. 



Of the husbandry of this period, though Giraldus in one place says 

 that the Irish despised agriculture, (" gens haec agriculture labores 

 aspernatur,") yet the same author, in his subsequent description of 

 the country, shews that the natives were rather disinclined to than 

 wholly neglectful of it.* Querns, which were the first mode in use for 

 grinding the grain, had been superseded in the interval of our former 

 period by mills, and at this time Giraldus, while he particularly writes 

 " de tritici semine per imprecationem Corcagiensis episcopi non prove- 

 niente,"-f- notices " molendinum Sancti Lucherni,"."!: " molendinum 

 Sancti Phechini,"§ both which " seem to have been water-mills erected 

 by the monks, and to which the vicinity resorted. "l| The same author 

 speaks of corn plundered from churches and mills, ("annonam quam 

 ab ecclesiis et molendino passim rapuerant.")** In the grant to Earl 

 Richard, (about 1173,) mills are mentioned, also in the grant of 

 Meath to Hugh De Lacy, in that from Fitz-Adelm to the monastery 

 of Saint Thomas near Dublin, and likewise in several charters of 

 prince John.-f-f- 



* " Pecore montes, nemorosa feris abundant. Pascuis tamenquam frugibus, gramine quam 

 grano, foecundior est insula ; multam fruges in herba, plurimam in culmis, minorem in granis 

 spem promittit. Tritici namque grana contracta sunt hie et minuta, et vix vanni alicujus 

 beneficio purganda ; abunde satis et campi vestiuntur et borrea farciuntur, sola vero granaria 

 destituuntur." — Top. Hib. Dist. 1. c. 4. 



t Top. Hib. Dist. 2. c. 49. + Top. Hib. Dist. 2. c. 51. 



§ Top. Hib. Dist. 2. c. 52. || Ledwicb's Antiquities, p. 373. 



•• Top. Hib. Dist. 2. c. 53. 



ft See Harris's Coll. MSS. vol. i. pp. 13, 20, 24, 33, &c. See also the Reports of the Com- 

 missioners on-the Records, 1810 to 1815, p, 309. William Fitz-Stephen, in the reign of Henry 



