18 The Eev. J. H. Todd on an Ancient Irish Missal. 



were adopted in Ireland at the Synod of Kells, A.D. 1152,*— are wanting in this 

 Missal, and therefore it must be considered as the Missal which was in use in 

 Ireland before that time. But it needs not this consideration to prove the 

 antiquity of the MS. The characters alone are sufficient evidence to a prac- 

 tised eye. The older writing is certainly not later than the sixth century ; 

 and the more recent hand is probably of the tenth. 



The MS. exhibits evidence of the fact that, at the period of this more recent 

 hand, alterations were made in the Missal, and the older writing mutilated for 

 the purpose of introducing these alterations. In one place a page and a half of 

 the ancient book has been erased, and prayers in the more recent hand written 

 over it, in the manner of a palimpsest. In this more recent hand are written 

 the titles or rubrics prefixed to the prayers, as also the rubrics in the Irish 

 language, mentioned by Dr. O'Conor in page 47 of his account of this MS. The 

 object of these alterations plainly was to bring the older form of Divine Service 

 into conformity with the office then in use, or which the mutilator had some 

 reasons for preferring; as if the possessor of a copy of the ancient Sarum Missal 

 of the Church of England should have sought to bring it into conformity with 

 the present Roman Missal by erasures, alterations, and insertions, in all the 

 places where they are found to differ. 



I may observe that what Dr. O'Conor has said (p. 41) of accents, which he 

 supposes to be musical notes, is a mistake. There is nothing of the kind in 

 the MS. 



At page 71 of the MS., at the end of the Canon of the Mass, we have, in the 

 more recent hand — 



TTlaol caich pcpipi'ic. 



This gives us the information that the more recent additions made to the 

 MS. are in the handwriting of Maolcaich ; but I can find no mention of this 

 personage in any of our records. The name, however, is Irish, and belongs 

 to an early period of our history, when the names of Paganism were still 

 retained. There was a Maelcaich, son of Aedh Bennan, King of West Munster, 

 who may have lived to about the year 700, but he could not have been the 

 scribe of our MS., who was probably a century, or perhaps two, later. 



* Berno was abbot of Eeichenau, and wrote a treatise on the Mass, which has been frequently 

 printed. It may be seen in the "Bibliotheoa Patrum" (Lugd. 1677), toI. xviii. fol. 50. 



