Lawlor — A Charter of Cristin, Bishop of Louth. 31 



reverted de facto, if not de jure, to the diocese of Armagh, of which in earlier 

 times it had formed a part. 1 



Now there can be little doubt that the list of Bishops of Louth which I 

 have given is complete. And among them there are two, and only two, 

 whose names might have been represented by Cristinus in a Latin document. 

 One of these is Gillacrist, the brother of Malachy, whom both St. Bernard 

 and the Annals of St. Mary's Abbey call Christianus, and who died circa 

 1139. The other is the second Gillacrist, who died in 1193. In the only 

 Latin instrument iii which I have hitherto found mention of him, his initial 

 is given as C. 2 



From which of these two the document before us emanated there can be 

 no doubt, for one of the witnesses is Eadulf us Parvus, or le Petit, Archdeacon 

 of Meath. This person held the archdeaconry in 1206, 3 became Bishop of 

 Meath in 1227, and died in 1230. 4 It is therefore impossible that he can 

 have been archdeacon in the lifetime of the earlier Gillacrist. Consequently 

 the Cristinus of our instrument must be Gillacrist II, and its date must lie 

 between 1187 — in which year his predecessor, Mael Isu, died — and 1193. 



The name of another witness — the Prior of Duleek — enables us to define 

 the date more exactly. That priory was held in the last decade of the 

 twelfth century, and the first decade of the thirteenth, by one Gilbert, whose 

 name or initial appears in many extant documents. He was appointed as 

 early as the episcopate of Eugenius, Bishop of Clonard, who died in 1191 5 : 

 for, along with Eugenius, he witnessed an instrument of our Cristin, Bishop 

 of Louth ; 6 and he appears also as a witness in a confirmation granted by 

 Eugenius to the Abbot and Convent of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin. 1 And he 

 was still Prior on 14th February, 1206— many years after the death of 

 Cristin, Bishop of Louth — when a letter was issued in his name and that of 

 Simon Eochfort, Bishop of Meath. 8 Thus from 1191, at the latest, to the end 

 of the episcopate of Cristin, the Prior of Duleek was Gilbert. 



he was appointed Abbot in 1215 {Chart, of St. Marys Abbey, ii, 40), the Synod must have 

 been held in 1215 or 1216. 



1 The Synod of Rathbraesal made Sliabh Breagh — the range of hills which runs east 

 and west from Clogher Head to Collon — the southern boundary of the Parochia of Armagh. 

 Keating, History of Ireland, ed. Comyn and Dinneen (Irish Texts Society), 1902-1908, 

 vol. iii, p, 303. Op. Theiner, Monumenta, p. 40. 



2 Beg. of St. Thomas's Abbey, p. 267. I leave out of account the Bishop Ua Mael 

 Ciarain, whose Christian name is unknown ; because it will presently appear that a date 

 between 1193 and 1197 for our Charter is impossible. See also above, p. 30, note 9. 



3 Reg. of St. Thomas's Abbey, p. 348. 



1 Cal. of Pat. Soils, 1225, p. 115 ; Annals of Loch Ge. 



5 Annals of Loch Ce. 



6 Reg. of St. Thomas's Abbey, p. 268. 



7 Chart, of St. Mary's Abbey, vol. i, p. 157. s Reg. of St. Thomas's Abbey, p. 348. 



