34 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 



of UrieL In a paper published more than three years ago on the early 

 history of the Diocese of dogher 1 I ventured on the conjecture that the 

 Bishops of Louth had a chapter of regular canons. In support of this 

 hypothesis I quoted the statement of the Annals of Loch Ce that Bishop Edan 

 was a " head of canons," and the report of the Archbishop of Armagh to the 

 Pope in 1227 that- a regular canon had taken part in the election of a Bishop 

 of Clogher. This evidence is indeed very far from conclusive. But our Charter 

 gives it strong support. The grant is made by the Bishop and the Prior and 

 Canons of St. Mary's. Louth, and is attested by their seal. In other words, 

 the relation of Cristin to the canons of St. Marys appears to have been 

 exactly that which always subsisted between a Bishop and his Cathedral 

 Chapter when it was composed of Augustinian canons. 2 In such cases the 

 Bishop was the Abbot of the community, though its immediate head was the 

 Prior. So it was. for example, at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Dublin. 2 

 A: Carlisle, likewise, where was the only Augustinian Cathedral in England, 

 the connexion of the Bishop with the chapter was of the closest kind 5 In the 

 words of Dr. James Wilson : — ;i There was no separate endowment for the 

 maintenance of the episcopate, except a eanonry of York . . . For the first 

 century after the creation of the bishopric, all the benefactions were made, 

 not to the priory or to the bishopric, but to the Church of Carlisle, which 

 included both. The endowments of the bishopric and priory were one, and 

 indivisible . . . The Church of Carlisle was an ecclesiastical corporation, 

 and the Bishop had no real property distinct from his cathedral church. 5 

 Dr. "Wilson goes on to remark that the endowments " were, for the most part, 

 of a spiritual nature. The first gift to which we can attach an approximate 

 date was made by King Henry in the form of a reversion of four churches." 6 

 This is most interesting when considered in relation to our Charter. It is a 



■ Irish Church Qnarlerly. vol. ii (1909). p. 241. 



5 Since there has been much confusion between the canons of St. Mary's and those of 

 the neighbouring house of St. Peter and St. Paul at Knock, it may be well to give proof 

 that the former belonged to the Order of St. Augustine. It will be found in the Register 

 of Archbishop Fleming, f. 17' (Calendar, no. 82 



- See J. L. Robinson in the Irith Church Quarterly, vol. vi (1913), p. 38. 



• Here no prior intervened between the bishop and the canons. 



; "" An Augustinian Cathedral— Carlisle," in Transc fthe Scottish Eccl-esiological 



Society, vol. iii, p. '-■ i 



4 Ibid., p. 268. In this respect the Church of Carlisle was in striking contrast to the 

 Priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, which from the first possessed much landed property. 

 See the donation of St. Laurence O'Toole in the Liber Albus of Christ Church, f. 40 . Cal. 

 (in Proc. B. LA., vol. xvii, Sec. C, Xo. 1), no. 42. But it must be remembered that up to 

 the time of St. Laurence the Chapter of Holy Trinity was not Augustinian. His charter 

 was probably only a confirmation to the Augustinian Canons of property already belonging 

 to the Church. Compare Christ Church Deed, 364.-. 



