Lawlor — A Charter of Cristin, Bishojo of Louth. 37 



his other monastic foundations in the same district, there is no reference to the 

 Priory of St. Mary. A priori one might hare expected that it would rather 

 have been at Knock than at Louth that Bishop Edan would have placed his 

 seat. The date of the introduction of Augustinian canons to St. Mary's 

 appears to be unknown. It is quite possible that the chapter was fixed at 

 that house prior to the foundation of the priory at Knock. 



But the interest of our Charter is not wholly ecclesiastical. Mr. Orpen 

 has investigated, with his usual care, the history of the Anglo-Norman settle- 

 ment in Louth. 1 He believes that on the occasion of Prince John's 

 visit to Ireland in 1185, or soon afterwards, a considerable part of the 

 modern County of Louth was distributed among his retainers. Now, 

 one of those who came over from England with him was Gilbert Pipard, 

 the future crusader, to whom reference has already been made. It is 

 known that he was an itinerant justice in England in 12.76 and 1179, 2 

 and that he was in the entourage of John in Ireland in 1185. We have 

 found reason to think that he was still in Ireland when Cristin's charter was 

 written. To him, according to Mr. Orpen, or to his brother Soger, John gave 

 the barony of Ardee. Now let us turn to the Charter. It is a grant of the 

 presentation of the churches of ^Clonkeen and Drumcar to Peter Pipard. 

 Peter Pipard seems to have been a man of some distinction, though we do not 

 meet with his name very often in our scanty collection of documents belonging 

 to this period. He is supposed to have been a brother of Gilbert and Boger. 

 With Theobald Walter, and others, he witnessed a grant by John of the 

 bishopric of Glendalough to John Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, on 27th 

 December, 1192. 3 He was afterwards justiciary, apparently in 1194. But, 

 while in possession of that office, he seems to have fallen into disfavour, 4 and 

 we do not hear of him afterwards. We have no difficulty in explaining why 

 the Bishop and Convent of Louth presented the advowsons of two of their 

 churches in the barony of Ardee to a member of the Pipard family. It was 

 obviously their interest to be on friendly terms with the man into whose posses- 

 sion had lately come so large a territory in the diocese of Uriel. But, however 

 this may be, our Charter confirms Mr. Orpen's conclusion, for it proves that as 

 early as the year 1188, within three years of John's departure from Ireland, the 

 Pipards had some interest in the district in which the churches were situated. 

 But the question arises, why was Peter selected in preference to Gilbert or 



- Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxxviii, p. 241 ft'; Ireland 

 under the Normans, vol. ii, p. 118 ff. 



2 "Benedict of Peterborough," vol. i, pp. 108, 239. 



3 Register of Archbishop Alan, pt. ii, f. 25'. This grant is printed in Gilbert's Crede 

 Mihi, p. 44, without the names of the witnesses. 



! Orpen, op. cit., p. 112. 



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