116 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



recent addition. How then could he assign it to the time of St. Patrick? 

 It is clear that lie is speaking, not of it, but of the Domnach itself. Finally, 

 only one of the recesses contains, or probably ever contained, relics. That 

 one, it is true, holds a fragment of the Cross. But where were the relics of 

 the Apostles, where was the Virgin's hair (remembered as late as the nine- 

 teenth century), where were the fragment of the Holy Sepulchre and the 

 other relics, not definitely described ?' 



But Petrie has another defence. "Monkish biographers," it seems, could 

 not have known what the 1 lomnach contained. lor no one would have dared to 

 open it. "No Buperstition was and is more common in connexion with the 

 ancient cumdachs than the dread of their being opened." 1 That may be. 

 But that this ciundaeh was actually opened at the beginning of the century 

 in which the Codes Salmanticensis was written is certain. The evidence will 

 1m- produced lower down. 



The Pact is that the documentary evidence is too strong for Dr. Petrie's 

 hypothesis. Viewed without prepossession, and in the light of the facts 

 disclosed by Mr. Armstrong's investigation, it will be found, as 1 believe, to 

 lead to the following conclusion. Prior t" the middle of the fourteenth 

 century the Domnach Ah. used as a receptacle for relics, of which it 



contained a . re. When the outer case was made the fragment of the 



moved from the interior "i the shrine t<> a mure fitting position, 

 immediately above the representation of i lie crucifixion, which was the prin- 

 cipal ornament of the new The.,- ,i was Becurely fixed in a recess, and 

 ■ \ .. crystal ; and there it still remains. 



.".. The third proposition which is essential for I >r. Petrie's argument is 



one of which he gives no proof, that the manuscript which was in the shrine 



go was "the treasure for whose honour and preservation" the 



onach was ma e Dr. Bernard makes short work of it. "It is demon- 

 strable," he write-. •• that the inm i yew was not made to contain the 

 in their original form. For the measurements of the inside of this 

 case inches only: while the MS., now that it has heen opened, 



een to have Keen certainly not less than '.* inches long by tij inches broad."' 

 Wi. 1 re than twenty years ago, it appeared to me conclusive. 6 



1 Dr. Petrie seems to have thought that the relics mentioned in the Codex Salmanti- 

 censis were under the ci 'he outer case. The hypothesis was a priori probable. 



There was a relic under one of the crystals of the shrine of the Cathach of St. Columba 

 (Transaction*, xxxiii C, p. 394 . as Petrie doubtless knew ; and below one of the crystals 

 of the Domnach there is a fragment of the Cross. But of the six crystals on the Domnach 

 three are on the plates which are of Elizabethan workmanship: the scribe of the Codex 

 3 tnanticen&U cannot have alluded t.. them ; and whether there were any crystals in the 

 portion of the shrine which they replaced we are ignorant. 



i p. 20 p. 17. * P. :io6f. ( Cp. Bury, Life of St. Patrick, p. 309. 



