r 16 ] 



III. 



A FEESH AUTHOEITY FOE THE SYXOD OF EIELLS, 1152. 

 Bt Eev. H. J. LAWLOE, D.D. 



Bead January 9. Pullislied Fberuakt 2, 1922. 

 The Synod of Kells is of nmch importance for the historian who desires to 

 trace the derelopment of diocesan episcopacy in Ireland. But of its pro- 

 ceedings our knowledge is not great. The principal authority is the Book of 

 Clonenagh, as quoted by Keating.^ But Keating's extracts, though they give 

 us precise dates, and a list of those who took part in the Synod, tell us no 

 more of its acts than that it condemned simony and usury, and commanded 

 the payment of tithes; and that the President, Cardinal Paparo, bestowed 

 paUs on the four archbishops. The Four Masters, if indeed the Synod which 

 they record to have been held by Paparo at Brogluda in 1152 is really the 

 Synod of Xells, state that it enjoined tithes, and prohibited concubinage, the 

 demand of fees for the administration of certain sacraments, and the sale of 

 church property ; but they say not a word about the palls, the giving of 

 which other authorities regard as its most important business.^ That the 

 Synod did more than can be ascertained from these two sources is made 

 clear by a letter from Pope Honorius III to Henry of London, Archbishop 

 of Dublin, dated 6th October, 1216.' It states that Paparo constituted the 

 dioceses of Ireland, and determined their boundaries, and in particular gave 

 Henry a large portion of the diocese of Glendalough, at the same time pro- 

 ^^diug for the future union of the rest of it with Dublin. Moreover, in the 

 acts of a Synod, held by Simon Eochfort, Bishop of Meath, at ITewtown, 

 near Trim, in 1216, an ordinance of Paparo at the Synod of Kells is recited, 

 to the effect that as the bishops of the weaker sees died off, their dioceses 

 should be con^-erted into niral deaneries.* It is obvious that the Synod of 

 Kells took measures to suppress sees, and fixed the limits of dioceses. 



These facts are, I believe, all that we can learn about the doings of the 

 Synod of Kells from what may be called the primaiy authorities hitherto 

 known to us. But Sir James Ware had in his hands a list of the sees of 

 Ireland as they were divided among the four provinces by Paparo. He says 

 that it was preserved in the Codex Censuum of Cencius the Chamberlain. 

 On it is based the greater part of chapter xvi of his AntiqvMies of Ireland.^ 



' Hutory of Irdnnd, ed. Corayn and Diimeen,- vol. iii, p. 312 S. 



- John of Hexham in Symeonis Monachi Dundrnensis Opera Omnia, ed. Arnold (R.S.), 

 i. 326 ; Historia Pontificalis in JI. H. (?., xx. 539 f. 



3 CredeMOii, ed. GUbert, p. 11. * "Wilkins, Cotunlia, i. 547. 



5 Jacobi Waraei, De Hibeniia et Antiquiiatihtts ejus Disquisitiones, ed. sec, London, 

 1658, pp. 83-87. Translated in Harris, Ware's Works. Ant., p. 285 f. 



