4: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



(no. 38, ff, 74^^-76). The remaining articles, in later hands, evidently 

 occupy pages originally left blank (nos. 39-41). 



We now pass to a more complex group. It runs from f. 89 to f. 212, and 

 consists of five gatherings of twelve, a gathering of six, three gatherings of 

 twelve, two of six, three inserted leaves, and a gathering of six. Gatherings 

 of twelve do not occur elsewhere. The principal contents of these leaves are 

 as follows : — 



1. The fourth book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard (no. 47). 



2. Extracts from Lives of Saints (no. 54). 



3. Statutes, &c. (nos. 57-62, 64-68). 



4. A French poem (no. 69). 



5. A legal tract (no. 70). 



6. Chronicles (no. 71). 



7. Statutes (nos. 78, 79). 



These must have originally followed one another in a single volume, for 

 all except the first and the last begin in the middle of gatherings, and the 

 third and last are in the same hand. The volume had several blank pages 

 (f. 202^ f. 203, ff. 208-212), now filled with notes and scribblings. To it also 

 probably belonged f. 78, which contains a fragment of a treatise entitled 

 " Genesis " (no. 42). 



A fragment of a lost book may also be recognized in ff. 227, 228 (nos. 136, 

 137), which formed part of a gathering of at least four leaves, two of which, 

 and part of a third (f. 228), have been cut out. 



But this tedious investigation need not be carried further. Its purpose 

 has been to prove that the principal interest of the Liter Niger is of a 

 different kind from that of the Liber Alhus. The latter is valuable because 

 it preserves documents which throw light on the history of the institution to 

 which it belongs. The latter, setting aside its marginalia, is a collection of 

 tracts, some of them of much importance, which nevertheless supply no 

 direct knowledge of the affairs of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. It is a 

 congeries of books and fragments of books, bound together for no better 

 reason than that their pages were of much the same size. But herein is its 

 unique interest. It is the debris of the library of the convent. Like the better- 

 known martyrology of Christ Church, it helps us to form some conception 

 of the subjects which occupied the thoughts of the brethren, of the literature 

 which the more studious among them read. It is the solitary specimen 

 which we possess of the contents of a medieval Irish monastic library. If 

 we may judge from the character of the handwritings, most of the older 

 portions of the volume were transcribed in the fourteenth century. 



