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V. 



CALENDAE OF THE LIBEE EUBEE OF THE DIOCESE OF OSSOEY. 

 By Eev. H. J. LAWLOE, D.D. 



Read April 27. Ordered for Publication May 13. Published July 31, 1908. 



Preface. 



The Liber Ruter of the Diocese of Ossory is a manuscript containing eighty 

 leaves of vellum (including f. 6, which is of half the usual width), the normal 

 measurements of which are 300 x 210 mm. Two consecutive leaves have 

 the number 17, and those numbered 54 and 55 {rede 56, 55) have been 

 transposed by the binder. The formation of its seven gatherings of leaves 

 may be exhibited thus : — 



Ag (A5 without conjugate) B^.^ 0^2 D^2 E^, ^^17 (^2, .3, 15 without con- 

 jugates) Gr^Q (G3, 4 without conjugates). 



A table of contents written on four leaves of paper was prefixed to the 

 volume in the eighteenth century. It was compiled, if I mistake not, by the 

 scribe who made one of the copies of Archbishop Alan's Eegister now in the 

 Library of Trinity College, Dublin (MS. 554).^ 



The book was known in the seventeenth century by the title which it 

 now bears ; and it was then regarded as the oldest existing record of the 

 see, as appears from the following inscription on f . 1 : — 



" Liber Euber Diocesis Ossoriensis, antiquissimus ecclesiee Ossoriensis.^ 

 Eich. Connell, ISTotarius Publicus, Eegistrarius dictae Diocesis principalis, 

 Anno Domini 1678." 



The name which the volume is thus proved to have borne for more than 

 two centuries was plainly due to the colour of its original cover, which still 

 remains. It was bound in oak boards covered with red leather. 



The date of its original compilation can be fixed within somewhat narrow 

 limits. For nos. 14, 15, 17-22, 24-33, 37-40, 43, 49 (?), which comprise the 



1 See Hermathena, xiv. 301. 



^ The obvious inference from this phrase is that the Liber Albus was already lost. A sixteenth- 

 century copy of some charters contained in it has been printed by Dr. H. F. Berry in the 

 Proceedings of the Academy, vol. xxvii., sect. C, no. 3. They all date from a period much earlier 

 than that of the Liber Ruber. ■ . - ■ ! 



K.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXVII., SECT. C. [25] 



