By the mid-8th century, concerns of the various ecclesiastical houses, especially the largest ones, became more temporal and less spiritual, as we have seen. St. Brendan’s Abbey of Clonfert was a major player in those troubles, but it was on the outside of Iar Connacht. Abbeys grew rich and abbots politically powerful.
In some cases, abbots became more of a temporal nature, though when an abbey existed nearby the hereditary abbot still ruled the house, and even when not very few abbots and bishops of the Irish church could be called secular.
A similar trend took place in the Frankish Empire from the 8th thru the 11th centuries, though there the lay abbots as they were called were appointed rather than hereditary. The big difference between the two is that lay abbots in France, still called Gaul for centuries, were actually laymen while those in the Isles were practicing clerics.
Royal abbots
The secularization of the offices of abbot and bishop took their most extreme form in the kingdom of Munster, which took on a uniquely Irish form of caesaropapism. The kings at Cashel had declared they were going to make their realm the “most Christian” in Ireland, and put their actions where their mouths were. Numerous kings of Munster were clerics, some even bishops and abbots.
As early as the 6th century, Fergus Scandal mac Crimthainn, king of Munster 575-582, was also abbot of Emly, the primal house in the kingdom.
Fedelmid mad Crimthann, king of Munster 820-847, was already a Culdee priest upon his accession and was later, within his reign, abbot of Clonfert and abbot of Terryglass.
His successor, Olchobar mac Cináeda, king of Munster 847-851, was also abbot of Emly.
Two kings later, Cenn Faelad gua Mugthigirn, king of Munster 859-872, was another royal abbot of Emly. His son, Eoghan, though not king, served as abbot of Emly 887-890.
Cormac mac Cuileannain, king of Munster 902-908, was also bishop of Cashel.
In the eleventh century when the O’Briens were kings of all Munster, Muiredach mac Carthaig, king of the Eoganacht Chaisil 1052-1096, was also abbot of Emly.
Ecclesiastical warfare
Larger and more influential houses began to not only dominate but to take over smaller houses, houses belonging to less powerful “families”, and independent houses and churches. The takeovers were not always voluntary or without bloodshed either.
Although the region experienced some of the type of consolidation that was almost predatory elsewhere in Ireland, in Iar Connacht it was largely voluntary. Nearly all the churches of the Conmaicne Mara and their cousins the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad went willingly under the aegis of Fechin’s Abbey of Cong, for example. There is also no evidence that the transfer of Annaghdown Abbey from the rule of Clonmacnoise to the rule of Clonfert, probably after the Ui Briuin Seola firmly secured its place in the region, found any more resistance than passive acquiescence.
Though often credited with much of the destruction that sent the Irish church into disarray, the Vikings were responsible for only a third of the attacks on the wealthy monasteries and churches of the early Viking Age in Ireland. The great majority were carried out by the Irish themselves, sometimes against the institutions of rival tribal kingdoms in conjunction with local kings, but more often directly against rivals for ecclesiastical power. For example, between the 8th and 12th centuries, the abbey of Clonmacnoise was attacked seven times by Vikings but twenty-seven times by other Irish.
The following are but a very few of the more notable conflicts among abbeys, church imitating state, sometimes with the state along for the fun.
The abbey of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise attacked the abbey of St. Brendan of Birr in 760.
In 764, the same abbey attacked the abbey of St. Colmcille of Iona at Durrow.
The abbey of St. Brendan of Clonfert attacked the abbey of St. Finbarr at Cork in 807, the same year the Vikings destroyed St. Patrick’s abbey at Roscam.
The abbey of St. Brigit at Kildare raided the abbey of St. Maelruin at Tallaght in 824.
On the heels of a Viking attack on the abbey of Clonmacnoise in 934, warriors from Munster plundered it again.
The Conmaicne Mara attacked the Corco Mruad Arann in 1016 at Mainistir Chiarain on Inishmore Island.
In 1050, the abbey of Clonmacnoise was plundered three times within three months, all three times by Irishmen.
The Irish even worked with the Vikings. In 951 and 953, warriors from Munster plundered the abbey of Clonmacnoise and brought Vikings with them to join in.
The attacks were not always limited to one major institution against another major institution; from the 8th century, bigger houses often assumed control of smaller local houses by force or threat of force. These fratricidal conflicts apparently ceased around the end of the 9th century as there are no more notices of them in the annals after that time.
Among the worst offenders was the Culdee king of Munster, Fedelmid mad Crimthann, who not only seized the abbacy of Clonfert as well as the abbacy of Terryglass but also plundered the abbeys of Clonmacnoise, Kildare, Durrow, Fore, and Gallen.
Double-dipping
Another trend disturbing to many Irish that also began in the 8th century was the practice of prelates, generally abbots, double-dipping, accepting or assuming abbacies at other houses, sometimes a far distance away. In the case of bishoprics, this was not usually a problem unless the see happened to be at a different one from the one at which the incumbent was abbot.
Sometimes the additional positions were acquired by martial conquest. What happened most often in any was that the wealthiest or most influential house received the most of the abbots’ attention while the other house(s) were neglected, and their daughter churches along with it. The following list of a few of the most prominent examples should illustrate the problem.
Do Dimmoc, abbot of Clonard 745-748, was also abbot of Kildare.
Gormgal mac Dindataig, abbot of Armagh 795-806, was also abbot of Clones.
As mentioned above, Fedelmid mad Crimthann was not only the Culdee king of Munster 820-847, but also abbot of Clonfert and abbot of Terryglass.
Suibne mac Forandain, abbot of Armagh 827-830, was also abbot of Devenish.
Eoghan Mainistrech, abbot of Clonard 830-834, was also abbot of Armagh.
Cellach mac Ailello, abbot of Kildare 852-865, was also abbot of Iona from 854.
Mael Brigte mac Tornain, abbot of Armagh 883-927, was also abbot of Iona from 891.
Mael Petair ua Cuain, abbot of Clonfert 888-895, was also abbot of Terryglass.
Colman mac Ailella, abbot of Clonard 921-926, was also abbot of Clonmacnoise.
Celechair mac Robartaig, abbot of Clonard 944-954, was also abbot of Clonmacnoise.
Dub da Leithe II mac Cellaig, abbot of Armagh 965-998, was also abbot of Iona from 989. He was the first abbot from Clann Sinaig, which monopolized the abbacy of Armagh through 1139.
Marcan mac Cenneitig, brother of High King Brian Borumha and abbot of Emly 989-995, was also abbot of Inishcealtra, abbot of Killaloe, and abbot of Terryglass.
Flaithbertach mac Domnaill, abbot of Clonard 1011-1014, was also abbot of Clonmacnoise
Mael Muire ua h-Uchtain was abbot of Kells as well as abbot of Raphoe 1025-1040, but at least both houses were in the Columban family.
Coscrach mac Aingeda, abbot of Clonfert 1036-1040, was also abbot of Killaloe.
Murchad mac Flainn Ua Mael Sechlainn, abbot of Clonard 1055-176, was also abbot of Kells from 1057.
Tigernach ua Braein, abbot of Clonmacnoise 1079-1088, was also abbot of Roscommon.
Gilla Crist Ua hEchain, abbot of Clonard 1117-1136, was also abbot of Molville and/or Clooncraff.
Mael Morda Ua Clothna, abbot of Emly 1122-1164, was also abbot of Baltinglass.
The Culdees
Toward the end of the 8th century, as abbeys grew fat with wealth and often drunk with power, the Culdee (from Celi De, “servants of God”) reform movement began at Tallaght under St. Maelruain over what its adherents saw as the growing decadence and temporalization of the Church growing out of some of the trends just cited.
Despairing of the condition into which the Irish Church had fallen, a monk and student at St. Ruadhan’s monastery of Lothra in what is now the north of Co. Tipperary left it to find another way. Seeking to launch a movement of reform and revival, Maelruain obtained from Cellach mac Dunchada, king of the Ui Dunlainge and of Leinster, a plot of land a few miles southwest of the later Dublin to create new kind of monk from his base at Tallaght.
The Culdees, from the Irish Celi De (‘servant of God’), adhered to more rigid discipline and a strict rule, and were especially devoted to caring for the poor and the sick, somewhat along the lines of canons regular. Usually their chapters were attached to cathedrals or collegiate churches where they lived as anchorites, at least in the movement’s early years. They dwelled in small individual beehive cells attached to the outside of the church walls.
Though linked by a common goal, each house was independent, unlike the other Irish monastic families. Most chapters also had satellite churches or chapels which they served, as in the case of Tallaght, to which were attached the chapels of Killohan and St. Brigid.
By the mid-9th century, there were at least seventeen Culdee chapters in Ireland, at Armagh, Clondalkin, Clones, Clonfeacle, Clonmacnoise, Devenish, Derrynoose, Donaghmore (Co. Tyrone), Dysert, Magheracross, Monaincha, Mullaghbrack, Pubble, Scattery Island, Sligo, Tallaght, and Tassagh.
In Scotland, the movement hosted twenty-six Culdee chapters, including Aberlady, Abernethy, Brechin, Colonsay, Culross, Dornoch, Dunblane, Dunfermline, Dunkeld, Govan, Inchaffray, Inchcolm, Iona, Kilrymont (St. Andrews), Kilspindie, Kirkcaldy, Lismore, Lochleven (St. Serf’s Island), Mailros (Old Melrose), Monifieth, Monymusk, Muthill, Portmoak, Rosemarkie, Scone, and Tyningham.
Perhaps as a legacy of Northumbria’s pre-Whitby relationship with the Abbey of Iona and its Columban monks, the Cathedral of York had Culdee monks as its chapter until it was destroyed in the Harrowing of the North by William the Conqueror. Displaced from the new cathedral, those Culdees joined the ones of St. Peter’s Hospital in the city, founded by King Aethelstan. Renamed St. Leonard’s when the Culdees converted into Augustinian Canons Regular, the hospital eventually became the largest in England. And according to some sources, the chapter of Beverley Minster as founded by King Aethelstan was also composed of Culdees until the Conquest.
In Wales, the Culdees had houses on Snowdon Mountain and on Bardsey Island that lasted until the High Middle Ages.
In time, each of these houses (which were independent of each other) gained lay associates who abided by certain of the house’s rules in much the same way as the later tertiary orders on the Continent.
By the beginning of the 12th century, many of the Culdee houses in Irleand had either become canons regular (and certainly did after the Anglo-Norman conquest) or else as secularized and corrupted as the earlier monastic establishments they sought to reform, with a few notable exceptions.
The mother house of the Culdee movement was one such house, but still found itself united to the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1179.
In Scotland, eight of the Culdees houses became cathedral chapters under the reforms of David I, later transitioning to become secular canons, except for St. Andrews.
The Culdees at Abernethy became canons regular in 1273. The chapter at St. Andrews existed side-by-side with the cathedral priory of Augustinian canons regular until 1297. The Culdees at Dunkeld became secular canons in the time of Alexander I and existed alongside a priory of Augustinian Canons for two centuries until the latter merged with the Inchcolm Priory to create Inchcolm Abbey. The chapter of Culdees at Brechin remained such until becoming secular canons in 1372.
The last surviving chapter of Culdees was at Armagh, where it became part of the cathedral chapter proper, a chapter within a
chapter. This group of Culdees lasted
until 1541 when the cathedral chapter itself was dissolved, upon which the
prior and brothers became the preceptor and vicars choral of the new college of secular canons.
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