RECORDS, ECCLESIASTICAL
to the holding of benefices on the grounds of illegiti-
macy, provisions to benefices or disputes over the pos-
session of them, dispensations relating to marriage
within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity or affin-
ity, hereditary succession to an ecclesiastical office,
and many others. They are of equal value for both the
Gaelic and Anglo-Norman churches. The obligationes
pro annatis relate to the payment of the first year’s
income from a benefice to the papal cameraand are a
rich source of information about local nomenclature.
Most papal bulls relating to Ireland are lost, destroyed
as symbols of papal government during the Reforma-
tion. Valuations of Irish dioceses for the purpose of
taxation by the crown survive in some numbers for
most dioceses from the early fourteenth century.
The surviving records of episcopal secretariats
relate to everything from the upkeep of buildings and
the management of temporalities to the chastisement
of clergy and laity, but they are not contemporary and
are preserved for the great partand then only imper-
fectlyin later compilations. Most of these functions
in each diocese and their recording lay in the hands of
the archdeacon, a functionary unknown to the pre-
conquest Irish church but indispensable to the church
inter Anglicos. Among the most important of episcopal
registers is the Liber Niger Alani, a compilation made
for John Alen, archbishop of Dublin, in the early six-
teenth century. It contains copies of documents dating
from as early as the twelfth century. Some of them are
found in the thirteenth-century collection of grants,
charters, and letters entitled Crede Mihi. For the arch-
diocese of Armagh, we have a series of registers from
1361 to 1535, from Milo Sweetman, who became
archbishop in 1361, down to George Cromer in the mid-
sixteenth century. They give us a fairly complete pic-
ture of the metropolitan jurisdiction of Armagh, but
they are an inchoate source in which entries are made
with no obvious chronological order or diplomatic
principle, composed of miscellaneous notarial notes
and drafts. No doubt, later rearrangements of material
and regatherings of the manuscripts or fragments of
manuscripts have contributed to that state of affairs.
The famous Red Book of Ossory, compiled in the four-
teenth century, contains much nonecclesiastical material,
such as hymns and poems in Latin and Norman-
French. There are only two surviving original rent rolls
of episcopal estates, but later copies of the rentals of
Dublin and Ossory survive in the Liber Niger Alani
and in the Red Book of Ossory. Episcopal deeds and
cathedral registers survive in very few numbers. Most
parish records of the medieval period have also per-
ished. Collections of deeds dating back to the thir-
teenth century survive for only two Dublin parishes,
St. Catherine and St. James. The only surviving parish
account is that of St. Werburgh, Dublin.
The separate communities with the Irish Church
patronized their monastic foundations with grants of
land, rentals, tithes, endowments, and other privileges.
Monastic records show that such grants, in addition to
the original foundation charter, where such survives,
were scattered over several counties. Many English and
Welsh monasteries also held possessions in Ireland.
Cartularies of these survive for the Augustinian priories
of Llanthony Prima in Wales, Llanthony Secunda near
Gloucester, and St. Nicholas’s priory in Exeter.
Records also survive of the possessions of each house
at the time of their dissolution, 1540−1541. Each house
would certainly have had some record of its posses-
sions and their administration, including copies of
charters, grants, deeds, and leases made to and by the
mother house. Deeds of several monasteries survive,
including the Cistercian abbeys of Duiske, Kells, and
Jerpoint in County Kilkenny and of Holy Cross in
Tipperary, the properties of which came into the Butler
family of Ormond and are preserved among the family
papers in the National Library in Dublin. The original
cartularies of the abbeys of St. Mary and St. Thomas
in Dublin survive, and copies of others now lost, were
made by the seventeenth-century antiquarian James
Ware. They are not solely cartularies but contain copies
of episcopal and papal instruments and of miscella-
neous grants and confirmations. The only obituary
booksnaming those to be commemorated in the
prayers of the communityto survive are for Holy
Trinity and later Christ Church, Dublin, and extracts
made by Ware of the Franciscan monastery at Galway.
Only two other books, miscellanies of administrative
and literary material, survive from the entire medieval
library of Christ Church, the so-called Liber Niger
andLiber Albus, compilations of the fourteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Almost the entirety of medieval
Irish monastic and cathedral libraries has long since
disappeared.
AIDAN BREENReferences and Further Reading
Broun, D. “The Writing of Charters in Scotland and Ireland in
the Twelfth century.” In Charters and the Use of the Written
Wordin Medieval society, edited by K. Heidecker. Turnhout,
2000.
Cheney, C. R. “A Group of Related Synodal Statutes of the
Thirteenth century.” In Medieval Studies presented to Aubrey
Gwynn, S. J.edited by J. A. Watt, J. B. Morrall, and F. X.
Martin. Dublin: 1961.
Connolly, P. Medieval Record Sources. Dublin: 2002, c.2
“Ecclesiastical Records.”
Cosgrove, A., ed. Medieval Ireland 1169− 1534. Dublin: 1987.
Davies, W. “The Latin Charter-tradition in Western Britain,
Brittany and Ireland in the Early Mediaeval Period.” D.
Whitelock et al. (ed.), In Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe:
Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, edited by D. White-
lock et al. Cambridge: 1982.