In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, many
other branches of the lineage existed in Connacht,
Meath and Tipperary, many of whom later died out or
were reduced to insignificance. In the fifteenth, a mem-
ber of the Carbury branch acquired by marriage the
hereditary chief sergeantship of Meath and lands in that
county: his grandson Patrick Bermingham of Corbally
(d. 1532) was Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in
Ireland, a post previously occupied (1474–1489) by a
Philip Bermingham, perhaps from a branch that settled
at Baldongan in County Dublin.
KENNETH NICHOLLS
References and Further Reading
Robin Frame. English Lordship in Ireland, 1318–1361Oxford:
Clarendon, 1982.
Nicholls, Kenneth. Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Middle
Ages.Dublin: Gill and MacMillan, 1972.
Orpen, Goddard Henry. Ireland Under the Normans 1216–1333
4 vols (Oxford University Press, 1911 and 1920).
Perros (Walton), Helen. “Crossing the Shannon Frontier:
Connacht and the Anglo-Normans, 1170–1224.’ In Colony
and Frontier in Medieval Ireland: Essays Presented to J.
F.L ydon,edited by T. B. Barry, et. al. London: Hambledon,
1995: 117–138.
Sweetman, H. S., ed. Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland.
5 vols. London: Longman, 1875–1886.
Otway-Ruthven, A. J. A History of Medieval Ireland. 2nd ed.
New York: Routledge Books, 1980.
See alsoAnglo-Norman Invasion: Bruce, Edward;
Burgh; Butler-Ormond; Factionalism;
Gaelic Revival; Gaelicisation; Kildare;
Leinster; Ua Conchobair, Failge; Racial
and Cultural Conflict; Strongbow.
BIBLICAL AND CHURCH FATHERS
SCHOLARSHIP
Irish activity in biblical studies can properly be said
to have begun with St. Patrick in the fifth century. The
saint’s writings rely heavily on scripture, particularly
the Epistles of Paul, which Patrick cites effectively to
illustrate his own situation as an exile. Apart from
Patrick’s writings, the fifth century remains dark, and
there is very little literary evidence for most of the
sixth. However, towards the beginning of the seventh
century, signs reveal that the intensive study of the
Bible had been in progress in Ireland for some time.
The Old Irish poem Amra Choluimb Chille, believed
by many to be an early-seventh-century work, credits
St. Columba (Colum Cille, d. 597) not only with reg-
ular reading of scripture, but also with editing a copy
of the Psalms. Also associated with Columba is the
Cathach(Battler), a manuscript of the Psalms which,
according to legend, was carried by the saint even into
battle. This manuscript survives as “Dublin, Royal
Irish Academy, s.n.,” assigned variously to the late
sixth or early seventh century. Jonas of Bobbio (sev-
enth century) records that St. Columbanus (d. 615)
wrote a commentary on the Psalms in his youth. This
work, unfortunately, has not been recovered.
The period from the seventh to the ninth century
marks the high point of Irish medieval biblical studies,
encompassing not only the copying and glossing of
biblical books, but also the writing of scriptural com-
mentaries and at least one work of theology devoted
to the Bible. Irish gospel books of the seventh century
include the Codex Usserianus Primus (Dublin, Trinity
College, MS 55 [A.4.15]), which contains an Old Latin
text, and the Book of Durrow, which has a Vulgate
text. Of somewhat later date (seventh- and eighth-
century) are the Book of Mulling, the Book of Dimma,
and Codex Usserianus Secundus (The Garland of
Howth). The Irish had a predilection for gospel books,
as shown by such famous later productions as the mac
Regol (Rushworth) Gospels and the Book of Kells.
Only the ninth-century Book of Armagh contains a
complete New Testament. Apart from psalters, surviv-
ing copies of Old Testament books are rare, though
countless citations from it prove that it was very well
known.
The great gloss collections belong to the eighth and
ninth centuries, though the survival of ancient forms of
Irish words shows that glossing in the vernacular began
very early. The two most famous collections are the
Würzburg glosses on the Epistles of Paul: in Würzburg,
Universitätsbibliothek, MS M.p.th.f.12 (dated to the end
of the eighth century or beginning of the ninth); and the
Milan glosses on the Psalms (in Milan, Biblioteca
Ambrosiana, C. 301 inf., saec. VIII/IX, and Turin,
Biblioteca Nazionale. F. IV 1 fasc. 5–6, saec. VIII/IX).
The Würzburg glosses are in Latin and Irish, and belong
to different periods, but taken together they reveal the
range of Irish knowledge of patristic biblical commen-
taries. Pelagius is more heavily cited (though not all
attributions are correct) than any other authority, but
numerous other fathers are quoted or referred to as well:
Origen (in Rufinus’s translation), Hilary in the so-called
Ambrosiaster commentary, Pseudo-Primasius (Pelagius
in the edition of Cassiodorus), Jerome, Augustine,
Gregory the Great, and Isidore.
The Milan gloss collection is based upon a Latin
version of the Commentary on the Psalms (in Greek)
by Theodore of Mopsuestia, who was branded as a
heretic in the “Three Chapters Controversy.” This com-
mentary has been wrongly identified with the lost com-
mentary on the Psalms by Columbanus. The fact that
the commentary survives in two early Irish manuscriptsBIBLICAL AND CHURCH FATHERS SCHOLARSHIP