the request he was to make did; what is more, it was
successful and four years later the papal legate, Cardinal
John Paparon, gave the pope’s formal approval to a
revised church structure (which incorporated the com-
promises Malachy had negotiated) when he presided
over the synod of Kells.
Cistercians and Augustinians
Malachy had failed to meet the pope because he died
at Clairvaux on November 2, 1148; he was fifty-four
years of age. He had died in the place that he had come
to love. Eight years earlier he made what appears to
have been his first contact with it and was so taken by
what he found there that he wished to join it as a monk.
However, pope Innocent II refused his request; Malachy,
therefore, determined that he would introduce its form
of monasticism—the Cistercian order—into Ireland.
Tothis end he left four of his companions to be trained
at Clairvaux when he returned to Ireland and then sent
more out from Ireland to join them. Meanwhile he
found a site at Mellifont, near Drogheda, which would
become, in 1142, the first Cistercian foundation in
Ireland; in it were Irish monks trained at Clairvaux and
some French confreres. Although not without its dif-
ficulties, the Cistercian order in Ireland spread rapidly;
by the time of Malachy’s death, Mellifont had five
daughter-houses. Thereafter the order continued to
spread.
Malachy also introduced into Ireland the rule fol-
lowed by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine who
lived in Arrouaise in Flanders; he visited them in 1140,
but he may have known about it from houses in
England. He was directly associated with the estab-
lishment of a house of canons regular in Saul in County
Down; he was also closely associated with the intro-
duction of the Arrouaisian rule into Bangor and Down
(one of which formed the chapter of the diocese of
Down), Knock, Termonfeckin, Louth (probably the
head of the Arrouaisian congregation in Ireland), and,
most likely, St. Patrick’s Purgatory in Lough Derg.
Outside the province of Armagh little is known about
canons there during Malachy’s lifetime, but some of
the monastic houses in Munster may have adopted the
rule under his influence. He was also responsible for
the establishment of houses of canonesses. The intro-
duction of the canons was likely to have been of con-
siderable help to bishops who had the task of setting
up dioceses without any infrastructure; the canons
became the cathedral chapter in some dioceses, the
first step in the formation of a sub-diocesan adminis-
trative structure. This may have been the reason why
Malachy introduced them in the first place.
At a personal level, it is clear that Malachy made a
great impression on St. Bernard and on his community.
This is clear from his sermons, letters, and the Life he
wrote. But Bernard also wore the habit in which Malachy
died whenever he said mass and was later buried in it.
As well as that, Cistercians continued to honor Malachy,
spreading his cult and being responsible for his can-
onization in 1190. He remains a saint in the Cistercian
calendar to the present day.
MARTIN HOLLANDReferences and Further Reading
Bernard of Clairvaux. The Life and Death of Saint Malachy the
Irishman. Translated by R. T. Meyer. Kalamazoo: 1978.
Lawlor, H. J. St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Life of St. Malachy of
Armagh. London: Macmillan Company, 1920.
Conway, C. The Story of Mellifont. Dublin: 1958.
Dunning, P. J. “The Arroasian Order in Medieval Ireland.” Irish
Historical Studies16 (1945): 297–315.
Gwynn, A. The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Cen-
turies.Edited by Gerard O’ Brien. Dublin: Four Courts
Press, 1992.
Hughes, K. The Church in Early Irish Society. London: Meth-
uen, 1966.
Gwynn, A. A History of Irish Catholicism.Vol. 2, The Twelfth-
Century Reform. Dublin & Sydney: Gill and Son, 1968.
Watt, J. The Church in Medieval Ireland. 2nd ed. Dublin: Uni-
versity College Dublin Press, 1998.
Holland, Martin. “Dublin and the Reform of the Irish Church
in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.” Peritia: Journal of
the Medieval Academy of Ireland14 (2000): 111–160.
See alsoChurch Reform, Twelfth Century; Gille
(Gilbert) of Limerick; Kells, Synod of; Raith
Bressail, Synod ofMANORIALISM
Manorialism was the system by which both land tenure
and political control were exercised throughout the
Anglo-Norman lordship of Ireland. The original clas-
sic French system of feudal land holdings, modified
by English custom, was introduced into Ireland from
1169–1170 onward. The greatest lords held their land
from the king as great estates or lordships, all of which
were divided into manors. In areas like the great Butler
lordship in Tipperary and Kilkenny, there were large
“caput” (chief) manors, which were then further
divided into smaller manors, which could still be as
large as 5,000 acres in extent. The major service owed
by these great tenants-in-chief to the crown was mili-
tary service, usually expressed in the number of
knights they were to provide to the royal army. For
instance, the important de Clare lordship of Leinster
was held from the king by service of 100 knights, but
it must be remembered that this service had been
almost wholly commuted to a money payment, or
scutage, (known as royal service in Ireland), by the
later Middle Ages. Other feudal obligations includedMALACHY (MÁEL-MÁEDÓIC)