MELLIFONTfunction under secular control into the seventeenth
century. St. Stephen’s in Dublin also remained a med-
ical and charitable institution, being transformed in the
1730s into Mercer’s Hospital, which did not close until
the 1980s. Ireland’s medieval medical heritage is thus
a very long, if little understood, one.
ELIZABETH MALCOLM
References and Further Reading
Bannerman, John. The Beatons: A Medical Kindred in the Clas-
sical Gaelic Tradition. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers,
1998.
Fleetwood, John F. The History of Medicine in Ireland. 2nd ed.
Dublin: Skellig Press, 1983.
Gwynn, Aubrey and R. Neville Hadcock. Medieval Religious
Houses: Ireland. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1970.
Dublin Institude of Advanced Studies. Irish Script on Screen.
Reproductions of the Twenty-Eight Irish Medical Manu-
scripts held by Trinity College, Dublin, Library. 2003.
http://www.isos.dcu.ie/english/index.html.
Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin: Dublin
Institute of Advanced Studies, 1988.
Kelly, Maria. A History of the Black Death in Ireland. Stroud,
Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2001.
Lee, Gerard A. Leper Hospitals in Medieval Ireland. Dublin:
Four Courts Press, 1996.
McNeill, Charles. “Hospital of S. John Without the New Gate,
Dublin.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ire-
land, ser. 6, no. 55 (1925): 58–64.
Wulff, Winifred, ed. Rosa Anglica. Sev Rosa Medicinae. Johan-
nis Anglici. Irish Texts Society, Vol. 25. London: Simpkin,
Marshall, 1929.
See alsoAnglo-Norman Invasion; Annals and
Chronicles; Annals of the Four Masters;
Archaeology; Black Death; Brehon Law; Classical;
Conflict; Education; English; Famine and Hunger;
Fraternities and Guilds; Law Tracts; Manuscript;
Nuns; Pilgrims and Pilgrimage; Placenames;
Records Administrative; Records Ecclesiastical;
Religious Orders; Scottish; Women
MELLIFONT
The first Cistercian monastery in Ireland situated on
the banks of the river Mattock (Co. Louth) approxi-
mately five miles northwest of Drogheda. The impetus
for the foundation came from visits made in 1139 and
1140 by St. Malachy (Máel M’áedóic) to the Abbey
of Clairvaux in Burgundy, then at the height of its
influence under its charismatic abbot St. Bernard.
Malachy left some of his entourage at Clairvaux to
receive monastic formation, and they, with a number
of French companions, returned to Ireland in 1142 to
a site granted by Donnchad Ua Cerbaill, King of Air-
gialla. Between 1143 and 1153, seven new foundations
were made from Mellifont, and its filiation or network
of daughter houses eventually came to number twenty
houses. In 1170, Mellifont itself contained one hun-
dred monks and three hundred lay brothers. This rapid
growth rested on an insecure foundation, for, unlike
England and the Continent, Ireland had no significant
tradition of Benedictine monasticism from which to
draw seasoned recruits. A number of the French monks
returned to Clairvaux and it proved necessary to recall
some Irish monks for further formation. Despite this,
the monastery and its abbots were closely associated
with the latter stages of the twelfth-century reform
movement in the Irish church. In 1151, Abbot Christian
(Giolla Chríost Ó Connairche) was appointed Bishop
of Lismore and Papal Legate, and in 1152 Cardinal
John Paparo held a session of the Synod of Kells in
the monastery.
With its continental contacts and extensive network
of daughter houses Mellifont exercised a tremendous
influence on Irish church architecture. Archaeological
excavations have uncovered four different stylistic
phases in the church and claustral buildings. As the
largest stone structure of its day, it was known in native
sources as An Mhainistir mhór(the great monastery).
Despite securing a number of English royal confir-
mations of their lands, rights, and privileges, the estab-
lishment of new monasteries by the Anglo-Normans
created rival filiations to Mellifont and introduced an
element of racial tension among the Cistercians in
Ireland. This was exacerbated by the reluctance of Irish
abbots to travel to the order’s annual chapter at
Citeaux,which meant that the Gaelic houses became
increasingly isolated from the Order’s disciplinary
mechanisms. By 1216, it was evident that a general
breakdown of discipline had occurred, and successive
attempts by the order’s central authorities met with
stiff resistance from Mellifont and her daughter
houses. This revolt, known in a contemporary phraseThe Lavabo, Mellifont, Co. Louth. © Department of the
Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dublin.