as the “conspiracy of Mellifont,” was in large measure
resolved by the Abbot of Stanley, Stephen of Lexing-
ton, who conducted a visitation of the Irish houses in
1128 and whose letter book detailing his labours sur-
vives. At Mellifont he presided over the election of
Jocelyn of Bec as Abbot and broke up the Mellifont
filiation placing her daughter houses under various
English and Continental monasteries. No candidates
were to be admitted unless they could confess in Latin
or French, and the numbers at Mellifont were fixed at
fifty monks and sixty lay brothers. The filiation was
restored in 1274, but racial tension continued to affect
the community. In 1321, Edward II complained to the
Abbot of Citeaux that the house would only admit
novices who swore that they were not of the English
race. In 1380, the situation was reversed, and the mon-
astery was under English control and so continued
until the dissolution. Other difficulties arose however:
in 1367, John Terrour was accused of murdering
another monk, John White, but the case was never
proved and Terrour became Abbot in 1371. The mal-
administration of Abbot John Waring (c. 1458-1471)
almost ruined the community through alienation of
resources and lands, though most of these were recov-
ered by his successor Roger Boley (d. 1486). His suc-
cessor, Abbot John Troy, was appointed visitator of the
Irish houses by the general chapter around 1497, and
his report paints a bleak picture of decline, abuses, and
neglect in most of the Irish houses with only two
houses, Mellifont and St. Mary’s, Dublin, celebrating
the Divine Office or wearing the religious habit. Abbot
Richard Contour surrendered the monastery on July
23, 1539, the abbot and eighteen monks receiving pen-
sions or annuities. In 1540, the property of the mon-
astery, which included approximately 5,000 acres, 300
messuages and cottages, granges, mills, fisheries, and
boats was valued at £352 3s. 10d. Though this repre-
sents a significant under valuation of the monastery’s
true worth, it places Mellifont in the same league as
some of the major English houses. As part of the sev-
enteenth century Irish Cistercian revival, a small com-
munity was reestablished in Drogheda under Abbot
Patrick Barnewall in 1623.
COLMÁNN. Ó CLABAIGH, OSB
References and Further Reading
Carville, Geraldine. The Impact of the Cistercians on the land-
scape of Ireland.Ashford: K.B. Publications, 2002.
Gwynn, Aubrey, and Hadcock, R. Neville. Medieval Religious
Houses: Ireland. London: Longman, 1970 [rept. Dublin:
Irish Academic Press, 1988].
Mac Niocaill, Gearóid. Na Manaigh Liatha in Éirinn, 1142-
c.1600. Dublin: Cló Morainn, 1959.
Ó Conbhuidhe, Colmcille. Studies in Irish Cistercian history.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.
———The Story of Mellifont.Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son, 1958.
O’Dwyer, Barry. “The problem of reform in the Irish Cistercian
monasteries and the attempted solution of Stephen of Lex-
ington in 1228.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 15
(1964): 186-91
Stalley, Roger. The Cistercian monasteries of Ireland.London
& New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
See alsoAbbeys; Anglo-Norman invasion;
Architecture; Church Reform, Twelfth Century;
Ecclesiastical Settlements; Gaelic Revival; Kells,
Synod of; Malachy (Máel M’áedoic); Military
orders; Nuns; Papacy; Racial and Cultural
Conflict; Religious OrdersMETALWORK
Little is known of the process of commissioning and
paying for metal objects in early-medieval Ireland.
Some have argued that craftsmen worked in highly
controlled circumstances thus allowing potentates to
control the supply of luxury goods and so help to
perpetuate their power. In law, however, metalworkers
were free and could rise to fairly high status. Metal-
working evidence is widespread on Irish sites of the
early medieval period—on ringforts, crannogs, and
ecclesiastical foundations. Iron-working was ubiqui-
tous and this may reflect the need, known to farmers
of today, to attain some skill so as to keep agricultural
equipment in repair—in other words it may be unspe-
cialized metalwork or the jobbing work by an itinerant
craftsman. The iron was probably obtained mostly
from bog iron ore, but other sources may well have
been exploited. Iron was sourced in sufficient quantity
to make sword blades—although the characteristic
sword in pre-Viking Ireland was small like the Roman
gladius, and made of fairly soft metal at that. In the
Viking period, blades of high quality were imported,
and much larger iron objects, such as plow coulters,
were fabricated.
Luxury objects were mostly made of bronze, and
theoretically much of this could have been recycled
scrap. There is some evidence of copper mining at this
period at Ross Island, Killarney, County Kerry, and it
is likely that native sources continued to supply the
needs of the bronzesmith. Tin, essential for bronze,
was probably imported. It is also likely, despite the
presence of lead ore (galena), that lead also came from
overseas. The lead-ores of Ireland are silver-rich and
were extensively mined for silver from the seventeenth
century onward, but there is no evidence that silver
was produced in Ireland before the thirteenth century,
when foreign expertise was required to make it possi-
ble. In the pre-Viking period, silver was clearly in short
supply and was obviously adulterated with copper even
on pieces of high status, and it is likely that Roman
silver was constantly recycled. In the Viking Age, silverMELLIFONT