Our Lady of Darkness (33 page)

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Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #blt, #Clerical Sleuth, #Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery, #Suspense, #Medieval Ireland

BOOK: Our Lady of Darkness
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Fidelma met his warm brown eyes with her fiery green ones for several long seconds before she squeezed his hand, smiled quickly, let it fall, turned and walked silently away.
Eadulf made no attempt to say anything else. He watched her walking with a firm step back towards her mare. Aidan and Enda mounted their horses in readiness and Dego moved forward, leading her mount. Eadulf waited, his mind in conflict, torn between uncertainty and anticipation. He watched as she spoke a few words to Dego. Then she took her saddle bag from her horse. When she returned to Eadulf her face was flushed but she was smiling confidently.
‘Brehon Morann said that if reason cannot be satisfied, then follow the impulse. Let’s go aboard the ship before the captain sails without us.’
Sister Fidelma
, of Cashel, a
dálaigh
or advocate of the law courts of seventh-century Ireland
Brother Eadulf
, of Seaxmund’s Ham, a Saxon monk from the land of the South Folk
 
Dego
, a warrior of Cashel
Enda
, a warrior of Cashel
Aidan
, a warrior of Cashel
 
Morca
, a Laigin innkeeper
 
Abbess Fainder
, abbess of Fearna
Abbot Noé
,
anam chara
(‘soul friend’) of King Fianamail
Brother Cett
, a monk of Fearna
Brother Ibar
, a monk of Fearna
Bishop Forbassach
, Brehon of Laigin
 
Mel
, captain of the guard at Fearna
Fianamail
, King of Laigin
Lassar
, owner of the Inn of the Yellow Mountain, sister of Mel
Sister Étromma
,
rechtaire
or stewardess of the abbey of Fearna
Gormgilla
, a victim
Fial
, her friend
Brother Miach
, physician of the abbey of Fearna
Gabrán
, captain of a river boat and trader
Coba
, a
bó-aire
or magistrate, chieftain of Cam Eolaing
Deog
, widow of Daig who was captain of the watch at Fearna
Dau
, a warrior at Cam Eolaing
Dalbach
, a blind recluse
Muirecht
, a young girl
Conna
, a young girl
Brother Martan
of the Church of Brigid
Barrán
, Chief Brehon of the Five Kingdoms
The Sister Fidelma mysteries are set mainly in Ireland during the mid-seventh century AD.
Sister Fidelma is not simply a religieuse, a former member of the community of St Brigid of Kildare. She is also a qualified
dálaigh,
or advocate of the ancient law courts of Ireland. As this background will not be familiar to many readers, my Historical Note is designed to provide a few essential points of reference to make the stories more readily appreciated.
The Ireland of Fidelma’s day consisted of five main provincial kingdoms; indeed, the modern Irish word for a province is still
cúige
, literally ‘a fifth’. Four provincial kings – of Ulaidh (Ulster), of Connacht, of Muman (Munster) and of Laigin (Leinster) – gave their qualified allegiance to the
Ard Rí
or High King, who ruled from Tara, in the ‘royal’ fifth province of Midhe (Meath), which means the ‘middle province’. Even among the provincial kingdoms, there was a decentralisation of power to petty-kingdoms and clan territories.
In this story one will find references to the conflict between Muman and Laigin over the borderland sub-kingdom of Osraige (Ossory), over which both claimed lordship. The details of that conflict are to be found in the Fidelma mystery
Suffer Little Children
.
The law of primogeniture, the inheritance by the eldest son or daughter, was an alien concept in Ireland. Kingship, from the lowliest clan chieftain to the High King, was only partially hereditary and mainly electoral. Each ruler had to prove himself or herself worthy of office and was elected by the
derbhfine
of their family – a minimum of three generations from a common ancestor gathered in conclave. If a ruler did not pursue the commonwealth of the people, they were impeached and removed from office. Therefore the monarchical system of ancient Ireland had more in common with a modern-day republic than with the feudal monarchies which had developed in medieval Europe.
Ireland, in the seventh century AD, was governed by a system of
sophisticated laws called the Laws of the
Fénechus,
or land-tillers, which became more popularly known as the Brehon Laws, deriving from the word
breitheamh —
a judge. Tradition has it that these laws were first gathered in 714BC by the order of the High King, Ollamh Fódhla. Over a thousand years later, in AD438, the High King, Laoghaire, appointed a commission of nine learned people to study, revise, and commit the laws to the new writing in Latin characters. One of those serving on the commission was Patrick, eventually to become patron saint of Ireland. After three years, the commission produced a written text of the laws which is the first known codification.
The first complete surviving texts of the ancient laws of Ireland are preserved in an eleventh-century manuscript book in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. It was not until the seventeenth century that the English colonial administration in Ireland finally suppressed the use of the Brehon Law system. To even possess a copy of the law books was punishable, often by death or transportation.
The law system was not static, and every three years at the Féis Temhrach (Festival of Tara) the lawyers and administrators gathered to consider and revise the laws in the light of changing society and its needs.
Under these laws, women occupied a unique place. The Irish laws gave more rights and protection to women than any other Western law code at that time or until recent times. Women could, and did, aspire to all offices and professions as the co-equal with men. They could be political leaders, command their people in battle as warriors, be physicians, local magistrates, poets, artisans, lawyers and judges. We know the names of many female judges of Fidelma’s period – Brig Briugaid, Áine Ingine Iugaire and Darí among others. Darí, for example, was not only a judge but the author of a noted law text written in the sixth century AD.
Women were protected by law against sexual harassment, against discrimination, against rape. They had the right of divorce on equal terms from their husbands, with equitable separation laws, and could demand part of their husband’s property as a divorce settlement; they had the right of inheritance of personal property and the right of sickness benefits when ill or hospitalised. (Ancient Ireland had Europe’s oldest recorded system of hospitals.) Seen from today’s perspective, the Brehon Laws helped to maintain an almost ideal environment for women.
This background, and its strong contrast with Ireland’s neighbours,
should be understood in order to appreciate Fidelma’s role in these stories.
Fidelma was born at Cashel, capital of the kingdom of Muman (Munster) in south-west Ireland, in AD636. She was the youngest daughter of Fáilbe Fland, the King, who died the year after her birth. Fidelma was raised under the guidance of a distant cousin, Abbot Laisran of Durrow. When she reached the ‘Age of Choice’ (fourteen years), considered the time of maturity for women, she went to study at the bardic school of the Brehon Morann of Tara, as did many other young Irish girls. Eight years of study resulted in Fidelma obtaining the degree of
anruth,
only one degree below the highest offered at either bardic or ecclesiastical universities in ancient Ireland. The highest degree was
ollamh
, which is still the modern Irish word for a professor. Fidelma’s studies were in law, both in the criminal code of the
Senchus Mór
and the civil code of the
Leabhar Acaill
. Thereby, she became a
dálaigh
or advocate of the courts.
Her main role could be compared to a modern Scottish sheriff-substitute, whose job is to gather and assess the evidence, independent of the police, to see if there is a case to be answered. The modern French
juge d’instruction
holds a similar role. However, sometimes Fidelma is faced with the task of prosecuting in the courts or, as in this story, defending, even rendering judgments in minor cases when a Brehon was not available.
In those days, most of the professional or intellectual classes were members of the new Christian religious houses, just as, in previous centuries, all members of the professions and intellectuals had been Druids. Fidelma became a member of the religious community of Kildare founded in the late fifth century AD by St Brigid. But by the time the action in this story takes place, Fidelma has left Kildare in disillusionment. The reason why may be found in the title story of the Fidelma short story collection
Hemlock at Vespers
.
While the seventh century AD was considered part of the European ‘Dark Ages’, for Ireland it was a period of ‘Golden Enlightenment’. Students from every corner of Europe flocked to Irish universities to receive their education, including the sons of many of the Anglo-Saxon kings. At the great ecclesiastical university of Durrow, at this time, it is recorded that no fewer than eighteen different nations were represented among the students. At the same time, Irish male and female missionaries were setting out to reconvert a pagan Europe to
Christianity, establishing churches, monasteries, and centres of learning throughout Europe as far east as Kiev, in the Ukraine; as far north as the Faroes, and as far south as Taranto in southern Italy. Ireland was a byword for literacy and learning.
However, the Celtic Church of Ireland was in constant dispute with Rome on matters of liturgy and ritual. Rome had begun to reform itself in the fourth century, changing its dating of Easter and aspects of its liturgy. The Celtic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church refused to follow Rome, but the Celtic Church was gradually absorbed by Rome between the ninth and eleventh centuries while the Eastern Orthodox Church has continued to remain independent of Rome. The Celtic Church of Ireland, during Fidelma’s time, was much concerned with this conflict so that it is impossible to write of Church matters without referring to the philosophical warfare between them.
One thing that was shared by both the Celtic Church and Rome in the seventh century was that the concept of celibacy was not universal. While there were always ascetics in the Churches who sublimated physical love in a dedication to the deity, it was not until the Council of Nicea in AD325 that clerical marriages were condemned but not banned in the Western Church. The concept of celibacy arose in Rome mainly from the customs practised by the pagan priestesses of Vesta and the priests of Diana.
By the fifth century, Rome had forbidden its clerics from the rank of abbot and bishop to sleep with their wives and, shortly after, even to marry at all. The general clergy were discouraged from marrying by Rome but not forbidden to do so. Indeed, it was not until the reforming papacy of Leo IX (AD1049—1054) that a serious attempt was made to force the Western clergy to accept universal celibacy. The Celtic Church took centuries to give up its anti-celibacy attitudes and fall into line with Rome, while in the Eastern Orthodox Church, priests below the rank of abbot and bishop have retained their right to marry until this day.
An awareness of these facts concerning the liberal attitudes towards sexual relationships in the Celtic Church is essential towards understanding the background to the Fidelma stories.
The condemnation of the ‘sin of the flesh’ remained alien to the Celtic Church for a long time after Rome’s attitude became a dogma. In Fidelma’s world, both sexes inhabited abbeys and monastic foundations, which were known as
conhospitae,
or double houses, where men and
women lived raising their children in Christ’s service.
Fidelma’s own house of St Brigid of Kildare was one such community of both sexes during her time. When Brigid established her community of Kildare (Cill-Dara = the church of the oaks), she invited a bishop named Conláed to join her. Her first biography, completed fifty years after her death in AD650 during Fidelma’s lifetime, was written by a monk of Kildare named Cogitosus, who makes it clear that it continued to be a mixed community in his day.
It should also be pointed out that, demonstrating their co-equal role with men, women were priests of the Celtic Church in this period. Brigid herself was ordained a bishop by Patrick’s nephew, Mel, and her case was not unique. Rome actually wrote a protest, in the sixth century, at the Celtic practice of allowing women to celebrate the divine sacrifice of Mass.
Unlike the Roman Church, the Irish Church did not have a system of ‘confessors’ where ‘sins’ had to be confessed to clerics who then had the authority to absolve those sins in Christ’s name. Instead, people chose a ‘soul friend’
(anam chara),
out of clerics or laity, with whom they discussed matters of emotional and spiritual well-being.
To help readers locate themselves in Fidelma’s part of Ireland in the seventh century, where its geo-political divisions will be mainly unfamiliar, I have provided a sketch map and, to help them more readily identify personal names, a list of principal characters is also given.
I have generally refused to use anachronistic place names for obvious reasons although I have bowed to a few modern usages e.g. Tara, rather than
Teamhair
; and Cashel, rather than
Caiseal Muman
; and Armagh in place of
Ard Macha.
However, I have cleaved to the name of Muman rather than the prolepsis form ‘Munster’ formed when the Norse
stadr
(place) was added to the Irish name Muman in the ninth century AD and eventually anglicised. Similarly, I have maintained the original name Laigin, rather than the anglicised form of Leinster based on the Norse form
Laighin-stadr
. I have, for easier reading, shortened Fearna Mhór (the great place of the alder trees), the principal city of the Laigin kings at this time, to Fearna as it is now anglicised as Ferns, Co. Wexford.
This story also deals with the conflict between the native Brehon Law and the introduction into Ireland at this time of an alternative law system by those clergy who were pro-Roman reformers; a system called the Penitentials. These Penitentials were initially the rules designed for
the religious communities, mainly inspired by Graeco-Roman Christian cultural concepts, by which they were expected to conduct their lives. However, they often were extended over those communities living within the shadow of the great abbeys, depending on the personalities of the abbots and abbesses.
The Penitentials often developed a harsh system of rules and punishments, enforcing physical punishment on transgressors, a system of vengeance rather than the system of compensation and rehabilitation which formed the basis of Brehon Law. In many areas of Ireland, as the Roman form of Christianity took its hold among the religious and urban centres, the Penitentials began to displace the Brehon precepts. Executions, mutilations and floggings as forms of punishment were to be found in late medieval Ireland as they were in the rest of Europe. Yet this was not so in Fidelma’s time and such ideas outraged the advocates of the Brehon system as readers may now discover.

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