Read The Monk Who Vanished Online

Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #Church History, #Fiction, #tpl, #Mystery, #Historical, #Clerical Sleuth, #Medieval Ireland

The Monk Who Vanished (37 page)

BOOK: The Monk Who Vanished
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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
 
At Cashel
 
Colgú
of Cashel, King of Muman and Fidelma’s brother
Donndubhain
,
tanist
or heir-elect to Colgú
Donennach mac Oengus
, Prince of the Uí Fidgente
Gionga
, commander of Donennach’s bodyguard
Conchobar
, an astrologer and apothecary
Capa
, captain of the bodyguard to Colgú
 
Brehon Rumann
of Fearna
Brehon Dathal
of Cashel
Brehon Fachtna
of Uí Fidgente
 
Oslóir
, a groom
Della
, a recluse
 
At Ara’s Well
 
Aona
, the innkeeper
Adag
, his grandson
 
At Imleach
 
Ségdae
, abbot and bishop of Imleach, Comarb of Ailbe
Brother Mochta
, Keeper of the Holy Relics
Brother Madagan
, the
rechtaire
or steward
Brother Tomar
, the stableman
Sister Scothnat
,
domina
of the guests’ hostel
Finguine mac Cathal
, Prince of Cnoc Aine
Brother Daig
Brother Bardán
, the apothecary
Nion
,
bó-aire
(petty-chief) and smith
Suibne
, his assistant
Cred
, a tavern keeper
Samradan
, a visiting merchant of Cashel
Solam
,
dálaigh
of the Uí Fidgente
The Sister Fidelma mysteries are set during the mid-seventh century A.D.
Sister Fidelma is not simply a religieuse, formerly a 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, this foreword provides a few essential points of reference designed to make the stories more readily appreciated.
Ireland, in the seventh century A.D., 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 these provincial kingdoms, there was a decentralisation of power to petty-kingdoms and clan territories.
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
derbfhine
of their family – a minimum of three generations gathered in conclave. If a ruler did not pursue the commonwealth of the people, they were impeached and removed from office. Therefore the monarchial system of ancient Ireland had more in common with a modern-day republic than with the feudal monarchies of medieval Europe.
Ireland, in the seventh century A.D., was governed by a system of sophisticated laws called the Laws of the
Fénechas
, 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 714 B.C. by the order of the High King, Ollamh Fódhla. But it was in A.D. 438 that 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, the first known codification.
The first complete surviving texts of the ancient laws of Ireland are preserved in an eleventh-century manuscript book. 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 Feis 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 since. 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 name of many female judges of Fidelma’s period - Brig Briugaid, Aine Ingine Iugaire and Darí among many others. Darí, for example, was not only a judge but the author of a noted law text written in the sixth century A.D. Women were protected by the laws against sexual harassment; against discrimination; from 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. Seen from today’s perspective, the Brehon Laws provided for an almost feminist paradise.
This background, and its strong contrast with Ireland’s neighbours, should be understood 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 A.D. 636. She was the youngest daughter of Faílbe Fland, the king, who died the year after her birth, and was raised under the guidance of a distant cousin, Abbot Laisran of Durrow. When she reached the ‘Age of Choice’ (fourteen years), she went to study at the bardic school of the Brehon Morann of Tara, as many other young Irish girls did. 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
, 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
. She therefore became a
dálaigh
or advocate of the courts.
Her role could be likened 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.
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 professions and intellectuals were Druids. Fidelma became a member of the religious community of Kildare founded in the late fifth century A.D. by St Brigid.
While the seventh century A.D. 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 the Anglo-Saxon kings. At the great ecclesiastical university of Durrow, at this time, it is recorded that no less 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 Churches have continued to remain independent of Rome. The Celtic Church of Ireland, during Fidelma’s time, was much concerned with this conflict.
One thing that marked 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 both Churches who sublimated physical love in a dedication to the deity, it was not until the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 that clerical marriages were condemned but not banned. The concept of celibacy in the Roman Church arose from the customs practised by the pagan priestesses of Vesta and the priests of Diana. By the fifth century Rome had forbidden 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 (A.D. 1049-1054) that a serious attempt was made to force the western clergy to accept universal celibacy. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, priests below the rank of abbot and bishop have retained their right to marry until this day.
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 in Fidelma’s time. When Brigid established her community at Kildare (Cill-Dara = the church of oaks) she invited a bishop named Conlaed to join her. Her first biography, written in A.D. 650, in Fidelma’s time, was written by a monk of Kildare named Cogitosus, who makes it clear that it was a mixed community.
It should also be pointed out that, showing women’s co-equal role with men, women were priests of the Celtic Church at this time. 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.
To help readers locate themselves in Fidelma’s Ireland of 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, eg: 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 A.D. and eventually anglicised. Similarly, I have maintained the original Laigin, rather than the anglicised form of Laigin-
stadr
which is now Leinster.
Armed with this background knowledge, we may now enter Fidelma’s world. The events of this story occur in September, the month known to the Irish of the seventh century as the middle month
(Meadhon)
of the harvest (
Fogamar
), which is still known in Modern Irish as
Meán Fhómhair.
The year is Anno Domini 666.
The story of the Uí Fidgente plot and rebellion are told in
The Subtle Serpent
.
Readers might like to known that hardly anything remains of the great abbey and cathedral of St Ailbe at Imleach Iubhair - ‘The Borderland of Yew-Trees’, or Emly (Co Tipperary) as it is now anglicised. Today it is just a little village lying just over eight miles west of the county town of Tipperary (the ‘Well of Ara’). A church still stands on the site. Emly stayed a ‘Cathedral City’ until 1587, remaining the principal ecclesiastical See of Munster until it was combined with the See of Cashel. Catholic and Protestant bishops of the See take their titles from both Emly and Cashel.
The ancient abbey buildings were replaced by a thirteenth-century cathedral which was destroyed during the wars of 1607. The church was rebuilt by the end of that century, consecrated as an Anglican cathedral, but it soon fell into disrepair. In 1827 it was rebuilt again but pulled down within forty years mainly due to the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland. An offer to buy it by the Catholic Church was refused and many of its stones were taken to build the new Anglican Church of Ireland at Monard. The modern Catholic church was built in 1882 which is worthy of a visit if only for its fine stained-glass windows, one of which commemorates the famous King-Bishop of Cashel, Cormac Mac Cuileannain (A.D. 836-908), poet, writer and lexicographer. Within the churchyard, which still has a Yew Tree growing in its centre, is St Ailbe’s Well and the remains of an ancient weathered stone cross which, it is said, marks the saint’s grave. You may still find worshippers, faithful to the memory of the patron saint of the great Eóghanacht kingdom, visiting the well on Ailbe’s feastday of September 12 to ask for his holy intercession.
There are no less than five ancient holy well sites at Emly but Tobair Peadair (Peter’s Well) became dangerous and is now covered over. It is from here that an underground passage is reputed to lead from the well head to the hill of Knockcarron (Hill of the Cairn).
BOOK: The Monk Who Vanished
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