CHAPTER V.

MELLIFONT CONTINUES TO FLOURISH UNDER SUCCESSIVE EMINENT SUPERIORS.

"This is no common spot of earth, No place for idle words or mirth; Here streamed the taper's mystic light; Here flashed the waving censers bright; Awhile the Church's ancient song Lingered the stately aisles along, And high mysterious words were said Which brought to men the living Bread." (_W. Chatterton Dix._)

After the consecration of their church the monks settled down to their ordinary quiet way. The erection of the monastic buildings had hitherto kept them occupied; now that these were completed, they devoted their attention to the improvement of their farms, which they tilled with their own hands, and to the embellishment of their immediate surroundings. Even at this early period of her history, Mellifont was a hive of industry where all the trades flourished and many important arts were encouraged. At that time hired labour was sparingly employed by the monks; for they themselves bore a share in the work of the artisans as well as in the ordinary drudgery of tillage. Labour placed all on a footing of equality whilst it gave vigour to the body by healthy exercise in the open air. Perhaps, this healthy exercise was one of the secrets of the longevity for which the monks were remarkable. Regularity of life continued for years contributes to a state of health which dispenses with physicians. Wherever monks settled down they immediately erected mills for grinding corn, for preparing and finishing the fabrics of which their garments were made, etc. St. Benedict enjoined on his monks the necessity of practising all the trades and arts within the walls of the monastery, so that they need never leave their enclosure for the purpose, or under the pretext, of having their work done by externs.

Eleven years passed without Mellifont receiving any notice from our native chroniclers, and then at the year 1168, it is recorded, that Prince Donogh O'Carroll, the Founder, died and was buried in the church there. Ware tells us that his tomb and those of other remarkable personages had been in the church. As it was an almost general custom in Ireland, that the Founders of religious houses were interred on the north, or Gospel side of the High Altar, so it may be justly inferred that he was buried within the chancel, and that the recess on the north side is where his monument was erected. Thus, King Charles O'Connor's tomb occupies the same place in Knockmoy Abbey, Co. Galway, of which he was Founder. So, too, in Corcomroe Abbey, Co. Clare, the tomb of Conor O'Brien, King of Thomond, grandson of the Founder of that abbey, is still to be seen in a niche in the wall on the north side of the High Altar. No doubt they were buried under the pavement. The ancient Statutes of the Order permitted kings and bishops to be buried in the churches, but assigned no particular part as proper to them.

In 1170, a monk named Auliv, who had been expelled[7] from Mellifont, instigated Manus, the King of Ulster, to commit an "unknown and attrocious crime," as the _Annals of the Four Masters_ call it; that is, to banish the monks whom St. Malachy brought to Saul, Co. Down, and to deprive them of everything they were possessed of. Instances of wicked men deceitfully entering monasteries, at that time and at other periods of monastic history, are given, but invariably the guilty party is severely censured, and it is related that his fellow-monks rid themselves of him. St. Bernard himself was deceived by his secretary, Nicholas, who afterwards left the Order. "He went out from us," said the Saint, "but he did not belong to us."

The Order was spreading rapidly in Ireland, and the filiations from Mellifont in their turn sent out new filiations, till most of the picturesque valleys in this country sheltered and nurtured thriving establishments; so much so, that O'Daly tells us "there were twenty-five grand Cistercian abbeys in Ireland at the Invasion." But then a new era dawned on this unhappy nation, and might usurped the place of right, cruel unending strife and fierce jealousies were imported into the country, and it became one vast battle-field. Ireland would have assimilated the two contending races, but their amalgamation would have been detrimental to English interests in this kingdom, and hence by statute, by bribe, by all means available, the representatives of that Crown only too successfully kept the feuds alive. Fain would they have made the Church an instrument for the furtherance of these ulterior purposes, but, whilst she stood firm as an integral part of Peter's Rock, neither English bribes nor English wiles could subjugate her. True, Englishmen were appointed to the richest benefices within the Pale to which the English kings had the right of presentation, and these strove, with as much zeal as the knight or baron, to extend the boundaries of the shire-lands. But the Irish prelates, by their disinterestedness, and their personal and episcopal virtues, saved the Church from the degradation that imperilled her. We shall see the result of this policy as we proceed.

Judging, by analogy, from the progress of society in other countries, and from the relative number of monasteries founded in them and in Ireland before the Invasion, it may be conjectured that the monastic system in all its branches would have produced in this country the same fruits in agriculture, in learning, and in the arts, as are attributed to it in the history of other nations; and, in a special manner, it would have helped, by the unity of government enforced in Religious Orders, to bind together the discordant elements of society. Quite different, however, was it in Ireland; for the sphere of action of each monastery was cramped, and confined within a certain radius, beyond which its influences were not felt, nor regarded otherwise than in a hostile spirit, or at best as an object of suspicion.

In 1172, the Abbot of Mellifont was sent to Rome on an embassy by King Roderic O'Connor. We are not told its nature.

In 1177, Charles O'Buacalla, then Abbot of this monastery, was elected Bishop of Emly, where he died within a month after his consecration. In 1182, King Henry II. granted to the Abbot and community of Mellifont a confirmation of their possessions, and three years later, King John, at that time styled Lord of Ireland, renewed the confirmation while he was residing at Castleknock, during his brief visit to this country, in 1185, the thirty-second year of his father's reign. A copy of the Charter may be seen in the Miscellany of the Archæological Society, Vol. I., page 158. The original, which is one of the earliest of the Anglo-Irish documents that have come down to us, is preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. By this Charter King John confirmed to the monks of Mellifont the "donation and concession" which his father made to them. By it he confirmed to the monks "the site and ambit of the abbey, with all its appurtenances, namely, the grange of Kulibudi (not on the Ordnance map), and Munigatinn (Monkenewtown), with its appurtenances, the granges of Mell and Drogheda (in Irish Droichet-atha, that is, bridge of the ford) and their appurtenances, and Rathmolan (Rathmullen) and Finnaur (Femor), with their appurtenances, the grange of Teachlenni (Stalleen), and the grange of Rossnarrigh (Rossnaree), with their appurtenances, the townland of Culen (Cullen) and its appurtenances, the grange of Cnogva (Knowth), the grange of Kelkalma (not known now), with their appurtenances, Tuelacnacornari (not known), and Callan (Collon), with their appurtenances, and the grange of Finna (____) with its appurtenances." He also confirms the grants of two carucates of land made to the monks by Hugh de Lacy, viz., of Croghan and Ballybregan (?), and also one carucate of land given by Robert of Flanders, called Crevoda, now Creewood, two miles west of Mellifont.

In 1186, St. Christian O'Connarchy, or Connery, who had been the first Abbot of Mellifont and afterwards Bishop of Lismore and Legate of the Holy See, died, and was buried at O'Dorney, Co. Kerry, a monastery of his Order, which was founded in 1154, from Manister-Nenay. He had resigned all his dignities six years before, in order the better to prepare himself for a happy death. He was enrolled in the Calendar of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, and his festival was kept in England in pre-Reformation times, on the 18th March. In the eulogy of him in the Cistercian Menology it is said, "that he was remarkable for his sanctity and wonderful miracles, and that next to St. Malachy, he was regarded by the Irish nation as one of its principal patrons," even down to the time that that was written, A.D. 1630. An Irish gentleman who visited Italy in 1858, wrote from Venice to a friend, that he had seen amongst the fresco paintings which covered the wall of the beautiful church of Chiaravalla, the first Cistercian monastery founded in Italy, a painting of St. Malachy; also one entitled, "_S. Christianus Archieps. in Hibernia Cisterciensis_"--"St. Christian, a Cistercian monk, and Archbishop in Ireland." The error in ranking him as Archbishop probably arose from his having succeeded St. Malachy as Legate. It was in his Legatine capacity that he presided at several Synods, chiefly the memorable one convened by King Henry at Cashel, in 1172.

About the same time, there died at Mellifont, a holy monk named Malchus, who is said to have been St. Christian's brother and successor in the abbatial office, as has been related above. Ussher, quoting St. Bernard, positively asserts that he was St. Christian's brother. And Sequin, who, in 1580, compiled a Catalogue of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, mentions Malchus in that honoured roll, and styles him "a true contemner of the world, a great lover of God, and a pattern and model of all virtues to the whole Order." He says, "he was one of St. Malachy's disciples in whose footsteps he faithfully followed, and that he was renowned for his sanctity and learning, as well as for the many miracles he wrought." His feast was kept on the 28th of June.

In 1189, Rudolph, or Ralph Feltham, Abbot of Furness, died and was buried here. And in the same year, died Murrogh O'Carroll, cousin of the Founder, near whom he was interred.

In 1190, Pope Clement III. issued a Bull addressed to the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order, dated July 6th of that year, enrolling St. Malachy in the Calendar of Saints, and appointing the 3rd of November for his festival.

At that same General Chapter, it was decreed that the Irish Abbots be dispensed from attending the General Chapter annually, and it was decided that they should be present every third year; and a few years later, the Abbot of Mellifont was charged to select three of their number who should repair thither every year.

In 1193, Dervorgilla died at the monastery of Mellifont. The _Annals of the Four Masters_ and other Annals simply relate the fact of her having died there in the 85th year of her age, without alluding to the place of her sepulture.

In that year, also, portions of the Relics of St. Malachy were brought to Mellifont and were distributed to the other houses of the Order in Ireland. Several of our Annals say that the Saint's body was brought over from Clairvaux, but that is obviously a mistake; for until the French Revolution, the bodies of St. Malachy and St. Bernard occupied two magnificent altar-tombs of red marble within the chancel, at Clairvaux. A charter, dated 1273, is still extant, whereby Robert Bruce, the rival of John Baliol for the Scottish Crown, conveys his land of Osticroft to the Abbot of Clairvaux for the maintenance of a lamp before St. Malachy's tomb in that church. And the General Chapter of the Order held in 1323, when raising the Saint's festival to a higher rank, expressly mentioned that his body "rested" at Clairvaux. Meglinger, a German Cistercian monk, who visited Clairvaux in 1667, and wrote a description of that famous abbey as he beheld it, says that he was shown the heads of Saints Malachy and Bernard, which were preserved in silver cases. He also mentions the superb altar-tombs of the two Saints. Later on, the two celebrated Benedictine monks, Dom Martène and Dom Durand, when in quest of MSS., called at Clairvaux, and were shown the tombs and heads of the Saints. It is scarcely necessary to remark that this respect and veneration were entertained for the tombs only because they contained the bodies of the holy men.

In 1194, Abbot Moelisa, who then governed Mellifont, was made Bishop of Clogher.