18 The Organisation of the Episcopate430
Todd showed in great detail that bishops without sees were common in the Irish Church in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries (St. Patrick, pp. 1 sqq.). Strictly speaking, he did not prove it for the fifth century; nor did he show that there were no bishops with sees, even in the times to which his instances and illustrations apply. Loofs has maintained that both in Patrick’s time and in later times there were “episcopi paruchiales” in Ireland. I hardly think that the positive arguments which he brings forward are very convincing; the inscription of the letter of Pope John IV. (Bede, H.E. 2, 19) proves nothing. But the passage which he cites from the letter of Columbanus (A.D. 603 or 604) to a synod of Gallic bishops and clergy may be quoted in this connexion. The Irish monk writes:
Inde sanctus Hieronymus haec sciens iussit episcopos imitari apostolos, monachos uero docuit sequi patres perfectos. Alia enim sunt et alia clericorum et monachorum documenta, ea et longe ab inuicem separata.431
Had the Abbot of Luxueil who writes with such approbation of the separate functions and ideals of sequestered monks, and active clergy (including bishops), whether regular or secular—had he been accustomed in his native country to a system in which there were no bishops who were not members of monasteries? This bears on the question whether the Irish Church in the sixth century was as exclusively monastic as it is generally represented.
It is quite inconceivable that Patrick and his foreign coadjutors should have organised a purely monastic Church. Such a Church might have grown into being by degrees, but it would never have been deliberately organised in the fifth century; there was no model for it. Nor is it conceivable that Patrick would have introduced an order of bishops, none of whom were bound to any defined sphere of activity, but who might go about the island promiscuously, performing episcopal duties wherever they liked. It is incredible that he was not guided by geographical considerations in his ordination of bishops; and it is not easy to see how a geographical distribution could have been dispensed with.
There is indeed a total absence of evidence to suggest that there were large episcopal dioceses, and this is perfectly consistent with the tradition that Patrick ordained an immense number of bishops, variously stated, with great exaggeration, at 450 and 350.432 Tírechán, who gives the former number, cannot mention the names of more than about forty-five. But the fact that he can record so many shows that the number of bishops under the Patrician system was not small. It does not follow that they had no dioceses; it only follows that the dioceses were comparatively small. A priori, this is what we might expect. The number of small tribal territories in Ireland could not fail to affect and largely determine the ecclesiastical organisation. And when we find in the records of Tírechán, concerning the foundations of St. Patrick, that in some churches he placed presbyters, while for others he consecrated bishops, we may be sure that in this discrimination he was guided by considerations of secular geography, and that he did not wish to multiply bishops beyond necessity.
The evidence of the records and traditions preserved by Tírechán has the more weight because it is quite undesigned; and, so far as it goes, it seems to bear out the general view of the Patrician organisation which has been indicated above. Here are the bishops who were ordained by Patrick for certain churches in Connaught:—
Assicus: Elphin (313 Rolls ed.)
Sachellus: Baslick (304, 320₁₄; cp. Vit. Trip, 110)
Bronus: Caisselire (327)
Mucneus: Donaghmore, near Fochlad (326)
[Muirethachus: Killala? (327)]433
Senachus: Aghagower (322)
Cainnech: Cellola Tog (324)434
Felartus: Saeoli (313)
To these may perhaps be added the epis̃ prespiter bonus (whose name is illegible in the MS.: fol. 13 rᵒ b, l. 12) who founded a church in Imgoe Mair Cerrigi (in the barony of Costello, Mayo).
As many foundations in Connaught are recorded by Tírechán, with which no bishop is connected, it is clear that, so far as this evidence goes, Patrick proceeded on some principle in the distribution of episcopal churches. There is one passage from which it might be hastily concluded that he set two bishops in one place. He installed Assicus and his nephew Bitteus at Elphin, and both Assicus and Bitteus are described as bishops (313). The true interpretation obviously is that, when Assicus left Elphin (as described in 313₂₉, fecit profugam ad montem lapidis), he was succeeded by Bitteus, as was natural; and that Bitteus is here (313₂₂) described as a bishop proleptically. (This accords with the part he took in the ordination of Cairell at a later time, in connexion with which Assicus is not mentioned: 314₂₆, see below.)
There is one interesting piece of evidence for the multiplication of bishops after Patrick’s death. Under his arrangement there was no bishop at Tamnach in Tirerrill; but
id cairellum
post haec autem posuerunt episcopos iuxta sanctam aeclessiam hi Tamnuch quos ordinauerunt episcopi Patricii id est Bronus et Bietheus.
The language is a little loose, but clearly means that afterwards Cairellus was ordained a bishop for Tamnach by Bronus of Caisselire and Bitteus (who had succeeded his uncle Assicus) of Elphin, and that he was succeeded by a line of bishops. Why was this innovation made? Clearly because the community of Tamnach, founded by Mathona, had grown in importance and aspired to have a bishop for itself. Here we may recognise a distinct bit of evidence for the early introduction of the system, which very soon became prevalent, of bishops without sees attached to religious houses.
There seems then to be no evidence in support of the improbable supposition that Patrick’s bishops had not episcopal districts. Such districts would naturally have been determined by the tribal divisions of the country. Nor is there any difficulty in explaining the subsequent development of this episcopal church into a church which was predominantly monastic. The double position of the bishop is the clew to the development. For the bishop was not only bishop for a certain diocese, which would contain several churches and religious foundations, but he was also head of a particular community. Thus Assicus presided over a religious community at Elphin,435 besides being episcopally responsible for a certain district. This system was a natural consequence of the condition of the country; there were no cities; monastic establishments were the substitute. Hence Patrick’s bishops were probably in most cases monks; we have references to monachi Patricii,436 from whom Patrick doubtless selected some of his bishops, just as Lérins supplied some notable bishops for the sees of Gaul. It is easy to conceive how in process of time other religious communities might aspire to be self-sufficient and have bishops of their own. If the bishop, whose jurisdiction included a number of communities, had not been himself the head of a similar community, such a tendency would not have been likely to arise. But when there were a number of monastic communities, A, B, C, etc., in one district, which was under the episcopal jurisdiction of a bishop who was the princeps of A, one can understand how this jurisdiction might have soon seemed to B, C, etc., an intolerable claim to superiority on the part of a neighbouring community. The bishop came to be regarded, and perhaps came to act, less as the bishop of the paruchia than as the princeps of his community. The double position of the bishop exposed him to a jealousy which would not have been aroused if he had stood outside all communities alike. The consequence was the multiplication of bishops, many communities wishing to be independent and to have bishops, each for itself. Thus the diocesan system partly broke down, and the instance of the ordination of Cairell for Tamnach seems to be an early instance.
Was there any discriminating designation to distinguish those religious settlements which were seats of bishops from those which were not? I venture on the conjecture that the name civitas was originally applied only to the former communities. In Gaul, in Italy, in Roman Britain, the bishop’s seat was in a true civitas; and we can understand that in a cityless land, civitas might have been used in the special ecclesiastical sense of the settlement in which the bishop lived.437
It is worth noticing that in the Memoir of Tírechán two episcopal seats in Connaught seem to be distinguished as places for the ordination of bishops: Aghagower in quo fiunt episcopi (322₇) and perhaps Donaghmore in Fochlad.438 Did Patrick specially mark out certain episcopal residences as places where bishops might be consecrated?
The outcome of this discussion is that Patrick’s organisation was from one point of view monastic, from another episcopal. It was monastic in so far as many of the churches in the various regions were connected with religious communities of a monastic character, and the clergy were largely monks. But this did not prevent it being episcopal, in the sense that there were episcopal districts or dioceses. There was not a body of bishops without sees, who went round visiting churches promiscuously, but each bishop had his own diocese.
There is another consideration which has not been noticed, and which seems to me of great weight. It is the position which bishops hold in the few laws in the Senchus Mór which touch the Church. The bishop appears in these laws as the dignitary in the Church who corresponds to the king in the State. There is no mention of presbyter abbots as sharing the privileges of the bishop, who has the same “dire” fine as a king.439 Clearly a state of things is contemplated in which the bishops are the important administrators in the Church. Such rights could not have been established from the sixth century forward, when the bishops were of less account. This feature of the Senchus Mór seems to me, therefore, to have a double significance, in establishing both the antiquity of the code itself and the eminence of the episcopal office in the fifth century; the two things hang together and mutually support each other.
A corroboration is perhaps also supplied by the De Abusionibus Seculi, a treatise of Irish origin, written before 700 A.D. (see App. A, i. 4), where the tenth Abuse is the Episcopus negligens, in which the pastoral duties of the bishop are insisted upon, and his functions as a speculator. It seems by no means improbable that the work is older than 600 A.D.