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Annalium Hiberniae Chronicon ad annum MCCCXLIX

Author: Friar John Clyn

File Description

Richard Butler

Electronic edition compiled by the CELT Team

Funded by University College, Cork and
Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project

2. Second draft.

Extent of text: 30660 words

Publication

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

(2003) (2010)

Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: L100011

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Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.

Sources

    Manuscript sources
  1. Dublin, Trinity College Library, olim E. 3, 20; vellum and paper; 17th century; a transcript made for archbishop Ussher.
  2. London, British Library, Additional 4789; paper; 17th century; a transcript by Sir James Ware.
  3. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B. 496; paper; 17th century; a transcript made for Sir James Ware.
  4. Dublin, Municipal Libraries, Gilbert Manuscripts, 105–6.
  5. Dublin, Genealogical Office, 28.
  6. The original from which these derive, directly or indirectly, is Liber communitatis fratrum minorum Kilkennie. , now lost. Annals from the beginning to 1346, with annals for 1467 and 1480 in a later hand.
    Editions
  1. Richard Butler (ed.), The Annals of Ireland by Friar John Clyn and Thady Dowling (Dublin 1849), 1–46. (Edited without variants from MS (i), but collated against the MS of Sir William Betham [it is not clear which of the Dublin MSS this is], MS (iii), and perhaps others.
  2. Bernadette Williams (ed. and trans.), The Annals of Ireland by Friar John Clyn (Dublin 2007).
    Secondary Literature
  1. Robin Flower, 'Manuscripts of Irish interest in the British Museum', Analecta Hibernica 2 (1931) 292–340: 324–5.
  2. Aubrey Gwynn, 'Some unpublished texts from the Black Book of Christ Church, Dublin', Analecta Hibernica 16 (1946) 281–337: 321.
    The edition used in the digital edition
  1. The Annals of Ireland. By Friar John Clyn, of the Convent of Friars Minors, Kilkenny; and Thady Dowling, Chancellor of Leighlin. Together with the Annals of Ross. Richard Butler (ed), First edition [xxxvii + 85 (pp 1–39 the Annals of Clyn; 41–46 the Annals of Ross from TCD MS E. 30. 20, p 396 sqq; 47–70 notes to the Annals of Clyn; 71–85 Index of persons and places.)] The Irish Archaeological SocietyDublin (1849)

Encoding

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CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

Sampling Declaration

The electronic text represents pp i–xxxvii and 1–39 of the printed edition.

Editorial Declaration

Correction

Introduction and main annals proof-read three times.

Normalization

The electronic texts represents the edited text. The editor does not elucidate his editorial policy. Some years are not in sequence in the printed edition, and some appear twice. To avoid duplication of div1 elements, all annal entries have been gathered under the year to which they belong, and brought into line, even though this affects the pagination. Gaps in the text are marked. Marginal additions are indicated as add place="margin"; additions by a second hand are marked add hand="S". One editorial note is tagged note type="auth" n="". For expanding the abbreviation on page 36, CELT is indebted to Christoph Cluse of Trier University.

Quotation

Quotations are rendered q.

Hyphenation

Soft hyphens are silently removed. When a hyphenated word (hard or soft) crosses a page-break, this break is marked after the completion of the hyphenated word.

Segmentation

div0= the body of annals; the front matter contains the introduction, the back matter contains a postscript. Both of these are tagged as div. In the main text, div1= the individual annal (i.e. the entries for one year); div2= the individual entry in a given annal. Page-breaks are marked. Passages in verse are marked by poem, stanza and line.

Standard Values

Dates are standardized in the ISO form yyyy-mm-dd.

Interpretation

Names of persons, groups and places are tagged.

Canonical References

This text uses the DIV1 element to represent the annal.

Refs: ENTRY (<DIV2>)

This text uses the DIV1 element to represent the annal.

Profile Description

Created: Created by Friar John Clyn, incorporating earlier materials. Date range: 1333–1349.

Use of language

Language: [LA] Text is in Latin.
Language: [GA] Two words are in Irish.
Language: [EN] Introduction and postscript are in English.

List of hands

H [main] Friar John Clyn

S [additional hand at end of text] unknown

Revision History


Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: L100011

Annalium Hiberniae Chronicon ad annum MCCCXLIX: Author: Friar John Clyn

Introduction

‘An intention there was not long since by Sir James Ley, Knight, then Lord Chiefe Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland (afterwards Lord High Treasurer and Earle of Marleburgh), to have published some of our country writers in this kinde, for which end hee caused to be transcribed and made fit for the Presse the Annales of John Clynne, a Friar Minor of Kilkenny (who lived in the time of King Edward the Third), the Annales of the Priory of St John the Evangelist of Kilkenny, and the Annales of Multifernan, Rosse, and Clonmell, &c. But his weighty occasions did afterwards divert his purpose. The copies are yet preserved, and I hope ere long with other Annales and Fragments of the same nature will be divulged.’. So wrote Sir James Ware, in his Preface to Campion's and Hanmer's Histories printed in Dublin in the year 1633. More than 200 years have since passed, and by the publication of the Annals of Multifernan, and by the present publication the Irish Archaeological Society


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is only now partly realizing the purpose of Ley, and the hopes of Ware, Camden, and Ussher.

It is not for those who are endeavouring to put an end to it, to attempt to justify the delay that has occurred in the publication of these chronicles; it may, perhaps, partly be accounted for by the dry and unsatisfactory nature of their contents.

Clyn lived ninety years after Matthew Paris, and was not many years older than Froissart; but instead of the caustic remarks and striking details of the monk of St. Alban's,—instead of Froissart's pictured pages, which make us familiar with the sentiments and motives, and even with the outward bearing, of the men of his day,—we have here, for the most part, only mere entries of names and of facts, the ashes of history in which there is no living fire. The fact is so, and must be acknowledged, nor shall we be surprised that it if we consider the circumstances in which Clyn and the other Anglo-Irish monkish chroniclers wrote, and the objects which they had in view.

The very materials for writing at that time were not abundant in this country. Clyn mentions that he had left parchment for the continuation of his Annals (see page 37), a pious precaution which does not seem to have produced any effect; and being confined by precedent and by an affectation of scholarship to the use of Latin, the monkish chroniclers were trammelled and hampered by a foreign language, with which they were not familiar, and in which they neither spoke nor thought, and in which, like men in a stiff and unusual dress, they moved with slow and awkward formality.

Nor were the authorities, from which they derived their information, calculated to give them confidence and freedom. Their chief written authorities were evidently the Obits of their own, or of some other religious house of the same Order, combined with some brief Registry of public events and of wonderful occurrences, which seems to


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have formed the common historical stock of all our Anglo-Irish monkish chroniclers, and which was probably communicated to the members of the different houses at the provincial or general Chapters of the several Orders.

To synchronize this general history with the Obits and special entries of their own records was the great object of the monkish writers, a task not without difficulty, and in which it is probable that many mistakes were made, as in the older Mortiloges the entries were made under the day of the month, without any notice of the year.

But we must not suppose that those annals were to the monks the dry and bare catalogues which they are to us, or that the inhabitants of the monastery were satisfied with that modicum of knowledge which we have inherited from them. Every name entered in their registry at its entry had its own peculiar history, and that history was preserved in the traditions of the chapter-room and of the cloister. From the founder of the house and the giver of broad lands, to the bequeather of a cope, and the increaser of their gaudy-day pittance, all their benefactors had their places in the grateful memory of the brotherhood; and the novice and the lay brother were often told why this Baron bestowed the rich farm, and why it was leased to such a Knight; why this Lady founded an altar and a chaplaincy, and why such a Burgess was commemorated with a double Lection. Every name in the registry was made the text of some grave homily, or recalled some story, kept alive, not only by being repeated on every recurring anniversary amongst the habitual sitters round the refectory fire, and amongst the pacers in the cloisters, but by being told to the knights and squires who used the monastery as an inn, and to the pilgrims and visitors, from other religious houses who there claimed charitable hospitality.

Nor was it only gratitude, and the wish to maintain the credit of their house before their visitors, that induced the monks to fill up in conversation the bare outline of their registers with traditional histories;


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many of them had the strong interest of relationship, or of family dependence, connected with the names recorded; and it was pleasant to tell how their fathers had fought in the battle in which their benefactor was killed, whose tomb was in the choir and whose death was in the Mortiloge. With respect, then, to occurrences in its own neighbourhood, or referring to its special benefactors, the date and the succession were almost all that was wanted by the inmates of a religious house, and these were supplied by the dryest of their chronicles. The cloister tradition supplied the rest, giving to the merest outline fulness of detail and warmth of colouring.

With regard to the events affecting other religious houses of the same Order, the same knowledge was communicated by the mutual visits of their respective members, and especially by the provincial and general chapters. If we look at a map of any Christian country in the middle ages, we see how the houses of the different Orders were scattered through it, so that lines drawn from one to another would make a close net-work over its whole surface; and it is difficult to limit the amount of general knowledge which must have been in the possession of the inquisitive members of these societies, and of which we have nothing left but these meagre and lifeless chronicles. For the view of the writers there were fields, and flowers, and trees, ‘hominumque boumque labores;’ but the deep flood of oblivion covers them, and we see nothing but the land-marks and the boundary stones.

The authors of most of the other Anglo-Irish monastic annals are unknown, and we can feel no sympathy with the impersonal and unnamed writer who expresses no personal feeling in anything he mentions, and who records, as it were mechanically, all events, whether of joy or sorrow, with equal brevity and with equal coldness.

Of the annals here printed we know at least the name and station of the writer, and the time of their composition.


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John Clyn was a Franciscan friar, in the convent of that Order in Kilkenny. He seems to have been highly esteemed in the brotherhood, for in 1336, when James, Earl of Ormonde, in his old earldom of Carrick, founded a locus for Franciscans, John Clyn was the first Warden or Guardian; William Naase being Custos; and Friar Stephen Barry, Minister Provincial. The zeal and austerity of the earlier Franciscans and Dominicans had attracted into their Orders men of the loftiest minds and most generous tempers; and in the fourteenth century, when the fervour of religious enthusiasm was in some degree diminished, there were still to be found in these Orders the most profound theologians and the most subtle speculative philosophers. Among these the Irish Franciscans maintained a proud and honourable position. If the haughty attempt of Primate Albert of Cologne to subject causes, properly belonging to the King's courts, to Papal authority, provoked Henry III to forbid the future election of any Franciscan to an Irish see, the prohibition was soon withdrawn, and the royal displeasure was probably amply compensated by that popular favour, which encouraged the Franciscans to encroach upon the rights of the Irish parochial clergy. The earliest account of a British pilgrimage into the east was written by Simon Fitzsimon, and Hugh, the Illuminator, of the Franciscan Friary of Dublin, who commenced their pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1322. And when the University of Dublin was opened,—Universitas, as Clyn disparagingly says, ‘quoad nomen, set utinam quoad factum et rem’, three of the first four inceptors in theology were friars.


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Of the individual character of Clyn we know only what we can gather from his own writings. The few gleams of natural feeling, which occasionally brighten his formal entries, betoken a good and generous mind, and make us lament that he did not let himself out more freely and give utterance more frequently to his own thoughts and sentiments. Some of his observations, brief and rare as they are, are not without pith and point, and few passages, of the same date, are more striking and pathetic in their calm and earnest simplicity, than the close of his work. After thus describing the Plague of 1348: ‘That pestilence deprived of human inhabitant villages and cities, and castles and towns, so that there was scarcely found a man to dwell therein; the pestilence was so contagious that whosoever touched the sick or the dead was immediately infected and died; and the penitent and the confessor were carried together to the grave; through fear and dread men scarcely dared to perform the offices of piety and pity in visiting the sick and in burying the dead; many died of boils and abscesses, and pustules on their shins or under their armpits; others died frantic with the pain in their head, and others spitting blood; that year was beyond measure wonderful, unusual, and in many things prodigious, yet’ (is not the observation natural and pathetic?) ‘it was sufficiently abundant and fruitful, however sickly and deadly;’—then, having made entries of a fratricide committed in the midst of the pestilence, by Connell O'More, on the morrow of the Purification, and of the vengeance taken for it eight days afterwards, he thus returns: ‘The pestilence was rife in Kilkenny in Lent, for, from Christmas Day to the 6th day of March eight friars preachers died of it. Scarcely one alone ever died in a house. Commonly husband, wife, children, and servants, went the one way, the way of death. And I, Friar John Clyn, of the Order of Friars Minor, and of the convent of Kilkenny, wrote in this book those notable things, which happened in my time, which I saw with my eyes, or which I learned from


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persons worthy of credit; and lest things worthy of remembrance should perish with time, and fall away from the memory of those who are to come after us, I, seeing these many evils, and the whole world lying, as it were, in the wicked one, among the dead, waiting for death till it come, as I have truly heard and examined, so have I reduced these things to writing; and lest the writing, should perish with the writer, and the work fail together with the workman, I leave parchment for continuing the work, if haply any man survive, and any of the race of Adam escape this pestilence and continue the work which I have commenced.’ Then follows one paragraph for 1349, containing the death and eulogy of Sir Fulco de la Frene, and then the copyist's brief entry: ‘Here it seems the author died.’

Like most of the Anglo-Irish chroniclers, Clyn passes over in ignorance, or in contempt, the legends, whether poetical, mythical, or enigmatical, with which the Irish seanachies filled up the vestibule of Irish history, thronging its gates with forms of strange aspect, elusive of the grasp. Yet even these legends, as we find them in Dowling and in the native annalists, are worthy of record. Although not true in themselves, it is true that they were once believed; and although they may not constitute the history of the times to which they are assigned, they form at least important elements of the character of the times in which they were received. But it is not likely that legends, so widely propagated and so fondly cherished, had no foundation in fact, that they were altogether either poetical fictions, or moral and political parables and myths. It is more reasonable to conjecture that they were the forms of historical narrative used by one people, which, falling into the hands of another people of different language, and of other habits of thought and turns of expression, were understood by them in a sense which they were not intended to bear, and in which they were not used by their authors. We would look upon these


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strange and portentous narratives as the hieroglyphic records of forgotten but substantial history.

We know that the Northmen had a peculiar genius for high-wrought, and lofty imagery, enigmatical rather than fantastical; not only were their ships ‘the wooden horses of the ocean’, and their swords ‘serpents’; the very geography of their countries, either from their own taste, or from the taste of their visitors, was allusive and metaphorical. The Baltic Sound, which in the days of Tacitus, was called ‘the Pillars of Hercules’, was styled ‘the Hellespont’ by Saxo Grammaticus. And the Africa of Nennius and Geoffry of Monmouth seems to have been the southern coast of the Baltic, the land of the sea robbers, with whom, as Dubhgalls or black strangers, we are familiar in Irish history, but who startle and perplex us when we meet them under the name of Africans. It may be conjectured that the wild and seemingly absurd stories of Partholanus, Nemedus, Milesius, are mistranslated and misunderstood narratives of some northern invasions, or rather of some one northern invasion, for all those stories have so many circumstances in common that we cannot but suspect them to be different versions of the same history. At what period these invasions, or this invasion, occurred, it would be difficult to ascertain; it would seem, however, not to have been long prior to the times of St. Patrick, who is said to have learned from their contemporary, Ruanus, the history of those events. As to mistakes in Irish chronology, it must be remembered that, from the want of any fixed and commonly acknowledged era, the dates of the occurrences in early Irish history must have been a matter of calculation. Even in the tenth century there is a difference of more than sixty


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years between the dates of the Annals of Boyle and of the Annals of the Four Masters; and, as low as the twelfth century, public documents were at least occasionally dated, not from any fixed era, but from such an arbitrary and mutable epoch as ‘the year when the kine and swine of Ireland perished by a pestilence.’

The facts mentioned in the earlier parts of Clyn's Annals are, for the most part, common to all the Anglo-Irish annalists, and are to be found, with little variety of expression, in Pembridge and Grace, and the Annals of Multifernan. It would appear, however, from the following pages, that Clyn's Calendar differed from that of the English and Roman Churches, which was received in Ireland; at least if the transcript from which we print is correct, which is very doubtful, it will follow that the Franciscans of Kilkenny held their festivals of St. Stephen's Day, and of the Conversion of St. Paul, as well as other festivals, on days peculiar to themselves.

In the early part of the fourteenth century the following annals increase in interest. Clyn, as we have observed, was appointed the first Warden of the Franciscan Friary of Carrick in 1336. For such an office, implying authority and discretion, it is not likely that a man under 30 should have been selected from the convent of Kilkenny; and we may, therefore, conclude that Clyn was not born after 1306, and that he may have been several years older. We are then not surprised that his annals begin to expand, and to contain something more than brief and general entries, about the year 1315.

In the present times, when we gather almost all our knowledge from books, the period of whose history men are generally the most ignorant runs backward from their own youth to the commencement of the former generation. The history of the father's age has seldom been compiled by public writers in the days of the son, and is often not


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told by the father, upon whom, as it fell drop by drop, it left an imperfect sense of its relations and proportions; and the son, eager for something new or curious touching venerable antiquity, too often looks without interest or inquiry upon the days of his father, as upon times whose fashions are gone by, and whose notions he has outgrown. Even should the succeeding generation inquire into the history of that which immediately preceded it, the multitude of petty and vulgar details perplex the mind and disgust the imagination; and we wander about, as in a thick wood from which we have no clue to guide us, unable to recognise any of our well-known landmarks. But in the fourteenth century, when reading and writing were rare accomplishments, and when there were no standard libraries, the case was very different. Knowledge was then to be acquired, not from books, but from men. And what could men teach but what they had seen, in the words of Clyn, ‘occulata fide’, or what they had heard ‘fide digno relatu’? And, however highly we may value the following annals, from the year 1315, when Clyn was probably a grown man, able to make his own observations on passing events, we cannot but lament that he did not burn the previous entries, and write down the remembrances and the traditions of the seniors of his convent.

From the Scottish invasion in 1315, to the plague in 1349, may be considered as the period of Clyn's Annals. It was a dark and stormy period in the history of this country. It is strange that the reigns of the worst and weakest of the kings, that ever sat upon the throne of England, should have been the times of the greatest prosperity of the English in Ireland. In the times of King John and Henry III the English authority seemed about to consolidate itself throughout the kingdom. The whole country was then divided into shires, in which the king's justices held their pleas; the bishoprics, even in Connaught and Munster, were not filled without the king's license. O'Conor and O'Neill paid their tributes of cows and marks, and obeyed


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the king's summons; and, although frequently goaded into resistance by the oppressions of the Earls of Ulster and of the lords of Connaught, these Irish dynasts seem to have been willing to consider themselves as English lords, and to have placed confidence in appeals to the justice of the English king; and as the plainest evidence of the tranquillity and prosperity of the country, the London treasury was enriched by the transmission to London of money from Ireland. Such was the state of Ireland during great part of the thirteenth century, as we learn from the Tower Records, from Rymer's Foedera, and from the Rolls of the Irish Chancery, which are the authentic records of Anglo-Irish history. Doubtless the same facts may be learned with still greater distinctness from the Pipe Rolls, should they ever be published.

There were, indeed, in these reigns, feuds, bloody and interminable, between different lords in Ireland, both of Irish and of English blood. The predatory habits of the country were continued; and, except for the barbarized names of the Norman barons, the reader of the Irish chronicles would scarcely be able to distinguish the events of a year in the thirteenth century from those of most of the years in the eleventh; but at that period the great distinction between the English settlers and the native Irish was not strongly marked, although it had already manifested itself in religious houses of Irish foundation. The feuds were feuds between neighbours and not between nations. In almost all the frays, which have been dignified by the title of battles, English and Irish fought on both sides; and the descendants of O'Melaghlin, O'Neill, O'Connor, O'Brien, and Mac Murrogh, boasted that they belonged to the five bloods who were entitled to the coveted distinction of pleading the English law. If the daring and resolute Prince Edward spent any time in his lordship of Ireland, he probably thought that the authority of the sovereign and the dominion of the law were fully as much respected by the Irish chiefs and


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barons, as they were in England by the turbulent partisans of De Montfort, then plotting the overthrow of the monarchy and the imprisonment of the king.

Perhaps it was this confidence in the strength of the English in Ireland, joined, it may be, to a willingness to lower the pride and power of the Anglo-Irish nobles, that induced Edward I to neglect this country, and to waste the best blood of its lords in the wars in Gascony and Scotland. To whatever cause it may be ascribed, it is certain that, in the reign of that great and powerful prince, the power of the English government in this country lessened; the English lords became at once weaker and more insubordinate; while they adopted the customs, claimed the privileges, and exercised the tyranny of the native lords, to the extirpation of the sturdy English freeholders, they at the same time frustrated the wise and benevolent wishes of the king. He wished that the distinctions which were now felt between the English and the Irish, should be removed, and that all his Irish subjects, of whatever birth or descent, should enjoy the protection of the English law and submit to its authority.

It is natural that, at the first introduction of a foreign power into any country, the natives should jealously insist upon the preservation of their peculiar laws and customs; and such a condition seems to have been made by the Irish in the time of Henry II. But in process of time it is also natural that the weaker people should desire admission into the courts of justice of the stronger, and should petition to be altogether incorporated with them. This is the best homage to superior power and superior civilization. Woe to the stronger if they refuse such homage! Hereafter there will be two nations in one country; they will be for centuries in daily struggle as it were for life or death; and their bitterest enemies will be at their doors.

It is true that the Irish law, to which alone the Irish were subject, gave some advantages to the Irish culprit. For a crime for which an Englishman


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would be hanged, an Irishman, according to the more lenient enactments of the Brehon law, might compound for a sum varying from £1 to £100 at the will of the judge. It is to be feared that the opposition of the Anglo-Irish lords to the extension of the English law proceeded from very base motives. They were at once jealous of the distinction of the English law, and anxious to escape from it. They claimed that the offences committed by an Englishman against an Irishman, should be tried by the Irish law, and they were unwilling that the offences of an Irishman against an Englishman should not subject the offender to all the penalties of the law of England. The erics, or compositions, payable by Irish criminals, enlarged the revenues of the courts of their palatinates and lordships; and, if the lands of the Irish chiefs were to be held by royal charters, the title of the native lords to their territories would then be secured by legal documents, acknowledged in the king's courts, and all chance of gaining possession of them, except by strictly legal means, would be terminated. The question of the advantage of establishing one uniform system of law throughout the country, especially when it was desired by the native party, appears now to be of very simple solution, yet it probably had its difficulties in former days. The opposition of the Anglo-Irish lords may have been justified by reasons which we do not see, and which we could not rightly appreciate. It is not fair to apply the notions of one century as a rule for measuring the conduct of men in another; and perhaps the statesman who is most aware of the conflicting interests and discordant wishes of two races occupying the same country,—of settlers and of natives,—will be the most disposed to excuse the conduct of the Anglo-Irish lords, and to pity the perplexities of the legislators or rulers of the fourteenth century.

In the hope of profiting by these internal dissensions, and being, perhaps, invited over by some of the Irish princes of Ulster, Edward Bruce, accompanied by Randolph, Steward, Menteith, Campbell, and many


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other of the knights of Bannockburn, with an army of 6000 men, landed in Larne Lough on St. Augustine's day, in 1315.

It was a luckless day for Bruce and for Ireland. Although successful in various engagements, and crowned King of Ireland at Dundalk, Bruce never had any firm power in this country. Of the English barons scarcely any were accused of favouring him, except the Lacies and their followers; and of their disloyalty, although their estates were forfeited and their persons proscribed, there seems to be some doubt. He was boldly opposed by the Earl of Ulster, Mandeville, Logan, the Savages,—‘all hale the flur of Ullyster’,—and by Bisset, the descendant of a Scotsman, but not unmindful of the wrongs of his ancestors. Nor was he effectively assisted by the native princes. The usual fate awaited him, of those who, for their own aggrandizement, interfere in the civil dissensions of a foreign country. The objects of the parties are different, and each hopes to use the other only so far as may promote their own purposes. The Irish princes did not fight to change their masters, but to secure their independence, and they were no more willing to submit to a Scoto-Norman than to Anglo-Norman baronage. Meanwhile their general rebellion against the English for their own special objects, and the disunion of the English lords, any one of whom, we are told, would have been able, with his own followers alone, to have driven back Edward Bruce, allowed the Scots, now commanded by Robert Bruce, to ravage Ireland from Carrickfergus to Limerick. Although unable to take any walled town, and suffering the extremity of hunger from the general famine of the dreadful year 1316, in the words of Clyn, ‘They went through all the country, burning, slaying, depredating, spoiling towns and castles and even churches, as they went and as they returned.’ The horror at their cruelty, their impiety, and the misery that went with them, dwelt long in the minds of all the inhabitants of Ireland; and when the barons of Meath and Louth gave Edward Bruce battle, defeated,


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and killed him at Dundalk, the Irish Annals of Clonmacnois declare that he was slain ‘to the great joy and comfort of the whole kingdom in generall, for there was not a better deed that redounded more to the good of the kingdom, since the creation of the world, and since the banishment of the Finè Fomores out of this land, done in Ireland, than the killing of Edward Bruce; for there reigned scarcity of victuals, breach of promises, ill performance of covenants, and the loss of men and women, throughout the whole kingdom, for the space of three years and a half that he bore sway; insomuch that men did commonly eat one another, for want of sustenance, during his time.’

Many generations passed before the devastating effects of the Scottish invasion, passing thus like a stream of lava through the country, were done away. The animosity between the English and the Irish was embittered, the sense of the greatness of the English power was diminished, the authority of law and order was impaired, the castle and the farm-house were alike ruined. The castle was more easily rebuilt than the more important farm-house. The noble may have had other resources; in later times we know that his castle was repaired and the expense of the district; he was bound by stronger ties to the country; and when his castle was rebuilt, it was at least comparatively secure: but when the homestead was wrecked and burned, and the haggard robbed of its stacks, and the bawn left without horse or cow, and ‘all his gear were gone’ the farmer, as he looked about him in despair, might well be excused if he fled away to some safer country; or if, listening to hunger, that evil counsellor, he became an idilman or a kerne, ready to plunder as he had been plundered, and eating up the produce of other men's labours.

If he endeavoured to remain, what was before him, but, poor and dispirited, deprived of his accustomed comforts, and of his comparative respectability, to sink hopelessly into a lower stage of society, and to yield to its customs; or rather to turn in sullen or in passionate anger


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from the civilization in which he no longer had a share, and to resent, as an injury, the existence of comforts which were his once, but were to be his no more, and to hate and to scorn their possessors?

Such, doubtless, was the history of the degradation of many English freeholders consequent upon the Scottish invasion; nor could the degradation be limited to the retainer alone. In a country in which there is no foreign interference, no rank of society can stand apart from others, and in proportion to its height it needs the more numerous supporters. The castle walls can no more keep out the influence of the social maxims and principles of the lower ranks of the people, than they can keep out the contagion of their diseases, and the lord necessarily partook of the degradation of the vassal.

To the Scottish invasion, then, may, at least partly, be ascribed the barbarism and the consequent weakness of the English in Ireland during the greater part of the fourteenth and the whole of the fifteenth century. In the thirty years that elapsed between that event and the close of Clyn's Annals, that barbarism had made great progress. The power of the central government grew weaker; the lords, whether of Irish or of English blood, became more independent and irresponsible, and, consequently, more arbitrary and tyrannical, and private feuds, resulting in open violence, became of more frequent occurrence. The control of law nearly ceased, and little remained, as a rule of conduct, except the will of the stronger. It then became a question whether this anarchy should continue, or whether it should result in the prevalence of either the English or the Irish system, or, as seemed more probable and more reasonable, whether some third system should not be developed, formed from the amalgamation of these two, and the natural growth of the circumstances of this country.

When the Normans came into Ireland they brought with them the feudal law system, and that law system, with all its complexities, they endeavoured


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to establish wherever they had dominion. It was the system of a victorious army cantoned amongst a conquered nation. In this country the feudal Normans met with the remains of the patriarchal system; of our society the type was, not an army, but a family. Such a system, doubtless, was subject to many inconveniences. The breaking up of all general authority, and the multiplication of petty independent principalities, was an abuse incident to the feudal system; it was inherent in the very essence of the patriarchal or family system. That system began, as the feudal system ended, with small, independent societies, each with its own separate centre of attraction, each clustering round the lord or the chief, and each rather repelling than attracting all similar societies. Yet the patriarchal system was not without its advantages. If the feudal system gave more strength to attack a foreign enemy, the patriarchal system secured more happiness at home. The one system implied inequality amongst the few, and slavery amongst the many; the other system gave a feeling of equality to all. It is needless to inquire which of these two systems was the better fitted to develope the powers and the virtues of mankind, and whether either of them could exist in a state of general refinement and civilization, which, perhaps necessarily, developes a system neither feudal nor patriarchal, but commercial, industrial, and pecuniary.

But, surely, it was not strange that a people brought up as members of septs, each recognised by the chief as of his blood, bearing his name, entitled by the law of gavelkind to a share of the public property, should be blind to the evils that belonged to such a system, and should have looked with wonder and contempt on the well regulated gradations of feudal authority, and with horror on feudal vassalage and serfdom. Such were the natural feelings of the native Irish, and when the course of the king's writs, and the power of the English courts, were limited by the weakness of the central government, they joyfully fell back upon their native customs, as expounded by the Brehons


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upon the hills; and they made welcome, as the sons of Heber, Heremon, Ir, and Ith, those English lords, who, like the Desmonds, adopted the manners of the country, and were rebuked amongst their own countrymen, for being more Irish than the Irish. From the very nature of the patriarchal system the exactions of the native chiefs were not excessive. In the hands of the English lords these exactions became intolerable to their English dependents. Unlike the Irish chiefs, the English lords had no rule by which their demands were regulated; they were ignorant of the restrictions of the Brehon law; and the customary cáin or purveyance of the Irish chiefs, and the regulated and ascertained amount of their refections, became in English hands the unlimited, ‘outrageous’, coyne and livery, the ruin of the English yeomanry, and the object of the well-earned maledictions and denunciations of English judges, kings, and parliaments. Yet we find no complaint made by the native Irish against the levy of these dues by the Earls of Desmond. Those potent Earls, descendants of the first conquerors, had adopted the Irish customs, and were in fact, at the same time, Irish chiefs and English lords. By their Irish followers they were beloved with the most romantic and prodigal affection, and respected with almost superstitious veneration; and, so popular was the first Earl amongst the English people of Leinster, that their special object of detestation was Sir Robert Ufford, the vigorous English Justice, who drove the Earl into banishment, confiscated his lands, took his castles and at Castle Island, in Kerry, hanged his seneschal, Sir John Cottrel, and his knights, Sir Eustace Power and Sir William Grant.

It was time that some vigorous exertion should be made for the support of the English government. The haughty Anglo-Irish nobles ill brooked the authority of the English officials, some of whom were men of low rank and of no great personal reputation; and, indignant at the distinction made by the Parliament in Dublin, between the English


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by birth and the English by descent, and especially outraged by the King's order for the removal from office of all persons born in Ireland, they had held a Parliament at Kilkenny, not summoned by the King, under the presidency of the great Desmond. At that Parliament, professing their loyalty to the King, of which they had given proofs in following him, at their own charge, in his wars in Wales, Gascony, and Scotland, they claimed the rights and immunities secured to them by the great Charter, and manifested a determination to resist all attacks upon their privileges or their properties. This jealous and angry feeling between the English by birth and the Anglo-Irish produced an approximation of the Anglo-Irish towards the native Irish; and had not the obnoxious disqualification of the Anglo-Irish been withdrawn, and had not Desmond been beaten down by the strong arm of Ufford, there seems to have been a probability that the two races would at this time have been incorporated into one people, and that the English and the Irish systems would have been fused and melted into each other. But the circumstances of Ireland did not permit the growth and development of any internal system, with its peculiar compensations, producing in time its own corrections. The process of mutual assimilation was continually checked; Irish civilization, such as it was, was destroyed, and the English statesmen of the fourteenth century vainly busied themselves in striving to erect upon its ruins the incongruous system into which Norman feudalism had then been moulded by the social condition.

During the times contained in these annals the English Government had not power to control the excesses of its subjects, or to repress the attacks of its opponents. The great Anglo-Irish families had become septs. In Clyn's Latin, the St. Aubyns, now corrupted into Tobins, and the Archdeacons, now transformed into the patronymic Mac Odos, or Codys, are ‘naciones et cognomina’; and he speaks of the Hoddinets and Cantetons, ‘cum multis de sanguine eorum’.


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If the Irish chiefs acknowledged no common authority, and felt no common interest, the same division prevailed amongst the lords of English descent. Englishman was now opposed to Englishman, and sought to revenge himself by the help of the Irish; nor did the English refuse their aid to the Irish when plundering their own countrymen. When Brien O'Brien ravaged Ossory and slew the loyal English of Aghaboe and Aghamacart, he had the help of the English of Ely.

The country was fast verging towards anarchy, and it was not easy to stay its descent. The sword of the Lord Justice, if put into the hands of any of the native lords, of the Ormondes or of the Kildares, was used as an instrument to avenge their own wrongs, or to promote their own interests, rather than to execute impartial justice and to promote the welfare of the whole country. Such also was the case during the lieutenancy of any of the great English lords, who had estates or claims in Ireland, such as the great Mortimers; and, perhaps, nothing brought the royal authority into greater disrepute than the use of it by these men as a cover for private revenge or for private gain. Nor were the evils fewer, if the administration of the government was intrusted to Englishmen unconnected with this country. Men of eminence, so situated, would scarcely accept the office; we know that Pembridge altogether refused it; and men of inferior rank and reputation, when invested with deputed and transient authority, were scorned by the haughty Irish lords, and were freely charged by them, and perhaps justly charged, with the grossest peculation and malversation. The castles of Athlone, Roscommon, Rinduin, and Bunratty,—say the Irish lords to Edward in 1343,—were lost, because his treasurers did not pay the constables the wages charged in their accounts; and they continued to charge for castles and constables, after the castles had been destroyed. Officials liable to such imputations could have no moral influence; and when some sturdy and honest man, like Sir Thomas Rokeby, who sold his plate to


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pay his soldiers, saying that he would eat off wooden platters and pay in gold and silver,—or when some bold and vigorous soldiers, like Sir RobertUfford or Sir Anthony Lucy, held the King's commission,— they were hampered by the narrowness of their allowances, and were thwarted by the old peers and ancient officials. The very success of their exertions brought with it no lasting national advantage. If they put down disturbance for a time, and reduced the English dominions to order and submission, yet, at the termination of their authority, there was a renewal of lawlessness; and the only lasting effect of their vigour was the weakening of the natural props and buttresses of internal government, and the consequent increase of anarchy and disturbance.

Such was the political and social state of Ireland, during the earlier part of the fourteenth century, as represented in the following annals, and such, with little alteration, it continued to be for several generations. Whatever were the faults of the several parties in this long and bitter struggle,—and, no doubt, all parties had great and grievous faults,—they were the faults rather of the times than of the men. At all events, it little becomes any Irishman of the present day to reproach their memories. He can scarcely do so without reproaching the memory of his own ancestors. There are few living Irishmen, whatever be their names, whether Celtic or Norman, in whose veins does not run the mingled blood of Norman and of Celt, or rather of Irishmen and Englishmen. Nor can the descendants of those good knights, who stood with Edward III in the trenches of Calais, or of those hardy squires who overthrew the victors at Bannockburn, be unwilling to claim kindred with the descendants of the Irish chiefs, whose names were in the songs of the poet and the legends of the saint, when the names of Normandy and of Norman were unknown.

Of the condition of the labouring classes during this period we know nothing from chronicles or histories. At that time the condition


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of the poor was but little regarded, from which circumstance it may perhaps be inferred that there was among them no great, or at least no unusual misery; had such existed it would have forced itself upon the observation of the annalist. We may observe, also, that the existence of villeinage, when the rights to a man's labour was a valuable property shows that the population had not exceeded its just limits, and that the labourer, who, if he wandered from the land, was reclaimed by the lord, must have been supplied with food sufficient to maintain his strength. From monastic registries and chartularies, and other legal documents, we may painfully collect the history of the cultural classes, which the professed historian would not condescend to give; but even more valuable than these sources of information are the notices of labourers and farmers contained in contemporary poetry. What would we not give for such a picture of an Irish cabin in the fourteenth century, as Chaucer, the contemporary of Clyn, has given of an English cottage in the Nonne's Prieste's Tale?

The social evils of Ireland, in the time now under our review, seem to have been but little mitigated by the influence of religion. When the Anglo-Irish nobles were gradually falling into Irish customs, and were confederating, whenever it served their purpose, as readily with Irish against English as with English against Irish, we find national differences and dissensions, where we should least wish to find them, in the monastery and the convent. Although the authorities, as well ecclesiastical as civil, favoured the English party, the strife seems not to have been altogether unequal. ‘In 1325’, writes Clyn, ‘there was discord, as it were universally, amongst all the poor religious of Ireland, some of them upholding, promoting, and cherishing the part of their own nation, and blood, and tongue; others of them canvassing the offices of prelates and superiors.’ And he adds that in the same year, at the general chapter of the Order, held at Lyons, the convents of Cork, Buttevant, Limerick, and Ardfert, were taken


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from the Irish friars, and assigned as a fifth custody to the English.

In those evil days neither the persons nor the places dedicated to religion were safe from violence. We read in Clyn: ‘In the year 1323, on the Friday within the octaves of Easter, Philip Talon, with his son and about twenty-six of the Codhlitanys, was slain by Edmund Butler, Rector of Tullow, who, aided by the Cantitons, dragged them out of the church, and burned the church of Thamolyn, with their women and children, and the reliques of Saint Molyng.’

‘In 1336, on Thursday, the 3rd Ides of April, Master Howel de Bathe, Archdeacon of Ossory, a man of literature and munificence, with Andrew Avenel and Adam de Bathe, was killed by the O'Brynys of Duffyr, in defence of the goods of his church and parish.’

But, perhaps, the most striking entry on this subject is the following: ‘In 1346, on Friday, the 3rd Nones of May, Dermicius Mac Gilpatrick (surnamed Monoculus, in Irish Caeoch), who ever gave himself up to plots and treacheries, little regarding perjury, burned the town of Achabo, having taken and brought O'Carroll with him, and raging against the cemetery, the church, and the shrine of St. Canice, that most


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holy abbot, the patron of the country and the founder of the abbey, like a degenerate son against a father, he burned them and consumed them in unsparing fire.’

Nor were oaths always reverenced, even when administered in any of those strange forms, with which the Irishman still occasionally endeavours to awaken the religious feeling and to bind the conscience of his opponent. So we are told in 1333, in the beginning of June, Scanlei Mac Gylpatrick, after many and reiterated oaths on different books and manifold reliques of saints, treacherously took and killed two of the sons of Fynyn Mac Gylpatrick, his uncle, and blinded and mutilated the third. Yet, notwithstanding the frequency of such acts evidencing the little power of religious principle, our ancestors were not devoid of religious feelings, of which, to omit others, the following entry is a proof: ‘Also in this year (1348), and chiefly in September and October, there came together, from divers parts of Ireland, bishops and prelates, churchmen and religious, lords and others, and commonly all persons of both sexes, to the pilgrimage and wading of the water at Thath Molyngis, in troops and multitudes, so that you could see many thousands there at the same time for many days together. Some came from feelings of devotion, but others, and they the majority, from dread of the plague, which then grew very rife.’

In the following annals there are some interesting notices of events not immediately connected with Ireland, such as, in 1347, the siege of Calais, at which were present Maurice, Earl of Kildare, and the Kilkenny Knight, Sir Fulco de la Frene; and in the same year there occurs a very curious notice of the Tribune Rienzi. To mention all these, however, would be beyond our due limits; it may, however, be allowed to give here together the various notices which are scattered through different years relative to the City of Kilkenny.

We must, however, previously give admission to the following: ‘1329. In that battle, the battle in which the Louth men killed their


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new Earl, John Birmingham, fell Caech O'Kayrwill O'Carroll, that famous tympanist and harper, so pre-eminent that he was a phoenix in his art, and with him fell about twenty tympanists, who were his scholars. He was Caech O'Kayrwill, because his eyes were not straight, but squinted; and if he was not the first inventor of chord music, yet, of all his predecessors and contemporaries, he was the corrector, the teacher, and the director.’

The following are Clyn's notices of Kilkenny: ‘1267. The Friars Preachers opened the convent at Ross, and the chapter of the Minors was held at Kilkenny.’

‘1302. About the feast of Pentecost died Michael, Bishop of Ossory, who was succeeded by William Fitz John, consecrated at Kilkenny, on the Sunday within the octaves of the Epiphany of the same year.’

‘1308. A chapter of the Minors at Kilkenny, on the feast of the Baptist.’

‘1315. A common parliament of the magnates at Kilkenny, in the beginning of June, to give aid and counsel against the Scots.’

‘1318. William Fitz John, Bishop of Ossory, is translated to the archbishopric of Cashel, in whose room is substituted Friar Richard Leddrede, who was consecrated by the Pope at Avignon, where the Roman Court then abode, on the 8th Kalends of May.’

‘1321. The new choir is built at Kilkenny.’

‘1323. Consecration of the great altar of the Friars Minors at Kilkenny. On the same day, to wit, 3rd Ides of January, the funeral of Sir Robert Schortals.’

‘1324. On Thursday, in the octaves of St. Hilary, William Outlaw, entangled in heresy and notoriously defamed, and failing in his purgation, publicly abjured his heresy in the church of St. Mary, in Kilkenny, reading a new profession of faith, and signing it with his own hand.’

‘1331. On Friday, the Feast of St. Cecilia the Virgin, by Nicholas, Lord


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Bishop of Waterford, the new cemetery outside the church of the Friars Minor of Kilkenny was consecrated.’

‘1332. The belfry of St. Canice of Kilkenny fell, and great part of the choir; the ruins broke down the vestibule of the chapels and the bells, on Friday, the 11th Kalends of June, so that it was a horrid and pitiful spectacle to the beholders.’

‘1334. On the feast of Tiburtius and Valerian, on Thursday, the burgesses of Kilkenny began to make a pavement.’

‘1335. On Thursday, the morrow of the Invention of the Holy Cross, Sir Remund le Ercedekne, with his two sons, Patrick and Sylvester, Sir William le Ercedekne, and eleven of that name, were slain by Leyath O'Morthe Lewis O More, his sons and servants, in a conference at Clargoly, as were Thomas de Bathe, Gerald Bagot, and others, to the number of 50. This Remund, with his two elder sons, and his uncle, Sir William, and three more of the name, were carried to be buried in the convent of the Friars Minors, on seven biers together, one following the other, through the town of Kilkenny, with the wailing of many.’

‘In the same year, on Thursday, the morrow of Lucia the Virgin, the great cross was put up in the centre of the market-place in Kilkenny, at which time many persons, flying to the cross, were marked on the naked flesh with the sign of the cross, with a red hot iron, that they might go to the Holy Land.’

‘1338. Sir Eustace le Poer, on the eve of the Ascension of our Lord, being then seneschal of Kilkenny, attached and imprisoned Sir Fulco and Oliver de la Frene, without showing them any cause for their caption; and they finding rather his malice and his revenge than the rigour of justice, Oliver prudently escaped from the castle on Ascension Day, and on the morrow, having assembled their men and their friends, with the strong hand they broke down the gates of the castle of Kilkenny, and brought out Sir Fulco in spite of the seneschal.’


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‘In the same year, on Tuesday, the 15th Kalends of December, there was a very great flood, such as was not seen for forty years before, and it overthrew and carried away many bridges, mills, and buildings. Of the whole abbey of the Friars Minors of Kilkenny only the great altar and the steps of the altar remained uncovered and untouched by the flood.’

‘1340. On the Friday within the octaves of Easter, Robert Conton was killed in the street of Kilkenny.’

‘1343. Building of the new belfry of the church of St. Mary.’

‘1347. On the same day, Palm-Sunday and the day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, at Kilkenny, the Lady Isabella Palmer, who built the front of the choir of the friars, was buried. She reached a praiseworthy old age, and having lived in her widowhood religiously and honourably about seventy years, she passed from this world, as was said, and as is believed, in a state of virginity.’

‘In the same year, on the first Sunday in Advent, began the confraternity of the Friars Minors of Kilkenny, for the purpose of building a new belfry and of repairing the church.’

‘Also Friar Richard, Bishop of Ossory, obtained in the Roman Court an exemption from the jurisdiction and superiority of the Archbishop of Dublin.’

Such, with the notices of the plague before extracted, are the chief events given by Friar Clyn relative to the fair city of Kilkenny, in which he passed the greater part of his life.

The Castle still stands, no longer, as in his days, a prison and a fortress, but as Spenser described it, a brave mansion in as fair a land as may be read.’’

Vainly will the antiquary seek for the great Cross in the centre of the market-place, where Clyn saw the pilgrims to the Holy Land burned with the sign of a cross on the naked flesh, with a hot iron; and where the young men of Kilkenny were taught by the Protestant Bishop Bale to act his strange dramas on

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a Sunday in 1552. The Cathedral of St. Canice yet remains a memorial of the piety of past generations, consecrated to the glory of God; but Clyn's home is now ruined and profaned. Not gently sinking, like many other holy ruins, in silence and quietude, into natural forms, assimilating with natural objects, with trees, and hills, and rivers, breathing deeper and holier thoughts than in its days of power and splendour, the Friary of St. Francis is now surrounded with poverty and wretchedness in the centre of the town. It was used as a soldiers' barrack while its walls could be inhabited, and now its beautiful church, vocal in Clyn's time with the constant voice of prayer and praise, is a racket-court for the citizens of Kilkenny.

To complete, as far as is in our power, the collection of Irish Annals contemplated by the Earl of Marlborough in the reign of James I, there is printed in the Appendix the only remnant of the Annals of Ross to which we have had access.

For the interesting and valuable notes, marked with his initials, the Editor is indebted to the Rev. James Graves, of Kilkenny, from whose local knowledge, and antiquarian zeal, that ancient city, and the adjoining district, will hereafter derive yet greater elucidation.

The notes marked ‘A. H.’ have been contributed by the Hon. Algernon Herbert and those marked ‘J. O'D.’ by Mr. O'Donovan.

The text bas been printed from a MS. in Trinity College Library, Dublin (E. 3, 20), in the same volume which continues the Annals of Ross and Dowling's Annals. It was collated with a copy of a later date in the possession of Sir William Betham, which is deficient in a few pages at the end, viz. from line 15, page 33, of the text now published.

Although MSS. of Clyn do not seem to have been of rare occurrence in the preceding century, in which they were quoted by Harris and


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by Walker, yet such has been the recent loss of Irish historical documents (affording strong proof of the utility of the labours of our Society), that these were the only MSS. accessible to the Editor when these pages were put to press; and, although evidently carefully written, it was impossible to place implicit reliance on them. It was, therefore, with great pleasure that it was ascertained, when four sheets of this edition had been printed, that a MS. of Clyn was to be found amongst the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library.

For a most careful and elaborate collation of this earlier authority with the pages already printed from the College and Betham MSS., and with the proof-sheets of the subsequent pages, our Society is indebted to the Rev. J. Wilson, of Trinity College, Oxford. And it was


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with great satisfaction that the Editor perceived that, although in the unprinted pages he adopted some better readings from the Oxford MS., yet that in substance and meaning it agreed so fully with the other MSS. that there was no necessity for cancelling any of the pages already printed off.

Postscript

After the Notes had been printed off, the Editor received the following remarks, which are too interesting to be omitted, and are, therefore, inserted here. For the information they contain he is indebted to Mr. Prim, of Kilkenny, and to the Rev. James Graves.

The Franciscan Abbey, Kilkenny.

It appears by entries in the Clasped Book of the Corporation of Kilkenny, that the Franciscan abbey was assigned for building barracks on the 19th of September, 1698.

‘5th April, 1700. The waste of Francis' abbey, in addition to the former grant, given for building barracks.’—Id.

‘31st August, 1708 St. Francis' abbey (now in the possession of his father) set to John Desborough, Jun., for forty-one years from the following Michaelmas,


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at £10 1s. per annum, excepting thereout the horse-barrack, hay-yard, and the set of pillars and uncovered walls within the said abbey.’—Id.

The Corporation possesses the original grants of the Black and Grey friars, and their possessions, made to them by Henry VIII., in the thirty-fifth year of his reign.

It appears from the City Books that the Franciscan abbey was canted to Alderman Evans at £6 a year, fee-farm lease, December 19th, 1724. It is still held by his descendants, who are reduced to poverty.—J. G.

The ‘Pavage’ of Kilkenny.

The burgesses of Kilkenny were incorported by William, Earl Marshal, the elder, before the year 1220, and received several important Charters from that nobleman's successors in the lordship of the district; but the first royal grant obtained by the Corporation of the town, which can be found in the Calendar of Rolls, was made on the 25th November in the year named in the text, 1334, and as it conferred upon the ‘provost, bailiffs, and true men of Kilkenny,’ the right of pavage for seven years, to pave their town, it appears by our author that they lost no time in carrying its design into execution. [Rot. Claus. 8 Ed. III 123.] However, after the expiration of the seven years of which the privilege of "pavage" lasted, it would seem that the repair of their streets was very much neglected by the burgesses. A manuscript preserved amongst the Clarendon Papers, British Museum (tom. li. No. 479), which was written in the early part of the seventeenth century, and is devoted to a description of Kilkenny and the diocese of Ossory, notices the commencing of the pavement of the town in 1334, and observes: ‘Cujus instaurationem a tanto tempore intermissam aut certe plurimum neglectam aggrediebatur vir nobilis L. S. dum esset urbis Praetor anno salutis ...’ The initials here given would correspond with the name of Luke Shee, son of Sir Richard Shee, Knight of Uppercourt, who was Mayor of Kilkenny in the year 1613, as appears from the following entry in the Red Book of the Corporation of Kilkenny, folio 311, under the date September 10th, 1613: ‘Mr. Luke Shee refused to serve as mayor. His reasons were, that he lived in the country, and, though named an alderman in the Charter, never took the oath


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of an alderman. The Corporation answered that he had an house in the town, and therefore was an inhabitant; and that he had voted and acted as an alderman, and therefore was an alderman. He submitted to the Corporation and was fined 100 marks, Irish; and a by-law made that every person hereafter refusing to serve mayor, when elected, shall forfeit 200 marks and be disfranchised.’

The reparation of the ancient pavement of Kilkenny, thus begun by Lucas Shee in 1613, would seem to have been carried out by his immediate successors in office; but the Corporation appears only to have paved the centre of the streets, and to have caused the side ways to be repaired at the expense of the inhabitants. Thus in the Red Book at folio 341, under the date 1615, we find the following entry:

‘A person hired by the city, by the year, to repair the streets. Everybody to find labourers and pave before their own doors; those who have leases, of which twenty-one years are to come, to pay as inheritors; those who have less time, the cost to be divided between them and the landlord, according to the number of years to come.’

In the White Book under the date 27th January, 1670, is the following: By-law for paving the streets.—‘Every inhabitant, to pave the breadth of his front and twenty feet into the street; and if those pavements do not meet, the city to pave the remainder. But if the gutter be above twenty-one feet from the door, the inhabitant to pave the gutter. If the street be not forty-two feet wide, the opposite inhabitants to be at equal expenses. If not paid on notice from the mayor, to be distrained for double the value of the pavement.’

Again the Clasped Book records that on the 22nd April, 1694, it was ‘Ordered,—that each inhabitant of this city do pave the gutter before their doors, within the walls thereof; and that the city shall pave the rest.’

The Corporation of Kilkenny at the present day defrays the expense of repairing the pavement of the town within the limit of the ancient city walls, but


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without their circuit, all such city works are carried on by the grand jury presentment.—J. G.; A. P.

The Market Cross of Kilkenny.

The ancient and beautiful structure stood in the centre of High-street, near the Tholsel, but was barbarously destroyed, by order of the Corporation, in the year 1771. A drawing of it was preserved by the Rev. Mervyn Archdall, which was engraved for Ledwich's History of Irishtown and Kilkenny, in the second volume of the Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, and was copied in the first volume of the Dublin Penny Journal. In both of these works it is stated that the date "M.C.C.C." was indented upon its fourth step; but this must be a mistake, as Clyn, having been himself a resident of Kilkenny at the time, could scarcely be incorrect as to the period of its erection. In other respects the drawing would appear to correspond with the description given of the cross by Archdekin, Motraye, and other old writers. The Clarendon MS., tom. li. No. 479 already alluded to in the note upon the paving of Kilkenny, represents it as an arched structure, supported by marble columns, rising from a graduated base. Above the arch rose a slender shaft, upon the top of which was a richly sculptured cross, adorned with the figures of St. Kyran, St. Canice, St. Patrick, and St. Brigid, all of which religious personages are there asserted to have been the tutelary saints of the town. Archdekin states (Theologia Tripart. Universa. par. 3) the Puritan soldiers of Cromwell to have shattered, with their muskets, the portion of the carving which represented the symbol of the crucifixion; but Motraye mentions that in 1730, though ‘the arms of it were broken off, the shaft, adorned with good figures in relief, was well preserved.’

The plea upon which the Corporation of 1771 sought to justify the destruction of this venerable monument was, that it had fallen into a ruinous condition, and was dangerous to the public; but it is stated by old inhabitants who had often seen the cross before its final obliteration, that the expenditure of a few pounds would have been sufficient to have restored it to perfect repair, and preserve it to future ages. It appears from the municipal records that the civic representative body of the seventeenth century was as anxious for its preservation as the corporators of the eighteenth seem to have been regardless of its value.


p.xxxiv

It was recorded in the Red Book that, on the 9th February, 1609, an order was made by the Corporation that ‘the market cross and Croker's cross be for ever repaired and kept in repair by the company of masons, in such manner as the mayor shall direct.’ The preservation of the structure would appear to have been immediately thereupon undertaken, as on the 20th April following an invitation was sent forth to ‘every person that have plows within the city, to send them to draw stones from the quarry to repair the market cross;’ and on the 3rd August, in the next year, the following memorandum was inserted in the Red Book:—‘The market cross repaired May, 1610, by the Company of Masons. The Corporation paid for carriage and lime and sand.’ Again, under the year 1624, October 15th, is this entry: ‘Part of the Black Quarry allowed for making up the south side of the market cross.’

This is the last record which can be discovered of any attempt towards the reparation or preservation of the interesting and venerable structure; but there are some other curious allusions to the cross in the Corporation documents. On the 13th April, 1632, ‘the north side of the market cross was granted to two persons for shops during the fair times of Corpus Christi, in regard that their shops are stopped up by the stations and play of Corpus Christi Day.’ The market cross seems to have been the locality of the performance of the ancient plays and mysteries in Kilkenny. Two of the mysteries there acted, and specially written for the purpose by John Bale, the first Protestant Bishop of Ossory, in the year 1552, are still preserved amongst the Harleian MSS., and are extremely curious and interesting specimens of those religious dramatic entertainments; they are:—a tragedy entitled God's Promises, and a comedy named John Baptist's Preachings in the Wilderness, and both are strongly directed against Popery. The following passage from the curious personal narrative of Bale's Vocation to the Bishopric of Ossory, and Persecutions in the same, printed in the sixth volume of the Harleian Miscellany, is interesting as connected with the subject of this note:

‘On the xx daye of August was the Ladye Marye with vs at Kilkennye proclaimed Queene of England Fraunce and Ireland, with the greatest solempnyte, that there coulde be devised of processions, musters, and disgysings, all the noble Captaynes and Gentilmen thereabout being present. What-a-do I had that daye with the Prebendaryes and Prestes about wearinge the cope, croser, and myter, in prosession, it were to much to write. I tolde them earnestly,


p.xxxv

whan they would have compelled me thereunto, that I was not Moyses Minister, but Christes. I desyred them not to compell me to his Denyall, which is, S. Paule sayth, in the repetinge of Moyses sacraments and ceremoniall schaddowes Gal. V. With that I take Christes Testament in my Hande, and went to the Market Crosse, the people in great nombre followinge. There take I the xiii. chap. of S. Paule to the Romanes, declaringe to them brevely what the authoritie was of the worldly powers and Magistrates, what reverence and obedience were due to the same. In the meane tyme had the prestes gotten ii disgysed prestes, one to beare the myter afore me, and another the croser, making iii procesion pageaunts of one. The yonge men, in the forenoon, played a Tragedye of God's promyses in the olde Lawe, at the Market Crosse, with organe plainges, and songes, very aptly. In the afternone agayne they played comedie of Sanct Johan Baptistes preachings, of Christes baptisynge, and of his temptacion in the wildernesse, to the small contentacion of the prestes, and other papistes there.’

There are some curious notices, in the Red Book, of these religious plays subsequently to Bale's time. On the 20th April, 1610, it was resolved, ‘that the Mayor and Aldermen, with the advice of the Sheriffs and such of the second council as they shall cull, shall order the celebration of Corpus Christi Day in decent and solemn manner as usual, and shall employ carpenters to make rails for keeping out horses and the mob, and for placing strangers at the place where the interlude shall be plaid.’ On the 23rd July, same year, the Corporation granted a salary of twenty shillings per annum to a person ‘for keeping the apparel used on Corpus Christi Day station, and the apparel of the Mories and players of the Resurrection;’ and on the 13th January 1631, was allowed ‘a salary of £3 13s. 4d. per annum to Wiliam Consey, for teaching to write and read, and instructing the children of the natives for the play on Corpus Christi day.’

Croker's cross, alluded to in some of the foregoing extracts, was of lesser importance than the market cross; it was a monument erected in 1407, in commemoration of the victory gained over the Burkes and O'Carrolls, at Callan, by Sir Stephen Scroop, the Lord Deputy, in whose army the burgesses of Kilkenny served, under the leadership of their Sovereign, John Croker. This monument stood in the cross-ways formed by the junction of High-street, Patrick-street, Roseinn-street, and the parade, called Castle-street, but


p.xxxvi

it has been long since removed. On the 9th February, 1609, the Corporation ordered, ‘that the market place for cattle be at James's-green and Walkin's-green, and from the market cross to Croker's cross; and no one to buy elsewhere.’ There were also several other similar monuments formerly existing in Kilkenny. The Butt's cross is the only one yet remaining, but the sites of others are determined by the old names of localities, such as St. Leger's cross, Crinius's cross, Scaldcrow's cross, &c. The author of the Clarendon MS., tom. 51, No. 479, states that at the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a monumental cross near the gate of the Franciscan abbey; he, however gives nothing of its history, except that it had been removed thither from the suburb, on the south side of the town, called Loughbuidhe.—J. G.; A. P.

THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY, KILKENNY.

The original structure of St. Mary's church appears to have been purely early English in style, and was probably erected shortly after the incorporation of the town by William Earl Marshal. The tower, whose erection Clyn has recorded, existed until the year 1819, when it was taken down. The church is cruciform, and the tower stood at the north-west angle of the body of the building, and was not, as the present tower is, attached to the west gable. An ancient trowel was discovered imbedded in the wall of the old tower, which was used in laying the foundation stone of the new one, but we believe that this relic is not now in existence.

The walls of the present church are portions of the original building, but the triple lancets in the north and south transept gables are the only original windows which have been retained. The chancel has been much curtailed in length, as appears by the following extract from the Vestry Book of the parish:

‘2 March, 1748. Agreed on by the minister, churchwardens, and parishioners, assembled that the eastern Ile or chancel be pulled down within twenty-one foot of the pulpit ... and that the several monuments in ye eastern isle and sheds may be removed and set up in such parts of the church as ye Bishop shall aprove of, at the expense of the proprietors.’

By an entry made in the blank leaf at the commencement of the parish Register


p.xxxvii

it appears that in 1774 the Corporation of Kilkenny ‘repaired the steeple, being in a very ruinous condition, and also adorned the church with an organ,’ which cost £300.

The parish of St. Mary is at present a perpetual curacy in the gift of the Bishop of Ossory, the curate being paid by minister's money; but originally it appears to have been an independent rectory. In the early taxations which occur in the Red Book of Ossory it is always termed "ecclesia.

Thus (at fol. 18, dorso) its value and denomination are given as under, in a taxation made at the commencement of the fourteenth century:

‘Ecc. be. Marie Kilkenn. cvi.s viij.d Deci.a x.s viij.d;’ and again in the new taxation made ‘post guerram Scotorum’, circ. 1320, the value and proxy payable thereout is thus given:

‘Ecc. be. Marie iiij.£i Deci.a viij.s procur. xij.d —’ Lib. Rub. Ossor. fol. 22, dorso.

The subsequent history of the parish is exceedingly obscure; whether at this period it was in the gift of the bishop is not stated in the taxations; but from various documents it appears that there was a very intimate connexion between this parish and the Corporation of Kilkenny. In a burgess rent roll, dated ann. 5. Hen. V. there are entries which show that the Sovereign and burgesses of Kilkenny had the setting of various houses and lands which were charged with the supply of lights for the church of St. Mary, and this before the Reformation, and consequent acquirement of confiscated church property.

Again, under the year 1643, we find ‘a docket of St. Mary's lands belonging to the city of Kilkenny,’ mentioning several houses and lands charged with ‘finding ropes for the bells in our Lady's church,’ ‘repairing the church from time to time,’ and ‘keeping, the style, with lock and key to the church-yard.’ Amongst the items is the following: ‘Edmund Grace for the Mary priest chamber and garden 61 years beginning 1621, at 20d per an.’ For a statement made by Ledwich on this subject see his Antiquities, second edition, p. 495. His authorities were the MSS. of Counsellor James Laffan, Recorder of the city of Kilkenny, which MSS. Ledwich borrowed, but never returned.—J. G.


p.1


p.2

2.0

Anno secundo.

2.1

Innocentes occiduntur.

3.0

Anno tertio.

3.1

Herodes occidit seipsum cultello, et Johannes evangelista natus est.

19.0

Anno 19.

19.1

Johannes Baptista predicavit in deserto.

30.0

Anno 30.

30.1

Christus baptizatus, incepit predicare, et conversi sunt Apostoli.

33.0

Anno 33.

33.2

9 Kal: Aprilis, Christus crucifixus est; 6 Kal: Aprilis, surrexit; 4 Nonas Maii, ascendit; 15 Maii, Spiritus super Apostolos descendit. Idus Julii, sunt divisi.

33.1

17 Kal: Januarii, Stephanus lapidatus fuit.

34.0

Anno 34.

34.1

viii Idus Februarii, conversus est Paulus. Et 13 conversionis anno gentibus predicavit.

34.2

Et nota, Britones in Anglia fuerunt ante Christi incarnacionem per mille quingentos annos et viii.

34.3

Et quod prima etas mundi fuit ab Adam usque Diluvium, et continet annos 1256: secunda etas a Diluvio usque Habraham, et continet annos 292: tertia fuit ab Habraham usque David, et continet annos 942: quarta a David usque transmigrationem Babilonis, et continet annos 473: quinta a transmigratione usque Christi adventum, et continet annos 588: sexta etas nulla annorum serie certa.

34.4

Petrus post Domini passionem tenuit cathedram sacerdotalem in partibus orientis annis 4. Anno 20 vero cathedratur Antiochie 8 Kal: Maii, ubi sedit annis vii. Ibi primam missam celebravit; dicendo tantum verba Consecrationis, et Pater noster.

38.0

Anno 38.

38.1

Matheus scripsit ewangelium.


p.3

45.0

Anno 45.

45.1

Cathedratus fuit Petrus Rome viii Kal: Februarii; ubi sedit annis 35, et mensibus 6, diebus 7.

45.2

Hic 4 Neronis anno, cum Paulo martyrizatus.

48.0

Quadragesimo octavo.

48.1

Marchus scripsit ewangelium.

49.0

Quadragesimo nono.

49.1

Tempore beati Petri Maria mater Domini obiit, 8 Kal: Septembris, anno vite sue 63, secundum fidem Ebraicam, secundum vero cronica anni computantur sic, 14 annos habuit quando natus est Jesus, 33 annis vixit cum filio, post cujus passionem vixit annis 16.

58.0

Anno 58. Lapidatus est Jacobus, sed non ex toto extinctus.

59.0

Quinquagesimo nono.

59.1

Festus fuit procurator Judeae, a quo Paulus vinctus Romam mittitur.

62.0

Sexagesimo secundo.

62.1

Lapidatur Jacobus frater Domini, a Judeis.

63.0

Sexagesimo 3.

63.1

Maria Magdalena obiit.

69.0

Sexagesimo 9.

69.1

Petrus et Paulus sub Nerone passi sunt; qui eodem tempore occidit Senecam magistrum suum, matrem suam et sororem: et primam intulit christianis persecutionem.

69.2

Hoc tempore Lucanus poeta moritur Parisius.

72.0

Septuagesimo 2.

72.1

Jerosolyma a Tyto et Vespasiano subvertitur.

83.0

Octuagesimo 3.

83.1

Johannes ewangelista in Pahtmos relegatur, ubi scripsit Apocalypsim et octuagesimo 5 scripsit ewangelium.

97.0

Nonagesimo 7.

97.1

Passio Dionisii, qui postquam decapitatus fuit caput suum portavit ad locum sepulture, cantans hymnum 'Gloria tibi Domine'.

100.0

Anno 100.

100.1

Obiit Johannes ewangelista, post passionem Domini 50, etatis sue 98.

156.0

Centesimo 56.

156.1

Lucius rex Britannie efficitur christianus a papa Eleutherio.

233.0

Duecentesimo 33.

233.1

Ordinatur Ambrosius apud Mediolanum; et Augustinus a beato Ambrosio baptizatur.

233.2

Hoc tempore, Turonis beatus Martinus virtutibus radiabat.

233.3

Jo: et Id: et Jeronimus apud Behtleem.

265.0

Anno 265.

265.1

Cepit Lucius papa, et Anastasius fecit simbolum 'Quicunque vult'.

265.2

Et sanctus Hilarius claruit: et Donatus artis grammaticae.

265.3

Et Sixtus Papa, et beatus Laurentius martyrio coronantur.

286.0

Ducentesimo 86.

286.1

Dioclesiano imperante, facta est persecutio christianorum, que duravit per annos 10.

286.2

Circa illud tempus, heresis Arriana pullulabat, et dampnata in Niceno concilio.

286.3

Hiis temporibus Constantius vir mansuetissimus regebat Hispaniam, Galliam, et Britanniam, et Constantinum reliquit filium suum


p.4

ex concubina Elena, creatum imperatorem Galliarum. Hec Helena fuit filia regis Britannie, secundum Bedam de gestis Anglorum.

286.4

Et Albanus martirizatur.

316.0

Anno 316.

316.1

Silvester papa incepit, qui baptizavit Constantinum imperatorem magnum, et a lepra mundavit.

316.2

Et sunt ab incarnatione Domini usque primum annum Sylvestri, 316 anni, et 20 dies.

316.3

Dictus Constantinus, filius Helene, filie regis Britannie devicit Maxencium, et Lucium, et Serenum imperatores.

316.4

Maxencio depulso in Alexandria Constantinopolim transiit; et multos christianos occidit, et beatam virginem Katerinam.

410.0

Anno 410.

410.1

Inventio corporis Sancti Stephani, et Augustinus composuit librum de Civitate Dei.

413.0

Tercentesimo 13.

413.1

Jeronymus claruit.

411.0

Quadringentesimo 11.

411.1

Obiit Martinus Turonensis episcopus.

423.0

Anno 423.

423.1

Obiit Augustinus.

423.2

Palladius mittitur ad Hiberniam.

424.0

Quadringentesimo 24.

424.1

Exordium regum Francorum; primus Faramundus: secundus Clodio.

417.0

Quadringentesimo 17.

417.1

Cepit Celestinus papa; hic misit beatum Patricium in Hiberniam.

432.0

Quadringentisimo 32.

432.1

Sanctus Patricius venit in Hiberniam, cujus etas sic distinguitur. 16 annorum fuit, quando a piratis de Britannia in Hiberniam captivus ducitur. 6 annis erat in servitute. 18 annis sub sancti Germani Ancisiodorensis episcopi magisterio deguit. 35 Hyberniam, et alias insulas, ad Christum convertit. 33 annis contemplationi intendebat. Obiit autem anno 493 incarnacionis Christi; anno pontificante Felice papa;

432.2

primo imperii Anastasii imperatoris:

432.3

principante Aurelio Ambrosio in Britannia.

439.0

Quadringentesimo 39.

439.1

Nascitur beata virgo Brigida.

457.0

457.

457.1

Venerunt Saxones in Britanniam.

490.0

490.

490.1

Sanctus Memertus instituit Rogaciones.

500.0

500.

500.1

Obiit beatus Benedictus.

525.0

Anno 525.

525.1

Francia convertitur ad Christum.

592.0

592.

592.1

Cepit Gregorius papa, qui misit 3.o sui pontificatus anno beatum Augustinum, et alios in Angliam misit.

595.0

595.

595.1

Venit Augustinus in Angliam.

606.0

Anno 606.

606.1

Cepit Bonefacius, hujus tempore Cosdre rex Persarum vastavit Jerosolumam: et lignum crucis secum in Persidem perduxit.


p.5

638.0

Anno 638.

638.1

Cepit Severinus, hujus tempore Eraclius occidit Cosdre regem Persarum: et crucis lignum reduxit in Jerusalem.

688.0

Sexcentesimo 88.

688.1

Ysidorus claruit.

729.0

Anno 729.

729.1

Beda claruit.

799.0

Septingentesimo nonagesimo nono.

799.1

Karolus vadit Romam.

800.0

800.

800.1

Karolus et Lodovicus imperatores perrexerunt in Britanniam. Anno Domini 1066.Obiit Edwardus rex Anglie.

942.0

Anno 942.

942.1

Willelmus Dux Normannie occiditur.

900.0

Nongentesimo.

900.1

Obiit Edmundus rex martyrio.

973.0

Nongentesimo 73.

973.1

Martirizatus Edwardus.

989.0

Nongentesimo 89.

989.1

Obiit beatus Dunstanus.

1066.0

Anno Domini 1066.

1066.1

Obiit beatus Edwardus anno regni sui 24.

1066.2

Alfredo fratre suo occiso per Godewinum comitem Cancie.

1066.3

Cum ergo sanctus Edwardus non potiorem heredem haberet Willelmo cognomento Bastardo duce Normannie, consobrino suo, eidem regnum Anglie testamento legavit.

1066.4

Hic Willelmus eodem anno, pridie ydus Octobris venit in Angliam, et interfecit Haraldum, filium Godewini, apud Hastings, et coronatur Londini, die Natali Domini.

1087.0

Anno Domini 1087.

1087.1

Obiit Willelmus primus Bastardus, anno regni sui 21.

1087.2

Cui eodem anno successit filius ejus Willelmus Rufus.

1103.0

Milesimo centesimo 3.

1103.1

Hic Willelmus Rufus occiditur, dum iret venatum, anno regni sui 13.

1103.2

Cui successit Henricus I, qui bonas condidit leges in Anglia.

1106.0

1106.

1106.1

Henricus Rex cepit Normanniam.

1106.2

Due Lune vise sunt in celo.

1109.0

1109.

1109.1

Obiit Anselmus.

1109.2

Tamisia exsiccatur.

1120.0

1120.

1120.1

Ordo Premonstratensium confirmatur.

1125.0

1125.

1125.1

Obiit Henricus rex. Successit Stephanus.

1133.0

1133.

1133.1

Domus Clare-vallis fundatur.

1133.2

Malachias fit archiepiscopus Ardmacanus.

1139.0

1139.

1139.1

Monachi venerunt in Hiberniam.

1142.0

1142.

1142.1

Constituitur abbacia Mellifontis.

1144.0

1144.

1144.1

Puer Willelmus crucifigitur apud Norwych.

1148.0

1148.

1148.1

Obiit Malachias Clarevallis.

1152.0

1152.

1152.1

Christanus legatus mittitur in Hiberniam, et distribuit 4 pallia, et 4 archiepiscopatus constituit.

1153.0

1153.

1153.1

Obiit beatus Bernardus.

1153.2

Sanguis e terra emanavit, apud Hameste.


p.6

1161.0

1161.

1161.1

Thomas consecratur archiepiscopus Cantuariensis; et anno 1165 exulatur.

1169.0

1169.

1169.1

Dermicius McMorkada ad Henricum secundum transfretavit pro auxilio habendo.

1170.0

1170.

1170.1

Henricus primogenitus Henrici 2, coronatur Londini a Roberto archiepiscopo Eboracensi et sex aliis episcopis.

1170.2

Contra inhibicionem Alexandri pape iiii.ti et contra inhibitionem Sancti Thome. Ex hac consecratione venit episcoporum anathematizatio a sede Apostolica.

1170.3

Inter patrem et filium consecratum dira rebellio. Thome occisio. Eodem anno scilicet 1170, in estate precedente Thome martirizationem, venerunt Anglici primo in Hiberniam. Versus:

    1. Anno mileno centeno septuageno,
      Anglorum primas corruit ense Thomas;
      Pro Christi sponsa, Christi sub tempore, Christi
      In templo, Christi verus amator obit.

1172.0

Milesimo centesimo 72.

1172.1

Circa Kal. Maii obiit Dermicius McMorkada apud Fernis.

1174.0

1174.

1174.1

Limericum ab Anglicis occupatur.

1177.0

1177.

1177.1

Vivianus legatus mittitur in Hiberniam; et Johannes de Curcy Ultoniam acquisivit.

1183.0

1183.

1183.1

Anselmus eligitur in archiepiscopum Cantuariensem.

1183.2

1183. Ordo Templariorum et Hospicilariorum confirmatur.

1185.0

1185.

1185.1

Kal: Maii fuit eclipsis solis, sole existente colore sanguineo.

1185.2

Post eclipsim Johannes filius Henrici regis Anglie cum magno exercitu Hiberniam intravit, sibi a patre traditam, mense Maii.

1186.0

1186.

1186.1

Ordo Cartueciensium, et Granduensium confirmatur.

1186.2

1186. Hugo de Lacy occiditur.

1187.0

1187.

1187.1

Jerusalem cum cruce Domini capitur a Saracenis.

1189.0

1189.

1189.1

Henricus 2, filius Imperatricis obiit, pridie nonas Julii, cui successit filius ejus Ricardus magnanimus, coronatus 3 nonas Septembris.

1190.0

Anno 1190.

1190.1

Ricardus rex Anglie et Philippus rex Francie vadunt in terram sanctam.

1193.0

1193.

1193.1

Ricardus rex Anglie capitur in Austria, in reditu suo ab Ierosolymis, et redemptus infra sequens triennium, pro C. M. libris.


p.7

1199.0

1199.

1199.1

Idem Ricardus obiit, interfectus 4 Idus Aprilis. Cui successit frater ejus Johannes, coronatus Westmonasterii in die Ascensionis, 5 Kal: Junii.

1202.0

1202.

1202.1

Fundatur domus de Conale per Meylerum filium Henrici.

1204.0

1204.

1204.1

Johannes de Curcy capitur a Hugone de Lacy.

1214.0

1214.

1214.1

Interdictum Anglie relaxatur.

1215.0

1215.

1215.1

Concilium generale celebratur Rome ab Innocencio 3, ubi conceditur Cisterciensibus nullas decimas dare.

1215.2

Et ordo Minorum confirmatur.

1216.0

1216.

1216.1

Obiit Innocencius.

1216.2

Successit Honorius.

1216.3

Ordo Predicatorum confirmatur.

1217.0

1217.

1217.1

Henricus 3 coronatur.

1220.0

1220.

1220.1

Obiit Meylerus Henrici, nobilis Hybernie conquestor.

Versus: Indomitus domitor totius gentis Hybere.

1221.0

1221.

1221.1

Predicatores intraverunt Angliam; et obiit beatus Dominicus, fundator eorum.

1226.0

1226.

1226.1

Obiit beatus Franciscus, transactis 20 annis postquam adheserat perfecte consiliis ewangeliorum perfectionis.

1228.0

1228.

1228.1

Translacio beati Francisci.

1228.2

Et Jerusalem redditur christianis.

1231.0

1231.

1231.1

Obiit beatus Antonius, doctor de ordine Minorum.

1232.0

1232.

1232.1

Translatio beati Antonii.

1233.0

1233.

1233.1

Edmundus fit archiepiscopus Cantuarie, et translatio beati Dominici.

1233.2

Et occiditur Ricardus comes Mariscalli Kyldarie in bello, per Geraldinos, locum et partem regis tenentes: Versus:

    1. Post incarnatum lapsis de Virgine natum
      Annis nongentis tribus triginta trecentis:
      In primo mensis Aprilis, Kildariensis
      Pugna die Sabbati fuit, in tristicia fati
      Acciderant stallo pugne comiti Mariscallo.

1240.0

Anno 1240.

1240.1

Nascitur Edwardus primus filius Henrici iii.

1240.2

Et obiit Eadmundus archiepiscopus Cantuariensis.

1241.0

1241.

1241.1

Gregorius obiit, cui successit Alexander.

1241.2

Sedes Romana vacabat per biennium.

1242.0

1242.

1242.1

Willelmus de Marisco proditor tractus est London ad caudas equorum.

1243.0

1243.

1243.1

Obiit Hugo de Lacy, comes Ultonie; et Henricus rex Anglie intravit Vasconiam.

1243.2

Obiit Geraldus filius Mauricii, et Ricardus de Burgo in Vasconia.


p.8

1245.0

1245.

1245.1

Innocentius papa deposuit Fredericum imperatorem in concilio Lugdinensi, et obiit magister Alexander Halys, et magister Johannes de Rupella.

1251.0

1251.

1251.1

Validus ventus fuit in Hibernia, idus Januarii.

1252.0

1252.

1252.1

Occiditur Sanctus Petrus de ordine Predicatorum, et obiit David archiepiscopus Casselensis.

1252.2

Successit David McKarwyll;

1252.3

et magna siccitas fuit; et Waterfordia comburitur.

1248.0

1248.

1248.1

Incepit guerra Mackanfy, et 1250 occiditur idem.

1253.0

1253.

1253.1

Obiit Robertus Grostete, episcopus Lincollniensis; et Alanus Lysmoriensis.

1254.0

1254.

1254.1

Hybernia et Austria dantur Edwardo a patre suo Henrico.

1255.0

1255.

1255.1

Obiit Lucas Dublin archiepiscopus.

1255.2

Et 4000 in Wallia occiduntur.

1257.0

1257.

1257.1

Obiit dominus Mauricius filius Geraldi, justiciarius Hybernie, in habitu, et frater minor.

1258.0

1258.

1258.1

Quatuor fratres regis Anglie exulantur, et ceteri alienigene; 12 pares constituuntur in Anglia, quorum consilio Anglia regeretur.

1260.0

1260.

1260.1

O'Neyl regulus Ultonie occiditur cum multo populo apud civitatem de Duno, dominica infra octavas Ascensionis, et Willelmus de Dene fit justiciarius Hibernie.

1261.0

1261.

1261.1

Occiditur dominus Johannes filius Thome, et filius suus in Desmonia.

1262.0

1262.

1262.1

Obiit Ricardus de Clare, comes Gloucestrie.

1264.0

1264.

1264.1

Bellum de Lewys. Henricus rex capitur, cum filio suo Edwardo, et Ricardus frater ejus, et alii nobiles multi.

1264.2

Eodem anno guerra inter Geraldinos, et Walterum de Burgo, comitem Ultonie; et Mauricius filius Mauricii cepit apud Tristeldermot Ricardum de la Rokele justiciarium Hybernie, et Theobaldum le Botiller, et Johannem de Cogan, et carceribus de Leye et Donmaske mancipavit.

1265.0

1265.

1265.1

Edwardus evasit de custodia Symonis de Monteforti.

1265.2

Et pridie nonas Augusti bellum apud Evesam, ubi occiditur Symon de Monteforti, et alii nobiles multi.

1267.0

1267.

1267.1

Predicatores ceperunt locum de Ros, et capitulum Minorum Kylkennie.


p.9

1268.0

1268.

1268.1

Karolus vicit Coradellum imperatorem Grecorum.

1268.2

Item, dominus Robertus de Ufford fit justiciarius Hibernie.

1268.3

Item, Mauricius filius Geraldi in mari submergitur, redeundo de Anglia, 5 Kal: Augusti.

1269.0

1269.

1269.1

Introitus fratrum in Clonmele.

1270.0

1270.

1270.1

Lodowicus rex Francie, et Edwardus rex Anglie vadunt in Terram Sanctam; Lodowicus in via moritur.

1270.2

Item, Walterus de Burgo vincitur a rege Connaccie apud Ahtkyppe; multis nobilibus et militibus ex parte Walteri interemptis; vix eo fuge presidio se salvante.

1270.3

Et Jacobus de Audele, fit justiciarius Hybernie.

1271.0

1271.

1271.1

Facta est magna fames in Hibernia, et pestilentia gravis.

1271.2

Et obiit Walterus de Burgo comes Ultonie.

1271.3

Item, occisi sunt domini Nicholaus et Johannes de Verdona.

1271.4

Obiit Fulco archiepiscopus Dublin.

1271.5

Obiit Henricus iiij.us rex Anglie, anno regni sui 56; et Edwardus filius ejus cepit regnare 5. Kal: Augusti.

1271.6

Locus Predicatorum de Yohil capitur.

1272.0

1272.

1272.1

Jacobus de Audele justiciarius occiditur in Totmonia.

1272.2

Item, Mauricius filius Mauricii fit justiciarius Hybernie.

1274.0

1274.

1274.1

Concilium generale apud Lugdunum celebratur a Gregorio x.

1274.2

Interfectio Anglicorum apud Glandelory.

1279.0

1279.

1279.1

Nicholaus iiij.us fecit declaracionem super regulam beati Francisci.

1279.2

In Yoaellia terremotus magnus subvertens castra, et absorbens homines discordes invicem bellantes.

1279.3

Obiit dominus David de Barry.

1280.0

1280.

1280.1

Obiit Nicholaus Papa.

1280.2

Et Stephanus episcopus Waterfordie de ordine Hospitalariorum mutavit monetam.

1280.3

Captus fuit Dermitius McMorkada.

1280.4

Obiit domina Margaria de Say, uxor domini Roberti de Ufford; et combusta est Waterfordia.

1281.0

1281.

1281.1

Occiditur Hogekyn McGilpadricke.

1282.0

1282.

1282.1

Guerra inter Edwardum iiij. regem Anglie, et Walenses.

1282.2

Item, occisi Morkardaht et Art McMorkarda.

1282.3

Capitulum apud Dundalke; Matheus fit minister Hybernie.

1283.0

1283.

1283.1

Fit guerra inter Edwardum iiij. et Wallenses; et destructa est Wallia per eum, et occisus est Lewelyn princeps Wallie, et David frater ejus captus, et tractus cum equis.

1283.1

Item, combusta est Dublinia infra muros, in crastino Circumcisionis Domini.

1284.0

1284.

1284.1

Castrum de Leye perforatur per Hybernicos.

1284.2

Johannes de Sampford eligitur archiepiscopus Dublinie.

1284.3

Capitulum Minorum Dublinie in Pentecoste.


p.10

1284.4

Item, dominus Galfridus de Sancto Leodegario, episcopus Ossoriensis, acquisivit per duellum, manerium de Serrkeran.

1284.5

Item, dominus Emflues Alphonsus filius Edwardi iiij obiit.

1284.6

Item, obiit Karolus, qui fuit Gallicus, et filius ejus fuit incarceratus.

1285.0

1285.

1285.1

Occisus fuit Willelmus de Larokele.

1285.2

Obiit Theobaldus Pincerna.

1285.3

Item, Geraldus filius Mauricii, (dictus Rochfalyaht) captus fuit a suis Hybernicis in Offaly, et detentus.

1285.4

Item, rex Philippus intravit regnum Arragonie, per preceptum Pape.

1285.5

Dominus Willelmus Hacket, cum multis de suo genere occisus fuit ab Hibernicis.

1286.0

1286.

1286.1

7 Idus Aprilis, id est Dominica Palmarum, Johannes de Sampford consecratur Dublinie in ecclesia Trinitatis.

1286.2

Item, Callan in Ossoria combusta est.

1286.3

Captus est Calvah apud Kildariam.

1287.0

1287.

1287.1

Mortuus est Geraldus filius Mauricii, capitaneus Geraldinorum; hereditatem suam dedit domino Johanni filio Thome, filio avunculi sui; hic Johannes, primus de hac natione factus est comes Kildarie.

1287.2

Obiit dominus Thomas de Clare.

1288.0

1288.

1288.1

Dominus Johannes filius Thome amisit multos equos et garciones in Offaly.

1290.0

1290.

1290.1

Judei de Anglia exulantur.

1291.0

1291.

1291.1

Capitulum Cork.

1294.0

1294.

1294.1

In festo beate Margarete virginis, fuit fulgur et corruscatio destruentes blada, unde provenit maxima caristia, qua multi fame perierunt.

1294.2

Item, eodem anno, ante festum Omnium Sanctorum, applicuit dominus Gilbertus de Clare, comes Gloucestrie, apud Ros.

1294.3

Item, eodem anno, dominus Johannes filius Thome dedit vadium super dominum Willelmum de Vescy, in principio mensis Aprilis, pugnandi in duello contra eum.

1294.4

Eodem die ad 40 annos occisus fuit Ricardus Mariscalli Kildarie.

1294.5

1294. Ricardus de Burgo comes Ultonie, captus fuit per Johannem filium Thome, sabbato ante festum Sancte Lucie virginis.

1302.0

1302.

1302.1

Circa festum Pentecostes, obiit Michaell Ossoriensis episcopus, cui successit Willelmus filius Johannis, consecratus Kylkennie, dominica infra octavas Epiphanie, anno eodem.

1303.0

1303.

1303.1

Ricardus comes Ultonie Scotiam intravit.

1303.2

Obiit Geraldus, filius Johannis, filii Thome.

1304.0

1304.

1304.1

Abbacia beate Marie Dublinie et locus Predicatorum, eum suburbio illius comburuntur in festo Sancti Collumbe abbatis.


p.11

1305.0

1305.

1305.1

O'Conkur, regulus de Offaly, et Calvaht frater ejus, cum aliis 12 melioribus illius nationis interficiuntur in domo domini Petri de Brimegham, circa festum Trinitatis.

1307.0

1307.

1307.1

In crastino Purificationis Marie, capti fuerunt Templarii ubique.

1307.2

Obiit Ed. iiii. 7. die Julii.

1308.0

1308.

1308.1

Capitulum Minorum Kylkennie, in festo Baptiste.

1309.0

1309.

1309.1

Obiit frater Philippus de Norraht, feria 3 ante Dominicam Palmarum.

1309.2

Pullulabat secta Soraboitarum, presidente Clemente Papa.

1309.3

Occiditur Mauricius Canteton et David suspensus.

1309.4

Dominus Johannes Bonevyl occiditur.

1310.0

1310.

1310.1

Captus fuit dominus Willelmus de Burgo.

1309.2

Interfectus dominus Johannes de Crok, cum aliis multis in bello de Bonratte, in die Ascensionis Domini, omissis in prelio spoliis multis.

1310.3

Item, obiit dominus Johannes de Cogan.

1311.0

1311.

1311.1

Consilium generale celebratur Vienne per Clementem undecimum.

1311.2

Ordo Templariorum distruitur.

1311.3

1311. Occiditur Philippus le Poer per Rupenses.

1311.4

Obiit Eustacius le Poer ante Pasca.

1311.5

Captus est Petrus de Caustona Gavaston per Baroniam et decapitatus, in festo nativitatis Baptiste.

1312.0

1312.

1312.1

In festo Aniceti martyris, occiditur dominus Nicholaus de Aveneil, Patricius de Rupe, et Hibernici multi, per dominum Nicholaum de Verdona, et burgenses de Dundalke, juxta Dundalke.

1312.2

1312. Capitulum Minorum de Yohil.

1312.3

Natus est Edwardus filius regis Edwardi 5.

1312.4

Et in sequenti Natali dominus Johannes filius Thome tenuit magnum, opulentum et pacificum festum apud Awdayr, et fecit Nicholaum filium Mauricii de Kirrigia militem, et alios duos.

1313.0

1313.

1313.1

Obiit dominus Johannes de Burgo filius Ricardi, circa Pentecosten.

1313.2

Capitulum generale Barc [gap: extent: a few letters] nono et dominus Edmundus Pincerna tenuit Dublinie magnum festum in festo beati Michaelis, et fecit 30 milites.

1313.3

In octabis beati Francisci proximo sequentibus capitulum de Duno.

1313.4

Item, in natali Domini sequenti proximo, dominus Mauricius filius Thome duxit ad domum uxorem suam Katerinam filiam Ricardi comitis Ultonie; et fecit duos ibi milites Edmundus le Botiller.

1314.0

1314.

1314.1

Moritur Clemens Papa xiv.

1314.2

Item, occiditur dominus Gilbertus de Clare comes Gloucestrie, dominus Robertus de Clifford, et alii multi nobiles, atque flos Anglie apud Strifling per Robertum le Brus et Scotos, in festo Johannis Baptiste.

1315.0

1315.

1315.1

Commune parliamentum magnatum Hibernie apud Kilkenniam, pro


p.12

auxilio et consilio habendo contra Scotos in principio mensis Junii.

1315.2

Illo tempore applicuerunt Scoti in Ultonia, quibus adheserunt toto tempore suo quo fuerunt in Hibernia quasi omnes Hybernici terre, paucis valde fidem et fidelitatem servantibus.

1315.3

Eodem anno Scoti cum Hibernicis combusserunt Dondalk et locum Fratrum spoliarunt libris, pannis, calicibus, vestimentis, et multos occiderunt.

1315.4

1315. Strages magna Hybernicorum, scilicet de O'Mmorchys, et hominibus illorum circiter 300 occiduntur juxta Balilethan, in Epiphania Domini.

1315.5

Item, in crastino conversionis Sancti Pauli bellum de Skethrys inter Anglicos, ubi occiduntur de Anglicis tantum 5; de Scotis vero, circa 70. Ibi occubuit ille nobilis guerrator, Hamundus le Grasse, et dominus Willelmus Prindirgast et 3 alii tantum, Anglici tamen campum dimiserunt cum Scotis, quorum princeps fuit Edwardus le Brus, ingerens se pro rege Hibernie, qui mala multa intulit hominibus pacem diligentibus.

1316.0

1316.

1316.1

Dominus Johannes filius Thome, et Arnaldus le Poer, ad Edwardum 5, in Angliam se transtulerunt, dantes obsides de fide et fidelitate servanda; et rex dedit Johanni filio Thome comitatum Kildarie, Arnaldo alias terras, pro garisona.

1316.2

Item, dominus Willelmus Comyn cum duobus fratribus suis occiditur, circa festum Baptiste.

1316.3

Item, occiditur dominus Henricus Crok.

1316.4

Item, Johannes de Dene, Patricius Lercedekne, circa idem tempus.

1316.5

Item, eodem anno et tempore, scilicet circa octavas Baptiste, fit magna strages Hibernicorum juxta abbaciam de Balkynglas; ubi circiter 300 occiduntur.

1316.6

Item, ex Scotis interficiuntur circiter 300 in Ultonia per Anglicos patrie.

1316.7

1316. Magna caristia salis in Hibernia, sic quod unus cranocus communiter vendebatur pro xl. solidis; in aliquibus locis pro 4 marcis et ultra.

1316.8

Hoc anno omnes Hibernici fidem fedissime et fidelitatem deserentes, ut communiter se ad guerram posuerunt.

1316.9

Item, eodem anno, in festo beati Laurencii martyris bellum de Ahtnery in Connaccia; ubi interficiuntur de Hybernicis per Ricardum de Brimegham, dominum Willelmum de Burgo et ceteros Anglicos, multi reguli et nobiles, secundum communem relatum summa totalis, v [...] 1 M. in universo, numerus capitum abscisorum mille quingenta capita.

1316.10

Item, eodem anno circa natale Domini, intravit dominus Robertus le Brus, qui se gessit pro rege Scotorum, Hyberniam transiens per totam terram de Ultonia, ubi applicuit, usque fere Lymericum; comburendo, occidendo, depredando, spoliando villas, castra et etiam ecclesias, eundo et redeundo.


p.13

1317.0

1317.

1317.1

In Paschate, fuit magna congregatio magnatum Hibernie sub montem de Loddyn juxta Lymericum, contra Scotos; Scotis ex opposito apud castrum Conyl existentibus; et facti fuerunt ibi de Anglicis 6 milites; et in hyeme precedente dominus Ricardus de Clare tenuit magnam gardam apud Dernaht.

1317.2

1317. Dominus Rogerus de Mortuo Mari justiciarius factus, applicuit in Pascha apud Yohel, cum militibus 38, exiens de navibus fecit 2 milites; et applicans ad se dominum Johannem de Brimegham, dominum Nicholaum de Verdona, ejecit omnes de nacione et cognomine de Lacy ex Hybernia; et coegit fugere ad Scotiam in estate. Et occiduntur juxta Pontensem civitatem multi de Ultonia; quorum principalis fuit ubi de interfectis, Willelmus Savage.

1317.3

Hii autem et alii Ultonienses per Scotos extra patriam suam expulsi fuerunt; et Scotos insequentes per Mediam, Legeniam et Momoniam, non minus quasi quam Scoti preter combustionem et interfectionem populo terre dampnum intulerunt.

1317.4

1317. Capitulum Waterfordie.

1317.5

Item, facta strages magna exercitus domini Edmundi Pincerne in Hibernia per Donatum O'Karwyll, ubi interficiuntur circa ducenti.

1317.6

Item, Rogerus de Mortuo Mari fecit Johannem Brimegham militem, et alios tres vel 4.

1318.0

1318.

1318.1

7 Kal: Aprilis, canonizatur Lodowicus episcopus et confessor de ordine Minorum, archiepiscopus Tolosanus, filius et heres regis Cicilie, a Papa Johanne 22.

1318.2

Item, duo cardinales in Angliam mittuntur pro pace formanda inter Anglicos et Scotos, sed nil profecerunt.

1318.3

Item, eodem anno, dominus Willelmus filius Johannis, episcopus Ossoriensis, transfertur ad archiepiscopatum Casselensem; cui substituitur frater Ricardus Leddrede, per Papam Johannem consecratus Avinnone; ubi pro tunc degebat curia Romana, scilicet, 8. Kal: Maii.

1318.4

Item, eodem anno, id est, 1318, a festo apostolorum Philippi et Jacobi usque autumpnum, fuit maxima caristia et fames, unde multi et innumerabiles moriebantur; nam cranocus frumenti ut communiter pro xx. solidis et amplius vendebatur.

1318.5

Item, Thomas Don, multarum navium depredator, subversor, et pirata crudelis de parte Scotorum, occisus est.

1318.6

1318. 5. Idus Maii, occiditur dominus Ricardus de Clare per suos Hibernicos de Totmonia cum aliis 4 militibus, domino Thoma de Lesse, domino Henrico de Capella, dominis Jacobo et Johanne de Canteton, et aliis multis, die Jove in mane.

1318.7

Item, Capitulum de Ros, in festo Bartholomei apostoli.


p.14

1318.8

Item, in festo Michaelis proximo sequenti, applicuit Alexander Byggenor de Curia, archiepiscopus Dublinie factus, et justiciarii nomen et officium habens Hibernie.

1318.9

Item, eodem anno, 1318, in festo beati Kalixti pape et martyris, die Sabbati mane, occiditur dominus Edwardus le Brus (usurpans sibi nomen et vocari a suis se faciens regem Hibernie), apud Dundalke, per Johannem de Brimegham, et Milonem de Verdona cum Scotis multis.

1318.10

Item, eodem anno, occiditur apud Ros, Gilbertus de Rupe (justorum occisor, et fidelium depredator) per burgenses de Ros.

1318.11

Item, occiditur dominus Johannes de Lyvet, per Tolonenses, et O'Nolanis.

1318.12

Item, circa festum Epiphanie interficiuntur per O'Nolanos, Petrus de Recheford, et Oliverus filius David le Grasse, et alii circiter 80, de exercitu domini Arnaldi le Poer, qui ductor erat et princeps eorum.

1319.0

1319.

1319.1

Occiditur Johannes filius Donati O'Morthe et alii fratres sui, pacis et pacificorum fidelium impugnator.

1319.2

Item, occiditur dominus Johannes le Botiller, per satellites domini Willelmi de Brimegham.

1320.0

1320.

1320.1

Capitulum Kildarie in festo Sancti Jacobi apostoli.

1320.2

Item, occiditur dominus Fulco de la Frene, per Willelmum et Sylvestrem de Marisco et ceteros satellites Edmundi Pincerne; volens suos et fideles patrie salvare, ne eos spoliarent; scilicet, die Dominica infra octavas beati Martini episcopi et confessoris.

1320.3

Item, in estate precedente fuit congregatio pastorum diversarum terrarum versus Terram Sanctam, spe tamen frustrata, sine commodo qui supervixerant redierunt.

1320.4

1320. Incepit universitas Dublinie, universitas quoad nomen, sed utinam quoad factum et rem.

1321.0

1321.

1321.1

Inter Edwardum 5 regem Anglie et baroniam fuit maxima discordia, propter Hugonem de Spenser, qui contra eos fovebatur; et ipse Hugo per baroniam eum suo patre et filio exulantur, sed non diu exilium tenuerunt, reducti iterum per regem, et ditati excellenter.

1321.2

Item, circa festum Philippi et Jacobi occiduntur de O'Konchours, circiter 300, in confinio Midie et Legenie, per Andream de Brimegham.

1321.3

Item, capitulum de Clare in festo Baptiste.

1321.4

Item, dominus Johannes Brimegham fit justiciarius Hybernie.

1321.5

Item, Meylerus le Poer episcopus Lehtlinensis consecratus Waterfordie, Dominica Palmarum precedente.

1321.6

1321. Obiit Edmundus Pincerna Londonii, in vigilia exaltacionis Sancte Crucis, et in vigilia vigilie beati Martini episcopi et confessoris, apud Baligaveran


p.15

sepelitur.

1321.7

Item erigitur novus chorus Kilkennie.

1321.8

Item circa festum Omnium Sanctorum obiit Willelmus filius Mauricii de Canteton.

1321.9

Item, 1321, occisus est dominus Omfrey de Boun, comes Herfordie, die Sancti Patricii apud Burbrigs, cum 2 militibus, per dominum Andream Harcley, quem idem comes militem fecerat; volens Andreas ex hoc regi placere, et placuit; quare rex eum comitem fecerat de Karlel, nec tamen commodum magnum reportavit; quia infra 2 annos ipse fedus cum Scotis in secreto (ut dicitur), contraxit: et per regem Anglie tractus et suspensus est.

1321.10

Item, die Lune proximo sequente, in crastino Sancti Benedicti, decapitatus est dominus Thomas comes Lancastrie, Leycestrie, Salisbirie et Lincolnie, ac Ferers, filius avunculi domini regis, et advunculus regis Francie, et regine Anglie, per regem Anglie et suos justiciarios, ad instigacionem Hugonis de Spenser, cujus exilium ipse fecit et procuravit in communi parliamento Londoni.

1321.11

Item, in eadem quindena, dominus Rogerus de Clifford, dominus Johannes Mounbrey, dominus Bartholomeus de Baldismer, et alii milites et barones, circiter 26, de melioribus et potioribus Anglie, suspensi et tracti sunt; alii vero multi nobiles, barones, milites et armigeri capti in diversis carceribus Anglie retruduntur, et redimuntur multo precio pro voluntate regis.

1322.0

1322.

1322.1

In principio autumpni, obiit Ricardus de Brimegham, dominus de Ahtnery.

1322.2

Item, Willelmus filius Reginaldi Conteton (maximus malefactorum et depredator), Dominica ante festum beati Michaelis occiditur.

1322.3

Item, Sabbato, in vigilia vigilie Sancti Luce ewangeliste occisi per O'Nolanis Andreas de Brimegham, et dominus Nicholaus de Lande cum suis.

1322.4

Item, isto anno, in autumpno intravit Edwardus 5 Scotiam cum exercitu copioso valde, de quibus multa milia fame perierunt; nec tamen an parum profecerunt; sed redeundo captus dominus Johannes de Britannia, comes Richmondie.

1322.5

Item, circa Natale vendebatur cranocus de sale, xx. et plus.

1322.6

Item, 1322, in die Palmarum apud Waterfordiam consecrantur Nicholaus Welyfed episcopus Waterfordie, Johannes Lavnaht episcopus Lysmorensis, et episcopus Fynaborensis, eodem die et loco.

1323.0

1323.

1323.1

Feria 6. infra octavas Pasche, occisus est Philippus Talon cum filio et circiter 26 de O'Cod..[gap: extent: a few letters]tanys per Edmundum le Botiller, rectorem de Tylaht et Cantitonenses, qui eos de ecclesia extraxerunt, et ecclesiam de Thalmolyn cum viris et mulieribus et pueris, et Sancti Molyng reliquiis combusserunt.

1323.2

Item, intra festum Assumptionis et Nativitatis Virginis, captus fuit.....[gap: extent: a few letters] Mac Morkada et Henricus O'Nolan interfectus, et alii circa 24, per dominum


p.16

Henricum Traharne, et alios de Valle.

1323.3

Item, in vigilia ad Winculorum Sancti Petri proximo precedente, dominus Rogerus de Mortuo Mari evasit de carcere turris Londonii.

1323.4

1323. Consecratum est altare magnum Fratrum Minorum Kilkennie.

1323.5

Ipso die, scilicet, 3. Idus Januarii, deposissio domini Roberti Scorthals.

1323.5

Item, in purificatione beate Marie applicuit dominus Johannes Darcy justiciarius Hibernie, apud Dubliniam.

1323.7

Item in lxx. mortuus est dominus Willelmus de Burgo junior.

1323.8

Item, in vigilia Benedicti abbatis, interficiuntur de Hibernicis et malefactoribus de Yirleft circiter 200 per dominum Robertum, filium Mathei Caunteton.

1324.0

1324.

1324.1

Circa Pentecosten obiit in Scotia dominus Walterus de Lacy, de Hybernia exulatus.

1324.2

Item, circa festum Baptiste obiit dominus Eymerus de Valencia comes Penbrochi in Vasconia.

1324.3

Item, obiit Johannes primogenitus domini Thome comitis Kyldarie in Anglia, regi datus pro obside.

1324.4

Item, eodem anno, scilicet 1324 die Lune in festo Processi et Martiani martyrum, domina Alicia Kyteler, propter sortilegia diversa et heresim multimodam, et sacrificia demonibus immolata, per fratrem Ricardum episcopum Ossoriensem, est heretica judicata, probata et condemnata; presentibus domino Johanne Darcy justiciario Hybernie, Priore de Kylmaynan, Cancellario, Thesaurario, et Arnaldo le Poer, senescallo Kylkennie, hoc videntibus.

1324.5

Item, circa translationem Sancti Thome martyris occiditur dominus Walterus de Valle cum filio suo, per illos de cognomine de Crok, juxta Nenaht Ybreyn.

1324.6

Item, in crastino Animarum, anno eodem, mulier quedam Petronilla de Midia dicta de secta et doctrina predicte domine Alicie superius memorate, fuit de heresi, sortilegio et sacrificio demonibus immolato condemnata et igni tradita et combusta. A retro autem actis temporibus non est visum vel auditum, quod quispiam pro heresi penam mortis sustineret in Hibernia ante ipsam. Prima hec omnium secundum hominum memoriam tunc viventium et relatum, non dico quam sit quia in hoc facinore primo peccavit, sed quia primo passa est mortis justum judieium propter heresim.

1324.7

Item, eodem anno circa festum Leonardi abbatis, mortuus est dominus Johannes filius Thome, frater domini Mauricii filii Thome. Miles iste juvenis juvenum consilio ut plurimum constipatus, ductus et seductus, a progenitorum ejus militia et vestigiis degenerans, pacis extitit non propugnator nec defensor, sed expugnator.

1324.8

Item, hoc anno, scilicet 1324, fuit pestis gravis boum et vaccarum, in multis locis Hibernie.

1324.9

Item, eodem anno ante Natale, Arnoldus le Poer tunc senescallus Kilkennie, cum aliis de comitatu eodem


p.17

tenuit magnam gardam apud Ynistyoke contra Rupenses, et eos fortiter obsessit, et obsides coegit reddere de pace et fidelitate amodo tenenda.

1324.10

Item, eodem anno die Jovis ..............[gap: extent: a few letters] in octavis Sancti Hilarii, Willelmus Owtlau de heresi irretitus, et notorie defamatus, et in purgacione deficiens, in ecclesia beate Virginis Kilkennie, heresim publice abjuravit; professionem novam legens, et manu propria conscribens.

1324.11

Item, Dominica precedente, obiit frater David, Prior de Inystyoke, vir venerabilis ac honorabilis multorum judicio apud Deum et homines.

1325.1

Item, anno Domini 1325, occiditur Dermicius Oge McKarthy rex Desmonie, per Willelmum filium Nicholai filii Mauricii, apud Traly.

1325.2

1325, fuit discordia ut communiter inter religiosos pauperes Hybernie quasi omnes, quidam eorum nacionis sue et sanguinis et lingue partem tenentes et foventes ac promoventes; alii prelacionis et superioritatis officia ambientes.

1325.3

1325, die Lune in festo beati Dominici confessoris, occisus fuit dominus Johannes de Barry de Hely, miles strenuus et frequenter probatus in armis, per O'Carwyllis.

1325.4

1325, die dominico in crastino octav: Sancti Laurentii occiditur Dovenaldus Duff McGilpadricke per suos consanguineos, sed prodiciose.

1325.5

Item, eodem anno Johannes de Brimegham, et Thomas le Botiller collegerunt exercitum super O'Carwyll; qui hoc anno vix reliquit domum, castrum aut villam in Elycarwyll, inter Anglicos et pacis amatores, quin combussit et destruxit.

1325.6

1325, in Pentecoste, capitulum generale celebratum Lugduni; ubi loca de Cork, Boton, Lymyric et Tartdart auferuntur ab Hybernicis fratribus, et Anglicis, et quinta custodia assignatur, cum ante tantum fuissent 4 custodie.

1325.7

Item, eodem anno feria quinta in crastino sanctorum martyrum Dionisii &c.; occiditur Willelmus, filius Ricardi le Butiller, cum multis aliis in Totmonia.

1325.8

Item, eodem anno, circa festum Sancti Thome apostoli Bren O'Bren, vallatus auxilio Anglicorum de Ely, cepit magnam predam in Ossoria, in confinio de Slesblanie, et super Athbo et Admacart; et interfecerunt fideles Anglicos circa defensionem bonorum suorum.

1325.9

Item, eodem anno die Lune in festo Epiphanie, in sero fuit ventus validissimus et tempestas prosternens domos et edificia, denudans ecclesias et monasteria, frangens et evellens radicitus arbores et campanilia multa, dispergens tassos bladorum et horrea.

1325.10

Eodem die Dublinie fuerunt facti duo milites de ordine Hospitalariorum.

1326.1

Item, anno 1326, in festo apostolorum Philippi et Jacobi (quod accidit die Ascensionis), occiditur per O'Carwillis, dominus Matheus de Mylborne, miles


p.18

probus et prudens, nacione Anglicus, sed usu loquendi Gallicus, Gallicum tantum loquens.

1326.2

Annus autem iste siccus fuit ultra modum Hybernie consuetum; sic quod in yeme quasi parum pluvie fuit, in vere estate et autumpno quasi nichil, tanta fuit siccitas et tantus calor, quod fontes et magni rivuli (ubi semper emanabant aque copiose) penitus siccabantur.

1326.3

Anno 1326. Die Martis ante festum Petri ad Vincula, obiit dominus Ricardus de Burgo comes Ultonie et dominus Connaccie, apud Athyssell;

1326.4

miles prudens, facetus, dives et sapiens, plenus dierum; de isto communiter fuit dictum, quod filias ejus nobiliter graciose et excellenter maritavit; nam, unam Roberto de Brus, qui tunc preerat regno Scotorum; alteram comiti Glovernie; tertiam comiti Kyldarie; quartam comiti de Lowht; quintam domino Mauricio filio Thome; sextam sed seniorem domino Thome de Multon maritavit; filium filii sui reliquit heredem Willelmum Johannis de Burgo filii sui et filie comitis Glovernie.

1326.5

Item, eodem anno die Lune in crastino Exaltacionis, obiit dominus Willelmus filius Johannis, quondam episcopus Ossoriensis; sed postmodum in archiepiscopum Cassellensem translatus; vir potens et dives, ac venerabilis in populo et in clero.

1326.6

Item, eodem die occisi fuerunt de hominibus de Cathyrlaht et patria illa circiter 80, per O'Morchys.

1326.7

1326. viii Kal: Octobris, applicuit domina Isabella regina Anglicorum cum filio suo Edwardo primogenito, de Francia, et vallata auxilio comitis Hanaudie, et domini Rogeri de Mortuo Mari; ceperunt Hugonem de Spenser comitem Wyntonie apud Bristollum, et eum ibi judicialiter fecerunt trahi, suspendi et decapitari, in quindena beati Michaelis.

1326.8

Et in vigilia beate Katarine virginis eodem anno, dominum Hugonem de Spenser juniorem, qui filiam duxerat et heredem comitis Glovernie; et eum apud Herefordiam simili pena cum patre suo occiderunt, et eum trahi fecerunt, suspendi et decapitari, et membratim dividi, et quarteria sua ad 4 Anglie angulos transmiserunt, capud mittentes Londoniam pro spectaculo.

1326.9

Item, eodem tempore, dominus Walterus Stapleton, episcopus Exoniensis, et thesaurarius Anglie, Londoniis est decapitatus per cives, quia erat de parte secta et consilio Dispensatorum, qui nitebantur reginam et filium ejus destruere (postea regem), et de terra delere, ut dicebatur.

1326.10

Item, anno eodem, in communi parliamento Londonii circa Epiphaniam deponitur Edwardus quintus communi assensu cleri et populi, cui successit Edwardus vi filius ejus, 16 annorum; coronatus Londonii Dominica in vigilia Purificationis beate virginis, anno Domini 1326.

1326.11

Obiit autem iste depositus Edwardus in castro de Bercley detentus, in festo sanctorum martyrum


p.19

Eustacii et sociorum ejus proximo post ejus depositionem et sepultus est apud Gloverniam.

1327.1

Item, anno 1327, in festo Sancte Trinitatis, occiditur Symon Purcyl, tunc in officio vicecomitis Kylkennie, per O'Brennanis, et alii eum eo fere 20.

1327.2

1327, Dominica scilicet prima de Adventu, et in vigilia beati Andree apostoli, combusta est villa et fere tota baronia de Kenlys in Ossoria, per dominum Willelmum de Brimegham et Geraldinos, homines, scilicet, domini Mauricii filii Thome; et illo die ad octo dies combustum et destructum fuit Grasiscastel, cum toto territorio in circuitu; et fuit guerra sevissima inter Geraldinos, Brimeghamys et suam sequelam ex parte una, contra Poerinos et illos de Burgo ex parte altera. Tunc unanimiter contra Poerinos insurrexerunt Geraldini, Brimeghamys ............[gap: extent: a few letters] sua potentia et illi de Valle, et de Sancto Albino, et Ketyngys, cum multis aliis nacionibus, et multos Poerinorum occiderunt, et fere omnes eorum terras combusserunt et destruxerunt.

1327.3

1327. Romani, cum Lodowyco duce Bavarie in Imperatorem electum. —Original hath a blank here - in margine.

1328.0

1328.

1328.1

Feria 3 post Pascha, Nonas scilicet Aprilis, obiit dominus Thomas filius Johannis, comes Kildarie, justiciarius tunc Hibernie, apud Maynoht.

1328.2

Item, die Martis pridie Idus Aprilis anno eodem, occiditur apud Bargum, Willelmus filius Johannis de Rupe, cum aliis malefactoribus, hominibus et consanguineis suis, de loco Predicatorum extractis.

1328.3

Item 11 Kal: ejusdem mensis et anni, occiditur Petrus Poer, filius et heres baronis de Donhulle, cum aliis de cognomine suo circa 12, per familiam domini Mauricii filii Thome; et illo die occiditur dominus Johannes filius Geraldi, in eodem conflictu.

1328.4

Item, eodem anno, 5 Kal: Junii, in vigilia Trinitatis obiit dominus Willelmus de Sancto Leodegario.

1328.5

1328, capitur et occiditur in vigilia vigilie beati Mathei apostoli Johannes filius Benedicti le Poer, dominus de Rahtgormocke et Kylmydan, per Cantitonenses; et cito post obierunt Katerina filia Mauricii, uxor ejusdem, et heres eorum, apud Ros.

1328.6

1328. Edwardus rex Anglie (post conquestum) tercius, fecit fratrem suum (Johannem de Eltam dictum), comitem Cornubie, dominum Rogerum de Mortuo Mari, comitem Marchie, et dominum Jacobum le Botiller, comitem Ermonie.

1328.7

Item, 1328, circa festum Michaelis, Willelmus de Burgo comes Ultonie, in Anglia educatus, cum Matilda uxore ejus, filia domini Henrici comitis Lancastrie, et consanguinea ipsius, ex dispensacione curie disponsati, quia erant in


p.20

3 et 4 gradu affinitatis, venerunt ad Hiberniam; hic erat filius Johannis de Burgo, filii Ricardi, et Elizabethe, filie Gilberti de Clare; cui tertia pars terrarum comitis Glovernie competebat, ex parte matris sue ipsius Elizabethe.

1328.8

1328. Dominica in crastino Agnetis secundo, obiit dominus Johannes le Poer, baro de Dunhulle.

1328.9

Item, eodem anno scilicet ultimo die Februarii, die Martis, combustum est Cumbyr, per dominum Willelmum de Brimegham.

1328.10

1328. 2 Idus Martii, die scilicet Martis ante festum Patricii, obiit Dublinie dominus Arnaldus le Poer.

1329.0

1329.

1329.1

Die Veneris in festo Tiburcii et Susanne combustum fuit Drumhyrthyr in vigilia vigilie Palmarum, per O'Brenanys; et die Lune post, per Donatum McGilpatrick, combusta patria de Moyarfe et spoliata.

1329.2

1329. Die Lune in vigilia Brandani abbatis, occiduntur per Rupenses et Barrenses Jacobus filius Roberti filii Jacobi Ketyng, cum aliis de suo cognomine; dominus Philippus Hoddinnet, Hugo Canteton, cum multis de sanguine eorum, circiter 140, tam de sanguine, quam de familia eorum.

1329.3

1329. In vigilia Pentecostes, et beati Barnabe apostoli, dominus Johannes de Brimegham, comes de Lowht occiditur, contra eum conspiraverunt omnes de comitatu suo, nolentes eum regnare super eos; concilium fecerunt in unum, et in multitudine magna armatorum congregati, nulli de familia ejus parcentes, eum cum 160 et amplius, cum 2 fratribus ejus, et de cognomine ipsius circa novem interfecerunt.

1329.4

In ista strage et eodem die Cam O'Kayrwill, famosus ille timpanista et cytharista, in arte sua fenix, ea pollens prerogativa et virtute, cum aliis tympanistis discipulis ejus circiter 20 ibidem occubuit. Iste .......[gap: extent: a few letters] vocatus Cam O'Kayrwyll, quia luscus erat nec habebat oculos rectos, sed oblique respiciens, et si non fuerat artis musice cordalis primus inventor, omnium tamen predecessorum et precedentium ipsum, ac contemporaneorum, corrector, doctor et director extitit.

1329.5

Item in vigilia vigilie Columbe abbatis obiit Robertus de Brus rex Scotorum, in armis strenuus, in bellicis negotiis doctus et expertus; vulgari et communi relatu, in hiis vix in orbe parem habens.

1329.6

Item, eodem anno in crastino Johannis et Pauli, die scilicet Martis, occiduntur per Poerinos, Gilbertus et Remundus de Valle, Robertus O'Neyle, cum aliis quasi ......[gap: extent: a few letters]

1329.7

Item, eodem anno, Dominica in crastino Magdalene, occiditur Malahtlyng O'Konkour, non marte sed arte prodiciosa, per Malmorthe filium fratris sui, cujus patrem quoque principem de Offaly (ut regnaret) exulavit, eujus et filium Dermoyd Oge, et interficientis se fratrem, occiderat prodiciose, et sic ars deluditur arte.

1329.8

Item, eodem


p.21

die occiduntur de O'Dymyscy circiter 200 post mortem ipsius Malahtlyn patriam ut eam spoliarent intrantes, et in eodem die, ibidem occiduntur de O'Donyn septemdecim.

1329.9

1329. In prima hebdomada Augusti, Breyn O'Breyn villas de Athyssell et Tyberary combussit, atque totam patriam in circuitu vastavit spoliavit et destruxit. Item, Sabbato ante festum Laurencii, occiditur per O'Nolanys, David le Botiller, juxta Cathyrlaht.

1329.10

1329. Circa festum Sancti Petri ad Vincula, obiit Londoniis Johannes Mc Carwyll, primo episcopus Corcagiensis, postea Midensis, postremo factus archiepiscopus Casselensis, de Curia Romana rediens.

1329.11

Item, va eodem anno, dominus Jacobus pincerna Hibernie, per Edwardum Anglie regem post Normannorum conquestum tertium, factus est comes Ormonie cat.

1329.12

Et dominus Mauricius filius Thome per eundem, eodem anno, Desmonie comes est creatus.

1329.13

Item, eodem anno, in vigilia beati Laurencii martyris, dominus Thomas le Botiller cum aliis circiter 100 per Mc Hokegan juxta Molingar occiditur.

1329.14

Item, eodem anno, 14 Kal: Augusti, Breyn O'Breyn apud Yrlef, interfecit de exercitu Willelmi de Burgo comitis Ultonie, Walterum filium Hillarii de Burgo, Konkur O'Breyn, Nicholaum Mc Nemare, cum aliis nobilibus de Totmonia.

1329.15

Item, eodem anno, Dominica ante festum Mathei apostoli, sole existente in Libra, castrum de Leye captum est per O'Dymyscy.

1329.16

Item, eodem anno die Martis, in vigilia Cicilie virginis, dominus Henricus Traharne, et Laurencius frater domini Jacobi le Botiller, per O'Nolan sunt capti; ob quam rem dominus Jacobus pincerna collecto nobili exercitu, die Jovis in crastino Lucie virginis, et die Veneris sequente, terras eorum, et patriam fere totaliter ignis combustione vastavit.

1329.17

1329. Idus Martii, captus est Eadmundus comes Cantii; et in crastino Edwardi regis et martyris decapitatus est apud Wincestriam, objecta sibi proditione, scilicet quod regem capere et occidere niteretur, ut dicebant.

1330.0

1330.

1330.1

In festo Philippi et Jacobi occiditur dominus Jacobus Beufo, cum aliis fidelibus plebanis circiter 120, per Breyn O'Breyn.

1330.2

Item, die Lune in vigilia vigilie beati Alexi confessoris, anno eodem fuit eclypsis solis; et illo tempore, dominus Willelmus de Burgo comes Ultonie collegit exercitum copiosum Ultoniensium et Connactenensium; et dominus Jacobus le Botiller suum exercitum duxit super Breyn O'Breyn; eo quod eorum terras et patriam distruxisset. Qui omnes parum profecerunt contra eum illa vice; sed sine magno lucro vel dampno, dedecore vel honore ad sua sunt reversi.

1330.3

Item, die Mercurii sequenti


p.22

in vigilia vigilie beate Margarete virginis, in predicta congregatione, juxta Moyalby, idem comes Ultonie fecit Walterum de Brimegham, et alium de sua familia milites. Dominus Walterus, dominum Ricardum de la Rokel, et dominum Gilbertum de Brimegham; et comes Hermonie fecit dominos Eadmundum le Botiller, Robertum et Patricium Travers milites; et dominus Willelmus de Brimegham, fecit dominos Johannem de Sancto Albino, et Johannem Monsel milites eodem tempore et loco.

1330.4

Item, eodem anno, natus est Henricus primogenitus regis Edwardi tertii post conquestum; et postea, mutato nomine Edwardus appellatur, iste Edwardus fuit pater regis Richardi, qui Richardusprimo vocabatur Johannes.

1330.5

Item, eodem anno, Dominica in festo Vitalis et Agricole, occiditur apud Kilkenniam, Donatus filius Galfridi Mc Gilpatrike.

1330.6

Item, in die Martis sequenti, in festo Sancti Leonardi natus est Johannes primogenitus Jacobi le Botiller, comitis Ormonie, apud Athur.

1330.7

Item, anno eodem, Dominica in festo beate Katerine, fuit vehemens ventus et horribilis; et Dominica in vigilia nativitatis Domini ventus consimilis, qui tassos dispersit, domos distruxit, et mala multa fecit. Iste annus fuit omnibus hominibus contrarius et charus; et multi fame perierunt. Nam cranocus frumenti in hyeme, marca vendebatur, et ultra; sed propter bladum de partibus extraneis, parum ultra valuit in estate; a Mayo usque Februarium fuit humidus, pluviosus nimis et ventosus, ita ut estas et autumpnus in hyemalem tempestatem fere videbatur converti.

1330.8

Item in vigilia Circumcisionis, Ricardus O'Nolan, in campanili monachorum de Dowsky fuit obsessus, et filium suum in obsidem dare compulsus est.

1330.9

Item, anno eodem, morti damnatur R. de Mortuo Mari comes Marchie, ante Natale Domini.

1330.10

Item, obiit Walterus le Rede, archiepiscopus Cassellensis, et Robertus de Brimegham, circa Purificationem.

1330.11

Item, anno eodem, ante Dominicam Annunciationis, dominus Thomas de Dene capitur per Hibernicos, et vulneratur, aliquibus de familia sua peremptis; et ipse, die Jovis in crastino Sancti Aniceti pape et martyris sequenti, de vulnere accepto obiit.

1330.12

Item, circa idem tempus, occiduntur duo filii domini David Beket, per satellites domini Willelmi de Brimegham.

1331.0

1331.

1331.1

Die Lune in crastino Tiburcii et Valeriani, occiduntur de Mac Morchada et O'Brynnys juxta Weysfordiam, per illos de patria illa, plusquam ducenti.

1331.2

1331. Die Mercurii in vigilia beate Marthe beati Marci ewangeliste, occiduntur per O'Thohyl, dominus Philippus le Brit, et filius ejus, et unus templarius de Geraldinis, et alii valentes Anglici de patria, circiter 30.

1331.3

Item, eodem


p.23

anno, die Mercurii infra octavas Pentecostes Willelmus Haket apud Yorlys, cum aliis de patria interficerunt de hominibus Breyn O'Breyn, et aliis Hibernicis circiter 50, et ipse idem Willelmus eodem die et loco occiditur.

1331.4

Item, eodem anno, dominus Willelmus de Brimegham cum sua familia occupavit tenuit et mansit in sylva monachorum de Dowsky in estate, et ibidem dominus Eustathius le Poer die Mercurii in festo Gervasii et Prothasii desponsavit filiam Johannis de Brimegham, comitis de Lowht; et Sabbato proximo sequenti, interfecti sunt 9 de Rupensibus; inter quos interfectus fuit David filius David filii Alexandri de Fermoy et alii cum eis 19. Et captus est ..........[gap: extent: a few letters] filius Georgii de Rupe, gener domini Willelmi Brimegham de nupciis versus Fernegylan redeundo.

1331.5

Eodem anno venit dominus Antonius de Lucy, justiciarius in Hyberniam, circa festum Trinitatis.

1331.6

Item, circa idem tempus obiit Ricardus filius Thome, filius et heres comitis Kyldarie, etatis circiter 15 annorum.

1331.7

Item, eodem anno, in vigilia Alexandri confessoris, satellites Willelmi de Brimegham cum Cantitonensibus et Hibernicis, 24 homines de villa Thome et Jeriponte occiderunt, et mala multa in patria illa fecerunt isto anno.

1331.8

Item, eodem anno, scilicet 1331, Mauricius filius Thome comes Desmonie, et Willelmus de Brimegham die Lune, in festo Benedicti confessoris, pacem cum predicto Antonio justiciario, pro guerra sua fecerunt et tactis Evangeliis et Sanctorum reliquiis, ac Christi corpore adducto, juraverunt pacem et fidelitatem domino regi et populo de cetero servare. Multi etiam de secta eorum hoc tempore pacem gravi redemptione comparaverunt. Ubi proclamatum fuit, quod nulla de cetero pro morte Anglici redemptio et pax concederetur. Eodem die juxta Balligaveran occiduntur et capiuntur Cantonenses.

1331.9

Item, isto anno, circa festum Johannis Baptiste projecti sunt ad terram in portu Dublinie, juxta villam, multi et grandes pisces marini, ....[gap: extent: a few letters] et innumerabiles, quot non vidit etas hominum in Hibernia tunc viventium; erant in longitudine 40 pedum, quidam 30; ita quod quidam illorum vix nec virtute hominum, vel robore jumentorum de loco trahi poterant; et tante erant quidam altitudinis, ut duobus hominibus longis circa unum piscem stantibus, ex una et altera parte ventris neuter alterum videre poterat.

1331.10

Item, anno eodem, dominus Mauricius filius Thome, infra quindenam post pacem sibi concessam per eundem justiciarium, apud Limiricum est captus, et in custodia sua detentus; et vi. Kal. Martii apud Clonmele capiuntur per eundem domini Willelmus et Walterus Brimegham.

1331.11

1331. Die Lune in festo beati Hillarionis abbatis, occiditur Ricardus filius


p.24

Philippi O'Nolan, per Pincernam et suos consanguineos.

1331.12

Item, eodem anno, die Veneris, in festo beate Cecilie virginis, per dominum Nicholaum Waterfordensem episcopum, consecratum est novum cimiterium extra ecclesiam Fratrum Minorum Kylkenie.

1331.13

Item, 1331, circa festum Omnium Sanctorum, obiit Dublinie, Katerina de Burgo, uxor Mauricii filii Thome.

1331.14

Item, eodem anno, circa festum Lucie virginis, occiditur Jordanus Caunteton et alii de cognomine suo, per Brein de Nathyrlah.

1331.15

Item, hoc anno, dominus Willelmus de Burgo comes Ultonie cepit et incarceravit Walterum de Burgo et fratres ejus, in castro de Knockfergus.

1331.16

Item, eodem anno, natus est Jacobus, filius Jacobi le Botiller apud Kylkenniam, in festo beati Francisci.

1332.0

1332.

1332.1

Cecidit campanile Sancti Kannici, Kylkennie, et magna pars chori, vestibulum capellarum, et campanas, et meremium confregit, die Veneris, 11 Kal: Junii; unde horribile et miserabile spectaculum erat contuentibus.

1332.2

1332. Antonius de Lucy, justiciarius, in crastino Trinitatis collecto exercitu castrum de Clonmore reparavit et renovavit; et in principio autumpni immediate sequentis, castrum de Arclo reedificavit.

1332.3

Item, eodem anno, in festo Pii pape, die Sabbati Dublinie suspenditur dominus Willelmus de Brimegham, miles strenuus et bellicosus, miles audax et inperteritus.

1332.4

Eodem vero tempore, castrum de Bonrat (quod multorum judicio inexpugnabile videbatur); per O'Brein et Mc Nemare destruitur.

1332.5

1332. Fuit guerra inter Edwardum de Bayloyle et Scotos; et multi Scotorum, per ipsum et Anglicos sunt interfecti.

1332.6

Item, eodem anno, obiit in carcere Walterus de Burgo.

1332.7

Item, isto anno, post festum Omnium Sanctorum, comes Ormonie et Geraldini et Burgudini, cum populo communi guerram habuerunt, contra Bren O'Bren; et multos de suis occiderunt valde, et magnas predas ab eo et suis ceperunt.

1333.0

1333.

1333.1

In principio mensis Junii, Scanlei Mc Gylpatrick prodiciose, post multa et iterata sacramenta super diversis libris, et sanctorum multiplicibus reliquiis, duos filios Fynyn Mc Gylpatricke avunculi sui cepit et interfecit; et tercium exoculavit et castravit.

1333.2

Item, eodem anno, sexto die Julii in octabis Trinitatis, Willelmus de Burgo, comes Ultonie dominusque Connactie, juxta Cnokfergus per suos armigeros (in quibus confidebat), prodiciose occiditur. Hujus autem sceleris autores erant, Johannes de Logan, Robertus filius Ricardi Mandevyle, Robertus filius Martini Mandevyle, qui tamen breve et momentaneum


p.25

ex hoc solacium sunt consequti; nam Hibernicis se jungentes (qui semper Anglicorum et fidelium persecutoribus receptores amici et defensores esse solent), infra menses duos, per Johannem de Mandevyle et paucos de patria, ccc. et amplius uno die occiduntur. Hoc malum, ut assolet, per mulierem, scilicet Gyle de Burgo, uxorem domini Ricardi de Mandevyle dicebatur perpetratum; eo quod fratrem ejus Walterum de Burgo, et alios incarceravit. Hic comes subtilissimi erat ingenii, reipublice et pacis amator, 20 annorum etatis, unicam et unius anni filiam relinquens heredem.

1333.3

Item, feria quinta post octabas Trinitatis, tempore parliamenti occiditur apud Dubliniam Murkyht Nicol Othothyl, cum in turma et inter multitudinem ambularet, occisore incognito clam fugente, et in turba latitante; et hoc Dei justo judicio, qui multos male ipse fideles occiderat ante.

1333.4

Item, comissa sunt multa dira bella inter Anglicos et Scotos; ubi et multa milia Scotorum sunt occisa, duce Anglicorum Edwardo de Bayllol, qui plus nominis in hiis expedicionibus habuit quam facti, qui Scotiam sibi jure vendicavit hereditario, David filio regis Roberti Brus (qui vivente patre rex Scotie coronatur) in Norwangia fugiente; Scotis ad insulas remotas, sed fuge presidio se tuentibus.

1333.5

Item, eodem anno, die Sabbati in crastino Sancti Remigii episcopi occiditur Galfridus de la Frene (qui heredem de Obargi, Johannam Purcel duxerat in uxorem), per O'Morthys de Slemargys.

1333.6

Et die Veneris sequenti fit miles Thomas Cantewel, apud Yrlef per Jacobum le Botiller.

1333.7

Item, circa Epiphaniam, apud Tyberary occiditur Willelmus Carraght O'Bren, de Nathyrlaght; homo perversus et malus, male vixit, malo fine vitam finivit, semper in insidiis, semper in furtis, semper in spoliis et homicidiis vivens.

1333.8

Item, pridie Non: Marcii, Dominica quarta, scilicet, xl. obiit frater Adam de Callan, gardianus de Ros, vir gratiosus et dilectus, qui xxiiij. annis continue fuit gardianus apud Ros.

1334.0

1334.

1334.1

In festo Tibertii et Valeriani, inceperunt Burgenses Kylkennie pavimentum Kylkennie facere, scilicet, die Jovis.

1334.2

Item, die Dominico in vigilia beati Marci ewangeliste, Thomas Fanyn intravit castrum de Moytobyr, et occupavit; ejectis inde hominibus domini Eustachii le Poer et exclusis. Et pro castri defensione, eadem ebdomada occiderunt castri custodes, Remundum et David de Angulo, et Thomam Roht-Grasse; et Sabbato sequenti compulsi sunt reddere castrum Jacobo comiti Ermonie tanquam domino comitatus, et in manu media, donec discuteretur quis pinguius jus haberet.


p.26

1334.3

Item, .....[gap: extent: a few letters] Kal: Augusti David filius David de Barry, dominus de Olethan in Desmonia, per Donatum Carbraht Mc Karthey capitur, interfectis c. de hominibus suis ipso die.

1334.4

Item, Sabbato in vigilia beati Augustini, dominus Johannes de Sancto Albino, dominus de Cumcy, per filios Walteri de Sancto Albino (in quibus confidebat), in capella propria occiditur prodiciose.

1334.5

Item, circa Epiphaniam, Guydo Canteton, propter multa mala sua opera, que ab pueritia gessit inique, rapinas, scilicet, sacrilegia, depredaciones, incendia et homicidia, Dublinie patibulo patris sui hereditatem invite suscepit; et in eodem ligno cum patre suo vitam finivit.

1334.6

Item, in ebdomada ante Purificationem per viii. dies fuit nix magna, animalibus multum nociva, sed hominibus plus infesta et mala, ut quosdam ex eis (ut ita dicam) incendio occidit; multos mutilavit, infinitos graviter et plus solito inflacione pedum, pena et vulneribus afflixit; molendina, gurgites et pontes ex glaciei dissolucione confregit et destruxit. Hec hominum passio, occisio et mutilacio fuit die Martis, scilicet ultimo die Januarii, et maxime propter leporum venacionem.

1335.0

1335.

1335.1

Die Jovis in crastino Invencionis Sancte Crucis, occiditur dominus Remundus le Ercedekne, cum duobus filiis suis Patricio et Silvestro, dominus Willelmus le Ercedekne et de illo cognomine xi. per Leyath O'Morthe, filios et familiam suam in parliamento apud Clar-Goly; et Thomas de Bathe, Geraldus Bagot, et alii, usque circiter quinquaginta. Hic Remundus cum duobus primogenitis ejus, et domino Willelmo avunculo suo, et aliis tribus de cognomine eorum, in septem feretris simul et continue per villam Kilkennie, cum multorum planctu ad locum Fratrum Minorum deferuntur tumulandi.

1335.2

Item, dominus Jacobus comes Ermonie, et dominus Mauricius filius Thome comes Desmonie, et alii nobiles Hibernie, duce eorum Johanne Darcy tunc justiciario Hibernie, post assumpcionem Marie, Scotiam intraverunt cum lvi. navibus; et spoliatis, combustis et subjugatis insulis de Aron et Bote, ac obsidibus acceptis, indempnes ad Hiberniam sunt reversi. Pro isto autem passagio, de carucata qualibet pacifica Hibernie, dabantur duo solidi, a clero decima bonorum suorum, a civitatibus et villis magnis, subsidium competens ad regis rogatum; sic ne in consequenciam vel consuetudinem duceretur.

1335.3

Item, eodem tempore occiditur dominus David Beket, per O'Brynnys.

1335.4

Item, die Mercurii in octabis beati Francisci, dominus Jacobus comes Ermonie intravit terras O'Brynnis de Duffyr, spoliavit et combussit, et fecit ibidem Fulconem de la Frene militem; et dominus Fulco fecit dominos Gregorium de la Launde, et Matheum filium


p.27

Oliveri milites ipso die et loco.

1335.5

Item, die Jovis, in die Animarum, capiuntur per O'Karwillys, dominus Ricardus de Mareys, dominus Robertus Travers, et dominus Robertus filius David; occiditur Johannes le Brit cum aliis.

1335.6

Item, die Jovis, in crastino Lucie virginis, erecta magna crux in medio fori Kilkennie; hoc tempore multi ad crucem volantes, crucis signo cum ferro candenti super nudam carnem sunt signati, ut in Terram Sanctam vadant.

1335.7

Item, die Mercurii in octabis beati Johannis apostoli, dominus Mauricius filius Thome comes Desmonie, fecit vii. milites juxta Greyn, in expedicione super Bren O'Bren.

1335.8

Item, dominus Alexander Bigenor, archiepiscopus Dublinie incepit diocesim Ossorie visitare, que a xl. annis ante per nullum metropolitanum ordinarie fuerat visitata; scilicet, die Lune in festo beati Vincencii.

1336.0

1336.

1336.1

Die Jovis, iii. Idus Aprilis, occiditur magister Howelus de Bathe, archidiaconus Ossorie (vir literatus et largus), cum Andrea Avenel, et Adam de Bathe, per O'Bryinys de Duffyr, circa defensionem bonorum ecclesie, et parochie sue.

1336.2

Item, tercio die Junii, dominus Jacobus comes Ermonie contulit Fratribus Minoribus castrum suum et locum de Carrig.

1336.3

Item, die Sabbati, in vigilia beati Johannis Baptiste, Brien O'Bryn combussit villam et ecclesiam de Tyberary, cum hominibus et mulieribus.

1336.4

Item, die Sabbati in festo apostolorum Petri et Pauli, ingressus fratrum primus in locum de Carrig; fratre Stephano de Barry ministro; fratre Willelmo Nasse custode, et fratre Clyn, primo tunc gardiano.

1336.5

Item, in estate illa fuit guerra inter dominum Fulconem de la Frene, tenentem et foventem partem Anglicorum Ossorie, et Leysaght O'Morthe; que ortum habuit ex morte domini Remundi Lercedekne et suorum; nam idem O'Morthe omnes Hibernicos communiter totius Momonie et Lagenie, suasionibus, promissionibus et muneribus alexit ad guerram; solum autem Scanlan Mc Gilpatricke et Herry O'Ryan partem tenebant Anglicorum et pacis.

1336.6

Item, eadem estate in vigilia beati Jacobi appostoli occiditur dominus Mathias filius Henrici, et alii de comitatu Weysefordie fideles, circiter cc. per Mc Morcada, et O'Brynns.

1336.7

Item, die Lune in crastino nativitatis Marie, fuit bellum et duellum assignatum, inter cognatos domini Johannis de Sancto Albino, et filios Walteri de Sancto Albino; nam ambe partes domino Justiciario manuceperunt ipso die pugnare; sed filii Walteri finem et exitum prodicionis sue timentes et vincdictam, pugnare renuerunt.

1336.8

Item, xiiii, Kal: Decembris, Walterus Oge de Sancto Albino, per Johannem de Recheford interficitur, et filios ejus.

1336.9

Item, in vigilia vigilie beati Andree appostoli, occiduntur Johannes Cumcy et Thomas de


p.28

Sancto Albino, per filios Walteri de Sancto Albino.

1336.10

Item, die Lune in festo Fabiani et Sebastiani, Jacobus le Botiller apud Roscre fecit Johannem de Recheford et Galfridum Schorthalis milites.

1337.0

1337.

1337.1

Dominica de passione, scilicet viij. Idus Aprilis, consecratur Mauricius de Rocheford episcopus Lymerici, apud Lymericum.

1337.2

Item, die Lune in crastino beati Lawrencii, miles efficitur Henricus de Valle per Pincernam in expedicione super O'Brynnis, apud Arclo.

1337.3

Item, die Martis in festo Kalixti pape, applicuit Dublinie dominus Johannes Scharlyngton justiciarius Hibernie, cum germano suo, domino Thoma Herefordensi episcopo, cancellario, et Wallicis circiter cc. sagittariis.

1337.4

Item, eodem anno, obiit apud Baligaveran, dominus Jacobus le Botiller, primus comes Hermonie; vir liberalis et amicabilis, facetus et decorus, in flore juventutis flos emarcuit xii. Kal: Marcii, die Martis in sero.

1338.1

Item, anno Domini 1338, dominus Eustachius le Poer in vigilia Assensionis Domini, tunc seneschallus Kilkennie, attachiavit et incarceravit dominum Fulconem et Oliverum de la Frene, nulla eis ostensa causa capcionis; qui timentes potius malitiam ejus et vincdictam, quam justitie rigorem; Oliverus die Assensionis prudenter de castro evasit, et in crastino congregatis hominibus et amicis eorum, cum manu valida portas castri Kilkennye confregerunt et dominum Fulconem inde, invito senescallo, eduxerunt.

1338.2

Item, eodem anno in festo Baptiste Edwardus tercius post conquestum Anglie, cum magno exercitu regni sui, et preter illos, cum aliis centum millibus, et xli. millibus (ut nuncii referunt), contra ......[gap: extent: a few letters] regem Francorum, Alemaine partes intravit.

1338.3

Item, ultimo die Augusti, comes Desmonie fecit xiiij. milites apud Rahtymegan.

1338.4

Item, die Mercurii, scilicet Nonas Octobris, Poterini post juramenta et diem captum inter eos, et dominum Walterum de Valle, cum esset tunc vicecomes Tyberarie, redeundo de comitatu tento apud Clomele extra villam, eum cum xiii. de sanguine et familia sua occiderunt.

1338.5

Item, die Sancti Martini in sero fuit ventus validissimus et tempestas horribilis.

1338.6

Item, die Martis, scilicet xv. Kal: Decembris, fuit maxima inundancia aque, qualis a xl.ta annis ante non est visa; que pontes, molendina et edificia funditus evertit et asportavit; solum altare magnum et gradus altaris de tota abbacia Fratrum Minorum Kilkennie, aqua non attigit nec cooperuit.

1338.7

Hic annus fuit tempestuosus nimis et nocivus hominibus et animalibus; quia a festo Omnium Sanctorum usque Pascha, ut plurimum fuit pluvia, nix, aut gelu, a festo Andree usque Vincencii festum cessabant aratra propter nivem et


p.29

gelu, que illo tempore quasi continue habundabant. Sal communiter, pro xvi. vel xx. solidis vendebatur; propter regum discordiam Anglie et Francie.

1338.8

Hoc anno boves et vacce moriebantur, et oves precipue, fere sunt destructe; ita ut juxta communem loquelam, vix septima pars ovium a peste evasit, sed agnorum major interitus.

1338.9

Item, in hoc anno in quadragesima, salices in Anglia rosas protulerunt, que ad diversas terras pro spectaculo sunt advecte.

1338.10

Item, circa festum [gt ]Magdalene, Anglici super Hibernicos Desmonie, scilicet, Mc Karthy, magnum stratageme fecerunt, et statim post, super O'Dymiscy fuit facta magna occisio.

1338.11

Item, in principio autumpni, Mauricius filius Thome, Desmonie tunc comes, Clonmele et Kylkyban, a Willimo de Grandissono emit, mille et centum marcis.

1338.12

Item, die Veneris in vigilia vigilie Assumpcionis, occiditur per O'Nolannis Laurencius le Botiller, frater comitis Ermonie.

1338.13

Item, die Lune in vigilia beati Mathei apostoli occiditur Johannes filius Johannis de Sancto Albino (per filium Walteri de Sancto Albino), et alii sex cum eo.

1338.14

Item, anno eodem dominus Mauricius filius Nicholai, per Mauricium filium Thome comitem tunc Desmonie capitur et incarceratur; et infra octabas beati Francisci, in carcere, in dieta inclusus moritur.

1340.0

1340.

1340.1

In platea Kilkenie occiditur Robertus Conton, die Veneris infra octabas Pasche.

1340.2

Item, die Jovis proximo post, occiditur Raynyl, soror Mc Gilpatricke, per Rechefordis.

1340.3

Item, Kalendis Maii, passagium omnium navium indifferentur conceditur per regem, et concilium suum ville de Ros, ad instantiam, et laborem, et diligenciam Radulphi Meyleri.

1340.4

Item, hoc anno in festo Baptiste, rex Anglie cum exercitu suo, classem navium regis Francie cepit et destruxit, et multa milia hominum in eis inventorum gladio occidit et submersit, et regnum Francie intravit, debellando, occidendo et comburendo, in tantum quod Anglie et Francie simul regem se vocari fecit et scribi in omnibus causis, placitis et literis suis.

1340.5

Item, die Veneris, scilicet iiij.to die Augusti, occiduntur per Mc Morcada et O'Nolan, circiter xxiiij. homines de Balygaveran. Isto anno sal vendebatur xvi. solidis.

1340.6

Item, die Martis in crastino beate Agathe virginis obiit frater Rogerus Owtlaw, prior Hospitalis in Hibernia apud Any, tunc locum justiciarii tenens; et etiam cancellarius domini Regis, trium simul functus officio. Vir prudens et graciosus, qui multas possessiones, ecclesias et redditus ordini suo adquisivit sua industria, et regis Anglie gratia speciali et licentia.

1342.0

1342.

1342.1

Parum ante Natale Domini obiit Leysart O'Morthe, a proprio servo in ebrietate occisus vir potens, dives et locuples, et in gente sua honoratus.

1342.2

Hic


p.30

fere omnes Anglicos de terris suis et hereditate violenter ejecit, nam uno sero, viii castra Anglicorum combussit; et castrum nobile de Dunmaske domini Rogeri de Mortuo Mari destruxit, et dominium sibi patrie usurpavit; de servo dominus, de subjecto princeps effectus.

1342.3

Item, xvi die Marcii miles efficitur Ricardus filius Remundi le Ercedekne in Desmonia, a Mauricio filio Thome comitis Desmonie; et ipse Ricardus fecit eodem die tres milites; et Willelmus Grant illo tempore fecit Johannem le Ercedekne militem.

1343.0

1343.

1343.1

Fit novum campanile ecclesie beate Marie Kilkennie.

1343.2

Item, in Pentecoste celebratur capitulum generale apud Marciliam.

1343.3

Item, obiit in festo Vincencii martiris dominus rex Robertus, rex Jerusalem et Cecilie, vir celebris et famosus, vir sapiens et sanctus, in habitu Fratrum Minorum Neapolim sepultus.

1343.4

Item, destruuntur et prosternuntur per Hibernicos Castrum Viride in Ultonia, et Castrum Kevini archiepiscopi Dublinie.

1344.0

1344.

1344.1

xiij. die Julii applicuit Dublinie dominus Radulphus de Ufford, justiciarius Hibernie, cum uxore sua Matilda comitissa Ultonie, filia comitis Lancastrie; cum pulchra comitiva sagittariorum et aliorum armatorum, et militum, die Martis, 3 Idus Julii. Hic terras Mc Morkada in O'Kensely, et blada Hybernicorum patrie combussit, et obsides de pace tenenda dare compulsit.

1344.2

Item, in eodem anno combusta est villa de Mondesseyl, et tota patria de Cumscy integre, et molestores de cognomine de Sancto Albino inde sunt expulsi; nec domus ibi dimissa in qua possent habitare, per dominum Fulconem de la Frene, tunc seneschallum Kilkennie, imediate ante et post nativitatem Domini.

1344.3

Item, in xla, dominus Radulphus Dufford justiciarius Hibernie, Ultoniam intravit cum manu valida, et passagium de Ymerdoylan reparavit, et meabile fecit; ejecto Thoma McArthan rege patrie, interfectis quibusdam de hominibus dire; et Henricum O'Neyl, regem Ultonie deposuit a regno, substituto O'Done O'Neyl pro eo; et sic cum laude et triumpho revertitur.

1344.4

Item, in festo Cathedre Petri, fuit parliamentum factum apud Callan, et, quare nescio, ad quod venit Mauricius filius Thome cum multis millibus hominum, ad quod credidit majores terre ad eum venisse; sed rex timens talia conventicula suspecta, et potius malum quam bonum ex hoc evenire, per breve regis prohibitum est omnibus ne venirent. Et per hoc majores terre predicto Mauricio se excusabant, sed domi manserunt.

1344.5

Item, filii Walteri de Sancto Albino utramque villam de Colaht combusserunt, et patriam spoliaverunt, multos fideles occiderunt, gravia dampna fidelibus patrie inferentes.

1344.6

Item, corpus Joseph ab Arimathia Glosconie dicitur


p.31

hoc anno esse inventum.

1344.7

Item, fit novus rex Insularum, per Clementem quintum in Curia Romana.

1345.0

1345.

1345.1

Circa Pascha obierunt domini Mauricius Geraldi, et Geraldus de Rocheford.

1345.2

Item, Poerini combusserunt quasi totam patriam circa Waterfordiam, destruxerunt et spoliaverunt; et ex hoc quidam eorum fuerunt suspensi, tracti, et in quarteria divisi apud Waterfordiam.

1345.3

Item, in festo Baptiste, Mauricius comes tunc Desmonie castrum de Menaht cum multis milibus obsessit et impugnavit, sed non expugnavit, nec obtinuit; frustratus a proposito revertitur.

1345.4

Item, capitulum apud Clan, in quo quatuor tantum custodie assignantur; et loca Kilkenie et Ros de custodia, Dublinie assignantur.

1345.5

Item, obiit dominus Johannes O'Grada, archiepiscopus Casselensis; cui successit frater Radulphus O'Kally.

1345.6

Item, obiit dominus Henricus, comes Lancastrie; vir venerabilis, potens et bonus.

1345.7

Item, guerra inter Radulphum de Ufford, justiciarium Hibernie, et Mauricium filium Thome, comitem Desmonie; et justiciarius eum terris suis, scilicet, Clomele, Kylsylan, Kysekyl, Oconyl, Kyrigan et Desmonia privavit: bona sua, predia ejus, dominia et possessiones ad opus et manum regis confiscando; et majores nacionis et dominii comitis obsides regi de fidelitate et subjectione regi servanda et facienda reddere fecit et coegit; et multi eorum pacem regis, et cartam pro vita et terris suis habendis magna et gravi redempcione comparaverunt et habuerunt.

1345.8

Item, occiduntur per Mc Dermada, dominus Robertus de Barry, et Philippus de Prendergast, partem regis et justiciarii tenentes, contra generum suum; nam, dominus Robertus germanam comitis, dominus autem Philippus filiam germane ejus duxerant in uxores.

1345.9

Item, castrum comitis predicti de Yniskysty, per justiciarium et suos obsessum, die Veneris (in festo Ieronimi doctoris) est expugnatum et optentum.

1345.10

Item, die Veneris, xii, Kal: Novembris, in festo Hillarionis abbatis, cum grandi exercitu Lageniensium, Momoniensium et Connactencium, Castrum Insule, (quod vulgi judicio vix erat expugnabile), ipse justiciarius ipsum castrum ab ipso et exercitu ante ad quindenam obsessum invasit et expugnavit; et tunc primo in hac expedicione et anno, vexillo regis erecto, extenso et elevato, Castrum Insule invaserunt, confregerunt, cum manu valida et fortitudine intruerunt, et inde enim Johannem Coteres, comitis senescallium (qui multas graves, extraneas, et intolerabiles leges dicebatur exercuisse, tenuisse et invenisse), die Sabbati in crastino judicialiter trahi fecit justiciarius, suspendi, decapitari, interiora ejus comburi et membratim dividi, quarteria ejus ob memoriam tyranidis sue ad diversa loca provincie


p.32

mitti mandavit, ad exemplum aliorum; et dominus Eustachius le Poer, et Willelmus le Grant, castrum contra regem et justiciarium tenentes, eodem die de castro educti, die Lune proxima sequente in eodem loco tracti et suspensi sunt; et terre eorum in manum regis capte et forisfacte sunt.

1345.11

Item, die Sabbati in crastino Calixti pape occiditur in parliamento a suis consanguineis Tir Halwaht O'Konkur, rex Conactie, ex discordia orta inter eos, una cum sagitta projecta ad interitum ad comunem populum, eum in genu percussit, statim interiit, aliis illesis omnibus permanentibus.

1345.12

Item, in festo Innocencium, Hibernici de Slebanie combusserunt Bordgwyl, et Robertum le Gras et alios Anglicos occiderunt; et ipso die Carwill Mc Gilpatricke patrie princeps, occiditur.

1345.13

Item, circa festum Annunciacionis Virginis, dominus Johannes de Weyr, comes Oxonie in Connactia cum suis de Britannia reddiens, tempestate et vi ventorum depulsi sunt, dejecti, et inter Hibernicos applicuerunt; qui spoliaverunt eos bonis suis, equis et armis, graves insultus inferentes, et cum eis gravi et impari insultu pugnantes; qui de naufragio seminudi vix evaserunt.

1345.14

Eodem tempore dominus Henricus Skrope in Desmonia de Brytania veniens, tempestate depulsus applicuit; tamen inter fideles, qui nil ei mali fecerunt.

1346.1

Item, anno 1346, quinto Idus Aprilis, et Dominica Palmarum, obiit apud Kylmaynam, dominus Radulfus de Ufford, justiciarius Hibernie, delatus postea ad Angliam sepeliendus.

1346.2

Item, in vigilia precedenti, obiit in castro Dublinie dominus Mauricius filius Philippi, per justiciarium ante captus, et in carcere detentus; vir dapsilis et liberalis, licet non multum dives aut potens.

1346.3

Item, parum post Pascha, dominus Johannes de Karrev castrum de Balymotha (quod alio nomine de Clerevoyse dicebatur), renovavit et reparavit, et gardam pro custodia loci apposuit.

1346.4

Item, hoc tempore universaliter omnes Hibernici Lagenie ad guerram contra Anglicos et pacificos se posuerunt; comburentes, spoliantes et occidentes quos poterant; non parcentes ecclesiis, aut locis sacratis vel sacris, imo ecclesias et cimiteria variis in locis spoliaverunt et combusserunt; sicut ecclesiam de Duleke, et Fynnowyr, et Clodaht, et cetera.

1346.5

Item, occiditur Dermicius O'Dymiscy, per Robertum filium Mauricii militem, feria sexta infra octabas Pasche.

1346.6

Item, in ebdomada post Dominicam in Albis, castra de Ley, Kylmehyde, et Balylethan capiuntur et franguntur per O'Morthe, O'Konkur, et O'Dymiscy, die Jovis in crastino Sancte Crucis.

1346.7

Item, die Veneris iii Nonas Maii, Dermicius Mc Gilpatrick monoculus, qui semper insidiis et prodicionibus intendere consuevit, perjuriaque parvi pendens villam de Athebo combussit, associato


p.33

sibi O'Kayrwyll, et secum ducto, et in cimiterium et ecclesiam, ac Sancti Cannici abbatis viri sanctissimi, patroni patrie et loci fundatoris, scrinium cum ossamentis et reliquiis ejus igne crudelissimo, (tanquam degener filius in patrem) crudeliter deseviens, igne crudelissimo combussit et consumpsit. Iste annus sterilis fuit et carus, nam cranocus frumenti xii. solidis vendebatur.

1346.8

Item, circa festum Baptiste occiduntur de hominibus Ergalie et Dundalke cccc. per Hibernicos.

1346.9

Item, illo tempore venit dominus Walterus de Bermegham justiciarius Hibernie.

1346.10

Item, occiditur dominus Johannes filius Georgii de Rupe per Ketyngis et Hodinetis.

1346.11

Item, baronia et dominium de Kenlis que fuit domini Eustachii le Poer domino Waltero de Bermegham, et terra domini Willelmi le Grant domino Fulconi de la Frene (que regi in eschaetam acciderant) per regem eis assignantur.

1346.12

Item, Sabbato in festo beate Marthe virginis, Rogerus de la Frene, tunc vicecomes Kilkennie cepit magnam predam super Carwyl Mc Gillepatricke, et super homines ejus, qualem in partibus illis raro captam meminit homo a multis annis.

1346.13

Edwardus rex Anglie post conquestum tercius, regnum Francie intravit et commissis diris preliis et multis multos Francos trucidavit, regem Boemie et regem Majoricarum occidit, duces et comites xxv., archiepiscopos de Sannes et de Noynn, et episcopos et abbates multos, priorem etiam hospitalis Franncie, dominos magnos, barones et milites nominatos plus quam ij. milia occidit in bello, xxvi. die Augusti, gentes armorum xxv. milia, alios armatos xxx. milia, pedestres absque numero interfecit.

1346.14

Item, die Martis in vigilia Sancti Luce ewangeliste capitur David le Brus rex Scotorum, et comes de Fyf atque Willelmus de Douglas, et occiduntur de Scotis apud Dunelmiam ij. milia per archiepiscopum Eboracensem, dominum de Percy, dominum de Moubrey et dominum de Neyvil.

1346.15

Item, Sabbato in crastino nativitatis beate Marie occiditur per dominum Fulconem de la Frene Thadeus filius Roderici O'Carwyl princeps de Elycarwyl, vir potens, locuplex et dives et bellicosus precipuus Anglicorum et fidelium inimicus et persecutor; hic occidit, exulavit et ejecit de terris suis de Elycarwyl illos de nacione de Barry, de Milleborne, de Britis et alios Anglicos de patria, et terras eorum et castra tenuit et occupavit, omnibus fidelibus vicinis gravis tirranus existens. Eodem die per eundem capitur Rury filius O'Morthe; occiditur Nicholaus le Gras.

1346.16

Item, in hyeme illa fuit guerra inter Anglicos, videlicet, W. Bermegham comitem Kildarie, et O'Morthe et O'Dymiscy, et terras eorum invaserunt et combusserunt, paucos tamen homines occiderunt.

1346.17

Item, eodem tempore obiit Adam Northampton


p.34

episcopus Fernensis.

1346.18

Item, circa festum Clementis occiduntur de O'Dymiscy xxx. homines per duos, Thomam Wogan et Walterum Lenfant apud Ardscol.

1346.19

Item, magister Hugo de Saltu, Dominica de passione in episcopum Fernensem Dublinie consecratur.

1347.0

1347.

1347.1

Dominica Palmarum et die Annunciationis beate Marie, dominus Nicholaus de Verdona apud Droukeda cum magno apparatu et solempni funere et multorum procerum conventu honorifice sepelitur.

1347.2

Item, eodem die apud Kylkenniam humo domina Isabella Palmer traditur, que frontem chori fratrum erigi fecit, laudabili senio vitam transegit, hac in viduitate religiose et honorifice vixit annis circiter lxx., et in virginitate ut dicebatur et creditur de hoc seculo migravit.

1347.3

Item, Mauricius filius Thome comes Kyldarie et dominus Fulco de la Frene, per regem vocati et invitati, Franciam intraverunt pro obsidione Calisie, que duravit a nativitate beate Marie precedente usque ad festum Sancti Laurencii martiris, et tunc post multos insultus et diram famem atque incredibilem compulsi sunt Gallici claves civitatis et seipsos gracie regis Anglie submittere.

1347.4

Item, reedificatur villa de Thagmolingis per Walterum Bermegham tunc justiciarium Hibernie.

1347.5

Item, capitur Karolus de Bloys dux Britannie in Britannia per dominum Thomam Dagworht circa festum Baptiste.

1347.6

Item, Fratres Predicatores Hibernie impetraverunt relaxacionem et licentiam carnes comedendi ad ext.a, a domino Papa Clemente VI quam ab exordio sue religionis ante non habuerant.

1347.7

Item, in festo vii. Fratrum, obiit Rogerus de la Frene tunc senescallus Kilkennie, juvenis validus, prudens et discretus, qui ut putabatur ad magna et ardua ascendisset nisi morte prematura preventus fuisset.

1347.8

Item, fit magna discordia, contraversia et sedicio inter cives Bristollie.

1347.9

Item, incepit confraternitas Fratrum Minorum Kilkennie pro campanili novo erigendo et ecclesia reparanda, dominica prima adventus Domini.

1347.10

Item, die Veneris in crastino beati Nicholai obiit Oliverus de la Frene in officio seneschallie Kilkennie, vir probus, modestus et prudens.

1347.11

Item, in nataliciis Domini, Domenaldus O'Kenidy filius Philippi, facta conspiracione Hibernicorum Momonie, Connactie, Midie et Lagenie, villam de Nenaght, et totam patriam et omnia castra Ermonie preter castrum de Nenaght combussit et destruxit; qui feria sexta post festum Annunciacionis beate Marie per Purcelles cum principe sue nacionis captus est et incarceratus, et iiij.to Non: Junii judicialiter suspensus est et tractus cum filio Breyn O'Breyn apud Thurlis ad caudas equorum, anno scilicet 1348.

1347.12

Item, undecimo die Novembris comitatus Ermonie et regalitas ejus


p.35

Jacobo le Bottiller juniori per regem conceduntur.

1347.13

Item, Hugo de Calce clericus Pape et collector et exactor fisci Dublinie in festo Patricii occiditur.

1347.14

Item, frater Ricardus episcopus Ossoriensis in curia Romana optinuit exempcionem a jurisdiccione et superioritate archiepiscopi Dublinie.

1347.15

Item, frater Fortenarrus Vassali minister generalis assumitur ad archiepiscopatum Ravenarum.

1347.16

Item, die Martis scilicet iij. Nonis Junii Dovenaldus Mc Morkada et Murcardaht Kevanaht per suos consanguineos in prodicione occiduntur, viri bellatores versipelles et pacis ac pacificorum impugnatores graves, ob quorum morte venit pax ad tempus, quievit populus pacificus, et cultura crevit.

1347.17

Item, fit novus tribunus in Romana civitate qui dixit se velle Romam et Ytaliam et rempublicam reparare in melius et resarcire, cujus officii et dignitatis titulus talis erat; Nicholaus severus et clemens libertatis pacis justicie tribunus, sacre Romane reipublice liberator illustris, liberator urbis, zelator Italie, amator orbis, et Augustus.

1348.0

1348.

1348.1

In mense Julii et Augusti, dominus Fulco de la Frene habens curam et custodiam terrarum comitis Ermonie, ipso comite in Anglia commorante, tenuit magnam gardam apud Nenaht, et reduxit abjectos, revocavit ad propria fideles exulatos, muros confractos et diruptos per Hibernicos per ipsos reparari fecit et coegit, et cum magna multacione et gravi redempcione vaccarum et obsidum deliberacione, ad statum primum et subjectionem debitam (quod omnibus videbatur fieri non posse) compulit redire.

1348.2

Item, obiit Laurencius de Hastingis comes Penbrochie.

1348.3

Item, hoc anno et maxime mense Septembri et Octobri convenerunt undique de diversis partibus Hibernie, episcopi et prelati, viri ecclesiastici et religiosi, magnates et alii, et comuniter omnes utriusque sexus ad peregrinacionem et vadacionem aque de Thaht-Molyngis, turmatim et in multitudine, sic ut multa milia hominum simul illuc multis diebus convenire videres, quidam venerunt devocionis affectu, alii (sed plures) pestilencie metu, que tunc nimis invaluit, que primo juxta Dubliniam apud Howht Dalkey et Drovda incepit, ipsas civitates Dubliniam et Drovhda fere destruxit et vastavit incolis et hominibus. Ita ut in Dublinia tantum, a principio Augusti usque nativitatem Domini xiiij. milia hominum mortui sunt, hec pestilencia ab oriente ut dicebatur incepit, et per incredulos et Saracenos transiens, de eis octo milia legiones hominum interfecit.

1348.4

Item, in provincia, Avinione civitate ubi tunc Romana viguit et fuit curia, a Januario precedenti incepit, tempore Clementis Pape VI. ubi et ibi ecclesie et cimiteria civitatis non sufficiebant capere mortuorum corpora tumulanda. Et dominus ipse papa ordinavit unum cimiterium


p.36

novum consecrari, in quo mortui ex clade pestilencie interfecti reconderentur. Ita ut a mense Maii usque Sancti Thome translacionem quinquaginta milia et eo amplius corpora sunt sepulta in eodem cimiterio. De ista pestilencia facta est visio mirabilis (ut dicebatur) anno precedenti scilicet 1347, in claustro Cisterciensium Tripolis, sub hac forma; quidam monachus celebravit missam coram abbate suo, uno ministro presente, et inter ablucionem et communionem misse apparuit quedam manus scribens super corporale in quo predictus monachus confecerat. ‘Cedrus alta Libani succendetur et ibidem Tripolis destruetur, et Acon capietur, et marchionatus mundum superabit, et Saturnus insidiabitur Jovi, et vespertilio fugabit ducem ab mundo universi. Infra xv. annos erit una fides et unus Deus, et altere evanescent, filii Ierosolomitani a captivitate liberabuntur, gens quedam nascetur sine capite; ve in clero et sterilitate navicula Petri jactabitur vallidis fluctibus sed evadet et dominabitur in fine dierum. In mundo erunt multa prelia et strages magne, et fames vallide, hominum mortalitas per loca, regnorum mutaciones, et terra Barbarorum convertetur, ordines mendicantes certe quam plures adversabuntur; bestia orientalis et leo occidentalis universum mundum suo subjugabunt imperio; et pax erit in toto orbe terrarum; et copia fructuum per xv. annos. Tunc passagium erit commune ab omnibus fidelibus ultra aquas congregatas ad Terram Sanctam. Et civitas Jerusalem glorificabitur; et sepulchrum Domini ab omnibus honorabitur; in tanta tranquillitate nova audientur de Antechristo. Vigilate.’ Non est auditum a principio seculi tot homines pestilencia, fame aut quacunque infirmitate tanto tempore mortuos in orbe; nam terre motus, qui per miliaria multa se extendebat, civitates, villas et castra subvertebat absorbuit et subversit; pestis ista villas, civitates, castra et oppida homine habitatore omnino privavit, ut vix esset qui in eis habitaret, ista pestilencia sic erat contagiosa quod tangentes mortuos vel inde infirmos incontinenter et inficiebantur et moriebantur, et confitens et confessor simul ducerentur ad sepulchrum. Et pre timore et horrore, pietatis opera et misericordie, videlicet, visitare infirmos et mortuos sepellire, homines excercere vix audebant. Nam multi ex antrace et ex apostematibus, et pustulis que creverunt in tibiis et sub asellis axillis, alii ex passione capitis et quasi in frenesim versi, alii spuendo sanguinem moriebantur. Iste annus fuit ultra modum consuetum mirabilis insolitus et in multis prodigiosus, fertilis tamen satis et habundans, etsi, morbidus et mortalis. In conventu Minorum de Drouda xxv. et in Dublinia apud eosdem xxiij. fratres mortui sunt, ante usque Natale.

1348.5

Item, die Martis in


p.37

crastino Purificacionis, Connili O'Morthe patrie sue princeps et dominus per germanos ejus in quibus confidebat, cum quibus ipso die simul epulabatur confidenter, quorum filios pro fidelitate et subjeccione sibi servanda tunc habebat obsides, natorum suorum necem non formidantes, et in perjurii crimen incidere non verentes, ambicio dominandi fraternum fedus disjunxit et seperavit; et rupto vinculo fraternitatis, spreto amore et federe sanguinis, eum prodiciose occiderunt, et quos venter et uterus unius mulieris suscepit, tota illa terra et patria recipere non valebat; nec aufertur nec etiam differtur inde vindicta, nam octavo die Anglici de Ossoria, qui partem ipsius Conyl fovebant, patriam intrantes, communi consensu populi filius ejus primogenitus Rury in principem est electus et acceptus, et Anglicis Ossorie ad sua ut volebant revertentibus, David O'Morthe, occisi germanus, eis obstitit cum quibusdam Anglicis comitatus Kildarie et Cathirlaht, in quodam passu arto aliquos equos, qui sarcina et arma Ossoriensium portabant, abstulerunt, et ibi occisus ipse David, vir potens, dives et discretus post Conyl de sanguine parem non habens, et sic vitam perdidit, regnum et germanum; alii vero fratres omnes consentientes exulati patriam dimittere coguntur.

1348.6

Ista pestilencia apud Kilkenniam in xl.a invaluit, nam vi.to die Marcii viij Fratres Predicatores infra diem Natalem obierunt, vix in domo unus tantum moriebatur, sed communiter vir et uxor cum natis eorum et familia unam viam, scilicet mortis, transierunt.

Ego autem frater Johannes Clyn de Ordine Minorum et conventu Kilkennie hec notabilia facta, que tempore meo acciderunt, in hoc libro scripsi, que occulata fide vel fide digno relatu didici, et ne gesta notabilia cum tempore perirent et a memoria recederent futurorum, videns hec multa mala et mundum totum quasi in maligno positum, inter mortuos mortem expectans donec veniat, sicut veraciter audivi et examinavi sic in scripturam redegi, et ne scriptura cum scriptore pereat, et opus simul cum operario deficiat, dimitto pergamenam pro opere continuando, si forte in futuro homo superstes remaneat, an aliquis de genere Ade hanc pestilenciam possit evadere et opus continuare inceptum.

1349.0

1349.

1349.1

In magna karistia sere et specierum, nam libra sere vendebatur xx.ti denariis, et piperis et zinsiberis xl.ta denariis.

1349.2

Item, in festo Molingi episcopi, dominus Fulco de la Frene confidens in promissionibus falaciis Hibernicorum interficitur prodiciose, vir milicie et militaris a pueritia deditus et intendens, et pacis defeccione reipublice defensor, malorum malleus, plurium relatu communi in relacione vix in Hibernia parem habens; hic Rupences, Cantonences fidelium


p.38

oppressores de terra extirpavit, vir magnanimus, minas magnorum et aggredi non formidans, vir largus et plus nominis quam hominis habens, majoris fame quam substancie, profusus erat in dandis epulis, nulli claudens suam jannuam hic vias fidelibus patefecit, et hominum linguis loquor et communis populi sentenciis vix in Hibernia relata.

1349.3

Videtur quod Author hic obiit.

1349.4

Prima pestilencia in Hibernia multum invaluit anno Domini 1349.

1362.1

Secunda vero pestilencia similiter invaluit ibidem per xiij. annos postea, viz. anno Domini 1362.

1373.1

Tercia etiam pestilencia accrevit per xi. annos postea viz. anno Domini 1373.

1375.0

Anno Domini 1375.

1375.1

In festo Anne matris virginis Marie interfectus fuit Donatus Kevenach Mc Moorke per Galfridum de Valle prope Carlachiam.

1382.1

Quarta autem pestilencia crevit in Hibernia per ix. annos post hoc viz. anno Domini 1382.

1391.1

Quinta autem pestilencia inolevit consimiliter in partibus ejusdem per ix. annos, similiter post predictos annos, anno viz. Domini 1391.

1405.0

Anno Domini 1405.

1405.1

Frater Johannes minister Hybeirnie veniendo de capitulo generali captus fuit in mari per Flandrenses et solvit pro capcione sua xx.ti. marcas, et quinque pro familiis, quo anno fuit lv. annorum, anno viz. anno Domini 1349 (natus).

ANGLIA habet custodias vij. viz. Londoniensem, que habet viij. loca, viz. Londoniam, Salisbiriam, Cantuariam, Wynchilseyam, Southamptonam, Lewysiam, Vintoniam, et Chichestriam.

Item Oxoniensem, que habet viijo. loca, scilicet, Oxoniam, Radingiam, Behtfordiam, Stafordiam, Nothyngamiam, Northamptonam, Leycestriam, et Gronthamiam.

Item Bristollensem, que habet ix. loca, scilicet, Bristollum, Gloucestriam, Herefordiam, Carmerdinam, Kerdiniam, Brugewalterum, Exoniam, Dorcestriam, et Bodminiam.

Item Granntebrigiam, que habet viij. loca, scilicet, Cantibrigiam, Norwicum, Sanctum Edmundum, Lemiam, Gernemutam, Gepwycum, Colcestriam et Dunwycum.

Item Wigorniam, que habet ix. loca, scilicet, Wigorniam, Coventreyam,


p.39

Lichfeldiam, Stafordiam, Prestonam, Salopidiam, Cestriam, Lamasiam, et Bregenorht.

Item Eboracensem, que habet vij. loca, scilicet, Eboracum, Lyncolniam, Beverlacum, Duncastriam, Sanctum Botulfum, Grimisbiam, et Scardeburgiam.

Item Novi Castri, que habet ix. loca, scilicet, Novum Castrum, Richemundiam, Hertpolliam, Carliolum, Barwycum, Rochysburgiam, Hadyngtonam, Dunde et Dunfres.

Item duo loca Sancte Clare, scilicet Londonie et Bethe lviii. loca.

IBERNIA habet custodias, scilicet Dublinencem, que habet 7 loca, scilicet, Dubliniam, Kildariam, Clane, Totmoy, Desertum, Weysefordiam et Wykynlo.

Item Pontdris, que habet 6 loca, scilicet, Pontem, Trum, Dundalke, Molynfarnam, Dunum, et Cragfergus.

Item Casselensem, que habet 6 loca, Casselum, Kylkenniam, Rosse, Waterfordiam, Clounmele, et Yohil.

Item Corkagensem, que habet v. loca, scilicet, Corkagiam, Botoniam, Lymericum, Thathmelage, et Ardart.

Item Nenaghtensem que habet viij, loca, scilicet Nenaght, Ahtloun, Clonronda, Clare, Galwy, Ardmachiam, Breffiniam, et Kylleyht. xxxij. loca.

Summa omnium domorum 1455, Sancte Clare 410, iste est numerus provinciarum ordinis Fratrum Minorum, custodiarum et locorum, collectis in capitulo generali celebrato Anno Domini 1331 (1320) sic.