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"Tabula Originalium, sive Manipulus Florum," first published at Venice in 1492, has been often reprinted, as at Antwerp in 1568 and 1580; Geneva, 1614; and Paris, 1662.*

The fourteenth century, to which we have now come, is rendered interesting by the appearance of one man, who is well entitled to the grateful recollections of the Native Irish -RICHARD FITZRAUPH OR FITZRALPH, Archbishop of Armagh, frequently denominated Richard Armachanus. The place of his birth is said to have been Dundalk; the precise year I have not been able to ascertain; but his various appointments being noted with such accuracy, prove in some degree the interest which his character had excited. According to Le Neve's Fasti, on the 10th July, 1334, he was collated Chancellor of Lincoln, and in 1336 became Archdeacon of Chester; on the 20th April, 1337, he was personally installed Dean of Litchfield, by Edward III., and advanced to the see of Armagh on the 8th July, 1347, by Clement VI.

This excellent man may not improperly be regarded as the Wickliffe of Ireland; and he deserves the more attention, not only from his having lived in the age immediately preceding Wickliffe, but on account of the report respecting him, that he possessed, if not with his own hand translated, the Scriptures of the New Testament into the Irish tongue. For the sake of Ireland, therefore, as well as his own, he is entitled to some special notice; more particularly as this tradition is rendered much more probable by the consideration of his character and exertions.

From the year 1240, more than a hundred years before Fitzralph, the operations of the Mendicant Friars had afforded matter of controversy and complaint; but the immediate occasion of his engaging to arraign them cannot with_certainty be traced. It has been affirmed by a celebrated Irish Franciscan, Luke Wadding, the historian of their order, that, obstructed in some attempt to remove the ornaments belonging to a convent of Friars, they were protected, and their ornaments preserved to them, when Fitzralph entered into the controversy of the day with great warmth and eagerness. Such an incident, indeed, might perhaps awaken Fitzralph to exertion; but it is of more importance to observe, that he had been educated at Oxford, the nucleus of the controversy, under Baconthorpe, a doctor of the Sor

*Ware's Writers, p. 74.

bonne, and determined opponent of the Friars, who possessed great influence over his pupils. Fitzralph also was one of a select number of learned men who had sat at the table of Richard de Bury, one of the most generous and ardent cultivators of learning in the fourteenth century.* But whatever was the exciting cause, in 1356, Fitzralph having occasion to be in London, in consequence of earnest solicitation, says Fox, he preached seven or eight sermons against the abuses of the Friars, which he afterwards repeated at Litchfield, and in Ireland at Drogheda, Dundalk, and Trim. Offended with the positions contained in these discourses, the warden of the Franciscans or Minorites, then established at Armagh, and those of the order of the Predicants, cited the Primate to answer for himself before the Pope at Avignon. To this bold measure on the part of the Friars there was presented strong encouragement in the well-known character of Clement, who "defended the interests of the church with a zeal carried to excess, reserving to himself a multitude of benefices, which he presented at his will in defiance of all former elections."+ Fortunately, however, for Fitzralph, Clement died in 1352, and was succeeded by a man of different views, Innocent VI., whose policy it was to encourage men of literature, and oblige the possessors of benefices to residence. Another circumstance, probably in favour of Fitzralph, occurred the following year. The controversy respecting the Irish primacy was then in dependence, and, in 1353, Innocent had decided that the Archbishop of Armagh "should entitle himself Primate of all Ireland, and the Archbishop of Dublin write himself Primate of Ireland.' At all events, Fitzralph, in 1357, appeared at Avignon, and pled his cause at length again and again. Innocent listened to him, and stayed all proceedings in England during the suit. The examination being committed to four Cardinals, Fitzralph was long detained, and never returned to Ireland, but died at Avignon in November or December, 1360. The MS. annals in the Cotton Library hint that he was poisoned by the Friars: of this there is no certain proof; but they allege that the controversy was terminated only by the absolute command of Innocent. One of the Cardinals, on hearing of his death, openly protested, says Fox," that the same day a mighty pillar of Christ's

*Warton, 8vo, vol. I. cxlvii. Townley's Illust. of Biblical Literature, II. 70. † L'Advocat, the librarian of the Sorbonne.

church was fallen." Ten years afterwards, his body was removed to Dundalk, by Stephen de Valle, Bishop of Limerick, and a monument raised over it, which still remained, says Sir Thomas Ryves, so late as the year 1624.

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The theme of Fitzralph at Avignon was founded on these words-" Judge not according to the outward appearance, but judge righteous judgment.' His various positions, committed to writing, he extended to a volume, which was afterwards published. The Friars Mendicant were charged by him as in many things acting directly in violation of their own rules, as undermining the stated duties of resident curates, but, above all, as violating the express precepts of Scripture, which he very frequently quotes, and to which he constantly appeals as paramount authority. He laments over the decay of learning, and informed Innocent not only of the great decrease in the number of the students at Oxford, but that "no book could stir, either divinity, law, or physic, but these Friars were able and ready to buy it up;" nay, that "he himself had sent forth from Armagh to the university four of his own chaplains, who sent him word again that they could neither find the Bible, nor any other good profitable book in divinity, meet for their study, and therefore were minded to return home to their country."+

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The writings of Fitzralph were various, amounting to eighteen distinct tracts, on theological and other subjects. Bellarmine thought that his writings ought to be read with caution." Prateolus and others allow him to have possessed great accomplishments, but rank him among the heretics; though Wadding, already mentioned, and of course not favourable to his cause, is of a different opinion. Trithemius, however, one of the most learned men in the fifteenth century, has given a character of Fitzralph; and when it is remembered that he was an Abbot of the Benedictine Friars, he will not be suspected of partiality. This

*De Valle or Wale, the Dean of Limerick, was made bishop in 1360, where he continued till 1369-70; and it was while here that he deposited the body of Fitzralph in the parish-church of St. Nicholas, Dundalk. De Valle was afterwards Bishop of Meath. See Fitzgerald and M'Gregor's Hist. of Limerick, vol. II. p. 404.

+ Defensio Curatorum adversus Mendicantes, 8vo, Paris, 1496. This discourse has been printed repeatedly at Paris; and a translation of it, by Trevisa, may be seen in the MSS. Harl. 1900 fol. Pergam. 2.-In the Public Library at Oxford is a volume, which contains, in addition, various sermons of Fitzralph, MSS. Bodl. A. 4. 8. Vide et ibid. B. 3. 12. MSS. and Nicolson's Irish Hist. Lib. n. 74-At Bennet, in Cambridge, there is a curious manuscript of one of Fitzralph's sermons, which once belonged to Eston, a learned Benedictine of Norwich, and a witness against Wickliffe afterwards at Rome, in 1370. Warton, 8vo, vol. ii. 127.

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character he sums up in these words-" Vir in Divinis Scripturis eruditus, secularis philosophiæ jurisque canonici non ignarus, clarus ingenio, sermone scholasticus, in declamandis sermonibus ad populum excellentis industriæ.”* Of the works of Fitzralph several are mentioned by L'Advocat, the librarian and Orleans Professor in the Sorbonne; after which he adds, "These works prove their author to have thoroughly studied the Holy Scriptures, and his reasoning is very ingenious and forcible, but not entirely free from the errors which were afterwards revived by Wickliffe." It is indeed not unworthy of notice, that, in the very same year in which Fitzralph expired at Avignon, Wickliffe, at the age of thirty-six, was allured from his hitherto retired and silent life; and that when he came to write his Trialogus, he speaks of Fitzralph as having preceded him, in terms of high commendation.

Were this eminent man, however, allowed to speak for himself, the testimonies of others would not be required. Towards the end of his days he had committed to writing the history of his own life, of which Fox himself possessed a copy, and intended to print it. In this he recounts at length the dangers and troubles through which he passed; mentions an embargo laid on all the seaports by the King's letter, with a view to apprehend him,―a measure in perfect consonance with the course of Innocent's predecessor; he notices appeals against him to the number of sixteen, and yet that it was given to him to triumph over them all; he records also, in what way "the Lord taught him, and brought him out of the profound vanities of Aristotle's

"Since the canonization of saints," says Jeremy Taylor, "we find no Irish bishop canonized, except Laurence of Dublin and Malachias of Down. Richard of Armagh's canonization was, indeed, propounded, but not effected: but the character which was given of that learned primate by Trithemius (De Scriptor. Eccles.) does exactly fit this our late father: He was learned in the Scriptures, skilled in secular philosophy, and not unknowing in the civil and canon laws; he was of an excellent spirit, a scholar in his discourses, an early and industrious preacher to the people.' And, as if there were a more particular sympathy between their souls, our Primate had so great veneration for his memory, that he purposed, if he had lived, to have restored his monument in Dundalk, which time or impiety, or unthankfulness, had either omitted or destroyed."-Fun. Sermon for Bramhall, by Jer. Taylor, vol. VI. p. 441. While, however, Bramhall could thus testify his veneration for the dead, it is to be regretted that he could not estimate the same qualities in the living for he will be found afterwards standing up, as leader of the opposition against Bedell, when he was actually engaged in the translation of the Scriptures for the Native Irish, and eager for reaching the heart and soul of the natives through the medium of their own language.

L'Advocat's Hist. and Biog. Dictionary, under Richard of Armagh.

"Ab Anglorum episcopis conductus Armachanus novem in Avinione conclusiones coram Innocentio 6. et suorum cardinalium cœtu, contra fratrum mendicitatem, audacter publicavit; verboque ac scriptis ad mortem usque defendit."-Wickliffe's Trialogus, 4to, 1525.

philosophy, to the study of the Scriptures of God." The sentiments at the commencement of this piece, in the form of address to the Saviour, are so descriptive of the man, that, as an appropriate conclusion to this imperfect sketch, I cannot refrain from quoting them :-"To thee be praise, to thee be glory, to thee be thanksgiving, O Jesus most holy, Jesus most powerful, Jesus most amiable,—who hast said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life;'-a way without deviation, truth without a cloud, and life without end. For thou the way hast shown me, thou the truth hast taught me, and thou the life hast promised me. A way thou wast to me in exile, the truth thou wast to me in counsel, and life thou wilt be to me in reward." ""*

Such was the individual, who, in the fourteenth century, is said to have possessed a translation of the New Testament in the Irish language, ascribed to himself. According to the information of Balaæus, quoted also by Archbishop Ussher, this translation, or a copy of it, was concealed by him in a certain wall of his church, with the following note:"When this book is found, truth will be revealed to the world, or Christ will shortly appear." What precise idea Fitzralph attached to these words it is impossible to say; but in the year 1530, one hundred and seventy years after his death, the church at Armagh being under repair, the book was found, though no vestige of this translation is supposed to be now in existence. About the year 1573, however, Fox, in his Acts and Monuments, referring to Fitzralph, says, "I credibly hear of certain old Irish Bibles, translated long since into the Irish tongue, which, if it be true, it is not other like but to be the doing of this Armachanus;" and as for the existence of such an Irish translation in his day, he adds, that it was testified to him " by certain Englishmen who are yet alive and have seen it."+ Harris says, vaguely, some have thought that he translated the Bible into Irish," but this is mere conjecture; although Ussher speaks of certain fragments of such Irish translations being in existence even in his own time.§

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"Tibi laus, tibi gloria, tibi gratiarum actio, Jesu piissime, Jesu potentissime, Jesu dulcissime; qui dixisti-Ego sum via, veritas, et vita;-via sine devio, veritas sine nubilo, et vita sine termino. Quod tute viam mihi ostendisti; tute veritatem me docuisti; et tute vitam mihi promisisti. Via eras mihi in exilio; veritas eras in consilio; et vita eris mihi in præmio."

+ Balæus, Script. Brit. Cent. 14. p. 246. Ussher's Historia Dogmata, p. 156. Fox, vol. I. p. 473. Alex. Petrei, p. 496.

"It is towards the middle of the fourteenth century," says the librarian of the British Museum, in reference to England," that we must look for the first literal

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