WCF

History, politics, and culture articles and forum discussions.

The Middle Ages

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Dante and Good Friday

I was trying to find the reference point within the Divine Comedy which places the beginning of Dante’s journey as Good Friday.  The Princeton Dante Project has this to say in the notes:

As the text will later make clear ([Inf XXI 112-114]), we are observing the 1266th anniversary of Good Friday (which fell on 8 April in 1300, even if Dante pretty clearly also indicates 25 March as the supposed date of the beginning of the journey [see C.Inf.I.1]). This would indicate that the poem actually begins on Thursday evening, the 1266th anniversary of Maundy Thursday, when the Apostles slept while Christ watched in the garden, and then even when He called to them to rise. That this moment is recalled here seems likely: Dante, too, is ‘asleep’ to Christ in his descent into sin.

Yet I checked with Inf XXI 112-114, which states this:

112   Ier, pi? oltre cinqu’ ore che quest’ otta, ‘Yesterday, at a time five hours from now, 113 mille dugento con sessanta sei         it was a thousand two hundred sixty-six years 114 anni compi? che qui la via fu rotta.         since the road down here was broken.

How, exactly, does this mean Good Friday?  “Since the road down here was broken” is key, I’m sure, and adding the 1266 years to the 33 years of Christ’s life brings us to the year 1300.  I guess what I’m not clear about is the first part “Yesterday, at a time five hours from now”.  Anyone know?

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A Brief History of Ireland’s Croagh Patrick

The pilgrimage site of Croagh Patrick lies on a mountain some 2500-feet high in County Mayo, which is on the northwest coast of Ireland. The site serves as the modern pilgrimage destination for those who wish to take the penitential journey to and vigil at the summit at the end of each July. The terrain surrounding Croagh Patrick is made of a variety of landscapes, including bogs, meadow, ridges, and lakes. South of the area, a vast area of bog has created conditions that are not favorable to habitation, and so today the area remains sparsely populated, just as it was during prehistoric times.

Croagh Patrick - geograph.org.uk - 187852
The path leading to the summit of Croagh Patrick.

Archaeological evidence from Croagh Patrick indicates the possibility that the site was sacred beginning in the Bronze Age, or possibly even before then. During this time it may have been a pilgrimage site for those not living near the site. Several prehistoric structures have been found near Croagh Patrick, including a wedge tomb, four cairns, a tumulus, rock art covered by hundreds of motifs, ring-barrows, a pond-barrow, a stone circle, and a plethora of standing stone suggesting possible burial placements. The site is said to have been a site for the Celtic harvest festival of Lughnasa which was celebrated until it was Christianized in the Low Middle Ages.

Written reference to Croagh Patrick dates to 700 A.D. when Tirechan recalled the story of St. Patrick’s stay at the site, given around 441 A.D. St. Patrick is said to have remained there for forty days and forty nights, though such an account may be rooted more in medieval legend than historical fact. According to the Life of St. Patrick from the 10th-century, St. Patrick is said to have remained on top of the mountain in prayer and fasting, following in the footsteps of both Moses and Christ. Under other accounts, stories about St. Patrick indicate that the purpose of his visit to Croagh Patrick was to challenge a pagan power figure named Crom Dubh. This account suggests that the site held high significance as a sacred religious site prior to the arrival of the wave of Christianity.

Multiple sources point to the historical pilgrimage date as being March 17th, although some indicate the end of July as the traditional date. The first record of a pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick is from 1113 A.D., and during the Middle Ages pilgrims likely followed the eastern Tochar Phadraig route, beginning 22 miles away at Ballintubber Abbey. This route may date to pre-Christian times, at least according to regional lore. The pilgrim route likely shifted after the establishment of Murrisk Abbey in the mid-15th century, from which pilgrims now begin their journey in modern times. Under suppression of Catholics during the time of the Penal Laws, Croagh Patrick prospered as a pilgrimage site and the site continues to be a popular site for pilgrims in modern times. An oratory was constructed on the top of the mountain in 1905.

Croagh Patrick - geograph.org.uk - 1773515
Hiking up Croagh Patrick on Pilgrim Sunday.
Croagh Patrick appears to have been important for its historical meaning within Irish culture, regardless of the religious powers that influenced the area. Christians who came to Ireland did not neglect the site because of its pagan origins, nor did they destroy it. Instead, they transformed its meaning. The fact that the site was adopted by both pagan and Christian cultures suggests that something about the site itself echoes a fundamental characteristic of pilgrimage. Most likely, this characteristic relates to the high, remote nature of the mountain which is still accessible by the public. While the nature of the prehistoric pilgrimage is not entirely clear, the penitentiary nature of the Christian pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick corresponds to the difficulty in making the ascension to the top.

The importance of Croagh Patrick seems to stress the portion of travel to the summit of the mountain rather than any particular activity undertaken once the pilgrim arrives there. This is perhaps due to the lack of any particular relic associated with the summit. Along with this, there does not appear to be any major artificial features that have historically attracted pilgrims to this area. Instead, the attraction seems to be in the mountain as sacred space following the tradition of St. Patrick and the cultures that preceded him.

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Dermot MacMurrough

No doubt the Norman Barons that had conquered England with Duke William, in 1066, would at some time have turned their ambitions onto the lands that lay across the Irish Sea. As it turned out, there was no need for such aggressive action; they were invited.  It was a decision that the Irish would later regret.

Dermot MacMurrough (c. 1110-1170)

Dermot MacMurrough (or Dermot naNGhall, meaning Dermot, king of the Foreigners) was born in 1110 AD.  At the age 16, upon the unexpected death of his older brother (the king of Leinster) he was elected as the new Ui Cinnsealaigh (the ancient name for the Kings of Leinster).  This succession, however, did not go down to well with Turlough O’Connor of Connaught, the High King of Ireland, who for whatever reason was opposed to the election.

Turlough’s response was to have far-reaching effects, some of which have remained with us until the present day.  Turlough commanded a neighbouring chieftain, Tiernan O’Rourke, a man who had a reputation for his love of battle, to invade the lands of Leinster.  Tiernan took to the task with much enthusiasm, but in so doing broke one of the sacred Irish Laws.  The Daire’s Law specifically forbade the killing of cattle by an enemy for by doing so, you were forcing starvation on the common people (dairy products were their sole food source), and Tiernan killed the cows of Leinster.

The conflict between Dermot and Tiernan continued for many years and the lands of Leinster were subject to many raids and skirmishes, but finally in 1133 Dermot was able to fully recover his throne after attacking Tiernan’s homelands in Ossory, and sacking the town of Waterford, just like his great-grandfather had done before him.  The following two decades were mostly peaceful for Dermot, and he was able to avoid involvement in many of the wars that the other four provinces were waging on one another.

In 1152, war broke out once again when Dermot aided the High King Turlough O’Connor in a raid on Tiernan O’Rourke’s land.  Tiernan’s land was destroyed, his armies routed and his cattle killed and burnt.  As Dermot was traveling through Meath to return to Leinster, the King of Meath told him that Dervorgilla, Tiernan’s wife and the King of Meath’s sister, wished to run away from her brutal husband.  So Dermot turned around and picked up Dervorgilla with all her belonging, before returning home.  When Tiernan discovered his wife had been taken, he was furious and vowed revenge.  After a year, Dermot was forced to give Dervorgilla back, but Tiernan never forgave Dermot for this abduction and from then on they were the most bitterest of enemies.

Dermot MacMurrough received permission from Henry II to reclaim Leinster.

Tiernan’s revenge came in 1166 when once again the country was ablaze with war.  Dermot’s ally, the High King Muirchertach O’Lochlainn, was defeated and Tiernan seizing the opportunity gathered together a number of other chieftains and raided Leinster.  Tiernan was out for revenge, the rest for plunder.  Vastly outnumbered Dermot barely escaped with his life and in desperation he decided to go to England for help.  From Bristol he went to Wales, where he found no shortage of volunteers willing to return with him to Ireland.  The Normans, since their conquest in 1066 had taken over Wales from the Celts, and many of these dispossessed Celts, together with a number of willing Norman adventurers welcomed the opportunity to obtain new lands and plunder.

In 1167 Dermot MacMurrough landed in Waterford with a force of Normans and Welsh to be followed later by others, including in 1170 by Strongbow, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, whose ancestors had been Lords of Clare in Suffolk.  Strongbow was to marry Dermot’s daughter Eva, and when Dermot died of an illness the following year, Strongbow became the new King of Leinster.

The Irish chieftains were no match for Dermot’s new force of mercenaries and within a short space of time he had conquered Ossory, Waterford, and Dublin, and reclaimed the throne of Leinster.  Dermot was still not satisfied.  He marched on the High King of Ireland, Rory O’Connor (Turlough’s son), and demanded the High King’s submission.  Dermot gambled that Rory would not harm the Leinster hostages that the High King held, and these included Dermot’s own son and nephew.  For a while Rory hesitated, but then Tiernan, Dermot’s bitter enemy stepped back into the story again.  Tiernan convinced Rory to slaughter the hostages and return their bodies to Dermot in a sack like a bullock would be delivered to market.  With this Dermot lost the will to fight.  His army disbanded and he returned to his capital-Ferns where, a few months later, he died.

Notes on sources

I wrote this article some years ago for a another Newsgroup.  At the time I could find very little published material available on Anglo-Norman Ireland, but with the help of a number of Web Sites I was able to compose the above from various sites.  Sorry, I can not now recall all the sites visited but the text is my own interpretation based on my research.

WCF