[408] On these lay impropriators, “comorbas” and “erenachs,” see Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 79–86. But it was the northmen, too, who were now to become the means of knitting up again the ties which had been severed by their fathers’ swords. The state of things in Ireland, as reported to Canterbury from Dublin and Waterford, might well seem to reforming churchmen like Lanfranc and Anselm too grievous to be endured. Lanfranc had urged upon Terence O’Brien the removal of two of its worst scandals, the neglect of canonical restraints upon marriage and the existence of a crowd of titular bishops without fixed sees;[409] Anselm used all his influence with Murtogh O’Brien for the same end;[410] at last, finding his efforts unavailing, he seems to have laid his complaints before the Pope. The result was that, for the first time, a papal legate was appointed for Ireland. The person chosen was Gilbert, who some two or three years before Anselm’s death became the first bishop of the Ostmen of Limerick. Gilbert seems, like the first Donatus of Dublin, to have been himself an Irish prelate; he lost no time, however, in putting himself in communication with Canterbury,[411] and displayed an almost exaggerated zeal for the Roman discipline and ritual.[412] In 1118 he presided over a synod held at Rathbreasil, where an attempt was made to map out the dioceses of Ireland on a definite plan.[413] Little, however, could be done till the metropolitan see was delivered from the usurpers who had so long held it in bondage; and it was not until 1134 that the evil tradition was broken by the election of S. Malachi. [409] Lanfranc, Ep. 44 (Giles, vol. i. p. 63). [410] Anselm, Epp. l. iii., Epp. cxlii., cxlvii. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. clix., cols. 173, 174, 178–180). [411] On Gilbert’s relations with Anselm see Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 23–26. [412] _Ib._ pp. 26–29. [413] _Ib._ pp. 38, 40–43.