Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and ScholarsHealy, John
History
Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars
Healy, John
Education -- Ireland -- History
The celebrated Irish work called the _Leabhar Na g-Ceart_, or _Book of
Rights_, has been generally attributed to St. Benignus, although there
seems to be good reason for doubting if he was really its author, at least
in its present form. The title or inscription of the book certainly
attributes it to Benignus. It is to this effect: "The beginning of the
_Book of Rights_, which relates to the revenues and subsidies of Ireland
as ordered by Benen, son of Sescnen, Psalmist of Patrick, as is related in
the _Book of Glendaloch_."
The _Book of Glendaloch_ is no longer extant; but it seems clear from this
very title that the work in its present form is derived from the ancient
compilation known as the _Book of Glendaloch_, and which the Four Masters
tell us was in their hands when composing their own immortal work. The
copy in the _Book of Glendaloch_ may have been itself made from the
original treatise on the subject by St. Benignus, who was in every way
well qualified for the task, both by his literary training as well as by
his knowledge of his native language, and his familiarity with the laws
and customs of the various provinces.
The title of the book very fairly describes its contents. It gives an
exceedingly minute and interesting account of the revenues and rights of
the supreme king; of the services and duties rendered to him by the
provincial kings and inferior chiefs, as well as of the gifts and
subsidies which he owed them in return. It gives also a full account of
the revenues and rights of each of the provincial monarchs, and the
services to be rendered to them by the sub-chiefs of the various
districts, and the hereditary offices and honours held by the heads of the
great families in the provincial assemblies. The work is partly in poetry
and partly in prose; and although in its present form it cannot have
dated from the time of St. Benignus, it is still an exceedingly valuable
work as illustrating the internal organization of the entire kingdom, and
its minor principalities, and may have been originally drawn up by that
learned and holy man, with a view of preventing internecine feuds, by
definitely and authoritatively fixing the rights and duties of the various
princes and chiefs of the kingdom. This work has been translated and
annotated for the Dublin Archæological Society by the late John O'Donovan.
St. Benignus is said by Jocelin to have written also a life of St.
Patrick, but no copy of it is now known to exist; and he has been always
regarded as one of the compilers of the great collection of Brehon Laws
known as the _Senchus Mor_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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