[378] That bishops were numerous in Ireland at this period is indubitable. Fifty attended the Synod of Fiadh meic Oengusa (_A.U._ 1111), and probably all of them came from the provinces of Ulster and Munster (above, p. xxxviii). But this cannot have been due to the irregularities at Armagh of which St. Bernard complains. There were many bishops in Ireland in its earliest Christian period. See Reeves, 123-136; Todd, 27 ff. [379] Malachy was not of the Clann Sinaich, to which at this period the coarbs of Patrick belonged. See p. 6, n. 5, and Additional Note B, p. 165. [380] 1 Sam. iii. 19, etc. [381] Cellach died on April 1, 1129, and was buried at Lismore on April 4. On April 5, the day after his funeral, Murtough was appointed coarb (_A.U._). [382] He was probably supported by Conor O'Loughlin, who was king of Oriel, the district in which Armagh was situated (_A.F.M._ 1136). On him see p. 40, n. 2. The "five years" are the period from Murtough's election to his death, September 17, 1134 (_A.F.M._)--nearly five years and a half. [383] Geoffrey, St. Bernard's secretary, recalls a saying of his about "one of the saints," which actually appears in the first antiphon at Mattins in the office of St. Malachy, and which Geoffrey applies to St. Bernard himself: "Blessed is he who loved the law, but did not desire the chair [of dignity]." (_V.P._ iii. 8). [384] On Malchus see p. 18, n. 6. He was now about eighty-five years of age. [385] Gillebertus (as St. Bernard writes the name) is a latinized form of the Irish _Gilla espuig_ (servant of the bishop), which is anglicized Gillespie. With that Irish name he subscribed the Acts of the Synod of Rathbreasail (Keating, iii. 306); and we may therefore affirm with confidence that he was an Irishman. Gilbert was a friend of the famous thinker and ecclesiastical statesman, Anselm, who was archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. The two men met each other for the first time at Rouen, probably in 1087, when Anselm was called thither to the deathbed of William the Conqueror. Twenty years later, Gilbert, then bishop of Limerick, wrote a letter of congratulation to Anselm on his victory over Henry I. in the controversy concerning investiture (August 1107). In his reply Anselm intimates that the long interval had not blurred his recollection of their former companionship, from which we may infer that Gilbert's personality had made a considerable impression upon him. Anselm also states that he had learned (probably from the superscription of his friend's letter) that he was now a bishop. It would seem, therefore, that Gilbert had been consecrated recently, and not, like the contemporary bishops of Danish sees in Ireland, by the English Primate (see the letters in Ussher, 511, 512). He probably became bishop of Limerick about 1105. Shortly after his correspondence with Anselm, and perhaps by his influence, he was appointed papal legate for Ireland, the first, as St. Bernard tells us, who had held that office.