P. 211.—St. Patrick’s crozier. The history of the crozier known as _baculus Iesu_, which existed in Armagh in the eleventh century (see the obscure notices in Tighernach, _s.a._ 1027 and 1030), was transferred in the latter half of the twelfth century to the Cathedral Church of Dublin, and was publicly burnt as an object of superstition in 1538, will be found set out in Todd’s _Introduction_ (pp. viii. _sqq._) to the _Book of Obits and Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Dublin_, ed. by J. C. Crosthwaite, 1844. The veneration with which it was regarded in the eleventh century shows that it was an ancient relic, and it can hardly be doubted that it was the existence of this relic at Armagh which occasioned the story that Jesus gave a staff to Patrick. This story occurs in the _Vita Tertia_, c. 23, which probably goes back to the ninth century; and even if the story was not invented till that period, the object which suggested it must have been older. It seems very probable that the staff was one of the _insignia consecrata_ mentioned in the _Liber Angueli_ (355₂₉, 356₄), and this would take us back to the eighth century. There is therefore reason for thinking that the crozier which perished in 1538 may have been extremely ancient, but there is no positive proof that the tradition which assigned it to Patrick is correct, or that it was as old as the fifth century. _Ib._—St. Patrick’s bell. In _Ann. Ult. s.a._ 553, there is a notice, derived from the Book of Cuana, to the effect that in that year St. Columba placed the relics of Patrick in a shrine. Three relics had been found in Patrick’s tomb, “the cup, the gospel of the angel, and the bell of the will,” and an angel instructed Columba how to distribute them: the cup was to go to Down, the bell to Armagh, and he was to keep the gospel himself.[357] If this notice stood in the Book of Cuana, it would show that early in the seventh century the “bell of the will” existed at Armagh, and was believed to belong to Patrick. The bell has been described, and its history traced, by Bishop Reeves in _Transactions of the R.I.A._ xxvii. pp. 1 _sqq._ (1877). It is a four-sided bell, weighing 3 lbs. 8 oz., made “of two plates of sheet-iron, which are bent over so as to meet, and are fastened by large-headed iron rivets.” The handle is of iron. A shrine, which is also preserved in the Dublin Museum, was made for it, _c._ A.D. 1100. Bishop Reeves believed that the tradition which ascribed the bell to Patrick is sound. He seems to have thought that there is no room for reasonable doubt. But it is to be observed that the statement cited from the _Liber Cuana_ opens the door to possibilities of fraud. We may infer from it with certainty that for nearly a century after Patrick’s death this bell was not at Armagh. Its genuineness therefore depends on the truth of the story of the opening of Patrick’s tomb (at Saul), and the discovery of the bell in the tomb. But if the