IRISH MEDIEVAL PREMONSTRATENSIAN MONASTERIES AND THEIR EUROPEAN CONTEXT

Miriam Clyne

This interdisciplinary project focuses on the eight medieval Premonstratensian conventual houses in Ireland, their dependent cells and estates, both temporalities and spiritualities. Premonstratensian monasteries were established in two regions – in Ulster from Dryburgh, Scotland, and in Connacht from Prémontré, France. The intercultural contribution of the order is assessed, as Premonstratensian canons settled in two diverse cultures independently of one another and under different circumstances. Houses in Ulster were founded by the Anglo-Norman lord, John de Courcy, and in Connacht, where the order was more successful, the patrons were prominent Gaelic lords. The role of the Premonstratensians in politics, religious organisation, society and economy is examined. In addition to analysing the physical remains, the monasteries and their related monuments are assessed in respect of their location in the medieval landscape and proximity to secular settlement. The archaeology of the temporal estates is reconstructed including the identification of farmsteads and granges. The extent of Premonstratensian lands, the wealth generated from these sources and from impropriations of rectories and vicarages is estimated. The study explores the Premonstratensian order not as an Irish institution, but as a larger European institution bound at least in theory by the concepts of a monastic rule demonstrating the channels of communication through the Church. The Irish circary is assessed in relation to how it operated within the statutes of the order and the project examines the extent to which the Premonstratensians remained a European order and whether the observances were adjusted to integrate into Irish medieval politics and church organisation. Although the Premonstratensians were a major religious order in continental Europe, the small number of Irish houses was founded in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries when colonisation into peripheral areas was taking place. This colonisation process is integrated with the history of European expansion, with the spread and absorption of the same ideas and ideals into distant societies with different political and cultural backgrounds. Research on the order in other peripheral areas of Europe is undertaken and compared with the Irish monasteries.

Recent Publications

Clyne, M.  2005 Archaeological excavations at Holy Trinity Abbey, Lough Key, Co. Roscommon. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 105C, 23-98.

Clyne, M.  2007 Kells Priory, Co. Kilkenny: archaeological excavations by T. Fanning and M. Clyne. Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Archaeological Monograph Series 3. Dublin.

Funding

Funded by the Lady Gregory Fellowship Scheme of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway.

E-mail M.Clyne1nuigalway.ie

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