The lands of Llanthony Prima and Secunda in Ireland 1172-1541

Abstract

To analyse the charters contained in the Irish cartularies of the Augustinian priories of Llanthony Prima and Secunda, in order to trace the history of the Llanthony canons during the time that the canons were active in Ireland, c. 1174-1541 and to map their lands, is the primary purpose of this thesis. The charters are concerned, for the most part, with the tithes of land and ecclesiastical benefices both in the lordship of Meath and outside, granted by their greatest patron Hugh de Lacy I, his family and knights, and with the subsequent documentation in relation to those grants. By arranging the charters in correct historical sequence, as opposed to their arrangement in the extant cartularies (and in the very fine printed edition of the cartularies by Eric St John Brooks), the lands which were managed from their cells at Colpe and Duleek in County Meath can be examined in the order in which the canons received the endowments. From this study it has been possible to locate and map the lands in Ireland from which the Llanthony canons held the tithes and church benefices. Concentrating on the earliest charters granting land to Llanthony, and on the donors of those lands, it has been possible to establish that the majority of the families settled in Meath by Hugh de Lacy I also granted tithes of land to Llanthony. A further survey of the later charters reveals a complex prosopographical pattern of familial ties, interwoven with the tenacious patronage and advocacy of the landed gentry who identified with Llanthony down through the centuries, from the earliest settlement in the twelfth century until the Dissolution, in the sixteenth; a period of almost four hundred years. Among the witnesses to the charters many of Ireland's most prominent churchmen of the later medieval period emerge, together with some of the most influential noblemen. Investigating the people named in the charters allows us to see how they interacted with the Augustinian canons, whether and how they figure in Irish history, or are simply silent witnesses briefly identified with the lands of Llanthony in Ireland.