Widowhood and attainder in medieval Ireland

“I have surveyed an enormous amount of material in the preceding pages” is Keith Busby’s comment on his book (p. 419). True enough. Seldom has an author treated Ireland’s early literature as ambitiously as he does, and Busby’s achievement is the more remarkable given the scantiness of the material. French literature surviving from medieval Ireland is (like literature in English) interesting but meagre. These texts of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries being few, the author fleshes out his material with writing on Ireland from Britain and the Continent, including legends of Arthur and of the Irish princess Iseult or Isolde. That at once makes French in Medieval Ireland essential for Romance scholars, as well as for medievalists concerned with the Irish.

Download Full-text

Fosterage in Medieval Ireland

10.2307/j.ctv10tq4g3 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Tom C. O’Donnell

Keyword(s):

Medieval Ireland

Download Full-text

Movers and Shakers?

10.1093/oso/9780190857967.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Alexander O'Hara

Keyword(s):

Cultural Background ◽

Early Medieval ◽

Medieval Ireland

This chapter considers Columbanus’s cultural background and how this influenced his dealings with women, both in early medieval Ireland and on the Continent. In particular, women as inspiration, patrons, and antagonists are portrayed as having had a formative influence on Columbanus, primarily in the Vita Columbani, written by Jonas of Bobbio. To what extent are these relationships true of Columbanus’s own experience? In order to tease this out more fully special attention will be given to women such as Columbanus’s unnamed mother as well as to the powerful queens, Brunhild and Theodelinda.

Download Full-text

Anglo-Norman Parks in Medieval Ireland. Fiona Beglane. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015. xii + 228 pp. $70. - Irish Demesne Landscapes, 1660–1740. Vandra Costello. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015. 256 pp. $74.50.

Renaissance Quarterly ◽

10.1086/689098 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 69 (3) ◽

pp. 1101-1103

Author(s):

Patrick J. Duffy

Keyword(s):

Anglo Norman ◽

Medieval Ireland

Download Full-text

The Cult of St Edmund, King and Martyr in Medieval Ireland

The Downside Review ◽

10.1177/0012580618822471 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 136 (4) ◽

pp. 223-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Francis Young

Keyword(s):

Middle Ages ◽

Anglo Saxon ◽

Norman Conquest ◽

14Th Century ◽

Patron Saint ◽

12Th Century ◽

Anglo Norman ◽

Christ Church ◽

Medieval Ireland ◽

The Middle Ages

St Edmund, king and martyr (an Anglo-Saxon king martyred by the Vikings in 869) was one of the most venerated English saints in Ireland from the 12th century. In Dublin, St Edmund had his own chapel in Christ Church Cathedral and a guild, while Athassel Priory in County Tipperary claimed to possess a miraculous image of the saint. In the late 14th century the coat of arms ascribed to St Edmund became the emblem of the king of England’s lordship of Ireland, and the name Edmund (or its Irish equivalent Éamon) was widespread in the country by the end of the Middle Ages. This article argues that the cult of St Edmund, the traditional patron saint of the English people, served to reassure the English of Ireland of their Englishness, and challenges the idea that St Edmund was introduced to Ireland as a heavenly patron of the Anglo-Norman conquest.

Download Full-text