y noticed the
state of the Irish Church. He was in constant communication with the
Danish bishops, who had received consecration from him; and their
accounts were probably true in the main, however coloured by prejudice.
He wrote an earnest epistle to Turlough O'Brien, whom he addresses
respectfully as King of Ireland, and whose virtues as a Christian prince
he highly commends. His principal object appears to have been to draw
the king's attention to an abuse, of which the Danes had informed him,
with regard to the sacrament of matrimony. This subject shall be noticed
again. Pope Gregory VII. also wrote to Turlough, but principally on the
temporal authority of the Holy See.

The synod had four special subjects for consideration: (1) First, to
regulate the number of bishops--an excessive and undue multiplication of
episcopal dignity having arisen from the custom of creating chorepiscopi
or rural bishops. It was now decided that there should be but
twenty-four dioceses--twelve for the northern and twelve for the
southern half of Ireland. Cashel was also recognized as an
archiepiscopal see, and the successor of St. Jarlath was sometimes
called Archbishop of Connaught. The custom of lay appropriations, which
had obtained in some places, was also firmly denounced. This was an
intolerable abuse. St. Celsus, the Archbishop of Armagh, though himself
a member of the family who had usurped this office, made a special
provision in his will that he should be succeeded by St. Malachy. This
saint obtained a final victory over the sacrilegious innovators, but not
without much personal suffering.[239]

The (2) second abuse which was now noticed, referred to the sacrament of
matrimony. The Irish were accused of abandoning their lawful wives and
taking others, of marrying within the degrees of consanguinity, and it
was said that in Dublin wives were even exchanged. Usher, in commenting
on the passage in Lanfranc's letter which refers to these gross abuses,
observes that the custom of discarding wives was prevalent among the
Anglo-Saxons and in Scotland. This, however, was no excuse for the
Irish. The custom was a remnant of pagan contempt of the female sex,--a
contempt from which women were never fully released, until Christianity
restored the fallen, and the obedience of the second Eve had atoned for
the disobedience of the first. It appears, however, that these
immoralities were almost confined to the half-Christianized Danes, who
st