ganization of the Church of Ireland was similar to that of the other
Churches of western Christendom. The country was divided into dioceses;
and each diocese had a bishop as its ruler, and a Cathedral Church in
which the bishop's stool was placed. The Cathedral Church, moreover, had
a chapter of clergy, regular or secular, who performed important
functions in the diocese. But up to the end of the eleventh century all
these things were unknown among the Irish. The constitution of the
Church was then of an entirely different type, one that had no exact
parallel elsewhere. The passage from the older to the newer organization
must have taken place in the twelfth century. During that century,
therefore, there was a Reformation in the Irish Church, however little
we may know of its causes or its process. But this Reformation was no
mere re-modelling of the hierarchy. It can be shown that it imposed on
the members of the Church a new standard of sexual morality; if we
believe contemporary writers, it restored to their proper place such
rites as Confession, Confirmation and Matrimony; it substituted for the
offices of divine service previously in use those of the Roman Church;
it introduced the custom of paying tithes; it established in Ireland the
monastic orders of Latin Christendom[1]; and it may have produced
changes in other directions.[2] But I propose to confine myself to the
change in the constitution of the Church, which was its most striking
feature. The subject, even thus narrowed, will give us more than can be
satisfactorily treated in a few pages.

First, I must emphasize the assertion made a moment ago that the
constitution of the Irish Church in the eleventh century was _sui
generis_. Let us begin by reminding ourselves what it was from the sixth
to the eighth century. It was then essentially monastic in character.
The rulers of the Church were the abbots of the monasteries, commonly
known as the coarbs or successors of their founders. These abbots were
sometimes bishops; but whether they were bishops or of lower rank in the
ministry, their authority was inherent in their office of coarb. At this
period bishops were numerous--more numerous than in later medieval or
modern times; and certain functions were reserved for bishops, for
example, ordination. No ecclesiastic, of whatever status, could perform
such functions, unless he was of the episcopal order. But no bishop, as
such, had jurisdiction. The bishops were o