es of the Norsemen. We have
noted also the restoration at the same period of communication between
Ireland and the rest of Europe--the coming of students to the Irish
schools, and the wanderings of Irish scholars in other lands. We have
seen that the establishment of the Danish dioceses gave to the Irish a
model of diocesan episcopacy, and that among the Irish-born bishops of
those dioceses there were men capable of leading a Reform movement. And
we have learned that Lanfranc and Anselm, through their relation with
the Danish dioceses, found means to induce the more conspicuous civil
and religious leaders of the Celtic population to undertake the work of
reconstituting the Church. Finally, we have been able to name some
persons who might be expected to take a prominent place in the early
stages of the Reformation. They are Gilbert of Limerick, Malchus of
Waterford, O'Dunan of Meath, and the princes of the O'Brien family. The
best proof that we have rightly conceived the origin of the movement
will come before us when we study the share which these persons
severally had in promoting it.

We must now trace, as far as it can be done, the first steps in the
process by which, under the influences which I have indicated, the
Church of Ireland passed from its older to its later hierarchical
system.

The earliest attempt to give concrete form to the principles of the
Reformers seems to have been made in the Kingdom of Meath, about the
year 1100. But the primary evidence for the fact is of much later date.
There are extant some constitutions of Simon Rochfort, bishop of Meath,
put forth at a synod of his diocese held at the monastery of SS. Peter
and Paul at Newtown, near Trim, in 1216. The first of them recites an
ordinance of the papal legate, Cardinal John Paparo, at the Council of
Kells in 1152, which is of great importance.

Paparo ordered that as the bishops of the weaker sees died off,
arch-priests, or, as we call them, rural deans, should succeed to their
place, and take charge of the clergy and people within their
borders.[30]

The inference which this enactment suggests is that the weaker sees to
which it refers were the centres of small dioceses, which Paparo desired
to be converted into rural deaneries. In accordance with the ordinance
of Paparo, Rochfort's synod enjoined that rural deans should be placed
in the five sees of Trim, Kells, Slane, Skreen and Dunshaughlin, each of
whom should supervise the churches