nation was fully deserved. The turning of the bishopric into a hereditary office was no doubt a great evil; still, it is well to remember that the authority of the hereditary abbot and bishop (for both offices were now united) was cheerfully recognized by bitterly opposing factions. The period of which we are treating saw a long-continued struggle between North and South; but the kings of Munster were as ready to acknowledge Armagh as were those of Ulster. Perhaps, after all, this very hereditary succession secured the peace of the Church as nothing else could have done. If reigning families fought for spiritual as they did for temporal power, the whole country would have relapsed into barbarism, and soon no religion of any kind would have been left.
I have shown that as Armagh increased in power there was a corresponding decrease in the influence of the Columban order. In the period we are now considering, Armagh occupies by far the most prominent part of the history. But it is to be remembered that the materials at our disposal for the history of this period are nearly all derived from sources in sympathy with Armagh, and that therefore it is hard for us to say in how far it really enjoyed ecclesiastical pre-eminence. When we read of a bishop resigning one see because he has been appointed to another, we naturally conclude that the new appointment is one of more importance than the old. This is what actually happened in 988. Dubhdalethe was Abbot and Bishop of Armagh. He was an able and ambitious man. He aspired to the abbacy before it was vacant; and Muiredeach, who held the see in 966, was set aside in his favour. In 973 he made a circuit of the churches of Munster, demanding and obtaining tribute from them. In 985 he asserted
