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 still retained many of their heathen customs.  The canons of St. Patrick, which were always respected by the native Irish, forbid such practices; and the synod, therefore, had only to call on the people to observe the laws of the Church more strictly.

Two other subjects, (3) one regarding the consecration of bishops, the other (4) referring to the ceremonies of baptism, were merely questions of ecclesiastical discipline, and as such were easily arranged by competent authority.  In St. Anselm’s correspondence with the prelates of the south of Ireland, he passes a high eulogium on their zeal and piety, while he deplores certain relaxations of discipline, which they were as anxious to reform as he could desire.

We have already mentioned that St. Celsus appointed St. Malachy his successor in the Archiepiscopal See of Armagh.  Malachy had been educated by the Abbot Imar O’Hagan, who presided over the great schools of that city; and the account given of his early training, sufficiently manifests the ability of his gifted instructor, and the high state of intellectual culture which existed in Ireland.  While still young, St. Malachy undertook the restoration of the famous Abbey of Bangor.