Irish Arts Review

The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland by Roger StalleyReview by: Brian de BreffnyIrish Arts Review (1984-1987), Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 16-17Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20491979 .

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

BOOK REVIEWS

THE CISTERCIAN MONASTERIES OF IRELAND ROGER STALLEY

Yale University Press, Newhaven & London, 1987, Stg?25

The department of History of Art of Trinity College, Dublin, is undoubtedly distinguished for the prestigious publi cations coming from members of its faculty. In 1978, we had Professor Anne

Crookshank's The Painters of Ireland (in co-authorship with the Knight of Glin), more recently, in 1985, Dr. Edward McParland's James Gandon and now, Roger Stalley's The Cistercian Monast eries of Ireland, published this year on

May 21st, all authoritative works based on much original research and critical analysis.

Over the last two decades there has been a surge of interest in Cistercian studies with a consequent outpouring of relevant publications among which are Professor Georges Duby's splendid Saint Bemard, L'Art Cistercien with superb colour plates, published in Paris in 1976 by Arts et Metiers Graphiques, as the first volume of their series entitled 'Les

Grands Batisseurs' Peter Fergusson's Architecture of Solitude, Cistercian Abbeys in Twelfth Century England, published by Princeton University Press in 1984, and Cistercian Art and Society in the British Isles, published by Cambridge University Press in 1986 at Stg?60, edited by Christopher Norton and David Park with contributions from the parti cipants at a conference held in 1983, including a chapter by Roger Stalley.

Now we have Stalley's own excellent work on the Cistercians in Ireland, beautifully produced and illustrated with plans, diagrams and monochrome plates at the most reasonable price of Stg?25.

Roger Stalley's book, lucidly written, makes fascinating reading; it is a veritable tour de force, covering coher ently the history of the Cistercian order in Ireland, the architecture, decoration and furnishing of the monasteries in detail, and the effects of the dissolut ion. Useful appendices include a chrono logical list of the major Irish Cistercian houses and an alphabetical catalogue of the major Cistercian sites in Ireland

with a select bibliography for each. I was surprised to come across an

error in the first chapter where, on p. 13, writing of the notables at the

consecration of the church at Mellifont in 1157, Stalley mentions the presence of "Devorgilla, wife of the king of

Meath". Devorgilla (Derbforgaill) was in fact the wife of the king of Breffny and daughter of a king of Meath. Her father, Murchad O'Melaghlin (Ua M'ael Sechlainn), king of Meath, had founded Bective Abbey for the Cistercians in 1147. The unfortunate Devorgilla is more often remembered for her adulterous escapade with Dermot

MacMurrough, king of Leinster, who founded Baltinglass Abbey for the

Cistercians in 1148. The lady is, how ever, correctly described by Stalley as wife of the king of Breffny on p.210 and also in the index.

I wonder whether Stalley is correct in assuming that the gifts of the high king,

Murtagh MacLochlainn, necessarily sig nify that Mellifont was regarded as more than a local institution. At the time

Murtagh MacLochlainn already had a personal association with Mellifont be cause four years earlier, in 1153, he had founded the Cistercian abbey at Newry, Co. Down which was colonized from Mellifont. Incidentally, this king is referred to on p.13 as "Murtagh

MacLochlainn" but appears on p.249 sub Newry as "Maurice MacLoughlin", copying Gwynn and Hadcock's notice of Newry in their Medieval Religious Houses, Ireland, (1970). This is a minor matter but could confuse a reader. As far as I know, Murtagh is the usual anglicization of Muirchertach and there is no good reason to translate the name as Maurice.

Stalley's first chapter also relates the violence which followed the massive breakdown of Cistercian discipline early in the thirteenth century. The ensuing crisis was the so-called 'Conspiracy of

Mellifont' about which the letter book of Stephen of Lexington, the visitor sent from the General Chapter to cope

with the trouble, is most informative, providing vivid details about daily life in the Irish Cistercian monasteries. In a delightful phrase, Stephen described the recalcitrant community at Monaster nenagh, Co. Limerick as having "drunk from the chalice of Babylon."

In reading of Monasternenagh I was interested to learn that in the thir teenth century the abbey owed a debt to Italian bankers, the Ricardi of Lucca.

Graiguenamanagh owed a conspicuous

amount to the same bankers in 1299 on account of forward selling in the wool market. Earlier in the century the comm unity at Graiguenamanagh had been reprimanded by Stephen of Lexington for having burdened itself with an oppressive debt incurrred by eagerness to complete the monastic buildings. At

Graiguenamanagh the whole church was extravagantly floored about 1250 with tiles laid to create a zigzag pattern.

Stalley wisely does not follow those writers who have exaggerated the im portance of monks such as Robert of Clairvaux who was sent by Saint Bernard to Mellifont to help set up the new abbey. There has been a tendency to strain the available evidence and describe such monks as architectural supervisors. Stalley gives his opinion that it is reading too much into Saint

Bernard's statement that he was sending Robert to assist in the advancement of "the buildings and other things neces sary for the wellbeing" to assume that Robert was effectively the architect of Mellifont although presumably he was responsible for the Burgundian ele

ments in its design. In a later chapter Stalley credits the builders of the first Irish monasteries, led by Robert of

Clairvaux, with having introduced a body of 'know how' which helped to dictate the course of Irish architecture for over a century. At the same time he cautiously underlines the fact that there is no evidence that French masons

worked in Ireland and that the stylistic details invariably have an Irish or English flavour.

While specialists in Cistercian studies have found it difficult to resolve the question of Burgundian influence throughout the order generally, Stalley points out that in Ireland, where there was no pre-existing strong native tradi tion of Romanesque building, the major stimulus in the first decades of Cister cian building came from Burgundy both in the use of architectural elements such as pointed arches and pointed barrel vaults and in the adoption, albeit with some elasticity, of the distinctive proportional formulae. Hanno Hahn, who was unable to discern the use of these formulae in the plan of the first church at Mellifont, and finding himself unable to explain why they had not been adopted, overcame the paradox, by proposing in his Die Fruihe Kirchen baukunst zer Zisterzienser, (Berlin, 1957)

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

BOOK REVIEWS

that the ruins of the first church at Mellifont are of a pre-Cistercian build

ing, erected prior to 1142. Stalley rightly points out that there is no historical evidence for such a suggest ion. He then demonstrates most com petently that the plan of the first church at Mellifont, apart from the width of the transept, does comply with the formulae; the length of the crossing and presby tery from east to west, (62 feet 9 inches) is within half an inch of being equal to one third of the total length of the church, while the width of the nave and one aisle and the distance from the centre of the crossing to the east wall of the presbytery are about the same, differing by about only twelve inches from one half of the length of the transepts from north to south (48 feet 5 inches).

The Cistercian statutes forbade both sculpture and pictures in the churches of the monasteries of the order, mainly on the grounds that they were liable to distract the monks from their godly meditation and cause them to neglect their discipline of religious gravity. Stalley points out that in the early years of Cistercian building in Ireland the ban on sculptural ornamentation other than purely abstract motifs, would not have seemed strange because Romanesque sculpture was still in its infancy in Ireland and most of the older existing Irish churches were austerely plain.

Very little seems to be known about the possible use in Cistercian houses of books and objects brought by new communities from other places. Stalley suggests that if the rule caused any artistic tension in Ireland, it was probably in the area of ornamental metalwork and manuscript illuminat ion because artefacts such as the

magnificent shrines and crosses which were made in Ireland in the first half of the twelfth century were certainly pro scribed by the Cistercian statutes. However, efforts to obey the spirit of the rule diminished. Disobedience in the matter of decoration in the Irish

monasteries was noted and criticized by Stephen of Lexington in 1228. Never theless, Stalley points out that really the level of restraint shown by the Irish

Cistercian houses in their attitude to decoration is impressive. In his conclu sion he observes that the Cistercians' insistence on visual simplicity proved to be a negative aspect in their overall

contribution to Irish art and architect ure, conflicting, as it did, with a subtle and colourful native tradition. He re minds us that the Cistercians had already influenced and redirected the artistic tastes of the country before the settlement of the Anglo-Normans who are usually blamed for the demise of the native art.

Brian de Breffny

THE DOLMEN BOOK OF IRISH STAMPS

LIAM MILLER (with preface by Feargal Quinn)

The Dolmen Press, 1R?7.95

A pleasantly produced book on Irish stamps for the general reader is to be welcomed; especially when the author has a wide knowledge of Irish stamps. In format, this one resembles a child's book - the stamps reproduced oversize with the approval of An Post.

The author traces the early history of the stamp in Ireland and, whilst.show ing two early examples, one from an Irish M.P. (then, as now, carried free!) and another addressed to The Hon. Lady Cuffe of Leyrath in County Kilkenny; yet he doesn't show the Mulready Cover which An Post went to great lengths to commemorate with a good design by Colin Harrison, showing the artist's studio and the Mulready envelope.

The author usefully traces the evolut ion of the Irish-Celtic prototype stamp

which gradually became outmoded and changed into more contemporary idioms, especially the Definitives drawn by Michael Craig, including the contro versial 'Busarus' stamp.

I found the layout awkward, especially when the stamps appear in varying forms all over the page with no particu lar logic that I could discern.

The early stamp designers are noted but gradually, it would appear, the stamps produced themselves; for ex ample, in the section on Airmails, the early designer Richard King is credited

with his work, but for the Aer Lingus stamps, one of which is illustrated, no artist is named. It was, in fact, Robert Ballagh. Under Commemoratives the author reproduces the other Aer Lingus stamps, along with several other topics, but names no designer. As we read on, through the Chapter on Environment,

we find a pattern of cross referencing through several chapters with no visual

accompaniment in the relevant chapter and no footnote or other reference to the artist.

In the Fauna & Flora section we find only Wendy Walsh and Ian Loe singled out for design origination, which is somewhat incomplete. In the chapter on Intemational Concerns, only two designers are mentioned, the inter national CEPT designer M.J. Lariviere and Karl Uhlemann.

In the section on Irish Enterprise the author discusses some of the notable public institutions, including one we don't have - "The National Art Gallery". I take this to be the National Gallery of Ireland.

Although a generally useful and attractive book, it doesn't inform the general reader as to State policy on stamps. All designs have to be given specific Cabinet approval. There are two advisory committees for Irish stamps: (1) The Advisory Committee for subjects and themes which reports to the Cabinet (who in turn commis sion the subject) and (2) a Design

Committee which commissions the designers and proofs the design.

As the country, through An Post, produces something like fifty different stamps a year for various National and International commitments, it would have been useful to note this. Stamps generate a good deal of revenue for An Post through international sales. An Post competes in an international market and holds its own very well in this sphere.

The book has two main faults. It

cloaks itself in an old-fashioned Civil Service anonymity about the design system and it doesn't touch on the way in which the National Stamp has become one of the image builders of National Government. It will need constant updating due to the number of stamps issued annually and next time it

would be helpful to include an index for the general reader showing who designed what.

Otherwise this is an attractive, reasonably priced, readable book, especially interesting on Irish history and how it appears on the Irish stamp.

Ciaran MacGonigal Member of the Stamp Design

Committee for An Post.

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