Archbishop of Armagh from 1272 to 1303, Nicholas mac Mael-su was the last representative of the old Irish ecclesiastical tradition to serve in that position in medieval Ireland. Little is known about his background, except that he was a native of the diocese of Ardagh (Cos. Longford and Roscommon). He came of Irish (as opposed to Anglo-Norman) stock, probably from a prominent local family, some of whose members were later charged with killing the king’s knights. His forename is likely to have been assumed upon taking holy orders, rather than testifying to an accommodation with Anglo-Norman culture in Ireland. He may have received a university education abroad, as suggested by references in a contemporary obituary to his secular eloquence and his title of magister.
Elected in 1270 and consecrated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Tusculum in 1272 (Pope Gregory X was then in the Holy Land), Nicholas then rendered homage to Henry III in England. He may have attended the Council of Lyons (1274). Certainly he made its main concerns—excessive secular interference in episcopal elections and the proper administration of lands owned by the church—the central issues of his own career. To further his cause, Nicholas cultivated good relations with the English administration in Ireland, especially with Stephen Fulbourne, bishop of Water-ford and justiciar of Ireland. He tried to have Stephen’s brother, Walter, appointed bishop of Meath against the wishes of the local diocesan chapter. The attempt backfired and Nicholas became the subject of a royal investigation, being summoned to answer charges at Drogheda in 1284.
More broadly, he fought the crown on the issue of the king’s right to the temporalities of a diocese during a vacancy. Edward I rejected the claim on the grounds that English common law gave him this right and that the same law was deemed to apply in all Ireland, both Anglo-Norman and Gaelic. In reality, the English administration in Ireland was in no position to enforce common law in native-held areas, so Nicholas was able to retain control of temporalities in most of the disputed dioceses.
In another famous exchange, when Edward tried to levy a special tax on the Irish church to finance his wars, Nicholas reacted by summoning a council of the Armagh province at Trim in 1291. From this meeting emerged a united front of Irish and Anglo-Norman bishops, who vowed to defend each other’s rights against any lay power trying to hinder them in the exercise of their episcopal duties. Although nothing more is heard of this movement, it demonstrated Nicholas’s ability to marshal support from traditional enemies in defense of basic ecclesiastical rights.
Yet Nicholas was no less diligent in protecting those same rights against the native Irish rulers of the small kingdoms that formed much of his province. When Boniface VIII published Clericis laicos, a papal bull forbidding secular rulers such as the kings of England and France from levying taxes on the church without first obtaining Rome’s permission, Nicholas deftly appropriated it for his own purposes. Armed with the bull and the relics of Ireland’s three greatest saints, Patrick, Colum Cille, and Brigit (their location at Saulpatrick had been revealed to him in 1293) Nicholas did a circuit of the neighboring Gaelic kingdoms. He persuaded Domnall Ua Neill of Tfr nEogain, Brian Mac Mathgamna of Airgialla (Oriel), and Donn Mag Uidhir of Fermanagh to put their names to a document protecting the church from various secular infringements. Thus, the deed made provision for fines of cattle (an Irish custom) for injuries done to ecclesiastical property and persons (including damage done by hired mercenaries, the Irish kern and Scots gallowglass); stipulated penalties for the followers of those lords who injured clerks going to Rome, and nuns or widows; and upheld the church’s right to goods arising from intestacy.
As indicated by these cases, Nicholas does not fit the stereotypical characterization of the church in Ireland of the thirteenth century as divided into two perpetually hostile camps, Irish and Anglo-Norman. Certainly, as a native Irish archbishop of a predominantly Irish province he knew how to use the traditional weapons of his culture. Witness his exploitation of the relics of Ireland’s three great saints and his recourse to the customary fines of cattle as exacted in native Irish law. Yet he seems to have cultivated good relations with the Anglo-Norman bishops. In addition to plotting with Stephen of Fulbourne to have the latter’s brother made bishop of Meath, he maintained good relations with the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, avoiding the potentially explosive topic of which ecclesiastical province held primacy of all Ireland. And although he fought with the crown, he was fully prepared to cooperate with it as long as ecclesiastical rights were honored.
