SOCIETY AND SETTLEMENT IN GLENDALOUGH ... - Ian Cantwell

strong farmers for a building such as Temple na Skellig. 141 According to the law textsthe fann size of a boaire was 27.8 ha. 142 which gives a total of 834 ha. needed toprovide the price of this church. The price of the Cathedral (single chamber) andRound Tower would take an annual rental income of 1,529 and 2,057 acresrespectively. There were other sources ofincome other than farm rentals which wouldhave included tributes from daughter houses, commercialsupply of agriculturalproduce and raw materials to the Norse ports ofDublin, Wicldow and Arldow, feesfrom com milling, donations from pilgrims and students, etc. It is impossible to saywhat the income of Glendalough was at anyone time but it must have beenconsiderable. Expenditure is also unknown but would have included wages and salariesto lay employees and contract craftsmen as wen as supporting the poor, weak andhandicapped and providing refuge to other victims offamine, war and plague.As a place ofleaming it was one ofthe most important in Leinster. Between 932 and1106 the obituaries of five Fer leiginn (head of monastic school) are recorded in theAnnals 143 . Recent research has indicated that the Drummond Missal and the'Glendalough Schoolbooks' containing fragments of Ars Grammatica, attributed toClemens Scottus, and De Abaca of Gerbert of Aurillac come from Glendalough.Keating, in the 17th century, speaks ofone ofthe 'chiefbooks' ofIreland, the Book ofGlendalough, which is thought to be the Manuscript known as Rawlinson B. 502 144 .This was a two way process, not onlywas there the import oflearning but the exportas well which is typified by the appointment ofGilla-na-naemh Laignech (obit. c.ll60),former Bishop of Glendalough, as head of the Schottenkloster (Irish monastery) ofWurzburg 145 .141ibid pp. 151-2~:2Stout M (1997) p. 11131.ong, op. cit p. 178 & D. 226144ibid. p. 177145ibid. & D. 22335