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APPENDICESThe Book of Ballymote (Leabhar Bhaile an Mhóta)Reference no.: RIA MS 23 P 12Written on vellum, probably around 1391, The Book of Ballymote was produced by the scribes Manus O’Duignan,Solomon O’Droma, and Robert McSheedy, for Tonnaltagh McDonagh, whose clan kept the manuscript until theearly sixteenth century, when it came into the hands of the O’Donnell clan. The first page of the work contains adrawing of Noah’s Ark as conceived by the scribe. The first written page is missing and the second opens with adescription of the ages of the world. It then contains a history of the Jews; a life of Saint Patrick; a copy of TheBook of Invasions, “The Instructions of King Cormac, as well as other stories of King Cormac Mac Airt, stories ofFionn Mac Cumhail and Brian Borumha, genealogies of various clans and kings.Book of Lismore (Leabhar Mac Carthaigh Riabhach)Also known as Book of McCarthy ReaghReference no.: RIA MS 23 P 2Believed to have been composed just before 1417, the Book of Lismore is a vellum manuscript, prepared at theSchool of Lismore, in what is now County Waterford. The book contains twelve saints’ lives including those ofPatrick, Columcille, and Brigid.Acts of the Saints (Acta Sanctorum)Acts of the Saints is an encyclopedic text in 68 folio volumes of documents examining the lives of Christian saints,in essence a critical biography, which is organised according to each saint’s feast day. It begins with two Januaryvolumes, published in 1643, and ended with the Propylaeum to December published in 1940.BollandistsThe Societé des Bollandistes named for the Jesuit scholar Jean Bolland (‘Bollandus’, 1596-1665) has overseen thismammoth undertaking, first in Antwerp and then in Brussels. When the Jesuits were suppressed by the Habsburggovernor of the Low Countries in 1788, the ‘Bollandistes’ continued their work, in the Abbey of Tongerloo. From1643 to 1794, 53 folio volumes of Acta Sanctorum had been published, covering the saints from January 1 toOctober 14. After the creation of the Kingdom of Belgium, the Bollandistes were permitted to reassemble, workingfrom the Royal Library of Belgium (‘Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique’) in Brussels.Lives of the Irish SaintsThe many ‘Lives of the saints’ are essential sources in our knowledge of societies, cultures and civilizations of theChristian world, even secular aspects not directly related to cult or doctrine. A saint is a person of note. The saintexercises an influence on society in civil as well as ecclesiastical affairs. After the saint’s death, the communitieswhich the saint has created, institutions he or she has founded, rules drawn up, and even the nature of the cultrendered to the saint, are the raw material of history. The “Lives” of the Irish Saints contain an immense quantityof material of first rate importance for the historian of the Celtic church. Underneath the later concoction of fableis a solid substratum of fact which no serious student can ignore. Even where the narrative is otherwise plainlymyth or fiction it sheds many a useful sidelight on ancient manners, customs and laws as well as on the curiousand often intricate operations of the Celtic mind.Codex SalmanticensisCollection of Latin Lives known as the Codex Salmanticensis, to which are appended brief marginal notes in mixedmiddle Irish and Latin. These Latin Lives are contained mainly in four great collections. The first and probably themost important of these is in the Royal Library at Brussels, included chiefly in a large manuscript known as ’CodexSalmanticensis’ from the fact that it belonged in the seventeenth century to the Irish College of Salamanca.88