SODOR
In 432, Saint
Patrick came to Ireland; the great Chronicle written-an. 488, Machald, Bishop
of Mann died-an. 492, St. Patrick, Bishop
of the Scots died, in the 120th yeare of his age and the 60th after his arrival
in Ireland to convert the Scots of St. Maughold. Towards the latter end of his
reign St. Patrick landed here in his second voyage to Ireland: and after some
stay left Germanus bishop, as Jocelinus says, " ad regendum et erudiendum populum
in fide Christi." This Germanus was canon of the Lateran, a prudent and holy man,
and one of the first assistants of Saint Patrick in the conversion of Ireland;
by his wisdom and conduct he firmly established the Christian religion in Mann:
he died before St. Patrick, and the church celebrates his memory among the blessed,
and the cathedral in Peel Castle is dedicated to him.
About the yeare 434
Pope Celestine Ist sent St. Patrick With twenty more to convert Ireland, or rather
Scotland; for it is probable he came not to Ireland till 441,
but finding the harvest great, and the labourers too few, he transported himself
into Britain, from whence returning an, 444,
with thirty religious and learned persons in his company, he landed in the Isle
of Eubonia, where he found the people given to magick; but being, overcome
or convinced, by his preaching and miracles they were converted, and St. Patrick
going for Ireland an. 447, left Germanus Bishop, which for the honour of the Manks
nation was sixty years more antient than Bangor
in Wales, which was the first bishoprick that we read of among the Britains;
and 114 years before Austin the Monk. To supply his loss, St. Patrick sent over
two bishops in succession, Corrindrius and Romulus; after whose death St. Maughold
was elected A. D. 498, four years
after the death of St. Patrick. Germanus introduced the liturgy of the Lateran,
and so absolutely settled the business of religion, that the Island never afterwards
relapsed. He died before St. Patrick, who sent two Bishops successively to supply
his place, one of whom survived St. Patrick five years.
The Episcopus
Sodorensis and Mann the same, whereas this Bishoprick of Mann was erected
many ages before St. Columbus, who is acknowledged by all writers to be the Founder
of the Abbey of Hye, in the Island of Iona, which from him was called Hycolumb-kill,
which Monastery was the Cathedral of the Bishop of the Isles, who was from that
time stiled Episcopus Sodorensis from a village called Sodor,
adjoining to the Monastery, in which the Bishop had his residence. It is probable
that about A. D. 594, the island was annexed
to Scotland, for we find Brennus reigning there, who is called by Buchanan Brendinus
Regulus, Euboniae; he was nephew to Aidan,
King of Scotland, to assist whom against the Picts he brought over an island
force; at this time Cenanus
was bishop, under whose care the princes of Scotland were placed. Twenty years
after the death of Brennus, the island was ravaged by Edwric, King of Northumberland.
For three hundred years next it seems to have been at peace in itself,
for we find no account of it in the British historians: but the Manks tradition
supplies us with a line of kings, whom they term Orrys, and of whom they had a
succession of twelve. The first was a son of a king of Denmark and Norway; he
first conquered the Oreades, and the Ehxides, and at last fixed his residence
in the Isle of Eubonia (Mann). he reigned long and peacably, and became the founder
of their second race of kings, called Orrys. "
During whose government
the Christian religion flourished under the care of their Bishops, successors
to St. Patrick." Castle Rushen (now the
prison) was built by Guttred,
the son of the first Orry., in breaking through a wall of this castle a few years
since, an oak beam was taken out, on which was this date, A. D. 907-this vast
pile of building is in the most perfect order, and a part of it was, till very
lately, inhabited by the Governor, though certainly better adapted as a safe retreat
from the attacks of Norwegian pirates of the tenth century, than as a residence
for an English gentlemen, of the nineteenth. Fifth in succession from Guttred
was Macon or Macutus, whom Edgar made Admiral of his fleet. Sir Henry Spelman
calls him " totius Angliae archipirata," and from him was taken the antient bearing
of the island, a ship in full sail with this inscription: " Rex Manniae et Insularum."
When Edgar made the memorable confirmation of the Charter of Glastonbury, Macon
subscribed to it immediately after the king of Scotland.
The Welsh line
of kings ruled in the Isle of Man for about four centuries, having been led there
by Maelgwyn, A.D. 525, where they
engrafted many of their customs on the country. The last king of this line was
Anarawd ap Roderic, who
died A.D. 913. It is to the ecclesiastical annals of that country that we have
to look for the succession of bishops during their dynasty, for there is a long
wanting record after Contentus, Baldus, and Malchus, who are given at uncertain
dates, until the days of the Danish line of kings of Man, when we find Brandon
A.D. 1025.
The Round
Tower on this islet, situated to the west of the ruins of St. Patrick s Church,
said to have been the earliest ecclesiastical edifice in the British Isles, and
to have been erected by St. Patrick, is too important a feature to be omitted
in this brief account of the Sodor
Diocese. It was formerly surmounted by a conical roof, which is to be seen
in an old painting, about A.D. 1600, now in the possession of the Earl of Derby,
at Knowsley.
The Bishopric of the Isles
was first instituted by Pope Gregory IV., in A.D. 840, and had jurisdiction over
the Western Islands called the
Hebrides, of which St. Mary’s, in Iona, was the Cathedral Church, and continued
a separate see until A.D. 1098, when King
Magnus of Norway conquered the Western Islands and also the Isle of Man, and
united the Bishoprics of Man and the Isles. Man being the more ancient see by
393 years, therefore Iona could not claim primacy over Man. After the union of
the sees the bishops bear the title of Sodor and Man, and sometimes of the Isles.
Wymund was the first bishop of the united sees. Roger of Wendover calls him the
first bishop, meaning after the union with the See of Man and that of the Isles.
This union of the sees lasted 235 years, until A.D. 1333. We find by a Bull of
Pope Anastasius IV., A.D. 1154, he established the province of Drontheim
in Norway as Metropolitan, which included the Bishopric of the Isles and of Man.’
The writer of the " Chronicon Insulæ Manniæ," has not given
us the names of the Bishops between A. D. 600 and A. D. 1100. A. D. 1065 begins
the " Chronicon Insulae Manniae." During this period, in the tenth century, Castle
Rushen was built; and in the eleventh, the Abbey of Rushen was founded, during
King Olave's minority, by Mac Marus. During this period also of 500 years, all
those Saints (excepting those already named), to whom our Parish Churches are
dedicated, lived and died and during a period of 1,400 years, 300 only have seen
it united to any other See. Gødred Crovan,
the son of Harold the Black, escaping
out of Iceland, came to Gødred, the son of Syrric, King of Mann at that
time. Gødred, the son of Syrric, King of Mann, died, and was succeeded
by his son Fingall. An. 1066, Gødred Crovan got a numerous fleet together
and arrived at Mann," which, after he had conquered, he divided between his own
followers and the natives, the southern part to the former, the northern to the
latter; "upon condition," says the chronicle, "That none of them should ever presume
to claim any part of it as their inheritance. Hence to this very day the whole
island is the king's, and all the rents that arise in it belong to him." The chronicle
then gives a list of all the kings of this Norwegian line, with an account of
the various actions of each; but it is only an account of battles, till A. D.
1102, when Olave, the son of Gødred, who had been brought up in the court
of Henry, King of England, came to his father's throne, in 1134.
The Bishopric
of the island was now no longer called the Bishopric of Man, but Sodor
and Man. Little as we know of these times, we see that things must have come
to a pretty pass, for when the Scandinavian dynasty came in the ecclesiastical
authorities were forbidden to exercise civil control over any subjects of the
king that were not also the tenants of their own baronies. Another authority derives
it from Sudreyjas, signifying in the Norwegian
the Southern Isles. A third derives it from the Greek Soter, Saviour, to whose
name the cathedral of Iona was dedicated. The Church ceased to be purely Celtic;
it became Celto-Scandinavian, otherwise Manx.
The styles of the Bishops
of the Isles was Episcopus Insularum Solerensium, until the English wrested Mann
from the Scots, when the Bishopric was divided into two — the Episcopus Sodorensis
et Manniae and the Episcopus Insularum severally. These styles have been separated
nearly five hundred years; and seeing that, at the time of their separation, the
Scottish prelates of that time did not retain the designation Sodorensis, it is
a tacit admission that they considered it then to belong of right to the Manx
see. This name would be taken from the site of the Manx Cathedral, where Christianity
first took root, with more propriety than from the Island itself, and which remained
full of heathenism; and the retention of the word Insularum in the Manx title
would have been considered a pre-eminent and in vidious distinction. The most
probable origin of the word Sodor, which has been so much disputed, is referable
to the Isle of Man itself, and that the reason why, as a lesser, it precedes Jilannia,
the greater, is because it. was in use from the first ages, and formed part of
the styles of the ancient Bishops in those seas, before the entire Island was
subjugated to Christianity.
The kings of’ Scotland, in the days of’ Eugenius,
are said by Hector Boethius to have been educated in it; and during the sovereignty
of the Earls of Derby
it was garrisoned and contained a residence for the Bishop, and was also used
as a place of confinement for several state prisoners of England, since the accession
of the house of Derby to the sovereignty of Man. But it appears to have owed a
good deal of its early celebrity to its Cathedral being the only one in the Island.
Apparently the clergy kept the Manx people in miserable ignorance. It was
not until the seventeenth century that the Book
of Common Prayer was translated into the Manx
language. The Gospels and the Acts were unknown to the Manx until nearly a
century later. Nor was this due to ignorance of the clergy of the Manx tongue,
for most of them must have been Manxmen, and several of the Bishops were Manxmen
also.
The Abbey of Russin, was to serve as a nursery to the church; from
hence it is abbots of Furness had
the appointment of the abbot of Russin; and, as some believe, the right of electing
the bishop himself, and was a sort of chapter to his diocese. Olave, having thus
laid the ground work of his establishment, greatly endowed the whole church. The
revenue was set out after the most antient and apostolical manner, viz.-One third
of all the tithes to the bishop, for his maintenance; the second to the abbey,
for education of youth and relief of the poor (for those good monks were then
the publick almoners, and by their own labours rather increased than diminished
the publick charity); the third portion, of- the tithes was given to the parochial
priests for their subsistence."
The chronicle gives a list of kings up
to 1210, who were most of them buried in the Church of Rushen Abbey. An. 1219,
Reginald, King of Mann, having been taken by King John under his protection, imitated
that king in submitting to the Pope: this surrender was done at London, at the
house of the Knights Templars. The
Act of surrender made by Reginald to the
see of Rome. Reginaldus rex insulae Mann, constituit se vassallum sedis Romanæ,
et ex insull sua facit feudum oblatum Londini, 10. cal. Octob. 1219. Anno 1249,
another Reginald was king, and left one
daughter, very young, who, in the yeare 1292
claimed the kingdom of the isles, and did homage to King Edward I. Although we
do not find in the whole Norwegian line any pretence to a female succession. The
old chronicle brings down the history to 1316.
It had given kings to England and Sicily, dukes to Normandy, and held the sovereignty
of these isles for nearly 200 years. This little kingdom deprived of the protection
of Norway, could not support itself; and Magnus the Ninth and last of the race
of Gødred Crovan,
who for two hundred years had enjoyed the name of kings, dying AN. 1265, their
inheritance became an addition to the crown of Scotland." The king of Scotland
governed the island by his Thanes.
A.D. 1266, July 2. By a convention between
their Majesties Alexander III of Scotland,
and Magnus IV. of Norway, the cession of
Man by Norway was made to Scotland. The Orkneys and Shetland were expressly excepted,
so as not to deprive the Norwegian archbishop of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction
and Metropolitan rights over Man and the Isles.’ A.D. 1333,
William Montague conquered the Island of Man from the Scots, and afterwards sold
it, and becoming forfeit to Henry IV. 1399, since which time it has remained in
the Crown of England or their nominees.
Among the major events of 12th-century
Norwegian history were the mission of Nicholas Breakspear (later Pope Adrian IV),
who organized the Norwegian hierarchy, and the rule of Sverre, who created a new
nobility grounded in commerce and, with the help of the popular party, the Birkebeiner,
consolidated the royal power. His grandson, Håkon IV, was put on the throne
by the Birkebeiner in 1217; under him and under Magnus VI (reigned 1263–80) medieval
Norway reached its greatest flowering and enjoyed peace and prosperity. During
this time Iceland and Greenland recognized Norwegian
rule.
In 1265, The Battle of Evesham of the Second Barons' War is fought
in Worcestershire, with the army of Edward defeating the forces of rebellious
barons led by Simon
de Montfort and killing de Montfort and many of his allies. This is sometimes
considered the death of chivalry in England. The Isle of Man comes under Scottish
rule. The Book of Aneirin (Welsh: Llyfr Aneirin) is a medieval manuscript which
contains Y Gododdin, an early Welsh-language poem, written in southern Scotland,
commemorating the battle of Catterick around the yeare 600, and other poems attributed
to Aneirin. Alfonso III the Liberal of Aragon becomes king. He was a son of Peter
III of Aragon and his Queen consort Constance of Sicily, daughter and heiress
of Manfred of Sicily. His maternal grandmother Beatrice of Savoy was a daughter
of Amadeus IV of Savoy and Anne of Burgundy.
The name in the original
Norse was Súðreyjar or Sudreys, or "southern isles", in contrast to the Norðreyjar,
the "northern isles" of Orkney and Shetland. The Isle of Man was included in with
these southern isles. This diocese was a part of the archdiocese of Trondheim.
Norway controlled all these islands until 1266, when they were ceded to Scotland.
The separate development of Norway was halted by the accession (1319) of Magnus
VII, who was also king of Sweden. Trade had been taken over by the Hanseatic
League, which maintained its chief northern office at Bergen. The 1270s is
the decade starting January 1, 1270, and ending December 31, 1279. The two major
surveys of the English census known as the Hundred Rolls were conducted. King
Edward I of England returned from the Eighth
Crusade to take the throne and was able to subjugate Wales by the end of the
decade; Scotland quelled an uprising on the Isle of Man, in doing so confirming
the concession of that territory made in 1266 by Norway in the Treaty of Perth.
Leadership of the Catholic Church attempted to address the East-West Schism of
the church through the Second Council of Lyons. In North America, a severe 23-year
drought began in the Grand Canyon area, which would eventually force the local
Anasazi people to emigrate from the region.
After 1397, Norway was controlled
at various times by Denmark and Sweden. The Isle of Man was detached from the
Scottish islands in 1334 and came under the British crown in 1765. Names which
have filtered in since the end of the Stanley period have been mostly English
and Lowland Scotch.
After the English possessed themselves of the Island,
the Scotch bishops being elected by their own kings ceased to use the title of
"Sodor," and were called "of the Isles." The Manx bishops continued to use the
title, Sodor and Man. A.D. 1458,
11th July. A bull of Pope Calistus united the Church of Sodor, Isle of Man, to
that of York, in the episcopate of Thomas of Kirkham.
The name of Sodor
or Soter has been a vexed question with many writers on. the ecclesiastical history
of the Isle of Man, and has been left generally to conjecture. It would appear
there are two places that have gone for centuries under that name, one in the
small isle of lona, and the other in St.
Patrick s Isle at Peel. The latter was formerly called "St. Patrick s Isle,"
because St. Patrick for some length of time, as is recorded, resided there. In
various documents that are extant, this rocky islet, containing an area of about
five acres, and formerly entirely surrounded by the sea, thereby rendering it
particularly safe from any encroachment from the mainland, has been called Sodor.
It
is probable that some church called Soter or Sodor existed in this Island, and
gave origin to the title of the bishopric. Bishop Wilson expressly informs us
that this suggestion was realized by a deed from the Earl of Derby to Bishop Huan,
in 1500; on the other hand it is stated that the etymon of Sodor is Sudor, or
the south province of the Norwegian conquests of the eleventh century; but in
some of the early Norwegian Sagas the Orkney Islands are denominated the Sudoreys,
long before they had conquered the Isle of Man. As their do minion became extended
southwards to Man, by the conquests of Magnus,
so would the name Sudoreys extend, and become confused with Soterensis, from the
reign of Gødred Crovan till the
Scottish annexation, a period of about 200 years, and from that till the deed
granted to Bishop Huan another 250 years.
According to George Buchannan,
Sodor, or Soterense Fanum, was situated in a small island near Castletown, on
the southern shores of the Island. It is, therefore, a matter of history that
there was a place called Sodor in the Island itself; indeed we have still the
name Port Soderick there. Others say it was the name of a village in Iona, and,
according to Hector Boethius, Conranus, Bishop of Sodor, rendered the place (wherever
it was) famous as a site for educational purposes and a mansion of the muses,
for the education of the earliest Scottish princes.
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