Beschreibung
Clonmacnois was one of the main ecclesiastical centres in early Christian Ireland.
Yet no comprehensive work has hitherto been published which examines its
history as an institution of religious, social and economic life.
This book undertakes a detailed analysis of Clonmacnois before and during
the age of reform and assesses possible reasons
for its subsequent decline as an ecclesiastical centre. It traces the
history of the former
lay-ecclesiastical aristocracy down to the later Middle Ages, and, using
previously neglected evidence surviving in seventeenth-century
transcripts, sets out to reconstruct the extent of the former monastic
lands.