Page:Life-of-st-patrick-lynch.djvu/114

bus meis, mutuo accepi, suo spe resurrectionis ad vitam jaceo, Samuel, permissione Divina, hujus insulæ episcopus. Siste, lector, et vide, ac ride palatium episcopi." Nor is it to be omitted, that the bishops of Man are suffragans to the archbishops of York, though formerly to Drontheim, in Norway. In Peel castle is also a ruined church, dedicated to St. Patrick; besides, within this circuit is the lord's house, some ruinous lodgings of the bishop, and other remains of antiquity.

Ramsey is the fourth town, and hath a good haven, defended by a block-house, built by the late earl.

There were anciently in the Isle of Man, three monasteries, viz. the monastery of St. Mary's of Rushen in Castletown, (or perhaps Ballysally,) the burying-place of the kings of Man: it was attached to Furness abbey, and consisted of an abbot, who was a baron, (he retained his temporalities, and tried his own tenants,) and twelve monks of the Cistertian order, who had considerable revenues; -the chapel was the largest church-building in the island except the cathedral.

In Kirk-lez-Ayre was a small plantation of the Cistertian order.

Beemaken, a convent of Franciscan friars under the direction of the friars minors of Dublin convent, according to Wadding and Captain Stevens's Monasticum Hibernicum.

The abbots of Bangor, in the county of Down, also of St. Bees of Whittern, in Galloway, were barons of Man, because they held lands in this island, on condition of attending the kings of it when required.

Hovedon relates that Vivianus, presbyter cardinal of St. Stevens, in Monte Cælio, was sent legate by Alexander the III. into Scotland, Ireland, and Norway, to determine ecclesiastical causes. Abbot Benedict, who then flourished, says, on Christmas-eve, from Scotland, the cardinal landed in the Isle of Man, from whence, after he had been fifteen days honourably entertained by king Godfrey, he passed over to Down, in the north of Ireland. There is no chapter in the Isle of Man, but an archdeacon only.