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territories owned by Norman barons, the king's writ did not run.[2]

Recourse was had to legislative measures to preserve the English
colonists from being merged completely into the native population.
According to the Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) the colonists were
forbidden to intermarry with the Irish, to adopt their language,
dress, or customs, or to hold any business relations with them, and
what was worse, the line of division was to be recognised even within
the sanctuary. No Irishman was to be admitted into cathedral or
collegiate chapters or into any benefice situated in English
territory, and religious houses were warned against admitting any
Irish novices, although they were quite free to accept English
subjects born in Ireland[3] (1367). This statute did not represent a
change of policy in regard to Irish ecclesiastics. From the very
beginning of the Norman attempt at colonisation the relations between
the two bodies of ecclesiastics had been very strained. Thus, in the
year 1217 Henry III. wrote to his Justiciary in Ireland calling his
attention to the fact that the election of Irishmen to episcopal Sees
had caused already considerable trouble, and that consequently, care
should be taken in future that none but Englishmen should be elected
or promoted to cathedral chapters. The Irish clerics objected strongly
to such a policy of exclusion, and carried their remonstrances to
Honorius III. who declared on two occasions (1220, 1224) that this
iniquitous decree was null and void.[4] As the papal condemnations did
not produce the desired effect, the archbishops, bishops, and chapters
seem to have taken steps to protect themselves against aggression by
ordaining that no Englishman should be admitted into the cathedral
chapters, but Innocent IV., following the example of Honorius III.,
condemned this measure.[5]

Notwithstanding its solemn condemnation by the Holy See this policy of
exclusion was carried out by both parties, and the line of division
became more marked according as the English power began to decline.
The petition addressed to John XXII. (1317) by the Irish chieftains
who supported the invasion of Bruce bears witness to the fact that the
Statutes of Kilkenny did not constitute an innovation, and more than
once during the fifteenth century the legislation against Irish
ecclesiastics was renewed. The permission given to the Archbishop of
Dublin to confer benefices situated in the Irish districts of his
diocese on Irish clerics (1485, 1493) serves only to emphasise the
general trend of policy.[6] Similarly the action of the Dominican
authorities in allowing two superiors in Ireland, one of the houses in
the English Pale, the other for the houses in the territories of the
Irish princes[7] (1484), the refusal of the Irish Cistercians to
acknowledge the jurisdiction of their English superiors, the boast of
Walter Wellesley, Bishop of Kildare and prior of the monastery of Old
Connal (1539) that no Irishman had been admitted into this institution
since the day of its foundation,[8] prove clearly enough that the
relations between the Irish and English ecclesiastics during the
fifteenth century were far from being harmonious.

In the beginning, as has been shown, the Holy See interfered to
express its disapproval of the policy of exclusion whether adopted by
the Normans or the Irish, but later on, when it was found that a
reconciliation was impossible, the Pope deemed it the lesser of two
evils to allow both parties to live apart. Hence the Norman community
of Galway was permitted to separate itself from the Irish population
immediately adjoining, and to be governed in spirituals by its own
warden (1484); and Leo X. approved of the demand made by the chapter
of St. Patrick's, Dublin, that no Irishman should be appointed a canon
of that church (1515).[9] But though the Holy See, following the
advice of those who were in a position to know what was best for the
interests of religion, consented to tolerate a policy of exclusion, it
is clear that it had no sympathy with such a course of procedure. In
Dublin, for example, where English influence might be supposed to make
itself felt most distinctly, out of forty-four appointments to
benefices made in Rome (1421-1520) more than half were given to
Irishmen; in the diocese of Kildare forty-six out of fifty-eight
appointments fell to Irishmen (1413-1521), and for the period 1431-
1535, fifty-three benefices out of eighty-one were awarded in Meath to
clerics bearing unmistakably Irish names.[10] Again in 1290 Nicholas
IV. insisted that none but an Irishman should be appointed by the
Archbishop of Dublin to the archdeaconry of Glendalough, and in 1482
Sixtus IV. upheld the cause of Nicholas O'Henisa whom the Anglo-Irish
of Waterford refused to receive as their bishop on the ground that he
could not speak English.[11]