This collection of twenty nine essays celebrates Howard B. Clarke, scholar of medieval and socio-economic history who taught at University College Dublin for nearly forty years. It is, as I am sure the editors know, entirely fitting that the subject of Dublin should have been the focus of this feschrift, because of Howard Clarke's obvious interest in the city. It is also enjoyable to see that scholarship on that city has proliferated in the last ten to fifteen years and this finely produced volume forms a very welcome addition to the ever growing library on medieval and modern Dublin. Apart from a number of senior and well known scholars, it is rewarding to see collections such as this including students and relatively junior scholars. The difficulty with a volume such as this is that there are always one or two essays that are of particular interest but this is not the case with this volume. By focusing on one city and its history up to the end of the medieval period, the essays (with one notable exception) are closely related and all are of interest.
After an introductory section of five essays which focus on the scholarship of Howard Clarke, the remaining twenty-four studies are separated into three unequal divisions, the first two being chronological (Viking Age and Medieval Dublin), and the last one is devoted to representations of the city from the two periods already discussed.
After the homages, the second section deals with the early city and looks largely at the Viking settlement, under the heading "Viking Age Dublin-Cross-Cultural Processes." Many of the studies attempt to examine the impact these invaders had on the native Irish and how one culture gave to the other. It is clear, especially from the opening two studies by John Bradley and Donnchadh Ó Corráin that it was a rich period of cross-fertilization, and as is only to be expected a period of relative calm in the urban areas--after the arrival of the Norse. The age old picture of pillage and plunder is rapidly changing to one of integration and acceptance. Ninth century Dublin was, as Bradley points out, a period of double identity. Ó Corráin looks at cross-fertilization from the perspective of language and examines the interchange between Old Norse and Medieval Irish in the ninth century with intermarriage and economic supremacy playing important roles.
Four further studies on Viking kings and Irish fleets (Mary Valante), Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingship (Máire Ni Mhaonaigh), children in Viking Age Dublin (Bronagh Ní Chonaill), and Saint Michan (Emer Purcell) look at the problems of invasion and integration from different socio-cultural perspectives and make solid use of archaeological and documentary sources. From all these essays it is clear that when the Vikings arrived in Ireland they came to a sophisticated and developed country which was unwilling to lose its own identity but which was, over time, to assimilate and integrate with the Norse invaders. Many of these themes have never been studied before and they provide a fascinating insight into the processes of social, cultural and political occupation.
The third section moves the reader into the post-Viking period and looks at spiritual and secular medieval Dublin after the tenth century. Of course many of these essays deal with the legacy of the Vikings. Understandably, the historian of art and architecture is better catered for in this section with a study on Dublin's Christ Church Cathedral (reconstructing the western cloister by Stuart Kinsella), Cistercian Dublin (St. Mary's Abbey by Bill and Linda Doran), Augustinian Dublin (Christ Church Cathedral as a blueprint for other Augustinian buildings in Ireland by Michael O Neill and Sean Duffy and Linzi Simpson on the hermits of Augustinian Dublin), Dublin Castle (Tadgh O'Keeffe), a fifteenth century lost cross (Peter Harbison), and late medieval relics from Holy Trinity Church (Raighnal O Floinn). Framing these studies are essays on a variety of topics including essays on the significant number of churches in Dublin in the medieval period (Adrian Empey), the archaeology of Dublin Harbor (Niall Brady), settlement patterns in Dublin's medieval hinterland (Margaret Murphy and Michael Potterton), the city's late medieval chronicle (Alan J. Fletcher), the city's sixteenth century guild records (Raymond Gillespie), and one study, which stands apart from the others in its lack of reference to Dublin (or Ireland for that matter as well!), on the death of an English knight in Rome in the mid-fourteenth century (Seymour Phillips).
The third division unites five studies on visual and textual maps of the Viking and medieval city. It is to be regretted that there is a near complete absence of maps of the city before the early seventeenth century but enough does exist to enable us to see how it was constructed. This was a subject close to the heart of Howard Clark and is reflected in several of his publications. These historiographical studies look at how the Viking and medieval city was incorporated or ignored in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Colm Lennon), as well as the identification of Edmund Spenser's mythical "Cleopolis" with Dublin (Thomas Herron), the historiography of manuscripts, prints and maps in which Dublin is represented (J. H. Andrews), nineteenth century accounts of medieval Dublin (Jacinta Prunty), and finally an unusual end to the collection of studies by Angret Simms on Dublinia, the medieval heritage center in Dublin and its development.
This is not a collection for those who know nothing of the history of the city and it is clearly aimed at the specialist scholar. Nevertheless, it would have benefited from a short introduction to the city itself. I for one, much to my shame, had to look at the Index to confirm that Brian Boróimhe and Brian Boru were now the non-preferred names of Brian Bórama! Even though it is good to allow all of the authors to use their own terminology I also had to slow down to make sure that the Norse, the Scandinavian, and the Viking periods, as described in different essays were indeed the same--never mind all of the variants that these periods could be extended to.
For me, rather selfishly, the particular strengths of the volume are its architectural and art historical essays, and they would certainly justify buying this volume alone, but all the other studies in this volume with their emphasis on the historical, political, religious, socio-cultural and archaeological make it as focused a collection as is possible and a valuable addition to any library.