Forming an episcopal see and an Augustinian foundation in medieval Ireland: the case of Ferns, Co. Wexford

This paper is a case study of the medieval settlement of Ferns, Co. Wexford, in the south-east of Ireland, with particular reference to the twelfth-century Augustinian foundation of St Mary's Abbey. The study explores an interdisciplinary approach to Ferns in which the evidence of archaeology, geophysical surveys and historical sources are combined to produce a comprehensive profile of the canons' foundation and its environs. Ferns was chosen for various reasons. Historical references associated with an existing early medieval church are relatively wide-ranging with the survival of three versions of the life of St Máedóc, its patron saint. The place's secular importance as the chief seat of an important dynasty, the Uí Chennselaig, probably began in the tenth century but is notably evident in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It is one of the very few twelfth-century Irish foundations for which the transcript of an original charter survives, that of Diarmait mac Murchada, king of Leinster's charter to the Augustinian canons of St Mary's dating to 1160/2. In addition, the site's archaeology and history suggests that reorganisation of ecclesiastical settlements formed an essential part of the transformation of the Irish church during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and that planning this reorganisation was to the forefront of royal and church politics alike.