The Clonmacnoise Crozier is a late-11th-century Insular crozier that would have been used as a ceremonial staff for bishops and mitred abbots. Its origins and medieval provenance are unknown. It was likely discovered in the late 18th or early 19th century in the monastery of Clonmacnoise in County Offaly, Ireland. The crozier has two main parts: a long shaft and a curved crook. Its style reflects elements of Viking art, especially the snake-like animals in figure-of-eight patterns running on the sides of the body of the crook, and the ribbon of dog-like animals in openwork (ornamentation with openings or holes) that form the crest at its top. Apart from a shortening to the staff length and the loss of some inserted gems, it is largely intact and is one of the best-preserved surviving pieces of Insular metalwork.
The crozier may have been associated with Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (died CE), and was perhaps commissioned by Tigernach Ua Braín (died 1088), Abbot of Clonmacnoise, but little is known of its origin or rediscovery. It was built in two phases: the original 11th-century structure received an addition sometime around the early 15th century. The staff is made from a wooden core wrapped in copper-alloy (bronze) tubes, fixed in place by binding strips, and three barrel-shaped knops (protruding decorative metal fittings). The hook was concurrently but separately constructed before it was placed on top of the staff. The crozier's decorative attachments include the crest and terminal (or "drop") on the crook, and the knops and ferrule on the staff; these components are made from silver, niello, glass and enamel. The hook is further embellished with round blue glass studs and white and red millefiori (glassware) insets.
The antiquarian and collector Henry Charles Sirr, Lord Mayor of Dublin, held the crozier until his collection was acquired by the Royal Irish Academy on his death in 1841. It was transferred to the archaeology branch of the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street on the branch's foundation in 1890. The archaeologist Griffin Murray has described the crozier as "one of [the] finest examples of early medieval metalwork from Ireland".Murray (2021), p.1
Function Like all Insular croziers produced between CE, the Clonmacnoise crozier is in the shape of an open shepherd's crook, a symbol of Jesus as the Good Shepherd leading his flock.Murray, Griffin. "Colmcille 1500 Lecture Series: St Columba's crozier: power and devotion in medieval Ireland ". National Museum of Ireland, 10 December 2021. 4:50–6:07. Retrieved 29 December 2021 Psalm 23 mentions a "rod" and a "staff", and from the 3rd century onwards Christian art often shows the shepherd holding a staff, including the 4th-century Sarcophagus of the Three Shepherds in the Vatican Museums in Rome, and the 6th-century Throne of Maximian at the Archiepiscopal Museum, Ravenna. The distinctive shape of Irish croziers evokes the function of shepherds' crooks in restraining wayward sheep, and according to the art historian Rachel Moss is similar to the crook-headed sticks used by cherubs to grasp vine branches in Bacchic iconography.Moss (2014), p. 310
Croziers became symbols of status for bishops and abbots when Pope Celestine I linked them to the episcopal office in a 431 letter to bishops in Gaul. By tradition, the first Irish example (lost since 1538)Ronan (1943), pp. 121–129 was the "Bachal Isu" (Staff of Jesus) given by God to Saint Patrick.Murray (2004), p. 27Lucas (1986), p. 9 According to the archaeologist A. T. Lucas, the croziers thus acted as "the principal vehicle of [Patrick's] power, a kind of spiritual electrode through which he conveyed the holy energy by which he wrought the innumerable miracles attributed to him".Lucas (1986), p. 29 In a 2004 survey, the Clonmacnoise Crozier was one of an estimated twenty (or fewer) largely intact Insular croziers in addition to some sixty fragments.Murray (2004), p. 24Murray (2007), p. 82
Origin and dating The Irish antiquarian George Petrie ( 1866) was the first to write about the crozier's discovery, and based on his sources placed the find-spot as in the "Temple Ciarán", a now ruined oratory on the grounds of Clonmacnoise monastery, County Offaly. The oratory is said to contain the tomb of the monastery's founder Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise ( ), and he is recorded as having appeared centuries after his death "to smite a would-be raider with his crozier". Petrie recorded that it was found alongside a hoard including a silver chalice dated to 1647, a wine vessel and an arm-shrine or relic of Ciarán's hand, all now lost except for the chalice.Murray (2021), p. 10 The objects would have been deposited individually at the burial site during the centuries after Ciarán's death.Frazer (1891), pp. 206–214 However, there is no surviving documentary evidence to support Petrie's account of the find spot. The claim seems based on accounts from 1684 and 1739 which mention that a relic of Ciarán's hand had been found there, while the crozier's style and production technique closely resembles two other contemporary fragmentary croziers sometimes associated with Clonmacnoise; the very similar and so-called Frazer Crozier-head (catalogue number NMI 1899:28) and a crozier-knop in the British Museum.Murray (2021), p. 18 The antiquarian William Frazer wrote in 1891 that the Clonmacnoise Crozier was probably revered as holding a relic of Saint Ciarán.Frazer (1891), p. 210
Clonmacnoise monastery was founded in 544 by Saint Ciarán in the territory of Uí Maine where an ancient major east–west land route and early medieval political division (the Slighe Mhor) met at the River Shannon. This strategic location helped it become a thriving centre of religion, learning, craftsmanship and trade by the 9th century, and many of the high kings of Tara () and of Connacht were buried here.Moss (2014), p. 126 Clonmacnoise was largely abandoned by the end of the 13th century. Today the site includes nine ruined churches, a castle, two round towers and many carved stone crosses.Moss (2014), pp. 126–127
The crozier's late 11th-century dating is based in part on its stylistic resemblance to the Bell Shrine of St. Cuileáin and the early 12th-century Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm,Lucas (1974), p. 140 as well as the Romanesque elements sometimes found on Insular art of the period. Lucas places it shortly after 1125.Lucas (1974), p. 119
Some historians suggest that the crozier was produced in Dublin,O'Meadhra (2015), p. 393Graham-Campbell (2013), p. 154 based on the so-called "Dublin school" Hiberno-Ringerike patterns on the crook. It also has zoomorphic designs similar those on the Dublin-manufactured Prosperous Crozier,Murray (2021), p. 19 on the shrine of the Cathach of Saint Columba, which also contains stylistic resemblances to Dublin metalwork, in particular with those found during excavations at High Street, Dublin, during 1962 and 1963.Ó Floinn (2001), p. 93 None of these links are definitive nor widely accepted.Moss (2014), p. 314 A significant metal workshop is known to have been in operation at Clonmacnoise in the 11th century, and the crozier contains design elements and motifs unique to contemporary objects found on or near the monastery's grounds. These include the confronted lions with intertwined legs on the collar below the top-most knop, which are also present on a high cross in Temple Ciarán.Manning (1998), p. 66
Description The crozier is long (about the length of a walking stick) and the crook wide.Murray (2007), p. 83 It was probably once 20 cm longer and had four knops, as with most other intact examples; the losses seem to result from its having been broken apart to make it easier to fold and thus hide from Viking and later Norman invaders.Murray (2021), p. 6 The staff is formed from a wooden core overlaid by metal tubes, and comprises two main sections: the long shaft and the crook.Youngs (1989), p. 214 The crook ends in a vertical section called the drop, with a drop-plate on the outward-facing side. The casing on the shaft is attached by binding strips connected to each other by three knops, while a protective copper alloy ferrule comprises the tip of the shaft's base.Murray (2007), p. 79 The shaft and crook cores are made from separate pieces of timber but date from the same period.Henry (1959–63), p. 9 The crook is fitted with an inner binding strip, crest and drop-plate, each of which was independently made and, having no structural function, are purely decorative.Murray (2007), p. 90
It was built in two phases: the early 11th-century structure was added to and refurbished in the 14th century, the later additions including the bishop and dragon in the drop-plate, and some of the ornamentation on the upper knop.De Paor (1977), p. 185 The first phase is designed in the Insular style, and contains animal ornament, interlace and Celtic art patterns. Several of the decorations are influenced by the late 10th-century Ringerike and 11th-century Urnes styles of Viking art, both of which are characterised by band-shaped animals (often snakes, dogs and birds), acanthus-leaf foliage, crosses and spirals, and was adapted in Ireland via direct contact and contemporary Anglo-Saxon art from Southern England. Moss describes the crozier as among the finest of the Irish Ringerike-influenced objects, along with the Shrine of Miosach and the Cathach (both 11th-century ).Moss (2014), p. 44Laing (2006), p. 186
Although it has suffered some losses, damage and detrimental repair work, it is in excellent condition overall. The original drop-plate was replaced in the late medieval period.Ó Floinn (1983), p. 166 The wood at the end of the crest is decayed, likely due to one of the rivets being exposed, which in turn led to further damage to the structure.Henry (1959–63), p. 10
Drop
The original drop was presumably as highly decorated as the knops, but is lost and was replaced sometime during the 14th or 15th centuries. The current plate, like the original, forms a hollow box-like extension that was fixed to the end of the crook. It is cast from copper alloy and consists of a cast figurative insert attached to a plain metal strip. At its top is a looming, grotesque human head in champlevé enamel. Set into the cavity below is a figure added in the 14th or 15th century, who appears to be a bishop or cleric wearing a mitre (a type of bishop's headgear). He has one hand raised in blessing while the other holds a long crozier with a spiral crook, which he uses to impale an animal, probably a dragon, at his feet. De Paor describes the cleric as a generic late-period Insular figure, with "pierced eyes, small ears, a large nose, and [a] heavy mustache and beard".
The positioning of the human figures is similar to the late 9th-century Prosperous Crozier.Thickpenny et al. (2020), p. 55 The only other surviving example of such a figure is in the drop of the River Laune Crozier; presumably other croziers once held similar figures but the components were damaged or removed. It seems likely that the cleric is intended to represent the commemorated saint, thus "making the body of the founder saint visible and active",Lucas (1986), p. 12 and conferring the saint's authority to the crozier's current bearer.Hahn (2016), p. 73 The copper plate underneath the drop contain enamel double-spiral designs rendered in blue, green and yellows.