Ríagail na Manach Líath ‘The Rule of the Grey Monks’: A late mediaeval fabrication

Abstract

In this paper it is shown that the text which goes under the name of Ríagail na Manach Líath is not in fact an early rule, but rather a collection of heterogeneous verses, and it is argued that they were put together and supplied with the title by the fifteenth-century learned scribe Uilliam Mac an Leagha. Each of the ten verses is edited separately, with a translation and notes.