Ian Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780719088360
- eISBN:
- 9781781706022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088360.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Chapter four begins the second part of the book, which asks how seventeenth century humanists understood the acquisition of those natural characteristics which marked both human societies and certain ...
More
Chapter four begins the second part of the book, which asks how seventeenth century humanists understood the acquisition of those natural characteristics which marked both human societies and certain groups within those societies. It starts with a debate on the nature of true nobility. For Richard O’Ferrall, fine ancestry was the primary component of nobility (and Irishmen of English descent were incapable of it), whereas for John Lynch true nobility lay in virtue. In the course of this debate, O’Ferrall and Lynch also alluded to or avoided the problem of human heredity. The second part of this chapter explores the writings on nobility of a figure who, at first glance, proceeded from premises very different to those of his humanist contemporaries: the Gaelic Irish genealogist Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh. However, it seems that the genealogist shared a certain understanding of the relationship between the physical appearance of individuals and groups and their inherent moral qualities with the papal nuncio Gianbattista Rinuccini, a man who had received the most rigorous education in Aristotelian humanism.Less
Chapter four begins the second part of the book, which asks how seventeenth century humanists understood the acquisition of those natural characteristics which marked both human societies and certain groups within those societies. It starts with a debate on the nature of true nobility. For Richard O’Ferrall, fine ancestry was the primary component of nobility (and Irishmen of English descent were incapable of it), whereas for John Lynch true nobility lay in virtue. In the course of this debate, O’Ferrall and Lynch also alluded to or avoided the problem of human heredity. The second part of this chapter explores the writings on nobility of a figure who, at first glance, proceeded from premises very different to those of his humanist contemporaries: the Gaelic Irish genealogist Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh. However, it seems that the genealogist shared a certain understanding of the relationship between the physical appearance of individuals and groups and their inherent moral qualities with the papal nuncio Gianbattista Rinuccini, a man who had received the most rigorous education in Aristotelian humanism.
Ian Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780719088360
- eISBN:
- 9781781706022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088360.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Chapter three outlines a series of anti-English arguments made by a series of well-educated Gaelic Irish ideologues and politicians between the 1610s and 1660s. These Gaelic Irishmen not only argued ...
More
Chapter three outlines a series of anti-English arguments made by a series of well-educated Gaelic Irish ideologues and politicians between the 1610s and 1660s. These Gaelic Irishmen not only argued that the Protestant Stuarts had lost the right to rule the Irish kingdom, and that only heretics could be truly barbarous. They also argued that the English Irish were so tainted by their Englishness that they would have to be excluded from the projected Catholic re-conquest of Ireland.Less
Chapter three outlines a series of anti-English arguments made by a series of well-educated Gaelic Irish ideologues and politicians between the 1610s and 1660s. These Gaelic Irishmen not only argued that the Protestant Stuarts had lost the right to rule the Irish kingdom, and that only heretics could be truly barbarous. They also argued that the English Irish were so tainted by their Englishness that they would have to be excluded from the projected Catholic re-conquest of Ireland.
