Just a quick note in response to your query.
I have nothing on monastic kinship in medieval times, but oddly enough I do
have a clue you can trace back from Tudor and Stuart times!
_The Annals of the Four Masters_, the vast attempt by a group of Gaelic
Irish clerics to translate ancient historiography into a modern compiled
form for posterity, was put together in Donegal in the early seventeenth
century after the English conquest of 1603. The clerics who did it were
from very old monastic families, especially the O'Clery clan, with royal
and aristocratic times that went back into the past with which your student
is dealing.
If you want to trace back this link, the place to start would probably be
the introductory passages of _The Annals of the Four Masters_, Volume I
(Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Company, 1856). U Texas-Austin might be able to
get it to you on interlibrary loan if you can't find it anywhere else.
Best wishes,
Tom Hofheinz
tomandlaurahofheinz@mail.utexas.edu
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