DEVOTIONAL AND LITURGICAL LITERATURE
and (3) sought to regulate its teaching through the use
of written records which, in time, became the reposi-
tory of its memory (e.g., the notion of Four Gospels
or of a New Testament), to the extent that (4) its teach-
ing was conceived as the interpretation and represen-
tation of those records (i.e., exegesis). In all these
activities books were essential, and because liturgy
touches every Christian, and almost always involves
reading the religion’s scriptures, books (along with the
appropriate skills of reading, writing, and book pro-
duction) need to be widely available for even the basic
functioning of the religion. Indeed, it was probably
Christianity’s need for a plentiful supply of books that
led to the dominance of the codex form—pages bound
on the left margin—over the roll form preferred in
antiquity. In this process the needs of the liturgy was
the single most important, constant, driving force, both
for the reproduction of existing books and for the
writing of new texts.
Evidence from Ireland
Turning to Ireland, assuming that by the late fifth cen-
tury Christianity had established a firm foothold, we
are faced with some surprises. First, written literature
in Ireland appeared with the arrival of Christianity, but
for the first time in the West the language of Christian
literature, Latin, was not already part of the culture.
Therefore, Ireland from the start related to Christian
literature in a manner different from the way that lit-
erature was received elsewhere (e.g., Gaul or Spain)
at the time, and in a way that anticipated the way
Christian literature would be received by the Germanic
peoples. In Ireland, written literature was primarily in
a foreign language that had to be acquired by formal
study, and which, as a consequence, required the need
to develop the writing of the vernacular language in
order to provide books in that language to support the
pastoral needs of the new religion. As a result, although
Irish was always the spoken language of the island in
the early Middle Ages, most of the written materials
were in Latin, and much of the literature—whether in
Latin or Irish—was linked in one way or another to
the Church and its needs. From this perspective we
can view most of the materials catalogued in Kenney’s
Sources as “liturgical” or “devotional.” Second, Chris-
tianity was present in Ireland for at least a century
before we have any hard evidence (Patrick’s writings
aside) of texts written in Ireland (the penitential of
Finnian and possibly—if he wrote while in Ireland—
Columbanus) or a surviving manuscript (the Cathach
of Colum Cille, from around 600). And third, even
allowing for the fact that liturgical and devotional
books never survive in quantity (they are used until no
longer fit for use, and an outdated book had no library
value unless it came to be regarded as a relic), we have
only a few remnants from Ireland. Therefore, any
attempt to recreate what the liturgy was like in Ireland
at any point before the twelfth century is a far more
difficult task than for almost any other area of the Latin
West. For instance, only one libellus missae(booklet
[of the text] of a mass) survives (the Stowe Missal—
incorrectly categorized as a missale[missal] in the
nineteenth century—from around 800), despite the fact
that it represents a basic liturgical book of which every
church would have had several at all times.
It is impossible to characterize the liturgy in Ireland
in the early Middle Ages in any way that specifies it
from that of the western churches in general. But it is
worth noting the following points. First, the earliest
books came, presumably, from sub-Roman Britain,
and via Britain from Gaul, yet where we can note
similarities with texts from elsewhere these seem to
show more contacts with Spain than elsewhere. Sec-
ond, we should expect the survival of earlier forms on
the periphery of Europe, given that Ireland is at the
end of traveling routes, but this expectation is not
fulfilled by the evidence. Liturgical and devotional
materials from Ireland seem to evolve broadly in par-
allel with elsewhere, probably as a result of the move-
ment of clerics who had a professional, and very
frequently intense, interest in these matters (e.g., the
author of the Navigatio sancti Brendani). Indeed, in
some cases the earliest extant references for particular
liturgical actions come from Ireland (e.g., Muirchú’s
description of the Easter vigil fire). Third, from our
viewpoint, there is a danger of equating the liturgy, or
Christian devotional practice, with its supporting writ-
ten products (or even with those products that have
survived). But the Christian cult was essentially the
repetition of known activities within a fixed pattern of
time (be that the weekly gathering for the Eucharist or
the annual gathering at a local saint’s well); the books
merely supplied the fixed spoken texts that were one
element in the overall activity. Moreover, while later
liturgical books often supply the “stage directions”
(rubrics) for the whole event, this is not true for the
early medieval period. Hence, what books have sur-
vived have to be read in conjunction with all the other
parts of the liturgy that have survived: for example,
sacred vessels (e.g., patens and chalices), references
to liturgy in canon law, architectural evidence for the
size of church buildings, images of liturgy either lit-
erary or graphic, other objects (e.g., high crosses) that
indicate cult usage, and activities such as pilgrimage
or tours with relics at times of pestilence.
Fourth, the post-medieval distinction between devo-
tion and liturgy makes little sense in the period prior
to 1100; the former can be seen as an outgrowth from
liturgy and as the supporting culture of liturgy. In any