CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND
ITS MONUMENTS
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Mark Redknap
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
O
f all the developments to take place following the meeting of Roman and Celtic
worlds, it was Christianity that had the most profound effect on Celtic society
and material culture. Centred on the Life of Christ, the Bible and numerous
commentaries, and supported by strong codes of ethics and morality, it introduced
writing to regions in which it had hitherto been absent, and through its active
ministry promoted education and the arts.
The Irish sources for the early medieval period are rich in comparison with those
for other regions, and this imbalance has resulted in a popular Hibernocentric view
of early medieval Christianity, mythologized to some degree into a 'Celtic church',
with Irish characteristics extended to other regions. However, this view is changing
in the light of recent research, and much regional diversity is now recognized within
Celtic areas.
Christianity appears to have been well established in Roman Britain during the
fourth century as one of the state-tolerated religions in a pantheistic society. The
structure and organization of the early church were based on that of the state
- provinces under bishops, who were to begin with 'local spiritual chairmen'. Towns
and congregations may have been served by bishops, and it has been argued that,
as elsewhere in the late Roman Empire, the church was organized into territorial
dioceses. During this period, native pagan cults continued to be followed, and some
resurgence of deity worship at pagan temples is suggested. At Caerwent, for example,
there is limited evidence for the presence of a Christian community side by side with
paganism.!
In some areas of Britain romanization had little lasting impact, and in regions
remote from Roman administration a form of Celtic social order may have persisted,
leading, in the fifth century, to the re-emergence of native aristocracy in some areas,
and to the development of princely kingdoms that may echo former tribal patterns.
A number of presumptions may be made about early Christianity in fifth-to eighth-
century Britain from the literary sources, though hard facts are rare, and often biased.
Our view of its early history is coloured by Gildas's denunciation of the church and
society among the Britons, calling it complacent and corrupt. His De Excidio et