- Chapter Thirty-Seven -
Conquestu Britanniae mentions monks, abbots and deacons, suggesting the existence
of an episcopally organized church with roots in late Roman Britain, and he criticizes
the bishops and priests for supporting tyrants such as Vortipor and Maelgwyn
Gwynedd.
Certainly there was British missionary work in Wales, Scotland and Ireland in the
fifth and early sixth centuries, and there were ascetic holy people withdrawn
from society. Such characteristics were not exclusive to the Celtic West, and similar
activity can also be found in England and on the Continent at this period (Davies
1992: 14). In 431 Palladius, a deacon of the important church at Auxerre, was sent
by Pope Celestine as the first official bishop to the growing Christian community
(the 'believers in Christ') in Ireland in order to counteract the Pelagian heresy,
which claimed that man's free will was independent of divine grace. Patrick, follow-
ing his consecration as a bishop, returned to Ireland (the scene of his boyhood
enslavement by raiders) to minister to the Christian community there. Patrick said
that 'many thousands' were taken into captivity alongside himself, suggesting the
existence of numerous Christians in Ireland in the late fourth century (certainly by
the first decades of the fifth century). It is not hard to imagine an earlier process of
gradual acculturation and limited conversion supported by a ruling class, initially by
direct contact with the Continent and Christian parts of western Britain such as
south-west Wales, via trade or mercenary activity, before the stimulus provided
by Palladius and Patrick from the continental and British churches respectively.
Indeed, the role of missionaries and martyrs has been exaggerated to some degree in
the historical records. Much conversion may have been at a kin-based and local level
via returning inhabitants, as well as via conversion of the aristocracy. The nature of
'Celtic' society in fifth-and sixth-century Ireland, Wales and Scotland was of small
independent tribal kingdoms, with a rural, hierarchical and familial character. It
appears that, by the sixth century, ecclesiastical organization in Celtic-speaking
Britain was being modified to fit local circumstances, under external influences.
By the sixth century Christianity had become established in Ireland, though it
co-existed with pagan society (Figure 37.1). The extent of Christianity in lowland
England at this time remains a subject of debate. It is thought that in sub-Roman
Wales and Cornwall and those parts of England not occupied by pagan Germanic
settlers, bishops and sub-Roman dioceses may have continued in a form related to
the emergent native kingdoms. It is unclear whether Christianity in the fifth-sixth
century attained more than local importance in southern Scotland, as suggested by a
few commemorative stones. Dioceses have been suggested based at Carlisle and
Whithorn (for Rheged), the south side of the Forth (for the area of the Gododdin),
Glasgow (associated with St Kentigern for Strathclyde) and the Tweed valley (for
Bernicia). Bede, writing in the 720S, records the tradition that the British bishop
Ninian, who had been regularly instructed in Roman Christian practice, preached at
Whithorn, a principal settlement near the Galloway coast, where he built a stone
church in the Roman fashion, called Candida Casa (or 'the White House').2 In
general, Christianity appears to have spread across most of southern Scotland among
the British and southern Picts by about 600. The situation amongst the Scotti of
western Scotland and northern Picts is clearer. Following the establishment by
St Columba of the community at lona in 563 or shortly thereafter, the monastery