The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

(Barry) #1

  • Chapter Thirty-Seven -


with holdings scattered all over the country. Influential Irish missionary activity, in
the form of peregrinationes through Europe, began C.590 with the departure of
Columbanus, first Irish missionary to the Continent, from Bangor (Co. Down) to
Burgundy. His three Irish foundations at Luxeuil, Fontaine and Annagray were to
become influential centres in Merovingian Gaul. The charisma of such personalities
led to a growth in the number of Frankish houses under disciples influenced by
Columbanus ('Hiberno-Frankish' monasticism). It should at the same time be
remembered that a complex network of connections developed between scriptoria in
Ireland and the Celtic West, and Northumbria and the Continent, from the middle
of the seventh century. The influence of the Irish church, which was active alongside
the Anglo-Saxon church on the Continent, must be set alongside that of other
non-Celtic missionary activity.
The degree of monastic dominance in church affairs, and the deviation of Ireland
from regular church administration, are under debate (Sharpe 1984). Conflict
was supposed between the two diocesan and monastic systems of ecclesiastical
organization with the records indicating eventual monastic supremacy. The conven-
tional view has been of a weak episcopal church, contrasted to the growth in the
sixth and seventh century of monastic churches or federations (called paruchiae, the
word originally used to designate a diocese) linked to the emergence and fortunes
of dynastic families, who provided both kings and church leaders. This was thought
to have resulted in differences in organization between Ireland and her neighbours,
with primacy of the authority of the abbot rather than bishop, and tribal
bishoprics/monastic federations rather than territorial dioceses. A model has recently
been proposed of communities of priests and other clergy (some monks under vows)
in mother-churches as centres of pastoral care, which was provided at a more local
level through small churches, each under a single priest.^4 Monastic life in eighth-
and ninth-century Ireland can be seen as of collegiate or communal rather than of
private, contemplative Benedictine form.
Davies has pointed out that diversity in religious practice was common in Europe
and within Celtic areas in the seventh-eighth century, that private penance cannot be
seen as exclusively characteristic of Celtic churches, and that there were deviations
in the adoption of the tonsure (crown-like or ear-to-ear).
Not only was there diversity within Celtic churches but a constant tendency
for the Welsh to be the most conservative (vide the Easter controversy), and for
a party of the Irish (often southern Irish) to be most clearly influenced by
Roman practice.
(Davies 1992: 18)
In short, it would appear that around this time regional characteristics were
emerging, and that by the eleventh century all Celtic regions looked 'deviant' to the
leaders of the newly reformed western church, being only slightly changed by
continental reform (Davies 1992: 20).
The importance of the church within Celtic society, coupled with the scholarship
of individual churchmen, and the development of learning in a shared Latin culture,
are reflected in the artistic achievements of the different ecclesiastical centres. One of
the most profound changes brought about in Celtic society was the development


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