CHAPTER 3
The Irish Monks in
Europe
So,
since your heart is set on those sweet fields
And you must leave
me here,
Swift be your
going, heed not my prayers,
Although the voice
be dear ...
Since, if but
Christ would give me back the past,
And that first
strength of days,
And this white head
of mine were dark again,
I, too, might go
your ways.
– Colman, a
9th-century monk
EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE
When the
Irish monks following the footsteps of Columcille and Columbanus came to
The barbarian
invasions destroyed many of the institutions of the
With
survival the primary social concern, there was hardly any communication among
the multitude of petty kingdoms. Not
only political development, but also basis skills and crafts were neglected and
fell into a state of decline. The
barbarians themselves did not have well-developed skills and crafts, and the
artisans killed by barbarian attacks or conscripted into barbarian armies could
not be replaced. Even the immemorial,
necessary skill of agriculture fell into an impoverished state.
The barbarian
invasions stimulated a resurgence of paganism within the lands once controlled
by Rome. Although late in the 4th
century the Roman Emperor Gratian made Christianity the official religion of
the Empire, much of the population continued to cling to their pagan ways in
the countryside away from the urban areas.
(The word pagan comes from the Latin paganus, meaning
"rustic".) In one part of
eastern Gaul, the religious leader Martin of Tours sent his monks into the
countryside to stamp out any signs of paganism.
Martin's monks followed his orders with excessive enthusiasm. They smashed pagan idols, wrecked shrines,
and even assaulted worshippers taking part in pagan rituals. In 395 A.D. Gratian's successor, Emperor
Theodosius, banned all religions other than Christianity. Yet despite the imperial decrees and virulent
attacks by Christian monks, paganism was not stamped out. Instead, just as the Christians had in the
early days of their religion when they were persecuted, the pagans observed
their spirituality secretly. They buried
their idols so the Christians would not destroy them, and gathered in secret
groves deep in the forests when they wanted to hold their rites. With the lifting of Roman rule and retreat of
Christianity, the secretive pagan populations of the former Roman Empire once
again brought their paganism out into the open.
Besides, although they usually had different gods and myths, the
barbarian invaders were themselves pagans and were not hostile to the ancient
religions of the peoples of the former Empire.
Although
Christianity had been decreed the official religion of the Roman Empire and had
been aggressively enforced by government officials and Christian clerics, the
religion practically disappeared in many parts of Europe controlled by the
pagan invaders. The sphere of organized
Christianity was reduced to the few square miles of the city of Rome, where the
Bishops of Rome - who became known as the Popes - were recognized as the spiritual
leaders. Once the worst of the anarchy
and bloodshed of the barbarian invasions subsided and the many barbarian
chieftains had carved up the former Roman Empire into their numerous petty
kingdoms, there was a recrudescence of Christianity. Neither the pagans of the former Roman Empire
nor the pagan invaders were opposed to Christianity once it was weakened so
that it could no longer offer any resistance to either their political or
religious practices.
During the
Dark Ages, Christianity was but one kind of religion along with various types
of paganism practised throughout Europe.
Because the pagans tolerated Christianity since it was not strong enough
to oppose them, Christianity maintained its roots throughout the widespread
lands of the former Roman Empire. In
some limited ways, Christianity thrived.
There was no central authority to bring unity to Christianity and guide
it through the historical developments and various religious practices of the
time. Although during the 5th and 6th
centuries the Bishops of Rome asserted that they had the authority to determine
the doctrines and rituals binding for all Christians, in reality they had
little influence on Christians beyond the city of Rome and neighbouring
communities.
The Arian
Christians were one flourishing sect which opposed certain doctrinal positions
of the Bishops of Rome. The Arians' most
serious challenge to the Bishops of Rome involved a fundamental belief of
Christianity - namely, the divinity of Christ.
The Arians held that Christ was not divine and co-eternal with God the
Father, but rather was created by God the Father. As the Visigoths in Spain, many Frankish
tribes in France and Ostrogoths in Italy gradually converted to Christianity
during the later Dark Ages, they embraced the Arian view of Christ. It was not until the 7th century that the
Bishops of Rome and missionaries and ecclesiastic leaders sent out from the
religious colleges of the Roman Christians succeeded in overcoming Arianism and
bringing the large numbers of former barbarians tot he belief in Christ's divinity.
Other
Christian sects also attracted large numbers of followers. In parts of Spain and France, Manichean
Christians taught that the world and the human body were creations of evil
which God had allowed Satan to create to test an individual's spirit. There were also some Nestorian Christians in
western Europe. They objected to calling
Mary the "Mother of God" because they believed that Christ had a
divine nature fully separate from the human nature. Besides the several diverse sects, Christianity
was hampered from being a coherent, unified force affecting all of the
societies of Europe because a considerable proportion of the clergy of the
various sects failed to represent the Christian virtues of poverty and piety;
they had become corrupted by power and wealth.
Conditions
on the continent of Europe were very different from the conditions in Ireland
to which the Irish monks who became White Martyrs were accustomed. The chaos and brutality of the Dark Ages
throughout western Europe never extended to
To survive
and to be effective in their missionary work in the Dark Ages in continental
In 7th
century Europe, formal education was rare.
Europe was just beginning to recover from the Dark Ages. The Irish monks were well-educated by
continental standards, and were accustomed to tolerance of ideas and the
careful examination of points of view followed by debate. The Europeans, on the other hand, saw
theology as a form of science. Once a
doctrine was accepted by a council or a synod, it became dogma, an incontrovertible
fact that no-one was permitted to challenge.
Only the small group of European scholars had any learning at all, and
the nobility and the clergy were not necessarily members of this scholar
class. The Irish monks carried the torch
of learning with them, but it flickered dimly in the intellectual darkness of
mainland Europe.
Because of
the constant warfare during the early medieval period, and the harsh way of
life that resulted from it, historians often call the 6th and 7th centuries the
"Dark Ages". To survive and
prosper in this hostile environment, the Irish monks who came to Europe during
this time had to tread carefully. One
misstep could lead to swift death from an angry warlord or bitter condemnation
from rival clergymen.
EARLY IRISH MONASTERIES
IN EUROPE
Despite the danger and difficulties facing the Irish monks
of the 7th century, they were prompted to travel to Europe by the heroic
example of Columbanus. The three
monasteries he founded in France continued to thrive even after his banishment
from Burgundy by Queen Brunhilde, and many Irish monks visited them as they
wandered throughout Europe. When
Columbanus's wanderings brought him to Switzerland and Italy, he founded still
more monasteries which became influential centres of learning in early medieval
Europe.
After Queen
Brunhilde ordered Columbanus to leave her kingdom, she took no chances that the
troublesome monk would return. She
instructed armed soldiers to escort him and his Irish companions as far as
Nantes and put them on a barque bound for Ireland. But once the barque was out at sea, a fierce
storm arose. The boat's captain believed
that the storm was a form of divine intervention to prevent him from taking
Columbanus back to Ireland - and he turned back to shore, where he quickly
released Columbanus and his band to wander where they wished.
Risking
Brunhilde's wrath, Columbanus led his followers back into France, where they
came upon the Rhine River. They obtained
some boats from villagers and followed the River south. Eventually they came to Breganz in
But one of
Columbanus's followers named Gall was too ill to travel. Nonetheless, Columbanus insisted that Gall
accompany him across the jagged, snow-capped Alps. When Gall refused, the two men quarrelled
bitterly. After hurling maledictions at
his former comrade, Columbanus left and journeyed southward into Italy, to a
place called Bobbio. Columbanus died
there shortly after founding another monastery.
Gall
eventually recovered and became a solitary hermit. The local mountain people began to come to
him for religious and practical advice.
Gall gained such renown that after the death of Theodoric and Brunhilde,
the monks of the monastery at Luxeuil in Burgundy founded by Columbanus elected
Gall as their abbot despite his solitary lifestyle far from their
community. Gall declined this position,
but could not prevent local followers from gathering around his hermit's
cell. He died in 640 A.D. A century later, the Benedictine order of
monks began construction of an elaborate monastery at the site of Gall's
cell. Upon completion, it became a model
for the design of monasteries throughout the Middle Ages.
Although
St. Gall's was never exclusively an Irish monastery, it did act as a magnet for
many Irish monks. They contributed many
volumes to its library, which became the largest and best known in
The patient
labour of both Irish and European monks gradually remedied the shortage of
books for scholars. Even small
monasteries had libraries open to anyone who could read. But the task of creating manuscripts was so
painstaking and tedious that it caused one Irish monks to lament:
Ah
my poor hand,
How
much white parchment you have scored.
You
will bring the parchment glory
And
be the bare peak of a heap of bones.
Other monks
inspired by the example of Columbanus founded monasteries at Faremoutiers in
627, Jouarre in 627 and Rebais in 636 in the Brie region of France. Rebais eventually became a popular way
station where travelling Irish clergy and traders could enjoy Irish meals and
converse with others in their native language.
Between 663 and 675 A.D., the monastery at Angoulême in France became a
favourite resting place for the Irish Christians travelling in Europe. During Roman times, it was a monastic centre,
but was destroyed by barbarian invaders.
The monastery was rebuilt by Ansoald, the Bishop of Poitiers, who put an
Irish monk by the name of Toimeme in charge.
He was succeeded by Ronan and Aillil, both Irish. At Angoulême, the Council of Bordeaux met to
coordinate the development of monasteries in France, which had previously
depended solely on the initiative of local monks. The Council established a plan that provided
for Church assistance for monks who wished to found monasteries. This resulted in the creation of even more
monastic centres under Irish guidance.
The Irish
felt a special affinity for the monastery founded by St. Martin at Marmoutier
near Tours. They regarded Martin as an
inspirational figure for Irish monasticism because of the popularity in Ireland
of the biography, The Life of Martin, and the assistance that he
provided to Ninian to build the first Celtic monastery in Britain. By the 7th century, Marmoutier was a large
and thriving monastic centre with many chapels and dormitories surrounding Martin's
original humble cell. Irish writers and
illuminators contributed to the production of such manuscripts as the Sermons
of St. Martin and the Gospels of Marmoutier and St. Gatien.
Within a
hundred years after the arrival of Columbanus in Europe, there were scores of
Irish monasteries scattered across France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. During the remainder of the Middle Ages, the
success of these early monastic centres in western Europe stimulated the
foundation of more monasteries as each new generation of Irish monks sought to
match the achievements of their predecessors.
During the 10th and 11th centuries, these early monasteries also acted
as temporary stops for Irish monks who wanted to settle in central and eastern
Europe, regions that were often too remote to travel to directly from Ireland.
CELTIC AND ROMAN
CHRISTIAN RIVALRY
During the
centuries of the early medieval period, the Roman Christians were winning the
religious struggle in western Europe. Unlike
the Celtic Christian monks, the Bishops of Rome often used their influence as
religious leaders to arrange alliances which helped win wars for the Frankish
and Lombard kings who were favourably disposed towards the Roman Christians. Eventually, the Bishops of Rome had enough
political support to assume exclusive use of the title "Pope", a word
derived from the Greek papas, meaning father, which had previously been
used for the religious leader of any Christian community. The Bishops of Rome often banned as heresy
competing interpretations of Christianity.
Although the Irish Celts were not branded as religious heretics by the
Roman Christians, the Irish often came dangerously close to official
condemnation. The Celtic Christians
found themselves under increasing pressure to accept Roman Christian dogma and
ecclesiastical authority.
The
suspicion towards the Celtic monks ran through the European ecclesiastical
authorities from the Pope down to the local clergy. In 813, the Council of Tours censured the
Irish wandering monks - "Hiberniae episcopi vagantes" - for their
extreme asceticism. The ostensible
reasons for this censure was that in following such a strict, forbidding ideal,
the Irish ascetics presented a remote, harsh picture of Christianity which
could interfere with the aim of converting the pagan populations of Europe to
the religion. But the real reason the
Irish were censured, so it seems, was that their asceticism sharply contrasted
with the comforts and political influence enjoyed by Roman Christian
clergy. At times, the Irish monks
explicitly criticized the relative luxury and political involvement of the
Roman Christian priests and bishops.
When they did so, the European clergy would quickly condemn the critical
Irish monks for some deviance from Roman Christian doctrine.
Since the
Celts came from a culture which recognized the importance of the individual,
they believed that people were responsible for their sins because they could
choose to do good or evil by using their free will without divine assistance in
the form of grace. The Celts also
believed that abbots and bishops could not be appointed by either church or
secular authority. But in keeping with
the Celtic traditions, the people should elect their own religious leaders. The Celtic and the Roman Christians also
contested other doctrinal issues, often arguing heatedly and rarely achieving
full accord. Yet the controversy over
the fine points of dogma did not hamper the Irish Celts from building
monasteries and gaining converts for Christianity throughout Europe.
Quite
often, Roman Christian complaints about the Irish Celts focused on symbols
rather than essential doctrinal issues.
The Romans objected to the Celtic clerical tonsure made by shaving the
entire front half of the skull. The
Druids had shaved their head in this manner as a symbol of their authority in
Celtic society. The Roman Christians
objected to this because they claimed that it was the style of tonsure worn by
the apostle Peter's arch-rival, Simon Magus, who Peter excommunicated from the
early Christian Church for claiming that spiritual benefits could be purchased
with money. The Roman Christians came to
associate heretical doctrine with the tonsure of Simon Magus, who they believed
to be a Druid who had embraced Christianity.
This issue of the tonsure was important in the semi-literate world of
medieval Europe because symbols often expressed complex concepts that could not
be otherwise grasped. The Roman
Christians used every opportunity to condemn the Celtic tonsure, and preached
that it was a symbol associated with pagan practices. Their clergy instructed their flocks to
revere only the men who wore the small circular tonsure at the back of the head
which they claimed commemorated Christ's crown of thorns. At the Synod of Whitby in 664, King Oswy of
Northumbria, who presided over the Synod, outlawed the Celtic tonsure in his
realm; and the Roman Christians encouraged other monarchs to follow Oswy's
example.
Another
point of controversy between the Roman and Celtic Christians was the way each
branch of the religion figured the date of Easter. The Celts celebrated the event on the
fourteenth day after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Using this calculation, Easter could fall on
a weekday that sometimes coincided with the Jewish holy day of Passover. To avoid this scandalous coincidence, the
Roman Christians followed a different method to calculate Easter. It was Pope Felix III who decreed in 527 that
Easter would always be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the
vernal equinox, thereby insuring that Easter always fell on a Sunday. The Roman Christians pointed to the
reluctance of the Celts to adopt Pope Felix's computation as a sign of pagan
influences in Celtic religious practices.
When the
settled in
Ar
is cach beo beires breth besa hea thoga
Everyone
alive bears the judgement which will be his choice
But when
spoken aloud, the Celtic syllables could run together in a completely different
combination to give a completely different meaning:
Héris
cach bé ob hérisbreth bésa hé a thucca
Every
source of heretical judgement is heresy, it will bring grief!
When the spoken words of Irish poets were attacked by
defenders of orthodox Roman Christian doctrine, the poets used the written
words to prove themselves innocent of promoting deviant thought.
Although
Roman Christianity dominated mainland Europe, the Celtic Christians developed
refinements of doctrine and practice that the Roman Christians incorporated
into their doctrine. In the 4th century,
the theologian, Hilary of Poitiers, applied Celtic concepts of a triune god to
greatly enhance the Christian notion of the Trinity. In the Middle Ages, the Celtic Christian
practice of confessing in private gradually became the standard practice. Prior to adopting the Celtic practice, Roman
Christians confessed in public, usually in church before the entire
congregation. Not surprisingly, many
people were reluctant to confess their sins in these circumstances. The Irish practice of private confession made
it a common act engaged in by all Christians and was formerly recognized as the
approved method of confession at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Another practice
of the Irish monks taken up by the Roman Christians during the Middle Ages was
the use of rules of behaviour known as penitentials. Originally, these rules applied only to sworn
celibates of the Irish cloister and were difficult to follow. Transgressions were punished severely. In the penitential attributed to Columbanus,
the penalty for needlessly exposing the body to another person was a lengthy
period of reduced rations. Eventually,
the penitentials became more moderate so they could be applied to all
Christians. They gave people a clear
guide for the practical interpretation of Christian doctrine in day-to-day
situations.
Although
the Roman Christians implicitly acknowledged that Celtic Christianity did have
some desirable views and practices to offer Christianity, they nonetheless
generally attempted to see that the Celtic Christians did not have any
significant influence on the version of Christianity observed in Europe. In Germany of the early 8th century, a bishop
named Boniface waged a particularly aggressive campaign against the Irish
monks. Whenever he found places where
Celtic Christianity was being practised, he sent out groups of monks to put an
end to it. With denunciations and the
fists of his fanatic followers, he persecuted the Irish so vigorously that he
earned the title "Hammer of the Celtic Church". He had a particular dislike for an Irish
abbot named Fearghal, who was also known as Virgilius and was famous for his
writings explaining his view of the cosmos.
When the King of Bavaria offered Fearghal a bishop's mitre, Boniface was
outraged. He complained to the Pope that
Fearghal's writings were unorthodox, and he urged the Pope to disqualify the
Irish abbot from any ecclesiastical position.
But after examining Fearghal's writings the Pope could see no doctrinal
threat in the work, and did not prevent Fearghal from becoming bishop.
Because
Boniface was a Devonshire Saxon named Wynfrith before he changed his name at
baptism, his dislike of the Irish Celts was rooted in the traditional enmity of
the Saxons for the Celts, who the Saxons had warred against for generations in
England. After the Saxons converted to
the Roman version of Christianity, they viewed the German lands inhabited by
their cousins as their exclusive territory for preaching. Boniface considered the Celts interlopers and
resented the success of the Irish Celtic interlopers in Germany. In his native England, Boniface had been raised
to view the Celts with loathing, a hatred which he carried with him to Germany.
During the
Middle Ages, Celtic Christianity was gradually eclipsed because of the growing
political power of the Roman Christian Church.
The Roman Christians demanded that the Irish monks who settled in Europe
conform to Roman Christian beliefs. The
Irish avoided direct confrontation whenever possible by masking their religious
views with ambiguous words. Although the
Roman Christians could prove no outright heresy in the Celtic version of the
faith, they remained suspicious of the religious doctrines of the Irish monks
in Europe and always believed that all Irish Christians were strongly inclined
towards pagan beliefs.
BRITISH CELTS IN EUROPE
The defeat
of the Celtic Christians in Britain by the Saxon invaders sapped their
missionary inclinations. By the close of
the 6th century, a war in which each side tried to exterminate the other had
been fought sporadically between Celt and Saxon for more than a century, a war
that the Celts in Britain were losing.
Continual battle and frequent defeat undermined their morale and their
traditional way of life, making combat and survival their dominant concerns.
The strife
engulfing the British Celts began in 449 when a High King named Vortigern
sought the help of Saxon mercenaries in a conflict with neighbouring
clans. He hired a warrior band from
The Celts
of Britain were unable to resist the Saxons on the field of battle. The Celts were not accustomed to an enemy who
gloried in death and who indiscriminately skewered the vanquished and
non-combatants with sword and pike. When
the Celtic warriors were away from their homes, the Saxons slaughtered Celtic
women and children. After being
impoverished by Saxon bloodshed and pillage, Celtic warriors defeated in battle
gathered together the surviving members of their clans and migrated westward
into Wales and Ireland and northward into Scotland. In their anger and despair, the defeated
Celts resorted to the worst punishment they could imagine for the destructive,
victorious Saxons: after the warfare died down and the surviving Celts had
settled in their new locations, they declined to try to convert the Saxons to
Christianity, thereby denying their former foes the opportunity for everlasting
life in Heaven.
Some of the
British Celts fled to Europe, and a large group settled in Armorica, the early
medieval name for the French peninsula of Brittany. The only chronicler to record the attitude of
the British Celts who went to Brittany towards the Saxons was a monk named
Gildas who wrote a book called On the Ruin of Britain in 560. Gildas was born in approximately 518, about
the time of the Battle of Badon, the only Celtic victory in their long war
against the Saxons, which temporarily halted the Saxon advance in Britain. After their defeat in this battle, it took
the Saxons a generation to regain enough strength to renew their attacks
against the Celts. During this time of
relative peace, Gildas studied at monasteries in British territory still under
Celtic control. When Saxon attacks
resumed in the decade of the 540's, the Celts were unable to withstand the
onslaught, and Gildas was forced to emigrate to
Another
group of British Celts migrated to north-west
During the
Dark Ages, these pockets of British Celtic culture transplanted to mainland
Europe had an influence on the Goths of Spain and the Franks of France. They provided an example of the Celtic way of
life that was broader than the picture painted by monks. Complete with chieftains and farmers,
grandparents and grandchildren, these groups were fully functioning societies
demonstrating Celtic institutions and the Celtic way of life to their
neighbours.
For the
Irish Celts, the Saxons remained only a vague threat, a tale told around the
hearth to frighten children. During the
early Middle Ages, no outside force menaced the homeland. Thus, the Irish Celts had a great deal more
confidence in their abilities to meet the challenges of medieval Europe than
their British cousins who had grown dispirited by defeat. The Irish did not hesitate to travel to foreign
lands and actively participate in local society.
PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE OF
THE MONKS
Although
the Irish monks journeyed to parts of Europe primarily to engage in missionary
work, they chose to live in self-sufficient monasteries somewhat away from
local populations. In Ireland, the monks
built the monasteries in order to create an environment where they could pursue
their ascetic, often solitary, daily regimens and their intensively religious
way of life. Such motivations also went
into the building of the monasteries in Europe; but in fact in Europe the
monasteries were a necessity providing the monks' basic needs. Material trappings enabled the monks not only
to continue to pursue their personal spiritual lives, but also to engage in
their missionary work. For in the early
Middle Ages, with Europe just beginning to recover from the disruptions of the
Dark Ages, there was little trading between regions and usually the state of
local crafts and skills was poor. In the
monks' circumstances, carpentry, masonry, needlework, agricultural, and
woodworking and metalworking skills which supported the monasteries in Ireland
were essential to them. As things went
for the monks in Europe, these skills not only enabled the monks to support
themselves, but were also abilities which attracted the local populations to
them, and in this way served as a means by which the monks introduced their
Christian spiritual message. Suffering
from the social impoverishment and stagnation of the Dark Ages, the western
Europeans found the monks' skills in agriculture, metallurgy and medicine
particularly welcome.
No field
shows the improvements that Irish skills and knowledge brought to general
European society more than the field of agriculture. The farm workers of Europe saw the ordinary
agricultural practices of the monks as highly imaginative and new. The bounty of the fields of crops cultivated
by the monks and the health and growth of their herds of farm animals were
proof of the wisdom of those practices.
Once the Europeans implemented the agricultural practices taught by the
monks, they enjoyed similar results. The
monks taught the far workers to follow a pattern of mixed farming, which
involved deep ploughing in spring, rotating crops and planting a cover of
winter grass in the fall. Another
productive farming practice the Irish monks introduced to Europe was the use of
large ox teams for ploughing, yoking four to six animals together to pull the
plough. Fertilizer was also essential to
the monastic farm. Near the ocean, monks
scattered seaweed and ground seashells onto the fields. Further inland they depended on animal manure
and lime. From time to time, they would
move their animal pens so that they could plant crops in the heavily manured
soil. The monks also taught the
Europeans to balance herds of domestic animals with one pig and one sheep for
each cow, so that if disease should strike any one type of animal, the others
were likely to remain healthy. They were
also careful to raise enough breeder animals to insure the replacement of
ageing or diseased meat animals in their herds.
On mainland
Europe after the fall of Rome, there were vast regional differences in
agricultural methods and technical knowledge.
In Italy, where the estate system of the Romans endured the longest,
farming was relatively advanced. In the
late 6th century, the Roman Christian Church owned much of the land in central
Italy. Farm production not only fed the
clergy but was an important source of revenue for the Church. Before becoming Pope in 590, Gregory the
Great was charged with reorganizing the estates of the Church to insure that
the fields continued to remain productive.
Because he performed this vitally important administrative task well, he
became prominent among the Roman Christian ecclesiastical leaders and was soon
after elected Pope.
But in many
other parts of western Europe, providing enough food for the local population
was a major problem. The Franks, Saxons,
Goths, and Lombards who had invaded the land in the previous century were
nomads whose cultures were based on warfare and conquest. Living in one place generation after
generation after they overran the Roman Empire was a new way of life for
them. The aristocratic warrior class
believed that farming was beneath them.
Of course, they had to have enough food for their own tables and enough
surplus to support their retainers, but they left the details of ploughing,
planting and harvesting crops, and raising herds of animals for meat and milk
to the peasantry. The peasants were
trapped between the demands of their overlords for sufficient agricultural
production and their own lack of skills which had been lost when populations
had been scattered or decimated by barbarian invasions. They learned agricultural skills by trial and
error, and hoped that their fields would yield enough to feed themselves and
their families as well as satisfy their lords.
Compared to
the agricultural methods used by the Irish, the farming practices of Europe
were primitive. The nobles and peasants of
the regions surrounding the Irish monasteries could not help but notice the
productivity of the monks. Just as
Columbanus was besieged by Suevians seeking agricultural knowledge, so too were
other Irish monasteries thronged by local people seeking to learn the farming
methods of the monks. By example and
formal instruction, the Irish monks were usually willing to teach their methods
to anyone interested in them. Because
there were monks in different parts of Europe, this resulted in standardized
agricultural techniques across most of Europe.
The monks'
efforts played a major part in the emergence of the manorial system in western
Europe during the 8th and 9th centuries.
Like the monasteries, each manor was a self-sufficient unit providing
all the food needed to sustain its inhabitants, from nobles to peasants. The agricultural techniques of the manors
closely resembled the ones taught by the monks from Ireland, emphasizing manure
for fertilization, larger plough teams and crop rotation.
Metallurgy
was another skill that some Irish monks were highly trained in during the early
medieval period. All large monasteries
required specialists in metals to make tools, hinges, and other metal devices
so that they could be self-sufficient.
Many of the monks who crossed the sea to Europe were master blacksmiths
who forged iron, master whitesmiths who polished the forging until it gleamed,
and braziers who produced lightweight bronze for sconces, candelabra and altar
adornments. When the feudal lords of
Europe and their warriors saw the quality of the tools and ornaments produced
by the Irish monks, they gave the Irish metallurgists the task of making
superior swords, pikes, and armour. It
was during this period that warriors began to use plate armour, which was a
solid piece of metal covering a part of the body. The Romans had used plate armour, but with
the barbarian invasion of the Roman world the processes required to make solid
plates of armour moulded to cover different parts of the body were lost. The Goths, Franks, and Saxons who had swept
over the Roman Empire used less protective chain mail, which was a mesh made of
metal rings easier to forge than plate armour.
With the metalworking skills of the Irish craftsmen, however, plate
armour resembling the former armour of the Roman soldiers came back into use.
In addition
to monks with skills in agriculture and metallurgy, each monastery tried to
have at least one monk who was trained in the advanced medical knowledge of the
Druids. Hospitals were common in Ireland
and among them were speciality hospitals that treaded only one type of
illness. Physicians usually prescribed
herbal remedies, and surgeons had the skills to treat gaping wounds or amputate
limbs. Irish healers were responsible
for the outcome of their treatment programs and were subject to fines if the
patient did not recover due to a healer's ignorance or incompetence.
The monks
with medical skills became especially valued by the armies of the European
lords since more soldiers died from disease than battle wounds. At times of battle, Irish monks would not
only pray for victory, but also tended to the wounded. In the infirmaries set up at their
monasteries, they would treat persons of all social ranks, from peasant to
noble. From the healing powers of the
Irish monks, which usually far surpassed those of local physicians, the
reputation of the Irish medical schools spread throughout Europe. By the 9th century, the medical schools at
the abbeys of Clonmacnoise, Cashel, Portunma, Clonard and Armagh in Ireland
were teaching Irish medical skills to students from all parts of Europe.
The Irish
monks settled in small groups in many part of Europe, separated by long
distances. As with the native
settlements and the petty kingdoms of the early Middle Ages, there was hardly
any communication or any other interactivity among the monasteries. However, coming from the isolated island of
Ireland where Celtic culture had remained largely unaffected by the tides of
the Dark Ages, the monks had similar skills and knowledge which had originated
with the Celts and had made Celtic lands prosperous during the centuries of the
Roman Empire. The monks introduced their
skills and knowledge to most of western Europe even though the various
monasteries were not in contact among themselves. With the permanent presence of the monks, as
well as their instruction, the beneficial Celtic skills and techniques took
root in European societies. As the Dark
Ages receded into the past and commerce, education, and political consolidation
once again became a part of European society, the uniform skills, techniques
and practical knowledge brought by the Irish monks spread from the monasteries
to become the foundation for crafts and arts throughout Europe. The skills and knowledge derived from the
monks which came to be prevalent throughout
THE CAROLINGIAN
RENAISSANCE
A formative,
fundamental period in Western history which carried Europe out of the
backwardness and insularity of the Dark Ages was the Carolingian Renaissance,
initiated during the reign of Charlemagne in the early 9th century. Irish monks who were already established in
European monasteries and also Irish monks acting on the invitation of
Charlemagne to come to his court to participate in his revival of learning and
spreading of knowledge had major positions in this Renaissance. The Irish monks were not the only scholars
who played a substantive role in the Carolingian Renaissance. One of the main characteristics of this
Renaissance, which helped carry Western culture out of the Dark Ages, was its
breadth and openness, which reflected the generous nature and desire for
learning of Charlemagne and his successors.
Although the Renaissance affirmed and advanced arts, architecture,
literature, religion, political forms, and other basic elements of Western
culture which had been clouded and fragmented in the Dark Ages, it also helped
to preserve classical Greek and Roman writings.
The rediscovery of classical ideas helped fuse the perspectives of the
barbarian invaders with Roman ideas of government, art and virtue; and included
principles of logic, mathematics and science developed in Greece, Byzantium and
the Near East. Even so, with their
established presences throughout western Europe, their role in the revival of
the crafts and practical knowledge among artisans and peasants, and their
educational skills and serious spirituality, the Irish monks had a role in this
early medieval Renaissance beyond that of other scholars, clergy and teachers
who took part in it. At a deeper level
as well, with their connection to Celtic culture, the Irish monks represented the
values, beliefs and way of that life that the Carolingian Renaissance affirmed
and advanced more than any other people involved in it.
Charlemagne
and the Carolingian monarchs of France were descended from Charles Martel. As "Mayor of the palace" for King
Childeric of Austrasia from 719-741, Charles made all the decisions necessary
for governing the kingdom because Childeric wanted to spend his time feasting
and hunting. Because the Moslems who had
invaded Spain were a threat to Christian France, Charles persuaded the Roman
Christian Church to use its wealth to strengthen the army of Austrasia,
Neustria and Burgundy into one realm. It
was his son, Pepin the Short, who gained the title "King" for himself
by deposing Childeric in 751 A.D. To
reduce the possibility that his bold act would spark a civil war, he struck a
bargain with Pope Zachary to gain the support of the Roman Christian
Church. In return for Papal backing,
Pepin promised to help Zachary regain Church lands seized by local Italian
nobles. After he became king, Pepin kept
his bargain. In various military
campaigns, he captured the Church lands and turned them over to Zachary.
By 768 when
Charlemagne came to share rule over France with his brother Carloman after the
death of his father, Pepin the Short, the Irish monks were familiar figures in
France. As Childerbert of Burgundy had
when he encountered Columbanus in the late 6th century, the monarchs preceding
Charlemagne recognized the value of the Irish monks to their society, and respected
their knowledge and spirituality.
The
arrangement of shared royal power between Charlemagne and Carloman decreed by
Pepin before his death proved unworkable.
Civil war threatened; but in 771, before the supporters of Charlemagne
and Carloman came to blows, Carloman died.
After
Charlemagne became sole king of the Franks, the Pope asked for his aid in
regaining Church lands seized in northern Italy by the King of the
Lombards. The Pope also urged him to
conquer and convert the German tribes who were pagan. In 773, Charlemagne began a series of wars
with the petty kingdoms and feudal fiefdoms in Italy and Germany and he led his
armies to victory after victory. In 800,
Pope Leo II crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans, a title that most
historians believe has no direct connection to the later
Charlemagne
ruled over a vast area stretching from
In a
listing of scholars living at Aix-la-Chapelle compiled by an Irish monk named
Cappuyns, more than a quarter had names which were obviously Irish. In appreciation for the many Irish monks
answering his invitation, Charlemagne donated a large sum of money to the
monastery at Clonmacmnoise on the banks of the Irish River Shannon. As word of the endowment spread throughout
Ireland it prompted a new wave of Irish monks to go to the Court of the
Frankish king. Even after Charlemagne's
death in 814, his successors continued inviting Irish scholars to France. By 870, so many Irish scholars had arrived in
France that Heiric, Bishop of Auserre, lamented, "Almost all Ireland,
despising the sea, is migrating to our shores with a herd of
philosophers."
Clemens
Scotus was a prominent Irish scholar who came to Aix-la-Chapelle in this new
wave of monks in the 9th century. The
name Scotus or Scot was a surname given to Celts by the mainland Europeans
regardless of their actual place of origin.
Clemens Scotus wrote a grammar book called Ars Grammatica which
he dedicated to the Emperor Lothar, Charlemagne's grandson who inherited the
Carolingian Empire in 840. Lothar was so
impressed with the book that he appointed Clemens as Master of the Palace
School, the position vacated by Alcuin of York when he left the post. Other prestigious Irish scholars were
Cruinnmael, who wrote a treatise on prose, and Dicuil, the first geographer of
the Carolingian Empire. An Irish monk
named Thomás gained popularity among scholars for his
intellectually-challenging puzzles.
By the time
of the Carolingian Renaissance, the motives for Irish emigration had
changed. White Martyr fervour faded for
the monks in Ireland as they sought personal comfort and were enjoying the fame
resulting from their scholarship. In
addition, the ideal of the White Martyr became more difficult to achieve
because of the success of the Irish monasteries in Europe. They had become flourishing centres of Irish
Celtic society, each one filled with numbers of Irish-born monks revered by the
local people. The monks of Ireland who
visited the monasteries of St. Gall in Switzerland or Bobbio in Italy were
greeted not by strangers, but by former countrymen. Only in eastern Europe could a 9th-century
Irish monk seeking White Martyrdom find the same sense of loneliness and heroic
adventure experienced by his 7th-century predecessors.
When the
Vikings began to maraud the Irish coastline, they posed a major threat to the
monasteries and gave the monks a new reason to emigrate to
Perhaps the
most prominent member of the Irish "herd" of philosophers was John
Scotus Eriugena, who was called Eriugena.
In the early 840's he arrived at the court of Charlemagne's grandson,
Charles the Bald. At the time, Charles
was not yet Emperor, but ruled over the Western Franks from Lyon. Charles granted Eriugena a post at the new
palace school that Charles had created to continue the scholarly work started
by his grandfather. Eriugena was a
daring and original thinker for his time, and he was the only scholar at
Charles' court able to read and write in Greek.
No other scholar had learned Greek because the Roman Christian hierarchy
had shunned it due to the ongoing quarrel with the Eastern Orthodox Christians
centred in Byzantium. The Eastern
Christians, who were considered heretical by the Roman Christians, used Greek
for their rituals. The Greek language
was such an anathema to the Roman Christians in the 7th century that Gregory,
the papal legate to Byzantium who later became Pope Gregory I, refused to learn
it, despite spending six years engaged in diplomatic negotiations with the
Byzantine Emperor.
Because
Eriugena was the only scholar who understood Greek, Charles the Bald
commissioned him to translate the writings of Dionysius the Aeropagite from
Greek into Latin. Charles thought the
work was important because he erroneously believed that Dionysius the
Aeropagite was the same man as St. Denis, the patron saint of the Franks whose
Latinized name was Dionysius. In
translating Dionysius's works, Eriugena came to accept the Greek Christian
perspective that human beings could gain some comprehension of divine mysteries
only by comparing them to events and circumstances they were familiar with in
the world around them. For instance, to
gain an understanding of the mystery of Christ's ascension into Heaven, an individual
had to picture Christ's body physically rising into the sky. Human beings could not directly comprehend
the divine, mystical nature of such a happening. The Virgin Birth of Christ and the
resurrection of Christ were other Christian beliefs Greek Christians believed
could be explained only by analogy. In
his book De Divisione Naturae, written after he came to the Greek
Christian way of thinking, Eriugena went so far ass to state the position that
human beings could directly understand nothing about God.
Greek
Christianity and Roman Christianity came down on different sides of the issue
of analogy as they way to know the nature of God. The Roman Christians had rejected the importance
of analogy by the 6th century because they believed this approach would
minimize Scripture by characterizing it as merely stories rather than
literal. Nonetheless, the challenge to
the Roman Christian view posed by Eriugena's book went unnoticed due to its
complexity and subtlety. Medieval
theologians read it, but they did not understand it to any depth.
On the
basis of Eriugena's contributions to the Carolingian Renaissance, his erudite
translation of Dionysius the Aeropagite, and his own learned theological
writings and scholarship, medieval theologians held him in high regard. Because of his reputation, Pope Nicholas I
praised him in a letter to Charles the Bald.
Desiring to bring even greater renown to his court, Charles appointed
Eriugena Master of the Palace School, a position in which Eriugena could
influence the studies off numbers of scholars and theologians and have an
effect on Charles' kingdom long into the future. For nearly 800 years, Eriugena was regarded
as a leading, and even a representative, medieval theologian. Then in the late 1600's, when a reprinting of
his De Divisione Naturae brought new scrutiny to his work, the basis of
Eriugena's writings in Greek Christian beliefs came to light, and Catholic
religious authorities hastily placed all of John Scotus Eriugena's writings on
the list of forbidden books.
Eriugena's
life was filled with more than study and philosophy. As a favourite of Charles the Bald, he was a
constant companion to the king. The
English chronicler, William of Malmesbury, claimed that once when the two men
were sitting together and drinking, Charles asked Eriugena what separated an
Irishman from a drunkard. Eriugena
replied, "The width of this table."
It was not
only the company and the wit of the Irish Celts that made them welcome in the
noble households of Carolingian Europe, but also their play on words, their
humorous tales, and their steadfast refusal to take themselves seriously. A manuscript preserved in the monastery of
St. Paul in Carinthia, Austria, contains a brief poem written by an anonymous
monk from Kildare. It sums up the
light-hearted attitude that Irish monks often had towards their work:
I
am Pangur Ban my cat
'Tis
a like task we are at;
Hunting
mice is his delight,
Hunting
words I sit all night.
So
in peace our tasks we ply
Pangur
Ban, my cat, and I
In
our arts we find our bliss,
I
have mine and he has his.
During the
Carolingian Renaissance, many Irish monks with poetic talent sought wealth
patrons to support them. One of the most
famous of these, the poet Sedulius, attached himself to the Bishop of Liège,
whose name was Hartgar. Sedulius's poems
were read far and wide. By praising
Hartgar in his poems, Sedulius helped to give the Bishop of Liège a reputation
as an influential prelate who headed a cultured court. Hartgar rewarded Sedulius with a house and
land. He also gave Sedulius a great deal
of gold, which the famed poet used to start a poet's colony. The verse of Sedulius was so renowned that
Ermingarde, wife of the Emperor Lotha, embroidered passages from his poems in
silk tapestries.
Many Irish
bards gathered in Liège to share in Hartgar's beneficence. The poets Fergus, Marcus, Blandus and
Beuchell were permanent residents.
Sedulius called them the "Four Charioteers of the Lord" for
their religious poetry. Anomalously,
their verse was usually light and even frivolous, a stark contrast to the
solemn themes usually associated with religious poetry. Many Irish poets visited Liège for a time
before settling elsewhere. Some of the
poets wrote their signatures on manuscripts Sedulius had written, as if having
their names associated with Sedulius enhanced their own prestige as poets.
Throughout
the Carolingian Renaissance, Irish monks played a leading role in preserving
the knowledge of the ancients and establishing the curriculum that became the
model for education in Europe for centuries.
In addition, the Irish monks took the initiative in teaching craftsmen,
farmers, and other labourers practical skills which helped bring prosperity,
self-sufficiency and stability to Europe after the tumult and ignorance of the
Dark Ages. In various ways in religious,
intellectual, and practical fields, Irish monks played a major role in laying
down the groundwork for the development of European society. Since the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th
and 10th centuries is commonly regarded as the origin of Western civilization,
the place of the humble, indefatigable and selfless labours of the successive
waves of Irish monks in the formation of Western civilization is plain.
THE IRISH AND EUROPEAN
FOLKLORE
Although they were outsiders, the Irish monks affected
the societies where they constructed their monasteries and shared their knowledge
and skills so that folklore and legends often grew up around them. Such folklore and legend might recount events
in the lives of certain monks, acknowledge the origin of a valuable skill, or
portray a monks' good works for the local population. Or a tale or legend might be like a parable
teaching some moral lesson or illustrate the spirituality of the monks. The folk tales and legends involving the
monks not only affected the place of the monks in the history of society, but
also helped to keep alive the virtues and spiritual message of the monks within
the society.
The first
Irish monk to make an impression in Europe, Columbanus, was among the first to
find his way into folk literature. In
the medieval tale of Columbanus's deeds, the storm which arose forcing the boat
carrying him back to Ireland to return to France was attributed to Columbanus's
own powers. As medieval storytellers and
villagers saw this event, Columbanus summoned the storm so he could return to
Europe to continue his missionary work.
In another improbable, yet meaningful, medieval tale, the 8th-century
Irish monk Renan of Brittany raised from the dead an infant girl who had been
murdered by her mother to hide the child's birth. As with other characters of medieval literature,
supernatural powers and miraculous deeds which delighted and instructed
medieval audiences were attributed to various memorable Irish monks when they
were brought into the tradition of folk literature.
The memory
of the presence and the deeds of the monks did not always die out with the
passing of the medieval era and the changing nature of literature in the
opening of the modern age. The
7th-century monk born in Wexford who came to be known as San Cataldo was the
spiritual guardian of Italy's armed forces during World War II. At first known by his Irish name, Cathal,
this venerable monk was shipwrecked near the Italian town of Taranto on his way
back to Ireland from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in about 666. Interpreting Cathal's unexpected appearance
as divine intervention to provide them with a spiritual leader, the local
people appointed Cathal as their bishop.
Because the Italian had difficulty pronouncing Cathal's Irish name, they
called him Cataldo. Cathal remained in
Taranto until his death. His body was
entombed in the local cathedral. As
legend tells it, when his sarcophagus was opened two centuries later, his body
had not decayed - and lying across his chest was a crucifix with the
inscription Cataldus Rachau, which referred to Rathan, the site of an old
monastery in Tipperary. Having survived
a shipwreck, Cathal became recognized as a protector of anyone facing mortal
danger, and because of his good works as Bishop of Taranto, was made a saint by
the Catholic Church. In the 19th century,
the newly independent nation of Italy adopted the saint as the spiritual
guardian of its armed forces.
Many Irish
monks such as Columcille, Columbanus and Gall enjoyed local veneration and were
elevated to sainthood after their death.
Sometimes, the bones of long-dead monks were enshrined. In Pisano, remains purported to be those of
the Irish Celt Fridian, who had been a hermit living on Monte Pisano, are still
kept in a glass case beneath a church altar.
Other times, the bones of dead Irish monks were disinterred and
distributed to people for their reputed curative powers, a practice which
helped spread the local folktales surrounding many sainted Irish monks as the
bones were sold or given to sick people across medieval Europe.
The Irish
monks also consciously created myths.
The story of the Harrowing of Hell to encourage the pagans in Germany to
adopt the Christian religion was attributed to an 8th-century Irish monk named
Clemens. He learned that many pagans
resisted baptism, believing that the ceremony would separate them in the
afterlife from their ancestors who had died with no knowledge of Christ. Although it had no basis in scripture,
Clemens created the legend that after the crucifixion, Christ descended into
hell to liberate the souls of the righteous who had died before his
coming. This would allow a joyous
reunion in heaven between converts and their pagan ancestors. Because the tale was useful in gaining converts,
orthodox scholars did not attempt to suppress it.
Besides the
specific folktales the Irish monks devised in order to make Christianity
acceptable to pagans in foreign lands, and the folktales and legends which grew
around memorable monks in parts of Europe, the monks had an influence on
European folk literature with the notions of shape-shifting that was central to
Celtic spirituality. The frightening
figure of the werewolf - a creature half beast and half human - found in the
folktales of many European societies demonstrates the influence of
shape-shifting on the popular imagination.
Many other figures, both terrible and benevolent, of European folk
literature reveal the effects of the shape-shifting concept found in Celtic
spirituality.
The Irish
monks left behind sturdy stone monasteries, intellectual standards, practical
arts, and Christian spirituality as testament to their presence. But perhaps it is their works and teachings
preserved in folk literature in all parts of Europe that best illustrate the
lasting impression they made on the general populations. As well as imparting the wisdom and lessons
of the Irish monks, folktales were a way of distilling the memory of them and
transmitting it through the generations.
LATE MEDIEVAL ASCETICS
AND THE CRUSADES
From the
time of Columbanus in the early 7th century, there had been a steady stream of
Irish monks coming to Europe. During
these years, White Martyr fervour was a strong motivation, and there were
plenty of opportunities to do spiritual and useful work in a Europe benighted
by the Dark Ages. This flow of emigrations
inevitably slowed because of cultural changes in both Ireland and Europe, and
by the late 10th century it was no more than a trickle. Monasteries in both Ireland and Europe had
lost much of the spiritual fervour that characterized them in the early
medieval period. Abbots permitted many
monks from wealthy families to bring luxurious furnishings and exotic foods
into the monasteries. There were even
occasions of monasteries warring with each other over disputed grazing
land. Without the spiritual ideal of the
White Martyr, there was little incentive for the Irish monks of the times to
brave the hardships of travel and endure the separation from friends and
family. During the late medieval period,
most Irish monks were content to remain in the monasteries of Ireland. When they travelled at all, it was for a
specific purpose such as pilgrimage, study at a European scholastic centre, or
to attend a synod; and usually they returned home after a temporary visit to
foreign lands.
This did
not mean that no Irish Celts settled in Europe during the late medieval
period. Some of the monks embraced a
religious reform movement that sought to rekindle the ascetic spirit of the
White Martyr. They called themselves the
Cèli De, the vessels of God. But
their practices were so rigorous that the movement attracted relatively few
followers. Its most extreme form was the
inclusi, monks who walled themselves into a cell for their remaining
lifetime. The cell had a small opening
for food and waste removal, but all other contact with the outside world was
shunned. During the 11th and 12th
centuries, monasteries in Mainz, Obermunster, Vienna and Kiev had Irish inclusi
dwelling within their cloister walls.
Because these ascetics did not interact with others, they had no impact
on European society in general. Even
within their monasteries, the inclusi had little effect on the other
monks; few followed their example by embracing this exceptionally stark way of
life.
During the
12th and 13th centuries, the Crusades to free the Holy Land from Moslem control
indirectly stimulated emigration by providing a new spiritual motive for Irish
monks to travel across Europe on their way to the Holy Land. Monks from Ireland again ventured abroad in
large numbers, intent on making the arduous journey to Jerusalem, which the
Pope ordained would result in forgiveness of their sins. Along the long and hazardous route, the
continental monasteries established by their predecessors became way stations
where a weary pilgrim could find a nourishing meal and a night's lodging. Sometimes sickness or advanced age forced
Irish monks to remain in European monasteries far longer than they had
originally intended. Other times, a monk
on pilgrimage would become interested in the way of life or the work performed
in a European monastery and settled there on the return trip from the Holy
Land. During the late medieval period,
these wandering monks who had come to Europe for reasons far different than the
White Martyrs maintained a cultural link between Ireland and the monasteries on
the mainland.
Due to the
constant presence of the Irish monks and scholars in schools, monasteries, and
royal courts, the French, Spanish, and Germans gradually became accustomed to
them during the Middle Ages. The monks'
knowledge and scholarship became as valuable to the kingdoms where they lived
as supplies of food and weapons of war.
Yet these Irish wanderers had a loyalty beyond their allegiance to the
local king or political chieftain. They
also adhered to their Celtic Christian view that all knowledge complemented
spirituality.
The numbers
of Irish monks who went to Europe concentrated on their own ascetic regimens,
the missionary work of spreading Christianity, and practical instruction when
this was sought by local populations. In
these aims, the monks had considerable success, which caused them to have a
much broader effect on European society.
The monks embodied Celtic culture as it had been preserved in Ireland
unaffected by the widespread and transforming historical developments of
continental Europe in the centuries of the dominance of Rome and the barbarian
invasions. In contrast to the Celtic
culture of Ireland, the Celtic culture which had been the prevailing culture in
Europe until Caesar conquered Gaul in 50 B.C. had become mixed with Roman forms
of government and civic ideas; Greek forms of the arts which had been adopted
by Roman civilization; a perspective on Christianity growing out of Near
Eastern concepts of spirituality; and barbarian inclinations for destructive
warfare. Nonetheless, Celtic culture was
not abolished by these various influences.
Rather, Celtic culture was the matrix by which these influences affected
the societies of Europe; the matrix which allowed these influences to have
genuine, enduring effects upon these societies.
Despite the
strong influences on Celtic culture which changed it in significant and
irreversible ways, there was a continuity to Celtic culture in