The Standard Bearer for the Monastery

The High Cross of the Scriptures at Clon-macnoise (right) stands today among the deserted ruins of the old monastery. It was erected by an abbot to mark the grave of a king, and thus represents the intertwined and interdependent relationship between the monasteries and Ireland's ancient power structure. Many of the abbots were sons of aristocratic families who remained as mighty in monastic times as they had been in the Celtic kingdoms. From the elaborate monasteries that were established across the land from the Sixth to the Tenth Centuries, these abbots held sway over their self-sustaining communities and parishes. With its sprawling settlement of church, refectory, school, guest quarters and monks' cells, the monastery at Clonmacnoise, like many other famous monastic centers, was not only a source of religious instruction for the land, but also an important place of secular learning with great scholars and artists in residence—its sign the intricate, varied stone cross.

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The Monks of Ireland Go Forth

Carved in granite, the tall Moone Cross near the monastery of Castledermot is the tallest of Ireland's Eighth Century crosses. The old pagan and Christian motifs on its west face (above, left) are still sharp and evocative—the twelve apostles and Crucifixion on the base, the odd collection of beasts on

The shaft and the whirling demons at the axis of the cross. But on another side of the base is a detail showing the Holy Family's flight into Egypt (above, right), which had a special pertinence to Ireland's missionary monks. They too went into exile in distant lands at God's behest, and viewed separation from their country and family as a form of penitential pilgrimage called "white martyrdom." But in so doing, they spread Christianity from West to East and brought to the barbarian lands of Europe a deep devotion to religious and secular scholarship and a stubborn commitment to the rule of the Cross.