The church introduced literacy in Latin. Irish monks enthusiastically took up the study of patristic and Classical literature and were themselves soon producing a wide range of literature in both Latin and Gaelic, including biblical commentaries and hagiography, law, grammar, computation, annals and poetry. Irish monasteries soon had well-stocked libraries. The standard of Irish monastic scholarship was the equal of any to be found in the early medieval West, but what particularly impressed foreigners was the high average standard of education of the monks: possibly because they were importing an alien culture, Irish scholars paid great attention to providing good teaching materials for novices. Monasteries also became important
Plate 24 Book of Durrow {c. 650-700); carpet page with trumpet and spiral decoration and six-ribbon interlacing, Irish, from Durrow, County Offaly (vellum); Ms 57 fol. 3v
Source: The Board of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland/Bridgeman Art Library, WWW. bridgeman. co. uk
Plate 25 Monasterboice High Cross, eighth century Source: John Haywood
Centres for craftsmanship and the visual arts. Monasteries were great land-owners, and many became wealthy on the rents of their tenants and the offerings of the pilgrims who visited in search of forgiveness for sins or cures for illnesses and injuries. Kings needed divine favour if they were to fulfil their responsibilities to their subjects and they became frequent visitors to monasteries along with their retinues. The belief that the saints protected them led many kings to entrust monasteries with their treasuries. Because they were wealthy centres of consumption, merchants and craftsmen were attracted to the monasteries to cater for the needs of the monks and their visitors, and they settled in villages close by. By the end of the ninth century some of the more important monasteries had developed into small towns. These included Armagh, thanks to its association with St Patrick the main centre of Christianity in Ireland, and Clonmacnoise, which was situated at a strategic crossing of land and river routes in the centre of the country. Under the patronage of the monasteries, Irish craftsmen produced superb works of art in stone and metal, such as the sculptured high crosses, many of which still stand, and the silver chalices of Ardagh and Derrynaflan. The finest Irish artistic achievements of the period are, unquestionably, the intricately illuminated gospel books, such as the Book of Durrow and the Book of Kells (actually made on Iona). Though in later ages the credit was given to angels, these were made by the monks themselves as acts of devotion. The art of what has come to be called the ‘Golden Age’ was a harmonious fusion of late Insular La Tene geometrical patterns and interlaced animal ornaments borrowed from the Anglo-Saxons, which art historians know as the Hiberno-Saxon style. Irish metalworkers also adopted from the Anglo-Saxons the technique of making decorative patterns using filigree (fine twisted wires of gold or silver) and soon exceeded them in skill.
Despite the close involvement of the leading monasteries with the secular world, Irish monasticism also had a strong tradition of asceticism, inherited from the desert fathers. Monks following this tradition sought complete solitude for contemplation and built their monasteries on the windswept islands off Ireland’s west coast, the most spectacular of which clings almost impossibly to the cliffs of the precipitous islet of Skellig Michael. Another expression of this ascetic tradition was the Culdee reform movement (from Ceile De, ‘Client of God’) that flourished from the eighth through to the twelfth centuries. Though life in places like Skellig Michael must have been cold and hungry, it was not tough enough for some monks. Placing their fates in the hands of God, small parties of monks set sail in flimsy hide boats in search of ultimate solitude in uninhabited lands. Many must have finished up at the bottom of the sea, but others found safe harbours and later made it back home to tell of their adventures. The most fantastic of the tales of these seafaring monks is the Voyage of St Brendan, which some believe is a description of a voyage to North America. The tale mixes plausible information, such as a description of a fiery mountain in the sea, which could well be a volcanic island, with pure fantasy, making it a difficult work to interpret, A modern replica of a hide currach has successfully crossed the
Atlantic, but that was with the benefits of modern weatherproof clothing and navigational equipment and the reassuring presence of a rescue boat. However, Irish monks certainly reached the Faroe islands and Iceland long before the Vikings got there.
The Irish called their practice of religious travelling peregrinatio (‘travelling for God’), while foreigners called it ‘the Irish fashion of going away’, so distinctive was it to them. Not all peregrini had their minds fixed only on solitude, however, and the present-day isolation of many Irish monasteries is deceptive. Columba’s monastery on the delectable Hebridean island of Iona offered plenty of solitude but it was not really remote in an age when travel by sea was always faster than on land. Iona was in fact an excellent base from which Columba could lead the conversion of the northern Piets, as well as maintain his influence in Ireland, which was only a day’s sail away. Another Irish monk from Iona, St Aidan (d. 651), played the leading role in the conversion of Northumbria. Other Irish missionaries, such as Columbanus (d. 615) and Fursa (d. 650), took themselves to the powerful Frankish kingdom and Italy to spread the ascetic brand of Irish monasti-cism. The Irish did much to raise the rather relaxed standards of continental monasteries, but their refusal to accept diocesan authority, and their adherence to other Celtic practices, brought them into conflict with local bishops. Columbanus had a particularly stormy career and at one point was escorted from the Frankish kingdom under armed guard, though he was soon back. Because of their high reputation, many Irish monks found a welcome at the court of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne (r. 768-814) who fostered a revival of learning known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Outstanding Irish scholars who contributed to the renaissance included the geographer Dicuil, the poet Sedulius Scottus, and John Eriugena (‘Irish born’), whose treatise Of the Division of Nature, a discussion of the evolution of the universe, was one of the few truly original philosophical works of the early Middle Ages. The practice of peregrinatio gradually declined in the ninth century as a result of the rising influence of Benedictine monasti-cism, with its emphasis on stability, which forbade monks to wander from their monasteries. However, Irish monasteries, known as Schottenkloster, remained influential in southern Germany and Austria until the Reformation.
How important was the civilisation of Ireland’s ‘Golden Age’ in a global context? Did the Irish, as has been claimed, save civilisation? Though it was never the only light in the so-called Dark Ages - sophisticated cultural life never died out in Italy and Gaul, and Anglo-Saxon England had its own (though partly Irish-influenced) great cultural achievements - by the standards of contemporary western Europe, Irish civilisation was undeniably outstanding. Significant though the Irish achievement was in western European terms, when viewed in a global context it serves only to emphasise the early medieval West’s cultural backwardness. No cultural centre of seventh - to eighth-century western Europe could compare with those of the Byzantine Empire, China, India or even the central-American Maya civilisation, which was then at its height. The greatest cultural centre of all was Baghdad, the capital of the Islamic Arab Caliphate, where
The study of Classical science and philosophy flourished. Arab scholars played a more important role in preserving and disseminating the wisdom of Graeco-Roman antiquity than even the Byzantine Greeks, who showed surprisingly little interest in the achievements of their pagan forebears. When medieval Europeans eventually rediscovered the works of Aristotle and other ancient philosophers it was from Arabic translations of the Greek originals. In today’s atmosphere of popular Islamophobia, it is sobering to reflect that, if anybody saved Western civilisation, it was the Arabs.
World History
