The end of Celtic monastery

Since Saints Patrick or Finnian (of Clonard) converted the people of Ireland to Christianity, a unique monastic culture based upon the Irish 'clan' system flourished ; in the meanwhile, many of scholars with great hoards of the classical knowledge fled from the troubled Continent to Celtic Ireland, who handed down their intellectual heritage of manuscripts to the Irish monks, who in turn recorded them in various codices in Hiberno - Latin. And they abandoned their native land to row off in their curraghs for their seclusion, or they proceeded to the Continent to wander about pro Christi, founding the Celtic monasteries on their way. As it turned out, by such wandering monks, the classical works were to come back to their home, and it would be the main driver for Carolingian Renaissance. Charlemagne, an illiterate himself, invited many of scholars from his neighbouring countries, especially from Italy, as teachres for the Frankish court school, but among others, he was a great admirer of Irish scholars for erudition. The best representatives of all Irish scholars serving the Frankish court were Sedulius Scotus (Ninth century), geographer Dicuil (date of birth and death unknown), and famous philosopher Johannes Scotus Eriugena (ca.810 - ca.877). Particularly Eriugena was known for his extensive learning, familiar with Platonism, and famous for his large volumes called De divisione naturae (originally titled Periphyseon, ca.867), which greatly influenced the mediæval theological and philosophical edifice, and in the 13th century, the Pope commanded the book should be burned, due to its pantheistic contents. Also we must remember the so famous The Book of Kells, created in commemoration of Sait Columba of Iona (ca. 800). Along with another famed The Lindisfarne Gospels, the collection of Gospels is a truly apex of all masterpieces of the Irish monasterial literary art.

Thus the Celtic seafaring monks flourished then, however, their native land just entered its greatest crisis : the attacks of the Norsemen. The long ships full of the Viking raiders surged onto the Irish shore via the Scottish Hebrides and the Isle of Man, and the pillagers began their looting. Ireland was divided into about 150 sub-kingdoms or tuatha which fought each other though, the island had never been occupied by any foreign raiders. The Vikings began their onslaught against Ireland around from the end of the eighth century, and repeated such massive invasions until the tenth century. Their main target was the treasure houses inside the large monasteries scattered around Ireland, which were wholly wrecked. Illiterate as they were, Northmen did not care the precious manuscripts, but ripped the jeweled inlay off from them. The monks and lay people resisted the invaders bravely but in vain ; according to the Annals of Ulster, the year 812 saw Eitgal, the abbot of the Skellig Michael (Sceilig Mhichíl) island monastery, abducted for ransome by the intruders, and then starved to death in captivity.

The Northmen wrecked havoc on the Irish religious communities like Saint Brendan's Clonfert, all of which were totally burnt down. So did the monasteries located in Glendalough, Clonmacnoise, Kildare, Bangor, Moville, and Armagh.

During such troubled times, the Irish monks started to build windowless 'round towers', for protecting their precious manuscripts or for their own refuge ; some of them survive today.

The attacking route of the Norsemen

The attacking routes of the Vikings (black portions show their settlements).

The Abbey built by Columba on the small rocky island of Iona (Hy) was plundered by the Norsemen, too ; their invasions of this holy isle were recorded at least in three times, namely in 795, 802 and 806, the last of which saw the thirty monks and their abbot slaughtered by the raiders and their corpses left to rot on the beach. Now this tragic spot is called 'Martyr's Bay. Under the repeated attacks by the Vikings, the Iona monks finally decided to leave their home Abbey, taking refuge back in Ireland. And tradition says that they secretly brought back with them ... the Book of Kells. But this famous illuminated manuscript also had undergone some kind of sufferings in these disturbed years, including 'to be buried' in the country farms for hiding.

The raiding parties of Norsemen, however, were beginning to settle themselves among the native Irish residents, and they were the first founders of the real 'cities' across the island. Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick are originally all of the Viking settlements. Actually, it was the Norsemen themselves who created the cities or developed the monetary economy in Ireland. In the eleventh century, Brian Boru smashed the northern invaders and unified the whole Ireland for the first time, though for a short period. By that point, the glory of the Irish monasteries was already a history, and later they saw the Norman Conquest and their colonising efforts against Ireland, only to fall into a decline.

In the case of Clonfert Cathedral originally established by Saint Brendan, the Norsemen also destroyed its buildings. However, in the late thirteenth century, a bishop-elect by the name of John re-established the see of Clonfert and a new cathedral in the so-called Romanesque style, which can stll be seen today. In recent years, a boost of conservation for such relics left behind by the early Christianity in mediæeval Ireland, and Clonfert Cathedral now is preserved in such efforts.

Other causes also led to a disintegration of the Celtic Christianity flourished in Ireland. In April of 597, just as Saint Columba giving up his spirit, St Augustine (of Canterbury) finally landed on the English soil, and pretty soon after his landing, he conversed Athelberht, the King of Kent, and Augustine himself was ordained to the first archbishop of Canterbury. And it was the first time the Irish monastic church met the Roman Catholic Church. By then, the Celtic wandering monks were an ordinal sight all across the Continent, and they already had rich tradition of their missionary, all of which were bringing them some conflicts between the Irish sea0faring monks and the priests of the Roman Catholic circle. The Irish Church was not regarded as a heterodoxy, however, their monastic system had a kind of the character found in the Eastern Christianity, not conveyed to them via Rome. The Irish monks, belonging to the unique monastic church reined by their abbots, admitted that the high regard of the Papal hierarchy on the Roman side as the latter asserted but the chasm between them was only widening in the course of time, and finally, their collision brought about a crirtical moment : so-called 'Easter Controversies', in which the priests on the Roman side also criticised their curious 'tonsure'.

Among others, the 'computus' issue was the biggest one, for this problem was not caused by some disciplinary things, but it might have shaken the basis of Christian belief itself. Two synods were given at Mag Lena near Birr(629 or 630), and then Whitby (664), during which the southern churches of Munster region accepted the Roman system. At the synod of Whitby, the Northumbrian king Oswiu asserted that the Roman church was right because they were the true successor to Saint Peter himself, and so he rejected the claim of the northern churches of Iona or Scotland.* The King's verdict was a de facto standard, so other Celtic church communities were forced to accept. The Roman system of Easter computus was at last unanimously adopted at the synod of Birr, in 697. Only Iona community denied the conclusion, however, and maintained their system, so in 716, an Anglo-Saxon bishop Ecgberht persuaded them, which proved to be a success : the Iona community submitted the Roman system, joining in the rest of the churches, so this computus issue took about a century until it was settled.

After the series of Easter Controversies, the Celtic Church groups began losing their influence and in decline rapidly. Besides, hit by wave after wave of the Northmen's onslaughts, the wandering figures of Irish monks vanished in the Continent as well, and their monasteries across the Continent were gradually replaced by the Benedictine communities such as settled abbeys of Cluniac Order, with spreading Regula Benedicti or the Rule of Saint Benedict. Now the Western world was ruled by the centralized Roman Catholic Church, in which the Irish Church lost its identity and was being absorbed into the Roman Church side.

Upheavals across the Continent prospered the Celtic Church in Ireland. How ironically, the end of the commotion brought a new era and the complete establishment of the Roman Catholic Church, which meant the end of the Celtic Church, too. Still, it was the Irish seafaring monks and their efforts for rebuilding of monastic communities during their wanderings, and (not least) transcribed the Classical literature or patristic documents in many of codeces, that saved the culture of mediæval Europe.

* cf. J.F.Webb, D.H.Farmer, ed., The Age of Bede, pp.116 - 8.