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The Anglo-Saxons: Synthesis and Achievement
The popular notion that sees the Anglo-Saxon era as “The Dark Ages” perhaps has tended to obscure for many people the creations and strengths of that time. This collection, in examining many aspects of pre-Norman Britain, helps to illuminate how Anglo-Saxon society contributed to the continuity of knowledge between the ancient world and the modern world. But as well, it posits a view of that society in its own distinctive terms to show how it developed as a synthesis of radically different cultures. The Bayeux Tapestry is examined for its underlying political motivations; the study of Old English literature is extended to such works as laws, charters, apocryphal literature, saints’ lives and mythologies, and many of these are studied for the insight they provide into the social structures of the Anglo-Saxons. Other essays examine both the institution of slavery and the use of Germanic warrior terminology in Old Saxon as a contribution towards the descriptive analysis of that society’s social groupings. The book also presents a perspective on the Christian church that is usually overlooked by that its existence was continuous and influential from Roman times, and that it was greatly affected by the Celtic Christian church long after the latter was thought to have disintegrated.
- GenresHistory
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First published May 30, 1986
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March 21, 2022noting down for: C. Evans, "The Celtic Church in Anglo-Saxon times" chapter
--> isolated collection of wooden huts surrounded by a wall?
"Celtic monasticism was also distinguished by its religious way of life. Saint Benedict described his own rule as "this little Rule for beginners." He did insist on self-renunciation, prayer, and physical labour, but did not impose such hardships on his followers as were peculiar to the desert fathers of the East and were adopted especially (though not solely) by the Irish monks. The latters' discipline was severe, to say the least. There were variations in application according to the founder of each monastery and his successors, since at first there were no written rules. The rules attributed to Columba of lona, Comgall of Bangor, Ailbe of Emly (Imlech), and Carthach of Lismore actually date only from the eighth century and were written in the interests of the eighth-century Culdee revival of discipline. It is thus possible that the rules appear to be stricter than they actually were. Whatever the case, the Celtic monks had a reputation for their asceticism. Fasting was frequent, usually not on just one, but on two days a week; often only one meal a day was eaten, and the sleeping hours were broken by several offices. David, the sixth-century Welsh saint, rationed out bread to his monks and did not permit them to eat meat. He earned the sobriquet of Aquaticus, 'the Waterman,' because he demanded complete abstinence from alcohol. (It was normally acceptable for monks in those days to drink wine.)"
"Other points of divergence were the form of the tonsure, of baptism, of ordination, and of the liturgy. The Roman style of tonsure was a shaven circle on the crown of the head; the tonsure of the Celtic monks differed from that in some way, though the exact form of it is not known."
"Yet it was not stated at Nicaea whether one should definitely avoid celebrating on the same day as the Jews celebrated Passover or not. The members of the Roman Church believed that one should, and they celebrated between the fifteenth and the twenty-first of Nisan, but the Irish monks and their followers celebrated between the fourteenth and the twentieth of that month, so that whenever the fourteenth of Nisan fell on a Sunday, they celebrated Easter a week earlier than the Roman Church."
"To add to the confusion, the Celts did not use the nineteen-year cycle common to the rest of the Christian world. Instead, they used an eighty-four-year cycle"
"It seems that the Celts performed a single immersion—which was still the custom in Brittany in the early seventeenth century—instead of the three immersions recommended by the apostolic canon and already mentioned in the first-century Didache."
"At Bangor in northern Ireland, we know from a seventh-century prayer book that mass was celebrated only on Sunday and that, since Saturday was the vigil, the latter was also kept with solemnity, as was traditional in Egyptian monasteries. During the same period in Roman monasteries, mass was celebrated daily."
"A synod met at Magh Lene in southern Ireland in to debate the matter of Easter, and the decision was ultimately in favour of Roman usage. By the time of the Whitby Synod, over half of the Irish churches had already made the change."
on synod of Whitby:
"At the conference, Bishop Colman from Lindisfarne in Northumbria spoke for the Celtic party. Agilbert, bishop of Wessex, was the senior ecclesiastic on the Roman side, but since he would have needed an interpreter, he left the statement of his case to Wilfrid, who was head of a community at Ripon in Yorkshire and had spent several years studying Roman usages in Italy and Gaul."
"After their defeat at Whitby, Colman and all the other Irishmen at Lindisfarne left Northumbria, first to go to Iona, and then to found a new monastery on the island of Innisbofin off the coast of western Ireland. His successors in the bishopric and abbacy of Lindisfarne accepted the Roman order, but the western islands remained the outpost of Irish resistance."
"Even Adamnan, abbot of Iona at the end of the seventh century, who was himself converted to the Roman Easter, could not force his monks to change their customs. It was only in that Egbert, an Anglo-Saxon who had studied in Ireland, got most of the monks of Iona to change their views. Not long thereafter, the Pictish king, Nechtan IV, expelled still recalcitrant monks of the Celtic persuasion from Iona."
"In the eighth century, there had been a resurgence of the rigorous anchoritic life known as the Culdee revival (from the Irish Cell De, 'servant of God'). We have already mentioned the written rules it produced. The movement was especially strong in Ireland, where it was led by Mael-ruain."
"One very significant factor in the influence of Celtic monasteries was their active intellectual life. This was not so much the case in Brittany, where there was so much in the way of violence and threats that the monasteries could do little more than survive, but in Wales and, above all, in Ireland, monastic learning flourished. The pagan Celts had had a great tradition of learning, and the course of study in druidic schools was very exacting. Some of this was kept in monasteries."
"Bede states that in the plague year, 664, many English people were in Ireland either for the sake of religious studies or to live a more ascetic life."
"The practice in some English churches of singing the Nicene Creed at mass seems to have come from the Irish, who had borrowed it from Spain. Alcuin, who tried to persuade Charlemagne to have it sung throughout his empire, was using an Irish version of the text, as represented in the Stowe Missal, an Irish mass book of the early ninth century. The Irish influence also appears in books of private prayer, such as the Book of Cern, which belonged to the monastery of Cerne Abbas in Dorset but which has materials in it from the north of England. Its most striking feature is the importance given to penance."
--> isolated collection of wooden huts surrounded by a wall?
"Celtic monasticism was also distinguished by its religious way of life. Saint Benedict described his own rule as "this little Rule for beginners." He did insist on self-renunciation, prayer, and physical labour, but did not impose such hardships on his followers as were peculiar to the desert fathers of the East and were adopted especially (though not solely) by the Irish monks. The latters' discipline was severe, to say the least. There were variations in application according to the founder of each monastery and his successors, since at first there were no written rules. The rules attributed to Columba of lona, Comgall of Bangor, Ailbe of Emly (Imlech), and Carthach of Lismore actually date only from the eighth century and were written in the interests of the eighth-century Culdee revival of discipline. It is thus possible that the rules appear to be stricter than they actually were. Whatever the case, the Celtic monks had a reputation for their asceticism. Fasting was frequent, usually not on just one, but on two days a week; often only one meal a day was eaten, and the sleeping hours were broken by several offices. David, the sixth-century Welsh saint, rationed out bread to his monks and did not permit them to eat meat. He earned the sobriquet of Aquaticus, 'the Waterman,' because he demanded complete abstinence from alcohol. (It was normally acceptable for monks in those days to drink wine.)"
"Other points of divergence were the form of the tonsure, of baptism, of ordination, and of the liturgy. The Roman style of tonsure was a shaven circle on the crown of the head; the tonsure of the Celtic monks differed from that in some way, though the exact form of it is not known."
"Yet it was not stated at Nicaea whether one should definitely avoid celebrating on the same day as the Jews celebrated Passover or not. The members of the Roman Church believed that one should, and they celebrated between the fifteenth and the twenty-first of Nisan, but the Irish monks and their followers celebrated between the fourteenth and the twentieth of that month, so that whenever the fourteenth of Nisan fell on a Sunday, they celebrated Easter a week earlier than the Roman Church."
"To add to the confusion, the Celts did not use the nineteen-year cycle common to the rest of the Christian world. Instead, they used an eighty-four-year cycle"
"It seems that the Celts performed a single immersion—which was still the custom in Brittany in the early seventeenth century—instead of the three immersions recommended by the apostolic canon and already mentioned in the first-century Didache."
"At Bangor in northern Ireland, we know from a seventh-century prayer book that mass was celebrated only on Sunday and that, since Saturday was the vigil, the latter was also kept with solemnity, as was traditional in Egyptian monasteries. During the same period in Roman monasteries, mass was celebrated daily."
"A synod met at Magh Lene in southern Ireland in to debate the matter of Easter, and the decision was ultimately in favour of Roman usage. By the time of the Whitby Synod, over half of the Irish churches had already made the change."
on synod of Whitby:
"At the conference, Bishop Colman from Lindisfarne in Northumbria spoke for the Celtic party. Agilbert, bishop of Wessex, was the senior ecclesiastic on the Roman side, but since he would have needed an interpreter, he left the statement of his case to Wilfrid, who was head of a community at Ripon in Yorkshire and had spent several years studying Roman usages in Italy and Gaul."
"After their defeat at Whitby, Colman and all the other Irishmen at Lindisfarne left Northumbria, first to go to Iona, and then to found a new monastery on the island of Innisbofin off the coast of western Ireland. His successors in the bishopric and abbacy of Lindisfarne accepted the Roman order, but the western islands remained the outpost of Irish resistance."
"Even Adamnan, abbot of Iona at the end of the seventh century, who was himself converted to the Roman Easter, could not force his monks to change their customs. It was only in that Egbert, an Anglo-Saxon who had studied in Ireland, got most of the monks of Iona to change their views. Not long thereafter, the Pictish king, Nechtan IV, expelled still recalcitrant monks of the Celtic persuasion from Iona."
"In the eighth century, there had been a resurgence of the rigorous anchoritic life known as the Culdee revival (from the Irish Cell De, 'servant of God'). We have already mentioned the written rules it produced. The movement was especially strong in Ireland, where it was led by Mael-ruain."
"One very significant factor in the influence of Celtic monasteries was their active intellectual life. This was not so much the case in Brittany, where there was so much in the way of violence and threats that the monasteries could do little more than survive, but in Wales and, above all, in Ireland, monastic learning flourished. The pagan Celts had had a great tradition of learning, and the course of study in druidic schools was very exacting. Some of this was kept in monasteries."
"Bede states that in the plague year, 664, many English people were in Ireland either for the sake of religious studies or to live a more ascetic life."
"The practice in some English churches of singing the Nicene Creed at mass seems to have come from the Irish, who had borrowed it from Spain. Alcuin, who tried to persuade Charlemagne to have it sung throughout his empire, was using an Irish version of the text, as represented in the Stowe Missal, an Irish mass book of the early ninth century. The Irish influence also appears in books of private prayer, such as the Book of Cern, which belonged to the monastery of Cerne Abbas in Dorset but which has materials in it from the north of England. Its most striking feature is the importance given to penance."
Displaying 1 of 1 review