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Celtic Monasticism
Ryan Renfro
The term Celtic
monasticism, much like Celtic Christianity or Celtic church,
should be used with caution and is in dire need of explanation.
It was never a fixed institution under a common rule such as that
of St. Benedict. Celtic monasticism is instead a term used
to describe the various monastic forms of monasticism existing
within the realm inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples of Western
Europe. Considering the ambiguous nature of such a term, it
may seem puzzling that it has become so widely used. All
faults aside, it is the best term there is for the vibrant
monastic movement that began in fifth-century Ireland. Although
largely orthodox, Celtic monasticism differed from its
continental counterpart in matters such as the date of Easter,
the form of the tonsure and the role of monasteries within the
Christian community as a whole. These differences, however,
were not the sign of a distinct Celtic Church but the result of
the development and spread of Christianity in the Celtic-speaking
areas and were ultimately altered once contact with the rest of
the Christian world increased.
In order to gain a better understanding of the situation from the
fifth to the eighth centuries it may be useful to take a look at
the monastic ideal of the early Christian Church. Monasticism’s
roots lie in Egypt, where solitary hermits lived alone in the
wilderness. The hermit’s life, however, proved too
difficult for many and thus many anchorites formed laura,
or communities met weekly to pray and hear Mass. By the
fourth century Pachomius was organizing these communities into
subdivided monasteries emphasizing obedience and collective
worship. St. Basil of Caesarea, who was instrumental in
bring these monastic colonies into the context of the existing
Christian Church, established the first truly coenobitical
monasteries which operated like integrated families instead of
collections of individual anchorites. Thus by the late
fourth century there were collections of monks living under one
roof and one central figure whom they were to obey.
Perhaps the best example of early monasticism, particularly in
the west, is that described by St. Benedict. Composed
during the first half of the sixth century, the Rule of St.
Benedict quickly became the standard monastic rule of the early
middle ages. It called for fully coenobitical, single
building monasteries that were to be self-supportive. Although
all monks were to obey the abbot without question, the abbot was
elected by the monastic community and was subject to the Rule
just as any other sort of monk. Critical of wandering monks
and separate from the lay clergy, Benedictine monks were much
more distinct from other members of the clergy than their Celtic
counterparts. [1]
How then did Celtic monasticism differ from the monastic ideal in
other areas and how was it similar? It seems fitting to
take the example of the monastery at Iona as an example. Its
founder, St. Columba, chose Iona because of its remote location
just out of view of Ireland. Its buildings constructed of
wood and wattle, the island monastery’s construction would
have prevented the construction of a single building community if
it was even desired: thus, the materials at hand forbid the
construction of an entirely coenobitical community like on the
continent. The monastery at Iona consisted of numerous
huts, a refectory for common meals, a guesthouse and a church,
all surrounded by an earthen rampart. Although mostly
self-sufficient like a Benedictine monastery, Iona was dependent
upon the mainland kings and trading centres for products such as
timber and dyes used for the production of manuscripts. Therefore,
unlike the early communities of Egypt or the lonely hermits, Iona
was very much involved with the local and international trading
networks.
The Celtic church to which Iona belonged possessed a different
ecclesiastical organization than most places in Christendom as
well. Although from its conception the Irish church
contained dioceses, missionaries such as St. Patrick encouraged
the monastic ideal, which by the sixth century had become the
most powerful force in Celtic Christianity.[2] The common reason given for the
popularity of monasticism in the Celtic lands was that fit in
well with the clan system. Monastic communities had the
same familial sense of unity as the clans. Furthermore, the
bishopric was not suited for the Celtic lands which, never having
been part of the Roman world, could claim no cities such as Trier
or Rome which could form the new seat of ecclesiastical
administration. The distinctions between secular and
cloistered clergy became very blurred during this period, leading
even to those with the ecclesiastical power of a bishop living
under the rule of an abbot and yet maintaining the same spiritual
and episcopal functions.[3] Smyth
writes of Columba: “although [he] lacked the sacramental
authority of a bishop, as the leader of a monastic confederation
within the Celtic church he exercised the powers that went with
metropolitan status elsewhere in the Roman world.”[4] Not only does this
passage illustrate the power of Abbots in the Celtic world, but
it also brings out a further characteristic of Celtic
monasticism- monastic confederations. Columba had already
formed monasteries on Ireland before he sailed for Iona, and
Adomnan mentions the founding of at least two others by Columba.[5] The monastery at
Iona was the matrix ecclesia or the mother church for a
number of other monasteries founded either by Columba or his
followers. It should be stressed, however, that each of
these monasteries were separated by large amounts of water or
wilderness from one another and that although they were
coenobitical, they did have room for anchorites. Cassian’s
teachings of the superiority of the thoughtful life of the hermit
was known to the Ionians, and all members of the monastic
community were free to move from the community to isolation as
they saw fit.[6] This freedom of
movement enjoyed by members of the Celtic communities is
undoubtedly due to the relative ambiguity of their roles when
compared with that of the former Roman areas. Although the
Celtic church contained the basic structure and roles of the
Roman church, the peculiarities of the society in which it
existed dictated to a degree what form that structure was to
take.
Abbots and bishops, however, were not the only members of the
monastic community. John Duke writes that there were three
orders of monks at Iona: the Seniors, whose job it was to
perform religious services, copy manuscripts and perform any sort
of administrative work necessary; the Working Brethren, who
performed the manual labour necessary for the continual survival
of the monastery and the Juniors or pupils working under the
instruction of one of the other brethren.[7] Although there was no formal rule, all
were under the strict surveillance of the abbot and were to
follow him just as under the continental model. Moreover,
the abbot, at least in the case of Columba, was seen as being
somewhere in between God and the brethren, for he had the ability
to arbitrate on behalf of them.[8] The monachicum votum or vow was the
same as elsewhere according to Adomnan: poverty, chastity, and
obedience.[9] Work was a virtue
that kept one free from the sin of idleness and therefore was
promoted. Those whose manual labour was not necessary for
the production of food spent their time producing manuscripts
such as the Book of Durrow or the Book of Kells, both believe to
have been produced at Iona in the seventh or eighth centuries.
Such books required tremendous resources, not only in the labour
required but also in the valuable or exotic materials that went
in to their production. A heard of 600 cattle was necessary
to provide the pages for a single book, a resource surely
obtained with the help of the local monarch, showing the close
ties and dependency of the monasteries on secular rulers for
supplies.[10] Furthermore,
we know from the quotations used and knowledge displayed by
authors such as Adomnan that there was an extensive library at
Iona. Adomnan, Abbot of Iona and biographer of St. Columba,
composed a book about the Holy Land that contained surprisingly
accurate and intimate details of Palestine which proves that
there was some sort of contact, either by texts or by travellers,
with these areas. With this in mind, Iona appears much less
like an isolated haven for those seeking refuge from the world
and more like a centre of learning located on the periphery of
Christendom.
Although there continues to be much debate about the early years, it is established that by the time of Adomnan Iona was the hub of what has come to be called the Columban church. What is not known for certain is how it became such. The role of Columba and the Iona community in evangelising the surrounding areas is unclear. Adomnan’s account of Columba’s life show him travelling north into the Pictish lands where he makes converts, outdoing the local druids at their own magic, and obtains Iona from the Pictish king Bridei, yet Columba is only mentioned to have founded two other monasteries. Smyth discusses Columba’s past as a prince in the Uí Néill tribe and his plausible role in a battle that possibly lead to his exile, claiming quite effectively that Columba would not have been the type to live the life of a hermit.[11] The question then is would he have been a good evangelist? His princely background must have given him a thorough training in politics, making him an excellent negotiator when dealing with kings, the primary target of most conversion in this period. There has been, however, some doubt cast on Columba’s role as almost single-handedly converting the Picts which Bradley attributes to Bede.[12] First of all, it is plausible that many of the places that bear Columba’s name had no relation to him personally but merely received the name after his death.[13] There were other monks and monasteries active on the western coast of Scotland, such as Maelrubai at Applecross, who may have played just as large a part in converting the native populace as Columba and the monks of Iona. One must also remember that the primary source of knowledge of Columba’s life is Adomnan’s Vita, a book which may vastly exaggerate the role of Columba a may be primarily a form of propaganda by Adomnan to increase the prestige of his own office.[14] Regardless of the extent of Columba or his followers’ conversions on the mainland, the conversions of the Picts by Celtic monks at this time demonstrates a certain evangelistic nature to Celtic monasticism which was not present or much less active in both the monastic ideal or the actual practice on mainland Europe in the early Christian Church. The active role of monasticism in the Celtic lands seems the logical result of both the primacy of monasticism in the Celtic church and the fact that many Celtic monks, unlike those of Benedict in Italy and France, were surrounded by pagan peoples and not Christian ones.
Remembered for their religious zeal, the Celtic monks practised
the Christian religion in a very similar fashion to monks
elsewhere. Nighttime prayers were common, as was fasting
and singing hymns, although Gallican Chant instead of Gregorian.[15] The Eucharist was
taken, consecrated by a brother who also held an ecclesiastical
position, just like in other places. Furthermore, the
monks of Iona believed in all doctrines manifest in the
scriptures and recited all creeds of the Church.[16] They were also much like the early
anchorites in that they practiced self-denial, which they termed
white martyrdom as opposed to red martyrdom, as a means of
detaching themselves from the world and self desire and thus
closer to God. One practice of the Celtic monks, however,
is without parallel in the Roman world- that of anamchairde
or soul friend.[17] This
was a fellow monk with whom one could make confessions and seek
spiritual guidance. So respected was this bound that Abbots
often emphasize its predominance over even the rule of the
monastery.[18] Orthodox
or not, the role of the soul friend was much the same as that of
the lay priest who heard confessions and gave guidance, only in a
much less structured and more personal form which once again
matched the society in which it operated.
The relative isolation of Celtic Christianity could not last
forever. It came into conflict with what might be called
orthodox Roman Christianity in the seventh century as the
influence of Iona spread into Northumberland. Although most
of the Irish church had adapted the new Roman manners of
calculating Easter and shaving the tonsure, the church of Iona
maintained the old Celtic ways. Bede attributed this error
to pure ignorance due to lack of communication: “following
instead doubtful cycles as to the date of the Great Festival, as,
being situated so far away from the rest of the world, no one had
shown to them the synod decrees for the observance of
Easter.”[19] Trouble
arose when King Oswiu of Northumbria married the daughter of King
Edwin, a Roman Christian. Intent on settling the dispute,
Oswiu called a synod at Whitby in 664 to resolve the matter.
When the decision was made for the Roman ways, the Celtic monks
withdrew to Iona. Why, however, would the monks of Iona
refuse to make such little changes when the rest of Ireland had
done so three decades earlier? Carver points out that
Whitby obviously had to do with more than divergent practises.[20] Authority likely
played no small part in the conflict at Whitby, since an adoption
of the Roman ways of calculating Easter might ultimately have
lead to a Roman ecclesiastical structure in which Iona would
loose its monastery-based Celtic structure. The
self-preservation of the Iona monks aside, who eventually adopted
the Roman ways in the early eighth century, the pettiness of the
controversies at Whitby demonstrate the overall orthodoxy of the
Celtic church.[21]
The idea that Christianity could exist with its own peculiarities
in the Celtic lands and still be part of a universal Christian
Church is not a new one. Fletcher writes that: “There
never was a “Celtic Church.” Irish churchmen
repeatedly and sincerely professed their Roman allegiances; and
if there were divergent practices between Rome and Ireland, well
so there were between Rome and Constantinople.”[22] There was never a
singular and separate institution of Celtic monasticism either.
At its core, what is termed Celtic monasticism was traditional
Christian monasticism fused with Celtic culture with any
peculiarities it possessed resulting from the specifics of its
own unique development among the Celtic-speaking peoples.
Bibliography
Bradley, Ian. The Celtic Way. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 1993.
Bradley, Ian. Celtic Christianity: Making Myths and Chasing Dreams. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
Campbell, Ewan. Saints and Sea-kings: The First Kingdom of the Scots. Edinburgh:
Canongate Books Ltd., 1999.
Carver, Martin. “Conversion and Politics on the Eastern Seaboard of Britain; some
archaeological indicators.” Conversion and Christianity in the North Sea World.
Crawford, Barbara E, ed. St Andrews: The Committee for Dark Age Studies
University of St Andrews, 1998.
Carver, Martin. Surviving in Symbols: A Visit to the Pictish Nation. Edinburgh:
Canongate Books Ltd., 1999.
Duke, John A. The Columban Church. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957.
Ferguson, Ronald. Chasing the Wild Goose: The Story of the Iona Community.
Trowbridge, Wilts: Wild Goose Publications, 1998.
Foster, Sally M. Picts, Gaels and Scots. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1997.
Lawrence, C. H. Medieval
Monasticism: Forms of religious life in Western Europe in
The Middle Ages. London: Longman, 1985.
Marsden, John. Sea-road of the Saints: Celtic Holy Men in the Hebrides. Guildford:
Floris Books, 1995.
Menzies, Lucy. Saint Columba of Iona. Felinfach: J.M.F. Books, 1992.
Metcalfe, W. M. Lives of the
Scottish Saints: The lives of Saints Columba, Servanus,
Margaret, and Magnus. Paisley: Llanerch Enterprises, 1990.
Smyth, Alfred P. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000. Trowbridge,
Wiltshire: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
[1] Lawrence, C.H. Medieval Monasticism, p. 24.
[2] Bradley, Ian. The Celtic Way, p. 12-13
[3] Foster, Sally M. Picts, Gaels and Scots, p. 86
[4] Smyth, Alfred. Warlords and Holy
Men: Scotland AD 80-1000, p. 13.
[5] Marsden, John. Sea-Road of the Saints: Celtic Holy Men in the Hebrides, p. 113.
[6] Lawrence, p. 39-40.
[7] Duke, John A. The Columban Church, p. 69.
[8] Ciumine quotes Columba as saying: “I, abiding with Him, will intercede for you…” Metcalfe, W. M. Lives of the Scottish Saints: The lives of Saints Columba, Servanus, Margaret, and Magnus, p. 23.
[9] Bradley, Ian. The Celtic Way, p. 70.
[10] Campbell, Ewan. Saints and Sea-kings: The First Kingdom of the Scots, p. 33.
[11] “no case can be made for viewing Columba as a recluse locked up on Iona or Hinba.” Smyth, p. 113.
[12] Bradley, Ian. Celtic Christianity: Making Myths and Chasing Dreams, p. 19.
[13] Bradley, Ian. The Celtic Way, p. 7.
[14] Foster, p. 21.
[15] Duke, p.126.
[16] Duke, p.132
[17] Bradley, Ian. The Celtic Way, p. 73.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Duke, pp.132-3.
[20] Carver, Martin. “Conversion and
Politics on the Eastern Seaboard of Britain; some
archaeological indicators.” Conversion and Christianity in the North Sea World, p. 21.
[21] Duke, p.134.
[22] Carver, p. 21.