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The Origins of Celtic Christianity and St. Patrick in Ireland Associated to Place: AncientWorlds > Celtia > Eire > articles -- by * Flidais Niafer (27 Articles), Social Article 1 Featured February 16 , 2008

A historical view of the origins of Christianity in Ireland

"The origins of Celtic Christianity and St. Patrick in Ireland"

The origin of Christianity among the Celts is unclear and widely debated. Christianity was firmly planted in Britain long before the fall of the Roman Empire. Tertullian of Carthage (died 220) wrote that even in "regions of the Britons beyond the sway of Rome, the name of Christ now reigns." Alban was martyred at Verulam around 220 and three bishops from Britain attended the Council of Arles in 324. St Patrick himself, born in the early 5th century, claimed that his family had been Christians for at least the previous three generations.

It wasn't until 431, however, that Pope Celestine sent Palladius to Ireland. He landed near what is now Wicklow, then inhabited by the fierce tribe of Cualann. The missionary met with hostility but was determined to do his work in Leinster where he struggled to convert the staunchly pagan population. Confronted with constant opposition, he managed to build 3 churches, one of which survives today as a parish in the village known as Donard. After his largely unsuccessful mission in Ireland, Palladius went to Scotland to preach to the Picts and died near Aberdeen soon after he arrived.

St Patrick, the first major figure of Irish Christianity, was a Briton. His parents were Roman and practiced the Christianity of the Romanized Brythonic Celts. When he was 16, Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and spent the next six years as a shepherd near what is now Antrim. During this time he learned to speak fluent Irish and acquainted himself with the native pagan customs. When he escaped, he returned home and devoted himself to Christianity. He was ordained as deacon, priest, and finally bishop.

Patrick wanted to go back to Ireland as a missionary but Pope Celestine sent Palladius instead. Then a few years later, Patrick was recommended to replace Palladius. Even though he was not the first to bring Christianity to Ireland, he was more successful than his predecessor. Patrick boldly confronted the druids at Tara and banned their rituals. He converted many influential chieftains and princes, baptizing them in the holy wells. It is widely believed that he died on March 17, 493 and was buried in the same grave as St. Brigid and St. Columba in Downpatrick, County Down. It is also rumored that he died at Glastonbury and is buried there. Because of the medieval obsession with collecting relics of saints from their corpses, his actual burial site was probably kept secret. Like many other Irish saints, St. Patrick is shrouded in mists of myth and folklore, the best-known of which is the legend that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland. There probably never were any snakes in Ireland to begin with because it has been isolated as an island since the end of the Ice Age. The snake myth is obviously symbolism for the saint's abolishment of pagan practices.

After Patrick, the pathway opened for Christianity in Ireland. What followed was the development of a uniquely Celtic style of Christianity. The most significant effect of Christianity's advent was the arrival of literacy in Ireland. Over the next few hundred years, Ireland became a center for education. It was the stronghold for preservation of classical learning while the rest of Europe floundered in the Dark Ages. The high standards of scholarship in Irish monasteries drew students and teachers from both near and far.

A unique style of Christianity evolved in Ireland because the structure of the religion had to operate in a strictly rural setting. At this time in Irish history there were no towns, just nomadic settlements and loose, unconnected tribal kingdoms. Therefore the core of Christianity in Ireland was not the diocese and bishop. Everything was centered at the monasteries. This resulted in an independence that spawned unique practices and liturgies. Because Ireland was so isolated, it was difficult to impose and maintain the central Roman authority of the church. The Roman structure of urban-based bishops simply couldn't function. It had to be tailored to fit the local environment.

The latest research indicates that there was no solid institutional church structure common to all Celtic countries, no widely established "Celtic Church." Customs and practices differed from one region to another. In Ireland more than any other country, Christianity adopted local customs. The monks and priests had to maintain many of the pagan traditions in order for the new religion to take root and flourish. The Irish celebrated Easter and Lent on the "old" calendar system. Irish monks shaved the front of their heads, like the druids did. Monasteries were often huge theocratic villages often associated with a clan that shared kinship ties, along with slaves, freemen, and celibate monks, married clergy, professed laypersons, and men & women living side by side. Under ancient Irish law, women had more equal footing in society and this carried over to give them more equal say in church government. It is said that the practice of personal confession was invented in Ireland. Holy wells used in baptism and healing. All over Ireland, the local pagan cults were taken over by the church and dedicated to various saints who bore a striking similarity to the heathen deities who went before them. Monasteries were built on pagan sacred sites, such as Derry and Durrow.


The Christianity that grew in Ireland after St. Patrick was centered on learning, literacy and preservation of native culture. Up until the sixth century, although Christianity was established in Ireland, it still existed right alongside pagan rites. A flair for asceticism and spiritual exile (peregrinatio pro Christo) began to flourish which led the devout Irish hermits to settle in some amazingly remote locations, as far away from their homeland as the Alps and Iceland. Iceland, in fact, may have been inhabited by Irish monks before the Vikings got there in the ninth century.


Elements of eastern orthodoxy were merged into Irish Christianity, through connections with Gaul, by the Coptic and Eastern Church. An antiphony from the seventh century from the monks of Bangor, County Down, praise their monastery as "the true vine transplanted out of Egypt." Some distinctive features of Irish Christianity such as the frontal tonsure, hand bells, and wheeled cross may have been derived from eastern traditions, not to mention one of the most amazing of all achievements of Irish monastacism - the illuminated manuscripts. The earliest of these, The Book of Durrow, (675) contains religious portraits almost identical to the icons on the pages of earlier eastern gospel manuscripts. The most famous is the magnificent Book of Kells (800). These ancient treasures display a breathtakingly beautiful blend of intricately woven art that seems to be a combination of the patterns familiarly found in eastern carpets and the fantastically coiling spirals of La tene art.

Another outstanding aspect of Irish Christianity is the connection between religion and the natural world. The eminent Celtic scholar Kuno Meyer wrote, "To seek out and love nature was given to no people so early and so fully as to the Celts." Six hundred years before the establishment of St. Francis' ecologically friendly order, St. Brigid was hanging her cloak on a sunbeam, St. Mocolmoc was charming the bees, and a blackbird was laying its eggs upon the praying hands of St. Kevin, who remained kneeling until the eggs hatched so as not to disturb them.

By the end of the 8th century the Irish church began feeling the effects of the Viking raids, beginning in 793 when the monastery at Lindisfarne was brutally raided. By this time, Irish churches were almost completely conforming to Roman rules except for a few idiosyncracies such as still allowing priests to marry, and maintaining hereditary succession in ecclesiastical offices. Unlike other Christian regions, a whole monastery could be owned by one family in Ireland. And of course in keeping with Irish traditions, women continued to play important roles in the church. Divorce was recognized and cousins could marry, in distinct defiance of Roman Canon Law.

In the year 1111 the Irish Church was reorganized to fit Roman standards, shifting power from the abbots to the bishops and defining diocese boundaries. Ireland's first papal legate was appointed in 1151 and in the following year Pope Eugenius III recognized Armagh, Cashel, Dublin and Tuam as archiepiscopal sees. Under successive popes, the Irish Church was eventually Romanized and Anglicized until by the end of the 12th century many of its unique practices had been absorbed into conformity. Christianity in Ireland today, however, still holds a strong connection with the land and the ancient past that shaped its history.

MarchDub wrote: »

CDfm I hope I can gently point out to you that like most articles found on the web this one on Patrick is full of holes and fabrication.

What is known is that the annalists refer to the Abbess at Kildare by the name of "Brigid" over a period of a couple of hundred years so it may be that there was a tradition of using the name of the pagan goddess to over-ride the pagan myth by an equally contrived Christian myth.

Before the Diocese

The Dublin area was Christian long before Dublin had a distinct diocese, and the remains and memory of monasteries famous before that time, at Finglas, Glasnevin, Glendalough, Kilnamanagh, Rathmichael, Swords, Tallaght, among others, are witness to the faith of earlier generations, and to a flourishing Church life in their time. Several of these functioned as "head churches" and the most powerful of all was Glendalough. In the early church in Ireland, the church had a monastic basis, with greatest power vested in the Abbots of the major communities. There were bishops but not organised dioceses in the modern sense, and the offices of abbot and bishop were often comprised in one person. Some early "Bishops of Dublin," back to 633, are mentioned in Ware's Antiquities of Ireland but the Diocese of Dublin is not considered to have begun until 1038, and when Ireland began to see organised dioceses, all of the current Diocese of Dublin, and more, was comprised in the Diocese of Glendalough.
URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archbishop_of_Dublin_%28Roman_Catholic%29&action=edit&section=3"]edit[/URL The Norse diocese and early bishops

Following a reverted conversion by one Norse King of Dublin, Sitric, his son Godfrey became Christian in 943, and the Kingdom of Dublin first sought to have a bishop of their own in the eleventh century, under Sitric MacAulaf, who had been on pilgrimage to Rome. He sent his chosen candidate, Donat (or Donagh, Dúnán or Donatus) to be consecrated at Canterbury, England, in 1038, and the new prelate set up the Diocese of Dublin as a small territory within the walled city, over which he presided until 1074. Sitric also provided for the building of Christ Church Cathedral in 1038 "with the lands of Baldoyle, Raheny and Portrane for its maintenance."[1]
The Bishop of Dublin answered to the Archbishop of Canterbury and did not attend councils of the Irish Church. The Diocese of Dublin continued to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Canterbury until 1096, and was not included in the list of Irish dioceses at the Synod of Rathbreasail. The Synod of Rathbreasail was convened in 1111 by Gillebert (Gilbert), Bishop of Limerick, on papal authority. It fixed the number of dioceses in Ireland at twenty-four. Dublin was not included, the city being described as lying in the Diocese of Glendalough. It was incorporated into the system of Irish dioceses from 1152.
The second Bishop of Dublin was Patrick or Gilla Pátraic (1074-1084), consecrated at St. Paul's, London, followed by Donngus Ua hAingliu (Donat O'Haingly), 1085-1095, consecrated at Canterbury, and in turn succeeded by his nephew, Samuel Ua hAingliu (Samuel O'Haingly) (1096-1121), consecrated by St. Anselm at Winchester.
From 1121, the fifth and last Bishop of Dublin was one Gréne (Gregory), consecrated at Lambeth by Ralph, Archbishop of Canterbury.
URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archbishop_of_Dublin_%28Roman_Catholic%29&action=edit&section=4"]edit[/URL Reorganisation of the Church in Ireland, 1152

Then, in 1151, Pope Eugene III commissioned Cardinal Paparo to go to Ireland and establish four metropolitans, and at a general synod at Kells in 1152, Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, were created archiepiscopal sees. In a document drawn up by the then Archbishop of Tuam in 1214, the cardinal is described as finding both a bishop based in Dublin, who at the time exercised his episcopal office within the city walls only, and "He found in the same Diocese another church in the mountains, which likewise had the name of a city [Glendalough] and had a certain chorepiscopus. But he delivered the pallium to Dublin which was the best city and appointed that the diocese (Glendalough) in which both these cities were should be divided, and that one part thereof should fall to the metropolitan." The part of North County Dublin known as Fingall was taken from Glendalough Diocese and attached to Dublin City. The new Archdiocese had 40 parishes, in deanaries based on the old senior monasteries. All dependence upon English churches such as Canterbury was also ended.
URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archbishop_of_Dublin_%28Roman_Catholic%29&action=edit&section=5"]edit[/URL Early Archbishops

Gregory, the existing Bishop of Dublin, was elevated as the first Archbishop, with the Bishops of Kildare, Ossory, Leighlin, Ferns, and Glendalough reporting to him. The second Archbishop was Lorcán Ua Tuathail (Saint Laurence O'Toole), previously Abbot of Glendalough, who had previously been elected as Bishop of Glendalough but had declined that office. During his time in office, religious orders from the continent came to Ireland, and as part of this trend, Laurence installed a community of canons to minister according to the Aroasian Rule in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, later known as Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.
Not only was the Irish Church transformed in that twelfth century by new organisation and new arrivals from abroad, but Ireland's political scene was changed permanently by the coming of the Normans and the influence of the English Crown from 1171. Saint Laurence's successor was a Norman, and from then onward to the time of the Reformation, Dublin's Archbishops were all either Norman or English. High offices in the Church were never free of political influence, and in fact many of Dublin's Archbishops exercised civil authority for the English crown. Archbishop Henry of London's name appears in the text of the Magna Carta along with the names of English Bishops as witnesses. In 1185, the Pope had granted a petition to combine the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough, to take effect on the death of the then Bishop of Glendalough. The union took effect in 1216, with the approval of Innocent III, and the dioceses have remained merged ever since.
URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archbishop_of_Dublin_%28Roman_Catholic%29&action=edit&section=6"]edit[/URL The University Project

Archbishop Leech of Dublin received a Papal Bull from Clement V in 1311, authorising him to establish a university at Dublin, and this process was completed in 1320, when the university statutes were confirmed by Pope John XXII to the next Archbishop, Alexander de Bicknor. The statutes mention the Chapters of both St. Patrick's and Christ Church Cathedrals, which are granted the power to confer degrees, and the aim appears to have been to provide lectures at the former. The then Dean of St. Patrick's, William Rodyard, was elected first Chancellor of the University, and in 1358, King Edward III issued letters patent conferring protection on the students. In 1364, a Divinity Lecture was endowed, and in 1496, the Diocesan Synod granted stipends for the lecturers of the university. The university ended with the dissolution of the cathedral organisation under King Henry VIII, though Archbishop George Browne attempted to revive it, and Archbishop Adam Loftus originally supported this also (before he became first Provost of Trinity College).[2

Overview

The Churchmen in early medieval Ireland were the monks, bishops and other higher members of the Catholic Church. Churchmen were considered part of the nemed class.

Law Codes

The people of the church are mentioned heavily throughout the law codes of early medieval Ireland. The Uraicecht Becc lists the seven grades of the church as lector, usher, exorcist, subdeacon, deacon, priest, and bishop. A lector received seven chattels of díre and three-days protection, an usher received ten chattels and five-days protection, an exorcist received fifteen chattels and ten-days protection, a subdeacon received twenty chattels and fifteen-days protection, a deacon received thirty chattels and a month's protection, a priest received half of seven cumals and a month's protection, and a bishop received one-and-a-half of seven cumals and one-and-a-half month's protection. In addition to the díre for each churchman, penance was also due for a churchman.[2]

The Cáin Adomnán (the Law of the Innocents) was the law code that dealt with penalties if a person harmed or killed a woman, child, or cleric. This law was passed by the churches themselves, which explains why they included clerics in it.[3] The law also states that if a person wounds or kills a clerical student, then the cost of the crime is eight cumals and eight years of penance; it also says that the penalty is the same for a person who witnesses the crime and does not attempt to stop it. Even simply threatening a cleric would result in the penalty of half of the díre.[4] For non-mortal wounds inflicted, different prices would be set; for example, if blood was spilled, the cost was five séts, plus the cost of the doctor's fee.[5]

In addition to the Cáin Adomnán, the Hibernensis, or Irish Canon, was also written by the Church. The Hibernensis mostly talks about the different kinds of unions, divorce, and what constitutes adultery. For instance, if a woman is forced into sleeping with another man by threats of harm to herself or her family, then she has not committed adultery. The Hibernensis quotes the Bible and other religious sources to explain their laws.[6]

Similarly to the Cáin Adomnán, the Bretha Crólige says that any man who injures a churchman to the point of being nursed must pay the díre, the nurse's fee and penance.[7]

According to the Divorce laws, if a person's spouse decided to become a churchman or churchwoman, that person would legally be allowed to divorce said spouse.[8] More information on divorce laws can be found here.

Texts

Churchmen are not often found in the stories and myths of early medieval Ireland. This may be due to the fact that the Catholic Church did not arrive in Ireland until after most of the myths and sagas had already been created.

Comparison

Due to the fact that the Hibernensis and the Cáin Adomnán were both written by the church, they tend to favor the Church and the Bible in some of their laws, such as the penalty for the death of a churchman, which was higher than the penalty for killing a woman. The Hibernensis also relies heavily on religious texts and the Bible to explain its laws.

In addition, the Uraicecht Becc was written after the Catholic Church already had a stronghold in Ireland, which explains some of the protection lengths and the díre for each rank of churchmen. The díre and protection for each grade of churchman is the same as its corresponding grade of noble. For more information on the nobles of early medieval Ireland, click here.