British TV viewers react with horror to portrayal of famine in ITV drama Victoria.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

don't bang your head Wibbs, I am trying to understand the make up of the church.

If the church in Ireland recognised Rome, then what was the purpose of the Laudabiliter? surely there was more to it than getting Monks to shave their heads the right way, was it about tithes as well?

Obviously it was just an excuse by Henry II, but why did the Pope go along with it?

For the same reasons as Henry really, politics, cash and control. The Rule of Benedict(there were others, the Rule of Columba another more hardcore set) was made the standard of monastic and monkish life throughout the western Christian world. At first optional and then compulsory. Ireland was one of the last to not fully go along with this rule and he wanted to get his Benedictines in. This network exercised a centralised control from Rome. More it also streamlined the flow of cash to Rome from church taxes and other enterprises. Plus the pope was an Englishman so there may have been some more down to earth reasoning behind it too. The document itself has some questions to it. It seems to have existed because later documents refer to it, but the document itself has been lost so we can't be precise about what it actually said. Henry could well have embellished the contents for his own purposes adding to the propaganda reasons for invading himself. Texts like Gerald of Wales' added to this propaganda by doing what all such propaganda does for colonising forces; make out the locals as savages in need of civilising.

Which was some trick, at least locally for the Normans, because in the rest of Europe the notion that Ireland was an "island of saints and scholars" was still in play and current. Even more puzzling about the pope's description of the Irish church is the fact that by that stage they were much more in line with continental christianity than they had been before(though they never strayed too far at their most unorthodox). Never mind that Irish church writers of the time don't seem to have had any warning that their Holy Father took such umbrage with them that he was backing a full on military invasion. And they would have been in contact with Rome often enough. I mean Patrick, Columba and others were writing letters back and forth to Rome centuries before. That always stuck me as odd.

steddyeddy wrote: »

That's cool thanks Wibbs, but did you not say there was female clerics?

They did, but then again so did mainstream Church in the sense of nuns, but the Irish ones had more power and there are strong suggestions they preached as equals and could lead monasteries. Though by the time of the Norman invasion that was much less in effect. It had become much more mainstream a church by then.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

you haven't, because no one actually said that.

Though you did say they brought "Roman Catholicism" to Ireland, which is just as wrong. It simply didn't exist as a separate concept before the Reformation. If one were a European Christian there was just the Church in the west where all allied to it looked to Rome as the heart and the Orthodox in the East looking to Byzantium, with a smattering of other "heresies" like Arianism and of course various pockets of Pagan holdouts.

FTA69 wrote:

Like all colonisations and invasions, the Norman invasion of Ireland had to be predicated on a given premise.

Indeed so. The Norman invasion of England wasn't so different in this regard and all sorts of excuses were brought to bear on that too. The Norman church for example sought to bring the Saxon church which had its own local quirks into the French/Benedictine fold. The Norman rulers themselves didn't exactly try to fit in with the locals. The Norman experience in Ireland of becoming "more Irish then the Irish themselves" was far less in evidence in Norman England(and it disturbed the Norman English) and remained that way for centuries. Their royalty kept on speaking their native Norman French and treated the place as an extension of France to be fought over with a bit of a big river between them. That so "English" king, Richard the Lionheart, didn't bother, or couldn't speak English and spent most of his life away from "his" kingdom. The English language didn't become the court language for another two centuries and the first native English speaking "English" king was Henry the Fourth and he didn't rock up until the fourteenth century.

Ireland was different in one way though and this certainly informed the thinking of the time and beyond. And was present even in the thinking of many learned Irishmen too. QV Columba's "We Irish, though dwelling at the far ends of the earth"... Ireland had never been part of the classical Roman empire/world. It was seen as outside, beyond the gates, a wild place, with wild people at the end of the earth(Patrick had been the first Christian missionary in Europe to go beyond the gates of the old empire). Whereas England(even Wales) had been under the control of Rome and so was seen as more known, more "civilised" because of that.

Scotland also hadn't been and again the view of the Scots by the Romans, Saxons and Normans and later the English echoed that of their view of the Irish. Well for a start they were generally lumped in together under the title of "Scotti" a catchall word for Irish/Celtic. Scotland, literally the land of the Irish. Hibernia was sometimes used(land of winter), but more usually an actual born Irishman had the name "Eriugena" tacked on to Scotus.

This non classical world notion carried on right up to damn near the present day, hence the Punch caricatures of the Irish strongly echoed Gerald of Wales' caricatures. They often shared the same memes too. EG Gerald reckoned the Irish weren't related at all to the English or the Welsh, but instead were Spanish, specifically Basque(also considered brutish and yet again never under the Roman umbrella), an idea that comes up again in the 19th century. As it turned out genetics seemed to agree with this and even recently(and some still think it) this connection was seen as a solid one(even Irish bears were "Spanish" not "British"). Turns out it wasn't. The genes involved are different versions(though the Basque version does show up the odd time here. I have it for example).

So it would be my thinking that the "barbarous Irish" meme has a very long history and goes back way before the Normans or the later English empire prejudices.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Have I, at any point in this thread, suggested that the Normans brought Christianity to Ireland?

a simple yes or no will do.

I never claimed you did, so please don't try to weasel away from the subject at hand.

However what I have argued against and what you did say in your own words:

You. Fratton Fred. Earlier wrote: »

Most native Irish were only Catholics because the Normans brought it to Ireland in the first place.

Which is beyond retarded a statement from the point of view of history and the history of Christianity in medieval Europe.

When this was questioned you came out with this howler:

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Why are you deliberately misrepresenting what i said, or do you equate catholicism with Christianity? Your religion teacher would be immensely proud of you right now.

There. Was. Only. One. Christian. Church. In. Western. Bloody. Europe. There were no "catholics" or "protestants". No "roman catholicism" for the Normans to bring. It was christianity.

The church inIrealnd was not subject to the control of Rome.

Yes it bloody well was. They constantly referred to Rome, the Roman Church and the Pope as their centre, their lord, and master and had constant back and forth contact for five bloody centuries before the Normans even showed up. Jesus, I dunno how it could be made any more clear for you.

You seem completely wedded to some odd post Reformation protestant worldview. Not so unusual considering our close ties with Britain, as even Irish Catholics lapsed or no, are often prone to the same worldview, especially since the Catholic Church lost its power over the general population and said population have become rightfully pissed off at the organisation. Examples might include such ideas that the Inquisition was the most murderous religious entity in Europe. It wasn't. The most murderous was the Spanish(cue Monty Python. Though they were channeling the same worldview for laughs) and it executed 2% of those brought before it. The Roman one even fewer. Both far lower execution rates than secular courts of the time. More "witches" were burnt at the stake by various Protestant groups*. Another is that the church held back science and that one is full of holes you could drive a Spanish galleon through and they weren't the only ones being unscientific and backward thinking. Protestantism tended to be more fundamental and wedded to scripture and we see this down to today. How many Catholic creationists and biblical literalists are there compared to Protestant?

now you're just knit picking.

No, that's the reality being pointed out to you. Again I ask you:The Saxon church had similar differences and would you claim Augustine or the Normans brought "Roman Catholicism" to England?





*and there are theological reasons behind this. The Roman church saw its role as trying to redeem the sinner, because they thought sinners could be redeemed by the grace of god and the church's help, so executions were seen as failures. In Protestant theology, particulary among the more Calvinist in leanings they held predestination as a central tenet, so you were created that way and whether you were redeemed or not was out of your and the church's hands and about the only option was redemption by fire, so God could sort you out.

server down wrote: »

While celtic catholicism was definitely Catholic, in that it had no major schisms with Rome. However I think the nomenclature Roman vs Celtic is ok, if slightly anachronistic.

It wasn't "celtic catholicism". Now I know what you mean but that idea didn't exist at the time the way it would come to. It could be seen as Celtic Christianity if a label is required, but it most certainly wholly Roman Christianity in nature and allegiance(even though it looks like they had some contact with both Orthodoxy and Coptic Churches).

It had started with at least two missions from the Roman Christian Church and had kept in constant contact with Rome and the continental church throughout. There had been some drift in tiny details, as was common with a couple of the more distant from Rome local churches, but they remained clearly Roman Christianity and expressed this themselves and the Roman church even took on some of their ideas on board. Private confession being one of them. Walk into any church of any denomination that has those confessional boxes and that's an Irish invention(as is the saying prayers afterward to make up for the sins). Previously confessions were public affairs.

Indeed quite a few of them were very vocal in expressing resistance on behalf of Rome to some of the Christian sect heresies that had sprung up. Columbanus was tasked by local European rulers and the Church with fighting and arguing against the Arianists and the Nestorians. And bear in mind that he continued to plead the case with the pope for the Irish timing of Easter(the biggest issue between them) and yet they still sent him in as the Roman Church's stormtrooper. By all accounts he was one helluva debater and had balls of steel with it. He'd left a trail of angered European nobles who disappointed him in their faith in his wake.