Irish monks

“ Thus the native laws, literature, music and art became the handmaid of Christianity. The same liberal and enlightened conception of education would explain the success with which the Irish monks pursued the study of the pagan classics. The literary taste already acquired through a study of native literature was entirely favourable to the appreciation and enjoyment of the great authors of antiquity. Besides the Christianity of the Irish monk was sufficiently robust to prevent any of those scruples of conscience which were said to have haunted the continental monk who loved his Virgil. ”

“ Very many of the monks—Malachias, Patricius, Maclan, Finnian, and others—who came to these monasteries from Ireland brought books with them which they presented to the German monasteries. The century which succeeded the Battle of Clontarf was the most flourishing period of the Irish monks in Germany. In the thirteenth century their influence visibly declines. Once the English had commenced the conquest of Ireland the monasteries ceased to be recruited by men of sanctity and learning, but were resorted to by men who sought rather material comfort and a life of worldly freedom. ”

“ Not so the Irish monks as we shall see later. Moreover, the anxiety to obtain more perfect copies of the Scriptures [Pg 124] was an additional and perhaps more powerful incentive to the Irish monk to make himself familiar with the classical forms of Greek and Latin.
If this is a correct interpretation of the educational situation confronting the Irish monastic schools—and the evidence we shall produce is overwhelming—then we shall see how unwarranted is the statement of a recent writer [324] that the learning of the Irish was wholly psalm-singing and theology—not the classics ”

“ Taking full advantage of the civilization and education which the Irish Monks had gratuitously carried to them over seas and spent the best of their lifetime in diffusing amongst them, they used the very power with which the Monks thus endowed them to betray and despoil their benefactors. ”

“ It remains to speak of that glorious monument of the Irish monks, the abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland. It was here that Celtic influence was most felt and endured the longest. Within its walls for centuries the sacred sciences were taught and classic authors studied. Many of its monks excelled as musicians and poets, while others were noted for their skill in calligraphy and the fine arts. The library was only in its infancy in the eighth century, but gradually it grew, and eventually became one of the largest and richest in the world. ”

“ They learned to write and ornament books of their own in the Irish manner, and they had Irish monks in their new monasteries who fostered the art. By the close of the seventh century, there were expert penmen among the Anglian monks, and during the eighth century, although the very close adherence to Irish models is the feature of most of the ornamental manuscripts, they began to strike out a new and characteristic line of their own in which they soon surpassed their masters. ”

“ Healy’s eloquent tribute to Irish monasticism appears to be amply justified. It is worth quoting:
“Fasting and prayer, labour and study are the daily task of the monks in every monastery. How well and unselfishly that toil was performed the history of Europe tells. The monks made roads, cleared the forests, and fertilised the desert. Their monasteries in Ireland were the sites of our cities. ... They preserved for us the literary treasures of antiquity; they multiplied copies of the best and newest books; they illumined them with loving care. They taught the children of rich and poor alike ”

“ There were several Irish monks in the brotherhood, and one of them nursed me with the utmost tenderness. I told him all, under a solemn promise of secresy, and proved to him my innocence. When the officer arrived in search of me, I was rapidly recovering; but in the same monastery was the son of a Spanish lady, the wife of a Mr. Middleton, who had separated from her husband, and who, fearing on her deathbed that her son would be brought up as a Protestant, had placed him in concealment with the monks. ”

“ They slept so little that it was a new penance to tear themselves from the mats on which they lay. But the blessing of God was upon them; they grew in numbers, and in holiness, and in happiness, not the happiness of men who love this world, but the happiness of those who truly serve God.
But now a sore trial was nigh. God wished to purify his servants by suffering, and to extend to other lands the sphere of their usefulness. The first trial came from the secular clergy. Those Irish monks were men of virtue and austerity, but they were also in many respects very peculiar. ”

“ Irish learning did not exhaust itself in missionary work and was not merged in the progress of its German pupils; it kept its vivifying power through many generations, and repeated in the ninth century the good works of the fifth, again contributing fresh material and a still rarer spirit of inquiry to the common erudition of the Continent.”
That the classical learning carried back into Gaul by the Irish monks did not immediately produce any very encouraging results can be largely accounted for by the disturbed social conditions. ”

“ Ancient Irish monks and churchmen must have been peculiarly gifted with an appreciation of the strange, unique, and beautiful in nature, or they would not have fixed their retreats in such peculiar places. If ancient Irish kings loved to place their strongholds on hills such as Tara, Aileach, Knock Aillinn, and Uisneach, ancient Irish ecclesiastics seemed not to have cared whether their churches were on hills or in hollows, provided they were somewhere that was strange, weird, or beautiful. ”

“ It is true that Ireland's great mission of instruction and conversion came to a close with the eleventh century, yet for two centuries more, driven by that innate instinct for travel and adventure which was so strong within them, that it resembled a second nature, we find Irish monks creating new foundations on the Continent, especially in Germany. One of the most noteworthy of these was a monk from the present Donegal, Muiredach mac Robertaigh, who assumed the Latin name of Marianus Scotus, or Marian the Irishman. ”

“ We have so often spoken of the monastic institutions of the Irish Church, that one might readily fall into the mistake of supposing that we have here nothing more than the mere bringing in of a new order of monks, who were to take their place side by side with those already in the country. ”

“ Existing remains prove beyond doubt that in metallurgy the Irish monks were pre-eminently skilful, both in originality of design and delicacy of execution. In this special department they seemed to have distanced all rivalry during the Middle Ages.
We see, then, that in the monastery there were not merely artisans, such as are needed for the purposes of every-day life, but artists of the greatest skill and ingenuity. ”

“ These Irish monks who, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries left the north of Ireland and thus planted themselves in Germany, were, says Zimmer, worthy successors of those apostles and scholars who laboured from the seventh to the tenth century in France, Switzerland, and Burgundy, "full of religious zeal, piety, sobriety, and a genuine love of earning." ”

“ No less than thirteen monasteries in Scotland and twelve in England were founded by Irish monks from the mother settlement in Iona. In fact the whole of Britain seems to have owed its Christianity, during the Anglo-Saxon period, to the Irish missionaries from Iona, with the important exception of the kingdom of Kent, which was occupied by the Roman mission of Saint Augustine.
Celtic missionaries. In the year 635, at the request of Oswald King of Northumbria, the Scottish king sent an Irish monk from Iona, named Aidan, to preach Christianity to the Northumbrian worshippers of Thor and Odin. ”

“ He was compelled to furnish his monasteries with a written rule, because they were surrounded by barbarous peoples, some of whom his establishments often received as monks, and to whom the holiness of Ireland was unfamiliar or utterly unknown. But why should the people of God, living in his devoted island, redeemed as soon as born by the waters of baptism, be shackled by enactments which might serve as an obstacle to the action of the Holy Ghost on their free souls? ”

“ FOREIGN STUDENTS IN IRELAND:
The fame of the Irish monastic schools of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries attracted a large number of students from foreign lands. To these the Irish monks extended freely the benefits of education which during this period were not available in their own less favoured lands. ”

“ The wonderful achievements of the Irish monks did not affect the body politic as a whole, and it may be doubted if there was any distinct advance in civilization in Ireland from the time of Niall Nóigiallach to the Anglo-Norman invasion. Niall’s posterity held the position of ardrí uninterruptedly until 1002. Four of his sons, Loigaire, Conall Crimthand, Fiacc and Maine, settled in Meath and adjoining territories, and their posterity were called the southern Hy Neill. The other four, Eogan, Enna Find, Cairpre and Conall Gulban, occupied the northern part of Ulster. ”

“ Hence the activities of the Irish monks were naturally directed partly at least into other channels in trying to bring about a reform in the morals of the people. To quote Roger: [371] “Tandis que saint Benoît trace, avec sérénité, un plan complet de la vie monastique, saint Columban oppose a la violence des vices, dans une société corrompue, la violence dans la penitence; il trace un plan d’attaque où il met toute la fouge de son caractère. La vertu de la religion était presque abolie; il s’efforce de la ranimer et de rendre à la foi l’efficacité qu’elle avait perdue.” ”

“ He started from Derry, where stood his favourite monastery, and proceeded, accompanied by twelve of his followers, along the beautiful shores of Lough Foyle to Innishowen Head, where the little bay is still shown from which his curragh sailed to the Scottish Isles. It was about the year 563 when he left Ireland, and, as he was born in 521, he was then forty-two years of age. Monasticism had already taken a firm hold in Ireland, and the more zealous of the Irish monks were founding monasteries in the islands around the Irish coast, as well as on islands in the larger lakes. ”

“ Saints [168] to the domestic and religious discipline of the monks we are able to form a tolerably correct picture of the real character of monastic life in Ireland during the period under consideration. While these Rules are neither so elaborate nor so systematic as the famous Rule of St. Benedict, to which they eventually gave place, yet they enable us to realize the austere simplicity of Irish monasticism.
However they may differ in details these “Rules of the Irish Saints” are in agreement as to the character of the daily work. ”

“ We shall see that the Northern Picts of Scotland were converted by St. Columkille and his monks from Iona (see p. 144) : and a large proportion of the people of England became Christians through the preaching of Irish monks before the arrival of St. Augustine. [17]
The Irish missionaries, who went to the Continent, in their eagerness to spread religion and knowledge, penetrated to all parts of Europe: they even found their way to Iceland. Few people have any idea of the trials and dangers they encountered. ”

“ Under the enlightened policy of Charlemagne there was a distinct improvement in the social condition of the people, but the part played by the Irish monks during the seventh and eighth centuries in helping to bring about the moral regeneration of the people must not be overlooked; for even though this aspect of their work lies outside our present study, we cannot completely ignore those social factors which delayed the realization of a literary renaissance until the ninth century. ”

“ It seems, however, that the Celts and Saxons did not get on amicably together even in St. Colman’s time. The saints themselves will sometimes disagree; and, according to Bede, the Irish monks were much in fault. During the summer months, when the grain was to be sown, and reaped, and harvested, they wandered about in the neighbourhood—“through places with which they were acquainted”—coshering, in fact, upon their friends, and very likely pocketing such alms as they could get. But when the winter came, they returned to the monastery to eat what they had not sown nor helped to reap. ”

“ The saint was compelled by armed men to leave his monastery, and only his Irish and British subjects were permitted to bear him company. They departed in deep grief, not for the cruel treatment they suffered, but for their brethren from whom they were thus rudely torn. As the monks who were left behind clung weeping to their father, he consoled them with these memorable words: "God will be to you a Father, and reward you with mansions where the workers of sacrilege can never enter." ”

“ Why, (returned the priest, laughing) you would not have the good father abbots advise the dying, but generous sinner, to leave the worst of his lands to God! that would be sacrilege—but besides the voluntary donation of estates from rich penitents, the regular monks of Ireland had landed properties attached to their convents. Sometimes they possessed immense tracts of a country, from which the officiating clergy seldom or never derived any benefit ”

“ We are told, for example, that the Irish monks were possessors of a higher culture than was found elsewhere in Europe and that they taught all the knowledge of their time. Such statements are not particularly helpful. Dr. Joyce, however, has tried to be more explicit. Utilising the materials brought to light through the publication of the Brehon Laws and availing himself of the researches of O’Curry and other Irish [Pg 120] scholars, he has compiled [322] two Tables of Degrees and Subjects of Study. ”