monasteries, Irish, in continental Europe

monasteries, Irish, in continental Europe. From the late 6th century Irishmen are associated with continental monasticism in many ways, and this presence is a celebrated theme in Irish history. Irish monks perceived themselves as living on an island in the ocean surrounding the inhabited world. Christianity had come from the centre, through the provinces, and finally out to them in the far west (cf. Luke 24: 47 as echoed in Patrick and Muirchú). Thus there was an impulse to travel on towards that centre in which the great events they read about had taken place, and where books and learning were perceived to exist in a way they did not in Ireland. This was expressed religiously as the desire to pilgrimage for Christ, and act as teachers and missionaries. Travels by monks/teachers about Europe were not unusual, but those of the Irish were seen as distinctive as they were recognized as belonging to a nation that was part neither of the old Roman empire nor of the invading peoples. This strange status, of being not old and yet not new, seems to have given them certain advantages in relating to other cultures where Christianity was being absorbed from outside.

The regions with Irish links can be broken into three groups: (1) other Celtic‐language areas such as Brittany; (2) north‐east France, Switzerland, and northern Italy; and (3) some places further east in German lands, e.g. Salzburg. The second group of contacts is the most significant by far. These places are linked by the river routes, which, following maps from the period, we can view as arteries linking the centre of Europe with the ocean and its islands. And it was through these monasteries that the main contributions of the Irish to Latin Christianity were made.

Their level of involvement also varies. Columbanus, the most famous, is atypical, in having travelled, preached to rulers, founded houses, and evolved a monastic pattern of his own. In contrast, others contributed indirectly to monastic life. Gall, for instance, was a hermit, and it was only after his death that his hermitage was chosen by others as the site for a monastery which they named after him ( St Gallen). The second level of involvement, and quantitatively the most important, was the presence of groups of Irish monks in houses not specifically linked with Ireland. We find them as groups of teachers whose presence is usually known only through lists of names that have accidentally survived, or through their literary works. Thus we know the names of many teachers in the north‐east of France from the period, we know that books written by them were in use in monasteries in the area, and we have evidence of their work in book production in places like Peronne (Perrona Scottorum). In a similar way we know of the presence of Irish monks elsewhere through texts copied in an Irish manner, the presence of glosses in Old Irish in books, or, more indirectly, theological topics handled in ways that were particularly popular among the Irish.

Lastly, there are places where there are traces of the Irish, but no evidence that there was an Irish group in the area. An individual name in a list, one glossed manuscript, or one reference to an Irishman has often been enough to ‘establish’ that the monastery was ‘Irish’, but continental monasteries often welcomed both Irish brothers and their ideas. It has often been assumed that Irish monasticism was more extreme than that found among ‘Benedictines’. However, the classic Benedictine monastery appeared only with Benedict of Aniane (d. 821). Before then there were various styles of monasticism, although Benedict of Nursia's Rule was steadily growing in prestige. The Irish monastic pattern was thus only one strand of monasticism. Several Irish monks might give a house a distinctive character; yet a single Irishman might still fit easily into a Frankish monastery. We should note that, while there were Irish missionaries throughout the period, it is only in a small number of cases, particularly in the eastern Carolingian empire, that this was their principal reason for being there.

Much writing on this topic has been flawed by romanticism. A balanced view will need a comprehensive list of Irish links with continental monasteries, along with a prosopography (even if it is just a name and a place) of Irish monks there.

Thomas O'Loughlin