medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>From: Phyllis Jestice <[log in to unmask]>
>I agree with Francine about the problem of "Celtic religion" or "Celtic
>culture."
Actually, when I say "Celtic religion," I'm usually thinking of the
indigenous pre-Christian system of beliefs and practices. I usually avoid
saying "Celtic Christianity" because that suggests uniformity among all the
Christians in Celtic regions--a notion that, as far as I know, doesn't get
much credence these days.
>But what DO we do with the large number of saints who are "maybe
>Welsh," or "maybe Irish," or "Iro-Scottish," or "turned up in Brittany at
>some point"?
Perhaps the best policy is to stick to the facts that are known, such as
"his birthplace is unknown but he trained at Lismore with Carthach and he
spent time in Lindisfarne before moving on to Echternach" and leave it at
that? Or say that X's name is Irish or British but it's not known where he
came from and he died in Germany?
>In the case of Lide, apparently nobody knows where he came from, but
>presumably he spoke a Celtic language.
He may have spoken several Celtic languages--and Greek and Latin, too.
>And the number of saints who wandered from Ireland to Wales to Cornwall to
>Scotland to Brittany does suggest, to me at any rate, a sense that they
>themselves thought they were dealing with kindred people in some way
It suggests to me that they were studying with different experts and taking
advantage of what various monastic libraries had to offer. A lot of would-be
scholars used to spend at least a few years in Ireland studying--sort of the
medieval equivalent of Junior Year Abroad.
>to the point that it makes me wonder about how useful an adamant insistence
>that there was no "celtic religion" really is.
What do medieval monks have to do with indigenous Celtic religion?
>I know there's been some work done on Anglo-Saxon
>missionary work in Old Saxony that suggests just such a kindred feeling
>among Germans. Does anybody know of such work for the
>Iro/Breton/Scots/Welsh/Cornish phenomenon? At least I have a feeling that
>it's a phenomenon.
A phenomenon based on what? And what period are you talking about? That's
important, because until you get to a certain date, Brittany is essentially
a colony of what became Cornwall and Welsh hasn't yet differentiated that
much from the common British heritage, so of course there's going to be a
sense of being from the same sort of culture among the Brits. If we go by
Nennius, the British groups recognized they had a common origin--but
distinguished themselves from the Irish. Nennius' Historia Brittonum gives
entirely different origin tales for the Irish and the British, which
suggests that they were not seen as related peoples by him or any of his
sources. The Irish and Scots spoke roughly the same language until the end
of the medieval period, so of course there's fellow-feeling among them.
Chances are that a lot of the traveling monks studied with the same people
or studied with people who studied with them--the way people connect even
today. But did the Welsh think of the Irish as kin? Apparently not, if we go
by Nennius. There *were* historical connections among certain monasteries,
and they related to each other as fellow monks and scholars, but that seems
to be about it.
It might be worth pointing out that only a couple of hundred years separated
Anglo-Saxon missionary monks from their German origins, whereas Celts had
been in Ireland and Britain for at least 600-800 years, maybe longer, before
they went missionizing. And Welsh and Irish, though they have a common
origin and are strcuctured similarly, are not that similar in use. To put it
another way, knowing Irish doesn't make you fluent in Welsh or vice versa.
Francine Nicholson
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