The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a series of expeditions in the 6th and 7th centuries by Gaelicmissionaries originating from Ireland that spread Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Wales, England and Merovingian France. Catholic Christianity spread first within Ireland. Since the 8th and 9th centuries, these early missions were called 'Celtic Christianity'.
There is dispute over the relationship of the Hiberno-Scottish mission to Catholic Christianity. Catholic sources claim it functioned under the authority of the Holy See,[1] while Protestant historians highlight conflicts between Celtic and Roman clergy.[2] There is agreement that the mission was not strictly coordinated.[3] As a whole, Celtic-speaking areas were part of Latin Christendom at a time when there was significant regional variation of liturgy and structure, but a general collective veneration of the Papacy was no less intense in Celtic-speaking areas.[4]
Etymology
Hibernia is the Latin name for the island of Ireland.[5]
The Latin term 'Scotti' refers to the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland and western Scotland. From this term, developed an alternate Latin name for the territory in which the Scotti lived: 'Scotia'.[6]
Schottenklöster (German for 'Scottish monasteries') is the name applied to the Bible schools established by Gaelic missionaries in Continental Europe, particularly to those in Germany that became Benedictine monasteries. Ireland's sobriquet "Island of Saints and Scholars" derives from this period.[1]
Columba in Scotland
Columba was an Irish prince born in 521 and educated at the Bible school at Clonard. At the age of 25, Columba’s first mission involved the establishment of a school at Derry.[7] Following this, Columba spent seven years allegedly establishing over 300 churches and church schools.[8]Adamnan says of Columba:
He could not pass the space even of a single hour without applying himself either to prayer, or reading, or writing, or else to some manual labor.[9]
In 563, Columba sailed to Scotland with about 200 other missionaries hoping to spread Celtic Christianity among the largely pagan Picts.[8] The lord of the island of Mull, a Gael of Dál Riada, was a relative of Columba and granted the missionaries ownership of Iona, where they established a Bible school.[2] Bede writes that Columba converted the Picts to the word of God,[7] suggesting that Bible teaching was the central means of conversion. Students routinely studied for 18 years before ordination, an indicator of the depth of theological learning required by the Celtic Church.[10] This school remained Celtic until they were driven out by the Benedictines in 1204.[11]
Dunod was a disciple of Columba who established a Bible school at Bangor-on-Dee in 560. The school had such a large student body that seven deans presided over at least 300 students each.[12] The mission's conflict with Augustine is noteworthy. Pope Gregory I "invested Augustine with jurisdiction over all the bishops of the British Church" when he arrived in Britain in 597.[13] Neander writes:
The abbot of the most distinguished British monastery, at Bangor, Deynoch by name, whose opinion in ecclesiastical affairs had the most weight with his countrymen, when urged by Augustin to submit in all things to the ordinances of the Roman Church, gave him the following remarkable answer: “We are all ready to listen to the church of God, to the pope at Rome, and to every pious Christian, that so we may show to each, according to his station, perfect love, and uphold him by word and deed. We know not, that any other obedience can be required of us towards him whom you call the pope or the father of fathers.”[2]
Representatives from Bangor attended two conferences with Augustine, at which they declared “that they could not depart from their ancient customs without the consent and leave of their people” and that they could not accept the supremacy of the pope “nor receive [Augustine] as their archbishop”.[12] Dunod asserted his independence from Augustine on the grounds that they adhered to what their holy fathers held before them, who were the friends of God and the followers of the apostles.[14][15]
In Wales, Celtic Christianity long maintained its position with its peculiar ideas and exceptional beliefs.[16] The Bible school at Bangor was destroyed in 613 by King Æthelfrith.[17]
Aidan in England
Aidan was educated at Iona.[18] In 634, King Oswald invited Aidan to the Northumbrian court to teach the doctrines of Celtic Christianity.[19] Oswald granted Aidan the island of Lindisfarne for a Bible school.[20] Upon his death in 651, Aidan was succeeded by Finan and then by Colman, both of whom had been educated at Iona.[21]
From Northumbria, Aidan's mission spread throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and similar Bible schools were established in Bernicia, Deira, Mercia and East Anglia.[22] It is estimated that two thirds of the Anglo-Saxon population were converted to Celtic Christianity at this time.[23]
Columbanus in Francia
Columbanus was born in 543 and studied at Bangor Abbey until c. 590,[24] when he travelled to the continent with twelve companions,[25] including Attala, Columbanus the Younger, Gallus,[24] and Domgal.[26]
Schottenportal at the Scottish Monastery, Regensburg
Hiberno-Scottish activity in Europe continued after the death of Columbanus. There were monastic foundations in Anglo-Saxon England, the first in about 630 at "Cnobheresburgh", an unknown place in East Anglia but possibly Burgh Castle mentioned by Bede. Others such as Malmesbury Abbey, perhaps Bosham, and Glastonbury Abbey had strong Irish links. The profile of Iona declined, and from 698 until the reign of Charlemagne in the 770s, the Hiberno-Scottish efforts in the Frankish Empire were continued by the Anglo-Saxon mission – see Germanic Christianity.
Irish monks known as Papar are said to have been present in Iceland before its settlement from AD 874 onwards by the Norse.[27] The oldest source mentioning the Papar is the Íslendingabók ("Book of the Icelanders"), between 1122 and 1133.[28] The book states that the Norse found Irish priests, with bells and crosiers, at Iceland at the time of their arrival.[29] Such figures are also mentioned in the Icelandic Landnámabók ("Book of Settlements", possibly going back to the early 12th century).[30]
Among the Irish monks who were active in Central Europe were two particularly important theologians, Marianus Scotus and Johannes Scotus Eriugena. Legends of Irish foundations are recorded in a Middle High German text known as Charlemagne and the Scottish [Irish] Saints (Shaw, 1981).
The rule of St. Columbanus, which was originally followed in most of these monasteries, was soon superseded by that of St. Benedict. Later Gaelic missionaries founded Honau in Baden (about 721), Murbach in Upper Alsace (about 727), Altomünster in Upper Bavaria (about 749), while other Gaelic monks restored St. Michel in Thiérache (940), Walsort near Namur (945), and, at Cologne, the Monasteries of St. Clement (about 953), St. Martin (about 980), St. Symphorian (about 990), and St. Pantaléon (1042).
Towards the end of the 11th and in the 12th century, a number of Schottenklöster, intended for Irish monks exclusively, sprang up in Germany. About 1072, three monks, Marianus, Iohannus, and Candidus, took up their abode at the little Church of Weih-St-Peter at Regensburg (called Ratisbon in older literature). Their number soon increased and a larger monastery was built for them (about 1090) by Burgrave Otto of Regensburg and his brother Henry. This became the famous Scots Monastery of St. James in Regensburg, the mother-house of a series of other Schottenklöster. It founded the Abbeys of St. James at Würzburg (about 1134), St. Aegidius at Nuremberg (1140), St. James at Constance (1142), Our Blessed Lady at Vienna (1158), St. Nicolas at Memmingen (1168), Holy Cross at Eichstätt (1194), and the Priory of Kelheim (1231). These, together with the Abbey of St. James at Erfurt (1036), and the Priory of Weih-St-Peter at Ratisbon formed the famous congregation of the German Schottenklöster which was erected by Innocent III in 1215, with the Abbot of St. James at Ratisbon as abbot-general.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, most of these monasteries were on the decline, partly for want of Irish monks, and partly on account of great laxity of discipline and financial difficulties.
In consequence, the abbeys of Nuremberg and Vienna were withdrawn from the Irish congregation and repeopled by German monks in 1418. St. James's Abbey, Würzburg, was left without any monks after the death of Abbot Philip in 1497. It was then re-peopled by German monks and in 1506 joined the congregation of Bursfeld.
In 1595, however, it was granted to the Scottish congregation and occupied by Scottish monks until its suppression in 1803. The abbey of Constance began to decline in the first half of the 15th century and was suppressed in 1530. That of Memmingen also disappeared during the early period of the Protestant Reformation in the following century.
The Abbey of Holy Cross at Eichstatt seems to have ceased early in the 14th century. In consequence of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland many Scottish Benedictines left their country and took refuge in the Schottenklöster of Germany during the 16th century.
The Scottish monasteries in Ratisbon, Erfurt, and Würzburg again began to flourish temporarily, but all endeavours to regain the monasteries of Nuremberg, Vienna, and Constance for monks of Scottish nationality failed.
In 1692, Abbot Placidus Flemming of Ratisbon reorganized the Scottish congregation which now comprised the monasteries of Ratisbon Regensburg, Erfurt, and Würzburg, the only remaining Schottenklöster in Germany. He also erected a seminary in connection with the monastery at Ratisbon.
But the forced secularization of monasteries in 1803 put an end to the Scottish abbeys of Erfurt and Würzburg, leaving St. James's at Ratisbon as the only surviving Schottenkloster in Germany. Since 1827 this monastery was again permitted to accept novices but the number of its monks dwindled down to two capitulars in 1862.
There being no hope of any increase, Pope Pius IX suppressed this last Schottenkloster in his brief of 2 September 1862. Its revenues were distributed between the diocesan seminary of Ratisbon and the Scots College at Rome.
Columba or Colmcille was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.
Celtic Christianity is a form of Christianity that was common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. Some writers have described a distinct Celtic Church uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from adherents of the Roman Church, while others classify Celtic Christianity as a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas. Varying scholars reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices present in both the Irish and British churches that were not seen in the wider Christian world.
The Synod of Whitby was a Christian administrative gathering held in Northumbria in 664, wherein King Oswiu ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome rather than the customs practised by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite institutions. The synod was summoned at Hilda's double monastery of Streonshalh (Streanæshalch), later called Whitby Abbey.
The Echternach Gospels were produced, presumably, at Lindisfarne Abbey in Northumbria around the year 690. This location was very significant for the production of Insular manuscripts, such as the Durham Gospels and the Lindisfarne Gospels. The scribe of the Durham Gospels is believed to have created the Echternach Gospels as well. The Echternach Gospels are now in the collection of France's Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period. It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
The Schottenkirche is a parish church in Vienna attached to the Schottenstift, founded by Irish Benedictine monks in the 12th century. In 1418, the Duke Albert V of Austria transferred it to the German-speaking Benedictine monks from the Melk Abbey during the Melker Reform initiated after the Council of Constance. The church was elevated to the rank of Basilica Minor in 1958.
The Monymusk Reliquary is an eighth century Scottish house-shape reliquary made of wood and metal characterised by an Insular fusion of Gaelic and Pictish design and Anglo-Saxon metalworking, presumably by the Celtic Church monks of Iona Abbey. It is now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Anglo-Saxon missionaries were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century, continuing the work of Hiberno-Scottish missionaries which had been spreading Celtic Christianity across the Frankish Empire as well as in Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England itself during the 6th century. Both Ecgberht of Ripon and Ecgbert of York were instrumental in the Anglo-Saxon mission. The first organized the early missionary efforts of Wihtberht, Willibrord, and others; while many of the later missioners made their early studies at York.
Christianity in medieval Scotland includes all aspects of Christianity in the modern borders of Scotland in the Middle Ages. Christianity was probably introduced to what is now Lowland Scotland by Roman soldiers stationed in the north of the province of Britannia. After the collapse of Roman authority in the fifth century, Christianity is presumed to have survived among the British enclaves in the south of what is now Scotland, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced. Scotland was largely converted by Irish missions associated with figures such as St Columba, from the fifth to the seventh centuries. These missions founded monastic institutions and collegiate churches that served large areas. Scholars have identified a distinctive form of Celtic Christianity, in which abbots were more significant than bishops, attitudes to clerical celibacy were more relaxed and there were significant differences in practice with Roman Christianity, particularly the form of tonsure and the method of calculating Easter, although most of these issues had been resolved by the mid-seventh century. After the reconversion of Scandinavian Scotland in the tenth century, Christianity under papal authority was the dominant religion of the kingdom.
Cedd was an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop from the Kingdom of Northumbria. He was an evangelist of the Middle Angles and East Saxons in England and a significant participant in the Synod of Whitby, a meeting which resolved important differences within the Church in England. He is venerated in the Catholic Church, Anglicanism, and the Orthodox Church.
In the seventh century the pagan Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity mainly by missionaries sent from Rome. Irish missionaries from Iona, who were proponents of Celtic Christianity, were influential in the conversion of Northumbria, but after the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Anglo-Saxon church gave its allegiance to the Pope.
Felix of Burgundy, also known as Felix of Dunwich, was the first bishop of the kingdom of the East Angles. He is widely credited as the man who introduced Christianity to the kingdom. Almost all that is known about him comes from the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed by the English historian Bede in about 731, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Bede wrote that Felix freed "the whole of this kingdom from long-standing evil and unhappiness".
There is archaeological evidence of insular monasticism as early as the mid 5th century, influenced by establishments in Gaul such as the monastery of Martin of Tours at Marmoutier, the abbey established by Honoratus at Lérins; the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel; and that of Germanus at Auxerre. Many Irish monks studied at Candida Casa near Whithorn in what is now Galloway in Scotland.
St. James's Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Würzburg. It was founded as a Scottish monastery by Embrico, Bishop of Würzburg, about 1134.
Aidan of Lindisfarne was an Irish monk and missionary credited with converting the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity in Northumbria. He founded a ministry cathedral on the island of Lindisfarne, known as Lindisfarne Priory, served as its first bishop, and travelled ceaselessly throughout the countryside, spreading the gospel to both the Anglo-Saxon nobility and the socially disenfranchised.
The Gregorian mission or Augustinian mission was a Christian mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 to convert Britain's Anglo-Saxons. The mission was headed by Augustine of Canterbury. By the time of the death of the last missionary in 653, the mission had established Christianity among the southern Anglo-Saxons. Along with the Irish and Frankish missions it converted Anglo-Saxons in other parts of Britain as well and influenced the Hiberno-Scottish missions to continental Europe.
During the 6th century, Roman Emperor Justinian I launched a military campaign in Constantinople to reclaim the western provinces from the Germans, starting with North Africa and proceeding to Italy. Though he was temporarily successful in recapturing much of the western Mediterranean he destroyed the urban centers and permanently ruined the economies in much of the West. Rome and other cities were abandoned. In the coming centuries the Western Church, as virtually the only surviving Roman institution in the West, became the only remaining link to Greek culture and civilization.
The Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) divisions of Christianity began to take on distinctive shape in 7th-century Christianity. Whereas in the East the Church maintained its structure and character and evolved more slowly, in the West the Bishops of Rome were forced to adapt more quickly and flexibly to drastically changing circumstances. In particular, whereas the bishops of the East maintained clear allegiance to the Eastern Roman emperor, the Bishop of Rome, while maintaining nominal allegiance to the Eastern emperor, was forced to negotiate delicate balances with the "barbarian rulers" of the former Western provinces. Although the greater number of Christians remained in the East, the developments in the West would set the stage for major developments in the Christian world during the later Middle Ages.
The Christianisation of Scotland was the process by which Christianity spread in what is now Scotland, which took place principally between the fifth and tenth centuries.
Insular illumination refers to the production of illuminated manuscripts in the monasteries of Ireland and Great Britain between the 6th and 9th centuries, as well as in monasteries under their influence on continental Europe. It is characterised by decoration strongly influenced by metalwork, the constant use of interlacing, and the importance assigned to calligraphy. The most celebrated books of this sort are largely gospel books. Around sixty manuscripts are known from this period.
References
1 2 Ott, Michael (1912). "Schottenklöster". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.13. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
1 2 3 Neander, Augustus (1871). General History of the Christian Religion and Church. Vol.3. London: Geo. Bell and Sons. p.17.
Bowen, E. G. (1977). Saints, Seaways and Settlements in the Celtic Lands. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN0-900768-30-4.
Bruce, James (2007), Prophecy, Miracles, Angels & Heavenly Light? The Eschatology, Pneumatology and Missiology of Adomnan's Life of Columbia - Studies in Christian History and Thought, Paternoster, ISBN9781597527316
Wormald, Patrick (2006). "Bede and the 'Church of the English'". In Baxter, Stephen (ed.). The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Shaw, Frank, ed. (1981). Karl der Große und die Schottischen Heiligen. Nach der Handschrift Harley 3971 der Britischen Bibliothek London[Karl the Great and the Scottish Saints. After the manuscript Harley 3971 in the British Library (London)]. Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters [German Texts of the Middle Ages] (in German). Vol.LXXI. Berlin (DDR): Akademie-Verlag.
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