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The Celtic peoples of Ireland, known in ancient times as Scots, began to be evangelized in the fifth century as we have noted above. Monasteries came to have an enormous civilizing influence over the primitive Celtic society. Each local community came to be headed by a tribal chieftain together with his advisor, the abbot of the local monastery. And the earliest churches all seem to have been associated with monasteries.
Celtic monasteries were centers of advanced civilization among a backward but advancing people. Untroubled by the barbarian invasions in the fifth century the Celtic monasteries labored successfully to convert the Celtic Scots from paganism. By the seventh century the monasteries in what is now Ireland displayed the most highly literate culture to be seen anywhere in western Europe outside Spain and Southern Italy. In the monasteries the monks studied both Latin and to some extent Greek letters. It was one of only a few places in northern Europe where Greek texts could still be read and understood in the ninth century. The illuminated manuscripts produced by the Scots in these monasteries are priceless treasures of art.
Celtic Christianity emphasized the superiority of the Abbot in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Abbots were also ordained so they could dispense the sacraments to their own monastery and to converts from surrounding pagan communities. Monks who left the monastery on missions were frequently ordained as bishops without assigned dioceses or as priests without a supervising bishop and could therefore establish both churches and monasteries on their own initiative.
Compared with the Celtic practices orthodox catholic Christianity up to this period had developed a much more rigid hierarchy. Monks or abbots were not ordained as a general rule unless they are given a diocese or some definite assignment outside the monastery.
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Celtic monasticism first developed in Scotia Major (as Ireland was later called to distinguish it from Scotia Minor, i.e. Scotland) and spread across central Europe in the seventh century as a result of the work of monks who began to come to Frankland already in the late sixth century. Their typical practice was to establish a monastery and then proceeded to evangelize the people in the vicinity. In the Celtic Christianity the monastery was the dominant institution and the honor of the abbot exceeded that of the bishop. The Celtic Christians also disagreed with the orthodox catholic Church on the date for the celebration of Easter. Celtic Christians preferred the older practice rather than the one established by the Council of Nicaea.
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Among the earliest Celtic foundations in Europe was the work of Trudpert the Scot (d. c. 643) who established a monastery at Breisgau. Far more significant was the work of Columbanus, the Younger. He was a Scottish monk educated at Bangor (Ireland) and resident of that famous monastery who came to Frankland with twelve or thirteen companions about 585. He preached asceticism and penance in Brittany, crossed northern Frankland and settled in Burgundy east of the upper Saone River (east central France). There he established three strategically placed monasteries (Aunegray, Fontainae, and Luxeuil) and worked to evangelize the population for 12 years. Driven from the area in 610 by a vicious Merovingian king whom he had openly denounced for keeping concubines, he fled eastward to the region south of lake Constance. He left there in 612, leaving one of his associates, Gallus, to continue the work and establish the famous monastery of St. Gallus. Eventually, Columbanus established a monastery at Bobbio, south of the Po River, southwest of Piacenza (Italy), where he died in 615. Each of the monasteries founded by Columbanus and his fellow Scots were responsible for founding other Celtic monasteries.
Columbanus wrote a rule for these monasteries. It consisted of two parts: a set of regulations in ten chapters and a list of surprisingly severe penances for individuals who failed to abide by their rigid customs. Six lashes for the man who uses a spoon without making the sign of the cross, or who fails to say "Amen" after Grace. Ten lashes for the man who carves on the dinner table. Twelve for the man who did not ask the Abbot's blessing before leaving the monastery grounds. Two hundred lashes for conversing alone with a woman.
The Rule of Columbanus would have enduring influence around Luxeuil in east central France, indeed until it's remaining vestiges were forcibly suppressed by Carolingian churchmen in the early ninth century. Despite the resistance of the Merovingian rulers and the Frankish bishops in general, see below, a few bishops in that region advocated its use in the half century after Columbanus'death. Finally in a rule written for a nunnery at Jussa-Moutier, by Donatus (d. c. 660) Bishop of nearby Besançon, we can see the influence of the Celtic rule interlaced with the influence of the Frankish rules inspired by Caesarius, bishop of Arles (d. c. 542). Moreover, for the first time there are evidences in Donatus' Regula Mixta that the Benedictine Rule had reached east central France. It is interesting that the Frankish Bishops in a synod at Autun in 670 voted their preference for the Benedictine Rule partly in opposition to the continued popularity of the Columbanus' Celtic rule.
Columbanus also preached the Celtic idea of private (so called "auricular") confession, rather than public confession before the congregation, three times a year or at least every time the Abbot-bishop held visitation after which the one who confessed would be assigned works of penance. These might include fasting, alms giving, banishment to a foreign country, pilgrimages, scourging, becoming a monk, and the like. Penitential books, reference books to guide bishops in assigning appropriate penances, were in use among Celtic Christians in the sixth and seventh centuries. One surviving book seems to have been written by Columbanus, the Younger. On another issue, that of the orthodox catholic assertion of the supremacy of the bishop over local monasteries, Columbanus vigorously defended the "more ancient" practice of the Celtic Church against the "innovations" of recent vintage and thereby gained the disfavor of Frankish churchmen.
Kilian was a Celtic monk, possibly from Luxeuil, who preached in southern Thuringia at Wurzburg and was martyred there in 689. Eustasius, a disciple and successor of Columbanus at Luxeuil, worked in Bavaria. Rupert (Hrodbert) of Worms, (died 722) possibly a Scot, established work at Regensburg and Salzburg, coming to be known as the "Apostle of Bavaria". Emmeram (Heimrham) of Poitiers founded a monastery at Regensburg in Bavaria sometime in the late seventh century.
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Many tribal kingdoms of various sizes and strengths had emerged among the native Britons in England by 450 in the absence of Roman power: The Celtic Britons were able to hold their own until about 470 when the Anglo-Saxon barbarians began to enjoy a series of victories that drove the Britons back to the western edge of England and Scotland. The legend of King Arthur and the Battle of Mt. Badon seems probably to have developed from some actual historical events in the struggle between the Britons and the advancing Anglo-Saxons. Whatever Christian presence there had been in Roman England that remained after the Empire abandoned the island in 406--a hotly debated subject--it seems to have been swept away after 470 by the Anglo-Saxon victories.
Struggles continued in England among the twenty or so petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the sixth century. Aethelbert (555-615), the king of Kent, was recognized as overlord of all the kingdoms of England at the beginning of the seventh century. The kingdoms of Berenicia and Deira vied for the preeminence in Central England. From about 626 when Edwin of Deira was recognized as overlord until the death of Egferth of Northumbria in 685, even the central and southern areas recognized the Northumbrian kings.
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Celtic Monasticism in England was instrumental in the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxons in Northumbria (central England). Ninian, a Briton (i.e., from Wales), evangelized southern "Caledonia", the southern part of what is now Scotland. The Scot (i.e., Irishman) Columbanus, the Elder, was the founding Abbot of the island based Celtic monastery at Iona about 565. He also worked among the natives of northern Caledonia for 34 years evangelizing them and establishing Celtic Christian monasteries.
King Oswald of Northumbria, rejecting the southern Anglo-Saxon missionaries from Kent (see below), called for Celtic missionaries from Iona. Aiden, a monk from Iona with a dozen companions, founded the monastery of Lindisfarne on the seacoast of Northumbria in 634. Aiden (d. 651) and his successor Cuthbert introduced Celtic Christianity through central England over the next 30 years.
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Augustine, the abbot of a (non-Benedictine) monastery at Rome, with nearly 50 of his monks were sent to Kent (Southeast England) by Pope Gregory I. King Aethelbert of Kent had already been persuaded to accept Christianity by his Frankish wife, Bertha, and her Frankish companions. Augustine and his monks were allowed to preach and several thousand people including the king were baptized in 597.
Gregory I sent other missionaries to help in the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxons of Kent, Essex, and other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Two metropolitan bishoprics (i.e. archbishoprics) were to be established, one at York and one at London. London was however rejected in favor of the fortified citadel of King Aethelbert called in Anglo-Saxon, Kenta borough, i.e. Canterbury. Each provincia was to have 12 diocesan bishops eventually. London became a bishopric in 604 and by 627 King Edwin of Northumbria had been converted by Paulinus, the archbishop of York.
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Roman and Celtic Christianity remained aloof from one another in England until the middle of the seventh century. The two clashed in Northumbria after king Edwin's death in 633. The people of Northumbria reverted to paganism partly because the new King, Oswald, resented and rejected the southern influence that had come with Roman Christianity. On his invitation, Celtic Christian missionaries came to Northumbria and successfully re-established Christianity (as noted above). Nevertheless, the Roman missionaries continued to press for a hearing.
King Oswiu, Oswald's successor, was persuaded to resolve the issue once and for all by bringing representatives of each group to a Synod where they could each present their arguments. The meeting was at the monastery of Streaneshalch (today Whitby) in 663 or 664. Bishop Wilfrid, Paulinus's successor as Archbishop of York represented the Romans while Abbot-bishop Coleman of Lindisfarne represented the Celts. Oswiu ruled in favor of the Romans. The traditions preserved indicate that Oswiu was convinced by the fact that the Bishop of Rome was the successor of St. Peter whom Oswiu recognized as the Gatekeeper of Heaven.
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Pope Vitalian sent the highly trained eastern monk, Theodore of Tarsus, to become Archbishop of Canterbury in 669. The African monk, Hadrian, had been Vitalian's first choice. Hadrian refused but agreed to accompany Theodore from Rome. Theodore advanced the episcopal organization of the Church across England while Hadrian revitalized the monasticism of England. He introduced a modified version of the Benedictine Rule more suitable to the marginally literate English society. It allowed a much greater emphasis on education and cultural issues. A number of important schools were established; at Canterbury and York, and at several of the Benedictine monasteries.
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The pioneering native Northumbrian scholar was Bennet (or Benedict) Biscop (d. 690). As a young man Biscop had studied in the island monastery at Lerins (in south France) and had visited Rome. When learned Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus first arrived at Canterbury accompanied by the equally scholarly African monk, Hadrian, Biscop was temporarily appointed as Abbot of St. Augustine's monastery at Canterbury (669-671). As soon as Hadrian had learned enough English to become abbot Biscop had helped him introduce the revised Benedictine Rule at St. Augustine's. Biscop then returned to Northumbria where he founded the monastery of Wearmouth, and later the neighboring house at Jarrow. (d. 690). He also introduced the revamped Benedictine Rule into Northumbria. Because of the new Rule's emphasis on scholarly work, Biscop made 7 or 8 trips between Wearmouth and South Frankland, Italy and Rome to collect and transport manuscripts to Wearmouth and Jarrow.
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In the north central part of England Northumbrian monasticism nurtured advanced Latin scholarship beginning in the late seventh century and culminating in the career of the Venerable Bede (673-735). Despite the political turbulence of seventh, eighth and early ninth century Anglo-Saxon England the Northumbrian monasteries experienced something of a cultural Renaissance. Bede was placed in the monastery at Jarrow at age 7 by his parents. He made the decision at age 16 to remain as a monk. His travels were limited to the Jarrow-Wearmouth region, but his knowledge was worldwide. His writings included several major books and commentaries on Christian themes. Today he is more widely recognized for his historical works, particularly his History of the English Church and People. His world history chronicle pioneered the practice of dating events from the incarnation of Christ, an idea brought to Jarrow from Rome where it had been suggested in the sixth century but not adopted. His contemporaries and students thought of him as a Theologian. His commentaries on the writings of Gregory the Great, Augustine of Hippo, and Jerome were required reading for any educated churchman for the next 500 years.
Bede's pupils filled many leadership positions in the English Church and some became missionaries to the Continent. Egberht, Northumbrian king Eadberht's brother and pupil of Bede at Jarrow, became Archbishop of York in 735. The Cathedral school at York was upgraded by Egberht and put in the hands of his scholarly deacon and pupil, Alcuin, from 766 to 782. This Northumbrian deacon, Alcuin (730-804), earned a reputation as heir to Bede's stature as a scholar. Alcuin was recruited by Charlemagne to head his palace school in 782 and he spent the rest of his life in Frankland. Egberht's kinsman, Aethelberht, succeeded Alcuin as master of the Cathedral school at York in 782 and succeeded Egberht as Archbishop there (786-792).
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Northumbrian monastic missionaries also came to northeastern Frankland at first by accident when Bishop Wilfrid of York shipwrecked and wintered in Frisia in 678-79 on his way to Rome. His success was brilliant but short-lived. Earlier work among the Frisians had been launched by Frankish missionaries from the Netherlands along the lower Rhine by Eligius, Bishop of Tournai who died in 660, by Amandus, "the Apostle of Belgium" and first Bishop of Maastrict who died in 675, and by Cunibert, Bishop of Cologne who died in 663.
Willibrord, a disciple of Wilfrid, came to Frisia from England in 690 with eleven companions and gained the cooperation and protection of the Austrasian Frankish mayor, Pepin. Pepin and Willibrord secured the approval of the Pope Sergius I for Willibrord to become Archbishop of the Frisians at Utrecht in 695. He labored there ranging as far south as Trier and as far northeast as Heligoland until his death in 739.
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Under the influence of Augustine western Churches by the sixth century were regularly baptizing the infant children of Christian parents. And this baptism was understood as applying only to the remission of original sin. Hence, it was understood that all a person's acts of sin must therefore be remitted through the practice of penance. This was the understanding reflected in the writings of Gregory the Great at the end of the sixth century. Also by that time penance had become a routine part of the Church year constituting the major reason for the celebration of Lent. Because of the lurking suspicion of secret sins the clergy enrolled the whole flock in a public rite of penance involving fasting, special prayer meetings, alms giving and other charitable deeds. Every member of the flock was involved in a public confession of sin and eventually in the public "reconciliation" on Maundy Thursday prior to the Easter communion. It was also becoming quite customary for those who were sick--especially those who expected to die--to voluntarily engage in works of penance.
Because of this development attention was focused on the plight of the penitent who dies before his penance was "complete". Surely the penitent is not Holy enough to go to heaven until compensation has been made for all of his grave sins.
Pope Gregory the Great, using Tertullian's legal terminology, had established the pattern that penance involved first of all a proper attitude of summissio (humility and submission) and contritio cordis (contrition of heart). Contrite confessio oris (confession by mouth) in the hearing of the appropriate clergy was necessary to receive absolutio (the pronouncement of the gracious forgiveness and pardon of God). Finally, satisfactio operis (works of satisfaction) were required. This latter terminology describes a type of punishment imposed by Roman legal procedure. If an accused was found guilty of injuring another party then he must reimburse the defrauded victim or by some other means "satisfy" the offended party, in this case God. In that sense the word satisfactio is often translated as "punishment".
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Among the Celtic Christians of the west a simpler but more comprehensive form of confession that did not involve ecclesiastical ritual had emerged. Although there are some hints of private or semi-private confession in the Apostolic Fathers, these had been overshadowed by the development of ecclesiastical ritual in the west. Auricular confession, popularized in Western Europe by the Celtic missionaries in the sixth and seventh centuries, would eventually assume a far greater importance than the formalized rites. Auricular confession involved private confession of all sins, both venial and mortal, to the priest-confessor.
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By the sixth century the Church in its various councils had labeled many specific acts as sins. There had also been various informal listings of those acts that were "good". By the seventh century in the West so-called penitential books (or confessors' handbooks) listed specific sins by rank and grade with corresponding good works by rank and grade. These were circulated for the benefit of bishops and priests who needed to hear confessions and to counsel the confessing individual on what types of good works he or she should perform as satisfaction depending on the gravity of the sins confessed.
The simple logic of the popular understanding evidently went something like this. It was understood that the individual who humbly accepts and carries out the penitential advice given by the priest not only gives God the necessary satisfaction but in so doing restores an amount of goodness or holiness to his or her own soul. The works of penance had in some way to equal the sins committed in magnitude. Hence, for the really profound sins the appropriate penance surely had to be physically, emotionally, and economically strenuous, painful and time consuming. Many consumed their resources and ruined their health in the agitated determination to do good and meritorious deeds of heroic proportions to match the magnitude of their sins. Those who had the means might endow a monastery or build an oratorio or a basilica; others might drop everything and became a monk or a nun, bestowing all their property on the monastery. Hence, the instruction based on the penitential books addressed a clearly recognized need.
Almost all penitential handbooks imposed a variety of penances for the same sin depending on the age, circumstances, wealth, intent, social status, etc. of the one confessing. Little uniformity is evidenced among these practical guidebooks. Clergy always had longer or more severe penances. The typical penances for great sins lasted at least seven years and sometimes much longer.
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However, churchmen still had to deal with those individuals who because of age, poverty, infirmity or other circumstance, fell into utter despair lacking the physical, emotional and material means, to say nothing of the time, to accomplish the heroic penance their confessed sins called for. Perhaps the deep sense of concern for these hopeless souls motivated the anonymous authors of penitential handbooks to suggest a substantial adjustment in the penance already assigned. This was called a "redemption". Already by the late seventh century we hear of penitents who realistically had no hope of being able to engage successfully in the type or magnitude of works called for by the penitential books being thus redeemed. The redemption was understood as a commutation of the unrealistic obligations, by substituting some more realistic activity in place of the original.
Some penitential handbooks allowed severe penances of very short duration or multiple penances for a still shorter duration to be commuted into a lenient penance of long duration. Short severe penances might include such things as sleeping in water, or on a bed of fresh nettles, or beside a corpse for so many nights; or doing 365 genuflections, saying the Lord's Prayer 365 times and receiving 365 blows of a scourge every day for a year. Others recommended less awesome performances such as gifts either of land to the Church or clothing to the poor, or contributions to community improvement (as in road improvement or building bridges) as ways of lessening penance. Some allowed hired or otherwise persuaded substitutes to perform the necessary penance vicariously. For example, one tenth century redemption formula required four hundred ninety men to fast in behalf of the penitent.
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Although the term "purgatory" was never employed in reference to the afterlife until much later in the Middle Ages, scattered indications from as early as the third century Fathers (Clement of Alexandria and Origin in particular) reveal a belief that an intermediate place between Heaven and Hell may necessarily exist. This intermediate place benefited those souls that die before their final sanctification (i.e. understood as their penance) was complete. From very early, the church had universally included prayers for the departed in its regular liturgy. The eastern part of church worked through these ideas and understood them in a spiritual sense. The western church leaders, however, tended to dwell on the legalistic issue of the sanctification of the soul after death and to discuss it in terms understood by lay persons, and even by a few who should have known better, to imply a process of temporal duration after death.
Because of the enormous influence of Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) in the west the concept of punishment after death as a means of sanctification took root. Augustine had speculated on the subject, and rather vaguely at that, in commenting on I Corinthians 3:11-15. In this period Gregory the Great added his prestige to the concept of purification by fire as a kind of continuing penance after death based on Ezekiel 22:18; Isaiah 66:15-16; Malachai 3:2-3; I Corinthians 3:11-15; and the growing speculation among Christians respecting the afterlife. St. Patrick's dream of the afterlife also contributed substance to the concept among the Celtic Christians. Similarly, Gregory the Great recorded vivid visions of how the dead were helped by the prayers of their friends and relatives among the living. The practice of praying for the dead long after their departures--in some cases for hundreds of years--convinced the simple minded that those souls were still in need.
One of the characteristics of the Christians in this age was the very real terror they experienced when contemplating death. Both clergy and many pious laymen were motivated to great lengths by their distorted understanding of the "Good News". The clergy were often more fearful than the laymen about the perils that awaited the soul after death before it reached heaven. Anglo-Saxon Christians who were in many cases the models for Frankish Christians had contributed to the Frankish concern for these matters. For example, as early as 762 in the records of the Frankish Synod of Attigny we hear of self-help associations of clergy whose sole purpose was to pray earnestly for one another's souls not only in anticipation of death, but during sickness and after death. In this case there were forty-four members of this association each of which was entitled to have 100 masses and 100 psalms said for him after he died. Some of these confraternities included priests, bishops and pious laymen. Whole monasteries often entered into arrangements with other monasteries and cathedral chapters to intercede on behalf of all their departed members. Many of these associations were socializations of penance for they recited masses and Psalms and other prayers not only for the dead but also for the other living members of the group and themselves.
Another expression of this same anxiety was the desire to be buried on monastic or ecclesiastical property. Regular cemeteries were too often violated and forgotten. Many laymen were able to purchase burial plots from cathedrals and monasteries. Only bishops, abbots and royalty could be buried inside church buildings close to the relics of the saints. Kings were buried at monasteries or cathedrals. Pepin was buried at the monastery of Saint-Denis at Paris, Carloman at Saint-Remi cathedral in Rheims, Charlemagne at Aix-la Chapelle, and Louis the Pious at Saint-Arnoul of Metz, etc. The ordinary laymen too got as close as they could get under the assumption that those buried in the proximity of holy objects and ongoing pious activity might somehow benefit from it. Prominent people could have their names inscribed on the diptychs. Since the sixth century diptychs had been wax tablets bound together by rings or hinges on which were inscribed the names of specific individuals both living and dead to be read during the mass. Others invested huge amounts in engraved monuments or scratched or carved their pitiful petitions into alter tables, church doors and probably on other furniture begging for the prayers of all who chanced to read.
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