Two announcements for the novices. We'll leave on Thursday morning at 9 o'clock so you can have breakfast. We're going to have Eucharist together. It's the Feast of St. Scholastica. So we'll do Eucharist together in our normal place. We'll just all gather around the altar and have bread before we go. Okay? What about 8.15? We could do it at 8 and then leave time for breakfast too before 9. Would you rather do it that way? When do you eat? When you eat beforehand. Alright, let's leave it at 8.15. We'll leave after Mass then. We're going to have Eucharist, our own Eucharist, each day because it's rather than joining the Anglican Eucharist because they're all monastic saints this week. It's a monastic week. And I, for one, think we should celebrate Scholastica. And Bruno Boniface is one of our own. And

[01:05]

a feast, not just a memorial. That's Saturday. And Friday is one of my favorite saints. Who's his name? Benedict Valiant. And Sunday, of course, Sunday morning we're going to do our own Eucharist together because we've got to get on the road to get to Lina's. I talked to Lina this morning. She's all excited. We've got to get to Lompoc because she's taking us out to lunch. Lina Pasquini, polish up your Italian. Okay. I don't know if we need I'll just talk to each of you about just generally about the trip when you come and see me today or tomorrow rather than do it here. One thing in general about Celtic monasticism, this is not complete everything you want to know about Celtic monasticism. It's some general most important pointers. We have here's an area where if you want to do some secondary reading, we've got the books in English. We've got books on Celtic monasticism in English,

[02:08]

a number of them. And so this is something you can easily with your lack of language and still get some good meat on this particular topic, whereas with others you're chancing. Okay. Please leave your readers here then after class. You don't have to do the next reading for Wednesday. We're not going to get that far, but probably for next Thursday. You want to have the next reading. Those of you who haven't read from Book Two of the Dialogues, The Life of Saint Benedict, isn't that the next one? Yeah. You need to read that for next Thursday. If you have read it, you're free for this time around. I don't think most of you have already read it, no? Eh? Okay, you'll have to read it then for next Thursday.

[03:12]

This is something you're going to want to read anyway, I would think, good benedictance that you are. Just some preliminary remarks regarding the words in that red square. Oh, it's not a square. What is it? Trapezoid. Trapezoid. All right. The red trap is trapezoid. Ireland, as how we spell it, did not become Ireland. Actually, it didn't even become Ireland. This is what it was first before this. Until the Anglo-Saxon period, and even late, very late in the Anglo-Saxon period, at that, 11th century. So before the 11th century, it is known as Hibernia during the Latin period, and later on, Scotia. Scotia, or Scotia.

[04:20]

Scotia. We're not talking Scots there. I mean, you know, we're not, the reason I'm giving this is because it gets a little hectic. In the early period, the 4th to 11th century then, it was known as Hibernia, later Scotia, or at one point, both of them, and the Celts were known as the Scots. These are not the people who became the inhabitants of Scotland. That's, that's different. But at this point, they're called the Scots. And Scotia did not refer to Scotland. It refers to Ireland. Okay. And Great Britain was originally during the Roman period called Alba, or Albion. Alba, or Albion. That's Great Britain. Yeah. And we had a small tribe of people called the Britons

[05:26]

who moved into the, into the area in the 2nd century BC, and that's where the name comes from, Britain. The word Anglia, and later Angleterre, land of the Angles, which later became England, refers to that area. And Brittany, which originally was Celtic, well, it still is in blood. Celtic only speak French, sort of the Gaelic French, and they play fiddles and dance regals, was at this time called Armonica. Armonica. The reason this is important is that the Celtic monks made foundations, big ones, in Brittany.

[06:34]

It was Celtic. And at that time, they were making the foundations in what was called Armonica. Scots again, or Scotland? The Scots refers to the Irish at this time, or the, Scotia refers to the, it refers to the Irish, not the Scots. The Scots, the Scots, the only thing here that you think of, the Arginian, yeah, yeah. Scots refers to Scotland. It's the only thing on there that means what we say it means. But they didn't call it Irish Scots? No. Ireland, now, I'm going to call it Ireland, okay? For today, Ibernia is Ireland, because I'm not going to remember to say Ibernia all the time. Ireland was not part of the Roman Empire. It never became part of the Roman Empire. There was something about the Celts that

[07:39]

precluded that. Also, it wasn't the easiest place to get to at that time. So it really was never officially under Christianity as such during these early centuries. It was Christian, but it wasn't under the Roman Church as such, because it wasn't part of the Empire. It was still out in the hinterlands. And the original Celts, once they got to Ireland and settled down, became, which was quite different for them, having been massacred and run through all of Europe and part of Asia for centuries before, became farmers and shepherds in Ireland once they got on the island. And the chief ecclesiastical or church unit, as well as political unit, was the clan,

[08:43]

the family blood clan, the blood group. Were there indigenous people on Ibernia before the Celts got here? I don't know. Yeah, there were. I don't know anything. There's nothing I know about what their tribes were named or anything. There were some Britons there. There were people from Great Britain that we know of, just from monastic references and whatnot. In fact, before Patrick got there, Neiman was a British monk who went over and made a foundation there. There's a monolithic tomb there that's like 5,000 years old. Well, they're prehistoric people, yeah. But I don't know what the tribe's names would be. But this is where the Celts ended up. Once the Celts got there,

[09:46]

it was theirs. There is no doubt about it. Again, just in parenthesis, one of the most warlike groups that came through with their axes. The clan is the bonding unit, and the king or leader was the head of the clan, and this whole extended family was his network. Very, very important. Mutual support and reciprocation and monitoring and do you owe me and all of this. Very close network, and you didn't step on the clan's foot. I mean, if the clan said, you followed. Very tight organization, and one clan hated another clan, and so you've got the whole

[10:49]

McCoy-Hatfield thing constantly in these Celtic centuries in Ireland. The Druids were the wise ones in the Celtic religion, and not only Celtic, but in the Celtic religion at this point on the island, they're sort of like wise men, prophets, ecstatic prophets type thing. It was sort of a separate priesthood. They weren't in charge of the clans, in other words. It's sort of a separate priesthood that were in charge of augury and magic and sorcery and religious practices in general, sacrifices.

[11:50]

And advice. Advice from the, or for the clan chiefs when they needed it. Long before the Christian missionaries came to the island, the Druids were foretelling that. That. That's a matter of history. And when they did come, the Druids challenged the power of the Christian missionaries. They went head on. Who were the bards? Poets. There were poets, yes. Musicians, recorders of history. Exactly. They were all of that, but the most important thing was they were the recorders of history. And we know in retrospect in history that these

[12:51]

were the most important people on the island. Not the clan chiefs, but the bards. Because as it turned out, because they kept the records of whose land went where, et cetera, they became incredibly powerful over the years. And so that the bards occupied the real positions of power that people really wanted in later centuries. Sometimes the bards, these wandering poets, were princes. They were sons of chieftains and renowned warriors. These weren't people fiddling away in a corner because they felt like it. I mean, this was a position of power. And these were people, powerful people in the country. And they used their art history in very clever ways. And it's maybe because of the bards that

[13:56]

we have history from this period. As well as solving various struggles between the clans from time to time. They were, at this time, the principal educational facility on the island. And they weren't usually learned people. One way or another, they got their learning. They kept the annals, they kept the history, and they had a lot of power. The monasteries down the road will each have their bard historians. And so the monastic archivist would also be a musician, a poet, and would also hold a very powerful position within the monastic community. Kolumba, one of the main monastic founders, the biggies, you read from The Life of Kolumba,

[15:01]

was originally the bard historian from the community he started out in. He was one of these people. In the 4th and 5th centuries, Ireland, or the island, no, Britain, Great Britain, was evangelized by Gallic missionaries. Remember Gallic, what that refers to. What we now call France. So the missionaries from Gaul went into Britain, off into the hinterlands, to do their missionary work. Some of them came from the great abbey of Derann. Remember that island group and their learning thing. These monks helped to introduce monasticism to Britain, and from Britain it

[16:18]

flowed into Ireland. It went to Britain first, from this influence. You're later going to have two kinds of monasticism going on in Great Britain. Anglo-Saxon monasticism and Celtic monasticism. The Celtic monasticism is going to come from this Gallic group that came out of Derann and its daughter houses, went through Britain, and then up into Ireland. That's what's going to become Celtic monasticism. In the year 432, Pope Celestine the First sent a monk named Palladius, right here, under the name Patrick, and he worked in the south of the island.

[17:20]

Patrick himself seems to have been sent by the British church in order to spread its brand of Christianity in the north part of Ireland. And even though Palladius soon died, so right around the same time you had two people spreading their own versions of church life and how they developed a church. Even though Palladius didn't last very long, you still, afterwards, you still had two forms of Christianity started in Ireland around the same time that carried on and that had differences and also had some parallel courses that they took. Patrick himself was born in Britain in 385. He was captured by pirates and he was sold as a slave to a druid. Later he escaped in the year 407, convinced that his mission in life was to convert the Irish,

[18:36]

let's call them Irish, the island people. He probably, I mean this is what historians accept is 90% probable, that he spent some time in Gaul, probably at Lorraine or Auxerre, A-U-X-E-R-R-E. So at a monastery in Gaul where he was likely a monk. Because at that point in history, if you go through a conversion process and you're going to be a missionary or you want to be a priest or you want to do it, you go through a monastery. I mean that was the usual road at that time, that was all that was there, basically. Patrick concentrated his main efforts on conversion of chieftains, clan

[19:37]

chieftains. Once you get the clan chieftain converted, the whole family's got to come over and that's how he worked. He set up his clergy in his Irish Christian church, living together in a sort of semi-monastic setup. His church was primarily episcopal, so centered on the bishop, and very clerical. Priest-bishop church setup. But it had a growing interest among the Celtic people in a non-clerical, very ascetic life, which took its form in the monasticism that developed in Ireland, Celtic monasticism. Patrick himself lived at Armagh.

[20:40]

He had a church, a refractory, his clergy lived with him. Does this sound familiar at this time? We ended it. Augustine in Africa and who in Gaul? Gaul. Well, Martin actually, yes, Martin too, just last time. Cesarius of Arles, that's correct. Also, I think Hilary Fontaine did that. Anyway, he had his setup as sort of a monastery, a monastery of priests. And most of his clerics in the beginning were not Celtic, not the first generation. The first generation he brought with him, or he imported foreigners to help in the conversion process.

[21:54]

Didn't take long though. I mean, a lot of Celts found themselves quite at home in a monastic vocation. Some of them to escape the clans, the rebels, the rebels in the group. The native Celts, for the most part, were drawn to a much more aesthetic monastic situation than a clerical rectory. British monk missionaries, slant missionaries, so from Britain were brought in. So that the Irish church became largely, excuse me, largely monastic in scope. The whole thing, it's like a lot like Tibet until 1949. The whole thing was monastic. Also in Ireland. The missionary zeal of the monks, and as well as the Saxon invasions of Britain

[23:08]

later on, drove the British monks, many British monks, and many of the Welsh monks at that time over to Ireland and Angola. And these are going to become the two, with the onset of these invasions into Britain, those are going to be the two monastic strongholds at that point. Later on England's going to, Great Britain's going to be incredibly monastic. But it didn't work out so well while they were being invaded by the Anglo-Saxons, or the Saxons, let's say. So as I mentioned, actually Ninian, a full generation before Patrick, a monk named Ninian had established a missionary center at Galilee. Galilee.

[24:11]

He himself had been trained in Italy, in Rome. And it would seem that although he established himself there and started a missionary center, it wasn't a monastery as such. It was semi-monastic, but very loose structure. Not like that will eventuate two generations down the line all over Ireland. Later on though, this Galilee foundation, which goes on long beyond Ninian, becomes a very strong center for monastic training. But not under Ninian. Under Ninian it was a missionary center. Il'tud, or Il'tid, usually you see it with a Y. Il'tid was a disciple of one of the famous Gallic monks,

[25:20]

Germanus of Auxerre, there's another reference to that Gallic monastery, A-U-X-E-R-R-E, who began the monastic settlement at Chaldea, the island of Chaldea. And what kind of monasticism did he initiate there? He's from Gaul. He's from Gaul. Loringen. At this time, always in your mind, connect Celtic monasticism with Lorraine. Always go back to those islands in the south of France, because there's a very strong connection with that, what was going on, and many Celtic monks went there for education and then went back, they took Lorraine monasticism with them. So Lorraine monasticism is not only going to be the most strongly formative factor in Gallic monasticism,

[26:22]

but also in Britain in the beginning, and certainly for Celtic monasticism in general. In Iltid's foundation in Galloway, the abbot was considered not only the spiritual head, but the head teacher as well, the educator, the intellectual facilitator in the community. Why is that a worry? Why is that a concern? Because it's a monastic center for educating people and then send them out. So it's a missionary type of monasticism that started there. Send them out, why? To make more foundations. Why more foundations? To have more monks. Why? Because lots of people want to be monks this time. And also to spread the, there are other factors that go in there. This Celtic need to move

[27:27]

continues for many generations, and it's in the monasticism as well. Finian, who died in the year 549, I don't know when he was born, I looked up in three or four places, they all just give his death notice, which is not uncommon at this point in history. He had visited monks who had set up houses in Wales, so Welsh monks. And later, and where did these Welsh monks come from? Where did their founders come from? Lorraine. And so, what is the type of foundation that Conard is going to be from, again, Lorincian monasticism. Not Lorincian, Lorinsian. I keep putting a G in there. So learning, education, again, can be extremely important. Well, this is going to pay off down

[28:35]

the line. When the Celtic monks, during the Dark Ages, are going to save what culture is left in the West, just through their education, just through their copying of manuscripts, and their study, and research, and their drawing of maps, and everything wonderful thing they did. Let's give it a full scope. Let's say, well some would even say earlier, but let's say 6th, 7th century to 10th. But let's stretch again. So if you're looking at like 8th century, you know you're in the Dark Ages, okay? Get in the middle and you know you're there. And then it sort of extends both ways. We'll talk about that later on too, in another setting. The people were drawn to the monks of Conard and other foundations like this, at this point,

[29:44]

mainly because of the education and learning that was going on there. And that trickled down to them. They found it all very fascinating. Also very powerful. There's a certain power in education. The people who went, start going to monasteries at this time, for that reason, for education, for that kind of power, are really the successors of these. You still have bards who by the 6th century, 7th century, aren't so much going around with their harps and what not, singing poetry, but now they're in charge of property lines, you know, like the Count Cook type thing and whatnot. The accent changes into a much more unifying thing, more political thing, governmental thing. And the bards actually become more agnostic.

[30:50]

You'll find them in monasteries playing their harps and writing epic poems. So in other words, the tradition keeps on. There's some, this is an extremely important man, Finian, not only because of his foundation, his influence on the people, local area, but because three of his disciples, who are also on this board, were extremely important to the formation of Celtic Christianity. And those people were Ciaran, Columba, who I mentioned already, who himself was a bard, a bard historian, and Brendan. They were all disciples of Finian. I think Finian is also called Finian bald paint, which means bald, no hair Finian.

[31:53]

I've seen a reference to that somewhere. Once Patrick had died, there were real problems regarding who's going to be bishop, how do we go about this, the succession thing. And for lack of general directions, they chose to go monastic. And so for the most part, monks became, filled in the episcopal vacancies. So as the church develops, you get all these episcopal cities also being run by monks, who are trained in monasticism, in Loringen monasticism, are big on education, and their scope continues to be monastic. And so you have the church that develops in Ireland being very monastic, very community-minded, even if they're off going alone in exile for nine years because they sinned or whatever.

[32:57]

All very connected, the whole thing with the clan, it's there. It's not just in the blood, it's in the monastery too. So very strong bonds, very strong affinities. You have the monks in these monasteries who are ordained priests, for the most part, live after Patrick's gone, continue to live in the monastery. They go out and do various pastoral works from time to time, but they live with the community. In the 6th century, again, just to keep the perspective, in the 6th century, in these 500s, you have all kinds of Welsh monks running away from Wales because the Saxons, with their accents, are coming through the land. And so they all went up to Ireland and over to

[34:02]

what becomes Brittany later on and joined these monks. And so they had to make more foundations because now they had so many monks, they don't have enough places. So foundations are constantly being made. Oh, we can start sending these things around. Terry brought a number of photos and a couple of books of Celtic monastic interest. And I should have mentioned at the beginning, it's still happening. As soon as you pass them around, they give you a flavor of the places we're talking about. A lot of them are in ruins now. Also, there are monastic foundations still going in Ireland. And there are monasteries everywhere in Ireland. And there's at least some rural that used to be a monastery. There are hundreds of them. Hundreds. Ciaran founded, now this is the only one I don't know the pronouns. Claude MacNoise. The reason this is an important house is that by the mid-7th century, so within 100 years,

[35:16]

this particular monastic house, with its umbrella of foundations that come off of it, ruled half of the island. Half. Even though there's hundreds of monasteries, most of them are tied to this house that Ciaran started. And so it had a lot of influence. And its aim, again, sounds very Lyridsian, its aim was to preserve Latin learning during the Viking raids. So already, it's starting to see itself as the conservator, almost like the whole group becomes the bard, historian, and the archivist with the key to a locked storeroom with all the manuscripts in it. It sees itself as a preserver in the face of all these barbarians. It's ironic, because two centuries earlier, these were the worst barbarians of all, to preserve the learning of Western civilization. But not only that, this monastery

[36:24]

also saw itself as a stronghold to preserve Gaelic language, Gaelic studies, and the whole ethnic. So within the Celtic heart, this became an extremely important monastery, and that's also why it facilitated its influence, because it wanted to keep everything Gaelic, regardless of who was invading what, or what was happening in the government. So it saw itself as a real magnet for anything Gaelic. Congol, he's only important because of his foundation, Bangor, which was another big big house in Ireland, and had influence. Brendan, Brendan is one most people recognize the name, they recognize the name. He founded Clonfort in 558.

[37:29]

He had a real strong affinity for the west coast of Ireland, and the little islands, the little islands off Scotland, the Scottish coast. And because of that, historians conjecture that all these stories about Brendan, and getting in the walking boat, and going to Canada, and you know, sending out waves of monk, and little rounded wattle things, and just they would go wherever they landed, and then found a monastery. There was something there. But then a lot of that is just legend, built on the fact that he liked to be around the sea. He liked the ocean, he liked the shoreline, he liked the little islands all along the ocean. And he did make some foundations. But they have him traveling, you know, across the ocean and whatnot, and that's not necessarily true. But then what's really important for Celtic Christianity is, is what he did right on the

[38:42]

coastlines, and the little islands off Scotland. So these people think, Brendan, the sea, the sea boy, I forgot you here. He did discover America. Did he, did he? America? Oh no, he didn't discover America, that's already gone. What's interesting though, is that they did do an exploration, probably back in the... There are Celtic evidence... I think it was the 70s, and it was the voyage of Brendan that they kind of traveled across. Right around the same time as the Viking evidence. Yeah. But what they're saying is that that wasn't necessarily Brendan, and they don't think, they don't see how Brendan could have fit that into his own life during the founding he was. Some of them might have been from Brendan's foundations. But yeah, I know. I don't mean to disillusion you. I'm only reporting secondhand evidence. I wasn't there. Columba, definitely one of the most important. The two most important were probably Columba and

[39:47]

Columbanus, or Columban. Columba was, he was royal blood. He was from the clan of Niels, or Niles, N-I-E-I-L-S, and this becomes the family of O'Neill, the O'Neills, and the O'Donnells. So the O'Donnells and the O'Neills look to Columba as the shining monastic star in their family tree. And these families, the O'Neills and the O'Donnells, ruled much of northern, the northern part of the island at this time. He, as I mentioned already, was educated. Finian's into education, Lorenzian tradition. He is educated under Finian, gets his learning. He in fact was the Bard scholar

[40:50]

and historian in that monastery before he went off on his own. He got excommunicated as a monk, as an important monastic figure already. He got caught up in one because he belonged to the Niels clan. He got excommunicated. But that was commuted. His sentence of excommunication was commuted to working for the conversion of pagans in order to replace all the dead who died in that plan war. And so he started converting pagans, and once he got to the number of those who were killed, he was free of his sentence. There were lots of wonderful things that killed a Christian. Vengeance, and vendettas, and fulfillment, and whatever. So he was busy for a while just converting pagans in order to get off his sentence. At that time, he had already founded the houses of Kells, Derry, and Durrell.

[41:51]

These three houses were founded by him before he was excommunicated. The excommunication again came only through political things. Family, clan, politics. Not because he did some horrible thing that the church itself would have been upset about. It was because he was caught into a clan war. In 563, the most important thing he did was he founded the monastery of Iona. There are monks again at Iona. Iona is an island off the coast of Scotland. And it became his monastic center from which he sent out all kinds of satellite groups which founded houses. So it became another one of these real important monastic centers. He was heavy into missionary and conversion of the pagans, conversio paganorum mentality.

[42:55]

He built 300 churches and monasteries. 300. Scholars say, you can believe this number. It's not exaggerated. They were builders and they had lots of vocations. He himself went on a number of ocean voyages right in the area there to found monasteries. He liked to be in on founding, even if he didn't stay very long. Once he got started, he'd go off to another one. He liked to be in that first group often. He's still the patron of winds and sailors. He's a patron of sailors. Sailors are trouble, by the way. Sailors are not in trouble when you have somebody else. They say it's not lightning that you go to a gruel. With Columban, we can gruel.

[44:04]

Columban, who lived, he lived long too, didn't he? 75 years. He also was noble. And he was trained not by Finian, because he was a little bit later down the sea. He was only nine years old when Finian died. I don't know about that. But he was trained by a disciple of Finian. So again, he's into the Laurentian tradition. It's firmly rooted there. And he was also educated at Bangor, under Congol, later on. And in the year 591, Columban sets off with 12 companions. It's an important word, huh? A purported number, 12. He sets off to the Gallic, excuse me, the Gallic missions,

[45:11]

where Christianity was on the downward trend. See how things turn around? Now the Celts are going off back to France to raise Christianity and bring up the church again. Why is the church going down in Gaul? Which ones? No, the Franks. The early Franks who are into plundering. They're just plundering and destroying everything. And with that, of course, morale. Morale kind of goes down when you're being plundered and murdered. So the Franks, later on the Franks are going to become the great saviors of the church, but not now. And so the Gallic missionaries, excuse me, the Celtic missionaries under Columbanus, he wants to save Gaul. Well, Columbanus, let me do that in Latin. Columbanus goes to Gaul, strong-minded and strong-willed, and he goes to a place where

[46:18]

there already is a church set up, and it's a Gallic church. Well, if you know anything about your church history, Gallican church is unique all through the centuries down to the present day. It's anti-clerical, for one thing, always has been. And it doesn't trust the church, the hierarchy. It doesn't trust, and always believes in its own independence from Rome. And for many centuries had its independence from Rome, one way or another, especially when French popes were in power. Anyway, Columbanus goes there, and he just ignores what's going on. And he tries to change the whole church into a Celtic church. And this doesn't go over too well. The Gallic hierarchy really POed at Columbanus, and Columbanus brought with him a rule, a rule for monks, Columbanus' rule.

[47:28]

And until the rule of Benedict, under Benedict of Anion, really becomes officially set up for all the rule for monks by Columbanus and those who are following something else, or nothing at all but are Gallic. And in order to make a long story short, Columbanus gets the heck out of there. He gets out, he leaves Gaul, so he leaves France, the future France, with his companions. And he's got to build something. He's got to make monasteries. He's got to found monasteries. So he does that. The most famous of which he founds are Saint Gaul. This is going to be an extremely important house in later centuries. Saint Gaul. What country is Saint Gaul in? Switzerland. And Bobbio. Bobbio. If somebody had said Spain, I would have... Yeah, Bobbio is in Italy. So he had this Celtic

[48:38]

monk, who's really trained in Norwegian monasticism, but strained through the Irish experience, making foundations in Italy and Switzerland, which become very famous monasteries, very important monasteries. Bridget. Bridget founds a double monastery, a famous monastery, the double monastery of Kildare. That is a monastery for men and women together. And they share certain things, like library, rectory, church. In her setup of the common church and other amenities, the men performed the ministerial functions and did some of the manual labor type things. And they also handled the spiritual

[49:47]

direction within the community. And they held arms if there were any attacks underway, whether it be Viking attacks or other clan problems or whatever. The women cooked and sewed for the entire community. She ruled both men and women. Bridget was the abbess. And the choir was divided into men and women choirs alternating. We're going to see double monasteries all through the... I'll point them out whenever we see them down the line. I can get the rest of the history done in about two minutes. And then we'll make some time to discuss anything about the life of Columba that you've read for this time. And then

[50:54]

next time I'll speak on Celtic asceticism and monasticism. So I'd like you to write down these three words for next time, so I don't have to write them before next time. If you haven't already, these Latin words, peregrinatio, peregrini, and aquatici. So by the mid-7th century, so let's say 650s, the Irish churches were largely monastic, for the most part monastic. And each of them had a walled city around them. I mean they were, you know, there was a monastery with the city that grew up around it serving the monastery or partnering with it or connected with it, maybe through clan lines or whatever. Then a high wall around it for protection. We're talking about mid-7th century. And monks and or nuns, I mean this isn't the only double monastery, this is the most famous one.

[51:58]

Monks and or nuns living a monastic life. And the abbot or abbess was the head of a clan church. So it was a, remember it's a clan, it's based on clan. And that down through the generations, the one who was in charge had to be a blood relative of the founder. So it really, you know, it really sticks to the clan thing. You have to be a blood relative. So if you come into there but you're not part of the clan, there's no way you're ever going to be abbot. Clan families, each family often gave one of their sons as a title to the monastery. So you're this year's 10%.

[53:00]

Think of that, don't just, think of yourself as 10%. And the life itself was based on living a poverty, justice, obedience type framework. So the councils, the evangelical councils. Asceticism, very strong, we'll talk about that next time. Well then, the normal asceticism, if you want to take the word asceticism and fill in the blanks, they're there. They're real contentious. Very contentious. Lots of mortification. Lots of silence. Lots of prayers with an F on the end of it. Lots of penitential practices. And also, in the typical monastery by this mid-7th century, you have calligraphy, prospering, and studies. Education continues as a strong influence in Celtic monasticism.

[54:08]

Now, Celtic monasticism, we've gone, you know, a couple centuries, it's not going to last much longer. It has a very short life, speaking of it in a general sense. It's a very short life, but it's extremely important for monastic history and Western civilization during that period where it did finish. Why? First of all, why did it, why didn't it last long? Viking invasions. Internal squabbles and external squabbles. What would be the external squabble? Church squabble. External. Roman Christianity versus Celtic Christianity. As in Britain, you're going to find Anglo-Saxon Christianity versus Celtic Christianity,

[55:13]

which is in the north. That's going to contribute also. And down the road, especially in Europe, now, mainly, you know, although in the island itself, monasticism peters down, but it continues, the foundations, most of the foundations they made outside of the island itself die out. Now, why would they die out? More than the reasons we've given. The rule, the Celtic rule of Columbin and other Celtic rules that existed was too hard to make it for other peoples. And secondly, a lot of the customs that came with Celtic monasticism, in the long run, to others, to people in other countries, seemed repugnant at the city.

[56:15]

So, even though Celtic foundations continued, the Celtic monasticism that they founded there changed. So, you have the buildings, but the monasticism changes its character over the coming centuries, because it's just too much. They can't live that way. They don't want to live that way, but they want to live a monasticism. And this Celtic monasticism was extremely important for the preserving of culture, also monastic culture, and for giving a framework for the island, not just religious, but political and cultural, and giving a strong Gaelic consciousness

[57:19]

to the people. Monks were very instrumental in that, just like the monks of Montserrat are very instrumental in keeping the consciousness of the Basques in the life of the people. Any reactions to the selections from the Life of Colombo that you looked at? It's typical of Celtic monastic writings. Hagiography. Yeah, it had seemed very much like European hagiography, too. You have the European beat, focused on miracles. As it will under the Carolingians and onward, yeah. There wasn't a great deal of depth about the asceticism of the Magyars, I would expect.

[58:25]

Were you? There may be part of it. We have the whole life, if you want to read the whole life. It seemed like there was poetry and scripture here and there, but not true description. Almost kind of folktale-ish. Yeah, exactly. But also a certain charm that seemed to be something black and a lot of the other stuff we would read felt black. A lot more human. Yeah, very human and very charming. Miracles themselves all seem to imitate something Christ had done. Yeah, it's a different way of mirroring a scripture. They're not so much into quoting as they are into mining. And we've seen it on the footnotes that the particular miracles or the sort of myth, the story that went with it, maintained its status within a society for some time afterward.

[59:27]

That it caught on with the imagination of the people and still exists in some way, shape, form, and some superstition. And that still exists today, more so than in other cultures. I don't know if that's just the Irish or what. I'll tell you, that was one of the things that I remember. I mentioned how much came out of the Celtic myth, which would be pre-Christian and has continued on, and almost a certain, a charm of contemporary, maybe not so much contemporary of Irish Christianity, because Irish Christianity is very much dying. Yeah, very little left. But this kind of, sort of almost a magical faith that you might see in your grandparents, of a touch of that. There's a charm to the faith and there's a charm to the way. Okay, so Wednesday we'll finish up Celtic monasticism and begin St. Benedict of Nursia.

[60:37]

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