Early Medieval Ireland

The period 550 to 750 was one in which monastic culture became more firmly entrenched in Western Europe. The role of monasteries and their relationship to the social world around them was transformed during this period as monastic institutions became more integrated in social and political power networks. This collected volume of essays focuses on one of the central figures in this process, the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder, Columbanus (c. 550-615), his travels on the Continent, and the monastic network he and his Frankish disciples established in Merovingian Gaul and Lombard Italy.

The post-Roman kingdoms through which Columbanus travelled and established his monastic foundations were made up of many different communities of peoples. As an outsider and immigrant, how did Columbanus and his communities interact with these peoples? How did they negotiate differences and what emerged from these encounters? How societies interact with outsiders can reveal the inner workings and social norms of that culture. This volume aims to explore further the strands of this vibrant contact and to consider all of the geographical spheres in which Columbanus and his monastic communities operated (Ireland, Merovingian Gaul, Alamannia, Lombard Italy) and the varieties of communities he and his successors came in contact with — whether they were royal, ecclesiastic, aristocratic, or grass-roots.

Table of Contents

Preface
List of Abbreviations
Maps
Contributors
Foreword Walter Pohl
Part I: Columbanus in Context
Chapter 1: Introduction: Columbanus and Europe Alexander O'Hara
Chapter 2: Columbanus and the Language of Concord Damian Bracken
Part II: The Insular Background
Chapter 3: The Political Background to Columbanus's Irish Career Dáibhí Ó Cróinín
Chapter 4: Movers and Shakers? How Women Shaped the Career of Columbanus Elva Johnston
Chapter 5: Columbanus's Ulster Education Alex Woolf
Part III: The Frankish World
Chapter 6: Columbanus in Brittany Ian Wood
Chapter 7: Columbanus and Shunning: The Irish peregrinus between Gildas, Gaul, and Gregory Clare Stancliffe
Chapter 8: Orthodoxy and Authority: Jonas, Eustasius, and the Agrestius Affair Andreas Fischer
Chapter 9: Columbanus and the Mission to the Bavarians and the Slavs in the Seventh Century Herwig Wolfram
Part IV: On the Fringe: Columbanus and Gallus in Alamannia
Chapter 10: Between the Devil and the deep Lake Constance: Jonas of Bobbio, interpretatio Christiana, and the Pagan Religion of the Alamanni Bernhard Maier
Chapter 11: Drinking with Woden: A Re-Examination of Jonas's Vita Columbani I. 27 Francesco Borri
Chapter 12: Between Metz and Überlingen: Columbanus and Gallus in Alamannia Yaniv Fox
Chapter 13: Quicumque sunt rebelles, foras exeant! Columbanus's Rebellious Disciple Gallus Philipp Dörler
Part V: Lombard Italy and Columbanus's Legacy
Chapter 14: Columbanus, Bobbio, and the Lombards Stefano Gasparri
Chapter 15: Disputing Columbanus's Heritage: The Regula cuiusdam patris (with a translation of the Rule) Albrecht Diem

This article explores the nature of royal residences in early medieval Ireland. Through the excavated evidence, it examines key themes of long-term dynamics, architectures and networks of power. It presents a synthesis of excavated evidence for often overlooked residential elements to provincial capitals, and subsequently, interrogates the development of several key royal sites regarded as archetypal residences. It argues that there are important distinctions between the earlier and later phases of many such sites that relate to their role in diverse strategies of rulership. In particular, ritual, ceremony and violence are key early characteristics, whereas a residential element often only appears relatively late. While these changes may be related to wider realpolitik, it is suggested that they also embody the crystallization of residential foci within new strategies of rulership during the seventh to ninth centuries AD.

Viking Age textiles with interwoven gold threads are rare in Scandinavia. Two such textiles were found in a Viking ship grave at Gokstad in Norway. Apart from brief overviews, the materials, techniques and find context of these textiles have not been described in detail before. The silk and gold embroidery was made with stem-stitch and simple laid-work. A madderdyed silk thread was used to make the flower pattern, in combination with a thread consisting of 80% pure gold lamella
with a core of silk. A similar gold thread was used in a narrow band found with the embroidery. The 4 mm to 4.5 mm wide
band is probably a remnant of tablet weaving. Both embroidery and band were found hidden inside a hollow ridgepole holding up the roof of a grave chamber. The precious gold and silk materials and the time-consuming and specialised technology used to make the gold thread suggests that these textiles were very valuable.

Clonfad is an early medieval ecclesiastical enclosure, 10% of which was excavated in 2004-5, in advance of the N6/N52 link road. Work revealed important evidence for iron hand-bell production, intensive iron-working, and other artisan and agricultural production activity. Clonfad, founded in the mid 6th century (by Librán) was a daughter house of St. Finnian's Clonard, Co Meath and roughly the same size and morphology as Nendrum, Co Down. This extract includes selected chapters from the book, P.Stevens & J.Channing 2012 Settlement and Community  in the Fir Tulach Kingdom, NRA and Westmeath County Council, detailing three neighbouring and contemporary enclosure sites, excavated on the N6/N52 road schemes in Co Westmeath by the authors.

This MSc thesis contributes new information to and original analysis of the topics of Viking-Age silver hoards and Irish monastic settlements, as well as their respective usefulness for understanding the early medieval Irish economy. Historiography regarding the early medieval Irish economy has been affected by colonial and nationalist myths, creating an image of a rural and subsistence-level society that was poorly integrated into the larger Viking-Age silver economy and primitive in nature. Furthering Revisionist arguments, this thesis challenges these assumptions by demonstrating Irish ownership of silver hoards and the economic roles of monastic settlements (which may have served as proto-urban sites). 
The research entailed a mixed methodological approach. Primarily, data regarding silver hoards and settlements in Ireland (both Irish and Hiberno-Norse) was plotted within a GIS system to allow for distributional analysis. Measurements were taken from the created maps to provide quantitative data, while discovered trends and relationships were qualitatively analyzed within a comprehensive historical context. These methods were complemented with a historical critique of a coin database, allowing for more detailed study of the content of hoard finds.
The results of the analyses revealed a strong relationship between silver hoards and monastic settlements (with mostly coins found at these sites), substantiating the economic significance of the latter. Additionally, many hoards were found inland and deep within independent Irish kingdoms. Few hoards were found to be randomly deposited. Rather, most were associated with either Irish or Hiberno-Norse settlements, as well as borders between kingdoms. Such promising results illustrate the need for more extensive research on both silver hoards and the Early Medieval Irish economy, both of which possess complexities that require further elucidation.

Siaburcharpat Con Culaind is a great cross-over saga. Cú Chulainn, the greatest of pagan heroes, helps Patrick in his mission to convert the king of Ireland. What does this story tell us about conversion? What role is played by the pagan past? Why is telling stories so important?

Published in: CSANA Yearbook 1 (2001) 109–25

The principles of Saenger and Parkes on the analysis of word spacing in Insular manuscripts are here applied to the Irish ogam corpus.  Differences in the adoption of aerated text between that corpus and the Anglo-Saxon epigraphic corpus are examined and the reasons for these differences are explored.  Finally, the dating of the adoption of aerated text in both Insular manuscripts and the ogam corpus is compared.

These are interesting times to be a scholar of the early medieval period in Ireland. The unprecedented number of excavations conducted here over the past twenty years has produced a similarly unprecedented amount of data. Scholars could be at the cusp of a whole new understanding of the period, although there is much data to be digested and discussed first. An impressive number of the sites investigated during the recent infrastructural boom in Ireland have been published in various levels of detail, and many of them are of interest to early medieval scholars. So much so that it is becoming increasingly difficult, but thankfully not impossible, to keep up to date! This collection of papers, edited by Christiaan Corlett and Michael Potterton, represents the third in the series, 'Research papers in Irish archaeology', following Rural Settlement in Medieval Ireland (Wordwell, 2009) and Death and Burial in Early Medieval Ireland (Wordwell, 2010). Both of these have already made significant contributions to our knowledge of medieval Ireland, and the present volume continues in this vein.

Edizione critica, traduzione e commento a cura di Giovanni Paolo Maggioni.
Nel contesto della turbolenta storia d’Irlanda dei primi decenni del XIV secolo, l’arcivescovo di Cork, il domenicano Philip de Slane, viene inviato ad Avignone come legato del re d’Inghilterra Edoardo II, per discutere con papa Giovanni XXII della complessa condizione dell’isola: in seguito al fallimento dello sbarco di Edward Bruce, fratello del re di Scozia, gli Anglonormanni continuavano a spadroneggi re e ad opprimere gli Irlandesi. Philip, membro di una famiglia anglonormanna, reca in dono al pontefice un libro, la «Piccola descrizione dell’Irlanda», una rilettura aggiornata della «Topographia Hibernica» di Giraldo Cambrense. Sorprendentemente, nel testo che ci è pervenuto, il diritto della corona inglese a dominare l’Irlanda viene fortemente messo in discussione: questo diritto spetta al papa e solo lui può concederlo ad altri, a certe condizioni. E queste condizioni sono state disattese dai re d’Inghilterra… Non sono esattamente le parole che ci si attenderebbe dal legato di Edoardo II. Un mistero letterario medievale, qui per la prima volta pubblicato in edizione critica.

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All cultures have in their mythologies tales of heroic births which set the culture’s hero figures apart from the common people. Celtic mythology is no different, and in fact may offer some of the prototypical fantastic birth scenarios to be found in mythology in general. The compact, matter of fact, and yet fantastical tale of Cú Chulainn’s birth offers a fine example of the Celtic peoples’ ability to relate the mysteries of nature and the supernatural in a manner that appears not only to suspend disbelief, but perhaps to even transcend it. The story is short and yet exhibits several of the characteristics which Alwyn and Brinley Rees outline in their work Celtic Heritage as being typical of heroic birth tales. Throughout this discussion, references will be made to Rees and Rees’ postulated heroic birth motif and in general to other ideas offered by the authors which may be seen as relevant to the tale.

This is a synopsis of my 2 volume work. It provides a new perspective on the origins of many Scottish Clans - identifying many of the lies fabricated to suit the necessity of the times and since believed and consistent with a sensible chronology. Supporting this there is a wholly new understanding of Pictish place names and of the origins of Heraldry, a rechronologising of Norwegian history covering the period 800-1015 together with a narrative overview of the politics of the Scotland of the day. Many people, such as Crinan and Duncan I's wife are identified for the first time.

The connemara coastline of co. Galrvar, on Ireland's u-est coast, consists of a number of peninsulrrs that are separated br. broad ba1 s or narrouinle'ts ( . In places. rhe coast is fring'ed with san<i-basecl grassrancr, kno*"n as rrtrrchuir, irnd olfshore islands abound, some oln-hich are inhabited. Eramination of a recentlv compiled dirtabase of archaeological finds from Co. Galuar (Gibbons zoo-tr) indicates that the coastal region \ras settled from prehistoric times onlarcls, u'ith a good cleal of \eolithic and Bronze Age mater.iai present. With the adr-ent of Christianitr, small rnonastic sertlements r.r ere founr.lecl throughour this region (Gosling rgg3. Bg-rii), irossiblr on relativelr-unoccupied lancls (Bradler rg88, tr7). There appears to be a relatir.elv lor inciclence of earlrmedier-al stral finds of pre Yiking-Age date lrom the re{ion. other than those associared ri-ith ecclesiastical sites (Gibbons zoo-1). and there is an almosr total absence ofringfbrts that elsethere in the countrv are associatecl rvith earirmedieral settlemenr (_\lcCormick et iri. r996, 84; Gosling r99j, 36--+3). B-r' contrast, there are a number of rnidden sites in r-arious places along the coastline that har-e produced Yiking-Age fincis, in adclition ro others that har-e not vielded anv artelacts but *'hich har-e been ri,rdiocarbon*datecl to the\iiking 3.ge. Such middens occul' ar Evrephort. on omev lsland, arouncl False Bal, Doonlouehan Bar. \lannin Bal-and Ballr conneelv Bar., in the r.icinitr of sl.vne Head and in the Roundstone area-All of the sites share rhe common facror of

This paper announces the Battle of White Hill. It took place in 926 and was a crushing victory for King Athelstan of Wessex. As the immediate result of the battle, Athelstan reasserted control over Northumbria which he had annexed by fiat and then lost over the course of the previous twelve months. In the treaty of Eamont Bridge, which followed hard upon this victory, the kings of Scotland and Strathclyde formally recognised Athelstan as king of all England and overlord of all Britain. As such I propose that this was the "First Battle of Britain". Without victory for Athelstan at this battle, there would have been no Battle of Brunanburh (937), so vaunted by the annalists. This paper sets this battle in its context, identifying the battlefield. The author hopes that the local authority will now take steps to preserve and memorialise such of the battlefield as remains otherwise undisturbed and takes appropriate steps to recognise the forthcoming 1100th anniversary.

This paper looks at the various views of historical geographers, archaeologists and historians concerning the nature of settlement in early Ireland. It examines the way that the idea of 'tribalism' has shaped views of the past. How far was there nucleation, villages, towns etc.

Dolgozatom Szent Patrik Hitvallása alapján azt a kérdést vizsgálja, milyen támadások ellen írta Patrik ezt a művet. Kik lehettek Patrik ellenlábasai? Milyen eretnekségek léteztek az 5. századi Britannia és Hibernia keresztény közösségeiben?
A brit egyház Patrikot meg akarta fosztani püspöki rangjától ifjúkori bűne miatt, melyet harminc évvel korábban meggyónt. Ennek ellenére a brit klérus nem tekintette lezártnak az ügyet. Szigorú hozzáállásuk magyarázatát az 5. század eleji eretnekségben, a pelagianizmusban kell keresnünk, amely a brit egyházat érintette leginkább. Az eretnekség bírálatát Szent Ágoston hippói püspök dolgozta ki. Meglepő, hogy a kutatás eddig nem foglalkozott a Patrik és Ágoston munkái közt fennálló hasonlósággal. A két püspök írásainak összevetése döntő fontosságú. Patrik Galliában töltött évei alatt ismerkedett meg Ágoston műveivel. Hitvallása (Confessio) nemcsak címében emlékeztet Ágoston Vallomásaira (Confessiones), hanem egyenesen az ágostoni kegyelemtant tükröz. Patrik követi az ágostoni mintát, több gondolatát pedig kapcsolatba lehet hozni a hippói püspök antipelagiánus leveleivel. Patrik valószínűleg olvasta Ágoston Pelagius ellen írt műveit is, esetleg kifejezetten azzal a szándékkal, hogy Britanniában megakadályozhassa az eretnek tanok terjedését. Patrik művei és életének eseményei azt bizonyítják, hogy Patrik nem volt pelagiánus, inkább vádlói követhettek eretnek tanokat. Tanulmányomban azt mutatom be, hogy az egykori bűn miatt kirobbant botrány lehetőséget adott Patrik számára a pelagiánus eretnekség cáfolására. Hitvallása tehát nemcsak védőbeszéd, hanem vádirat is egyben.

An examination of four major early medieval Irish saints: Brigit, Monenna, Íte and Samthann. What were their identities? How important was the cult of Brigit to the hagiographical traditions of other female saints? What role was played by perceptions of gender?
Published in: Mark Atherton (ed), Celts and Christians: New Approaches to the Religious Traditions of Britain and Ireland (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002) 60–78.

Medieval moated sites in Gaelic Ireland are now recognized as high status lordly sites.  This articles considers moated sites in County Roscommon, Ireland, and argues that by using a statistical clustering model it is possible to identify some clear distinctions in morphological characteristics of these sites.