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The Saints
The Empire of Rome was in decay. Barbarians were massing on every frontier and the shadows were growing over Christendom. But in the furthest West the flame of faith had been kindled beneath the protecting Imperial shield. And now, as the age descended into tumult, the flame was fanned into a blaze that would light the centuries to come.
Two men, Patrick in Ireland and David in Wales, moved and worked amongst the peoples and conflicts on the fringe of Empire. As marauders ravaged the land and war leaders contested with invader and rival alike, the torch of religion and civilisation was passed from hand to hand and the Celtic Church was born. From Wales and Ireland the message was spread to Brittany, to Scotland, to Cornwall and to the English North by the companions and successors of the Saints. The great work was sustained by small communities, scattered through remote uplands and along the wild margins of the Atlantic. While continental Christianity struggled in the face of barbarian invasion and religious schism, the Celtic Church maintained its tenets and traditions in isolation and unbroken continuity. The Church laid the foundations of the distinct cultural heritage that gives the Celtic regions of Europe their own very special atmosphere.
Patrick and David were the source from which all else flowed. Through dark centuries the Saints were the protecting Patrons of the lands that echoed with their footsteps. And in Wales and Ireland, David and Patrick remain the lasting icons of religious, cultural and national identity.
The Stones [TOP]
The story of the Celtic Church can be traced in the stones that are scattered through the unspoilt valleys, hills and seaboards of Ireland and Wales. The earliest Celtic crosses. Inscribed stones and hermit's cells. Remnants of monastic communities. The burgeoning of great abbeys and cathedrals after Celtic and Roman Churches were united.
The epic tale of Christianity is stamped into the landscape. The stones are eloquent still, after centuries that have seen Viking incursions, Norman Conquest, religious Reformation and Dissolution of the Monasteries. The tale is told in the mountains of Wicklow and on the Hill of Tara, in the shelter of the rugged peaks of Snowdon and along the spectacular Pembrokeshire coast. The story takes solid form in the monastic sites of Glendalough and Strata Florida and in the magnificent medieval cathedrals of Kilkenny and St. David's.
The Scholars [TOP]
Monastic communities were at the heart of Celtic spirituality and learning. Under the influence of British monasticism at St. David's, St. Finnian organised Clonard as a centre of Latin studies, and other important foundations were to follow: Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Lismore, Derry and Kildare. The products of this intense intellectual climate were illuminated manuscripts that astound the eye, literary and hagiographic works to enlighten and inspire, and annals and histories that were to throw light into the recesses of the Dark Ages for successive generations.
Irish missionaries were active in the Shetlands and Iceland. St. Columban travelled Europe, founding monasteries in the tradition of Celtic scholarship. And this Welsh and Irish tradition of scholarship permeated the formation of the greater British Church and was perpetuated by the monks of Iona, Lindisfarne and Jarrow. The British Isles emerged as a fount of learning and mission that was to make a major contribution to the conversion of the pagan tribes of Northern Europe and the consolidation of European Christianity. And the British influence was to continue through the resurgence of European civilisation: at the Merovingian Court; at the Court of Charlemagne and the first flowering of medieval culture; and in the creation of the Holy Roman Empire with the crowning of Charlemagne on Christmas Day in the year 800.
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