THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
sions 01 the Norsemen.
bishop Baldwin of Canterbury as papal legate held a visitation in parts of Wales and preached the Crusade, the Welsh Church may be regarded as part of the English Church, although as late as 12S4 the bishop of St. David's formally protested against the visitation of Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury. [Welsh tradition and the rapidity frith which the Lollard movement in the fourteenth century spread among the English-speaking people on the borders of Wales favor the theory that the ancient British form of Christianity persisted in Wales throughout the Middle Ages side by side with the Roman Catholic establishment. The mountainous character of the country and the character of the language, which Englishmen rarely acquired, were favorable to the perpetuation of evangelical dissent. A. H. N.]
2. In Ireland: A systematic sketch of the development of the Irish branch of the Celtic Church in this period is not yet possible owing to the defective character of the special investigations. A factor deserving more attention than it has commonly received is the influence of the incursions and settlements of the Norsemen. 1. Incur- ^he Viking period — beginning in 795 and lasting more than 150 years — brought indescribable wo to all Britain and particularly to Christian Ireland. Churches and monasteries, as the centers of civilization and the Christian religion, were marked for destruction by the heathen Norwegians and Danes. Certain of the Irish monasteries (such as Iona, Bangor in Ulster, and many others) lay temptingly exposed to seafaring robbers. The rivers gave them easy access to the heart of the land from both the east and the west coast. The wooden structures of the monasteries were an easy prey to the flames, in which both books and monks perished. If any manuscripts escaped burning they were thrown into the water. A heathen Viking state in Armagh between 832 and 845 compelled the abbot-bishop, Forindan, to flse to Munster. At the same time the Norwegian heathen were settling in the interior, but they were either ultimately expelled or absorbed by the native population and became Christian. In 852, however, a Viking kingdom was set up at Dublin, which remained heathen and plundered Ireland and all the coasts of the Irish Sea for more than a century. Under such conditions it is not surprising that the exodus of Irish monks to the Conti- 2. Irish nent continued and increased from
th^ntf 800 on- In the ninth century they
. " were teachers in the monastic schools everywhere in the land of the Franks, at St. Denis, Pavia, and on the Upper and Lower Rhine, and they spread the repute of Irish learning so that it is almost a truism to say: Whoever knew Greek on the Continent in the days of Charles the Bald was an Irishman or had learned it from an Irishman (cf. H. Zimmer, Ueber die Bedeutung des irischen Elements fiir mittelalterliche Kultur, in Preussische Jahrbiicher, lix., 1887, pp. 27-59; L. Traube, O Roma nobilis, in Abhandlungen der philosophisch-philologischen Klasse der koniglich-bayerischen Akademie, xix., 1892, pp. 332-363) . They took
their manuscripts with them in such numbers that no fewer than 117 Irish manuscripts, or fragments of such, older than the eleventh century are still extant in Continental libraries, not counting those in the Vatican or the Bibliotheque Nationale (cf. W. Schultze, Die Bedeutung der iroschottischen Monche, in Centralblatt fiir Bibliothekswesen, 6th year, 1889, pp. 287-298). But if this was the Continent's gain, it was Ireland's loss. King Brian (1002-13) had to send across the sea " to buy books " (J. H. Todd, The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, Rolls Series, no. 48, p. 138, London, 1867). The standard of education in the monasteries sank with each generation, and the new and inferior priesthood had less power to resist the forces which were substituting for the native monastic church an episcopal church with metropolitan head. The Irish chieftains and princes also, instead of uniting against the common foe, thought the time most fitting to fight out their domestic feuds. The monasteries were involved in these quarrels, not to mention fierce and bloody disputes between monasteries themselves when their interests happened to clash. Thus the old organization was weakened and broken up. Furthermore, the Patrick legend became a sort of dogma during the eighth century; and il s view of the Christianization of Ireland and the position of the episcopus in church government was an additional force shaking the firmly built edifice of the monastic church of the sixth and seventh centuries. It can be shown from the Anna'u of Ulster that the abbot-bishop of Armagh,
making free use of his opportunities, 3. Rise of between 730 and 850 attained to some Armagh, extent to that primacy in the Irish
Church which was the logical outcome of the Patrick legend. The year 805 was decisive for Meath, 824 for Connaught, and 822, as well as Forindan's stay in Munster from 841 to 845, for South Ireland; thenceforth the see of Armagh had its tax-gatherers for Patrick's pence in all Ireland, excluding of course the Viking state whose ruler resided at Dublin. In 943 this ruler, Amlaib mac Sitricca (Norse, Olafr Sigtriggvasonr), became a Christian in England and was baptized by Wulfhelm, archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund, king of England, standing as his godfather. As Christianity spread among his subjects they naturally looked toward Canterbury and drew their clerics from England. The incumbents of newly established Norse bishoprics of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick were consecrated at Canterbury. This was not satisfactory to the bishop of Armagh, who desired revenues from the rich Norse settlements in Dublin. He again had recourse to the Patrick legend, utilizing a detail of it which had already become current; namely, that Patrick had converted the Vikings. One of his adherents, writing about 1000, tells how the saint had converted the heathen Norse of Dublin, and consequently asserts that the successor of " Patrick of Armagh with the great revenues " had a right to an ounce of gold " from each nose " in the Dublin Viking state (cf. H. Zimmer, Keltische Beitrdge, hi., in Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Alterthum, xxxv., 1891, pp. 54-85).