Insular monasticism refers to a distinct form of Christian monastic life that developed in the British Isles during the early medieval period—roughly between the 5th and 9th centuries. It is associated especially with Celtic Christianity and the monastic traditions of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and northern England.
There is archaeological evidence of insular monasticism as early as the mid 5th century,"Beckery Chapel near Glastonbury 'earliest known UK monastic life'", BBC News, December 5, 2016 influenced by establishments in Gaul such as the monastery of Martin of Tours at Marmoutier, the abbey established by Honoratus at Lérins; the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel; and that of Germanus at Auxerre. Many Irish monks studied at Candida Casa near Whithorn in what is now Galloway in Scotland.
Background By the fifth century, Martin of Tours had established monasteries at Ligugé and Marmoutier;Clugnet, Léon. "St. Martin of Tours." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910 Cassian, the Abbey of St Victor and the women's Abbey of Saint-Sauveur at Marseille;Harper, James. "John Cassian and Sulpicius Severus", Church History, vol. 34, issue 4, 1965, p. 371 Honoratus at Lérins; and Germanus at Auxerre. The monastic tradition spread from Gaul to the British Isles shortly thereafter. Lérins was famous for training priests, and a number of its monks became bishops. Benedict Biscop spent two years there and later founded St Peter's monastery at Monkwearmouth in Northumbria under the Rule of St Benedict.
As Christianity spread into Ireland and parts of Great Britain during the late 4th and 5th centuries, monastic communities emerged in places such as Iona, Lindisfarne and Kildare. Several early Irish monks were noted for being missionaries, traveling into Great Britain and continental Europe.
History The Roman, and therefore Saxon conception of ecclesiastical government was territorial and diocesan. The Celtic conception was tribal and monastic. In the British Isles in the 5th century, the earliest monastic communities in Ireland, Wales and Strathclyde followed a different, distinctly Celtic model. It seems clear that the first Celtic monasteries were merely settlements where the Christians lived together – priests and laity, men, women, and children alike – as a kind of religious clan. At a later period actual monasteries both of monks and nuns were formed, and later still the eremitical life came into vogue.
The early Celtic monasteries were like small villages, where the people were taught everything from farming to religion, with the idea in mind that eventually a group would split off, move a few miles away and establish another monastery. In this way, the Celtic way of life, and the Celtic Church propagated its way across Ireland and eventually to Western Britain and Scotland. Irish monks spread Christianity into Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland. St. Ninian established a monastery at Whithorn in Scotland about 400 AD, and he was followed by St. Columba (Iona), and St. Aidan, who founded a monastery at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. Columban wandering monks became missionaries. Founding saints were almost invariably lesser members of local dynasties, and their successors were often chosen from among their kin.Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Lives of the Saints, London. John C. Nimmo, 1897, p. 38 Ultan, abbot-bishop of Arbraccan, was a disciple and kinsman of Declán of Ardmore, who made him bishop of Ardbraccan.MacCormack, Katherine. The Book of Saint Ultan, Candle Press, Dublin, 1920
The Insular observance, at first so distinctive, gradually lost its special character and fell into line with that of other countries; but, by that time, Celtic monasticism had passed its zenith and its influence had declined.Huddleston, Gilbert. "Western Monasticism." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 12 January 2020
Scotland
"The impact of monasticism on Scotland was profound and long lasting.""Impact of the Monk", BBC History Whithorn, an early trading center,"The origins of Whithorn", The Whithorn Trust precedes the island of Iona by 150 years as a birthplace of Scottish Christianity. The oldest Christian monument in Scotland is "The Latinus Stone", a cemetery stone dated to the mid 5th century.Baxter, Ian and Gill, David. "Whithorn: The Latinus Stone", Heritage Futures, July 29, 2016 Bede recounts a traditional belief that in 397, Ninian established the first Christian mission north of Hadrian's Wall here.
Ninian According to the traditional account as expanded in the Vita Sancti Niniani, attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx, Ninian was a Briton who had studied in Rome. On his return, he stopped to visit Martin of Tours, who sent masons with him on his homeward journey. These masons built a church of stone, on the shore. Shortly thereafter (397), upon learning of Saint Martin's death, Ninian dedicated the church to him. Ninian went on to convert the southern Picts to Christianity. There is strong modern scholarly consensus that Ninian and Finnian of Movilla are the same person, whose actual name was "Uinniau".Yorke, Barbara (2007), The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, 600–800, Religion, Politics and Society in Britain (ed. Keith Robbins), Harlow: Pearson Education Limited,
The small stone church, known as the "Candida Casa" ("shining white house"), was Scotland's first Christian building. Archaeological excavations have suggested that Whithorn was primarily a commercial settlement, whose residents were Christian, and that a more likely location for Ninian's church might have been Kirkmadrine, across the bay. It appears that Rosnat was a double monastery with a separate house for women.McCavery, Trevor. Newtown: A History of Newtownards, White Row Publications 2013, p. 21
At Whithorn, many monks were trained who later went into the missionary field to become famous apostles of Ireland and Alba, even as far north as the misty Orkney and Shetland Islands. Saint Éogan, founder of the monastery of Ardstraw, was an Irishman who lived in the sixth century AD and was said to have been taken by pirates to Britain. On obtaining his freedom, he went to study at Candida Casa. Enda of Aran first studied with Ailbe of Emly, and then went to the Candida Casa. Enda founded the first monastery in the Aran Islands.
Other monastic foundations About 528, Cadoc is said to have built a stone monastery probably at Kilmadock, which was named for him, north-west of Stirling.The New Statistical Account of Scotland, Perth, Vol. X, 1845, p. 1224; Doune Historical Notes, Forth Naturalist and Historian, Moray S. Mackay, Stirling, 1984, p. 72; Kilmadock in Dunblane Diocese, Society of Friends of Dunblane Cathedral, Moray S. Mackay, Vol. XI. Part III, 1972, p. 83-85. In 565 Saint Kenneth joined Columba in Scotland and then went on to found a monastery in Fife. Kingarth monastery on the Isle of Bute is associated with saints Cathan and his nephew Bláán, who studied under Kenneth.
A contemporary of Columba, Moluag, is described in The Matryrology of Óengus, as "The Clear and Brilliant, The Sun of Lismore in Alba". He was ordained by Comgall of Bangor, who may have been a kinsman. Around 562, he and twelve companions embarked on a "white martyrdom", forsaking their homeland to establish a monastery on the island of Lismore in Scotland. Lismore became an important center of Celtic Christianity. Máel Ruba, grand-nephew of Comgall of Bangor, (whose father was Pictish), founded Applecross Abbey in 672 in what was then Pictish territory.Toke, Leslie. "St. Maelrubha." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 12 January 2020 A six-mile radius of his grave was designated "A' Chomraich" ("The Sanctuary"), and accorded all the rights and privileges of sanctuary. According to Adomnán, Donnán of Eigg was martyred with a number of monks at his monastery at Kildonnan.
Shortly before his death in 651, Aidan of Lindisfarne founded Melrose Abbey on the River Tweed, as a daughter house of his own establishment."Melrose Abbey", BBC Cuthbert entered Melrose under Abbot Eata. He studied under Prior Boisil. The sick would come from far distances to Boisil, who was skilled in the healing properties of various herbs and the nearby mineral springs. Around 658 Eata left Melrose and founded a new monastery at Ripon in Yorkshire, taking with him the young Cuthbert as his guest-master. Boisil succeeded Eata as abbot at Melrose.Thurston, Herbert. "St. Boisil." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 25 January 2020
Between 1994 and 2007, archaeological investigations directed by Martin Carver confirmed the existence of a Pictish monastery at Portmahomack on Tarbat Ness in Easter Ross. The monastery began around 550 AD and was destroyed by fire in about 800 AD. It had a burial ground with cist and head-support burials, a stone church, at least four monumental stone crosses and workshops making church plate, vellum and early Christian books.Carver, Martin, Garner-Lahire, Justin and Spall, Cecily (2016), Portmahomack on Tarbat Ness: Changing Ideologies in North East Scotland, Sixth to Sixteenth Century AD, The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,
In the Eighth Century a monastic community was founded at Cennrigmonaid, which later became St. Andrews, perhaps by the Pictish king Óengus son of Fergus. The clergy at the time were the Céli Dé (Culdees). The Irish annals record the death of one of their abbots, Túathalán, in 747. One version of the foundation legend states that the monastery was defined by free-standing crosses.Historic Environment Scotland (2018), St Andrews: Castle, Cathedral and Historic Burgh, p. 50,
Physically Scottish monasteries differed significantly from those on the continent, and were often an isolated collection of wooden huts surrounded by a wall.C. Evans, "The Celtic Church in Anglo-Saxon times", in J. D. Woods, D. A. E. Pelteret, The Anglo-Saxons, synthesis and achievement (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1985), , pp. 77–89. St. Donnan's monastery at Kildonnan was located within an oval enclosure, surrounded by a ditch, housing a rectangular chapel in the center, and a handful of smaller buildings either side.Munro, Alistair. "Monastery where Christian saint was martyred is uncovered on Eigg", The Scotsman August 14, 2012
England On his second visit to Britain, around 446, Germanus of Auxerre accompanied by Severus of Trier, established schools at Ross-on-Wye and Hentland. "By means of these schools", says Bede, "the Church continued ever afterwards pure in the faith and free from heresy". In the 6th century, Dubricius/Dyfrig, who was born in Herefordshire, of a Welsh mother, founded a monastery at Hentland and then one at Moccas.Butler, Alban, The Lives of the Saints, Volume XI, 1866
The earliest monastic site in the United Kingdom appears to have been at Beckery, near Glastonbury. Excavations conducted in 2016, revealed what archaeologists say is a monastic cemetery dating to the 5th century. The monastery, consisting of a few wattle and daub buildings, was situated on an island surrounded by wetlands.
Augustinian mission
By the time the Roman Empire recalled its legions from the province of Britannia in 410, parts of the island had already been settled by pagan Germanic tribes who, appear to have taken control of Kent and other coastal regions no longer defended by the Roman Empire. In the late 6th century Pope Gregory I sent a group of missionaries to Kent to convert Æthelberht, King of Kent, whose wife, Bertha of Kent, was a Frankish princess and Christian. Soon after his arrival, Augustine founded the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul on land donated by the king. Later, it was renamed St Augustine's Abbey.Blair Church in Anglo-Saxon Society pp. 61–62