Sanctity and secularity in the early Irish church
Kathleen Hughes
Ireland was odd in the early middle ages. She lay on outer edge of world, survivor that Celtic civilisation which had once covered much west. never immediately known pervading influence Rome, continued so many ways for long after Roman empire collapsed. Christianity reached her rather (there were enough christians to make it worth while send a continental bishop, Palladius, 431) and came before developments determined nature monasticism medieval Europe. Ireland’s political social organisation somewhat different from those Germanic peoples west; though church an episcopal, diocesan structure, within two hundred years or its inception been fundamentally modified by native Irish laws institutions. It is therefore not surprising find both sanctity secularity peculiar features.
Studies in Church History