Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd

Ireland: Harbinger of the Middle Ages by Ludwig BielerReview by: G. F. MitchellIrish Historical Studies, Vol. 13, No. 52 (Sep. 1963), p. 367Published by: Irish Historical Studies Publications LtdStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30005016 .

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Reviews IRELAND: HARBINGER OF THE MIDDLE AGES By Ludwig Bieler. Pp. 148.

London: Oxford University Press. 1963. 55s.

IN this handsomely produced book Professor Bieler, by placing a well-chosen and well-translated collection of primary material before us, enables us to get an impression of the feeling that permeated the Irish church and its early missionaries. There is a surprising contrast between the lyricism of the poems and the prosaism of the penitentials. The latter with their attention to the detail of the punishments and to the social standing of those to be punished inevitably recall the secular law-tracts.

We are given a sketch of St Patrick's mission, of the establishment of writing in the Irish monasteries, of the missions of St Columba and St Columbanus. The chapters on the later missionaries, the position of Irish scholars in the Carolingian academies, and the Schottenkl6ster are perhaps the most valuable--Professor Bieler picks a lucid and authoritative way through the maze of legend. Discussion of the various scriptoria is aided by illustration of the different scripts employed. The author is satisfied that Irish influence was the decisive cultural factor throughout the area that was to become the Carolingian empire. Others might be content to say that Irish influence was an important factor.

Where Professor Bieler leaves his own field, the book is less satisfactory. There is a lavish content of coloured plates (that have previously appeared in facsimile volumes issued by Urs Graf-Verlag Olten), but there is no discussion of these or of the influences that led to the early development of Christian art in Ireland - though the Book of Durrow escapes banishment to Northumbria. Defeat at Clontarf did not drive the Norsemen out of Ireland. The Cross of Cong is of the twelfth, not the eleventh, century. The plates and text-figures are not numbered; there is no scale given for any of the objects illustrated; there is no index.

G. F. MITCHELL

THE PROBLEM OF ST PATRICK. By James Carney Pp. xii, 193. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies. 196 . I5s. od.

RECENT publications distinguish certain phases in the early history of Christianity in Ireland. Communities of Christians existed before 431, in which year, because of the dangers of infection from the heresy of Pelagius, Pope St Celestine I appointed Palladius as their bishop. St Patrick, however, from an early date, gained the main credit for converting the Irish, though it is now clear that the beginning of his

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