Those not so Dark Ages
The New York Times today has an enthusiastic story about the “newly restored and reinstalled Gallery for Western European Medieval Art from 1050 to 1300.” Three key paragraphs:
The brimming, light-flooded presentation has been orchestrated by Peter Barnet, curator in chief of the museum’s medieval art department and the Cloisters, his curators and the museum’s designers. They seem to have wanted to mount a final assault on the notion of the medieval period as backward, antiquated or benighted. This misconception started in the full-of-itself Renaissance, which condescendingly christened the previous era the Dark or Middle Ages. Medieval, as the Enlightenment tagged it, only sharpened the bite.
With an effect that is at once artistic, archaeological and devotional, this gallery recasts medieval art as a mammoth, busy and fast-moving project translating the Holy Scriptures into visual form, making them accessible to largely illiterate populations. It resulted in a free-for-all of constant themes and boundless variations. The stories recur again and again: Jonah and the Whale, Adam and Eve, the Annunciation, the Virgin and Child, the Crucifixion, the Entombment. (If your knowledge of the Bible is scant, medieval art is an excellent makeup option.)
But there is nothing fixed about the techniques, styles and materials of medieval art. Painting had not yet established its dominance; every medium had its storytelling role. Classicism was not yet the Ideal, but only one of many influences, which included barbaric ornamentation and Persian motifs. And space, not yet locked into one-point perspective, was subject to individual skill and imagination, regardless of medium; ingenious stabs at it abounded.
One wonders why, then, the Times gave this headline to the story: “Illuminating the Dark Ages”!
While on the subject, you shouldn’t miss the article in a recent issue of the New York Review of Books on the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the great wonders of medieval art. . The article ends with interesting comments on the influence of Coptic and Eastern Christian traditions upon Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christianity, which is perhaps surprising enough, but also upon nascent Islam:
What makes this link so intriguing is that Michelle Brown demonstrates convincingly how the same Coptic and Eastern Christian manuscripts that influenced the Lindisfarne Gospels also influenced the work of early Islamic painters and calligraphers. The fascinating point that emerges from her book is that, to a considerable extent, both the art and sacred calligraphy of Anglo-Saxon England and that of early Ummayad Islam grew at the same time out of the same East Mediterranean culture compost and common Coptic models.
I for one had no idea until I read Brown’s book that Northumbrian, Celtic, and Byzantine monks all used to pray on decorated prayer carpets, known as oratorii, just as Muslim and certain Eastern Christian churches have always done, and still do. She also demonstrates how these prayer mats influenced the “carpet pages” of abstract geometric ornament which are such a feature both of Insular and early Islamic sacred texts.
All of this is a reminder of just how much early Islam drew from ascetic forms of Christianity that originated in the Byzantine Levant but whose influence spread both to the Celtic north and the Arabian south. The theology of the Desert Fathers was deeply austere, with much concentration on judgment and damnation, a concern that they passed on to the Irish monks…
There is much in the Koran—notably its graphic hell scenes and emphasis on Godly Judgment—that, though off-putting to many modern Western readers, would have been quite familiar both to a Desert Father and a monk on Iona. Today many commentators in the US and Europe view Islam as a religion very different from and indeed hostile to Christianity. Yet in their roots the two are closely connected, the former growing directly out of the latter and still, to this day, embodying many early Christian practices lost in Christianity’s modern Western incarnation.
Just as the Celtic monks used prayer carpets for their devotions, so the Muslim form of prayer with its prostrations derives from the older Eastern Christian tradition that is still practiced today in pewless churches across the Levant. The Sufi Muslim tradition carried on directly from the point at which the Desert Fathers left off, while Ramadan is in fact nothing more than an Islamicization of Lent, which in the Eastern Christian churches still involves a grueling all-day fast. Likewise, the recent outbreak of iconoclasm seen in Taliban Afghanistan had many counterparts in Christian history: the Ruthwell Cross was itself broken down and briefly buried as recently as the seventeenth century after the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed an Act ordering “the demolishing of Idolatrous Monuments.”
Certainly if a monk from seventh-century Lindisfarne or Egypt were to come back today it is probable that he would find much more that was familiar in the practices and beliefs of a modern Muslim Sufi than he would with, say, a contemporary American evangelical. Yet this simple truth has been lost by our tendency to think of Christianity as a Western religion, rather than the thoroughly Oriental faith it actually is. Because of this, we are apt to place Celtic monks, Coptic Desert Fathers, and Muslim Sufis in very different categories. But as the art of this period so clearly demonstrates, we are wrong to do so. These apparently different worlds were all surprisingly closely interlinked; indeed in intellectual terms perhaps more so in the eighth century than in today’s nominally globalized world.
“English scholar, Cyprian Rice, in the 1930s, showed that following
upon the Muslim conquest of the lands of Syriac Christianity in the
seventh century, the teachings of the Catholic monk, Evagrius Ponticus,
which had been translated into Syriac from the Greek, influenced the
character of Sufi spiritual teaching….”
~ Dom John Eudes Bamberger, OCSO
http://www.abbotjohneudes.org/c06nov07.htm
Here’s a link to one of the many British Library pages on the Lindisfarne Gospels:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html
Here’s a link to a set of seminars by Michelle Brown on the text:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/lindisfarne/learning.html
Here’s a link to the Met exhibit announcement. You may recognize the “ciborium structure” in the photo which used to be installed at the Cloisters, the Met’s medieval gallery overlooking the Hudson.
Here’s a link to one of the exhibits currently in the medieval galleries.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={9FBDF273-BC83-42ED-8A01-88A02BF2883D}
And if you are going to be in New York over the holidays, don’t miss the Christmas tree in the medieval Hall:
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={94AE65CE-A1ED-4D05-A4B9-6178A303EA78}
After the Romans left Britain, the British Christians were left on their own for a few centuries before Augustine of Canterbury showed up, and British Catholicism (and art) developed along more Eastern lines.
There was considerable conflict between the British and Roman Christians from the very beginning. They were stubborn, Augustine was less than tactful.
Augustine’s Roman mission made it to Northumbria briefly, but it didn’t take due to invasions and tribal squabbles. So it was St. Aidan from Ireland, not affiliated with the Roman Church, who made the second mission into Northumbria and founded Lindisfarne. Church and monastic life there was British, not Roman, in character. t the end of the 7th century.
St. Hilda sorted it out at the Synod of Whitby, when she agreed to follow Roman Church practices, and the Irish who couldn’t swallow it went back to Iona.
Some Anglicans claim that the English Reformation was a return to those old British Catholic roots. I don’t know if that’s just whitewashing, but the Sarum Rite, which Mary Tudor elected to reinstate as the official liturgy during her brief reign, is said to be closer to the Eastern rite than the Roman. Somebody with some liturgical history might want to comment on this.
Thanks for the link to the articles, Fr. K. and Susan.
Ugh, sorry for the gobbledygook at the end of third PP above. I wish there were an “edit your post” feature on this blog.
I do not have the reference to hand but there is a recent book based on the manuscripts written at Mont St. Michel which indicates a close connection with the Syriac Church, and with the Greek classical scientific texts. These apparently did not come only through the Arabic [which has not the vocabulary] but chiefly through the Syriac.
Jean,
Yes, you remember this right. Recently though, Daibhi O Croinin has argued that the British/Irish rite (and dating of Easter) were actually the old Roman ways, which Rome updated sometime after the Roman legions left Britain in 425. This is obscured because Bede (our only source for the story) wants to align his English people with Rome. Point of story: you can’t get away from Rome!
Best, Joe
St. Benedict’s (480 – 547)) Rule has Egyptian roots. I don’t know if Benedictine monasticism influenced early Celtic monasticism. John Cassian (360-433) brought the monastic tradition of Egypt to the West (Lyon). In Egypt, Cassian learned from Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) who is considered the first theologian of monastic spirituality. The Rule of St. Benedict is very influenced by Cassian. In fact the Rule refer’s to Cassian’s Institutes. I am fascinated by all of this. Thanks to all for the history and the links.
Michael, Oblate OSB, Cam
Love the phrase “full-of-itself Renaissance” :-)
–I don’t know if Benedictine monasticism influenced early Celtic monasticism. –
No.
Celtic monastic tradition moved in it’s own direction. It was quite ascetic. St. David of Wales was said to have run around barefoot wearing only skins like John the Baptist. “Green” or “white” martyrdom was encouraged. (Green was when you removed to an island monastery like Iona to be dead to the world; white martydom was when you went off into the white mist to convert the heathen, as Aidan did.)
Lindisfarne, founded by Aidan, was not a Benedictine monastery. Neither were St. Hilda’s monasteries. She was St. Aidan’s friend, received the veil from him, and developed her own rule based the passage in Acts “they held all things in common and each received according to his needs” (paraphrase b/c I’m too lazy to find the cite). Plain, warm clothes, simple wholesome food in moderation, everybody working according to their talents.
She was apparently especially astute at finding local talent to work in her scriptoria (her books were among the best in Europe).
Even Bede, whose history was written to help clinch England’s association with Roman Catholicsm, was unwilling to besmirch the holiness of Aidan and his proteges in Northumbria, despite their association with the Irish Church.
During the 7th Century, one of the golden ages of English monasticism, the double house prevailed. Monks and nuns lived together (separate dormitories, of course). Sometimes the brothers and sisters worked fairly closely together as at St. Hilda’s. Sometimes they were kept strictly separate.
The Roman Church quashed double houses fairly quickly, but records indicate that the double houses were virtually scandal-free except for Coldingham, which the Chronicle says burned down because of the sins of the monks and nuns there. Maybe the exception proves the rule.
Bede’s record clearly makes a strong case that Anglo-Saxon abbesses and wealthy lay women, many of them inspired and encouraged by Irish missionaries, were the driving force behind the conversion of England and greatly influenced the character of the English Church. When the double houses died out, the influence of women on the English Church died with it.
Until Elizabeth Tudor and her mother.
Sorry for running on. All of this is tangential to the original post.
As Benedictines the Camaldolese go back to the 6th century. As Camaldolese they go back to the 10 century. In the past there have been double houses of Camaldolese monks and nuns with separate dormitories. This happened in Italy.
Yesterday, December 5, was the Feast of Saint Sabas, Abbot (439-532) on both the Eastern and the Catholic calendars. Sabas established the historic laura at Mar Saba in Palestine where Saint John Damascene also lived two centuries later (657-749).
In William Dalrymple’s review we read, “The Anglo-Saxon Saint Willibald left an account of his visit in the 720s to the monastery of Mar Saba in Palestine where Saint John Damascene was then writing his refutation of heresies entitled The Fount of Knowledge. This contains a detailed critique of Islam, the first ever written by a Christian, in which Damascene regarded Islam essentially as Christian heresy related to Arianism and Monothelitism.”
Jean Raber,
I forgot to thank you for your great posts. I know very little about Celtic monasticism. I hope to learn more.