Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Christianity and Latin culture arrived first as a trickle from trading contacts with Chris-
tian Gaul (France), then more emphatically in A.D. 432 with St. Patrick, who persuas-
ively converted the sun-and-nature-worshipping Celts. (Perhaps St. Patrick had an easy
time converting the locals because they had so little sun to worship.) Patrick (c. 389-461),
a Latin-speaking Christian from Roman Britain, was kidnapped as a teenager and carried
off into slavery for six years in Ireland. He escaped back to Britain, then traveled to Gaul
to study for a life in the clergy. Inspired by a dream, he eventually returned to Ireland,
determined to convert the pagan, often hostile, Celtic inhabitants. Legends say he drove
Ireland's snakes (symbolic of pagan beliefs) into the sea and explained the Trinity with a
shamrock—three leaves on one stem.
Later monks (such as St. Columba, 521-597) continued Christianizing the island, and
foreign monks flocked to isolated Ireland. They withdrew to scattered, isolated mon-
asteries, living in stone igloo beehive huts, translating and illustrating (illuminating)
manuscripts. Perhaps the greatest works of art from all of Dark Age Europe are these
manuscripts, particularly the ninth-century Book of Kells, which you'll see at Dublin's
Trinity College Library. Irish monks—heads shaved crosswise across the top of the skull
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