February 1, Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare, Bishop and Abbess

[hedgehog]

I should like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I should like the angels of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.
I should like excellent meats of belief and pure piety.
I should like the men of Heaven at my house.
I should like barrels of peace at their disposal.
I should like for them cellars of mercy.
I should like cheerfulness to be their drinking.
I should like Jesus to be there among them.
I should like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I should like the people of Heaven, the poor, to be gathered around from all parts.

Go here for a picture:

http://www.beestill.org/gallery.php

[rug]

1. She was not a bishop.

[hedgehog]

2. Well, I'll admit that there is some debate on this, but

"It should also be pointed out that, demonstrating women's coequal role with men, women were priests of the Celtic Church in this period. Brigid herself was ordained a bishop by Patrick's nephew, Mel, and her case was not unique. Rome actually wrote a protest, in the sixth century, at the Celtic practice of allowing women to celebrate the divine sacrifice of Mass. "

http://www.geocities.com/irish_maiden_aine/traditions.htm

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

3. Oh man...

As a medievalist who specialized in this period, I'd like to say that the "Celtic Church" was a myth (though it pains me to say that). They didn't see themselves particularly separate from Rome nor were they ever treated as such. In fact the fabled Book of Kells was created as a present to the Pope in Rome to demonstrate Armagh's loyalty and subservience to the Holy See.

And Church organization in Ireland was vastly different than it was in the former Roman Empire. In the Empire, the Church naturally divided itself along then-political boundaries and established metropolitan bishops as the local heads. In Ireland there were no urban centers around which to organize, so monasteries took on the important role as the centers of spiritual life in Ireland (and Scotland and Northumbria for a time). Monasteries tended to be organized in a complex web of loyalties to local monarchs and to "parent houses" (that is, the original monastery from which new monasteries (minsters in Northumbria) came from). As a result the true ecclesial power in these provinces were the abbots and abbesses, most of whom were not also bishops. To the Irish the bishop was more of a ceremonial office used to ordain priests and make elements necessary for the Mass.

The presence of powerful women is not unique to Ireland (Northumbria again, Flanders), although it's the only place where I've read about women celebrating the Mass on a regular basis. It seems to be a holdover from Druidic practices (after all, the druidry was made of both men and women).

[hedgehog]

4. Can you give me any readily available, reputable titles describing this period?

It has long been a tradition that St. Mel accidentally ordained Brigid a bishop, and I always took that as a legend. Now I'm wondering if the story is based on trying to resolve a memory of her as being powerful in her own right with the myth that women never offered Mass.

I think part of the problem is that while the names of the offices may be the same, the exact role of bishops, priests and deacons has shifted across the centuries. For example, Peter may have been (a) bishop in Rome, but the role of a bishop wasn't what we think of it as today. Calling him the first Pope because he was bishop of Rome is a wild oversimplification.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

5. There aren't a whole lot of scholarly works readily available about early medieval Ireland at all.

During the 1970s there was some scholarly interest, but there's not much available for general consumption outside of the legends you've referenced. Marilyn Dunn touches on it briefly in her "Emergence of Monasticism," but that's the only reputable work I could recommend about Irish monasticism in general.

There's quite a bit about Northumbria, though, which was originally Christianized by Irish missionaries who took their old model and copied onto the English landscape (I wrote a paper on it back in my grad school days).

Primary sources

Bede's History of the English Church and People discusses Abbess Hild of Whitby, one of the most powerful clerics in the British Isles at that time. As Bede states, Whitby was a double house (based on Frankish design interestingly enough) that served as an education center, the locus for worship, and an agricultural powerhouse. She was so powerful that she was able to call the Synod of Whitby which resolved the Easter controversy in Britannia and Hibernia.

I'm fairly certain the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also makes mention of Hild as well as the influential abbesses that ruled in Exeter before the rise of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. Come to think of it, Bede should mention these southern abbesses as well.

Secondary sources

Cramp, Rosemary., “Northumbria and Ireland” Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture. Ed. Paul
E Szarmach, Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986. pp. 185 – 201. - Outlines the influence that Irish missionaries had on the development of Northumbrian Christianity.

Foot, Sarah. Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, 600-900. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006. - A little technical, but a good survey. Foot's one of the leading scholars in this field.

Foot, Sarah., “Parochial ministry in early Anglo-Saxon England: the role of monastic
communities”. Studies in Church History. 26, 1989. pp. 43 – 54 - In this article Foot demonstrates how monasteries were more than homes for religious but the centers of society.

Foot, Sarah. “The Role of the Minster in Earlier Anglo-Saxon Society”. Monasteries and
Society in Medieval Britain. Ed. Benjamin Thompson. Stamford: Paul Watkins,
1999. pp. 35 – 58. - Similar to above

Blair, John. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005. - Another broad overview. Blair is the other big name in this field of study.

[hedgehog]

6. That's what I was afraid of - there's ton of pseudo information out there,

but I haven't seen a good popular history.