Is There a Celtic Church?
Bede, writing from a Northumbrian perspective of the 8th Century,
is a major literary source for the understanding of the Church in
the kingdoms of mainland Britain between the withdrawal of Roman Imperialism
and the imposition of the new Roman Imperialism of the Church. Interpretation
of Bede has led to the popular conclusion that this was a period of
primary evangelisation of the people of the land and nations, following
the decline into heathenism as a consequence of the removal of the
protection of the ruling Roman classes and the Roman Army. Mitton
states:
The Christianity which came with the Roman legions seems to
have had little effect on the local population who preferred their
indigenous pagan ways to the religion of the conquering forces.
When the Romans abandoned Britain in the early fifth century they
took the Christian faith with them. All that remained were pockets
of faith about to burst into flame in the form of what we now call
Celtic Christianity.
This rather "romantic" view of this period of history,
is being seriously challenged today by scholars seeking to do justice
to the literary and archaeological evidence. Thomas and others through
their studies of ecclesiastical and graveyard archaeology of the post
Roman period and early Saxon period have clearly shown that while
evidence is not in great abundance, that which is available indicates
that there was no discontinuity in Christian history in mainland Britain.
Similarly the assumption that the withdrawal of the troops in the
early fifth century marked the end of Roman rule in Britain is also
severely challenged. The more likely scenario is that the rule and
culture was by the fifth century largely in the control of Romanised
Britons, who tried against the great odds of the invasions of the
Saxon peoples to maintain both a Roman civil structure and the orthodox
Christian faith.
Two examples help to verify the findings of the archaeologists. Gildas
clearly implies that there was a continuity of Christianity in Britain
and that it was not simply to be found in "Pockets" but
that it was the religion of the people and in particular of the rulers
or Kings. The basis of Gildas' condemnation of the rulers of Britain
is the Christian faith and scriptures. His assumption is that the
Rulers are Christians, although their actions show little of their
faith.
The second serious challenge to the concepts expressed by Mitton,
is to the understanding that a peculiar indigenous church developed
in Britain such that it can be called the Celtic Church. Toulson takes
a rather naive approach to the subject in her book "The Celtic
Alternative" and attempts to reconstruct the Church in Britain
as a cohesive church with fixed doctrines and practises developed
from the druidic traditions of Britain that clashed with the Roman
church at Whitby like two organised armies on the battlefield. Much
of this understanding of an organised Church with fixed liturgies
and doctrines that diverged from the emerging authoritarian Roman
Church due to the isolation of the British Church from the continent,
is drawn from the work of King and particularly Hardinge and Gougard
, together with the 19th century work of Warren , who manage to fill
pages of their works with the details of the doctrines, liturgy and
ministry of the Celtic Church. They draw on some Medieval material,
including penitentials, and evidence from the Gallican Church and
project this back to Dark Age Britain. The results of this work seem
to be suspect as they attempt to give such detail that would be quite
impossible to attain from the evidence available and so must be classified
as imaginative or romantic reconstruction.
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