The Rhetoric and Reality of Reform in Irish Eschatological Thought, circa 1000–1150

In the paper

“many Irish eschatological texts are homiletic in form, and preaching to the laity, or to a mixed audience, 7 provides one instance where we may be able to observe subtle but tangible differences in the focus of eschatological discussion and the register in which it is communicated.”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The opening section identifies Scéla na esérgi as a Middle Irish sermon on resurrection, and the Structure and Medieval philosophy in the vernacular sections describe its shifts between physical, philosophical, and explicitly homiletic concerns. The paper thus provides an example of differing eschatological focus and register, but it does not establish that the sermon was preached to laity or a mixed audience, or that many Irish eschatological texts are homiletic. (LLM, conf=0.82)

  cites [7] sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“Irish chronicles tell us that, in the year 1096, there was a moment of”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Indeed, it is significant that another chronicle offers no information at all and states only:”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Indeed, in some respects the author's contemporaries are worse than heathens because at least heathens abided by their oaths.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“it should be noted that Mog Ruith is not mentioned at all in either Adomn an's Second Vision or the annals for 1096.”

In the paper

“There are some differences of detail between the annalistic accounts of 1096 and Adomn an's Second Vision.For example, the Chronicum Scotorum and the Annals of the Four Masters specify that monthly fasting was enjoined by”

In the paper

“I have not seen the evidence for a”

In the paper

“Thus, according to the Ulster annalist, the year 1000 was a bissextile and embolismic year, 25 in which the Feast of the Decollation of St. John fell on a Friday”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Of course, there is nothing to connect either the preservation of earlier eschatological texts, or the composition of the Visio Tnugdali (on which more below), with the events of 1096.”

In the paper

“The Annals of the Four Masters records little about the significance of that year, noting only-in accordance with the phrasing offered in other years-that it is”

In the paper

“The author of Adomn an's Second Vision condemns churches for their organisational failings and individuals for their moral failings, accusing supposed Christians of being no better than heathens”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“But one witness records in a bilingual entry on the millennium:”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“After this Latin opening, the sermon continues in Irish, and there are aspects of the vernacular sections of the text that seem to connect it further with some of the annal entries for 1095-96”

In the paper

“Rather, the concerns of the author of Adomn an's Second Vision are more generic: the failure to adhere to Christian values; moral decline; the lack of proper provision for churches.”

In the paper

“An Leabhar Breac, which preserves a copy of Adomn an's Second Vision, also contains a copy of the Epistle of Jesus.”

In the paper

“There are similarities in the tone and register of both texts, as well as the recurring idea that the Feast of John is a particularly significant date.”

In the paper

“Sc ela la ı br atha begins by outlining the moment of universal judgment, explicating the so-called eschatological discourse”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “although our author reworked his biblical quotations in the vernacular”

In the paper

“The author asks rhetorically how Jesus will return, and where, and why.But he does not ask”

In the paper

“Again, the text's thoughtful and almost scholastic consideration of the mechanism of physical resurrection and the problem of reconciling the doctrine of physical resurrection with the idea of the”

In the paper

“Similarly, Sc ela na es ergi (Tidings of the Resurrection) is an eleventh-or early twelfth-century Irish eschatological tract that includes no consideration of the imminence, or otherwise, of the day of judgment.”

In the paper

“Indeed, the author characterises sinners as those who have no regard for smacht, recht or r ıagail (l.2377-78).”

In the paper

“The text begins with the bald statment:”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “and ends with a hortatory demand that the audience reform its moral behavior in order to be worthy of a place among the righteous, but it is not apocalyptic in tone.”

In the paper

“There is, in this text, none of the urgency or hysteria witnessed in Adomn an's Second Vision.”

In the paper

“This hortatory call to repentance links Sc ela na es ergi to Sc ela la ı br atha, which explicitly includes”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“This text is a detailed exposition on the nature of the resurrected body, with a focus on exceptional cases, such as miscarried fetuses and the deformed.”

In the paper

“The text also uses a wide variety of terminology deriving from Irish legal tradition (both secular and ecclesiastical), such as mes (judgment); smacht (rule, command); recht (law); r ıagail (rule); gell (pledge); and mesrugud (moderation, adjudication).”

In the paper

“Heaven, on the other hand, is described as the perfect ciuitas (the Irish word used is cathair [city, stone enclosure, monastic settlement]), in which there is peace, order, and unending joy, but which is also regulated by the laws governing secular relations in medieval Ireland”

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  “he welcomes them not only into his muinter (which is the Irish equivalent of Latin familia) but also into his comaithches, which denotes a secular relationship of community.”

In the paper

“In F ıs Adomn ain, the visionary, Adomn an (d.704), the sev-”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “enth-century abbot of Iona and hagiographer of St. Columba, is taken out of his body, on the Feast of John, and is taken on a journey through heaven and hell.56”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Indeed, the author explicitly rejects the idea of millenarianism, and explains the concept of c etes ergi, that is,”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “as being metaphorical, that is, esergi na hanma ona pecdaib hi sualchib tri athrigi do denam, 7 nı ´fil acht”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“The six works of mercy (feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, etc.) are emphasized as being the essential criteria for salvation, and these are described as the”

In the paper

“However, what has been generally overlooked is the fact that F ıs Adomn ain is a homily: it is therefore hortatory and didactic.”

In the paper

“F ıs Adomn ain is further linked to Sc ela la ı br atha, in that the latter text displays the remnants of the four-fold division of souls at judgment, which is more fully articulated as a purgatorial state in F ıs Adomn ain (and in Visio Tnugdali): that is, the mali ualde and the mali non ualde; the boni ualde and the boni non ualde.”

In the paper

“In the eleventh-and twelfth-century Irish eschatological homilies, the call for reform is articulated subtly and implicitly, and is more heavily focused on the moral reform of individuals than on wholesale institutional change.64 There is little sense of apocalypticism or of the end being imminent.”

In the paper

“The text is eschatological but not apocalyptic: however, it betrays other close connections with Adomn an's Second Vision.”

In the paper

“The rhetoric of Adomn an's Second Vision certainly excoriates Irish Christians for their perceived moral failings and articulates a vision of an ideal, reformed Church”

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  “such as ending simony and promoting clerical celibacy, neither of which are mentioned in the text”

In the paper

“We may note that the author of Sc ela la ı br atha uses the Latin terms, despite the rest of his text being in the vernacular.”

In the paper

“All these texts participate in penitential discourse; all seek to reform the behavior of those who read or hear them; all assert that heaven cannot be attained without a reformation of character, a metaphorical”

In the paper

“The crimes of kin-slaying, the plunder of churches, and the misuse of ecclesiastical wealth strikingly evoke the complaints of Adomn an's Second Vision (especially § 6), but the way in which they are framed in F ıs Adomn ain also relates to the importance of the six works of mercy, so central to the moral message of Sc ela la ı br atha.”

In the paper

“Rather, they are concerned with particular aspects of the biblical accounts of the eschaton: F ıs Adomn ain grew out of a tradition of vision literature whose New Testament authority is 2 Cor.12:1-4; 65 Sc ela la ı br atha considers Matthew's account of Judgment Day; Sc ela na es ergi considers the tensions within the Bible of both the physical and spiritual understandings of collective resurre”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Latin and vernacular textual cultures thus developed in tandem in Ireland, and they are inextricably linked throughout the Middle Ages.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“this has generally focused on the development of vision literature, with particular attention given to the”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Whether apocalypticism was rhetorical or real, its textual reflexes were inextricably linked to a perceived need for reform-social, moral, or ecclesiastical-and therefore the particular vocabulary of apocalypticism often needs to be disentangled from the more general discourses of penitence, reform, and renewal.”

What the sources say

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  cites [9]

In the paper

“Searching for a qualitatively different”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Texts in the vernacular are not necessarily aimed at a more popular or lay audience than are Latin texts; rather, we must read each text individually in order to evaluate its likely intended audience.”

In the paper

“There is a complex set of chronicle references relating to a possible moment of apocalyptic panic in 1096 that scholars have viewed in connection with the devastating winter of 1095-96.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Scholars have long noted the parallels between elements of the annalistic account in the Annals of the Four Masters and the opening of Adomn an's Second Vision”

In the paper

“Thus commentators have fixed on 1096 as a moment of apocalyptic fervor and have tended to view other Irish eschatological texts teleologically, that is, seeing 1096 as the culmination of a gathering storm of apocalypticism in medieval Ireland.”

In the paper

“As we shall see below, there is no evidence to support either assessment.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Rather, in the (vernacular) body of the text, one gets the impression that pestilence or”

In the paper

“Aideen O'Leary has herself noted the narrow chronological and geographical scope of the texts that mention Mog Ruith, in that they are all Middle Irish”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“the argument that 1096 was the primary catalyst for ecclesiastical reform seems to me not only to exaggerate the evidence for the political and ecclesiastical significance of that year but also to misunderstand the nature of the rhetoric of reform that is observable in Adomn an's Second Vision.”

In the paper

“It has been argued that the Viking invasions in Ireland were less traumatic than had previously been supposed”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“If this call for fasting was the result of a council in 1096 that believed that the destruction of Ireland would occur on August 29, planning for autumn and winter fasts seems rather optimistic.”

In the paper

“Medieval Irish apocryphal texts suggest that Ireland will be destroyed as punishment for Mog Ruith's involvement in John's death.”

In the paper

“Furthermore, one of the penalties against someone who refuses to fast is that”

In the paper

“Donngus Ua hAingliu, bishop of Dublin, who died in 1095, had been trained at Canterbury; and his predecessor, Patrick (d.1084), had been consecrated in London in 1074 by Lanfranc of Canterbury.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“how problematic is O'Leary's argument that apocalyptic fervor in Ireland had its roots in the trauma of viking attacks in the eighth and ninth centuries.”

What the sources say

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  cites O'Leary

In the paper

“For example, the late ninth-century”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Furthermore, Ekkehard of Aura observed that West Franks were easily convinced to leave their lands in order to go on Crusade because of suffering from famine and”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“It has been noted by Thomas Clancy, in an unpublished essay, that in ninth-and tenth-century Ireland various disasters were blamed on a lack of religious observance.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Given the wider European context for the events of 1095-96 it is unsurprising that we might witness a comparable series of events in Ireland: the harsh winter and devastating plague are followed by an unspecified”

In the paper

“was consecrated bishop of Waterford by Anselm of Canterbury in 1095 or 1096.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [40] source

In the paper

“The law code known as VII Æthelred, which sought to institute a national program of penitential fasting, was drafted by Wulfstan the homilist”

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  “Christian vocabulary of penitential and homiletic discourse that we see in Adomn an's Second Vision.44”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“In Denmark the elevatio of Knud IV (”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Thus, the”

In the paper

“This text is also preserved in Lebor na hUidre, where it was added by”

In the paper

“If we put Adomn an's Second Vision to one side, and examine the corpus of sermons on eschatological themes surviving from eleventh-and twelfthcentury Ireland, we can see how uncharacteristic that text is in an eschatological context, and to what extent it stands apart from the general development of eschatological thought.”

In the paper

“It was probably this text that established Adomn an of Iona as a visionary character to whose divine authority the hortatory diatribe of Adomn an's Second Vision could be ascribed.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“Sc ela la ı br atha (Tidings of Judgment Day), was added to Lebor na hUidre by the scribe known as”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“The text survives in four manuscripts, including Lebor na hUidre, and the fifteenth-century religious miscellany the Leabhar Breac, which also”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “preserves Adomn an's Second Vision.”

In the paper

“The text's influence can be seen most importantly in the twelfth-century Latin vision text, Visio Tnugdali, composed in 1149 by an Irish Benedictine monk at Regensburg, Germany, which went on to have a prolific and diffuse transmission, both in Latin and many European vernaculars.59”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“There is, of course, a difference between those who think that the world will end and those who think that the world will end soon.This important distinction has, on occasion, been blurred in discussions of medieval Irish eschatology; and, as a result, expressions of unexceptional, standard Christian doctrine about the end of the world have been linked mistakenly to a perceived national tendency”

In the paper

“The text probably has an original core that is somewhat earlier than the eleventh century, but it was most likely reworked into homiletic form during the eleventh century.”

In the paper

“That other authors urged individuals to reform themselves and their own behavior, without recourse to apocalyptic rhetoric, allows us to identify the apocalyptic strand as distinct but limited within the broader history of eschatological thought in Ireland.”

In the paper

“Second, Palmer has observed that apocalypticism was situational and contingent.Therefore, the”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “events of 1095-96 in Ireland need to be viewed in relation to the confluence of various political, economic and social factors-we cannot explain this moment of apocalyptic tension by reference to a nebulous centuries-long”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“The central purpose of visions of the afterlife, including F ıs Adomn ain, was to inspire the reader or hearer to turn to a more virtuous life, and our other eschatological homilies have the same purpose: they seek to inspire the audience to attain the c etes ergi, or metaphorical”

In the paper

“Third, he has observed that there”

What the sources say

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  cites [66]

In the paper

“Medieval Irish literati were very conscious of being located geographically at the end of the world, but this did not transmute into a perception that they were living at the end of the world in a chronological sense.”

In the paper

“The roots of ecclesiastical reform in Ireland were already planted by 1096, and the reasons for the progress of reforming movements in Ireland are multifaceted and dependent on both internal and external factors.67”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“James Palmer's study of apocalypticism and the calculation of time in the Carolingian period contains three conclusions of particular relevance to our Irish material.66 First, Palmer has noted the diversity of eschatological and apocalyptic thought in the Carolingian world: the same is true for medieval Ireland, of course.”

• Also stated in: § Abstract · plain

  “Just because some Irish ecclesiastics preached that the destruction of Ireland (or whatever else caused the”

What the sources say

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  cites [66]

In the paper

“That such moments were seized upon (or fabricated) by particular ecclesiastics as opportunities to remind priests of their moral failings, and the laity of their moral and financial obligations, is hardly surprising: in the case of Ireland it would appear that Armagh was the driving force behind the promotion of public penitential acts and moral renewal in 1096.”

What the sources say

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In the paper

“But the heightened rhetoric of Adomn an's Second Vision is not consonant with the prevailing register of eschatological texts in eleventh-and twelfth-century Ireland, which predominantly urge the quiet moral reformation of the individual and point predictably but eloquently to penitence, chastity, and the six works of mercy as providing the surest route to eternal salvation.”