5 - Circuits of Learning and Literature c. 700–1000

Summary

The Challenge of Secular Literature

Early medieval Irish literacy was not isolated in monasteries, even if important practical aspects such as manuscript production were arguably confined to them. It flourished within a wider learned hinterland defined by its secondaryoral culture. Literacy can only be fully appreciated by situating it within this broader social dynamic. The experiences of the ecclesiastical elite, as the last two chapters have shown, brought them into close contact with the secular world and its concerns. Monastic writers were integral to the formation of Irish secular identities. For example, they helped maintain the genealogical superstructures which played such a prominent role in articulations of power and hierarchy. They made enormously important contributions to the evolution of vernacular literacy and literature. The expansion of this literature was crucial; it was also ideologically challenging because it came to include saga narratives, pseudo-history and aristocratic praise poetry. The narrative literature, in particular, is remarkable,

focusing as it does on pre-Christian pagan heroes and lightly disguised ex-gods. The celebration of these figures seemed to challenge long-established ecclesiastical positions on the correct subject matter for a Christian literature. This is because conventional Christian attitudes towards secular writing and secular entertainment were so negative. Jerome famously recounted a vision in which he was accused of being a Ciceronian rather than a Christian and was flogged at heaven's command for his love of pagan literature. This purist approach found frequent echoes.