Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century

Reform and Renewal

Bibliographic Data

ID9804546
AuthorsB Smith (0000-0003-1384-116X)
Year2007
Volume122
Issue499
Pages1378-1380
Publication date2007-12-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe English Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ehr/cem326
OpenAlexW2115654498
LanguageEN
Citations received9

The key events in the history of church reform in Ireland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—and it is church reform rather than reform of any other aspect of Irish society with which this volume deals—are well known: the consecration of bishops of Irish towns by Archbishops Lanfranc and Anselm of Canterbury, the holding of ‘reforming’ synods at Cashel, the unidentified Ráith Breasail, Kells, and elsewhere from 1101 onwards which led to the establishment of a new diocesan structure, the ending of hereditary tenure of the see of Armagh and the introduction by Malachy of the Augustinians and Cistercians into the country, and finally the entrusting of further reform by the pope to the king of England and his successors in 1170. Emerging from a conference held in 2001 to mark the nine-hundredth anniversary of the synod of Cashel, the editors have taken the risky but ultimately worthwhile decision to include contributions from archaeologists, art historians and historians. A more rounded picture of what reform meant to some of those involved is provided by Raghnall Ó Floinn's article on changing fashions in episcopal staffs and mitres, while Maurice F. Hurley's piece on Waterford and Cork in the twelfth century draws equally useful attention to the significant changes in urban house and church design that occurred in this period. What the architecture of Cormac's Chapel at Cashel can reveal about the wider reform movement is an area of disagreement, with Roger Stalley inclined to strip it of much symbolic meaning and highlight its structural deficiencies, and Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel and Tadhg O'Keefe, by contrast, anxious to portray it as bursting with coded messages for contemporaries and later generations. Stalley and Hurley reiterate the importance of the borrowing of ideas and craftsmen from the west of England in the process of change in twelfth-century Ireland, while Richard Gem points to the significance of direct contact with Canterbury and the English crown in his examination of the architecture of the oratory at Killaloe. The waxing and waning of Canterbury's influence on Irish ecclesiastical affairs between 1070 and 1120 is the subject of a fine paper by Martin Brett, and leads neatly into Ó Riain-Raedel's article on the important links forged between Munster and southern Germany in the middle decades of the twelfth century, an article which represents a major contribution to our understanding of this subject

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Bishops · Chapel · Consecration · Eleventh · Hundredth · Irish · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Reform movement · Sociology · Classics · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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