‘Holy, Holier, Holiest’
The Sacred Topography of the Early Medieval Irish Church
By (author) David Jenkins
This book explores the morphology of early medieval Irish religious settlement. It seeks to shift the focus of academic interest away from simply the materiality of settlement towards a greater concern for its possible theological significance. The critical literature is reviewed and the archaeological and literary evidence revisited in search of evidence for a consistent early medieval Irish schema for the layout of religious settlement. This study suggests that the enclosure and zoning of religious space was primarily inspired by depictions of the Jerusalem Temple through the medium of a universally received scriptural ‘canon of planning’. The distinctive early Irish religious landscape is a result of the convergence of this Christian exemplar of ordered holy space with vernacular building forms.These building forms were shaped by the legacy of Ireland’s recent pagan past whose architectural leitmotif was the circular or sub-circular form, in contrast to the buildings described in Christian texts. Some of the traditional assumptions about the possible heterodox nature of the ecclesiology of the early medieval Irish church are also challenged. Irish religious topography is set within the context of a universal Christian understanding of holy space which impacts upon the topography of religious settlement not just in Ireland but further afield in Anglo-Saxon England, Gaul and the Middle East. In this the book, like many other recent studies, challenges the presumption that there was a ‘Celtic church’ distinctive in its practices from the wider church, while documenting the local contribution to Christian architecture.
- By (author) David Jenkins
Other Titles in this Series
Removing Masculine Layers to Reveal a Holy Womanhood
The Female Transvestite Monks of Late Antique Eastern Christianity
Volume 13
Saints and Sinners in Early Christian Ireland
Moral Theology in the Lives of Saints Brigit and Columba
Volume 3
The Spirit, the World and the Trinity
Origen's and Augustine's Understanding of the Gospel of John
Volume 40
‘The loss of a minute is just so much loss of life’
Edward Robinson and Eli Smith in the Holy Land
Volume 39
Computus and its Cultural Context in the Latin West, AD 300-1200
Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, Galway, 14-16 July, 2006
Volume 5
Healing not Punishment. Penitentials in the Insular Church
Historical and Pastoral Networking of the Penitentials between the Sixth and the Eighth Centuries
Volume 25
Agents in Liturgy, Charity and Communication
The Tasks of Female Deacons in the Apostolic Constitutions
Volume 37
The Christology of Theodore of Tarsus
The Laterculus Malalianus and the Person and Work of Christ
Volume 6
‘Lest She Pollute the Sanctuary’
The Influence of the Protevangelium Iacobi on Women's Status in Christianity
Volume 41
Bonds and Boundaries among the Early Churches
Community Maintenance in the Letter of James and the Didache
Volume 29
The Discovery of the Individual
Post-Chalcedonian Christological Debates and the Dawn of Scholasticism in Early-Byzantine Thought
Volume 68
Late Antique Calendrical Thought and its Reception in the Early Middle Ages
Proceedings from the Third International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, Galway, 16-18 July, 2010
Volume 26
Ephrem, a ‘Jewish’ Sage
A Comparison of the Exegetical Writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian and Jewish Traditions
Volume 7
The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas
The Image of God, the Spiritual Senses, and the Human Body
Volume 38
Cyril of Alexandria’s Christological Exegesis
Explorations of Partitive Exegesis in the Dialogues on the Trinity
Volume 70
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