Celts

CELTS. - With this name the Greek sources designate a group of peoples of the Aryan-European family, who, settled probably as early as the Neolithic period in a region bounded roughly by the North Sea and the Alps, by the Rhine and the Danube, began in the Bronze Age the diaspora that led them to occupy those territories in which they can be traced in the historical age.

I. PREHISTORY

The C. become appreciable in a relatively late period, that is, when they enter into contact with the cultured Europe of the Mediterranean basin. But when Hecateus (6th century B.C.) makes the first mention of them, a very long period of Celtic history had already unfolded, precisely the one marked by the great migrations, a period which, not without differences of opinion among scholars, can be reconstructed on the basis of paleoethnological and archaeological finds. From these it can be established with sufficient certainty that the C. settled in the first centuries of the Bronze Age (c. 1800-800 B.C.) in north-eastern and eastern France (perhaps also with some forays into the British archipelago), and then occupied the whole of France (Gaul, according to the generic designation of the Latins), Britain and Ireland, the Iberian peninsula as far as the southern slopes of Portugal, and northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul: between the Alps, the northern slopes of the Apennines and the Adige). The Celtic ferment cannot be said to have ended with these settlements, for even in historical times the C. did not cease to agitate, especially for the purpose of plunder: the sack of Rome in 390 B.C., the plundering of Delphi in 278 B.C., this latter followed by the passage into Asia Minor, where the three tetrarchies of Galatia (v.) were established, which remained independent until 25 B.C. To the lack of a Celtic literature is added, making research on these peoples even more problematic, the fact that the C. on the one hand were led to assimilate with the autochthonous populations of the territories into which they poured, forming hybrid populations (C.-Thracians, C.-Scythians, Celtiberians, etc.), and that, on the other, they soon entered the sphere of Roman expansion, by whose civilization they ended up being totally absorbed. Today only Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man are Celtic.

For information on the C. in historical times v. BRITANNIA, GALAZIA, GALLIA, IRLANDA.

II. RELIGION

The sources for knowledge of the religion of the Celts are palethnological, literary and archaeological. Between the former, concerning the autochthonous populations of the countries in which the Celts settled in successive waves, and the latter (divisible into two groups: one represented by writers of the Roman imperial age, Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, etc., the other represented by the evangelizers of the early Middle Ages, St. Gregory of Tours, St. Patrick, etc.) there lies a span of several centuries, on account of which it is very difficult to know the origins of Celtic religious beliefs and to trace their development. Moreover, the literary sources represent rather the "interpretatio romana" and the "interpretatio christiana" of Celtic religiosity, so that, in many respects, our knowledge is hypothetical.

The palethnological finds are represented by megalithic constructions, menhirs, cromlechs and dolmens (sepulchral monuments of the most recent Stone Age), signs of an evolved religiosity (cult of the dead, belief in the immortality of the soul, etc.) which did not fail to exercise a notable influence on the formation of Celtic civilization, so much so that some have believed that the druids (v.), the principal priests of the Celts, draw their origin from pre-Celtic cultures.

The principal divinities according to Caesar were Mercury (the supreme god, bearded, accompanied by a consort, Rosmerta), Apollo, with the prerogatives of savior and healer (as such he bore the appellation of Bormo or Borvo) and a companion (Damona or Bormona), Mars, a warrior god, associated with a goddess, Jupiter, who in figurative monuments has a wheel (thunder?) and a double spiral (lightning?), and is represented on horseback, as the conqueror of a giant, Minerva, whose appellation, Belisama, connects her with the sun, and Dis Pater, considered the progenitor of the Gauls.

Besides these, bearing Roman names and distinguishable by means of their attributes and appellations, the literary sources and, above all, epigraphy testify to divinities with Celtic names. Among them Esus, Taranis (connected with thunder?), perhaps a sky god, Teutates, an appellation rather than a proper name (from touta, tōta, teuta = tribe: hence the god of the tribe), Ogmios, difficult to interpret, although already in Lucian assimilated to Hercules, and Epona, a goddess of horses. A particular cult must have been paid to female divinities if one considers the great number of names of goddesses that epigraphy has handed down (about 500): among them the Matres or Matronae (agricultural divinities) and nymphs protecting springs and rivers. This picture of naturalistic religiosity is completed by the cult of trees, that of animals, such as the boar, the horse, the bull, etc.

The temples, originally and until the Roman conquest, were unknown, and the cult, of which only a group of fertility festivals (precisely 4) handed down by Irish sources is known, was practiced near consecrated trees or springs.

The heritage of eschatological beliefs (a beyond reachable by sea voyage, a place of delights entirely earthly), and the faith in the immortality of the soul were imparted by the more important of the two priestly groups, the druidic one, while the prerogatives of the gutuatri remain unknown.

Mario Camozzini

III. EVANGELIZATION

v.: BRITANNIA; GALAZIA; GALLIA; IRLANDA.

IV. LITURGY

By this name, used for the first time by Mabillon, is designated the rite already in use among the peoples of the British Isles and of Armorican Brittany. The various liturgical centers of these islands developed separately; and the Celtic monks, famous travelers, far from the idea of composing a new liturgy, limited themselves to taking from those existing whatever suited them, harmonizing the individual elements and often giving them a personal character.

1. The texts

The principal documents of this liturgical tradition are: a) the Stowe Missal (now in the library of the University of Dublin), a collection written for the use of some monastic church. It contains the ordinary of the Mass with the Canon, three special Masses, the order of Baptism, of Communion and of the Anointing of the sick, all followed by a treatise in Irish on the ceremonies of the Mass. Although it is not easy to assign a date to the manuscript, it is certain that it is earlier than the 9th century. b) the Antiphonary of Bangor, coming from the abbey of Bangor (Ireland), where it was written at the end of the 7th century, and later transferred to Bobbio. Contrary to its title, it also contains hymns, prayers, parts of a psalter, canticles and blessings, for which reason it seems to be an extract from various liturgical books made for the use of the abbot. It is now in the Ambrosian Library of Milan. c) the Armagh Fragments (in the library of Trinity College, Dublin), a famous manuscript copied by Ferdomnach in 807 or 808, in which among important liturgical passages appears the Hawc igitur of the Canon of the Mass with the addition diesque nostros of Gregory the Great. d) the Martyrology of Oengus, composed in Irish verse at the beginning of the 9th century, important for knowledge of the feasts and the cult of the saints in the Celtic countries. To this list must be added various psalters, rituals, hymnaries, penitentials, treatises, and a certain number of fragments of lesser importance. Nor must the books of private devotion be neglected, and first of all e) the Book of Cerne (in the library of the University of Cambridge), written in the 9th century and coming from the abbey of Cerne, where the influence of liturgical prayers is very marked, so as to give an exact idea of Celtic piety. A special place is occupied by f) the famous Missal of Bobbio (now in the National Library of Paris). Whatever one may think of its origin and its supposed Irish provenance, Irish elements appear in it in great number, or rather a combination of Roman, Gallican, Visigothic elements, composed in Celtic style. Mabillon designated it with the name of Gallican Sacramentary, and to this opinion Wilmart substantially returns, after repeated waverings and hypotheses of liturgists, he who last devoted to the manuscript a profound and exhaustive study (The Bobbio Missal. Notes and Studies [Henry Bradshaw Society, 61], London 1924).

2. The origins

It is exceedingly difficult, with such incomplete material, to reconstruct an exact picture of the Celtic liturgy, and still more to give an account of its origins. The fragments possessed are in reality not very original, traces being found in them of the Roman, Gallican, Mozarabic, Milanese liturgy, and, in a certain sense, even of the Eastern ones. By comparison, the strictly Celtic nucleus is reduced to a few formulas of blessing or of exorcism, to various litanies, to apologies and confessions, and to numerous hymns.

The distinctive physiognomy of the Irish liturgical usages has prompted certain Anglican theologians to find their origin in the Eastern liturgies, and more precisely at Ephesus in the immediate disciples of St. John, thus making of the Celtic liturgy an Ephesine liturgy in opposition to the Petrine. But this thesis is now abandoned. Apart from the fact that the relations between the British Isles and the East are for the most part legendary, it is impossible to know what the true liturgy of Ephesus was. In any case the Celtic formulas and rites as a whole are more Latin than Eastern. The opinion that presents the Celtic Christians as separatists, in opposition to Rome, or at least, from the doctrinal point of view, independent of any influence of the City, is contradicted by the character of the Celtic liturgy, so penetrated with Roman elements. The fact is, on the other hand, that the relations of the British Isles with the Christian world of the continent were more frequent than is ordinarily believed. In the 4th-5th century St. Victricius of Rouen and St. Germanus of Auxerre sojourned for a long time in Britain; and under the latter the apostle of Ireland, St. Patrick, was initiated into the life and ecclesiastical culture. It was perhaps Pope Celestine I who sent to Ireland its first bishop in the person of Palladius (431). The Briton St. Ninian, before evangelizing the Picts, received his formation at Rome, and also had contacts with St. Martin of Tours. Faustinus of Riez, a Briton by origin, likewise maintained frequent relations with his homeland. The influence of these personages in the development of liturgical usages in the British Isles was certainly not secondary. Through this network of correspondences and journeys, liturgical elements easily crossed beyond the sea; and only in this way can be explained the presence in Ireland of the so-called Cursus of St. Mark, an ordering of the Divine Office which, brought from Egypt into Gaul through the work of Cassian and having obtained citizenship at Lérins, passed from there into Ireland under the auspices of St. Patrick. The Cursus of St. Mark, having thus become the Cursus Scostorum, was later brought back to the continent at the end of the 4th century by St. Columbanus. Only a strong personality, such as that of St. Patrick, could impose a new liturgical discipline and preserve a certain unity of worship among the different usages introduced among the people. The an-

years after his death (461) see the compactness of the liturgical edifice slowly disintegrating and a series of separate cells arising, with cultic peculiarities that were often considerable. It is interesting to follow in the Catalogus sanctorum Hiberniae secundum diversa tempora, compiled in the 8th century, this process of disintegration. Only from the middle of the 7th century, when southern Ireland adopted the Roman Easter, did the Celtic liturgy once again absorb Roman elements. The Antiphonary of Bangor, from the end of the 7th century, is still purely Gallican. It seems, therefore, that it was Gaul that exercised a strong influence on the formation of the Irish rites. It is difficult, on the other hand, to explain the presence of Mozarabic elements in the Celtic liturgy. The opinions expressed so far have not solved the problem and rest on hypothetical migrations of Christian Celts from Ireland to Spanish Galicia.

3. The Mass

It is above all in the rite of the Mass that the influence of the continental liturgies is found. a) The preparation of the Mass according to the Stowe Missal comprises a confession of sins, a long litany in which all the national saints are commemorated, and an apologia sacerdotis, that is, a formula in which the celebrant declares his own unworthiness before approaching the altar. The preparation of the Oblates seems to have taken place, like the Gallican rite, before the priest's entrance, and included some prayers with special commemoration of the individual persons of the Most Holy Trinity. This reference to the Trinity is frequently emphasized during the eucharistic celebration, and it is a characteristic of the Celtic liturgies. The rest closely followed the Roman order. After the singing of the Alleluia at the Epistle, a solemn litany took place, the so-called Deprecatio s. Martini, of plainly Eastern tone, whose text, translated from the Greek, also appears in other Western liturgies. The formula of consecration was of special importance. The celebrant bowed three times at the words accepti Iesus panem, while the people lay prostrate.

This prayer was called periculosa oratio and no one was to disturb its silence. The Penitential of Cummean prescribes a penance of fifty blows for the priest who stumbled in pronouncing it. In the margin of some missals the warning was even written: periculum. The Communion was surrounded by rites and chants that gave it great solemnity. Among the latter must be placed the famous hymn «quando commonicarent sacerdotes» Sancti venite, Christi corpus sumite, preserved in the Antiphonary of Bangor, of an inspiration so lofty as to make one regret the loss of other compositions of the kind. The texts of the «postcommunio» are taken from the Roman books, while the dismissal was announced with these words: Missa acta est. In pace.

4. The Sacraments

The baptismal rites present the same character of composition. The only ordo Baptismi preserved intact is that of Stowe. It comprises a great number of prayers, derived both from Gallican and Milanese documents and from Roman documents, and combined in the strangest manner. Alongside ceremonies and prayers for the Baptism of adults, there appear formulas «ad catechizandos infantes» and others intended even for the Baptism of the sick. The blessing of the water, too, presents a mosaic no less curious. The formula of renunciation is repeated twice within a few lines, confused and intercalated with a profession of faith, which is an anticipation of the one that would then immediately precede the baptismal washing. The text of the latter is similar to the Gelasian, but the interrogations are put by the deacon instead of by the celebrant. There is no mention of the Trinitarian formula of Baptism, which was conferred at choice by immersion or by aspersion. The rite closed with a triple anointing with chrism, the handing over of the white garment by the deacon, and the washing of the feet of the neophytes, a ceremony unknown in the Roman Church, but taken from the ancient Gallican liturgy.

5. The Divine Office

It was called, as a whole, cursus psalmonum, or simply cursus, and was regulated in various ways by local customs. Great freedom reigned on the subject, and the principal source of information is the monastic rules. The canonical hours, distinguished more or less by the present-day names, corresponded to the traditional number of seven. It does not appear, however, that Compline was known; before rest the monks gathered simply to receive the abbot's blessing. The Celtic monks were extraordinary reciters of psalms; it was an almost general custom to recite the entire psalter every day, so that the arrangement of the office appears excessively heavy. According to the Ordo of the Scottish monastery of Kil-Ros, of certainly Irish origin and earlier than the 8th century (PL 519, 561-68). The night office consisted of three vigils of twenty psalms each, with a prostration after each psalm. The other ninety psalms had to be distributed among the hours of the day, observato debito tempore. In the recitation of the psalms both direct and antiphonal psalmody were used, sometimes in responsorial form. St. Columban too dictated a cursus for the office, described with an abundance of detail in his Regula monachorum (ch. 7).

6. The liturgical year

The variants of the Communicantes in the canon, reported in the Stowe Missal, make known the principal feasts of the year celebrated in the Irish milieu of the 8th-9th century. They are: In natale Domini, Kalendis (Circumcision), Stellae (Epiphany), Pasca, In clausula Pasca (Low Sunday), Ascensio, Pentecostes. To this list may be added Holy Thursday. Some liturgical fragments of the 10th-11th century, today in the Vatican

Library (ms. lat. 3325), contain the Masses of the Circumcision and of the vigil of the Epiphany. Pentecost, the Epiphany and Easter were considered baptismal feasts, and at the latter the faithful were obliged to fulfill the Easter precept by approaching Communion. The rite of the new fire of Holy Saturday, unknown to the ancient Greek, Gallican and Roman liturgical books, found a favorable reception in Ireland as early as the middle of the 8th century. It is well known that the Celtic Churches stubbornly persisted for a long time in following a paschal computation different from that of the Roman Church, preserving precisely the ancient 84-year cycle. St. Columban remained faithful to it even when he settled at Luxeuil, thus often finding himself in disagreement with the local Churches. Only slowly and through contrasts and struggles did the Celts come to adopt the universal custom, so that by the end of the 8th century unity in the celebration of Easter may be said to have been achieved. Easter was preceded by a very austere Lenten period, while in monastic circles the fast was almost continuous. Even among the simple faithful the observance of the fast on Wednesday and Friday, of such venerable origins, was tenaciously maintained.

7. The decline

The liturgical autonomy of the various Churches makes it impossible to follow the gradual abandonment of the individual ritual peculiarities and the definitive passage to the Roman forms. Already in the times of Lodo-vic the Pious (817), Armorican Brittany had accepted the rite of Rome; Scotland probably adapted to it in the 11th century, thanks to the zeal of Queen St. Margaret. In Ireland one had to wait yet another century, when the Roman liturgy was introduced there by St. Malachy (d. 1148), Archbishop of Armagh and friend of St. Bernard. After the conquest of the island, carried out by the English, the Synod of Cashel (1172) imposed without further ado the Anglo-Roman rite on all the Churches of Ireland.

Arnaldo Roberti

V. ART of the C

The Celtic Christian art of Ireland has well-defined characteristics up to the 12th century, beginning on the other hand to manifest itself in the 7th. In this span of time one striking characteristic stands out: the great fidelity to the canons and artistic motifs of the earlier pagan art, especially that of the prehistoric period of the Bronze Age commonly called: La Tène art (from a Swiss site methodically excavated and which has provided, so to speak, the standard for judging the types scattered elsewhere). It is now known that under the name of C. one must identify not a race, but a people of varied origin that has derived from Aryan-European sources a common language. It seems that the first phase of development of the Celtic nation must lie in southwestern Germany. Then it migrated to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and to Brittany (in French territory) where today the purest remnants of it exist. La Tène art extends roughly from 500 B.C. until the Roman conquest, and indeed to the beginnings of the Christian era and beyond. But one must also take into account the artistic tendencies of the Goidels, or Celtic Gaels, who, descending the Rhine valley, between 2000 and 1700 B.C. passed into England, replacing the rectangular tombs of the Neolithic autochthons with their round barrows. It is to them that important megalithic constructions are due.

This premise is necessary to understand the orientations of Celtic Christian art: constructions in skillfully joined stones and (in several examples) not cemented; decoration on stone that reflects prehistoric schemes, only mixing in some external element. In fact, one must not picture this Nordic people as entirely isolated (although soon, toward the end of the 5th century and in the 6th, there was for Ireland the barrier constituted by the spreading of the Saxon invaders). An extraordinary surprise came when on the side of the stone cross of Fahan in Donegal (Henry, pl. 14) was found written the "Gloria Patri," in Greek in the formula prescribed by the Council of Toledo of 633. Evidently there were continuous relations with Spain and with Gaul. The iconography too reflects continental and Eastern influences, yet transformed into a particular stylization that reflects the Celtic tradition, which in turn conveyed Germanic and Asiatic influences. Whoever then reads the marvelous Gaelic literary production (which is a great foundation of medieval literature; let one recall the well-known epic cycles of King Arthur etc.), and whoever takes into account all that world of enchantments that still today takes hold in the Irish countryside and also, to a lesser extent, in the Breton, will not be surprised by the profound mysticism and the sense of the arcane that shines through even a modest monument. Ireland had for this reason a developed monasticism. Among the monastic constructions one should remember the group of cells of Skellig Michael, on the western coast. It is an ideal position for an ascetic. The small constructions raised in a rocky landscape swept by the full ocean, are in roughly squared and uncemented stones. If there were not the cross on the largest cell, one would swear to be in a fortress of the pagan period, like those of Dun Bec, or of Stague Fort. The small rectangular church of Eilean a Naoimh in Scotland can be mistaken for a prehistoric dwelling. At Kilmalkedar, also in this region, the problem of roofing a rectangular plan is solved by making the walls slant. The result is a shed like a modern hangar. The doors of these buildings, often with the great stone as lintel (thus at Mac Dara, at St. Brendan's, at Inisglora, etc.) are related to those of the Mediterranean megaliths. The window of Mac Dara is nothing but a corner support of two stones above two uprights. Even when arches are made and Romanesque portals with recesses are had, like those of France, the way of treating the blocks, the decorations with heads, with interlacements, with geometric motifs will always constitute a reminiscence of the pagan Celtic ornaments, as they are known particularly in works in bronze and other metals. Moreover, observes Henry, in Ireland the arts have reacted upon one another. For example, the miniatures of the Book of Durrow continue certain ornaments of enamels and bronzes of the old Celts; the sculptor of the cross of Ahenny has imitated the friezes of a precious Christian reliquary; that of the cross of Kells was inspired by miniatures, etc. Curious is a head of Christ from a plaque of Athlona (pl. 20 of Henry) which has the form of those on the cauldron

Scandinavian Gundestrup. Characteristic monuments of Ireland are the crosses, the pillar stones, and the round towers. As regards the latter, it is observed that their antiquity is not great. They must have been built for defense against pirates between the 9th century and the beginning of the 12th. As for the pillar stones, they continue the use of stones either in the vicinity of a church or marking the site of an ancient cemetery. The inscriptions are for the most part Latin and testify to the penetration of Latin culture as far back as the times of St. Patrick. But there is also an example of the local script (the "oghamic" characters). Thus the rough stele of the tomb of St. Monachan (at the south-western extremity of his oratory called Temple Geal near Dingle). This pillar stone has nothing but a deeply incised cross. But in others the decorative splendor is very great. The stone of Aberlemno, for example, with its volutes and very dense interlacements, seems a work of goldsmithing. A simple stone with a Latin inscription of the 5th century mentions the congeries lapidum in which a "Carnasius" was buried. The expression is found in a passage of Nennius relating to the legend of King Arthur, in another contained in the biography of St. Columba, and elsewhere. Also interesting is a sepulchral stone of Oidaca (at Fuerty) where there is the cross and the representation of the paleochristian symbolic image of the fish. But the greatest interest must go to the stones shaped like a cross, which for the most part have a votive purpose. They have recently been investigated with fine analysis and with splendid graphic documentation by Henry. Simple types as at Carndonagh (pl. 11; in the locality also a stele: pl. 12), or with relief of plaiting and studs, like the very beautiful one of Ahenny (pl. 20-21). The form of such crosses resembles the types with handles of a processional cross, but in the decorative splendor of a crux florida translated into precious metal. The handles are rectangular panels and, as a novelty, there is a solar circle of glorification which is never found in the production known to us from the early Middle Ages (only in the late Middle Ages are there some examples; here it appears instead in the 7th-8th century). Various examples also with figures: they are childish images, sometimes they seem like dwarfs with thick bodies and short feet. Often one sees figures in mantle and hood and all with the face like an inverted pear as in the Lombard reliefs. An attempt is made to arrange these images in ornamental, symmetrical rhythms, of which parallels can be found in Germany and as far as eastern Russia and then, going back in time, within anterior Asia. Even the slenderness and the stylization of the animals is affected by such comparison. Mention is made of the crosses of Moone (pl. 44-49), of Castledermot (83), of Armagh (64), of Monasterboice and of Muiredach (74-77), etc. As for the subjects, mention is made of: the Protoparents, the sacrifice of Abraham, the young Hebrews in the furnace, the massacre of the innocents, the flight into Egypt, the twelve Apostles, St. Paul and St. Anthony, the Crucifixion, Daniel in the lions' den, etc., all significant for the evangelization of these warrior and hunting peoples, fixed on a heroic ideal, fearful of the assaults of the infernal forces, generous and idealizing. It is known that among them Christianity spread peacefully, without persecutions. St. Patrick was able freely to destroy twelve small idols which in the plain of Mag Secht surrounded Crom Cruach, the greater idol which was entirely covered with gold.

The inscriptions of the stone crosses allow us a dating based on the local "annals." At Balin is the cross of the monk Tauthghall (pl. 40) who was abbot of Clonmacnoise in 810-11 (Annals of Ulster etc.). At Monasterboice (pl. 75) the cross has this Gaelic epigraph - ORDO MUIREDACH LAS (AN) DERNAD IN CHRO (SS) A ("Pray for Muiredach who made this cross"). It is probably a personage of 924-25.

The plaiting decoration from the 7th to the 12th century is often mixed with that ornament of fauna as in the Scandinavian zones. In the Book of Durrow, the patient and skillful decoration has six bands of plaiting which repeat two by two in three different combinations of animals. In each the beasts are incorporated one with another. One sees then in Irish art the bodies as a long ribbon folded in different ways (one can compare it to the three styles of Nordic art identified by Selin). And then curvilinear decoration with spirals and tendrils tightly coiled (a recollection of prehistoric themes), angular decorations (with a combination of segments) such as can be found also on the bronzes of most ancient China. The vegetable ornament is transformed into linear fantasies, and the animal one too is dissolving. Sometimes from the mouth or the tail of animals and from masks sprout ribbons, tendrils, volutes which then develop into delightful flourishes. Admirable are the great initials of the Book of Kells, of the Evangeliary of Mac Regol, or of that of Lindisfarne (8th century). Curious too are those pages begun like the example of the evangeliary of the National Library of Turin O IV, 20 in which a central draped figure holds the cross in the midst of an infinity of other little figures of similar type. Very strange too is an evangeliary of the library of St. Gall in which the Crucifixion is seen; the garments of Christ are all in folds in wholly unnatural windings, but explicable by a tenacious will for rhythm.

No less fanciful are the goldsmith works, where embossing and filigree compose splendid friezes. Well known is the chalice (v.) of Ardagh, a broad cup with studs, interlacements and subtle volutes (the work is attributed to the 8th-12th century, it is probably of the 9th or 10th century. cf. Liam S. Gogan, The Ardagh chalice, Dublin 1932). Important are the caskets in which books were placed. That (disappeared) of the Book of Durrow had a Gaelic epigraph relating to King Flan Sinna, son of Malachy, who reigned between 877 and 916. The Book of Armagh had an inscription of 937-38; the Book of Kells is of 1007. There remain to us the shrines of the Gospel of Molaise (great cross with plaits, symbols of the evangelists [1001-25]), of the Missal of Stowe (a codex including a most important liturgical text; cross on a background of checkerboard and triangles [1023]); of the Book of Dimma (cross on interlacements [1150]). Then there exist pastoral staffs with well-worked metal applications (that of Dimma, that of the Edinburgh museum, that of Kells, that of Lismore, etc.). One goes from the 10th to the 12th century. Furthermore the caskets to contain those little bells used to convoke small communities of monks. The beautiful shrine of the cross of St. Patrick, all with multiple interlacements, is nothing but a copy of the 13th century and replaced the original given to the church of Bos Glandae. Primitive instead is the shrine of the bell of St. Culann (here too plaits, but simpler, and then masks combined with shapes of monsters; 9th-10th century?). As for the little bell, one recalls that of Cumascach Mac Ailelio which has an inscription of a person who died in 908. A small reliquary casket is the bronze shrine of St. Mogue, which is said to have served St. Molaise to preserve certain relics taken in Rome and donated to his friend Moedoc, abbot of Fern. There are seen on backgrounds various figures of old men with long bipartite beards and flowing locks (9th century?). Finally the crosses, of which very notable is that of Cong (with interlacements of a miniaturistic type, beginning of the 12th century).

The constructions of the Norman barons caused many buildings to disappear. The Benedictine foundation of Mellifont (1142) contributed to spreading other forms of art. But the transformation is already felt in the chapel of Cormac (1134). So that, when the Anglo-Normans landed in Ireland in 1169, the local artistic development was found to be appreciably compromised. As has been said, the end of the 12th century can be considered a closing of the cycle of this most singular Celtic art. - [See Pl. LXXVIII - LXXIX.

Carlo Cecchelli