Mark, tell us more about the Culdees, please.  My reading is scanty 
on that topic.


Also, don't we have Brigid as an Irish example--and early--of the 
founding of female monastic communities and even the double monestary 
at Kildare?

Brian+


>Frank & Brian+,
>
>I agree that within the Anglo-Saxon Church, abbesses seem to have 
>had a prominant role (though, the Frankish Church had their own 
>abbesses, normally from aristocratic backgrounds).  I don't know 
>about the occurrance of abbesses within the Irish Church.  Hilda's 
>role in the Synod of Whitby is, of course, famous, but I don't think 
>we should allow it to exaggerate what was going on.  Until the 
>7th-century, convents were exceptionally rare things.  Even during 
>the height of founding female monastic communities (the 7th 
>century), they remained a rarity (located also more often in the 
>thoroughly Roman South of England than in the North), almost 
>completely vanishing with the arrival of the Vikings.  It's a shame 
>that we don't know more about Hilda, she must have been a remarkable 
>woman.  The inclusion of abbesses at synods is probably a remarkable 
>thing.
>
>I think Mike+ put his finger on the most remarkable thing about 
>early Irish Christianity: its extreme penitential nature.  I'm not 
>sure any other church produced anything like the Culdees, though 
>perhaps the Desert Fathers come closest. 
>
>Again, let me stress how remarkably little we know about Briish 
>Christianity.  If not for Bede, Gildas, and Nennius we'd have very 
>little contemporary to draw upon.  Both Bede and Gildas were trying 
>to make points with their writings that influence the way characters 
>and customs are presented.    I think it noteworthy that when St. 
>Columbanus went to France and founded his monastic communities, his 
>style of Christianity wasn't terribly foreign to the Franks.
>
>Mark+
>
>
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