20.3 Europe: a.d. 501 to 600  (Page 4/5)

As at Merido in Spain, Lyons had a non-clerical hospital in this century. (Ref. 125 ) Hugh Thomas (Ref. 213 ) writes that leprosy apparently arrived in France and England in this century and that lepers were isolated, declared legally dead and of ten excluded from the church.

British isles

England

After the Celtic victory of Mount Baden which was described in the last chapter, there was a period of security in southern England for about two generations but then the Saxons began to advance again so that by 577 the confrontation line extended to the Bristol Channel, Bath and Gloucester. By 600 only Devon and Cornwall of southern

England were not Saxon. The law, language and economy of the Roman province had disappeared. While the Saxons were valley livers and farmed and formed villages, the remaining Britons were in the hills and highlands. Thus hill, wood and stream names are of ten Celtic in origin, while lowlands and villages have Anglo-Saxon names. The Saxon villages were in open areas and the houses were little more than wattle and daub structures with a single ridge pole, sunken floor and a total space of about 10' by 15'. They used horse-drawn ploughs, milled wheat, barley and oats and grew cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. (Ref. 29 , 43 )

The transplanted Saxons were converted to Christianity in the last of the century chiefly through the efforts of the Frankish Queen of King Ethelbert of Kent and the papal envoy, St. Augustine, originally from North Africa. North England received Christianity from north Ireland via St. Columba, who succeeded Patrick.

Scotland

Britons and a few Angles migrated into Scotland at this period and shortly after 525 the Irish colonized western Scotland. Soon the word "Scot", originally an alternative to "Irish", became reserved for these northern settlers only. In Scotland, proper, al- though the deserted Antonine wall had crumbled it still formed the loose southern border of Pictland. South of it the north Britons of Strathclyde, related to the Welsh, had organized an aristocratic society with manors, towns and farms. To understand the British Isles in those early days one must consider Ireland, Scotland, Wales and certainly northern England as an inter-related group of communities and it is difficult to completely separate their histories. (Ref. 137 , 170 )

St. Columba (See IRELAND below) carried Christianity from Ireland to Iona in western Scotland in 543. This religion was separate from control of the Vatican pope and was not related or descended directly from Latin Christianity in England. For four centuries lona was the center of Celtic Christianity and some beautifully decorated Celtic manuscripts survive from that era. (Ref. 33 )

Ireland

Colum Cille, later to be called St. Columba, was born in Dal Riata of the family Ul Neill and when forty-two years old, set out as a pilgrim, accompanied by twelve disciples, toward the land of the Picts. He landed on the tiny island of lona, there to establish his own type of Christian monastery. While still maintaining some ties to Ire- land, lona developed into a spiritual center for all the tribes of coastal Scotland. The Irish spirit shone with its strongest light at that time, with culture and knowledge at a high peak. Many learned men from the continent, fleeing the invading barbarians, ended up on the shores of Ireland. A boatload of 50 scholars arrived at Cork in 550, bringing with them their craftsmen and it was these wanderers who subsequently taught the technique and made princely ornaments as well as weapons. Then learned men from Ireland became missionaries back to England, Germany and Gaul. (Ref. 91 , 33 )