Some evidence for a common Church

It is our hypothesis that there was a common Church in Britain and Ireland in the period ca 450 – ca 630. This period embraces the time from the alleged expulsion of the leaders of the Pelagian heresy (discussed in the previous chapter) down to the intrusion of Romanising elements in Ireland and the establishment of a Roman Church in Anglo-Saxon England. After the expulsion of the ‘heresiarchs’ from Britain it may be assumed that a separate Pelagian Church, with its own bishops and clergy, ceased to exist; yet, if we can trust Rhygyfarch’s Lifeof St David, the heresy was not finally suppressed in Britain before some point around or after the mid-sixth century. Even after this, Pelagian ways of thought, which many Britons doubtless never viewed as heretical, persisted. Combining with the effort- based semi-Pelagianism that lay at the heart of the nascent monastic movement, they formed the matrix of theology and ecclesiastical practice in Britain. The early Christian community in Ireland, which may be as old as the fourth century, may have already included Pelagian sympathisers in its numbers, and the papally-sponsored mission of Palladius may have been ineffective in its effort to eradicate them. We can only assume that the continuing presence of British clergy in Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries reinforced patterns of belief which may have looked like pollution to outsiders, but remained as invisible as the surrounding air to natives. Whereas there was never a central ecclesiastical government for the British and Irish Churches of this period, and local differences may have developed, there was surely a common set of beliefs and practices that demarcated the ‘transmarine’ Church from the continental.

The common Celtic Church developed its peculiarities through isolation. After the departure of Roman forces from Britain in 410, the Church of Rome would have been much reduced in her ability to enforce decrees in that region. It is noteworthy that the two campaigns against the Pelagian heresy in Britain were carried out from Gaul rather than Rome. Prosper of Aquitaine alluded to the remoteness of Britain and its reputation as a retreat for the ‘enemies of grace’. The contacts between the British Church and the continent, so well attested in the fourth century, dwindle in the fifth and sixth centuries.