The Church and the World c. 800

The last two chapters touched on the centrality of monasteries to Irish literate culture. In effect these were the linchpin of the literate communities because of their pivotal role in the emergence and development of Hiberno-Latin and vernacular writing. Their contribution proved crucial to the construction of social, religious, cultural and political identities on the island: writing and language helped to shape and articulate them. It was pointed out earlier that the literate elites were in a privileged position as a result of their access to both the oral and written, allowing them the chance to define the social and cultural relationships that arose out of them. An analysis of the function played by these elites within Ireland, as well as their uses of literacy, should be juxtaposed with the previous chapter's examination of those Hiberno-Latin authors who wrote for an international Christian audience. The majority of these writers were products of Irish monastic culture, although their responses to it inevitably diverged along with their experiences. So, for example, Sedulius Scottus and Máel Máedóc of Killeshin may well have enjoyed similar intellectual formations in Ireland. However, their practical expectations must have differed considerably because these were rooted in their personal, political and geographical contexts. The main contrast is that many writers at home, especially vernacular authors, were consciously responding to specific local issues and writing for primarily, or exclusively, Irish audiences, even if they did this in terms which echoed the ideologies of the universal Church.