Question 3:

The “continental” Roman church was organized into districts that coincided with, from what I understand, Roman cities. Each of these districts then had a bishop appointed as the, well, as the boss. In Ireland, however, there were no cities at the time, so the church there could not be organized in the same way. Instead, monasteries were established and as Madigan writes in Medieval History “became the basic units of ecclesiastical organization.” Irish tribes would, actually, have their own monastery, with the head of the monastery, the abbot, being closely related to the tribe leader. Now, there were Irish bishops and they spent their time dedicating churches and what not. However, they were under the authority of the abbot. In Irish Christianity, the abbot was the one who ran the show,  who everyone look to as their leader.

These monasteries would come to develop a very strict, serious and solitary way of Christian life. Also, a very extreme way of life. These monks would spend days in silence. They would often fast for extended periods, SOMETIMES DAYS. Some of these monks would simply become hermits, going off to live in the woods.

It was the Irish monks that developed the method of personal penance. Basically, they practiced self harm in order to secure salvation I guess, or maybe appease the wrath of God?  I mean, sometimes they would go into the sea and stay there the whole night! They were not kidding around. So, within Irish Christianity this way life was considered very admirable and virtuous, and these monasteries became very successful in beginning to convert Northern Europe. This very personal system of penance eventually would come to influence all of  western Christendom.

The Penitential of Cummean is basically a guidebook for the sinning monk, priest, bishop etc. Cummean describes all types of sins a man can commit, the severity of the sin, as well as what to do to repent if you have, for example, fornicated, been depressed, angry, getting drunk on that holy wine, or stealing. It seems that within a community, such as the Irish monasteries, where individuals spend so much time analyzing their own possible sins and how to practice penance, there needed to be a detailed description to understand what penances were to be performed to which sin. Fornication, is by Cummean, considered a much greater sin then, for example, the sin of anger. So, the penance is more severe and the sinner is forced to make a greater sacrifice.

The sinful nature of man is to some extent unavoidable, as even thoughts can be considered sinful, so penance in these forms probably offered a sense of relief. Cummean, himself, writes that his book is a form of medicine, medicine for the soul. Sins are the illnesses of the soul, but penance is the cure! It does not matter how many times you sin, because through personal penance you can always be forgiven by God. I think, the soul is very abstract, and maybe these types of punishments became a very concrete way to understand the severity of the sins.

I am not sure how to characterize a society that values this type of penitential system. The focus seems to lie in atoning for ones sins. It is a society that appears be very Christian but also very afraid of the end of days. It appears that it was assumed that no one was without sin and so the only way to salvation was to continuously ask God for forgiveness through penance.