The Book of Kells is a beautiful example of the work of the Celtic monks who preserved much of the classical knowledge that came to Europe for a millennium. History of that period, roughly 600 -- 800 A.D., the range of estimated dates for the Book of Kells, shows desolation of Western Europe by the barbarian invasions. After the destruction, the Celtic, mostly Irish, monks evangelize the Continent, establishing monasteries that survived as far South as St. Gall in modern Switzerland, and existed for a time even in Italy.
I'm not sure I'd have liked the way the Irish monasteries taught. A prospective monk began by memorizing the Psalter in Latin, which taught him both reading and Latin. The monasteries thus paved the way for the High Middle Ages. They built sawmills powered by water which made the previously resistant forests of Northern Europe useful for construction and export, not to mention ship building. After the decline of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance shifted emphasis and began the veneration of an idealized classical era, later to give way to the modern Enlightenment condescension toward the past. It was not always so. Jorge Manrique, one of the first notable poets in Spanish, writes, "Qualquier tiempo pasado fue mejor." (Whatever past time was better.) He, like his father was to die fighting in the Reconquest, freeing Spain from the North African invaders. His age looked dark to him. One of the even sadder writings of that time is the lament of a young woman of noble birth included in the tribute exacted by the nearby Moorish ruler for his amusement in return for a time of peace. Ireland, too, is an example of the stability over very long periods of a society that changes radically on collision with another. The feuding semi-nomadic clans were stable for centuries, until the waves of invades, Vikings, Normans, English, triggered the Irish settling in the cities we now know. Each left its imprint, each was largely assimilated by the Irish. I think the conventional wisdom is that the Black Death, by removing peasant population pressure triggered a similar change in the previously stable economy. However the Renaissance had to wait until the economy recovered enough to provide the wealth need to support people whose activity produced no food or fabric or shelter. I am afraid what is happening in Africa is the contraction of population as the economic system returns to its pre-colonial balance, unable to support the higher population densities which developed when the Europeans imposed their ideas of public health and economic organization. I see it as a great tragedy, but know of no solution consistent with our principle of free determination of their destinies by peoples. Self-determination often carries a heavy price. Choppy At 04:02 PM 1/2/03 -0600, Edmund Cramp wrote: >We see it that way, but the Dark Ages went on to produce the Book of >Kells and an artistic Renaissance (Celtic) that rivals the later >European Renaissance ... http://www.bookofkells.ie/famous.html >Furthermore - in other (non-European) areas of the world cultures are >flourishing throughout this time - http://www.angkorwat.org > > >"The infection rate continues to climb, and the food production rate >continues to fall. Communities grow more isolated. The death toll >rises. Human populations are slow to recover. The climate continues to >degrade. Other diseases, once less common and less deadly begin to >ravage the population." > >The AIDs pandemic in Africa appears to share many of the same broad >characteristics of the European Black Death pandemic that led to the >emergence of Europe from the grips of the feudal peasant society and >lead directly to the European Renaissance. > >-- > >http://www.emgsrus.com/graffiti.htm > > >_______________________________________________ >General mailing list >[email protected] >http://oxygen.nocdirect.com/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net
