King Raedwald was an Anglian, not a Saxon. How much more do you have to pay to get that rectified.
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King Raedwald was an Anglian, not a Saxon. How much more do you have to pay to get that rectified.
That's because the Irish kept their own form of Christianity until the Normans came. They kept a lot of their old beliefs along with the Christian ones.
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The conversion of Gaelic culture to christainity partially failed as secular pagan rituals survived late into the medieval period. As we shall see the conversion of Ireland was as much about continuity as it was about change.
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The early christian accounts of St Brigid clearly co opt the Goddess myth constructing a story of St Brigid as semi mythical by focused on miracles. These early histories most notably the Life of St Brigid the virgin by Cogitosus clearly illustrate how the goddess became a woman and Christian saint. St Brigid shares many of the characteristics of the Goddess Brigid in this work while Christian aspects are added on. (A similar process can be seen in the earliest histories of St Patrick which give Patrick druidic qualities.)
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However the story of conversions in Ireland is one of Christian missionaries adapting their belief system to make as similar as possible to the existing Pagan beliefs. Early Christians seem to have been highly flexible and focused heavily on the similarity and continuity between early Christianity and Paganism rather than the differences between them. This lead to a slow gradual change from Paganism. There seems to have been very little confrontation or conflict around the issue not least by the fact there was not one Christian martyr from the conversion period, while the influence of Paganism on Christianity in Ireland is considerable.
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Was Ireland unique?
The survival of such overt pagan rituals into the later medieval period was unusual when compared with continental Europe. Although continental Christianity had suffered a temporary setback when the Western Roman Empire declined it soon spread back across Europe in the 6th century. These conversions seem to have been less comprising with Paganism, however its should be noted continental Europe and Britain had been Christianised by the Romans so missionaries could draw on older Christian traditions not present in Ireland.
So the Irish incorporated a lot of their Pagan practices into their form of Christianity which is why there wasn't the conflict that occurred in some other parts of Europe. They also were indirectly converted to Christianity rather than through Roman like other parts of Europe allowing them to have their own unique version of Christianity which retained a lot of paganism.
It might have something to do with the belief system of Celtic paganism vs Anglo-Saxon paganism. Celtic traditions may have been more amenable to Christianity. It is true that paganism was incorporated into early Christianity in Ireland, the Sheela na gig is a good example of that.
I think it is most likely due to several factors. The Irish still kept a lot of the pagan beliefs and incorporated them into their form of Christianity so it most likely wasn't a quick process anyway. They also were fairly isolated and didn't have direct Roman contact so just went their own way which is why the Celtic Church was different than what was on the continent. It's actually an interesting subject.