A NEW JERUSALEM ‘AT THE ENDS OF THE EARTH’: INTERPRETING CHARLES THOMAS’S EXCAVATIONS AT IONA ABBEY 1956–63

Ewan Campbell,Adrián Maldonado

doi:10.1017/s0003581520000128

Ewan Campbell, Adrián Maldonado

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003581520000128

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Abstract

Iona was a major European intellectual and artistic centre during the seventh to ninth centuries, with outstanding illustrated manuscripts, sculpture and religious writings produced there, despite its apparently peripheral location ‘at the ends of the earth’. Recent theological discourse has emphasised the leading role of Iona, and particularly its ninth abbot, Adomnán, in developing the metaphor of the earthly monastery as a mirror of heavenly Jerusalem, allowing us to suggest a new appreciation of the innovative monastic layout at Iona and its influence on other monasteries in northern Britain. The authors contend that the unique paved roadway and the schematic layout of the early church, shrine chapel and free-standing crosses were intended to evoke Jerusalem, and that the journey to the sacred heart of the site mirrored a pilgrim’s journey to the tomb of Christ. The key to this transformative understanding is Charles Thomas’s 1956–63 campaign of excavations on Iona, which this article is publishing for the first time. These excavations were influential in the history of early Christian archaeology in Britain as they helped to form many of Thomas’s ideas, later expressed in a series of influential books. They also revealed important new information on the layout and function of the monastic complex, and produced some unique metalwork and glass artefacts that considerably expand our knowledge of activities on the site. This article collates this new information with a re-assessment of the evidence from a large series of other excavations on Iona, and relates the results to recent explorations at other Insular monastic sites.

Highlights

The questions of how and why early medieval monasteries were organised have been a subject of intense debate amongst archaeologists, historians and theologians
In early Christianity Jerusalem was of central importance as the site of key incidents in the life of Jesus Christ, and as the contemporary site of the holy places and relics associated with his life, and as a symbol for the ‘New Jerusalem’ of heavenly salvation
Thomas O’Loughlin has argued that liturgy, for the early medieval mind, was able to ‘collapse space and time’, enabling monks to believe that they were in the Jerusalem of Christ and that their own spiritual journey mirrored that of Christ

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The questions of how and why early medieval monasteries were organised have been a subject of intense debate amongst archaeologists, historians and theologians. The nexus of novel practices that we can see developing at this time, embracing ideas of monastic enclosure, pilgrimage, the cult of saintly relics and their enshrinement, the creation of lavishly decorated illustrated manuscripts, new mortuary practices and monumentalisation through sculpture, represent a key shift in religious praxis Understanding how these practices were embodied on the ground is crucial to our appreciation of other early monasteries, many of which have been investigated by archaeologists in recent years. With respect to the issue of regionality, there is a long tradition of seeing monasteries in the Celtic-speaking areas as being differently organised from other Insular monasteries, in their characteristically circular enclosures This characteristic feature has been entangled with notions of a ‘Celtic Church’ being somehow separate from mainstream Christianity, an idea that has itself been robustly disputed, though the concept of a Celtic Church retains a strong non-academic following.

A NEW JERUSALEM ‘AT THE ENDS OF THE EARTH’

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION