IMC 2008: Sessions

Session 322: God's Creation: The Early Irish Outlook on the Natural World

Monday 7 July 2008, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:	Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Durham University
Organiser:	Clare Stancliffe, Department of History, Durham University
Moderator/Chair:	Ian N. Wood, School of History, University of Leeds
Paper 322-a	Man as Not the Measure of all Things: Adomnán on St Columba's Horse (Language: English) Clare Stancliffe, Department of History, Durham University Index terms: Hagiography, Mentalities, Theology
Paper 322-b	Cosmology in Early Christian Ireland (Language: English) Marina Smyth, Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, Indiana Index terms: Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Science, Theology
Paper 322-c	An Old Irish Cosmological Treatise: The Evernew Tongue and the Days of Creation (Language: English) John Carey, Department of Early & Medieval Irish, University College Cork Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Celtic, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Theology
Abstract	Writings from early medieval Ireland display a particular interest in the natural world. This session will explore key aspects of this, with Smyth looking at the 'scientific' approach to the natural world, Stancliffe using a saint's life to explore the relationship envisaged between God, man, and animals, and Carey looking at an apocryphal vernacular text which expounds the view that all elements and materials of the world were brought together in every human, so that Christ's death and ressurrection redeemed the whole of creation. Undergirding and linking all three papers is the perception of the natural world as God's creation.