Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 42

Steffen Stummann Hansen and John Sheehan
tic sites discussed above. Future research,
however, particularly excavation, may con-
firm or deny this view.
In his discussion of the origins
of the Greenlandic enclosed church sites
Keller concluded “that the circular church-
yards in Iceland and Greenland are, how-
ever, most probably evidence of a Celtic
Christian style. And it may indeed be
asked, if this stylistic feature also symbol-
ized a Celtic Christian faith. Whether this
tradition was brought to Iceland by Irish
monks or by Norse Christians can be sub-
ject to discussion” (Keller 1989, 199). It
is interesting to note that the preliminary
results of Arneborg’s recent excavations,
noted above, indicate that these enclosed
church sites do indeed belong to the earli-
est phase of the settlement of Greenland,
and this has prompted the project director
to state: “Whether the earliest churches
with their circular enclosures have their
origins in the northern and western parts
of Britain and Ireland is a matter for dis-
cussion. However, recently conducted
genetic research into the population of
Iceland and Faroe has demonstrated that a
major part of the landnám women had
Celtic blood in their veins, so the theory
does not appear unlikely” (Arneborg
2005, 16; authors’translation)11.
The evidence from both Iceland
and Greenland, and by extension the Faroe
Islands, may indicate that such circular
or sub-circular ecclesiastical sites may
be lower status sites, functioning per-
haps as chapels or subsidiary churches
(pers. comm., O. Vésteinsson). This may,
of course, be a function of age, with the
smaller sub-circular sites being aban-
doned earlier and therefore representing
an earlier practice. It is an intriguing pos-
sibility, as has recently been suggested by
Kristjánsdóttir in her study of the Icelan-
dic evidence, that the small turf churches,
which are frequently enclosed, might be
regarded as private or proprietary churc-
hes, dating to before the historical water-
shed of AD 1000 when Iceland was offi-
cially converted to Christianity. She pro-
poses that these sites might be connected
with a form of “unorganised missionary
activity” that she describes as “an infil-
tration process that may have originated
from the Celtic branch of Christian-
ity” (2004, 156). Similar ideas, at least
with regards to the chronology of the
conversion process, have recently been
proposed for the North Atlantic region
and for southern Scandinavia by Morris
(2004, 188) and Brink (2004, 173-74),
respectively.
Early ecclesiastical sites in Ireland
Following on from Kristjánsdóttir’s sug-
gestion concerning the possible ‘Celtic’
origins of parts of early Icelandic Chris-
tianity, it is interesting to note that many
ecclesiastical sites in Ireland and Scotland
display the essential characteristics of the
North Atlantic sites being considered in
this paper. A great variety of ecclesias-
tical sites existed in Ireland during the
Early Medieval period (c.400-1100 AD).
Some developed as large monastic ‘cit-
ies’ that were involved in secular politics,
while others functioned as small isolated
hermitages. Between these two extremes
there was a wide range of monasteries
and church sites. Some were early epis-
copal foundations and others were tribal
churches, but the majority may have been
proprietary churches that were transmit-
ted as family property from generation
11 Translated from the Danish by SSH.
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