No Irish Church
- Thread starter Tocomocho
- Start date
Mmm. For the POD, I would see well a failure of gaelic invasions. Many missionars were scottish or brittons, probably from irish origin.
If you have the Germanic peoples (Angles, Frisons, Saxons, Franks) being less sucessful in their conquest, Brittons could be more interested to keeping the Christian net on their island than convert Gaels, at least for a while.
Effects?
Nothing would change really, as Irish christianity was anyway very close to secular institutions, not forming a mantle on it. Probably that a later conversion, fully "roman" this time would have created some tributaries states in the eastern coast, as Charlemagne did with western slavic tribes.
So, western Ireland could stay pagan until the viking invasion at least, while the eastern part could known christian or christianized elites ruling on a pagan population.
If you have the Germanic peoples (Angles, Frisons, Saxons, Franks) being less sucessful in their conquest, Brittons could be more interested to keeping the Christian net on their island than convert Gaels, at least for a while.
Effects?
Nothing would change really, as Irish christianity was anyway very close to secular institutions, not forming a mantle on it. Probably that a later conversion, fully "roman" this time would have created some tributaries states in the eastern coast, as Charlemagne did with western slavic tribes.
So, western Ireland could stay pagan until the viking invasion at least, while the eastern part could known christian or christianized elites ruling on a pagan population.
POD: Instead of attacking Britain, Julius Caesar attacks and conquers the Alps and/or launches operations into Germanic land or into Parthia.
Effects: Conquering Britain is not seen as fulfilling Caesar's dream, losing it's propaganda value as opposed to attacking somewhere like Dacia or even Parthia, both of which were a present concern to Emperor Claudius (invaded Britain OTL). After the empire went into decline, a league of Britons keeps out Angles. When Catholicism gets through the Franks and Britain (if it gets through Britain), Ireland may reject it, and if not, it will not be our Irish Church, it will be totally different.
Effects: Conquering Britain is not seen as fulfilling Caesar's dream, losing it's propaganda value as opposed to attacking somewhere like Dacia or even Parthia, both of which were a present concern to Emperor Claudius (invaded Britain OTL). After the empire went into decline, a league of Britons keeps out Angles. When Catholicism gets through the Franks and Britain (if it gets through Britain), Ireland may reject it, and if not, it will not be our Irish Church, it will be totally different.
It's easier to assume the missionary efforts simply fail. thing is, butterfglkying away the Anglo-Saxcons will have a great deal of impact down the road on the other side of the island. Ireland staying pagan will be a relatively minor effect. It's also harder to justify since, while the Britons may take less interest in Ireland, the Irish are liable to take a great deal of interest in the Britons. They'd be their neighbourhood "Romans" and still Christian.
Further down the road, the impact would be interesting. A lot of the monastic culture of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is sourced from Ireland, including their strong missionary imperative. There's a good chance we would be missing some if not all of these missionaries if the English were converted purely from Rome (not to mention it'd take longer). Without Bonifatius, for one thing, the structure of the German church is totally altered. You'd also be missing the serious antiquarian strain that fuelled a lot of the concern for the purity of Latin in the Carolingian Empire.
Further down the road, the impact would be interesting. A lot of the monastic culture of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is sourced from Ireland, including their strong missionary imperative. There's a good chance we would be missing some if not all of these missionaries if the English were converted purely from Rome (not to mention it'd take longer). Without Bonifatius, for one thing, the structure of the German church is totally altered. You'd also be missing the serious antiquarian strain that fuelled a lot of the concern for the purity of Latin in the Carolingian Empire.
This goes more with what I had in mind. Am I correct in the fact that Christianity vanished in Britain after Rome left and it was converted back by Irish missionaries or has that been debunked? Anyway, if that's true, the net result of this and a Britain that is never Roman is the same: the British isles (possibly) enter the Middle Ages as a Pagan archipielago.
It never vanished completely, but neither the Picts nor the Anglo-Saxons were Christian. Now, I don't think Britain as a whole would remain pagan. There are still the Welsh, and of course there will be missionaries from the continent unless you want to butterfly away the re-Christinaisation campaigns of the papacy. Roman missionary bishops arrived in England in the late 6th century. But their success could well be much more limited, and the cultural melange that was Anglo-Saxon monasticism would never come into being.