British Academy/Royal Irish Academy Joint Symposium
Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings
Canonical texts and canonical authorities in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, 5th-8th centuries
Roy Flechner (Oxford)
In this paper I intend to survey the earliest forms of Insular canonical learning, to point out direct influences between canonical texts written in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, and to examine the appropriation of Anglo-Saxon canonical authorities by the Irish and vice versa. Among the texts I shall discuss are works attributed to Patrick, Cummian's Penitential, Augustine of Canterbury's Libellus Responsionum, the Canons of Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, and especially the Hibernensis which - being a systematic compilation of excerpts from Insular and 'foreign' canonical texts - offers a unique window into Insular canonical activity.
