Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond: Converting the Isles II ed. by Nancy Edwards, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Roy Flechner (review)

This volume is the second of two planned as an outcome of the International Research Network “Converting the Isles: The Study of Conversion to Christianity in the Insular World,” which was funded by the Leverhulme Trust from 2012 to 2014. The regions included under the category “the Isles” are Ireland, Britain, Iceland, and Scandinavia. As in the previous volume, The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World, the chapters on conversion in Insular cultures are augmented by studies drawn from other geographical regions, in this case, from Continental Europe. The seventeen chapters are divided among four sections that consider conversion in relation to literacy, narratives, ritual landscapes, and communities. Each chapter is followed by a bibliography, and there is a general index in the back. An introduction by Nancy Edwards and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and a conclusion by all three editors frame these discussions within the larger concerns of the project. In the Introduction, the editors call for inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches to the study of Christianization.

Part I, “The Coming of Writing,” contains three chapters on Ireland and one on Scandinavia. Elva Johnston’s essay is an excellent choice with which to open the volume, as she addresses numerous points that will reverberate through the rest of the collection, including the nature of crosscultural contact between Christianized and non-Christian regions, and the need to rethink assumptions about the relationship between the adoption of technologies or practices associated with Christianity and religious conversion as such. Anthony Harvey reframes the debate around the dating of the oldest ogham inscriptions, and Mark Stansbury turns to the Irish evidence for the development of early Insular scripts. Anne-Sofie Gräslund examines rune stones in two regions in Sweden, Uppland and Västergöt-land, for what they can reveal about the processes of conversion. She analyzes the inclusion of prayers; references to Christ, God, and Mary; and Christian (or possibly Christian) imagery carved on rune stones, as well as their locations.

Part II, “The Power of the Word,” is concerned with texts, including saints’ vitae, law codes, prose narratives, and verse. Jean-Michel Picard and Sébastien Bully consider the description of the establishment of Annegray and Luxeuil in the Vita Columbani in light of archaeological excavations of the two sites. Helen Foxhall Forbes looks for evidence of the conversion of the early English in early English law codes. Ingrid Rembold considers the strategies with which the author of the Saxon Heliand adapted his source material; the poem, she argues, emphasizes concerns that were more relevant to the laity than to monastic communities, such as charity and the need to avoid blood feud. Máire Ní Mhaonaigh discusses depictions of conversion in a selection of medieval Irish vernacular narratives, including an anachronistic account of St. Patrick converting the Norse of Dublin, and argues that the concerns in the texts reflect the needs of an evolving Christian community. Julianne Pigott examines the vitae of two female Irish saints, Íte and Monenna. She argues that both saints are presented in ways that are distinctive in terms of normative accounts of female saints.

Part III is titled “Landscapes of Ritual,” and the chapters in this section look at the relationship between landscapes and conversion. In a chapter that builds on her extensive body of work on burial in medieval Ireland, Elizabeth O’Brien examines the practice of monument reuse. She argues that many of the burials that are inserted into older monuments appear to be those of people who were not native to Ireland, and posits that in these cases burial in barrows or cemeteries may be used to indicate inclusion within...