Although the title of this paper (and indeed its subject matter) might appear speculative, it is important to emphasise that archaeology continually seeks to challenge conventionally-accepted ideas, to move beyond the frameworks of conventional culture-history studies. Archaeology is a multi-facetted discipline and all the more interesting for being so. At once a science and humanities subject, a degree of ‘imagination’ is admitted as long as the conclusions stand up to scrutiny. Here I do not wish to deal with the question of socio-ideological change in geographically disparate areas using (old-fashioned) culture-historical migrationist approaches. I am attempting to look for parallels and find analogues for the behaviour and culture of the early Christians who inhabited south-western Britain in the years after the Roman conquest and those in the eastern Christian world. [1] I would ask the reader to envisage how the psychology of early Christians (specifically the earliest Christian anchorites and ascetics) affected their view of their immediate landscapes. Essentially I am attempting to define the psychogeography (as revealed mainly although not exclusively through archaeology) of early monastic figures--holy men—who dwelt singly in hermitages or together in varying degrees of integration in monasteries

The main focus of this contribution is a consideration of the possibility of a strong eastern Christian influence upon the architectural and spatial organisation of early monastic communities in south-western Britain. In addition, other evidence for possible contact and/or analogues between the two regions in other areas of material culture organisation is also discussed. It is this attempt to bridge, so to speak, the earliest Christian cultures of specific areas of west and east which is the fundamental basis of this contribution which is affectionately dedicated to Abba Seraphim on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of his headship of the British Orthodox Church. On a personal note, I know that archaeology is a passion of Abba Seraphim, and he clearly recognises the value of the past in trying to make sense of the problems of the present and the future within the context of Christian inter-community relations. His appreciation of cross-cultural links Christian history is also clear, so it is hoped that this paper reflects to some extent the antiquarian interests and perhaps the geographical orientations (for want of a better term) of His Grace. [2]

I now ask the reader to open their imagination and embrace some different landscape stages of the past, inhabited by actors with similar drives and motivations: in Egypt, perhaps less has changed when we think of the bleak desert margins of the River Nile and cosmopolitan Alexandria. In south-western Britain we might envisage the familiar coasts and moors of what is now Cornwall, although a landscape more wooded than today; and in northern Somerset a landscape of watery fenland, punctuated by hilly islands, one of which, of course, was Glastonbury.

Figure 1 . Map of the south-western peninsular ‘the Kingdom of Dumnonia’ indicating the key sites discussed in the text.

The Life of St John the Almoner (the seventh-century Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria),[3] relates an episode in which a trader [4] is rescued from penury by a generous donation from the Patriarch of a ship filled with a cargo of corn. By some miraculous agency this ship is guided northwards to an island which is in the grip of famine. The Alexandrian trader gives his cargo to the starving people and in return receives an equivalent weight in tin, which, by his return has mysteriously transmuted into silver. [5] The identification of an island to the north of the Mediterranean where tin may be sourced is not difficult. For many centuries the qualities of British tin were well known to the metalworkers of the Mediterranean, [6] and the main source of British tin was to be found in the granitic areas of the ‘spine’ of the Cornish peninsular, as well as areas of west Devon.[7] Although this might sound like a fanciful legend written by an incredulous hagiographer, there is, as we shall see, tangible contemporary archaeological evidence which bears witness to contact between western Britain and the eastern Mediterranean during the post-Roman period: the mis-nomered ‘Dark Ages’.

In this paper I wish take these ideas further, and pose the crucial question that if chattels were routinely exchanged between these regions, did ‘ideas’ (in the shape of a culturally-distinctive brand of Christianity as well as a ‘monastic psychology’) follow? How, psychologically, did the early Christian ‘holy men’ of this region understand their newly-Christianised landscapes (as their counterparts, the Desert Fathers, were doing in Egypt?) More specifically I intend to focus on the development of monastic attitudes and architectural space in the nascent Christian communities in early medieval Cornwall and its neighbouring areas. More specifically, given the relatively opaque nature of the archaeological and historical identification of early Cornish monastic units (popularly imagined as the building blocks of a peculiarly ‘Celtic’ form of Christianity in the post-Roman period of western and northern Britain; more of this later), can we seek --and this is admittedly an archaeologically unfashionable diffusionist or migrationist approach--external analogues which might help us frame a model for the early ecclesiastical landscape of Cornwall and neighbouring areas of south-western Britain?

It is generally accepted, as is discussed below, that Christianity in what was the westernmost portion of the British Kingdom of Dumnonia [8] derived in the main from Wales, introduced via the agency of the ‘Celtic’ Saint, that holy man (or woman) par excellence. Other authorities--who perhaps now may be derided as being neither archaeologically nor historically fashionable--have actually suggested that there was a strong Mediterranean cultural substratum in early ‘Cornish’ Christianity. This trait is identified on the basis of a perceived monastic connection, where a very definite and stereotyped view of the ‘Celtic’ monastery prevailed. [9] Take this passage, for instance, written by the excavator of Tintagel in the 1930s, Professor C. A. R. (Ralegh) Radford: ‘the monasteria of the Atlantic seaboard appear to have had more in common with the people and practices of the Coptic Church than with those of Rome’; [10] later in the same text--and this was, as we shall see, a significant remark but one which he did not further develop—he wrote: ‘the new Christianity was intrusive and distinctive—semi-eremitical communities not dissimilar to those found in the Middle East’.[11]

Professor Charles Thomas--the doyen of post-Roman Cornish archaeology--also stressed the Mediterranean (specifically Egyptian) connection in a 1959 paper, [12] although he has since revised his views. Whilst initially Thomas was happy to agree with Radford, he has come to rather downplay the Mediterranean influence, although as we shall see his recent excavations at Tintagel Churchyard have clearly placed the issue firmly back on the agenda. The present paper is, in a sense, an attempt to rehabilitate some of these ideas, albeit with certain cautious qualifications. As I have stressed, a simplistic migrationist-diffusionist scenario must be rejected; we cannot speak of Christianity ‘spreading’ in a concerted missionary effort by Mediterranean traders. The situation is surely more nuanced, and demands consideration of the contemporary political milieu in south-western England, the nature of the landscape as well as the wider global context for early Christian monasticism. Indeed methodologically this is, in fact, an approach which plays upon archaeology’s strength as a multi-facetted discipline. As I will outline below, some elements of these older models for the development of a monastic landscape in south-western Britain could be usefully resurrected, but can only work if we take a more holistic—and perhaps imaginative—approach to the cultural-historical material. Central to this notion is the phenomenological approach, [13] specifically trying to access past ‘experience’ of space and place, and how meaning became attached to places. This might sound of course like trendy jargon, but I believe that we as archaeologists need to move beyond the idea that archaeology should be defined in terms of excavation or survey alone, used to prove or disprove historical texts (where they exist). We should aim, ideally, to let the material culture text speak for itself and to do this we must embrace a diverse range of theoretical approaches.

The paper is structured as follows: (1) by way of providing a context to the study, a brief historical consideration of the history of early Christianity in Cornwall and south-western Britain is outlined, specifically in relation to Wales and Ireland, the two adjoining regions of western Britain from which Christianity in Cornwall was held to be derived. (2) Emphasising however that this region was not a cultural backwater but was a dynamic player within the wider Christian world, the archaeological evidence for a broader material culture contact between south-western Britain and the eastern Mediterranean is discussed. (3) We then consider the archaeological evidence for Christian material culture in these regions with special reference to monasticism, and focusing especially upon those elements of material culture which may betoken some analogue with contemporary Egyptian (or eastern Mediterranean) practice and where similar psychological perceptions of space are apparent: the phenomenology of monastic or quasi-monastic and Christian landscapes.

We may begin by setting a broad and very generalised historical context. Although there exists the very faint possibility of some form of Christianity reaching the westernmost parts of south-western Britain during the Roman Period, [14] conventional scholarship posits that the conversion of this region was undertaken predominantly by missionaries from neighbouring Christian regions, primarily through the agency of that dynamic figure described the early hagiographies (Vitae) the Irish, or Welsh holy man, [15] although many scholars also suggest at least some influence from Gaul and perhaps, as we aim to discover here the Mediterranean world either directly or indirectly. [16] The traditional legend of a mass influx of Celtic saints into Cornwall during the sixth century cannot realistically be supported by the historical evidence to hand. Many of the Cornish church dedications containing the names of Celtic saints do not all date from this period; some in fact are later medieval dedications. [17]

The proximity of the early medieval south-western Kingdom of Dumnonia to the main centres of western British Christianity (Ireland; Wales (Demetia)), however, does suggest that a number of individual saints did enter Cornwall, and indeed other regions of Dumnonia such as Devon and Somerset. [18] A west-British monastic influence in the eastern, Anglo-Saxon regions of the island at this time is also apparent; the foundation at Malmesbury (Wilts.) is particularly associated, for instance, with the dynamic Irish teacher-monk Maeldub, and Bede tells us of a monk named Dicuill who settled at Bosham in Sussex, but who seemingly made little impact as an evangeliser. [19] Small wonder, then, that these wandering Irish monks should be known as Peregrini, a movement that had such a profound impact upon Europe as a whole from the sixth century onwards, especially in the person of that vigorous character Columbanus. [20]

The most relevant historical source here is the hagiography (Vita) of St Samson. This text originated from a monastery in Brittany (St Dol) at some point in the seventh century and is particularly valuable because the unnamed author has clearly had, so it seems, first or second-hand access to his subject. [21] Amid the usual tales of miraculous deeds, Samson’s travels (who had come to the peninsula from Demetia (southern Wales) during the sixth century) are given a very strong landscape context. [22] The Vita of St Paul Aurelian was written in Brittany in the ninth century and tells us something of the status of monastic life in the region at this time. [23] Later, dating from the eleventh century, the Vita of St Petroc, tells the story of a monk travelling from Wales to found religious houses in northern Cornwall. These texts should, of course, be read critically, but they do contain a great deal of social information rooted in long local tradition. [24]

Away from the historical text, we might reasonably consider the landscape as text, but specifically the nexus between the written word and the place: the toponym. [25] The work of the archaeologist Sam Turner [26] is of immediate archaeological relevance to the problem of the visibility of Christianity in the Cornish landscape of the post-Roman period. Turner critiques the viability of the traditional model for the formation of ecclesiastical sites championed by Charles Thomas. Thomas saw Christianity impacting upon traditional burial practice through the formation of ‘Lann’ enclosures, with later additions of crosses, chapels and parochial churches. Turner, citing the work of David Petts, suggests that the conception of the traditional Lann model might not be valid for the period prior to c. AD 800. [27] These circular enclosed graveyards are, however, a strong cultural motif of western British Christian funerary tradition and are especially visible in Cornwall. It is possible that the use of circular forms, which structurally mimic the place of day-to-day life, the enclosed ‘round’ is a deliberate contrast to the Roman liking for linearity, and of course may also have strong symbolic connotations. Either way, these are very visible landscape features. [28]

What we also have, in broader landscape terms, is a continuation of essentially Iron Age culture, the reuse of hill forts, evidence for international trade with the eastern Mediterranean (see below), and the presence of inscribed stones, often using the Irish Ogham formulae and bearing memorial dedications in the Roman style (Hic Iacet). The so-called Arthur stone at Worthyvale, Slaughterbridge, is one such example, and they have been hypothesised as being used as boundary markers. [29] Much later, after the seventh century, a new type of settlement becomes more visible in the landscape, reflecting the abandonment of the post-Roman settlements. Crosses appear in the landscape by about the 9^th century. At once, then, the landscape of early medieval Cornwall is both conservative and dynamically fluid. A new belief system impacts upon the place, visible today in the exotic range of saints’ dedications to be found at settlements across the landscape. Eastwards, into Devon and Somerset, a broadly similar although less visible process is also apparent. Here the subsequent settlement of the Anglo-Saxons impinged upon this British, ‘Celtic’ imprint. Having now broadly considered the sources available for reconstructing the framework of the early Christian landscape of south-western Britain, we now turn to a consideration of how this region integrated with the rest of the Christian world.

There are many archaeological examples of cultural contacts—either direct or indirect—between early medieval Britain and the eastern Mediterranean; [30] in high-status contexts and carrying very overt liturgical implications such as the silver Greek spoons found in the Anglo-Saxon royal funerary context at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, [31] or more prosaically eastern Mediterranean pottery (considered in more detail in connection to the Cornish context, below) to the use by King Offa of Mercia of Islamic and even Aksumite (Ethiopian) devices on his coinage. [32] Benedict Biscop, the Abbot of the monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria during the late-seventh century, may in his decorative plans for his magnificent church, have tapped into a nascent tradition of icon writing derived from the eastern Mediterranean world. [33]

Of immediate relevance to this discussion, of course, is the situation in early medieval Dumnonia and its international outlook. Imported eastern Mediterranean pottery has been found at a number of coastal (and inland) sites in the region. [34] The greatest concentration is to be found in the early medieval (period II) contexts at Tintagel, and this accounts for by far the highest proportion of this material found on contemporary sites in the region. Along the southern coasts, significant finds have been recognised at the beach sites of Bantham and Mothecombe (South Hams, Devon) and High Peak hillfort (Sidmouth, Devon); inland these imports have also been found at Cadbury-Congresbury (north Somerset), South Cadbury (south Somerset, arguably one of the pre-eminent military and political centres of the period). In Cornwall, some finds of Mediterranean imported pottery has been noted from a variety of sites of this period, including inland ‘Round’-type sites, which were re-fortified or re-occupied Iron Age hillforts. [35]

Charles Thomas has attempted to explain the significance of the distribution of this pottery in relation to Tintagel. [36] The first point to emphasise is that the trade was reciprocal; tin probably remained the key export in this equation (at least in this area), and this could only have been obtained from alluvial sources on Bodmin Moor. In some rare cases, these tin ingots have survived. A significant quantity was found in the estuary of the River Erme in South Devon,[37] and we have archaeological evidence for ingots from a number of coastal sites in Cornwall. [38] Tintagel itself was usefully sited to exploit tin sources in its hinterland on Bodmin Moor; the discovery of two Roman milestones in the area suggests the presence of some form of earlier transportation network in the landscape linked to the tin trading economy. [39]

Figure 2. Early medieval houses on the northern cliffs of Tintagel, Cornwall. These structures—formerly thought to be monastic cells—are associated with imported Mediterranean pottery.

Secondly, the very presence of such quantities of pottery at the island is suggestive of a major economic and thus political centre, a site of governance for the polity (although it is becoming increasingly clear that the site was not occupied all year round). One might reasonably envisage that the king or chief at Tintagel came into regular contact with traders who may have been Christians from the eastern Mediterranean. The cultural implications of an acceptance of Christianity at the top echelons of society are clear: Christian material culture should have a relatively high archaeological visibility, although Thomas stresses that he makes no connection between trade here and the Christianising process. Thirdly, Thomas also suggests that the presence of Mediterranean pottery across the northern coast of the south-western peninsular as far north as Cadbury-Congresbury, Glastonbury Tor, and Dinas Powis in south Wales is actually derived from the agency of a single sea voyage ‘Voyage 1’ rather than a sustained pattern of trade over a period of time. [40] However we interpret the distribution of this material--which represents the most obvious and compelling evidence for cultural contact between western Britain and the Mediterranean—we have to examine the question of whether these meetings played a part in the formation of a Christian cultural identity in these areas. It is to this question we now turn.

Having considered the evidence for economic contact between Dumnonia with parts of the eastern Mediterranean--a process very much driven by the tin trade and the local desire for luxury items in the shape of comestibles such as wine and olive oil--is it possible to see in the Christian material culture of this period any evidence for eastern Christian influence? Let us begin with an analysis of what we know of contemporary architectural space of monastic sites in the study region. Superficially, the use of a monastic enclosure obviously reflects the general western British practice of the Lann or vallum to delineate monastic space. In an early Irish monastery, for example, apart from the church or oratory, one usually finds a cross-slab/tomb complex of the founder, a leacht or open-air altar. [41] The whole is often surrounded by a vallum or ditch (these earthworks are also known as raths, and stone enclosures are termed caiseals). Within the enclosure, other areas were also delineated, each with varied degrees of ‘sacredness’. [42] The earliest church structure would have been made from oak wood (dairtheach), and would thus have a limited archaeological visibility. Only later on were more permanent stone structures built.

In contrast--and from an archaeological perspective--very little is known about the organisation of the early Cornish monasteries [43] which probably date at the earliest from the sixth century. We might take the Church of St Kew (near Wadebridge, north Cornwall), as an example as it has conventionally been identified as the monastery of Docco visited [44] by St Samson in the 6^th century. [45] It is significant that the episode, as related in his Vita, would seem to suggest that this community had been established for some time, as the monks refused to let Samson enter as they had departed from their former ways in terms of discipline. The modern village sits in a sheltered valley and is grouped around the church of St James the Great which is of fifteenth-century date. Typically, the church is surrounded by a raised cemetery of roughly rectilinear configuration, a classic ancient Cornish graveyard shape. This is the Lann in the compound Landocco, and this Lann would, according to traditional models, have preceded the actual church. [46] Further possible evidence for monastic activity (if we accept the traditional Lann model) is provided by the presence here of a fragment of Ogham stone.

Figure 3 The Church of St James the Great, St Kew, Cornwall. This is probably the site of the monastery of Docco mentioned in the Uita of Samson. Note the difference in height between the cemetery and the road (the boundary is behind the telephone box). This marks the delimitation (presumably) of the early Christian monastic enclosure.

Figure 3 The stone in St James’ Church, St Kew. The bilingual inscription (Ogham at the side; insular Latin in cartouche) is to Justus, possibly a member of the monastic community.

It is obvious to the visitor to St Kew that the cemetery occupies a great deal of space; it is in a central part of the valley, with the small stream flowing to the south. Any monastic community here would, perforce, be relatively dispersed in the landscape. One might envisage here a pattern of scattered individual hermitages in the landscape which would have taken the form of basic huts, built presumably of wattle and wood and thus having a low archaeological visibility (there are no natural caves nearby). A central church and of course a place to meet for communal meals would be the only large scale structures (which presumably still exist beneath the foundations of the modern building). As Lynette Olson points out, however, the community spirit was still strong as the monks did refer to themselves as ‘brothers’. In her words, it is clear that the author of the Vita is ‘portraying a cenobitic community’. [47] I would have to disagree with the semantics as this is patently not a community structured along strictly communal lines. In his important study of the formation of the early Christian landscape in Cornwall, Sam Turner [48] refers to the probability that early ecclesiastical centres in the landscape were dispersed in such a manner; the community came together to worship in a centralised church structure. Turner references John Binn’s paper [49] on the use of space in Byzantine monasteries in Judaea at this time, but arguably a closer analogue is to be found in Egypt as this model of monastic space offers a useful parallel with what we know of contemporary behaviour at the Egyptian sites of Nitria and Kellia inter alia.

The twin sites of Nitria and Kellia [50] represent a unique chapter in the story of Egyptian monastic architectural space. At Kellia, recent archaeological excavation has yielded a detailed picture of the day to day life of the monks who inhabited what might be termed a half-way house between solitary and communal monasticism. From the air we can get the best feel for the extent and complexity of this vast site; hillocks (Arabic: koms) mark the position of the hermitages—which were occupied from the fourth to the eighth centuries. Each hermitage is in essence a ‘live-work’ space for a head monk and perhaps two or three novices. During the week, time would be spent in prayer, meditation and work within the hermitages, and at the weekend the communities would come together to worship and for the agape in dedicated, centralised structures. This form of monasticism then emphasised less of an individual approach and a need to distance oneself in the landscape, but at the same time did not demand the same degree of social control as would be exercised in the later Pachomian-style cenobitic establishments. In fact this form of monasticism, whilst largely replaced by communal living, has survived, particularly in Russia as well as the monastery of Mar Saba in the QidronValley, Judaea. In standard terminology these monastic establishments are known as Laurae (Lavrae), after the Greek for ‘path’ or ‘alley’ (the noun Skete is also interchangeably used).

Obviously it appears that the St Kew/Landocco monastic unit was not as formalised as Nitria, but was, nevertheless, a Laura in the loosest sense. The other major monastery Cornish which is mentioned in the Vita is that actually founded by Samson himself on the southern portion of the peninsular, and again it probably took the structure, in its early phases of a Laura. As usual, the Vita gives very detailed topographic information, something which David Harvey argues is essential for situating the message of Christianity in a familiar locality. [51] From the Vita, which mentions the saint living in a cave by a river and slaying a dragon there, [52] and studying the topographic situations of the three surviving dedications to Samson, Olson felt able to pinpoint the location of this monastery with some certainty as the site of Golant on the Fowey estuary,[53] although Charles Thomas believes the site to be located in Fowey itself [54] The wider landscape significance of this monastery (which in the absence of any archaeological evidence may mirror that structurally of Docco) becomes apparent when its socio-political context is understood. Nearby, for instance, we find the re-fortified and re-occupied Iron Age hill fort (‘round’) of Castle Dore which in its post-Roman phases was shown to contain two large structures which have been interpreted as secular palaces. [55] The proximity of monastery and secular centre may be significant, as indeed is the nearby memorial stone upon which is inscribed ‘Drustanus hic iacit: Cunemori filus’. [56] As a footnote, another rather obscure link between Cornish and Egyptian monasticism is provided in the Vita of St Samson; Samson is said also to have appointed his father in charge of this monastery; [57] his father’s name is given as Amon, and the significance of this name in a Coptic monastic context is clear. Amon (itself an ancient Egyptian name) was one of the most famous of the earliest Egyptian hermits. Samson’s father (it must be assumed) was also of Demetian-Welsh origin, and if he became a monk in later life may have taken this significant Egyptian name. [58]

Another important figure in the history of early monasticism in Cornwall is that of St Petroc. In his Vita mention is made of a pilgrimage which the saint undertakes to Jerusalem and Rome, as well as a visit to an ‘island of hermits in the EasternOcean’. [59] Even if this account is to be regarded s fantastic, it is inconceivable that ideas of monastic organisation derived from the eastern Christian tradition were not absorbed by Petroc, even if the story is a wonderful allegory. Indeed as Olson points out, [60] Petroc’s attempts to continually retreat to ever more solitary loci mirror St Antony’s peregrinations across the landscape of the eastern Egyptian desert to a final, lonely spot high on MountClysma. Petroc is associated with three initially eremitic, or possibly semi-eremitic monastic establishments: Padstow (Lan Wethinoc), Little Petherick and finally Bodmin. The latter site (Dinuurin) certainly usurped Padstow as the actual cultic centre of St Petroc, and latterly developed into a very powerful cenobitic monastic community in its own right.[61] The only evidence we have of the presumed Laura at Padstow itself is the presence of a graveyard which was excavated recently on the site of the new library in the town. The layout and composition of the cemetery is strongly suggestive of the burial place of a monastic community. [62]

As we have already noted, attitudes to ‘Celtic’ monasticism have traditionally been rather coloured, but in truth there is little evidence to suggest that these monasteries—at least in south-western Britain--did favour ‘dramatic’ locations; many of the earliest monasteries identified in Cornwall are in situated in areas at the heart of contemporary settlement and are not socially isolated. [63] There are a few possible island monasteries around the coast which might be identified; the oratory of St Helen on St Helen’s, Scilly Isles, is a case in point. The earliest phases of stone construction here probably date from the 8^th century, although we should not preclude the possibility of the presence of an earlier wooden structure which has not survived. The oratory in the earliest phase is associated with six graves and a cell surrounded by a wall. This is suggestive of a small semi-eremitic community, which was subsequently developed and by the 12^th century became an important cultic centre. [64] At St Helens, as Turner points out, [65] there are multiple churches with different dedications; this reflects in fact the sort of arrangement visible in later cenobitic Egyptian monasteries, and it is probable that some of these may have been funerary chapels—an analogue may be found, for instance, at the Egyptian site of Bawit in the Kharga Oasis. Imported Mediterranean pottery has been recognised in post-Roman contexts at LooeIsland (Lammana) where there was a medieval chapel dedicated to St Michael, as well as an associated settlement on the mainland. Recent archaeological work here has failed to clarify the nature of possible early medieval use, although it is possible that the site was an early ecclesiastical centre. [66] Likewise, imported Mediterranean pottery has also been found at St Michael’s Mount, Penzance, although it is probable that the site only really became truly ‘monastic’ in character in later periods. [67] Until fairly recently a small chapel stood on chapel rock, just off the beach at Perranporth and a location obviously connected with the now-buried medieval chapel of St Piran and the site of Perranzabuloe which may have been the centre of a semi-eremitic, dispersed community. [68]

Hill tops were of course other topographical features favoured by hermits. Apart from the dramatic (and later medieval structure) in the rock at Roche, there is little evidence in Cornwall for this sort of behaviour, but evidence from elsewhere in Dumnonia is suggestive of the sort of eremitical practice developed in Ireland and referenced very much to contemporary Egyptian practice (which of course embraced the notion of the ‘inner mountain’). In northern Somerset, for example, one finds many historical links to British as opposed to Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and this is often forgotten when the extent of ‘Celtic’ Christianity is discussed. [69] The key site for our analysis is that of Glastonbury (cf. Paul Ashdown this vol.), where the historical and archaeological evidence suggested that a British monastery predated the later Anglo-Saxon foundation, although this is still the subject of debate. During the early medieval period, the hills of Glastonbury would have been surrounded by marsh and swamp, and they made obvious locations for settlement: secular and religious, if of course we can separate the two.

Archaeological investigations on the Tor itself have uncovered what the excavator (Philip Rahtz) has argued to be an early medieval, British hermitage, although it may also be interpreted as a secular structure of possible seventh-century date; [70] there is evidence here for some degree of industrial activity, burials and remains of cattle which appear not to be indicative of what is popularly imagined to be an extreme ascetic diet. It is significant that eastern Mediterranean pottery was also found within these contexts, so the site evidently had some elite status, or at least had contact with a site of such standing, such as South Cadbury. [71] Below the Tor, a later (British) monastery was founded which in turn was supplanted by an Anglo-Saxon establishment founded by the Saxon King Ine of Wessex in the seventh century. The Irish connection, however, was also strong: St Patrick was said to have visited the monastery (his relics were reported in the Church of St Mary) [72] and the veneration of St Bridgid was associated with the little chapel at Beckery [73] below Wearyall Hill. The explicit linkage with a famed anchorite and missionary is probably, however, a later creation, designed to bolster the credentials of the monastery as a special and holy centre.

Figure 4. Glastonbury Tor.

Figure 5. Excavations on the summit of Glastonbury Tor (after P. Rahtz 1971 ‘Excavations on Glastonbury Tor, Somerset, 1964-6’ Archaeological Journal 127: 181’

Further evidence that hermits in early Christian Somerset were attracted by high places, often in areas which had some form of pre-Christian, Roman sacred significance, is also suggested by the find of a possible anchorite’s cell on Brean Down, north Somerset adjacent to and on a different alignment from a Roman pre-Christian temple; [74] in the early medieval period this too would have formed a very significant landscape feature, cut off from the surrounding marshland and fen: this was effectively an island. One must also not forget that the historian Gildas himself was said to have retreated to a hermitage on the island of Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel, the remains of which we must presume to be beneath the later priory. [75] On Lamyatt Beacon—as on Brean Down—we find a small east-west orientated building constructed from spolia from a nearby Roman temple. [76] Again this could be interpreted as a Christian installation, perhaps the home of a hermit seeking an ‘inner mountain’ in the manner of St Antony. In contrast to the cave of St Antony--where the view was over desert--here the outlook from Brean, Lamyatt, Glastonbury (and perhaps we might also add the possible eremitic structure atop Pagans Hill [77] and hypothetically Priest’s Hill, Pedwell, near Glastonbury) was over watery fenland.

The origin of the Anglo-Saxon minster [78] at Muchelney (which is a royal foundation associated with King Ine of Wessex) is also suggested, according to Mick Aston, to have its roots in an early British eremitic landscape focused upon a small set of islands (or archipelago) rising from the fen. [79] In a recent study, Mark Calder has shown the strong Lann similarities of a number of Somerset churchyards (some with Celtic dedications which he believes pre-date the Norman Conquest) including Kewstoke (see note 46 above), Street (which he identifies as Lantokai, although Paul Ashdown (pers. comm. 18 November 2007) suggests should be identified with Walton) and St Decuman at Watchet, where he draws our attention to the intriguing although archaeologically problematic find of a Byzantine coin in the area. [80] In general terms then we may have a monastic landscape which mirrors the organisation of the western (shall we say Cornish) version: semi-centralised Laurae with satellite hermitages on hills (or islands) which could have been used as individual hermitages or as retreats at certain periods of the holy year (such as Lent). It does appear that subsequently the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical landscape of this region, with its focus on the minster and less of an ascetic emphasis, perhaps, was re-ordered, with the focus of the church being predominantly on lowland sites. [81]

Figure 5 Comparison of three hill top structures associated with Romano-British Temples on hills in northern Somerset/ Glos. (after S. Pearce 2004; fig. 41).

In this Somerset landscape, hills had a strong symbolic as well as practical significance. The psychology of eremitic space is important, demanding distancing yet some degree of interaction with society. [82] A hill or island takes the place of the Desert, and on the higher places the protection of St Michael is invoked, often in a church dedication. [83] It also appears that the anchorites of northern Somerset at least would not have been averse to reusing or readapting an earlier secular (Glastonbury?) or sacred (Brean Down?) structure. Again, reading the literature of the Desert Fathers we find striking parallels, and this is supported by archaeology where traces of Egyptian Christian eremitic activity can be found in locations such pharaonic tombs as well as natural caves. [84]

Whilst the admittedly limited archaeological evidence suggests some parallels between western British and Egyptian approaches to early Christian monastic organisation within the landscape, there is another significant discovery which may further support the claim for at least some awareness of eastern Mediterranean Christian practice in Cornwall. The excavation of early Christian graves in the Churchyard of St Materiana, the parish church of Tintagel in 1990, has yielded such evidence. [85] In the first place, the sixth-century graves were associated with an (imported Mediterranean) amphora, identical to those found on Tintagel island itself. [86] The presence of this vessel, used as a container for drink might suggest, as the excavator thinks, some sort of ritual libation. A broken vessel was associated with a patch of burnt clay, which is interpreted as being the remains of a grave-side fire. [87] This appears to be indicative of grave-side feasting, a ritual associated with Christian communities in north Africa, and this hypothesis might be further strengthened by the find of a small dressed stone, again in association with the grave, that appears to have a small hollow carved into it which may have been used to receive libations. The material culture of funerary commemoration in early Coptic contexts often displays a strong syncretic melange of traits; [88] and it is possible that the notion of post-mortem offerings was recast into a Christian context. Within the case of the Tintagel burials, there are no clear local cultural antecedents to explain this commemorative behaviour. [89]

In addition to the burial evidence, we should also draw attention to another category of early Christian material culture in this region which may also betoken some degree of cross-cultural contact with the Christian world of the Mediterranean. Inscribed stones constitute some of the earliest archaeological evidence for Christian settlement in Cornwall, and those with Chi-Rho inscriptions probably date from the 5^th-6^th centuries. [90] Elizabeth Okasha suggests that the practice of erecting these inscribed stones has its roots in Romano-British, Gaulish, Irish and Welsh traditions; [91] the use of Latin formulae and the Irish Ogham ‘alphabet’ bears witness to something of a cross-cultural tradition, yet it is also possible that earlier prehistoric megaliths were in some way Christianised; in fact later on, in the ninth century, some of these stones are topped with distinctive circular cross heads, so in terms of material culture they do not embody fixed meanings; their biographies are continually evolving. [92]

In many cases these stones have been moved, and what they actually physically marked is unclear. The Hic Iacet inscriptive formula would suggest a grave; personal names carved upon them implies a commemorative function, and they may have been used as boundary markers or markers along routes. In some cases they may have marked monastic settlements. The crosses in the churchyard at Lewannick, to the south of Launceston suggest the presence of an early monastic settlement. Special interest attaches to the inscription on Lewannick stone 1 upon which the formula Ingenui Memoria (in memory of Ingenauus) is carved. [93] This contrasts with the inscription on the northern cross at Lewannick which uses the more usual Hic Iacet. The use of the term memoria has only been noted at two other locations in Britain and in contemporary contexts is heavily used in Christian commemoration in north Africa. [94] Added interest also attaches to a stone—now set into the gable of the church at Phillack—which bears the Chi-Rho device apparently in the design of the ‘early’ (fifth century) ‘Constantine’ form. [95] Obviously a very portable artefact, this piece could represent the earliest evidence for Christian material culture in Cornwall and certainly betokens strong contact with the Continent.

Figure 6. Left: Chi-Rho stone, St Just (after W. Haslam (1847) ‘An account of some monumental and wayside crosses still remaining in the west of Cornwall’ Archaeological Journal 4: 302-13; p. 304). Right: in the gable wall, Phillack.

From the evidence outlined above, it is clear that the formation of a Christian identity on the western fringes of the British Isles, in the areas that remained ‘British’ was a fluid and dynamic phenomenon. This was not a raw primitive Christianity as outlined in traditional scholarship, with the emphasis on the monastic life and a Christian culture somehow different from the ‘Roman’ ‘Orthodox’ brand against which it succumbed over the question of the reckoning of Easter and the tonsure at the Synod of Whitby in 664. The ‘Celtic’ Church is in any case clearly a misleading term. [96] What is clear that the geography of the western British Christian communities played a key role in the formation of their identity; the nexus of this movement was the Ocean, and the Ocean, as we have seen, allowed for contacts with the Christian Mediterranean world. The landscape in which these early Christian monks lived, spurred on by tales of the deeds of the Egyptian hermits, also modified the form of monasticism which they practised. In the fens of northern Somerset, high places, which must have had some early pre-Christian significance, became hermitages for single monks. In contrast, to the west in Cornwall where the landscape rather militated against total seclusion, semi-eremitic communities probably grew up much along the lines of the Egyptian model.

As in Egypt (and I am thinking particularly of the shrine of St Menas, but also among certain of the Wadi Natrun monasteries) the veneration of founders’ relics is an important component of monastic life. This too we find at the monasteries dedicated to St Petroc (and where we find effectively a competition among the establishments to be regarded as the home of the relics), and also at Glastonbury with the intriguing link to St Patrick. There are other parallels: the relative high status of the holy man in late antique Egyptian and post-Roman western British society; the never-ending search for the ‘inner mountain’ (which in Cornwall probably resolved itself on islands), whilst in the marshes of Somerset high places—age-old, significant and symbolic localities in the landscape—were seized. The appropriation of earlier, pre-Christian ‘sacred’ physical, architectural remains is also important from a practical and psychological perspective.

It is of course important to emphasise that there need not have been a direct contact with the eastern Mediterranean world (although as we have seen there is archaeological evidence for such contact, albeit in limited contexts); if we accept that Irish and Welsh monks were in the forefront of the Christianisation of the south-western peninsular, then we might briefly consider the possibility (unfashionable as it may be) of contacts between the early Irish and the Egyptian or Syrian churches. Some of these traits might have been passed on into Cornwall and Armorica. One of the key questions is how much Irish monasticism was directly influenced by the emerging developments in Egypt. [97] The obvious conduit into the eastern Mediterranean spiritual world was provided by the southern Gaulish monasteries of late antiquity, [98] and the maritime trade links between Britain and the eastern Mediterranean as well as returning pilgrims form that direction.

Art historians have long sought linkages between Coptic/eastern Christian art and Irish iconographic schemes. [99] A few of the main examples may be highlighted here: the eighth-century Echternach Gospels from Luxembourg, for instance, illuminated by an Irish scribe, purport to show St Luke in the style of an ancient Egyptian Osiris figure, arms crossed over the chest; [100] the French scholar of Irish art, Françoise Henry also points also to Syriac influences absorbed by an Irish scribe named Thomas working at Trier in Germany in the 8^th century, [101] and subject matter on a number of Irish High Crosses show an awareness of Egyptian monastic figures. [102] We also, of course, have the often cited passage from the seventh-century Antiphonary of Bangor which tells us:

‘Domus deliciis plena, super petram constructa, necnon vinea vera, ex Aegypto transducta’

(House full of delights, built upon a rock, and indeed true vine, transplanted from Egypt) [103]

Abba Seraphim has also drawn our attention to the description in the Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee of seven monks of Egypt at ‘Disert Uilag’, a place which he identifies as Dundisert, Crumlin, Co. Antrim. [104] The Irish use of the word Disert to denote a hermitage is of course significant. Perhaps ‘Egyptian’ monks are to be identified as hermits, monks in the Egyptian fashion. It is not the place here to delve deeper into the putative linkages between early Irish Christian material culture and that of the eastern Mediterranean, western Asian and African worlds. We just need to accept that there is a strong body of evidence which does suggest some form of contact, both in terms of iconography, mercantile activity, and, as I hope I have proved, in ideas.

In conclusion, we must be aware that the early Christians of the outer north-western peripheries of the early medieval Christian world were not isolated, they forged their own responses to a new ideological system with definite reference to developments elsewhere. It is now a question for archaeologists to tackle using regional survey strategies which can build up the wider landscape context of these sites. A multi-disciplinary approach is also needed to make the most of what is frustratingly sparse evidence. The present paper has only served to attempt to give some impetus to the problem, to raise key issues and suggest possible analogues as well as different approaches. In trying to define a phenomenology of early monastic landscapes and architectural space in these landscapes in early medieval south-western England, we are also simultaneously tapping into the psychology of the Egyptian Desert Fathers.

These analogues may be dated or unfashionable, but they require our attention; after all, the early Christian holy man, be he a native of Alexandria, Antioch, Ireland or Wales, still arguably perceived and created his monastic space in broadly similar ways; central to this was the awkward tension between social engagement, strict self-training (ascesis) and spiritual retreat: (anachoresis). One might argue that the subject matter for this paper may really reflect some age-old in-grained need to find some sort of exoticness in the early Christian culture of Britain, grasping at what might be slender material evidence linking us physically to the ancient eastern Christian communities of the Mediterranean with their strong, romantic and heroic ascetic element. There is admittedly a deep attraction to this idea, but I hope that I have shown—as a cultural anthropologist might recognise--there are better relational rather than direct analogies which can stimulate our ideas.

I owe a great debt to my friend and collaborator Nick Hanks (English Heritage Bristol), who has helped fill many gaps with information on specific Somerset and Cornish sites, and who as my colleague in the field in Cornwall has been a valued sounding board. The assistance of Joe Parsons during fieldwork in Cornwall is also gratefully acknowledged. I am also grateful to Paul Ashdown for suggesting other avenues of enquiry, and also for his incisive and detailed comments on an initial draft of this paper. Any errors of omissions, however, remain my responsibility alone.