ABSTRACT
But, as you go forward with your research and reading, so you need also to think beyond these discussions. We have in the preceding chapters not had the opportunity to look, for example, at the question of how homogenous scholarship, literature, art, and architecture were across Western Europe. Yet this is an important question to consider if we want to assess how far the various regions and kingdoms were united by common interests and common types of artistic endeavour. As regards learning, we may perhaps be impressed by the spread of Latin in scholarly contexts, so that quite early in its Christian history Ireland’s scholars were writing grammars of that language, even though it had never been spoken in their country. We may also be impressed by the way in which scholars were able to move across Europe, as Alcuin moved from York to Aachen, or scholars like Clement the Irishman or Columbanus transferred their learning effortlessly from Ireland to the Continent. But we may equally wonder what was the significance for our question of areas of Western Europe where scholarship was also pursued in vernacular languages, especially England, but also Ireland (where Old Irish texts appeared quite early), Saxony (with the Heliand ), and Scandinavia. Was the use of these languages an indication that some areas of Western Europe were much less immersed in Roman culture? Does it indicate at the least a fusion with barbarian culture? Or were the texts in the vernacular just as much products of
a homogenous fusion of Roman and Christian culture as were the Latin texts, but directed at those who were unable to learn Latin?
