Impact of Irish monks on European renaissance from "summary" of How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill
The Irish monks, those solitary figures who seemed to inhabit every craggy islet off the coast of Ireland, were the unlikely heroes of the European Renaissance. While the rest of Europe was succumbing to the chaos of barbarian invasions and the collapse of the Roman Empire, these monks were diligently copying and preserving the ancient texts that would form the foundation of Western civilization. In their isolated monasteries, the Irish monks meticulously transcribed works of philosophy, theology, and literature, ensuring that the wisdom of the ancients would not be lost to the ravages of time. They labored day and night, their dimly lit scriptoria illuminated only by the flickering light of candles, painstakingly copying each word by hand onto vellum pages. But their task was not merely one of preservation; it was also one of interpretation and dissemination. The Irish monks did not simply copy the works of the past; they also sought to understand them, to engage with them...
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