Irish Monks

Irish Monks

The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a mission led by Irish and Scottish monks which spread Christianity and established monasteries in Great Britain and continental Europe during the Middle Ages. The mission originated in 563 with the foundation of Iona by the Irish monk Saint Columba, and was initially concerned with ministering to the Gaels of Dal Riada and converting the northern Picts kingdoms. Over the next centuries the mission grew in power and influence and spread through Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire. The early mission is often associated with the Christian practice known as Celtic Christianity, which was distinguished by its organizations around monasteries rather than dioceses and certain idiosyncratic traditions, but the later mission was more continental in character.

The Latin term Scotti refers to the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland and the Irish who settled in western Scotland. In early medieval times Ireland was known, not only as Éire, but also as Scotia, a name that the Romans used at times to refer to Ireland as well as Scotland. By the end of the 11th century it generally referred to Scotland, which has become Gaelicised by settlers from Ireland, and from where the name Scotland derives. The Romans also gave Ireland the name "Hibernia". Thus, the "Scots" missionaries who were so influential in the early Church history of Germany included men from both Ireland and Scotland in the modern sense.

Schottenklöster (meaning Gaelic monasteries in German, singular: Schottenkloster) is the name applied to the monastic foundations of Scottish and Irish missionaries in Continental Europe, particularly to the Scottish Benedictine monasteries in Germany, which in the beginning of the 13th century were combined into one congregation whose abbot-general was the Abbot of the Scots monastery at Regensburg.

The period is from where the sobriquet for Ireland, as the Island of Saints and Scholars, comes.