Political rupture is often articulated as a significant factor shaping the evolution of early medieval Christian culture in the British Isles. This is particularly so in relation to the fifth and sixth centuries, a period informed by the profound restructuring engendered by the end of Roman imperial authority, internal and external migration, and the beginnings of what would become England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. This period, sometimes referred to as a ‘dark age’ due to a dearth of surviving written sources, is often associated with notions of political fragmentation and ecclesiastical disorganisation as explanations for its ‘idiosyncratic’ Christian culture when compared to the continent. The problem is compounded by the uncertain contexts and disconnects between Gildas's De excidio and the other surviving texts describing this dark age, namely Patrick's Confessio and Epistola, and, from a continental perspective, the Vita Germani episcopi Autissiodorensis or the Life of Bishop Germanus of Auxerre by the Gallo-Roman aristocrat, perhaps priest, Constantius of Lyon (ca 410–90). The lack of connection between these texts has contributed to a historiography emphasising disintegration and ongoing fragmentation in Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries.

This chapter reviews the narratives fashioned for the British Isles in the period described by Gildas and subsequently by Bede. It discusses the problems of disconnection associated with the early sources, with the result that the Irish peregrinus, Columbanus (ca 543–615), is often presented as an ‘exotic’ religious personality on the continent. It also addresses the select way Gildas is used in the Irish conciliar collection, the Hibernensis (ca 669–748), and Bede's Historia ecclesiastica (ca 731). Detailing the problems associated with the paucity of Bede's account of the history of the Insular church ca 450–600, I argue that his construction of a dark age is a literary device in a providential history, an observation that nuances his status as an authority for early medieval Britain. The subsequent influence of Bede's account on modern historiography will be examined, exploring how his providential construction of a dark age still subtly impacts historical narratives for the British Isles, and our views of Gildas himself.

Disconnected sources: Britain and Ireland in the early medieval period