Nova Scriptio [was: Novus; was; capitolisation]

> John L Jotted;
> Personally, I found the conhistorical/conreligious background and
> its effects on the script very interesting. I am surprised, though that
the
> Celtic church was able to win so many concessions.  The great church
> you describe would have been much larger in proportion to the Celts than
> the Roman church of c.700 was in our world, yet in our world the Roman
> church successfully (if very gradually)   made the Celts conform to Roman
> traditions.  What made the difference in your world?
Barbara Blithers;

In short: Politics.

As in our world, before the christianisation of the Empire, Rome had mostly
withdrawn from the west and left it to its own devices. After which the new
kingdoms that arose in the west were not Rome's successors but supplanters.
However, those which had pretensions to civilization, such as Charlemagne,
aped Roman ways and attitudes.

The Combined Catholic/orthodox church had mostly been concerned with the
eastward (India) and southward (Africa) expansion of Christendom, the war
with the Manachi,  thwarting the rise of Islam, the threatened schism of the
Iconoclasts, and didn't  turn its full attention to Western Europe until the
late 800s
when it needed military aid against the Muslims.

The Church had felt church felt it hadn't needed to keep a close eye on the
West because, thanks mostly to "the Scots" (as Celtic churchmen were known
regardless of their national origin)  most of Europe was nominally Christian
and nominally subject to the Patriarch of Rome (the Bishop of Rome was an
honorary title of the Popes who were based in Byzantium). The West wasn't a
threat because, after all, it was "Rudely Christian".

Charlemagne united most of the West, but his religious allegiance was to
Armagh (which sent out and was the "command centre" for his "Scots") rather
than the somewhat impotent Patriarch of Rome and his master the Pope in
Byzantium. The Patriarchs of Rome had kept their eyes turned eastwards -
more concerned with their own rank and authority within the church than the
doings of the western "barbarians". Effectively this left the Bishop of
Armagh, in practice if not in name, the Patriarch of the West.

Had the Emperor remained in Rome The Princes and Kings might have differed
to his authority, but the Empire had abandoned them, they (or their
ancestors) had created their kingdoms without Roman aid and felt they owed
the Romans (Bzyantines) no alligence, and the Old Romans left in the ruins
of that once mighty city even less.

However when the Church did turn its attention westwards they found to their
horror not only doctrinal differences that bordered on heresy but also, that
due to the Celtic influence that Princes and Kings did not only consider
themselves outside the secular Roman Empire but also not as "subjects" of
the
Papacy. The Celts had not heard of the Donation of Constantine whereby the
Popes had the authority to underwrite, as it were, any kings' right to rule,
and
that secular rulers were subject to the orders of the church (not too
surprising as
this document was only forged in the mid 700s).

Byzantium had no power to order the participation of the western rulers. No
authority, at all, either secular (as parts of the greater Roman Empire) or
spiritual (via the Donation of Constantine).

If Byzantium split its forces to bring the diverse western rulers to heal by
war they'd have insufficient troops to counter the spread of Islam by Jihad
(it would at the very least mean the sacrifice of the Holy Lands, Egypt,and
possibly western India too, after which Constantinople itself would be under
threat) - they *needed* the western rulers and their troops, so they had to
be brought into the fold peacefully. To do this they needed the royal Celtic
"advisors" to promote their cause and get the western rulers to see
themselves as subject to the Donation. The Celts knew these diverse peoples
and their cultures and how best to persuade them; the Byzantines did not.

Hence the Celtic Church's "return to the fold" was negotiated. The Celts
lost many things too, but the upshot was the "return" of the western nations
to the Universal Church, and rulers accepting that their thrones were
granted by God's Grace - and could be taken by God's Grace as interpreted by
the Popes of Byzantium.

You see the Celt's held that Church should not interfere with State, thus
the western rulers also held that view. To get the Celtic Church to reverse
its possition, the Universal Church was willing to conceede much. It was
either see changes in the church or see the chuch, and to the Byzantine mind
christianity itself, eliminated

The negotiations not only covered doctrinal differences but also the two
different traditions of Nova Scriptio; the Byzantine Tradition, and the
Tradition began by Alcuin of York under Charlemagne - these needed to be
rationalized.

Thus Byzantium got their armies. Christendom triumphed.

Another effect of this was that Ireland was never invaded by the Normans -
the main political push behind this in our world was the Pope's granting of
lands to the Normans (via the Donation - which even at the time could have
been argued that it didn't apply to Ireland as it'd never been part of the
Roman Empire) because the Pope wanted the conquerors of Ireland to be under
the thumb of the Cistercians and Agustians they brought with them, and the
influence of the Celts in high places eliminated.

The Invasion was the final death blow to the Celtic Church which had held
out in Ireland until the 12th C.

The change in divorce law meant that England Remained Catholic, Because
Henry VIII could divorce his wives legally until he married one that
produced a male heir. So there was no Elizabeth the 1st, conflict with Mary
Queen of Scots or Spain either except over new world territory.

bye bye ;-)

Barbara

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