Bibliography

Stephen J.
Joyce

3 publications between 2018 and 2022 indexed

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Works authored

The legacy of Gildas: constructions of authority in the early medieval West

Joyce, Stephen J., The legacy of Gildas: constructions of authority in the early medieval West, Studies in Celtic History, 43, Martlesham: Boydell Press, 2022.

Figures -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: 1. Narratives for early medieval Britain and Ireland -- 2. Images of Gildas -- 3. Gildas’s De excidio: authority and the monastic ideal -- 4. Columbanus and Gregory the Great -- 5. Gildas and the Hibernensis -- 6. Bede and Gildas -- Conclusion: The legacy of Gildas -- Appendix: De communicatione Gildas -- Bibliography -- Index.

Contributions to journals

Attitudes to excommunication in the early Insular church: returning to Gildas’s letter to Finnian

Joyce, Stephen J., “Attitudes to excommunication in the early Insular church: returning to Gildas’s letter to Finnian”, The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 9 (2020): 9–30.

abstract:

This article re-examines Gildas’s attitude to excommunication in surviving fragments of his letter to Finnian, utilized in Irish canon collections of the seventh and eighth centuries. It compares Gildas’s approach to that of Patrick in his open letter excommunicating the followers of Coroticus and, subsequently, to the two synods attributed to Patrick. While Patrick actively relies on excommunication as a disciplinary tool, Gildas offers an exegetically original critique of the abuse of excommunication. These contrary approaches are also reflected in the two ‘Patrician’ synods. Attempts to rehabilitate the opposing positions of Gildas and Patrick on excommunication in seventh- and eighth-century Ireland suggest memories of a connected intergenerational crisis between secular and ecclesiastical authority in the early insular church.

abstract:

This article re-examines Gildas’s attitude to excommunication in surviving fragments of his letter to Finnian, utilized in Irish canon collections of the seventh and eighth centuries. It compares Gildas’s approach to that of Patrick in his open letter excommunicating the followers of Coroticus and, subsequently, to the two synods attributed to Patrick. While Patrick actively relies on excommunication as a disciplinary tool, Gildas offers an exegetically original critique of the abuse of excommunication. These contrary approaches are also reflected in the two ‘Patrician’ synods. Attempts to rehabilitate the opposing positions of Gildas and Patrick on excommunication in seventh- and eighth-century Ireland suggest memories of a connected intergenerational crisis between secular and ecclesiastical authority in the early insular church.

The preface of Gildas, the Book of David, and the British church in the sixth century

Mews, Constant J., and Stephen J. Joyce, “The preface of Gildas, the Book of David, and the British church in the sixth century”, Peritia 29 (2018): 81–100.

abstract:

This paper examines the connections between the penitential works attributed to Gildas and David and those of the anonymous author of the Poenitentiale Ambrosianum and Cummian. It argues that the penitential attributed to Gildas should be regarded as a genuine work by Gildas and that the Ambrosianum be considered as ‘the book of David’, from which excerpts were made. Attempts by Cummian to combine these two authorial traditions in seventh-century Ireland point to the continuing strength of a British Church, against the image presented by Bede.

abstract:

This paper examines the connections between the penitential works attributed to Gildas and David and those of the anonymous author of the Poenitentiale Ambrosianum and Cummian. It argues that the penitential attributed to Gildas should be regarded as a genuine work by Gildas and that the Ambrosianum be considered as ‘the book of David’, from which excerpts were made. Attempts by Cummian to combine these two authorial traditions in seventh-century Ireland point to the continuing strength of a British Church, against the image presented by Bede.