‘Through all the provinces of the islands of Ocean’: Iona and coastal monasticism in early medieval Britain

Abstract

This paper takes the maritime nature of the early medieval monastery of Iona as its point of departure, considering the way in which the sea was present physically and symbolically in the lives of the community on the island. Drawing on developments within human geography around the way in which islands and islandhood can be conceived, it takes the understanding of the oceanic nature of ecclesiastical life in Iona and considers how the sea and 'islandness' might have impacted on the cultural land- and sea-scapes of monasticism along the North Sea coast. In particular it focuses in on a small group of probable monastic sites on the coast of Norfolk situated in and around the now lost 'Great Estuary'. It emphasises in particular, how changes in the topography of the East Coast, with major phases of land reclamation, has transformed the archipelagic nature of this region, and argues that in the early Middle Ages, this word was as much dominated by islands as parts of the Atlantic fringe.