From Skellig Michael to Sinai: contacts between West and East in the early Middle Ages

It has generally been thought, in the conventional historical view, that there was little or no direct contact between the islands of Britain and Ireland and the Near East from the demise of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century until the Crusades from the end of the 11th. In this course we shall review new evidence arising from the course director's research which reveals a more complex picture of continuing cultural relations.