<P> The achievements of insular art, in illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells, high crosses, and metalwork like the Ardagh Chalice, and in the case of manuscript decoration had a profound influence on Western medieval art . The manuscripts were produced by and for monasteries, and evidence suggests that metalwork was produced in both monastic and royal workshops . </P> <P> The monastery of Saint Brigit, at Kildare was a double monastery, with both men and women ruled by the Abbess, a pattern found in other monastic foundations . </P> <P> Irish monasticism spread widely, first to Scotland and Northern England, then to Gaul and Italy . Columba and his followers established monasteries at Bangor, on the northeastern coast of Ireland, at Iona, an island north - west of Scotland, and at Lindisfarne, which was founded by Aidan, an Irish monk from Iona, at the request of King Oswald of Northumbria . Abbots of Iona were normally appointed from the founders kin, with an abbot often naming hhis successor . </P> <P> Columbanus, an abbot from a Leinster noble family, traveled to Gaul in the late 6th century with twelve companions . Columbanus and his followers spread the Irish model of monastic institutions to the continent . A whole series of new monastic foundations under Irish influence sprang up, starting with Columbanus's foundations of Luxeuil and Fontaine - lès - Luxeuil and, sponsored by the Frankish King Childebert II . After Childebert's death Columbanus traveled east to Metz, where Theudebert II allowed him to establish a new monastery among the semi-pagan Alemanni in what is now Switzerland . One of Columbanus's followers founded the monastery of St. Gall on the shores of Lake Constance, while Columbanus continued onward across the Alps to the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy . There King Agilulf and his wife Theodolinda granted Columbanus land in the mountains between Genoa and Milan, where he established the monastery of Bobbio . From about 698 until the reign of Charlemagne in the 770s, the Hiberno - Scottish efforts in the Frankish Empire were continued by the Anglo - Saxon mission . The rule of St. Columbanus, which was originally followed in most of these monasteries, was eventually superseded by that of St. Benedict . </P>

Christian monasteries promoted what as a type of prayer