The De ordine creaturarum

Marina Smyth was awarded the Ph.D. in 1984, by the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, for work later published as Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland. By the mid-seventh century, Irish scholars based most likely in monasteries were making well-considered and original contributions to the corpus of Latin Christian learning, and Smyth has been mainly focusing on scientific and theological aspects of that activity. Her 2018 Farrell Lecture (see Eolas 12, 2019) gives an overview of the world in which these scholars lived.