The term " Celtic Rite " is applied [ 1 ] to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Britain , Ireland and Brittany and the monasteries founded by St. The term is not meant to imply homogeneity; instead it is used to describe a diverse range of liturgical practices united by lineage and geography. Such diversity of practice was often considered unimportant so long as Rome's primacy was accepted.
Gradually the diversity tended to lessen so that by the time of the final fusion in the Carolingian period the Roman Rite , its Ambrosian variant, and the Hispano-Gallican Mozarabic Rite were practically all that were left.
British bishops attended the Council of Arles in A. Communication with Gaul may be inferred from dedications to St. Lupus in and with St. Severus in , directed against the Pelagianism of which the bishops of Britain stood accused.
However much of Britain derived their religion from Irish missionaries. Ia of Cornwall and her companions, Saint Piran , St. Sennen , Petroc came to Cornwall and probably brought with them whatever rites they were accustomed to. Cornwall had an ecclesiastical quarrel with Wessex in the days of St. Aldhelm, which appears in Leofric's Missal , though the details of it are not specified.
The certain points of difference between the British Church and the Roman in prior to Bede were: 1 The rule of keeping Easter 2 the tonsure 3 the manner of baptizing.
