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Environmental historians have criticized Christianity for purported environmental disregard, but many sects of Christianity have encouraged environmental respect. Although the goals and ethics of early Christian monasticism must be understood in terms of the values of late antiquity, both desert monks, such as Anthony the Great, and Celtic monks, such as St. Kevin, protected animals and wild habitats. Hagiographies, or the lives of Celtic saints, indicate the monks and the nuns valued oak trees, encouraged wildlife to reside around their hermitages and settlements, and shielded animals from hunters. Monks also composed nature poetry, and extolled the beauty of the Irish forest.